Aye of Avignon: a chanson de geste
Adam's Notes for October 3, 2024
Aye of Avignon is one of my favourite chansons de geste. It has new settings (Saracen kingdoms, a battle at sea), it offers reflective commentary on other gestes (the characters continually look back on the events of The Song of Roland, and at one point the members of the clan of Ganelon point out that although they've committed treason, the rebel barons (who are traditionally seen as heroes) have been at open war with Charlemagne). But more than that, it opens up new plots by lending agency and insight to characters who are traditionally kept on the sidelines. Aye is yet another suffering Christian woman, but she gets a few good speeches in. Berenger refuses the easy defeat suffered by most traitors. But King Ganor is my favourite, and I think he’ll be yours, too. He’s a Saracen warrior who's not just relatively valiant, he essentially assumes the role of the poem’s hero in the back half. He’s allowed to be a Muslim without anyone mocking his religion, and the author even makes a point of trying to understand it, albeit to a very limited degree. As far as I know, Michael Newth’s Heroines of the Old French Epic offers the only English translation, which runs to a relatively short 2200 lines, though I’ve also read an in-depth summary and analysis in a dissertation by Eddison Tatham. The poem might have been written around the year 1200, though this is contentious. There’s only one surviving manuscript, but the events and characters of the poem are referenced in several chanson de geste, indicating it was quite popular.
Our poem begins by introducing the main players. First there is Garnier of Nanteuil, son of the late Lord Doon, a young man raised from boyhood to knighthood at Charlemagne’s court. His best friend is Duke Berenger, who happens to be a son of Ganelon––always a red flag in the chansons de geste. And then there is Aye of Avignon, whose father was slaughtered by Witikind, the Saxon rebel. Charlemagne, now aged, must step in and find a husband for Aye, he proposes Garnier as a reward for his service in battle. Berenger's kinsmen relay the news––Berenger literally can't believe it, Aye was promised to him. The issue is taken up at court, but everyone refuses to budge. Aye herself claims that Berenger had his chance with her, but proved indifferent until just now, when he’s become afraid he might lose her.
Some of Berenger’s kinsman accuse Garnier of being related to the Aymon and the wizard Maugis, who are heroes in their own gestes but looked down upon at Charlemagne’s court because they were rebel barons who went to war against him. Auboin, one of Berenger's kinsman, reaches out to grab Garnier by the hair, but Garnier is too quick, and smashes him in the mouth so that he bleeds all over his ermine coat. Charlemagne commands them both to stop, but two of Berenger’s kinsman are put in jail.
Garnier’s marriage to Aye goes ahead at Laon with some nice pastoral lines as the court is celebrating Easter at Laon. Berenger’s clan won’t stop complaining about the marriage—and now they perjure themselves, swearing falsely that they’ve heard Garnier conspire to kill Charlemagne and put his weak-willed son Louis on the throne. Luckily, there's a simple method to establish the truth: trial by combat!
Garnier’s nephew Girart of Riviers shows up with a thousand troops to support his uncle's cause. They bemoan Roland’s recent death by treason, and the fact that though Ganelon is dead, his kin are still favoured at court. Berenger overhears and points out that he and his kin actually helped stop the rebellion of Garnier’s father Doon and Aymon and his sons.
The trial by combat is a classic setpiece battle. There’s a ritual swearing of oaths and arming beforehand (the highlight is Garnier’s ‘green and glowing’ helmet, which was found in a red tomb, having belonged to a Jewish warrior named Matol), then there’s the riding to the field, a trading of insults, and the fighting itself. Garnier knocks Auboin, Berenger’s champion, from his horse, but then Garnier undertakes the ultimate show of chivalric courtesy: he dismounts to fight on foot. The colour drains from Aye's cheeks as she prays. Auboin seems to have all the momentum, but Garnier withstands his blows and then finally lands a good one himself:
(His sword) rushed towards the hems, and, reaching there, it cut them.
Before it reached his hams it breached the villain’s buttocks
And tendered such a steak of rump as you’d be lucky
To render from a sow, however richly nourished!
The weapon bit the spur, then hit the ground and burrowed
Some eighteen inches south before its mouth was muzzled!
And yet Auboin doesn’t give in. He rushes forward and strikes his best blow yet, shattering Garnier’s already damaged shield and forcing him to retreat. Yet Garnier refuses to surrender, and points out that he’s given Auboin the mark of a criminal, as one of Auboin's ears has been severed in the battle. Auboin runs to his horse and takes a mace from the saddle, and now his kinsman join the fight, trying to overwhelm Garnier. But Charlemagne won't have it: a hundred of his men swoop in and kill twenty-two of the would-be assassins, and arrest eight more. In the chaos, Auboin smokes Garnier in the head with the mace, but Garnier chops off the mace hand and finally forces Auboin to confess his plot of treason. Auboin, on deather’s door, confesses to Charlemagne, but he also adds that Berenger is in the right, that Aye was promised to him. Auboin says he doesn’t mind going to Hell, Ganelon and much of his family are down there, waiting for him. But he swears his brother Miles is innocent and must be spared. So Auboin and his kinsman are taken from jail put to death, but Miles is freed and will carry on the feud. The first thing he does is load a cart with coins and send it to Charlemagne to win his favour.
Charlemagne summons Miles to court, and when he arrives says he knows Miles has more money—could he finance an army of, say, fifteen thousand? Just then a messenger arrives with word that Cologne is under attack by Saracens. For some reason it's always Cologne, and I don’t know why. As far as I know, they were never threatened by any Muslim army in real life, but I think the cathedral was new and fancy when the poem was written, so Christians thought about it the way Republicans think about the World Trade Centre. Or maybe it's that thing that happens in some of the gestes, where there’s a confusion of northern pagans and vikings for Muslims. I dunno. Anyway, Charlemagne promises Cologne 60,000 troops, to be led by Garnier and supplied by Miles. He also sends Aye home to Avignon—big mistake!
Miles peels off five hundred men from his army and uses them to kill Aye’s escort of thirty-five. An escapee runs to a castle to inform a pair of brothers loyal to Garnier that his wife has been kidnapped. The brothers Fouquerant and Renier summon four thousand men and ambush Aye’s kidnappers, but Aye doesn't recognize their banner and thinks these are even worse bandits. She steals a horse and sets off on her own, first on an ancient peasant path and then crossing a dangerous river. She soon finds a modest abbey where the widow-nun Audegont lives as a hermit with fifteen other women.
There’s now a return to the battle in the forest of Lorion. The focus is not on individual heroic triumph so much as the chaos and slaughter. The laisses (stanzas) keep shifting perspective, following one knight, then switching to another. The horses suffer, the corpses are looted. Garnier is absent, but his kinsmen come out on top, except in the aftermath they realize they've lost Aye. (In an aside, we’re told this forest supplies the herbs and flowers used in the healing potions of the doctors of Salerno). The local peasants report there's a waterfall nearby where nymphs are known to appear, and recently they saw one there. The French realize this is Aye. They find her and return her to Avignon, with Sanson (Miles’ nephew who led the troops) as their prisoner. Aye pleads to spare his life––she’d rather keep him as a bargaining chip to be traded.
Aye isn’t home in Avignon for long when Berenger––who has somehow escaped the death sentences passed on his kinsmen––besieges her land. Garnier is still in Cologne, but Aye’s forces capture Berenger's new champion, Aumagon, and after she mocks him they throw him in a jail cell heavy slate, which the author is proud to tell us was constructed by a Jew. Berenger berates Aye from a distance: women are fickle creatures, and Aye rejecting him is his proof. After all, through Eve, women brought sin to the world. But Aye laughs at Berenger’s attempts at preaching, and says Sanson and Aumagon are on their knees in the pew she's made for them, and it’ll be a year before they stand again. Aye dismisses her troops and dreams that Garnier comes home but rejects her offered rose, and instead takes the ring from her finger and stabs her. She wakes up to find Berenger has called in twenty-thousand reinforcements, including crossbow teams and new guys with siege ladders. Berenger stalks into her room and boasts, but Aye promises that King Charlemagne will come to her aid yet. Berenger despoils the town, frees his nephews, and now it’s Aye’s turn in the cell. Now he just needs to kill Garnier so that he can legally force Aye to marry him.
The scene switches to the wider war, where Charlemagne’s forces have beaten the Saracens back from Cologne to Spain. They hear the news of Aye and march on Berenger. There’s a battle, and Garnier kills Haguenon, a sort of Diomedes-like second tier warrior who’s been mentioned a few times now. The poem also employs some great military language: the forces bivouacking, foraging for supplies, assembling siege equipment, and slowly advancing on Berenger, one arrow-length at a time. Aye shouts to her husband from inside the castle wall, and Berenger realizes he's doomed. So he buys and equips a ship, and escapes with Aye, intending to take refuge in a Saracen kingdom. This is where the poem really kicks into high gear and takes us to places the chansons de geste haven’t visited before. We even get a few laisses of nautical language, sailers working the sails and chasing the ocean breeze. It rocks.
They end up in Aigremore, a town in the Majorcas we’re told is inhabited by large-headed but otherwise small pygmies who are always at war with the local Saracens. King Ganor, a Saracen, rules this land. He’s wealthy in terms of gold and cattle, but he lacks a wife. His two best fighters are captured French knights: Count Hernaut of Gironde and Garin of Ansyon. He loves to watch them spar, but doesn't know of their fame back home.
King Ganor goes down to the docks to inspect the new ships. He welcomes Berenger to his kingdom, and congratulates him on quitting Charlemagne's forces. Part of what's interesting about this section is that Ganor often calls upon his God, Mahomet, but it’s never in a mocking tone like in other medieval works. It seems to be an honest misunderstanding by the author. Anyway, a fight breaks out because Berenger won't sell Aye to Ganor at any price. Ganor retreats from the boat to the pier, Berenger's ship sets sail but is chased by a hundred galleys, who use grappling hooks to halt and board the ship. The French are locked up but treated well. Ganor takes Aye to a mosque, where they run into Alfameon, a Saracen who has visited France and Rome and was even a guest at the wedding of Garnier and Aye. He is amused by the prisoners—he recognizes they're Ganelon’s kin, and says the Saracen’s owe them a debt of gratitude for their betrayal of Roland. But on the other hand, he also knows that they have treason in their blood, and demands to know the real reason they're here. Now Aye makes a lengthy speech detailing all the hardship she’s suffered at Berenger’s hand, helpfully recapping the plot so far.
King Ganor’s response is really intriguing. He sympathizes greatly with Aye, who he has fallen in love with, but refuses to hang Berenger due to the debt of gratitude. He offers to send Berenger and his men to Spain, where they can live in pampered exile at the court of King Marsile (the traditional Saracen king of Spain, who the author forgets died in the Roland, unless it’s a dynastic thing and this is Marsile II or whatever). Ganor, meanwhile, proposes to marry Aye, but not until a year has passed—first he’ll need to make his religious pilgrimage to Mecca. Ganor sets sails and drops Berenger off on the island of Moronde, but then it seems he returns to Majorca (it’s a bit confusing but later becomes clear he hasn’t yet gone on pilgrimage).
On Moronde, Berenger does some tourism and visits the spot where Ganelon betrayed Roland. The Saracens planted trees there to commemorate the event, but though they live, God refuses to let them fruit. King Marsile takes Berenger in and gives him high honours, and Berenger immediately converts (it’s also noted that he speaks the Saracen tongue with ease). All Berenger wants is for Marsile to make war on King Ganor, and then give Aye to him as a trophy. The potential marriage now has major geopolitical ramifications: when Aye marries Berenger, now a Saracen, it will give the Saracens hereditary rights within France, and possibly the crown itself.
Marsile’s forces sail to Majorca and find King Ganor and Aye watching the French prisoner-knights spar—in an aside we learn that the knights are plotting their own escape. Ganor is in love with Aye, and refuses to surrender her. Soon Majorca is besieged. King Ganor places Aye in a tower so secure that only monkeys and eagles can reach its peak. She has twelve Saracen ladies minding her and trying to convert her to their religion, but her own chivalric sense of courtesy is strong enough that she's able to refuse their entreaties while still keeping them as friends.
Meanwhile, in France, Garnier has just finished a hunt and listened to his jongleurs sing a story of Oliver, presumably Roland's companion but possibly someone else with the same name.1 A pilgrim returning from Spain fills tells Garnier he’s seen Aye and the captured French knights. Garnier then decides he must raise an army to serve King Ganor and rescue his wife. Before they set off, he makes everyone shave their hair and beards—this way no one can be sure if they’re Saracen or Christians, at least not from a distance. There's talk about supplying the ships and readying them for destriers, makes me wonder if they're drawing on the memory of the Norman invasion of England.
The pilgrim is sent ahead as ambassador because he speaks King Ganor's language. Ganor, unfortunately, lays in bed nursing a wound and wearing a poultice. The pilgrim announces that the French have come not as princes or dukes but as vassals ready to sell their services! Lady Aye sees them from the tower, and asks her Saracen ladies to interpret a recent dream, in which she was nursing Ganor as they were attacked by eagles, but then a falcon drove the eagles off. The ladies have no trouble with this one.
The war doesn’t start immediately. Garnier goes out hawking and Aye spots him from the tower––but he’s bald now and his face is a tanned and leathery from the harsh sun. They only recognize one another when Aye shows him her magic ring, taken from Earthly Paradise, which protects a woman’s virginity from anyone who would take it by force. Marsile’s Spanish forces then unleash their Turkish mercenaries. King Ganor, newly recovered, gives a rousing speech to the French. Garnier winks to the captured French knights, says he’s here incognito as a mercenary, but will secure their freedom when he gets a chance. In fact, Ganor frees the men on the spot when he finds out they squired with his new mercenaries for Charlemagne. Marsile’s forces taunt them at the gates, and now, at last, battle is joined.
The outcome of the battle is never in question: Garnier kills Berenger, captures Sanson, and kills the oldest son of King Marsile. The Spanish and Turkish Saracens flee to the beaches and many of them drown while retreating to their ships. The Majorcan Saracens and the French are victorious and plunder the enemy ships. They celebrate, but King Ganor stops Garnier from leaving. King Ganor has yet to make his pilgrimage to Mecca, which he explains all Saracens must do at once in their life, but needs a proxy to look after his kingdom in his absence, would Garnier and Aye oblige? Of course Garnier would. This, however, marks the limit of Christian tolerance in the chansons de geste. The author claims the Majorcans celebrate the feast day of Saint John with more fervour than the Christians—because it marks the third anniversary of Aye’s coming to their land. It’s on this anniversary that Garnier breaks her out of the tower, along with three Saracen women who want to convert and go to France. They set sail for France with the French troops and freed prisoner-knights, and thus the poem ends.
This is the end of the poem, but not the end of Aye and King Ganor. There’s a continuation that we’ll look at eventually, and in it Ganor comes to France and marries the now-widowed Aye. Also, Aye’s son with Garnier will be the eponymous hero of the poem Gui de Nantueil.
I know this is lame, but if you’ve read this far, can you give the post a like or a comment? I’m trying to gauge if I can keep people’s attention with a post that’s longer than normal. Thanks for reading.
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We’re told the story is about how a squire named Robert and his faithful wife Enguelas saved Oliver, and I don’t recognize it from the gestes, so it might be about someone else named Oliver.
I loved this entry! The chanson de geste sound so interesting; one of these days I'll get off my ass and read some myself. There's nothing wrong with long newsletters.
As an aside - a while ago I saw you watched Chimes at Midnight and quite enjoyed it; Have you read Robert E. Howard's "Gates of Empire"? It's Howard's take on a Falstaff like character. It's pure comedy though - not emotionally effecting like Chimes, but a great read in my opinion.