the interaction of life and literature in the peregrinationes ad loca sancta and the chansons de...

Medieval Academy of America

The Interaction of Life and Literature in the Peregrinationes ad Loca Sancta and the Chansonsde GesteAuthor(s): Stephen G. Nichols, Jr.Source: Speculum, Vol. 44, No. 1 (Jan., 1969), pp. 51-77Published by: Medieval Academy of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2855038 .

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THE INTERACTION OF LIFE AND LITERATURE IN THE PEREGRINATIONES AD LOCA SANCTA AND

THE CHANSONS DE GESTE BY STEPHEN G. NICHOLS, JR

"LEs evenements racontes dans la Chanson de Roland consistuent la version po'tique d'un fait historique parfaitement attest', qui eut lieu, a la fin du viiie siecle, en terre d'Espagne."' So runs the opening sentence of Martin de Riquer's invaluable handbook on the Old French epic. Neither revolutionary nor con- troversial, the statement summarizes very well the assumption that has long guided our thinking on the question of the historicity of the chanson de geste. Almost all vernacular literature of the twelfth and thirteenth century purports to be historical in some form or other, and so it has seemed fruitful, particularly in the case of those works like the Icelandic sagas and the Old French epic which appear to have been based on an historically verifiable event, to go back to the event itself in order, as Sefnor de Riquer so aptly puts it, to "connattre la verite historique du theme developpe."2

In so doing, we tend to emphasize the progression from the historical event to the literary event, as though there actually were a logical sequence proceeding from the one to the other, from the earlier to the later. Indeed, we assume that each point, the terminus a quo and the terminus ad quem, was clearly distinguished and unique, that is that there was one historical event and one original literary work inspired by it. If the truth be known, however, there is little to support the contention, that, in the case of the chanson de geste, we are dealing with clearly defined historical events, political or literary. We have to do rather with a number of different literary perceptions of events thought to be historic, and all made at various times subsequent to the event described.

The Middle Ages did not differentiate the past according to a rigid chronological sequence, as we do.3 Given events were associated with the great men responsible for them, and there was a very general sense that certain events preceded or were subsequent to certain others, but that was all. As Albert Pauphilet observed years ago: ils entremelent [les textes historiques et les poemes 6piques] sans s'enquerir de a'age des poemes. Cet Age, d'ailleurs, pouvaient-ils le connattre? La premiere fois qu'ils entendaient une chanson, 6taient-ils contraints de la reconnattre pour recente? Qui pouvait les en avertir? Les incessantes allusions des auteurs eux-m6mes a d'anciennes et ven6rables sources, 'go dit la geste a S Denis. ... a s. Riquier ... al mostier de Loon, etc.' invitaient au contraire leurs auditeurs a croire qu'ils entendaient la des recits aussi anciens que les evenements, et que la voix du poete etait la voix m8me du pass6. Vrai ou faux, un arriere- plan de tradition sans Age se laissait toujours entrevoir derriere les contes epiques.4

1 Martin de Riquer, Les Chansons de gestesfrangaises (Paris, 1957), p. 13. 2 Ibid., p. 13. 3 That is, they did not practice the synthetic association of apparently unrelated events around a

certain period that constitutes the foundation for our structural approach to history. 4"Sur la Chanson de Roland," Romania, 59 (1933), 172-173.

51



52 The Interaction of Life and Literature

A poet or chronicler would certainly be aware that others had preceded him, but he would have had no way of knowing the order of precedence, still less of distinguishing which of the predcessors were closer to the event and therefore presumably more trustworthy. In point of fact, there is little evidence to indicate that he either attempted or desired to make such a distinction. The numerous prologues in which poets described their reasons for writing testify to the fact that each felt that his poem surpassed others that had been written on the same subject because it presented the truth, a truth that had only been imperfectly seen in other versions.'

Given the lack of historical "depth-perception," how could a poet have been so sure that he had seen the whole truth of a story? How could he have come upon new material, unavailable to his predecessors, without the benefit of historical research? How could he justify the inclusion of that new material if it were not sanctioned by existing literary tradition? It would be tempting to dodge these questions altogether by labelling them as extrinsic to the process of poetic creation. We could then pass off the whole problem of the "credibility gap" between Einhard, Turold and his successors as one large example of poetic license. Unforunately, as we shall see, the evidence that the chansons de geste were accepted as historistic is too insistent to be denied. Under the circumstances, the questions posed must have affected the creative process of the epics.

Without committing ourselves for the moment, let us admit the hypothesis that the creative process of the Old French epic was not entirely limited to the interaction of a literary or oral tradition and an historic fact, as Sefior de Riquer and others would have it. Let us suppose that instead of an inexorable progression from a well-defined historical event to a pre-eminent literary work, we find in the chronicles and poems dealing with the battle of Roncevaux, for example, a number of interrelated but distinct perceptions looking not so much back to the event itself as at a continually evolving idea of the event, an idea as broad as the sum of the attested perceptions.

Each poem would thus record the way in which its author and his contem- poraries viewed the past, rather than attempt to present the past event in and for itself. The emphasis would fall upon the presence of the past, rather than what we would call the pastness of the past. The interaction between the poet and his time in viewing the past meant that any given literary version of an "historical" subject would have been created from three different sources: the literary tradition, consisting of previous works on the theme; oral accretions not previously recorded, and finally the poet's own experience with the material from which would emerge the particular poem.6 We shall have occasion later on to specify

5 Manfred Gsteiger, "Notes sur les pr6ambules des ch. de g.," Cahiers de Civilisation M6di6vale, 2 (1959), 213-220 offers a goodly number of examples of these prologues. Cf. also Beroul, Li conteor. . . / N'en sevent mie bien l'estoire,/Berox l'a mex en sen memoire. (Le roman de Tristan, Muret 4e ed., 1265- 68).

6 In preparing the first "critical" edition of the works of Frangois Villon, C1lment Marot outlined a somewhat analogous three-fold approach to the poems. He states that he consulted earlier editions (vieulx imprimez), oral tradition (aveques l'ayde des bons vieillards qui en savent par cueur), and finally his own "natural judgment" as a poet. Guiffrey, Les oeuvres de ClMment Marot (Paris, 1875), ii, 266.



The Interaction of Life and Literature 53

the nature of the oral accretions and the poet's experience, but for the moment we should remark that the notion that literary versions of an "historical" event were in fact perceptions of a continually evolving idea of the event helps to explain a fact of mediaeval literature that Joseph Bedier thought could never be explained. That is, the continual recreating, recasting, and enlarging of poetic works.7

To understand better the working of the principles outlined above, we might usefully trace their emergence at the beginning of the mediaeval period, where we find the first large-scale efforts to live or re-live the past as it had been preserved in writing. As these efforts were recorded in their turn in the form of pilgrimage accounts, we find a true laboratory-environment in which can be traced the dynamic exchange from literature to life and back to literature.8

In 333, an anonymous pilgrim set out from Bordeaux for the holy land, re- cently opened to Christians thanks to the efforts of the imperial mother Helena. At her bidding, the emperor Constantine sought to recover and restore the principal landmarks associated with New Testament events. Eusebius recounts that Constantine wished "to make conspicuous and an object of veneration to all, the most blessed place of the Savior's resurrection in Jersualem."9 Eusebius leaves no doubt that "making conspicuous and an object of veneration for all" was not to be limited to the simple act of finding and protecting the sites, but entailed the erecting of resplendent basilicas over them. However sacred and wonderful the places might be in themselves, they had to be made to appear actually and physically as glorious as they were spiritually and historically. They needed, in Constantine's own words, "the splendour of buildings."10 Speaking of the basilica of the holy sepulchre, he says, ". ... not only shall this basilica be the finest in the world, but the details also shall be such that all the fairest structures in every city may be surpassed by it .... For it is just that the place which is more wonderful than the whole world should be worthily decorated.""

In setting out for the Holy Land, then, our Bordeaux Pilgrim, even though one of the earliest in an illustrious line that was to continue through the Middle Ages, would find the present, in the form of Constantine's monumental basilicas,

7La Chanson de Roland (Commentaires) (Paris, 1927), pp. 69-70. Cf. also his remarks on the same phenomenon in L'histoire de la Nation Frangaise, xii, 232.

8The impulse to transmute the scriptural experience of the Holy land into a first-hand experience of Palestine itself was admirably expressed by St Jerome: "Separated from our world, the Britain, if he has progressed at all in religion, quitting the setting sun, seeks the place known to him by repute and by the account of the scriptures." [Divisus ab orbe nostro Britannus, si in religione processerit, occiduo sole dimisso, querit locum fama sibi tantum & scripturarum relatione cognitum.] "Paula & Eustochii, Epistola ad Marcellam De Locis Sanctis," Itinera Hlierosolymitani et Descriptiones Terrae Sanctae, ediderunt Titus Tobler et Augustus Molinier (Geneva, 1880), p. 44. Hereinafter, the Itinera will be cited as "Tobler."

I Vita Constantini, iii, xxv. Translation by John Bernard from Palestine Pilgrims' Texts Society (PPTS), Eusebius (London, 1896), p. 3.

10 Ibid., iII, xxx. PPTS, Eusebius, p. 5. 11 Ibid., II, xxxi. PPTS, Eusebius, pp. 5-6.




already intruding on the past he sought to relive. Far from deploring the in- trusions, the Bordeaux Pilgrim seems to have welcomed them in the spirit in- tended by their builder.

The Pilgrim's account has none of the immediacy that will be found in the Itinerarium Egeriae, some eighty years later. In fact, until the Holy Land is reached, the account is simply a catalogue of changing stations and resting places. Even through the relatively succinct descriptions, however, we see that the modern monuments leave their imprint on the Bordeaux Pilgrim's memory of the holy sites. At the place of the resurrection - described by Eusebius as the chief part of the whole Divine Monument which "the liberality of the emperor beauti- fied with choice columns and with much ornament, decorating it with all kinds of adornments"'12 - it is precisely the basilica of Constantine, rather than the sepulchre itself, that elicits the Bordeaux Pilgrim's awe: A sinistra autem parte est monticulus Golgotha, ubi Dominus crucifixus est. Inde quasi ad lapidis missum est crypta, ubi corpus eius positum fuit, & tertio die surrexit. Ibidem modo iussu Constantini imperatoris basilica facta est, id est dominicum mire pulchritudinis, habens ad latus, exceptoria, unde aqua levatur, & balneum a tergo, ubi infantes lavantur.13

The conception of an intangible presence of a spiritual past forms no part of the Bordeaux Pilgrim's notion of a holy place. He expects tangible signs of the past: simply seeing the kind of palm tree from which were torn the fronds that strewed the route of Christ's entry into Jersualem at the beginning of the Passion week will not suffice: he must have the very tree from which those fronds were torn: Item ab Hierusalem eunti ad portam, que est contra orientem, ut ascendatur in montem Oliveti, vallis, que dicitur Iosaphat. Ad partem sinistram, ubi sunt vinee, est et petra, ubi Iudas Iscarioth Christum tradidit; ad partem vero dextram est arbor palme, de qua infantes ramos tulerunt &, veniente Christo, substraverunt.14

It would be unrealistic to expect more than these few indications from the Bordeaux Pilgrim. In writing his account, he had not the benefit of an elaborated tradition of Peregrinationes to suggest to him that an account of his experience

12 Ibid., iII, xxxiv. PPTS, Eusebius, p. 7. 13 Itinerarium a Bordigala Hierusalem usque & ab Heraclea per Aulonam & per Urbem Romam

Mediolanum usque. Tobler, p. 18. Aubrey Stewart's translation may be found in PPTS, Itinerary from Bordeaux to Jerusalem (London, 1896), pp. 23-24.

14 Ibid., Tobler, p. 18. Translation available in PPTS, Itinerary, p. 24. An opportunity to observe accretions to the holy sites is afforded by comparing accounts of later pilgrims to those of the earlier ones. By the time of Antoninus Martyr (c. 570), the valley of Josaphat had grown considerably richer in historical witness. Chapter XVII of Antoninus' account parallels almost exactly the above passage from the BP.

Descendentes de monte Oliveti, venimus in vallem Gethsemane, in locum, ubi traditus est Dominus: in quo sunt tria accubita, in quibus ille accubuit, & nos pro benedictione accu- buimus.... De Gethsemane ascendimus ad portam Hierosolyme per gradus multos. In dextra parte porte est olivetum & ficulnea, in qua ludas laqueo se suspendit, cuius talea stat munita petris [italics mine].

Tobler, pp. 100-101. Later on, in chapter XXVII, Antoninus reports seeing the very chain Judas used to hang himself: ". . . vidimus & in uno angulo tenebroso catenam ferream, qua se laqueaverat in- felix Iudas." Tobler, p. 106. The corner must have been dark indeed; no other pilgrim before An- toninus seems to have noticed the chain.




would stand as a witness to the living faith, occupying only slightly less exalted a level than the sacred writings themselves. Once so notable a personage as St Jerome, the creator of the Vulgate, had written his Peregrinatio Sanctae Paulae, however, there could be little doubt that this literature stood as a kind of revelation in the same sense as Constantine's "making conspicuous and an object of veneration." In some respects, the literature had even greater possibilities. The basilicas could speak only to those who stood physically in their presence. They could not, except in this limited way, alter the reality to be perceived. The pilgrimage accounts could, at the very least, demonstrate the presence of the Holy Land to those who had not been there. At most, they could do much more than that. Especially after Jerome, they attested the kind of ecstatic experience available to those who stood in the presence of the tangible links with the past; they opened new dimensions of religious life, and, in one instance, at least, held out the example of seeing the Holy Family Itself. For those without hope of making a pilgrimage, the accounts represented a conjunction between a real experience of a spiritual world and a spiritual experience of a real world that they could not hope to undergo themselves.

Such aspirations might seem exorbitant given the simplicity of the Bordeaux Pilgrim's account, but not in light of the impetus given to the genre by St Jerome. Paula, whom he accompanied on a pilgrimage through the holy land from 384- 386, clearly seeks a sensible communion with the Holy Spirit by means of the sacred places, and Jerome clearly intends the reader to be sensibly affected by her experience. As a prelude to the transcendent event that will occur in the presence of Christ's birthplace, Jerome describes Paula's transports before the objects associated with the Passion. She verges on the mystical, but remains this side of it: Prostrataque ante crucem, quasi pendentem Dominum cerneret, adorabat; ingressa sepulcrum resurrectionis osculabatur lapidem, quem ab ostio monumenti amoverat an- gelus, & ipsum corporis locum, in quo Dominus iacuerat, quasi sitiens desideratas aquas, fideli ore lambebat. Quid ibi lacrimarum, quantum gemituum, quid doloris effuderit, testis est cuncta Hierosolyma, testis est ipse Dominus, quem rogabat.1s

In Bethlehem, the physical transports give way to a true vision. Before her eyes, the whole pageant of the birth unfolds, not as a fixed, static image, but as naturally as any scene of human activity: Atque inde Bethlehem ingressa & in specum salvatoris introiens, postquam vidit sacrum virginis diversorium & stabulum, in quo agnovit bos possessorem suum & asinus presepe Domini sui, ut illud impleretur, quod in eodem propheta scriptum est: Beatus, qui seminat super aquas, ubi bos & asinus calcant, ME AUDIENTE IURABAT CERNERE SE OCULIS FIDEI INFANTEM PANNIS INVOLUTUM VAGIENTEM IN PRESEPE DOMINUM, MAGOS ADORANTES, STELLAM FULGENTEM DESUPER, MAT- REM VIRGINEM, NUTRITIUM SEDULUM, PASTORES NOCTE VENIENTES, UT VIDERENT VERBUM, QUOD FACTUM ERAT, & IAM TUNC EVANGELISTE IOHANNIS PRINCIPIUM DEDICARENT: In principio erat verbum, & verbum caro factum est, PARVULOS INTERFECTOS, HERODEM SEVIENTEM, IOSEPH &

1" Sancti Hieronymi, Peregrinatio Sanctac Paulae. Tobler, p. 38. (Translation, PPTS, The Pil- grimage of the H1oly Paula [London, 18961, pp. 5-6.)




MARIAM FUGIENTES IN EGYPTUM. Mixtisque gaudio lacrimis loquebatur: Salve, Bethlehem, domus panis, in qua natus est ille panis, qui de coelo descendit ... Et ego misera atque peccatrix, digna sum iudicata deosculari presepe, in quo Dominus parvulus vagiit, orare in spelunca, in qua virgo puerpera Dominum fudit infantem? Hec requies mea, QUIA DOMINI MEI PATRIA EST; HIC HABITABO, QUONIAM SALVATOR ELEGIT EAM.18

The immediacy of Paula's experience of the past when compared with that of the Bordeaux Pilgrim derives not entirely from her evident emotionalism. If her imagination takes fire, there is also a far greater inventory of sacred objects to stimulate it than had been available to her predecessor fifty years earlier. Taking only these two brief passages as indicative, we find that Paula could view the True Cross, touch the precise spot where Christ's body had lain, as well as the stone that had sealed the entrance to the tomb.

But can we say that an increased inventory of sacred objects in itself accounts for the difference between the two Peregrinationes? Must we not also discern an implied difference in purpose in the two accounts? More exactly, may we not say that St Jerome makes clear what the Bordeaux Pilgrim only infers? In the "Letter to Marcella," one sees vividly how Jerome urges the past in terms of the here and now. He postulates a figurative view, by which, in a very real sense, the past can be transmuted to lived experience. "Come to the Holy Land," Paula urges Marcella, "to see Lazarus come forth bound with grave clothes, and to see the waters of the Jordan purer from the baptism of the Lord . .. to gaze upon Amos, the prophet, even now lamenting with his shepherd's horn, on his rock...." Videre exire Lazarum fasciis colligatum, & fluenta lordanis ad lavacrum Domini pur- iora ... Amos prophetam etiam nunc buccina pastorali in sua conspicere rupe plangen- tem"7

The principle extends beyond the contemplation of sacred objects to the point of affecting the perception of everday life. When Paula describes a pastoral scene in Bethlehem, we need no gloss to tell us that her view of reality has been affected by her quest for the spiritual Bethlehem. Metamorphosized, Bethlehem takes on the appearance of earthly paradise; its inhabitants, communicants: In Christi vero, ut supra diximus, villula tota rusticitas &, extra psalmos, silentium est. Quocumque te verteris, arator, stivam tenens, alleluia decantat. Sudans, messor psalmis se avocat &, curva attondens vitem falce vinitor aliquid Davidicum canit. Hec sunt in hac provincia carmina, he, ut vulgo dicitur, amatorie cantationes, hic pastorum sibilus, hec arma culture. Verum quid agimus, nec quid deceat cogitantes, solum quod cupimus, hoc videmus.18

16 Ibid., Tobler, p. 88. (Translation, PPTS, Pilgrimage, pp. 7-8.) Jerome's literary efforts "to make Bethlehem conspicuous and an object of veneration to all" were translated by a later generation into terms of stone masonry and architecture. Antoninus Martyr (ch. XXIX) ascribes to Jerome's own hand the carving over the entrance to the cave of the nativity, and the construction of his own tomb. Hieronymus presbyter in ipso ore spelunce ipsam petrem 8culpsit, & monumentum sibifecit ubi & posita est. Tobler, p. 107.

17 Tobler, p. 46. 18 Tobler, p. 46. (Translation, PPTS, Letter of Paula and Eustochium to Marcella [London, 1896], p.

18.)




The force of Jerome's Peregrinatio Sanctae Paulae and the Epistola ad Marcel- lam owes much to the eloquence of their rhetoric. But the effectiveness of the rhetoric, in turn, depends on the immersion of the documents in real places and objects. Without the specificity of reference, e.g., arator, stivam tenens; curva attondens vitem falce vinitor; Hierosylyma; prostrataque ante crucem; ingressa sepulcrum resurrectionis; ipsum corporis locum, Jerome's eloquence would have failed to convey the immediacy of Paula's experience. Her transports stand up because they point outside herself, outside of the account to the specific objects that stimulated her. Real and verifiable, these places lend reality to her double register of time and place. We, of course, recognize that the reality of the sites was a fact of their being-in-the-present, their being-for-her and not, as she thought, a guarantee of their historical authenticity. Nevertheless, the skeptic who would invalidate the experience by denying the historical authenticity of the objects that occasioned it misses the point. Jerome and the Paula he presents believe in the historical authenticity of the objects because, in seeing them, in touching them, in kissing them, they could see and understand the force of the scriptural past in their own lives. In so far, then, as the objects and sites inspired in Paula, in Jerome a subjective representation of the past, a representation preserved in the Peregrinatio, and the Epi8tola, the objects, as appearances, were indeed authentic.

Jerome's account may offer an eloquent example of the effect of the subjective view of the past upon the viewer, but we must look elsewhere for a good illustra- tion of the mechanics of the phenomenon, We must turn, in fact, to the Itinera- rium Egeriae, written, in all probability by a Galician Abbess in the early fifth century.19 Her account provides an invaluable view of the interaction of legend and life in the perception of the past. In the first place, we see from her account that legend needed to be made manifest by association with a prominent physical landmark, something that dominated the site and provided a frame of reference for the historical events supposedly enacted there. Secondly, the physical setting, once established, had to be idealized to accept more pliantly the imprint of the legendary account.

Both of these processes may be observed in Egeria's account of the Biblical Salim, called Sedima in her time. Impressive ruins that dominated the scene as one drew near the city had been identified by local legend as the palace of Mel-

19 The Itinerarium Egeriae or Peregrinatio Aetheriae vel Sanctae Silviae as it has been variously known was discovered in 1884 by the Italian scholar Gamurrini. Gamurrini identified the anonymous author, a woman, with St Sylvia, the sister or sister-in-law of the prefect Rufinus, and so published his find in 1887 under the title S. Hilarii tractatus de mysteriis et hymni et S. Silviae Aquitanae peregrinatio ad loca sancta. In 1903, Dom Ferotin published an article in the Revue des Questions historiques, 74 (1903), 367-397, in which he identified the author as a Gallician nun named Aetheria. The identification has been generally accepted, but since 1936, the form "Aetheria" has been rejected in favor of "Egeria" (see the article by Dom Lambert in the Revue Mabillon, 25 [1986)], 71-94). The date of the Itinerarium has been more difficult to determine. 394-415 seems the most likely period on internal grounds, but a recent article hrs suggested 415-418 (see Harry J. Leon, "A Medieval Nun's Diary," The Classical Journal, 59 [1963], 122). The standard edition, and that from which all quotations will be taken, is by Otto Prinz (5th edition, Heidelberg, 1960).




chisadech, a minor King mentioned in Genesis xiv 17-24, who had performed the first communion by offering Abraham bread and wine. The ruins assume a tremendous importance in Egeria's text; again and again she draws our attention to them. They provide the point of orientation for the events and stand as proof of the authenticity of legend. More important, however, is their function as guarantor for the situating of the fountain of John the Baptist, an even greater attraction than the palace itself. As Egeria walks the two hundred paces from the ruins to the fountain with the guide, she perceives the physical setting in such a way as to afford maximum esthetic and spiritual inspiration. XV.2.... Statim ergo cepimus ire cum eo pedibus totum per uallem amenissimam, donec perueniremus usque ad hortum pomarium ualde amenum, ubi ostendit nobis in medio fontem aquae optime satis et pure, qui a semel integrum fluuium dimittebat.

As described here, the site has been idealized into a locus amoenus, and yet the idealization may only in part be due to Egeria. A few lines further on, we find the site to be inhabited by monks who cultivate it extensively with the aid of the water from the stream. In effect, the monks have applied Constantine's maxim of "making conspicuous and an object of veneration to all" to the natural setting of the springs. Instead of a building to set off the site of John the Baptist's labors, they have created an earthly paradise in miniature.

Egeria's remarks about the site artfully incorporate the proofs of its identification. In the first place, the physical description of the fountain is so structured as to make apparent the fountain's suitability for the work of baptism engaged in by St John. "That fountain had in front of it a kind of pool, where it appeared that St John the Baptist had worked" (Habebat autem ante ipse fons quasi lacum, ubi parebat fuisse operatum sanctum Johannem baptistam). Several lines later, we shall learn that "to this very day" (usque in hodierna die) the catechumens (candidates for baptism) are brought from the church of Mel- chisedech to be baptized in the fountain. Secondly, the priest-guide cites the name of the fountain, in Greek and in Latin:20 XV...... In hodie hic hortus aliter non appellatur greco sermone nisi cepos tu agiu Iohanni (K,ro TroV alylov 'Icwavvqs) id est quod uos dicitis latine hortus sancti Iohannis.

The final proof of the site's authenticity occurs with the reading of the appro- priate scriptural passage and the singing of a psalm, a simple act practiced at all the holy places and which we might construe as symbolic of the interpenetration of life and literature: XV.4. Denuo ergo et ad ipsum fontem, sicut et in singulis locis, facta est oratio et lecta est ipsa lectio; dictus etiam psalmus competens et singula, quae consuetudinis nobis erant facere, ubicumque ad loca sancta ueniebamus, ita et ibi fecimus.

20 Parenthetically, one should note the cachet of realism achieved by Egeria, here and elsewhere, through the use of such realistic linguistic touches as the direct quotations of the priest-guides and the use of Greek words and phrases. The latter also serve to remind the reader that Palestine lay in the Eastern territory where Greek was the official language. On the Latinized forms of Greek words adopted by Egeria, see Edward A. Bechtel, "Sanctae Silviae Peregrinatio," Chicago Studies in Clas- sical Philology, 4 (1907), 128-132, and A. Ernout, "Les mots grecs dans la Peregrinatio Aetheriae," Emerita, 20 (1952), 289-307.




The simple service transforms the visit from an act of tourisme to an act of faith, a profession of belief that the spot is what it appears. But the continuing faith that transforms the site remains that of the monks who live there, daily toiling and praying in the belief that they are manifesting the spirit of St John. Egeria even portrays them symbolically rebaptizing themselves: XV.3.... Nam et multi fratres sancti monachi de diuersis locis uenientes tendunt se, ut lauentur in eo loco. an unimpeachable sign of their faith in the authenticity of the site.

Given such an attitude, we can understand the relative ease by which legendary events, for which little or no contemporary historical supporting evidence could be adduced, were raised to the power of authentic historical happenings. Here again Egeria offers valuable testimony. One of the cities she wished to view was Edessa, the center of a fascinating complex of lengeds emanating from an alleged exchange of letters between King Abgar and Christ. Egeria says she wishes to go to Edessa: XVII.... nec non etiam et gratia orationis ad martyrium sancti Thomae apostoli, ubi corpus illius integrum positum est, id est apud Edessam, quem se illuc missurum, posteaquam in caelis ascendisset, Deus noster lesus testatus est per epistolam, quam ad Ag- garum regem per Ananiam cursorem misit, que epistolam cum grandi reverentia apud Edessam civitatem, ubi est ipsud martyrium, custoditur.

Appropriately enough, the earliest literary adumbration of the legend occurs in Eusebius's Historia Ecclesiasticae (311-323)21 and is thus contemporaneous with the beginning of the first period of pilgrimages to the Holy Land. As preserved by Eusebius, the legend is relatively restrained, with three main elements: (1) a gentile king, Agbar, believed in Christ's divinity before ever seeing Him, and thus fulfilled the prophecy that "those who have seen me will not believe on me, and that those who have not seen me will believe and live"; (2) Christ answered Abgar by a letter in which he prophesied that he would send a disciple on a mission to Edessa after His own death; (3) the prophecy did indeed come true, for Abgar was cured of his illness by Thaddeus, sent by Thomas, following Christ's death. To these three elements, we might add another, the news that the holograph document could be seen in Edessa, in proof of which Eusebius cites the contents. Eusebius's account keeps by and large to these main elements. Subsequently, the legend assumed broader proportions until it eventually ex- tended to a mandate of miraculous protection of the city itself.

What interests us in the two accounts, however, is less the difference in the facts as presented by Eusebius and Egeria than the striking difference in presentation. Looking briefly at Eusebius, we find an almost classical specimen of historiography. Facts are presented, documents are quoted, scenes recreated replete with direct discourse and character delineation. The author tends to efface himself in favor of the historical re-creation. There is no feeling of signifi-

21 "La forme la plus ancenne de la l6gende d'Abgar (Apkar) parait etre celle que nous trouvons dans Eus6be (H. E., I, xiii, 5). fl a puis6, dit-il, ses documents dans les archives de la cour d'Edesse, et il nous donne une traduction grecque litt6rale du texte syriaque." Dictionnaire d'Histoire et de Geo- graphie Ecclsiastiques, i, 113-114.




cant personal experience or revelation, above all, no perceptible emotional in- volvement.

XIII. The manner of the narrative concerning Thaddaeus is as follows. The divinity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ became famous among all men because of his wonder-working power, and led to him myriads even of those who in foreign lands were far remote from Judaea, in the hope of healing from diseases and from all kinds of sufferings. In this way King Abgar, the celebrated monarch of the nations beyond the Euphrates, perishing from terrible suffering in his body, beyond human power to heal, when he heard much of the name of Jesus and of the miracles attested unanimously by all men, became his suppliant and sent to him by the bearer of a letter, asking to find relief from his disease. Jesus did not give heed to his request at the time, yet vouchsafed him a letter of his own, promising to send one of his disciples for the cure of his disease, and for the salvation alike of himself and of all his relations. Nor were the terms of his promise long in being fulfilled. After his resurrection from the dead and return into heaven, Thomas, one of the twelve apostles, was divinely moved to send to Edessa Thaddaeus, who was himself reckoned among the number of the Seventy disciples, as herald and evangelist of the teaching about Christ, and through him all the terms of our Saviour's promise received fulfillment. There is also docu- mentary evidence of these things taken from the archives at Edessa which was at that time a capital city. At least, in the public documents there, which contain the things done in antiquity and at the time of Abgar, these things too are found preserved from that time to this; but there is nothing equal to hearing the letters themselves, which we have ex- tracted from the archives, and when translated from the Syriac they are verbally as follows:

A copy of a letter written by Abgar the Toparch to Jesus and sent to him to Jerusalem by the courier Ananias: 'Abgar Uchama, the Toparch, to Jesus the good Savior who has appeared in the district of Jerusalem, greeting. I have heard concerning you and your cures, how they are accomplished by you without drugs and herbs. For, as the story goes, you make the blind recover their sight, the lame walk, and you cleanse lepers, and cast out unclean spirits and demons, and you cure those who are tortured by long disease and you raise dead men. And when I heard all these things concerning you I decided that it is one of the two, either that you are God, and came down from heaven to do these things, or are a Son of God for doing these things. For this reason I write to beg you to hasten to me and to heal the suffering which I have. Moreover I heard that the Jews are mocking you, and wish to ill-treat you. Now I have a city very small and venerable whicb is enough for both.'

The reply from Jesus to Abgar, the Toparch, by the courier Ananias: 'Blessed are thou who didst believe in me not having seen me, for it is written concerning me that those who have seen me will not believe on me, and that those who have not seen me will believe and live. Now concerning what you wrote to me, to come to you, I must first comolete here all for which I was sent, and after thus completing it be taken up to him who sent me, and when I have been taken up, I will send to you one of my disciples to heal your suffering, and give life to you and those with you.'22

The liveliest part of Eusebius's account lies in the confrontation of Thaddaeus and Abgar, but although he claims to be translating a Syrian document, one suspects the re-creation to be due, in large part, to Eusebius' own imagination.

22 Translated by Kirsopp Lake, Loeb Classical Library, 153 (Cambridge, 1959), 85, 87, 89, 91. The Syrian original of the letters Eusebius purportedly saw are quoted in French translation by Rubens Duval, "Historie politique, religieuse et litt6raire d'Edesse jusqu'A la premiere croisade," Journal asiatique, 8e s6rie, 18 (1891), 236-238.




In any case, with the exception of the initial reference to the documents con- served there, no mention of the modern Edessa or its monuments occurs.

As we might expect, Egeria's viewpoint is very much one of personal involve- ment with the city and its artifacts. The letters, especially Christ's letter (she speaks always of epistola) constitute the focal point of a temporal and spatial view that superimposes the city of Abgar on the modern Edessa, the present visit on a series of past events constituting the different elements of the legend. Her attempt to communicate the experience of this temporal and spatial mosaic to her dominae venerabilis sorores dominates the passage, causing her to return again and again to the letter.23

In relation to the chapter as a whole, Christ's letter, like the ruins of Melchise- dech's palace, constitutes a point de repere, providing meaning, authentication and structure. In view of its central position, the reader may be somewhat taken aback to find that, unlike Eusebius, and even though she possesses a copy of it, Egeria chooses not to include a transcript of the letter itself. Instead, she offers a dramatic interpretation, incorporating in a composite view not only the content of the letter itself, but also the legendary accretions. In short, whereas Eusebius chooses to present the letter itself, and its immediate context, Egeria offers the total context, representing everything the letter had become by the time of her visit.

Perhaps for apologetic reasons, more likely for dramatic effect, and almost certainly because that is how she first saw it, Egeria presents the city to us through the person of a guide, the Bishop of Edessa. XIX.5.... 'Quoniam uideo te, filia, gratia religionis tam magnum laborem tibi imposuisse, ut de extremis porro terris uenires ad haec loca, itaque ergo, si libenter habes, quaecum- qua loca sunt hic grata ad uidendum christianis, ostendimus tibi.'

He first takes Egeria to Abgar's palace, pointing out the statues (archiotipae) of King Abgar and his son Maani. As with practically every artifact, Egeria views the statues simultaneously as statues, that is as works of art whose craftsmanship merits comment, and as literally standing for the human beings they allegedly represent. Without the slightest qualm, she infers qualities of character of King Abgar and his son from the statues, while admiring their artistry: XIX. 6. Itaque ergo, duxit me primum ad palatium Aggari regis et ibi ostendit michi archiotepam ipsius ingens, simillimam, ut ipsi dicebant, marmoream, tanti nitoris ac si de margarita esset; in cuius Aggari uultu parebat de contra uere fuisse hunc uirum satis sapientem et honoratum.

With attention thus fixed on Abgar's image, the Bishop adroitly reminds the audience that this man's faith inspired Christ's letter. "Then the holy Bishop said to me: 'Behold King Abgar, who, before he had seen the Lord, believed of Him that He was truly the Son of God" (XIX. 6 ... Tunc ait michi sanctus

23 The letter is mentioned eight times in the chapter. Leo Spitzer makes this point as part of a philological and stylistic argument regarding the use of the demonstrative adjective ipse. On this point, and for comments regarding the rhetorical relationship of past and present in the Itinerarium, see his article, "The Epic Style of the Pilgrim Aetheria," Romanische Literaturstudien (Tubingen, 1959), p. 876 (reprinted from Comparative Literature, I [1949], 225-258).




episcopus: "Ecce rex Aggarus, qui antequam uideret Dominum, credidit ei, quia esset uere filius Dei").

The real drama unfolds when the party moves from the antechamber to the interior of the palace. There, a series of fountains, stocked with exotic fish, arrest the eye just as the statues did. The awe occasioned by the physical appearance of the fountains leads naturally to an interest in their origin; this, in turn, opens the way to an exposition of their relation to the history of the city, or an important aspect of it. As we might expect, the historical account thus elicited attests to the miraculous quality of Christ's letter, but more significantly still, gives substance to the experience Egeria seeks to convey.24 Item perintrauimus in interiori parte palatii; et ibi erant fontes piscibus pleni, quales ego adhuc nunquam uidi, id est tantae magnitudinis et uel tam perlustres aut tam boni saporis. Nam ipsa ciuitas aliam aquam penitus non habet nunc nisi eam, quae de palatio exit, quae est ac si fluuius ingens argenteus. 8. Et tunc retulit michi de ipsa aqua sic sanctus episcopus dicens: 'Quodam tempore, posteaquam scripserat Aggarus rex ad Dominum et Dominus rescripserat Aggaro per Ananiam cursorem, sicut scriptum est in ipsa epistola: transacto ergo aliquanto tempore superueniunt Persi et girant ciuitatem istam. 9. Sed statim Aggarus epistolam Domini ferens ad portam cum omni exercitu suo publice orauit. Et post dixit: 'Domine Iesu, tu promiseras nobis, ne aliquis hostium ingrederetur ciuitatem istam, et ecce nunc Persae inpugnant nos.' Quod cum dixisset tenens manibus leuatis epistolam ipsam apertam rex, ad subito tantae tenebrae factae sunt, foras ciuitatem tamen ante oculos Persarum, cum iam prope plicarent ciuitati, ita ut usque tertium miliarum de ciuitate essent: sed ita mox tenebris turbati sunt, ut uix castra ponerent et pergirarent in miliario tertio totam ciuitatem.... 11. Postmodum autem, cum uiderent se nullo modo posse ingredi in ciuitatem, uoluerunt siti eos occidere, qui in ciuitate erant. Nam monticulum istum, quem uides, filia, super ciuitate hac, in illo tempore ipse huic ciuitati aquam minis- trabat. Tunc uidentes hoc Persae auerterunt ipsam aquam a ciuitate et fecerunt ei de- cursum contra ipso loco, ubi ipsa castra posita habebant. 12. In ea ergo die et in ea hora, qua auerterant Persae aquam, statim hii fontes, quos uides in eo loco, iusso Dei a semel eruperunt: ex ea die hi fontes usque in hodie permanent hic gratia Dei. Ila autem aqua, quam Persae auerterant, ita siccata est in ea hora, ut nec ipsi haberent uel una die quod biberent, qui obsedebant ciuitatem, sicut tamen et usque in hodie apparet; nam postea numquam nec qualiscumque humor ibi apparuit usque in hodie. 13. Ac si iubente Deo, qui hoc promiserat futurum, necesse fuit eos statim reuerti ad sua, id est in Persida. Nam et postmodum quotienscumque uoluerunt uenire et expugnare hanc ciuitatem hostes, haec epistola prolata est et lecta est in porta, et statim nutu Dei expulsi sunt omnes hostes'21

24 Duval substantiates at least a part of Egeria's account of the fountains, although certainly not that pertaining to their miraculous origin:

A l'interieur de la ville, du c6t6 de la citadelle, se trouve le celebre etang alimente par les eaux souterraines du plateau environnant la ville du c6t6 sud-ouest. Cet etang avait valu a Edesse le nom de Callirhoe 'La ville aux belles eaux' selon Pline (Hist. nat., v, 21, 1). Il jouit d'une veneration qui remonte certainement aux temps les plus recules; ses nombreux poissons sont sacres aux yeux des musulmans actuels. I1 est probable qu'il etait autrefois consacre a la deesse Athargatis. Plus tard, lorsque le paganisme disparut et que ses traditions se perdirent, il devint, sans doute par la litterature apocryphe judeo-chretienne, I'Etang d'Abraham... nom sous lequel il est design6 aujourd'hui.

Journal asiatique, 18 (1891), 92. 25 Duval, ibid., 244-245, reports an extension of the letter unknown to Eusebius, but clearly current

at the time of Egeria's visit. The expanded letter closed with the following benediction of the city itself: "Ta ville sera b6nie et aucun ennemi ne prevaudra plus contre elle." Procopius also knew the ex-




Dramatically, this account marks the high point of the chapter, but two acts remain to be performed: a visit to the gate through which Ananias passed bearing the letter, and the reading of the letter itself. XIX. 16. Postea ergo quam haec omnia retulit sanctus episcopus, ait ad me: 'Eamus nunc ad portam, per quam ingressus est Ananias cursor cum illa epistola, quam dixeram.' Cum ergo uenissemus ad portam ipsam, stans episcopus fecit orationemn et legit nobis ibi ipsas epistolas et denuo benedicens nos facta est iterato oratio. 17. Illud etiam retulit nobis sanctus ipse dicens, eo quod ex ea die, qua Ananias cursor per ipsam portam ingressus est cum epistolam Domini, usque in praesentem diem custodiatur, ne quis immundus, ne quis lugubris per ipsam portam transeat, sed nec corpus alicuius mortui eiicatur per ipsam portam.'

Egeria's final announcement that she has obtained a copy of the letter comes almost as an anticlimax, although she clearly takes pride in the relic. The sense of anticlimax may be directly traced to her success in representing Christ's letter as something more than the interesting historical document it appeared in Eusebius' account, something more than a mere letter. Indeed, Egeria, and the reader, do not know the letter simply as a document. Egeria gives her account of an experience, physical and spiritual, for which Christ's letter affords the unity and significance: the martyr's monument, the statues, the fountains, the palace, the city gate, the Bishop and other persons and things all form part of Egeria's experience of the letter. In as much as this experience is wholly her own, is what she contributes through her account to the Abgar legend, and in as much as all these things constitute the meaning of the letter for her, we can safely say that the experience is of greater importance than the actual letter itself. In this respect, Egeria differs profoundly from Eusebius: in attempting to present her own experence of the past and present, she comes to the brink of imaginative literature.

What one usually means by imaginative literature is the ascendency of the subjective view over the objective, the preference for the evidence of one's own senses. An atmosphere in which historical differentiation lacks, and where legend finds itself easily raised to the power of an authentic historical event cannot help but consist in large part of the reasoning process usually associated with imaginative literature. If we turn for one final example to the story of the tombs of Bathuel and Nahor at Charon (Carrhae), we shall catch this imaginative reasoning process in mid-flight. The scene is the more striking in that one finds not only an authoritative historical judgment supported by a direct appeal to the evidence of the senses, but even an appeal to the senses taking precedence over scriptural authority.

panded legend and relates an incident purported to have occurred in 540 that shows a marked similar- ity to Egeria's story. The incident, too long to repeat here, concerns the campaign of Chosroes against Edessa in 540. Procopius does say of the letter: "And they say that He added this also that never would the city be liable to capture by the barbarians. This final portion of the letter was entirely unknown to those who wrote the history of that time; for they did not even make mention of it any- where; but the men of Edessa say that they found it with the letter, so that they have even caused the letter to be inscribed in this form upon the gates of the city instead of any other defence." Hiet. 2.12, 26-27. Translation by H. B. Dewing, Loeb Classical Library, 48 (Cambridge, 1954), 369, 371.




Genesis xi 31 recounts that Abraham's father, Terah, "took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife, and went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came into Charan and dwelt there." Charan lies close to Edessa in Mesopotamia. Egeria comes there with the intention of viewing Abraham's house and the well from which Rebecca drew water for the camels of Abraham's servant when he came seeking a wife for Isaac. The Bishop of the place informs her that in addition to these sites, she may view the tombs of Bathuel and Nahor, the father and grandfather respectively of Rebecca. Speaking in the first person, one of the rare occasions when she does so, Egeria says to the Bishop: XX. 9.... Tunc ego dixi: 'Sanctum Abraam cum patre Thara et Sarra uxore et Loth fratris filio scio per scripturas in eo loco uenisse; Naor autem uel Bathubelem non legi, quando in isto loco transierint, nisi quod hoc solum scio, quia postmodum puer Abraae, ut peteret Rebeccam, filiam Bathuhelis, filii Nahor, filio domini sui Abraae, id est Ysaac, in Charra uenerit.'

The mechanics of Egeria's question seem simple enough: "Here are the tombs, but what scriptural references can be adduced to attest to the migration of these men to the city?" Egeria need not be questioning the authenticity of the tombs, simply asking for a point of information. We certainly expect the Bishop to reply that the four references to Charon in Genesis xxiv - one of which specifically refers to Charon as "the city of Nahor" - the reference in Genesis xxviii 2 plac- ing the house of Bathuel at Charon, and finally the testimony of Genesis xxix 4, all provide ample attestation to the coming of the men in question to the city. In answer, however, he turns not to this impressive Biblical documentation, at least not in the first instance, but to the presence of the tombs themselves. Only in the second place does he call upon the authority of the Bible, even then re- ferring vaguely to events, rather than to the specific passages identified with Nahor and Bathuel. XX. 10. Tunc ait michi sanctus episcopus: 'Uere, filia, scriptum est, sicut dicis, in Genesi sanctum Abraham hic transisse cum suis; Nachor, autem cum suis uel Bathuhelem non dicit scriptura canonis, quo tempore transierint. SED MANIFESTE POSTMODUM HIC TRANSIERUNT ET IPSI; DENIQUE ET MEMORIAE ILLORUM RIC SUNT FORTE AD MILLE PASSUS DE CIUITATE. Nam uere scriptura hoc testatur, quoniam ad accipiendam sanctam Rebeccam huc uenerit puer sancti Abraae et denuo sanctus Iacob hic uenerit, quando accepit filias Laban Syri.'21

The Bishop's attitude demonstrates strikingly how large a role the legends, inspired by tangible artifacts, played not only in shaping the perspective by which the pilgrims saw the sites and artifacts, but in determining the way they

26 We find a similar reasoning process supporting a more improbable legend in Antoninus Martyr (ch. xxv) where he speaks of a stone pillar not far from St Stephen's Gate, Jerusalem. It is the very pillar, he says, "to which the Lord was first led to be scourged." The pillar was "raised by a cloud and flew away and was deposited in this place. This is known to be true because the pillar has no foundation where there ought to be one, but merely stands upon the earth and may be moved." (Et in tantum cognoscitur verum esse, quia non baim habet, ubi debet essefundata, sed sic stat super terram. Tobler, p. 106.)




wrote about their experiences. The mere fact of seeing the past from so subjective a viewpoint assured a continuing production. Although we may feel the Itiner- arium Egeriae to be a landmark in first-hand pilgrim accounts, there are many later peregrinationes that cover much the same ground found in Egeria, Jerome, or the Bordeaux Pilgrim. One peregrinatio led to another because later pilgrims felt the need to tell what they had seen and experienced. The sum of the pilgrim accounts is a progressively expanding inventory of objects, sites and legends seen, heard, and visited by the pilgrims. From Jerome to Arculfus to Ernoul and beyond, the peregrinationes demonstrate that it is the experience of the present which determined how the past was to be viewed and represented.27

II Now, if we return to the problem of the Old French epic, we shall find that

some of the fundamental principles underlying the creation and propagation of the peregrinatio may be observed in the chanson de geste. This should hardly surprise us when we remember that both genres were concerned with the evoca- tion of the past in the present, and that both relied heavily upon a combination of literary tradition, physical evidence, and legend. The peregrinatio began in the fourth century and continued throughout the Middle Ages; the chanson de geste first appeared at the end of the eleventh century and continued to the Renais- sance. Like the peregrinatio, the chanson de geste developed by exploring new material, on the one hand, and by creating new poems on traditional themes, on the other.

Being a poetic, rather than a prose genre, and being more explicitly imaginative, the chanson de geste showed greater sensitivity to literary innovation. But we would not expect to find an absolute correlation between the two genres; they were obviously not identical. All the same, it would be extremely foolish to overlook the lesson taught by the undeniable similarities of mode between them.

In the space remaining, I would like to demonstrate the working of what we might call the "peregrinatio principle" in the creation of the so-called reworkings of the chanson de geste. The specific texts considered will be the Digby 23 or Oxford version of the Song of Roland and the Venice IV version. The latter part of the Digby 23 consists of three episodes which take place during and after Charlemagne's return from Spain. In order, they are the burial of the heroes at Blaye; the death of Roland's fiancee Aude immediately upon hearing of his

27 Arculfi relatio de Locis Sanctis scripta ab Adamno (ca 670), Tobler, pp. 139-202. Almost any page of his work confirms this, but one is particularly struck by his genius for investing even the most prosaic of actions with metaphysical portent. In chapter one of the first book, for example, he describes how, following the annual fair in September, the rains fall abundantly, cleansing the streets of the offal left by the crowds and pack animals. He then suggests that, in founding the city, God had so placed it geographically as to facilitate this cleansing. Arculfus suggests that He made this disposition to prevent the city containing Christ's relics from remaining filthy. In relation to the founding of the city, Christ's passion was a recent event in the seventh century, while the mercantile fair, as Arculfus describes it, was still more recent.

Ernoul, L'Estat de la Cite db Jherusalem (ca 1187) understands the basilica built by Constantine to have been extant at the time of the Passion. V. Michelant & Raynaud, ItinAraires a Jersualem (Soci- W de I'orient latin (Geneva, 1882), pp. 24-925.




death; and the trial of Ganelon. As presented, the three episodes follow one another with little or no transition, and with only the implication of a link with what has gone before. For example, we know that Ganelon conspired to betray the rear guard, and that, as a result, he must be tried. From' the moment of his arrest in lines 1816-20, however, to the moment when the trial begins some two thousand lines later (1. 3750), Ganelon does not figure in the narrative.

The episodes are different in nature as well as in presentation. Although they function imaginatively, more or less, within the poem itself, the first, that is the burial of the heroes at Blaye, represents the kind of fact that can be linked to an historical site having a real existence quite outside the framework of the poem. The second episode, the death of Aude, is the kind of story that could easily lend itself to legendary elaboration beyond the immediate confines of the poein, especially if associated with the historical site suggested by the first episode. The third of these motifs, however, the trial of Ganelon, is a poetic fact purely and simply. It would not especially lend itself to identification with a particular historical site, and would be less liable to independent legendary elaboration.

From this point of view, one can easily see that the account of the burial of the heroes at Blaye, rather briefly but very specifically treated by Turold, had the greatest potential for subsequent expansion along the lines suggested by the peregrinatio principle. After the battlefield itself, the tombs at Blaye were the only sites that could be linked to specific and accessible places in France.

Turold takes pains to indicate the precise location of the tombs and suggests that they were popular pilgrim attractions. His account, in laisse CCLXVII, states that Charles stopped at Bordeaux where he placed Roland's horn, used to recall the main army to Roncevaux, on the altar of St Seurin where it might still be seen by visiting pilgrims:

Vint a Burdeles, la citet de.** Desur I'alter seint Severin le baron Met l'oliphan plein d'or e de manguns: Li pelerin le veient ki la vunt. (3684-87)28

Then, crossing the Gironde from Bordeaux to Blaye, Charles attends to the burial of Roland, Olivier, and Turpin, the principal heroes of the battle of Roncevaux. As with the disposition of the horn, Turold gives the precise church in which the tombs stood:

Passe Girunde a mult granz nefs qu'i sunt; Entresque a Blaive ad cunduit sun nevold E Oliver, son nobilie cumpaignun, E I'arcevesque, ki fut sages e proz. En blancs sarcous fait metre les seignurs A Seint Romain; la gisent li baron. Francs les cumandent a Deu e a ses nuns. (3688-94)

Although we should hardly expect to seek evidence for the interment of imaginary heroes, the twelfth century was less categorical. There is evidence

28 Raoul Mortier, Les text de la chanon de Roland (Paris, 1940-44), t. IL La version d'Oxford. AU quotations will be to the relevant volumes of this series.




that mediaeval pilgrims accepted and visited an increasing number of sites connected with the legendary battle during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Leaving Bordeaux and Blaye for the moment, let us return briefly to the traditional battle site. Roncevaux lay in the pass traversed by pilgrims travelling from France to Spain on their way to St James of Compostella. During the first decades of the twelfth century, a number of sites reminiscent of Charlemagne and Roland were to be found in the area. One kilometer north of Roncevaux, there was a monastery originally known as the monasterium Sancti Salvatoris. Sometime between 1110 and 1127, according to Pauphilet, the name of the monastery was changed to the Capella Caroli Magni and still later, by 1150, a Hospi- talis Rotolandi was to be found in the pass.

Describing the pilgrim route through the Pyrenees in the mid-twelfth century, the Liber Sancti Jacobi says that the route took its departure from St Jean Pied-du-Port and St Michelle, and passed through Roncevaux. Along the route, the Liber says, might be found the hospice of Rotolandus and the "church [Char- lemagne's Chapel] near where may be found the rock split by Roland's sword."29 In the same area, a large cross marked the border between Spain and France. The cross, called the crux Caroli, was reputed to have been raised by Charle- magne himself, and marked the southern boundary of the Bishopric of Bayonne, according to a bull of Pope Paschal II issued in the year 1106.30 In 1160, the Chronicle of Vezelay cited Charlemagne's cross as a boundary of French Na- varre.31

For the pilgrims, the cross marked an important stage of their journey: the crossing from France into Spain. We learned from Egeria that pilgrims were in the habit of praying by landmarks which identified important stages in their journeys.32 Menendez-Pidal describes how the pilgrims at Roncevaux would pray at the foot of the crux Caroli, at the point where they first entered Spain.33 In other words, the crux Caroli, like the hospice of Roland and the chapel of Charles were not simply quaint reminders of the epic legend. They were used by the pilgrims and thus served as a real part of the spiritual and physical experience of those who passed through Roncevaux. In this respect, Roncevaux was far more of a reality to the twelfth century than it could have been to an earlier age.

As in Palestine, it was undoubtedly the belief of the pilgrims in the historicity of the epic literature associated with it that led them to make the reality of Roncevaux conform to the poetic accounts and vice-versa. Only a belief that the chansons de geste presented history as it really happened can account for the fact that people altered the names of real places to make them conform to those accounts. The pilgrims who stayed in the hospice of Roland, who heard mass at Charlemagne's chapel, who saw the stone split by Roland's sword, and who prayed at the crux Caroli could really feel that they were following in the foot-

29 Liber Sancti Jacobi, ed. by W. M. Whitehill (Santiago de Compostella, 1944), pp. 330-331. Quoted by Menendez-Pidol, L'histoire epique des Francs (Paris, 1960), p. 228, n. 1.

30 Omnis vallis quae dicitur Cirsia usque ad Karoli crucem. Quoted in ibid., p. 229. 31 Ibid., p. 229. 32 Itinerarium, e.g. i. 2. Consuetudo est, utfiat hic oratio ab his, qui veniunt, quando de eo loco primitus

uidetur mons Dei: sicut et nos feciimus. 33 Men6ndez-Pidal, p. 227.




steps of the heroes who, according to the accounts, had rid Spain of the Saracens and thus made possible the very pilgrimage in which they were then engaged.34 In such an atmosphere, it would have been next to impossible for the alleged epic sites and artifacts not to assume a portentiousness akin to that of the holy places in Palestine.

Nor would that portentiousness have been limited to the sites at Roncevaux. That the tombs at Blaye radiated a similar aura may be seen from the fact that in 1109, Hugh of Fleury concluded his account of the battle of Roncevaux with the words, "whence Roland was carried to the citadel of Blaye and buried."35 Hugh's statement completes an account otherwise largely based on that of Einhard's Vita Caroli (817-830), and thus demonstrates how "official" historiography as well as vernacular literature was influenced by the working of the peregrinatio principle. Hugh knew that the tombs of Roland and Oliver could be found at Blaye; the fact that Einhard mentions nothing of the sort would not lead him to conclude that the tombs were fraudulent, but rather that Einhard had not known the full story. Hugh clearly preferred the evidence of his own time and senses to that of earlier literature.

Hugh was not alone in accepting the authenticity of the tombs at Blaye. The belief persisted throughout the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and into the eighteenth century. In 1526, Francois Ire ordered Roland's tomb to be opened.36 Still later, we learn that the natives of Blaye believed Roland to have been a lord of the city. Moreri's Grand Dictionnaire historique, which ran to twenty-one editions between 1674 and 1759, reports that "Ceux du pais disent que le fameux Roland, neveu de l'Empereur Charlemagne, etoit Seigneur de Blaye, & qu'il fut enterre dans la meme eglise (saint Romain)."37 Once again we are faced by the inade- quacy of our hard and fast distinctions between "history" and "literature," the real and the imagined, the past as we would view it and the past as the Middle Ages saw it.

In light of the subsequent importance of the artifacts at Roncevaux and Blaye, we might well ask whether, from the point of view of a twelfth-century pilgrim who had visited both places, or even heard them described, the Digby version of the Roland really does justice to the beliefs we know to have grown up around the sites? Turold can hardly be said to place the emphasis one might expect upon the events at Blaye in his poem. For that matter, need we limit our questioning of the sufficiency of the latter part of the Digby 23 to the episode at Blaye?

3 Mor6ri's Grand dictionnaire historique gives evidence that as late as the eighteenth century, travellers passing through Roncevaux were shown artifacts associated with Roland and the battle. (18th ed., Amsterdam, 1740), vii, p. 173.

35 Ex quibus Rollandus Blavia castello deportatus est ac sepultus. Historia Ecclesiastica Monumenta Germania, Scriptores, 9, 361. (Quoted by Bedier, op cit., p. 19 and Pauphilet, op. cit., p. 1792.)

36 Pauphilet, p. 174. See also, C. Jullian, "La tombe de Roland A Blaye," Romania, 2Z5 (1896). 37 2, pp. 301-309.. Heroic inhumation seems not to have been a novelty at Saint-Romain. Moreri

reports that a hero named Charibert, who died in 567 "fut inhum6 dans l'egli8e de saint Romain." Like Roland's, Charibert's tomb was destroyed in 1568: Les Huguenots, qui 8urprirent cette vine en 1568, ruinerent tous les lieux sacrez, & n'6pargerent pas ces tombeaux.




We saw how the creative imagination of the peregrinationes authors could interact with even the most slightly suggestive details to expand dramatically the affective field of vision. Paula, Egeria, Antoninus Martyr, and a host of later authors, stimulated by their sympathetic imagination and convinced by their personal participation in the vision of the Holy Land, inexorably elaborated in ever greater detail the holy sites. The transformation constituted a movement away from the concrete artifact, taken in and for itself, toward the imaginative and aesthetic fact from which it derived portentiousness. The making "true," in other words, had to be a "making splendid."

From this viewpoint, what better candidate for imaginative expansion, for "making splendid" the latter part of the Roland than the Aude episode? As presented by Turold, the appearance and death of Aude not only lacks depth, but plausibility. Almost as short a scene as the burial at Blaye, the curious confrontation between Charlemagne and Aude has inspired a good deal of romantic nonsense, of which the following is a good example. Writing of laisses 268-269, Martin de Riquer says: Ce sont vingt-neuf vers merveilleux, oA l'amour fait une fugitive apparition dans le poeme, sans meme y etre nomme; il est presente comme soumis a un tragique destin, qui conduit au trepas. Tout ce que le lecteur savait sur ce personnage feminin se reduit a une courte phrase de deux vers, prononcee par Olivier en pleine bataille de Roncevaux, au moment ou il discute avec Roland, qui a decide de sonner de l'olifant; Olivier lui dit: 'Par ma barbe, si je puis revoir ma gentille soeur Aude, vous ne vous reposerez plus entre ses bras!' C'est la un langage de soldat, qui ne donne pas d'importance aux amourettes. Au moment d'ex- pirer, Roland dirigera son regard vers la terre d'Espagne, il pensera aux royaumes qu'il a conquis pendant sa vie militaire, il se souviendra de la 'douce France,' des bommes de son lignage et de Charlemagne, son seigneur... mais en aucun moment son souvenir ne lui representera Aude la belle, cette jeune fille qui, peu de temps apres, tombera subitement morte lorsqu'on lui dira que Roland ne vit plus.38

One may be lost in admiration for Seflor de Riquer's lyrical reading of the episode, and yet still find something wanting. In fact, the episode utterly lacks the careful preparation and execution that may be found, for example, to underlie the beautiful horn sequence.39 Worse still, a fundamental confusion of viewpoint bars any effective communication between Aude and Charles.

Li empereres est repairet d'Espaigne, E vient a Ais, al meillor sied de France; Muntet el palais, est venut en la sale. As li Alde venue, une bele damisele. go dist al rei: 'O est Rollant le catanie, Ki me jurat cume sa per a prendre?' Carles en ad e dulor e pesance, Pluret des oilz, tiret sa barbe blance: 'Soer, cher'amie, de hume mort me demandes. Jo t'en durrai mult esforcet eschange: go est Loewis, mielz ne sai a parler;

38 Les chansons de gestes frangaises, p. 92. 39 See my article "Roland's Echoing Horn," Romance Notes, 5 (1963-64), 78-84. Line 3713 must be

acknowledged as truly great for its brutal succinctness, similarly Alde's response: Cest mot mei est estrange. Apart from these two lines, however, the strictures hold true.




II est mes filz e si tendrat mes marches.' Alde respunt: 'Cest mot mei est estrange. Ne place Deu ne ses seinz ne ses angles Apres Rollant que jo vive remaigne!' Pert la culor, chet as piez Charlemagne, Sempres est morte. Deus ait mercit de I'anme! Franceis barons en plurent e si la pleignent. (3705-22)

Aude and Charlemagne may be talking to one another, but, except in the most literal sense, they do not speak the same language. Their exchange represents a confrontation of two quite different literary worlds. In dismissing Aude's question about Roland with the words: "You're asking me about a dead man; I'll give you a much better bargain: my son Louis. A better man doesn't breathe and besides he'll eventually hold all my land," Charles speaks as a realist, a practical man of the world concerned only with Realpolitik. George Fenwick Jones quite rightly underlines the entirely pragmatic nature of Charles' attitude toward Roland.40 Their relationship, as portrayed by the Digby version, has little to do with the sentimental qualities we associate with friendship. Practical concerns rather than sentiment dictate Charles' actions.

The Aude who appears and disappears in the eighteen lines we just heard inhabits an entirely different world. Hers is the world of the canso, of the roman courtois where the sentimental ideal of fin amors cuts across practical considera- tions. She shares the ethos of Tristan and Iseut whose search for perfection in love ignores, and even subverts the laws of the practical world. When Aude answers Charles' pragmatic offer with the words: "Cest mot mei est estrange," she means quite literally that Charlemagne's offer and outlook are foreign to her (and not "repugnant" as Jenkins glosses it). To the Charles immersed in an ethos of politics and battle, Aude's assertion: "May it not please God nor his angels that I remain living after Roland," appears equally incomprehensible. It would have appeared so to Roland himself, the Roland whom we found to be incapable of giving so much as a thought to Aude as he lay dying. And so, the Digby Roland condemns Aude to die in a world where neither her motives nor her death can be understood.

The ethical confusion of the Digby version did not go unnoticed. Charle- magne's behavior, to a later audience, appeared of the grossest order, quite out of keeping with the finesse of Aude's sentiments. More seriously, the whole Roland-Aude theme remained undeveloped. By the same token, the failure to emphasize the recovery of the heroes' bodies at Roncevaux and to place the entombment at Blaye in a setting that would make these important sites "conspicuous and an object of veneration to all" seemed insuperable shortcomings. They were not simply passed off as artistic flaws, but as failures on the part of the poet to represent the truth, the entire vision of the Roland material as it could be seen and heard. Unless the poet took these sources into account in creating his poem, he would fail to match the expectations that a later twelfth-century audience would have had.

40 The Ethos of the Song of Roland (Baltimore, 1963), p. 43.




No wonder then that the Digby version was not preserved in a single manu- script in France.4' Nor can we be surprised at finding no less than seven later French or partly French poems on the Roland and a number of versions in other languages, all, as Bedier pointed out, sensibly, subtly different.42

Of the later poems, Venice IV has been generally accepted as the closest to the Digby version. It is certainly not as long as some of the others, but its 6011 lines are nonetheless half again as long as the 4002 of the Digby. Looking at the latter part of V4, one finds a much more closely knit structure, characterized by a tightly-woven narrative pattern and a specific geographic focal point for the action. The latter proves to be Blaye itself, which becomes for the latter part of V4, what Roncevaux is for the first part: the setting on which different narrative forces converge to set in motion a logical and well defined conclusion.

The V4 poet achieved these things in two ways. In the first place, he rightly saw that the burial of Roland as well as Aude's fate are primarily social rather than military concerns. By the same token, the fate of Ganelon, though princi- pally a juridical matter, has important social and political implications. To realize the potential of these motifs, the poet must broaden the military atmosphere of the earlier part of the poem to incorporate a viable social context. In a word, the V4 poet translates Turold's abstract concept of La Dolce France into terms of people, concerned people. Charles himself is the first to reveal the expanded social context by his concern for how the people at home in France will take the news of Roland's death. With great sensitivity, he predicts how they will question the messenger he plans to dispatch:

-'O gentil cont,' dist li enperer puissant, 'Quant ireg por Paris la grant, Le dames et le polgeles vos alira domandant, Demandra vos: 'Por Deo omnipotante, 'O est Carlo li enperer puisant, 'Et Oliver, li palatin Rollant 'Trepin de Raina e i altri conbatant?' (4011-17)43

Then, as though to ward off the blow in advance, he urges the messenger, Her- naut de Beauland, to conceal the truth from them for the moment, at least until he can return with the main part of his army to indicate that all has not been lost.

'O bel cont, menti li, no li dites voirmant: Dites che grant goia a l'inperer puissant. A Pentecoste, nos sereg tut ach Axa retormant.' (4018-20)

Hernaut refuses to perpetrate the fraud, however pious, and the reaction of the people in Paris and Beauland follows Charles' prediction. In Paris, the mourning reaches such proportions as to move even Hernaut to tears. In the face of such

41 Men6ndez-Pidal, La tradition epique des Francs, p. 76. 42 Joc. cit. (n. 7). The explicits of the poems, where they still remain, offer some evidence that the

scribes were conscious of differences in emphasis among the versions. The explicit of Venice IV states, Explicit liber tocius Romani Ronrcivalis. Deo Gracias Amen. The Ch&teauroux version closes with the words: Deo Gratias Amen. Explicit Roncisvali et de. R. [Roland] e d'Oliver e de Aude.

43 Mortier, 2, La version de Venise IV (Paris, 1941).




widespread grief on the part of the civil populace in Paris and Beauland, there can be little doubt that the interment of the heroes, and the location of the tombs, will be of interest to others besides Charles and the army. Indeed, at the moment of the interment, the poet says that "leaders, dukes, storytellers, poor folk, clerks and gentry weep. In the city, the grief was so great that clouds descended and one man could not see another." (5365-5368) Thanks to the vision of the V4 poet, we can measure the significance of Roland's feeling for la douce France by the reciprocal of its regard for him.44

Against the background of social concern for the fate of the heroes, the poet projects the romantic theme of la belle Aude, Whereas Turold had only given a rough adumbration of its socio-political implications by means of Charles' offer to substitute his son Louis for the dead Roland, the V4 poet develops the con- flicting claims of love and politics with sensitivity and drama. This time there will be no question of blind opposition, marred by incomprehension. Charles' situation is rendered the more difficult because he clearly foresees and understands how Aude may react. Within the bounds of his political policy which requires an alliance between his own house and that of Girart de Vienne, he tries to behave in a manner that will soften the blow of Roland's death. When it comes and Aude has chosen to die, she expires in Charles' arms and he grieves as much as her own uncle.

The success of the V4 poet's portrayal of Aude and her love may be directly linked to his choice of Blaye as the geographic focal point of the latter part of the poem. Precisely because she must be brought to Blaye from Vienne, the Aude of Venice IV enters the scene much earlier than her predecessor in the Digby version, and by the time the great confrontation scene with the emperor occurs, she has long since become a subject of dramatic interest. The poet builds slowly to the great scene, shifting the emphasis gradually from Charlemagne to Aude and then to the climax at Blaye. The latter does not take place until Aude has been naturally woven into the narrative pattern to the point where her story becomes the necessary sequence to Roncevaux and the logical prelude to the burial, in which, incidentally, she now takes her part along with Roland and Oliver.

Her story unfolds in five stages. Before leaving Narbonne, Charles dispatches two messengers with a hundred knights to escort Girart de Vienne and his niece Aude to Blaye. Charles actually hopes that he will be able to hide the news of Roland's death from her, at least until she has been happily betrothed to another:

S'eo 1i pos cest gran dol celer, Plus en avra 1i cors si eslaer. Se si non feit ja no 1i porai parler; Aseg 1i verai 1i cors crever. (4438-41)

Accordingly, he commands the envoys to report that he desires Aude's presence in Blaye so that her marriage to Roland may at last take place. At one stroke, the poet has infused a powerful dramatic irony into every step Aude takes toward

"The details of Hernaut's trip demonstrate the sensitivity to the social setting, cf. particularly 11. 4044-49 and laises 295-802.




Blaye. The irony will be double; by telling the girl that she will be married at the very place where her lover actually awaits interment, Charles unwittingly assures that the shock of Roland's death, if he fails to conceal it from her, will be intensified by the sight of the mutilated corpse. In attempting to thwart fate, Charles but ensures its triumph.

The mission to Vienne, and the return of the erstwhile wedding party to Blaye mark our first acquaintance with Aude. Her state of untroubled joy, the first effect produced by the messenger's announcement of the impending wedding, gives way to a kind of premonitory state during the journey as Aude expounds the dreams that visited her on the eve of the departure. Like Charlemagne's premonitory dreams foretelling the disaster at Roncevaux, Aude's dreams invest the coming revelation with an undeniable portentiousness. Thanks to their intervention, the whole story of Ganelon's treason passes in symbolic review. In each vision, Aude witnesses the mortal danger of her brother and lover and is herself jeopardized. Finally, she tells of a dream in which Charlemagne has abandoned her in an orchard where she witnesses the death of Roland and Oliver in a hunting accident. In the sequel, she sees herself alone in a church mourning the dead heroes who lie in state.

The symbolic reality of the dreams is in sharp contrast to the atmosphere of illusion that Charlemagne has spread over the scene. His attempt to reverse fate goes so far as to require the soldiers and citizens of Blaye to dissemble their grief into a gay, carnival atmosphere so that Aude may not suspect the truth upon her arrival in the city. Charles soon discovers that while he may change the appearance of reality, he cannot alter reality itself, particularly the reality of Aude's love for Roland.

First, Charles tells Aude, in answer to her immediate question about Roland and her brother Oliver, that the two heroes betrayed France by defecting to the Saracens and taking enemy princesses to wife. Twice Charles repeats the story with slight variations. Roland's mother, the sister of Charlemagne who has also been summoned to Blaye, tells Aude a similar tale. Finally, in desperation, Charles admits that they are dead, but dishonorably so and therefore not worthy of grief. In each instance, Aude measures the fabrication against the certainty of her knowledge of Roland's real character and love. Instinctively, she knows the truth. Gradually, her unwavering adherence to the reality of her love forces Charles to admit the truth and to face up to its consequences. Throughout the sequence, we see that Aude, who appears farthest from the truth actually remains closer to reality than Charles, her uncle or Roland's mother. The latter two were taken in by Charles' deception, and even he himself does not entirely escape the illusion that Roland's death has not changed the order of things. Only Aude senses the truth from the beginning and sees what her course must be.

Por amor Deo ne m'alez delaiant. Ne a femene in tere in le segle vivant Che partir poes me amor da Rollant: Perdug I'ai, sire, jo el sai voiremant, Qui que ait joie, en ai 1i cor dolant. (5050-54)




The transformation from the symbolic reality of the dream to actuality is complete when, as in the dream, Aude stands alone in the chapel at Blaye, before the biers of her brother and Roland. There would be little point in reviewing the prayers she addresses to and for the dead heroes, nor the miraculous reply vouchsafed her in recognition of her unwavering faith. Suffice to say that the scene in the chapel gives her the opportunity to reveal naturally and compassionately the depth of the love for which she will soon die. In place of the abrupt release of death offered by the Digby version, the Aude of the Venice IV, matured by the trial she has undergone, makes a conscious decision, clearly and succinctly enun- ciated, to renounce the world. In the light of the speech by the briefly resurrected Oliver, her decision takes on the aura of a religious commitment.45 She dies not from chagrin, but for an ideal.

Frer Oliver, cum malle descurreee! Sire Rollant, vos m'aveg juree, Se Deo plaist, que fusse mariee, Sor tut dames fus par vos prisee. Oncles Qiraldo, n'i a mester cell6e: La mort me vint che tant ai desiree. Sor tut dames, Giborga soit salu6e, Que me nuri en soa cambra cel6e Tant dolcement cum se m'aust in sor cor portie. (5330-38)46

On the basis of the successful presentation of the Aude episode, are we justified in assuming the superiority of the entire latter part of the Venice IV? In particular, does the poet manage to weave the Ganelon theme into the love motif in a plausible manner? The answer in both cases is yes. Unlike the Digby version, it is difficult to consider separately the three main episodes that make up the latter part of V4, so closely have they been interwoven. The whole of the Blaye episode, for instance, Aude's drama and the interment of the heroes, takes place in a setting surrounded by reminiscences of Ganelon's treachery. The arrival of the army at Blaye follows immediately upon the re-emergence of the traitor into the narrative thanks to his escape and recapture. The incident naturally re-opens Charles'

46 In response to Aude's prayer that her brother be resuscitated long enough to speak to her, an angel appears to grant the request. Oliver's speech is as follows:

"Bella sor Aude, ne vos esmaiez mie. A moi verez in la Deo conpagnie; Tota beut6 vos ert amanuie, Tot ces mond non valt una pome porie. Chil chi serve a Deo cunquert grant menantie, Ensenbla angles eo n'aura bosdie, Levez ermos si soiez estaudie. Eo n'ai conge che plus raxon vos die." (5295-02)

46 Cf. 11. 5311-15: "Bella niege Aude, ne vos esmaiez ja, Che Carles grant honor vos donra." Respont belle Aude: "Si ert cum Deo plaira! Jamais un jor nul segnor no aura Questa gaitiva che de dol se mora."




emotional wounds, and serves as a sharp reminder that the coming interment is less the inevitable outcome of a military career than the direct result of Ganelon's perfidy. The episode terminates at the moment the army prepares to enter Blaye. Charles himself provides the transition from the one to the other by turning from excoriating the captured traitor to the painful contemplation of Roland's body. In keeping with the new episode that is about to begin, he laments Roland's death not for the loss of the warrior, but for the sake of the marriage to Aude that will never take place:

Rollant regarde sot le paille desug: 'Bel nies,' dist il, 'cum je vos ai perdug E Ila belle Aude que vos fist ses drug! De noges fere no ssuz trop atendug! Ai! fel Gaine, cum grant dol [as] metiz De mon nef Rollant c'a Marxillio as vendug! Las! cum en ai Ii cors dollant et irasug!' (4701-07)

Later, the episode closes amidst universal mourning, with a renewed call for vengeance against Ganelon. This time, significantly, Girard de Vienne raises the cry:

Droit enperer, oez que ve voi parler: Montez a gival e penseg de givaler A Monleon, sus el palais plener; Voiant vos bernajes le faiti justixier. (5418-21)

Girard did not form part of the military expedition to Spain. His call for vengeance clearly proclaims Ganelon's guilt in the death of Aude.47 Thus, at the end, Ganelon will be tried not simply for his guilt in the events of the early part of the poem, but also for his complicity in the events at Blaye. The poet could hardly have achieved a tighter unity of action than by bracketing the Blaye episode between Charlemagne's cry of vengeance at the outset and Girart de Vienne's at the close. Far from interrupting the progression of the poem to its climax at the trial of Ganelon, the Blaye episode proves as important a prelude to it, in a sense, as the Roncevaux episode itself. And yet, at least one contemporary critic has concluded that in modifying the ending, the V4 poet lost the unified architecture of the Dibgy version !48 The facts, as we saw, are precisely the opposite. The Venice IV version possesses a unified architecture quite lacking in the ending of the Digby 23.

One widely-held critical shiboleth maintains that a critic need not look outside the poem when seeking to explain questions of style and structure. According to this reasoning, the V4 poet's genius alone would have inspired him to choose Blaye as the focal point around which to organize the latter part of his poem. Cer- tainly the poet's genius is evident in the handling of the material. It seems clear, however, that the decision to emphasize Blaye was not the result of a solitary

47 When he said: Jeo la cuitoi a mon nef Rollant doner (4428). 48 "En tombant entre les mains des remanieurs (depuis celui de V4, qui a modifie la fin du po6me,

jusqu'aux 'remplisseurs' des Rencevaux), la chanson perd son architecture bein like." Les chansons de gestes frangaises, p. 86.




tete-a-tete with his muse. All the evidence would point to his having been influenced in his decision by the extra-literary concerns discussed earlier.

On the one hand, he could hardly have ignored the importance that had accrued to the tomb sites at Blaye, while on the other, he must have been aware of and even distressed by the failure of earlier versions of the theme to bring out precisely those points that had become accepted parts of the historical view. A com- pletely new version of the entire setting was needed. It may be objected that the V4 poet changes little in the first part of the poem and therefore his version cannot be considered as new. I hope that we have seen enough to admit that the battle at Roncevaux does not form the whole of the Roland material, nor did any poet, Turold included, consider it as complete in itself. The entire setting, from the initial deliberations of Marsile to the final judgment of Ganelon must be taken into account. The battle description, like the treason, is a relatively stable ele- ment; there is little one can do to alter the event to make it truer, or conversely, there would be little a later poet could criticize in Turold's treatment.

The peregrinatio principle teaches us that it is the setting of past events that is most subject to alteration; that is the relationship of the poetic events to actual historical sites. For it is the sites and artifacts which provide the authenticated, the visible link to the past. Any change in the manner of viewing these sites must of necessity have implied a change in historical perspective; any account accepted as historistic would certainly have to reflect that changed perspective. One would like to be able to say with certainty how great a role the literary work played in bringing about a change in the historical perspective by which the real sites were viewed. The evidence points to a considerable influence indeed, but one thing is sure: once the work had been created, it fixed the historical perspective accepted at any given moment. There was no going back to an earlier viewpoint.

One key, then, to the creative process in any given version of a chanson de geste must surely be the attitude of the poet toward the setting of his work. The V4 poet built the latter half of his poem around Blaye because Blaye had attained eminence thanks to the tomb sites. Turold had not sufficiently stressed this aspect of the work; more significantly still, he had failed to make the burial and love episodes poetic realities. In Constantine's words, he had failed to make them "conspicuous and an object of veneration to all."

The V4 poet himself was not above the reproach of later poets. For one thing, he had said nothing of the recovery of the bodies at Roncevaux. How, for example, from among all those thousands of dead men, could Charlemagne have picked out the French heroes? Roland had grouped some of the bodies (11. 2184-92), but most remained where they had fallen. Divine inspiration must have helped, but neither Turold nor the V4 poet make this clear. So the Chateauroux poet came on the scene with still a third version, profiting from what the previous versions had accomplished, but nonetheless forming a distinctly individual con- tribution.

Can we say that the V4 or the ChAteauroux poets were less creative than Turold? Does not the evidence, on the contrary, point to their having possessed a firmer sense of poetic unity and structure? If the above surmises are correct,




we should no longer continue to speak of the Digby 23 as the original poem, or the closest version to it, and of the later versions as reworkings. The distinction is invidious, and worse still has no support in mediaeval literary practice. Poems on the same subject were not treated as so many imitations of an original version. It would be nearer the mark to think of them as a series of drafts in a continually evolving process of creation, a process which strove to present the truth of the past from the perspective of the present. As the perspective of the present changed, so naturally did the literary works. The history of the Chanson de Geste, then, is not a history of poetic decadence, as some would have it. On the contrary, we have to do with a continuing search for expression and perfection, expression of the meaning of the past to the present age and perfection of the literary forms by which that meaning could best be conveyed. Above all, we find poetry at once serving to mirror and interpret the thought of its own time. The epic poet may not have fulfilled the role of divine spokesman, but he fulfilled admirably the role of human interpreter.

DARTMOUTH COLLEGE



the interaction of life and literature in the peregrinationes ad loca sancta and the chansons de...

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