Richard Coer de Lyon

The name of the Middle English author is unknown, but he or she is thought to have been from south-east England, and he may also have written the romances Of Arthour and of Merlin and King Alisaunder.

[3][4] Richard resembles the chansons de geste genre that, like the Song of Roland, describe epic battles between opponents (usually Christian vs.

[5] As Peter Larkin notes, "Many of the episodes resemble accounts from such crusade chronicles as Ambroise’s Estoire de la guerre sainte and the Itinerarium perigrinorum et gesta regis Ricardi.

An extended abstract of Richard appeared in George Ellis's Specimens of Early English Metrical Romances (1805).

The Gonville and Caius manuscript was used by Henry Weber for an edition of the poem included in his Metrical Romances of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Centuries (1810).

A 1913 edition of Richard by Karl Brunner used the same manuscript supplemented by Wynkyn de Worde's version.

After a series of internal struggles with the King of France, the crusaders journey to the holy land, laying siege Cyprus along the way.

When this cannibalism is revealed to a recovered Richard he laughs and celebrates that his troops won't starve as long as there are Saracens.

A series of battles follow, culminating in two events: Phillip, King of France's betrayal of the Christian forces and Richard's tournament with Saladin.