frlit1-2, Exercise 1: The Chanson de Roland

Model answer:

Roland, a nephew of Charlemagne, commands the rearguard of the emperor's army and is betrayed. He and his companions are killed at a mountain pass in the Pyrenees, after Roland refuses for too long to blow his horn for help. The poem is based on an event of 778, when Charlemagne's rearguard was attacked in the Pyrenees, but the attackers are likely to have been local Basques and not the Muslim armies of the poem, and the poem turns a small ambush into a story of Christian heroism and treason.

Check the historical details against a reference work.