dealing with a subject connected with French history, written in
verses of ten or twelve syllables, which verses are arranged in stanzas
of arbitrary length, each stanza possessing a distinguishing assonance
or rhyme in the last syllable of each line. The assonance, which is
characteristic of the earlier Chansons, is an imperfect rhyme, in which
identity of vowel sound is all that is necessary. Thus _traitor_,
_felon_, _compaingnons_, _manons_, _noz_, the first, fourth, and fifth
of which have no character of rhyme whatever in modern poetry, are
sufficient terminations for an assonanced poem, because the last vowel
sound, o, is identical. There is moreover in this versification a
regular caesura, sometimes after the fourth, sometimes after the sixth
syllable; and in a few of the older examples the stanzas, or as they are
sometimes called _laisses_, terminate in a shorter line than usual,
which is not assonanced. This metrical system, it will be observed, is
of a fairly elaborate character, a character which has been used as an
argument by those who insist on the existence of a body of ballad
literature anterior to the Chansons. We shall see in the following
chapters how this double definition of a _Chanson de Geste_, by matter
and by form, serves to exclude from the title other important and
interesting classes of compositions slightly later in date.

[Sidenote: Period of Composition.]

The period of composition of these poems extended, speaking roughly,
over three centuries. In the eleventh they began, but the beginnings are
represented only by _Roland_, the _Voyage de Charlemagne_, and perhaps
_Le Roi Louis_. Most and nearly all the best date from the twelfth. The
thirteenth century also produces them in great numbers, but by this time
a sensible change has come over their manner, and after the beginning of
the fourteenth only a few pieces deserving the title are written. They
then undergo transformation rather than neglect, and we shall meet them
at a later period in other forms. Before dealing with other general
characteristics of the early epics of France it will be well to give
some notion of them by actual selection and narrative. For this purpose
we shall take two Chansons typical of two out of the three stages
through which they passed. _Roland_ will serve as a sample of the
earliest, _Amis et Amiles_ of the second. Of the third, as less
characteristic in itself and less marked by uniform features, it will be