A line which concludes, or rather supplements, _Roland_--
"Ci falt la geste que Turoldus declinet"--
has been the occasion of the shedding of a very great deal of ink. The enthusiastic inquisitiveness of some has ferreted about in all directions for Turolds, Thorolds, or Therouldes, in the eleventh century, and discovering them even among the companions of the Conqueror himself, has started the question whether Taillefer was or was not violating the copyright of his comrade at Hastings. The fact is, however, that the best authorities are very much at sea as to the meaning of _declinet_, which, though it must signify "go over," "tell like a bead-roll," in some way or other, might be susceptible of application to authors.h.i.+p, recitation, or even copying. In some other cases, however, we have more positive testimony, though they are in a great minority. Graindor of Douai refas.h.i.+oned the work of Richard the Pilgrim, an actual partaker of the first Crusade, into the present _Antioche_, _Jerusalem_, and perhaps _Les Chetifs_. Either Richard or Graindor must have been one of the very best poets of the whole cycle.
Jehan de Flagy wrote the spirited _Garin le Loherain_; and Jehan Bodel of Arras _Les Saisnes_. Adenes le Roi, a _trouvere_, of whose actual position in the world we know a little, wrote or refas.h.i.+oned three or four _chansons_ of the thirteenth century, including _Berte aus grans Pies_, and one of the forms of part of _Ogier_. Other names--Bertrand of Bar sur Aube, Pierre de Rieu, Gerard d"Amiens, Raimbert de Paris, Brianchon (almost a character of Balzac!), Gautier of Douai, Nicolas of Padua (an interesting person who was warned in a dream to save his soul by compiling a _chanson_), Herbert of Dammartin, Guillaume de Bapaume, Huon de Villeneuve--are mere shadows of names to which in nearly all cases no personality attaches, and which may be as often those of mere _jongleurs_ as of actual poets.
[Sidenote: _Their performance._]
No subject, however, in connection with these _chansons de geste_ has occupied more attention than the precise mode of what has been called above their "authors.h.i.+p, publication, or performance." They are called _chansons_, and there is no doubt at all that in their inception, and during the earlier and better part of their history, they strictly deserved the name, having been written not to be read but to be sung or recited. To a certain extent, of course, this was the case with all the lighter literature of mediaeval times. Far later than our present period the English metrical romances almost invariably begin with the minstrel"s invocation, "Listen, lordings," varied according to his taste, fancy, and metre; and what was then partly a tradition, was two or three hundred years earlier the simple record of a universal practice. Since the early days of the Romantic revival, even to the present time, the minutest details of this singing and recitation have been the subject of endless wrangling; and even the point whether it was "singing" or "recitation" has been argued. In a wider and calmer view these things become of very small interest. Singing and recitation--as the very word recitative should be enough to remind any one--pa.s.s into each other by degrees imperceptible to any but a technical ear; and the instruments, if any, which accompanied the performance of the _chansons_, the extent of that accompaniment, and the rest, concern, if they concern history at all, the history of music, not that of literature.
[Sidenote: _Hearing, not reading, the object._]
[Sidenote: _Effect on prosody._]
But it is a matter of quite other importance that, as has been said, lighter mediaeval literature generally, and the _chansons_ in particular, were meant for the ear, not the eye--to be heard, not to be read. For this intention very closely concerns some of their most important literary characteristics. It is certain as a matter of fact, though it might not be very easy to account for it as a matter of argument, that repet.i.tions, stock phrases, ident.i.ty of scheme and form, which are apt to be felt as disagreeable in reading, are far less irksome, and even have a certain attraction, in matter orally delivered. Whether that slower irritation of the mind through the ear of which Horace speaks supplies the explanation may be left undiscussed. But it is certain that, especially for uneducated hearers (who in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, if not in the thirteenth, must have been the enormous majority), not merely the phraseological but the rhythmical peculiarities of the _chansons_ would be specially suitable. In particular, the long maintenance of the mono-rhymed, or even the single-a.s.sonanced, _tirade_ depends almost entirely upon its being delivered _viva voce_. Only then does that wave-clash which has been spoken of produce its effect, while the unbroken uniformity of rhyme on the printed page, and the apparent absence of uniformity in the printed a.s.sonances, are almost equally annoying to the eye. Nor is it important or superfluous to note that this oral literature had, in the Teutonic countries and in England more especially, an immense influence (hitherto not nearly enough allowed for by literary historians) in the great change from a stressed and alliterative to a quant.i.tative and rhymed prosody, which took place, with us, from about 1200 A.D. Accustomed as were the ears of all to quant.i.tative (though very licentiously quant.i.tative) and rhymed measures in the hymns and services of the Church--the one literary exercise to which gentle and simple, learned and unlearned, were constantly and regularly addicted--it was almost impossible that they should not demand a similar prosody in the profaner compositions addressed to them. That this would not affect the _chansons_ themselves is true enough; for there are no relics of any alliterative prosody in French, and its accentual scanning is only the naturally "crumbled" quant.i.ty of Latin.
But it is extremely important to note that the metre of these _chansons_ themselves, single-rhyme and all, directly influenced English writers. Of this, however, more will be found in the chapter on the rise of English literature proper.
[Sidenote: _The_ jongleurs.]
Another, and for literature a hardly less important, consequence of this intention of being heard, was that probably from the very first, and certainly from an early period, a distinction, not very different from that afterwards occasioned by the drama, took place between the _trouvere_ who invented the _chanson_ and the _jongleur_ or minstrel who introduced it. At first these parts may, for better or worse, have been doubled. But it would seldom happen that the poet who had the wits to indite would have the skill to perform; and it would happen still seldomer that those whose gifts lay in the direction of interpretation would have the poetical spirit. Nor is it wonderful that, in the poems themselves, we find considerably more about the performer than about the author. In the cases where they were identical, the author would evidently be merged in the actor; in cases where they were not, the actor would take care of himself.
Accordingly, though we know if possible even less of the names of the _jongleurs_ than of those of the _trouveres_, we know a good deal about their methods. Very rarely does an author like Nicolas of Padua (_v. supra_) tell us so much as his motive for composing the poems.
But the patient study of critics, eked out it may be by a little imagination here and there, has succeeded in elaborating a fairly complete account of the ways and fortunes of the _jongleur_, who also not improbably, even where he was not the author, adjusted to the _chansons_ which were his copyright, extempore _codas_, episodes, tags, and gags of different kinds. Immense pains have been spent upon the _jongleur_. It has been a.s.serted, and it is not improbable, that during the palmiest days--say the eleventh and twelfth centuries--of the _chansons_ a special order of the _jongleur_ or minstrel hierarchy concerned itself with them,--it is at least certain that the phrase _chanter de geste_ occurs several times in a manner, and with a context, which seem to justify its being regarded as a special term of art. And the authors at least present their heroes as deliberately expecting that they will be sung about, and fearing the chance of a dishonourable mention; a fact which, though we must not base any calculations upon it as to the actual sentiments of Roland or Ogier, Raoul or Huon, is a fact in itself. And it is also a fact that in the _fabliaux_ and other light verse of the time we find _jongleurs_ presented as boasting of the particular _chansons_ they can sing.
[Sidenote: Jongleresses, _&c._]
But the enumeration of the kinds of _jongleurs_--those itinerant, those attached to courts and great families, &c.--would lead us too far. They were not all of one s.e.x, and we hear of _jongleresses_ and _chanteresses_, such as Adeline who figures in the history of the Norman Conquest, Aiglantine who sang before the Duke of Burgundy, Gracieuse d"Espagne, and so forth--pretty names, as even M. Gautier, who is inclined to be suspicious of them, admits. These suspicions, it is fair to say, were felt at the time. Don Jayme of Aragon forbade n.o.ble ladies to kiss _jongleresses_ or share bed and board with them; while the Church, which never loved the _jongleur_ much, decided that the duty of a wife to follow her husband ceased if he took to jongling, which was a _vita turpis et inhonesta_. Further, the pains above referred to, bestowed by scholars of all sorts, from Percy downwards, have discovered or guessed at the clothes which the _jongleur_ and his mate wore, and the instruments with which they accompanied their songs. It is more germane to our purpose to know, as we do in one instance on positive testimony, the principles (easily to be guessed, by the way) on which the introduction of names into these poems were arranged. It appears, on the authority of the historian of Guisnes and Ardres, that Arnold the Old, Count of Ardres, would actually have had his name in the _Chanson d"Antioche_ had he not refused a pair of scarlet boots or breeches to the poet or performer thereof. Nor is it more surprising to find, on the still more indisputable authority of pa.s.sages in the _chansons_ themselves, that the _jongleur_ would stop singing at an interesting point to make a collection, and would even sometimes explicitly protest against the contribution of too small coins--_poitevines_, _mailles_, and the like.
It is impossible not to regard with a mixture of respect and pity the labour which has been spent on collecting details of the kind whereof, in the last paragraph or two, a few examples have been given. But they really have very little, if anything, to do with literature; and what they have to do with it is common to all times and subjects. The excessive prodigality to minstrels of which we have record parallels itself in other times in regard to actors, jockeys, musicians, and other cla.s.ses of mechanical pleasure-makers whose craft happens to be popular for the moment. And it was never more likely to be shown than in the Middle Ages, when generosity was a profane virtue; when the Church had set the example--an example the too free extension of which she resented highly--of putting reckless giving above almost all other good deeds; and when the system of private war, of ransoms and other things of the same kind, made "light come, light go," a maxim almost more applicable than in the days of confiscations, in those of pensions on this or that list, or in those of stock-jobbing. Moreover, inquirers into this matter have certainly not escaped the besetting sin of all but strictly political historians--a sin which even the political historian has not always avoided--the sin of mixing up times and epochs.
It is the great advantage of that purely literary criticism, which is so little practised and to some extent so unpopular, that it is able to preserve accuracy in this matter. When with the a.s.sistance (always to be gratefully received) of philologists and historians in the strict sense the date of a literary work is ascertained with sufficient--it is only in a few cases that it can be ascertained with absolute--exactness, the historian of literature places it in that position for literary purposes only, and neither mixes it with other things nor endeavours to use it for purposes other than literary. To recur to an example mentioned above, Adeline in the eleventh century and Gracieuse d"Espagne in the fifteenth are agreeable objects of contemplation and ornaments of discourse; but, once more, neither has much, if anything, to do with literature.
[Sidenote: _Singularity of the_ chansons.]
We may therefore with advantage, having made this digression to comply a little with prevalent fas.h.i.+ons, return to the _chansons_ themselves, to the half-million or million verses of majestic cadence written in one of the n.o.blest languages, for at least first effect, to be found in the history of the world, possessing that character of distinction, of separate and unique peculiarity in matter and form, which has such extraordinary charm, and endowed besides, more perhaps than any other division, with the attraction of presenting an utterly vanished Past.
The late Mr Froude found in church-bells--the echo of the Middle Ages--suggestion of such a vanis.h.i.+ng. To some of us there is nothing dead in church-bells; there is only in them, as in the Arthurian legends, for instance, a perennial thing still presented in a.s.sociations, all the more charming for being slightly antique. But the _chansons de geste_, living by the poetry of their best examples, by the fire of their sentiment, by the clash and clang of their music, are still in thought, in connection with manners, hopes, aims, almost more dead than any of the cla.s.sics. The literary misjudgment of them which was possible in quite recent times, to two such critics--very different, but each of the first cla.s.s--as Mr Matthew Arnold and M.
Ferdinand Brunetiere, is half excused by this curious feature in their own literary character. More than mummies or catacombs, more than Herculaneum and Pompeii, they bring us face to face with something so remote and afar that we can hardly realise it at all. It may be that that peculiarity of the French genius, which, despite its unsurpa.s.sed and almost unmatched literary faculty, has prevented it from contributing any of the very greatest masterpieces to the literature of the world, has communicated to them this aloofness, this, as it may almost be called, provincialism. But some such note there is in them, and it may be that the immense stretch of time during which they were worse than unknown--misknown--has brought it about.
[Sidenote: _Their charm._]
Yet their interest is not the less; it is perhaps even the more. It is nearly twenty years since I began to read them, and during that period I have also been reading ma.s.ses of other literature from other times, nations, and languages; yet I cannot at this moment take up one without being carried away by the stately language, as precise and well proportioned as modern French, yet with much of the grandeur which modern French lacks, the statelier metre, the n.o.ble phrase, the n.o.ble incident and pa.s.sion. Take, for instance, one of the crowning moments, for there are several, of the death-scene of Roland, that where the hero discovers the dead archbishop, with his hands--"the white, the beautiful"--crossed on his breast:--
"Li quenz Rollanz revient de pasmeisuns, Sur piez se drecet, mais il ad grant dulur; Guardet aval e si guardet amunt; Sur l"erbe verte, ultre ses c.u.mpaignuns, La veit gesir le n.o.bile barun: C"est l"arcevesque que deus mist en sun num, Claimet sa culpe, si regardet amunt, c.u.n.tre le ciel ainsdoux ses mains ad juinz, Si priet deu que pareis li duinst.
Morz est Turpin le guerrier Charlun.
Par granz batailles e par mult bels sermuns Contre paiens fut tuz tens campiuns.
Deus li otreit seinte benecun.
Aoi!"[28]
[Footnote 28: _Roland_, ll. 2233-2246.]
Then turn to, perhaps, the very last poem which can be called a _chanson de geste_ proper in style, _Le Bastart de Bouillon_, and open on these lines:--
"Pardevant la chite qui Miekes[29] fut clamee Fu grande la bataille, et fiere la mellee, Enchois car on eust nulle tente levee, Commencha li debas a ch.e.l.le matinee.
Li cinc frere paien i mainent grant huee, Il keurent par accort, chascuns tenoit l"espee, Et une forte targe a son col acolee.
Esclamars va ferir sans nulle demoree, Un gentil crestien de France l"onneree-- Armere n"i vault une pomme pelee; Sus le senestre espaulle fu la chars atamee, Le branc li embati par dedans la coree,[30]
Mort l"abat du cheval; son ame soit sauvee!"[31]
[Footnote 29: _I.e._, Mecca.]
[Footnote 30: _Coree_ is not merely = _coeur_, but heart, liver, and all the upper "inwards."]
[Footnote 31: _Li Bastars de Bouillon_ (ed. Scheler, Brussels, 1877).]
This is in no way a specially fine pa.s.sage, it is the very "padding"
of the average _chanson_, but what padding it is! Compare the mere sound, the clash and clang of the verse, with the ordinary English romance in _Sir Thopas_ metre, or even with the Italian poets. How alert, how succinct, how finished it is beside the slip-shodness of the first, in too many instances;[32] how manly, how intense, beside the mere sweetness of the second! The very ring of the lines brings mail-s.h.i.+rt and flat-topped helmet before us.
[Footnote 32: Not always; for the English romance of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries has on the whole been too harshly dealt with.
But its _average_ is far below that of the _chansons_.]
[Sidenote: _Peculiarity of the_ geste _system._]
But in order to the proper comprehension of this section of literature, it is necessary that something more should be said as well of the matter at large as of the construction and contents of separate poems; and, most of all, of the singular process of adjustment of these separate poems by which the _geste_ proper (that is to say, the subdivision of the whole which deals more or less distinctly with a single subject) is const.i.tuted. Here again we find a "difference" of the poems in the strict logical sense. The total ma.s.s of the Arthurian story may be, though more probably it is not, as large as that of the Charlemagne romances, and it may well seem to some of superior literary interest. But from its very nature, perhaps from the very nature of its excellence, it lacks this special feature of the _chansons de geste_. Arthur may or may not be a greater figure in himself than Charlemagne; but when the genius of Map (or of some one else) had hit upon the real knotting and unknotting of the story--the connection of the frailty of Guinevere with the Quest for the Grail--complete developments of the fates of minor heroes, elaborate closings of minor incidents, became futile. Endless stories could be keyed or geared on to different parts of the main legend: there might be a Tristan-saga, a Palomides-saga, a Gawain-saga, episodes of Balin or of Beaumains, incidents of the fate of the damsel of Astolat or the resipiscence of Geraint. But the central interest was too artistically complete to allow any of these to occupy very much independent s.p.a.ce.
[Sidenote: _Instances._]
In our present subject, on the other hand, even Charlemagne"s life is less the object of the story than the history of France; and enormous as the falsification of that history may seem to modern criticism, the writers always in a certain sense remembered that they were historians. When an interesting and important personality presented itself, it was their duty to follow it out to the end, to fill up the gaps of forerunners, to round it off and shade it in.[33] Thus it happens that the _geste_ or saga of _Guillaume d"Orange_--which is itself not the whole of the great _geste_ of Garin de Montglane--occupies eighteen separate poems, some of them of great length; that the crusading series, beginning no doubt in a simple historical poem, which was extended and "cycled," has seven, the Lorraine group five; while in the extraordinary monument of industry and enthusiasm which for some eight hundred pages M. Leon Gautier has devoted to the king"s _geste_, twenty-seven different _chansons_ are more or less abstracted. Several others might have been added here if M. Gautier had laid down less strict rules of exclusion against mere _romans d"aventures_ subsequently tied on, like the above-mentioned outlying romances of the Arthurian group, to the main subject.
[Footnote 33: This will explain the frequent recurrence of the t.i.tle "_Enfances ----_" in the list given above. A hero had become interesting in some exploit of his manhood: so they harked back to his childhood.]
[Sidenote: _Summary of the_ geste _of William of Orange._]
It seems necessary, therefore, or at least desirable, especially as these poems are still far too little known to English readers, to give in the first place a more or less detailed account of one of the groups; in the second, a still more detailed account of a particular _chanson_, which to be fully ill.u.s.trative should probably be a member of this group; and lastly, some remarks on the more noteworthy and accessible (for it is ill speaking at second-hand from accounts of ma.n.u.scripts) of the remaining poems. For the first purpose nothing can be better than _Guillaume d"Orange_, many, though not all, of the const.i.tuents of which are in print, and which has had the great advantage of being systematically treated by more than one or two of the most competent scholars of the century on the subject--Dr Jonckbloet, MM. Guessard and A. de Montaiglon, and M. Gautier himself.
Of this group the short, very old, and very characteristic _Couronnement Loys_ will supply a good subject for more particular treatment, a subject all the more desirable that _Roland_ may be said to be comparatively familiar, and is accessible in English translations.
[Sidenote: _And first of the_ Couronnement Loys.]
The poem as we have it[34] begins with a double exordium, from which the _jongleur_ might perhaps choose as from alternative collects in a liturgy. Each is ten lines long, and while the first rhymes throughout, the second has only a very imperfect a.s.sonance. Each bespeaks attention and promises satisfaction in the usual manner, though in different terms--
"Oez seignor que Dex vos soit aidant;"
"Seignor baron, pleroit vos d"un exemple!"
[Footnote 34: Ed. Jonckbloet, _op. cit._, i. 1-71.]
A much less commonplace note is struck immediately afterwards in what may be excusably taken to be the real beginning of the poem:--
"A king who wears our France"s crown of gold Worthy must be, and of his body bold; What man soe"er to him do evil wold, He may not quit in any manner hold Till he be dead or to his mercy yold.
Else France shall lose her praise she hath of old.
Falsely he"s crowned: so hath our story told."