Adenes Le Roi

Who is Adenes Le Roi?

Adenes Le Roi, also known as Adenez, Adans Le Roi, Roi Adam, Li Rois Adenes, Adan le Menestrel or Adam Rex Menestrallus, was French minstrel or trouvère. He owed his education to the kindness of Henry III, duke of Brabant, and he remained in favour at court for some time after the death of his patron in 1261.

In 1269 he entered the service of Guy de Dampierre, afterwards count of Flanders, probably as roi des menestrels, and followed him in the next year on the abortive crusade in Tunis in which Louis IX lost his life. The expedition returned by way of Sicily and Italy, and Adenes has left in his poems some very exact descriptions of the places through which he passed. The purity of his French and the absence of provincialisms point to a long residence in France, and it has been suggested that Adenes may have followed Mary of Brabant there on her marriage with Philip III of France. He seems, however, to have remained in the service of Count Guy, although he made frequent visits to Paris to consult the annals preserved in the Abbey of St. Denis.

There are four poems written by Adenes: the Enfances Ogier, an enfeebled version of the Chevalerie Ogier de Danemarche written by Raimbert de Paris at the beginning of the century; Berte aus grans piés, the history of the mother of Charlemagne, founded on well-known traditions which are also preserved in the anonymous Chronique de France, and in the Chronique rimee of Philippe Mousket; Bueves de Comarchis, belonging to the cycle of romance gathered round the history of Aimeri de Narbonne; and a long roman d'aventures, Cléomadès, borrowed from Spanish and Moorish traditions brought into France by Blanche, daughter of Louis IX, who after the death of her Spanish husband returned to the French court. Adenes probably died before the end of the 13th century.