Eulogius’s account of Flora’s imagined rape encodes erotic fantasy

Evidence

In the same work, Eulogius later remarks how Flora had shown him her neck, wounded from a lashing by Muslim authorities, “touching it gently with my hand—because I did not think I ought to caress the wound with kisses—I departed from you and for a long time I sighed thinking about it.” (21, CSM 472, trans. Wolf, Christian Martyrs, 66). All this suggests an element of twisted sexual fantasy behind the imagined rape of Flora. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1630 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

The goal is to inspire hatred for the “oppressors,” and (as wartime propagandists have long known) there is little better way to do so than to accuse the enemy of murder and rape. If most Cordovans seem ready to tolerate Islam with a sort of ecumenical open-mindedness, Eulogius sets out to show that the Muslim is not a friend but a potential rapist of Christ’s virgins. He not only imagines that Muhammad wants to deflower the Virgin Mary but also supposes that the Cordovan authorities want to force Christian virgins Flora and Maria to become prostitutes. … This is a rape of virgins consecrated to God, a rape that, it seems, exists only in Eulogius’s fevered imagination, but that underlines, for him, the brutality and lust of the Muslim, qualities that make him irrevocably other. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 532 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Eulogius invented allegations of rape to fuel anti-Muslim hatred among tolerant Cordovans — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 532; The Gothic Moor conflates sexual desire with diabolical horror — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 492; Medieval martyrdom narratives could carry erotic fantasy content — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1630 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Medieval martyrdom narratives could carry erotic fantasy content #corroborates (1.00) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1630
• Eulogius invented allegations of rape to fuel anti-Muslim hatred among tolerant Cordovans #complicates (0.95) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 532