BODEL, JEHAN (died c. 1210), French trouvere, was born at Arras in the second half of the 12th century. Very little is known of his life, but in 1205 he was about to start for the cru sade when he was attacked by leprosy. In a touching poem called Le Conge (printed by Meon in Recueil de fabliaux et contes, vol. i.), he bade farewell to his friends and patrons, and begged for a nomination to a leper hospital. He wrote Le Jeu de Saint Nicolas, one of the earliest miracle plays preserved in French (printed in Monmerque and Michel's Theatre f rancais du moyen age, 1839, and for the Soc. des bibliophiles francais, 1831) ; the Chanson des Saisnes (ed. F. Michel, 1839), four pastourelles (printed in K. Bartsch's Altfranz. Romanzen and Pastourellen, Leipzig, ; and probably the eight fabliaux attributed to an unknown Jean Bedel. The legend of St. Nicholas had already formed the subject of the Latin Ludus Sancti Nicholai of Hi larius. The Chanson des Saisnes, Bodel's authorship of which has been called in question, is a chanson de geste belonging to the period of decadence, and is really a roman d'aventures based on earlier legends belonging to the Charlemagne cycle. It embraces three distinct legends—those of the wars against the Saxons, of Charlemagne's rebellious barons and of Baudouin and Sebille.
See also the article on Jehan Bodel by Paulin Paris in Hist. litt. de la France, xx., pp. 605-638 ; Gaston Paris, Histoire poetique de Charlemagne (1865) ; Leon Gautier, Les Epopees francaises (revised edit., vol. iii., pp. 650-684), where there is a full analysis of the Chanson des Saisnes and a bibliography ; H. Meyer, in Ausgaben and Abhandlungen aus . . . der romanischen Philologie (Marburg, 1883), pp. 1-76, where its relation to the rest of the Charlemagne cycle is discussed.