Joseph Bédier

Joseph Bédier (born Jan. 28, 1864, Paris—died Aug. 29, 1938, Le Grand- Serre, Fr.) was a scholar whose work on the Tristan and Isolde and the Roland epics made invaluable contributions to the study of medieval French literature.

He was appointed to the Collège de France in 1903. His reputation as a writer was established with the publication of Le Roman de Tristan et Iseult in 1900, and his scholarship was fully expressed in his epoch-making critical edition of Le Roman de Tristan by the Anglo-Norman poet Thomas (1902–05). He proved that the earliest Tristan poem was the product of an individual genius, not of popular tradition.

Les Légendes épiques, 4 vol. (1908–13), presents his theory on the origins of the old French epic poems, the chansons de geste. He marshals convincing evidence in support of his belief that they were originally composed by the troubadours on themes provided by the monks traveling on the pilgrimage routes. In 1922 he published a critical edition of La Chanson de Roland. He was elected to the Académie Française in 1921.