The Song of Roland

This medieval French chanson de geste, surviving in an eleventh-century Oxford text, recounts the destruction of Charlemagne's rearguard at Roncevaux. Roland, Oliver, and Archbishop Turpin hold the pass against a Saracen army after Ganelon, Roland's stepfather, betrays the Franks. Roland delays sounding his olifant until it is too late for the main host to save them; Charlemagne then returns for vengeance and judgment. The poem is a heroic epic of loyalty, pride, and holy war, not a chronicle of the historical Basque ambush alone.

Bound in burgundy cloth, blocked in gilt on cover with a picture. Burgundy slipcase.