BARRUCHIUS (BARUCH?), VALENTINUS:
Spanish poet; lived probably in the twelfth century. He is said to have been a native of Toledo. He wrote in clear and ornate Latin the history of the Count Lyonnais (Palanus)—an old romantic legend recounted by early Catalonian chroniclers, and found in various versions in the folk-tales of many countries. Its most popular form in England is to be found in a Norman ballad of William of Malmesbury. Voltaire has utilized the story in his tragedies "Artémire" and "Tancrèd." Boaistuan (sixteenth century), in the preface to his version of the legend ("Histoires Tragiques par Boaistuan et Belleforest," Lyons, 1596), refers to the work of Barruchius in eulogistic terms.
Bibliography:
- Ferd. Wolf, in the Jahrbücher für Wissenschaftliche Kritik, Dec. 1835;
- Franz Delitzsch, Zur Gesch. der Jüdischen Poesie, pp. 65, 66, Leipsic, 1836;
- Steinschneider, Jewish Literature, p. 178, 1857 (German ed., p. 434b);
- Karpeles, Gesch. der Jüd. Lit. 1886, p. 740.
