AMADIS, a much used name in the chivalric poetry of the Middle Ages. Of the numerous romances that may be grouped under it, that which narrates the adventures of Amadis of Gaul is at once the most ancient and the best. Cas tilian and Portuguese versions of the 13th and 14th centuries were lost. In stead of these, we have a Spanish ver sion of almost 100 years later, written by Garcia Ordofiez de Montalvo about 1465, but first printed in 1508. This prose romance is one of the three spared by the licentiate and the barber at the burn ing of Don Quixote's books. Its hero is Amadis, the model of every knightly vir tue, son of King Perion of Gaul and Eli sena, Princess of Brittany. The work is wearisome from its length, but it con tains many pathetic and striking pas sages, and has great value as a mirror of the manners of the age of chivalry.
The Spanish Amadis romances consist of 12 books, of which the first four con tain the history of Amadis of Gaul. The
earliest edition now in existence bears the date of 1508. A French trans lation appeared in 1540, an Italian in 1546, and an English in 1588, while a version of German was pub lished in 1583. Lastly, a Frenchman, Gilbert Saunier Duverdier, at the begin ning of the 17th century, arranged all these romances into a harmonious and consecutive series, and with his compila tion in seven volumes, the "Roman des Romans," brought the history of Amadis and the series of about 50 volumes to a close. A version of the old romance in French was published by Creuze de Les ser, in 1813; in English, by William Stewart Rose, in 1803; while the literary skill of Southey produced, in 1803, an abridgment that is still readable.