A TWELFTH-CENTURY ROMANCE- 

 WRITER, 

 MARIE DE FRANCE 



" MARIE ai nom, si sui de France." Thus, more 

 than seven centuries ago, wrote Marie de France. 

 What an unpretentious autobiography ! Yet 

 these few simple words, which seem to tell so 

 little, but in reality suggest so much, are the 

 counterpart of her work, and form its fitting 

 crown. 



But who was this modest writer, and why does 

 her work interest us to-day ? Around Marie de 

 France there must always remain an atmosphere 

 of doubt and mystery, since she is only men- 

 tioned by an anonymous thirteenth-century poet, 

 and by one of her contemporaries an Anglo- 

 Norman poet, Denys Pyramus by name who 

 speaks of her in the most flattering terms, and 

 from whom we learn that her lays were much 

 appreciated by the noblesse, especially the ladies. 

 That these should take rare delight in them 

 may well be, seeing how monotonous life must 

 have been to many a woman shut up with her 

 maidens and her needlework in a dismal castlj 



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