Richard Coer de Lyon is a Middle English popular verse romance which gives a fictionalised account of the life of Richard I, King of England, concentrating on his exploits in the Third Crusade. It was written around the start of the fourteenth century, and exists in two major versions, one shorter and more historical (the B-version), one longer and containing much more outright fiction (the A-version); the longer version is notorious for its portrayal of Richard as a cannibal.
Summary
A-versions of the romance begin with a fantastical account of Richard's birth. Henry II, in search of a queen, wed Cassodorien, the daughter of the king of Antioch. The pair have three children, Richard, John, and Topyas. They live happily, except Cassodorien always leaves Mass before the elevation of the Host. After Henry forces her to witness it she flies through the church roof, Topyas in tow, and disappears. Richard eventually succeeds Henry II to the throne at the age of 15 on his father's death.
The text then details a tournament in which Richard, in disguise, attempts to determine his best knights. Most impressed by Sir Thomas Multon and Sir Fulk Doyly, who defeat Richard, Richard selects them to join him on a secret mission to the Holy Land. After they visit the Holy Land, they begin the return to England. Their progress is halted when they are imprisoned by the King of Almayn. It is only after Richard kills and eats the heart of a lion that they are all able to return to England.
The rest of the poem details the events of the Third Crusade. After learning of Saladin's attack against Christendom in eastern Europe, the pope calls for aid. Richard, the king of France, the duke of Austria, and the emperor of Almayne respond to his call. After a series of internal struggles with the King of France, the crusaders journey to the holy land, laying siege Cyprus along the way.
Once Richard and the others reach the Holy Land and join the siege of Acre, Richard falls ill. He asks for pork, but there is none. He is revived after being fed a young Saracen. When this cannibalism is revealed to a recovered Richard he laughs and celebrates that his troops won't starve as long as there are Saracens. Revived, Richard leads a victorious assault on Acre. When the Saracens arrive to talk terms, they are served the boiled heads of the Saracen prisoners of war. The Saracens return to their sultan Saladin to report that Richard intends to stay in the Holy Land until the Christians have eaten every Saracen.
A series of battles follow, culminating in two events: Phillip, King of France's betrayal of the Christian forces and Richard's tournament with Saladin. Phillip accepts a bribe from the Saracens to end the siege against Babylon. Saladin subsequently challenges Richard to a tournament. With the help of an angel who informs Richard that Saladin's horse is a demon in disguise, Richard eventually defeats Saladin. Saladin flees.
The poem concludes, after a description of Richard's hearing of John's betrayal and self-appointment as king of England, with an account of a final battle that precedes Saladin's declaring a truce during which time Richard will return to England to secure his lands. The poem then briefly details Richard's death.
Text
Manuscripts
Richard Coer de Lyon ('Richard the Lionheart') survives in seven manuscripts (MSS), with dates spanning the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and two early printed editions. In his 1913 German edition, Karl Brunner assigned each MS a letter for quicker reference and identified two as containing the longer A-version of the romance, five the shorter B-version. This article uses a plain type capital letter when referring to a single manuscript (e.g. "the text of A") and an italicised capital letter followed by a hyphen when referring to one of the two versions ("an edition of the B-version").
Details of the manuscripts
The A-version is preserved in MS London, BL Additional 31042 (manuscript B, "Thornton") and MS Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College 175/96 (C, "Cambridge"), and the B-version in the other five manuscripts: MS London, College of Arms HDN 58 (A); MS Oxford, Bodleian 21802 (D, formerly Douce 228); MS London, BL Egerton 2862 (E); MS London, BL Harley 4690 (H); and MS Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland Advocates' 19.2.1 (L, "Auchinleck"). One other MS, Gloucestershire Archives D2700/V/1 8 (formerly Badminton House 704.1.16), preserves fragments totalling 160 lines, too little to determine whether it represents an A- or B-version; it is closest in wording to the D manuscript, but not directly related to it.
All the manuscripts are incomplete and in some only a fraction of the text survives. The full A-text is something over 7000 lines long depending on editorial choices – Peter Larkin's 2015 edition comes in at 7240 – and the longest of the A-version manuscripts, the Thornton MS, preserves about 6400 lines. None of the MSS of the B-version retain more than ~3700 lines, but Philida Schellekens finds 5247 distinct lines of the poem preserved across the four manuscripts L, A, D and E.
The two surviving printed editions were both produced by Wynkyn de Worde, in 1509 (W) and 1528 (W2), and are generally grouped with the A-version. A 1568 or 1569 printing license issued to Thomas Purfoote is known from the Stationers' Register; if Purfoote did print an edition, it does not survive. George Ellis mentions another undated printing by "W.C." but provides no details. De Worde's edition is the only complete text of the poem. WitnessOther names / NotesBrunner's letterText versionProbable dateLines preservedMS London, BL Additional 31042the "London Thornton MS" or "Thornton MS"BA-versionlate 1400s~6400MS Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College 175/96the "Cambridge MS"CA-version1400s6013MS London, College of Arms HDN 58AB-version1400-14503686MS Oxford, Bodleian 21802formerly Douce 228DB-versionlate 1400s3345MS London, BL Egerton 2862EB-version, but includes 1 of 2 cannibalism episodeslate 1300s~3500MS London, BL Harley 4690HB-version1400s1354MS Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland Advocates' 19.2.1the Auchinleck Manuscript; other fragments of same document at Edinburgh University Library MS 218 and St Andrews University Library MS PR 2065 R.4LB-version1330s ~1040MS Gloucestershire Archives D2700/V/1 8formerly Badminton House 704.1.16unclearearly 1400s160Wynkyn de Worde's first printingTwo extant copies: Oxford, Bodleian Crynes 734 and Manchester, John Rylands Library Deansgate 15843WA-version, but leaves out the adventures of Thomas Multon and Fulke D'Oyly1509CompleteWynkyn de Worde's second printingTwo extant copies: Oxford, Bodleian S. Seld. D. 45 (1) and London, BL C.40.c.51W2As W1528Complete
Relationships of the surviving manuscripts As well as splitting the texts into two groups based on whether they contain the longer or shorter version, Brunner offers a tentative stemma proposing two lost earlier MS of the B-version, one of which is the ancestor of L, E and D and the other of A and H; and that the A-version had at least one lost MS which was the source for the sixteenth-century printed W text and which pre-dated B and C. However, there are many points of similarity between manuscripts Brunner considered only distantly related, including cases where a manuscript of the A-version and a manuscript of the B-version share distinctive wording with each other, but not with the other MSS of the same version of the text.
John Finlayson proposes grouping the manuscripts into three sets rather than two: the B-version (L+A+D+E+H), the A-version (B+C), and a third surviving only in the print edition W/W2, based on the A-version but which deliberately leaves out some of the ahistorical material the A-version otherwise contains. Maria Cristina Figueredo proposes four: a more historical, pre-B-version attested only by L; the B-version (A+D+H); the A-version (B+C+W/W2); and a fourth version represented only by manuscript E, closer to the B-version but incorporating one of the cannibalism episodes otherwise only seen in the A-version. Given the amount of variation and the number of possible groupings, Heather Blurton suggests that Richard Coer de Lyon "is perhaps better thought of as a romance tradition rather than a singular romance".
Many medieval romances were transmitted at different times both by copying previous manuscripts, and by copying down recitations by a disour (performer) who might themselves have learned either from another performer or from a printed copy or both. The wide variation between texts of Richard might be the result of this kind of cyclical movement between oral and written forms. The B manuscript includes a couplet requesting a pause to drink, just before the description of the climactic battle: "And for the luf of God Allemyȝte / Ffill þe coppe oneane righte" [And for the love of God Almighty / Fill the cup at once] (ll.6668-69), suggesting that it is a copy (or a copy of a copy) of a spoken performance.
A- and B-versions Scholars broadly agree that the shorter version of the poem is older, with the longer narrative emerging later and adding in "floating scraps of tradition" about Richard from various sources, incidents from other texts repurposed to be about Richard's adventures, and generic "romance elements, legends and folk motifs".
The narrative of the B-version overall follows Richard's real actions in the Third Crusade, although not in correct chronological order and with much left out. However, before the start of the crusade narrative proper, it includes a number of ahistorical incidents, such as a three-day tournament, Richard making a pilgrimage, and a heavily fictionalised version of Richard's imprisonment on the Continent by "King Modard of Almayne" (in reality this was Leopold of Austria, and happened after the Third Crusade rather than before it). The prison episode also recounts the story of Richard gaining his nickname by killing a lion and eating its heart.
The A-version retains this material and inserts several additional fictional episodes not in the B-version. These include:
a long section near the start relating the tale of the Saracen princess Cassodorien, who marries King Henry and becomes Richard's mother, only to fly away through the church roof when forced to stay to the end of Mass (a story associated with several medieval queens, related to the Melusine legend; in reality Richard's mother was Eleanor of Aquitaine); various heroic deeds attributed to two real but historically unexceptional Lincolnshire knights, Thomas of Multon and Fulk D'Oyly, likely added by an author commissioned by or seeking patronage from their descendants; Richard's return to Germany to take revenge on King Modard for imprisoning him, and his killing of the king's son in a duel; two scenes of cannibalism, the first where a sick Richard is served human flesh by his servants when they are unable to find the pork he demands, and the second as a deliberate means of intimidating Saladin's emissaries after the fall of Acre. Maria Cristina Figueredo's 2009 edition of the Thornton MS text includes a comprehensive side-by-side chart of which episodes appear in which manuscripts.
Modern editions