page_title: Bevis of Hampton
section_title: Texts
hierarchical_section_title: Bevis of Hampton / Texts
caption_attribution_description: English: Russian textile with an image of Bova Korolevich, a hero of Western romances of chivalry integrated into Russian folklore in the 17th century.
context_page_description: Bevis of Hampton or Sir Bevois, was a legendary English hero and the subject of Anglo-Norman, Dutch, French, English, Venetian, and other medieval metrical romances that bear his name. The tale also exists in medieval prose, with translations to Romanian, Russian, Dutch, Irish, Welsh, Old Norse and Yiddish.
context_section_description: The oldest version known, Boeve de Haumtone, is an Anglo-Norman text that dates back to the first half of the 13th century. It consists of 3,850 verses written in Alexandrins.
  Three continental French chansons de geste of Beuve d'Hanstone, all in decasyllables, were written in the 13th century. One is preserved in BnF Français 25516. They consist of between 10,000 and 20,000 verses. A French prose version was made before 1469. Bevers saga is an Old Norse translation of a lost version of the Anglo-Norman poem. The earliest manuscript of the saga dates to c. 1400.
  The English metrical romance, Sir Beues of Hamtoun (see Matter of England), is founded based on some French origins, varying slightly from those that have been preserved. The oldest manuscript dates from the beginning of the 14th century. A translation into Irish survives in a 15th-century manuscript.
  The printed editions of the story were most numerous in Italy, where Bovo or Buovo d'Antona was the subject of more than one poem, and the tale was interpolated in the Reali di Francia, the Italian compilation of Carolingian legend. An anonymous Buovo d'Antona: Cantari in ottava rima was printed in 1480, and a "Tuscan", in fact Padan of the Po Valley, version in 1497.
  From Italian, it passed into Yiddish, where the Bovo-Bukh became the first non-religious book to be printed in Yiddish. The most popular and critically honored Yiddish-language chivalry romance.
  In Russia, the romance attained an unparalleled popularity and became a part of Russian folklore. The Russian rendition of the romance appeared in mid-16th century, translated from a Polish or Old Belarusian version, which were in turn, translated from a Croatian rendition of the Italian romance, made in Ragusa. The resulting narrative, called Повесть о Бове-королевиче (Povest' o Bove-koroleviche, lit. The Story of Prince Bova), gradually merged with Russian folktales, and the principal character attained many features of a Russian folk hero (bogatyr). Since the 18th century until 1918, various versions of the Povest' had been widely circulated (particularly among the lower classes) as a lubok. Such writers as Derzhavin and Pushkin praised Bova's literary value. The latter used some elements of the Povest' in his fairy tales and attempted to write a fantasy poem based on the romance. Pushkin also praised a version of Bova by Alexander Radishchev, written in 1799.
caption: Russian textile with an image of Bova Korolevich, the semifolkloric Russian adaptation of Bevis of Hampton
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