The old habit of reading this division of romance in late and travestied versions naturally and necessarily obscured the curious traits of community in form and matter that belong to it, and indeed distinguish it from almost all other departments of literature of the imaginative kind. Its members are frequently spoken of as "the Charlemagne Romances"; and, as a matter of fact, most of them do come into connection with the great prince of the second race in one way or another. Yet Bodel"s phrase of _matiere de France_[17] is happier. For they are all still more directly connected with French history, seen through a romantic lens; and even the late and half-burlesque _Hugues Capet_, even the extremely interesting and partly contemporary set on the Crusades, as well as such "little _gestes_" as that of the Lorrainers, _Garin le Loherain_ and the rest, and the three "great _gestes_" of the king, of the southern hero William of Orange (sometimes called the _geste_ of Montglane), and of the family of Doon de Mayence, arrange themselves with no difficulty under this more general heading. And the _chanson de geste_ proper, as Frenchmen are ent.i.tled to boast, never quite deserts this _matiere de France_. It is always the _Gesta Francorum_ at home, or the _Gesta Dei per Francos_ in the East, that supply the themes. When this subject or group of subjects palled, the very form of the _chanson de geste_ was lost. It was not applied to other things;[18] it grew obsolete with that which it had helped to make popular. Some of the material--_Huon of Bordeaux_, the _Four Sons of Aymon_, and others--retained a certain vogue in forms quite different, and gave later ages the inexact and b.a.s.t.a.r.d notion of "Charlemagne Romance" which has been referred to.
But the _chanson de geste_ itself was never, so to speak, "half-known"--except to a very few antiquaries. After its three centuries of flouris.h.i.+ng, first alone, then with the other two "matters," it retired altogether, and made its reappearance only after four centuries had pa.s.sed away.
[Footnote 17: Jean Bodel, a _trouvere_ of the thirteenth century, furnished literary history with a valuable stock-quotation in the opening of his _Chanson des Saisnes_ for the three great divisions of Romance:--
"Ne sont que trois matieres a nul home attendant, De France et de Bretaigne et de Rome la grant."
--_Chanson des Saxons_, ed. Michel, Paris, 1839, vol. i. p. 1.
The lines following, less often quoted, are an interesting early _locus_ for French literary patriotism.]
[Footnote 18: Or only in rare cases to later French history itself--Du Guesclin, and the _Combat des Trente_.]
[Sidenote: _Mistakes about them._]
This fact or set of facts has made the actual nature of the original Charlemagne Romances the subject of much mistake and misstatement on the part of general historians of literature. The widely read and generally accurate Dunlop knew nothing whatever about them, except in early printed versions representing their very latest form, and in the hopelessly travestied eighteenth-century _Bibliotheque des Romans_ of the Comte de Tressan. He therefore a.s.signed to them[19] a position altogether inferior to their real importance, and actually apologised for the writers, in that, coming _after_ the Arthurian historians, they were compelled to imitation. As a matter of fact, it is probable that all the most striking and original _chansons de geste_, certainly all those of the best period, were in existence before a single one of the great Arthurian romances was written; and as both the French and English, and even the German, writers of these latter were certainly acquainted with the _chansons_, the imitation, if there were any, must lie on their side. As a matter of fact, however, there is little or none. The later and less genuine _chansons_ borrow to some extent the methods and incidents in the romances; but the romances at no time exhibit much resemblance to the _chansons_ proper, which have an extremely distinct, racy, and original character of their own. Hallam, writing later than Dunlop, and if with a less wide knowledge of Romance, with a much greater proficiency in general literary history, practically pa.s.ses the _chansons de geste_ over altogether in the introduction to his _Literature of Europe_, which purports to summarise all that is important in the _History of the Middle Ages_, and to supplement and correct that book itself.
[Footnote 19: Dunlop, _History of Prose Fiction_ (ed. Wilson, London, 1888), i. 274-351. Had Dunlop rigidly confined himself to _prose_ fiction, the censure in the text might not be quite fair. As a matter of fact, however, he does not, and it would have been impossible for him to do so.]
[Sidenote: _Their isolation and origin._]
The only excuse (besides mere unavoidable ignorance, which, no doubt, is a sufficient one) for this neglect is the curious fact, in itself adding to their interest, that these _chansons_, though a very important chapter in the histories both of poetry and of fiction, form one which is strangely marked off at both ends from all connection, save in point of subject, with literature precedent or subsequent. As to their own origin, the usual abundant, warm, and if it may be said without impertinence, rather futile controversies have prevailed.
Practically speaking, we know nothing whatever about the matter. There used to be a theory that the Charlemagne Romances owed their origin more or less directly to the fabulous _Chronicle_ of Tilpin or Turpin, the warrior-Archbishop of Rheims. It has now been made tolerably certain that the Latin chronicle on the subject is not anterior even to our existing _Chanson de Roland_, and very probable that it is a good deal later. On the other hand, of actual historical basis we have next to nothing except the mere fact of the death of Roland ("Hruotlandus comes Britanniae") at the skirmish of Roncesvalles. There are, however, early mentions of certain _cantilenae_ or ballads; and it has been a.s.sumed by some scholars that the earliest _chansons_ were compounded out of precedent ballads of the kind. It is unnecessary to inform those who know something of general literary history, that this theory (that the corruption of the ballad is the generation of the epic) is not confined to the present subject, but is one of the favourite fighting-grounds of a certain school of critics. It has been applied to Homer, to _Beowulf_, to the Old and Middle German Romances, and it would be very odd indeed if it had not been applied to the _Chansons de geste_. But it may be said with some confidence that not one t.i.ttle of evidence has ever been produced for the existence of any such ballads containing the matter of any of the _chansons_ which do exist. The song of Roland which Taillefer sang at Hastings may have been such a ballad: it may have been part of the actual _chanson_; it may have been something quite different. But these "mays" are not evidence; and it cannot but be thought a real misfortune that, instead of confining themselves to an abundant and indeed inexhaustible subject, the proper literary study of what does exist, critics should persist in dealing with what certainly does not, and perhaps never did. On the general point it might be observed that there is rather more positive evidence for the breaking up of the epic into ballads than for the conglomeration of ballads into the epic. But on that point it is not necessary to take sides. The matter of real importance is, to lay it down distinctly that we _have_ nothing anterior to the earliest _chansons de geste_; and that we have not even any satisfactory reason for presuming that there ever was anything.
[Sidenote: _Their metrical form._]
One of the reasons, however, which no doubt has been most apt to suggest anterior compositions is the singular completeness of form exhibited by these poems. It is now practically agreed that--sc.r.a.ps and fragments themselves excepted--we have no monument of French in accomplished profane literature more ancient than the _Chanson de Roland_.[20] And the form of this, though from one point of view it may be called rude and simple, is of remarkable perfection in its own way. The poem is written in decasyllabic iambic lines with a caesura at the second foot, these lines being written with a precision which French indeed never afterwards lost, but which English did not attain till Chaucer"s day, and then lost again for more than another century.
Further, the grouping and finis.h.i.+ng of these lines is not less remarkable, and is even more distinctive than their internal construction. They are not blank; they are not in couplets; they are not in equal stanzas; and they are not (in the earliest examples, such as _Roland_) regularly rhymed. But they are arranged in batches (called in French _laisses_ or _tirades_) of no certain number, but varying from one to several score, each of which derives unity from an _a.s.sonance_--that is to say, a vowel-rhyme, the consonants of the final syllable varying at discretion. This a.s.sonance, which appears to have been common to all Romance tongues in their early stages, disappeared before very long from French, though it continued in Spanish, and is indeed the most distinguis.h.i.+ng point of the prosody of that language. Very early in the _chansons_ themselves we find it replaced by rhyme, which, however, remains the same for the whole of the _laisse_, no matter how long it is. By degrees, also, the ten-syllabled line (which in some examples has an octosyllabic tail-line not a.s.sonanced at the end of every _laisse_) gave way in its turn to the victorious Alexandrine. But the mechanism of the _chanson_ admitted no further extensions than the subst.i.tution of rhyme for a.s.sonance, and of twelve-syllabled lines for ten-syllabled. In all other respects it remained rigidly the same from the eleventh century to the fourteenth, and in the very latest examples of such poems, as _Hugues Capet_ and _Baudouin de Seboure_--full as enthusiasts like M.
Gautier complain that they are of a spirit very different from that of the older _chansons_--there is not the slightest change in form; while certain peculiarities of stock phrase and "epic repet.i.tion" are jealously preserved. The immense single-rhymed _laisses_, sometimes extending to several pages of verse, still roll rhyme after rhyme with the same sound upon the ear. The common form generally remains; and though the adventures are considerably varied, they still retain a certain general impress of the earlier scheme.
[Footnote 20: _Editio princeps_ by Fr. Michel, 1837. Since that time it has been frequently reprinted, translated, and commented. Those who wish for an exact reproduction of the oldest MS. will find it given by Stengel (Heilbronn, 1878).]
[Sidenote: _Their scheme of matter._]
[Sidenote: _The character of Charlemagne._]
That scheme is, in the majority of the _chansons_, curiously uniform.
It has, since the earliest studies of them, been remarked as odd that Charlemagne, though almost omnipresent (except of course in the Crusading cycle and a few others), and though such a necessary figure that he is in some cases evidently confounded both with his ancestor Charles Martel and his successor Charles the Bald, plays a part that is very dubiously heroic. He is, indeed, presented with great pomp and circ.u.mstance as _li empereres a la barbe florie_, with a gorgeous court, a wide realm, a numerous and brilliant baronage. But his character is far from tenderly treated. In _Roland_ itself he appears so little that critics who are not acquainted with many other poems sometimes deny the characteristic we are now discussing. But elsewhere he is much less leniently handled. Indeed the plot of very many _chansons_ turns entirely on the ease with which he lends an ear to traitors (treason of various kinds plays an almost ubiquitous part, and the famous "trahis!" is heard in the very dawn of French literature), on his readiness to be bia.s.sed by bribes, and on the singular ferocity with which, on the slightest and most unsupported accusation, he is ready to doom any one, from his own family downwards, to block, stake, gallows, or living grave. This combination, indeed, of the irascible and the gullible tempers in the king defrays the plot of a very large number of the _chansons_, in which we see his best knights, and (except that they are as intolerant of injustice as he is p.r.o.ne to it) his most faithful servants, forced into rebellion against him, and almost overwhelmed by his own violence following on the machinations of their and his worst enemies.
[Sidenote: _Other characters and characteristics._]
Nevertheless, Charlemagne is always the defender of the Cross, and the antagonist of the Saracens, and the part which these latter play is as ubiquitous as his own, and on the whole more considerable. A very large part of the earlier _chansons_ is occupied with direct fighting against the heathen; and from an early period (at least if the _Voyage a Constantin.o.ble_ is, as is supposed, of the early twelfth century, if not the eleventh) a most important element, bringing the cla.s.s more into contact with romance generally than some others which have been noticed, is introduced in the love of a Saracen princess, daughter of emperor or "admiral" (emir), for one of the Christian heroes. Here again _Roland_ stands alone, and though the mention of Aude, Oliver"s sister and Roland"s betrothed, who dies when she hears of his death, is touching, it is extremely meagre. There is practically nothing but the clash of arms in this remarkable poem. But elsewhere there is, in rather narrow and usual limits, a good deal else. Charlemagne"s daughter, and the daughters of peers and paladins, figure: and their characteristics are not very different from those of the pagan damsels. It is, indeed, unnecessary to convert them,--a process to which their miscreant sisters usually submit with great goodwill,--and they are also relieved from the necessity of showing the extreme undutifulness to their more religiously constant sires, which is something of a blot on Paynim princesses like Floripas in _Fierabras_. This heroine exclaims in reference to her father, "He is an old devil, why do you not kill him? little I care for him provided you give me Guy," though it is fair to say that Fierabras himself rebukes her with a "Moult grant tort aves." All these ladies, however, Christian as well as heathen, are as tender to their lovers as they are hard-hearted to their relations; and the relaxation of morality, sometimes complained of in the later _chansons_, is perhaps more technical than real, even remembering the doctrine of the mediaeval Church as to the ident.i.ty, for practical purposes, of betrothal and marriage. On the other hand, the courtesy of the _chansons_ is distinctly in a more rudimentary state than that of the succeeding romances. Not only is the harshest language used by knights to ladies,[21] but blows are by no means uncommon; and of what is commonly understood by romantic love there is on the knights" side hardly a trace, unless it be in stories such as that of _Ogier le Danois_, which are obviously late enough to have come under Arthurian influence. The piety, again, which has been so much praised in these _chansons_, is of a curious and rather elementary type. The knights are ready enough to fight to the last gasp, and the last drop of blood, for the Cross; and their faith is as free from flaw as their zeal. _Li Apostoiles de Rome_--the Pope--is recognised without the slightest hesitation as supreme in all religious and most temporal matters. But there is much less reference than in the Arthurian romances, not merely to the mysteries of the Creed, but even to the simple facts of the birth and death of Christ. Except in a few places--such as, for instance, the exquisite and widely popular story of _Amis and Amiles_ (the earliest vernacular form of which is a true _chanson de geste_ of the twelfth century)--there are not many indications of any higher or finer notion of Christianity than that which is confined to the obedient reception of the sacraments, and the cutting off Saracens" heads whensoever they present themselves.[22]
[Footnote 21: _V. infra_ on the scene in _Aliscans_ between William of Orange and his sister Queen Blanchefleur.]
[Footnote 22: Even the famous and very admirable death-scene of Vivien (again _v. infra_) will not disprove these remarks.]
[Sidenote: _Realist quality._]
In manners, as in theology and ethics, there is the same simplicity, which some have called almost barbarous. Architecture and dress receive considerable attention; but in other ways the arts do not seem to be far advanced, and living is still conducted nearly, if not quite, as much in public as in the _Odyssey_ or in _Beowulf_. The hall is still the common resort of both s.e.xes by day and of the men at night. Although gold and furs, silk and jewels, are lavished with the usual cheap magnificence of fiction, very few details are given of the minor _supellex_ or of ways of living generally. From the _Chanson de Roland_ in particular (which, though it is a pity to confine the attention to it as has sometimes been done, is undoubtedly the type of the cla.s.s in its simplest and purest form) we should learn next to nothing about the state of society depicted, except that its heroes were religious in their fas.h.i.+on, and terrible fighters. But it ought to be added that the perusal of a large number of these _chansons_ leaves on the mind a much more genuine belief in their world (if it may so be called) as having for a time actually existed, than that which is created by the reading of Arthurian romance. That fair vision we know (hardly knowing why or how we know it) to have been a creation of its own Fata Morgana, a structure built of the wishes, the dreams, the ideals of men, but far removed from their actual experience. This is not due to miracles--there are miracles enough in the _chansons de geste_ most undoubtingly related: nor to the strange history, geography, and chronology, for the two divisions are very much on a par there also. But strong as the fantastic element is in them, the _chansons de geste_ possess a realistic quality which is entirely absent from the gracious idealism of the Romances. The emperors and the admirals, perhaps even their fair and obliging daughters, were not personages unknown to the contemporaries of the Norman conquerors of Italy and Sicily, or to the first Crusaders. The faithful and ferocious, covetous and indomitable, pious and lawless spirit, which hardly dropped the sword except to take up the torch, was, poetic presentation and dressing apart, not so very different from the general temper of man after the break up of the Roman peace till the more or less definite mapping out of Europe into modern divisions. More than one Vivien and one William of Orange listened to Peter the Hermit. In the very isolation of the atmosphere of these romances, in its distance from modern thought and feeling, in its lack (as some have held) of universal quality and transcendent human interest, there is a certain element of strength. It was not above its time, and it therefore does not reach the highest forms of literature.
But it was intensely _of_ its time; and thus it far exceeds the lowest kinds, and retains an abiding value even apart from the distinct, the high, and the very curious perfection, within narrow limits, of its peculiar form.
[Sidenote: _Volume and age of the_ chansons.]
[Sidenote: _Twelfth century._]
It is probable that very few persons who are not specially acquainted with the subject are at all aware of the enormous bulk and number of these poems, even if their later _remaniements_ (as they are called) both in verse and prose--fourteenth and fifteenth century refas.h.i.+onings, which in every case meant a large extension--be left out of consideration. The most complete list published, that of M.
Leon Gautier, enumerates 110. Of these he himself places only the _Chanson de Roland_ in the eleventh century, perhaps as early as the Norman Conquest of England, certainly not later than 1095. To the twelfth he a.s.signs (and it may be observed that, enthusiastic as M.
Gautier is on the literary side, he shows on all questions of age, &c., a wariness not always exhibited by scholars more exclusively philological) _Acquin_, _Aliscans_, _Amis et Amiles_, _Antioche Aspremont_, _Auberi le Bourgoing_, _Aye d"Avignon_, the _Bataille Loquifer_, the oldest (now only known in Italian) form of _Berte aus grans Pies_, _Beuves d"Hanstone_ (with another Italian form more or less independent), the _Charroi de Nimes_, _Les Chetifs_, the _Chevalerie Ogier de Danemarche_, the _Chevalerie Vivien_ (otherwise known as _Covenant Vivien_), the major part (also known by separate t.i.tles) of the _Chevalier au Cygne_, _La Conquete de la Pet.i.te Bretagne_ (another form of _Acquin_), the _Couronnement Loys_, _Doon de la Roche_, _Doon de Nanteuil_, the _Enfances Charlemagne_, the _Enfances G.o.defroi_, the _Enfances Roland_, the _Enfances Ogier_, _Floovant_, _Garin le Loherain_, _Garnier de Nanteuil_, _Giratz de Rossilho_, _Girbert de Metz_, _Gui de Bourgogne_, _Gui de Nanteuil_, _Helias_, _Hervis de Metz_, the oldest form of _Huon de Bordeaux_, _Jerusalem_, _Jourdains de Blaivies_, the Lorraine cycle, including _Garin_, &c., _Macaire_, _Mainet_, the _Moniage Guillaume_, the _Moniage Rainoart_, _Orson de Beauvais_, _Rainoart_, _Raoul de Cambrai_, _Les Saisnes_, the _Siege de Barbastre_, _Syracon_, and the _Voyage de Charlemagne_. In other words, nearly half the total number date from the twelfth century, if not even earlier.
[Sidenote: _Thirteenth century._]
By far the larger number of the rest are not later than the thirteenth. They include--_Aimeri de Narbonne_, _Aiol_, _Anseis de Carthage_, _Anseis Fils de Gerbert_, _Auberon_, _Berte aus grans Pies_ in its present French form, _Beton et Daurel_, _Beuves de Commarchis_, the _Departement des Enfans Aimeri_, the _Destruction de Rome_, _Doon de Mayence_, _Elie de Saint Gilles_, the _Enfances Doon de Mayence_, the _Enfances Guillaume_, the _Enfances Vivien_, the _Entree en Espagne_, _Fierabras_, _Foulques de Candie_, _Gaydon_, _Garin de Montglane_, _Gaufrey_, _Gerard de Viane_, _Guibert d"Andrenas_, _Jehan de Lanson_, _Maugis d"Aigremont_, the _Mort Aimeri de Narbonne_, _Otinel_, _Parise la d.u.c.h.esse_, the _Prise de Cordres_, the _Prise de Pampelune_, the _Quatre Fils d"Aymon_, _Renaud de Montauban_ (a variant of the same), _Renier_, the later forms of the _Chanson de Roland_, to which the name of _Roncevaux_ is sometimes given for the sake of distinction, the _Siege de Narbonne_, _Simon de Pouille_, _Vivien l"Amachour de Montbranc_, and _Yon_.
[Sidenote: _Fourteenth, and later._]
By this the list is almost exhausted. The fourteenth century, though fruitful in _remaniements_, sometimes in mono-rhymed tirades, but often in Alexandrine couplets and other changed shapes, contributes hardly anything original except the very interesting and rather brilliant last branches of the _Chevalier au Cygne_--_Baudouin de Seboure_, and the _Bastart de Bouillon_; _Hugues Capet_, a very lively and readable but slightly vulgar thing, exhibiting an almost undisguised tone of parody; and some fragments known by the names of _Hernaut de Beaulande_, _Renier de Gennes_, &c. As for fifteenth and sixteenth century work, though some pieces of it, especially the very long and unprinted poem of _Lion de Bourges_, are included in the canon, all the _chanson_-production of this time is properly apocryphal, and has little or nothing left of the _chanson_ spirit, and only the sh.e.l.l of the _chanson_ form.
[Sidenote: Chansons _in print._]
It must further be remembered that, with the exception of a very few in fragmentary condition, all these poems are of great length. Only the later or less genuine, indeed, run to the preposterous extent of twenty, thirty, or (it is said in the case of _Lion de Bourges_) sixty thousand lines. But _Roland_ itself, one of the shortest, has four thousand; _Aliscans_, which is certainly old, eight thousand; the oldest known form of _Huon_, ten thousand. It is probably not excessive to put the average length of the older _chansons_ at six thousand lines; while if the more recent be thrown in, the average of the whole hundred would probably be doubled.
This immense body of verse, which for many reasons it is very desirable to study as a whole, is still, after the best part of a century, to a great extent unprinted, and (as was unavoidable) such of its const.i.tuents as have been sent to press have been dealt with on no very uniform principles. It was less inevitable, and is more to be regretted, that the dissensions of scholars on minute philological points have caused the repeated printing of certain texts, while others have remained inaccessible; and it cannot but be regarded as a kind of petty treason to literature thus to put the satisfaction of private crotchets before the "unlocking of the word-h.o.a.rd" to the utmost possible extent. The earliest _chansons_ printed[23] were, I believe, M. Paulin Paris"s _Berte aus grans Pies_, M. Francisque Michel"s _Roland_; and thereafter these two scholars and others edited for M. Techener a very handsome set of "Romances des Douze Pairs," as they were called, including _Les Saisnes_, _Ogier_, _Raoul de Cambrai_, _Garin_, and the two great crusading _chansons_, _Antioche_ and _Jerusalem_. Other scattered efforts were made, such as the publication of a beautiful edition of _Baudouin de Seboure_ at Valenciennes as early as 1841; while a Belgian scholar, M. de Reiffenberg, published _Le Chevalier au Cygne_, and a Dutch one, Dr Jonckbloet, gave a large part of the later numbers of the Garin de Montglane cycle in his _Guillaume d"Orange_ (2 vols., The Hague, 1854). But the great opportunity came soon after the accession of Napoleon III., when a Minister favourable to literature, M. de Fourtou, gave, in a moment of enthusiasm, permission to publish the entire body of the _chansons_. Perfect wisdom would probably have decreed the acceptance of the G.o.dsend by issuing the whole, with a minimum of editorial apparatus, in some such form as that of our Chalmers"s Poets, the bulk of which need probably not have been exceeded in order to give the oldest forms of every real _chanson_ from _Roland_ to the _Bastart de Bouillon_. But perfect wisdom is not invariably present in the councils of men, and the actual result took the form of ten agreeable little volumes, in the type, shape, and paper of the "Bibliotheque Elzevirienne" with abundant editorial matter, paraphrases in modern French, and the like. _Les Anciens Poetes de la France_, as this series was called, appeared between 1858, which saw the first volume, and 1870, which fatal year saw the last, for the Republic had no money to spare for such monarchical glories as the _chansons_. They are no contemptible possession; for the ten volumes give fourteen _chansons_ of very different ages, and rather interestingly representative of different kinds. But they are a very small portion of the whole, and in at least one instance, _Aliscans_, they double on a former edition. Since then the Societe des Anciens Textes Francais has edited some _chansons_, and independent German and French scholars have given some more; but no systematic attempt has been made to fill the gaps, and the pernicious system of re-editing, on pretext of wrong selection of MSS. or the like, has continued. Nevertheless, the number of _chansons_ actually available is so large that no general characteristic is likely to have escaped notice; while from the accounts of the remaining MSS., it would not appear that any of those unprinted can rank with the very best of those already known. Among these very best I should rank in alphabetical order--_Aliscans_, _Amis et Amiles_, _Antioche_, _Baudouin de Seboure_ (though in a mixed kind), _Berte aus grans Pies_, _Fierabras_, _Garin le Loherain_, _Gerard de Roussillon_, _Huon de Bordeaux_, _Ogier de Danemarche_, _Raoul de Cambrai_, _Roland_, and the _Voyage de Charlemagne a Constantin.o.ble_. The almost solitary eminence a.s.signed by some critics to _Roland_ is not, I think, justified, and comes chiefly from their not being acquainted with many others; though the poem has undoubtedly the merit of being the oldest, and perhaps that of presenting the _chanson_ spirit in its best and most unadulterated, as well as the _chanson_ form at its simplest, sharpest, and first state. Nor is there anywhere a finer pa.s.sage than the death of Roland, though there are many not less fine.
[Footnote 23: Immanuel Bekker had printed the Provencal _Fierabras_ as early as 1829.]
It may, however, seem proper, if not even positively indispensable, to give some more general particulars about these _chansons_ before a.n.a.lysing specimens or giving arguments of one or more; for they are full of curiosities.
[Sidenote: _Language._ Oc _and_ ol.]
In the first place, it will be noticed by careful readers of the list above given, that these compositions are not limited to French proper or to the _langue d"ol_, though infinitely the greater part of them are in that tongue. Indeed, for some time after attention had been drawn to them, and before their actual natures and contents had been thoroughly examined, there was a theory that they were Provencal in origin. This, though it was chiefly due to the fact that Raynouard, Fauriel, and other early students of old French had a strong southern leaning, had some other excuses. It is a fact that Provencal was earlier in its development than French; and whether by irregular tradition of this fact, or owing to ignorance, or from anti-French prejudice (which, however, would not apply in France itself), the part of the _langue d"oc_ in the early literature of Europe was for centuries largely overvalued. Then came the usual reaction, and some fifty years ago or so one of the most capable of literary students declared roundly that the Provencal epic had "le defaut d"etre perdu."
That is not quite true. There is, as noted above, a Provencal _Fierabras_, though it is beyond doubt an adaptation of the French; _Betonnet d"Hanstone_ or _Beton et Daurel_ only exists in Provencal, though there is again no doubt of its being borrowed; and, lastly, the oldest existing, and probably the original, form of _Gerard de Roussillon_, _Giratz de Rossilho_, is, as its t.i.tle implies, Provencal, though it is in a dialect more approaching to the _langue d"ol_ than any form of _oc_, and even presents the curious peculiarity of existing in two forms, one leaning to Provencal, the other to French. But these very facts, though they show the statement that "the Provencal epic is lost" to be excessive, yet go almost farther than a total deficiency in proving that the _chanson de geste_ was not originally Provencal. Had it been otherwise, there can be no possible reason why a bare three per cent of the existing examples should be in the southern tongue, while two of these are evidently translations, and the third was as evidently written on the very northern borders of the "Limousin" district.
[Sidenote: _Italian._]
[Sidenote: _Diffusion of the_ chansons.]
The next fact--one almost more interesting, inasmuch as it bears on that community of Romance tongues of which we have evidence in Dante,[24] and perhaps also makes for the antiquity of the Charlemagne story in its primitive form--is the existence of _chansons_ in Italian, and, it may be added, in a most curious b.a.s.t.a.r.d speech which is neither French, nor Provencal, nor Italian, but French Italicised in part.[25] The substance, moreover, of the Charlemagne stories was very early naturalised in Italy in the form of a sort of abstract or compilation called the _Reali di Francia_,[26] which in various forms maintained popularity through mediaeval and early modern times, and undoubtedly exercised much influence on the great Italian poets of the Renaissance. They were also diffused throughout Europe, the _Carlamagnus Saga_ in Iceland marking their farthest actual as well as possible limit, though they never in Germany attained anything like the popularity of the Arthurian legend, and though the Spaniards, patriotically resenting the frequent forays into Spain to which the _chansons_ bear witness, and availing themselves of the confession of disaster at Roncesvalles, set up a counter-story in which Roland is personally worsted by Bernardo del Carpio, and the quarrels of the paynims are taken up by Spain herself. In England the imitations, though fairly numerous, are rather late. They have been completely edited for the Early English Text Society, and consist (for Bevis of Hampton has little relation with its _chanson_ namesake save the name) of _Sir Ferumbras_ (_Fierabras_), _The Siege of Milan_, _Sir Otuel_ (two forms), the _Life of Charles the Great_, _The Soudone of Babylone_, _Huon of Bordeaux_, and _The Four Sons of Aymon_, besides a very curious semi-original ent.i.tled _Rauf Coilzear_ (Collier), in which the well-known romance-_donnee_ of the king visiting some obscure person is applied to Charlemagne. Of these, one, the version of _Huon of Bordeaux_,[27] is literature of no mean kind; but this is because it was executed by Lord Berners, long after our present period. Also, being of that date, it represents the latest French form of the story, which was a very popular one, and incorporated very large borrowings from other sources (the loadstone rock, the punishment of Cain, and so forth) which are foreign to the subject and substance of the _chansons_ proper.
[Footnote 24: _V._ the famous and all-important ninth chapter of the first book of the _De Vulgari Eloquio_.]
[Footnote 25: See especially _Macaire_, ed. Guessard, Paris, 1860.]
[Footnote 26: So also the _geste_ of Montglane became the _Nerbonesi_.]
[Footnote 27: Ed. S. Lee, London, 1883-86.]
[Sidenote: _Their authors.h.i.+p and publication._]
Very great pains have been spent on the question of the authors.h.i.+p, publication, or performance of these compositions. As is the case with so much mediaeval work, the great ma.s.s of them is entirely anonymous.