Benoît de Sainte-Maure

Benoît de Sainte-Maure (French pronunciation: ​[bənwa də sɛ̃t moʁ]; died 1173) was a 12th-century French poet, most probably from Sainte-Maure de Touraine near Tours, France. The Plantagenets' administrative center was located in Chinon, west of Tours.

His 40,000 line poem Le Roman de Troie ("The Romance of Troy"), written between 1155 and 1160, was a medieval retelling on the epic theme of the Trojan War which inspired a body of literature in the genre called the roman antique, loosely assembled by the poet Jean Bodel as the Matter of Rome. The Trojan subject itself, for which de Sainte-Maure provided an impetus, is referred to as the Matter of Troy.

Another major work, by a Benoît, probably identical to Benoît de Sainte-Maure, is a lengthy verse Chronique des ducs de Normandie. Its manuscript at Tours, dating to 1180–1200, is probably the oldest surviving text in Old French transcribed on the Continent. The standard edition is by Carin Fahlin (Uppsala), 3 vols. 1951–195x.

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