I’m trying to become a better fantasy writer, and the primary way I’ve decided to go about doing that is to immerse myself as best as I can into Medieval literature and Medievalist writers. Growing up in the 1990s, I was hugely captivated by some of the RPGs from Japan, and was impressed by how well some of them stirred in me the spirit of a time my own ancestors lived in long ago. Truth be told, these games profoundly influenced my own writing, and I would like to continue that trend in the future.
But surely the writers of Japanese 1990s RPGs had to be inspired by the source itself; early Medieval Europe. Why not go to the source?
Reading The Song of Roland was the first of my foray into Medievalism, period in time I deliberately avoided studying in university days because of how at that time I regarded it as a “dark age.” (I’m a History major, by the way.)
The Song of Roland tells of the battle of Roncesvals in 778, and is definitely the best chanson de geste to come out of medieval France. The story itself was probably written in the 11th century, during the early Crusades. Scholars believe it had to have been written by a monk, not least because monasteries were also hotbeds of scholarship and writing at those times.
The Song of Roland is mostly a work of fiction, and as someone who has written fiction myself, I am pretty much in awe of whoever wrote this. Whoever he was, he managed to cram so much meaning into this story, and did so without even knowing a thing about Roland’s Arab and Spanish adversaries.
In fact, there is pretty much no way the eleventh century author of this book had much historical information at all about the Battle of Roncesvals. There is a lot of evidence that the author actually took accounts of the Saxon War in The Life of Charlemagne by Einhard and grafted it into the Song of Roland which took place in Spain. The necessary fictions of the authors plot, therefore, have real historical analogues and feel surprisingly believable. I think that’s pretty cool.
The militant theology behind this story, one where soldiers and knights were promised a place in the Kingdom of Heaven if they died in battle, felt to me more akin to how Germanic pagans were promised Valhalla for dying in battle much more than it did the Apostolic Christian way of getting to the Kingdom of Heaven by martyrdom. Indeed, eighth century France and its primitive feudalism was not far removed from the clan societies of the old Norse sagas.
The authors depictions of the Franks and their early medieval customs; of battle formally announced by heralds, warriors requesting their commanders to give them the honor of opening a battle, knights announcing their presence and intentions to the enemy by formal boasts, really made me reminiscent of a Playstation I game, called Brigandine the Legend of Forsena, which I particularly enjoyed growing up.
I can sympathize with the author, who had to coreograph the battle scene of Roncesvals from whole cloth. That can be a real challenge, by the way. Yet, as I read through the battle portion of this story, I kinda felt like I was “reading” a Brigandine battle on my old PS I.
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