Historical fiction is a genre in which fiction is based on and fleshes out a backbone of historical fact. Occasionally, though, the partnership goes both ways, and fiction can affect history.
The current economic calamity in Spain that arose from austerity responses to the financial crisis is having some knock-on effects. One of these is that the Autonomous Community of Catalonia is once again calling for independence, a condition it has long sought for but achieved for only a couple of centuries a millennium ago. The history here is in fact relevant to one of the oldest works of Western literature written in the vernacular, The Song of Roland.
La Chanson de Roland, or in English The Song of Roland, is a chanson de geste, or "song of deeds", describing heroic failure followed by redemption: the massacre of the rearguard of Charlemagne's Frankish army in the Pyrenean pass of Roncesvalles (or Roncevaux, depending on whether you prefer the Spanish or the French) by the Saracens as it returned from a campaign in Spain back to the Frankish homeland, avenged by the main body of the Franks hurrying back too late to save the rearguard -- and too late to save the hero of the poem, who dies before the midpoint of the work. This led to an epic clash between the Frankish army and a Saracen relief army, which in the poem is really the Christians versus the Muslims, won by the Christians thanks to divine intervention.
The Song of Roland is one of the earliest and generally considered to be the greatest of the chansons de gestes. It is also one of the most influential works in Medieval European literature, both from a literary and from a political perspective, rapidly translated into numerous languages, including various German, Italian, and Dutch languages, Latin, even Old Norse. Today, 1000 years later, the poem sounds dated, with its simplistic Christian vs Saracen storyline and its lavish descriptions of violence, yet as a song about courage and honor while paying the ultimate price against impossible odds it struck a chord that resonates even to the present day. Roland's great sword Durendal might be the best known named sword behind Arthur's Excalibur (there is, inevitably, a modern weapon -- an airport busting bomb -- named after it). His great horn Olifant might be even better known. The poem itself almost certainly contributed to the sense of Holy War that would over the centuries filter in from across the Pyrenees into Spain and ultimately end with the Spanish Inquisition and the fall of the Kingdom of Granada in 1492.
The earliest complete version dates from the middle 12th century and currently resides in the Bodleian Library. The poem itself was likely written by a certain Turoldus in the late 11th century, perhaps a little earlier, possibly as late as the middle 12th, and describes an event that took place in 778, 300 years before the poem. That said, the basic storyline and variations of the epic were extant in Northern France (probably originally Brittany) in the oral tradition well before the version we have come to know and quickly became popular throughout Northern Europe. It is significant that Northern Europe does not include Spain, where the events described take place.
But what was the poem about, why was it so influential, and what actually happened at Roncesvalles? Some thoughts over the break.
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