Reinterpreting Saracen Alterity as a Proto-Christian Community

Abstract

In the famous “Chanson de Roland,” the repeated line "Paiens ont tort e chrestien ont dreit" – “Pagans are wrong and Christians are right” – has long been taken in scholarship as the standard for Christian views of Muslims in the Middle Ages: Saracens may be the equal of Christians in martial prowess, piety, honour, valour, and every other value worthy of a medieval knight, but they are wrong, and that is the only thing that matters. Matt Gillis, in his essay “Reinterpreting Saracen Alterity as a Proto-Christian Community,” aims to complicate this critical commonplace. In his analysis of the King of Tars, a Middle English Romance, Matt shows the difference between Christian and Saracen is not just that one is right and the other is wrong, but that there is a difference in attitude towards faith and belief. For the Christians in the story, faith is an interior state, dependent more on internal belief than outward acts; the Saracens‘ faith, by contrast, is portrayed as mere show, conformity to outward appearances rather than inward conviction. This analysis casts new light on the figure of the Christian princess‘ horrifically deformed – or rather, unformed – baby: Matt shows the baby is not simply a manifestation of the monstrous, but is a material signifier of the superficial nature of Saracen belief.

Dr. Kathy Cawsey