Carlomagno en España

Anseis of Carthage is a 13th century song of deeds composed to complement the story of Charlemagne's intervention in Spain, as it had been reported a hundred years earlier in the Song of Roland and the Historia Karoli Magni et Rotholandi of the Pseudo Turpín. The poem uses the theme of the rape of a counselor's daughter by the king as the triggering cause of the Muslim invasion, a fact that Hispanic chronicles attributed to the Goth Don Rodrigo. It narrates the defensive war carried out by Anseis, whom the emperor has left as king of Spain, and his retinue until the arrival of help from Charlemagne, who reconquers and repopulates the peninsular territory in the military expedition that marks the end of his reign. . This work, composed of 11,600 verses, mixes characteristic elements of the chivalric epic with love scenes typical of courtly literature. The narration and dialogue are harmoniously combined in the poem, to the point of making an adequate prose version possible in Spanish. The translation is even more timely due to the scarce representation of the genre in the language of Berceo and the Archpriest of Hita. The text is preceded by a previous introductory study that analyzes the content and meaning of the work, in addition to reviewing the literary pieces that are part of the legend of Charlemagne's presence in Spain, both those prior to the composition of the Anseis and those after from the 14th and 15th centuries.