Le Chevalier au Cygne
France, end of the twelfth century/beginning of the thirteenth century

University Library, MS Add. 2682
France?, late thirteenth century
Vellum, 30 x 170 mm (30 x 140 mm) and 65 x 190 mm (65 x 140 mm), two fragments

The legendary Swan Knight (so-called because of his swan-drawn boat) was reputed to have been the ancestor of the first Western European King of the Crusader State of Jerusalem, Godfrey of Bouillon. The fragments shown here are from the opening scenes of the story of the Swan Knight’s birth. There it is explained how Beatrix, his mother, sees a woman with twin children and declares that the woman must be an adulterer because it is impossible to have twins without sleeping with more than one man. She herself then conceives septuplets! In reality, Beatrix has only slept with one man: her husband. But her evil mother-in-law accuses her of adultery and hatches a plot to have the seven children drowned, whilst encouraging her son to burn his wife. This fragment was presented to the University Library by F. J. H. Jenkinson in 1913.