THE exploits of Charles the Great, who by his achievements as conqueror and legislator, as reformer of learning and missionary, so deeply changed the face of Western Europe, who during a reign of nearly half a century maintained, by his armies, the authority of his powerful sceptre, from the southern countries of Spain and Italy to the more northern regions of Denmark, Poland, and Hungary, must have made a profound and unalterable impression in the minds of his contemporaries, so that for centuries afterwards they continued to live in the memory of the people. Evidence of this high pitch of popularity is given by the numerous chansons de geste or romances, which celebrate the deeds, or are connected with the name, of the great and valiant champion of Christendom.

It is true that the sublime figure of Charlemagne, who with his imaginary twelve peers perpetually warred against all heathenish or Saracen people, in the romances of a later period, has been considerably divested of that nimbus of majestic grandeur, which the composers of the earlier poems take pains to diffuse around him. Whereas, in the latter, the person of the Emperor appears adorned with high corporeal, intellectual, and warlike gifts, and possessed of all royal qualities; the former show us the splendour of Royalty tarnished and debased, and the power of the feodal vassals enlarged to the prejudice of the royal authority. Roland, in speaking of Charlemagne, says, in the Chanson de Roland, l. 376:—

“Jamais n’iert hum qui encuntre lui vaillet,”

and again the same Roland says of the Emperor, in Guy de Bourgoyne, l. 1061:—

“Laissomes ce viellart qui tous est assotez.”

‹vi›

This glorification of the great Christian hero took its rise in France, but soon spread into the neighbouring countries, and before long Charlemagne was celebrated in song by almost all European nations. Indeed, there are translations, reproductions, compilations of French Charlemagne romances to be met with in Italy, Spain, and Portugal, as well as in Scandinavia and Iceland. Even in Hungary and Russia these chansons of the Charlemagne cycle seem to have been known.1

A full account of almost all Charlemagne romances will be found in Gaston Paris’s exhaustive work of the Histoire poétique de Charlemagne (Paris, 1865), and in Léon Gautier’s Epopées françaises (Paris, 1867).

Of all the Charlemagne romances, that of Fierabras or Ferumbras has certainly obtained the highest degree of popularity, as is shown by the numerous versions and reproductions of this romance, from the 13th century down to the present day.

When the art of printing first became general, the first romance that was printed was a prose version of Fierabras; and when the study of mediæval metrical romances was revived in this century, the Fierabras poem was the first to be re-edited.2

The balm of Fierabras especially seems to have been celebrated for its immediately curing any wound; we find it referred to and minutely described in Florian’s Don Quichotte, I. chap. 10. The scene of Fierabras challenging to a combat the twelve peers of France, and of his vaunting offer to fight at once with six (or twelve) of them,3 must also have been pretty familiar to French readers, as the name of Fierabras is met with in the sense of a simple common noun, signifying “a bragging bully or swaggering hector.”4

Rabelais5 also alludes to Fierabras, thinking him renowned enough as to figure in the pedigree of Pantagruel.

In 1833, on a tour made through the Pyrenees, M. Jomard witnessed ‹vii› a kind of historical drama, represented by villagers, in which Fierabras and Balan were the principal characters.6

That in our own days, the tradition of Fierabras continues to live, is evident from the fact, that copies of the Fierabras story, in the edition of the Bibliothèque Bleue, still circulate amongst the country people of France.7 There is even an illustrated edition, published in 1861, the pictures of which have been executed by no less an artist than Gustave Doré. And like Oberon, that other mediæval hero of popular celebrity,8 Fierabras has become the subject of a musical composition. There is an Opera Fierabras composed by Franz Schubert (words by Joseph Kupelwieser) in 1823, the overture of which has been arranged for the piano in 1827, by Carl Czerny.9

The different versions and the popularity of the present romance in France, Italy, Spain, and Germany, having been treated in the Introduction to Sir Ferumbras, we need not repeat it again here.10 As to the popularity of the Fierabras romance in the Netherlands, the following passage from Hoffmann, Horæ Belgicæ (Vratislaviæ, 1830), I. 50, may be quoted here11:—

“Quam notæ Belgis, sec. xiii. et xiv., variæ variarum nationum fabulæ fuerint, quæ ex Gallia septemtrionali, ubi originem ceperunt, translatæ sunt, pauca hæc testimonia demonstrabunt:— … in exordio Sidraci:—12

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