Ferragut

Lore & Background

In the Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle (Historia Caroli Magni, Book IV of the Codex Calixtinus), Ferracutus is a giant descended from Goliath, sent from Syria by the Emir of Babylon to fight Charlemagne's army at Nájera, Spain. He stands nearly twelve cubits tall, has the strength of forty men, and is impervious to arrows and spears. After defeating several Christian knights, he duels Roland for two days; during a truce, Roland places a stone under the giant's head, and the giant reveals his only vulnerable spot is his navel. Roland kills him by inserting a spear there.

In later Italian epics, Ferraguto (Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato) is a leading Saracen knight, nephew of King Marsilio, and in love with Angelica. He kills Argalia and steals his helmet. In Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, Ferraù loses that helmet, vows to take Orlando's helmet, and remains invulnerable except at the navel; Ariosto predicts his death at Orlando's hands. A separate character named Ferragus appears in the romance Valentine and Orson as a giant from Portugal, beheaded by the Duke of Aquitaine.

Reader's Guide

Ferragut is a recurring figure in the Matter of France, illustrating the motif of the nearly invulnerable opponent whose single weakness leads to his downfall—a narrative pattern echoing the biblical David and Goliath. His story appears in the widely influential Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle, which was adapted across Europe into the Renaissance, and later in major Italian chivalric poems by Boiardo and Ariosto. These works shaped the literary tradition of Charlemagne's paladins and influenced subsequent European romance and epic. Ferragut's vulnerability at the navel became a defining trait, and his death at the hands of Roland underscores Roland's role as the greatest Christian knight. The character's multiple name forms reflect the linguistic and regional variations in medieval and Renaissance texts.

Did You Know?

• Ferragut is a descendant of Goliath in the Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle.
• He is nearly twelve cubits tall, with a face a cubit long and a nose a hand long.
• In Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato, Ferraguto is a Saracen knight, not a giant, and is in love with Angelica.
• A completely different Saracen giant named Ferragus appears in the romance Valentine and Orson.

The Foundational Duel: Giant, Paladin, and the Navel

In the Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle, a mid-twelfth-century Latin text embedded in the Codex Calixtinus, Ferracutus is introduced as a Saracen giant descended from Goliath himself, dispatched from Syria by the Emir of Babylon to defend the Spanish city of Nájera against Charlemagne's Christian forces. The narrative deliberately echoes the biblical contest between David and Goliath. This colossus stands nearly twelve cubits tall, possesses the strength of forty men, and shrugs off arrows and spears as though they were nothing. Charlemagne dispatches a procession of champions—Ogier the Dane, Reinaldos of Montalbán, Constantine of Rome, Count Hoel, and twenty others sent in pairs—all of whom are effortlessly overpowered and imprisoned. When Roland finally takes the field alone, the two warriors clash for two full days, alternating between sword, wooden club, stones, and bare fists, even killing each other's horses in the chaos. On the second night, Roland courteously places a stone beneath the giant's head as a pillow. Grateful, Ferracutus confides his single fatal weakness: his navel. They also engage in a theological discussion touching on the Trinity, Genesis, the Immaculate Conception, and the Resurrection. The next morning, Roland drives a spear into that exposed spot and ends the duel.

From Giant to Knight: Boiardo and Ariosto's Reimaginings

Matteo Maria Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato strips away the giant's monstrous proportions and recasts Ferraguto as a leading Saracen knight, nephew of King Marsilio of Spain, and one of the many suitors consumed by passion for Angelica. At the poem's opening, Angelica and her brother Argalia arrive at Charlemagne's Parisian court, declaring that any knight who bests Argalia in single combat wins Angelica's hand, while defeat means captivity. Ferraguto is among the first to challenge and is unhorsed. Yet rather than submit, he rages against his captors; Argalia and Angelica flee in terror. Ferraguto pursues, kills Argalia, and seizes his helmet, promising the dying man he will wear it only a few days. Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso picks up the thread. Ferraù—Ariosto's syncopated rendering of the name—loses the stolen helmet in a stream and is confronted by Argalia's ghost, who warns him to seek another. Ferraù then sets his sights on the helmet of Almonte, now worn by the greatest Christian knight, Orlando. He manages to possess it for a time, yet Ariosto foretells his ultimate death at Orlando's hands. Like his Pseudo-Turpin ancestor, Ferraù remains invulnerable save for his navel.

A Name in Many Tongues

The character's name shifts fluidly across languages and centuries, reflecting the oral and scribal traditions through which the Matter of France circulated. The earliest attested form in the Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle is the Latin Ferracutus. When the English writer Thomas Bulfinch adapted the Charlemagne legends for a Victorian audience in his Legends of Charlemagne, he settled on Ferragus, yet the spelling Ferragut has become the most common in modern English usage. In the Italian literary tradition, the name undergoes further transformation. Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato employs the variants Feraguto and Feragu, while Ariosto's Orlando Furioso shortens the name to the syncopated Ferraù. Other recorded forms include Ferraguto, Ferraù, and Fernagu, each testifying to the character's passage through different dialects and poetic conventions. This linguistic fluidity underscores how the figure was never fixed to a single textual authority but rather lived and evolved across the multilingual landscape of medieval and early modern European storytelling.

Proliferation Across the European Literary Landscape

The Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle's account of Ferracutus proved enormously influential, spawning adaptations and borrowings across Europe well into the Renaissance. The anonymous Franco-Venetian epic L'Entrée d'Espagne, composed around 1320 by an author likely from Padua, retells the mortal duel between the giant and Roland. The fourteenth-century Italian epic La Spagna, attributed to the Florentine Sostegno di Zanobi and probably written between 1350 and 1360, carries the story forward in the Italian tradition. In the fifteenth century, Jean Bagnyon's La Conqueste du grand roy Charlemagne des Espagnes draws on the Pseudo-Turpin material—likely filtered through Vincent of Beauvais's Speculum Historiale—and includes the Ferragus episode in Book 3, Part 1, Chapters 10–11. This work achieved pan-European success, being translated into Castilian, Portuguese, German, and English. Even Luigi Pulci's epic Morgante, which does not depict the incident directly, treats Ferraguto's death at Orlando's hands as established, widely known fact. A separate medieval romance, Valentine and Orson, features an entirely different Saracen giant also named Ferragus, brother of Esclarmonde, who imprisons Bellissant and is ultimately beheaded by the Duke of Aquitaine.