THE narrative of the chanson de geste Fierabras, in continental and Anglo-Norman versions, is focused on the recovery of relics of the Passion, stolen by the Saracen emir Balan from Rome when his army sacked the imperial city. The infidel attack on the Holy City itself, though only referred to briefly in the extant Fierabras, is the cataclysmic event which triggers the whole action. The conflict between the Christian leader Charlemagne and the Saracen emir Balan is prefigured by a single combat between Fierabras and Oliver, which contains echoes of Roland and Vernagu's conflict in the Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle and of Charlemagne and Baligant's fight in the Chanson de Roland. Such ‘trials by combat’ were something of a rhetorical set piece in the chanson de geste and, as we have noted, a significant narrative meme in all the insular Charlemagne texts. In Fierabras the emir's son, Fierabras, challenges the French and Oliver responds; they engage in a single combat which represents the wider battle between Saracen and Christian. Oliver vanquishes Fierabras, who is converted to Christianity. However, before Oliver can get back to safety, he is captured by the Saracen army and, in company with others from among the peers, is taken to Balan's stronghold of Aigremore. Charlemagne sends the remaining peers with a threatening message demanding the release of the prisoners and the return of the relics. Instead, all the peers are taken prisoner by Balan, but then released by Balan's daughter, Floripas. The peers take over Aigremore, evicting the Saracens before being themselves besieged therein. After various adventures and sorties they are able to send a message to Charlemagne, who comes to their rescue and defeats Balan in a combat which is based on the ideological assumptions that ‘right is might’ and that the representative of God will always win. The narrative ends with the baptism of Floripas and her marriage to Gui de Bourgogne and the distribution of the relics to various churches in France; a coda looks forward briefly to the events of La Chanson de Roland.

Fierabras texts can be divided into two traditions: the Vulgate tradition, also named by Marc Le Person, the most recent editor of the continental chanson de geste, the ‘version longue’, and the non-Vulgate or abbreviating tradition, the ‘version courte’ according to Le Person's classification.