The lay of Mantel
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The lay of Mantel
（Arthurian archives, 18 . French Arthurian literature ; v. 5）
D.S. Brewer, 2013
Available at / 10 libraries
-
No Libraries matched.
- Remove all filters.
Note
Parallel Old French text and English translation
Includes bibliographical references (p. [157]-166) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Text with facing translation of an undeservedly neglected, humorous French lay, in which the women of Arthur's court have their virtue challenged by a magic mantle.
The Old French lay of Mantel belongs to the group of anonymous lays that were composed in the late twelfth or thirteenth century. These short narratives vary in tone and usually deal with some aspect of love, usually in anaristocratic, courtly setting. Here, this is Arthur's court, with its well-known characters involved, and the tone is satiric and comic; the story is a chastity test, which the ladies of the court undergo in public by donning themantle - if it does not fit, their behaviour is betrayed. The poem plays on the insecurities of the knights, who are at first confident of their loves' fidelity, but in the end are all too anxious to ignore their transgressions.
The popularity of the lay is attested by its survival in five manuscripts, an unusually high number. It is edited here from MS Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale de France, nouv. acq. fr. 1104, a manuscript containing twenty-four lays, including nine by Marie de France whose work has to some extent defined the genre. The text is accompanied by a facing translation, and presented with introduction, elucidatory notes, bibliography, and indices.
Glyn S. Burgess is Emeritus Professor of French, University of Liverpool; Leslie C. Brook is Honorary Senior Research Fellow in French, University of Birmingham.
Table of Contents
Introduction
The Lay of Mantel: Text and Translation
Notes
Appendix I: Edition of MS B of Mantel
Appendix II: The Version of Mantel by the Comte de Caylus
Appendix III: Translation of the Lay of Cor
by "Nielsen BookData"