Prise d'Orange

The "Prise d'Orange" (English: "Conquest (or Seizure) of Orange"), is an Old French "chanson de geste" from the end of the twelfth-centuryHasenohr, 1204-5.] , part of the cycle of "chansons" concerning Guillaume (or William) of Orange, generally referred to collectively as the "Geste de Guillaume d'Orange". Its plot concerns William's conquest of the city of Orange from the Saracens and of his marriage to its queen Orable, renamed Guibourc.

The poem comprises 1,888 decasyllable verses in assonanced laisses. The poem exists in a number of manuscripts with other chansons from the same cycle. Compared to earlier "chansons de geste", its tone is frequently playful, comic and parodic and it introduces romantic (courtly love) elements taken from the medieval romance.

Plot

The story is as follows: an escaped prisoner from Orange (Guillebert) comes to William in Nîmes and describes to him the beauties of the Saracen held city and of its queen Orable. William decides to see it for himself and succeeds in wooing the queen. After a series of adventures, William takes the city and marries a newly baptized Orable, renamed Guibourc.

References

*fr icon Geneviève Hasenohr and Michel Zink, eds. "Dictionnaire des lettres françaises: Le Moyen Age". Collection: La Pochothèque. Paris: Fayard, 1992. ISBN 2-2530-5662-6
*en icon Urban T. Holmes, Jr.. "A History of Old French Literature from the Origins to 1300". New York: F.S. Crofts, 1938.