Renaud de Beaujeu

Renaud de Beaujeuor Renaut de Bâgé or de Baugé is the name of a medieval French author of Arthurian romance. He is known for only one major work, Le Bel Inconnu, the Fair Unknown, a poem of 6266 lines in Old French that was composed in the late-twelfth or early-thirteenth century. Renaud left us his name at the end of this poem: 'Renals de Biauju, or, as usually written, Renaud de Beaujeu', In modern French he is known as Renaut de Beaujeu. Le Bel Inconnu survives in only one manuscript: Chantilly, Bibliothèque du Château/Musée Condé, 472.

Date and family origins
William Henry Schofield in his time (1895) could write little of this figure, noting that other than being the author of Le Bel inconnu, "he is only known to us otherwise as the author of a song song, one stanza of which is preserved in Le Roman de la Rose ou de Guillaume de Dole. There the song is ascribed to one "Renaut de Baujieu, De Rencien le bon chevalier" (vv. 1451–2), so that the author had the status of knight, as noted by Gaston Paris.

However, his identity has been further clarified, due to the efforts of who made his inquiries based on heraldic clues. On the assumption that the heraldic device assigned to the title character of Le Bel Inconnu (namely lion ermine on field azure) had belonged to the poet, it was the discovered he belonged to the Bâgé family, and not the rivaling Beaujeu clan. There are two Renauds fitting the time period, the stronger possibility being Renaut/Renaud, Seigneur de Saint-Trivier (fl. 1165–1230).

That song author's place of origin was "Rencien", could be a scribal error for "Rencieu" (Rantiacum) or Rancy which is close to Saint-Trivier, the domain inherited by the junior sons of this clan, providing additional corroboration for the identification.

Renaud of Saint-Trivier was the third son of Renaud/Raynald III, Seigneur de Bâgé (1153–1180) who in the year of succession in 1153 had battled with Count Macôn, Humbert lord of Beaujeu, and others  (they were resentful of resentful of Renaud III's dominion over the Bresse region ). In 1180 the father died and was succeeded by the poet's elder brother Ulrich III, but Ulrich's son Guy by his first marriage predeceased him (in 1215), so that when Ulrich died in 1220, the lordship was succeeded by his son by his second marriage, Renaud/Raynald IV, who became seigneur de Bâgé et de Bresse.