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MONIAGE GUILLAUME
. A late 12th-century chanson de geste, extant in two redactions, of which the incomplete
shorter version (Moniage I; 934 assonanced decasyllables) postdates the longer (Moniage
II; 6,629 assonanced decasyllables). The poem recounts Guillaume d’Orange’s edifying
final days, in which he renounces the world after the death of his wife, Guibourc, in order
to expiate the sins committed during his knightly career. The text’s origin is
controversial: there perhaps was a lost original, and the Sinagon episode appears clearly
to have come from a different poem; local legends (e.g., Ysoré’s tomb in Paris) have also
been suggested. But the real source of the Moniage is to be found among historical
memories of Count Guillaume of Toulouse’s retirement to the monastery of Gellone in
the year 806. The shorter version is preserved in two manuscripts, both incomplete; the
longer version is found in seven manuscripts, of which two are complete.
The Moniage demonstrates that, between the chivalric values of the epic hero and the
hypocritical practices of the monastic community, Guillaume’s status as hermit allows
him, without renouncing his glorious past, to strive for perfection. The poem makes the
hero a holy personage, sanctioned by miracles but still physically powerful. He can face
his enemies in the monastery itself or take up arms to defend the kingdom, as he does in
the combat against the giant Ysoré.
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