The Four Sons of Aymon

The Four Sons of Aymon (French: [Les] Quatre fils Aymon, Dutch: De Vier Heemskinderen, German: Die Vier Haimonskinder), sometimes also referred to as Renaud de Montauban (after its main character) is a medieval tale spun around the four sons of Duke Aymon: the knight Renaud de Montauban (also spelled Renaut, Renault, Italian: Rinaldo di Montalbano, Dutch: Reinout van Montalbaen), his brothers Guichard, Allard and Richardet, their magical horse Bayard (Italian: Bayardo), their adventures and revolt against the emperor Charlemagne. The story had a European success and echoes of the story are still found today in certain folklore traditions.

The oldest extant version of the tale is an anonymous Old French chanson de geste, Quatre Fils Aymon, which dates from the late 12th century and comprises 18,489 alexandrine (12 syllable) verses grouped in assonanced and rhymed laisses (the first 12,120 verses use assonance; critics suggest that the rhymed laisses derive from a different poet). It is one of the longest of all the chansons de geste. Other, later versions of the chanson range from 14,300 to 28,000 verses. Of the dozen extant versions of the chanson, all are anonymous except for one, Histoire des quatre fils Aymon, attributed to Huon de Villeneuve, a 13th-century trouvère. The Renaud chansons de geste were transformed into prose romances in the 14th and 15th centuries, and, judging from the number of editions, the prose Quatre Fils Aymon was the most popular romance of chivalry in the late 15th and first half of the 16th century in France.

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