Websites or articles about what the opinions were about Islam's Prophet throughout history in the west/europe?

Question

Perhaps something during the medieval period etc

Answer 1

Without looking up websites, I can give you some very different literary views.

In the Song of Roland, a French epic written (at least in the version that's come down to us) about 1130 A.D., Muslims are called "Paynims" (pagans), and are depicted as worshipping a variety of idols, including "Mahound"--a picture about as far from the truth as it could be.

In Dante's Inferno (Italian, early 1300s), Mohammed and his son-in-law, Ali, are in Subcircle 8 of Circle 8 of Hell, the place for sowers of religious discord. Dante refers to the tradition that Mohammed was originally a Chirstian bishop who, when he failed to be elected Pope, left the Church and started his own religion--a picture almost as inaccurate as the first one.

In Boccaccio's Decameron (also Italian, c1350), one story tells of a wise man who was asked which of the Abrahamic faiths--Judaism, Christianity, and Islam--was the true one and replied with this story: a man had an heirloom ring that had been passed down for generations from father to chosen son. Since this man had three sons whom he loved equally, he had a jeweler make two replicas and gave each son a ring privately, letting each one think his was the original and only ring and asking him to keep it secret. Not until several generations later did the descendants of the three brothers learn that each branch of the family had an identical ring, and by then there was no way to know which was the original. Inference obvious?

It's worth noting that, while the first two works mentioned here are definitely medieval, Boccaccio, who was born about the time Dante was writing his masterpiece, is already considered Renaissance.