Jeu de Robin et Marion

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The Jeu de Robin et Marion is reputedly the earliest French secular play with music, and is the most famous work of Adam de la Halle.

The story is a dramatization of a traditional genre of medieval French song, the pastourelle. This genre typically tells of an encounter between a knight and a shepherdess, frequently named Marion. Adam de la Halle's version of the story places a greater emphasis on the activities of Marion, her lover Robin and their friends after she resists the knight's advances.

It consists of dialogue interspersed with contemporary popular songs. The melodies to which these are set have the character of folk music, and are more spontaneous and melodious than the author's more elaborate songs and motets.

The performance of this play, and others similar to it, at English May celebrations is believed to have been the source of the figure Maid Marian in the Robin Hood legends, although the Robin in the play is an entirely distinct figure.^[1]

An adaptation by Julien Tiersot was played at Arras in 1896 at a festival in honour of Adam de la Halle, by a company from the Paris Opera Comique.

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