Andrea Ghidoni, Due enfances nel ms. D (Paris, BnF, fr. 1448): le Enfances Rainouart e l’Adoubement Vivien, Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, 137, 2021 : p. 1-60
Abstract
The 13th-century manuscript Paris, BnF, français 1448 (= D) contains a linking text between
Enfances Vivien
and
Chevalerie Vivien
. It can be divided into two nuclei, the first narrating the adventures of a young Rainouart and the second developing the dubbing of Vivien: in both cases, events of the biographies of two popular heroes only hinted at in other major poems, which a compiler decided to narrate extensively to fill the gap in the cycle of
chansons
on the
geste Monglane
. This paper, alongside the first critical edition of that text, offers a broad introduction on the literary and cultural features of these two stories (which can be classified as exemplars of the
enfances
sub-genre of medieval French epic).