The First Crusade took place from 1096 to 1099. According to Robert the Monk's account of Pope Urban II's speech at the Council of Clermont, the Pope describes the enemy as: “…a race from the kingdom of the Persians, a cursed race, a race totally alien to God, a generation that has not ruled its heart and has not entrusted its mind to God…” This description is intended to highlight situation the Christians, who Pope Urban addressed, away from the pagans. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essayThe Song of Roland served a similar purpose for the French at the time of the Second Crusade, almost fifty years later. By manipulating the details of the real Battle of Roncesvalles Pass, The Song of Roland reveals a nation caught in hatred of foreign and pagan cultures in the midst of the Second Crusade. The Song of Roland is based on the Battle of Roncesvalles which took place in 778; however, the author of the story took many liberties in his telling. The battle was originally between two Christian camps, the Franks and the Basques (source), and the Basque forces would not have equaled 400,000 men as the fictionalized version suggests. Charlemagne was not 200 years old either. The distinctive difference between the factual account of the Battle of Roncesvalles Pass and the version told in The Song of Roland is curious. The Song of Roland is thought to have been written between 1129 and 1165, almost 400 years after the battle. The story would have been passed down by oral tradition over these four centuries, and it is not a stretch to assume that many details would not remain the same. However, it is unlikely that the opposing force could have passed naturally from the Basques to the Saracens. . Instead, the author of The Song of Roland may have made this change deliberately as a kind of propaganda for the Second Crusade. A story that gave rise to the exact type of religious zeal that led to the Crusades in the first place. Although they were partially involved, the First Crusade took place largely without France. However, when the Second Crusade broke out, the French were eager to fight. French Christians possessed a real hatred of Muslims against which they would eventually wage war, and this hatred is described, and perhaps even amplified, in The Song of Roland. Brewster Fitz says in his article: “Cain as Condemned and Converted? The story of the Song of Roland projects a new order of Christianity, which stands in relation to the pre-crusades order as the New Testament era with the Old Testament era. Such a narrative is driven by guilt. Its goal is to judge, condemn, kill, or convert all forms of the Other, whether within or without, while sacrificially absolving radical guilt. This goal of Christianizing the entire world is precisely the line of thinking that started the Crusades and The Song of Roland goes so far as to manipulate history in order to convey a message supporting this line of thinking. Interestingly, the Second Crusade took place from 1147 to 1149, a three-year period that fits well with the period in which The Song of Roland is believed to have been written. This supports the theory that the Basques were transformed into Saracens so that the battle could be seen as a religious battle, a clear example of Muslim betrayal in history that the French could draw inspiration from in their actual fight against pagan culture . The fictional account, The Song of Roland, focuses on two particular groups: the Franks and the Saracens. The Franks are the “good guys”, thegroup that the reader is expected to associate with and support. The Franks are Christians, men who fear God and who hold to their religion. They are portrayed as an upright and loving people, even going so far as to pray for their enemies the Saracens. Although a minor detail, it is also worth mentioning that the Franks are a light-skinned people, as this deliberately contrasts with the darker skin of the Saracens. Their leader, Charlemagne, is described as powerful and just. In the very first stanza it says: Charles the king, our Lord and Sovereign, has stayed seven full years in Spain, has conquered the country and conquered the western continent, there remains no fortress against him. Charlemagne is a sovereign ruler and a powerful conqueror. This little tribute would have immediately won the support of any Frenchman of the 12th century. If the Franks are a portrait of morality and reason, the Saracens are the opposite. The Saracens are pagans who do not worship the true God. Their king, Marsile, “does not fear the name of God” (1.7) and he “invokes the help of Apolline” (1.8). Apollo most likely refers to the Greek god Apollo, a deity the Franks would have considered pagan. As if this contrast were not enough, the author says: King Marsilies lay in Saragoss, went towards a cool orchard; there, on a throne he sat, made of blue marble. Charlemagne travels, conquers, reigns. In contrast, King Marsilies “lies down” in his cool orchard where he sits comfortably on his throne. He is not a strong and inspiring leader like Charlemagne, quite the contrary. Additionally, the Saracens, as antagonists, are simply seen as evil. Their only objective is to defeat the just and virtuous Franks. These Saracens are considered the cultural “others” in The Song of Roland because their culture is opposed to that of the Franks. Their differences are highlighted to show the contrast between the two races of people and further solidify the Franks as unquestionable "gentiles". Parallelism is used to make quick comparisons between the Franks and the Saracens. The Franks are Christians and the Saracens are pagans. The Franks are a loving people, unlike the Saracens. The Franks are light-skinned and the Saracens are dark-skinned. This method creates two sides, one distinctly good and the other distinctly bad, and helps the reader quickly become involved in the story by placing everything, literally, in black and white terms. . This practice is common in all periods of literature; however, this is particularly important in The Song of Roland due to the historical context of the tale. This definition of the Saracens as the "other" is consistent with Fitz's analysis of the so-called "new era of Christianity" in which all "others" must be converted or destroyed. In this song of gesture, Charlemagne's fight against the Muslims seems to be a prototype of any crusade, in that, despite all obstacles, the Christians - the French in this case - will achieve a decisive victory. The argument seems to hold that their unwavering belief in Christ will make the French strong enough to defeat the pagan enemy. This belief was succinctly expressed in the famous apothegm: “Paien unt tort et crestens unt right”. The last line of this quote is the most important. The French sincerely believed that the pagans were wrong and the Christians were right. This idea justified religious wars such as the Crusades in the minds of the Franks and, as the parallelism of The Song of Roland suggests, forms the entire basis of Charlemagne's fictional war against the Saracens. propaganda is widespread. 2015.