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The Roncevaux Pass (French and English spelling, Roncesvalles in Spanish, Orreaga in Basque) is the site of a famous battle in 778 in which Hroudland, or Roland, prefect of the Brittany March, was defeated by the Basques. Location: .This battle was the last of Charlemagne's first campaign to capture the Iberian Peninsula, namely the Marca Hispanica, an attempt that ended in failure. He had captured Barcelona and Pamplona, but had been stopped at Saragossa, which refused to yield. He had to leave Iberia to put down a rebellion by the Saxons, then newly conquered. He left the tribute with Roland and the rear guard, while the main army hurried back to the Rhine. While retreating, Charlemagne pulled down the walls of the Christian Basque city of Pamplona. This act may have led to the attack upon Roland and the rear guard in the Pyrenees, in Charlemagne's only major defeat. The Basques had poorer weaponry, but took advantage of the terrain. The engagement ended in the destruction of the Frank rearguard. | The death of Roland at the Battle of Roncevaux, from an illustrated manuscript c.1455-1460 |
Over the years, this minor battle was romanticized by oral tradition into a major conflict between Christians and Muslims, when in fact both sides in the real battle were Christian, the Basques have been replaced by 400,000 Saracens. Charlemagne did fight the Saracens in Iberia itself, but not in the Pyrenees. The Song of Roland, which commemorates the battle, was written by an unknown troubadour of the 11th century. It is the earliest surviving of the chansons de geste or epic poems of medieval France in the northern dialect or langue d'oïl of what became the French language. There is a tombstone near the Roncevaux Pass commemorating the area where it is traditionally held that Roland died.* La Brèche de Roland*Earliest manuscript of the Chanson de Roland, readable online images of the complete original, Bodleian Library MS. Digby 23 (Pt 2) "La Chanson de Roland, in Anglo-Norman, 12th century, ? 2nd quarter".
*Song of Roland at infoplease.com
References(1) http://www.sewanee.edu/Spanish/santiago/carpio.html
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