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Rh nez, was the central figure of the southern cycle of French romance, called by the trouvères the geste of Garin de Monglane. The cycle of Guillaume has more unity than the other great cycles of Charlemagne or of Doon de Mayence, the various poems which compose it forming branches of the main story rather than independent epic poems. There exist numerous cyclic MSS. in which there is an attempt at presenting a continuous histoire poétique of Guillaume and his family. MS. Royal 20 D xi. in the British Museum contains eighteen chansons of the cycle. Guillaume, son of Thierry or Theodoric and of Alde, daughter of Charles Martel, was born in the north of France about the middle of the 8th century. He became one of the best soldiers and trusted counsellors of Charlemagne, and in 790 was made count of Toulouse, when Charles’s son Louis the Pious was put under his charge. He subdued the Gascons, and defended Narbonne against the infidels. In 793 Hescham, the successor of Abd-al-Rahman II., proclaimed a holy war against the Christians, and collected an army of 100,000 men, half of which was directed against the kingdom of the Asturias, while the second invaded France, penetrating as far as Narbonne. Guillaume met the invaders near the river Orbieux, at Villedaigne, where he was defeated, but only after an obstinate resistance which so far exhausted the Saracens that they were compelled to retreat to Spain. He took Barcelona from the Saracens in 803, and in the next year founded the monastery of Gellone (now Saint Guilhem-le Désert), of which he became a member in 806. He died there in the odour of sanctity on the 28th of May 812.

No less than thirteen historical personages bearing the name of William (Guillaume) have been thought by various critics to have their share in the formation of the legend. William, count of Provence, son of Boso II., again delivered southern France from a Saracen invasion by his victory at Fraxinet in 973, and ended his life in a cloister. William Tow-head (Tête d’étoupe), duke of Aquitaine (d. 983), showed a fidelity to Louis IV. paralleled by Guillaume d’Orange’s service to Louis the Pious. The cycle of twenty or more chansons which form the geste of Guillaume reposes on the traditions of the Arab invasions of the south of France, from the battle of Poitiers (732) under Charles Martel onwards, and on the French conquest of Catalonia from the Saracens. In the Norse version of the Carolingian epic Guillaume appears in his proper historical environment, as a chief under Charlemagne; but he plays a leading part in the Couronnement Looys, describing the formal associations of Louis the Pious in the empire at Aix (813, the year after Guillaume’s death), and after the battle of Aliscans it is from the emperor Louis that he seeks reinforcements. This anachronism arises from the fusion of the epic Guillaume with the champion of Louis IV., and from the fact that he was the military and civil chief of Louis the Pious, who was titular king of Aquitaine under his father from the time when he was three years old. The inconsistencies between the real and the epic Guillaume are often left standing in the poems. The personages associated with Guillaume in his Spanish wars belong to Provence, and have names common in the south. The most famous of these are Beuves de Comarchis, Ernaud de Girone, Garin d’Anséun, Aïmer le chétif, so called from his long captivity with the Saracens. The separate existence of Aïmer, who refused to sleep under a roof, and spent his whole life in warring against the infidel, is proved. He was Hadhemar, count of Narbonne, who in 809 and 810 was one of the leaders sent by Louis against Tortosa. No doubt the others had historical prototypes. In the hands of the trouvères they became all brothers of Guillaume, and sons of Aymeri de Narbonne, the grandson of Garin de Monglane, and his wife Ermenjart. Nevertheless when Guillaume seeks help from Louis the emperor he finds all his relations in Laon, in accordance with his historic Frankish origin.

The central fact of the geste of Guillaume is the battle of the Archamp or Aliscans, in which perished Guillaume’s heroic nephew, Vezian or Vivien, a second Roland. At the eleventh hour he summoned Guillaume to his help against the overwhelming forces of the Saracens. Guillaume arrived too late to help Vivien, was himself defeated, and returned alone to his wife Guibourc, leaving his knights all dead or prisoners. This event is related in a Norman-French transcript of an old French chanson de geste, the Chançun de Willame—which only was brought to light in 1901 at the sale of the books of Sir Henry Hope Edwardes—in the Covenant Vivien, a recension of an older French chanson and in Aliscans. Aliscans continues the story, telling how Guillaume obtained reinforcements from Laon, and how, with the help of the comic hero, the scullion Rainouart or Rennewart, he avenged the defeat of Aliscans and his nephew’s death. Rainouart turns out to be the brother of Guillaume’s wife Guibourc, who was before her marriage the Saracen princess and enchantress Orable. Two other poems are consecrated to his later exploits, La Bataille Loquifer, the work of a French Sicilian poet, Jendeu de Brie (fl. 1170), and Le Moniage Rainouart. The staring-point of Herbert le duc of Dammartin (fl. 1170) in Foucon de Candie (Candie = Gandia in Spain?) is the return of Guillaume from the battle; and the Italian compilation I Nerbonesi, based on these and other chansons, seems in some cases to represent an earlier tradition than the later of the French chansons, although its author Andrea di Barberino wrote towards the end of the 14th century. The minnesinger Wolfram von Eschenbach based his Willehalm on a French original which must have differed from the versions we have. The variations in the story of the defeat of Aliscans or the Archant, and the numerous inconsistencies of the narratives even when considered separately have occupied many critics. Aliscans (Aleschans, Alyscamps, Elysii Campi) was, however, generally taken to represent the battle of Villedaigne, and to take its name from the famous cemetery outside Arles. Wolfram von Eschenbach even mentions the tombs which studded the field of battle. Indications that this tradition was not unassailable were not lacking before the discovery of the Chançun de Willame, which, although preserved in a very corrupt form, represents the earliest recension we have of the story, dating at least from the beginning of the 12th century. It seems probable that the Archant was situated in Spain near Vivien’s headquarters at Tortosa, and that Guillaume started from Barcelona, not from Orange, to his nephew’s help. The account of the disaster was modified by successive trouvères, and the uncertainty of their methods may be judged by the fact that in the Chançun de Willame two consecutive accounts (11. 450–1326 and 11. 1326–2420) of the fight appear to be set side by side as if they were separate episodes. Le Couronnement Looys, already mentioned, Le Charroi de Nîmes (12th century) in which Guillaume, who had been forgotten in the distribution of fiefs, enumerates his services to the terrified Louis, and Aliscans (12th century), with the earlier Chançun, are among the finest of the French epic poems. The figure of Vivien is among the most heroic elaborated by the trouvères, and the giant Rainouart has more than a touch of Rabelaisian humour.

The chansons de geste of the cycle of Guillaume are: Enfances Garin de Monglane (15th century) and Garin de Monglane (13th century), on which is founded the prose romance of Guérin de Monglane, printed in the 15th century by Jehan Trepperel and often later; Girars de Viane (13th century, by Bertrand de Bar-sur-Aube), ed. P. Tarbé (Reims, 1850); Hernaut de Beaulande (fragment 14th century); Renier de Gennes, which only survives in its prose form; Aymeri de Narbonne (c. 1210) by Bertrand de Bar-sur-Aube, ed. L. Demaison (Soc. des anc. textes fr., Paris, 2 vols., 1887); Les Enfances Guillaume (13th century); Les Narbonnais, ed. H. Suchier (Soc. des anc. textes fr., 2 vols., 1898), with a Latin fragment dating from the 11th century, preserved at the Hague; Le Couronnement Looys (ed. E. Langlois, 1888), Le Charroi de Nîmes, La Prise d’Orange, Le Covenant Vivien, Aliscans, which were edited by W. J. A. Jonckbloet in vol. i. of his Guillaume d’Orange (The Hague, 1854); a critical text of Aliscans (Halle, 1903, vol. i.) is edited by E. Wienbeck, W. Hartnacke and P. Rasch; Loquifer and Le Moniage Rainouart (12th century); Bovon de Commarchis (13th century), recension of the earlier Siège de Barbastre, by Adenès li