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The Significance of Marsile's Deathbed Posture in La Chanson De Roland Several Episodes in the Chanson De Roland Echo Events Found in the Bible

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The Significance of Marsile's Deathbed Posture in La Chanson De Roland Several Episodes in the Chanson De Roland Echo Events Found in the Bible Fredric M. Leeds The Significance of Marsile's Deathbed Posture in la Chanson de Roland Several episodes in the Chanson de Roland echo events found in the Bible. The interruption of the sun's course, which permits Charlemagne to rout the pagan army of Baligant, is reminiscent of Joshua's similar feat in the Old Testament. The destruction of the infidels by drowning reminds us of the Red Sea disaster which claimed Pharaoh's host. The prophetic dreams of Charlemagne, replete with animals, echo the great dream interpretations of the biblical Joseph. Editors of the Chanson de Roland have long recognized the biblical influences on the epic poem and have routinely noted chapter and verse of incidents which may have inspired a particular episode. Laisse CCLXIV, with which we are concerned, deals with the death of the Saracen King Marsile. Annotators have drawn parallels between Marsile's death posture and that of the Hebrew King Hezekiah of II Kings. It is my contention that the Hezekiah-Marsile relationship was of special cultural significance to the medieval audience and that Marsile's death-bed attitude is important from the point of view of both theology and popular superstition. In Laisse CCLXIV, King Marsile is bedridden with despair and with a serious wound: the loss of his right hand by Roland's sword. He hopes desperately that the Emir Baligant, who has come to his aid with a huge military force, has succeeded in defeating the Christian armies in Spain. However, Marsile's wife Bramimonde arrives with the melancholy news that the Emir's legions have been decimated and that Baligant himself is no more. Thus: Quant l'ot Marsilie, vers sa pareit se turnet, Pluret des oilz, tute sa chere enbrunchet; Morz est de doel, si cum pecchet 1'encumbret. L'anme de lui as vifs diables dunet. AOI (vv. 3644-7)1 191 192 Olifant / Vol. 5. No. 3 / March 1978 In the Bible it was King Hezekiah who faced the wall upon being told to set his house in order because he was to die. He "turned his face to the wall, and prayed unto the Lord" (II Kings, 20:2). An earlier biblical king, the infamous Ahab, behaved similarly after being frustrated in his efforts to acquire the vineyard of Naboth. He "came into the house heavy and displeased ... he laid him down upon his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no bread" (I Kings, 21:4). The biblical antecedents are there; however, in the Roland, facing the wall is an act of special cultural and psychological impact. Men of letters have often found facing a wall a meaningful expression of personal despair. Tristan in Thomas's poem "... turne sei vers la parei ..." (v. 3031) upon learning that the sail of Isolt's ship is black.2 Leo Tolstoy's Ivan Ilych "lay on the sofa, facing the wall nearly all the time" after the realization that his illness is incurable.3 Bazarov in Ivan Turgenev's Fathers and Children turns to the wall on two occasions: upon taking leave of his beloved Anna Sergeyevna and as he lay dying of typhus. Turgenev writes that he "continued to lie with his face to the wall."4 André Gide's Olivier in les Faux-Monnayeurs, installed in his uncle's apartment after a suicide attempt, appeared to sleep "le visage tourné du côté du mur"; and the old teacher La Pérouse in this same novel, after the death of his dear grandson Boris "se jeta sur son lit, se tourna du côté du mur."5 Facing the wall is an understandable and intensely human gesture whereby the individual in despair can isolate himself psychologically as well as physically. In the case of King Marsile, however, facing the wall was more than the expression of the monarch's hopelessness. It was a gesture rich in theological overtones reinforced by the concluding line of the laisse where "L'anme de lui as vifs diables dunet," (v. 3647). To the author and audience of the Chanson de Roland, Marsile was the incarnation of the blind forces of paganism which sought to keep the world from Christian truth and salvation. As a leader of pagan hosts he opposed the divinely inspired Charlemagne and conspired enthusiastically with the perfidious Ganelon to ensure the demise of Roland and the French peers. He is an unsympathetic knave whose death goes unmourned and whose eternal damnation is merited. Doubtless, the medieval audience Leeds / Marsile's Deathbed 193 had feelings of justifiable satisfaction as the demons led away his iniquitous soul. A medieval illustration of this event shows the gleam of delight in the devils' eyes, and it is obvious that the artist was pleased with the fate that awaited the miscreant.6 The position assumed by Marsile in the moments before his death foreshadows the state of his soul and sets the scene for the entry of the fiends of line 3647. Facing the wall was one of the gestures by which heretics or Judaisers (i.e. those who adhered to certain Levitical laws even after conversion to Christianity) could be recognized. Bernardus Guidonis in his Inquisitor's Manual, tells how to detect adherents to the heretical Bequini sect: "Item, orantes in ecclesia vel alibi sedent acrupiti, verso vultu seu facie communiter ad objectum parietem vel similem locum ... et raro videntur stare flexis genibus et complosis manibus, sicut faciunt ceteri homines" (italics mine).7 Later, during the Spanish Inquisition, facing the wall was deemed an indication of pseudo-conversion and Judaizing. In his History of the Jews, Cecil Roth notes that during this bitter period: "Lists were circulated containing minute signs (many of them grotesque) by which a Judaiser could be recognized: from changing linen on the Sabbath to washing the hands before prayer, and from calling children by Old Testament names to turning the face to the wall at the moment of death."8 The secretary of the Inquisition at Madrid from 1789 to 1791, Juan Antonio Llorente, author of a history of the Spanish Inquisition in the Middle Ages, wrote of the arrest, incarceration and excommunication that "awaited the converted Jew, who might have acquired certain habits in his infancy, which, though not contrary to Christianity might be represented as certain signs of apostasy. The inquisitors mentioned in their edict several cases where accusation was commanded. The following cases are so equivocal, that altogether they would scarcely form a simple presumption in the present time. A convert was considered relapsed into heresy . if he turned his face to the wall at the time of his death, or has been placed in that posture before he expired."9 By what mechanism did the act of facing the wall become so theologically significant that it manifested itself in epic tradition and anchored itself in the popular imagination? Heretics and pagans were 194 Olifant / Vol. 5. No. 3 / March 1978 natural targets of Church rhetoric and anger. During the Middle Ages, the two most visible non-Christian groups were the Jews and Moors. Although their communities flourished, they suffered persecution by the Church and by the faithful who resented the prosperity of their heathen neighbors. In Southern France, where a more tolerant attitude prevailed, many of the faithful attacked the Church for not allowing them to persecute Jews.10 Jewish learning continued in the famous Hebrew school in Narbonne, to the dismay of many local inhabitants.11 This resentment fostered misconceptions with regard to the religious practices of Jews and Moslems. These Semitic strangers in the midst of Christian Europe became the objects of fear and misunderstanding. Popular superstitions held that they were often in league with the devil, that they desecrated the Host, made use of magic amulets, could change themselves into cats and could even render themselves invisible.12 The simple Moslem custom of directing devotions toward Mecca became metamorphosed into the heretical sign of "gathering of herbs while kneeling, face to the east."13 More than likely, Semitic prayer postures lie at the heart of the heretical sign of facing the wall. The Moorish prayer known as Zala was "uttered with the face to the East at sunrise, noon, sunset and night" and Moriscos (i.e., Moslem converts to Christianity) who continued to use this prayer posture were considered heretics.14 Jews still face Jerusalem when praying and synagogue seats closest to that site are places of honor, hence highly prized. The holiest of all Jewish landmarks was and still remains the Western Wall of the Temple of Jerusalem. It is said, in Jewish writing, that the Divine Presence will never depart from this sacred monument, the last relic of pre-Diaspora Judaism. By associating facing the wall, an essentially non-Christian prayer posture, with Marsile, the author was not necessarily expressing knowledge about Moslem custom. He may simply have been reflecting vague popular belief derived from this practice. By having Marsile turn his face to the wall the author presaged the pagan king's death and intensified its religious overtones. By choosing this gesture, the author of the Chanson de Roland also evoked the medieval legends surrounding King Hezekiah. Leeds / Marsile's Deathbed 195 Hezekiah, at the time of his gesture of facing a wall, was essentially in a state of sin because he had not yet produced an heir to continue the davidic line of kings. In Christian terms, he was postponing the coming of Christ by adhering to his bellicose ways at the expense of conjugal responsibilities. Marsile attempts to delay the coming of Christ by resisting the exertions of Charlemagne's army.
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