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Re-inventing the Homeland in the Historiography of Frankish Greece: The Fourth Crusade and the Legend of the Trojan War1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

Teresa Shawcross*
Affiliation:
Exeter College, Oxford

Abstract

A close reading of Western texts belonging to the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries reveals the process by which the legend of the Trojan War came to be associated with the conquest of Constantinople. After 1204, attempts in the Morea to re-work Benoît de Sainte-Maure’s Roman de Troie attest to gradual changes in the relationship of the Frankish conquerors with their territories in the former Byzantine Empire, but also with their lands of origin. A parallel ideological transformation may be shown to have occurred within the Byzantine tradition. This evidence sheds light on the Late Medieval contexts in which were composed the Iliad of Constantine Hermoniakos, the anonymous Πόλεμος τῆς Τρωάδος, the Byzantine Iliad and Achilleid.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 2003

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Footnotes

1

Versions of this article were given as papers at the International Medieval Congress (University of Leeds, 2002) and at the General Seminar of the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies (University of Birmingham, Spring 2003). I am grateful to both audiences for their comments and suggestions. Nor should I neglect to mention the assistance I received on particular points from David Gwynn. My thanks also to Emma Furniss and Nina Stegerhoek, for help with Dutch. My greatest debt, however, is to Elizabeth and Michael Jeffreys, whose reading of an early draft led to numerous improvements.

References

2. Regesta Honorii Papae III, vol. 2, ed. Pressutti, P. (Rome 1895) 250-1Google Scholar (item 5006).

3. The classic studies on Crusader Greece are: Miller, W., The Latins in the Levant: A History of Frankish Greece (London 1908)Google Scholar, Longnon, J., L’Empire latin de Constantinople et la principauté de Morée (Paris 1949)Google Scholar and, for the Peloponnese, Bon, A., La Morée franque: Recherches historiques, topographiques et archéologiques sur la Principauté d’Archaïe, vol. 1 (Paris 1969)Google Scholar. An introductory book with an up-to-date approach is Lock, >P., The Franks in the Aegean: 1204-1500 (London/New York 1995)Google Scholar.

4. There is some scattered evidence from the third and fourth centuries to suggest that this association of the Franks with Trojan myth was not introduced in the early medieval period, but had a past stretching back into the Roman Empire. See Barlow, J., ‘Gregory of Tours and the Myth of the Trojan Origins of the Franks’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien: Jahrbuch des Instituts für Frühmittelalterforschung der Universität Münster 29 (1995) 8695 Google Scholar and, for a more measured account, Ewig, E., ‘Le Mythe troyen et l’histoire des Francs’, Clovis: Histoire et mémoire, ed. Rouché, M. (Actes du Colloque international d’histoire de Reims. Paris 1997) 817847 Google Scholar.

5. Fredegarius, , Chronicae, ed. Krusch, B. (MGH Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum 2. Hannover 1888) 4546 Google Scholar. A different version of the legend is given in Book III, 93-95. With the Chronicle of Fredegar, both dating and unity of authorship remain a matter of debate. But for the proposition that the core was written in c.658 AD, see Goffart, W., ‘The Fredegar Problem Reconsidered’, Speculum 38 (1963), 206241 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6. Taylor, J.H.M., ‘Order from Accident: Cyclic Consciousness at the End of the Middle Ages’, in Cyclification: The Development of Narrative Cycles in the Chansons de Geste and the Arthurian Romance, ed. Besamuca, B. et al. (Amsterdam 1994) 64 Google Scholar.

7. Taylor, J.H.M., ‘The Sense of a Begining: Genealogy and Plenitude in Late Medieval Narrative Cycles’, in Transtextualities: Of Cycles and Cyclicity in Medieval French Literature, ed. Sturm-Maddox, S. & Maddox, D. (Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 149. New York 1996) 117-8Google Scholar.

8. Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia regum Britanniae, vol. 1, ed. Wright, E. (Cambridge 1984) 2 ffGoogle Scholar. For a study of the role of Trojan myth in Geoffrey of Monmouth, see the particularly rich article by Ingledew, F., ‘The Book of Troy and the Genealogical Construction of History: The Case of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae’, Speculum 69 (1994) 665704 Google Scholar. Relevant points are also raised in Timothy, J., ‘Geoffrey of Monmouth, Fouke le Fitz Waryn, and National Mythology’, Studies in Philology 91 (1994) 233249 Google Scholar and Waswo, R., ‘Our Ancestors, the Trojans: Inventing Cultural Identity in the Middle Ages’, Exemplaria 7 (1995) 269290 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9. de Sainte-Maure, Benoît, Le Roman de Troie, ed. Constans, L., 6 vols. (Paris 1904-12)Google Scholar.

10. F. Ingledew, ‘The Book of Troy and the Genealogical Construction of History’, 695. It has been suggested that the myth of Trojan descent was seen by the Plantagenets as a way of fostering a common sense of identity between Normans and British ( Eley, P., ‘The Myth of Trojan Descent and Perceptions of National Identity: The Case of Eneas and the Roman de Troie ’, Nottingham Medieval Studies 35 (1991) 2740 CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

11. Moreover, with the emergence of the narrative cycle in the Late Middle Ages, the Roman de Troie was confirmed as a point of departure in compilations such as Ms BN fr. 1450, dated to 1225-1250, where the prologue of the Benoît’s poem is used to introduce both material derived from other romans d’antiquité, and arthuriana. BN fonds français 1450 is an early example of the cyclical aesthetic. On the subject of this manuscript, see J.H.M. Taylor, ‘Order from Accident: Cyclic Consciousness at the End of the Middle Ages’, 63-4.

12. Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum (The History of the English People), ed. & trans. Greenway, E. (Oxford Medieval Texts. Oxford 1996) 478 Google Scholar.

13. The account which follows, of twelfth-century developments in the usage by western writers of Trojan legend to refer to Constantinople, is much indebted to Ebels-Hoving, B., Byzantium in westerse Ogen (Assen 1971) 47, 91, 252-4Google Scholar. For a similar approach, applied to the Pelerinage de Charlemagne and Benoît’s Roman de Troie, see Baumgartner, E., ‘Troie et Constantinople dans quelques textes du Xlle et du siècles: Fiction et histoire’, in La Ville: Histoires et Mythes, ed. Bancquart, M.-C. (Paris c. 1981) 616 Google Scholar.

14. Referred to today as the anonymous Charleville poet, after the sole manuscript in which his additions to the Historia survive (Charleville-Mézières, Bibliothèque Municipale MS97), this redactor used to be wrongly identified as ‘Fulco’. See Anon. & Gilo of Paris, The Historia Vie Hierosolimitane, ed. & trans. Grocock, C.W. & Siberry, J.E. (Oxford Medieval Texts. Oxford 1997) xiiixxiv Google Scholar. The vagueness in Book I of the Historia as to the geographical location of Troy is shared by the Roman d’Eneas, where the audience is informed only that the city was somewhere to the east of both Africa and Italy, and could best be reached by sea. This lack of precision would have made it easier to associate Trojan imagery with the Crusader States.

15. For questions of dating, see Map, Walter, De Nugis Curialium: Courtiers’ Trifles, ed. and trans, by James, M.R., revised by Brooke, C.N.L. & Mynors, R.A.B. (Oxford 1983) xxvxxvi Google Scholar.

16. Walter Map, De Nugis Curialium: Courtiers’ Trifles, 174-8.

17. Longnon, J., Recherches sur la vie de Geoffroy de Villehardouin, suivies du catalogue des actes des Villehardouin (Paris 1939) 201-2Google Scholar. For a description of the manuscript, see Cipriani, R., Codici miniati dell’Ambrosiana (Milan 1968) 27 Google Scholar and Jordan, L. and Wool, S., Inventory of Western manuscripts in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, pt. 2 (C-D Superior) (Notre Dame, Ind 1997) 174 Google Scholar.

18. Both Cipriani, and Jordan and Wool date the document to 1205. This date is apparently based not on evidence from the act itself, but on a comment added much later, and in two different hands, to the beginning of the manuscript (fol. 1v). In the main body of the act, Henry is referred to as ‘Constantinopolitani imperatoris’; he was crowned emperor only in August 1206, and it is unlikely that he assumed anything more than the title of regent before his brother’s death was confirmed in July of that year. Longnon dated the act simply to Henry’s reign (20 August 1206 and 11 June 1216), but the likely period can be narrowed down further, given that Marino Zeno was elected in June 1205 and still held the post in March 1207, but had been replaced by 1209. The similarity in the subject-matter and signatories of this document to those of another, which can be placed in February 1207 or 1206, suggests the Ambrosianus document must have been composed thereabouts. For an edition of the document to which it is related, see J. Longnon, Recherches sur la vie de Geoffroy de Villehardouin, 199-201. The dates of Zeno’s incumbency are discussed in Wolff, R.L., ‘A New Document from the Period of the Latin Empire of Constantinople: The Oath of the Venetian Podestà, in Studies in the Latin Empire of Constantinople (London 1976) 539573 (VI)Google Scholar.

19. For the view that the copy of the act is an autograph of the Venetian notary responsible for drafting the original, Andrea Bembo, see D. Jacoby, ‘Knightly Values and Class Consciousness in the Crusader States of the Eastern Mediterranean’, Mediterranean Historical Review 1.2 (1986) 171. The document in fact appears to end with a reference to Bembo not as the draftsman or copyist, but merely as one of the signatories: ‘Ego Andreas Bembo iudex manu mea subscripsi’ (L. Jordan and S. Wool, Inventory of Western Manuscripts in the Bibliotheca Ambrosiana, pt. 2, 174). The same reference is found also in the other surviving copy of the document (J. Longnon, Recherches sur la vie de Geoffroy de Villehardouin, 201-2).

20. In addition to Ambrosianus D 55 sup., an example of the association of Trojan with crusader material is provided by a fourteenth-century codex of western provenance (Copenhagen 487), in which survives the sole copy of the account of the conquest of Constantinople by Robert de Clari; the same codex also contains a vernacular paraphrase by Jean de Fliccicourt of Dares the Phrygian (fol. 45-60). However, given that a further three works, of a disparate nature, are included in this codex – the Récits d’un menestral de Reims, the Chronicle of Turpin, and the Livre du Castiement et des Proverbes by Pierre Alphonse – an over-arching thematic organisation should not be assumed in this case. This second manuscript is described in Abrahams, N.C.L., Description des manuscrits français du moyen âge de la Bibliothèque royale de Copenhague (Copenhagen 1844), 106113 Google Scholar. For a remark to the effect that the Roman de Troie was indeed the ‘best-seller’ of the Crusade, see Folena, G., ‘La Romania d’Oltremare’, Atti del XIV Congresso internazionale di linguistica e filologìa romanza, vol. 1 (Naples/Amsterdam 1974), 401 Google Scholar.

21. The Byzantine historian Nicetas Choniates will not be considered. Reference to the locality of Troy or Phrygia in his work (Nicetas Choniates, Historia, ed. I.A. Van Dieten (Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae. Berlin 1975) 601, 617) can be explained as part of a tendency, prevalent among Byzantine historians, to archaise toponyms; these references do not lead to an ideologically-charged excursus. His version of the sack of Constantinople alludes only once to the Trojan War, in a lament for the destruction by the Crusaders of a bronze statue of Helen which had stood in the Hippodrome (p. 652). The description of the statue offers an opportunity for Choniates to include a tag from Homer and to generally display his erudition, but appears to be essentially free of political overtones. Geoffroy de Villehardouin, who eschewed all reference to Troy in his account of events, can also be excluded from this study.

22. The editions used here are: de Clari, Robert, La Conquête de Constantinople, ed. Lauer, P. (Paris 1924)Google Scholar; von Pairis, Gunther, Hystoria Constantinopolitana, ed. Orth, Peter (Hildesheim 1994)Google Scholar.

23. Dembowski, P.F., La Chronique de Robert de Clari: Étude de la langue et du style (Toronto c.1963) 114-5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24. Cited in J. Longnon, L’Empire Latin de Constantinople, 42.

25. Gestes des chiprois: Recueil des chroniques françaises écrites en Orient aux XIIIe et XIVe siècles (Philippe de Navarre et Gérard de Montréal) publié pour la première fois pour la Société de l’Orient latin, ed. Raynaud, G., (Geneva 1887) 17 Google Scholar.

26. Gunther von Pairis, Hystoria Constantinopolitana, 135 (X.42-45).

27. Arnold of Lübeck made this comment in ca.1209, Chronica Slavorum, ed. Lappenberg, J.M. (Scriptures rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum ex Monumentis Germaniae historicis recusi. Hanover 1868), 240 Google Scholar.

28. This letter of Henri of Flanders, dated to September 1206, is cited in J. Longnon, L’Empire Latin de Constantinople, 103.

29. F. Ingledew, ‘The Book of Troy and the Genealogical Construction of History’, 676.

30. William of Malmesbury, The History of the Norman Kings (1066-1142) with the “Historia Novella” or History of his own Times (1126-1142), trans. Sharp, J., ed. Stevenson, J. (Felinfach 2000) 297-8Google Scholar. The kernel of the same idea is present in Robert the Monk (see Krey, A.C., The First Crusade: The Accounts of Eyewitnesses and Participants (Gloucester, Mass. 1958) 31 Google Scholar).

31. Robert de Clan, La Conquête de Constantinople, 6, 7, 15, 32.

32. von Freising, Otto, The Deeds of Frederick Barbarossa, trans. Mierow, C.C. (New York 1955), 93 Google Scholar.

33. For Augustine’s use of ‘pilgrimage’ as an allegorical term, and his actual disapproval of the practice, see Claussen, M.A., ‘Peregrinatio and Peregrini in Augustine’s City of God’, Traditio 46 (1991) 3376 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34. Spiegel, G.M., ‘Genealogy: Form and Function in Medieval Historical Narrative’, History and Theory 22 (1983) 47 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35. Bloch, R., Etymologies and Genealogies: A Literary Anthropology of the French Middle Ages (Chicago 1983) 6487 Google Scholar.

36. Bakhtin, M., ‘Formes du temps et du chronotope dans le roman’, in Esthétique et théorie du roman, trans. Olivier, D. (Paris 1978) 237ffGoogle Scholar. Note in particular Bakhtin’s analysis of the feudal castle as a chronotope, 387.

37. F. Ingledew, ‘The Book of Troy and the Genealogical Construction of History’, 669.

38. Two versions of the pact are edited in Urkunden zur Älteren Handels- und Staatsgeschichte der Republik Venedig mit besonderer Beziehung auf Byzanz und die Levante vom neunten biz zum Ausgang des fünfzehnten Jahrhunderts, vol. 1, eds. Tafel, G.L.F. & Thomas, G.M. (Vienna 1856) 444452 Google Scholar.

39. The Partitio is edited in Urkunden zur Älteren Handels- und Staatsgeschichte der Republik Venedig, vol. 1, eds. Tafel, G.L.F. & Thomas, G.M. 464488 Google Scholar.

40. Gunther von Pairis, Hystoria Constantinopolitana, 157-8.

41. For the notion that the Byzantines themselves, in collecting practically all the major relics of Christendom, had encouraged the belief that Constantinople was the New Jerusalem, see Mango, C., ‘Byzantinism and Romantic Hellenism’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 28 (1965) 31 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42. Under the heading ‘Sanctuarium quod Robertus de Clari, miles, attulit Constantinopoli’, an inventory of the treasury of Corbie, executed in 1283 and now preserved in the Bibliothèque municipale d’Amiens, attributes a truly vast treasure to the Crusader: a number of gold, silver and crystal reliquaries, and important relics such as half the girdle of the Blessed Virgin, the arm of St Mark the Evangelist, the finger of St Helena. It is more likely, however, that de Clari, a humble knight, brought back far smaller objects, perhaps a packet of the type habitually acquired by returning pilgrims. See, McNeal, E.H., ‘Introduction’, in Robert of Clari, The Conquest of Constantinople (Toronto/Buffalo/London 1996) 56 Google Scholar.

43. The issue remains insoluble because controversies in dating the composition of the accounts of both de Clari and von Pairis mean that the Trojan imagery used could have originated in the West at any time during the next decade, and not be the Crusaders’ own response to the aftermath of the conquest. The entire work of Robert de Clari may well have been dictated as late as 1216, given that it ends with a reference to the illness and death of the Emperor Henry. Even if the bulk of it was actually put together immediately upon de Clari’s return following the demise of Hugh of St Pol in 1205, the epilogue would have had to be added in 1216 or shortly afterwards, providing ample opportunity for a revision of the main narrative. For the wide variety of dates (1205, 1207/8, 1216) proposed for the Historia Constantinopolitana prosimetry see Pannenborg, A., Der Verfasser des Ligurius. Studien zu den Schriften des Magister Gunther (Göttingen 1883) 8 Google Scholar; Swietek, F.R., ‘Gunther von Pairis and the Historia Constantinopolitana, Speculum 53 (1978) 59 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Assmann, E., Gunther von Pairis. Die Geschichte der Eroberung von Konstantinopel (Cologne/Graz 1956) 10 Google Scholar; Andrea, A., ‘The Historia Constantinopolitana. An Early Thirteenth-Century Cistercian Looks at Byzantium’, Analecta Cisterciensia 36 (1980) 269302 Google Scholar); Peter Orth, in Gunther von Pairis, Hystoria Constantinopolitana, 7-11.

44. Henry does not appear to have campaigned personally against the Bulgarian Tsar in either the summer of 1205 or early spring of 1206, while he was regent. See J. Longnon, L’Empire de Constantinople, 77ff.

45. Legrand, L., ‘Relation du pèlerinage à Jérusalem de Nicolas de Martoni notaire italien (1394-1395)’, Revue de l’Orient latin 3 (1885), 661 Google Scholar. It is unlikely the wall paintings antedated the Frankish occupation. There is no evidence that scenes of the Trojan War were favoured by Byzantine prelates as a subject for frescoes. In contrast, already by c. 1153, the De claustro anime, a work written by Huges de Fouilloy, chided western bishops for adorning their palaces with the images of richly dressed princes instead of devoting their resources to tending the poor and sick ( Thomas, A., ‘Le De clausto anime et le Roman de Troie’, Romania 42 (1913), 84 CrossRefGoogle Scholar). In Italy, the popularity of fresco cycles depicting Trojan legend is demonstrated by the Loggia dei Cavalieri in Treviso (1313) and the Visconti palace in Milan (D. Jacoby, ‘Knightly Values and Class Consciousness in the Crusader States of the Eastern Mediterranean’, 172-3). At the time of da Martoni’s stay in the Mora, Philip the Bold of Burgundy owned a tapestry illustrating the Judgement of Paris, another with a portrait of Hector of Troy, and an entire series on ‘Troy the Great’ (see Calmette, J., The Golden Age of Burgundy: The Magnificent Dukes and their Courts, trans. Weightman, D. (London 1962) 66)Google Scholar. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, pictorial representations of the theme of the Trojan War are also attested to by the numerous manuscript illustrations of the verse and prose versions of Benoît (and of the Historia Destructionis Troiae, the Latin paraphrase by Guido della Colonna); for a detailed discussion, see Buchtal, H., Historia Troiana: Studies in the History of Medieval Secular Illustration (London/Leiden 1971)Google Scholar.

46. A. Bon, La Morée franque, 450-3.

47. Constans, L. & Faral, E., Le Roman de Troie en prose (Ms BN fr. 1612), vol. 1 (Paris 1922)Google Scholar.

48. For further details, see Jung, M.-R., La Légende de Troie en France au moyen âge (Basel 1996) 442-3Google Scholar. No longer extant are a manuscript formerly housed at Tours (Bibl. mun., 954 / a.1358) and a manuscript listed in the 1426 inventory of the library of the Dukes of Milan. Of the eighteen manuscripts which do survive in this family, one is fragmentary, while six transmit a later, abbreviated, version of the mise en prose.

49. Since the second volume projected by Constans and Farai was never published, the only easily accessible version of this part of the prose version remains Meyer, P., ‘Les Premières compilations françaises d’histoire ancienne’, Romania 14 (1885) 67 Google Scholar.

50. M.-R. Jung La Légende de Troie en France au moyen âge, 440-83, ‘Le Roman de Troie en prose du manuscrit Rouen, Bibli, mun., 0.33’, Romania 108 (1987) 434-7, and ‘Les Mises en prose du Roman de Troie au XVe siècle’, Bien dire et bien aprandre 10 (1992) 65-80; also P. Meyer, ‘Les Premières compilations françaises d’histoire ancienne’, 66, for the origination of this idea. It may be noted that, of the eighteen manuscripts belonging to the same branch as BN fr. 1612, a further four name St Paul’s at Corinth (Aberystwyth, NLW 5008; Firenze, Rice. 2025; London BL Add. 9785; Paris BN fr. 1627). Three (Lyon, Bibl. num., 878; Paris n. acq. fr. 10052; Paris n. acq.fr. 11674) refer instead to the church of St Peter’s of the Orient, while the rest do not specify any location. The epilogue of BN fr. 1612 rewrites Benoît’s original account (vv.75-144), according to which Cornelius Nepos, nephew of Sallustius, had discovered the manuscript of Darius ‘en un aumaire’ in Athens, and translated it from Greek to Latin. It is conceivable that Corinth was introduced into the manuscript tradition because of the city’s prominence in the New Testament, and perhaps also because it was known in the West as a site of pilgrimage. Thus, the hypothesis of a Peloponnesian origin should be treated with some caution. However, two other changes to Benoît in BN fr. 1612 provide additional evidence as to the environment in which the prose redaction occurred. Given that, with the treaty of Viterbo in 1267, the Principality was effectively ceded to the Angevin Kingdom of Naples, it is interesting to find, in the prose version, the introduction of material pertaining to the topography of Magna Grecia (IV). Similarly, the decision to substitute Benoît’s tale of the foundation of Corcire Menalan by Anthenor with an equivalent legend regarding Venice and Padua may be of some significance, for Venetian influence was felt strongly in the Peloponnese at this time, not least because of the two enclaves of Modon and Coron ( de Sainte-Maure, Benoît, Le Roman de Troie, vol. 6, ed. Constans, L. (Paris 1912) 307)Google Scholar. Although composition in Italy itself cannot be entirely excluded, manuscripts containing explicit references to ‘roy Louis duc d’Anjou’ (Brux., BR IV 555) and ‘la lignee d’Anjou’ (Paris, BN fr. 254, fr. 22554, fr. 24369) belong to a branch derived from that of BN fr. 1612 at the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth centuries, while the circulation of the prose version in an Italian paraphrase also appear to represent a late stage in transmision (there are two manuscripts, Magliabechiana IV no. 46, and the fifteenth-century BN. Ital. 120, in which passages from the prose-version of Benoît, rendered into Italian, are combined with Filippo Ceffi’s paraphrase of the translation of Benoît by Guido da Colonna). On the whole, the thirteenth-century mise en prose, represented by BN fr. 1612, conforms to the picture of literary interaction across the Ionian Sea that emerges from a study of the circumstances under which a number of other texts were transmitted, such as the Cantare di Florio e Bianofiore, Boccacio’s Teseide or the Chronicles of Morea.

51. Wilson, N.G., ‘The Libraries of the Byzantine World’, GRBS 8 (1967) 78 Google Scholar. Moerbeke himself, of course, made translations into Latin of some forty-nine works of moral and natural philosophy, and mathematical treatises, but no translations of historical works are attributed to him, nor is he recorded as working in the vernacular. His ties with the region antedate his appointment, for he is known to have been in the Duchy of Athens, at Thebes, during the winter of 1259, when he completed his translation of Aristotle’s Historia animalium.

52. P. Meyer, ‘Les Premières compilations françaises d’histoire ancienne’, 67.

53. Cross, J.W., Le Roman de Landomata: A Critical Edition and Study (Ph.D. Dissertation. The University of Conneticut 1974) 4755 Google Scholar.

54. A Greek translation of the Roman de Troie does indeed exist and will be discussed separately below. There is no agreement in lacunae or additions betwen the prose version and this Greek translation. An example of a ‘control passage’ is that of the lament for Troilus by Hecuba, absent in the 3Πόλεμ(Κ, but expanded from Benoît in the prose version. It may also be noted that the description of the tomb of Hector in the prose version belongs to a different tradition of Benoît’s poem from that known by the translator responsible for the Πόλεμος.

55. For the church of St Armand, see Labande, E.-R., Étude sur Baudouin de Sebourc: chanson de geste, légende poétique de Baudouin II du Borge roi de Jérusalem (Paris 1940) 69 Google Scholar.

56. L. Constans & E. Faral, Le Roman de Troie en prose (Ms BN fr. 1612) 5.

57. Papathomopoulos, M. & Jeffreys, E.M., The War of Troy: Πόλεμος τής Τρωάδος (Athens 1996)Google Scholar lxxxviii. Hereafter, M. Papathomopoulos & E.M. Jeffreys, The War of Troy.

58. Jeffreys, E.M., ‘Place of Composition as a Factor in the Edition of the Early Demotic Texts’, in Origini della letteratura neogreca, Atti del secondo congresso internationale “Neograeca Medii Aevi”, ed. Panayiotakis, N.M., vol. 1 (Venice 1993) 323 Google Scholar. It may be noted that for a fourteenth-century date, the Πόλεμος appears somewhat archaic (see M. Papathomopoulos & E.M. Jeffreys, The War of Troy, lxxxvii-lxxxviii, for possible explanations).

59. For details of the manuscripts, see E.M. Jeffreys & M. Papathomopoulos, The War of Troy, xciii-cxxc.

60. For a discussion of the pressures of the verse form in the translation of the Tenth Battle, see Shawcross, C.T.M., The Literature of the Franco-Greek World in the Fourteenth Century: The ‘Chronicle of Morea’ and ‘War of Troy’ (M.Phil thesis. University of Oxford 2001) 8587 Google Scholar.

61. Partiality for the Trojan side is apparent, for example, in the treatment of individual heroes. Hector receives the longest portrait (Roman vv.5313-5380), and Troilus the second longest (Roman vv.5393-5446); each of them is the subject of a lengthy planctus by Hecuba (thirty-nine and fifty lines respectively). In contrast, Achilles is summarily introduced in thirteen lines (Roman vv.5157-5170).

62. The supposed Greek eye-witness, Dictys, is used only twice, for the love affair of Achilles and Polyxena, ending in the murder of the hero, and for the account of the disastrous homecoming of the Greeks.

63. The Chronicle of Morea, A History in Political Verse, ed. Schmitt, J. (London 1904) 79 Google Scholar.

64. For examples of invective, see Havniensis 57, vv.766-800, vv.1249-1255, v.5722, VV.7132-7134.

65. For such statements, see Havniensis 57, v.3995, v.4768, v.4776, vv.4839-4843, vv.4847-4853, vv.5011.

66. For example, the four instances of invective notes above from the Havniensis are completely absent from the French text (See ¶55, ¶581,¶395-¶396, ¶491).

67. At Πόλεμος v.3256, during the division of the Trojan Battalions prior to the Second Battle, the end of a speech of encouragement by Hector to Troilus (Roman vv.7763-7772) is cut out, as is the younger brother’s spirited reply (Roman vv.7773-7750). The passage following on immediately afterwards (Roman vv.7785-8022), detailing the appointment by Hector of the Trojans who will lead the other battalions is replaced by a single line, which states that Hector was accompanied by the ‘Δυώδεκα Νοθάδελφοι’ (Πόλεμος v.3257). Because of this, Benoît’s loving description of the weapons and steeds of the Trojan warriors is not rendered in the translation. Elsewhere, the tendency is to pass over the account of Trojan achievements. In the Third Battle, the passage relating to the slaying by Hector of Boethius and Archilochus (Πόλεμος vv.4486-4511; Roman vv. 10896-24) is condensed, as are, in the Twelfth Battle, the touching speech and final moments of Deiphobus (Πόλεμθί” v.8192-3; Roman vv. 18657-710). A list of the Achaeans killed by Hector (Πόλεμος v.7357-7374; Roman vv.16827-16484) is curtailed, the names of Polibetès, Leotetus, Phelipon and Merionès not being reproduced in the translation. Similarly, references to Troilos’ bravery are twice omitted (Πόλεμος v.1627 and v.3189; Roman vv.3989-92 and vv.7576-80), as is Hecuba’s lament for his death (v.9816). It should be stressed that there appear to be no exactly corresponding lacunae in the manuscript tradition of the French original.

68. See, for example, Πόλεμος v.3, v.19, vv.3179-80, v.4204-5, v.4422, v.7054, V.7676, V.9597, v.9836-7, vv.10390-91.

69. Bodmer 147 belongs to a tradition independent from that represented in BN fr. 1612, and has been published by Viellard, F., Le Roman de Troie en prose: Version du Cod. Bodmer 147 (Geneva 1979)Google Scholar. In Bodmer, material from Benoît is omitted or condensed at seven points (¶11,¶15, ¶16,¶18, ¶31,¶16,¶45) equivalent to the Πόλεμος (v.1627, v.3189, v.3256-7, vv.4486-4511, v.7357-7374, v.8192-3, v.9816).

70. For examples, see C.T.M. Shawcross, The Literature of the Franco-Greek World in the Fourteenth Century: The ‘Chronicles of Morea’ and ‘War of Troy’, 87-90.

71. E.M. Jeffreys, ‘Place of Composition as a Factor in the Edition of the Early Demotic Texts’, 319.

72. For the identification by fourteenth-century writers of the battlefield with the Copaic basin near Thebes, see Muntaner, R., Crònica, ed. Gusta, M. (Barcelona 1979), 122-4Google Scholar (¶240); Gregoras, Nicephorus, Byzantina Historia, vol. 1, ed. Schopen, L. (Bonn 1829) 251 Google Scholar. It should be noted however, that Marino Samudo Torsello and the Chronicle of Morea located the site in territory further to the north, at the mouth of the Thessalian Almyros, in territory newly conquered for Athens ( Cerlini, A., ‘Nuove lettere di Marino anudo il vecchio’, La Bibliofilia 42 (1940) 352 Google Scholar; Chroniques gréco-romanes, ed. Hopf, C., (Berlin 1873) 125, 456, 461Google Scholar; Chronicle of Morea, ed. J. Schmitt, 472-3 (v.7274), 520-1 (v.8010); Livre de la conqueste de la princée de l’Amorée (Chronique de Morée, 1204-1305), ed. Longnon, J. (Paris 1911) 196 (¶500), 218 (¶548), 402Google Scholar; Libro de los fechos et conquistas del principado de la Morea, ed. Morel-Fatio, A. (Geneva 1885), ¶509, ¶569Google Scholar. Details of the debate in modern scholarship concerning the correct location of the battle are provided by Jacoby, D., ‘Catalans, Turcs et Vénitiens en Romanie (1305-1332): Un nouveau témoignage de Marino Sañudo Torsello’, Studi Medievali, 15 (1974) 223230, especially n.42Google Scholar.

73. The course attributed in Gregoras to the Cesiphus is highly inaccurate, as George Finlay has pointed out in A History of Greece from its Conquest by the Romans to the Present Time B.C. 146 to A.D. 1864, vol. 4 (Oxford 1877) 149 n.2.

74. For the relevant passage, see Livre de la conqueste de la princée de l’Amorée (Chronique de Morée, 1204-1305), 91. The story, as told there, may not be entirely accurate. Certainly, issues of petty coinage struck in Thebes with the legend of ‘DVX’ succeed those bearing ‘DNS’ (Dominus) at some point in the thirteenth century ( Metcalf, D.M., Coinage in South-Eastern Europe, (Royal Numismatic Society 11. London 1979) 243)Google Scholar, while the title of Duke habitually appears in Angevin documents from c.1283, referring to Guy’s son and second successor, Guillaume. However, it would appear that the title had occasionally been used before this. It was applied to the first Frankish ruler of Athens, Othon de la Roche, once by Aubry de Trois-Fontaines and once by Innocent III (see, J. Longnon, ‘Problèmes de l’histoire de la Principauté de Morée, Journal des savants (1946) 91.

75. For the importance assigned to Menesteüs by Benoît, see Roman de Troie vv.8545-8674, vv.10065-10092, vv.13519-20, vv.14491-14504, vv.18340-18399, vv.28498-28522.

76. William II de Villehardouin conquered the area in 1248, but did not hold onto it for long: the castle of Grand-Magne was one of the three strongholds surrendered by William to Michael Palaeologus after the battle of Pelagonia. The peninsula was thus no longer part of the Principality in the fourteenth century. The choice of Mani in spite of this as the homeland of the lesser Ajax may have something to do with the continued reputation among the Latins of the native inhabitants of the area, the Melingoi, as a particularly warlike and rebellious people (see Chronicle of Morea, ed. J. Schmitt, vv.2985-3007). The translator responsible for the Πόλεμος was in all likelihood not aware of the hero’s connection in Homer with Loeris: in Benoît, the lesser Ajax is never referred to as the ‘Locrian Ajax’, but always by his patronymic (‘Oïleïus Aïaus’ or ‘Oïlèus Aïaus’).

77. Mango, C., ‘Constantine’s Column’, Studies on Constantinople (Variorum Series. Aldershot 1993) 4 (II)Google Scholar. The chronicler Malalas adds that ‘some people say it [the Palladium] is still there today’ (see Malalas, John, Chronographia, ed. Thurn, J. (Corpus Fontium Byzantinae 35. Berlin 2000), 246 (13.7)Google Scholar.

78. According to Sozomen, the Emperor had even started building fortifications on the site of ancient Troy; these were visible to ships sailing past. See Sozomen, , Kirchengeschichte, ed. Bidez, J.† & Hansen, G.C. (Die Griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte. Berlin 1995) 51-2 (II.3.2-3)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

79. John Malalas, Chronographia, 254-6 (13.7).

80. C. Mango, ‘Constantine’s Column’, 4.

81. The Life of St Andrew the Fool, vol. 2, ed. Ryden, L. (Uppsala 1995) 276278 Google Scholar.

82. John Malalas, Chronographia, 67-112 (¶1-39); Manassis, Constantine, Breviarium Chronicum, ed. Lampsidis, O. (Corpus Fontium Byzantinae 36. Athens 1996) 6388 Google Scholar (vv.1107-1636). The length and ideological import of these narratives of the Trojan War is commented on Jeffreys, E.M., ‘The Attitudes of Byzantine Chroniclers towards Ancient History’, B 49 (1979) 199238 Google Scholar.

83. For an account of the extensive borrowings from Malalas by late Byzantine authors, see Jeffreys, E.M., ‘Malalas in Greek’, Studies in John Malalas, ed. Jeffreys, E.M. & Croke, B. (Sydney 1990) 249268 Google Scholar. Specifically on Tzetzes’ debt to Malalas, see Patzig, E., ‘Malalas und Tzetzes’, BZ 10 (1901) 385393 Google Scholar.

84. E.M. Jeffreys, ‘The Attitudes of Byzantine Chroniclers towards Ancient History’, 200, n. 5.

85. Lampsidis, O., “Ιστορία τής κριτικής τοΰ κειμένου και τών έκδόσεων тѓјс Χρονικης συνόψεως του Κ. Μανασσή’, ‘O Βφλιόφιλος 13 (1959), 38 Google Scholar, and ‘Notes sur quelques manuscrits de la Chronique de Manasses’, Akten des XI Internationalen Byzantinistenkongresses (Munich 1960) 295-301. Lampsidis has estimated that, in the period from the composition of Manasses’ chronicle to the eighteenth century, some six hundred manuscripts of the work had circulated.

86. Eustathius of Thessalonica, Commentarii ad Homeri Iliadem Pertinentes, 5 vols., ed. Van der Valk, M. (Leiden 1971-87)Google Scholar.

87. Fourteenth- and fifteenth-century manuscripts, identified as textbooks, contain only the first Book of the Iliad, followed by a play each of Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes, some Pindar, some Theocritus, and a few poems of Gregory of Nazianzus (see Browning, R., ‘Homer in Byzantium’, Viator 6 (1965) 16)Google Scholar.

88. Scholia were composed by Michael Senacherim, Manuel Moschopoulos, John Pediasimos, and even by a provincial schoolmaster, George Lekapenos (see R. Browning, ‘Homer in Byzantium’, 29).

89. The issue of whether there was any development of Hellenism and nationalism in the Medieval Greek-spelling world has been plagued for much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by the excesses of both Fallmerayism and from over-zealous philhellenism, although in the last three decades there has been a concerted effort among Byzantinists to readdress the issue in a more careful and critical manner. For an idea of the trends present in recent scholarship, see for example: Angold, M., ‘Byzantine “Nationalism” and the Nicaean Empire’, BMGS 1 (1975) 4970 Google Scholar; Browning, R., ‘Greeks and Others from Antiquity to the Renaissance’, in History, Language and Literacy (Variorum Collected Studies Series. Northampton 1989) II, 125 Google Scholar; Browning, R., ‘The Continuity of Hellenism in the Byzantine World: Appearance or Reality?’, in History, Language and Literacy (Variorum Collected Studies Series. Northampton 1989), I, 111127 Google Scholar; Magdalino, P., ‘Hellenism and Nationalism in Byzantium’, in Tradition and transformation in medieval Byzantium (Variorum Collected Studies Series. Aldershot 1991) XIV, 129 Google Scholar; C. Mango, ‘Byzantinism and Romantic Hellenism’, 33 & 42; Sansaridou-Hendrick, T., To Χρονικάν του Mopéwç, H Εννοια τον εθνικισμον κατά τον μεσαίωνα (Athens 1999)Google Scholar.

90. Such sentiments are explored in Ševčenko, I., ‘The Decline of Byzantium Seen through the Eyes of its Intellectuals’, DOP 15 (1961), 169186 Google Scholar. For ‘Hellene’ as a term of abuse, see P. Magdalino, ‘Hellenism and Nationalism in Byzantium’, 9. For its employment by the Nicaeans, see Angold, M., ‘Byzantine “Nationalism” and the Nicaean Empire’, 64-68 and A Byzantine Government in Exile: Government and Society Under the Laskarids of Nicaea (1204-1261) (Oxford 1975) 2933 Google Scholar; also Hunger, H., ‘Von Wissenschaft und Kunst der frühen Palaiologenzeit’, JÖBG 8 (1959) 128 Google Scholar.

91. See Macrides, R., ‘From the Komnenoi to the Palaeologoi: Imperial Models in Decline and Exile’, in Magdalino, P. (ed.), New Constantines: The Rhythm of Imperial Renewal in Byzantium, 4th-13th Centuries, Papers from the Twenty-sixth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, St Andrews, March 1992 (Aldershot 1994) 269282 Google Scholar, 270. For a detailed discussion of the sources, see Macrides, R., ‘The New Constantine and the New Constantinople - 1261?, BMGS 6 (1980) 1341 Google Scholar.

92. A well-known example of disapproval at the reconquest of Constantinople is the statement attributed by Pachymeres to Senacherim in Book II. See Pachymeres, George, Relations historiques, vol. 1, ed. Failler, A., trans. Laurent, V. (Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae 24. Paris 1984) 28 Google Scholar.

93. For a brief description of both the Πόλεμος and the other texts, see Lavagnini, R., ‘Storie Troiane in Greco volgare’, Posthomerica I: Tradizioni omeriche dall’Antichità al Rinascimento, ed. Montanari, F. & Pittaluga, S. (Genoa 1997) 5662 Google Scholar.

94. Hermoniakos, Constantine, La Guerre de Troie, ed. Legrand, E. (Paris 1890)Google Scholar; A Byzantine Iliad (The Text of Par. Suppl. Gr. 926), ed. Nørgaard, L. & Smith, O. (Copenhagen 1975)Google Scholar; The Byzantine Achilleid (The Naples Version), ed. Smith, O.†, Agapitos, P.A. & Hult, K. (Vienna 1999)Google Scholar.

95. Magdalino, P., ‘Between Romaniae. Thessaly and Epirus in the Later Middle Ages’, Latins and Greeks in the Eastern Mediterranean after 1204, ed. Arbel, B., Hamilton, B. & Jacoby, D. (London 1989) 89 Google Scholar.

96. See Pachymeres, George, Relations historiques, vol. 1, 117 Google Scholar.

97. R. Lavagnini, ‘Storie Troiane in Greco volgare’, 57.

98. Jeffreys, E.M., ‘Constantine Hermoniakos and Byzantine Education’, Δωδωνη 4 (1975) 86 Google Scholar.

99. In 1415, the wall was rebuilt across the Isthmus of Corinth by Manuel II, following the line of the old Justinianic fortifications ( Gregory, T.E., ‘The Hexamilion and the Fortress’, Isthmia 5 (1993) 1421 Google Scholar, 146-7). However, this date does not necessarily provide a terminus post quem for the reference in the text of the Byzantine Iliad, for the name ‘Hexamilion’ is already recorded in the fourteenth-century historians ( Pachymeres, George, De Michaele et Andronico Palaeologis libre tredecim, ed. Bekker, I. (Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae. Bonn 1835) 587 Google Scholar; Cantacuzenus, John, Historiarum Libri IV, vol. 2, ed. Schopen, L. (Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae. Bonn 1831) 476)Google Scholar. Indeed, it may well have been current as early as the eleventh century, when the existence of a certain George Hexamilites or Korinthios is attested ( Glykatzi-Ahrweiler, H., ‘Recherches sur l’administration de l’empire byzantin aux IXe et Xle siècles’, BCH 84 (1960) 84 n.8)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

100. M. Papathomopoulos & E.M. Jeffreys, The War of Troy, xi.