Abstract
The author examines the centripetal compositional forces and the itinerant centrifugal forces that produced the <i>Chanson de Roland</i> and diffused the <i>Chansons de Roland</i> since its remote Nordico-Germanic and Gallo-Roman origins to their wide-scale geographic settlings in western mediaeval Europe. To demonstrate this dual force, the author traces the Figure of a sand-glass which visualizes the first migrating compositional flow from the wide plains of Scandinavia, through sedentarized Gaul and on to the battlefield of Roncevaux Pass, and the second propagating flow from the oldest extant <i>Oxford version</i> to the eight variants which, although scattered over different countries, are very much inter-related since they all drew inspiration from Roland's heroic death at the eventful battle of Roncevaux. The nine versions of the <i>Chanson de Roland</i> founded the mediaeval western European poetic koinê.
Highlights
Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces The Middle Ages of western Europe have been called the 'Dark Ages' by many an historian
I have followed in the footsteps of these historians and philologists for whom the Middle Ages of western Europe deserve to be regarded as a period of contribution to the Humanities, but more important still, should serve as a model of how the myriad particularities of variegated cultures, over the centuries, have forged a unified religious, philosophical and literary cultural identity
The results of the centripetal and the centrifugal forces can be viewed by the figure of a sand-glass
Summary
Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces The Middle Ages of western Europe have been called the 'Dark Ages' by many an historian. I have followed in the footsteps of these historians and philologists for whom the Middle Ages of western Europe deserve to be regarded as a period of contribution to the Humanities, but more important still, should serve as a model of how the myriad particularities of variegated cultures, over the centuries, have forged a unified religious, philosophical and literary cultural identity. It has been my research into the particularities of western European mediaeval cultures, by dint of the examination of their respective epic tales, that has convinced me of this mediaeval unity, and its unbroken cohesion to our present day
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