Béroul (or Beroul;NormanBerox[1]) was aNorman orBreton poet of the mid-to-late12th century. He is usually credited with the authorship ofTristran (sometimes calledTristan), aNorman language version of the legend ofTristan and Iseult, of which just under 4500 verses survive in a manuscript of the 13th century. His name is known only from two references in the text of the poem.[1]
Tristran is the earliest representation of the "common" or "vulgar" version of the legend (the earliest surviving "courtly" version beingThomas of Britain's).[2] The first half of Béroul's poem is closely paralleled by and related toEilhart von Oberge's treatment inGerman from the same century,[3] and many of the episodes that appear in Béroul but not Thomas reappear in the laterProseTristan. Because of its early date, Béroul'sTristran has been used extensively for the purpose oftextual criticism, especially in the effort to reconstruct the "Ur-Tristan," the hypothetical first ancestor of all the subsequent Tristan and IseultRomances.[4] Stylistically, the poem belongs to the transition inOld French literature fromepic toromance.[5] While not as popular asGottfried von Strassburg'sTristan, Béroul's text remains widely acclaimed for its style and thematic content.[6]
Béroul's poem survives in a single manuscript now in theBibliothèque Nationale in Paris, which is missing the first and final sections of the poem. The manuscript also has severallacunae.[7][8] The text's condition is poor—possibly corrupt—and debate over the history of the story's transmission, number of authors, and role of scribes continues.[9] Modern questions of authorship now center on whether one or two authors are responsible for the majority of the text—claims of multiple authors, fashionable in the beginning of the 20th century, have not gained wide acceptance.[10][11]
