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Abstract
For there to be dramatic tension in the chansons de geste, both sides must suffer in the fight. Even some of the best-known heroes die from their wounds, suffering prolonged agonies. One type of battle wound, however, stands out from the rest. In these poems, only the villains shed their limbs. Amputation thus conveys a moral message that other epic injuries do not. The chanson poets highlight the victim's moral corruption through this dismemberment. Because Saracens are the primary victims of this mutilation, it may at first appear that amputation represents punishment for their deviant religious belief. However, as a wider survey of the literature of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries demonstrates, the poets offer amputation as a sign of felony or wickedness. The punishment is for crimes not against God, but against public order.