Nicolas de Caen, one of the most eminent of the early French writers of
romance, was born at Caen in Normandy early in the 15th century, and
was living in 1470. Little is known of his life, apart from the fact
that a portion of his youth was spent in England, where he was
connected in some minor capacity with the household of the Queen
Dowager, Joan of Navarre. In later life, from the fact that two of his
works are dedicated to Isabella of Portugal, third wife to Philip the
Good, Duke of Burgundy, it is conjectured that Nicolas was attached to
the court of that prince . . . . Nicolas de Caen was not greatly
esteemed nor highly praised by his contemporaries, or by writers of the
century following, but latterly has received the recognition due to his
unusual qualities of invention and conduct of narrative, together with
his considerable knowledge of men and manners, and occasional
remarkable modernity of thought. His books, therefore, apart from the
interest attached to them as specimens of early French romance, and in
spite of the difficulties and crudities of the unformed language in
which they are written, are still readable, and are rich in instructive
detail concerning the age that gave them birth . . . . Many romances
are attributed to Nicolas de Caen. Modern criticism has selected four
only as undoubtedly his. These are--(1) _Les Aventures d'Adhelmar de
Nointel_, a metrical romance, plainly of youthful composition,
containing some seven thousand verses; (2) _Le Roy Amaury_, well known
to English students in Watson's spirited translation; (3) _Le Roman de
Lusignan_, a re-handling of the Melusina myth, most of which is wholly
lost; (4) _Le Dizain des Reines_, a collection of quasi-historical
_novellino_ interspersed with lyrics. Six other romances are known to
have been written by Nicolas, but these have perished; and he is
credited with the authorship of _Le Cocu Rouge_, included by Hinsauf,
and of several Ovidian translations or imitations still unpublished.
The Satires formerly attributed to him Buelg has shown to be spurious