Hostname: page-component-6766d58669-rxg44 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-19T06:05:59.923Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Knowing the Enemy: Western Understanding ofIslam at the Time of the Crusades*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2009

Bernard Hamilton
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In 1076, some twenty years before the First Crusade waslaunched, Pope Gregory VII wrote to al-Nāşir, Sultanof Bougie in what is now Algeria:

For there is nothing which Almighty God, who wishesthat all men should be saved and that no man shouldperish, more approves in our conduct, than that aman should first love God and then his fellow men …Most certainly you and we ought to love each otherin this way more than other races of men, because webelieve and confess one God, albeit in differentways, whom each day we praise and reverence as thecreator of all ages and the governor of this world.For, as the Apostle says: “He is our peace, who hathmade both one”.

This enlightened view of Islam was not widely shared inLatin Christendom at that time, nor was it rooted inany very profound knowledge of the Muslim religion.B. Z. Kedar is, I think, correct in his view that agood deal of information about Islam was availablein the West before the crusades, both in written andoral sources, but because there was a general lackof interest in the subject, no attempt had been madeto coordinate this knowledge.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , November 1997 , pp. 373 - 387
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

*

This is the text of a paper given at the 65thAnglo-American Conference of Historians held atthe Institute of Historical Research of theUniversity of London from 3–5 July 1996 on thetheme Religion and Society. Note. A word aboutvocabulary for readers who are not specialists inthis field. “Saracens” was used by Western writersat the time of the Crusades as a generic term todescribe all Muslims. “Franks” was a term quitecommonly used by participants in the crusades tothe Levant and Egypt, and by Western settlers inthe Crusader States, to describe themselves. Itwas also used by the Muslims of the Near East as ageneric term to describe Westerners.

References

1 Caspar, E., ed., Das Register Gregors VII, Bk. III, no. 21, Epistolae Selectae in usum scholarum ex Monumentis Germaniae Historicis separatim editae (Berlin, 1955), ii (i), p. 288 (citing Eph. 2, 14).Google Scholar

2 Kedar, B. Z., Crusade and Mission. European Approaches towards the Muslims (Princeton, 1984), pp. 3–41,Google Scholar who takes issue with Southern's, R. W. description of the pre-crusade period as the “age of ignorance” in regard to western knowledge of Islam, Western Views of Islam in the Middle Ages (Harvard, 1962), pp. 1–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 France, J., ed. and trans., Rodulfi Glabri Historiarum Libri Quinque, Bk. I, c. 9 (Oxford, 1989), pp. 20–3.Google Scholar

4 E.g. Dedevant sei fait porter sun dragon

Et l'estandart Tervagan e Mahum

E un'ymagene Apolin le felun.

La Chanson de Roland, 11. 3266–8, ed. Segre, C., French trans. Tyssens, M. (Geneva, 1989), i, p. 256;Google Scholar Jones, C. Meredith, ‘The traditional Saracen of the songs of Geste’, Speculum, XVII (1942), pp. 201–25;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Historia peregrinorum euntium Jerosolimam, ccxxiv, Recueil des Historiens des Croisades, Historiens Occidentaux [henceforth RHC Occ] (Paris, 1866), iii, p. 222.Google Scholar

5 France, J., “The First Crusade and Islam”, The Muslim World, LXVII (1977), pp. 247–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Guibert of Nogent, Gesta Dei per Francos, I, iii–iv,Google Scholar RHC Occ, iv (Paris, 1879), pp. 127–30.Google Scholar

7 Huygens, R. B. C., ed., ‘Otia de Machomete Gedicht von Walter von Compiègne’, Sacris Erudiri, VIII (1956), pp. 287–328.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Huygens dates this poem 1137–55. The quotation is from p. 320 (lines 851–8).

8 In terms of Islamic orthodoxy, of course, the Uncreated Qur'ān could not be translated, only paraphrased. Kees Versteegh has suggested that a Greek translation might have been made in the ninth century but the evidence for this is conjectural: “Greek translations of the Qur'ān in Christian polemics (9th century A.D.)”, Zeitschrift der deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellchaft, CXLI (1991), pp. 52–68.Google Scholar

9 Kritzeck, J., Peter the Venerable and Islam (Princeton, 1964);CrossRefGoogle Scholar d'Alverney, M-T., “Deux traductions latines du Coran au Moyen Age”, Archives de I'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Age, XXII–III (1946–1948), pp. 69–113.Google Scholar Most of these works were printed by Theodor Buchmann (known as Bibliander), Machumetis Saracenorum principis eiusquc successorum vitae ac doctrina, ipseque Alcoran (Basle, 1543).Google Scholar

10 Petri Alfonsi ex Judaeo Christiani Dialogi contra Judaeos, Titulus V, ed. Migne, J. P., Patrologia Latina [henceforth PL], CLVII, cols 597–606.Google Scholar

11 de Ghellinck, J., “L'entrée de Jean de Damas dans le monde littéraire occidental”, Byzantinische Zeitschrift, XXI (1912), pp. 448–57.Google Scholar A revised translation was made in the thirteenth century by Robert Grosseteste, Southern, R. W., Robert Grosseteste. The Growth of an English Mind in Medieval Europe (Oxford, 2nd edn, 1992), pp. 199–200.Google Scholar

12 Kedar, , Crusade and Mission, pp. 136–58;Google Scholar Richard, J., La papauté et les missions d'Orient au moyen âge (xiii–xve siècles) (Rome, 1977), pp. 37–47;Google Scholar William of Tripoli, De statu Saracenorum, ed. Prutz, H., Kulturgeschichte der Kreuzzüge (Berlin, 1883, reprinted Hildesheim, 1964), pp. 575–98.Google Scholar

13 Richard, , Papauté et missions, pp. 98–116.Google Scholar

14 Paris, Matthew, Chronica Majora, Additamenta, no. 183, ed. Luard, H. R., Rolls Series [henceforth RS], 57 (I–VII) (London, 1872–1883), vi, pp. 348–9.Google Scholar

15 William of Tyre, Chronicon [henceforth WT], XIX, 21, ed. Huygens, R. B. C., Christianorum, Corpus, Medieavalis, Continuatio, LXIII, LXIIIA (Tumholt, 1986), ii, p. 891.Google Scholar

16 Hodgson, M. G. S., The Order of Assassins. The Struggle of the Early Nizari Isma'ilis against the Islamic World (The Hague, 1955);Google Scholar Lewis, B., The Assassins. A Radical Sect in Islam (London, 1967);Google Scholar Daftary, F., The Ismā'īlīs. Their History and Doctrines (Cambridge, 1990).Google Scholar

17 John of Joinville, Histoire de Saint Louis, cc. 462–3, ed. de Wailly, N. (Paris, 1868), pp. 164–5;Google Scholar I cite the translation of Hague, R., The life of St. Louis (London, 1955), p. 141.Google Scholar

18 Daftary, , The Ismā'īlīs, p. 139.Google Scholar Joinville implies that the Nizarites believed in reincarnation, and some members of the Syrian Lodge may have done so in the thirteenth century, ibid., p. 401; cf. Daniel, N., Islam and the West (Edinburgh, 1960), p. 325, n. 24.Google Scholar The book which the Nizārī Shaykh was reading seems to have been related to the text known as the Kerygmata Petrou which is embedded in the Clementine Recognitions and Homilies. It is not possible to determine in what form it was known to the Shaykh. Strecker, G., ed. “The Kerygmata Petrou”, in Hennecke, E., New Testament Apocrypha, ed. Schneemelcher, W., trans. Wilson, R. McL. (London, 1965), ii, pp. 102–27.Google Scholar

19 Anawati, G. C., ‘“Īsā”, Encyclopaedia of Islam [henceforth El] (new edn, 1978), iv, pp. 81–6.Google Scholar Parrinder, G., Jesus in the Qur'an (London, 1965).Google Scholar

20 Sūra III, 37–8, cited in the translation of Wensinck, A. J., “Maryam”, El (new edn, 1991), vi, pp. 628–32;Google Scholar Abd-el-Jalil, J.-M., Marie et l'Islam. Études sur I'histoire des religions, viii (Paris, 1950);Google Scholar Parrinder, , op. cit., pp. 60–82.Google Scholar

21 Letter of the Patriarch Gerold to Pope Gregory IX, c. Ill, ed. Huillard-Bréholles, J. L. A., Historia diplomatica Friderici Secundi (7 vols in 12, Paris, 1852–1861), iii, p. 88.Google Scholar

22 Summa … contra Gentiles, I, vi (Paris, 1925), p. 7;Google Scholar Doig, J. C., Aquinas on Metaphysics. A Historico-Doctrinal Study of the Commentary on the Metaphysics (The Hague, 1972).Google Scholar

23 An excellent study of this kind by an historian of literature is that of Metlitzki, D., The Matter of Araby in Medieval England (New Haven and London, 1977).Google Scholar

24 Petri Alfonsi Disciplina Clericalis, eds. Hilka, A., Soderhjelm, W., Acta Societatis Scientiarum Fennicae, 38, no. 4, (Helsinki, 1911).Google Scholar I cite the translation by Quarrie, P. R. of E. Hermes's edition. The “Disciplina Clericalis” of Petrus Alfonsi (London, 1977), p. 128.Google Scholar

25 Die “Quaestiones Naturales” des Adelardus von Bath, c. v, ed. Müller, M., Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters, xxxi (2) (Munster, 1934), p. 11.Google Scholar Burnett, C., ed., Adelard of Bath: An English Scientist and Arabist of the Early Twelfth Century (London, 1987).Google Scholar

26 Gilson, E., History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages (London, 1955), pp. 181–246;Google Scholar Leff, G., Medieval Thought (Harmondsworth, 1958), pp. 141–67;Google Scholar Harkins, C. H., The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1939);Google Scholar Studies in the History of Medieval Science (Cambridge, Mass., 1927).Google Scholar

27 WT, XX, 31, ii, p. 956. Cf. Schwinges, R. C., Kreuzzugsideologie und Toleranz. Studien zu Wilhelm von Tyrus, Monographien zur Geschichte des Mittelalters, xvi (Stuttgart, 1977).Google Scholar

28 The author supposes that the Turks, like other peoples in the Near East, had been Christians before the rise of Islam. Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum, Bk. III, ed. and trans. Hill, R. (London, 1962), p. 21.Google Scholar

29 Emmerson, R. K. and McGinn, B., eds, The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages (Ithaca and London, 1992);Google Scholar Emmerson, R. K., Antichrist in the Middle Ages (Manchester, 1981).Google Scholar

30 ed. Kritzeck, , Peter the Venerable, pp. 220–91.Google Scholar

31 William of Tripoli, Tractatus, c. xlvii, ed. Prutz, , Kulturgeschichte, pp. 595–6.Google Scholar

32 Powell, J. M., ed., Muslims under Latin Rule 1100–1300 (Princeton, 1990);CrossRefGoogle Scholar The Travels of lbn jubayr, trans. Broadhurst, R. J. C. (London, 1952), p. 323.Google Scholar

33 This passage appears in the Gesta Regis Ricardi, commonly though wrongly ascribed to Benedict of Peterborough, which incorporates material from what appears to be an eye-witness account of the Third Crusade, ed. Stubbs, W., RS (London, 1867), ii, p. 151;Google Scholar Gransden, A., Historical Writing in England c. 550–1307 (London, 1974) PP. 232–8.Google Scholar The first five heads relate to Herod, who persecuted the infant Christ; Nero, the first emperor to persecute the Church; Constantius, who patronised the Arian heresy; the Prophet Muhammad; and Melsemutus the Sultan of Morocco: Reeves, M. and Hirsch-Reich, B., The ‘Figurae’ of Joachim of Fiore (Oxford, 1972), pp. 86–8.Google Scholar Reeves, M. comments on this passage: “So similar to the Dragon figure in the Liber Figurarum is this exposition that possibly Joachim had this actual figure on display”. Joachim of Fiore and the Prophetic Future (London, 1976), p. 23.Google Scholar

34 For example, in his Expositio in Apocalypsim Joachim identified the fifth head as the Emperor Henry IV, but Saladin continued to be shown as the sixth head in the Oxford and Dresden manuscripts of the Liber Figurarum, Reeves and Hirsch-Reich, The ‘Figurae’, pp. 87, 146–50, and Plates 21, 22.

35 Paris, G., “Un poème latin contemporain sur Saladin”, Revue de I'Orient Latin [henceforth ROL[, i (1893), pp. 433–44.Google Scholar

36 Das Itinerarium Peregrinorum, ed. Mayer, H. E., Monumenta Germaniae Historica [henceforth MGH] Schriften, xviii (Stuttgart, 1962), pp. 252–3;Google Scholar this text was used by Richard, Canon of the Holy Trinity London, in Book I of his Itinerarium peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi (compiled c. 1216–22), ed. Stubbs, W., RS (London, 1864), pp. 10–11;Google Scholar Gransden, , English Historical Writing, pp. 238–42.Google Scholar

37 Itinerarium, ed. Mayer, , p. 251.Google Scholar

38 Chronique d'Emoul et de Bernard le Trésorier, ed. de Mas Latrie, L. (Paris, 1871), p. 36.Google Scholar The complex textual history of this source was examined by Morgan, M. R., The Chronicle of Emoul and the Continuations of William of Tyre (Oxford, 1973).Google Scholar Richard, J., ‘L'arrière-plan historique des deux cycles de la croisade’, in Croisades et États latins d'Orient (Aldershot, 1992), No. v, p. 12.Google Scholar

39 It seems possible that the knighting of Saladin was originally ascribed to Humphrey II of Toron, Constable of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from 1152–79, and that it was to him that the Itinerarium referred, Lamonte, J. L., Feudal Monarchy in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Cambridge, Mass., 1932), p. 253.Google Scholar His son, Humphrey III, married Stephanie de Milly, who inherited the lordship of Kerak, although not until after his death. The fief later passed to their son, Humphrey IV of Toron, who was titular lord at the time that the lost chronicle of Ernoul was compiled in the late 1190s, and the author may therefore mistakenly have supposed that Kerak had been held by members of the Toron family in the 1160s. Mayer, H-E., Die Kxeuzfahrerherrschaft Montréal (Sobak). Jordanen im 12 Jahrhundert, Abhandlungen des deutschen Palästinavereins, 14 (Wiesbaden, 1990), pp. 215–28.Google Scholar

40 There is a critical edition of the verse text by Roy Temple House, L'Ordene de Chevalerie, University of Oklahoma Bulletin, February I (1919), which I have been unable to consult. The text of Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS f. fr. 25462, ff. 149–57, ed. Barbazan, M., L'Ordene de Chevalerie (Paris, 1759),Google Scholar was reprinted with an English translation by Morris, William, The Order of Chivalry (Hammersmith, 1893), pp. 107–25.Google Scholar For the prose versions: Kjellman, H., ed., “Les rédactions en prose de l'Ordre de Chevalerie”, Studier i modern Språkvetenskap utgivna av Nyfilologiska Sällskapet i Stockholm, VII (1920), pp. 139–77;Google Scholar see Keen, M., Chivalry (New Haven and London, 1984), pp. 6–8;Google Scholar Cook, R. F. and Crist, L. S., Le deuxième cycle de la croisade. Deux études sur son développement (Geneva, 1972), pp. 124–31.Google Scholar

41 Paris, G., “La légende du Saladin”, Joumal des savants (1891), p. 290, n. 1.Google Scholar

42 WT, XXI, 28, ii, p. 1002; Lyons, M. C. and Jackson, D. E. P., Saladin. The Politics of the Holy War (Cambridge, 1982), p. 140;Google Scholar Rheinheimer, M., Das Kreuzfahrerfürstentum Galiläa (Frankfurt-am-Main, 1989), pp. 62–3.Google Scholar

43 Cl. Brunel, , ed., La fille du comte de Ponthieu … versions de XIIIe et du XVe siècle (Paris, Société des anciens textes français, 1923).Google Scholar

44 Jubb, M. A., A Critical Edition of the “Estoires d'Outremer et de la naissance Salehadin”, (London, 1990);Google Scholar Richard, , “L'arrière-plan”, p. 14.Google Scholar

45 Cook, R. F., “Crusade propaganda in the epic cycles of the Crusade”, in Sargent-Baur, B. N., ed., Journeys towards God. Pilgrimage and Crusade (Kalamazoo, 1992), pp. 157–75.Google Scholar

46 The Crusade of Henry VI (1197); the Fourth Crusade (1203–4), preached to deliver the Holy Land although diverted to Constantinople; the Fifth Crusade (1217–21); Frederick II's Crusade (1227–9); the Crusades of Theobald of Navarre and Richard of Cornwall (1239–41); and the first Crusade of St Louis (1248–54).

47 Lyons, and Jackson, , Saladin, pp. 1–46.Google Scholar

48 Itinerarium … Regis Ricardi, V, xii, ed. Stubbs, , p. 325.Google Scholar

49 Joinville, ed. de Wailly, p. 70; cited in Hague's translation p. 73, and see his note, p. 273. In an earlier passage Joinville is more cautious: “L'en disoit que li emperieres Ferris l'avoit fait chevalier”. Ibid., p. 73; Van Cleve, T. C., The Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen. Immutator Mundi (Oxford, 1972), p. 203.Google Scholar

50 Saladin's generosity at Jerusalem, Lyons, and Jackson, , Saladin, pp. 274–5;Google Scholar his liberality in general, ibid., pp. 368–9; his good treatment of Guy of Lusignan, and execution of the Templars, Hospitallers and Reynald of Châtillon, ibid., pp. 264–5; his courtesy to Balian of Ibelin's wife, La Continuation de Guillaume de Tyr (1184–97), c. 49, ed. Morgan, M. R. (Paris, 1982), p. 63.Google Scholar

51 Ambroise, , L'Estoire de la guerre sainte, II. 11546–64, ed. Paris, G. (Paris, 1897), cols. 309–10;Google Scholar Itinerarium, VI, xxii, p. 419;Google Scholar on the relationship between these works, Gransden, , Historical Writing, pp. 238–42.Google Scholar

52 Gesta Francorum, Bk. III, p. 21.Google Scholar

53 Keen, , Chivalry, p. 7.Google Scholar

54 Récits d'un ménestrel de Reims au treizième siècle, ed. de Wailly, N., c. xxi, 212 (Société de l'Histoire de France, Paris, 1876), pp. 111–12;Google Scholar La Chrétienté Corbaran, ed. Grillo, P. R., The Old French Crusade Cycle, vol. VII, The Jerusalem Continuations, Part I (University, Alabama, 1984);Google Scholar Crist, L. S., Saladin: suite et fin du deuxième cycle de la croisade (Geneva and Paris, 1972).Google Scholar

55 “Infideles damnantur quidem propter alia peccata, quae sine fide remitti non possunt; non autem damnantur propter infidelitatis peccatum”. Summa Theologica, Secunda Secundae, Quaestio X Art. I, (Paris, 1927), vol. iii, p. 63.Google Scholar “Unde manifestum est quod infideles non possunt operari bona opera quae sunt ex gratia …; tamen bona opera ad quae sufficit bonum naturae, aliqualiter operari possunt”. Ibid., Art. IV, p. 66.Google Scholar

56 Moore, E. and Toynbee, P., eds, Le Opere di Dante Alighieri, 4th edn (Oxford, 1924),Google Scholar Convivio, IV, c. xi, p. 310;Google Scholar Inferno, IV, 106–51, pp. 6–7.Google Scholar

57 Innocent III gave as his opinion that ‘Poena originalis peccati est carentia visionis Dei”, Decretales Gregorii IX, III, tit. xliii, c. 3.Google Scholar By placing Saracens in Limbo Dante was assuming that they were not being punished for sins they had committed, but only for original sin. Gaudel, A., “Limbes”, Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, ix (I) (Paris, 1926), cols. 760–72.Google Scholar

58 Fratris Ricoldi de Monte Crucis Liber Peregrinationis, c. xxii, ed. Laurent, J. C. M., Peregrinatores Medii Aevi Quatuor (Leipzig, 1864), p. 131,Google Scholar cited in the translation of Daniel, , Islam and the West, p. 196.Google Scholar Ricoldo expanded this theme in chapters xxiii–xxix, pp. 132–5, but then found it necessary to add several chapters attacking the basis of the Muslim faith: chapters xxx–xxxvi, pp. 135–41. As de Villard, U. Monneret commented about the final chapters of the work: “Siamo quindi completamente al di fuori dello studio dell'Islāmismo e del tentativo della sua compresione, ma invece entriamo in pieno nella polemica anti-islāmica. Il missionario ha preso il posto dell'osservatore e dello scienziato”. Ricoldo da Montecroce, Il Libro della peregrinazione nelle parti d'Oriente, Institutum historicum Fratrum Praedicatorum, Dissertations historicae, xiii (Rome, 1949), p. 118.Google Scholar