MARIA DI FRANCIA. - A French poetess who lived in England in the second half of the 12th century, concerning whom no precise date is known.
Around 1165 she dedicated her Lais to Enrico d'Inghilterra; after 1170 she translated from English and dedicated to a Count Guglielmo a collection of Aesopian fables, the Ysope. Her Lais, of which only twelve can certainly be attributed to her, are brief narratives of adventure and love; the themes of this poetry are almost all of Breton and Gadic origin. They contain the same chivalric ideals, the same events, and often the same characters as the Breton cycle. Among the Lais certainly belonging to M. di Francia are the Lai de Lamal, the Lai de Eliad, and the Lai du Chèvrefenil, the latter taking up the legend of Tristano e Isotta.
Another work by M. di Francia is the Espurgatoire st Patriz, a translation into French verse of the Trachtatus de Purgatorio s. Patricii, by Enrico di Saltrey, one of those visions of the afterlife very frequent in medieval literature.