Canso d'Antioca

The Canso d'Antioca was a late twelfth-century Occitan epic poem in the form of a chanson de geste describing the First Crusade up to the Siege of Antioch (1098). It survives only in a manuscript fragment of 707 alexandrines preserved in Madrid.

The Canso was a reworking of an earlier Occitan epic history of the First Crusade written by one Gregory Bechada and commissioned by Bishop Eustorge of Limoges probably between 1106 and 1118. Being based partially on eyewitness testimony, the Canso serves as a source in its own right for the Occitan contribution at Antioch. It emphasises the feats of the knights of southern France, especially Gouffier de Lastours, and southern Italy, the Italo-Normans under Bohemond of Taranto. It is sometimes supposed to have also dealt extensively with Raymond IV of Toulouse, but he is not found in the surviving fragments.

The Canso also served as the literary model for the early thirteenth-century Chanson de la Croisade Albigeoise of William of Tudela and for the late thirteenth-century History of the War of Navarre of William Anelier. Portions of it were also translated into Castilian for the Gran Conquista de Ultramar, which also contains unique material possibly borrowed from the complete version of the Canso or from Bechada's earlier epic.