Category Archives: Professional Performer

Equitan

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About the scene and clip:
This clip gives the entire lai of Equitan in Old French. The performer acts as narrator and also impersonates the characters. Note: You may need to use speakers for this clip.

About the work:
Marie de France, a major literary figure from the Middle Ages, is one of the few women writers of the period whose work has survived. Little is known of her, except that she was almost certainly of the nobility. She wrote in England apparently in the 1160s and ‘70s; her work is in French (or “Anglo-Norman”: the French language as spoken and written in medieval England). She wrote lais—a dozen short narrative poems with Breton roots, composed in octosyllabic rhymed couplets, and bearing on love in its many forms. The lais circulated separately, and also together in a volume that she dedicated to King Henry (probably English King Henry II). She also wrote Espurgatoire seint Patriz (St. Patrick’s Purgatory), about a pilgrimage down to the afterlife, based on Latin sources; and Fables, also based largely on Latin sources. She is now widely believed also to have been the author of the Anglo-NormanVie seinte Audree (Life of Saint Audrey).

The Lai of the Equitan is one of Marie de France’s Lais. It tells of the adulterous love affair between Equitan, the king, and the wife of one of his vassals. The two lovers decide to kill the lady’s husband so they can marry—but they are the ones who end up dying.

About the genre:
A narrative lai is a short poetic tale composed in verse, which claims to tell the story of how a musical lai from ancient Brittany came to be written. The 12th-century Anglo-Norman woman poet Marie de France is the best known author of narrative lais in French, and may be one of the creators of the genre.

About the edition/translation:
The Old French edition used here comes from Karl Warnke’s 1900 edition of MS Harley 978, as translated and annotated by Laurence Harf-Lancner, Lais de Marie de France, Paris, Livre de Poche, 1990.  Available translations are: The Lais of Marie de France, trans. Robert Hanning and Joan Ferrante, Durham, NC, Labyrinth, 1982; and one on-line by Judith Shoaf, at: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/jshoaf/Marie/equitan.pdf

About the performer/ensemble:
Tamara Caudill is an independent scholar from Winchester, Kentucky.  She holds a Masters degree in French Literature from the University of Kentucky.

About the production:
This performance took place at the International Medieval Conference at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in May 2011. It was videoed at the conference.

Ash Tree: Romanesque harp accompaniment

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About the scene and clip:
The performer tells the Lay of the Ash Tree (Fresne), one of Marie de France’s Lais. He alternates between reading aloud from the lai and playing a Romanesque harp. The harp he uses is a copy of an early medieval harp; it was built by Catherine Campbell, incorporating results of Cook’s research into the form of the harp in the 12th and 13th centuries. The pieces of music he uses are: “De moi dolereus vos chant,” attributed to Gillebert de Berneville (fl. c1250-80); “C’est la fins,” by Guillaume d’Amiens (fl. late 13th century); and “Souvent souspire,” an anonymous French piece from the 13th century.

About the work:
Marie de France, a major literary figure from the Middle Ages, is one of the few women writers of the period whose work has survived. Little is known of her, except that she was almost certainly of the nobility. She wrote in England apparently in the 1160s and ‘70s; her work is in French (or “Anglo-Norman”: the French language as spoken and written in medieval England). She wrote lais—a dozen short narrative poems with Breton roots, composed in octosyllabic rhymed couplets, and bearing on love in its many forms. The lais circulated separately, and also together in a volume that she dedicated to King Henry (probably English King Henry II). She also wrote Espurgatoire seint Patriz (St. Patrick’s Purgatory), about a pilgrimage down to the afterlife, based on Latin sources; and Fables, also based largely on Latin sources. She is now widely believed also to have been the author of the Anglo-NormanVie seinte Audree (Life of Saint Audrey).

The Lay of the Ash Tree (Fresne) tells of a young woman of heroic self-abnegation, who in the end is able to marry the man she loves, and who finds the noble parents from whom she had been separated at birth. (The story is a prototype for “Patient Griselda.”)

About the genre:
A narrative lai is a short poetic tale composed in verse, which claims to tell the story of how a musical lai from ancient Brittany came to be written. The 12th-century Anglo-Norman woman poet Marie de France is the best known author of narrative lais in French, and may be one of the creators of the genre.

About the edition/translation:
English verse by Ron Cook. Old French: Les Lais de Marie de France, ed. Jean Rychner, Paris, Champion, 1966.

About the performer/ensemble:
Ron Cook is a professional performer (and lawyer) in Columbus, Ohio. He plays medieval and Renaissance harps and recorder, and performs widely from medieval works.

About the production:
This performance was created for the Medieval Conference at Kalamazoo, Michigan, in May 2008. It was videoed by Beverly Rawles at Ron Cook’s home in Columbus, Ohio, in June 2008.

Silence: Minstrels arrive

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About the scene and clip:
Minstrels arrive at the court. The solo storyteller is accompanied at points by instrumentalists from the ensemble PanHarmonium.

About the work:
Silence tells the story of a girl whose parents raise her as a boy so that she can inherit their land. Silence, though inwardly conflicted over her true nature, becomes a successful knight and minstrel and unwittingly attracts the love of the queen. Silence is finally unmasked by the seer Merlin; now a woman, she wins the love of the king. This unusual romance contains major female characters whose names refer to speech (Silence and Euphemie) and the allegorical adversaries, Nature vs. Nurture. The website contains several clips from Silence that demonstrate some of the many different ways in which characters and scenes from this work can be performed.

About the genre:
Medieval romances are typically long narratives of love and adventure in which an aristocratic hero (or occasionally a heroine) proves himself in combat and courtship. Medieval romance arose in France and Anglo-Norman England in the 12th century and spread through Western and even Eastern Europe. Many early romances tell the stories of knights and ladies at King Arthur’s court. In the 12th and 13th centuries, romances are composed in verse (typically octosyllabic rhymed couplets), and are commonly performed aloud from memory by minstrels; romances are also sometimes read aloud. In the 13th century, some romances begin to be written in prose; public and private readings become more frequent.

About the edition/translation:
Abridged and adapted from A Thirteenth-Century French Romance, Silence, ed./trans. Sarah Roche-Mahdi, East Lansing, MI, Colleagues Press, 1992.

About the performer/ensemble:
Dolores Hydock is an actress and story performer whose work has been featured at concerts, festivals, conferences, and special events throughout the United States. Details about her work can be found at www.storypower.org.

PanHarmonium is a trio made up of David Cantrell, Susan Marchant, and Gilbert Ritchie. The group plays reproductions of early instruments, and their repertoire includes music of the medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque periods. For more information about PanHarmonium, e-mail DWCantrell@sigmaxi.net.

About the production:
This performance of Silence was held at the Virginia Samford Theatre in Birmingham, Alabama in November, 2007. Dolores Hydock and PanHarmonium have also performed Silence at numerous other events.

Tam Lin: Sung

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About the scene and clip:
In this clip, the Scottish singer Geordie McIntyre sings the ballad of Tam Lin.

About the work:
Tam Lin is number 39 of 305 English and Scottish ballads collected by Francis James Child in the late 19th century. Child collected 14 variations of the Tam Lin ballad; 39A he considered to be the oldest variation, although the inherent oral tradition of the ballad makes it impossible to date it with accuracy. The earliest printed reference to the ballad comes from an anonymous 1549 tract titled The Complaynt of Scotlande: vyth ane Exortatione to the Thre Estaits to be vigilante in the Deffens of their Public veil. The ballad is referred to as one of the “ancient” tales told in Scotland.

There are clues to the age of the ballad in the language used. For example, Janet is described as wearing a “kirtle,” a garment that was popularly worn in Scotland from the 14th through 16th centuries. The expression “syne,” meaning “directly after,” fell out of use in the mid 15th century, as did the term “aboon” for “above.” This version of the ballad is commonly dated to the late 14th century, as the majority of the colloquial terminology used in the ballad was at its peak popularity at that time.

The musical notation of this ballad, by James Johnson in the 18th century, was part of a large compilation he collected on popular Scottish songs.

The ballad tells the story of Janet, a young woman who is the daughter of a nobleman. She enters the woods of Carterhaugh (an area near modern-day Selkirk, Scotland), where she meets Tam Lin, a fairy knight who guards the well there. Tam Lin requires a tribute of all who pass the well, and Janet pays the tribute of her virginity. She becomes pregnant and returns to her father’s hall, where her pregnancy is discovered. Although her father wants her to marry one of his knights, Janet refuses, claiming that only Tam Lin – the true father of her child – will be her husband. She returns to the well, where Tam Lin tells her that he was once a mortal knight. He then explains that on Halloween, she can win him back from the fairies if she can pull him down off a white horse and hold him in her arms while he turns into various dangerous animals and objects. Janet accomplishes this, and Tam Lin is transformed from a fairy knight back into a naked mortal man. The Queen of Fairies curses the pair as she acknowledges that Tam Lin belongs to Janet now.

About the genre:
A ballad is a song that tells a story; ballads are often fairly long, composed of a dozen or more stanzas. Although many other songs, both long and short, also tell stories, the term “ballad” used in this particular sense dates from the late Middle Ages. Some late-medieval ballads and a great many early-modern ballads survive, some of them in multiple versions, and throughout the world. Documentation for ballad melodies is in general substantially later than for the texts.

About the edition/translation:
The classic edition for traditional ballad texts, with many variants, is The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, ed. Francis James Child, New York, Dover, 1965, 5 vols (orig. 1888). “Tam Lin” is Vol. I, No. 39. Geordie McIntyre and Helen Fullerton collected this melody in 1967: see The Singing Tradition of Child’s Popular Ballads, ed. Bertrand Harris Bronson, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1976, p. 101.

About the performer/ensemble:
Geordie McIntyre is a professional singer from Scotland who sings a wide range of traditional ballads and other songs, often with Alison McMorland. They have co-produced numerous recordings. This song is recorded on their CD “The Ballad Tree,” with full text and notes. Their website is http://alisonmcmorland.com.

About the production:
This clip was filmed for this website at the Eisteddfod Folk Music gathering in upstate New York, sponsored by the New York Folk Music Society, in October 2009. We thank Helen Hart for doing the filming.

King Orfeo: Sung

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About the scene and clip:
Scottish singer Alison McMorland sings this traditional ballad.

About the work:
This song dates from the 14th century. It retells the story of Orpheus and Eurydice—but in the medieval song, Orfeo is a great piper (in some versions, he is a harper) as well as a king, and he succeeds in rescuing his beloved wife. This version of the song is in the Shetland dialect of English, blended with Lowland Scots. The two refrain lines (the second and fourth lines in each stanza) are in Norn, a dialect of Old Norse, found in Shetland; the first line apparently means “The wood is green early”; the second, “Where the hart runs yearly.”

A related clip on this website is “Orfeo: Opening scenes,” taken from another medieval English version of the story of Orpheus.

About the genre:
A ballad is a song that tells a story; ballads are often fairly long, composed of a dozen or more stanzas. Although many other songs, both long and short, also tell stories, the term “ballad” used in this particular sense dates from the late Middle Ages. Some late-medieval ballads and a great many early-modern ballads survive, some of them in multiple versions, and throughout the world. Documentation for ballad melodies is in general substantially later than for the texts.

About the edition/translation:
The classic edition for traditional ballad texts, often with many variants, is The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, ed. Francis James Child, New York, Dover, 1965, 5 vols (orig. 1888). This song is Vol. I, No. 19. This melody was collected by Pat Schuldham-Shaw in 1947 from a singer named John Stickle of Unst: see The Singing Tradition of Child’s Popular Ballads, ed. Bertrand Harris Bronson, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1976, p. 75.

About the performer/ensemble:
Alison McMorland is a professional singer from Scotland who sings a wide range of traditional ballads and other songs, often with Geordie McIntyre. They have co-produced numerous recordings. This song is recorded on their CD “The Ballad Tree,” with full text and notes. Their website is http://alisonmcmorland.com.

About the production:
This clip was filmed for this website at the Eisteddfod Folk Music gathering in upstate New York, sponsored by the New York Folk Music Society, in October 2009. We thank Helen Hart for doing the filming.

Nightingale: Romanesque harp accompaniment

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About the scene and clip:
The performer tells the story of Laostic, one of Marie de France’s Lais. He alternates between narrating and playing on a Romanesque harp. His instrument is based on images of medieval harps from this period.

The music for this clip consists of nightingale song motifs taken from medieval songs, among them “Quand lo rossinhòls el folhós” (“When the nightingale in the leaves”) by Jaufre Rudel, a Troubadour of the mid 12th century. The performer is playing on a harp equipped with “bray pins,” resulting in a bright, unusual sound that was an important part of the sonority of the harp through the early 17th century.

About the work:
Marie de France, a major literary figure from the Middle Ages, is one of the few women writers of the period whose work has survived. Little is known of her, except that she was almost certainly of the nobility. She wrote in England apparently in the 1160s and ‘70s; her work is in French (or “Anglo-Norman”: the French language as spoken and written in medieval England). She wrote lais—a dozen short narrative poems with Breton roots, composed in octosyllabic rhymed couplets, and bearing on love in its many forms. The lais circulated separately, and also together in a volume that she dedicated to King Henry (probably English King Henry II). She also wrote Espurgatoire seint Patriz (St. Patrick’s Purgatory), about a pilgrimage down to the afterlife, based on Latin sources; and Fables, also based largely on Latin sources. She is now widely believed also to have been the author of the Anglo-Norman Vie seinte Audree (Life of Saint Audrey).

The Lai of the Nightingale (Laostic, also Laüstic or Aüstic) is one of Marie de France’s Lais. It tells of the love affair between a knight and a married woman. Her jealous husband catches and kills the nightingale which had been the pretext for her nightly visits to her window. The wife wraps the dead nightingale carefully in precious cloth and the lover enshrines it in a precious coffer, thus ensuring that their love will be remembered.

About the genre:
A narrative lai is a short poetic tale composed in verse, which claims to tell the story of how a musical lai from ancient Brittany came to be written. The 12th-century Anglo-Norman woman poet Marie de France is the best known author of narrative lais in French, and may be one of the creators of the genre.nr rolex day date 36mm mens 118206 president bracelet

About the edition/translation:
English verse by Ron Cook. Old French: Les Lais de Marie de France, ed. Jean Rychner, Paris, Champion, 1966.

About the performer/ensemble:
Ron Cook is a professional performer (and lawyer) in Columbus, Ohio. He plays medieval and Renaissance harps and recorder, and performs widely from medieval works.

About the production:
This performance took place at the Medieval Conference at Kalamazoo, Michigan, in May 2006, and was filmed by Timmie Vitz.

Karagöz: Karagöz as boatman

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About the scene and clip:
This clip shows a scene from the traditional Turkish puppet shows called Karagöz (the word means “dark eye”). The central and ever-comic stock figure, Karagöz, is usually jobless. In this scene, his friend Hacivat has gotten him a job as a boatman. Karagöz begins to carry people between two places in Istanbul, Eminonu and Kagithane. Several people get on the boat, including the painter Matisse, some Arabs, and other people living in the city. The comic dialogues are based on Karagöz’s misunderstandings and naivety; he confuses the meanings of words. For example, when someone asks how the weather is, he answers, “He is fine, thank you”—thinking that weather is a real person.

Karagöz performances were traditionally one-man shows, where the puppeteer got logistical help from others. This performance used recorded music, but historically one or two musicians provided the music.

About the work:
Karagöz is a kind of shadow puppet theatre, which has been popular for centuries in Turkey. With stock comic characters and rolex oyster perpetual datejust fake plots, Karagöz puppetry was widely comic and satirical; for example, it made fun of all the people living in the city, of the language itself, and of relations between men and women; it also frequently mocked those in power. This sort of shadow puppetry came to Turkey from Egypt around the 16th century (its origins are perhaps Javanese), but the Turkish puppets are unusual in that they are translucent, and brightly and elaborately colored. Puppet shows with brightly colored puppets, plays on language, and strong comic elements were also common in medieval and Early Modern Europe.

About the genre:
Turkish Karagöz were comic performances that created language comedy, often through speech plays, misunderstandings, and miscommunications, and made fun of social rules of propriety, especially between men and women, and satirized those in power and authority. Historically, they had much in common with “Punch and Judy” shows.

Satire generally attacks, often in comic terms, the failings of classes or groups of people, such as those in political power (monarchs and aristocrats), or the clergy, or women; most satire focuses criticism on groups, rather than on individuals. Satire can also mock a political or religious philosophy, or an institution or system.

About the edition/translation:
Each puppeteer has his own versions of Karagöz.

About the performer/ensemble:
Tacettin Diker and his associates, of Istanbul, Turkey, perform traditional Karagöz shadow puppets plays, along with more modern ways of drawing on the art of shadow puppetry.

About the production:
This Karagöz performance, sponsored by the Akbank Karagöz ve Kukla Tiyatrosu, took place at a conference entitled “Performance and Performers in the Eastern Mediterranean from the 11th to the 18th Centuries,” held at Bogazici University, June 7-9, 2007. The conference was organized by Profs. Arzu Ozturkmen of Bogazici University and Timmie Vitz of New York University. It was funded by the Humanities Council of New York University as part of the “Storytelling in Performance” workshop, as well as by Bogazici University and Tübitak. We are grateful to Ulrich Mueller, a member of the website’s Advisory Board, for making the video available to us, and to Tacettin Diker for giving us permission to use this clip.

Judith: Judith prepares to kill Holophernes

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About the scene and clip:
The singer performs part of the story of Judith and Holophernes, taking on all the voices: Judith comes alone to the camp of Holophernes, Nebuchadnezzar’s general. Holophernes plans to seduce her. At a great feast, he and his men become intoxicated. After prayer and agonized inner debate, Judith resolves to kill him in order to free her people.

The instruments in this clip are the vielle and flute (elsewhere in the full performance of the work, the lirica—a Croatian traditional stringed instrument tuned in a particular archaic manner—and other medieval flutes are played). The instrumentation provides at times a highly dramatic musical presence.

About the work:
Judith was written by Marko Marulic (1450-1524), a great Croatian Humanist poet, and a major figure in the transition between medieval and Renaissance Croatian literature. Judith is a literary epic, composed in verse, and drawn primarily from the book of Judith in the Old Testament: the beautiful Jewish widow cuts off the head of a great enemy of her people, Holophernes, in order to free them. Superimposed on the biblical story is the theme of opposition to Ottoman invaders of Marulic’s day. Into the text of Judith, Dialogos has inserted a debate between the body and the soul, based on Visio Philiberti (Philibert’s Vision), to which Marulic had contributed. Katarina Livljanic’s reconstruction of the music draws on Gregorian, Beneventan and Glagolitic sources from medieval Dalmatia.

About the genre:
This work combines literary epic, with the story drawn from the Bible; allegory (the body/soul debate), and hagiography (Judith will be forever glorified for her courage and service to God).

The epic is an ancient genre and is found in almost every culture. It is a long heroic narrative which tells of war and great deeds. Epics are generally composed in verse, and sung from memory or improvised in performance by professional performers with instrumental accompaniment. These narratives are created from traditional elements, commonly without recourse to writing, by poets whose names are often unknown to us. Among the famous traditional epics are the Iliad and the Odyssey, attributed to Homer; the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf; and the Old French Song of Roland. Many known poets adopt epic forms and themes for their literary verse (such as Virgil in his Aeneid).

Allegory is a way of composing and of interpreting texts: characters and the plot point beyond themselves to something “other”—something symbolic. Characters are often personifications of forces such as Love, Pride, Reason, or Friendship. The plot is also symbolic: characters’ struggles are between vices and virtues; their journey may refer to life’s pilgrimage or to the discovery of some great truth, such as the nature of love. Works may be entirely allegorical, or may just contain brief passages written in this mode. Allegorical works are often strongly religious, philosophical, or moral.

Stories about the saintly wisdom, heroism, or miracles of remarkable men and women exist in many religious traditions, such as Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Such stories are termed “hagiography.” In medieval Europe, the saint’s life or legend was an extremely popular type of work. A great many stories (and plays) about male and female Christian saints exist in Latin and in all the vernacular languages. These works may focus on the saint’s dramatic death by martyrdom, or recount the remarkable miracles performed by the saint, or may relate the entire life of the holy man or woman. Among the most important collections of saints’ lives and legends is The Golden Legend by Jacobus of Voragine. Chaucer’s “Prioress’s Tale” in The Canterbury Tales is a tale of martyrdom. Miracle and pious tales about the Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus, constitute a special, and highly important, category of saintly legends.

About the edition/translation:
The work performed has been abridged and adapted by Katarina Livljanic and Benjamin Bagby from Marko Marulic, Judita, ed. and trans. Henry R. Cooper, Jr., New York, East European Monographs/Columbia University Press, 1991.

About the performer/ensemble:
Dialogos (see www.ensemble-dialogos.org) is a music ensemble directed by Katarina Livljanic, and based in Paris. Performers here are Livljanic (voice), Albrecht Maurer (fiddle) and Norbert Rodenkirchen (flute).

About the production:
This video was made at a public performance of Judita at St. Donat’s in Zadar, Croatia, in July 2006. The videography is by Studio Dim, Zagreb, Croatia. Dialogos has broadcast rights to the video.

Edige: Scene from Turkic epic

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About the scene and clip:
The performer, called a jyrau, sings and tells a scene from the epic Edige, accompanying himself on the kobyz, an archaic fiddle. In this scene, the khan of the Golden Horde is warned by his wife to kill Edige before he can seize the khan’s throne.

We include this remarkable clip of a contemporary performance of epic as part of our exploration of analogous traditions: it sheds light on how medieval epics may have been performed.

About the work:
Edige is a medieval heroic epic about the Golden Horde, composed in Karakalpak, a Turkic language. It sings of Edige—his magical birth (his mother was a river fairy), his struggles at the court of the khan, his marriage to the daughter of Tamerlane (Sätemir), his battles, and his death. This epic has some basis in 14th-century historical reality despite its many fanciful features. Numerous versions of the epic are known to have existed.

About the genre:
The epic is an ancient genre and is found in almost every culture. It is a long heroic narrative which tells of war and great deeds. Epics are generally composed in verse, and sung from memory or improvised in performance by professional performers with instrumental accompaniment. These narratives are created from traditional elements, commonly without recourse to writing, by poets whose names are often unknown to us. Among the famous traditional epics are the Iliad and the Odyssey, attributed to Homer; the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf; and the Old French Song of Roland. Many known poets adopt epic forms and themes for their literary verse (such as Virgil in his Aeneid).

About the edition/translation:
Edige: A Karakalpak Oral Epic as Performed by Jumabay Bazarov, ed. and trans. Karl Reichl, Helsinki, Academia Scientiarum Fennica, FF Communications 293, 2007.

About the performer/ensemble:
Jumabay Bazarov (1927-2006) was a jyrau—a professional performer of oral epic—in Karakalpakistan in Uzbekistan. For further information on this performer, see Karl Reichl, Singing the Past: Turkic and Medieval Heroic Poetry, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 2000, pp. 37-9.

About the production:
This video was filmed in Uzbekistan in September 1993 by Karl Reichl of the Advisory Board of this website. We are grateful to him for making this video available to us.

Orlando: Opening canto

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About the scene and clip:
In this clip, the Italian performer Paolo Panaro recites much of the first canto of Orlando Innamorato, in which we meet many of the central characters—Charlemagne, Roland (Orlando), Angelica, and others—and the fast-paced story begins. Panaro makes dramatic use of a few props: a chair, crown, sword, and book.

About the work:
Boiardo’s Orlando Innamorato, published in 1483, tells of Roland, the great hero of La Chanson de Roland. But in this work, Roland (Orlando, in Italian) is not just a warrior; he also takes on the characteristics of the famous lover Lancelot, falling madly in love with the beautiful Angelica. In this great bbk rg gloomy bear disposable vape device 8000 puffs mineral water work of passion and magic themes usually associated with Arthurian romance, Boiardo refigures chivalric romance along epic lines, combining love and war to create the new form of the romance epic.

About the genre:
Boiardo’s Orlando—like a number of other major works of the Italian Renaissance—represents a blend of epic and romance traditions.

The epic is an ancient genre and is found in almost every culture. It is a long heroic narrative which tells of war and great deeds. Epics are generally composed in verse, and sung from memory or improvised in performance by professional performers with instrumental accompaniment. These narratives are created from traditional elements, commonly without recourse to writing, by poets whose names are often unknown to us. Among the famous traditional epics are the Iliad and the Odyssey, attributed to Homer; the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf; and the Old French Song of Roland. Many known poets adopt epic forms and themes for their literary verse (such as Virgil in his Aeneid).

Medieval romances are typically long narratives of love and adventure in which an aristocratic hero (or occasionally a heroine) proves himself in combat and courtship. Medieval romance arose in France and Anglo-Norman England in the 12th century and spread through Western and even Eastern Europe. Many early delta extracts romances tell the stories of knights and ladies at King Arthur’s court. In the 12th and 13th centuries, romances are composed in verse (typically octosyllabic rhymed couplets), and are commonly performed aloud from memory by minstrels; romances are also sometimes read aloud. In the 13th century, some romances begin to be written in prose; public and private readings become more frequent.

About the edition/translation:
Opere di Matteo Maria Boiardo, ed. Ferruccio Ulivi, Milano, Mursia, 1986. English translation: Orlando Innamorato, trans. Charles Stanley Ross, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1989 (rpt. West Lafayette, IN, Parlor Press).

About the performer/ensemble:
Paolo Panaro is an Italian actor who performs widely in Europe and the United States. His repertory includes Italian works from the Middle Ages and Renaissance, as well as from the modern period.

About the production:
This performance was filmed at a studio at Purdue University in 1996; technical assistance was provided by John Strathman. We wish to thank Paolo Panaro for giving us permission to use this wonderful clip, and Prof. Charles Ross of Purdue University for making the video available to us; copies are available through Prof. Ross.