Where Turon, ... Brute’s sister’s valiant son ...
Six hundred slew outright thro’ his peculiar strength;
By multitudes of men, yet overpressed at length.
His noble uncle there, to his immortal name
The city Turon [Tours] built, and well endowed the same.
Drayton, Polyolbion, i. (1612)[(1612)].
Turpin, a churlish knight, who refuses hospitality to Sir Calepine and Serēna, although solicited to do so by his wife, Blanĭda (bk. vi. 3). Serena told Prince Arthur of this discourtesy, and the prince, after chastising Turpin, unknighted him, and prohibited him from bearing arms ever after (bk. vi. 7). The disgraced churl now vowed revenge; so off he starts, and seeing two knights, complains to them of the wrongs done to himself and his dame by “a recreant knight,” whom he points out to them. The two champions instantly challenge the prince “as a foul woman-wronger,” and defy him to combat. One of the two champions is soon slain and the other overthrown, but is spared on craving his life. The survivor now returns to Turpin, to relate his misadventure, and when they reach the dead body see Arthur asleep. Turpin proposes to kill him, but Arthur starts up and hangs the rascal on a tree (bk. vi. 7).--Spenser, Faëry Queen (1596).
Turpin, “archbishop of Rheims,” the hypothetical author of a Chronicle, purporting to be a history of Charlemagne’s Spanish adventures in 777, by a contemporary. This fiction was declared authentic and genuine by Pope Calixtus II. in 1122, but it is now generally attributed to a canon of Barcelona in the eleventh century.
The tale says that Charlemagne went to Spain in 777 to defend one of his allies from the aggressions of a neighboring prince. Having conquered Navarre and Aragon he returned to France. He then crossed the Pyrenees, and invested Pampeluna for three months, but without success. He tried the effect of prayer, and the walls, like those of Jericho, fell down of their own accord. Those Saracens who consented to be baptized he spared, but the rest were put to the sword. Being master of Pampeluna, the hero visited the sarcophagus of James; and Turpin, who accompanied him, baptized most of the neighborhood. Charlemagne then led back his army over the Pyrenees, the rear being under the command of Roland. The main army reached France in safety, but 50,000 Saracens fell on the rear, and none escaped.
Turpin (Dick), a noted highwayman, executed at York (1739).