August 9 St. Jean Pied-de-Port

I am finally here, ready to begin my pilgrimage.  When I arrived in Madrid I  realized that I had no idea how to get from Biarritz to St. Jean.  I spotted a young German woman with a backpack, surmised she was on her way to do a Camino, and asked if she knew the way from Biarritz to St. Jean.  My first Camino friend, Levke from Germany, was so solicitous of an obviously helpless old man that she took me to the bus to Bayonne, then the train to St. Jean, then found me an albergue for the night.

Jean Pied-de-Port, the ‘foot of the gateway’ or mountain pass across the Pyrenees between the French Pays Basque and the Spanish País Vasco or Navarre, is the meeting point of the Chemin de St. Jacques trails from Paris, Vezelay, Le Puy and Arles.   My destination for tomorrow, and the first town on the Spanish side, is Roncevalles, about 25 kilometers away.

This pass was the site of the 8th century battle which inspired the 11th century Chanson de Roland, and through it, the 14th century cult of chivalry.

In this age when many want to ‘make America great again,’ in is interesting to be reminded that in what Barbara Tuchman called ‘The Calamitous Fourteenth Century,’ the cult of chivalry had no basis in reality, and only a basis in nostalgia for a past that had never been.

Charlemagne’s rear-guard was ambushed in this mountain pass in 778 CE, providing the basis for the Song of Roland, the beginning of French literature, and the beginning of the myth of chivalry.  Never mind that the attack was in retaliation for Charlemagne’s destruction of the walls of Pamplona, not a holy war, never mind that the attackers were Basque and not Muslim.  Never mind that Roland and his rear guard were routed ignominiously. The Song of Roland is a classic example of strategic revisionism.