1884._

TURPIN'S HISTORY
OF
CHARLES THE GREAT AND ORLANDO.

THE HISTORY
OF
CHARLES THE GREAT AND ORLANDO.

CHAPTER I.

_Archbishop Turpin's Epistle to Leopander._

Turpin, by the grace of God, Archbishop of Rheims, the faithful
companion of the Emperor Charles the Great in Spain, to Leopander, Dean
of Aix-la-Chapelle, greeting.

Forasmuch as you requested me to write to you from Vienne (my wounds
being now cicatrized) in what manner the Emperor Charles delivered Spain
and Gallicia from the yoke of the Saracens, you shall attain the
knowledge of many memorable events, and likewise of his praiseworthy
trophies over the Spanish Saracens, whereof I myself was eyewitness,
traversing France and Spain in his company for the space of forty years;
and I hesitate the less to trust these matters to your friendship, as I
write a true history of his warfare. For indeed all your researches
could never have enabled you fully to discover those great events in the
Chronicles of St. Denis, as you sent me word: neither could you for
certain know whether the author had given a true relation of those
matters, either by reason of his prolixity, or that he was not himself
present when they happened. Nevertheless this book will agree with his
history. Health and happiness.

CHAPTER II.

_How Charles the Great delivered Spain and Gallicia from the
Saracens._

The most glorious Christian Apostle St. James, when the other Apostles
and Disciples of our Lord were dispersed abroad throughout the whole
world, is believed to have first preached the gospel in Gallicia. After
his martyrdom, his servants, rescuing his body from King Herod, brought
it by sea to Gallicia, where they likewise preached the gospel. But soon
after, the Gallicians, relapsing into great sins, returned to their
former idolatry, and persisted in it till the time of Charles the Great,
Emperor of the Romans, French, Germans, and other nations. Charles
therefore, after prodigious toils in Saxony, France, Germany, Lorraine,
Burgundy, Italy, Brittany, and other countries; after taking innumerable
cities from sea to sea, which he won by his invincible arm from the
Saracens, through divine favour; and after subjugating them with great
fatigue of mind and body to the Christian yoke, resolved to rest from
his wars in peace.

But observing the starry way in the heavens, beginning at the Friezeland
sea, and passing over the German territory and I