Charlemagne and Saint Reinold

I admit it: I don’t always understand right away why a certain book is considered particularly important, interesting or valuable. Sometimes that particular piece of (literary) history just lies outside my educational horizon. In those cases it is all the more satisfying to tackle the matter and, with a little perseverance, to find incredibly interesting literary clues. That is exactly what happened to me with a work from the MoneyMuseum’s book collection that I would like to present to you today. 

At first, I was only looking at a French retelling of an old chivalric tale from the Carolingian saga that did not really speak to me at all. The plot of the story was incredibly long and complicated, its point anything but obvious. Then I came across depictions of a bronze statue of the legendary Four Sons of Aymon, which can be found in Cologne not far from my old school. I must have passed by the statue countless times when I was younger. I investigated further and found out that there are several overlapping chivalric sagas and legends of saints whose narrative strands meet in my home town of Cologne – even in the very monastery of my baptism, St. Pantaleon. I’ll tell you the short version of how the French knight Renaud became Saint Reinold of Cologne. 

Artikeltext:

Who Are the Sons of Aymon?

“The Four Sons of Aymon” is a well-known Old French chivalric saga. In the Middle Ages, these chansons de geste (heroic songs) were, as the name suggests, passed down orally and sung by minstrels with musical accompaniment. The book of our collection is a retelling of this saga that was printed much later. The exact date is not known, but it was probably published in the late 18th or early 19th century. 

The saga revolves around the conflict between Charlemagne and one of his vassals, Duke Aymon of Dordone, or rather his four sons Allard, Richardet, Guichard and Renaud of Montauban. Basically, the tale is about the emperor’s intention to centralise his power and the resistance of some Carolingian noble families. This conflict unfolds in a very detailed saga that goes on for years and years: there are magicians and magical horses, betrayal and deceit, wine and ham are shot at a besieged castle with catapults to save those imprisoned from starvation, and at the end of this lengthy conflict Charlemagne and Renaud, the strongest and most prominent of the four knights, make peace anyway. Renaud only has to promise to go on a pilgrimage to atone for rebelling against the emperor and to give back the magical horse Bayard. (Whereupon Charlemagne tries to drown the horse in a river – why he would do that is beyond me!) Thus, for the time being the saga ends with the rebellious noble family being repentant and the vassals subjecting themselves again to their emperor. 

Saint Reinold of Cologne

But why is there a bronze statue of the Four Sons of Aymon in Cologne? Well, there are different versions of the story. One of them runs as follows: After Renaud had made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and rendered outstanding services in the fight against the pagans, he went to Cologne to help build Hildebold Cathedral, the predecessor of the Cologne Cathedral. The good man, who has become very pious in the meantime, does not want to be paid and asks only for board and lodge as well as for God’s mercy. Being way too keen, working night and day without rest and without pay, he makes himself unpopular with his colleagues, until one night they kill him and throw him into the Rhine.  

There are also different stories about what happened afterwards. A blind woman has a revelation and retrieves the body from the river. And/or all bells of the episcopal city of Cologne start to chime at the same time. And/or Renaud’s body is carried by fish and surrounded by angels. Anyway, it was agreed that the man was a saint even if he was never officially canonised. Until today, I did not know that there was a Saint Reinold of Cologne, who is, after all, immortalised in stone in the north portal of the Cologne Cathedral. Next time I’m there, I’ll try to find him.

The Patron Saint of Dortmund

But the best part of the story comes at the very end: As legend has it, the people of Cologne tried in vain to bury the body of Renaud or Reinold. The cart started moving on its own and drove away until it came to a halt in Dortmund, of all places. There, they built a church for him on the very spot the cart had stopped moving and made him the patron saint of the city. In the picture above we can see the head of the statue of Reinold in Dortmund’s St. Reinold’s Church. 

It is unlikely that all these stories are actually about the same historical Reinold. It is much more likely that at least three legends were mixed together: a German and a French version of the saga about the Four Sons of Aymon and a legend about the saint of Cologne’s martyr Reinold, who lived as a monk in the monastery of St. Pantaleon. By the way, St. Pantaleon, one of the oldest Romanesque churches of the city, still exists today and also happens to be the church where I was baptised. Thus, sometimes it’s worth getting to the bottom of a book’s history – you might find clues that tell you something about the story of your own life. 

Other Things You Might Be Interested in: 

You can find a commented French version of the text La Chanson des quatre fils Aymon on Wikisource. 

Find out more about Saint Reinold of Cologne in the Ecumenical Encyclopaedia of Saints (in German). 

And here you can read the English translation of the Four Sons of Aymon.