Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1979, Side 86
A Note on Flores saga ok Blankijlur
By Helle Degnbol
In her article “The riddarasogur and mediæval European literature”1
Geraldine Barnes postulates an affinity between the two West Norse
genres, heilagra manna sogur and translated riddarasogur. She suggests
that hagiographic features were incorporated in the riddarasogur when
they were translated in Norway. Only one riddarasaga, Flores saga ok
Blankijlur, is used to verify the hypothesis. Geraldine Barnes’
observations are unfortunately not accurate, and the presentation is
somewhat biased.
Geraldine Barnes writes that “This translation ... deviates more from
its source than any other riddarasaga and the nature of its alterations is
such that the final stages of the narrative assume a positively
hagiographic quality”2. There is no comment on (the faithfulness of the
Icelandic transmission of the Norwegian translation, and the article does
not arouse any suspicion about the identity of “its source”, despite the
faet that it is of particular relevance in this discussion that the existence
of an Anglo-Norman version be mentioned3. This version is represented
1 Mediaeval Scandinavia, 8 (Odense, 1975), pp. 140-58.
2 P. 155.
3 Geraldine Barnes refers exelusively to the Continental French A text. The edition that
she quotes from. Flore et Blanchejlor, ed. Wilhelmine Wirtz, Frankfurter Quellen und
Forschungen zur germanischen und romanischen Philologie, 15 (Frankfurt am Main,
1937) has been rejected by all reviewers in favour of either' Floire et Blanchejlor, ed.
Margaret Pélan, Publications de la faculté des lettres de l’université de Strasbourg, Textes
d’étude, 7 (Paris, 1937; 2nd ed., 1956) or Li romanz de Floire et Blanchejlor, ed. Felicitas
Kriiger, Romanische Studien, 45 (Berlin, 1938), see for example E. Walberg, Studia
neophilologica, 10 (Uppsala, 1938), pp. 160-65, and Ivor Arnold, Medium Æcum, 8 (Oxford,
1939), pp. 225-28; cf. also Maurice Delbouille, "Tout ou toute aux vers 1251 ss de Floire et