It takes its name from the fact that its protagonists are "knights taken prisoner at the start of the Crusade at Civetot in the disastrous defeat of Peter the Hermit's army".
[1]: 3 Unlike some parts of the Crusade Cycle, the Chanson des Chétifs has no basis in historical reality.
[1]: 59–61 Following the defeat of the Turkish army by the Crusaders at Antioch, the Turks' general Corbaran of Oliferne returns to Sarmasane, where the Sultan of Persia holds court.
Corbaran's mother Calabra recommends a Christian prisoner (chétif) held in Oliferne: Richard of Chaumont.
Yet a storm descends and they lose their way, thus coming to the dangerous Mount Tigris, which is inhabited by a monstrous serpent named Sathanas.
Luckily, at this moment, Corbaran arrives, led there by the saints Domitian, George and Barbara in the form of white harts.
The former prisoners take their leave of Corbaran and Calabra and proceed on their journey to Jerusalem to rejoin the Crusade, defeating a force of Turks on the way.
The Chanson was one of many French sources for the late thirteenth-century Castilian Crusade chronicle Gran conquista de Ultramar ("great conquest beyond the sea").