In the first version of the poem, found in the Berlin manuscript, Huon’s wife Ynide also plays a heroic role (Morgan, “Passion of Ynide”). At the start of the poem, king Charles Martel (here Charlemagne’s grandson, son of Louis) calls his men to court to practice fighting, and asks them to bring their womenfolk in order to marry off the unmarried girls and honor those already married. During the feasts, the ladies hold a ceremony to honor St. Denis, and the king’s jongleur (entertainer), Saudin, takes Charles to watch, in disguise. Charles falls in love with Huon’s wife, Ynide, who rebuffs him. This makes him even more lovesick, to the point of taking to his bed.

The courtiers in attendance are afraid to leave though the ceremonies are over; finally, Saudin goes to Charles and discovers the problem. Saudin then plots with the king’s advisors about how to get Ynide for Charles: they will send Huon to hell to exact tribute from Lucifer. They don’t expect Huon to ever return, and, meanwhile, Ynide will be brought to court to be near Charles and vulnerable to his approach. The courtiers all leave Charles’s court, including the very discouraged Huon. Once Huon is back in Auvergne, he holds a big feast before leaving on his mission. There he reveals the reason for his being disconsolate: he has been sent to hell. Blaming herself, Ynide exposes Charles’s unwanted advances. Huon kicks her in response, knocking her down. Although he subsequently apologizes, he leaves before she reawakens the next morning.

Huon then embarks on a long journey, first through various Eastern European then Middle Eastern lands, in particular, Hungary, Rome, Athens, and the Holy Land. He then saves multiple ladies in distress, fights lions, tigers, and dragons, and, accompanied by a lion, conquers three cities for Christianity: Nobie, Tarsie and Capadocie. He repeats constantly that he will not perjure himself and must accomplish his mission. He then meets Prester John, who here rules an ideal merchant kingdom where merchants charge only fair prices.

Ynide, in the meantime, receives ambassadors from king Charles Martel, many of the same who agreed to Huon’s impossible mission. The land around Auvergne, Huon’s city and central fortress, is bare: she has collected foodstuffs and personnel for a siege. When the messengers arrive, she has just heard that Huon is presumed dead, lost at sea. However, she consults with her kinsmen and rebukes the messengers (including an archbishop) who in very aphoristic speech attempt to convince her to accompany them. She has them stripped and beaten, then escorted out of the territory by her men. Barely getting away alive, the messengers must suffer through a horrible thunderstorm with no clothing or food that night on the road.

The story now rejoins Huon. After a tour of the Prester John’s “Land of Truths,” Huon insists on leaving in a well-furnished boat, in spite of repeated invitations to stay. He now truly heads into legendary territory, revisiting various literary and religious sites: sirens, handmaidens of a female demon (Scattolini, “Chorisantes”); mermen; a branch of hell; griffons; Noah’s Ark or his Tomb (the language isn’t clear); Limbo, where condemned birds sing on Sundays (Scattolini, Ricerche); and the Promised Land, where Enoch and Elijah preside. Further encounters include an attack by a harpy-like creatures and a mine worked by giant ants. Finally, his horse is killed by a serpent, and, after a prayer, three guides present themselves in succession: a demon, Aeneas, and Guillaume d’Orange [William of Orange; see Bennett]. What follows is an epic answer to Dante’s Divine Comedy, combining pieces of its construction and some of its characters together with traditional Old French epic characters, including those of Aspremont (q. v.), for a clerical rebuke to secular life.

Huon sees multiple entrances to hell, explained to him by Guillaume—the first labelled “Strong justice against excess” [Franche justise contre la desmesure, v. 9233]; one for Jews; one for Muslims; one destroyed at the Harrowing of Hell—as well as an entrance to Purgatory. Huon wants to enter the first, where he will know people. Each level is explained to a certain degree as Huon and his three guides pass through. There is no overall explanation of the structure, however, and portions seem to be in conflict. They pass through Ante-Hell and the first circle, which include the vainglorious, the greedy, the gossips, and the procurers (where they encounter Saudin, who had Huon sent here). They also see the Acheron; Charon and an archer; a section of clergy; pre-baptism inhabitants; an otherworldly castle; necromancers; dialecticians; Trojans and Greeks; chanson de geste figures, including a false version of Guillaume’s wife, Guiborc; Saracens from Aspremont (q.v.); a rebel against Charlemagne, Girart da Fraite (from Aspremont, among other epics); those who were hypocrites in how they dressed; Tisias and other knowledge-brokers; a fiery sulfur lake where nine of those who had advised Charles Martel to send Huon here are punished; Alexander chasing his poisoners; traitors, including Judas, Ganelon, Cain, and Pharoah. When Huon and his party finally reach Lucifer, he presents his message and receives the tribute (a litter, a crown, and a ring, symbolic of what Charles Martel has offered Ynide, Huon’s wife). Guillaume orders the devil accompanying the party to carry Huon home while he sleeps. Huon then awakes in his own keep to find Charles Martel besieging Auvergne and Ynide defending it. She has him seized as a possible spy because she doesn’t recognize him after his seven years in the wilderness, and he cannot speak to defend himself. Finally, she has him disarmed—he does not resist—and she recognizes a scar from his battle at Carcassone. There is a tearful reunion.

Huon attempts to end the siege by presenting the tribute to Charles Martel, who does not believe Huon has truly been to hell. Huon has Charles Martel sit on the litter, donning the crown and ring.  Devils appear and carry him off. The people must then decide who should rule and an international committee is formed to vet candidates. The king-to-be will marry Charles Martel’s daughter at the next meeting of the committee, in a year and a half.

The only possibilities through family lines are Huon and Guillaume Çapet; all other family lines are contaminated by non-nobles. Since Huon refuses and, in any case, is already married, Guillaume marries Belisor, Charles Martel’s daughter. Most peers refuse to pay Guillaume homage, however, and mutter negative judgements about him.

Once Guillaume is settled in as ruler, the poem ends with a siege of Rome. Saracens from Africa advance on Rome, and the pope sends to Paris for help. But Guillaume is weak, he is from the Mayence line (that of Ganelon), and the barons will not keep faith with him. When he calls up his army for war, the men refuse to come. Huon, instead, must muster the army. By the time the Franks (the French and the Franks are synonymous here, “Franc” and its variants are used) arrive in Rome, the pope had already called in the Germans, promising them the title of Roman Emperor. The Germans have taken over Rome, billeting everywhere, and will not allow the French any place to stay. Even the pope is ineffective in making peace. The French and Germans come to blows and Huon has his men toss the Germans into the street in one section of the city. When time for battle arrives, the French ride forth, and, while victorious, suffer many deaths. The Germans follow them to the field, not fighting, but rather, robbing the corpses. The French are not happy; Huon prays for help. God speaks to him proposing a combat for the crown of the Empire: 150 Germans versus 150 Franks, all champions. Huon agrees; at the end, he and one German are the only ones left, but the German breathes last—that is, Huon dies first—so the crown of Empire goes to the Germans, while the French remain free of sovereign rule.

The 1341 Berlin manuscript is 12,224 lines long, followed by a line of “Amen”s. The 1441 Turin manuscript, consisting of 11,840 lines plus one line giving the date, was badly damaged in the 1904 fire at the Turin National University Library (only the central portion of most pages survives). Luckily, there is a late nineteenth-century transcription which, although somewhat problematic, helps fill in missing lines (Morgan, “Ynide and Charles Martel”; huondauvergne.org). The Berlin and Turin manuscripts are closely related, but not directly from the same line of manuscripts: the Ynide portion is quite different, and the Turin is clearly trying to make sense of difficult passages (Scattolini, Ricerche). The Padua manuscript begins with a episode in which Charles Martel’s daughter attempts to seduce Huon. Andrea da Barberino’s prose Ugone d’Alvernia follows that version much more closely than the Berlin-Turin version. The Bologna fragment merely contains a portion of the hell episodes.

Hell in Huon is much less organized than in Dante. It reflects Guelph-Ghibelline battles in its commentary on royalty. It criticizes the lack of support for crusading as well as internecine combat on the Christian side during a crusade. It is also strongly critical of inappropriate university study and learning: among the prominent figures in hell are those revered in university study—Aristotle and Tisias, among others—and book-learning in general, other than the Bible, is pictured as misguided. However, it also criticizes unbending, uncritical obedience to rulers by making Huon’s passionate dedication to the vow extracted by king Charles Martel for ulterior motives seem ridiculous. By recycling chanson de geste motifs and otherworldly literature circulating before Dante and contemporary to him, such as St. Brendan’s voyage, the poem presents a clerical commentary on the world of the time using its tools.

There are no French versions of the Huon tale. Although its origin has been debated (Meregazzi; Scattolini, Ricerche), there is no question of its popularity and the knowledge of it in the Italian peninsula. It also circulated elsewhere in western Europe from the thirteenth century (Scattolini, Ricerche; McCormick, “Manuscript tradition,” “The Franco-Italian Epic”).