Note Ross G. Arthur The Baligant Episode in the Chanson de Roland and the Historia of Peter Tudebode Various pieces of evidence have been gathered to show that the material in the Baligant episode is later than the contents of the rest of the Chanson de Roland, but does that mean that the text is later, and that by removing the Baligant episode we have the text of an earlier poem about Roland? If a break is to be made, the beginning of laisse 189 seems a likely point, for it is there, if anywhere, that we find what looks like a seam joining two texts. Roland and the peers and the soldiers of the rear-guard have been killed and Charlemagne and the Frankish army have taken vengeance on the killers. Saracen power in Saragossa has been smashed, and Bramimonde is beginning the traditional feminine lament for its fall. Line 2610 recapitulates line 2 and the poem's auditors anticipate a coda. All of a sudden, our expectations are derailed. The poem is not over, the story of battle is not over, for there is a greater enemy to face. We have been reminded of the "set anz tuz plens" for a quite different purpose. Back in the first year, Marsile had sent letters to Baligant in Babylon asking for reinforcements, and the emir's army is so large that it has taken seven years to organize; the huge pagan host is arriving right now, just in the nick of time, just when we (and Charlemagne) thought that all was safe. This is precisely the sort of blending of material that modern authors would do well to avoid. It is a technique which, for modern audiences, breaks the willing suspension of disbelief, reminds us that there is an author, and provokes us to pass negative judgments on his basic competence. An author who knew what he was doing would have prepared us in advance for the arrival of the emir, if only by letting us know that he existed. 178 Olifant / Vol. 13, Nos. 3 & 4 / Fall & Winter 1988 Such transition devices are, however, conventional and subject to change over time. The Famous Writers' School of today would certainly ask Homer and Herodotus to revise their texts to make their shifts in subject matter less obvious and Ovid to add just a line or two here and there to make his more obvious. Although "Meanwhile, back at the ranch ..." is now a catchphrase designating narrative incompetence, a short forty years ago it was a transparent (which is to say viable) tool for coping with material that refused to accede to the demands of the Aristotelian unities. Which do we have in Roland 2609ff., an acceptable conventional device or tell-tale evidence of a literary crime? Enter Peter Tudebode. His Historia de Hierosolymitano Itinere puts itself forward as an eyewitness narrative of the events of the First Crusade. This work has its own problems, for it sometimes slides into anacolutha which suggest oral composition and the author's command of his material is not always what we would expect of a participant in the events. It is, however, one text, not an editor's compilation. In his narrative of the siege of Antioch (June 1098), he describes an event which must have seemed at the time to have had a certain finality about it. Bohemond and his troops managed to enter the city during the night, and at dawn the Moslem commander Yaghi Siyan escaped into the mountains where he was beheaded by the Syrian and Armenian inhabitants. Antioch had fallen, and Tudebode closes the narrative with a statement that the streets of the city were strewn with Turkish corpses. Two days later, however, the Christian forces had another army to face, led by the military chief of the sultan, a man named Kerbogha. Tudebode explains his unexpected arrival as follows: Curbaan autem, princeps militie soldani Persie, dum adhuc esset Corosanum quotiens Cassianus amiralius Antiochae legationem ei misit quo sibi succurreret in oportuno tempore, quoniam gens fortissima atque robustissima Francorum eum impeditum graviter obsidebat in Antiocha. Et si adiutorium fideliter impenderet, Antiochenam civitatem in suis manibus continue traderet, aut eum ditaret maximo munere. Cumque iam habuisset maximum exercitum Turcorum ex longo collectum tempore, et licentiam occidendi recepisset a caliphas illorum apostolico, ilico incoavit iter longe vie Antioche, et Ierosolimitanus amiralius com eo, cum suo exercilu. Rexque Damasci ibi advenit cum maxima gente. Isdem vero Curbaan Arthur / Baligant Episode 179 congregavit ex omni parte paganorum innumeras gentes, videlicet Turcos et Arabes, et Sarracenos, et Publicanos, et Azimitas, et Curtos, et Perses et Agulanos, et alias multas gentes quas nominare aut numerate nemo poterat.1 In the past, Yaghi Siyan had often sent a messenger to Kerbogha, military chief of the Persian sultan, while he was still in Corozan, urging Kerbogha to come at the most opportune time because a very brave and formidable Frankish army had Antioch in a vise. Yaghi Siyan went on to promise his immediate surrender of Antioch to Kerbogha or great wealth if help was forthcoming. Kerbogha began his long journey from Corozan to Antioch soon thereafter, because he had already enlisted a large army over a long period of time, and he had also received permission from the caliph, pope of the Moslems, to kill Christians. The emir of Jerusalem with his army, as well as the king of Damascus with a large contingent, joined forces with him. Kerbogha also brought together from all parts innumerable masses of pagans; namely, Turks, Arabs, Saracens, Publicans, Azymites, Kurds, Persians, Agulani, and many other people whom I cannot name or number.2 From the point of view of the Christian armies, the events are essentially identical in the Roland and the Historia, with the apparent victory followed by a new conflict with a larger Moslem force. Both narrators show a rather unlikely omniscience about earlier actions in the enemy camp, and both tell of letters sent long before by the now-defeated enemy leader to summon help, of a long period of marshaling forces and a long journey, and of a horde of pagans comprised of many exotic races. If our concern were to show "influence" between these two texts, the argument could go in either direction. We could say that the Roland-poet, with his knowledge of Tudebode's story of the 1 Petrus Tudebodus, Historia de Hierosolymitano Itinere, ed. John Hugh Hill and Larita L. Hill (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1977) 88-9. 2 Peter Tudebode, Historia de Hierosolymitano Itinere, tr. John Hugh Hill and Laurita L. Hill (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1974) 65. 180 Olifant / Vol. 13, Nos. 3 & 4 / Fall & Winter 1988 arrival of Kerbogha, imitated him when he decided to introduce Baligant or that Tudebode was acquainted with the immediate ancestor of the Oxford Roland and fashioned his history after the pattern of fiction. From a literary perspective, however, all that has been shown is that the "some years before, letters had been sent..." device is a conventional way of connecting two pieces of narrative material, but not two texts. Its apparent clumsiness cannot be used to argue that the portion of Roland prior to line 2609 was an integral unit before the composition of the Oxford version or that the Baligant episode may be treated as a separable unit. Ross G. Arthur York University -o-oOo-o- The Medieval Translator's Craft Jeannette Beer is again organizing a special section at Kalamazoo 1988 on medieval translators and translations. This year's session should be of particular interest to readers of Olifant. Two papers will be presented, "Moralizing in Germanic Translations of the Chanson de Roland" by Susan E. Farrier; and "Modernizing the Epic: Philippe de Vigneulles," by Catherine M. Jones. These papers will be followed by a discussion of medieval translation theory and practice. -o-oOo-o- .