between the Bel Inconnu and the romances of Chrétien de Troyes. Chrétien is concerned
with issues of human existence and courtly values, whereas Renaut is more intent on
telling a good story. This seems to have been Renaut’s way of responding to Chrétien’s
reputation. Nevertheless, the latter’s influence, on both verbal and narrative levels, is
clear in the Bel Inconnu. The prologue, for example, is worded in such a manner as to
recall that of Lancelot, and the sparrowhawk episode inevitably calls to mind Erec et
Enide.
The Bel Inconnu seems to be the only full-length Arthurian romance written in the two
decades following the death of Chrétien de Troyes.
Keith Busby
[See also: ARTHURIAN VERSE ROMANCE; GAWAIN ROMANCES]
Renaut de Beaujeu. Le Bel Inconnu, ed. G.Perrie Williams. Paris: Champion, 1929.
——. Renaut de Bâgé: Le Bel Inconnu (Li Biaus Descouneüs; The Fair Unknown), ed. Karen
Fresco, trans. Colleen P. Donagher. New York: Garland, 1992.
Fierz-Monnier, Antoinette. Initiation und Wandlung: Zur Geschichte des altfranzösischen Romans
im zwölften Jahrhundert von Chrétien de Troyes zu Renaut de Beaujeu. Bern: Francke, 1951.
RENAUT DE LOUENS
(fl. 1330s). A Dominican friar from Poligny in the Jura Mountains, Renaut wrote the
Livre de Mellibee et Prudence in 1336 or 1337. Renaut’s Mellibee, in French prose, is a
loose translation of the Liber de consolationis et consilii by Albertano of Brescia (1246).
Albertano’s book was translated also into Italian, German, and Dutch. Of the four
versions in French, the earliest, from the second half of the 13th century, was a close
translation of the Latin prose; two others, one in prose and one in verse, are of unknown
authorship and date. The fourth version, by Renaut de Louens, was the most popular,
surviving in at least twenty-six manuscripts, and was Chaucer’s source for the Tale of
Melibee. Renaut de Louens also produced a verse translation of Boethius’s De
consolatione Philosophiae during the same period (1336–37) that he wrote the Mellibee.
He undertook both of these books of consolation for an unnamed lady’s benefit and
instruction.
The Livre de Mellibee et Prudence is a moral allegory. The house of Melibeus is
attacked while he is away; his wife, Prudence, is beaten and his daughter, Sophie, is
wounded. Melibeus calls for revenge and plans to make war on his enemies, but Prudence
convinces him to control his anger, maintaining that war is terrible and useless and that
reconciliation and peace are altogether more desirable. Arguing from biblical and
philosophical authorities, she succeeds in counseling him to pardon his enemies.
Rita Copeland
[See also: TRANSLATION]
Renaut de Louens. Le livre de Mellibee et Prudence, ed. J.Burke Severs. In Sources and Analogues
of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, ed. W.F.Bryan and Germaine Dempster. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1941, pp. 560–614.
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