Chapter CCVIII: Section IV: Renaud

To the French, Renaud de Montauban was a far more popular and national hero than even Roland.

His name, Raginwald, was common among the Franks, and his origin is suspected to be an Aquitanian Rainaldus, who in 843 was killed in fighting with the Bretons, when in the miserable days of Charles the Bald, they invaded France under Nominoë, and were joined by the traitorous Count Lambert.

Charles the Bald, as has been said, seems to have sat for the picture of his grandfather, the Bretons turned into the Saracens, Count Lambert’s treachery went to swell the account of Gano, and Rinaldus could fall at Roncevaux quite as well as at Mans!

He is just mentioned by Turpin as among the knights who accompanied Charlemagne, and were killed at Roncesvalles; and the Spanish ballads dwelt much upon the exploits of Don Reynaldos; indeed it appears that he enjoyed Don Quixote’s special admiration for having carried off, in spite of forty Moors, a golden image of Mahomet, which he wanted to melt up for the payment of his men!

Such an exploit was decidedly in the line of the French hero Renaud, or Regnault, who is in romance a sort of prince of freebooters. He and his three brothers go by the title of the Quatre Fils Aymon, and he is a sort of chivalrous Robin Hood to the French mind, insomuch that country inns may still be found with the sign of the _Quatre Fils Aymon_. In the old French tale, the outlawry of Renaud is accounted for by his having been insulted by the emperor’s nephew Berthelot, while playing at chess, and replying with a blow of the golden board that struck out the offender’s brains. He and his brothers then were banished, lived a freebooting life, built the castle of Montalban in Gascony, the king of which country bestowed on him in marriage his daughter Clarice, and finally went on pilgrimage, made his peace with the emperor, turned his hand to the building of Cologne Cathedral, and was killed there by his jealous fellow-workmen.

In Italy Rinaldo became a wild, high-spirited Paladin, always fighting and falling in love, and retaining little in common with his French original, except the possession of his matchless horse Bayard, or Bajardo, which fought as well as his master, and on his loss ran wild in the woods. In the _Morgante_, Rinaldo mistrusts Gano, and avoids the ambush of Roncesvalles, but is afterwards carried with his brother Ricciardetto by two devils, to revenge the slaughter, which they do most effectually.

In the _Orlando Innamorato_, Rinaldo is at first ensnared by Angelica’s beauty, but is cured by drinking unwittingly of the fountain of hate, while she drank of the fountain of love, and was enamoured of him. He is carried off by Malagigi to an enchanted island of delight, but returns during the great siege of Paris, takes a counter-draught of the fountain of love, fights in single combat with Ferrau, but is interrupted by Bajardo straying into a wood, whither he pursues the animal, and is there deserted by Boiardo, to be taken up by Ariosto, and after many adventures brought to relieve the Christian army in the utmost danger, and to give his sister Bradamante in marriage to Ruggiero.

Some have thought that Tasso’s one fictitious hero, Rinaldo, was partly borrowed from the Paladin, going as he does to the enchanted gardens of Armida, and being only brought back when the crusading host was in the utmost jeopardy. The chief mission of this latter Rinaldo was, however, it may be suspected, to be a compliment to the House of Este.

Some even think Roland himself only another version of Ragenwald, but the one Paladin is undoubtedly traceable to Hruoland, as is the other to Ragenwald, though I am inclined to think that the Rolandsaulen, that accompany the Irminsaulen at the gates of old cities, may perhaps be rightly from Raginwald, judgment-power.

The Normans received this name from two sources, the French Regnault or Renaud, generally from the Paladin, and from their own northern Ragnwold or Rognwald. So Domesday has it in various forms, as Ragenald, Reynald, and Rainald, the latter fourteen times after the Conquest; and amongst them all we have derived our Christian name of Reginald, and the surname of Reynolds. The Scots took their form from the northern Rognvald, belonging to a great Jarl of the Orkneys, a noted skald, and thus obtained Ronald, which is in Gaelic Raonmill.

_Ragn_, or judgment, the leading word in this class of names, is connected with the Latin _rego_, to rule, and as _rectus_ sprang from the one, so the Gothic _raihts_ and our _right_ arose from the Teutonic forms, as well as to _wreak_, and the German _rache_, vengeance, both from the old idea of justice. _Ragn_, though primarily meaning justice, is also used, as judgment is, in the sense of wisdom. Reginald Pole was in his own time known as Reynold. We get the longer name from his Latinism as Reginaldus.

Some of Renaud’s freebooting fame may have come from a person whose name so closely resembles his own, that it is by no means easy to distinguish their progeny; namely, Raginhard, or firm judge. A nobleman of this name was Count of the Palace, or Pfalzgraf, to Louis de Debonnaire, and engaged in a conspiracy against him, with Bernard, king of Italy. They were made prisoners, and condemned; the emperor commuted the sentence to the loss of their sight; but his wife, who wanted Bernard’s inheritance, took care that so savage a person was sent to perform the operation that they both died in consequence.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐
│ English. │ Scottish. │ Gaelic. │ Italian. │
│Reginald │Ronald │Raonmill │Rinaldo │
│Reynold │Ranald │ │ │
│Rex │ │ │ │
├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤
│ Spanish. │ French. │ German. │ Polish. │
│Reynaldos │Regnauld │Reinwald │Raynold │
│ │Renaud │Reinald │ │
│ │Regnault │ │ │
├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤
│ Esthonian. │ Lettish. │ Frisian. │ │
│Rein │Reinis │Reinold │ │
│Reino │ │Rennold │ │
└───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Another Reginard is said by Le Grand to have been a cunning politician, who lived in Austrasia in the ninth century, and much troubled his lord by sometimes taking part with the Germans, sometimes with the French, by which means he became so much detested that he was the subject of many songs in which he was called the Little Fox. At any rate, in the great animal epic, the fox has taken the name of Reinart, or Reinecke Fuchs, and as early as 1313, when the sons of the wily Philippe le Bel were knighted, the edifying spectacle was represented before them of the life of Renard the Fox, who became successively physician, clerk, bishop, archbishop, and pope, eating however hens and chickens all the while, much after the fashion of their father’s unhappy tool at Avignon. Renard has thus become the absolute name of the animal in France, to the entire exclusion of the ancient _golpe_, and in England Reynard is his universal epithet. It was not however confined to the creature, but was once prevalent among the human kind.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐
│ English. │ French. │ Provençal. │ Italian. │
│Reynard │Regnard │Rainart │Rainardo │
│ │Renart │ │ │
├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤
│ German. │ Frisian. │ Polish. │ Hungarian. │
│Raginhart │Renert │Raynard │Reinhard │
│Reinhard │Rinnert │Raynard │Reinhard │
│Reineke │Rennart │ │ │
│Renke │Rienit │ │ │
│Renz │ │ │ │
└───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Another old Frankish form is Raginmund, much in use in southern France, where there was a long line of counts of Toulouse, called Raymond, one of whom was celebrated by Tasso in the first Crusade as a gallant knight, but the last of whom, Raymond Berenger, one of the earliest examples of double names, went down before the sword of the first Simon de Montford, as a supporter of the Albigenses. The counts of Barcelona, in Spain, bore the like name, and the old Romanesque territories are still its usual home.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐
│ English. │ Provençal. │ Italian. │ German. │
│Raymond │ Raimons │Raimondo │Reinmund │
│ ————————— │ ————————— │ │Reimund │
│ French. │ Spanish. │ │ │
│ Raimond │Ramon │ │ │
└───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Terrible to us, but glorious to Denmark, was the name of Ragnar. Once we had it peacefully in East Anglia, as Raginhere, the warrior of judgment, but in that same East Anglia it was to have a deadly fame. The historical Ragnar seems to have been decorated with a few mythical exploits of some more ancient hero, for he is one of the dragon killers. His first wife, Thyra, had her bower encircled by a deadly poisonous serpent, the ravager of the whole country, until he won her hand by the slaughter of the serpent, having guarded himself from its venom by a suit of hairy garments covered with pitch, whence he obtained the soubriquet of Lodbrog. Afterwards he married a poor but beautiful maiden called Krake, who, after she had borne him four sons, disclosed that she was the last of the Wolsungen, the daughter of Sigurd and Brynhild. Nay, Icelandic families connect themselves through her with the heroes of Wurms! And after this it is strange to find Jarl Ragnar sailing up the Seine, and ravaging Paris, in the days of Charles the Bald, being in fact the Agramante of the poets. Again he was the cause of bitter woe to England, falling into the hands of King Ælle of Northumbria, and being put to death by being thrown into a pit filled with vipers, where, till his last breath, he chanted the grand death song that is worthy to stand beside the dirge of King Eric Blödaxe. It was revenge for his death that brought his fierce sons with that dire armament which ravaged England—the invasion that was fatal to Edmund of East Anglia, ruined the great abbeys of the fens, and though finally mastered by Alfred, made the North of England Danish. This name of dread was brought to Normandy by his kindred, and figures in Domesday as Raynar, a frequent surname in England. In France it was cut down to René, a name that crept into the House of Anjou, and was bestowed on the prince—too much of a troubadour and knight-errant for a king—who vainly tried on so many crowns, and was hated in England because ‘Suffolk gave two dukedoms for his daughter.’ Why the feminine of this name, Renée, was chosen for the younger daughter of Louis XII., does not appear, but when she married into the House of Este, it was translated into Renata, and the Italians, in their revived classicalism, seem to have fancied it had some connection with regeneration. Renira is the Dutch feminine form.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐
│ English. │ French. │ Provençal. │ German. │
│Rayner │Reignier │Raynier │Reiner │
│Rainer │Renier │ ———————— │ ———————— │
│ │René │ Italian. │ Nor. │
│ │ │Renato │Ragnar │
│ │ │Ranieri │ │
└───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Raginmar, great judgment, still exists in Germany, as Reinmar, or Reimar, and is the most probable origin of the Ramiro, so frequent among the early kings of the small struggling Pyrenean realms.

Ragnhild, a favourite with old Norwegian dames, has become in Lapp, Ranna.

The German contraction _rein_ has been often translated into pure, but this is an error, as these names can almost uniformly be traced back to _ragn_.

The remaining forms are—

┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ German. English. │
│ Ragnfrid, M. │ Renfred, M. } Judgment of peace │
│ Ragnfrida, F. │ } │
│ │
│ Nor. │
│ Ragnfrid, F. } │
│ Ragnrid, F. } Fair judgment │
│ Randid, F. } │
│ Randi, F. } │
│ │
│ Ger. │ Prov. │
│ Raginbald │ Rambauld } │
│ Reinbold │ } │
│ Renbold │ } Prince of judgment │
│ Rembald │ } │
│ │
│ Ger. Reginbrecht, Reinbert—Splendour of judgment │
│ Nor. Ragenheid—Wise impulse │
│ Ger. Reinger—Spear of judgment │
│ Nor. Reginleif—Relic of judgment │
│ │
│ German. Frisian. │
│ Raginward │ Remward } │
│ Reinward │ Renward } Guardian of judgment │
│ │ Remma } │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

And lastly Regina, called in Bavaria Reigl and Regl, was originally less the Latin queen than the feminine of _ragn_. Nor in effect is the meaning far apart.[140]

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Footnote 140:

Roscoe, _Bojardo and Ariosto_; Sismondi, _Histoire de France_; Mallet;
_Northern Antiquities_; _Spanish Ballads_.