SOURCE: “The Epic Cycle of the Crusades” in A History of the Crusades, Vol. VI: The Impact of the Crusades on Europe, edited by Kenneth M. Setton, University of Canterbury, 1989, pp. 98–115.

In the following essay, Foulet examines the content and form of two epic cycles about the Crusades—the first written at the end of the twelfth century, and the second composed during the 1350s.

“The Epic Cycle of the Crusades” is the name commonly given to two different cycles, composed in different centuries but related in subject matter, and both written in Old French dodecasyllabic verse. The first was apparently begun toward the end of the twelfth century by a versifier named Graindor of Douai, who rewrote and amalgamated three previously independent poems, La Chanson d’Antioche, Les Chétifs (the Captives), and La Conquête de Jérusalem, which dealt with the First Crusade. Graindor's compilation...