Crusade chroniclers lumped all enemies into one vague pagan category
Evidence
The ideology of the Chanson de Roland is the same as that of the crusading chronicles with which it is roughly contemporary. Yet the poet has freer rein to portray the valorous exploits of the Christian army and their indomitable two-hundred-year-old king Charlemagne, with his flowing white “barbe fleurie.” The enemy is portrayed in equal and contrasting color: the Amireil of Babylon, older than Virgil or Homer (ll. 2614–16), leads an army recruited from the entire non-Christian world, from pagan eastern Europe to Persia to Africa, under the banner of their triad of pagan gods. His recruits include monstrous semihumans: the Micenes have large heads and spines on their back; the soldiers from Occian have skin as hard as steel armor; those from Malprose are giants (ll. 3214–64). The individual soldiers have names that express their evilness and deformity or that associate them with biblical enemies of God. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 689 (
#corroborates, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Crusade chroniclers fabricated idealized enemies to justify holy war — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 640; Crusade chroniclers ventriloquized pagan voices for rhetorical effect — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 639; Crusade chroniclers equated preaching and passive martyrdom with waging war — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 615 (+16 more)
Broader Connections
- Christians treated all non-Christian monstrous figures as interchangeable enemies
#corroborates(1.00) - Medieval epics recruited the entire non-Christian world as monstrous enemies of Christendom
#corroborates(1.00) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 689 - Crusade chroniclers ventriloquized pagan voices for rhetorical effect
#complicates(0.90) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 639 - Medieval polemicists weaponized etymology to equate Assassins with all Muslims
#complicates(0.90) - Medieval writers kept discredited anti-Muslim stories alongside accurate claims
#complicates(0.90) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1296 - Crusade chroniclers cast Muslims as pagan Romans to claim martyrdom.
#complicates(0.85) - Medieval crusade propaganda recycled hostile legends about Muhammad for effect
#complicates(0.85) - Early crusade chroniclers felt no need to fact-check a hated subject
#complicates(0.85) — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 75 - The Crusades were less coherent religious triumph than convenient enemy-making
#complicates(0.80) - Medieval crusade ideology asserted enemy culpability as self-evident rather than argued
#complicates(0.80) - A simple martyrdom claim about Islam reached even poorly informed medieval readers
#complicates(0.80) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 693 - Asturian chroniclers adopted apocalyptic martyr-culture propaganda against Muslim rule
#complicates(0.80) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 560 - Crusaders themselves were unconcerned with an indulgence’s precise terms
#complicates(0.80) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 2493 - Medieval crusader chronicles fabricated enemy atrocities from martyrdom tropes
#complicates(0.75) - Crusade chroniclers framed mass slaughter of enemies as divine judgment
#complicates(0.75) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 246