Adenet Le Roi was born in Brabant around 1240 and owed his education to the kindness of Henry III, duke of Brabant. In 1269 he entered the service of Guy de Dampierre, afterwards count of Flanders, probably as roi des ménestrels, and followed him in the next year on the abortive crusade in Tunis in which Louis IX lost his life. The expedition returned by way of Sicily and Italy, and Adenet has left in his poems some very exact descriptions of the places through which he passed. The purity of his French and the absence of provincialisms point to a long residence in France, and it has been suggested that Adenet may have followed Mary of Brabant there on her marriage with Philip III of France. He seems, however, to have remained in the service of Count Guy, although he made frequent visits to Paris to consult the annals preserved in the Abbey of St. Denis. Adenet probably died before the end of the 13th century.A document attests a gift to him in 1297 of a golden buckle from King Edward I, and that is the last information available about Adenet.
Berte aus grans piés tells the history of Bertha of the Big Foot the mother ofCharlemagne, founded on well-known traditions which are also preserved in the anonymous Chronique de France, and in the Chronique rimée of Philippe Mousket.
roman d'aventures, Cléomadès, is long and borrows from Spanish and Moorish traditions brought into France by Blanche, daughter of Louis IX, who after the death of her Spanish husband returned to the French court.
Berte was rendered into modern French by G. Hecq and by R. Périé ;
Cléomadès, by .
See also the edition of Berte by Paulin Paris ; an article by the same writer in the Histoire littéraire de la France, vol. xx, pp. 679–718; Léon Gautier, Les épopées françaises, vol. iii, &c.
The most recent and accepted editions are those by Albert Henry, Les œuvres d'Adenet le Roi. Tome II: Buevon de Conmarchis, Bruges, De Tempel, 1956 ; Tome III: Les enfances Ogier, Bruges, De Tempel, 1956 ; Tome IV: Berte aus grans piés, Bruxelles, Presses universitaires de Bruxelles; Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 1963 ; Tome V: Cleomadès, Bruxelles, Presses universitaires de Bruxelles; Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 1971 , 2 vols.
Albert Henry, Les œuvres d'Adenet le roi. Tome 1: Biographie d'Adenet. La tradition manuscrite, Bruges, De Tempel, 1951.
