ROMANS D'AVENTURES.
[Sidenote: Distinguishing features of Romans d'Aventures.]
The remarkable fecundity of early French literature in narrative poetry
on the great scale was not limited to the Chanson de Geste, the
Arthurian Romance, and the classical story wrought into the likeness of
one or the other of these. Towards the end of the twelfth or the
beginning of the thirteenth century a new class of narrative poems
arose, derived from each and all of these kinds, but marked by important
differences. The new form immediately reacted on the forms which had
given it birth, and produced new Chansons de Gestes, new Arthurian
Romances, and new classical stories fashioned after its own image. This
is what is called the Roman d'Aventures, of which the first and main
feature is open and almost avowed fictitiousness, and the second the
more or less complete abandonment of any attempt at cyclic arrangement
or subordination to a central theme.
[Sidenote: Looser application of the term.]
[Sidenote: Classes of Romans d'Aventures.]
Until quite recently it was not unusual to apply the term Roman
d'Aventures with less strictness, and to make it include the Romances of
the Round Table. There can, however, be no doubt that it is far better
to adopt Jean Bodel's three classes as distinguishing into separate
groups the epic poetry of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and to
restrict the title Romans d'Aventures to the later narrative
developments of the thirteenth and fourteenth. For the second
distinguishing mark which we have just indicated is striking and of more
or less universal application. In these later poems the ambition of the
writer to class his work under and with some precedent work is almost
entirely absent. He allows himself complete freedom, though he may
sometimes, in order to give his characters greater interest, connect
them nominally with some famous personage or event of the earlier
cycles. This tendency to shake off the shackles of cyclicism is early
apparent. There are episodes even in the Chansons de Gestes which have
little or no reference to Charlemagne or his peers: the Arthurian
Romances in prose and verse contain long digressions, holding but very
loosely to the Table Round, such as the adventures of Tristram and
Percivale, and still more the singular episode of Grimaud in the _Saint
Graal_. As for the third class, the Trouveres almost from the beginning
assumed the greatest licence in their handling of the classical legends.
These accordingly were less affected than any others by the change. It
is possible to divide the Romans d'Aventures themselves under the three
headings. It is further possible to indicate a large class of Chansons
de Gestes over which the influence of the Roman d'Aventures has passed.
But the Chanson having a special formal peculiarity--the assonanced or
rhymed tirade--survived the new influence better than the other two, and
keeps its name, and to some extent its character, while the Romances of
Arthur and antiquity are simply lost in the general body of tales of
adventure. These tales are for the most part written in octosyllabic
couplets on the model of Chrestien, but a very few, such as _Brun de la
Montaigne_, imitate the exterior characteristics of the Chanson.
It is further to be noticed that while the earlier poems are mostly
anonymous, the Romans d'Aventures are generally, though not always,
signed, and bear characteristics of particular authorship. In some
cases, notably in those of Adenes le Roi and Raoul de Houdenc, we have a
body of work signed or otherwise identified, which enables us to
attribute a definite literary character and position to its authors.
This, as we have noted, is impossible in the case of the national epics,
and not too easy in that of the Arthurian Romances. Until quite recently
however the Roman d'Aventures has had less of the attention of editors
than its forerunners, and the works which compose the class are still to
some extent unpublished.
[Sidenote: Adenes le Roi.]
Adenes or Adans le Roi perhaps derived his surname from the function of
king of the minstrels, if he performed it, at the court of Henry III,
duke of Brabant. He was, most likely, born in the second quarter of the
thirteenth century, and the last probable allusion to him which we have
occurs in the year 1297. The events of his life are only known from his
own poems, and consist chiefly of travels in company with different
princesses and princes of Flanders and Brabant. His literary work is
however of great importance. It consists partly of refashionings of
three Chansons de Gestes, _Les enfances Ogier_, _Berte aus grans Pies_,
and _Bueves de Commarchis_[91]. In these three poems Adenes works up the
old epics into the form fashionable in his time, and as we possess the
older versions of the first and last, the comparison of the two forms
affords a literary study of the highest interest. His last, longest, and
most important work is the Roman d'Aventures of _Cleomades_[92], a poem
extending to 20,000 verses, and not less valuable for its intrinsic
merit than as a type of its class. Its popularity in the middle ages was
immense. Froissart gives it the place occupied in the _Inferno_ by
_Lancelot_ in his description of his declaration of love to his
mistress, and allusions to it under its second title of _Le Cheval de
Fust_[93] are frequent. The most prominent feature in the story is the
introduction of a wooden horse, like that known to everybody in the
Arabian Nights, which, started and guided by means of pegs, transports
its rider whithersoever he will. Its great length allows of a very long
series of adventures, all of which are told in spirited and flowing
verse, though with considerable prolixity and a certain abuse of stock
descriptions. These two faults characterise all the Romans d'Aventures
and the Chansons which were remodelled in their style. The merits of
_Cleomades_ are not so universally found, but its extreme length is not
common. Few other Romans d'Aventures exceed 10,000 lines. An extract
from this poem will well illustrate the manner of this important class
of composition:--
Cleomades vit un chastel
encoste un plain, tres fort et bel,
ou il ot mainte bele tour.
bos et rivieres vit entour,
vignes et praieries grans.
mult fu li chastiaus bien seans.
la facon dou castel deisse,
mais je dout mult que ne meisse
trop longement au deviser:
pour ce m'en voel briement passer.
Du chastel vous dirai le non:
miols seant ne vit aine nus hom,
lors l'apieloit on Chastel-noble.
n'ot tel dusque en Constantinoble,
ne de la dusque en Osterice
n'ot plus bel, plus fort ne plus rice.
carmans a cel point i estoit
que Cleomades vint la droit.
forment li sambloit li chastiaus
de toutes pars riches et biaus.
Cleomades lors s'avisa
que viers le chastel se trera.
bien pensoit qu'en tel liu manoient
gent qui de grant afaire estoient.
che fu si qu'apries l'ajournee
mult faisoit bele matinee,
car mais estoit nouviaus entres:
c'est uns tans ki mult est ames
et de toutes gens conjois;
pour cou a non mais li jolis.
une tres grant tour haute et forte
avoit ases pries de la porte,
ki estoit couverte de plon,
plate deseure, car adon
les faisoit on ensi couvrir
pour engins et pour assallir.
Cleomades a avisee
la tour ki estoit haute et lee;
lors pense qu'il s'arestera
sor cele tour tant qu'il savra,
se il puet, la certainite
quel pais c'est la verite.
lors a son cheval adrechie
viers la tour de marbre entaillie.
les chevilletes si tourna
que droit sour la tour aresta.
si coiement s'est avales
que sour aighe coie vait nes.
[Sidenote: Raoul de Houdenc.]
Raoul de Houdenc is an earlier poet than Adenes, and represents the
Roman d'Aventures in its infancy, when it still found it necessary to
attach itself to the great cycle of the Round Table. His works, besides
some shorter poems[94], consist of the _Roman des Eles_ (Ailes), a
semi-allegorical composition, describing the wings and feathers of
chivalry, that is to say, the great chivalrous virtues, among which
Raoul, like a herald as he was, gives Largesse the first place; of
_Meraugis de Portlesguez_, an important composition, possessing some
marked peculiarities of style; and possibly also of the _Vengeance de
Raguidel_, in which the author works out one of the innumerable
unfinished episodes of the great epic of _Percevale_. Thus Raoul de
Houdenc occupies no mean place in French literature, inasmuch as he
indicates the starting-point of two great branches, the Roman
d'Aventures and the allegorical poem, and this at a very early date.
This date is not known exactly; but it was certainly before 1228, when
the Trouvere Huon de Mery alludes to him, and classes him with Chrestien
as a master of French verse. He has in truth some very noteworthy
peculiarities. The chief of these, which must soon strike any reader of
_Meraugis_, is his tendency to _enjambement_ or overlapping of couplets.
It is a curious feature in the history of French verse that the
isolation of the couplet has constantly recurred in its history, and
that as constantly reformers have striven to break up the monotony so
produced by this process of _enjambement_. Perhaps Raoul is the earliest
who thus, as an indignant critic put it at the first representation of
_Hernani_, 'broke up verses, and threw them out of window.' Besides this
metrical characteristic, the thing most noteworthy in his poems (as
might indeed have been expected from his composition of the _Roman des
Eles_) is a tendency to allegorising, and to scholastic disquisitions on
points of amatory casuistry. The whole plot of _Meraugis_ indeed turns
on the enquiry whether physical or metaphysical love is the sincerest,
and on the quarrel which a difference on this point brings on between
the hero and Gorvein Cadrus his friend and his rival in the love of the
fair Lidoine.
[Sidenote: Chief Romans d'Aventures.]
Many other Romans d'Aventures deserve mention, both for their intrinsic
merits and for the immense popularity they once enjoyed. Foremost among
these must be mentioned _Partenopex de Blois_[95] and _Flore et
Blanchefleur_[96]. The former (formerly ascribed to Denis Pyramus and
now denied to him, but said to date from the twelfth century) is a kind
of modernised _Cupid and Psyche_, except that Cupid's place is taken by
the fairy Melior, and Psyche's by the knight Parthenopeus or
Parthenopex. This poem has great elegance and freshness of style, and
though the author is inclined to moralise (as a near forerunner of the
_Roman de la Rose_ was bound to do), his moralisings are gracefully and
naively put. _Flore et Blanchefleur_ is perhaps even superior. Its theme
is the love of a young Christian prince for a Saracen girl-slave, who
has been brought up with him. She is sold into a fresh captivity to
remove her from him, but he follows her and rescues her unharmed from
the harem of the Emir of Babylon. The delicacy of the handling is very
remarkable in this poem, and it has some links of connection with
_Aucassin et Nicolette_. _Le Roman de Dolopathos_[97] has a literary
history of great interest which we need not touch upon here. Its
versification has more vigour than that of almost any other Roman
d'Aventures. _Blancandin et l'Orguilleuse d'Amour_[98] is more promising
at the beginning than in the sequel. A young knight, hearing of the
pride and coyness of a lady, accosts and kisses her as she rides past
with a great following of knights. Her coldness is of course changed to
love at first sight, and the audacious suitor afterwards delivers her
from her enemies; but the working out of the story is rather dully
managed. _Brun de la Montaigne_[99], as has been already mentioned, is
written in Chanson form, and deals with the famous Forest of Broceliande
in Britanny. _Guillaume de Palerne_[100] is a still more interesting
work. It introduces the favourite mediaeval idea of lycanthropy, the
hero being throughout helped and protected by a friendly were-wolf, who
is before the end of the poem freed from the enchantment to which he is
subjected. This Romance was early translated into English. Of the same
class is the _Roman de l'Escouffle_, where a hawk carries away the
heroine's ring, as in a well-known story of the Arabian Nights. _Amadas
et Idoine_[101] is one of the numerous histories of the success of a
squire of low degree, but is distinguished from most of them by the
originality of its conception and the vigour of its style. The scenes
where the hero is recovered of his madness by his beloved, and where,
keeping guard over her tomb, he fights with ghostly enemies, after a
time of trial of his fidelity, and rescues her from death, are unusually
brilliant. _Le Bel Inconnu_[102], which (from a curious misunderstanding
of its older form _Li Biaus Desconnus_) occurs in English form as
_Lybius Diasconus_, tells the story of a son of Gawain and the fairy
with the white hands, and thus is one of the numerous secondary Romances
of the Round Table. So also is the long and interesting _Roman du
Chevalier as Deux Espees_[103]; this extends to more than 12,000 lines,
and, though the adventures recorded are of the ordinary Round Table
pattern, there is noticeable in it a better faculty of maintaining the
interest and a completer mastery over episodes than usual. A still
longer poem (also belonging to what may be called the outer Arthurian
cycle) is _Durmart le Gallois_[104], which contains almost 16,000
verses. The loves of the hero and Fenise, the Queen of Ireland, are
somewhat lengthily handled; but there are passages of merit, especially
one most striking episode in which the hero, riding through a forest by
night, comes to a tree covered from top to bottom with burning torches,
while a shining naked child is enthroned on the summit. These touches of
mystical religion are rarer in the later Romans d'Aventures than in the
Arthurian Romances proper, but with them one of the most remarkable
elements of romance disappears. Philippe de Remy, Seigneur de Beaumanoir
(who has other claims to literary distinction) is held to be author of
two Romans d'Aventures[105], _La Manekine_ (the story of the King of
Hungary's daughter, who cut off her hand to save herself from her
father's incestuous passion) and _Blonde d'Oxford_, where a young French
squire carries off an English heiress. _Joufrois de Poitiers_[106],
which has not come down to us complete, is chiefly remarkable for the
liveliness of style with which adventures, in themselves tolerably
hackneyed, are handled. Other Romans d'Aventures, which are either as
yet in manuscript or of less importance, are _Ille et Galeron_ and
_Eracle_, both by Gautier d'Arras, _Cristal et Larie_, _La Dame a la
Licorne_, _Guy de Warwike_, _Gerard de Nevers_ or _La Violette_[107],
_Guillaume de Dole_, _Eledus et Serena_, _Florimont_.
[Sidenote: General Character.]
Like most kinds of mediaeval poetry, these Romans d'Aventures have a
very considerable likeness the one to the other. It may indeed be said
that they possess a 'common form' of certain incidents and situations,
which reappear with slight changes and omissions in all or most of them.
Their besetting sins are diffuseness and the recurrence of stock
descriptions and images. On the other hand, they have their peculiar
merits. The harmony of their versification is often very considerable;
their language is supple, picturesque, and varied, and the moral
atmosphere which they breathe is one of agreeable refinement and
civilisation. In them perhaps is seen most clearly the fanciful and
graceful side of the state of things which we call chivalry. Its
mystical and transcendental sides are less vividly and touchingly
exhibited than in the older Arthurian Romances; and its higher passions
are also less dealt with. The Romans d'Aventures supply once more,
according to the Aristotelian definition, an Odyssey to the Arthurian
Iliad; they are complex and deal with manners. Nor ought it to be
omitted that, though they constantly handle questions of gallantry, and
though their uniform theme is love, the language employed on these
subjects is almost invariably delicate, and such as would not fail to
satisfy even modern standards of propriety. The courtesy which was held
to be so great a knightly virtue, if it was not sufficient to ensure a
high standard of morality in conduct, at any rate secured such a
standard in matter of expression. In this respect the Court literature
of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries stands in very remarkable
contrast to that which was tolerated, if not preferred, from the time of
Louis the Eleventh until the reign of his successor fourteenth of the
name.
[Sidenote: Last Chansons. Baudouin de Sebourc.]
Reference has already been made to the influence which these poems had
on the Chansons de Gestes. Few of the later developments of these are
worth much attention, but what may be called the last original Chanson
deserves some notice. _Baudouin de Sebourc_[108] and its sequel the
_Bastard of Bouillon_[109] worthily close this great division of
literature, and, setting as they do a finish to the sub-cycle of the
_Chevalier au Cygne_, hardly lose except in simplicity by comparison
with its magnificent opening in the _Chanson d'Antioche_. They contain
together some 33,000 verses, and the scene changes freely. It is
sometimes in Syria, where the Crusaders fight against the infidel,
sometimes in France and Flanders, where Baudouin has adventures of all
kinds, comic and chivalrous, sometimes on the sea, where among other
things the favourite mediaeval legend of St. Brandan's Isle is brought
in. Not a little of its earlier part shows the sarcastic spirit common
at the date of its composition, the beginning of the fourteenth century.
The length of the two poems is enormous, as has been said; but, putting
two or three masterpieces aside, no poem of mediaeval times has a more
varied and livelier interest than _Baudouin de Sebourc_, and few breathe
the genuine Chanson spirit of pugnacious piety better than _Le Bastart
de Bouillon_.
FOOTNOTES:
[91] Ed. Scheler. Brussels, v. d.
[92] Ed. van Hasselt. Brussels, 1866.
[93] _The wooden horse._
[94] The _Songe d'Enfer_ and the _Voie de Paradis_, published by
Jubinal, as the _Roman des Eles_ has been by Scheler, _Meraugis_ by
Michelant, and the _Vengeance de Raguidel_ by Hippeau.
[95] Ed. Crapelet. Paris, 1834.
[96] Ed. Du Meril. Paris, 1856.
[97] Ed. Brunet et Montaiglon. Paris, 1856.
[98] Ed. Michelant. Paris, 1867.
[99] Ed. Meyer. Paris, 1875.
[100] Ed. Michelant. Paris, 1876.
[101] Ed. Hippeau. Paris, 1863.
[102] Ed. Hippeau. Paris, 1860.
[103] Ed. Foerster. Halle, 1877.
[104] Ed. Stengel. Tuebingen, 1873.
[105] Both edited in extract by Bordier. Paris, 1869. Complete edition
begun by Suchier. Paris, 1884.
[106] Ed. Hofmann and Muncker. Halle, 1880.
[107] Ed. Michel.
[108] Ed. Boca. 2 vols. Valenciennes, 1841.
[109] Ed. Scheler. Brussels, 1877.