Creole MedievalismJoseph Bdier (1864 1938) was one of the most famous scholars of his day. He held prestigious posts and lectured throughout Europe and the United States, an activity unusual for an academic of his time. A scholar of the French Middle Ages, he translated Tristan and Isolde as well as France's national epic, The Song of Roland. Bdier was publicly committed to French hegemony, yet he hailed from a culture that belied this ideal the island of Runion in the