_Giratz de Rossilho_, is, as its title implies,
Provencal, though it is in a dialect more approaching to the _langue
d'oil_ than any form of _oc_, and even presents the curious
peculiarity of existing in two forms, one leaning to Provencal, the
other to French. But these very facts, though they show the statement
that "the Provencal epic is lost" to be excessive, yet go almost
farther than a total deficiency in proving that the _chanson de geste_
was not originally Provencal. Had it been otherwise, there can be no
possible reason why a bare three per cent of the existing examples
should be in the southern tongue, while two of these are evidently
translations, and the third was as evidently written on the very
northern borders of the "Limousin" district.

[Sidenote: _Italian._]

[Sidenote: _Diffusion of the_ chansons.]

The next fact--one almost more interesting, inasmuch as it bears on
that community of Romance tongues of which we have evidence in
Dante,[24] and perhaps also makes for the antiquity of the Charlemagne
story in its primitive form--is the existence of _chansons_ in
Italian, and, it may be added, in a most curious bastard speech which
is neither French, nor Provencal, nor Italian, but French Italicised
in part.[25] The substance, moreover, of the Charlemagne stories was
very early naturalised in Italy in the form of a sort of abstract or
compilation called the _Reali di Francia_,[26] which in various forms
maintained popularity through mediaeval and early modern times, and
undoubtedly exercised much influence on the great Italian poets of the
Renaissance. They were also diffused throughout Europe, the
_Carlamagnus Saga_ in Iceland marking their farthest actual as well as
possible limit, though they never in Germany attained anything like
the popularity of the Arthurian legend, and though the Spaniards,
patriotically resenting the frequent forays into Spain to which the
_chansons_ bear witness, and availing themselves of the confession of
disaster at Roncesvalles, set up a counter-story in which Roland is
personally worsted by Bernardo del Carpio, and the quarrels of the
paynims are taken up by Spain herself. In England the imitations,
though fairly numerous, are rather late. They have been completely
edited for the Early English Text Society, and consist (for Bevis of
Hampton has little relation with its _chanson_ namesake save the name)
of _Sir Ferumbras_ (_Fierabras_), _The Siege of Milan_, _Sir Otuel