Marie de France ([Mary of France[) was a poet evidently born in France and living in England during the late 12th century. Virtually nothing is known of her early life, though she wrote a form of continental French that was copied by Anglo-Norman scribes. Therefore, most of the manuscripts of her work bear Anglo-Norman traits. She also translated some Latin literature. Although her actual name is now unknown, she is referred to as [Marie de France[ after a line in one of her published works: [Marie ai nun, si sui de France, [ Four works have been attributed to Marie de France: The Lais of Marie de France, the Ysopet fables, a retelling of the Legend of the Purgatory of St. Patrick, and, most recently, a saint[s life called La Vie Seinte Audree about Saint Audrey of Ely. Scholars have dated Marie[s works between about 1160 at the earliest, and about 1215 at the latest, though it is probable that they were written between about 1170 and 1205. In 1816, the English poet Matilda Betham wrote a long poem about Marie de France in octosyllabic couplets, The Lay of Marie.

The tales included in this little book of translations are derived mainly from the "Lays" of Marie de France. I do not profess them to be a complete collection of her stories in verse. The ascription varies. Poems which were included in her work but yesterday are withdrawn to-day, and new matter suggested by scholars to take the place of the old. I believe it to be, however, a far fuller version of Marie's "Lays" than has yet appeared, to my knowledge, in English. Marie's poems are concerned chiefly with love. To complete my book I have added two famous mediaeval stories on the same excellent theme. This, then, may be regarded as a volume of French romances, dealing, generally, with one aspect of mediaeval life.

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Excerpt from French Mediaeval Romances: From the Lays of Marie De France An age so feminist in its sympathies as ours should be attracted the more easily to Marie de France, because she was both an artist and a woman. To deliver oneself through any medium is always difficult. For a woman Of the Middle Ages to express herself publicly by any means whatever was almost impossible. A great lady, a great Saint or church woman, might do so very occasionally. But the individuality Of the ordinary wife was merged in that Of her husband, and for one Abbess of Shrewsbury or Whitby, for one St. Clare or St. Hilda, there were how many thousand Obscure sisters, who were buried in the daily routine Of a life hidden with Christ in God! Doubtless the artistic temperament burst out now and again in woman, and would take no denial. It blew where it listed, appearing in the most unexpected places. A young nun in a Saxon convent, for instance. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.