480  MEDIAEVAL  TRADITIONS

The  second  chapter  of  Adams's  book  dis-
cusses the  Song  of  Roland  so  compactly  and  yet
so  fully  that  whoever  would  approach  the  story
may  best  do  so  there.  There  you  will  find  it
starting  from  an  episode  of  the  Battle  of  Hastings
recounted,  in  still  singing  lines,  by  the  Twelfth
Century  Norman  poet,  Wace:

Taillefer  qui  moult  bien  chantout
Sor  un  cheval  qui  tost  alout
Devant  le  due  alout  chantant
De  Karlemaigne  et  de  RoUant
E  d'Oliver  e  des  vassals
Qui  morurent  en  Roneevals.^

(Taillefer  who  was  famed  for  song.
Mounted  on  a  charger  strong,

Rode  on  before  the  Duke,  and  sang

Of  Roland  and  of  Charlemagne,

Oliver  and  the  vassals  all

Who  fell  in  fight  at  Roncevals. — ^Tr.  Adams.)

Adams  goes  on  with  more  of  the  story  as  Wace
tells  it.  Even  this,  however,  is  enough  to  remind
us  that  by  the  time  when  William  the  Norman  won
England,  Roland,  the  Prefect  of  the  Marches  of
Brittany  who  had  fallen  before  Gascon  brigands
three  hundred  years  before,  had  become  a  tradi-
tional arch-type  of  Christian  knighthood  warring
against  Mahometan  infidels.
How  and  when  the  story  had  developed  nobody
surely  knows.  Its  origin  is  briefly  recorded  in  the
passage  from  Eginhard's  Life  of  Charlemagne
which  we  set  down*  a  little  while  ago.  When  we
meet  it  here  again  it  seems  complete.  Charle-
magne, the  Christian  Emperor,  had  triumphed  in

*  Wace:  Roman  de  Rou,  8035-40.     (Ed.  H.  Andreaen,  1877.)

*  Cf.  p.  445.
