ABSTRACT
'The Seege or Batayle might be entertainment for the common folk, but its crude unlearned approach disqualified it from claiming the attention of any serious audience'. The assumption which underlies all twentieth-century criticism of The Seege of Troye is that it was intended for a 'popular audience with little learning and less time'. The Seege is the earliest Middle English treatment of the Trojan War, and, as its manuscripts attest, it enjoyed the attention of a diverse audience eager to exploit its generic fluidity. The Seege opens quickly with a concise account of its initial aventure, the first round-trip sea voyage. The depiction of the knight in The Seege of Troye as just an adventurer is signalled by the blatantly acquisitive dynamic of the initial aventure, and it is further underscored in the account of Hector's death.
