50 Fun Facts About The Song of Roland

Which people really ambushed Charlemagne's rearguard, though The Song of Roland blames Saracens?

Basques, lightly armed and at home on the forested heights, cut down the heavy Frankish column and scattered before anyone could retaliate.

In The Song of Roland, what finally kills Roland, the hero no Saracen manages to cut down?

A burst temple, from the sheer force of sounding his horn, kills Roland rather than any enemy blow. The blast still carries far enough for Charlemagne to hear it and turn back.

Which Frankish baron betrays the rearguard after Roland names him for a deadly embassy?

Ganelon insists at his trial that it was private revenge, not treason, and the barons nearly let him go.

Which sword does Roland carry, a blade said to have come to Charlemagne from an angel?

Durendal grew grander with each retelling: later Italian epics claimed the sword had once belonged to Hector of Troy.

Which word for a heroic champion first named Charlemagne's twelve knights, led by Roland?

Paladin goes back to the Latin palatinus, 'of the palace', a title for the officials closest to a ruler.

Before which battle is the minstrel Taillefer said to have sung of Roland while juggling his sword?

Hastings, in the chroniclers' telling, opened with Taillefer riding ahead of the Norman army, striking the first blow and dying in the fight.

Which German city's main square holds a stone Roland, a UNESCO-listed symbol of civic freedom?

Bremen will stay free for as long as its Roland stands, the legend runs, so a spare statue is said to be hidden in the town hall vaults.

At which pass between France and Spain is Roland's rearguard destroyed in The Song of Roland?

Roncevaux saw a real Frankish rearguard wiped out in 778, and three centuries of retelling turned that skirmish into a clash of faiths.

What name does The Song of Roland give the horn that Roland is begged to sound for help?

Olifant comes from the word for elephant, whose tusk it was carved from. Roland ends up cracking it over the helmet of a Saracen who tries to rob him.

How does the dying Roland try to destroy his sword so no Saracen can ever carry it?

Striking it on rock only splits the stone, because the blade will not break. Roland finally lies down on top of it and dies.

Which close companion pleads with Roland to sound his horn when the Saracen host comes into view?

Oliver is the cool head to Roland's daring, and English still speaks of giving 'a Roland for an Oliver' when a blow is matched in kind.

Which city, now in Germany, is Charlemagne's capital in The Song of Roland, where the traitor is tried?

Aachen appears in the poem under its French name, Aix. Charlemagne built his palace chapel there and was buried in it.

What family tie links Roland to the traitor who arranges the ambush in The Song of Roland?

Stepfather and stepson were at odds long before the embassy: the older man resents Roland's boasting and his popularity with the army.

How is Roland related to Charlemagne in legend, a bond the lone historical record never mentions?

Nephew of the emperor is the poets' promotion: the one surviving record of the real Roland calls him only a frontier governor.

Which Spanish city alone still holds out against Charlemagne as The Song of Roland opens?

Saragossa, today's Zaragoza, was the real goal in 778 as well: Charlemagne besieged it for over a month and marched home without it.

Which archangel comes to the sleeping Charlemagne as The Song of Roland ends, ordering a new war?

Gabriel's order leaves the old emperor in tears, tugging at his white beard and lamenting how hard his life is.

In which English university city is the oldest surviving manuscript of The Song of Roland kept?

Oxford's Bodleian Library holds it: a copy made in the 1100s in Anglo-Norman, the French then written in England.

Which archbishop of Reims fights beside Roland in The Song of Roland and blesses the Frankish dead?

Turpin borrows the name of Tilpin, a real bishop of Reims in Charlemagne's day whose career as a warrior is the poets' invention.

How is the traitor in The Song of Roland put to death once his champion loses a judicial duel?

Torn apart by horses, one tied to each limb, he does not die alone: thirty relatives who stood by him are hanged.

Why does Roland at first refuse to call back Charlemagne's army when the Saracen host appears?

It would be cowardly, Roland insists, and a stain on his family's name. By the time he relents, the call can bring only revenge, not rescue.

Which Saracen king in The Song of Roland loses his right hand to Roland's sword and flees the field?

Marsile reaches his city maimed and bedridden, and has to hand the defence of Spain to an overlord from across the sea.

Which emir of Babylon brings a vast army to Spain in The Song of Roland and dies fighting Charlemagne?

Baligant's Babylon is the medieval name for Cairo, not the Mesopotamian city, and he is drawn as a pagan mirror image of the aged Charlemagne.

Which woman, promised to Roland, falls dead at Charlemagne's feet on learning Roland is dead?

Aude has just been offered the emperor's own son Louis in Roland's place; she answers that she will not outlive him, and collapses.

Which Saracen queen in The Song of Roland is taken to France and baptised by persuasion, not force?

Bramimonde wails beside the crowd that batters its own idols after her husband's defeat, and at her baptism she takes the name Juliana.

Which slender knight in The Song of Roland kills the mighty Pinabel in the duel that decides the traitor's guilt?

Thierry is lean and slight beside his opponent, so his victory is taken as God's own ruling on the treason charge.

What is the name of Roland's swift warhorse, gored in thirty places before it falls?

Veillantif comes from a French expression meaning vigilant; Italian poets later renamed the animal Brigliadoro, 'golden bridle'.

Which sword of Charlemagne in The Song of Roland shares its name with a coronation blade in the Louvre?

Joyeuse, the poem claims, flashes thirty different colours in a day. A sword of that name was used to crown French kings from the 1200s.

What does the golden hilt of Roland's sword hold in The Song of Roland?

Holy relics fill the hilt: a tooth of St Peter, blood of St Basil, hair of St Denis and a scrap of the Virgin Mary's robe.

What does the dying Roland hold up to God, the gesture of a vassal to his lord?

His glove is taken from his hand by an angel, and Roland's soul is then carried up to Paradise.

What miracle lets Charlemagne overtake the fleeing Saracens in The Song of Roland?

The sun stops moving at God's command until the chase is over, and the fugitives drown trying to cross a deep river in full armour.

Into which Spanish river are the fleeing Saracens driven to drown in The Song of Roland?

The Ebro in the poem runs deep and fast with no boat in sight, and the armoured riders who leap in sink to the bottom.

Which genre of medieval French epic about kings, vassals and war has The Song of Roland as its first example?

Chanson de geste means 'song of heroic deeds'. Dozens of these epics survive, most of them far less famous than the first.

What name is given to the stanzas of irregular length in which The Song of Roland is composed?

Laisses vary freely in length, and the poet often retells one moment in two or three of them in a row, each from a new angle.

Which three unexplained letters end many lines in the oldest manuscript of The Song of Roland?

AOI has never been decoded: one guess is a cue for the performer to change tempo, another a scribe's mark for a departure from his copy text.

Which name appears in the last line of The Song of Roland, though nobody knows if he wrote it or copied it?

Turoldus has been hunted among the abbots and bishops of the day, and even in a caption on the Bayeux Tapestry, with no match that convinces.

In which Renaissance epic by Ariosto does a lovesick Roland lose his wits for Angelica?

Orlando Furioso sends another knight to the Moon, where everything lost on Earth ends up, to bring the hero's wits home in a bottle.

Which Italian poet set Roland among heaven's warriors and the man who betrayed him deep in Hell?

Dante meets Roland in the sphere of Mars, while the man who betrayed him lies in Cocytus, at the very bottom of Hell.

Which courtier and biographer of Charlemagne left the only historical mention of the real Roland?

Einhard gives the real Roland a single line, as one of three nobles named among the dead of a mountain ambush.

The real Roland governed a frontier march facing which region, far from the Spanish border?

Brittany's border, the Breton March, was his command, and he seems to have been the first Frankish official put in charge of Breton affairs.

Which city's walls did Charlemagne pull down shortly before the real attack on Roland's rearguard?

Pamplona lost its walls as the Franks withdrew, possibly so the city could never be used against them; the mountain ambush is often read as revenge.

In which region of northern Spain does the pass where Roland's rearguard fell lie today?

Navarre keeps the memory close: the small church in the village below the pass displays several curiosities associated with Roland.

The pass where Roland fell is now an early stage of the pilgrim road to which apostle's shrine?

Saint James draws thousands of walkers a year over the pass, and the village just beyond it is their first resting place after the climb from the French side.

Which French town's cliff face held a copy of Roland's sword that was stolen in 2024?

Rocamadour's legend says the dying Roland hurled the sword away and it flew hundreds of kilometres to lodge in the cliff above the town.

Which battle cry do the Franks shout in The Song of Roland, later the war cry of French kings?

Montjoie is first recorded in this poem, and nobody is sure where it comes from: roadside cairns and a 'mount of joy' are among the guesses.

Which god wrongly credited to Muslims in The Song of Roland became an English word for a scold?

Termagant was played on the English stage as a ranting figure in a long gown, and audiences came to take the character for a woman.

Which travelling medieval performers sang or recited epics like The Song of Roland for a living?

Jongleurs share a root with the English word juggler, the Latin for a jester, and the same entertainers might tumble, play music or do tricks.

Which crime novelist published a verse translation of The Song of Roland in the last year of her life?

Dorothy L. Sayers had taken a first-class degree in medieval French long before she invented Lord Peter Wimsey.

Which court composer of Louis XIV wrote the opera Roland, in which the knight runs mad for love?

Lully's opera opened in 1685 in the stables at Versailles, converted for the occasion. Its hero ends by regaining his reason and riding back to war.

Which English novelist made the hero of The Confidential Agent a former scholar of The Song of Roland?

Graham Greene has the scholar, turned secret agent by a civil war, keep measuring himself and the people he meets against the poem's characters.

How many years do the Saracens in The Song of Roland believe Charlemagne has already lived?

More than 200 years is the Saracen king's estimate, and he marvels that so ancient a conqueror has not yet tired of war.