The cansos and sirventes of the troubadour Giraut de Borneil: a critical edition (review)

Reviews 111 the legal and administrative implications of stray phrases in Ammianus, for example, or the Notitia Dignitatum. Because of the nature of the material Shahid devotes more space to analysis than exposition though the final section of each book consists of a comparatively brief narrative of the sequence of events whose political, military and economic interrelationship has been established in the previous pages. Points that are of especial concern to Shahid are the reasons for the usually derogatory image of the Arabs in Byzantine writers and the interestingly strong evidence for the extent of the early Christianization of the Arabs. The strengths of these books are that they are Arabo-centric. It is salutary to read Shahid's analyses, for example, of the evidence for Arab tribal structures and federations in the third and fourth centuries, of the extent to which the sedentary and nomad groups were Romanized, of the role played by Arab troops in the frontier zones, and of the extent to which Arab blood ran in the veins of the Severan House. The evidence is clear (cf. G. W . Bowersock, Roman Arabia, Cambridge, Mass., 1983 for the earlier period) but is rarely brought out so forcefuUy. Shahid makes the point well that the all-pervasive nature of the Arab 'presence' in Syria and the Roman province of Arabia is concealed by the use of Roman names and the apparent assimilation of many groups into the cities. The weaknesses are that the scanty nature of the evidence leads to some over-stretched arguments (e.g., on the identification of Victor, husband of the daughter of Queen Mavia, and of that daughter herself, or on the nature of early Arabic poetry), though Shahid is careful to indicate the hypothetical nature of his constructs. EquaUy the frequent re-use of the same scraps of text leads to much repetition, of which Shahid is aware and against which he defends himself. This reader at least would have been very happy to have seen more succinct discussions attached to a set of fuUy quoted texts. That said, there is much valuable material contained in these books and more doubtless to come from the remaining volumes. Elizabeth Jeffreys Department of M o d e m Greek University of Sydney Sharman, R. V., ed., The cansos and sirventes of the troubadour Giraut de Borneil: a critical edition, Cambridge, C. U. P., 1989; cloth; pp. xiv, 504; R. R. P. AUS$221.00. Although relegated to the status of 'second-best troubadour' by Dante, who preferred Arnaut Daniel (See Purgatorio, XXVI, 115-120), Giraut de Borneil (1162-99 A.D.) was for his fellow troubadours their master, and so they dubbed him 'maestre dels trobadors'. Giraut was regarded so highly not only because he 172 Reviews provided a synthesis of poetic ideas on love, but also because he was equaUy at home in the allusive (trobar clus) and clear (trobar plan) styles of composition and in the combinations of these two styles. This appellation of 'master' was obviously destined to attract modern editors to present the extant poems, which number about seventy-five, give or take one or two doubtful attributions. While A. Kolsen was in 1910 the first to publish the corpus (Sdmtliche Lieder des Trobadors Giraut de Borneth), B. Panvini offered his edition in 1949 (Giraldo di Borneth, trovatore del sec. X1T). Naturally, one or two poems of Giraut have always figured in the standard anthologies of Old Provencal, the most important of which can be found Usted in R. A. Taylor's La littirature occitane du moyen age. Bibliographie selective et critique (Toronto, 1977). Following in the tradition of H. J. Chaytor, S. C. Aston, J. H. Marshall, P. T. Ricketts and L. T. Topsfield (the last of w h o m has been honoured by the dedication in the present book), R. V. Sharman has, with the publication of her edition of Giraut's works, carved herself a place in the illustrious tradition of 'provencalisants brittaniques' who have contributed this century to the progress of occitan studies. Sharman's edition is competently accomplished, according to the lights of traditional philological procedures which consider as important, nay, essential, the collation of...