Benoît de Sainte-Maure (; died 1173) was a 12th-century

French poet List of poets who have written in the French language: A * Louise-Victorine Ackermann (1813–1890) * Adam de la Halle (v.1250 – v.1285) * Pierre Albert-Birot (1876–1967) * Anne-Marie Albiach (1937–2012) * Pierre Alféri (1963) * Marc ...

, most probably from

Sainte-Maure-de-Touraine Sainte-Maure-de-Touraine () is a commune in the French department of Indre-et-Loire, Centre-Val de Loire. The name of the commune is known for its goat cheese Sainte-Maure de Touraine which was first made in the province of Touraine. Population ...

near

Tours Tours ( , ) is one of the largest cities in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the prefecture of the department of Indre-et-Loire. The commune of Tours had 136,463 inhabitants as of 2018 while the population of the whole metro ...

, France. The

Plantagenets The House of Plantagenet () was a royal house which originated from the lands of Anjou in France. The family held the English throne from 1154 (with the accession of Henry II at the end of the Anarchy) to 1485, when Richard III died in batt ...

' administrative center was located in

Chinon Chinon () is a commune in the Indre-et-Loire department, Centre-Val de Loire, France. The traditional province around Chinon, Touraine, became a favorite resort of French kings and their nobles beginning in the late 15th and early 16th centur ...

, west of Tours.

''Le Roman de Troie''

His 40,000 line poem ''Le Roman de Troie'' ("The Romance of Troy"), written between 1155 and 1160,Roberto Antonelli "The Birth of Criseyde - An Exemplary Triangle: 'Classical' Troilus and the Question of Love at the Anglo-Norman Court" in Boitani, P. (ed) ''The European Tragedy of Troilus'' (Oxford: Clarendon Press) 1989 pp.21-48. was a medieval retelling on the epic theme of the

Trojan War In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans (Greeks) after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, king of Sparta. The war is one of the most important events in Greek mythology and ...

which inspired a body of literature in the genre called the ''roman antique'', loosely assembled by the poet

Jean Bodel Jean Bodel (c. 1165 – c. 1210), was an Old French poet who wrote a number of ''chanson de geste, chansons de geste'' as well as many fabliaux. He lived in Arras. Writings Bodel wrote ("Song of the Saxons") about the war of King Charlemagne wi ...

as the

Matter of Rome According to the medieval poet Jean Bodel, the Matter of Rome is the literary cycle of Greek and Roman mythology, together with episodes from the history of classical antiquity, focusing on military heroes like Alexander the Great and Julius Cae ...

. The Trojan subject itself, for which de Sainte-Maure provided an impetus, is referred to as the Matter of Troy.

''Chronique des ducs de Normandie''

Another major work, by a Benoît, probably Benoît de Sainte-Maure, is a lengthy verse ''Chronique des ducs de Normandie''. Its manuscript at Tours, dating to 1180–1200, is probably the oldest surviving text in

Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intellig ...

transcribed on the Continent. The first published edition was by Francisque Michel, 3 volumes, 1868-1844, based on the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

manuscript. The standard edition is by Carin Fahlin (

Uppsala Uppsala (, or all ending in , ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the county seat of Uppsala County and the fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inhabitants in 2019. Located north of the c ...

), 3 volumes, 1951–1967, and is based on the Tours manuscript with variants from the British one. 'Beneeit' is mentioned at the end of

Wace Wace ( 1110 – after 1174), sometimes referred to as Robert Wace, was a Medieval Norman poet, who was born in Jersey and brought up in mainland Normandy (he tells us in the ''Roman de Rou'' that he was taken as a child to Caen), ending his car ...

's ''

Roman de Rou ''Roman de Rou'' is a verse chronicle by Wace in Norman covering the history of the Dukes of Normandy from the time of Rollo of Normandy to the battle of Tinchebray in 1106. It is a national epic of Normandy. Following the success of his ''Ro ...

'', which is also on the subject of the Dukes of Normandy: Wace, ''Maistre Wace's Roman de Rou et des ducs de Normandie'', edited by Dr. Hugo Andresen, published 1877. Available online via Internet Archive
page 481
.

Notes

References

* Benoît de Sainte-Maure, ''Le Roman de Troie'', edited by Léopold Constans, 6 vols., Société des Anciens Textes Français, Paris: Firmin Didot, 1904–1912. * * Cristian Bratu, « Je, auteur de ce livre »: L’affirmation de soi chez les historiens, de l’Antiquité à la fin du Moyen Âge. Later Medieval Europe Series (vol. 20). Leiden: Brill, 2019 (). * Cristian Bratu, “Translatio, autorité et affirmation de soi chez Gaimar, Wace et Benoît de Sainte-Maure.” ''The Medieval Chronicle'' 8 (2013): 135-164. * C. Durand, ''Illustrations médiévales de la légende de Troie. Catalogue commenté des manuscrits fr. illustrés du Roman de Troie et de ses dérivés'', Brepols Publishers, 2010,

External links

* Benoît de Sainte-Maure o

Laurent Brun et al., last updated January 2019. * ''Chronique des ducs de Normandie'', Francisque Michel (editor), available online via

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

tome Itome IItome III
. {{DEFAULTSORT:Benoit De Sainte-Maure 1173 deaths French poets 12th-century French writers Trojan War literature Epic poets Romance (genre) Year of birth unknown 12th-century French poets French male poets