Materials for an Edition of Gui de Bourgogne*

O SATISFACTORY ACCOUNT of the textual transmission of the early-thirteenth-century chanson de geste Gui de Bourgogne has to date appeared in print.1 This seems to reflect a gradual loss of critical interest since the end of the last century, despite the fact that the poem deals with the assistance rendered to Charlemagne in Spain by Gui shortly before Rencesvals and reworks material from the Chanson de Roland.2 The only published text is that prepared by Frédéric Guessard and Henri Michelant to initiate the series Les Anciens Poëtes de la France which ap-*I am extremely grateful to Drs. Bröning (Handschriftenabteilung, Hessische Landes- und Hochschulbibliothek, Darmstadt) and Ragot (Conservaleur, Bibliothèque Mu-nicipale de Tours) for the pains they took to faci li tate my researches on the manuscripts in their keeping. 1The theme of the poem is succinctly alluded to in the Chanson de Gaydon, which is not earlier than ca. 1230, according to J. Subrenat. Étude sur Gaydon, chanson de geste du XIIIe siècle (Aix-en-Provence, 1974), p. 27. In the edition by Guessard (Anciens poëtes de la France, 7) we read (vv. 8-10): "Aprèz, de Charle, notre emperere ber / Qui en Es-pagne fu tant por conquester, / Qu'aprez les peres convint les fiuls aler. " In the second half of the thirteenth century, Les deux bourdeurs ribauds, an invective by one jongleur against an-other, humorously interverts the titles of celebrated epic poems, including Gui de Bourgogne