The Old French Epic 0838310222, 9780838310229

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TH E O L D FR E N C H EPIC

THE OLD FRENCH EPIC BY

JESSIE CROSLAND

BASIL

BLACKW ELL OXFORD

1951

Printed in Great Britain for B asil B lackwell ft Mott, L imited by A. R. Mowbray ft Co. L imited, London and Oxford

IN T R O D U C T IO N T he object o f this study is not to break a lance in support o f any o f the conflicting theories which have been put forward as to the date, the origin or the historical accuracy o f the O ld French national epic, though these questions w ill have to be considered in the course o f the w ork, but to give a plain, unvarnished account o f this remarkable ‘genre’, this outburst o f epic poems during the eleventh and tw elfth centuries which is quite unparalleled in the history o f French litera- 1 mre. J t has been estimated that some eighty to a hundred epic poem r' £ ? r fir rr>d "/’> '>d. mostly in the tw elfthjceaîury. The poems were, o f course, o f very unequal value, butthe importance o f mis phenomenal output cannot be overlooked. They appeared ‘not (as) single spies but in battalions*— the history o f each outstanding hero developed into a cv d e o f poems which revolved round the original hero and furnished him w ith ancestors and descendants. The cyclic manuscripts con­ taining these poems may contain as many as twenty-seven ‘chansons* w hich form a kind o f continued story in which the same characters appear and reappear— sometimes after they have been killed o ff in a previous chapter. The ‘jongleurs’ themselves were responsible for diese collections and in some cases have added a few lines to one poem in order to form a connecting link w ith the next in the series, thus ensuring continuity. There is much that is decadent in character in the later ones and more still that is purely conventional, but, strange to say, fresh shoots o f this ‘floraison épique* appeared in other lands long after it had passed its prime in the land o f its birth. The present w ork is an attempt to view this phenomenon against its historical background, to examine the soil from which it sprang, to indicate the unique character and beauty o f its most noble exponents and to ' trace the development o f certain ideals o f thought and conduct which run through it. irhe poems have a value to-day not only from the ^ à e ^ d ie y o c c u p y in literary history and a certain alluring quality (which constantly draws the reader on, but they are extrem ely iportant as representing the best and the worst in the epoch whicn >roduced them. T jieypresen t a picture o f feudal society w ith its ^Idealism and brutality, its extremes o f loyalty and treachery, such as no chronicle o f the time can give. It is frankly admitted that in consideration o f such a vast and com plex subject m uch w ill be unavoidably omitted both in respect o f the ‘chansons’

vi

Introduction

themselves, and die many incidental questions w hich have arisen in connection w ith them. The greatest attention has naturally been paid to the most justly famous o f these epic poems and, as far as can be ascertained, to the earliest in date. This includes o f course the Chanson de Roland, certain outstanding poems o f the cycle o f Guillaume d*Orange, and that o f the ‘revolted barons* (o f which the best known is Raoul de Cambrai), bearing in mind that, although for the sake o f convenience this classification has been retained, mere is much that is common to all these poems as they had their roots in the same soil and are expressions o f the same spirit. A w ord must be said about possible discrepancies in the spelling o f proper names w hich w ill almost inevitably nave crept into the text. It has been difficult to be consistent in the use o f Anglo-N orm an and O ld French forms (e.g. W illam e and Guillaume, Gurmund and Gorm ont); o f names ending in d or t (e.g. Renaud and Renaut, Girard and Girart) and the declension o f proper names, w ith s or z in the nominative, has added to the difficulty. The indulgence o f the reader must be craved i f this lack o f consistency has become too obvious. Sincere thanks are due to the librarian and other members o f the staff o f W estfield College for the help and encouragement they have given me in a w ork w hich is the fruit o f long devotion to a very fascinating subject. J .C .

CONTENTS CHÁP.

, I.

n. IB. IV . « V. V I.

VU. VIII. IX . X.

PAO*

Introduction . T he B ackground of the O ld F rench E pic A . Historical B . Literary T he Epic C ycles and thb Geste du Roi Le Cycle de Guillame or Cycle Narbonnais T hb C yclb of R evolted B arons or Feudal Cycle . T hb Chanson de Roland . . . (i) Charlemagne (2) Roland Some C haracters in thb G uillaumb C yclb (ri Guillaume (n) Guillaume and Guibourg (m) Guillaume and his nephews R aoul db C ambrai and Some O ther R ebellious B arons . . . . . . T he H eathen in the O ld French Epic T he T raitor and H is P unishment Some Isolated Chansons de Geste Gormont et Isembart La Chanson d*Aiol

S I

m) Le Pèlerinage de Charlemagne iy) Amis et Amiles X I. T hb O ld French Epic outside France (ri hi England (n) In Germany (m) In Southern France \iv) In Italy ( v ) Epic legends in Scandinavia - X II. Epic T raditions . . . . E ditions of T exts C ited . . . . Index of P roper N ames . . . .

V

I

I? JO

48 TO 92

1 12 I38 Ï67 I9O

23O

. . .

27I 296

298

L IS T

O F A B B R E V IA T IO N S

C .F .M .A . — Classiques Français du M oyen A ge. E .E .T .S. — Early English T ext Society. A .P.F.

— Anciens Poètes de la France.

S.A .T .F . — Société des Anciens Textes Français. R .D .R .

— Romans des Douze Pairs.

ix

THE OLD FRENCH EPIC CHAPTER I TH E B A C K G R O U N D FREN CH

O F TH E

O LD

E P IC

A . H IST O R IC A L So much has been w ritten and so many theories have been put forw ard on the subject o f the origins and the date o f both the O ld French epic poems and the ‘genre’ to w hich they belong, that it is difficult in the w elter o f opinions to End any fixed point from w hich w e m ay proceed to unfold their history. The views are w idely divergent, ranging from the earlier school o f thought w hich held that these poems had their roots in the distant past and were composed o f an agglom eration o f shorter poems sung by contemporaries o f the heroes themselves, perhaps actually on the field o f battle, to the less romantic view that the poems, in a form not unlike their present one, are o f much later date and that they are due to the collaboration o f monks and jongleurs, brought together b y the mass-movements o f pilgrim s along the famous pilgrim age routes o f the M iddle Ages and incited to poetic production by the hope o f gain. This view has received many hard knocks in its turn and the pendulum has swung partially back again— but it still hovers rather uncertainly and refuses to be stabilized at any one definite point. There is so much room fo r conjecture where mere is a paucity o f reliable documents, and the search for origins is such an alluring one that the question ends by becom ing a sort o f w ill-o’-the-wisp. O ne o f the great difficulties lies in the fact that few o f these so-called chansons-de-geste have com e dow n to us in their original form . The very name is hard to define. The w ord ‘gesta’ originally meant 'deeds’, actions accomplished, things done. From this evolved the sense o f ‘history’ or record relating the deeds (e.g. ‘gesta Francorum,* ‘geste des Français*, etc.) and eventually that o f ‘fam ily’, lineage— in other words, ‘those w ho accomplished the deeds’. So, too, the poems themselves probably evolved and changed in the process. The evidence that heroic poems in some shape or form masted already as early as the first quarter o f

2

The Old French Epic

the eleventh century is too considerable to be overlooked. It w ould make this chapter too long to sift all the evidence for the existence o f ancient poems celebrating heroes, or to mention all the allusions to be found in chronicles o f the period to ‘vulgaria carmina, etc* which obviously must have existed and been handed down from one generation to another. B ut one thing is certain: all the more notable figures o f w hom w e have historical evidence and w ho form the centres o f the later cycles— Charlemagne himselfv Louis, his son, Roland (died at R oncevaux in 778), W illiam o f Orange (died in '«803), R aoul de Cam brai (died in 943)— belong to the Carolingian eppch, i.e. roughly the ninth and tenth centuries. O ther heroes, mentioned in some o f the poems themselves— Chlodoveu, Floövent, Pepin ‘le petit poigneür*— go back even further, but the references to these heroes are somewhat suspect and must be discounted as p ro of positive o f the existence o f songs celebrating them, although the possibility cannot be ruled out. In any case the ninth and tenth centuries, w hich saw the decay and break up o f the Carolingian empire, the grow th o f feudalism and the expansion o f die ecclesias­ tical power, form an unmistakable background for the events and ideas w hich w e find portrayed in the earlier epic poems, before the more romantic ideas o f chivalry and love had begun to invade the poetry o f France. It is notew orthy and in accordance w ith fact as furnished by chronicles o f the ninth century, how soon Charlemagne had developed into a legendary figure. N ow here in the O ld French epic is he seen active and at the height o f his glory, and rarely as a very heroic figure. In the Pèlerinage de Charlemagne, a poem w hich bears certain marks o f an early date, he plays an almost com ic part. Even in the Chanson de Roland, where he is seen at his noblest, he is at times a testy old gendeman w ho rates his knights, bursts into tears at frequent intervals, and has to be supported in w eak moments, both m orally and physically. So, although it has been suggested that in its earliest form the Chanson de Roland was a product o f the revolution against die dynastic change which placed H ugh Capet on the throne and was written ‘avec le soud de flétrir les traîtres de 987V1 i f one reads the poem w ith an unbiassed mind, there is litde to ju stify this opinion. It is noticeable h ow impersonal the expressions o f loyalty often are: ‘Ben devuns ci estre pur nostre rei’ or ‘Pur nostre rei devum nus ben mûrir’, or words to that effect are repeated almost like a refrain. The idea o f royalty was respected even after kings had 1 See M ireaux (Emile) : La Chanson i t Roland et l'histoire, 1945.

The Background o f the Old French Epic

3

become weak and corrupt and the strength o f this feeling can be detected in all the chansons-de-geste, including those in which the king plays a sorry rôle. B ut other factors are equally evident. D uring these tw o centuries w e can trace the rise o f the turbulent barons, o f the dukes and the counts w ho play such a large part in the epic » legends. W e m ay read o f their ambitions, their hostility towards a w eak king, their quarrels amongst themselves in any page o f Flodoard or R icher whose chronicles give us such a valuable picture o f those times. Here w e find, in fact, the ideal setting for our earlier chan­ sons. The poems are imbued w ith both the nobler ideas o f feudalism, w ith its loyalties to lord and peer and w ith its evils. The ingratitude or injustice o f a sovereign, the discontent caused by the method o f bestowing fiefs, the generally unsettled state o f society largely caused b y devastating raids o f heathen o f all descriptions, the superstitious beliefs in miracles and portents encouraged by the Church— all these features o f the times, so am ply testified to in the chronicles, are reflected in the earliest epic poems in the vulgar tongue. Another prevalent idea to which the contemporary writers bear witness forces itself on our attention. A ll through their writings runs the p ro of o f the importance attached to birth during the Carolingian epoch. O n one occasion a man o f obscure birth volunteered to act as the king's standard-bearer when all the barons were wounded. He apologizes almost abjectly for suggesting such a thing. ‘Ego ex mediocribus, régis agaso (=palefrenier), si majorum honori non derogobar, signum regium per hostium ades efferam.’1 M uch more serious and farreaching was the case in which a king lost the support o f all his feudal lords and was w ithin an inch o f losing his throne by extending his favour to a man o f humble birth2 and allow ing him to sit on his council. M any are the echoes o f this strong feeling in O ld French literature o f which the aristocratic nature is w ell known. Charle­ magne, giving advice to his son in the Couronnement de Louis, warns him solemnly against seeking advice from a ‘vilain’ or even a magis­ trate’s son. Birth is the one criterion, as can be seen in the evolution o f meaning in words such as gentil and franc and in the prominence given to words such as lignage and geste in the chansons-de-geste. In the later romances, where there is often a w eighing up o f nature versus nourriture ( = heredity v. environment) it is always nature which tips the scale. B ut noble birth involved noble qualities and any injustice on the part o f a king was greatly to be deplored. Am ong the instruc1 Richer, Bk. I, Ch. ix. * obsuris parentibus. Ibid., 1 ,15.

4

The Old French Epic

turns given to the young K ing Louis in the poem just mentioned is included a warning against injustice: N e orfc enfant por retolir son fié N e veve feme tolir quatre deniers

(IL 178-9).

Guillaume in the Chançun de Wiîlame daim s that he has never been guilty o f such an act o f injustice. O n die contrary: Apres le pere jo 'n oi le fiz á chier, que une la mere ne laissai coredcr (11.1576-7).

This inexcusable injustice on the part o f a weak king forms the pivot on w hich the w hole lurid poem o f Raoul de Cambrai revolves. H ow much such an action on the part o f the king was criticized in the tenth century w e m ay learn from the account in R icher s Chronicle (IV, Ixxv) o f the indignation felt when Eudes, Com te de Chartres, was unlawfully deprived o f his stronghold by the w ill o f his king. ‘D o you not think*, says his ambassador, ‘that the D ivinity itself is offended when on the death o f the father an orphan son is deprived o f his patrimony?* ‘That must be so,* is the reply, ‘and not only that, but it is a great discouragement for good men (“ honorum desper­ ado” ).’ Here w e have me theme o f the O ld French poem in a nutshell. T o the same realm o f feudal customs and ideas belongs the insistence on the tw ofold relationship o f ‘auxilium ’ and ‘consilium*. W e m ay ju d ge o f the hold w hich this relationship had over minds in the tenth century even in non-m ilitary matters by the constant reference to this mutual source o f strength in the letters o f the learned Gerbert. ‘O amicorum.fidissime,* he exclaims in a letter to a friend,1 *ne deseras amicum consilio et auxilio*, and he refers to it again and again. This fundamental idea runs all through the O ld french epic. Even the emperor in the Chanson de Roland, though in full know ledge o f w hat is right, cannot act w ithout the advice o f his barons. I f any ' decision has to be made he summons his knights ‘pur sun conseill finer*. In the Chançun de Willame (most unjustly relegated by a recent critic1 to the repertoire o f a ‘gedankenloser Spielmann niederer Art*)» Vivien, the ill-fated nephew o f Guillame d’Orange, valiantly refuses to risk the lives o f men w ho do not legally ow e him allegiance and ‘auxilium*. A ll the earlier chansons-de-geste abound in such allusions showing how deeply imbued they are w ith the feudal idea o f loyalty to one’s lord and one’s peer. In Raoul de Cambrai it is long before the w oefully w ronged Bernier throws o ff his allegiance to his liege-lord 1 Circ. Anno 983. C f. Gerbert: Lettres 983-97. Ed. J . Havet, 1889. * Curtius: ‘Ueber die altfranzösische Epik,’ Ztsch.fiir romanische Philologie, Bd. LX IV , 1944.

The Background of the Oíd French Epic

5

and defies him openly. H ow loyal the knights are to each other and w hat noble ideas o f friendship inspire these companions-in-arms! O liver calls to Roland ‘sun ami et sun per' to keep close to him in the battle,1 and the enigmatic Gualter del Hum recalls pathetically that he was ever Roland’s companion in courage and knew no fear when in his company.1 H ow com pletely different the spirit o f these earlier epics is from that o f the later romantic epic need hardly be pointed out. It is obvious that the setting in w hich they are placed is an essentially différait one. The literature o f a period reflects certain current ideas and tendencies. The O ld French epic poems reflect what, was ‘in the air' at a period dearly, distinguished from that reflected in the romances o f (say) Chrétien de Troyes in the .second half o f th etw elfth century, or even o f the so-called ‘romans imités de l'antiquité' o f a somewhat earlier date. In these latter a new conception o f love and o f the relations between the sexes had already crept in. A sort o f revolution in ideas had taken place. The religious element, so prominent in the earlier poems, is almost com pletely absent from the romances. The Church as such no longer has the same grip over men’s minds. A n occasional formal reference to God, a visit to a hermit when life has bean rendered hard by sinful conduct, is the most that w e find in Chrétien and his followers. The religious background seems to have com pletely changed. The inspired arm y has been replaced by the individual knight; the Church w ith its hierarchy o f priests and monks by the solitary hermit w ho does not figure in the earliest chansons-de-geste and but rarely in the Carolingian chronicles. The knight o f the romances is w illing to fight for his ow n (or his lady's) honour in an adventure, but has no desire to cfie for his religion or his country. His enemy is another individual knight, whereas in the earlier poems die combat is between the armies o f the true faith and massed hordes o f the heathen— be they Norm an, Huns, or Saracens only slighdy disguised under the name o f pagans. In any case, those not killed in battle must be converted to Christianity and baptized at the earliest opportunity. The first poly-baptism described in Richer's Chronicle3 is interesting as it shows the doubt felt by the archbishop and the priests as to the proper procedure in this unaccustomed rite. A synod had to be specially convoked, both God and the pope had to be consulted as to the appropriate method and only men could the cerem ony take place. In the Chanson de Roland, however, the event is treated as quite normal, and w e are told o f 100,000 being baptized at once in the 1 Chanson Je RolanJ, 1.1975. B

• Ibid., U. 2046,2049.

• Anno 921.

6

The Old French Epic

‘baptisterie’, only the Queen Bramimunde being reserved for less impersonal treatment by the susceptible emperor. From the date o f Charlemagne’s campaign against me Saxons and his crude methods o f conversion,1 the attitude towards the unbelievers was crystallized. There is merit in killing a heathen, even after his baptism, i f fear had been the cause o f it or i f danger w ould result from his remaining alive. B oth these ideas crop up again in the O ld French poems. In the Chanson de Roland the archbishop chooses out the most villainouslooking heathen to slay, and after his death he is discovered b y Charlemagne w ith 400 dead and dying around him ! h i the Chançun de Willame, Gui, the precocious young nephew o f Guillaume, treacherously slays a heathen when he is on the ground for fear o f the m ischief he m ight still perform i f left alive, and is applauded by his unde for the action. There may be an occasional fine pagan or even a handsome one, but for the most part they are repulsive and treacher­ ous and only fit to be exterminated. Incursions by the heathen w ere very frequent during the Carolingian period— whether o f the Avars under their Kagan, or the Northm en under their warlike dukes, or the Saracens under their fanatical leaders. The countryside was ravaged, the dties burned, the inhabitants murdered, and rich booty, sometimes including the holy relics, carried off. A n y one o f these incursions could have been in the author’s mind when the Chançun de Willame received its earliest form. The incursion o f K ing Déramez against the coast o f France sounds a familiar note: Les marches guastet les aluez vait «prendre, les veirs cors sainz trait par force del regne.

This m ight be the echo o f any o f the savage raids on die coast which made it necessary to transfer the relics and m ove further inland, involving at times a change o f capital. O n rare occasions the struggle between tw o armies m ight be decided by a single combat (singulare certamen or monomachia duorum). The belief in the judicium Dei to decide a batde or uphold the honour o f an accused person is found even amongst the savage Lombards, although one enlightened emperor expressed some doubt as to its validity in all cases. N o such doubts troubled the authors o f the O ld French epics where famous batdes between Roland and Femagu and other notable heroes became traditional. But the fact o f defeat or disaster in the French poems was not always a p roof that God had deserted the righteous any more than it was in the chronicles. Indeed, the hero o f defeat was perhaps 1 The Bible or the sword—equalling in ruthlessness the methods o f Mahomet.

The Background of the Old French Epic

7

the best loved hero o f all, as w e m ay have seen from the popularity o f a Roland and a Vivien, the tw o ill-fated nephews o f tw o famous men. It was rare for the fighters to feel themselves forgotten o f God as did Vivien’s arm y in die Chançun de Willame (‘Deus nus ad ubliez*). T h e inevitability o f death is generally accepted, and it is not to be deplored i f it overtakes those fighting for a good cause. R obert, D uke o f C eltic Gaul, encouraged his men in their fight against the pirates in 921 to care litde for death which may come at any time to any o f us when fighting for fatherland, life and liberty. Earlier still, K in g Eudes, in a furious batde against the Northm en in 892, encour­ aged his soldiers w ith the words Ydecus pro patria m oñ, egregiumque pro christianorum defensione corpora m orti dare*. This is, indeed, a prose version o f w hat w e find expressed so often in verse by the French poets. Roland, too, exhorts his men to die fighting ana not to flee, for certain death awaits them: Pramis nus est, fin prendrum aitant, U ltre cest ju m ne scrum plus vivant (11.1518-19).

Doubdess the assurance o f a seat amongst the ‘Innocenz* in holy Paradise w ould be a solace in view o f death just as the promise o f the ‘martyrii palmam* and the ‘coronam caram* had been to a previous generation. T o ask for respite from death was an ignoble petition. V ivien in the Chançun de Willame repents immediately o f having prayed for ‘respit de mort* in view o f me fact that even God did not spare Himself, and tw ice over he asks his men scornfully i f they want to die in their beds.1 O n ly in a few cases was it granted to the happy w arrior to have concrete certainty that his soul w ould go straight to Paradise. Roland, in a symbolic gesture, was allowed actually to hand his glove to God, but this is an isolated example. The support and solace o f the Church, however, was available for all w ho died in true repentance, and during the ninth and tenth centuries, i f w e m ay trust die chronicles, the favour or disfavour o f heaven was manifested in unmistakable ways. N o t only the monastic annals, but the histories o f Paulus Diaconus, Flodoard and R icher abound in records o f signs and portents which show which w ay the wind is blow ing. Eclipses, comets, earthquakes, tempests all happen w ith amazing frequency. Visions and dreams abound, and the death o f any important person is almost always foretold by a portent or a disaster o f some sort. The 1 The prayer o f Vivien in his extremity rings true though most o f the prayers in the O ld French poems are o f a form al character. Such expressions as Dieu vrai paterne and Seinte Marie genetrice take us straight to the litany or to well-known passages in the Latin hymnwriters.

8

The Old French Epic

death o f K ing R aoul in January 936 was preceded by a number o f ‘presages funestes’— armies o f fire in the sky, flames o f blood, and a terrible pestilence. Before the death o f the Bishop o f Tours in 943 a luminous globe was seen flashing through the sky. These are but tw o examples out o f many. It is small wonder then that, arising out o f such a soil, Charlemagne in the Chanson de Roland should see visions and dream dreams, and that Roland’s death should be preceded b y an earthquake, and a tempest accompanied by thunderbolts ana terrifying lightning, or that the superstitious should think that the end o f the w orld was upon them.1 The famous prophecies o f R aoul Glaber, w riting in the eleventh century, m ay have been something in the nature o f an Old Moore*s Almanack, but there is no doubt but that there was a certain apprehension o f the year 1000 in some pious people’s minds. The events o f the second h alf o f the tenth century, the unsettled state o f things generally, the change o f dynasty w ith its accompanying disorders, in fact, die acerba témpora, for which, according to Gerbert (later Pope Sylvester II), the only remedy was a philosophic mind, all these things turned men’s minds inevitably to the thought o f the end o f a disastrous age and to the hope o f a better one to follow . This is the background w hich explains die hopeless, almost nostalgic state o f feeling w e find expressed in die earliest O ld French epic. ‘O G od,’ says Charlemagne (aged 200 years or more), when called to make fresh exertions, ‘how wearisome is m y life.’ Even more pitiful is the discouragement o f Guillaume (aged 150 years and more) after his defeat, when he laments to his w ife: ‘I am old and feeble; I shall never bear arms again. M y honour in this life is finished.* B . L IT E R A R Y The Gerbert just mentioned (Gerbertus or Girbertus) was director o f studies (‘scolasticus’) at the Cathedral School o f Rheim s from 972 to 982. His learning and skill were such that even during his lifetim e he was suspected o f a certain intercourse w ith the devil, a suspicion w hich developed freely during the later M iddle Ages. He was far too exceptional a man to be taken as typical o f his age but, though he him self was an isolated example, the instruction which emanated from h im must have had w ide dissemination, as w e know that students flocked to his classes from all parts in ever increasing num­ bers.2 His reputation was so great that his name was w idely know n 1 ‘La fin del siede ki nus est en present* (L 1435). 1 C f. R icher: Bk. Ill, ch. 55

The Background of the Old French Epic

9

not only through all parts o f Gaul (‘per Gallias*) and among the peoples o f Germany» but also on the other side o f die Alps, where his fame spread as far as Tuscany and to the shores o f the Adriatic. T h e cathedral school at Rheim s was ju sd y celebrated in those days, and doubdess became a model for other schools throughout die country. Gerbert’s curriculum o f studies therefore presents some interest for the period which constitutes the background o f the O ld French epic. The future jx>pe was first and foremost a philosopher, v e iy famous for his logic (in lógica clarissimus habebatur’), his dialectic, and his exposition o f Aristode. Follow ing his courses on these subjects he wished to proceed to the study o f rhetoric but found that it was impossible for his students to attain to a knowledge o f oratory unless they were familiar w ith the writings o f the poets. He therefore put his students through a course o f literature. He read and commentated (‘legit itaque et docuit’) V irgil, Statius, and Terence (poetas), Juvenal, Persius, and Horace (satíricos), and Lucan (historiographum).1 O n ly after he had familiarized his students w ith these authors could he pass on to instruction in rhetoric, the subject most highly esteemed in those times. V irgil the poet and Lucan the poet-historian are the tw o authors that most concern us here. Am ongst those pupils o f Gerbert w ho came from their ow n homes in France, Germany, or Italy, it w ould be strange indeed i f no potential poet was inspired to do for his ow n country w hat V irgil had done for his. The theme o f patriotism, o f obligations to one’s faith and one’s fam ily, the belief that the contest is between a superior race directed by divine provi­ dence and inferior races governed b y inferior deities w ould have been enough in itself to be a source o f inspiration in those troublous times. B u t add to this a much-admired technique, an orderly and sym­ metrical arrangement, descriptions o f single combats by heroes men­ tioned b y name, insults heaped upon the fallen foes, laments for die dead and other technical devices, and w e have a clear source o f inspiration for the poet trying out a similar theme in a nascent and as yet im perfect language. There is hardly a rhetorical device (except perhaps that o f the lengthy similes) w hich w e do not find in the O ld Frenen national epic. M any o f these tricks o f style, such as hyperbole, apostrophe, rhetorical questions, etc.,1 are com mon to all prim itive poetry and are almost inseparable from the epic form . Descriptions 1 Ibid., m . 47. * Seventeen o f which have been classified, defined and named by German scholarship. C f. Curtins, toe. tit.

IO

The Old French Epic

o f landscapes w ould be perfectly natural, not to say indispensable in a long poem. The brief juxtaposition o f mountains ana valleys, so much favoured by the author o f the Chanson de Roland w ho refers again and again to ‘les vais et les munz*, especially in the antithesis ‘Halt sunt les pui et les vallees tenebreuses*, is such a natural figure o f speech that it seems a little unnecessary to describe it as ‘eine ver­ witterte Schrumpfungsform antiker Landschafts-Ekphrasis’.1 B ut the fact remains that the technique o f the earliest O ld French epic poems, as w ell as their subject matter ('la grande bataille'), do reflect much o f the character o f the Latin authors most favoured in the ninth and tenth centuries. The Pharsalia o f Lucan, studied in the schools w ith as much zeal as V irgil's poem and greatly beloved in the later M iddle Ages, is rich in romantic descriptions, portents, dreams, and w itch­ craft. It could hardly fail to be a source o f inspiration to the potential poets o f a period in w hich the copying o f manuscripts flourished, b y virtue both o f its subject matter, its pathos, and its characterization. The moral content, too, was not w ithout its effect. For both V irgil and Lucan the virtue o f ‘temperantia’ outshines almost all others. ‘Servare modum’,2 so difficult especially when fortune smiles (‘rebus secundis’); to believe oneself bom not for oneself alone but for die w hole w orld,8 what marvellous ideas for the pupils o f Gerbert to carry aw ay w ith them and make their ow n. It is not surprising that w e find the idea o f mesure, or its opposite démesure, so prominent in the O ld French epic legends, side by side w ith the idea that the hero lives not for himse lf alone, but for his fam ily, his country, his religion, and his king, in fact for the w hole w orld. O ne w ould search in vain for any direct im itation or conscious verbal borrow ing from the Latin poets, but these are the models w hich were available to any poet o f that time w ho had enjoyed an average ‘clerical' education, and it becomes more and more patent that the epic poems o f the eleventh and tw elfth centuries w ere the w ork, not o f an indefinite mass o f individuals know n as ‘the people', but o f individual authors o f a considerable amount o f culture. The medieval or late Latin poems, on the other hand, or at any rate those w hich have com e dow n to us, w ere not o f a kind to become sources o f inspiration to the new generation o f poets w ho w rote in the vulgar tongue. T h ey smack so much o f the classroom, they are so artificial in character, 1 The expression les veis et les munis means no more than the English 'up hill and down dale' even simply ‘up and down'. * Æneid X , 502; Lucan: Pharsalia II, 381. ' 'N ec sibi sed to ti genitum se credere mundo.’ Ibid., II, 383.

The Background of the Old French Epic

II

givin g die sort o f impression o f prize poems, that they cannot be seriously considered as forerunners o f the chansons-de-geste. T h ey are padded w ith imitations o f the classics and stilted in style, even where the subject matter is heroic in character; it w ould need a stretch o f im agination to suppose that they served as models to our poets. W e can only rejoice that their style did not become a more lasting fashion. T h e passage in the poem in Latin hexameters o f the so-called Poeta Saxo (ninth century), w hich mentions the defeat at Roncevaux in 778 and speaks o f ‘vulgaria carmina* celebrating the heroes and their ancestors, is only an amplification o f a reference in Eginhard*s Vita Caroli Magni1 to ‘barbara et antiquissima carmina quibus veterum regum actus et bella canebantur*. These ‘carmina* w ould presumably have been in German and do not concern us here. The Poeta Saxo’s w ork itself cannot be considered as a heroic epic. It is a metrical paraphrase o f Annals and Eginhard’s Vita and adds nothing to the background w e are endeavouring to sketch. N or is the poem o f Ermoldus Nigellus (ninth century), In honorent Ludowici, very much m ore fruitful. This poem is a rather fulsome panegyric o f Louis die Pious w ritten in the hope o f winning back the Emperor’s favour. It is stuffed w ith reminiscences o f V irgil, O vid, and later Latin poets. N either o f these poems can be considered as genuine heroic epic. The obscurity o f style, coupled w ith their artificial rhetorical devices and lack o f naturalness, marks them out as the w ork o f scholars interested in giving p ro of o f their ow n scholarship. T h ey are poles apart from the sim plicity and straightforwardness o f style that w e find in the Chanson de Roland, w hich is the least ‘popular’ in style o f any o f the O ld French epic poems. The same m ay be said o f another ninthcentury poem w hich is not a mere panegyric and has a more heroic subject. This is the poem entided Bella parisiacae urhis, w ritten by A bbo in the year 897 and describing the siege o f Paris by the Normans in 885-7. Here w e find all the epic ‘m otifs’ o f love o f one’s country, pious belief, etc., but the subject matter is so hopelessly obscured by the fantastic artificiality o f the style that w e are almost reminded o f the trobar dus o f the troubadours in the tw elfdi century. The w ork begins characteristically: Urbs mandata fuit Karolo nobis basileo . Imperio cujus regitur totus prope Kosmos

and throughout the poem Greek words, obscure words, heathen deities and ideas occur w ith such frequency that the author him self 1 Cap. 29.

12

The OU French Epic

was obliged to add glosses to elucidate his contorted and intentionally perplexing style. Here again w e are disappointed i f w e hope to find a model for the chansons-de-geste, although die author has a good tale to adorn. N or can anything concrete be adduced for the pre-history o f the chansons-de-geste from another elusive document known under the tide o f die Fragment de la Haye, a curious and unique fragment o f Latin prose preserved in the Bibliothèque R oyale at the Hague. The text has been variously dated from the ninth to the tw elfth century— so uncertain is the dating o f these medieval Latin texts. It is generally accepted that the fragment is a prose version o f a poem in Latin hexameters and is an example o f an ‘exercice d’écoliers’. I f the latest date (twelfth century) be accepted for the fragment it obviously cannot find a place in our background. B ut there is much that points to an earlier date even i f w e do not accept the view that it proves the existence o f a literary tradidon and m ay be the reproduction o f an O ld French poem o f the tenth or early eleventh century. The fragment describes in turgid style a siege in which ‘Carolus imperator’ and various heroes w ith names familiar to us from the O ld French epic poems (chiefly those o f the Guillaume cycle) take part. Even the heathen Borel w ith his troop o f sons (unum e natis Borel), a mysterious figure often mentioned casually in the early chansons, finds his place in die description. B ut the style is artificial, the reminiscences o f classical authors are numerous, the introduction o f classical m ythology— Mars, Gradivus, Bellona, Orcus, Tonans (= G od ) and constant references to Fortune— abound side b y side w ith references to the D eity in a w ay that does not seem to point to an original in the vulgar tongue. These characteristics and other technical devices are, how ever, so typical o f the late Latin epic o f the tenth century that w e cannot entirely ignore a document w ith a knowledge o f the O ld French heroes even though it be a mere ‘exer­ cice d’écoliers’— perhaps even a radier clever parody. O ne can w ell imagine a schoolboy w riting an impudent im itation o f V irgil or Lucan about the Emperor Charles: Carolus imperator ut fortds, fixus pietatc Tonantis, quam semper sdebat presentem largam que,. . . semperque tollit lumina ad sidera, soluta manandore lacrimarum, humectatque genas, etc.

The fragment remains an intriguing one showing certain affinities w ith the early O ld French poems and bringing the Emperor Charles into the same picture as the heroes o f the Guillaume cycle in a w ay w e rarely find in the early chansons w ith the exception o f the Pèlerinage

The Background of the Old French Epic

13

de Charlemagne, which also partakes rather o f the nature o f a parody. In the w ake o f these turgid, artificial works o f late Latin, redolent o f the midnight oil, obscure, affected and lacking in human feelings, the earliest poems in the vulgar tongue must have come like a breath o f fresh air haling the spring o f a new epoch. There is, however, one poem which is in a different category from those to which w e have briefly alluded and which does present many analogies w ith the O ld French poems. The so-called Waltharius or Vita Waltharii mam fortis is as obscure as to its origin as it is to its date. Litde reliance can be placed on the ascription o f the poem b y Ekkehard IV in the Casus Scti Galli1 to his predecessor Ekkehard I o f the monastery o f St. Gallen as the former is notorious for his in­ accuracies. I f w e could trust his dates the poem w ould have to he placed somewhere in the second h alf o f the tenth century. Actually an even earlier date has been generally accepted and recent research w ould place it aw ay hack in the ninth century. It has been claimed b y both French and Germans as a national product. The names o f some o f die characters— Hagen and Gunther— are w ell known in German legends and, i f Ekkehard can be trusted, it originated in a German cloister. A n awkward passage in the prologue w hich precedes the w ork in some o f the manuscripts mentions a certain Geraldus, ‘peccator fragilis’, whose connection w ith the poem is rather vague but w ho is very unlikely to have been the author. W hatever its source, it was know n in both 'romance* and Germanspeaking lands; the hero.is an Aquitanian (later transplanted into Spain), and a certain confusion arose in legends attributed to him and to Guillaume d’Orange, perhaps on account o f a likeness between them and their belligerent careers. In any case the question o f origins does not concern us here as Latin was the common language for w ritten records and histories and all forms o f 'book-epic* in those days. W hat does concern us is that the Waltharius undoubtedly p re se ts some striking analogies w ith the O ld French epics. The story is o f the escape o f tw o hostages from the court o f A ttila (a theme very reminiscent o f a chapter o f G regory o f Tours' 'Historia Francorum'), and it revolves round one character built on heroic lines ana identified b y his attribute o f ‘manu fords’ just as Guillaume d’O range was later b y his sobriquet o f 'fiere-brace'. The actual characters bear no striking resemblance to those o f later epics— indeed, the only feminine character provides us w ith a contrast rather 1Cb. lxxx.

14

The Old French Epic

than a parallel. O ne could hardly imagine it being stated o f the stout-hearted w ife o f Guillaume that: Ipsa metu perculsa sonum prompsit muliebrum (1. 892).

It is the form and arrangement o f the poem w hich strike such a familiar note to those acquainted w ith the French epic poems. N aturally the ordinary epic technique is there— Virgilian phrases, apostrophes, antitheses, insulting epithets o f the combatants w ho are all distinguished by name. B ut besides this w e find a division into sections o f varying length, rather like the ‘laisses* in the O ld French epic and the mixture o f direct and indirect speech so common to all these poems. The opening lines (as in die Chanson de Roland) are quite simple and essential to the story: Attila rex quodam tulit illud tempore regnum, etc.

The main part o f the poem consists o f a series o f single combats between the hero and his adversaries, each o f w hom is named and briefly characterized in a w ay exacdy corresponding to that in the Chanson de Roland. There is not much religion in the poem, but the vision-‘m otíT is here and, strangely enough, the ominous dream o f Hagen before the batde is almost identical w ith one o f the visions o f Charlemagne in the Chanson de Roland. As in the other medieval Latin epics, w e find the m ixture o f heathen and Christian ideas. Orcus, Erebus, the Parcae, Phoebus, all play their part. B ut the Christian element predominates. W hen W alther has committed the sin o f pride he immediately falls on his knees and prays for forgiveness—o n another occasion he makes the sign o f the cross; he inter­ polates ‘volente Deo* when expressing a wish for the future, he addresses God as ‘Dom inum benignum — qui peccantes non vu lt sed perdere culpas*. W hen he has killed all ms adversaries he places each o f their heads on its appropriate trunk, prostrates himself, and prays that he m ay meet them again in paradise, an action even more touching than that o f Roland in fetching and ranging the bodies o f his tw elve peers before the archbishop, as in the latter case they were his friends and not his enemies. The method o f describing the series o f combats, too, is very similar in the tw o poems— the spear, the sword, the triple hauberk, the blow which cleaves the helmet, the body, and the horse’s back. The vocabulary employed is often nearly related to that o f the vernacular, and one or tw o set phrases are o f special interest. T o describe the outstanding valour o f a hero die author exclaim s: Quisquís ei congressus erat, m ox tartara vidit,

The Background of the Old French Epic

15

an exact parallel to a favourite description, particularly frequent in th e Guillaume cycle, w hich appears w ith many variations in the second half-line: cui il consult, n’a pas de m ort garant.

A nother customary device o f the O ld French poets when describing a furious batde scene is to exclaim in admiration: ‘I f only you had seo i, etc.' or ‘Then you m ight have seen. . La veïssiez fier estor esbaudir !

T h is, too, w e find in the Waltharius: Hie vero medenda virum turn bella videres !

These examples do not exhaust the affinities that can be traced between the Waltharius and our French poems. T h ey m ay be small points but there is too much, both in details and in the subject and fram ew ork o f the Latin poem to dismiss its claim to being, in many respects a predecessor o f die epic poems in the vulgar tongues. W alther, like m any a hero o f the latter legends, was reputed to have aid ed his life as a hermit. This m ay have been a later addition as a h oly ending was often found the b a t method o f disposing o f turbu­ lent h eroa. Doubdess h a e the ‘L iv a o f the Saints' and the writings o f the early fathers provided many models for this excellent w ay o f em ploying the last lap o f an active life. B ut it was the last lap only— for in those chaotic days when bishops fought and monks w ere dapised it was the deeds o f warriors w hich interated the public for w hom the epic legends were datined, far more than the lives o f the gende saints w ho healed head-ache and stomach-ache, made friends w ith the beasts and suffered such horrible persecutions from man. The warlike Frank preferred the pugilist to the p riâ t as h a o o f their epics. It is interesting to recall that even in the O ld Saxon poem Der Heliandf w hich is a kmd o f Gesta Christit the hero Christ is represented as a feudal lord surrounded by his tw elve barons, and the scene in which Peter cut o ff the high p ria t's servant's ear is described w ith evident relish and w ith much unnecessary effusion o f blood. The love for epic poetry seems to have persisted through all those centuria w hich are com m only lumped together as ‘The D ark A g a '. It em erga out o f the darkness in various forms, religious, legendary, panegyrical. B ut the O ld Froich epic poems have quite a special character o f their ow n. T h ey are not purely historical, nor are they purely legendary. T h ey are not panegyrics o f saints* or kings. T h ey contain many deep truths: they em body much o f the wisdom o f the a g a which is expressed som etim a in proverbs, som etim a in

16

The Old French Epic

reflections o f the authors, but more often in the characters themselves. These characters are as yet little touched by the somewhat artificial influence o f the refined courts. The portents, dreams and miraculous happenings are serious, biblical ones such as w e find in the books o f Daniel and Hezekiah— not yet the marvels, living or automatic, which the later romances derived from sources opened to them b y die Crusades. Indeed, it cannot be insisted upon too much. Just as die history o f the tenth and eleventh centuries, their social customs and their institutions give us the historical setting o f the O ld French epic, so, too, the annals and chronicles o f the period furnished an inexhaustible store o f semi-historical, semi-legendary occurrences w hich were at the disposal o f the first authors o f epic poems in the vulgar tongue. It is more than possible that certain anecdotes, certain details were stored in the minds o f the French poets, as w ell as the general impression o f the period o f w hich they sung. Paulus Diaconus tells a delightful story o f the litde boy Grimoald w ho was in danger o f being left to the m ercy o f the invading pagan arm y because he was too small to gallop on a full-sized horse. He pleads to be allowed to try and, mounted on a charger w ith neither reins nor saddle, follow s his fleeing brothers. He is overtaken, alas, by the Saracens, but whilst they pause before killing him, the quick-witted youth seizes a stick and cleaves his captor through the skull. This causes the author to quote an apt line from V irgil’s description o f the bees in the Georgia in w hich he describes the w it o f those tiny creatures: ‘Ingentes ánimos angusto in pectore versant’.1 It is impossible to read the description o f the final defeat o f the heathen in the Chançun de Willame w ithout recalling this episode. G ui, the young nephew o f Guillaume, has follow ed the arm y (against his uncle's wishes) on a huge horse. His feet cannot reach the stirrups and he has to ride bare-back. B ut his final act is to give a coup-de­ grace to a fallen pagan and ju stify him self for the action in such a w ay as to make his uncle remark: Cors as d’enfant mais raison as de ber ( = baron = grow n man).

Possibly die horse described b y both Flodoard and Richer as ‘validissuin at the age o f ioo years and over suggested to the author o f the Chanson de Roland the name o f ‘veillantir for his famous steed. B ut it w ould be futile here to collect details, even though they exist in considerable number, as they w ould m erely obscure the broader issues w hich form the subject o f this chapter. 1 Georgia IV, 83.

CHAPTER H

TH E

E PIC C Y C L E S

AND

THE

GESTE D U R O I

T he O ld French epic poems, or chansons-de-geste as they w ill be called from henceforth, can be conveniently, i f not always accurately, distributed into three main groups, or ‘cycles’, according to their subject matter and the outstanding hero, or type o f hero, about w hom they are grouped. These three cycles, or ‘gestes’ are (i) that o f the king or emperor, namely Charlemagne; (2) that o f D oon de M ayence from w hom are descended all the large fam ily o f traitors even includ­ in g such noble figures as Renaut de MontauBan and others; (3; that o f Garin de M ontglane, the ancestor o f the famous Guillaume d’Orange, and all his numerous fam ily. The first and third o f these groups w hich centre round Charlemagne and Guillaume respectively are fairly well-defined. The second includes all the numerous poems celebrating the exploits o£unruTy barons, and it w ill be simpIerTFthe three groups are spoken o f in the follow ing pages as (1) the ‘cycle du roi*, (i) the 'cycle de G uillaume d’ O ran ge, and . dès barons révoltés’ or ‘feudaT cycled even though epic heroes o f this group were not precisely in the mind o f the medieval poet'w hen he drew up his classification. The division into groups is, o f course, arïfflcîâi'ând ö f relatively late origin. It was neither necessary nor possible at the date when the first epic poems were composed. B ut as these poems increased in numbers and the heroes, w e m ay suppose, became popular, some sort o f grouping became almost inevitable. I f w e take as an example the cycle o f Guillaume d’Orange, w hich gives us the best sample o f this kind o f cyclic formation revolving round a central figure, or figures, w e are introduced to tw o heroes, Guil­ laume and his nephew Vivien, both full o f interest and dramatic possibilities and, perhaps, most appealing o f all, full o f tragedy. It is therefore not surprising that Guillaume once having been launched*, people asked for more— (there are many examples o f this in m odem literature— e.g. Sherlock Holmes)— and the 'jongleurs* hastened to m eet the request by supplying details o f his youthful escapades, his manner o f obtaining a fief, ms old age, and finally his death. The cycle o f Guillaume is an exceptionally complete one, as w e may follow him almost from the cradle to the grave. Some o f the heroes died young and were spared the cares o f matrimony and the despondency 17

The Old French Epic

i8

o f old age. This was the case w ith a Roland and a V ivien. B u t the exploits o f their youth— the ‘enfances’ as they w ere rather attrac­ tively called, could still be sung. M oreover, the biblical taste for genealogies developed during the period which produced the chansons-de-geste— fostered, perhaps, by the annals o f the times1 and the urge to provide a respectable origin for the hero. D uring no period o f French literature was the necessity for being ‘bien né* m ore ingrained in men’s minds than in the tw elfth and thirteenth centuries. This idea accounts probably for the classification into cycles w hich w e ow e to the ‘jongleurs* themselves and w hich acquires some sense when looked at from this point o f view . A famous passage in Girard de Viane, a poem belonging to the ‘feudal cycle*, groups the ‘chansons* into three gestes w hich are characterized as follow s: „

N ’ot que iii gestes en France la garnie: D ou Roi de France est la plus seignorie £ de richesse et de chevalerie. Et l'autre apres (bien est drois q u ejo die) Est de Doon a la barbe florie Ceî de Maiance qui tant ot baronie. En son lignage ot gent fiere et hardie D e tote France eüssent seignorie.. . . Se il ne fussent plain de tel félonie. D e ccl lignage ou tant ot de boidie Fut Ganelons qui, par sa tricherie, En grant dolor mist France la garnie D on furent m ort entre gent paienime L i doze per de France. . . . La tierce geste ke m oult fist a proisier Fu de Garin ae Montglane le fier. D e son lignage puis je bien tesmoignier Q ue il n 'i ot ne coart ne lainnier N e traitor ne felon losengier.

It w ill be seen that, in tw o cases out o f the three, this passage concerns roots, or ancestors. W e find the same division in a poem devoted to one o f these ancestors, viz. the Chanson de Doon de Mayence, so that it was evidently current amongst the ‘jongleurs’ themselves, w ho were eventually responsible also for collecting the poems o f the biggest group into cyclic manuscripts so as to give a kind o f continued story. In the case o f the ‘geste du roi*, however, this was hardly possible. In spite o f the fact that Charlemagne became a legendary figure at a very early date, it is noticeable that he did not lend him self much to epic development. W alter M ap, w riting in the 1 C f. the expression ‘ex patre’ a ‘sired by* in these documents.

The Epic Cycles and the *Geste du Roi*

19

tw elfth century, laments that, though Caesar lived in die praises o f Lucan and Æneas in those o f V irgil, the godlike nobility o f the Charleses and Pépins was only celebrated in the vulgar rhymes o f mimes, and their characters full o f bravery and self-control were still awaiting the pen.1 The renaissance o f learning, of which Charlemagne was the promoter, cüd^not appeal much to the popular im agination, ancLthe figure of the emperor was perhaps too august to be treatçd like that o f an ordinary man. W hatever the reason m ay be, the fact remains that the Chanson de Roland, in which Charlemagne appears in his most regal capacity, is like ‘a triton among the minnows’ when compared w ith the rest o f the poems which went to the formation o f this cycle. In fact, although the thirteenth-century author o f Girart de Viane speaks o f the ‘geste du roi* as being ‘la plus seignorie’ , the royal cycle, or ‘cycle de Charlem agne', can hardly be said to exist. W ith the exception o f the Chanson de Roland, in w hich the emperor and his nephew vie w ith each other as the focal point o f interest, and the Pèlerinage de Charlemagne, which it is difficult to take seriously, there is hardly a poem o f real poetic value in this group. Charlemagne was too nebulous, too much enveloped in his cloud o f glory to furnish a really sympathetic hero. He was too great to be tied down to one cycle or one particular set o f poems. In the Fragment de la Haye, mentioned in the last chapter, ‘Carolus Imperator’ urges on his men b y his batde-ardour, but the knights around him are not the tw elve peers w ho norm ally form his bodyguard, but heroes bearing the w ell-know n names o f another fam ily, that o f Aym eri de Narbonne, h i the Pèlerinage, too, w e find O gier o f Denmark, Duke Naime, Turpin and Roland rubbing shoulders w ith Guillelme d’Orange and his brothers Bernard, Hemaut and Aim er in an eclectic group o f ‘doze pers’. N or was the emperor furnished w ith a pedigree or descendants. True, his mother, the so-called ‘Berthe au grand pied', forms the subject o f a thirteenth-century poem which describes how Berthe, fraudulently deprived o f her conjugal rights by her w aitingmaid and banished into the forest, is eventually discovered by the king when the fraud has been exposed, and the marriage is con­ summated by the impatient king in the w aggon (‘grand char’) in w hich he has made his journey to her hiding place. The infant, w ho is bom in due time, is christened ‘Char-le-m agne’ to perpetuate the place o f his origin, and becomes the illustrious emperor. M eanwhile a son o f K ing Pepin's first w ife has grow n up and wages w ar on his 1 C C De Nugis Curialium, D iv. V , Prologue i.

20

The Old French Epic

young half-brother Charles, and the bastard, disguised under die name o f Mainet, forms the subject o f another poem which has come dow n to us in a garbled and fragmentary form . Poems like this make us incline to agree w ith the verdict o f W alter Map. These late and unheroic personal poems are unworthy o f the great king. It is pos­ sible that other poems which have not com e down to us celebrated the male ancestors o f the emperor. In an interesting passage in the Chançun de Willame w e hear o f ‘un jugleür’ w ho is present at the batde and can relate ‘de geste les chançuns* (the first know n use o f this expression), and amongst the songs expressly mentioned are those of Chlodoveu le premier rei Francur K i creeit primes en deu nostre seignur1

and o f Pepin le petit poigneSr*

— presumably Pepin le bref, die father o f Charlemagne. Poems about Chlodovech (French Clovis) and Pepin m ay have existed but they have not com e down to us, whereas the other heroes mentioned b y the ‘jongleur*— Floovent (= C hlodovenc), Charlemagne, Girart and ‘O livier le prou* have all been perpetuated in song.* Roland him self is anxious that no ‘malvaise cançun* should be sung about him or his men4 and that no blame should attach to his ‘parents* on his account.6 In a famous passage he refuses to be accompanied on his dangerous mission by too large an army lest he bring disgrace on his kin: Deus me cimfunde se la geste en desm ent6

B ut die fact remains that the fam ily idea, so prominent in the G uil­ laume cycle, plays but litde part in the ‘geste du roi*. The sons o f Charlemagne did not lend themselves to epic celebrity. His w ife plays no such rôle as that o f Guiboutg or Hemienjart (respectively 1 Chanson de Guillaume, 1.1264 f. Ed. Sucbier. •Ib id ., 1269 f. • Here it may be objected that the ‘juglere’ (nom. form) him self is but a fiction o f the poet*s brain. It was part o f the epic technique to introduce a trustworthy source for the events he relates, and we must not take at face value the references to eye-witnesses on the field o f battle. And yet who knows whether songs celebrating famous warriors did not accompany the arm y marching into battle ju st as, until a fairly recent date, the drums and fifes, or bagpipes played a modem army into action? The soldier-minstrel does not occur for the first time in the O ld French epic. The tradition goes back to Tacitus. The poet Angilbert, in his short lyrico-epic poem on the battle o f Fontenoy (written c. 841), after describing the slaughter o f the Franks, who were ‘most learned in the art o f war9 (proelio doctissimi), tells us that he was present on the batdefield: ‘Angilbertus ego vidi pugnansque cum aliis, Solus de multis remansi prima fronds ade.9 •Ib id ., 788. « Chanson de Roland, 1.1014. * Ibid., 1063.

The Epic Cycles and the *Geste du Roi*

21

w ife and mother o f Guillaume). Perhaps her legendary character was o f a less majestic nature than that o f her husband. In the Chronicon Novaliciense (tenth century) w e read o f how she tried b y a ruse to penetrate a chapel reserved for the other sex and was stricken dow n dead in the attempt. Shordy afterwards her royal husband, passed that w ay and, on learning the identity o f the corpse he sees lyin g on the path, remarks unfeelingly: 'T h y feet have carried thee hither, m y dear (mi cara), but they w ill not carry thee back.' In the Pèlerinage de Charlemagne she dares to make a derogatory remark to her husband as he struts gloriously to church surrounded by his nobles and very nearly loses her head for her indiscretion. There is nothing in either the Chanson de Roland or the Pèlerinage that bears any comparison w ith the dan-idea w hich dominates the cyd e o f Guillaume. Curi­ ously enough, in the form er poem it is only in connection w ith the traitor Ganelon that fam ily relations play any part. He sends saluta­ tions to his w ife, his little son, his 'amis et ses pers\ His unde holds his stirrup for him , and presumably Pinabel w ith his thirty relations belonged to his clan. B u t o f his antecedents w e hear nothing beyond the fact that he was ‘de m ult grand parented’ (1. 356), and it was left for a later poem to introduce him into the lineage o f D oon de M aiance, thus form ing a link w ith the cyd e o f traitors and rebellious barons. It was obviously impossible to keep the three 'gestes* in closed compartments. Charlemagne and his son Louis play a con­ siderable part in the Couronnement de Louis o f w hich, how ever, the real hero is Guillaume, whose exploits fill the poem. There is a reference to the 'lignagej o f the emperor, but it is rather a sad one as Charles is fain to admit, when Guillaume places the crown on the head o f his w eak son Louis that Guillaume’s fam ily has sustained and raised his ow n: Sire Guillelmes, granz merciz en aiez. Vostre lignages a le mien essaldé (IL 148-9).

[

It is on ly too clear in this poem that the kith and kin o f Guillaume are o f nobler build than the feeble sdon o f the 'geste du roi’. It is the tw elve peers— Roland and O liver, Y v e and Y voire, Gerins and Engeliers, the archbishop and the rest— to w hom the pope refers lon gin gly when he returns from a vain attempt to pacify the heathen king by bribes. B ut to the list o f the 'doze pers’ he im m ediatdy adds the w arrior Áym eri and all his numerous fam ily w ho w ould have daunted any foe. So here again w e see how the cydes interm ingle, though it is Guillaume w ho eventually becomes the hero o f the poem. There are other poems besides the Couronnement in w hich Charles c

22

The OU French Epic

is a sort o f starting-point from w hich die ch ief actor sets out on his career o f glory. In the thirteenth-century poem Aymeri de Narbonne, by Bertrand de Bar-sur-Aube, w e are told that the arm y was returning sadly from Spain after the destruction o f the rearguard at R oncevaux. The knights are w eary and longing for a litde ease and recreation. B ut on their return journey they pass die tow n o f Narbonne w hich the Saracens have converted into a fortress, and the indefatigable, ever-young Charles looks upon it w ith covetous eyes and is seized w ith a desire to wrest it from the hands o f die enemy. In spite o f the remonstrances o f his wise counsellor Naim e, he calls upon one knight after the other to go in and w in, but is m et w ith blank looks and refusals. *If I could but be back in m y ow n country,’ says Richard o f Norm andy, ‘I w ould want no casde in Spain.’ H ow much the emperor wishes his nephew R oland and the tw elve peers w ere still alive! A t last, however, Emauz de Biaulande is m oved w ith shame at the idea o f letting his sovereign down and suggests that his ow n son Aym eri m ight undertake the task. The emperor is delighted at the idea (in spite o f the fact that the young Aym eri had once supported his rebellious subject Girart de Viane against himself), and A ym eri is w illing, nay eager to rejoice the hearts o f his father and his ‘fier parenté*. He refuses all gifts offered by the emperor w ith indig­ nation as he intends to carve out a good inheritance from the ‘paiene gent’, an intention w hich furnishes the fundamental idea o f the ^Guillaume-cycle’. So the cycles dovetail again and from this point Aym eri becomes the hero o f the poem and Charles fades out o f the picture. This proceeding is typical o f other ‘chansons’ in w hich the protagonist is often one o f the feudal barons warring against his ow n sovereign and w hich loosely form the cycle o f the ‘revolted barons’. Leaving aside the Chanson de Rolandt w hich must have a chapter to itself, there is, how ever, another poem in w hich the Emperor Charles plays a vital part, although his nephew Roland shares the glory w ith him as he does in the Chanson de Roland. W e refer to the Chanson d*Aspremontt a late twelfth-century poem modelled on the Chanson de Roland and supplying us w ith some details o f R oland’s youth. It opens, like its m odel, w ith Charlemagne surrounded b y his barons at A ix and the arrival in their midst o f an envoy from the heathen king Agolant, lord o f all Africa, w ho wishes to extend his territory and crow n his son Eaumont king o f R om e. The natural struggle ensues between the rival kings and their armies. Roland is left behind as too young to jo in in serious fighting, but escapes from his guard and w ith one

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or tw o companions joins the arm y. In the course o f the battle he saves the life o f his unde Charles, kills Eaumont, and obtains the latter's sword, the world-fam ed Durendal, besides the horn (l’olifant) and the sw ift horse, V eillantif (6076-8). In addition to the hèlp o f R oland and his young comrades in the battle, Charlemagne has a rather unwilling ally in the person o f Girart d'Eufrate, one o f the unruly barons w ho believe themsdves to have been wronged b y the king. Girart swears at first w ith many oaths that he w ill not jo in the arm y o f Charles, the son o f the dw arf Pepin, w ho was so small that yo u m ight have played ball w ith him (1.113 3 ). He starkly refuses all hom age to Chañes and advises his barons to do the same. B ut his good w ife (‘sa prode fem e') Emmeline, to w hom he has been married 100 years, reasons w ith him and at last persuades him to jo in his forces to those o f the emperor, and he sets out w ith his tw o nephews Bueve and Claire. In the end it is his help w hich deddes die batde and his nephew Claire, w ho kills K ing Agolant. Girart then declares him self quit o f any allegiance to the emperor and there is a hint o f future trouble between them. Here the m ingling o f the cycles is obvious. It is not only the young Roland, nephew o f the emperor, w ho wins his spun, but Claire, the nephew o f me defiant Girart, whose prowess is equally w ell proved. The Chanson d*Aspremont is, as has been said, obviously modelled on the Chanson de Roland. The fram ework is the same— the parallel treatment, the mission o f the ambassador, the 'grande bataille' w ith its single combats and its 'eschielles', its alternations o f success and failure, and all the customary technical devices, h i some ways the valiant young heathen, Eaumont, corresponds to Roland in die earlier poem— he refuses to sound his horn to summon his father to his aid, Q ue m on lignage ne fu onques mentant (1. 5355). 4'

and he dies gallandy, com m itting his sword into the care o f die one w h o kills him. The prudent heathen Balan reproaches him for his fo lly in die words o f O liver: Vostre olifant ne degnastes tentir (1. 5446).

There are other passages which show that the author was w ell acquainted w ith the earlier 'chansons' and, in spite o f one or tw o interesting episodes, he is extrem ely conventional both in thought and style. This is true particularly o f the second h alf o f the poem, w hich is largely a mere tedious repetition o f battle-scenes. There is the customary advice as to protecting orphans and w idow s given by the

24

The Old French Epic

counsellor Naimes to the emperor and by D uke Girart to his son1 ; the (conventional) warning against trusting a ‘vilain* or man o f lo w degree w ho has no conception o f honour and should stick to his jo b .8 The same conceptions o f what constitutes regal behaviour, w ith special emphasis on generosity w hich is 'le royal mestier*.8 Charle­ magne is represented as somewhat in need o f support and good counsel, but still valiant in the fight. He even has to be im plored b y his knights not to risk his life in battle. He dares to ignore convention on one occasion when he makes knights o f many men o f humble birth provided they possess courage and loyalty,4 and there is an attractive description o f him armed and ready for the fray, and % looking like an angel descended from heaven.6 Girart, too, the turbulent baron w ho began b y insulting Charles and his ancestry, is shown to be a 'gentleman* in his behaviour at the end when he pays honour to the dead K ing Agolant and has him buried w ith m ilitary pomp. In this respect, me author tells us ‘fist m olt Girar que b e r, using almost the identical expression as that used b y the author o f Gormont et Isembart on a similar occasion.6 In language and style and rhetorical device the Chanson rP igrxjfrle typ e / was what one m ight designate a ’traître de profession’— the kind o f traitor w ho had a grievance against no one in particular, w ho always tried to catch the ear o f his lord and was ready to perform any I dastardly deed for the sake o f gain. It was traitor? such 3$ thfis** whÓ_ offered to assassinate Bueve d’Aigrem ont in the poem Renaud de Montauban, w ith w hom the emperor had just made peace, and it is characteristic o f the degenerate character o f Charlemagne in the later poems that he agrees to the proposal: ’K ill him*, lie says, *andl w 3 T pay you w ell’. In accounts o f sieges there is often a traitor ready to

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obtain the keys o f the city for the enemy—such as the rôle o f ‘H erví de Lousanne’ in A y pram w ho plots to hand over to the emperor the stronghpld iu -W.hich die four sons o f Aym on have fortified" themselves. He is described in the poem as ‘li cuivers renoiés / Q ui 01 liu de Judas fu laiens herbergiés’.1 The sons o f Aym on were rebels against the emperor, but never w ould they have been capable o f a mean action and their behaviour throughout is in striking contrast to that o f Charlemagne. A ll these traitors had generally had a common ancestor in Judas or Ganelon. In the somewhat isolated poem Aiol (which w ill be dis­ cussed in a later chapter) the relations o f Ganelon were numerous, and Hardré was joined w ith him in being responsible for a large and degenerate clan: Plus furent de X . d'un parenté, Des neveus Guenelon et de Hardré, Et des parens Makaire le desfàé.*

The mention o f Makaire in the last line o f this passage brings us to another traitor w ho made his mark on O ld French literature, not so much on his ow n account, but on that o f his opponent in the *0131 by com bat'; this was no member o f a rival fam ily, or loyal subject o f the king, but a faithful hound. The poem which introduces us to this particularly vile type o f traitor has been published under the name o f Macaire (by Guessard), although in the version which has come down to us the traitor bears the name o f Macario, for the poem is in a barbarous form o f Italian similar to that in which a number o f O ld French epic poems has been preserved to posterity. In all probability a French version o f the story in the customary decasyllabic metre formed the basis o f our poem. The author was w ell acquainted w ith the O ld French epic heroes o f the different cycles. He mentions Roland and O liver and their betrayal and death. He tells us how Charlemagne toiled and suffered all his life to maintain Christianity, never listening to foolish counsel (conseio d’infan), but fighting the heathen and inspiring them w ith dread all his life, till after more than tw o hundred years Guillaume and Bertrand appeared on die scene to carry on the struggle. But the story he relates has nothing to do w ith these valiant heroes and their kith and kin. It is Ganelon and his fam ily— ‘ceux de Mayence (qui de M agan)'— w ho interest him and constitute the background for the arch-traitor o f the poem and his wicked deeds. It is obvious from the allusion to M ayence that the 1 Renaud de Montauban, Ed. Michelant, p. 70, U. 15-14. * Aiol, Ed. Soc. d. a.t. 11.4438 f.

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author is familiar also w ith the cyclic fram ework into which all the heroes o f the earlier poems are pressed, probably at the end o f the twelfth century or beginning o f the thirteenth. D oon de M ayence, as w e have seen, was an ancestor invented by the jongleurs’ to introduce a certain unity into the fam ily o f traitors and bring it into correspondence w ith the existing ’gestes’ o f the emperor and Aym eri de Narbonne. Thus Ganelon, the hoary traitor, became one o f the notorious gang w ho never ceased to cause trouble— w ho waged w ar incessantly on Renaut de Montauban and betrayed Roland and O liver: Senpre avoit guere cun Rainaldo da M ote Alban, Et si trai O liver e Rolan, E li doçe pere e ses compagna gran.1

N ow it was the emperor’s w ife w ho became the object o f hatred to one o f these wicked men— ‘Li mal Macario, li fel el seduant', w ho hoped by seducing his w ife to harm the emperor himself. W hen Blancheneur (as the author o f this poem earn the lady w ho was better known to posterity as ‘la reine Sibille’) indignandy refused the advances o f Macario, she was compromised in the eyes o f her husband by the ruse o f introducing a dw arf into her bed, to be found there in the morning when the emperor came back from attending matins. The weak king, always listening to the counsel o f the flattering Macario and ignoring that o f Duke Naime, was persuaded into allow ­ ing the sentence o f death to be passed on her, and she was about to be burnt alive when the priest, w ho was struck by the obvious truthfulness o f her confession, pleaded for her and the sentence o f death was commuted to one o f banishment. She was accompanied into banishment by a young knight and his faithful dog. Macario, infuriated by the turn things had taken, pursued the fugitives and killed the knight, but the queen and the bound managed to escape into the forest. N ow the loyalty o f the animal stands out in contrast to the disloyalty o f the treacherous man. The dog kept watch over his master’s corpse, till, forced by hunger, he made his w ay back to Paris where the knights were assembled at their daily repast. Rushing into the hall, he leapt on to the table; perceiving Macario, he sprang upon him, gave him a savage bite, then seized as much bread as he wanted and made o ff before he could be stopped. This happened several days running until die knights and the emperor began to suspect some foul play. The dog was follow ed into the forest— the dead knight’s body was discovered (the queen had fled) and it was 1 Mataire, Ed. Guessard, p. 18.

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clear to everyone that the dog’s action pointed to the murderer. Charlemagne had Macario brought before him and asked him i f he had killed the knight Albaris (Aubri). Macario denied it and offered to prove his innocence by battle, feeling him self safe on account o f the number o f his relations which made the knights hesitate to take up the challenge— such an advantage was it in those days to belong to a numerous family. ‘Take counsel o f your knights*, was the advice o f the wise Duke Naime, and the king did so, encouraging them to have no fear o f any man. B ut still they hesitated for fear o f reprisals (Tant dotent la soa segnorie). Then Naime spoke again. He admitted that ‘ceux de Mayence’ were powerful and honoured and that there was no more numerous clan in the kingdom — ‘let the one w ho challenged Macario take him on in this fight’, said he. ‘Let Macario be provided w ith a big stick and let him and the doe be brought into die ring and fight it o u t.. . . I f the dog is vanquished, the man can go free, but i f Macario gets the worst o f it let mm be judged ‘como traitres et malvasio renoié’. The emperor took his counsellor's advice and the duel was fought amid tremendous enthusiasm. The w hole o f Paris turned out to watch. O ne o f M acario’s relations was at such a pitch o f excitement that he broke through the lists and narrowly escaped being hung by the angry crowd on the spot. He fled precipi­ tately, but he did not escape, for he was caught by a peddling cobbler, and handed back to the emperor w ho had set a price o f a thousand pounds on his head. The emperor commanded that he should be first strangled and then burnt— so serious an offence was it to interfere w ith a ‘combat judiciaire’. The batde between die man and the dog was terrible. The dog bit, the man struck furious blows w ith his stick. Both were wounded and bleeding, but the struggle lasted till the second day. M acario called in vain upon his relations to help him, but the emperor allowed no one to m ove from his place. A t last the dog leapt at the throat o f his opponent and threw him to the ground where he held him in his grip. This was the end o f the batde and Macario asked for a priest to hear his confession. The poor man (if w e may pity him) could hardly speak, for the dog w ould not lose his hold on his throat. The priest, w ho was admitted into the ring to hear his confession, was the same *abé' w ho had heard that o f the queen, so that he w ould know whether Macario was speaking the truth. B ut the crime had been so heinous and the miracle o f such a man bring vanquished by a dog was so great that the priest insisted on a public confession. Charlemagne and Naim e and all the public, good and bad, must be summoned and the

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sin publicly confessed before the dog could be expected to release his strangle-hold on the man's throat. So, as best he could, Macario confessed the whole story and swore in God's name that he was telling the truth. Then Charlemagne turned to Duke Naime and said: 'W hat shall w e do w ith such a felon w ho betrayed m y w ife by his guile and killed Aubri whom I loved so much?' Naime replied: 'H e must be taken and first drawn (traîné) through Paris by a strong, swift horse and then burnt. And i f any o f his relations object, w e w ill do the same to them'. The dog had not yet loosed his grip and could not be m oved; but the emperor begged him in an ingratiating voice to let his victim go for love o f him. And the dog granted his request as i f he had the intelligence o f a human. Then Macario was taken, 'drawn' by horses up and down the streets o f Paris w ith all the population, small and great, running after him and abusing him, and then burnt in a large fire which was prepared for him in the open space where the battle had been fought. He was buried by his kith and kin o f Mayence w ho shared in ms disgrace, and there the author leaves him w ith the comment that he received the recompense o f his deeds ('Segondo l’ovre n’oït en son loer’). The rest o f the poem deals w ith the terrible war occasioned by the treatment o f Blanchefieur between Charlemagne and the emperor o f Constantinople, the queen’s father. The most interesting and loyal character in this part o f the story is that o f Varocher, the peasant w ho had taken pity on the queen in her exile and remained faithful to her throughout, even though in so doing he had to desert his ow n w ife and children. He was knighted and duly rewarded in the end, after fighting a duel w ith 'O gier le danois' and many other exploits. The tragedy was that the queen's avengers were fighting against her erstwhile friends. The author o f the poem dwells on this sad eventual­ ity which was entirely due to the treachery o f Macario and his clan ('qui de Magance’) in whom the emperor had placecF his confidence and w ho brought him shame and dishonour. The first o f this danger­ ous fam ily, he insists again, was Gaines (Ganelon) w ho betrayed the twelve companions in Spain and caused tw enty thousand o f their followers to be killed. Through Macario an even more regrettable strife had arisen between Christians, which it was not in the power o f any man to quell. The story o f Macario and his duel w ith the dog enjoyed the most extraordinary popularity o f perhaps any o f the medieval French romances. It struck the popular imagination, not by reason o f the villainy o f the traitor, but on account o f the fidelity and sagacity o f

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the dog. Alberic de Trois Fontaines introduces it into his Latin Chronicle in the thirteenth century (his narrative being based on a slightly different version than that o f our poem Macaire); the Menagier de Paris cites the dog as an example o f fidelity to wives in his well-known w ork written for the instruction o f his young w ife. O livier de la Marche (fifteenth century) relates die story in his Livre des duels, and about this time it began to be represented in prints and paintings— one o f which on the mantelpiece o fa hall in the castle o f Montargis gave the dog his famous name o f the ‘Chien de M ontargis*. Jules Scaliger thought the dog deserved something even better— that it ought to be executed in bronze ! Cretin (at the beginning o f the sixteenth century) spoke o f the combat between man and dog as being 'de merveilleuse grace*. The story seemed unable to die. It was translated into Spanish prose; an imitation appeared in England under the name o f Sir Triamour in which the villain Macaire has changed his name to M arrock. In 1814 the French author Guilbert de Pixérécourt wrote a ‘mélodrame historique* entided Le Chien de Montargis which was staged at the Théâtre de la Gaieté and had tremendous success. This was translated into German and put on the stage by the Grand Duke o f Saxe W eim ar, to the great annoyance o f Goethe, w ho was director o f the theatre at that time, as he thought it derogatory to the dignity o f a theatre for a dog to appear on the stage.1 It is difficult to give any precise dating for the poem w e have just been examining. If, as seems probable, it is an Italianized version o f an O ld French poem, it w ould probably be not far w rong to consider the original as an example o f what m ight be called the second series o f chansons-de-geste. It has not the grim seriousness o f the earlier poems; the author is acquainted w ith the older poems, but he also knows versions o f Renaut de Montauban and other poems in which the traitor-clan connected w ith D oon de M ayence play a rôle. He constantly mentions the numerous relations and die powerful follow ­ ing o f Macaire as making any resistance against the traitor extrem ely dangerous. M ost o f these characters o f the ‘geste* o f D oon de Mayence are to be found again in another poem which also, though not one o f the really archaic poems, has not entirely fallen a victim to the romanticizing element which invaded the epic roughly in the second h alf o f the twelfth century, when the genuine epic poems were 1 All these and many other details o f the history o f the story o f the traitor Macaire and his assailant have been brought together in the interesting preface to his edition o f Macaire by Guessard, published in 1866.

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w

a losing O battle with die elements of romance. Hie author of

Aiol, the chanson-de-geste, which is one o f the few diat has broken away from the customary rhythm o f the decasyllabic line b y placing the pause after the sixth syllable instead o f the fourth, has placed the traitor Macaire almost as much in the foreground o f his w ork as the hero A iol himself. Macaire has not the distinction in this poem o f being the only medieval knight known to us w ho fights a duel w ith a dog; nor does the author show any sign o f having heard such a story about him. In A iol the traitor dies the normal death o f the felon. He was attached to the tails o f four strong horses, just as Ganelon was, and tom to pieces. He is, moreover, not spoken o f as being o f M ayence, but is almost always called Macaire de Losane. He is a traitor o f the vilest sort— he has the king’s ear (*li mavais losengiers') and is always whispering bad advice into it or drawing the king into a com er (‘a un recoi') to influence him against some loyal knight— generally A iol, whose father he had ruined previously in order to obtain his possessions. He has hosts o f relations, nephews o f Ganelon, o f Hardré and himself. His friends bear well-known traitor names such as Bernard, Alori, and Sanse. A iol treats him w ith great cour­ tesy, and on one occasion, when his horse has been ridiculed b y Macaire, proposes a race between their respective steeds. The race takes place and Macaire's horse is beaten, but its rider refuses to pay the wager which had been agreed upon and is cast into prison. There is nothing too mean for him and in the second part o f the poem, which is o f later date and more romanesque than the first, he throws A id ’s tw o sons into the river in his last futile attempt to damage his arch­ enemy. It w ill be seen from the examples in this chapter that the traitors from Ganelon onwards are all actuated by the same motives: love o f gain, jealousy, meanness, and an unscrupulousness which makes them w illing to break their oath o f allegiance i f necessary. T hey are traitors because they harm their liege-lord either directly, or in­ directly through those w ho serve him, and this is felony. They are types rather than characters, as their characteristics do not change much, and the mere names— Ganelon, Hardré, Fromont, Bernard, Macaire became so familiar that when they were used in the later epic poems to denote a traitor o f any description the audience w ould know at once what to expect. It is interesting to note that die author o f the so-called Pbeme moral, to which allusion has been made before, gives the name o f Hardré to the perjured counsel w ho is called in by die unjust, avaricious judge to bear false witness against a man o f

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meaná whom he wishes to ruin.1 It was for the later poems to sweep all the traitors into one big fam ily or geste and later still the fam ily became a fiction. W e shall see in the chapter dealing w ith the fate o f the O ld French epic in Italy how the descendants o f D oon de Mayence became the clan o f the Maganzi which was constitutionally opposed to the followers o f the lords o f Clerm ont (patronymic o f Roland's fam ily), much as the fam ily o f the Orsini was opposed to that o f the Colonni. 1 Pieme moral, str. 347-8.

CHAPTER X

SO M E IS O L A T E D

C H A N S O N S -D E -G E S T E

I. G O R M O N T E T ISE M B A R T In spite o f the ingenious attempts o f the jongleurs o f the thirteenth century to make all the poems fit into certain categories by un­ scrupulously forcing the heroes into one or other o f the acknowledged lignages or gestes, there are some which resist all efforts at classification. A n independent ‘chanson’ o f this description is the poem, or rather fragment o f a poem, generally known under the title o f Gormont et Isembart. It is true that W alter Map1 coupled the hero Isembart w ith R aoul de Cambrai and hinted at a relationship w ith Ganelon, but Isembart does not really belong either to the ranks o f the rebellious barons or the traitors, although he partakes o f the features o f both, nor is he in any w ay related to Ganelon. It is true that he transferred his loyalty from one lord to another (which was pardonable under certain circumstances) and abjured the Christian faim (which was un­ pardonable); but the first o f these acts produced a proof o f a new loyalty to which he remained true, and the second was atoned for b y his repentance and death. The transference o f loyalty, as w ill have been seen from the previous chapter, was fairly common among die pagans w ho, for reasons either o f prudence or a nobler sentiment, became renegades to their religion and embraced the Christian faith. The opposite process is rare. W e know from history that it was not an uncommon occurrence in the early days o f Islam, but in a period dominated by the Church it was less likely to happen and still less likely to be celebrated in chronicle or in song. It m ight occur to an author o f the thirteenth century to invent a counterpart to the popular motifo f a heathen princess attracted to a Christian knight by im agining die similar fascination exercised by a noble heathen on a Christian princess. The so-called Menestral de Reims relates in his chronicle (or better-named récits) how the w ife o f K ing Louis o f France— die Elinor o f evil repute— fell in love w ith the chivalrous Sultan Saladin from accounts she had heard ofhis valour. She arranged an elopement, but was caught w ith one foot in the boat which was to take her to her lover, brought back, and repudiated by her husband. Shordy 1 As we have seen. Ch. IV, p. 48. 190

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after she became die w ife o f Henry II o f England. Such an event, however, was not likely to become a commonplace o f epic poetry, as it reflected little credit on the heroic French character. The same w ould be true in the case o f a French knight w ho for any reason abandoned his country and his faith to become the ally o f a heathen invader. A traitor like Fromont in Garin le Lorrain m ight be expected to deny Jesus Christ and jo in the Saracen forces, or, like Ganelon, to side w ith the enemy in order to satisfy his ow n desire for personal vengeance; but these were evil-minded villains whose characters were consistent w ith their treachery. In the poem w e are considering the case is different. The hero is a ‘reneiez’, a ‘renegat’, a margariz (much the same meaning), and yet in spite o f this he is a sympathetic figure, a prey to a dash o f loyalties, w ho inspires us w ith interest and pity rather than w ith scorn. O ur fragment, for unfortunately only a fragment o f some 660 lines remains to us o f the poem, plunges us into the middle o f a furious battle between die French and the Saracens which, by an anachronism common to epic traditions, reproduces a real victory o f Louis III o f France at Saucourt over the Northmen in the year 881. This victory had already been celebrated in an old H igh German poem (the socalled Ludwigslied) o f monkish origin which has nothing to do w ith our poem, but is o f interest on account o f the contrast it presents between the elongated, alliterative style o f the Germanic poem w ith its solemn religious bias and the ballad-like, almost sprighdy character o f its French counterpart. W hat the poems have in common is the heroic character and inherited fighting qualities attributed to the Frankish king. The rithmus teutónicas calls the heathen (heidinc man) w ho sailed across the sea1 by their proper name— ‘Northmen’— and insists on their complete rout by the victorious king in praise o f whose valour the author is almost lyrical. But, panegyric though it is, the poem proves that the batde had left its impress on men’s minds and was, from an early date, celebrated in song. M oreover, the character o f the king in French poems seems to have preserved something o f its nobility, whereas the customary character o f a comprehensive K ing Louis, in the chansons-de-geste, is m osdy despicable. The French poet, at a much longer distance from the event, has obviously drawn largely on his imagination. B ut w e do not know w hat the original poem (for there is evidence o f previous versions) ow ed to chronicles and poems in which his story had been celebrated. The earliest version o f the story o f Gormont and Isembart that w e 1 Ober seo Man, 1.11.

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possess (apart from die description o f the batde) is due to a monk o f Saint-Riquier, a name which is prominent in the poem and helps to localize me legend. Hariulf, w ho w rote his Chronicle in 1088 and revised it in 1104, tells us that the story was repeated daily by local folk (‘non solum historüs, sed edam patriensium memoria quotidie recolitur et canitur'), and i f anyone wants to know all about it, he adds, he must learn it from the tales o f his grandfathers. I f such a statement is true it w ould not be surprising i f a combination o f fruity memories and a certain love o f improvisation had rendered it uncertain in people’s minds whether Gormont was the ‘Godnin’ celebrated in Asser’s Life o f King Alfred, or the ‘W urm ’ defeated by Charles the Fat in 882, or whether the several heroes, ow ing to a certain similarity o f name, had combined to produce a single figure out o f elements borrowed from all three. Be that as it may, K ing Gormont in our poem is: Celui d*Oriente, the Sathanas, die Arabi, the emperere de Leutiz and the Antecrist— a sufficient number o f names to suggest that the author did not treat the heathen king and his identity very seriously. The gist o f the poem, as w e can reconstruct it chiefly from a longish account in Mousket’s Rhymed Chronicle,1 and a German translation o f the fourteenth century entided Lohier und Mallart, is very briefly as follow s: A heathen king (Gormont) has invaded France w ith a vast, mixed arm y o f ‘Saracens* (here as in the Willame a thin disguise for Northmen) ; fighting under his standard is a French knight named Isembart w ho, having been grievously wronged b y the Emperor Louis, had fled the kingdom and joined forces w ith the formidable pagan king in hopes o f avenging his w rong. After feats o f valour on both sides, Gormont is killed by K ing Louis w ho, however, strains him self fatally in the affray; the heathen flee back to their ships, and Isembart, left alone and m ortally wounded, turns to God and prays for forgiveness. But, embedded in the narrative, are allusions and episodes for which no source has yet been discovered. There is the valiant young standard-bearer o f K ing Louis (le f i z Charlun in spite o f history) w ho, on hearing Gormont blaspheming against the God o f the Christians,1 rides like a whirlwind to attack this antichrist, against the w ill o f the emperor w ho pleads w ith him not to desert him, saying pitifully: Se tu esteies ore ocas, dune n’ai je o mais suz d el ami.

This sounds much more like die stock Louis, Charlemagne's feeble 1 Thirteenth century, cf. supra. * 'Quant Damne Deu out si laidir1 (1L 196,206).

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son, in the chansons-de-geste, but he retrieves his character later in the poem b y courage and chivalrous behaviour. Hugue answers the emperor proudly that he must accomplish his destiny: Pruz (fut) mun pere e mun ancestre, e je o tiii mut de bone geste e, par meimes, dei pruz estre (11.218-20).

And so he rode to his doom, for Gormont smote him a terrible wound in his left side which hurled him from his horse. B ut even then, when Gormont told him that he w ould have no use now for either a doctor or a priest, the valiant youth replied: ‘Y ou lie ! Y o u have only cut o ff a litde piece o f m y garment (‘peliçon’). Y o u have not finished w ith me yet*. He leapt to his feet and, taking the battlestandard in both hands, w ould have killed K ing Gormont had not help arrived. Y et still he made another tour o f the field and came bade again to Gormont, but this time Gormont drove his lance into the young man’s body and he fell again to earth. A t this dramatic moment Isembart the renegade (‘le rendé’) recognized the horse that Hugue had been riding as the one that had been stolen from him on a previous occasion. The stealing o f the baron's horse by Hugue when he had gone to Gormont’s camps as a messenger, and a mysterious allusion to a trick o f Hugue's in serving the king w ith a peacock but making it impossible for him to eat it or open his mouth except to talk nonsense, are among the unexplained episodes in the narrative part o f the poem. The same is true o f the theft from the heathen's tent o f a gold cup by Hugue's nephew, w ho now tried in vain to avenge his unde. K ing Gormont, however, in spite o f his pride o f birth refused to demean him self by fighting w ith a squire, as was to be expected in this aristocratically-minded sodety, whether heathen or Christian: Fui de sur mei, garz paltenier ! Jeo sui de lin a chevalier, de riches e de preisiez; n’i tocherai oi esquier (11. 356-9).

This was quite in keeping w ith the character o f Gormont for, in spite o f the many bad names he is called, he was a valiant knight and a noble character: Li meudre rei e le plus franc qui unques fust el munde vivant Se il creust Deu le poant (11. 29-31).

K ing Louis had a high regard for him and, when he saw so many o f his men lying dead on the battlefield, was filled w ith regret that he

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had not engaged in single combat w ith him at the beginning o f the battle, thus sparing many a noble knight. There w ould have been nothing derogatory in such a duel: ‘Ja est il rei et rei sui jeo \ In all probability Louis w ould have had the worst o f it, for Gormont was immensely strong. He had already given the death-blow to some o f the first knights o f France, and on tw o occasions the dart, or javelin, killed not only the knight at w hom it was aimed but, passing through his antagonists body, killed the man w ho was standing behind him — on one occasion a ‘danzel de Lumbardie’, on the other ‘un Aleman*. K ing Louis* army was composed o f mixed forces as w ell as G ormont’s, in which men o f Ireland (Iréis) fought side by side w ith Africans. The ‘joust* between the tw o kings took place. Gorm ont hurled his fatal three javelins (darz), but God in His pity preserved the emperor*s life so that the weapons did not enter his flesh.1 Then K ing Louis gave up the idea o f a regulation ‘combat singulier* (or jouste) to decide the matter according to the rules, and struck Gor­ mont a blow over die head w ith his lance that split him in halves to the middle. But the blow cost him such an effort that he almost fell, and saved him self by grasping the horse’s neck. As he raised him self w ith difficulty in his heavy armour he bent his stirrup-straps three fingers’ length, and strained him self so badly that he lived for only thirty days after his victory. This result o f the batde is described in Hariulf*s Chronicle which tells o f the ravages and destruction w rought by the heathen invaders and the vast numbers o f those w ho were slain by K ing Louis and his Frenchmen. H ariulf tells us also that it was Isembart (Esembardus), a Frank o f noble origin, w ho had incited Gormont to invade die frontiers o f France, thus becoming a traitor to his ow n country. This is emphasized in the poem for, when things are going badly and Gormont w ith his standard is laid low , the heathen themselves accuse Isembart o f having betrayed them and brought them to France, under false pretences. They may have had some reasons for doubting whether Isembart would stand by them in their danger, for in his lament for Gormont, Isembart had openly declared: ‘A ! Loöis, bon emperere / cum as oi France bien aquitee !’ The author is unsparing in his praise o f Louis for he tells us that he was a good knight, a valiant fighter and a true counsellor to his fellow-Christians. Then he adds: C eo dit la geste, e il est veir, puis n'ot en France nul dreit eir (1L 418-19).

thus ending the relation o f Louis’ exploits w ith a scrap o f historic 111.386-7.

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fact culled from a chronicle and illustrating again the intermingling o f fact and fiction. For, although the Emperor Louis and the heathen K ing Gormont represent rather blurred portraits o f historical figures, about whose identity the author him self was not very dear, Isembart seems to have even less claim to an historical origin. His rôle was probably an imaginary one introduced to add interest to a somewhat vague story formed o f a patchwork o f indistinct reminiscences o f rival kings centering round a tow n in England o f the name o f Ciren­ cester and the neighbourhood o f Saint-Riquier in France. H ariulf mentions Isembart very briefly; w e do not know what the stories and songs referred to b y H ariulf related about him. B u t it was probably left to the French poet to create the rather pathetic figure w ho is die ch ief point o f interest in the poem w e are studying. For Isembart is tom in tw o. He is not convinced that his cause is right, like a Roland or a Vivien. He has committed a heinous sin in betraying his king and his faith. Even a heathen had warned him that he was bringing down a judgm ent on his ow n head, and he him self had warned Gormont o f the grave danger o f fighting against a race as noble as that o f the Franks. And yet, having embraced the cause o f his nation’s enemies, he is true as steel to his new lord and the somewhat un­ savoury crow d w ith w hom he fights and whose leader he is. W hen the heathen saw their king lying dead they turned and fled towards the coast uttering loud cries.1 Isembart, now designated as le Margari, hearing the noise, spurred his horse towards die spot where the standard was lying, and at the sight o f Gormont’s dead body he swooned three times. He realized that there was small chance o f a successful issue to the batde now that his adopted lord was dead, and that his ow n fate was sealed. The prophecy o f a heathen soothsayer came into his mind: ‘Allas !’ dist il, ‘veir dist le sort, Si jco vende en icest ost. Q ue jeo i sende u pris u mort. O r sai jeo bien que veir dist trop’ (11. 426-9)*

N othing daunted, however, he rallied the fleeing heathen, telling them that flight was useless in a foreign land and exhorting them to avenge their generous master w ho had bestowed lands and strong­ holds and rich gifts (‘le ver, le gris e le ermin’) upon them. B ut the heathen w ould not listen8 and the familiar ‘paien s’enfuient’ resounds again and again in our ears. Their cowardice inspires Isembart to fresh efforts and he fights on furiously, killing a cousin o f King Louis

»1422.

*1. 448.

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The Old French Epic

and tw o more o f the noblest-born Frenchmen. In a second lament over the dead body o f Gormont, more eloquent than the first, Isembart refers to the fact that he had warned the king about the fighting qualities o f the French several times, both at Cirencester, which he describes as *voz cuntrees*, and on the galley com ing over to France. This curious reference to Cirencester, which does not occur in Hariulf, but is mentioned in Asser's Life o f King Alfred, has done much to confuse the issues in any attempt to identify the GormontGodrum personage. But the noble words o f the ‘regret funèbre* throw light on the character o f the hero Isembart. After a tribute to K ing Louis and an admission that Gormont has paid dearly for his attempt at invasion, he declares that he w ill not fan the subjects o f his adopted liege-lord as long as he has a sword at his áde: Ja ne faudrai a sa meisnée pur tant cum puisse ceindre espée (11. 487-8).

This time the heathen rally and return to the attack, and you m ight have seen many a lance splintered and many Saracens laid low on the grassy plain. W e are reminded o f Vivien and his men (in the Chançun de Willame) when the heathen, in their distress, call upon their leader: ‘Pur le tuen Due, sire Isembart / gentil, ne nus faillir tu ja ! / N u ferai jeo , dist Isembart, / tant cum U miens cors durera*.1 Then the fight was renewed for the fourth day in succession after the death o f Gormont. The tw o armies pass w ith a kind o f rhythmical parallel motion through each other*s ranks, killing and wounding as they go. Louis performed the chivalrous action in the midst o f the battle o f having Gormont*s body carried to his tent and placing the bodies o f Hugue and his squire (Geudon) covered w ith a cloak beside him. Isembart met his aged father (‘le viel Bernard*) in the midst o f the fighting and, not recognizing him, he struck at him fiercely and unhorsed him, but fortunately did not wound him. It would have been a sin and a crime to unhorse his father i f he had recognized him , remarks the author— adding rather naïvely: ‘I f he had known it, he w ould never have touched him, for they w ould have had other things to talk about !’s So the fierce battle went on and Isembart w rought much havoc amongst ‘our Frenchmen’.8 B ut the heathen turned at last in despair against their leader and even cast in his teeth that he was a renegade and a ‘fel M argari’ and that he had got them into France under false pretences only to betray them. This must have been a bitter moment for Isembart, but he fought on even after his » 11. 509-12.

■U. 576-7.

» 1. 577.

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heathen had fled to their boats w ith the haste o f a stag pursued b y the hunters. It was a forlorn hope, however; soon he was struck through the body in three places and hurled from his horse to the ground where he lay unrecognized. As he lay, hidden by a thicket at the cross-roads, he remembered ‘Damne D eu\ and was m oved to utter words which w ould be his salvation, for he called upon the blessed V irgin for her intercession and he implored m ercy from the God o f the Christians w ho died on the cross on a Friday and rose on the third day. Then spying a leafy olive tree nearby, he crawled painfully to it, seated him self on the fresh grass and turned his face towards the east. O ur fragment ends w ith him lying on the ground confessing his sins like Roland. A better ending could hardly nave been devised. It is difficult to assign any definite date to the fragment o f Gormont et Isemhart as, indeed, is the case w ith all the older poems. The language, vocabulary, and assonances are distinctly archaic in charac­ ter. But antique words and phrases do not prove that the w ork is antique which uses them. As W . P. Ker has said in connection w ith ballad-poetry in general: ‘A ll that is proved is the tenacity and perseverance o f the old poetical diction’.1 The term inology is stereotyped— w e have the ‘escu irait et malmis’, the ‘hauberc rompu et desairé’, the splintered lances and shattered helmets; the blows which leave no doubt as to their effectiveness. M any are the changes rung on the description o f a powerful knight's blows which has been noted as o f frequent occurrence in poems o f the Guillaume cycle. The octosyllabic line has shortened the phrase but the sense is the same: Q ui il coiisuit, nel laist en sele: vestue l’a de m ort novele (11.45-6). K i il consuit, ne s’en a b ; K i il feri, puis ne park (U. 580-81). Q ui il consuit, tut est vencu (L 616).

The heathen in the mass are conventional and flee at regular intervals. There is much that is reminiscent o f both the Chanson de Roland and the Chançun de Willame, but there is no reference in our fragment to any other poem or any other hero o f legend. There is, however, a striking difference o f atmosphere in our poem from that in the Crusading epics. The fighting is just as grim , the individual heroes are just as valiant, but there is a conciliatory spirit running through which is com pletely absent from the Roland or the Chançun, 1 Proceedings o f die British Academy. VoL IV : On the History of the BoilaJs, 1100-1500.

O

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though there is a trace o f it in the Rainouart poem w hich is a con­ tinuation o f the latter. The representatives o f the rival forces are generous to their antagonists; Isembart praises first his original liege-lord, then his adopted one almost in the same breath. Though he has been absolutely loyal to the pagan forces fighting under him , he prays for his compatriots w ho have brought about his downfall. His prayer has none o f the self-assurance w hich breaks through that o f Roland as he hands his glove to God. It has more the character o f the penitent thief’s prayer in the M ary legend, or the m oving words o f Théophile in the miracle play: ‘ Sainte M arie, genitrix M ere Deu, dame’, Isembart dist, ‘depreez en vostre beau fiz. Q u’il eit merci de cest chaitif !’

Gorm ont, although he has burnt the church o f Saint R icqier and devastated the country o f his opponents, is a good lord to his ow n men, the giver o f ‘le ver, le gris e le ermin’, o f T o r e l’argent e les soudees / e les pelices engulees’, more like a bounteous sovereign o f romance than o f epic. In the episode o f father and son fighting— a very old one in literature— the unnaturalness o f the situation is softened by the fact that Isembart and his father did not recognize one another. In this episode Isembart is called ‘Maistre Isembart’— somehow w e cannot imagine Roland being called ‘Maistre R oland’ any more than w e can imagine V ivien speaking ‘o la voiz clere’ or a young Lombard being called ‘un danzel de Lumbardie’. N o t unconnected, perhaps, w ith the différence in tone is the difference in style o f the poem. The fragment suffices to give an idea o f the ballad-like character o f the whole, especially in those parts where descriptions o f fighting are concerned. It has all the characteristics o f ballad poetry: the sort o f refrain which follow s each o f Gorm ont’s victories over a French knight; the repetitive line w hich introduces each fresh phase o f the batde in slighdy different words (.Fierfu t Vestur e esbaudi, etc.), omitted from the narradve part but picked up again when the batde is resumed; the details o f time— three days, four days, etc.; the exact descriptions o f the combatants involved. It has the tragic m otive com mon to the epic and the ballad and a unity o f action which is equally characteristic o f both types o f poetry. It keeps to the point w ith its definite tragic problem, in this case a conflict o f affections and loyalties. The relation o f ballads to epic poetry has often been discussed and it is hard to decide from the present state o f the fragment whether w e have to do w ith a narrative

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ballad derived from an older epic poem or an original ballad w ith narrative digressive interpolations. The poem has not the grace o f a true ballad, but it has the lively conceptions and the lyrical spirit. M ost o f the ballads, in spite o f their style, celebrate a tragic mistake, a fight to the finish or a good defence. It has been said that Chevy Chase is thé counterpart o f the Battle o f Malden and the hero o f Percy Reed more like a Northern hero than a knight o f romance. B ut Percy R eed m ight equally w ell be compared w ith a French paladin— indeed, his death at the hand o f traitors when he is discovered asleep and alone after a hunt is strikingly like that o f Bègue in the poem Garin le Lorrain— and Chevy Chase m ight w ith equal justice be considered a counterpart to Gormont et Isemhart. W e have already described the joust between the tw o kings in the latter poem— both w ell matched in strength and pride o f birth. The words o f Douglas as he defies ‘the Percy out o f Northumberland* in the ballad are almost like an echo o f the same theme: T o kille alle these guiltless men Alas it were great pitye ! But Percy, thou art a lord of land, I an earl in my countrye— Let all our men on a party stand And do battle o f thee and me.1

In both cases the end o f the encounter was tragic, but the words o f Percy as he laments over the corpse o f his valiant foe are again strangely reminiscent o f our poem: He took die dead man b y the hand And said: ‘W oe is me for thee ! T o have sav’d thy life I’d have parted with M y lands for yeares three, For a better man o f heart nor o f hand W as not in the north countrye'.9

n.

L A C H A N SO N D *AIOL

Amongst the isolated chansons-de-geste there is one, not perhaps o f the first water, yet by no means devoid o f merits, which deserves a place o f honour on account o f its originality. The Chanson D e ta parole, se tu puez, le honnis, Ardez les villes, les hors, et les maisnils, M etez par terre autex et crucefiz Par ce serez honorez et servis (IL 1625-33).

It is obvious that Hardré has sold his soul to the devil. The next day, when the battle is about to begin, Amiles prays to God (a very conventional prayer it is true) that he may kill this ‘glouton’ and see his dear compagnion once more. Hardré, on the other hand, blas­ phemes God and puts his faith in the devil: 1er fiz bataille el non dou criator, Hui le ferai el non a cel seignor Q ui envers deu nen ot onques amor. A h i diables ! con ancui seras prouz (11.1660-4).

From this moment his fate is sealed, like that o f R aoul de Cambrai when he blasphemed G od and His saints. W e have lingered over Amis et Amiles partly on account o f its w ide popularity in the M iddle Ages, partly because it is a good example o f the w ay in w hich a popular story could be pressed into the epic mould, so that not only its form but its character also could be w orked into the accepted pattern. The ‘jongleur’ has attached it loosely to the Charlemagne cycle by transforming the Duke Gaiferus (ofR adulphus Tortarius) into the Emperor Charlemagne. B ut its link w ith epic tradition is rendered much closer by the introduction and develop­ ment o f the character o f the traitor, an element which, it is im portant to note, is also prominent in the earliest version w e possess. It is interesting also to see how the hagiographie version (as represented by the Vita) and the poetic versions (as represented by our chanson) developed on independent lines, each incorporating into the story those features w hich were characteristic o f its genre. It w ould take us too far here to go into the relations between the O ld French epic, the English version, Amis and Amilount the Anglo-N orm an Am is e Amilun, and others. Suffice it to say that in general the poetic versions, in spite o f many differences in detail, have the m ajority o f episodes in common. As an example o f this w e m ight mention that in all the poems w e have reviewed the lady is the first to make advances (in each case in a rather overbearing manner) and the punishment o f the w icked Lubias is to be immured in a small building and fed on bread and water. In the Vita, on the contrary, it is the man w ho first casts amorous glances on the wom an, and the savage Lubias (or O bias) is hurled b y the devil to her death. The English and A nglo-N orm an versions are not brought into the Charlemagne cycle nor is the traitor

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given his w ell-know n name. He is simply alluded to as the ‘steward* and the ‘senescal* in the tw o poems respectively. Another peculiarity o f these tw o poems is that the parts o f Amicus and Amelius are com­ pletely reversed. It is obvious that the legend was a popular one in the tw elfth century and that there were divergent versions, the later ones being more romantic in character. The O ld French prose version (Li amitiez de Ami et Amile) and the ‘M iracle de Nostre-Dame*, both dating from the fourteenth century, are based on the Vita, the form er being an almost literal translation o f the Latin text. The moral o f the legend was used as an ‘exemplum’ by preachers in the fourteenth century. Thus the story wound its w ay through the M iddle Ages, becoming more and more fantastic w ith passing time. The development reaches its peak, perhaps, in the Roman de Miles et Amis by Antoine Verard, in the fifteenth century. In this version, which is stuffed w ith adventures on the one hand and trite maxims o f bourgeois philosophy on the other, the most attractive figure is a faithful and intelligent m onkey whose appearance halfw ay through the poem introduces us to the prim itive legend o f the tw o loyal friends! From this and other similar works it passed into the* editions o f the Bibliothèque bleue which gave it its final form .

ft

CHAPTER X I

TH E O LD

FRENCH

E PIC

O U T SID E

FRANCE

I. IN E N G L A N D It is no exaggeration to say that all the literary movements w hich flourished in W estern Europe during the M iddle Ages sprang from the soil o f France. Their origins are mysterious and elusive: w e cannot do much more than study the soil from w hich they sprang and note the fact that the great movements o f the crusades and the religious revival in the eleventh and tw elfth centuries served both to fertilize that soil and spread the seeds over a w ide area. Some o f the plants produced had a richer grow th in France than in, the lands to w hich they were transplanted; others found a more congenial soil outside the country o f their origin, though the transplanted shoots never broke com pletely aw ay from the parait plant. Some m ight consider that the lyric production o f the tw elfth and thirteenth centuries— possibly, too, the wealth o f romance— w hich appeared in Germany and elsewhere, belonged to the second o f these tw o cate­ gories, but to the first, w ithout a doubt, belongs the epic production in the stricter sense o f the w ord, i.e. in the sense in which it applies to the ‘genre’ w e have been considering. This is partly due to the nature o f epic poetry, but partly, too, to the fact that the heroes w ere national in character and consequently o f much greater importance in their ow n country than elsewhere. True, Charlemagne had an inter­ national reputation, and he did, in fact, enjoy a w ide popularity and fame until he was eclipsed b y a more fabulous royal hero in the shape o f K ing Arthur. Guillaume d’Orange, on the other hand, was little know n outside his ow n country. W e do not hear o f him in England, and it was, perhaps, unfortunate that the poem which celebrated him and his exploits in Germany was composed in a language and style extrem ely difficult to understand. B ut the fret remains that he could not have become a very popular hero outside his ow n country, and the French poets themselves did not help matters by giving the title o f ‘matière de France* to all those poems dealing w ith their home­ grow n heroes, even though their activities were often directed against a com mon enemy. In England one m ight, however, have expected a better frte, 230

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considering the dose ties w hich existed between the tw o countries after the Norm an Conquest. English poetry had, moreover, an epic tradition behind it w hich m ight have made it more ready to embrace its foreign relation. Unfortunately, however, there is a scarcity o f English productions for a long period before and after the year 1100, ju st about the time when epic poetry was at its height in France. The absence o f anything corresponding to the earlier O ld French epic poems is the more noticeable because the earliest know n manu­ scripts o f both the Chanson de Roland and the Chanson de Guillaume w ere probably written in England b y Anglo-N orm an scribes. Y e t die former gave rise, as far as w e know , to no immediate adaptation or im itation and the latter apparendy had no result at all. There has come down to us, however, a fragment o f a Song o f Roland in M iddle-English alliterative verse to w hich, perhaps, not quite frill justice has been done. I f due consideration is given to the fact that some 200 years (or possibly more) had elapsed since the story o f R oncevaux received its first poetic form , some credit must be given to the author for passing on to us even the faintest echo o f the original. T h e fragment consists o f 1,049 Unes and begins at the point o f the story where Ganelon returns from the heathen court to Charle­ magne’s camp, bringing rich gifts and a false promise couched in fair and flattering words: ‘he told m any tailis and all was lies’. He inform ed the emperor that there was no need o f further fighting, for d ie sultan w ould come within fifteen days and receive the Christian faith. He is sanctimonious in his words: Ther is no prow to pryk per men pece sought ! I f that m ercy and m yght mellithe togedur he shall have the m or grace ever aftur (11. 32-5).

Am ongst the gifts he brought were many fair ladies, and good w ine, w ith die subde intent o f low ering the morale o f the French arm y. It had the desired effect. The author describes vivid ly how : It (= the wine) sw ym yd in per hedis and mad hem to nap; they w ist not what pey did, so per w it fàilid. when they w er in bed and thought to a-restid, they went to the wom en pat w ere so hend (11. 70-3).

This detail is know n to us from the Chronicle o f Turpin, w ho preaches a litde sermon on the rights and wrongs o f the fact that both those w ho sinned w ith the wom en and those w ho did not met their death indiscriminately on the batdefield. The English poet does not stop for this, but proceeds to tell o f Charlemagne’s ominous dreams and the interpretation given to them by his wise men. It is obvious, as w e

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proceed in the English version, that the model was an early one. T h e characters are com pletely in accord w ith those o f the best epic period. Roland is beloved o f his peers: W ith Sir Roulond to rid they were bold; For he in w ord and w ork greved us neuer, nor sparied schewing o f sheldis for non pat lyuyd ever. For 1.796. >1.955.

* *=M alquiant le filz al rei Malcud’ in the Chanson, M s. O. «1.403.

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O ne wonders how he actually met his death in the English version, for in the know n accounts it is caused by his effort in sounding the horn and not at the hand o f his foes. There are, o f course, differences in style between the English poem and the earlier poems. Rom ance has crept in and w e are told m at as the day dawned and the sun rose: dew disked adown and dym m yd the floures, And foulis rose and song full Am orous (11. 580-1).

The ‘Gates o f Spain* are described as being full o f craggy rocks and ancient hills and so narrow that three men could not go in at once.1 The ‘strange weather’ that occurred in France as the armies fought is described w ith a pastoral touch: Foulis fled for fere, it was gret w onder; bowes o f trees pen brestyn asonder: best ran to bankis and cried full sore, they durst not abid in the m or. . . . the w ekid wedur lastid f i ll long from the m orning to the evynsong (11. 851-7).

Finally a blood-red cloud arose in the west and shone down on the men w ho died in the battle. T hey died w ith resignation after having been blessed by Turpin and assured o f God’s love. Every man took o ff his helmet and, looking upwards, lifted his hands and thanked Christ w ho had defended them up to that point. Then R oland prayed ‘Criste kep us cristyn that ben here / to serve your soper w ith seintis dere*. The supper promised to those slain on the battlefield m ay appear more gross than the flowers o f paradise which appear in earlier poems; the descriptions m ay be more trivial and the general tone less solemn and sublime: but the action is rapid, the characters are consistent (as fin as can be judged by the fragment) and die poem has its moral content for w e nave such an occasional remark as: It is good to be wise in ded and in thought (1. 310).

or He must take heed that w ith evil dealeth (1.249).

Less profound, perhaps, but as applicable to human affairs as the O ld French ‘mult ad aprins qui bien conuist ahan’.2 It was natural that the story o f Roncevaux w ith its intense patriot­ ism and its glorification o f the part played b y Charlemagne and his knights against the threat from die East should make a greater appeal >1. 127.

* Chanson deRoland, 1. 2524.

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to die continental nations than to the inhabitants o f an island less exposed to the common enemy o f Christendom. M oreover, the victory o f Charles M artel in 732 had checked the rapidly advancing tide o f invasion and O xford had been saved from the fate imagined by Gibbon o f having the Koran taught in its schools and the revelation o f Mahomet proclaimed in its pulpits.1 B ut there was one subject that had a perennial appeal whatever the nationality o f the hero or the cause at stake. This was die unequal combat between a gigantic heathen and a much smaller but more nimble opponent— in fact, between D avid and Goliath, a permissible simile because the smaller man is always supported by divine strength and the giant is always defeated in the end. There are many descriptions o f such combats in the chansons-de-geste, epic encounters between royal combatants— Charles and Bangant, Louis and Gormont, Guillaume and Corsolt; noir was the popularity confined to the chansons-de-geste, for w e have Tristan and M orholt in the Tristan legend and many another such episode in the romances. B ut there are tw o outstanding matches o f strength to the popularity o f which abundant tribute is paid in allusions o f more or less contemporary authors. These are the single combats between the tw o great friends Roland and O liver and the tw o heathen giants Femagu (Ferracutus) and Fierabrás respectively. The first o f mem, Roland v. Femagu, was w idely known from its inclusion in the Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle.* It was translated into English and is contained in the famous Auchinlech manuscript together w ith Sir Otuel?— a version o f the O ld French poem Otinel. Little w ould be gained b y going into these tw o translations in detail, although the second— Sir Otuel— gains a certain importance from the fact that the story forms a section o f the Karlamagnus-Saga (o f which more later) in which Otuel appears under the same name as in' the English version. It has been suggested that the story was transmitted to the Icelandic author through the medium o f the English version, w hich w ould be an interesting light on the literary relations between the tw o countries in the tw elfth century. The story, however, which seems to have had the widest circulation in England is that o f the fight between O liver and Fierabrás and the circumstances under which the combat took place. The tw o main English versions are Sir Fyrumhras, a poem in somewhat free verse w ith partial alliteration, and a metrical version known as The 1 D . and F., Ch. lii. * See Ch. IV , p. 25, where an account o f the classic fight is given.

* Ellis: M etrical Romances, ii.

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Romaunce o f the Sowdone o f Bahylone and o f Ferumbras his Sone who conquerede Rome. O f these tw o adaptations o f French models the latter is the more comprehensive, though much less diffuse w ork, as it includes the tw o distinct narratives: (1) the destruction o f R o m e b y Laban (or Balan) o f Spain and the capture o f the holy relics, (2) the battle between O liver and Fierabrás d'Alexandre and the recovery o f the relics. Sir Fyrumbras begins at what w e m ight call the second h alf o f the story. R om e has already been conquered by the Saracens, the relics have been seized by Fierabrás. W e are plunged 'in medias res' w ith a reference to the emperor's ill-tim ed remark that in the recent fighting the veterans had made a better show in the battle than the young knights. This gave great offence to Roland, w ho had fought bravely, and w ho not unreasonably accused Charles o f wanting to praise himself: 'Thou madest that auaunt, soth to saye, / for to praise the selve'.1 So indignant was he that when the heathen cham­ pion Syre Fyrumbras o f Alexandre approached and defied the Christian arm y, he refused to undertake the battle against him when requested to do so by the emperor. Consequendy O liver, although wounded, had to undertake the combat. A ll this is in com plete accord w ith the French and Provençal poems on die subject, although the actual version on w hich it is based is difficult to determine. The duel is long drawn out. O liver fights at first under a feigned name (Garin in the English poem), but at last, when pressed by the heathen, w ho soon discovers that he is fighting w ith a seasoned warrior, he admits: ‘O lyver ys m y name rizt, a doppeper am o f France'. It is interesting to note how die original meaning o f the 'douzepers' had been lost in English where a single knight as here is often called a 'dozeper'. The rest o f the poem, w hich recounts the struggle between the tw o armies, follow s its French models closely, but it is lon g drawn out in the English poem, especially in the later part where the metre changes for some unaccountable reason, and to each rhym ing couplet is added a short line which generally contributes litde to the sense but much to the length o f the w ork. The characters are similar to those in the French versions. Sir Fyrumbras* conversion is very rapid after he has received the deciding blow from O liver's sword, as in the English version the sermon pronounced on the batdefield b y the ardent Christian proselytizer is com pletely absent. The Emperor Charlemagne is just as autocratic and, indeed, unreasonable as he often is in the later epic stories. B ut he was truly concerned for the »L158.

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fate o f his barons captured by the Saracens and his depression is quite infectious when w e read: Than set he him down in drury mode and dropede for hure sake (1.1103).

The daughter o f the Emir (Balan), like so many heathen maidens in the decadent epic poems, had set her heart on marrying a French knight. W hen the barons, including most o f the ‘doppepers’, were taken prisoner by Balan’s army and shut up in a dungeon, Floripas shrinks from nothing in her effort to see them. She kills the warder w ho obstructs her passage w ith a blow from a stout stick, but much worse is her treatment o f her nurse (maîtresse) w ho also tries to restrain her. She threw her out o f the window into the sea and left her to drown. This episode occurs in all the different versions but the English author treats it w ith evident relish. He describes at length how she pretended to lean out o f the w indow to look at something and got her nurse to do the same as though she w ould speak privately to her. Then she signed to an attendant to approach from behind. As she and the nurse leaned further and further out w ith heads close together, the attendant seized the nurse’s legs and heaved the poor wom an right out o f the w indow : B y the legges lifte he pe schrewe pan and scef hur out ech del, pan hil down pat olde trate into pe salte see.

Floripas was then free to visit the French knights and bring them food and balm for their wounds. She comforted them w ith all her m ight and main and bade diem be ‘glad and blythe'. Towards her ow n Either, on the other hand, she was com pletely without filial feeling. Towards the end o f the poem, after the Enal defeat o f the heathen and the capture o f their king, Charlemagne is anxious that Balan should be baptized. He had a huge vat mied w ith clean water and summoned the bishop for the ceremony. In view o f the emir’s rank three o f the most valiant knights, Roland, O liver, and O gier, were allocated to him to prepare him for his baptism. They had to take o ff his clothes by force for he turned and twisted so much (‘tom de and wende fast’), but in the end they got them o ff whether he would or no. Then, surprisingly, in the English version, Charles preached to him and enumerated the articles o f Christian faith, beginning w ith how Christ was bom o f the Virgin ‘W ypoute w em and w ypoute hore / As sunne gop porz pe glas’ and ending w ith the promise o f heavenly bliss i f he w ill but ‘do the deed*. Balan, however, was adamant as in the basic versions. He sweated w ith anger and spat in

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the font in despite o f God Alm ighty. His son Fyrumbras pleaded w ith his father in vain, a contrast to his sister Floripas (‘pat burde bryzt’) w ho besought the emperor to slay him at once. Balan had • almost yielded and was about to step into the water when the bishop informed him that a public recantation o f his faith was necessary. This was too much and the heathen struck the bishop w ith his fist, knocking out three teeth. Fyrumbras pleaded once more on his knees, but Floripas insisted that it was waste o f time. Her brother remon­ strated w ith her: ‘Sustre ne ys he P y fader; Tak o f hym pytee’, but at last it was apparent that all appeals w ould avail nothing and Charles asked for a volunteer to slay the ‘hepene hounde'. O gier came forward and w ithout more ado Balan lost his head. M uch o f this was in the French original but the English poet relates the episode w ith gusto and w ith many a telling phrase, especially where the ‘burde bryzt' is concerned. He betrays no repugnance to the callous­ ness o f Floripas, w ho is described elsewhere in the conventional terms o f the French beauty; he knows other epic poems and refers to the stock traitors as w ell-know n characters. His w ork m ay not be original but it is not w ithout merit and must have contributed greatly to the renown o f Sir Fyrumbras in England. The Romance o f the Sowdone ofBahylone and ofFemmbras his Sane is another version o f the* same story and includes the introductory destruction o f R om e. It is a more attractive poem both on account o f its greater compactness and its less laboured metrical form . O rigin­ ality can no longer be claimed, for it is a translation1, in some cases almost verbal, o f a French version o f the legend which was published in 1938 b y L. M . Brandin (see Romania L X IV ). The tw o parts o f the poem are clearly distinguished— the first part w hich relates the destruction o f R om e b y the Soudan o f Babylong, alias Laban d'Espagne, ends w ith a temporary discomfiture o f the heathen and the emperor's provocative remark that his seasoned warriors have w on the battle and the ‘yonge o f age' should follow in their footsteps. He is even more irresponsible than in the previous poem for he adds: These hethen hotindes w e shall a-tame B y God in magisté Let us make m yrth in Goddis name And to souper now go w e (11. 935-9).

»

The second part, which is more strictly the legend o f Fierabrás, opens w ith a prayer o f the heathen to ‘red Mars Om nipotent' to give m em 1 See Hausknecht, Ed. E .E .T .S., Preface, p. xxxüi.

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victory over the ‘crystys doggis*. W e do not find this in the French versions, and it m ay w ell be an addition on the part o f the translator, as is a similar invocation occurring in other English poems. It is not an isolated addition, for a short moral has been added to the prologue, ending w ith the words: For the offences to G od idone M any vengeaunces have befalle;

m oreover Charles* words to his young knights receive their justifica­ tion: For worthynesse w ole not be hadde B ut it be ofte soughte, N or knighthode w ole not ben hadde T ill it be dere boghte.

In fact, the translation, though often literal, is not slavish. It partakes more o f the nature o f a romance than the French b y reason not only o f its short four-lined stanras but also o f its references to spring1; its descriptions o f unknown people; its references to chivalrous love and the necessity o f acting like a gentleman,9 and its obvious enjoy­ ment o f feminine guile— for Floripas, in order to get her nurse to come to the w indow tells her to com e and see the porpoises ! Floripas, m oreover, refers to a local custom when desirous o f celebrating her betrothal to Sir G ye (Duke o f Burgoyne), she produced from her father’s treasure a golden goblet ‘ful o f noble m ygnty wyne* and said: 'm y love and m y lorde. M y herte, m y body, m y goode is thyn*, And kissed him w ith that worde, And ‘ Sir’ she said, ‘drinke to me, As the Gyse is o f m y londe; And I shalle drinke agayn to (he, As to m y w orthy hosbonde’. T hay clipped and kissed both in fere And made grete Joye and game, And so did alle that were mere (1L 1928-37).

There is a very English ring about this. Perhaps w e m ay say the same about the behaviour o f the emperor w ho did not stand for a sym bol o f justice in England as he did in France. He was always anxious to be merry. He did not preach a sermon to Laban when he ordered ‘a grete fat’ to be prepared for his baptism, and he very readily came to the conclusion (after the Soudan had ‘spitted in the w ater der* and struck the archbishop) that there was no hope now for 1 T o die semely seson o f die yete* (IL 963 £ ).

• 1.1273.

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his conversion. His attitude, m oreover, was somewhat callous towards a gallant opponent: 'D uke Neym es' quod Charles tho, ‘Loke pat execution be don, Smyte o f his hedde ! God gyfe him w oo ! And goo w e to mete anoone (11. 3183-6).

There is no hint in the French original that Charles was as fond o f his food as he appears to be on several occasions in the English rendering. The descriptions o f the ‘heathen houndes* and their mysterious rites are very colourful in the Sowdone. The arm y consists o f three thousand Saracens, some blue, some yellow , some pitch black. T h ey drink 'w ilde beestes blood* to make them more ferocious (‘to egre here mode*) before they go into battle. W hen Laban and Sir Ferum bras had captured R om e and conveyed the holy relics to Spain they celebrated the victory by an offering to their gods. T h ey burned frankincense ‘that smoked up so strong*, they drank blood, ate m ilk and honey and serpents fried in oil, ana shouted: Antrarian, antrarian, a loud cry ‘that signyfied Joye generalle'.1 These are spontaneous elaborations in a translation which is at times, as w e have said, almost verbal. In the description o f the curious game o f live coal,, for instance, almost every w ord corresponds. This was a practical jo k e played by Lucafer o f Baidas on D uke Neym es, which burnt his beard badly and led to savage reprisals. The French version mentioned above describes the game as follow s: : a filer, Puis a pris un carbon, sur f agule fist poser. . . Par del air sofie le carbon les cinteles fist voler Si qe la barbe duc Neimes en fist tut brûler.8

This is rendered in English by: He teyde a tredde on a pole W ith a nedel thereon ifest, And ther uppon a quike cole. . . . Duke Neymes had a long herd K ing Lucafer blewe even to hym . That game hade he neuer before lered He brent the her o f Neym e’s herd to the skyne.8

It is not surprising that D uke Neym es was furious and smote Lucafer such a blow in the face ‘that both his eyen bresten oute* ('K e les us de sun ch ief en frst hors voler'), threw him into the fire and held him »11. 689-70.

•Fierabrás,

8 9 ,3 - 4 ; 98-9.

* Sow done, 1L 1999-2006.

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dow n w ith a ‘fyre-forke’1 until he was roasted to coal. The details o f this episode are not the same in all the versions» either French or English, but those in the Sowdone clearly reproduce those in the French version on which it is based. The translator has not, how ever, always been so fortunate in his rendering o f the original. In one passage he has mistaken mastes2 for maistres and has placed these on the main top armed w ith maces to threaten the Christians. The curious line w hich occurs tw ice: ‘Le vent ont bone: dient d l notonier' has clearly not been understood as it becomes: ‘The w ynde hem served, it was fid goode’ in one passage and ‘The w ynde hem blewe ful fayre and goode’ in the other. The names, too, presented a difficulty. The w ell-know n ones are faithfully reproduced, but ‘Foukes li vaillant* has become ‘Folk Baliante ; ‘Bernard li prud conte* appears as ‘Bemarde o f Spruwse*, Briez o f Nantes as ‘B ryer o f M ountez’, and ‘Neiron li barbe’ as ‘M iron o f Brabane’, etc. Enough has been said to indicate the relation between the French and English versions. The Sowdone has a slightly more moral tone than the original in spite o f Charlemagne’s lapses into levity, but the author does not take so much upon him self as Caxton in Ins transla­ tion o f a prose romance entided: The L y f o f the Noble and Crysten Prynce Charles the Grete. Here both Charlemagne and Roland are severely castigated for their display o f temper after the batde for R om e— Charlemagne for his lack o f restraint in hitting R oland; and R oland for his lack o f respect towards his uncle. B ut this interesting version is far too rem oved from the O ld French epic to detain us here. Its interest for us lies in the fact that it was the first romance to be printed— a p ro o f o f the popularity the Charlemagne stories still enjoyed in England in die fifteenth century. There is no doubt that o f these romances the one relating Fierabrás* duel w ith O liver, his conversion to Christianity, his loyalty to his new lord, and his valour in the cause o f his new faith, had a first place in the affection o f the fiction-loving public both in English-speaking and French-speaking lands. There are numerous references to the hero in Middle-English w orks and in Barbour’s Bruce, the king is described as relating to his followers the w hole story o f ‘w orthy Ferumbrace* w ho was over­ com e o f the right doughty O lyw er and o f the discomfiture o f Laban (Lawyne) and the recovery o f the holy relics.* 1 Cf. ‘Fr. un forche sur son col le voit fichier’. s L 154. • C£ Ed. Skeat, 3,435 ff.

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n.

IN G E R M A N Y

The poems and groups o f traditions w hich compose the O ld French epic cannot be said to have made any considerable contribu­ tion to M iddle H igh German literature. Charlemagne never became a popular figure in the German-speaking lands. Although the tw elfthcentury Kaiserchronik speaks o f songs devoted to Charlemagne (‘K arl hat ouch andere liet’), there was no spate o f heroic literature devoted to his m em ory. This m ay seem surprising at first— but Germany had its ow n epic tradition and, during the tw elfth century, evolved its ow n epic legends w hich had no connection whatever w ith Charle­ magne. The only tw o French poems which, as far as w e know , gave rise to poetic versions o f any importance in Germany were the Chanson de Roland and Aliscans. W e cannot cavil at their taste. The Ruolandes-liet has been preserved in several manuscripts so that it must have enjoyed a certain amount o f popularity (among the ‘spielmann fraternity). In one o f these manuscripts the poem is provided w ith an epilogue in w hich a certain Pfaffe Kuonrat names him self as the author and tells us that a ‘D uke Henry* had com ­ missioned him to undertake the w ork at the desire o f his w ife; but that he had been obliged to translate the French original first into Latin before he converted it into German. I f this epilogue can be relied upon, the date o f the translation can be approxim ately fixed before me middle o f the tw elfth century— possibly as early as the year 1131. This w ould make it a valuable contribution to any reconstruction o f the original text o f the Roland. It is, m oreover, in m any cases such a close translation o f the version contained in the D igb y manuscript (O ) that it m ay throw light on doubtful or difficult readings. Before com ing to details, how ever, the difference in tendency between the tw o versions must be noted. In the German poem the religious element has been greatly developed. The Chanson de Roland has a religious background, it is true, but the contest between Christianity and heathendom is raised on to a higher level and has become a struggle between right and w rong: Ferez i Francs, nostre est li premers colps. Nos avum dreit, mais cist glutun unt tort.

In die Chanson, m oreover, love o f country, o f the emperor, o f glory for its ow n sake, are very strong rivals for the love o f God. N o t that the piety o f the Frenchman can be questioned. It starts from the top, for the emperor never misses Mass or Matins and the archbishop,

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fighter though he is, has a keen eye for a heretic and many a promise o f bliss for those o f the true faith: Clam ez vos culpes, si preiez D eu merci, . . . Si vos m orez esterez seinz m artin Sieges avrez el greignor paréis (11.113 2 -4 , 5).

The prayers are fairly brief and rather conventional in character, but G od does answer them, and even on rare occasions intervenes on behalf o f the Christians when they are sore beset. B ut religion does not obtrude itself and w e are not more conscious o f it than w e are o f the intrusions o f gods and goddesses into the fram ework o f die Æneid. It is otherwise in the Rolandslied. Here love o f country, o f emperor, and o f kith and kin takes a back place. The author seems obsessed w ith a desire to parade his piety and to edify, in consequence o f w hich it becomes sickly and often trivial. The archbishop, in his first prayer o f any length, desires that G od should make a little door (ein turlîn) through w hich his mouth should speak suitable words1 ; the knights are not to be like those w ho go into God’s vineyard (wtngarten) and come out before the evening— they are to fight throughout the day so as to become comrades o f St. Lawrence, w hom the heathen burned on a grid2; when Roland, Turpin, and W alther are left alone on the batdefield, they go forth representing the T rin ity: Thar huoben sih tho thie thri . . . in then thrin namen unseres Herren (1. 6581 £).*

W hen the batde was very fierce and the Christians were suffering from thirst, God sent dow n a shower o f dew to refresh them: T ho w olt ther himelisce herre thie sine w ole gefristen. Ja kam über die cristenen . ein tror von theme him el touwe, ein kuole unter dien ougen: thaz gescah an there none zit. sih eijungte aller ire lip: sie wurthen stark unt veste (11.4452 £).

O n another occasion a refreshing w ind was sent to revive their w eary bodies and drooping spirits. These few examples m ay be taken as typical o f the m oralizing nature o f the German translation; many m ore could be cited. Nevertheless, this tendency o f the poem must n o t be exaggerated. There is nobility in the archbishop’s reply to the » L 9 6 8 f. *1L 6189-90. * Accents have been omitted in the German quotations in order to avoid complications.

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despairing cry o f Roland when he sees that only Turpin and him self remain alive. Roland has just exclaimed that he is accursed, that God has forgotten him and that he has no one to w hom to turn. ‘N o w you are helping the heathen’, replied the bishop; ‘Hope in m y Lord; give praise to the heavenly K ing; nothing should dismay a good vassal7.1 N or does Turpin at all approve o f a man w ho does not fight his hardest. As in the French original, he says: ‘Let him go and be a monk unless he strikes w ell w ith die sword’. He him self fights to the bitter end and (again as in the Chanson) his four hundred victim s are found around him after his death. W hen he fell, angels carried their loved one (then ire lieben) straight into the choir o f martyrs on the topmost throne and (now the monkish touch) our Lord received him w ith the words: ‘procede et régna’.9 Such unnecessary additions as this have caused die religious tendency o f the poem to be slighdy overstressed. O ther considerations are not entirely lacking. There are m any references to ‘suozze Karlinge* (douce France) and friendship occupies a notable place in the poem. It is true w e m ight have expected to find more direct emphasis laid on the idea o f ‘compagnonnage’ w hich has often been claimed as a German conception. Y e t such appellations as ‘ther aller libeste geselle’ occur fiequendy, and a lament such as that uttered b y Roland for his friend W alther shows how the idea o f friendship permeated the relationship o f the knights to each other. W eeping bitterly he exclaim ed: Scol ih nu scheithen Vone theme alle liebesten gesellen? thin groz eilen m uoz ih iemer mere dagen. Z e w em scol ih nu trost haben? thin suozze Karlinge nemah thih niemer uberwinden.

He was so overwhelm ed w ith g rief that he collapsed in his saddle: von theme leithe unt von theme grim me so erkracte Ruolant inne thaz er sih geneihte u f then satelpogen (11. 6442-5).

O liver, too, in his prayer just before his death, prays not only for his ow n soul’s salvation but for ‘Karlen minen herren’, for sweet France, for the Christians slain in batde (‘thie hie ze then heithenen sint beliben’), but most o f all for his dear friend Roland, w ho was ever a champion (‘rorekemphe’) o f the true faith. A fter further petitions 1 11.6618-32.

* str. 235.

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he reverts again to his anxiety for Roland and prays earnestly that God w ill watch over him, both as to his body and ms soul.1 Such passages as diese are very reminiscent o f die spirit o f our oldest know n version o f the Chanson. That this was know n to the author can hardly be doubted, for many o f the translations seem almost verbal. It is, o f course, not impossible that the P fiffe knew a version very nearly related to the O xford one, but allow ing for lapses o f mem ory, the discrepancies inevitable in a double translation (first from French to Latin, then from Latin to French), the urge to give an edifying and orthodoxical religious bias to the poem, there hardly seems need to search for a nearer source than the one w e possess. W e m ight find many examples to illustrate the literalness o f the translation, but one or tw o w ill suffice for our purpose. O liver, badly wounded, cannot see for blood and strikes his comrade Roland b y accident; the tw o corresponding passages are as follow s: Chanson de Roland’. ‘ Sire compain, faites le vos de gred? Ja est ço R ollanz ki tant vos suelt amer. Par nule guise ne m’aviez desfiet’ . D ist O liver: ‘or vos oi jo parler, Jo ne vos v e i . . . . Ferut vos ai, car le me pardunez (11. 2000-6).

Ruolanteslied:

‘Er sprah: ia dm duerlicher thegen hastuz gerne getan? W arum woltestu mih erslan?’ Sprah ther helet O livier, ‘helet, nu antlaze thu mir, thaz min sele iht prinne. ih höre thine stimme anders ih niemen erkenne’.

In the French poem Roland replied: *J° a*ai nient de mal*, and par­ dons him freely. The German poet is a little more diffuse; he makes O liver tell die dearest friend he ever had in the w orld: ‘ne hast thu m ir niht getan*.* Then in both versions they leaned towards each other before they parted. 'Thuruh not muosen sie sih sceithen’, says the Pfaffe, w hich perhaps represents a more reliable reading than the French ‘Par tel amur as les vos desevré’.8 M any other such parallel passages could be cited— such as the account o f the heathen trying to snatch the dying Roland’s hom and sword and the result o f his daring attempt; or o f Roland’s description o f Charlemagne’s conquests; mchuung England, w hich he used ‘zu einer Kamere’ ;4 or the simile: »11.3618-19.

R

*1.6487.

*1.2009.

«1.6805.

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‘sam der hirz vare den hunden*, all familiar to us from the D igb y version (O ) o f the Chanson. It cannot be denied, how ever, that the German poem is over­ weighed w ith religiosity. W hen Charles starts on his revenge expedition the w hole arm y in its desire for m artyrdom sets out as i f for a wedding. Death to mem was only the introduction to a better life, like the com o f wheat going into the ground to die.1 The frght between Charlemagne and Baligant follow s much the same course as in the Chanson. Charles hears a voice from heaven telling him it is tim e to kill the heathen, and renewed strength is given him w ith that in view . He was enabled to smash the pagan’s head into four pieces. D ivine strength was given to the arm y also and soon the heathen fled. W hen they arrived at Saragossa, Bramimunde opened the gates to them and offered o f her ow n free w ill to receive baptism. She even told the Christians not to mourn over their dead for they w ere assured o f heaven; the emperor was quite surprised at her intelligent remarks. Alda’s death corresponds to the account in the Chanson and it is follow ed b y the trial o f Ganelon. The ‘Karlinge’, to whose race he belonged, wished to spare him as nothing had been proved against him. Ganelon, how ever, was honest and admitted that he had planned the death o f the tw elve peers. His relations still pleaded for him though the emperor swore in his wrath that he w ould make an example o f him. R oland’s cause seemed lost, how ever, when Tirrih (Thierry), one o f Roland’s kinsmen, stepped forward and offered him self as champion on Roland’s behalf. Tirrih was small and w eak, whereas Pinabel was big and strong. W e are more conscious in the German poem that w e are freed w ith another version o f the D avid and Goliath ‘m otif’. M any prayers w ent up for Tirrih and, in spite o f the physical inequality o f the champions, he was, o f course, victorious in the end. The men o f good w ill rejoiced and Ganelon was bound to the tails o f w ild horses w hich dragged him through thorns and thickets so that he perished miserably. It w ill be seen from the above that in the main die O ld French version has been faithfully follow ed b y the German poem. Pruned o f its religious accretions the story moves steadily forward and the author is not entirely lacking in descriptive ability. Even when it follow s the original closely the translation is not slavish. M any o f the names are hard to identify, especially those o f the heathen in regard o f w hom the author allows him self a good deal o f liberty. H aving ju st described the unity and ‘brotherliness’1 o f the Christians, w h o aD 1L 7885.

*1.3456.

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rejoice in one belief, one hope, one faith, and one truth, he turns to the heathen and describes their pride and boastfulness. T h ey raised seven hundred idols on a tow er and honoured them w ith horn-blowing and bonfires. So loud was the noise that the birds fell down dead to the earth just as they did in the Karlamagnus-saga and the Ronzasvallas when Roland blew the blast on his horn. Then the individual princes came w ith their requests and their vaunts {another version o f the gab m odi) to Marsile. Their courage sank a little when they saw R oland’s arm y so skilfully marshalled that even Alexander w ould have had difficulty in breaking through. T h e y were slain at the rate o f six thousand a minute, but still their battalions pressed on to their death. N o healing dew came from on high to them as it did to the Christians; they lay like dead dogs in the w ay, for no doctor could heal them. W h at pillars o f the kingdom they m ight have been, remarks the author, had they only been Christians, but they joined the ranks o f w icked Herod so their fate was deserved and our pity is enlisted only on behalf o f the Christians. It is characteristic pardy o f the early date and pardy o f the religious bias o f the Rolandslied that the heathen appear in such an unm itigatedly unfavourable light. N o good qualities are assigned to them, no help o f any kind comes to them, there is no sign o f any repentance anywhere— except in the Queen Brechmunda (Bramimunde), and that was, perhaps, for rather special reasons w hich seemed to interest the emperor. I f w e can believe the epilogue quoted above, the excellent story (materia. . . scone)' was handed over to the author to translate into German b y a noble lady, a king’s daughter, thereby to add lustre to die kingdom 1 and merit to her ow n soul. He «ids the w ork w ith a prayer that everyone w ho hears shall sing a Pater Noster on behalf o f his Lord and that all believers should be rich in good w orks and certain o f heaven. The Chanson de Roland rings deeper and truer than its copy. Com pletely different in character is the other poem to which w e must now turn our attention— the Willehalm o f W olfram von Eschen­ bach. This remarkable poem by a really great poet was composed some 100 years later than the original on which it was based. It differs both from its model and from the poems o f an earlier period in more w ays than can be accounted for b y a mere passage o f time. O ne’s first thought w ould be that it w ould be an almost impossible task to transform a chanson-de-geste into a poem in w hich Frauenkult and Minne play a very considerable part. Certainly Guillaum and 11. 9034.

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Guibourg were the only couple w ho lent themselves in any measure to such a development and» even in these, the faithful devotion o f d ie pair to each other in the French poems does not bear the slightest resemblance to ‘hohe M inne’. B ut it must be remembered that Guibourg had a past. She was not the ‘femme honnête qui n’a pas d'histoire’. She had at some time previous to the events described in any o f the extant legends been abducted from her law ful husband b y Guillaume d’Orange and had herself been accessory to the deed. Here, then, was the romance and the illicit love which were am ong the fundamental conditions for courdy poetry. In Aliscans, on which, as most critics are agreed, the German poem is mainly based, Guibourg plays (it is true) a prominent part, but it is as the devoted w ife o f a w ar-w eary husband w hom she encourages, cares for or chides, according to the circumstances. Guillaume, too, is the loyal spouse, although he has to be bolstered up by a solemn vo w when he leaves his w ife to go to the French court where tempta­ tions m ight be too great. B ut Guillaume has other loyalties besides his w ife in the French poem, as w e can see from his prayer before the great batde: Si com c’cst voirs, aidies vostre vasal K ’encor revoie Guiborc au euer loyal, Et Loéis, l'em pereor roial, Et Aim eri mon chier pere carnal E t Ermenjart, ma mere natural Et mes cmers frères, ki sont emperial (IL 553 £).

Guillaume is the most natural and human man that ever lived. It is true that his great function is to kill as many heathen dogs as possible. B ut he only has to see a fine horse, a handsome boy, or a pretty niece to forget all his antagonisms and his principles. This makes Aliscansf in spite o f the m onotony inherent in die heroic epic, a very entertain­ ing poem and an excellent study in human psychology. The triumph o f humanity over religious fanaticism or blood-relationship is w orked out subdy in the minds and actions o f individuals w ithout the neces­ sity o f hammering the point. Guibourg's love for her husband's nephew Vivien, Guillaume’s love for his w ife’s brother Rainouart, give us the key to the situation, and the scene towards the end o f the poem where Rainouart (the converted heathen) and Bauduc (his young, still unconverted cousin) sit side by side and look affection­ ately at each other after trying savagely to kill one another, is as attractive as the distress o f Rainouart when he thinks that Guillaume, w hom he loves more than anyone else in the w orld, has forgotten

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him. B ut although this welding together o f heathen and Christian is, as w e have said, inherent in Aliscanst this does not alter the fact that the heathen are utterly evil and must be destroyed like verm in: Puisque li horn n’aimmc crestienté E t que il het deu et despit carité N ’a droit en vie, je le m par verté E t ki l’odst, s’a destruit un malfé (11.1058-62).

It is otherwise in the German poem. The Willehalm has been called a ‘Klage’— a lament, and so to a certain extent it is, for the w hole poem seems dominated by jamer and nôt. B ut the lament is not only for the death and unhappiness o f Christians only— it is almost equally for that o f the heathen w ho are God’s creatures too. As was natural when the first flush o f the crusades was over, the poet was capable o f being more objective. Guiburg1 herself says: 'Alas, I am the ruin o f His creatures, both Christian and heathen'. Guiburg was, o f course, the best qualified to look on both sides. In spite o f her faithful devotion to her new lord and her new faith she never com­ pletely lost all her sympathy for her fam ily and the rest o f her former co-rehgionists. The poet him self echoes Guiburg’s words: 'W as it not a great sin?' he asks, 'to slaughter like cattle people w ho had never heard o f Christianity and were all God’s handiwork (‘hantgetat’)— men o f the seventy-two kingdoms which He had created?’* A t one point he almost blames Guiburg, the wom an o f the tw o names, whose life and love Were so interwoven w ith sorrow. She has brought so much misery on her ow n people that his heart w ill turn against her unless God prevents it. B ut no, he concludes, the queen w ho abandoned her name o f Arabella at the baptismal font was innocent through the One w ho was bom o f the w ord and gave His life for us w ithout hesitation. There follow s a little dissertation on the jo ys o f martyrdom for the one w ho can keep so dose to the angels as to miss no note o f their heavenly song3— a conclusion reminiscent o f many such pious passages in the Rolandslied. In spite o f his conclusion, however, the fact remains fixed in the author s mind that 'durch Giburge al diu not geschach’,4 and in a long, pathetic speech to the princes when they arrive at Orange to rescue her from her father and his arm y she herself admits that she bears the guilt on account o f her desire to obtain God's grace, but 1 The German form Guiburg has been used in preference to the French form Guibourg in the section dealing with the German poem. » Willehalm 450,15-20. «3 0 ,2 1 -3 1 ,2 0 . «3 0 6 ,1 .

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partly (‘ein teil') on account o f her love for the warrior W illehahn.1 She exonerates her former husband, Tibalt, entirely, declaring that he had never wronged her since she became his queen and that in leaving him she gave up her first love, much riches and beautiful children in order to become a poor man's w ife. She admits that her love for W illehalm had been the cause o f much sorrow and loss o f life, that jâm er' filled her breast and her jo y was dead. She begs the Christian knights to use their victory honourably should they triumph over the heathen, for were not all men heathens before Christ came, and did not many a wom an, even after being regenerated through baptism, bring forth a heathen child?1 The w hole tenor o f the poem is com pletely different from that o f Aliscans, the model on w hich it was constructed. Sometimes w e hardly realize that the cause o f Christianity was at stake. Á com ­ pletely new element has crept in, for it is Frauendienst that has brought sorrow into the hearts o f heathen and Christians alike— V ivien o r Arofel, it does not matter w ho the victim was, by their death Frauendienst had become the poorer and Guiburg had bewitched the hearts o f both heathen and Christian alike. Possibly this bew itching quality is a faint reminiscence o f the fact that she had once been an enchantress. 'Je cuit Guibors nos vuet toz enchanter’, says Aim er in Aliscansi* when he sees the effect she had on Rainouart. She certainly possessed a magic power over men. This is constandy stressed in the German poem until it reaches its clim ax in the words o f her husband : 'I observe, lady, that your shining beauty does not let the heathen have any rest; they cannot resist its beams'.4 Immediately before this, Bem art o f Brubant (W illehalm 's brother) had declared that he w ou ld rather let strips be cut out o f his ow n kinsmen’s (o f w hom one is his ow n son) skin than let Tibalt get possession o f Guiburg.5 Guiburg is, in fact, a kind o f vision o f beauty, a Helen o f T ro y 'w ho launched a thousand ships’ and became a bone o f contention to leaders o f rival armies, thus causing death and destruction to many. D uring all the laments which fill the first h alf o f the poem, and the g rie f for the death o f Vivien, she had been somewhat in the background o f the picture. B ut when the w eary time o f w aiting was over and the relief o f Orange was at hand, the author brings her forth at the right moment and she fills the stage. As usual in this balanced poem, jo y and sorrow were mixed. D uring a pause in the battle, Desramé, her father, laments bitterly over her action and beseeches her to return 1 310,19-20. * 260,24-5.

• 307,21. *2 6 0 ,1 8 .

• L 4282.

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to her form er husband. He is pathetic and generous in his g rief—he begs and threatens in turn. B ut Guiburg was adamant and the baffled heathen set fire to the palace and retreated to their ships at the approach o f W illehalm and his army. The rescuing force is composed o f all W illehalm ’s kith and kin, each w ith their respective band o f followers, and the arm y that the Emperor Louis, after some hesitation, has sent to his aid. Guiburg w ith her maidens had been holding out in Orange till W illehalm should arrive w ith reinforce­ ments. As the French arm y approaches she stood on the batdements, fu lly armed w ith outstretched sword, a sym bol o f courage and faithfulness. Then W illehalm ’s anxiety was turned momentarily to jo y for he had feared the worst. But, as the other contingents approached, he wished that all should share his jo y , so a great feast was prepared as soon as his Either and brothers arrived. Then Guiburg laid aside her armour, decked herself in her most beautiful clothes, and bade her maidens do the same, h i ‘strahlender Schönheit* the countess w ent forward to meet the advancing arm y. She was so lovely that only God could have created anything so beautiful. Her very appearance w on the hearts o f all, and i f anyone could have seen w hat lay beneath her garments he w ould have had a glimpse o f paradise.1 She was the cynosure o f all eyes— a sym bol o f beauty. O ld Aym eri (Heimrich) sat beside Guiburg during the repast, and although there w ere many other beautiful wom en there he had no eyes for any one except his daughter-in-law.2 B ut they neither forgot the serious occasion o f their being together and ate but litde in spite o f the fact that there was reason to rejoice. In w hat m ight be called the second h alf o f the poem Guiburg again takes a back place. W e return to the battle scenes and Rainouart is in the foreground as in Aliscans. The batde was long and bloody, but at last the heathen fled to their ships and their emir (amiral) Desramé escaped w ith a band o f followers after a gallant duel w ith W illehalm w hich the author compares to the combat between Charlemagne and Baligant. The Christian arm y (as in the Chançun de IVillame) found a wonderful spread o f provisions w hich the heathens had abandoned in their hasty flight. M any a soldier drowned his grief and forgot his wounds in wine, for theirs was not the wisdom o f Solomon.2 Master and servant enjoyed ‘guot gemach*, which the poet tells us was aise in French (‘en franzois heten si rise’ )* and which was equally appreciated by ‘der kurteise’ and the ‘ungehovete man*, for everyone, both ‘herre* and ‘knecht*, had as much o f the spoils as »2 4 9 ,1 5 .

*2 6 5 ,2 1 .

* 448,13.

«4 4 9 ,9 .

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he wished. So the Christians rejoiced over the booty die heathens had left behind and the pagan gods, Apollo, Mahmete, Tervagant, and Kahun fell into disrepute for their reputation was gone for ever. W hilst these rejoicings were going on, however, and W illehalm was receiving some consolation for his past defeats in the possession o f the land and the w ife that he was destined not to lose again, another cause o f sorrow poisoned his jo y . D uring the final batde, in som e mysterious w ay, Rainouart had disappeared. Here was fresh fuel fo r W illehalm ’s grief: der vürste uz Provenzalen lant Klagete sere, daz er niht vant sinen vriunt Rennewart. im was leit diu dannenvart (452,15 £).

A ll his g rief for V ivien was now transferred to his foster-son w h o, ever since his adoption into the count*s entourage, had been his righ t hand (‘min zeswin hant'), had guided his ship and acted like a good w ind to bring him and all his kith and km into port. Here the W illehalm parts com pany w ith Aliscans, for w e do not hear o f Rainouart again, but are regaled w ith another long lament o f Guillaume for his second great loss. W e are immersed again in jâmer und nôt as torrents o f tears flow from the count's eyes. His brother Bertrand takes him to task severely for giving w ay to such grief: du bist niht Heimliches sun, wiltu nach wibes siten tuon. . . . w iltu hie selbe weinen als ein kint nach der brust? (457, 33 £).

W illehalm pulls him self together for a short spell after diese w ise words and decides that he must pretend to be happy, even i f he is not, for: Ez ist des houbetmannes sin, daz er genendecliche lebe und sinem volkc troesten gebe (460,18-20).

His good resolution did not last long, however, for on die third day after the final batde he began to enlarge again on his grief and had again to be reminded that a man to w hom God had entrusted an arm y ought not to behave as he wàs d o in g .. . . Here the fragm ent ends and w e shall never know what happened to Rainouart. W e cannot doubt, however, that he was found and that he was destined, as in Aliscans, to marry die emperor's daughter and inherit the heathen's land, after his father’s death.

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The poem ends on a note o f reconciliation, for W illehalm has the bodies o f the slain heathen kings collected to be sent back to their native land and sends the message o f admiration and almost o f gratitude to Desramé, whose fam ily had been a source o f blessing to him although it brought sadness as w ell as jo y in its train. So, to the end o f the story, the balance is held between jo y and sorrow, gain and loss, sweet and bitter. As Bernard reminds W illehalm when he reproaches him for his unmanly grief w hich w ill depress the French­ men: ‘Joy w ithout sorrow is unthinkable and not meant for mere mortals*: sueze vinden, manege sure vlust, niht anders erbes muge w ir han (4 5 7 ,10 -11).

This is, perhaps, the most important lesson which the poem has to teach. Resignation, tolerance, pity for humanity— these are the imponderables that make life possible and enable us to take an objective view o f things. O f course, right is on the side o f the Christians, but again and again the author reflects that such a slaughter o f heathen could not have been the w ill o f the Creator. T h e Klage embraces both sides alike: die heiden scheden dolten und die getauften holten flust unde kummer.

It was grievous that Tervagant should have had the pow er to send so many souls to hell, when many o f them have such good qualities in spite o f their beliefs. This element o f broad tolerance is present in Aliscans but it is much more developed in Willehalm. In the O ld French poem w e have the same conflict o f loyalties— most clearly expressed in the character o f Rainouart. The devotion o f the heathen b o y for Guillaume w hom he loves more than anyone else in the w orld overrules his loyalty to his ow n fam ily, even his ow n father. G uibourg’s loyalty to her new husband and new faith overrides all previous attachments and reliefs. B ut it must be admitted that the human element is not so strong in Aliscans. The heathen are devils, created to be destroyed. The author does not grieve for them. There is a more merciful outlook in Willehalm— perhaps partly due to fem inine influence on the knights, for ‘Frauendienst* and ‘M inneethos’ are much to the fore. The heathen have their ‘amies’ as w ell as the Christians and this fact caused them to be regarded in a less hostile light. A rofel was a lady-killer; Paufàmeiz has an ‘amie’ o f w h om w e hear no w ord in Aliscans. There are tw o rewards for those

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w ho observe knightly honour— heaven and the favour o f noble wom en.1 So spoke W illehalm when he called upon all his relations to take pity on him, the ‘freuden-armen\ T h ey all replied as one m an to his request, for their hearts were all united. The strong fam ily feeling reigned in all their hearts. It is true that at his first appeal the queen, his sister, had been very reluctant to risk her ow n kingdom to save that o f her sister-in-law, and w ho can blame her? B ut after her conversion to the fam ily cause, although this was brought about b y brutal methods, she spoke nobly on W m ehalm ’s behalf, rem inding her brothers o f the oneness o f the fam ily members, body and soul, whether they be male or female: M ine bruoder, die hie sin, gedenket, daz w ir sin ein lip. ir heizet man, ich hin ein w ip: da enist niht underscheiden, » niht wan ein verb uns beiden (168,12-16).

The idea o f universal brotherhood inevitably weakened somewhat the theme o f fam ily solidarity in the German poem. The w ord geselleschaft is used in a looser sense than its equivalent compagnie in the O ld French original. B ut the idea is there and keeps breaking through. It is consistait w ith the rest o f the poem that W illehalm insists on the existence o f ‘geselleschaft* between him self and a merchant. The poet is not class-conscious, for he reminds us that though the deeds o f the great are recorded they are no more w orthy o f remembrance than those o f the multitude w hich remain unsung: Swa man des v il von Künegen saget, da w irt arm manner tat verdaget (428, 3-4).

These words are entirely characteristic o f the objectivity w hich marks die w hole w ork. As regards the individual characters in the Willehalm, they corre­ spond in the main to the traditional portraits in the O ld French epic. Guillaume was always a man w ith a grievance, whether in Aliscans or the Couronnement de Louis— in spite o f his loyalty and his unequalled reputation for valour. In Willehalm this sombre side o f his character is even more emphasized. He absolutely wallows in grief. His lamentations for Vivien and Rainouart are extravagant and tend to become maudlin, somewhat in the same w ay as those o f Charlemagne for Roland in the various versions o f that legend. Even at a period when the lack o f ability to weep was looked upon as a misfortune, it 1 'der himel und werder wibe gruoz’, 299,27.

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surely verged on the grotesque when the poet declared that tw o carts and a w aggon could not have carried all the liquid that gushed from his eyes. B ut everything concerning W illehalm was on a large scale — not only his bodily form and courage, but his indulgence in jdmer, his outbursts o f wrath and indignation, his capacity for love and his ability to keep a vow . Even his language is exaggerated in expression, for in his lament over V ivien he declares that his nephew’s sweetness was so great that had his toe been cast into the sea it w ould have made the ocean ‘zuckersiizz’ : solh süczzc an dinem libe lac: des breiten mers salzes smac müeste al zucker maezec sin, der din ein zehen w ürfe drin (62,12-14).

Such language is, to a certain extent, characteristic o f the author's style, but it seems to reach its height when it is placed in the mouth o f the greatest o f warriors. It is Guiburg whose personality has gained most in depth. Her address to the members o f her husband’s fam ily is noble. She is just as heartbroken as W illehalm at the death o f her nephews, but she does not give w ay as he does. She can rise to an occasion and forget her personal losses just as she can in the Chançun de Willame. Her appearance is never described, but w e are skilfully left to judge o f it by the effect it has on those w ho see her. Her faithfulness to W illehalm is never in question, although she has never com pletely lost her feeling for her ow n kith and kin. K ing Louis has, perhaps, o f all the characters gained most in prestige, but it is some tim e before it can be said o f him that he is acting like his father Charlemagne.1

HI. IN SO U T H E R N F R A N C E It m ight reasonably have been expected that the south as w ell as the north o f France w ould have produced a crop o f epic poems during the lengthened period o f epic production. B ut in spite o f the fact that Guillaume d’Orange was the hero o f the M idi and that much o f the geography and the landscape is evocative o f the south rather than the north, this is not the case. Perhaps the language had some­ thing to do w ith it. A Provençal poet— Raim on Vidal— tells us in his treatise or composition (Las rozos di trobar) that the language o f Lem ozi (‘le Lim ousin', roughly w hat w e now call provençal) is best 1 dicke Karle wartgetunt, 182,16.

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adapted to the w riting o f lyric poetry (Jar vers et consens et serventes), whereas the ‘parladura francesca’ is more suited for poems o f a m ore narrative character (romanz et pasturellas). This does not mean, o f course, that epic poetry was com pletely neglected in the south o f France, but it certainly did not flourish there to die extent to w hich it did in the north. The w ell-know n romance Flamenca does not fall into our category o f epic poems, but it is notew orthy that the author, when enumerating the tales o f kings, counts and other heroes w hich the ‘jongleurs* vied w ith each other in reciting— incidentally m aking such a noise that it was hard to distinguish anything— tells us that one related how Charlemagne held Germany until he divided it between his sons, and another related the w hole nistory o f Chlodovech and Pepin. The legend o f Charlemagne was, o f course, know n in the M idi, and the names o f Roland and O liver are often cited in Provençal poems as models o f courage. B ut the hero w ho has the honour o f a w hole poem to him self (if not in Provençal, in a m ixture o f French and Provençal) is that mysterious old warrior, Girard de Roussillon, w hom w e find in O ld French sometimes fighting on the side o f Charlemagne and sometimes in active rebellion against him. H e undoubtedly had a historical prototype in the figure o f a certain Gerardus w ho was frequently in conflict w ith the emperor, generally alluded to in the poems as Charles M artel, or sim ply Charles. His name was celebrated in ecclesiastical legends, and the French-Provençal poem was preceded by a Vita Girardi in w hich the pious side o f Girard was celebrated. It is generally admitted that both the Vita and the poem proceeded from an earlier version which has not com e dow n to us, and the w hole legend provides one o f the best examples o f the interplay between the clerical and the lay element. ‘Légende ¿pique, légende hagiographique sont id et furent de tout temps une seule et même légende’,1 and the question as to which came first is one w hich must be left on one side for the moment, h i any case w e have to do w ith an old epic tradition. ‘Girart de Russilun li vielz* is men­ tioned in the Chanson de Roland* as one o f the tw elve peers fighting on the emperor’s side, whereas several references in Garin le Lorrain and elsewhere allude to his rebellious activity and the havoc he had w rought in the land. Guillaume’s ‘joglere’ in the Chançun de Willame sings o f ‘Girart de Viane* amongst other o f Charlemagne’s knights. From early time there was confusion between the different heroes o f the name o f Girard; the epithet ‘de Roussillon* remains a m ystery in 1Bédicr, L es légendes Epiques, H, p. 95.

* L 798, etc.

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spite o f its celebrity and proves nothing in respect o f a Provençal origin. The Franco-Provençal poem w ill be chiefly remembered for the loyalty and devotion o f the good w ife Berte which has been described in a previous chapter. W ithout her support Girard w ould have succumbed to his misfortunes when, like Tristan and Iseut, the pair wander miserably about in exile: Entre lo dol e l’ire e le mautraire Si non fus sa muller, non visquest gaire, El* est savie e corteise e de bone aire Q ue ne paraula melz nus predicaire.1

M uch the same m ight have been said o f Guibourg, Guillaume’s faithful spouse, but Berte was even nobler, for she was not the w ife chosen by him. She had come from Constantinople expecting to m arry the king, but Charles had preferred her younger sister, so Berte had to be contented w ith Girard. The extant poem o f Girard de Roussillon can be roughly assigned to the middle o f the thirteenth century, but a somewhat later date must be postulated for a poem narrating the Roncevaux story in Pro­ vençal. W e possess only a fragment o f the epic poem Ronzasvals (published by M ario Roques in Romania LVIII, 1932), but it lends a certain gravitas to w hat has survived o f Provençal literature, the mention o f w hich evokes an im age o f courtly lyrics and ‘fin amor* rather than o f epic grandeur. It proves, m oreover, the existence o f an epic tradition in the M idi, for personages and episodes are mentioned which are unknown to the more northerly versions. The main features o f the story, how ever, are the same as in the O ld French poem know n to us from the D igb y manuscript (O ).8 Roland’s pride is much insisted upon as the cause o f the disaster, though he is still the idol o f his men, to w hom he is equally devoted. As each o f his companions gets killed he sends a message after them to say that he has got delayed but w ill soon jo in them. Charlemagne’s piety is as m uch in evidence as it is in the Chanson and he has to be severely reproached by Naimes for his extravagant expressions o f grief. His laments are even more drawn out and are extended to the sword Durendal which he removes from the dead Roland’s hand and throws into a lake. The episode o f Alda’s death is somewhat expanded and she dies, like Iseut, embracing her dead lover’s body. The archbishop 1 See Ch. m , p. 52. * Verbal correspondences have been noted in M ortier's Translation—cf. M ortier, Let Textet Je la Chanten Je Roland, Tom . Ill, p. 118 f.

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Turpin is just as efficient in killing die heathen in spite o f being a priest, as in the O ld French version. Besides these characters so w e ll know n to the O ld French epic, other personages are introduced w h o represent a different set o f traditions and are little know n in the north, though familiarly referred to in the Franco-Italian verse and prose romances to w hich w e shall turn our attention in a moment. T h e most prominent o f these personages is Galien, the son o f O liver, w ho had been engendered on the occasion o f O liver’s fulfilm ent o f his daring gab in the palace o f the Emperor o f Constantinople. Galien arrives on the battlefield, rides up to the emperor, discloses his identity, and demands to be knighted. His request granted, he rides straight o ff to find his father O liver. M eanwhile things have reached a terrible pitch. O liver, wounded and blinded by blood, had ju st struck Roland by mistake. Roland, in a line w hich reproduces almost exactly the O ld French O xford M S., exclaim ed: ‘Y o u ought to have challenged m e',1 whereupon O liver begged forgiveness fo r his mistake. A t this point Galien rode up to Roland and asked to be led to O liver. He announces him self to his father, w ho just has tim e to embrace him and commend him to God before he receives from a heathen the fatal blow to which he succumbs. Galien avenges his father w ith such a powerful stroke that Roland remarks: ‘I f only yo u had com e before!' Galien fights bravely, but he, too, is fatally wounded and found lying on the grass by Gandelbuon, w ho n o w appears on the scene. Galien was scarcely know n except inside Italy, where he became eventually a popular figure. The Italian prose versions may have been based on a Franco-Italian poem, w hich in its turn m ay have had a French original. B ut neither have com e dow n to us ana his fame was not great in France. The same m ay be said o f Gandelbuon le Frison, w ho also has a considerable part to play in the Provençal poem though he gets hardly more than a brief m ention in the French poems. Besides being ‘seigneur des Frisons', he introduces him self on one occasion as ‘Gandelbuon de la vaillante Afrique', and he is em ployed on tw o missions for Roland in each o f w hich he is a bringer o f evil tidings. O n the second one both he and his horse are grievously wounded and, having delivered his message, he asks to be given H oly Com m union as he has no further use for knighthood. Another figure much more familiar to Italian than to French hearers must have been that o f Estout de Langres, w ho, as w e shall see, has quite a special rôle to play in the Entrée d*Espagne and subsequent Italian works. A note o f tolerance is introduced into this account o f 1 C £ ‘par mile guise ne m’aviez desfiet’, Ch. de R ., 1.2002.

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the ‘douloureuse’ battle o f Roncevaux by the episode in which the heathen Falseron (Falsaron o f the Chanson de Roland), after having killed many a noble Christian and escaped death himself, emerges as un ‘Sarrasin courtois*. He could not resist a tribute o f admiration for Roland. He seated him self beside the count as he lay dying, raised his head and stroked his hice, and called dow n God’s benedic­ tion on such a noble foe. There is nothing corresponding to this in the Chanson, where Falsaron is the most ‘encrismé felun’ under the sky and hurls abuses at the French.1 He is killed by O liver, w hom his outrageous insults had driven to fury. N or is there any redeeming feature in his character in the Franco-Italian poem L'Entrée d'Espagne. H e plays a considerable part as the hither o f Feragu whose death he is most anxious to avenge. He is boastful and vindictive and professes to have one ambition— viz. to get at grips w ith Roland. Thus, as the epic poems were dying a natural death in France and the w ellknow n heroes were being replaced b y heroes o f a different type (whose fame eclipsed temporarily that o f Roland and O liver and their fellow peers), in the south and particularly on the further side o f the Alps, the older traditions o f Charlemagne and his knights were destined to have a revival, but fresh characters were introduced and a different turn was given to the old stories which in the end com­ pletely changed their character.IV .

IV . IT A L Y It w ould be quite impossible in a study o f die O ld French epic to give any detailed account o f the very varied treatment the French poems received on Italian soil during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It is clear from the chaotic state o f the epic tradition in Italy up to the time o f Dante that it had received no national literary form or language. And yet there was much activity in the ‘scriptoria’ , fo r there are manuscripts and groups o f manuscripts and compilations in verse and prose w hich suggest many hands and much industry. Perhaps these undertakings were financed by the w ealthy families w h o were springing up in the prosperous Italian cities. There is a case o f one fam ily in Padua w ho, in search o f a pedigree, even dared to assert that they were descended from some o f the Carolingian heroes. It w ould seem that French, or at any rate an Italianized form 1 ‘Envers Franceis est mult cuntrarius’ (L 1222).

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o f French, was at one period the literary language o f educated people in Northern Italy. From whatever cause, w e find abundant evidence o f the knowledge and popularity o f the Carolingian heroes. There are poems o f which w e have die original transformed b y Italian scribes, as, for instance, the w ell-know n manuscript in assonances o f the Chanson de Roland1, in w hich the original French is often only thinly disguised by its Italian overlay. Sometimes the Franco-Italian poem is obviously based on a French original which has not com e down to us, as in the case o f the poem Machario analysed in a previous chapter. Y e t another phenomenon is a poem w hich does not seem to be based on a French model at all, though it celebrates French heroes, and to a certain extent rekindles the old poetic fire. This is the long poem know n as the Entrée d’Espagne in the form o f Italianized French used b y Italian writers whose culture was largely drawn from French models. It w ould seem that a considerable number o f Italians w rote in French at this time. N o tw o w rote alike, and w e m ay notice die analogy between these and the Anglo-N orm an poets in England whose individual treatment o f French makes them difficult to classify. It must have been these Franco-Italian versions o f the Carolingian epics which formed the basis for such a com pilation as ‘Les R o yau x de France’ (Reali di Francia) about the middle o f die fourteenth century, which, beginning w ith a genealogy o f the French kings, proceeds to relate in prose various w ell-know n French legends such as Aspramonte, Ogier le Danois, Les Quatre F ilz Aimont and L ’Espagne — this last being based on the poem mentioned above (L’Entrée d’Espagne) w hich relates Charlemagne’s adventures in Spain before the defeat o f Roncevaux. The same poem seems to have provided a base also for tw o works generally know n as the Spagna en vers and the Spagna en prose w hich w ent even further than the Entrée and carried the story o f Charlemagne’s activity in Spain right up to the final catastrophe. These later Italian developments, w hich have been studied in such detail by Pio Rajna in his numerous works on the subject, pass beyond the limits o f the present study and must be left out o f the picture in spite o f their importance for later developments in Italy when the themes w ere adopted and metamorphosed b y Italian poets. B ut the intensive production in Northern Italy is an intriguing phenomenon. N ot only the heroes o f the Charlemagne cycle had each his special treatment, but the Aym eri fam ily (Nerbonesi) also came in tor their share o f attention, and the traitor fam ily 1Ms. V. 4.

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had an important development o f its ow n. The race o f traitors w hich, as w e know , was a numerous one, is generally referred to in the O ld French poems as ‘les parents Ganelon’, or ‘le lignage Hardré’, and w e are told in A iol that they ‘foisonent’. Then when the cyclic idea was at its height a specific family was invented and, as w e have seen in an earlier chapter, an ancestor, D oon de M ayence, was created, one branch o f whose family formed the traitor group. It was left to the Italian, or Franco-Italian poems to develop the idea o f a maganzi or mayençais faction. Macaire, the w ell-know n traitor, is ‘M acaire de Losane’ in the Chanson d'Aiol, but he has been re-christened ‘un de qui de Magance’ in the Italianized poem Machario (Macaire). W e still hear o f the ‘parenti Ganelon’, but the other epithet is obviously preferred by the author: C o fe qui de Magance e de ses parentors. Q ue senprc fe a K . onta e desonors.1

So much did die party idea attract the Italian writers, used to the faction spirit, that the fam ily o f Clerm ont to w hich Roland belonged through his ancestor Bem art de Clerm ont was augmented as a make­ w eight to the traitor clan. It was not till later that the Italian poems developed this idea more fully, but Roland is already the ‘Sire de Clerm ont', just as Ganelon is the ‘Sire de M aganze' in the poem L'Entrée