SOURCE: "Beves of Hampton" in Medieval Romance in England, Oxford University Press, 1924, pp. 115-26, 321-26.

In the essay below, Hibbard offers an overview of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century scholarship regarding the oldest versions, the sources, and the composition date of Bevis of Hampton.

Versions. The hero who bears the name of Beves of Hampton (Boeve de Hamptone, Hanstone) might well be described as an international character. The wide wandering of his story was like his own fabled adventuring from Hampton to Damascus. Versions in English, Welsh, Irish, French, Dutch, Scandinavian, Italian, attest the popularity of him who became even in Russia the most acclimated hero of the chivalric epic (Wesselofsky; cf. Rom. XVIII, 313). The story of the loss and recovery of his inheritance, his fights with Saracens and dragons, his marriage with a converted princess, his gaining of innumerable possessions, is distinctive chiefly for its amazing absorption of familiar...