The Cross of Charles. The Pilgrims' Guide (Liver IV of the Codex Calixtinus ), written in the 12th century, already mentions the Cross of Charles or Crux Karoli , high in the Pyrenees. By the 12th century, the process of conversion of imperialist motives into religious ones was already reaching its culmination. All that was left was the canonization of Charlemagne. Other testimonies from the same century also point to the Crux Karoli . For example, a Bull of Paschal II (in the year 1106) is cited in which it is designated as the southern limit of the diocese of Bayonne in that area: ...omnis vallis quae dicitur Cirsie usque ad Karoli Crucem , ...the whole valley called Cize, as far as the Cross of Charles. The monk of V zelay (12th century) notes that the states of Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine and Vasconia, extended as far as the Pyrenees Mountains and the Cross of Charles: ...usque ad montes Pyrenaeos et usque ad "Crucem Karoli", ...as far as the Pyrenees Mountains and the Cross of Charles. The Cross of Charles disappeared long ago without a trace of its location. Various historians have each located it where they thought they found it according to the context of historical evidence. It has been located on the summits of Orzainzurieta (Colas), Bentartea (Duhourcaud), Burriaguerra (Menéndez Pidal), Astobiskar (Jaurgain), but it is generally situated on the summit of Iba eta (Oihenart, Marca del siglo XVII) and the modern Dubarat and Daranatz, Lacarra, Campi n and Jimeno Juró. Indeed, the Chapel of San Salvador de Iba eta is an old boundary. Iba eta is a port, a dividing point the southern valleys of Erro and Pamplona and the northern valleys of Val-Carlos and Zisa. The pilgrims' hospital-church of San Salvador is the key place and the point where pilgrims found refuge and rest. The origin of this Charles Cross is not unrelated to the Roland cycle, the sword of this sub-prefect, stuck in the ground in the shape of a cross, and other details that ultimately weave the legend. But the discovery of a large number of skeletons of men, women, and children beneath the foundations of the Romanesque temple leads us to other, more realistic and dramatic conclusions. Of course, these are not victims of the Carolingian army of 778 or 824. They are people of all ages with broken bones. As Jimeno Juró judiciously points out, the memory of the victims buried in these places may have initiated the custom of placing crosses in their memory, even before the epic poems established the place where Roland died here (Dénde fue la batalla de Roncesvalles, p. 16). By the 16th century, the Charles Cross had already disappeared. Oihenart, from the following century, says that the Cross of Charles stood where the Chapel of San Salvador de Iba eta now stands, at the top of the Pyrenees (Noticia, ed. 1929, p. 304). When the Cross disappeared, its name was replaced by the new monument, the Capela Karoli Magni, dedicated to Saint Savior. The name Valcarlos or Valley of Charles also appears in the Codex de Compostela: "Near this mountain - we translate - towards the north, there is a mountain called Valcarlos, where Charlemagne received hospitality, as did his army, when his warriors from Roncesvalles were killed. It is through here that many pilgrims pass on their way to Santiago without climbing the mountain."