1066 (23 page)

Our Turold was surely no disreputable fellow like this. He was a high-class
jongleur.
His name has been embroidered proudly in the company of kings and nobles. There were some high-minded clerics who were prepared to tolerate the art of the
jongleur,
provided that it was put to some useful purpose.
Jongleurs
could, after all, sing to the people about edifying or uplifting subjects and in a language they could understand. It did not have to be all scandalous songs or idle tricks and dirty jokes. They could sing the lives of saints and moral fables or the famous heroic tales of feudal and Christian valour known as
chansons de geste.
Above all else, it is in this last role, as performers, and sometimes authors, of
chansons de geste
that
jongleurs
are nowadays best remembered.
Chansons de geste
were the epic poems of Old French literature. They were tales of exciting and heroic deeds, usually set in or around the age of Charlemagne, sung by a
jongleur
to an audience of lords and courtiers. The great popularity of
chansons de geste
is testified by the fact that more than 100 survive, dating from the latter part of the eleventh century to the first half of the fourteenth. So is this how we should see Turold? As a performer, and perhaps author, of
chansons de geste}
Interestingly enough,
Gormont et Isembart,
the very earliest
chanson de geste
that survives, albeit in fragmentary form, is known to come from Ponthieu. The monk Hariulf, writing in the 1080s at the monastery of Saint-Riquier, just outside Count Guy's capital of Abbeville, tells us that the story of
Gormont et Isembart
was 'remembered and sung every day by the people of the land'.
²¹
But there is something more than this, something that is much more intriguing. The very greatest of all the
chansons de geste
is the
Chanson de Roland
(the
Song of Roland)
and it is familiar, if only by name, to every French schoolchild. It is the first great work of French literature, a monumental celebration of Charlemagne and his kin. It occupies a position in French literary history equivalent to the English
Beowulf
and it may be counted among the world's classics. Scholars have long argued over the authorship, origin and date of the
Roland.
Mystery surrounds these issues. But in the very last of the 4,002 lines of the earliest extant version of the
Chanson de Roland,
preserved in the twelfth-century Anglo-Norman manuscript kept in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, we read the following extraordinary clue:

Ci fait la geste que Turoldus declinet
Here ends the story which Turold relates
²²

At once we must remember that Turold was a very common name. Moreover, the precise meaning of line 4002 of the
Chanson de Roland,
and in particular the role of 'Turoldus', has remained frustratingly obscure; the Turold mentioned could have been the author of the poem, the performer of the poem, the author of its source material or even the twelfth-century copyist who made the only surviving copy of this version of the tale.
²³
We are in a grey area; but grey as it is, the possibility is truly intriguing. It is a possibility that is even more intriguing now that we have seen that the dwarf is probably a
jongleur
and that the tapestry brings to the fore Count Eustace II of Boulogne, the man who had the richest blood of Charlemagne running through his veins and who may even have been the patron of the tapestry itself. Could it be that the dwarf in the tapestry is the forgotten genius who wrote and composed the
Chanson de Roland}
Was this his claim to fame?

The
Chanson de Roland
is a masterpiece which was written, so far as historians have deduced, by a Frenchman, from somewhere in the north of what we now call France, or possibly conquered England, during the latter part of the eleventh century. But though its author may justly be called the founding father of French literature, his identity has always remained a mystery. Apart from his possible name, Turold, nothing is known of him. As a topic of study, the
Chanson de Roland
is matched only by the Bayeux Tapestry in terms of the vast number of scholarly books and articles that medievalists have devoted to it. Yet despite this intense interest, the theory that the two Turolds are identical persons has only very rarely been suggested, and nowadays it is not mentioned at all. As Gerard Moignet wrote in 1972, scholars have 'abandoned all hope of finding the author of the
Chanson de Roland
[in the Bayeux Tapestry]'.
²⁴
In all this, however, the intriguing fact that the dwarf in the Bayeux Tapestry seems to be a
jongleur
has not widely been noted and it has never been truly brought to bear on the issue.

The story of the
Chanson de Roland,
which is very loosely based on fact, is set in the year 778, during the age of Charlemagne. The manner in which the poem was written or evolved has long been a subject of debate; it probably existed in a variety of earlier forms, now lost, before being reworked in the eleventh century by a single poet for new times and for a new audience. It tells of how the traitor Ganelon betrayed the rearguard of Charlemagne's army to the Muslim Saracens of Spain. As a result Roland (Charlemagne's nephew) and many others, including his companion Olivier and the warrior Archbishop Turpin, come under a devastating attack as they return to France through the Pyrenean pass of Roncevaux. Under Roland's leadership they fight long and heroically. Archbishop Turpin, Olivier and Roland all stand out for their fighting prowess but inevitably they all perish. In due course, however, Charlemagne, aided by God, exacts revenge against the Saracens, swiftly in one battle and then again on a vast scale as the forces of Islam and Christianity face each other in a further epic conflict.
²⁵
The traitor Ganelon is finally brought to justice and executed for his crime.

In the figure of Roland medieval Europe found one of its greatest feudal and Christian heroes. He was the epitome of valour, battling for his God and his king, and dying a heroic death. The fame of the poem quickly spread. Versions of it were to be composed in High German, Old Norse, Welsh, Dutch and Middle English. In the fourteenth century both Dante and Chaucer knew the story. In Renaissance Italy stories of Roland continued to inspire Boiardo and Ariosto. Images of Roland and his companion Olivier may be found in art and sculpture from the twelfth century onwards and Roland's horn, which, out of his sense of honour, he refuses to blow to summon help, attained iconic status.

There is, of course, much in the poem that the modern reader finds objectionable; the poet's religiosity is ignorant, racist and violent. But in truth he could not have been otherwise, given where and when he lived. The opposition he sets up between the two great companions-in-arms, the brave but reckless Roland and the wise and cautious Olivier, still succeeds in engaging the reader and in stimulating debate. The poet is also a master at milking the tension. He can dramatically hold up the action, describing the same knife-edge moment in succeeding stanzas with subtly different words. If he was a performer, it shows; he knew how to keep his audience on edge. The scene that recounts Roland's death, in particular, has been described as one of the greatest in world literature.

There are several intriguing parallels between the respective stories told by
Chanson de Roland
and the Bayeux Tapestry. Many historians have noted in passing that the artist of the tapestry may well have known the
Chanson de Roland
and that he was perhaps consciously echoing themes found in the poem.
²⁶
Harold, for example, reminds us of the traitor Ganelon: both are brothers-in-law of their sovereign; both undertake a dangerous mission in a foreign land; both are brave and noble opponents who are brought down as a result of breaking the bonds of feudal duty; and the penalty of death is the price of their sin, for them and their kinsmen.

Most impressive, however, is the parallel that can be drawn between the fighting Archbishop Turpin and Bishop Odo of Bayeux. Alone among contemporary accounts the tapestry places Odo in the thick of the fighting. It is true that the embroidered Odo carries a mace, not a lance or sword, apparently reflecting a prohibition against those in holy orders shedding blood. The legendary Turpin is a hardened warrior who has no such inhibition. Turpin also dies in battle, a fate certainly not shared by Odo. But the image of the swashbuckling cleric, bravely taking part in the midst of a 'holy' battle, is strikingly shared between the tapestry and the
Chanson.
There is a passage in the
Chanson de Roland
that may even have been the direct inspiration for what we see in the embroidery. Surrounded by the enemy, and in the thick of battle, Roland's knights begin to panic and they call upon Roland and Olivier to protect them. Turpin, riding amongst them, steels their resolve:

Lord barons, do not indulge in base thoughts;
In God's name I beg you not to flee,
So that no man of worth can sing a shameful song.
It is far better for us to die fighting.
²⁷

The designer of the tapestry sought to flatter Bishop Odo in a variety of ways and it is more than possible that he was here deliberately fawning to him by implying that he was a second Archbishop Turpin [scene 54; plate 10]. At the same time, however, he carefully avoided any implication that Odo was directly involved in the slaughter. The point of comparison was carefully chosen.

If Ganelon is Harold and Odo Turpin, who in the embroidered story is the Emperor Charlemagne and who is Roland?Here the messages seem to be mixed. The leader of the invasion is Duke William and it might seem that he should naturally have the starring role and enjoy the implication of being another Charlemagne. Yet the presence of Count Eustace, the emperor's noble descendant, suggests on the contrary that he is the one who stands for the Carolingian bloodline, perhaps Charlemagne and Roland all rolled into one. On this account, William's counterpart in the poem would be a merely secondary figure, the 'Norman' vassal of Charlemagne who is anachronistically identified in the poem as Duke Richard the Old (who was in reality Duke William's great-grandfather). If these parallels with the
Chanson de Roland
are really there, as they seem to be, we have further evidence that the artist of the tapestry, although working in England and in an English genre, was actually French-speaking.
²⁸
More than that, we can now well understand that the artist might wish to reinforce the parallels with the story of Roland by a passing depiction of the author of the poem itself, in Ponthieu and in the presence of Count Guy, where he would normally be found.

The place of origin of the
Chanson de Roland
has long been debated. On the basis that the twelfth-century Oxford manuscript was copied out in the Anglo-Norman dialect of its day, some have argued that it is a Norman work.
²⁹
Others, however, see the original poem as emanating from somewhere else in northern France, perhaps the area around Paris known as the Ile-de-France, or in Champagne, Anjou or Lorraine.
³⁰
Chartres, too, has been suggested.
³¹
That it may have been written in Ponthieu is a novel suggestion; but the possibility should not be dismissed out of hand. Count Guy of Ponthieu was a great-great-grandson in the male line of Hugh Capet, the French king who finally ended the rule of the Carolingians in 987. Hugh Capet himself, however, was an indirect kinsman of Carolingian lineage and Guy could presumably trace a descent from the emperor in several female lines. Moreover the links in the region with the age of Charlemagne were as strong as they were anywhere else. It was here that Charlemagne is said to have placed his son-in-law Angilbert (740814) in control of the region. Angilbert was also one of the most celebrated former abbots of the monastery of Saint Riquier, the chief monastic centre of Ponthieu.
³²
The distinction in the poem between the 'French' and 'Norman'divisions of Charlemagne's army seems to mirror the very same distinction made in the
Carmen de Hastingae Proelio
when it describes Duke William's invasion force, where the 'French' are (or include) the men of Ponthieu and Boulogne. The
Chanson de Roland
thus appears to reflect sentiments of 'French' identity that are very similar to those expressed in the
Carmen.
On the other hand, the notion that the
Chanson de Roland
is a Norman work is undermined by the fact that it is always the French who are given the greater prestige; the 'Normans' are allotted a merely secondary role and 'Normandy' is merely one of a number of subsidiary territories ruled over by the true 'Frenchman' Charlemagne.
³³
The poem was probably written for a wider audience than just one French region, and no place in Ponthieu is mentioned in the text, but for political, historical and genealogical reasons Pon­thieu, or one of its northern French neighbours, can hardly be ruled out as its place of composition or adaptation.

Nor is it impossible that the
Roland
is more or less contemporary with the Bayeux Tapestry, that is to say probably dating from the period between 1066 and about 1080 and perhaps more specifically from the early to mid-1070s. Various arguments have been advanced in favour of the
Roland
being significantly later in date than the tapestry, but none is persuasive.
³⁴
While the thrust of the
Chanson de Roland
puts the 'Normans' very much in the shade of the 'French', there are nevertheless some oblique references to Duke William's recent conquest of England. Thus it is mentioned that Charlemagne 'crossed the salty sea to England and won the poll-tax for Rome's own use' and that 'England became his domain'.
³⁵
Neither statement is true of Charlemagne but both are true of William the Conqueror. For this reason, if nothing else, the poem in its surviving form must date from after 1066. The widespread notion that the
Chanson de Roland
must, of necessity, have been written after a battle in Spain in 1086 (the Battle of Zalaca) is based on a series of false assumptions.
³⁶
Arguably, so is the notion that the
Roland
reflects the time of the First Crusade (post 1096); there is no reference at all, either implicit or explicit, to the Crusade in the East. What the
Roland
reflects is rather the climate of opinion that made the First Crusade possible. This was a time, some twenty or so years earlier, when contingents of French knights were already fighting against the Muslims in Spain, just as we find them in the
Roland.
Moreover, there may well be a number of oblique references in the
Roland
to contemporary events in 1071 or 1072, forming a cluster of allusions that suggests that the poet was writing not long afterwards.
³⁷
There is also no reference to the Norman conquest of Sicily, although the Norman successes in Calabria and Apulia are implicitly referred to. This suggests that the poet was writing before the conquest of Sicily was complete in 1091, and probably before it was substantially complete in the late 1070s. One place in Sicily is mentioned in passing by the poet - Palermo.
³⁸
Palermo was captured by the Normans in January 1072. For all these reasons a date for the composition or adaptation of the work in the early 1070s seems to be entirely plausible.