ROMANCES. 



375 



declared to be original texts, and which the romance-writers, naturally 

 inclined to credulity, accepted blindfold when they had occasion to quote 

 them. Thus, exclusively of the spurious Chronicle of Turpin, which was at 

 that time accepted as authentic, there were two or three old Latin poems 

 upon the supposed conquests of Charlemagne in Spain and the East. One of 



Fig. 308. The Battle of Honcevaux and the Death of Roland. Fragment of a Stained-glass 

 Window in Chartrea Cathedral (Thirteenth Century). 



these legends, which was composed during the eleventh century within the 

 walls of the Abbey of St. Denis, contained the narrative of a Crusade which 

 the great Emperor was supposed to have led himself to Jerusalem in order to 

 reseat the Patriarch of the Holy City upon his archiepiscopal throne. This 



