--- title: Opening — Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of F… · full text with trees description: Opening, «Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France» by Alfred John Church: the whole chapter, every sentence with its dependency tree and pragmatics. It begins: [Frontispiece: OLIVER AND FIERABRAS.] --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75339/1/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75339/) / Opening # Opening Opening of «Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France» by Alfred John Church: the whole text, 36 sentences and 633 words. The small number after every sentence leads to its own page with its syntax tree and pragmatics, parsed by Mova itself. \[Frontispiece: OLIVER AND FIERABRAS.\][1](1/ "tree and pragmatics") STORIES OF CHARLEMAGNE[2](2/ "tree and pragmatics") AND THE TWELVE PEERS OF FRANCE[3](3/ "tree and pragmatics") \_FROM THE OLD ROMANCES\_[4](4/ "tree and pragmatics") By the[5](5/ "tree and pragmatics") REV. A. J. CHURCH, M.A.[6](6/ "tree and pragmatics") Formerly Professor of Latin in University College, London Author of "Stories from Homer," etc.[7](7/ "tree and pragmatics") With Illustrations by GEORGE MORROW[8](8/ "tree and pragmatics") LONDON SEELEY AND CO. LIMITED 38, GREAT RUSSELL STREET 1902[9](9/ "tree and pragmatics") PREFACE[10](10/ "tree and pragmatics") I have endeavoured to tell in this volume the story of Charlemagne, the Charlemagne, it must be understood, not of history, but of Romance.[11](11/ "tree and pragmatics") The two personages are curiously different.[12](12/ "tree and pragmatics") Each writer of a romance had naturally a hero of his own.[13](13/ "tree and pragmatics") As he had to exalt this hero, he could hardly help depreciating the king.[14](14/ "tree and pragmatics") Charlemagne suffers by comparison with Roland and Reynaud very much as, in the Iliad, Agamemnon, the overlord of the Greeks, suffers by comparison with the subordinate King, Achilles.[15](15/ "tree and pragmatics") The real Charlemagne was a very great personality, one that impressed his age as deeply as any man has ever done; in these stories he often appears petty, capricious, and obstinate.[16](16/ "tree and pragmatics") Then the romance writers were Frenchmen, and they make the great king a Frenchman, holding his court in Paris, and surrounded by great French lords.[17](17/ "tree and pragmatics") They began to write when the air was full of the crusading spirit, and their work is coloured accordingly.[18](18/ "tree and pragmatics") The enemy is always a Saracen or a follower of Mahomet.[19](19/ "tree and pragmatics") There could not be a more curious instance of this than is to be found in the story of the death of Roland.[20](20/ "tree and pragmatics") In the romance Charlemagne's rearguard is destroyed by an overpowering force of Saracens.[21](21/ "tree and pragmatics") What really happened was that it was attacked, probably for the sake of plundering the baggage, by a gathering of mountaineers, who are called Gascons by the chroniclers, but were, in fact, Basques.[22](22/ "tree and pragmatics") Then, again, we find the romance writers in sympathy with the great feudatories, indicating the time before the French monarchy had become consolidated, when the king at Paris had all that he could do to hold his own against his powerful vassals, the Dukes of Brittany and Burgundy, and the English king.[23](23/ "tree and pragmatics") The Charlemagne romances, as translated by Lord Berners and William Caxton, occupy twelve volumes in the Extra Series of the Early English Text Society.[24](24/ "tree and pragmatics") Some of these are variants of the same story.[25](25/ "tree and pragmatics") There is a romance of "Ferumbras," for instance, which gives substantially the same tale as that which occupies eleven chapters in this volume. "[26](26/ "tree and pragmatics") Huon of Bordeaux," again, fills four volumes in the Extra Series.[27](27/ "tree and pragmatics") But the original \_chanson\_ is contained in one of the four and is complete in itself.[28](28/ "tree and pragmatics") This, too, I have considerably compressed and shortened.[29](29/ "tree and pragmatics") The same process has had to be applied to all before they could be made acceptable to the readers of to-day.[30](30/ "tree and pragmatics") I hope that they have not lost their life and colour and human interest.[31](31/ "tree and pragmatics") The stories of which I have made use are "The Four Sons of Aymon" (i.-xi.); "Ralph the Collier" (xii.-xiii.), a genuinely English production, it would seem, as no French original has been found; "Fierabras," taken from the "Lyf of Charles the Grete" (xiv.-xxiv.); "The Song of Roland" (xxv.-xxxv.), and "Duke Huon of Bordeaux" (xxxvi.-xl.).[32](32/ "tree and pragmatics") This has been put last in order, as it represents Charlemagne grown old and weary of power.[33](33/ "tree and pragmatics") The death of the great King is only mentioned as imminent in the romance which I have followed; I have added an abridged account of it from the contemporary biography written by Eginhard.[34](34/ "tree and pragmatics") The story of Huon is peculiarly interesting to us because it introduces the fairy King Oberon, who was to become so important a figure in English literature.[35](35/ "tree and pragmatics") I have to express my obligations to the Introduction, written by Mr. Sidney Lee to the first part of "Duke Huon of Bordeaux."[36](36/ "tree and pragmatics") - next →: [Alfred J. 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