Benoît de Sainte-Maure (fl. 12th c.). Author of Le Roman de Troie (c. 1160), an adaptation into over 30, 000 rhyming octosyllables of the supposedly eyewitness account of the Trojan War by Dares and Dictys [see Romans d'Antiquité]. The role attributed to love is considerably amplified and foreshadows the courtly romance modes of later decades. Benoît's descriptive embroideries lend colour and variety to his sources. He also worked in England at the court of Henry II, where he succeeded Wace as vernacular historiographer. He left his vast Norman history, the Chronique des ducs de Normandie (c.1175), incomplete, though it was already over 44, 000 lines long.

[Ian Short]

or Benoît de Sainte-Maure (bĕnwä' də săNt–môr') , 1154–73, French trouvère. He was the author of the Roman de Troie, a romance in 30,000 verses. It became a primary source of medieval versions of the Trojan legend, notably the story of Troilus and Cressida. At the order of Henry II of England, Benoît also wrote a rhymed Chronique des ducs de Normandie.

French trouvère whose Roman de Troie was a source for later works set during the Trojan War, such as Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde.