Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1959, Qupperneq 255
241
C 7293: Oliver firent a un moster porter,
Pres de .R. nel vousent enterrer (cp. P 6062-63, T 4918-19; diff. V4
5386-87).
The feature may possibly be a reminiscence of a tradition that Oliver was
buried not only in another church, or part of the church, but in another
place, always provided that this passage has not been influenced by
“Turpin”73.
The heroes buried at Arles (Aliscamps) in the Chronicle are the Bur-
gundians. Therefore when the saga makes Arles the burial place of all
the peers, it cannot have got the information from this source; it is more
likely that “Turpin” knew the source of the saga. But at the time when
the Chronicle was written Blaye may have been so firmly established as
the burial place of Roland that its author was forced to accept it, and
even Oliver, who as a nephew of Girard de Viane might well have been
buried at Aliscamps, is only transferred to Belin74. The Kms version ap-
parently did not feel bound by the pseudo-historian’s consideration of what
the public might be willing to accept as true history, and boldly had all
the heroes buried at Arles75. It is a deliberate break with the traditions
represented by O, and must be due to a jongleur who was especially
interested in the city of Arles, or in flattering its inhabitants. The Norse
translator cannot have had anything to do with it. The change may have
been carried out at any time, but Blaye was well known to pilgrims, and
the farne of the tomb there must have been firmly established by the
middle of the 12th century. A claim that Roland was buried, not at Blaye
but at Aliscamps, might have had a certain chance of success in the first
part of the century, but af ter 1150 it would probably have been regarded
as ridiculous and presumptuous by everybody except perhaps the inhabi-
tants of Arles. This faet makes it at least likely that the variant version
of the Chanson de Roland from which Kms is derived was written before
1150. If the mention of Arles in the Chronicle of Pseudo-Turpin can be
taken as an indication that the author knew this variant version, this
would support an early dating of the Kms version76. The source of V4
13 Cp. on this passage Horrent: La Chanson de Roland etc., p. 201.
74 For further details of Blaye and the traditions connected with it, vide Bédier:
Lég. ép. III, 3rd ed. pp. 345-54.
75 Some MSS of the version rimée (and probably the source of this version, vide
Horrent, p. 186) follow the saga in having all the 12 peers brought back to France
(and buried at Blaye).
73 Bédier: Lég. ép. III, 3rd ed. p. 360, Horrent: La Chanson de Roland etc., p.
16 Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana, XIX