Coercive Wrath and the Misdirected Priorities of Christian Kings

Depictions of meritorious and reprehensible anger in Milan are indebted to two related traditions: biblical, based on the model of ira dei; and political, stemming from the codes and conventions regulating royal and aristocratic anger. Traditionally, Christian doctrine categorized anger as a deadly sin. Yet a form of praiseworthy human anger emerged in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, due in part to the presence of ira dei in the Bible. In the Old Testament, God’s anger is inherent to his role as judge. Concurrent with his love for humankind, anger is a response to sin yet contains an edifying, “constructive” dimension: it aims to coerce into virtuous action, and therefore leads humans to salvation.¹³ Writing in the early fourth century, Lactantius warns of the dangers of immoderate human anger but asserts that God endowed humankind with the emotion for the sake of correcting faults.¹⁴ In De civitate dei (completed 426 CE), Augustine of Hippo stresses the importance of considering emotions in causal terms, in counterpoint to Stoic thought, and upholds the righteous performance of anger: “Irasci enim peccanti ut corrigatur … ne pereat nescio utrum quisquam sana consideratione reprehendat” (For I do not think that any right-minded person would condemn anger at a sinner in order to correct him).¹⁵ In Alcuin of York’s view, expounded in an early ninth-century treatise on the vices and virtues, anger is disruptive of sound judgment and causes countless social ills but is good when directed against one’s own sins.¹⁶ A few years later, Hincmar of Reims enumerates the social evils ensuing from the emotion while acknowledging the benefits of anger driven by zeal and virtue.¹⁷ The same two criteria for positive anger are retained in Thomas of Chobham’s Summa confessorum (c. 1216). Although generally strict in his assessment of the emotion’s harmful effects, Thomas identifies the founding component of zealous anger – the vicious nature of the target – and goes as far as labeling this type of anger a virtue: “Ira autem per zelum est quando irascimur contra vitia et contra vitiosos, et possumus optare quod talis ira crescat, quia virtus est” (Anger through zeal is when we are angry against vice and against the vicious, and we can hope that this anger increases, because it is a virtue).¹⁸ Highlighting the perils of anger, these authors also recognize its merits, when deployed to reprove and correct wrongdoers (including oneself).

But this legitimate form of anger was only to be expressed in certain circumstances and had to respect specific modalities, which later authors rigorously defined. For Thomas Aquinas, the key criterion demarcating righteous from censured anger is whether it is bound to reason. He asserts that anger is required at times, and that expressing it and desiring vengeance to punish vice and maintain goodness and justice is commendable; on the other hand, anger against an undue object, or manifested in an undue or immoderate manner, is sinful.¹⁹ Similarly, Giles of Rome’s De regimine principum warns against the dangers of impulsive royal wrath but highlights the value of the emotion when harnessed as an instrument of reason in the service of virtue.²⁰ Finding its source in William Peraldus’s Summa de vitiis, Chaucer’s Parson’s Tale likewise denounces “sodeyn Ire or hastif Ire” vented “withouten avisement and consentynge of resoun,” while commending “nat wrooth agayns the man, but wrooth with the mysdede of the man.”²¹ Here, as is the case with other Middle English words signifying anger (including tene and gref), wrooth and ire are not morally weighted, but are used interchangeably. In sum, anger was approved of when morally justifiable and controlled by reason and was condemned if excessive, impulsive, and/or unreasoned.

Such theoretical treatments of anger informed uses of the emotion in narrative sources. The way a writer framed the wrathful actions of a given character could serve to assert his or her endorsement or denunciation of the person or actions in question, and invite readers or listeners to do the same. Imputing unrighteous or unchecked wrath was one way of conveying and eliciting reproof. An equally effective formula was to present a person’s unwarranted behavior as provoking the legitimate anger of others. Moreover, when authors ascribed anger to kings and lords, they often invested it with a communicative function, as Stephen D. White illustrates in analyzing twelfth-century French chronicles and other historical narratives. White writes, “More than an emotional response to a past political act, a display of anger also involves a quasi-juridical appraisal of the act and of the person or persons deemed responsible for it.”²² The expression of anger signaled that an offense was committed, and that if reparations were not made, vengeance would ensue. But more often than not, in the narratives analyzed by White, the threat of retribution suffices to initiate a settlement between parties, leading to restructured social relationships.²³ Anger therefore contained a conciliative dimension that, as we will see, is invoked in Milan to mediate royal and ecclesiastical power.

In crusade sermons, a form of zealous anger (ira per zelum) against the perceived injuries inflicted by Muslims was sometimes encouraged, as Susanna A. Throop has shown.²⁴ Yet far more often, preachers ascribed the emotion to God, whom they portrayed as angered by human sin, whether that of the Muslim enemy or reluctant Christian recruit. Indeed, the threat of divine wrath, and the fear it entailed, were frequently invoked to pressure potential recruits into taking the cross. As Jacques de Vitry warned: “Qui autem noluerunt audire levem sibilum predicationis saltem audiant magnum clamorem Crucifixi, alioquin audituri sunt tonitruum terribilis vocis: Ite, maledicti!” (Those who do not want to listen to the soft murmur of the sermons, should at least listen to the loud call of the Crucified, else [sic] they will hear the thunder of a dreadful voice: Go, you who are cursed!).²⁵ Or, in the words of Gilbert de Tournai, speaking of the sign of the cross that separates crusaders from others: “Virga enim crucis et sanguine Christi sanctificamur et ab aliis signatis discernimur. Sed timeant rebelles et in peccatis suis perseverantes, ne signum clementie vertatur eis in signum iracundie” (By the staff of the cross and the blood of Christ we are consecrated and distinguished from those who are signed otherwise. But rebels who persist in their own sins must fear that for them the sign of clemency be turned into a sign of anger).²⁶ Only those signed with the cross are saved; all others incur God’s anger, in this life or at the Last Judgment.

In Milan, wrathful interactions between Bishop Turpin and King Charlemagne, before the latter agrees to take part in crusade, testify to the influence of these traditions of ira dei and political anger. God’s wrath is set up as an authorizing paradigm for Turpin’s crusade fervor from the start. The romance opens with the invasion of Lombardy by the forces of a sultan named Arabas. After the lord of Milan, cornered into surrender, comes to Charlemagne and requests his support – “Jesu Criste hase comannde thee / To fare to the felde to feghte for mee, / My landis agayne to gett” (154–56) – Turpin calls the king to action:

This exhortation establishes military intervention as endorsed by God, whose wrath compels vengeance for the injuries inflicted on fellow Christians. Charlemagne, moreover, had previously received a visit from an angel in a dream, who had designated him as Christ’s representative and entrusted him with a sword: “Criste sende the this swerde, / Mase the his werryoure here in erthe, / He dose the wele to weite” (118–20). Yet Charlemagne dismisses both the dream and the churchman’s call to crusade, corrupted by “the falseste traytoure” (173) Ganelon, who urges the king to send Roland to Lombardy in his stead. Ganelon’s reasons are covetous: married to Roland’s mother, he would inherit his son-in-law’s lands should the latter die on crusade. Charlemagne, Ganelon argues, must prioritize the defense of his realm – a view that is echoed by the other royal advisors: “Thay prayede the Kynge on that tyde / That he hymselfe at home walde byde, / To kepe that lande right thare” (199–201). Upon hearing of Charlemagne’s decision to remain in France, Turpin sets off for the royal household, where, erupting in anger, he accuses the king of living in heresy, being a coward, betraying Christ’s sacrifice, and forsaking his faith:

As the top representative of ecclesiastical power in the romance, Turpin excommunicates Charlemagne, who, placing himself outside the Christian community, becomes “Goddes foo” (739), injuring God in the same way as the Muslim enemy had endeavored to do, and thus incurring the same wrathful response. Like the ira dei of the Bible and crusade propaganda, Turpin’s wrath functions as both a verdict and an instrument of pressure, impelling Charlemagne to reconsider his position. Moreover, the bishop’s display adheres to the conventions regulating the expression of righteous human anger: it is triggered by an injustice; it is not impulsive since he travels by horse to see the king after being informed of his resolution; and it contains a pronounced moral judgment and a communicative, political dimension.

Faced with Turpin’s wrathful allegations, Charlemagne in turn expresses anger: “Bot then Kyng Charls, withowtten wene, / At the Byschopp was so tene, / A fawchone hase he drawen” (710–12). Here, the nature of the king’s anger is markedly set apart from the bishop’s: not only is it morally unwarranted insofar as his refusal to wage holy war goes against his oneiric divine appointment, but it is presented as impulsive and rash. The two men are prevented from fighting in the royal hall by Charlemagne’s “grete lordes” (721), and Turpin departs, but not before expressing further outrage at the king’s transgression of divine will and asserting his intentions to return with an army:

Only when the bishop’s army of clerics is at the point of besieging Paris does Charlemagne, following Duke Naymes’s advice to save his “renown” (780), finally consent to embark on crusade. In a ritual act of subordination inaugurating the newfound alliance, Charles falls on his knees and begs forgiveness (791–93). The cessation of hostilities is marked by the conversion of mutual wrath into mutual joy – “Theire joye bygane to newe” (790) – and a celebration “with wyne and welthes at will” (799).²⁷

The story of an inward-looking king, who is persuaded by a covetous advisor (Ganelon) to attend to domestic matters at the expense of crusading, would have resonated powerfully for contemporary audiences against the backdrop of the Hundred Years War. Indeed, from the outset of this conflict, English and French kings were enjoined by some to privilege the “defense of their realms” – a rationale invoked by both parties to justify military action²⁸ – and encouraged by others to make peace and reconquer the Holy Land. Turpin’s position in the romance reverberates with the arguments of clerical authors such as Hugo of Lüttich, a priest from Liège who, in a poem entitled Peregrinarius (c. 1342), advocates for a redirection of royal energies from inward (the Anglo–French war) to outward (the recovery of the Holy Land) under the aegis of a muscular, unifying Church.²⁹ A similar agenda was later upheld by the French propagandist Philippe de Mézières, whose crusading order, the Order of the Passion, boasted a significant contingent of English recruits from the gentry and nobility under Richard II.³⁰ In his allegorical Songe du vieil pelerin (1389), Mézières has Queen Truth wrathfully admonish the barons and counts of England – the “grans Sangliers Noirs” – for corrupting Richard II – “le jeune Blanc Sangler couronne” – into privileging dynastic, territorial claims within Christendom over the recovery of Christ’s patrimony.³¹ As in Milan, evil counsel is the cause of detrimental royal policies. Mézières develops this idea in his Epistre au roi Richart (1395) with the figure of King Malavisé, who stands for “des roys crestiens qui longuement ont estez malavisez, et encore sont” (the Christian kings who have long been ill-advised, and still are) in their political decisions.³² Should these kings persist in their ways, Mézières warns, they will incur divine ire:

Mézières’s warnings are corroborated by the influential works of Eustache Deschamps in France and those of John Mandeville and John Gower in England. In his “Complainte de l’Eglise,” Deschamps remonstrates “tous les empereurs, roys et princes de la religion chrestienne” (all the Christian emperors, kings, and princes), and “leur conseilliers, justiciers, presidens et gouverneurs” (their counselors, judges, and magistrates), whose “convoitise de terres, seignouries et possessions” (covetousness of lands, fiefdoms, and possessions) in Europe had considerably profited Muslims, he laments, and had provoked the “indignacion” (indignation) and “ire” (anger) of God and the Church.³⁴ Along similar lines, Mandeville’s immensely popular travel book chastises the “lordes of the worlde,” who, through “covetise,” “bien more bisy forto deserte her neyghbores than to chalange and conquere here ryght heritage.”³⁵ The issue is again broached in Gower’s Vox Clamantis, which decries the domestic disputes that allow Muslims to hold Christian holy places.³⁶

Complaints such as these permeate contemporary writings, unsurprisingly soliciting the creative engagement of writers working within the Charlemagne tradition, Europe’s imaginative crusade literature par excellence. Milan ultimately has Charlemagne submitting to Turpin’s wrathful demands and vowing to embark on a crusade. Christian concord is thus attained, but only after the romance offers a critically charged vision of the impediments to realizing this objective. It takes no less than God’s wrath, materializing in the bishop’s threat to destroy Paris, to convince Charlemagne to reject Ganelon’s covetous advice and embrace his divinely appointed role as crusade leader. The romance features as narrative what Mézières, Deschamps, Mandeville, and Gower offer as complaint and expository warning, implicating its audience in a historically evocative scenario where the tensions between Turpin’s exemplary commitment and the realities of human failure, embodied by Charlemagne, are acutely rendered.

Collective Sorrow, Vengeance, and Invectives against Heaven

While wrathful displays serve to address Milan’s main political conflict of interests, the harmonies and tensions of Christian unity receive their most extensive narrative treatment in the emotion of sorrow, the compassion-arousing character and evaluative potential of which are fully exploited. As in Old French, in which sorrow and anger merge in the terms doel and ire, used by authors to signify “sad anger” or “angry sadness,” the connection between the two emotions is semantically ingrained in Middle English.³⁷ This is particularly evident in words such as tene and gref, which can designate anger (as in the depiction of Charlemagne above) but also sorrow.³⁸ Similarly, sorrow and compassion overlap in Middle English usage, as with the terms sorwe and reuthe, which can operate as near-synonyms of compassioun.³⁹

Milan, as we will see, follows an emotional “script” that is widely attested in crusade chronicles, chansons de geste, and sermons: sorrow at the injuries inflicted by Muslims underpins military intervention, which is couched in terms of vengeance and/or assistance to other Christians. In the Chanson d’Antioche, for example, the impetus for the First Crusade is given when Peter the Hermit, “plains de doeul” (full of grief), requests the pope’s support to “Dieu vengier” (avenge God) for the “moult grant damage” (very great wrongs) done to Christians in the Holy Land.⁴⁰ Peter the Hermit’s response to the predicaments of Christians in the Near East – compassionate grief – is one that crusade preachers also sought to elicit in their audiences. Odo of Deuil describes this process in his account of the Bishop of Langres’s preaching campaign for the Second Crusade:

The relation between compassionate grief, the duties of Christian assistance, and violent intervention is thrown into relief. Prior to the Fifth Crusade, Jacques de Vitry likewise framed sorrow as a compulsory reaction to alleged injuries perpetrated by Muslims: “Soli autem gementes et dolentes super abominationibus quae sunt in Hierusalem, a percussore defendentur. Non enim dignus est misericordia, qui pectus terreum habet, et de vituperio patris sui non dolet” (Only those who groan and sorrow over the abominations done in Jerusalem are defended from the striker. For a man who has a heart of earth and does not mourn over the insults to his father does not deserve mercy).⁴² Heartfelt sorrow is the conditio sine qua non of inclusion into the Christian community, defined in terms of protection against harm in general, and implicitly, against the forces luring humans to damnation. Consumed by “zelus domus Domini” (zeal for the house of the Lord), the crusader must “in praelio succurratis” (hurry to his aid in battle) in remission of all sins.⁴³ Here, as in Odo of Deuil’s account, the elicitation of grief is inherent to the notion of military auxilium, which could, and often was, framed as vengeance.⁴⁴

Yet in the lead-up to and aftermath of the Mamlūk reconquest of Acre, crusade apologists increasingly invoked the language of sorrow and compassion to indict Christian inaction. The proceedings of the Second Council of Lyons stressed that no one could be excused from feeling compassion (compassio) and sorrow (dolor) for the condition of the Holy Land, and therefore none could be exempt from providing succor and seeking vengeance (vindicta).⁴⁵ Sorrow is inextricable from physical commitment; hence failure to respond militarily is grounds for harsh reproof. In the epilogue to the anonymous “De Excidio Urbis Acconis,” a treatise on the loss of the Holy Land that benefited from wide circulation in England and France,⁴⁶ Christendom’s lack of emotional solidarity is lamented at length:

The audience is exhorted to bewail Christian emotional indifference, defined allegorically as “in valle deliciis peccatorum effluenti.” Christendom’s elite is similarly denounced by conflating human sinfulness with a deficiency of compassion in Philippe de Mézières’s account of Peter I of Cyprus’s attempts to rouse interest for the Alexandria Crusade of 1365: “Sed heu, peccatis mundi imminentibus … Non fuit qui terrae sanctae misereretur, nec de opprobrio suo compateretur, proh dolor!” (But alas, the world was sunk in sin … Nobody, alas, had pity on the Holy Land, or sympathized with its shame). Peter is sent away “ipsum vacuum et lacrimantem” (empty-handed and tearful).⁴⁸ Thus, frameworks of emotional solidarity were deployed both to solicit feelings of collective involvement and to signal, criticize, and lament their absence. Drawing on these traditions, sorrowful expression in Milan registers a powerful strain between a desire for collaborative, successful crusading and an awareness of both human and providential failure to bring such a desire to fruition.

The author of Milan portrays the Muslim attack on Lombardy in terms of various injuries, including the destruction of cities (15), burning of relics (25–27), tormenting of Christians (38), and finally, the taking of Milan. Forced to flee, the lord of the city turns to Christ for guidance: “Than wente that knyghte unto bedde. / For sorowe hym thoghte his hert bledde, / And appon Jesu than gan he calle” (85–87). Falling asleep, “wery for-wepe” (89), he receives the visit of an angel who summons him to awaken, go find King Charlemagne, and “say hym God byddis that he sall go / To helpe to venge the of thy foo” (100–101).⁴⁹ Weeping, a favorable state for devotion and spiritual communion, enables him to solicit Christ’s mercy.⁵⁰ Compassion, the romance makes clear through the example of Christ, is the desired response to sorrowful expression, by which individual plight is projected onto collective responsibility. When the lord of Milan arrives in Paris, his account elicits the compassion of Charlemagne’s barons and lords, who “mornede and made grete mone” (159) in a collective display that culminates in Turpin’s call for vengeance (166–68). Compassionate grief is what binds together the Christian community, as Pope Gregory VIII also emphasized in an encyclical composed prior to the Third Crusade: “Quisquis enim sane mentis in tanta lugendi materia, si non corpore, saltem corde non luget, non tantum fidei christiane, que cum omnibus dolentibus docet esse dolendum, sed ipsius etiam humanitatis videtur oblitus” (Anyone of sane mind who does not weep at such cause for weeping, if not in body at least in his heart, would seem to have forgotten not only his Christian faith, which teaches that one ought to mourn with all others who mourn, but even his very humanity).⁵¹ Noteworthy, here as in Milan, is the infectiousness of sorrow, which aligns individuals with groups, crystallizing the boundaries between “us” and “them” – Christians and Muslims.⁵² Depictions and authorial interjections of sorrow – such as “Therefore myghte mornne bothe man and maye” (215), “That tornede oure gud men all to gryll, / And many one mo to mene” (224–25), “me rewes sore” (289), “That sorowe it was to see” (339) – then punctuate the account of Roland’s campaign in Lombardy, as Christian casualties multiply and the expedition’s tragic outcome unfolds. Partaking in the events of the narrative, the author manipulates the rhetorical power of sorrow, calling on the audience’s sense of Christian compassion and communal solidarity.

Yet the cause of Roland’s grief is double: the devastation wreaked by Sultan Arabas and Charlemagne’s initial refusal to engage in crusade. As in the Chanson de Roland, the grievous consequences of Ganelon’s treason are portended: “His first tresone now bygynnes here / That the lordis boghte sythen full dere, / And to ladyse grete barett bredde” (178–80). After his army is defeated, Roland escapes from Muslim custody and rides to the abbey of Saint Denis, where he encounters Turpin and Charlemagne. Both men are befittingly moved by his fate: the bishop exclaims, “Lordis, morne we may” (529), while “The Kynge myghte noghte a tere holde – / For bale hym thoght he brynt” (576–77). Yet Charlemagne fails to act on his emotions, thereby revealing their emptiness. Whereas Turpin’s grief turns into emphatic zeal, as he casts away his monastic attributes and embraces his role as warrior for Christ (542–47), thereafter proclaiming his vengeful intent, Charlemagne again heeds Ganelon’s advice to remain in France (589–600). In stark reproof, Turpin asserts: “Was never kynge that werede a crown / So foule rebuytede with relygyon! / Thou sall sone witt of woo” (743–45).

Yet the most dramatic infringement on the community of emotion and martial action petitioned by the romance is not ascribed to Charlemagne or Ganelon, but strikingly, to heaven. During the narration of Roland’s offensive, the Christians’ grief is fueled by unanswered appeals for divine help. “Of sorowe than myghte thay synge!” (273), exclaims the poet as the Christian vanguard is pierced and human efforts are rendered vain in the absence of God’s assistance – “Thare myghte no beryns oure bales bete / Bot the helpe of Hevens Kynge” (275–76). Divine intervention does not materialize and, with the exception of Roland and three other knights, the vanguard and middle guard of the Christian army are slaughtered. After Roland is taken captive and the remaining crusaders are attacked, the author interjects a desperate plea for heavenly succor: “Nowe helpe tham the Trynytee!” (348). Yet not a single man survives this last onslaught, the Christian fatalities amounting to forty thousand. Despite responding to the lord of Milan’s sorrowful appeal in an exemplary manner – with compassion and retributive zeal – Roland and his army are rewarded with defeat and death. When informed of this news, Turpin, in a prolonged display of grief manifested both verbally and somatically, imputes the blame to no lesser figure than the Virgin Mary:

Bordering on blasphemy, Turpin’s tirade has unsurprisingly arrested critical attention.⁵³ Maldwyn Mills points out that it is Muslims, not Christians, who are commonly ascribed divinely addressed outbursts in chansons de geste and romances, and therefore suggests that Turpin is being presented as non-Christian, thus calling into question his otherwise “unquestionably heroic figure.” This, in Mills’s view, stems from the fact that he “was in the last resort French, and therefore always a little unreliable.”⁵⁴ For Suzanne Conklin Akbari, although Turpin’s behavior “detracts from the hagiographical motif so prominent in the general characterization of the Archbishop,” its significance should not be overstated, given that this type of abuse “in order to elicit more effective intercession … was not an uncommon practice during the Middle Ages.”⁵⁵ Thomas H. Crofts considers this episode a testimony to the romance’s “elevation of martial and chivalric imperatives over religious ones,” while Stephen Shepherd argues that in light of the contractual relationship of reciprocity binding the crusaders to God, this type of lament is “normative” and “entirely acceptable, if not admirable” in the context of militant crusade discourse.⁵⁶

Yet there exists a significant body of complaint literature and chronicle evidence – thus far unaccounted for in studies of romances and chansons de geste, and unexamined as a cohesive corpus by historians⁵⁷ – that sheds precious light on the cultural anxieties underlying expressions of divinely addressed reproof, whether attributed to Christians, as in Milan, or Muslims, an issue that I discuss in my subchapter on The Sultan of Babylon. The traditional justification for crusading defeats is encapsulated in the Latin formula peccatis exigentibus hominum, which was widely invoked to explain how people’s sins had brought trouble on themselves. In the later years of the Levantine crusades, however, this rationale elicited skepticism: no longer satisfied with carrying the blame, many contemporaries turned an accusatory gaze toward God, Christ, Mary, and the saints themselves.⁵⁸ This mindset is powerfully rendered in the grievances of Ricaut Bonomel, a troubadour Templar in the Holy Land when the Mamlūk sultan al-Zāhir Baybars reconquered the city of Arsūf (1265):

Ricaut registers bewilderment at God’s intentions. If God has complete control over the workings of the world, then why does he not protect those who fight wars in his name? Does he support the enemy? Such doubts were shared by many others. Fifteen years earlier, the Occitan troubadour Austorc d’Aurillac, consumed with “grans dols” (great sorrow), blames God for the Christians’ misfortunes following Louis IX of France’s defeat and capture near the Egyptian town of al-Manṣūra, and voices a similar question to the one addressed by Turpin to the Virgin Mary upon learning of Roland’s fate: “[Ai!] Dieus! Per qu’as fa[ch]a tan ma[lez]a / De nostre rey fran[c]es larc e cortes …?” (Ah! God! Why did you bring such misfortune to our generous and courteous French king …?). The author then proceeds to curse Alexandria, the clergy, and Muslims for their success, declaring that “Mal o fetz Dieus quar lor en det poder” (God was wrong to give them such power) and that “Dieus vol e sancta Maria / Que nos siam vencut” (God and Saint Mary desired their [the Christians’] defeat).⁶⁰ Also writing within the Occitan tradition, Austorc de Segret expresses similar sentiments upon hearing of the fate of Louis IX’s crusade to Tunis and death in 1270: “Fort esbaÿtz” (utterly bewildered), he knows not whether to hold God or the devil responsible for the Christians’ affliction, the destruction of their religion, and the Muslims’ well-being.⁶¹

Such expressions of anger, grief, and bewilderment were not confined to the writings of Occitan troubadours, but also extended to the public, as attested by the chronicle tradition. Matthew Paris’s account of popular reactions in France to the news of King Louis’s defeat in 1250 yields further insight into the spiritual predicaments faced by Christian Europeans for whom crusades were wars fought on behalf of an all-powerful God:

The monk of St. Albans concludes by asserting that “vix quievit aliquorum, non tamen omnium, indignatio” (the indignation of some, but not all, was with difficulty assuaged),⁶³ thereby emphasizing the intense and protracted atmosphere of collective despair. The Italian chronicler Salimbene de Adam records a similar emotional uprising after the collapse of the Seventh Crusade, claiming, “Irascebantur ergo Gallici, qui in Francia remanserant, tunc temporis contra Christum, usque adeo ut nomen Christi super omnia nomina benedictum blasphemare presumerent” (The French who had remained at home rose up in anger against Christ – so much so that they dared to blaspheme against the name of Christ, that name blessed above all names).⁶⁴ Here, that Salimbene de Adam treats “the French” as a cohesive entity suggests a tendency toward hyperbole. Yet one can glean from his account, and that of Matthew Paris, that such blasphemy was a common, if not unanimous, response to news of the debacle of the crusade.

On the basis of the evidence supplied thus far, it could be argued that these divinely addressed accusations are in large part reflective of the far-reaching expectations vested in the person of Louis IX of France, whose reputation for piety and virtue would lead to his canonization.⁶⁵ Yet the fall of Acre prompted similar reactions, as attested, for example, by the letters of the Italian Dominican friar Riccoldo da Monte di Croce, in Baghdad on a preaching campaign at the time.⁶⁶ Expressing uninhibited grief, these letters take issue with God, Christ, Mary, and the saints for abandoning the author, and Christians in general, to the advantage of Muslims. God is accused of cruelty (crudelitas), for allowing the slaughter of righteous Christians, and ungratefulness to his followers.⁶⁷ The author even goes as far as claiming that God and the angels were praying for Muhammad.⁶⁸ Lack of divine enlightenment leads Riccoldo to seek Mary’s intercession in bewilderment and sorrow:

Yet the “queen of mercy” and “advocate of sinners” remains mute: “Ubi sunt misericordie tue atque sollicitudines tue et tui sanctissimi filii pro genere humano …?” (Where is your mercy, your solicitude and that of your holy son for humankind …?), the author asks.⁷⁰ The last words written to the Virgin Mary take the form of an impassioned appeal for accountability: “Mostra te esse matrem christianorum, quos Sarraceni tam multipliciter cruciant et affligunt!” (Show that you are the mother of the Christians whom the Saracens torment and afflict in so many ways!).⁷¹ The pervading sentiment is incomprehension: how could heaven permit such disastrous outcomes of battles waged for God’s patrimony and rights? The tone oscillates between supplication and outrage, as the author tries to come to terms with this scandal to the Christian faith. The fundamental question raised by the Christian loss of the Holy Land is asked again in the early fourteenth century by the Austrian chronicler Ottokar von Steiermark:

These sources are key to understanding the cultural significance of Turpin’s castigation of the Virgin Mary for allowing the demise of those who “faughte holly in [her] ryghte” (555). In the episodes leading up to Charlemagne’s participation in crusade, Milan reflects obliquely on the reasons for Christendom’s failures in the Levant, articulating some of the greatest collective anxieties of the post-1291 era. Anxieties about the misdirected priorities of Christian kings find expression in scenes of heated negotiation between Charlemagne and Turpin. Yet even more troubling was heaven’s apparent lack of support to expeditions that were, akin to Roland’s, conducted in virtuous intent: out of a compassionate urge to avenge the injuries inflicted by Muslims on fellow Christians. After Turpin bullies Charlemagne and the Virgin Mary into supporting the cause of crusade, the double problem of royal and heavenly dereliction of duty reemerges when the king is challenged to a duel and offered territories as an incentive to embrace Islam. Turpin again dramatically questions the king’s commitment – “A, Charles, thynk appon Marie brighte / To whayme oure lufe es lentt!” (1041–42) – and aggressively calls on Mary to show her power on earth: “And if ever that thou hade any myghte, / Latt it nowe be sene in syghte” (1043–44). The reassuring image of a cooperative Christendom graced with divine favor materializes thereafter, as Charlemagne wins the duel and the Christians push toward what we can only assume will be a climactic victory (the final lines of the romance are missing). Yet the central questions posed by the romance to contemporary readers (or listeners) well aware of the geopolitical circumstances of the Holy Land – questions that would have stuck in their minds long after the close of the narration – are anything but reassuring: Could Christian kings change their ways? Why would God and the Virgin Mary allow those who fought wars in their names to persistently be defeated? Did heaven even support the enterprise? Milan gives vivid expression to these collective political and spiritual dilemmas, providing a forum where audiences could discuss and debate them.

The Rhetoric of Injury and Retribution

In an influential article informed by Edward Said’s Orientalism and psychoanalytical theory, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen writes of the Muslims of The Sultan: “Embodying an alien, racialized physicality, these Saracens are typically described only in terms of their skin color … Unintelligible in their customs, language, and vice, they worship senseless idols, torture prisoners, ride strange beasts, murder innocents.”⁷⁴ There are indeed episodes in which Laban’s soldiers are crudely Orientalized and racialized through epidermic, physiognomic, and cultural markers of difference: they have different skin colors, count giants among them, and are ascribed strange customs such as eating serpents and drinking the blood of tigers.⁷⁵ Yet equally pronounced throughout the narrative are the author’s gestures toward parallelism. Both the Christian and Muslim soldiers of The Sultan are pitiless in combat and kill children and women (which is not the case for Charlemagne in the text’s source); the insults voiced by Muslim characters mirror those of their Christian counterparts, as “hethen houndes” turns into “Cristen houndes,” “Cristen dogges,” or “French dogges” (a feature that is also unique to the present version); the authorial interjection “God him spede” becomes “Mahounde him spede” (also a specificity of The Sultan); each party expresses a desire to convert members of the other; Christian and Muslim knights are favored equally with adjectives such as “worthy,” “myghty,” and “doughty” (attributes that are augmented for the Muslims here); there is even a passage where “Mahounde” takes the soul of a fallen Muslim warrior and brings it “to his blis” – which the author explains, noting that “He [Mahounde] loved him wel.”⁷⁶ The accretion of elements of analogy across the religious divide is striking. In creatively reworking his or her sources, the author blurs the lines between Christians and Muslims not only by ascribing commendable qualities to the latter, but also by imputing reprehensible actions to the former. Saidian Orientalism, premised as it is on binary oppositions, inadequately captures the cultural operations of this romance.

Especially noteworthy for our purposes are the textual manipulations at the origin of a reconfigured emotional rhetoric that causes the audience to oscillate between Christian and Muslim viewpoints as the storyline develops. Before coming to the expressions of wrath that lead Charlemagne to mirror Laban, let us first consider some of the other emotional parallelisms that typify the romance. Like Milan and The Siege of Jerusalem, analyzed in Chapter 4, The Sultan defines itself as a tale of vengeance prompted by injury. This motif permeates crusade sources, as discussed above, and played a key role in promoting the enterprise: Muslims were accused of various crimes, including that of persecuting Christians, whose injuries crusaders were to avenge. In the Egerton La destruction de Rome, the emphasis in the opening lines is on the harms done to Rome by Laban, “li soldan maleuré,” and on his theft of the relics. These wrongful acts set the tone for what follows, providing solid moral grounds for reactive measures on the part of Charlemagne, “li fort coroné.” The audience is invited to identify with his cause, which acquires collective legitimacy. In The Sultan, by contrast, the narrative opens by telling of the righteous vengeance exacted by Laban on Christian Rome for its sins against God:

Laban thus takes on the role, so often held by Christian figures of chanson de geste and romance, of agent of divine retribution. This inversion is best understood in relation to historical accounts of crusading defeats, where God’s wrath or vengeance against Christian sinfulness is posited as materializing from the hand of the Muslim enemy. Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn’s reconquest of Jerusalem (1187) and the ensuing Third Crusade were instrumental in popularizing this representational mode.⁷⁷ The English chronicler Roger of Wendover, for example, writes that God, seeing the sins committed by Christians, “haereditatem suam sprevit, et virgam furoris sui, videlicet Salaadinum, in obstinatae gentis permisit exterminium debacchari” (scorned his inheritance, and allowed the rod of his anger, namely Saladin, to vent His anger to the extermination of that obstinate race).⁷⁸ A later example, roughly contemporary to The Sultan, is Michel Pintoin’s account of the Crusade of Nicopolis in 1396, which has the Ottoman sultan Bāyazīd I declare, upon hearing of the lax morals of the crusaders and before crushing their army, that “lento gradu ad vindictam divina procedit ira, et tarditatem supplicii gravitate pensat” (God’s anger slowly gives way to vengeance, and compensates for this slowness by the importance of the punishment).⁷⁹ Drawing on this tradition in its opening lines, The Sultan sets the tone for an ambitious reimagining of its sources, one that will accommodate self-criticism alongside more conventional strands of Christian heroism.

Laban is then portrayed as Charlemagne is in so many chansons de geste and romances: surrounded by “kinges twelfe” (surrogates of the Frankish king’s twelve peers) and barons of whom “worthynesse al may not be told” (37–40). A few lines later, the sultan receives news of the unprovoked attack of his men by Roman soldiers:

Laban, the “worthy Sowdon” (49), responds to this sorrowful affront in consequence: “Thes tidings make myn herte coolde; / But I be venged, dyen I shalle” (91–92). Yet after Laban claims legitimate vengeance and destroys Rome, the initial framework of sin and punishment is complicated by Charlemagne’s introduction into the story as a mirror image of his Muslim counterpart: a “worthy kinge” (583) intent on avenging the “grete sorowe” (574) of his coreligionists, the Romans. Any assumption that Charlemagne will surpass Laban in moral and political virtue is soon dispelled, however. Instead, we witness a double movement toward negative and positive parallelism, with new episodes uniting the Muslim sultan and the Christian king as indiscriminate killers of “childe, wyfe, man,” mercilessly ordering their men to “brenne, slo and distroye alle” (note the similar language used at 413–18 and 783–86), and as noble, courtly rulers. Far from presented as incongruous, the sultan’s non-Christian identity and oft-asserted worthiness are harmoniously reconciled. In a passage absent from the French source, Laban’s worthiness as a conqueror is aligned with his ability to love, a meritorious disposition that underpins his evaluative emotional response to Charlemagne’s attack:⁸⁰

Here, the terms “myschief,” “agrevede,” and “grevaunce” reflect a quasi-juridical assessment of Charlemagne’s previous acts, providing clear justification for Laban’s arousal (“He was ful sore ameved”) toward vengeance. The Sultan is replete with these representational shifts, leading the audience to experience the events from the position of Christians and Muslims in turn. Their emotional responses mirror each other: both display grief engendering retributive violence, anger in battle or when provoked, fear in perilous situations, shame when faced with (the prospect of) dishonor, joy following military success, and love for their God(s).⁸¹ There is no sense of a binary between Christians and Muslims created through depictions of the former as emotionally virtuous and the latter as harmful oppressors. The emotional economy of the romance is instead characterized by blurred boundaries and provocative instabilities.

The motif of the “noble Muslim,” converging with that of the “virtuous pagan,”⁸² is of course not new to the post-1291 era and is documented in the chansons de geste and crusade chronicles of the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries.⁸³ The Sultan, however, brings this motif into unchartered territory by endowing Laban with the same justifications for action as those extensively harnessed in crusade propaganda, chronicles, and literature to promote Christian collective identity and foster feelings of hostility grounded in moral duty. The popularity of the “injury-sorrow-vengeance” script in crusade sermons attests to its rhetorical effectiveness: its ability to win the sympathy, compassion, and support of audiences. While investing Sultan Laban with this type of emotional righteousness is undeniably less conducive to empathic reactivity (for a late medieval English audience) than is the case with the Christian protagonists of Milan, for instance, it sets up a narrative structure that stimulates mutual intelligibility and responsiveness.

Wrath and Fratricidal Quarrels

The Christian–Muslim symmetries The Sultan establishes not only consist of positive emotional characterizations, but also, as previously noted, negative ones. The most striking element of negative parallelism is that which unites Charlemagne and Laban in displays of unbridled anger. While The Sultan supplements its sources with depictions of Laban wrathfully castigating his “gods” for the misfortunes that befall him (passages that I discuss below), it also imputes unchecked anger to Charlemagne, exploiting the chanson de geste motif of king–vassal conflict to compelling effect, and probing its militaristic implications.⁸⁴ The king’s wrath, directed against his peers, is not only overtly admonished, but also exposes the Christian fellowship to risks of Muslim military advantage. The first of two instances in which the dangers of inter-Christian wrath are sharply raised occurs when Roland refuses to champion the Christian cause in combat against Laban’s son, Ferumbras, because he had taken offense at Charlemagne’s praise of the “old knights” over the “young” (919–30 and 1084–90):

This wrathful exchange features in the Anglo-Norman and Old French texts of Fierabras.⁸⁵ But it is made more impactful in The Sultan through the conversion of indirect into direct speech, and through an interpolated accusation of treachery – a particularly fraught motif in both the Charlemagne tradition and crusade historiography.⁸⁶ The author also innovates by adding a moral warning to the importance of conciliation and restraint: Charles’s withdrawal is for the best, and “every wrath moste over-gone” to avoid misfortune. The threat to Christian collective integrity nonetheless persists beyond this altercation, since it comes to be up to Oliver, “seke and woundede sore” (1116) at this stage, and thus considerably diminished, to take up Ferumbras’s challenge.

In a later episode, Charlemagne’s counselors are unable to suppress his anger, as he resolves to send all of his peers as envoys to Laban. The king’s wrath is unparalleled in the Egerton Fierabras, which instead portrays his decision as a legitimate, composed statement of royal prerogative.⁸⁷ By contrast, The Sultan has Charlemagne succumbing to fury and spurning all advice toward caution and restraint:

Opposed by his most trusted men and warned of the perils of anger (Ogier, “that worthy man,” had also previously urged the king to curb his “wroth” [1687–88]), Charlemagne, as in Milan, is cast in a distinctly negative light. As warned, the king’s decision leads to the peers’ capture, imprisonment, and sentence to death (an outcome they ultimately succeed in avoiding). These passages exhibit a purposeful concern with the dangers of wrathful disputes among crusaders. Anger threatens to cripple the Christian ability to function as a united military body.

Thus, while Milan invokes wrathful displays between Christians to decry the royal prioritization of domestic politics over crusade commitments, The Sultan tackles the no less topical concern of wrath-induced political fragmentation in the course of military engagements with the enemy. In a recent, wide-ranging survey, Stephen J. Spencer shows that “restraining rage” was a major preoccupation of propagandists and chroniclers from the First Crusade to the fall of Acre.⁸⁸ The sources I have consulted, from this period and from the fourteenth century, bear out Spencer’s assessment. If, as discussed above, some authors viewed anger as desirable when expressed correctly, many others saw it as a dangerous emotion, likely to cause inter-Christian discord and hinder collective crusading efforts. Odo of Deuil’s account of the Second Crusade, for instance, while imputing the failure of the expedition to the treachery of the Greeks, traces their ill will toward the French troops of Louis VII to the wrath (both furor and ira are used) of the Germans, guilty of having killed a number of Greeks outside the town of Philippopolis.⁸⁹ De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, an eyewitness report of the siege of Lisbon at the inception of the Second Crusade, explicitly denounces anger as a component of crusading: “Zelo iusticie, non felle ire, iustum bellum committite” (Engage in a just war with the zeal of righteousness, not with the bile of wrath).⁹⁰ Remedy against wrath can, however, be found in Christ: “Que iracundia, si Filii Dei patientia non sanatur?” (What proneness to anger, if it be not cured by the patience of the Son of God?).⁹¹ Indeed, although the later stages of the siege find the Christian forces immersed in wrathful quarrels, such that these “intractabilibus discidiorum causis” (uncontrollable causes of discord) prompt their leaders to lose control of their tempers, God reestablishes harmony and the Christians prevail. Yet concord is only achieved after the author elaborates on the risks of disunity and the importance of conciliation, a position championed by the army’s elders (senioribus).⁹² Direct warnings against the detriments of the emotion, similar to those in The Sultan and De expugnatione, were also voiced by propagandists invested in laying out the prescribed conduct of (future) crusaders. Drawing upon scripture in one of his sermones ad status, Jacques de Vitry alerts his audience to the perils of wrath as a source of dissent among crusaders.⁹³ In the early fourteenth century, the Italian propagandist Marino Sanudo likewise stresses the importance of avoiding ira in his discussion of the qualities of a prospective Christian ruler in the Holy Land.⁹⁴

Despite the existence of a form of praiseworthy anger in historical and literary crusade sources, these examples, among numerous others available, register acute awareness of the self-damaging potential of the emotion. Ludolph of Suchem’s account of the Mamlūk siege of Acre in his De itinere terrae sanctae liber, a work composed after a visit to the Levant from 1336 to 1341, bears broad resemblance to The Sultan in the Christian–Muslim dynamics it establishes. The city’s fall, the author asserts, was the result of its citizens’ wrathful quarrels, which served as a cue for the Mamlūk sultan al-Ashraf Khalīl, “vir sagacissimus, in armis potentissimus et multum strenuus et sciens” (an exceedingly wise man, most potent in arms and bold in action). The author juxtaposes the Christians’ disarray with the order that reigns in the Muslim camp, as the wise sultan summons his counselors and holds a parliament before besieging the city.⁹⁵ In The Sultan, too, Christians are the ones who quarrel, while Muslims maintain political unity under the leadership of Laban, a “worthy conqueroure” who places unwavering trust in the “trewe and good” counsel of his advisors (see, for example, 1739–74, an episode that directly follows Charlemagne’s wrathful admonishment of his peers). Yet Laban does not achieve final victory, for, whereas the Christians’ pleas to “Lord God in Trinite” are answered by the intervention of angels, his appeals to his “gods” are to no avail.

The Motif of the Afflicted Muslim

As is well known, within the genres of chanson de geste and romance, Islam is constructed as both a distorted image of Christianity and a manifestation of ancient Greek and Roman polytheism.⁹⁶ The Christian Trinity and statues of saints are mirrored in a Muslim “counter-Trinity,” composed of Muhammad, Tervagant, and Apollo (but sometimes supplemented by other “gods”) worshiped in the form of idols. Thus, the very aspects of Christianity – a Triune God and the use of statues and images as monuments of faith – that were denounced by Muslim poets and polemicists of the crusader era as shirk, the sin of polytheism and idolatry, lie at the heart of this misrepresentation of Islam.⁹⁷ In The Sultan, Laban, like other Muslim characters of crusade literature, rebukes his gods in anger or sorrow following military setbacks and defeats. What is noteworthy, however, is that, in reworking his or her sources, the author added altogether new scenes where Laban acts in this way: of no less than seven such instances in The Sultan, only one is matched in the Egerton manuscript.⁹⁸ Significantly, this tendency extends across the Middle English romance tradition: episodes of divinely addressed frustration were also interpolated in the adaptation of Otuel and Roland and Guy of Warwick and feature prominently in other romances, such as The King of Tars and Richard Coeur de Lion, which have no extant French source.⁹⁹ Whether we are dealing with translations of earlier texts or narratives for which there is no extant source material, the evidence suggests a strong authorial interest in the motif of the “afflicted Muslim” in late medieval England. Why was this motif so popular?

In Idols in the East, Suzanne Conklin Akbari argues that chanson de geste and romance scenes featuring Muslims railing against their gods served to signal to contemporary audiences the “waning power” of Islam, showing them “what they are not so that they may understand what they are.”¹⁰⁰ Yet in the real world, as we have seen, the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were a time when Christians, not Muslims, rebuked the holy figures of their religion after military defeats. This context is indispensable for understanding the cultural work performed by the “afflicted Muslim” motif after 1291. In an insightful article drawing on Freudian psychology, Gerald J. Brault sets out theoretical premises for considering negative depictions of Muslims in chansons de geste in terms of how they subconsciously project Latin European insecurities and shortcomings (without, however, exploring how these premises might apply to specific motifs and characterizations, beyond general references to moral flaws such as pride and deceitfulness).¹⁰¹ Brault’s assessment is highly relevant for our purposes. Whether we are dealing with a subconscious or – as I would suggest – a very conscious impulse on the part of the authors, projection seems to me a persuasive explanation for the proliferation of depictions of Muslims venting their military frustration on their gods in Middle English romance.

Turning again to some of the works discussed above in relation to Turpin’s admonishment of Mary in Milan is useful at this stage. Two of the most characteristic components of the “afflicted Muslim” motif – the accusation of divine negligence, commonly couched in terms of “sleep,” and the threat of religious apostasy – warrant special mention because of how prominently they also feature in Christian complaints against heaven after crusading defeats. Representative in this regard is Laban’s expression of wrath against the Muslim “counter-Trinity” following an unsuccessful siege on a Christian-held tower:

The letters of Riccoldo da Monte di Croce attest to how closely such sentiments reflect those experienced by Latin Christians when faced with Muslim victories. Riccoldo’s lament is punctuated by references to God, Jesus, and the Virgin Mary sleeping, followed by impassioned pleas for them to arouse. The most striking of these is that which sees the author suggesting that Mary has fallen asleep in a wine cellar.¹⁰² The urge of fictional Muslims to compel their gods to action by physical means (notably by hitting them with sticks) is paralleled, though downplayed in intensity, in the author’s impulse to stir God’s vigilance by shaking the pillow upon which he sleeps.¹⁰³ The Templar Ricaut Bonomel’s aforementioned poem likewise invokes the language of sleep to complain of divine inaction, proof of which appears in Muslim victories: “E nos venzon sai chascun dia, / Car Dieus dorm, qui veillar solia, / E Bafometz obra de son poder” (And here every day they are victorious / For God, who used to watch, now sleeps, / And Muhammad acts in full strength).¹⁰⁴ If the metaphor of sleep was a natural choice for these authors and for writers of chansons de geste and romances, it is in part because of its presence in the Bible: passages where God is urged to awaken from sleep and contend for his people are found in the book of Psalms, for example.¹⁰⁵

Laban’s threats of apostasy, too, resemble those voiced by real-life Christians. In response to the debacle of Louis IX’s second crusade, Austorc d’Aurillac writes:

Austorc’s outrage was transient (as is Laban’s in The Sultan).¹⁰⁷ Yet it reflects a mode of thought in which the relation between human and divine is one of mutual reciprocity: if the Christian God does not protect his followers, then why should they worship him? In a similar vein, the troubadour crusader Ricaut Bonomel claims that if God gets his way and the Christians continue to be overpowered, not only will the author renounce the cross, but “nuls hom que en Jhesu Crist creza / Non remandra … en est paes” (not a single man that believes in Jesus Christ / will remain … in this country).¹⁰⁸ By failing to uphold his side of the contract, God quite simply relinquishes the right to be served, militarily and spiritually.

References to the conversion of Christians to Islam permeate Riccoldo’s divinely addressed letters. Whether Muslims prevail through God’s negligence or active support to Islam, the consequence is that numerous Christians relinquish their faith:

Riccoldo even goes as far as to question whether Christ’s support to the enemy is “preludia, quod ipse vere efficietur Sarracenus” (the prelude to his true conversion to Islam). The saints, he later suggests, have already changed sides: “O sancti patriarche, o patres antiqui Veteris Testamenti, quare facti fuistis Sarraceni et imitatores Machometi?” (Oh saintly patriarchs, oh ancient fathers of the Old Testament, why have you become Saracens and imitators of Muhammad?).¹¹⁰ Riccoldo repeatedly beseeches heaven to confirm him in his faith, lest he follow the example of the great multitude (maxima multitude) of Christians in the Near East who have converted to Islam: “Si tibi placet, ut regnet Machometus, indica nobis, ut veneremur” (If it pleases you that Muhammad should rule, tell us so that we may venerate him).¹¹¹ According to Matthew Paris, threats of apostasy (apostasiam) were common in France at the time of the Seventh Crusade, and would have materialized were it not for the comfort provided by priests.¹¹² Salimbene de Adam claims that this same crusade caused Christians in France to declare in anger (irascebantur) that Muhammad was more powerful (potentior) than Christ.¹¹³

Thus, crusading defeats prompted Christian laypeople, clerics, and crusaders in Europe and the eastern Mediterranean to question divine justice, voice religious doubt, and threaten to apostatize. Did contemporaries act on such threats? In areas of Europe remote from Muslim lands, practical considerations prevented large-scale apostasy of the kind suggested to be possible by Matthew Paris and Salimbene de Adam.¹¹⁴ Yet, if the crusader Ricaut Bonomel and the missionary Riccoldo da Monte di Croce did not convert to Islam while in the Near East, numerous Christian Europeans did. Latin and Arabic accounts spanning the core period of the Levantine crusades (1096–1291) tell of repeated instances of crusaders who, during military altercations or following defeats, crossed the lines for the purpose of converting to Islam, often reporting numbers in the thousands.¹¹⁵ While the motives of those who converted under such circumstances are often difficult to ascertain based on the extant evidence, and no doubt comprised a range of practical and spiritual considerations, it is not unlikely that many saw Muslim victories as evidence of God’s favor to Islam. Indeed, as scholars working outside the confines of crusade history have shown, this was a common rationale for conversion from the early Muslim conquests to the rise of the Ottoman Empire.¹¹⁶ What greater proof was there of the truth of Islam than the worldly successes that God granted its followers?¹¹⁷

The high degree of interplay between the historical predicaments of Christians and those of fictional Muslims is evident in light of the sources analyzed above. If the “afflicted Muslim” motif was so popular in late medieval England, it is, I believe, because it fulfilled the projective needs of a post-1291 society harboring deep collective anxieties about the workings of God’s will, divine support to the crusading enterprise, and the conversion of Christians to Islam. Middle English crusade romances were by no means adverse to self-criticism, as demonstrated in this chapter, and as will be further discussed in what follows. But not all texts engaged as directly as Milan with the providential anxieties that generations of crusading defeats had engendered. These uncomfortable feelings found compensation by means of projection, in a similar way that medieval Christianity’s fixation on images and relics is counteracted by chanson de geste and romance renderings of Muslim idolatry.¹¹⁸ Even the iconoclasm that Christian characters of fiction perform against the statues of Muhammad, Tervagant, and Appollo mirrors what Muslims were accused of in historical reports, such as Fidenzio of Padua’s on the fall of Tripoli in 1289:¹¹⁹

The same story is recounted by Riccoldo da Monte di Croce, who adds that throughout Galilee, Judea, and in Jerusalem, almost all of the images of God and Christ that fell in Muslim hands were mutilated by spears, swords, and sticks.¹²¹ These testimonies should not be taken at face value. Yet they are important to the present discussion because they further illustrate the complex ways in which crusade literature engages the historical record, at times mimetically and at others projectively.

This chapter has elucidated the ways that Milan and The Sultan deploy representations of anger, sorrow, and vengeance to engage their audiences’ responses and reflections on post-1291 concerns about royal politics, covetous counsel, Christian infighting, divine support to the crusaders, and religious apostasy. Milan directs its polemical energies against Christendom’s royalty for prioritizing domestic over crusade duties. Both the critique and the solution to the problem are carried by Turpin, upon whom the power to enact divine anger is conferred. Yet a much more fraught impediment to successful crusading, and a source of profound unease as expedition after expedition dashed the hopes of contemporaries, was God’s perceived neglect of the crusaders’ fate. Whether European kings cooperated or not, the question remained: how could God refrain from rewarding Christians for their persistent efforts? The conventional answer to this question was that God was angry at the Christian community for its sins – the logic invoked by the author of The Sultan to frame Laban’s destruction of Rome. But, from the time of Louis IX’s crusades to Egypt and Tunis, dissatisfaction with this rationale was increasingly felt, and many turned to God for accountability, accusing him of failing his Christian followers and threatening to abandon (or actually abandoning) their faith. In Milan, these providential anxieties, voiced by Bishop Turpin, are confronted head-on. In The Sultan, they are projected onto the Muslim Other, who closely resembles the Christian self.