related in the fragment Mainet (late 12th c.), in which Bertha is poisoned by a servant
whose daughter resembled Bertha so much that she could take her place with Pepin in the
marital bed and conceive Heudri and Rainfroi (who later poison Pepin). Forced to flee,
the young Charles changes his name to Mainet (diminutive of magne) and enters the
service of the pagan king Galafre of Toledo, whom he helps to win a decisive battle; he
obtains the hand of the king’s daughter, Galienne, who is baptized and becomes his wife.
In the lost Chanson de Basin (or Couronnement de Charlemagne), preserved in the
Karlamagnús saga and in Middle Dutch and Middle High German adaptations, the youth
Charles, summoned by an angel to go out and steal with the nobleman-turned-thief Basin,
overhears a conspirator explaining to his wife the plan to prevent Charles’s coronation;
he brings down the conspiracy on the occasion of the dedication of the cathedral of Aix-
la-Chapelle.
Although the historical Charlemagne was in diplomatic relations with the court of
Byzantium, legend allows him also to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and travel to
Constantinople, as in the Voyage de Charlemagne, in which he transports the relics of the
Passion to his abbey, Saint-Denis. In Simon de Pouille, the Holy Land is the setting for
the adventures of the old duke, Simon, of Aymeri of Narbonne’s lineage (complete only
in B.L.Royal 15 E VI of the 15th c.; 5,100 lines); in this poem, Charlemagne is a remote,
prestigious figure, too old to take up arms himself but always willing to help his barons in
danger. The liveliest characters in the poem are the converts: Synodos, Emir Jonas of
Babylon’s seneschal and lord of the castle Abilant; the shipmaster Sorbarrés, who
assumes the name Simon the Convert, after Simon de Pouille, when he becomes a
Christian; and Jonas’s daughter Licoride, who marries Synodos at Saint-Germain-des-
Prés at the end of the poem.
The first part of Fierabras, whose action takes place in Italy and Rome and revolves
around the relics of Christ’s Passion, is known today as the Destruction de Rome
(probably mid-13th c.), preserved in two manuscripts and a fragment. Italy is likewise the
setting for Charlemagne’s fight against the pagans in Aspremont (late 12th c.). The poem
is also called the Enfances Roland, because Roland forces the emperor to knight him on
the battlefield after he has distinguished himself against the pagans and won his sword,
Durendal. In the decisive battle, Turpin carries the True Cross, and the emir Agolant is
felled by Claron, Milon’s son, for the whole clan of Girart de Roussillon has come to
fight against the pagans despite its feud with Charlemagne. Otinel is another italianate
poem of the King Cycle. It deals with the conversion of Otinel, a daring Saracen
messenger sent by the pagan emperor Garsile, who, having sacked Rome, has established
himself in the fortress Atilie in Lombardy. Otinel’s mission is to summon Charlemagne
to submit to Garsile and renounce Christianity. Otinel hopes to use this opportunity to
avenge his uncle Ferragu, slain by Roland, and comports himself so outrageously at
Charlemagne’s court that Roland challenges him to a duel, during which Otinel, winning,
is suddenly enlightened by the Holy Spirit. Charlemagne offers him his daughter
Belissent in marriage with Lombardy as dowry, but Otinel wants first to prove himself an
exemplary Christian knight at the siege of Atilie, where he indeed shows himself stronger
than Roland, Oliver, and Ogier. Otinel then weds Belissent and becomes king of
Lombardy.
The war waged by Jehan in the swashbuckling romantic poem jehan de Lanson (first
half of the 13th c.; 6,330 Alexandrines in the most complete manuscript) also takes place
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