FOOTNOTES
[1] This chapter makes no pretence of being based upon an exhaustive examination of all the sources. Scattered as these are through the historical and romantic literature of several centuries, it is not unlikely that important printed materials have been overlooked, while many manuscripts of the poetic cycle of the Crusade still lie unprinted. It is hoped, however, that enough material has been found and used to give an adequate view of the legendary accretions which gathered about Robert’s name, and to throw an interesting light upon the repute in which he was held in after times.
[2] See supra, p. 118, and n. 156.
[3] G. R., ii, pp. 460-461; cf. the superlatives of William of Newburgh, writing at the end of the twelfth century: “Qui tamen armis tantus fuit, ut in ilia magna et famosa expeditione Ierosolymitana in fortissimos totius orbis procres clarissimae militiae titulis fulserit.” Historia Rerum Anglicarum, ed. H. C. Hamilton (London, 1856), i, p. 15.
[4] Roman de Rou, ii, pp. 415-416.
[5] Lestorie des Engles, ed. T. D. Hardy and C. T. Martin (London, 1888-89), i, pp. 244-245.
[6] “Le duc de Normandie a été, en tant que croisé, le héros de tout un cycle poétique qui s’est perdu, mais non sans laisser des traces.” “Robert Court-Heuse à la première croisade,” in Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 1890, 4th series, xviii, p. 208.
[7] Gaston Paris (op. cit., p. 211, n. 3) believes that the Robert legend was extinguished first by Robert’s disastrous and inglorious end, and second by the growing popularity of the Godfrey cycle. He thinks that the “lutte des deux traditions poétiques, de provenances différentes, dont l’une avait pour héros Robert et l’autre Godefroi” can be seen in an episode of the Chanson d’Antioche which may be briefly paraphrased as follows. Godfrey, “because he is preux and courageous and of the lineage of Charlemagne,” has just been chosen to represent the Christian army in a proposed single combat with a champion from Kerboga’s host; on hearing which Robert is so incensed at being himself passed over that he prepares to withdraw with his forces from the crusading army. Compared with his own splendid lineage, the ancestors of Godfrey, he declares, are not worth a button. Thereupon the descent of Godfrey from the Chevalier au Cygne is explained to him. And then Godfrey himself comes and humbles himself before Robert and expresses his willingness to yield the honor to him. At that Robert is mollified and consents to remain. La Chanson d’ Antioche, ed. Paulin Paris (Paris, 1848), ii, pp. 177-183. It is difficult to see where support for Paris’s theory can be found in the matter thus summarized. All that concerns Robert, it seems clear, exists not for itself at all, but as a mere literary foil for setting off the merits of Godfrey and his descent from the Chevalier au Cygne. The evidence of the Saint-Denis window which Gaston Paris cites must be ruled out. See Appendix G.
The Chanson d’ Antioche, in the form in which we now have it, is held to have been composed early in the reign of Philip Augustus by Grandor of Douai, a Flemish trouvère, upon the basis of an earlier poem, now lost, by Richard le Pèlerin, a minstrel who actually took part in the First Crusade. Histoire littéraire de la France, xxii (1852), pp. 355-356; Auguste Molinier, Les sources de l’histoire de France (Paris, 1901-06), no. 2154.
[8] Supra, p. 190.