ild exaggerations, its reckless departures from truth,
its conventional types of character, its endlessly-repeated
incidents of romance--the child nourished by wild beasts, the combat
of unrecognised father and son, the hero vulnerable only in one point,
the vindication of the calumniated wife or maiden; and by the
over-labour of fantasy, removed far from nature and reality, the epic
material was at length exhausted.

[Footnote 1: _Gestes_ meant (1) deeds, (2) their history, (3) the
heroic family.]

The oldest surviving _chanson de geste_ is the SONG OF ROLAND, and
it is also the best. The disaster of Roncevaux, probably first sung
in _cantilenes_, gave rise to other chansons, two of which, of earlier
date than the surviving poem, can in a measure be reconstructed from
the Chronicle of Turpin and from a Latin _Carmen de proditione
Guenonis_. These, however, do not detract from the originality of
the noble work in our possession, some of the most striking episodes
of which are not elsewhere found. The oldest manuscript is at Oxford,
and the last line has been supposed to give the author's
name--Touroude (Latinised "Turoldus")--but this may have been the
name of the jongleur who sang, or the transcriber who copied. The
date of the poem lies between that of the battle of Hastings, 1066,
where the minstrel Taillefer sang in other words the deeds of Roland,
and the year 1099. The poet was probably a Norman, and he may have
been one of the Norman William's followers in the invasion of England.

More than any other poem, the _Chanson de Roland_ deserves to be named
the Iliad of the Middle Ages. On August 15, 778, the rearguard of
Charlemagne's army, returning from a successful expedition to the
north of Spain, was surprised and destroyed by Basque mountaineers
in the valley of Roncevaux. Among those who fell was Hrodland (Roland),
Count of the march of Brittany. For Basques, the singers substituted
a host of Saracens, who, after promise of peace, treacherously attack
the Franks, with the complicity of Roland's enemy, the traitor Ganelon.
By Roland's side is placed his companion-in-arms, Olivier, brave but
prudent, brother of Roland's betrothed, _la belle Aude_, who learns
her lover's death, and drops dead at the feet of Charlemagne. In fact
but thirty-six years of age, Charlemagne is here a majestic old man,
_a la barbe fleurie_, still full of heroic vigour. Around him are
his great lords--Duke Naime, the Nestor of this Ili