Medieval France
(fl. late 12th c.). Anglo-Norman author of Ipomedon (10,580 octosyllabic lines) and Protheselaus (12,741 octosyllabic lines). Probably a native of Rhuddhan (Flintshire), Hue lived in Credenhill, near Hereford, when he wrote his two romances for local nobility (Protheselaus for Gilbert Fitz-Baderon, lord of Monmouth; d. 1191). Ipomedon, the earlier of the two, is concerned with the love of La Fière, princess of Calabria, and Ipomedon, son of the King of Apulia. In Protheselaus, the hero is the son of Ipomedon and La Fière; he eventually becomes king of Apulia. Ipomedon, the finer work, is remarkable for its treatment of the motifs of the Three Day’s Tournament and the rescue of the princess by the hero disguised as a madman. Hue de Rotelande is especially gifted as a comic writer, and Ipomedon is thoroughly humorous from beginning to end, the humor ranging from whimsicality to open obscenity. While it is not usually possible to show specific sources for the two romances, both owe a good deal to the Romances of Antiquity, the Tristan romances, and the works of Chrétien de Troyes. Ipomedon, which is preserved complete in two manuscripts (London, B.L.Cotton Vespasian A VII and Oxford, Bodl. Rawlinson Miscel. D 913), was adapted on three occasions into Middle English.
Keith Busby
[See also: ANGLO-NORMAN LITERATURE; ANTIQUITY, ROMANCES OF; IDYLLIC ROMANCE]
Hue de Rotelande.
Ipomedon, poème de Hue de Rotelande (fin du XIIe siècle), ed. Anthony J.Holden. Paris: Klincksieck, 1979.
——. Protheselaus, ein altfranzösischer Abenteuerroman, ed. F.Kluckow. Halle: Niemeyer, 1924.
Calin, William. “The Exaltation and Undermining of Romance: Ipomedon.” In The Legacy of Chrétien de Troyes, ed. Norris J.Lacy, Douglas Kelly, and Keith Busby. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1987, Vol. 2, pp. 111–24.
Legge, M.Dominica. Anglo-Norman Literature and Its Background. Oxford: Clarendon, 1963, pp. 85–96.
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