Wace did not invent all his facts.  William of Malmesbury is supposed to have written his prose chronicle about 1120 when many of the men who fought at Hastings must have been alive, and William expressly said:  “Tune cantilena Rollandi inchoata ut martium viri exemplum pugnaturos accenderet, inclamatoque dei auxilio, praelium consertum.”  Starting the “Chanson de Roland” to inflame the fighting temper of the men, battle was joined.  This seems enough proof to satisfy any sceptic, yet critics still suggest that the “cantilena Rollandi” must have been a Norman “Chanson de Rou,” or “Rollo,” or at best an earlier version of the “Chanson de Roland”; but no Norman chanson would have inflamed the martial spirit of William’s army, which was largely French; and as for the age of the version, it is quite immaterial for Mont-Saint-Michel; the actual version is old enough.

Taillefer himself is more vital to the interest of the dinner in the refectory, and his name was not mentioned by William of Malmesbury.  If the song was started by the Duke’s order, it was certainly started by the Duke’s jongleur, and the name of this jongleur happens to be known on still better authority than that of William of Malmesbury.  Guy of Amiens went to England in 1068 as almoner of Queen Matilda, and there wrote a Latin poem on the battle of Hastings which must have been complete within ten years after the battle was fought, for Guy died in 1076.  Taillefer, he said, led the Duke’s battle:—­

Incisor-ferri mimus cognomine dictus.

“Taillefer, a jongleur known by that name.”  A mime was a singer, but Taillefer was also an actor:—­

Histrio cor audax nimium quem nobilitabat.

“A jongleur whom a very brave heart ennobled.”  The jongleur was not noble by birth, but was ennobled by his bravery.

Hortatur Gallos verbis et territat Anglos
 Alte projiciens ludit et ense suo.

Like a drum-major with his staff, he threw his sword high in the air and caught it, while he chanted his song to the French, and terrified the English.  The rhymed chronicle of Geoffrey Gaimer who wrote about 1150, and that of Benoist who was Wace’s rival, added the story that Taillefer died in the melee.

The most unlikely part of the tale was, after all, not the singing of the “Chanson,” but the prayer of Taillefer to the Duke:—­

“Otreiez mei que io ni faille
 Le premier colp de la bataille.”

Legally translated, Taillefer asked to be ennobled, and offered to pay for it with his life.  The request of a jongleur to lead the Duke’s battle seems incredible.  In early French “bataille” meant battalion,—­the column of attack.  The Duke’s grant:  “Io l’otrei!” seems still more fanciful.  Yet Guy of Amiens distinctly confirmed the story:  “Histrio cor audax nimium quem nobilitabat”; a stage-player—­a juggler—­the Duke’s singer—­whose bravery ennobled him.  The Duke granted him—­octroya—­his patent of nobility on the field.