as goes my purpose, wholly immaterial. These chronicles, such as they are, present the only known record of the latter days of champions whose youthful exploits have long since been made familiar to English readers of Lewistam’s Popular Tales of Poictesme: authentic or not, and irrespective of whether such legends cannot be quite definitely proved to have existed earlier than 1652, here is the sole account we have anywhere, or are now likely ever to receive, of the changes that followed in Poictesme after the passing of Manuel the Redeemer.

It is as such an account—which for my purpose was a desideratum,—that I have put The Silver Stallion into English.

vii

THE LORDS THAT POICTESME HAD IN DOM MANUEL’S TIME

These ten were of the Fellowship of the Silver Stallion:

¶ Dom Manuel, Count of Poictesme, held Storisende and Bellegarde, the town of Beauvillage and the strong fort at Lisuarte, with all Amneran and Morven.

¶ Messire Gonfal of Naimes, Margrave of Aradol, held Upper Naimousin.

¶ Messire Donander of Évre, the Thane of Aigremont, held Lower Naimousin.

¶ Messire Kerin of Nointel, Syndic and Castellan of Basardra, held West Val-Ardray.

¶ Messire Ninzian of Yair, the High Bailiff of Upper Ardra, held Val-Ardray in the East.

¶ Messire Holden of Nérac, Earl Marshal of St. Tara, held Belpaysage.

¶ Messire Anavalt of Fomor, the Portreeve and Warden of Manneville, held Belpaysage Le Bas.

¶ Messire Coth of the Rocks, Alderman of St. Didol, held Haut Belpaysage.

¶ Messire Guivric of Perdigon, Heitman of Asch, held Piemontais.

¶ Messire Miramon of Ranec, Lord Seneschal of Gontaron, held Duardenois.

viiiLikewise there were the fiefs of Dom Meunier, Count of Montors, Dom Manuel’s brother-in-law. Meunier was not of this fellowship: he held also Giens. Here his wife ruled over Lower Duardenois.

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