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Literary studies have investigated the theme of childhood and its representation in French medieval literature, often targeting specific child characters. For the Old French epic in particular, studies have also concentrated on those poems with enfances episodes composing a part of the narrative, often grouping and comparing such sections and studying their common structure and thematic traits.
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However, medieval scholarship has placed little emphasis on the full-length epic poems that dedicate themselves exclusively to the 92FLS, Vol. XXXI, 2004 earliest years of the hero. Neither the role of such texts in epic cyclification, nor the literary functions and characteristics of these narratives, have been thoroughly examined by taking such texts as an ensemble. This is surprising, as these poems appear prominently in epic cycles. For example, amid poems that tell of the extraordinary lives of the main heroes of the Cycle of Guillaume d'Orange are texts focusing on their early exploits: the Enfances Garin, 1 Enfances Guillaume, and Enfances Vivien. The lineage of Rainouart, whose role in several poems of the cycle established him as a popular hero, is also represented with the youthful adventures of his grandson in Enfances Renier. In addition, the two most popular heroes of the Rebellious Vassal Cycle, Ogier le Danois and Doon de Mayence, have their childhood told in the Enfances Doon and the Enfances Ogier in connection with the poems recounting their chevalerie. Finally, the Old French Crusade Cycle includes two poems dedicated to the origins of its main heroes, the legendary Swan Knight and his grandson Godefroi de Bouillon. As the historical leader of the First Crusade, the establishment of Godefroi de Bouillon's lineage and early exploits was important to the cycle, and thus separate enfances poems were integrated as a major cyclical branch, as shown by the Naissance du Chevalier au Cygne (versions Elioxe and Beatrix) and the Enfances Godefroi.
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Given the inclusion of such text in all epic cycles, those individual poems designed exclusively to isolate and describe a hero's childhood became the focus of my research.
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3 Although it is true that the same themes might appear in both a full-length text of a hero's enfances and a text that includes a limited section recounting this childhood, an episode of one hundred lines merely forms a part of a single poem that has the design of telling the entire life of a hero from birth to maturity. The development of entire enfances poems, on the contrary, reveals a design that is contained within the text itself and fulfills a role as a separate
2
The hero of this text is Garin the Monglane, the grandfather of Guillaume d'Orange and of Garin d'Anseune; the latter is the father of Vivien.
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2 As to the Cycle of the King, the Enfances Charlemagne and the Enfances Roland are not included in this corpus, for the former is found only in fragments, and the latter is found exclusively in the Franco-Italian tradition (Berte e Milon, Rolandin) or in episodes in Aspremont or Girart de Vienne.

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