An Early Redaction of the Pseudo-Turpin: (Bib. nat. fonds lat. 17656, olim Notre Dame 133)

Scholars have long been agreed that the Pseudo-Turpin was composed about the middle of the twelfth century — actual dates assigned range from 1140 to 1165. Thus it came into being about three and one-half centuries after the death of Charlemagne's Archbishop Turpin and about a half century after the composition of the Chanson de Roland. With the great chanson it is, of course, in cheerful disagreement, inasmuch as it represents Turpin as having been absent from the battle of Roncesvalles and thus surviving to write what Bédier humorously terms his mémoires. The real author, however (in this all modern scholars but one agree) was, like Turpin, a French ecclesiastic. His chronicle may be briefly characterized as an account of the wars by which Charlemagne (in legend only) freed the whole of the Iberian peninsula from Moorish domination.