THE HIDDEN HISTORY IN LE JOUVENCEL
Four of the sixteen surviving manuscript copies of Le Jouvencel have a commentary by Guillaume Tringant tacked onto its end. All that we know about Tringant was that he was a squire in the service of Jean de Bueil, and he wanted to make sure some things were known for posterity.
He first notes that the work was not entirely written by Jean de Bueil himself, but was something of a collaboration involving three other men named Jean Tibergeau, Martin Morin, and Nicole Riolay. As Tringant explains, “these three men wrote the things recorded in Le Jouvencel to the best of their abilities and as truthfully as they could”. They were also servants to Jean de Bueil, so one can imagine that this text was a project under the direction of this lord, but with the three men doing most of the work.
Secondly, Tringant tells us that the story in is based on de Bueil’s own life. In fact, “most of the deeds recorded here in the book of were planned and performed by him.” A little later, he qualifies that statement by noting that “everything he mentions was something done in his time, and in general, when he was present”. The text was created in such a way that everyone’s real
