BERENGUER DE PALAZOL
(Palau, Palol). Described by the author of his vida as a poor knight from Catalonia, the
troubadour Berenguer de Palazol remains, despite repeated attempts at identification,
undatable. If, as seems likely, Berenguer composed his few surviving cansos in the 13th
century, his work offers nothing that is thematically, met-rically, or stylistically original.
Elizabeth W.Poe
Berenguer de Palazol. “The Troubadour Berenguer de Palazol: A Critical Edition of His Poems,”
ed. Terence H.Newcombe. Nottingham Mediaeval Studies 15(1971):54–95.
——. Berenguer de Palol, ed. Margherita Beretta Spampinato. Modena: Società Tipografica
Editrice Modenese, 1978.
BÉRINUS, ROMAN DE
. Based on a rhymed version (ca. 1252) of which only two fragments survive, the prose
Roman de Bérinus (ca. 1350–70) by an unknown Burgun-dian, fuses narrative elements
taken from a variety of sources into the episodic story of the Roman merchant and king of
Blandie, Bérinus, and his son, Aigres, who, among other adventures, beheads his father
(to save him from being prosecuted for defrauding the imperial treasury) and marries the
Roman emperor’s daughter. Bérinus is loosely modeled on the didactic frame narrative of
the Roman des sept sages de Rome; its linear structure and literary purpose, however,
relate it more closely to the roman d’aven-tures. There are four 15th-century manuscripts
and one fragment of the prose Bérinus, and four early printings (first half of the 16th c.).
Hans R.Runte
[See also: SEVEN SAGES OF ROME]
Bossuat, Robert, ed. Bérinus: roman en prose du XIVe siècle. Paris: SATF, 1931 (Vol. 1), 1933
(Vol. 2). [Based on B.N. fr. 777.]
Furnivall, Frederick James, and Walter George Boswell Stone, eds. The Tale of Beryn...with an
English Abstract of the French Original and Asiatic Versions of the Tale by William Alexander
Clouston. London: Early English Text Society, 1909. [In the past, attributed to Chaucer;
corresponds to paragraphs 48–208 of the Bossuat edition.]
BERNARD DE SOISSONS
(fl. 13th c.). Mentioned in texts of 1282 and 1287 as master mason of the cathedral of
Reims, Bernard de Soissons supervised construction of the vaults of the five western nave
bays and a major portion of the façade. His image, which was set into the now destroyed
labyrinth of the cathedral, showed him drawing a circle with a large compass, indicating
The Encyclopedia 209