The Song of Roland
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50 free The Song of Roland trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Song of Roland is the oldest great poem in French: the tale of a rearguard trapped in a mountain pass, a hero too proud to call for help until it is too late, and a betrayal that an emperor has to avenge. It was performed aloud long before it was fixed on parchment, and it turned a minor defeat of Charlemagne's army into one of the founding legends of medieval chivalry. This quiz covers what a reader or a student of the poem is expected to know: who fights, who betrays whom and why, the famous sword and horn, the trial that ends the story, and the verse the poet worked in. It also goes behind the legend to the real ambush, the single old manuscript that preserved the poem, and the later writers, composers and cities that kept Roland's name alive. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so the quiz works as revision before a class test as well as a challenge for anyone who loves medieval epic.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which people really ambushed Charlemagne's rearguard, though The Song of Roland blames Saracens?
Basques
Basques, lightly armed and at home on the forested heights, cut down the heavy Frankish column and scattered before anyone could retaliate.
Q 02In The Song of Roland, what finally kills Roland, the hero no Saracen manages to cut down?
A burst temple
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.
Q 03Which Frankish baron betrays the rearguard after Roland names him for a deadly embassy?
Ganelon
Ganelon insists at his trial that it was private revenge, not treason, and the barons nearly let him go.
Q 04Which sword does Roland carry, a blade said to have come to Charlemagne from an angel?
Durendal
Durendal grew grander with each retelling: later Italian epics claimed the sword had once belonged to Hector of Troy.
Q 05Which word for a heroic champion first named Charlemagne's twelve knights, led by Roland?
Paladin
Paladin goes back to the Latin palatinus, 'of the palace', a title for the officials closest to a ruler.
Q 06Before which battle is the minstrel Taillefer said to have sung of Roland while juggling his sword?
Hastings
Hastings, in the chroniclers' telling, opened with Taillefer riding ahead of the Norman army, striking the first blow and dying in the fight.
Q 07Which German city's main square holds a stone Roland, a UNESCO-listed symbol of civic freedom?
Bremen
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.
Q 08At which pass between France and Spain is Roland's rearguard destroyed in The Song of Roland?
Roncevaux
Roncevaux saw a real Frankish rearguard wiped out in 778, and three centuries of retelling turned that skirmish into a clash of faiths.
Q 09What name does The Song of Roland give the horn that Roland is begged to sound for help?
Olifant
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.
Q 10How does the dying Roland try to destroy his sword so no Saracen can ever carry it?
Striking it on rock
Striking it on rock only splits the stone, because the blade will not break. Roland finally lies down on top of it and dies.
Q 11Which close companion pleads with Roland to sound his horn when the Saracen host comes into view?
Oliver
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.
Q 12Which city, now in Germany, is Charlemagne's capital in The Song of Roland, where the traitor is tried?
Aachen
Aachen appears in the poem under its French name, Aix. Charlemagne built his palace chapel there and was buried in it.
Q 13What family tie links Roland to the traitor who arranges the ambush in The Song of Roland?
Stepfather
Stepfather and stepson were at odds long before the embassy: the older man resents Roland's boasting and his popularity with the army.
Q 21Which Saracen king in The Song of Roland loses his right hand to Roland's sword and flees the field?
Marsile
Marsile reaches his city maimed and bedridden, and has to hand the defence of Spain to an overlord from across the sea.
Q 22Which emir of Babylon brings a vast army to Spain in The Song of Roland and dies fighting Charlemagne?
Baligant
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.
Q 23Which woman, promised to Roland, falls dead at Charlemagne's feet on learning Roland is dead?
Aude
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.
Q 14How is Roland related to Charlemagne in legend, a bond the lone historical record never mentions?
Nephew
Nephew of the emperor is the poets' promotion: the one surviving record of the real Roland calls him only a frontier governor.
Q 15Which Spanish city alone still holds out against Charlemagne as The Song of Roland opens?
Saragossa
Saragossa, today's Zaragoza, was the real goal in 778 as well: Charlemagne besieged it for over a month and marched home without it.
Q 16Which archangel comes to the sleeping Charlemagne as The Song of Roland ends, ordering a new war?
Gabriel
Gabriel's order leaves the old emperor in tears, tugging at his white beard and lamenting how hard his life is.
Q 17In which English university city is the oldest surviving manuscript of The Song of Roland kept?
Oxford
Oxford's Bodleian Library holds it: a copy made in the 1100s in Anglo-Norman, the French then written in England.
Q 18Which archbishop of Reims fights beside Roland in The Song of Roland and blesses the Frankish dead?
Turpin
Turpin borrows the name of Tilpin, a real bishop of Reims in Charlemagne's day whose career as a warrior is the poets' invention.
Q 19How is the traitor in The Song of Roland put to death once his champion loses a judicial duel?
Torn apart by horses
Torn apart by horses, one tied to each limb, he does not die alone: thirty relatives who stood by him are hanged.
Q 20Why does Roland at first refuse to call back Charlemagne's army when the Saracen host appears?
It would be cowardly
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.
Q 24Which Saracen queen in The Song of Roland is taken to France and baptised by persuasion, not force?
Bramimonde
Bramimonde wails beside the crowd that batters its own idols after her husband's defeat, and at her baptism she takes the name Juliana.
Q 25Which slender knight in The Song of Roland kills the mighty Pinabel in the duel that decides the traitor's guilt?
Thierry
Thierry is lean and slight beside his opponent, so his victory is taken as God's own ruling on the treason charge.
Q 26What is the name of Roland's swift warhorse, gored in thirty places before it falls?
Veillantif
Veillantif comes from a French expression meaning vigilant; Italian poets later renamed the animal Brigliadoro, 'golden bridle'.
Q 27Which sword of Charlemagne in The Song of Roland shares its name with a coronation blade in the Louvre?
Joyeuse
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.
Q 28What does the golden hilt of Roland's sword hold in The Song of Roland?
Holy relics
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.
Q 29What does the dying Roland hold up to God, the gesture of a vassal to his lord?
His glove
His glove is taken from his hand by an angel, and Roland's soul is then carried up to Paradise.
Q 30What miracle lets Charlemagne overtake the fleeing Saracens in The Song of Roland?
The sun stops moving
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.