Chapter I: Preface

I have endeavoured to tell in this volume the story of Charlemagne, the Charlemagne, it must be understood, not of history, but of Romance. The two personages are curiously different. Each writer of a romance had naturally a hero of his own. As he had to exalt this hero, he could hardly help depreciating the king. Charlemagne suffers by comparison with Roland and Reynaud very much as, in the Iliad, Agamemnon, the overlord of the Greeks, suffers by comparison with the subordinate King, Achilles. The real Charlemagne was a very great personality, one that impressed his age as deeply as any man has ever done; in these stories he often appears petty, capricious, and obstinate. Then the romance writers were Frenchmen, and they make the great king a Frenchman, holding his court in Paris, and surrounded by great French lords. They began to write when the air was full of the crusading spirit, and their work is coloured accordingly. The enemy is always a Saracen or a follower of Mahomet. There could not be a more curious instance of this than is to be found in the story of the death of Roland. In the romance Charlemagne's rearguard is destroyed by an overpowering force of Saracens. What really happened was that it was attacked, probably for the sake of plundering the baggage, by a gathering of mountaineers, who are called Gascons by the chroniclers, but were, in fact, Basques. Then, again, we find the romance writers in sympathy with the great feudatories, indicating the time before the French monarchy had become consolidated, when the king at Paris had all that he could do to hold his own against his powerful vassals, the Dukes of Brittany and Burgundy, and the English king.

The Charlemagne romances, as translated by Lord Berners and William Caxton, occupy twelve volumes in the Extra Series of the Early English Text Society. Some of these are variants of the same story. There is a romance of "Ferumbras," for instance, which gives substantially the same tale as that which occupies eleven chapters in this volume. "Huon of Bordeaux," again, fills four volumes in the Extra Series. But the original _chanson_ is contained in one of the four and is complete in itself. This, too, I have considerably compressed and shortened. The same process has had to be applied to all before they could be made acceptable to the readers of to-day. I hope that they have not lost their life and colour and human interest.

The stories of which I have made use are "The Four Sons of Aymon" (i.-xi.); "Ralph the Collier" (xii.-xiii.), a genuinely English production, it would seem, as no French original has been found; "Fierabras," taken from the "Lyf of Charles the Grete" (xiv.-xxiv.); "The Song of Roland" (xxv.-xxxv.), and "Duke Huon of Bordeaux" (xxxvi.-xl.). This has been put last in order, as it represents Charlemagne grown old and weary of power. The death of the great King is only mentioned as imminent in the romance which I have followed; I have added an abridged account of it from the contemporary biography written by Eginhard. The story of Huon is peculiarly interesting to us because it introduces the fairy King Oberon, who was to become so important a figure in English literature.

I have to express my obligations to the Introduction, written by Mr. Sidney Lee to the first part of "Duke Huon of Bordeaux."

ALFRED J. CHURCH.

OXFORD, _July_ 17, 1902.

CONTENTS

CHAP.

I. THE SLAYING OF LOTHAIR
II. HOW THE DUKE BENES CAME BY HIS END
III. HOW IT FARED WITH THE BRETHREN
IV. THE COMING OF ROLAND
V. OF THE TREACHERY OF KING JOHN
VI. OF THE CRAFT OF MAWGIS
VII. MORE DEEDS OF MAWGIS
VIII. HOW MAWGIS BECAME A HERMIT
IX. OF WHAT BEFELL AT MONTALBAN
X. HOW PEACE WAS MADE
XI. OF REYNAUD'S END
XII. HOW RALPH ENTERTAINED THE KING
XIII. HOW RALPH WENT TO COURT
XIV. HOW FIERABRAS DEFIED KING CHARLES
XV. HOW OLIVER FOUGHT WITH FIERABRAS
XVI. HOW OLIVER AND OTHERS WERE TAKEN PRISONERS
XVII. HOW OLIVER AND HIS COMRADES FARED
XVIII. OF THE BRIDGE OF MANTRYBLE
XIX. OF THE DOINGS OF FLORIPAS
XX. OF THE DOINGS OF THE FRENCH KNIGHTS
XXI. OF GUY OF BURGUNDY
XXII. OF RICHARD OF NORMANDY
XXIII. HOW THE BRIDGE MANTRYBLE WAS WON
XXIV. OF THE END OF BALAN THE ADMIRAL
XXV. HOW GANELON WENT ON AN ERRAND TO KING MARSILAS
XXVI. THE TREASON OF GANELON
XXVII. OF THE PLOT AGAINST ROLAND
XXVIII. HOW THE HEATHEN AND THE FRENCH PREPARED FOR BATTLE
XXIX. THE BATTLE
XXX. HOW ROLAND SOUNDED HIS HORN
XXXI. HOW OLIVER WAS SLAIN
XXXII. HOW ARCHBISHOP TURPIN DIED
XXXIII. THE DEATH OF ROLAND
XXXIV. HOW CHARLEMAGNE SOUGHT VENGEANCE
XXXV. OF THE PUNISHMENT OF GANELON
XXXVI. HOW KING CHARLES SENT HUON ON AN ERRAND
XXXVII. HOW HUON MET WITH KING OBERON
XXXVIII. OF THE END OF THE FALSE DUKE MACAIRE
XXXIX. HOW HUON, HAVING SLAIN A GIANT, CAME TO BABYLON
XL. HOW HUON RETURNED, HIS ERRAND FULFILLED

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

OLIVER AND FIERABRAS ... Frontispiece

REYNAUD KNEELING TO ROLAND

REYNAUD AND BAYARD

RALPH IN THE PALACE OF CHARLEMAGNE

BLOWING THE GREAT COAL

THE AMBASSADORS OF KING MARSILAS

ON THE FIELD OF RONCESVALLES

HUON MEETING WITH OBERON

STORIES OF CHARLEMAGNE

AND THE TWELVE PEERS OF FRANCE