Volume and age of the chansons.
It is probable that very few persons who are not specially acquainted with the subject are at all aware of the enormous bulk and number of these poems, even if their later remaniements (as they are called) both in verse and prose—fourteenth and fifteenth century refashionings, which in every case meant a large extension—be left out of consideration. The most complete list published, that of M. Léon Gautier, enumerates 110. Of these he himself places only the Chanson de Roland in the eleventh century, perhaps as early as the Norman Conquest of England, certainly not later than 1095. Twelfth century. To the twelfth he assigns (and it may be observed that, enthusiastic as M. Gautier is on the literary side, he shows on all questions of age, &c., a wariness not always exhibited by scholars more exclusively philological) Acquin, Aliscans, Amis et Amiles, Antioche Aspremont, Auberi le Bourgoing, Aye d'Avignon, the Bataille Loquifer, the oldest (now only known in Italian) form of Berte aus grans Piés, Beuves d'Hanstone (with another Italian form more or less independent), the Charroi de Nîmes, Les Chétifs, the Chevalerie Ogier de Danemarche, the Chevalerie Vivien (otherwise known as Covenant Vivien), the major part (also known by separate titles) of the Chevalier au Cygne, La Conquête de la Petite Bretagne (another form of Acquin), the Couronnement Loys, Doon de la Roche, Doon de Nanteuil, the Enfances Charlemagne, the Enfances Godefroi, the Enfances Roland, the Enfances Ogier, Floovant, Garin le Loherain, Garnier de Nanteuil, Giratz de Rossilho, Girbert de Metz, Gui de Bourgogne, Gui de Nanteuil, Hélias, Hervis de Metz, the oldest form of Huon de Bordeaux, Jérusalem, Jourdains de Blaivies, the Lorraine cycle, including Garin, &c., Macaire, Mainet, the Moniage Guillaume, the Moniage Rainoart, Orson de Beauvais, Rainoart, Raoul de Cambrai, Les Saisnes, the Siège de Barbastre, Syracon, and the Voyage de Charlemagne. In other words, nearly half the total number date from the twelfth century, if not even earlier.
Thirteenth century.
By far the larger number of the rest are not later than the thirteenth. They include—Aimeri de Narbonne, Aiol, Anséis de Carthage, Anséis Fils de Gerbert, Auberon, Berte aus grans Piés in its present French form, Beton et Daurel, Beuves de Commarchis, the Département des Enfans Aimeri, the Destruction de Rome, Doon de Mayence, Elie de Saint Gilles, the Enfances Doon de Mayence, the Enfances Guillaume, the Enfances Vivien, the Entrée en Espagne, Fierabras, Foulques de Candie, Gaydon, Garin de Montglane, Gaufrey, Gérard de Viane, Guibert d'Andrenas, Jehan de Lanson, Maugis d'Aigremont, the Mort Aimeri de Narbonne, Otinel, Parise la Duchesse, the Prise de Cordres, the Prise de Pampelune, the Quatre Fils d'Aymon, Renaud de Montauban (a variant of the same), Renier, the later forms of the Chanson de Roland, to which the name of Roncevaux is sometimes given for the sake of distinction, the Siège de Narbonne, Simon de Pouille, Vivien l'Amachour de Montbranc, and Yon.
Fourteenth, and later.
By this the list is almost exhausted. The fourteenth century, though fruitful in remaniements, sometimes in mono-rhymed tirades, but often in Alexandrine couplets and other changed shapes, contributes hardly anything original except the very interesting and rather brilliant last branches of the Chevalier au Cygne—Baudouin de Seboure, and the Bastart de Bouillon; Hugues Capet, a very lively and readable but slightly vulgar thing, exhibiting an almost undisguised tone of parody; and some fragments known by the names of Hernaut de Beaulande, Renier de Gennes, &c. As for fifteenth and sixteenth century work, though some pieces of it, especially the very long and unprinted poem of Lion de Bourges, are included in the canon, all the chanson-production of this time is properly apocryphal, and has little or nothing left of the chanson spirit, and only the shell of the chanson form.
Chansons in print.
It must further be remembered that, with the exception of a very few in fragmentary condition, all these poems are of great length. Only the later or less genuine, indeed, run to the preposterous extent of twenty, thirty, or (it is said in the case of Lion de Bourges) sixty thousand lines. But Roland itself, one of the shortest, has four thousand; Aliscans, which is certainly old, eight thousand; the oldest known form of Huon, ten thousand. It is probably not excessive to put the average length of the older chansons at six thousand lines; while if the more recent be thrown in, the average of the whole hundred would probably be doubled.
This immense body of verse, which for many reasons it is very desirable to study as a whole, is still, after the best part of a century, to a great extent unprinted, and (as was unavoidable) such of its constituents as have been sent to press have been dealt with on no very uniform principles. It was less inevitable, and is more to be regretted, that the dissensions of scholars on minute philological points have caused the repeated printing of certain texts, while others have remained inaccessible; and it cannot but be regarded as a kind of petty treason to literature thus to put the satisfaction of private crotchets before the "unlocking of the word-hoard" to the utmost possible extent. The earliest chansons printed[23] were, I believe, M. Paulin Paris's Berte aus grans Piés, M. Francisque Michel's Roland; and thereafter these two scholars and others edited for M. Techener a very handsome set of "Romances des Douze Pairs," as they were called, including Les Saisnes, Ogier, Raoul de Cambrai, Garin, and the two great crusading chansons, Antioche and Jérusalem. Other scattered efforts were made, such as the publication of a beautiful edition of Baudouin de Seboure at Valenciennes as early as 1841; while a Belgian scholar, M. de Reiffenberg, published Le Chevalier au Cygne, and a Dutch one, Dr Jonckbloët, gave a large part of the later numbers of the Garin de Montglane cycle in his Guillaume d'Orange (2 vols., The Hague, 1854). But the great opportunity came soon after the accession of Napoleon III., when a Minister favourable to literature, M. de Fourtou, gave, in a moment of enthusiasm, permission to publish the entire body of the chansons. Perfect wisdom would probably have decreed the acceptance of the godsend by issuing the whole, with a minimum of editorial apparatus, in some such form as that of our Chalmers's Poets, the bulk of which need probably not have been exceeded in order to give the oldest forms of every real chanson from Roland to the Bastart de Bouillon. But perfect wisdom is not invariably present in the councils of men, and the actual result took the form of ten agreeable little volumes, in the type, shape, and paper of the "Bibliothèque Elzévirienne" with abundant editorial matter, paraphrases in modern French, and the like. Les Anciens Poètes de la France, as this series was called, appeared between 1858, which saw the first volume, and 1870, which fatal year saw the last, for the Republic had no money to spare for such monarchical glories as the chansons. They are no contemptible possession; for the ten volumes give fourteen chansons of very different ages, and rather interestingly representative of different kinds. But they are a very small portion of the whole, and in at least one instance, Aliscans, they double on a former edition. Since then the Société des Anciens Textes Français has edited some chansons, and independent German and French scholars have given some more; but no systematic attempt has been made to fill the gaps, and the pernicious system of re-editing, on pretext of wrong selection of MSS. or the like, has continued. Nevertheless, the number of chansons actually available is so large that no general characteristic is likely to have escaped notice; while from the accounts of the remaining MSS., it would not appear that any of those unprinted can rank with the very best of those already known. Among these very best I should rank in alphabetical order—Aliscans, Amis et Amiles, Antioche, Baudouin de Seboure (though in a mixed kind), Berte aus grans Piés, Fierabras, Garin le Loherain, Gérard de Roussillon, Huon de Bordeaux, Ogier de Danemarche, Raoul de Cambrai, Roland, and the Voyage de Charlemagne à Constantinoble. The almost solitary eminence assigned by some critics to Roland is not, I think, justified, and comes chiefly from their not being acquainted with many others; though the poem has undoubtedly the merit of being the oldest, and perhaps that of presenting the chanson spirit in its best and most unadulterated, as well as the chanson form at its simplest, sharpest, and first state. Nor is there anywhere a finer passage than the death of Roland, though there are many not less fine.
It may, however, seem proper, if not even positively indispensable, to give some more general particulars about these chansons before analysing specimens or giving arguments of one or more; for they are full of curiosities.