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Dufournet, Jean. Jean Renarti Le Roman de la Rose ou de Guillaume de Dole. Presentation and translation of the text edited by Félix Lecoy (1979). Paris: Champion, 2008. Pp. 480.
This Romance of the Rose, dated c. 1208-10 (according to Rita Lejeune) and created by Jean Renart, alias Hugues de Pierrepont, has little in common with the famous work of Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun (cl 230C.1270) by the same title. We summarize Dufournet's analysis of Renart' s romance (14-17).
Renart was a minstrel's pseudonym for Hugues (prince-bishop of the Liège region, who may not have been able to sign the profane works he wrote). Here, Renart presents to us a juggler (Jouglet) who speaks to the German emperor Conrad about the beautiful Lienor and her brother Guillaume de Dole (a city in the Jura mountains). Conrad is as yet unmarried, and the description of Lienor makes him wish to have her as a bride; he contacts her brother - but a jealous sénéchal decides to hinder the proceedings (and the story becomes a wager, questioning her virginity) : the sénéchal visits the girl's house, where her mother tells him about a red rose visible on Lienor's thigh, so that he later boasts to have seen the beauty intimately (=raped her). The knight Guillaume, now at Conrad's court, falls into melancholy, and the emperor is desperately sad. Nevertheless, Lienor decides to defend herself (by a ruse, dol in French) in the open court: she accuses indeed the sénéchal of rape. The traitor asks for an ordeal by God (jugement) and is exonerated, and so is the girl. Everyone is happy, the sénéchal is condemned (for his lies) to become a crusader (!), and the marriage...