Chansons de Geste: Medieval Epic Poems
The term refers to the so-called chansons de geste (songs of deeds). A chanson de geste is a type of narrative poem in a Romance language, focusing on historical events with a great profusion of legendary elements.
These songs were performed by traveling minstrels who recited or sang to all types of audiences, from the elevated courts and castles to heterogeneous crowds at fairs and pilgrimages.
The main examples include: La Chanson de Roland, El Cantar de Mio Cid, and the Nibelungenlied.
Chansons de geste are narrative poems from the medieval Romance language tradition, focusing on historical events with elements of legendary wealth, which in some cases, come to dominate. They were performed by traveling minstrels who recited or sang to all types of audiences, from the elevated courts and castles to heterogeneous crowds at fairs and pilgrimages. Mainly focusing on celebrities or glorious moments from a country’s past, they became what one might call the history of the people, which includes elements of fantasy, imagination, and even deformation of reality, usually the product of legend.
Stylistic Features of Chansons de Geste
Unique stylistic features include:
- Linear action
- Frequent repetition of verses or series of verses
- Direct address to the audience by the minstrel
- Relative lack of complex rhetorical devices
French Chansons de Geste
In French, around a hundred chansons de geste dating from the Middle Ages have been preserved, divided into three thematic groups:
- The Charlemagne Cycle: This includes the Chanson de Roland, the most important and perhaps the oldest, which is a true poetic history of the French emperor, from childhood and youth (e.g., Berthe au Grand Pied, Mainet), his fabulous pilgrimage to Jerusalem and Constantinople (Pèlerinage de Charlemagne), and his war campaigns (e.g., Aspremont, Fierabras, Otinel, Anseïs de Carthage, Chanson des Saisnes).
- The Guillaume Cycle: This narrates the adventures of various characters, often without strict historical support, linked to the lineage of St. William of Toulouse. Notable examples include the Chançun de Guillelme, whose action is located in Barcelona, and Aliscans, set on the Catalan coast between Barcelona and Girona. This group also includes smaller cycles like those of Girart de Vienne and Aymeri de Narbonne, and composed songs such as Le Couronnement de Louis, Le Charroi de Nîmes, La Prise d’Orange, and Le Moniage Guillaume.
- Rebellious Vassal Cycles: The weakness of the French monarchy during the 11th and 12th centuries gave rise to chansons de geste where the protagonist is a rebellious vassal. Among these are the cycle of Raoul de Cambrai, those relating to the Doon de Mayence cycle, and those of Ogier le Danois and Renaut de Montauban.
Spanish Epic Tradition
The Spanish epic tradition highlights the Cantar de Mio Cid. There is also a fragment of a hundred verses, Roncesvalles, which is certainly not Spanish but likely Navarrese or Aragonese. Much of the Spanish epic was lost but remains largely preserved in prose chronicles, so much so that it can sometimes be reconstructed, as occurs with the Cantar de los Siete Infantes de Lara, and still survives in the romance tradition (ballads).
Germanic Epic: The Nibelungenlied
Finally, we highlight the Germanic epic, the Nibelungenlied, written around 1200 by an anonymous minstrel who collected earlier songs. Written in four-line stanzas rhyming in pairs, the work is divided into two parts: the death of Siegfried and Kriemhild’s revenge. Wagner based his tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen remotely on this epic.