Medieval theologically-oriented maps placed monstrous races farthest from Jerusalem.
Evidence
This makes sense given the semiology of monsters, which includes “fixing horror elsewhere, in an obviously and literally foreign body.” Saracens and Ethiopians existed along the edges of the universe, represented on maps with a normative center and dangerous borderlands, always occupied by strange and frightening creatures, Plinian monsters, and non-human races that served as examples of God’s displeasure. These maps were theological tools which suggested that those who dwelled the farthest from the Christian center were the most dangerous. “In those maps that give a theological turn to geography, monstrous men are represented in a narrow band at the edge of the world, as far as possible from Jerusalem, the center of Christianity.” The classification of the Saracens as a monstrous race is a result of this cognitive mapping. By the time of the Crusades, Muslims were understood to be a race of creatures cursed by God and alienated from the human world: — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 116
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- XREF: ‘Fixing horror elsewhere’ is the projection mechanism the reader names — the monster as container for what the West will not face.
- SEED: The mappa mundi as theological cognitive mapping is a strong centerpiece for an essay on how geography manufactures monsters.
Related
- Medieval maps placed Saracens at the territorial edges as boundary monsters (similarity 0.89)
- Medieval Christians mapped monsters onto dark wild and borderland places. (similarity 0.87)
- Saracens were mapped at the edges of known Christian space as boundary monsters (similarity 0.86)
- Muslim monsters were located in distant God-forgotten lands beyond the borders. (similarity 0.86)
- Medieval Christian identity defined itself as normative humanity with all else monstrous (similarity 0.84)
- Pre-modern monsters were geographically contained while Saracens inhabited sunless evil lands (similarity 0.84)
- Medieval maps situated Muslim monsters among alienated non-human races at world’s edges (similarity 0.83)
- Muslim monsters occupied map edges alongside other monstrous races. (similarity 0.82)
- Monster representation shifted from fixed periphery to Gothic mobility in modernity (similarity 0.81)
- Gothic literature resurrected medieval geography of Muslim monsters (similarity 0.81)
- Classical Plinian monster categories were recycled onto medieval Saracens and Jews (similarity 0.80)
- Muslims were mapped as monstrous dog-headed races occupying the non-human edges of the world (similarity 0.80)
- The secular map flattened sacred Muslim geography into profane coordinate space (similarity 0.80)
- Medieval accounts imagined Muslim lands as sunless devil-haunted spaces (similarity 0.80)
- Medieval literature equated Saracens with demons condemned to hell (similarity 0.80)
Broader Connections
- Medieval Christians mapped monsters onto dark wild and borderland places.
#corroborates(0.80) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 112 - Muslim monsters occupied map edges alongside other monstrous races.
#qualifies(0.60) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 223 - Medieval Christians inhabited a world where monsters coexisted with humans everywhere
#complicates(0.50) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 91