The Romaunce of the Sowdone of Babylone and of Ferumbras His Sone Who Conquerede Rome. Various
die hem an boeken houden
daer si clene oerbare in leren,
also sijn jeesten van heeren,
van Paerthenopeuse, van Amidase,
van Troijen ende van Fierabrase,
ende van menighen boeken, die men mint
ende daer men litel oerbaren in vint,
‹viii›
ende dat als leghene es ende mere,
ende anders en hebben ghene lere,
danne vechten ende vrowen minnen
ende lant ende steden winnen … …’—
“Nec rarius tanguntur fabulæ de Carolo Magno, Speculum Historiale, IV. 1. xxix (cf. Bilderdijk, Verscheidenh, I. D. bl. 161–2):—
‘Carel es menichwaerf beloghen
in groten boerden ende in hoghen,
alse boerders doen ende oec dwase,
diene beloghen van Fierabrase,
dat nie ghesciede noch en was. …
die scone walsce valsce poeten,
die mer rimen dan si weten,
belieghen groten Caerle vele
in sconen worden ende bispele
van Fierabrase van Alisandre,
van Pont Mautrible ende andre,
dat algader niet en was. …’ ”
That the Fierabras romance must have been well known and highly popular in England and Scotland, may be gathered from the numerous references to this poem in various Middle English works.
Thus the whole subject of the Fierabras romance is found in the following passage, taken from Barbour’s Bruce, ed. Skeat, 3, 435 ss., where the King is described as relating to his followers:—
“Romanys off worthi Ferambrace,
That worthily our-commyn was
Throw the rycht douchty Olywer;
And how the duz Peris wer
Assegyt intill Egrymor,
Quhar King Lawyne lay thaim befor
With may thowsandis then I can say,
And bot elewyn within war thai,
And a woman; and wa sa stad,
That thai na mete thar within had,
Bot as thai fra thair fayis wan.
Y heyte, sua contenyt thai thaim than;
That thai the tour held manlily,
Till that Rychard off Normandy,
Magre his fayis, warnyt the king,
That wes joyfull off this tithing:
For he wend, thai had all bene slayne,
Tharfor he turnyt in hy agayne,
And wan Mantrybill and passit Flagot;
And syne Lawyne and all his flot
Dispitusly discumfyt he:
And deliueryt his men all fre,
And wan the naylis, and the sper,
And the croune that Ihesu couth ber; ‹ix›
And off the croice a gret party
He wan throw his chewalry.”13
In his poem of Ware the Hawk, Skelton (ed. Dyce, I. 162) cites Syr Pherumbras as a great tyrant. He also refers to him in one of his poems against Garnesche, whom he addresses with the following apostrophe:—
“Ye fowle, fers and felle, as Syr Ferumbras the ffreke.”
The story of the combat between Oliver and Ferumbras is alluded to by Lyndsay, in his Historie of ane Nobil and Wailȝeand Squyer, William Meldrum, ed. Hall, ll. 1313–16:—
“Roland with Brandwell, his bricht brand,
Faucht never better, hand for hand,
Nor Gawin aganis Golibras,
Nor Olyver with Pharambras.”
The tale of the fortified bridge of Mauntrible seems also to have been very well known in England and Scotland. In the Complaint of Scotland, ed. Murray, p. 63, we find the Tail of the Brig of the Mantrible mentioned among other famous romances. In his lampoon on Garnesche, Skelton describes his adversary as being more deformed and uglier than
“Of Mantryble the bryge Malchus14 the murryon.”
As has already been mentioned, amongst all the Charlemagne romances the (originally French) romance of Fierabras is remarkable as being one of the first that was rescued from the dust of libraries; and it is worthy of note, in connection with it, that the first printed version was not a French, but a Provençal one, which was published not in France, the birth-place of the romance, but in Germany.
The manuscript of this Provençal version having been discovered by Lachmann in the Library of Prince Ludwig von Oettingen-Wallerstein,15 ‹x› somewhere about the year 1820, the poem was published in 1829 by Immanuel Bekker.16
Raynouard, who drew attention to this edition of the poem in the Journal des Savants, March 1831, supposed this Provençal version to be the original.
Soon after Fauriel discovered at Paris two MSS. of the romance in French, and a third French MS. was found in London,17 by Fr. Michel, in 1838.
In 1852 Fauriel gave an account of the poem in the Histoire Littéraire de la France, par les religieux bénédictins de congregation de Saint-Maur. … . continuée par des membres de l’Institut, vol. xxii. p. 196 et seq., where he also investigated the question of the originality of the two versions, without arriving at a final solution; as from the comparison of the French and the Provençal version, no conclusion as to the original could be drawn in favour of either of the two poems.18
As early as 1829 Uhland and Diez had expressed their opinion, that in all probability the Provençal poem was to be looked upon as a reproduction of some French source;19 and in 1839 Edelestand du Méril, in France, had pointed out the French poem as the original of the Provençal version;20 Guessard in his lectures at the Ecole des Chartes, at Paris, had also defended the same opinion; when in 1860, the editors of the French Fierabras21 finally and irrefutably proved the impossibility of considering the Provençal poem as anything but a translation of a French original. ‹xi›
In 1865, Gaston Paris, in his Poetical History of Charlemagne, pointed out that what we have now of the Fierabras romance must be looked upon as a very different version from the old original Fierabras (or Balan) romance, the former being indeed only a portion, considerably amplified and in its arrangement modified, of the old poem, the first portion of which has been lost altogether. Gaston Paris had been led to this supposition by the rather abrupt opening of the Fierabras, which at once introduces the reader in medias