The Four Sons of Aymon


The Four Sons of Aymon, sometimes also referred to as Renaud de Montauban is a medieval tale spun around the four sons of Duke Aymon: the knight Renaud de Montauban, his brothers Guichard, Allard and Richardet, their magical horse Bayard, their adventures and revolt against the emperor Charlemagne. The story had a European success and echoes of the story are still found today in certain folklore traditions.

Medieval and Renaissance texts

French versions

The oldest extant version of the tale is an anonymous Old French chanson de geste, Quatre Fils Aymon, which dates from the late 12th century and comprises 18,489 alexandrine verses grouped in assonanced and rhymed laisses. It is one of the longest of all the chansons de geste. Other, later versions of the chanson range from 14,300 to 28,000 verses. Of the dozen extant versions of the chanson, all are anonymous except for one, Histoire des quatre fils Aymon, attributed to Huon de Villeneuve, a 13th-century trouvère. The Renaud chansons de geste were transformed into prose romances in the 14th and 15th centuries, and, judging from the number of editions, the prose Quatre Fils Aymon was the most popular romance of chivalry in the late 15th and first half of the 16th century in France.
The tale is generally included in the Doon de Mayence "cycle" of chansons.

Plot

Renaud and his three brothers were sons of Aymon de Dordone. At the Pentecostal feast, Aymon brought them to Paris to be presented to the emperor Charlemagne and Renaud proved himself a worthy combatant in the royal tournament and won the emperor's favor. In most versions of the chanson, the emperor awarded him with the magical horse Bayard. Unfortunately, Renaud kills one of Charlemagne's nephews in a brawl over a chess game and the brothers flee, aided by Bayard who can carry all the brothers on its back and leap across valleys.
The brothers decide to hide in the Ardennes where their cousin, the sorcerer Maugis, can help them. Maugis constructs a castle for them called Montessor on a peak overlooking the Meuse. The brothers are, however, forced to flee from Montessor, and eventually they proceed to Gascony to aid the King Yvon his battles against the Emir Begès. Renaud, thanks to his sword "Froberge", wins a victory, and as thanks, the king gives to Renaud the castle at Montauban and his sister in marriage.
After a series of adventures, Charlemagne is eventually prevailed on by the noble paladin Roland to make terms with the brothers: the four brothers are pardoned on condition that Renaud go to the Holy Land on Crusade, and that their magical horse Bayard be surrendered to Charlemagne. Charlemagne orders that the magic horse be drowned by chaining it to a stone and throwing it in a river, but the horse escapes and lives forevermore in the woods. Renaud, upon his return from the Crusades, discovers his wife has died. He abandons his home and goes to Cologne, where he becomes a builder on a church. In the end, he is murdered by resentful workers, but his body is miraculously saved from the river and makes its way magically in a cart back to his brothers.
Charlemagne is portrayed as vengeful and treacherous in these stories; the sympathy of the storyteller is clearly with the four brothers, but ultimately feudal authority is upheld.

Dutch version

Historie van den Vier Heemskinderen, the Dutch translation, dated 1508 and held at the University of Munich gives the following version:
Duke Aymon, King of Pierlepont, thinks that Charles, his liege Lord, has not shown him gratitude enough when he gets only Dordogne 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 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 four 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.

German versions

Ein schöne und lüstige Histori von den vier Heymonskindern appeared at Cologne 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.

English version

The story was known in England by the first half of the 13th century. and William Caxton published a prose translation under the name "The Right Pleasant and Goodly Historie of the Foure Sonnes of Aymon". The translation was repeatedly reprinted, as well as dramatised, in the C16th and early C17th, and its popular story was referred to by figures such as Thomas Nashe and Samuel Rowlands - though by 1673 Francis Kirkman would call the text a rarity.

Italian version

A prose and a verse version of the story called Rinaldo existed in Italian in the 14th century.

Sequels and related texts

From the 13th century on, other texts concerning separate elements of the extended Renaud de Montauban story were created. Together with the original, these are termed the "Renaud de Montauban cycle". These poems are: Maugis d'Aigremont, Mort de Maugis, Vivien de Monbranc, Beuve d'Aigremont.
Renaud, as Rinaldo, also became an important character in Italian Renaissance epics, including Morgante by Luigi Pulci, Orlando Innamorato by Matteo Maria Boiardo and Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto.

In other media

Visual arts

illustrated a comic book version of the tale for the weekly Franco-Belgian comics magazine Tintin from 1946 to 1947.

Music and performing arts

, a Czech/Danish composer, wrote a work called Die vier Haimonskinder.
Les quatre fils Aymon is an opera by Michael William Balfe, written for the Opéra-Comique.
During the German occupation of Belgium during World War II, the story of Les Quatre Fils Aymon was made into a play that was banned by the German authorities, because of the sympathy it displayed for resisting authority; the play was performed underground and became quite popular.
La Légende des fils Aymon, a stage work by Frédéric Kiesel, was created in 1967 in Habay-la-Neuve.
Les Quatre Fils Aymon is a ballet by Maurice Béjart and Janine Charrat from 1961.

Sculpture

The four brothers—usually represented all together seated on their horse Bayard—have inspired many sculptures:

Locations and place names

While the Ardennes region only plays a partial role in the medieval tale, the myth of the four brothers has been very present there.
Joseph Bédier considered the Abbey of Stavelot-Malmedy as the site of the origin of the legend of the four brothers, but this has since been invalidated.
A study by the University of Liège in 1976 found a dozen sites in the Ardennes that claimed to be the fortress Montessor constructed for the brothers by Maugis. The château of Amblève is one of these. Dhuy possesses an old castle called "Bayard" in 1770, that was also called "Montessor des fils Aymon".
In Cubzac-les-Ponts, there is a castle named after the four brothers.
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Bertem, near Louvain, claimed to possess the relics of one of the sons, Saint Aalard, for 600 years.
Bogny-sur-Meuse has a number of sites referencing the four brothers: four rocky crags on a mountain peak near the town are said to symbolize the four brothers on the back on Bayard, and the castle of Château-Regnault has been claimed as a possible site of Montfort/Montessor.
According to a tale told by Claude Seignolle, the village of Francheval owes its name to a legend of the brothers: "Bayard, having shown great bravery to help Renaud and one of his brothers, the latter said to him 'Tu es un brave, Bayard, franc cheval!', and at this site the village of Francheval was established". A similar legend is related to the creation of the village of Balan: as the brothers, upon Bayard, were being pursued, the horse made a huge leap and fell to the ground; Renaud cried out to his brothers, "Balan!",, and the village was thus named.
In Dinant there exists the "Bayard Rock" that was said to have been split by the giant hoof of Bayard while carrying the four sons of Aymon on their legendary flight from Charlemagne through the Ardennes.
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The ancient County of La Marche was the fief of the lords of La Roche-Aymon who claimed to have descended from the four brothers.

Processions and festivals

The sons of Aymon are included among the "giants of the north" in Belgian folk festivals.
A procession in Namur has been attested in 1518. Taking place on each July 2, the procession of "giants" represents Charlemagne, the nine worthy peers, the four sons of Aymon upon their horse, and their cousin Maugis.
Attested before 1461 in Dendermonde, the "Ommegang of Dendermonde" is a procession concerning the four brothers and their horse, who is said to have drowned where the Scheldt meets the Dender.