The Song of Roland: Summary, Characters, and Legacy

Synopsis

The book deals with historical facts, but transformed: the aggressors, Basques, become Saracen Muslims, which allows for issuing a crusade and triggering events based on the betrayal of Ganelon. Roland is the nephew of Emperor Charlemagne and has a close friend, Oliveros, a non-historical character.

After seven years of Crusade, Emperor Charlemagne conquered Spain from the Moors. Only Zaragoza, city of King Marsilio, resists. The Franks are suspicious about peace proposals. Roland proposes his stepfather, Ganelon, as ambassador. Ganelon believes that Roland intends to send him to his death and decides to get revenge. As ambassador, he prepares treason against Roland, stirring the Moors, who are responsible for the harassment they are subjected to. Marsilio suggests to Ganelon a promising offer: Charlemagne's troops will retreat, and they can attack the French rearguard, which will be led by Roland and the Twelve Peers of France. Charlemagne returns to France, and, based on Ganelon's proposal, Roland leads the rear.

Charlemagne crossed the Pyrenees. The rearguard led by Roland falls to the teeming army of Marsilio. Despite sage advice from Oliver, Roland, brave and reckless, does not use his horn (the ivory horn) to call to his aid the main army, which has already passed the gorge. Roland, assisted by the flower of French chivalry, fights bravely, rejecting two waves of heathens, but at a high price. One by one, the knights fall to the incalculable number of Moors who harass them. Roland finally decides to blow the ivory horn to warn his uncle, Emperor Charlemagne. He does so with such force that it bursts his temples. But it's too late; he remains alone in the fight and succumbs, like the others, facing the enemy. Before dying, he wants to break his sword, Durandarte, from falling into enemy hands, but the stone against which he hits his sword only damages it.

When Charlemagne hears the horn demanding relief, Ganelon is suspected of betrayal and arrested. Charlemagne returns to Roncesvalles at the head of his troops, chasing the Moors who beat a retreat and exterminating them on the banks of the Ebro. But once Marsilio's troops are defeated, Charlemagne must face Baligant, Admiral of Babylon. In that battle, Baligant is killed by Charlemagne, who finally gets to take Zaragoza, where Marsilio dies furious. After the burial of Roland, Olivier, and Archbishop Turpin in the church of Saint-Romain at Blaye, the army returns to Aquisgran.

Olivier's sister, Aude, dies of grief upon learning of the death of her beloved Roland.

Ganelon is put on trial. He denies having betrayed and claims to have sought revenge on the one who had sent him to his death. He appeals to the trial of God. Ganelon's defending champion, Pinabel, is defeated by Thierry d'Anjou, who strives for Roland. Ganelon dies quartered. Charlemagne sees the Archangel Saint Gabriel in his dreams, who announces victory and revenge.

The most important characters are strongly characterized by:

• Charlemagne: wise, fatherly old man.
• Roland: wild and reckless valor.
• Olivier: the judicious.
• Archbishop Turpin: who died blessing his fellow soldiers after having fought like them.
• Ganelon: the envious, hypocritical, and treacherous.

This poem was widely reported in all literatures of Europe and was a source of inspiration for other epic poems of the moment.

See also