Very useful are the translations by D
D. R. Owen, Guillaume le Clerc, Fergus of Galloway: Knight of King Arthur (London and Rutland, VT, 1991) – earlier published in Arthurian Literature 8 (1989), 79–183 – which has excellent notes and appendices, and R. Wolf-Bonvin, La Chevalerie des sots. Le roman de Fergus. Trubert, fabliau du XIIIe siecle (Paris, 1990). For convenience all references esatto Chretien’s works are to the texts which appeared mediante the Lettres Gothiques series and are reprinted by Michel Zink, Chretien de Troyes: Romans, Classiques Modernes, La Pochotheque (Paris, 1994): including Erec et Enide; Cliges; Le Chevalier de la Charette (or Le Roman de Lancelot); Le Chevalier au Lion (or Le Roman d’Yvain); Le Conte du Graal (or Le Roman de Perceval). All translations are taken from Owen, Fergus, and Chretien de Troyes, Arthurian Romances, trans. D. D. R. Owen (London and Rutland, VT, 1987; rep. 1991). See Owen, Fergus, pp. 162–69 and his articles referred preciso below. The oldest of the Dutch romances, it is generally attributed esatto two authors, the first following the version now offered by the Chantilly manuscript of Fergus, and the second (lines 2593–5604) working from memory. See Dutch Romances vol. 2: Ferguut, addirittura. D. F. Johnson and G. H. M. Claassens (Cambridge, 2000), who suggest (p. 6) a date for Fergus of the first quarter of the thirteenth century. On the basis of his doctoral dissertation, now published as Op zoek naar Galiene: over de Oudfranse Fergus en de Middelnederlandse Ferguut (Amsterdam, 1991), R. M. T. Zemel suggests that Fergus may even date from as early as c. 1200. L. Spahr, ‘Ferguut, Fergus, and Chretien de Troyes’, in Traditions and Transitions: Studies in Honor of Harold Jantz, ancora. L. Anche. Kurth et al. (Munich, 1972), pp. 29–36. The unique manuscript of Ferguut is dated to the middle of the fourteenth century: see Ferguut and Galiene: Per Facsimile of the only extant Middle Dutch manuscript, University Library Leiden, Letterkunde 191, with an introduction by M. J. M. de Haan (Leiden, 1974).
No comment on dating is made by B
eighteen locations per all) with a glance north of the Forth puro Escoche proper (cf. line 2589, ‘En Eschoce u en Lodien’). The journey times indicated are realistic and the narrator offers per number of apparently informed comments on local customs. The ‘Scottishness’ of Fergus is thus firmly established and is esatto be taken seriously.4 Arthur’s seat at ‘Carduel en Gales’, usually taken esatto be Carlisle, is familiar from many of the romances as is the region of Strathclyde sopra general. The originality of the Fergus author is esatto have abandoned the more conventional Scottish toponymy for places, like Galloway, with verso much less reassuring reputation, thereby extending Scotland’s appearance in romance literature. There have been several attempts esatto interpret the work as in some sense an ‘ancestral romance’, whether written for Alan of Galloway (d. 1234), great-grandson of the historical Fergus, on the occasion of his marriage c. 1209, or John of Balliol (a stepson of Alan) and his wife Devorguilla durante the period 1234–41 sicuro strengthen the claim of their eldest bourdonnement Hugh onesto the Scottish throne.5 There has even been an attempt sicuro identify the author with William Malveisin, verso royal clerk of French stock, who ended his career as bishop of St Andrews (1202–1238).6 Such researches, speculative though they must remain, justify the inclusion of Fergus in any history of literature per Scotland,7 though it might be said that if any of them were true, it would be puzzling that the author did not give clearer clues puro his identity or political purpose.8 The Scottish connection need not, however, mean that the sistema was actually written sopra Scotland or composed by per writer resident there – verso writer who calls himself simply ‘Guillaume le clerc’ (line 7004). The two surviving manuscripts, from the second half of the thirteenth century, are both marked by Picardisms and one of them by traces of Walloon. So far as the poet’s own dialect is concerned, he seems esatto be writing mediante the more or less norma literary French of northern France.9 One of the manuscripts is the famous collection of continental Arthurian texts MS Chantilly, Musee Conde 472 from which Fergus was edited by both Ernst Martin (1872) and Wilson Frescoln (1983),10 and the other is Paris, BNF fr. 1553, a vast collection of fifty-two items including the Roman de Troie, the
