Medieval and Renaissance Texts- Aiol

This chanson de geste records the exploits of the young knight, Aiol, as he reclaims his father's and mother's unjustly stolen heritage. He gains the love of a Saracen princess who converts when she is convinced by Aiol's warrior's prowess of the truth of the Christian god. He then aids the French King Louis in ending a debilitating war led by rebellious vassals and (in an allusion to the Fourth Crusade) similarly helps Emperor Grasien, the king of Venice, to end his own war against an enemy to the East. Aiol's deeds ultimately bring justice to the kingdom of France. "Aiol" also artfully recreates both the Christian culture of the West and the Islamic culture of the Levant. Poets writing in medieval French created richly textured literary metaphors or fictions about both the Christian and Muslim world, and they were themselves well aware that even though they were treating historically-based materials, they were also fabricating fictions and fictive truths, tropes and figures as literary art. Aiol's literary allusions suggest a sophistication on the part of the chanson's authors, who wrote for courts that knew well and first-hand the Muslim world. By the time of Aiol's composition there had long been fruitful cultural, trade - as well as military - interaction between the "two worlds." Islamic scholars were respected in intellectual circles in the 12th and 14th centuries, and translators briskly adapted works of Arabic science and medicine for the readers of Latin Europe. Around 80 written Old French epics are known from surviving 13th-century manuscripts. These were preserved and passed down by the aristocratic families who had commissioned them and financed their preparation. These poems, often called genealogical epics, served a number of purposes, from entertainment…