Christian views on Islam in the middle ages

After finishing Parzival, a 13th century epic poem about the Grail quest, it became apparent that even the upper classes of Middle ages society did not understand any thing about Islam. In the tale Feirefiz, Percival’s Moorish brother renounces Jupiter and converted to Christianity. This is not the only example of the misunderstanding of Islam in the middle ages. What if the most basic tenets of Islam were known to the church and the upper castes of the various states?
 
I remember some thought that Muhammed was a Cardinal who tried to become the Pope, but he was passed over. Enraged, he fled Europe and created a religion worshiping himself as a God.

I think if Christians knew about Islam better, they would have had the Renaissance sooner because they would have more contact with the Islamic world.
 

ninebucks

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When I did my medieval history course, I was told that medieval Europeans only really conceived of three religious affiliations: Christian, Jew, and Pagan. They knew the Muslims weren't Christians, because otherwise they wouldn't be crusading against them, so they must be one of the other two.
 
This really depends on who you are talking about. Parzival was written by an author who very likely had never actually spoken to a Muslim or read any Islamic text, and he was perfectly happy to follow the literary convention that indeed stated that there were only Christians, Jews and pagans. On the other hand, while a number of clerical writers apparently didn't understand much about Islam (they frequently thought of it as a Christian heresy), there were sincere efforts to understand it as soon as the church thought it stood a chance of making converts (which was roughly the 12th century). By the early 13th century, the Qur'an had been translated into Latin, but by that time, a largwe body of philosophy from the Islamic world had also been in circulation for quite some time. What is hardest to gauge is the level of contact in closer proximity. It looks as though most clergy kept to themselves rather than interact, but there were instances of conversion. More importantly, a lot of ambitious intellectuals in 11th and 12th-century Europe studied Arabic. We don't really know what they read, but it is hard to believe none of them ever picked up religious texts. And these were not fringe-dwellers, they included a future pope, Gerbert of Aurillac.

Most Europeans outside the Med probably didn't know more about Muslims than that it was another word for blackamoor villains, but there was knowledge if you knew where to look at who to ask.
 
Exactly. Considering that a lot of Christian theology is based on Islamic thought (explanation of the doctrine of bodily resurrection, Avicenna's metaphysical proofs for God, etc.), it is rather unavoidable for at least the higher echelons of the intelligentsia in Europe to be completely unaware of their eastern neighbours.
 
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