Authored by an unknown poet in the early 11th century, The Song of Roland (Le Chanson de Roland) is the earliest surviving major work of French literature, and seeks to recount Charlemagne's sole military defeat, that of the Battle of Roncenvaux Pass in 778. The only other surviving record of the events of that battle is a brief passage in Einhard's biography of Charlemagne, Life of Charlemagne (Vita Karoli Magni), in which he paints the emperor's campaign in Spain as a short, calculated, and (at least momentarily) unsuccessful politically-driven incursion into the Iberian Peninsula. The battle itself is described as a relatively minor blip in the emperor's military career; an ambush in a Pyrenees mountain pass by a band of Christian Basque raiders who attack Charlemagne's rearguard, after which they immediately disperse and effectively evade any efforts from the emperor to avenge the deed. Einhard's account mentions that several Frankish lords were killed, among which is Roland, the prefect of the Breton March.
Once one compares this account to the events told in Roland approximately 300 years later, it becomes clear that
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The narrative of Roland’s Christ-like sacrifice, in that it comes about as a result of betrayal and treachery, closely mirrors Jesus’ own death; Ganelon becomes then a stand-in for Judas. As the ambush takes place and escalates into heated battle between the Saracens and the Frankish force, ominous earthquakes and thunderous storms seem to foreshadow the knights’ deaths , much like Jesus’ own death brought upon a shaking of the earth that split rocks and opened tombs. Roland’s prayer to God, in which he surrenders his soul as he nears his honorable end, calls to mind Jesus’ own prayer on the cross shortly before his