Raoul von Houdenc. Sämtliche Werke, ed. Mathias Friedwagner. 2 vols. Halle: Niemeyer, 1909,
Vol. 2: La Vengeance Raguidel: Altfranzösischer Abenteuerroman.
Robert de Blois. Sämtliche Werke, ed. J.Ulrich. Berlin: Meyer und Müller, 1889, Vol. 1: Beaudous.
Woledge, Brian, ed. L’atre périlleux. Paris: Champion, 1936.
Busby, Keith. Gauvain in Old French Literature. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1980.
——. “Diverging Traditions of Gauvain in Some of the Later Old French Verse Romances.” In The
Legacy of Chrétien de Troyes, ed. Norris J.Lacy, Douglas Kelly, and Keith Busby. 2 vols.
Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1988, Vol. 2, pp. 93–109.
Schmolke-Hasselmann, Beate. Der arthurische Versroman von Chrestien bis Froissart. Tübingen:
Niemeyer, 1980.
GEFFREI GAIMAR
(fl. 1130–40). Connected with the court of Hugh of Avranches, earl of Chester, Geffrei
Gaimar may also have been acquainted with David the Scot, who became bishop of
Bangor (1120–39) upon his return to England from the imperial court in Germany.
Through his connections with Hugh, Gaimar was asked by Constance, wife of Ralph
FitzGilbert, to translate Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae (ca. 1136).
Gaimar’s design was to trace history from Jason and the Golden Fleece to the death of
King William 11 Rufus (1100), incorporating a translation of Geoffrey’s work; however,
the first part was supplanted by Wace’s Roman de Brut, so that Gaimar’s poem survives
(in four manuscripts, where it immediately follows the Brut) only from the arrival in
England in 495 of King Cerdic of Wessex, a relative of Hengist, king of Kent, to the
death of William Rufus. This surviving part, drawn up to line 3,594 from a version of the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and thereafter from largely unknown sources, was given the title
Estoire des Engleis by the scribe of B.L.Royal 13 A xxi (late 13th-c.); its 6,526 lines
were composed in octosyllabic rhymed couplets (ca. 1136–40).
Gaimar’s narrative qualities are uneven: he is gauche when too close to his source but
quite dramatic when he allows himself to indulge in such striking episodes as the story of
Haveloc (11. 96–819), the first known version of the Lai of Haveloc, or the poignant
episode of Buern Bucecarle (ll. 2,571–720), meant to explain the Danes’ conquest of
Northumbria in 866. Gaimar’s narration of the Danish invasion under Gormont (ll.
3,239–310) is interesting in its own right, since it differs from that found in the Gormont
et Isembart fragment or Wace’s Brut; and the description (ll. 4,861–5,029) of the trial of
Count Godwine, earl of Wessex, reveals an aspect of Anglo-Norman law that may have
been a model for the trial scene in Marie de France’s Lanval
Hans-Erich Keller
[See also: HISTORIOGRAPHY; WACE]
Geffrei Gaimar. L’estoire des Engleis: By Geffrei Gaimar, ed. Alexander Bell. Oxford: Blackwell,
1960.
Bell, Alexander. “Gaimar as Pioneer.” Romania 97 (1976):462–80.
Tatlock, John S.P. The Legendary History of Britain. Berkeley: University of California Press,
1950.
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