stories having occurred along the way. The oldest text in the western Seven Sages
tradition is the Old French verse romance Sept Sages de Rome, composed in octosyllabic
couplets by a Norman poet between 1155 and 1190. A compelling example of the
jongleresque romance style, this poem survives in two redactions, each preserved by a
single 13th-century manuscript, B.N. fr. 1553 (K: 5,068 lines) and Chartres, Bibl. Mun.
620 (C: 2,078 lines; the second half only of the poem).
In the romance, a learned masculine community of clerics and their pupil just barely
outwits an unscrupulous woman who threatens to disrupt the legitimate lineage of the
empire. The widowed emperor Vespasian of Constantinople charges the Seven Sages of
Rome to educate his son, aged seven. After he remarries, he summons the prince, now
fourteen, home to meet his stepmother. The youth remains silent on returning to court
because he has read in the stars that he will die if he speaks before the eighth day; each of
his tutors pledges to defend him for one day. But his father, expecting a well-spoken heir
apparent, is distressed by his son’s muteness. The queen then offers to make the prince
talk. In her bedchamber, she tries to seduce him and proposes poisoning Vespasian.
When the prince rebuffs her advances, she accuses him of attempted rape and treason and
persuades the emperor to condemn his own son to death. For the next seven days, the
sages win a stay of execution by telling stories that often emphasize the wickedness of
women, while the queen rekindles the emperor’s anger with tales featuring untrustworthy
counselors or sons. On the eighth day, the prince tells a story proving his innocence.
Father and son are reconciled, and the queen is burned at the stake. Although virtue
triumphs through the prince’s speech, the narrator emphasizes that the sages, despite their
learning, are consistently checkmated by the queen. They subsequently join Samson,
Constantine, and Aristotle as often-cited examples of great men humiliated by women.
Based on the verse Sept Sages are two derhymed versions. The A redaction in Old
French prose is affiliated with the K verse text; composed in the first quarter of the 13th
century, it appears in twenty-nine manuscripts of the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries with a
complex and contaminated filiation. The Middle French D redaction, affiliated with C,
was prosified probably in the 15th century; it exists in one manuscript. The widely known
A prose redaction was the source of Seven Sages texts in Italian, Middle English,
Swedish, Dutch, and Welsh, as well as of a much imitated Historia Septem Sapientum
Romae in Latin prose of the 14th century. A also generated two Old French prose
reworkings later in the 13th century: the L redaction, which offers a thirteen-tale duel,
with some different stories, and ends with a judiciary combat; and the Ystoire de la male
marastre, which expands the frame narrative and adds six new stories to nine traditional
ones. Seven manuscripts contain L; Marastre survives in four manuscripts.
In addition to these derhymings, translations, and reworkings, the A prose redaction
inspired six anonymous continuations in Old French prose. The first, Marques de Rome,
was composed ca. 1250–60; the romances of Laurin, Cassidorus, Helcanus,
Pelyarmenus, and Kanor, all apparently by different authors, followed by the end of the
century. Over twenty manuscripts for Marques survive, most containing at least one other
Seven Sages romance; eight for Laurin; six for Cassidorus and Helcanus; and five for
Pelyarmenus and Kanor (both still unpublished). Four manuscripts compile the entire
cycle. Besides renewing themes and plot devices from the Sept Sages, the continuations
incorporate material from Arthurian, oriental, and adventure romances of the period. The
Seven Sages reappear as virtuous secondary characters in Marques, but in Laurin they
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