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The Home of the Beves Saga

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Prentiss C. Hoyt
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Extract

The question of the original home of the Beves saga has often been discussed, but no satisfactory conclusion has been reached. The conjectures regarding it have been various, but as yet unconvincing.

Amaury Duval 1 places the scene of the story in France at Antonne, but without giving definite grounds for this supposition. Turnbull 2 and Kölbing3 both adopt this view without argument. Pio Rajna4 was the first to suggest a Germanic home for the saga, locating Hanstone (Hamtoun) on the continent near the French border of Germany. The arguments given are unimportant, but this view of the origin has been accepted by Gaston Paris,5 although he takes exception to Rajna's wildest suppositions as to the name Hanstone. Albert Stimming6 has exposed the weakness of Rajna's reasoning, but even he leaves the question still unsettled. Later in his introduction, he gives impartially the arguments in favor of French as well as those in favor of Germanic origin, but does not regard them as sufficient ground for forming an opinion. These comprise the conjectures thus far advanced, and all are weakly supported and inconclusive.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , 1902 , pp. 237 - 246
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1902

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References

Note 1 in page 237 Histoire Litteraire de la France, xviii, pp. 750 ff.

Note 2 in page 237 Sir Beves of Hamtown, pp. xv ff. (1837).

Note 3 in page 237 Sir Beves of Hamtoun (E. E. T. S.), p. xxxiv (1885).

Note 4 in page 237 I Reali di Francia, pp. 123 ff. (1872).

Note 5 in page 237 Romania, ii, 359.

Note 6 in page 237 Der Anglonormannische Boeve de Haumtone, pp. clxxxi ff. (1899).

Note 1 in page 238 Stimming, in his list of parallels, notices a resemblance in episodes only, not in the whole outline, and draws no conclusions. He says: “Das Liebesverhältnis zwischen Boeve und Josiane berührt sich in mehreren Punkten mit dem zwischen Horn und Rimel. Auch Horn wird von Winkle, gegen dem er sich freundlich bewiesen, verleumderischerweise angeklagt, Rimel beschlafen zu haben, und letztere soll gegen ihrem. Willen gewaltsam verheiratet werden.” (p. cxc.)

Note 1 in page 239 References in the Beves are to the A text of Kölbing's edition.

Note 1 in page 244 Two episodes—Beves's swimming the sea on Trinchefis (1811–1818), and the island duel (4137–4239)—may, at first thought, be excluded from these classes. When considered in connection with their setting of commonplace romantic material, they show at once that they are elements quite unessential to the main story, and chosen by the author for variety only.

Note 1 in page 246 This is probably what is alluded to as “a kernel of genuine English tradition” by Prof. George H. McKnight, p. vii of the introduction to his edition of King Horn, just published in the E. E. T. S. series (1901).

Note 2 in page 246 Sir Thomas Elyot, The Boke named the Governour, H. H. S. Croft's edition, i. 184.

Note 3 in page 246 Thomas Fuller, Worthies of England, under Souldiers of Hantshire.