From the moment of the defeat of Ronceval, legend commenced its labor upon this truly epic event which, in its origin, is absolutely French, but has found its echoes throughout Europe, from Iceland to Eastern regions.
The commentators generally agree in dating the composition of the Poem before the first crusade in the year 1096. The author, it is ascertained, was Norman, the dialect used by him being Norman throughout. Whether this author was really Turoldus, named in the last line of the Poem, is a point which Léon Gautier refuses to affirm. We refer the reader to the very interesting preface of Genin, and to the learned introductions of Léon Gautier, for more complete information.
The word "Aoi," which is placed at the end of every stanza, and found in no other ancient French poems, is interpreted differently by the commentators. M. Francisque Michel assimilated it at first to the termination of an ecclesiastical chant—Preface, xxvii.—and later to the Saxon Abeg, or the English Away, as a sort of refrain which the "jongleur" repeated at the end of the couplets. M. Génin explains it by ad viam, a vei, avoie, away! it is done, let us go on!
M. Gautier, with his skeptical honesty, declares the word unexplained. See Note 9, p. 4, of his seventh edition.
MANUSCRIPTS.
The most complete and ancient is that of Oxford, in the Bodleian Library, marked "Digby, 23," a copy of the XIIth. century. All others are Rifaccimenti, Refashionings.
Two in Venice, in St. Mark Library, XIIIth. century; French MSS., No. 4 & 7.
In the National Library, Paris, No. 860, XIIIth. century.