Am'adis, a much-used name in the chivalric poetry of the middle ages. Of the many romances (see ROMANCE) that may be grouped under it, that which narrates the adventures of Amadis of Gaul is at once the most ancient and the best. It is believed that the earliest forms of the story were a lost Castilian version, perhaps about 1250, and a Portuguese version, also lost, composed about 1370 by Vasco de Lobeira of Porto. Most likely these earlier versions were in verse. Instead of these, we have a Spanish version of almost a hundred years later, written by Garci-Ordoñez de Montalvo about 1465, but first printed in 1508. This prose romance is one of the three spared by the licentiate and the barber at the burning of Don Quixote's books, and the barber's reason is that 'it is the best of all the books of this kind.' Its hero is Amadis, the model of every knightly virtue, son of King Perion of Gaul and Elisena, Princess of Brittany; he is sent away to Scotland, where he falls in love with Oriana, the incomparable daughter of King Lisuarte of England, and the narration of the course of this love story, with its varied adventures, wide journeys into foreign lands, numberless struggles with knights, giants, and robbers, forms the chief subject of the romance. The work is wearisome from its length, but it contains many pathetic and striking passages, and has great value as a mirror of the manners of the age of chivalry.
The Spanish Amadis romances consist of twelve books, of which the first four contain the history of Amadis of Gaul. The earliest existing version of this is, as has been said, that of Montalvo, and the earliest edition now in existence bears the date of 1508. He himself added a fifth book containing the adventures of Esplandian (1510), the eldest son of Amadis and Gloriana; later writers have multiplied the posterity of the old hero. Already in 1510 appeared a sixth book, with the history of Florisando, his nephew; in 1514, 1526, and 1535 respectively, a seventh, eighth, and ninth book, with the wonderful histories of Lisuarte of Greece, a son of Esplandian, and Perion of Gaul, and the still more wonderful history of Amadis of Greece, a great-grandson of the Gallic hero. Then follow Don Florisel of Niquea and Anaxartes, son of Lisuarte, whose history, with that of the children of the latter, fills the tenth and eleventh books. Lastly, the twelfth book, printed in 1546, narrates the exploits of Don Silves de la Selva, son of Amadis of Greece and Finistea. A French translation appeared in 1540, an Italian in 1546, an English in 1588, while a version in German was published in 1583. The French translators increased this series of romances from twelve to twenty-four books; the German, to thirty. Lastly, a Frenchman, Gilbert Saunier Duverdier, at the beginning of the 17th century, arranged all these romances into a harmonious and consecutive series, and with his compilation in seven volumes, the Roman des Romans, brought the history of Amadis and the series of about fifty volumes to a close. A version of the old romance in French was published by Creuzé de Lesser in 1813; in English, by William Stewart Rose, in 1803; while the literary skill of Southey produced in 1803 an abridgment that is still readable. On the other hand, Wieland's Neuer Amadis has nothing in common with the more ancient Amadises, except the title. See Baret, De l'Amadis de Gaule (Par. 1873); and Braunfels, Amadis von Gallien (Leip. 1876).