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singularity2001

Astonishingly accessible with a little knowledge of French:

“Il li demande coment se contient il? / Mauuoisement li quiens Bertram ad dit / Tun frere n’ad ne pain ne ble ne vin / Garison nule dont il puisse garir / Mais ke de sang li lessai plein Bacin,”

“He asks him, ‘How goes it with him?’ / ‘Badly,’ said Count Bertram. / ‘Your brother has neither bread nor corn nor wine; / He has no supplies with which to save himself, / Except for one basinful of blood, which I left him.’”

TIL: garrison <> supply

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Corn? Must refer to something else besides what we call corn today. A different grain? Or “corns” of salt maybe?

Although it has become associated with maize it is still used as a generic term for any cereal crop. At least here in the UK.

Corn was the name for all cereal grains in old english [0]

[0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/corn

You don't even need to go back to old english: per your source, definition 1 under english etymology 1 is:

(chiefly Britain, uncountable) Any cereal plant grown for its grain, or the grain thereof.

edit: but yes, in the context of discussing a poem from the 12th century, old English would make more sense :) Interesting that the translation is from the french ble , which I would intuitively associate with the modern french blé meaning[1] wheat

[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bl%C3%A9

Corn originally meant “small seed”, and then was generically used to refer to what are now typically called grains or cereals (wheat, oats, rye, ...).

The new-world grain maize, which had no existing name in English, was called “Indian corn”. Later, that was shortened to just “corn”, which eventually resulted in the generic word “corn” losing currency in North America.

'ble' in the text probably means blé, which is french for wheat. not sure why translator would chose corn (maïs in french).

I'd ask the opposite question: Why wouldn't he choose that?

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