Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series B - 01.10.1983, Page 15

XIII
INTRODUCTION
Partalopa saga (henceforward abbreviated Partal.) is
counted among the translated riddarasogur, i.e. the
riddarasogur for which a foreign (French) source can
be identified.1 The source for Partal. is the French
romance Partonopeus de Blois, either in the surviving
version2 or in a lost version (cf. below). The surviving
version has been assumed to have been composed c.
1182-85 (Anthime Fourrier, Le courant réaliste dans
le roman courtois en France au moyen-áge I (Paris,
1960), p. 384) or 1170-80 (F. Lecoy in Annuaire du
Collége de France 57 (1957), p. 406).
The subject matter of Partal. was treated in several
languages in the medieval period. The texts can be
divided into two main groups, the Y-class (in which
the romance begins in France, the birthplace of the
hero) and the Z-class (in which the romance begins in
Greece, the birthplace of the heroine).3 To the Y-
1 The dividing line between this group and later imitations
composed in Iceland (‘original’ riddarasogur) is not clear; see
E. F. Halvorsen, ‘Riddersagaer’, KLNM 14 (1969), cols. 175-83.
2 Editions: 1. Partonopeus de Blois, ed. A. C. M. Robert & G.-A.
Crapelet, I-II (Paris, 1834). 2. Partonopeu de Blois, ed. Joseph
Gildea, O.S.A., I-II, with an introduction by Leon Smith (ob. 1964)
(Villanova, Pennsylvania, 1967-70).
3 Eugen Kölbing, ‘Die verschiedenen Gestaltungen der Partono-
peus-Sage’, Germanistische Studien (Supplement zur Germania) 2
(Wien, 1875), pp. 55-114; idem, ‘Ueber die englischen versionen
der Partonopeussage’, Beitráge zur vergleichenden geschichte der
romantischen poesie und prosa des mittelalters (Breslau, 1876), pp.
85-91; A. Trampe Bodtker, Parténopeus de Blois. Etude compara-