Combat between Roland and King Marsile, from the Charlemagne window at Chartres Cathedral
The previous post made me think of "The Song of Roland," the great chivalric poem about battle in the Spanish marches between Charlemagne's knights and Islamic armies. The French certainly did things differently back in those days, when that nation not only held strongly to the Faith, but expressed its devotion with a decided, er, vigor. Here is an excerpt:
(Archbishop) Turpin of Reims knows that he has been mortally wounded. Four spears have passed through his body. That brave peer gets to his feet again, looks for Roland, runs to him, and says:
"I am not beaten! A good vassal never yields while there is still life in him."
He draws his sword Almace, with its burnished blade, and in the thick of the (Mohammedans) he strikes a thousand blows and more. (Charlemagne) said afterwards that Turpin of Reims spared none of the (Mohammedans), for he found four hundred of them lying around the Archbishop, some wounded, some cleft in two, some headless. That is what the Chronicle says, which was written by one who had seen the field: the worthy St. Gile, for whom God performed wonders. He wrote the account in the monastery of Laon, and any man who does not know that is ignorant of the whole story.
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