One Folie Tristan was composed in England in the last years of the 12th century. (For all these questions see Soc. des Anc.  Textes, Muret’s ed. 1903; Bedier’s ed. 1902-1905).  Less fascinating than the story of Tristan and Iseult, but nevertheless of considerable interest, are the two romans d’aventure of Hugh of Rutland, Ipomedon (published by Koelbing and Koschwitz, Breslau, 1889) and Protesilaus (still unpublished) written about 1185.  The first relates the adventures of a knight who married the young duchess of Calabria, niece of King Meleager of Sicily, but was loved by Medea, the king’s wife.  The second poem is the sequel to Ipomedon, and deals with the wars and subsequent reconciliation between Ipomedon’s sons, Daunus, the elder, lord of Apulia, and Protesilaus, the younger, lord of Calabria.  Protesilaus defeats Daunus, who had expelled him from Calabria.  He saves his brother’s life, is reinvested with the dukedom of Calabria, and, after the death of Daunus, succeeds to Apulia.  He subsequently marries Medea, King Meleager’s widow, who had helped him to seize Apulia, having transferred her affection for Ipomedon to his younger son (cf.  Ward, Cat. of Rom., i. 728).  To these two romances by an Anglo-Norman author, Amadas et Idoine, of which we only possess a continental version, is to be added.  Gaston Paris has proved indeed that the original was composed in England in the 12th century (An English Miscellany presented to Dr. Furnivall in Honour of his Seventy-fifth Birthday, Oxford, 1901, 386-394).  The Anglo-Norman poem on the Life of Richard Coeur de Lion is lost, and an English version only has been preserved.  About 1250 Eustace of Kent introduced into England the roman d’Alexandre in his Roman de toute chevalerie, many passages of which have been imitated in one of the oldest English poems on Alexander, namely, King Alisaunder (P.  Meyer, Alexandre le grand, Paris, 1886, ii. 273, and Weber, Metrical Romances, Edinburgh).

(b) Fableaux, Fables and Religious Tales.—­In spite of the incontestable popularity enjoyed by this class of literature, we have only some half-dozen fableaux written in England, viz. Le chevalier a la corbeille, Le chevalier qui faisait parler les muets, Le chevalier, sa dame et un clerc, Les trois dames, La gageure, Le pretre d’Alison, La bourgeoise d’Orleans (Bedier, Les Fabliaux, 1895).  As to fables, one of the most popular collections in the middle ages was that written by Marie de France, which she claimed to have translated from King Alfred.  In the Contes moralises, written by Nicole Bozon shortly before 1320 (Soc.  Anc.  Textes, 1889), a few fables bear a strong resemblance to those of Marie de France.

The religious tales deal mostly with the Mary Legends, and have been handed down to us in three collections: