rd class, the Trouveres almost from the beginning
assumed the greatest licence in their handling of the classical legends.
These accordingly were less affected than any others by the change. It
is possible to divide the Romans d'Aventures themselves under the three
headings. It is further possible to indicate a large class of Chansons
de Gestes over which the influence of the Roman d'Aventures has passed.
But the Chanson having a special formal peculiarity--the assonanced or
rhymed tirade--survived the new influence better than the other two, and
keeps its name, and to some extent its character, while the Romances of
Arthur and antiquity are simply lost in the general body of tales of
adventure. These tales are for the most part written in octosyllabic
couplets on the model of Chrestien, but a very few, such as _Brun de la
Montaigne_, imitate the exterior characteristics of the Chanson.

It is further to be noticed that while the earlier poems are mostly
anonymous, the Romans d'Aventures are generally, though not always,
signed, and bear characteristics of particular authorship. In some
cases, notably in those of Adenes le Roi and Raoul de Houdenc, we have a
body of work signed or otherwise identified, which enables us to
attribute a definite literary character and position to its authors.
This, as we have noted, is impossible in the case of the national epics,
and not too easy in that of the Arthurian Romances. Until quite recently
however the Roman d'Aventures has had less of the attention of editors
than its forerunners, and the works which compose the class are still to
some extent unpublished.

[Sidenote: Adenes le Roi.]

Adenes or Adans le Roi perhaps derived his surname from the function of
king of the minstrels, if he performed it, at the court of Henry III,
duke of Brabant. He was, most likely, born in the second quarter of the
thirteenth century, and the last probable allusion to him which we have
occurs in the year 1297. The events of his life are only known from his
own poems, and consist chiefly of travels in company with different
princesses and princes of Flanders and Brabant. His literary work is
however of great importance. It consists partly of refashionings of
three Chansons de Gestes, _Les enfances Ogier_, _Berte aus grans Pies_,
and _Bueves de Commarchis_[91]. In these three poems Adenes works up the
old epics into the form fashionable in his time, and as we possess the
older versions of the first