AOI in the Chanson de Roland

Abstract

A discussion of the significance of the letters AOI in the Chanson de Roland should properly begin perhaps with a description of the appearance of these letters in the Bodleian manuscript, Digby 23, of Oxford, the only manuscript in which they occur. Unfortunately, there seems to be no way of determining with certainty whether these mysterious letters were invariably written by the hand (or hands) responsible for copying the text of the poem. Sometimes no differences of transcription can be perceived between a line of the poem and the AOI that accompanies it. Occasionally, however, slight variations in the forms of the letters, in the alignment, in the color of the ink, or in the thickness of the strokes would seem to indicate that the AOI was written some time after the verse beside which it stands had been penned. In the latter case, it may be that the scribe waited only until he had copied a whole page—or several pages—of text before adding the letters; it may be, on the contrary, that he waited longer, or that some other person interested in the interpretation of the poem put them there. Certain it is, at any event, that the letters occur at variable intervals: some pages are without them, some present but a single instance, others contain a relatively large number of examples.