Roland At Roncevaux: Sound The Horn, France!

What Roland learned too late, France -- and the West more broadly -- can still learn in time. 

Joan Mounteer | October 27, 2026

Today, the ancient, dusty pilgrimage trails of the Camino de Santiago still wind through the rugged Pyrenees. But these paths were not always the peaceful route of pilgrims. More than twelve centuries ago, in 778, they carried Charlemagne’s Frankish army into the mountains, where his rearguard met a bloody end at Roncevaux Pass.

Muslim governors in northeastern Spain appealed to Charlemagne for help against the emir of Córdoba. Charlemagne answered their plea, hoping to extend Frankish influence in the region. In the decades before 778, Muslim armies had crossed the Pyrenees into Gaul, raiding Frankish territory and occupying parts of what is now southern France.

Charlemagne’s campaign failed when Zaragoza refused to surrender. As his army retreated across the Pyrenees, Basque warriors ambushed his rearguard at Roncevaux's narrow pass. Among those killed was Roland, warden of the Breton March. Centuries later, the epic poem “La Chanson de Roland” (The Song of Roland) would immortalize him, transforming a military disaster into one of the defining legends of Christian Europe. Composed around 1100, it is one of the earliest great works of French literature.

In the poet’s own day, preachers had launched the First Crusade and Christian kingdoms in Spain were pushing back against Muslim rule. The poet gave his audience the enemy they feared and the cause they were asked to defend. The Basques of history became the Saracens, the medieval European term commonly used for Muslims. The battle at Roncevaux Pass became a mortal struggle between Christianity and Islam.

In “La Chanson de Roland,” Charlemagne begins his........

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