The topos of Saracen paganism inverted the direction of dress-up

Evidence

Guido Terrena said that Muslims inappropriately wear a monastic habit; but suitably this lacked the hood, because they lacked a true head, ‘and for head have the vile Muhammad’. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 846 (#expands, via linked claim)

Yet the similarities between the two texts should not blind us to an essential difference that shows how deeply the topos of Saracen paganism anchored itself in the European worldview in the three centuries between the two texts. Hrotsvitha dressed Pelagius’s persecutor, ‘Abd al-Rahmân, in the familiar and despised garb of a classical pagan idolater. The author of the Life of Saint Katherine does precisely the opposite: he paints the classical Roman emperor Maxentius as a familiar literary personage, the evil Saracen king who worships idols of Mahound and Tervagant and who persecutes Christians. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 718 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The Saracen-pagan topos grew so entrenched that it absorbed pagan persecutors into itself — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 718; Medieval Europeans treated Saracen and pagan as interchangeable words; The word ‘Saracen’ came to mean ‘pagan’ for medieval writers — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 697 (+15 more)

Broader Connections

• The Saracen-pagan topos grew so entrenched that it absorbed pagan persecutors into itself #expands (0.95) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 718
• Medieval texts reduced religious difference to the color of headwear #corroborates (0.95)
• Saracen denoted religious allegiance, not ethnicity, in medieval usage #qualifies (0.95)
• Medieval polemic read Muslim clothing as a parody of monastic dress symbolizing false headship #expands (0.95) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 846
• Medieval writers imagined Muslim worship by transposing Roman pagan imagery #expands (0.95) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 69
• Medieval polemic mocked Islamic dress as monastic garb without a head #expands (0.95) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 846
• Banning Moorish dress aimed to erase Morisco identity through outward conformity #complicates (0.85)
• Medieval visual art ignored accurate texts to keep the Saracen idol-worship stereotype #complicates (0.80) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 719
• Medieval anti-Saracen imagery still persists in Spanish festivals of Moors and Christians #complicates (0.75) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 127