After the death of Roland, Charlemagne and his warriors arrive on the battlefield, and all they discover are corpses. The pagans have fled, but the Franks are on their tail, driving them into the Ebro River, where they all perish. Meanwhile, Baligant, Babylon’s formidable emir, has come to Spain to assist his subordinate Marsilla in fending off the Frankish menace. Baligant and his massive Muslim army pursue Charlemagne and his Christian army to Roncesvals, where the Christians are burying and lamenting their dead. Both sides put up a gallant battle. When Charlemagne assassinates Baligant, however, the entire pagan army scatters and flees. Saragossa now has no defenders, and the Franks gain control of the city.
Ganelon’s treason was detected by the Franks, who imprisoned him until his trial. Ganelon claims that his actions were justified and publicly declared to be an act of vengeance, not treason. While this assertion originally influenced the assembly of lords gathered by Charlemagne to decide the traitor’s fate, one individual, Thierry, contends that Roland was serving Charlemagne when Ganelon exacted his retribution (Cunningham, 2015). Pinabel, a friend of Ganelon’s, challenges Thierry to a combat trial. The pair fights in a duel to discover who is correct. Thierry, a weaker person, triumphs by divine intervention and kills Pinabel. The Franks are convinced of Ganelon’s villainy, as a result, condemn him to a horrible death.
Essentially the poem possesses a large historical value as the depiction of Medieval European values and religious environment. Scholars have long recognized a direct connection between the Roland and the eleventh-century crusading mentality, as well as between the Roland and the sanctuaries connected by pilgrimage routes leading to Saint James of Compostella (Vance, 1991). It carries a propogandist spirit for the cause of the Christian crusade of the crusade of Louis VII (1147-49), when Abbot Sugar of Saint-Denis was France’s regent along with Count Raoul of Vermandois (Keller, 1976). It provides an overview of military and social issues within Western Europe of eleventh century (Cunningham, 2015). However, the poem remains a mystified and dramatized perception of a relatively minor event in the emperor Charlemagne’s life.
References
Cunningham, K. (2015). Historical Perspective and the Song of Roland. Primary Source, 5(2). Web.
Keller, H. E. (1976). The” Song of Roland”: a Mid-Twelfth Century Song of Propaganda for the Capetian Kingdom. Olifant, 3(4), 242-258.
Vance, E. (1991). Style and value: From soldier to pilgrim in the Song of Roland. Yale French Studies, 75-96. Web.