The Compositional Making and Geographic Itinerancies of the Chansons de Roland During the Early and Late Middle Ages
Paul Mirabile
The author examines the centripetal compositional forces and itinerant centrifugal that produced <i>Chanson de Roland</i> diffused <i>Chansons since its remote Nordico-Germanic Gallo-Roman origins to their wide-scale geographic settlings in western mediaeval Europe. To demonstrate this dual force, traces Figure of a sand-glass which visualizes first migrating flow from wide plains Scandinavia, through sedentarized Gaul on battlefield Roncevaux Pass, second propagating oldest extant <i>Oxford version</i> eight variants which, although scattered over different countries, are very much inter-related they all drew inspiration Roland's heroic death at eventful battle Roncevaux. nine versions founded European poetic koinê.
International journal of European studies