century and one from the 15th. The latter has been published as the Geste du Chevalier
au Cygne.
The Second Crusade Cycle, elaborated during the first half of the 14th century,
includes a vast reworking of the narrative material of the first cycle (edited as the
Chevalier au Cygne et Godefroid de Bouillon, 35,180 lines, two versions) and two
loosely attached continuations, Baudouin de Sebourc (25,778 lines) and the Bâtard de
Bouillon (6,546 lines).
The development of the First Crusade Cycle followed the usual rules for the extension
and reworking of epic material. The oldest poem, Antioche, describes the preparations for
the First Crusade, the crusaders’ departure, their stay in Constantinople, and the
successful campaign against the city of Antioch. This poem inspired works that stretch
both forward and backward in narrative time, treating the subsequent capture of the Holy
City (Chanson de Jérusalem) and then evoking both the ancestors and descendants of
Godefroi de Bouillon (a sequence observed also in the growth of the Guillaume d’Orange
Cycle). Hence, the oldest poems in the cycle as we have it are those that actually recount
events of the First Crusade, the capture of Antioch and of Jerusalem. On the other hand,
later works in the cycle, the group that tells the Swan Knight story, describe the rise of
the house of Bouillon through the adventures of the legendary Elyas and the other Swan
Children, victims of an evil stepmother who steals the magical chains that allow them to
change in and out of human shape. Elyas, accompanied by a brother in bird form, saves
the Countess of Boulogne from death, marries her, and after engendering the lineage of
Godefroi and the Latin kings of Jerusalem, himself falls victim to a taboo deriving from
folklore: he disappears when his wife is unable to refrain from asking him the fatal
question of his origins.
Other prologues to the Antioche-Jérusalem core tell the story of the youthful
Godefroi’s exploits, which prefigure his role as first king of Jerusalem (a historically
inaccurate title). The most recent poems of the First Crusade Cycle, on the other hand, are
the “Jerusalem Continuations,” which carry the Crusade story on beyond the crucial
campaigns of the First Crusade. In the earliest continuations, Godefroi captures the city
of Acre (Saint-Jean d’Acre, Akka); the great Saracen leader Corbaran (whose name
recalls that of the emir Kerbogha) converts to Christianity; and Godefroi is poisoned by a
jealous cleric. The later continuations are more closely tied to history, seeming at some
points to derive from the text known as the Chronique d’Ernoul. They pay little attention
to the Second Crusade but show an early concern with the downfall of the Latin kingdom
of Jerusalem and its associated states, a concern that was to be developed at some length
in the 14th-century Second Crusade Cycle.
The poem of the Chétifs (“captives”), the age and origins of which are debated, is
heavily laced with folklore and oriental motifs; although it comes between Antioche and
Jérusalem in the cyclical manuscripts, it is probably somewhat later in date. Recounting
not the events of the Crusade but rather the adventures of Christian knights taken prisoner
at the Battle of Civetot, it shares characteristics of the chansons d’aventures. The Crusade
Cycle is thus a patchwork of relatively independent chansons, gathered more or less
systematically into a single but far-from-seamless sequence, over several decades starting
at the end of the 12th century. Earlier scholarship posited a historically accurate early
version of the Chanson d’Antioche attributable to a participant in the Antioch campaign,
called “Richard the Pilgrim.” In the absence of any positive evidence for Richard’s
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