The Crusades and the Near East

by Kostick, Conor

  15 Svetlana Luchiskaya, ‘The image of Muhammad in Latin Chronography of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries’, Journal of Medieval History 26, 2000, 115–26; Marie-Thérèse d’Alverny, ‘La connaissance de l’Islam en Occident du XI au milieu du XII siècle’, in Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo 12, l’Occidente e l’Islam nell’alto medioevo, Spoleto 2– 8 aprile 1964, 2, Spoleto: Presso la sede del Centro, 1965, pp. 577–602; Tolan, Saracens, pp. 155–7.

  16 Medieval pilgrimage itineraries do not discuss Islam. They concentrate on the Christian holy places visited and show little interest in religions other than Christianity.

  However, pilgrims on the journey apparently met Muslims and, after returning home, probably spoke of their trips to the people around them. Pilgrimage may well have indirectly enhanced interest in people and areas outside Europe.

  17 Marie-Thérèse d’Alverny, ‘Pierre le Vénérable et la légende de Mahomet’, in M.C.

  Oursel (ed.), A Cluny, Congrès scientifique, Fêtes et cérémonies liturgiques en l’honneur des saints Abbés Odon et Odillon, 9–11 juillet 1949, Dijon: Société des Amis de Cluny avec le CNRS, 1950, pp. 161–70.

  18 Joannes Moschus, Pratum spirituale, Vita Antonii senis monasterii in Scopulo, PL 74, Cap. 99, Col. 0169A.

  19 Joannes Moschus, Pratum spirituale, Relatio abbatis Jordaniis de tribus Saracenis qui se invicem interfecerunt, PL 74, Cap. 155, Col. 0198D.

  20 Joannes Moschus, Pratum spirituale, De sancto Monacho, qui Saracenum venatorem per duos dies immobile reddidit, PL 74, Cap. 133, Col. 0187B.

  21 Isidorus Hispalensis, Chronicon, PL 83, Tertia aetatis, Col. 1024B: ‘Abraham annorum C, genuit Isaac, ex Sara libera. Nam primum ex ancilla Agar genuerat Ismael, a quo Ismaelitarum gens qui postea Agareni, ad ultimum Saraceni sunt dicti.’; Eusebius of Caesarea, Eusebii hieronymi, Stridonensis presbyteri, Interpretatio chronicae, PL 27, early translation from Greek, Col. 121: ‘Abraham ex ancilla Agar generat Ismael, a quo Ismaelitarum genus, qui postea Agareni, et ad postremum Saraceni dicti.’

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  22 Augustine, Enarrationes in psalmos, in Psalmum LXXXI, PL 37, Col. 1053: ‘Agareni, Proselyti, id est, advenae: quo nomine significantur inter inimicos populi Dei, non illi qui cives fiunt; sed qui in animo alieno atque adventitio perseverant, et nocendi occasione inventa se ostendunt. Gebal, Vallis vana, id est, fallaciter humilis: Amon, Populus turbidus, vel Populus moeroris: Amalech, Populus linguens; unde alibi dictum est, “Et inimici ejus terram linguent” (Psal. LXXI, 9). Alienigenae, quamvis et ipso nomine latino se indicent alienos, et ob hoc consequenter inimicos, tamen in hebraeo dicuntur Philistiim; quod interpretatur Cadentes potione, velut quos fecit ebrios luxuria saecularis. Tyrus lingua hebraea dicitur Sor; quod sive Angustia sive Tribulatio interpretetur, secundum illud accipiendum est in his inimicis populi Dei, quod ait Apostolus: “Tribulatio et angustia in omnem animam hominis operantis malum”

  (Rom. II, 9). Omnes ergo hi sic enumerantur in hoc psalmo: “Tabernacula Idumaeorum et Ismaelitae, Moab et Agareni, Gebal et Amon et Amalech, et alienigenae cum habitantibus Tyrum” (Psalm 82).’

  23 Leo I (440–61), de Manicheorum haereses, PL 55, 0784A; Fredegar, Chronicum (various authors 584–641), PL 71, Cap. LXVI, Col. 0674A; Beda, Quaestionem super genesim ex dictis partum dialogues, PL 93, Col. 0311A. Smaragdus of St Michel on the Meuse (c.760–c.840) in northern France includes a long and detailed text on the geography of the Holy Land in the Lectio actuum apostolorum from about 820. He mentions that the Arabs consist of several peoples, such as Moabites, Ammonites, Idumeans and Saracens, among many others. He also mentions that Damascus is a famous Saracen metropolis.

  Lectio actuum apostolorum, PL 102, Cap. VIII, Col. 0254C–D; Liutprand of Cremona, Liutprandi adversaria (auctor incertus), PL 136, Col.1156D; Rabanus Maurus (c.780–856) writing in about 844, De universo, Lib. Sextus Decimus, Cap. 2, De gentium vocabulis, PL 111, Col. 0438A–C; Walafrid Strabo (d. 849), Liber genesis, PL 113, Cap.

  XVI, Col. 0122A–B; Bernard of Clairvaux, Parabolae Sancto Bernardi, Parabola 1, De pugna spirituali, PL 183, Col. 0760B; Petrus Venerabilis, Epistola sive tractatus adversus petrobrusianos haereticos, PL 189, Col. 743B.

  24 For example, the Chronicon Abeldense ( PL 129, Col. 1142B–1143C) describes the Moorish conquest as follows: ‘Saraceni Spaniam sunt ingressi anno regni Ruderici de Abdelmelic, anno Arabum c. Ingressus est primum Abzuhura in Sapania sub Muza duce in Africa commanente et Maurorum patrias defecante. Alio anno ingresso est Tarik. Tertio anno jam eodem Taric praelio agente cum Ruderico, ingressus est Muza Iben Muzeir, et periit regnum Gothorum, et tunc omnis décor Gothicae gentis pavore vel ferro periit. Et rege quoque Ruderico nulli causa interitus ejus cognit manet usque in praesentem diem.’ The writer continues with the conventional explanation of the origin of Saracens: ‘Saraceni perversi se putant se esse ex Sara; verius Agareni ab Agar, et Ismaelitae ab Ismaele.’

  25 For example, the Saracens against whom Charlemagne fights in eighth-century Gothia in Annales Quedlinburgenses and Weissenburgenses.

  26 Cow’s Sura, II.127.

  27 Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1946–7, I.237–40, 263–9; V.230–3, 246–7. Genesis 21:9 was interpreted by some rabbis as meaning that Ishmael was being idolatrous, while others claimed that Ishmael simply turned against Isaac.

  28 Suger, Vita Ludovici Regis VI, Cap. XXI, PL 186, Col. 1319B: ‘Saracenos immisericorditer trucidare, inhumata barbarorum corpora lupis et corvis ad eorum perennem ignominiam exponere, tantorum homicidiorum et crudelitatis causam terrae suae defensione justificare.’ For an English translation of Suger’s chronicle, see Suger, Abbot of Saint Denis, The Deeds of Louis the Fat, Richard Cusimano and John Moorhead (trs), Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1992, Cap. 21.

  29 RM 727–8.

  30 RM 727–8; BD 12–13; RA 288.

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  31 For example, Hrabanus Maurus, Commentatriorum Genesim libri quatuor, De conjunctione Agar, PL 107, Cap. XVIII, Col. 0544A; Super Jeremiam prophetam, PL

  111, Lib. 1, Cap. 2, Col. 0813B; Bruno Carthusianorum (c.1030–1101), Expositio in psalmos, Psalm 82, PL 152, Col. 1078B.

  32 Gregory VII, Gregorii VII Registrum libri I–IX, Erich Caspar (ed.), MGH Epistolae Selectae, Lib. III, 21, 2.1, 287–8: ‘Nam omnipotens Deus, qui omnes homines vult salvos facere et neminem perire, nichil est, quod in nobis magis approbet, quam ut homo post dilectionem suam hominem diligat et, quod sibi non vult fieri, alii non faciat. Hanc utique caritatem nos et vos specialius nobis quam ceteris gentibus debemus, qui unum Deum, licet diverso modo, credimus et confitemur, qui eum creatorem seculorum et gubernatorem huius mundi cotidie laudamus et veneramur.’

  33 The idea of the noble Saracen as an alternative hero was already present in the earliest surviving works of geste, developing later into highly impressive characters in the works of Chrétien de Troyes and Wolfram of Eschenbach (writing in c.1170–80 and by c.1220, respectively). For Saracen heroes, see Baligant in Chanson de Roland, Soliman in Chanson d’Antioche, Almes in Chanson d’Aspremont, Fierabras in Parzival and Rainoart in Chanson de Guillaume d’Orange. Wicked Christians also occur in the tradition without a break from Roland’s opponent Ganelon onward. In the thirteenth-century continuations of the Chanson de Jérusalem, the Saracen Corbaran is depicted as a virtuous knight, while the Patriarch Eraclius of Jerusalem is the rotten apple of the story. Chanson de Jérusalem: part 1, Chrétienté Corbaran: part 2, La prise d’Acre, La mort de Godefroi, La Chanson des Rois Baudouins. In the poems of the second Crusade Cycle from the fourteenth century, perhaps echoing the Chronicon by William of Tyre (c.1185) and its vernacular continuations, Saladin acts as a chivalrous hero.

  34 Saracen conversion did not form a consistent crusader policy in the First Crusade, and did not become a subject of interest before mendicants took up the issue in the thirteent
h century. Christian mission did not form a part of the preaching of the First Crusade. Conversions occur in poetry from the conquest of Nicea in 1097 onward, Chanson d’Antioche, LXXIX.791–2. In the chronicles, the earliest convert mentioned by name is Pirus, the Turkish Emir (of Antioch), in 1098. GF 44; BD 52–3.

  35 Wolfram von Eschenbach, Willehalm,

  M.E. Gibbs and S.M. Johnson (trs),

  Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984, book VI, 155f.

  36 According to Joyce Salisbury, by the Late Middle Ages this consensus wanes, and certain groups are labelled as less human than others. J.E. Salisbury, The Beast within: Animals in the Middle Ages, New York: Routledge, 1994, p. 153.

  37 C.M. Jones, ‘The Conventional Saracen of the Songs of Geste’, Speculum 17 (1942), 201–25, at 205.

  38 As Dorothy Sayers writes in her delicious foreword to her edition of the Chanson de Roland in 1957, ‘the idea that a strong man should react to great . . . calamities by a slight compression of the lips and by silently throwing his cigarette into the fireplace is of very recent origin’.

  39 D.F. Tinsley, ‘The Face of the Foreigner in Medieval German Courtly Literature’, in Albrecht Classen (ed.), Meeting the Foreign in the Middle Ages, New York: Routledge, 2002, pp. 45–70, at p. 46.

  40 Tinsley ‘The Face of the Foreigner’, p. 47.

  41 Tinsley, ‘The Face of the Foreigner’, p. 48.

  42 Classen (ed.), Meeting the Foreign in the Middle Ages, p. xvi.

  43 For example, Chétifs mentions as Saracen gods Mahon, Tervagant, Apollin, Sathanas, Jupin, Caju and Margot, 1.33 (Mahon and Tervagant), 3.117 (Apollin and Sathanas), 24.687 (Mahomet, Tervagen and Jupin), 51.1536 (Mahomet and Cahu),

  134.3999–4000 (Mahon, Margot, Apollin, Jupiter Baraton).

  44 RC 695: ‘Stabat in excelso simulacrum fusile throno, / Scilicet argentum grave, cui 156

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  vix sena ferendo/ Dextera sufficiat fortis, vix dena levando. / Hoc ubi Tancredus prospectat: “Proh pudor! inquit. / “Quid sibi vult praesens, quae stat sublimis, imago?

  / “Quid sibi vult haec effigies? quid gemma? quid aurum? / “Quid sibi vult ostrum?”

  Nam gemmis totus et ostro / Mahummet redimitus erat, radiabat et auro. / “Forsitan hoc Martis vel Apollinis est simulacrum / “Numquid enim Christus? non hic insignia Christi, / “Non crux, non sertum, non clavi, non latus haustum. / “Ergo neque hic Christus: quin pristinus Antichristus. / “Mahummet pravus, Mahummet perni-ciosus.”’ Translation from Bernard and David Bachrach, The Gesta Tancredi of Ralph of Caen, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005, p. 202. Another chronicler of the First Crusade, Fulcher of Chartres, also mentions the idol of Mahumet. FC, 289–90. Neither of the writers was present at the conquest of Jerusalem in July 1099. Both of them, however, had met Tancred, had access to the Latin ruling circles, and spent decades in Syro-Palestine.

  45 For swearing in the name of Mahomet or Mahon, see, e.g., Chanson d’Antioche, XXI.460, XXV.550; Chétifs, 2.75, 2.80, 5.174, 8.246, 55.1731, 62.2032, 89.2933, 125.3784. It appears frequently also in later works of the Crusade Cycles.

  46 For the tradition of the Nestorian Monk Bahira, see Marie-Thérèse d’Alverny, ‘Deux traductions latines du Coran au moyen âge’, Archive d’Histoire Doctr. et Litterature de Moyen ge 16, 1948, 69–131. It reaches the west through St John of Damascus and Theophanus and also via a Latin translation of Arabic Apocalypse of of Bahira and Risalat-al-Kindi. Bahira is originally mentioned in Muhammad’s biography by Ibn Hisham.

  47 Embricon of Mainz, Vita Mahumeti, lines 219–20.

  48 Embricon of Mainz, Vita Mahumeti, lines 255–84, 299–320.

  49 Embricon of Mainz, Vita Mahumeti, lines 744–58.

  50 Embricon of Mainz, Vita Mahumeti, lines 388, 420–2.

  51 Embricon of Mainz, Vita Mahumeti, lines 695, 711–34, 788–810.

  52 Embricon of Mainz, Vita Mahumeti, lines 835–45.

  53 Embricon of Mainz, Vita Mahumeti, lines 1055–7.

  54 Embricon of Mainz, Vita Mahumeti, lines 1104, 1138–9.

  55 GN 90.

  56 GN 92–3.

  57 GN 94.

  58 GN 94.

  59 GN 94–5.

  60 GN 96–7.

  61 GN 97–8.

  62 GN 98–9.

  63 GN 99–100.

  64 GN 101–2.

  65 Bischoff, Vita Machometi, introduction to Adelphus’s text, p. 106.

  66 Gautier of Compiègne, Otia de Machomete, lines 22–5.

  67 Gautier of Compiègne, Otia de Machomete, lines 627–8.

  68 Gautier of Compiègne, Otia de Machomete, line 26.

  69 Lepage, Roman de Mahomet, introduction to Gautier’s text, p. 79.

  70 Gautier of Compiègne, Otia de Machomete, lines 279–84.

  71 Gautier of Compiègne, Otia de Machomete, lines 400–5, 441–52, 635–6.

  72 Gautier of Compiègne, Otia de Machomete, lines 839–45, 850–6, 1013–16.

  73 Gautier of Compiègne, Otia de Machomete, lines 943–6. For the comparison between battle and joint ascetic observance, see RA 296; GF 67, 90; BD 17, 22.

  74 Gautier of Compiègne, Otia de Machomete, lines 1007–8.

  75 Gautier of Compiègne, Otia de Machomete, lines 1057–65, 1078.

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  76 Adelphus, Vita Machometi, lines 5–12.

  77 Bischoff, Vita Machometi, introduction to Adelphus’s text, p. 106.

  78 Adelphus does not directly mention the crusade, or give out any personal data, except for his name in line 323.

  79 Adelphus, Vita Machometi, lines 9, 16–17. The polemical beginning is not in line with the rest of the story, which refers to Islam as a heresy including no further mentions of pagan practice. With this particular phrase, Adelphus links Islam with the ancient fight between God and the Devil.

  80 Adelphus, Vita Machometi, lines 22–30.

  81 Adelphus, Vita Machometi, line 46; see, e.g., Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermones in Cantica Canticorum, Sermo LXV, De clandestinis haereticos. PL

  183, Col.

  1089A–1095B, Cap. 1 (1089A): ‘[Heretics are like] generis vulpium qui sunt adulatores, detractores, ad seductorii quidam spiritus, gnari et assueti mala sub specie boni inducere’; Cap. 4 (1091D): ‘vastatia vineae [the metaphor of wasted grapevines referred to]’; (1094B): ‘Capite nobis vulpes parvulas, quae demoliuntur vineas

  [another reference to foxes despoiling grapevines, Cant. II, 15]’.

  82 Adelphus, Vita Machometi, lines 80–91.

  83 Adelphus, Vita Machometi, lines 115–17.

  84 Adelphus, Vita Machometi, lines 135–48.

  85 Adelphus, Vita Machometi, lines 225–57.

  86 Adelphus, Vita Machometi, lines 258–70.

  87 Adelphus, Vita Machometi, lines 276–300.

  88 Adelphus, Vita Machometi, lines 301–21.

  89 Adelphus, Vita Machometi, lines 22–30.

  90 Norman Housley, ‘The Crusades and Islam’, Medieval Encounters 13, 2007, 189–208, at 206.

  91 Hermit promises Machomet dignitas vel divitiarum prosperitas. Adelphus, Vita Machometi, lines 131–2.

  92 Among the authors of the vitae, Embricon is the only one to mention the deities of antiquity. In his case, the list of deities serves as a dramatic opening of the text without implying anything other than that the sect of Mammutius is yet another example of these gens revera. Embricon of Mainz, Vita Mahumeti, lines 47–52.

  93 Petrus Venerabilis, Adversus nefandam haeresim sive sectam Saracenorum, PL 189, Col. 0675A–0687D. Peter criticizes the teaching of Muhammad, whom he calls Mahumeth (Cap. 3, Col. 0675C), and proceeds to Muhammad’s role in the Koran as a messenger of God (Cap. 4, Col. 0677D). Peter also states that many Jewish and Christian texts mention Muhammad, and that they do not venerate him as a prophet (Cap. 14, Col. 0685C). The feast month ‘Ramazan’ is mentioned (Cap. 16, Col.

  0687D).

  94 Eulogius Cordubensis, Apologetiucs martyrum, PL 115; Bruno Carthosianorum,
Expositio in psalmos, PL 152, Psalm 82, Col. 1078B; Petrus Pictavianus in a letter to Petrus Venerabilis, PL 189, Col. 0661C; Petrus Venerabilis, Adversus nefandam haeresim sive sectam Saracenorum; Alain of Lille, De fide catholica contra haereticos sui temporis, Lib. 4, Contra paganos seu mahometanos, PL 210, Col. 0421A–0422B. See also Michael Frassetto’s analysis of Ademar of Chabannes’s sermons in ‘The Image of the Saracen as Heretic in the Sermons of Ademar of Chabannes’, in D.R. Blanks and Michael Frassetto (eds), Western Views of Islam in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, New York: St Martin’s Press, 1999, pp. 83–96.

  95 In Dante’s Divina Commedia (1304–21), Muhammad is still described as seminator di scandali e di scisma. Dante Alighieri, Divina Commedia, Inferno XXVIII, 35.

  96 Vincent of Beauvais’s primary source for the Prophet was Helinandus of Frigidi Montis’s Chronicon from 1212, which states that salam (peace) indicates God in 158

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  Arabic, that Saracens fabricate idols in the name of Mahomet, and that there was an image of Mahomet in the Temple of Jerusalem. Helinandi Frigidi Montis, Chronicon, PL 212, Lib. 45, Col. 0849A; Lib. 47, Col. 0995B. Saracen idolatry comes up in papal bulls as late as in 1418 (Martin V). Norman Housley, Religious Warfare in Europe, 1400–1536, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 182.

  97 John of Damascus, De haeresibus, PG 94, 761–71; Theophanes Chronographia et Anastasii Bibliothecarii Historia ecclesiastica sive Chronographia tripartite, 2, C. de Boer (ed.), Leipzig, 1883–5, I.333–5, II.208–10; D’Alverny, ‘La connaissance de l’Islam’, 577–602.

  98 GN 98, 101–2; Embricon of Mainz, Vita Mahumeti, lines 727–34, 801–15. By

  ‘filthy practices’, Guibert and Embricon refer to sodomy, widespread prostitution and incest.

  99 GN 209.

  100 See, e.g., the writings Bernard of Clairvaux and Peter of Vaux-de-Cernay. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermones in Cantica Canticorum, Sermo LXV, De clandestinis haereticos, PL

  183, Col. 1089A–1095B, n. 81 above; Cap. 8, Col. 1093A: ‘Fecimusne aliquid? Puto quia fecimus. Cepimus vulpem, quia fraudem percepimus. Manifesti sunt qui latebant falsi Catholici, veri depraedatores catholicae’. Sermo LXVI, De erroribus haereticorum circa nuptias, baptismum parvulorum, purgatorium, orationes pro defunctis et invocationem sanctorum, Capite nobis vulpes parvulas, quae demoliuntur vineas