View source for French Version A: Roman des Sept Sages

{{Secondary Version
|Has Description=The Old French prose Version A is the presumed origin for most other Version A redactions in other languages. The text was composed in the first quarter of the 13th century (Foehr-Janssens 1994, p. 432), and exists in more than twenty manuscripts (see below).   

Significant variation occurs across these manuscripts. For example, a sub-group of manuscripts, including BNF fr. 2137, show remnants of versification in the final four stories; these are critically designated Version A2. Other groupings, including the letter groups shown below, were developed by Runte for use in his online edition of the French Version A. These groups signal textual similarity, and all manuscripts within a given group are highly similar (/potentially copies of the same texts). 

Version A is also closely related to [[L (Sept Sages de Rome)|Version L]]; the two traditions are essentially identical for the first 11 stories, before L differs dramatically, omitting several stories and instead including [[Filia]] and [[Noverca]]. However, a significant number of manuscripts that closely follow the text and pattern of Version A, and are designated as such by most contemporary scholarship, also contain one or both of the additional Version L stories, Filia and Noverca. This marked distinction demonstrates the cross-pollenation betweek A and L, and shows how closely and constantly interlinked the manuscript composition of these traditions must have been. Because these manuscripts are so distinct from the other A texts, and because recent pieces of scholarship (Runte, Coco, Foehr-Janssens, Speer, the Arlima database, etc.) soemtimes group them in different ways, they do not appear in the manuscript-list below, and instead have been grouped into the [[French A/L Overlap]] version, together with the anomalous L texts.
|Has Language Within Version=Old French
|Has Title=Roman des Sept Sages
|Has Branch Of Tradition=West
|Is Adapted From=A (Seven Sages)
|Is Adapted Into=French A/L Overlap
|Has Original Language Of Version=Old French
|Has Start Date Of Composition=1201
|Has End Date Of Composition=1225
|Has Islamic Date Of Text Composition=555
|Has Hebrew Date Of Text Composition=999
|Has Source For Date Of Text Composition=Speer (1989); Foehr-Janssens (1994)
|Has Text Language=Old French
|Has Modern Research Literature=Coco (2016); Runte, Society of the Seven Sages Portal (2014); Runte, Wikeley, Farrell (1984); Berne-Aïache (1966); Foehr-Janssens (1994); Le Roux de Lincy (1838); Speer (1981); Speer (1987); Speer & Foehr-Janssens (2017); Speer (1989); Speer (1994); Kelly (1978); Niedzielski (1978)
|Has Modern Edition=Runte, Les sept sages de Rome: An On-Line Edition of French Version A (2006); Plomp, De Middelnederlandsche bewerking van het gedicht van den VII Vroeden van binnen Rome (1899); Coco, Il Roman des sept sages (2016); Aïache-Berne, Les Versions françaises en prose du Roman des Sept Sages (1966)
}}
{{EmbeddedStory
|Has Short Title=Arbor
|Has Sequence Number=1
|Has Narrator=Empress
}}
{{EmbeddedStory
|Has Short Title=Canis
|Has Sequence Number=2
|Has Narrator=Bancillas
}}
{{EmbeddedStory
|Has Short Title=Aper
|Has Sequence Number=3
|Has Narrator=Empress
}}
{{EmbeddedStory
|Has Short Title=Medicus
|Has Sequence Number=4
|Has Narrator=Auguste
}}
{{EmbeddedStory
|Has Short Title=Gaza
|Has Sequence Number=5
|Has Narrator=Empress
}}
{{EmbeddedStory
|Has Short Title=Puteus
|Has Sequence Number=6
|Has Narrator=Lentulus
|Has Name Variation=Lentillus
}}
{{EmbeddedStory
|Has Short Title=Senescalcus
|Has Sequence Number=7
|Has Narrator=Empress
}}
{{EmbeddedStory
|Has Short Title=Tentamina
|Has Sequence Number=8
|Has Narrator=Malquidras
|Has Name Variation=Malquidarz
}}
{{EmbeddedStory
|Has Short Title=Virgilius
|Has Sequence Number=9
|Has Narrator=Empress
}}
{{EmbeddedStory
|Has Short Title=Avis
|Has Sequence Number=10
|Has Narrator=Caton
|Has Name Variation=Cato
}}
{{EmbeddedStory
|Has Short Title=Sapientes
|Has Sequence Number=11
|Has Narrator=Empress
}}
{{EmbeddedStory
|Has Short Title=Vidua
|Has Sequence Number=12
|Has Narrator=Jesse
|Has Name Variation=Josse
}}
{{EmbeddedStory
|Has Short Title=Roma
|Has Sequence Number=13
|Has Narrator=Empress
}}
{{EmbeddedStory
|Has Short Title=Inclusa
|Has Sequence Number=14
|Has Narrator=Meron
|Has Name Variation=Martin
}}
{{EmbeddedStory
|Has Short Title=Vaticinium
|Has Sequence Number=15
|Has Narrator=Prince
}}