''Aiquin'' (also spelled ''Aquin'' or ''Acquin''), subtitled ''La conqueste de la Bretaigne par le roy Charlemaigne'' ("The Conquest of Brittany by King Charlemagne"), is a

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...

Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intelligib ...

'' chanson de geste'' (heroic narrative poem) about the rivalry between a

Saracen upright 1.5, Late 15th-century German woodcut depicting Saracens Saracen ( ) was a term used in the early centuries, both in Greek and Latin writings, to refer to the people who lived in and near what was designated by the Romans as Arabia Pe ...

king, Aiquin, and the Christian emperor

Charlemagne Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first Holy ...

. The French medievalist

Joseph Bédier Joseph Bédier (28 January 1864 – 29 August 1938) was a French writer and scholar and historian of medieval France. Biography Bédier was born in Paris, France, to Adolphe Bédier, a lawyer of Breton origin, and spent his childhood in Réunion. ...

called it a "consolidation of history and legend in an imposing ensemble." It survives in one fifteenth-century manuscript, BnF fr. 2233, now in the

Bibliothèque nationale de France The Bibliothèque nationale de France (, 'National Library of France'; BnF) is the national library of France, located in Paris on two main sites known respectively as ''Richelieu'' and ''François-Mitterrand''. It is the national repository ...

. It is usually attributed to , possibly a cleric of Dol. According to historian Éric Borgnis-Desbordes, it was written in the early thirteenth century, probably around 1213 and under the guise of a chanson de geste featuring

and the Viking invasions in the tenth century, the author may have alluded to “the transition from Plantagenet domination to Capetian influence in Brittany”. It is the oldest extant French text from

Brittany Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo language, Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, Historical region, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known ...

. The setting of the ''chanson'' almost certainly corresponds to the period 919–37 in Breton history, when the

Normans The Normans (Norman language, Norman: ''Normaunds''; french: Normands; la, Nortmanni/Normanni) were a population arising in the medieval Duchy of Normandy from the intermingling between Norsemen, Norse Viking settlers and indigenous West Fran ...

(Vikings newly settled in northern France) persistently raided Brittany. It conflates Saracens (''Sarrasin'') and Arabs (''Arabis'') with Normans (''Norois''), and places Aiquin's origins in the north country (''Nort pais''). It also turns

Roland Roland (; frk, *Hrōþiland; lat-med, Hruodlandus or ''Rotholandus''; it, Orlando or ''Rolando''; died 15 August 778) was a Frankish military leader under Charlemagne who became one of the principal figures in the literary cycle known as the ...

, the Frankish hero of the earlier '' Chanson de Roland'', into a native Breton. Inspired by ''Aiquin'', the family of the famous French soldier Bertrand du Guesclin (died 1380) claimed to descend from the Saracen king.

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