Roland was the greatest of the legendary knights who served the medieval king Charlemagne. Stories of Roland circulated during the 1000’s, but the oldest surviving version is The Song of Roland, an epic poem written about 1100 by an unknown French author. The work may have been based on an actual event in A.D. 778, but it describes the hero as though he lived in the author’s time. In the epic, Roland shows his courage and devotion by accepting the dangerous assignment of protecting Charlemagne’s army from the Muslims as it crossed the Pyrenees, a mountain chain between France and Spain. A traitor betrays Roland and his men. They die in battle against the Muslims, but Roland’s bravery reflects the knightly ideal of service to one’s lord. Later German and Italian authors also wrote about Roland. Most of their works are longer than The Song of Roland and tell a more complicated story.
