The Song of Roland Author:Isabel Butler (Translator) The Song of Roland is a poem in Old French called a chanson de geste; literally, a song of history, or, more precisely, an epic poem founded on some historical event and intended to be sung. More than a hundred of these chansons de geste have come down to us and of those the most numerous and important are of Charlemagne and... more » his barons. The "Roland", then, to the men of the middle ages was not an isolated poem, but one of a great epic series. The Song of Roland is based on a heroic battle in the war of Christian against Saracens in the Spanish peninsula in the late 8th century, and consists of about 4000 lines of poetry compiled between 1040 and 1115 AD.« less