. Charlemagne is at the center of the chansons de geste: many of the surviving epics can be grouped around him and even more so around the other rulers of the Carolingian dynasty, fused by time within the person of Charlemagne. Nevertheless, such terms as “King Cycle” or geste du roi remain problematic, since the poems about Charlemagne were never systematically grouped in a cycle like those of Guillaume d’Orange. The Charlemagne legend was brought together only later in the hybrid combinations of chanson de geste and verse chronicle composed by Philippe Mouskés in his Chronique rimée (completed in 1243) and by Girart d’Amiens in his Charlemagne (early 14th c.), and in the Franco-Italian epic cycle of MS Venice XIII (ca. 1350), David Aubert’s Croniques et conquestes de Charlemaine (completed in 1458), and the Old Norse Karlamagnús saga (ca. 1250). The emperor and his peers figure in the chansons primarily thanks to the paramount importance of the Chanson de Roland, which furnished to later poets a stereotypical stock of heroes; the catastrophe at Roncevaux forms the backdrop for the organization of the cycle. Compared with other historical figures celebrated in the chansons de geste, however, Charlemagne’s mighty personality, his prestige as emperor and king, and the fact that so many events of his life were well known to later generations greatly increased audience interest. Soon after the beginning of the 12th century, legendary stories about the emperor’s youth, his pilgrimage to the Holy Land and travel to Constantinople, and his dispute with Ogier and wars against the Saxons were circulating in the form of chansons de geste. Only the epics about his youth constitute a more or less autonomous group, the other legends being simply integrated into the songs about the heroes of Roncevaux. The Latin Pseudo-Turpin chronicle (ca. 1140) already contains, in addition to an exaltation of the military and political service of the suzerain, the story of Ganelon’s high treason in betraying Charlemagne’s rearguard in the Pyrénées as he was returning from Spain. The influence of the Pseudo-Turpin is felt even later in a series of romanticized poems, such as Aspremont, Gui de Bourgogne, and Otinel. Within the King Cycle, it is the Spanish expedition and, to a lesser degree, the acquisition of the relics of Christ’s Passion by the abbey of Saint-Denis that form a further point of departure for poetic treatment. There is, however, no cohesion among the poems, many of which show centrifugal tendencies and resist a systematic grouping.
Charlemagne’s birth is the subject of Adenet le Roi’s Berte aus grans piés (ca. 1275), which narrates the romantic circumstances that led to the conception of the son of Pepin the Short and Bertha (a Hungarian king’s daughter), the future Charlemagne. His youth is related in the fragment Mainet (late 12th c.), in which Bertha is poisoned by a servant whose daughter resembled Bertha so much that she could take her place with Pepin in the marital bed and conceive Heudri and Rainfroi (who later poison Pepin). Forced to flee, the young Charles changes his name to Mainet (diminutive of magne) and enters the service of the pagan king Galafre of Toledo, whom he helps to win a decisive battle; he obtains the hand of the king’s daughter, Galienne, who is baptized and becomes his wife. In the lost Chanson de Basin (or Couronnement de Charlemagne), preserved in the Karlamagnús saga and in Middle Dutch and Middle High German adaptations, the youth Charles, summoned by an angel to go out and steal with the nobleman-turned-thief Basin, overhears a conspirator explaining to his wife the plan to prevent Charles’s coronation; he brings down the conspiracy on the occasion of the dedication of the cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle.
Although the historical Charlemagne was in diplomatic relations with the court of Byzantium, legend allows him also to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and travel to Constantinople, as in the Voyage de Charlemagne, in which he transports the relics of the Passion to his abbey, Saint-Denis. In Simon de Pouille, the Holy Land is the setting for the adventures of the old duke, Simon, of Aymeri of Narbonne’s lineage (complete only in B.L.Royal 15 E VI of the 15th c.; 5,100 lines); in this poem, Charlemagne is a remote, prestigious figure, too old to take up arms himself but always willing to help his barons in danger. The liveliest characters in the poem are the converts: Synodos, Emir Jonas of Babylon’s seneschal and lord of the castle Abilant; the shipmaster Sorbarrés, who assumes the name Simon the Convert, after Simon de Pouille, when he becomes a Christian; and Jonas’s daughter Licoride, who marries Synodos at Saint-Germain-des-Prés at the end of the poem.
The first part of Fierabras, whose action takes place in Italy and Rome and revolves around the relics of Christ’s Passion, is known today as the Destruction de Rome (probably mid-13th c.), preserved in two manuscripts and a fragment. Italy is likewise the setting for Charlemagne’s fight against the pagans in Aspremont (late 12th c.). The poem is also called the Enfances Roland, because Roland forces the emperor to knight him on the battlefield after he has distinguished himself against the pagans and won his sword, Durendal. In the decisive battle, Turpin carries the True Cross, and the emir Agolant is felled by Claron, Milon’s son, for the whole clan of Girart de Roussillon has come to fight against the pagans despite its feud with Charlemagne. Otinel is another italianate poem of the King Cycle. It deals with the conversion of Otinel, a daring Saracen messenger sent by the pagan emperor Garsile, who, having sacked Rome, has established himself in the fortress Atilie in Lombardy. Otinel’s mission is to summon Charlemagne to submit to Garsile and renounce Christianity. Otinel hopes to use this opportunity to avenge his uncle Ferragu, slain by Roland, and comports himself so outrageously at Charlemagne’s court that Roland challenges him to a duel, during which Otinel, winning, is suddenly enlightened by the Holy Spirit. Charlemagne offers him his daughter Belissent in marriage with Lombardy as dowry, but Otinel wants first to prove himself an exemplary Christian knight at the siege of Atilie, where he indeed shows himself stronger than Roland, Oliver, and Ogier. Otinel then weds Belissent and becomes king of Lombardy.
The war waged by Jehan in the swashbuckling romantic poem jehan de Lanson (first half of the 13th c.; 6,330 Alexandrines in the most complete manuscript) also takes place in Italy. Jehan, Ganelon’s nephew, has obtained from Charlemagne a duchy in southern Italy but converts to paganism; the ungrateful vassal then plots with Ganelon and Alori against his benefactor, after which the latter exiles Alori for murder but Jehan offers him hospitality. Charlemagne sends Roland and the twelve peers against the traitors; although Roland kills Jehan’s father, Nivard, the peers are in great danger but are saved thanks to the artifices of the magician Basin of Gennes. This poem makes many borrowings from the Quatre fils Aymon and Maugis d’Aigremont; Basin, its real hero, is clearly an avatar of the popular and valiant magician Maugis, cousin of Aymon’s sons. Among poems having the wars in Italy as subject, Ogier le Danois, which takes place in upper Italy from line 3,366 to 9,039 (in a poem of 12,346 lines), should also be mentioned.
Charlemagne’s war against Widukind’s Saxons was reflected in the lost Guiteclin de Sassoigne of the second half of the 12th century, of which only traces remain in the Karlamagnús saga and the Middle Dutch Gwidekijn van Sassen (late 14th c.); Jehan Bodel’s incomplete Chanson des Saisnes (late 12th-early 13th c.) represents a courtly as well as satirical reworking of the story.
Aiquin ou la conquête de la Bretagne par le roiCharlemagne (late 12th-early 13th c.; preserved only in an incomplete 15th-c. manuscript, B.N. fr. 2233) narrates Charles’s reconquest of Brittany from the Saracen Aiquin while returning with Roland’s father and Naimes from a military expedition against the Saxons. Roland, Oliver, Ogier, and the other peers are still too young to participate, although the poem alludes to young Roland’s deeds in Aspremont and underscores his Breton birth.
In the Entrée d’Espagne, composed by a Padovan poet in the early 14th century, Charles, having successfully fought the giant Ferragu, must besiege Pamplona; he has a falling out with Roland because of the latter’s unauthorized conquest of the city of Nobles, following which Roland leaves the French camp in a huff. This incomplete poem was continued ca. 1343 in a much purer French by Nicholas of Verona in the Prise de Pampelune (also called Guerre de Spagne), in which the action continues until after Charlemagne’s return from Roncevaux. Between the conquest of Pamplona and the battle of Roncevaux is Gui de Bourgogne (first quarter of the 13th c.; preserved in two copies of the same century), an epic with moralistic intent in which the young knights around Gui, whom they elect king of France, are pitted against the old peers surrounding Charles, and Gui in particular against Roland. The action comes to a head at the siege of Luiserne, the last pagan stronghold besides Saragossa. Competition between the armies of “the young” and “the old” barons before Luiserne is so fierce—and the poet does not hide his sympathy for the younger generation—that Charlemagne wishes Luiserne could sink into the sea to end this rivalry. The poet’s creative verve gives the stock epic features the charm of novelty, and the vivacity of his dramatic sense carries much of the poem.
The epilogue of the battle of Roncevaux is developed in two poems. Gaidon (1230–34; three manuscripts) is a hybrid between the King and Rebellious Vassal cycles. It begins after Ganelon’s punishment, which takes place in Spain, where the hero, Thierry (surnamed Gaidon because a jay [OFr. gai], once perched on his helmet), is victorious over Pinabel. Because of the intrigues of Ganelon’s clan and his own pitiful weakness, Charlemagne neglects those who are loyal to him, among whom are Naimes, Ogier, and Thierry-Gaidon; the latter is pushed into a lengthy feud with the emperor, in which the young knights side with Gaidon while their fathers fight for Charlemagne, as in Gui de Bourgogne. However, Gaidon continuously seeks reconciliation and finally succeeds after defeating the implacable traitors. Anseïs de Carthage (ca. 1230–50; four 13th-c. manuscripts and several fragments), a chivalric poem in which heroism and love are intertwined, narrates the tragic theme of the loss of a country because of a woman. Charlemagne has regained Spain, and Carthage (=Cartagena) is given to the young Breton knight Anseïs. An embassy led by the old Ysoré de Conimbre (=Coimbra) suggests to Anseïs that he marry Gaudisse, Marsile’s daughter, in order to end the war. However, Anseïs seduces Ysoré’s daughter Lentisse, and Ysoré goes over to Marsile, who renews the war. Gaudisse falls in love with Anseïs, is baptized, and marries him, while Ysoré and Marsile die in prison and Charlemagne of old age.
A last poem, Macaire ou la reine Sebile, deals with an old Charlemagne who has taken a young wife, Sibile, who, according to Alberic des Trois-Fontaines (mid-13th c.), was the daughter of King Desiderius of Lombardy. The Middle High German chronicle of Weihenstephan (14th c.), a Spanish adaptation (manuscript of the 14th c., imprint of 1532), and a Dutch chapbook, the Historie vander coninghinnen Sibilla (Antwerp: Willem Vorsterman, ca. 1538) make her the daughter of Emperor Richer of Constantinople. Though not found in the chansons de geste of the King Cycle, Charlemagne’s death is treated in the Guillaume d’Orange Cycle, as in the first branch of the Couronnement de Louis and especially in the unpublished Franco-Italian Mort Charlemagne (Oxford, Bodl. Canonici 54; 13th c.). The British manuscript narrates basically the same events as the Couronnement, but where the latter only mentions Charlemagne’s death as having occurred while Louis was on pilgrimage to Rome, the Mort Charlemagne actually describes his death, foretold to him by an angel during a visit to Saint-Gilles-de-Provence, where he was forgiven, thanks to divine intervention, his mortal sin of having engendered Roland with his sister Berthe.
Adenet de Roi. Les œuvres d’Adenet le Roi, ed. Albert Henry. I Biographie d’Adenet; La tradition manuscrite. Rijksuniversiteit te Gent. Brugge: De Tempel, 1951. II Beuvon de Conmarchis. 115 Afl. 1953. III Les enfances Ogier. 121 Afl. 1956. IV Berte aus grans piés. Université libre de Bruxelles. Brussels: Presses Universitaires de Bruxelles, 1963. V Cleomadés. Vol. 1: Texte. Vol. 2: Introduction, notes, tables, 1971.
Alton, J., ed. Anseîs von Karthago. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1892.
Baroin, Jeanne, ed. Simon de Pouille. 3 vols. Paris: Champion, 1978.
Brandin, Louis, ed. La chanson d’Aspremeont, chanson de geste du XIIe siècle. 2 vols. Paris: Champion, 1919–21.
Guessard, F., ed. Macaire, chanson de geste. Paris: Vieweg, 1866.
——and Henri Michelant, eds. Gui de Bourgogne, chanson de geste. Paris: Vieweg, 1859.
Horrent, Jules. “Chanson de Roland et Geste de Charlemagne.” In Les épopées romanes, ed. Rita Lejeune. Grundriss der romanischen Literaturen des Mittelalters, Heidelberg: Winter, 1981, 1–51; 3/2, fasc. 2. [A complete bibliography for all chansons de geste mentioned in this article can be found in this volume.]
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