His death elevated him and the paladins, the foremost warriors of Charlemagne's court, into legend, becoming the quintessential role model for knights and also greatly influencing the code of chivalry in the Middle Ages.

The Basques (Vascones, Wascones) of the Duchy of Vasconia, one of the mainstays of the Aquitanian army, submitted to Pepin in 766 and 769, but the territory south of the Garonne remained largely unscathed and self-governed.

However, as of 778 Charlemagne expanded Frankish takeover of Aquitaine to present-day Gascony, by appointing trusted Franks, Burgundians, and Church officials in key regional positions and establishing counties, such as Fezensac, Bordeaux, and Toulouse, on the left bank of the Garonne.

[citation needed] Sulayman al-Arabi, the pro-Abbasid Wali (governor) of Barcelona and Girona, sent a delegation to Charlemagne, Master of the Franks in Paderborn, offering his submission, along with the allegiance of Husayn of Zaragoza and Abu Taur of Huesca in return for military aid.

[citation needed] Abd ar-Rahman of Córdoba sent his most trusted general, Thalaba Ibn Obeid, to take control of the possibly rebellious city and to prevent the Frankish invasion.

Many of his notable lords, such as Roland, military governor of the Breton March, and Eggihard, Mayor of the Palace, were placed in the rearguard probably to protect the retreat and the baggage train.

[8] As Charlemagne tried to regroup and evacuate his army, Roland and the others held for a considerable amount of time before the Basques finally massacred them completely.

[11][13] The revised version of the Annales Regni reads:[12] Having decided to return, [Charlemagne] entered the mountains of the Pyrenees, in whose summits the Vascones had set up an ambush.

And, while the Franks were superior to the Vascones both in armament and in courage, the roughness of the terrain and the difference in the style of combat made them generally weaker.

The memory of the injury so produced overshadowed in the King's heart that of the feats done in Hispania.One of the principal units of the Vascones was the guerrilla army of the Basques.

Pierre de Marca, a Béarnese author, suggests that the attackers were a reduced number of mostly local Low Navarrese, Souletines, and Baztanese, whose main motivation may have been plunder.

[12] The Vascones had a history of resisting Carolingian rule since the incursion of Frankish king Pepin the Short, which saw the defeat of Waiofar, the last independent Duke of Aquitaine.

While the Duke did pay homage to Charlemagne by offering Hunald II (a rebel leader and a possible heir to Waiofar) and his wife to him, there were disputes over the trans-Pyrenean Basque lands ruled by Lupo and those under Carolingian suzerainty.

However, the historical Roman road (also called the Route of Napoleon) followed a route different from the modern one, not crossing at Ibañeta (the traditional location) but heading up eastwards and crossing instead the Lepoeder and Bentartea passes – next to mount Astobizkar – not far from mount Urkulu, identified as the Summum Pyreneum of the classic Roman sources.

[21][page needed] The battle caused numerous losses among the Frankish troops, including several of the most important aristocrats and the sack of the baggage, probably with all the gold given by the Muslims at Zaragoza.

[20][22][page needed] Never again would Charlemagne take it upon himself to lead an army to battle in Spain, having to rely instead on his generals for future campaigns in the Iberian Peninsula.

[12] The Franks failed to capture Zaragoza and suffered a significant loss at the hands of the Vascones, but Charlemagne would return to establish the Marca Hispanica, to serve as a buffer region between his Christian empire and the Muslims to the south.

The Vascones would finally consolidate the Banu Qasi realm and eventually the constitution of the independent Kingdom of Pamplona in 824 after the birth of a new resistance to Carolingian rule.

[17] Frankish vassals Aeblus and Aznar were captured by the joint forces of Iñigo Arista's Pamplona and of the Banu Qasi, consolidating the independence of both realms.

[32] The battle is also referenced in the song "Roncevaux" by Van der Graaf Generator, originally recorded in 1972 but only released in rather rough form many years later on the album Time Vaults.