the common Italian word which means to deceive,' ingannare, is held to be derived from the name of Ganelon, or shortly, Gan, the arch-traitor at Roncevalles? Thus, again, many a wayfarer on the old and beautiful post-roadseldom, I fear, to be re-travelled from Florence to Rome, by way of Terni, may have noticed to his left, perched on one of the summits of the Apennines, the decaying town of Spello. One of its gates bears, it seems, a piece of medieval sculpture, with an inscription in honour of Orlando. They are marked by the grossness of a less cultivated age; and I cannot fully explain them. It may suffice for my purpose to say that they are intended to commemorate the hero's gigantic size and warlike prowess. In France, the poems belonging to the Carlovingian cycle are very numerous, and some of considerable length. They were called Chansons de Geste, an old French word derived from the Latin Gesta, so that the meaning is: 'Songs of heroic deeds.' One of the chief of these is the Chanson de Roland, having for its author Turold or Théroulde, and for its date, as is probable, the eleventh century. The last and best edition of it was in the year 1851, by M. Génin, who prefixed an ably written and interesting introduction, to which in my present essay I am much beholden. M. Génin, in the true spirit of a commentator, ascribes great poetical merit and beauty to the work which he has edited. Such is also the opinion of a gentleman in this country, Mr. Ludlow, who in 1865 published two volumes of the Popu lar Epics of the Middle Ages. Mr. Ludlow there says that he considers the Song of Roland the masterpiece of French epic poetry."2 For my own part, I cannot concur in these praises. So far as I have read in the Song of Roland, I have found it very tiresome reading, and discovered no trace of poetical beauties. Its value, as it seems to me, is as illustrating the temper and the manners of the time; and of these I shall now proceed to offer one or two examples. In the fifth book of the Chanson de Roland is an account of the final conflict under the walls of Saragoza. We find the 'Amiralz' or Emir before it commences invoking his false gods, calling in one breath upon Apollo and Mahomet, and vowing to each an image in fine gold. And after the city is taken the poet continues in a passage which may serve to show the idea of liberty of conscience as current in that age: The Emperor has Saragoza taken; A thousand Frenchmen search through the city, The Bishops meanwhile bless the waters, If any one should gainsay great Charles, He is hanged, or burned, or slain. More than one hundred thousand are baptized The authors of these poems were disposed to follow a good old Oriental precedent. When in the East one of the Arabian Nights or some other tale of wonder is recited, it is usual for the reciter to stop short They are described at length by M. Génin, Chanson de Roland, Introduction, p. xxi. 2 See vol. i. p. 363. But do you return to-morrow, after dinner, Poitevines, let me explain, are a very small French coin, so called because they were first coined in Poitou. Small as they were, how ever, it was found worth while to counterfeit them, for we find in old French the word Poitevineur as applied to the maker of false Poitevines. 2 But I come back to the minstrel in Huon de Bordeaux. It would seem that his hearers on the morrow had neglected to bring in their shirts the much desired mailles. Therefore after some five hundred lines of further recitation, the minstrel breaks forth again: Take you notice, so may God give me health, All those who shall not open their purses and give to my wife! Auberon, I need not say, is the old French form of the German or the English Oberon. But I may add that in the course of my reading I have met with this name Auberon in the French form upon only two occasions, first in the legend of the fairies, and next in the pedigree of the Earls of Carnarvon. The story in this Chanson de Geste, Huon de Bordeaux, is sub stantially the same as that in the romantic poem the Oberon of Wieland. But its recital is extremely rude and bold, and it seems still more so when contrasted with the masterpiece of the graceful German. One of its peculiarities is as to the parentage of Oberon, which it states at the outset in some lines as follows: Know ye that Auberon was son of Julius Cæsar, His son, then, was Auberon, the noble knight, Who was only three feet in his stature, But was a fairy, as you ought to know. Huon de Bordeaux, p. 148, ed. 1860. Roquefort, Glossaire de la Langue Romane (sub vocc). VOL. LXXIV.-NO. CCCCXXXIX. G A publication of these Chansons are at all events but thinly scatde Geste, under the name of Les tered; and the sole value of these Anciens Poètes de la France, was works lies as I conceive in the begun in 1859, with the liberal glimpses which they now and then patronage of the Imperial Govern- afford of the manners and feelings of ment, and under the able direction the age of chivalry during which of M. Guessard. In 1859, and the they were composed. subsequent year, there were five volumes of this series published belonging to the Carlovingian cycle. Several more have more recently appeared, and it is announced on the flyleaf that to complete that cycle no less than forty volumes in all will be required. I hope, however, that this only too liberal promise may not be carried out. The few volumes already given to the world seem to me sufficient to satisfy even the most craving curiosity. There is little variety in the stories, and none at all in the style. The poetical beauties, if indeed any exist, Those glimpses are not very favourable. The knights and Paladins, though properly held forth as fearless, appear in at least an equal degree ferocious. Moderation in conquest, and mercy to the vanquished, are seldom to be ranked among their virtues. The prelates are represented not as ministers of the God of Peace, but rather as doughty champions, seeking to kill as many Saracens as possible. For example, we find in Gaufrey, a French chief, Berart, address the Archbishop of Rheims as follows: 'Turpin, Sir Archbishop, be a knight to-day; I shall read them a very dolorous psalm-book, One cannot every day be reading texts and versicles; Times come when one should strike with one's trusty steel!' So then Berart and the Archbishop rushing forward deal fierce blows upon the enemy: Of Saracens they made more than one hundred fall, Who will not stand up again either in March or in February.' As to the ladies, I may cite also Flordespine, who is represented as from Gaufrey the description of a pattern princess: Her age was but fourteen years and a half: She knew well how to speak Latin, and she understood Romane; The princesses were no credit to this excellent training. Not only did they on occasion bear arms and strike blows like the Bradamant of Ariosto, but they too frequently appear both treacherous and cruel. Thus, in Fierabras, one young lady dreading some evil machinations from her aged governess, lures her 1 Gaufrey, p. 196, ed. 1859. close to a palace window, and then makes a sign to her chamberlain behind, who flings the matron out of window into the sea where she is drowned. The same princess, the beautiful Floripas, is afterwards consulted by her father, the Emir, as to the disposal of some French knights, his prisoners : 2 Ibid. p. 55. So tell me then, my daughter, what counsel you give me.' These gentes pucelles cannot by any means be accused of carrying to excess their feelings of maiden reserve. When Floripas becomes enamoured of Gui de Bourgogne, 'you have spoken right well.'1 she does not scruple to ask his hand I swear by Mahomet, that if you will not take me And upon this Gui very naturally In view of this auspicious event we find that Floripas consents to adopt the Christian faith. We cannot say, however, that her ideas of female propriety are in consequence very much improved. She has to undergo a siege in one of her I have with me five maidens of right noble birth, This proposal finds great favour among the five knights: The devotion expressed in these Chansons de Geste is indeed of the most grovelling kind, and worthy of the darkest ages. It scarcely soars above the worship of the negro on the coast of Guinea for his fetish, adoring it when he is prosperous, and threatening, or even maltreating it when he thinks that it does not yield him due pro- Ah, Mahomet! Sir, how you have forgotten me! If ever I return in safety to Spain, You shall be so beaten in the ribs and sides That there is no man in the world but will pity you; Let us come next to the mighty Emperor Charlemagne himself: 'St. Mary, our Lady,' said Charles of the haughty aspect, For, by my father's sword, if he were slain, In no monastery of France nor yet of other lands I would cast down both crucifix and altar!' 1 Fierabras, pp. 67, 83. 2 Ibid. p. 85. Ibid. p. 118. Nearly the same words are ascribed to Floripas in an earlier passage, p. 69. See these two passages in the Fierabras, pp. 175, 28. Charlemagne himself appears wholly transfigured in these Chansons de Geste. First he is represented as in extreme old age. Thus in the opening passage of Huon de Bordeaux, he is made to say that he was a hundred years old at the birth of his eldest son Charlot, who is already grown up to manhood. Thus, again, in Doon de Mayence, we are told that Doon and Charleborn on the same magne were day, and yet Charlemagne survived to be also the contemporary of a grandson of Doon, no other than the traitor Ganelon. In conformity with the idea of decrepid age, the Chansons de Geste 'Sir,' so spoke Oliver, 'you are much to blame, By my head.' quoth Roland, I will do the same. The constant and as it were systematic depreciation of Charlemagne in these later poems might well surprise us. Perhaps it is best explained by remembering how, since the time of Charlemagne, the great feudatories of the Crown had succeeded in depressing both his own descendants and the first Kings of the succeeding dynasty. A feeble monarch surrounded by powerful and overbearing vassals, might seem, at least to the dependents of the latter, the most eligible form of Hence it would be government. natural for them to suppose that in the time of the far-famed Emperor also a like system had prevailed. The poet makes Roland address to Charles the Great the same terms as the Comte de Vermandois may really have addressed to Charles the Simple. Besides the Chansons de Geste there exists a wholly separate class of poems relative to Charlemagne, Doon de Mayence, p. 162. as which is made known to us in some detail by M. Louis Moland in his Origines Littéraires de la France. These poems belong to the literature and were prompted by the spirit of the first crusades. Assuming a pilgrimage to the Holy Land amongst the highest of earthly duties, and taking for granted that the mighty Charlemagne could not have neglected that sacred obligation, they represent him as visiting both Constantinople and Jerusalem in company with his twelve peers. The principal composition of this class, extending to nearly nine hundred lines, dates from the twelfth century. There is a transcript of it in the fifteenth, which is preserved at the British Museum, and which is illustrated with admirable skill. It contains for example on the verso of one of the first folio pages, a superb miniature representing John Talbot, the first and famous Earl of Shrewsbury, Gui de Bourgogne, p. 33. |