Crusade chroniclers cast Saracens as pagan Roman persecutors and blurred their ethnic identity

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

• XREF: Grounds the vault’s Anidjar/Aziz genealogical claims about medieval Islamophobia by showing an actual medieval root: Saracens slotted into the scriptural role of Roman pagan persecutors, their real ethnography erased.
• ADDENDUM: Feeds the ‘Complaints’ article thread on how out-group identities get flattened into pre-existing scriptural categories rather than seen on their own terms.