assumed a sufficiently independent form to deserve to be called
a new language. This time it is indeed impossible exactly to
determine, and the period at which literary compositions, as
distinguished from mere conversation, began to employ the new
tongue is entirely unknown. As early as the 7th century the
Lingua Romana, as distinguished from Latin and from Teutonic
dialects, is mentioned, and this Lingua Romana would be of
necessity used for purposes of clerical admonition, especially in
the country districts, though we need not suppose that such
addresses had a very literary character. On the other hand,
the mention, at early dates, of certain cantilenae or songs composed
in the vulgar language has served for basis to a superstructure
of much ingenious argument with regard to the highly
interesting problem of the origin of the Chansons de Geste, the
earliest and one of the greatest literary developments of northern
French. It is sufficient in this article, where speculation would
be out of place, to mention that only two such cantilenae actually
exist, and that neither is French. One of the 9th century, the
“Lay of Saucourt,” is in a Teutonic dialect; the other, the “Song
of St Faron,” is of the 7th century, but exists only in Latin
prose, the construction and style of which present traces of translation
Early monuments.
from a poetical and vernacular original. As far
as facts go, the most ancient monuments of the written
French language consist of a few documents of very
various character, ranging in date from the 9th to the
11th century. The oldest gives us the oaths interchanged at
Strassburg in 842 between Charles the Bald and Louis the German.
The next probably in date and the first in literary merit is a short
song celebrating the martyrdom of St Eulalia, which may be
as old as the end of the 9th century, and is certainly not younger
than the beginning of the 10th. Another, the Life of St Leger, in
240 octosyllabic lines, is dated by conjecture about 975. The
discussion indeed of these short and fragmentary pieces is of
more philological than literary interest, and belongs rather to
the head of French language. They are, however, evidence of
the progress which, continuing for at least four centuries, built up
a literary instrument out of the decomposed and reconstructed
Latin of the Roman conquerors, blended with a certain limited
amount of contributions from the Celtic and Iberian dialects of
the original inhabitants, the Teutonic speech of the Franks, and
the Oriental tongue of the Moors who pressed upwards from Spain.
But all these foreign elements bear a very small proportion to the
element of Latin; and as Latin furnished the greater part of the
vocabulary and the grammar, so did it also furnish the principal
models and helps to literary composition. The earliest French
versification is evidently inherited from that of the Latin hymns
of the church, and for a certain time Latin originals were followed
in the choice of literary forms. But by the 11th century it is
tolerably certain that dramatic attempts were already being
made in the vernacular, that lyric poetry was largely cultivated,
that laws, charters, and such-like documents were written, and
that commentators and translators busied themselves with religious
subjects and texts. The most important of the extant
documents, outside of the epics presently to be noticed, has of
Epic poetry.
late been held to be the Life of Saint Alexis, a poem
of 625 decasyllabic lines, arranged in five-line stanzas,
each of one assonance or vowel-rhyme, which may be
as early as 1050. But the most important development of the
11th century, and the one of which we are most certain, is that
of which we have evidence remaining in the famous Chanson de
Roland, discovered in a manuscript at Oxford and first published
in 1837. This poem represents the first and greatest development
of French literature, the chansons de geste (this form is now
preferred to that with the plural gestes). The origin of these
poems has been hotly debated, and it is only recently that the
importance which they really possess has been accorded to them,—a
fact the less remarkable in that, until about 1820, the epics
of ancient France were unknown, or known only through late
and disfigured prose versions. Whether they originated in the
north or the south is a question on which there have been more
than one or two revolutions of opinion, and will probably be
others still, but which need not be dealt with here. We possess
in round numbers a hundred of these chansons. Three only of
them are in Provençal. Two of these, Ferabras and Betonnet
d’Hanstonne, are obviously adaptations of French originals.
The third, Girartz de Rossilho (Gerard de Roussillon), is undoubtedly
Provençal, and is a work of great merit and originality,
but its dialect is strongly tinged with the characteristics of the
Langue d’Oïl, and its author seems to have been a native of the
debatable land between the two districts. To suppose under
these circumstances that the Provençal originals of the hundred
others have perished seems gratuitous. It is sufficient to say
that the chanson de geste, as it is now extant, is the almost
exclusive property of northern France. Nor is there much
authority for a supposition that the early French poets merely
versified with amplifications the stories of chroniclers. On the
contrary, chroniclers draw largely from the chansons, and the
question of priority between Roland and the pseudo-Turpin,
though a hard one to determine, seems to resolve itself in favour
of the former. At most we may suppose, with much probability,
that personal and family tradition gave a nucleus for at least
the earliest.
Chansons de Geste.—Early French narrative poetry was
divided by one of its own writers, Jean Bodel, under three heads—poems
relating to French history, poems relating to
ancient history, and poems of the Arthurian cycle
(Matières de France, de Bretagne, et de Rome). To the
Chansons
de Geste.
first only is the term chansons de geste in strictness applicable.
The definition of it goes partly by form and partly by matter.
A chanson de geste must be written in verses either of ten or
twelve syllables, the former being the earlier. These verses have
a regular caesura, which, like the end of a line, carries with it
the licence of a mute e. The lines are arranged, not in couplets
or in stanzas of equal length, but in laisses or tirades, consisting
of any number of lines from half a dozen to some hundreds.
These are, in the earlier examples assonanced,—that is to say,
the vowel sound of the last syllables is identical, but the consonants
need not agree. Thus, for instance, the final words of a
tirade of Amis et Amiles (II. 199-206) are erbe, nouvelle, selles,
nouvelles, traversent, arrestent, guerre, cortége. Sometimes the
tirade is completed by a shorter line, and the later chansons are
regularly rhymed. As to the subject, a chanson de geste must be
concerned with some event which is, or is supposed to be,
historical and French. The tendency of the trouvères was constantly
to affiliate their heroes on a particular geste or family.
The three chief gestes are those of Charlemagne himself, of Doon
de Mayence, and of Garin de Monglane; but there are not a
few chansons, notably those concerning the Lorrainers, and the
remarkable series sometimes called the Chevalier au Cygne, and
dealing with the crusades, which lie outside these groups. By
this joint definition of form and subject the chansons de geste
are separated from the romances of antiquity, from the romances
of the Round Table, which are written in octosyllabic couplets,
and from the romans d’aventures or later fictitious tales, some of
which, such as Brun de la Montaigne, are written in pure chanson
form.
Not the least remarkable point about the chansons de geste is their vast extent. Their number, according to the strictest definition, exceeds 100, and the length of each chanson varies from 1000 lines, or thereabouts, to 20,000 or even 30,000. The entire mass, including, it may be Volume and changes of early epics. supposed, the various versions and extensions of each chanson, is said to amount to between two and three million lines; and when, under the second empire, the publication of the whole Carolingian cycle was projected, it was estimated, taking the earliest versions alone, at over 300,000. The successive developments of the chansons de geste may be illustrated by the fortunes of Huon de Bordeaux, one of the most lively, varied and romantic of the older epics, and one which is interesting from the use made of it by Shakespeare, Wieland and Weber. In the oldest form now extant, though even this is probably not the original, Huon consists of over 10,000 lines. A subsequent version contains 4000 more; and lastly, in the 14th century, a later poet has amplified the legend to the extent of 30,000 lines.