Medieval epics recruited the entire non-Christian world as monstrous enemies of Christendom

Evidence

The ideology of the Chanson de Roland is the same as that of the crusading chronicles with which it is roughly contemporary. Yet the poet has freer rein to portray the valorous exploits of the Christian army and their indomitable two-hundred-year-old king Charlemagne, with his flowing white “barbe fleurie.” The enemy is portrayed in equal and contrasting color: the Amireil of Babylon, older than Virgil or Homer (ll. 2614–16), leads an army recruited from the entire non-Christian world, from pagan eastern Europe to Persia to Africa, under the banner of their triad of pagan gods. His recruits include monstrous semihumans: the Micenes have large heads and spines on their back; the soldiers from Occian have skin as hard as steel armor; those from Malprose are giants (ll. 3214–64). The individual soldiers have names that express their evilness and deformity or that associate them with biblical enemies of God. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 689