Marsilies

Also known as: Marsile / Marsilie / Marsilion / Marsiliun / Marsillies / Marsilye · Family: Sarrazins · Role: pagan king of Sarraguce · First appears: Laisses I–VI

In Laisses I–VI, Marsilies, king of Sarraguce, calls his council together and sends envoys to Charles with olive branches, proposing peace. Through Blancandrins, he offers gifts, hostages, and a promise to accept Christianity and follow Charles to France; these are false promises. In Laisses XIII–XVIII, Rollant recalls that Marsilies took the heads of Basan and Basile, two counts Charles had sent him. When Guenes brings Charles’s demand for Christian faith and half of Spain, Marsilies tries to strike him with a dart, but the blow is turned aside.

In Laisses XXXVII–XLVIII, Marsilies reveals that he took the counts’ heads, accepts Guenes’s pledged service, and swears to fight Rollant and kill him if he can. In Laisses XLIX–LIV, he gives Guenes the city keys and tribute and directs him to have Rollant placed in the rearguard. At Sarraguce, he summons an army; at Rencesvals, he orders Esturganz and Estramariz to lead his band into the pass. In Laisses CXXXIX–CXLIV, Marsilies strikes Bevon dead and slays Yvoerie, Ivon, and Gerard of Russillon, before Rollant slices off his right hand and he flees.

In Laisses CLXXXVII–CXCII, Marsilies is back at Sarraguce, having lost his right hand and swooning from the blood he has shed. Looking back, the poem tells that in the first year he sent a message to Baligant, the admiral of Babilonie, asking for aid. In Laisses CXCIII–CXCVIII, Marsilies tells Baligant’s messengers that Charles has slain his men and laid waste his land, offers Baligant his claim over Spain if he frees it from the Franks, and gives the messengers Sarraguce’s keys. In Laisses CXCIX–CCIV, he yields his land and Sarraguce to Baligant. His queen, Bramimunde, bewails him; his son Jursaleu has been slain.