Canso d'Antioca

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Madrid, Bibl. Acad. Real de Historia, MS. Canso d'Antioca, f. 6v

The Canso d'Antioca is a late twelfth-century Occitan epic poem in the form of a chanson de geste describing the First Crusade up to the Siege of Antioch (1098). It survives only in a single manuscript fragment of 707 alexandrines, now preserved in Madrid.[1][2]

The Canso was a reworking of a lost earlier Occitan epic history of the First Crusade written by one Gregory Bechada and commissioned by Bishop Eustorge of Limoges probably between 1106 and 1118.[3] Being based partially on eyewitness testimony, the Canso is as a source for the Occitan participation at Antioch.[3][4] It emphasises the feats of the knights of southern France and southern Italy, especially Gouffier de Lastours and the Normans under Bohemond of Taranto.[3] In its completed form it may have also told the story of Count Raymond IV of Toulouse, but he is not mentioned in the surviving fragment.[2]

The Canso also served as the literary model for the early thirteenth-century Chanson de la Croisade Albigeoise of William of Tudela[3] and for the late thirteenth-century of William Anelier.[5][6] Portions of it were also translated into Castilian for the , which also contains unique material possibly borrowed from the complete version of the Canso or from Bechada's earlier epic.[1]

Notes[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b Sweetenham, 2.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b Macé, 145.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Paterson, 84.
  4. ^ Sweetenham, 79.
  5. ^ Sweetenham, 4.
  6. ^ Macé, 146.

References[]

  • The 'Canso d'Antioca': An Epic Chronicle of the First Crusade, ed. and trans. Carol Sweetenham and Linda M. Paterson. Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate Publishing, 2003. Preview. ISBN 0-7546-0410-1.
  • Paterson, Linda M. "Occitan Literature and the Holy Land." The World of Eleanor of Aquitaine: Literature and Society in Southern France between the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, edd. Marcus Bull and Catherine Léglu. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2005. ISBN 1-84383-114-7.
  • Macé, Laurent. "Raymond VII of Toulouse: The Son of Queen Joanne, 'Young Count' and Light of the World." The World of Eleanor of Aquitaine: Literature and Society in Southern France between the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, edd. Marcus Bull and Catherine Léglu. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2005. ISBN 1-84383-114-7.
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