Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1981, Side 18
century paper manuscripts, however - neither of the fifteenth-century
vellum fragments preserves the beginning of the saga (see pp. 58-61) -
and some scholars have understandably questioned the credibility of the
information.* * * * 5 After a meticulous analysis of the nature and use of the
exordium in medieval texts, as well as the interrelationship of the surviv-
ing manuscripts of Tristrams saga, Sverrir Tomasson concluded, how-
ever, that the introductory passage in Tristrams saga is a reliable source
of literary history.6 The translator named Robert, who calls himself
Brother in Tristrams saga, seems to be identical with the Abbot Robert
who translated Elie de St. Giile into Norwegian, under the title Elis saga.
Since King Håkon had also commissioned the translation of this French
chanson de geste - as the colophon at the end of the thirteenth-century
manuscript attests - it is probable that the Robert mentioned in Elis saga
is the same, but now older and of higher rank, as the translator of Tristan.
Otherwise nothing is known about the man. His Anglo-Norman name
suggests that he was not a Norwegian, but perhaps “one of those numer-
ous English clerics who crossed the seas to enter monasteries in the
North,”7 and he may have been attached either to the monastery at Lyse
or at Hovedøya, both of which were English foundations.8
gais,” Les relations littéraires franco-scandinaves au Moyen Age, Bibliothéque de la Faculté
de Philosophie et Lettres de l’Université de Liége, Fase. CCVIII (Paris: Société d’Edition
“Les Belles Lettres,” 1975), p. 183. It is difficult if not impossible to attempt any chronolo-
gy of the translated romances on the basis of stylistic considerations alone because of the
lateness of most of the manuscripts.
5 Thorkil Damsgaard Olsen has doubts concerning the credibility of the information in
the prologue to Tristrams saga (see “Den høviske litteratur,” Norrøn fortællekunst. Kapitler
af den norsk-islandske middelalderlitteraturs historie. Hans Bekker-Nielsen, Thorkil Dams-
gaard Olsen, Ole Widding [Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, 1965], p. 116), as does Matti-
as Tveitane, who thinks that “given the lateness of Tristrams saga manuscripts, one should
perhaps be more cautious in taking their assertion [i.e., concerning date and authorship] at
its face value” (Elis saga, Strengleikar, and Other Texts. Corpus Codicum Norvegicorum
Medii Ævi, IV [Oslo: Selskapet til utgivelse av gamle norske håndskrifter, 1972], p. 32).
6 “Hvenær var Tristrams sogu snuid?” Gripla, Il (1977), 47-78.
7 Henry Goddard Leach, Angevin Britain and Scandinavia (Cambridge: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1921), p. 179.
s Tveitane, Elis saga, Strengleikar ..., p. 32; Leach (Angevin Britain) suggested Lyse as
Robert’s monastery, since “the records of Lysa supply us with no abbot from 1194 to 1265.
Robert would admirably fill the gap" (p. 181). Finnur Jonsson, however, believed that
Robert was attached to the monastery of Hovedøya (Den oldnorske og oldislandske littera-
turs historie, vol. II, 2nd ed. [Copenhagen: G.E.C. Gads Forlag. 1923], p. 953), and more
recently Anker Teilgård Laugesen supported his opinion (Om de germanske folks kendskab
til fransk sprog i middelalderen. Studier fra Sprog- og Oldtidsforskning udgivne af Det
Filologisk-historiske Samfund, 217 [Copenhagen: Branner og Korchs Forlag, 1951], p. 49).
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