CHANSON DE ROLAND. - This title, though others more or less suitable might be found for it, designates the oldest Chanson de geste known to us, and certainly one of the most beautiful. In the form closest to the original, it is preserved for us by the Oxford manuscript, which dates back to the second quarter of the 12th century, and contains 4002 verses (epic decasyllables in assonanced laisses) written in the Anglo-Norman dialect; there then exist six other redactions of the same poem, longer and more recent, which nevertheless serve to heal errors and lacunae of the said manuscript, which nonetheless remains always fundamental.

Leaving aside, for questions of origins and formation, the Chansons de geste (v.), here it will suffice to note that the poem takes its cue from a precise historical event (the rout of Roncevaux, 15 Aug. 778) but mixes in characters and secondary events or events falsely attributed to the era in which the rout occurred; yet even if elements can be traced in it that may have come to it from a notably ancient tradition (e.g., reflections of Germanic civilization and customs) or can be considered as belonging to earlier nuclei of the legend (e.g., the brotherly friendship between Roland and Oliver and the episode of Baligant), the Oxford redaction belongs to the time in which it was composed and sung (the last third of the 11th century) and is the unitary and coherent work of a truly great poet, whether or not he be that Turold named in the last verse, on whose identification opinions are still quite discordant.

Its spirit is in fact that of the Crusades, which makes Charlemagne and his paladins the strenuous and generous champions of Christendom and at the same time the heroic defenders of their homeland, of their honor as men and as soldiers. Simple and linear is the unfolding of the action, like the very language used to narrate it, but the author proves himself master of a skilled technique, of an exquisite sense of art, of a sober but effective emotional capacity; gifts that make his work a masterpiece of the religious and patriotic sentiment of the nascent Neo-Latin civilization.

Bibliography5 works

BIBL.: La C. de R. publiée d'après le ms. d'Oxford et traduite by J. Bédier, Paris 1922; J. Bédier, La C. de R. (commentaires) ibid. 1927; G. Bertoni, La « C. de R. » Introduz., testo, versione, note, glossario, Florence 1935; editio maior, ibid. 1936; La C. de R., edited by A. Roncaglia, Modena 1947. In the Introductions to these valuable editions will be found all the necessary indications on the previous editions, the constitution of the text, the criticism, etc. Ruggero M. Ruggieri

CHANSON DE ROLAND - Beginning of the text of the C. de R.: Charle si rois a la barbe grillaiene, according to the ms. (f. 1r) of the second half of the 13th century, preserved in the municipal library of Châteauneuf.(from R. Mortier, Les textes de la C. de R. Le manuscrit de Châteauneuf, Paris 1913)

@incollection{ec3_chanson_de_roland, author = {Ruggieri, Ruggero Maria}, title = {Chanson de Roland}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {III}, pages = {1383--1384}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1949}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/chanson-de-roland} }

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