Rebel Barons: Resisting Royal Power in Medieval Culture 9780198788485

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REBEL

BARONS

Rebel Barons Resisting Royal Power in Medieval Culture LUKE

SUNDERLAND

OXFORD UNIVERSITY

PRESS

OXFORD UNIVERSITY

PRESS

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom

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Acknowledgements I began work on this project in 2007 as Research Fellow at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge; I would like to thank the Master and Fellows for that wonderful opportunity, which first allowed me to work consistently on matters of rebellion, authority, and legitimacy. My research subsequently developed at Durham University, where colleagues in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures and the Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies provided support, intellectual engagement, and encouragement. Much of the writing for Rebel Barons was completed whilst I was External Faculty Fellow in the Stanford Humanities Center. I would like to thank the Director, the Staff and the Fellows of 2014-15 for the faith they showed in this project and for providing a wonderful scholarly environment in which to develop it. I was also, thanks to Cary Howie and Marilyn Migiel, Visiting Fellow in the Department of Romance Studies at Cornell University, which gave me another invaluable opportunity to think, write, and engage with brilliant scholars. I owe thanks to Bill Burgwinkle, Marilynn Desmond, Jane Gilbert, Simon Gaunt, and Sarah Kay, who encouraged me and supported Rebel Barons from an early stage. Miranda Griffin and Thomas Hinton have been attentive, kind, and incisive readers of my drafts for this and many other projects; Marisa Galvez and Shirin Khanmohamadi commented acutely on chapters, too, whereas Gerald Moore, Claudia Nitschke, and Thomas O’Donnell were inspirational interlocutors. The Universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh, Manchester, Minnesota, Oxford, Warwick, and the University of California, Davis, as well as Boston College, King’s College

London, and University College London, kindly invited me to speak during this project, and the comments and questions of audiences helped me to refine my thinking. An ongoing collaboration with medievalists on matters of medieval translation has provided another venue for debate and deliberation. Conference audiences at French Studies, Gender and Medieval Studies, The International Medieval Society in Paris, the Société Rencesvals, and the international congresses at Leeds and Kalamazoo have also aided me by sharing thoughts and ideas. As the project neared completion, the editors and anonymous readers for Oxford University Press did much to ensure that Rebel Barons developed its potential. I would like to thank them for their efforts and invaluable input. The editors of Medium Aevum and Revue des langues romanes have kindly allowed me to reuse and develop material I published as “Genre, Ideology and Utopia in Huon de Bordeaux’ and ‘Entre résistance et révolte: les enjeux du territoire’, respectively. Emma Campbell and Bob Mills did the same for “Bueve d’Hantone/ Bovo d’Antona: Exile, Translation and the History of the Chanson de geste’, published in their edited volume Rethinking Medieval Translation: Ethics, Politics, Theory, as did Sarah Salih and Julian Weiss for ‘Multilingualism and Empire in

LEntrée d’Espagne, which appeared in their edited collection Locating the Middle

vi

Acknowledgements

Ages: The Places and Spaces ofMedieval Culture. Full references for all these pieces are in the bibliography. I would like to thank the editors for their kindness and understanding. Finally, thanks are due to my mother, Patricia, and my sisters, Faye and Helen,

for their support, and most of all to my partner Pamela, for love.

Contents Note on Translations and Citations

Introduction

ix

1

1. Sovereignty

20

2. Revolt

54

3. Resistance

98

4. Charlemagne

138

5. Feud

Wis)

6. Crusade

213

Conclusion

pie

Appendix: Summaries of Chansons de Geste Bibliography

261 213

Index

301

Note on Translations and Citations Translations given in the text are the author's, except where otherwise attributed. The term ‘Edition’ when used in the footnotes refers to the scholarly edition of the primary text in question, full details of which are given in the bibliography.

Introduction Medieval narratives about rebellious barons were widespread and popular. For centuries, the key literary form for exploring the conflictual nature of politics—civil war, feud, rebellion, holy war—and in particular the fractious relationship between

the aristocracy and the monarchy, remained narratives about Charlemagne and other Carolingian kings (Charles Martel, Pepin, Louis the Pious), and their often restive barons. Whatever their putative roots in oral tradition, these narratives constituted a vast textual corpus from twelfth century onwards, read and revised across Europe for the rest of the Middle Ages and beyond, changing form from the traditional decasyllabic assonanced /aisses of the oldest chansons de geste to embrace different verse forms, notably Alexandrines, and prose. The tales were also incorporated in chronicles and eventually printed as popular books. This book aims to survey the corpus across its generic, historical, and geographical breadth and thus to show its importance to debates on law, sovereignty, political organization, and political theory, and its usefulness as a source for aristocratic ideals and practices around conflict and conflict resolution, in order to further our understanding of the ideas that shaped revolts across a wide space.! Nobles sought to defend their lineage, honour, and privileges, but they also had broader goals, linked to custom and ideals of mutuality, collective judgement, and immanent justice. ‘They saw internal conflict as part of a healthy political order and revolt as a brake on sovereign power, preventing tyranny. The same notions, this book argues, shaped pro-feuding arguments, regional cultures of resistance, and aristocratic fantasies about leading crusade. Rebel Barons sets the epic tradition in the context of the rise in power of English and French kings from the twelfth century onwards, of contested sites within the orbits of those monarchies (Burgundy, Occitania, and the Low Countries) and the antagonisms in Italy between the papacy, the empire, and the cities. English and French kings in particular were gathering material resources to strengthen their positions, and introducing structures for taxation, military service, justice, and administration that are recognizable as antecedents of modern state organizations. Ideas of imperial and royal sovereignty were also in evolution over the same period. Key concepts such as the body politic, the just war, treason, and the common good 1 There is a lack of scholarship on noble revolt. See Chapter 2 of this volume for exceptions, especially where England is concerned. Cohn

(Lust for Liberty) and Moore (The Origins of European

Dissent) have produced excellent work on popular revolt and heresy (as a type of dissent) respectively. Cohn bemoans the tendency of medievalists to study rebellions locally.

2

Rebel Barons

worked towards centralization and monopolies on violence and justice. These were anti-revolt and anti-feuding ideologies, arguing that sovereigns could be morally reformed, and should never be militarily opposed. To bring out the rebel baron epic tradition’s importance as a rival discourse to sovereignty over this period, it is first necessary to rethink its history and geography by overcoming the tendency to see the chansons de geste as France’s own epic genre. This categorization has medieval pedigree, of course: Jehan Bodel’s Les Saisnes divides literature into three materes—of France, Bretagne, and Rome—the first being

associated with the chansons de geste. The genre is thought to derive from Frankish mythology and oral storytelling; thus Francois Suard casts the chansons as France’s

ereat literature: ‘elle est en France la seule réalisation épique qui puisse se comparer aux poémes homériques, 4 |’épopée anglo-saxonne, germanique ou scandinave' [it is the only epic production in France which measures up to the poems of Homer, or to the Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, or Scandinavian epic].” An implicit nationalism

shapes many accounts of the genre’s development, written as though France the nation-state were predestined.? But the Franks of the chansons cannot be unproblematically equated with the French of Capetian France: the former term is often a crusade identity, integrating Christian warriors from across Europe.‘ The ‘France’ narrated by the matere de France is repeatedly torn apart by internal wars; the genre displays little desire for centralization. Some of the most beloved medieval heroes— Ogier le Danois and Renaut de Montauban, to name but two—fight long wars against kings of ‘France’. The material circulated in England, Occitania, and Italy from an early stage,* and was read over a much wider area, partly because it represented a Western Christian literary tradition (rather than a specifically French one), and partly because the Carolingian Empire left a political legacy across much of Europe, most notably for this tradition in Burgundy and the Low Countries. A link to the Carolingians was often used in local claims to legitimacy and privileges, but also set a dangerous precedent for imperial projects threatening the independence of regional aristocrats, and for an oppressive style of rulership. The Carolingian era is sometimes remembered in literature for the flourishing of warrior values as the Christian aristocracy and monarchy united against outside threats, but often as a time of tyranny and fratricide. Narratives about Carolingian kings and their barons thus provided the perfect venue for the literary exploration of questions of authority and hierarchy, and had diverse political valences, both furthering claims to empire and critiquing them. Standard literary history once also assumed that the chansons de geste died out, to be replaced by other discourses. Defining them as ‘epics’ proved unhelpful, as it > La Chanson de geste, p. 121. See also ‘La Chanson de geste en France’. ° critiqued this assumption in relation to the textual tradition of Beuve d’Hamptone, a pan-European literary success, in “Bueve de Hantone’. Suard’s otherwise excellent Guide de la chanson de geste presents all non-French chansons as derivatives of the main tradition. Criticism on the rebel baron epics that sides with kings against rebels (for example, Calin, The Old French Epic ofRevolt) is also implicitly national. 4 Kinoshita (Medieval Boundaries) discerns this tendency in the Chanson de Roland. > See Lafont (La Geste de Roland) on early Norman and Occitan circulation of the legends; de

Mandach (Naissance et développementdela chanson de geste) on Anglo-Norman and Italian origins; and Palumbo (‘Per la storia della Chanson de Roland’) on Italy.

Introduction

3

limited the range of valid chansons to a few early works displaying a stark, primitive world ruled by a warrior ethos—principally the Oxford version of the Chanson de Roland, but also the Chanson de Guillaume and Gormont et Isembart—and set up a narrative where they were replaced by sophisticated, courtly romance. This view was attacked in major studies of the 1990s by Sarah Kay and Dominique Boutet.® Both articulate the genre’s politics adroitly; both however focus overwhelmingly on France and the twelfth century. Indeed Boutet, writing with Armand Strubel, declares that the genre loses soon its vitality: ‘aprés 1200 environ la chanson de geste se fige et s'appréte a disparaitre’ [after around 1200, the chanson de geste ossifies, ready to disappear].” But if the composition of most extant chansons de geste dates to the late twelfth century, the thirteenth century was the period for the production of the majority of surviving manuscripts. The century of the cycle and the summa saw the compilation and cyclification of epics alongside other discourses.® Thus, paradoxically, more ‘late’ chansons de geste exist than punctual ones. As Robert Cook quips, ‘les copies sont pour ainsi dire toutes tardives’ [the manuscripts are, in a sense, all late].? In the fourteenth century, there was a healthy production of around twenty new epics, showing increasing moralization, greater class diversity, and lengthier, more episodic texts shaped by a Christianized version of the marvellous and fairyland adventures combined with Oriental or Arthurian elements.!° The work of cyclification also continued, notably for the Crusade Cycle. A great programme of recasting into prose then changed the genre yet again in the fifteenth century.'! The chansons de geste do not disappear but rather alter form, partly by rereading and recasting earlier types. They continued to dialogue with other genres: romance, of course, but also chronicles, folklore, saints’ lives, travel narratives, and didactic material.!* New editions and studies have changed our view of the tradition, by incorporating later chansons de geste and mises en prose into the canon,’ or by rehistoricizing so-called earlier texts in relation to manuscripts © Kay, The ‘Chansons de geste’, Boutet, Charlemagne et Arthur. Spiegel’s work on chronicles (Romancing the Past) casts them as the replacement for epics; I show that chronicle and chanson de geste traditions interacted over the centuries, notably because the epic narratives were incorporated into chronicles (see Chapter 4 of this volume).

7 Boutet and Strubel, Littérature, politique et sociéte, p. 59. 8 My Old French Narrative Cycles studied the thirteenth-century practice of compiling narratives to form vast works. ° Cook, ‘““Méchants romans” et épopée frangaise’, p. 68. Careri (“Les Manuscrits épiques’) also

contributes to the redating of the manuscript tradition. 10 Roussel’s excellent study of the fourteenth-century Belle Héléne de Constantinople evokes both its success, and, strangely, the decline of the genre (Conter de geste, p. 7). 11 See Doutrepont, Mises en prose; Guidot, “Formes tardives de l’épopée médievale’; Guiette, ‘Chanson de geste’. 12 Morgan's work on Franco-lItalian epics shows this intertextual vitality. See also Bradley-Comey (Authority and Autonomy) on the Entrée d Espagne. 13 | disagree with the idea of separating later epics off into a discrete category, such as Kibler’s chansons daventures, which accounts for the generic shape of narratives like Lion de Bourges, a fourteenth-century chanson de geste full of quests, but wrongly, as I argue in Chapter 6 of this volume, implies political disconnection. See the critique of Kibler, and the detailed survey of fourteenthcentury chansons, by Roussel (‘LAutomne de la chanson de geste’ and ‘Le Mélange des genres’), who argues for continuity rather than change. For Suard (‘L-Epopée frangaise tardive’), the audience for later chansons broadened somewhat, but remained largely noble, whereas Cook (Unity and Esthetics’)

4

Rebel Barons

rather than posited dates of original composition.14 Other scholars have brought to light the long legacy of medieval narratives, including Ogier le Danois and Renaut de Montauban, which were vastly popular in the print era.'° Overall, the chanson de geste is less and less frequently portrayed as a twelfth-century French genre, and increasingly seen as part of a much wider narrative vista. This book adopts the term ‘rebel baron narratives’ to group chansons de geste and their prose and chronicle epigones, and to show that these stories remained politically engaged and relevant to the aristocracy across Europe.’® It is, noticeably, the epics where nobles are in conflict with the king that are most successful in prose and print in the later medieval and early modern periods: Huon de Bordeaux, as well as Renaut and Ogier, is a signal example.!7 Such works afford

insight into the noble world-view, including reactions to developments in political theory and law, especially ideologies of sovereignty which shored up the powers of monarchs and drove centralization. My view of literature as caught in, and driven by, the antagonisms of political life takes inspiration from Frederic Jameson's argument in The Political Unconscious. For Jameson, each genre is a particular intersection of form and content, which criss-cross to act as a symbolization of

contemporary political and social struggles and an embryonic response to them. Genre is a purely critical notion, naturalized and presented as though it were intrinsic to literary production, warns Jameson, but it has strategic value in permitting ‘the coordination of immanent formal analysis of the individual text with the twin diachronic perspective of the history of forms and the evolution of social life’.18 Jameson elucidates this process through a historically reflexive conception of genre that combines study of a textual object with attention to the concepts and categories readers bring to it, thereby allowing for appreciation of the structures of specific texts whilst also inserting them into a long, dialectical view of aesthetic history in which genres interact before the difference between them is sublimated in a new form signifying new antagonisms. Jameson allies attention to aesthetics

with analysis of the political and social import of literary works, thus dynamically relating text and context.

notes that fourteenth-century audiences clearly did not share modern critics’ distaste for lengthy works. Finally, Bennett provides a useful survey of chanson de geste scholarship, including later songs, in his “Etat présent’. ‘4 For example, Bennett's Carnaval héroique et écriture cyclique considers the differing contexts of manuscript production of the Guillaume Cycle, showing that the cycle can be historicized later (to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries) than the texts in it (twelfth and thirteenth centuries).

' See, for example, Baudelle-Michels, Les Avatars d’une chanson de geste, on Renaut de Montauban; Poulain-Gautret, La Tradition littéraire d’Ogier le Danois. '© T take inspiration from Cowell’s The Medieval Warrior Aristocracy, which casts epic texts as a natrative form expressing the military culture of nobles across Europe. The work of Haidu (The Subject of Violence and The Subject Medieval/Modern) has also influenced my thinking on the political value of literature. Stein (Reality Fictions) also sees the epic as an aristocratic response to monarchical pressures. 17 Zumthor (Histoire littéraire de la France médiévale, p. 238) notes that the chanson de geste focuses

on a narrower range of heroes after 1250: it is significant, then, that rebel heroes continue to play a dominant role. 18 The Political Unconscious, p. 92.

Introduction

5

Jameson’s own interest in the chanson de geste provides one reason for returning to his arguments. For Jameson, the chanson de geste is characterized by a ‘positional’ notion of good and evil: good is here, my home, my power centre; whatever comes

from elsewhere is an evil assailant. He contends: this positional thinking has an intimate relationship to those historical periods sometimes designated as the ‘time of troubles’, in which central authority disappears and marauding bands of robbers and brigands range geographical immensities with impunity: this is certainly true of the late Carolingian period, when a population terrorized by barbarian incursions increasingly withdrew into the shelter of local fortresses. !°

On Jameson's account, this social and spatial isolation was overcome in the twelfth century when the nobility developed its own ideology; consequently there arose ‘what can only be called a contradiction between the older positional notion of good and evil, perpetuated by the chanson de geste, and this emergent class solidarity’.7° The ‘solution’ for Jameson is the genre of romance where the evil enemy is also the mirror image of the hero. Jameson gives the example of Erec et Enide at this point: Erec’s opponent remains a hostile unknown only until his defeat, whereupon he gives his name. Recognized now as a fellow member of the knightly class, he takes his place in the dominant symbolic order. The moment when the antagonist ceases to be a villain distinguishes romance from the chanson de geste: evil is no longer attached to some person and becomes a free-floating, disembodied element, found in romance’s realm of sorcery and magical forces. The overall vision here is broad-brush but compelling: each genre has its period of political relevance, because each one symbolizes a particular social antagonism. As political configurations change, so genres wear out and lose their value; hence

the production of fresh genres. For Jameson, the chanson de geste mentality loses pertinence, and is replaced by the ‘new’ genre of romance concerned with solidarity within the baronial class. But there are clearly limitations to this conceptual model: Kay criticized the narrative whereby romance succeeds epic, deploying Jameson’s ‘political unconscious’ precisely to figure the relationships between those two genres up to the end of the twelfth century.”! As already stated, I shall extend that account to include later centuries and other genres—arguing that the chanson de geste remains relevant to a changing literary and political world—and I shall thereby also nuance another aspect of Jameson's narrative: that is, his association of the chanson de geste with only one type of antagonism. His paradigm fits well with the early chansons of the Guillaume Cycle, where Saracens overrun the south of France and embattled Christian barons try to hold them back and then reclaim territory. Jameson believes that the mindset of chansons dating to the early twelfth century comes from the late Carolingian period, when Muslim occupations took place in Gaul. But he evidently does not know the full range of epics and, as a result, he underestimates the plasticity of the genre, its capacity to evolve and signify new social struggles. Indeed, most surviving chansons emerged not in a ‘time of troubles’, 19 Thid., pp. 104-5.

20 Tbid., p. 105.

21 See her The ‘Chansons de geste’.

6

Rebel Barons

but precisely at a point when central authority was strengthening once more, from

the late twelfth century onwards. In the rebel barons tradition, antagonism comes from the clash between king and barons (as the social class theoretically below the king, but who do not always accept that inferior status) and rivalry between barons (the clan of the traitors, a feature of many epics, being a group who betray the values of their own class to seek a better position for themselves vis-a-vis the king). Thus the ideology of the chanson de geste was not rendered defunct by renewed anxieties about class solidarity. Rather, such class consciousness drove the genre; a particular ‘class enunciatory position—that of the barons—defines many epics from the twelfth century, and long after that.?* Of course, religious antagonism

remains present in these works too, often providing an escape from and solution to political strife within Christendom. Although Jameson is arguably wrong in the detail of his literary history where the chanson de geste is concerned, his overall vision (specific genres respond to par-

ticular antagonisms) and his dialectical model (oppositions between genres are continually crossed and eventually sublimated in the production of new types) prove useful tools. The chanson de geste was a textual practice that unfolded across time and through dialogue both within the tradition and with other genres. The genre gradually became more complex and diverse, with new narrative models arising as older ones continued to be consumed and rewritten. But its ideological parameters and social function remained broadly consistent. The narrow class focus—on kings or emperors and the nobles, with the bourgeois, peasants, and the clergy subordinate characters for the most part—altered little, even as modifications happened across differing times and territories.*? Overall, the rebel barons tradition formed a set of varying responses to a common set of political questions (authority, hierarchy, obedience, power) and to the problems of political structures (empires, kingdoms, duchies, counties), as well as to ethical, social, or legal issues about

conflicts and peacemaking, loyalty, allegiance, and kinship. The genre’s role as a vehicle for chivalric values in the late medieval period has been underestimated, yet it remained a central part of European aristocratic culture. One element of chivalric identity was precisely an ambivalent relationship to sovereign figures: kings and emperors were a source of legitimacy and status, yet they also imposed taxation and other obligations, curtailed baronial independence, and pushed aristocrats out of their influential roles in royal courts, replacing them with technocrats. The nobles were threatened by late medieval ideologies of sovereignty that increased the powers of monarchs and marginalized their own right to resist. They rebelled,

then, to defend their honour, status, and privileges, as well as to protect their conception of political life, where they were the king’s principal advisers. The nobles were not about to disappear; the hypothesis that they declined, as the clerkly

> ‘This is the argument made by Haidu (The Subject Medieval/Modern, p. 60). °° As discussed in the second part of this Introduction, I find arguments for the development of purely bourgeois audiences for the epics from the fourteenth century onwards, especially in Flanders and Italy, to be overstated.

Introduction

7

and bourgeois classes rose, is no longer accepted.?4 But they were under pressure, and the rebel baron narratives mediated their reactions to changing relationships to sovereigns, sometimes providing nostalgic fantasies of an age when chivalric virtues were respected and the aristocracy was valued, or else articulating compromise formulations glorifying submission, or, finally, giving the impetus to rebel or to seek sovereign status. The political model of genre I derive from Jameson drew my attention to these features, and thus shapes this book: I see the rebel baron narratives as symbolic resolutions of the royalty—aristocracy antagonism, and will argue for consistencies in the power and resonance of the tradition, across literary, historical, and geographical variation.

A EeAIS LORIGAEC ON TEX SyO'R THEREBED BARON S#SMATERDAL

The narratives studied in this book existed in many iterations, spread over long periods, and we will probably never know where every version originated, let alone exactly where each manuscript was copied and read, although ownership and commissioning become easier to track in the late medieval period. For each primary text read in this book, I have gathered what can be known about dissemination and related it to political circumstances, but I do not find it helpful to ‘play snap between literary texts and external political realities, to seek that special something that makes the Anglo-Norman version of a text particularly AngloNorman, or the Italian redaction uniquely Italian. I have avoided a polity-bypolity approach, but wish to spell out here something of the geography of the genre, in the spirit of offering possible political contexts, rather than dictating the correct context for any one text. This book focuses on the matere de France, and French tellings are indeed the most important vehicle for the material, although French here means linguistically French, rather than politically French,”? and even with language, there are the fuzzy edges of hybrid productions (Franco-Italian, Franco-Occitan).

The translations of narratives about Carolingian kings into

Middle English, Dutch, German, Spanish, and Italian are outside my remit. I thus cover a Francophone literary space of diverse regions, where certain superstruc-

tures were imposing: the Church of course influenced everyday life at every level, 24 See the survey in Zmora, Monarchy, Aristocracy and the State. For Zmora, the transformation of medieval kingdoms (England, France, Spain) into states turned the nobility into a juridical entity. A strong state and a strong nobility were complementary. However, nobles became less autonomous, depending on the state to ratify their position. Spiegel (Romancing the Past) argues that the aristocracy declined and that fear produced literature. But literature can also be positively coded as part of that shift. As Jameson contends, literature can provide a symbolic resolution to, and not just a representation of, antagonisms. 25 Spiegel (Romancing the Past, pp. 78-81) notes the success of French translations of the PseudoTurpin in anti-Capetian areas: its appeal was likely due to the goal of reviving chivalric virtue, belief in the example of Charlemagne or a link to him as progenitor, as well as faith in the ethical importance of history (see further Chapter 4 of this volume). Similar aims likely drove the production of epics

across a Francophone, but not necessarily pro-Capetian, literary space.

8

Rebel Barons

and the relationship between spiritual and temporal power was repeatedly renegotiated on the page and in practice across Europe. But it is the game of territorial claim and counter-claim played by the monarchies of England and France, and the empire, against each other and against the nobles, that contextualizes the literary texts studied in this book. Three interlocked spheres of influence—the Capetian, the Plantagenet, and the imperial—are therefore glossed here. First, I adopt the idea of a Capetian sphere to avoid reifying ‘France’, which looms large in histories of the genre, but clearly needs decentring. I use it to denote areas controlled or claimed by the Capetian monarchy—that is, northern France but also Occitania, Burgundy, and the Low Countries (Flanders, but also a series of semi-independent towns and counties).2° Literary texts read within those spaces, where the long

reach of Capetian power was felt, reflected both pro- and anti-French feeling. The meaning of ‘France’ varied synchronically and diachronically: the chansons de geste preserve different ‘ideas of France’, ranging from the vast Carolingian Empire (Francia)?’ to the personal territories of the king of France, which, for most of the twelfth century, were limited to small, but strategic, holdings around Paris and Orléans.?8 In between those two extremes, the precedent of the 843 division of the Carolingian Empire sketched a Western Frankish kingdom, with borders similar to modern France. Historical accounts emphasize Philip Augustus’s reign (1180-1223)

as the turning-point when the small French royal domain became much larger, and the kingdom began to return to its 843 borders.” Philip faced down the nobles, codifying and enforcing his rights over them, absorbing or crushing rivals. He was successful in recolouring the map as major principalities were brought into his orbit: he expanded into Normandy (which was subsequently held as a royal domain),°° Anjou,*! Brittany,** and Auvergne, ending the independence of princes and counts, and reducing Plantagenet influence in France. He controlled successions in the Vermandois and Champagne,°3 and gained homage for Flanders and some parts of the south, including Toulouse.*# The 1214 victory at Bouvines against King John of England (1199-1216)

and the counts of Boulogne and

6 Abortive claims were also made on kingdoms of Spain under Louis IX (1226-70), on the basis

of Charlemagne’s rule Jordan, “The Capetians from the Death of Philip II to Philip IV’, p. 295). °7 Les Saisnes conceives of ‘France’ as stretching into modern-day Germany, where embattled Christians need help against Saxon raids (see Chapter 2 of this volume). 8 The Guillaume Cycle preserves this geography. ‘France’ seems to mean northern France; the heroes are barons in the south, at Narbonne, Nimes, and Orange, amongst other towns, and they have difficulty in gaining the support of the French king, distant in his northern haven, against Saracen invasions. >? See especially Baldwin, The Government ofPhilip Augusts; Bradbury, Philip Augustus. °° Richard de Normandie is an awkward customer in Couronnement de Louis, where he plans to take over France. °! For Suard, Gaydon aims to convince Angevins to accept their submissive relationship to the kingdom of France (see his Etude sur Gaydon). However, | argue in Chapter 2 of this volume that Gaydon encourages revolt, albeit under certain circumstances only. *? Brittany is not a major focus for the chansons de geste, although Aiquin recounts how the peninsula was rescued from Saracens by Charlemagne. °° Jordan (“The Capetians from the Death of Philip II to Philip IV’, pp. 279-84) notes the opposition of Champagne nobles to Louis VIII and Louis IX. °4 Baldwin, The Government ofPhilip Augustus, pp. 264-5.

Introduction

9

Flanders confirmed his strength in that region. A professionalized royal administration and a more centralized justice system also meant that the barons’ governmental role was decreasing. In all this, Philip associated himself with the legacy of Charlemagne. Clearly, the kingdom extended greatly, but historical accounts have been much too teleological. The rebel baron epics composed during Philip’s reign make the association with Charlemagne a double-edged sword: they repeatedly state that Charlemagne was the greatest-ever French ruler, but his dealings with his own barons are inglorious and he has all the qualities of a tyrant in Ogier le Danois, Renaut de Montauban (both late twelfth century), and many other texts composed

at this time.*° Thus not everyone accepted royal expansion or saw it as progress. And in fact, in the thirteenth century, the map remained chequered. As Susan Reynolds notes, the idea that a ‘feudal monarchy’ was created in France is an overstatement: ‘a good deal of the country was not included in any “great fief” through which the king’s relationships with lesser men were mediated’.7° Where were the frontiers of France? And what did it mean to be part of it? These questions remained fraught as rebellions continued. The chronicler Jean de Joinville describes the barons rising up in an attempt to get territories during the infancy of Louis IX (1226-70).%” The weakness of the king, whose mother was regent, represented the chance to extend powers: Philip Augustus had tipped the balance of power one way, but there was still hope of tipping it back. However, continuing Philip’s work, Louis gradually asserted authority over the whole kingdom, promulgating ordonnances, reforming royal administration, and making his court increasingly the highest instance. The crusades also provided a pretext for new centralization and taxation. Louis surrounded himself with bureaucrats and developed direct relationships to people and towns, circumventing the nobles. But even after his reign, they remained powerful and seditious; rebellions continued into the early modern period.%8 The nobles, led by Champagne and Burgundy, leagued in 1314-15, and again in 1465; the Estates were also the occasion for aristocratic grievances to be

expressed (famously, in 1357 and 1484). Rebels sought to limit taxation and service,

and to retain their advisory role, which they saw as part of a balanced political system, preventing kingship’s collapse into tyranny. They claimed to protect the common good, as well as the customs and traditions of the kingdom. Revolts hap-

pened because the French aristocracy was shifting roles, moving from a position of power to one of privilege and prestige, and thus renegotiating relationships of affinity, patronage, clientage, and service.

35 Van Emden (‘Kingship in the Old French Epic of Revolt’) correctly, but somewhat restrictively,

emphasized the importance of this reign for the relevance of genre. See the Appendix here for sources of dates of texts analysed in this book. 36 Kingdoms and Communities, p. 232. For reasons that will be familiar, I have avoided the concept ‘feudal’ in this book. See Chapter 1 of this volume for a critique of the idea.

37 Vie de Saint Louis, p. 188. 38 See Contamine (La Noblesse au royaume de France) on the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

Jouanna (Le Devoir de révolte) provides a comprehensive survey of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century noble revolts. 3° Contamine (“De la puissance aux priviléges’) argues for this shift.

10

Rebel Barons

Antagonisms between aristocrats and monarchs show the persistence of older political and social divisions: nobles might feel part of the kingdom, but could still retreat to, and draw support from, their own territories when they wanted to rebel. Particularly strong regional identities persisted within areas where high-status her-

editary ruling families had carved out vast and independent polities. Some derived from Carolingian kingdoms or principalities; others resulted from the accumulation of a large set of comital rights, later gaining territorial definition.4° Were they within France? France might claim them, but they held out. There was, in particular, resistance in Toulouse and Burgundy to Philip Augustus: their rulers would not accept their lands as fiefs.4 The twelfth century is cited as the moment when the power dynamic shifts decisively in favour of kings, but the principalities did not quickly go away, with Gascony, Brittany, Flanders, and Burgundy surviving into the late medieval period. The case of Burgundy shows this strikingly.4* Conceived of as a patria, Burgundy was arguably the oldest kingdom in Europe, dating to fifth-century settlements near Geneva. It retained a separate identity under the Franks, and at the 843 division of the Carolingian Empire formed part of the ‘Middle Kingdom’ or ‘Lotharingia’, along with Lorraine and parts of northern Italy. This fed later claims for independence from France (the “Western Kingdom’). Burgundy thus always had a separate identity, but political unity was not easy to obtain. The duchy of Burgundy, centred on Dijon and Auxerre, fell inside the Western Kingdom, and homage was paid to the French king from the late twelfth century, although there was still little French effective authority over it in the thirteenth century.4? The Middle Kingdom was not long lasting: Upper Burgundy (comprising Geneva and Besancon) was separated from Lower Burgundy (Arles and Vienne, also known as the Kingdom of Provence). The ninth-century wars

between the regent of Provence, Girart de Roussillon, and Charles the Bald of France were the subject matter for twelfth-century chansons de geste (Girart de Roussillon, Aspremont, Girart de Vienne) drawing on the long conflictual history

opposing the French and the Burgundians. Borders and sovereignty were always contentious. In the tenth century, Upper and Lower Burgundy were reunited and made subject to the empire, although the emperors took little active role. This polity remained in place until thirteenth-century secessions, driven by disputes between neighbours. The renaissance of Burgundy began in the late fourteenth century with the fusion of the duchy and the county (centred on Besancon), under Philip the Bold (1363-1404), whose marriage to the heiress of Flanders provided title to

the Low Countries. Thus began a Burgundian state aiming at remaking the Middle Kingdom of 843, which flourished until the late fifteenth century, and provided an important cultural sphere for prose recastings of epic material, used by its dukes who aspired to claim the legacy of Charlemagne, disputing the pretensions of Capetian-Valois kings of France. Indeed Philip the Good (1419-67) arguably saw “© Dunbabin (France in the Making) provides the most complete history of these principalities. See further Chapter 3 of this volume. ‘41 Bisson, The Crisis of the Twelfth Century, p. 304. © See Davies (Vanished Kingdoms, pp. 87-149) for a survey of its complex history. ‘3 Reynolds, Kingdoms and Communities, pp. 231-2.

Introduction

i

a swathe of epic material—the Girart stories, Auberi le Bourguignon, Renaut de Montauban, Garin de Loherenc, and Hervis deMes—as constituting a ‘cycle burgundo-

provengale’ [Burgundian-Occitan cycle],*4 where rights to feud against traitors and rebel against wicked kings were defended, and the independence of an Occitan and Burgundian space asserted. Occitania was another polity with no fixed boundaries. Shifting powers had control. The great lordly families of Occitania were the viscounts of Narbonne, the lords of Montpellier, the Trencavels (viscounts of Albi, Béziers, Agde, and Nimes), and of course the counts of Toulouse, who claimed power over Narbonne and Provence, but were not always secure even in Toulouse. They competed with the dukes of Aquitaine (under Plantagenet rule from the later twelfth century), the counts of Poitiers, and the counts of Barcelona (who were also kings of Aragon), whereas the kings of England and France also had claims in the region.

Occitania nonetheless had a sense of itself as a separate cultural and linguistic space.4° Contradicting the precedent of 843, which attached it to northern France, Occitania had strong ties to its Mediterranean neighbours, especially Catalonia. Invasion by France during the thirteenth-century Albigensian Crusade accentuated political awareness and resistance to foreign occupation, and Languedoc and Aquitaine retained separate identities afterwards.4° Occitan epics such as Girart de Rousillon and Daurel et Beton are antagonistic to ‘France’ and defined politically, as well as linguistically through their hybrid Franco-Occitan form, by resistance to invasion.*7 The Low Countries also had a complex political geography, with relationships to the empire, France, and England. Flanders had developed an administrative state and a strong economy, and was able to resist incorporation into France, though it had to accept obligations to the French crown from the late twelfth century. Flanders often played France off against England, and had its own expansionist plans, with attempts to extend into Hainault partly successful. From the late fourteenth century, Flanders was part of the Burgundian orbit.*® Flanders and the surrounding lands are thought of as an urban, mercantile area—and thus as qualitatively different to the ‘feudal’ French environment for the chansons de geste—but epic production centred on the region’s dynasties, who were mostly subject to the emperor, and no doubt found in the chansons de geste a means of thinking through the politics of subordination and independence. Rural and urban elites alike associated themselves with chivalric values. The vast Crusade Cycle, elaborated from the late twelfth century onwards, glorified the aristocrats of Flanders.*? Jehan Bodel, who wrote Les Saisnes (composed 1180—1202°°), hailed from Arras, a rich 44 Lacaze, ‘Le Réle des traditions’. 45 Paterson (The World of the Troubadours, pp. 1-9) makes the case for Occitan cultural identity; see

also Cheyette, Ermengard of Narbonne. Lafont (La Geste de Roland) summarizes the evidence for early Occitan epic literary activity. 46 Leglu (Multilingualism and Mother Tongue) displays the vitality of fourteenth- and fifteenthcentury Occitan literary production. 47 See Gaunt, ‘Desnaturat son li Frances’. 48 For a full account, see Nicholas, Medieval Flanders. 49 Busby, Codex and Context, ii, 664. °° Edition, p. x.

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Rebel Barons

town of disputed ownership,>! and the author of Huon de Bordeaux (c.1260°7) came from somewhere nearby, possibly Saint-Omer (the text also glorifies knights

of the Cambrésis and Artois).>3 Aiol and Elye de Saint-Gilles may have been commissioned for the marriage of Jeanne of Flanders, countess from 1212.°4 Adenet le

Roi, author of three thirteenth-century epics—Berte aus grans piés, Buevon de Conmarchis, and the Enfances Ogier—was associated with the courts of Brabant and Flanders. The twelfth- and thirteenth-century literary interest in epics in the region was a precursor of the Burgundians’ fascination, and indeed the latter inherited some of the manuscripts. Fourteenth-century chansons de geste associated with Flanders and surrounding lands include Hugues Capet (c.1360), whose author

seems to know Hainault,>> and the town of Valenciennes, in Hainault, was perhaps home to Tristan de Nanteuil (c.1350).°° The prince-bishopric of Liége adopted Ogier le Danois as a hero, and Ogier’s narrative dominates the town chronicle by

Jean d’Outremeuse: the Myreur des histors (1350-1400). Finally, bordering the Low Countries was the duchy of Lorraine, once part of the Middle Kingdom but subject to the empire for the rest of the Middle Ages, which retained a sense of independence. The Loheren (Lorraine) cycle of chansons de geste, developed in the twelfth and thirteenth century, tells of feuds by the men of Lorraine against the Bordelais. The former are occasionally allied with the king of France, but often opposed to him because he joins the Bordelais cause. The cycle was very popular, especially at Metz, and was recast into prose in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.*” Again, chansons de geste and their epigones served to articulate regional aristocratic claims to freedom. The addition of Burgundy, Occitania, the Low Countries, and Lorraine to the geography of the chanson de geste significantly complicates the idea that it was a French literary product. The Plantagenet sphere was also part of the Francophone world between the late eleventh and the late fourteenth centuries, at least for the aristocratic and educated mercantile and administrative classes. But the AngloNormans were thought not to be particularly interested in the epic: William Calin notes the anomaly that no epic was originally composed by an Anglo-Norman poet.°® However, there were indeed Anglo-Norman chansons de geste, though they are sometimes unhelpfully grouped in a separate category: the ‘ancestral romance’, meant to be particularly English.°? Although some such texts, like Horn, seem to have had a purely insular circulation, others, such as Beuve d’Hamptone (c.1190 in its Anglo-Norman version®°), were part of a wider Continental tradition.®! Calin eUabids pix. » Ibid., p. xxii °3 Murrin, Trade and Romance, p. 11. *4 Hartman and Malicote (eds), Elye, p. xiii. See also Malicote, Image and Imagination, pp. 57-8. °° Edition, p. 11. See Roussel, Conter de geste, on the strength of the tradition in this region in the fourteenth century. °° Leverage, ‘Sex and the Sacraments’, p. 532 (date in Suard, Guide de la chanson de geste, p. 232). *” Busby notes that one-third of Loheren cycle manuscripts are locatable to Metz and the surrounding area (Codex and Context, ii, 545-3). See Jones, Philippe de Vigneulles, on prose recastings. 8 The French Tradition. °° See Crane, ‘Anglo-Norman Romances’, for a survey. 60 Edition, p. 21. 61 See further Ailes, “What’s ina Name?’. Martin (ed., Beuve de Hamptome, pp. 17-18) sees the text

as an original Anglo-Norman epic.

Introduction

13.

reductively casts the chanson de geste as France’s literature (as associated with Capetian territorial ambitions) and as an ‘old genre’ that died out when Middle English literary production intensified.®* His comments come from a tendency to valorize original composition over manuscript production, which relegates AngloNorman chansons de geste to the status of adaptations or appropriations. But the Anglo-Norman world provided an initial home of the tradition. Three early twelfth-century chansons derive from it: the Oxford Roland,°? Gormont et Isembart (both c.1100),°4 and the Chanson de Guillaume (1150-75).° The sole manuscript of the Pélerinage de Charlemagne (1150-1200) is also Anglo-Norman, as are the oldest versions of Aspremont (c.1190),°° which may have been sung in the Norman

kingdom of Sicily at the time of preparations for the Third Crusade (1189-92), when Richard the Lionheart (1189-99) and Philip Augustus were there.°” There

isan Anglo-Norman tradition of Fierabras (c.1190)°8 and of its prequel La Destructioun de Rome (c.1190-1250);°? Huon de Bordeaux became popular in England,’° and Anglo-Norman manuscripts survive of Gui de Bourgogne, Otinel, and Doon de Maience.’’ Susan Crane notes the possibility that the Normans identified with Charlemagne and his men, drawing on chronicle evidence that the Chanson de Roland was performed before the Battle of Hastings.”” The crusades were of course a context for shared Plantagenet and Capetian ambitions, but there was also a common domestic political situation with France. The two monarchies centralized early, taking on the trappings of sovereign states in matters of taxation, administration, and justice.’ When Philip Augustus asserted power, he followed a template set down by Henry II (1154-89): Henry quickly broke the power of the barons who opposed him after his coronation, before pursuing anti-magnate policies including careful supervision of noble marriages, duties on succession, outright

seizure of lands, and the refusal of inheritance rights. He won a major victory in 1173-4, when his sons rebelled against him, assisted by the kings of France and Scotland, and by barons from across the Plantagenet dominions. The English aristocracy reacted more successfully than their French counterparts to perceived 62 The French Tradition, p. 126. 63 Lafont (Geste de Roland) has refuted the idea that the epic tradition, and the Roland in particular, was originally Frankish: the legend of Roncevaux was later enlisted to Capetian ends, but for Lafont the Anglo-Norman Roland preserves a different political orientation, associated with Norman crusading in Spain, and derives from an Occitan original produced in Navarre. 64 Suard, Guide de la chanson de geste, p. 240 for date of Gormont. 65 See Bennett, ‘La Chanson de Guillaume’, for discussion of the poem’s Anglo-Norman elements, and his edition for dating. Bennett argues that the surviving text contains material dating to c.1100. Busby cites the existence of fragments of Narbonnais epics as further evidence of early production in England (Codex and Context, i, 376).

66 Edition, p. 11. 67 See Chapter 3 of this volume on Aspremont’s dissemination. 68 Edition, p. 11. See Ailes, Anglo-Norman Developments’, on the particularities of the Anglo-Norman Fierabras. 6° Labie-Leurquin, ‘Destruction de Rome’. 70 Calin notes Huon as the exception to the rule (Zhe French Tradition, p. 127). 71 Field, “Romance in England’. Field also notes the presence of chansons de geste in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century noble libraries, and manuscript compilations (p. 165). 72 Crane, Anglo-Norman Cultures’, p. 35. 73 Strayer (On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State) argues this.

14

Rebel Barons

abuses by later monarchs. Between 1215 and 1415, five of eight kings fought with their own subjects: four were captured and/or deposed; two were killed.”74 Magna

Carta’s clause stating the duty of the kingdom to use force where necessary against the king was part of a broader trend in medieval political and legal theory proposing limitations on kingship, and sometimes discussing the role of the nobility as a

brake on kings. French and English nobles alike claimed to protect the common good and the traditions of the kingdom as they defended their own positions and liberties. Finally, if the chansons de geste are indeed associated with Capetian territorial ambitions, they do not unconditionally endorse them. Thus the Plantagenets’ conflictual relationship with France may provide another reason for interest in the tradition. Expanded by Henry II, Plantagenet power in France was broken by Philip Augustus, before Henry III (1216-72) protected the hold on Gascony, which was retained until the end of the Hundred Years War. English kings also had economic and political relationships with Flanders and Burgundy, fanning antag-

onisms with France. Italy has also been seen as an offshoot of the mainstream French epic tradition. But an early presence of the tales, from the twelfth century onwards, can be detected in onomastic data, as well as sculptures, frescoes, mosaics, and inscriptions.”> The legends may have been performed in urban contexts across Italy, but the homes of the surviving manuscripts, dating to the late thirteenth century onwards, were the northern Italian city-states, dominated by powerful families—

the Gonzaga, Visconti, and Estensi in particular—who collected vernacular and classical texts, and had strong interest

in romances

and epics in French.7°

Particularly popular in Italy was Aspremont, whose links with the peninsula have already been noted, as well as Beuve d'Hamptone, Renaut, Ogier, and Roland. The evidence for twelfth-century circulation of these tales makes it difficult to sustain the argument that the surviving Franco-Italian versions necessarily derive from French originals. The Venice 4 manuscript of Roland, for example, is most closely related to the Oxford Roland. The Italian tradition may date back to circulation movements linking apparent peripheries, which are now difficult to track. Whatever its antecedents, the Franco-Italian epic tradition certainly had its own momentum by the fourteenth century, with native productions including the Geste Francor (a compilation of well-known Charlemagne tales), the Entrée d’Espagne, and Huon d'Auvergne. This tradition later gave birth to cantari and prose works, and provided inspiration to Pulci, Boiardo, and Ariosto. Though Italy has been seen, like Flanders, as a bourgeois literary environment, the Italian readers of the

extant chansons de geste were princes.’” It is particularly hard to generalize about 74 Valente, The Theory and Practice ofRevolt, p. 1. 7> See Palumbo, ‘Per la storia della Chanson de Roland’. 7° See Busby, Codex and Context, ii, 768-86; Everson, “The Epic Tradition of Charlemagne’. ” Krauss (Epica feudale) read the Italian tradition as a bourgeois rewriting of the French ‘feudal’ epic; Vitullo (Zhe Chivalric Epic in Medieval Italy) critiques this binary approach, but says little about the French side of the divide. Too often French and Italian epic corpuses have been opposed on the basis of an inadequate reading of both. Everson’s work, for example, reduces French epics to the status sources that were appropriated. One reason for my avoiding a polity-by-polity approach in this book is that it can lead to such generalizations. Dean (Land and Power), writing on the Estensi, attacks the

Introduction

ip

Italy, with its series of tyrannies, invasions, and unstable republics, but the Italy that provided an audience for the rebel baron epics was one of proud aristocrats defending their independence against imperial and papal aggression. The thirteenth century had seen serious attempts to restore imperial power in north and central Italy under Emperor Frederick II (1220-50). The lasting effects of his pol-

icies were increases in party strife and a spread of despots. ‘There were attempts at lordly domination by several actors after Frederick’s death. From 1250 to 1350, most cities fell into hands of single families, with the papacy and the empire exercising little authority over the process.’”® They claimed sovereignty, using the same definition as the French monarchy,”? and drawing on the same political thought as the nobility across Europe, such as the ideas of Giles of Rome. From the early

fourteenth century, a series of imperial candidates, considered outsiders by Italians, entered the peninsula in person.8° The figure of Charlemagne appearing in Franco-Italian epics dating to this time, then, likely connoted not Capetians specifically, but rather imperialism in general. For as well as the empire, the great monarchies of Europe—France, Spain, England—all interfered in Italy in the Middle Ages. Across Europe, the chansons de geste constituted not so much a French

epic tradition as an anti-French—or indeed an anti-imperial—discourse, where ambivalence towards sovereigns was expressed, and the rights of nobles asserted.

ATSB

O OW

Rebel Barons has two main tasks: to give a wider literary history of the rebel baron tradition, and to develop a more acute sense of its importance to political culture. Both halves of the book therefore begin with chapters broadening the conversation about the rebel baron material. Chapter 1,‘Sovereignty’, provides discursive context, arguing that political thought constitutes a rival discourse to the rebel baron

material. Political thinkers ask the same questions about authority and the legitimacy of power, but offer different conceptual solutions. The chapter deploys Giorgio Agamben and Jacques Derrida’s definitions of sovereignty—as power at the threshold between legal and illegal, and as a legal and political aporia, respectively8!—as a basis to argue that medieval political thinkers were negotiating the paradoxes of sovereignty when they attempted to elaborate distinctions between kingship and tyranny. I consider writers from the three main orbits of power relevant to this book: John of Salisbury’s Policraticus in relation to Henry I]’s England; tendency to reduce medieval Italy to high levels of urbanization, commercial or industrial activity, and wealth; cities under republican rule (Florence, Venice); and so-called ‘bourgeois’ culture. In Dean’s

eyes, Italy saw a revival of feudalism, the use of land grants to gain the loyalty of men, especially military commanders, and a shift of capital from trade to land. Italian urban culture also drew heavily on aristocratic and chivalric values. 78 See Dean, “The Rise of the Signor’. 79 Lazzarini, Litalia degli Stati territoriali, p. 24. 80 Hyde, Society and Politics, p. 1. 81 Both associate the sovereign with the wolf: the sovereign is the protection against, but also the tyrannical incarnation of, the animal violence that threatens the human community.

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Rebel Barons

Aquinas's political writings and the expansion of sovereignty under Louis IX in France; and Marsilius of Padua in fourteenth-century Italy. All three support mon-

archy and sovereign monopolies on violence and justice, but also articulate moral limits and attempt to rein sovereigns in through ideas such as the body politic, the just war, and the common good, which argue for royal responsibilities towards society as a whole, but also restrict the freedoms, and especially the violence and powers to resist, of other actors. Politics was drifting away from morality, but these writers attempt to recouple them. I finally turn to Agamben’s work on the wounded Fisher King of medieval romance: a wolf-like sovereign is a danger to his people, but preferable to the castrated sovereignty of the Fisher King, whose kingdom lies fallow. Hence the compromise that medieval thinkers negotiated: sovereign power brings unity and security, but at the cost of eternal vigilance, lest tyranny develop. Chapter 4, ‘Charlemagne’, furthers the two aims in a different way: it is literaryhistorical in scope, widening the discursive context by reconstructing the debate over the meaning of the figure of Charlemagne in chronicles which rewrite the data of the chansons de geste and which constitute another rival discourse about kingship and its dangers, and about the Carolingians and their legacy more specifically. Charlemagne’s wars in Spain are moralized to become glorious Christian triumphs over evil in the Pseudo-Turpin, a pan-European literary hit. They are presented as the beginnings of a great crusading history for France, also involving wars against the treacherous Saxons and the conquest of relics in the East, in the popular Grandes Chroniques de France, and in Girart dAmiens’s Istoire le roy Charlemaine. For other, more marginal texts, which are less straightforwardly pro-Charlemagne— the Burgundian Croniques et conquestes and the Liégeois Myreur des histors—the Spanish wars set a different precedent: Charles trusted the traitor Ganelon, and his

own barons paid the price. Charles is shown repeatedly to trust traitors and to alienate his own barons, sometimes pushing them into long and destructive rebellions. The Myreur, as well as the Franco-Italian Geste Francor, compile Charles’s wrongs, whereas his journey to the East is rendered comically in the Pélerinage de Charlemagne. | also examine the ways in which the chronicles, depending on their political aims, omit, defuse, or exploit the rebellion and resistance narratives explored in the rest of the book. Finally, I argue that the poetic biography of Charlemagne, which includes terrible sins and deeds of holy heroism, including the bringing back of relics from the East, and especially his death—Charles is being taken to hell, before his good works in building churches led to his rescue by angels—encapsulates his ambivalent narrative legacy. The heart of the book—Chapters 2, 3, 5, and 6—looks at a broad primary corpus of rebel baron narratives in chanson de geste, mise en prose, and chronicle form. I have found the famous idea of the three gestes (great lineages, and by implication, songs about them), long overused as a critical taxonomy, rather unhelpful. It derives, of course, from Girart de Vienne, where the king’s geste is followed by a loyal geste descending from Garin de Monglane, and a wicked one, also known to critics as the geste des barons révoltés, descending from Doon de Mayence (1-80). Yet Girart de

Vienne itself has links to all three gestes, and other texts prove hard to classify within

this framework (see for example Chapter 3 on Aspremont). The epic Doon de Maience

Introduction

17

speaks of three gestes without creating a hierarchical differentiation between them, suggesting that the Girart de Vienne paradigm was not universally accepted in the Middle Ages. Moreover, only the Garin de Monglane geste was ever fully realized as

a manuscript cycle.®* The idea of the geste des barons révoltés arguably shapes the gathering of Doon, Ogier, Renaut, and other songs in Montpellier, Bibliothéque Interuniversitaire, Faculté de Médicine, H 247, but otherwise, like the geste du roi, it remained a largely implicit grouping. Eschewing the three gestes, I have instead aimed to give a sense of the tradition’s generic, geographical, and historical diversity rather than to study any one development in full: it might have made for easier literary history to have a chapter focusing on, say, the mises en prose, but it would have rendered the political relevance of the material harder to track. Instead, my chapters each take a particular political or conflictual structure or idea and follow its trajectory across boundaries of genre, time, and space.

I have drawn inspiration from medieval history, especially the work of historians like Paul Hyams and Steve White on the structures of conflict and conflict resolution that the nobles were trying to protect. The subjects of Chapters 2, 3, 5, and 6 are types of conflict. The central terms I adopt do not always have medieval provenance, but taxonomies of war were being elaborated in this period, notably within just-war theory. I argue that the rebel baron narratives formed part of the process of working out the ethical consequences of different sorts of war. Chapter 2, ‘Revolt’ contends that the chansons de geste, sceptical about the effectiveness of moral constraints on rulers, contain their own models for constructive opposition to sovereigns, where aristocratic violence provides the only effective brake on kings. I draw here on historical scholarship about the culture of aristocratic revolt in France, but more particularly in England. The rebel baron texts respond to a climate where there are politically and intellectually powerful anti-revolt voices, by attacking the concepts of the body politic, the just war, and the common good (or at least the royalist use of them). Though they acknowledge that revolt is morally and legally dubious, they argue for its necessity nonetheless. I first examine a group of chansons

dating to the reign of Philip Augustus: in Gui de Bourgogne, Gui, the ‘young king’, becomes a supplement to Charles, whereas in Les Saisnes, new royal taxation sparks

trouble, and in Girart de Vienne, the royal failure to reward his followers leads to a crisis only resolved by criss-crossing rites of mercy. Later in the thirteenth-century, Gaydon continues to argue that revolt is a necessary step for reform, aiming to rid Charlemagne’s court of traitors, whereas in the fourteenth-century Hugues Capet, the desire to reform leads to the subordination of the aristocracy to a reshaped monarchy that incorporates other social classes, including the lower nobility, from which the hero, Hugues, rises to become king. Finally, I examine Renaut de Montauban and the Chevalerie d’Ogier, which both date to the late twelfth century but which remained popular into the early modern period. Drawing on anthropology, I suggest that a more ritual form of revolt shapes these texts, where the scandal of sovereign power is unmasked during protracted wars.

82 See Sunderland, Old French Narrative Cycles, pp. 10-11.

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Rebel Barons

Chapter 3, ‘Resistance’, analyses texts depicting aristocratic attempts to define

and protect separate polities outside kingdoms, in a geographical form of opposition to sovereigns. I focus especially on the Girart de Roussillon narratives: the twelfthcentury chanson de geste in Franco-Occitan; the Latin saint's life; the fourteenth-

century Burgundian poem; and the fifteenth-century Burgundian prose recasting, all of which argue, in different ways, for the independence of a Burgundian-Occitan space, involving a different combination of spiritual separatism and military

opposition. Resistance to French power in Occitania also shapes the Chanson de la Croisade Albigeoise and Aspremont. Modern scholars, whose ideas are shaped by present-day nations, often confuse resistance with revolt, or miss it entirely. By distinguishing the two, I reveal the regionalist politics of late medieval Europe, persisting in opposition to the drive to create kingdoms and empires. Chapter 5, ‘Feud’, returns to the epics. Taking my cue from anthropological scholarship, I contend that vendettas in the Loheren cycle and Raoul de Cambrai work as alternative forms of justice and social order, and thus as a refusal of sovereignty. The barons reject royal justice and resist royal bans on feud, preferring to pursue their own grievances, enacting a type of violence that preserves their position vis-avis the monarchy and the peasantry they exploit, just as it shapes competition with their own kind for resources both abstract and material (land, women, status, royal favour, honour). Structures of friendship, allegiance, and kinship are maintained for and by feuding. Feuding is thus more than war; indeed it includes in its dynamic periods of peace, and gives form and meaning to a world. In these works, feud takes on an ethical value because it pits a lineage cast as good against another portrayed as evil. The correct moral and social order is defended by feud; the feuding aristocracy thus usurps sovereignty by portraying itself as protector of the common good. Chapter 6, ‘Crusade’, analyses texts whose aesthetic stands in opposition to the claustrophobic worlds of Chapter 5. The solution to antagonisms is, for these texts, not more feuding, but rather escape to new worlds with new enemies. I argue that the idea of expanding Christendom and reconquering the Holy Land, a key fantasy of the aristocracy, worked as an outlet for antagonisms between sovereigns and barons. Whereas ideas of universal monarchy suggest that the Holy Roman Emperor, a title held by some Carolingians, should rule everywhere, crusade in these literary texts allows for barons to escape oppression and become sovereigns in their own right: the Crusade Cycle makes Godefroi de Bouillon a Christian hero on the level of Charlemagne. The hero of Huon de Bordeaux is exiled by Charlemagne but becomes heir to an empire in the East parallel to Charlemagne’s in the West,

whereas Roland in the Franco-Italian L’Entrée d’Espagne, also cast out, brings Western civilization to Persia. Another Franco-Italian work, Huon d’Auvergne, show the hero's journey to hell at the request of Charles Martel, whose fantasy of complete earthly jurisdiction turns nightmarish when he is given only the throne of the underworld. I return to Jameson to articulate the utopian politics at work in these texts: crusade involves the fantasy of integrating the whole world into a Christian community, and the texts pursue an integrative approach to other genres, bringing in travel writing in particular as a way of describing the East that the heroes conquer,

Introduction

19

thus also widening the genre's geography. The chansons de geste dialogue with other generic material to find new solutions to the old king—baron antagonism, and to ensure their own longevity. The Conclusion charts the survival of the rebel baron tradition into the early modern period, before returning to the political theoretical sphere of Chapter 1, with its anti-revolt thinking, to look at thinkers from the three spheres of influence that shape Rebel Barons—Machiavelli, Bodin, and Hobbes—who develop powerful doctrines of sovereignty that seek to put an end to the cultures of rebellion and feuding that this book describes. I contend that our thinking about power, legitimacy, and authority has been shaped by such thinkers, who are canonical for modern political theory and ideas of sovereignty—leading us to side automatically with kings and sovereigns, and to mistakenly associate revolts and vendetta with anarchic desires.

1 Sovereignty This chapter provides the discursive context for the rebel baron narratives by examining rival sets of ideas in political theory and, more briefly, in other types of literary text. Despite working within different conceptual frameworks, political theory has many shared concerns with the rebel baron material, in particular as regards the problems of sovereign power. Strong kings are necessary, but their power can drift towards tyranny. What’s the solution? Rather than advocate resistance, as do epics and chronicles, political theorists prefer the moral reform of sovereigns. The claim that medieval thinkers were addressing sovereignty might surprise, because most definitions of sovereignty work by explicit exclusion of the medieval,

loosely termed the ‘feudal’.! Ontological primacy is given to the state in such accounts; sovereignty, then, can only be state sovereignty, defined as ‘supreme authority within a territory’, and thus as ‘the quality that early modern states possessed, but which popes, emperors, kings, bishops, and most nobles and vassals

during the Middle Ages lacked’.* Medieval government was, on this view, restricted not just by juridical norms, natural law, reason, custom, privilege, and obligations, but also by the commingling of politics and religion, making kings just partners in a ‘larger theological-political order’. Hence standard narratives have it that international relations were born when medieval Christendom dissolved with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, or when Bodin and Hobbes conceived of absolute sovereignty to contain ‘religious bedlam’ in early modern England and France.* However, the medieval political world is simultaneously and rather contradictorily imagined as impossibly fragmented: legal systems were complex and confused; jurisdictions were tangled; and power was based upon personal rather than impersonal bonds.* There are many avenues for critique of such positions. First, they use an outmoded idea of the ‘feudal’ to make medieval politics a primordial soup out of which the ' Hinsley (Sovereignty) contends that medieval thinkers could not yet imagine sovereignty. See the critique of this school of thought by Davis (Periodization and Sovereignty), who describes the

sixteenth-century production, and back-projection onto the Middle Ages, of the idea of the ‘feudal’ order. Spruyt’s The Sovereign State attacks teleology from a different angle, arguing that the sovereign state has always coexisted and competed with other forms of political organization. 2 Philpott, ‘Sovereignty’. > Jackson, Sovereignty, p. 37. * Philpott, Revolutions in Sovereignty, p. 16. See also Bartelson, A Genealogy ofSovereignty; Krasner, Sovereignty. ° Philpott moves between these extremes in just a few pages: ‘in the Respublica Christiana, there was no supreme authority within a territory, manifestly no sovereignty’ (Revolutions in Sovereignty, p. 77) ‘who were the sovereigns... hundreds of feudal lords?’ (p. 79).

’

Sovereignty

Dl

modern state will victoriously emerge.° Against this, medievalists have shown that territorial definitions of power existed in the period, especially so for England and France, where taxation, military service, justice, and administration

from the

twelfth century onwards created unified polities with the king at the summit of a pyramid.’ Kings were gathering the material resources to make royal lordship the dominant form of power. And on an ideological level, key elements of the modern idea of sovereignty—the separation of Church and State, representation, the popular origin of government, property rights—were forged in the late medieval period, and articulated in terms of ‘maiestas’ [majesty], ‘superioritas’ [supremacy], and ‘potesta absoluta

[absolute power]. But the teleological element of the vision

remains: sovereignty in the era of the nation-state is taken as a political or legal fact, in a position with presentist and finalist flaws. The problem lies in seeing sovereignty as something that can be achieved, rather than as a claim always subject to counter-claim, or as a question to which the nation-state is just one answer.? Internal and external sovereignty need constant maintenance against threats, hence the existence of police forces and armies. There are periods when the problem of sovereignty is posed more urgently than others, and this chapter examines one. The rise in power of English and French kings from the twelfth century onwards, and the struggles in Italy between the papacy, the empire, and the cities, sparked intense reflection on the nature of supreme power and authority. This chapter draws first on modern political theory, especially the work of Giorgio Agamben and Jacques Derrida, the most powerful contemporary theorists of sovereignty, to cast sovereignty as a timeless political problem. Both think that the ontology of sovereignty has deep roots in the political theology of the West. Agamben traces the importance of Roman law—reactivated in the medieval period—in the formation of modern sovereignty, drawing notably on a twelfth-century text—Marie de France’s Bisclavret—to think about the sovereign’s link to the animal world. The sovereign—a savage being at the threshold of the human order—resembles a wolf. The interest in royal figures as privileged sites of contradiction—as at once divine and horrifying, sublime and animalistic, protection and threat—shapes Agamben’s definition of sovereignty as a paradox.!° Relating the sovereign to the moment of decision, ® Such schematic views are based on textbook definitions or on Bloch’s Société feodale; Reynolds's important revisionist account Fiefs and Vassals is little used by international relations scholars and

political scientists, who favour out-of-date accounts of medieval history and arguments for rupture over those for continuity; for a critique, see Latham (Theorizing Medieval Geopolitics, pp. 26-35). 7 For Strayer (On the Medieval Origins), Britain and France looked a lot like sovereign states by

1300. Moore (The Formation ofa Persecuting Society) and Tilly (Coercion, Capital and European States) are other students of the practical assertion of state power. Elden (Zhe Birth of Territory) provides an

account of ideas of territory in the period. 8 Key accounts here include Black, Political Thought in Europe; Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies;

Pennington, The Prince and the Law; Oakley, Kingship; Tierney, Foundations ofthe Conciliar Theory. ° This position is argued by Hinsley, Sovereignty; Wilks, The Problem of Sovereignty.

10 Davis too locates this paradox in the classical and medieval formula that the prince ‘is simultaneously lawmaker and unbound by law’ (Periodization and Sovereignty, p. 39). Maiolo’s Medieval

Sovereignty argues for two forms of medieval sovereignty: ‘an umbrella-concept justifying the rich variety of relationships of super- and subordination existing within the hierarchical order of society’ (pp. 28-9) and ‘an expression of ongoing struggles for power’ (p. 29).

92

Rebel Barons

when exceptional circumstances such as civil wars or invasions license the suspension of the laws, Agamben argues that he stands at the threshold of the legal order: ‘il sovrano é il punto di indifferenza fra violenza e diritto, la soglia in cui la violenza trapassa in diritto e il diritto in violenza [the sovereign is the point of indistinction between violence and law, the threshold on which violence passes over into law and law passes over into violence].!! Agamben’s genealogical method reveals the kinship between the dictatorships of twentieth century and medieval kingship, whose horrifying potential becomes visible in the backwards light thus cast. Agamben shows sovereignty’s terrible power, shifting the debate away from the tired question of who had what power when. Derrida, for his part, reflects on sovereignty’s mystical foundation in an aporia: sovereignty is the legal and political foundation of power, but cannot be thought or critiqued from within the legal or political order. The animal is again the preferred mode of thinking the sovereign’s existence apart from the human world, outside of law, politics, and language with their structures of reciprocity and negotiation. Both Derrida and Agamben recognize that sovereignty is inherently dictatorship; it obliterates distinctions between just and unjust government. Thus they allow me to articulate something that medievalists have largely missed in their analysis of medieval political thinkers: the paradoxes and aporias that inevitably cluster around attempts to reason sovereignty. Whereas literary texts about wolves, studied in my first section, explore the extremes of sovereignty, medieval political theory seeks to mitigate it. In the central sections of this chapter, I analyse medieval thinkers participating in the great intellectual project of this period: disaggregating kingship from tyranny by negotiating the contradictions of sovereignty. The sovereign incarnates and defends the oneness of the social order, retaining a monopoly on the licit use of violence, but his power limits human freedoms and tends to corruption. For these thinkers, monarchy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried from time to time. The prince—the term refers to any sovereign ruler—must be above the laws so that he can enforce them, and above the vicissitudes of political fortune, but somehow also subject to the laws, and to the approval of the community. My three theorists write in contexts where notions of absolute power were making kings, popes, and emperors too free. John of Salisbury’s Policraticus (1159) responds to the growing power of King Henry II (1154-89) in England; it features an extended dissertation on tyranny, and proposes the ideological solution of the body politic: the prince is head of the body, and the image of the divine, but also dependent on the body. I then turn to Aquinas, who was in close contact with Louis IX of France (1226-70). In his De regno (c.1267) and in the political elem-

ents of his Summa theologiae (1266-73),'? Aquinas models the unity of the prince’s power on the oneness of God’s rule in the universe. A metaphysical discussion of laws distinguishes good rule from tyranny: the prince unlike the tyrant is subject ‘| Homo sacer, p. 38/Homo sacer, trans. Heller-Roazen, p. 32. '* De regno or De regimine principum is dedicated to the king of Cyprus (probably Hugh II of Lusignan, 1253-67). Aquinas may have discontinued it after Hugh’s death, with its completion due to his student Ptolemy of Lucca, but it is generally thought to reflect Aquinas's political ideas (Political Writings, p. xix).

Sovereignty

23

to natural law. Yet Aquinas ultimately allows tyranny back in by permitting the sovereign to override the law to serve the common good in emergencies. Finally, Marsilius of Padua, reacting to the political chaos of fourteenth-century Italy in his Defensor pacis (1324), locates law within the community, and returns to the body to think political equilibrium, but ultimately creates a sovereign emperor to ward off the papacy’s encroachments into secular power.!? All three offer only slender possibilities for resistance because they fear social dissolution. The political order must at all costs be protected. This chapter thus moves from a twelfth-century discourse where politics is about power, to a thirteenth-century model of normative and associative politics, to the fourteenth-century paradigm of government and management, all of which offer different responses to the problem of sovereignty. In the concluding section, I examine Agamben’s argument that the Fisher King of medieval literature represents a castrated ruler, the opposite number of the wolf-king, and an alternative solution to the problem of sovereignty. But his kingdom lies fallow, showing why thinkers preferred to deal with the difficulties of strong kings, rather than to dispense with them. A broken king rules over a broken kingdom.

DEE

SOVEREIGNANDsLHEAWwOLE

Agamben devotes a section of Homo sacer, his most complete theorization of sovereignty, to a reading of Marie de France’s Bisclavret, a lai about a man who is transformed into a werewolf for three days per week, when he hides his clothes under a stone: ... beste salvage Tant cum il est en cele rage Humes devure, grant mal fait, Es grant forez converse e vait

(O=12)

[a wild beast whilst he is in this rage, he devours men and causes great damage, going

and rampaging through the great forests]

Bisclavret’s wife questions him about his disappearances, and though he knows that the loss of his clothes would fix him as a werewolf forever, he reveals his secret. The wife, with an accomplice who later becomes her lover, takes the clothes. Bisclavret is trapped as werewolf, in exile from the city. A year goes by, and the king sees him when out hunting and recognizes the ‘sen d’ume’ (154) [human intelligence] beneath his animal exterior. He takes Bisclavret to his palace where he is loved for his sweet charm, and he becomes the king’s familiar. Eventually, the wife's lover comes to court and Bisclavret attacks him. Because he has hitherto been so

docile, everyone suspects that the lover has wronged Bisclavret, and that he is taking vengeance; the same goes when he later attacks his wife, ripping off her nose. 13 Indeed Passerin d’Entréves saw him as the ‘counterpart’ to Aquinas, offering different answers to the same main problems (The Medieval Contribution to Political Thought, p. 45).

24

Rebel Barons

The wife is tortured and admits her crime. Bisclavret, left alone in the king’s cham-

ber, is transformed into a man again. The wife then is exiled. Her descendants, like her, all lack noses. On Agamben’s reading, it is significant that a baron close to the king is the one who becomes a werewolf, and that the final transformation back to

human form takes place on the bed of the sovereign. The temporary nature of that metamorphosis

relates it to a state of exception, with formalities marking the

entrance and exit to zones of indistinction: ‘questa lupificazione dell’uomo e ominizzazione del lupo é possibile in ogni istante nello stato di eccezione, nella dissolutio civitatis [this lupization of man and humanization of the wolf is at every moment possible in the dissolutio civitatis inaugurated by the state of exception].'* The sovereign’s exceptional status relates him to the breaking down of borders between animal and human: thus ‘nella persona del sovrano, il lupo mannaro, l’uomo lupo dell’uomo, abita stabilmente nella citt® [in the person of the sovereign, the were-

wolf, the wolf-man of man, dwells permanently in the city].!° For Agamben, life is human when political status is accorded to it. The werewolf is a threshold figure, both with and without that status. He stands for the fate of any being—bandits or the homo sacer of Roman law that is central to Agamben’s argument—outside the polis, hoping for inclusion. Because every man is at the mercy of the sovereign, whose power is unlimited, he is a wolf to every man (‘homo hominis lupo’ [man is a wolf to man], in Hobbes’s famous phrase). The sovereign has power over life and

death because he can expel subjects from the polis, or bring them back under the protection of the law through mercy. A godly figure in many respects, the sovereign is also marked by the animal violence to which he can expose subjects. In La Béte et le souverain, the first session of which dates to the months following 9/11, Derrida develops a wide-ranging theory of this link, drawing on Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, La Fontaine, Rousseau, and Schmitt, and focusing on the more sinister dimensions. Though he skips over much of the Middle Ages, seeking the wolves Agamben neglected,'® Derrida argues that beast and sovereign have always been inextricably related. The wolf provides an avenue for thinking of the sovereign’s capacity for suspending the law, which makes him resemble an animal or an outlaw. Both beast and sovereign stand outside reciprocity, outside the human domain of law, language, and contract. The sovereign guarantees our safety and protects us from wolves, but he thereby becomes a wolf himself, taking on inhuman, cruel, bestial characteristics. As Hobbes recognized, sovereignty trades on fear above all. We exchange one fear for another; we are scared of the sovereign instead of the wolf. The sovereign is thus an artificial production of mankind, given godlike, immortal powers. Derrida also cites Schmitt’s argument that the state protects citizens in order to force them to obey; for Schmitt this is most manifest in the ‘feudal’ social order, but present elsewhere.!” Sovereignty is always dictatorship, even when the regime is not totalitarian. Derrida develops this perspective ‘4 '© trans. '7

Homo sacer, p. 118/Homo sacer, trans. Heller-Roazen, p. 106. 5 Tbid., p. 119/p. 107. He critiques Agamben in La Béte et le souverain, especially i, 134-40/ The Beast and the Sovereign, Bennington, i, 91-6. Thid., 74-5/ 43-4.

Sovereignty

25

through a reading of La Fontaine’s ‘Le Loup et l’agneau’, in which a wolf accuses a lamb first of muddying his water, and then of having insulted him one year

previously. Though the lamb, addressing the wolf as “Votre Majesté’ [your Majesty], protests his innocence, the wolf is unmoved, claiming ‘il faut que je me venge’ [I must take vengeance]. Finally, the wolf eats the lamb ‘sans autre forme de procés’. Derrida glosses this line: exercice de la force... comme justice punitive dans lintérét du souverain qui ninstalle aucun tribunal, pas méme de tribunal d’exception ou de tribunal militaire, et qui, au nom de sa self-defense, de son auto-protection, de sa prétendue ‘légitime défense’, supprime l’ennemi sans défense, sans méme la défense assurée par un avocat de la défense dans un procés régulier [the exercise of force. ..as punitive justice in the interests of the sovereign who sets up no tribunal, not even an exceptional or military tribunal, and who, in the name of his self-defense, his self-protection, his supposed ‘legitimate defense’, annihilates the defenseless enemy, the enemy who doesn’t even have the defense given by a defense counsel in a regular trial]®

Because the fable’s opening line—‘La raison du plus fort est toujours la meilleure’ [the law of the strongest is always the best]|—and because the collection is dedicated to the grandson of Louis XIV (1643-1715), Louis, the young duke of Burgundy,

Derrida reads it as a discussion of sovereignty. The wolf invents an accusation, then claims his need for vengeance and his right to protect himself, then takes action himself, suspending the normal judicial procedure. For Derrida: cette arbitraire suspension ou rupture du droit, risque justement de faire ressembler le souverain 4 la béte la plus brutale qui ne respecte plus rien, méprise la loi, se situe dentrée de jeu hors la loi, 4 Pécart de la loi

[this arbitrary suspension or rupture of right runs the risk of making the sovereign look like the most brutal beast who respects nothing, scorns the law, immediately situates himself above the law, at a distance from the law]'?

The wolf, then, is a sovereign. The originary guilt of the lamb comes from the fact that the sovereign is always right. The sovereign has ‘raison’ in the sense of ‘being right’, but also ‘a raison de’ in the sense of vanquishing. The strongest always reserves the right to determine what is right. He has the force that makes the force of law. Hence the sovereign is a wolf threatening a flock rather than a shepherd guarding them. The fact that Derrida turns to a fable reveals the timeless nature of the issue: the sovereign’s power over his subjects is as old as the wolf’s over the lamb. The sovereign inevitably moves outside language and law, menacing the social order he is meant to defend. Sovereignty for Agamben and Derrida is a structure underpinning yet limiting democracy, one which the Western world has still not surpassed. In the next sections, I want to extend Agamben and Derrida’s accounts to show that medieval thinkers also grappled with this sovereign paradox. 18 Tbid., 283/211.

19 Tbid., 38/17.

26

Rebel Barons

JOHN

OF SALISBURY

(c.1115-80)

Policraticus is considered the first extended piece of political theory written during the Latin Middle Ages, though it is also a mirror for princes, a work of philosophy, a personal consolation and a tract on the political habits of John’s day. It is full of exempla and references to Scripture and ancient sources; thus John is sometimes called the best read man of the twelfth century.”° Material on jokes for dinner parties and on the need for moderation in aristocratic pursuits of pleasure, as well as a critique of the forms of ‘magic’—soothsaying, dream interpretation, astrology— common at courts of the day, are intertwined with political sections. Surviving in over sixty manuscripts, John’s work had pan-European interest.” It was especially important in England, for the law code known as ‘Bracton’, and the baronial revolt movement, as well as for the poet, chronicler, and ecclesiastical writer Helinand de Froidmont and the Franciscan Guibert de Tournai in twelfth- and thirteenth-century France. In 1372, it was translated into French for King Charles V (1364-80).

The key topics of the body politic and tyranny were discussed into the fifteenth century; Christine de Pizan, Jean Gerson, and the Italian jurists are all indebted to John.?? His own career was peripatetic: though he retained a local relationship to England and Salisbury, he studied in France with almost all the great masters of the early twelfth century, including Peter Abelard and Gilbert de Poitiers, and paid great interest and attention to Italy:3 he was present at the Roman curia on several occasions during the pontificate of Eugenius III (1145-53) and was a friend to Pope Hadrian IV (1154-59). He served as an aide to Thomas Becket as well as at

Henry II’s court, having supported the king’s claim to the throne during the succession disputes known as the Anarchy, 1135-54. He died as bishop of Chartres. The title Policraticus implies that a division of powers is necessary, and the text’s importance lay in its secular approach to political power, and its articulation of the notion of tyranny as a paradigm for arbitrary and unfair rule, and the crux argument is that good kingship can prevent tyranny. Policraticus may be understood as a reaction to bad rulership. John was banished from Henry’s court in 1156 and 1157, when his view of the royal—papal relationship and his opposition to the levy of scutage on churches and to attacks on ecclesiastical privileges apparently displeased the king, and again in the 1160s, when he backed Becket.?* Policraticus also has the context of Henry’s wars in Occitania in the 1150s, ending with an address to his advisers: Rex illustris Anglorum Henricus secundus, maximus regum Britanniae, si initiis gestorum fuerit exitus concolor, circa Garonnam et (ut dicitur) te auctore te duce fulminat,

et Tolosam felici cingens obsidione non modo Prouinciales usque ad Rodanum et Alpes territat, sed, munitionibus dirutis populisque subactis, quasi uniuersis praesens immineat, timore principes Hispanos concussit et Gallos (vii, 25)

Policraticus, trans. Nederman, p. xx. *1 Policraticus, ed. Keats-Rohan, p. xviii. On the text’s influence see Lachaud, ‘Filiation and Context’. For a summary, see Manselli, “Giovanni di Salisbury e I'Ttalia’. 4 Constable, “The Alleged Disgrace of John of Salisbury’.

Sovereignty

DY

[the illustrious king of the English, Henry the Second, the greatest king of Britain if the outcomes of his deeds were to match their beginning, is thundering near the Garonne River, and (so it is reported) you guide him with your counsel; and besieging Toulouse with a successful blockade, he terrorizes not only Provengal all the way to the Rhone and the Alps but he has aroused fear in the princes of the Spanish and the French (as though he were presently threatening the whole world) by destroying fortifications and subjecting peoples

(p. 230)]?°

John implores God to protect innocence. Elsewhere in his writings, John refers to Henry as an animal, a lion-king, a tiger, a fox, or a wolf, also mentioning the beasts of the royal court.?° Throughout Policraticus, John refrains from naming Henry a tyrant, taking as his examples biblical kings and Roman rulers—Nimrod, Nero, and Caligula, as well as King Stephen’s son Eustace and the barons of the Anarchy (vim, 21)—but he offers a wide definition of tyranny, arguing that many private men and churchmen are tyrants. Primarily a moral concept, tyranny is associated with ambition and immoderate conduct: ‘origo tiranni iniquitas est et de radice toxicate mala et pestifera germinat et pullulate arbor securi qualibet succidenda’ (viil, 17) [the origin of tyranny is iniquity and it sprouts forth from the poisonous and pernicious root of evil and its tree is to be cut down by an axe anywhere it grows (p. 191)]. Though the tyrant can emerge in any walk of life, John uses the notion principally as a foil to his idea of the prince as an ideal ruler. Syntactically, the tyrant figures frequently in binary oppositions to the prince, as here: ‘est ergo tirannus...qui uiolenta dominatione populum premit, sicut qui legibus remit princeps est’ (vii, 17) [the tyrant is... one who oppresses the people by violent domination, just as the prince is one who rules by the laws (p. 190)]. Or again here: ‘princeps pugnat pro legibus et populi libertate; tirannus nil actum putat nisi leges euacuet et populum deuocet in seruitutem’ (vi, 17) [the prince fights for the laws and liberty of the people; the tyrant supposes that nothing is done unless the laws are cancelled and the people are brought into servitude (p. 191)]. The tyrant is thus a scarecrow, a negative exemplum meant to inspire rulers. Tyrants, he claims, do not enjoy the favour and love of their subjects. The prince should not need many guards (rv, 4), whereas the tyrant

lives in fear. John’s ideal prince appears transcendent, with a mystical cult of persona: Est... princeps potestas publica et in terris quaedam diuinae maiestatis imago. Procul dubio magnum quid diuinae uirtutis declaratur inesse principibus, dum hominis nutibus eorum colla submittunt et securi plerumque feriendas praebent ceruices, et impulse diuino quisque timet quibus ipse timori est (rv, 1)

[The prince is the public power and a certain image on earth of the divine majesty. Beyond doubt the greatest part of the divine virtue is revealed to belong to the prince, in so far as at his nod men bow their heads and generally offer their necks to the axe in sacrifice, and by divine impulse everyone fears him who is fear itself

(p. 28)]

25 T quote from Webb's edition and Nederman’s translation, respectively, of the Policraticus. 26 Wilks, John of Salisbury and the Tyranny of Nonsense’, p. 283.

28

Rebel Barons

Divinely ordained royal power is suggested here; subjects are the sovereign’s to sacrifice as he sees fit for the protection of the polis. There is no sense of government in John’s account of politics; he critiques the raw, violent power of kings, so frequently improperly exercised. Thus other sections seek to limit sovereign power, arguing that good rulership entails self-sacrifice and responsibility. In John’s words, ‘publicae... utilitatis minister et aequitatis seruus est princeps’ (rv, 2) [the prince is... the minister of the public utility and the servant of equity (p. 31)]. He works for the people: ‘seruit... Domino

princeps, dum conserius suis, subditis scilicet sibi,

fideliter seruit’ (tv, 7) [the prince...serves the Lord provided that he faithfully serves his fellow servants, that is, his subjects (p. 47)]. However, the prince cannot

be coerced into obeying. He must do so of his own accord, because he is humble and fears God (rv, 7).

To curtail the powers of his prince, John reworked two principles of Roman imperial law deriving from the third-century Roman jurisconsult Ulpian, amongst the most frequently discussed—and the most carefully glossed—phrases in medieval political theory: ‘quod principi placuit, habet legis vigorem’ [the will of the prince has the force of law] and ‘princeps legibus solutus est’ [the prince is not

bound by the laws]. Medieval kings saw in these ideas the basis for their own absolute power; theologians and political theorists worked to nuance them. Thus John cites the ‘force of law’ adage—‘rectissime quod ei placet...legis habet vigorem (Iv, 2) [that which most rightfully pleases him (the prince)...has the force of law (p. 30)]—but restricts it, denouncing those ‘dealbatores potentum (rv, 7) [whitewashers of rulers (p. 47)] who claim: principem non esse legi subiectum, et quod ei placet, non modo in iure secundum formam aequitatis condendo sed q qualitercumque q q legis g habere uigorem. Regem legis faciunt (tv, 7 8 nexibus subtrahunt, si uolunt et audent, exlegem g

quem

[that the prince is not subject to law, and that his will has the force of law not only in establishing legal right according to the form of equity, but in establishing anything whatsoever. If they wish and dare, they may make the king, whom they remove from the bonds of law, an outlaw

(pp. 47—8)]

Sycophants and flatterers encourage the prince to disregard the laws in order to pursue their private wishes. Yet for John, the adage does not mean that the prince’s every whim becomes a legally binding act. Rather, the prince’s will has the force of law because it is determined by the law anyway, because it always already corresponds to the law: princeps tamen legis nexibus dicitur absolutus, non quia ei iniqua liceant, sed quia is esse debet, qui non timore poenae sed amore iustitiae aequitatem colat, rei publicae procuret utilitatem, et in omnibus aliorum commoda priuatae praeferat uoluntati

(rv, 2)

(still the prince is said to be an absolutely binding law unto himself, not because he is licensed to be iniquitous, but only because he should be someone who does not fear the penalties of law but someone who loves justice, cherishes equity, procures

the utility of the republic, and in all matters prefers the advantage of others to his private will

(p. 30)]

Sovereignty

29

The prince must read avidly; he must constantly study the law. Education proves the best defence against tyranny. John thus allows for natural justice to coexist with the idea that the ruler’s will is an expression oflegality. The prince is the source of law, and yet law transcends him. John here offers his own solution to a perennial problem. Citing the etymology of the Latin ‘rex’ [king] from ‘recte’ [right], John says that this name still some-

times incorrectly refers to tyrants (vim, 17). The tyrant’s will too is law, but he acts as a private person rather than a public one, and thus pursues private rather than public goods. He represents the force of law without justice. The force in the ‘force of law’ remains literal, however, for the prince embodies the law’s coercive side: his

main duties are ensuring internal peace and defence from external threats (v1, 2).

The prince must use his force to animate, rather than to bypass, the law. Derrida recognizes the same truth in Force de loi, when he puns on the English idiom ‘to enforce the law: the law is enforced; it is in force; the law has force; the law is

force.?’ The particularity of English usage, he argues, shows something intrinsic to law: there is always the possibility of its being violently enforced. How, then, do we distinguish between the force of law and violence which is unjust? Any legal authority rests on sovereignty, established and protected by violence. Thus legal authority itself has no legal ground, no justification: it is violence without foundation, beyond the conceptual pair legal/illegal. What is droit (what is right or legal) is not necessarily just because the concept of droit (the law) always includes possible recourse to constraint, coercion, and violence. Derrida does not mention the Roman origins of the phrase, nor its appearance in medieval texts. Its history is, however, discussed by Ernst Kantorowicz—who also inspired Agamben’s theorization of sovereign power as monstrous and absolute—in his work on medieval rulership. Kantorowicz recognized that John

was wrestling with the problem of the prince’s position at once above and below the law, freed from the laws only to be more effectively bound to them by his and their moral character. For Kantorowicz, John tweaked Roman law, such that the

prince’s will has the force of law, yet ‘the reference appears to be made not to his arbitrary private volitions, but to the vo/untas active in him as a persona publica’ .*® Kantorowicz’s concept of the king’s two bodies—one human, personal, mortal; the

other divine, public, eternal—is widely known. His broader contention is that the liturgical, “Christ-centred’ monarchy of the earlier Middle Ages gave way to a more ‘law-centred’ model in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Thus the duality of the prince shifted onto his relationship to the law. Henry II’s administrative and legal reforms had given rise to a complex of rights and lands belonging to the realm, and the notion of an impersonal crown developed alongside this. Elements of the older, theocratic model nonetheless persisted; the king remained the

incarnation of the mystical totality of the community into the late medieval and early modern periods, which Kantorowicz associates with ‘polity-centred’ kingship. This phenomenon is visible in the principal conceptual mechanism deployed 27 Force de loil’ Force of Law’, trans. Quaintance. 28 ‘The King’s Two Bodies, pp. 95-6.

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Rebel Barons

by John to outline the perfect ruler: the body politic, which depends on a splitting of the idea of the body. The body of the monarch stands outside society, which projects onto it imaginary political unity; it serves then as synecdoche for the body as res publica, as the community of the kingdom.?? A dominant metaphor in medieval political theory—deriving from the idea that the Church as community of the faithful was the body of Christ—the body politic had diverse interpretations, signalling interdependence, hierarchy, or a balance between the two. It implied social subservience to the prince as head, but also showed his duties to other parts of the body and the need for fraternal harmony. In the traditional Platonic and Stoic conception, nature served as a model of divinely ordained and rational order, as a pattern for human virtue. Macrocosm and microcosm define the body politic: the human body is modelled on the perfect cosmos, so human society, by adopting the body as its template, can partake of that perfected creation.*° John develops cosmological claims little, instead taking the reciprocal, harmonious, and cooperative dimensions forward.! The prince is at the summit but not above the summit: ‘princeps... capitis in re public optinet locum uni subiectus Deo et his qui uices illius agunt in terris, quoniam et in corpore humano ab anima uegetatur caput et regitur’ (v, 2) [the position of the head in the republic

is occupied... by a prince subject only to God and to those who act in His place on earth, inasmuch as in the human body the head is stimulated and ruled by the soul (p. 67)]. This appears to make the king the servant of the spiritual powers:

his job is to wield the temporal sword—which symbolizes internal sovereignty— and to carry out those duties a priest cannot. Thus the king is like a ‘minister sacerdotii’ (tv, 3) [minister of the priests (p. 32)]. The soul is not located in the

body, but above it, between it and God (v, 2). Yet priests must also obey the prince in matters of public power. The secular coercive authority of the prince never belonged to the Church; instead, it was conferred on the prince by God. The clergy remain superior, since it is only at the inferior (secular) level that they are subordinate to princely power, but the State is never fully subordinated to the Church. There is thus a sphere in which the prince is sovereign. Readings have highlighted the hierocratic element to John,*” but only the prince’s will and conscience keep him under the law and lead him to seek spiritual guidance. Conversely, priests can be prone to tyranny just like secular powers. Every individual, including the prince, is subsumed to the whole. He does not transcend the body, but since he is the body, the bond to him can never be escaped. Moreover, the common good, the good of the entire body, depends principally on presence of virtues in the ruler. The model is asymmetrical: the prince coerces others, but can never himself be coerced. 29 See Struve, “The Importance of the Organism’, °° De Landa (A New Philosophy ofSociety, pp. 8-9) follows a modern trend in underestimating this; he sees the body politic as a naive, functionalist notion. Yet the body politic is not a description of society in terms of bodily harmony, but rather an argument that society should work that way. In fact, the body politic resembles the Deleuzian notion of the body as assemblage, a model dear to de Landa. °! Nederman, “The Physiological Significance of the Organic Metaphor’, p. 218. °? For a summary, see Nederman and Campbell, ‘Priests, Kings and Tyrants’.

Sovereignty

Syl

As well as its embodiment, the prince is a conduit for the law, which does not emerge from his authority but from the divine ‘aequitas’ [equity] that takes the form of law on earth. The health of the body—the common good—is represented by justice. Just as the head is the seat of knowledge in the body, so must the king master the law and closely scrutinize his territory. But the wellbeing of society remains a wider responsibility; liberty and justice are guaranteed when everything functions correctly in its place. Hence the roles of other bodily parts: the heart is the ‘senate’ (here John uses an antique term for the king’s council). His stress on the need for good advisers goes hand-in-hand with his scepticism about deceitful courtiers, a concern he shares with the chansons de geste | examine in Chapter 2 of this volume. ‘The ears, eyes, and mouth are the governors of provinces (justices of the peace, sheriffs); the unarmed hand represents officials, and the armed hand

soldiers. Their violence, then, is violence on behalf of the prince. No other violence is licit. Treasurers and record keepers constitute the stomach and intestines, which cause diseases if they accumulate too greedily. Finally, at the bottom, the feet are peasants, bound to the soil. Because their task of sustaining, supporting, and transporting the body exposes them to accidents, they are owed pastoral protection by the prince. It is wrong to despise them, John says, since all mankind shares the same origin; consists of and draws life-force from the same elements; takes the same breath from the same source; derives happiness from the same heavens;

and lives the same, and dies the same (vi, 12). Any sense of a hierarchy, then, is quickly undone by the stress on equalities and co-dependency. The bottom is as essential to the top as vice versa. The body needs feet: ‘pedum adminicula robustissimo corpori tolle, suis uiribus non procedet sed aut turpiter inutiliter et moleste manibus repet aut brutorum animalium ope mouebitur’ (v, 2) [remove from the fittest body the aid of the feet; it does not proceed under its own power, but either

crawls shamefully, uselessly and offensively on its hands or else is moved with the assistance of brute animals (p. 67)]. Strength is required throughout: the head will not survive for long if weakness attacks the members (1v, 12), and the oppressive prince is like a swollen head that weakens the entire body and thus himself (v, 7).

Cary Nederman argues that John’s body politic is physiological rather than anatomic, because a shared principle unites the diverse parts.*4 Love between the prince and his subjects is the best instrument of all governance, creating the harmony of a functioning body out of otherwise discordant interests. The ideal republic, then, resembles nature. John quotes from Virgil’s Georgica to say that bees share legal and communal living as does mankind, whose corporate communion can be sweet like honey (v1, 21-2). Any body part stepping outside of its defined function disorders the whole. Since the prince is God’s representative and image (v1, 25), rebellions constitute

sacrilege, as do other forms of treason such as plotting the murder of a prince or magistrate, fleeing from a public war and thus deserting a prince, aiding the 33 Townspeople, artisans, and traders are not mentioned here, but cited elsewhere as essential to the republic (vi, 2).

34 “The Physiological Significance of the Organic Metaphor’, p. 215.

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Rebel Barons

enemies of the republic, or releasing a guilty criminal. Feuds also go against the common good. They are like disease, and the prince must correct them ‘medicinaliter’ (1v, 8) [in medical fashion (p. 49)], recognizing that the wrongdoers, as parts

of the body politic, are his flesh and blood.*° Doctors never use harsher treatments like fire or iron except when kinder ones fail: potestas cum inferiorum uitia mansueta manu curare non sufficit, penarum acrimoniam dolens recte uulneribus infundit, et pia crudelitate saeuit in malos, dum bonorum incolumatis procurator (rv, 8)

[when mild power does not suffice for the ruler to cure the vices of inferiors, he properly administers intensely painful blows of punishment; pious cruelty rages against the evil, while the good are looked after in safety (p. 50)]

When punishing some errant part of the body, however, the prince must act reluctantly, balancing justice and mercy: ‘sed quis sine dolore proprii corporis membra ualuit amputare?’ (rv, 8) [but who is so strong as to amputate a part of his body without pain? (p. 50)]. He must avoid vengeful anger: ‘nam, sicut lex culpas persequitur sine odio personarum, ita et princeps delinquentes rectissime punit, non aliquot iracundiae motu sed mansuetae legis arbitrio’ (rv, 2) [for since law will

prosecute the blameworthy without personal animosity, the prince most properly punishes transgressors not according to some wrathful motive, but by the peaceful will of law (p. 31)]. The body politic metaphor helps to articulate the middle ground. Disease cannot be allowed to fester, but limbs cannot just be lopped off: ‘deflectitur ad sinistram qui in subiectorum culpis nimis pronus est ad uindictam; et ad dexteram gressum torquet qui delinquentibus ex mansuetudine nimis indulget’ (rv, 9) [he is diverted to the left who is excessively inclined towards pun-

ishing the faults of subjects; and he is turned along a course to the right who is excessively indulgent out of mercifulness towards evildoers (p. 54)]. Crucially, for

John the left side is worse: unnecessarily harsh punishment is associated with the tyrant. Thus the coercive role of the prince is limited to the maintenance of the community against wrongdoers that would tear it apart. This explains how the prince's violence can be worthier than other forms, how it can rise above the fracas of everyday politics. The prince cannot be just another armigerous villain. Even when he is violent, his violence must be transcendent. If John limits the prince, he nonetheless retains some freedom from the law. The possibility remains that things might tip in the wrong direction. There are two dangers for the prince: first, his human or political self will dissolve if he gives in to animal desires. Or else, if the prince listens to flatterers, who encourage him to arrogance in his own power, then he becomes the tyrant, who mistakes his own good for the common good. Either of these possibilities would pervert the body politic, as infection would spread from the head. John speaks of the unhealthy social order ‘caput... eius tirannus est imago diaboli’ (vim, 17) [its tyrannical head is in the image of the devil (p. 193)]. Its soul consists of heretical, schismatic, and sacrilegious priests; the heart is a senate of inequity; unjust officials, judges, and laws %° Struve, “The Importance of the Organism’, p. 311.

Sovereignty

33

represent its eyes, ears, tongue, and unarmed hand; its armed hand is violent,

mercenary soldiers; and even its feet are low-ranking people who fail to obey God (vi, 17). Kantorowicz’s account underlines the fragility of all political personae; they are ghosts, always ready to dissolve. Similarly, the healthy body politic is a delicate creation, prone to sickness. It is not an essence, but the product of continuing good political action. Illness in the form of corruption can quickly spread through the body creating a tyrannical order, where a slave rules over slaves. This political concept of slavery corresponds to a vein of anti-tyranny ideology running back to the ancient Greeks: the subjects of tyrants are slaves not because of indentured servitude, but because they are deprived of rights, disenfranchised and dishonoured.*° The tyrant too is enslaved because he does not follow the law, which frees us. All this underscores the crucial need for liberty and justice in the good body politic, where each part of the political order realizes its human potential through finding its proper place. Because of this complete reversibility, the body politic metaphor fails to do away with the prospect of tyranny. Similarly, the force of law introduces the possibility of tyranny in the effort to banish it. Sovereignty always runs into contradictions. It places the prince above restraint: if he were perfect, his perfection would spread through the body. But the prince remains human and necessarily imperfect. He will fail, and the rest of the body needs to resist his failures to avoid their generalization. Yet who should undertake resistance? For John, freedom of conscience and judgement, as well as the liberty to speak out against wrongs, are fundamental. Virtue results from freedom, but so does error, hence the need for critical speech.

Indeed John says that Hadrian IV gladly received his criticisms of the papal curia (v1, 24). A distinction between vice and crime pertains: the ruler should tolerate

the former, but punish the latter. Similarly, the populace must be patient with vice in the ruler, yet condemn criminal or tyrannical behaviour. Treason should be avoided as it would separate the head from the whole (vu, 25). Again, sovereignty by its very logic proves difficult to oppose. Since the oneness of the king represents the oneness of society itself, attacking him by definition represents an attack on society. Therefore John adopts the Augustinian position that tyrants must be suffered as they are sent by God to punish the evil and correct the good (111, 18). But

he also, at two frequently cited moments, advocates tyrannicide. The first appears in Book 11: Amico utique adulari non licet, sed aures tiranni mulcere licitum est. Ei namque licet adulari, quem licet occidere. Porro tirannum occidere non modo licitum est sed aequum et iustum.

(11, 15)

[It is not permitted to flatter a friend, but it is permitted to delight the ears of a tyrant. For in fact whom it is permitted to flatter, it is permitted to slay. Furthermore, it is not only permitted, but equitable and just to slay tyrants. (p. 25)] The second statement, from Book vim, runs thus: ‘imago deitatis, princeps amandus

venerandus est et colendus; tirannus, pravitatis imago, plerumque etiam occidendus’ 36 For a history of anti-tyranny, see Nyquist, Arbitrary Rule.

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(vit, 17) [as the image of the deity, the prince is to be loved, venerated and

respected; the tyrant, as the image of depravity, is for the most part even to be killed (p. 191)]. This duty to oppose or kill the tyrant is denied by some critics, and most stridently by Jan van Laarhoven, who notes that the first statement forms part of a syllogism on flattery, where the idea that tyrannicide is allowed appears as an already established fact, rather than being argued for as a theory; and that in the second statement, the gerundive, the restriction of plerumque and the unpolitical

reason moderate the claim.” Yet if van Laarhoven reads carefully, he also reads locally. The broader system of John’s thought contextualizes these hesitant remarks.

Book 11 also contains condemnations of pride as the root of all evil; of self-love and passionate desire as a kind of leprosy; and of the contemporary plague of flatterers. John flips the idea of treason: the tyrant is guiltier than anyone else of treason because he endangers the body of justice; surely, he says, no one will avenge the tyrant, who is a public enemy (1, 15). Book vii, on the other hand, discusses examples of tyrannicide, which are arguably a warning to kings—awareness of the fate of tyrants should suffice to prevent their straying into tyranny—but which also imply that tyrannicide is licit. For Nederman, a greater structure still authorizes tyrannicide: the body politic.4® Any malfunctioning element within the body politic needs to be removed, and the common good must be defended by everyone.?? How could the body tolerate a head which harms the other members? The body that suffers tyranny gets the head it merits. The prince should be the source of law, so going against him is perforce extralegal, but still necessary if he

fails to provide justice. Violence provides a last resort: ‘si tamen aliter coherceri non poterat’ (vi, 18) [if they could not be otherwise restrained (p. 205)].

Although it is said that God will punish tyrants, we are free when we accede to the divine will. Thus the examples of tyrannicide arguably show how God employs a human hand.*° Two provisos obtain: ‘hoc tamen cauendum docent historiae, ne quis illius moliatur interitum cui fidei aut sacramenti religione tenetur astrictus’ (vit, 20) [the histories teach that we are to take care, however, lest anyone cause

the death of a tyrant who is bound to him by the obligation of fealty or a sacred oath (p. 209)]. Poisoning too is wrong (vii1, 20). By making these restrictions, John

implies that other methods and slayers are allowed. We are close here to the conclusion of Policraticus, and the preceding discussions weigh upon these lines. John hemmed in, but did not forbid, the prince's right to use violence against wrongdoers; here he restricts, without revoking, the licence for force against tyrants. The

hesitancy in John’s phrasing displays his reluctance to openly call for resistance— that would be to invite sedition—but he does leave the door open to tyrannicide, since, despite his moral, legal, and philosophical stipulations, there remains the possibility that mortal danger to the body politic might be caused by an unrestrained ruler, by tyranny, by force exercised without reason and measure—by, in short, sovereignty.

37 “Thou Shalt Not Slay a Tyrant!’ 38 ‘A Duty to Kill’. 39 Ibid., p. 374. 40 Tbid., p. 376.

Sovereignty

AQUINAS

=)

(1224/5-74)

The political upheavals of medieval Italy affected Aquinas's family, and his own life in a monastery was disrupted by imperial forces. He later benefited from the protection of Louis IX, as well as spending time at the papal court. As a Dominican friar, he played a role in studia at Rome and Naples, and had two spells teaching at the University of Paris.*! If Aquinas's medieval influence was thus widespread, then there is much work on his legacy that seeks to recuperate his philosophy’s value for modern thinking on law, ethics, and theology. In this section, however, I read Aquinas's political thought as a reaction to medieval developments, especially shifts in ideas about political power. Aquinas makes little to no mention of contemporary figures, and conventionally, it is the reign of Philip Augustus (1180—1223)— rather than that of Louis [X—that is cited as the hinge moment in France when weak monarchy strengthened as powerful regional barons were subjected to the crown.*? But Aquinas writes at a time when rulers were modelling their power on the papacy and claiming sovereignty on the Roman law model. Such ideas were welcomed at Louis IX’s court in particular, and the royal heartlands of Paris and Orléans saw the development of four important law codes—Philippe de Beaumanoir’s Coutumes de Beauvaisis, Pierre de Fontaines’s Conseil a un ami, the Establissements de Saint Louis, and the Livre de Jostice et de Plet—all influenced by Roman law. The Establissements assert that the king has no superior in temporal matters, positioning him at the summit of a judicial system, as the court of final appeal. This went hand in hand with a geographical extension of power: Louis claimed final judgment, even in areas where he otherwise had little power, such as Flanders and Aquitaine, and emitted establissements applying to the whole kingdom of ‘France’, harking back to the 843 division of the Carolingian Empire. Such establissements emanated from the royal potestas and had the force of law; they were the beginnings of a more governmental style of royal rule. They display the extension of royal power into more areas of life, as the king asserted himself as the moral guardian of the kingdom, the incarnation of its virtues.4? Louis assured proper worship, persecuting Jews and heretics; war against the Albigensians would eventually lead to the annexation of Occitania by the crown. Crusade was another stimulus for domestic governance. The king’s officers were also brought into line: Jean de Joinville’s biography of the king notes that Louis established a general

41 A concise biographical account is offered by Finnis, Aquinas, pp. 1-19. “2 ‘Thus the opposition between ‘feudal’ and ‘sovereign’ power, already critiqued above, collapses because French kings asserted their sovereignty precisely by enforcing feudal rights. On Philip Augustus, see Baldwin, Zhe Government ofPhilip Augustus; Bisson, The Crisis of the Twelfth Century. For Le Goff, Louis IX pursued the tidying up of the ‘feudal’ system, demanding that vassals, especially in Normandy, loyal to him and to the king of England, choose between the two (Saint Louis, p. 165). Strayer contends that ‘when feudal theory had been elaborated to a point where it allowed the king to regulate all justice and to tax all men, suzerainty was coming very close to sovereignty’ (On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State, p. 43). 3 The rhetoric used by kings in thirteenth-century England and France claimed that their law-making corrected ‘the state of the realm’ (Harding, Medieval Law and the Foundations ofthe State, p. 8).

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ordonnance to correct his bailiffs, provosts, and mayors.*4 Further ideological support

came from the reorganization of royal tombs at Saint Denis and the demonstration of the continuity of the three dynasties of French kings—Merovingian, Carolingian, Capetian—in the Grandes chroniques de France, which helped to aggrandize Philip and Louis through typological links with Charlemagne.*? Overall, though his aura of sanctity obscures his political shrewdness—a quality more readily accorded to Philip—Louis legitimated a pernicious extension of royal powers that would never return to their previous limits. In this context, Aquinas gave conceptual support to centralizing monarchy. Though he offers no discrete political theory, critics have reconstructed one from his various texts, highlighting its position within a larger reflection on man and his relationship to God.*° This section only discusses the political Aquinas, following one medieval legacy of the thinker, best exemplified by the success of Giles of Rome's mirror of princes De regimine principum (likely written 1277-80), which survives in more than 300 manuscripts in its original Latin version and many translations in European vernaculars.4”7 Key to Aquinas's politics is of course

Aristotle, Aquinas forming part of the first wave of scholastic thinkers to use the Politics, newly translated into Latin. The Summa theologiae (1266-73) brilliantly syntheses Aristotle and Christianity through a distinction between natural and supernatural orders: the former is discussed in Aristotelian terms, and the latter in the terms of Christian revelation. Aristotle provided Aquinas first with a conceptual framework for situating normative and associative secular government within a larger cosmic order, and secondly with a means of discussing modes of government. Thus in De regno, Aquinas mentions several possible types of workable political structure: as well as monarchy, there is aristocracy (rule by a few), and polity (rule by a multitude). Each of these has its opposite: the bad form of monarchy is of course tyranny; oligarchy (unjust government by a few men) is the degraded version of aristocracy; and finally democracy (the tyranny of the majority) is the negative counterpart of polity. Having recognized the existence of different political systems, Aquinas seeks to justify monarchy, perhaps because his experiences of strife in Italy and his attachment to Louis IX made him distrustful of the capacity for dissent and disruption in other configurations. A metaphysical route is followed: the unity of God’s rule in the universe provides a model for worldly order. Thus Aquinas declares that monarchy is best because ‘manifestum est...quod unitatem magis efficere potest quod est per se unum, quod plures’ (De regno 1, 3) [clearly... something which is itself one can bring about unity more effectively than something

‘4 This is the so-called grande ordonnance of 1254. As Joinville notes, Louis IX ‘establi un general establissement sus les subjez par tout le royaume de France’ (Vie de Saint Louis, p. 562) [established a general établissement over all his subjects throughout the kingdom of France]. For Le Goff, the veneer of continuity and tradition masks the assertion of royal power here (Saint Louis, pay):

© See Chapter 4 of this volume; see also Le Goff, Saint Louis, pp. 80-1; Spiegel, Studies in the Chronicle Tradition, pp. 195-6. 46 Notably Coleman, A History ofPolitical Thought; Passerin d’Entréves, The Medieval Contribution to Political Thought. 7 See Briggs, Giles ofRome’ ‘De regimine principum’.

Sovereignty

Sif

which is many (p. 10)].4% It ensures the orientation of human existence towards

the single, common good, offering unity of decision and purpose. The organic approach also points in this direction—Aquinas cites the ‘natural’ social organization of bees—as does an argument through macrocosm and microcosm: the king must be to the kingdom as the soul is to the body and God to the universe (De regno 1, 13). Although Aquinas does not sacralize monarchical power, he emphasizes its place in an order orientated towards God. People will love a fair king, because the rule of one can unify more than the divisive law of the many. Aquinas does not, however, dictate the ideal size of the political community: city-states, kingdoms, and empires can all be monarchies, and thus, as befits his peripatetic career, his theories are applicable in multiple different contexts. Monarchy is, however, both kingship and tyranny, so the task is to distinguish the two. John did so by construing the common good in terms of the body politic, but Aquinas develops the common good in more metaphysical terms. He uses it to think the oneness lying conceptually beyond the pluralities of human existence. The sovereign is he who best protects the common good: the tyrant rules despotically, for a private good, as a master over slaves, whereas the king rules politically and constitutionally over free persons. The common good relates at once to speculative theology, metaphysical theory, situational ethics, and political thought as the universal good, the object of love, the life of virtue, and the continuation in existence of the species. It is thus simultaneously the instrument, the result, and the end of political action: the provision of peace and security (instrument), the effect of virtuous actions on others (result), and the life of happiness and of activity in absolute accordance with virtue (end).4° As the order of goodness dependent on God,

the common good is the cause of goodness in every good thing. The more a good thing communicates its goodness, the more it will resemble its divine exemplar. Thus there is a complex hierarchical arrangement of goodness whereby individual goods are ordered towards their ultimate good in God. Imperfect things tend towards their own good; perfect things towards the good of a species; more perfect things towards the good of a genus; the most perfect thing (God) tends towards good of

all beings.*° Good rulership, then, creates peace and orients the kingdom towards its correct place in the universe, allowing subjects to realize their own telos of using their powers of thought and action in pursuit of the good (Summa theologiae 1.ii q. 92). The state of the realm is linked to the state of the people in this life and the next.*! Thus the royal community has a moral purpose that assures its sovereignty versus other, more particular communities, which do not have the common good as their origin, action, and destiny. Aquinas’ treatise on law is the largest grouping of his political ideas, because the law is the most important instrument for the common good. He anchors earthly laws within a wider cosmological schema: first, there is the eternal law of God, 48 49 °° °1

T quote from Dyson's translations of Aquinas (Political Writings). Kempshall, Zhe Common Good in Late Medieval Political Thought, pp. 77, 100-1. Kempshall, Zhe Common Good in Late Medieval Political Thought, p. 84. Harding, Medieval Law and the Foundations of the State, p. 191.

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which gives order to the universe. As the order upon which all other order depends, it is unknowable in itself, and perceptible only by its effects. Natural law, in turn, is man’s participation in the divinely created order. It represents the immutable set of moral principles that lie beneath the innumerable variations of existent human laws. A sphere of rational ethical values, natural law is the expression of man’s

innate capabilities and dignity. Political orders, then, are justified through the nature of man—human inclinations to know, to convene, and live in society form

part of natural law—but are simultaneously a way to participate in a higher type of perfection. Human or positive law, as a rational application of natural law, furnishes us with more specific guidance about what is just and unjust. It does not posit higher ethical principles, remaining an individual or partial instance of natural law that can be changed if considered outdated or unjust. Human laws, rulers, and polities rely on the moral assent of the community, which is always guided by the higher principles of natural law. Finally, the divine law of Scripture, revealed to us through spiritual teachings, directs man towards his final goal of blessedness. Thus divine governance has the role of ensuring subjects’ virtue and supervising movements of the spirit, whereas civil governance only provides the material conditions of justice and peace, and punishes vice.°” This exercise in legal metaphysics solves the problem of justifying the validity of the law in relation to objective standards of rationality, whilst also articulating the sovereign’s relationship to the law in a way that defuses the potentially dangerous Roman law phrases ‘the prince is not subject to the laws’ and ‘the will of the prince has the force of law’. For Aquinas as for John of Salisbury, the prince is both subject to law and freed from the law. He is subordinate to natural law, which precedes and therefore supersedes him, but not to human law. Aquinas claims that ‘lex’ [law] derives from both ‘ligando’ [binding] and ‘legendo’ [reading] to imply that law binds us because it results from study and rational reflection (Summa theologiae L.ii q. 90). Thus the will of the prince has the force of law solely because it accords with reason and natural principles: ‘et hoc modo intelligitur quod voluntas principis habet vigorem legis’ (1.ii q. 90) [and it is in this way that we are to understand that the will of the prince has the force of law (p. 78)]. Without reason, ‘voluntas principis

magis esset iniquitas quam lex’ (1.ii q. 96) [the will of the prince would have more the character of iniquity than of law (p. 78)]. Like John, however, Aquinas recognizes

the need for coercion. The wills of the virtuous already conform to the law, but the wicked must be forcefully subjected to it. Thus the element of force in ‘force of law’ is understood literally. The monarch holds the monopoly on punishment. Coercion takes over when the law’s ability to compel logically and reasonably fails. The idea that ‘the prince is not bound by the laws’, then, applies only to the coercive aspect of the law. No one is coerced by himself, and

lex...non habet vim coactivam nisi ex principis potestate. Sic igitur princeps dicitur esse solutus a lege, quia nullus in ipsum potest iudicium condemnationis ferre, si contra legem agat’

(L.ii q. 96)

>? Finnis, Aquinas, p. 231.

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39

[the law has no coercive force except from the power of the prince. It is in this way, therefore, that the prince is said not to be bound by the law, because no one can pass a sentence of condemnation on him if he acts against the law (pp. 146-7)]

But the prince should be subject to the law morally, and in the judgment of God: ‘princeps non est solutus a lege, quantum ad vim directivam eius; sed debet voluntarius, non coactus, legem implere’ (1.ii q. 96) [the prince is not unbound by the law with respect to its directive force; but he should fulfil it of his own free will and

not under coercion]. Directive force, which works on a moral level, is here opposed to coercive, physical force: nothing but his own conscience can force the prince to obey the law. The concept of the just war further shapes the argument for princely monopoly on force. It is Augustine who is conventionally credited with this theory, though it has bases in Roman legal thought.?3 Augustine worked against the pacifist tendencies of early Christian thought to argue that war was not always a sin. What mattered was the heart of the solider: if he acted through benevolence and pity, his violence was not sinful. Augustine thus gave birth to a very widespread set of ideas about humanitarian restraints on violence. As did many other medieval thinkers, Aquinas extended and systematized Augustine’s arguments, combining it with his idea of the common good. For Aquinas, three conditions must be satisfied for a war to be just: first, ‘auctoritas principis’ (11.ii q. 40) [the authority of the prince (p. 240)]— that is, only a sovereign can order a war. Any private individual must seek redress at the tribunal of his superior, whose duty it is to defend the commonwealth against internal strife: ‘non enim pertinet ad personam privatam bellum movere’ (11.ii q. 40) [it does not pertain to a private person to declare war (p. 240)]. Only a prince lacks a superior secular authority to appeal to, and only he can therefore make just war. The private feuds I examine in Chapter 5 of this volume are for Aquinas merely violent quarrels, unjust because they attack the common good of peace. Secondly, there must be a ‘causa iusta’ (11.ii q. 40) [just cause (p. 240)]—that

is, the opponents should deserve to be warred upon because of some wrong which is being avenged. Third, the soldiers must fight with the right ‘intentio’ (11.ii q. 40) [intent (p. 240)]: to advance the good and avoid evil, and with the aims of the

common good and peace always in mind. Slaying and plundering, and dangerous or excessive feats of arms, are censured (11.ii q. 40). As so often in Aquinas, the private sphere is here incomplete, in need of public perfection.** Private feuds do not merit the status of war, since they frequently lack rightful cause and intention, because private individuals are not qualified to assess right and wrong, lack the moral authority to slay malefactors, and tend to pursue conflict out of passions,

such as vengeance. In many respects, Aquinas appears here to be arguing against precisely the culture of war that the chansons de geste celebrate. Humans are not proper to inflict vengeance, but must leave it to God, or at least his agent on earth. Yet for Aquinas, vengeance is not a vice but rather a virtue opposed to the vices of excessive leniency and unnecessarily cruel punishment (11.ii g. 108). Private 53 See Barnes, “The Just War’, and Russell, Zhe Just War in the Middle Ages.

°4 Finnis, Aquinas, p. 249.

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Rebel Barons

individuals must not take revenge, but the prince must not avoid taking it: any offence against the community is an offence against him, and he must avenge the wrong to re-establish the rightful moral order. Public authority holds the earthly sword and can use vengeful violence justly, in the appropriate measure, to bring about peace and justice. And for Jens Bartelson, Aquinas here gives an important statement of the ‘double bind’ of sovereignty: ‘not only does the justification of war require legitimate authority, but this authority has frequently been legitimized with reference to the violence and disorder than would ensue in its absence’.°> The idea of the just war was a vital ideological tool, working doubly to strengthen sovereignty, and later becoming a key element in the royal monopoly over legitimate violence. Royal sovereignty is also furthered in Aquinas via the notion that the ruler must dispense from the laws in emergencies: famine, war, or even the erection of important public buildings.*° Indeed Agamben cites Aquinas as a crucial moment in the development of sovereign power’s association with the ‘state of exception —that is, the moment where normal rules no longer apply, where the sovereign can rule autocratically, without restrictions. In Agamben’s words, ‘l’eccezione medievale rappresenta...un’apertura del sistema giuridico a un fatto esterno’ [the medieval exception represents an opening of the juridical system to an external fact].°” For Agamben, this reveals the paradox of sovereignty, its place at the point where legal and illegal collapse into one. He cites Aquinas's theory of the necessity as a dispensation from the law: ‘necessitas non subditur legi’ (Summa theologiae 1.ii q. 96)

[necessity is not subject to the law (p. 149)].°8 Aquinas makes an analogy with the needs of a starving man, who can steal to preserve his life; the end of the state is also its own preservation. Men gather together to live well and the community must absolutely be protected against dissolution. Thus the prince may take away his subject’s sons to make them soldiers, or make other exactions ‘propter commune bonum procurandum’ [for the sake of common welfare], ‘absque tyrannide’ [without tyranny] (1.ii q. 105). The common good is no longer protected by the law in extreme cases and thus the law ceases to have force and reason (1.ii q. 96). Respect for necessity distinguishes the king from the tyrant. However, for Agamben,

such distinctions collapse because the state of exception—difficult to define partly because of its close relationship to thresholds such as civil war, insurrection, and resistance—cannot be either inside or outside the law; it is ‘la forma legale di cid che non puo avere forma legale’ [the legal form of what cannot have legal form].°? ‘Exceptional’ powers granted in ‘exceptional’ circumstances tend to perpetuate themselves, as the law stretches and never returns to its previous shape. Dispensations gradually cease to function judicially, administratively, occasionally, and conditionally, and become the norm. So tyranny always has a route back in. Indeed as

‘Double Binds’, p. 82; on Aquinas, see p. 91. The principle also appears in de Beaumanoir, Coutumes de Beauvaisis, §49. Stato di eccezione, p. 36/ State ofException, trans. Attell, p. 26. Wn Ibid., pp. 35—-6/pp. 24-5. ? Ihid.p2 Wipsli waWw

on

Sovereignty

4]

Aquinas acknowledges, rulership can easily become tyranny, unless the ruler is of

perfect virtue (Summa theologiae 1.ii q. 105). Tyranny is thus the opposite of kingship, but they prove inseparable like two sides of a coin: ‘sicut autem regimen regis est optimum, ita regimen tyranni est pessimum’ (De regno 1, 4) [just as the rule of a king is the best, so the rule of a tyrant

is the worst (p. 11)]. The oneness that makes for good kingship also makes for the most terrible tyranny: ‘sicut igitur utilius est virtutem operantem ad bonum esse magis unam, ut sit virtuosior ad operandum bonum, ita magis est nocivum si virtus operans malum sit una, quam divisa’ (De regno 1, 4) [just as it is more beneficial

for a power which produces good to be more united, because in this way it is able to produce more good, so is it more harmful for a power which produces evil to be united than divided (p. 12)]. The tyrant resembles an animal—‘a tyrannis se

abscondunt homines sicut a crudelibus bestiis, idemque videtur tyranno subiici, et bestiae saevienti substerni’ (De regno 1, 4) [men remove themselves from tyrants as

from cruel beasts, and to be subject to a tyrant seems the same as to be mauled by a ferocious animal (p. 15)]. Tyranny remains as the shadow of the even most posi-

tive conception of politics. Indeed ‘quia igitur optimum et pessimum consistent in monarchia, id est principatu unius, multis quidem propter tyrannorum malitiam redditur regia dignitas odiosa (De regno 1, 5) [because both the best and the worst

can occur in a monarchy—that is, under government by one—the evil of tyranny has rendered the dignity of kingship odious to many (p. 15)]. Tyrants refuse to allow their subjects to become virtuous, because they might then refuse to bear their unjust dominion. For Aquinas, the term ‘tyrant’ derives from ‘fortitudine’ (De regno 1, 2) [force (p. 8)]. The tyrant does not rule with justice, instead embody-

ing the law as force without reason: ‘lex tyrannica, cum non sit secundum rationem, non est simpliciter lex, sed magis est quaedam perversitas legis’ (Summa theologiae 1.ii q. 92) [a tyrannical law, because not according to reason, is not strictly speaking a law, but rather a kind of perversion of law (p. 98)]. It is law

in all its arbitrary, cruel, and unrestrained wickedness (1.ii q. 93). Always suspicious of treason because his rule is sustained by fear, the tyrant is never at peace. Aquinas gives the example of the Roman commonwealth, brought down by tyrants whose cruelty to their subjects weakened them against external enemies (De regno 1, 5).

How isa relapse back into the tyranny of the Roman past to be avoided? Aquinas makes some moves towards favouring limited monarchy and a mixed constitution. In De regno, he says that the choice of king is important, but does not make clear who should elect him. He merely suggests arranging the government of the kingdom so as to avoid the possibility of the king becoming a tyrant. Overall, Aquinas's monarch is limited only in vague ways.®° Aquinas says that tyranny should be endured for as long as possible because taking action is so dangerous.°! In one piece, Aquinas cites Cicero’s praise of tyrant killing (Scripta super libros sententiarum 11.44,2), though in De regno, he notes that it would be dangerous for one person to 60 Pennington, ‘Law, Legislative Authority, and Theories of Government’, p. 442.

61 | draw on the account by Finnis, Aquinas, pp. 287-91.

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slay the tyrant on his private presumption (1, 7). Nonetheless, he does hint at

duties of resistance: if a tyrant acts beyond his authority, subjects have no obligation to obey; if he is a usurper, he should be rejected; and finally, if he commands

sinful acts, he must be resisted, even at the risk of one’s life. In the Summa, sedition is generally ruled out as a manifestation of sin, pride, and greed, but the tyrant is said to be guiltier of sedition than the rebel who opposes him because he harms the good of the multitude (11.ii q. 69). The right of self-defence against the tyrant is compared to rights against robbers or other aggressors (11.ii q. 69). Whereas nor-

mally the common good requires the subordination of the parts to the whole, it can at times justify disobedience. The human law of the tyrant goes against natural law, and thus his will lacks the force of law. As with John of Salisbury, no programme is stated, but resistance and tyrannicide are never ruled out. There are other blind spots in Aquinas’s arguments. He generally assumes polities as already existing, showing no interest in empires as products of force and conquest. As John Finnis puts it, in Aquinas ‘all issues of extension—of origins,

membership, and boundaries, of amalgamations and dissolutions—are. . . set aside’ .® Aquinas thus cannot free kingship from its relation to tyranny, and sketches no clear escape route for those affected by it. Aristotle’s political ideas are used principally to support the existing consensus. For Anthony Black, the analogy with God ‘gave a model of the omnipotent and omnicompetent sovereign convenient for centralising, anti-baronial, bureaucratic kingship’,®? whereas in Kenneth Pennington’s view, the brakes on sovereign power represented by the old norms of custom, obligation, honour, loyalty, and reason were gradually replaced in this period by cause, necessity, and the common good, all of which further licensed the prince’s arbitrary authority.°* The common good, refigured by Aquinas, became repressive: when applied to concrete questions—including obedience, feuds, taxation, punishment, legal dispensation, usury, marriage—it ratified increased royal control, failing in its guiding and limiting role.°? Whatever his intentions, Aquinas ultimately offered a justification for kingship more than a model for its reform and improvement.

MARSILIUS

OF PADUA

(¢.1275-1342)

Marsilius refers to himself as a descendent of Antenor, the legendary Trojan founder of Padua (1, 1.16), where his family had some prominence in the administration. Padua was autonomous but the immunities of the clergy caused concern.® For

Quentin Skinner, Marsilius sought to defend the liberty of Italian city republics 62 Aguinas, p. 221. 63 Political Thought in Europe, p. 145. 64 The Prince and the Law, p. 119. °° ‘Thus for Russell, ‘the Thomist theory of the just war looked forward to the age of the standing army as a discrete functional class within a national kingdom’ (The Just War in the Middle Ages, p. 291).

6° See Previté-Orton, “Marsiglio of Padua on the clergy. Padua’s ambassadors asked for certain liberties to be respected when they met Henry VII, who was Holy Roman Emperor 1312-13, and also er, the Romans and king of Italy from 1308 and 1311 respectively (Maiolo, Medieval Sovereignty, p. 161).

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43

against external forces, including the Church,®” and this surely explains his association with the Ghibelline cause and the imperial vicars Cangrande della Scala, ruler of Verona 1311-29, who gained control of Vicenza, Padua and Treviso,

and Matteo Visconti, ruler of Milan 1287-1322, whose power extended to other northern Italian cities, including Piacenza and Bergamo.®* Marsilius studied medicine,®? and engagement with the ideas of Aristotle and Averroes in Paris was vital to the gestation of his political thought. His desire to transform theory into practice shapes the Defensor pacis, which Nederman terms a ‘call to action’,”° and led to his departure to the court of Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor 1328-47.7! Louis used the Defensor pacis in his conflict with the papacy, and Marsilius’s later texts further strengthened his imperial position. Marsilius accompanied Louis to Italy in 1327, playing a part in his coronation as emperor, as well as being involved in the enthronement of the imperial antipope, Nicholas V, 1328-30.

Despite these links to his times, Marsilius is frequently considered a modern thinker who can be rescued from the morass of medieval politics. Indeed Marsilius’s influence was great: the Defensor pacis was translated into the Florentine vernacular and into French, inspiring Nicholas Oresme. Marsilius is variously said to be a precursor of the Reformation, of Bodin, Hobbes, and Rousseau, and even of modern totalitarianism, largely because he moves away from the supernatural and the moral ends of communal life, distinguishing political reason from faith.7? Marsilius’s lack of biblical references and use of Aristotle and Cicero have fed the idea that he is a republican proto-democrat, articulating an early form of popular sovereignty.”? Indeed Marsilius’s conceptual framework transcends its immediate context, and he moves easily between ‘civitas’ [city-state] and ‘regnum’ [monarchy] and ‘imperium’ [empire], which differ in size, but are all independent sovereign

bodies, deriving their legitimacy from the community. Yet Marsilius offers an idea of empire largely as a solution to contemporary problems in his Italy, and especially to attack the papacy.”* In the second discourse of Defensor pacis, Marsilius uses Scripture to critique the papal assumption of plenitude of power, which he sees as the principal cause of strife, attempting to prove that spiritual powers should have 67 The Foundations ofModern Political Thought, i, 57. 68 He praises the latter in the Defensor pacis (ii, 26.17).

69 The most recent summary of Marsilius’s biography is offered by Godthardt (“The Life of Marsilius of Padua’).

70 Community and Consent, p. 14. 71 Godthardt (“The Life of Marsilius of Padua’) defends the idea that Marsilius joined the emperor

voluntarily rather than fleeing, as was previously assumed. 72 Thus for Bartelson, Marsilius takes an important step on the road to modern sovereignty by dismissing the divine origin of power as an article of faith (A Genealogy ofSovereignty, p. 103). 73 Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, i, 3-65; Gewirth, Marsilius of Padua; Rubinstein, ‘Marsilius of Padua’. For Ullmann, ‘the Marsilian doctrine is the most fully-fledged medieval example of the populist thesis of government and law (Principles of Government and Politics, p. 278). Canning counters that this view relies solely on Discourse i of the Defensor pacis (Ideas of Power, p. 84); see also Garnett (Marsilius ofPadua, pp. 3-14) for a trenchant critique of anachronism in Marsilius studies. 74 Wilks, The Problem of Sovereignty; de Lagarde, La Naissance de lesprit laique; Quillet, La Philosophie politique de Marsile de Padoue; and most polemically Condren, ‘Marsilius of Padua’s Argument from Authority’, offer accounts of his imperialism.

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no coercive role. Like Dante, he envisages a model Roman emperor as the instrument

for his political principles and as protector for the welfare of all Christendom. Parts of the Defensor pacis were condemned as heretical by Pope John XXII (1316—44),”° and the text stimulated papal rebuttals,”° as well as appealing in the early modern period in areas hostile to the papacy.’” But Marsilius still thought Church and State together, relying on a Christian interpretation of Aristotle to make peace the main goal of politics.78 It is here that his main innovation lies. Charles W. PrévitéOrton and Francesco Maiolo see him as articulating an idea of sovereignty; for Maiolo, the term denotes ‘the condition of political supremacy in a community ordained to the attainment of what Marsilius called “sufficiency of life”’.’? I will contend that Marsilius is dealing with the paradox of sovereignty, and that he ultimately returns to sovereign power as the foundation for the legal and political order, albeit via a different route to that offered by John of Salisbury and Aquinas. Marsilius envisages a kind of power applicable to all states, where coercive jurisdiction would be wielded only by duly constituted government, avoiding discord and allowing for tranquillity and peace. The perfect civil community would be a natural entity, yet one created through the establishment of good law. In the first discourse of the Defensor pacis, there are similar discussions of types of regime to those found in John and Aquinas: royal monarchy, aristocracy, and polity are wellbalanced regimes, where the role of the prince is exercised for the common good; tyrannical monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy are flawed ones, where the common good is lacking. Like Aquinas, Marsilius holds a negative view of democracy—the ‘plebs’ [people, or mob] rules to the detriment of other parts—and he concludes that monarchy is always best because its structural unity leads towards unity of civil order. He rails against the idea of a plurality of princes, which would produce jurisdictional chaos (1, 17). An ontological argument again shapes a political one:

only one authority is needed. Without that singularity there would be dissension. Universal authority provides the singular locus from which other levels of power can be derived. Yet recognition of the same truth as John and Aquinas—monarchy lies close to tyranny (1, 9)—leads Marsilius to make distinctions. He discusses Aristotle’s five

modes of royal monarchy: monarchy for a single task (such as Agamemnon leading the army); hereditary despotic monarchy (such as in Asia); elective tyranny (the ruler is elected but rules according to unfair laws); elective hereditary monarchy; and finally lordship monarchy, where the ruler resembles the head of a household, exercising power via his own will. He then simplifies this Aristotelian diversity down to a crucial distinction: monarchy is rule either over willing or unwilling subjects, and the more subjects are willing, the more the monarchy is truly royal > Godthardt, “The Life of Marsilius of Padua’, p. 32. See the account by Turley (“The Impact of Marsilius of Padua). See the account by Izbicki (“The Reception of Marsilius’).

Nederman, Lineages ofEuropean Political Thought, p. 57. Medieval Sovereignty, p. 25; see also Prévité-Orton, ‘Marsilius of Padua’, p. 9. Nederman speaks of his insistence on ‘superior obligations and jurisdiction’ (Lineages of European Political Thought, p. 23).

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45

rather than tyrannical. Thus, although the acquisition of power via purchase, gift, just war, or by inhabiting virgin territory can be legitimate, an elective model of kingship is best. An entire lineage can be elected, leading to hereditary monarchy, but Marsilius sees this as a bad idea: heredity is no guarantee of virtue or ability.8° Like Aquinas, Marsilius stresses the importance of the king’s moral character, but he finds a different solution: election proves the best way of ensuring that the ‘pars principans’ [the princely—that is, the ruling—part] has superior moral traits.®! Ultimate authority therefore goes to the people as ‘human legislator’, who delegate a ruling part to have power over them. Marsilius also provides for fair laws: human law is caused by the will of the citizens to whom it applies. People can best judge the common good, and will more readily obey laws arrived at through communal deliberation. The whole corporation of citizens could also potentially depose or judge the ruling part. The prince can only apply laws made by the human legislator; thus the law remains morally superior to the prince. Marsilius avoids introducing natural law as the antecedent for positive law, likely because this could potentially subordinate secular law to spiritual law. Neither divine nor natural law limit Marsilius’s sovereign. Instead he sees law as enforceable human law in the form of earthly punishment and reward. The community itself provides the best safeguard against the usurpation of decision-making by one particular part, always a danger due to ignorance, malice, cupidity, or ambition (11, 20.6). The stress on formal and

institutional mechanisms here contrasts with the moral limitations of John and Aquinas; politics is in Marsilius’s eyes a system of governance, needing careful management and calibration. All citizens, whose liberty allows for assent in legislation, must participate. Marsilius encourages discussion and interaction before decisions are made,** to safeguard a common good that cannot be reduced to an agglomeration of self-interests. The republicanism of Marsilius has nonetheless been overestimated, and the model of representation offered is in fact tempered. First, for Marsilius, the legislator is not necessarily the whole community, but can instead be its ‘valentior pars’ [weightier or worthier part], because corporate will about the common

good is

necessarily the same.®? Through vagueness about what constitutes the ‘valentior pars—the majority of citizens, or the most intelligent, influential, politically astute, or otherwise worthiest amongst them?—Marsilius avoids plumping for one type of constitution over others. Secondly, as Black warns, one must ‘keep in mind the medieval notion of representation as equally valid when it is tacit or has been expressed in the distant past’.84 The citizens have effectively always already chosen the prince’s rule and ceded their sovereignty to him. Ultimate authority is located in the people, but this was already the claim made by Ulpian: the ‘imperium’

80 Elective and hereditary monarchy were not, for medieval thinkers, always opposed, as Marsilius’s thinking here demonstrates. See also Chapter 2 of this volume on Hugues Capet, where elective and hereditary monarchy are combined to solve the political crisis. 81 Nederman, Community and Consent, pp. 100-1. 82 Nederman, ‘Freedom, Community and Function’, p. 983. 83 Coleman, A History ofPolitical Thought, p. 154. 84 Political Thought in Europe, p. 60.

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[power] of the Roman people was fully absorbed by the ‘imperium’ of the emperor.*? Across his works, Marsilius expresses the view that the Roman people constituted the human legislator that transferred its power to the emperor.®° The concept of popular sovereignty does not exclude the unicity of power, because Marsilius critiques jurisdictional pluralism, and as Nederman notes, he legitimizes the ‘pars principans’ through reference to ‘regal monarchy’.8” Only a sovereign can gain popular assent. Like Dante, Marsilius sees the Roman emperor as providential, and presents the Roman Republic as positive—though not perfect—in both Defensor pacis and De translatione Imperii.®® He also assumes historical continuity, speaking of the papacy as the trouble ‘qua Romanum imperium dudum laboravit, laboratatque continuo’ (1, 1.3) [under which the Roman empire has laboured for a long time and labours still (p. 5)].8° The structure that will provide a solution to current

problems is thus an old one. Perhaps because the Italian cities prospered thanks to imperial protection, he sees no contradiction between republican and imperial tendencies.°° Marsilius hopes that imperial interventionism will protect good government. Crucially, though the letter of the law is determined by the legislator, it is still

enforced by the prince: quamvis enim legislator, tamquam prima causa et appropriata, determinare debeat quos qualia in civitate oporteat officia exercere, talium tamen executionem, sicuti et

ceterorum legalium, praecipit et si oporteat cohibet pars principans

(1, 15.4)

[for although the legislator, as primary and proper cause of this, ought to determine which men should exercise what kind of functions in the city, nevertheless it is

the princely part that commands, and if necessary enforces, the execution of such decisions, as he does other matters of law

(p. 90)]

For Canning, Marsilius sees force as that which turns a precept into a law; the law

is always the product of power. Aquinas makes divinity, morality, and rationality the definitions of law, but Marsilius focuses on its coercive essence.?! Thus whereas

Aquinas argues that justice precedes force—‘inquantum habet de iustitia, intantum habet de virtute legis’ (Summa theologiae 1.ii q. 95) [a command has the force of law in so far as it is just (p. 130)]—Marsilius sees law as always, intrinsically a

form of violence. The law does not only become violence through injustice or tyranny, from which sovereign power can never be properly separated. Thus, though the prince does not have the force of law in Marsilius’s model, he still is

the force of law. He needs armed men to protect him from external threats and to carry out his sentences on internal enemies, the rebellious, and disobedient (1, 5.8). 85 Hinsley, Sovereignty, p. 42. 8° Garnett, Marsilius ofPadua, pp. 72-3. 87 Community and Consent, p. 101 88 Garnett, Marsilius of Padua, p. 67. Gewirth sees him as modern because he desires to end the multiplicity of feudal and ecclesiastical jurisdictions (Marsilius ofPadua, p. 310). 8° T quote from Brett’s translation of the Defensor pacis. °° Quillet, La Philosophie politique de Marsile de Padoue, p. 89; see also Maiolo, Medieval Sovereignty, p. 180.

°! Ideas ofPower, pp. 95-6. Lagarde (La Naissance de l'esprit laique) also focused on the principate as the instrument of coercion.

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47

But vitally—and in a section often skipped over by those who reconstruct his political system—Marsilius also gives the prince prerogative to act in circumstances not covered by the law. He recognizes that a prince will inevitably have to violate laws; he suggests therefore that a particularly prudent prince be chosen: in quibus namque humanis actibus civilibus actus ipse vel modus non determinatur a lege, per prudentiam dirigitur principans in iudicando et etiam exequendo, facto vel modo aut horum utroque, in quibus ipsum peccare contingeret absque prudentia. (1, 14.3) [for in those human civil actions where either the action itself; or its mode, is not

determined by the law, it is prudence that guides the prince both in judging and in executing, the deed or its manner or both: where without prudence he would make a mistake.

(p. 82)]

Here Marsilius cites with approval Sallust’s account of Cicero’s handling of the Catiline conspiracy: a group of powerful Roman citizens conspired against the republic, but Cicero short-circuited judicial procedure and had them killed or imprisoned immediately (1, 14.3). If he had acted through the law, the inevitable

delays of due process might have allowed civil war to break out. His swift action maintained social bonds. Executive action outside the law is positively envisaged, provided it shores up the existing regime. In Marsilius, then, the prince embodies precisely the coercive force that allows the law to function by preventing anarchy. Thus those theorists who argue for a republican Marsilius—contending that he relocates sovereign plenitude of power within the people—are overstating the case and ignoring the violence on which the legislator’s power depends.®” The prince retains the sovereign capacity to act outside the law because internal peace is necessary for the exercise of political authority. The ruler must protect the community itself; without a ‘pars principans’ there will be war and chaos. Prudence and an ideal of the common good are the only brakes on the prince's actions. The monarch’s rule is more truly regal, the more he rules through laws advantageous to all, whereas ‘tanto vero amplius tyrannidem sapiens, quanto magis exit ab hiis’ (1, 9.5) [it savours of tyranny...the more it departs from [these condi-

tions] (p. 47)]. So once more, tyranny comes back into view, because there is no law without the force of law. The prince must have coercive power, and thus he is necessarily a potential tyrant. Once more, this sovereign contradiction lies in the

body, because Marsilius links between medicine and politics using organic metaphors. Yet the city is not a human, as in John’s model, but rather an animal: Nam secuti animal bene dispositum secundum naturam componitur ex quibusdam proportionatis partibus invicem ordinatis, suaque opera sibi mutuo communican-

tibus et ad totum, sic civitas ex quibusdam talibus constituitur cum bene disposita et instituta fuerit secundum rationem. Qualis est igitur comparatio animalis et suarum partium ad sanitatem, talis videbitur civitatis sive regni et suram partium ad tranquillitatem. (1, 2.3) 92 | have a different idea of sovereignty from Syros, who thinks that the multitude is sovereign because it dominates (Marsilius ofPadua, p. 95).

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Rebel Barons [for an animal which is in a good condition in respect of its nature is composed of

certain proportionate parts arranged in respect of each other, all communicating their actions between themselves and towards the whole; likewise too the city which is in a good condition and established in accordance with reason is made up of certain such parts. A city and its parts would therefore seem to be in the same relation to tranquillity as an animal and its parts is to health

(p. 12)]

‘The sovereign order is man-made, but it must resemble a natural body, healthy

when each part performs its role. Though he uses the body as a model for balancing centre and plurality (1, 17.8), Marsilius’s body politic is not anatomical like John’s; nor does he return to traditional organicism.?? There is also a shift in the

idea of the common good: for Aquinas, it was the same for all citizens, but Marsilius’s common good is simultaneously ‘filtered through the prism of multiple specialized dispositions’,94 and reduced to the physical.°* Here Marsilius modifies Aristotle: he accepts the idea that human society is natural, but combines it with the Augustinian idea that men respond to frailty by forming social bonds, and the Ciceronian argument that every organism can preserve itself.?° Political life best satisfies the need for physical sufficiency by balancing specialisms such that the diversity of the community provides for all.?” Whereas Aristotle made peace and leisure the goals of collective life, Marsilius opts for a concept of tranquillity that is opposed to discord. Marsilius draws on Aristotle for the six functions of the city— agriculture, manufacture, military, financial, priestly, and judicial or councillor

(princely)—and then applies to them Aristotle’s ideas about biology, articulating the various needs of the human community on the basis of the body:?8 the nutritive part corresponds to the production and acquisition of food, whereas the cognitive and appetitive parts relate to mechanical or manufacturing functions,®? which respond to the needs of our actions and passions. Finally the princely part plays a mediating role, answering to transitive imbalances in the body (1, 5.7).

When the diverse elements within the body combine well, we have proportion and health. But things entering the body alter it (1, 5.4), causing sicknesses like discord (1, 1.3). Thus the body politic is construed in terms of the equilibrium of elements

that must be maintained versus natural and non-natural interference. This differs significantly from John’s model, with its concern for balancing hierarchy against interdependence. Moreover, the princely part is associated not with the head, as in the body politic model, but with the heart, allowing for a new conception of politics. Shogimen, ‘Medicine and the Body Politic’. Nederman, Community and Consent, p. 61. °° Kaye, A History ofBalance, p. 314. Sytos, Marsilius of Padua, pp. 28-9. Syros gives a full account of Marsilius’s uses of, and departures from, Aristotle. °” For Kaye, the common good develops into a model of equilibrium in the fourteenth century (A History of Balance, p. 300).

°8 As Brett notes, Aristotle’s analogy between the parts of the polis and the human body remains vague (trans. of Defensor pacis, p. 12, n. 4). See Kaye on the tacit influence of Galen here (A History of Balance, p. 316). See Aichele (“Heart and Soul of the State’) on the way Marsilius stretches the

physiological approach to politics beyond analogy. »” Black sees this as evidence of Marsilius’s communal ethos, stemming from the guild society of late medieval Italy (Guilds and Civil Society, pp. 86-95).

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The debate about the primacy of the heart versus the head goes back to Plato and Aristotle. The Aristotelian cardio-centric view was prevalent in medical circles and figured in the political theory of Giles of Rome: the prince as heart infuses spirit as the fount of life and motions (De regimine principum 1, 2.11).!°° For Marsilius,

the heart is nobler and more perfect than the rest of the body. As the first material bodily part, it is caused by the soul (1, 15.6), just as the whole body of citizens— the legislator as the soul of the community—first chooses a prince. Once formed, the heart retains active potential and authority as the efficient cause of the other bodily parts, regulating everything else, correcting imbalances and working as an antidote to excess. The action of the prince, Marsilius says, must never cease, just like the action of the heart in the body. But, he laments, it has long been impeded

in Italy (1, 19.4). Yet he then nuances this position: the prince is not like the heart, because the heart never acts contrary to its natural virtue, whereas the prince is human and therefore might do something contrary to law, out of false conception or perverted desire. When he does, he must be corrected by the human legislator. If the offence is minor, it can be allowed to pass to avoid making the prince an object of contempt, but offences that might cause damage to the republic or persons and lead to ‘scandalum aut populi concitatio’ (1, 18.4) [scandal or popular commotion (p. 125)] must be punished. When the prince becomes a danger to the

collectivity he incarnates, he can be brought under the law. Ceasing to be the prince, he now stands trial as a transgressive subject, whereas his office is suspended to avoid fighting between rival replacements. Thus the heart or prince that regulates everything else must also itself be regulated. There is no scope for private and unilateral resistance, however, and the dangers of even communal legal action are carefully noted (1, 18). Marsilius struggles with the contradictions of sover-

eignty, and ends up placing the ruling part it most of the time—thus allowing only a of the sovereign. The medical aspects to Marsilius’s theory between secular and spiritual power. The

potentially below the law—but above slender possibility for legal correction extend into his account of the balance ‘contagious’ action of the papacy is

the main cause of current problems (1.1.3). It invades all realms of life. Marsilius

expresses tyranny in terms of a deformed or monstrous body. Corrupted ecclesiastical government is the worst form, as individual limbs are directly joined to the head (11.24.12). Marsilius here attacks the Donation of Constantine as a source of

discord. The Roman Emperor Constantine (306-37) purportedly transferred authority over Rome and the western part of the Roman Empire to the pope. Later exposed as a forgery, the Donation had been used by the papacy since Carolingian times to assert superiority over the empire. Pope Innocent IV (1243-54) had changed the position slightly, claiming that the apostolic see got its dignity from Christ, and that Constantine was only recognizing this fact.'°? Although doubts about the decree’s authenticity had already emerged, Marsilius attacks only Innocent'’s innovation, saying that if Constantine did make the Donation, then he must have 100 Shogimen, ‘Medicine and the Body Politic’, pp. 96-106. 101 Garnett, Marsilius ofPadua, p. 112.

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Rebel Barons

had jurisdiction to do so, and that later emperors could withdraw it by calling a

general council of the Church to replace the pope (1, 18). Marsilius also contends that Christ did not rule with worldly power or put into place a secular government (1, 4.4). He notes that Christ allowed himself to be brought before the Roman

prefect Pontius Pilate because there was no superior coercive jurisdiction to Pilate, whose secular power came from God (1, 4.12), who gave Peter the keys to heaven

but earthly power to sovereigns. The keys have for Marsilius been wrongly used to justify papal power over secular matters (11, 6). Marsilius argues that the emperor must be prosperous, whereas the priesthood must imitate and preach Christ's poverty and humility.!°? Wealth allows imperial splendour, inspiring awe in the people, and facilitates the use of forces against rebels. A lowly emperor, humbled and devout, would make people lose faith in the powers of the state and the law. Whereas priests educate, secular rulers must regulate. In all this, Marsilius is ultimately addressing the emperor who had the right to intervene in Italy to secure the peace violated by papal claims to power. The action of the heart assures the harmony of the perfect body; accordingly, the perfect community can only be formed if the overlapping of spheres of power is avoided by establishing, once and for all, the sovereignty of the emperor.

CODA

FHEARISHERSKING

All the thinkers surveyed in this chapter imagine strong rulers, and work through the consequences of that strength. This final section examines the opposite possibility: what happens to sovereignty if the sovereign is weak? In // Regno e la Gloria, Agamben portrays the wounded Fisher King of Arthurian romance as the symbol of divided and impotent sovereignty. In Chrétien de Troyes’s Conte du Graal, there is a general crisis of kingship, involving of course a weakened Arthur, but most importantly the wounded king whom Perceval finds fishing: ... il fu en une bataille Navrez et mehaigniez sanz faille Si que puis aidier ne se pot.

(3447-9)

[he was wounded and absolutely crippled in a battle, such that since he has been unable to move around by himself.]

His lack of mobility stands metonymically for his kingdom, which suffers in the same way, whereas his wounds, and the broken sword he carries, symbolize discontinuity and disinheritance. His devastated kingdom has no heir, and Thomas Hinton speaks of the ‘reproductive and environmental sterility’ that surrounds

him.'°? He cannot ride or hunt, activities which symbolize worldly power. The Fisher King reigns but others govern in his name: Agamben sees this split between reigning and governing as one between the magical, ceremonial, religious, or sublime 10> Moreno-Riafio, “Hierarchy, Ambiguity and a Via Media’, pp. 265-7. 103 The ‘Conte du Graal’ Cycle, p. 136.

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DL

character of kings on the one hand and their more managerial function on the other. The wounded king is thus the prefiguration of the modern sovereign who reigns, but has close to zero governmental role:

il sovrano é costitutivamente mehaignié, nel senso che la sua dignita si misura alla possibilita della sua inutilita e inefficacia, in una correlazione in cui il rex inutilis legittima Pamministrazione effettiva che ha sempre gia separato da sé e che, tuttavia, continua formalmente ad appartenergli. [the sovereign is structurally mehaignié [the term Chrétien de Troyes uses to describe the wounded king], in the sense that his dignity is measured against the possibility of its uselessness and inefficacy, in a correlation in which the rex inutilis legitimates the actual administration that he has always already cut off from himself and that, however, formally continues to belong to him.]! Edward Peters shows that this figure, the rex inutilis [the useless or shadow king],

was a key topic of political thought from the eighth to the fourteenth century.!° The political weakness of the rex inutilis threatens the disruption of the temporal and spiritual order of the kingdom. The power of strong kings is legitimized against this background of decay. For Agamben, the rex inutilis is one possible culmination of the logic of sovereignty, where the sovereign is separated from all governmental power; at the other extreme lies the Holocaust, which represented the most monstrous exercise of sovereign power over life. Bertrand de Jouvenel, a Catholic thinker who turned to Aquinas in the aftermath of the Holocaust to critique the ideologies that had allowed political power to decouple from morality, speaks of the ‘heureuse impuissance’ [fortunate powerlessness] of the useless sovereign,!°° who gives the political community a sense of embodied continuity and stability, but who is castrated, lacking the potential for tyranny. The Fisher King wields no constituted violence, wearing only the marks of the constitutive violence that must have founded his kingdom. Within Chrétien’s narrative, Perceval is the one knight who can fix the sword and avenge the Fisher King. His failure to do so brings terrible consequences: Dames en perdront lor mariz, Terres en seront essillieces Et puceles desconseilliees, Qui orferines remanront, Et maint chevalier en morront

(4608-12)

[Ladies will lose their husbands because of this, lands will be devastated, and young girls left in distress because they are orphaned, and many knights will die]

Thus the Fisher King’s powerlessness is not happy, as per de Jouvenel’s model, and his tale shows why medieval political actors generally refrained from attacking 104 J] Regno e la Gloria, p. 114/ The Kingdom and the Glory, trans. Mandarini and Chiesa, p. 99. 105 The Shadow King, pp. 42-4. 106 De la souveraineté, p. 253. Maritain (L'Homme et l'état), also part of the Catholic post-war back-

lash against sovereignty, idealizes the medieval political order, as one where rulers were merely vicars of a greater power.

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kings: a broken king means a broken kingdom.!°” The prospect of a weak king is terrifying in chansons de geste like Huon de Bordeaux, where Charlemagne momentarily considers allowing the election of an alternative to his useless son, Charlot (see Chapter 6 of this volume). A different cowardly son of Charles’s, Louis, accedes

to the throne in the Cowronnement de Louis, and subsequently the baron Guillaume has to fill his shoes, violently punishing wrongdoers, yet the substitution of aristo-

crat for monarch remains throughout an unsatisfactory, temporary solution.'°* The chansons de geste and chronicles examined in this book otherwise take place in a Carolingian era defined as one of strong kings, set against the backdrop of feeble Merovingian rule. Thus the thirteenth-century chronicler Philippe Mousket

describes the time of Clovis II the Lazy (639-57), when the barons of France see ‘par mésestance |Le roiaume ensi dekair’ (1523-4) [the kingdom decay through neglect]. The Carolingians become mayors of the palace, taking effective governmental power over the kingdom, whereas the Merovingians reign as puppet sovereigns, enacting the division that Agamben describes. This split is later fixed when the first Carolingian king, Pepin (751-68) deposes Childeric III (743—51):1° the

dangers of political deterioration, discontinuity and disinheritance are thus averted. In the Grandes Chroniques de France, the pope authorizes the deposition, on the grounds that the king should be the one ‘qui le royaume gouvernoit et qui avoit le souverain povoir’ (11, 42) [governs the kingdom and has sovereign power].'!° This

episode suggests that France should always have a strong king, and this legitimizing moment is recalled at the start of the book of Charlemagne (1, 59).1"!

In the era stretching from the twelfth century to the fifteenth, the tales of Charlemagne and his fellow Carolingian kings became more politically relevant as the powers of sovereigns grew. Some works plunged Charlemagne into ignominy, giving him common points with the idea of the tyrant in political theory; others rescued him from it. None suggested disempowering or replacing him. Many texts, though, argued that he should be resisted, and these form the subject of the remaining chapters of this book. They articulate means of negotiating with the sovereign, of escaping his power or of preserving one’s own ability to pursue justice and violence. The tales of resistant aristocrats like Girart de Roussillon and Renaut de Montauban, amongst others, play a role that political theory does not. There are hints at resistance in the three thinkers examined in this chapter, but none says who should provide it or what its modalities should be. Political theory concentrates on reforming princes. The question of restraints that might be placed upon them is largely tackled on a moral—rather than a practical—level. As the modalities of political thought shift from John’s critique of politics as power to Aquinas's 107 Guenée, L’Occident aux xive et xve siécles, p. 158.

108 See my “La Vengeance royale’ for a full reading of this text. *0° Agamben mentions twelfth-century chronicles where Childeric is presented as incompetent, paving the way for Carolingian rule (// Regno e la Gloria, p. 113).

‘10 Peters records disagreement in the sources about whether Pepin had papal authority when he deposed Childeric, or whether he got it afterwards (The Shadow King, p. 51). The Grandes Chroniques, arguing for the legitimacy and continuity of rule in France, opt for the former. ‘tT Both Philippe Mousket’s text and the Grandes Chroniques are explored further in Chapter 4 of this volume.

Sovereignty

By)

metaphysical model of associative political unity and to Marsilius’s legalistic paradigm for the regulating, coercive prince, sovereignty remains and grows stronger: there is no move from politics as power to republican or constitutive monarchy and resistance remains difficult. John and Marsilius discuss the unjust acquisition of power, and Aquinas argues that those who achieve power by violence are tyrants. God founded the world, and kings need only govern it: ‘gubernatur convenienter ad debitum finem perducere’ (De regno 1, 15) [to govern is to guide what is governed in a suitable fashion to its proper end (p. 39)]. But he also says that if the

creation of the city had not come first, the prince would not be able to govern: the institution of the city therefore forms part of the prince’s role. The prince, then, always uses foundational as well as conservative violence. Power inevitably seeks expansion; it is not content to remain static. Political theory, however, does not

explore this truth further, and so does not take us far in understanding revolt and resistance. Rebel baron texts—epics and chronicles—show us what the barons feared, and how they envisaged and justified their political role. The barons denounce royal rule as force without justice, critique the inevitable violence of monarchy, and open paths for the sharing of power, through their struggles against sovereignty.

2 Revolt Can a baron ever legitimately take up arms against his king? The general consensus— medieval and modern—is that the answer is no. The dominant forces in any social order remain dominant because they gather the best ideological (as well as military) resources, and as Chapter 1 of this volume demonstrated, medieval political theorists drawing on Roman law established a theory of sovereignty serving the highest authority figures: kings, emperors, and popes. Strong currents in political thought emphasized hierarchy. The body politic, a powerful and widespread concept, offered a particularly influential centralizing image: though it restricted the prince somewhat, the idea that the polity is a body also made it almost impossible to imagine productive internal conflict. ‘Just-war’ theory, fully defined in the thirteenth century, licensed only wars declared on proper (read ‘sovereign’) authority. Rebellions were not given the status of war, and thinkers like Aquinas even strengthened the justification of a prince’s right to crush rebels, who were not protected as legitimate combatants.! The idea of the ‘common good’ also transmitted repressive conceptions of collectivity relying on the sovereign’s unchallenged rule, permitting suspension of the law in emergencies such as revolts, when the king could punish wrongdoers summarily. On this model, public utility was preferred to private rights: barons defending their interests were considered amoral and apolitical even before the late thirteenth-century laws of treason condemning acts of sedition as /ése-majesté.? The principle of resistance was translated into action only tentatively, with tyrannicide briefly evoked: to suggest that the killing of a king might be permissible was dangerous.? All this left little scope for military protest against sovereigns. The modern tendency to write history from the viewpoint of kings and within national parameters, or to envisage centralization as progress, has also often led to bias. Thus accounts of Philip Augustus’s reign (1180-1223) glee-

fully depict his crushing of baronial opposition: the nobles are spoiled children or wild animals, the king the disinterested representative of society, selflessly forging a nation by taming them.* Furthermore, modern distaste for violence combines ' Russell, Zhe Just War in the Middle Ages, p. 270. * ‘The most comprehensive study of treason law is Cuttler’s (The Law of Treason). For Nederman, ae political theory lacks secular and liberal ideas of resistance (Lineages of European Political ought).

> As Condren says, tyrannicide ‘took its place at the end of a number of dangerous reactions— admonition, correction and reform, and at the point of no return, deposition’ (“The Office of Rule and the Rhetorics of Tyrannicide’, p. 52). 4 Philip Augustus brought rebellious dukes ‘to heel’ (Hallam and Everard, Capetian France, p. 216)

or ‘to book’ (Bradbury, Philip Augustus, p. 230). Baldwin sees the rebel Renaut of Boulogne as ‘inveterate’

.

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55

with the idea that revolt always aims at revolution to obscure the constructive and conservative role revolt played within the medieval political system.° For all that, revolts against kings of France and England persisted throughout the Middle Ages. In one strand of historical scholarship on England, baronial rebellion is considered a means of ‘expressing political discontent and of seeking the redress of grievances’,® or a ‘solution for political dialogue on reform’.” It was a vital tool of social control, unity, and stability. Magna Carta, the most famous of the increasingly sophisticated baronial attempts to control central administration, contained a famous clause stating the noble duty to protect peace by using force when the king failed to redress grievances about royal injustices. It proscribed harming the king’s person, but a council of twenty-five barons charged with keeping peace could organize an attack on his possessions: illi viginti quinque barones cum communa totius terre distringent et gravabunt nos modis omnibus quibus poterunt, scilicet per captionem castrorum, terrarum, possessionum, et aliis modis quibus poterunt, donec fuerit emendatum secundum arbitrium eorum, salva persona nostra et Regine nostre et liberorum nostrorum; et cum fuerit emendatum, intendent nobis sicut prius fecerunt. [those twenty-five barons, with the commune of all the land, shall distrain and distress us (i.e., the king) in all ways they can, namely by the taking of castles, lands, possessions, and in other ways as they shall be able, until it is redressed, according to their judgement, saving our person and those of our queen and our children. And when it is redressed, they shall obey us as they did before.]®

For David Carpenter, this deterrent to royal misdeeds is ‘the most sensational and revolutionary chapter’ of Magna Carta.? The twenty-five had a wide brief: not just ensuring the charter was respected, but receiving complaints from anyone about anything. They had a legal right to attack the king without defying him—they could not be accused of treason—and the oath bound all to obey them in harming the king.!° The barons subordinated their personal claims to the collective interest

(The Government ofPhilip Augustus, p. 201) or ‘unstable’ (p. 207), though he also critiques the ideology of royalist sources (pp. 355-93). The thirteenth-century chronicle by Philippe Mousket praises his decisive action against rebels (see Chapter 4 of this volume).

> I take inspiration here from Julia Kristeva, who, by tracking the historical development of the terms ‘revolt’ and ‘revolution’, shows that the two were not linked in their modern political senses until the eighteenth century. Before, both retained the sense of their Latin root volvere: to turn. In medieval thought, révolution connoted the circular movement of the planets, cycles of history, and ideas of return. Révolte evokes a movement from order to chaos but then back to the same order (Sens

et non-sens de la révolte, pp. 6-8; on Kristeva’s concept of revolt, see Sunderland, “The Art of Revolt’). The tendency to see all collective expressions of discontent as steps towards revolution owes much to Marx. Foucault therefore argues that insurrection is often confused with revolutionary aims; hence the value of uprisings as an end in themselves is lost to view (‘Inutile de se soulever?’, p. 791).

© Strickland, ‘Against the Lord’s Anointed’, p. 56. See also Carpenter, ‘Resisting and Deposing Kings in England’. 7 Valente, The Theory and Practice ofRevolt, p. 48. 8 Magna Carta, ed. Carpenter, p. 64, for both original and translation. ® Tbid., p. 31. The clause was omitted in the 1216 and 1225 versions ofthe charter (pp. 409, 424).

10 Tbid., pp. 325-31.

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and usurped the king as incarnation of the community and the public good." The broader baronial movement, inspired by the ideas about tyranny developed by John of Salisbury, amongst others, prioritized custom, collective judgement, immanent justice, and mutual obligations. The idea of a baronial ‘bridle’ on the king figures in the ‘addicio de cartis’ within De /egibus, ascribed to Bracton and written

in the 1220s and 1230s, though elsewhere in the same law code, the view that the king should be left to the judgment of God is expressed.!? In France, rebellions functioned on a more regional level, as expressions of discontent about particular injustices. A thirteenth-century legal document from the Capetian sphere—the Etablissements de Saint Louis—implies that there is scope for legitimate revolt when it states that the rebel baron’s liege men must seek an audience with the king to see if he had failed to offer their lord justice: if he had, they could join their lord in war; if not, they must refrain from violence (1, 75-7). Less frequent and successful than English rebellions, French revolts receive little coverage in modern criticism, but gradually formed a concerted programme. Arlette Jouanna’s study of the justificatory manifestos of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century French uprisings suggests that revolt was considered an obligation. Nobles rose up to defend their lineage, honour, and privileges or to conquer royal favour, but with broader political goals, too: protecting the common good or arguing for an Aristotelian mixed constitution, a concept dear to nobles across Europe because, on their reading, it

called for consensus between king and aristocracy.'3 The same principles likely drove earlier French rebels, who argued that royal sovereignty denatured their kingdoms’ traditions and statutes. Medieval revolts are often seen as merely local, spontaneous outbursts of anger, and as failures because they did not lead to revolution.!* Yet they were widespread, principled, and planned, and need to be differentiated from seditious attempts to topple regimes and rulers. The nobles, highly placed individuals, were naturally invested in hierarchy, and thus aimed at reform of the political order guaranteed by the king, assuming that the king could eventually be corrected without troubling his rule or the structures authorized by it,

including that of hereditary nobility, which licensed the barons’ own position. Restraint also came from the desire to maintain long-term opposition to the king; if barons went too far, the king might crush them.!? Once their parameters are borne in mind—they were corrective mechanisms—medieval revolts appear much more successful. I will argue that the chansons de geste provide a literary space for thinking through the difficult yet vital task of revolt, and that they thus provide a rival discourse to medieval political theory: against the latter’s moral imperative to know your place, '! Bisson, The Crisis of the Twelfth Century, p. 517. 2 See Nederman, “The Royal Will and the Baronial Bridle’. "9 Le Devoir de révolte. Medieval France lacks a systematic study of baronial revolt like Jouanna’s for early modern France, or Valente’s for medieval England (though see Brown, ‘Reform and Resistance’;

Contamine, La Noblesse au royaume de France). '4 See Cohn, Lust for Liberty, for a critique of these positions about medieval popular revolt (p. 1). 'S Strickland (‘Against the Lord’s Anointed’) and Carpenter (Resisting and Deposing Kings in

England’) note awareness of the fact that kings were likely to win any confrontation.

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57

they assert a moral imperative to rebel. In this, I go against teleological accounts of rising royal power, and against William Calin’s view of the chanson de geste as ‘an early form of Bildungsroman’, where the feisty baron gradually learns his place.!® The epics crackle with tension between barons and the king. Rebel heroes are more numerous and popular than loyal ones. Even the ultimate company man, Roland, is exiled after disobeying Charlemagne.’” Intimately connected to political realities, narratives about rebel barons such as Renaut de Montauban and Ogier le Danois also transcended their original circumstances of composition as manuscripts spread across Europe, copies belonging not only to nobles reacting against English and French royal power but also to Italian and other princes protecting their territories against incursions. The appeal of the genre can arguably be explained by its opposition to dominant political discourses and to the movements of kingdom and empire building. Calin concluded that, in the epics, ‘revolution is never allowed to succeed’.'® My argument in this chapter is that this represents a misunderstanding of the aims of baronial revolt. The rebel baron chansons de geste teach the nobles not just to rebel, but how to rebel: they argue that particular types of rebellious action, under specific circumstances, do not equal treason. Though they are invested in hierarchy and monarchy, the epics share with political theorists the view of royal courts as places of intrigue, betrayal, scandal and the fear that untrammelled royal powers will inevitably become tyranny. They think that political power will always need a moral corrective. However, rather than ethical and legal learning, it is violent aristocratic opposition that will provide this fail-safe mechanism. As well as setting out modes of rebellion, the chansons de geste examine ways in which compromises and settlements can be reached, via rites of gift-giving and mercy. They envisage politics as a movement between opposition and reconciliation, rather than in terms of rigid structures of hierarchical differentiation. My first focus is the reign of Philip Augustus, famous for his tough dealings with the aristocracy, including harsh punishment of rebels. Rebellion must have seemed impossible in this climate; hence the importance of literature as a safe space in which to argue for its role in rebalancing power relationships, and to

imagine various ways into and out of the position of revolt.'? In Les Saisnes (1180-1202),”° new royal demands verge on the tyrannical, before rituals of revolt allow for their limitation and normalization, whereas in Gui de Bourgogne (1200-25), a young generation of knights seeking incorporation into the barony asserts itself through aggressive gift-giving. In Girart de Vienne (c.1180), on the 6 Calin, The Old French Epic ofRevolt, p. 227. Calin sees Raoul de Cambrai as the masterpiece of the genre. The hero, radically opposed to all forms of authority, causes unfettered destruction. Raoul has captured the attention of many modern critics, skewing their view of revolt. As I argue in Chapter 5 of this volume, the text is principally about feud between two noble houses, with the king only briefly the target of violence. 17 In L’Entrée d’Espagne, on which see Chapter 6 of this volume. 18 The Old French Epic of Revolt, p. 227. Kaeuper (Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe and War, Justice and Public Order) and Bloch (Medieval French Literature and Law) also offer decidedly

conservative views of the corpus. 19 Van Emden (‘Kingship’) saw the rebel baron epics as relevant to this period in particular.

20 See the Appendix for the provenance of dates.

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other hand, royal recognition of young knights is again the problem, but a different way out is imagined, through a fantasy of royal mercy. With Gaydon (c.1230-4), my argument shows how the appeal of the rebel barons theme stretched into the reign of Louis IX (1226-70), when revolt was increasingly difficult to justify and carry out. By distinguishing rebels from traitors, who can be equated with the ‘wicked advisers’ often used to justify historical revolts, Gaydon opens a space for legitimate revolt, for uprisings that do not constitute treason. I then turn to Hugues Capet (c.1360), composed in a troublesome period for the new Valois dynasty. The text responds to crisis by carefully circumscribing revolt. The last Carolingian king dies, and the hero Hugues rebels against aristocrats who are cast as traitors, to seize power and become king within a refreshed social order incorporating the lower classes. And in my final section, I return to the period of Philip Augustus to

examine two texts—Renaut de Montauban and the Chevalerie d’Ogier (both late twelfth century) —which encapsulate the longevity and power of the ritual element of baronial revolt, its ability to transcend particular political circumstances and to capture the spirit of all opposition to unfair rule. Both remained popular into the early modern period, spreading beyond France, in different formats, including those aimed at broader, non-noble publics. In both, the king, fiercely punitive, is repeatedly mocked, unseated, and frustrated in attempts to assert his power by Renaut and Ogier, who by rebelling become heroes of the people.

LESSAISNESATAXATI ONS ERVAGE REL OAS OreREV Orr

SAND

The reign of Philip Augustus is classically understood as a great period of French monarchical expansion,”! In the 1180s, Philip intervened in Burgundy, widening the remit of royal justice, and fought Flemish forces, making some gains in the Vermandois. Aiming to reclaim territories within what he saw as his kingdom, he fought the English kings Henry II (1154-89) and then Richard (1189-99), capturing

back some land in the 1190s, before winning decisively against John (1199-1216) in a 1203-4 invasion of Normandy. By 1206, the territories of the Angevin empire had been reclaimed by France, save Gascony and Poitou. In 1213, Philip asserted his power over Auvergne, and also got hold of the remaining Vermandois holdings through succession. Boulogne and Flanders, however, continued to resist French power. Count Renaut of Boulogne frequently sided with English kings against Philip, and he became the main catalyst in a coalition against the king with John

of England, and Ferrand of Flanders, as well as the Holy Roman Emperor. All were defeated in a spectacular victory at Bouvines in 1214 that confirmed Philip’s gains against his English rival. Renaut and Ferrand, Philip’s two main baronial opponents, were imprisoned. These great military victories went alongside an increase in royal power through the definition and enforcement of religious and legal rights *! I draw principally on the accounts by Baldwin, The Government ofPhilip Augustus, and Bradbury, Philip Augustus.

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throughout the realm. A superior administrative and financial apparatus allowed

Philip to tax and subordinate the aristocracy. He influenced the succession of noble titles, and the first evidence of great lords paying inheritance dues comes from his reign.** The great offices filled by magnates were either diminished, or not replaced, as new men, bureaucrats, began to dominate the royal court. Les Saisnes focuses on Charlemagne’s wars on the eastern frontier of Christendom, versus the Saxons (in the chronicle tradition, these wars are his other great achievements, alongside the invasion of Spain; see Chapter 4 of this volume). The ques-

tions it poses about services due and taxes payable by the king’s barons, especially in regions of the east, would have been acutely relevant. The four manuscripts of Les Saisnes date to the thirteenth and fourteenth century. Paris, Bibliothéque de lArsenal, 3142 was possibly made for Marie of Brabant, wife of Philip III of France (1270-85); it also contains Adenet le Roi’s version of the Enfances Ogier, amongst other texts. Paris, Bibliothéque nationale, fr. 368 belonged to Charles of Orléans, whereas Turin, Biblioteca nazionale universitaria, L.V.44 was owned by the dukes of Savoy.*? Les Saisnes thus had a widespread noble readership. The text opens with a narratorial statement in favour of French monarchy: La corone de France doit estre mise avant, Qar tuit autre roi doivent estre a lui apandant De la loi crestiene, qi an Deu sont creant.

Le premier roi de France fist Dex par son commant

Coroner a ses angles dignemant an chantant, Puis le commanda estre en terre son sergent, Tenir droite justise et la loi metre avant.

(12=13)24

[The crown of France should be glorified, because all other Christian kings, who

believe in God, should be subordinate to it. God ordered that the first king of France be crowned in a dignified way by his singing angels, and then ordered him to be his servant on Earth, to protect rightful justice, and to spread the Christian faith.]

Giving a brief history of the Merovingians and Carolingians at the start, the text concludes with a description of Charles's worldwide power and appeal: “Dotez fu et cremuz jusq’en Inde major, |Grant treii li randoient sudant et aumagor’ (7822-3) [he was feared and dreaded from here to greater India, sultans and emirs paid him great tributes]. As in many epics, Charlemagne is referred to as emperor. But what is at stake in this? In many texts, Charlemagne seems to assume this gives him absolute and ubiquitous power. All Christians are subject to his unquestionable rule, and all non-Christians should be converted and made subjects too. There is no higher earthly power. But at times, and particularly in the eyes of those characters who resist him, his power is more local and contingent. He is a king of the Franks who rules through cooperation with the Frankish baronial community. Indeed Les Saisnes is set in a moment of weakness for Charles. The Saxon King Guiteclin hears of the loss of great barons in the disaster of Roncevaux, and plans

22 Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals, p. 299. 24 All quotations from the LTversion.

23 Brasseur, ‘Les Manuscrits de la Chanson des Saisnes’.

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Rebel Barons

to profit by conquering France. Charles orders a military response, but his tired barons advise settling: a contrast immediately opens between Charles's global power and his difficulty in maintaining support at home, especially as inequalities in his treatment of different groups are behind this reluctance. Beuves complains to the pope about new demands: ‘grant tort nos fait cist rois: |Servise et chevauchie nos reqiert tantes fois’ (401-2) [this king is doing us a great wrong: he asks us for service and tribute so often]. He claims that the Herupois have an advantage, because Charles never gets tribute from them, threatening: ‘S’il ne met a Herupe no costume et noz drois; |Nos forces, nos aies li metons an defois’ (413-14) [unless

he submits the Herupois to our customs and our laws, we will withdraw our forces and our help]. Naymes is dismayed: ‘poi aime son seignor... qui par fause achoison de lui servir se part’ (426-7) [he who leaves his lord’s service for a false reason loves him little], but his comments implicitly suggest that there might feasibly be good cause to do so. The king’s messenger, however, presents the new demand as an

established one when he goes to the Herupois: ‘or vos a dou chevage la costume reqise’ (548) [now he asks you for the customary tribute]. The Herupois see this imposition as an ‘outrage’ (601) [outrage], as there is no precedent for it, precisely no ‘costume’. Says their leader: ‘de moi ne fu randuz ne de tot mon lignage’ (608)

[this was never paid by me nor by any of my lineage]. As Sarah Kay says, innovation figures as tyranny here.?? Indeed, as with many historical revolts, the driver is the defence of established rights and privileges. Revolt is not a chaotic but rather a principled act. It is announced that ‘vers son lige seignor ne doit nulls faire outrage’ (868) [no one should cause injury to his liege lord]. ‘Faire outrage’ also contains

the ideas of acting excessively, beyond normal limits, and of acting presumptuously or with temerity, here binding several types of wrongness to the concept of rebellion.*° But the king’s new demands are illegitimate by their very novelty, and the attachment to current privileges needs to be balanced against the requirement for coalitions in the task of holy war. Charles is stuck: his other barons will not tolerate the Herupois getting away with paying no tribute, and the Herupois refuse to contemplate its imposition. Should royal government treat all groups equally, or protect the established rights of particular collectives? Here, whether Charles does one or the other, unrest will occur, because the separate private goods in play will never tessellate; the common good remains a chimera. Fourteen kings defy Charles and retract their homage. The eventual solution is for Charles to display humility, going barefoot in wool clothing to the Herupois; this inspires them to ask for ‘mercis’ (1024) [mercy] and to bring him a cash tribute. The king’s vulnerability

demonstrates the interdependence between barons and their lord, ending the appearance of tyranny by making royal requests more reasonable. Thus the question of imperial coalitions in Les Saisnes would have been relevant to those barons weighing up the rightfulness of the king’s new domestic demands. The path from rebellion to the demonstration of royal humility in Les Saisnes

can be understood via anthropologist Max Gluckman’s study of revolt in African 25 The ‘Chansons de geste’, p. 125. °° Godefroy, Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue francaise, v, 667.

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kingdoms. Gluckman argued that rebellion formed ‘an ever-present, persistent, repetitive process influencing day-to-day political relations’.?” Discontent is structural, and so are responses to it, as social contradiction is contained within the

framework of ritual. Rebellion takes ritual form in Swazi ceremonies where the king must race his subjects to get the first fruits, where he must go naked, and where he dresses as a wild monster, subjected to hatred of the tribe. In Les Saisnes, too, revolt appears ritualistic when the king has to compete with his subordinates. The young knights Baudouin and Berart jostle with Charles, daring one another to cross the river on horseback, to the Saxons on the other side. Baudouin tells Charles that he would be powerlessness without his knights (3087-148). Charles challenges Baudouin to bring back a ring from the Saxon Queen Sebile; if he cannot, he will be disinherited. Baudouin grumbles that Charles is exiling him from France (3827) and curses Charles for his love of ‘losangier’ (3924) [slanderers]: ‘par ton forfeit fu morz Rollanz et Olivier’ (3926) [through your error Roland and Oliver died]. The disaster of Roncevaux is here attributed to an error on Charles's part, the

culmination of moral and political failings he displays during other wars (the same idea figures in many of the chronicles studied in Chapter 4 of this volume). Rebellion takes the form of reminding the king of his own failures. When Baudouin goes back across the river in disguise, Charles attacks him, but then he reveals his identity. The ritual thus involves withdrawing and then re-granting allegiance, thus denaturalizing royal power, revealing relationships of domination that can be renegotiated. As in Gluckman’s examples, these actings out of the tensions of collective life stage the exteriority of the king, who is an outsider trying to impose his will on society. The rebel merely reflects the king’s outsider status. In Les Saisnes, such demonstrations of exteriority precede renewed incorporations. During the war, the idea that Charles might be killed provokes horror: France would have been destroyed after his death (3361-79). The king, it seems, exists for the king-

dom rather than vice versa. Discord is thus repressed—in order to form a Christian alliance—but rises back up when the Lombards also feel disrespected and leave the army along with Bavarians, Germans, and Burgundians. After intervention by Naymes, they return and bow before Charles. Victory against the Saxons is even-

tually achieved, but tensions between barons and their king will, it seems, never be far away. Revolt appears, then, as part of the long process of balancing the statuses of different social groups. The ideal king of Les Saisnes would be less a sovereign than a careful negotiator, humbly and gratefully gathering the support needed for crusade. The barons’ revolt serves to remind him of his status as public servant. He is eventually reincorporated, but not completely on his own terms. Royal power expands until it meets noble resistance. The ritual revolt of withholding, and then granting, approval for his demands for tax and service serves to limit his power, demonstrating that he cannot always and automatically get what he wants,

27 Order and Rebellion, p. 36. Gluckman dialogues with medieval historians Marc Bloch and Fritz Kern, accusing the former of missing the ongoing stability found beneath the appearance of chaos, and the latter of not relating rebellion to the medieval economic and political system.

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Rebel Barons

even in the context of holy war. It is easy to see how the text would have appealed to barons resisting the demands of kings.

GUI DE BOURGOGNE: FATHERS, AND RECOGNITION

SONS,

As in Les Saisnes, the king in Gui de Bourgogne cannot carry out his divine mandate without the barons because he depends on their violence as a means to the end of crusade. Gui also examines the misfit between Charlemagne’s global role as Christian emperor and his domestic responsibilities, but imagines a quite different form of rebellion in response. A newly elected king of France becomes an unwelcome double to Charlemagne, signalling the latter’s inadequacy, before a symbiosis is reached. The complete text figures in two manuscripts, both thirteenth-century, one of which—London, British Library, Harley 527—displays Anglo-Norman linguistic elements and combines Gui with the insular romance Horn, amongst other texts,?® suggesting that the work had appeal in early thirteenth-century England, where barons were of course rebelling against the king. During Charles's absence on the 27-year-long war in Spain, the young knights grow up and need a sovereign; this demonstrates, once again, the strong attachment of the aristocracy to the monarchy that ratifies their position. A power vacuum is unacceptable. Thus Bertrand suggests: Car faisons roi en France...

A qui nos clamerons du bien et du mel, Et de qui nos tandrons totes nos heritez

(201-3)

[We should make a king in France, to whom we will report the good and the bad, and from whom we will hold all our lands}

Without a king, it seems, there is no one for the barons to take their complaints to, and landholding cannot be legitimated. Thus the king provides services for the barony, and they feel entitled to ‘make’ their own king ‘in’ France, during the absence of the ‘king of France’ on imperial business in Spain. Charles seems to have forgotten the community he is meant to represent; this likely matches the feelings of barons under Philip Augustus, as they were increasingly isolated from the royal court as it filled with technocrats. Again revolt is principled, undertaken

with an ideal king in mind. Gui, a kinsman of the king, is a safe choice: Charles will not kill him when he finds out. No opposition between electoral and hereditary legitimacy pertains here, as the two systems are combined to find the perfect new ruler.*? Gui’ election nonetheless constitutes a rebellious act: the young barons know that it will displease Charles, the hereditary monarch, and it arguably *8 Hunt, ‘Materials for an Edition of Gui de Bourgogne’, p. 107. * As Guenée (L’Occident aux xive et xve siécles, pp. 134-5) explains, electoral and hereditary legitimacy were not always opposed in the Middle Ages, with attempts to distinguish them more common from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. See also Chapter 1 of this volume on electoral monarchy in political theory, and the reading of Hugues Capet here.

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serves to criticize him, though, like all epic rebels, they carefully declare their respect for his rights: ‘nos ne volons mie Karlon deseriter’ (225) [we do not wish to disinherit Charles]. On the way to Spain, Gui meets a pilgrim whom he tells: ‘rois sui de douce France, de Paris la cité (331) [I am the king of sweet France, from the

city of Paris]; the pilgrim replies ‘vos n’estes mie Karle le fort roi queroné (333) [you are not Charles the strong crowned king], reporting the emperor's sorry physical state and the hunger of his men. Power is too greatly concentrated, and the king cannot succeed in all his duties at once. Crusade has strained social ties, and fatigue amongst the older knights causes low morale, as complaints by Ogier about the length of the Spanish campaign demonstrate. Ogier has had to sleep with his hauberk on, yet Charles gets the glory: On dit que Karlemaines conquiert tous les reniez; Non fait, par Saint Denis! vaillant .1111. deniers, Ains les conquiert Rollans et li cuens Oliviers, Et Naimes a la barbe, et je qui sui Ogiers.

(37-40)

[People say that Charlemagne conquers all the kingdoms; he conquers not even the worth of four coins, by Saint Denis! It is rather Roland who conquers them, and count Oliver, and Naymes with the beard and me, Ogier.]

Ogier places the emphasis on the barons enacting the violence. The king leading them is just a military figurehead, and Ogier threatens to take the king prisoner, hinting at rebellion on his own part. However, revolt takes the form of the arrival of the young barons as the unwelcome supplement to the strained older order. Bertrand and Berard each meet their fathers, who, because of the long separation, do not recognize them; the sons repress emotions and insult their elders. When Estous reveals that he is Gui’s man, his father Oedes cries: Je le tien 4 bricon, Quant il corone a prise deseur le roi Karlon;

Il en pendra encore 4 grant destruccion.

(880-2)

[I consider him an idiot, because he has taken the crown from King Charles; he will

yet be hanged, with terrible destruction. ]

This exemplifies the anti-revolt assumptions of the establishment: punishment is inevitable. Revolt here takes the form of intergenerational conflict, a phenomenon which Gluckman’s work can again illuminate: writing on the Zulus, he suggested that the movement of men through the grades contributed to the regularity of rebellions, which tended to occur approximately every fifteen years. A growing number of younger men find their routes to power blocked by elders, until revolt breaks out.%° A similar drive to incorporate new talents as correctives to the corrupt existing order shapes the young/old conflict in Gui. As Leslie Brook argues, other chansons have intergenerational conflict, but Gui is unique in mixing hostility and 30 Order and Rebellion, p. 38. Grisward (‘Le Théme de la révolte’) notes the frequency of the father/ son pattern of revolt.

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cooperation.3! Jean-Claude Vallecalle sees it as a mask for the clash between two models of royalty.32 Indeed the presence of a new king creates a logical scandal: there is a process of doubling, deforming the body politic that should only have one head. The mock king symbolizes the inadequacy of the real one and provides the means of expressing hostility towards him. Charles cannot fulfil the roles of

both emperor and king of France. Thus Naymes asks who has taken Charles's kingdom, before Bertrand presents to Charles, as emperor, a gift of 10,000 laden

mules from the ‘roi de France’ (956) [king of France]. Medievalists have long recognized the ambiguity of the gift, its potential to be socially disordering and

destructive as well as socially ordering and constructive. For Kay, the threat of violence is ever-present in gift economies; giving a gift marks continuity of interest with the recipient, but also separation.*? Andrew Cowell takes this dimension further by discussing how gift-giving and violent taking are imbricated as part of ‘the fierce competition between individuals in medieval society to establish social prestige and power through giving’ ,>4whereas Philippe Haugeard argues that gifts mystified power relationships, working as a political tool of domination.** Giving

generously was vital to attracting and retaining followers, and thus gift-giving worked as a veiled assertion of power: the beneficiary in the material sphere was the loser on a symbolic level. The giver demonstrates his generosity and subordinates the needy receiver. Accepting the gift entails accepting the giver’s self-image as the generous donor, and thus constructing yourself as the beneficiary. The gift is related to revolt because it can trouble hierarchies as well as re-establish them. In Gui, the gift of support represents usurpation: it paints the hero as the new king of France, knocking Charles off his perch. Hence Charles’s shock: ‘diva, a il en France autre roi se moi non?’ (965) [gosh, is there a king in France other than

me?]. Indeed Bertrand states that the young knights do not recognize Charles, and hold their properties from Gui: ‘nunkes en nostre tans ni ot rei si lui non’ (968) [there was never in our time a king other than him]. The use of ‘tans’ high-

lights the intergenerational rivalry and positions Charles as an outmoded functionary. This is the era of the young. Bertrand also tells Charles that all the women in Paris, angered by their husbands’ absence, want to beat him. Charles wishes to execute the usurper, but Bertrand defends Gui: he has refused to hold a castle or city or to take rent, instead unselfishly helping Charles’ battle-worn troops. Gui appears as the model king. Humbled, Charles lowers his head and accepts his new ally. But Charles's barons are divided along geste lines: the traitors, under Ganelon, refuse positive reform and want Gui’s messengers killed, whereas Roland, Oliver,

and Naymes see them as good children from France. The grateful army eat and drink, all counting their blessings that Gui was crowned. This moment of plenty and reconciliation can be understood as repairing Ogier’s initial frustration at the king’s failure to appreciate his men; now new support is welcomed in a crusading a pan 32 34 35

‘Lignage et renouveau dans Gui de Bourgogne’, pp. 186-7. ‘Parenté et souveraineté dans Gui de Bourgogne’. 33° The ‘Chansons de geste’, p. 42. Cowell, The Medieval Warrior Aristocracy, p. 9. Haugeard, Ruses médiévales de la générosité.

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army of all the talents.3° The rebellion, then, arguably achieves its aims: Charles

accepts gifts and assistance, binding himself to the community of knights even as he remains their leader. Gui, addressing his men, articulates a hierarchy where he is second to Charles:

Seignor...4 moi en entandés: Apres Jhesu de gloire, qui en crois fu penés, Et aprés Karlemaine, le fort roi coroné,

Sui ge vos liges sires, si vos ai 4 garder, Et je vos conduirai, se Diex I’a destiné;

Je ferai la bataille por nos tous delivrer.

(2180-5)

[Lords, listen to me: after glorious Jesus who suffered on the cross, and after Charlemagne, the strong crowned king, I am your liege lord, and I have to protect you, and I will lead you, if God decides so; I will fight to deliver us all.] Charles has supreme earthly power, after Jesus; Gui sits just below him, as leader

and protector of the young Frankish barons. Absolute monarchy is portrayed as a bad idea: Charles needs good subordinates, but powerful barons will never accept complete submission. He is the emperor but cannot be the empire. Instead, the new order finds its place within the old, as a supplement that completes it and simultaneously points to its inadequacy. The new generation feel unappreciated, but gifts then signal their value. The youngsters quickly outdo Charles’s men, taking the town of Carsaude, which has resisted for years, before ignoring Charles's request for help at Luiserne, instead capturing Montorgueil. Rivalry remains, but it is made healthy: the parallel Christian armies gain strength through competition. Thus Gui offers a model of peaceful revolt, where the violence is directed outside, at a common enemy. The war won, Charles declares that Gui will be king of Spain, whereas Roland will have France. He then leaves on pilgrimage, and the

expanded army now finally captures Luiserne. Antagonism is not so much resolved as displaced, however: Roland and Gui fight over who will hand the city over to Charles. Charles prays for an end to their quarrel; the city duly disappears into an abyss. Everyone faces east, and they head to Roncevaux to face their destiny. This final image of togetherness, possible after revolt provokes reform, aims at the greater goals of holy war. As in Les Saisnes, tensions within the Christian camp keep flaring up, but here they power the achievement of collective goals.>” The

solution is the demonstration that Charles needs his men, and that careful royal management and periodic rearrangements of political hierarchies are necessary, lest the social fabric tear.

36 The idea that violent uprisings produce social and political renewal figures most strikingly in the poems of Bertran de Born. See Sunderland, “The Art of Revolt’. 37 Tn the texts studied in Chapter 3 of this volume, the project of creating a united Christian Europe reveals its tyrannical dimension when it threatens the freedoms of Christian barons, whereas in Chapter 6 of this volume its utopian side is explored, with crusade providing the exit from domestic struggles.

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GIRART DE VIENNE:

MERCY

Girart de Vienne is also a drama of incorporation: royal failures in the doling out of rewards to young noble servants of the crown leads to their revolt, before the magic solution of royal mercy allows for compromise even as the king asserts his sovereignty. Girart survives in five complete manuscripts from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, two of which make it part of a large narrative entity—the Guillaume Cycle—and two part of the smaller Narbonnais Cycle. It apparently had a largely French readership, with manuscripts locatable to northern and eastern regions,?® whereas Girart de Roussillon and Aspremont—based on the same material but with a different political spin—were read on the fringes of Occitania, England, and Italy (see Chapter 3 of this volume on both texts). Girart de Vienne’s

revolt is thus surrounded by texts where loyal barons are either left to fend for themselves against Saracen invasions or ill-rewarded for their service to the king. There is a complex movement between subordination and insurrection at the start of the text. Though noble, the family of the hero, Girart, has been impoverished by Saracen raids. Seeking integration into Carolingian power structure, Girart and his brother, Renier, arrive badly dressed at court and are dismissed as poor strangers. Frustrated, Renier attacks the seneschal, using violence to signal his noble standing, before aggressively proffering the ‘gift’ of his service to Charles, who refuses, proposing monetary recompense instead.*? Renier furiously rejects this, claiming that he is no ‘marcheant’ (695) [merchant]. Being economically

motivated would clearly be humiliating, and Renier’s anger signals his refusal of inferior status. He desires the social mobility that will come through performance, not reduction to buying and selling. The barons, better talent-spotters than the king, side with the brothers, and Charles agrees to knight them. When they kneel before him, it seems that insubordination and anger are now unnecessary, and Renier redirects his violence, serving the king by clearing the surrounding lands of brigands. Though he is named royal counsellor, he and Girart are enraged when they hear that their other brothers have been given rich lands. There is a new protest. Thus Renier aggressively positions himself as someone serving the king, asserts his own image, and then demands a fitting reward. Accusations are flung about: the king thinks Renier planned to conquer the kingdom, whereas Renier reproaches the king for treating him like a slave. Renier’s initial offer of service has disturbed the complacent hierarchy of the court, and

the king’s botched attempt at gift-giving has exacerbated the problem: he first offers Renier the wrong kind of gift (money), and now gives out the right kind of gift (land) to the wrong person (someone other than Renier). Each man thinks

the other has failed to recognize his status. The idiom of the gift, in Girart de Vienne, is that of honour and conflict; it will not realize its potential to create solidarity until the very end of the narrative. 38 See Bennett, Carnaval héroique et écriture cyclique, p. 320. * For more on gifts in Girart de Vienne, see the reading by Cowell, The Medieval Warrior Aristocracy, pp. 15-16.

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Charles agrees that Renier helped him, but complains ‘son servise m’a hui vendu molt chier’ (1135) [today he has sold his service to me at a high price], declaring ‘mes or me veil envers lui apaier’ (1137) [now I want to pay him back]. He resents

Renier’s strong bargaining position. As I argue in Chapter 5 of this volume, financial metaphors work in complex ways: it seems that Charles has already unwillingly ‘bought’ the service of Renier, yet now he intends to ‘pay’ for it. What appears vital is that metaphors not be literalized: money must not change hands between highstatus individuals. Payment must take other forms. It also seems that protest is as much a part of getting reward as service. The timid knight will not get recognition. In fact, any good servant of the king is inherently rebellious as the qualities that make a good knight are incompatible with submission. Renier’s negotiating skills take the form of violent protests, which signal that he has precisely those attributes that make him worth retaining. When Renier is unhappy, his violence causes damage in the royal court, but this displays his great potential as a royal servant, potential that will be realized if he redirects his energies outward, at common enemies.

Eventually, Renier receives Geneva, whereas Girart gets the land of the recently deceased duke of Burgundy, as well as the hand of his widow. But, upon seeing the duchess, the king claims her for himself. She pleads with Girart to marry her first, but he refuses to shame his lord, complaining: ... Sire rois droiturier, Grant tort me faites, a celer ne vos quier,

Car ceste dame me donates l’autrier, Tote sa terre et sannor a baillier;

Mon seigneur estes, ne vos puis jostissier.

(1430-4)

[My rightful lord king, you are doing me a great wrong, and I do not intend to hide it from you, because you gave me this woman the other day, with all her lands and possessions to control; you are my lord and I cannot punish you.]

Girart frames his protest carefully here. General acknowledgement of the king’s rightful rule precedes an accusation of a particular wrong. Gifts had already proven the source of tension, but now the king’s deceitful attempt to retract the gift he made troubles the hierarchical relationships and naturalization of power that the entire political structure depends on: a large part of the aristocracy will now question their position subordinate to the king. Girart underscores his own helplessness—the term ‘jostissier’ carries the meanings of ‘to discipline’, ‘to bring to justice’, and ‘to distrain—but thereby implies that he might be forced to go beyond normal measures. Charles nonetheless marries the duchess, giving Girart the territory of Vienne as compensation, despite hints that it was already a family holding of Girart’s.4° Girart accepts as gift something that was already his, an act of humility and submission that repairs the king’s wrong.*! 40 The status of the land is ambiguous in the text; see Subrenat, “Vienne: fief ou alleu?’ Chapter 3 of this volume examines two other versions of the Girart narrative—Aspremont and Girart de Roussillon—concerned with the defence of independent landholdings from royal incursions. 41 This corresponds to common practice: land was both inherited from ancestors and a gift received from one’s lord (White, “The Politics of Exchange’, p. 181).

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Yet the queen—the ‘gift’ Girart gave to Charles—is unwilling to act as a mere exchange object, and when Girart goes to the king’s bedroom to kiss his foot in homage, the queen pushes her foot forward in its place, and Girart kisses it. This

offensive act comes to light later when the queen boasts about it. Girart and his men prepare to confront the king, intending to demand punishment, but at the same moment, the king’s messengers suddenly accuse Girart of failing to perform service for Vienne. Girart has apparently underestimated the extent to which the royal gift of land constrains and obliges him; it comes with strings attached, with automatic demands for subordination and service.4? Thus Girart suddenly finds himself in default: by doing nothing, he becomes a rebellious baron. Two issues combine in a process Wolfgang van Emden termed the ‘cocktail-shaker technique’, encapsulating the way causality is difficult to track in epics.*? A visit to the royal court exacerbates rather than resolves the matter, and revolt begins. Girart de Vienne exemplifies the restraint that rebel barons showed.*4 When the impetuous Renier suggests murdering Charles, the idea is immediately dismissed: ‘Frere’, dit Mile, ‘ore avez mal parle:

Deus si comende, le roi de majesté, Que l’en ne die orgueil ne foleté. Preudom est Charles, ce savons de verté, N’a meillor roi en la crestienté; S’il estoit morz, par la foi que doi Dé, Molt remendroit France en grant offenté. Qui de Borgongne l’avroit desherité, Moi est avis, assez avroit grevé. D’aler en France sanbleroit foleté,

Car trop est la gent fiere.’ (2454-64) [‘Brother’, says Milon, ‘now you have spoken wrongly: God, the majestic king, tells us to avoid saying prideful and foolish things. We know for sure that Charles is a nobleman, and there is no greater king in Christendom; if he died, by the faith I owe

God, France would suffer great shame. To my mind, whoever took Burgundy would have harmed the king enough. Attacking France would be a foolish act, because the people there are too fierce.’]

Milon expresses ideological investment in France and Christendom, and in notions of the common good, as well as religious, military, and practical considerations. He offers no critique of institutions or even persons. The rebellion will not be led by enemies of the crown, but by its most loyal supporters. Milon’s speech meets with no objection, suggesting that he has successfully weighed right against wrong. The text thus raises the possibility that revolt might be treasonous only to brush it aside, containing and nullifying political or ethical counter-arguments to its prorevolt message. The rebels choose what seems the morally right path: seizure of the city of Macon in Burgundy constitutes, in Milon’s eyes, legitimate punishment of ® Poly and Bournazel, La mutation féodale, p. 130.

3 “The “Cocktail-Shaker” Technique’.

44 Doon de Maience (c.1250-1300; edition, p. vi) also contains the idea that it is wrong to hurt one’s lord excessively (6716).

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69

the king. The moral limitations on revolt also appear first when Girart is advised against striking the queen, and secondly when he nearly kills the king whom he fails to recognize, he prostrates himself, asking for mercy (4409-48). The rebellion,

then, always takes place with eventual reconciliation in view. Thus Oliver advises Girart to renounce ransom for a prisoner because: ‘plus gent plez en avrez’ (3747) [you will find it easier to make peace]. Cautious revolt leaves open the possibility of a new order uniting the same barons under the same king. Girart de Vienne, then, explores embroiled circumstances, thus showing the difficulties in applying just-war theory to conflicts in gift economies. Chapter 1 of this volume outlined the three conditions generally accepted for just wars: rightful authority, just cause, and good intent. Here, both sides arguably have just cause because both are defending their rights and honour. The rebels fight the war with good intent, as already shown: they aim for peace. But Charles focuses only on the authority dimension, assuming that only he has the right to order wars. He refuses to see any justness to Girart’s revolt, instead laying siege to Vienne. He wants Girart to kneel before him, barefoot, in a wool shirt, wearing the saddle of a poor horse on his neck. This would be absolute and public submission. But Oliver warns him: Cé ihett ja, certes, site...

Car trop est fier dant Girart le guerrier, Et de puissant lingnaje.

(4032-4)

(‘That will never happen, surely, my lord, for Girart the warrior is too proud, and of a powerful lineage.]

The statement implies that the social pact can only be reaffirmed if the baron’s status is recognized alongside that of the sovereign. The king’s power has gone beyond the limits that ordinarily make it palatable. He will need to make reparations in order to naturalize his power once more, and to avoid flattening the social order beneath him such that the barons, on whom he depends, appear as mere subjects. A king can never appear to compromise, so how to resolve conflict whilst retaining the upper hand? John of Salisbury thought that kings could avoid becoming tyrants by showing mercy: ‘lex clementiae semper est in lingua eius. Et sic clementiam temperat rigore iustitiae quod lingua eius iudicium loquitur [the law of mercy is always to be upon his [the king’s] tongue; and this mercy will temper the vigour of justice, though his tongue will pronounce justice].4* Mercy, seen here as a way to repair the social fabric, has attracted much theoretical and historical work. In Giorgio Agamben’s terms, the power to spare a subject corresponds to the power to kill him; sovereign power must be thought in terms of potentiality, and thus power over life would be exercised even when the sovereign decides not to kill.4° Geoffrey Koziol’s study of begging pardon in early medieval France highlights the gestures of humiliation and supplication involved. Grovelling and prostration assimilated earthly rule to eternal archetype.*” Sparing a subject rather 45 Policraticus, iv, 8; Policraticus, trans. Nederman, p. 52. 46 Homo sacer, pp. 46-56/Homo sacer, trans. Heller-Roazen, pp. 39-48. 47 Begging Pardon and Favor, p. 12.

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Rebel Barons

than killing him manifests a better, more godlike form of royal power. Jacques Derrida, on the other hand, describes mercy as a truly gracious sovereign prerogative, stemming from no constraint or obligation and rising above the logic of sanction or transaction, as a form of ‘pouvoir au-dessus du pouvoir’ [power above power].48 Mercy is the greatest possible gift because it is aneconomic; by definition it cannot be returned. In medieval practice there was indeed, alongside an implicitly recognized right to rebel, a tendency to mercy, partly due to the ill-defined rights of kings and barons, which made it difficult to gather support against rebellions, and partly due to the difficulty in taking rebel strongholds. Negotiation and limited punishment were therefore the norm, in recognition of the king’s need for the barons.

Forgiveness also had a practical value. Rebels would have lands confiscated before being offered their return: as Simon Cuttler describes, ‘the one thing more than any other that was likely to render a disaffected person more tractable was the loss of his lands and the prospect of having them restored’.4? Conflict resolution, in such cases, was more about saving face than punishment, with mercy functioning as a narrative device. Warren Brown notes that records of settlements in Carolingian Bavaria often used mercy to allow ‘the more powerful of the two parties to meet its opponent halfway without losing face or creating a precedent that would undermine its future rights’.*° Settlements involved symbolic expression: how a compromise was made to appear was as important as the substance of the compromise itself. Disputing parties carefully crafted their compromise settlements to balance image against substantive concessions.*!

Forced royal compromise was frequently rewritten as a voluntary gesture of sovereign generosity, allowing cooperation with magnates to appear as subordination. Royal concessions were couched as acts of strength. Overall, then, if the tyrant rules too directly, personally, and partially, and if the weak king does not control the barons, and so does not rule at all, then mercy turns weakness into strength without passing via tyranny. It naturalizes the king’s power, associating him with grace, forgiveness, justice, and humility. When vengeance is impossible, mercy takes over, providing a different means of confirming royal justice as the primary way of preserving social order. The chansons de geste register renewed royal vigour but retains hope for mercy, though Charles has to learn its value. At first, he ignores the aims of revolt, considering all baronial war as illegitimate. Whereas Calin argued that the epic represents a precursor of the bildungsroman, because the rebel learns subjection,>? there is, I think, a learning curve for the king, who eventually recognizes that the rebels are 48 ‘Qurest-ce qu'une traduction “rélévante”?’, p. 35/‘What is a “Relevant” Translation?’, trans. Venuti, p. 187. The Law of Treason, p. 141. Hyams (Rancor and Reconciliation, p. xiii) notes the medieval prefer-

ence for reconciliation over punishment, and Gauvard argues that the emergent French state asserted itself through forgiveness rather than vengeance (Violence et ordre public, p. 90)

°° Unjust Seizure, p. 138. >! Brown, Unjust Seizure, p. 125. >? ‘The Old French Epic of Revolt, p. 227.

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JO

seeking justice and that they are recoverable as subjects and allies, rather than being absolute outlaws. John of Salisbury compared rebellions to disease, suggesting that the king should cure them gently, like a doctor, avoiding damage to the body of

which he is a part (see Chapter 1 of this volume). But Charles does not immediately realize that society is a body politic. Eventually, the friendship created between king and baron extricates the former from the position of tyrant and the latter from the role of rebel. Reconciliation proves mutually agreeable, and the mirroring relationship that earlier created oppositions is refigured positively. Conflict changes emotions—after years of war, anger is assuaged, and both king and baron are ready

for peace—and allows for the noble to demonstrate his qualities.°? Something akin to the collaborative model of rule envisaged by English and French revolts and inspired by the Aristotelian ‘mixed constitution’ is gradually arrived at; historically,

Magna Carta in England and the creation of the Estates in France represent such moments of integration and compromise. The vertical bond to the king is also finally reinforced, creating a polity whereby the monarch rules through his barons who are thereby anchored to the state. This anticipates the thirteenth-century development of a new, more rigorous system of military service, whereby the nobility was transformed from independent warrior chieftains into royal servants, who act militarily only for him. The chansons de geste natrativize compromise as mercy, providing a symbolic resolution to king—baron conflict whereby the baron’s privileged position relies on acknowledgement of the king’s sovereignty. But the chansons, all the while, perform narrative tricks to give the baron some power and to argue that his concession is also voluntary. In revolt, the baron always shows his force before he requests mercy. Gaydon, Gui de Bourgogne, Ogier, Renaut, and Les Saisnes all portray a vulnerable Charles, and this weakness facilitates reconciliation. But Girart de Vienne best exemplifies the movement between unilateral, sovereign prerogatives and bilateral compromise. Girart captures the king and is urged ‘sen feras ta jotisse!”’ (6395) [take your revenge on him!], but he holds back: Ne place Deu... Que rois de France soit ja per moi honniz!

Ses hom serai s'il a de moi merci, De lui tendrai ma terre et mon pais.

(6421-4)

[May it not please God that a king of France be shamed by me! I will be his man if he spares me, and I will hold my land and country from him.]

Mercy is the king’s unique attribute, and yet here the baron has that same quality: he spares the king in a private, unofficial moment, before the king spares him in the public, official resolution of the conflict, replying: Vos avroiz pes tele come vos vodroiz, En douce France vostre comant feroiz, 53 See White, “The Politics of Anger’. For Bloch, the epics portray the ‘general failure of war’

(Medieval French Literature and Law, p. 103), but only war succeeds in solving problems and establishing peace.

V2

Rebel Barons

De mes forfez vos en pardong les droiz, Le tierz denier vos en dong et otroi.

(6441-4)

[You will have peace such as you desire, in sweet France I will do as you request, and I give up the compensation you owe for my losses, and grant you one third of the monies.]*4 Peace becomes possible when the king is vulnerable, reduced to negotiation and

compromise with a subordinate. Mutual respect is artfully combined with deference to hierarchy; the king is superior, but not transcendent. Ingeniously, Girart now offers the king a narrative: the war he fought against Charles was an illegitimate revolt, which Charles will graciously forgive. Girart receives all his lands as gifts from Charles, erasing the perspective whereby Vienne was an independent family holding. Girart invents a complex rite of gift-giving whereby he both makes and receives the gift: he gives Charles the right to give him the gift of what he already had. Thus Girart offers the real gift, as his act of generosity will be erased, surviving only in fictional form, without legal or political status. Girart de Vienne presents this not as a loss of status and freedom but an increase. Renunciation allows the conservation of dignity as the baron finds his place in the body politic. The resolution also flatters Charles because his ‘pardon’ expresses his sovereignty, allowing him to impose his perspective. For Kay, the greater royal capacity for violence means the king’s narrative wins.*? History is indeed written by the victor. But, Kay argues, counter-narratives, elements within the plot that go against its main thrust, are never completely effaced. Indeed here, Girart’s own act of mercy in sparing Charles's life and his humble gesture of accepting his lands back as a gift remain. Subjection is staged, but so are interdependence and solidarity, for the benefits of the participants themselves, the criss-crossing of grace and gifts working as a rite of consensual polity. For a moment—if only for a moment—Girart de Vienne makes power multilateral, symmetrical, and subject to negotiation. The king’s subordination to the social order is affirmed and a fantasy of baronial power retained.*® Les Saisnes, Gui de Bourgogne, and Girart de Vienne all demonstrate that the forces of the aristocracy, when integrated properly, can power monarchy to its goals. All three display confidence in the idea that the nobles protect the common good by asserting their own status and rights. The relationship between violence, ethics, and hierarchy is configured differently in these three texts, indicating that there were in the Middle Ages a series of different ways of envisaging the path from revolt to reform. The manuscript tradition indicates that Girart de Vienne was perhaps the most successful of these models for incorporation and service, as the text became part of the Guillaume Cycle, a vast testament to the glory of obedience. But in Les Saisnes and Gui too, the healthy body politic consists primarily of a strong alliance between king and nobles, who exert pressure on him without seriously

54 Van Emden (in his edition of Girart de Vienne, p. 334) thinks that this refers to the taxes Girart will raise as count of Vienne.

>? The ‘Chansons de geste’, p. 76. 6 Stein sees this final scene as an ideal moment where ‘all social structures to which one can declare

allegiance—personal, familial, feudal, political—that have been in conflict throughout the poem are subsumed within the single entity of the realm’ (Reality Fictions, p. 198).

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challenging the hierarchy: one part of the body acts against the head to make it consider the interests of the rest, aiming to subordinate the king to the kingdom.

Revolt temporarily undoes the naturalization of the king’s power and demonstrates its contingency, hoping to restrain him from abuse. Written during Philip Augustus’s reign and read later, as royal power increased yet further, these epics argue that kingly rule rests on aristocratic consent and that nobles are the best political partners for kings. Because they rebel in the right way, the aristocrats drive reform and ensure that political principles are properly respected.

GAYDON:

THE

TRAITORS

ASwWICKEDsADVISERS

More than the three chansons de geste discussed so far, the thirteenth-century song Gaydon registers the ideologies of sovereignty that were conspiring against the barons, including just-war theory and laws of treason, as well as increased royal power. Wise Riol, steeped in legal and political theory, urges the hero to negotiate with the king: Car drois le dist, sel tesmoingne l’autor, Que mauvais fait guerroier son seignor; Car touz jors l’ont jugié nostre ancessor Que en la fin en vient on a mal tour.

(5863-6)

[Law tells us, and the great authors bear witness, that it is a bad idea to fight against

one’s lord; because our ancestors have always said that you eventually meet a sticky end.]

Gaydon nonetheless deploys a different argument to justify revolt: the presence of corrupt men in the royal court. The rebels oppose the king because he associates himself with traitors. The theme of revolt thus shifts away from crusade and the recognition of young knights, and onto court problems, as the text adopts a different way of presenting its protagonists as actors defending the public interest. My reading here differs from Jean Subrenat’s contention that Gaydon encourages the lords of Anjou, newly subjected to the crown in the early thirteenth century following Philip Augustus’s conquests, to accept a submissive relationship to the king of France.°” The early years of Louis IX’s rule were shaped by the threat of revolt amongst the great nobles, who had been kept in line by Philip. Louis was 11 years old when crowned in 1226, and so his mother, Blanche, was regent.°® Her rule was opposed by the barons, who felt it was their responsibility to govern in times of crisis. In 1227, Thibaut of Champagne, Pierre of Brittany, and Hugues of Lusignan formed a league supporting the count of Boulogne as alternative regent. They assembled at Corbeil, planning to kidnap the young king, but Blanche thwarted them. In Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis, the Parisian people welcome Louis °7 Etude sur ‘Gaydon’, p. 51 58 | draw on the accounts by Le Goff, Saint Louis, and Jordan, “The Capetians from the Death of Philip II to Philip IV’.

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Rebel Barons

with joy, shoring up his position versus nobles who had demanded land and elected an alternative king (p. 188). Blanche was subsequently able to lure Thibaut away from the coalition.

In response,

a group of major northern

nobles invaded

Champagne in 1229-30, claiming that Thibaut was too influential at court. Thibaut was only saved by royal help. Pierre renounced his homage and turned to Henry III of England (1216-72), who landed in Brittany in 1230. But their invasion failed, and Pierre was soon subjected to the crown. Angers, which acted as a blockade against invasions from Brittany, was fortified. 1229 saw an end to conflict in Occitania, as a treaty was agreed with Count Raymond VII of Toulouse (1222-49), whose daughter would marry Louis’ brother Alphonse. Yet there were upheavals in the south when Raymond Trencavel tried to recover Béziers in 1240, and wider uprisings under Hugues of Lusignan, with the support of the English, in 1241. Louis quashed them. Thus his early years were marked by threats of rebellion and by the achievement of peace.

Literary medievalists tend to use too linear a model of history, suggesting a move towards royal centralization, but in fact, though history had gone one way, there were always forces pushing back. The revolting barons appear as the bad guys because they go against Louis, the man, the myth, the future saint, and we are now

much quicker to believe kings who claim to defend the common good than barons. But the nobles were arguably seeking to exercise custodianship of the kingdom because they did not trust a minor to govern it, and the resistance in the south could be envisaged as a valid claim for independence (see Chapter 3 of this volume on Occitan resistance). Gaydon makes sense against a backdrop of baronial revolt in France, and of the aristocratic protest movements in England which would still have been reverberating around Europe. The barons ally with Gaydon in an attempt to reinvent lordship as a stewardship of the kingdom, along the lines of

that proposed in Magna Carta. The text contributes to debates about baronial revolt, encouraging uprisings that specifically target ridding the king’s court of his bad allies, and that highlight the king’s need to recognize his true friends. Of the three manuscripts of Gaydon, one is fifteenth-century, indicating later interest in the story, but the other two are locatable to thirteenth-century France. The text contains markers of the contemporary political context: the count of Toulouse is said to be a vassal of king of France (3874-5), reflecting the post-1229 power rela-

tionship, and Henry III’s attempt to win back his father’s lands in 1230 is obliquely referred to (8534).°? The action takes place, however, in the aftermath of the

Roland. Immediately after the execution of Ganelon, Charles loses all the divine legitimacy he had gained in avenging Roland by allying himself with Ganelon’s wicked clan. The plot movement of repeated truces with the traitors, which they always break, eventually leads to the conclusion that the task of opposing them is endless. The eponymous hero is the warrior who fought Pinabel in the judicial duel leading to Ganelon’s condemnation: his name was Thierry (as in the Rolana), but a jay landed on his helmet when he was arming, hence his new moniker (7351-8). Early on, the traitor Tiebaut plots to poison Charles and frame Gaydon, but °? Edition, pp. 17-18.

Revolt

is)

Charles instead gives the poisoned fruit to a young man, who dies. Charles exclaims: ‘qui se puet mais garder de traison?’ (262) [who can ever protect themselves from

betrayal?]. After a prophetic dream, Gaydon sets off for court, just as a royal search party arrives for him. Gaydon denies the accusation, highlighting his past loyalty: only he was prepared to fight Ganelon. But Charles demands a judicial battle: ‘Ja mar men mescroirois |Que ja traitres ait lonc sejor vers moi’ (751—2) [never suspect

me of allowing traitors to remain long beside me]. This point of pride takes on an ironic tinge because he is addressing Tiebaut, the traitor he does not yet suspect, and planning to execute the loyal Gaydon. In the epics, the clan of traitors are a ubiquitous feature. They are related to Ganelon and descended from Doon de Mayence. Introduced in Girart de Vienne as ‘plain d’orgueil et d’envie’ (20) [full of

pride and jealousy], the traitors stand in contrast to rebels, who state their desire to avoid treacherous action: thus the suggestion that they take the city of Macon is initially rejected as ‘angin et traisom’ (2142-3) [deception and treachery]. And of

course the text’s introduction, in its famous articulation of the three gestes, associates Girart with the loyal lineage of Guillaume d’Orange, rather than with the traitors (1-80). The traitors spark revolts in many texts, their role becoming more harmful

as the tradition develops, culminating in the Franco-Italian corpus where the opposition between good barons and traitors structures the entire world. In the Venice manuscript of Gui de Nanteuil (1170-1207), traitors buy back Charles's

favour even as they recall the betrayal of Ganelon: Nos sumes d'un lignaje merveillos e grant;

Se Gainelons fu fel, nos en somes dolant— Or nos en metez en leu d’Oliver e Rolant— Bien vos porons servir desci en avant

(748-51)

[We are from a wonderful and great lineage; if Ganelon was wicked, we are very sorry about that—now put us in the place of Oliver and Roland—we can serve you well from now on]

The traitors are a structural feature and cannot easily be eliminated. They use the weapon of rhetoric to get what they want from the king: here apologizing for one betrayal and setting up the next one in the same breath. Just like John of Salisbury, the chansons de geste see royal courts as the natural homes of parasitic flatterers,°° who impede baronial counsel’s function as a check on the king: Charlemagne’s court is portrayed as a place of violence, intrigue, and betrayal, rather than one of progress, reason, and civilization, because he favours traitors at his court—assuming their presence gives him control over them—over barons in distant regions. Absence itself connotes rebellion in Charlemagne’s eyes; it means failure to serve and honour. Associated with rhetorical skill and military cowardice, the traitors thus arguably stand for the new class of technocrats surrounding the kings of England and France from the late twelfth century onwards—with their dangerous 60 See Kay, ‘Le Probléme de l’ennemi’; Guidot, Recherches sur la chanson de geste, pp. 160-73; and Subrenat, Etude sur ‘Gaydon’, pp. 285-90 on the epics; on John of Salisbury, see Chapter 1 of this volume.

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oratory—ousting the barons from their traditional place as counsellors. In the chansons de geste, they encourage the king to defraud his natural allies, inspiring him to violence against loyal barons, whom they accuse of belonging to a rebellious

geste. Thus in the Venice Gui de Nanteuil, they remind Charles of the hero’s lineage: Dunc ne fu cest parent Girad da Rosillon Qui tant vos gheuria a cuite d’esperon, E mist vetre terre 4 feu et 4 carbon? Menbres vos des parenz Raynald li filz Aymon?

(254-7)

[Was Girart de Roussillon, who fought you for so long on horseback and set fire to

your lands, not his kinsman? Do you not remember the lineage of Renaut, son of Aymon?]

They link him to two of the greatest rebels and resistants of the epic tradition, and encourage the king to see all revolt as sedition by casting rebels as inveterate wrongdoers, perpetrators of wanton violence. Their success with words can only be avenged by the sword. Indeed the rebels invariably fail to reach an agreement with the king without resorting to war, whereas the traitors always sway him. For Dominique Boutet, the presence of traitors allows the rebel to remain loyal to his king in spirit even as he opposes him in fact.®! Revolt ceases to be an ad hominem attack. The rebels revolt for the king—to rid his court of wicked advisers—rather than against him. The traitors also constitute a foil for the rebels, who appear more positively by contrast.°? Only the traitors act in covert and dishonest ways; only they consider killing the king. But frequently in the chansons de geste, Charles accuses good barons of treason, all the while harbouring traitors at court.* The king’s desire for power over recalcitrant barons takes precedence over the ethical, making him slow to distinguish right and wrong. In Renaut de Montauban, one baron explicitly attacks Charles over this: N’est hon qui avant vos peiist mie durer, Sil ne dit vostre bon et vostre volenté, Que tantost nel vuilliez de traison prover.

(5730-2)

[No man can remain before you, unless he agrees to your desires and your will, without you accusing him of treason straightaway. |

In the Pranco-Italian L’Entrée d'Espagne, analysed further in Chapter 6 of this volume, Roland takes the town of Noble without royal permission, and Charles swears he will get revenge on him, calling him a ‘feluns traitor’ (9224) [wicked traitor].

Charles sees all open opposition to him as ¢raison, considering that there is no position for legitimate revolt. Thus in Gaydon, Charles incessantly pursues the rebel hero: ‘Gaydon manace quil iert ars ou pendus’ (4898) [he threatens Gaydon with burning or hanging].

°* Charlemagne et Arthur, p. 155. For Dessau, the geste of traitors appears as a literary response to the increasing moral condemnation of war against one’s lord (‘LIdée de la trahisor’). 6 Ailes (‘Traitors’) tracks the systematic differentiation of rebels from traitors. See also Calin, The

Old French Epic ofRevolt, pp. 116-17. °° Van Emden notes that, in Renaut, the king calls those who rebel against him traitors but the authorial voice does not (‘Kingship in the Old French Epic of Revolt’, p. 319)

Revolt

7

Gaydon’s use of the theme of rebels and traitors probably responds to the thirteenth-century climate of tough punishment for rebels. The text attempts to distinguish revolt from treachery or treason, or ¢raison in both medieval definitions: first, the general sense of infidelity, underhand conduct, concealment of hatred and attacking without warning, preserved in customaries such as the Etablissements de Saint-Louis; and secondly, the more technical sense that was superseding it in legal theory: injury against public authority, or /ése-majesté.“4 The rebels openly declare war on the king, and subsequently fight whilst retaining respect for king’s status, with eventual reconciliation always in view. The presence of traitors also corresponds to the way that historical rebels too, aware of the dubious legality of revolt, articulated rationalizations, such as the prejudice to aristocratic interests caused by court rivals. As Joel Rosenthal notes, ‘medieval barons often justified their rebellions on the grounds that the king was ill counseled and that the evils of the day could be rectified by the removal of his wicked advisers’.©° Such a move effectively ritualized their revolt, limiting its scope. In Gaydon, too, the rebels seek to rid the court of traitors. The hero curses the traitors who ‘Franse ont mis en tel trourblacion’ (5359) [have plunged France in such chaos], the implication being that the

rebels have the interests of the kingdom at heart. And as in Gui de Bourgogne, the clash between rebels and authority figures also maps onto an opposition between young and old: Huimais conmence chansons a enforcier,

Si com li fil alerent tornoier Contre lor peres, au fer et a l’acier.

(4884-6)

[Now the song grows fiercer, telling how the sons went to fight against their fathers, with iron and steel.|]

Gaydon is supported by ‘li anfant’ (4887) [young men], including the sons of

Naymes, who together oppose their corrupt fathers, allied with the king and traitors. The valour of the youth impresses the elderly, but ‘Li fil ne voldrent les peres espargnier, |Ansoiz les cuident durement empirier’ (5517-18) [the sons did not

want to spare the fathers, rather they plan to harm them terribly]. Revolt becomes a revitalizing, renewing process. And as in many texts where traitors dominate, Charles is aged: Gaydon calls him ‘li vieuls rois assotez’ (5422) [the stupid old

king]. Charles does not realize who his real allies are, and he thus fails to perceive the real traison. Tiebaut would be the best knight in France ‘s'il fust preudom et amast Deu dou ciel’ (1110) [if he was a loyal man and loved God in heaven]. The

text here equates traitors with blasphemers. In the judicial battle against Gaydon, Tiebaut fudges his oath but is caught, admitting: “rois cuidai iestre de France et de Loon’ (1791) [I thought I would be king of France and Laon]. The traitor clan,

unlike the rebels, aim at taking the crown, at changing their position in the political

64 See Cuttler, The Law of Treason, for a complete account. 65 “The King’s Wicked Advisers’, p. 595. Cohn (Lust for Liberty, p. 136) suggests that this explanation was not used frequently in practice, but it does appear often in the chansons de geste, probably because it suits nobles needing to attack, but ultimately having to live with, the king.

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order. Expecting no pardon, Tiebaut declares ‘en anfer avrai harbergison |Avec mon frere le conte Ganelon’ (1795-6) [I will live in hell with my brother the count

Ganelon]. This is a new chapter in the Roland's narrative of war against traitors. But it is not a conclusion because Hardré bribes Charles and the other traitors are spared, taking over the court. The king’s entourage is eventually almost entirely traitors.° Gaydon tells Riol ‘’empereor Karlon voil guerroier’ (3047) [I want to

make war on Emperor Charles], unless he chases them out. When the king instead takes their bribes, Gaydon declares ‘la mort Rollant vostre neveu vendez’ (5402) [you are selling the death of Roland, your nephew]. Charles is selling off the positive potential he and the Frankish barony gained at the end of the Roland. Evil had been flushed out, but is now allowed back in for money. The text's interest in formalities also underscores how principled the revolt is. The adviser Riol warns against over-hasty rebellion: ‘Il est tes sires, et vos iestez ses hom: |Ne devez faire envers lui mesprison’ (3087-8) [he is your lord, and you are his men: you should not commit a wrongful act towards him]. Gaydon must request that Charles exile the traitors, and if he declines: Sel deffiez et li randez s:ommaige; Car vos feriez et orgoil et outraige,

Se guerre faisiiez vostre droit seignoraige

(3094-6)

[Then defy him and return his lordship; because you would be committing a prideful and outrageous act, if you made war against your rightful lord.]

Any revolt must be accompanied by the correct formalities that signal the legitimacy of the baron’s grievance; the text here parallels the stipulations made about revolt in the Etablissements de Saint Louis, whereas it also concords with Magna Carta in setting fixed parameters for revolt. The hero makes clear that he will target only royal property: ‘Je li cuit si ses marches acorcier |Dont il perdra maint bon chastel entier’ (3056-7) [I plan to reduce his landholdings, such that he will lose many good castles]. Speaking in a more practical idiom, Riol also declares that: Ne je noi onques home nonmer Qui son seignor volsist a tort grever, Qui en la fin i poist conquester.

(5577-9)

[I have never heard of any man, who wrongfully tried to harm his lord, who in the end managed to win.]

Thus Gaydon recognizes the timeless truth that revolts can be identified with sedition and thus prove difficult to justify, as well as the inevitable failure of unjustified revolts and the gritty problem of mounting effective opposition to a superior. Hierarchy has its own momentum and will perpetuate itself. The survival of regional baronial powers, then, is not portrayed as backwards or primitive, but rather as allowing for productive political conflict that acts as a barrier on corruption and keeps history moving forward. The guardians of the common good must motivate, violently if need be, the king to love the kingdom more than he loves 6° Boutet, Charlemagne et Arthur, p. 139.

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money. Financial metaphors return when the rebels threaten vengeance on the king—'ses grans orgoils li sera chier vendus’ (4895) [we will make him pay dearly

for his great pride]. But they revolt only to bring royal order back to its former glory. Without the corrective of their violence, royal power would be steered in the wrong direction by the bad barons. Yet the traitors keep bribing the king, who is politically and militarily obstinate except in the face of financial manipulation. At the end, an angel summons the hero to help Charles, whom traitors are attempting to hang. Gaydon saves the king, thus recovering his previous position as royal ally (10661—810). God protects the king’s rule, as well as the rebel’s place at his side.

Even now, the traitors get back royal favour, one committing ‘mainte grant tricherie’ (10893) [great acts of deception]. Responding to the climate of centralization

and the closing down of the possibility of protest under Louis [X, Gaydon carefully circumscribes and legitimizes revolt, offering the final message that the rebels’ task is timeless, a struggle ever to be renewed against the corrupt individuals who ineyitably surround the powerful.

HUGUES,

CAPET:

NEW

MONARGHY

If Gaydon argued for the necessity of revolt at a time when the monarchy was strengthening, then Hugues reinvents it in a period of royal crisis. The fourteenth century proved a turbulent period for the last Capetians and the nascent Valois dynasty. In 1314-15, the nobles leagued against Philip IV (1285-1314) and Louis X (1314-16) in reaction to taxation and the violation of customs.®” Louis X’s con-

cessions to them did not create a community of the realm, as did Magna Carta, and no lasting controls over the monarchy were established, but the charters raised formal issues as well as particular ones. These leagues, and ideas of reform down to 1360, were shaped by a fantasy of return to Louis IX’s rule, which appeared a golden age in retrospect, thanks in part to lower royal taxes.°8 Philip V (1316-22) had to call assemblies to get taxes approved. He then died without an heir, provoking a succession crisis, before his brother became Charles IV (1322-8). But Charles

too died heirless, and a much worse crisis began. The nearest relative was Edward III of England (1327-77), whose mother Isabella was the sister of the dead king.

His claim was invalidated by the Estates, which debarred succession via the female line.©? Philip of Valois, the eldest grandson of Philip III, was elected, but his rule, which lasted until 1350, was always insecure. He became increasingly arbitrary and tough in his procedures against powerful figures, treating Breton and Norman rebels harshly in 1343—4.’° The Hundred Years War broke out when he confiscated Aquitaine from the English in 1337; Philip lost heavily to the English at Crécy in 1346. His successor, John I (1350-64), was prisoner to the English after the 67 See Brown, ‘Reform and Resistance’. 68 Jones, “The Last Capetians’, p. 390. 69 On controversies about whether Salic law, the ancient law of the Franks that forbade succession via the female line, was used at this time, see Delogu, Theorizing the Ideal Sovereign, p. 86. Delogu identifies the use of its tenets in Hugues (4607-16).

70 Jones, “The Last Capetians’, p. 391.

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Rebel Barons

defeat at Poitiers in 1356. Etienne Marcel, the provost of Paris and the Estates, stepped into the power vacuum, trying to push through reforms that would make France a constitutional monarchy. He was backed by King Charles IT of Navarre (1349-87), who also claimed the throne, posing a serious threat to the Valois dynasty. Meanwhile, raids, economic misery and plague ravaged the kingdom. In this context of revolt, reform, and civil war, Hugues Capet was written by an

author who seems to know Hainault (the hero cavorts around there and neighbouring Brabant), and also the Parisian area. Its unique manuscript also contains, amongst other texts, Jehan de Lancon, which tells ofa baron resisting Charlemagne.

It has dialectal traits locatable to the north-east fringes of the Capetian sphere, a site of shifting political boundaries.”! Philip IV had hoped to add Flanders to the royal domain, but the counts, also faced with the desires for independence of their populace, resisted. They were at war with the Avesnes family for Hainault and Holland. French troops helped Louis de Male take back his county in 1348, after his father was exiled by English-backed Ghent burghers, but Louis himself soon sought allegiances with the English. Thus Hugues was written and set in historical and geographical border zones between great powers. Its plot returns to another crisis of royal legitimacy: the death of the last Carolingian king, Louis V

(986-7), and the controversial rise of Hugh Capet, the first Capetian.”* Despite these unpropitious circumstances, the text avoids pessimism, creating a new social

order around a reinvigorated monarchy. Hugues thus continues the reforming zeal of earlier chansons de geste, but, like Gaydon, places much of the aristocracy alongside the monarchy as part of the old institution in need of a moral upgrade. Locating the crisis in the king—nobility relationship, as do other epics, Hugues responds by liberating royal power from the aristocracy, before ultimately recreating the association on a different footing after purifying the noble class and including other classes in the social model. Thus the logic of reform extends further down in society, with the lower nobility the source of resistance and ultimately of new royalty. Hugues is not a typical chanson de geste hero but a hybrid: a lower-ranking noble who self-identifies as a ‘bourgois’ (1361) [bourgeois], his

father being a lord and his mother the daughter of a great butcher.’> As the narrative unfolds, Hugues becomes king out of merit, fighting off claims by barons depicted as a self-interested cartel. Whereas in Gui de Bourgogne, reform integrates 71 Edition, pp. 7-12. ” See Delogu (Theorizing the Ideal Sovereign, pp. 58-91) on the text’s parallels with fourteenthcentury history. The Louis of the text is an amalgam of historical kings called Louis (see BlumenfeldKosinski, “Rewriting History in the Chanson de Hugues Capet’). Beaune notes that chronicles gloss over the dynasty gap, though Jean de Montreuil mentions rumours about Hugh Capet’s lowly lineage, before stating that he was descended from Charlemagne on one side and the Holy Roman Emperor on the other (Naissance de la nation France, pp. 296-7). Blumenfeld-Kosinski (Rewriting History in

the Chanson de Hugues Caper’) also covers the debates about Hugh's rise to power. Krynen (L’Empire du roi, p. 14) notes that the historical Hugh was a valid candidate on the hereditary principle—he was grandson of King Robert I (922-3) and grand-nephew of King Odo (888-98)—but Hugh also

imprisoned two rival candidates. ’? Hugh Capet figures in Dante's purgatory (canto 20), where his butcher parentage illustrates the base origins of the Capetians. This becomes a celebration of his valour in the chanson de geste (BlumenfeldKosinski, “Rewriting History in the Chanson de Hugues Capet’, pp. 33-4)

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the new generation of the established power group, the highest barons, Hugues refuses to see the upper aristocracy as necessarily having the virtues of good rulers or as being the best correctives to a faulty monarchical regime. This initially makes the locations of authority and legitimacy uncertain. When Hugues fights the barons, who is rebelling against whom? The king has died without leaving an heir, and the highest nobles would be the natural source of a replacement, whereas Hugues is an upstart from the lower nobility who appears from nowhere to make a claim on the throne. He appears as the rebel against the established social order. But once he has associated himself with the royal house, Hugues’s opponents are assimilated to the greedy clan of traitors, allowing Hugues to carry out the rebel’s tasks of driving out corruption, before he becomes king. He moves from being a nonconformist to being the ultimate royalist and, in the end, to being crowned. The lower nobility ultimately provides the new leadership that will take France forward. The success of Renaut and Ogier over the long term was also down to their protagonists’ ability to become heroes of the people, to transcend any tendency for revolt to serve the personal interests of the highest nobles. The overall message, as with the other texts featuring in this chapter, is that power must be earned. Hierarchies will otherwise ossify, with the unworthy at the top. Hugues’s battle against the seemingly inevitable rise of the bad barons makes sure that military and moral worth win the day. Like Gaydon, Hugues Capet insists on the need to separate the good barons from the bad: Hugues, himself a noble, is aided by other nobles who want the best for France rather than for themselves. Ferdinand Lot’s view of Hugues as pro-bourgeois propaganda is thus overstated:’* though the bourgeoisie play a highly positive role as royal advisers and warriors, they do not supplant the nobility, for the text also retains confidence in those nobles willing to work with the other classes to forge a new social order. Barons can still be custodians of the kingdom, protectors of the common good in the absence of the king. The plot moves as follows. Indebted due to his tournament-filled lifestyle, Hugues leaves his mortgaged lands and goes around Hainault, Brabant, and neighbouring lands fathering illegitimate children, thus serving ‘amours’ (294) [love]. King Louis dies, with the traitor Savari sus-

pected of poisoning him. Savari now demands the hand of Marie, daughter of Queen Blanchefleur. It is noted that ‘ly communs peupple du pais le haiioit’ (632) [the common people of the country hated him], but he heads an alliance of the

great nobility of Burgundy, Champagne, Poitou, Le Mans, Aval, and various German territories. Savari, ‘dez barons de France le plus enparentez’ (760) [the French

baron with the biggest family], places the queen and her daughter in great danger: thus aristocrats, with their extended kin-groups, constitute a direct threat to the common good. In Chapter 5 of this volume, I argue that networks of kinship and allegiance constituted the main social capital of aristocrats; here, those networks are mobilized to serve personal political ambitions, blocking any inclusive reform of 74 Etudes sur le regne d'Hugues Capet, p. 337. Lot’s view was tempered by Blumenfeld-Kosinski (‘Rewriting History in the Chanson de Hugues Caper’), Bossuat (‘La Chanson de Hugues Capet’), and Gier (“Hugues Capet).

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the realm. The queen says that if Savari is crowned ‘ly roiaume seroit en moult grant povreté’ (786) [the kingdom would vastly impoverished]. The opening scen-

ario recalls the infancy of Louis IX—an embattled queen resists rebellions, before popular acclaim legitimizes the sovereign directly, circumventing the aristocrats— but also the Couronnement de Louis, where Charlemagne’s death leaves a weak king on the throne, and aristocrats make covetous bids for power.’* In the Couronnement,

the solution is for the hero Guillaume to fight against other barons to keep King Louis on the throne, despite the sovereign’s manifest unworthiness. Like Guillaume, Hugues is fantasy figure, a baron of impossible valour and selflessness. The text

stresses that Hugues outdoes Roland, Oliver, Ogier, Alexander, and Judas Maccabeus. The impressed princes wish he could have ‘dou roiaume le dominacion’ (2208) [power over the kingdom]. The queen falls for him, lamenting that he is not ‘de haute estracion’ (2220) [of high-born stock]. Nonetheless, she agrees

that he can marry Marie. Knighted, Hugues receives the duchy of Orléans. He often rides out of Paris to attack, but the barons’ siege is great. Yet Hugues’s alternative, illegitimate kin-group—ten bastard children, born of ten different mothers—

eventually helps fight off the entrenched powers of the aristocracy. Hugues, the parvenu baron, becomes the ultimate royalist, wearing the fleur-de-lis (3671). Whereas in Renaut, the symbols of royalty are undermined, in Hugues, they are reinvigorated. The duke of Brittany thinks that France now has a king, declaring ‘ne porons contrester’ (4045) [we cannot oppose him]. The baronial coalition falls

apart, as warriors realize: Bien sommez au jour dui outrageus et quidant Que pour argent alons no vie aventurant Contre lez fleur de lis que veons aparant.

(4314-16)

[Today we are being outrageous and arrogant, risking our lives for money against the fleur-de-lis which we see before us.]

In a power vacuum, symbols of legitimacy take on great value, signalling that order will be restored. Hugues surpasses Hector, Meliadus, Marsile, Baligant, and

Fernagu, and the French marvel: ‘par lui est ly royaulmez tensez et secourus’ (4168) [the kingdom is protected and secured by him]. He thus takes on the prin-

cipal task of the monarchy; the one protecting the kingdom deserves the crown. Unlike in the Couronnement, then, a baron finally rises to royalty. An improvised, meritocratic mode of selection prevails, before Hugues is crowned and ‘ly sacrez parfais o le grant baronnie’ (4600) [anointed in front of all the barons]. The aris-

tocrats witness the restoration of monarchy, which naturalizes the arbitrariness of Hugues’ accession, as do his demonstrations of prowess, links to the people, and marriage to the princess. Rightful rule consists of worth, topped off with pomp, ceremony, and acclaim. Savari’s bid for the crown can now be rewritten as betrayal and sedition, because Hugues was all the while merely waiting to be recognized as the lawful monarch. Individual military valour and popular appeal prove the answers to political crisis. 7° On the Couronnement, see my ‘La Vengeance royale’.

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Women are made the scapegoat for the troubles when all agree that the crown can never again pass down the female line: Pour la guere qui fu sy grande et sy furnie Et qui avoit esté en Franche commenchie Pour avoir a moullier la pucelle eschevie; Pour cou que la cournne en fus y couvoitie

(4602-5)

[because of the war that had been so great and so grand, and which had broken out in

France over the hand of the slender maiden, and because the crown had been coveted by so many]

A male heir, even as distant as the ‘quinte lignie’ (4611) [fifth degree of kinship],

will henceforth always be found. The text here adopts a more technical language for defining kingship, reflecting contemporary anxieties about legitimate succession. Yet the barons ask for the release of Fedris, Savari’s brother. Acknowledging that he rules “Non mie par oirrie ne par estrasion, |Mais par le vostre gré et vostre elexion’ (4640-1) [not through inheritance or by birth, but because of your

goodwill and your choice], Hugues submits Fedris to baronial judgment. Fedris excuses himself, claiming he sought vengeance for his brother: ‘a tort etadroit... doit on toudis aidier cez bons carneulz amis’ (4726-7) [right or wrong, you should

always help your kinsman].’° The barons recognize this right to feud and recommend pardon. Hugues acquiesces, acting in contrast to Charlemagne in the Oxford Roland, who overrides baronial judgment to ensure Ganelon, who also cites the

right to vengeance in his defence, is punished (this episode is studied in Chapter 4 of this volume). But Hugues makes an error. A devil inspires Fedris to rebel again, along with Acelin, who wants to overthrow Hugues and declares: ‘n’affiert point a bouchier si haute signourie’ (4890) [a butcher does not deserve such a high lordship]. Acelin mistakes social rank for moral worth, whereas Hugues,

following a key rebel baron idea, refuses to conflate the two. Eventually defeated, the traitors are again to face the judgment of their peers. The constable advises against this: ‘Trop sont de grant parage ly fellon losengier; S’a Paris lez menez, on vous venra prier Que d@iaulz aiiez merchy et pour yaulz alegier (6161-3) [The wicked villains are of too high rank; if you take them to Paris, people will come and beg you to have mercy on them, and to reduce their sentence]

The worst possible wrongdoers are members of the baronial class, whose embedded privileges and networks of support make them almost impossible to discipline. As in the Roland, the good barons have disappeared and only the monarchy can save society by defeating traitors. Hugues must dispense harsh punishment; mercy

would, in this case, be a mistake. The climate has clearly changed since the period of Girart de Vienne. This is an epochal moment like Roncevaux: failing to act 76 The ethics of revenge, as well as the definition of kinsman as ‘carneulz amis’, are explored further in Chapter 5 of this volume.

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against traitors would mean compromising the entire social order. The villains are duly chopped to bits. Royal discipline proves effective: Ains puis ne trouva prinche, tant fist a redouter, De France ne d’alleurs, tant comme il pot durer,

Qui osast contre lui de guerre relever; Moult se fist par son cors et cremir et douter, Et bien sot le royaume et tenir et garder.

(6183-7)

[From then until the end of his life, Hugues was so feared that there was no prince, in

France or elsewhere, who dared ever to make war against him; his strength made him feared and dreaded everywhere, and he knew well how to protect and guard the kingdom. ]

This erases the previous moment where Hugues was manipulated. Rights to feud and vengeance are subordinated to the common good of the kingdom. Though an elected monarch, Hugues now reigns absolutely, and France learns never again to veer from the system of hereditary monarchy that guarantees order and stability. Elective and hereditary monarchy thus finally combine more smoothly than in Gui: a lineage stemming from a superior individual is here chosen in order to provide long-term,

continuous government. Hugues is informally elected by the people of Paris who choose him as their leader, before the formal confirmation comes from the barons. Yet the aristocracy are also subordinated: hence the insistence on ceremony, and where such symbolic violence fails, on exemplary punishment. Kingship thus retains its authoritarian and punitive elements, albeit tempered by elective and meritocratic aspects. Hugues’s rise to the top of the establishment comes through his resistance to moral corruption. The text views royal justice and royal violence,

with the trappings and insignia that belittle other claims to sovereignty, as the best way of protecting the social order, provided they avoid ossification into tyranny. Monarchy is not the problem, but the wrong monarch would have ruined the formula. If earlier epics suggest that crises can be resolved through new pacts between monarchy and aristocracy, then Hugues invents a way for the king to represent a wider spectrum of society.’” Through its unique version of the rebel baron hero, the text moves from crisis to clarity, making reinforced monarchy the centrepiece of a reformed society. It thus further circumscribes the theme of revolt, responding to fourteenth-century fears about competing bids for power. The rebel can be a hero, but only if he displays selflessness and valour and has the support of all levels of society. Hugues’s climb to the top was a one-time only affair. RENAUT DE MONTAUBAN AND THE CHEVALERIE D°OGIER: POPULAR HEROES

The theme of revolt narrows as we move through the centuries from Girart de Vienne to Hugues Capet, with fewer and fewer opportunities for rebellion, but the ” For Blumenfeld-Kosinski, the poem ‘suggests strategies for profiting from new ways of ordering society that include the bourgeois in the political power play’ (Rewriting History in the Chanson de Ftugues Capet', p. 45). See also Gier (‘Hugues Capet’) on cooperation between different social orders,

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long-term popularity of Renaut and Ogier suggests the theme’s continued relevance. What is it about these texts that allowed them to transcend the political circumstances of their composition? They are amongst the most highly condemnatory chansons de geste, far less confident about the path from royal injustice, via revolt, to reform than Les Saisnes, Gui de Bourgogne, and Girart de Vienne. Unlike

Gaydon, they do not scapegoat traitors, rather locating the crisis in the king’s behaviour, and unlike Hugues, they examine not a power vacuum but an excess of power, a period of tyranny when the king uses all the military resources of the kingdom to pursue his own grievances. Violence is shown not as a coercive superstructure, but rather as the essence of the kingdom. Renaut and Ogier rise up reluctantly, before being forced to increasingly desperate actions as they become isolated. At best, they are pariahs, their plight symbolic of the injustices that flow from an unworthy king. They reject the logic of scapegoating, refusing to accept responsibility for the conflict that engulfs the kingdom. Antagonism cannot be exteriorized and instead erupts in the royal court. Both texts have playful elements: the king’s frustrations become comic, and critics have cast Renaut in particular as an example of catharsis or carnivalesque inversion.”® Indeed hierarchies are temporarily inverted as the king is made to scramble to get back his power. But to see the texts in terms of the carnival is to focus too heavily on the political closure of their endings, when the rebel is reconciled with the king, and to miss the import of the middle. The long rebellions of the central sections of both texts lose us in mazes where the locations of authority are uncertain, posing questions about power and legitimacy that remain unresolved at the conclusion. The Ogier and Renaut material became highly popular precisely because these underdog heroes display a kind of sublime madness in their boundless courage and in their rituals of compulsive resistance to a malign ruler. Renaut’s epic version survives in thirteen manuscripts, and the narrative drew broad attention from the thirteenth century onwards,

with

copies, additions,

and

reworkings.

The continuations

Maugis

d Aigremont, Vivien de Monbranc, and La Mort de Maugis made the material into a cycle, around Renaut’s magical helper, Maugis, referred to in these texts as the ‘bon larron’ [good thief]. One manuscript, Paris, Bibliothéque nationale, fr. 766, belonged to Jacques of Nemours, a rebel baron executed by Louis XI in 1477 (and thus the manuscript, with its pro-rebellion tale, went into the royal collection). The fourteenth century saw the production of a reworked version increasing the marvellous and moralizing elements; a luxury manuscript of this casting, Paris, Bibliothéque nationale, fr. 764, was produced in Bruges, Lille, or Gand in the fi teenth century.’? The tale was also translated into Dutch and German, and stories about Renaut still circulated in the early twentieth century in the Ardennes region—where part of the poem is set—and in Flanders.®° There was great Italian interest: Venice, Marciana fr. XVI belonged to the Gonzagas of Mantua, and the 78 Boutet (Charlemagne et Arthur) speaks of catharsis; Calin (“The Stranger and the Problematics of the Epic of Revolt’) reads Renaut in terms of the carnivalesque. Thomas (‘Signifiance des lieux, destinée

de Renaud et unité de lceuvre’) says Renaut does not incite revolt. 79 See Thomas's edition of L’Episode ardennais on the codices. 80 Baudelle-Michels, Les Avatars d'une chanson de geste, p. 10.

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figure of Renaut inspired poems by Boiardo and Ariosto.*! The story remained a popular subject of puppet theatre until the twentieth century, where Renaut is the hero of the people, and Charles a pantomime villain.” Renaut also appealed in both Florence and Burgundy, the main centres of prose production. Philip the

Good of Burgundy had a manuscript made, and the Burgundian versions were rich, illuminated codices for princes or courtiers, whereas Florence produced ‘popular’ manuscripts with mercantile script and little decoration. In France, printed versions of the tale, under the title of Les Quatre Fils Aymon (Renaut and his three brothers are sons of Aymon) appeared right up to the mid-twentieth century: indeed Sarah Baudelle-Michels documents no less than 218 printed editions, including the popular books of the Bibliothéque bleue.*? In nineteenth- and twentieth-century versions, Charlemagne stands for German oppression.** The gleeful play of the rebels, always there in the chansons de geste as a counterpoint to political and physical suffering, drives these diverse renderings that appealed to noble and popular classes alike. La Chevalerie d’Ogier, with five manuscripts (plus two fragments), was less successful than Renaut, but was nonetheless a favourite in the late medieval and early modern period. Adenet le Roi’s Enfances Ogier had a wide noble readership: copies belonged to Clémence of Hungary, Mahaut of Artois, Marie of Brabant, Charles V of France, and to the Burgundian nobles. Again, Italy provided a venue for success (see Chapter 4 of this volume on Ogier’s narrative in the Franco-Italian Geste Francor). Marguerite of Anjou and Philip the Bold of Burgundy received manuscripts of the fourteenth-century reworked Ogier in Alexandrines, and the mises en prose were also read by the nobility, including, again, Philip the Good.®° But from the sixteenth century onwards, a popular readership was developing. As well as Italy, Ogier texts are found in Holland, Denmark, and Belgium, where Ogier features in Liege puppet shows (he is the hero of Liége in the Myreur des histors,

a town history studied in Chapter 4 of this volume).8° Ogier’s name was also used by the “Holger Danske’ resistance group in World War Two.®” Over the centuries, then, the power of these rebel baron narratives remained undiminished as they

transcended the particular political circumstances of their composition and provided wide-ranging paradigms for popular opposition to tyranny. Later tellings of Renaut and Ogier’s tales focus more exclusively on the heroes, displaying increasing pessimism about the king, building on the chansons de geste versions, where the royal court is the scene of political and legal failures. In the latter, the king refuses to punish his kinsman for an offence against his baron, thus

prioritizing family ties over political loyalty. By showing heroes who resort to unusual methods of defiance, these texts argue that opposition, increasingly a futile task,

must be maintained by any means possible. They offer no easy solution or return to order and protracted wars result from Charles's attempts to destroy the rebels. Bisson, ‘I manoscritti di epica carolingia a Venezia’, p. 746. See Scuderi, “Performance and Text in the Italian Carolingian Tradition’. Les Avatars d'une chanson de geste. 84 See Morrissey, L’Empereur a la barbe florie. 8° Poulain-Gautret, La Tradition littéraire d’Ogier le Danois, p. 30. 8Suibidsyp! 16: 87 Stablein, “Patterns of Textual Shift and the Alien Hero’, p. 48. 81

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Thus Renaut opens with Charles lamenting the failure of certain barons to serve him in war.®8 Charles cites his military feats: ‘Tante terre ai conquise et tante region,

Dont li segnor me servent ou il voeillent ou non,

S’ai tante vile mise a feu et a charbon, Et tant paiens ai mis a grant destrucion,

Et la sainte loi Deu mise partot avon. (49-53) [I have conquered many lands and many regions, whose lords serve me whether they like it or not, and I have set fire to many towns and reduced them to ashes, and I have routed many pagans, and we have converted all lands to the holy law of God.]

Even in justifying his power, Charles reduces it to military might, without broader cultural, moral, or social foundation. He clearly intends to deal with any new problem violently. Power for Charles is not responsibility, still less the management of competing prerogatives, but rather the right to use the forces of the collective against those he perceives as wrongdoers. He is animated throughout by the fantasy that he could exercise power perfectly, if only he could eliminate protest. He thus discounts the possibility of that protest’s independent and legitimate existence, discrediting its foundation in feelings of injustice. But the barons fear that his dominion is already too great, already escaping their (and thus any) control. Charles imagines bloody vengeance on Beuves d’Aigremont, Renaut’s uncle and one of the recalcitrant barons. Beuves considers himself independent, and is offended that Charles sees him ‘com .1. autre gargon’ (260) [as some boy], dismiss-

ing him as ‘li rois d’Aiz la Chapelle | Qui velt avoir treii de ma terre la belle’ (241-2) [this king of Aix-la-Chappelle, who expects tribute from my beautiful

land]. The geographical distance of the king’s power centre from that of the baron highlights the novelty, and thus the illegitimacy, of the demand. Charles’s son Lohier, sent as messenger, provokes Beuves, and dies in the subsequent fighting. Beuves seeks compromise. The traitors suggest ambushing him instead, a solution which delights Charles, but which has terrible consequences. The text sets them out in a cascade of violence, in a passage which merits quoting at length: ...Karles fist ocirre a .1. jor de Noel Le duc Buef d’Aigremont que il avoit mandé;

Ou conduit Pempereur fu li duz deviez: Puis en fu granz la guerre et la mortalitez, Et tant preudome mozrz, ociz et afolez.

Renaus li filz Aimon qui tant ot de bontez 88 This opening section is sometimes considered to have been a separate text, integrated later. Vivien de Monbranc (c.1250; edition, p. 34) provides the backstory: Charles refused to help Beuves in wars against the Saracens, and Beuves therefore renounced homage. 89 Kor Combarieu du Grés, Charles’s name was made through force, and he dislikes refusals which question this force (L7déal humain et l'expérience morale chez les héros des chansons de geste, i, 139). Charles makes a similar statement in Girart de Vienne (6175-85). Ihe Grandes Chroniques de France

and other royalist chronicles give Charles's rule precisely the broader basis lacking here (see Chapter 4 of this volume).

88

Rebel Barons Occit puis Bertolai dun eschac pointuré, Le neveu Karlemaigne, dunt li rois fu irez: La terre en fu destruite et tant pais gasté, Et tante veve dame perdi son avoé, Tant enfant orphenin en sont desherité Et cheii a poverte et a honte livré; Et puis en fu Renaus li vassaux malmenez, Entre lui et ses freres chaciez forz dou regné, Puis guerroierent Karle lor anemi mortel, Et li firent maint mal et mainte tempestez.

(14-29)

[One day around Christmas Charles had the duke Beuves d’Aigremont, whom he had summoned, killed; in the emperor's safe-conduct the duke was put to death. Then

there was a great war with a great number of fatalities, and many brave men were killed, slain, or maimed. Renaut, son of Aymon, who had many good qualities then killed Bertolai the nephew of Charlemagne with a chessboard, and the king was angered: land was destroyed over this and many good territories ruined, many women were widowed, and many orphans were disinherited, fell into poverty and were shamed; and then the vassal Renaut was also maltreated and he and his brothers were driven out of the kingdom, and then fought Charles their mortal enemy and caused much damage and much uproar.]

As so often in the chansons de geste, events succeed one another inevitably, but with haphazard jumps from one tragedy to the next through the paratactic links of ‘puis’ and ‘et’. No reasoning links the acts of violence; in the system of strike and counterstrike, they just lead automatically to other acts of violence. The king’s act of dishonesty leads, step by step, to a war that engulfs his entire kingdom. Renaut, initially a court favourite, kills Bertolai because Charles refuses to punish him for striking Renaut. Charles then instantly orders Renaut’s death: “Barons, car l’ociez, por amor Dé demeine!’ (2203) [Barons, kill him, I demand it for the love of God!].

Renaut flees and thus the revolt begins. Lip-service is paid to the idea that revolt is wrong: ‘Qui son segnor guerroie il ne fet pas reson |Il em pert Damedeu et son seintieme non’ (284—5) [he who fights his lord does not act reasonably, he thus

loses God and his holy name]. Revolt is here linked to blasphemy as celestial and earthly hierarchies are paralleled. But the ethical situation remains complex, and the text manoeuvres the rebels into the position of victims, suggesting that terrible consequences flow from the failures of an unjust king. Ogier also opens with a refusnik baron upsetting Charlemagne: Gaufroy de Danemarche has declined to pay tribute, and humiliated Charles's messengers. Again, this spells trouble not just for the baron but for his kin: Gaufroy’s young son, Ogier, is hostage to the agreement between his father and Charlemagne. Furious, Charles wants to make an example of Ogier, but suddenly the Franks are called across the Alps to fight Saracens. God helps them through, inspiring Charles to take pity on Ogier, who becomes central to their victory, provoking jealously from Charles's son Charlot. Later at court, Ogier’s son Baudinet beats Charlot at °° ‘The back story to this agreement is filled in by Gaufrey (1250-1300; edition, pp. x-xi).

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chess; Charlot then kills him with the chessboard (3177). Ogier wants vengeance,

but the king banishes him. When Ogier attacks the king, he kills Charles’s other son, Lohier. Chasing Ogier, Charles is struck and only saved by divine intervention, which resolves domestic problems but does nothing to mask them. Like Renaut, Ogier exits, pursued by Charlemagne. The subsequent long stand-offs of these texts show that whereas collective revolt can achieve reform, individual barons can be easily victimized. Ogier stands alone in his revolt; Renaut can only rely on his brothers. This arguably reflects the way that barons within the Capetian sphere had little in common with one another, each acting to protect their own rights. Royal regimes were largely untroubled because there were always content barons to offset the unhappy ones.?! In neither text, then, is there an obvious programme for reform. In Ogier, the hero wants the king to hand over his son for punishment. Thus royal prerogative would disappear, and the king would be reduced to the level of the barons. In Renaut, the hero takes the law into his own hands. The king’s aims in these cases are simpler than the rebel’s: he wants the destruction of the baron who embodies the incompleteness of his power, and therefore could, in theory, have what he wants without questioning the social structure. Though the rebel barons are portrayed as victims overall, rights and wrongs remain unclear: individual claims compete, and cannot be sublimated into an objective legal order. The rebels constantly need to justify their actions. As they do so, the texts articulate the necessity of revolt in a properly functioning polity. The king has failed to act justly, behaving more like a private individual, with his own flaws, family, and favourites, than a neutral, public instance of sovereign

justice. He does not keep promises or respect privileges, and appeals at the royal court lead nowhere. Reform is thus impossible, but the powers of ritual remain. The use of ritual in Renaut and Ogier, however, goes beyond the dimensions sketched in Gui and Les Saisnes, and thus beyond Gluckman’s model. I shall also criticize the structural/ functionalist school of anthropology, to which Gluckman belongs, in Chapter 5 of this volume on feud. Though a valuable way of approaching medieval material, anthropology proves too confident in the normative role of violence, underestimating ambivalence about its disruptive powers. Indeed James Scott's study of cultures of resistance attacks the conservatism of Gluckman, who saw revolts as cathartic, just as critics have seen Renaut as offering an outlet for discontent.?* For Scott, ritual is one form of ‘hidden transcript—an unofficial cultural product of the subordinate, others being parodies, folk-tales, jokes, or fantasies of revenge— that subtends public performances of deference, consent, and togetherness and can constitute ‘a dress rehearsal or a provocation for actual defiance’.?? A ritual is a process where all involved know the script, the outcome. Though the literary revolts of the epics inevitably end in compromise and reintegration, they might have acted as starting points for real rebellions where the result was less clear. If

°1 Zmora, Monarchy, Aristocracy and the State in Europe, p. 95. °2 Order and Rebellion, p. 126.

°3 Domination and the Arts of Resistance, p. 178.

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discontent is structural, responses to it are less so. Social contradiction can overspill its container. Scott’s examples derive from slave or peasant cultures, whereas the

chansons de geste are a discourse of the privileged. But the nobles are scared by the logical scandal of sovereignty and, in chansons like Renaut and Ogier, they represent themselves as the oppressed, adopting the discursive practices of subordinate groups to license violent uprisings. Scott says that a constant ‘flow of symbolic taxes’ is needed in the form of ‘the simulacrum of a sincere obedience’, or else power is uncovered as tyranny.°* In texts like Gui and Les Saisnes, the flow briefly stops, and the king has to compete with his immediate subordinates. Renaut’s revolt, however, creates a longer period of doubt. Indeed Renaut eventually drives Charles to offer up the crown. Though the barons refuse it, confirming his position (10222-39),°° rituals have already left their

mark. After the initial scenes at Charles’s court, Renaut flees. Chases characterize the text, the most cat-and-mouse of the chansons de geste. The hero and his three brothers are accompanied by a fairy horse called Bayart as well as Maugis. Joyous moments and the solidarity of the brothers, often portrayed together on horseback, fill the text and dominate the pictorial tradition of early modern printed versions.”° In the chanson de geste, they sing: ‘Aalart et Guischart conmencierent .1. son, | Gasconois fu li diz et limozin li son’ (6800-1) [Aalart and Guischart start a song,

the words were Gascon and the melody Limousin], their chant associated with the Occitan lyric tradition, and thus with areas outside the king’s realm. A later battle opposes ‘Franceis’ [the French] and ‘1111. fiz Aymor’ (7754) [four sons of Aymom]. They stand alone against the Christian world’s most formidable fighting force. Renaut encourages his brothers to fight against the best of France, so that neither Roland nor Oliver can boast ‘qu'il ait les fiz Aymon comme bergiers trovez’ (8425) [that he found the sons of Aymon living like shepherds]. The king has a simple aim—to destroy the rebels that defy him—but their own aims are much harder to discern here. Renaut demands justice for Beuves at the start, but this goal disappears later, with the revolt subsequently taking place in a symbolic sphere as the barons demonstrate that they are too proud, too strong, and too inventive to roll over for a ruler claiming the sovereign power of a Roman emperor. The brothers’ revolt develops through a series of comic episodes. Charles is convinced by Naymes to put his crown up as a prize at a race. Renaut, given the appear-

ance of an adolescent by Maugis, speaks in pidgin Breton, again connoting a border zone of Capetian power, to avoid being recognized, before winning. Charles wants to buy the victor’s horse, but Renaut instead rides off with the crown: ‘J’enport vostre corone dor fin arrabiant: |Jamés ne la verroiz en vostre chief seant’ (5216-17)

[I am carrying off your fine crown of Arab gold: you will never have it on your head again]. Charles desperately tries to buy it back. Revolt here undermines the sovereign in the opposite way to the actions of Guillaume in the Couronnement de Louis, °4 Domination and the Arts ofResistance, p. 58. °° ‘The Récits d'un ménestrel de Reims recounts a similar episode: the baronial conspiracy against Philip Augustus led him to offer up his crown, but his barons refuse, instead restating their loyalty to him (p. 148). °6 See Labbé, ‘Renaut et ses fréres’.

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who by protecting the weak king Louis, reveals his inability to look after himself. Whereas Guillaume repeatedly puts the crown back on the head of the unworthy King Louis, thus keeping up the pretence that he is fit to rule, Renaut punctures the illusion, pointing to the gap between holy office and ignoble incumbent. He later thwarts the royal champions Ogier and Roland and, with the help of Maugis, who steals the royal eagle, the crown, and the swords of the twelve peers (10129-546), he attacks the king’s sovereignty.” Maugis’s nickname—the ‘good thief’ —encapsulates the inversion of ethical categories in the text; he steals not out of greed or avarice

but to challenge a corrupt hierarchy. He also heals the brothers, and saves one, Richart, from execution by disguising himself as a pilgrim, and going right up to Charles, who unwittingly complains to Maugis of Maugis’s shape-shifting (8963— 72). On the pretext that God will work miracles for Charles, Maugis has the king kneel before him, carving peacock to feed him. Later, when Charles captures Maugis, his desire for hanging is thwarted. At night, Maugis is well shackled, but we witness the ultimate defiance of sovereign power when having the body means nothing. Maugis breaks free with a spell. Throughout the text, his magical powers open up an exceptional space of questioning.

The hidden structures and contradictions of sovereign power come to light as ritual provokes intense political critique. The brothers never manage to find a sustainable outside space. Despite hints at border zones and thus outsides, everywhere turns out to be within Charles's power, a nightmarish reflection of monarchical and imperial expansion that clearly resonated not just in twelfth-century France but also in Italy and the Low Countries in later centuries. Charles is more imperial than they realize. The first route of attempted escape takes the brothers to their father’s residence, but he chases them out, recognizing his subservience to Charles; the narrator twice says that family relationships mean nothing in war (2624-5; 3351). As in Gaydon, they conflict with loyalty to one’s sovereign. The brothers then go to the Ardennes, at another fringe of royal power, and build a castle called Montessor. They are safe until they are betrayed. Charles chases them into a thick forest, where they suffer hardship. Renaut now displays the personal cost of rebellion, dramatizing the physical torments of those who oppose absolute power. Through the winter, the austerity of the brother's existence signals the strength of their opposition to Charles; they will renounce all worldly comforts, and give up everything, except the revolt itself. Come spring, they resemble hermits. Returning home, they are not recognized by their mother and father; Renaut complains ‘bien veez que gent somes de mult mal ore nez (3562) [you can well see that we are people born into ill fortune].

They now find another king at another geographical limit of French royal power, Gascony. King Yon needs help against the Saracens, and so accepts them: Quant vos de vostre terre estes deseritez Et je sui de la moie et chaciez et jetez, Bien devon estre ensemble, ce est la veritez.

(3955-7)

[When you are disinherited from your lands, and I am chased out and thrown out of mine, then we should be united, that is the truth.]

°7 Boutet, Charlemagne et Arthur, p. 244.

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This associates Charles’s tyranny with the impious violence of the Saracens. Both the Christian emperor and his religious enemies try to impose their projects upon the rest of society. The brothers build a castle at Montauban, but Charles discovers it, and demands their rendition. Yon’s refusal makes him the new symbol of the incompleteness of royal dominion. Thus Charles laments: ‘Nus ne me fet guerre vaillant .1. esperon, |Fors rois Ys de Gascoigne’ (5387-8) [no one makes even a spur's worth of

war on me, except King Yon of Gascony]. Yon eventually betrays the brothers; seduced by false gifts from him, they ride out unarmed and are attacked by Charles's men. Their attempt to find a space outside Charles's power is futile. Gradually, everything and everyone conspires against them. Rebellion is portrayed as a noble yet lonely task. Renaut, the bandit, the outlaw, the robber baron, nonetheless makes Charles bring all his forces to bear: ‘ainz mes nul roi de France ne fist telx aiinees’ (5608)

[never had a king of France gathered such an army]. Charles’s power appears unlimited on the level of human politics, because he rules everywhere and absolutely, but is limited on another level, associated with animality and magic. This becomes clearest in the final exile episode where the savagery of the brothers’ lives recalls the parallel between the sovereign and the wolf, examined in Chapter 1 of this volume. Both are external to society; though one serves as protection and the other as threat, they are strictly analogous. The deal that sovereignty offers subjects means that they have nothing to be scared of because the sovereign provides protection against all threats; nothing, that is, except the sovereign himself. When the

brothers go outside the social order, they leave the human sphere where Charles is sovereign. He cannot have power without designating a threshold separating good subjects inside the political from the bad ones who must be expelled, but then that means there is something outside, that his power is not complete. Charles is strangely attracted to them, drawn to the limit that defines his powers. Pulled into a mirroring relationship, Renaut and Charles cannot escape one another. No one else wants vengeance on Renaut; one baron says the emperor risks leaving France open to attack from ‘autre regne’ (2831) [another kingdom]. Long after the death

of Charles’s son ceases—in the eyes of the barons—to constitute reasonable cause, the king continues to desire revenge. Whereas modern historiography chastises barons for acting anarchically and vengefully rather than politically, Renaut flips the accusation on its head: it is Charles’s vengeance that is dysfunctional. His wrath determines the course of events, leading him from inglorious defeats to short-lived victories. Charles complains: ‘mult mont li fil Aymon corocié et pené’ (2817) [the

sons of Aymon have greatly angered and pained me]; he is driven by ‘rage’ (4619) [rage] and ‘ire’ (5442) [anger]. He expects his order to be total: Et comment puet ce estre, por l’'amor Dameldé, Que je ai si grant force et si grant poesté, Et .111. vavasors mont issi demené? Franceis m’ont deceii et Maugis enchanté, Bien sai quil mont trai, sanz point de fauseté.

(5720-4)

[And how can this be, for the love of God, that I have such great force and such great

powers, and four knights have done this to me? The French have deceived me and Maugis enchanted me, I know for sure that they have tricked me.]

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Years of struggle do nothing to calm him. Scott notes that subordinate cultures often take schadenfreude in portraying the suffering of the dominant.?® The king’s anguished inability to end rebellions on his terms is indeed dwelt on in Renaut and Ogier, but he also refuses opportunities to incorporate his enemies. In Renaut, loyalty and kin links are foregrounded in vain: Naymes suggests making Renaut and his brother Aalart peers, but Charles rejects the arguments that the brothers are ‘de

France nez’ (9415) [born in France], that they are peers and part of his ‘geste’ (9423) [kin group], declaring ‘non sunt... quer Renaut s'est faussez’ (9425) [they

are not, because Renaut betrayed his word]. Charles arbitrarily redefines the communities over which he rules, bringing concepts of ‘France’ and ‘geste’ within his power, and thus scapegoating the brothers. Aymon, earlier loyal to the king, subtly helps his sons by throwing food rather than stones during an assault, and Charles's closest allies, the peers, eventually abandon him in a moment of shame befitting a tyrant,” because they refuse to hang Renaut’s brother Richart (9304), with whom they feel bonds of kinship and allegiance. Charles appears tyrannical in his attempts to crush the rebel, losing support and ceasing to symbolize the collective. Those who still follow him do so out of obligation rather than conviction. Despite the evidence that killing Richart would damage the social fabric irreparably, Charles will not see reason. He pushes his power to its logical limits, and his men recoil. He deprives his enemies of the protection due to opponents in a just war, seeking their absolute destruction,’ and displays all the evils of war against which just-war theory cautioned: cruelty, greed, and love of violence. His desire to punish wrongdoers is not limited by kindness and charity, as John of Salisbury argued royal justice should be. Rebellion thus unmasks royal power as just another form of violence, before demonstrating the impotence of that violence. The implements of Charles’s violence are people, bound by obligations to him, but who also have consciences and can refuse; hence the king’s contradictory appearance as all-powerful, yet always on the brink of losing that power. The dwindling support of the baronial class works as both symptom and cause of royal ineffectiveness and illegitimacy. Charles represents the community at the start, but less and less so afterwards, and eventually the barons form a community without him. The intrigue of Renaut constitutes a frontier case: Charles's son and nephew have been killed, and family ties are embroiled in the concerns of the kingdom. But the chansons de geste seek precisely those cases that test the idea of kingship to its limits: what happens when the king, supposedly the transcendent, impartial high judge of the kingdom, finds himself in a state of emotional disarray due to the death of a kinsman? He becomes plaintiff and judge in the same trial. There is no possibility of a judicial remedy since Renaut is locked in battle with his lord, holding no other legal recourse than that same lord. The tragedy is the clash between two models of kingship: the king °8 Domination and the Arts ofResistance, p. 41. °° Boutet, Charlemagne et Arthur, p. 414. 100 As Russell notes, rebels, heretics, and pagans were frequently considered not to deserve the humanitarian protections of the just war (Zhe Just War in the Middle Ages, p. 8).

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as sovereign—defined by his position above the law—and the king as the first noble, attached to the aristocratic social structure of kinship and to the practice of vengeance. He has become the former without relinquishing the latter, and Renaut and his brothers fall victim to a jarring mismatch. The Chevalerie d’Ogier also portrays a protracted revolt during which the king's sovereignty is unmasked as tyranny when his power concentrates on a lone, victim-

ized wrongdoer. When Ogier flees from court, Charles's army lays waste to his lands. The royal messenger Bertrand accuses Ogier of ‘oltrage’ (4274) [outrage], declaring

he deserves prison because he is from Denmark instead of an ‘ami lignage’ (4287) [allied lineage] of France. The size of ‘France’ is a constant question in the text:

does it represent only the central royal power base? Or is ‘France’ Carolingian Francia, an empire including Denmark, the land of Ogier’s father? Chapter 3 of this volume will consider the claims of barons to rule in areas beyond the king’s powers. Ogier makes no claims about independent landholdings here, but he is both a powerful royal servant and a foreign hostage at court; he thus flits between insider and outsider status. Here, after killing Bertrand, Ogier tells Charles: ...Cest present recevés De part Ogier le Danois d’outre mer;

De tex services vos ferai je assés

(5715-17)

[take this gift from Ogier the Dane from overseas; I will serve you like this many times]

This aggressive gift is an ironic performance of the loyalty Charles demands, or inverted homage and service. As in Renaut, the king is frequently mocked. Like Renaut, Ogier is abandoned by an ally on what seems to be the fringes of Charles's empire, Desier of Lombardy, who regrets ever trying to help him (just as Yon of Gascony betrays Renaut and his brothers). Charles appears able to impose his will wherever he likes. Eventually, Ogier stands alone, defending his castle Chastelfort: ‘nil n’a aide fors de Jhesu du ciel’ (8284) [he has no help except for Jesus in heaven]. He is reduced to using wooden dummies as a faux garrison (8331-45); this signals

strikingly the disproportion between the forces of rebels and royalists. But in a comic scene, Charles accuses the wooden men of pride for not recognizing him as king of France; he will spare them if they give up Ogier. The narrator dryly reports that they do not reply (8397-422). Charles is ritually humiliated here, his army powerless. Siege engines prove futile, as does virtually every other method of siegecraft: ‘bridges across the moat, attempts at drainage, ladders, mangonels, encirclement, and Greek fire’.'°! Ogier holds out for seven years. Charlot offers to go on pilgrimage, but Ogier attacks and unseats Charles (8954). Exiled again, Ogier

regrets causing so many deaths (9107). Turpin takes him prisoner, but keeps him out of the king’s grasp. When Ogier’s kin ask for mercy, they highlight the king’s wrongs (9427-54). Charles only sees reason, though, when the Saracen Braier invades; Ogier alone can save the kingdom. The Dane wants vengeance on Charlot, who is eventually handed over. But a bolt of lightning strikes, and Saint Michael takes Ogier’s sword, ordering him to fight the infidel. There is widespread joy, and 10! Bloch, Medieval French Literature and Law, pp. 82-3.

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Ogier defeats Braier. Charles and Ogier appear virtual equals at the end, each admitting his wrongs in a battlefield conversation. As in Renaut, desire to condemn slowly—ever so slowly—turns into desire for peace. A humbled Charles holds Ogier’s stirrup and the Dane says ‘moi as oni et toi encore plus’ (12271) [you have

shamed me, and yourself yet more], before Charles thanks him: ‘m’avés tot mon resne rendu’ (12277) [you have given me back my whole kingdom]. Ogier is finally given a lordship—‘mult fu Ogier cremus et redotés’ (12331) [Ogier was greatly

feared and dreaded]—thus becoming the king’s right-hand man: ‘per lui fu Kalles et cremus et dotés’ (12340) [through him Charles was feared and dreaded].!° The

parallels in vocabulary suggest complementary of function. The talents of a warrior like Ogier are indispensable. In trying to exclude him, Charles was only ever damaging his own realm. Renaut also closes with incorporation, as Renaut’s brothers become peers who help Charles govern (12905—21). Again, this follows a moment of vulnerability for

the sovereign, when the hero has Charles at his mercy, yet kneels before him, asking for mercy. A miracle signals divine approval of their reconciliation (12898—904).

As in Girart de Vienne, Charles learns that mercy increases rather than decreases his sovereign power. Charles says: ‘Je pardonc a Renaut l’ire que nos avon’ (12891) [I forgive Renaut for the anger between us]. The anger was mutual, but mercy is

the king’s alone to give: royal power’s unilateral, asymmetrical, and absolute nature thus finds its purest expression. The king was earlier trying to repair the social fabric through vengeance, but his pursuit of it stripped him of support. He gradually finds a way to enact hierarchy not through war, but through rituals and words that restructure and re-naturalize royal power. Charles instead agrees to a compromise whereby Renaut goes on a pilgrimage. This sanctified, legitimized, and mutually agreeable exile effaces Renaut’s previous humiliation. Lowliness becomes elevation. Renaut confesses to the pope, and along with Maugis, he leads the troops of Jerusalem to victory over the king of Persia. But they refuse to take the kingdom; Renaut ‘onques ne volt estre rois ne corone porter’ (13481) [never wanted to be a

king or wear a crown]. The crusade supplement to the narrative argues that Renaut was never a true rival to Charles, but he ultimately only ceases to be a rebel baron by ceasing to be a baron at all. Just as Gaydon becomes a hermit following his war with Charlemagne, Renaut assists in the construction of the cathedral at Cologne. Killed by his fellow labourers because he works for free, Renaut’s body is transported to a church in Trémoigne (identified as modern-day Dortmund) where the bells miraculously ring themselves. Renaut becomes Saint Renaut. Scott would see the violence in Renaut and Ogier as a demonstration of potential revolt, a rehearsal for it, an acting out of ‘anger and reciprocal aggression’.1°9

Renaut and Ogier became popular heroes because their plights stood for wideranging fears about oppression. Any subject could potentially fall victim to the 102 Combarieu du Grés sees the poem as manifesting social decline (L7déal humain et l'expérience morale chez les héros des chansons de geste, i, 154-6); however, there remains

ending. 103 Scott, Domination and the Arts ofResistance, p. 37.

a moment of hope in the

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irrational violence of the sovereign. In other epics, the exteriority of the barons precedes their reincorporation on renegotiated terms; with Renaut and Ogier, it turns out to be a virtue in itself, highlighting the king’s status as an inassimilable

alien in the society he governs. He is the monster, the enemy of the rightful social order, whereas they are brave victims. Over time, this dimension meant that Renaut’s and Ogier’s narratives transcended the paradigm of noble revolt, encapsulating instead the need for protest in any political order, and for human resistance to tyranny. CONCLUSION This chapter has shown, I hope, how the rebel baron epic remained vital and rele-

vant long after Philip Augustus’s reign, which seems to have represented the initial moment of its flourishing. Les Saisnes, Gui de Bourgogne, and Girart de Vienne represent attempts to imagine resistance in a climate of centralization, a logic which clearly remained powerful in Gaydon, written in the early years of Louis IX’s reign. Hugues Capet, though it takes a different tack, displays fourteenth-century interest in the themes of traitors and corruption, and of revolt and social reform, whereas the continued readership for Renaut de Montauban and the Chevalerie d’Ogier into the early modern period and across a wide space shows the rebel baron material’s potential to speak beyond its original contexts. It was imbricated in themes of crusade and imperialism, as well as domestic court politics, and provided resources for the critique of rulers by drawing on political-theoretical notions of tyranny to imagine modalities of resistance such as rituals and aggressive gifts. These works, which conceive of politics as necessarily conflictual, were owned by the noble classes who continued to rebel throughout the Middle Ages. Without revolt, these texts argue, there would be no politics: kingly rule would become tyranny, either through ossifying and losing its capacity to evolve, or through changing wildly, in arbitrary and destructive ways. Revolt guards against these two extremes. A war against one’s king is unlike any other, but also the only possible response to royal injustice: the baron’s case must be stated violently, or not be heard at all. Like the political theorists who wrote mirrors for princes, then, the rebel barons try to teach the king that power which is unconditional in theory cannot, in practice, be used without restraint. The narrative arc of these texts tends away from revolt, but counter-narratives remain, and we must avoid flattening polyvalent works of art by adopting teleological, pro-royal perspectives. Within the body of the chansons de geste, an alternative ethics and a means of rebelling are articulated. The performance of subjection allows a space for the expression of protest and exposes the contradictions of power. The sovereign’s wars appear vengeful and punitive; the rebels are young, righteous, innocent, even saintly as they endure pain and suffering. The process of renegotiating vertical bonds valorizes horizontal ties of kinship, brotherhood,

or generational or class solidarity, sometimes maintained in defiance of the sovereign’s demands. Though revolt never becomes revolution in the modern sense,

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revolutionary potential remains. When individual injustices are corrected, the king learns that his power is conditional on the respect of custom, law, and broader principles of fairness and equity. Our texts might indeed have helped prepare for rebellions; after all, baronial revolts continued through the Middle Ages and into the early modern period. Scott argues that hidden transcripts allow us to move beyond apparent consent and to glimpse ‘potential acts, intentions as yet blocked, and possible futures that a shift in the balance of power or a crisis might bring to view’. In the chansons de geste, the contingency of royal power is highlighted, opening up paths followed variously by later political actors and later works. 104 Domination and the Arts ofResistance, p. 16.

3 Resistance I introduce the term ‘resistance’ into this study because ‘rebellion’ is an unsuitable label for the political situation of certain chansons de geste traditionally termed ‘rebel baron epics’. Chapter 2 of this volume argued that rebellion preserves and corrects existing power structures: the baron challenges his king on account of a particular injustice, before seeking reintegration. But I contend here that the war

between king and baron in poems such as Girart de Roussillon is not readily reducible to a conflict between superior and inferior, because the baron is defending rights and property which, in his eyes, do not derive solely from the king. The baron who resists is refusing to accept the existence of a hierarchy subordinating him to the king. He denies the king’s sovereignty and claims sovereignty of his own, because he considers that his lands lie outside royal jurisdiction. ‘France’ is seen as a foreign country and its king an aggressive invader. To speak of ‘rebellion’ in such cases would entail siding with the king, implying that the barons should be subordinated to him, and back-projecting the modern nation-state of France onto the Middle Ages. This can happen because national histories, philologies, and literary studies skew and obscure our view of the regionalist politics of medieval Europe.! Even in work without an overtly nationalist agenda, the boundaries of modern nation-states often frame studies, which set their parameters in terms of ‘medieval France’ or ‘medieval Germany’, and so on. Geography in the period remained subjective, political, and conflictual. Territorial definitions of the kingdom of France had been available since 843, and there was a sense that the different regions made up one ‘regnal community’.? France’s border with the empire, in particular, was a well-recognized jurisdictional boundary.? All the same, France remained in flux. Medievalists working on frontiers suggest a paradigm not of fixed lines, but of overlapping zones of influence.* Frontiers appeared differently when measured in terms of culture, language, or law,

with its intersecting jurisdictions and hierarchies. Taking this tendency to its extreme, Thomas Bisson gives a highly fragmented model for medieval power, using lordship * Geary argues that ethnic nationalism has poisoned our understanding of the Middle Ages (The Myth of Nations, p. 15). Kinoshita (Medieval Boundaries) offers a critique of this tendency in literary

scholarship. > The term is Reynolds's (Kingdoms and Communities, p. 252). 3 See Jones, Eclipse ofEmpire. * Power defines provincial borders in terms of ‘zones of diminishing control, comprising enclaves and exclaves, and competing or overlapping rights’ (‘French and Norman Frontiers’, p. 110). Abulafia suggests defining the frontier as ‘a set of attitudes, conditions and relationships’ (Introduction: Seven ‘Types of Ambiguity’, p. 34).

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as the base unit of thinking. Civil and criminal jurisdiction belonged to minor lords, who ruled over those they could subject to their direct violence. Thus power was primarily felt as violence emanating from small units, such as towns and castles.° There were diverse and competing rights at all levels of society. Larger communities, including kingdoms, were accumulations of such lordships and their borders fluctuated with the vagaries of fidelity. Political units were fluid because power remained personal, not territorial. Indeed royal rights in France were not effectively asserted until the twelfth century, when kings clamped down on the violence of castellans. In the meantime, the great princes—in areas including Aquitaine, Brittany, Burgundy, Flanders, Gascony, and Occitania—had carved out independent polities, with hereditary power and separate jurisdiction, recognizing only nominal higher authority.® Their power—based on the subjugation of counts and viscounts—was not much different from that of kings. Twelfth- and thirteenthcentury Capetian kings had many successes against the princes, but the movement of consolidation was not linear. The fourteenth century was another era of the great princes, with Burgundy, Brittany, and Flanders maintaining claims to independence right until the end of the Middle Ages.’ These principalities were frontier zones, flashpoints where the process of claim and counter-claim was particularly fraught. Precedents collided, with arguments for both independence and subjection. The vectors of centralization and hierarchy ran up against longestablished regional rule. However beautifully it might be expressed in ideology, then, royal power remained violent in practice. As Chapter 1 of this volume argued, there is a major blind-spot in the body politic model, and in much medieval political theory, which takes the polity (whether empire, kingdom, or city) as its point of departure. But the chansons de geste explore the contradictions arising from the fact that no polity is a naturally existing or eternally fixed unit; all had to be defended and expanded through violence. What if new subjects resented this, and considered themselves outside the kingdom and thus the body? In twelfth- and thirteenth-century France, kings claimed pre-existent rights over regions surrounding their own power base, but the great barons feared royal belligerence and arbitrary expansion. Bisson argues that ‘the spectacle of kings redefining tenures and fidelities schematically so as to turn precedence into command’ aroused concern in princely courts.® And in 1246, the barons who leagued against Louis IX, including the count of Brittany

and the duke of Burgundy, complained that the kingdom had been acquired not

> See at most length The Crisis of the Twelfth Century. § Dhondt (Etudes sur la naissance des principautés territoriales), Lemarignier (Le Gouvernement royal aux premier temps capétiens) and Werner (‘Kingdom and Principality in France’) assumed that territor-

ial principalities were a stage in the disintegration of Carolingian adminstrative systems. Werner saw the principality as a legal substitute for the kingdom. For Dunbabin (France in the Making), however, regalian rights largely escaped the princes, and the principalities were personal ascendencies, that sometime later gained more precise territorial definition. See also Bates, “West Francia’; Fossier, ‘Sur les principautés médievales’; Génicot, “Provinces de France’. 7 See Autrand, ‘France under Charles V and Charles VT’. 8 The Crisis of the Twelfth Century, p. 299.

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through legal mechanism or ecclesiastical concession but through brute force.? The literary texts analysed in this chapter voice these fears and complaints. I examine a group of chansons de geste and related texts that dramatize resistance to French sovereigns in the Occitan and Burgundian space, where native barons dreaded being disinherited.!° Occitania and Burgundy both fell partly within the putative frontiers of France, and partly outside them; both had a distinctive cultural iden-

tity shaped by antagonism with France, but ill-defined political borders; both had potential sovereigns of their own (Occitania under the counts of Toulouse; Burgundy under its dukes). The texts studied here all articulate religious independence too, disputing the Frankish claim to leadership of Western Christendom and the Frankish ideology of self-sacrifice and submission to hierarchy. Occitania and Burgundy are thus historical and imaginary sites which challenge the legitimacy of territorial and monarchical expansionism. I look first at Aspremont (c.1190),"

whose hero, Girart, is based on the same historical figure as Girart de Vienne, discussed in Chapter 2 of this volume. Girart was regent of Provence and a powerful adversary of Charles the Bald (843-77), the king of Western Francia who wanted to claim the region. Girart’s power derived indirectly from Charles’s brother Lothaire I (843-55), king of Middle Francia (hence the name Lotharingia).'* Burgundy’s

identity as a patria preceded and outlived Middle Francia, but it lacked political unity. In the twelfth century, it straddled the Franco-Imperial border. However, the idea of Burgundy as a territory apart from France, and the character of Girart as its defender, remained fertile literary ground for claims for political independence. Indeed the same historical personage appears in the chanson de geste of my second section, Girart de Roussillon (1136-80), which depicts an Occitan-Burgundian alliance against the king of France, thus connecting with the idea of a separate south defined by its language: the pays doc. This version of the Girart tale has justly drawn a great deal of critical attention, including fascination with the saintly ending, when Girart withdraws from political life to complete holy works.!3 There has been much less focus on the saint’s life, the Vita Nobilissimi Comitis Girardi de Rossellon (c.1100), examined in my third section.!4 Yet the Vita is vital to the verse (1330-4)!> and prose renderings (1447)!° of Girart de Roussillon written for a ° Jones, Eclipse ofEmpire, p. 262. 10 My paradigm for resistance could be extended to other texts, such as Doon deMaience (1250-1300; edition, p. vi) and Jehan de Langon (1200-25; edition, p. 23), though Jehan depoliticizes resistance somewhat through its setting in a fictional realm. Doon’s eponymous hero, newly crowned in Mainz, passes Paris without going to the king, whom he thus angers; Doon, on the other hand, claims that he is not Charles's vassal. The texts studied in Chapter 2 of this volume gestured in this direction: Beuves d’Aigremont in Renaut de Montauban; Gaufrey in the Chevalerie Ogier, and Girart’s clan in Girart de Vienne are surprised by new demands for tribute and service, which Charlemagne makes as though they were a matter of course. But the baronial resistance perspective of Chapter 2’s texts remains secondary: the narrative focuses overwhelmingly on a hero who recognizes the king as his lord up until the revolt, and desires reconciliation after it. '! See the Appendix for source of dates, summary, and manuscript information. '? For a history, see MacLean, “The Shadow Kingdom’. 'S See Burgwinkle, “Ethical Acts and Annihilation’; Kay, ‘Singularity and Spectrality’. ‘4 Edition, p. 11 (Gouiran and Combarieu du Gres, in their edition of the chanson, suggest a late twelfth-century date however).

5 Edition, p. 57.

'6 Date given in the text (p. 519).

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Burgundian court reactivating claims for independence. The Girart legend had a long life: these works, examined in my fourth section, use the epic material on Girart the warrior, but deploy elements of the saint’s life to portray Girart as a devout knight persecuted by the French king. I return to Occitania in my final section on the Chanson de la Croisade Albigeoise (1219) which narrates its conquest by northern barons on the pretext of stamping out the Cather heresy. A strong sense of a separate Occitan literary, legal, and linguistic culture pervades the text, which offers the most profound example of resistance studied here, portraying a way of life different from that of the French. Ultimately, the acts of resistance told in these poems fail. The narratives of Occitan and Burgundian nationhood are broken. But nonetheless, by returning to moments when the expansion of France

could be critiqued as unnatural and even undesirable, these texts provided the resources for imagining resistance.

ASPREMONT

The hero of Aspremont, Girart de Fraite, initially refuses to help Charlemagne in holy war, before finally joining the cause. But with the war won, he provokes Charles, returning to his earlier stance. This turn of events confused the text's editor, Frangois Suard: ‘a la fin de la chanson et sans grande vraisemblance narrative ou actancielle, Girart change de comportement et revient 4 ses errements précédents’ [at the end of the song, without much narrative or structural sense, Girart

changes his behaviour and returns to his previous erroneous ways].'” Suard’s bafflement and disapproval match Charles’s consternation; both hope for solidarity at the level of the kingdom. There is clearly a value judgement in Suard’s reading: he considers Girart a troublemaker, a rebel, a wrongdoer. Suard cannot integrate Girart’s actions into an overarching narrative, because the narrative he expects is

the eventual acceptance of the king. This is indeed the trajectory of some poems that suit the tendency to nationalize the epic tradition, but Aspremont struggles against this critical straightjacket. The presence of a young Roland has led to the poem’s continued classification as prologue to the Roland and as a geste du roi text.'® Yet Aspremont only collocates with Roland in one manuscript (Venice, Biblioteca Marciana, fr. IV), and the label oversimplifies the text’s politics, where the crisis is even more profound than in texts like Renaut and Ogier. Girart takes his place outside Charles’s hierarchy, but within what Charles claims as his kingdom. Aspremont thus undercuts regnal solidarity with regionalism, whilst simultaneously overlaying both with questions of pan-European Christian solidarity. Arguably composed at the time of preparations for the Third Crusade!?—when the instability of alliances 7 “Girart de Bourgogne dans la tradition épique’, p. 135. 18 See the Introduction on the three gestes. Aspremont is classified as a geste du roi text in the two most recent guides to the genre: Suard, Guide de la chanson de geste, pp. 197-8; Jones, Introduction to the Chanson de geste, p. 29. 19 See van Emden, ‘La Chanson d'Aspremont and the Third Crusade’, and de Mandach, Naissance et développement de la chanson de geste, iii, 2. Aspremont was known to Ambroise, author ofahistory of the Third Crusade (Estoire de la guerre sainte). It may have been sung to the crusading armies in 1190

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gathering Western leaders was topical—Aspremont’s manuscript tradition suggests that the text had broad and long-lived relevance. Of the twenty-four extant manuscripts, nine are likely Anglo-Norman, including some of the earliest: Cologny, Fondation Martin Bodmer, 11 dates to c.1200;7° two British Library codices date to the first half of the thirteenth century (Landsdowne 782; Additional 35289).

A third (Royal 15 E VI, a compilation of epics and romances) was commissioned by John Talbot, first Earl of Shrewsbury and of Waterford, as a wedding gift for Margaret of Anjou on her marriage to Henry VI of England, in 1445, indicating the story’s long-lived interest. Seven codices are Franco-Italian, including Venice, Biblioteca Marciana, fr. IV and VI, which were produced in the north of Italy

in the fourteenth century and belonged to the Gonzagas of Mantua. Paris, Bibliothéque nationale, fr. 1598 and Chantilly, Musée Condé, 470, may have been made in thirteenth-century Bologna. Aspremont proved highly popular in Italy, with recastings as fourteenth- and fifteenth-century cantari, prose, and print versions; Andrea da Barberino’s Tuscan prose rendering is justly celebrated. In late medieval northern Italy, cities and regions fought for freedom from imperial or papal interference. In England, the text no doubt appealed to barons resisting royal innovations that curbed their powers, whereas barons with the Capetian orbit would have recognized the way crusade provides a convenient excuse for the extension of royal powers. The Suard edition, which takes a Continental Old French thirteenth-century version—Paris, Bibliothéque nationale, fr. 25529—as its base, dismisses much of the poem’s wider literary-historical context. Yet the action makes clearer sense with this in mind. Baronial sovereignty and resistance—the claim for total independence from the king—animate Aspremont. In what follows, I provide a reading of the text edited by Suard to demonstrate how ill it fits a nationalizing paradigm. The context for Girart’s refusal to submit is clear at the start: N’avoit en France nule riens a baillier:

Ainz que viellece li tousist le mengier, . XV. roiaumes ot bien a justissier.

(36-8)

[he [Charles] had no possessions in France: but before old age took away his appetite, he had fifteen kingdoms to rule over.]

Charles's life’s work is military conquest. He now forbids the creation of knights away from his court (147—56). Frankish royal reach and regulation are growing. As

in many chansons de geste, the figure of Charlemagne flits between the status of king of the Franks and that of Holy Roman Emperor: it seems that he expects, as emperor, to have automatic power over all Christians, but other characters perceive in Sicily, when Richard the Lionheart and Philip Augustus wintered there. De Mandach (Naissance et développement de la chanson de geste, iv, 54) thought that poem was of Anglo-Norman origin, and Van Waard saw Girart as a cipher for Henry II of England (Etudes sur Vorigine et la formation de la ‘Chanson a Aspremont’, p. 254, n. 5), but that parallel fails to account for the Burgundian resonances of the tale.

?° Source for dates and provenance is http://www.chansondaspremont.eu/manuscrits/index.html (consulted 15 June 2016). See also De Mandach, Naissance et développement de la chanson de geste, iii, 2, 156-8; Aspremont, ed. Suard, pp. 38-9. On Italy, see Brunetti, ‘La Chanson d’Aspremonte V'Italia’.

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him as the king of just one particular group, considering that it is possible to be a

good Christian without subjecting oneself to him.?! The possibility that the contractual power of a king differs from the absolute power of an emperor adds another layer of uncertainty. Aspremont thus returns to the forging of the Carolingian Empire to expose the violence at its heart. But one imperial project will clash with another, for Aspremont opens with a great Saracen invasion in the south of Italy. Charles must defend Europe against the Saracens, led by Agolant and his son Eaumont, who already rule two continents—Africa and Asia—and seek the third to complete their set (237-67). If Charles fails, “Crestientez n’i a nul recovrier’ (889) [Christendom will be lost forever]. Charles summons all his barons in a time

of stark necessity for togetherness against external threats. Yet Charles's attempt to become leader of Europe stumbles because he needs Girart. He sends Naymes as messenger: A dant Girart vos voldrai anvoier,

Que il me viegne a cest besoing aidier, Par covenant, se il an a mestier, Souz ciel n’a home se il le viaut chacier Que ne li viegne tot maintenant aidier,

Q’a son talant sem porra bien vengier

(925-30)

(I want to send you to lord Girart, to ask that he aid me in this time of need, with the

agreement that when he needs help against any man on earth who attacks him, I will come straight away, so that he can take vengeance as he desires]

Nothing obliges Girart to offer his assistance. Girart is asked to recognize the king’s ‘besoing’, rather than to offer service, and a ‘covenant’ is proposed: Girart will get help in return. But Naymes warns Charles: Girart est fiers et fels et orgueillous; En tot cest siecle ne sai si felon rous, Car il fu filz a .1. roi merveillous, Qui fu moult preuz et molt chevalerous,

Si est estreiz trestoz d’empereors, Ja ne tenra ne de moi ne de vos.

(935-40)

[Girart is ferocious and wicked and proud; in the entire world | know of no redhead so villainous, because he is the son of a great king, who was very valiant and chivalrous, and he descends from a line of emperors, so he will never hold land from

me or you.]

In Girart de Vienne, Girart is the son of Garin de Monglane; in Girart de Roussillon, the hero’s father is Drogon, duke of Burgundy. His father is not identified in this version of Aspremont, but his lineage has the same dignity as Charlemagne’, likely because of its roots in the independent Burgundian kings of the Merovingian era. The text contains recollections of past moments of Burgundian glory, prior to the 21 ‘The same pattern was evident in the texts discussed in Chapter 2 of this volume, and the chronicles explored in Chapter 4 take varying stances on the legitimacy or otherwise of Charlemagne’s imperial title.

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rise of France, and thus returns to a moment of contingency. In thirteenth-century France, it would have clashed with the growing historiographical tradition that set out a pre-destined, benign, and natural procession from the Merovingians through to the Carolingians and Capetians.?? Girart holds his lands entirely separately: Soue est Borgoigne des Orliens jusq’en son Et tot entor maint pais environ. Soue est Borgoingne qu'il n’i a conpaignon.

(1178-80)

[Burgundy is his from Orléans to the north, and many other provinces around that. Burgundy is his and he shares it with no one.]

The term ‘conpaignon’ carries meanings of ‘equal’ as well as ‘friend’: it resonates with the moment in Girart de Roussillon when it is said that Charles Martel will suffer no ‘par’ [equal] in his kingdom, on which more below. “‘Conpaignor’ is also

the relationship linking Roland and Oliver; just like other pairs of chanson de geste heroes, so here, it suggests that Girart’s might transcends normal social structures. His lands, centred on Burgundy, are an isolated pocket of resistance to otherwise complete royal sovereignty. Though Charles requests help, rather than calling Girart as a vassal, Girart is affronted. He calls Naymes a ‘filz a putain’ (1000) [son

of a whore], throws a knife at him and threatens to decapitate him. Girart’s independence is generally expressed in the language of lordship. He addresses his men here: ‘bone gent, tote vos ai norrie’ (8299) [good people, I have sustained you], ordering them to capture lands for him. His stance can be understood through Andrew Cowell’s concept of heroic integrity: warriors tried to be ‘fully-fledged individuals capable of acting and existing apart from the networks of reciprocity which bound together medieval aristocratic society’.?? Girart gives his service to Charles as an aggressive gift, taking nothing in return, avoiding any reciprocal relationship with the emperor, whose dependence Girart signals just as he manifests his own absolute autonomy.** Eventually, Girart joins the Christian community without becoming part of Charles’s realm, and his resistance goes beyond the position of a duke or count opposing new royal demands. Girart considers himself of quasi-royal status, holding his ‘chasement’ (1054) [territory] from ‘Deu omnipotent’ (1055) [God almighty]. He claims to be something more than

a lord, more than a usurper or trustee of royal powers. His authority, it appears, is not the result of a mere accumulation of counties and comital rights, nor is it delegated from any king or emperor, because he recognizes no superior. And most importantly, it is perpetual. Not even the threat of excommunication troubles Girart: ‘Se l'apostole me tolt crestienté, |J’en ferai .1. tot a ma volenté’ (1038-9) [if the pope excommunicates me, I will make a new one that suits me]. He has

power over the clergy in his realm, and thus derives his legitimacy directly from God. The papacy is denounced as a Frankish, rather than a universal, Church.?>

2 See Spiegel, Romancing the Past. ?3 ‘The Medieval Warrior Aristocracy, p. 3. *4 See also Chapter 2 of this volume on aggressive gifts. *° See Chapter 4 of this volume on the Myreur d’histors, where Charles's right to the imperial title is questioned on the basis that it was wrongfully awarded by the pope, his kinsman.

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As well as reflecting the independence of Burgundy before and after the Carolingians,

this undoubtedly manifests the idea that Burgundy was Christian before France. The Burgundian history known as the Chronique des royz argues that Clovis, the Frankish king, was Christianized by his Burgundian wife.?° A Burgundian rescued the Franks from pagandom, which suggests that the Frankish claim to lead Christendom

is usurpation. Burgundy can have its proper place in the universe without subordination to France. Girart flatly refuses to allow Charles safe passage through Burgundy (1098), and intends to seize France in the king’s absence (1218-26). He thinks he

has sovereign power, and can legitimately oppose, or even attack, another sovereign land. But his wife Emeline lists his sins, calls him Satan and reminds him of his age; Girart has one last chance to earn salvation (1219-54). In the version edited by Louis Brandin,?” Girart scorns Charles: Ses pere fu uns dolans nains caitis;

Enbloit as grans et toloit as petis. Plus sui haus hom qu'il mest, cho mest avis.

(1435-7)

[His father was a horrible dwarf; he took from the great and stole from the poor. I believe that I am a greater man than he.]

He rejects subjection to an inferior lineage. But Emeline’s reply echoes royal ideology that portrayed the power of kings as transcendent: ‘Li rois de France est sor tols poéstis: |Dex le comande en lois et en escris’ (1440-1 [the king of France is more

powerful than anyone: God decreed so in laws and in writing]. If the Brandin version thus opposes two versions of sovereignty to make clear the king’s superiority, the Suard version, which does not contain these lines, makes Girart’s participation in the war a matter of purely personal spirituality. Religious belief rather than political conviction leads him to join the king. Aspremont is a balanced chanson de geste. The poet refuses to condemn Girart, but neither does he tarnish Charlemagne. Naymes lectures Charles on the duties of a king (50-85), and there are pro-royal currents: for the bulk of the text, the

action switches between Charles and Girart, both contributing positively to the same cause. Naymes undertakes a dangerous mission to spy on the Saracens, climbing a forbidding mountain—the ‘aspre mont’ of the poems title—defeating a bear and a griffin, and surviving harsh conditions (1536-672). The rest of the

poem consists primarily of two long war sections: first Eaumont is killed by Roland, who thus gets his famous sword Durendal, his horse, and his olifant. In the second war, Agolant is defeated by Girart’s nephew; thus the two Saracen chiefs are both killed by nephews of great Christian leaders. However, Girart sends the head of Agolant to Charles. With this aggressive gift that signals at once the emperor’s dependence on him and his own freedom from subjection, Girart upstages Charlemagne as the ultimate defender of Christianity. Crusade in the poem is competitive, posing rather than settling questions of hierarchy. The alternation between accounts of Burgundian and French feats provides a structure 26 Small, ‘Of Burgundian Dukes, Counts, Saints and Kings’, pp. 153-4.

27 Nottingham, WLC/LM/6, previously known as the Wollaton Hall manuscript.

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suggesting both complementarity and antagonism. Girart always remains Charles's rival, recalling the role of Gui’s army as supplement to Charles's in Gui de Bourgogne (see Chapter 2 of this volume). Thus Girart encourages his men here: Ferés baron, nobile poigneour, Ansois que vaingne Charles li rois frangous: Senpres vorroit sor nus avoir l’onnour.

(2910-12)

(Strike, barons, noble warriors, before Charles the French king gets here: he will try at once to take the glory from us.] According to Girart, Charles is a figurehead who takes credit for the successes of others (recalling Ogier’s lament, again in Gui de Bourgogne). This conflictual relationship surfaces when the two camps mistake each other for Saracens and clash (3366-447).

Upon meeting the king, Girart is impressed by his physique, regretting mocking him. He picks up Charles's coat when it falls to the ground (3453-63) in a gesture

interpreted as submission by Turpin who records: ‘celui homage ot Charles an la fin’ (3472) [Charles eventually got homage from him]. Girart recognizes the crusade

community as the noblest possible community, but does his participation in the war necessarily imply subordination to the emperor? Girart subsequently suggests that he and Charles should each command their own troops (3576-7). Later, Charles asks Girart why he is not king, when he has ‘tant de bien’ (6660) [such great value] in him. Girart responds ‘ne vail tant’ (6663) [I am not worthy], but Girart had earlier instructed his two nephews on the duties of rulers, knighted them, and given them

land (1257-338). He remains throughout an alternative source of legitimacy to Charlemagne. Finally, outlining the spiritual and temporal independence of his lands, Girart also underscores his separation from the emperor and pope: Je ai mes clers tant sages et fondez De la creance et des auctoritez, Ne de baptesme ne de crestienté

Niiert Papostoles ne quis ne demandeé. Tant contes ai an ma prosperité, Ne tenrai ja de nulz fors de Dé.

Hé! Charles sire, ja ne vos iert celé! En cel besoing avons ancui esté, En la bataille vos trais a avoé

Et de ma bouche vos ai seignor clamé: Ne me doit estre an grant cort reprové.

Qanque j’ai fait ai fait por amor Dé, Ne suis vostre hom ne li vostres juré,

Ne ne serai ja jor de mon aé. (1113346) [I have very wise clerks, learned in faith and the great authorities, and I have no need for the pope, whether for baptisms or for Christian life. I have so many counts in my splendour that I will hold land from no one but God. Ah, lord Charles, let me be

frank! We were friends in need, and during battle I swore loyalty to you, and called you lord with my own words: for none of this should I be accused in a noble court.

Whatever I did I did for the love of God, and I am not your man nor your sworn follower, and I never will be any day in my life.]

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Girart is independent, but chooses to ally himself with Charles temporarily. Their partnership was defined by acommon enemy, and did not represent political integration because Girart refuses the subordination of being Charles's ‘hom’ or ‘juré’. Again here, he presents himself as a sovereign. He recognizes no earthly superior (either for spiritual or secular matters) and is subordinate only to God. There is no qualitative difference between his power and that of Charles. In a period where kingdoms and empires were asserting themselves, Aspremont shows the survival of faith in smaller communities, which might integrate into larger coalitions for holy war but otherwise remain independent. Christian Europe exists as an implicit geographical space—defined in opposition to Saracen power—but not as a realized, integrated polity. Charles, however, seeks centralization under him, muttering: ‘Se je puis vivre longuement par aé, |De l'un de nos avrai l’orgueil osté (11153-54) [if I live long enough, I will knock the pride out of one of us]. The text ends with this menacing scene: the holy war has been won, but the domestic stand-off

remains unresolved. The poet had already warned of the destruction to come: Entr’ax .11. muit puis une tel tengon Dont mainte dame perdi puis son baron, Tant chastel mis en flame et en charbon, Dont puis ne furent restoré li dongon.

(1181-4)

[Between the two of them there would be such a struggle, in which many a lady lost her man, and many a castle would be burned to cinders, their keeps never to be restored.]

But the threat is left hanging. The power of this narrative lies in the fact that Girart can depart the king’s company without ever having to submit. Hence Aspremont could transcend its original circumstances of composition and appeal broadly, not least in Italy, with its fiercely independent princes.

THEW

Ut he Cr NT URRY IGIRAKR ISDE ROCs sa OV

The possibility for togetherness in a Christian community figures at the start of Girart de Roussillon, when the hero helps Charles Martel defend the emperor of Constantinople against the Saracens, and reappears after the first war between king and baron, as they ally against a Saracen invasion. Their enemies defeated, Charles says: Per itau cors de conte serai preizaz

E cremuz e tensuz e redotaz;

E amerai vos mais que ome naz, Si ne reste en vos la mauvaistaz.

(3315-18)

[Because of this count’s [Girart’s] strength I will be held in high esteem and feared and respected and dreaded; and I will love you [Girart] more than any other man alive, as

long as you hold no ill will within you.]

This looks very much like an ideal partnership. Girart’s strength will be Charles's strength, the warrior might that any royal power needs. Yet the spectre of ‘mauvaistaz’

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remains. Allies will once more become enemies, with disintegration first at the level of the Western Christian empire, then the kingdom, then the region, as Girart’s

Occitan and Burgundian alliance disperses. Increasing fragmentation precedes the hero’s departure from all earthly communities. Girart’s narrative trajectory takes

him outside the kingdom, and he never fully returns: all subsequent scenes of reconciliation and reintegration prove false dawns. The language of Girart de Roussillon is hybrid, mixing French and Occitan forms. Its three manuscripts offer different blends: the Oxford codex (Bodleian, Canon Misc. 63) is mixed, but largely Occitan. It was copied in early thirteenth-century northern Italy or Provence, suggesting a princely readership in two locations resisting incursions, as does the Paris manuscript (Bibliothéque nationale, fr. 2180), which was written in mid-thirteenth-century pays d’oc and offers a more Occitanized language, comparable to charters from Périgueux. The London manuscript (British Library, Harley 4334), dating to the second half of the thirteenth century, has forms closer to Old French.?® Simon Gaunt sees this code-mixing as a sign of Occitan resistance to the dominant language and culture of French; thus the poem critiques French royal expansionism from within the ‘French’ form of the epic.”? Gaunt’s argument corresponds to the locations of production for two of the manuscripts at least, and the poem undoubtedly has this political vector—picked up, sharpened, and taken in a Burgundian direction by the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century versions—but it cannot be reduced to a hero and villain paradigm whereby Girart is exalted and the king reviled. Instead, both exemplify flawed epic heroism, and the work arguably shows a tragic clash between differing visions of the rightful political order. Thus for Catherine Leglu, the language is a marker of humanity's post-Babel confusion.%° Indeed the characters have problems communicating: Sarah Kay notes that each camp has hard-liners and moderates, the latter normally winning debates, before the messenger communicates the opposite stance to the other side.3! Words and acts prove confusing symbols; oaths, vows and promises

mean nothing; and embassies repeatedly fail. Women play an important role—first as objects of masculine competition, and later as mediators restoring honour, hierarchy, and meaning—but they are long absent.3” Legal bases are also unstable, since jurisdiction relies on a concept of territory, yet territorial boundaries remain subject to contention. In the many discussion scenes that characterize the work, the characters pose urgent ethical, legal, and political questions. Who is in the right 78 See edition, pp. 5—6, on the codices. *? Gaunt argues: ‘the Occitan poets who composed chansons de geste employed code-mixing to flag the “foreignness” of the form they adopted culturally, linguistically and politically. Theirs is, on one level, a defensive gesture: they appear to be colonized by French culture, but simultaneously manage to hold it at bay by marking it as “foreign”. These texts are therefore part of an emergent sense of Occitan identity that is predicated upon language’ (‘Desnaturat son li Frances’, pp. 21-2). See also Lafont, ‘La Chanson de Girart de Roussillon’, on the linguistic malaise of the manuscript tradition of Girart. In the unfinished Occitan epic Daurel et Beton (c.1200; edition, p. 20), the hero declares his desire for vengeance on the king of France, who failed to punish a traitor who killed his father, and who disinherited him. War between them is brewing when the manuscript breaks off. 3° Multilingualism and Mother Tongue, pp. 17-34. 3! ‘Le Passé indéfini’, p. 702. 3? See Gaunt, ‘Le Pouvoir d’achat des femmes’; Burgwinkle, ‘Ethical Acts and Annihilation’,

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and who in the wrong? Does the king have the right to attack Girart, to punish, or to prosecute him? Can Girart legitimately resist the king, or is he a traitor when he does so? Is their war one between two polities, and thus a war of resistance? Or is the king exercising his jurisdiction by crushing a rebellion? Conflict quickly interrupts early harmony. The emperor of Constantinople offers his two daughters to Charles and Girart respectively. But Charles refuses to marry the elder sister, Berthe, intended for him, seeking instead the younger and more beautiful sister, Elissent. Girart accepts the swap, and then follows the advice of his kinsmen about compensation: Toz ert honit li cons s’aver en prent;

Mais pur son fiu li solve tan cuitement Si que li cons ne tiegne de lui nient,

Ne mais ses om ne sie a son vivent.

(439-42)

[The count will be dishonoured if he takes money for this; but he should be freed from all obligations for his fief, so that he holds nothing from him and will never be his man for the rest of his life.]

Accepting money would mean submission; Girart would show that he can be bought off. What Girart desires instead is the honour and prestige that come from fully independent landholding: he will hold ‘nient’ from the king. He asks for ‘lo mien fiu en alue senz omenage’ (474) [my fief to become an allod, without

homage] on a hereditary basis. Girart will never again be Charles’s ‘om’. But what does ‘om’ signify here? Vassal or subject? We do not know, and the matter will remain unresolved throughout. As soon as Charles acquiesces, Girart considers himself completely independent. He thinks that his allod lies outside the kingdom, overestimating the importance of the provincial frontier between his lands and those under Charles’s direct power. Linda Paterson shows how unclear the status of landholding in Girart is: the term ‘onor’ frequently describes Girart’s lands, an ambiguous expression for comital rights over the territory. Paterson suggests a mosaic, with tribute and service due for some territories, and others held independently.*4 In Girart, uncertainty about the past exacerbates the lack of transparency. Girart claims that ‘Roissellons fu tos tens alues mon paire’ (834)

[Roussillon was always my father’s allod],° but when Charles then repays Girart by restoring allodial status, he creates an aberration. Stooping to the level of negotiation, he alienates part of his kingdom, and immediately regrets it. For Charles, an allod is a virus that might spread: “Se Girarz Rossillon en aleu ten, | Si pot faire Borgoigne, qu’el a de men’ (1941-2) [if Girart holds Roussillon as an allod, then he could do the same with Burgundy, which he holds from me].

33 The World of the Troubadours, p. 20. 34 Tbid., p. 21; see also Lafont, “La Chanson de Girart de Roussillon’; Labbé, “LEspace littéraire et politique de Girart de Roussillon’. For Hackett (“La Féodalité dans la Chanson de Roland et dans Girart

de Roussillon’), the poem mixes two different historical conceptions of the vassalic bond. 35 Combarieu du Grés and Gouiran note that this is the first time the allodial status of Roussillon appears, and that it is unclear why Roussillon then became a fief before becoming an allod again (edition of Girart, p. 99 n.).

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Similarly, in Girart de Vienne, the location of Girart’s holdings leads Charles to expect subjection: Ci voi un duc de povre seignorie, Dedanz ma terre a ci sa menantie, Si ne men sert la monte d'une alie: Se ne l’en trai, mieuz veil perdre la vie!

(6182-5)

[Here I see a low-ranking duke, whose residence is in the middle of my lands, and he has no intention of serving me: if Icannot throw him out, I would prefer to lose

my life!]

Charles’s ‘terre’ envelops the baron’s ‘menantie’ (a subordinate holding, which is not a separate territory). In both texts, the key border remains the border of the kingdom: Girart’s lands are within it, and so his lordship comes with subjection. However, the Girart of Girart de Vienne does not pursue a separatist policy. The contrast with Girart de Roussillon shows the different political spin of the latter, which is a protest at the crushing of southern and eastern regions by an aggressive French king, and an exploration of the possibilities and limits of resistance.

Charles henceforth fears Girart: Grant aver a Girarz e terre bone. Des le Rin tec s'onor trosque a Baioune, E devise Espaigne per Barcelone, E li rendent treiit cil d’Arragone. A! com es fols lo reis qui tau fiu done! E qui aleu nYo quert, lai m’arazone. Lo reiame desfait e despersone; Eu nonc ai plus de lui fors la corone. Mais eu li cuit mermar tro a Garone.

(559-67)

[Girart is very wealthy and has good lands. His holdings go from the Rhine all the way to Bayonne, and he controls Spain as far as Barcelona, and the Aragonese pay tribute to him. Ah! A king who gave him such a fief must be mad! And whoever asks for that as an allod is doing me wrong. He is breaking up and disfiguring the kingdom; he now has as much as me, apart from the crown. But I intend to take back his lands as far as the Garonne. |

The way Charles lists Girart’s holdings displays his fear: the qualitative aspect of Charles's power (its theoretical superiority, symbolized by the crown) is being troubled because its quantitative expression (the amount of land he holds) is no longer strong enough. Girart is in the wrong simply because he has too much power. For Charles, Girart is now rival rather than subject. As with the character in Aspremont, Girart is too central, and he will not easily be pushed to the edges. Indeed king and baron appear as equals at the start. The emperor of Constantinople hears Charles described thus:

Seiner, adreu ab armes e bons e biaus, E ardiz e segurs e joventiaus, Volentrius e lius plus que us oisaus. Per hoc s’a conquesuz ja cent caustiaus,

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Treis contes proz e rius dunt est caidiaus,

E mil persones d’autres de sos fiaus A cui il dones croces e bons aniaus. Tant cum dure la terre ne cobre ciaus, Non est reis tant cremuz ne sos seiaus.

(153-61)

[My lord, he is adroit with arms and handsome and good, and hardy and trustworthy and young, quicker and more agile than is a bird in flight. That is why he has conquered more than one hundred castles, and brought three powerful and rich counts under his

power, and one thousand others have become loyal to him and he gives them crosses and good rings. As far as the land goes under the sky there is no king or royal seal more feared. ]

And Girart like so:

Seiner, om plus na vaut ne melz ne join. Trente jornades tec s’onors en loin; Cen mile chevalers maine en besoin. Sui sunt li Provencal e li Gascoin. Tal proeche e valor tec en son poin, Non a poor donor c’on I’an redoin.

(163-8)

[My lord, no man is more valuable or fights better. His holdings would take thirty days to cross and he can call upon one hundred thousand knights. The Provencals and the Gascons are his men. He has such prowess and valour in his fist that he has no fear of losing any of his lands.]

Both are described in hyperbolic terms, and Girart’s vast southern power base means he resembles a king. He can defend his own lands; he has both internal and external sovereignty. However, it seems, too, that Charles's sovereignty overlaps his. Girart’s lands are large but delimited, whereas Charles's power looms on an imperial scale, spreading across the earth (‘tant cum dure la terre ne cobre ciaus’), threaten-

ing to absorb everything. Frontiers can be asserted politically, but really exist only insofar as they can be defended militarily, and the contours of Girart’s territory will fluctuate because they depend on the vicissitudes of loyalty. Initially, though, Charles and Girart mobilize virtually equal military forces: Charles has twelve battalions and Girart ten, with 20,000 men in each (2481-2). Girart heads up an

alliance include Saxons, empire

gathering the pays doc—broadening out from his Burgundian base to the rest of the south and Navarre—against Charles's army of Bavarians, Normans, French, and Flemish (2810-25). This war opposes a Frankish to an Occitan-Burgundian coalition.

Girart is another sovereign, but Charles ‘non soufre par en sa reion’ (648) [cannot

tolerate having an equal in his kingdom]. When the king asks ‘eu e Girarz em dunt egau?’ (1778) [are Girart and I equals, then?], he thinks he is posing a rhetorical

question, but in Robert Stein’s words, ‘the difficulty posed by the possibility of both a positive and a negative answer haunts the text’.7° Both men seek what Kay calls ‘singularity’, ‘to rise above obligations to others into absolute autonomy’.*” 36 Reality Fictions, p. 186.

37 ‘Singularity and Spectrality’, p. 17.

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They exist in a mirroring relationship, haunting each other as spectres in a circuit

of repetition and doubling, such that it long appears that closure will be impossible. They share the same flaws: Charles is accused by his own ally, Thierry, of rejecting justice and understanding nothing (1812-14); by Girart’s adviser Fouque of abasing himself to feuding by fighting those he should govern (1927-38); and by Girart’s man Fouchier of wanting to throw the entire world into confusion (2038-9). Gradually, Girart moves away from victimhood, becoming a villain: Fouque twice chastises him for not listening to reason (4216-17; 5455-6). Girart

stubbornly clings to the view that the king is a foreign power invading his lands. He implies that Charles rules elsewhere, and has no rights over his territory: “Vers Carleel rei de France com me concort, |Qui ma onor me tolt, mon paire a mort?’ (3033-4) [How can I make peace with Charles, the king of France, who is taking away my rightful lands, and who killed my father?].*8 Girart refuses to recognize a superior lord, rejecting chances for reconciliation with the king, whereas Charles aims to destroy Girart’s anomalous territories, in order to restore his sovereignty

within what he sees as his kingdom. Thus more than one ‘idea of France’ figures in the poem:»? there is a ‘feudal’ France, defined by vassalic relationship to the king (Girart believes in this ‘France’, thinking that he can leave it by ending that relationship); a territorial France (for the king, Girart remains his subject even when he is

no longer vassal, the location of Girart’s territories being the key factor); and an imperial France, expanding to the limits of Western Christendom (Constantinople being its eastern counterpart). The workings of power therefore prove difficult to

parse: is power personal or territorial? If the latter, what are the limits of the territory? The unavailability of answers to these questions leaves incompatible perspectives. When Charles pursues his policy of consolidation, Girart resents unfair subjection. Charles feels entitled to hold all land, and Roussillon is in his eyes a ‘rogue state’, a threat to the rightful political order. Girart’s resistance reverses this view, making the expansive France out to be the true rogue state because it endangers the sovereignty of other territories.*° Exercising his power arbitrarily, Charles attacks Girart by taking advantage of his right to hunt in Roussillon, a restriction retained when the land was delegated,

and which preserves, in minimal form, his sovereignty over it. Thus Girart failed to acquire true sovereignty, and the poet anticipated the king’s deception of Girart (504), who also withheld the right to help Elissent. In the original deal, then, each

man kept a tentative grip on what he conceded, and the resultant territorial and sexual jealousy makes conflict inevitable.4! Despite Girart’s optimism, no moral or physical perimeter separates his lands from Charles’s, and the king seizes Roussillon, which is betrayed and pillaged. Subsequent negotiations fail, sparking the first war. °° Heintze also sees Girart as the embodiment of the great prince defending his independence (‘La Présentation des caractéres dans Girart de Vienne’, p. 487). %° Labbé (‘LEspace littéraire et politique de Girart de Roussillon’) considers that the axes of both Carolingian and Capetian France feature. 40 T draw here on the thinking of Derrida (Voyous/Rogues).

‘1 See van Emden, “The Cocktail-Shaker Technique’, and Kay, ‘Singularity and Spectrality’,

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On one level, the absence of hierarchical relationship suits Charles because it

frees up his capacity for violence. As the king says, “Girarz non est mos om ne ne tient fei, |E s’eu mal li pois faire, ne me deslei’ (614-15) [Girart is not my man nor

does he owe me fealty, so if I take the chance to do him harm, I will not be acting disloyally]. Positioning Girart as the rogue, Charles styles himself as righteous avenger who seeks to restore moral order. He later takes up the position of superior legal instance—ruling on a dispute involving him—when he summons Girart to answer for the murders of the two sons of Thierry, the king’s man, by Boson, Girart’s man (3390-466). But Girart will not recognize the king’s jurisdiction. How can one side

in a conflict also be the arbitrator? Each man considers himself free from the law’s prescriptions: it is the king’s law, and therefore the king does not submit to it, whereas Girart claims to be somewhere aside it, in his own polity.4? In the absence of formal legal judgment, protean instances of droit—moments when peace is agreed and compensation paid—manifest belief in a transcendent order of rightness.*? Equity and honesty remain present as ideas throughout, though they provide only temporary respite, and insufficiently constrain the two aggressors.*4 Ethical difficulties grow out of political uncertainties. Bertrand de Jouvenel

defines sovereignty as the conviction that your collectivity is of absolute value.* Girart asks whether the French kingdom is the ultimate community, one that Occitans and Burgundians must inevitably join, or whether another collective is possible, outside it. If the former, then Girart is guilty of the worst possible crime: treason, offence against the social body to which he belongs. If the latter, then Girart is a revolutionary, building a new order away from the corruptions of French royal power. Either way, there is understandable shock here, as in Aspremont, at Girart’s actions. Civil wars, insurrections, and acts of resistance, which wield constitutive power, all take place at an ambiguous borderline: either a new legal and political order arises, justifying them retroactively, or the existing order imposes itself, punishing them as illegal and apolitical.4° For Girart and certain allies, the precedent of independence suffices to justify a war of resistance. But because resistance lacks legal or political foundation, other characters can only ever envisage the war as a revolt, suggesting that Girart is attempting the impossible, or at least acting amorally, in opposing the king for so long. Ultimately, Girart’s position seems weaker, fraying because Charles occupies a position above effective critique. Scholars have generally considered Girart’s war an insurgency against his rightful lord, a view with support, though not unanimous support, in Girart de Roussillon.*” Odilon, Fouque’s father, says: 42 Thierry warns that it is not worth bending the law even when faced with a terrible enemy

(1808-9). 43 Chapter 5 of this volume looks at the way peace is made between feuding parties without resort to the law. 44 The reading by Haugeard (‘Un baron révolté est-il un hors-la-loi?’) brings out these elements.

45 De la souveraineté, p. 34. 46 My inspiration here is Agamben; see especially Stato di eccezione/State ofException. 47 See, for example, Le Gentil, ‘Girard de Roussillon’. Lafont (‘La Chanson de Girart de Roussillon’)

also sees Girart as a rebel because he is locked in combat with his lord with no other guarantee of justice than this lord.

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...e creire me volez e ma razon Ja ne seras retaz de mespreson, Vers ton lige segnor de traiciun. (3005-7) [If you believe me and my argument then you will never be accused of disloyal actions or treason towards your lord.]

The implication is that Girart risks precisely such accusations. Fouque also advises against war because ‘tu es ses om liges de sa maison’ (4840) [you are his liege man,

of his household], adding: ‘C’om qui a tort gerree, per Deu del tron, |Son damage fait grant e son prou non’ (4853-54) [by God in heaven, the man who wages a

wrongful war is author not of his own success but of his downfall]. For Fouque,

there is no outside to the kingdom, and thus Girart remains Charles's subject: ‘Carles est vostre sire, rius emperaire’ (1475) [Charles is your lord and rightful

emperor]. And elsewhere, the messenger Peire says: Cons qui a tort prent gerre, per son air, Vers son lige seinor cui deit servir, Malez’ est e felnie, aico consir Por lPorguel de la force ke pot monir. (4445-8) [The angry count, proud of the forces he can muster, who starts a wrongful war against his sovereign whom he should serve, is committing an evil act and a felony: he should beware. ]

He adds that rebels risking losing the right to ‘few’ [faith] and ‘aimor’ [love] (4480), earning only ‘desonor’ (4481) [dishonour]. Thus a pro-hierarchical current traverses

the poem, despite evidence of the king’s infidelity. The unavailability of any legal or political standpoint from which sovereign power could be contested means that whatever the king’s wrong, settling with him is preferable. Royal prestige trumps any right to reciprocity and freedom. The revolutionary road is for many characters too fraught with the dangers of accusations of treason or sacrilege along the way,

and defeat and shame at the end. However, Girart persists. A second war begins because of his refusal to answer for the murders. Two different powers, each with its own structure and legitimacy, go to war: Karles Martels fu reis enpoestaz, E Girarz fu uns ducs enparentaz, E li uns envers l’autre fo mout iraz. (4955-7) [Charles Martel was a powerful king, and Girart a duke from a large kin group, and each was irate with the other.}

The network of familial allegiance that Girart operates gives him the capacity to oppose the king: his ‘parentaz’ will match the king’s ‘poestaz’ 48 Eventually, war

proves the only means of deciding political, ethical, and legal matters. As the poet says, in battle ‘tot an mesclat ensens lo dreit el tort’ (5847) [right and wrong are *8 Chapter 5 of this volume argues that, in feuding cultures, relationships of kinship and allegiance are the most important and tangible assets.

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completely mixed together]. Girart displays his flaws in the second war, killing a group of the king’s men though they beg for mercy (6183-9), but he loses not because of a lack of rightfulness; rather, momentum goes against him. As Girart

looks less likely to win, he becomes less likely to win. He loses a battle of group psychology, as people flee to the man they perceive to be the real leader and the inevitable winner. Ideology, narrative, and history are on Charles's side; the idea

that you cannot successfully oppose a king becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Thus here Girart loses Gascon support: Carles parle a Gascon per grant lezer. Per engin de donar e par saver, Les a si conquesuz a son aver Cascuns li rent e liure son maner.

Carles les vait garner a grant poder.

(5400-4)

[Charles speaks to the Gascons for a long time. Through cunningly giving them wealth and gifts and through skilful negotiation, he gets them on his side. Each one gives him his castle, and Charles installs powerful garrisons in them.]

Through skilfully directed generosity, Charles both displays his power and increases it, creating the impression that he will win the war and have even more to give.” Charles uses his theoretical and financial superiority to increase his practical ability to coerce. If Girart and Charles make sovereign claims of the same nature, then Charles's assertion carries more ideological force, and gradually gathers more military clout. The king can promise more than his opponent. Girart’s alliance, on the other hand, proves fragile because other nobles cease to have common cause with him, each being more invested in his own bond with the sovereign. Here Charles recruits allies in Girart’s heartlands: personal power eventually proves more important than possession of territory. Horizontal coalitions remain prone to the vagaries of fidelity. In the end, only family solidarity remains: “Tuit li faillent si ome e sa gent |Ne mais li Borgeinun, cil seu parent’ (6097-8) [All [Girart’s] men and his

people fail him except the Burgundians, his kinsmen]. Finally, he has only seven companions left (7252), and ‘de terre non a plein poin’ (7261) [holds not even a handful of land]. He goes into exile in the Ardennes and meets a hermit who

lectures him: De la o eres cons de grant salut, Pechaz t’a e orguelz si confundut Que ne poez aramir mais c’as vestut.

(7482-4)

[Sin and pride have brought you down, so that you have gone from being a great, worthy count to being a man who can only muster the clothes he wears.]

The potential for a spiritual corrective to the wrongs of war was evident earlier on, when God signalled disapproval of the war by sending a great storm and burning 49 T am inspired here by Cowell’s reading of the Norman invasion: William the Conqueror’s displays of generosity before the war meant that he was seen as the likely winner, attracting allies—who could easily have chosen to side with Harold of England—to his cause, thus ensuring his victory (The Medieval Warrior Aristocracy, pp. 25-9).

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the armies’ standards (2874-9), but earthly conflict remained intractable. Here too, Girart refuses to renounce his anger straight away. For the next twenty-two years, Girart and Berthe travel along difficult paths with spines and nettles. Amongst other acts of penitence and humiliation, Girart helps coalworkers to carry their burdens. Berthe is his spiritual guide during this time: Entre lo dol e lire e lo mautraire, Si non fus sa mullers, non visquest gaire. El est savie e cortoise e de bone aire, Que ne paraula melz nus predicaire.

(7585-8)

[He would not have lived through the pain, the chagrin, and the suffering were it not for his wife. She is wise and courtly and full of kindness and she spoke better than any preacher.]

Berthe’s influence leads Girart to mend his ways, before a reunion with Elissent allows for a repair of Girart’s relationship with the king. Girart accepts her call for peace: ‘Aiqui perd’eu le sen e la lugor, |Com aurai contre li castel ne tor’ (8639-40) [May I lose my mind and my sight the day when I hold a castle or a tower against her will]. Thus the female characters create what William Burgwinkle calls an

‘antidote’ to the never-ending conflict of the masculine world, symbolized here by fortifications.°° Girart and Fouque found abbeys (9228-31), whereas Berthe builds a church for Saint Magdalena at Vézelay (9522-7). Girart and Berthe gain

direct access to the sacred, without the intermediary of the king. Pushed to the margins of the royal order at last, Girart achieves a victory of an unexpected sort. The boundary between ‘France’ and Girart’s realm is finally drawn, but not in terms of earthly politics; it is rather a frontier between the temporal and the spiritual. As in Aspremont, the religious identity of the region of Burgundy is celebrated and pride restored, even as the ethical undecidability of resistance is swept under the carpet. Peace is made when, via the intermediary of a bishop, Elissent conjoles Charles into mercy (7887-91). She restyles Charles as a merciful sovereign, making him what he, in the eyes of political theory, should be, but what he does not want to be. For the king does not know that he will end up pardoning Girart, whom he thinks dead. Afterwards, Elissent defends herself against Charles’s accusation of manipulation: De Borgoigne sunt ton castel e tor, Mais n’i voudrent tornar tei gardador. Aisi sunt en ta man tuit li segnor,

Conte, demane, lige e vavasor.

(8883-6)

[The castles and towers of Burgundy are yours, and their garrisons will never return. Thus all the lords, counts, vassals, lieges, and vavassors are in your hands.]

She speaks to the king in his language, that of political dominance and military power. The king still requires precisely those symbols of earthly might that Girart °° “Ethical Acts and Annihilation’, p. 174.

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has given up. Now Guy de Risnel, one of Girart’s men, kills his lord’s only son because: ‘Paor a de la gerrre que renovel. | Crient que li dus en fol au rei revel. (9141-2) [He is afraid that the war will start up again. He fears that the duke will

rise up against the king in folly]. Girart’s lineage is wiped out, and finally the kingdom can solidify. In the end, the sovereign realm created around Charles has no moral or cultural appeal, merely unstoppable military and political force. After decades of civil war, the absence of a negative suffices to attract subjects, who are progressively isolated from all political ties other than those with the king. Faute de mieux, the king represents peace and the common good. Philippe Haugeard argues that the characters move away from seeking ethics, rightness, and justice and turn to law in its min-

imal form, incontestable and absolute.*! Empty of content, the king’s rule is the shred of community that remains when all justice has been stripped away. The people prefer the rule of a monarch, even a tyrannical monarch, since enmity and discord remain pressing dangers. Paradoxically, then, it is the king’s arbitrary exercise of power that defines him as the best leader. Royal authority gains legitimacy by reference to the violence and disorder—for which Girart stands as scapegoat, but which Charles also enacts—that would ensue in its absence. The king’s sovereignty is the immovable object that Girart pushes against in vain. However, like the political thinkers discussed in Chapter 1 of this volume, the poet of Girart de Roussillon thinks that kingship needs a moral supplement. Thus the pope tells Charles: Enquer, reis, se tu vuelz, seras bien saus. Carles Martels tes aives fest molt granz maus,

E tu de ton juvent fus altretaus, Per quogis non Martels. Cis nons fu faus; Er deiz mais non aver Carles li Caus. Or es ris de barons e d’amis claus;

Or aime Deu e paz e pren repaus.

(9463-9)

[You can still be saved, king, if you wish. Charles Martel your ancestor did many foul deeds, and in your youth you were the same, and earned the name ‘Martel’. But this name is wrong; you should now be called Charles the Bald. Now you have many barons and are surrounded by friends. Now love God and peace and live in rest.]

The poet clears up historical confusion here—the Girart of ninth-century history lived under Charles the Bald, but the text portrays him as an opponent of Charles Martel—yet the matter of royal redemption remains unsettled. Charles has the friends and barons that will make peace possible, but will that suffice? Baronial violence has failed to sanction the king, but perhaps ecclesiastical intervention will be more effective? We do not know. The potential for transcendental royal power—for the king to rise above feuding and to become the incarnation of the collectivity— remains, but only as potential. Girart forms part of a Christian crusade community with Charles at the start, but the new religious order he found at the end excludes >! ‘Un baron révolté est-il un hors-la-loi?’, p. 291.

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the king. The final image of the unreformed king is juxtaposed to Berthe and Girart’s holy achievements, closing a text about the brutal exercise of royal power without responsibility. THE

VITA NOBILISSIMI

COMITIS

GIRARDI DE ROSSELLON

The hagiographical version of the Girart story focuses on the moral supplement to the Girart legend that survives in the final sections of the chanson de geste. The Vita may have drawn on a lost version of the epic about Girart, but it also has as source the charters of Pothiéres and Vézelay, monasteries founded by a ‘Girart’ whose sanctity it emphasizes. The resultant literary persona undoubtedly combines data about more than one historical figure: the regent of Provence and the founder of these abbeys. It survives in two manuscripts: Paris, Bibliothéque Mazarine, 1329 is a fourteenth-century Flemish codex that belonged to the Korssendonck monastery in Brabant, whereas Paris, Bibliothéque nationale, lat. 13090, a Benedictine recueil

factice including other saints’ lives, dates to the thirteenth century. There is also a thirteenth-century French translation of the Visa in Paris, Bibliothéque nationale, fr. 13496, a compilation of hagiography bearing the arms of Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy (1419-67), and the blason of the Hépital du Saint-Esprit de Dijon, which Odo III of Burgundy (1192-1218) founded, according to a note in the

manuscript, and to which Philip granted a charter.°” The Viza, then, was translated and received as a testament to Burgundian Christian leadership. The text, accordingly, starts by nudging Girart towards the spiritual: ‘insignis equidem in humanis, sed insignior effuisit in divinis’ (p. 178) [truly noble in earthly things, he was nobler

still in divine things]. He provides justice, avenges disloyalty, punishes robbers, and protects God’s poor, thus looking very much like the perfect sovereign: ‘maximam partem Gallie jure hereditatio possidens, eamque mirabili justicie regens jure, felicibus ac prosperis actibus usquequaque proficiebat’ (p. 178) [he held by rightful inheritance a very large part of France, and governed it with marvellous justice, carrying out beneficial and fitting deeds everywhere]. Neither he, nor the region he rules over, has any need to be subordinated to the king of France for proper political government, or for a place in the divine order. Yet the text retains interest in the human social order, even as something to be transcended through suffering. Girart long remains embroiled in earthly politics, and the struggle to exit its injustices makes him saintly. Initially, there is an uncomfortable balance between Girart and the king (here

Charles the Bald), then war starts when both try to expand their territory. As in the chanson de geste, they marry two sisters, Girart espousing the elder. However here, they are the daughters of the count of Sens. When the count dies, Girart claims the land via his wife's rights as the eldest, but the king ‘fastu regie ditionis tumidus, terram jure heredis sibi usurpare gestiebat’ (p. 180) [proud because of the greatness

of his royal sovereignty, unjustly took the land through the right of inheritance]. >? Meyer, edition of the Vita, pp. 163-4.

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In the Vita, then, the women are the vehicles of competition over land, rather than intertwined expressions of masculine sexual and territorial jealousy. The war was at least partly Girart’s mistake—he claimed the land—but that mistake stands synecdochally for the human fascination with transitory expressions of power and importance. By avoiding such flaws subsequently, Girart will rise above earthly humanity. The Vita, like the political theorists studied in Chapter 1 of this volume, is sceptical about resistance: political violence, however justified, remains violence. Therefore, the ensuing war with the king is not narrated, and the action moves

straight to Girart’s period of exile, humility, and suffering, the very stuff of saints’ lives. Girart learns in whose “‘ditione universa consistunt regna (p. 180) [sovereignty

all realms are], and this contrasts to the earthly power of Charles. There is another realm transcending his kingdom. Girart gets back his lands, pleading for mercy. The Vita thus reduces the long wars between the king and Girart, making the important moment the fall of Girart, which becomes a rise onto a more spiritual level. Kay sees the saintly endings of texts like Renaut de Montauban {see Chapter 2 of this volume] and Girart de Roussillon as ‘counternarratives .°> In the Vita, the

counternarrative is the narrative. The order of priorities reverses: rather than Girart being reduced to humility after years of war, here combat serves as a mere prelude to the true interest. The substance of the tale is Girart’s holy works, and his earthly political dealings are mere accidents. Henceforth, Girart falls victim to a wicked king. No ethical ambiguity shapes this version of the story. In the chanson de geste the entire political order is dragged towards anarchy because of the flaws of two men, but here Charles takes sole blame. The hagiographical set-up aligns Charles with the pagan tyrants who persecuted early martyr Christians. ‘Antiquus hostis’ (p. 184) [the old enemy], namely

the devil, stirs traitors who provoke the king into fighting Girart again. Driven by cruelty, bitterness, and desire for the duchy and Girart’s blood, the king attacks. Girart is encouraged to offer ‘verbis humilibus...justiciam’ [justice through humble words] and to agree to the justice of Charles’s court, provided that Girart’s own rightful position is also recognized (p. 186). Different ideas of justice, and different

means of bringing justice about, figure in this text, but they are rejected by a king who asserts his right over all other forms of right. However, Girart wins the war: ‘cohortes vero Girardi veluti quadam vi divina fortiter corroborari, adversariosque ferociter more leonum aggredi’ (p. 188) [Girart’s men, driven by the force of God,

attack their enemies like lions]. Girart again offers a compromise, but the king once more refuses and Girart chases him to the gates of Paris. Only when the angel chastises Charles—he risks the vengeance of God—does he make peace. The deaths of their children then inspire Girart and Berthe to found twelve abbeys in honour of the twelve apostles: the two most important are Vézelay and Pothieres; great relics are brought there, and privileges and freedoms are granted by Rome. Miracles show how legitimacy comes directly from God, without the intermediary of the king of France.

3

The ‘Chansons de geste’, p. 62.

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Another war however breaks out—without explanation in the text—and the king gets hold of Roussillon thanks to treachery amongst Girart’s men (p. 201), though he is soon forced to flee. Although the text is not overtly pro-war, it keeps underscoring how valiant Girart is in comparison to the irascible, yet cowardly king. There is no ethical or legal crisis, simply because the squabbles over earthly law and territorial power do not matter beyond settling questions of might. They have been

disconnected from any higher sphere of meaning. A terrible battle, whose bloodshed is described, is ended by divine intervention: terra, nutu divino, sub pedibus eorum...horrendo sonitu titubando contremuit et vexilla utrorumque superno igne accensa et incensa sunt, quibus nimirum territi ab invicem recesserunt (p. 204)

[by divine force the ground moved beneath their feet, making a terrible sound as it shook, and the standards of both men were struck by fire from the sky and burned, such that they were horribly afraid and both retreated]

A series of miracles honours Girart and Berthe before and after their deaths: Girart’s request for burial at Pothiéres is initially not honoured, and God punishes the populace with seven years of drought and pestilence. The translation of his body is then completed to great joy. The Vita argues that the earthly realm is the problem—it is impossible to escape the king or the corruptions of power there— and it develops the antidote to a greater extent than the chanson de geste. Girart learns early on that resistance to the king in the political sphere must be accompanied by another kind of resistance, to human weaknesses such as violence and anger. Though Girart’s inheritance rights appear, as does his ability to defend them militarily, there is no real sense that the earthly sovereignty of Charles can be challenged for long, because war itself is sinful. Charles, who keeps invading, is marked as the wrongdoer, and the spiritual sphere, associated with the resolution of conflicts, belongs to Girart alone.

BURGUNDIAN

REWRITINGS

OF

GIRART DE ROUSSILLON

The fourteenth-century anonymous verse rendering of Girart, which draws on both the epic Girart and the Vita, was written for Odo IV, duke of Burgundy (1315-50), and his wife, Jeanne III. Odo was a close relative of the Capetians,

whereas Jeanne was the daughter of Jeanne II, countess of Burgundy and wife of Philip V of France (1316-22). Odo married Jeanne as part of a settlement with Philip after a dispute over the French succession, Odo having supported the right of his niece, Jeanne of Navarre, to the throne. Under Charles IV, the last Capetian king of France (1322-8), Odo tried unsuccessfully to claim the counties of Poitiers

and Porcien via the rights of his wife, but the French parliament ruled that apanages should revert to the crown when there is no male heir. When Charles IV died, Odo again supported the claim of Jeanne of Navarre, this time against Philip of Valois, though he subsequently served Philip loyally once the latter acceded to

the throne as Philip VI in 1328. He gained the rights of the counties of Burgundy

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and Artois after his mother-in-law’s death in 1330. Artois would subsequently rebel and seek the protection of France, in a humiliating moment for Burgundy.

The fourteenth-century text makes sense within this context of Burgundian patriotism, asserted within, but sometimes against, France. In the text, Jeanne is asked to ensure that the Girart’s burial place is honoured, whereas Odo is interpellated thus: ‘tu es li hoirs Girart, tu es som successeur’ (265) [you are Girart’s heir; you are his successor]. The text rewrites the epic, emptying out the Occitan content, as well

as the Vita: the author says he used a ‘cronique en latin’ [Latin chronicle] and a ‘romant’ (81—2) [romance], but that the latter erred, notably in setting the narra-

tive under the wrong Charles. Clearly, the chanson de geste was important to the tale’s political appeal to Burgundians. It is updated, with hints of the fourteenthcentury values of secular governance and territorial rule, with ring-fenced royal sovereignty and the outlawing of opposition as treason, and with the king preferring the service of obsequious technocrats to the counsel of barons.*4 The epic’s vituperative aspects are tempered: borrowings from the Vita make up about onethird of the poem,** providing the narrative material to clean up the figure of Girart and to reduce ethical ambiguity, allowing him to transcend the earthly realm in which he will inevitably lose to the king. The holy trajectory becomes essential to the expression of Girart’s moral superiority. Early on, it is noted that Girart defeated the king of France twelve times and founded twelve churches (285-92), with earthly and holy achievements thus placed in an analogical relationship. Berthe’s learning in classical and biblical exempla also prove vital at several points, beginning earlier than in the chanson de geste. After the initial defeat, for example, she advises Girart that women can be useful guides, citing the biblical figures of Judith and Esther, and encourages him to consult his barons in bad times (1255-312). Girart and Berthe gained privileges for their lands directly from the pope; thus their subjects cannot be excommunicated (316-30). Religious separat-

ism and spiritual significance are given a historical background, paralleling Girart’s use of religious independence as an underpinning for political resistance in Aspremont. Opposing the king of France is not a sacrilegous act. The text also anchors Girart’s tale more precisely within ninth-century history. As with many late medieval rewritings of chansons de geste, it clears up some of the uncertainties about the past that riddle the epics.°° The text relates that Charlemagne’s son Louis (the Pious, 814—40) ruled over three kingdoms: ‘France’, ‘Ytale’ [Italy], and “Germainne’ [Germany] (105-6). But there was trouble between Louis’s sons after his death. Lothaire claimed the whole empire as the eldest, and

sought Girart’s help in the subsequent wars. So did his two brothers, Charles the Bald and Louis the German. Girart advises against the war as self-destructive, and refuses to take sides, but he nonetheless makes enemies. Historically, the division of 843 did not respect the boundaries of Burgundy: most of it was assigned to >4 On fourteenth-century developments in political theory, see especially Canning, /deas ofPower; Cuttler, The Law of Treason; Harding, Medieval Law and the Foundations of the State; Pennington, The Prince and the Law. °° Edition, p. 83. © See Kay, ‘Le Passé indéfini’, and Chapter 4 ofthis volume.

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Lothaire, but some to Charles the Bald. Moreover, Middle Francia or Lotharingia— which included the Low Countries and parts of northern Italy, hence its name ‘Ytale’ here—was immediately under attack from its eastern and western neighbours. Carolingian history anticipates the awkward position of Burgundy athwart other political structures, though the territories are portrayed as a potentially valid independent polity. By returning to this crux point, the text aims to rediscover lost possibilities for resistance and to explore other configurations of political space. The rise of France was not inevitable, and awareness of its historical contingency allows for attacks on its ideology. Girart had ‘le plus grant signoraige |Qui jamais soit tenuz en France par nul homme’ (594-5) [the largest lordship that was ever held by any man in France];

thus again his territories appear the obstacle on the path to royal consolidation in France. Therefore he soon falls victim to unjust treatment by Charles, who ‘son paiis li toulit et tout fors l’en chassa (78) [took his lands from him and chased him

right out]. But this loss opens an improvement trajectory: the king does not learn, while Girart does. After alienating his subjects through harsh governance, such that they leave him for Charles, Girart later softens, gradually fitting a standard description of a good king in political theory: just and fair, he punished ill deeds; protected the poor, orphans, and widows; avoided pride and cruelty; and retained humility. Politics is here being reinvented: military might is not enough, and must be complemented by moral and legal qualities to allow for an associative, rather than repressive, model of community, paralleling the changes in political theory that Chapter 1 of this volume traced. Girart never loved ‘flateur ne losangier’ (2827) [flatterers or slanderers]. Classical references abound: he learned from the examples of Titus (2755), Trajan (2970), and Romulus (3000), placing him, a Burgundian

leader, as the true successor of the emperors of antiquity and disputing any French claim to the legacy of Roman imperium. Girart becomes a model for the ambitious Burgundian dukes, his qualities expressed in the new managerial language of secular governance that fourteenth-century French kings were adopting. In the twelfthcentury Girart, the warrior drives of both Girart and Charles hamper their attempts to act as political leaders; in this text, only Charles reduces the political to the military, whereas Girart becomes the embodiment of enlightened, moral rule. The story of Charles's and Girart’s marriages to the two sisters corresponds to the Vita. Girart resents being ‘a tort desheriter’ (645) [wrongly disinherited] when

Charles claims Sens, repeating a key idea for Occitans and Burgundians, who feared the confiscation of their lands. The response from Charles—‘cudes tu dont en France contre moy contrester?’ (653) [do you think you can oppose me within France?]— suggests a return to questions of power and territory. France is now a kingdom with a clearly defined border, within which Charles rules absolutely. He threatens Girart with the gallows. Girart’s reply demonstrates that resistance stems from rights preceding the king’s rule. He only partly owes allegiance to Charles: Partie taings de toy de mon grant heretaige Et d’aluef en taings jé la tres plus grant partie, Et li contez de Senz est miens senz departie.

(666-8)

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{I hold a part of my great inheritance from you and the greatest part as an allod, and the county of Sens is mine alone.] Girart’s lands are both inside and outside France, divided ‘partie’ from ‘partie’. His

undivided right (‘senz departie’), to the county of Sens, highlights the anomalous status of his other holdings. Again Girart rules a rogue state that represents political fragmentation, something that the king will not tolerate. In the twelfth-century

text, Charles is manipulated by Girart and blinded by desire for Elissent when he gives land away. But here questions of sexual jealousy and political manoeuvring have been removed. This is a greedy land grab by the king. Girart vows to defend himself against any attack ‘senz cause rasonable’ (674) [without reasonable causes], suggesting that Charles's power should be limited

by a higher set of principles, but the king enjoys dirty political dealings and sets about exploiting existing enmities as a resource for his own prerogatives. Girart has Opponents at court: Girart’s father, Droon, fought the duke of Ardennes, and

duke’s sons (who are also the king’s nephews) retain a grievance. They speak against Girart, saying he should be disinherited as he has shamed the king by boasting and by defying him. Their father, however, says that the king spoke wrongfully to Girart, and advises: ‘nuls rois ne doit regner si n’a misericorde’ (761) [no king

should reign if he does not display mercy]. He recalls the king to his responsibility to the kingdom. The king should recognize Girart’s status as a quasi-sovereign, and offer ‘droit’ (871) [a fair settlement]. The duke of Normandy and the other great

barons also underscore Girart’s great value as an ally. Charles is shocked: ‘volez vous donques faire Girart mon compaignom?’ (805) [do you want to make Girart my equal?]. The discussion amongst Charles's barons suggests the penetration of the tenets of political theory into epic narratives, but the king himself has absorbed them only selectively: he believes the sovereign stands above the law, and disregards any moral limitations. The king eventually overrides the counsel, saying that he needs no ‘curateur ne tuteur (894) [minder or tutor]. The barons are shocked to

silence. This king is a tyrant; there is no baronial brake on him, and he bypasses the warrior aristocracy of his court, sending a technocrat, a ‘secretaire’ (899) [secretary]

named Gui, to bribe Girart’s allies in places like Gascony, Auvergne, and Provence. Gui has rhetorical talent: ‘beaul les sout decevoir et subtiment palla (1095) [he

knew well how to deceive them and he spoke cleverly], and he tells barons that Girart has threatened the king. Angry that he has dragged them into a potentially ruinous war without consultation, they fear losing their lands, knowing Charles to be ‘criiex’ (967) [cruel]. In the chanson de geste, the barons believe that a king

cannot be successfully resisted for long; the same self-fulfilling prophecy shapes the narrative more determinedly here. Royal power quickly isolates the individual it wants to paint as wrongdoer from the rest of the community, as the king’s sovereignty overcomes Girart’s networks of vassalage and allegiance. Thus his men are warned: S’a Girart estes home, Girarz est hons le roy Tous les subjez dou regne ha li rois en eroy, Si ne puet l’on le roy mas qu’a tort guerroér

(1061-3)

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[If you are Girart’s men, then Girart is the king’s man and the king rules over all the subjects in the kingdom, and one can never rightfully make war against the king]

The language of fourteenth-century political theory shows its presence here: all

inhabitants of the kingdom are the king’s subjects, whether they are noble or not, and the king has the sovereign power of an emperor. The idea of legitimate revolt has been foreclosed, and any uprisings appear as treason, highlighting the gulf separating the king, whose rights are transcendent, from his subjects. In the text,

political, military, and moral considerations then force subjects to recognize in practice what is asserted in political theory. The king’s rule extends effectively into southern areas, because men are scared of him, and so recognize him as the legitimate ruler. No alliance for resistance forms. The different spin of the fourteenth-century version of Girart thus makes clear that the powerful ideology surrounding kings makes them nigh impossible to resist. The king can now take Girart’s Burgundian lands quickly, as even Girart’s former allies assist. Every prince, duke, and count in France participates. The narrator cautions: ‘Li loux mainjue l’aignel a petit d’acoison, |Ainsint sera maingiez tes pahis et ta terre’ (1170-1) [the wolf needs little invitation to eat the lamb, and so

will your country and lands be consumed]. The parallel between the wolf that threatens human society and the sovereign, who is supposed to protect it but who takes on animalistic violent qualities himself, was explored in Chapter 1 of this volume. Here, Girart need fear no one, except the sovereign himself. The king now dispenses with political and ethical niceties, intending to leave Girart with nothing: ‘je li ferai tout perdre soit a tort soit a droit’ (1436) [I want, rightfully or

wrongfully, to make him lose everything]. Charles seizes his territories ‘par amours, par agait, par force ou par maistrise’ (1598) [through friendship, through trickery, through force, or through mastery]. ‘Anvers le roy ne puet havoir deffense’ (1617) [you cannot defend yourself against the king], says the narrator. Though Burgundians

and Gascons eventually rally to Girart’s aid and cause many royal losses, his forces are vastly outnumbered. In the chanson de geste, the two armies are initially almost equal, but here the action moves swiftly to the moment when Girart has lost everything: he is ‘sanz terre’ (1939) [without land]. Thanks to God and to Berthe’s prayers,

Girart will eventually get his place back: ‘se Girarz out malvais commancement, Onques n’out chevaliers meilleur definement’ (2027-8) [if Girart had a bad start,

never did a knight have a better ending]. The hermit’s teachings and years of suffering and humiliating work pave the way for a successful appeal to the king’s mercy. Girart returns to his lands. The political dramas of the chanson de geste are thus redeployed within the ethical parameters of the Vita. Girart’s drive to singularity has gone. He falls faster here; only to rise more quickly onto a higher level. Subsequent wars with the king are entirely, the text claims, the fault of the king: evil troublemakers, as well as anger, sorrow, and envy, turn him against Girart once more. He lays savage waste to Girart’s lands: ‘plus felenessement mala sur Sarrazins’ (3200) [he did not attack Saracens as wickedly]. Girart complains about the unhinged,

destructive king, but it remains impossible to justify a war against the sovereign. Though some of his barons call for battle, others say that a subject cannot attack

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his lord. Girart is advised, in terms of the body politic, to seek incorporation into the kingdom: “Bien est voirs que li membres doit honorer le chief’ (3413) [it is

absolutely true that the limbs should honour the head]. As Chapter 1 of this volume showed, the body politic implies both hierarchy and co-dependency: the head must remain in control of the body, but it needs the body to survive, and should care for it. Its evocation here suggests a critique of Charles whilst also implying that Girart cannot resist forever. The logic of the body calls for resistance, as the head cannot be allowed to damage the body, but also limits it, as a limb must not harm the head. However, when the war goes Girart’s way, he takes the upper hand morally even as he makes concessions politically: Ne vuelt qu’aprés le roy hait nulle chace faite, Quar trop doutoit forment se li suen le seguissent Que il ne le navraissent ou quil ne locceissent;

Bien laiist priz Girarz, occis et detenu, Se sa tres bonne foy ne l’an haiist tenu, Mas il ne vot pas faire tel honte a son seignour

(3540-5)

[He did not want anyone to chase after the king, because he was worried that if his

men followed him, they would harm him or kill him; indeed Girart would have captured and killed him if his good faith had not held him back, and he did not want to shame his lord in that way]

We are close to another political catastrophe, as the imperfect subjunctives of the passage show, but Girart’s restraint, inspired by his ‘bonne foi’, causes his men to hold back too. Human weakness is not allowed to direct affairs. The king plans revenge, but: Ensinc estoit li dux plains de bonne mesure, Il amast miaux tout perdre son pais et sa terre Que vers son droit seigneur maintenist a tort guerre,

Mas quant il ne trovoit droit, roison ne merci,

Pour sa vie deffandre force estuit monstrer ci.

(3584-8)

[The duke was so full of moderation, that he would have preferred to lose his country and his land rather than to fight a wrongful war against his lord, but because he could not find justice, reason, or mercy, he was obliged to use force to defend his life.]

These lines present Girart, with his ‘bonne mesure’, as having no choice but to resist violently, as the king is absolutely unreasonable, failing on legal and moral levels. A great battle ends in defeat for Charles. But ultimately, Girart cannot last against ‘li plus forz rois qui soit manenz en terre’ (3989) [the strongest king ruling

on earth]. He expresses a position of resistance nonetheless: ‘Je suis en mon pais, en mon leu, en ma terre; |Se terre vuet gaignier, autre part l’aille querre’ (4145-6)

[I am in my country, in my place, in my land; if he [the king] wants to get more land, let him look somewhere else]. He plans to defend land once in the royal

orbit: ‘Il ha perdu le fié que siaux de lui tenir |Ne le verra des mois en sa main revenir (4151-2) [he has lost the fief that I used to hold from him, and he will not

get his hands on it again]. Within an overall vector that recognizes the necessity of

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subordination to a king of France, the poem carves out spaces of resistance. The king’s rule will never be absolute. Peace is made, but devils and traitors drive the king to destroy Roussillon a second time. Girart complains of persecution: ‘Li rois a mont grant tort m’a confondu ma terre |Et chascum jor me muet a tort novelle guerre (4981-2) [the

king has so wrongfully destroyed my lands and every day he starts a new wrongful war against me]. The king is making Burgundy like a ‘prisun’ (4987) [prison].

Burgundian spirit is praised: Charles complains that the Burgundians are made ‘de fer ou d’acier’ (4731) [of iron or steel]. The narrator notes that the Latin text (the

Vita) does not say Girart was defeated, but rather that he had twelve victories (5326). Girart eventually lays siege to Paris, and the panicked king summons help. Divine intervention then ends the war, but not before Girart has made the king quiver at the idea of Paris falling. Sens is finally divided. The king accepts a compromise because of Girart’s strong resistance. The author says he has read many books in romance and Latin, finding no example of prowess as great as Girart ‘par mi lost d’un roy passer en combatant (4541) [going through the army of a king fighting]. Roland, Lancelot, Tristan, Achilles, and Hector were never alone in such

a battle. Resisting a great king is the noblest feat of all time. The work ends by citing the temptations and miracles that shape much of the Vita. By combining the twelfth-century chanson de geste and the Vita, then, this text shapes an ideal of resistance. It might be impossible to maintain in the long run: the king’s wrath is inexhaustible, and defeats and compromises are inevitable. But all the same, successes will come, and both political standing and ethical purity can be maintained throughout. Two of the four manuscripts of this work belonged to Philip the Good of Burgundy.” Like his predecessors Philip the Bold (1363-1404) and John the Fearless (1404-19), Philip hoped to play a role within the French kingdom.*® Philip the Bold, the first Valois duke of Burgundy, was granted the duchy as an apanage by his father, John II of France (1350-64). In the reign of his brother

Charles V (1364-80), Philip’s power grew, along with that of his brothers, Louis, duke of Anjou, and John, duke of Berry. Power in France was indeed centralized, but there were multiple centres, as government under Charles V devolved to the principalities, which developed increasingly sophisticated administrative and legal systems.*? The narrative of greater royal control is not linear, as even the fourteenth-century growth of royal institutions fed principalities yet further. More effective taxation benefited the great princes, who received royal funding and could absorb impoverished counties surrounding their territories. After Charles V’s death, the brothers Philip and Louis were regents during the minority of Charles

VI (1380-1422), and the king’s subsequent episodes of madness allowed for further extension of influence, with Philip regent again from 1392 to 1402. When his son John the Fearless succeeded him, he fanned antagonism with the younger brother of Charles VI, Louis, duke of Orléans. Louis was assassinated in 1407 on He Verahiakoynts joy, JY: °8 Schnerb, ‘Burgundy’, p. 437. >? See Jones, “The Last Capetians’, and Autrand, ‘France under Charles V and Charles VI’.

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John’s order. Civil war broke out between the Armagnacs under Louis’s successor, Charles of Orléans, and the Burgundians. John the Fearless was murdered in 1419, but Philip the Good managed to avoid conflicts within France, instead using alli-

ances with the English to create a powerful Burgundian state, expanding rapidly northwards into the Low Countries: Namur, Holland, Zeeland, Hainault, Brabant, Limbourg, and Luxembourg were acquired, by diplomacy, purchase, or conquest,

between 1421 and 1443.°° The legend of Girart was clearly relevant at times when Burgundy sought to oppose the sovereignty of France with the one thing that can successfully resist it: sovereignty. Fifteenth-century Burgundian dukes created a self-conscious polity modelled on France, involving a quasi-royal household; judicial and financial institutions; a chivalric order (the Golden Fleece); an adopted warrior-saint (Andrew); efforts at acquiring a royal crown (for historic Burgundy);

the use of the phrase ‘by the grace of God’ in acts of the chancery and official speeches; a set of recognizable signs and symbols; and a historical mythology established through a fluid rewriting of the past.®! Painting, music, and sculpture were

patronized, as was literature, whose political value Philip recognized. He ordered a large-scale project of translations into prose for his court. Epic material played a particularly important role: the Girart stories alongside texts like Auberi le Bourguignon, Renaut de Montauban, Garin le Loheren and Hervis de Mes constituted by his lights a ‘cycle burgundo-provengale’ [an Occitan-Burgundian cycle],°?

where the independence of an Occitan and Burgundian space was asserted, and the right to resist wicked kings expressed. The Girart material undoubtedly had a particular resonance because it balances the need for independence from France with the idea that France is a potential ally and a source of privileges and legitimacy. Burgundy confronted the rights and interests of the French crown, without completely breaking away; its dukes were partly French princes and partly autonomous rulers. Girart de Roussillon fits into a historiographical context where subtle Burgundian agendas are developed, and loyalty combined with resistance. A prose version of Girart de Roussillon was written on Philip’s request.®° Prose was recognized for its totalizing, monologic qualities and veneer of truth and

objectivity,°° which made it perfect for the harnassing of unstable epic material to political purposes. As Martin Gosman documents, the prose text stresses the wonderful conduct of Girart; the territorial identity of the region; and antagonism with

60 Small, Georges Chastelain and the Shaping of Valois Burgundy, pp. 1-2. 61 See Boulton, “The Order of the Golden Fleece and the Creation of Burgundian National Identity’; Gosman, “Le Nationalisme naissant et le sentiment de la natio’; Schnerb, ‘Burgundy’, for overviews.

62 On Burgundian historiography, see Moodey, Illuminated Crusader Histories; Small, Georges Chastelain and the Shaping of Valois Burgundy; Wrisley, ‘Burgundian Ideologies and Jehan Wauquelin’s Prose Translations’. 63 The term is Lacaze’s (Le Réle des traditions’).

64 Small (Georges Chastelain and the Shaping of Valois Burgundy, pp. 1-5) summarizes the Burgundian dukes’ oscillations between the search for power within and without France, and the subsequent polarized historical debates about their intentions. 65 Doutrepont, Mises en prose; Hériché-Pradeau, ‘Girart de Roussillon’. 66 See Godzich and Kittay, The Emergence ofProse; Spiegel, Romancing the Past.

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the French, usurpers, and traitors.6” Though it argues for peace, it also contends that the king should acknowledge Burgundy. I will not give a detailed reading here because the prose text largely repeats the configuration of the fourteenthcentury version, but I will show how certain elements were accentuated to give the legend a clearer political spin. The prologue lists Philip’s acquisitions before enumerating Girart’s (pp. 24-5), thus establishing a precedent for expansion. There are striking parallels between Philip’s life and the legend: both had a father killed by a representative of the king of France; both initially hold some of their lands in fief from the king, before achieving a larger degree of independence: the 1435 Treaty of Arras meant that the duke no longer owed homage to Charles VII of France (1422-61) for Burgundy and Flanders.® The text provides a vehicle for

many hostile comments towards French kings. Charles the Bald is cast as a usurper of the imperial crown (p. 71). Girart was the most respected adviser in the royal household, and the king attacks him ‘de sa propre volenté [on his own whim] because he knows that if he follows the baron’s ‘conseil’ [advice] he will never be able to harm him (p. 86). The royal will is dangerous; it diverts the kingdom away

from the morally correct course it would take were the aristocracy’s guidance followed. The critique of Girart that shaped the twelfth-century version, already lessened in the fourteenth-century text, is here attenuated yet further as the holy trajectory is strengthened. As Sandrine Hériché-Pradeau has outlined, the prose text makes further borrowings from the Vita, which often take the form of direct Latin quotations, as well as adding biblical material in Latin.7° For example, Girart’s speech to the hermit contains a well-known Latin phrase justifying his desire for vengeance: ‘il est mon anemy mortel, et par sa faulte et mauvaise décepcion sont mors mains justes et vaillans preudommes, et il est escript: vindicia sanguinem justum etc.’ (p. 173) [he is my mortal enemy, and through his wrongs and wicked deceipt many just and valiant noblemen have died, and it is written avenge just blood, etc.].”1 The Latin quotations are often abbreviated in this way, as part

of an allusive poetics of authority, assuming rather than communicating knowledge of the material.”* The hermit turns to biblical Latin, from the Office of the Dead, to discourage vengeance: ‘in inferno nulla est redemptio (p. 177) [there is no

redemption in hell]. Here, as so often, a translation into French follows, suggesting that the work had edificatory value, mediating between the sacred language, albeit fleetingly cited, and the vernacular, which is thereby ennobled. Whereas in the chanson de geste, the hermit is the source of the spiritual knowledge that Girart learns, here Girart already displays his understanding to the hermit.73 The narratorial voice quotes scripture to say that the Aumilitas of Girart and Berthe makes 67 ‘Le Nationalisme naissant et le sentiment de la natio’, p. 839.

68 Thid., p. 841.

© Ibid., pp. 841-4.

7° ‘Girart de Roussillon’. For a full catalogue of Latin interpolations, see pp. 101-9. 7" Tralicization is in the edition. It is difficult to identify the exact source for this phrase. Similar phrases abound in the Bible; Innocent III repeatedly used the idea in his calls to the Albigensian and the Fifth Crusades (Throop, ‘Zeal, Anger and Vengeance’, p. 183). 7 T draw here on the thinking of Kay on quotation (Parrots and Nightingales). 79 Hériché-Pradeau, ‘Girart de Roussillon’, p. 95.

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them worthier (p. 200). A direct interpolation from the Vita lends credence to the

moment of great bravery when Girart passes alone through the French army: dit Pistoire qu'il les abatoit et renversoit dung costé et d’autre, que Cestoit une droicte merveilleuse merveille, et sembleroit une droicte fable d’en dire la verité, et que je use des propres paroles de listoire, elle dit ainsi: Ac per medium armatorum viam gladio aperit multis que detruncatis libere foras exiliit (pp. 368-9) [the history says that he struck them down and knocked them over on one side and on the other, and that it was a completely wonderful marvel, and it would actually seem to be a pure fable, so I use the words of the history, which says: and through the middle of the armed men he opened a path with his sword, killing so many that he escaped from danger]

Latin material appears more frequently towards the end of the work in an intense sequence of biblical citation marking the exit from earthly politics into the holy sphere. The singing of Te deum (pp. 492, 508) and Secula seculorum (pp. 509, 513) is noted. We are called to remember the miracles (p. 515), before words from the

Lord’s Prayer close the text (p. 516). Throughout, Latin quotations encourage calm and bravery in bad times, and show that the king is not insulated from failure. But they also strengthen the political critique. A Latin proverb on how ira [anger] clouds the mind figures (p. 254), whereas a phrase from the Psalms (32, 16) encap-

sulates the poem’s entire argument—the king thinks he is above reproach, but even a sovereign remains under divine law—‘non salvatur rex per multam virtutem’ (p. 287) [the great power of the king does not mean he will be saved]. When the

angel appears to forbid further wars against Girart, use of the Latin Vita adds authority to the divine voice: ‘Noli, rex, contra Girardum deinceps aliquid sinistri machinare, nec eum ulterius deliberes insequi, quem protectione tuetur altissim? (p. 423) [king, do not plot another sinister move against Girart, and do not plan

war against him again, for he is under the highest protection]. Throughout, the Latin interpolations mean that Girart’s heroism is grounded in a more transcendental register, whereas his opponent’s flaws are chastised in the noblest language. The Vita, largely ignored by critics, was thus increasingly central to the fourteenthand fifteenth-century use of Girart as a figure of Burgundian resistance and antiFrench critique. Girart the saint proved a more important literary character than Girart the warrior. Girart’s legend mattered to Philip the Good, but it was not the last time the narrative was revived. Charles the Bold, the last reigning Burgundian duke (1467-77),

tried to recreate the kingdom of Lotharingia: he needed Alsace, Lorraine, and a royal crown to do so. Rewritten epic history again paved the way: a sense of common Burgundian history was asserted against a backdrop of anti-French feeling in the Chronique des royz written for Charles, which features Girart’s victories over the French.”* The text promotes the credibility of the planned Burgundian kingdom, arguing for continuity with the ancient kingdom—defined broadly to include Provence and Savoy—as well as contesting French royal rule of the duchy of 74 On this text, see Small, ‘Of Burgundian Dukes, Counts, Saints and Kings’.

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Burgundy, where national sentiment was strongest. But Charles overreached, alienating the Swiss cantons through war in Alsace, and he was killed in 1477 by the Swiss and Lorrainers outside Nancy. Charles had tried to cement his status by marrying his daughter to Emperor Frederick III’s son Maximilian. But the mar-

riage, which took place after his death, meant that many of his holdings passed via his heiress to the Hapsburgs. The rest fell to France. Thus the kingdom of Burgundy became one of history’s abandoned projects. It is a broken narrative, going against the teleology of the French nation. The duchy became a French crown possession once more, though there were subsequently local revolts against Louis XI (1461-83).

The Chronique, which draws on the originary legend of Girart, the embryo for later resistance, continued to be read. Girart’s achievements in service of the Church helped his narrative transcend its original political parameters, and to long remain

available on an ideal level, repeatedly providing support for new causes. Hence Girart’s legend was revived as epic in the twelfth century and in various other forms up to the fifteenth century, the later versions salvaging more and more from the wreckage. The memory’s life helped resistance to remain powerful and appealing, even in the face of defeat. THE The meaning of treachery, still current in thirteenth-century law-books such as the Codtwmes de Beauvaisis (see §30), contains the ideas of underhand conduct, hiding one’s enmity or holding unwarranted enmity, turning against one’ ally or superior, and generally not following the proper rules for the conduct of violence. Both ideas are at stake here: Ganelon attempts to defend himself against the charge of treachery, but cannot fight off the accusation of offence against king, crown, and collectivity. Peter Haidu rightly argues that the episode legitimizes Charles, transferring power from the baronial community to him. But Haidu errs in suggesting that the king avoids using private war (the old system) to avenge Roland, preferring centralized sovereign justice (the new system).?° *? Kay, ‘Ethics and Heroics in the Chanson de Roland, p. 480. See Bosnos, “Treason and Politics in Anglo-Norman Histories’. Violence et ordre public. > ‘The most complete study is Cuttler’s The Law of Treason. © See Haidu's The Subject of Violence. Haidu, curiously, reads the Anglo-Norman Roland as heralding the powerful Capetian monarchy of the late twelfth century. Ruggieri (JJ processo di Gano) sees the vengeance system as antiquated and Germanic, but see Mickel (Ganelon, Treason, and the ‘Chanson de Roland) on the Roland's relationship to Anglo-Norman law.

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As Chapter 5 of this volume demonstrates, the two coexisted and interacted in the

centuries covered by this book. Charles takes hold of the law to achieve his own ends. His justice remains vengeance, glossed as worthier and nobler vengeance,

and made part of his capacity to offer protection to the community.”” This tendency is exaggerated by later pro-Charlemagne works that surround his power with moral and political guarantees, sharpening its distinction from the baronial powers around him. The war in Spain leads to subjection of the Frankish barony to Charlemagne, as well as that of the Saracens to the Franks. Indeed the collected Frankish barons think they have witnessed a miracle, and voice no disapproval as Ganelon’s family are butchered. The sovereign’s authority is displayed by the ripping asunder of the noble criminal before the assembled warrior aristocracy, Charles’s only real rivals for power. Charles thus victimizes one baron, but retains the support of the baronial class. Questions of right and wrong remain unresolved until Ganelon’s death, when the sovereign’s justice retroactively settles the ethical issue, determining the acceptable reading of past events and ensuring their proper communication to the future. The treachery of Ganelon and heroism of Roland are now unshakeably established, erasing earlier moments, where possibilities for peace and negotiation with the Saracens appeared; where Roland’s destructive drives disturbed the Frankish community; and where Ganelon was recuperable as a good baron.*® Now Charles takes over the divine mandate from Roland. Matthew Gabriele brings out the eschatological dimension here: Charles corresponds to the figure of the last emperor, who quickly shifts from passivity to activity and exterminates Muslims.”? The final laisses forestall reflection on questions of justice and power, with the narrator giving the verdict: ‘Hom ki traist, sei ocit e altro’ (3959) [anyone who betrays kills himself and others].

The ethical agenda of the narrative is strengthened in the rhymed versions, which efface the doubts manifest in the Oxford text. Revered by many moderns, the Oxford version was apparently considered flawed by rewriters who attempted to clarify its meaning. Robert Lafont has shown how the Roland legend was initially popular in areas important to recruitment for the Spanish Reconquista: Normandy, Aquitaine, and Burgundy, but not the Ile-de-France.*° The Franks of the Oxford Roland do not stand for men of Capetian France; only later did the Capetian realm react, claiming (or reclaiming) the Carolingian narrative legacy as its own foundational mythology. Thus the rhymed Rolands appearing from the late twelfth century appropriate the tale to develop links between Caroligian and Capetian kings, notably by moving Charlemagne’s capital to Paris. The French use of this ‘French’ text therefore arguably represents a usurpation of an earlier, more ethically and politically unstable tradition. In Chateauroux, Mediathéque, 1, and Venice, Biblioteca Marciana, fr. 7, a pair of closely related manuscripts dating to the late 27 White, ‘Protection, Warranty, and Vengeance in La Chanson de Roland . \n the Couronnement de Louis, Charlemagne teaches his son that a king must be vengeful; see my ‘La Vengeance royale’. 28 See the readings by Kinoshita (Medieval Boundaries, pp. 15-45); Gilbert (Living Death, pp. 29-59), and Cowell (Zhe Medieval Warrior Aristocracy, pp. 102-14), respectively.

2° An Empire ofMemory, pp. 116-17.

39 See La Geste de Roland.

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thirteenth century, similarities between Christians and Saracens are diminished, with the latter demonized alongside Ganelon, whose evil appears as inherent to his character rather than as a response to Roland’s actions towards him. Charles wants his barons to determine the nature of vengeance: ‘A ses barons velt le hontage mostrer | Por la venjance de Guenelon parler’ (7502-3) [he wants to show the shameful act to his barons, so they can discuss vengeance on Ganelon]. They cannot leave until Ganelon has acknowledged his ‘trahison’ (7564) [treason]. Charles lusts

for revenge: Ja li suen cors n’avra reposement Desqu’a cele ore qu ait pris son vengement De Guenellon, ques mena malement.

(7602-4)

[His body will have no rest until the hour when he has taken his vengeance on Ganelon, who led them to the catastrophe.]

He is therefore annoyed that Ganelon’s kin come to defend him (7605). Other barons contend that Ganelon should be allowed to explain himself (7504-16,

7579-89, 7639-46), but this possibility never emerges. Instead, he is armed for a judicial battle. But Ganelon ‘de combatre n’a talent ne raison’ (7699) [has neither

desire nor reason to fight], presumably because he knows his guilt will be proven, and so he flees. After being caught, he learns that Pinabel is prepared to defend him, but Ganelon does not deny the betrayal of Roncevaux, declaring only that ‘roi talent de fuir ne d’aler’ (7818) [I did not want to flee or run away]. Pinabel avoids kissing the relics (8061) and tries to buy off Thierri (8081-6), before being

defeated. The barons compete to devise the worst punishment for Ganelon (8263-342). Thus anxieties about Charles's sovereignty do not surface. Indeed,

as Jane Gilbert says: the rhymed tradition harmonizes the conflicting values of the assonanced tradition into a comprehensive ideology in which the Christian God, Carolingian emperor, and

French king, country, family, and military unit form a single allegiance.3!

As well as lionizing Roland and Charlemagne, the rhymed texts stress—with ever greater insistence—that the right thing was done to Ganelon. Political instabilities are diminished: when Charles punishes a traitor, he does not make war on the aristocracy but acts to defend the morally just social order. Thus the rhymed Roland tradition argues not only against the Oxford version, but also against chansons such as Fierabras (c.1190) and Gui de Bourgogne (1200-25; see Chapter 2 of

this volume) that present the Spanish campaigns in terms of internal Frankish antagonisms. The rhymed corpus was highly influential; Mousket, David Aubert, and Jean d’Outremeuse all use it. But they combine it with the Pseudo-Turpin, the form in which, to judge by the spread of manuscripts, most medieval audiences would have encountered the Roncevaux material. Though it can appear to modern readers as

31 “The Chanson de Roland, p. 24.

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an uncomfortable combination of epic and homiletic,** the Pseudo-Turpin was a runaway success, likely due to its depoliticizing, universalizing approach and from its reputation as a historical artefact. It opens with a letter, purportedly from the archbishop Turpin, who fought alongside Roland and Oliver, explaining that he wrote this eyewitness account as he was recovering after the battle. Spiegel focuses on the French versions of the Pseudo-Turpin made for Flemish patrons; I shall examine here the Anglo-Norman version by William de Briane (dating to 1210-20),

translated for Alice de Courcy (b. 1166-d. 1225), wife of Warin Fitz Gerald (b. 1167—d. 1215/16), who had served with Richard the Lionheart (1189-99) in

Sicily and Palestine. It represents another dimension of the continuing interest in Charlemagne legends outside of Capetian circles, which can be partly explained via the desire to dispute Capetian ownership of the Frankish legacy, but which also shows how the narrative transcended the mere political, responding to broader interest in crusade and Christian morality. Indeed William states his purpose: le mettray en romaunz ke ceus ke le orrunt i preynount essaumple e s’i delitunt a oyer les hauz feez e les hauz miracles, e ensement ceus qui entendunt la lettre se deliterount, ceus, di jo, ke Deux amerount a oier. (31)

[I shall translate it into the vernacular so that those who hear it can heed the example and take pleasure from hearing the great deeds and great miracles, and you who understand the writing will also take pleasure, those, I say, who love to hear about God.]

Moralizations and religious glosses feature throughout. Some elements associate the material with the history of ‘France’. After Roncevaux, the ‘Franks Seynt Dynis’ (69) [Franks of Saint-Denis] give the most generous tributes. Thus France gains its name, ceasing to be known as “Gaule’, since it is free (‘franche’) ‘kar ele ad seygurye sur totes teres par droyt’ (69) [because it rightfully has dominion over all other lands]. But the Pseudo-Turpin generally makes the war in Spain shared sacred

history, more than the history of any particular Christian community. Charles functions as a servant of the divine. Tired after conquering and Christianizing regions across Europe, Charles sees a ‘voye de esteyles’ (32) [trail of stars] going

from the Frisian sea, through Germany, Lombardy, France, and Aquitaine, into Galicia, where, unbeknownst to all, lies the body of Saint Jacques, the first Christian missionary to Spain. The saint then appears to Charles, admonishing his failure to liberate his land from miscreants. God wants Charles to rectify this, so that pilgrims can follow in his footsteps, earn forgiveness for their sins and see miracles. As Stephen Nichols argues, the world needs remaking here; chaos and disorder have hidden the signs God left to man, including the tomb of Saint Jacques.3* Thus Spain is the new Holy Land and Compostella the new Jerusalem.**? Miracles such as the fall of the walls at Pamplona signal the rightfulness of the conquest. The Pseudo-Turpin also contains moralizing narrative elements that are picked up in other chronicles. For example, a number of Christians split off from the army and 32 Short, edition of the Pseudo- Turpin, p. 1. SOR ECIMON pao 34 Nichols, Romanesque Signs, p. 130. 3° Stuckey, “Charlemagne as Crusader?’, p. 142.

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steal from dead Saracens. They are killed by other Saracens. The narrator explains their flaw—‘Ore oyez graunt mesaventure! Coveytise, dount nul homme eu munde nest neez, se mist en plusurs de nos cristiens’ (48) [Now listen to a terrible episode! Greed, from which no man on earth is innocent, got into some of our Christians]—

declaring that they are like revenants because they have defeated their enemies but then go back. Their reward is ‘feu permanable’ (49) [eternal fire]. God, we are told,

did not want certain Franks to return home, where they would sin even more (60). The Franks must constantly try harder, suffering punishment when they fail, before finally martyrdom makes them pure and sanctified. The theological stakes of the entire project are encapsulated in Roland’s debate with the giant Ferragu, during which he explains the nature of the Trinity, the Immaculate Conception, and the Resurrection (52—4),3° as well as in Charles’s discussions with the Saracen leader

Agolant. Charles describes the falsity of Islam, claiming that it is based on the worship of ‘ymages’ (44) [idols] and of ‘un vayn homme’ (45) [a vain man]. Agolant

agrees to be baptized if he is defeated, but once vanquished, he is shocked by the Carolingian treatment of paupers, who are referred to as God’s messengers but who are badly clothed and fed. He leaves to fight the Christians. The episode suggests that Agolant cannot distinguish material from spiritual well-being, but subsequently Charles treats the poor better, hinting at a previous moral failing on his part; it works, then, as an exemplum.*’ Charles and his Franks are constantly pushing against the limits of moral achievement. As they improve, performing ever better works, they demonstrate the potential for any community to act more selflessly, more piously, more devotedly. And by conquering all of Spain, Charlemagne also outdoes his Merovingian and Carolingian predecessors and successors politically: Lothaire, Dagobert, Pepin, Charles Martel, Charles the Bald, and Charles the Simple only recovered a part, the text notes (35). More than 100 cities captured by Charles are enumerated here, whereas the episcopal organization of Spain is spelled out (56-7), stressing his foundational role. Charlemagne laid down the framework

of Christian Spain. Ganelon becomes the ultimate enemy. When Charles hears Roland blow the horn, Ganelon tells him to ignore it. The narrator says: “Ore poét oyer graunt felunnye de traytre; ben put estre comparé a Judas Scariot ke Deux tray’ (63) [Now you can hear of a wicked crime by a traitor, which can be compared to that of Judas Escariot who betrayed Jesus]. The trial is recounted thus: comensa Charles a enquire si ¢o poeyt estre veyr ke le poples disoyt, ke Genyloun avoyt fete la tresoun de la chivalerie. Lem pout pas ben saver la verité kar il le denya, e pur ce sen armerent deus chivaleres

(66)

[Charles began to enquire about whether it was true what people said, that Ganelon had betrayed the great knights. And no one could know the truth because he denied it, and so two knights armed themselves]

The judicial battle is a moral struggle: ‘a la parfyn ly droys venqui’ (66) [in the end right won]. Ganelon is tied to the horses: ‘en tele manere se venga il de soun enemy °° ‘This episode is picked up by the Entrée d'Espagne, on which see Chapter 6 of this volume. 37 Merceron, ‘Charlemagne et l'économie de la charité’,

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e soun traytre, e fu la verité esclargie’ (66) [in this way he [Charles] took revenge

on his enemy and his traitor, and the truth was known]. Whereas meaning in the Oxford Roland was unstable up to this point, in the Pseudo-Turpin the truth is always there, just waiting to emerge. If Ganelon is Judas, so Charles is typologically linked to Jesus: Kar si cum Deux Jesu Crist le mounde conquist ou ces .x11. apostles par precher e par miracles, autresi Karlis le roy de Fraunce e emperour de Roume conquist tote Espayne ou le ayde de bons chivalers ou l’ayde nostre Seygour (43)

[Just as our Lord Jesus Christ conquered the world with his twelve apostles through preaching and through miracles, so Charles king of France and emperor of Rome conquered the whole of Spain with the help of good knights and with the help of our Lord]

As Nichols contends, the Carolingian king is transformed from a mere historical narrative to a complex sign-system, close to that of Christ himself, producing an

array of meanings.*® This potent model attracted other authors, who harnassed the Pseudo-Turpin’s moralizing version of events to political purposes, nuancing it in various ways. Philippe Mousket was drawn to it likely because of its didactic tone and eulogy of monarchy, but he clarifies the morally ambiguous elements, notably by disinculpating Charles in his rendering of the Agolant episode (5607—10).°? French history produced at Saint-Denis in the twelfth century had ignored the Pseudo-Turpin, but the Grandes Chroniques incorporate it, appropriating Charlemagne mythology as Capetian dynastic lore and crusading history.#° Embellished moral commentary helps to naturalize the royalist political agenda. Whilst ostensibly edifying their readers, the Grandes Chroniques also work to convince them that the kings of France are benevolent forces—sources of justice, guarantors of order, defenders of the faith—and that they formed a harmonious community with their barons. The Franks, ultimate agents of the good, embody the human need to confront evil: ‘Car ainsi comme les chevaliers Charlemaines appareillérent leurs armes contre les ennemis, ainsi devons-nous appareiller nos armes: c’est-a-dire bonnes vertus contre les vices’ (11, 221) [just as the knights of Charlemagne prepared their souls (or, arms) to fight the enemy, so should we equip our souls, that is, with good

virtues against vices]. Ganelon represents temptation. He brings back wine and a thousand Saracen girls to corrupt the Franks. The defeat of Roncevaux becomes a moral lesson: Et pour ce que aucuns des Chrestiens avoient esté ivres, la nuit devant, du vin sarrasinois, et aucuns avoient péchié és Sarrasines et és autres femmes crestiennes meismes qu’aucuns avoient amenées de France, voulut nostre Seigneur quils feussent occis (ii, 257)

38 39 40 wars

Romanesque Signs, pp. 66-94. Walpole, Philip Mouskés and the Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle, pp. 401-2. Einhard is cited as the source for the life of Charlemagne, and the Pseudo- Turpin for the Spanish (ii, 55).

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[And because some of the Christians had got drunk on Saracen wine the night before, and some had sinned with the Saracen women and with other Christian had been brought from France, our Lord wanted them to be killed]

women ‘that

The Roncevaux narrative tradition is here elevated, gaining quasi-religious prescriptive status. However, the need to integrate and control rival sources of the Roncevaux legend—that might upset the meaning of the Carolingian past as well

as Capetian claims to it—produces an uncomfortable doubling, as the Grandes Chroniques recount both the historical ambush of Charles's army in 778 by Basques or Gascons, and the fictional rewriting of that same event, which was by the thirteenth century widely known. Had the Grandes Chroniques left out famous episodes such as Ganelon’s betrayal, they would surely have lost authority and struggled to compete with other providers of Carolingian narrative. Roncevaux brings typological potential and furnishes the culmination of the biography of Charles, vengeance for Roland being his last act, his triumph over evil. But simultaneously the contested nature of the past, at once historical and fictional, manifests itself even in this most canonical, strait-laced, and establishment-centred of texts. This doubling of Roncevaux also occurs elsewhere: in the early fourteenth century, Girart d’Amiens, writing for Charles, the ambitious count of Valois, also combines legend and historical reality. As with the Grandes Chroniques, there are two ambushes—one by the Gascons (8765-97) in a forest—and one by Saracens

in the mountain passes. Girart makes no attempt to reconcile the two accounts; rather, he distances them, perhaps to retain the status of Roncevaux.*! History, sparsely told, was clearly less appealing. The anonymous knights killed by the Gascons are not avenged, and there are no toponyms, whereas Roland’s death is the height of the drama. Similarly, David Aubert’s Croniques et conquetes, composed for the fifteenth-century Burgundian court, combine diverse sources of material: the author seems to have had access to the ducal library, and thus to chansons de geste, mises en prose, and chronicles. For the Roncevaux material, it is probably impossible to disentangle the combination of sources. The Pseudo-Turpin seems to have been used for the summons by Saint Jacques and for the early battles, but a rhymed version of the Roland material is also drawn upon.*? David openly acknowledges that he struggles to reconcile the two accounts: he refers to a French rendering of the Turpin made in 1206 on the orders ofacount of Boulogne (11.ii, 219)—this

corresponds to the ‘Johannes’ redaction, one of the wave of six early thirteenthcentury translations, which was copied for Renaut of Boulogne (b. 1165—d. 1227),

one of the barons who opposed Philip Augustus at Bouvines—but also to another tradition: the former says Turpin survived Roncevaux, living to tell the tale, whereas the latter says he died with the others. David concludes ‘si ne scay lequel croire des deux’ (ii, 7) [I do not know which of the two to believe], but promises that he

will tell the story doubly, as he found it in the sources: Turpin therefore plays an ‘1 Corbellari, ‘Le Charlemagne de Girart d’Amiens et la tradition épique francaise’. * See the full survey in Guyen-Croquez, Tradition et originalité dans les ‘Croniques et Conquestes de Charlemaine’.

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active military role, as in the epic texts, but lives to tell the tale, as in the Pseudo-

Turpin. David thus provides all the drama of Roncevaux, whilst undermining the credibility of some of the rival texts that tell it. His double move no doubt reflects the desire to commemorate Carolingian history and its chivalric values whilst also undermining Valois claims to it through the introduction of uncertainty, furthering the political and literary desires of the Burgundian dukes. The Grandes Chroniques, the Istoire, and the Croniques, then, across the centuries

and with varying political agendas, all confront a diversity of accounts about Roncevaux, and opt to include two versions of the event, attempting to achieve historical accuracy without sacrificing literary drama. My final example is Jean d’Outremeuse’s fourteenth-century Myreur, which makes Charlemagne’s era the most important in the history of Liége. A list of French kings is given because ‘les Lighois ayment natureilment les Franchois’ (11, 535) [the Liégeois are natural allies of the French],*? but the perspective is largely anti-Carolingian, placing the rebel-

lious Dane Ogier on the heroic pedestal above Roland and Charlemagne. Ogier is a second Messiah: his birth is marked by wonderful signs; he is visited by the Virgin and Saint Michael, and receives his arms from God. Aged 5, he takes up the study of grammar and logic, later becoming linked to Liége as the town jurist and founder of important buildings.“ He transcends his chronotope, visiting Arthur in Avalon, and surviving to fight alongside Philip Augustus at Bouvines. No doubt aiming to attack the prevailing historiography of Roncevaux, Jean furthers the doubling of episodes, producing an even more conflicted version of the Carolingian past. No less than four expeditions to Spain are narrated. Charles is successful in the first, but we are cautioned ‘aulcunes histoires dient que a chesti fois fut la batailhe en Roncheval; mais saulve leur dis, car chiste fut le premiere des 1111 fois quilh y fut’ (111, 24) [some histories say that the battle of Roncevaux occurred on

this occasion; but ignore their words, because this was the first of the four times he went there]. Charles returns because Agolant reconquers Spain; this second exped-

ition ends in Roncevaux. But Roland’s demise is no culmination here, because the Spanish wars are rewritten to give Ogier a starring role. The third invasion of Spain features Ogier fighting a giant called Palamedes, and ends with crowning of Anseis,

which prepares for the events of the chanson de geste called Anseis de Cartage, inteerated as the fourth expedition, termed ‘la plus grande perde que oncque fuist en Espaingne’ (111, 24) [the greatest loss that ever happened in Spain]. To integrate this epic, Jean introduces another Agolant—in the chanson, Anseis is crowned

between the first and second expedition to Spain, but here, his narrative comes after Roncevaux—and changes Marsile to Morgan, because Anseis is betrothed to Marsile’s daughter in the poem, but Marsile dies at Roncevaux. When Anseis is left in charge of Spain, trouble brews. Charles refuses to help, because Anseis did not heed his advice, but goes when Saint Michael tells him ‘or gardeis bien que Espangne qui est de la conquestée d’Ogier, ne soit perdue par ton defaute qui les 43 T quote from Borgnet’s edition rather than Goosse’s more recent, but less complete, edition. 44 Lejeune argues that Jean d’Outremeuse links Ogier with Notger, the bishop who rebuilt the city after Norman attacks (Recherches sur le theme, p. 171).

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dois gardeir’ (392) [make sure that Spain, which was conquered by Ogier, is not

lost through your negligence, you who should protect it]. Roland was the military arm of the Carolingian Empire in the Oxford Roland, his dying lament enumerating his great conquests for Charles, but here, Ogier is responsible for the great successes. To undermine Roland, the Myreur stresses his pride, whereas Ogier is

given a role in Ganelon’s trial, eventually receiving the head of the traitor ‘por le

venganche de son peire et de ses amis’ (111, 165) [in revenge for his father and his friends]. The Myreur, then, multiplies the Spanish wars to shift their significance, attacking the narrative edifice of the Carolingian Empire and representing longlived local resistance to Capetian and other authorizing uses of the figure of Charlemagne. The Carolingian past remained subject to revision, with potential to legitimize or delegitimize various political projects. The originary symbolic instability of the Roncevaux narrative meant that it never ceased to invite more glossing and new appropriations, with the boundary between history and fiction always remaining porous.

CHRISTIAN EMPIRE: THE SAXON WARS DFLESR EUG SeNSLP Bee aoe

AND

The idea that Charlemagne has a divine Christian calling, to extend the borders of Christendom by fighting the infidel, animates many texts. In the Pseudo-Turpin, Charles accuses Agolant of taking Spanish lands ‘par treysoun’ (44) [through treachery]. Asked why he claims the territory, Charles replies: ‘pur co ke nostre Seygour Jesu Crist le creatour du ceyl e de la tere ad elu nostre gent cristiene sour tote autre gent, pur ¢o ay converty vostre gent a la nostre ley’ (44) [because our Lord Jesus Christ the creator of heaven and earth chose our people above all other

peoples, and for this reason I have converted your people to our faith]. The Christian mission is thus translated into universal monarchy. Other texts transcend the narrative influence of the Pseudo-Turpin and thus deprovincialize the crusading enterprise, broadening beyond Spain. The Carolingian Empire is presented as an early French endeavour in two thirteenth-century pro-Capetian texts—Philippe Mousket’s Chronique and the Grandes Chroniques—where ‘France’ leads the way in Christianizing the world. The Jstoire, in the early fourteenth century, then develops this religious expansionism into an even broader civilizing mission, especially through its narrative of his Saxon wars. Charles's fictitious voyage to the East is best known to modern readers as a comic escapade in the twelfth-century Pélerinage de Charlemagne, which forms part of a long tradition of mocking Charles’s inadequacies. But the later chronicles all include this episode, despite its fictionality, and it

gradually acquired the thickness of history.4° Whether or not the late medieval writers believed in Charles's eastern journey proved immaterial, because they had to include it as a crusading precedent and a glorious episode in Carolingian history, * For Guenée, twelfth-century attitudes towards history were flexible enough to allow inventions, only later becoming more rigid (Histoire et culture historique dans l’Occident médiéval, pp. 351-2).

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where Charles acquired relics. Finally, elsewhere in the fourteenth century, the Myreur relegates Charles: he plays second fiddle to Ogier, the greatest explorer of his era. I shall begin with those texts that make the Carolingian Empire French. These texts were not developed in the context of Capetian claims on the imperial crown, nor to assert the sovereignty of France against the empire,*° but instead sought to reconnect with the Carolingian imperial heritage in order to enhance the greatness of contemporary Capetian rulers. For Mousket, Charles is the ‘lige home’ (4012) [liege man] of God and ‘roi souvrain...entre tous les rois tieriiens (4013-14)

[sovereign king above all other earthly kings]. Expeditions to Gascony, Spain, Lombardy, and Bavaria feature, as well as wars against the Bretons, the Slavs, the Germans, and the Danes. The emperor is an unstinting worker, who conquered ‘de partout’ (3280) [everywhere]. Mousket argues for continuities between the

Carolingian Empire and Capetian France, declaring “Or poés savoir quel poisance |Sor tot le mont avoit dont France’ (3290-1) [now you can appreciate the power over the world that France had at this time]. Arguing against the rebel baron epics,

which reduce royal power to military might, Mousket describes how Charles makes ‘hospitaus’ (3034) [hostels] for the poor everywhere; how he fights heresy, falsity,

and hypocrisy; and how he organizes the entire Western Church, founding monasteries. For Mousket, Philip Augustus is typologically linked to Charlemagne and beyond him to Caesar, because he defends his rightful holdings: Cis rois ot sanblet Carlemainne, De bien garder tot son demainne;

N’onques om ne le prist de gierre, Quil rel venquist et mist en sierre, Cest roi doit-on bien comparer A Cézar-Auguste, et parer Ses fais et ses dis voirement,

Quaussi com Cézar quitement Tint et régna, ausi fist-il,

Tout 1a d il dut sans péril.

(23621-—30)

[This king resembled Charlemagne in the way he defended his entire domain; anyone

who made war against him was defeated and put in jail. This king should rightly be compared to Augustus Caesar, and his deeds and words likened to his, because just as Caesar reigned and held his lands absolutely, so did he, everywhere he should without threat.|

The argument is that Charles did not expand aggressively, but rather asserted royal rights properly and justly (the king worked to ‘garder’ his domain, ensuring rightful rule ‘la 4 il dut’). The Grandes Chroniques, likewise, aim to create an individual, systematic history for France, giving a numbered list of nine campaigns under-

taken by Charles, but also making him a new Augustus, foundational in terms of French law, ecclesiastical structures, and even the names of the months and winds. Historically, Christian Latin culture and the Christian religion were the means of 46 See the critique of these assumptions by Jones (Eclipse ofEmpire, p. 159).

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moulding Charlemagne’s empire into a coherent polity; in the Grandes Chroniques, they are recoded as specifically French qualities.*” It is Girart d’Amiens who develops Charles’s role as Augustus and monarch of the world furthest, perhaps because the ambitions of its sponsor, Charles, count of Valois, were not limited to the French crown, but extended to imperial titles of Constantinople and the Holy Roman Empire. The establishment of a worldwide Christian empire is the meaning of Charlemagne’s tale, as is manifest in the widespread eschatological idea that a ‘second Charlemagne’ would come to unite and

end the world, ushering in the age of the Holy Spirit.4* The first (the historical) Charlemagne, also a tool of the divine, is a prototype of this ideal emperor. Thus Saint Jacques tells Charles: Biau douz fils, Jhesu Crist si te fist a s'ymage, Et ta donné pooir et force et vassalage De sa loy essaucier et de fere dommage A ceuls qui ne l’ont chier, et qui par leur outrage Empeeschent sa loy, dont il font grant folage, Quar nus apeticier ne peut son seignorage.

(16331-6)

[Sweet handsome son, Jesus Christ made you in his image, and gave you the power and strength and prowess to uplift his faith and to hurt those who do not care for it, and who outrageously block his faith, which is a foolish act, because nobody can make his lordship smaller.]

Charles’s mission is no longer just to free Spain, but rather all the world, from those who try to reduce (‘apeticier’) Christ’s rightful territories. Understanding Charlemagne as a forerunner of the ideal future emperor meant enhancing the global, benevolent aspects of his empire. Girart d’Amiens sets this perspective

up through his focus on the wars against the wicked and unfaithful Saxons, the most protracted part of his account. Though multiple expeditions against the Saxons also feature in Philippe Mousket and the Grandes Chroniques, the latter noting that they were Charlemagne’s longest struggles because of Saxon disloyalty, the Saxon wars generally paled into literary insignificance relative to the Spanish campaigns.

Girart’s focus on them befits historical reality—Charlemagne spent more than twenty years on the Saxon wars versus one campaign of a few months in Spain— and perhaps reflecting the eastern ambitions of his sponsor, Girart refers throughout to Germanic lands as ‘France oriental’ [eastern France], as though they were

always already part of the Carolingian Empire. The definition of Frankishness is wide: the world is made up of Franks, future Franks, and enemies to be wiped out. Girart draws on the chanson de geste version of the Saxon wars—Jean Bodel’s Les Saisnes (1180-1202; see Chapter 2 of this volume)—but epic and chronicle sources

clash again. Jean sets Les Saisnes after Roncevaux, whereas the Pseudo-Turpin and the Grandes Chroniques make Roncevaux the end, with vengeance for Roland almost Charlemagne’s final deed. In the Istoire, Charles defeats the Saxon king 47 Beaune, Naissance de la nation France, p. 285.

48 Buc, Holy War, 19) 55),

Charlemagne

5)

Guiteclin, then there is a great period of peace before Roncevaux. Girart, it seems, does not think that Charlemagne would have continued to fight after the death of Roland. Then, to reconcile chronicles with epics, he adds another Guiteclin against whom another war is fought. The second Guiteclin is more civilized than his irascible and treacherous father, providing a means to split the difference: the duality of the epic Saracen stereotype is spread across two generations. Thus the father is the inhuman, untrustworthy monster, the embodiment of a faithless people whose submission can never be trusted, whereas the son is the noble enemy, almost one

of us. This second war is anticipated, as is Baudouin’s marriage to Sebille, Guiteclin’s queen (14583-93). Girart also works to recuperate Baudouin as an alternative Roland figure, his brother and replacement, attempting to dispel lies about him (14594602) by implicitly arguing against the Roland, which makes him a son of Ganelon. This portrays the Saxon campaigns as being as important as the Spanish ones, arguing for eastern expansion. But after the Roncevaux narrative, Girart says

that the second Saxon war is not worth telling because Jean Bodel already did (22738-63),*? though he also notes a lack of corroboration by other sources: ‘mie | en cronique ne truis’ (22748—9) [I do not find this in chronicles]. Both epic and

chronicle find their place in Girart’s textual universe, but a hierarchy is asserted. The textual reworking is worth it because, for Girart, the Saxon wars represent all aspects of good imperialism: the service of God (here he expands the Pseudo-Turpin, whose account of the establishment of churches and Church hierarchy on the Iberian peninsula he reprises (20558-910)); economic and commercial develop-

ment through facilitating free trade and attacking unjust taxes; and the protection of peasants from unfair financial demands. Charles also attracted good clerks to France, to bring people out of false beliefs.°° The power of Charles’s story is thus broadened, becoming not just a Christianizing but a full-scale civilizing mission with the power to legitimize its patron’s diverse royal and imperial ambitions in Spain, France, Germany, and Constantinople. Charles's worldwide renown already featured in Einhard’s vastly influential ninth-century Latin biography,*! which gives an ethno-geographical account of his lands, suggesting his capacity to unite diverse areas. It also records that he received

an elephant from the Caliph Harun al-Rachid, that he enjoyed friendly relations with other nations, even the Greeks, and that foreign leaders sought to ally or subject themselves to him after his coronation as emperor (see $16). In Girart

d’Amiens, the celebrity of Charles can be read as the element that unifies the diverse elements of his empire: Mes li renons adonques si noblement passa De l'empereour Kalles, et tant monteplia Envers lointains royaumes et de la et de ¢a,

Et tant d’estranges terres destruist et tormenta 49 Corbellari, ‘Le Charlemagne de Girart d’Amiens et la tradition épique frangaise’. 50 The commentary by Métraux (Le Charlemagne de Girart d’Amiens: vers un empereur modéle’, pp. 203-4) on Il. 13933-52 of the poem shows how these dimensions emerge. °1 See Tischler, Einharts ‘Vita Karoli’.

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Par lui et par les siens qu’aler y comanda, Que mains hons de paor envers lui s’apaia Et par divers treiis a s'amour salia, Dont tant li vint d’avoir que l’en s’en merveilla. [But then the renown

(11861-8)

of Charles spread so nobly and grew so greatly in distant

kingdoms here and there, and he destroyed so many foreign lands and tormented them himself and through his followers whom he sent to rule there, that many men paid him out of fear and by giving different tributes allied themselves to him, from this he gained so much wealth that it was amazing. ]

Though Charlemagne never in fact travelled east of Italy, the story of his trip to Jerusalem had spread, notably through the Descriptio qualiter a late eleventh-century Latin document linked to Saint-Denis.>” Likely intended to authenticate relics, it was

deconstructed by the chanson de geste known as the Pélerinage de Charlemagne,?? which also arguably targets Roland and the epic tradition more broadly.** The preening Charles is angered by his wife’s claim that Hugo, emperor of Constaninople, wears his crown better than he, and departs to see his rival. Vanity provides the impulse to travel east; there is no divine inspiration, unlike in the Descriptio and the narra-

tives about Spain. Charles first visits Jerusalem, where the text playfully recreates the Charles as Christ motif, as he inadvertently sits in the seat used by Jesus at the Last Supper: ‘ainz ni sist hume ne unkes pus encore’ (122) [no mortal man had sat

there before, nor could anyone subsequently]. The twelve peers take the other seats, and the Patriarch hears that these must be “Deus...et li duze apostle’ (139-40) [God and the twelve apostles]. The episode parodies Charles's imperial

arrogance. He brags about his conquests: he has conquered twelve kings, and seeks the thirteenth victim. The Patriarch suddenly declares ‘aies nun Charles Maines sur tuz reis curunez!’ (158) [take the name Charlemagne, crowned above all kings!].

The epithet ‘magnus’, first attributed to Charles by Einhard, and which subsequently spread, is here given in a comic fashion. Whereas Charles earns relics in the Descriptio by liberating Jerusalem, here he simply asks for them, saying he wants to ‘enluminer’ (161) [illuminate] France. This term suggests a desire for decoration,

and no doubt mocks the royal abbey’s desire for embellishment.>° Charles then promises the Patriarch that he will fight the Saracens in Spain (226-32); we learn

merely that he will do, leading to the deaths of Roland and the twelve peers. The great episodes of Charles's biography are thus negatively presented. Greek power also appears a vexing presence, cutting off Carolingian claims for Christian univer-

sality. Constantinople is here a place of artifice, wealth, and complacency,** and Charles's trip there forms part of the comic agenda. As Sharon Kinoshita notes, the common motif of the palace that amazes suggests the cultural dominance of the East;?” once Charles sees the Greek palace, he cares not a jot for his own possessions (362-4), but he and his companions fall down in terror once the palace See Gabriele (An Empire ofMemory, pp. 51—G0) on its success. This is the argument made by Latowsky (‘Charlemagne’). 1)4 See Cobby, Ambivalent Conventions, for a survey of the text’s parodic attacks. 55 Latowsky, “Charlemagne as Pilgrim?’, p. 161. °© Kinoshita, Medieval Boundaries, p. 153. °7 “Marco Polo’, pp. 63-4. 52

53

Charlemagne

Wye

begins to spin. Left alone by their hosts, the Franks later drunkenly boast that they will prove their superiority to the Greeks; they are aggressive guests, transgress-

ing the trust placed in them.”® A crisis is caused because they are overheard. Hugo demands that the boasts be fulfilled or else the Franks will die. The Franks are rescued by divine intercession, the angel first chastising them for their ‘folie’ (675) [folly].

One of the boasts is fulfilled as the city is flooded, and Hugo flees up a tower, but then Charles and the peers also have to climb up a tree, where they ask for another miracle. Hugo surrenders, and Charles is happy because ‘tel rei ad conquis sanz bataille campel’ (859) [he has conquered such a king without battle]. The return

home sees the triumphant delivery of the relics, but also comes back to the vainglorious pretext for the trip, the queen’s provocation. She is forgiven because Charles loves

the Sepulchre. Charles’s authority only reveals its divine underpinning in extreme circumstances, and his claims otherwise appear arbitrary. The Pélerinage is not a hexagonal French text, and likely emerged in the Anglo-

Angevin world. For Eugene Vance, it undermines theocratic Capetian pretensions,” whereas Anne Cobby contends that it attacks Charles himself, as he only succeeds at the expense of his dignity.°° Other versions of the legend were less critical of Charlemagne. Pierre de Beauvais translated the Descriptio into French in the early thirteenth century, lamenting the neglect of Charles’s journey to the East, made before the Spanish campaigns, and joining it to his transcription of the PseudoTurpin. For Anne Latowsky, Pierre recuperates the liberation of Jerusalem as a glorious and edifying moment in France's Carolingian past.°! But Pierre’s Descriptio was abbreviated and used as a preface to the Pseudo-Turpin’s second redaction, which thrived outside the Capetian realm, in Flemish and imperial circles.® Charles's eastern adventure became a predecessor of the activities of the rivals of the Capetian kings in the same region, perhaps legitimizing the First Crusade, as a largely Francophone, but not Capetian, endeavour. Whereas in the twelfth century, there was little interest in using Charlemagne for political ends at Saint-Denis, or indeed in vernacular historiography at all,®> this changed in the thirteenth century, likely as a Capetian response to the perceived usurpation of his legend and to the need to fabricate a crusading past for Charlemagne at a time when French kings were taking the cross.°4 Again the Grandes Chroniques had to incorporate ‘fictional’ material, which had its own appeal and momentum, in order to control its ‘historical’ meaning. As in Mousket, the relics Charles brings back in the Grandes Chroniques are earned. Charles defeats the Saracens, and then refuses the ‘terriennes richesces’ [earthly wealth] offered by the emperor of Constantinople, preferring ‘célestiales °8 Cobby, Ambivalent Conventions, pp. 101-7. 9 “Semiotics and Power’, p. 166. 60 Ambivalent Conventions, p. 156. 6! Emperor of the World, p. 238. 62 Spiegel, Romancing the Past, p. 71; Vallecalle, ‘La Réception de la Chronique du Pseudo-Turpin en Europe’, pp. 466-7. 63 Spiegel, Romancing the Past, p. 269. 64 Latowsky traces the use of the Charlemagne legend in Germanic lands, notably during the reigns of Henry IV (1084-1106) and Frederick Barbarossa (1152-90) as Holy Roman Emperor, where it

worked to justify the divinely elected lay protection of Christian imperium against papal claims and thus to recuperate the legacy of the Roman Empire for Hohenstaufen purposes (Emperor ofthe World, p. 7). She documents how the Francophone dimension emerges later, in the thirteenth century.

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choses’ [spiritual objects], relics ‘qui feussent au peuple aliances 4 Dieu, et mati¢re d’amour et de dévocion’ (11, 184—5) [that could be links between the people and

God, and sources of love and devotion]. Miracles mark his reception of the relics: fruit grows on the crown of thorns (188), and the holy nail cures 300 sick (192-3). Taken to Aix, the relics receive visitors from far and wide (199). This represents

Charlemagne’s greatest accomplishment, as the Franks claim protective custody

of the Christian patrimony. Capetian thought made out that the Byzantines were unworthy of keeping relics and argued for their own special role within Christendom.® Louis IX (1226-70) purchased the crown of thorns and pieces of the true cross from the emperor of Constantinople, built the Sainte-Chapelle to

house them, and donated them to churches and abbeys with increasing frequency as he pursued his desire to reconquer the Holy Land.°° The Grandes Chroniques, dating to his reign, attempt to correct traditions like the Pélerinage and thus to authenticate relics and articulate Capetian claims to the Frankish custodianship of Christian culture. In Girart d’Amiens’s Jstoire, too, plans to go to the Holy Land emerge at the end of the unfinished second part. Charles is welcomed by the pope on the way to Constantinople, where he plans to liberate Syria with the emperor. This is not about rival claims to empire (as in the Pélerinage), but rather about

fourteenth-century hopes for harmony between the papacy, the Greeks, and the Franks, as Girart’s sponsor had ambitions and influence in both the east and west Mediterranean. The Burgundian author David Aubert, finally, though he critiques Charlemagne elsewhere, states that he is the greatest lord in the world after he conquers Jerusalem (1, 154), likely aiming to use the figure to authorize the Burgundian

dukes’ own crusading ambitions. The fictional voyage to the East gradually ceased to be comic and acquired a variety of legitimizing resonances. In Jean d’Outremeuse, on the other hand, Charlemagne describes himself as ‘sire de tout le monde’ (11, 122) [lord of all the world], but the idea of world

empire serves to undermine him, demonstrating the longevity of resistance to him and the desire to recreate the Carolingian past differently. Charles is largely a villain in this text, his main crime being his war with Ogier, the local hero, who saves Christendom six times. The rebel baron epic plot elements remain, however: as in the chanson de geste called the Chevalerie d’Ogier (see Chapter 2 of this volume), Ogier is hostage to his father’s pact with Charlemagne, and when his father refuses to pay tribute, the king wants to hang him. But Charles eventually relents and Ogier becomes an ally in the wars against the Saracens. After that, the Myreur and Ogier depart from epic material, as Ogier heads east, though the text continually makes links to events in France, including the feats of Roland, highlighting Ogier’s superiority to Charles's right-hand man. Whereas the main thrust of the narrative deriving from the Chevalerie d’Ogier is the relationship between the hero and the king, the eastern narrative is solely about the hero. To move away from the

Carolingian sphere, the Myreur draws on travel writing—Jean de Mandeville being

6° See the account by Weiss, Art and Crusade in the Age ofSaint Louis. °° Jordan, Louis IX and the Challenge of the Crusade, pp. 193-5.

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the principal source’ —describing India with its fountain of youth, and countless ‘dragons, serpens, cocodrilhs, basilicques, olyphans, et de lions et d’aultres males biestes’ (111, 60) [dragons, serpents, crocodiles, basilisks, elephants, lions, and other wicked beasts]. Ogier visits the key landmarks of the Orient: he defeats King

Ganges, passes through Cathay with its great diversity, and visits a once small kingdom, now the greatest in the world, ruled by the Khan. He goes to Gog and Magog, where Alexander locked up the kings of the false Jews, and meets Prester John, who asks him to be king of greater and smaller India. He comes then to

earthly paradise, where Adam lived until he was expelled: ‘chis paradis que vous oieis, est unc noble lieu qui syet en la fin de la terre ou au commencement, car ilh syet vers Orient’ (111, 67) [this paradise you are hearing about is a noble place found at the end of the earth or at the start, because it is found towards the East]. By reaching this point, Ogier has gone as far as it is possible to go—to the beginning and end of the world—and created a genuinely worldwide Christian empire, something Charlemagne could never do. Thus far from being an anticipation of the ideal world emperor, Charlemagne was a Western homebody, upstaged by a baron meant to be his hostage. Overall, then, the Capetian use of Charlemagne was just one tradition amongst many, with his status as emperor and the meaning of his imperium subject to contestation.

REBELS

AN

DeLRAITORS

IN THE

CHRONICEES

This section returns to the moral questions about Charlemagne’s empire that dominate the Roncevaux texts: can he tell truth from falsity, right from wrong, good from evil? The idea of Charles as a Christ-figure is retained by some later works, whereas others maintain focus on the negative aspects of the Ganelon episode, particularly Charles’s tendency to believe traitors and to resolve political and judicial matters through vengeance that misses its target and causes widespread destruction. Of course, the problem in the Rolands is not simply that Ganelon betrays the twelve peers, but that Charles believes him when he returns from the Saracens and allows him to manipulate events. As Margaret Burland notes, this is accentuated in the Chateauroux—Venice 7 version, where Charles and Ganelon argue right at the start. Charles calls Ganelon a proven criminal and coward, making it more shocking that he trusts him later.°° The emperor is culpable for creating the crisis which he then steps in, heroically, to resolve. Charles's propensity to favour traitors, and the corresponding alienation and criminalization of good barons, develops in the rebel baron epics, where conflict repeatedly stems from, and is perpetuated by, faulty royal justice and the king’s dysfunctional pursuit of revenge (see Chapter 2 of this volume). The chronicles that draw on these epics display various levels of appetite for these internal struggles. Some simply omit them. The Grandes 67 Goosse, edition of the Myreur, pp. liii-lv; see also Chapter 6 of this volume on the way epics gradually gain access to a bigger world-view. 68 Strange Words, pp. 81-2.

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Chroniques exemplify this practice, emphasizing internal conciliation rather than conflict. They began as a northern French tradition, but spread as Capetians acquired territories, their inclusive message appealing in conquered lands. Their model of history, centred on the crown of France, had triumphed in many areas by the fifteenth century,® excluding the dangerous material contained in the rebel

baron chansons de geste from French history.’° As is well known, they also argue for the continuity of French royal dynasties. At the moment of the death of the last Carolingian, Louis V (986-7), the Grandes Chroniques contend that Philip Augustus reconnected with the lineage of Charlemagne through his marriage to Isabelle of Hainault, a descendant of the Carolingian king.”! Their son, Louis VIII (1223-6), represents this recoupling: ‘fu en lui recouvrée la lignée Charlemaines’ (11, 149) [in him the lineage of Charlemagne was recovered]. Thus the meaning as

well as the structure of the Grandes Chroniques—which are subdivided into Merovingian, Carolingian, and Capetian books—is royal genealogy. In Girart d’Amiens’s Jstoire, similarly, Charlemagne’s ‘France’ is an idealized version of

contemporary France, marked by peace amongst the barons: Par ceuz iert France adonc de toute honnor souvraine, Large et plenteiireuse et de tous les bien plaine; Et amoit li uns l'autre et sanz mal et sanz raine

(9423-5)

[Through them France was sovereign of all honours, vast and plentiful, and full of all good things; and each man loved the other without ill-will or rancour]

Revolts are generally the work of religious and cultural others—Bavarians, Lombards, Saxons, Huns, Slavs, and Bretons, whose linguistic difference is noted’*—often at the fringes of Christianity. Charles’s role in quashing them is one of imperial tutelage; he must ensure subject races respect proper belief and accept his good governance. But the rebel baron epics have no place. Mousket, on the other hand, integrates them but modifies them. Sarah Kay has argued that the past often seems difficult to access in the epics, with the origins of conflicts and the reasons driving their continuation unclear, whereas chronicle versions of the same stories leave out unclear material, or otherwise explain away, nullify, or flatten contradictions.73 Narrative meaning and political coherence are more rapidly established. Rather than dismiss rebellion episodes as fictional, Mousket includes them but simplifies them by presenting brief and one-sided accounts that allow no space for justification of revolts. Charles is praised for favouring the right aristocrats: “Traitours et larons kaca |Et tous preudoumes avanga’ (2370-1) [he drove out all the traitors and thieves, and promoted all the noblemen]. Charles’s wars with his barons are

surrounded by wars against Saxons, Huns, and others, suggesting that opposing 6° ‘This is stressed by Beaune (Naissance de la nation France) and Guenée (‘Les Grandes Chroniques’). 7° In this vein, the later versions of the Grandes Chroniques make no mention of the rebel baron movement of 1314-15 (Contamine, ‘De la puissance aux privileges’, p. 237).

7! Spiegel, Studies in the Chronicle Tradition, p. 196. ? ‘They speak ‘breton bretonnant’ (10051) [bas-Breton]—that is, the language of the western part

of Brittany, as opposed to the eastern, Romance-speaking, part. 73 See her ‘Le Passé indéfini’.

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the king is tantamount to allying oneself with the enemies of Christ. He also reduces the length of the conflicts. Thus in recounting the wars between Charles Martel and Girart de Roussillon, Mousket rushes to the conclusion—Girart’s

defeats—and says nothing about the troubles caused for the kingdom or about the political and ethical uncertainties generated: ...entraus commenga Iestris Par quoi Girart fu desconfis, Et tantes fois soupris de guerre Kil en pierdi tout sa tiére, Et furent si parent ocis, Et il en wida le pais.

(1822-7)

[between them there began the struggle during which Girart was defeated and so

many times overcome in war that he lost all his land and his kinsmen were killed and he left the country.]

He also gives a very brief version of Charlemagne’s encounter with Girart (de Fraite or de Vienne, the account blending elements of the poems we know as Aspremont and Girart de Vienne). Old Girart fights well at Aspremont but behaves wickedly afterwards, claiming that he will never serve the emperor. Then the siege of Vienne leads to a combat between Oliver and Roland, until lasting peace is agreed. Renaut de Montauban’s tale gets a little more detail. Renaut ‘souvent en ot tort’ (9823) [was often in the wrong], fighting Charles with his brothers, all mounted on

Bayart. The accent, however, falls on Renaut’s repentance and pilgrimage, rather than on his right to oppose Charles.”4 Additionally, there are perfunctory recalls of wars involving Gui de Nanteuil (10010-11) and Jehan de Lanson (4656-7),

protagonists of the chansons de geste by the same names. There is no sense here of the rebel’s perspective, and the flattening of counter-narratives reduces history to the march of centralizing progress. Nothing is allowed to go against the grain. The rebels appear but have no voice. Indeed one way in which Philip Augustus resembles Charlemage on Mousket’s account is precisely in his punishment of rebels. Count Renaut of Boulogne—who was historically one sponsor of Pseudo-Turpin translations—fortifies his castle against Philip (20875), but the king immediately seizes it, banishing him. The quick resolution of internal conflict proves a vital element of kingship. Mousket’s terse accounts of rebellions against Charlemagne are not just a matter of literary stylistics; they manifest and laud his ability to nip uprisings in the bud. If such texts embody the centre, more peripheral texts used tales of rebel barons to dwell insistently upon Charles’ failures. The typological link between Charlemagne and later French kings thus loses its hortatory and legitimizing qualities, becoming a double-edged sword, since material about Charles’s political misjudgements, unassuageable anger, and internecine wars form part of his portrait. History remains structurally anthromorphic, with the king the condition of possibility of political and communal life, but Charlemagne is more ambivalently presented in 74 See also Suard, Guide de la chanson de geste, pp. 266-7.

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the Burgundian Croniques, and downright sullied in the Myreur, the most nakedly anti-Carolingian text studied here, and the one that takes the rebel baron epics most seriously. Though Ogier becomes Charles’s main adviser, the action of the traitors never dies down. Ganelon keeps trying to kill Ogier and other good knights ‘afin qu’ilh fust vengiez d’eauz, et qu’ilh awist Charle le roy 4 conselhir tous seuls’ (m1, 128) [so that he could get revenge on them, and could advise Charles all

alone]. Ogier’s heroic action lies in driving traitors out: li Danois qui avoit destruit le linage des trahitours si forment qu’a mervelhe, car ilh les haoit tant que plus ne poioit, et ilh le haioient ausi; ancors en ochioit tant toutes les fois que ilh le cheioit 4 point, que ilh en avoit Franche toute vuidie; si ne savoient

troveir tour qu’ilh pousissent Ogier destruire, car ilh le dobtoient trop

(11, 189)

[the Dane had destroyed the lineage of traitors so greatly that it was a marvel, because

he hated them as much as anyone could, and they hated him back; he still killed them whenever he got the chance, such that he emptied France completely of them; and they could not find a way to kill him, because they were too scared of him] However, not even Ogier can save Charles from himself, since he has a recurring flaw:

si avient que Griffon d’Altrefuelhe s’en alat deleis Charle, et li presentat tant de riches joweals, quilh fut si enyvreis de convoities que depuis ne ly fallit; car ilh creit trop les trahitres, si en oit honte et damaige pluseurs fois 4 Rencheval et oussi altre part

(u, 490)

[and so it came about that Grifon d’Autrefuelh went to Charles, and gave him so many rich jewels that he became drunk with greed and from then on never failed him;

because he was too quick to believe traitors, and this brought him shame and loss several times at Roncevaux and also in other places]

The Myreur thus shares the moralizing tendency of the Grandes Chroniques. The past remains the source of ethical instruction, though different lessons are drawn. Charles allows treachery to fester at his court, whilst estranging good barons, as

Jean shows by working into his narrative the data of the chansons de geste. The Myreur often streamlines such narratives to locate the failures more squarely on Charlemagne’s side, but sometimes retains focus on their complexity, especially where it allows for the contingency of Carolingian rule to be highlighted. Thus Doon de Mayence figures, not as a rebellious or treacherous figure of the third geste,’> because Jean does not follow the famous classification in Girart de Vienne,

but rather the pattern of the chanson de geste called Doon de Maience (c.1250-1300).76 All three gestes are here glorious; indeed the births of Charlemagne at Paris, Doon

at Mayence, and Garin de Monglane at Toulouse are marked by marvels signalling their importance. Doon’s line gives us the Chevalier au Cygne and thus the crusading hero Godefroi de Bouillon, as well as the darling of this text, Ogier. Here Doon comes from a lineage as prestigious as Charles’s. But conflict starts because Charles considers himself superior, and is offended that Doon does not acknowledge this. It is resolved when an angel chastises him: 75 See the Introduction on the three gestes.

7® Date from edition, p. vi.

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Charle, tu as Dieu corochiet par ta felonie et varieteit awec outrequidanche, portant que tu crois trop les trahitours, et n’as nulle cognissanche des proidhommes, dont tu auras encors grieffre damaige et displaisier

(11, 498)

[Charles, you have angered God with your wickedness and vexed him with your arrogance, because you believe traitors and do not listen to noblemen, which will later cause you even greater damage and distress]

Doon appears to be Charles's equal. His position as emperor of the world sits oddly with his role as just one the three greats, and the war with Doon stems from his—

and not Doon’s—arrogance, unlike in the epic version of the tale. The Myreur, however, sides with Charles against Girart (de Roussillon or de Fraite), effacing the

political subtleties of the chansons de geste Aspremont and Girart de Roussillon, where conflicting precedents are manifest (see Chapter 3 of this volume). It thus portrays an inveterate, arrogant Girart, who never submits himself to the emperor, whom he dies cursing (111, 109). This is likely because Ogier fights on Charles's side in those battles. Political crises provide an opportunity to trouble Carolingian dominance and for the Dane and his allies to shine. The Girart episode displays flaws in Charles's character, too, because it is interwoven with the Renaut de Montauban material, Renaut allying himself with Girart. Jean nonetheless expresses doubts about the veracity of some of Renaut’s tale, perhaps because Renaut is Ogier’s main rival for the status of great rebel hero of the late medieval and early modern periods (see Chapter 2 of this volume for a discussion of their narrative legacies). For example, the epic about Renaut mentions four sons of Doon, ‘contrable al croniques (99) [contrary to the chronicles], which speak of twelve. There are

greater doubts still: de tout chu que la gieste dist quilh fisent en Ardenne, ilh nen fut onques riens. En sa legente 4 Messe en Loheraine et al Tremongne, la ons oire de saint Renart, puet on troveir la veriteit

(99)

[everything that the geste says that they [Renaut and his brothers] did in the Ardennes did not occur. In his legend at Metz in Lorraine and in Dortmund, where you hear about Saint Renaut, you can find the truth]

Thus many of the dramatic episodes of Renaut’s revolt, told by the chanson de geste, are relegated to the world of fiction and struck from the historical record. Jean’s desire to promote Ogier leads him to police carefully the boundary between history and fiction where Renaut is concerned. He accepts that Renaut unseated Roland, but still works to disculpate Renaut by highlighting that he was not ‘subtils ne engenale’ [deceptive or tricky], that ‘ilh ne se combatit 4 Charles par batalhe arestée, fors qu’en fuant’ [he never fought Charles in an open battle, only whilst fleeing], and that he always asked for ‘merchit’ (100) [mercy]. Indeed Ogier defends him—‘Renars n’est trahitre, ne issus de trahitre’ (101) [Renaut is not a traitor, nor descended from traitors]—and turns the accusation back against the

king ‘vos asteis trop presomptueux, quant vous faitez comparation de proidhons a faux trahitour’ (102-3) [you were too presumptious, when you compared good

men to false traitors]. Jean therefore allows Renaut his martyrdom: after his death, he was ‘canonisiez par miracles que Diez faisoit pour li’ (100) [canonized because

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of the miracles God made for him]. As a distinguished opponent of Charles’, Renaut must be praised, but his narrative is subordinated to that of Ogier. The Myreur also develops the narrative whereby Charles shames his wife Sebille. This material was widely known outside the French tradition, surviving in Spanish and Middle High German versions as well as the Franco-Italian Geste Francor. Again the margins are a place of more intense political critique. The queen spurns the advances of the traitor Macaire, who in revenge gets a dwarf to sneak into her bed. Charles believes this apparent proof of adultery, despite warnings from Roland, Oliver, and Ogier, who declares ‘les trahittres y ont ovreit’ (45) [traitors are at work]. Though the dwarf confesses, Sebille is still exiled because the king

does not think her innocent. Ogier cannot believe it: ‘voz voleis 4 tort et sens raison envoyer la plus belle et la plus noble del monde... qui est vostre espouse enchainte’ (46) [you want wrongfully and wantonly to exile the most beautiful and noblest woman in the world, who is your pregnant wife]. Charles will only make one con-

cession, allowing her to take a knight, Aubris, as protection; Aubris is however soon killed by Macaire. The queen escapes, and finds help from a peasant called Varocher. Aubris’s dog reveals the betrayal, because he keeps coming to Charles's court and biting Macaire. He leads them to the site of his master’s body, and then defeats Macaire, who is hanged for treason (51). Charles cannot see the truth, and

it is an animal who provides the supplement to faulty royal justice. But it is too late to prevent war with the emperor of Constantinople, Sebille’s father, who lays waste to France. The episode opens up further questioning of Charles's legitimacy when the emperor claims: je suy emperere de Romme et de Gresse d’antiquiteis, et mes anciestres bien v1. c ans

passeis et le doy estre; se Charle li barbeis fut jadit par le pape coroneis, chu fut de fait contre loialteit, et li pape astoit cusin germain 4 roy Charlon (11, 177) [I am emperor of great ancient Rome and Greece, and so have my ancestors been for six hundred years, and I am rightfully emperor; if Charles with the beard was crowned by the pope, this was done against rightfulness, and the pope was a cousin of King Charles’s]

The imperial coronation of Charlemagne in 800 ap is here cast as an unjust and nepotistic exercise of papal power that usurped Byzantine claims to represent the continuation of the Roman Empire. Eventually, peace is agreed. Charles repents ‘tout chu moy fist li conseais Genelhon et li alters ses parens’ (111, 188) [all this happened to me because of the advice of Ganelon and the others, his relatives].

Terrible destruction is wrought, all because Charles trusted the wrong men. The

non-universality of Carolingian power is highlighted by the arrival of the emperor from the East, who suggests that Charles is not entitled to hold any imperial title. Again, we return to a moment of contingency, as the texts highlights how lucky the Carolingians were to gain their powers. There was nothing predestined about their rule, and thus their claims to benevolence and divine legitimacy are unfounded. They were violent opportunists. Ogier's frustrations in these episodes frame the Myreur’s version of the Chevalerie d’Ogier, the linch-pin of this narrative. Ogier’s son Baudinet quarrels with

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Charlemagne’s son Charlot over chess. Charlot is a demonic figure in the Myreur, knighted by Ganelon, and he kills Baudinet with a chessboard. The king, the great princes, and the queen offer Ogier compensation, which he refuses. He tries to strike the king before escaping, burning France right up to Paris. However, Saracens threaten France, Ogier is summoned back ‘mains che ne fust Dies et Ogier, Franche fust conquise, et creist ons Mahoms, car Ogier secourit Franche a chesti fois’ (111, 232) [if God and Ogier had not intervened, France would have been conquered, and we would have worshipped Mohammed, because Ogier saved France this time]. Thanks to a miracle, he defeats and converts three giants, before vanquishing the

devil, who appears to him as Charlot. Ogier, rather than Charlemagne’s Franks, defends Christian Europe. But then hostilities with Charles continue, and Ogier flees. Even in flight, he helps the Greeks resist a siege of 200,000 Saracens, and converts the sultan of Tigris and his people. When he goes back to Europe, Charles agrees to hand over his son, but a miracle stops Ogier from killing Charlot. As in many chanson de geste narratives, the deadlock between the baron and the king can only be broken through divine intervention. The Myreur is the culmination of the anti-Charlemagne discourses of the epics and chronicles. All the king’s wrongs are compiled when Doon de Nanteuil tells Charles:

Doon, mes peire, le conte de Mayence et roy de Valcleir, fut malveisement greveit par vos; onques ne vousist li donneir Valcleir tant quen .i. champt fut 4 vos descendus. Apres, Gaufroit, mon asneit frere, gueriaste en demandant alconne chevage, s’en fuste pris et pres mis 4 mort. Puis suy-je par vos mult travelhiez de guere et sens raison. Bueve de Aigremont, mon freres, si fut murdrit par vous encontre droit; Gerart de Fraite, qui mes freres astoit, fut decachiez, li 1111 fis Aymon, nostre frere, furent gueroieis contre droit; apres, Ogier aveis decachiet et banit de Franche, destruite ses terre,

portant quilh requeroit loy de le mort son fil

(111, 273-4)

[Doon, my father, count of Mayence and king of Vauclere, was terribly harmed by you; you refused to give him Vauclere until he came into the field with you. Afterwards, you fought Gaufrey, my elder brother, demanding a tribute, and he was taken and put to death. And now I am led to fight long wars against you and for no reason. Beuves d Aigremont, my brother, was murdered by you unjustly; Girart de Fraite, who was my brother, was driven out, and the four sons of Aymon were fought unjustly; afterwards you drove out Ogier and banned him from France because he sought justice for the death of his son]

The avid reader of the chansons de geste—Jean dOutremeuse clearly was—will recognize the plots of the following texts here: Doon de Maience, La Chevalerie Ogier (for the Gaufroy de Danemarche story as well as the hero's), Renaut de Montauban (for the Beuves d’Aigremont story as well as that of the four sons of Aymon), and

Aspremont (for Girart de Fraite).”7 The same royal failings shaped all these epics: trust placed in traitors; misuse of the accusation of treason against loyal barons; 77 ‘The text also narrates struggles against Gaifier de Bordeaux and Lupus de Gascogne, which have historical basis (ii, 512-13, 516; see Michel, Les Légendes épiques carolingiennes dans l'euvre de Jean d Outremeuse, pp. 181-5).

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and desire for vengeance. But the condemnation of Charlemagne is more forceful here than in any of the individual texts, because they are made into a sequence, systematized as the inevitable outcomes of his inherent moral and political flaws. Jean sees a group of separate texts as converging upon one certainty: the tyranny of Charlemagne. Like other medieval historiographers, he works analogically— repetition produces truth and human character is reduced to stereotype—and tends to compile. But he does so with poisonous intent, gathering all the critical material about Charlemagne he can find. The Myreur shows how familiar historiographical tactics can be deployed to produce quite different results. Human history is still centred on kings here, but whereas in the Grandes Chroniques they are the source of moral goodness, in the Myreur all evils flow from unworthy royals.

David Aubert’s Croniques et conquestes also incorporate the epics—alongside the struggles the historical Charlemagne fought—to fill perceived gaps in the ‘croniques de France’ (1, 14) [chronicles of France], perhaps a reference to the Grandes Chroniques, which omit the narratives of rebellion against Charlemagne. David's respect for the chansons de geste manifests itself in his attempt to recreate their aesthetics within the prose chronicle format: when armies are lined up, he tells us, as would a good epic narrator, ‘belle chose vous eust semble de veoir’ (1, 65) [you would have found this a beautiful thing to see]. Though he also tends to reduce the

brutality of the epic material, the Croniques seem to have a warts-and-all approach to the politics of the Carolingian period, and the rebel baron narratives provide searching explorations of crises. The reductive tendencies Kay identified in chronicle rewritings of epics are less marked here, because the Croniques preserve the chanson de geste tendency for obscure past grievances to resurface in the context of new disagreements. The Burgundian dukes saw in Charlemagne legends the capacity for legitimization—Philip the Good was compared to him by his court historiographer7®—but the kings of France had by now claimed Charlemagne as their predecessor, so the Burgundian court may have seen some benefit in blackening his name. Carolingian kings, moreover, feature in the rebel baron material as the enemies of Burgundian dukes, not least Girart (de Roussillon or de Fraite). In

reworking the Girart material, David allows the Burgundian baron a voice. Though no reasons are given for Girart’s proud independence, for his refusal to recognize Carolingian kings, or for his haughtiness in responding to Charles's summons to crusade, Girart is arguably correct in suspecting a trick when Charles summons

him, declaring that the emperor ‘me cuide attraire a son seruice et mener ad ce que ie me soubzmette a luy’ (1, 241) [plans to bring me into his service and to manipulate matters so that I subject myself to him]. Girart’s rule in Auvergne, Burgundy,

Provence, and many other lands is well established. Not only is the Church well organized under Girart’s thirteen archbishops and fifty-four bishops, but there are barons to advise on lay justice, and even ‘estudes par vniuersitez’ (1, 348) [university studies]. These lands look like a state in their own right. As in Aspremont,

Girart brings troops to fight alongside those of Charles, but stresses that his army remains separate. When finally he does submit, it is at the behest of an angel. 78 Small, Georges Chastelain and the Shaping of Valois Burgundy, p. 166.

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Similar uncertainties about the locations of rightful power shape the Ogier tale. The origins of Ogier’s father Gaufrey’s claim to independence remain murky, and political troubles stem from Ogier’s awkward position as hostage to his father’s agreement with the emperor. Charles learns that every man on earth obeys him: excepte vng seul, lequel ne tient compte de vous en nulle maniére, et ne sauons pour quoy, si non qu’il est tant fier et haultain qu'il veult tenir son paijs sans auoir congnoissance de vostre haulte mageste. Et tant en pourra aduenir, se longuement le laissies en ce point, que iamais ne vouldra faire obeissance a vostre seignourie, ains vouldra estre pareila vous (1, 155) [except one, who does not pay heed to you in any matter, and we do not know why, but for the fact that he is so proud and haughty that he wants to hold his lands without recognizing your great majesty. And if you allow him to do that, it could come about that he will never want to obey your lordship, and will want to be equal to you]

But Charles is condemned by Naymes for ruling autocratically in his search for vengeance on young Ogier: vous auez cy iette vne sentence, de vostre seule auctorite, qui nous puet ester preiudi-

ciable...et a vostre roiaulme en pourroit estre le pis, se vostre dit est execute et nous en taisons ainsi...vous auez legierement condempne cest enfant et n’auez mie eu esgart au mal qui sen puet ensieuuir (1, 165) [you have given a verdict, on your own authority, which could be very harmful to us, and your kingdom would suffer if your order were carried and if we remained silent because you have quickly condemned this young man and you have paid no heed to the bad things that could come from it]

Charles has made a decision alone, which risks damaging the collectivity (‘nous’)

and his kingdom. Though Gaufrey has offended, Charles's anger focuses on the wrong object. Here, David integrates a didactic dimension, encouraging rulers to seek good counsel. The Renaut story proves even more controversial. Thus when Renaut is struck by Bertolai, he demands ‘vengance’ [vengeance] for this act, but also ‘amende’ [compensation] and ‘iustice’ [justice] for the death of his uncle, Beuves, killed in Charles’s safe conduct (11.1, 100). When Renaut kills Bertolai

instead, Charles begins his own quest for vengeance. Whereas Jean d’Outremeuse removes them, David retains the comic chase elements of the chanson, with sieges

at Montessor and Montauban, flight into the Ardennes, and the ‘dyaboliques sorts’ (11.i, 135) [diabolical spells] whereby Maugis steals the swords of the peers of

France and otherwise humiliates the king. As he becomes increasingly frustrated, Charles appears ever crueller, losing his support and appeal. The brothers are ‘ceulx qui lui empeschoient plus a viure en ioye. Onques homme ne l’auoit veu si pensif et merancolieux quil fu alors’ (11.i, 117) [those who prevented him living happily. Never had anyone seen him so troubled and melancholy as he was then]. There is

great joy when the war ends, because peace long seemed ‘chose impossible’ (11.i, 179) [an impossible thing]. As in the chanson de geste, the ethical situation is confused.

Conflict appears an inevitable part of political life. Rule over Christian barons is hard to justify, since they already ensure proper worship in their provinces, so there

is no religious cause to oust them. Finally, David deals with the Doon de Mayence

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crisis by demonizing the opponent of the king. Thus Doon ‘monta en si grant beubant et haultain vouloir qu'il ne daigna releuer sa terre de l'empereur’ (1, 115) [grew into such great arrogance and wilful desire that he never deigned to hold his lands from the emperor]. But only God’s intervention closes the conflict with Doon, as with Ogier and Girart. It is unclear whether this constitutes a divine mandate for Charles, or merely a godly desire for peace, as all these wars are ended

without resolving the issues they raise.

Charles's disagreements with barons of his household whilst on crusade provide further points of discord. In Spain, Roland disobeys Charles's orders, conquering the city of Nobles. Roland had been warned: ‘ie vous veul cy baillier vng estroit commandement, lequel, se vous le trespasses, vous perdez mon amour et encourrez mon indignation’ (11.i, 193) [I will now give you such a strict order that if you dis-

obey it you will lose my friendship and incur my wrath]. Thus the resulting antagonism is more clearly Roland’s fault and more quickly resolved than in the Franco-Italian epic L’Entrée d’Espagne’s version of the same incident (see Chapter 6 of this volume). But the Saxon wars in David’s version, which follows Les Saisnes,

provide a more profound exploration of Charles’s deficiencies. Baudouin challenges Charles to go across the river in war with the Saxons. Charles crosses, before Baudouin asks for mercy, but Charles takes revenge by sending Baudouin on a mission to get a ring from the Saxon queen Sebille; David refers to him as ‘Pun des plus criminelz princes du monde’ (11.ii, 191) [one of the most reprehensible princes

in the world] at this point. This mission impossible has parallels with the scenarios in Huon de Bordeaux and Huon d'Auvergne (see Chapter 6 of this volume), where the monarch tries to send a baron to his death without openly ordering his execution, and who thus acts like a traitor, concealing enmities. Unequal treatment of the Herupois also causes unrest, and Germans, Loherens, Flemish, and Burgundians all leave the army. As in Les Saisnes, Charles's allies feel disrespected. He displays no talent for managing subordinates or maintaining links of fidelity. Naymes bails him out, saving the Christian mission. For David as for Jean, then, the Carolingian period was characterized as much by internal strife and by rebellions stemming from royal abuses as by external expansion. By rewriting, or even by excluding, the material of the rebel baron epics, then, the chronicles signal their political agendas. Reshaping Carolingian history entailed dealing, in one way or another, with the chansons de geste about revolt. CHARLEMAGNE

SPORT CIBIOG RAPELY

The development of afull biography of Charlemagne displays many of the features of late epics and their prose renderings: the tendency to create enfances stories,

didactic concerns, and the desire for totalization that leads to the compilation and confusion of historical and fictional material. Moral qualities added to Charles's status as the exemplary king, and even his flaws could widen his appeal, making

him an everyman. Whereas the epics studied in Chapters 2 and 3 of this volume

reduced Charles's power to military muscle, chronicles suggest a moral and cultural

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foundation for his rule, as well as a broad social base of approval. They make clear that his power surpasses that of his barons morally, contrasting to the Oxford Roland, which makes him a king on the model of a vengeful baron, fighting at the heart of a noble warrior alliance. They thus also make a move paralleling developments in political theory (see Chapter 1 of this volume): from politics on the mode of power to a more positive, associative model of the political community. Charlemagne is reinvented in the process. An admiring portrait of Charlemagne’s character and physique forms a central chapter of the Pseudo-Turpin (57-8). He is generous and humble in Mousket and Girart d’Amiens, whereas sobriety and care for knowledge characterize him in the Grandes Chroniques: A son mengier faisoit lire aucuns rommans ou aucunes anciennes histoires des princes anciens. Moult oioit volentiers les livres de saint Augustin et meismement ceulx qui sont intitulés de la cité de Dieu. Si sobre estoit en vin et en aultre breuvage que pou avenoit qu il beust plus que trois fois au mengier

(1, 165)

[When dining he had romances or venerable histories of ancient princes read out loud. He liked to hear the works of Saint Augustine, especially those called the City of God. He was so sober with wine and other beverages that he rarely drank more than three times during a meal.]

The Grandes Chroniques acknowledge Charles’s hunger for aggressive conquest— accepting narrative data from elsewhere—but argue that this did not distract him from serving the Church: Si fier et si puissant come vous avez oi estoit ’empereur en acroistre son royaume et en plaissier et soubmettre ses ennemis, et assiduement ententif 4 guerroier en toutes les parties du monde en un meisme temps; si ne demouroit pas, pour ce, qu il ne fust

curieux des oeuvres de miséricorde. Car il édifia églyses et abbaies en divers lieux, en Ponneur de Dieu et au profit de same

(1, 157)

[You have heard how fierce and powerful the emperor was in expanding his kingdom and in knocking down and submitting his enemies, and how greatly dedicated he was to fighting in all corners of the world at the same time; all the same, he never neglected

works of charity. He built churches and abbeys in many places, to the honour of God and for the gain of his soul]

Whereas rebel baron epics tended to sanctify nobles, here we see the chronicle response in the reinforcement of the holy aspects of Charlemagne’s legend. Charles becomes an impossible ideal, at once ferocious and kind, vengeful and merciful,

militaristic and peaceful, the resolution of all the problems and contradictions that medieval political theory runs into. Yet both didactic and parodying structures remained inherent in literature about Charlemagne’s lineage. The Geste Francor, a collection of epics locatable to fourteenthcentury northern Italy, critiques Carolingian power throughout, turning to narratives focussing on breaches, fault-lines, and cracks in its naturalization. The once-popular idea that the Geste is a bourgeois critique of feudal power structures is erroneous—texts like it circulated amongst Italian nobles—but it uses the hostility towards the emperor integral to rebel baron epic narratives, perhaps articulating

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resistance to imperial invasions of the peninsula.”° Thus Bove d‘Antona recounts a wrongful incursion into the hero’s lands by Pepin, manipulated by the traitor Doon. The Ogier narrative also features: the Dane refuses to fight for Charles unless he can get ‘vencament’ (12962) [vengeance] for wrongful imprisonment. He wants to give the king ‘trois colpe...de ma spea trencent’ (12979) [three blows

with my sharp sword]. Charles is terrified and puts on two helmets to protect himself, but the first blow is weak—‘ne fose por cil una moscha perie’ (13005) [it

would not have hurt a fly]}—and two more ‘no l’inpira ge valist una alie’ (13007) [do not harm him one bit]. Ogier thus demonstrates potential power over the

king, who is reduced to cowardice. Royalty is shown to need the military nobility. In Berta e Milone, Charles plans to marry his sister Berta highly, unaware of her love affair with his seneschal, Milon. The pregnant Berta suggests they flee, but

Milon thinks this futile and compares their situation to the Virgin and King Herod. It is an alternately tyrannical and inglorious Charles who appears in these texts. The Geste Francor also includes Berta da lipe grant, the narrative of Charles's birth. Along with the Reine Sebille tale—which ends the Geste (as Macario) and

which also spread across Europe—it shows the longevity and popularity of narratives which depict Carolingian kings negatively. Pepin marries Berta, the daughter of the king of Hungary, who is tired when she arrives at court, and so asks her lookalike friend to spend the first night with the king, but not to let him have his way. Actually the king does, and the friend, ‘la malvés’ (2027) [the wicked one],

takes the place of Berta, whom she tries to kill. Pepin has two sons by the false queen, before conceiving Charles by Berta, who survives in exile before getting her place back. Pepin, like Charles in Macario, is complicit in the exiling of his own queen, because he fails to identify right from wrong. Illegitimacy and adultery haunt the Carolingian family. A tendency to biography shapes the Gesze; there are enfances narratives for Ogier and Roland, and arguably, Bovo. In Karleto, the story of Charles’s youth, the sons of the false Berta and Pepin kill their parents and take over the kingdom. Charles is whisked away to Spain, where he receives shelter from the Saracen King Galafre, whom he helps against his enemies. This stay in Spain is referred to in the PseudoTurpin and Mousket’s Chronique, which say that Charles knew Arabic because of it. When Charles invades France, his half-brother Lanfroi claims ‘Rois son de France, e de Paris la cité |E si fu filz Pepin’ (8577-8) [I am king of France and Paris

the city, and I was a son of Pepin]. Charles’s action is one of restoration, yet the claim of the brother is also in some sense legitimate—he is a son of Pepin—and the contingency of Carolingian rule, once highlighted, can never be completely effaced, especially as the surrounding narratives point to Charles's shortcomings. This tale figures briefly in the Myreur and the Croniques et conquestes, but is furthest developed by Girart d’Amiens, who uses it to precisely the opposite purpose. Thus there are competing fourteenth-century tellings of the same narrative material. Girart describes the tyrannical rule of the two brothers at length in order to provide ” See the Introduction in this volume, and my ‘Linguistic and Political Ferment in the FrancoItalian Epic’.

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a background against which Charles's enlightened government can shine. The subversive potential of the episode is attenuated. Charles must confront ‘Cil dui serf, qui ainssi cuidierent decevoir |France, le douz pais, de son droiturier hoir’ (1143-4)

[these two slaves, who thought they could cheat France, the sweet country, out of its rightful heir]. Charles is acclaimed by the populace when he returns triumphantly: Dont grant gent du pais, qui de fine amor tendre Amoient leur seignour tant quamor peut estendre, Distrent que des or mais devoient joie emprendre Quant cil a terre vient dont tel bien peut descendre, Quar nus n’i osera james droiture vendre.

(546-50)

(‘Then the great populace of the country, who loved their lord through true love as far as love could go, said that now they must take joy because he from whom all good things flow was coming to earth and now no one will dare to cheat justice.]

As well as a quasi-divine type of legitimacy—he seems to descend to earth, radiating moral goodness—Charles here has a direct link to the people, something central to Louis [X’s propaganda and which short-cuts the chansons de geste with their obsessive focus on the nobility, their reduction of the political world to the king—aristocracy axis. Contrasting the epics and the chronicles here reveals how the nobles and the king are in an ideological battle, each trying to represent the other as the outsider. Here, the king is placed inside, and the nobles outside, at best as unnecessary intermediaries, and at worst as potential threats to the ‘natural’ relationship between ruler and people. This parallels the politics of Hugues Capet, but contrasts to that of Renaut de Montauban and the Chevalerie d’Ogier, where the rebels are heroes of the people and the king a monstrous threat to the community (see Chapter 2 of this volume on these texts).

Charles’s human flaws are recuperated in some texts as part of a moral improvement trajectory. He, like all of us, must compensate for his inevitable failings through good works. In the Pseudo- Turpin, which aims to bring out the edificatory nature of the Roncevaux material, Charles displays arrogance when he asks God for a sign indicating who will die in one of the Spanish wars, before locking them up, in a vain attempt to save them. When he later finds them dead, he repents. The narrator says of his repentance: ‘il fist ke sages, kar moust est fous ke voyt Deux assayer a defere ¢o ke il ad estably ke doyt estre feest’ (49) [this was a wise thing to

do, because only a very foolish man would try to undo that which God has decided must be done]. The Agolant episode and of course Ganelon’s betrayal form part of this dimension. The Myreur, on the other hand, tells the most controversial of Charles's flaws: his crime of incest, omitted from our other chronicles. Charles confesses to Saint Gilles his union with his sister Berta, during which she conceived Roland. He is forgiven after the intervention of an angel (111, 5). This event

is alluded to in several chansons de geste, and is perhaps the reason for the tension between Roland and his stepfather Ganelon.®° The Franco-Italian Morte de Carlo 80 See Archibald, Incest and the Medieval Imagination, pp. 200-2; Griffin, “Writing Out the Sin’, It is recounted in the eleventh-century life of Saint Gilles, and in Tristan de Nanteuil, the Icelandic

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Magno (c.1300), the only chanson to narrate his demise, has Gilles reproach Charles about keeping his secret. Buried narrative material resurfaces in these texts from outside the Capetian sphere. His sin is unthinkable for those pro-Capetian works that push it to the margins, but it keeps returning from the peripheries, which

never go silent. Suppressed voices find various ways to make themselves heard. The chronicles all tell Charles’s death. Turpin sees evil spirits that intend to take away Charles’s soul. In Girart d’Amiens, they are confident: ‘il a tant de gent fet a la mort livrer |que Diex le nous doit bien par reson delivrer.’ (23176-7) [he had

so many people killed that God must surely place him in our hands]. But they are not successful. In the Myreur, when they return they say: Marie la mere Jhesu-Crist et I Galatiiens sens teste le nous ont tollut et ont apporteis tant de pires et de marines et des bois des englises que ilh fondeit 4 son temps, qu'il meterent en le balanche, si pessont plus le moitie que tos les mals quilh avoit fait (m1, 409)

[Mary mother of Jesus so many stones and so his time, and they put the bad things that he

Christ and a Galician with no head took it from us and brought much marble and wood from the churches that he founded in them on the scales, and they weighed half as much again as all had done]

The Virgin and Saint Jacques (the beheaded Galician) step in to save Charles. In the Croniques et conquestes, the demons say ‘les haies et les barrieres qui auoient

empeschie nostre fait principal, estoient les ediffices des monasteres et eglises que il auoit ediffie en sa vie’ (11.ii, 294) [the walls and barriers which prevented our main deed were the buildings of the monasteries and churches which he had constructed in his life]. The Pseudo- Turpin gives a moral (71-2), echoed in the Grandes Chroniques—es bienfais quil avoit fais pesoient plus que le mal’ (11, 284) [the good things he had done weighed more than the bad]. But whereas in the PseudoTurpin, Saint Jacques alone ensures that Charles goes to heaven, in the Grandes Chroniques he is aided by Saint Denis—un Frangois décolé (11, 283) [a beheaded

Frenchman]—in another textual attempt to underscore the connection of his legend with Paris and the Capetians. The Chroniques also add:

par ce peut-on savoir que quiconques édifie églyses ou moustiers en l’onneur de Dieu et des sains, il appareille 4 same le régne des cieux, et il sera osté des mains au déable ainsi comme Charlemaines fu

(11, 286)

[by this we can understand that whoever builds churches and monasteries in the name of God and his saints is preparing his soul for the kingdom of heaven, and he will be

taken out of the hands of the devil just as Charlemagne was]

The royal soul was in the balance. Charles symbolizes the fate of all humans, judged by divine justice, and he would have gone to hell were it not for his construction works, all of which casts a dark shadow over his other deeds. Even in this, the most

pro-Charlemagne work of all, he is only rescued at the last.8! Karlamagnus saga and the Occitan Ronsasvals. In Girart d’Amiens, Charles confesses his sins, including the ‘bastardes et bastarz’ (22860) [male and female bastards] that he fathered.

*! See Chapter 6 of this volume on Charles Martel’s damnation in the fourteenth-century FrancoItalian epic Huon d'Auvergne, which is not invested in Carolingian or Capetian glory.

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CONCLUSION

Canonical readings of Charlemagne have remained resilient, largely because of the influence of Oxford Roland, which is still read far more frequently than any of the other texts discussed in this chapter. I have tried to upset the reading of the Oxford Roland, contending that the Spanish wars cannot be thought of as a heroic core to the narrative, because there is complexity and ambiguity even there, from which

the rhymed Rolands try to salvage stable political meaning. But the vengeance Charles takes in the Oxford Roland does not efface his earlier failures, which manifest tendencies—fractious politics amongst his Franks; trusting the wrong men; desire for brutal revenge on political enemies—that will become increasingly problematic in other narratives. There was in the Spanish wars a set of resonances which could be variously generalized to Charles's other wars, internal and external. The Oxford Roland is peripheral, just one of many marginal uses of the Roncevaux material that stand in contrast to the Pseudo-Turpin—the most widespread text, which makes Charles a divine agent fighting evil, but also opens other potential avenues of critique by exploring Charles's moral failings—and to the Grandes Chroniques, the most overtly centralizing and legitimizing political reinterpretation of the figure. The twelfth-century Anglo-Norman space, which also produced the Pélerinage de Charlemagne, apparently favoured less laudatory works than those arising in pro-Capetian areas, such as thirteenth-century Hainault, home to Philippe Mousket and his Chronique rimée. Girart d’Amiens’s [stoire, written for a fourteenth-century count of Valois whose claims to royal power failed, also saw in links to Charlemagne the possibility of glory. These texts entered a fight that would long continue. Charles's moral qualities and moral improvement; the continuity and security of his rule; and the translation of empire and relics to his Franks could be asserted, but so could his failings and the contingency of his power. Texts like the Franco-Italian Geste Francor and Jean d’Outremeuse’s Myreur from Liége, both fourteenth-century works, were more starkly anti-imperial and

anti-Charlemagne, whereas the fifteenth-century Burgundian Croniques et conquestes oscillate between lauding Charlemagne as a magnificent point of comparison for its dukes, and denigrating him as the predecessor of their rivals and rival of their predecessors. Each work must be situated in its geographically and historically specific discursive context; each argues against other works. Authors moved across boundaries between history and fiction, and between different literary genres, attempting to harmonize discordant narrative elements to forge particular political messages. Purely historical accounts sometimes appeared unsatisfactory, and were

supplemented by literary works allowing for better exploration of political uncertainties and more trenchant critique of the workings of power, or else for more effective moralizing typologies. The Francophone fringes of the medieval world remained as active as the centre, and the use of Charlemagne in the Anglo-Norman world, the Low Countries, Burgundy, and Italy challenges any attempt to write literary history along straight lines. Vernacular prose historiography may have arrived as a new genre in the thirteenth century, but the old ones did not go away. If the Grandes Chroniques had great success by combining fictional and historical

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sources, they never achieved a monopoly. Narratives depicting Charlemagne negatively, especially those about barons opposing him—Ogier, Renaut, Girart, Doon—remained vastly popular either as chansons de geste, prose or verse recastings, printed works or episodes in chronicles. They are not canonical for moderns, but they were literary greats for late medieval and early modern readers, as integral a part of Charlemagne’s literary biography as the tragedy of Roncevaux.

5 Feud The texts I examine in this chapter—Raoul de Cambrai and the Loheren cycle—tell of ‘wars without end’.! In both, successive generations of warriors fight out old grievances, producing fresh cycles of violence and of narrative. Feud is a controversial notion, sometimes considered too diffuse or too freighted with misleading, negative connotations,” but I retain the term, first because I work with literary texts where violent acts of vengeance are structured and sequenced, forming long narrative chains. Feud, then, is for me a narrative idea above all. Second, I seek dialogue with the anthropological and historical concept. The structural school of anthropology sought to rescue feud from associations with anarchy and statelessness, or with do-it-yourself approaches to justice, showing instead its functional nature, its role as a social and political system limiting violence and providing justice.> Historical work drawing on this thinking challenged the old narrative whereby feud was a quintessentially medieval institution, where barbaric, ‘eye for an eye honour codes demanding bloody revenge were replaced by modern, centralized state powers exercising monopolies over justice and violence.* Feuds have been

1 ‘La grant guerre qui onques ne prist fin’ (Garin le Loherenc, 11054); ‘la grant guere qi onges ne prist fin’ (Raoul de Cambrai, 98).

? Halsall, aiming to liberate historians of prejudice about the violent Dark Ages, suggests abandoning the term in favour of ‘customary vengeance’, a normative form of revenge-taking (‘Reflections on Early Medieval Violence’). For Sawyer (“The Bloodfeud in Fact and Fiction’), ‘feud’ has been worn out

by overuse in scholarship. But I do not consider ‘vendetta anything more than a synonym (see Netterstrom’s ‘Introduction’, pp. 38-46 on attempts to distinguish), and I agree with White (“Feuding and PeaceMaking in the Touraine’) and Hyams (“Was There Really Such a Thing as Feud in the High Middle Ages?’), for whom ‘feud’ is an idea that allowed chroniclers and participants (and now allows historians) to situate individual episodes within a continuous narrative. Dean (“Marriage and Mutilatiom) and Muir (Mad Blood Stirring) also see revenge as a narrative topos. Byock (‘Narrating Saga Feud’) speaks of ‘feudemes’, components of the narrative pattern of feuding, suggesting that the whole process

could be represented as a flowchart. 3 The scholarship on feud is vast. See the survey in Netterstrom’s ‘Introduction’. Classic structural studies in anthropology include those on Africa by Evans-Pritchard (Zhe Nuer) and Gluckman (Custom and Conflict); Gluckman’s ideas were developed in dialogue with medieval historian Wallace-Hadrill,

though see Wood (“The Bloodfeud of the Franks’) for a reassessment of their relationship), as well as Peters (The Bedouin of Cyrenaica), Black-Michaud (Cohesive Force, also on the Bedouin), and Boehm (Blood Revenge, on Montenegro). 4 Bor Wallace-Hadrill (“The Bloodfeud of the Franks’), feud was a Frankish, barbarian institution

that dominated medieval life after the collapse of Roman institutions, whereas for Bloch (La Société feodale), feud was a symptom of the ‘feudal anarchy’ that followed the breakdown of Carolingian structures. Strayer (On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State) narrated the medieval period as the story of progress towards modern state structures, and Elias (Zhe Civilizing Process) contended that early modern states curbed aggressive tendencies and emotional outbursts.

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shown to take place long after states began to assert themselves.’ But, along with Chapter 2, this chapter joins in the critique of structural anthropology, which construes feud too optimistically, drawing on the work of historians who highlight the ambivalence expressed in medieval sources,° where we find both pro-violence voices and anti-violence complaints, the latter being precisely the source of modern images of the brutal Middle Ages.” The presentation of feud as inevitable has also been attacked, with revenge instead considered a choice: it was one means of processing grievances, and rational calculations drove wars as much as vengeful

emotions.® Paul Hyams and Steve White are the key historians working in this vein. Like them, I recognize the great value of the anthropological concept of ‘feud’ as a lever against assumptions deriving from modern societies with centralized justice systems. A classic anthropological definition states that feud ‘occurs mainly in band and tribal societies, which lack the centralized authority needed to stop lethal retaliation after homicides’. But there are also difficulties in applying it to medieval society, where feuding practices coexisted with such systems. The society of the chansons de geste depicts feuding lineages in complex relationships to central powers. White in particular has drawn on the chansons de geste,!° but they remain underused by scholars of feud. By placing them in the context of legal and philosophical works outlawing or condemning revenge, I shall demonstrate that they furnish a broader sense of the ambivalence felt towards wars of vengeance and reveal the workings of feud as a narrative shaping social, political, and ethical dimensions of human experience. The chansons de geste studied here tell of internecine wars of revenge between Christians, with battles against Saracens occurring only in brief episodes. These conflicts combine order with disorder, and the rational with the irrational. Violence spreads, appearing out of control at times, but rules and structures remain, affording us a view onto the culture of feuding as well as the critique of that culture. Raoul de Cambrai (c.1200), extant in one complete codex,!! nar-

rates a feud between two clans over land in the north-eastern fringes of France.'? > See Carroll, Blood and Violence; Firnhaber-Baker, Violence and the State, Gauvard, Violence et ordre public; Geary, ‘Living with Conflicts in Stateless France’; and Kaminsky, “The Noble Feud in the Later Middle Ages’ for France; Hyams, Rancor and Reconciliation, for England; Dean, ‘Marriage and Mutilation’, for Italy. The Nazi Brunner’s work on Germany and Austria (Land and Lordship) aimed

to rehabilitate violence as a political tool, by casting feud as a noble privilege to be protected against the encroachments of the bourgeois state. Brunner still provides a useful antidote to statist paradigms of progress, but see the reassessment of his ideas in Zmora (State and Nobility).

® Muir (Mad Blood Stirring) attacks the idea that feuding was a ‘normal’ solution to legal problems, whereas Dean argues for the presence of a ‘counter-culture’ against vengeance ‘visible in modes of writing... expressing disapproval and criticism, not acceptance or tolerance’ (‘Italian Medieval Vendetta’, p. 145).

7 White notes the parallel between the ‘alarmist rhetoric of both modern historians and medieval monks about eleventh-century anarchy, violence, and lawlessness’ (“From Peace to Power’, p. 10).

8 Structural or functionalist presentations of feud downplay the presence of emotions. See, for example, Verdier (ed., La Vengeance); for counter-arguments, see Boehm (“The Natural History of Blood Revenge’) and Rosenwein (“Les Emotions de la vengeance’).

® Boehm, ‘Feuding’, p. 185. 10 See especially his “Un imaginaire faidal’. 11 See also the Appendix. Kay notes that the language first part of Raoul is Picard, and that toponyms also locate it to areas north-east of Paris, whereas the second part has more non-northern language, and the action broadens to include Champagne (edition, p. xxxix).

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The hero dies relatively early on but the two families—the Cambresians and the Vermandois—slug it out for many more years, as the narrative stretches across its three parts, the original song being followed by two continuations.!3 The vastly popular Loheren (Lorraine) cycle survives in over fifty manuscripts and fragments. It constitutes the most magnificent medieval study of a feud; indeed real feuds were often compared to the one it narrates.!4 The origin of the war, told in the core text, Garin le Loherenc (1160—90),}> involves rival claims to land in both the northeast and south-west extremes of France, opposing Fromont (and the Bordelais) to

Garin (and the Loherens). Continuations stretch the war out over subsequent generations, each continuing the same old grievances. The most commonly found sequel, Gerbert de Metz (c.1200), is followed in some codices by one of the mutually exclusive conclusions: either the Vengeance Fromondin (c.1260), which shows

awareness of Raoul, or Anseis de Mes (c.1250).'° A prologue is provided by Hervis de Mes (1210—20).!” Most manuscripts of the verse cycle date to the thirteenth and

fourteenth centuries. Evidence that they were produced methodically in Lorraine (probably in Metz), copied column by column, attest to high demand; the region’s aristocrats and new ruling classes owned many copies.!® Prose recastings of the cycle from the fifteenth century and later display the longevity of feuding culture.!? I shall consider here Yonnet de Metz, the conclusion to Philippe de Vigneulles’s sixteenth-century version, which takes the characters back to landscape of Garin and strengthens the material’s relationship to his adopted city of Metz. The prologue compares the feud to the destruction of Troy.”° I include it because it manifests the long-standing popularity of the cycle in the region and provides an alternative ending (it may draw on a lost thirteenth-century concluding poem by the same name).

I start this chapter, then, with feud’s relationship to central power structures— royalist legislation and royal courts—in order to nuance the opposition between centralized justice and feud that anthropologists often assume, by drawing on network theory.?! Whereas royal anti-feuding legislation argues for sovereignty via a model where the king’s violence protects the common good (especially the poor victims of feud), the chansons de geste have a more horizontal view of the social

The surviving poem is tripartite, including a reworked earlier core. See Kay’s edition, pp. xxi-I. 14 Gittleman, Le Style épique dans ‘Garin le Loherain’, pp. 16-17. See Appendix for summaries, provenance of dates, and numbers of manuscripts for each text. Gerbert’s son is called Anseis in Anseis de Mes, and Yon in the Vengeance Fromondin (and the prose Yonnet de Metz).

'7 Edition, p. lxviii. I do not discuss Hervis here because it provides only an enfances narrative for Garin’s father, and does not narrate the feud. A reading is given by Jones, The Noble Merchant. 18 See Busby, Codex and Context, i, 38-9 on production; ii, 545-59 on ownership. 19 ‘The fifteenth-century renderings are Paris, Bibliothéque nationale de France, Arsenal 3346 and David Aubert’s Histoire de Charles Martel. The latter allies the Lorraine material to a version of Girart de Roussillon, serving the Burgundian dukes’ claims to the Lorraine region whilst also articulating resistance to France. See Jones, “Battle at Court’ on the prose texts; Herbin, ‘Variations, vie et mort des

Loherains’ on the cycle’s broad legacy. 20 Jones, ‘Battle at Court’, p. 59. 21 T draw on Latour’s Reassembling the Social, plus Levine’s Forms and Moretti’s Distant Reading for more literary angles on networks.

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order, where the king plays a part in aristocratic feuding culture. The second section then reads feud as a form of aristocratic competition for resources—especially

land, but also women—both of which provide a more abstract commodity: honour. Feud brings noble parties into mirrored relationships of hostility, whilst also preserving their position vis-a-vis the peasantry they exploit. The third section argues that each feuding party maintains networks of kinship, friendship, and alle-

giance to perpetuate and expand conflict by passing on narratives of enmity. In the fourth section, peace is read as an opposite but complementary practice. There is a dialectic movement between ideals of peace and ideals of revenge, the latter being examined in the fifth section, which argues for an ethical dimension to vengeance. Finally, I suggest that this medieval material might feed into debates about the reintegration of vengeful emotions into justice systems in modern times. Because I will move thematically through the medieval textual material, the reader might wish to consult the plot summaries found in the Appendix.

KINGS,

COURTS,

AND

LAWS

I have argued in this book, especially in Chapter 1, that the late medieval period is one of centralizing practices and ideologies. Aquinas's paradigm, whereby ‘public’ (read ‘royal’) violence is the only legitimate form of violence because only it protects justice and the common good,” constitutes an extreme theoretical position reflected in renewed royal efforts to control feuding. In order to assert their sovereignty, to seek a monopoly of the legitimate use of force, and to position themselves as agents of peace and order, kings represented vendettas as selfish, prideful, and destructive. Around thirty ordonnances against feuding were issued between Louis IX’s reign (1226-70) and that of Charles V (1364-80), successors

of twelfth-century royal efforts towards protecting the populace and punishing (aristocratic) crimes against peace, as well as the tenth- and eleventh-century Peace of God movements. Justine Firnhaber-Baker highlights the mixture of expediency—

the tendency to proclaim laws in response to specific individual troubles—and consistency of policy in anti-feud legislation.?? Louis IX restricted feuding in 1245 for ‘le bien publique, tuition du pays, et des habitans en nostredit royaume demourans et manans’ [the public good, the education of the country, and popu-

lation living and staying in our kingdom].*4 Louis, styling himself as defender of the moral order even as he used peacekeeping for his own ends of political consolidation, banned feuds entirely in 1257: ‘noveritis nos, deliberato consilio, guerras omnes inhibuisse in regno, et incendia, et carrucarum perturbationem’ [may you all know that, in accordance with counsel, we have banned wars, arson and the disturbance of agriculture in the kingdom].”° Philip IV (1285-1314) announced

interdictions in 1303 and 1314.*° He added new elements to feuding prohibitions, limiting seigneurial wars to protect the crown’s diplomatic and military 22 Summa theologiae, ii.ii q. 40. °3 Violence and the State. 4 Recueil général des anciennes lois francaises, i, 248. >> Tbid., i, 280.

26 Jbid., ii, 807-8.

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interests, and to improve recruitment for royal wars. The law of 1314 cites the king’s war against Flanders: ‘deffendons sus paine de corps et d’avoir, que durant nostre dite guerre, nuls ne facent guerre, ne portent d’armes lun contre l’autre, en nostre royaume’ [on penalty of bodily pain and confiscation of goods, we order that no one shall make war during our aforementioned war, nor should they bear arms against one another, in our kingdom].*” Making war within the kingdom is

forbidden, because the king needs to use military resources for wars outside it. John IT (1350-64) also speaks of ‘noz guerres’ [our wars] when banning feuds in

1361.78 The royal duty to protect peasants and agriculture remained a /eitmotif,?? but a gradual ideological shift meant peace was desacralized: Louis IX’s laws worked as an extension of the Peace of God, but from Philip IV onwards, laws were increasingly expressed in the new, secular language of political governance, the common good, and the res publica. The suppression of violence became more exclusively a royal governmental prerogative,*° as coercive judicial authority was imposed broadly, with the nobles nudged from their perches to become subjects along with everyone else. Feuds were not so much a danger to the social order, as a threat to the royal social order. Suppressing feud was a vital means of asserting royal sovereignty. In practice, however, any royal victory was slow. Centralized justice systems long coexisted with feuding practices; this constitutes the major difference between medieval society and those studied by twentieth-century anthropology. Feud was not an alternative justice system responding to a lack of centralized justice but was rather embroiled in it. The shift was not linear: Louis X (1314-16), in a weak position after the noble leagues of 1314—15, had to backtrack and acknowledge noble rights to feud.?! Law-books often admitted the presence of wars, attempting only to protect truces and guaranteed peaces, thus tempering moral principles with political pragmatism. In the Ezablissements de Saint Louis (c.1272-3),°* breaking a truce is termed ‘une des granz traisons qui soit’ (1, 47) [one of the worst known

acts of treachery], and for the Orléanais law-book known as Livres de Jostice et de plet (c.1254-70),°° truces represent ‘espérance de pez (1, 83) [hope for peace].

Finally, Philippe de Beaumanoir’s customary from Beauvaisis (completed 1283)%4 speaks of a ‘trop mauvese coustume’ (11, 371) [very bad custom] in feuds, where

vengeance was sought on relatives far away who knew nothing of the crime. He says that Philip Augustus changed this: only those present at the action must be on their guard straight away; others have forty days’ truce.*° 27 Tbid., iii, 40-1.

28 Tbid., v, 126-9.

29 See Firnhaber-Baker, Violence and the State, for a full survey; also see Barthelémy, “LEtat contre le lignage’. 39 Thus kings of France reserved jurisdiction over homicides. See Harding (Medieval Law, pp. 240-2).

31 Recueil général des anciennes lois frangaises, iii, 62-3. 32 Les Etablissements de Saint-Louis, ed. Viollet, i, 2. The Etablissements, despite their name, are not an official record of Louis's laws, but do provide evidence of thirteenth-century customs. 33, Li Livres de jostice et de plet, ed. Rapetti and Chabaille, p. xiv. 34° Les Coutumes de Beauvaisis, trans. Akehurst, p. xiii. 3° The author of the Vengeance Fromondin may have known this regulation, the ‘quarantaine du roi’ (edition, p. 72), found also in Louis IX’s 1245 law on private war (Recueil général des anciennes lois frangaises, i, 247-8).

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Much royal and royalist law from the thirteenth century onwards, then, acknowledges feud and seeks only to limit its scope. As Firnhaber-Baker contends, the propensity to bar feuding ran counter to other tendencies, like respect for seigneurial rights and the use of negotiation, clemency, and settlement.*° Similarly, Claude

Gauvard notes that royal justice always had to satisfy noble demands in order to be binding.3” The chansons de geste continued to find audiences across the centuries when royal power was asserting itself through peace legislation: the majority of epic manuscripts are thirteenth-century, but many are fourteenth-century, and the Loheren cycle had a readership in prose from into the sixteenth century. They pro-

vide a more pessimistic perspective on kingly regulation, and a defence of the value of noble feuding. Whereas royalist legislation presents a view of stratified social order, where the king transcends the nobility, the chansons de geste tend to flatten this distinction. The king is not a sovereign, singular and transcendent, but a noble actor amongst others. In Raoul, the feud begins when the king intensifies competition for resources by asserting his own prerogatives. Some time after the death of Raoul’s father, King Louis needs to reward his loyal servant Gibouin du Mans, and, on the advice of his barons, gives him the vacant fief, as well as the hand of Raoul’s mother Aalais, on condition that the young Raoul not be disinherited (99-134).8 Immediately, though, the narrator curses the fact that Raoul’s ‘eritaige’ (136) [inheritance] has been taken away. There appears to be a clash between two prin-

ciples and practices: landholding as hereditary, and land as a grant from the king, reverting back to him upon death.?? Raoul grows up and, encouraged by his bellicose uncle Guerri, demands the land: the king cannot acquiesce, but promises the next available fief instead (461-563).*° This will prove a disastrous idea, because that

land, the Vermandois, is claimed as inheritance by the four sons of its count, Herbert. Yet Raoul accepts the king’s offer: Raous l’oi, ne fu pas en souspois. Par le concelg Gueri qi tint Artois En prist le gant—puis en fu mors toz frois.

(Raoul, 564-6)

[Raoul heard him, and did not hesitate. Following the advice of Guerri, lord of Artois,

he took the glove—and because of this he was later stone cold dead. ]

The king sparks feud by pressing his own interests, a phenomenon which can be illuminated via Stephen Wilson’s anthropological work on Corsica, where feuding peaked in the 1830s and 1840s, when French state intervention was felt most strongly on the island: ‘the power of blood vengeance sanctions to prevent or contain conflict was seriously weakened for a time, and the internal balancing mechanisms of the traditional system were disrupted’.4! The French exacerbated the 36 Violence and the State, p. 5. 3” Violence et ordre public, p. 263. °8 Sinclair ‘Loss, Refiguration and Death’) highlights the lack of paternal authority throughout Raoul. %° See White, “The Discourse of Inheritance in Twelfth-Century France’. 40 Guerri is Raoul’s maternal uncle: maternal uncles often had a role in training young knights,

preferred to paternal uncles, who were always potential rivals to one’s father (Bouchard, Strong ofBody,

Brave and Noble, p. 77).

4. Feuding, Conflict and Banditry, pp. 53-4.

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competition for resources that caused feuds. In Raoul, the king interrupts inheritance practices, rewarding loyal followers with land to protect his kingdom; the

poem is thus arguably a critique of French monarchical expansion.*? The territories in question form a buffer zone between France and the empire; Flanders and Normandy are other competing powers in the region, and the young Raoul cannot defend the territory. Francoise Denis sees the king as cunning, sly, and selfinterested.*? Indeed Louis secures his tactical advantage, simultaneously failing in what the barons see as his moral duties: first, to secure inherited property rights and second, to guarantee his gift of the Vermandois to Raoul. The king simply tells Raoul to defend his own interests. Hence the condemnation of Louis: Raous ot drois si con je ai apris; Le tort en ot li rois de Saint Denis— Par malvais roi est mains frans hom honnis

(648-50)

[Raoul had right on his side, as I have understood; the king of Saint-Denis was in the

wrong—many a good man is shamed because of a bad king]

In the chansons de geste, the king often fails in this main job, because rewarding barons inevitably involves disenfranchising others. There is a to-and-fro movement whereby the king makes good some debt to one aristocrat but creates a new debt to another. Here Louis channels political and social disputes into vendetta, rather than attempting to resolve them by royal action, which might provoke the anger of one of the parties. Robert Stein finds him to be ‘a fantasy figure, at once weak to the point of powerlessness and all-powerful and irresistible’;44 Louis might appear impotent because he does not prevent feud, but he effectively increases his relative power by allowing his barons to fight and thus weaken one another. The royal attempt to rise above the feud is thwarted, however, because it keeps returning to Louis's door. Guerri attacks Bernier over dinner when, at Pentecost, the king summons the knights of the land (4651-72). This leads to a duel, after which the two combatants insult each other from their hospital beds (4897-997). For Guerri (4697-703) and Aalais (5044-50), Louis is at fault for even allowing

Bernier to eat at his table. Later peace between the two sides angers the king (5182-3), as they unite against him, setting fire to Paris (5203-321). Afterwards the king marches on the Vermandois (5693-801). Anthropologist Edward Evans-

Pritchard’s classic definition of feud speaks of two sides ‘politically fused in relation to larger units’,#° in which fusion provides possibilities for peace and settlement. But here, the king, representative of the larger unit, creates the feud, exacerbates it,

and finally becomes a protagonist within it. Raoul displays no confidence in the

42 See Denis (‘Primauté d’une politique territoriale dans certains mariages épiques)) and Haidu (The Subject Medieval/Modern), for whom the poem reflects tensions provoked by royal expansion around 1200, versus Matarasso (Recherches historiques et littéraires sur ‘Raoul de Cambrai’) on its loose

basis in tenth-century history, and Bloch, who reads epics in light of the ‘collapse of centralized political systems’ (Medieval French Literature and Law, p. 66).

43 “Primauté d’une politique territoriale dans certains mariages épiques’, p. 224. 44 Reality Fictions, p. 182. 45 The Nuer, p. 159.

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ability of the central power to regulate feud. The king is complicit even when he attempts to keep his distance. The Lorraine cycle shares this horizontal view of the king—nobility relationship: the king never transcends the noble feud, but rather participates in it, allying himself now with one side, now the other. Great territorial blocs are created, such that

feuding groups are the largest powers in the polity, and the king therefore needs to make allegiances with them. Royal power depends on the nobility. Whereas peace legislation presented kings as transcending mere feuding, the epics perceive a more horizontal relationship where the sovereign is really just one of the feuding barons. Indeed as Firnhaber-Baker notes, kings acted as lords too; they were both sovereign and seigneur.*© Their power was not of a different quality to that of the feuding lineages, and so it was not unnatural for kings to take sides. Indeed, as Chapter 1 of this volume showed, sovereign justice was expressed in the language of vengeance. In Garin, the complex pattern of alternate alliance and opposition between great lineages and the central power is worth following in detail. At first, the king, Pepin, pusillanimous and young, appears as the rex inutilis [useless king], who rules but does not govern.*” He is crowned by Hervis de Metz after Charles Martel dies in wars against the Vandals (721-50), but then is quickly corrupted by the

traitor Hardré, on whose advice he refuses to help Hervis against a new Vandal attack. Enraged, Hervis offers his homage to another king, his relative Anseis de Cologne. But when Hervis is killed, Anseis takes Metz. Young Garin and Begon, sons of Hervis, are exiled. Adopted by Pepin, they then become companions of the Bordelais Guillaume and Fromont. But when Begon receives Gascony in fief, jeal-

ousy rises; the Loherens now have a major holding in the Bordelais south-west (1049-56). Garin then helps the king against rebels and receives assistance in

return, to reconquer Metz (1082-206), before leading the royal army on an expedition against Saracens who are attacking the lands of Thierry de Maurienne in Savoy (1208-893). The dying Thierry betrothes his daughter Blanchefleur to Garin, disinheriting Fromont, who complains: ‘De Bordelois sui je nez voirement! |En ceste terre sunt mi meillor parent’ (2128-9) [I was born to the Bordelais! In this

land my closest relatives dwell]. Hereditary titles to land again conflict with the king’s right to dispose of it as he sees fit. The king later seizes Soissons, originally a Loheren fief but now under Bordelais control, and awards it to Garin. Landholding is much more complex than in Raoul, with criss-crossing. Loheren territories in the south-west grow, but the Bordelais acquire holdings and allies in the north-east; both sides have lands in central France too. As the text develops, ‘the whole of

France is parcelled out piecemeal between members of the rival families, so that wherever a Loheren may be, he will have a Bordelais neighbour, and vice versa’ .48 The plot of Garin le Loherenc, with its looping repetitions, underscores particular truths: the imbrication of the royal family in the feud despite the damage caused to royal interests, and the royal inability to broker peace due to political misjudgements, failings, and bias. When

the king agrees to the marriage of Garin and

46 See her ‘Seigneurial War’. 47 See Chapter 1 of this volume on this figure. ‘8 Kay, The ‘Chansons de geste’, p. 195 (for a summary of landholdings, see pp. 194-5).

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Blanchefleur, the narrator declares: ‘ilec comence le grant borroflement’ (2146) [here the great struggle begins], the term ‘borroflement being a rare word for con-

flict. Fighting breaks out, the first of six quarrels at the royal court: ‘Li rois fu jones, ne se pot d’elx aidier, |Ne il nel prisent vaillesant un denier’ (2193-4) [the king

was young, he could not protect himself against them, and they did not value him as worth even a denier].4? However, Blanchefleur turns out to be related to Garin,

and so the king marries her instead, though she remains a Loheren ally, bringing further bias into the royal household. The subsequent feuding keeps coming to the royal court. At one stage, when a judicial duel is fought, the narrator says: ‘Dex! quel domage i avra rois Pepins, |Li quex que soit detrenchiez et ocis! (6094-5) [By God! What a loss King Pepin will make, whichever of the two is chopped up and killed!]. At court in Paris, peace negotiations lead to fighting, and the king laments:

‘Diex! ai je ore ceanz nes .1. ami |Qui cest orgueil m’aidast a departir?’ (11915—16) [God! Do I not have here even one friend, who would help my get rid of this prideful

dispute?]. Feud appears detrimental to royal interests, yet in Garin, Pepin provokes feuding by mishandling the distribution of land, before being dragged in, drawn this way and that, mediating, coercing, or taking sides, depending on how he reckons his advantage. A Bordelais bribe later brings Pepin to their side (13322—402),

and he seizes Loheren lands (13432—765). The Loheren army destroys Flanders, a Bordelais satellite, and takes the Vermandois, and war comes to the gates of Paris. Pepin panics at the sight of fire—Je ne gart l’eure que je perde Paris!’ (15887) [I do

not want to see the day I lose Paris!]—but Queen Blanchefleur blames him because he took the Bordelais bribe. She is a figure of order and reason in the feuding kingdom, repeatedly attempting to sway the king away from actions that will drive more violence. The Loherens are generally the victims in this text: Begon is killed whilst out hunting, and Garin, on an expiatory pilgrimage, is lured into a chapel and put to death. But the Bordelais also suffer, with Guillaume de Blanquefort and the bishop Lancelin murdered horribly. Later texts in the cycle continue, but nuance, the same pattern. The Loherens remain the heroes in Gerbert, even as they are further pulled into the feuding habits of horrific violence, raiding, and pillaging. The replaceability of actors highlights their status, less as characters and more as positions in a network of allies and enemies. The next generation of warriors take the stage: Gerbert, Garin’s son, has the support of Hernaut and Gérin, Begon’s sons, as they seek to avenge their fathers. On the Bordelais side, Fromont and Bernard can call upon Fromont’s son Fromondin. The queen, now driven by desire for vengeance, encourages Gerbert to carry on the feud: ‘La mort vo pere ne deiissiez oublier’ (605) [you should not

forget the death of your father], which dismays the king: ‘iceste guerre me va molt enpirant (772) [the war is getting worse and worse for me]. He defends the

Loherens for the most part, until he is won over again by bribery. Gérin and Gerbert are more richly rewarded by other sovereigns: Gerbert marries the daughter of Yon de Gascogne, whereas Gérin marries Beatrice, daughter of Anseis de Cologne. Thus other connections remain possible, with allegiances to the king of 49 See Jones, ‘Battle at Court’, on these episodes.

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France just one option. Hernaut, on the other hand, weds Ludie, Fromont’s daughtet, as part of peace negotiations. Fromont renounces his Christian faith; and is killed at Géronville when assisting a Saracen attack, whereas Fromondin becomes a hermit before being killed. There is no refuge. Christian faith cannot transcend the feud and fighting mars the royal court on multiple occasions. The two alternative thirteenth-century endings to the cycle, which tell the wars of vengeance following the murder of Fromondin, are arguably hijackings of the original cycle for political purposes.*° Anseis appears to be pro-Flemish (and thus pro-Bordelais: they are allies, as there are Bordelais holdings in Flanders). Louis, son of Hernaut and Ludie, is driven by his mother to kill Gerbert in revenge for Fromondin. He is hanged, but the feud starts up again. On the Bordelais side, the peace-loving Bauche, count of Flanders, becomes a dominant figure: he keeps being drawn into the feud, as the Loherens under Gérin and Anseis, son of Gerbert, continue the violence. They are supported by Blanchefleur, who gets Pepin to help them, but the Loherens lose in a great battle at Santerre. The defeat does not matter too much for the king, since the Bordelais allow him to withdraw honourably. Bauche becomes a hermit, but is killed, and so war breaks out again. Pepin allows the Bordelais to seek revenge upon Anseis in Gascony, on condition that they come to court more frequently ‘oir mes ples, mes lois et mes escris’ (10574—G) [to hear my cases, my laws, and my writings]. He thus uses the feud to extend his powers in the region, which will come under Bordelais control, because the Loherens are eliminated, with Gerbert’s widow marrying a Bordelais. The Vengeance Fromondin, on the other hand, takes a more pro-Capetian angle. Whereas Anseis takes the death of Gerbert as its point of departure, the Vengeance Fromondin narrates it only at the end, after the Bordelais seek to avenge Fromondin by attacking Gérin. The royal army goes on campaign with the Loherens, but this appears self-destructive. Huedon wonders: Que quiert li rois, et qu’a il enpansé? Vuelt il issi destruire son regné? Soie est la terre et de lonc et de lé; Sil avoit ore tot destruit e gasté

Plus i perdroit que navroit conquesté!

(5275-9)

[What does the king seek, and what does he have in mind? Does he want to destroy his own kingdom? ‘The land is his far and wide; if he now destroyed and ruined everything, he would lose more than he gained!]

King and queen then make peace between the two sides (5372-588). It lasts seven-

teen years, but then Huedon starts the war again, as he wants revenge for Mauvoisin striking him at Pepin’s court (5622-45). Though Pepin has no particular flaws in

this text, the royal court remains the site of antagonism, not resolution, and as Delphine Dalens-Marekovic contends, the king can never quite find the right balance between intervention and J/aisser-faire.>! Attempts at arbitration simply bring the °° Herbin, ‘Variations, vie et mort des Loherains’. aay Ras >! ‘Faide et justice royale dans la Vengeance Fromondin’.

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two sides into close contact, allowing for new provocations and new conflict. The royal function is not valorized over the vengeance of lineages. Finally, in the sixteenth century, Philippe de Vigneulles gives a one-sided account of the murder of Gerbert and the subsequent wars in Yonnet: the Bordelais are blamed and the Loherens made the heroes. Philippe also downplays king’s inability to halt conflict. Yonnet is assisted by Pepin as he seeks to avenge his father. He loses the battle but peace is made. A minor skirmish then leads to the murder of Yonnet by a squire of Louis’s. The last son of Begon, Gérin, ends the cycle of vengeance by killing Louis, and then disappears to live as a hermit. A provincial logic of personal and family interest reigns throughout the cycle, with the king variously weak or strong, disinterested or partial, depending on the text. But there is some sense of togetherness at the level of the kingdom or of Christendom, along with regret that internal war invites opportunistic outside attack. In Anseis, the poet warns that France will be weakened: ‘Par la guerre qui mut du viel Fromont |Vinrent en France paien et Esclavon’ (6447-8) [because of

the war started by old Fromont, pagans and Slavs will come into France]. Occasional moments of solidarity against such threats can be found, whereas in Raoul, there is no such ideal. No one identifies with the king or his kingdom, although Bernier stops the rebellion against Louis after a while, calling for restraint (5788-94). The

king’s attempts to protect his kingdom merely bring conflict, and there appears to be no way to sublimate the feud, no higher level of togetherness. Royal figures cannot rein feuds in; feuds are a more powerful force than kings. Notions of the kingdom have little civilizing effect because the kingdom can never solidify; it

never becomes fixed. The kingdom is really made up of the king’s personal political relationships, making it a dynamic structure of fidelity and enmity, like a feuding network. The king’s most important relationships are to the feuding parties, but they seek links outside the kingdom, too. As the chansons de geste remind us, kingdoms were not dominant structures at this stage of history; they were one form of communal grouping that had to compete with others, most crucially the feuding structures that separated the nobles from the peasantry and linked them to each other via relationships of kinship and allegiance.

GEASS If the nobles of the chansons de geste do not always recognize a vertical relationship to the king, this does not mean the epic social order is completely flat. Hierarchies remained in place. Presenting kings as defenders of the weak was an important ideological justification for royal power that aimed to make the barons subjects just like others, with no special rights to make war. But the noble right to feud, which

expressed the nobles’ position in a hierarchy and effectively subordinated the peasantry to them, was recognized even by those legists trying to control it. Thus de Beaumanoir declares: ‘coustume suefre les guerres en Beauvaisis entre les gentius homes pour les vilenies qui sont fetes aparans’ (11, 355) [custom in Beauvaisis permits wars between gentlemen in response to wrongs which are known to all],

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whereas John II’s law of 1361 targets precisely the ‘privileges ou usages des nobles’ [privileges and rights of nobles] that drive them to ‘venjances et contrevenjances’ [acts of revenge and response to revenge].°? Commoners and townsmen could

not make wars, and indeed burghers, like intellectuals, kings, and clerics, were generally against feuding.°? So why were the nobles attached to practices abhorrent to others? First, the nobles distrusted royal justice. In the terms of medieval ‘just-war’ theory, they did not, as private individuals, have the right to start wars, and should instead take grievances up the ladder to their sovereign.*4 But, to the nobles, the king was partial; he might claim judicial supremacy, but he remained one power amongst others, with his own prerogatives. Pragmatic reasons also figured: courts were expensive, unpredictable, and unreliable.** Patrick Geary notes that medieval courts were less concerned with public order than with revenue;?® Michael Clanchy

sees royal power as ‘a public nuisance’,*” whereas White documents another problem: because courts needed formal proof, they ritualized conflict more than they resolved it.*® The presentation of evidence was a form of accusation, an acting out of grievances. Even successful prosecution was a strike against an opponent inevit-

ably leading to a counter-strike, in legal form or otherwise. As seen above, in the chansons de geste, royal courts often exacerbate problems. Raoul’s court appeal leads to feuding. Later trial-by-combat fails, creating war not peace: Bernier and Gautier fight inconclusively (Raoul, 4130-402), and Guerri, standing as witness, kills Bernier’s witness (4403-518). Elsewhere, the barons do not want to bring matters to the king’s court, either to avoid recognizing his authority—going to the king

means acknowledging that he is a superior instance—or because of scepticism about whether he will side with them: neither the Loherens nor the Bordelais can consistently count on Pepin. The Bordelais Doon angrily rejects the suggestion of royal arbitration in the Vengeance Fromondin (247-60), preferring to pillage instead. Anthropologists have documented the perception that there is more honour in pursuing a feud—which also repairs the emotional and symbolic damage caused—than in seeking reconciliation through a central authority.°? When Raoul makes his claim, he cites the principle of hereditary possession of land, but also speaks of honour and shame: he cannot renounce his ancestral lands, because he 2 Recueil général des anciennes lois francaises, v, 127. °> Bisson (The Crisis ofthe Twelfth Century, pp. 43-4) sees violence as the preserve of knighted men, with other social groups as victims. *4 See Russell, The Just War in the Middle Ages, and Chapter 1 of this volume on Aquinas's formulation of the concept. °° Satire of courts shapes the Roman de Renart, where the fox can never be successfully prosecuted, leading his mortal enemy, Isengrin the wolf, to pursue endless private vendettas. °6 ‘Living with Conflicts in Stateless France’, p. 143. °7 “Law, Government and Society’, p. 78. > °8 *“Pactum. .. legem vincit et amor judicium”’, p. 300. Smail (The Consumption ofJustice) has also documented how people used courts to continue other grievances; indeed the legal system grew because of this tendency. * In Corsica, involvement in court procedures could be dishonouring (Wilson, Feuding, Conflict and Banditry, p. 270), whereas amongst the Bedouin, submission to arbitration is inglorious (Black-Michaud,

Cohesive Force, p. 102).

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would lose respect (Raoul, 524-33). Feuding displays his unwillingness to com-

promise. When Guerri suggests that they give up the war, Raoul is furious: “De folie oi parler. |Miex me lairoie toz les menbres colper!’ (987-8) [What you say is mad-

ness. I would prefer to have all my limbs cut off]. Throughout the first section, Guerri and Raoul support each other in this: when one is weak, the other shows strength. Thus Raoul provokes Guerri’s anger later by suggesting compromise (2107-26). Similar moments occur in the Loheren cycle, such as when Guillaume advises Fromont to make peace, and the latter irately rejects the idea (Garin,

1392448). In such scenes, pro-war voices ring louder than pro-peace ones. Pursuing feud, then, rather than seeking arbitration, displays those qualities— courage, bravery, refusal to compromise—which mark one’s membership of the noble class. The irrational element is important too: it signals the value of honour and principle, the willingness to ‘do the right thing’, even at a cost to oneself. Andrew Cowell neatly sums up Raoul’s encapsulation of warrior ideology: an audience of medieval aristocrats might rather have had a (horrified) admiration for Raoul, and in particular for the relentless, unstoppable, unwavering, internallydirected force of will which drives him.®

The ability and desire to feud marked status, but political and economic factors were also vital. Feuds waged to avenge killings provided an opportunity to mobilize and shore up networks of political support needed to compete for resources or to pursue expansionist strategies. The nobles struggled against each other, the stratified social structure holding them together, but together in opposition. In Raoul, a game of chess is played (1407-16), providing a useful metaphor for the entire plot: two identical but opposing sides compete to do the same things within the same space. No exit is possible; both parties must scramble for territory. Fear of being without land pushes Raoul and characters in the Loheren cycle to extreme deeds.°! Two conclusions to the latter close the action only when one side has eliminated the other. In Yonner, the Loherens complete the absorption of Bordelais territories: ‘possedoit ledit Hernault paisiblement toutes les terres et seigneuries que soulloit estre au viez Herdré, au conte Fromont et a Fromondin, son filz (p. 127) [Hernaut held in peace all the lands and lordships that used to belong to old Hardré, to the count Fromont, and to Fromondin, his son], whereas in Anseis

de Metz, the Bordelais gradually take over Loheren space. The feud could not end until incompatible territorial demands were reconciled. Women, who bring with them land and favour, are also the subject of rivalry. In Raoul, Raoul and Bernier argue over Bernier’s mother, whom Raoul considers a

whore because she conceived Bernier out of wedlock, whereas Bernier sees her as the victim of rape.®* And in the Loheren cycle, Garin’s proposed marriage to Blanchefleur angers Fromont. Later, the king offers the hands of his cousins to Garin and Begon in reaction to the plan of Bordelais and Loherens to intermarry: 6° Cowell, The Medieval Warrior Aristocracy, p. 122. 61 For Combarieu du Grés (L7déal humain et Vexpérience morale chez les héros des chansons de geste, p. 25), epic heroes fear the loss of territory more than anything else. 62 See the reading by Kay (Zhe ‘Chansons de geste’, pp. 71-5).

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Pepin’s counter-offer gets the Loherens on his side instead, avoiding the formation of a huge coalition that might oppose the king.°* Pepin prefers to have the nobles feud than to see them unite against him. The king, once more, acts as another

competitor in the dispute for resources that drives the feud. Prestige wives are clearly in short supply, and Tiebaut is also jealous because Begon’s marriage to Beatrice gives him title to more territory in the Bordelais. Finally, the favour of the

king also functions as a commodity. For example, Garin serves the king at his wedding, inspiring Bordelais envy and a fight at court (Garin, 5728-838), but the Loherens complain when he favours Bordelais (such as in Gerbert, 4708-29). A claustrophobic atmosphere reigns; the conflicts carry on because the different

parties always desire the same things.

The nobles of the chansons thus share values, know each other, and depend on each other: other nobles provide marriage partners or allies in revolts, crusades, or feuds. Indeed Raoul’s father and his opponent Herbert were once ‘ami’ (818) [friends]. As conflict begins, it is clear that the two feuding parties know one another: ‘Les os se voient, molt se vont redoutant; | D’ambe deus pars se vont reconissant’ (2219-20) [the armies see each other and fear each other greatly; each side is recognizing the members of the other]. Mutual respect is shown in the

Loheren cycle when two sides are united against the Saracens in Gerbert. Gerbert defends his former enemy Fromondin’s fighting values: “Mestier noz a en icestui besoing’ (10025) [he is useful to us in this time of need]. But this awareness of interdependence at the level of the kingdom or of Christendom throws into relief the self-destructive and internecine aspects of feud. The narrator of Yonnet laments: las, se ne sont mie Paiens ne Sarrazins, ains sont parains et amis, comme Francois,

Allemans, Lorrains et Hanouviers, ceulx d’Artois, Piccars et Bourguignons et plusieurs aultres de diverses nacions, lesquelx se frappoient d’estoc et de tailles sans espargnier grans ne petis (p. 237) [alas, these are not pagans or Saracens, but relatives and friends, like Frenchmen, Germans, Loherens, and men from Hanover or Artois, Picards, and Burgundians, and others from different regions, who are striking each other with swords and blades without sparing anyone, large or small]

Like kills like; opponents are mirror-images of one another. Kay explains this phenomenon psychologically, through the concept of mimetic desire;™ I shall illuminate it here via ideas from anthropology, whilst also tying it to the social and political conditions that the chansons de geste reflect. For Jacob Black-Michaud, what encourages, perpetuates, and intensifies feud are the conditions of competition he terms ‘total scarcity’: the moral, institutional and material premise of a certain type of society in which everything felt by the people themselves to be relevant to human life is regarded by those people as existing in absolutely inadequate quantities.© °° Ton (‘Politique matrimoniale et stratégies narratives dans Garin le Loheren’) surveys the practice of matrimonial alliances in Garin. 64 The ‘Chansons de geste’, pp. 54-5; 145-7. 65 Cohesive Force, pp. 121-2.

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Black-Michaud is referring to societies where food and water are lacking, but he also mentions wealth, women, and virtues like prestige, honour, manliness, fertility, and good fortune. Conflict over non-material goods, in particular, is self-perpetuating because the energies involved can only be satisfied through a fight.°° Similarly, the world of our texts is a zero-sum game for land and women—a man can only get them by depriving someone else of them and there is no overall net gain—but a less-than-zero-sum game as far as honour is concerned; that is to say, both sides

can only lose honour, because retaliation never suffices to repair damage.®” And as war against the Saracens occurs only in interludes in these works, the victims are overwhelmingly fellow Christians. There are no winners, only losers. However, precisely because it is fratricidal, feud contains within it restraint, and this is partly what perpetuates wars. The feuding parties are held in opposition, but also in balance. Black-Michaud describes feud via a score-card metaphor: each side tries only to correct what it perceives as an imbalance, to equalize, ‘feud postulates persistent rough equality between the “scores” on both sides’.°8 An alternative metaphor is the balance-sheet: debts are created by homicides and then repaid.°? ‘The same idea is present in modern-day English: we speak of revenge as ‘payback’. On this model, feud is a mechanical process of attack and revenge for attack where scores are kept in terms of credit and debt. There is of course no impartial scorekeeper, but a sense of the objective balance emerges, albeit awkwardly, through the combination of two sets of subjectivities. In the Loheren cycle, both sides, aware of the rules of the game, try to avoid tipping the balance, knowing that it will inevitably tip back. One episode encapsulates this: Begon takes advantage of amoment of peace to hunt a legendary wild boar, but he is slain by the men of Fromont, who sends them back for the body because it is sinful to leave it exposed (Garin, 10068—76). Angered when he sees who the dead man is, he curses his men as ‘fil a putain’ (10117) [sons of whores], lamenting what seems the ineluctable destruc-

tion of his castles, towers, and palaces and deaths of his knights. He therefore tries to pacify Garin by putting those responsible, including his own nephew Tiebaut, at his mercy, and by offering treasure (10129-G7). Despite his sadness, Garin is minded to accept the offer: Mesure m offre Fromonz li posteis; Et qui raison refuse, ce nvest vis,

I] n’an puet mie au darréain joir.

(10989-91)

[Fromont the warrior is offering me a fair deal; and to my mind, whoever refuses a reasonable offer cannot hope to be happy about it afterwards. |

The idea of ‘mesure’ connotes moderation, temperance, and balance, paralleled here with ‘raison’ [reason]. Garin also speaks against war: ‘Onques de guerre ne vi home joir’ (11039) [I never saw a man get any joy from war]. Hence we see the

truth in the fundamental anthropological idea whereby feud is not so much a form

66 Tbid., p. 206. 67 | follow Boehm’s suggestion (Blood Revenge, p. 219). Feud is frequently defined as a game in anthropology, as Boehm summarizes (pp. 218-19). 68 Cohesive Force, p. 31. 69 Tbid., pp. 81-3.

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of conflict as a model for preventing conflict. As Evans-Pritchard contends, fear of incurring a blood-feud is ‘the most important legal sanction within a tribe and the main guarantee of an individual’s life and property’.”° Dread of terrible warfare leads to compromises between the sides. What can blind the modern reader to this dimension is the texts’ tendency to focus on set-piece murders. The most memorable moments of Raoul are his death, along with Bernier’s and his mother’s (all analysed further later). The Loheren cycle has striking circumstances for certain deaths, including the murders of Begon and Garin (15964-6086). Such episodes retain the attention—and were key moments for the illustrators of the prose versions’!—but generally the cycle consists of countless sieges, skirmishes, and raids, with little pitched battle, the exception here being the final part of Yonnet, which eliminates virtually all the remaining protagonists (pp. 211-77). For the majority of the cycle, then, feud is perpetuated because it does not aim at annihilation of the opponent. Underlying respect for one’s equals and fear of terrible consequences lead to restraint. Conflict takes the form of pillaging, meaning that, although they are not the victims of the headline homicides,

peasants fall foul of noble violence more

than any other group.

De Beaumanoir’s customary hints at this: Tout soit il ainsi que li gentil homme, par nostre coustume, puissent guerroier et ocire et mehaignier li uns l’autre hors de trives et hors d’asseurement, pour ce ne pueent il pas prendre li uns seur lautre, ne ardoir li uns seur l'autre (i, 505) [Though it is the case that gentlemen can, according to our custom, fight and kill and

maim one another, outside of truces and guaranteed peace agreements, they still cannot steal from one another, or burn the property of one another]

He stipulates, then, that feuds should avoid damaging the fabric of the kingdom. Feud hit the poor hardest. The peasants were dependent on nobles for protection, but became targets when the nobles decided to fight each other, the main property of an aristocratic lineage being the peasants over which it has jurisdiction.’? Though the epics depict a rather flat social order, with the poor disregarded for the most part, their suffering is sometimes portrayed. Thus Bernart takes revenge on Garin here: Il prent les proies, si gaste le pais. Parmi la terre a fet lever maint cri: La gent vilaine en sont molt esbahi Qui trestot perdent quan qué il ont norri.

(Garin, 6175-8)

[He steals livestock, and damages the countryside. Throughout the land he makes people cry out: the poor are shocked when they lose everything they have farmed.]

In Gerbert, peasants working on Bordelais land have no protection; the Loherens ‘ne troevent home qui lor contredeist’ (111) [find no man who stands in their way] 70 ‘The Nuer, p. 150. 7! Jones, Philippe de Vigneulles and the Art ofProse Translation, p.71. 72 Algazi (“The Social Use of Private War’) and Zmora (State and Nobility) therefore see feud in

Germany as a class war, waged by nobles upon the peasantry. But see Reinle (‘Peasants’ Feuds in Medieval Bavaria’) for the idea that, in some situations, peasants also feuded.

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when they pillage. An extended programme of raids on Flanders and the Vermandois constitutes vengeance for Garin (660-775). The narrator thinks of the innocent victims: ‘enz es bercex ont les enfanz ocis’ (674) [they killed infants in their cribs].

A church provides no shelter, because the fire spreads: ‘ardent les dames et les enfanz petiz (692) [the women and the little children burn]. The Loherens later

gleefully give away livestock: La veissiez tant vile brisier, Tant buef tuer, tante vache escorchier. Et Loheren en firent fol marchié,

Que .1. vache donent por .vu. deniers, III. moutons por .I. angevin viez.

(2270-4)

[There you would have seen many a town burned, many an ox killed, and many a cow flayed alive. And the Loherens made crazy deals: they sold cows for seven deniers, and four sheep for one old Angevin coin.]

Senseless killing and waste, at the cost of the peasantry, is part and parcel of feuding. Pillaging also appears as an automatic choice for opening hostilities in the Vengeance Fromondin (253-60). Doon later announces their success: it will take twenty years to restore the land (896-8). In Raoul, Aalais asks Raoul not to harm the poor (860), but

war on the Vermandois begins thus: ‘Prenent les proies—mains hom en fu chatis; | Ardent la terre—li maisnil sont espris’ (1046-47) [they take livestock—many men suffered due to this; and burn the land—the farms are set alight]. Then the people

of Origny are targets; their resistance enrages Raoul, who has the town burned (1211-98), before the second phase of the feud also begins with raids (3673-7).

In Anseis de Mes, the narrator imagines the war spreading to engulf the whole society: Con sete guerre ancore dure toz dis! Ne finera juc’au jor de juis. Aprés les peres le maintienent li fis Et aprez ceus toz li germain couzin

Et aprez Et aprez Et aprez Ceus de

ceus et parenz et amis ceux li chevalier voisin ceus toz li borjois de pris mestier qui laborent toz dis

Et aprez ceus les paisanz du pais.

(Anseis de Mes, 2133-41)

[This war lasts forever! It will not finish until Judgment Day. After the fathers the sons continue it and after them all their cousins and after them both kinsmen and friends and after them knights nearby and after them all the worthy townspeople and those with a trade who work every day and after them the peasants of the country.|’?

Here, we see little confidence in the functional value of violence. There are the rules to the game, but they are not always respected. Class fails as a limiting structure because feud has a momentum of its own, and will eventually suck everyone in. 73 "This picture may not be as unrealistic as it seems; Smail (‘Faction and Feud in Fourteenth-

Century Marseille’) notes that a wide range of professions joined feuds.

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Susceptible to Marxist interpretations as exploitation of the poor, or seen as a freedom to be protected versus nascent states, feud expresses class values and shapes conflict between two sides over abstract and material resources. But conflict is also expanded and rhythmed by social links that both give form to—and are sustained by—feuding parties. KINSHIP,

FRIENDSHIP,

AND

ALLEGIANCE

As well as property and inheritance concerns, de Beaumanoir cites two reasons for the usefulness of calculating kinship ‘pour ce que mariages ne se face en trop prochain degré de lignage’ [to avoid marriages at too close a degree of kinship] and ‘pour ce que l’en puist requerre son ami de soi aidier de sa guerre’ [so that you can ask your friend to help you with your war] (1, 298), ‘ami’ carrying the meanings

of kinsman and ally, as well as friend. As Hyams notes, ‘friendship’ is often what I feel for my kin, intense for close relatives, diminishing where more distant kin are concerned.’4 De Beaumanoir applies the only systematic definition of the extended family available in the thirteenth century—that of canon law, where it determines consanguinity and thus the legitimacy of marriages—to thinking about appropriate vengeance groups, and targets for vengeance. He notes that revenge used to be sought on relatives up to seven degrees of kinship away from the wrongdoer, but he now restricts this to four degrees (11, 362-3), following the Fourth Lateran

Council (1215) change in the definition of consanguinity from seventh to fourth degree, calculated in steps back from the ego to the common ancestor. ‘The restriction to the seventh degree had posed difficulties: you needed to be more distantly related than sixth cousins to be allowed to marry, but because nobles were closely related anyway, it became difficult to find suitable partners. Post 1215, marriage was allowed at four degrees (a common great-great-grandfather).’° By linking mar-

riage to feud here, de Beaumanoir shows that if you cannot kill a man, you cannot marty his sister.”° A clan or tribe, collectively responsible for wrongs and revenge for wrongs, is defined and delimited by three degrees of separation; outside that, there are legitimate enemies and legitimate wives.

The literary texts studied in this chapter are less interested in the formal or legal delimitations of kinship, used to determine marriages and inheritance rights, than

in practical kinship, the exploitation of kin for support, especially in feuding.’” 7* Rancor and Reconciliation, pp. 24-5. See also Bloch (Etymologies and Genealogies) and Stahuljak (Bloodless Genealogies) on the linguistic side of kinship, which could be fictive and affinal as much as

genetic. 7> On modes of calculation, see Bouchard, ‘Consanguinity and Noble Marriages in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries’. 7° Bouchard (Strong of Body, Brave and Noble, p. 92) uses this phrase to encapsulate the work on incest by anthropologists. 77 | owe the distinction between formal and practical kinship to Miller (Bloodtaking). The excep-

tion to the overriding interest in practical kinship comes when the treacherous Archbishop Henri advises that Garin cannot marry Blanchefleur, because his father is a cousin of her father’s: ‘Si pres li est quilne la puet tenir, |Ne esposer, ne couchier en son lit!’ (Garin, 5617-18) [He is so close to her

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The kin group constitutes the main social capital of the barons. In theory, each and every individual is a potential ego; in practice, groups only form around powerful individuals. Being well-networked is a hierarchical privilege. In Garin, Begon states: N’est pas richece ne de vair ne de gris, Ne de deniers, de murs ne de roncins, Mes c'est richece de parenz et d’amis

(9573-5)

[Wealth is not made of fur or ermine, nor of deniers, of walls or of horses, but of kinsmen and friends]

‘Parenz et amis’ refers to friend, ally, and kin. In Raoul, Ybert, one of the four sons of Herbert de Vermandois, summons Eudes, his ‘charnel ami’ (1806) [blood friend, or kinsman]. Together, they then gather ‘amis’ (1827) [friends or allies].

Kinship was thus one part of alliance networks, bolstered by allegiances and friendship to form contracts carrying obligations of mutual help and support.’® These were not structures but practices, dynamic and energetic networks in need of maintenance. This can be witnessed in the movements by which the feud restarts in Gerbert de Mez. At the start, in the aftermath of the death of his father, Gerbert is advised to gather followers: Mandez vos homes et vos barons chasez Et voz borjois, et si les asanblez. Qui vos faudra, niert mie vos privez.

(34-6)

[Summon your men and your landed barons and your townspeople, and assemble them. Whoever fails you shall not be your ally.]

The term ‘privez’ often means close or intimate friend, but here 20,000 men come from far and wide. Who are these people? They are in some vague way his father’s followers: summoning them will assert Gerbert’s power over them, and express his desire to be their leader in a new war as he replaces his father in the network. Thus a great variety of agents barge in and displace the original goals: they pillage and raid and burn the lands of Lancelin—Gerbert’s father’s murderer—and knock down the castle of Monclin in the Meuse (the criss-crossing of territories is mani-

fest here when the Loherens demolish a castle which is described as being ‘en Loherainne’ (369) [in Lorraine]; it seems to be a northern Bordelais territory that was a former Loheren holding). Then a smaller group, Gerbert and eleven other

men, find Lancelin and kill him thanks to a miracle which makes his horse fall. Thus principled violence that aims for revenge sits within a broader network of rioting violence. Success here inspires Gerbert to seek anew the favour of the king in a further aggressive move against the Bordelais, capitalizing on their position of strength and on the queen's fidelity to them. She intervenes to remind the king of their past service, and Gerbert is made seneschal. This news is reported to Fromont along with that of the death of Lancelin and the destruction of the castle of that he cannot hold her, nor marry her, nor sleep in her bed]. But Henri makes this claim only to further his kinsman Fromont’s designs on Blanchefleur; he is unsuccessful, as she marries Pepin. 78 Althoff, Family, Friends and Followers, p. 66.

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Monclin and he swears revenge. His desire for vengeance is thus overdetermined:”° the murder of a family member by Gerbert, the destruction of family property by

a bigger group, and the seizing of the favour of the king all constitute the offence. In this densely networked world, it is impossible to grab something for yourself without depriving someone else of it. Soon after, the Loheren ally Rigaut hears of these events and starts attacking the Bordelais again in the south, not for any specific offence; it seems he is merely reluctant to miss out on participating in the

reprise of hostilities. As so often in the chansons de geste, the paratactic movement from Jaisse to laisse, whereby violent act follows violent act, makes it almost impos-

sible to Fromont, chastises assemble

reconstruct causality. There are more deaths, which are reported to who summons men and sets off for Bordeaux. Meanwhile, the queen Gerbert for ‘forgetting’ the death of his father and encourages him to a feuding party, declaring: ‘Chascuns envoit ou son frere ou son fiz |Ou

son neveu ou son germain cousin’ (630-1) [Let each man send his brother or his

son or his nephew or his german cousin]. Repeating this, Gerbert adds ‘prochain ami’ (655) [close friend]. According to historian Gerd Althoff, children were born

into their own kindred, but also inherited a network of associations to friends, lords, and vassals, as though they were property.®° Gerbert is in one sense powerful, because he can summon followers who can in turn summon friends and families, but in another sense, he lacks agency, since if he fails to reactivate the conflict network

and to continue the feud, he would be guilty both of cowardice and of spurning his family’s tradition, which lies in the inherited network. In Raoul, too, when the feud restarts after the hero’s death, numerous anonym-

ous relatives and allies turn up and constitute an ad hoc group for feuding: Tant ont mandé et parens et amis Des chevalier environ le pais, Q’il furent mil as blans haubers vestis.

(Raoul, 3667-9)

[They have summoned so many kinsmen and friends, and knights from all around the land, that there are one thousand of them, all wearing shiny coats of mail.]

Many such ‘amis’ have protean reasons for participating. As Daniel Lord Smail notes, recruitment to feuds was geographically broad and membership was constantly shifting: ‘affiliations followed social cleavages based on particular friendships and hatreds, individually calculated strategies, and accidental or incidental alliances’ .8! Networks of solidarity were maintained for and by feuds: some social ties were strong, but still remained virtual most of the time, only activated when needed.

Other ties were weaker, and represented the chance for opportunistic new actors to join a feud and to seek wealth and glory. In a climate where feud was the main

7? Por Latour, ‘action is not done under the full control of consciousness; action should rather be felt as a node, a knot, and a conglomerate of many surprising sets of agencies that have to be slowly disentangled’ (Reassembling the Social, p. 44). 80 Family, Friends and Followers, p. 2. 81 “Faction and Feud in Fourteenth-Century Marseille’, p. 122.

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sanction against offences to honour or breaches of custom, networks thus brought

conflict with other groups, but also acted as a brake on conflict. For example, Raoul is warned about combating the Vermandois brothers because “des amis ont tant’ (738) [they have so many friends]. Insulted by Raoul, Bernier finds himself in a weak position: ‘ci n’ai parent ne frere’ (1488) [I have no kinsman or brother

here]. The feud only gains weight later, when he returns to his father’s camp. And at the start of Yonnet, Louis accuses Yonnet’s lineage: Garin was rich in money but poor ‘de parens et d’amis’ (p. 143) [in kinsmen and friends]. This clearly constitutes a great insult; Garin is here being exposed not just as defenceless, but also as worthless. The fact that networks remain in place, even when dormant, means that distant

kin can be drawn involuntarily into feuds; de Beaumanoir clearly sees this as a problem needing regulation. For example, in the Vengeance Fromondin, Hernaut (son of Begon) is asked by the Bordelais Aymon why the Loherens are attacking.

His reply: ‘vostre lignaiges l’a commancié avant’ (2603) [your lineage started it] surprises Aymon. In feud, reprisals are taken on those not even aware of the wrong, and who are distant from the original deed; indeed throughout the Loheren cycle

both sides have camps in two theatres of action, each constantly attacking satellites of the other for ill-defined cause.* It seems that the feuding network has agency that transcends the control of individuals. Anyone can reinitiate feuding, but all struggle to slow or stop it.8? Later, Hernaut tells Hardoun: Doz commansa, ja sarme mait salu,

Cil de Boloigne, le felon mescreii!

Coloigne ait arse par sa fiere vertu, Si vos en iert le guerredon randu!

(2912-15)

[Doon of Boulogne, the treacherous villain, started this, may his soul never have

salvation! He burned Cologne with his great power, and so the payback is coming to you!]

Hardoun only learns that his kinsman committed some offence at the moment when the relative of the victim takes revenge. The term ‘guerredon’ [reward] sounds ironic here, but it also underscores the working of feud as a process of gift and counter-gift (in Chapter 2 of this volume, I argued that gift-giving constitutes an aggressive assertion of one’s status). Once the feud has begun, the rippling of attack and revenge goes across the entire kingdom, with the after-effects of previous tremors being felt even as the two sides seek to negotiate. The network transcends

the individuals implicated in it. No character ever apprehends the feuding network in its totality.

82 For Moretti, plots have regions and sub-systems (Distant Reading, p. 217). Here the feud is a plot with a wide geography: sub-systems of the feud occur in distant parts of France. 83 As Moretti says of Hamlet, ‘individual agency is muddled; what is truly deadly is the characters’ position in the network’ (ibid.).

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Wide groups of loosely linked kin, friends, and allies become involved in the feuds, wittingly or not. Within this, however, a core kin-group maintains and settles disputes.84 Conflicts and narratives are passed on down lineages, which structure the texts, both Raoul and the Lorraine cycle being made up of continuations.*? They then spread across these ramifying networks. In Raoul, the hero’s men swear to hurt the enemy such that ‘apres les peres en plouront li effant’ (2225) [after the fathers the children will cry too]. The feud-lineage complex is perfected, however, in the Loheren cycle, as is announced in Garin: Huimais commance la chancons a venir,

Granz et pleniere, qui bien fait a oir, De la grant guerre qui onques ne prist fin, Car de hoir en hoir la covint restablir!

(11052-5)

[Now the great and long song starts, and it is good to hear, the song of the great war which never ended, because it must always be passed on from heir to heir!]

The feud of the fathers (Garin and Begon in Garin), becomes the feud of the sons (Gerbert, Gérin, and Hernaut in Gerbert), and of the grandsons (Anseis in Anseis de Mes and Yon in the Vengeance Fromondin). On the Bordelais side, at the conception of Fromont’s son Fromondin, we learn that he: ...tante guerre et tant estor veinqui, Et tanz chasteax et tantes viles prist, Contre Girbert de Mez, le fils Garin.

(Garin, 2713-15)

[won many wars and battles, taking many castles and towns, against Gerbert de Metz, the son of Garin.]

In turn, Fromondin will be avenged by the son Hernaut fathered by Fromondin’s sister Ludie, who takes his mother’s side in the conflict. Each new generation is born into its role in a particular feud, which persists because it is built into memory. Kay remarks that the dead have more influence on chanson de geste narratives than the living, who are duty bound to avenge them.®° Despite his prior demise, Fromondin plays the main role in the Vengeance Fromondin. When troops are gathered, a series of /aisses paralléles (263-418) contain phrases like ‘por la vanjance Fromondin le felon’ (316) [to avenge the wicked Fromondin]. The dead man

drives the action. In Raoul, the hero is unambiguously a positive focal point for his kinsmen after his death. The sight of Raoul’s huge heart makes Guerri swear ‘se je 84 Evans-Pritchard noticed this pattern (The Nuer, p. 150). Responsibility for homicides and the duty for exacting revenge fall on the agnatic kin, but the larger community to which the two parties belong is involved in the hostilities which follow. 8° Writing on Bleak House, Levine suggests that the appeal of long novels lies in their ability to portray networks stretched out across time and passed down generations (Forms, pp. 127-8). The

same could be said of medieval cycles. 86 “The Life of the Dead Body’. See also Black-Michaud: in Albania, the building of cairns marks murders, ensuring ‘that if the sins of the fathers cannot be visited upon the fathers themselves, the sons will surely suffer’ (Cohesive Force, p. 80).

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197

nel venge, taing moi a recreant!’ (3077) [if I do not avenge him, consider me a coward!]. Raoul’s mother Aalais had earlier cursed him, but regrets doing so when she sees his body (3370-5). Then she finds Gautier, Raoul’s nephew, at play, and accuses him: ‘Biax niés’, dist ele, ‘or sai de verité, Raoul vostre oncle aveiz tout oublié, Son vaselaige et sa nobilité’.

(Raoul, 3572-4)

[‘Fair nephew’, she says, ‘now I know for sure that you have forgotten Raoul your uncle, his bravery and his nobility’ .]®7

This echoes an earlier moment when Guerri chastised Raoul for playing games rather than asserting his rights (486-97), and the same language appeared in

Gerbert. Just as Gerbert forgets his father, Gautier has forgotten Raoul by not avenging him, but also by not acting like him. When memory calls him to the feud, he becomes a replacement son for Aalais: Dame Aalais commence a larmoier

Tout por son fil ge ele avoit tant chier: En liu de lui ont restoré Gautier.

(Raoul, 3645-7)

[Lady Alice starts to cry for her son whom she loved dearly: in his place they now have Gautier.|

Narrative is passed from generation to generation. The replaceability of actors—in the Loheren cycle, successive characters even bear similar names—produces textual and conflictual consistency, as well as allowing complex networks to fit within linear narratives. Characters are less individuals with biographies than positions in networks. Here Gautier learns who the enemy are and what wrongs they perpetrated, and his life is shaped by the stories told. The representation of the offence committed by an opponent functions as political act and rhetorical ploy, legitimizing and encouraging reprisals. Meaning is created in such scenes, where ideas of justice and responsibility make violence symbolic and ethical. Close kin reopen the hostilities, but when Gautier restarts the war, a larger group gathers. Not to continue the feud would mean failing to sustain family and social clusters. Feuding is less about social structures—as the classic anthropological definitions would have it—and more about networks which both need active maintenance by individuals but also transcend them. The idea of fighting for land has now disappeared, and the text moves into a pure logic of opposition and vengeance. What once seemed the cause of the feud is now forgotten. Deaths are what dominate memory and drive new violence. The same pattern occurs in the Lorraine material. Garin, the core text, is shaped by territorial claims. Later, the feud has its own momentum, surpassing mere

87 Terms like ‘niés’ [nephew] and ‘cosin’ [cousin] are used in a looser way than modern readers will

expect; the kin link itself is foregrounded over and above the exact type of relationship.

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competition for resources as it recruits more distant relatives. Anseis de Mes shows how ritual ensures that wrongs are not forgotten, and that the living remain loyal

to the dead. Gerbert’s body is paraded on a bier made of lances: Les fers devant et les fus derier mis Soit mis mon pére qui est a tort ocis

Et Paportez aval en ce larris. Se cenefie la guerre a maintenir.

(424-7)

[Let my father, who has been wrongfully killed, be placed with the tips in front and the handles behind, and carry him down to the clearing. This signals that the war must be continued. ]

This last phrase is repeated several times. In Yonnet too, the hero declares that the same action ‘signifie que desormais ilz sont de guerre mortelle a moy et me desclaire leur annemis’ (p. 163) [means that they now have a mortal war against me, and I declare myself their enemy]. Like Aalais in Raoul, he is concerned to

represent the wrongs done to his family in such a way as to make vengeance legitimate. The process of claiming the body and commemorating the dead also asserts kinship over and above other forms of community. There is no body politic, but there are political bodies, screens onto which feuding communities are projected. As in Raoul, the sight of the dead plays a political and social role, reproducing sets of relationships. Fascination with wounds perpetuates the violence, as characters are blinded to the deaths they cause on the other side, focussing only on the need to protect their family’s tangible and intangible assets. The clan becomes a form of political narcissism. The characters have little investment in any community beyond the clan, save for those allies that can be recruited to it, only a desperate desire to cling onto what they have and to snatch what they can. The future can only be imagined as a repetition of the past and present. Thus feud separates and demarcates, generating cohesion and antagonism. Attachments relating to feud— kinship, friendship, and allegiance—alone provide meaning in a world close to anarchy. The death of a feuding protagonist is not a conclusion, as the young, born into families and into structuring sets of alliances and oppositions, will eventually find their life’s purpose by reactivating feuding networks and furthering age-old conflicts. For Bruno Latour, fiction writers capture the social better than sociologists: ‘novels, plays, and films from classical tragedy to comics provide a vast playground to rehearse accounts of what makes us act’.8* Familiarity with literature, he suggests, could help sociologists become ‘less wooden, less rigid, less stiff in their definition of what sort of agencies populate the world’.®° Indeed the chansons de geste afford glimpses of complex social networks that defy explanation via clunky categories such as ‘feudal society’, ‘clan’, and ‘kingdom’. Raoul de Cambrai and the Lorraine cycle are brilliant cartographies of the intricate communal practices involved in feuds as they moved down the generations.

88 Reassembling the Social, pp. 54-5.

Be lbida pS.

Feud PEACE

AND

199

PEACEMAKING

Feud is incessant. Circumstance might mean a given feud ends, but it is structurally perpetual. Black-Michaud critiques the way most studies describe only one violent incident in a long series, thus reaching the mistaken idea that peace represents the ‘conclusion’ of a feud: this, he says, ‘is a very short-sighted view of the phenomenon’.?® His work draws on one of the fundamental tenets of social anthropology: that feud generates its own temporary periods of peace. Thus Max Gluckman wrote of ‘peace in the feud’, conceptualizing feud not as war, but as a dialectic movement between peace and conflict.?! Peace is part of the process: ‘blood tends to cool’, as John Wallace-Hadrill put it; there are ‘natural pulls’

towards settlement.” These include political, military, economic, or other practical factors, not least the debilitating effects of feud itself. When the two sides are tired of war they make peace, before war returns because they grow weary of peace. In the chansons de geste, periods of peace are largely unnarratable. They come in ellipses such as here, after Raoul’s death: Une grant piece convint puis detrier Ceste grant guerre dont mYoés ci plaidier, Mais Gautelés la refist commencier: Tantost con pot monter sor son destrier, Porter les armes, son escu manoier, Molt se pena de son oncle vengier. Des or croist guere Loeys et Bernier,

Wedon de Roie et Ybert le guerier; Tout le plus cointe en convint essillier.

(Raoul, 3552-60)

[The great war I am telling you about was then suspended for a long time, but Gautier started it up again: as soon as he could ride a horse, carry arms, hold a shield, he made great efforts to avenge his uncle. Now the war involves Louis and

Bernier, Eudes de Roie and Ybert the warrior: even the happiest of them was doomed to death.]

The delay before Gautier restarts war demonstrates the narrative shape of feuds: they were often dramas waiting for a new cast before the plot could continue. Peace is an almost natural part of the cycle here; it comes about because Guerri’s side loses men and impulse after Raoul’s death. Indeed, Guerri asks for ‘trives’ (3020) [a truce] in order to bury Raoul, although he then breaks it. The blood, it

seems, is still too hot. In the Loheren cycle, when a great fire destroys Bordelais possessions, Fromont is resigned: ‘Or mi plus... |Que de la pes querré au roi Pepin’ (Garin, 9492-3) [now all we can do is seek peace with King Pepin]. This leads to 90 Cohesive Force, p. 74. The temporary nature of peace was also noted by Evans-Pritchard: ‘the feud, though formally concluded, may at any time break out again’ (Zhe Nuer, p. 155). 91 “Peace in the Feud’. 2 “The Bloodfeud of the Franks’, p. 125. Medieval law codes distinguish between ‘trive’ [truce] and ‘asseurement’ [guaranteed peace]: the former is temporary, the latter permanent (see de Beaumanoir,

Coutumes, ii, 367). The chansons de geste suggest that, however they were intended, both end up being temporary.

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seven and a half years of calm, and three years come later on, when Garin worries about his sins—‘il a tant homes morz et pris’ (15946) [he has killed and captured so many men]—and makes peace. Feud exhausts men, drains their resources, and

stains them with sin. From time to time, then, they seek peace and redemption. These moments match the anthropological model of peace in the feud. White, however, takes issue with this theory, suggesting that feuds may have been more

frequent and harder to stop than this implies.?? Indeed elsewhere in our texts, peace appears as not just the automatic, temporary absence of war, but as a positive state of friendship—‘ami’ can mean simply the opposite of enemy—created by particular figures, at particular sites and on particular occasions. Peace is not passive but active; it is a protective relationship. A peace network has to be shaped, one that can replace the war network and ensure that peace proves as socially advantageous as war. Because many actors prefer war as a default position, peace can be brought about only when warmongers are persuaded that it benefits them. Characters in neutral positions are difficult to find in this tiny world—everyone seems to be either an ‘ami’ or a ‘mortex anemis’ [mortal enemy]—and as already stated, the association of kings with peace is not echoed in our texts, where the king breaks order as much as he protects it. It is instead monks that are seen as the source of peace and humility: Aprés la feste del baron saint Denis, Hermite et moine qui Deu doivent servir,

En vont au roi por la pes establir. Au pié le chieent li grant et li petit.

(Garin, 6193-6)

[After the feast of the noble Saint Denis, hermits and monks, who have to serve God, come to the king to have peace made. Great men and small humble themselves at his feet.]

The king and the Loherens forgive Fromont, and he promises to love them ‘come loial voisin’ (6223) [like a loyal neighbour]. Religious figures drive these scenes, as

do religious ideology, idioms, symbolism, and ritual. Geoffrey Koziol demonstrates that monks excelled at using liturgy and ceremony to create an atmosphere where it was almost impossible not to swear peace.?? In Raoul, an abbot threatens Guerri: he will go to hell if he persists with violence (5162-3). Relics are brought out and Bernier’s side humiliate themselves; Gautier forgives, lifting them up: ‘puis sentrebaisent con ami et parent’ (5181) [then they embrace like friends and kinsmen].?° Breaking a truce is a great sin, so at one point, Gautier even protects Bernier from Guerri, to avoid their side being accused (4568-70). In Yonnet, Louis

is told to kneel before the hero, naked ‘fors de une braie pour couvrir les parties > “Feuding and Peace-Making’, pp. 258-9. °4 Benham (Peacemaking in the Middle Ages) and the essays in Lambert and Rollason (eds, Peace and Protection) construe peace as part of the web of social relationships. °° “Monks, Feuds and the Making of Peace’. °° For White, both this scene and the evidence from monastic charters suggest that there was ritualized submission of the slayer to the victim's associates, then establishment of friendship between the two groups (‘Feuding and Peace-Making’, p. 257).

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honteuses’ (p. 275) [except for pants covering his shameful parts]. He asks “Ha, sire, pour Dieu, pardonnés a ce povre chetif’ (p. 277) [Lord, in the name of God,

forgive this poor miserable soul]. Yonnet embraces him. Humility brings with it a spirit of compromise rather than judgment, allowing questions of guilt, shame, and honour to be put to one side. These scenes echo the principle expressed most famously in the laws of Henry I of England (1100-35): ‘pactum legem vincit et amor iudiciumy [a pact beats law and love beats judgment].?” Medieval kings often

tried to settle disputes by striking bargains;?° our texts, sceptical about royal ability, have more faith in the ability of monks to do so. In the epics, kings represent the wrong kind of transcendence: accepting their role as peacemakers would mean accepting their sovereignty. The monks instead provide a non-political type of transcendence, to which the barons can submit without political subordination. More than legal decisions, peace and friendship bring trust, security, and freedom. Everyone benefits. Thus when Fromont and Garin become ‘ami’ (Garin, 5593):

‘Grant joie en ont li grant et li petit: |Plus aseiir en vont par le pais’ (5591-2) [great and small are delighted: they can go more safely about the country]. At other moments, however, the feud invades attempts to find a Christian refuge from violence. In Gerbert, Fromont even allies himself with Saracens to get military support to attack the Loherens. Fromondin twice becomes a hermit, but only to protect himself from vengeance. The second time, he leaves because he sees the opportunity to attack Gerbert, Gérin, and Mauvoisin, who are on a pilgrimage; they are

forewarned and kill him. In Garin, the death of Begon causes such outrage that an abbot, his nephew, intends to leave the orders to take revenge (10231—44), whereas Garin’s pilgrimage ends when he is killed in a chapel. There might be peace in the feud, but there is always also feud in the peace. Marriages contracted at times of peace were intended to extend relationships of kinship and friendship.°? In Raoul, Beatrice tells Bernier: Pren moi a feme, frans chevaliers eslis, |Si demorra nostre guere a toz dis’ (5514-15) [take me as your wife, fine noble knight, so that our war will end for good]. Guerri also thinks ‘or remanra la grant guere mortez (5627) [now the great deadly war will end].

However, here, and in the Loheren cycle, such moves are largely unsuccessful. In Garin, Fromont offers the hands of his sisters to Garin and Begon, but the marriages, which would have linked the two opposing houses, are blocked when queen advises finding royal wives for them instead, to keep them as allies. In Gerbert, on the other hand, Ludie, sister of the Bordelais Fromondin, marries the Loheren Hernaut, but this merely brings the feud into the Loheren household itself. In Anseis, Ludie tells her son Louis that Gerbert is his ‘morteus anemis (270) [mortal enemy], and that by killing him, ‘tot ton lignage en poras mestre en pris’ (277) [you

could bring honour to your entire lineage]. Louis kills Gerbert with a chessboard. °7 See Clanchy, ‘Law and Love’; White, ‘“Pactum...legem vincit et amor judicium” ’. 8 Joinville describes Louis IX settling disputes in this way (Clanchy, ‘Law and Love’, pp. 52-3).

°° This corresponds to a central point of Lévi-Strauss’s thinking on kinship and incest. Marrying within your kin group would be a bad idea socially, because you would lose the chance to extend your networks. Thus ‘linceste est socialement absurde avant d’étre moralement coupable’ (Les Structures élémentaires de la parenté, p. 556) [incest is much more socially absurd than morally wrong].

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Hernaut now feels compelled to defend his son, and Gérin and Mauvoisin are bound to him in turn. Thus some of the Loherens are forced into allegiance with the Bordelais, fighting against their kinsman, Gerbert’s son Anseis. The end of the

Vengeance Fromondin has a similar incident: Ludie’s sons fight with the sons of Gerbert, including Yon, who curses one: Filz a putains, tant vos soloie amier, Mais ton lignage te covient resanbler, Quwains ne finerent de traison mener.

(6445-7)

[Son of a whore, I used to love you, but you will inevitably resemble the rest of your lineage, who never stop acting treacherously. ] The son tells Ludie, who urges him: ‘vange ton oncle et tes autres amis’ (6480) [avenge your uncle and your other friends]. In this text, too, he kills Gerbert with

a chessboard. Yonnet goes furthest in developing the wicked influence of Ludie. On her advice, Louis ‘reameust de nouveau la guerre, laquelle ne print jamais fin tant quil en y eust nesung en vie et que tout en fut mort et destruict’ (p. 132) [brought the war back to life, and it never ended until there was no one left alive and everyone was dead and destroyed]. Here, Louis is filled with ‘maulvaise pensees’ [bad

thoughts] and tempted ‘du Dyauble et de sa mere’ [by the devil and his mother], when he kills Gerbert (p. 151). Gérin later regrets that his brother Hernaut ‘pour paix avoir, prent en marriage son mortel ennemis’ (p. 175) [married his mortal

enemy in order to have peace]. The parallel between Ludie and the devil likely stems from her impossible position; linked as she is to both feuding houses, she incarnates treachery and conflict. Bernier too, as companion of Raoul and son of his enemy, is repeatedly the focus of anger in Raoul. In these cases, kin connections become crossed wires, sparking feud. Many other efforts at peacemaking fail simply because peace does not suit both sides. In medieval society, ideals of peace always struggled against ideals of revenge. Suing for peace or granting it prematurely could be humiliating. Mere quiescence or placatory measures would not bring lasting peace in a highly competitive world of armigerous lords, where any sign of weakness could breed contempt and inspire aggression. Only when everyone has asserted their rights and satisfied negative passions, could positive feelings of sharing, companionship and kinship come into play.!°° Two scenes from Raoul show a mismatch where one side desires peace, but the other still has a score to settle. First, after burning Bernier’s mother in a nunnery fire and then striking him, Raoul has, in the balance-sheet metaphor, overpaid. His men acknowledge this: Bernier served loyally, but Raoul has given him ‘malvais loier’ (1559) [a bad wage]. In an attempt to avoid Bernier’s vengeance, his

payback, Raoul tries to make peace.'°' Wearing only his tunic, Raoul speaks in 100 As White argues, ‘taking revenge on an enemy is... associated with emotional transformations on both sides’ (‘The Politics of Anger’, p. 141). *0! Black-Michaud notes that ‘debtors’ often seek peace but it can only be made if amenable to both parties (Cohesive Force, p. 91). The financial metaphor can become confused, since the debtors ‘owe’ their enemies compensation because they have offended, but the enemies might decide to ‘pay back’ in violence instead.

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‘grant humeliance’ (1602) [great humility], with ‘grant amor’ (1580) [great love], declaring his desire to be Bernier’s ‘amis’ (1584) [friend]. Raoul offers ‘droit’ (1567, 1582) [compensation], a term involving ideas of balance, justice, rightfulness and entitlement,!°? and ‘amende’ (1582) or ‘amendise’ (1592) [amends], as well as an ‘acorde’ (1604) [agreement], although he also states that he holds no fear of Bernier.

One hundred knights will parade with their saddles over their heads, and Raoul will carry Bernier’s (1593-9). This symbolic act appears to represent fair settlement: ‘Dient Francois: “Ceste amendise est bele; |Qi ce refuse vos amis ne vieut

estre”’ (1600-1) [say the French: ‘this is fine compensation; anyone refusing this does not want to be your friend’). But Bernier declines: Ja envers vos ne me verrés paier Jusge li sans ge ci voi rougoier Puist de son gré en mon chief repairier

(1572-4)

[You will never see me settle with you until the red blood I see here goes back into my head of its own accord]

The loss of blood cannot be undone, and the impossible idea—that the blood Raoul drew might go back in—appears again when Bernier refuses a second time. A financial metaphor—‘tot

lor d’Aquilance’

(1606)

[all the gold in

Aquileia] would not persuade him—figures too. Bernier turns down ‘acordanse’ (1568, 1609) [agreement], twice insisting that he wants ‘vengance’ (1576, 1610) [vengeance]. The scene ends with threats on both sides: Guerri sees Bernier’s refusal as ‘grant desfiance’ (1614) [a great provocation], whereas Bernier swears that ‘ceste colee n’iert ja mais sans pesance’ (1619) [this blow will never be without meaning]. The Vermandois then gather, and twice offer peace, to no avail (1976-99; 2081-106). After the two sides fight, Bernier makes another effort, recalling

Raoul’s crimes against him: Raoul dubbed him, but ‘durement le m’as puis vendu chier’ (2878) [you later made me pay a high price for it]. However, now recognizing Raoul’s earlier offer of ‘droit’ and ‘amendise’ (2882-3), he offers forgiveness, again using a financial term: ‘mais ge mes oncles puisse a toi apaier’ (2892) [if I can

get my uncles to settle with you]. He asks Raoul to do something impossible, in this text at least: ‘laissiés les mors, nia nul recouvrier’ (2897) [forget the dead, you cannot get them back]. Caught in the logic of war, Raoul believes that Bernier’s

side have committed more wrongs, and so rejects the offer. They fight: “Diex et drois’ (2922) [God and justice] are on Bernier’s side, and he wins. Leaving Raoul mortally wounded, he says ‘de la vengeance ja plus faire ne qier’ (2962) [I do not intend to seek further revenge].

The alternation of war and peace positions reveals that both work by the same logic, and are expressed in the same language. For Wilson, ‘blood vengeance and

peaceful negotiation may be seen as two registers of interaction, the switch being

102 Godefroy’s entry on ‘droit’ (Dictionnaire de lancienne langue francaise, ii, 772) quotes from the Ancienne Coutume de Normandie to show its full range.

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made from one to another only when a “balance” had been achieved’.!°? But why does war always rise up again, ending peace? If one death is avenged by another, then the score is 1-1. Christopher Boehm’s study of Montenegrin feud notes the tendency of participants to ‘pay back in better measure than they were given’.!°4 It appears in our texts, too, that equalizing the scores is insufficient; it fails to compensate for the time the opponent was ahead, and the resulting damages to honour. After Raoul’s death, Bernier sees equilibrium; he was the debtor, but has

now paid back. He therefore seeks peace, but Guerri refuses, because he now has the business of avenging Raoul (3241-56). Repeated offers come later: Bernier recalls his friendship with Guerri—ja vi tel jor qe nos nos amions’ (3769) [I

remember a time we were friends]—and highlights the senselessness of war: ‘ja en sont mort tant chevalier baron’ (3772) [so many worthy knights have died]. He shows humility towards Gautier (3815), offering to become his liege man; and finally speaks of Longinus (4999-5014), who works in the text as a model for for-

giveness.'°> All these offers are rejected. Moments of balance, restraint, and reconciliation have already been cited in this chapter, but score-keeping often appears dysfunctional because the scores are entirely subjective. For example, in Garin, Guillaume de Monclin sees balance,

and encourages his kinsman Fromont to make peace: ‘l’uns morz por l’autre soit en eschange mis’ (13936) [let one death be exchanged for the other].!°° Ideas

of swapping and equivalency are implicit here. The Bordelais will forgive the Loherens for the death of Guillaume de Blanquefort, and the Loherens will forget the death of Begon. But Fromont, desiring revenge, dismisses the suggestion. Balance is in the eye of the beholder, every new attempt at equilibrium being perceived by the opposing side as a fresh injustice that awakens memories of previous wrongs. And because of the way the feuding network functions, often even as one member of a lineage contracts peace, another is taking revenge. Earlier the Loherens, urged by monks, forgave Fromont, but a messenger immediately arrived with news of damage to Loheren properties. Garin sighs: ‘derechief somes dedenz la guerre mis’ (Garin, 6253) [once again we are drawn into war]. Earlier

events are still having repercussions; thus peace is no sooner made than it expires. Fromont settles with the Loherens later on, but meanwhile Gautier and Rigaut are busily destroying his lands (11983-2583). Subplots like this complicate the drama throughout the cycle. Feud constantly spreads, pulling in other actors. No peace agreement is universal; it is only ever a particular pact contracted between

particular parties, agreeing temporarily to suspend hostilities stemming from one defined offence. Thus peace happens frequently, without lasting forgiveness.!°7 Robert Bartlett notes that peace rulings—like law-books—recognized the right of enemies to hurt 103 Wilson, Feuding, Conflict and Banditry, p. 253. 104 Blood Revenge, p. 112. 105 See the reading by Evans (“To Stanch Bleeding’). '¢ A similar idea is expressed here: “Proiés Gerbert et manaide et mercis, |La mort Begon vos clainme cuite enfin |Contre la mort Ainmon’ (Gerbert, 6399-401) [Plead Gerbert for pity and mercy, that he will finally call it quits for the death of Begon, in exchange for the death of Ainmon]. 07 ‘Thus Evans sees moments of forgiveness as a ‘rift’ in epic discourse (“To Stanch Bleeding’, p. 301).

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one another, attempting only to restrict the parameters of violence.!°* Vengeance remained possible even for homicides committed in the distant past, and ‘calculated delay may sometimes have intensified the impact of revenge’.! The structures of kinship, allegiance, and intermarriage tended to pull two groups together, but in close quarters, the possibilities for enmity and opposition remain as strong as those for friendship; Hillay Zmora calls this ‘inimical intimacy’.!!° More fundamentally, conflicts always subtend peace, which does not necessarily cancel out the underlying causes of feud. For Geary, ‘conflicts were more structures than events— structures often enduring generations’.!1! Shortages of honour, land, women, or royal favour are never resolved, and those in need of resources or vengeance will simply prefer war. Hence Wallace-Hadrill’s famous simile whereby feuds are like volcanoes: ‘a few are in eruption, others are extinct, but most are content to rumble now and again and leave us guessing’.!!? In Gerbert, there is an explicit statement of the idea that deaths can be ‘revived’ when violence breaks out again: ‘La mors Garin fust ja chier conparee |Et la Begon del tout renovelee’ (Gerbert, 4755-6) [The death of Garin was dearly paid for and the death of Begon was completely renewed]. Regardless of peace agreements,

homicides are debts inevitably repaid in the form of more homicides. Towards the end of Raoul, Guerri and Bernier agree to be ‘charnel amis’ (8075). But:

Molt i ot malvaise acordison Del sor Guerri encontre Bernecon

Car puis locit, si con dit la changon.

(8078-80)

[This was a bad truce between the redhead Guerri and Bernier, because he later killed him, as the song tells us.]

No peace between them can last, because repressed narrative material will always resurface. When they pass Origny, Bernier recalls killing Raoul. Guerri’s anger returns: ‘Par Dieu, vassal, n’estes pas bien apris |Qui me remenbres la mort de mes amis’ (Raoul, 8205-6) [by God, baron, you are not very clever if you remind me of

the death of my friends]. He is overwhelmed: Li duels ne pot fors del viellart issir, Max esperis dedens son cors se mist: Ill a sa main a son estrivier mis, Tout bellement son estrier despendi, Parmi le chief Bernecon en feri, Le tes li brise et la char li ronpi, Enmi la place la cervelle en chai.

(8227-33)

[The sorrow cannot get out of the old man, an evil spirit has got inside his body: he

puts his hand on his stirrup leather and lifts up his stirrup and strikes Bernier on his head with it, breaking his skull and the skin, and his brain falls from it onto the

ground. | 108 110 111 112

‘Mortal Enmities’, p. 198. 109 White, ‘Feuding and Peace-Making’, p. 250. The Feud in Early Modern Germany, p. 50. ‘Living with Conflicts in Stateless France’, p. 139. “The Bloodfeud of the Franks’, p. 143.

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The memory of Raoul makes something happen in Guerri’s mind, almost automatically. He had forgotten but he had not forgiven. An evil spirit drives the action there; in Yonnet too, Gérin is tempted out of exile and back to feuding by ‘le Diauble, ennemis de nature, lequel estoit envieulx que celle paix duroit tant’ (p. 282) [the Devil, nature’s enemy, who was jealous that peace was lasting so long]. In Raoul, as soon as Bernier’s son Julien hears of the murder, he swears to Beatrice that he will ‘la mort mon pere vers le vostre vaingier’ (8361) [seek revenge

on your father for the death of mine]. There is still no balance; the scales tip one way and then the other. However, Guerri vanishes: ‘on ne set... que il devint’ (8534) [no one knows what became of him], says the narrator. Even Yonnet, the

sixteenth-century conclusion to the cycle, ends when the last protagonist on one side simply disappears: everyone is dead except Gérin, who goes back into exile: ‘ne jamaix plus n’en o¥t on nouvelles’ (p. 288) [no one ever heard any more news of him]. The narratives and feuds do not conclude; these chansons de geste hint at

durations and extensions of conflict going beyond their textual reach.

ANGET

HIGSIOFMN ENGEANCE

The dastardly acts narrated in Raoul and Yonnet appear to condemn vengeful anger—inspired by evil spirits or devils—and to demonstrate the failure of vengeance to function in an ethical and legal capacity. But who is victim and who villain? Wilson notes that in Corsica, involvement in a feud was in itself regarded as a misfortune.''3 In the Vengeance Fromondin, Doon’s kinsmen warn him: Telz cuide bien son duel asouagier Et sa grant honte finer et abaissier Qui tost la fait acroistre et anforcier.

(1204-6)

[Many a man thinks he can ease his pain, and reduce and end his great shame, but soon ends up making it greater and worse.]

Feud is a completely man-made structure, but men have no control over it; they are drawn into its horrible logic. Slayer and slain are manipulated alike. This pessimism was echoed elsewhere in the thirteenth century;!!4 thus vengeance was classified as a vice by Brunetto Latini: en la vielle loi comande a oster oil por oil, mes en l'evangile comande il a tendre l’autre. joe quant lune est ferue (p. 34)

[the old law dictates that an eye is to be removed for an eye, but the Evangile tells us to turn the other cheek when one is struck]

‘3 Feuding, Conflict and Banditry, p. 202. ‘1 An overview of the range of attitudes towards vengeance can be gained by consulting Smail and Gibson (eds), Medieval Vengeance.

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Feud is associated for Brunetto with brutal Old Testament times that humanity should now have left behind.!!> But the old law was still a law, not anarchy; there is measurement and equivalency in ‘an eye for an eye’, which prevents escalation of conflict and limits vengeance. Nor did Christianity teach unconditional forgiveness. For Aquinas, vengeance is not a vice but rather a virtue opposed to two vices:

excessive leniency on the one hand and cruel punishment on the other.!!¢ Vengeance in the appropriate measure constitutes a virtue, a form of justice. Yet the phrase ‘vengeance is mine, I will repay (Romans 12:19) suggests that humans are not proper to inflict vengeance, but must leave it to God, or at least his agent on earth. All this forms part of a tendency to limit ethically valid vengeance to kings and to assert their sovereignty. The barons have no special place in this intellectual model: vengeance is divine, and after that royal, but never baronial. Anxieties about baronial vengeance shape the early parts of Raoul. Raoul’s mother asks him not to attack chapels or churches (859). During the feud, protagonists are expected to display restraint, but Raoul orders his tent set up in the abbey at Origny, intending to eat in the crypts, sleep before the altar, and set his men loose on the nuns, all because the site is dear to the sons of Herbert (1055—

67). Hearing the church bells, his men feel unable to comply, inciting Raoul’s anger, before Guerri brings him to reason (1069-108). Raoul then finds a convent

of defenceless nuns, including Bernier’s mother Marsent, and agrees to show them mercy. But he reneges and burns down the nunnery (1121-298). Here Bernier sees his mother die: Qant Bernecons voit si la cose empirier

Tel duel en a le sens qida changier. Qi li veist son escu enbracier! Espee traite est venus au mostier,

Parmi les huis vit la flame raier— De tant con puet uns hom dun dart lancier Ne puet nus hon ver le feu aproichier. Berniers esgarde dalez un marbre chier;

La vit sa mere estendue couchier, Sa tenre face (estendue couchier), 117 Sor sa poitrine vit ardoir son sautier.

(1318-28)

[When young Bernier sees this horrible turn of events he nearly loses his mind through sorrow. You should have seen him clutch his shield! With drawn sword he runs to the church to find the flames pouring out of the doors—no one could get within a javelin’s throw of the fire. Alongside a fine marble monument Bernier looks and sees his mother lying outstretched, her sweet face consumed by fire. On her breast, he saw her

psalter in flames.] 115 In Exodus 21, it is ambiguous as to whether the law of the talion permits family vengeance or calls for judicial vengeance. It follows a section on compensation: murder cannot be compensated, only expiated by the blood of the murderer. See Miller (An Eye for an Eye) for the history of the concept. 116 Summa theologiae I1.ii q. 108. See further Chapter 1 of this volume on Aquinas's view of royal vengeance as the source of justice. 17 The scribe has copied the end of the previous line here; this correction in the translation draws on Kay’s edition.

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This is one of the most arresting scenes of violence in the Old French tradition. Raoul gains nothing by burning the convent and Marsent’s innocence is accentuated as she clutches her psalter to her chest. For Cowell, Raoul here completes his alienation from all social structures: Raoul... passes through several moments of gratuity, non-reciprocity, ity, each of which strikes closer and closer to home—metaphorically the chess game, verbally in relation to his own family, and finally decision to burn down the abbey, in an act whose gratuitous defiance in the text to produce a shock value.''®

excess and alterin the context of physically in his seems calculated

Raoul shows fear that innocents might be caught up in the violence, that feud might not respect limits, and that containing structures could fail. There are rules to the game, but once sword is in hand, rules are there only to be broken. Bernier condemns Raoul as worse than Judas (1204); Raoul later defies God by declaring that he could not save Ernaut (2839). Throughout, his vengeance is directed against

targets other than the wrongdoers—the king who gave away his land; Gibouin who took it—and Raoul’s mother tells him: ‘a si grant tort guere ne commencier’ (901) [do not start a war so wrongly]. She wants him to fight for his inheritance

instead, but Raoul pursues the Vermandois land obstinately. Finally, he offers no repentance for his deeds, declaring with his dying breath only ‘mar vit le gant de la terre bailier’ (2950) [I regret being offered the glove for the land]. Largely because

of its main character, Raoul is read as a nightmare vision.'!? An overall pessimistic tone dominates from the start: “Tex en fist goie qe puis en fu dolant’ (342) [many

were happy who later on would be sad], says the narrator. It is hard to extract ethical meaning, or meaning at all, from the poem.'*° Dominique Boutet and Armand Strubel see Raoul as ‘un appel a la vigilance, comme l’affirmation a contrario des principes qui y sont cruellement absents’ [a call to vigilance, a negative expression of the principles that are so cruelly lacking].!7! Motives become blurred; symbolic or material desires turn into a pure desire for violence. Injustice and unfairness drive aggression and indignation that are out of all proportion to the offence committed. A similarly negative climate reigns in parts of the Loheren cycle. In Anseis, there are bad portents: ‘Icelle nuit...demostra Dieus sor crestienne gent | Qui pas n’estoient a son commandement (6352-4) [that night God showed his power over

Christian people who were disobeying his commandments]. The sky becomes red, a fiery serpent appears, burning the roofs of every home, and two earthquakes destroy buildings. This displays ambivalence about feuding, the sense that it is an 118 The Medieval Warrior Aristocracy, p. 121. "9 Calin sees ‘sadistic propensities’ in Raoul (Zhe Old French Epic of Revolt, p. 65); Eisner (‘Raoul de Cambrai’) reads the text as tragic; Stein speaks of ‘the radical opposition to all kinds of authority’ that Raoul represents (Reality Fictions, p. 173). 120 See Kay (‘L’Ethique dans Raoul de Cambrai’) and Leupin (‘Raoul de Cambrai’). A brief possibil-

ity of redemptive violence comes when Bernier goes to the ‘utopian refuge’ of Saracen Spain (Kinoshita, ‘Fraternizing with the Enemy’, p. 703). See Kay (edition of Raoul, pp. lxviii-lxix) on the way the second and third sections of Raoul provide an ethical gloss to earlier stages of the action. 121 Littérature, politique et société, p. 47.

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uncivilized practice. As in Raoul, sometimes one of the two sides goes beyond ethical limits, to do something condemned by the narrator. In Gerbert, the death of Fromont brings peace, but Gerbert takes his skull from his grave and has it covered in gold, so he can use it as a cup (12735—43). Fromondin one day drinks from it, before learning what it is. Gerbert claims to have acted through ‘chierté (13040)

[affection], but Fromondin rejects this: ‘Molt grant tort en avez! |En mon damaje voz voz gloirefiez’ (13042—3) [You have acted very wrongly! You are glorifying yourself in harm done to me]. He retracts his ‘amistez’ (13050) [friendship], declaring ‘des ore mais seronmes anemi’ (13064) [from now on we shall be enemies]. Rejecting ‘amende’ (13089) [amends], he announces “Gerbers a fait la guerre conmencier’ (13202) [Gerbert has started the war]. Again, as with reactions to deaths, an open

proclamation of the wrong suffered authorizes the revenge that follows. In the Vengeance Fromondin, news of Fromondin’s death brings joy to the Loherens, but a spy reports to the Bordelais Doon that Gérin is boasting. Doon swears that ‘ceste guerre li cuide vandre chier’ (132-3) [he will make him pay dearly for this war], and ‘que Fromondins sera molt chier vandu’ (138) [that Fromondin will be sold at a

high price]. He then announces to his men: “Li Loheranc ont molt trés grant fierté |Et nostre duel nos ont renovelé (208-9) [The Loherens are very proud, and they have renewed our sorrow]. Honour codes oblige him to take revenge: ‘S’or n’est ce

fait chierement comparé |En nule cort ne serons anoré!’ (220-1) [If this deed is not dearly paid for, we will never be honoured in any court!].

The rules of the game are not respected in these moments, and the potential for balance is therefore not realized. All this points to a blind spot in structural anthropology, which is too confident in the normative value of feud. Yet condemnations of disrespectful behaviour show precisely that there are ideas of measure, and like Raoul, the Loheren cycle does not address the problems of feud per se, but the problems of feud gone awry. Vengeance itself is not wrong; it only becomes so when individuals stray beyond boundaries. Though John of Salisbury saw feuds as a threat to the common good, the restriction of vengeance to God, and if not to him, then to the king, as argued for by Aquinas, was an extreme position, and ‘the urge to avenge wrongs was well nigh universal, and irresistible to all save the very saintly’.1?? In a social climate where violence remained an acceptable solution to many problems, an ethics of balanced vengeance was developing, with ideas of appropriate amounts of, and targets for, violence. Indeed Gauvard contends that the ideal of revenge is anterior and superior in the medieval mind to the ideal of peace.!?3 Bartlett uncovers the secular jurisprudence of enmity that emerges in twelfth- and thirteenth-century legal documents; Smail sees hatred as a social institution; and White argues for the juridical qualities of anger, which drives the search for justice.!74 The moments in our texts when revenge crosses boundaries serve precisely to highlight the presence of these boundaries. Morality, power, and truth are expressed in the idiom of vengeance. 122 Hyams, ‘Was There Really Such a Thing as Feud in the High Middle Ages?’, p. 170. 23 Violence et ordre public, p. 267. 124 Bartlett, ‘Mortal Enmities’; Smail, “Hatred as a Social Institution’; White, “The Politics of

Anger’.

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Most important to the redemption of revenge in the Loheren cycle, however, are binary oppositions between the good clan (the Loherens) and the bad clan (the Bordelais), the latter descending from the traitor Hardré. The traitors machinate at

court, polluting the king’s judgement. Referring to Garin, Kay sees evidence of pessimism: ‘the size of the traitor force is increased to the point where it dominates not only the royal court, but also the whole realm’.!?* But this move, I think, constitutes an attempt to defend the moral value of feud.'*° Wars of vengeance are necessary because the opposition are cruel, severe, and barbarous. Garin largely condemns the Bordelais; Gerbert is more mitigated, though the narrator demonizes Fromont: ‘De traison se vost aidier tos dis’ (5161) [he always tries to get his

way via treachery]. The queen tells Pepin to attack him: Bien en deiisses faire le vengemant De cex qui n’ainment le roi omnipotant.

Cis hom ne tient ne foi ne sairement, En traison met tot son pensemant.

(8445-8)

[You should take vengeance on those who do not love God. This man does not respect faith or oath, and he thinks of nothing but treachery.]

Pepin refuses, but says the queen can fight if she wants (8449-58). Loheren war is needed, then, because the sovereign lacks the motivation to fight an evil force, and Loheren anger tends towards justice. Fromont later joins forces with the Saracens, and is referred to as he ‘qui Dieu ot relenqui’ (14789) [who relinquished God].

Ludie is a malefic influence wherever she features. The Vengeance Fromondin, finally, provides a very one-sided account. Gérin belongs to ‘la geste que molt fist a proisier’ (684) [the lineage that does many praiseworthy deeds], whereas Fromondin is repeatedly remembered as wicked (for example, 263-418). One Loheren denounces the Bordelais to the king: ...je sui bien sovenant Que maintes fois avons fait covenant Et faite pais, mais ne furent tenant, Que le lignage si est si solduant Conques ne fu a nul jor voir disant

(5351-5)

[I remember well that we have often made agreements, and concluded peace, but they did not respect them, because the lineage is so deceptive that they never, not even for one day, tell the truth]

The text explores a limit case: what if one’s opponents have an absolute inclination to evil? Conversion of traitors is not possible, intermarriages with them produce only intra-clan conflict, and peace agreements contracted with them are tissues of lies. Thus feud, though far from ideal, appears the best way to process an important dispute that threatens to engulf the entire kingdom. The king is compromised 125" ‘The ‘Chansons degeste’, p. 193. "6 T am indebted here to Dean (‘Marriage and Mutilation’), who notes that the term ‘vendetta’ is used selectively in chronicles. It is a privileged type of war, accorded a certain status as part of a retributive system of ethics.

Feud

ar Ah

through his involvement in the feud, whereas the Loherens barons use it to usurp

the king’s position as defender of the common good and of morality, in an implicit rejection of royal sovereignty and of the idea that royal violence is automatically superior to baronial violence. The king’s peace is denounced as an inadequate replacement for the peace of the feud, the peace created by protective relationships between kinsmen. There is no public good at the level of the kingdom, and the greatest good available lies with noble houses. By feuding, they act as guarantors of the rightful social order. In such a world, to be deprived of one’s right to avenge

wrongs would be to lose any access to justice whatsoever. Royal justice is not available as a replacement for private vengeance. The Loheren cycle argues for the continued importance of barons as protectors of the peace, and more broadly, for revenge as a force for social stability. The choice is between feud and anarchy. Such an idea might reconcile it with Aquinas's definition of vengeance—vengeance is just when it tends towards the prevention of evil'?”—and it probably explains the long-lived popularity of the material in a region suspicious of sovereign powers. Ambivalence towards vengeful practices never goes away; feud is at times rational, legal, or moral and at others crazed, emotional, or evil. Nonetheless, in the Lorraine

cycle, vengeance remains the best hope for ethical redemption.

CON

GLUSIONEIEMOMON SS VENG EAN

GE

AN DE USmiIer

In this chapter, I have repeatedly critiqued structural anthropology for its assumption of a lack of centralized power, for its view of feuding as inevitable

and for its positive view of feud. In a stratified society, the benefits of feud were restricted to a few well-connected nobles fighting other nobles who they cast as evil and even they are not blind to the problems it causes. They seem to hope for an end to feud, through brokered peace, through truce with their opponents, or through royal justice. The epics recognize, however fleetingly, the damage feud causes to the kingdom, especially to the poor and via exposure to outside attack. The ethical value of vengeance was always relative to other ethics, for example, that of peace. Feud, I hope to have shown, was a narrative above all, allowing nobles to make sense of their violence and to explore the complexity of a social order shaped by conflict relationships of allegiance and enmity as it develops over the generations. But nonetheless, we might learn something from structural anthropology’s valorization of vengeance. For modern sensibilities, revenge is wrong; it means ‘taking the law into your own hands’, a phrase which has highly negative connotations. But could vengeance have a positive role to play within a modern justice system?'?* Vengeance can do things other solutions cannot. The fear that revenge might go 27 Summa theologiae, ii.ii q.108. 28 The following is indebted to French, The Virtues of Vengeance; Murphy, Getting Even; and

Solomon, A Passion for Justice. French sees Aquinas as a key thinker for the ethics of revenge (p. 171). For Boehm (“The Natural History of Blood Revenge’), the urge to vengeance is a natural

predisposition.

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too far should be tempered by awareness of an opposite hazard: that the wrong might be accepted stoically. In the United States, consideration has been given to

the question of whether victims should have a role in determining the sentences of criminals. ‘Punishment is in part the satisfaction of the need for vengeance and makes no sense without this component’;!? it has retributive and deterrent effects, and provides vindictive satisfaction for victims.1%° Finding an outlet for their anger allows the repair of their relationship to the wrongdoer and the community, who can be involved in assessing the fit of punishment: ‘the virtues of vengeance are regulated through the moral dialogue of the community’.!3! Revenge is nowadays often mistakenly identified with illegal and socially disruptive vigilante activity, but it retains moral, social, and legal possibilities, as twentieth-century anthropological work has demonstrated. Written at a time when forces tending to centralization struggled against those favouring the continuation of do-it-yourself justice, the medieval texts discussed here also have something to say in these ongoing debates. They show that the urge to revenge is not necessarily irrational or immoral; they articulate borderlines beyond which vengeance should not pass, thus ringfencing an arena in which it can be legitimate and constructive. Vengeance is a social structure, the ethos of a class and the manifestation of collectivities gathering kin, friends, and allies. It is a narrative shaping an otherwise chaotic world. The emotions involved, though they can appear excessive, display attachment to individuals, communities, and sets of values.!9? The texts examined in the next chapter also see both the positive and the negative side of vengeance, but react differently, attempting to channel it outside Christendom. The logic of feud and the language of enmity drive wars against the Saracens, the enemies of God.14

9 Solomon, A Passion for Justice, p. 40. 190 Hyams argues that ‘the dry, emotion-purged downward-directed penal judgment rhetoric of our contemporary legal paradigms is poorly suited to the task of satisfying sufferers of wrong’ (Rancor

and Reconciliation, p. 12).

15! Prench, The Virtues of Vengeance, p. 229. "9? See Rosenwein “Les Emotions de la vengeance’ for a positive view of vengeful emotions. '%? Bartlett, ‘“Mortal Enmities”’, pp. 208-9. Throop (Crusading as an Act of Vengeance) notes frequent connections between zeal, crusading, and vengeance in twelfth-century texts.

6 Crusade Holy war was a unique melting pot for motivations. Materialist deconstructions, arguing that crusade represented economic competition and an early form of colonialism externalizing aggressive Frankish warrior culture, jostle with ideological explanations, the latter now enjoying more currency.! Pope Urban II (1088-99)

presented crusade as a form of pilgrimage and penance, as an imitation of Christ. As it solidified, crusade ideology drew on ‘just-war’ theory to justify the crusades as special wars, fought on the highest authority with righteous cause and intention, and as a defensive response to aggression aiming to free Christians from persecution, liberate Jerusalem and other Christian lands, and to spread peace.” But holy war went beyond the just-war paradigm: God’s enemies were guilty of the utmost wickedness and vice and so were deprived the protections afforded combatants in a just war, as curbs on violence were suspended. Holy warriors thought they would fulfil Scripture by bringing about the apocalypse and the final battle between the forces of good and evil. However, this chapter, which sees the chansons de geste as a key way into the imaginative world of crusade, argues that the reinvention of feuding and rebellion structures was a crucial way of combining such ideology with materialism. The chansons do not make desire for material gain the overt driver for crusade, yet their heroes are often ultimately rewarded with land and status. Crusade thus continues the struggles that always shaped the genre. Even as holy war transcends domestic strife, it perpetuates its dynamics: Urban II saw war against the infidel as a productive use of violent energies wasted in feuding.‘ 1 On the debate between material and ideological explanations, see Housley, Contesting the Crusades, pp. 75-98. Bartlett (The Making ofEurope) places the crusades within the context of Frankish warrior expansiveness, suggesting links to colonialism and trade. Within international relations theory, radical materialist accounts remain widespread: see Fischer, ‘Feudal Europe 800-1300’, and Teschke, The Myth of 1648, as well as the critique of both by Latham (Theorizing Medieval Geopolitics).

? On just-war theory, see further Chapter 1 of this volume. On the fusion of holy war and just war to make crusade ideology, see Russell, The Just War in the Middle Ages. 3 Riley-Smith, by looking at crusaders’ charters, has reconstructed the (overt) motivations of holy warriors; see The First Crusade and The First Crusaders. He downplays the profit motive, arguing that crusading was a loss-making endeavour. See Throop, Crusading as an Act of Vengeance, for the argument that crusade appealed as vengeance. Purkis, Crusading Spirituality in the Holy Land and Iberia, contends that crusades were popularized as an imitiation of Christ. The apocalyptic dimension is brought out by Buc, Holy War, Martyrdom, and Terror, and Rubenstein, Armies ofHeaven. Constable (‘The Historiography of the Crusades’) gives a concise summary of the ‘affabulation’ of the First Crusade—that is, its use in subsequent propaganda which stressed how defensive it was, legitimizing future endeavours. The Crusade Cycle, studied in this chapter, participates in the process of rewriting the First Crusade. 4 This appears in Fulcher of Chartes’s account of Urban II’s call. Five different accounts survive; they are gathered in English translation at http://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/source/urban2-5vers.html.

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Religious forms of struggle are moulded by everyday human ambitions and frustrations even as they attempt to overcome them. Thus there is competition, also, over who should lead crusade. The idea that the Franks are the ‘chosen people’ shapes Urban’s message, but who does that mean: the king of France, the warrior men of northern France, or, more loosely Western Christians?> The texts studied in

Chapters 2, 3, and'4 of this volume already showed the antagonistic potential of crusade. Kings in particular used it politically, to extend demands for taxation and military service and to enhance their prestige: Saint Louis’s high status came partly from his leadership of crusade, and the Grandes Chroniques de France rewrote Carolingian history to present its kings as predecessors of the Capetians as inveterate crusaders.® Yet conversely, barons could become kings by taking thrones outremer. This fantasy shapes the legend of Godefroi de Bouillon, the first Christian king of Jerusalem, recounted in the core of the Crusade Cycle—the Chanson d’Antioche, Les Chétifs, and the Chanson de Jérusalem (all late twelfth century)— which provides the initial focus of this chapter.” The popularity of this corpus, later extended to cyclic length, shows the ongoing importance of crusade to the aristocracy’s self-image. The texts studied in the second half of this chapter continue in this vein: the oriental adventures of the heroes of Huon de Bordeaux (c.1260), the Entrée d’Espagne (1330-40), and Huon d‘Auvergne (surviving codices date to

1341-1441), are arguments for continued importance of barons as the agents of racial and religious warfare. Crusade remains a penitential expedition, but it starts accidentally, as a by-product of a disagreement with the sovereign. The attempt to defend existing rights leads to new futures. All these heroes have opportunities to join the elite ranks of global powers, transcending the antagonisms of the West. Domestic struggles also inform the articulation of crusade as vengeance: feuding problematics are not fully overcome, only displaced from internal enemies to God’s enemies. Thus the good-versus-evil model of feuding shapes the Crusade Cycle’s model of holy war. Though vengeance combined with new elements in crusade ideology—wonder, miracles, and destiny send signals that this type of vengeance is better, powering violence on a great scale and covering the traumas it caused— compromise practices remain. Moments of pact and reconciliation hint at a broader overreaching culture transcending differences. The Crusade Cycle combines a violent > This appears in Robert the Monk's version. Kinoshita’s reading of the Roland brings out the text’s attempts to create the term as an umbrella term for crusaders (Medieval Boundaries, esp. pp. 28-9). ® Paviot (‘Noblesse et croisade a la fin du Moyen Age’) catalogues the involvement of French kings in crusade. 7 See Appendix for sources of dates, summaries of plots, and manuscript information. Edgington and Sweetenham have deconstructed the received wisdom on the Antioche: the text was thought to be a quasi-diary of the First Crusade written by Richard le Pélerin, which was then reworked in the late twelfth century by another author named in some manuscripts, Graindor de Douai, to make a trilogy with Chétifs and Jérusalem. Evidence for this earlier state is lacking. Composition likely dates to the late twelfth century, with alterations made in the thirteenth-century as Crusade Cycle manuscripts were elaborated (‘Introduction’, to their translation of the Chanson d’Antioche). Jérusalem draws on chronicles (see Thorp, ‘La Chanson de Jérusalem and the Latin Chronicles’), whereas Les Chétifs

seems to be entirely fictitious, with some real topography (see Myers, edition of Les Chétifs, pp. xxii— xxxi), I shall not be able to provide here a full account of the vast Crusade Cycle, where later additions make a family narrative around Godefroi’s lineage.

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215

philosophy constructing the Saracens as vermin to be exterminated with a syncretic chivalric culture. Late medieval epic crusade ideology—exemplified by the other texts studied in this chapter—goes in the latter direction, masking the need for conquest and hoping for peaceful conversion. It does so to respond to a crisis in crusading. The success of the First Crusade (1096-9) was never replicated: the Second Crusade (1147-9) collapsed; Jerusalem was lost in 1187, and the Third Crusade (1189-92) failed to recapture it. It was recovered after much struggle 1229-39, and then lost again in 1244; the Fourth Crusade was diverted against

Constantinople in 1204; Louis IX’s crusades in 1248-54 and 1270 failed; and the final outremer territory fell in 1291. There was a long list of fiascos. As Richard Southern put it, crusade seemed ‘either quite impossible, or in need of a drastic reassessment... either no [c]rusading was called for, or very much more and better

[c]rusading’.® More broadly, thirteenth-century Europe became aware of the great space of non-Christian land beyond the Middle East, realizing, in Janet AbuLughod’s words, that it was just an ‘upstart peripheral’.? Our texts show that even as actual crusading grew less frequent and successful, crusade remained powerful as an idea: elaborately structured, intergenerically inspired fantasy shapes hopes for a global Christian community.!° The marvellous and the utopian mask the need for violence, allowing for material, political, and spiritual satisfactions to conjoin. Jerusalem, Prester John’s territories, and other lands of plenty exemplify what William Burgwinkle calls ‘fantasies of entitlement’, where ‘promises of absolute fulfilment and the eradication of unworthy predecessors’ work to ‘convince a community of its rightful mastery of a place in the name of divine volition or manifest destiny’.1! The focus of the chansons thus moves out from the western Carolingian heartlands and the Paris-Rome axis of power, first to the Middle East, and then to India and the limits of the human world. This process opened out generic boundaries. The question of the Crusade Cycle’s epic credentials once haunted scholarship.'* Huon de Bordeaux poses generic questions in a more pressing way: can an epic remain epic if it incorporates elements from romance and folklore?!3 More ‘foreign bodies’, including Marco Polo, Latin epic and Alexander material, are integrated into L’Entrée d’Espagne, described as a ‘summa’,!* whereas Huon d'Auvergne draws on Dante, hagiography and didactic material. Utopian thinking reconciles these discordant elements, and allows contradictory arguments for the 8 Western Views ofIslam in the Middle Ages, pp. 42-3. ° Before European Hegemony, p. 12; Delumeau (La Peur en Occident) describes the siege mentality of late medieval Europe. 10 Thus whereas Southern (Western Views of Islam in the Middle Ages) famously argued for a move from earlier ‘ignorance’ of Islam to ‘vision’ in the late medieval period, this chapter shows how fantastically structured that ‘vision’ was. 11 “Utopia and its Uses’, p. 552. Utopia is of course More's coinage, but the idea of perfect societies is present in the Middle Ages. See Ingham, ‘Making All Things New’; and Thomasset and James-Raoul, En quéte d’utopies. For Jameson, Utopia is heir to the medieval travel narrative (‘Morus’,

. 432). a3 See the defence of the text’s epic status offered by Cook, Chanson d‘Antioche. 13 | explore the debates about the genre of the text in full below. 14 Limentani, ‘LEpica in “lengue de France”’, p. 33. The idea is further elaborated by BradleyComey, Authority and Autonomy.

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same thing to cohabit:!5 the East is partly a distant land waiting to be freed from giants and tyrants, partly a prohibited realm of beauty, riches, and wonder, and partly the rightful home of Christians, populated by potential allies and converts. Each of these invites, in mutually exclusive ways, crusade by the Westerner. The texts thus perform a synthesis that Fredric Jameson's ideas can help us understand: ‘the ideological [must] be grasped as somehow at one with the [u]topian, and the [u]topian at one with the ideological’.!° Following Jameson, I argue that conflict-

ual relationships are extended, even as hopes of moving beyond them are advanced. A blend of utopian visions, material considerations, and political contentions shapes these epics about crusade. THEsFIRST

TPRILOGYcOF-THE:

CRUSADEVGY CVE

The establishment of the Frankish community in the Holy Land is told by a trio of songs—Antioche, Les Chétifs, and Jérusalem—that form part of the ideology that developed in the wake of the First Crusade, becoming fully mature by around 1200.!7 They make the First Crusade’s partial success—capturing Jerusalem, but without unifying the world and defeating evil completely—into a prefiguration of the final holy war that will issue in the new era, the last kingdom, God’s kingdom.'® They share crusade ideology’s progressive model of history: forward towards a cleaner, purer, less sinful, more unified community, through purges and sanctified violence. The cycle likely originated in the north-east reaches of France and in the Low Countries, hotbeds for crusade recruitment.!? Antioche may have as a source an account written for the Saint-Pol family,?° who wanted to know their crusading history. The cycle remained popular amongst the Flemish-Picard aristocracy throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, with the production of codices sponsored by families who claimed great crusading traditions—the counts of Artois, Coucy, or Saint-Pol, or even Marie de Brabant—at times of real or projected crusading.”) Each manuscript contains a different combination (of different versions) of texts, the product of individual scribal efforts to produce an account of the crusades.” Some of the texts added to the original trilogy in the thirteenth century—the Chrétienté Corbaran, the Prise d’Acre, and other Jérusalem continuations—are pseudo-historical, telling of further Christian conquests and prolonging the story of the Frankish community in the Holy Land. Yet these are not the most common texts in cyclical manuscripts, and where they appear, they ' Jameson (‘Morus’) sees Utopia as a process of reconciliation of contradictories and contraries.

16 The Political Unconscious, p. 277. 7 See Riley Smith, The First Crusade. '8 Buc, Holy War, Martyrdom, and Terror, p. 280. '9 Riley-Smith notes the importance of central and northern France in supplying forces for the First Crusade (The First Crusaders, pp. 83-4). 20 Edgington and Sweetenham, trans. of Antioche, p. 24. *1 See Busby, Codex and Context, 1, 256-78; 11, 698; Edgington and Sweetenham, trans. of Antioche, pp. 34-9; Grillo, ed. of /érusalem continuations, vi, 2, xxxii. As Aslanow notes, the Crusade Cycle had little appeal in the Levant (Le Francais au Levant, p.77), though Les Chétifs was composed there.

2? See Myers (“The Manuscripts of the Cycle’) for details.

Crusade

O17

are surrounded by other continuations developing a biography for the local hero Godefroi de Bouillon (who may have come from Boulogne or the Brabant), thus

accentuating the material’s association with the region. Such additions include La Naissance du Chevalier au Cygne, Le Chevalier au Cygne, La Fin d'Elias, Les Enfances de Godefroi, and La Mort Godefroi, which emphasize Godefroi’s fantastic genealogy descending from the Swan Knight, thereby extending the focus on families, vengeance, the marvellous, and prefiguration. This model for crusading heroic biography remained powerful into the fourteenth century, which saw the development of a complete rewriting known as the Second Crusade Cycle, further relating the material to Flanders through the addition of a chanson entitled Baudouin de Sebourc, based on Flemish legends surrounding Baldwin H, King of Jerusalem (1118-31). The central trilogy of Antioche, Les Chétifs, and Jérusalem lies at the heart of nearly all versions of the First Crusade Cycle; hence it is my focus here. Godefroi’s

coronation, recounted in Jérusalem, prepared for his taking a place alongside Charlemagne and Alexander as one of the Nine Worthies. After Jerusalem falls, the bishop highlights the need to recreate secular structures of the West: “Or i convendroit roi dont ele fust gardee |Et li terre environ vers les paiens tensee’ (5019-20) [now we need a king to make sure it is guarded and to defend the lands around

against pagans]. Godefroi, the popular choice, declines. However, the other barons refuse too, mentioning their land back home. The bishop asks for a night of prayer in which God will signal his choice of king by lighting a candle in that person’s hand. Godefroi’s candle is struck. He refuses the crown of gold but gets one of the leaves: “De cel fu coronés Godefrois de Buillon. |Por Ponor de Jhesu le fist de tel fagon’ (5320-1) [with this Godefroi de Bouillon is crowned. For the love of Jesus he did it this way]. Godefroi here imitates Christ, and his reluctance to take

the crown would appear to give reason to those who explain crusade ideologically or religiously; however, he ultimately does get material satisfaction, suggesting that economic motivations cannot be completely excluded. With new kingdoms and new crowns up for grabs, the Crusade Cycle is a discourse for the importance of noble families. They accomplish great feats without kings. The broad collective effort of /érusalem includes Tafurs, women, and squires, whereas in Antioche, old men, the clergy, and women take to the field. Yet Godefroi soon laments the smallness of his army as he prepares to fight in defence of Jerusalem, cursing the other barons: ‘en ceste estrange terre tot sol gerpi m’avés’ (6730) [you have left me all alone in this foreign land].

With its hero Godefroi a beacon of Christian efforts against the infidel, the Crusade Cycle connects with the epic tradition of sacrificial heroism typified by the Chanson de Roland, but also the lone baron fighting against the odds model, found in the non-cyclic Chanson de Guillaume, the Chevalerie Vivien, and Simon de Pouille. It thus seizes upon the chanson de geste as an appropriate vehicle for crusade ideology, the genre having already portrayed what are arguably antecedents of the crusades: Charlemagne’s wars in Spain and Saxony, and the battles against Saracens in the south of France and Italy.?* Anti-Saracen ideas familiar from the °3 Trotter (Medieval French Literature and the Crusades, p. 105) argues this.

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chansons de geste figure in the Crusade Cycle in extreme forms, combining with many of the successful elements of crusade ideology. First, the idea that ‘crusade

represents penance shapes Antioche, which refers to the action as a great ‘pelerinage’ (23) [pilgrimage]. Whereas pilgrimage comes as a late solution in texts like Renaut

and Ogier, here it shapes events from the start. The suffering of the crusaders is measured by epic standards: Les paines ke soufri Oliviers ne Rollans Ne cele qu’endura Aumons ne Acoulans Ne li ber Viviens quant il fu en Aliscans Ne valurent a cestes li pris de .ii. besans

(10430-3)

[the pains suffered by Oliver and Roland, and those endured by Eaumont and Agolant or by the baron Vivien when he was at Aliscans, were worth not two Byzantine coins compared to these]?4

This justifies the tale as worth telling, whilst hijacking the chanson de geste, the discourse of great suffering in war. The Franks will be both God’s reapers and themselves the object of a purge as the unworthy are eliminated. The Crusade Cycle also draws on an idea dear to crusade preachers and epic audiences alike, that of God’s vengeance.”* In Antioche, Jesus, speaking to the thief on the cross next to him, anticipates the moment of revenge: Encor r’est pas li peules nés Qui me venra vengier as espius noelés,

Et venront detrancier les paiens desfaés Qui mes coumandemans ot adiés trespasés. Adont ert essaucie sainte crestientés Et ma terre conquise, mes pais aquités, Dui en .m. ans sera baptisiés et levés.

(168-75)

[The people has not yet been born who will come to avenge me with niello swords, and who will cut these horrible pagans, who have always disobeyed my commandments, to bits. Then holy Christianity will be exalted and my land conquered, my country freed. The people will be baptized and raised one thousand years from now.]

Christ’s prediction here works as a sign of the divine will behind the crusade. The Saracens also see the arrival of the Franks as the fulfilment of destiny. In Antioche, a Saracen prophecy states that a people will come ‘per devers Occident’ (8543) [from the West] to defeat them. Calabre, mother of the Saracen leader Corbaran,

praises the Christian God, citing the parting of the Red Sea—thus further inscribing the Christian history of the region—and declaring ‘il maresteront desi en Orient’ (8606) [they will not stop until they reach the Orient]. And in Jérusalem,

the leader Corbadas mentions a long-standing prediction: ‘Franc venroient sor

4 Eaumont and Agolant are the Saracen leaders of Aspremont (see Chapter 3 of this volume).

* Riley-Smith, The First Crusade, p. 47; see Throop (Crusadingasan Act of Vengeance, p. 48) for an example of the Crusade Cycle’s accentuation of vengeance motif relative to other sources. See also Chapters 1 and 5 of this volume for the omnipresence of the idea of vengeance in political theory and feuding culture respectively.

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nos...por vengier le Segnor’ (1383-4) [that the Franks would come to attack us, to avenge the Lord], even though ‘li Juu li firent’ (1386) [the Jews did it]. Corbadas also mentions the revenge of the Romans under Vespasian, recounted in Antioche (211-32), and this new war seems to him like an unnecessary extra. Yet crusade

propaganda stressed that the order and movement of providence would be restored by a return to Jerusalem as origin, with Christian history asserted against deviations. Christian past and Christian future would reconnect, enclosing the present in an ellipsis. The Jewish War (66-73), during which Vespasian and then his son

Titus stormed Jerusalem, massacring Jews and destroying the Temple, is rewritten

here as a providential purge, a partial fulfilment of the prophecy of God’s revenge.”° The Franks will eventually become the new Romans, imperial saviours and bringers of justice, by destroying the Saracens as the Romans did the Jews. The combat against contemporary religious enemies will be fought on the site of past deviations. The Occident reclaims the Orient, as the Christian victory at Jerusalem in the First Crusade provides typological fulfilment through a metonymic link to the death of Jesus: Cou fu al venredi, si con lisant trovon, Que Jursalem conquisent no Crestiien baron. A Pore que Jhesus sofri le passion Entrerent en la vile a force et a bandon.

(Jérusalem 4803-6)

[It was on a Friday, as we find written, that our Christian barons conquered Jerusalem. At the time of day when Jesus suffered the passion, they entered the town forcefully and in great numbers.]

The Crusade Cycle produces the enemy the Christians will vanquish, using a category dear to chanson de geste readers, that of the ‘Saracens’, a term used interchangeably with ‘paien’, “Turs’ and other ethnic labels, and which medievalists have long since recognized as a container for everything opposed to Christian values: limitless enjoyment, duplicity, desire, seduction, madness, disorder, and inhuman extremes.” The Saracens are frequently portrayed as making animal noises, as in Jérusalem, where they are a horrible spectacle: ‘la veissiés les Turs glatir et abaier’ (748) [you would have heard Turks howling and barking]. The pagan generals are mounted on serpents, lions, giants, a griffin, and on the son of a dragon (6257-60); the Saracens are fiercer than boars (5680, 7945). They are hares to the crusaders’ harriers (7644—5)

or birds to their hawks (8523).?® The label ‘Saracen’ deliberately conflates Muslims with idolatrous pagans—thus Godefroi refers to ‘ices malveises ydeles que croient li Persant’ (Jérusalem, 313) [these evil idols in which the Persians believe]|—and

with Jews—hence the reference to a ‘sinagoge de le mahomerie’ (1466) [synagogue 26 Buc, Holy War, Martyrdom, and Terror, pp. 22-3. 27 See, especially, Akbari, [dol in the East; Strickland, Saracens, Demons, and Jews; Uebel, ‘Unthinking the Monster’. References to Saracen polygamy are rare here, though in Les Chétifi, a Saracen religious leader appeals to those with ‘.x. femes’ (150) [ten wives] to engender sons who will

take vengeance on the French. 28 The reading by Edgington (‘“Pagans” and “Others” in the Chanson de Jérusalem’) brings out these dimensions.

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of Muhammedery], the latter word being an offensive term for Islam.”° The Book of Revelations predicts that Antichrist will gather all God’s enemies at the end of time (13:7), so in an apocalyptic mode, such distinctions no longer matter. But the cycle also works to deconstruct Islam specifically, as the biggest heresy, demonstrating its basis in illusions: the sultan has an image of Muhammed that hovers thanks to a magnetic stone; the Muslims kneel to worship it (Antioche, 6031-52); later, another image is animated by an ‘avresiers’ (6602) [demon], speaking through ‘encanterie’ (6602) [sorcery].3° The self-deception and hypnosis of the Christians—

who believe they are fighting for God in the final days—is here projected onto the Saracens. This denigration of the Saracens as monstrous, evil enemies with whom no understanding is possible powers Christian violence. In Amtioche, the crusaders plunder Muslim graves, then cut off heads and catapult them into the city. The families of the dead see their loved ones: Et li pere et la mere, lors serors, lor amie Qui connurent les tiestes, cescuns en brait et crie

Et maudient la tiere u no jens fu norie!

(3990-2)

[both fathers and mothers, and sisters and companions, who recognized the heads, each cried and howled and cursed the land where our people were born!] The Saracens see this as ‘diablie’ (3994) [the devil’s work] and call to Muhammed for vengeance. The ethical boundaries of the Christian universe are here stretched;

this is an exceptional case, beyond the limitations of the just war, where unusual tactics become licit, helping to convince the Franks of their divine right to win. The text takes place in the terminal zone, at the threshold of the eternal kingdom. There is an asymmetry to the horror, which inspires the Christians with sublime confidence in their cause, whilst petrifying the Saracens. However, the most scandalous crime of the crusade is attributed here to the Tafurs, a group of tough poor men, who historically likely came from northern France or Flanders,3! but who are here composite figures: dark-skinned, naked, thin, and hirsute like devils, they resemble in some ways the text’s Saracens.*? This hints at their ethnic as well as class distinction from the main crusading army. They both represent the democratization of the crusading force as the paradigm of the miles Christi broadens, and provide a container for all that is problematic about crusader violence. They disembowel their adversaries (Antioche, 8403), and take out their brains (Jérusalem, 748). They also

eat the Muslim bodies: the Saracens are horrified, but the Tafurs appreciate the meat: ‘Mius vaut que cars de porc ne que cars de cerf lardés’ (Antioche, 4985) [it is better than pork or larded venison]. Bohemond responds to Saracen complaints by distancing the other crusaders from the Tafurs: “Une gent sont averse d’un estranje *? According to Riley-Smith, the crusaders had difficulty distinguishing Jews and Muslims (The First Crusade, p. 54), but the Crusade Cycle suggests that any ‘confusion’ is an ideological move. °° Conversely, the Christian miracle of the recovery of the Holy Lance is debunked by Arab sources (Gabrieli, Storici arabi delle Crociate; Maalouf, Les Croisades vues par les Arabes).

3! France, Victory in the East, pp. 286-7. * ‘The reading by Janet (LJdéologie incarnée) gives a lengthy description of their role in the cycle.

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20

renés; |Plus aiment cars de Turs que padns enpevrés’ (5044-5) [they are a dangerous

people from a foreign land; they love Turkish flesh more than peppered peacock]. Chronicles of the First Crusade record that the cannibalism committed by some crusaders had contradictory effects: it caused despair amongst some crusaders, who left the army, but it also inspired others and made the Saracens highly afraid. It was sublime, horrifying, and inspiring in equal measure. Delegated to a marginal

group within the crusader force as part of scapegoating, cannibalism is recuperated theologically as ‘an awful element in an awesome cycle of election, sin, travails, and

divine redemption’, that culminated in the capture of Jerusalem.*4 Whereas the Tafurs represent the splitting point of fanaticism, the bulk of the crusaders are united by their zeal and associated with a different kind of marvel: military might. For example, Godefroi cuts a Saracen in two, before his horse carries the lower half back into the city. The sight pleases the Franks and scares the Saracens: ‘la gent a l’avresier est en fuies tornee | Et defors et dedans est mout espoentee’ (Antioche, 4375-6) [the enemy people turns to flight, both inside and outside they are greatly frightened]. The dismayed Saracens declare: ‘Mervellous sont Francois, ne lor escaperons’ (4440) [the Franks are marvellous; we will not

escape them]. The Saracens are shocked and awed into realizing their own inferiority. And in Jérusalem, Godefroi defeats the Saracen Marbrin, chopping him and his horse in half with a single stroke, thanks to a ‘miracle’ (7418). The mythical blows

of Carolingian legend are transposed into the crusades in these texts. This is epic history, happening live. The cycle aims to demonstrate the superiority of the Franks through the marvellous and the miraculous, as part of a wider phenomenon, which Robert Bartlett documents, whereby the term ‘Frank’ was infused with ‘modernity and power’.*° Here, a Saracen messenger reports: ‘Francois sont si fier, tel gens ne fu vetie’ (7451) [the Franks are so fierce, such a people has never before been seen]. Elsewhere, the Franks are referred to as ‘covoitos’ (7196) [greedy]. The sources

gathered by Francesco Gabrieli and Amin Maalouf also suggest the Arab perception of the Franks as unified, sure in their purpose, and brutal in slaughtering Saracens, whereas their opponents proved slow to unify and react.3° In Antioche, the sultan expects a tiny invading force, and realizes too late that the ‘flors de la Crestienté’ (6270) [the flower of Christendom] has come. But eventually, as Saracen

resistance is organized, a clash of civilizations trajectory emerges. The sultan wants a Christian captive to convert ‘puis venra avoec moi por France conquester’ (7097) [then he will come with me to conquer France]. Each side worries about by the size

of the other: the Christian spy who sees the assembling Saracen army is speechless through fear (6989-7008). Great and demonic powers are attributed to the adversary. This looks like the war of the end of the world. The violence culminates with the capture of the city: Prise est Jerusalem, la fors cités garnie.

La veissiés paiens fuir par la caucie, 33 Buc, Holy War, Martyrdom, and Terror, pp. 262-3. 34 Tbid., p. 264. 35 The Making of Europe, p. 105. 36 Gabrieli, Storici arabi delle Crociate; Maalouf, Les Croisades vues par les Arabes.

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Cascuns fuit con ains puet por garantir sa vie.

Crestien les ocient et font grant desceplie, De sanc et de cervele est la rue joncie.

(4844-8)

[Jerusalem, the great walled city, has been captured. You would have seen pagans fleeing in the streets, each one running away to save his life. Christians kill them and make a great massacre, and the road is covered in blood and brains.]

The chopping up of Saracen bodies is described as ‘carpenterie’ (4851) [carpentry]. The crusaders, who throughout teeter between being monsters and saints, murderers and mystics, here give full flow to their violent sides, acting as God’s vengeful agents. Their killings manifest God’s presence. At Antioch, the Saracen dead are cast outside: Et no Franc crestien, cui Jhesus puist sauver,

Ont faite Andioce de mors Turs desevrer, Ens es carniers defors les alerent jeter, Pour la puour les font deseure acouveter. (8167-70) [and our Christian Franks, may Jesus save them, have cleared Antioch of Turkish bodies, and thrown them into a mass grave outside, and for the stink they cover them up.]

At Jerusalem, the Christians decide to rid the countryside of Saracens: ‘Entor cele marine le pais delivron |De la gent maleoite qui croient en Mahon’ (9763-4) [around

the bank let us clear the countryside of the cursed people who believe in Muhammed]. But as they ride over the plain they find the Saracen dead have all been taken by devils, whereas the crusader dead are gathered in one place, guarded by a lion. There is no sign of the enemy. The surrounding cities are garrisoned by crusaders: “De Jhursalem a Acre n’ot remés Arabi’ (9817) [from Jerusalem to Acre there remained no Arab]. Historical motion takes the form of purification and the Saracen bodies are

matter out of place. Holy war departs here from the ideology of the just war, which argued for humanitarian restraints on violence, stopping short of utter destruction of the enemy.?” This is an exceptional war, when normal limits are suspended. Utopia is created by the cleaning away of the Saracens, making an empty land, a blank canvass on which true Christian civilization can be painted. Cleaning and purifying take on eschatological dimensions: the world began in unity and will end in unity. Discord, which fills the time in between, must be washed away. The First Crusade, driven by a Christian universalism that fused Rome’s imperial destiny and Christ’s command to teach all nations,** aimed to impact the whole world. Though it did not bring about the apocalypse, it is rewritten here as a prototype of the final war. A bout of cleaning follows the reclaiming of the Sepulchre. Indeed part of the initial motivation for the crusade had come when the pilgrim known as Pierre Hermite saw the Sepulchre being abused: Quant il fu au Sepucre couciés a orison,

Tel cose i a veiie dont au cuer ot fricon: Estables et cevaus et autre mesprison. *” The distinction is made by Russell, The Just War in the Middle Ages, p. 2. 38 Buc, Holy War, Martyrdom, and Terror, p. 53.

(2 758)

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[when he kneeled down to pray at the Sepulchre, he saw something that made his heart shudder: stables and horses and other wrongful things.]

In Jérusalem, the crusaders decontaminate the Sepulchre: ‘Ainc n’i laisierent porre ne festu ne ordier |Ne suie ne busquete, laidure ne porrier’ (4899-900) [they leave no dust or straw or dirt or soot or filth or mud]. The idea that Saracens defile and

destroy altars was part of Urban II’s message, according to Robert the Monk. Saracen occupation of the site constitutes pollution; Christian rightful ownership is cast by contrast in hyperbolic terms of purity. The righteousness of the crusade is expressed through the stark contrast between dirt and cleanliness. The Christian reunion with the Sepulchre is joyous, as everything is now back in its rightful place: “Ki veist les barons de Sepucre baisier |Et plorer de pitié, estraindre et enbracier’ (4901-2) [you should have seen the barons kiss the Sepulchre, cry with pity, squeeze and hug it]. Fury turns to devotion, one intense group psychological state of heightened emotional sensibility becoming another. In catharsis, the Franks simultaneously purify Jerusalem and themselves. The conversions of Saracen women also fit within this process of re-establishing symbolic boundaries: “Mainte paiene fisent baptisier et lever |Qui volt Dameldeu croire et de cuer aourer’ (8171-2) [they had many pagan women baptized, who wanted to believe in God and to worship him with true heart]. As Jonathan Riley-Smith notes, the First Crusade did not aim at conversions; similarly here, the foci are the capture of holy lands and

revenge against the enemies of Christ. Conversions come as an afterthought, a utopian moment erasing earlier violence, just as does the conversion of Brammimonde

‘for love’ at the end of the Roland.*° Scapegoating, cleaning, and conversions combine with marvellous signs, including the recovery of the Holy Lance, to convince the crusaders of the divine mandate for their mission. The crusade is launched in Antioche after a Saracen attack on pilgrims travelling with Pierre at Civetot (Ghemlik in modern Turkey). A Christian priest is killed whilst giving mass, but: Or oiés la miracle que i fist Jhesu Cris: Ains peuist li services estre de tot finis Que li cors caist jus. En estant fu toudis!

(563-5)

[Now listen to the miracle that Jesus Christ performed: the service was completed before the body fell. It remained standing!]

This presents holy war as just war, a response to aggression, and suggests that divine will is with the Christians. Even defeats and setbacks are integrated into the overall progressive movement of history, as they lead to revenge and purging. As prophecies become literalized, so do other events take on spiritual significance. Various Christian feats are presented as miracles, giving the crusaders sovereignty, showing that they are authorized by the highest power, that they need no earthly sovereign. For example, the crusader Raimbaut pursues Saracens fleeing via a river. Their armour pulls them down and they drown: ‘si que l’aighe et li arc en furent tot sanglant’ (4518) [such that the water and the arches were covered in blood], but 39 See Kinoshita, Medieval Boundaries, p. 43.

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Raimbaut’s own armour is miraculously removed, saving him. Other victories are told hyperbolically: when Thomas is hurled into the city in /érusalem, this is presented as a ‘grans mervelle’ (4746) [great marvel], that ‘tant con durra li siecles sera mais ramenbree’ (4747) [will be remembered until the end of time]. Signs and

premonitions also show that the violence is inscribed in a transcendental register.

Bohemond dreams that he will conquer Antioch, that angels will descend, and the Saracens will realize Muhammed is dead (Antioche, 7046-75). The human elect is also aided at various points by an angelic host, who are meant to come at the end of time to fight the forces of evil that the Antichrist will unify. Fleeing Saracens

attack one another in the dark, manipulated by Saint George and Saint Demetrius (Antioche, 2710-27). George and angels ‘plus blanc que nois aprés fevrier’ (10939) [whiter than snow in February] help the Christians in Antioche, and again in Jérusalem (800-84). The crusaders are a divine force; earthquakes and the move-

ments of the stars indicate that the prophecied time is coming, linking everything to universal and cosmological history. The Franks are not just recapturing the terrestrial Jerusalem, but bringing the celestial Jerusalem down from the heavens. There are, on the surface, new levels of violence and new ways of dealing with it. However, the same old values pertain: war between the two sides follows feuding patterns. Though it is less ascetic and penitential than crusade violence, feud has moral elements, as I argued in Chapter 5. For Susanna Throop, preachers used the idea of vengeance because it was an integral element of the theorization of power in theology, but also to redeploy secular violence by using its vocabulary.*° Within the broader scheme of the vengeance of God, already mentioned, there are shortterm triggers for individual acts of revenge. The Christian defeat at Civetot drives the conquest of Antioch when Pierre shows the crusaders the site, declaring ‘or pensés del vengier’ (Antioche, 1520) [now you should aim for vengeance]. Robert the Monk’s

version of Urban II’s exhortation to crusade speaks of Saracens torturing pilgrims. Here, the Saracens even crucify a crusader: Renaut Porcet ont pris li Sarrasin felon, En crois Pont estendu sor la table a bandon, Les bras li ont loiés et les piés environ; Les gierés li ont quis a soufre et a carbon

Et a fier tout arjant et a fu et a plon Et les vaines des bras et puis cascun talon.

(Antioche, 5370-5)

[Renaut Porcet has been captured by the wicked Saracens, who lie him out in a cross shape on a table, tying his arms and feet; they burned his calves with sulpher and coal and red-hot iron and fire and lead, and scorched the veins in his arms and then his feet.]

Renaut is given a specifically Christian torture, but he actively defies evil, threatening Christian ‘vengison’ (5408) [vengeance], just as did Jesus on the cross. His martyrdom

echoes Christ and thus inscribes the entire effort in a divine register, symbolizing his cause’s resistance to oppression and desire for freedom. His glorious act of ‘9 Crusading as an Act of Vengeance.

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self-sacrifice is portrayed as serving the common good. But there are also long-term structures of revenge around war for the territories, passed down the generations, as the Saracen ruler of Antioch expresses: Quant jou fui de jouvent, si conquis ces regnés.

Mout ai de Crestiens ocis et afolés. Or me heent li fil que il ont engenrés Pour les peres ke j’ai ocis et tués. Mais or me repent jou que tant les ai grevés, Par les enfans cuic estre encor desbaretés

(5554-9)

[When I was young, I conquered this kingdom. I killed and maimed many Christians. Now the sons they engendered hate me because I killed and murdered their fathers. But now I repent that I did so much damage to them and I expect to be defeated by their children]

Crusade is patterned like feud: attack and revenge for attack. If crusade propaganda argued that holy war was just war because it was defensive, aiming at recovering lost territory, then the model of feud here reinforces the message through the idea of family vengeance. Each side attacks by turn, justifying its move as a defensive response to the opponent's last aggression. Another feud-like dimension came in the fact that recruitment drew on relationships of kinship and lordship; for the First Crusade, there was a small set of key families preconditioned with an ethos driving them towards the difficult and costly activity of crusade.*! Their allies, subjects, and relatives joined. In the Crusade Cycle, the violence predominantly takes the form of avenging lost loved ones. In /érusalem, the sultan calls his fourteen sons to ‘hardiement vengier’ (8193) [bravely avenge] Brohadas, their brother. The lan-

guage of vengeance dominates the final war for the city: ‘gerredon’ [reward, or here, payback] and derivatives appear repeatedly (for example, 8481, 8610, 8776). The great battle involves scores of nameless victims, but takes narrative shape through patterns of revenge around key figures. Other features of feuding culture include pillaging and the theft of livestock—a surprisingly strong element of Jérusalem—but, more crucially, the presence of an underlying culture of compromise. In Antioche, one truce (‘trives’) is agreed so that the dead can be buried (5052-92); and another arranged through Greek and Armenian intermediaries

(7094-5). The very presence of tertiary groups destabilizes the binary view of the world that the text otherwise foregrounds. One exchange of prisoners in this text fails: Renaut is tortured and then propped up on a horse so that the Saracen leader can exchange him for his nephew (5225-510). Renaut discourages the swap ‘por moi ne donés vallissant .1. denier’ (5433) [do not exchange anything worth even

one coin for me]. The nephew is instead decapitated, his body flung into the city. The Saracens also plan to use Christians as slaves to restore infertile land (6400-22).

However, despite these moments of excess, the fear that structures the violence contains within it the seeds of mutual respect, particularly between warrior elites. 41 See Riley-Smith, The First Crusaders, pp. 81-105, on these links, and p. 21 on the ethos. Paviot (‘Noblesse et croisade a la fin du Moyen Age’) shows how family relationships continued to structure recruitment into the fourteenth century.

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The cycle works ideologically to produce the Saracens as the ultimate enemy, but both sides also recognize the virtues of the other, as cultural similarity undercuts religious difference. The sultan of Nicaea wants Bohemond to convert and become his ‘frere’ (Antioche, 6420) [brother]; they would rule Persia together. The child of

Antioch’s richest man is well treated after his capture by Christians, dressed in fine clothes ‘a le guise francoise’ (6912) [in the French style] and given ‘petites armes (6913) [little weapons]. He reports that the Franks are marvellous and have a God

that does their bidding. His infantile performance of conversion proves a catalyst for his father’s later turn to Christianity. Prisoners were in practice a privileged site of cultural exchange: early crusaders were fervorous and intransigent—literally taking no prisoners—but later compromises developed, as part of the syncretic culture of the crusader states.4* As with feuding culture, holy war culture involved learning to live with the enemy,

an opposite and complementary practice to the violence. Terror was at one end of a dialectic, with possibilities for mercy, forgiveness, peace, and homeostasis

at the other. The most developed example comes in Les Chétifs, a peacetime interlude sitting in between the two great Christian victories in the heavily ideologized Antioche and Jérusalem. Chansons de geste are of course generally biased towards war, but Les Chétifs affords a glimpse of peaceful cultural contact. The text, which may have been composed in the crusader states and influenced by Arabic and Byzantine narrative traditions,*? provides an important corrective to the rest of the trilogy. In each of the text’s three main episodes, a Christian captive (or ‘chétif’) helps a Saracen. First, when the Saracen Corbaran is accused of treason, he needs a Christian knight to defend him against two of the sultan’s Turkish champions in a judicial duel. His mother picks out the Christian Richard: Se ne fust li gaiole u il a esté tant, Del mal et des caaines va le color perdant Bien semble cevalier hardi et conbatant

(444-6)

[if it was not for his long stay in jail, and for the pain and the chains which have made him lose all colour, he would look just like a brave and powerful knight]

Richard’s warrior qualities shine through his prisoner garb; he duly wins the combat. The second episode shows another captive, Ernoul, valued for different qualities, as ‘preus et sages et bien enlatimés’ (1824) [strong and learned and multilingual]. When Abraham addresses him—‘en ma cort as esté bien a .x. mois passés’ (1823) [you have been in my court for more than ten months]—he assimilates captivity

with court membership. Ernoul is like any other official, respected for his talents, and he is given a mission that takes him past the lair of the dragon Sathanas, who

has a devil inside him. The dragon symbolizes the Antichrist in Revelations 13, and here, though he lives in a ‘mahomerie’ (2304, 2415-22, 2449) [a ‘Muhammedery’], his main victims are Saracens. This diabolic incarnation of Islam allows conceptual ® See the account by Friedman, Encounters between Enemies.

43 See Duparc-Quioc, Le Cycle de la Croisade, pp. 83-8.

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space for the portrayal of another Islam, a fellow civilization. Though Ernoul loses his way and falls victim to the dragon, his brother Baudouin takes revenge, righting a long-standing wrong in the East. The ‘anemi’ [devil] that comes out causes a storm: ‘n’i a Turc ne Francois nen soit tos esperdus’ (2730) [Turks and

Franks are all completely bewildered]. Baudouin is subsequently rewarded by the sultan; Christian and Saracen are united and opposed to the monstrous. In the final episode, Harpin saves Corbaran’s nephew, who is snatched first by a wolf, then by a monkey. Harpin fights off four lions to save him, with the help of Saint Jerome who scares them away, just as he removed the thorn from the lion’s paw. Robbers then seize the child but by a ‘miracle’ (3736), Corbaran is guided by three

stags, saints in disguise, and eventually the child is brought home. Not only do the Christians manage to achieve heroism despite the potentially shameful status of captives, they persuade Corbaran to convert. The syncretism he displays in the Chétifs, when he tells a Christian ‘par Mahomet... bien sai que les vertus vostre Deu sont molt grans’ (2934) [by Muhammed, I know well that the powers of your God are very great] anticipates his conversion, a trajectory completed in the Chrétienté Corbaran. Good Christian behaviour can inspire conversions. The Chétifs places the demonic not simply within the Saracen world, but in a special pocket inside, separating off the rest as recuperable. The limits of Christian identity are no longer at stake; rather human community is defined, in contradistinction to the extremes of the monstrous. Events have placed Christians in prison but the Saracens are also vulnerable, affording possibilities for pact and compromise. Crossing the boundaries between cultures allows new modes of community formation. Pascal Péron sees the Chétifs as a symbolic enactment of crusade because the shame of capture is effaced and the enemy converted.** Through their valour, the captives overcome oppression, continuing the crusade, otherwise. The other two texts have similar

moments. Garcion converts in Antioche after seeing the army of angels bring victory: ‘Mahom a deguerpi’ (11275) [he abandons Muhammed]. At the end of

Jérusalem, Cornumaran’s heart is removed from his body, and its size surprises everyone: ‘se il fust Crestiiens onques ne fust telz ber’ (9864) [if he had been Christian, there would never have been a greater warrior]. There is no horror at

this sameness. Despite attempts at distancing Saracens elsewhere, moves towards reconciliation prove uncontroversial. The shared roots of Islam and Christianity in the region, and in a Greek past, provide ground for reunion.*? Learning, chivalric values, and expertise in falconry and medicine united the diverse societies of the Mediterranean. Sharon Kinoshita speaks of a ‘shared culture of objects’, where luxury artefacts such as weapons, silk, fur, and ivory provided a privileged mode of connecting the distinct civilizations of the Mediterranean basin.4° In Antioche, a dead Saracen is buried with a sword 44 Les Croisés en Orient, p. 476. 45 See Bulliet, The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilisation, for a powerful account of Islam and Christianity’s shared roots and parallel early developments. 46 See especially her ‘Almerfa Silk and the French Feudal Imaginary’ and ‘Animals and the Medieval Culture of Empire’.

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forged by Irashels and completed by Wayland, the master smith of Germanic myth, before belonging in succession to Alexander the Great ‘ki le mont conquesta’ (5113) [who conquered the world], to Ptolemy, Judas Maccabeus, and Vespasian, who gave it to the Sepulchre, before the Saracen Corbadas bequeathed it to someone who betrayed Jerusalem (Antioche, 5093-147). The sword links antiquity and the present: Jews, Greeks, and Romans are prefigurations of Christian rule in the region, whereas the Saracen possession is associated with duplicity and illegitimacy, explicity critiquing Saracen claims to imperium.*” Another example is the sultan's tent, which ‘fu roi Alixandre’ (/érusalem, 6090) [belonged to King Alexander], and

which depicts the seven arts. Michelle Warren’s reading of the Roland points to the presence of such objects, which belie the poem's overall oppositional logic and indicate shared histories of trade and diplomacy.** Here, they are part of the oscillation between the denigration of Muslims as unworthy predecessors and the recognition that Islam is a sibling society. The idea that the very existence of Islam undercuts the universality of Christian empire is at times held at bay, and coexistence appears possible. The real enemy, then, is arguably the kings back home.*? At the start of Antioche, Urban II seeks ‘de France les nobiles barons’ (857) [the noble barons

of France] when he calls for crusade. Jesus predicts the coming of the Franks, but the king of France is too old to go. The position of the ‘second Charlemagne’, the prophesied last world emperor, remains vacant.*° There is no necessary relationship between Capetian France and the crusading Franks. In fact, those who answer the call—the most valiant and noblest Christians—become the Franks, God’s agents, the chosen few who are metonyms for the whole of Christianity. The First Crusade did not succeed in unifying the world, but it did crystallize the aristocracy’s sense of its mission. The Crusade Cycle becomes a celebration of those Western European nobles who were brave and devout enough to take the cross. The space of the hero remained vacant for much of the original trilogy— Jerusalem is glorified more than any character—but eventually the coronation of Godefroi secures meaning and links the tale to the north-east regions where it would long remain popular.*! This lone baron model, inspired by aristocratic nostalgia and taste for adventure, will shape Huon de Bordeaux, the Entrée d'Espagne, and Huon d'Auvergne. All draw on the Crusade Cycle’s combination of grand new ideas—the combination of war and pilgrimage, the liberation of Christians and holy sites, the marvellous and apocalyptic modes—with old patterns of violence, developing its model for feuding history whilst moving into crusading fantasy. ‘7 T draw here on the as yet unpublished thinking of Khanmohamadi on Saracen trans/atio in medieval narratives. 48 Creole Medievalism, pp. 173-4. ‘9 When the narrative is extended to the Third Crusade and Saladin in the various Jérusalem

continuations, the events of the Second Crusade, led by kings, are largely omitted (Jérusalem continuations, ed. Grillo, vu, 2, xxv).

°° See Buc, Holy War, Martyrdom, and Terror, p. 55 on this figure. >! Péron, Les Croisés en Orient, p. 242.

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DE BORDEAUX

This text has always sat uncomfortably within literary history, fitting especially badly within generic categories. Huon remains in the classic chanson de geste form of assonanced decasyllabic /aisses throughout, beginning and ending in the recognizable Carolingian universe. There are problems at court: traitors lure the heir to the throne into attempting to ambush the hero, Huon, whom they envy. The prince is then unwittingly killed by Huon. Huon is sent to the East, and the text now becomes a magical mystery tour, showing elements associated with romance, folklore, pilgrimage literature, the Crusade Cycle, and even Exodus,*? before finally returning to the court of Charlemagne. Because of this long central section, there have always been doubts about Huon’s credentials as a chanson de geste. Though the text names itself a ‘chanson’ (2; 10792), it is never integrated with

other epics. Of the three manuscripts of Huon, produced from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, two feature it alone, and the other combines it with continuations specifically written for it to make an Huon de Bordeaux cycle.°? It remains a work apart; hence there has been a long tradition of coming up with new labels. The first modern editors of Huon, Francois Guessard and Charles de Grandmaison, already displayed uncertainities: they considered it anomalous because it emerged at a time when chansons de geste were in decline and poémes daventure were growing in popularity.°4 He therefore called it a text ‘d'un genre mixte’.*° Since then, Huon has generally been termed a chanson de geste, but always with a caveat: it is, variously, a late attempt to renew a dying genre;*° or a chanson de geste that ‘gives itself over extensively to the charm of the merveilleux’;’ a ‘burlesque’ work;°® a ‘chanson

anhistorique’;>? or, finally, a ‘chanson d’aventure’.®° It incorporates alien material into an epic framework;®! and displays the ‘archetypes of romance’.°? Most recently, criticism has returned to the position initially espoused by Guessard, with Keith Busby declaring the text ‘hybrid’ because it traverses medieval genres in the figure of the magical dwarf Auberon, son of Julius Caesar—who, the text tells us, held Armenia, Austria, Hungary, and Constantinople—and of Morgan, Arthur's half-sister (16-26). For Busby, Auberon’s history ‘anchors the poem in both the classical and Arthurian traditions as well as in an early Austro-Hungarian empire and Byzantium’,°? meaning that the text belongs to all three of the matiéres into which Jehan Bodel divided literature: it combines the matiére de Bretagne, the matiére de France and the matiére de Rome.*4 Huon thus embodies the regeneration of holy war ideology in the thirteenth century that led to a renewal of the epic genre, opening the doors to an ever-broader °2 °4 °6 °8 60 61

Busby, ‘Narrative Genres’, pp. 144-5. 3 See Cazanave, D’Esclarmonde a Croissant. Huon de Bordeaux, ed. Guessard, p. ii. >> Huon de Bordeaux, ed. Kibler, p. v. Picherit, “Huon de Bordeaux’, p. 467. 7 Kibler, “Huon de Bordeaux’, p. 325. Rossi, Huon de Bordeaux, p. 461. °° Suard, La Chanson de geste, p. 57. Kibler, “La “Chanson d’aventures”’. Huon de Bordeaux, ed. Kibler and Suard, p. xxvi. 62 Calin, The Epic Quest, p. 175.

63 ‘Narrative Genres’, p. 144. See also Roussel (“Le Mélange des genres’), who suggests that late

chansons de geste mix styles rather than genres. 64 Busby, ‘Narrative Genres’, p. 144. For Bodel’s taxonomy, see La Chanson des Saisnes, lines 6-11.

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set of influences. Nostalgia for the importance of the aristocracy as leaders of crusade combined with a drive to regeneration. In turn, Huon became an important model for later chansons de geste with a lightly Christianized marvellous and fairyland adventure tinged with oriental or Arthurian elements.°° It appealed, then, in the same way as the Crusade Cycle that expanded around the figure of Godefroi. Huon itself was rewritten in the fifteenth century—in Alexandrines and in prose—before its printing as popular literature from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. It gave rise to numerous theatrical versions up to the twentieth century.°° Most famously, Huon was performed by Moliére’s troupe, and Auberon provided the inspiration for the figure of Oberon in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The thirteenth-century chanson de geste version creates a blend of disparate materials—a blend that proved so popular—within the frame of a clash between king and baron. Marguerite Rossi places Huon, likely written around 1260, in the context of Louis [X’s troubles with his barons, who felt that their liberties were not being respected in judicial reforms, which gave the king the right to punish any citizen and restricted judicial duels.°” Whereas Louis was attempting to combine crusading efforts with moral and religious reforms at home, including regulation of royal officials and attacks on Jews and heretics, Huon prefers to divorce the two, making holy war an exit from an unreconstructed Carolingian West characterized by familiar failures. Huon’s opening court scene—Charles has gathered many different regional groups to pay him homage, and the eleven peers are there, but not Huon, the twelfth—trecalls Aspremont (see Chapter 3 of this volume) where the

king’s inability to bring to court the hero, Girart, calls attention to lacunae in his supposedly all-encompassing power. Then, the homicide of the king’s relative by a baron who is subsequently exiled evokes Renaut de Montauban, just as the animosity between Charlot and a pre-eminent noble parallels La Chevalerie dOgier; indeed in Huon, Charles recalls the troubles caused by Charlot, who drove him to war against Ogier (126-216) (see Chapter 2 of this volume on Renaut and Ogier).

Huon thus sets itself after the action of Ogier, with Charles 200 years old and worried about dynastic succession. He laments Charlot’s inadequacies and calls for alternative monarchic candidates, hinting at troubles within the system of hereditary kingship and anticipating Carolingian decline. But Charlot is eventually recognized as the rightful heir. Preparations are made for his coronation, including a long speech by Charles on the duties of a king: he must be feared everywhere and tolerate no opposition (232-48).

An implicit threat from court, and then than Charlot, Huon already accused Huon

to royal power comes from Huon, first through his absence through his presence. Clearly a much better potential king is made Charles’s standard-bearer. The traitor Amauri had of betraying the king through his failure to offer tribute and

6° My comments about the political nature of Huon de Bordeaux could therefore be extended to many fourteenth-century epics, such as Lion de Bourges, Tristan de Nanteuil, and La Belle Hélene de Constantinople, as well as the cyclic prolongations of Huon, Renaut de Montauban, and the Crusade Cycle. See Roussel, ‘L-Automne de la chanson de geste’, on Huon’s influence. 66 See Cazanave, ‘Huon de Bordeaux au théatre’. 67 Huon de Bordeaux, pp. 296-311.

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military service (250-77), and now he convinces Charlot that Huon represents a threat to his inheritance (504-9). Manipulated thus, the prince agrees to the ambush

in which he is killed by Huon. Overcome by sorrow, the king demands that Huon be hanged. ‘The barons refuse, but Charles rejects all pleas. Yet there is a new twist to the scenario. Charles contorts the law to give Huon an impossible task: he must bring back the beard of the emir of Babylon as well as four teeth ripped from his head. He should kill the first person he sees at dinner, kiss the emir’s daughter and demand a huge tribute including 1,000 sparrowhawks, 1,000 bears and 1,000 dogs (2376-409). The barons are shocked: Dient Fransoy: “Vous le vollez titer! — ‘Per foid’, dit Charle, ‘vous dite veriteit, Car cil ne puet .iiii. dant raporter, La blanche barbe Gaudisse l’amirel, Et moult bien faire creable a mon hosteit Que il li ait de la geulle getér, Maix ne revaingnet en France le rengnez, Car jel feroie au fourché encrower’.

(2410-17)

[The French say: “You mean to kill him! “My word’, says Charles, ‘you speak the truth, for if he cannot bring back four teeth and the white beard of Gaudisse the emir, and prove to my household that he tore them from his head, then he should never come back to the kingdom of France, because | will have him hanged’.]

Charles formally offers clemency, but effectively seeks capital punishment. Baronial counsel limits his power somewhat, so he finds a way around it. The sovereign is at the extremities of the social order, where contradictions lie. Charles's rule resembles Aquinas’s description of tyrannical law (see further Chapter 1 of this volume): not the absence of law, but a travesty of law that has law’s violent characteristics without justice.°* In Huon de Bordeaux, royal pronouncements retain the force of law not because of their moral power to compel, but only because the barons lack any means of opposing them. When Huon returns with the teeth and beard of the emir, Charles tries to hang him ona technicality: Huon was supposed to bring them to Charles before returning to Bordeaux: Je vous puez bien et pandre et trayner San jugement de nul homme charnel, Car au mobvoir je vous ot devisér. (10213-15) [I can have you hanged and dragged behind horses without needing the sanction of any living man, because I set out the conditions when you left.]

Charles here sets the conditions for forgiveness, and then judges himself whether the baron lives up to them. Although he subsequently agrees to submit the trial to his barons’ judgment, they work within Charles’s parameters and can only in effect ratify the decision. The right to judgment by one’s peers here offers no protection. 68 Summa theologiae, 1.ii q. 92.

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Respect for custom and convention is reduced to a sham. Whereas in the Roland, Charles was untrammelled by respect for custom (see Chapter 4 of this volume),

he is now unfettered by morality. However, Naymes beats the sovereign at his own game by invoking another technicality: a peer must be judged in Paris, Orléans, or Saint-Omer. Charles is angered, and the justice system appears set to be thwarted

by his passions at every turn. Eventually, the magical assistance of the dwarf Auberon, who scares Charles out of his wits, allows the establishment of a new pact between the baron and the sovereign. As Rossi argues, all the innovations of text serve to resolve the faulty king—baron relationship.® The bulk of Hwon thus serves as an antidote to the first part, contrary to William Calin’s declaration that the text reacts to contemporary problems by ‘escaping from them’,”° and to William Kibler and Francois Suard’s notion of a long suspension of the struggle between emperor and vassal.”! Huon avoids the

impasse of texts such as La Chevalerie d’Ogier and Renaut de Montauban, where the king’s desire to hang the rebel baron is long frustrated, or Girart de Rousillon, with its protracted wars, or, finally Aspremont, with its stalemate conclusion (see

Chapter 3 of this volume on the latter two texts). New generic elements remain within an overall ‘political unconscious’, constituted by the latent content of social antagonism, which drives the seemingly non-epic features. For Jameson, formal features are ‘sedimented content in their own right... carrying ideological messages of their own, distinct from the ostensible or manifest content of the works’.7? Huon’s exile is thus both an expiatory exercise allowing for the repair of his relationship with Charles and a justificatory one in which he proves his worth. He accepts the scapegoating that Renaut and Ogier refuse, only to later work against it. As Calin points out, Huon wins absolution in the eyes of secular justice even before his departure, through a judicial combat; then through clerical justice when

the pope forgives him, before finally taking mass in Jerusalem, thus settling with divine justice.?? The model of a chosen human army that shaped the core of the Crusade Cycle is abandoned, with an individual hero the ultimate moral self and agent of crusade. Huon’s righteousness will feed the universalism of his message. At the same time, the eastern Mediterranean site of Jerusalem becomes a stopping point on the way to the Orient beyond. Huon’s quest thus revises the model of

pilgrimage, with the real challenges coming after he passes the Holy Land, in a diverse and forbidding Orient that includes savage lands such as ‘Femmenie’, a barren territory where women are infertile, animals remain motionless, and no sun shines. At one stage, Auberon cries out of compassion for Huon, who will suffer greatly (3926-34); this is the noble anguish which Jameson sees as typifying the ‘epic’ mode of writing, a description that most immediately recalls the lone Christian baron fighting for king and country against the infidel. However, Huon overall rejects the model of masochistic self-sacrifice to a cause, and instead turns to the fantastical East, recalling Jameson’s definition of the fairy tale, ‘a systematic °° Huon de Bordeaux, p. 612. 70 ‘The Epic Quest, pp. 174-5. 7! Huon de Bordeaux, ed. Kibler and Suard, p. xxiv. 7” ‘The Political Unconscious, p. 84. 73 The Epic Quest, pp. 178-9.

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deconstruction and undermining of the hegemonic aristocratic form of the epic, with its somber ideology of heroism and baleful destiny’.”4 All struggle tends towards eventual success and social reintegration. The tough life on the margins moves from necessity to adventure.

In the East, there are frequent recalls of the West to limn everything in relation to Huon’s antagonism with Charles. For example, Huon cries:

Ay! roy Charle, ci Dieu qui tout formait, Il toy pardont le mal que tu mais fait, Car san meffait del paiis chaissiér mais. (5737-9) [Oh King Charles, may God who created everything forgive the wrong you have done to me, because you exiled me from the country though I had committed no crime.]

A reading of Huon’s adventures in terms of the failure of Carolingian justice is here explicitly called for, and the text gradually substitutes for the ethical opacity of affairs at court a black-and-white paradigm of good and evil. At home, the enemy clan of traitors cannot be assimilated, because their evil never ceases and all their offspring perpetuate malign patterns of behaviour (see Chapter 2 of this volume on the epic problem of traitors at the royal court). Nor can the traitors be destroyed: they are fellow barons with a place in the king’s favour. Furthermore, a baron cannot dispose of his king. However tyrannical Charles's actions, he remains rightful king and emperor. All this creates an impasse: injustices cannot be righted because evil resides in immovable social and political entities. The corrupt elite, always able to hide behind its veneer of legitimacy, will never be eradicated. The enemies Huon fights on his travels are instead manifest incarnations of malevolence: the East is haunted by a tyrannical, 18-foot, red-eyed giant, called POrgueilleux: Beelzebub is his father and his family are monsters in hell (4974-9). Later, Huon must defeat ’Orgueilleux’s brother Agrapart, a 14-foot giant (6496— 506). Huon also vanquishes his own uncle, a traitor named Dudon, a negative image of Huon, who was exiled after attempting regicide, subsequently choosing the path of apostasy and wickedness. Dudon now torments and martyrs Christians. He cannot drink from Huon’s enchanted goblet because of his sin (4248-312),

and thus, like the two giants, is marked as evil. By representing the false way, he indicates the correctness of Huon. These figures pair deviant religion with monstrosity and oppression. When Huon defeats them, he corrects the movement of history, releasing the good repressed in the East by vanquishing evil that had until now been triumphant. Such simple good/evil oppositions result at times in a crusade ethics of convert or die, when the text’s romantic and folkloric mystifications are stripped away. After the capture of Babylon, conversion is obligatory: “Roy Auberon ait fait le banc crieir: |Que Dieu vault croire, il mi avrait ja meil’ (6964-5) [King Auberon cries out his order: whoever chooses to believe in God will be

spared harm]. This echoes the cry to baptism which follows the defeat of Dudon (4556-60). Forced conversions were valorized in the thirteenth century, with violence

seen as a necessary part of breaking the bonds tying humans to damnation, potentially 74° The Political Unconscious, p. 71. Jameson draws on Ernst Bloch at this point.

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leading to subsequent, willed conversion and freedom of spirit.’”? Missions, especially to Asia, were being mounted.7° Here, then, Huon is performing Christian missionary work. Later, when Huon finds himself in the service of the Saracen King Yvori, he fights his Christian companion Geriaume, also in Saracen employ. During the battle, they recognize one another, and then unite in gleeful combat against the common Saracen enemy, massacring the inhabitants of Aufalerne: “Nez ung tout soul ne laissent eschepper’ (8479) [they do not allow a single one to escape]. The annihilation of difference is to be complete: everything non-Christian—be it a horrible giant or a forbidden, enchanted paradise—must either submit to Christian law, or be obliterated. If conversions were not the overt aim of crusading in the First Crusade, here they play a larger role, as Huon argues for the incorporation of other cultures into Chrisitanity. Whereas the West has no place for the hero, the East is ready-made for him: there are giants to defeat, tyrants to overthrow, Saracens to convert, a maiden (the

Saracen princess Esclarmonde) to save, challenges to overcome, and riches to be gained. This is a pure orientalist fantasy: the East awaits the arrival of the Western hero. The Saracens cannot construct society without him because they are always already thwarted by alterity (tyranny, giants, falsity). Huon, on the other hand, unexpectedly finds allies, friends, and even relatives: just as Huon despairs for his lack of supplies, he meets Geriaume, who becomes his guide (2948-3143). The Christian hero finds himself more at home in the East than do the Easterners; it is

as if Christendom were always already global. There are problems, but for each one a solution, including magical friends: Huon has a sea sprite called Malabron as well as Auberon as his adjuvant. The latter, more importantly, works as an alternative sovereign. Huon often disregards Auberon’s instructions, but the dwarf always shows him mercy. For example, Huon disobeys him by attacking Dudon, yet he still comes to his aid. Later, however, when Huon refuses to comply once more, and travels to Dunostre to fight l’Orgueilleux, he has to win without Auberon’s assistance. Huon admits that ‘grant oultraige and grant folleteit’ (5006) [great recklessness and great

folly] led him there. Later he lies to gain access to Babylon and thus loses Auberon’s friendship: the narrator states ‘si fist Hue, per sa grant niceteit’ (5559) [Huon did

this through great naivety]. He is punished by a tempest after his desire pushes him to break Auberon’s command not to sleep with Esclarmonde before they reach Rome (6997-7105). Consequently, she is taken away by pirates, whereas Huon is tied up and his triumphant return home is postponed. But overall, there is an unambiguous contract between the two, standing in clear contrast to Charles's irrational rule. Auberon punishes Huon regretfully, not wrathfully, and he always offers reconciliation.’”” Defined, with obvious Christian overtones, by his love, he

cherishes Huon for his good qualities, such as loyalty (3488). Auberon’s final message to the hero is anything but subversive:

7 Buc, Holy War, Martyrdom, and Terror, pp. 224-5. 7° See the account in Khanmohamadi, Jn Light ofAnother’ Word, pp. 57-87. ”” Auberon looks something like John of Salisbury’s model ruler, who punishes wrongdoers mournfully and with groans: Policraticus, iv, 8 (see Chapter 1 of this volume).

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Se te deffant sor lez mambre coper Que ver le roy n’aie mais estriver. Tez sire est, se li dois foid porter.

(10763-5)

[I forbid you on pain of dismemberment to have any disagreement with the king. He is your lord, and you owe him fidelity.]

Charles's authority is strengthened. The text argues for imperial hierarchy, suggesting that the emperor is best served by barons who conquer oriental territories on his behalf. A reformed Huon is the embodiment of the new crusader. Yet the transformative effect goes beyond to a corrective or substitute role. The East is not a mere obverse of the West, but also represents a different, utopian vision. There are no material considerations and no class struggles; this is a realm of magical wish-fulfilments and fantasies of plenty. The lands are as alluring as they are unfamiliar: oriental treasures will be won by the brave Westerner. Huon finds Utopia in the emir’s garden, where every known tree is found and which features a fountain of youth (5660-884). Jerusalem had already been described in such terms in crusade propaganda: Urban II’s speech, as reported by Robert the Monk, describes it as a paradise of delights, where milk and honey flow; Les Chétifs also adopts the utopian mode by describing the Euphrates as blessed, coming from the paradise from which God ejected Adam (10-14). In Huon, the utopian vision

serves as a microcosm of the thinking of the entire text, the crusade dream of uniting all of humanity into a giant family, under one God. But whereas Antioche and Jérusalem glory in violence as the means to Utopia, Huon tries either to mask it, or to show more clearly how conflicts aim to reach a place beyond conflict, where war is no more because all potential enemies have been brought onside. This tendency is itself a utopian impulse, portraying bellicose relations as a mere stage in the development of a more inclusive society. Huon reacts to unease about the value of holy war as a solution to cultural difference by rewriting the horrors of crusade as fairy-tale fantasy. The Utopia remains a strictly Christian vision—the Saracen who does not convert cannot be thought of as a fellow human and must be destroyed—and even the marvellous elements of the text come within a Christian cosmology. Auberon’s magical powers are attributed to Jesus; he uses them for Christian ends, and he will have a seat in heaven when he dies (3487-562). There

is no outside: the same optimism shapes medieval mappaemundi and crusader propaganda, which imply that diverse Christian lands will eventually be united. Ideologically, then, the text embodies the triumph of one society, one culture, one religion. It reinvents Christian universalism through magic and mystification, and thus offers a utopian approach to diversity, where everyone is integrated into one society, one culture, one religion. As Jameson contends, the utopian and the ideological work in tandem.’® Whereas it has been a standard gesture of postmodern criticism to reveal the violence behind grand visions of progress and community, or to demystify the crusading ethos, Huon de Bordeaux recognizes the dream that lies at the heart of all ideology. 78 The Political Unconscious, p. 277.

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The utopian practice of the text does not stop there. Huon participates in both a sacrificial narrative where he makes the renunciations necessary to sustain the symbolic pact and a fantasy one where he wins everything. He makes peace with

Charles but also becomes Charles's equal, his counterpart in the East, as heir to Auberon’s kingdom. The text thus returns to the gritty political realities of court life in France, but also leaves the door open for another departure into the imaginary. It creates Utopia: the West is corrected, and a more perfect West is forged, in the East. Thus Europe is decentred at the end, and another Christian space created. The logic is ‘both...and...’, as the text reconciles oppositions. The last word goes to Auberon, a hybrid, unusual helper, who conjoins the great lineages of Arthur and the Roman emperors and exceeds the opposition between the marvellous and the Christian. The bricolage of genres becomes a way of getting over an impasse. Genre

is a splitting and dividing concept, but in Huon, there are a plethora of different matieres, as befits Jameson’s mantra that ‘generic specification and description can...be transformed into the detection of a host of distinct generic messages’.”? These messages involve various echoes of fallen empires—Roman, Arthurian, Carolingian, Byzantine—prototypes of the next empire, the one Huon forges, which will unite the world. Huon was an embarrassment to royal power, but finally becomes a sovereign. King and baron have incompatible desires, yet both win out. Thus the conclusion of Huon de Bordeaux does not simply restore the status quo ante: Huon ends the text materially richer, politically more powerful, and spiritually worthier than he starts it. Charles's cupidity is also satisfied, and the situation at his court is stabilized. This makes for an ideal outcome: struggle is eliminated in a happy ever after ending. And like Godefroi de Bouillon, Huon would be rewarded with his own cycle, his narrative long remaining popular. L’ENTREE D’ESPAGNE An original FPranco-Italian epic, L’Entrée d’Espagne is extant only in Venice,

Biblioteca Marciana, fr. XXI, which may have been commissioned for the Carrara family of Padua before coming into the collection of the Gonzaga nobles of Mantua sometime before their 1407 library inventory was drawn up.®° The material likely had a wider Italian circulation: two fragments survive; there are mentions of other copies in library inventories, and the later Italian Spagna tradition is fuller.®! The author remains anonymous: ‘sui Patavian, | De la citez que fist Antenor le Troian’

(10974—-5)

[I am

a Paduan,

from the city that Antenor

the Trojan

founded].8? The Entrée tells of Charlemagne’s conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, long before Roland’s martyrdom at Roncevaux which is announced here by an (albidespuco: 8° Bisson, // fondo francese della Biblioteca Marciana di Venezia, p. 102. See my ‘Multilingualism and Empire in LEntrée d'Espagne’ on language, and further on Franco-Italian my ‘Linguistic and Political Ferment in the Franco-Italian Epic’. 81 Infurno’s ‘Premessa’ records the evidence (p. xi). A Franco-Italian continuation known as the Prise de Pamplune is also extant. 8? Marsilius of Padua identifies himself in the same way (see Chapter 1 of this volume).

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angel (15033—66).83 If the text works as a prologue to the Roland, it also has

intertexts with the rebel baron epics, notably because of Charles’s difficulties in maintaining coalitions for holy war (see Chapter 2 of this volume).84 He has a dispute with the ‘Alemans’ or “Tiois’ [Germans] who are sent to fetch wood; they feel humiliated and rebel, leading to internecine violence (6768-7153). More signifi-

cant, though, are Charles's disagreements with Roland, which culminate when the latter takes the city of Nobles against royal orders.*° Though Roland succeeds, Charles is livid. He demands Roland’s execution, saying he will chase him more than “Galaaz por le Graal en queste’ (9230) [Galahad questing for the Grail]. When the barons refuse, Charles strikes Roland, provoking his flight into eastern exile.

There, a multilingual Roland ingratiates himself by saving the sultan of Persia’s daughter from dishonour, and teaches the Persians Western courtesy and chivalry. He returns to Spain where Charles has almost finished his bloody conquest. The text ends on a contrast between two kinds of crusade: Charles claims Spain as his ‘nos droit heritaje’ (1004) [our rightful heritage], whereas the narrator describes

Syria as ‘nostres heritage’ (11824) [our heritage]. Charles is repeatedly linked with Caesar (for example, 6579), whereas Roland is a ‘senator romain’ (for example, 2250) [Roman senator], with command of a squadron of papal troops.®° As well as signalling his independence and placing him ‘in the ranks of global governing authority’,®” this title makes Roland the personification of good administrative power, and of a broader imperialism beyond the boundaries of the Carolingian Empire. Attached to the great empires of antiquity, Roland also identifies with Alexander the Great, disguises himself as a Saracen merchant, and speaks oriental tongues. He thus embodies a diverse and sophisticated model of heroism, rulership and cultural conquest that has, as with other fourteenth-century epics, been elaborated by drawing on a range of genres.88 Roland plays a full part in the Spanish campaign in the first half of the text. The author claims that he was asked to rhyme the Pseudo-Turpin, because it is difficult for non-literates to understand (46-56), and that chronicle is the likely source for Roland’s battle against the giant Saracen Feragu, described as ‘le Satanas’ (1298) [satan] and ‘l’Antecris’ (1362) [the Antichrist]. Other knights, including Ogier,

already have failed to defeat him. A long battle, during which Roland’s prayers include Latin lines, culminates in a theological debate where Roland explains the Trinity—via the metaphor of the candle: wax, wick, and flame work together as one—the Immaculate Conception, and the meaning of the death of Jesus. Feragu

83 For Sturm-Maddox (“Non par orgoil, mais por senefiance”’) Roland is made humbler here to prepare for this martyrdom. 84 Bradley-Comey, Authority and Autonomy, explores these links in full. 85 The city appears as a conquest of Roland's in many works. In the Oxford Roland, Ganelon mentions that Roland defied Charles's orders to take it (1775).

86 Vallecalle (“Roland sénateur de Rome dans /Entrée d‘Espagne’) sees this as an Italian move, glorifying the city as much as Roland, and relating him to the medieval podesta as well as to the Roman Republic. 87 Bradley-Comey, Authority and Autonomy, p. 175. 88 As I outlined in the Introduction, I do not find these features to be specific to Italian epics, but common to fourteenth-century epics written in various locales.

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is almost swayed by Roland’s rhetorical and exegetical skill, praising him for having been a ‘bon escoler’ (3879) [good pupil], but he resists. Roland knows the giant's

one weak point—his belly button—and kills him (4000-182), thus effectively proving his own theological arguments correct. Matthias Tischler notes how the Pseudo-Turpin’s version of this battle connotes David and Goliath,®? and Roland here suspects that Feragu is ‘de lignaje al jaiant Goliais’ (3549) [from the lineage of

the giant Goliath]. On Tischler’s reading, David embodies the victory of wit and intelligence over brute strength. Both Roland and David save their lands from foreign or pagan dominion. Only one faith is allowed to survive the verbal, then the physical, combat. A binary view of cultural and religious difference rules here, but gives way to nuance as the song opens onto a wider, more diverse, multilingual space. When Roland goes into exile, the Latinate, biblical model of the Pseudo-Turpin is left behind and a broad group of intertexts is recruited, making the Entrée into a dialogue of ideas. Medievalists have detected knowledge of Virgil and Livy, of Arthurian romances, of Beuve d’Hamptone, and of the romances of antiquity, including the Troy story (as already noted, the author thinks that Padua was founded by Trojans (10974—5)).° The principal inspiration for a renewed Roland, however, is Alexander, the author’s ‘livre de chevet’ [bedside-table book].?! Roland

identifies with Alexander even before, but more strongly after, seeing depictions of his feats at Nobles; for Roland, Alexander conquered through ‘largece’ (10431) [generosity]. The Entrée connects here with the vast Old French Alexander narra-

tive tradition, which combines historiography, romance, saints’ lives, crusade history, travel narratives, and epics, a model for the Enzrée’s own generic fusions.?” Alexander, whose unique amalgam of munificence, desire for war, and drive for knowledge made him conqueror, explorer, and wise ruler all at once, serves as a new paradigm for Roland, bringing him above the status of Charlemagne’s favourite.?? Known for moral virtues and linguistic and rhetorical skill as much as for military valour,?* Alexander is probably the only hero whose appeal is genuinely multicultural and transhistorical. For Dante, Alexander was the closest anyone had ever come to achieving universal monarchy,”’ and the Alexander intertexts here bring imperial legitimacy, Alexander being the key precedent for an eastern empire just as Charlemagne is for western imperium. They are also a paradigm for defeating forces superior in number; Roland takes inspiration from Alexander's 89 “Modes of Literary Behaviour in Christian-Islamic Encounters in the Iberian Peninsula. °° Brook, ‘Allusions a l’antiquité gréco-latine dans /'Entrée d’Espagne’, ‘More Epic than Romance’; Limentani, ‘Entrée d'Espagne e Milione’, ‘Presenza di Virgilio e tracce d’epica latina nei poemi francoitaliani?’. Roland is favourably compared to Paris (3160).

°! Limentani, ‘Presenza di Virgilio e tracce d’epica latina nei poemi franco-italiani?’, p. 145, n. 1. See further Infurna, ‘Roman d’Alexandre’. *? Cruse, Illuminating the ‘Roman d‘Alexandre’, p. 4. °° The Entrée takes only the positive elements of Alexander, who was elsewhere a figure for ambition and lack of restraint; he was an agent of destruction in the Old Testament book of Daniel 8:5—8 and 11 and in Maccabees 1:1, 3-5. References are in Maddox and Sturm-Maddox, ‘Introduction’,

pPulG, nwo).

°* Sturm-Maddox, ‘Roland épigone d’Alexandre dans |’Entrée d’Espagne’. °° Dante, De Monarchia, u, 8.8.

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legend in the war against the Saracen king Malgidant (13294-5). In the eastern part of the narrative, the Alexander tradition also furnishes a set of landmarks for the boundaries of the known world. Roland notes that Alexander set out the ‘voie’ (10434) [path] for conquest, and he takes that path not just symbolically but also literally, to Gog and Magog (13849), where he finds two statues made by Alexander when he defeated Darius (13851).?° Following Alexander means going as far as it

is humanly possible to go.?” Charlemagne did not venture to the farthest reaches of human civilization, but the East is Roland’s destiny. Thus Roland’s explorations stretch out into cosmography, whereas the lines of history converge upon him, as heir to the greats. The influence of another great explorer, Marco Polo, can also be felt in these moments, as well as in Roland’s survey of the customs and economies of the East

as he recruits an army for the sultan.?8 balanced through Marco’s model of There are some Eastern wonders such nothing but eat and drink, and where

The marvels of the Alexander tradition are classifying, negating, and rationalizing.°? as Sidoigne, the land where the people do hospitality dictates that a host must offer

strangers a night with his wife (13856—86). But Roland avoids going to this coun-

try, and himself becomes the real marvel of the Enzrée.!°° His superior physical qualities are admired: “Dés, cun l’esgardent cil Pain meschreii’ (13649) [By God,

these pagan non-believers stared long and hard at him!]. But most importantly, just as Marco Polo’s knowledge of languages contributes to his self-image as confi-

dant of the khan,!®! Roland’s multilingualism proves a key attribute: ‘Rollant estoit apris de maint latin, | Car il savoit Grecois, Surien et Ermin’ (11522-3)

[Roland had mastered many languages for he knew Greek, Syrian, and Armenian]. He speaks ‘en le lengaje Persans’ (12277) [in the Persian language] to convince the sultan to allow him to defend his daughter. Throughout this eastern section, the

author displays his interest in linguistic difference, as here: Por flums Jordans istrent dou port merage; Menent la nef cuntremont les rivage;

De jor en jor, par gant de maint lengaige, En plusor leus paierent les pasaige.

(11825-8)

[They came out of the maritime port of the river of Jordan and sailed the ship along the coast; each day, in many different places belonging to peoples of many languages, they paid for passage.| When a pagan says that Roland looks like a Frank or a Lombard (11923), Roland

says he is from Spain, implying that his Western European appearance does not °6 Cruse, Illuminating the ‘Roman d’Alexandre’, p. 103. 97 Akbari sees the Alexander narratives as ‘a sprawling account of the marvels of the world’ (/dols in the East, p. 91).

°8 Limentani, ‘Entrée d'Espagne e Milione’. °9 See Harf-Lancner (‘From Alexander’) for a reading that contrasts the two.

100 Gaunt (Marco Polo, pp. 122-3) notes how the Polo brothers function as the first marvels of the Devisement. 101 Gaunt, Marco Polo, p. 103. The thirteenth-century prose Alexander specifies that he speaks the Indian language of his subjects (Warren, “Take the World by Prose’, p. 152).

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necessarily make him a religious enemy. He then presents himself to the sultan as a low-born merchant who earned the title of knight (12137-50). Critics have

standardly seen the emphasis on social mobility here as particularly Italian,'°? but

in fact this tendency was present in earlier epics and is accentuated in later ones which are not from Italy (see, for example, my reading of Hugues Capetin Chapter 2). More importantly, merchants link culturally different worlds; in the medieval Mediterranean, merchants would often claim foreign citizenship in order to seek protections and privileges, thus inhabiting a space of cultural indeterminacy.'°? Roland here opens an opportunity to prove his worth through saving the sultan’s daughter Dionés from Malgidant, her horrible betrothed, by winning a duel against his nephew Pelias (12184-3197). The sultan appreciates Roland, seeing him as the best in the eastern Mediterranean: ‘l’ons dit qu'il n’a sun per jusque au port de Mesine’ (13558) [they say he has no equal between here and the port of Messina]. Roland becomes governer and organizes the military defence of the sultan’s lands against the vengeful Malgidant. He does not embody bourgeois Italian values, but rather resembles the ideal ruler of late medieval political theory, a learned, eloquent, and skilled technocrat. He spreads to the East the new model of good governance. Like many Saracen princesses, Dionés falls for the handsome Christian soldier, but unlike, say, Guillaume of the twelfth-century Prise d’Orange, Roland rejects her, and conquers not through the intermediary of the Saracen maiden, but through what we might term soft power, or cultural influence. This is a ‘civilizing mission’.!°* Roland disseminates what are presented as Western Christian ideas. The narrator had anticipated that he would ‘fer en cortoisie retorner li villa’ (10962)

[bring the peasants back to courtliness], suggesting that Roland will

restore best practice to a perverted East. He teaches the squires of the court how to fence, to honour and serve, and to be generous to the poor (1370422); he also

explains table manners, encouraging the use of individual plates instead of the ‘anciene custume’ (13973) [old custom] of one shared plate. Only some Saracens

are worthy of this education; as Jean-Claude Vallecalle notes, Roland can distinguish good Saracens from bad ones like Malgidant, who is ‘despiteus e felon’ (12203) [despicable and villainous].'°° As in Les Chétifs, a Christian thus helps

Saracens against other Saracens.'°° The political divisions of the West are paralleled by those in the East, and the image of two blocs is nuanced. Roland helps conquer Jerusalem, and the sultan and his subjects convert.!°” A Frank marries Dionés and becomes king of Jerusalem; the Entrée here matches other late epics in retaining Jerusalem as a focus even as its wider view takes in more distant oriental lands.

102 Bradley-Comey, Authority and Autonomy; Krauss, Epica feudale e pubblico borghese; Vitullo, The Chivalric Epic in Medieval Italy. 103 See Kinoshita, “Noi siamo mercatanti cipriani’. 104 Sturm-Maddox, ‘E fer en cortoisie retorner li villan’, p. 297. 105 ‘Roland est sage’, p. 76. It also shapes the contemporary epic Tristan de Nanteuil (Picherit, ‘Les Sarrasins’). There is a lacuna in the manuscript here; Thomas’ edition gives Gautier’s reconstruction of events based on other surviving versions (pp. xviii—xix).

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The trust Roland gains through linguistic ability paves the way for conversions

to Christianity. When Roland first arrived in the East, his cultural compatibility undercut his religious difference, but eventually, his spreading of culture allows for religious unity. Roland also indicates some willingness to compromise; he respects

the cultures of the East and is astounded by the beauty of Mecca: ‘non sunt si belle ni Roume ni Paris’ (11843) [neither Rome nor Paris is as beautiful]. Reciprocal

gazes shape the encounter, each civilization proving a marvel to the other.!° Whereas Huon de Bordeaux remained somewhat militaristic, the Entrée seeks

peaceful modes of cultural influence. Roland mimics Saracen faith, saying to the sultan ‘Mahons et Apolins vos serunt in aie’ (13290) [Muhammed and Apollo will

help you], and he joins their worship, though ‘en sun cuer reclama le Rois de maisté’ (13632) [in his heart he prays to God]. The tendency to syncretism cul-

minates in a prayer by Dionés: she mentions Jesus as a prophet, betrayed by the Jews, who are condemned along with Moses. Muhammed was sent by God ‘in segunde eslizion’ (12846) [as the second chosen one]. He and Jesus each sit on thrones next to God, and ‘Les Cristians et les Saracins bon |En Parais avec eus san iron’ (12856—7) [good Christians and Saracens will go to heaven with them].

Limentani saw this as a comic episode,!°? and indeed Dionés seems like a partly converted Saracen princess. More seriously, however, the sense of Christendom and Islam as sibling societies emerges here. There are more doctrinal similarities than differences, and Christian and Islamic social histories were intertwined, each

one going through parallel early stages of development. By recognizing this truth, the Entrée flies in the face of most epics and of much modern ideology, suggesting that the clash of civilizations is far from inevitable. The sultan’s son Samson even-

tually asks ‘Leisiés moi aler veoir les giens de France | Por aprandre prouece e largece e siance’ (14277—8) [Let me go to see the people of France, to learn prow-

ess, generosity, and science].'!° He later becomes a peer, replacing his namesake, a Christian killed at Pamplona. Thus Frankish chivalry is renewed by recruiting from the ranks of the old enemy. In the early stages of the text, a shared knightly culture was already latent: Estout surrenders to Feragu, trusting in the generosity of his opponent (1487—90); Roland has given his word to the Saracen prisoner Ysoré that he will protect him, and wants to exchange him for Estout.'!! The practice of respecting and exchanging prisoners, found in Les Chétifs, remains in force. Later, Pelias shows no care about Roland’s religion, respecting him for chivalry (13086—9).

These moments are not uncommon in epics, but the Entrée takes the spirit of them and goes further.

108 See Khanmohamadi (/n Light ofAnothers Word, p. 87) for a reading of William of Rubruck’s mission to Mongolia in these terms. 109 “Tl comico nell’ Entrée d’Espagne e il suo divenire’, pp. 136-9. 110 Bancourt thought that the Entrée displayed a syncretism between Islam and Christianity (Les Musulmans dans les chansons de geste du Cycle du roi, p. 566); Ailes however notes that the Christians do not compromise their religion: ‘this is a syncretism by Muslims’ (“Tolerated Otherness’, p. 14 n. 38). 111 Jubb, ‘Enemies in the Holy War, but Brothers in Chivalry’, p. 253.

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The East is demystified, presented as a place of thriving civilizations rather than

mystery and monsters. The marvels are heights of human achievement, rather than unnatural curiosities. Both the Entrée and Huon de Bordeaux reduce the fear of the East through their lone heroes. Christianity is superior not because it stands for humanity against evil and monstrosity, but because it is a rational culture taking leadership amongst other rational cultures through language, education, and diplomacy. The intellectual dimension to Roland facilitates cultural conquest. But Roland ultimately proves much less comfortable in the West. His boat lands in Spain, and one of his companions says: Ja savons les langajes de Spagne le garnie; Se Carles en Espagne ert ou la baronie, Bien le savrons trover, demandant la contrie;

Le langaje Espanois nos fera grant ahie. (14394-7) [We know well the languages of the realm of Spain; if Charles or the barons are in Spain, we will certainly be able to find them by asking the way; the Spanish language will be of great use to us.]

Mono- and multilingual visions of Spain stand in tension here: does it have one language or many? I have translated ‘langaje Espanois’ as ‘Spanish’, but with which language should this be identified? Is it Arabic? Linguistic difference in Spain was evident at the start, too: Marsile has a letter to Charlemagne written ‘en le romans

lengaje’ (420) [in the romance language]. The text perceives of contact zones between faiths and languages; Roland is foreign in another. Shortly afterwards, Roland meets some claims unconvincingly to be Spanish-born. A brigand says

Spain as one of a series equipped for one but Saracen brigands and ‘je croi ge il ment: |Il

non parle la lange d’Espagne droitement’ (14545-6) [I think he is lying: he does

not speak the Spanish language correctly]. This final section contrasts two imperialisms: the cultural variety practised by Roland in the East, and the military one of Charles in Spain. This is the spectacle Roland and his companions see when they return: Donch roit uns de trois qi ne muast color,

Quant plus de cent oucis s'i veoient d’entor. ‘Segnor’, ce dit Rolant, ‘non soiés en iror;

Voiremant some prés de l’ost P'anpereor. Ci mistrent Crestien maint Paien an tristor:

Des coup i a d’Oliver e do roi mon segnor, De Hostous, de Trepin, de Gerart le contor. Or chevauchons avant, en non le Saveor;

Ne doutés d’omes mors, car ce seroit follor’.

(14475-83)

[And so all three of them were sickened when they saw more than one hundred dead bodies around them. ‘My lords’, said Roland, ‘do not worry. We are certainly close to the emperor's army. Here Christians did much damage to pagans. I can see signs of the blows struck by Oliver, and by the king my lord, and by Oton, Turpin, and the count Girart. Now let us ride on, in the name of the saviour; don’t be scared of dead bodies,

for that would be folly.’]

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Western contiguous expansion involves savage violence. Indeed Roland had earlier encouraged his companions to ‘venger Deus’ (167) [avenge God]. The Carolingians

forged a great Western empire, but Charlemagne provides no model for negotiating cultural difference in the East,!!? where a different kind of crusade is necessary. Indeed in the fourteenth century, the idea of crusade was changing. Successive Ottoman victories over the Byzantine Empire were altering the political geography of the eastern Mediterranean. In the Entrée, Charlemagne tells his vassal in Pavia ‘que la Mer de Venese gard bien vers Sclavonie, |Qe Turc mi pragne port, ni Grés de Romanie’ (664—5) [that he should guard well the sea of Venice on the side of

Slavia, |so that Turks or Roman Greeks cannot land]. In many epics, including the Crusade Cycle, “Turc’ stands alongside ‘paien’ and ‘sarrasin’ as a catch-all term for confessional enemies of Christians, but here, within the Venetian maritime context, the “Turc’ are arguably identifiable with the Ottomans threatening the Italian peninsula, with Byzantium another potential menace.!!? The Entrée fits within a context of anxiety about who is the heir to Troy; it asserts Christian claims to its

legacy versus Ottoman ones.!!4 More broadly, Acre had fallen in 1291; the Muslim Ghazan had become IIkhan of Persia in 1295, converting, at least superficially, that people to Islam;'!° and Europe had become aware of the Mongols and the vastness of non-Christian societies to the East during the thirteenth century. Of course, part of the appeal of Marco Polo’s Devisement had been its account of the diversity, power, and sophistication of Eastern societies. Though the Entrée echoes Marco Polo in some respects, it remains rather ideological, vehicling the idea of a joint, civilized, and peaceful culture, led by Christians, that other peoples will voluntarily join. But the text refuses the departures into fantasy of Huon de Bordeaux, reinventing Christian universalism as intellectual superiority. It argues that Eastern societies still have something to learn from Western ones, giving a greater sense of Oriental diversity, but attempting to anchor that diversity within a reassuring paradigm. The model of monstrous Saracens appears with the giant Ferragu at the start, and an epic framework shapes everything. Intertextuality is finally used to comment on the epic model of crusade. Though the poem moves from a less to a more sophisticated crusade practice, suggesting a temporal graduation, both Charlemagne and Roland expand Latin Christendom. The best heroes remain crusade heroes. The text ends with their joyous reunion, Charles telling Roland ‘resuresi mavois | da mort a vie’ (15792—3) [you have resurrected me, from death to life]. Similarly,

the fourteenth-century Franco-Italian Entrée d Espagne has brought the epic crusade back to life, adapting it to a changing world.

112 The Pélerinage de Charlemagne shows the emperor uncomfortable in the East. See Chapter 4 of this volume. 113 See Limentani, “Venezia e il “pericolo turco” nell’ Entrée d’Espagne’. 114 For Harper, ‘the reoccupation of the symbolic territory of the Trojan legend compensated—at least in part—for the ongoing loss of real territory to the expanding Ottoman Empire’ (“Turks as Trojans’, p. 152).

115 Morgan, Medieval Persia, pp. 72-3.

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HUON

D’AUVERGNE

Expansive Carolingian power and a lone exile to the East that turns into a crusade,

providing a utopian alternative to the West, are also the subject of Huon d ‘Auvergne, of which four fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Franco-Italian redactions survive, each with its own balance of French and Italian linguistic elements. The text had a noble Italian readership, catalogues indicating that it was found in the libraries of

the vastly powerful: the Gonzagas, the Estensi of Ferrara, and the Visconti of Milan. The greedy Charles Martel is the Carolingian villain king here: ‘com plus conquist, plus fu cruaus’ (49) [as he conquered more, he became crueller].'!® All serve him ‘par dote o per amor’ (52) [through fear and through love]. He falls for

the hero’s wife, Ynide. She refuses his advances, and the king’s jealousy grows when Huon wins a tournament. Just like Huon de Bordeaux, Huon d’Auvergne threatens

royal power by his very existence. Says Charles: ‘Si Hue li veut, ge suy roy dechaiis’ (209) [if Huon desires it, I will be a deposed king]. The king ‘conuit bien que la giant luy haoit’ (495) [knows well that the people hate him]. Tensions worsen

when Ynide wins a pageant, and many barons praise Huon as the wisest, kindest, strongest, and courtliest of all, with the most beautiful and most honest wife. So, as does Charlemagne in Huon de Bordeaux, Charles invents a mission impossible. He gets Huon to swear on relics to obey his every command, and then sends him to hell to ask for tribute. Huon complains, but Charles insists: N’est l’enfer en la terre? Sor tere asis il a; Ausi cum Diex au ciel lasus soe vertus fa,

Ausi atant a moy la terre de ci et ceus de la. Tot dont moy obeir, de quant ch’en terre sta: Eve, et oisaus volant, et tot bestes qu'il a, Chascunes riens qi en terre son habiter aura,

Tot apartient a moy, ne-l mescreeg vos ja.

(777-83)

[Is hell not on Earth? It is seated on land; and just as God rules in heaven, so do lands here and everywhere belong to me. Everything found on the Earth should obey me: water, birds that fly, and all the animals there are, and every single thing that lives on

Earth, all belong to me, do not ever doubt it.]

The idea of earthly empire extends as far as possible. Whereas Huon de Bordeaux had some hope for a universal community without tyranny, this possibility disappears in the dystopian, totalitarian nightmare of Huon d'Auvergne. Initially the familiar solution of exile is deployed, but gradually the text sketches a different way of ending tyranny, as the Earth is saved from Charles. Huon has no hope at the start: ‘a la mort voi, non tornerai a nul joir’ (829) [Iam

walking to my death, I will not ever return]. He curses the king as a ‘traitor’ (847). Whereas traitors were the problem in earlier texts because they corrupted the king (see Chapter 2 of this volume), here the king himself generates evil. Yet Huon "6 Quotations are from the transcription of the Berlin manuscript kindly supplied by Leslie Zarker Morgan and her team, who are preparing an online edition of all the manuscripts of Huon d'Auvergne: http://huondauvergne.org/. The Berlin manuscript is the most linguistically French of the surviving codices, offering a language close to that of Old French epics, but with northern Italian influence on the vocabulary and forms.

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dutifully goes off into an exile—described through the vocabulary of obedience and pilgrimage—during which his hunger and thirst are repeatedly highlighted. He is attacked by leopards, birds, bears, serpents, and other creatures. He climbs a mountain described as ‘un purgatorie’ (2398) [purgatory], and his travels are also

given Carolingian and Arthurian benchmarks: Naymes’s mission on the mountain in Aspremont (6303-4), and Galahad’s quest: “En penitence non vesqui mais hom mortal: |Ne Galaa¢ que conquis le Graal’ (6225-6) [no mortal man ever went

through such penance: not even Galahad who conquered the Grail]. References to Polixena, Helen, Jason, and Medea also inscribe Huon’s mission in classical

mythology. The spiritual model of Huon de Bordeaux is expanded by the addition of didactic elements, similar to other late epics, including the Entrée and the late medieval rewritings of Girart de Roussillon (see Chapter 3 of this volume). The greater

moral framework to these texts overrides or simplifies the political subtleties of earlier versions. Here, there are biblical translations and paraphrases throughout, but also direct Latin quotations, especially in the adventure section, such as here when Huon prays:!!7 Soe oraison comance et un psaume il dis: Eripe me Deus, des main mes enemis. Le psaume tot a dit, tant quil en a finis

(2669-71)

(He begins a prayer and he says a psalm: save me God, from the hands of my enemies. He says the whole psalm, until he has finished]

The reference is to Psalm 118 of the Vulgate, repeatedly quoted by the author. Some such quotations are labelled as ‘psaume’ in the text, and they frequently underscore the central theme of obedience. It is always noted that Huon says the whole psalm, and thus the brief Latin quotation seems intended to connote, in the reader's mind, the entire text, as part of a poetics of authority.'!® The suffering of Huon’s wife Ynide during his absence, caused in part by Charles’s constant pestering, takes the form of laments that also contain Latin.!!? The text draws on saints’ lives at many points, especially in the episodes when Huon is tempted by beautiful singing maidens who are in fact devils, and when he helps a lion defeat serpents,

and then cures him from poison. Personal faith and valour are presented as the solution to political crises, including the crises of crusade that beset late medieval Europe.!?° There are constant recalls of Charles's pride and wrongheadedness. Here even a devil Huon meets takes the moral high ground relative to the king: Cil qui tenvoie non t'aime un boton. Morir t’envoie cum becher le mouton. Toe fame veut honir, bien le savon

(BED3})

[He who has sent you does not value you one bit. He is sending you to die just as the shepherd does the sheep. He wants to shame your wife, we know this well]

117 ‘These are catalogued by Morgan, ‘“Dirige gressus meos . 118 The pattern is the same as with the Latin insertions in the prose Girart de Roussillon, on which see Chapter 3 of this volume. 119 On these episodes, see Morgan, “The Passion of Ynide’. 120 Morgan, ‘Crusade as Metaphor’.

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Yet Huon defends Charles as ‘sage’ (3401) [wise]. Even in exile, he expands his

master’s empire by getting the king of Hungary to recognize Charles's lordship (1180-247). At Rome, the pope sides with Huon and offers to threaten Charles

with excommunication if he does not drop the demand. Huon refuses, and the pope gives him a piece of the true cross as reward for his extreme loyalty (1248-364).

Huon then passes by Athens on his way to Jerusalem. Like Renaut de Montauban, he finds out that the city has fallen into Saracen hands, and he helps the Greeks who are laying siege. The crusaders are referred to as ‘Francois’ (1764) [Franks].

When Huon frees Christian prisoners, they remark: ‘nos lenguage non seit, meis pur in Diex il croy’ (1824) [he does not speak our language, but he believes in God]. Huon is thus able to transend the East—West divide of the Christian Church.

As befits tradition, he is offered the crown, but refuses, and declines once more the offer of help against Charles. Huon joins worship at the Sepulchre, but Jerusalem is merely a stopover before Huon goes east and finds great, ancient cities. The text implicitly critiques their isolationism, before praising Christian expansion through fantasies of rapid conversions, where a small group of Christians affects widespread political and religious change. These continue in the vein of the Crusade Cycle in that the numerically weaker group wins out, but the focus changes, as in the Entrée, from the conquest of land to the conversion of populations. Huon takes on the classic role of Christian champion, defending the pagan queen of Nubia against a treacherous baron. She converts; Samson’s son marries her and becomes king, and the land is thus Christianized (3476-827). Shortly afterwards, at Tarsie, Huon

ends the disputes over succession and converts the people. Another of Samson’s sons takes the throne. Huon takes stock: De trois roiaumes avons li tinimant,

Que la loy Dieu veras sont mantinant, Qui avant erent de la paine giant.

(3989-91)

[We have now conquered three kingdoms that once belonged to pagan people but will now uphold the faith of the true Lord.]

He promises the biggest kingdom, Capadocie, to Samson, but when they arrive, it is under siege from the sultan of Persia. This time, the ‘mortaliteg (4057) [fatalities] caused are evoked. Samson becomes sovereign and everyone converts: ‘en nom de

trinite¢ chascun si bagnon’ (4121) [they are all baptized in the name of the Trinity]. Huon acts like a ‘prevoire’ (4199) [priest], giving a sermon with interpolated Latin (4202-11). A diverse model of heroism rules, as Huon converts populations via

spiritual knowledge rather than military might. To Huon’s surprise, he meets Christian merchants: ‘non cuidoit trover a Cristiane giant (4287) [he did not expect to find Christians]. They are from Prester John’s

land, a mythical space famous in the medieval West thanks to a letter that circulated from the twelfth century onwards and which survives in some 300 manuscripts. Purportedly from the eastern Christian leader Prester king of the Franks and the Pope, and asks for help embodies the fantasy that a perfect Christian kingdom ery of eastern Christians represented hope for ‘global

John, it is addressed to the against pagans. The letter

is possible, and the discovpresence’, the other half of

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a geographical enclosure of Islam.!?! The East here is not just the Christian past but also a vision of its future: this upsets the unidirectionalism of the flow of crusading. Will world unity come about by the West generalizing eastward, or the East westward? Prester John inhabits another economic, spiritual, and cultural

Christian centre rivalling Rome and Jerusalem, perhaps replacing Constantinople as the eastern Christian capital that stands in an antagonistic relationship to the western one by virtue of its beauty and perfection. Great Christian capitals are here strung across the globe. The letter of Prester John is complex, drawing on Alexander,

lapidaries, bestiaries, and legends,!?? but the idea is simplified in Huon d’Auvergne: the land is described in utopian terms of wealth, peace, abundance, happiness, and proximity to great rivers. Often understood as Earthly Paradise, Prester John’s land is fertile and protected from invasion; it is located in ‘India in early accounts, later settling in Ethiopia or Assyria. Huon finds it across the land from Lybia (4417— 20). Michael Uebel sees Prester John as a mythical guarantor of order amidst the

disorder of the East, and as a legitimization of monarchical power,!*? and indeed in Huon Prester John plays the role of an alternative great Christian leader, the polar opposite of the tyrannical Charles. Huon confesses to Prester John, who is shocked by his mission—‘Mal fait ton sire que ausi te flagelle’ (4513) [your lord is doing wrong in flagellating you thus]—but he happily reports Huon’s successes to his barons: ‘Per son vassalage .1111. roiaumes avons’ (4580) [through his might we

have gained four kingdoms]. However powerful Prester John might be, his kingdom is static; it does not expand until the western hero arrives. Nor do Prester

John’s barons explore. They cry when they hear of Huon’s quest and warn him about the horrors lying beyond: Quant auras passé entre cil mont antis,

Plus non troverais ja home de char vis. Ja non troverais jardin ne broil floris;

Fors que liopart, lions e ors ardis, Serpant, vermine, grant oisel voleis.

(6105-9)

[once you have passed this ancient mountain, you will not find another living man. You will not find a garden or any plant growing; you will only see leopards, lions, and fierce bears, serpents, vermin, and great flying birds.] Alexander intertexts feature again: Huon captures a horse resembling Alexander's (4065-9), and, in hell, he meets those who betrayed Alexander (10465—86). Once more, the ancient ruler provides a model for new conquests in the East. But whereas the Entrée draws on travel writing to paint the Orient afresh, Huon remains in the realms of Eastern fantasies. The races Huon meets include mermen, and men split in two down the middle. Thus there is no ‘progress’ from orientalist fantasies of monsters to rational accounts.!*4 Like the Enzrée, the text balances centrifugal and 121 Taylor, ‘Prester John, Christian Enclosure, and the Spatial Transmission of Islamic Alterity in the Twelfth-Century West’, p. 45. 122 Thid., p. 47. 23 Ecstatic Transformations, pp. 93-9. 124 See Kinoshita (“Marco Polo's Le Devisement dou Monde and the Tributary East’), who shows that interest in monstrous races dominates later (and not earlier) versions of the Devisement. Monstrous

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centripetal forces: it presents the diversity of the East, but reassures Occidental readers through its moral naturalization of the superiority of Christian’ culture. Huon uses the East allegorically, to connect heterogeneous materials into a single narrative of conquest. Huon goes to the mountain where Noah’s ark is found, and to earthly paradise where he meets Enoch and Elijah, who were both transferred to Paradise by God;

here they are the ‘gardians’ (8524) [guardians]. As well as finding the ideal Christian future in the perfect land of Prester John, then, Huon reconnects with the Christian

past. All the diversities he finds fit into a single narrative of God’s plan. The same goes when Huon arrives at hell. The text draws on Dante to describe its organization. Huon rejects Eneas as guide because he is a traitor (8984), choosing Guillaume

d’Orange, who leaves heaven to help him. Thus a Christian epic hero, rather than a pagan leader, takes Huon down into the depths, as the text morally improves Dante. Translations and calques from the /nferno abound, such as here when Huon meets Eneas and asks ‘is hom o ombre, qi davant mi-s mostrée?’ (8907) [are you a man or a shade, which appears before me?].!?° Yet this is not merely a copy of Dante’s hell but a more specifically chanson de geste hell, as Huon reads like an epilogue to the entire chanson de geste tradition: divine justice is brought into the epic universe as the Saracens and traitors receive eternal punishment. Huon sees the Saracen enemies but also the hero Girart from Aspremont, who provides a negative exemplum of rebellion: ‘mant foy il fist mal a Karllom (10210) [he did wrong

many times to Charles]. Huon remembers Girart’s great crusading deeds, before his revolts, and quotes Salemon: ‘Comengamant de bien non vaut si petit non, | Si la fin non ert bone’ (10247-8) [a good beginning is worth very little, if the ending

is not good]. The implication is that Huon has reacted better to an unreasonable king, by turning the struggle out onto religious enemies: the text passes judgment here on its epic predecessors. Rebellion is betrayal. It cannot be the answer, as is stressed by the presence of Judas, Ganelon, and Cain in the deepest parts of hell, and by the choice of Guillaume as guide: the tale of Guillaume shows how an inadequate king should not prevent the good, obedient baron from expanding the boundaries of Christendom. Eventually Huon gets the tribute Charles requested, as Lucifer happily recognizes Carolingian overlordship: ‘Son hom ge suy lige’ (10576) [I am his liege man].

Visions of hell in medieval culture often inspired fear of eternal punishment and awe of God, but here Huon is already at peace with his maker, whereas Charles soon completes his conversion to the dark side. Huon now falls asleep, and wakes up back home. After joyous reunion with Ynide, he goes to court, where Charles will not believe that Huon succeeded. But the tribute, a beautiful throne covered in precious stones, stands as proof. When Charles sits in the throne, demons whisk him away to hell.!?° Lucifer’s acceptance of submission to Charles in fact races were not archaic, but part of the dawning of the Renaissance and of the interest in classical texts, developed, for example, under Charles V of France (1364-80). 225 See Morgan, ‘(Mis)Quoting Dante’.

126 Charles Martel goes to hell in the monastic legends known as the Vision of St Eucherius and the Vision of Charles le Gros, drawn upon by Philippe Mousket (Owen, The Vision of Hell, p. 175);

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gets him the ultimate prize, the soul of the Holy Roman Emperor. Charles's desire for complete earthly power is confirmed as an impossible, tyrannical goal. He was meant to be God’s agent on earth, but became the object of God’s vengeance because of his moral turpitude. Huon by contrast achieves spiritual perfection, commenting that Charles's fate should be a ‘bon xample’ (10996) [good lesson] to

all. The pope is delighted to hear from the new French king of Jerusalem, and to get word from Prester John. These fresh hopes for a worldwide Christian order frame Huon’s supervision of the elections of a new king, chosen from the great aristocratic families. ... sor tot nos il doit avoir une segnorie. Par tel maynere le fagon, que a nos tot agrie, Que non soion repris por autre gient que sie.

(11005-7)

[There should be a lord over all of us. Let us choose one in a way that suits everyone, so that we will not be attacked by any other peoples.] Huon will not accept the crown, and the Pope asks for a great lineage without

‘abastardamant (11326) [corruption]. Elective and hereditary monarchy combine as William Capet, who is chosen, then marries Charles’s daughter.!?” Huon ensures that faction and vendetta do not break out, and that a worthy noble replaces a terrible tyrant as ruler. Huon’s journey to hell ultimately ties the political back to the ethical. Charles had worn the symbols of secular rule, but lacked the morality to go with it, and his totalizing world project leads him only to the devil. Without the constraints of morality, empire tends to evil. Huon’s journey places the Western Christian world within a much wider context and puts epic political structures back on a good ethical footing. Regime change comes in the end without resistance, as Huon comments on its epic predecessors and adopts a political stance similar to that of the thinkers studied in Chapter 1 of this volume. Tyrannicide is not an option: violence is to be avoided and obedience preferred. Political salvation will come to those who deserve it. The Saracens now lay siege to Rome, but the French nobles refuse to help. The pope promises the imperial crown to the Germans to get them onside. ‘This causes civil war when the French eventually come and defeat the Saracens, and the pope credits them as ‘plus noble giant del mont’ (11902) [the noblest people in the

world]. Their slowness in fulfilling their divinely mandated historical role leads to conflict in which Huon dies. Hopes for, and moves towards, Christian universalism remain, but they are fragile, and Huon d'Auvergne ends with an image of the fractious nature of Western Christendom that parallels the diversity of the East, underscoring the eternal task of the Franks as defenders of the faith at home and abroad.

Beaune argues that, with the canonization of Louis IX, it became impossible to imagine that a member of his lineage might have gone to hell, so it was recast as a purgatorial trip (Vaissance de la nation France, p. 136). See Chapter 4 of this volume on texts where Charlemagne is almost sent to hell. 127 Generally,ys there were attempts to cover over moments of election as instances of heredity

way (see Chapter 2 of this volume on Hugues Capet).

anyy

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CONCLUSION

The chanson de geste remained vital into the fifteenth century partly because of its ability to incorporate new generic materials, as the texts of this chapter show. The diversity of the genre increased over time, because older models supporting revolt and feud continued to be popular even as these texts, by combining diverse elements, provided precursors and models for the ‘romance epics’ of Pulci, Boiardo, and Ariosto, which play across a generic boundary that was always porous but eventually becomes non-existent. Ending my final chapter with Huon d'Auvergne is therefore fitting. It shows how definitions of what a chanson de geste is and does need revising, lest we remain blind to its long-standing role as the most powerful discourse on problems of Christian unity and hopes for Christian universalism within a wider and more complex world. Through their form, these texts signal attempts to provide new solutions to the classic epic social problematics: the king/baron and Christian/Saracen oppositions. The chapter has also traced a trajectory of the warrior value-set, moving from northern France and Flanders—where the Crusade Cycle was popular and where Huon de Bordeaux may have originated—to the Italy of the Entrée d’Espagne and Huon d'Auvergne. But if the Crusade Cycle has high confidence in holy war—gathering moral and theological justifications to cover its traumas and suggesting that a syncretic culture might develop around shared values of chivalry—then the other three texts are more sceptical about crusade as a military endeavour, developing alternative fantastical, cultural, and spiritual approaches to negotiating difference around aristocratic figures who travel to the utopias of the East. Lone aristocrats carry the torch as metonyms for the whole of Christianity. The texts display nostalgic longing for a world where the aristocracy was valued, commenting negatively upon the corrupted West, but they also shape new visions of a global Christian community. I hope to have shown, against arguments that texts like Huon de Bordeaux retreat from politics, that later chansons are just as political as their predecessors. Their heroes make the ultimate political move, declaring that Carolingian courts cannot be the site of advancement for good barons. Moralizing and didactic material is enlisted to a political end: to exalt the barony and denigrate monarchs. Reacting to changing literary tastes and more complex political geography, these chansons de geste embody epic attempts to redefine holy war. They suggest that material reward might not be the overt motivation for crusade, but they articulate hopes that holy war can nonetheless bring material satisfaction, along with political power and spiritual cleansing. The tendency amongst crusade historians to downplay the profit motives mistakes rhetoric for reality; though they do not foreground such drives, the chansons show that material reward formed part of the appeal of crusade. They use holy war to inscribe the epic within world history, and recruit a larger range of literary resources in a bid to persuade their readers that the dream of crusade is not dead, and that the warrior aristocracy, with its epic ethos, can remain relevant, adapt, and find new ways of leading the expansion of Christendom.

Conclusion In my Introduction, I deployed an approach deriving from Fredric Jameson to think about genre as a plastic concept: each generic formation evolves over time as its social and aesthetic parameters shift, whilst retaining a core relationship to a particular antagonism, to which it functions as a symbolic response. The Carolingian epic tradition changed in form and content over the centuries, but continued to vehicle a questioning of power, authority, and legitimacy and to legitimize practices of revolt, resistance and feud, and hopes for aristocratic leadership

of crusade. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw a flurry of such texts. Some, short-lived and narrowly spread, were arguably responses to twelfth-century Capetian consolidation that threatened the nobility: these include Raoul de Cambrai, Gui de Bourgogne, Gaydon, and Les Saisnes. Other works from the same period transcended their original circumstances of composition: Aspremont, Renaut de Montauban, and Ogier le Danois clearly articulated a broader problematic about power and authority. Girart de Vienne became part of a cycle, and the Lorraine and Crusade Cycles also developed, to great literary success. The latter two had clear political relevance to north-eastern regions, where nobles protected feuding and crusading traditions. Regional pride and resistance also drove the Occitan-Burgundian tradition of texts about Girart de Roussillon, as well as the Croisade Albigeoise, which were all protests about unfair and arbitrary royal expansion. Without these older forms going away, new forms arose. Huon de Bordeaux in the thirteenth century, with its magical Oriental adventures, opened the epic to a wider world, both geographically and intertextually, and the trend continued as a broader range of references informed the genre in the fourteenth century, with the Entrée d’Espagne and Huon d'Auvergne. Hugues Capet, in the same period, took a wider view of the social order, as well as a more moralizing tone. Many of these features became central to the genre’s continued success. The chanson de geste, then, is not primarily a twelfth-century form from Capetian France, but a vivid genre into fifteenth century, across Italy, the Low Countries, and England. Its narrative materials

moved easily from verse epics to mises en prose and to the chronicle tradition whose development I also tracked as different political agendas reshaped it. The rebel baron narratives, in their various forms, expressed political hope and political despair, desire for authority and fear of the abuse of power, the need for centralization and the persistence in faith in regional rule, gritty realism and escapist fantasy, attachment to feuding practices and the urge to transcend them. It allowed the aristocrats to portray and see themselves as, variously, custodians of the kingdom, proud defenders of regional independence, protectors of a tradition of feuding that

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worked as a system for justice, the perfect agents for holy war, and selfless heroes confronting tyrannical rule. The rebel baron narratives never deny the potentially horrible consequences of violence, but they do try to underline its necessity as an

immanent balancing mechanism in warrior society, part of a vital political order where confrontation with power avoids its ossification into tyranny. The genre's importance for studies of the period is, I think, manifest: it reminds us that the politics of medieval Europe were shaped not just by the great kingdoms and the Empire, but also by aristocratic revolt, regional governmental structures and extralegal modes of conflict. The chansons de gestes, which conceptualize politics in terms of competing centres of power that hold each other in check through violence, can help us achieve a more multi-focussed view of medieval history. To make sense of them, I have used a variety of tools. Modern political theory, particularly thinking on sovereignty, has helped me find continuities with modern

problematics: the idea that sovereignty is a constitutive abuse of power is timeless, transcending differences in social and political form. Via anthropology, I was able to grasp the nature of medieval resistance to sovereignty, of what works against, or in the place of, centralized justice systems, including cultural processes for disputes and their resolution, whereas network theory helped me remap the epic social. Though I have studied a broad range of works, there are inevitably gaps, notably the cycles that built up around the texts of Renaut de Montauban and Huon de Bordeaux, as well as the Nanteuil cycle, fourteenth-century epics in general, many mises en prose, and other avatars of the rebel baron material. My focus on the political horizon of signification, especially the king—nobility axis, has undoubtedly

allowed it to subjugate and colour my view of everything else: I have not done justice to the genre's aesthetics; to its love plots and adventures; to its engagements of the senses and emotions; to its materiality; or to its varied portrayal of social classes, races, and religions. Nonetheless, I hope to have demonstrated that it is far more diverse than much literary history would suggest. In the remainder of this Conclusion, I would like to show the survival of the rebel baron material into the early modern period, alongside political theory that was ever more vigorously shoring up the sovereignty of princes. Hence, I return

here to the ideas of Chapter 1: the anti-resistance ethos examined in the works of John of Salisbury, Aquinas, and Marsilius of Padua remained a dominant strand of political theory. The project of prosification of the epics stretched from the fourteenth century to the sixteenth, giving rise to incunabula and printed editions. Successes of the print era include Doon de Mayence, Huon de Bordeaux, Renaut de Montauban (more commonly known as the Quatre fils Aymon in its later versions), Maugis, Ogier le Danois, Fierabras, and the Belle Héléne de Constantinople. Huon, Renaut, and the Belle Héléne were vastly popular in the printed editions produced by the Bibliotheque bleue between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, " See Baudelle-Michels, Les Avatars d'une chanson de geste, on Renaut; Poulain-Gautret, La Tradition littéraire d’Ogier le Danois, on Ogier; Roussel, Conter de geste au XIVe siecle, on the Belle Héléne. Galien réthoré and Valentin et Orson also have an early modern readership (see O’Brien, ‘Response’, pp. 234-5).

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whereas Huon again, Renaut, and Ogier were transferred to the stage, with Renaut a star of Sicilian travelling puppet theatre into the twentieth century.” In England specifically, verse romances about Charlemagne were copied from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century. There are Middle English Fierabras romances, including the Sowden ofBabylon. Translations and epigones of Otinel and Roland are also extant. In the fifteenth century, William Caxton printed a prose life of Charlemagne. Huon de Bordeaux had a huge impact; it was turned into English prose, and printed eleven times in the sixteenth century,* whereas

Beuve d’Hamptone—Bevis ofHampton in its Middle English version—was printed repeatedly in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.’ In Italy, romance or chivalric epic was the most popular form of text at all levels of society from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries. The Tuscan prose tradition reached its apogee with the work of Andrea da Barberino in the early fifteenth century, with versions of Renaut,

Huon d'Auvergne, the Spagna material, and the Narbonnais.® Ogier was an important hero in the fourteenth century, with his popularity decreasing thereafter, whereas Beuve—Buovo in the Italian renderings—remained popular into the sixteenth century, and Renaut—or Rinaldo—narratives grew in appeal constantly from the fourteenth century onwards. The works of Boiardo, Ariosto, Cieco, and Pulci continued the tradition into the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Pulci’s Morgante assumes its audience will know the epic tradition, including Aspremont, Ogier,

Girart de Rousillon, and Girart de Vienne. As Roland Greene has argued, resistance became more visible and necessary in the early modern period of absolutism and imperialism, the term coming to encapsulate thinking about action against tyranny.’ Hillay Zmora contends that early modern unrest involving the nobility shows its capacity to resist developments going contrary to its interests.® In Italy, factionalism and feuding continued into the early modern period,? whereas in France, vengeance by nobles was a normal and functional element in the political economy, with the Wars of Religion containing conflicts looking very much like the feuds and revolts described in this book.!° French kings still needed to legislate against aristocratic violence in the seventeenth century, the crown also acting to destroy noble fortifications and seize

privately held artillery.1! English aristocratic feuding intensified in the fifteenth 2 Everson, “The Epic Tradition of Charlemagne in Italy’. 3 Ailes and Hardman, “How English are the English Charlemagne Romances?’, p. 53. 4 Calin, The French Tradition and the Literature ofMedieval England, p. 127. > See Fellows and Djordjevié (eds), Sir Bevis ofHampton for a survey. © | draw here on Everson, “The Epic Tradition of Charlemagne in Italy’; see also her The Italian Romance Epic in the Age ofHumanism. Allaire offers a survey on Andrea da Barberino’s work (Andrea da Barberino and the Language of Chivalry). 7 Five Words, p. 77. 8 Monarchy, Aristocracy and the State in Europe. ° Muir (Mad Blood Stirring, p. 171) contends that the early modern duel preserved rather than replaced vendetta. 10 See Carroll, Blood and Violence in Early Modern France; Zmora, Monarchy, Aristocracy and the State in Europe, pp. 69-70. Contamine (La Noblesse au royaume de France, p. 317) gives examples of sixteenth-century noble resistance; Jouanna (Le Devoir de révolte) documents an early modern culture

of noble revolt that looks very similar to that of the chansons de geste. 1 Ruff, Violence in Early Modern Europe, pp. 66-7.

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century,!? and the capacity of the nobility to organize resistance to the crown did

not decline until the Elizabethan era.!3 Yet if the fractious politics of the Carolingian epic tradition remained relevant to early modern life, they are not the early modern texts about violence, resistance, and sovereignty that will most immediately come

to mind for readers today. Rather, the big names of Machiavelli, Bodin, and Hobbes—seen as markers of the divide between the medieval and the modern— dominate the conversation in political theory.!4 To my mind, these thinkers make silencing moves, shutting down one half of the debate by delegitimizing resistance to sovereign power. Though their discursive worlds differ, we see in all three a continuity of concerns with the chansons de geste; these thinkers write in reaction to factionalism and civil war. For Machiavelli in The Prince (completed 1513, published 1532) the power of the prince must remain intact at all costs; Bodin in his

Six Livres de la République (1576) hopes that a rigorous juristic definition of sovereignty will make clear precisely who has it, and who should never claim it; and Hobbes’s Leviathan (1651) outlines a version of sovereignty that gives it ethical

value as the expression and guarantee of the very possibility of human civilization. Both Bodin and Hobbes try to save sovereignty from the critiques made of tyranny,!> and along with Machiavelli, they elaborate paradigms of political life that allow virtually no space for rebellion against public power. Machiavelli’s ideas in The Prince are closest to those of the chansons de geste in that he sees irreducible antagonism at the heart of every polity: his prince must transcend the medieval morass of conflict through political manoeuvrings. Neither reason nor faith will help him overcome opponents, and fortune is an unpredictable enemy, gendered female; says Machiavelli, ‘la fortuna é donna ed é necessario, volendola tenere sotto, batterla e urtarla’ ($25) [Fortune is a woman and if you want to keep her under it is necessary to beat her and force her down (p. 87)].!°

Machiavelli allegedly broke away from medieval paradigms by separating once and for all the moral and the political—Chapter 1 of this volume argued that medieval political theorists were constantly striving to reconnect them—but the case is perhaps overstated.'7 Machiavelli offers a different morality, where the survival of the political order itself is upheld as ultimate good. The stable and correct ordering of the state is the key thread gathering all the other ideas in Machiavelli’s thought. To pursue this end, the prince must have supreme authority within his territory, 2 Harriss, Shaping the Nation, pp. 197-202. 3 Wood, Riot, Rebellion and Popular Politics, pp. 71-81. Valente argues that the link between revolt and reform had been broken in fifteenth-century England, though there continued to be resistance by magnate opponents, largely because of personal grievances (The Theory and Practice of Revolt in Medieval England, p. 237). The Earl of Essex revolted in 1601 in what is termed the last honour

revolt, his supporters united by kinship, lineage, devotion to arms, and opposition to a regime seen as tyrannical (James gives an extended account: Society, Politics and Culture, pp. 416-65).

‘4 Nederman (Lineages ofEuropean Political Thought, pp. 49-60) critiques the idea of Machiavelli’s modernity. Standard political theory encyclopaedia definitions of sovereignty hold that Bodin and Hobbes ‘invented’ sovereignty, transcending medieval politics, with its conflicting sources of authority (see for example Philpott, “Sovereignty’). 15 See Nyquist, Arbitrary Rule. ‘6 | quote from the translation by Bondanella. '7 See Pennington (The Prince and the Law, p. 271) versus Skinner, who rejects the idea of a divorce of politics from morality (Foundations ofModern Political Thought, 1, 135).

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unbound by natural law, canon law, and other norms and authorities. It is better too for the prince to be feared than loved, if he cannot be both; though he should aim to be feared without hatred. A prince must learn to act like both the fox and the lion: like the lion, he must frighten off wolves and, like the fox, he must recognize traps (§18). He must master two modes of fighting, using the laws and

using force. The aristocracy can hold the position of prince—it is not reserved for kings and emperors—and the Este dukes of Ferrara, readers of Carolingian epic,'® are cited as well-established princes, who withstood the Venetians and the pope (§2).!?

Other Italian princes, however, lost their states by failing to protect against nobles. Dominance by the nobility can be one kind of humour in the body politic, but there is a need for balance, and throughout, it is France that is held up as the paradigm of sound political organization and governance. It has solid institutions guaranteeing the liberty and security of the king, designed by someone ‘conoscendo Pambizione de’ potenti e la insolenzia loro, e iudicando essere loro necessario uno freno in bocca che gli correggessi’ (§19) [recognizing the ambition of the nobles

and their insolence, and being aware of the necessity of keeping a bit in their mouths to hold them back (p. 65)], as well as ‘odio dello universale contro a grandi fondato in su la paura’ ($19) [the hatred of the people for the nobles, based upon fear (p. 65)]. The baronial bridle on the king (described in Chapter 2 of this volume) has become a bridle on the barons. Conflict is inevitable because the

nobles desire to command and oppress, whereas the people desire not to be commanded and not to be oppressed. France’s parliament—‘né poté essere questo ordine migliore né piu prudente’ ($19) [there could be no better or more prudent an institution than this (p. 65)]—keeps conflict at a safe distance from the king,

who can thus respect the nobles without being hated by the people. France also, according to Machiavelli, integrates its diverse regions well. Burgundy, Brittany, Gascony, and Normandy have been part of France for a long time, he claims;?° there are ‘disformita di lingua [some linguistic differences] but ‘costumi sono simili’ [the customs are similar] (§3; p. 9). He praises Charles VII (1422-61) for organizing an army (§13). The military domain is the main duty of prince, and the king of France has been parsimonious in other areas so that he can

wage war without imposing taxes. Italy, on the other hand, relies too much on fickle mercenaries; hence the French king captured it easily (§12: the reference is

to Charles VIII's invasions of 1494-5). Yet there are potential problems in France: il re di Francia é posto in mezzo di una moltitudine antiquata di signori, in quello stato, riconosciuti da loro sudditi e amati da quegli: hanno le loro preminenze, non le

puod il re torre loro sanza suo periculo

(§4)

18 See Allaire, Andrea da Barberino and the Language ofChivalry, p. 65; Everson, “The Epic Tradition of Charlemagne in Italy’. 19 Ercole I d’Este (1471-1505) in fact lost some territory to the papal-Venetian alliance in the ‘Salt War of 1482-4, but clung onto Ferrara itself. 20 Burgundy was incorporated in 1477; Brittany in 1491; Gascony in 1453 (when it was retaken from the English), and Normandy in 1204.

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[the king of France is placed among a group of hereditary nobles who are recognized

in that state by their subjects and who are loved by them; they have their hereditary privileges, which the King cannot take away without endangering himself (p. 17)]

Machiavelli thinks France would be easy to conquer because ‘sempre si truova de’ mali contenti e di quegli che desiderano innovare’ ($4) [you can always find malcontents and men who desire a change (p. 17)]. They would support an invading force, but for the same reason it would be difficult to hold, with ‘infinite difficulta’ ($4) [endless problems (p. 17)]. Even wiping out the old ruler’s family would not

help, because there would remain ‘quelli signori, che si fanno capi delle nuove alterazioni’ (§4) [those nobles who make themselves heads of new insurrections

(p. 18)]. The opposite case is Turkey, where no native support for the invasion would be forthcoming, yet if it did succeed and if the victor executed the previous ruler’s relatives, his reign would afterwards be untroubled. Nobles are by their nature cunning and perceptive, constantly threatening to abandon or oppose the prince, but he should be able to secure himself against them, as they are few, whereas he cannot be safe if the people are his enemy. Some nobles will commit themselves to the prince; others will refuse. Those reluctant to bind themselves because of timidity or lack of courage might nonetheless be good advisers, but the prince should consider cunning and ambitious nobles as ‘scoperti nimici’ [declared enemies], who ‘pensano piti a sé che a te’ ($9) [think more of themselves than of you (p. 36)]. Rebel barons are always a threat on the horizon.

Bodin also sees the French monarchy as an ideal state, aiming to shore it up by making Roman public law valid for his age, whilst preserving the distinctiveness of French customs. In his Six Livres de la République, the French monarch, like the English and Spanish kings, is defined as an absolute sovereign (11, 5). He cannot be

attacked by law or force. He is not obligated by the laws of which he is the maker, though he is bound by the laws of his predecessors and by the sacred laws of nature. Thus Bodin’s sovereign is not completely free because some of the limitations on the prince which are common in medieval political theory are here preserved. Yet attempting, or even thinking, of killing the king is treason because the king of France was ordained and sent by God (11, 5). In France, Bodin claims, sovereignty

has never been shared or questioned. There is a little scope for resistance: tyrannicide is forbidden, though disobeying the tyrant is acceptable if he decrees anything against the law of God or nature, and the subject may flee or hide or otherwise evade the tyrant’s blows. Yet the lawful decrees of a tyrant remain valid (11, 5), and Bodin implies that the accusation of tyranny is too widely used as an excuse for civil disobedience. Bodin stresses above all the indivisibility of sovereignty, listing its distinctive ‘marques [marks], prerogatives which must be held exclusively so that royal power need not acknowledge a superior within its territory. The most important preroga-_ tive is giving law and privileges, and issuing commands (taxes and the regulation of coinage are a subset of this power, money being, after law, the second most significant dimension of collective life; weights and measures also belong under this heading). The power to declare war or make peace comes next, then establishing

the principal officers of state, the right of judging in the last instance (final appeal)

>

Conclusion

257

the right to receive exclusive oaths of fealty and homage, and finally the power to grant pardons and dispensations. Bodin makes clear that these prerogatives are not to be granted to any subject; to do so would be illogical—‘absurdités intolérables’ [intolerable absurdities (p. 49)] would follow—but also anarchic, as they are ‘autant de degrés franchis pour monter a la supréme puissance’ (1, 10) [a stepping stone

to sovereignty (p. 71)].*! Thus sovereignty is something to be jealously protected, maintained against any counter-claims that arise, and from the aristocracy most of all. Despite his claim that sovereignty has never been questioned in France, it appears from the examples he adduces that nobles repeatedly try to chip away at it. Bodin therefore defines sovereignty largely to show how dukes and counts have never been—and never should be—allowed to hold it. He praises the heroic action of successive kings of France in putting the nobles back in their place. Thus the modernity of Bodin’s text lies in its attempts to contain and nullify the politics of the medieval world. Armigerous and ambitious aristocrats are the villains of the piece. Bodin notes that the nobility claims sovereignty in some countries, including Poland, Denmark, and Sweden, where the king can only make war with permission from the estates. This makes the form of the state uncertain and changeable, with either the prince or the nobility stronger, depending on the moment (I, 10). In France, on the other hand, duchies, marquisates, counties, and principalities have always been constituted such that fealty and homage, judgment in the last instance, and sovereignty are retained by the king (1, 10). A succession of French sovereigns acted in this manner: the declaration made by Charles V (1364-80) to

the duke of Berry in 1374 is a good example of the reservation of royal rights; Louis XI (1461-83) forbade the duke of Brittany to use the phrase ‘by the grace of God’ in his edicts, because that is tantamount to claiming sovereignty; certain

counts, viscounts, and bishops once had the right to coin money, but Francis I (1515-47) puta stop to that. The cases of Burgundy and Lorraine are particularly intriguing: the Treaty of Arras, agreed in 1435 between Charles VII and Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy (1419-67), forced the latter to recognize the king’s

sovereignty for lands held of the crown, whereas Francis I ceded rights over Chatelet-sur-Moselle to the duke of Lorraine in 1517, but the duke still had to acknowledge the king’s sovereignty for the duchy of Bar (1, 10). As the rebel baron

tradition reflects, both Burgundy and Lorraine included a mixture of territories held from the crown, and others held either independently or from other powers. Bodin here tidies up any hierarchical ambiguities that might arise. These dukes are still subordinate to kings; thus they are ‘Princes non souverains’ [non-sovereign princes (p. 87)], like the dukes of Ferrara, Florence, and Venice (1, 10). Finally, Bodin notes

that the king of England’s hold over Aquitaine was declared forfeit in 1370 because he did not respect the king of France’s right to hear appeals there. The French king's sovereignty can never be impeached. For Bodin, it is absurd and treasonous even to suggest that France has a mixed constitution: Crest crime de lése-majesté de faire les sujets compagnons du Prince souverain. Et quelle apparence y a-t-il d’état populaire en l’assemblée des trois états, attendu qu'un 21 T quote from the translation by Franklin.

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Rebel Barons

chacun en particulier, et tous en général, ploient le genou devant le Roi, usant d@humbles requétes et supplications, que le Roi regoit, ou rejette ainsi que bon lui semble?

(1, 1)

[it is 2se-majesté to make subjects the colleagues of a sovereign prince. What semb-

lance of a democracy is there in the assembly of the Three Estates, where each individually, and all collectively, bend the knee and present humble requests and petitions, which the king accepts or rejects as he sees fit?

(p. 100)]

The king’s sovereignty is not diminished by their presence; rather: il ne peut étre élevé en plus haut degré d'honneur, de puissance et de gloire que de voir un nombre infini de Princes et grands seigneurs, un peuple innumérable de toutes sortes et qualités d’>hommes, se jeter 4 ses pieds, et faire hommage a sa majesté (11, 1) [he cannot be elevated to a higher level of honor, power and glory than to see an infinite number of princes and great lords, and an innumerable populace of all sorts and human conditions, throwing themselves at his feet and paying homage to his majesty

(p. 101)]

Bodin attacks the key noble belief that they have some special status, and that the king should govern in consensus with them.”” The gap between ideal and reality can be glimpsed in the fact that early modern French nobles demanded regular meetings of the Estates, thinking they could dominate, but then often ended up disavowing them.”? Around Bodin, the nobles incessantly sought more governmental influence. In response, he tried to settle for good the question of the location of supreme power. Hobbes’s Leviathan adds an ethical pendant to Bodin’s juristic arguments for centralized power and justice. The principal danger in Hobbes’s eyes is uncertainty: different conceptions of what is just can cause conflict, and the absence of sovereignty would lead inevitably to anarchy as society became impossible, with war generalizing to all levels of existence. The binary Hobbes establishes here—between sovereignty and anarchy—deletes any space for the kind of resistance, revolt, and feud we have seen in this book. No intermediate levels of social organization are valorized, as they are insufficiently strong to hold anarchy at bay. There must always be sovereign power. Like Machiavelli, then, Hobbes believes that conflict is an omnipresent threat. He therefore rejects comparisons between human societies and those of bees and ants: unlike animals, men are continually in competition for honour and dignity. Envy, hatred, and war are inevitable. Common and private goods do not always correspond in human societies; amongst men, there are always some who consider themselves wiser and more able than others, and therefore desire reform and innovation. Pulling in different directions, they cause distraction and civil war. Moreover, men can use words to misrepresent matters, and they are also more troublesome when idle, because they try to control the government. Finally, man’s government is not natural. Hobbes’s solution is the creation of a Leviathan, an awesome ‘Mortal God (p. 114), with unlimited powers, who guar-

antees peace and defence. Everyone but this sovereign is a subject. The freedom of ?? Jouanna, Le Devoir de révolte, p. 10.

23 Ibid., p. 345.

Conclusion

259

subjects is guaranteed by such a sovereign; liberty flows from him; the laws he

authorizes are artificial chains, allowing for communal life by holding anarchy at bay. Obedience might be a nuisance, but worse still would be the need to be on guard against your neighbour, and so obedience brings prosperity, whereas disobedience leads to the dissolution of the commonwealth. Hobbes notes how the kings of England enfeebled themselves in the past through concessions, citing Henry II (1154-89) and John (1199-1216) (p. 213). The sovereign cannot be sub-

jected to civil laws, says Hobbes, without weakening the entire commonwealth. Hobbes recognizes monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy as the three possible forms of government; tyranny, oligarchy, and anarchy are merely names ‘of the same forms misliked’ (p. 123). Mixed government is dismissed as an irregularity, like a deformed body. Though he often makes provision for aristocracy—that is, for a governing assembly of men—it is clear that Hobbes prefers monarchy, which best combines public and private interest. An assembly can disagree, but it is a logical impossibility for a single sovereign to do so. Democracy, for its part, is associated with the tumults that antique political writers describe: ‘licentious controlling the actions of their sovereigns . . . with the effusion of so much blood’ (p. 143).

The demagogues that stir up crowds are seen as a disease. Hobbes attacks the wrongful reading of classical authors that construes liberty as the absence of laws and commonwealth; their absence would in fact lead to ‘perpetual war, of every man against his neighbour’ (p. 142). The mistaken praise for tyrannicide also

comes from classical authors: men have undertaken to kill their kings, because the Greek and Latin writers, in their books, and discourses of policy, make it lawful, and laudable, for any man so to do, provided, before he do it, he call him tyrant (p. 217)

There is nevertheless some scope for resistance: subjects have the freedom to defend themselves, and they cannot be made to kill, maim, or wound themselves or others. Dangerous or dishonourable offices can be refused, but only when doing so does not detract from the end of sovereignty. Subjects cannot resist the sword of the commonwealth, because this would prevent the sovereign’s protection of the populace. Privileges and charters come from the sovereign, as do all noble dignities. Thus nobles are equal to other subjects in the presence of a sovereign. There is no automatic noble right to counsel, and the sovereign chooses public ministers and counsellors. Noble properties are also sovereign grants; the victor can distribute estates after a war, as did William the Conqueror (1066-87) in England. The idea of absolute

property—held not as a royal grant but as an inalienable right—is a danger to stability. Nobles appear targeted in particular by Hobbes’s attacks on those moved to crime by ‘vain glory, or a foolish overrating of their own worth’, by the ‘greatness of their wealth’, or by ‘a multitude of potent kinsmen’, all of which encourage the violation of laws and the belief that it will be possible to escape punishment (p. 196).

He makes particular stipulations against factions and feuds: in nations not thoroughly civilized, several numerous families have lived in continual hostility, and invaded one another with private force; yet it is evident enough, that they have done unjustly; or else they had no commonwealth (p. 158)

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Rebel Barons

Hobbes states the need for subjects to have ‘a coercive power to tie their hands from rapine and revenge’ (p. 122). Education will keep subjects away from private revenges and teach them what an evil it is to disrespect the commonwealth. He insists upon the difference between revenge and punishment: the latter can only proceed from public authority after a public hearing; private judgment of good and evil is unreliable. Unlike revenge, punishment is carefully measured, set out by law, and aims for the future good; it is not merely the discharge of anger. All this amounts to a wide-ranging attack on feuding culture. Rebellious subjects, however, can be attacked by the right of war, not punish-

ment. They forfeit the protection of the law because they become enemies, rather than subjects, once they deny the sovereign power: if a subject shall by fact, or word, wittingly, and deliberately deny the authority of the representative of the commonwealth...he may lawfully be made to suffer whatever the representative will: for in denying subjection, he denies such punishment as by the law hath been ordained; and therefore suffers as an enemy of the commonwealth (pp. 207-8)

Here Hobbes expresses outwardly the belief that seems to animate Charlemagne in the chansons de geste, as he seeks violent revenge on rebels, without hearing their case. For Hobbes, furthermore: the vengeance is lawfully extended, not only to the fathers, but also to the third and

fourth generation not yet in being... because the nature of this offence, consisteth in the renouncing of subjection, which is a relapse into the condition of war, commonly called rebellion (pp. 210-11)

To rebel against the sovereign is the worst possible crime. Thus the great political writers of this period create an anti-rebellion, anti-feuding ethos that has stuck with us. The negative view of revenge is stated in strong form by Hobbes, and no doubt feeds into our association of vengeance with anarchy. In this book, I hope to have gone some way towards stripping away the negative associations surrounding rebellion and feud by contrasting political theoretical discourses to literature, which voices what are otherwise unwritten rules. Both vendetta and revolt can aim for justice and for the common good, whereas resistance makes sense within a context of competing claims for sovereignty that must be grasped outside the teleology of the nation-state, without automatically siding with the crown as if its demands were somehow morally superior. If we approach medieval texts with this in mind, we will we have our eyes open, ready to be challenged, but not shocked, by the values of a different world. And it seems all the more pressing to do so in the current historical moment, when increasingly draconian surveillance and law enforcement, and decreasingly effective democratic institutions, are closing the space of protest that prevents all political orders ossifying into tyranny.74

*4 See Hedges, Wages ofRebellion, for the argument that political protest is absolutely vital to democracy, but is now becoming impossible.

APPENDIX

Summaries of Chansons de Geste I provide plot details here for the chansons de geste that I subject to substantive analysis in Rebel Barons. Because I have generally proceeded theme-by-theme in the chapters, it can be difficult to reconstruct the plots of the individual texts. I also include the prose Yonnet de Metz, because it provides one possible ending to the Loheren cycle (alternatives being Anseis de Mes and the Vengeance Fromondin). \ have not included Charlemagne chronicles as the material is repeated across the different works, and because chanson de geste plots are reused within them. Numbers of manuscripts come from the relevant editions, but have been

checked against Jonas, the Institut de recherche et dhistoire des textes’s repertory of manuscripts in Old French and Occitan (http://jonas.irht.cnrs.fr/) which has been particularly useful supplementing the information found in older editions.

ANSEIS

(ANSEYS) DE MES, ED. GREEN

[c.1250 (Suard, Guide, p. 215);

4 MSS (Jonas); Herbin (‘Variations’) proposes the title

Anseis de Gascogne, since Loheren hero's power base is in Gascony, and plans to publish an edition with this name.] Narrates the third generation of the Loheren-Bordelais feud told in Garin le Loherenc and Gerbert de Mez (the Vengeance Fromondin being an alternative continuation of Garin and Gerbert). Louis, son of the Loheren Hernaut and the Bordelais Ludie, is driven by his mother to kill Gerbert in revenge for Fromondin (this creates inconsistencies with Gerbert, where Hernaut’s sons have already been murdered by Fromondin). Anseis, son of Gerbert, wants revenge; Gérin organizes peace and Anseis spares Louis, who is handed over to him. But back

home, Louis fails to repent and is hanged on the orders of his father Hernaut, who also wants to punish Ludie. She calls in her lineage, and the feud starts up again. ‘The Loherens get royal support, and the Bordelais summon many allies, including a squadron of women, led by Ludie, who aim to avenge their dead husbands. A great battle takes place at Santerre: Ludie

dies at the hands of Hernaut, but he is then killed by Bauche, who was otherwise a pacific figure. The Loherens lose and the king withdraws. Peace is made, but Anseis still wants

revenge. Bauche becomes a hermit, but is killed by an ally of Anseis, and so war breaks out again. Eventually all the Loherens are wiped out, except Clarisse, Gerbert’s widow, who marries a Bordelais. The narrator nonetheless states that more wars are to come.

ANTIOCHE

(LA CHANSON

D’), ED. NELSON

[Late 12th c. (Suard, Guide, p. 163, possibly reworking an earlier core); 9 MSS plus 2 fragments (Myers, ‘Manuscripts’, p. xvi).]

Loosely based on the events of the First Crusade, forming, along with the Chanson de Jérusalem and Les Chétifs, the first trilogy of the Crusade Cycle. Pierre !Hermite leads a small crusade expedition, but the crusaders are defeated at Civetot. Pierre sees the Holy

262

Appendix

Sepulchre being used as a stable, and this provides the spur for the larger crusade, led by Godefroi de Bouillon. Miraculous exploits by the crusaders and divine marvels help the war along. Renaut Porcet is martyred. The crusaders eventually capture Antioch, where they are besieged by a huge Saracen army under Corbaran. Hunger weakens them, but they are inspired by the rediscovery of the Holy Lance. They storm out, assisted by Saint George and a host of angels, and successfully defend the city.

ASPREMONT,

ED. SUARD

[c.1190 (edn, p. 11); 24 MSS, inc. fragments (http://www.chansondaspremont.eu/manuscrits/ index.html); important Anglo-Norman and Italian clusters.]

The Saracens invade the south of Italy. Charlemagne gathers troops in response, but Girart d’Eufrate, claiming independence from Charles, initially refuses to help, insulting Naymes, Charles's messenger. His wife later convinces him to go. In Italy, Naymes is sent

on the dangerous mission over the mountain Aspremont to spy on the Saracens. Battle begins. Girart contributes to the eventual victory, and defers to Charles during the war, but the poem ends on his declaration of defiance. A young Roland also distinguishes himself in the war, conquering his sword Durendal, his Oliphant, and his horse Veillantin.

BERTA

DA LI PE GRANT

[Part of the Geste Francor, also exists as a 13th-c. chanson de geste by Adenet le Roi, Berte aus grans piés.|

King Pepin is searching for a wife. Berta, the daughter of the king of Hungary is suggested. She has big feet, and will accept Pepin, despite his short and stocky frame. On the way back they come to Mayence where the count has a beautiful daughter, hardly distinguishable from Berta, who takes her to Paris as companion. Berta is tired when she arrives and so asks the companion to spend the first night with the king but not to let him have his way. Actually the king does, and the companion takes advantage of their similarity to oust Berta as queen, ordering her death. Berta escapes, whereas the false queen has three children by Pepin: Lanfroi, Landris, and Berta (who will become the mother of Roland). Berta is

protected by a knight called Sinibaldo, until one day Pepin goes hunting and sees Berta whom he desires; they conceive of a child called Charles. Meanwhile Berta’s mother arrives

at court and realizes her daughter has been ousted because the false queen has small feet. Berta takes her rightful place and the false queen is burned. Berta brings up her rival’s children by Pepin.

BERTA

E MILONE

[Part of the Geste Francor; has no French antecedents (edn, p. 194).]

Charles plans to marry his sister Berta to a high prince, unaware of her affair with his seneschal Milone. Berta is pregnant so they flee Charles, heading towards Lombardy. Charles is furious when this is discovered. Roland is born by a fountain. His humble origins are compared to those of Jesus by the narrator. Milone becomes a woodcutter; Roland goes to school aged four and shows prodigious talents.

Appendix

263

BOVO D’ANTONA (MORGAN SEPARATES INTO ENFANCES BOVO AND CHEVALERIE BOVO) [Part of the Geste Francor; also exists in Anglo-Norman,

Middle English, Old French,

Italian, and many other versions (also known as Beuve d’Hamptone; see edn of Beuve by Martin, pp. 21-5, for a survey of its spread).] Beuves (here Bovo) is trying to recapture his ancestral home Antona from the wicked

Doon de Mayence (here Dodo de Maganga). He and his companion ‘Thierri finally get in, disguised as doctors, and with local support he mounts an attack on the palace and expels Doon, keeping prisoner his own mother, who had betrayed Beuves’s father to marry Doon. Beuves’s wife Josiane (Druxiana) is thought dead but is in fact in Armenia. She returns in

disguise as a minstrel and finds Beuves about to be married to another princess. He finally recognizes her and the princess marries Thierri instead. Meanwhile Doon has made a pact with the French King Pepin who invades. Beuves is victorious, killing Doon and eventually sparing the king. Beuves’s mother is sent to a convent. Beuves is now summoned to England, where the king’s son tries to steal his horse. The horse kills the prince, and Beuves is sentenced to death. But Beuves goes on pilgrimage to Jerusalem instead. ‘There, he fights a duel to decide war against the Saracens. His opponents are killed or converted, and he returns home a hero.

LES CHETIFS,

ED. MYERS

[Late 12th c. (Suard (Guide, p. 167) suggests core may have existed by mid 12th c., later

reworked to form a trilogy with Antioche and Jérusalem); 10 MSS (Myers, ‘Manuscripts’, p. xvi); possibly composed in the crusader states.] This text has little historical basis, narrating the exploits of Christian barons held captive by Corbaran after the defeat of Civetot (told in Antioche). First, the Christian Richard wins,

as Corbaran’s champion, a duel against two Turkish giants; secondly, Baudouin defeats a horrible dragon who has tormented the Saracen community and devoured his brother Ernoul; thirdly, Harpin saves Corbaran’s nephew, who is kidnapped in turn by a wolf, a monkey and a band of thieves. Corbaran develops friendship for the Christians, who are released.

LA GHEVALERIEcD-OGIERDE-DANEMARCHE, EDSEVSEBI [After 1185 (edn, pp. 34-5); 5 MSS plus 2 fragments (Jonas), including 1 Italian MS.]

Charlemagne holds court and is told that Godefroi de Danemarche has refused to pay tribute. The furious Charles wants to take vengeance on Godefroi’s son Ogier who was left as hostage. His desire cannot be fulfilled immediately because Saracens invade, and Ogier fights well, provoking the jealousy of Charlemagne’s son, Charlot. Ogier’s son Baudouin is killed by Charlot in a dispute over a chess game. Charlemagne will not hand over Charlot to Ogier, who wishes to take revenge and so Ogier goes into exile and revolt. He finds shelter with Desier, king of the Lombards, but Desier is soon defeated. Ogier flees to Castelfort, where he withstands siege for seven years. Turpin is eventually able to capture him, but secretly keeps him alive whereas Charlemagne thinks he is dead. Ogier is finally released

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Appendix

and reconciled with Charlemagne who desperately needs his help in defence against a Saracen invasion. Charlot is handed over to Ogier, but an angel intervenes to prevent his

murder, and Ogier stars in the Christian victory over the Saracens. There is a different version of this narrative in the Geste Francor (Chevalerie Ogier le Danois): Ogier is sent on a dangerous mission to the Saracen lord of Verona, who refuses to pay tribute to Charles; with local help, Ogier kills him. Meanwhile back in France terrible things are afoot: Charlot, who hates Ogier because of the victory he won over the two Saracen giants at Rome (see Enfances Ogier), kills Ogier’s son during a falcon hunt. Ogier shows him mercy, however, out of love for Charles and Naymes. But later Charlot taunts Ogier, who kills him. Charles wants Ogier killed on the spot, but eventually agrees to imprison him, hoping to starve him to death. The pagan King Braier now invades. A spell has informed him that no knight upon earth can defeat him and that he will die at the hands of one who is below ground. Roland knows of the spell too and refuses to fight him, as he knows that only Ogier could win (as he is imprisoned underground). ‘The other peers try to fight Braier and all are captured. Eventually, Roland tells Charles of the spell. Ogier will only come out, though, if allowed to take vengeance on Charles. He strikes the king three times, but softly, then rides out to defeat Braier.

CROISADE ALBIGEOISE (LA CHANSON ED. MARTIN-CHABOT

DE LA),

[1219 (date at which the second author stops recording events); 1 MS Franco-Occitan. |

(edn, p. 16);

Recounts, for the most part accurately, historical events of the Albigensian Crusade, from 1209 to 1219. Two authors contributed: Guilhem de Tudela, wrote the first 131 /aisses, before an anonymous continuator takes over. Guilhem narrates the preparations for, and beginnings of, the Frankish invasion of Occitania following the papal order for crusade against the Cathar heretics. Important southern cities, including Béziers and Carcassonne,

are captured; Toulouse is besieged. Guilhem is broadly sympathetic with the crusaders and their leaders, Simon of Montfort and the abbot of Citeaux, though he also shows pity for the victims. The continuator takes the side of the Occitan barons, and sees the crusade as an excuse to invade the south. At the battle of Muret, the important Occitan ally, Peter II of Aragon, dies. Papal mediation is sought at the Lateran council, but proves indecisive.

Occitan resistance takes shape under the young Raymondet, heir to Toulouse, and the city resists Simon, who is killed during the siege. The poem ends with a cry of Occitan defiance as Louis, son of Philip Augustus, arrives in the south to continue the war.

ENFANGES

OGIJER LE DANOIS

[Part of the Geste Francor; also exists as a 13th-c. chanson de geste by Adenet le Roi.] The sultan of Persia invades Europe, driving out the pope. Angel Gabriel summons King Charles to help, and there is fighting outside Rome. Young Ogier saves the Frankish standard from being captured, and is made the standard-bearer. Ogier and Charles’s son Charlot are sent as champions to fight the Saracen giants Karaolo and Sandonio. Charlot would have succumbed were it not for Ogier. But the sultan sends troops onto the field, and Ogier is captured, Karaolo presents himself to Charles as a prisoner, recognizing the betrayal of his

Appendix

265

lord. There is another duel the next day: Carlotto is again struggling but Ogier kills Karaolo and then Sandonio. Charles enters Rome, and all traces of Saracen rule are destroyed.

‘The first part of the chanson de geste called La Chevalerie d’Ogier de Danemarche gives a different enfances for Ogier.

LENTREE

D’ESPAGNE,

ED. THOMAS

[1330-40 (edn, p. vi); 1 MS plus 2 fragments (p. xi); Franco-Italian.] During Charlemagne’s conquest of Spain, the giant Saracen Feragu defeats many Christian knights, until finally Roland is able to vanquish him. Their combat is interrupted by a long theological debate, in which Roland almost convinces the giant to convert. Roland subsequently earns Charles's wrath by taking the city of Nobles without royal permission. Charles slaps Roland and exiles him. Roland sails east, where he disguises himself as a merchant. He earns the trust of the sultan of Persia, whose daughter he defends against a horrible suitor. Roland becomes the sultan’s governor and surveys his kingdom, before introducing Western types of chivalry and courtesy. The sultan and his subjects convert to Christianity, and Roland returns to Spain, where he is reunited with Charles.

GARIN LE LOREKENC,

ED. IKERSGI LI LEMAN

[1160-90 (edn, p. 31); 23 MSS plus 9 fragments (Jonas).]

Hervis, the Loheren, helps Charles Martel defend his kingdom against Vandal invaders. His sons Garin and Begon fight well, and are handsomely rewarded by Charles's successor Pepin, irritating the Bordelais under Fromont. Bordelais exactions lead to two wars. Peace

is made, but broken when Begon is murdered whilst hunting. Rigaut his nephew goes out on revenge. Though Garin is minded to accept Fromont’s peace offer, the other Bordelais refuse to hand over Begon’s killers. War starts again, and Pepin joins in. There are horrible

murders, including that of Guillaume de Blanquefort, whose body is chopped up. Towns are sacked and churches burned. Garin wants to end the war and go on crusade, but he is

killed in a chapel. His kinsmen take revenge, horribly killing bishop Lancelin, one of Garin’s murderers. The song ends with the death of Rigaut. Garin’s sequel is Gerbert de Mez.

GAYDON,

ED. SUBRENAT

AND

SUBRENAT

[1230-4 (edn, p. 18); 3 MSS (Jonas).]

The traitor Tiebaut attempts to poison Charlemagne, but frames Gaydon, a loyal knight who had fought for Charles in the judicial battle against Ganelon. Gaydon defeats Tiebaut in a judicial duel. Tiebaut is hanged, but the other traitors bribe Charles and are spared. Gaydon wants them handed over as prisoners, but Charles refuses, and war ensues. Gaydon is assisted by young knights, whereas Charles is surrounded by elderly and treacherous barons. Continued bribes by the traitors ensure that the king keeps sheltering them. Eventually, an angel tells Gaydon to help Charles, whom the traitors are about to execute. Gaydon has the help of Naymes and the good barons and wins, earning reconciliation with Charles, before becoming a hermit. The remaining traitors find a way back into Charles's favour.

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Appendix GERBERT

DE MEZ,

ED.

TAYLOR

[c.1200 (Suard, Guide, p. 213); 22 MSS plus 3 fragments (Jonas).]

Gerbert is nearly always transmitted with Garin le Loherenc and continues the narrative begun there, with the next generation of warriors taking the stage: for the Loherens, Gerbert is supported by his cousins Hernaut and Gérin, as well as Mauvoisin, who replaces Rigaut. On the Bordelais side, Fromont and Bernard have the help of Fromont’s son Fromondin. Conflict centres on Géronville in Gironde, where the Loherens have their base. Gerbert and his cousins also help Anseis de Cologne, Yon de Gascogne, Raimond de Saint-Gilles, and the

daughter of Aymeri de Narbonne fight off Saracen attacks. Hernaut marries Ludie, Fromont’s daughter. Fromont renounces his Christian faith, and is killed at Géronville when assisting a Saracen attack. Gerbert takes his skull and uses it as a cup. When Fromondin one day drinks from it, he is enraged at the insult, and he murders Hernaut and Ludie’s young children. He becomes a hermit before being killed when he attempts to ambush the Loheren cousins. The Loherens otherwise flourish: Gérin and Gerbert take the hands of the daughters of kings; Mauvoisin becomes count of Saint-Gilles by marrying Raimond’s daughter; Gerbert, later a widow, weds the daughter of Aymeri and becomes heir to Narbonne. Gerbert is followed by Ansejs de Mes or the Vengeance Fromondin in some manuscripts.

GESTE FRANCOR,

ED. MORGAN

[Likely 14th c. (edn, p. 6); 1 MS; Franco-Italian.]

Cycle of chansons de geste, including Bovo d’Antona (part 1, Morgan calls this the Enfances Bovo), Berta da li pe grant, Bovo d’Antona (part 2, or the Chevalerie Bovo), Karleto, Berta e Milone, Enfances Ogier le Danois, Orlandino, Chevalerie Ogier le Danois, and Macario. Some of these texts are versions of Old French chansons de geste. The chronicles studied in Chapter 4 of this volume contain some analogous elements, especially for the biography of Charlemagne. Many of the tales are known in other language traditions (see edn, pp. 73-254 for sources and analogues). I use the proper names established by Morgan, except for characters playing a major role in other chansons de geste studied here (thus Doon de Mayence not Dodo de Maganca, etc.).

GIRART DE ROUSSILLON,

EDS HACKETT

[1136-80 (edn, p. 9); 3 MSS plus 1 fragment (edn, p. 5); 1 MS is in Franco-Occitan, 1 in French, 1 in Occitan; also exists as a saint's life, and in Burgundian 14th-c. verse and 15th-c.

prose recastings (see Chapter 3 of this volume for analysis of all these texts).] Girart and Charles Martel help the emperor of Constantinople to repel a Saracen invasion and receive in return the hands of his two daughters. Charles is jealous that Girart is granted the ‘better’ daughter, Elissent, and weds her, with Girart marrying Berthe. As a reward for agreeing to the swap, Girart is given freehold over his lands. But Charles again becomes envious, this time of Girart’s territories, beginning a long period of war between the king, with his northern French and Germanic allies, and Girart, who has a Burgundian

and Occitan base. Girart gradually loses all his supporters and holdings, and goes into exile. Under the influence of a hermit and of Berthe, Girart lives an impoverished life, giving up

his rancour and learning humility. Elissent then arranges his reconciliation with the king. Conflict breaks out again, and Girart’s son and heir is killed. Girart and Berthe withdraw to a life of holy works, including the foundation of the church at Vézélay.

Appendix GIRART DE VIENNE,

267

ED. VAN

EMDEN

[c.1180 (edn, p. xxxiv); 5 MSS plus 3 fragments (Jonas).]

Girart and his young brother serve Charlemagne, who promises Girart the land of Burgundy, and the hand of its widowed duchess, as a reward. However, upon seeing her, Charles changes his mind and marries her himself, giving Girart Vienne instead. Girart is

meant to kiss the king’s foot in homage, but the queen pushes her own foot in its place. This insult comes to light just as Charles is sending a request for tribute, and war begins. Charles lays siege to Vienne, but Girart is supported by his whole lineage, and the conflict is long. Eventually, a single battle is agreed upon: Roland is the king’s champion, whereas Oliver represents the Vienne family. They fight without conclusion, because an angel asks them to save their strength for combating the infidel. Roland and Oliver become companions;

Girart asks for, and receives, Charles's mercy.

GUI DE BOURGOGNE,

ED. GUESSARD

AND

MICHELANT

[1200-25 (Suard, Guide, p. 184); 2 MSS plus 1 fragment (Hunt, “Materials’).]

Whilst Charlemagne and his barons fight long wars in Spain, their children grow up. ‘They elect the reluctant Gui de Bourgogne as their king, and he leads them to Spain. Young and old Frankish warriors meet, and insults are traded before fathers and sons recognize each other. Charles is perturbed by the existence of a rival king, but Gui acknowledges his inferior status. The vital young generation then captures towns that have resisted Charles and the elder barons: Gui captures Montorgueil, and he and Roland take Luiserne, before squabbling over it. Charles prays that their enmity be ended, and the town disappears. Gui will be king of Spain, and Roland of France. The battle of Roncevaux is announced.

HUG

UES CAPELLA)

aUABORDERTE

[c.1360 (edn, p. 10); 1 MS (p. 7), may be locatable to the Nord.]

Hugues is 16 when his father dies. Indebted because of his love of tournaments, he has to leave his lands. His chivalric calling leads him to wander Hainault, Frisia, and Brabant, where he fathers children by ten different mothers. The last Carolingian king of France dies. The traitor Savari, suspected of poisoning him, demands the crown and the hand of the young princess Marie. Resisting him, Queen Blanchefleur receives the aid of the Parisian bourgeoisie, rallied by Hugues and his bastard sons, against the traitor and his allies, the bulk of the French barony. Hugues kills Savari, defeats the barons, and is elected king.

Savari’s relatives attempt another coup but Hugues vanquishes them, and peace reigns.

HUON

D’AUVERGNE,

[Surviving versions date to 1341-1441

ED. MORGAN

AND

OTHERS

(huondauvergne.org); 3 MSS plus 1 fragment

(Morgan, “Nida’); summary and analysis in Chapter 6 of this volume based on Berlin MS;

tradition locatable to northern Italy. At court, Charles Martel falls for Huon’s wife Ynide. She refuses his advances, and he

plots to get rid of Huon, eventually sending him on a mission to hell to get tribute from Lucifer, the only ruler who does not yet recognize Charles. Huon dutifully goes East, assisting in the capture of first Jerusalem, then a series of other oriental territories, which are

268

Appendix

converted to Christianity. Charles sends another message to Ynide, but she resists. Huon travels through marvellous lands, encountering supernatural creatures and eventually meeting Prester John. He finally enters hell where he is guided by Guillaume d’Orange. After a tour, Huon receives Lucifer’s tribute and returns home. When Charles Martel receives the tribute, devils carry him off to hell. HUON

DE BORDEAUX,

ED. KIBLER

[c.1260 (edn, p. xxii); 3 MSS plus 1 fragment (p. xxxvii).]

An ageing Charlemagne worries about royal succession, since his son Charlot is weak. Charlot is nonetheless chosen as heir and lectured on the duties of a king. The traitor Amauri stirs trouble by noting the absence of Huon from court. Huon is summoned, and Amauri manipulates Charlot into participating in an ambush by convincing him that Huon is a threat to his inheritance. During the ambush, Huon unwittingly kills Charlot. Charles wants to execute him, but eventually reprieves him on condition he bring a huge tribute from King Gaudisse in Babylon, including a chunk of his beard, four of his back teeth, and three kisses from his daughter Esclarmonde. ‘This is seen as a mission impossible,

but Huon eventually succeeds, thanks to the assistance of the dwarf Auberon, after a series of oriental adventures in which he defeats giants, converts lands to Christianity, and wins the heart of Esclarmonde, as well as sharpening his heroic virtues under Auberon’s tutelage. Huon returns home, and is saved from a vengeful Charles by the intervention of Auberon, whose heir he becomes.

JERUSALEM

(LA CHANSON

DE), ED. THORP

[c.1180 (Suard, Guide, p. 165); 11 MSS (Myers, ‘Manuscripts’, p. xvi).]

Forms a trilogy with the Chanson d‘Antioche and Les Chétifs; it has some basis in history, but is less accurate than Antioche. The Christians lay siege to the Holy City, occupying sites such as Mount Sion, but their initial attacks are unsuccessful. They kill or capture the pigeons the besieged Saracens try to send out as messengers. A hermit tells them where to find wood to build siege engines. The Tafurs, tough poor men of the army, play a crucial role in the eventual victory. The Christians enter Jerusalem on a Friday, at the hour of Christ’s crucifixion. The Saracens in the city are massacred. The Christians celebrate and are joyously reunited with the Sepulchre which they clean. A miracle indicates God’s will that Godefroi be crowned king. Many Christians set off home, but a miracle alerts them that a huge Saracen army is coming. The Christians are victorious, once again with the assistance of Saint George. The Saracens have been driven back all the way to Acre.

KARLETO

[Part of the Geste Francor; it provides an enfances text for Charlemagne, and also exists as a 12th-c. chanson de geste called Mainet.]

Lanfroi and Landris plot to kill their stepmother Berta and their father Pepin and to seize power. A poison attempt fails, but leads to a battle where Lanfroi and Landris are victorious,

Appendix

269

along with their allies, the Mayence clan of traitors. Lanfroi and Landris now rule the kingdom. The young Charles avoids his half-brothers, working in the kitchens, and escaping to Spain when they plot his death. The Saracen King Galafre recognizes Charles and takes him in, giving him the hand of his daughter Belisant, who converts, along with her father. This provokes war with another Saracen king, Braibant. Charles inspires the troops and kills Braibant. Galafre’s sons are jealous of Charles and plan to kill him but Charles is alerted by their mother and flees during the night with Belisant. The pope is a member of the Mayence clan, and sends his men after Charles, but he gets assistance from the king of Hungary. The pope dies in battle and is replaced by a loyal man. Charles now attacks Paris and defeats his half-brothers. He refuses to punish them but the pope insists. ‘They are hanged and Charles is crowned.

MACARIO [Part of the Geste Francor; fragments of French versions survive too (sometimes referred to as the Reine Sebille narrative).|

At court, the traitor Macario has earned favour through his monetary generosity. He wants to shame the king by inducing Queen Blanchefleur to commit adultery, but she refuses his advances. He then convinces a dwarf beloved of the king and queen to help persuade her by saying good things about him, but the queen strikes the dwarf down. Macario offers the dwarf the chance to get revenge: he will get into the queen’s bed when the king goes to church. When he returns, the dwarf will say that the queen often invited him there. The plan is executed. Charles is horrified and accepts Macario’s advice that the queen be burned, eventually agreeing under pressure from his barons to exile her instead. Albaris accompanies her, but is killed by Macario; however, Albaris’s dog then defeats Macario in a judicial duel and Macario is executed. Blanchefleur, escorted by the wild man Varocher,

goes to Hungary, where the king takes her in. Charles’s son Louis is born there. Blanchefleur’s father, the emperor of Constantinople, is furious at his daughter's treatment, and war between France and the Greeks begins. Varocher proves himself and is made a knight, and he then fights a decisive duel with Ogier. Impressed by his prowess, Ogier asks the identity of his adversary and wants peace to be made. King and queen are reunited.

ORLANDINO [Part of the Geste Francor; it provides an enfances text for Roland (there is no extended Old French narrative of this material (edn, p. 202) but Aiguin, Aspremont and Girart de Vienne

feature a young Roland).] Young Roland goes to Charles’s court, and sees that the emperor has a bigger plate at dinner than the others. He goes towards him, and Charles, impressed by his aspect, allows him to take meat and bread for his parents. Charles is curious to know who his parents are, and sends two valets, but Roland runs away. Despite his mother’s interdiction, he subsequently goes back to court more than once, and eventually is followed. Roland and his

parents attend court. Charles tries to attack Berta and Milone, but Roland holds him back with great force. Berta and Milone ask for pardon but Charles is reluctant until Roland threatens to strike him. They are forgiven and their marriage is celebrated.

270

Appendix LE PELERINAGE

DE CHARLEMAGNE,

ED. BONAFIN

[1150-1200 (edn, p. 32); 1 MS; Anglo-Norman. ]

Charlemagne’s wife teases him that there is another king in the world who wears his crown better than he—Hugo of Constantinople—and Charles rushes off to see the competition. He goes first to Jerusalem, where he is mistaken for Christ and his companions for the Apostles. The patriarch gives him relics to take back to France. At Constantinople, the Franks are welcomed, but cause trouble when their drunken boasts, mocking Hugo, are overheard. Divine intervention allows Charles to defeat Hugo without battle.

RAOUL

DE CAMBRAI,

ED. KAY

[c.1200 (edn, p. lxxiii); 1 MS plus 1 fragment and a partial transcript of a lost copy (pp. xviii-xx).] Raoul’s father dies; too young to inherit, Raoul sees his land given away by King Louis

as a reward to another loyal vassal, Gibouin. Once he is of age, Raoul protests, and is awarded the next available fief, the Vermandois, which happens to have four heirs, one of whom is the father of Raoul’s companion Bernier. Raoul’s mother Aalais warns him to fight for his ancestral lands rather than the Vermandois, but she is not heeded. Egged on by his uncle Guerri, Raoul ravages the Vermandois, burning a nunnery in which Bernier’s mother lives. Raoul argues with Bernier, strikes him, and is later killed by him. The two lineages are now in feud. Raoul’s nephew Gautier continues the war, with Guerri at his side. Briefly, the opposing sides unite against the king whom they now blame, and they raid Paris. Bernier marries Guerri’s daughter Beatrice; he is twice separated from her, but wins her back both times. He and his son Julien are captured by Saracens, but Bernier is freed after assisting his captor, and is reunited with Julien. Ignoring Beatrice’s warning about her father’s vengeful emotions, Bernier goes on pilgrimage with Guerri, and is killed by him. Julien seeks revenge, but Guerri disappears.

RENAUT

DE MONTAUBAN,

ED. THOMAS

{Late 12th c. (edn, p. 9); 13 MSS (edn, pp. 15-16; see also Thomas's edn of Episode ardennais on the manuscripts); important Italian cluster of MSS.]

Charlemagne sends his son Lohier to chastise Beuve d’Aigremont for failing to support him in war. Combat ensues, and Lohier is killed. Beuve is summoned to Charles’s court but

ambushed and killed whilst travelling. Charles has recently knighted Renaut, Aalart, Richart, and Guischart, the four sons of Aymon, Beuve’s brother. Renaut kills Charles's nephew Bertolet in a dispute over a chess game. Renaut and his brothers have to flee court on their magical horse Bayart, taking shelter in Montessor. Charles, supported by Aymon, finds them and they flee again to the Ardennes, where their mother assists them. The enchanter Maugis, Beuve’s son, joins them and they move to Gascony, where they support King Yon. Renaut marries Yon’s daughter, and they build the castle of Montauban. Yon succumbs to Charles's pressure, and gives the brothers up to ambush at Vaucouleurs. They are saved by the arrival of Maugis, but Richart is captured and almost hanged before Renaut intervenes. Charles's other barons increasingly sympathize with the brothers. Maugis magically disguises himself and mocks the king, stealing royal insignia. Peace negotiations fail because Renaut refuses to hand over Maugis to Charles. Despite baronial reluctance,

Appendix

ohh

Charles besieges Montauban again. The brothers flee to Cologne, pursued by Charles who eventually gives in to baronial pressure and makes peace. Renaut makes the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In his absence, war breaks out again, and he must return to fight and then make peace. Finally, he goes to Cologne to work on the construction of a cathedral. The other workers despise him because he works for free and kill him. He is therefore made a saint.

SAISNES

(LA CHANSON

DES), ED, BRASSEUR

[1180-1202 (edn, p. x); 4 MSS (edn, pp. x-xi; Jonas); sometimes ascribed to Jean Bodel.] Narrates Charlemagne’s war against the Saxon King Guiteclin (based on the historical

Witikind). Charles's preparations for war are undermined by the Herupois, who refuse to pay him tribute, and go into revolt, before the king humbly recognizes their value as allies. The Franks and Saxons are long at stalemate, each side of the Rune. Two young Frankish knights, Baudouin and Bérart, frequently swim across the river to court Guiteclin’s wife Sebille and her maid. Guiteclin is eventually killed, and Baudouin marries Sebille, becoming king. He too is soon killed, along with Bérart, and Guiteclin’s son takes the crown,

converting to Christianity.

LA VENGEANCE

FROMONDIN,

ED. HERBIN

[c.1260 (edn, p. 88); 1 MS (p. 11).]

Narrates the third generation of the Loheren—Bordelais feud told in Garin le Loherenc and Gerbert de Mez (Ansejs de Mes being an alternative continuation of Garin and Gerbert). The Bordelais seek to avenge Fromondin, attacking the territories of the Loheren Gérin. Whereas Ansejs de Mes takes the death of Gerbert as its point of departure, the Vengeance Fromondin narrates it only at the end. It does not fit well with the narrative sequence, since Ludie has until then been loyal to her husband’s family. Yon, son of Gerbert, inherits his lands; his brother Garin, forefather of the Narbonnais, receives Monglane. ‘The text consists

mainly of pillages and raids, but it also integrates the narrative material of Raoul de Cambrai, Raoul being assimilated to the Loherens and Bernier to the Bordelais.

VOM N tiie Dei

2

fbDri ERBUN

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Bibliography CHANSONS

DE "GES TE

Where more than one edition is listed, the one from which quotations are taken is marked

by an asterisk. Adenet le Roi, Les Oeuvres, ed. Albert Henry, 5 vols (Bruges: De Tempel, 1951-71) [contains Berte aus grans piés, Buevon de Conmarchis, and the Enfances Ogier]. Aiol, ed. A. Richard Hartman and Sandra C. Malicote (New York: Italica, 2014). Aiguin, ed. Francis Jacques and Madeleine Tyssens (Aix-en-Provence: CUERMA, 1979).

Anseis de Carthage = Anseis von Karthago, ed. Johann Alton (Tiibingen, Litterarischer Verein in Stuttgart, 1892). Anseys deMes, ed. Herman Joseph Green (Paris: [n. pub.], 1939). *Aspremont, ed. and trans. Francois Suard (Paris: Champion, 2008).

Aspremont = La Chanson d’Aspremont, ed. Louis Brandin, 2nd edn, 2 vols (Paris: Champion, 1923-4). Baudouin de Sebourc, ed. Larry S. Crist and Robert E Cook, 2 vols (Paris: SATE, 2002). La Belle Héléne de Constantinople, ed. Claude Roussel (Geneva: Droz, 1995).

Berte aus grans piés, see Adenet le Roi. Beuve d’Hamptone, ed. and trans. Jean-Pierre Martin (Paris: Champion, 2014). Buevon de Conmarchis, see Adenet le Roi. La Chanson d’Antioche, ed. and trans. Bernard Guidot (Paris: Champion, 2011). *La Chanson d’Antioche = The Old French Crusade Cycle IV: La Chanson d’Antioche, ed.

Jan A. Nelson (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2003). The ‘Chanson d’Antioche': An Old French Account ofthe First Crusade, trans. Susan B. Edgington and Carol Sweetenham (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011).

La Chanson de la Croisade Albigeoise, ed. Eugene Martin-Chabot, trans. Henri Gougaud (Paris: Lettres Gothiques, 1989). La Chanson de Guillaume, ed. and trans. Philip E. Bennett (London: Grant & Cutler, 2000).

La Chanson de Jérusalem = The Old French Crusade Cycle VI, ed. Nigel R. Thorp (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1992).

La Chanson de Roland (Oxford version), ed. and trans. Ian Short, 2nd edn (Paris: Lettres

Gothiques, 1990). La Chanson de Roland (Venice 4 and Chateauroux—Venice 7 versions), in The Song of Roland: The French Corpus, general ed. Joseph J. Duggan, 3 vols (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005).

Les Chétifs = The Old French Crusade Cycle V, ed. Geoffrey M. Myers (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1981). Le Chevalier au Cygne = The Old French Crusade Cycle IT, ed. Jan A. Nelson (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1985). La Chevalerie d’Ogier de Danemarche, ed. Mario Eusebi (Milan: Cisalpino, 1963). La Chevalerie Vivien, ed. Duncan MacMillan, 2 vols (Aix-en-Provence: CUERMA, 1997).

La Chrétienté Corbaran = Old French Crusade Cycle VI: The Jérusalem Continuations I, ed. Peter R. Grillo (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1984). Le Couronnement de Louis, ed. Ernest Langlois (Paris: CFMA, 1925).

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Daurel e Beton, ed. Charmaine Lee (Parma: Pratiche Editrice, 1991). La Destructioun de Rome, ed. Luciano Formisano (London: Anglo-Norman Text Society,

1990). Doon de Maience, ed. Alexandre Pey (Paris: F. Vieweg, 1859). Elye de Saint-Gilles, ed. and trans. A. Richard Hartman and Sandra C. Malicote (New York: Italica, 2011).

Les Enfances de Godefroi = The Old French Crusade Cycle III, ed. Emanuel J. Mickel (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1999). Les Enfances Ogier, see Adenet le Roi. LEntrée d’Espagne, ed. Antoine Thomas, 2 vols (Paris: SATE, 1913; repr. Florence: Olschki, 2007).

LEpisode ardennais de ‘Renaut de Montauban’, ed. Jacques Thomas, 2 vols (Bruges: De Tempel, 1962).

Fierabras, ed. Marc Le Person (Paris: Champion, 2003).

La Fin d'Elias = The Old French Crusade Cycle IT, ed. Jan A. Nelson (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1985). Garin le Loherenc, ed. Anne Iker-Gittleman, 3 vols (Paris: Champion, 1996-7). Gaufrey, ed. Francis Guessard (Paris: E Vieweg, 1859). Gaydon, ed. and trans. Jean Subrenat and Andrée Subrenat (Leuven: Peeters, 2007).

Gerbert de Mez, ed. Pauline Taylor (Namur: Faculté de philosophie et lettres, 1952). La Geste Francor: edition of the ‘chansons de geste’ of MS. Marc. Fr. XIII (=256), ed. Leslie Zarker Morgan, 2 vols (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2009).

Girart de Roussillon, ed. Mary Hackett, trans. Micheline de Combarieu du Grés and Gérard Gouiran (Paris: Lettres Gothiques, 1993).

Girart de Roussillon: poéme bourguignon du X1Ve siecle, ed. Edward Billings Ham (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1939). Girart de Vienne (Bertrand de Bar-sur-Aube), ed. Wolfgang van Emden

(Paris: Picard,

1977). Gormont et Isembart, ed. Alphonse Bayot, 3rd edn (Paris: Champion, 1931). Gui de Bourgogne, ed. F. Guessard and H. Michelant (Paris: E Vieweg, 1859). Gui de Nanteuil, ed. James R. McCormack (Geneva: Droz, 1970). Hervis de Mes, ed. Jean-Charles Herbin (Geneva: Droz, 1992). Hugues Capet, ed. Noélle Laborderie (Paris: Champion, 1997). Huon d‘Auvergne (transcription of Berlin MS provided by Leslie Zarker Morgan—edition and translation will be published online at http://huondauvergne.org/). Huon de Bordeaux, ed. Francois Guessard and Charles de Grandmaison (Paris: E Vieweg, 1860). *Huon de Bordeaux, ed. and trans. William Kibler and Francois Suard (Paris: Champion, 2003).

Jehan de Langon, ed. Jean Duplessy (Paris: Léopard d’or, 2004). Lion de Bourges, ed. William W. Kibler and others, 2 vols (Geneva: Droz, 1980). Mainet, ed. Gaston Paris, Romania, 4 (1875), 305-37.

Maugis d’Aigremont, ed. Philippe Vernay (Bern: Francke, 1980). La Mort Godefroi = Old French Crusade Cycle VII: The Jérusalem Continuations II, ed. Peter R. Grillo (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1987).

La Morte di Carlo Magno = ‘Ancora sulla Morte (o Testamento) di Carlo Magno’, ed. Maria Luisa Meneghetti, in Testi, cotesti e contesti del franco-italiano, ed. Ginter Holtus and others (Tiibingen: Niemeyer, 1989), pp. 245-84.

Bibliography

IHS)

La Naissance du Chevalier au Cygne = Old French Crusade Cycle I: La Naissance du Chevalier au cygne (Elioxe/Beatrice), ed. Emanuel J. Mickel and Jan A. Nelson

(Tuscaloosa:

University of Alabama Press, 1977). Otinel, ed. Francois Guessard and Henri Michelant (Paris: FE. Vieweg, 1859). Le Pélerinage de Charlemagne = Viaggio di Carlomagno in Oriente, ed. and trans. Massimo

Bonafin (Alessandria: Orso, 2007). La Prise d’Acre = Old French Crusade Cycle VI: The Jérusalem Continuations II, ed. Peter R. Grillo (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1987).

La Prise d’Orange, ed. Claude Lachet (Paris: Champion, 2010). La Prise de Pamplune = Niccolo da Verona, ‘La Continuazione dell’ Entrée d’Espagne’, in Niccolo da Verona: Opere, ed. Franca Di Ninni (Venice: Marsilio, 1992), pp. 203-389.

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Index Adenet le Roi 12,59, 86 Administration, royal 6, 9, 11-13, 21, 29, 42, Sil, 55), 5 (Ay FOS, WIL, 273 Advisers, royal 6, 26, 31, 58, 73-7, 81, 131, 256 Agamben, Giorgio 15-16, 21-5, 29, 40, 50-2, ih 6} Aiol 12 Alexander the Great (literary character) 159, 215, 217, 228, 237-9, 247 182-4, 192-8, 202, 205, 211, 225;

see also class solidarity, friendship, kinship, networks Ambroise 101 n. 19 Anarchy 47, 119, 175, 198, 207, 211, 258-60

Andrea da Barberino 102, 253 Anger 32, 56, 66, 71, 92, 95, 116, 120, 124, 129, 161, 167, 181, 202, 205-6, 209-10,

212; see also emotions Anglo—Norman; see also England epic tradition 2 n. 5, 7, 12-13, 57, 62, 101-2, 138-40, 156-8, 173, 251

147-9

Animality 21-4, 27, 41, 47-8, 92, 124, 164,

258; see also wolf Anjou 8, 73 Anseis de Cartage 151-2 Anseis de Mes 177, 184-5, 187, 191, 196, 198,

201-2, 208; see also Appendix Anthropology 60-1, 63, 89-90, ch. 5 passim, 252 Antichrist, the 220, 224, 226, 237 Antioche, Chanson a’ 214-28, 235; see also Appendix Antiquity, romances of 238 Apocalypticism 213, 216-28 Aquinas, St. Thomas 22, 35-42, 46, 48, 51, 522451785207, 209,223 252

Aquitaine 11, 35, 99, 145, 257 Aragon 11, 131, 140 Arbitration 184-7, 200-1; see also compromise, conflict resolution, monks, peace Ariosto 14, 86, 250, 253 Aristocracy, see also class solidarity

Changing role of 6-7, 9, 13, 55-6, 59, 75-6, 128, 250-60; see also advisers, royal; administration, royal; crusade As mode of government 36, 44, 259 Aristotle 24, 36, 42-4, 48-9, 56, 71 Arthur, King (romance character)/Arthurian

romance

1165 1217136) 1415 161s 1635) 165—6; 218 n. 24, 230, 232, 245, 248, 251, 253;

see also Appendix Auberi le Bourguignon 11, 127 Auvergne 8, 58, 123, 166 Avveroes 43

82,

Allegiance 6, 61, 93, 114, 122-3, 146, 178,

law 144 version of the Pseudo—Turpin

Aspremont 10, 13-14, 66, 100-7, 110, 113,

50-2, 151, 229-30, 238, 245

balance-sheet metaphor 189, 202, 204-5 Baldwin II, King of Jerusalem 217 Barcelona 11, 131 Baudouin de Seboure 217 Beast, see animal

Belle Héléne de Constantinople, La 3 n. 10, 230 n. 65, 252 Berry 126, 257 Berta e Milone 170; see also Appendix Berte aus grans piés/Berta da li pe grant 12, 170; see also Appendix Beuve d’'Hamptone/Bovo d'Antona/Bevis of Hampton 2 n. 3, 12, 14, 170, 238, 253; see also Appendix Biblical quotations 121, 128-9, 245; see also Girart de Roussillon, Burgundian rewritings Bisclavret 21, 23-4 Bisson, Thomas 98—9 Black-Michaud, Jacob 188-9, 196 n. 86, 199, 202 n. 101

Blanche of Castile, Queen of France 73-4 Bodel, Jehan 2, 11, 154~5, 229; see also Saisnes, Les Bodin, Jean 20, 43, 254, 256-8

Body politic, the 1-2, 22, 26, 30-4, 47-50, 54, 64, 71-3, 99, 125, 144, 198, 255, 259 Boiardo 14, 86, 250, 253 Bologna 102 Borders, see frontiers Boutet, Dominique 3, 208 Bouvines, battle of 8-9, 58, 150-1 Bracton (lawcode)

26, 56

Bribery 78-9, 123, 183 Brittany/Bretons 8, 10, 99, 160, 255, 257

Brotherhood 89-90, 96; see also kinship Brunetto Latini 206-7 Buevon de Conmarchis 12

Bureaucracy, see administration Burgundy 1-2, 8-12, 14, 58, 67-8, 86, ch. 3 passim, 138, 141, 145, 150-1, 158, 162, NG Sy, 17/2, Dil, PSS, YS Burgwinkle, William 116, 215 Byzantium, see Constantinople

Index

302 Calin, William 12-13, 57, 70-1, 232 Cangrande I della Scala 43 Cannibalism 220-1 Cantari 14, 102 Carolingian Empire 2, 5, 8, 52, 94, 103, 152-4, 237, 242

division of in 843 8, 10-11, 35, 98, 121-2, 130; see also Middle Kingdom Catiline Conspiracy 47 Centralization 1-2, 4, 9, 42, 54, 59, 74, 79, 96; 9979126; 138) 16191755 1772 128 250

Chansons d'aventure 3 n. 13 Chansons de geste As France’s epic literature 2, 12-13, 98 As vehicle for noble protest 1, ch. 2 passim Audience 3 n. 13, 6 n. 23, 11, 14, 180, 187, 218, 240, 253

Cyclification 3, 11-12, 16-17, 66, 72, 85, 127, 175-7, 197, 214, 216-17, 230 n. 65,

236, 252 Interactions with other genres 3, 5 Manuscript tradition, dating of 3-4 Place in literary history 2-3, 5-6 ‘Three gestes 16-17, 64, 75-6, 101, 162 Chantilly, Musée Condé, 470 102 Charlemagne (epic character) 9, 52, ch. 2

Church building 116, 118-21, 172

Church vs. State 30, 49; see also Italy, imperial—papal antagonisms Cicero 41, 43, 47-8 Cieco 253 Civil war 21-2, 40, 47, 80, 113, 127, 249, 254, 258; see also feud

Class solidarity 5-6, 56, 89, 96, 115, 178, 188; see also allegiance, friendship, kinship, networks

Clémence of Hungary 86 Clovis II, King of France 52 Cologny, Fondation Martin Bodmer, 11 102 Common good, the 1, 9, 14, 23, 30-2, 34, 37-42, 44-5, 47-8, 54, 56, 60, 68, 72, 74, 78, 81, 84, 117, 141, 177-9, 209, 211, 260

Compromise 7,57, 66, 69-72, 89, 95, 119, 134, 190, 201-4, 214, 225-7; see also arbitration, conflict resolution, forgiveness, mercy, peace Conflict resolution 17, 70, 252; see also arbitration, compromise, forgiveness, mercy, peace

Consanguinity 192-3 Constantine, Donation of 49-50

passim, 102-7, 132, ch. 4 passim, 217, 236-43, 253, 260 The second Charlemagne 154, 228; see also Emperor, last Charles, Count ofValois 140, 150, 154 Charles, Duke of Orléans 59, 127 Charles II, King of Navatre 80 Charles IV, King of France 79, 120 Charles V, King of France 86, 126, 178, 257 Charles VI, King of France 126, 139 Charles VII, King of France 128, 255, 257 Charles VIII, King of France 138 n. 1, 255

Constantinople 107, 109-10, 112, 140, 154-8,

Charles Martel (epic character)

Croisade Albigeoise, La Chanson de la 130-6, 251; see also Appendix Croniques et conquests de Charlemaine, Les, see

104, 107-17,

161, 244-9 Charles the Bald, King of France 10, 100, 117-18, 121-2, 128

Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy 10, 129-30

Charlot (epic character, son of Charlemagne) 52, 88-9, 94, 164—5, 230-1

Chateauroux, Mediathéque, 1 145-6, 159 Chétifs, Les 214-28, 235, 240; see also Appendix Chevalier au Cygne, Le 217 Chevalerie d’Ogier, La, see Ogier le Danois Chevalerie Vivien, La 217 Childeric III, King of France 52 Chrétien de Troyes 50-2 Chrétienté Corbaran 216, 227 Chronicles 1, 3-4, ch. 4 passim, 251 Chronique des royz 105, 129-30 Chronique rimée, see Philippe Mousket

164, 229, 247 Conte du Graal, Le 50-2 Conversions 223, 225-7, 233-4, 241, 246 Couronnementde Louis, Le 8 n. 30, 52, 82, 90-1

Courts, critique of 57, 62, 66, 75, 89, 96, 186, 229-50

Cottumes de Beauvaisis 35, 144, 179, 185-6, 192

Cowell, Andrew 4 n. 16, 64, 104, 115 n. 49, 187, 208

David Aubert Crown, the (concept/symbol of) 29, 59, 63, Ti=8s 62-0) 90—le ell Onl

Crusade

ane

9, 35, 60—5, 96, 103=7, 117, 141—59,

169, ch. 6 passim Albigensian Crusade 11, 35, 130-7 First Crusade 157, 215-28, 234 Second Crusade 215, 217, 228 n. 49 Third Crusade 13, 101-2, 215, 228 n. 49 Fourth Crusade 215 Louis IX’s crusades 215

Crusade Cycle 3, 11, 214-29, 230 n. 65, 250-1 Crusader States 225-6, 243 Customs 9, 42, 60, 79, 97, 195, 239, 255-6 Dante 44, 46, 215, 238, 248 Daurel et Beton 11, 108 n. 29

303

Index David Aubert ch. 4 passim

Fin d'Elias, La 217 Firnhaber-Baker, Justine 178, 180, 182 Fisher King, the 23, 50-2 Flanders 6 n. 23, 8-12, 35, 58, 80, 85, 99,

Defensor pacis, see Marsilius

De Jouvenel, Bertrand 51, 113 De regno, see Aquinas Democracy 36, 44, 258-9

Derrida, Jacques 15, 21-2, 24-5, 29, 70, 112 Descriptio qualiter 156 Destruction de Rome, La 13 Disinheritance 50, 52, 61, 63, 91, 122, 132-4, 180, 182

IZ7=SH SON USVeelloleeloS—492 Gl 7, 220, 250

Florence

86, 257

Forgiveness 70, 144, 203-7, 226, 231; see also arbitration, compromise, conflict resolution, mercy, peace

Doon de Maience 13, 16-17, 68 n. 44, 100 n. 10, 162, 165, 167-8, 174, 252

Foucault, Michel

Edward III, King of England 79

Carolingian 80, 104, 139, 153, 160 Early modern 253-8 Idea of 8, 94, 98-9, 112, 122, 136-7 Merovingian 52, 103, 139, 160 Valois 58, 79-80 Francis I, King of France 257 Franks, see also law, Salic

55 n. 5

France, Capetian 2, 8-9, 56, 79-80, 89, 104, ISIS), W45),, W533}, Woy,

Elye de Saint—Gilles 12 Einhard 155-6 Emotions

71, 93, 124, 176, 178, 186, 205-6,

211-12, 223, 258; see also anger Emperor, concept of 59, 102-3, 159; see also monarchy, sovereignty The last emperor 145, 154, 228 Roman 46 Empire, concept of 43-4, 138 Holy Roman 140, 154, 164 Roman 164, 222, 236 Enfances tales 168-71 Enfances de Godefroi, Les 217 Enfances Ogier, Les 12, 59, 86; see also Appendix England 8, 12-13, 21-2, 26, 54-5; see also Anglo—Norman Early modern 253-4 Middle English epics 253 Entrée dEspagne, L’ 3 n. 12, 14, 76, 168, 214-15, 228, 236-43, 245, 250-1; see also

Appendix Erec et Enide 5

G0), Sil

As baronial community 59, 173 As leaders of Western Christendom

2, 100,

104, 147-51, 214, 216-28, 249

Empire/imperialism

100, 111, 213 n. 1;

see also Carolingian Empire Warrior culture/image 100, 213, 221 Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor 15 Frederick III], Holy Roman Emperor 130

Friendship 71, 178, 192-8; see also allegiance, class solidarity, kinship Frontiers

9, 59, 98-100, 109, 111, 116,

IZD Sy,

Ganelon

64, 74-5, 78, 83, 138, 141-52, 159,

162, 164-5, 171, 248

Garin le Loherenc

Eschatology, see apocalypticism; emperor,

11, 127, 177, 182-3, 187,

189-90, 193, 196-8, 201, 204, 210;

see also Appendix

the last Estates 9, 71, 79, 257-8 Estensi, noble family of Ferrara 14, 244, 255

Garin de Monglane (epic character, geste)

Etablissements de Saint Louis (lawcode)

Gascony 10, 14, 58, 91, 99, 115, 123,

77-8, 179 Etienne Marcel 80 Europe, idea of 107 Evans-Pritchard, Edward 199 n. 90

56,

16=17, 103; 162 S225 5

181, 190, 196 n. 84,

Exile 23-4, 92-5, 115, 119, 164, 170, 182, 206, 229-50

Gaufrey 88 n. 90 Gauvard, Claude 144, 180, 209 Gaydon 8 n. 31, 58, 71, 73-9, 81, 85, 91, 96,

251; see also Appendix Geary, Patrick 186, 205 genre 2-7, 12-13, 57, 134, 139-40, 173-4, 229-36

Ferrand, Count of Flanders 58 Ferrara 257; see also Estensi Feud 32, 39, 42, 83-4, 112, 117, 143-5, ch. 5

passim, 213-14, 224-5, 251, 253-60;

see also civil war, vengeance

Feudalism 9, 11, 14 n. 77, 20-1, 24, 35 n. 42, 112, 169, 198

Fiction, concept of 139-41, 152, 157-8, 160, 16S" IGS) Wis —4 Fierabras 13, 146, 252-3

Gerbert de Mez 177, 183-4, 188, 190-1, 193-4, 196, 201, 204 n. 106, 205,

209-10; see also Appendix Geste Francor 14, ch. 4 passim; see also Appendix Giants 148, 151, 165, 216, 219, 233-4, 237-8, 243 Gift, the 57, 64-70, 72, 94, 96, 104-5, 195 Giles of Rome 15, 36, 49

Girart d’Amiens ch. 4 passim

304

Index

Girart de Roussillon Burgundian rewritings 100-1, 108, 120-30, 166, 245

chanson de geste 10-11, 52, 66, 76, 100, 103, 107-19, 121, 124, 126, 128, 130, 134, (ALG l6s.nl 74 lZ7neloee sooo,

253; see also Appendix Vita/saint’s life 100—1, 118-20, 124, 126, 128, 130 Girart de Rousillon (historical figure) 10, 100-1, 118, 141, 163, 166, 174

Girartde Vienne 10, 16-17, 57-8, 66-73, 75, 83-5, 87 n. 89, 95-6, 100 n. 10, 103,

110, 161-2, 251, 253; see also Appendix Gluckman, Max 60-1, 63, 89, 199 Godefroi de Bouillon 162, 214, 216-28, 236

Gonzagas, noble family of Mantua 14, 85, 102, 236, 244 Gormont et Isembart 3, 13 Government, modes of 36-7, 44, 256 Grandes Chroniques de France, Les 36, 52,

87 n. 89, ch. 4 passim, 214 Gui de Bourgogne 13, 57, 62-5, 71-2, 77, 80-1, 84—5, 90, 96, 106, 146, 251; see also

Appendix Gui de Nanteuil 75-6, 161 Guillaume, Chanson de 3, 13, 217

Guillaume d’Orange (epic character of, cycle of) 4n. 14,5, 8 n. 28, 52, 66, 72, 75, 135, 248

Hadrian IV, Pope 26, 33 Haidu, Peter 4 n. 16, 144 Hagiography 118, 215, 238, 245; see also Girart de Roussillon, Vita Hell 172, 244-9

Henry II, King of England 13-14, 22, 26-7, P13) Nee, IOI set, EH, Welk ay)

Henry III, King of England 14, 74 Heredity, see inheritance Heresy 35, 130-6, 153, 230 Hervis de Mes 11, 127,177 Hierarchy 2, 6, 30-1, 48, 54, 56-7, 65-6, 72-3, 78, 88, 91, 95, 98-100, 105, 113-14, 185, 235 History, concept of 141, 152, 157, 160, 173 Hobbes, Thomas 20, 24, 43, 254, 258-60 Holy war, see crusade Horn 12, 62 Hugh Capet, King of France 80 Hugues Capet 12, 58, 79-85, 96, 171, 251; see also Appendix Hugues of Lusignan 73-4 Hundred Years War, the 14, 79 Hunting 23, 50, 112, 183, 189 Huon d ‘Auvergne 14, 168, 214-15, 228,

240-51; see also Appendix Huon de Bordeaux 4, 12-13, 52, 168, 214-15,

228-36, 241-2, 244-5, 250-3; see also Appendix Hyams, Paul 17, 176, 192

Innocent III, Pope 133-4, 137 Innocent IV, Pope 49-50 Incest 171-2 Inheritance 13, 59, 194, 196

Of land 67, 180, 186, 259; see also landholding, territory Islam, portrayal in epics, see Saracens Istoire le roy Charlemaine, see Girart d’Amiens Italy, cities 21, 42-3, 46 early modern 254-5 epic tradition 2 n. 5, 6 n. 23, 14-15, 57, 75, 85-6, 91, 101-2, 107, 138, 141, 169-73, 236-51, 253

imperial-noble antagonisms 15, 23 imperial-papal antagonisms 23, 42-4, 50 Jacques of Nemours 85 Jacques, Saint 147, 150, 154, 172 Jameson, Fredric 4-7, 216, 232-3,

235-6, 251 Jealousy 75, 88, 112, 119, 123, 182, 244 Jean d’Outremeuse 12, 86, ch. 4 passim Jeanne II, Countess of Burgundy 120 Jeanne III, Countess of Burgundy 120 Jeanne of Navarre 120 Jehan de Langon 80, 100 n. 10, 161 Jerusalem 95, 213-28, 232, 240, 246-7 Legend of Charlemagne’s trip 156-8 Jérusalem, Chanson de 214-28, 235; see also Appendix Jewish War, the 219 John, Duke of Berry 126 John, King of England 58, 259 John II, King of France 79-80, 126, 179, 186 John XXII, Pope 44 John ofSalisbury 22, 26-34, 52-3, 56, 69,71, Woy SI, PLUS), BYE toe, GI 2

John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy 126-7 Joinville, Jean de 9, 35-6, 73-4, 201 n. 98 Jurisdiction 20, 44, 46, 50, 98-9, 108-9, 113, 133, 190; see also law Justice, concepts of (droit, equity, fairness) 29, 113, 119, 122-3, 134, 143-4, 203, 211-12, 231-2, 248-9, 260; see also feud, law

impossibility/failure of 93-4, 233 monopolies on 2, 21, 175

Just-war theory 39-40, 42 n. 65, 45, 54, 69, Far

3n 86; 21382 20)229-35 225

Kantorowicz, Ernst Karleto 170; see also Kay, Sarah 3,5, 60, 166, 188, 196,

29-30, 33 Appendix 64, 108, 111, 119, 160, 210

Keys (to heaven) 50 Kinoshita, Sharon 132, 156, 227

Kinship 6, 81, 83, 93-4, 96, 114, 178, 192-8, 201-2, 205, 216-17, 225;

see also allegiance, class solidarity, friendship, networks

Index Koziol, Geoffrey 69, 200 Kristeva, Julia 55 n. 5

305

Magic 5, PANG, NO); 15 251

PW),PAY, WED, WS),

Magna Carta 14, 55, 71, 74, 78 Landholding 62, 67, 109-10, 178, 180, 182;

Marco Polo 215, 239, 243

see also inheritance, territory Lateran Council, Fourth 134, 192

Marie of Brabant 59, 86, 216 Marriages 13, 42, 182-3, 187-8, 192, 201-2,

Latour, Bruno 194 n. 79, 198 Law 117; see also jurisdiction, justice, punishment, treason Canon law 192, 255 Eternal, divine, natural, positive 37-9, 97, DSS, Force of law 28-9, 38-9, 42, 231 Royal law, lawcodes 32, 35, 38-9, 113, 144-5, 159, 177-80, 185-6, 256-7

Salic 79 n. 69 Tyrannical 41, 231 La Fontaine 24-5 Legitimacy 2, 6, 15, 40, 43, 45-6, 51-2, 54, 56, 58, 60, 62, 70, 72, 74, 76, 78, 80-3, 85, 87, 93, 100, 104-6, 109, 114, 117, 119, 124, 127, 130, 136, 138-40, 143-4, 152, 155, 157-8, 161, 164, 166, 170-1

Lése-mayjesté, see treason

Levine, Caroline 196 n. 85 Lévi-Strauss, Claude 201 n. 99 Liége 12, 86, 141, 173 Lion de Bourges 3 n. 13, 230 n. 65 Livres de Jostice et de plet, Li 35, 179 Lombards/Lombardy 61, 94, 131, 153, 159-60 London, British Library, Additional 352 89 102

London, British Library, Harley 527 62 London, British Library, Harley 4334 108 London, British Library, Landsdowne 782 102

London, British Library, Royal 15 E VI 102 Lorraine 10, 12, 129, ch. 5 passim, 257 Lorraine/Loheren Cycle 12, ch. 5 passim, 251 Lotharingia, see Middle Kingdom Louis, Duke of Anjou 126 Louis, Duke of Orléans 126-7

Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor 43 Louis V, King of France 80, 160 Louis VII, King of France 131

205, 210

Marsilius of Padua 23, 42-53, 252 Martyrdom 148, 163, 224, 236 Marvellous, the 3, 85, 162, 215, 217, 221, 223, 228-30, 235-6, 239, 242, 247-8;

see also miracles Materes, the (Bretagne, France, Rome)

2, 7,

229 Maugis d’‘Aigremont 85 Mort de Maugis, La 85

Morte de Carlo Magno, La 171-2 Mediterranean, the 227, 232, 243 Merchants 240, 246 Mercy 24, 32, 57, 60, 69-72, 83, 93-5, 115-16, 133, 138, 180; see also arbitration,

compromise, conflict resolution, forgiveness, peace Middle Kingdom, the 10, 12, 100, 121-2 Military service 1, 21, 61, 66-8, 71, 87, 214, 231

Miracles

91, 95, 119-20, 126, 129, 144-5,

WAG, WAS), SEES

GS,

IGS), PS AIL.

223, 227; see also marvellous, the Mises en prose 1, 3, 86, 127-30, 150, 251-2;

see also Girart de Roussillon, Burgundian rewritings; prose; Yonnet de Metz Monarchy (concept of) 9, 22, 27-34, 36-7, AeA 7

OD mOD mL

GeO emlio 2s

168-9, 230, 238, 256-7, 259; see also empire; sovereignty Elective monarchy 44—5, 62, 84, 249

Mixed/limited monarchy 41-2, 56, 71, 80, 257-9 Mongols 243 Monks

176 n. 7, 200-1, 204

Montpellier, Bibliothéque Interuniversitaire, Faculté de Médicine, H 247 17 Moralization 3, 80, 85, 118-30, 147-50, 162, 168-72, 245, 250-1

Moretti, Franco

195 n. 82, n. 83

Louis VIII, King of France 130, 160

Mort Godefroi, La 217

Louis IX, King of France 9, 22, 35-6, 58, 73-4, 79, 96, 99, 158, 171, 178-9, 201 n. 98, 214, 230; see also crusade

Mousket, Philippe 52, ch. 4 passim, 248 n. 126 Myreur des histors, see Jean d’Outremeuse

Louis X, King of France 79, 179

Naissance du Chevalier au Cygne, La 217

Louis XI, King of France 85, 130, 257 Louis the Pious (epic character, son of

Narbonnais Cycle 66 Naymes (epic character) 60-1, 64, 77, 90, 93,

Charlemagne) 52, 121 Low Countries 1-2, 8, 11-12, 91, 127, 138,

WOB=5), WOy23, VW), 2S) Networks 83, 187, 193-8, 201 n. 99, 252;

216, 251 Lyric culture 134-6

see also allegiance, class solidarity, friendship, kinship

Normandy 8, 145, 181, 255 Macairel Macario 164, 170; see also Appendix Machiavelli 254—6

Norman invasion of England

Nottingham, WLC/LM/6

105

115 n. 49

306

Index

Obedience 6, 42, 72, 90, 245, 249, 256, 259 Occitania 1-2, 10-12, 26-7, 35, 74, ch. 3 passim, 166, 251 Occitan language 108

Odo II, Duke of Burgundy 118 Odo IV, Duke of Burgundy 120-1 Osgier le Danois (chanson de geste and derived

texts; epic character) 2, 4, 9, 12, 14, 17, 57-8, 63, 71, 81—2, 84-97, 100. 10; 140-1, 151—2, 158-9, 161—5, 167, 170,

174, 218, 230, 232, 237, 251-3; see also

Appendix Oligarchy 36, 44, 259

Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy 10-11, 86, 118, 126-9, 141, 166, 257 Philippe de Beaumanoir, see Codtumes de Beauvaisis Philippe de Vigneulles 177, 185; see also Yonnet de Metz

Pierre of Brittany 73-4 Pierre de Beauvais

157

Pilgrimage 65, 95, 161, 183, 201, ch. 6 passim Plato 30, 49

Policraticus, see John of Salisbury Polity (mode of government)

Oliver (epic character) 64, 69, 82, 104, 135, 141-52, 161, 164, 218

Oral tradition 1—2 Oresme, Nicholas 43 Orient, the/oriental/orientalism

Printed books

3, 159, 214,

219, 230, 232, 234-5, 240, 243, 247, 251

Otinel 13, 253 Ottomans, see Turks

Oxford, Bodleian Library, Canon Misc. 63 108

36, 44

Prince, ideal of the, see Monarchy Principalities 8, 10, 99, 126, 257 1, 4, 86, 90, 102, 174, 230, 252-3

Prester John 159, 215, 246-7 Prise d’Acre, La 216 Prise d’Orange, La 240 Prisoners 69, 94, 225-6, 241, 246; see also

Chétifs, Les Prose 86, 127, 139, 173; see also mises en prose Provence, see Occitania

Padua 42-3, 236 Paratge 134-6 Paris, Bibliothéque de l’Arsenal, 3142 59 Paris, Bibliothéque Mazarine, 1329 118 Paris, Bibliothéque nationale, fr. 368 59 Paris, Bibliothéque nationale, fr. 764 85 Paris, Bibliothéque nationale, fr. 766 85 Paris, Bibliothéque nationale, fr. 1598 102 Paris, Bibliothéque nationale, fr. 2180 108 Paris, Bibliothéque nationale, fr. 13496 118 Paris, Bibliothéque nationale, fr. 25529 102 Paris, Bibliothéque nationale, lat. 13090 118 Peace 6, 29, 37-40, 44, 47-8, 50, 55, 65, 69, 71-2, 95, 113, 116, 126, 145, 160, 168, 178-82, 187, 190, 199-206, 209-11,

213, 226, 256, 258; see also arbitration, compromise, conflict resolution,

forgiveness, mercy Peace of God 178-9 Peasants 6, 31, 90, 155, 164, 178-9, 185-6, 190-2

Péelerinage de Charlemagne, Le 13, 140, 152, 156-8, 173; see also Appendix Pepin (epic character)

52, 170, ch. 5 passim

Persia 95, 236-43 Peter II, King of Aragon 131, 133-4 Peter, St. 50 Philip II, King of France (Philip Augustus) 8-10, 13-14, 35, 54, 57-9, 62, 72-3, 90 n. 95, 96, 101 n. 19, 130, 133, 139) 1S S37 1G0=i. 79

Philip Philip Philip Philip

IV, King of France V, King of France VI, King of France the Bold, Duke of

86, 126

79-80, 178-9 79, 120 79, 120 Burgundy 10,

Pseudo Turpin 7 n. 25, ch. 4 passim, 237-8 Pulci 14, 250, 253 Punishment, see also law Of Ganelon 143-52 Of rebels, wrongdoers 32, 38-9, 42, 54 n. 4,

57, 58, 63, 70, 77, 79, 83-4, 96, 161, 207, 212, 231, 248, 259-60

Quatre Fils Aymon, Les, see Renaut de Montauban Raoul de Cambrai 57 n. 16, 132-3, ch. 5 passim, 251; see also Appendix Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse 130 Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse 131, 133 Raymond VII, Count of Toulouse (Raymondet)

74, 131, 133-6

Raymond Trencavel, see Trencavels, the Rebellion, see revolt Reécits d'un ménestrel de Reims, Les 90 n. 95 Reconciliation, see arbitration, compromise,

conflict resolution, forgiveness, mercy, peace Regionalism ch. 3 passim, 185 Relics 119, 146, 152, 156-8, 173, 200, 244 Renan, Ernest 136-7 Renaut of Boulogne, Count 54 n. 4, 58, 150, 161 Renaut de Montauban (chanson de geste and derived texts; epic character) 2, 4, 9, 11, 14, 17, 52, 57-8, 71, 76, 81-2, 84-97, 100 n. 10, 119, 127, 140, 161, 163-5, LG7, Ile W748 23082522513

Republicanism 43, 45 Roman Republic 46 Revenge, see vengeance Revolt 1,9, 14, 31-2, 46, ch. 2 passim, 159-68, 188, 213, 250-60

307

Index 1246 league in France 99-100 1314-15 leagues in France 79, 160 n. 70, 179 As generational conflict 63-4, 77, 96 Baronial movement in England 26, 56

Summa theologiae, see Aquinas Swords, the two 40 Syncretism 214-15, 226-7, 241, 250

Distinction from resistance ch.3 passim

Tafurs 217, 220-1

Distinction from revolution

Taxation

54-7, 78, 96-7,

16} Rex inutilis, see useless king Richard Lionheart (King Richard I of England) 58, 101 n. 19 Riley-Smith, Jonathan 213 n. 3, 216 n. 19, 218 ia, 5), PAD ink, AS), 72216}, IS) im, 4

Ritual 61, 77, 89-96 Roland, Les Chansons de 3, 13-14, 74, 78, 83-4, 101, 132, 140-8, 156, 159, 169,

WON 2 Np 229;228

Other versions of Roncevaux material ch. 4 passim, 253 Roland (epic character)

57, 76, 82, 101, 104,

105, 135, 141-55, 158, 161, 164, 168, 170-1, 218, 236-43; see also Appendix Rossi, Marguerite 230, 232 Rousseau 43

1, 6, 9, 21, 42, 58-60, 61, 79, 126,

144-5, 214, 256

Territory 99, 108, 111-12, 187; see also frontiers, landholding Theatre 86, 230, 253

Thibaut of Champagne 73-4 Toulouse 10, 74, 130-6 Traitors, epic clan of 6, 58, 64, 73-9, 81-5, 87, 96, 119, 126, 141-52, 159-68, 210-11,

229-31, 233, 244, 248 Treason 1, 31, 33-4, 41, 54-5, 57-8, 68, 70, 1B Wy WBS, WAI, WAG EG. 164—5, 256-7 Trencavels, the 11, 74, 131, 133 Trials, see justice, law, punishment Tristan de Nanteuil 12, 171 n. 80, 230 n. 65, 240 n. 106

Troy/Trojans 139, 177, 238, 243 Truces 74, 179, 190, 199, 225

Saint-Denis (abbey) 36, 138 n. 1, 139, 149,

Turks/Turkey 243, 256

156-7 Saints’ lives, see hagiography Saisnes, Les 2, 8 n. 27, 11, 57-62, 71-3, 85, 90, 96, 154-5, 168, 251; see also Appendix Sallust 47 Saracens 5, 88, 91—2, 103-7, 124, 132-3, 135,

Turin, Biblioteca nazionale universitaria,

WES,

ISO3, IG OS WAG, NI),

188-9, 201, 210, ch. 6 passim Saracen princess 234, 240-1 Saxons 140, 152-8, 160, 217; see also Saisnes, Les Scapegoat 83, 85, 93, 117, 143, 221, 223, 232 score-card metaphor 189, 204 Scott, James 89-90, 93, 95-7

Sebille (epic character, Charlemagne’s queen)

Tuscany, epic tradition 102, 253 Tyrannicide 33-4, 41-2, 54, 249, 256, 259

Tyranny 1-2, 9, 20-3, 26-34, 36-7, 40-2, 44-9, 51, 53, 56-7, 60, 69-71, 84-6, 90, 92, 94, 96, 123, 133, 138, 166, 230-4,

244, 252-60

Ulpian 28, 45 Urban II, Pope 213, 223-4, 228, 235

Useless king 51-3, 182 Utopia 215-16, 222-3, 235-6, 244-7, 250

164, 170

Sieges 69, 82, 94, 126, 132-3, 135, 161,

Vengeance 23, 25, 39-40, 70, 83-4, 87, 89, 92-6, 119, 128, 143-6, 154, 159, 166-7,

167, 190

Simon Simon Slavs Smail,

L.V.44 59 Turpin (epic character) 94, 106, 147, 150-1, 172

de Pouille 217 of Montfort 131-6 160, 185 Daniel Lord 194, 209

Sovereignty 1-2, 4, 6-7, 15, ch. 1 passim, 56, 69-73, 84, 90-2, 98, 102, 105, 107, TIED 123245 127, 129-333 137, 139-42; 1424-65177 On lS2, OO 7aIne 235

252, 254-60; see alo empire, monarchy Sowden of Babylon 253 Spain, Charlemagne’s wars in 62-5, 142-52, 154, 168, 173, 217, 236-43

170, 173, ch. 5 passim, 214, 216-28, 243, 249, 253, 260

Vengeance Fromondin, La 177, 184-6, 191, 195-6, 202, 206, 209-10; see also Appendix Venice 243, 257

Venice, Venice, Venice, Venice, Venice, Venice,

Biblioteca Biblioteca Biblioteca Biblioteca Biblioteca Biblioteca

Marciana, Marciana, Marciana, Marciana, Marciana, Marciana,

fr. TV 14, 101-2 fr. VI 102 fr. VII 145-6, 159 fr. X 75-6 fr. XVI 85 fr. XXI 236

Vespasian, Roman Emperor 219

Spiegel, Gabrielle 7 n. 24, 7 n. 25, 138-9, 147

Vézelay (abbey)

State of exception 24, 40, 54, 113 n. 46, 144

Violence, monopolies on 2, 22, 39-40, 178,

Stein, Robert 4 n. 16, 111, 181 Strubel, Armand

3, 208

Suard, Francois 2, 101—2, 232

116, 118-19

180, 207, 256

Visconti, noble family of Milan 14, 43, 244 Vivien deMonbranc 85, 87 n. 88

308

Index

Wallace-Hadrill, John 199, 205 White, Steve

Women, role in epics 83, 105, 108-9,

17, 176, 186, 200, 202 n. 100, 209

William de Briane 147 William the Conqueror, King of England n. 49, 259

115

Wilson, Stephen 180, 203-4, 206 Wolf, werewolf 21, 23-5, 27, 92, 124; see also

animality

LIQ G=19

12a 28-97

183, 187-9, 197, 201-2, 207-8, 210, 217, 245

Yonnet de Metz 177, 185, 187-8, 190, 195, 198, 200-2, 206;

see also Appendix

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