Romantic Gothic literature recycled medieval chansons de geste opponents as stock enemies.

Evidence

The Christian knight was often featured in the Gothic narrative. The knight is “heir to the ancient Germanic tradition of freedom and honour, of loyalty to the leader and heroic courage in war. On the other hand he is a Christian, whose deeds must be just, whose love pure, and whose sword must be used only to serve the weak and the poor.” The enemies of Romantic and Gothic literature are the same ones that we find in the chansons de geste and other medieval genres. In Paradise Lost, Satan is called the “great sultan.” — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 434

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: tracing the direct pipeline from chansons de geste to Romantic Gothic villains shows the manufactured image is a continuous medieval inheritance, not a fresh invention.