Saracens were mapped at the edges of known Christian space as boundary monsters

Evidence

Medieval monsters were generally located along or beyond the borders of Christian communities. Spaces outside the village, town, or city were considered the domain of monsters, a convention seen today in horror films, where monsters often occupy the hinterlands—the desert, forest, or jungle. On medieval maps (see Figure 2.1), Saracens are typically located on the edges of Christian territory or beyond the known world, examples of “boundary phenomena inseparable from their place at the territorial edge and inside the symbolic structure.” — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 78

Categorization

• XREF: Geographic placement of the monster as ‘boundary phenomenon’ parallels how horror films and the reader’s soundscape chapters locate dread in marginal space.