Oliver (paladin)

[2] He tells Roland that "heroism tempered with common sense is a far cry from madness: "Reasonableness is to be preferred to recklessness" (Oxford manuscript, laisse 131).

[3] Oliver was fatally impaled from behind by the Saracen Marganice, but before dying, he used his sword, Hauteclere, to split his attacker's head open with one blow.

[5] Oliver's uncle Girart is fighting against his suzerain Charlemagne; after seven years of constant warfare, the two sides agree to a duel between two champions which will decide the outcome.

The story goes: the Saracen king Balan and his 15-foot-tall (4.6 m) son Fierabras return to Spain after sacking the church of Saint Peter's in Rome and taking the relics of the passion.

Charlemagne invades Spain to recover the relics and sends his knight Oliver de Vienne, Roland's companion, to battle Fierabras.

Once defeated, the giant decides to convert to Christianity and joins Charlemagne's army, but Oliver and several other knights are captured.

After a series of adventures, Charlemagne kills king Balan, divides Spain between Fierabras and Gui de Bourgogne (who marries Floripas), and returns to Saint Denis with the holy relics.

In the story, Galien leaves Constantinople to search for Oliver, and arrives at Roncevaux in time to speak to his dying father.

In Le Pèlerinage de Charlemagne, where Charlemagne and his Twelve Peers are hosted by the (fictional) Byzantine Emperor Hugo, Oliver is given the risqué role of vainly boasting that he can sleep with Hugo's daughter a hundred times during a single night, and being ashamed when finding that his boast was overheard by the Emperor's spy.