Crusade chroniclers ventriloquized pagan voices for rhetorical effect

Evidence

Curbaan, incredulous, says he thought Bohemund and Tancred were the crusaders’ gods, and that they each consume two thousand cows and four thousand pigs for lunch. His mother responds that they are mere mortals but that the God who protects them is the invincible creator of heaven and earth, whose will no one may oppose. But Curbaan will not be daunted, and his mother leaves in grief. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 639