Medieval authors largely believed their own caricatures of Muslims as pagan idolaters

Evidence

Some modern scholars (notably Norman Daniel) have dismissed this portrayal of Saracen idolatry as mere literary convention: no one believed this of the Muslims; they were only creating a caricatural “bad guy” as a foil for the epics’ forthright Christian knights. … While Daniel is certainly right to point out the element of playful exaggeration in some of these texts, he is wrong in asserting that the writers and readers of these epics knew better. Some writers, indeed, did know better; many, however, did not. Many writers, in Latin as well as the vernacular, in chronicles, legal treatises, plays, and other texts, continued to portray Saracens as pagan devotees of Apollo, Jupiter, Mahomet, and other “demons.” — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 692

Categorization

• XREF: Bears on Razack/Anidjar claims about Islamophobia as distorted epistemology: if medieval writers believed their own caricatures, the ‘convention vs genuine belief’ question is a live genealogical fork.
• DEFINE: Establishes the historiographic dispute (Bancourt/Daniel) the reader should know when citing trope-origin claims.