The Old French Version K is one of the oldest redactions of the Roman des Sept Sages de Rome. It takes its siglum from the initial of the earliest editor (H. A. Keller, in 1836). Like versions D (Sept Sages de Rome) and C (Sept Sages de Rome), Version K is presumed to have originated from a (now lost) verse version, which Gaston Paris called Version V. It is the only complete surviving verse redaction of the early, Old French Sept Sages narrative, and it survives in only one manuscript.
In this version, the king of Rome is named Vespanianus, and his first wife is the daughter of the duke of Carthage. Neither the prince nor the king's second wife are named. The dating of this text is partially reliant on the way parts of the narrative may be compared to other twelfth-century texts, including Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae. According to Krappe (1924, 1932; see Foehr-Janssens, 1994, and Speer 1989), Version K's rendition of Sapientes, including the plot points of Merlin interpreting dreams, may be linked to (or have derived from) the story of Merlin and Vortigern in the Historia.
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West
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1155 - 1190
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| Pattern of embedded stories in this version
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No connected prints
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