Medieval Manuscripts Alive: Middle French

Published: November 9, 2015

The spectacular medieval manuscript known as the Romance of Gillion de Trazegnies tells the story of a bigamous French-speaking knight from Hainaut (a county in present-day Belgium). Gillion is married to a western Christian noblewoman and an eastern Muslim princess at the same time—while leading the army of the sultan of Egypt.

The book is written in Middle French, the predecessor of the modern language whose grammar and pronunciation is much different from French today. Hear audio recordings of two passages in this post, below.

Click here for full story