He himself called it the Geste des Bretons ("History of the Britons"), but it is best known under the title that appears in the manuscripts, the Roman de Brut, given to it by scribes because of its connection with Brutus, the founder of the British race.

I know not if you have heard tell the marvellous gestes and errant deeds related so often of King Arthur.

Had they been sons of kings, who were but earls, the story of their gestes would be sung by the minstrels, as I deem, about the world, so marvellous were their feats.

" Anacreon, a glass, a gown, a chain, anything, "Sed speculum ego ipse fiam, Ut me tuum usque cernas, Et vestis ipse fiam, Ut me tuum usque gestes.

Instead, my aim has been to make choice of such stories and traditions as seemed most fit to be cast into the shape of a connected narrative and regular sequence of events; to lend to all that wholesome, edifying and optimistic tone which in reading-matter is so generally preferable to mere intelligence; and meanwhile to preserve as much of the quaint style of the gestes as is consistent with clearness.

III Between the two main epic cycles of Poictesme, as embodied in Les Gestes de Manuel and La Haulte Histoire de Jurgen, more or less comparison is inevitable.

Says Codman: "The Gestes are mundane stories, the History is a cosmic affair, in that, where Manuel faces the world, Jurgen considers the universe....

At last he said: "I have also read in these same Gestes how Seneca mentions that in poisoned bodies, on account of the malignancy and the coldness of the poison, no worm will engender; but if the body be smitten by lightning, in a few days the carcass will abound with vermin.

On marche ainsi en silence, à moins que ce ne soit la nuit, et que quelqu'un ne veuille chanter une chanson de gestes.[Footnote: On appeloit en France chansons de gestes celles qui célébroient les gestes et belles actions des anciens héros.]

On marche ainsi en silence, à moins que ce ne soit la nuit, et que quelqu'un ne veuille chanter une chanson de gestes.[Footnote: On appeloit en France chansons de gestes celles qui célébroient les gestes et belles actions des anciens héros.]

Mais ils sont d'humeur gaie et joyeuse, et chantent volontiers chansons de gestes.

Ils touchèrent des instrumens et chantèrent des chansons de gestes, dans lesquelles ils célébroient les grandes actions des guerriers Turcs.

Les Gestes et la Vie du Chevalier Bayard, by Champier, pp.

Le cadavre éperdu se renverse en arrière, Et les bras disloqués font des gestes hideux.

Not for nothing did its author choose as one of the mottoes for its title-page, 'Ce ne sont mes gestes que j'écrie; c'est moy.'

CHANSON DE GESTES (i. e. Songs of Deeds), poems of a narrative kind much in favour in the Middle Ages, relating in a legendary style the history and exploits of some famous hero, such as the "Chanson de Roland," ascribed to Théroulde, a trouvère of the 9th century.

Ties of relationship, which seem to have united his immediate forebears with the illustrious family of Trivulzio and possibly also with that of Borromeo, furnished him with sounder justification for some pride of ancestry than did the remoter gestes of the apocryphal Counts of Anghera.

It would be impossible to give in this work a complete synopsis of all the chansons de gestes referring to Charlemagne and his paladins, so we will content ourselves with giving an abstract of the most noted ones and telling the legends which are found in them, which have gradually been woven around those famous names and connected with certain localities.

The different chansons de gestes relating to Aymon and the necromancer Malagigi (Malagis), probably arose from popular ballads commemorating the struggles of Charles the Bald and his feudatories.

These ballads are of course as old as the events which they were intended to record, but the chansons de gestes based upon them, and entitled "Duolin de Mayence," "Aymon, Son of Duolin de Mayence," "Maugis," "Rinaldo de Trebizonde," "The Four Sons of Aymon," and "Mabrian," are of much later date, and were particularly admired during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

Charlemagne, whom many of these later chansons de gestes describe as mean and avaricious, refused to grant any reward, declaring that were he to add still further to his vassal's already extensive territories, Aymon would soon be come more powerful than his sovereign.

Then he set out for Babylon, or Bagdad, for, with the visual mediaeval scorn for geography, evinced in all the chansons de gestes, these are considered interchangeable names for the same town.

The extreme popularity of Benoît de Sainte-More's work induced many imitations, and the numerous chansons de gestes, constructed on the same general plan, soon became current everywhere.

on dit que j'imite votre démarche et vos gestes ... c'est bien sans le savoir.

Léonie sortent en faisant des gestes à de Grignon.) SCÈNE IX MONTRICHARD, DE GRIGNON.