Canso d'Antioca
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/41/MS_page_of_Canso_d%27Antioca.jpg/220px-MS_page_of_Canso_d%27Antioca.jpg)
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[]
- ^ Jump up to: a b Sweetenham, 2.
- ^ Jump up to: a b Macé, 145.
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d Paterson, 84.
- ^ Sweetenham, 79.
- ^ Sweetenham, 4.
- ^ 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.
- Occitan literature
- Crusade literature
- Chansons de geste