Turoldus

Annotated version of the 11th-century epic poem (chanson de geste) based on the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778, during the reign of Charlemagne. It is the oldest surviving major work of French literature and exists in various manuscript versions, which testify to its enormous and enduring popularity in the 12th to 16th centuries.

Presents the classical epic, glorifying the heroism of Charlemagne in the 778 battle between the Franks and the Moors. The Song of Roland, as Dorothy Sayers remarks in the introduction to this fine translation, is 'the earliest, the most famous, and the greatest of those Old French epics which are called Songs of Deeds'. Writing around the end of the eleventh century, and recalling an actual disaster in 778, the anonymous poet describes in detail the betrayal and slaughter by Saracens of the rearguard of Charlemagne's army under Roland at Rencevaux and Charlemagne's bitter revenge. Nowhere in literature is the medieval code of chivalry more perfectly expressed than in this masterly and exciting poem.