What happened at Roncesvalles. To Roland. And to me

In my memory, David Ross was a large man. Something about him always made me think of him as a walrus. He was tall and broad-shouldered and the years had added to his girth too. A shock of white hair and a fine white moustache naturally reinforced my impression of him as a walrus. He also struck me as immensely old, which is a little chastening, since he was probably younger when I knew him than I am today.

He was, I should mention in passing, my professor of Mediaeval French when I was studying at Birkbeck College, London.

At the back, on the left, with a moustache:
David Ross and other Birkbeck heads of department, 1972-3

The conversation I’m thinking about took place in 1979. I know that because he gave me a copy of an article he’d written, Before Roland: what happened 1200 years ago next August 15? He was referring to 15 August 1978, but it was the following year when he gave me the paper. So it was in 1979. I was 26. Which is no doubt why he seemed so old to me.

What did happen 1200 years before August 1978? That was a battle in 778 in a place the French call Roncevaux. The great French emperor Charlemagne had come across the Pyrenees into what we now call Spain, though he would have said he was in Gascony, the land of the Gascons or Basques (slightly different name, same people), on his way into the Emirate of Aragon. An Emirate because this was the time of Arab control of most of the Iberian Peninsula. Zaragoza, the capital of Aragon, was one of the great centres of Spanish Muslim culture.

Charlemagne had won some victories but things hadn’t worked out too well. The Arab allies who’d agreed to let him have Zaragoza in return for his support had decided, once the city had fallen, that, well, actually, they weren’t that keen on handing it over. And he’d had bad news about enemies threatening his home territory in France, so he set off to get back across the Pyrenees. On the way, he attacked and destroyed the walls of the Gascon (or Basque) capital Pamplona, which had left them (the Basques or Gascons) more than a little irritated with him. Besides, they knew that he had a rich baggage train with him, along with some important Arab prisoners that their compatriots would like back.

And who’s this Roland Ross talked about? Well, he’s the eponymous hero of the first great work of French literature that survives to this day, The Song of Roland. Not everyone is convinced that Roland ever existed, but Ross seemed to feel that, on balance, the evidence suggests he probably did, and I tend to agree with him (perhaps I should say that I follow his view: he was an authority on the subject, I a mere student).

Charlemagne, the story has it, gave Roland command of the rearguard of his forces. The baggage train would be between that rearguard and the main body of the army. In that formation, the French headed for Roncevaux and from there through a nearby pass in the Pyrenees, back into France.

Well, most of them made it. But the Basques/Gascons had other ideas. There are various schools of thought as to whether they were alone, or whether it was Arabs alone, or a mixed force, that took exception to Charlemagne’s plans. David Ross inclined towards the idea of a mixed force. Again, I go with him.

The Song of Roland describes how they lay in wait for the French in wooded territory on the way to the pass. The ambushing forces knew they couldn’t hope to tackle the whole of Charlemagne’s army, but maybe the rearguard would be an easier target. And so it turned out.

Not only did they defeat Roland’s men, they wiped them out to the last man. Who, this being an epic poem after all, was Roland himself. As he lay dying, he at last blew his great horn, which he hadn't wanted to do before, to avoid recalling Charlemagne and the main force. Now, though, he needed to let his king know what had happened. Such was the force of his blowing that he burst a blood vessel at his temple, and the king's army heard him, even in the distant passes.

The dying Roland sounding his horn
This is not a contemporaneous image

His last dying gesture was to hold out his right-hand glove to God. That was the gesture of vassalage, of subordination, that a knight would make to a fief lord, his chief, and Roland, knowing his time in this world was over, was offering to become one of the paladins of the divine host, as in life he’d been one in Charlemagne’s. All very noble and chivalrous and heroic, as I’m sure you’d agree.

Meanwhile, the Basques/Gascons and their Arab partners made off with the baggage and the freed prisoners.

The trouble is, The Song of Roland is from the twelfth century and the battle was in the eighth. What Ross demonstrated, I thought with great skill, was that the poem had been heavily modified in those four centuries and, in particular, a great deal from the middle sections had been massively rewritten. So his article was about reconstructing the story as it was originally told, which is why his title referred to ‘what happened’. I reckon he did an excellent job of it. 

So why am I telling this story now?

Because earlier this month, Danielle and I, along with three friends of ours, peeling off from a hiking exhibition in high Navarre in Spain, spent the day in and near the little town of Roncesvalles. If you’ve guessed that this is the Spanish name of Roncevaux, congratulations. It’s also known as Orreaga, in Basque.

Navarre – or Navarra in Spanish – is traditionally part of the Basque nation, though these days the province is so heavily inhabited by Castilian-speaking Spanish that few Basque-speakers remain. Why, it isn’t even part of the official Spanish autonomous community known as the Basque Country. Even the high part of the province, where we were, doesn’t have many Basque speakers anymore, though the proportion is higher there than in the lowlands. Back then, however, the place must have been full of Basques. I imagine certainly enough to seriously disrupt, with a little help from some Arab allies, Roland’s trip back to France.

Roncesvalles today boasts a colossal monastery and a couple of churches, a museum and three restaurants or cafés. Part of the monastery has been turned into a hotel and another into a hostel for pilgrims. “Pilgrims?” I hear you cry, “What does Roland have to do with pilgrims?” To which the answer is nothing.

Interior of the Royal Collegiate Church in Roncesvalles

Roncesvalles is now part of the pilgrimage trail to Santiago de Compostella, or the ‘Camino’ as its fans call it. That’s become a heck of a business these days. There are cafés and hostels and restaurants all along the way, catering to the footsore pilgrim. As, of course, there are all the support services, such as guides and shops selling everything from camping gas to maps to sticking plasters.

Pilgrimage is today, as I suspect it always has been, a huge commercial opportunity for the shopkeepers, hostel keepers and restaurant owners all along the way.

Roncesvalles, whose actual registered population these days is just 12, is a thriving place but the crowds are all from outside, walkers working their way along the Camino together with the multitude offering them money-making services.

And of the great battle? Of Charlemagne? Of Roland holding out his glove to God? Frankly, there’s practically nothing. God, or possibly Mammon, has taken over.

790 km to Santiago. We managed three

Ah, well. We had a good day anyway. We walked a stretch of the Camino. Three kilometres, I think, at a point where there were 790 more to go. Clearly, we failed to get anywhere near Santiago but, on the other hand, we got to a wonderful restaurant in the next-door town of Burguete (Auritz in Basque) where we had a lunch worth a pilgrimage.

And that’s without mentioning the great dip into my past, to one of my favourite teachers, David Ross. Not to mention the even longer flashback to Roland.

Thanks, Roncevaux, and my hiking friends, for providing me with an excellent trip into old memories.

My hiking companions, leaving Roncesvalles
On the way to a fine meal in the next town

Eliminating the widows and orphans

It’s surprising how tedious a job it is getting rid of widows and orphans. It took me ages the other day and required a lot of patience. However, I’m glad to say that no blood was shed, and no tears, nor was any crime against humanity committed.

In this context, a widow is the generally short last line of a paragraph, sitting on its own at the top of a page, isolated from the rest left one page back.

Similarly, an orphan is the generally short first line of a paragraph, alone at the bottom of a book’s page, cut off from the rest which, I suppose one could say, extending the metaphor a bit, is the parent to which it belongs.

In my brief time in publishing, from 1983 to 1985, I was taught to abhor such widows and orphans and do all I could to eliminate them. And last weekend, I engaged in just that tiresome undertaking. Successfully, I believe, in the end, but not without a great deal of exasperation over the time it took.

This means that I carried out some extensive killing of widows and orphans without, however, engaging in war crimes. Which is a relief, given the appalling news that keeps bombarding us (and the munitions that keep bombarding them) these days.

Why was I doing all this? After all, I’m no longer in publishing, and haven’t been for nearly four decades. The answer is that I’m only out of publishing for other people, but have taken, with enthusiasm, to publishing on my own account.

Now about to celebrate its third birthday

Recently I realised, with some surprise, that the first episode in my podcast series, A History of England, went out on 19 November 2020. That means I’m within a month of its third anniversary. I had no idea it had been so long, but I suppose that only confirms the old saw about time flying when you’re having fun. 

It certainly has been fun, though it’s also hard work. I keep an episode to just under fifteen minutes, but scripting, recording and editing each of those mini-episodes takes several hours. I’m reasonably pleased with the results, with 1200 people following the podcast and over 80,000 plays so far. That’s poor, of course, compared with celebrity podcasts, but it’s a lot more than I dared hope for when I got started nearly three years and 165 episodes ago. 

I have to confess that it slightly amazes me to find that so many people are interested in discovering how tracking the development of England down the centuries can show how it got Britain into the state it’s reached today. Which, I add at once for clarification, is in my view by no means where it ought to be. Or, come to that, where it’s happy to be.

‘Not for resale’: the proof copy
Guiding my destruction of widows and orphans

Well, a few people have suggested that it would be helpful to have books accompanying the podcasts, so that followers can check on the page for anything that was perhaps unclear in the spoken version. That struck me as a good idea but, somehow, I kept failing to get it done. At last, however, I have. A Kindle version and, now, a paperback edition, are up on Amazon. 

Kindle and paperback editions on Amazon

And, as far as I know, the paperback no longer contains any widows or orphans.

Glimmer of humanity

They say that the first casualty of war is the truth.

I’m not sure of that. It strikes me that both reason and humanity go first. The killing of the truth becomes necessary because the perpetrators want to hide their previous adoption of irrationality and inhumanity. 

For instance, take the reactions to the Hamas attacks on southern Israel. These have been rightly described as some of the most brutal in the history of terrorism, with kids tortured and murdered in front of their parents, or the parents in front of their kids. Such is the sense of horror this inspires that some seem to feel that any kind of retaliation is legitimate, however many victims it produces and whether they’re with Hamas themselves or not.

Meanwhile, on the other side, I’ve seen interviews with people who simply can’t bring themselves to condemn the level of brutality those attacks generated, but instead simply point to their own grievances concerning the treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli state over 70 years. It’s hard to believe that they feel that history justifies that level of cruelty towards innocents. It seems, however, that there are those who reckon it does.

I’ve also heard people claiming that “the Jews” are wreaking terrible harm on the Palestinians. I want to scream “not all Jews are Israelis”, but even that wouldn’t be saying enough. I’d need to add, “not all Israelis favour state violence against the Palestinians”. We’ll see that at the end of this post

This kind of intransigent positioning leads to the killing of the truth, as you can see from the news coverage of the Gazan hospital hit by some kind of weapon, leading to the death of more than 400 people. Somebody fired the missiles that did the damage. But everyone who might have been responsible is denying it was them. Someone, therefore, is lying.

What’s most interesting about that lie is that it’s clear that the perpetrator realises that the action was shameful and that’s why they won’t take responsibility. They did it, but they knew it was wrong. And that knowledge didn’t stop them.

In this terrible fog of hatred and desire for revenge, deepened by the lies and evasions, it’s a comfort to find even a small glimmer of decency and humanity.

For me that was provided by a remarkable man, whose book Sapiens impressed me when I read it. He shows the deepest understanding of the tragedy unfolding in the Middle East. He also seems to have the most intelligent suggestion for a way out of the mess, if only enough people could be found to take it.

He's the Israeli historian and writer, Yuval Noah Harari.

Yuval Noah Harari

He gave an interview to an Indian news service, CNN-News18. The recording on YouTube is a little messy, with more than one instance of the interview, not starting at the same point, but his statements are clear enough.

Harari’s stance strikes me as enormously insightful. Hamas is actually fighting peace itself. A Gaza strip at peace, maybe even prosperous, doesn’t fit the Hamas world view. How would a peaceful Gaza still provide a role for Hamas?

That strikes me as the best answer I’ve heard to the question, “what on Earth was Hamas trying to achieve?” They knew that if they did actually go to war with Israel, as they claimed, they’d be crushed. But if they were at war with peace? That I can see them achieving.

Incidentally, that means that the best way of defeating them in the long term is to work once more towards peace. That would leave them no reason for being. No better ultimate solution to the problem of dealing with Hamas can exist.

That, though, is for the longer term. The immediate task for Israel has to be to put an end to Hamas's capacity to engage in terrorism. That means military action, however unpleasant that may be, since it’s clear that nothing else can possibly neutralise the constant threat from one of the ugliest terrorist organisations the world has seen.

How should Israel tackle that task?

Harari gets it absolutely right. He declares:

Israel now is in a struggle, not just to protect its territory and citizens but to protect its humanity... Israel must keep the possibility of peace alive.

What’s more, as Harari suggests, Israel needs to find a way of doing that which doesn’t reduce it to the same level as Hamas. I think Harari’s right to say that Israel doesn’t deliberately target civilians as Hamas does, but it can behave with such indifference towards civilian life that the numbers killed become horrific. Can it rise above that kind of behaviour?

Well, I don’t have a lot of hope. People who’ve been hurt badly often only want to hurt back. The present Israeli government hasn’t shown itself particularly inclined to moderation and decency. As for Hamas, it certainly wouldn’t recognise either moderation or decency if it tripped over them in the street.

But, as Harari says, maybe international pressure can begin to make itself felt. Maybe it can push two intransigent parties to see that both sides are made up of humans and humans have human rights. The starting point for any actual progress in that sad region is for both sides to recognise that truth.

Let’s just hope that it isn’t one of the truths that have become casualties of war.

Making the Ninth of October go with a bang

The ninth of October is a big celebration for the Valencian Community in Spain, where we live. It marks the day in 1238 when good king James I of Aragon liberated Valencia from the cruel oppression of the Moors. Had we forgotten, we’d have had a reminder early in the morning from the distant sound of firecrackers being let off. 

Celebrating the Valencian day by
carrying the Valencian flag through the streets

The big difference between a firework and a firecracker is that the first combines explosive din with the beauty of bursting colours. A firecracker leaves out the colours and therefore the beauty, leaving only the noise. I’ve pointed this out to Valencian friends (I know, I know, I missed a vocation as a diplomat) and my remarks are, I suppose I’d have to say, somewhat contentious. Valencians divide into two sharply differentiated camps. There are those who find the racket as disagreeable as I do, and there are those who go into raptures over the rhythm achieved by a well-orchestrated firecracker display. For the latter, the firecracker fans, those who fail to appreciate this fine and subtle point are philistines, a group to which I, unrepentantly, belong.

It may be that this joy from what to me seems merely to be racket, is associated with a key event which, legend has it, occurred during James I’s campaign to take Valencia from the Muslims. An Arab prophet had apparently declared that the city would remain in the hands of his people as long as the lord’s bat survived. One night, however, the Christians encamped outside the city that they were keeping under siege, discovered that a bat had made its home on the crest of the king’s tent. He ordered that it be left in peace and treated with reverence.

Sometime later, again at night, while the Aragonese troops were sleeping, the king heard a loud drumming noise. He awoke his men and the alert was sounded. Rightly, it turned out, as the Arabs from besieged Valencia had made a sortie and were about to attack the camp. King James’s men being ready for them, they inflicted serious losses on the Arabs and forced them to retreat to the city.

“Who sounded the drum?” the king wanted to know.

To his astonishment it turned out to have been the bat, by flinging itself repeatedly against the sides of the king’s tent.

Perhaps that’s what the Valencians celebrate when they enjoy the rhythmic detonations of the firecrackers. I hear only din. They hear a distant echo of the bat’s warning all those centuries ago. Something still commemorated in the crest of the city and even the logo of the Valencia football club.

A bat dominates the Valencia football club logo

Of course, what happened on 9 October 1238 was a major and significant achievement. It put an end to the long and harsh rule of the Muslim rulers. And what did the Arabs ever do for us, after all?

They inflicted their cultural values on the good people of Christendom, in such barbaric acts as decorating the palace in the village of Anna.

Cultural tyranny: inside the Arab palace in the town of Anna

They took advantage of good Christian water by forcing it to flow through unnatural irrigation channels into the fields, using methods which even Christian farmers continue to impose on themselves to this very day.

Arab irrigation channel at Almiserà, Valencia
A legacy of the yoke of Moorish rule

And they enforced a terrible regime of coexistence, in which Christians, Jews and Muslims lived side by side under Muslim rulers. Multiculturalism, right? Woke before the term had even been invented. Who wants that?

Strangely, some people apparently do. Or did. One of the finest Spanish poets and playwrights, a man of massive international reputation, Federico García Lorca, said in 1936 that the expulsion of the Moors was “a very bad moment… what was lost was an admirable civilisation, a poetry … an architecture and a subtlety that were unique in the world”. 

On 18 August of that same year, he was murdered by nationalists who knew better than to say things so subversive of national values. To be fair, even more than his views on the Moors, the fact that Lorca was gay probably made it all the more certain that he would meet a swift, violent end at the hands of an insurgency of the far right. His killers threw the body into a grave whose location has to this day still not been discovered.

Oh, well. The ninth of October is just a pretext for a party these days, anyway. And there’s not so much to get joyful about in our times to turn down any opportunity the calendar gives us.

Though I prefer to celebrate a long way from the firecrackers. And remembering Federico García Lorca. A man – dare I say this? – rather more to my heart than even good king James I. 

Lorca, who liked the Arabs in Spain,
and was terminally disliked by Spanish nationalists

Grandparenting summer

It’s been a good summer, enriched by some immersion grandparenting.

That included two short experiments that together represented a big step forward in our grandparenting practice. Twice over the summer, the grandkids stayed with us for two nights, without their parents. And it worked out well. On each occasion, there was one night when Elliott woke up and demanded attention, but not for too long either time. On the other night of each stay, both kids slept right through. 

The time will come when they can stay with us for a longer period, giving their parents a break and, who knows, maybe even allowing us to take them on holiday somewhere. Perhaps to France. They both hold French nationality and, in a statement of surprising understanding, Matilda has let us know she wants to be better acquainted with the country and its language. When Danielle and I first met, it was French that we spoke to each other, and occasionally we fall into it again.

“Why are you speaking French?” Matilda often challenges us if she hears it.

It impresses me that she even recognises the language. And I can’t help feeling that behind her comment lies the implication, “I don’t want to be left out, I want to understand”. We’ll have to see what we can do when she’s a little older.

Matilda on her pedal bike
You think she doesn’t look happy? She wasn’t.
Her words after I took this picture were, “I don’t want photos.”

The big thing this summer has been the bikes. As I explained before, Matilda received her first pedal bike for her birthday in August. It’s quite clear that using a balance bike, the kind that has kids pushing themselves along with their feet on the ground, teaches them how to cycle much more effectively than using a pedal bike with training wheels. That was certainly clear when I saw her last week, at her home in Hoyo de Manzanares, near Madrid. She’s mastered both getting started (while with us, she still needed a push) and stopping (she now uses a brake and gets her feet on the ground, instead of falling over pretty much every time she came to a halt). And, boy, does she get some speed up in between.

Matilda running on the rocks outside her school

“Me too, me too,” says Elliott

The real problem is that Elliott, who has always wanted to do anything that Matilda could do, at the same time as she learned to do it – walking, running, talking – naturally wants to use a pedal bike too, even though he isn’t quite two and a half years old yet. His dad bought one for him, but he bought it from someone near us in Valencia, and it’s at our place until we find a way of getting it to him. In the meantime, Elliott has to beg his sister for some time to use her bike. When he does get to use it, he’s quite remarkable – I timed him keeping going for ten or fifteen minutes. That may be partly because he hasn’t yet fully mastered stopping, but it’s still remarkable.

Matilda’s pedal bike
“Me too, me too,” says Elliott

Language is the other area where the kids have bowled me over. Their mastery of Spanish can only leave me consumed by envy. But their English also just gets better and better, not just in the words but in the thinking behind them. 

“I like coming to Valencia,” Matilda told me.

I felt quite flattered, a feeling that lasted only until she could finish her remark.

“Because,” she went on, “we get ice cream every day here.”

There was ice cream on only one occasion last week, when I was with them. That’s ‘parents’ rules’. Sheena, my daughter-in-law, tells me that she regards us as applying ‘grandparents’ rules’. The latter are seriously more grandchild indulgent (and possibly grandparent-peace-purchasing).

The other enjoyable thing about being in our place is that they get to see trains going by from time to time. They call each one they see a ‘chu-chu-bahnele’, which is the equivalent in Danielle’s mother tongue, Alsatian, of what we might call a choo-choo-train. 

For the avoidance of confusion, Alsatian in this context has nothing to do with a breed of dogs, and everything to do with the language spoken in Danielle’s birth region of Alsace, in Eastern France.

Why do I find the use of Alsatian so enjoyable? Because it was what Danielle used when pointing out trains to our kids, when they were of that age. And she used it with our friends’ kids too. 

Now Elliott will cry out “chu-chu-bahnele” whenever we see so much as the railway track (well, strictly speaking it’s a metro track, but it feels like a railway since it’s all above ground near where we live. He doesn’t make the distinction, so nor do we). 

As it happens, with him the fascination seems to be just part of a general interest in alternative means of travel to cars.

“Plane! Plane!” he’ll say whenever he sees or hears one passing overhead.

They’re both beginning to grasp some of the subtler distinctions of language. For instance, they never want anything. They always need it. After all, a want can be denied. But a need? Well, it just has to be satisfied, doesn’t it? 

That slippage between terms, by the way, is by no means limited to children.

Chupa chups, as they call them, or lollipops as I would, are the object of one of those needs. Fulfilled, it creates considerable delight. It was, on one occasion, even under parents’ rules, in Hoyo, while I was there. 

Chupa chup moment, with Michael-Michael
After Edward Hopper

The event gave me the opportunity to take a photo of them in pensive enjoyment of their Chupa chup moment, along with a highly welcome visitor, their Uncle Michael. Or Michael-Michael, as they continue to call him. The moment with him and their chupa-chups gave me the opportunity to take a photo I felt had a bit of the wistful, enigmatic mood of an Edward Hopper painting to it.

The moment also has rarity value. A visit by Michael-Michael is received with such unconfined joy that, as a rule, we would certainly not apply words like peaceful to the scene that ensues.

High delight - literally, too - when Michael-Michael visits

And there were other special moments for the kids in the course of the summer. Their Granny flew down to join us from her home in Belfast, in Northern Ireland.

Matilda enjoying her granny’s presence

It was with their granny that they got to satisfy yet another need, the well-known requirement of the human soul to bathe from time to time in foam. A fine way to spend a little time on a hot summer day. As Granny can testify.

Matilda revelling in the foam

Granny can testify to the enjoyment

The heat, of course, was one of the major aspects of the summer, with global warming seeming to go right on in its inexorable way. That, I’m sure, was one of the things that made the foam so welcome, just like the swimming pool and the sea. And the pleasure the kids took in all three made it all the more bearable for us too.

A fine summer, as I said, despite the heat. The kind that leaves lots of great memories. All of which makes for what we’d call a good time all round, doesn’t it?

A rare moment of peace in an action-packed summer