'However every night he would look at the stars of the Milky Way, which begin at the Friezeland sea, and pass over Germany and Italy, between Gaul and Aquitaine, in a straight line over Gascony, Bearne, and Navarre, and through Spain to Gallicia, where lay the still undiscovered the body of St. James.'
Charlemagne's vision of the Camino de Santiago.
This site will, when complete, contain an English version of the medieval Latin text, the Historia Karoli Magni et Rotholandi (History of Charlemagne and Roland), which tells the story of Charlemagne's quest to liberate Spain and the tomb of St James from the Saracens.
The original is contained in the Codex Calixtinus, the foundation text of the Camino de Santiago. I am translating from the Latin text contained here in the Google archive; where the scanning process has left words indistinct I have turned for clarification to the nineteenth century English edition by Thomas Rodd.
This site is a companion to a previously-completed translation of the 'Pilgrim's Guide', also from the Codex Calixtinus.
Denis Murphy
Dublin.