Roland scarcely merited a mention in the chronicle accounts of the battle, during the Middle Ages he would gain a form of meme status. His name became the byword for and archetype of the courageous Christian knight who died heroically for his lord and faith, fighting in a losing cause but emerging with the greater glory for it. In the eleventh century, one version of the many minstrel songs composed about Roland was written down in verse as The Song of Roland (La chanson de Roland). Today this is revered as the oldest surviving work of French literature,
