The History of Moors in Spain: From the Islamic Conquest until the Fall of Kingdom of Granada. Stanley Lane-Poole
though to our king we owe
Side by side with the doughty warriors of Leon, who thus refused to join the Prince of the Asturias in his homage to Charlemagne, were (according to the romances) a host of valiant Saracens, who joined in the onset upon the retiring Franks. Pseudo-Turpin's legendary history of Charles and Orlando tells of a "fresh body of thirty thousand Saracens, who now poured furiously down upon the Christians, already faint and exhausted with fighting so long, and smote them from high to low, so that scarcely one escaped. Some were transpierced with lances, some killed with clubs, others beheaded, burnt, flayed alive, or suspended on trees." The massacre was horrible, and the memory of that day has never faded from the imagination of the peasantry of the district. When the English army pursued Napoleon's marshals through the pass of Roncesvalles, the soldiers heard the people singing the old ballad of the fatal field; and Spanish minstrels have recorded many incidents, true or false, of the fight. One of the most famous is the ballad of Admiral Guarinos, which Don Quixote and Sancho Panza heard sung at Toboso, according to the veracious history of Cervantes:
| The day of Roncesvalles was a dismal day for you, |
| Ye men of France, for there the lance of King Charles was broke in two: |
| Ye well may curse that rueful field, for many a noble peer |
| In fray or fight the dust did bite beneath Bernardo's spear. |
| There captured was Guarinos, King Charles's Admiral: |
| Seven Moorish kings surrounded him, and seized him for their thrall. |
And the ballad goes on to tell the tale of Guarinos' captivity, and of his revenge at the tourney, when he slew his captor, and rode free for France.
Among the slain that day was Roland, the redoubtable Paladin, commander of the frontier of Brittany. He is the Sir Launcelot of the Charlemagne romance, and many are the doughty deeds recorded of him. He had fought all day in the thickest of the fray, dealing deadly blows with his good sword Durenda; but all his prowess could not save the day. So, wounded to death, and surrounded by the bodies of his friends, he stretched himself on the ground, and prepared to yield up his soul. But first he drew his faithful sword, than which he would sooner have spared the arm that wielded it, and saying, "O sword of unparalleled brightness, excellent dimensions, admirable temper, and hilt of the whitest ivory, decorated with a splendid cross of gold, topped by a berylline apple, engraved with the sacred name of God, endued with keenness and every other virtue, who now shall wield thee in battle, who shall call thee master? He that possessed thee was never conquered, never daunted by the foe; phantoms never appalled him. Aided by the Almighty, with thee did he destroy the Saracen, exalt the faith of Christ, and win consummate glory. O happy sword, keenest of the keen, never was one like thee; he that made thee, made not thy fellow! Not one escaped with life from thy stroke." And lest Durenda should fall into the hands of a craven or an infidel, Roland smote it upon a block of stone and brake it in twain. Then he blew his horn, which was so resonant that all other horns were split by its sound; and now he blew it with all his might, till the veins of his neck burst. And the
| blast of that dread horn, |
| On Fontarabian echoes borne, |
reached even to King Charles's ear as he lay encamped and ignorant of the disaster that had befallen the rear-guard eight miles away. The king would have hastened to answer the forlorn blast, that seemed to tell of a tragedy; but a traitor told him that Roland was gone a-hunting, and Charlemagne was persuaded not to answer the summons of his faithful paladin; who, after prayer and confession, gave up the ghost. Then Baldwin, another of the peers of France, came running to the king and told him of what had befallen the rear of his army, and the death of Roland and Oliver. Whereupon the king and all his army turned and marched back to Roncesvalles, where the ground was strewn with dead, and Charles himself was the first to descry the body of the hero, lying in the form of a cross, with his horn and broken sword beside him. Then did Great Charles lament over him with bitter sighs and sobs, wringing his hands and tearing his beard, and crying, "O right arm of thy Sovereign's body, honour of the Franks, sword of justice, inflexible spear, inviolable breastplate, shield of safety, noble defender of the Christians, scourge of the Saracens, a wall to the clergy, the widow's and orphan's friend, just and faithful in judgment! Renowned Count of the Franks, valiant captain of our armies, why did I leave thee here to perish? How can I behold thee dead, and not die with thee? Why hast thou left me sorrowful and alone, a poor miserable king? But thou art exalted to the kingdom of heaven, and dost enjoy the company of angels and martyrs!" Thus did Charles mourn for Roland to the last day of his life. On the spot where he died the army rested, and the body was embalmed with balsam, aloes, and myrrh. The whole army of the Franks watched by it that night, honouring the corse with hymns and songs, and lighting fires on the mountains round about. Then they took him with them, and buried him right royally. Thus ended the fatal day—
| When Roland brave and Oliver, |
| And every paladin and peer, |
| On Roncesvalles died. |
No action of so small importance has ever been made the theme of so many heroic legends and songs. It is the Thermopylæ of the Pyrenees, with none of the glory or the significance, but all the glamour, of its prototype.
The People of Andalusia
THE victory of Charles Martel, in 733, had set a bound to the Saracens' invasion of Europe; they no longer thought of further conquest, but turned to the work of consolidating the kingdom they had acquired. After the brief and disastrous incursion of Charlemagne, they were left in almost undisturbed possession of their new territory for a period of three hundred years. It is true the descendants of the expelled Goths still held out in stubborn independence in the mountainous districts of the north, and from time to time recovered a portion of their ancient dominion; but these inroads, while they gave some trouble, did not materially endanger the domination of the Moors over the greater part of Spain until the eleventh century. The conquerors accepted the independence of the northern provinces as an inevitable evil, which would cost more blood to remove than the feat was worth; and leaving Galicia, Leon, Castile, and the Biscayan provinces to the Christians, they contented themselves with the better part of the land: