Charles's Cross - Location

Location

Researchers have proposed various interpretations of the evidence for the cross's location for centuries. In 1637, the Basque Arnauld de Oihenart, in his Notitia utriusque Vasconie, concluded that Charles's Cross had occupied a site that was then under the chapel of San Salvador de Ibañeta. The Béarnais Pierre de Marca followed in him in this identification. Around the turn of the twentieth century, two canons of Bayonne, Victor Pierre Dubarat (1849–1912) and Jean-Baptiste Daranatz (1869–1937), wrote that in the twelfth century the site of San Salvador de Ibañeta had been covered by nothing but Charles's Cross and the thousands of other crosses placed there by pilgrims on the Way of Saint James. According to Lacarra, this conclusion is based on a misinterpretation of the Liber peregrinationis.

Other historians around the turn of the twentieth century placed the cross on the Roman road that passed through the mountains. The historian Jean de Jaurgain (1842–1920) believed the cross was located near Arnéguy and Valcarlos, and even identified it with the now lost "Capeyron Roge", in fact a pilgrim hospital. The historical cross which confused him was a diocesan marker, which he found labeled "Curutchegorry" on an eighteenth-century map. Louis Colas (1869–1929) was so convinced that Charlemagne had planted the cross atop the summit of Orzanzurieta, the highest peak in the region, when he repaired the road to Zaragoza, the he climbed the Pyrenees in search of its remains in 1910. The remains of a cross he did report, but these were shown to be the remains of a trigonometric column used by the military.

Others have differed in their readings of Aymeric Picaud. Piarres Narbaitz Caillava (1910–1984) denied that the cross could have been as high up as Colas suggested and still be accessible to pilgrims. He interpreted Picaud as saying it was in a "marvellous mount", which he identified with the Col de Cizes, but still on the Roman road. Pidal proposed the peak of Astobizcar, the highest point of the route through Lepoeder, but Jimeno Jurío demonstrated that this was a misreading of Picaud, who said not that the cross was located at the fastigium (highest point) but was visible from it in summitate eiusdem monti (on a lesser summit of its mountains).

A cross outside Roncesvalles was placed in the fifteenth century by a prior of the collegiate church.