Early medieval Christians did not automatically view Saracens as enemies

Evidence

Constantinople’s enemies shed few tears over the Muslim conquest of two-thirds of the Byzantine empire (see chapter 3); they tended to portray its new Arab overlords in sympathetic terms. The same holds true for Bede, as can be seen in his De locis sanctis (On the holy sites). Bede meant this seventh- (or eighth-) century Baedecker to describe the sites of the Holy Land to the potential (or armchair) pilgrim. He draws his descriptions from venerated authorities such as Orosius and Isidore (as well as, of course, the Bible), but also relies on Arculf, a Frankish bishop who made the pilgrimage between 679 and 682, and whose experiences were recorded just a few years later by Adamnan of Iona. Bede weaves together two kinds of sources; respected, established authorities and recent (by seventhcentury standards) reports of one who had been in the Holy Land. In reading this work, one has little sense of turmoil in this newly conquered, changing society, nor would one sense that the Arabs are the military enemies of Byzantium. His description of Arabia, land of odoriferous myrrh, is taken largely from Isidore; there is no sense that these Arabs are more important players on the world scene than they had been a century before. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 432

Categorization

• XREF: Ties to the book’s larger argument that ‘Saracen’ caricature hardened over time, contrary to the assumption that anti-Muslim polemic was constant.
• DEFINE: Clarifies what De locis sanctis is and how Bede stitched together his pilgrimage sources.