Charles's Cross - History

History

According to legend, owing primarily to the Liber peregrinationis of Aymeric Picaud, the cross was planted by Charlemagne when he first crossed the Pyrenees on his way to Zaragoza in 778. He reportedly said a prayer to Saint James at the site, thus inaugurating the cult of James in Spain some thirty six years before his relics were rediscovered. The first reference to a cross named after Charles is in an episcopal charter of Bayonne, dated 980. A bull of Pope Paschal II in 1106 refers to the limits of the French kingdom as the vallis que Cirsia dicitur usque Caroli crucem (valley called Cizes as far as Charles's cross). José María Lacarra (1907–1987) affirmed that the cross was originally only a diocesan boundary, of Carolingian provenance, and was associated with the Way of Saint James. The famous Spanish historian Ramón Menéndez Pidal argued that the cross was an important stage in the pilgrim's journey because it marked their entrance into Spain.

The cross named after Charles was in fact only one of many crosses, known as the croix bornales, that once marked the diocesan (and international) boundary in the Pyrenees between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries. Crosses sited near settlements were usually of stone. Those located further up in the mountains were usually of iron, because they were easier to transport and cheaper to manufacture. The ferrous landmarks explain the Basque toponym gurutzgorris and the Spanish cruces rojas, both meaning "red crosses".

In 1160 the Vézelay Chronicle recorded the cross as the southern boundary of the domain of Eleanor of Aquitaine when she married Louis VII of France. The twelfth-century Liber mentions not only the cross, but also the hospice called Rotolandus, Charlemagne's chapel, and the rock split by Durendal, the sword of Roland, and his tomb at Blaye. The cross is mentioned in Ralph of Diceto, who says that as a result of Richard I's campaigns in 1194 "from the castle of Verneuil until one arrives at Charles's Cross no rebels exist" (a castello Vernolii quousque veniatur ad crucem Karoli nullus ei rebellis existat). The Annales sancti Albini andegavensis (or Annales de Saint- Aubin) record that when John became King of England in 1199 he "acquired all the kingdom which was his father's as far as the cross of King Charles" (adquisivit totum regnum quod erat patris sui usque ad crucem Caroli regis).