History Redux: Song of Roland

Posted by Paula Stiles Jun 15, 2006

During the 8th century, what are now France and Germany were ruled by the Carolingian Empire. The first Carolingian, Charles Martel (the Hammer), is credited with the first major (in retrospect) West European victory against the Muslims. He drove back a Muslim raid at Tours in 732 that ended Muslim land raids in France. Establishing his dynasty after deposing the last Merovingian king, he also eliminated the dynasty now made popular by the Matrix trilogy and The Da Vinci Code. But the Carolingians were the famous ones during the Middle Ages, due to Charles Martel and his even more famous grandson, Charlemagne (Charles the Great). Charlemagne made the Carolingian Empire into the Holy Roman Empire, which lasted a thousand years.

Charlemagne also raided Muslim Spain. Coming back in 778, his rearguard under Hrodland Count of Britanny was attacked in the Pyrenees and annihilated. The battle of Roncesvaux was later commemorated and celebrated in French around 1100 in the chanson The Song of Roland. It's a great poem, a well-deserved classic. There's only one problem with it.

It's all wrong.

In the poem, Muslims attacked the rearguard. But the rearguard was actually attacked by the Basque, who ruled Pamplona (later Navarre). They didn't like Charlemagne pillaging his way through their Pyrenean realm and they liked the idea of a little return plunder. For them, it was a great victory.

In the poem, Hrodland (now named "Roland") is an aged Charlemagne's nephew (Charlemagne was actually 30 at the time) and the expedition is betrayed by his jealous Christian rival. None of that happened. In the poem, the Muslims worship idols. In reality, Muslims are strict monotheists who loosely follow biblical tradition and worship only one God, Allah, who corresponds to the Old Testament Yahweh.

Why the switch? Times had changed. The Crusades were on and Western Europeans were spoiling for a fight with Islam after centuries of being on the run. So, the Muslims became the villains instead. And since Christians didn't initially want to crusade against other monotheists (whenever they did know anything about Islam), they turned the Muslims into idolators.

Next week, we'll skewer The Poem of My Cid, but check out this week's article on Medieval Spain, first. And on Sunday, I'll be starting a series on the Middle Ages in movies and books.