Chronicle of Pseudo-Turpin, The

The twelfth-century “Chronicle of Pseudo-Turpin, also known as the “History of Charlemagne and Roland”, offers an “eye-witness” account of events during the late eight cantury. Charlemagne’s compatriot, Archbishop Turpin of Reims, describes the miraculous appearance of Saint James to Charlemagne and the battles against the Muslims that he and Roland fought in Iberia as a result of this vision. The chronicle is one of the fundamental texts in the literary legend surrounding Charlmagne, Roland, Compostela and St. James. It served as source material for a large number of other chronicles as well as for French “chansons de geste” and other forms of heroic leterature, including the “Song of Roland”

This Chronicle comprises Book IV of the Liber Sancti Jacobi, a twelfth-century manuscript from the archives of the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, the burial place and shrine of St. James.

In his introduction to this first modern English translation of the Chronicle, Kevin Poole investigates the issues of fiction, legend and authorship and the relationship between the false chronicle and its wider literary tradition. He also highlights the possible connections between the work and its contemporary political and religious environment. His introduction eludicates the differences between “textbook” history and the history created within the false chronicle.