ABSTRACT
Were it feasible to characterize in a single word the medieval experience of text, that word might well be “protean,” or ever-changing. The medieval text, far from being immutable, was constantly evolving, becoming, assuming new forms, through centuries of shifting values, both aesthetic and social. Indeed, the very concepts of completeness and even of authorship were in flux. Critical efforts in other areas, notably those of Paul Zumthor with respect to courtly literature, have served to refocus the question, considering patterns of textual shift in addition to those of textual genesis. With respect to the Old French epic, however, the ground has scarcely been broken, as the concept of the text-archive has long predominated in the field of epic criticism. It is immediately obvious that no single study could hope to consider the entire body of the French epic repertory, including its derivations, on an international scale.
