Canso d'Antioca

The Canso d'Antioca is a late twelfth-century Occitan epic poem in the form of a chanson de geste describing the First Crusade up to the Siege of Antioch (1098).

[1][2] The Canso was a reworking of a lost earlier Occitan epic history of the First Crusade written by one Gregory Bechada and commissioned by Bishop Eustorge of Limoges probably between 1106 and 1118.

[3] Being based partially on eyewitness testimony, the Canso is as a source for the Occitan participation at Antioch.

[3] In its completed form it may have also told the story of Count Raymond IV of Toulouse, but he is not mentioned in the surviving fragment.

[5][6] Portions of it were also translated into Castilian for the Gran Conquista de Ultramar, which also contains unique material possibly borrowed from the complete version of the Canso or from Bechada's earlier epic.