Three Middle English Charlemagne Romances

This volume provides an excellent introduction to the Middle English romances dealing with the Matter of France, narratives centering on Charlemagne and the fictional knightly figures of his court. The Sultan of Babylon compares and contrasts Charlemagne’s rule with that of Babylon’s sultan, Laban, to reveal the qualities inherent to the worlds each ruler represents. The Siege of Milan presents a variation on Charlemagne romances’ traditional themes by likening Charlemagne’s holy war to the religious struggles of saints’ legends. A latecomer to the Alliterative Revival in Middle English poetry, The Tale of Ralph the Collier is a lighthearted Charlemagne romance promoting political, religious, and interpersonal awareness. Counterbalancing anxieties about Muslims’ potential threat to the medieval West with curiosity about the exotic world beyond the West, these epic tales introduce modern readers to prejudices and values that characterized Western medieval culture in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries.