The foregoing illustrations, written during the duke’s lifetime or within a generation after his death, offer a convincing demonstration of the extraordinary rapidity with which legend set to work to rehabilitate the memory of the vanquished of Tinchebray; and it will not be without interest to make at least a cursory examination of these unhistorical traditions, in so far as they reflect the duke’s reputation among the writers of the later Middle Ages. Gaston Paris has not hesitated to affirm that Robert, as a crusader, became the hero of a whole poetic cycle which has since been lost, though not without leaving traces in the literature of after times.[6] Stated in this sweeping form, the pronouncement of this distinguished scholar is perhaps an unwarrantable exaggeration; at any rate, in the present state of the evidence it can hardly be regarded as more than a bold hypothesis.[7] But if there was not, properly speaking, a Norman cycle of the Crusade of which Robert was the hero, there certainly were numerous legends which it seems worth while to bring together in such order as is possible in the arrangement of matter so scattered and fragmentary.
William of Malmesbury has sounded the keynote of Robert’s later fame as a crusader:[8] it was his personal prowess on the field of battle which most impressed itself upon the imagination of later generations. With one exception of minor importance,[9] later writers tell us little or nothing of a legendary character respecting the position and achievements of Robert at the siege of Nicaea; but his imaginary exploits in the battle of Dorylaeum (1 July 1097) begin to meet us in accounts which are almost contemporary. Robert the Monk, writing before 1107, pictures him as the saviour of the day. The Franks were all but overwhelmed and had turned in flight, and the contest would surely have ended in disaster for them, had not the count of Normandy quickly turned his charger and checked the rout by waving aloft his golden banner and calling out the inspiring battle cry, _Deus vult! Deus vult!_[10] In the _Gesta Tancredi_ of Ralph of Caen, written but a few years later, Robert appears as a hero whose valor surpassed even that of the great Bohemond; for in the crisis of the battle, remembering who he was and the royal blood which flowed in his veins, he turned upon his fleeing comrades and shouted: “O Bohemond! why do you fly? Apulia and Otranto and the confines of the Latin world are far away. Let us stand fast. Either the victor’s crown or a glorious death awaits us: glory will there be in either fate, but it will be the greater glory which makes us sooner martyrs. Therefore, strike, O youths, and let us fall upon them and die if need be!”[11] And with that the flight was halted. Henry of Huntingdon puts a similar speech into the mouth of Robert, and gives an even more wonderful account of his exploits in the battle. In Henry’s story, when Robert had finished speaking, he charged upon a paynim king and with one mighty thrust of his lance pierced his shield, armor, and body; then he felled a second and a third of the infidels.[12] And from Henry of Huntingdon the account of Robert’s prowess on the field of Dorylaeum was handed on with slight modification from writer to writer throughout the mediaeval period.[13]