SOURCE: Brault, Gerard J. Introduction to “The Song of Roland”: An Analytical Edition, Vol. 1: Introduction and Commentary, pp. 1-116. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1978.

In the following excerpt, Brault discusses the historical, political, and religious background to The Song of Roland.

1. the Historical Event

The Song of Roland is an epic poem that recounts the events surrounding the death of Charlemagne's nephew Roland at Roncevaux in the Pyrenees. The Emperor and his men were journeying home after a military campaign in Spain. The disaster actually took place in the year 778, some three centuries before the poem is generally dated.¹

In 732, twenty-one years after landing on the Spanish Peninsula, the Saracens were decisively stopped at Poitiers by Charles Martel (688?-741), Charlemagne's grandfather.² Throughout this Muslim advance, however, Christians in the Asturias, the northwestern corner of Spain, had succeeded in resisting the general onslaught. By the ninth...