The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mediaeval Tales, by Various

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Title: Mediaeval Tales

Author: Various

Editor: Henry Morley

Release Date: February 16, 2009 [EBook #28094]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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MEDIAEVAL TALES

_WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HENRY MORLEY_
LL. D., LATE PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AT
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON

LONDON:
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, LTD.
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.

INTRODUCTION.

This volume of "Mediaeval Tales" is in four parts, containing severally,
(1) Turpin's "History of Charles the Great and Orlando," which is an old
source of Charlemagne romance; (2) Spanish Ballads, relating chiefly to
the romance of Charlemagne, these being taken from the spirited
translations of Spanish ballads published in 1823 by John Gibson
Lockhart; (3) a selection of stories from the "Gesta Romanorum;" and (4)
the old translation of the original story of Faustus, on which Marlowe
founded his play, and which is the first source of the Faust legend in
literature.

* * * * *

Turpin's "History of Charles the Great and Orlando" is given from a
translation made by Thomas Rodd, and published by himself in 1812, of
"Joannes Turpini Historia de Vita Caroli Magni et Rolandi." This
chronicle, composed by some monk at an unknown date before the year
1122, professed to be the work of a friend and secretary of Charles the
Great, Turpin, Archbishop of Rheims, who was himself present in the
scenes that he describes. It was--like Geoffrey of Monmouth's nearly
contemporary "History of British Kings," from which were drawn tales of
Gorboduc, Lear and King Arthur--romance itself, and the source of
romance in others. It is at the root of many tales of Charlemagne and
Roland that reached afterwards their highest artistic expression in
Ariosto's "Orlando Furioso." The tale ascribed to Turpin is of earlier
date than the year 1122, because in that year Pope Calixtus II.
officially declared its authenticity. But it was th