Bacon escalated anti-Muslim polemic by accusing Muhammad of indiscriminate rape, exceeding prior Christian authors

Evidence

Predictably, Bacon has little good to say about Muhammad or the Koran. Muhammad “feigned” prophecy, producing false miracles “by fraud and deception”; he led a “most vile” life as an adulterer who “took every beautiful woman away from her men and raped her.” Even the most malicious of earlier Christian authors, in their hostile distortions of Muhammad’s polygamy, do not accuse him of indiscriminate rape. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1148

Categorization

• XREF: Shows escalation in medieval anti-Muhammad rhetoric beyond even the earlier hostile sources the reader has mapped; genealogical groundwork for later orientalist claims of Muslim sexual depravity.
• QUESTION: Why did Bacon exceed his predecessors here? Does his ‘scientific’ frame license stronger accusations than prior polemic?