It was the year 777. Charlemagne had gathered an Assembly in Paderborn where he was to receive the submission of the defeated Saxons after a hard-fought struggle. With this expedition to Saxony, he was completing the two military campaigns undertaken by his father Pepin: the Saxon and the Italian ones. At that moment, King Charles had a brief respite to consider on which of his borders he could expand his fledgling empire.
It was then that, as recorded in the Annales Regii, two Saracen leaders arrived at the Assembly: Ibn al-Arabi (Suleiman), wali of Zaragoza, and the son of Yuseph, accompanied by his son-in-law. The New Annales Regii, written twenty years later around 805, add further details:
"At the same place (Paderborn) and time, a Saracen from Hispania named Ibin al-Arabi came before the king, along with other Saracen allies, surrendering themselves together with the cities entrusted to them by the king of the Saracens."
The Annales Mettenses, written around the same time, specify that Suleiman ibn al-Arabi governed the cities of Barcelona and Girona. This suggests that the confederation of Muslim chiefs roughly encompassed the Ebro basin—the former Hispania Tarraconensis of Roman times:
"Solinan, also, leader of the Saracens, who ruled the cities of Barcelona and Girona, submitted himself and all that he possessed to the domination of Pepin."
The New Annales provide an interesting detail: King Charles decided to come with the hope of seizing some cities—undoubtedly those offered by the Muslim leaders to escape the absorbing power of Abd al-Rahman I. While all these sources stem from an earlier original, it is interesting to observe how the true motivations emerge and how justifications are gradually constructed. The event becomes cloaked in a dignity it did not originally have.
The Poeta Saxo also reveals the imperialist motives of Charles:
Tunc sarracenus quidam perveneret illuc,
Nomine qui patrio dictus fuit Ibinalarbi.
Hic cum non paucis sociis ac civibus, ipsum
Qui comitabantur, fines regiones Hiberae
Linquentem, Carolo se dedidit, ac simul urbes
Rex Sarracenus quibus hunc praefecerat olim.
Hortatu Sarraceni cum se memorati
Hispanias urbes quasdam sibi subdere posse
Haud frustra speraret, eo sua maxima coepit
Agmina per celsos Wasconum ducere montes.
(Poeta Saxonis, Annalium de Gestis Karoli Magni Imperatoris)
Then there came to him a certain Saracen, who in his native tongue was called Ibn al-Arabi. He, accompanied by many allies and citizens, left the Iberian region and surrendered himself to Charles, along with the cities that the Saracen king had previously placed under his command. Encouraged by the said Saracen—and not in vain—he hoped to bring some Spanish cities under his power and began leading his troops through the high mountains of the Vascones.
Yet Charlemagne was seen as a most Christian monarch. Publicly, religious motives emerged, cleverly exploited. In May of 778, while the expedition was crossing the Pyrenees, Charlemagne wrote to Pope Adrian. The letter has been lost, but the Pope’s reply survives. Adrian expressed his sorrow over the situation and said he would pray for the expedition’s success and for a safe and victorious return.
Much later, sixteen years after the events, the “most Christian” king would embellish his military venture, portraying it as a crusade to save the Church from infidel rule. In 794, at the Council of Frankfurt—convened to address the adoptionist doctrines of the Church of Toledo—King Charles wrote a letter to Elipandus, Metropolitan of Toledo, condemning his doctrines and, in passing, referencing motivations for the Roncesvalles expedition, albeit reinterpreted after the fact.
These motivations quickly found resonance among contemporary chroniclers. They were promptly echoed in the Annales Mettenses, the Astronomer, and the Life of Saint Genulphe. The inglorious military episode was now cloaked in high ideals that justified Charles's actions.
And what about Vasconia? Aquitaine? Saxony? Bavaria? As the Mettensian annalist puts it:
"Anno Dominicae Incarnationis DCCLXXVIII, Rex Carolus motus precibus, immo querelis Christianorum, qui erant in Hispania sub yugo severissimorum Sarracenorum, exercitum in Hispaniam duxit."
"In the year 778 of the Incarnation of the Lord, King Charles, moved by the pleas and lamentations of the Christians who were in Hispania under the harsh yoke of the Saracens, led his army into Hispania."
It was already forgotten that Charlemagne had gone to Zaragoza at the of Muslim walis led by Suleiman al-Arabi, and not at the call of the Christians. On one side were Charlemagne’s true intentions, and on the other, those of the Muslim petty kings entangled in tribal conflicts and quests for independence.
Both Muslim and Christian sources agree that Ibn al-Arabi and his allies sought support against the growing power of Abd al-Rahman I, offering themselves—and their cities—in exchange for protection under the Frankish king. Clearly, they sought independence under one power to escape another. As Ramón de Abadal observed: "promise much, give little, and gain as much as possible."
Charlemagne’s intentions, however, might have been entirely different. The Frankish-Muslim frontier had been calm for a long time. Since the Franks captured Septimania and Narbonne in 759, there had been no armed conflict. Yet the Franks aspired to make the Ebro River their frontier. On the Atlantic side, Vasconia had been subdued in 768, so it seemed natural for the Franks to seek full control of the Pyrenean slope down to the Ebro.
At that point, as already mentioned, Charles had completed his campaigns in Saxony and Italy. The opportunity to push his borders to the Ebro was not to be missed. Charlemagne aimed not just to seize a few cities, but to establish a permanent frontier, and as a shrewd politician, he took advantage of all dissent within al-Andalus.
"Nam antea adhuc in Saxonia positus receperat legationem sarracenorum in qua fuit Ibn el Arabi et filius de Yusefi, qui latine dicitur Joseph."
(Adon. Vienn., Chron.)
"For previously, while still in Saxony, he had received a Saracen delegation which included Ibn al-Arabi and the son of Yusef, who is called Joseph in Latin."
That same year, Suleiman ibn Yakzan al-Qalbi persuaded Charles, king of al-Faranja, to enter Muslim-held Spanish territory. Charles thought long and hard about this tempting and seductive offer throughout the remainder of 777, spending Christmas peacefully in Duziaco (Douzy), near Sedan in the Ardennes. Finally, he decided and reached an agreement with the Iberian sheikhs to finalize the details of the military campaign and the handover of the cities. The army was in excellent condition, highly trained from the Saxon campaigns and significantly reinforced by recent conquests. The expedition would take place in the spring.