The Song of Roland

The Song of Roland is an 11th-century based on the Frankish military leader Roland at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in AD 778, during the reign of the Carolingian king Charlemagne. It is the oldest surviving major work of French literature. It exists in various manuscript versions, which testify to its enormous and enduring popularity in Medieval and Renaissance literature from the 12th to 16th centuries. The epic poem written in Old French is the first and one of the most outstanding examples of the , a literary form that flourished between the 11th and 16th centuries in Medieval Europe and celebrated legendary deeds. The date of composition is put in the period between 1040 AD and 1115 AD; an early version began around 1040 AD with additions and alterations made up until about 1115 AD. The final text contains about 4,000 lines of poetry. Manuscripts and dating Although set in the Carolingian era, the Song of Roland was written much later. There is a single extant manuscript of the Song of Roland in Old French, held at the Bodleian Library at Oxford. It dates between 1129 and 1165 and was written in Anglo-Norman. There are eight additional manuscripts and three fragments of other poems on the subject of Roland.