Guinglain is the later revealed Baptised name[4] of the title character in Le Bel Inconnu, a 6266 line French poem by Renaut de Beaujeu, completed some time after 1191 and before 1212/13,[10][12] which survive in the unique Chantilly, Bibliothèque du Château/Musée Condé, MS. 472.[13][14]
The character's adventures were later retold in Robert de Blois's Beausdous (third quarter of 13th century).[15]
There are also cognate tales remade in English, Italian, and German. The Middle English version Libeaus Desconus (LD, of 2232 lines[16]) by Thomas Chestre is arguably an adaptation from Renaut's Bel Inconnu (BI),[11] and scholars have disputed over this issue,[17] but one solution is that Chestre drew from multiple version of the story.[18] At any rate, the LD, BI, the Italian Carduino and German Wigalois share the same basic plot.[11][19]
There is also the French romance Gliglois, reconstructed from a (destroyed) 13-century manuscript,[20] but this may not belong to the Bel Inconnu cycle after all.[22][23]
