HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

Middle Ages French romance Chanson de Roland Troubadours and courtly love Arthurian romance
Renaissance
17th century
18th century

HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE Timeline

French romance: 12th - 13th century AD

The western half of Charlemagne's Frankish empire, approximating to modern France, introduces in the 12th century a new and influential strand in European literature. The Franks, as a Germanic tribe, enjoy a powerful epic tradition (from Beowulf to the Nibelungenlied) in which heroism is the stock-in-trade of fierce warriors beset by often monstrous dangers.

But in this western part of the Frankish empire - profoundly influenced by Rome, and speaking a Romance language rather than a Germanic one - there now emerges an element which borrows its name from these qualities. The arrival of romance transforms the warrior into a gentleman.

The first epic poems to reflect this change are a group of about eighty from the 12th and 13th century known as the chansons de geste ('songs of deeds'). Performed by professional minstrels in castles and manors, usually to the accompaniment of a lute, they celebrate the martial exploits of the kings of Carolingian France, and in particular of Charlemagne and his paladins.

The emphasis is now not so much on the violence of the battle. It is on the honour of the participants, on the loyalties required of them in the feudal system, and on their religious obligations in this age of crusades.

The greatest of the chansons de geste is also one of the earliest - the Chanson de Roland, dating probably from about 1100. Although it is set in one of Charlemagne's campaigns, the attention is on his followers Roland and Oliver rather than the king himself.

The same is true of another heroic cycle launched in France later in the 12th century. In the stories of King Arthur (a legendary English king, but featured in literature mainly by the French), the emphasis falls