Ipomadon is a Middle English translation of Hugh of Rhuddlan's Anglo-Norman romance Ipomedon composed in tail-rhyme verse, possibly in the last decade of the fourteenth century.[1] It is one of three Middle English renditions of Hugh's work: the other two are a shorter verse Lyfe of Ipomydon and the prose Ipomedon, both of the fifteenth century.[2] Each version is derived independently from the Anglo-Norman Ipomedon, which Hugh wrote 'not long after 1180', possibly in Herefordshire.[3] It is included in a list of the popular English romances by Richard Hyrde in the 1520s.[4]
The earliest Middle English version is found uniquely in MS Chetham 8009 (Manchester), probably composed in West Yorkshire in the north of England.[5] The tale of Ipomadon is "packed with elaborate description and detail"[6] and follows the adventures of a young knight, Ipomadon, who has a passion for hunting and who chooses to hide his identity from the lady he loves for much of the romance, culminating at the end of the tale in a scene where the hero, having defeated a knight in battle, then claims for a while to be the very knight he has defeated.[7]