Ganelon

Appearances

Ganelon is a fictional knight from the 11th-century Matter of France, best known for betraying Charlemagne’s army to the Saracens and causing the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778. He is loosely based on Wenilo, a historical archbishop of Sens who betrayed King Charles the Bald in 858, though some scholars think his name comes from the Italian word “inganno,” meaning fraud or deception.

His most famous role is in The Song of Roland, where he is a respected Frankish baron, Roland’s stepfather, and Charlemagne’s brother-in-law, married to the emperor’s sister. Ganelon grows bitter toward his boastful, popular, and successful stepson. When Roland nominates him for a dangerous mission as a messenger to the Saracens, Ganelon takes offense and swears revenge. He conspires with the Saracen Blancandrin to set an ambush at Roncesvals. In the end, justice comes when Ganelon’s ally Pinabel loses a trial by combat, proving Ganelon’s guilt in God’s eyes. Ganelon is then executed by being torn apart by four fiery horses.

In Dante’s Inferno, Canto XXXII, Ganelon (called Ganellone) is placed in Cocytus, the frozen ninth circle of hell, specifically in the second round named Antenora, for betraying his country. He also appears in Italian Renaissance epics about Charlemagne, Roland (Orlando), and Renaud de Montauban (Rinaldo), such as Boiardo’s Orlando Innamorato and Pulci’s Morgante. In these works, he is often called Gano di Pontieri or Gano di Maganza (of Mainz). The treachery of the House of Maganza became a proverb in Italy; for instance, a 1472 inscription on a castle wall in Canzo reads: “Non te fidare de femina nesuna / che sono tute dela caxa de Maganza” (Don’t trust any woman, for they’re all from House of Mainz). Lope de Vega uses “magancesa” to mean a treacherous woman in his play La bella malmaridada. In Don Quixote, Cervantes writes that the hero would give up his housekeeper and niece for a chance to kick the traitor Ganelon. Chaucer also references him in The Canterbury Tales: in “The Shipman’s Tale,” his horrible fate is a byword (“God take on me vengeance as foul as evere hadde Genylon of France”), and in “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale,” he is called a false assassin and a new Iscariot.