Battle of Roncesvalles

The battle of Roncesvalles took place on August 15, 778 (according to other authors, on some unidentified date in 808), possibly in Valcarlos, near the Roncesvalles gorge in the Pyrenees Navarro, when a large army of Basques ambushed a part of Charlemagne's army, after his invasion of the Iberian Peninsula. The battle occurred in the context of attempts to carry out a Carolingian Hispanic March in the area, which was only achieved in the Pamplona territory for 10 years, from 806 to 816.

The attack by the Basques was in retaliation for Charlemagne's destruction of the walls of his capital, Pamplona. As the Franks withdrew across the Pyrenees back to France, most likely the rear of Charlemagne's army was cut off, made one last defense, and was completely annihilated. Among those who died in the battle was Roldán, a Frankish commander. Roldán was killed in combat at the hands of Bernardo del Carpio from Palencia. His death elevated him and the paladins, the chief warriors of Charlemagne's court, into legend, becoming the quintessential model of knighthood and also greatly influencing the chivalric code of the Middle Ages.

There are numerous works written about the battle, some of which modify and exaggerate the events. The battle is recounted in the Cantar de Roldán, from the XI century, the oldest important work of surviving French literature, and in Orlando furioso, one of the most famous works of Italian literature. Modern adaptations of the battle include books, plays, works of fiction, and monuments in the Pyrenees.

Location

The exact location of the place of the battle is unknown, since the Carolingian chroniclers do not mention with a place name the port through which the troops passed or the gorge where the ambush took place. The historiography of the IX century and traditionally the population placed it in Luçayde (current Valcarlos, Luzaide in Basque, the last one coming from Vallis-Karoli in relation to the explicit mention of the valley of Carlos). It is as a result of the Canción de Roldán, in the XII century (circa 1150), when it is located further south, in Rozaballes or Renzeval (Roncesvalles). Recent studies give different possibilities. Thus Rita Lejeune placed it in the Perthus pass, in the current Girona eastern Pyrenees. The historian Antonio Ubieto concluded that it was in the port of Palo in the Ansó valley of the current Huesca Pyrenees, when they used the Roman road from Zaragoza to Bearne. José María Jimeno Jurío in his conclusions, subsequent to the previous ones, opted for the Valcarlos-Luzaide hollow. Iñaki Sagredo, for his part, has been studying this event since the year 2000. His first impressions were published in the reissue of the book by José María Jimeno in 2004. In its subsequent publication, in 2013, it opens up the range of possibilities, although it continues to list the passage from Roncesvalles to Valcarlos as the main place of the ambush.

Prolegomena and battle

Memorial in Roncesvalles.

Charlemagne's interest in Hispanic affairs led him to support a rebellion, started a year earlier in the Valiato of the Upper March of al-Andalus, of Sulaymán al-Arabí, Vali of Barcelona, who intended to rise up as Emir of Córdoba with the support of the Franks, in exchange for delivering the Plaza de Saraqusta (Zaragoza) to the Frankish emperor.

Between May and June 778 Charlemagne arrived in Pamplona, which capitulated. However, Sulaymán refused to surrender Zaragoza upon his arrival and Charlemagne laid siege to the city, capturing Sulaymán, who was marching with his troops to join the rebel forces to the emir. As the news of the Saxon uprising arrived, the Franks lifted the siege and began to withdraw, taking him with them as a hostage. Arriving again in Pamplona, Charlemagne razed the walls, as described in the Anales regios and in the Annales de Gestis Caroli Magni of the Saxon Poet, and also completely destroyed the city to leave it and return to the Pyrenees along the same path as when coming.

Passing through the Valcarlos gorge (etymological transformation of Vallis-Karoli), the rearguard of the Frankish army, some 20,000 soldiers led by Roland, Charlemagne's nephew, and the rest of the Twelve Pairs of France, was defeated on August 15, 778 by hosts probably made up of contingents of Basque tribes. Sulayman was freed in this battle.

The first texts relate that the attack was carried out on the tail of the rear, as the weakest point, and that they used the narrowness of the road (angustiae viae), the narrowness of the places (angustus locus) and dense forests (opacitas silvarum). Darts and stones were thrown and heavy rocks fell rolling down the slopes, surprising the army creating panic, which made them rush down the ravine without time to react (Anales Regios, which dates back to the year 829).. A large number of Frankish knights died, among which Oliveros and Roldán stood out. In the initial texts nothing is said about Roldán's agony and death, since his body was not found.

The Hispanic Brand at the beginning of the centuryIXonly achieved and maintained in the Western Pyrenees for 10 years.

The Attackers

It is not known exactly who the assailants were. Historians handle three hypotheses. The first says that it was a coalition of Basques and Muslims; the second, a combination of Basques from both sides of the Pyrenees; and the third that they were ultra-Pyrenean Basques who were dissatisfied with the strengthening of the Frankish regime in Aquitaine. In an almost contemporary writing of the time, in the Royal Annals, they only make the Basques the protagonists of the ambush. It is in the Canción de Roldán and others from the XII century where the attackers are replaced by Saracens, since it describes a huge army of four hundred thousand Saracens distributed in squadrons under the command of the twelve Muslim Peers (equivalent to the Frankish organization). Ramón Menéndez Pidal concludes that Basques and Muslims took part in the trap together, in the context of alliances and family relations between the first leaders of Pamplona and the Banu Qasi family of the Ebro valley, which began in 734.

Stories about the facts

There are no accounts of these events from the Basques of the VIII century, whose leaders established the kingdom of Pamplona, which evolved into the kingdom of Navarre.

The main Carolingian texts collected in the Anales regios (until 829), Annales Mettenses priores, Vita Karoli Magni imperatoris by Eginhardo, Annales de Gestis Caroli Magni by the Saxon Poet and Vita Hludowici imperatoris by the Limousin Astronomer record these events in the years following the battle.

The Anales Mettenses Priores (until 805) are anonymous and were written in Metz twenty-five years after the massacre, they are the closest in time and although they "silence the disaster, they are extremely valuable because they expressly note the route followed by Charlemagne between Aquitaine and Pamplona", as José María Jimeno Jurío refers.

The Anales Regios, also anonymous, were written fifty years after the events:

Having decided to return (to France), he entered the Pyrenees woods (Pyrenei jumpum ingressus est), from whose peaks the Basques had laid an ambush. By attacking the rear (extremun agmen) spreads tumult throughout the army (totum exercitum magno tumultu disturbnt), and although the francs were superior to the Basques, both in armament and in value, the steepness of the land and the difference in the way of fighting made them inferior. In the struggle the majority of the paladins that the king had set before the forces were killed. The impediment was looted. The enemy disappeared quickly thanks to the knowledge of the land.

Regime anals

Eghinardo, who was Charlemagne's biographer in the story Vita Karoli Magni, written fifty years later, describes:

He marched to Hispania with all the available forces, and saved the Pyrenees mountains, succeeded in subscribing all the fortresses and castles he found. On his return, on the very top of the Pyrenees, he had to experience the perfidy of the Basques when the army paraded in a long column, as demanded by the narrowness of the place. The vacons ambushed in the vertice of the mountain, taking off from the top, pushed the ravine to the column that escorted the impediment that closed the march, causing the men to rush to the valley below, and hindering the struggle killed them to the last. After which, taking hold of the loot, protected by the night it fell, they dispersed very quickly. He helped the Basques not only the lightness of their armament, but also the configuration of the place where luck was decided. To the Franks, both the heaviness of their armament and being in a lower place, made them inferior at all times. Among many others, the Egyptian Seneschal, the Count of Anselmo and Roldán Palace, prefect of the Brand of Brittany, perished. This failure could not be avenged immediately, because the enemies dispersed in such a way that there was no trace of where they could be found.

Eghinardo, Vita Karoli Magni

The Limousin astronomer, biographer of Ludovico Pío:

He decided to cross the steep Pyrenees, and with the help of Christ to help the Church that cruel Saracen yoke. There was a very high mountain that almost touched the sky; a mountain of steep rocks, bleaked by the tupid forests, dark and dark, and with narrow paths that hinder the passage of both a great army and a small group. Charlemagne managed to open it with the help of heaven.
[...] The glory of the happy feat was severely bewildered by the wicked fortune. After the happy march of return, a setback arose. The men of the rear were wiped out on the mountain.

Lemosin

The Saxon Poet, a century after the battle, recounts that the king was ahead and had already passed the passes when the attack took place:

Having penetrated (the king) upon his return to the deep sling of the Pyrenees, when the weary army went through the narrow paths, the Basques dared to lay down ashes under the high vertex of the mountain. An abominable crowd of victorious thieves who snatch the immense spoil, killing several palatial ministers responsible for guarding wealth. Enriched by the optimal dispossessions, thieves flee through undoubted paths in the midst of the deep valley forests that only they knew. They get safe because of the escape and the night he was lying on it. They left no trace and there was no possibility of reprisals.

This historical event also gave rise to epic tales and poems with versions in the X century that would lead to the collected legend in the oldest version of the Cantar de Roldán, known as the Oxford manuscript of the XII century, made up of 4,002 verses grouped into stanzas recounting an open battle located in Roncesvalles, instead of an ambush as it really was, and which tells that Roldán rang his ivory olifante at the vertex of Ibañeta to warn the bulk of the army, who rested in Valcarlos. In the legendary version of the Chanson de Roland, Charlemagne thought he heard Roland's olifante asking for help, but Ganelon convinces him that it doesn't matter. When the twelve imperial paladins and Roldán fell wounded, he threw his glorious sword, "Durandarte", into the water so that it would not fall into the hands of the enemy.

Before this version there is a variant included in the Nota Emilianense, dated by its discoverer Dámaso Alonso between 1065 and 1075, where the duodecim neptis (the future twelve peers of France) with the names of Rodlane, Bertlane, Oggero Spatacurta, Ghigelmo Alcorbitunas, Olibero and Bishop Turpin. This Nota Emilianense places the death of Roldán in Rozaballes.

In 1066, during the battle of Hastings, the minstrel Incisor Ferri or Taillefer encouraged the French by singing the deeds of the heroes killed in Roncesvalles:

Taillefer, qui mult bien blackout

sor a cheval tost alout
devant le duc alout blackant
of Karlemaigne et de Rolant
et d ́Oliver et des vassals

qui moururent in Rencevals.

In book IV of the Codex Calixtinus (also called Historia Turpini and Pseudo Turpin), at the time of the crusades in the Holy Land and the reconquest of al-Andalus, It is said that in seven years Charlemagne conquered all Moorish Hispania, except Zaragoza. Roldán's feat in Roncesvalles is recounted in chapter XXI. The location that makes a copy of the Canción de Roldán in the area where the hospital of Santa María was founded in 1132, but as a novelty uses the Vallis Karoli where the French avant-garde, which denotes the already popular use of this denomination. There is explicit recognition of the use of the Luzaide/Valcarlos path.

Fonts

• ALVARCarlos, Roldán in Zaragoza, Zaragoza, CAI, 2000. ISBN 84-95306-53-0
• CERVERA FRASM to José, The Kingdom of Saraqusta, Zaragoza, CAI, 1999. ISBN 84-88305-93-1
• CORRAL, José Luis, History of Zaragoza. Muslim Zaragoza (714–1118)Zaragoza, Ayto. de Zaragoza and CAI, 1998. ISBN 84-8069-155-7
• SAGREED, Iñaki, "La Derrota de Carlomagno. Research on the Battle of Roncesvalles 778", Pamplona, Editorial Pamiela, 2013. ISBN 978-84-7681-781-0
• VIGUERA MOLINSM.a Jesus, Muslim AragonSaragossa, look at editors, 1988. ISBN 84-86778-06-9
• VIGUERA MOLINSM.a Jesus, Islam in Aragon, Zaragoza, CAI (Col. "Mariano de Pano y Ruata", n. 9), 1995. ISBN 84-88305-27-3