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THE CHARLEMAGNE
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THE See also:CHARLEMAGNE LEGENDS
Innumerable legends soon gathered See also:round the memory of the See also:great See also:emperor. He was represented as- a See also:warrior performing superhuman feats, as a ruler dispensing perfect See also:justice, and even as a See also:martyr suffering for the faith. It was confidently believed towards the See also:close of the loth See also:century that he had made a See also:pilgrimage to See also:Jerusalem; and, like many other great rulers, it was reported that he was only sleeping to awake in the See also:hour of his See also:country's need. We know from See also:Einhard (Vita Karoli, cap. See also:xxix.) that the Frankish heroic See also:ballads were See also:drawn up in See also:writing by Charlemagne's See also:order, and it may be accepted as certain that he was himself the subject of many such during his lifetime. The legendary See also:element crept even into the Latin panegyrics produced by the See also:court poets. Before the end of the 9th century a See also: In the earlier chansons de geste he is invariably a majestic figure and represents within limitations the grandeur of the historic Charles. But in the histories of the See also:wars with his vassals he is often little more than a tyrannical dotard, who is made to submit to See also:gross insult. This picture of affairs is drawn from later times, and the sympathies of the poet are generally with the rebels against the See also:monarchy. See also:Historical tradition was already dim when the hypothetical and much discussed cantilenae, which may be taken to have formed the repository of the national legends from the 8th to the loth century, were succeeded in the 11th and the See also:early 12th centuries by the chansons de geste. The early poems of the See also:cycle sometimes contain curious See also:information on the Frankish methods in See also:war, in See also:council and in judicial See also:procedure, which had no See also:parallels in contemporary institutions. The See also:account in the Chanson de See also:Roland of the trial of Ganelon after the See also:battle of See also:Roncesvalles must have been adopted almost intact from earlier poets, and provides a striking example of the value of the chansons de geste to the historian of See also:manners and customs. In See also:general, however, the See also:trouvere depicted the feeling and manners of his own See also:time. Charlemagne's wars in See also:Italy, See also:Spain and See also:Saxony formed See also:part of the See also:common epic material, and there are references to his wars against the Slays; but especially he remained in the popular mind as the great See also:champion of See also:Christianity against the creed of See also:Mahomet, and even his See also:Norman and Saxon enemies became See also:Saracens in current legend. He is the See also:Christian emperor directly inspired by angels; his See also:sword Joyeuse contained the point of the See also:lance used in the See also:Passion; his See also:standard was Romaine, the banner of St See also:Peter, which, as the oriflamme of See also:Saint See also:Denis, was later to be See also:borne in battle before the kings of See also:France; and in 1164 Charles was canonized at the See also:desire of the emperor See also:Frederick I. See also:Barbarossa by the See also:Anti-See also:pope See also:Pascal III. This gave him no real claim to saintship, but his festival was observed in some places until comparatively See also:recent times. Charlemagne was endowed with the See also:good and See also:bad qualities of the epic king, and as in the See also:case of See also:Agamemnon and See also:Arthur, his exploits paled beside those of his See also:chief warriors. These were not originally known as the twelve peers 2 famous in later Carolingian See also:romance. The twelve peers were in the first instance the companions in arms of Roland in the See also:Teutonic sense.' The See also:idea of the paladins forming an association corresponding to the Arthurian Round Table first appears in the romance of Fierabras. The lists of them are very various, but all include the names of Roland and ' A remnant of the popular poetry contemporary with Charlemagne and written in the See also:vernacular has been thought to be discernible under its Latin See also:translation in the description of a See also:siege during Charlemagne's war against the Saracens, known as the " Fragment from the See also:Hague " (See also:Pertz, Script. iii. pp. 708-710). 2 The words douze pairs were anglicized in a variety of forms ranging from douzepers to dosepers. The word even occurred as a singular in the metrical romance of Octavian:—" Ferst they sent out a doseper." At the beginning of the 13th century there existed a tour See also:des pairs which exercised judicial functions and dated possibly from the llth century, but their prerogatives at the beginning of the 14th century appear to have been mainly ceremonial and decorative. In 1257 the twelve peers were the chiefs of the great feudal provinces, the See also:dukes of See also:Normandy, See also:Burgundy and See also:Aquitaine, the See also:counts of See also:Toulouse, See also:Champagne and See also:Flanders, and six spiritual peers, the See also:archbishop of See also:Reims, the bishops of See also:Laon, Chalons-sur-See also:Marne, See also:Beauvais, See also:Langres and See also:Noyon. (See Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. See also:Par."). See J. See also:Flach, Le Compagnonnage dans See also:les chansons de geste (See also:Paris, 1891). See also:Oliver. The chief heroes who fought Charlemagne's battles were Roland; Ganelon, afterwards the traitor; See also:Turpin, the fighting archbishop of Reims; See also:Duke Naimes of See also:Bavaria, the See also:wise counsellor who is always on the See also:side of justice; Ogier the Dane, the See also:hero of a whole See also:series of romances; and See also:Guillaume of Toulouse, the defender of See also:Narbonne. Gradually most of the chansons de geste were attached to the name of Charlemagne, whose poetical history falls into three cycles: the geste du roi, See also:relating his wars and the See also:personal history of himself and his See also:family; the See also:southern cycle, of which Guillaume de Toulouse is the central figure; and the feudal epic, dealing with the revolts of the barons against the emperor, the rebels being invariably connected by the trouveres with the family of Doon de Mayence (q.v.). The earliest poems of the cycle are naturally the closest to historical truth. The central point of the geste du roi is the z z thcentury Chanson de Roland (see ROLAND, LEGEND OF), one of the greatest of See also:medieval poems. Strangely enough the defeat of Roncesvalles, which so deeply impressed the popular mind, has not a corresponding importance in real history. But it chanced to find as its exponent a poet whose See also:genius established a See also:model for his successors, and definitely fixed the type of later heroic poems. The other early chansons to which reference is made in Roland—Aspremont, Enfances Ogier, Guiteclin, Balan, relating to Charlemagne's wars in Italy and Saxony—are not preserved in their See also:original See also:form, and only the first in an early recension. See also:Basin or Carl et Elegast (preserved' in Dutch and Icelandic), the Voyage de Charlemagne d Jerusalem and Le Couronnement Looys also belong to the heroic See also:period. The purely fictitious and romantic tales added to the personal history of Charlemagne and his warriors in the 13th century are inferior in manner, and belong to the decadence of romance. The old tales, very much distorted in the 15th-century See also:prose versions, were to undergo still further degradation in 18th-century compilations. According to Berte aus grans pies, in the 13th-century remaniement of the Brabantine trouvere See also:Adenes li Rois, Charlemagne was the son of Pippin and of Berte, the daughter of Flore and Blanchefleur, king and See also:queen of See also:Hungary. The See also:tale bears marks of high antiquity, and presents one of the few incidents in the See also:French cycle which may be referred to a mythic origin. On the See also:night of Berte's See also:marriage a slave, Margiste, is substituted for her, and reigns in her See also:place for nine years, at the expiration of which Blanchefleur exposes the deception; whereupon Berte is restored from her See also:refuge in the See also:forest to her rightful place as queen. Mainet (12th century) and the kindred poems in See also:German and See also:Italian are perhaps based on the adventures of Charles Martel, who after his father's See also:death had to flee to the See also:Ardennes. They relate that, after the death of his parents, Charles was driven by the machinations of the two sons of Margiste to take refuge in Spain, where he accomplished his enfances (youthful exploits) with the Mussulman king Galafre under the feigned name of Mainet. He delivered See also:Rome from the besieging Saracens, and returned to France in See also:triumph. But his wife Galienne, daughter of Galafre, whom he had converted to the Christian faith, died on her way to rejoin him. Charlemagne then made an expedition to Italy (Enfances Ogier in the Venetian Charlemagne, and the first part of the Chevalerie Ogier de Dannemarche by Raimbert of Paris, 12th century) to raise the siege of Rome, which was besieged by the Saracen emir Corsuble. He crossed the See also:Alps under the guidance of a See also: Galien; a favourite 15th-century romance, was attached to this episode, for Galien was the son of the amours of Oliver with Jacqueline, Hugon's daughter. The traditions of Charlemagne's fights with the Norsemen (Norois, Noreins) are preserved in Aiquin (12th century), which describes the emperor's reconquest of See also:Armorica from the " Saracen " king Aiquin, and a disaster at Cezembre as terrible in its way as those of Roncesvalles and Aliscans. La destruction de Rome is a 13th-century version of the older chanson of the emir Balan, who collected an army in Spain and sailed to Rome. The defenders were overpowered and the city destroyed before the See also:advent of Charlemagne, who, however, avenged the disaster by a great battle in Spain. The romance of Fierabras (13th century) was one of the most popular in the 15th century, and by later additions came to have pretensions to be a See also:complete history of Charlemagne. The first part represents an episode in Spain three years before Roncesvalles, in which Oliver defeats the Saracen See also:giant Fierabras in single combat, and converts him. The hero of the second part is Gui de Bourgogne, who recovers the relics of the Passion, lost in the siege of Rome. Otinel (13th century) is also pure fiction. L' Entree en Espagne, preserved in a 14th-century Italian compilation, relates the beginning of the See also:Spanish War, the siege of Pampeluna, and the legendary combat of Roland with Ferragus. Charlemagne's See also: Charlemagne was recalled from Spain by the See also:news of the outbreak of the See also:Saxons. The contest between Charlemagne and See also:Widukind (Guiteclin) offered abundant epic material. Unfortunately the original Guiteclin is lost, but the legend is preserved in Les Saisnes (c. 1300) of Jehan See also:Bodel, which is largely occupied by the loves of Baudouin and Sibille, the wife of Guiteclin. The adventures of Blanchefleur, wife of Charlemagne, form a variation of the common tale of the See also:innocent wife falsely accused, and are told in See also:Macaire and in the extant fragments of Ld Reine Sibille (14th century). After the See also:conquest of the Saracens and the Saxons, the defeat of the Northmen, and the suppression of the feudal revolts, the emperor abdicated in favour of his son Louis (Le Couronnement Looys,12th century). Charles's harangue to his son is in the best tradition of epic romance. The memory of Roncesvalles haunts him on his death-See also:bed, and at the moment of death he has a See also:vision of Roland.
The mythic element is practically lacking in the French legends, but in See also:Germany some part of the See also:Odin myth was associated with Charles's name. The See also:constellation of the Great See also:Bear, generally associated with Odin, is Karlswagen in German, and Charles's Wain in See also:English. According to tradition in See also:Hesse, he awaits resurrection, probably symbolic of the triumph of the See also:sun over See also:winter, within the Gudensberg (See also: 968) of See also:Benedict, a monk of St See also:Andre, and Descriptio qualiter Karolus See also:Magnus clavum et coronam Domini . . . detulerit, by an 11th-century writer.tradition asserts that he is seated in the Untersherg in a See also:chair, as in his See also:tomb at Aix-la-Chapelle. His white See also:beard goes on growing, and when it has thrice encircled the See also: Alberic Trium Fontium, a monk of the Cistercian monastery of Trois See also:Fontanes in the See also:diocese of Chalons, embodied much poetical fiction in his chronicle (c. 1249). A large See also:section of the Chronique rimee (c. 1243) of Philippe Mousket is devoted to Charlemagne's exploits. At the beginning of the 14th century See also:Girard of See also:Amiens made a dull compilation known as Charlemagne from the chansons de gests, See also:authentic history and the pseudo-Turpin. La Conqueste que See also:fit le See also:grand roi Charlemaigne es Espaignes (pr. 1486) is the same work as the prose compilation of Fierabras (pr. 1478), and See also:Caxton's Lyf of Charles the Grete (1485). The Charlemagne legend was fully See also:developed in Italy, where it was to have later a great poetic development at the hands of See also:Boiardo, See also:Ariosto and See also:Tasso. There are two important Italian compilations, MS. XIII. of the library of St See also:Mark, See also:Venice (c. 1200), znd the Reali di See also:Francia (c. 1400) of a Florentine writer, See also:Andrea da Barberino (b. 1370), edited by G. Vandelli (See also:Bologna, 1892). The six books of this work are rivalled in importance by the ten branches of the Norse Karlamagnus See also:saga, written under the reign of See also:Haakon V. This forms a consecutive legendary history of Charles, and is apparently based on earlier versions of the French Charlemagne poems than those which we possess. It thus furnishes a See also:guide to the older forms of stories, and moreover preserves the substance of others which have not survived in their French form. A popular abridgment, the Keiser Karl Magnus Krenike (pr. See also:Malmo, 1534), drawn up in Danish, serves in some cases to complete the earlier work. The 2000 lines of the German Kaiserchronik on the history of Charlemagne belong to the first See also:half of the 12th century, and were perhaps the work of See also:Conrad, the poet of the Ruolantes Liet. The German poet known as the Stricker used the same See also:sources as the author of the chronicle of Weihenstephan for his Karl (c. 1230). The earliest important Spanish version was the Chronica Hispaniae (c. 1284) of Rodrigo de See also:Toledo. The French and Norman-French chansons circulated as freely in See also:England as in France, and it was therefore not until the period of decadence that English versions were made. The English metrical romances of Charlemagne are: Roolandes See also:Song (15th century); The Taill of Rauf Coilyear (c. 1475, pr. by R. Lekpreuik, St See also:Andrews, 1472), apparently original; See also:Sir Ferumbras (c. 1380) and the Sowdone of Babylone (c. 1400) from an early version of Fierabras; a fragmentary Roland and Vernagu (Ferragus); two versions of Otuel (Otinel); and a Sege of Melayne (c. 1390), forming a See also:prologue to Otinel unknown iA French. (Barcelona, 1874). (M. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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