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 OF THE ROMAN EMPIHE 263 of their name^ and ambitious to emulate their hero Charlemagne,^ who, in the popular romance of Turpin,^^ had achieved the con- quest of the Holy Land. A latent motive of affection or vanity might influence the choice of Urban. He was himself a native of France, a monk of Clugny, and the first of his countrymen who ascended the throne of St. Peter. The Pope had illustrated his family and province. Nor is there perhaps a more exquisite gratification than to revisit, in a conspicuous dignity, the humble and laborious scenes of our youth. It may occasion some surprise that the Roman pontiff should councu of • 11 /•T-' 1 -1 ipi 1 Clermont. erect, m the heart or r ranee, the tribunal irom whence lie ad. 1095, hurled his anathemas against the king ; but our surprise will vanish, so soon as we form a just estimate of a king of France of the eleventh century. ^^ Philip the First was the great-grand- son of Hugh Capet, the founder of the present race, who, in the decline of Charlemagne's posterity, added the regal title to his patrimonial estates of Paris and Orleans. In this narrow com- pass he was possessed of wealth and jurisdiction ; but, in the rest of France, Hugh and his first descendants were no more than the feudal lords of about sixty dukes and counts, of in- dependent and hereditary power,^^ ^^q disdained the control of videamus, non WWco Francos Iiomines appellemus? (p. 478). He owns, however, that the vivacity of the French degenerates into petulance among foreigners (p. 483), and vain loquaciousness (p. 502). 9 Per viani C|uani jamdudum Carolus Magnus, mirificus rex Francorum [/<",.». Franciae], aptari fecit usque C. P. (Gesta P>ancorum, p. 1, Robert. Monach. Hist. Hieros. 1. i. p. 33, ike). i^'John Tilpinus, or Turpinus, was Archbishop of Rheims, A.D. 773. After the year 1000, this romance was composed in his name by a monk of the borders of France and Spain ; and such was the idea of ecclesiastical merit that he describes himself as a fighting and drinking priest ! Yet the book of lies was pronounced authentic by Pope Calixtus H. (..D. 1122), and is respectfully quoted by the abbot Suger, in the great Chronicles of St. Denys (Fabric. Bibliot. Latin, medii /Evi, edit. Mansi, tom. iv. p. 161). [The most important critical work on Turpin's romance (Historia de vita Caroli Magni et Rolandi eius ncpotis, is the title) is that of Gaston Paris, De Pseudo-Turpino (1865), who makes it probable that the first part (cc. 1-5) was composed in the nth century by a Spaniard, and the second part (c. mo) by a monk at Vienne. The most recent edition is that of F. Castets, iSSo. There were several old French translations. One, for instance, was edited by F. A. Wulff (Chronique dite de Turpin, j88i), and two others by T. Auracher {1876, 1877). There is an English translation by T. Rodd (History of Charles the (Jreat and Orlando ascribed to Turpin, 1812, 2 vols.).] ^'SeeEtatde la F'rance, by the Count de Boulainvilliers, tom. i. p. 180-182, and the second volume of the Observations sur I'Histoire de France, by the Abb6 de Mabiy. '- In the provinces to the south of the T^oire, the first Capetians were scarcely allowed a feudal supremacy. On all sides, Normandy, Rretngnc, Aquitain, Burgundy, Lorraine, and Flanders contracted the name and Ihnits of .q proper France. See Hadrian Vales. Notitia Galliarum,