Girart de Roussillon - Romance

Romance

The legend of Girart’s piety, the heroism of his wife Bertha, and of his wars with Charles passed into the genre of literary romance; however, the historical facts are so distorted that, in the epic Girart de Roussillon, he became an opponent of Charles Martel to whom he was related as brother-in-law. The legendary narrative Girart de Roussillon was long held to be a Provençal work, but its Burgundian origin has been proven.

Accounts of Girart are found in several early manuscripts. The earliest chanson de geste, called Le Chanson de Girart de Roussillon, dates from the second half of the 12th century. The original text, written in octosyllables, is preserved at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF). It was translated the first time by Paul Meyer in 1884, (Paris: Champion). A recent translation into modern French with notes by Micheline Combarieu du Grès and Gérard Gouiran was published in 1993 (Paris: Librairie générale française).

A romance written in rhymed alexandrines was written between 1330 and 1349 by monks in the abbey of Pothières, which was founded in about 860 by Girart. It was dedicated to Odo IV, Duke of Burgundy (ca. 1295–1350), and Jeanne de Bourgogne (called "Joan the Lame"), queen of France (1293–1349). The text is composed in a dialect midway between French and Old Occitan. Five manuscript copies of this version survive; two in Montpellier, France at the Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire (section médecine), one in Troyes (now held at the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal in Paris), one in Paris at the BnF, and one in Brussels at the Bibliothèque royale de Belgique. This version was translated by Yale University in 1939 (New Haven: Yale University Press, Yale Romanic Studies, 16).

It also inspired a romance in prose by Jehan Wauquelin in 1447 (Paris: éd. L. de Montille, 1880).

Southern French traditions concerning Girart, in which he is called the son of Garin de Monglane, are embodied in the 13th century narrative in rhymed decasyllable verses about the siege of Vienne by Charlemagne in Girart de Vienne by Bertrand de Bar-sur-l'Aube. The same traditions also are embraced in Aspramonte by Andrea da Barberino, based on the French chanson Aspremont, where he is called Girart de Frete or de Fraite and he leads an army of infidels against Charlemagne.