count, and thus probably a clerk in minor orders rather than a priest or canon. He wrote
his first version on wax tablets, then revised and inserted other material into his detailed
description of the events of April and May 1127, then wrote a more general discussion of
developments in Flanders in the last half of that year. With the renewal of civil strife
between February and July 1128, he composed another diary, one that is less detailed
than the first and that he left unfinished, a fact perhaps indicating an early death. His
history was evidently unread in the Middle Ages for want of a patron willing to overlook
its often hostile portrait of figures in authority. A manuscript, now lost, was evidently
kept at Bruges, and copies were made in the 16th and 17th centuries.
David M.Nicholas
Galbert de Bruges. Histoire du meurtre de Charles le Bon comte de Flandre (1127–1128) par
Galbert de Bruges, ed. Henri Pirenne. Paris: Picard, 1891.
——. The Murder of Charles the Good, Count of Flanders, trans. James Bruce Ross. Rev. ed. New
York: Harper and Row, 1967.
——. Le meurtre de Charles le Bon, trans. Jacques Gengoux. Anvers: Fonds Mercator, 1978.
van Caenegem, Raoul C. Galbert van Brugge en het Recht. Brussels: Vlaamse Academie, 1978.
GALIEN RESTORÉ
. A work in the King Cycle that narrates the tribulations of Galien, Oliver’s son by
Jacqueline, daughter of Emperor Hugh of Constantinople, and the product of Oliver’s gab
during the visit of Charlemagne and his peers. The poem, dated late 13th or early 14th
century, combines several chansons de geste with a rhymed version of the Chanson de
Roland: Galien arrives at Roncevaux when his father is dying, as is Roland, whose death
he also witnesses. In Charlemagne’s battle of revenge for Roncevaux, Galien plays a
major role; victorious, he then goes off to conquer the castle of Monfusain, which houses
Baligant’s niece, Guimarde, who subsequently becomes a Christian and Galien’s wife.
However, news reaches him that his mother is again being harassed by her brothers for
bearing an illegitimate child, a fact that had earlier driven the young Galien out of
Constantinople; Jacqueline is even accused of having poisoned her father. Galien
marches against the city, wins a duel against the emir Burgualant, and is crowned
emperor: his honor as well as that of his mother (and Oliver) has thus been “restored.”
Meanwhile, Charlemagne is still besieging Saragossa; when he learns the emir Baligant is
coming to the Saracen Marsile’s defense, he asks Galien for help. In the ensuing battle,
Ogier le Danois distinguishes himself. Galien’s grandfather Renier de Gennes is killed,
but Galien nearly kills Baligant himself; finally, Charlemagne kills Baligant in a lengthy
duel. While Galien returns to Monfusain to spend a peaceful life with his mother, wife,
and young son, Mallart, Charlemagne must announce the tragic death of her fiancé to
Galien’s aunt, Belle Aude, then, at Laon, judge Ganelon, who, after having escaped into
the Ardennes, is recaptured by Thierry and drawn and quartered.
The poem (4,911 Alexandrine lines) is preserved only in a 15th-century copy
(University of Oregon, Special Collections CB B 54, formerly Cheltenham 26092), where
it immediately follows Hernaut de Beaulande, Renier de Gennes, and Girart de Vienne.
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