Matter of France

The Matière of France is a whole of legends, coming from the area of Cornwall, French Brittany, Sweden and Denmark, pertaining to the medieval literature as former French and who constitutes the chansons de geste. It started by being told in novels in worms; the accounts that one finds there remained whereas the novels themselves were hardly any more read.

The French authors of the Moyen-âge opposed it to the Matière of Brittany, history legendary of British Isles, and with the Matière of Rome, interpretation by the medieval poets of the Greek Mythologie and the history of traditional Antiquity. One owes these three names to the French poet Jean Bodel, author with the twelfth century of the Chanson of Saisnes, chanson de geste where he wrote:

is only iij matters with no atandant man,

Of France and Bretaigne, and Rome grant it.

(Il has three literary cycles there that nobody should be unaware of:
La Matter of France, Brittany, and Rome the grande.)

And it gives this definition of it: “These three matters do not resemble each other. The tales of Brittany are tellements unreal and tempting! While those of Rome are erudite and in charge of significance and that those of France see each day their confirmed authenticity! ”

Among the central figures of the Matter of France one finds Charlemagne and his paladins, particularly Roland, hero of the Chanson of Roland , and Olivier, warrior frequently in conflict with the Moslem champion Fiérabras. In the beginning, the Matter of France contained accounts of wars and prowesses military, and it was centered on the conflicts between Francs and Sarrasins (or Moors) at the time of Charles Martel and Charlemagne. The Chanson of Roland, for example, us tells the battle of Roncevaux at the time where Charlemagne completed to drive out the Moslems of southernmost France. During the maturation of the kind, fantastic and magic elements tended to be added to the tales. Bayard, the magic Horse, for example, is an element which one will find in several other accounts, just as the King of the genious Obéron. Wizards and magicians appeared in negative roles, while the heroes were often helped by the magic capacity of the relics.

After the time of the chansons de geste the accounts passed elsewhere in the literature. Their most known survival is that which they found in the Italian epopees due to Arioste, with Torquato Tasso, and a small number of secondary authors who worked in this kind: the tales d'Orlando Furioso (“the madness of Roland”) and d'Orlando Innamorato (“Roland In love”) were borrowed directly from the chansons de geste. These poetries were to be imitated in English by Edmund Spenser in The Faerie Queene.

Accounts of the Matter of France are also found in Vieux norrois, language in which one wrote at the thirteenth century in Norway the saga of Charlemagne, and contain an overall picture of the principal stories of the cycle. In the Spanish literature, the epopee of the Cid recreates most of the atmosphere of the first chansons de geste. Indeed, until the rebirth of the celtism in Great Britain and Ireland with the nineteenth century had insufflated a new life with the cycle arthurien, the Matter of France and the Matter of Brittany enjoyed an about equal favor among the legends of the Middle Ages.

See too

Random links: