*1 *.i:'1.a",d E,<-,1 i s,L, J
THE SONG OF ROLAND
Translatedby D. D. R. OWEN
T"{to4,uotio'.' PP.r_r\
)I THE BOYDELLPRESS
I
f ;ni*;.&;":tr,! iiiL
INTRODUCTION
ThenTaillefer, most skilled in song, Spurringhis dashing steed along, Beforethe Duke began to sing Of Roland,of great Charles the king, Oliuer,and those lords beside Whocame to Ronceaaux,and died. (Wace,Roman de Rou,ll. 8013 - 18)
It was a hundred years or so after the Battleof Hastings that the Jerseypoet Wace told of the preparationsfor the conflict and how a certain minstrel, Taillefer,sang a song of Roland beforeDuke William and the advancingNorman knights. His claim doesnot stand up to closescrutiny, as we shall seei but at first sight it is not unreasonable,bearing witness as it does to what his contemporariesrecognised as the inspirational qualities of the Sorzgof Roland.Wace saw it working on the emotionsas both a palliativefor battle nervesand a stimulant for those about to be hurled into the melee.What better way indeed to concentrate the knight's mind on his martial duties?He hears the sounds of combat beforethe real blows are struck; he participatesthrough the minstrel's mediation in actsof firm, even jaunty couragein the faceof heavy odds; he is reminded of the obligationsof commanderto men, men to commander,comrade to comrade;he is fired with a pride in lineageand nationhood, and feels the spiritual elation of total commitment to a just cause.Otherwise, in the words of Archbishop Turpin,
. . . four penny pieces are worth more, And he should be a cloistered monk instead And ever after pray for all our sins. 01.1880 - 82) riirt*, ii,, ri,.,;fi,r;&';d-ir!, ,Ij,:d{i;#i,r.;]; "irijA.;.t'id*t;i+ u.sr,lJ"iliijjiii,l&i.!i*;*t
fhe Songof Roland Introduction
Such was the porver, as Wace was fully aware, with which this But we assumeit to have been simple and repetitive, designed earliest and finest chanson de gestewas charged. to excitethe emotionsby reinforcing the alreadystrong pulse of the epic line. Perhaps the mysterious letters AOI copied at frequent intervals at the end of lines in our unique Roland Chansonsde geste manuscript are in some way related to the musical presenta- tion, but we cannot be sure. None of the eighty or more surviving Old French epics 'Chansons', then, becausethe poems were sung. But why encapsulate better than the Song of Roland the crusading 'de geste'?The Latin Sestameans 'deeds': so these were songs warrior spirit of the feudai nobility. That nobility was of of deedsor, in this context,notable deeds,deeds ofvalour. The mainly Frankish stock; for when in the fifth century the tide French derivative geste acquired further, more particular, of Germanic invaders swept over the old Roman province of senses:the deeds of a group or family, even the family itself. Gaul, it was the Frankswiro colonisedmuch of the iand that 'God curse me,'cries Roland,'if I fail my gestel'(1.788). perpetuates their memory in its very name: France. But Traditionally, too, the whole corpus of theseepics was divided although they prevailed over the native population, their into gestesaccording to their subjects.The Rolandbelongs to the language yieldecl in time to the form of Latin imported by 'Geste du Roi', the king in question being, of course, the Roman settliersand which had itself ousted the Celtic Charlemagne,whose presenceas divinely appointed ruler of speech of the Gauls. Not that Germanic died without the Franks is felt throughout the constituenttexts, whether he resistance:it was still the mother-tongueof Charlemagneand appearsin an active or a passive role. also, no cloubt, ,cf the historical Roland. And it bequeathed The poets present their matter as firm fact; but however to French many words that speak of the particular character ready their public may have been to believe in those brave of the Franks: tlhe terms for 'arrogance','boldness', 'hate' heroic figures and their often superhuman deeds,the chansons and 'sharne', fctr 'war' and things associatedwith it de gestewere historicalin only the loosestsense. Nevertheless, 'helmet', 'broadsiword','wound','guard' and many more. most of them do carry at least a grain or two of fact, in the We know the Franks had their own heroic songs, for shapeeither of historical charactersor of actualevents that can which Charlemagne himself had some affection;but by about be verified from the chroniclesor chartersrelating to the period 11.00wherr, it is generally supposed, our Songof Roland was in question. Surprisingly, in view of the relatively late dating given its present form, the ancestral legends were being ascribedto the existing poems, that period is most often the handed down in the French tongue and given the character- remote Carolingian era of the eighth and ninth centuries. istic form of chansonsde geste.Of these the Rolandis not However, it is by no.means certain, despiteWace's testimony, only the earliest to have come down and, remarkably, the that the clash of the armiesat Hastings in 1066could have been most highly crafted: it is also one of the shortest,only half preluded by the singing of anything we would recogniseas a the length of many, whilst some marched on for up to 20,000 chansonde geste.We are in fact confrontedby a gapof roughly lines. three hundred years between many of the events and their These epic poems were truly 'chansons',since at least in celebrationin the epicswe know. Theseare the so-called'silent part they were sung, or chanted, by the jongleurs, itinerant centuries' which generatidnbof scholarshave been interrogat- minstrels rruhoaccompanied themselves on the oielle,an early ing for evidence of some bridging tradition: they have heard form of fiddle. Their performances,whether in castle hall or only confused whispers in reply, public place, would often have extendedover severalsessions. No one now takes seriously the belief of some of the We know sadly little of the music: a single line from one poem Romantics that epics sprang from the soul of the people and has been preserv'ed,embedded in a thirteenth-century play. composed themselves, rather than being composed, More The Songof Roland Introduction
rationally, one school of critics supposed that memorable A threat to his predecessorson the Frankishthrone had come events prornpted an immediate responsein short songswhich, from the Moorish conquerorsof Spain. Having overcome the by a process of accretionand elaborationover many vears in Visigoths in the Peniniula, they piobed beyond the Pyrenees the course of oral, and therefore unrecorded, transmission, as far as Carcassonneand Nimes, swept through the whole of grew into the full-blown epics that were finally written down Gasconyand on to Poitiers,where they were eventually halted on parchmr:nt. This 'traditionalist' line of criticism has found in732. Their last stronghold in the south of France,Narbonne, its opponerrtsin the 'individualists', whose greatestchampion fellin759; but they remained in Spain as a continuing threat to was Joseph B6dier. He believed the chansonswere create-dall the Frankish kingdom. of a piece by indi'vidual poets from the late eleventh century Einhard, Charles's biographer, who served and knew him onwards. Typically, they were the fruit of cooperationbetween well, paints a flattering picture of his subject, stressingabove minstrelswho plied their tradeup and down the greatpilgrim all his resolute nature and tirelessnessin the pursuit of his routes and the clericsof the religious houses along their way, ends. Physically robust, Charles never let himself be deterred who supplied thern with local legends and scrapsof informa- by hardship or danger, leading his armies in defence of his tion from their archives. For the creation of the Roland the frontiers and far beyond them, spurred not only by territorial routes leading to Saint James'sshrine at Santiagode Com- ambitions but equally by a proselytisingzeal, devout Christian postela were esp,eciallysignificant. Other solutions to the as he was. The barbarian Saxons presented him with a puzzle have been proposed: the Latin epicsboth Classicaland particular challenge;and though he eventually achieved their medieval hirve been advanced as holding the kev, chronicles subjugation and conversion, they were a constant menace have been scouredfor evidence.But it is sirrely vain to seektoo throughout much of his reign. neat a theory to erplain the origin of the genie as a whole. We It was in 777 after one of his more successfulcampaigns shall return to the caseof. the Roland. against the Saxonsand while he was holding a great assembly at Paderborn that there arrived a surprising Moorish deputa- tion led by the governor of Barcelona,Suleiman Ibn Al-Arabf. Historyand Legend He came to seek Frankish support in his rebellion, with other Moorish leaders,against the Emir of Cordoba,offering Charles In the year 778 Chrarles,King of the Franks, suffered a military in return his own loyalty and also certain strongholdsincluding reverse in the Py:reneanpass of Roncevaux. Some modern Saragossa.Here it seemed, was a golden opportunity for historians believe it was a far more serious affair than appears Charles to secure his southern province of Aquitaine against in the 'officiial'chronicles of his reign, Be that as it may, had it any further Saracenincursions and at the same time to win not occurred there would have been no Songof Rolind, and more pagans over to Christianity. Unfortunately, things were world literature would have been the poorer. not to go according to plan. When his father died in768, Charles,then about twenty-six Having assembleda powerful Frankish army in Aquitaine, yearsold, inheriteclhalf of his kingdom, to which the other half where he passed the Easter of 778, he divided it into two was addedthree yerarslater on the deathof his brother.As kinq columns. One of these he himself led into Spain bv the of the Frankshe pursued an expansionistpolicy until they helj Pyrenees,while the other took a more southerly route by way territories stretching from the Channel in the north to Calabria of Barcelona.At Pamplona he joined up with Ibn Al-Arabi in the south and from northern Spain to Hungary and the Elbe from whom he received hostages, and thence headed for in the east.Then, on ChristmasDay in the year 800,he was Saragossa,where he was met by his other column, But now crowned in Rorne:by Pope Leo as the fiist Holy Roman mattersbegan to go awry. He was refusedentry into Saragossa Emperor.He died in 814. by the rebel who was occupying the city; and for once he . ,. . f,lr d. ed.
I-he Song of Roland Introduction lacked the resolve' to overcome this opposition. Perhaps, as of his leading nobles, as is confirmed by the Royal Annals, some have sugges;ted, he received disturbing news from his which add that the king took it much to heart. Moreover its Saxon front, At all events, he turned his back on Saragossaand impact on the public imagination may be gauged by the fact began his withdrawal to France, according to some accounts that over sixty yearslater a writer was ableto say that he would taking Ibn hl-Arabf with him. Returning to Pamplona, he rased refrain from mentioning the names of those massacredwith the its walls to the ground, then headed once more for the passes rearguard as they were widely known. So it is on Einhard that of the Pyrenees. Otf the subsequent disastrous events we have we have to rely for those we have, apart from the independent no record lrom Charles's own day; but Einhard, writing it testimony on Eggihard mentioned above, Of Anselm there is seems in about 830, amplified a somewhat earlier account in no other record. And Roland himself? It is by no means sure the Royal .,\nnals. Having spoken of such successes as the that his name figured in Einhard's original account, for some Franks had enjoyed in Spain, he tells how they were given in manuscriptsomit it. On the other hand, a Roland does appear the Pyreneers a taste of Basque treachery: prominently in a charter of about 772 among the nobles of the royal palace, whilst a silver denier in circulation befote 790 'Carlus', and the For, as the army proceeded,drawn out in a long file as dictated carrieson one face the name of the king, on by the lie of the land and the narrow pass, the Basqueshad laid reversethe abbreviatedform 'Rodlan', on the crest of a rnountain an ambush, to which the place lent We can assume,then, that one of Charles'sleading nobles by itself becauseof lhe densenessof the woods, which are there at the name of Roland did fight and die in the Pyrenean Passon their thickest. They dashed down on the last section of the that August day in 778. Morc doubtful is whether, as Arabic baggage-train and the troops of the rearguard, who were sourcesclaim, there was Saracenparticipation in the battle or shielding the main force that went ahead. These they forced what truth there is in the allegation that Ibn Al-Arabf was down into, the vailleybelow, engaged them in battle, and slew rescued by his sons from Charles's clutches. The borderline them all to a man, Then, having plundered the baggage,under between true history, speculation and wishful thinking is cover of the fallinp;darkness they scatteredwith utmost speed in already impossible to distinguish, even before the legendary all directions. In this action the Basqueswere helped by the processhas gathered momentum. Three hun<.red years later lightness of their arms and the nature of the terrain where the fact had been almost submerged by fiction. engagement was fought: by contrast, the weight of their own and of arms and their disadvantageousposition made the Franks no Of the figures associatedby Einhard with the drama match for the Bas;ques.In that baitle were slain Eggihard the Roncevaux,Charles retains his authority in the epic and indeed royal senr:schal, Anselm count of the palace, and Roland is raisedprematurely to the rank of emperor. Roland, on whom commander of thr: Breton Marches, along with many another. the spotlight now turns, acquires added dignity by becoming And that action cr:uld not be avenged there and then since the the king's beloved nephew and chief of the twelve Peers, his enemy/ h;aving performed it, dispersed without leaving any favoured paladins. But of Eggihard and the shadowy Anselm trace whatsoever of where they might be sought. we hear nothing, nor of the particular Moorish leadersreputed to have been involved in the whole Spanish episode. Instead, This was the event known since the time of our Song as the of the full supporting cast of Christians and Saracenswho Battle of Roncevaux; and from a surviving epitaph of the people the Song, none is known to have played any part in the seneschal Eggihard we know that it was fought on August 15th affair. Most, in fact, are either untraceablein history or have 778. One has the impression that Einhard and the other early been identified with figures of later periods. The nominally chroniclers tactfully excused the defeat and played down its Christian Basquesreported to have engineered the massacre gravity: the Song may be nearer the mark in presenting it as have also quit the scene:the enemy is now the Spanish King Charles's greatest military setback. Certainly it cost him some Marsile with his Saracenhordes and, later, the mighty Emir l.ri; ."i;:,riiri;,$*irJii.
The Songof Roland Introduction
Baligant, summoned from Cairo to Marsile,s aid. Even more naturally relate their contents to the political and social significantly, the disaster is no longer wrought by a band of conditions and ideals of their own day; and round about 1100 opportunist plunderers, but is the outcome of the treacherous these were very different from those prevailing in the age of connivancewith the inJidelsof one of the chief Christian lords, Charlemagne. Count Ganelon, brother-inlaw of Charleshimself. Within thirty years of the great monarch's death in 814 his Despite the . uniqu,enessof the Rolandin many respects,it has empire became fragmented under his successors,and the long been used as a test casein the debateovei epic-originsand Franks' externalenemies found new heart. The Vikings struck how history came in this way to be transformedlnto legend. A in the north, pillaging, settling and eventuallybeing granted as particularly intriguirrg pieceof evidencehas cometo light in the a fief the province to be known after them as Normandy. The form of a not,ein Latin copiedinto a Spanishmanuscript some eastern borders were harried by Hungarian war-bands; and time before 1070,This is the so-calledNota Emilianenry: . ,1 once again the Moslem threat was felt in the south. Along the Mediterranean coast Saracen raiders were active for over a In the year1178Kin1; Charles came to Saragossa.At thatiime he century, plundering towns like Arles, taking captives,exacting had twelve nephews,each having three thousand knights in ransoms.The Carolingian dynasty found its authority progres- armour/and among whom can be namedRoland, Beitrand, sively eroded until, in 987, the Capetian line was inaugurated OgierShortsword, William the Hooknosed,Oliver and Bishop by the crowning of Hugh Capet as king of the West Franks. Turpin.Ancl each of these,along with his followers,served the Although one may think of this as heralding the emergenceof king for one month a year.It happenedthat the king stopped France as a nation, any true senseof nationhood was with his arrnLyin Saragossa.After a while,he wasadviiea Uy nls slow to develop in the face merrto acceptmany gifts in orderthat the army shouldnoi die of the regional interests and loyalties of hungerbrrt retur:n to theirown land.This wasdone. Then it fostered by the feudal structure of the kingdom. Despite the pleasedthe king that, for the safetyof the men of his armv. appearancein the Rolandof a sentiment akin to patriotism, this Rolandthe bravewarrior shouldform the rearguardwith his is the reflection more of a poetic ideal than of contemporary own men.But wherrthe army crossed through the pass of. Cize, reality. Rolandwas slain in Roncevauxby the Sara-ens. The origins of the feudal system go far back into history, but its characterand ethos as portrayed in theRoland are very much So here, befclre out' Song of Roland,we find its hero in the those of the poet's own times. In an agewhen the law was that company of his probably fictitious companion Oliver as well as of the strong, strength was sought by individuals in collective of Turpin and characters familiar from other epics. To our defence and mutual aid. Characteristicof feudalism were the surprise,they are all describedas nephews of Charles.The verticalbonds between individuals in the hierarchicalmedieval attackers are Saracens,and the plice of the disaster is society. The\humble freeman looked upwards for protection Roncevaux.T'he natural conclusionthat legend has already from a more powerful neighbour who looked in turn to a social been to work is strengthened by the assoiiation in various superior to guaranteehis security. Equally, those at the top of documents from quite early in the eleventh century of the the ladder needed support from those below, and for that namesRolancl and Oliver. Plainlythe traditionalistcase is not service they were prepared to pay in land. Thus the feudal without founclation. pyramid was established,with the king bestowing fiefs on his One finds iin Latin texts occasionalreferences to popular chief vassals,they on lesser nobles and so on down to tenant songscelebrating great men and events.Small wondei that in farmers, for whom the serfs laboured. the course of such c,rai transmission historical fruth becomes Both the advantagesand the obligations were shared under distorted and elaborated.Conscious of the exemplarvfunction this system. Fulbert, Bishop of Chartres, wrote as much in of their tales, those who shapedand purveyed them would 1020:the vassalmust do no damage to his lord's person or to Ihe Songof Roland Introduction his security, honour or property, moreover he must always be The emperordeclares: 'The Franksmay settlethis affair: it is ready to aid hirn with counselor with physicalassistance when right and fitting and is also our command.'And when the required. The lord was morally bound to reciprocate, for Franks'judgment has been passedaccording to the ancient mutual klyalty was the cement holding together the whole custom,they [the contestants]prepare their arms and quiver feudal structure, a fact emphasised and dramatised in the with impatienceto get to grips. swearing of homage and the investiture ceremony performed with solemn Christian ritual, For God was the supreme The similarity with the circumstancesof Ganelon's trial in our overlord, whose authority was transmitted through the king, epic is striking - suspiciouslyso in view of the gap of almost His regerrt on earth, down to every member of the feudal three centuriesbetween the texts. group. Society as a whole was also divinely ordered, with its The feudal nobleman, then, is bound by a strict set of three basic classes:the knights devoted first and foremost to obligationsand loyalties.His own honour is closelytied to that fighting, the clerics to prayer, and the common folk to toil. of his family, which must never be besmirched. To his Exceptionally orre might find individuals playing a dual role, overlord, the king himseU in the caseof the great barons, he like the battling,Archbishop Turpin of the Song (he was strictly owed counsel when called upon to give it and military infringing his Church's rules by preferring the blood-drawing assistancein times of need. Towards those beneath him, sword to the perrmittedmace). whether the troops in his serviceor the peasantson his lands, In a system rerlyingso heavily on the honouring of formal he must act justly and with generosity to secure their own pactsand contractsand the spirit behind them, the administra- loyalty. He should avoid immoderate acts of a kind that might tion of jur;tice assumeda vital role; and the ultimate dispenser introduce tensions within the social group; but the most of justice, as sup,remeoverlord, was God Himself. He was the heinous of feudal crimes was that of treason. final arbiter when human judgment failed; and that was the There was another bond too, which is nowhere better principle ,underl1ringthe judicial combat, the iudiciumDei, from illustratedthan in the Roland,namelv that relationshio between which thervictor would emergewith divine approval as having fellow-knights that is known u" ,o*pognornage. two young right on his side. We already find a description of such i men, not related by birth but who may have received their practice in a por:m celebratingCharlemagne's son Louis and chivalrictraining in the samehousehold, might freely pledge to composecl in alrout 827 by a certain Ermoldus Nigellus or each other loyal comradeshipand brotherhood in arms. Their Ermold the Black, of whom we shall hear more. The procedure . pact was not necessarilyformal; but its effect was to link the is described: ) 10 11 rrlriii !.,.:iii]i.,4 i . .;i::-]ii:..:_ -a;,,t;rf,,i,r;,.,itii:i ;:iil Ihe Songof Roland Introduction example of Charlemagne;and it was establishedas an articleof timg-. And from his poem has stemmed the entire literary faith that those dying in this causewould be absolvedof their tradition of Roncevaux,which has extendeddown through the sins and receivedstraight into Paradise,]h9 folJg1vingy_eel the Middle Ages and on into modern days. Yet we are extremely First Crusade was launchedin a spirit wltn whiin the Rotandis fortunate to have it at all: it could so easilyhave been for us one permeated. " of those phantom texts or hopeful reconstructionsthat literary Meanwhile, in Spain the Moorish hegemony was as yet far historianswould have referredto as 'the lost archetype'. In fact from broken, although by now the Christian statesin the north for centuries it really was lost, since the single manuscript of the country were growing in strength and confidence. Not which contains it came to public notice only in the 1830s. that the div'isions in the Peninsula had always been along Prompted by a passing mention in an edition of Chaucer, a strictly relig:iouslines. The Moslems showed a good deal of young Frenchscholar ran to earth in Oxford's Bodleian Library tolerance torvards both Christiansand Jewsliving in their own this unprepossessingbut priceless manuscript. That was in lands; and their northern neighbours derived much benefit 1835; and two years later he published its contents as La from a cultur:ewhich was in many spheres,such as music, lyric Chansonde Roland(other versions had previously gone under poetry, mattrematics, textiles,metalwork, ceramicsand agricul- the name of La Chansonde Ronceaaur),The poem is nowadays ture, far superior tcrtheir own. From time to time even military often spoken of as the 'Oxford Roland', to distinguish it from alliances cut acrosrsracial boundaries as the needs of local the other treatments of the legend. rulers, Christian or Moslem, dictated. By the beginning of the The manuscript appearsto have been copied in England, and eleventh century tlhe Moorish power had reached its zenith the language of the epic has Anglo-Norman characteristics. under the rule of the Ommayad caliphs based in Cordoba. That is not to say that the poet himself necessarilylived north Then, however, the cenhal iuthority crumbled, whilst the of the Channel; for between the compositionand the recording Christian states grew more united and, with the encourage- at least a quarter of a century seems to have passed, time ment of thel Church and especially the militant monks of enough to see changesin the linguistic complexion of the text, Cluny, drovr: south againstthe infidels, In 1085Toledo fell; but which in any caseshows some scribal corruption. Who, then, that was thel signallfor a Berber invasion from Africa, which was the poet? halted the Christianadvance, The Reconquesthad begun, but In the final enigmatic line there is a name which is often many years would pass before it was complete. taken to be his: 'Ci falt la gesteque Turoldus declinet' (1.4002). The Frankish kinLgdomgathering its strength as a unified Turold, here given a Latin ending, is a good Norman name; feudal stateand sensingalready its destiny as a great nation, its and various candidatesfor the authorship oI the Rolandhave fighting aristocracyincited by popes and prelatesto expel the been proposed: a nephew of William the Conqueror, for Saracens from Spairrand wrest the Holy Land from their grasp: instance, who followed him to England in 1065 and was that was the historir:almoment when a brilliant epic poet choie successivelyabbot of Malmesbury and of Peterborough,where to turn haunting melmoriesof eventslong past into an inspiring he died in 1098;or the Turold who was Bishop of Bayeux from song full of nneaning for the men of his day. 7097to 1107and was still alive in 1,127.Thercis even a Norman messengerin the Bayeux tapestry (unless it is the dwarfish figure behind him) who is so named. Legendinto Literature Is Turoldus the poet, then? There is no easy answer. The innocent-lookingline is fraught with difficulty, Depending on the form in which W_beJever the Roland legend reached this the meaning of geste(it could be the work or its source) and the crerdit p-'9e_!, must surely be his for transforming it into a declinet('copies', 'amplifies', 'completes' and 'relates'are some masterpieceof literature that stands triumphantly the test of possiblesenses), Turoldus could be the author of the poem or 1,2 13 Ihe Songof Roland Introduction of its source, the final redactor, or even the scribeor jongleur. renovated by a Rhenish poet, Der Stricker. Also in the My own renclering 'Here ends the story Turoldus completes'is thirteenth century a rendering was made in Old Norse prose thereforeonlly one possibility among several. for the Norwegian King Haakon V, a great lover of the French Despite thr: fact that our Rolandhas only chancedto survive chivalric legends, One of the earliest texts in medieval Dutch in a single manuscript, it must have been widely disseminated treats the subject;but, like a Castilianversion, it is corrupt and from the early years of the twel{th century, no doubt carried mutilated. There are rehandlings in Provengal and even in more often in the jongleurs' heads than as a prompt copy in Welsh. A Middle English fragment breaks off in mid-battle 'Ihe their packs. po,sf's name did not live on, whatever it was; with Roland contemplatingsending for help from Charles.This and it is never mentioned bv anv of the epic's medieval may surpriseus; but it is a tribute to the legend's tenacity that a admirers,adaptors or imitatori. Thereis, though, no disguis- fourteenth-century English poet turned to it at all at a time ing the fact that it is his work which lies directly behind, if at when a British Charlemagnewas firmly enthroned in insular someremov(t from, all the later versionswe know, versionsof legend in the person of King Arthur. It is, indeed, very likely wide provernanceand showing an interesting range of that the tradition of Charles and his paladins plaved a responsesto its promptings. significantpart in shaping that of Arthur and his knigi-rtsof the The Oxford Roland,like many of the earlier chansonsde Round Table, just as the Spanish national epic of the Cid (a geste,used assonancerather than rhyme asend-decoration for historical figure of the late eleventh century) appears to owe its lines. This feature it shares with one re-handling in some debt to the Roland. Italianised French, which matches its account fairlv closelv at The surviving texts give but the merest hint of the popularity first, but then strains the economy of the ninative'by enjoyed by the story throughout the Middle Ages. They could elaborating the orip;inal episodes and adding new ones. The be backed by countless references in vernacular verse and other half-do,zenor so French versionsthat have come down, prose where mention is made as a matter of common some in very fragmentary form, are all rhymed. They diverge knowledge to the exemplary heroism of Roland or the further from our text, lingering sentimentallyover some scenes archetypal treachery of Ganelon. By poet and performer alike such as Charlemagne'sgrief for Roland, or Aude's heartbreak the legend was exploited as a 'besi-seller'; and this posed or adding incidents iike Ganelon'sescape from custody and something of a challengeto the men of the Church, who were recapture, thus losirngin intensity what they gain in length. inclined to disparagethe vernacular heroic songs,unlessthey The manuscripts in which theseworks are found were copied gould put them to their personalprofit. In this casethey saw an in all corners of Frilnce and, in at least one case, in Itaiy, a opportunity to use the story of Roncevaux and its prelimin- testimony to the wide appeal of the legend that is further aries, if rather deviously, to further their pious ends. So by confirmed b)' the various translations that were made in the about 1140 a Latin prose account was fabricated, the_Psqudp: courseof the Middl: Ages.While passingas history,it catered Turpin Chronlcle,thus called becauseit purported to be a true for a spreadrrf tastesand interests.For the fighting man there account of the Spanish campaign as giygn by the warqior was the exarnpleof loyal heroism in the field, and for the archbishop himself (he had, it seems, survived Roncevaux, politicallyminded the rrostalgicevocation of imperial glories; though his wounds still gave him some discomfort).The work the religiousmight find inspirationin the exaltationof the true bears small resemblanceto the Oxford Roland,being full of faith; and there was;for the moralistthe explorationof human miracles and devout precepts/ Iacking the apocalyptic battle folly, for the tender-heartedthe anguishof its tragicoutcome. against Baligant (though the latter does appear alongside his By 1170 the Roland was translated into German verse by brother Marsile as King of Saragossa)and, less surprisingly, Conrad, a lJavarian priest who accentuatedits religious, banishing fair Aude from the story. It does,on the other hand, crusading sF,iriti and in the next century his version was tell at some length of Roland's combat and theological debate 74 15 Ihe Songof Roland Introduction with a pagan giant Ferracutus (Fernagut) and other of his moment and the man to profit from them. The matter in this doings in i3pain. It thus helped to fill out his fictional case was the fact of Ronlevaux already become legend; the biography, which was further extended, following common moment was a time when feudal Christian hearts were being medieval practice,in a later generationof chansonsde geste.A stirred by calls to crusadeagainst the infidel; and the man was Latin verse text by contrast, which deals with Ganelon's an individual gifted with poetic vision and the skill to clothe it treacheryand its consequences,makes little extra contribution in memorable verse, a person of wide interests and deep to the legenrl, being essentiallya heavily edited version of the humanity. Is there anything more we can say, or deduce,about events recounted in the Oxford poem. him? The Italiarrs had a particular affection for the Roland story, There can be no question of his having invented, though he which their scribes and artists helped to hand down and may well have refined, a technique so evidently evolved to generationsof their story-tellersto embellish.On the eve of the accommodatethe jongleur's art of dramatic recital. He must Renaissance,Luigi Pulci introduced a note of bu_ffooneryinto certainly have been closelyfamiliar with a now untraceablebut certain episodesct our hero's career,whilst Boiardo, in his already developed tradition of epic composition designed for imaginative thougfr unJinished Orlandoinnamorato, made love oral delivery, and not only familiar with it but perfectly attuned the mainspring of his chivalry. Ariosto, a fellow-poet from to its emotive range and engrossed by its subject-matter,A Ferrara, undlertook to complete the work by making the love- gifted jongleur himself, perhaps? The possibility is almost sick Orland,c (Roland) lose his wits to become the arlando excluded by the presencein his poem of features, too often furioso,infatuated b,ythe alluring Angelica. He is led through a neglectedor played down in the past, which strongly suggest maze of bizarre adventuresmore characteristicof romancethan for him a background of clericallearning. He could conceivably epic (his wits, for instance,are recoveredby a friend from the have been a forerunner of those wandering scholarswho were moon) until by the end he has won a great battle but lost his to peddle their profane versesabout Europe, composing in his Angelica. The Roland-poetwould doubtlesshave turned in his case not in Latin but for an unlettered public in the common grave to find his single-minded hero dodging in and out of tongue. Whatever his status, he does appear to have been such prepositerousfictions. But there was no real cause for conversant with cerialn Latin texts, notably the biography of concern at such a loss of dignity: the figure he bequeathedwas Charlemagneby Einhard and the poem of Ermold the Black as too stalwart to be tossed for long by the winds of literary well as the Scriptures;and it is possibleto detectelements from fashion, and,Roland still holds an honoured place among the all these deftly woven into the narrative, For example, his great epic figures. .Had not Dante, after all, given him special portrait of Charlemagne as well as the elemental portents mention among the 'blessedcompany/ lost at Roncevauxand presagingRoland's death seem partly inspired by Einhard; we even been afforded a glimpse of him, still with Charlemagne, have already suspected borrowing from Ermoldus in the in Paradise? accountof Ganelon'strial; and God's stayingof the sun hasan obvious biblical model in the story of Joshua.Here, then, was a remarkable man with experienceof both the secular and the The Master-Poet clericalworlds and having the imagination to fuse together the widely differing traditions of popular oral epic and learned The Songof Rolandhas been ranked with the first Gothic arch, written literature. the first stairred-glasswindow and the first troubadour poem as For such a man the Latinised name of Turoldus might seem one of thoseunexplained miracles of the Middle Ages.Literary entirely appropriate. However, it is not merely the poem's far miracles,thc,ugh, do not happen,except in the sensethat every from transparentlast line that puts us in some doubt. There is now and then ther,eoccurs the coniunctionof the matter. the also the equally controversial question of the authenticity of T6 17 The Songof Roland Introduction about a quarter af the Roland,the so-calledBaligant episode. A matter (which occuPiesapproximately ll. 2525-2844, 2974- strong case exists for seeing this section as the work of a 3681, and perhaps 3975- 4001).But why weary the reader with talented rradactorwishing to extend a more compact original; such cavilling? Is not the Oxford text a totally authentic and if this is so, the same man may have added the two final version, if not the only one, which must have captivated sections (laisses)and sealed his contribution with his own medieval audiencesas it stands and is in any casethe earliest name. The problem of authorship is further clouded. form we have? All this is true. However, as I wish in the As the )Baligantquestion has crucial implications for a full following pagesto Pay my tribute to the master-poetin whose appreciation of the poem, the main arguments in the debate debt we stand, I would not lay at his door these long Passages may be b:riefly summarised.Those who welcomethe Emir's which, however technically comPetent, lack for me the presence point out that he either figures in or has left his inspired touch of the rest of the Song. Others may prefer the influence on the later versions of the story and so would have wider perspectivesintroduced, as I believe, by the redactor. had a role to play at an early stage of its poetic development; They may welcomethe impression he gives of all Christendom they make much of the supposedneed for the final showdown on the march fired by the militant crusadingardour of his day. between the Christian emperor and the ruler of all pagandom; Does it matter that he has made it harder to say who is now the and they admire the symmetry which they feel its inclusion hero of the Song - Roland or Charlemagne?Personal taste achieves.'fhe style of this sectionis, they claim, much the same nudges critical judgment. But in the end, unlike a medieval asthat in the rest of the poem.Opponents of the Emir maintain jongleur's captive audience, we are free to make our own that once all the p'agansof whom we had been awarehave been cholce and aisess accordingly the art of the poem and the clrt to pieces or drowned in the waters of the Ebro, it is vision behind it. gratuitous to conjure up another host, of which we had been given no inkling; they feel that the introduction of Baligant actually destroys the symmetry of the dual conflict, king The Poet's Vision against king, var;sal against vassal; they hold that the new episode drags its feet, lacks originality in its details, and We imagine, then, -r craftsman-poet steeped in his book- seriously changes the tone of the work and the role and learning yet thrilling to the stirring chords struck by popular characterof Charlemagne.Against the argumentdrawn from minstrelsy in its evocationof bygone deeds of valour serving later texts the anti-Baligantforces would insist that this cannot the warrirorideal. He too was eager to caPture, magnify and disprove the existenceof an earlier, pristine, version, which reflect back the lurid spectacleof the battlefield, the selfless dropped out of circulation once the expanded one found courageof those legendaryheroes. But, and here lies much of favour. As for the style, any interpolator worth his salt would the gieatness and fascination of his Song, behind the epic do his utmost to blend in his additional material. It can be seen grandeur of the versewe glimpse a man who knows reality for that a good deal of the debate consists of the airing of what it is and is inclined to question what he most exalts. impressionsand the passing of subjectivejudgments that can His religious convictionsare, of course,never Put in doubt' neitherbe substantiatednor completelydismissed. Those wh-odie in Charlemagne'sholy causehave the gates of At this point it is proper for me to declaremy allegianceto Paradise opened to them, as promised by the battling the antiBaiigant party. One argumentI would advance,and Archbishop Turpin; for 'Pagans are wrong and Christians in which the reader may care to test, is that Charleswas initially the right' 0. 1015). The Franks are the elect of God, their afforded three premonitory dreams; but the redactor moved opponents doomed to death and hellfire unless they submit to the third from its original position after l. 736to follow a laisse forilUte conversion.Divine justice is paramount and terrible in of his own (ll. 25:25-54)and serveas introductionto the new its retribution on those who break its spiritual and temporal 18 19 The Songof Roland Introduction precepts. Angels are its messengers,dreams and miracles its when the treachery is paying its deadly dividends? Oliver manifestations. All the Christian rites and practicesare duly would claim that the very destruction of the rearguard was the observedby Emperor and subjectsalike: even Ganelon carried direct result of Roland's recklessfolly in refusing to summon holy relics in his sword-hilt. Whether Roland himself is a saint help, So the sad train of events goes o:r: error of judgment and martyr in the poet's eyes has long been a matter for leading to act of sPite, perhaPs, and thus to revenge, fatal dispute. If so, the rr:ligious theme must be seen as dominant foolhaidiness and a grim blow to the Christian cause' The throughout the Song. Against this view, however, I would heroism is a sweet toPPingon a very bitter mixture and is itself argue that thelemphasis shifts from the more worldly topics of not unalloyedvirtue in the poet's eyes. betrayal, heroism arrLdfeudal justice to that of the triumph of Are we, though, justified in associatingthe less glarnorous Christianity only with the unheralded arrival of Baligant.This side of his story with his own Personalvision? The legend may, question too :must b,eleft to the reader'sjudgment, after all, have been establishedin its main lines before he took Whilst in his heart the poet knows the Christiansto be in the it over. I think we are.His viewpoint, however,is revealedless right and their action'sgoverned by a senseof honourforeign to obviously in the leading events than in the small touches, and the Saracens,his reasontells him that the Franksand eventhe not least in certain snatchesof dialogue to which the action mighty CharlemagnLrwere subject to the faults and foibles of gives rise. The cool-headedOliver's sardonic exchangeswith ordinary mortals; and to this his telling of the legend bears Roland seem particularly instructive in this resPect,as we shall witness, From the vr:ry beginning it is plain that this will be a see. The presentation of Charlemagne, too, aPPearsto have story as much of human weaknessand error as of unwavering about it something more individual than traditional, Rash virtue. though it may be to try to read the mind of a poet vanished for For seven years Charles has waged his inconclusive cam- nine hundred years, the risk is worth running, so strong is paign throughout the Spanish kingdom. Final victory may be one's impression of a total, yet strangely divided, personality' in sight, but it still haLsto be won/ even with Roland in the field. His double view gf things I have already equated with an So when there seems to be an opportunity for an honourable opposition betwy'en the grand poetic concept and a- true peace,it is only the headstrongRoland who standsout against eiperience of liJe. It is expressedconstantly in the interplay of negotiations, despite the others' misgivings in the light of aniithetical elements: the communal cause contrasting with previous Saracen treachery. The offer then, as now, is that personal ambition, glorious valour with the working out of King Marsile will submit to Charlesand the true faith, and the petty. grievances, firm resolve with doubts and hesitation, battle-worn Christians will again seetheir homes and families. iioland the exemplary hero with Roland the bewildered But one of the Frenchbarons must be sent to Saragossaat his companion, Ganelon the betrayer with Ganelon the brave and peril to treatrvith the perfidiousenemy. Who? Not Naimes,or outspoken supporter of the king, the Holy Emp-eror Archbishop T'urpin, or any of the twelve peers:they are too Chailemagnewith Charlesthe muddle-headedold man. There precious to Charlers. 'Said Roland: "Send my stepsire is the whole-heartedidealism of the poet on the one hand, and Ganelon" ' (1.277), We can well sympathisewith Ganelon, his implicit criticism, even Protest, on the other' especiallyas lloland's suggestionseems to have beenmade in the context of sorne t:arlierquarrel. hinted at in the subseouent trial proceedings;and Rolind's sneer and laughter are not The Characters calculatedto lessenhis stepfather'srage. We are disposedto believeCanelon's account to Blancandrin The figures of Roland and Oliver have been modelled, some of Roland's obsessi'vevanity. Do we not see it continually would say, on the old rhetorical opposition of t'ortitudoand borne out by his words and actions,not leastduring the battle, sapientia:'Rolandis valiant,Oliver is wise' (1.1093). This may 20 21,