D. W. Russell (review)

Abstract

MLRy ioo.i, 2005 209 mentor, until jealous rivals falsely accused him of adultery with the king's wife. This led to a temporary departure from his entourage, but he was recalled to favour just before the young king fell ill and died. William then accompanied his body to Rouen for burial and took his cross to Jerusalem, in accordance with his dying wish. On his return he joined the old king's household and became involved in Henry's lengthy territorial struggles with the King of France. After Henry H's death King Richard confirmed Henry's giftof a wife forWilliam, and he was appointed an adviser to the chancellor leftbehind in England to look afteraffairswhile Richard went on the crusade . William was then involved on Richard's side in the political manoeuvring that took place in the king's absence. The volume ends in mid-sentence with Richard's triumphant return to England. The narrative is full of incident, often with everyday details and even some amusing moments, such as the picture of William having his helmet prised offat a forge after it had been dented in a tournament! There is every reason to believe that the poem has been scrupulously copied and edited, while the translation, by Stewart Gregory, is accurate and lively. This augurs well for the subsequent volumes. University of Birmingham Leslie C. Brook La vye de seyntFraunceys dAssise (MS Paris, BNF, Fonds Francais 13505). Ed. by D. W. Russell and others. (Anglo-Norman Text Society, 59-60) London: Birkbeck College. 2002. x + 338pp. ?60. ISBN 0-905474-43-0. This translation of Bonaventure's Life of St Francis of Assisi (d. 3 October 1226) is the earliest extant Anglo-Norman version that is known (MS Paris BNF ffr.13505 di? vided forsale from MS 115 ofthe Norman Abbey of Saint-Evroul). The manuscript is dated after 1273, by internal evidence of the year when Bonaventure was nominated cardinal, and before 1275, when certain additions to Bonaventure's Life were autho? rized, which are not included here. The challenge of reading this translation is rather like trying to appreciate Boethius's Latin Consolatiophilosophiaeby way of Chaucer's Middle English. In this case, the anonymous translator's obscurities may often be attributed to confusion between three languages, Latin, English, and French, or at least resolved by consulting early extant versions in these languages. At times, the translator's persona intrudes into the text as distinguishable from that of St Bonaven? ture. He repeatedly refers to his Latin source (Bonaventure's Legenda maior), which he tends to condense rather than amplify for a popular audience. By adding a list of chapter titles to the beginning of Book 11,the Anglo-Norman translator establishes a pleasing symmetry between the two books here, both of ten chapters and both in? troduced by tables in rhyming couplets. Book 1 treats the life proper, while Book 11 handles all the post mortem miracles. Unfortunately, the loss of the last folio, with room fora maximum of 152 lines, excludes the possibility of a colophon in which the translator might have identified himself. Beneath the linguistic layering, however, the recognizable St Francis appears as the ascetic lover of the natural world and the disenfranchised poor, especially lepers, coloured by the scholastic terminology in which Bonaventure clothes mystical experience, above all the stigmata. Nevertheless, the interest of this volume lies not in the saint himself so much as in the Anglo-Norman text. The reader interested in St Francis of Assisi and his historical context will find more accessible information elsewhere. As an editor who inherited a substantial legacy from H. S. F. Collins and the late A. R. Harden, who began the edition, D. W. Russell presents a focused introduction with a valuable guide to the language of the text. The unfinished narrative poem of 8,727 lines is cumbersome in both length and language. Since the period after 1250 210 Reviews is one of degeneracy in Anglo-Norman, it is not surprising to discover an extravagant fluidityof gender and a great wafHing of cases in vestiges of the cas regimeand cas sujet, not to mention the occasional 'ambivalence between preterite and present...