On the church creating myths from history

[Lagmonster]

I'm currently working on a novel which draws reference from various 11th century stories, namely "The Song of Roland". I actually knew that it was quasi-historical folklore, but what I've been reading is that in the time between the events of the story (Roncevaux) and when it was penned three centuries later, there are accusations from some that the church had influenced the retelling of the story infused with bias intended as Christian propaganda for the first Crusade.

Robert Lafont particularly suggests that as early as fifty years after the battle of Roncevaux, the church began to modify historical retellings in the public memory (saying that reliable records would be as old as the oldest citizen, ie. 60 years). By the time The Song of Roland was really being first written down, the fight at Roncevaux had been completely rephrased as a sacred battle between pawns of good and evil. By which one means that by the 11th century, it would have been popular to the people and advantageous to the church to pen Charlemagne as the prototype crusader, and Roland as a stereotypical Christian hero, even if the first wasn't necessarily true and the second didn't necessarily exist.

Is there any credibility to this idea?

[Setzer]

Whenever someone has an agenda to promote, they'll look to history for support. Put simply, I think it's a hundred percent plausible.

[Lagmonster]

I suppose the most obvious question is whether, three centuries later, Charlemagne had enough of an impact on the cultural memory of the region that he would have been useful as a mythological Crusader inspiration in the first place.

What I find most perplexing is that Ronceveaux persisted in memory in the first place when it was, basically, a massive cock-up for Charlemagne in the first place.

[Spoonist]

I suppose the most obvious question is whether, three centuries later, Charlemagne had enough of an impact on the cultural memory of the region that he would have been useful as a mythological Crusader inspiration in the first place.

That is obviuosly true. Charlemagne was definately a source for off and fighting the muslim sentiments. How many other winning christian kings fighting the muslims did you have in those three hundred years? Nil.

Now, mind you he never was that much of a christian icon in his own time though.

[TC Pilot]

I suppose the most obvious question is whether, three centuries later, Charlemagne had enough of an impact on the cultural memory of the region that he would have been useful as a mythological Crusader inspiration in the first place.

He easily could have, and it's not as if "the Church" was averse to just making things up to promote crusading. Personally, I just don't think he was, partly because it suggests a sort of coordination that I doubt was possible at the time. Moreover, the concept of "crusading" did not just spring up, fully developed, overnight. Often after the First Crusade, some preachers pushing for recruitment portrayed the crusades as a purely recent phenomenon bestowed upon the world by God as another way by which sinners might carry out pennitance or salvation. More to the point, you might expect Charlemagne's legacy to pop up more in campaigns to promote crusading. So far as I've seen (which admittedly isn't particularly much), he doesn't figure at all; it's all "Free Jerusalem from evil heathens" or "Get into heaven" and so forth, not "Follow in the footsteps of Charlemagne" or some such.

It would also help to know even roughly when the work was put to words. It may just as easily have helped inspire crusading in the first place as be crafted in order to promote it.

[Pelranius]

Painting Charlemagne as a crusader inspiration becomes near farcical when you consider that he specifically went into Spain to help out one Muslim faction against another. Though he did kill a lot of those pagan Saxons and Avars (did he fight the Slavs too? My textbooks weren't too clear on that account).

[Simon_Jester]

Painting Charlemagne as a crusader inspiration becomes near farcical when you consider that he specifically went into Spain to help out one Muslim faction against another. Though he did kill a lot of those pagan Saxons and Avars (did he fight the Slavs too? My textbooks weren't too clear on that account).

Charlemagne was a tremendously important figure in early medieval history, so there's no question of him being remembered three centuries later. Remember, the guy's very name translates as "Charles the Great," and you can make a decent case for him deserving it. He greatly expanded the power of the Frankish throne, and pushed it into new areas.

Whether he was a conscious crusader or not, Charlemagne also a major supporter of the influence of Roman Catholicism. The pope was able to call on him for support within Italy, and he was the first man to be crowned "Holy Roman Emperor," effectively the Papacy's anointed successor to the Western Roman Emperors, in theory at least. He also fought extensively against the Saxons and Avars, as you say, and by spreading the influence of what was formally a Christian kingdom into those areas, helped to spread the religion.

Taking Charlemagne and implying that he was a crusader probably wasn't accurate, but I think it wasn't taking undue license with the historical record: there are very few individual men, including the crusaders, who did more to establish Roman Catholicism's domain over western Europe during the Middle Ages than Charlemagne did.

[Ilya Muromets]

(did he fight the Slavs too? My textbooks weren't too clear on that account).

IIRC, one of the books about Chalemagne (The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia) in the University of the Philippines' (local campus) library mentioned that the Northeastern Slavs became his allies after deciding that it would be beneficial to join him rather than resist the army he marched across the Elbe. There were also some skirmishes against the Southeastern Slav groups, but I can't remember much detail on those.