Charlemagne and his friends

The small village of Valcarlos hugs the steep side of a river gorge, with France following along the other side of the river. Essentially you enter Spain when you come out onto the main road, then immediately return to France to follow the river walking along a country road under forest and woodland, crossing a small bridge over the river and climbing a strenuous hill back into Spain. This spot is where Charlemagne came through with his troops after a rather disastrous foray into Spain in 778, 1340 years ago to be celebratory about it.

 

typical Pyrenees Basque farmhouse
with typical Pyrenees Basque sheep

Charlemagne camped here to lick his wounds (thus the name Valcarlos – Valley of Charles the Great – i.e., Charlemagne) after a battle in nearby Roncesvalles, where his rear guard was beset upon and killed, including the king’s adopted nephew and two other noteworthy soldiers, Oliver and Archbishop Turpin, along with the flower of France in its 12 Peers, knights of renown. But the greatest loss to Charlemagne was Roland, his best fighter and a bit of a hothead truth be told.

on our way at last

thoughtful farmer's spring water 

This real event was romanticized in an epic poem written some 300 years later, by an anonymous poet in the great age of chivalry. The Song of Roland, or Chanson de Roland, France’s oldest epic poem, is still quite easy to read and thrilling, with treason and battles described as only a poem written to be read aloud to illiterate masses can  be. I myself read it just before we left home, in a translation by the writer Dorothy L Sayers, more well known for her crime novels than for French literature translations, but she was an academic  scholar as well as a fiction writer and she sure knew how to sing with her pen around old Roland’s song.

In reality, it is unknown if the rearguard was killed in battle by a Muslim army as in the poem or by local thieves, for this canyon is steep and wooded, and could easily hide brigands and highwaymen. It certainly did during the golden age of pilgrims, many of whom lost their lives and all their money here, which is another reason why so many took to the high route over the mountains. But the age of chivalry demanded the whole shebang – appeals to God, vows made on behalf of friends and family, gauntlets thrown, challenges accepted, with the price of loss being conversion to the other’s religion.

We stayed overnight in Valcarlos then carried on to Roncesvalles, where Roland died in battle, only after killing an enormous number of Saracens, or Muslim Arabs, who had held control of Spain for a considerable length of time, their army swelled by Turks and Moors and Hungarians and other fierce fighters. For his part Charlemagne’s army included all the regions of France and what is now Germany and Russia as well as other northern and eastern European districts. 

regional specialty paella

regional specialty artichoke soup
with Iberian ham

A traitor who hated Roland set up the ambush, then persuaded Charlemagne that the horn he heard was not a cry for help (which it was) but just because this is the usual time ol` Roland liked to blow his hunting horn, the famed Oliphant. Alas, too late Charlemagne discovered the opposite, his best men were killed, and worse - his own man had caused the catastrophe.

There is nothing of the story in Valcarlos, but Roncesvalles (with a whopping population of 30!) has a museum containing Roland horn Oliphant and his maces. The Sancti Spiritus chapel (now the ossuary), built by Charlemagne, is supposedly where Roland, knowing that he was dying, hit his sword on the rocks in order to break it to avoid it getting into the enemy`s hands. This chapel was then reinterpreted as the burial place of the 12 peers of France who also died in this battle.  

The cloister next to Roncesvalles’ Church of St. Mary also has the tomb of a great local king, Sancho VII el Fuerte (“the Strong``), who himself fought a decisive battle against the Muslims and opened up the area of Andalucia to Christian expansion in 1212. But what is really impressive is his size – this is the early 1200s AD and the guy was 7 feet 4 inches tall!