Chroniclers fitting Saracens into biblical roles blurred their ethnic and geographical identities
Evidence
If the crusaders are the new apostles, the Saracens play the role of the pagan Roman persecutors: their paganism and barbarism are a necessary foil to the steadfast devotion of the crusaders/apostles. They are “our enemy and God’s, … saying diabolical sounds in I know not what language.” The geographical and ethnic distinctions between these enemies are vague; at one point Tudebodus describes a castle “full of innumerable pagans: Turks, Saracens, Arabs, Publicans, and other pagans.” Many of the place-names are familiar from the Bible: Tudebodus and other chroniclers associate the pagans with the places where Antichrist is born and raised, Babylon and Corosan. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 624
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
Related
- Crusade chroniclers cast Saracens as pagan Roman persecutors and blurred their ethnic identity (similarity 0.95)
- Crusade chroniclers framed Saracens as pagans whose defeat advanced Christian eschatology (similarity 0.82)
- The Saracen-pagan topos grew so entrenched that it absorbed pagan persecutors into itself (similarity 0.80)
- Crusaders justified holy war by calling Muslims pagan idolaters (similarity 0.80)
- Christians understood Saracens through biblical and patristic categories (similarity 0.79)
- Early Latin chroniclers framed Saracens as divine scourges and foes, not religious rivals (similarity 0.79)
- Early medieval Christians did not automatically view Saracens as enemies (similarity 0.79)
- Medieval Europeans equated Saracens with pagans so completely the words became interchangeable. (similarity 0.78)