Feudal and Courtly Values in Two Chansons de Geste: The Siège de Barbastre & the Beuvon de Conmarchis

This study is a review of the treatment accorded feudal and courtly values in the Si ge de Barbastre and the Beuvon de Conmarchis, two French epic poems from the Geste de Monglane. Both poems tell the same story of the Christian defense of the Spanish town of Barbastro against the Saracens. As some one hundred and fifty years separate the two versions of the battle, the treatment of feudal material in the poems is not identical but reflects the change in literary tastes which took place between 1150 and 1300 when the poems are generally held to have been written down. The town of Barbastro (