Ganelon
Encyclopedia
In the Matter of France
, Ganelon is the knight
who betrayed Charlemagne
's army to the Muslim
s, leading to the Battle of Roncevaux Pass
. His name is said to derive from the Italian word inganno, meaning fraud or deception.
His most famous appearance is in The Song of Roland
, where he is a well-respected Frank
ish baron, Roland
's own stepfather and Charlemagne's brother-in-law. According to this chanson de geste
Ganelon was married to Charlemagne's sister and had a son with her. He resents his stepson's boastfulness and great popularity among the Franks and success on the battlefield. When Roland nominates him for a highly dangerous mission (possibly even suicidally dangerous) as messenger to the Saracen
s, Ganelon is so deeply offended that he vows vengeance. This vengeance becomes treachery as Ganelon plots with the pagan Blancandrin
the ambush at Roncesvals. At the end, justice is served when Ganelon's comrade Pinabel
is defeated in a trial by combat
, showing that Ganelon is a traitor in the eyes of God. Thus Ganelon is torn limb from limb by four fiery horses.
In Canto XXXII of the Book of Inferno in Dante's
The Divine Comedy
, Ganelon (Ganellone) has been banished to Cocytus
in the depths of hell
as punishment for his betrayal.
Ganelon ' onMouseout='HidePop("99780")' href="/topics/Ponthieu">Ponthieu
" or Gano di Maganza, i.e. "Ganelon of Mainz
".) also appears in Italian Renaissance
epic poem romance
s dealing with Charlemagne, Roland (Italian: Orlando) and Renaud de Montauban
(Italian: Renaldo or Rinaldo), such as Matteo Maria Boiardo
's Orlando Innamorato
and Luigi Pulci
's Morgante
.
Here is the account of Ganelon's crucial role in Charlemagne's willfull ignorance, which brings about the death of Duke Benes of Aygremount; this is my Modern English rendering of the text as it appears in "The Right Pleasant and Goodly Historie of the Foure Sonnes of Aymon." Englisht from the French by William Caxton, Chapter 1, pp.51-53; Published for The Early English Text Society by N. Trubner & Co., 1885.
The text is online at:
http://www.archive.org/details/rightplesauntno4400caxtuoft
Now, a little before the feast of St. John the Baptist, King Charlemagne held a great court in Paris, and Duke Benes did not forget to go there as he had promised. And so he departed from Aygremount with two hundred knights and took his way to Paris to serve the king, as he would have him do.
Now, the King being in Paris, his nephew the Earl Ganelon, Foulkes of Moryllon, Hardres, and Berenger, came to him and told him that Duke Benes was coming to serve him with two hundred knights, and Ganelon said: "Sire, how may you love or be well served by him who so cruelly has slain your son, our cousin? If it were your pleasure, we should well avenge you of him, for truly, we would slay him."
"Ganelon," said the king, "that would be treason, for we have given him our truce. But do as you will, so that the blame turn not upon me; and keep you well. For in certain the Duke of Aygremount is very powerful and of great kindred; and well might you find yourself with much to do, if you carry out your intent."
"Sire," said Ganelon, "care nothing for that. There is no man in all the world rich enough to undertake anything against me or my lineage. And Sire, tomorrow early we shall depart with 4,000 fighting men; and you may be sure we shall deliver the world of him."
"Certainly," said the king, "that would be treason."
"Care nothing for that," said Ganelon, "for he slew well your son Lohier by treason, and he was my kinsman; and therefore I will be avenged if I may."
"Now do as you will," said the king, "understanding always that I am not consenting thereto."
When morning came, Ganelon and his knights departed early from Paris, and with them full 4000 fighting men. And they rode without tarrying until they came to the Valley of Soissons; and there they encountered Duke Benes with his followers.
When Duke Benes saw them coming he said to his men, "Lords, I see that yonder are some people of the king's coming from the court."
"It is of no importance," said one of his knights.
"I know not what it may be," said the Duke, "for King Charlemagne is well able to think to avenge himself. And also he has with him a lineage of people who are deadly and cruel; that would be Ganelon, Foulkes of Moryllon, and certain others of his court. And in truth, last night I dreamed that a griffin came out of the heavens and pierced my shield and armor, so that his claws struck into my liver and my spleen. And all my men were in great torment and eaten by boars and lions, so that none escaped but one alone. And also, it seemed to me that out of my mouth issued a white dove."
Then one of his knights said that all was well, and he should not dismay himself because of the dream. "I know not what God shall send me," said the Duke, "but my heart dreads me for this dream."
Then Duke Benes commanded that every man should arm himself. And his knights answered that they would glady do so, and all sought their arms and equipment. And now you shall hear of the hard hewing and of a thing heavy to recount: the great slaughter that was made of the good Duke Benes of Aygremount, by the traitor Ganelon.
In Don Quixote, Cervantes
wrote, "To have a bout of kicking at that traitor of a Ganelon he [Don Quixote] would have given his housekeeper, and his niece into the bargain."
He is also mentioned in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
, both in "The Shipman's Tale", where his gruesome fate is a byeword (193-94: "..God take on me vengeance/ as foul as evere hadde Genylon of France") and in "The Nun's Priest's Tale" (225: "O false assassin, lurking in thy den! O new Iscariot, new Ganelon!").
In Roger Zelazny
's Chronicles of Amber series, Ganelon appears as a former aid and later betrayer of the main character Corwin in a place called Avalon, alongside the Arthurian character Lancelot du Lac.
Matter of France
The Matter of France, also known as the Carolingian cycle, is a body of literature and legendary material associated with the history of France, in particular involving Charlemagne and his associates. The cycle springs from the Old French chansons de geste, and was later adapted into a variety of...
, Ganelon is the knight
Knight
A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....
who betrayed Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
's army to the Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
s, leading to the Battle of Roncevaux Pass
Battle of Roncevaux Pass
The Battle of Roncevaux Pass was a battle in 778 in which Roland, prefect of the Breton March and commander of the rear guard of Charlemagne's army, was defeated by the Basques...
. His name is said to derive from the Italian word inganno, meaning fraud or deception.
His most famous appearance is in The Song of Roland
The Song of Roland
The Song of Roland is the oldest surviving major work of French literature. It exists in various manuscript versions which testify to its enormous and enduring popularity in the 12th to 14th centuries...
, where he is a well-respected Frank
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...
ish baron, Roland
Roland
Roland was a Frankish military leader under Charlemagne who became one of the principal figures in the literary cycle known as the Matter of France. Historically, Roland was military governor of the Breton March, with responsibility for defending the frontier of Francia against the Bretons...
's own stepfather and Charlemagne's brother-in-law. According to this chanson de geste
Chanson de geste
The chansons de geste, Old French for "songs of heroic deeds", are the epic poems that appear at the dawn of French literature. The earliest known examples date from the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, nearly a hundred years before the emergence of the lyric poetry of the trouvères and...
Ganelon was married to Charlemagne's sister and had a son with her. He resents his stepson's boastfulness and great popularity among the Franks and success on the battlefield. When Roland nominates him for a highly dangerous mission (possibly even suicidally dangerous) as messenger to the Saracen
Saracen
Saracen was a term used by the ancient Romans to refer to a people who lived in desert areas in and around the Roman province of Arabia, and who were distinguished from Arabs. In Europe during the Middle Ages the term was expanded to include Arabs, and then all who professed the religion of Islam...
s, Ganelon is so deeply offended that he vows vengeance. This vengeance becomes treachery as Ganelon plots with the pagan Blancandrin
Blancandrin
In The Song of Roland, Blancandrin is the instigator of the pagan plot against Roland and Charlemagne. He first appears in the final line of the second stanza of the poem as the only pagan who speaks to give King Marsile counsel, and is then described as the wisest of the pagans and a good and...
the ambush at Roncesvals. At the end, justice is served when Ganelon's comrade Pinabel
Pinabel
Pinabel, also known as Pinabello, is one of Charlemagne's vassals in The Song of Roland, Orlando furioso, and other works within the corpus of writings known as the Matter of France. Pinabel is the nephew and friend of the knight Ganelon. Different works give different accounts of Pinabel's...
is defeated in a trial by combat
Trial by combat
Trial by combat was a method of Germanic law to settle accusations in the absence of witnesses or a confession, in which two parties in dispute fought in single combat; the winner of the fight was proclaimed to be right. In essence, it is a judicially sanctioned duel...
, showing that Ganelon is a traitor in the eyes of God. Thus Ganelon is torn limb from limb by four fiery horses.
In Canto XXXII of the Book of Inferno in Dante's
Dante Alighieri
Durante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante , was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia ...
The Divine Comedy
The Divine Comedy
The Divine Comedy is an epic poem written by Dante Alighieri between 1308 and his death in 1321. It is widely considered the preeminent work of Italian literature, and is seen as one of the greatest works of world literature...
, Ganelon (Ganellone) has been banished to Cocytus
Cocytus
Cocytus or Kokytos, meaning "the river of wailing" , is a river in the underworld in Greek mythology. Cocytus flows into the river Acheron, across which dwells the underworld, the mythological abode of the dead. There are five rivers encircling Hades...
in the depths of hell
Hell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
as punishment for his betrayal.
Ganelon ' onMouseout='HidePop("99780")' href="/topics/Ponthieu">Ponthieu
Ponthieu
Ponthieu was one of six feudal counties that eventually merged together to become part of the Province of Picardy, in northern France. Its chief town is Abbeville.- History :...
" or Gano di Maganza, i.e. "Ganelon of Mainz
Mainz
Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire...
".) also appears in Italian Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
epic poem romance
Romance (genre)
As a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a knight errant portrayed as...
s dealing with Charlemagne, Roland (Italian: Orlando) and Renaud de Montauban
Renaud de Montauban
Renaud de Montauban, was a fictional hero who was introduced to literature in a 12th century Old French chanson de geste also known as Les Quatre Fils Aymon . His exploits form part of the Doon de Mayence cycle of chansons...
(Italian: Renaldo or Rinaldo), such as Matteo Maria Boiardo
Matteo Maria Boiardo
Matteo Maria Boiardo was an Italian Renaissance poet.Boiardo was born at, or near, Scandiano ; the son of Giovanni di Feltrino and Lucia Strozzi, he was of noble lineage, ranking as Count of Scandiano, with seignorial power over Arceto, Casalgrande, Gesso, and Torricella...
's Orlando Innamorato
Orlando Innamorato
Orlando Innamorato is an epic poem written by the Italian Renaissance author Matteo Maria Boiardo. The poem is a romance concerning the heroic knight Orlando .-Composition and publication:...
and Luigi Pulci
Luigi Pulci
Luigi Pulci was an Italian poet best known for his Morgante, an epic story of a giant who is converted to Christianity and follows the knight Orlando....
's Morgante
Morgante
Morgante, sometimes also called Morgante Maggiore , is an Italian romantic epic by Luigi Pulci which appeared in its final form in 1483 .Based...
.
Here is the account of Ganelon's crucial role in Charlemagne's willfull ignorance, which brings about the death of Duke Benes of Aygremount; this is my Modern English rendering of the text as it appears in "The Right Pleasant and Goodly Historie of the Foure Sonnes of Aymon." Englisht from the French by William Caxton, Chapter 1, pp.51-53; Published for The Early English Text Society by N. Trubner & Co., 1885.
The text is online at:
http://www.archive.org/details/rightplesauntno4400caxtuoft
Now, a little before the feast of St. John the Baptist, King Charlemagne held a great court in Paris, and Duke Benes did not forget to go there as he had promised. And so he departed from Aygremount with two hundred knights and took his way to Paris to serve the king, as he would have him do.
Now, the King being in Paris, his nephew the Earl Ganelon, Foulkes of Moryllon, Hardres, and Berenger, came to him and told him that Duke Benes was coming to serve him with two hundred knights, and Ganelon said: "Sire, how may you love or be well served by him who so cruelly has slain your son, our cousin? If it were your pleasure, we should well avenge you of him, for truly, we would slay him."
"Ganelon," said the king, "that would be treason, for we have given him our truce. But do as you will, so that the blame turn not upon me; and keep you well. For in certain the Duke of Aygremount is very powerful and of great kindred; and well might you find yourself with much to do, if you carry out your intent."
"Sire," said Ganelon, "care nothing for that. There is no man in all the world rich enough to undertake anything against me or my lineage. And Sire, tomorrow early we shall depart with 4,000 fighting men; and you may be sure we shall deliver the world of him."
"Certainly," said the king, "that would be treason."
"Care nothing for that," said Ganelon, "for he slew well your son Lohier by treason, and he was my kinsman; and therefore I will be avenged if I may."
"Now do as you will," said the king, "understanding always that I am not consenting thereto."
When morning came, Ganelon and his knights departed early from Paris, and with them full 4000 fighting men. And they rode without tarrying until they came to the Valley of Soissons; and there they encountered Duke Benes with his followers.
When Duke Benes saw them coming he said to his men, "Lords, I see that yonder are some people of the king's coming from the court."
"It is of no importance," said one of his knights.
"I know not what it may be," said the Duke, "for King Charlemagne is well able to think to avenge himself. And also he has with him a lineage of people who are deadly and cruel; that would be Ganelon, Foulkes of Moryllon, and certain others of his court. And in truth, last night I dreamed that a griffin came out of the heavens and pierced my shield and armor, so that his claws struck into my liver and my spleen. And all my men were in great torment and eaten by boars and lions, so that none escaped but one alone. And also, it seemed to me that out of my mouth issued a white dove."
Then one of his knights said that all was well, and he should not dismay himself because of the dream. "I know not what God shall send me," said the Duke, "but my heart dreads me for this dream."
Then Duke Benes commanded that every man should arm himself. And his knights answered that they would glady do so, and all sought their arms and equipment. And now you shall hear of the hard hewing and of a thing heavy to recount: the great slaughter that was made of the good Duke Benes of Aygremount, by the traitor Ganelon.
In Don Quixote, Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, considered the first modern novel, is a classic of Western literature, and is regarded amongst the best works of fiction ever written...
wrote, "To have a bout of kicking at that traitor of a Ganelon he [Don Quixote] would have given his housekeeper, and his niece into the bargain."
He is also mentioned in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
The Canterbury Tales
The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century. The tales are told as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at...
, both in "The Shipman's Tale", where his gruesome fate is a byeword (193-94: "..God take on me vengeance/ as foul as evere hadde Genylon of France") and in "The Nun's Priest's Tale" (225: "O false assassin, lurking in thy den! O new Iscariot, new Ganelon!").
In Roger Zelazny
Roger Zelazny
Roger Joseph Zelazny was an American writer of fantasy and science fiction short stories and novels, best known for his The Chronicles of Amber series...
's Chronicles of Amber series, Ganelon appears as a former aid and later betrayer of the main character Corwin in a place called Avalon, alongside the Arthurian character Lancelot du Lac.