Mediaeval Tales

This volume of "Mediæval Tales" is in four parts, containing severally, (1) Turpin's "History of Charles the Great and Orlando," which is an old source of Charlemagne romance; (2) Spanish Ballads, relating chiefly to the romance of Charlemagne, these being taken from the spirited translations of Spanish ballads published in 1823 by John Gibson Lockhart; (3) a selection of stories from the "Gesta Romanorum;" and (4) the old translation of the original story of Faustus, on which Marlowe founded his play, and which is the first source of the Faust legend in literature. Turpin's "History of Charles the Great and Orlando" is given from a translation made by Thomas Rodd, and published by himself in 1812, of "Joannes Turpini Historia de Vita Caroli Magni et Rolandi." This chronicle, composed by some monk at an unknown date before the year 1122, professed to be the work of a friend and secretary of Charles the Great, Turpin, Archbishop of Rheims, who was himself present in the scenes that he describes. It was--like Geoffrey of Monmouth's nearly contemporary "History of British Kings," from which were drawn tales of Gorboduc, Lear and King Arthur—romance itself, and the source of romance in others. It is at the root of many tales of Charlemagne and Roland that reached afterwards their highest artistic expression in Ariosto's "Orlando Furioso." The tale ascribed to Turpin is of earlier date than the year 1122, because in that year Pope Calixtus II. officially declared its authenticity. But it was then probably a new invention, designed for edification, for encouragement of faith in the Church, war against infidels, and reverence to the shrine of St. James of Compostella. The Church vouched for the authorship of Turpin, Archbishop of Rheims, "excellently skilled in sacred and profane literature, of a genius equally adapted to prose and verse; the advocate of the poor, beloved of God in his life and conversation, who often hand to hand fought the Saracens by the Emperor's side; and who flourished under Charles and his son Lewis to the year of our Lord eight hundred and thirty." But while this work gave impulse to the shaping of Charlemagne romances with Orlando (Roland) for their hero, there came to be a very general opinion that, whether the author of the book were Turpin or another, he too was a romancer. His book came, therefore, to be known as the "Magnanime Mensonge,"…