{{Short description|Chivalric romance about the English baron Fulk III FitzWarin}} {{italic title}} '''''Fouke le Fitz Waryn''''' is a chivalric romance about the English baron Fulk III FitzWarin, written during the later 13th century, when the actual events of Fulk's life were still in living memory or common report.<ref name="London 1855">T. Wright (ed. and transl.), ''The History of Fulk Fitz Warine, an Outlawed Baron in the Reign of King John'', Warton Club, [https://archive.org/details/historyoffulkfit00wriguoft/page/176/mode/2up (London 1855)] (Internet Archive).</ref> Probably originally composed in Old French verse, it survives only in an early 14th-century French prose version in a single manuscript in the Royal manuscripts, British Library, which is thought to follow the lost verse quite closely.<ref>'Royal 12. C.xii. ff. 36-60 b. Fulk Fitz-Warin', in H.L.D. Ward (ed.), ''Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum'' (Trustees of the British Museum, London 1883), I, [https://archive.org/details/catalogueromanc00wardgoog/page/n524/mode/2up pp. 501–08] (Internet Archive). Image Courtesy of British Library at [http://www.llangollenmuseum.org.uk/MythsAndLegends/DinasBran/Fitzwarren2.jpg Llangollen Museum website]. View the entire manuscript digitised at [http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=royal_ms_12_c_xii_fs001r British Library website]{{Dead link|date=May 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}.</ref> The 16th-century antiquary John Leland saw and briefly described the French verse version,<ref>T. Hearne (ed.), ''Joannis Lelandi Antiquarii De Rebvs Britannicis Collectanea'', 2nd, enlarged edition, 6 vols (W. and J. Richardson, London 1770), I, [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433075905665&view=1up&seq=376 pp. 236–37, representing fols. 268-69] (HathiTrust).</ref> and made an extended abstract from a Middle English verse version called ''The Nobile Actes of the Guarines'',<ref>Hearne (ed.), ''Joannis Lelandi Antiquarii De Rebvs Britannicis Collectanea'', I, [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433075905665&view=1up&seq=370 pp. 230–36, representing fols. 261-68] (HathiTrust).</ref> the original of which is also lost. Various contemporary references show that the tale was widely-known in the later Middle Ages.<ref>K. Bedford, 'Fouke le Fitz Waryn: Outlaw or Chivalric Hero?', in A.L. Kaufman (ed.), ''British Outlaws of Literature and History: Essays on Medieval and Early Modern Figures from Robin Hood to Twm Shon Catty'' (McFarland & Co., Jefferson, NC 2011), pp. 99–99.</ref>
In recent years the work has proved a fruitful and versatile resource for the speculative analysis of its themes and its representation of literary archetypes. The ''Fouke le Fitz Waryn'' narrative, while constructed around historical events and factual or quasi-factual information, is not a fully historical account.<ref>"Nous sommes obligés de laisser de côté ces hauts faits, dont les uns appartiennent au domaine de la fable, et les autres à celui de l'histoire" – A. de Barthélemy, 'Joscelin de Dinan, Seigneur de Ludlow, en Schroppshire (XIIe siècle)', ''Mélanges historiques et archéologiques sur la Bretagne'', 2e série, 1er fascicule (Aug. Aubry, Paris 1868), pp. 35–47, [https://books.google.com/books?id=ltpEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA46 at p. 46] (Google).</ref> It cultivates the literary and social preoccupations and heroic landscapes of its age, and is consciously absorbed within the framework of legendary and folkloric themes which are sometimes referred to as the "Matter of England".<ref name=boundaries>N. Cartlidge, ''Boundaries in Medieval Romance'', (D.S. Brewer, 2008), pp. 29–42. {{ISBN|1-84384-155-X}}, 9781843841555.</ref> That term should not deflect the recognition that the literary and cultural, as well as the geographical, landscape which the real Fulk inhabited was equally English and Welsh in outlook,<ref name="biography.wales">I.J. Sanders, 'Fitz Warin lords of Whittington and Alderbury (Salop) and Alveston (Gloucs.)', ''Y Bywgraffiadur Cymreig '' (1959), [https://biography.wales/article/s-FITZ-WAR-1130 (Welsh Dictionary of National Biography online)].</ref> as it was also French and Latin in language.
About one-third of the text sets up the historical backdrop to Fulk's life, through his father and grandfather FitzWarin (who merge into one figure) and his grandfather Josce de Dinan, their relations with the Peverels during the Anarchy, and the confrontations of the English and Welsh rulers. Themes of outlawry, dispossession and restitution, adventure and occasional piety surround the main subject, culminating in Fulk's second marriage, blindness, death, and burial at Alberbury. Its tales of mysterious lands, imprisoned maidens, prophecies and similarly allegorical or chivalric material are instructive in the operations of the romance idiom. Some episodes have been compared to elements of the Robin Hood legends.<ref>'Introduction' to ''Fouke le Fitz Waryn'', in S. Knight and T.H. Ohlgren (eds), ''Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales'' (Medieval Institute Publications, Kalamazoo, Michigan 1997).</ref><ref>R. Kiessmann, ''Untersuchungen über die Motive der Robin-Hood-Balladen'' Inaugural-Dissertation. (E. Karras, Halle a.S. 1895), [https://archive.org/details/untersuchungenb00kiesgoog/page/n5/mode/2up pp. 28–31 and passim] (Internet Archive).</ref>
==Editions== * F. Michel (ed.), ''Histoire de Foulques Fitz-Warin, d'après un Manuscrit du Musée Britannique'' [https://books.google.com/books?id=ZOk9AAAAcAAJ (Silvestre Libraire, Paris 1840)]. (Google) (Edition without translation, but includes the Leland abstracts). * T. Wright (ed. and translator), ''The History of Fulk FitzWarin, an Outlawed Baron, in the Reign of King John'', edited from a manuscript preserved in the British Museum, with an English translation and illustrative notes (Printed for the Warton Club, London, 1855). [https://archive.org/details/historyoffulkfit00wriguoft/page/n5/mode/2up at pp. 1–183 text, pp. 183–231 notes]. * J. Stephenson (ed. and translator), 'The Legend of Fulk FitzWarin' (parallel French text and English translation), in ''Rerum Britannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores'', Rolls Series Vol. 66: ''Radulphi de Coggeshall Chronicon Anglicanum'' (etc.) (Longman & Co., Trübner & Co., London 1875), [https://books.google.com/books?id=mdvUAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA277 at pp. 277–415] (Google). * A.C. Wood (ed.), ''Fulk Fitz-Warin. Text, and a Study of the Language'' (Blades, East and Blades, London 1911). * L. Brandin (ed.), ''Fouke Fitz Warin'', Les Classiques françaises du Moyen Age (Paris 1930). * E.J. Hathaway (ed.), ''Fouke le Fitz Waryn'', Anglo-Norman Text Society (Basil Blackwell, Oxford 1976).
==References== {{reflist}}
Category:English heroic legends Category:Medieval French romances Category:13th-century literature