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Guillaume de Dole

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The poem tells of the adventures of the title character and his sister Liénor. Guillaume is accepted at the court of Emperor Conrad who has fallen in love with Liénor despite his earlier aversion to love and marriage. Guillaume becomes one of the emperor's favorites and marriage negotiations proceed in a positive manner. The emperor's seneschal, however, discovers an intimate detail about Liénor's body and uses it to insinuate to the emperor and his court that she is no longer a virgin; the clever Liénor, with a ruse, proves his accusation false and marries the emperor.

Manuscript, date, author

Manuscript

Guillaume de Dole is extant in a single manuscript in the Vatican library, MS Regina 1725. Todd dates it in the 14th century, others in the late 13th century. The manuscript contains:

  • Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, by Chrétien de Troyes (first part missing), 1-34b;
  • Yvain, the Knight of the Lion, also by Chrétien, 34c-68b;
  • Guillaume de Dole, 68c-98c;
  • Meraugis de Portlesguez, by Raoul de Houdenc, 98d-130d.

The manuscript's first known owner was 16th-century French historian Claude Fauchet; it was part of his extensive collection, and it is due to "Fauchet's zeal as a collector" that the manuscript and therefore the poem are preserved. During the French Wars of Religion, Fauchet fled Paris and his collection was dispersed. The next mention of the manuscript is as part of the library of Paul Pétau, and in 1650 it was acquired by Christina, Queen of Sweden. The Vatican library acquired the manuscript after 1689.

Date and title

The opening lines of the poem contain a dedication to Miles de Nanteuil, an early 13th-century churchman who was elected (but not confirmed) in 1201 as archbishop of Reims, and later became bishop of Beauvais, in northern France; he died circa 1235. According to Todd, the nobleman de Nanteuil may have been too young and wild to be elevated to the archbishopric, but this would have made him a good candidate for Renart's dedication. This, plus evidence based on other names found in the poem, led Todd to conclude that the poem was composed around the year 1200. Later critics and researchers, however, date the poem between 1204 and 1228, and tend toward the earlier date.

In the manuscript, the poem is called Romans de la Rose (l. 11), and hence Le Roman de la Rose, but it is often referred to as Roman de la Rose, or Guillaume de Dole in order to avoid confusion with Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun's Roman de la Rose; Guillaume de Dole is a subtitle added by Fauchet.

Authorship

It wasn't until the late 19th century that scholars (including Paul Meyer) began entertaining the notion that Jean Renart, until then only known as the presumptive author of the Lai de l'Ombre, might also be responsible for either or both of the two contemporary romances L'Escoufle and Guillaume de Dole. F. M. Warren of Yale University, in a 1908 article, is one of the early proponents of identifying Renart as the author of all three, based on versification, phrasing, and vocabulary, and places the development of his poetic talent between 1195 and 1205. The next-to-last line of the poem contains an anagram on Renart's name: "...qu'il enTRA EN Religion."

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