It's hard to know exactly how much of the existing poem was collaboratively written by generations of jongleurs and how much was added by later scribes.īut at least everyone started with the same basic story.

This is the environment that our Song of Roland grew up in, from the factual story that took place in 778 to the 12th-century written-down poem you're reading right now. We're talking split bones and smashed faces and brave Christian knights triumphing over the wicked forces of Islam. Some stayed year-round at royal courts, others traveled from place to place with harps strung on their backs, but all of them tried to please their high-ranking listeners with juicy, heart-thumping, epic poetry. In ye olde medieval times, when everything was written in Latin, dudes called jongleurs were some of the few artists composing and performing in the vernacular (i.e., in spoken languages, like the early forms of German, French, and Italian). So what do we know about this long, bloody poem about good and evil? (1) the Song of Roland originated in the medieval oral tradition of memorizing and performing songs and (2) it's based on a kernel of actual history. This translation goes with 'tells,' but it could also mean 'transcribes' or 'composes.' So was Turoldus the poet who invented everything? A scribe copying an earlier, lost manuscript? Or some groupie writing down the lyrics to his favorite song? No one knows. Problem is, 'declinet' is one of those slippery, fish-like words with a number of possible meanings.

We do get a tantalizing authorial hint in the last line of the Oxford manuscript, the oldest (1140-1170 C.E.) and longest of the Roland manuscripts, and the one that's usually translated: 'Ci falt la geste que Turoldus declinet' or in English, 'Here ends the story that Turoldus tells' (291.4002).īingo? Not quite. You know that dude-he/she/they is/are also responsible for Beowulf, the Nibelungenlied, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It doesn't help that this poem survives in nine different manuscripts, each with its own set of frustrating variations. Like a lot of medieval bestsellers, the Song of Roland was written by Anonymous.

When a traitorous Frank named Ganelon allies with Marsile to get Roland and his rearguard massacred, it's on. Charlemagne and his Frankish army (the good guys) have already conquered most of Spain and are now debating whether to capture one more city, Saragossa, ruled by King Marsile (the Big Bad of the bad guys) or just chuck it and head back to France for some bacon-and-egg croissants. The first stanza plonks us down right in the middle of it. France versus Spain in a fight to the death: the Song of Rolandis like the World Cup… but with swords.

La Chanson de Roland by Unknown