''Guillaume d'Angleterre'' is a 12th-century
[Guillaume d'Angleterre]
''Dictionnaire Étymologique de l'Ancien Français''. Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities.[Circa 1165 on the ''Trésor de langue française informatisé''. For example, see the etymology o]
paiement
/ref> epic poem in Old French, consisting of 3310 lines.[Wilmotte, 1927. Page 102, available online vi]
Gallica
Wilmotte, however, labels 10 lines on page 72 as a-j, so there are actually 3320 lines in the manuscript. The Cambridge manuscript has 3366 lines, according to Förster The author identifies himself as ''Crestiiens'' on the first line of the poem,[See the first line of the edition published by M. Wilmotte in 1927, available online vi]
Gallica
/ref> which has caused a great deal of debate in the romance philological community as to whether the author is Chrétien de Troyes
Chrétien de Troyes (Modern ; fro, Crestien de Troies ; 1160–1191) was a French poet and trouvère known for his writing on Arthurian subjects, and for first writing of Lancelot, Percival and the Holy Grail. Chrétien's works, including ''E ...
.
Plot
King Guillaume and his wife Gratiiene are good Christians. After years of waiting, Gratiiene gets pregnant. While she is heavily pregnant, Guillaume has a vision telling him to go into exile. While in exile, they take shelter in a cave and Gratiiene gives birth to twins.
The next day, Guillaume goes out to look for food and comes across a group of merchants. Instead of helping them, they take Gratiiene and the two children with them, leaving Guillaume behind. Guillaume witnesses one of the twins being taken by a wolf. The merchants pursue the wolf, and the child is found miraculously unharmed. Guillaume, however, thinks the child is dead.
Guillaume becomes a servant to another merchant. Meanwhile, Gratiiene, traveling with the merchants, meets a valiant knight called Gleolais. Gleolais's wife has died and he has no heir, so he asks Gratiiene to marry him.
The story now passes to the two children, called Lovel and Marin, who have been raised by two of the merchants, unaware that they're brothers. They rebel against their 'fathers' (as they believe them to be) and leave. On their travels, they encounter a king who asks them to join his court.
Guillaume travels to Bristol, England. When he attempts to leave, his boat is caught in a storm. Guillaume and his helmsman end up at an unknown port. The queen comes down from the castle to inspect their vessel and, upon seeing a ring he's wearing, realizes that he's her husband.
Guillaume decides to go hunting but accidentally crosses into an enemy kingdom. Two knights confront him and threaten to kill him. In order to stop them, he tells them he's a king and tells them his story. Upon hearing it, they realize that he's their father and that they are in fact brothers. They're reunited with Gratiiene, their mother.
Authorship
F. J. Tanquerey said in 1931 that "the question of whether the ''Chrétien'' in ''Guillaume d’Angleterre'' is Chrétien de Troyes has already caused a lot of ink to be used".[ F. J. Tanquerey, ''Chrétien de Troyes est-il l'auteur de Guillaume d'Angleterre ?'' in ''Romania'', 1931, p. 75-116. The section quoted is from page 75, available online vi]
Gallica
/ref> Tanquerey was writing in reply to Wilmotte Wilmotte is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
*Annick Wilmotte, Belgian Antarctic researcher
*Jean-Michel Wilmotte
Jean-Michel Wilmotte (born 1948 in Soissons) is a French architect.
Biography
Jean-Michel Wilmotte studied inte ...
's article, published 11 years earlier, in which he concluded that the ''Chrétien'' mentioned was Chrétien de Troyes.[ M. Wilmotte, ''Chrétien de Troyes et le conte de Guillaume d'Angleterre'', published in ''Romania'', 1920. Available online vi]
Gallica
/ref> Tanquerey concluded however that he was not.
David Staines includes it in his ''The Complete Romances of Chrétien de Troyes'', while Wendelin Förster includes it in his Christian von Troyes, ''Sämtliche erhaltene Werke'' (that is, the complete works of). The relatively recently released Christine Ferlampin-Acher edition (2007, Champion classiques du moyen âge) uses the title Chrétien de Troyes (?) ''Guillaume d’Angleterre''.["Chrétien"]
on ''Archives de littérature du moyen âge''. Laurent Brun, Patrizia Serra et Maria Slautina The ''Dictionnaire Étymologique de l’Ancien Français'' considers it to be 'wrongly attributed' to ''Chrétien de Troyes''.
Manuscripts
* Cambridge, St. John's College Library, B. 9, f. 55r-75v.
* Paris, ''Bibliothèque nationale de France
The Bibliothèque nationale de France (, 'National Library of France'; BnF) is the national library of France, located in Paris on two main sites known respectively as ''Richelieu'' and ''François-Mitterrand''. It is the national repository ...
'', français, 375, f. 240v-247v. By two scribes, finished February 2, 1288.[Manuscript BnF français 375]
on ''Archives de littérature du moyen âge''
Footnotes
External links
*
on ''Archives de littérature du moyen âge''. Laurent Brun, Patrizia Serra et Maria Slautina. Last updated April 29, 2018.
* The entire manuscript 375 français of the BnF is available online via Gallica. ''Guillaume d'Angleterre'' starts o
folio 240 verso
(see the image above).
* The Förster edition of the Cambridge manuscript is available o
Internet Archive
Published 1899 in ''Christian von Troyes: Sämtliche Werken'', p. 253-360. 3366 lines. Most other editions use the Paris manuscript.
{{Chrétien de Troyes
12th-century poems
French poems