Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/452

 4 02 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE centuries. "Only the language is difficult; there is nothing old-fashioned in the manner of the verse." The north of France may claim a slight precedence over the south by virtue of the Song of Roland, the oldest epic in The Song a Romance language and dating from the elev- of Roland ent h ce ntury. This poem, which deals with the retreat of Charlemagne from Spain and the heroic death of Roland at Roncesvalles, is devoted entirely to the tale of warfare against the Mohammedans and hardly mentions women. Yet its descriptions of rude and brutal warfare are expressed in a form which is not only stirring, but also not without literary finish. Instead of being alliterative like the verses of Beowulf, its ten-syllable lines are assonanced ; that is to say, a succession of lines will each end with the same owel sound in their final syllables, although the final conso- nants may differ so that there is not complete rhyme. This Chanson de Roland was the first of a long series of chansons de geste, most of which were written in the lan- Chansons guage of northern France and during the twelfth de geste anc j thirteenth centuries, although a few contin- ued to appear in the fourteenth. But the best ones date from the twelfth century. In all, more than a hundred of them are extant to-day and there are thousands of lines in each. Their main theme is French feudal history, the warfare of knights with one another and with the Saracens, the great deeds of the Franks at home and abroad. The Romance poets think of Charlemagne and his peers as Frenchmen, not as Germans. Gaul has absorbed the invad- ers and has made them its own heroes. These poems have sometimes been called " Charlemagne Romances," because most of them make some mention or have some connection with the great Frankish emperor, with whom they confuse Charles Martel. But any particular poem is apt to be about some particular vassal of Charlemagne, such as Roland, rather than about the emperor himself, and most of the great deeds are performed by others than Charles. This, we suspect, is because the chansons de geste were written to please a feudal audience which did not care to have the