Medieval crusade tales equated Jews with Muslims without calling either oriental.

Evidence

Although the Crusaders were fighting for a “real” land and their decline has typically been blamed on venality (they plundered Christian Constantinople) and carnal sin (many died of sexually transmitted diseases) they conceptualized their fight in biblical-historical rather than geopolitical terms. Akbari shows how some medieval tales of the Siege of Jerusalem conflate conquest by the Crusaders with conquest by the Romans, equating in complex ways the Christians with the Romans on one hand, and the Jews with the Muslims on the other. There was in these accounts, however, no indication that the Other under siege, be it Jew or Muslim, was thought of as oriental, that what was under siege was the Orient. The “Saracen” forces were at least as firmly established (and more menacing) in the southern and southwestern than in the eastern Mediterranean. “Imaginative geography,” as Said called it, did not yet write off the Orient to Islam. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 102 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Peter has emphasized the rationality and learning of his Muslim audience; this is all the more striking when contrasted with his descriptions of the enemies in his Against the Inveterate Stubbornness of the Jews, whom he brands as beasts without reason, since they stubbornly refuse to accept the rational truth of Christianity. There he contents himself with lambasting irrational Jewish beliefs for a Christian audience, showing no hope of converting Jews. Here, on the contrary, he pleads with his learned Muslim readers to hear him out, invoking the pagan king Ethelbert. Muslims, it seems, should be predisposed to recognize Christian reason; in order to prevent this, Muhammad had forbidden them under pain of death from debating matters of the faith. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 859 (#complicates, via linked claim)

The book is also remarkable for the relative tolerance exhibited in its characterization of non-Christian religions: the depiction of Islam, in particular, is arguably the most accurate account to be found in Western literature before the seventeenth century. The same cannot be said, however, of the characterization of the Jews in Mandeville’s Travels: they are the only group to be completely excluded from the polyphonic harmony of the author’s world. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 294 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Medieval crusade narratives paired Jews with Muslims, not with orientalism — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 102; Medieval Christian texts distinguished Jews from Muslims rather than equating them; Medieval texts could depict Islam tolerantly while excluding Jews entirely — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 294 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Medieval crusade narratives paired Jews with Muslims, not with orientalism #corroborates (0.96) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 102
• Medieval polemicists deemed Muslims rational while branding Jews unreasoning beasts #complicates (0.78) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 859
• Medieval texts could depict Islam tolerantly while excluding Jews entirely #complicates (0.75) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 294