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Turoldus, Scribe Or Author? Evidence from the Corpus of Chansons De Geste

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Turoldus, Scribe Or Author? Evidence from the Corpus of Chansons De Geste Turoldus, Scribe or Author? Evidence from the Corpus of Chansons de Geste Joseph J. Duggan ontroversy has surrounded the identity and status of the Turoldus mentioned in line 4002 of the Oxford version of the Chanson de Roland. The assonance of the line, which reads C 1 “Ci falt la geste que Turoldus declinet” accords with the version’s final laisse. Although battles have been fought over the meaning here of falt, geste, and declinet, the heart of the controversy is whether this Turoldus is an author, a performer, or a scribe. Ian Short observes in his note to the line: “The fact that Turoldus, a typically Norman name, has a Latin flexion (written in standard abbre- viation) whose syllable counts in the metrical structure of the line, and that declinet seems like a deliberately opaque latinism to suit the asso- nance, could suggest a (scribal?) playfulness which may have escaped the many commentators of this line… .” But he then concludes: “Like the enigma of AOI, that of Turoldus persists unresolved.”2 The iden- tity and status of Turoldus may never be established to the satisfaction of all observers, barring the unlikely discovery of further documen- tation. Like many details of twelfth-century literary production, the best to which one can aspire is to approach resolution through a con- vergence of probabilities. The present study is meant as a contribution to that process. The placement of the reference to Turoldus, which 1 Ian Short, ed., “Part 1: The Oxford Version,” in La Chanson de Roland – The Song of Roland: The French Corpus, Vol. 1, gen. ed. Joseph J. Duggan (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005) 270. 2 Short 326. Among the many works that take up this question, Short refers to Paul Aebischer, Préhistoire et protohistoire du Roland d’Oxford (Bern: Francke, 1972) 203–28; La Chanson de Roland: texte présenté, traduit et commenté, ed. Jean Dufournet (Paris: Flammarion, 1993) 429–31; and David Hult, “‘Ci falt la geste’: Scribal Closure in the Oxford Roland,” Modern Language Notes 97 (1982): 890–905. Despite the hesitation among scholars, André Burger titled his book on the Chanson de Roland: Turold, poète de la fidélité (Geneva: Droz, 1977). 136 Joseph J. Duggan occurs at the end of the copy, on folio 72 recto, is relevant to the issue at hand. In the corpus of chansons de geste and cantares de gesta, refer- ences to scribes occur in at least sixteen other manuscripts. References to authors, by which I mean to persons to whom responsibility for composing the text or part of the text is ascribed, are found in one version or another of sixteen chansons de geste, which I will treat in rough order of their composition. The earliest authorial attribution (leaving aside, of course, the reference to Turoldus, whose nature is the point at issue) appears to be found in the Girart de Roussillon composed in a language charac- terized by a mixture of French and Occitan features and found in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Canonici 63. This text cannot be dated precisely, but is considered to have been composed between 1136 and 1180.3 In line 24 of Girart de Roussillon, it is said that one summer a certain Sestu sat in the shade of an olive tree and formulated a desire that, the text implies, resulted in the poem’s verses. Sestu is described as a courtly monk and member of the regular clergy (“mongres curteiz, clerz de moster”). No other reference to Sestu emerges either from the poem’s text or from documents external to it.4 Micheline Combarieu du Grès and Gérard Gouiran, authors of an annotated translation of Mary Hackett’s text, raise the possibility that Sestu may never have existed but is rather simply a figure invented by the true author to lend the authority of a learned source to the tale.5 This is a hypothesis that may apply for all but a few of the authorial references found in chansons de geste. Next in date is the reference in Raoul de Cambrai (unique text in Paris, BnF fr. 2493), composed around 1180, to Bertolai of Laon, who the text says was an eye-witness to events recounted in the poem. The passage does not specify that Bertolai was its author, but rather that Bertolai, a person of high standing (“de paraige del miex et del belays” [v. 2267]) composed a poem about Raoul of Cambrai who 3 W. Mary Hackett, in her edition Girart de Roussillon, chanson de geste, Société des Anciens Textes Français, 85; 3 vols. in 2 (Paris: Picard, 1953–55) 3: 478–79, simply reports this range of dates, based on the estimates of others. 4 Indeed the poem’s editor raises the possibility that Sestu is not a personal name. There is always the possibility, unlikely in my view, that it is a rhetorical question, “Ses tu?” 5 La Chanson de Girart de Roussillon, ed. and trans. Micheline Combarieu du Grès and Gérard Gouiran (Paris: Librairie Générale Française, 1993) 43. .
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