(R)A valiant warrior, named Taillefer, &c.] See Du Cange, who produces this as an
instance,--"Quod Ministellorum menus interdum præstabant milites probatissimi. Le
Roman De Vacce, MS.
Quant il virent Normans venir
Mout veissiee Engleiz fremir...
Taillefer qui mout bienu chantoit,
Sur un cheval, qui tost alloit,
Devant euls aloit chantant
De Kallemaigne et de Roullant,
Et d'Olivier de Vassaux
Qui moururent en Rainschevaux."
"Qui quidem Taillefer a Gulielmo obtinuit ut primes in hostes irruret, inter
quos fortiter dimicando occubuit.-- Gloss. tom. iv. 769, 770, 771.
"Les anciennes chroniques nous apprennent, qu'en premier rang de l'Armee
Normande, un écuyer nommé Taillefer, monté sur un cheval armé, chanta laChanson
de Roland,qui fut si long tems dans les bouches des Francois, sans qu'il soit resté le
moindre fragment. Le Taillefer apres avoir entonné la chanson que les soldats
répétoient, se jetta le premier parmi les Anglois, et fut tué"--Voltaire, Add. Hist. Univ.
p. 69.
The reader will see an attempt to restore the Chanson de Roland, with musical
notes, in Dr. Burney's Hist. ii. p. 276.-- See more concerning the Song of Roland, vol.
ii. p. 57, note.
(S)An eminent French writer, &c.] "M. l'Eveque de la Ravalière, qui avoit fait
beaucoup de recherches sur nos anciennes Chansons, prétend que c'est a la Normandie
que nous devons nos premiers Chansonniers, non a la Provence, et qu'il y avoit parmi
nous des Chansons en langue vulgaire avant celles de Provençaus, mais
postérieurement au Regne de Phillippe I., ou a l'an 1100." [v. Révolutions de la
Langue Franceoise, à la suite desPoeseies du Roi de Navarre.] "Ce seroit une
antériorité de plus d'une demi siècle à l'epoque des premiers troubadours, que leur
historien Jean de Nostredame fixe à l'an 1162," &c. -- Pref. al'Anthologie Franc.,
8vo, 1785.
This subject hath since been taken up and prosecuted at length in the Prefaces,
&c., to M. Le Grand's "Fabliaux ou Contes du xiieet du xiieSiècle, Paris, 1788." 5
tom. 12mo, who seems pretty clearly to have established the priority and superior
excellence of the old Rimeurs of the north of France over the Troubadours of
Provence, &c.
(S2)Their own native Gleemen or Minstrels must be allowed to exist.] Of this we
have proof positive in the old metrical Romance ofHorn-Child, which although from
the mention of Sarazens, &c., it must have been written at least after the first Crusade
in 1198, yet, from its Anglo-Saxon language or idiom, can scarce be dated later than
within a century after the Conquest. This, as appears from its very exordium, was
intended to be sung to a popular audience, whether it was composed by, or for, a
Gleeman or Minstrel. But it carries all the internal marks of being the production of
such a composer. It appears of genuine English growth; for after a careful
examination, I cannot discover any allusion to French or Norman customs, manners,
composition, or phraseology; no quotation "as the Romance sayth:" not a name or
local reference which was likely to occur to a French Rimeur. The proper names are
all of Northern extraction. ChildHornis the son ofAllof(i.e. Olaf or Olave), king of