The Book of Chivalry of Geoffroi de Charny ed. by Richard W. Kaeuper and Elspeth Kennedy (review)

8oARTHURIANA sociological aspects of these compositions has not been attempted. But the basic materials are now accessible to anyone curious about what happened when the Round Table migrated to the North and captured imaginations. According to the prologue to Möttub saga, King Hákon had that tale translated til gamans ok skemtanar 'for pleasure and entertainment.' The fun principle still stands. Readers ofthese volumes may enjoy the only example in Icelandic literature ofan animal offered ale or small beer, not to mention a woman inadvertently killed by a giant's amorous attentions. Memorable, too, is the lion that curls itself up like a hedgehog when angry (pace II, 86, ON igulköttr is probably not 'porcupine'; cf. Ill, 230). Nor is it totally unpleasant to watch the Scandinavian translators struggling for the meaning ofthe Old French text, changing, for example, an OF/inWintimate friend' into a 'mute,' or trying to describe 'something which they call in the French language a grail, but we may call 'processional provision.' Breta sögur reports that, after conquering Ireland, King Arthur 'proceeded to Norway and did not rest until he had conquered all ofNorway. And in this campaign he vanquished all the Northern lands...' (trans. Kalinke, King Arthur North-byNorthwest , 1981, p. 1). There is a sentence missing in the Old Norse account. In Geoffrey's Latin History, after conquering Ireland, 'Arthur steered his fleet to Iceland, overpowered the people there and conquered the island' (IX.6). Nowhere in the North did the matière de Bretagne have a more extended and varied life than in Iceland. Somehow Arthur and his chattering knights found a haven in a saga-world filled with strong women, isolated farmhouses, and long silences, a world without rustling trees and royal palaces, where obsessions could have the mute corrosive drive of lava. ROBERTA FRANK Yale University richard w. KAEUPER and ELSPETH Kennedy, eds., The Book ofChivalry ofGeoffroi de Charny. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996. Pp. ix, 236. isbn: 0-8122-3348-4 (cloth), $34.95; 0-8122-1579-6 (paper), $17.95. In 1356 Geoffroi de Charny died on the battlefield ofPoitiers, holding the oriflamme, the banner ofthe king ofFrance. In death, as in life, it was honor that inspired this knight, who was immensely admired by his contemporaries. But Charny was not only a 'man of action'; he was also a 'man of words.' He is the author of three treatises on chivalry: the Demandespour lajoute, les tournois et la guerre (a series of questions concerning the joust, tournament, and war); the Livre Charny (a short verse work on chivalric life); and the Livre de chevalerie or Book ofChivalry (a prose discussion of chivalry). The latter is presented, edited, and translated in a very attractive volume in which an historian (Richard W Kaeuper) and a literary critic/ editor (Elspeth Kennedy) collaborate (the subtitle, Text, Context, and Translation, thus emphasizes the triple nature of this book). REVIEWS8l Until now Charny's book, which Kaeuper suggests was probably written for the knights of the Order of the Star, (created by Jean II le Bon in 1352 [22]), has only been available as an appendix toan edition ofFroissart's works published by Kervyn de Lettenhoven in 1867-77 (Œuvres de Froissart, Brussels). The present volume makes the work accessible to readers ofMiddle French as well as to English speakers. It provides a true critical edition, with facing page translation, as well as an excellent introduction to the context in which Charny wrote. The volume opens with a section by Richard W. Kaeuper (Part One: Geoffroi de Charny and His Book), describing Charny's career, his sources, and the importance of his book in understanding fourteenth-century chivalric practices. Though Charny's text was less widely read than Ramon Hull's earlier Libredelordede cavalleria (Book ofthe Ordre ofChyvalry), it 'has much to teach us, about chivalry as a form of lay piety among aristocratic males [and] about the self-definition and valorization embedded in [this] demanding code of behavior...' (64). Part Two : The Book ofChivalry, by Elspeth Kennedy, is the 'meat' ofthis volume. The work survives in two manuscripts. Kennedy bases her edition on Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique...