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ROLAND, LEGEND OF

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Originally appearing in Volume V23, Page 465 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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ROLAND, See also:LEGEND OF . The legend of the See also:French epic See also:hero Roland (transferred to See also:Italian See also:romance as Orlando) is based on See also:authentic See also:history. See also:Charlemagne invaded See also:Spain in 778, and had captured Pampeluna, but failed before See also:Saragossa, when the See also:news of a Saxon revolt recalled him to the See also:banks of the See also:Rhine. On his See also:retreat to See also:France through the defiles of the See also:Pyrenees, See also:part of his See also:army was cut off from the See also:main See also:body by the See also:Basques, who had ambushed in a narrow See also:defile, and now drove the See also:rear-guard into a valley where it was surrounded and entirely destroyed. The Basques, after plundering the baggage, made See also:good their See also:escape, favoured by the darkness and by their knowledge of the ground. The incident is related in the Annales (See also:Pertz i. 159) commonly ascribed to See also:Einhard, and with more detail in Einhard's Vita Karoli (cap. ix.; Pertz ii. 448), where the names of the leaders are given. " In this See also:battle were slain Eggihard, praepositus of the royal table; See also:Anselm, See also:count of the See also:palace; and Hruodland, See also:praefect of the See also:Breton See also:march...." The See also:scene of the disaster is fixed by tradition at Roncevaux, on the road from Pampeluna to See also:Saint See also:Jean Pied de See also:Port. There is no See also:foundation in this See also:story for the fiction of the twelve peers, which may possibly arise from a still earlier ,tradition. In 636–37, according to the See also:Chronicles of Fredegarius (ed. Krusch p.

159), twelve chiefs, whose names are given, were sent by Dagobert against the Basques. The expedition was successful, but in an engagement fought in the valley of Subola, or Robola, identified with Manikin, which is not far from Roncevaux, the See also:

Duke Harembert, with other Frankish chiefs, was slain. Later fights in the same neighbourhood and under similar circumstances are related in 813 (Vita Hludowici; Pertz ii. 616), and especially in 824 (Einhard's Annales; Pertz i. 213). These incidents no doubt served to strengthen the tradition of the disaster to Charlemagne's rear-guard in 778, the importance of which was perhaps underrated by the Frankish historians and was certainly magnified in popular story. The author of the Vita Hludowici, See also:writing sixty years after the battle of Roncevaux, thought it superfluous to give the names of the fallen chiefs, as being See also:matter of See also:common See also:report. Growth of the Legend.—The choice of Roland or Hruodland as the hero of the story probably points to the See also:borders of French See also:Brittany as the See also:home of the legend. The exaggeration of a rear-guard See also:action into a See also:national defeat; the substitution of a vast army of See also:Saracens, the enemies of the Frankish nation and the See also:Christian faith, for the border tribe mentioned by Einhard;1 and the vengeance inflicted by Charlemagne, where in fact the enemy escaped with See also:complete impunity—all are in keeping with the See also:general See also:laws of romance. Charlemagne himself appears as the See also:ancient epic monarch, not as the See also:young See also:man he really was in 778. The earliest version of the legend which we possess See also:dates no earlier than the 1th See also:century, but there is abundant See also:evidence of the existence of a continuous tradition dating from the See also:original event, although its methods of transmission remain a vexed question. Roncevaux See also:lay on the route to Compostella, and the many pilgrims who must have passed the site from the See also:middle of the 9th century onwards may have helped to spread the story.

Whether the actual cantilena Rollandi chanted by Taillefer at the battle of See also:

Hastings (See also:William of See also:Malmesbury, De gestis regum angl. 242, and See also:Wace, See also:Brut. ii. r 1, 8035 seq.) was any part of the existing Chanson de Roland cannot be stated, but the choice of the legend on this occasion by the See also:trouvere is See also:proof of its popularity. The See also:oldest extant forms of the legend are: (a) chapters xix.–See also:xxx. of the Latin See also:chronicle, known as the Pseudo-See also:Turpin, 1 It is noteworthy, however, that an Arab historian, See also:Ibn-al-Athir, states that See also:Charles's assailants were the See also:Arabs of Saragossa, by whom he had been originally invited to interfere in Spain.which purports to be the See also:work of Turpin, See also:archbishop of See also:Reims, who died about Boo, but probably dates from the 12th century; (b) Carmen de proditione Guenonis, a poem in Latin distichs; and (c) the Chanson de Roland, a French chanson de geste of about 4000 lines, the oldest recension of which is in the Bodleian Library, See also:Oxford (MS. See also:Digby 23). It is in assonanced tirades, of unequal length, many of them terminated with the refrain Aoi. This MS. was written by an Anglo-See also:Norman See also:scribe about the end of the 12th century, and is a corrupt copy of a See also:text by a French trouvere of the middle of the lrth century. It See also:con- cludes with the words: " Ci fait la geste, que Turoldus declinet." There was a Turold (d. 1098) who was See also:abbot of. See also:Peterborough; another was See also:tutor to William the Conqueror and died in 1035. Even if we could identify this personage, we cannot tell whether he was the poet, the See also:minstrel or the scribe of the MS., but it seems likely that he was merely the scribe. The poem, which was first printed by Francisque See also:Michel (Oxford, 1837), is the finest See also:monument of the heroic See also:age of French epic. In its fundamental features it evidently dates back to the reign of Charlemagne, who is not represented as the capricious See also:despot of the later chansons de geste, but as governing in accordance with Frankish See also:custom, accepting the counsel of his barons, and carrying out the curious See also:procedure of Frankish See also:law.

Roland represents the monarchical See also:

idea, and was evidently, in its See also:primitive See also:form, written before the feudal revolts which weakened the See also:power of Charlemagne's successors. Its unity of conception, the severity and conciseness of the See also:language, the directness, vividness and sobriety of the narrative, See also:place it far above the chansons of later trouveres, with their wordiness and their loose, episodic construction. With the exception of the small place allotted to Alde, See also:women have practically no place in the story, and the romantic See also:element is thus absent. Roland's See also:master-passions are daring and an exaggerated conception of See also:honour, the extravagance of which is the cause of the disaster. His address to See also:Oliver before the battle is typical of the warlike spirit of the poem: " Notre empereur qui ses Francs nous laissa, Tels vingt mine hommes a pour nous mis a, part, Qu'il sait tres bien que pas un n'est couard. Pour son seigneur grands maux on souffrira, Terribles froids, grands chauds endurera, Et de son sang, de sa See also:chair on perdra! See also:Brandis to See also:lance; et moi, ma Durendal, Ma bonne See also:epee, que le Roi me donna. Et si je meurs, peut dire qui 1'See also:aura C'etait I'epee d'un tres See also:noble See also:vassal." (tr. See also:Petit de Julleville xi. 1114 seq.) The Story as related in the Chanson de Roland.—Charlemagne, after fighting for seven years in Spain, had conquered the whole See also:country with the exception of Saragossa, the seat of the Saracen See also:king Marsile. He was encamped before See also:Cordova when he received envoys from the Saracen king, sent to procure the evacuation of Spain by the See also:Franks through false offers of sub-See also:mission. Charlemagne held a See also:council of his barons, Naimes of See also:Bavaria, Roland, Oliver, Turpin, Ogier, Ganelon and the See also:rest.

Roland, the See also:

emperor's See also:nephew, was eager for See also:war; the See also:peace party was headed by Ganelon of Mayence.2 The Franks were weary of campaigning, and Ganelon's counsels won the See also:day. At the See also:suggestion of Roland, Ganelon, who was his stepfather, was entrusted with the See also:embassy to Ma*:.ile—a sufficiently perilous errand, since two former envoys had been beheaded by the Saracens. Ganelon, inspired by hatred of Roland and Oliver, agreed with Marsile to betray Roland and his comrades for ten See also:mule-loads of See also:gold. He then returned to Charlemagne bearing Marsile's supposed assent to the Frankish terms. The retreat began. Roland, at. Ganelon's instigation, was placed in command of the rear-guard. With him were the rest of the famous twelve peers,' his companions-in-arms, Oliver, Gerin, Gerier, Oton, Berengier, See also:Samson, Anseis, See also:Girard 2 Ganelon may perhaps be identified with Wenilo, archbishop of See also:Sens, whose See also:treason against Charles the Bald is related in the Annales Bertiniani (See also:anno 859). ' The lists vary in different texts. de See also:Roussillon, Engelier the Gascon, Ivon and Ivoire, and the See also:flower of the Frankish army. They had nearly reached the See also:summit of the pass when Oliver, who had mounted a high See also:rock, saw the advancing army of the Saracens, 400,000 strong. In vain Oliver begged Roland to See also:sound his See also:horn and summon Charlemagne to his aid.

A description of the battle, a See also:

series of single combats, follows. Oliver, with his See also:sword Hauteclere, rivalled Roland with Durendal. After the first fight, a second See also:division of the See also:pagan army appears, then a third. Roland's army was reduced to sixty men before he consented to sound his horn. Presently all were slain but Roland and Oliver, Turpin and another. Finally, when the Saracens, warned of the return of Charlemagne, had retreated, Roland alone survived on the See also:field of battle. With a last effort he blew his horn once more, and heard before he died the sound of Charlemagne's battlecry of " Montjoie." Charlemagne pursued the enemy, and destroyed their army. The raising of a second army by Baligant, the emir of See also:Babylon, and its defeat by the emperor, who slays Baligant in single combat, is obviously an See also:interpolation in the original narrative. The trouvere then relates the return of the Franks, the See also:burial of the heroes of Roncevaux, and, at See also:great length, the trial of Ganelon at See also:Aix, his See also:execution, and that of his See also:thirty kinsmen, and the See also:death of Alde, Roland's betrothed and Oliver's See also:sister, when she heard the news of Roland's death. The trial of Ganelon is one of the most curious parts of the story, providing, as it does, a full See also:account of the Frankish criminal procedure. Relations between the Earlier Forms of the Legend.—The Pseudo-Tur See also:pin represents a different recension of the story, and is throughout clerical in See also:tone. It was the trouvere of the Chanson de Roland who See also:developed the characters into epic types; he invented the heroic friendship of Roland and Oliver, the motives of Ganelon's treachery, and many other details.

The famous fight' between Roland and the See also:

giant Ferragus appears in the Pseudo-Turpin (See also:chapter xviii.), but not in the poem. The Chanson de Roland presupposes the existence of a whole See also:cycle of epic See also:poetry, probably in episodic form; it contains allusions to many events outside the narrative, some of which can be explained from other existing chansons, while others refer to narratives which are lost. In lines 590–603 of the poem Roland gives a See also:list of the countries he has conquered for Charles, from See also:Constantinople and See also:Hungary on the See also:east to See also:Scotland on the See also:west. Of most of these exploits no trace remains in extant poems, but his See also:capture of See also:Bordeaux, of Nobles, of See also:Carcassonne, occur in various compilations. Roland was variously represented by the romancers as the son of Charlemagne's sister Gilles or Berte and the See also:knight Milon d'Anglers. The romantic See also:episode of the reconciliation of the pair with Charlemagne through Roland's childish prattle (Berte et Milon) is probably See also:foreign to the original legend. In the Scandinavian versions Roland is the son of Charlemagne and his sister, a See also:recital probably borrowed from See also:mythology. His enfances, or youthful exploits, were, according to Aspremont, performed in See also:Italy against the giant Eaumont, but in Girais de Viane his first See also:taste of battle is under the walls of See also:Vienne, where Oliver, at first his adversary, becomes his See also:brother-in-arms. Other Versions.—Most closely allied to the Oxford Roland are (a) a version in Italianized French preserved in a 13th or 14th century MS. in the library of St See also:Mark, See also:Venice (MS. Fr. iv.) ; (b) the Ruolantes Liet (ed. W. See also:Grimm, See also:Gottingen, 1838) of the Swabian See also:priest Konrad (fl.

1130), who gave, however, a pious tone to the whole;' (c) the 8th See also:

branch of the Karlamagnus-See also:saga (ed. C. Unger, See also:Christiania, 1860), and the Danish version of that compilation. In the 12th century the Chanson de Roland was modernized by replacing the assonance by See also:rhyme, and by amplifications and A proof of the popularity of the legend in See also:Germany is supplied by the so-called Roland statues, of which perhaps the most famous example is that of See also:Bremen. Mention of a statua Rolandi is made in a privilegium granted by See also:Henry V. to the See also:town of Bremen in 1111. The Rolands-sc ule were probably symbolic of the judicial rights possessed by the towns where they are found, and it has been suggested that the word arises from false See also:etymology with Rothland-sdule, red-See also:land-See also:pillar, the See also:symbol of the See also:possession of the power of See also:life Ind death.additions. Several See also:MSS. of this rhymed recension, sometimes known as Roncevaux, are preserved. In the See also:prose compilations of Galien and in See also:David Aubert's Conque"tes de Charlemagne (1458) the story kept its popularity for many centuries. In See also:England the story was understood in the original French, and the See also:English romances of Charlemagne (q.v.) are mostly derived from See also:late and inferior See also:sources. In Spain the legend underwent a curious transformation. See also:Spanish patriotism created a Spanish ally of Marsile, See also:Bernard del Carpio, to be the See also:rival and See also:victor of Roland. It was in Italy that the Roland legend had its greatest See also:fortune: Charlemagne and Roland appear in the Paradiso (See also:canto xviii.) of See also:Dante; the statues of Roland and Oliver appear on the See also:doorway of the See also:cathedral of See also:Verona; and the French chansons de geste regularly appeared in a corrupt Italianized French.

The Roland legend passed through a See also:

succession of revisions, and, as the See also:Spagna, forming the 8th See also:book of the great compilation of Carolingian romance, the Reali di See also:Francia, kept its popularity down to the See also:Renaissance. The 'story of Roland (Orlando) in a greatly modified form is the subject of the poems of See also:Luigi See also:Pulci (Morgante See also:Maggiore, 1481), of Matteo See also:Boiardo (Orlando innamorato, 1486), of See also:Ariosto (Orlando furioso, 1516), and of See also:Francesco See also:Berni (Orlando, 1541).

End of Article: ROLAND, LEGEND OF

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