The French and Norman-French chansons circulated as freely in England as in France, and it was therefore not until the period of decadence that English versions were made. The English metrical romances of Charlemagne are:—Rowlandes Song (15th century); The Taill of Rauf Coilyear (c. 1475, pr. by R. Lekpreuik, St Andrews, 1472), apparently original; Sir Ferumbras (c. 1380) and the Sowdone of Babylone (c. 1400) from an early version of Fierabras; a fragmentary Roland and Vernagu (Ferragus); two versions of Otuel (Otinel); and a Sege of Melayne (c. 1390), forming a prologue to Otinel unknown in French.
Bibliography.—The most important works on the Charlemagne cycle of romance are:—G. Paris, Hist. poétique de Charlemagne (Paris, 1865; reprint, with additional notes by Paris and P. Meyer, 1905); L. Gautier, Les Épopées françaises (Paris, 4 vols. new ed., 1878, 1892, 1880, 1882) and the supplementary Bibliographie des chansons de geste (1897). The third volume of the Épopées françaises contains an analysis and full particulars of the chansons de geste immediately connected with the history of Charlemagne. See also G. Rauschen, Die Legende Karls des Grossen im 11ten und 12ten Jahrhundert (Leipzig, 1890); Kristoffer Nyrop, Den oldfranske Heldedigtning (Copenhagen, 1883; Ital. trans. Turin, 1886); Pio Rajna, Le Origini dell’ epopea francese (Florence, 1884); G.T. Graesse, “Die grossen Sagenkreise des Mittelalters,” in his Litterärgeschichte (Dresden, 1842); Histoire littéraire de la France (vol. xxii., 1852); H.L. Ward, Catalogue of Romances in the Dept. of MSS. in the British Museum (1883), vol. i. pp. 546-689; E. Muntz, La Légende de Charlemagne dans l’art du moyen âge (Paris, 1885); and for the German legend, vol. iii. of H.F. Massmann’s edition of the Kaiserchronik (Quedlinburg, 1849-1854). The English Charlemagne Romances were edited (extra series) for the Early Eng. Text Soc. by Sidney J. Herrtage, Emil Hausknecht, Octavia Richardson and Sidney Lee (1879-1881), the romance of Duke Huon of Bordeaux containing a general account of the cycle by Sidney Lee; the Karlamagnussaga, by C.R. Unger (Christiania, 1860), see also G. Paris in Bibl. de l’École des Charles (1864-1865). For individual chansons see Anséis de Carthage, ed. J. Alton (Tubingen, 1892); Aiquin, ed. F. Jouon des Longrais (Nantes, 1880); Aspremont, ed. F. Guessard and L. Gautier (Paris, 1885); Basin, or Charles et Élégast or Le Couronnement de Charles, preserved only in foreign versions (see Paris, Hist. Poét. pp. 315, seq.); Berta de li gran pié, ed. A. Mussafia, in Romania (vols. iii. and iv., 1874-1875); Berte aus grans piés, ed. A. Scheler (Brussels, 1874); Charlemagne, by Girard d’Amiens, detailed analysis in Paris, Hist. Poét. (Appendix iv.); Couronnement Looys, ed. E. Langlois (Le Puy, 1888); Désier (Desiderius or Didier), lost songs of the wars of Lombardy, some fragments of which are preserved in Ogier le Danois; Destruction de Rome, ed. G. Gröber in Romania(1873); A. Thomas, Nouvelles recherches sur “l’entrée de Spagne,” in Bibl. des écoles françaises de Rome (Paris, 1882); Fierabras, ed. A. Kröber and G. Servois (Paris, 1860) in Anciens poètes de la France, and Provençal text, ed. I. Bekker (Berlin, 1829); Galien, ed. E. Stengel and K. Pfeil (Marburg, 1890); Gaydon, ed. F. Guessard and S. Luce (Anciens poètes ... 1862); Gui de Bourgogne, ed. F. Guessard and H. Michelant (same series, 1859); Mainet (fragments only extant), ed. G. Paris, in Romania (1875); Otinel, ed Guessard and Michelant (Anciens poètes, 1859), and Sir Otuel, ed. S.J. Herrtage (E.E.T.S., 1880); Prise de Pampelune (ed. A. Mussafia, Vienna, 1864); for the Carolingian romances relating to Roland, see [Roland]; Les Saisnes, ed. F. Michel (1839); The Sege of Melaine, introductory to Otinel, preserved in English only (ed. E.E.T.S., 1880); Simon de Pouille, analysis in Épop. fr. (iii. pp. 346 sq.); Voyage de C. à Jerusalem, ed. E. Koschwitz (Heilbronn, 1879). For the chronicle of the Pseudo-Turpin, see an edition by Castets (Paris, 1881) for the “Société des langues romanes,” and the dissertation by G. Paris, De Pseudo-Turpino (Paris, 1865). The Spanish versions of Carolingian legends are studied by Milà y Fontanals in De la poesia heroico-popular castellana (Barcelona, 1874).
(M. Br.)
[1] A remnant of the popular poetry contemporary with Charlemagne and written in the vernacular has been thought to be discernible under its Latin translation in the description of a siege during Charlemagne’s war against the Saracens, known as the “Fragment from the Hague” (Pertz, Script. iii. pp. 708-710).
[2] The words douze pairs were anglicized in a variety of forms ranging from douzepers to dosepers. The word even occurred as a singular in the metrical romance of Octavian:—“Ferst they sent out a doseper.” At the beginning of the 13th century there existed a cour des pairs which exercised judicial functions and dated possibly from the 11th century, but their prerogatives at the beginning of the 14th century appear to have been mainly ceremonial and decorative. In 1257 the twelve peers were the chiefs of the great feudal provinces, the dukes of Normandy, Burgundy and Aquitaine, the counts of Toulouse, Champagne and Flanders, and six spiritual peers, the archbishop of Reims, the bishops of Laon, Châlons-sur-Marne, Beauvais, Langres and Noyon. (See Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. “Par.”).
[3] See J. Flach, Le Compagnonnage dans les chansons de geste (Paris, 1891).
[4] For clerical accounts of Charles’s voyage to the Holy Land see the Chronicon (c. 968) of Benedict, a monk of St André, and Descriptio qualiter Karolus Magnus clavum et coronam Domini ... detulerit, by an 11th-century writer.