[27] Paul Riant and Ferdinand de Mély, in Revue de l’art chrétien, 1890, pp. 299-300. Their view has been rightly rejected by Gaston Paris in Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 1890, p. 208. See Appendix G. In Le Chevalier au Cygne et Godefroid de Bouillon, ed. F. A. F. T. le Baron de Reiffenburg (Brussels, 1846-59), ii, pp. 231-232, Red Lion is killed by Count Baldwin.
This version of the Godfrey matter has been assigned to the fourteenth century both by Paulin Paris (Histoire littéraire, xxv, p. 508) and by Célestin Hippeau (La conquête de Jérusalem, p. ix), but A.-G. Krüger, in a more recent discussion, has placed it as late as the first half of the fifteenth century. “Les manuscrits de la Chanson du Chevalier au Cygne et de Godefroi de Bouillon,” in Romania, xxviii (1899), p. 426.
[28] Le Chevalier au Cygne et Godefroid de Bouillon, ii, p. 212-213.
[29] La conquête de Jérusalem, ed. Célestin Hippeau (Paris, 1868), pp. 308-311. There is as yet no edition of this poem worthy of the name. Much difference of opinion has been expressed as to the date of its composition. It has been ascribed by its editor to the thirteenth century. Ibid., pp. xviii, xix, xxv. But Paulin Paris held it to be a part of the work of Grandor of Douai, compiler of the Chanson d’Antioche, and thought it, too, like the latter, was based upon the lost work of Richard le Pèlerin. Histoire littéraire, xxii, p. 370, and cf. p. 384. And Molinier has somewhat carelessly assigned it to circa 1130. Sources de l’histoire de France, no. 2154. On the other hand Henri Pigeonneau, while he would ascribe it to the late twelfth century, still holds that it certainly is not by the author of the Chanson d’Antioche, and that it is a later composition than the latter. Le cycle de la croisade et de la famille de Bouillon (Saint Cloud, 1877), pp. 42-55. Certainly one works over the poem with a growing conviction that it is late rather than early. It is almost wholly a work of imagination, in which traditions of events centring around Antioch are hopelessly mingled with others pertaining to the region of Jerusalem. One can hardly say whether the imaginary battle of Ramleh contains more of the battle of Ascalon or of the battle against Kerboga.
It may be noted in passing that in the battle of Ascalon Robert performed an actual feat of arms (cf. supra, pp. 115-116) which may perhaps form the basis of all the legendary exploits which we have been passing in review. The references to the enemy’s ‘standard’ in Wace (supra, p. 190) and in the Chanson d’Antioche (supra, p. 195) would seem to lend some color to this view. But it should be borne in mind that such exploits of knightly valor are a commonplace of the chansons de geste, and are attributed to Godfrey and to other chiefs as well as to Robert.
[30] Gaimar is specific in his statement that the election of Robert was due to his reputation for valor (supra, p. 191), as is also the author of an anonymous Norman chronicle of the thirteenth century, excerpted by Paul Meyer from a Cambridge manuscript in Notices et extraits des manuscrits, xxxii, 2, p. 65: “Li quens Rob., por les granz proesces que il feseit e qu’il avoit fetes, e por sa grant valor e son grant hardement, fu eslit a estre roi de Sulie.”
[31] Supra, p. 114.
[32] G. R., ii, p. 461.
[33] Pp. 229, 236.
[34] H. C. Oc., iii, p. 225.