This book, written around the end of the eleventh century, and recalling an actual disaster in 778 A.D., the anonymous poet describes in detail the betrayal and slaughter by Saracens the rearguard of Charlemagne's army under ROLAND at Rencevaux and Charlemagne's bitter revenge. Nowhere in literature is the medievel Code of Chivalry more perfectly expressed than in this masterly and exciting poem.