SOURCE: “The Ideal Depiction of Charlemagne in La Chanson de Roland,”Viator, Vol. 7, 1976, pp. 123-39.

In the following essay, Niles argues that Charlemagne, not Roland, is the chief hero of La Chanson de Roland and that Charlemagne’s seeming passivity actually “represents power in the pure majesty of its potentiality.”

The Charlemagne of La Chanson de Roland has seemed to many an enigmatic figure. On the one hand he is consistently praised. On the other hand he does fairly little. He seeks out the advice of his lords and accepts it when it is given. He appears to be duped by Marsile and Ganelon. For the greater part of the poem he seems little more than a figurehead, while the attention of the audience is commanded by the high drama of Ganelon’s treason and Roland’s death. Only once does he enter fully into action, to put...