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The chansons de geste, Old French for "songs of heroic deeds", are the epic poetry that appears at the dawn of French literature.frame Roland pledges his fealty to Charlemagne; from a manuscript of a chanson de geste.
1 Subjects
Written in Old French by the earliest poets, the trouvères, they typically deal with the martial valour of paladins, heroes from the age of Charles Martel and Charlemagne, and their combats against the Moors and Saracens. To these historical legends, a stiff dose of fantasy is added; giants, magicMagic (also called magick to distinguish it from stage magic) is a supposed way of influencing the world through supernatural, mystical, or paranormal means. This article provides an overview of specific magical traditions and practices. It also discusses, and monsterThis article is about monsters as a kind of legendary creature. For other uses, see Monster (disambiguation). Monster (lat. monstrum) is a term for any number of legendary creatures that frequently appear in mythology, legend, and horror fiction. The words appear among the foes along with MuslimsCairo Egypt Islm (In Arabic: , "submission (to God)"; In Persian and Urdu: ) is a monotheistic faith and the world's second-largest religion. Followers of Islam, known as Muslims believe that God (or, in Arabic, Allh revealed His Will to Muhammad (c.. As the genreThe term genre refers to the traditional divisions of art forms from a single field of activity into various kinds according to criteria particular to that form. Genre" is originally a French word meaning "kind", "sort" or "type"; in grammatical terminolo aged, the historical and military aspects waned, and the fantastic aspects came to dominate.
The subject matter of the chansons de geste became known as the Matter of FranceThe Matter of France is a body of mythology and legend that springs from the Old French medieval literature of the chansons de geste''. Its tales were first developed in these metrical romances; the stories they told lived on after the romances themselves. This contrasted them with the Matter of BritainThe Matter of Britain is a name given collectively to the legends that concern the Celtic and legendary history of the British Isles, centering around King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table. The twelfth century French poet Jean Bodel created the n, dealing with King ArthurKing Arthur is an important figure in the mythology of Britain. He is the central character in Arthurian legends (known as the Matter of Britain), although there is disagreement about whether Arthur, or a model for him, ever actually existed and in the ea and his knights; and the Matter of Rome, which mixed Greek mythology with the tales of Alexander the Great, Julius Cæsar, and other figures from classical antiquity who were given mediæval makeovers as exemplars of chivalry.
2 Origins
The origin of the chanson de geste as a form is much debated. The nineteenth century mediævalist Gaston Paris believed that they originated in oral epics called cantilènes , which were more or less contemporary with the military events described; and that they were originally composed by bards who followed the courts of kings and military leaders after the custom of Scandinavia and the Celtic world.
Another school of thought, championed by Joseph Bédier , holds that the poems were the invention of the trouvéres themselves, discounting the possibility of Germanic influence in their invention. Bédier also suggests that some of the stories were first invented by monks, who used them to advertise pilgrimage sites by connecting them not only with saints but also by legendary heroes of folklore. Magical relics frequently appear in the tales.
