Simplify and Doctrinalise, Historify and Personalise: How Two Less-Known Works of Anti-Islamic Polemic from c. 1370–1440 Adapted their Sources

Abstract

Throughout the long history of Christian-Muslim engagement, finding reliable information on Islamic faith has always been a challenge for European Christians, and existing sources were often re-used. This contribution focuses on two little studied works who both use parts of Jacobus de Voragine's Legenda Aurea and Riccoldo da Monte di Croce's Contra legem Saracenorum in order to formulate their own views. The two texts, Peter de Pennis's Tractatus contra Alchoranum and the anonymous Epitome bellorum sacrorum, re-use their pretexts extensively, but they also display very specific strategies in selecting, adapting, and arranging the borrowed passages. Studying these derivate works can therefore help to reconstruct the late medieval image of Muhammad and the Qur’an in Europe and to understand what role such knowledge played in a broader context.