Roman du châtelain de Coucy et de la dame de Fayel explained

The Roman du châtelain de Coucy et de la dame de Fayel is a late 13th-century Old French poem in 8,266 lines by the poet Jakemés. It is a fiction inspired by the life of the Châtelain de Coucy, a famous trouvère and crusader who lived a century earlier.^[1] It is "the foremost literary" version of the type of folk tale, in which a lady is tricked into eating her dead lover's heart.^[2]

The Roman is known from two manuscripts. An English translation, The Knight of Curtesy and the Lady of Faguell, was published in 1568. There have been modern translations into French, Spanish, Italian and Norwegian.^[3]

Editions

• Book: Catherine . Gaullier-Bougassas . Jakemés: Le Roman du Châtelain de Coucy et de la Dame de Fayel . Paris . Honoré Champion . 2009.
• Book: John E. . Matzke . Maurice . Delbouille . Le Roman du Castelain de Couci et de la Dame de Fayel par Jakemes . Paris . Société des anciens textes français . 1936.

Notes and References

1. Peter Davies, "Chastelain de Couci, Le", in Peter France (ed.), The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French (Oxford University Press, 1995 [online 2005]).
2. John E. Matzke, "The Roman du Châtelain de Couci and Fauchet's Chronique", in Studies in Honor of A. Marshall Elliott (Johns Hopkins Press, 1900), Vol. 1, pp. 1–18.
3. Laurent Brun et al., "Jakemes", in Archives de Littérature du Moyen Âge (2020).