Central Argument of Mark Dominique's 'The Song of Roland and the Mystification of History."

In short Mark Dominique's central argument for this essay is to prove how The Song of Roland was written for two purposes: 1. was written as "a fitting form of propaganda" which inflamed men to embark on Holy War against the Sacreans. 2. was written to give the Royalty of France a history and heritage of moral strength and legitimacy (which would in turn fire up men to find for France which had moral legitimacy)

However in order to get here, Dominique has takes considerable and profound steps. He must provide his reader with significant proofs from the text and give his audience a window into what the culture of the average 11th Century Francian. He shows not only 'what' the average Francian thought, but alos how the average Joe truly thought. 

Dominique begins by showing his reader how The Song defines the Muslims as  a 'pure evil'. However not a pure evil as we know it, rather a pure evil according to the 11th Century Francian. For example, according to The Song the 'Moslems' worship a three separate gods, instead of worshiping the Muslim god, Allah. This was seen as heretical in 11th Century Gaul. Also The Song constantly reminds the listener of how the pagan enemies have committed the sin of Adam in rejecting Christ as Lord. The Song of Roland defines the Sacreans as evil inside the perimeters of evil present to them. Dominique proceeds to shed some light on the 11th Century view of 'what consequences that evil implys.' Mark Dominique then shows how, according to the view of 11 century Christians, that 'being evil' is in fact an opposition to nature. Dominique quotes some Boethius to show us how the Francians truly believed that "to move toward evil is to forsake nature (Boethius)." Therefore the mass murdering of the pagans is justified, for we have discovered that 11th Century Christians saw this as simply obeying nature. Then Dominique uses text from the Song of Roland to show how the key characters of the Song (Roland and Chalamagne) "function as Christ figures." In doing all this, Mark Dominique has established the agenda of  The Song of Roland. The Song showed the Moslems/Scareans to be evil (evil according to the French); the consensus of 11th Century Frankish mindset stated this sort of evil was so perverse that it deserved to be wiped (This justified the Crusaders mass murdering each other); and The Song portrayed the previous Frankish royalty to be like Christ (this caused the French Crusaders to feel as if they were fighting for something which always had been upright).
"The Christians fight a Holy War, and vengeance
against a criminal people is part of their motivation. (v.1015)"