Old French
Old French (, , ; ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th
romance
Romance may refer to:
Common meanings
* Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings
** Romantic orientation, the classification of the sex or gender with which a pers ...
about the life of Muhammad in octosyllabic couplets. It was written by Alexandre du Pont in 1258 in Laon based on the earlier , a Latin poem by Walter of Compiègne. At 1,996 verses, it is almost twice as long as the . It is preserved in a single manuscript in Paris,
Bibliothèque nationale de France
The (; BnF) is the national library of France, located in Paris on two main sites, ''Richelieu'' and ''François-Mitterrand''. It is the national repository of all that is published in France. Some of its extensive collections, including bo ...
, fonds français 1553, from the late 13th century.
The ''Romance'' can be broadly divided into six sections: Muhammad's education and meeting with the Christian hermit; his courtship and marriage; the private confirmation of his prophetic mission; public announcement of his prophethood and issuing of the law; the war with Persia; and Muhammad's death. It is written for a Christian lay audience. It is an essentially fictional account designed to ridicule Muhammad, although its depiction of him as "a clever scoundrel, eloquent suitor, and respected leader is not wholly unsympathetic." It contains numerous inaccuracies and anachronisms, such as
Greek fire
Greek fire was an incendiary weapon system used by the Byzantine Empire from the seventh to the fourteenth centuries. The recipe for Greek fire was a closely-guarded state secret; historians have variously speculated that it was based on saltp ...
and ''
jongleur
A minstrel was an entertainer, initially in medieval Europe. The term originally described any type of entertainer such as a musician, juggler, acrobat, singer or fool; later, from the sixteenth century, it came to mean a specialist enterta ...
s''. It diverges from the in only a few cases, which demonstrate Alexandre's familiarity with the ''
Apology of al-Kindi
''Apology of al-Kindi'' (also spelled al-Kindy) is a medieval theological polemic making a case for Christianity and drawing attention to alleged flaws in Islam. The word "apology" is a translation of the Arabic word ', and it is used in the se ...
''. The limited diffusion of the work suggests that its content was too unusual for its intended audience.
Nothing is known of Alexandre du Pont beyond what he reveals about himself: his name and the date and place of his work. He does exhibit a tendency to sermonize and should perhaps be associated with the
cathedral school of Laon
A cathedral is a church that contains the of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denominations with an episcop ...