Tilpino (Tulpino, Turpino) - Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. XII, p. 86

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

TILPINO (TULPINO, TURPINO). - Benedictine, archbishop of Reims, born in the first half of the 8th century, died at Reims on 2 Sept. 800.

A monk at S. Dionigi, elected archbishop of Reims in 753, he attended, with eleven other French bishops, the Lateran Council of 769, at which the antipope Costantino di Nepi was condemned. At Charlemagne’s request, Pope Adriano sent him the pallium and confirmed the rights of his see.

The legend of Orlando appropriated him, making him a paladin of Charlemagne and causing him to appear in many chansons de geste as one of the Twelve Peers of France. Indeed, the chronicle or Historia de vita Caroli Magni et Rolandi, a legendary account of the Emperor’s Crusade and that of his warriors against Spain, written about the middle of the 12th century, transmitted in more than 100 manuscripts and translated into French, Provençal, etc., whence it passed into Provençal and Italian cantari and poems (it is enough to recall Ariosto’s Orlando furioso), was attributed to him.

BIBL.: eds.: Turpini Historia Karoli Magni et Rotholandi, edited by F. Castets, Montpellier 1880; by W. Thoron, Boston 1934; by C. Meredith Jones, Paris 1936. Studies: G. Paris, De pseudo-T., there 1865; id., Hist. poétique de Charlemagne, 2nd ed., there 1905 (he maintains that the first five chapters would be the work of a monk of Compostella of the 11th century and the remainder of a monk of Vienna between 1109 and 1119); I. Bédier, Les légendes épiques, I, 2nd ed., there 1914 (demonstrates that the Historia is merely a chapter of the Liber S. Jacobi in Santiago de Compostela, a guide for pilgrims, written about the middle of the 11th century); G. Bertoni, Il Trecento, 2nd ed., Milan 1930, chap. 3. Celestino Testore