Two important new books on the epic came into my hands after I had submitted this article to KRQ: Louis Chalon, L'Histoire et l'épopée castillane du Moyen Age: Le cycle du Cid; Le cycle des comtes de Castille, Nouvelle Bibliothèque du Moyen Age, 5 (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1976), and Edmund de Chasca, The Poem of the Cid, TWAS, 378 (Boston: Twayne, 1976). De Chasca sums up and supplements, in chapters 4 and 5, his critical analysis or the Cantar del Mio Cid, and although he remains generally loyal to Menéndez Pidal's view of the prime importance of historical content in the Spanish epic, he now accepts «a greater degree of fictionalization in early epic than Pidal would be willing to admit» (p. 51). His second chapter (pp. 50-79) is concerned with the relations between poetry and history in the epic. Chalon also maintains the emphasis on the historical interest of epic traditions, though his long book (over 600 pp.) naturally contains many remarks which are of great interest for the literary study of the poems. His findings do not fundamentally affect the suggestions that I make in this article, but where necessary I have expanded footnotes to take account of his work.

«Realismo en la epopeya española: la leyenda de la condesa traidora», in Historia y epopeya. Obras de R. Menéndez Pidal, 2 (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Históricos, 1934), pp. 1-27, at p. 6. Menéndez Pidal carried out his intention, and gave us the fundamental study on La condesa traidora, only when he decided that it derived from a hypothetical version which had been true to history. Chaton (pp. 529-31), taking up and adding to arguments put forward in 1957 by Camillo Guerrieri Crocetti, denies that there was a Condesa traidora epic. He believes that the material preserved in the chronicles can be better explained as a legend of learned origin. The suggestion of learned authorship may well be correct (several Spanish vernacular epics are clearly the work of learned poets), but I see no reason to eliminate La condesa traidora from the list of epics: most of the arguments put forward by Chalon, including the most cogent ones, apply equally to the Romanz del infant García, whose status as an epic remains undisputed.

«Estilo y creación en el Poema del Cid». Escorial, 3 (1941). 333-72; rpt. in Ensayos sobre poesía española (Madrid: Revista de Occidente. 1944), pp. 69-111.

Entwistle. «Remarks Concerning the Historical Account of Spanish Epic Origins». Revue Hispanique, 81, part 1 (1933), 352-77. Lida de Malkiel, review of Alonso Zamora Vicente's ed. of Poema de Fernán González, NRFH, 3 (1949), 182-85.

Fraker. «Sancho II: Epic and Chronicle». Romania. 95 (1974). 467-507. Cummins, «The Chronicle Texts of the Legend of the Infantes de Lara», BHS, 53 (1976), 101-16.

Spanish medievalists, and many of their colleagues in other countries, believe that there were epics on the Moorish conquest and the beginning of the Reconquest (King Roderick and the battle of Covadonga are commonly supposed to have been the subjects of such poems). Many other scholars, however, find the evidence for these hypothetical poems very weak. The evidence for the date of Siete infantes is given by Menéndez Pidal, La leyenda de los infantes de Lara. 3rd ed., Obras Completas, I (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1971), pp. 453-58, 462-66, 503-05, and 531-35. This must now be slightly modified in the light of J. M. Ruiz Asencio's study. «La rebelión de Sancho García heredero del Condado de Castilla». Hispania Sacra, 22 (1969), 31-67.

Full bibliographical references for these poems would take up a disproportionate space. I list here only the edition which I have used, and the principal studies, in each case. Poema de Fernán González (PFG), ed. Alonso Zamora Vicente. Clásicos Castellanos, 128, 2nd ed. (Madrid. Espasa-Calpe. 1954); Jean P. Keller, «Inversion of the Prison Episodes in the PFG», HR, 22 (1954), 253-63; Keller, «The Hunt and Prophecy Episode of the PFG», HR, 23 (1955), 251-58; Keller. «El misterioso origen de Fernán González». NRFH, 10 (1956), 41-44; Keller, «The Structure of the PFG», HR, 25 (1957), 235-46: Joaquín Gimeno Casalduero, «Sobre la composición del PFG», Anuario de Estudios Medievales, 5 (1968), 181-206; Juan Bautista Avalle-Arce, «El PFG: clerecía y juglaría», PQ, 51 (1972), 60-73. La condesa traidora: Ramón Menéndez Pidal, «Realismo de la epopeya española» (see n. 2). Menéndez Pidal, Siete infantes de Lara, 3rd ed.; reconstructed lines ed. Menéndez Pidal, in Reliquias de la poesía épica española (Madrid: Instituto de Cultura Hispánica and CSIC, 1951), pp. 181-239; Thomas A. Lathrop. The Legend of the Siete Infantes de Lara (Refundición toledana de la Crónica de 1344 Version), UNCSRLL, 122 (Chapel Hill, 1972). Romanz del infant García: Menéndez Pical, «El Romanz del infant García y Sancho de Navarra antiemperador», in Historia y epopeya, pp. 29-98. Crónica Najerense, ed. Antonio Ubieto Arreta. Textos Medievales, 15 (Valencia: Anubar. 1966). Estoria de España (EE): Primera crónica general de España que mandó componer Alfonso el Sabio y se continuaba bajo Sancho IV en 1289 (PCG), ed. Menéndez Pidal, 2nd ed., 2 vols (Madrid: Seminario Menéndez Pidal and Gredos, 1955; Crónica geral de Espanha de 1344 (Cr1344), ed. Luís F. Lindley Cintra, Fontes Narrativas da História Portuguesa, 2, 3 vols (Lisboa: Academia Portuguesa da Historia, 1951-61). Romancero tradicional de las lenguas hispánicas (español-portugués-catalán-sefardí), ed. Menéndez Pidal and Diego Catalán, vol. 2, Romanceros de los condes de Castilla y de los infantes de Lara (Madrid: Seminario Menéndez Pidal and Gredos, 1963). Prose summaries of the epics are found as follows: PFG, in PCG, vol. 2, chaps 684, 686-91, 694-96, 698-700, 705, 709-20, 725, and 728; in Cr1344, vol. 3, chaps 308, 310, 318, 322-57, and 365 (the ed. of the Castilian Cr1344, which derives from the Portuguese, is now being published by Diego Catalán and María Soledad de Andrés, but has not yet reached the chapters which incorporate epics of the Counts cycle); material from the Cantar de Fernán González is probably incorporated in Najerense, Book 2, paras. 52 and 58, and Book 3, para. 2. Condesa traidora, in Najerense, Book 2, para. 80, and Book 3, para. 4; PCG, chaps 729-32 and 763-64; Cr1344, chaps 369 and 399-400. Siete infantes: PCG, chaps 736-43 and 751; Cr1344, chaps 368 and 370-79. García: Najerense, Book 2, para. 90; PCG, chaps 787-89; Cr1344, chaps 419-20 and 428. I have accented quotations according to modern practice, and have regularized the use of i and j and u and v.

«San Pedro de Cardeña and the Heroic History of the Cid», Medium Aevum, 27 (1958), 57-79, at pp. 57-58.

The end of the Poema is now lost, and it is not clear whether the account of Fernán González's burial at Arlanza, which we find in PCG, chap. 728, reflects that ending.

The Narreme in the Medieval Romance Epic: An Introduction to Narrative Structures, University of Toronto Romance Series, 13 (Toronto, 1969), chap. 3. Dorfman's discussion of PFG is on pp. 29-31. His book is marred by an over-rigid conceptual framework, and by a number of errors in his summaries of epic plots.