AUCASSIN AND NICOLETTE, now considered the most charming of all mediaeval love romances, was not popular in its own day and has survived in a single manuscript in the Biblio theque Nationale at Paris. The story resembles that of the far more popular Floire et Blancliefleur (q.v.) and, like it, was prob ably based on a Moorish original, though the scene is laid in Provence. Aucassin, son of the count of Beaucaire, is enamoured of a lovely slave-girl, Nicolette, daughter of the Saracen king of Carthage. To keep them apart both are imprisoned, but she escapes to the forest, where she is found by her lover. Af ter spending three years together in the kingdom of Torelore (a name given to the barren district of Aiguesmortes), they are captured by Saracens. The ship in which Aucassin is carried off is wrecked at Beaucaire, where he is joyfully received as count, his parents being dead. The other ship brings Nicolette to Carthage, where she is recognized by her father, the king; but as he wishes her to marry a paynim lord, she escapes in the disguise of a minstrel and makes her way to Beaucaire, where all ends happily.
Not only is Aucassin the Arabic name Alcazin or al-Kasim, and Carthage evidently Carthagena, but the form in which the tale is told is oriental; it is a chante-fable, told in alternating sec tions of prose and verse, or rather song, for the verses were un questionably chanted. But, in spite of its Arabic origin and Provencal setting, it was composed in northern France in the 12th century by a skilful but unknown poet.