Matter of Rome – romances in an ancient setting (see roman below) the Matter of Britain – Arthurian romances, Breton lais (see roman below) The first of these is the subject area of the chansons de geste ("songs of exploits" or "songs of (heroic) deeds"), epic poems typically composed in ten-syllable assonanced (occasionally rhymed) laisses. More than one hundred chansons de geste have survived in around three hundred manuscripts. The chief theme of the earliest French epics was the court of Charlemagne, Charles Martel and Charles the Bald and their wars against the Moors and Saracens, or disputes between kings and their rebellious vassals. The oldest and most celebrated of the chansons de geste is The Song of Roland (earliest version composed c. 1098), seen by some as the national epic of France (comparable with Beowulf in England, the Song of the Nibelungs in Germany and the Lay of el Cid in Spain). It is perhaps no coincidence that the Song of Roland was first written down at a date very close to that of Pope Urban's call (1095) for the First Crusade; its plot may be seen as a glorification of the crusader ethos. The earliest chansons de geste are (more or less) anonymous. They are popular literature (aimed at a warrior class, some say, though the evidence for this is inconclusive). They use an assortment of stock characters: the valiant hero, the brave traitor, the shifty or cowardly traitor, the Saracen, the giant, and so forth. But they also reveal much of the fears and conflicts that were part of the audience's experience. Kings are vain, foolish, old or wily. Insults that threaten honour or cause shame are seen to provoke bloody conflict, which may arise simply from competitiveness among knights or noble families. For discussion of the much debated origins of this epic genre, see Chanson de geste. Approximately one hundred chansons survive, in manuscripts that date from the 12th to the 15th century. Not long after Jean Bodel (above), Bertrand de Bar-sur-Aube in his Girart de Vienne set out a grouping of the chansons de geste into three cycles, each named after a chief character or ancestral figure, and each with a central theme, such as loyalty to a feudal chief, or the defence of Christianity. This is a list of the cycles with a few of the chansons that belong to each: The Geste du