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The lay donator voice is the subject of careful writing by the monastic scriptorium of Gellone during the 12th century and this work goes hand in hand with multiple re-uses of characters and narrative situations resulting from contemporary chansons de geste. However, the point of view of the chansons de geste could in no way correspond, whatever the variations from chanson to chanson, to a monastic view of the world. The lay donator voice voice shaped by monastic writing is one of the places where the work of acculturation of epic utterances and their own conceptions of aristocratic lay voice and identity is concentrated : it is in its context of discourse that we have therefore tried to place it.