Who is the narrator, can she or he read minds, and, more importantly, can we trust her or him?
First Person (Peripheral Narrator)
Although the poem is technically in first person, the narrator is so rarely part of the story that it reads more like straight history (but way fictionalized).
We get occasional "I" references, including the famous last line when the poet names himself (hi Turoldus!). But where the narrator really makes himself felt is in (1) his commentary on the action, both subtle and obvious, (2) his references to other documents for corroboration, and (3) his really obvious foreshadowing of what's going to happen.
It's no secret that the poet is pro-Frank and pro-Christian. He labels the Saracens "wicked," "evil," "dishonest," and a lot of other unflattering things, biasing our opinions of them from the very start.
Just look at the first stanza. Marsile is described as someone "who does not love God" even though in the next line the poet tells us that he "serves Mohammed and prays to Apollo" (1.7, 8). It's clear whose "God" is the only "real" one in this poem. And the final line of the stanza gives away a lot of the story: "he cannot prevent misfortune from befalling him there" (1.9). Boom. We already know that Marsile and his guys are non-Christian and therefore wrong and that nothing but bad will happen to them. A similar slime-job happens to Ganelon, who is introduced from the get-go as a treacherous wretch:
Ganelon, who committed the act of treachery, came too. (12.178)
Thanks, Turoldus. Worried that we might reach the wrong conclusions, the poet is quick to make all the judgments for us.
Another way the poet makes himself felt in the poem is through his sporadic references to supposedly historical documents. These aren't nearly consistent enough to actually convince us that he's writing accurate history, but they could offer a little corroboration—that is, if we knew what sources he was referencing. When he says that:
It is written in the venerable chronicle
That Charles summons vassals from many lands (271.3742-43)
…there's still some confusion. What is the "venerable chronicle" and who wrote it and about what? And could we get some actual quotations while we're at it? Basically, the narrator is "peripheral" because he doesn't take an active role in the story, but he's also central to our entire understanding of the poem because it's his facts and his interpretation that frame everything.