[In the following essay, Zimroth analyzes the interrelationship in The Song of Roland between predeterminism, free will, and divine grace.]

The larger picture of the Chanson de Roland is of a world rigidly circumscribed by divine preordination. The epic seems to illustrate the assumption that there exists a divine plan to be fulfilled in the future; the course of history here is predetermined by God so that with the progression of time, God's will is made apparent. That portion of the divine plan dramatized in the epic is the polarity between Saracen and Christian, an easy polarity in the sense that it gives rise to an unambiguous relationship between right and wrong, winning and losing. God naturally is on the side of His people and therefore He can and will assure their victory. Acting on that assumption, the Christians in the Roland enter the battles against the Saracens with the complete self-assurance that they are on the winning side. Roland, for example, asserts the unquestioned dichotomy when he says:

Paien unt tort e chrestiens unt dreit.
(Paynims are wrong, Christians are in the right!)

(laisse LXXIX)

Nos avum dreit, mais cist glutun unt tort.
(Right's on our side, and wrong is with these wretches!)

(laisse XCIII)

The results of the battles between Christians and Saracens bear out Roland's assertions. During the battle between the rear-guard and the Saracen army, dead Christians are ensured salvation while dead pagans are carted off to Hell (laisses XCVI, CXVII), a consequence concrete enough to indicate that the infidels were indeed on the wrong side of history. The Saracens themselves finally realize that they are fated to lose the battle:

Paien dient: “Si mare fumes nez!
Cum pesmes jurz nus est hoi ajurnez!”
(The Paynims say: “Why were we ever born?
Woe worth the while: our day of doom has dawned!”)

(laisse CLX)

In the next laisse, the Saracens flee the field, expecting Charlemagne's revenge and leaving Roland to die in peace. With the Saracen's retreat to Spain, the providential scheme of history has advanced one step further in its total realization.

God's plan is again seen in the momentous battle between Charlemagne and Baligant during which the Christians assume the same confidence in their inherent power to vanquish the pagans. “Carles ad dreit” (Carlon is in the right), the French say (laisse CCXLI). No reason need be given when “right” so clearly carries the implication of ultimate victory according to the providential scheme. God wills that Christianity be victorious and paganism be thwarted, and the French are witting agents of that divine plan:

“Ferez, baron, ne vos targez mie!
Carles ad dreit vers la gent …
Deux nus ad mis al plus verai juïse.” AOI
(“Barons, strike on,” they say, “and make no stint!
Against these villains Charles has the right of it!
God His true judgment thus to our hands commits!”)

(laisse CCXLII)

Again the Christians win this Manichaean battle between right and wrong “cum Damnesdeus le volt” (for God has willed it so) (laisse CCLXIII), and God's cause again is furthered.

Occasionally God intervenes indirectly through His divine agents, both revealing and ensuring the outcome of history. God's pre-ordained plans, for example, are symbolically revealed by Gabriel to Charlemagne in his dreams when he dreams first of Ganelon's treachery (laisse LVI), then of the battle between Marsile and Roland (laisse LVII). These dreams, which foreshadow divinely ordained events, also endow Charlemagne with some degree of tragic insight as when, after assigning Roland to the rear-guard, Charlemagne remembers the foreknowledge he gained in his dreams. Although he cannot forestall these events, Charlemagne is able to anticipate Roland's death and the destruction of the French forces, and so “sur tuz les altres est Carles anguissus” (Charles most of all a boding sorrow feels) (laisse LXVI). He speaks sorrowfully of a future that he knows will occur:

“Par Guenelun serat destruite France.
Enoit m'avint un'avisiun d'angele,
Qu'entre mes puinz me depeçout ma hanste:
Chi ad juget mis nés a reréguarde.”
(“Through Ganelon faire France is ruined quite.
An angel showed me a vision in the night,
How in my hand he broke my lance outright,
He that my nephew to the rear-guard assigned.”)

(laisse LXVII)

Ganelon's treachery and Roland's death, however, are only fragments of the divine plan which encompasses as well the ritualized and hieratic battle between Charlemagne and Baligant, the powers of Christianity and paganism, West and East. This portion of history is also revealed to Charlemagne before the event in a dream decreed by God and mediated by Gabriel (laisse CLXXXV). Charlemagne's dreams, thus, give him special knowledge of the future but also indicate the intimacy Charlemagne has with Christian history as he constantly fulfils a preordained plan.

Charlemagne is granted foreknowledge of the divine plan not only indirectly, through dreams, but also through direct conversation with God's agents, the angels. When Charlemagne prays to God for a suspension of time so that Roland's death can be avenged, an angel, with whom he is accustomed to talk (laisse CLXXIX), appears and assures Charlemagne that his victory is preordained. The angel exhorts and promises:

“Charle, chevalche, car tei ne fait clartet.
La flur de France as perdut, ço set Deux.
Venger te poez de la gent criminel.”
(“Ride, Carlon, ride; the light shall not come short!
The flower of France is fallen; God knows all;
Thou shalt have vengeance upon the heathen horde.”)

(laisse CLXXIX)

At the end of the Roland, Gabriel again visits Charlemagne to remind him that God's pattern is not yet completely wrought, and that Charlemagne is still needed in God's service. Gabriel calls on Charlemagne:

“Carles, sumun les oz de tun emperie!
Par force iras en la tere de Bire,
Reis Vivien si succuras en Imphe,
A la citet que paien unt asise:
Li chrestien te recleiment e crient.”
(“Up, Charles! assemble thy whole imperial might;
With force and arms unto Elbira ride;
Needs must thou succour King Vivien where he lies
At Imphe, his city, besieged by Paynim tribes;
There for thy help the Christians call and cry.”)

(laisse CCXCI)

The certainty of tone with which the epic's characters assert their part in the divine plan, and the supernatural occurrences, such as Charlemagne's dreams and his conversations with the angels, all suggest the establishment of a personal relationship between God and the Christians as God's ordained plan is revealed. The nature of the theophanies illustrates the predetermined scheme of history underlying the broader epic actions in the Roland.

When history is predetermined by God, there is little need to explain causality, so that, in the Roland, causality and causal relations are sometimes—though not always—obscured. For example, the motivation for the original animosity between Roland and Ganelon is not clear, nor is it apparent why Ganelon risks his life to threaten Marsile before he broaches the subject of the rear-guard (laisses XXXIII and XXXVII), nor why Roland suddenly decides to blow his horn to summon Charlemagne after all (laisse CXXXIII). Events occur because God willed them thus to happen; God's will alone is sufficient explanation for a deed.

But although the larger scheme of history encompassed by the Roland seems to have been predetermined by God, the individual acting within that scheme has freedom of choice. The contradiction between historical predeterminism and individual free will is ignored in the actual practice of the characters in the Roland. Throughout the epic, scenes of giving, taking, and rejecting advice are strongly emphasized. This stress on the need to consider advice and to make choices can be seen, for example, in the various council scenes throughout the epic. The first council is called by Charlemagne to decide on a course of action following Blancandrin's promise that Marsile will convert to Christianity if the French return to Aix. The debate is swift and emotional. Roland remembers a mistaken decision made in the past which resulted in the beheading of Basan and Basil (laisse XIV), and advises a plan on the basis of that memory. But his advice is rejected by Ganelon, Naimes, and the whole French army (laisses XV and XVI). As always, Charlemagne accepts the decision of his men:

Ses baruns mandet pur sun cunseill finer
Par cels de France voelt il del tut errer.
([He] calls his barons to council thereupon;
By French advice whate'er he does is done.)

(laisse XI)

The council is then asked to choose an emissary to deliver its message to Marsile, and, when Ganelon is chosen by Roland, the choice is ratified by the French. As Ganelon angrily threatens Roland with revenge for having chosen to put his step-father in jeopardy, Charlemagne remonstrates with Ganelon and avows his personal responsibility for the choice:

Carles respunt: “Trop avez tendre coer.
Puis quel comant, aler vus en estoet.”
(Quoth Charles: “Your heart is too tender within you;
Go now you must, for even so I bid you.”)

(laisse XXIII)

Ço dist li reis: “Trop avez maltalant.
Or irez vos certes, quant jol cumant.”
(Then said the King: “Your passion is too hot;
I bid you go and so you must be gone.”)

(laisse XXIV)

By confirming Roland's choice, Charlemagne invests the choice with the weight of kingly responsibility. Charlemagne's avowal of responsibility here is based on the assumption that, after he has been duly advised by his vassals, he is free to act according to his own will and is not merely fulfilling a certain predetermined plan.

Marsile, too, holds a council to consider Ganelon's suggestion. The physical details of the Saracen's council recall Charlemagne's previous council almost exactly. The background is rigidly fixed and the same objects appear: both kings preside by sitting on a faldstool (laisses VIII, XXXI), and both kings sit underneath a pine-tree surrounded by their armies. Only Ganelon moves in front of the fixed background to further link the two scenes. The two councils are thus juxtaposed through the repetition of emblems suggesting kingly responsibility, yet they cannot be juxtaposed in time since Ganelon has travelled from one to the other. The purpose of the juxtaposition is to heighten the relationship between the two councils, for in each an important decision is made. The decision of the one is to send Ganelon as ambassador to the Saracens while that of the other is to accept Ganelon's advice, deceive Charlemagne, and kill Roland. Yet Marsile's council could not take place unless Charlemagne's had preceded it; the second is dependent on the first and will, in turn, affect subsequent councils and events. So, despite the epic's lack of explanation for events and its assertions about a fated history—both of which suggest a predetermined format—the scenes themselves are constructed to reveal, by emblems and symbols, a causality certainly affected by individual decisions. By emphasizing councils and their attendant decisions, the Roland implies that man is free to act and react as he will.

During the temptation scene (laisses XXV-XLVI), for example, in which Ganelon persuades Marsile to have Roland killed, the action depends entirely on Ganelon's Iago-like manipulations of people and events. Causal relations are again emphasized since the success of each step depends on the success or failure of the previous step. For example, Marsile will not get a chance to attack Roland unless Charlemagne can be persuaded to appoint Roland to the rear-guard. Ganelon first has to persuade Marsile that Roland must be disposed of. On the advice of Blancandrin, Marsile accepts Ganelon's proposal. Marsile and Ganelon then plot the treachery which will determine the course of events in the future. Yet although God's plan for history seems temporarily thwarted by the will of Ganelon, it becomes apparent later in the Roland that divine providence is effective over and above the free will of men. Roland's death leads to renewed action on the part of the Christians to vanquish the Saracens, and the Christians, of course, are ultimately successful. So we see that the epic's narrative—with its assertions about fate, certain knowledge of the outcome of events, its tone, and the succinctness of its style—suggests a totally determined providential scheme for history. But it is equally true that individual scenes and actions, with their emphasis on decisions and causality, suggest a historical fluidity dependent on the free will of man.

This ambiguous connection between man's free will and the course of history can be seen more graphically in the relationship among the characters of the epic and between individual characters and God. At the top of the hierarchic arrangement of men is Charlemagne, an almost mythic character of extraordinary age and abilities, whose knowledge is composed of both wisdom and the foreknowledge of the future gained in dreams. In addition to his special knowledge, he merits special protection because of his closeness to the divine plan. During his final battle with Baligant, for example, he is seriously wounded on the head but is roused by an angel sent to remind him of his role in history:

Mais deux ne volt qu'il seit mort ne vencut.
Seint Gabriel est repairet a lui.
Si li demandet: “Reis magnes, que fais tu?”
(… God will not he be o'ercome or killed;
Saint Gabriel comes hastening down to him:
“And what,” saith he, “art thou about, great King?”)

(laisse CCLXI)

On hearing Gabriel's admonition, Charlemagne realizes anew that he is God's valued and protected agent, so he loses his fears and “repairet loi vigur e remembrance” (His strength returns, he is himself again) (laisse CCLXII). His most amazing display of power, however, is his ability to suspend time and, with God's help, to subject time to his own needs. When, for example, he needs extra time to avenge Roland's death, he requests and receives a prolonged day:

Pur Karlemagne fist Deus vertuz mult granz,
Car li soleilz est remés en estant.
(For Charlemayn God wrought a wondrous token:
The sun stood still in the mid-heaven holden.)

(laisse CLXXX)

Charlemagne's extraordinary ability to foresee the future, talk to the angels and control time indicates that he has been chosen by God to receive His divine grace. In Augustinian terms, then, Charlemagne is completely free. Through divine grace, Charlemagne's will is freed from the possibility of sinning; he indeed is unable to sin and can choose and follow only the good. When he controls time, it is because his faith and God's grace liberate him from ordinary human constrictions.

However, despite the obvious indications that Charlemagne has received God's grace and the gift of true freedom, he seems, as Auerbach has noted, at times paralysed, unable to perform any action whatsoever. He is unable to save Roland and the rear-guard from the effects of Ganelon's treachery which he foresees in his dreams (laisses LVI and LVII), and, later, is wholly dependent on Thierry's offer to act as his agent in Ganelon's trial (laisse CCLXVII). But the reason for this seeming impotence can again be found in the realization that Charlemagne has been given the gift of grace. His impotence is not impotence at all, but total submission to the will of God; his immobility, like that of Milton's Christ in Paradise Regained, is a sign of his knowledge that “All things are best fulfill'd in their due time, / And time there is for all things … ” (P.R., III, 182-3). Immobility, thus, is an eminently creative stasis, since Charlemagne, as God's agent, constantly fulfils the divine plan. His creative freedom, awarded him by God, enables Charlemagne, as God's agent, to participate completely in God's plan for the world. Although he operates in the secular world, he is liberated by grace from ordinary causal and historical processes in order to fulfil freely the providential scheme of history.

In contrast to Charlemagne, Ganelon is fully mortal. He lacks the supernatural powers of Charlemagne and there is no indication that he has received or will receive God's grace. Initially, Ganelon and Roland have equal status as co-agents of Charlemagne with each commanding a large following. Ganelon is apparently a competent warrior and a logical choice as emissary to Marsile (laisses XX and XXVII). The initial balance between Roland and Ganelon, however, is soon disrupted. He displays more and more will for evil until he finally makes the supreme mistake and betrays both Charlemagne and the Christian cause. This betrayal of Christianity is portrayed emblematically when Ganelon vows first on the relics of his sword, and then on the pagan bible, to be unfaithful to his own religion (laisses XLVI and XLVII). By promising to help the Saracen cause, Ganelon gives up his personality as a Christian warrior and thus proves himself to be unworthy of God's grace. His change from a noble Christian to a damned pagan is communicated again emblematically by his reception of the Saracen's gifts. He first desecrates his own sword, which represents his personality as a Christian warrior, accepts a Saracen sword, and then seals the treachery with a Judas-like kiss:

A tant i vint uns paiens, Valdabruns.
Icil en vait al rei Marsiliun.
Cler en riant l'ad dit a Guenelun:
“Tenez l'espee, meillur n'en at nuls hom;
Entre les helz ad plus de mil manguns.
Par amistiez, bel sire, la vos duins,
Que nos aidez de Rollant le barun,
Qu'en rereguarde trover le poüsum.
—Ben serat fait,” li quens Guenes respunt;
Puis se baiserent es vis e es mentuns.
(Lo, now! there comes a Paynim, Valdebron;
He stands before the King Marsilion,
And gaily laughing he says to Ganelon,
“Here, take my sword, a better blade is none.
A thousand mangons are in the hilt thereof;
'Tis yours, fair sir, for pure affection,
For help against Roland the champion,
If in the rear-guard we find him as we want.”
Quoth Ganelon to him: “It shall be done.”
They kiss each other the cheek and chin upon.)

(laisse XLVIII)

Ganelon then accepts the Saracen's helm and jewels and again seals the exchange with a symbolic kiss (laisses XLIX and L). He thus loses his identity as a Christian by proving his total unworthiness to receive grace, and so, through a series of symbolic exchanges, ensures his own damnation. After the agent acting for him loses his trial by combat and Ganelon is tortured to death, his soul is presumably carried straight to Hell as were the souls of other dead infidels.

Like Ganelon's, Roland's acts are a matter of his free choice, yet his relationship to God and destiny is more ambiguous than either Charlemagne's or Ganelon's. Charlemagne is clearly one of the saved and Ganelon clearly one of the damned, whereas Roland's relationship to the divine plan changes during the epic as the action itself develops. He begins, like Ganelon, as an agent of Charlemagne with ordinary human powers. He is characterized by Ganelon as “le destre braz” or the right hand of Charlemagne (laisse XLV), yet he causes the death of the entire rear-guard when his pride forbids him to blow his olifant and summon Charlemagne's aid. When Oliver begs him to sound the horn and so save the French army from destruction at the hands of the infidels, Roland cites his personal pride, his familial pride, and his pride in France as reasons for refusing:

… “Jo fereie que fols!
En dulce France en perdreie mun los.”
(… “Madman were I and more,
And in fair France my fame would suffer scorn!”)

(laisse LXXXIII)

… “Ne placet Damnedeu
Que mi parent pur mei seient blasmet
Ne France dulce ja cheet en viltet!”
(… “May never God allow
That I should cast dishonour on my house
Or on fair France bring any ill renown!”)

(laisse LXXXIV)

“Ne placet Deu,” ço li respunt Rollant,
Que ço seit dit de nul hume vivant,
Ne pur paien, que ja seie cornant!
Ja n'en avrunt reproece mi parent.”
(“Now God forbid,” Roland makes answer wroth,
That living man should say he saw me go
Blowing of horns for any Paynim foe!
Ne'er shall my kindred be put to such reproach!”)

(laisse LXXV)

In this case, Roland is choosing freely and choosing wrongly. Oliver, for example, holds Roland responsible for a wilful act of wrong-choosing and blames him by saying that he disregarded good advice:

“Quant jel vos dis, compainz, vos ne deignastes.
S'i fust li reis, n'i oüsum damage.
Cil ki la sunt n'en deivent aveir blasme.”
(“I asked you, comrade, and you refused, for pride.
Had Charles been here, then all would have gone right;
He's not to blame, nor the men at his side.”)

(laisse CXXX)

… “Cumpainz, vos le feïstes …
Franceis sunt morz par vostre legerie.
Jamais Karlon de nus n'avrat servise.
Sem creïsez, venuz i fust mi sire;
Ceste bataille oüsum [faite u prise];
U pris u mort i fust li reis Marsilie.
Vostre proecce, Rollant, mar la veïmes!”
(… “Companion, you got us in this mess …
Through your o'erweening you have destroyed the French!
Ne'er shall we do service to Charles again.
Had you but given some heed to what I said.
My lord had come, the battle had gone well,
And King Marsile had been captured or dead.
Your prowess, Roland, is a curse on our heads.”)

(laisse CXXXI)

When Oliver, who is “sage”, accuses Roland of irresponsibility and disregard for counsel, he attests to Roland's free will, although it is misused. The refusal to blow the olifant shows that Roland has not yet been granted divine grace; he does not have perfect freedom, in Augustinian terms, but is able to choose the wrong course of action.

Roland realizes too late that he has made the wrong choice, and so rectifies that choice by finally acquiescing and blowing the olifant (laisses CXXXIII and CXXXIV). By doing so, he admits his own responsibility for a mistaken act and tries to make amends for choosing wrongly. Blowing the olifant thus signifies the loss of his overbearing pride, and with the loss of pride comes the possibility of receiving divine grace. His acceptance of responsibility for making a wrong choice is signified verbally as well as by the act of blowing the olifant hard enough to burst his temples and cause his own death. In his lament for the dead barons, he seems to fix responsibility directly on himself when he says, “Barons franceis, pur mei vos vei murir” (“Barons of France, for me you go to death”) (laisse CXL). The “pur mei” however, is ambiguous and can mean either “for me” (that is, “in my service”) or “because of me”. The second reading, “because of me”, in which Roland blames himself is more appropriate because more in keeping with the way he used this same phrase before, as, for example, when he originally refused to blow his horn:

“Ne placet Damnedeu ne ses angles
Que ja pur mei perdet sa valur France!”
(“God and his angels forbid it now, I pray,
That e'er by me fair France should be disfamed!”)

(laisse LXXXVI)

When Roland repeats “pur mei” during his elegy for the barons who died because of his refusal to summon aid, the words acquire a tragic irony since it is precisely what Roland forswore that came to pass. Roland significantly ends his lament with a confession of personal weakness and assigns the dead barons to the beneficence of God:

“Je ne vos pois tenser ne guarantir;
Aït vos Deus, ki unkes ne mentit!”
(“Nought can I give you of safeguard or defence:
Now aid you God, who ne'er failed any yet!”)

(laisse CXL)

Once Roland begins to die, the tone of the narrative changes to become sombrely elegiac as all the events surrounding his death take on ritualistic and religious importance. During the death scene itself (laisses CLXVIII-CLXXVI), it becomes apparent that he was predestined from the beginning to receive God's grace. He was brought up by Charlemagne himself (laisse CLXXVI), and so, through symbolic kinship, will presumably inherit and approximate Charlemagne's intimate relationship to the divine plan. Another indication that he was predestined to achieve the gift of grace is in his remembrance that Charlemagne gave him the gift of Durendal, his sword (laisse CLXXII). The acceptance of Charlemagne's gift has the same emblematic significance as Ganelon's acceptance of the gifts of the Saracens. Gifts, the sword in particular, become in this epic symbols of personality and obligation. Durendal was apparently used by Charlemagne in his own youth and was bestowed upon Roland so that he could continue the admirable career that the youthful Charlemagne began. It was given to Roland expressly by God's command and so provides a concrete link in the hierarchy from him to Charlemagne, to God. Moreover, the sword has mystic properties—it is unbreakable, and its hilt contains the relics of Christian saints (laisse CLXXIII). As Roland meditates on his sword, he rehearses all of the victories he won with it in the past:

“Jo l'en cunquis e Anjou e Bretaigne,
Si l'en cunquis e Peitou e le Maine:
Jo l'en cunquis Normendie la franche,
Si l'en cunquis Provence e Equitaigne
E Lumbardie e trestute Romaine;
Jo l'en cunquis Baiver e tute Flandres
E Burguigne e trestute Puillanie,
Costentinnoble, dunt il out la fiance,
E en Saisonie fait il ço qu'il demandet;
Jo l'en cunquis e Escose e …
E Engletere, que il teneit sa cambre;
Cunquis l'en ai païs e teres tantes,
Que Carles tient, ki ad la barbe blanche.”
(“With this I won Anjou and all Bretayn,
With this I won him Poitou, and conquered Maine;
With this I won him Normandy's fair terrain,
And with it won Provence and Acquitaine,
And Lombardy and all the land Romayne,
Bavaria too, and the whole Flemish state.
And Burgundy and all Apulia gained;
Constantinople in the King's hand I laid;
In Saxony he speaks and is obeyed;
With this I won Scotland, [Ireland and Wales,]
And England, where he set up his domain;
What lands and countries I've conquered by its aid,
For Charles to keep whose beard is white as may!”)

(laisse CLXXII)

The enumeration of events occurring in the past links Roland to historic time. His actions have occurred within the medium of history, whereas Charlemagne's occur beyond ordinary historic time as is shown by his control of the length of day. Thus as he recites his past deeds he is reciting also an account of his bondage to ordinary time, a bondage relaxed only at his death. More importantly however, the recitation of past victories also suggests the greater inwardness he exhibits as he prepares himself for death; the evocation of place-names in his memory is another indication of his growing introspection which began with the admission of wrong-choosing in regard to whether or not he should have summoned Charlemagne. Such calling upon memory—very unusual for this epic where the future is often foretold but rarely is the past remembered, and never the personal past—is another indication that Roland is preparing himself spiritually for the possible reception of grace.

That he is granted divine grace is proven at the actual moment of his death. As he dies, he performs the ritual feudal gesture of offering his glove to God, who in turn accepts the token:

Sun destre guant a Deu en puroffrit.
Seint Gabriel de sa main l'ad pris.
(His right-hand glove he's tendered unto Christ,
And from his hand Gabriel accepts the sign.)

(laisse CLXXVI)

Although he previously served Charlemagne as God's agent, Roland, in this gesture of fealty, indicates that he now serves a higher agent, Gabriel, and God Himself. He then dies, surrounded by angels, and his soul is carried immediately to heaven:

L'anme del cunte portent en pareïs.
(The County's soul they bear to Paradise.)

(laisse CLXXVI)

Morz est Rollant, Deus en ad l'anme es cels.
(Roland is dead, in Heaven God hath his soul.)

(laisse CLXXVII)

When later Charlemagne returns to Roncevaux, he opens up Roland's dead body and takes from it the heart which he preserves in a marble urn as a relic (laisse CCXIII). Charlemagne in this way canonizes Roland. Roland has completed the transition from feudal warrior to saint. Now that he is in heaven, the record of his past sins is erased and Roland, like Charlemagne, has clearly become one of God's elect.

Despite the sense one receives from the epic of an entirely predetermined plan for history, the epic's main characters act in freedom. Yet the freedom with which they perform their roles in their battle to further the Christian cause is made complex by the epic's Augustinian vision of grace. With the gift of divine grace, one is released from historic time and ordinary causality—as is Charlemagne—and is free to do only the good, and even to do nothing at all but quiescently fulfil the divine plan. Or, oppositely, one has a free but depraved will, as does Ganelon, so that actions, though performed freely, are motivated so completely by pride and talent for working evil that damnation is assured. Or, free will and the subsequent release from the bondage of history can be gained through divine grace when a character, such as Roland, repents of his own depravity of will and then prepares himself spiritually to receive God's gift. Thus the epic communicates within a tightly organized Christian framework a fluidity about man's spiritual destiny dependent upon the reception of divine grace. Without it, one can perform only evil, but with the gift of grace, individual impulses become merged with God's plan for history. Characterization in this epic, then, goes beyond descriptions of psychology and motivation to become part of a larger theme, which reveals the spiritual difficulties in the achievement and use of freedom.