ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the preservation of the Canso d'Antioca in thirteenth-century Spain, both in Madrid manuscript Codex 117 and in the late thirteenth-century Gran Conquista de Ultramar (GCU). The GCU combines epic and chronicle sources in a way well established in Spanish literature. The chapter explores at some length sections of the GCU which are likely to have drawn on lost parts of the Canso tradition. It describes what is known of Gregory Bechada's work on the First Crusade and considers its date and purpose of composition. The chapter shows how references to the text in other works reflect a resurgence of interest in the late twelfth century focused around the figure of Gouffier of Lastours. It conclude that the Madrid manuscript represents a late and fragmentary stage of a tradition which began in the first third of the twelfth century with Bechada's poem.
