Roland, with his sword Durandal, is the hero of the medieval Chanson de Roland. But he was also a historical character, warden of the Breton marches, who in 778 accompanied the Emperor Charlemagne on a campaign to support the Muslim ruler of Zaragoza against the Emir of Córdoba. The mission was a fiasco, and on the way home the Franks sacked the Navarrese capital of Pamplona. In revenge, the Basques ambushed and decimated Charlemagne's rearguard, commanded by Roland, as it withdrew through the gorges above Roncevaux. The chanson has it that infidel Saracens were the dastardly foe, but this was propaganda dreamed up five hundred years later during the Crusades, in order to demonize the Muslim foe.
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