ABSTRACT
Until the work of David Ricks, the Spanish epic seems to have been little mentioned in the wider discussion of parallels between the Byzantine and French epics, and of the general question of contacts between East and West (Ricks 1990; Cohen 1950; Fenik 1991; Gregoire 1931a, 1942,1946; E.Jeffreys 1980; M. Jeffreys 1978). An important exception is an essay published in the Festschrift for Henri Gregoire, in which Ramon Menendez Pidal celebrated the work of his fellow-traditionalist by drawing attention to his own discovery of the historical situation which, in his view, underlay the lost epic of the Siete Infantes deLara (Menendez Pidal 1950). Mention of the Siete Infantes reminds us that the Spanish epic extends beyond the Poema de Mio Cid. Though the latter work is the best-known and longest survivor of the genre, and has been usefully exploited by David Ricks in the introduction and commentary which accompany his edition of the Escorial Digenes Akrites? as well as forming the basis for a general comparative article by Adriana Beatriz Martino (1986), it is somewhat exceptional within the Spanish epic, and it may therefore be helpful to extend our perspective by using additional texts.
