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Introduction to Paris and Vienne

Paris and Vienne is William Caxton’s English translation of one of the most popular romances of the later Middle Ages. Originating in the south of France at the end of the fourteenth century, by the end of the fifteenth the story of the faithful lovers circulated in two versions, and the shorter one had been printed and translated into five languages. Caxton’s romance, published in 1485, was reprinted many times before being revised in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to suit changing literary tastes. The story’s combination of chivalric adventure, lively characters, and lovers of unequal status continues to engage readers today. Its didactic appeal and fantasy of upward social mobility would have resonated with Caxton’s audience of gentry, merchants, and professionals.

This introduction begins with a review of the versions and genre of the romance and a summary of the plot. Following sections comment on the narrative’s distinctive features — its realism, treatment of conventional material, comic elements, and assertive heroine — and explore its instructional agenda and critique of contemporary marriage practices. The concluding sections review scholarship on the romance, assess Caxton’s prose style and translation practice, and describe the copytext. A list of witnesses and source texts in French and English follows. Explanatory Notes and Textual Notes following the text provide additional information on topics discussed here.

Origin and Genre

The earliest surviving version of Paris et Vienne is a French prose narrative composed in 1432 by one Pierre de la Cépède of Marseille. His was a prominent family there, and a member by the name of Pierre was made Squire of the Stables by Louis II, duke of Anjou, in 1385. Cépède tells us that he translated his romance from a source in Provençal, and his French shows such inflections. Scholars have confirmed that the story of the faithful lovers originated in Provence in the late fourteenth century, probably at the Angevin court, and there is evidence that the pair were familiar to Spanish audiences by 1405. Unlike many French prose romances, Paris et Vienne is not a redaction of a verse narrative; while it is possible that it circulated in verse form, no witness survives. The romance is conventional, incorporating motifs and episodes found in other narratives, but it appears not to be indebted to an earlier romance as Blancandin is indebted to The Story of the Grail, though the author may have been influenced by a contemporary narrative, Pierre de Provence et la Belle Maguelonne.

Cépède’s romance survives in six closely related French manuscripts from the mid-fifteenth century; a shorter version survives in a manuscript from the same period that may have been Caxton’s source. The short French romance was printed sixteen times before 1600 and had been translated, and printed in Italian, Catalan, Spanish, Yiddish, German, Flemish, Russian, and Latin. The lovers’ story was well-known to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English readers: John Skelton alludes to the couple in “Philip Sparowe” (1504) as does Gavin Douglas in Palais of Honour (ca. 1510, rpt.1553), where they appear in a catalogue of lovers. In 1587, a play of Paris and Vienne was performed for the English court by boys of the Westminster School. Caxton’s romance continued to be popular and was reprinted five times. In 1618, Matthew Mainwaring published an embellished version revised in the Euphuistic style of the Renaissance which was last reprinted in 1650.

The differences between the long and short versions illustrate different aesthetics. The short version is half the length of the other, greatly expediting the action but lacking or compressing passages of description, dialogue, correspondence, and commentary by the narrator. It also omits Vienne’s four prophetic allegorical dreams that appear in Cépède’s romance. One manuscript of the long version, Brussels, KBR MS 9632/3, expands the account of Paris’s journey in the Holy Land with material incorporated from travelogues and extends the description of the couple’s wedding by adding a tournament in which Paris vanquishes all comers. The episode parallels his earlier jousts and gives greater scope to the pageantry and chivalry in favor at northern European courts in the fifteenth century. This elaborated treatment is not unexpected, given that the volume belonged to the library of Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy and was produced at the atelier of the Maître de Wavrin where the romance was adapted to suit the tastes of its patron. The workshop produced long and short versions of texts, so it is possible that the abbreviated romance originated there. All manuscripts of the long version contain Cépède’s prologue, which does not appear with any text of the short version; however, it is so relevant to study of Caxton’s romance that it is included in an appendix following the edited texts of the romances.

Paris and Vienne is an example of a type of roman d’aventure that is widely recognized but variously designated. It is an “idyllic romance,” that is, one which concerns itself with the “deeply felt reciprocal love of an adolescent couple and their struggle to marry in the face of parental opposition.” These narratives strike a balance between love and chivalry, focusing on tournaments rather than battles as means to win a lady and reversing traditional gender roles when the heroine becomes more active than the hero. Those features are also present in what have been called “society romances,” which pay more attention to relationships between characters than to military escapades or supernatural adventures, often have assertive heroines, and employ monologue, dialogue, and other techniques to give vitality and interiority to the characters. Paris and Vienne can also be characterized as a “family romance,” for its plot centers on families disrupted by generational conflicts and violations of marital taboos, while politics and military campaigns are secondary. The family plot is doubled, since Paris’s family as well as Vienne’s becomes dysfunctional, and the narrative has other features of family romances, being sentimental, domestic, and giving prominence to female characters.

Plot

The plot is straightforward and without sub-plots, though the narrative shifts its focus between the two lovers. In the initial episodes, Paris wins the love of Vienne; at the midpoint of the narrative, the lovers are separated after a failed attempt to elope; finally, Paris is able to return from exile and they marry. The dauphin of Vienne, Sir Godfrey d’Alaunson, and his wife, Lady Dyane, pray for a child; after seven years a daughter is born to them and named Vienne after the city of her birth. She is sent to nurse with a noblewoman whose daughter, Isabeau, is raised as Vienne’s sister. Paris, the son of Sir Jacques (vassal of the dauphin), is knighted by his lord in recognition of his chivalry. He and his brother-in-arms, Edward, win prizes at tournaments and are accomplished musicians. When Paris becomes enamored of Vienne, the two young men disguise themselves and serenade her before the dauphin’s castle, arousing much admiration and curiosity. Paris is determined to remain anonymous, but Vienne and her father are eager to discover the identities of the performers. The dauphin summons all minstrels in the realm to play for him, but Paris and Edward do not attend, and those who do cannot match their music. After another serenade, the dauphin sends guards to apprehend the musicians, but they decline his summons and rout the guards in a scuffle. Paris and Edward then cease their performances. To entertain his daughter, the dauphin arranges a joust at which Paris fights incognito, bearing a white escutcheon and winning the trophies bestowed by Vienne, who suspects that her champion is one of the musicians. The king of France proclaims a tournament to determine which of three noble ladies is the fairest. Paris regards his love for Vienne as hopeless, given the disparity in their social ranks, and begins to take religious instruction from the bishop of St. Lawrence, but he and Edward participate in the king’s jousts, again wearing white. Paris is declared the champion, and Vienne is declared the fairest. He returns home, secures his trophies in a private oratory, and then accompanies Edward to visit his lady in Brabant (in modern Belgium) and to enter tourneys there.

Dame Dyane, accompanied by Vienne and Isabeau, visits Paris’s father, Sir Jacques, who is ill with worry that his son has lost interest in chivalry. During their tour of Sir Jacques’s elegant home, the girls, by a ruse, gain access to the private oratory where Paris’s trophies confirm that he is the champion of the jousts. Vienne takes the jeweled collar with her in order to confront him with the evidence of his identity and so meet him. Paris returns home to find Sir Jacques recovered and his prizes missing from his oratory. When he calls on the dauphin to pay his respects, Vienne is present and they are overcome by love for each other. Soon Vienne arranges to meet Paris by asking the bishop of St. Lawrence to hear her confession concerning her theft of the trophies, and to bring Paris with him on the following day so they can be returned. When they are together at last, the couple withdraw from their chaperones and declare their love.

As Vienne is of marriageable age, Sir Godfrey begins to consider possible husbands for her. She assures Paris that she will marry only him and that he should arrange for his father to ask the dauphin for her hand, so that there may be no “deffaulte” (18.5) in their union. Sir Jacques’s overture to the dauphin is angrily rebuked and Vienne sends word to Paris that he is in danger and should flee. When he comes to take leave of her, she insists on going with him so they can be married and directs him to arrange for them to elope. Vienne, Isabeau, and Paris depart Aigues Mortes, but a storm causes the river to flood so that it is impossible for them to cross and they are forced to take shelter with a chaplain. The dauphin sends his men to bring home his missing daughter, and the couple, aware of the search party, prepare to part.

Vienne and Isabeau remain in the church while Paris and his servant make their way to Aigues Mortes, then Genoa, to avoid the dauphin’s pursuit. Vienne is returned to her father with assurances of her virginity, but when she insists that she will marry only Paris, the dauphin confines her to a chamber on short rations and imprisons Sir Jacques. After a time, the dauphin releases Vienne, and, at her request, restores Paris’s father to his former estate; he then proceeds to negotiate his daughter’s marriage to the son of the duke of Burgundy. Meanwhile, Paris writes to his father and to Edward, who makes it possible for the lovers to correspond and for Vienne to send letters of credit to her knight. When the son of the duke of Burgundy comes to visit, Vienne declines to meet him, pleading illness. He departs, and the dauphin again imprisons his daughter and Isabeau. When the young duke returns and asks to see Vienne, her father sends clothes and food to the captives, including a quartered hen. As before, she maintains the pretense of her malady and, concealing the fowl in her armpits, lets the odor of its decaying flesh convince her suitor that she is not fit to marry. He withdraws his suit. Her father continues to hold her imprisoned, but Edward secretly gains access to her cell and brings her provisions.

Understanding that his marriage to Vienne cannot advance in these circumstances, Paris undertakes a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and travels to Egypt; here he dresses and speaks as a local, living in poverty. By chance, Paris encounters the sultan of Babylon’s hunting party and is able to restore the ruler’s sick falcon to health; in gratitude, the sultan installs Paris at his court, never suspecting that he is not an Arab. The dauphin is sent by the king of France to scout a crusade but is betrayed to the sultan. Paris learns of Sir Godfrey’s capture and, with the help of two friars, arranges to meet the dauphin, free him from prison, and return him to his realm and his family, all the while maintaining his disguise. In return, the dauphin agrees to reward his benefactor with marriage to his daughter. When presented with the ostensibly Muslim suitor, Vienne again employs the rotten chicken ruse, but Paris, undeterred, reveals himself, and the lovers are married with the dauphin’s assent, as are Isabeau and Edward.

While thoroughly formulaic, the romance is distinguished by its realism and active heroine. It handles conventional materials with greater originality than do other similar romances and is subversive, in that the lovers employ deceit and trickery, as much as feats of chivalry, to overcome obstacles to their marriage.

Realism and Convention

Paris and Vienne treats the formulas of medieval romance narrative with unusual circumstantial detail. Fifteenth-century readers showed a preference for verisimilitude in their chivalric narratives, but even among its contemporaries, Paris and Vienne is notable for its representation of lived circumstances, being perhaps the most realistic late-medieval prose romance in English. The story has roots in semi-realistic narratives circulating in Provence, and is “more circumstantial, local, and realistic in detail than is at all usual,” being an early example of “the absorption of romance into forms of novella.” Cépède wrote in his prologue that he chose to translate the account of the two lovers because it seemed to him pleasant and “bien raisonable et assez croyable” [quite reasonable and credible], more so than the romances he knew of Lancelot, Tristran, and Florimant. The author justifies reading chronicle, romance, and history by quoting Alain de Lille to the effect that one believes those things that appear to be true [veritables]. Throughout, Cépède refers to his narrative as an histoire. Significantly, it incorporates no supernatural elements. The short version of Paris et Vienne dates the events to a specific year, 1275. Vienne exclaims that it is an enchantment when she recognizes her suitor’s ring, and he, who has been speaking “Morish,” begins to speak French. Paris responds that “hit is none enchaunted work,” merely his foreign dress. The unwanted suitor is repelled by the all-too-natural stench of the chicken parts. Paris’s travels to exotic India and his years spent in the fabled land of Prester John are passed over in little more than a dozen words. There are no sudden storms at sea to separate the lovers; instead, the point is made that Paris encounters no bad weather during his travels. The river flood is a more plausible functional equivalent. There is no allegory of love: Vienne finds the altar of Paris where he has enshrined the prizes she awarded him in tournaments, but this is the sole suggestion of the religion of love, and Venus is mentioned only once, in a phrase that Caxton added. Vienne feels love’s spark ignite in her heart, and Paris laments his separation from her, “O cruel fortune, ful of cruel torment,” (18.7) but, in general, the lovers express their emotions directly without recourse to apostrophe or allegory.

Paris and Vienne is noteworthy for its handling of memes fundamental to Europeans’ racialized constructions of Muslims, in particular the motif of the Christian knight who passes for Muslim. Paris’s years in the Middle East are recounted in only two chapters, and the episodes incorporate few of the negative stereotypes of Muslims typical in romances. The romance does not describe Muslims in racial terms: they do not have dark skin (there is no reference to skin color), and there are no grotesques or giants. The sultan’s religious practice is not mentioned, so there are no idols or other distortions of Islam, though the romance does refer, accurately, to its prohibition of alcohol (22.12). Rather, much is made of Paris’s conscientious Christian observance throughout the narrative. The Muslims of Paris and Vienne are not making war; instead, Christians are the aggressors. The pope preaches a crusade against “fals myscreauntes and hethen men” (20.3), a plan thwarted by Christians who betray his spy for money. The sultan is a chivalrous and generous ruler who offers Paris riches and titles, though he does vow a cruel execution for the captive dauphin. Paris appears sympathetic to his patron, in a kind of double-speak with the friars, when he expresses concern that the sultan’s forces will be defeated by the crusaders, since the pope is so powerful. The friars’ initial fear of Paris is an instance of negative stereotyping, but the romance’s relatively neutral depiction of Muslims may owe something to the fact that authors and audiences in southern France would have encountered them through contacts with Spain and trade throughout the Mediterranean.

Significantly, Cépède and Caxton refer to the inhabitants of Babylon and Alexandria exclusively as Moors, not as Saracens, another common term for Muslims, Arabs, and North African peoples. The latter is the older term, denoting the racialized, negative portrayal of Muslims common in chanson de geste and other European writings from the earlier Middle Ages. By the end of the fifteenth century, Moor was becoming the more common word, and Kathleen Kennedy finds that “the late medieval English show few negative connotations in their use of the term.” It most often refers to language, textiles, and ceramics, less frequently to religion or physical, racial characteristics such as dark skin. Carpets and cloth were major luxury commodities imported to England from Alexandria and Constantinople, through Venice, Marseilles, and Genoa, cities which figure prominently in the romance. Paris’s speech and dress are constantly described as “of a More,” “lyke a More,” and “Moryske.” The friars suppose that Paris is the son of “somme grete Moure” (22.6) because of his rich robes; his beard completes the picture. The romance foregrounds the role of language in Paris’s deception when he pretends not to understand French and relies on the friars’ translation in the many exchanges with the dauphin and Vienne. His appearance becomes a true disguise only when he uses it to conceal his identity from the dauphin in order to marry Vienne. The motif of the hero who passes as Muslim is fully functional and integrated into the plot of Paris and Vienne. By comparison, Blanchardyn’s German speech is mentioned only once, and he does not use a translator; his altered appearance allows him to trick his father and test the loyalty of friends, but it does not directly facilitate his return to his lady and is not referenced in the later parts of the romance.

Paris and Vienne is especially credible [croyable] in its treatment of setting and in its attention to planning for travel. Details of everyday life are attended to: Vienne’s visit to Sir Jacques’s home is a vehicle for descriptions of domestic interiors. Specific features of the city of Vienne are explicit and accurate: in the fourteenth century a church abutted the ducal palace there, so Edward’s fictional tunnel from his private chapel to Vienne’s prison aligns with architectural fact. Features of local topography and Mediterranean geography are recognizable: the stages along the road from Vienne to Aigues Mortes where Paris engages fresh mounts, the adjacent Rhone River, the proximity of Genoa, the travel to Venice and Alexandria, and the return to Aigues Mortes. Paris’s journeys are deliberate: the logistics of his voyages are related with specificity, and he studies the local language in Egypt before undertaking further travel in the region. The narrative refers to obtaining money in foreign cities, engaging passage, and hiring and provisioning boats. Paris draws money from Sir Bertram’s bank and later pays a thousand gold bezants for passage for five people from Alexandria to Cyprus. He is practical when he negotiates the dauphin’s return to France, stipulating that Sir Godfrey maintain him there in an honorable living since he “can noo mestyer ne crafte” (22.9) and would have no source of economic support. Paris’s rescue of the dauphin culminates with the common motif of escape from prison by drugging the guards, but this is the result of much advance planning. Learning of the dauphin’s captivity, Paris “thought in hys hert that hys adventure myght yet come to good and effecte” (22.3); he then secures permissions from the sultan to travel to Alexandria to meet the prisoner and arranges access to the prison through friar translators. He regularly visits the dauphin, so the guards are not suspicious when he provides a feast on the eve of his departure from the city. Previously, he has arranged for their their passage to Cyprus. The account of the escape is notable for its details: sending for wine, food, mantles, and towels for the dinner, and the fact (twice mentioned) that the jailers are unaccustomed to wine.

The episodes presented with the most circumstantial detail, even in the abbreviated version of the romance, are the tournaments. A significant portion of the first half of Caxton’s text is devoted to them. Their precise dates are announced (May 1, September 8 or 14); the construction of the viewing stands is described, as are the design and décor of the lists, and the feasts before and after the jousts. The scenes are fully realized, including the placement of the spectators and their commentary on the proceedings, the display of prizes, procession of knights, speeches, exchange of challenges, encounters, and awards ceremony. Such attention to specifics suggests that Cépède was familiar with tournament protocol. The catalogue of participants’ names and the blow-by-blow accounts of their encounters lend further verisimilitude. At the royal tournament, one challenge narrowly avoids being decided on a technicality when Paris strikes his challenger, Geoffrey of Picardy, causing him to fall to the earth and his horse to slide. Geoffrey’s adherents insist that the sliding horse, not the blow, caused the fall. The king knows that the blow caused the fall, but, as judge of the tournament, he asks Paris to consent to a third pass against his opponent to settle the matter. The knight readily agrees, to which the king responds that he showed “grete valoyr and puyssaunce and spake moche swetely and curtoysly” (5.2). Thus Paris answers the challenge to his victory and to the king’s expertise as judge, avoiding further confrontations sure to arise from a decision that went against Geoffrey’s party. Tournament accounts of the period relate difficult moments of this kind: incidents of “foul play, opponents who refused to surrender, [and] partisan scoring practices.” The records compiled by English and Burgundian heralds meld real life with romance, and the same can be said of the letters exchanged by Anthony Woodville (Caxton’s patron) and Anton de la Roche, Bastard of Burgundy, regarding their challenge at the celebrated tournament at Smithfield in 1467. This correspondence was much admired at the courts, where copies of the letters circulated. Paris and Vienne’s accounts of tournaments are some of the more detailed and accurate in Middle English romance outside of Malory’s Morte d’Arthur. Cépède’s romance and its shorter adaptation are indeed reasonable and believable.

Paris and Vienne (especially Cépède’s longer version) comes close to a parody of romance. It subverts generic conventions such as enchantment and exotic locales with its realism. There is a minstrel contest but the hero does not enter it; the attention to money is unusual for a genre in which knights’ adventures often have no visible means of economic support. The narrative further contradicts tropes of the genre in its treatment of lovers separated by ocean voyages. One has only to contrast it with Blanchardyn’s use of the same motif: there the hero is twice blown off course, his destination unknown and, significantly, determined by “adventure,” not by the decision of the character.

Gender, Marriage, Status

Paris and Vienne is notable not only for its realism, but also for its persistent, resourceful heroine whose love for Paris leads her to challenge cultural norms of of gender, marriage, and class. Vienne is striking even among the women of idyllic and family romances, which often present heroines who choose their husbands and determine to marry them despite their fathers’ objections as admirable. The romance treats Vienne as a subject in her own right, not simply an extension of the male characters. She advances her agenda as vigorously as Paris pursues feats of arms, becoming “a true heroine, not just the object of a hero’s love.” She, not he, dictates the action. Though Paris is the first to fall in love, Vienne is immediately attracted to him. She actively seeks to discover his identity, arranges their first meeting, and is the first to declare her love. She proposes that they marry, tells him how his father should approach hers with his proposal, suggests and finances their elopement, and subverts her father’s attempts to arrange her marriage to anyone else. Paris, by comparison, is reticent: though he courts his lady with music and feats of arms, he dares not reveal his identity. His reluctance to ask for her hand leads Vienne to chide him: “Sette ye so lytel by me, that ye wyl not enterpryse this? Alas, where is your entendement?” (9.6). The knight’s lamentations, though common to courtly lovers, are faintly comic in their melodrama: when faced with separation, he draws his sword to kill himself. Vienne remonstrates, in an explicit role reversal: “O Parys, where is your wysedom and your prowesse? Now whan ye shold have moste strengthe and moost vertuous courage, ye be aferde . . . for now whome that ye ought to comforte, she must now comfort you” (12.4). She is cross-dressed at this point, having worn men’s clothing as a disguise to elope, and the fact that she has taken his sword completes the reversal. Only after the lovers’ reunion and recognition does Paris assert control: as they go to tell the dauphin that she has agreed to his proposal, he requests that she remain silent until he permits her to speak. When he assents, Vienne addresses her father, revealing Paris’s identity and reciting a catalogue of his accomplishments. She takes a more active role than her counterpart in the long version of the romance, where Paris himself orchestrates the revelation. Despite her name, and unlike many heroines of romance, Vienne is not particularly associated with her estates or patrimony, nor is the Dauphiné under attack. Paris does not fight for her or her father against claimants to their territory and initially declines the dauphin’s offer of his lands when negotiating his restoration. Vienne needs no champion to defend her from unwanted suitors — she manages that herself.

She does, however, require a champion to represent her in tournaments where his prowess can affirm her beauty and excellence, and his as well. The jousts at Paris are cast as a judicial combat to pacify contesting parties, a simulacrum of warring regional powers, but this ritual combat and the threat of a crusade are the closest the romance comes to warfare. Tournaments, rather than battles, are sites of knightly proving and the construction of chivalric masculinity. Edward makes clear the degree to which that masculinity is defined by the assessment of other men when he tells Paris that by fighting incognito he will win greater praise from the nobles and lords at the tournament (though he also mentions that the mystery will pique Vienne’s curiosity).

Paris and Vienne is less interested in defense of patrimony than in issues of parental authority and the liberty to choose a spouse based on mutual affection — the younger generation’s alternative to the patriarchal practice of arranging marriages based on status and lineage. The dauphin negotiates the marriage of Vienne and the young duke of Burgundy by seeking the advice of other nobles and employing intermediaries, but Vienne refuses to become an object of exchange between men. Among other reasons she gives the young duke for refusing his proposal is that she is already married, and a case can be made that she and Paris have created a legally binding betrothal in their mutual pledges before God to wed none but each other. According to medieval canon law, a couple’s pledges of espousal expressed in the present tense [verba de presenti] could constitute a binding betrothal, and a valid marriage required the free and equal consent of the couple. Vienne reminds Paris of this fact — so long as she refuses to agree, her father cannot wed her to another. These empowering statutes notwithstanding, in practice, parents or guardians always arranged aristocratic marriages, and there was very little room for choice on the part of the couple in most gentry marriages of the fifteenth century. An often-cited example is the case of Margery Paston, whose parents sought to nullify her clandestine marriage and disowned her when they were unsuccessful, but continued to employ her husband. Marriage law and church practice became increasingly stringent in the later Middle Ages, only recognizing the validity of witnessed betrothals and unions officiated by a priest. Vienne is careful to follow protocol in having Paris’s father ask for her hand, and she insists that their marriage be lawfully solemnized. Edward and Isabel are witnesses to the appropriateness of their conduct.

Part of the Pastons’ objection to Margery’s marriage was the disparity in the couple’s status and wealth, for her husband was employed as her family’s bailiff, and they had intended to arrange a socially and financially advantageous marriage for her. Status is also the obstacle to the marriage of Paris and Vienne, though there is little to distinguish Sir Jacques and the dauphin in their behavior and apparent economic status. Paris’s father is a noble knight of ancient lineage and fair lands, beloved by the dauphin, and Paris keeps company with great lords and hunts in a manner befitting dukes and earls. The jewels of the tournament prizes and the décor of his home demonstrate his wealth. Vienne’s funds enable Paris to live in the style appropriate to a young aristocrat with a display of largesse in Genoa, and, when he is without money, he sorrows at the sight of “other tryumphe and wexe lordes.” (20.1) Following the tournament, the dauphin declares Paris to be the most chivalrous knight in all the world, and the French king judges him to be a great lord, but association with the elite, esteem, chivalry, and wealth are not the only factors to be considered.

The facts that Sir Jacques is a vassal of the dauphin and is without a title account for the disparity between the lovers’ stations. Sir Jacques is of noble character and respected family, but his lineage is not so great as that of the dauphin, who is related to the French king, or those of the titled dukes and earls who vie for Vienne’s favor and unto one of whom her father intends to marry her. Paris’s incognito erases his social status while drawing attention to his chivalric accomplishments. Edward reasons that Paris will win more praise from the nobles and great lords if they do not recognize him, for “ye be not of so grete lygnage as they be” (4.7). The youth and his father adhere to convention and are only too aware of their inferior rank and the impediment it poses to marriage with Vienne. Isabeau and Edward also advise the lovers that their union would be inappropriate. While marriage to an heiress was one of the surest ways for English men of the fifteenth century to rise socially and economically, such unions were viewed with suspicion by members of the ruling classes who saw them as a threat to their status. Sir Jacques approaches the dauphin with reverence, humility, and apology; nevertheless, Sir Godfrey is outraged at the knight’s affront to his “worship” in speaking of marriage between their children, further denouncing him as “vylayne” (person of low status) and “vassal” (10.1). The marriage’s disruption of the lord-vassal relationship has implications for society as a whole, since it destabilizes the ordained hierarchy. The storm and flood that separate the lovers suggest a disturbance of the natural order associated with transgressing taboos and cultural norms. The practice of arranged marriage continues and hierarchies are reaffirmed when the dauphin negotiates noble marriages for his grandchildren and Paris succeeds to his title. As Paris and Vienne is a family romance, inheritance is also important for the maintenance of social order. Much is made of the fact that the lovers are sole heirs, and both sets of parents express anxiety about not having children to inherit their title and estates. Paris pledges his inheritance to Edward; later, he instructs his parents to designate Edward their heir, and, when they die, Paris bestows their estate on his adopted brother, elevating his status.

Paris and Vienne manages to reconcile the canonical requirement of individual consent with the practice of arranged marriage, and the lovers’ desire for autonomy with their ties to family and society. However, while the romance envisions circumstances in which social advancement and personal autonomy in love are possible, these come about only through such “elaborate narrative strategies” as Paris’s disguises and Vienne’s distinctive expedient of the rotten chickens.

Comedy, Deception, and Hens

Like other idyllic romances, Paris and Vienne employs cleverness and trickery as much as chivalry to bring about the marriage of the faithful lovers and their reintegration into society. This may be a function of the story’s origins in southern France. There, a regional genre of short fiction “blended the sophistication and atmosphere of courtly narrative with the down-to-earth comedy reserved for the fabliaux.” Vienne is adept at subterfuge: she arranges to identify and meet Paris, elope, and send money. She engages in double-speak with her father and uses his arguments against him. When he praises the young duke of Burgundy, she demurs with a sly reference to Paris saying, “for yf we have not thys man, yf it playse God, we shal have another as good or better” (16.4). Later she appeals to the priority of obedience to God over her duty of filial submission, citing her pledge to remain a virgin until she dies or recuperates from her malady (love-sickness, which would be cured by the return of Paris). Edward’s act of devotion, building a chapel, is a cover for his plan to gain access to Vienne’s prison. Paris has numerous disguises: as minstrel, as a white knight, and a Muslim. Deception creates irony and humor in Paris’s linguistic charade with the friars, the dauphin, and Vienne as their French is translated into Moorish, and his replies are rendered back into French. Vienne’s secretive inspection of Paris’s chamber culminates with a disingenuous reply when she is called to rejoin her mother, and the lovers’ efforts to control their expressions when they are introduced is narrated with sly humor. When Vienne presents Paris with the jewels she has taken from his oratory, he replies with profuse thanks for the honor of her visit to his parents and says he would be grateful if she kept the gems. He then apologizes for their unworthiness, a rather awkward display of humility since they both know that she had awarded those trophies. When he further attempts to avoid discovery by explaining that the jewels were given to him by another knight, Vienne cuts him off, interjecting “Ye nede not to say to me from whens these jewels ben comen, for I knowe them as wel as ye” (9.20), and putting a stop to his polite obfuscation and getting right to the point. There is physical comedy in the scene where Vienne convinces the young duke of Burgundy of her mortal illness. Inviting him to approach her, she explains that modesty forbids exposing her diseased body while he quickly withdraws, overwhelmed by the stench of the rotten chicken. Vienne’s outspokenness flares into ironic outrage when she threatens to bash her brains out against a wall rather than marry her Moorish suitor. There is also comedy in Isabeau’s expressions of exasperation and amusement at her friend’s headstrong behavior, and in her dramatic outburst when she wakes to see Vienne asleep in the chaste embrace of the Moor.

The romance uses humor for didactic ends, nowhere more than in the episodes of the hens’ quarters. Vienne’s trickery and the reek of the hens’ flesh belong to the register of fabliaux. Characters in those narratives often resort to ruses to conduct sexual liasions, but in exempla and saints’ lives, the odor of decay preserves chastity. Fifteenth-century audiences could have been familiar with Vienne’s ruse from a well-known legend. The story of the Lombard sisters who repelled their Hungarian attackers with the stench of rotten poultry hidden under their arms appears in Paul the Deacon’s eighth-century Latin History of the Lombards. Their legend became widespread, surviving in Spanish and Mozarabic exempla, and in the thirteenth-century French Game and Playe of the Chesse, where it illustrates chastity in a chapter on the virtuous conduct of queens. Christine de Pizan’s Book of the City of Ladies cites the sisters’ example to refute the opinion that women want to be raped. Vienne’s circumstances are less dire than the sisters’ — her city and person are not under attack — and her appropriation of this defense of virtue in order to evade parental authority is not without irony. Both saint’s life and romance valorize those willing to suffer and die for love, and the genres intersect in Vienne’s incarceration: her prison is the cell of an anchorite; her illness and the stench of the hens are an impersonation of a virgin martyr. Christine allegorizes the Lombards’ odor as sweet, a signifier of moral virtue, and cites the miraculous, pleasant odors said to emanate from the decayed bodies of saints. Vienne explains that she is “half roten,” but “the stynche was to Parys a good odour, for he smellyed it not” (22.18), and he vows he will never leave her because of it. Is it a marvel that Paris does not perceive the odor that the friars and the bishop of St. Lawrence cannot withstand? Or is the stench pleasing to him because he recognizes it as sign of his lover’s fidelity (Edward having earlier informed him of Vienne’s ruse)? Medieval audiences would have appreciated Vienne’s clever appropriation of the odor of sanctity, and the rotting barnyard animals’ disruption of the decorum of romance’s idealization of physical beauty. The hens’ quarters are simultaneously fair and foul, spiritual and physical, sacred and profane. Modern readers have sensed a tonal dissonance in these episodes, and, as a recontextualized meme, the chicken ruse is at odds with its generic framework and arouses contradictory expectations. Only by the incongruity of the hens’ quarters and deceit does the narrative resolve the conflicting agendas of parent and child, individual and society.

Romance Moralized

Pierre de la Cépède’s prologue to Paris et Vienne presents the standard moral argument for reading romances: it is good to recall the valiant deeds performed by those who came before, as example and inspiration. The romance features acts of chivalry, steadfast love, and good and bad behavior in a story of adolescents and their maturation: the French texts say the lovers are thirteen and fifteen, though Caxton makes them three years older. Paris and Vienne, like other idyllic romances, is sympathetic to young lovers; at the same time, their story is strongly moralized, in keeping with the fifteenth century’s taste for didactic literature.The narrative’s depiction of adolescents aligns with that found in religious literature, courtesy books, and manuals of chivalry. These works regard adolescence as a stage in the process of maturation during which young people are likely to exhibit rash behavior and to come into conflict with parental authority and social norms, especially those regarding sexuality. That such impulses might be curbed, the writings seek to inculcate youthful chastity, humility, obedience, and willing submission to authority. Young men of the armigerous and aspiring classes are encouraged to channel their aggression into chivalric forms of tournament and crusade, while young women are directed to be silent and modest.

Paris receives the appropriate chivalric education. His father has him trained in good manners, and, when he comes of age, he applies himself to learning feats of arms; his mastery of hunting with hawks and hounds is lauded and later wins him the friendship of the sultan. At the feast preceding the jousts in Vienne, he “ful gracyously and curtoysly” serves and carves before his lady (2.9). In addition to skill in arms, Paris pursues the chivalric ideals of pilgrimage and crusade as set forth in writings by Raymond Lull, among others. Caxton had published The Ordre of Chyvalry a year before Paris and Vienne, and his earlier prologue to Godfrey of Boulogne exhorted knights to embark on crusade. Though fifteenth-century ideals of chivalry favored tournaments as proving grounds for young knights and as occasions of athletic and heraldic display, military service in the defense of Christendom was more highly esteemed and pilgrimage was regarded as a testament to strength of character. Anthony Woodville, second Earl Rivers, who gave Caxton his copy of the Ordre to translate, garnered much praise for undertaking a journey to Jerusalem. While the romance passes quickly over Paris’s sojourn in the Holy City and his poverty and suffering in Egypt, his pilgrimage and rescue of the dauphin from the sultan’s prison complete the knightly ideal.

Vienne is a model of fidelity, but only her outspoken resistance to authority in the name of love maintains this. Didactic texts, like the Knight of the Tour-Landry’s book of instruction for his daughters, emphasize the sin of disobedience, especially to parents, and the sin of pride manifest in acts of insubordination to one’s elders. Vienne is also not silent or retiring, as the Knight and custom prescribe, though she is obedient and deferential in all matters but those relating to her marriage. Isabeau and Edward offer tempering advice to their friends, speaking with the voices of reason and convention. The young duke of Burgundy and Paris both admonish Vienne that “ye ought not to dysobeye the commaundementes of your fader” (22.16). Vienne may be an example of disobedience and rash behavior, but she is scrupulous about marriage and virginity: one of her conditions for eloping with Paris is that “ye touche not my body unto the time that we be lawfully maryed” (10.3), and arrangements are made for her and Isabeau to sleep apart from the men, with a chaperone. Vienne has the men who return her to her father report to him that she is “pure and clene of [my] body” (14.3), and later she, Isabeau, and the chaplain who sheltered them attest to this as well. Earlier romances with similar plots were less insistent on virginity and often punished blocking fathers. In the tail-rhyme romances Eglamour of Artois and Torrent of Portengale, the lovers are betrothed and secretly consummate their marriages, but when their sons are born, the fathers cast their daughters adrift. After suffering and separation, the couples reunite and put the fathers to death. As sexual morality and civic ordinances became more conservative and restrictive in the later fifteenth century, especially for women, so romances of the period have a stricter, more moral tone.

If Vienne is an example of disobedience, a sin to which children are prone, her father is an example of pride and wrath, particular sins of those in positions of power. His cruelty is highlighted by the fact that, until his daughter elopes, he is an attentive, even indulgent, father: he hosts tournaments for her diversion and to entertain potential suitors, supporting her with rich prizes. Both the members of the search party who return Vienne to the dauphin, and she herself, expect that he will forgive her, and that his wrath will abate. However, his “felonnye and angre” (10.2) are unrelenting once aroused, as shown by his treatment of Sir Jacques following the elopement of their children. Though the dauphin pardons his vassal, he is less forgiving when Vienne foils his arrangements for her marriage — constructing a prison and starving her and Isabeau there. Contemporary examples suggest that such behavior was not exceptional: Elizabeth Paston was confined, silenced, and regularly beaten by her mother for resisting attempts to marry her to an aged, disfigured, but socially prominent widower. Margery Paston suffered similarly before being shunned and disowned by her parents. Though the dauphin is not explicitly punished for his treatment of Vienne, he is imprisoned, the very condition he inflicted upon his daughter, and his life is in jeopardy. His pride is further humbled when, in a reversal of their previous power relation, the dauphin who had demanded respect for his “worship” offers to abdicate in favor of Paris, keeping only a small parcel of land for himself and his wife to live on.

The moral tone of Paris and Vienne is heightened by attention to religious observance and churchmen; the friars and the bishop of St. Lawrence have significant roles. While in exile, Paris devotes himself to a life of religion, a choice in keeping with his earlier instruction by the bishop. The romance is careful to note that, though he passes as a Muslim, Paris always keeps his Christian faith. He initiates contact with the friars by professing curiosity about their religion, and their conversations include instruction in the articles of the faith. He further promises the dauphin and Vienne that he will convert, and when he arrives in Cyprus and France, he observes Christian rites and always attends mass. The dauphin insists on swearing his oath to Paris on the mass wafer brought by the friars, putting his soul in jeopardy should Vienne not agree to marry his apparently Muslim rescuer (22.10). Vienne prays for her betrothed throughout her incarceration and, like him, dedicates herself to God should they not be reunited. The romance concludes with the conventional statement that the couple led most holy lives and adds that, according to the understanding [entendement] of some men, they are saints.

The romance features models of courteous behavior and discourse as well as cruxes of moral and spiritual conduct. There are numerous exchanges of formal greetings and leave takings featuring formulas of humility, respect, and gratitude that are markers of proper etiquette as described in treatises on manners. Likewise, polite formulas of salutation and closure appear in the letters the characters exchange. Paris’s reply to the dauphin’s men-at-arms who have been ordered to apprehend him is particularly polite: “Thurgh your curtosye suffre us to retorne thyder as we came fro, for we be at my lord the dauphyns playsyr . . . but in ony maner, as for thys tyme we may not fulfylle hys commaundement” (2.2). In the extended exchange between Paris and Vienne as they declare their love, she poses a series of demaundes in parallel phrases beginning “I wyl that ye say to me yf ye were he that . . .” (9.2), rhetorically heightening the revelation of his identity. Other examples of formal discourse include the dauphin’s address to Vienne proposing her betrothal to the duke of Burgundy, which begins “Fayr doughter” and concludes “wherfor we praye you that therto ye wyl gyve your good wylle and playsyr.” To which she replies, “Honourable fader and lord, I wote wel that thys that ye entende is for my wele and prouffyt” (16.4), and going on to decline the match with such artful courtesy that he attributes her refusal to modesty.

Paris and Vienne also offers its readers a “sentimental education.” The characters experience a range of emotions — love, despair, joy, longing, fear, pity, anger — and the many dialogues, monologues, and letters in which these are expressed promote audience engagement and empathy. Edward’s and Isabeau’s responses to their friends’ plights also direct the audience’s sympathies to the couple. The first person direct discourse gives readers unmediated access to the characters’ thoughts and emotions, an effect that would have been enhanced when the romance was read aloud to a listening audience.

Scholarship

The most recent critical edition of Paris and Vienne is that of MacEdward Leach for the Early English Text Society (1957, reprinted 1970), which contains a thorough introduction to the romance and the text, as well as detailed notes documenting Caxton’s variations from the French manuscripts. Anna Maria Babbi’s introduction to her critical edition of the short French version, BNF fr. 20044, examines the romance’s origins, style, and textual relations, and includes a survey of scholarship and surviving manuscripts and prints in French, English, and Italian (1992, in Italian). More recently, Rosalind Brown-Grant and Marie-Claude de Crécy have edited the Burgundian version of the long romance, KBR 9632/3, with a similarly comprehensive and updated introduction that includes descriptions of all the manuscripts of Paris et Vienne, a review of scholarship, and discussion of idyllic romance (2015, in French).

One of the earliest literary studies to give attention to Caxton’s romance is Margaret Schlauch’s Antecedents of the English Novel, 1400–1600 (1963). Her chapter on society romances and assessment of Vienne’s character are still relevant, as is her commentary on other fifteenth-century English romances. “Fidelity, Suffering, and Humor in Paris and Vienne,” William T. Cotton’s article of 1980 focuses on the chicken ruse, its overtones of fabliaux, its origins in exemplum and saint’s life, and its reframing of consent to marriage in terms of fifteenth-century life and canon law. Jennifer Goodman’s study from 1987, Malory and William Caxton’s Prose Romances of 1485, considers Paris and Vienne in the context of the Morte d’Arthur, Charles the Great, and Caxton’s program of chivalric publication, particularly the Ordre of Chyvalry. In addition to general background on Caxton’s romances, her book covers fifteenth-century tournaments in England and France, the sources and analogues of the chicken ruse, and comparisons to the later versions of Mainwaring and DuPin.

Goodman remarks that Paris and Vienne is a narrative of adolescent rebellion, a subject explored at length in Rosalind Brown-Grant’s chapter “Youthful Folly in Boys and Girls: Idyllic Romance and the Perils of Adolescence in Pierre de Provence and Paris et Vienne” (FRLMA, 2008) and her article “Adolescence, Anxiety and Amusement in Versions of Paris et Vienne” (2010). Both focus on the long French romances, but her analyses are relevant to studies of Caxton’s translation. The chapter on youthful folly includes a survey of attitudes toward adolescents in medieval writings and a discussion of Paris et Vienne. The article on adolescence contrasts the three versions of Paris et Vienne — Cépède’s, the longer Burgundian text, and the short version — to find that Cépède used comedy to mock the overwrought couple. By presenting them as tricksters, Cépède created ambivalence about their behavior, while the Burgundian text’s additions focus attention away from their deceit. The short version, due in part to its excisions, is more serious in tone and moralistic in depicting the sufferings of the lovers. Articles by the editor of the present volume examine issues of gender and consent to marriage. “Construction of Class, Family, and Gender in Some Middle English Romances” (1994) compares Paris and Vienne to Eglamour of Artois, Torrent of Portengale, and The Squire of Low Degree, earlier verse romances involving clandestine marriage and separated lovers. These narratives reflect the late medieval shift from acceptance of pre-marital sex in betrothed couples to an expectation of the woman’s virginity and public nuptials. “Rebellious Daughters and Rotten Chickens: Gender and Genre in Caxton’s Paris and Vienne” (2003) examines the romance’s treatment of the hens’ quarters as a defense of chastity and re-construction of femininity. A comparison of Paris’s and Vienne’s chaste embrace with similar episodes in Generides, Degrevant, and Partenope of Blois shows Vienne exercising greater agency than do the heroines of those romances.

Helen Cooper in “Going Native: The Caxton and Mainwaring Version of Paris and Vienne” (2011) contrasts these two versions of the romance, casting into relief Caxton’s and Cépède’s realism, grasp of geography, cosmopolitan outlook, and acceptance of Muslims. Mainwaring treats Muslims negatively as Saracen others, expands the hero’s adventures in exotic lands, and expresses a post-Reformation, anti-Catholic bias. Kathleen Kennedy’s study, “Moors and Moorishness in Late Medieval England” (2020), traces the origins and racialization of the terms Saracen, Moor, and Moorish over the course of the fifteenth century. The latter two terms refer less often to race markers such as dark skin and more often to sociocultural features, including language and commodities that were imported into England. By Caxton’s time, the term Moor had few of its earlier negative racial and political/religious associations; thus Paris and Vienne is an example of the transition from medieval to early modern constructions of racial and religious difference.

Textual Matters

Caxton’s translation aligns closely with the two surviving French texts of the shorter Paris et Vienne, manuscript BNF fr. 20044 and Gerard Leeu’s print from 1487 — many passages are identical in all three. In places where they differ, Caxton is more likely to agree with Leeu than with the manuscript, though the print is two years later than Caxton’s, so it cannot have been his source. In some places Caxton agrees with readings in a French print from 1530 that are not found the manuscript or Leeu, so it is possible that these were present in Caxton’s source. The Textual Notes indicate where the manuscript and Leeu agree with each other against Caxton, as these discrepancies could be his own edits. All three texts vary in their placement of chapter breaks and in the wording of headings. Caxton often marks his text with enlarged initials where Leeu and BNF fr. 20044 have chapter headings, and he sometimes modifies or inserts headings in ways that are intentional.

The following passage is a typical example of Caxton’s translation practice and additions, indicated by italics (4.5–6).

But anone the kyng ordeyned a joustes for the love of the sayd thre ladyes and made his maundement that they al shold come wyth theyr armes and hors for to jouste the viii day of Septembre in the cyté of Parys, and they that shold do best in armes at that day, they shold have the prys and the worshyp of the feste, and the lady on whos beauté they helde with shold be reputed and holden for the fayrest damoysel of alle the world.
The kyng of Fraunce thenne sente worde to the faders of the forsayd thre ladyes, prayeng them to come atte same feste and that eyther of them shold brynge wyth hym a present of rychesse, the which thre presentes shold be yeven in the worshyp of their thre doughters to the best doer in armes in token of vyctorye. And thus the kyng of Englond fyrst sent for hys syster Constaunce a fayre crowne of gold alle sette wyth perlys and precyous stones of grete value. The duc of Normandye, for love of hys doughter Florye, sente a ryght fayre garlond sette wyth dyvers perlys and precyous stones moche ryche and of grete extymacyon. And the daulphyn, for love of hys doughter Vyenne, sente a moche ryche coler of gold al envyronned wyth precyous stones of dyvers colours, the whiche was worth a ryght grete tresour.* And these thre jewellys were delyvered to the kynge of Fraynce. The forsayd knyghtes thenne made them redy and apparaylled al thynges accordyng to the joustes and in ryche araye came al to the cyté of Parys. And wete ye wel that in Fraunce was not seen afore that day so grete noblesse of barons and knyghtes as were there assembled, for there were the moost hye prynces and barons of Englond of Fraunce, and of Normandye. And eyther of hem dyd sette al hys wytte and entendement to upholde and bere out that they had purposed and sayd. And every baron gaf hys lyverey that they shold be knowen eche fro other. And the bruyt and renommé was that my lady Constaunce shold have the honour of that feste for thys that many a fayre and hardy knyght made them redy to mayntene the quarelle of hyr beaulté. But nevertheles eyther of these thre partyes hoped to have the worshyp of the feste.

Caxton adds phrases and omits passages from the French. The first italicized example clarifies and reiterates the purpose of the contest, adding the point that the winner will be judged the fairest in the entire world, not just of the three European women. In the second example, indicated by an asterisk (*), Caxton omits a phrase explaining that the jewels were a gift from Vienne’s mother [et lequele luy avoit envoye la contesse de Flandres qui estoit sa dame]. He adds words creating doublets. Wytte is an English equivalent to the French-derived entendement [will, intention], while renommé [renown, reputation, report] is a synonym for bruyt [fame, renown, commotion].

Throughout his translation, Caxton inserts adjectives and adverbs to emphasize value, beauty, virtue, and emotion, and provides occasional transitional formulas (“Now sayth the hystory”). Some of his additions are pointedly chivalric, as in the account of the tournament at Vienne: “[a]nd soo they mostred, rydyng tofore the scaffold of the fayre Vyenne, and were so nobly and rychely armed and arayed, and so godley men they were, that everyone sayd, the floure of knyghthode may now be seen in thys place” (3.1). Caxton also significantly extends the catalogues of musical instruments included in descriptions of various feasts. Other additions, like the French term quarrelle, the translation of lamour as “fyre of love,” or the singular reference to Venus, draw on the rhetoric of courtly love.

Caxton’s print is now bound in red leather embossed with the arms of George III in gold. The book measures 8 ½ inches high by 6 ¼ inches wide, and consists of thirty-five folio leaves in five quires printed in double columns of thirty-nine lines; the gothic black letter type is Caxton’s font 4*. The text is presented in twenty-one sections set off by an initial paraph symbol and followed by a sentence-length title. This heading is followed by a space and sometimes separated by from the preceding chapter. These rubrics are not numbered; thus all chapter numbers in this edition is editorial. In the print, the initial letters of the first words following the headings are woodblock capitals; these are slightly embellished, three lines high and eight spaces wide. Similar large capitals mark other sections of the narrative and are indicated in this edition. Its unadorned state and double column format would have made it a less costly volume. The book is without a title page, table of chapters, or dedication, which is notable since all Caxton’s other romances have a dedication, prologue, or epilogue. Perhaps the political uncertainty of 1485 following the battle of Bosworth Field and the ascension of Henry Tudor led Caxton to avoid arousing disfavor by an ill-timed acknowledgement. Some early readers wrote their names in the book, the most legible inscription being “Cossyn,” but the volume reveals little about its owners.

This edition is based on the sole surviving complete copy of Paris and Vienne, which is in the collection of the British Library. A digitized version is available at http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100102251449.0x000001#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=76&xywh=-982%2C-345%2C11693%2C6873(Opens in a new tab or window), and a microfilm of the book is on EEBO. My editorial practice follows METS guidelines as explained in the General Introduction to this volume, pp. 14–15.

Witnesses and Source Texts

Long Version

  • Brussels, KRB, MS BR 9632/3, fols. 1r–137v. [mid 15c. The longer Burgundian version produced by the atelier Wavrin.]
  • Carpentras, Bibliothèque Municipale (Inguimbertine), MS 1792, fols. 285–88. [mid 15c. At the end of Cépède’s prologue, Inart Beyssan wrote that he copied (traylatie) the book in 1438.]
  • Carpentras, Bibliothèque Municipale (Inguimbertine), papiers de Peiresc, n° 23, t. 2, fol. 286.
  • Columbia, University of Missouri, Elmer Ellis Library, Special Collections, Fragmenta Manuscripta 157, 1 fol.
  • Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, MS 3000. [mid 15c.]
  • Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS fr. 1464. Online at https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b525052213/f9.item(Opens in a new tab or window). [mid 15c.]
  • Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS fr. 1479. [The scribe, Guillaume le Moign, dated his copy 1459.]
  • Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS fr. 1480. [Completed in 1452 according to the colophon.]
  • Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS nouvelles acquisitions françaises 10169. [15c.]
  • Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 3432. [15c.]

Short Version

  • French:
  • Italian:
  • Stories dei nobilissimi amanti paris e Viena. Treviso: Michael Manzolo,1481. USTC: 999397; ISTC: ip00115500. London, British Library, IA.28369. [print]
  • English: