existence or that of his poem, it is preferable to consider the Crusade epics as the
products of a later period. They reflect not actual experience but a mythical view of the
Crusades expressed through techniques typical of the chansons de geste. While the
known text of Antioche does contain some passages that are historically correct, thanks
probably to the influence of the chronicles, it is clear that much of its narrative, and
nearly all of the cyclical poems that derive from it, are based on literary motifs. The
Crusade Cycle embodies a legendary view of Christian military and moral superiority,
and of Godefroi de Bouillon and his family, that was current in northern Europe some
time after the events.
The London and Turin manuscripts of the First Crusade Cycle preserve a lengthy set
of continuations, the “Second Jerusalem Continuations,” that date from about the turn of
the 14th century. Their content matches that of the earlier continuations in part, with
numerous additions. These manuscripts offer a transitional state of the cycle. Much of
their matter is preserved, in rewritten form, in the huge Chevalier au cygne et Godefroid
de Bouillon, the core of the Second Crusade Cycle, which had attained its fully elaborated
state by the middle of the century. It recounts the stories told in the First Crusade Cycle
with often fanciful continuations. The independent poems Baudouin de Sebourc and the
Bâtard de Bouillon, loosely associated with the Second Crusade Cycle, describe new, and
often burlesque, adventures of knights of the lineage of Godefroi. A final “branch,”
known only in a 15th-century prose version, is dedicated to a legendary biography of
Saladin; there are indications that it continued the Crusade story down to the fall of
Jerusalem and the extinction of the house of Bouillon in the East. There are parallels with
William of Tyre and “Ernoul,” but most of the Second Crusade Cycle is a combination of
common literary motifs.
The Crusade Cycle of chansons de geste embodied and transmitted a coherent myth of
crusader character and action in a popular literary form. Its texts were copied, translated
(most notably into Middle Dutch), and collected as late as the 16th century, and
derivative prose versions were among the more frequently printed early French books. Its
manipulations of history are highly revealing of attitudes toward the Crusades from the
12th century onward.
Robert Francis Cook
[See also: BAUDOUIN DE SEBOURC; CHANSON DE GESTE; GODEFROI DE
BOUILLON; LATE EPIC]
Mickel, Emanuel J., and Jan A.Nelson, eds. The Old French Crusade Cycle. 9 vols. University:
University of Alabama Press, 1977–.
Bender, Karl-Heinz, and Hermann Kleber. Le premier cycle de la croisade. De Godefroy à Saladin:
entre la chronique et le conte de fées. Heidelberg: Winter, 1986.
Cook, Robert Francis. “Chanson d’Antioche,” chanson de geste: le cycle de la croisade est-il
épique? Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1980.
——, and Larry S.Crist. Le deuxième cycle de la croisade. Geneva: Droz, 1972.
Duparc-Quioc, Suzanne. Le cycle de la croisade. Paris: Champion, 1955.
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