Chansons de Geste

CHANSONS DE GESTE. - Bertran de Bursur-Aube, an epic poet of the 13th century, proposed the division of the French "chansons de geste" into three groups: the geste of the king; the geste of Garin de Monglane (or of Guillaume d'Orange) and the geste of Doon de Mayence. The geste of the king celebrates above all Charlemagne and his successors (or predecessors), that of Garin sings of the valiant and faithful William of Orange and his companions, that of Doon has as its protagonists various feudal lords equally valiant but rebellious against their king, among the most illustrious of whom figure Hugh of Bordeaux, Girart of Roussillon, Renaut de Montauban, etc., and among the most notorious Ganelon of Maganza, the prototype of traitors.

These three groups do not, however, exhaust the whole "matter of France," and other classifications have been attempted (chronological, dynastic, etc.) but always with little satisfaction: consider that this is a complex of about 80-90 poems (besides those lost), among which the points of contact, the intersections, the overlappings and confusions of characters are such and so many as to make the construction of a clear and precise scheme impossible.

But fundamentally the problem of classification is secondary; important instead, and still subject to discussion, is that of the origin of these epic songs, that is, of a "genre" that filled about three centuries (from the 12th to the 14th) from its flowering to its decline and that was a living part of the culture, the art, the religious, civil and chivalric ideals of that epoch. It has been rightly observed that to investigate the origin of the French epic means, for the most part, to investigate the origin of the first epic song, that is, of the Chanson de Roland (v.), and this is why the principal investigations on the subject take their start from it and refer to it. Such investigations, from the first hypotheses of the German and French Romantics of the last century to the recent labors of numerous editors and commentators of texts, constitute one of the most fruitful chapters of European culture: from them, in fact, the conception of the Middle Ages and that of the Romance origins emerged renewed. Of this intense critical work only a brief mention will be given here, recalling how, once the Romantic myth of a popular, primitive, ingenuous poetry had set, there is today an attentiveness to seeking in the C. d. g. themselves (and naturally above all in the most beautiful and homogeneous ones) the artistic personality of the author, interpreting the data that tradition offers us at their true value, that is, as cultural presuppositions of an eminently literary and artistic phenomenon. Thus one may speak, from time to time, of elements drawn from the Germanic world or from the Latin world, classical or medieval; one may suppose dynastic and feudal intentions and influences; one may retrace, with the guidance of some C. d. g. themselves, the routes of the great medieval pilgrimages, indicating in the churches and monasteries that abounded along them and in the crowds of pilgrims, monks, soldiers and jugglers who frequented them, the environments and the persons most suited to favor the flowering and the diffusion of those C. d. g. Such hypotheses certainly all have something of the truth, and boast one or more illustrious supporters, from Paris to Rajna, to Bédier, from Paul Meyer to Tavernier and Willmott, from Gabotto to Viscardi; but truer are those hypotheses which, while taking into account the aforementioned elements and possibilities, recognize in the C. d. g. a fruit of the epoch in which they were born. This does not mean denying every historical precedent (many of the characters and events celebrated are indeed historical) or disowning a process of formation that may have begun, in some cases, from songs more or less long, handed down orally or in writing. But the French C. d. g. now bear the spirit of the society in the midst of which and for which they were created: a spirit that is, in the lay aspect, that of feudalism and chivalry, and religiously that of the Crusades. Love of country, attachment to one's sovereign and above all struggle for the triumph of the faith: these are the characteristics that make the C. d. g. the great historical novel of France and of medieval Europe and one of the most significant cultural and artistic phenomena of the new Romance literatures.

Ruggero M. Ruggieri