Revision as of 12:41, 3 December 2025 by Noeth(talk | contribs)(Text replacement - "Has Branch Of Tradition=West" to "Has Branch Of Tradition=Seven Sages of Rome")
The fragment of the Old French Roman des Sept Sages found in Ms 620 of the Bibliothèque Municipale des Chartres comprises Version C. However, the Chartres MS 620 was unfortunately lost in WWII. It was partially photographed prior to this distruction, but most of the images were of the second half of the text. This is noteworthy, because the two parts of the text were quite different: the opening of the text through to the beginning of 'Tentamina' (folios 19-26) was composed in prose, and then folios 27-44 in rhymed verse. Only one image of the first (prose) half of the text (folio 26) survives. According to Speer (1981) and Speer and Foehr-Janssens (2017), despite the fact that the two halves of the text are copied in different hands and styles, there is sufficient fluidity between them to consider them an intentional continuation and whole, rather than discrete fragments. Speer also suggests that the embedded stories in the first (lost) prose half of the text may have followed the Version A narrative pattern, and that the text closely resembles BNF 1421 (1981).