1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Montreuil, Gerbert de

MONTREUIL, GERBERT DE (fl. 13th century), French trouvère, author of the Roman de la violette. He dedicated his poem (c. 1221) to the Countess Marie of Ponthieu, wife of Simon, count of Dammartin and a niece of Philip Augustus. The count Gerard de Nevers of the story stakes his domains on the ddelity of his wife Euriant. Lisiard by calumniating Euriant wins the wager, but in the end the traitor is exposed, and, after many adventures, Euriant is reinstated. Another version of the story is given in the Roman du comte de Poitiers and in the tale in the Decameron (ii. 9) on which Shakespeare founded Cymbeline. Lyrics are inserted in the narrative of the Roman de la violette, as they had been in the Conte de la rose (1200), known also as Guillaume de Dole. A prose version, dating from the early 15th century, provided Wilhelmine de Chézy with the material for her libretto of Weber’s opera, Euryanthe (1823).

See Hist. litt. de la France, xxii. 82, xviii. 760, xxii. 826; Le comte de Poitiers (ed. F. Michel, 1831); Le Roman de la violette (ed. F. Michel, 1834); Le Conte de la rose (ed. Servois, 1893); F. Kraus, Über Gerbert de Montreuil (Erlangen, 1897); Rudolf Ohle, Shakespeares Cymbeline und seine romanischen Vorläufer (Berlin, 1890).