The Cross and the Crescent

In class we discussed how similar the two sides were in this story. The Saracen's were as strong, beautiful and valiant as the Christians, but the simply weren't Christian and such was the difference. After reading Roland, I enjoyed going back and reading about the historic battle from which this story sprung. The fact that it was a small guerrilla band of Basques, who were indigenous to Spain conquered by Charlemagne, makes Roland an astonishing change to history. The two sides were both Christian and the ambush was carried out by an inferior force during nighttime, which melted away following the attack. Hardly the story's force of 400,000 Saracens. In fact, these forces were different in all aspects except their religion.

So why would the story be twisted so heavily? Roland was written in the middle of the 12th century directly between crusades, and the enemy of course at the time was the Saracens. It becomes an obvious choice for the enemy of the story to be Roland. The story looks a lot like propaganda at this point, and what is the greatest strength of propaganda but to other the enemy and create him monstrous?

The acts of both sides are violent. But we actually see more violence from the Christians. Charlemagne smiles as his catapults tear down towers of a city. Roland desires to dye his sword "red high as the hilt with gore" (83). The Archbishop Turpin himself lays about with his crook and "flings him dead wherever he finds room" (114). The difference between this and the violence by the Paynims is that it all is done in the name of the right and honorable. Every attack by the Paymins is underhanded. The entire battle is based on treachery, and even the individual violent acts such as the death of Oliver has to be treacherous. The incident appears almost cowardly as Marganice "from behind deals Oliver a blow"(145). It seems as if no one could best a Christian in an honorable way. On the other hand the Christian might is blessed and virtuous never to be described as cowardly.

Neither side is normal in this fight. Both are are othered. The Paymins are obviously othered by Christian religion and by treachery making them the extreme villains of this story. The Franks are also elevated in this story by their death. By being absolved of all sin before death and facing it in such a heroic way, they become martyrs elevated above all others and on a direct path to heaven. In the exact opposite direction fly the Paymins as they sail to hell. They fight on the same field and yet the difference in treatment becomes too great to overwhelm. By othering both sides the author forces the reader to focus on the difference between them and in essence choose either "right" or "wrong".

It would have been interesting to see how this would have been written by a "Paymin" instead of the Christian author. In my opinion, though, it would simply have been a reverse of where the dead spiritually ended up and how the violent acts were described.