The Matter of France, also known as the Carolingian cycle, is a body of literature and legendary material associated with the history of France, in particular involving Charlemagne and his associates. The cycle springs from the Old French chansons de geste, and was later adapted into a variety of art forms, including Renaissance epics and operas. Together with the Matter of Britain, which concerned King Arthur, and the Matter of Rome, comprising material derived from and inspired by classical mythology, it was one of the great literary cycles that figured repeatedly in medieval literature.
Matteo Maria Boiardo
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| The eight phases of The Song of Roland in one picture. |
The chanson de geste (Old French for "song of heroic deeds", from Latin gesta "deeds, actions accomplished") is a medieval narrative, a type of epic poem that appears at the dawn of French literature. The earliest known poems of this genre date from the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, before the emergence of the lyric poetry of the trouvères(troubadours) and the earliest verse romances. They reached their highest point of acceptance in the period 1150–1250.
Composed in verse, these narrative poems of moderate length (averaging 4000 lines) were originally sung, or (later) recited, by minstrels or jongleurs. More than one hundred chansons de geste have survived in approximately three hundred manuscripts that date from the 12th to the 15th century
The Crusader states were a number of mostly 12th- and 13th-century feudal Christian statescreated by Western European crusaders in Asia Minor, Greece and the Holy Land, and during the Northern Crusades in the eastern Baltic area. The name also refers to other territorial gains (often small and short-lived) made by medieval Christendom against Muslim and paganadversaries.
The Crusader states in the Levant—the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Principality of Antioch, the County of Tripoli, and the County of Edessa—were the first examples of "Europe overseas". They are generally known by historians as Outremer, from the French outre-mer ("overseas" in English).
Although set in the Carolingian era, The Song of Roland was written much later. There is a single extant manuscript of the Song of Roland in Old French, held at the Bodleian Library at Oxford. This copy dates between 1129 and 1165 and was written in Anglo-Norman.
In the poem, the term d'oltre mer or l'oltremarin comes up three times in reference to named Muslims who came from oltre mer to fight in Spain and France. Oltre mer, modern French Outremer, literally "oversea, beyond sea, other side of the sea", is a native French term from the classical Latin roots ultra = "beyond" and mare = "sea". The name was commonly used by contemporary chroniclers to refer to the Latin Levant.
After two manuscripts were found in 1832 and 1835, the Song of Roland became recognized as France's national epic when an edition was published in 1837.
Orlando furioso The Frenzy of Orlando, more literally Raging Roland, is an Italian epic poem by Ludovico Ariosto which has exerted a wide influence on later culture. The earliest version appeared in 1516, although the poem was not published in its complete form until 1532.
Valgrisi, Valgrisi, Venice (via Lyon)--Printers device
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