1066 - Andrew Bridgeford [141]
27 Song of Roland, tr. Burgess, lines 1515ff. See also 1490ff. for the interesting description of Turpin's horse which in some respects is similar to Odo's.
28 As argued by Short, 'The Language of the Bayeux Tapestry Inscriptions'.
29 A belligerent Norman monk Turold of Fecamp, afterwards of Malmesbury and then Peterborough, is sometimes proposed as the author (for example, de Bouard, 'La Chanson de Roland et la Normandie'). A Peterborough record speaks of him as a 'nepos' of King William and on the basis of this it is often said that he is either a son or nephew of Bishop Odo. However, 'nepos' could denote other relationships besides nephew and Turold of Fecamp was probably a more distant kinsman of Duke William.
30 Joseph Bedier, quoted in Douglas, 'The Song of Roland and the Norman Conquest', p. 105; Moignet, La Chanson de Roland, pp. 278ff.
31 Bender, Konig und Vasall, pp. 26ff.
32 Hariulf, clearly a late source, states (Chronique de Saint-Riquier, p. 61) that Charlemagne gave Angilbert 'the whole maritime region'. But even in his known capacity as Abbot of Saint-Riquier, Angilbert was undoubtedly one of the most important men in Ponthieu.
33 It is tempting to try to make something of the fact that Angilbert's nickname was Homer and the Greek Homer is mentioned in passing in the Roland (line 2616). It is at least possible that the name Homer was familiar to the poet because of Angilbert.
34 This point was not addressed by Douglas, 'The Song of Roland and the Norman Conquest'. See also F. Lot, 'Etudes sur les legendes epiques franchises', who concluded (p. 376) that 'Historically and psychologically, it is impossible that the Chanson de Roland is by a Norman.' It should also be mentioned in passing that Normandy did not exist at the time of Charlemagne and the references to Normandy and the Normans in the Roland are anachronistic.
35 The suggestion that the Roland is later than the tapestry because the tapestry shows lances both couched and thrown whereas the Roland only speaks of them as couched (a later technique) tries to deduce too much from what are, after all, specific and very different works of art. Moreover, lances are also thrown in the Roland, by the Saracens, and the preference for describing the couched lance on the Christian side may be aesthetic or ideological rather than realistic.
36 Song of Roland, tr. Burgess, lines 372, 2332.
37 Bridgeford, 'Camels, Drums and the Song of Roland'.
38 The possible allusions are: King William's advance into Scotland in the autumn of 1072 (line 2331); the capture of Jerusalem by Atsiz ibn Abaq in 1071 (line 1566); the devaluation of the Byzantine currency in or after 1071 (line 132); the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 (Baligant episode); the capture of Palermo in January 1072 (line 2923).
39 Song of Roland, tr. Burgess, line 2923. From the context Sezile (line 200) must be a town in Spain, not the island of Sicily.
40 Song of Roland, tr. Burgess, lines 2503ff. The mention of the Holy Lance has been used by some specialists to date the poem after 1098, when a Holy Lance was discovered by a crusader, Peter Bartholomew, at Antioch. The idea that the poet was reacting to news of the Antioch discovery, whose authenticity was 'disproved' when Bartholomew perished undergoing an ordeal by fire a year later, is not in itself particularly persuasive and the argument is made redundant by the prior existence of the Saint-Riquier tradition.
41 John 19:31-5.
42 Loomis, 'The Passion Lance Relics and the War Cry Monjoie'.
43 Hariulf, Chronique de Saint-Riquier, p. 150.
44 It may have been among the gifts given to King Althelstan of England by Hugh the Great of France in 926, subsequently