(or Renaut de Montauban; 18,489 Alexandrines; early 13th c.). The most popular epic of the Rebellious Vassal Cycle, as evidenced by the great number of manuscripts and versions in verse and prose composed during the 13th century, as well as numerous allusions to it. Renaut (Rinaldo) also became, with Roland (Orlando), the protagonist of the chivalric romances Orlando Innamorato by Boiardo (1495) and Orlando Furioso by Ariosto (1516–21); Tasso wrote a Rinaldo (1562) and utilized this character in an episode of Gerusalemme liberata (1580).
After Renaut has killed Charlemagne’s nephew Bertolai in a brawl, he and his three brothers, sons of Aymon of Dordogne, flee the royal court. With the help of their cousin, the sorcerer Maugis, and their wonderful horse, Bayard, they first take refuge in the Ardennes, then in Gascony, where the king marries his daughter to Renaut but later betrays him under pressure from the king of France. Charlemagne pursues the brothers relentlessly; only after many tribulations does he consent to make peace, on condition that Renaut go to Jerusalem and Bayard be surrendered. The horse, thrown into the Meuse by the emperor himself, escapes into the Ardennes. Returning from Palestine with Maugis, whom he met in Constantinople, Renaut learns of the recent death of his wife and, while Maugis retires to a hermitage, leaves his family in order to expiate his faults, which had caused the death of the duchess. He is killed by jealous colleagues while helping carry stones for the construction of the cathedral of St.
Peter at Cologne; but his body, thrown into the Rhine, is miraculously saved and returns by itself to be enshrined in Renaut’s castle in Dortmund.
Castets, Ferdinand, ed. Les quatre fils Aymon, chanson de geste. Montpellier: Coulet, 1909.
Verelst, Philippe, ed. Renaut de Montauban: deuxième fragment rimé du manuscrit de Londres, British Library, Royal 16 G II (“B”), édition critique. Romanica Gandensia 21 (1988).
——, ed. Renaut de Montauban: édition critique du ms. de Paris, B.N., fr. 764 (R). Ghent: Faculteit van de Letteren en Wijsbegeerte, 1988.
——.“Renaut de Montauban, textes apparentés et versions étrangères: essai de bibliographie.” Romanica Gandensia 18 (1981):199–234.
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