after defeating the implacable traitors. Anseïs de Carthage (ca. 1230–50; four 13th-c.
manuscripts and several fragments), a chivalric poem in which heroism and love are
intertwined, narrates the tragic theme of the loss of a country because of a woman.
Charlemagne has regained Spain, and Carthage (=Cartagena) is given to the young
Breton knight Anseïs. An embassy led by the old Ysoré de Conimbre (=Coimbra)
suggests to Anseïs that he marry Gaudisse, Marsile’s daughter, in order to end the war.
However, Anseïs seduces Ysoré’s daughter Lentisse, and Ysoré goes over to Marsile,
who renews the war. Gaudisse falls in love with Anseïs, is baptized, and marries him,
while Ysoré and Marsile die in prison and Charlemagne of old age.
A last poem, Macaire ou la reine Sebile, deals with an old Charlemagne who has
taken a young wife, Sibile, who, according to Alberic des Trois-Fontaines (mid-13th c.),
was the daughter of King Desiderius of Lombardy. The Middle High German chronicle
of Weihenstephan (14th c.), a Spanish adaptation (manuscript of the 14th c., imprint of
1532), and a Dutch chapbook, the Historie vander coninghinnen Sibilla (Antwerp:
Willem Vorsterman, ca. 1538) make her the daughter of Emperor Richer of
Constantinople. Though not found in the chansons de geste of the King Cycle,
Charlemagne’s death is treated in the Guillaume d’Orange Cycle, as in the first branch of
the Couronnement de Louis and especially in the unpublished Franco-Italian Mort
Charlemagne (Oxford, Bodl. Canonici 54; 13th c.). The British manuscript narrates
basically the same events as the Couronnement, but where the latter only mentions
Charlemagne’s death as having occurred while Louis was on pilgrimage to Rome, the
Mort Charlemagne actually describes his death, foretold to him by an angel during a visit
to Saint-Gilles-de-Provence, where he was forgiven, thanks to divine intervention, his
mortal sin of having engendered Roland with his sister Berthe.
Hans-Erich Keller
[See also: ADENET LE ROI; ASPREMONT; AYMERI DE NARBONNE; CHANSON
DE GESTE; CHARLEMAGNE; FIERABRAS; FRANCO-ITALIAN LITERATURE;
GUILLAUME D’ORANGE CYCLE; JEHAN BODEL; PHILIPPE MOUSKÉS;
PSEUDO-TURPIN; REBELLIOUS VASSAL CYCLE; ROLAND, CHANSON DE;
VOYAGE DE CHARLEMAGNE À JÉRUSALEM ET À CONSTANTINOPLE]
Adenet de Roi. Les œuvres d’Adenet le Roi, ed. Albert Henry. I Biographie d’Adenet; La tradition
manuscrite. Rijksuniversiteit te Gent. Brugge: De Tempel, 1951. II Beuvon de Conmarchis. 115
Afl. 1953. III Les enfances Ogier. 121 Afl. 1956. IV Berte aus grans piés. Université libre de
Bruxelles. Brussels: Presses Universitaires de Bruxelles, 1963. V Cleomadés. Vol. 1: Texte.
Vol. 2: Introduction, notes, tables, 1971.
Alton, J., ed. Anseîs von Karthago. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1892.
Baroin, Jeanne, ed. Simon de Pouille. 3 vols. Paris: Champion, 1978.
Brandin, Louis, ed. La chanson d’Aspremeont, chanson de geste du XIIe siècle. 2 vols. Paris:
Champion, 1919–21.
Guessard, F., ed. Macaire, chanson de geste. Paris: Vieweg, 1866.
——and Henri Michelant, eds. Gui de Bourgogne, chanson de geste. Paris: Vieweg, 1859.
——and Siméon Luce, eds. Gaidon, chanson de geste. Paris: Vieweg, 1862.
Jehan Bodel. La chanson des Saisnes, ed. Annette Brasseur. 2 vols. Geneva: Droz, 1989.
Kroeber, A. and A.Servois, eds. Chanson de Fierabras: Parise la Duchesse. Paris: Vieweg, 1860.
Mussafia, A. La prise de Pampelune. Vienna, 1864.
Myers, John Vernon, ed.Jehan de Lanson: Chanson de Geste of the 13th Century. Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1965.
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