Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1959, Side 252

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all the MSS of the version rirnée have added a number of laisses to de-
scribe the adoubement of the peers (C laisses 106-16). The addition of a
new episode creates difficulties and contradictions, against which the
author of CV7 has reacted, and if later remanieurs or even scribes refused
to accept inconsistencies as glaring as these, it is difficult to understand
why another jongleur had deliberately created them. To me the explana-
tion seems obvious: no jongleur has ever written the second episode as an
addition to the Oxford text. It was created by the author of the variant
edition of the poem of which Kms is a translation, as a substitute for
the O version of the episode, while both the original O scene and the
Baligant episode were left out. The author of the “combined version”, the
source of V4 and the version rimée, found two versions of this episode in
his sources, one in a MS of the O type, another in the source of Kms. Like
most compilators he was unwilling to omit anything, so he included first
the original scene, in the place where O has it, and then the Kms scene,
which, with the variant version, he placed just before the return to France.
In the saga the scene had to occupy this place, since there was no Baligant
episode, and the great mistake of the compilator was to put it in that place
even in his version, instead of simply disregarding it, or trying to combine
it with the O scene. His reason for this was, naturally, that the miracle
of the brambles ought to occur just before the return to France, not at
an earlier stage. To get rid of some of the most glaring inconsistencies, the
compiler had to rewrite parts of the Kms episode, and he also added some
new details.
As for V4, we do not know if the Kms scene ever existed in its im-
mediate source. Just at the point where Charlemagne is leaving Saragossa
for France this version breaks off, and inserts the story of the conquest
of Narbonne, and from that point onwards V4 belongs to the version
rimée. But it seems likely that one of the reasons for the addition of the
Narbonne episode in V4 was that it should make up for the omission of
the second Roncevaux scene, which the author of V4 (or more probably its
source) felt was an unnecessary complication. The rimeur, on the other
hånd, retained the scene, expanded it, and even added the laisses between
O w. 3382 and 3383 to avoid some of the contradictions. The author of
CV7 was not satisfied with this, and omitted the whole of the original
scene, and L went even further, by leaving out the Baligant episode as
well.
By accepting this explanation we avoid making a remanieur responsible