Introduction

Manuscript, Editions, Translations

The lay of Graelent is preserved in three manuscripts: (i) MS S, f. 72r, col. 2 – 77r, col. 1, (ii) MS A, f. 65r, col. 2 – 70r, col. 2, (iii) MS L, 57r – 72r. A partial translation into Norse is found in MS Copenhagen, AM 666b, 4, pp. 89–91 (vv. 1–156 only). Like Guingamor, Graelent has attracted more attention from editors and translators than the other lays in this collection. An edition based on Lacurne de Sainte-Palaye's copy of MS A was published as early as 1808 in Étienne Barbazan and Dominique Martin Méon's Fabliaux et contes des poètes françois (II, pp. 57–80). B. de Roquefort accepted Graelent as one of the lays of Marie de France and included it in his edition of the Lais in 1819 with a facing Modern French translation (Poésies de Marie de France, I, pp. 486–541). Shortly afterwards, it was printed by P. R. Auguis in Les Poètes français depuis le XIIe siècle jusqu’à Malherbe (1824, I, pp. 413–47). In 1876 Gotthard Gullberg provided a diplomatic edition and a reprint of Roquefort's text in Deux lais du XIIIe siècle (pp. 1–14, 45–61, 82–85).

The editions by Auguis, Roquefort and Gullberg were based on MS A, but in 1928 E. Margaret Grimes edited the lay from MS S (her MS A), along with Desiré and Melion (pp. 76–101). Graelent was edited again in 1952 by Peter Holmes in his University of Strasbourg thesis. In 1976 a new edition of the poem, based on MS A, appeared in Prudence M. O’H. Tobin's Les Lais anonymes des XIIe et XIIIe siècles (pp. 83–125). In 1985 Russell Weingartner edited MS S, accompanied by a facing English translation (pp. 1–39). Tobin's text was reprinted in 1984 by Walter Pagani with a facing Italian translation (pp. 2–43) and again in 1992 by Alexandre Micha with a facing Modern French translation (pp. 20–61). The present edition is based on MS S.