The Song of Roland offers many clues to the material culture of a warrior society just before the age of cathedrals, that is of the 10th and 11th centuries. This is a vision of an idealized world in some ways of a rural economy, which does not rely upon the circulation of money. Things are not bought and sold, they are captured, given, or exchanged. Wealth is made up of real property. Land holdings known as fiefs. I know now I must go to Saragossa, says Ganelon to Charles. Any man who goes there cannot return. And there is this. I am your sister's husband, have a son by her, the finest boy there is. Baldewin, says he, who will be a good man. To him I leave my honors, fiefs, and lands. The word honors, is another term for lands and bespeaks an organic tie of noblemen to the soil, a noble title being the name of the castle, and also the name of the land. Goods did circulate in such a world. One day the Emperor was sitting in the shade. Ganelon tells Blancandrin on the way to Saragossa to negotiate the terms of Charlemagne's withdrawal from Spain. His nephew came still wearing his hauberk, he had gone plundering near Carcassonne. Said, Blancandrin, a wild man, this Roland!, wants to make every nation beg for his mercy, and claims a right to every land on earth. But what men support him, if that is his aim? Ganelon answers, why Lord, the men of France, they love him so, they will never fail him. He gives them gifts, masses of gold and silver, mules, battle horses, brocaded silks, supplies. And it is all as the Emperor desires, he'll win the lands from here to the Orient. In addition to lands which were fixed, still noted in the French word for real estate, immobilier, there were all kinds of moveable goods, chattel in English, denoted by the French word for furniture still, the word meubles, or movables. Here we see in a late 15th century image, the treasure that Ganelon brings back from Saragossa, the booty with which he has been rewarded for betraying the French. And here we see a miniature by Guillaume Vrelant, contained in Jean Wauquelin's translation of the Chronicle of Hainaut from the middle of the 15th century. Above all, we observe wealth in the form of arms, either bestowed by a lord upon a vassal, or captured as part of the plunder of war. In the world of Roland, one cannot overestimate the worth of arms, which are the equivalent of what the Marxists used to call the means of production. Around 1100, the Hauberker basic body armor of a knight, that is to say the coat of male, weighed, it is estimated, between 10 and 12 kilos, 22 or 27 pounds and cost the equivalent of three war horses or 12 cattle. It represented as did the sword, 200 hours of a blacksmith's work. The whole armor including the horse was the equivalent of 20 to 25 cattle. In 1250, the equivalent had grown to 40 or 50 cattle. In the 14th century, the weight of a coat of armor reached 25 to 30 kilos, 55 to 65 pounds, and grew even further for the armor that could protect against arrows, and partially protect against crossbow attack. A few pieces of armor from the 15th century used exclusively for jousting and tournaments reached 50 to 60 kilos, 110 to 130 lbs. In Roland, one finds an aesthetic of armor, a delight in the ways in which the gold and gems shine amidst all the blood and carnage. As the Saracens leave for the attack at Roncesvalles, they arm themselves in Saracen hauberks. All but a few are lined with triple mail. They lace on their good helms of Saragosa, gird on their swords, the steel forged in Vienne. They have rich shields, spears of Valencia, and gonfanons of white and blue and red. They leave the mules and riding horses now, mount their war horses and ride in close array. The day was fair, the sun was shining bright, all their armor was aflame with light.
