Historically, a marquis of Brittany, Roland ('Hruodland' in contemporary spelling) was the Frankish seneschal (or commander) inside Charlemagne's service, who was flushed in the Battle of Roncevaux Pass by the Basques on 15 August, 778 CE. Contemporary accounts mention him lone when, around the brief note inside Einhard's Vita Caroli Magni, a life of Charlemagne. It took many centuries for him to be the "pop icon" around high-medieval minstrel culture.

By that period, folklore experienced significantly embroidered his tale: He was said to own been a nephew of Charlemagne, but got been brought higher by his mother (a Lady Bertha) as the beggar, sleep in a cave touching Sutri, Italy. At a age of Dozen, he was told a truth & acknowledged by Charlemagne.

A legend growing in the area of Roland turned his life into an epic tale of the noble Christian killed by Islamic forces, which forms part of the mediaeval Matter of France. Roland's tale is retold in the eleventh century poem The Song of Roland, where he is equipped by having a Olifant (a sign horn) & an unbreakable blade known as Durandal. Watch Orlando for his later history around Italian verse, leading to the heroic Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto. In the Divine Comedy Dante sees Roland's spirit in the Heaven of Mars together by having others world health organization fought for the faith.

Within Germany, over period Rol& became the symbol of the independence of the growing cities from either the local nobility, and in the late middle ages numerous a city sported the display of a noncompliant Roland statue in their market place. A Roland before of the town hall of Bremen (1404) is listed together by owning a town hall on the Listing of World Heritage Site from the UNESCO since 2004.

Around Catalonia Roland (or Rotllà when Catalan population say) became the mythological mighty giant. Lots of pages within Catalonia (each In the north & To the south) have a title related to Rotllà.

In the United States, Warren Zevon updated this legend to include the CIA, Patty Hearst and the Congo in his 1978 ballad, Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner. [http://members.aol.com/chansonro/headless.htm]

Roland when well appears as a title character inside Stephen King's epic Gunslinger series.