1115: Latest revision date of La Chanson de Roland

The eight phases of The Song of Roland in one picture. (source)

1115 (785)  Latest revision date of La Chanson de Roland (The Song of Roland) . "the oldest surviving major work of French literature."

"La Chanson de Roland  exists in various manuscript versions, which testify to its enormous and enduring popularity in the 12th to 14th centuries. The date of composition is put in the period between 1040 and 1115: an early version beginning around 1040 with additions and alterations made up until about 1115. The final text has about 4,000 lines of poetry. The epic poem is the first example... of the chanson de geste, a literary form that flourished between the 11th and 15th centuries and celebrated legendary deeds. These narrative poems of moderate length (averaging 4000 lines) were originally sung, or (later) recited, by minstrels or jongleurs."

"Set in the Carolingian era, it was written much later. There are nine extant manuscripts of the Song of Roland in Old French. The oldest of these manuscripts is held at the Bodleian Library at Oxford. This copy dates between 1129 and 1165 and was written in Anglo-Norman."

Previous events,with exprimental placements based on historical  dates, or +/- 329 years.

1108 (779) Philip I dies. Louis VI the Fat becomes King of the Franks."until his death (1137). "Chronicles called him "roi de Saint-Denis". Louis was the first member of the House of Capet to make a lasting contribution to the centralizing institutions of royal power, He spent almost all of his twenty-nine-year reign fighting either the "robber barons" who plagued Paris or the Norman kings of England for their continental possession of Normandy. Nonetheless, Louis VI managed to reinforce his power considerably and became one of the first strong kings of France since the division of the Carolingian Empire in 843."

778 [1107]  Battle of Roncevaux.?

1102 Almoravids take Valencia

1099 Death of El Cid.

1098 Most of the alterations of La Chanson de Roland around this time.

1095 (766) Urban II proclaims the First Crusade.

754 [1083]  Mozarabic Chronicle. Describes the Battle of Tours.

1094 El Cid inflicts first major defeat on Almoravid Berbers.

1077 Battle of Manzikert.

732 [1061] Battle of Tours? "pits  Frankish and Burgundian forces under Charles Martel against an army of the Umayyad Caliphate led by 'Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, Governor-General of al-Andalus. The Franks were victorious. 'Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi was killed, and Charles subsequently extended his authority in the south. Details of the battle, including its exact location and the number of combatants, cannot be determined from accounts that have survived. Notably, the Frankish troops won the battle without cavalry. Ninth-century chroniclers, who interpreted the outcome of the battle as divine judgment in his favour, gave Charles the nickname Martellus ("The Hammer"). Later Christian chroniclers and pre-20th century historians praised Charles Martel as the champion of Christianity, characterizing the battle as the decisive turning point in the struggle against Islam,"


731 [1060] Completion of Ecclesiastical History of the English People by the Venerable Bede. Uses the Anno Domini calendar.

1060 (731) Henry I dies. Philip I the Amorous, King of the Franks. "His reign, like that of most of the early Capetians, was extraordinarily long for the time. The monarchy began a modest recovery from the low it reached in the reign of his father and he added to the royal demesne the Vexin and Bourges."

1057 Rodrigo (El Cid) fights against the Moorish stronghold of Zaragoza, making its emir al-Muqtadir a vassal of Sancho.

1040 (711) Earliest version of Chanson de Roland.

711–718  [1040-1047] Islamic Umayyad conquest of Visigothic Hispania under Tariq Ibn Zayid

1027 (702) Henry I, King of the Franks

1027 (698) Henry I, crowned Junior King at Cathedral of Rheims.

686 [1015]  Arwald, the last openly pagan king in Britain is slain in battle."From this point on all Anglo-Saxon kings were at least nominally Christian."

1014 (685) Rebuilding  of  Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés.  Rededicated 1163.

679 [1008] Theuderic III, King of the Franks? Kingdom is unified after this death, except for Civil War.

1000 (671) The Millennium. Popularization of Anno Domini "According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, popes continued to date documents according to regnal years for some time, but usage of AD gradually became more common in Roman Catholic countries from the 11th to the 14th centuries"

996 (667) Robert II the Wise, King of the Franks. "He was born in Orléans to Hugh Capet and Adelaide of Aquitaine."

664 [993] Synod of Whitby. "a Northumbrian synod where King Oswiu of Northumbria ruled that his kingdom would calculate Easter and observe the monastic tonsure according to the customs of Rome, rather than the customs practised by Irish monks at Iona and its satellite institutions. The synod was summoned at Hilda's double monastery of Streonshalh (Streanæshalch), later called Whitby Abbey."

987 (658) Hugh Capet, King of the Franks. First of the House of Capet.

986–987 (657-658) Louis V  (Louis the Sluggard). "He died childless and was the last monarch in the Carolingian line."After this, the House of Capet ruled France"

655 [984] Mercia becomes Christian. "King Penda was slain in the Battle of the Winwaed and Mercia became officially Christian for the first time. The death of Penda also allowed Cenwalh of Wessex to return from exile and return Wessex, another powerful kingdom, to Christianity. After 655, only Sussex and the Isle of Wight remained openly pagan, although Wessex and Essex would later crown pagan kings."

973 (644) Otto I dies. "Celebrating Easter with a great assembly in Quedlinburg, Emperor Otto was the most powerful man in Europe. According to Thietmar of Merseburg, Otto received "the dukes Miesco [of Poland] and Boleslav [of Bohemia], and legates from the Greeks [Byzantium], the Beneventans [Rome], Magyars, Bulgars, Danes and Slavs". Ambassadors from England and Muslim Spain arrived later the same year. To mark the Rogation Days, Otto travelled to his palace at Memleben, the place where his father had died 37 years earlier. While there, Otto became seriously ill with fever and, after receiving his last sacraments, died on 7 May 973 at the age of 60."

973 (644) Widikund of Corvey dies. "a medieval Saxon chronicler. His three-volume Res gestae saxonicae sive annalium libri tres is an important chronicle of 10th-century Germany during the rule of the Ottonian dynasty."

644 [973] First native Anglo-Saxon bishop, Ithamar, enthroned as Bishop of Rochester.
972 (643) Wedding of Otto II and Theophanu.


636-637 [965-966]  Siege of Jerusalem. "In April 637, Caliph Umar traveled to Jerusalem in person to receive the submission of the city. The Patriarch thus surrendered to him."

962 (633) Otto I the Great crowned Holy Roman Emperor at Old St. Peter's Basilica, Rome (Feb. 2). Diploma Ottonianum. "a document co-signed during the darkest days of the Papacy by Pope John XII and Otto I, King of the Germans; it confirmed the earlier Donation of Pippin, granting control of the Papal States to the Popes, regularizing Papal elections, and clarifying the relationship between the Popes and the Holy Roman Emperors."

632 [961] Death of Muhammad

629 [958] Byzantine reconquest of Jerusalem. End of Jewish autonomy. Massacre of the Jews.

955 [626] Battle of Lechfeld. Otto I the Great victorious over the invading Magyars, near present day Augsburg, checking their advance into Germany..

613 [942]  Jewish revolt against the Byzantine Heraclius culminates with the conquest of Jerusalem in 614 [943]by Persian and Jewish forces and establishment of Jewish autonomy.

936 [607] Otto I the Great founds Quedlinburg Abbey.
936 [607] Otto I the Great, King of Germany. 

601 [930] Æthelberht of Kent becomes the first Anglo-Saxon king to accept baptism

927 (598) Death of Rollo. William, his son, becomes Duke of Normandy

594 [926] Death of Gregory of Tours. End of last part of Historia Francorum.

597 [926] Augustine, a Benedictine monk, becomese the first Archbishop of Canterbury.

595 [924] Gregory the Great sends mission to convert the Anglo-Saxons.  


584 [913]   End of era covered by the second part, books V and VI, closes with Chilperic I's death in 584. During the years that Chilperic held Tours, relations between him and Gregory were tense. After hearing rumours that the Bishop of Tours had slandered his wife, Fredegund, Chilperic had Gregory arrested and tried for treason—a charge which threatened both Gregory's bishopric and his life.^[2] The most eloquent passage in the Historia is the closing chapter of book VI, in which Chilperic's character is summed up unsympathetically through the use of an invective.

911 (582) Rollo granted fiefdom of Normandy on the lower Seine.

575 [904] End of the era covered by first part of Historia Francorum. "Books I to IV recount the world's history from the Creation but move quickly to the Christianization of Gaul, the life and times of Saint Martin of Tours, the conversion of the Franks and the conquest of Gaul under Clovis,  and the more detailed history of the Frankish kings down to the death of Sigebert I in 575. At this date Gregory had been bishop of Tours for two years."

573 [902] Gregory becomes Bishop of Tours

561 [890] Chlothar I dies. Charibert I, King of Paris, his son, becomes King of Paris. "After the death of Chlothar in 561, the Frankish kingdom was divided between his sons in a new configuration. Each son ruled a distinct realm, which was not necessarily geographically coherent but could contain two unconnected regions, from a chief city after which his kingdom is called. Charibert received Neustria (the region between the Somme and the Loire), Aquitaine, and Novempopulana with Paris as his capital. His chief cities were Rouen, Tours, Poitiers, Limoges, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Cahors, and Albi. Guntram received Burgundy, then Sigebert received Austrasia (including Rheims) with his capital at Metz, and the youngest brother Chilperic received a compact kingdom with Soissons as its capital."

888 (559) Odo, Count of Paris becomes King of the West Franks

558 [887] Childebert I, King of West Francia, dies (Dec. 23). On the same day,, St. Vincent's church is dedicated by Germain, Bishop of Paris on 23 December; Kingdom passes to Chlothar I, King of Soissons. Chlothar reunites his father's kingdom.

885-886 (556-557) Siege of Paris. Odo, Count of Paris, repulses the Vikings, who raid up river.

881 (552) Battle of Saucourt. "victory of the Frankish army, led by Louis III of France, over Danish (Viking) raiders." Celebrated in the Ludwigsleid."Although the poem is Christian in content, and the use of rhyme reflects Christian rather than pagan Germanic poetry, it belongs to the genre of Preislied, a song in praise of a warrior, of a type which is presumed to have been common in Germanic oral tradition."

880 (551) Division of the kingdom of Louis the Stammerer by his sons.
880 (551) Cantilène de sainte Eulalie. "the earliest surviving piece of French hagiography and one of the earliest extant texts in the vernacular langues d'oïl (Old French)."

879 (550) Death of Louis the Stammerer. Succeeded by Charles III (Charles the Fat).?

878 (549) Louis the Stammerer (gives the counties of Barcelona, Girona, and Besalú to Wilfred the Hairy. 

877 (548) Death of Charles the Bald. Succeeded by Louis the Stammerer Louis le Bègue (Louis II).

864 (545) Edict of Pistres.

542 [871] Childeric I raises his siege of Zaragoza "when he heard that the inhabitants had placed themselves under the protection of the martyr Saint Vincent. In gratitude the bishop of Zaragoza presented him with the saint's stole. When Childebert returned to Paris, he caused a church to be erected to house the relic, dedicated to the Holy Cross and Saint Vincent, placed where he could see it across the fields from the royal palace on the Île de la Cité."

845 (526) Sack of Paris by Vikings

525 [844] Dionysius Exiguus of Scythia Minor introduces the A.D. system, counting the years since the birth of Christ. "who fixed its starting point in the year 753 from the foundation of Rome, in which year, according to his calculation, the birth of Christ occurred. Making this the year 1 of his era, he counted the years which followed in regular course from it, calling them years "of the Lord", and we now designate such a date A.D. (i.e. Anno Domini)." "He used it to identify the several Easters in his Easter table, but did not use it to date any historical event. When he devised his table, Julian calendar years were identified by naming the consuls who held office that year; he himself stated that the "present year" was "the consulship of Probus Junior", which he also stated was 525 years "since the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ". How he arrived at that number is unknown, but there is evidence of the system he applied. He invented a new system of numbering years to replace the Diocletian years that had been used in an old Easter table because he did not wish to continue the memory of a tyrant who persecuted Christians.^[6] The Anno Domini era became dominant in Western Europe only after it was used by the Venerable Bede to date the events in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, completed in 731. There exists evidence that Dionysius' desire to replace Diocletian years (Diocletian persecuted Christians) with a calendar based on the incarnation of Christ was to prevent people from believing the imminent end of the world."

843 (514) Treaty of Verdun. Lands of Louis the Pious divided.

841 (512) Battle of Fontenoy-en-Puisaye (Jun 25). "Charles the Bald allied himself with his brother Louis the German to resist the pretensions of the new emperor Lothair I, and the two allies defeated Lothair"

512 [841] Saint Germain, who would later become bishop of Paris, convinces the Merovingian king Childebert I to build an abbey with a church. The church, which held important relics, was dedicated to Saint Vincent and the holy cross. It was one of the most important churches in France, and the final resting place of the Merovingian kings. Its roof was gold painted, which led to the name 'Saint-Germain-le-Doré' (gilded Saint Germain).

840 (511) Death of Einhard, author of Vita Karoli Magni,
840 (511) Death of Louis the Pious (Louis I). Succeeded as King of the Franks by Charles the Bald.

Louis the Pious, contemporary depiction from 826 as a miles Christi (soldier of Christ), with a poem of Rabanus Maurus overlaid

Division of the Realms of Clovis, upon his death in 511. Eventually reunited by his fifth son Chlothar, originally King of Soissons, in 558.

511 [840] Death of Clovis (Louis I?). Succeeed by Childebert I (King of Paris), Clothar I (King of Soissons)."Chlothar was the fifth son of Clovis and the fourth of Queen Clotilde. The name 'Chlothar' means "glory".Chlothar was born around 497 in Soissons. On the death of his father on 27 November 511, he received, as his share of the kingdom, the town of Soissons, which he made his capital; the cities of Laon, Noyon, Cambrai, and Maastricht; and the lower course of the Meuse River. But he was very ambitious, and sought to extend his domain."

c. 507 [835] Death of Romulus Augustus?

502/512 [831/841] Death of Genevieve. She is buried in a tomb built for her by Clovis. Plundered by Vikings 847 (518)

828 (499) Historia Brittonum.

496 [825] Clovis converts to Christianity.

822 (493) " Louis the Pious performs penance for causing death of Bernard, at his palace of Attigny near Vouziers in the Ardennes, before Pope Paschal I, and a council of ecclesiastics and nobles of the realm that had been convened for the reconciliation of Louis with his three younger half-brothers, Hugo whom he soon made abbot of St-Quentin, Drogo whom he soon made Bishop of Metz, and Theodoric. This act of contrition, partly in emulation of Theodosius I, had the effect of greatly reducing his prestige as a Frankish ruler, for he also recited a list of minor offences about which no secular ruler of the time would have taken any notice."

817 (488) On Maundy Thursday 817 (9 April), Louis and his court were crossing a wooden gallery from the cathedral to the palace in Aachen when the gallery collapsed, killing many. Louis, having barely survived and feeling the imminent danger of death, began planning for his succession; three months later he issued an Ordinatio Imperii, an imperial decree that laid out plans for an orderly succession. Pepin given Aquitaine.

816 (487) Louis the Pious crowned Emperor at Reims by Pope Stephen IV.."The Emperor thereby strengthened the papacy by recognising the importance of the pope in imperial coronations."

814 (485) Death of Charles the Great. Succeeded by Louis the Pious (Louis I).

481/482 [810/811]  Death of Childeric I. Clovis I becomes King of the Salian Franks.

480 [809] Julius Nepos dies.

476-481 [805-806] Alliance discussed between Childeric and Odoacer about the possibility of an alliance against the Alamanni who wished to invade Italy.

c. 476 [805] Romulus Augustus deposed as Emperor by Odoacer.

804 (475) Death of Alcuin of York. "He wrote many theological and dogmatic treatises, as well as a few grammatical works and a number of poems. He was made Abbot of Tours in 796, where he remained until his death. "The most learned man anywhere to be found", according to Einhard's Life of Charlemagne^[1] (ca. 817-833)"

475 [804] Julius Nepos deposed by Orestes, who took control of the government at Ravenna on August 28, 475, forcing Nepos to flee by ship to Dalmatia.  Nepos continues to rule from exile in Dalmatia until 480.

800 (471) Charles the Great crowned Emperor.

469 [798] Childeric I and Paul take Angers from Odoacer.

464 [793] Childeric I besieges Paris, conquers it. "Geneviève acted as an intermediary between the city and its conqueror, collecting food and convincing Childeric to release his prisoners. Geneviève passed through the siege lines in a boat to Troyes, bringing grain to the city. She also pleaded to Childeric for the welfare of prisoners-of-war, and met with a favorable response. Through her influence, Childeric and Clovis displayed unwonted clemency towards the citizens."

463 [792] Childeric I fights in conjunction with the Roman General Aegidius, the magister militum of northern Gaul based in Soissons, to defeat the Visigoths, who had hoped to extend their dominion along the banks of the Loire River. After the death of Aegidius, Childeric assisted Comes ("count") Paul of Angers, together with a mixed band of Gallo-Romans and Franks, in defeating the Goths and taking booty. Saxon raiders under the command of Odoacer reached Angers and captured it,

457/458 [786/787] Childeric I "succeeeds his father Merovech as king of the Salian Franks, traditionally in 457 or 458."

451 [780] Attila invades Gaul. Attacks Paris. Is repelled, sacks Orléans.

410 [739] Romans lose Britain.  "Romano-British expelled the magistrates of the usurper Constantine III, ostensibly in response to his failures to use the Roman garrison he had stripped from Britain to protect the island. Roman Emperor Honorius replied to a request for assistance with the Rescript of Honorius, telling the Roman cities to see to their own defence, a tacit acceptance of temporary British self-government. Honorius was fighting a large-scale war in Italy against the Visigoths under their leader Alaric, with Rome itself under siege. No forces could be spared to protect distant Britain. Though it is likely that Honorius expected to regain control over the provinces soon, by the mid-500s Procopius recognised that Britannia was entirely lost to the Romans."


284 [613] Accession of Emperor Diocletian.