The origin and sources of the _Chansons de Gestes_ have been made a matter of much controversy. We have already seen how, from the testimony of historians and the existence of a few fragments, it appears that rude lays or ballads in the different vernacular tongues of the country were composed and sung if not written down at very early dates. According to one theory, we are to look for the origin of the long and regular epics of the eleventh and subsequent centuries in these rude compositions, first produced independently, then strung together, and lastly subjected to some process of editing and union. It has been sought to find proof of this in the frequent repet.i.tions which take place in the Chansons, and which sometimes amount to the telling of the same incident over and over again in slightly varying words. Others have seen in this peculiarity only a result of improvisation in the first place, and unskilful or at least uncritical copying in the second. This, however, is a question rather interesting than important. What is certain is that no literary source of the Chansons is now actually in existence, and that we have no authentic information as to any such originals. At a certain period--approximately given above--the fashion of narrative poems on the great scale seems to have arisen in France. It spread rapidly, and was eagerly copied by other nations.

[Sidenote: Definition.]

The definition of a _Chanson de Geste_ is as follows. It is a narrative poem, dealing with a subject connected with French history, written in verses of ten or twelve syllables, which verses are arranged in stanzas of arbitrary length, each stanza possessing a distinguishing a.s.sonance or rhyme in the last syllable of each line. The a.s.sonance, which is characteristic of the earlier Chansons, is an imperfect rhyme, in which ident.i.ty of vowel sound is all that is necessary. Thus _traitor_, _felon_, _compaingnons_, _manons_, _noz_, the first, fourth, and fifth of which have no character of rhyme whatever in modern poetry, are sufficient terminations for an a.s.sonanced poem, because the last vowel sound, o, is identical. There is moreover in this versification a regular caesura, sometimes after the fourth, sometimes after the sixth syllable; and in a few of the older examples the stanzas, or as they are sometimes called _laisses_, terminate in a shorter line than usual, which is not a.s.sonanced. This metrical system, it will be observed, is of a fairly elaborate character, a character which has been used as an argument by those who insist on the existence of a body of ballad literature anterior to the Chansons. We shall see in the following chapters how this double definition of a _Chanson de Geste_, by matter and by form, serves to exclude from the t.i.tle other important and interesting cla.s.ses of compositions slightly later in date.

[Sidenote: Period of Composition.]

The period of composition of these poems extended, speaking roughly, over three centuries. In the eleventh they began, but the beginnings are represented only by _Roland_, the _Voyage de Charlemagne_, and perhaps _Le Roi Louis_. Most and nearly all the best date from the twelfth. The thirteenth century also produces them in great numbers, but by this time a sensible change has come over their manner, and after the beginning of the fourteenth only a few pieces deserving the t.i.tle are written. They then undergo transformation rather than neglect, and we shall meet them at a later period in other forms. Before dealing with other general characteristics of the early epics of France it will be well to give some notion of them by actual selection and narrative. For this purpose we shall take two Chansons typical of two out of the three stages through which they pa.s.sed. _Roland_ will serve as a sample of the earliest, _Amis et Amiles_ of the second. Of the third, as less characteristic in itself and less marked by uniform features, it will be sufficient to give some account when we come to the compositions which chiefly influenced it, namely the romances of Arthur and of antiquity.

[Sidenote: Chanson de Roland.]

The _Chanson de Roland_, the most ancient and characteristic of these poems, though extremely popular in the middle ages[19], pa.s.sed with them into obscurity. The earliest allusion to the Oxford MS., which alone represents its earliest form, was made by Tyrwhitt a century ago.

Conybeare forty years later dealt with it in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ of 1817, and by degrees the reviving interest of France in her older literature attracted French scholars to this most important monument of the oldest French. It was first published as a whole by M. F. Michel in 1837, and since that time it has been the subject of a very great amount of study. Its length is 4001 decasyllabic lines, and it concludes with an obscure a.s.sertion of authorship, publication or transcription by a certain Turoldus[20]. The date of the Oxford MS. is probably the middle of the twelfth century, but its text is attributed by the best authorities to the end of the eleventh. There are other MSS., but they are all either mutilated or of much later date. The argument of the poem is as follows:--

Charlemagne has warred seven years in Spain, but king Marsile of Saragossa still resists the Christian conqueror. Unable however to meet Charlemagne in the field, he sends an emba.s.sy with presents and a feigned submission, requesting that prince to return to France, whither he will follow him and do homage. Roland opposes the reception of these offers, Ganelon speaks in their favour, and so does Duke Naimes. Then the question is who shall go to Saragossa to settle the terms. Roland offers to go himself, but being rejected as too impetuous, suggests Ganelon--a suggestion which bitterly annoys that knight and by irritating him against Roland sows the seeds of his future treachery.

Ganelon goes to Marsile, and at first bears himself truthfully and gallantly. The heathen king however undermines his faith, and a treacherous a.s.sault on the French rearguard when Charlemagne shall be too far off to succour it is resolved on and planned. Then the traitor returns to Charles with hostages and mighty gifts. The return to France begins; Roland is stationed to his great wrath in the fatal place, the rest of the army marches through the Pyrenees, and meanwhile Marsile gathers an enormous host to fall upon the isolated rearguard. There is a long catalogue of the felon and miscreant knights and princes that follow the Spanish king. The pagan host, travelling by cross paths of the mountains, soon reaches and surrounds Roland and the peers. Oliver entreats Roland to sound his horn that Charles may hear it and come to the rescue, but the eager and inflexible hero refuses. Archbishop Turpin blesses the doomed host, and bids them as the price of his absolution strike hard. The battle begins and all its incidents are told. The French kill thousands, but thousands more succeed. Peer after peer falls, and when at last Roland blows the horn it is too late.

Charlemagne hears it and turns back in an agony of sorrow and haste. But long before he reaches Roncevaux Roland has died last of his host, and alone, for all the Pagans have fallen or fled before him.

The arrival of Charlemagne, his grief, and his vengeance on the Pagans, should perhaps conclude the poem. There is however a sort of afterpiece, in which the traitor Ganelon is tried, his fate being decided by a single combat between his kinsman Pinabel and a champion named Thierry, and is ruthlessly put to death with all his clansmen who have stood surety for him. Episodes properly so called the poem has none, though the character of Oliver is finely brought out as contrasted with Roland's somewhat unreasoning valour, and there is one touching incident when the poet tells how the Lady Aude, Oliver's sister and Roland's betrothed, falls dead without a word when the king tells her of the fatal fight at Roncevaux. The following pa.s.sage will give an idea of the style of this famous poem. It may be noticed that the curious refrain _Aoi_ has puzzled all commentators, though in calling it a refrain we have given the most probable explanation:--

Rollanz s'en turnet, par le camp vait tut suls cercet les vals e si cercet les munz; iloec truvat Ivorie et Ivun, truvat Gerin, Gerer sun c.u.mpaignun, iloec truvat Engeler le Gascun e si truvat Berenger e Orun, iloec truvat Anses e Sansun, truvat Gerard le veill de Russillun: par un e un les ad pris le barun, al arcevesque en est venuz atut, sis mist en reng dedevant ses genuilz.

li arcevesque ne poet muer n'en plurt; lievet sa main, fait sa benecun; apres ad dit 'mare fustes, seignurs!

tutes voz anmes ait deus li glorus!

en pares les mete en seintes flurs!

la meie mort me rent si anguissus, ja ne verrai le riche empereur.'

Rollanz s'en turnet, le camp vait recercer; desoz un pin e folut e ramer sun c.u.mpaignun ad truved Oliver, c.u.n.tre sun piz estreit l'ad enbracet.

si c.u.m il poet al arcevesque en vent, sur un escut l'ad as altres culchet; e l'arcevesque l'ad asols e seignet.

idonc agreget le doel e la pitet.

co dit Rollanz 'bels c.u.mpainz Oliver, vos fustes filz al bon c.u.n.te Reiner, ki tint la marche de Genes desur mer; pur hanste freindre e pur escuz pecier e pur osberc e rompre e desmailler, [pur orgoillos veintre e esmaier]

e pur prozdomes tenir e conseiller e pur glutuns e veintre e esmaier en nule terre n'ot meillor chevaler.'

Li quens Rollanz, quant il veit morz ses pers e Oliver, qu'il tant poeit amer, tendrur en out, c.u.mencet a plurer, en sun visage fut mult desculurez.

si grant doel out que mais ne pout ester, voeillet o nun, a terre chet pasmet.

dist l'arcevesques 'tant mare fustes, ber.'

Li arcevesques quant vit pasmer Rollant, dunc out tel doel, unkes mais n'out si grant; tendit sa main, si ad pris l'olifan.

en Rencesvals ad une ewe curant; aler i volt, si'n durrat a Rollant.

tant s'esforcat qu'il se mist en estant, sun pet.i.t pas s'en turnet cancelant, il est si fieble qu'il ne poet en avant, nen ad vertut, trop ad perdut del sanc.

einz que om alast un sul arpent de camp, fait li le coer, si est chaeit avant: la sue mort li vait mult angoissant.

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.bilie barun, co est l'arcevesque que deus mist en sun num; cleimet sa culpe, si reguardet amunt, c.u.n.tre le ciel amsdous ses mains ad juinz, si pret deu que pares li duinst.

morz est Turpin le guerreier Charlun.

par granz batailles e par mult bels sermons c.u.n.tre paiens fut tuz tens campuns.

deus li otreit seinte benecun! Aoi.

Quant Rollanz vit l'arcevesque qu'est morz, senz Oliver une mais n'out si grant dol, e dist un mot que destrenche le cor: 'Carles de France chevalce c.u.m il pot; en Rencesvals damage i ad des noz; li reis Marsilie ad sa gent perdut tot, c.u.n.tre un des noz ad ben quarante morz.'

Li quenz Rollanz veit l'arcevesque a terre, defors sun cors veit gesir la buelle, desuz le frunt li buillit la cervelle.

desur sun piz, entre les dous furcelles, cruisiedes ad ses blanches mains, les belles.

forment le pleint a la lei de sa terre.

'e, gentilz hom, chevaler de bon aire, hoi te c.u.mant al glorus celeste: ja mais n'ert hume plus volenters le serve.

des les apostles ne fut honc tel prophete pur lei tenir e pur humes atraire.

ja la vostre anme nen ait doel ne sufraite!

de pares li seit la porte uverte!'

[Sidenote: Amis et Amiles.]

As _Roland_ is by far the most interesting of those Chansons which describe the wars with the Saracens, so _Amis et Amiles_[21] may be taken as representing those where the interest is mainly domestic. _Amis et Amiles_ is the earliest vernacular form of a story which attained extraordinary popularity in the middle ages, being found in every language and in most literary forms, prose and verse, narrative and dramatic. This popularity may partly be a.s.signed to the religious and marvellous elements which it contains, but is due also to the intrinsic merits of the story. The Chanson contains 3500 lines, dates probably from the twelfth century, and is written, like _Roland_, in decasyllabic verse, but, unlike _Roland_, has a shorter line of six syllables and not a.s.sonanced at the end of each stanza. Its story is as follows:--

Amis and Amiles were two n.o.ble knights, born and baptized on the same day, who had the Pope for sponsor, and whose comradeship was specially sanctioned by a divine message, and by the miraculous likeness which existed between them. They were however brought up, the one in Berri, the other in Auvergne, and did not meet till both had received knighthood. As soon as they had joined company, they resolved to offer their services to Charles, and did him great service against rebels.

Here the action proper begins. The friends arouse the jealousy of Hardre, a felon knight, of Ganelon's lineage and likeness. Hardre engages Gombaud of Lorraine, an enemy of the Emperor, to attack the two friends; but the treason does not succeed, and the traitor, to escape unpleasant enquiries, recommends Charles to bestow his own niece Lubias on Amiles. The latter declares that Amis deserves her better, and to Amis she is married, bearing however no good-will to Amiles for his resignation of her and for his firm hold on her husband's affection.

Meanwhile, the daughter of Charles, Bellicent, conceives a violent pa.s.sion for Amiles, and the traitor Hardre unfortunately becomes aware of the matter. He at once accuses Amiles of treason, and the knight is too conscious of the dubiousness of his cause to be very willing to accept the wager of battle. From this difficulty he is saved by Amis, who comes to Paris from his distant seignory of Blaivies (Blaye), and fights the battle in the name and armour of his friend, while the latter goes to Blaye and plays the part of his preserver. Both ventures are made easier by the extraordinary resemblance of the pair. Amis is successful; he slays Hardre, and then has no little difficulty in saving himself from a forced marriage with Bellicent. This embroglio is smoothed out, and Amiles and Bellicent are happily united. The generous Amis however has not been able to avoid forswearing himself while playing the part of Amiles; and this sin is punished, according to a divine warning, by an attack of leprosy. His wife Lubias seizes the opportunity, procures a separation from him, and almost starves him, or would do so but for two faithful servants and his little son. At last a means of cure is revealed to him. If Amiles and Bellicent will allow their two sons to be slain the blood will recover Amis of his leprosy.

The stricken knight journeys painfully to his friend and tells him the hard condition. Amiles does not hesitate, and the following pa.s.sage tells his deed:--

Li cuens Amiles un pet.i.t s'atarja, vers les anfans pas por pas en ala, dormans les treuve, moult par les resgarda, s'espee lieve, ocirre les voldra; mais de ferir un pet.i.t se tarja.

li ainznes freres de l'effroi s'esveilla que li cuens mainne qui en la chambre entra, l'anfes se torne, son pere ravisa, s'espee voit, moult grant paor en a, son pere apelle, si l'en arraisonna: 'biax sire peres, por deu qui tout forma, que volez faire? nel me celez vos ja.

ainz mais nus peres tel chose ne pensa.'

'biaux sire fiuls, ocirre vos voil ja et le tien frere qui delez toi esta; car mes compains Amis qui moult m'ama, dou sanc de vos li siens cors garistra, que gietez est dou siecle.'

'Biax tres douz peres,' dist l'anfes erramment, 'quant vos compains avra gariss.e.m.e.nt, se de nos sans a sor soi lavement, nos sommes vostre de vostre engenrement, faire en poez del tout a vo talent.

or nos copez les chies isnellement; car dex de glorie nos avra en present, en paradis en irommes chantant et proierommes Jhesu cui tout apent que dou pechie vos face tens.e.m.e.nt, vos et Ami, vostre compaingnon gent; mais nostre mere, la bele Belissant, nos saluez por deu omnipotent.'

li cuens l'ot, moult grans pities l'en prent que touz pasmez a la terre s'estent.

quant se redresce, si reprinst hardement.

or orroiz ja merveilles, bonne gent, que tex n'ostes en tout vostre vivant.

li cuens Amiles vint vers le lit esrant, hauce l'espee, li fiuls le col estent.

or est merveilles se li cuers ne li ment.

la teste cope li peres son anfant, le sanc reciut et cler bacin d'argent: a poi ne chiet a terre.

No sooner has the blood touched Amis than he is cured, and the knights solemnly visit the church where Bellicent and the people are a.s.sembled.

The story is told and the mother, in despair, rushes to the chamber where her dead children are lying. But she finds them living and in full health, for a miracle has been wrought to reward the faithfulness of the friends now that suffering has purged them of their sin.

This story, touching in itself, is most touchingly told in the Chanson.

No poem of the kind is more vivid in description, or fuller of details of the manners of the time, than _Amis et Amiles_. Bellicent and Lubias, the former pa.s.sionate and impulsive but loving and faithful, the latter treacherous, revengeful, and cold-hearted, give perhaps the earliest finished portraits of feminine character to be found in French literature. Amis and Amiles themselves are presented to us under so many more aspects than Roland and Oliver that they dwell better in the memory. The undercurrent of savagery which distinguished mediaeval times, and the rapid changes of fortune which were possible therein, are also well brought out. Not even the immolation of Ganelon's hostages is so striking as the calm ferocity with which Charlemagne dooms his wife and son as well as his daughter to pay with their lives the penalty of Bellicent's fault; while the sudden lapse of Amis from his position of feudal lordship at Blaye to that of a miserable outcast, smitten and marked out for public scorn and ill-treatment by the visitation of G.o.d, is unusually dramatic. _Amis et Amiles_ bears to _Roland_ something not at all unlike the relation of the Odyssey to the Iliad. Its continuation, _Jourdains de Blaivies_, adds the element of foreign travel and adventure; but that element is perhaps more characteristically represented, and the representation has certainly been more generally popular, in _Huon de Bordeaux_.

[Sidenote: Other princ.i.p.al Chansons.]

Of the remaining Chansons, the following are the most remarkable.

_Aliscans_ (twelfth century) deals with the contest between William of Orange, the great Christian hero of the south of France, and the Saracens. This poem forms, according to custom, the centre of a whole group of Chansons dealing with the earlier and later adventures of the hero, his ancestors, and descendants. Such are _Le Couronnement Loys_, _La Prise d'Orange_, _Le Charroi de Nimes_, _Le Moniage Guillaume_. The series formed by these and others[22] is among the most interesting of these groups. _Le Chevalier au Cygne_ is a t.i.tle applied directly to a somewhat late version of an old folk-tale, and more generally to a series of poems connected with the House of Bouillon and the Crusades.

The members of this bear the separate headings _Antioche_[23], _Les Chetifs_, _Les Enfances G.o.defroy_, etc. _Antioche_, the first of these, which describes the exploits of the Christian host, first in attacking and then in defending that city, is one of the finest of the Chansons, and is probably in its original form not much later than the events it describes, being written by an eye-witness. The variety of its personages, the vivid picture of the alternations of fortune, the vigour of the verse, are all remarkable. This group is terminated by _Baudouin de Sebourc_[24], a very late but very important Chanson, which falls in with the poetry of the fourteenth century, and the _Bastart de Bouillon_[25]. _La Chevalerie Ogier de Danemarche_[26] is the oldest form in which the adventures of one of the most popular and romantic of Charlemagne's heroes are related. _Fierabras_ had also a very wide popularity, and contains some of the liveliest pictures of manners to be found in these poems, in its description of the rough horse-play of the knights and the unfilial behaviour of the converted Saracen princess.

This poem is also of much interest philologically[27]. _Garin le Loherain_[28] is the centre of a remarkable group dealing not directly with Charlemagne, but with the provincial disputes and feuds of the n.o.bility of Lorraine. _Raoul de Cambrai_[29] is another of the Chansons which deal with 'minor houses,' as they are called, in contradistinction to the main Carlovingian cycle. _Gerard de Roussillon_[30] ranks as a poem with the best of all the Chansons. _Hugues Capet_[31], though very late, is attractive by reason of the glimpses it gives us of a new spirit supplanting that of chivalry proper. In it the heroic distinctly gives place to the burlesque. _Macaire_[32], besides being written in a singular dialect, in which French is mingled with Italian, supplies the original of the well-known dog of Montargis. _Huon de Bordeaux_[33], already mentioned, was not only more than usually popular at the time of its appearance, but has supplied Shakespeare with some of the dramatis personae of _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, and Wieland and Weber with the plot of a well-known poem and opera. _Jourdains de Blaivies_, the sequel to _Amis et Amiles_, contains, besides much other interesting matter, the incident which forms the centre of the plot of _Pericles_. _Les Quatre Fils Aymon_ or _Renaut de Montauban_[34] is the foundation of one of the most popular French chap-books. _Les Saisnes_[35] deals with Charlemagne's wars with Witekind. _Berte aus grans Pies_[36] is a very graceful story of womanly innocence. _Doon de Mayence_[37], though not early, includes a charming love-episode. _Gerard de Viane_[38] contains the famous battle of Roland and Oliver. The _Voyage de Charlemagne a Constantinople_[39] is semi-burlesque in tone and one of the earliest in which that tone is perceptible.

[Sidenote: Social and Literary Characteristics.]

In these numerous poems there is recognisable in the first place a distinct family likeness which is common to the earliest and latest, and in the second, the natural difference of manners which the lapse of three hundred years might be expected to occasion. There is a sameness which almost amounts to monotony in the plot of most Chansons de Gestes: the hero is almost always either falsely accused of some crime, or else treacherously exposed to the attacks of Saracens, or of his own countrymen. The agents of this treachery are commonly of the blood of the arch-traitor Ganelon, and are almost invariably discomfited by the good knight or his friends and avengers. The part[40] which Charlemagne plays in these poems is not usually dignified: he is represented as easily gulled, capricious, and almost ferocious in temper, ungrateful, and ready to accept bribes and gifts. His good angel is always Duke Naimes of Bavaria, the Nestor of the Carlovingian epic. In the earliest Chansons the part played by women is not so conspicuous as in the later, but in all except _Roland_ it has considerable prominence. Sometimes the heroine is the wife, daughter, or niece of Charlemagne, sometimes a Saracen princess. But in either case she is apt to respond without much delay to the hero's advances, which, indeed, she sometimes antic.i.p.ates.

The conduct of knights to their ladies is also far from being what we now consider chivalrous. Blows are very common, and seem to be taken by the weaker s.e.x as matters of course. The prevailing legal forms are simple and rather sanguinary. The judgment of G.o.d, as shown by ordeal of battle, settles all disputes; but battle is not permitted unless several n.o.bles of weight and substance come forward as sponsors for each champion; and sponsors as well as princ.i.p.al risk their lives in case of the princ.i.p.al's defeat, unless they can tempt the king's cupidity. These common features are necessarily in the case of so large a number of poems mixed with much individual difference, nor are the Chansons by any means monotonous reading. Their versification is pleasing to the ear, and their language, considering its age, is of surprising strength, expressiveness, and even wealth. Though they lack the variety, the pathos, the romantic chivalry, and the mystical attractions of the Arthurian romances, there is little doubt that they paint, far more accurately than their successors, an actually existing state of society, that which prevailed in the palmy time of the feudal system, when war and religion were deemed the sole subjects worthy to occupy seriously men of station and birth. In giving utterance to this warlike and religious sentiment, few periods and cla.s.ses of literature have been more strikingly successful. Nowhere is the mere fury of battle better rendered than in _Roland_ and _Fierabras_. Nowhere is the valiant indignation of the beaten warrior, and, at the same time, his humble submission to providence, better given than in _Aliscans_. Nowhere do we find the mediaeval spirit of feudal enmity and private war more strikingly depicted than in the cycle of the Lorrainers, and in _Raoul de Cambrai_. Nowhere is the devout sentiment and belief of the same time more fully drawn than in _Amis et Amiles_.

[Sidenote: Authorship.]

The method of composition and publication of these poems was peculiar.

Ordinarily, though not always, they were composed by the Trouvere, and performed by the Jongleur. Sometimes the Trouvere condescended to performance, and sometimes the Jongleur aspired to composition, but not usually. The poet was commonly a man of priestly or knightly rank, the performer (who might be of either s.e.x) was probably of no particular station. The Jongleur, or Jongleresse, wandered from castle to castle, reciting the poems, and interpolating in them recommendations of the quality of the wares, requests to the audience to be silent, and often appeals to their generosity. Some of the ma.n.u.scripts which we now possess were originally used by Jongleurs, and it was only in this way that the early Chanson de Geste was intended to be read. The process of hawking about naturally interfered with the preservation of the poems in their original purity, and even with the preservation of the author's name. In very few cases[41] is the latter known to us.

The question whether the Chansons de Gestes were originally written in northern or southern French has often been hotly debated. The facts are these. Only three Chansons exist in Provencal. Two of these[42] are admitted translations or imitations of Northern originals. The third, _Girartz de Rossilho_, is undoubtedly original, but is written in the northernmost dialect of the Southern tongue. The inference appears to be clear that the Chanson de Geste is properly a product of northern France. The opposite conclusion necessitates the supposition that either in the Albigensian war, or by some inexplicable concatenation of accidents, a body of original Provencal Chansons has been totally destroyed, with all allusions to, and traditions of, these poems. Such a hypothesis is evidently unreasonable, and would probably never have been started had not some of the earliest students of Old French been committed by local feeling to the championship of the language of the Troubadours. On the other hand, almost all the dialects of Northern French are represented, Norman and Picard being perhaps the commonest[43].

[Sidenote: Style and Language.]