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William of Palerne
Date: Between 1335 and 1361
Author: William, no other information, but see below for possibilities about audience.
Source: From the French by Guillaume de Palerne, composed circa 1200, commissioned by Countess Yolande (who is generally identified to be Yolande, daughter of Baldwin IV, Count of Flanders).
Manuscripts: Single surviving manuscript at Kings College Cambridge
Editions:
| Elibron Classics Edition: |
Skeat Edition: |
The French source: |
An electronic Edition is also available: William of Palerne, Gerrit H.V. Bunt
Synopsis:
Guillaume, a foundling supposed to be of low degree, is brought up at the court of the emperor of Rome, and loves his daughter Melior who is destined for a Greek prince. The lovers flee into the woods, disguised in bear-skins. Alfonso, who is Guillaume's cousin and a Spanish prince, has been changed into a wolf by his stepmother's enchantments. He provides food and protection for the fugitives, and Guillaume eventually triumphs over Alfonso's father, and wins back from him his kingdom. The benevolent werewolf is disenchanted, and marries Guillaume's sister.
Other Information:
The poem was commissioned by Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Gloucester, ‘for hem that knowe no Frensche, ne never
understo[n]’
The peom is not in the same high style as other poems of the alliterative revival. There is less description of warfare, armour and feasts. It has been conjectured, therfore that this poem could possibly have been translated from the French for a group of household retainers. The poem affirms rules of courtesy, with several sections reading like a courtesy book:
whanne thou komest to kourt, among the kete lordes,
bere the buxomly and bonure, that ich burn the love;,
man
be meke and mesurabul, nou3t of many wordes;
be no tellere of talis, but trewe to thi lord;
and prestely for pore men profer the ever
for hem to rekene with the riche in ri3t and in skille.
Be fei3tful and fre and ever of faire speche,
and servisabul to the simple so as to the riche,
and felawe in faire manere, as falles for thi state;
so schaltow gete Goddes love and alle gode mennes.
Leve sone, this lessoun me lerde my fader,
that knew of kourt the thewes, for kourteour was he long;
and hald it in thi hert, now I the have it kenned:
the bet may the bifalle, the worse bestow nevere.
330-344.
Perhaps the audience were the retainers at the Earl's manors in Middlesex, Hertfordshire and Essex, where he spent much of his time.
For more on this poem see:
W. R. J. Barron, ‘Alliterative Romance and the French Tradition’, Middle English Alliterative Poetry and
its Literary Background, ed. David Lawton (Cambridge, 1982), p. 79.
Thorlac Turville-Petre, ‘Humphrey de Bohun and William of Palerne’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 75
(1974), pp. 250-252.
G. H. V. Bunt, ‘Patron, Author and Audience in a Fourteenth-Century English Alliterative Poem’, Non
Nova, Sed Nove (Groningen, 1984), pp. 25-36.