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A Possible Forerunner of the National Epic of France

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

F. M. Warren
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Extract

In Richer's History of France, written in 996 for Gerbert of Rheims, there is an account of one of Odo's campaigns against the Normans, which critics have uniformly rejected as being too romantic to rest on facts.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , 1915 , pp. 645 - 657
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1915

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References

1 Richer, Historiarum Libri Quatuor, I, c. vi-xi.

2 Eudes, comte de Paris et roi de France, Paris, 1893 (“Bibliothèque de l'école des Hautes études,” no. 99), pp. 230, 232.

3 Les Annales de Flodoard, Paris, 1905 (“Collection de textes pour servir à l'étude et à l'enseignement de l'histoire,” no. 39), p. 12, n. 3; p. 45, n. 2.

4 J. Bédier, Les Légendes épiques, vol. i, pp. 339 ss.

5 E. Desjardins, La Géographie de la Gaule romaine, vol. iv, pp. 147, 148, and planehe x.

6 Richer, loc. cit., c. xiii.

7 Favre, op. cit., pp. 187, 188; Richerts Vier Bücher Geschichte, Leipzig, 1891 (“ Die Geschiehtschreiber der deutschen Vorzeit,” vol. 37), p. 10, n. 1; p. 17, n. 1.

8 Odo had stood as the especial defender of the land against the Normans. He had become so endeared through his efforts to check them, while still Count of Paris, that his coronation called out an especial hymn of rejoicing, handed down to us in the hymnal of the abbey of Moissac (Favre, op. cit., pp. 235–236; Dreves, Analecta Eymnica, vol. ii, no. 127).

9 Aliscans, 11. 611–613, 679, 680.

10 Chevalerie Vivien, 1. 1001.

11 Aliis quoque gentibus eos esse potiores, tarn viribus quam audatia et armis, memorabat (loc. cit., c. vii).

12 Decus pro patria mori, egregiumque pro Christianorum defensione corpora morti dare (loc. cit., c. viii).

13 Roland, 11. 1063, 1064, 1076, 1090, 1091, 1129, 1210, etc. This idea of a militant Christianity was not at all restricted to the Loire basin in the last decade of the tenth century. In 897, the year of Huncdeus' baptism at Cluny, we find Archbishop Foulques of Rheims soundly rating Huncdeus' sponsor, Charles the Simple, for proposing an alliance to the heathen Normans. Favre, op. cit., pp. 187, 188.

14 Loc. cit., c. ix.

15 Loc. cit., c. xi.

16 As in Book ii, c. 52, 71–77, etc.

17 Even here the quotation is not an exact one. Horace's words are, “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” (Odes, iii, c. 2).

18 Poetae Latini Aevi Carolini, vol. iv, pp. 77 ss.

19 Placer au XIe siècle la naissance des chansons de geste, c'est dire que les âges antérieurs n'ont pas 1égué au XIe siècle des poèmes tout faits, mais seulement, par l'œuvre des cleres, quelques-unes des idées qui, l'heure venue, inspireront les chansons de geste, et quelquesuns des procédés de narration et de versification qui, l'heure venue, constitueront la technique des ohansons de geste. (Les Légendes épiques, vol. iv, p. 462.)