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. But the poem is far more than the tale itself. "Aiol" 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...