HERMAN DE

VALENCIENNES  , 12th-century French poet, was born at Valenciennes, of good parentage . His father and mother, Robert and Herembourg, belonged to Hainault, and gave him for god-parents Count Baldwin and Countess Yolanddoubtless Baldwin IV. of Hainault and his mother Yoland . Herman was a priest and the author of a verse Histoire de la Bible, which includes a separate poem on the Assumption of the Virgin . The work is generally known as Le Roman de sapience, the name arising from a copyist's error in the first line of the poem: " Comens de sapiense, ce est la cremors de Deu the first word being miswritten in one MS . Romens, and in another Romanz . His work has, indeed, the form of an ordinary romance, and cannot be regarded as a translation . He selects such stories from the Bible as suit his purpose, and adds freely from legendary sources, displaying considerable art in the selection and use of his materials . This scriptural poem, very popular in its day, mentions Henry II. of England as already dead, and must therefore be assigned to a date posterior to 1189 . See Notices et extraits des manuscrits (Paris, vol . 34), and" Jean Bonnard, Les Traductions de la Bible en vers frangais au moyen age (1884) .