EARLY POPULAR EPICS.
The north of France was the birth country and chief seat of epic poetry
in the Middle Ages. The _chanson de geste_, the _roman_, the _fabliau_
frequently bear witness of a consummate grace of narrative diction.
Even the lyrical effusions of the Trouvère not seldom take the form of
the monologue or dialogue. The poet loves to hide his personality under
the mask of a fictitious character. Sometimes he is the maiden longing
for love and spring, who from the seclusion of her cloister raises her
voice against the robbers of her liberty, _malois soit de deu ki me fist
nonnete_; sometimes, like Rutebœuf, he listens to the vulgar quarrels
of ‘Charlie and the barber,’ or, like Charles d’Orleans, the sweet
chansonnier in French and English, holds converse with
... l’amoureuse deesse
Qui m’apela demandant ou j’aloye.
The narrative and dramatic instincts of modern French writers are
distinctly manifest in their mediæval _confrères_.
This is different with the Troubadour, the poet of Southern France. He
is the lyrical singer _par excellence_, speaking in his own undisguised
person and of his own subjective passion. Hence the truth and intensity,
but hence also the monotonousness and conventional phraseology of
passion, alternately characteristic of the Provençal love-song. But the
narrative instinct was not entirely wanting in the poets of the _langue
d’oc_. The great wave of epic song which kept continually crossing the
Channel from the Celt to the French Norman, and back again to the Saxon
and Anglo-Norman, left its flotsam on the shores of Southern France.
Neither did the half-mystic glory of Charlemagne and his peers fail
to impress the imagination of the chivalrous Troubadours. We possess,
or at least know of the existence of, Provençal epics from both the
Carlovingian and Arthurian circles. Although comparatively small in
number and importance, these deserve a passing mention.
The epic poetry of southern, like and on the same principle as that
of northern France, may be broadly divided into the popular, and the
artistic or individual narrative. The two classes differ as widely as
possible both as regards metrical form and poetical treatment. The
popular epic was sung or chanted to a monotonous tune, the artistic
recited. The former uses frequently the assonance (identity of vowels,
but difference of consonants) in strophes or tirades of varying length;
the latter, exclusively rhyme in couplets. The popular epic is fond
of introducing standing formulas and epithets, and the recurrence of
similar situations or motives is marked by the naïve repetition of the
identical phrase. The poet himself disappears behind his work; he is
nothing but the mouthpiece of popular feeling and tradition. Different
from this, the artistic poet takes individual shape in his work. He
groups his material with conscious study of narrative effects, frequently
adds new inventions to the legend he treats, and is fond of interrupting
the narrative by reflections of his own, moral or otherwise as the case
may be.
Of the popular epic very few specimens remain, and of these few one at
least, the ‘Ferabras,’ seems a translation from the North-French. The
representative poem of the class is the old Provençal epic, ‘Girart
de Rossilho,’ a splendid example of early mediæval spirit, crude in
sentiment and diction, coarse and irregular in its metrical structure,
but powerful and of sterling quality, like the hero it celebrates. Like
the ‘Chanson de Roland’—the representative epic of Northern France—Girart
de Rossilho belongs to the Carlovingian circle of legendary lore. But
there is a considerable difference between the two poems as regards the
conception of the Carlovingian idea, if that modern term may be allowed.
The older French poem shows the great Emperor in full possession of his
power, and surrounded by his loyal Peers. The younger Provençal epic
reflects the revolutionary spirit of the great vassals under the weak
descendants of the great Charles. Its hero, indeed, Girart of Rossilho,
is the head of these rebellious barons, and his brave deeds in the wars
with his feudal lord are held up to admiration, while, on the other
hand, the Emperor Charles Martel (evidently a mistake on the part of the
minstrel for Charles the Bald, correctly reintroduced in a later French
version) is made the embodiment of meanness and treachery. After perusing
Girart’s exploits, some of them of a rather doubtful character according
to our notions, it is satisfactory to know that he at least departed life
with a clean bill of morality. The author himself seems to feel somewhat
uneasy on the subject. ‘But,’ he argues, ‘if Girart did great evil at
first, he made full and speedy compensation at last, for he did great
penance in a cloister—which he himself built beautifully and at great
cost.’ There he is said to have supported amongst other pious personages
‘one hundred maidens.’ ‘And the priests,’ the manuscript continues,
‘do nothing but pray God for him and the Lady Bertha his wife. And he
gave them a thousand marks free of taxes; and one can see well that he
means to go there.’ Thus the Holy Church was the gainer, and having, as
Mephistopheles says, ‘a good stomach able to digest ill-gotten pelf,’
she may, for all we know, have long rejoiced in the prosperity of the
holy damsels. Whether Girart actually entered his pious institution the
manuscript does not say; but such a close of such a career was by no
means rare in the middle ages.