Roman de Troie

It inspired a body of literature in the genre called the roman antique, loosely assembled by the poet Jean Bodel as the Matter of Rome.

Le Roman de Troie influenced the works of many in the West, including Chaucer and Shakespeare.

Of medieval works on this subject, only Guido delle Colonne's Historia destructionis Troiae was adapted as frequently.

Benoît's sources for the narrative were the Latin recensions of Dictys and Dares, and some material from the all-but-lost Latin recension that is represented now only in part, in a single, fragmentary manuscript, the Rawlinson Excidium Troie in the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford.

[3] To fulfil this audience's expectation that heroic characters should be lovers in accordance with the principles of courtly love, Benoît invented the story of the young Trojan prince Troilus's love for the daughter of Calchas, the priestly defector to the Greeks.