5 - Unger’s Karlamagnús saga: A Modern Composition?

Summary

The Old Norse Karlamagnús saga is one of the few medieval Charlemagne cycles composed in Europe, if ‘cycle’ is taken to mean an original book containing chansons de geste put together according to a definite pattern. Povl Skårup tries to establish distinctions between geste and cycle and presents the ‘succession linéaire’ (‘linear succession’) as an important element of the definition of a cycle as opposed to the geste. In another article, Skårup says that it is misleading to use the term ‘compilation’ to describe Karlamgnússaga (‘une désignation déroutante’, ‘a misleading definition’). He believes that, like the cycle des Narbonnais, Karlamagnús saga shows a definite pattern in its selection of poems. Epic cycles were, indeed, far from unknown in medieval France, and the flourishing tradition of the cycle de Guillaume (in its widest extension), which led to the production of many cyclic manuscripts during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, is a good illustration of that trend. Moreover, the parallel that is often drawn between the geste du roi and the geste des Narbonnais is based on a medieval conception: Bertrand de Bar-sur-Aube’s famous prologue in his Girard de Viane initiated the theory that there were several gestes in France, including a geste des rois. However, to date scholars have been unable to establish a clear definition of this ‘geste’, and there is no matching cyclic manuscript. The earliest French Charlemagne-cycles we know of are new compositions based on diverse materials. Generations of scholars have considered Philippe Mouskés’ Chronique Rimée to be one of the closest known books to Karlamagnús saga written in French, both in date and content. Nevertheless, it is only partially dedicated to Charlemagne’s reign, which occupies about a third of the book. Besides, like Girard d’Amiens and David Aubert, Mouskés depended heavily on Saint-Denis’ official historiographical sources, whereas Karlamagnús saga’s sources still need further in-depth investigation.

Even though (or because) a cyclic manuscript gathering of the chansons of the geste du roi could never be found in medieval or modern library catalogues or in surviving codices, Romanists developed an early interest in Karlamagnús saga. We owe one of the earliest reviews of Unger’s edition to the philologist Gaston Paris.