The four sons of Aymon
Encyclopedia
The four sons of Aymon have been subject to many enticing children's tale throughout the ages as well as in chivalrous legends as revolutionaries against the power of Charlemagne
.
The tale is spun around the four brothers Richard, Writsaert, Adelhaert and Renout in van Maerlant's Historie van de Vier Heemskinderen or as called in the old Chanson de Geste
: Renaud de Montauban
, Guichard, Allard and Richardet.
, King of Pierlepont, thinks that Charles, his liege Lord, has not shown him gratitude enough when he gets only Dordogne
(Dordoen) with the capital of Albi for his help in many of Charles' wars. He is even angrier about the fact that his warrior-friend Hugh (Huon) de Narbonne
gets nothing at all and decides to become renegade until Charlemagne gives him a suitable reward. In the end Charles adds: Aymons weight in gold and his sister Aye. Aymon is not truly satisfied and swears that he will kill any child born out of his union with the king's sister.
Aye rears her sons in secret at Pierlepont until the day that Aymon tells her how he regrets the fact that they have no offspring. She shows him his sons and Aymon is very impressed with Renaud who is of great height, feisty and strong. He gives Renaud the horse Bayard. The horse is so big that it can carry the four brothers on its back.
When the four brothers are presented at Charles' court in Paris Renaud kills Charles' son Louis. They flee to the court of King Loup de Gascogne who betrays them to Charles. They escape their pursuers with the help of King Son of Aquitaine,who gives his daughter Claire or Clarisse to Renaud to wife and the castle of Montauban
.
Charles attacks the castle and after months of siege Renaud has to surrender. The cost of their survival is the drowning of his horse Bayard.
Charles urges Renaud to go on a pilgrimage
to the Holy Land
, especially Jerusalem.
When Renaud comes back he helps to build the shrine of St.Peter in Cologne
. Envious men kill him and throw his body in the River Rhine.
in 1604. It was largely an adaptation of the then current Dutch version and based on a French original. A previous German adaptation of 1535 was based directly on the prose romance Les quatre fils Aymon. Ludwig Tieck
edited and published the story, but seems to have taken it from a different source.
Charlemagne died in 814 and so he may have become at the most 72 years old.
The Legend refers to Charles as 'an old man', even when Aymon claims his reward. Of course this is not possible, as Aymon is referred to as Charles' uncle.
When we take Son of Aquitaine as point of reference (he is mentioned in Pomer's family tree, with the suggestion that he is born after 750, we must assume that his daughter was born after 770 and married Renaud later than 780. This narrows down the legend to between the years 770 and 814, at least where the part of Renaud is concerned.
it must have been done between 732 and 739
in which year Charles Martel died, only probably 53 years old. (Not an old king either). This places the time-span of the legend between 730 and 814. Why Aymon lost his title of Duke of Bourgundy to be exchanged for the lesser title of Duke of Dordogne - the Dordogne was not a fertile place at all in those days and the capital of the dukedom Albi was not impressive, may be found in the relationship of Aymon with Charles Martel's son Pepin, who must have been of approximately the same age as Aymon and in some way or another his half-brother. It is not inconceivable that Aymon was one of Charles Martel's bastard children, and if he has been e.g. older than Pepin there might have been a lot of jealousy among them. Herein may lie the seeds of the hatred between uncle Aymon and nephew Charlemagne.
It is told that Aymon was not a young man anymore when he marries Charles' sister Aye.
. He had a second daughter by the name of Adelheid (Adelaide) Rothaid in the annals, born before Charles and who disappears from history after her sixth year. The oldest daughter's name was Rothaid(after 740). One of those daughters supposedly died early. A guess would be that it was the oldest daughter Rothaid as Adelaid gets the addition of her name. The Historie van den Vier Heemskinderen was written in the last part of the 13th century, the age that one knew of Aye of Avignon, the Beautiful, fictional daughter of Doon de Mayence
, also supposedly named as Aymon's father in other legends. It is possible that the names became mixed up in history.
If Adelaide or Aye marries Aymon at her twelfth year we look at the years 756 till 760. Aymon will be about 36 years old then, not truly very old, but a seasoned warrior. When he faces a 16 year old Renaud for the first time as told in the story, it must be about the year 773. Aymon might be in his fifties by that time.
The name Son is not a usual one, the French dictionary of names only knows the Greek name Sonia as closest to the name Son. Sonia means wisdom. Therefore the name has much meaning if it comes to historical research. The existence of Son d'Aquitaine is an important one as it relates to the marriage of Renoud or Renaud de Montauban and so the time of the legend can be better calculated. Son d'Aquitaine shows up in the Pomer Family tree of the World Roots website. He is the Son of Waifer of Aquitaine
, whose father is the famous Odo of Aquitaine
. According to the Pomer Family Trees Son must be born after the year 750, which makes him younger than Charlemagne.
Son of Aquitaine was bearing a heavy legacy: Pepin the Short took his father Waifer's title of King of Aquitaine away from him to bestow it on his infant son Carloman
. Son was allowed to stay either count or duke. His son 'Loup' Centulus became count of Gascogne that was at the time incorporated in the Aquitaine Kingdom. This makes the political reasons clear why Renaud and his brothers first flee to the court of Loup of Gascongne and later are very cordially received by Son d'Aquitaine, when one looks at the adage
'the enemies of my enemy are my friends'. Son must have been very impressed with Renaud to seek his support in giving his daughter Claire to wife to Renaud and to give him the in those days important castle of Montauban as his wedding-present.
. In those days Charlemagne was only in his thirties and so Renaud must have been a teenager. This means it would be reasonable to accept the fact that Renaud and Roland were not one and the same person.
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
.
The tale is spun around the four brothers Richard, Writsaert, Adelhaert and Renout in van Maerlant's Historie van de Vier Heemskinderen or as called in the old Chanson de Geste
Chanson de geste
The chansons de geste, Old French for "songs of heroic deeds", are the epic poems that appear at the dawn of French literature. The earliest known examples date from the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, nearly a hundred years before the emergence of the lyric poetry of the trouvères and...
: Renaud de Montauban
Renaud de Montauban
Renaud de Montauban, was a fictional hero who was introduced to literature in a 12th century Old French chanson de geste also known as Les Quatre Fils Aymon . His exploits form part of the Doon de Mayence cycle of chansons...
, Guichard, Allard and Richardet.
Dutch version of the legend
Duke AymonDuke Aymon
Duke Aymon of Dordone is a character in the Old French Matter of France, appearing in chansons de geste and Italian romance epics depicting the adventures of Charlemagne and his knights...
, King of Pierlepont, thinks that Charles, his liege Lord, has not shown him gratitude enough when he gets only Dordogne
Dordogne
Dordogne is a départment in south-west France. The départment is located in the region of Aquitaine, between the Loire valley and the High Pyrénées named after the great river Dordogne that runs through it...
(Dordoen) with the capital of Albi for his help in many of Charles' wars. He is even angrier about the fact that his warrior-friend Hugh (Huon) de Narbonne
Narbonne
Narbonne is a commune in southern France in the Languedoc-Roussillon region. It lies from Paris in the Aude department, of which it is a sub-prefecture. Once a prosperous port, it is now located about from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea...
gets nothing at all and decides to become renegade until Charlemagne gives him a suitable reward. In the end Charles adds: Aymons weight in gold and his sister Aye. Aymon is not truly satisfied and swears that he will kill any child born out of his union with the king's sister.
Aye rears her sons in secret at Pierlepont until the day that Aymon tells her how he regrets the fact that they have no offspring. She shows him his sons and Aymon is very impressed with Renaud who is of great height, feisty and strong. He gives Renaud the horse Bayard. The horse is so big that it can carry the four brothers on its back.
When the four brothers are presented at Charles' court in Paris Renaud kills Charles' son Louis. They flee to the court of King Loup de Gascogne who betrays them to Charles. They escape their pursuers with the help of King Son of Aquitaine,who gives his daughter Claire or Clarisse to Renaud to wife and the castle of Montauban
Montauban
Montauban is a commune in the Tarn-et-Garonne department in the Midi-Pyrénées region in southern France. It is the capital of the department and lies north of Toulouse....
.
Charles attacks the castle and after months of siege Renaud has to surrender. The cost of their survival is the drowning of his horse Bayard.
Charles urges Renaud to go on a pilgrimage
Pilgrimage
A pilgrimage is a journey or search of great moral or spiritual significance. Typically, it is a journey to a shrine or other location of importance to a person's beliefs and faith...
to the Holy Land
Holy Land
The Holy Land is a term which in Judaism refers to the Kingdom of Israel as defined in the Tanakh. For Jews, the Land's identifiction of being Holy is defined in Judaism by its differentiation from other lands by virtue of the practice of Judaism often possible only in the Land of Israel...
, especially Jerusalem.
When Renaud comes back he helps to build the shrine of St.Peter in Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
. Envious men kill him and throw his body in the River Rhine.
German versions of the legend
Ein schöne und lüstige Histori von den vier Heymonskindern appeared at CologneCologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
in 1604. It was largely an adaptation of the then current Dutch version and based on a French original. A previous German adaptation of 1535 was based directly on the prose romance Les quatre fils Aymon. Ludwig Tieck
Ludwig Tieck
Johann Ludwig Tieck was a German poet, translator, editor, novelist, writer of Novellen, and critic, who was one of the founding fathers of the Romantic movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.-Early life:...
edited and published the story, but seems to have taken it from a different source.
Timespan
The Legend of the Four Sons of Aymon is placed in the time of the reign of Charlemagne, who was born in either 742 or 747.Charlemagne died in 814 and so he may have become at the most 72 years old.
The Legend refers to Charles as 'an old man', even when Aymon claims his reward. Of course this is not possible, as Aymon is referred to as Charles' uncle.
When we take Son of Aquitaine as point of reference (he is mentioned in Pomer's family tree, with the suggestion that he is born after 750, we must assume that his daughter was born after 770 and married Renaud later than 780. This narrows down the legend to between the years 770 and 814, at least where the part of Renaud is concerned.
Aymon Duke of Burgundy
Aymon is in the legend known as an uncle of Charlemagne. This places him at the same age-level more or less as Charles' father Pepin the Short. Pepin was born in 714. Assuming that Aymon was of the same age we could also assume that Aymon fought at the side of Charles Martel, his father. It is a historical known fact that Charles Martel actually made Aymon Duke of Burgundy, although if Charles Martel did that after the battle of PoitiersBattle of Tours
The Battle of Tours , also called the Battle of Poitiers and in Battle of the Court of the Martyrs, was fought in an area between the cities of Poitiers and Tours, located in north-central France, near the village of Moussais-la-Bataille, about northeast of Poitiers...
it must have been done between 732 and 739
739
Year 739 was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 739 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.- Europe :* Charles Martel drives the Moorish invaders...
in which year Charles Martel died, only probably 53 years old. (Not an old king either). This places the time-span of the legend between 730 and 814. Why Aymon lost his title of Duke of Bourgundy to be exchanged for the lesser title of Duke of Dordogne - the Dordogne was not a fertile place at all in those days and the capital of the dukedom Albi was not impressive, may be found in the relationship of Aymon with Charles Martel's son Pepin, who must have been of approximately the same age as Aymon and in some way or another his half-brother. It is not inconceivable that Aymon was one of Charles Martel's bastard children, and if he has been e.g. older than Pepin there might have been a lot of jealousy among them. Herein may lie the seeds of the hatred between uncle Aymon and nephew Charlemagne.
It is told that Aymon was not a young man anymore when he marries Charles' sister Aye.
Adelheid, Rothaid, sister of Charlemagne
Pepin the Short is not known to have strayed from his wife Bertrada of LaonBertrada of Laon
Bertrada of Laon, also called Bertha Broadfoot , was a Frankish queen.- Biography :...
. He had a second daughter by the name of Adelheid (Adelaide) Rothaid in the annals, born before Charles and who disappears from history after her sixth year. The oldest daughter's name was Rothaid(after 740). One of those daughters supposedly died early. A guess would be that it was the oldest daughter Rothaid as Adelaid gets the addition of her name. The Historie van den Vier Heemskinderen was written in the last part of the 13th century, the age that one knew of Aye of Avignon, the Beautiful, fictional daughter of Doon de Mayence
Doon de Mayence
Doon de Mayence was a fictional hero of the Old French chansons de geste, who gives his name to the third cycle of the Charlemagne romances dealing with the feudal revolts.There is no single unifying theme in the geste of Doon de Mayence...
, also supposedly named as Aymon's father in other legends. It is possible that the names became mixed up in history.
If Adelaide or Aye marries Aymon at her twelfth year we look at the years 756 till 760. Aymon will be about 36 years old then, not truly very old, but a seasoned warrior. When he faces a 16 year old Renaud for the first time as told in the story, it must be about the year 773. Aymon might be in his fifties by that time.
Son d'Aquitaine
The name appears in Jacob van Maerlant's Historie van de Vier Heemskinderen when the main character of the legend marries Claire, the daughter of Son the Duc of Aquitaine and receives the castle of Montalbaen or Montauban in the South of France which was in those days probably part of the Aquitaine Dukedom.The name Son is not a usual one, the French dictionary of names only knows the Greek name Sonia as closest to the name Son. Sonia means wisdom. Therefore the name has much meaning if it comes to historical research. The existence of Son d'Aquitaine is an important one as it relates to the marriage of Renoud or Renaud de Montauban and so the time of the legend can be better calculated. Son d'Aquitaine shows up in the Pomer Family tree of the World Roots website. He is the Son of Waifer of Aquitaine
Waifer of Aquitaine
Waifer was the duke of Aquitaine from 748 to 768, succeeding his newly-monastic father Hunold....
, whose father is the famous Odo of Aquitaine
Odo of Aquitaine
Odo the Great , Duke of Aquitaine, obtained this dignity by 700. His territory included the Duchy of Vasconia in the south-west of Gaul and the Duchy of Aquitaine , a realm extending from the Loire to the Pyrenees, with capital in Toulouse...
. According to the Pomer Family Trees Son must be born after the year 750, which makes him younger than Charlemagne.
Son of Aquitaine was bearing a heavy legacy: Pepin the Short took his father Waifer's title of King of Aquitaine away from him to bestow it on his infant son Carloman
Carloman
Carloman is the name of several members of the Frankish ruling family. It is also one translation of the Bulgarian name "Kaliman":* Carloman, father of Pepin I Carloman is the name of several members of the Frankish ruling family. It is also one translation of the Bulgarian name "Kaliman":*...
. Son was allowed to stay either count or duke. His son 'Loup' Centulus became count of Gascogne that was at the time incorporated in the Aquitaine Kingdom. This makes the political reasons clear why Renaud and his brothers first flee to the court of Loup of Gascongne and later are very cordially received by Son d'Aquitaine, when one looks at the adage
Adage
An adage is a short but memorable saying which holds some important fact of experience that is considered true by many people, or that has gained some credibility through its long use....
'the enemies of my enemy are my friends'. Son must have been very impressed with Renaud to seek his support in giving his daughter Claire to wife to Renaud and to give him the in those days important castle of Montauban as his wedding-present.
Loup de Gascogne
The Historie of de Vier Heemskinderen refers to King Loup of Gascogne (also Lupo). Research in The Pomer Family Tree shows us that he was actually a son of Son of Aquitaine, and bears the title of 'comte' or Count. This means he must have been of about Renaud's age with a span of ten years or more. It is true that Son's father Waifer lost the throne of Aquitaine to Pepin the Short. If Son d'Aquitaine became duke, his oldest son Loup may very well have gotten the title of Count of Gascogne that was in those days supposed to be part of the Aquitaine Kingdom. The name Loup means wolf in French and is of course very suitable in the legend to play the very bad man who betrays Renaud and his brothers to Charlemagne.Renaud of Montauban
The question of whether Renaud is the same as Roland in the Chanson de Roland has spread through literature for some time. The Chanson de Roland took place at the Battle of Roncevalles in 778778
Year 778 was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 778 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.- Europe :* August 15 – Battle of Roncevaux Pass...
. In those days Charlemagne was only in his thirties and so Renaud must have been a teenager. This means it would be reasonable to accept the fact that Renaud and Roland were not one and the same person.