Table Of ContentHEROES AND SARACENS
In Memoriam
Ruth
who had so large a part in everything I ever wrote
with warm interest and cool judgement
who died before this book was finished
but was interested to the last
its faults are not hers
dying and in pain she said
come and kiss me now and let's be laughing
this was the spirit that the singers created
for the paladins of Charlemagne and the Saracens of Babylon
Morte est Guibors, ma cortoise molliers
Et mes lignages, dont jou sui moût iriés.
Or ai por Dieu tout mon pais laissié.
Moniage Guillaume (2) 2275-7
HEROES AND SARACENS
An Interpretation of the
Chansons de Geste
NORMAN DANIEL
Edinburgh University
Press
© Norman Daniel 1984
Edinburgh University Press
22 George Square, Edinburgh
Set in Monotype Barbou, 178 series
by Speedspools, Edinburgh and
printed in Great Britain by
Redwood Bum Limited, Trowbridge
British Library Cataloguing
in Publication Data
Daniel, Norman
Heroes and saracens: an interpretation of the
Chansons de geste
i. Chansons de geste—History and criticism
1. Tide
84I.O3 PQ20I
ISBN O 85224 43O 4
C O N TEN TS
Acknowledgements vii
Chapter One. Introductory i
Part O ne. The People
Chapter Two. Chivalry 23
Chapter Three. Courtly Pastimes 47
Chapter Four. The Family, Women and the Sexes 69
Chapter Five. Violence: Hatred, Suffering and War 94
Part Two. The Gods
Chapter Six. W fy the Gods ? Introductory 121
Chapter Seven. Who are the Gods ? 133
Chapter Eight. The Cult of the Gods 15 5
Chapter Nine. Conversion 179
Chapter Ten. Christianity 213
PartThree
Chapter Eleven. Corroboration 241
Chapter Twelve. Conclusions 263
Notes 280
Bibliography of Sources Used 320
Plot Summaries 328
Index 340
A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S
My first thanks are to my wife, for her criticism, interest and encour
agement, and her example (which the dedication may help to
explain); and also to Mademoiselle Marie-Thérèse d’Alvemy and
Sir Richard Southern, for encouraging me to go ahead, and to Mr
A. R. Turnbull, Secretary to the Press, who is a stimulating as well
as inventive publisher. Academic acknowledgements relating to
particular issues are made in the course of the notes. I am most
grateful to Dr Michael Rogers, Monsieur and Madame Jean-Yves
Tadié, and Mr and Mrs J.R. Young, all of whom helped me in a
number of ways, and in particular to get material at times when it
was inaccessible to me, sometimes at considerable inconvenience to
themselves; and to Mr Robert Anderson and Mr Peter Mackenzie
Smith, who also helped me materially at moments of need. I am
under a great debt to the Abbot and Community of St Benoit de
Port Valais, and to the Sisters of Ste Marthe, for their hospitality,
and in particular to the Prior, Père Michel de Ribeaupierre, for
making me comfortable in his ‘scriptorium', and to the Librarian,
Père François Huot, for all the attentions that a librarian can give.
I am similarly obliged to the Prior and Community of the Institut
dominicain d’études orientales, Abbasiah, Cairo, in whose grounds
I live for most of my time, and in particular to the Director of Studies,
Père G.GAnawati, for making all their facilities always available.
I am indebted for the quiet efficiency of the Students Room at the
British Library, for the determination of the staff of the Reading
Room to overcome their many difficulties, and for the efficiency and
courtesy of the staff of Bodley. I am also greatly obliged to Madame
J.le Monnier, conservateur en chef du service photographique de la
bibliothèque nationale in Paris, for making photographs of a manu
script quickly available in special circumstances, and to the staff of
the bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, who make it so easy and pleasant for
a stranger to consult their manuscripts. I am most grateful to Dr
Carole Hillenbrand, whose understanding of a tangled script made
the preparation of the text possible.
INTRODUCTORY
A good deal of attention has been paid to what we might call the
official Christian attitude to Islam in the Middle Ages; I am
myself one of those who have done so. Much less has been said
about ordinary and unofficial attitudes, and most of it relates to
the origins of the idols imputed to the Saracens. Official
attitudes were expressed by theologians whose function was
to speak for the Christian Church of the West. Apart from its
material privilege, the Church was privileged to speak for
Christian society in a period when all overt opposition was
successfully suppressed. The existence of official spokesmen
and the absence of open opposition do not, of course, eliminate
unofficial attitudes and ideas, and these are not necessarily part
of a hidden opposition. Hypothetical secret organisations of
opposition need to be fully substantiated to be plausible, and
they rarely or never are. I am thinking more of instances of
divergent thought or sentiment which were not meant to
compete with, let alone harm or destroy, the official view.
People may accept an established authority quite willingly,
and still live their own lives and think their own thoughts.
This book is about unofficial attitudes to Islam and the Arabs.
Exhaustive or even adequate source material is much harder
to come by than is the case with expressions of theologically
acceptable opinion, because unofficial attitudes were not
encouraged, and received little explicit and formal expression;
if they had done, they would no longer have been entirely
unofficial. What material there is is much harder to interpret,
because we often cannot take it at its face value. It is a question
1
2 Heroes and Saracens
of making the least improbable guess, when refusing to guess
at all is to fall back on some uncalculated assumption without
conscious reflection. Where conclusive proof is impossible, we
naturally look for the explanation that best fits the known facts
and, so far as we can manage, is least anachronistic.
It is probably safe to assume that, in any age, in the Middle
Ages as now, most Europeans have had very litde idea of
Islam and very litde interest in it. We cannot study here the
ideas of the mass of the common people, who may or may not
have heard about Saracens, and may or may not have believed
what they heard. We shall never know the thoughts of those
people who had no technique with which to express them
selves, because they could neither write nor command an
amanuensis, and because they did not have skills of oral
composition and memorial retention. The subject is too flimsy
to pursue ; but there were people whose ideas bear upon Islam ;
who composed without needing to write ; who were not spokes
men for the Church, though they did have to satisfy an audi
ence; who were not philosophers, not theologians, not even
propagandists - or, if propagandists, not necessarily propa
gandists for what ostensibly they supported. They made
propaganda rather for the chivaliy that often paid them and
that provided their subject matter, than for the endless religious
war in which they set their stories. Indeed, it is already to beg
the question to speak of a religious war, before we have estab
lished that that is what it was. We should more safely say, war
against people of another religion. If we are looking for an
unofficial view, it is natural to turn to the poets of the chansons
de geste and of the later romances that developed out of them,
because these were not theologians. They composed for the
benefit of laymen, primarily soldiers, but at all social levels of
society interested to hear about courdy adventures.
The chansons de geste, historical fictions mosdy set in the tíme
of Charlemagne or his son Louis, appear several generations
earlier than that other courtly literature that is concerned with
the dalliance of lovers. Their lovers have little time to dally.
The chansons appear in the twelfth century in manuscript, in
