'A Christian Pilgrim in Medieval Iraq. Riccoldo Da Montecroce's Encounter With Islam' by Rita George-Tvrtkovic

A Christian Pilgrim
in Medieval Iraq
MEDIEVAL VOYAGING
General Editors
Margaret Clunies-Ross, University of Sydney
Geraldine Barnes, University of Sydney
Editorial Board
Alfred Hiatt, Department of English, Queen Mary College, University of London
Kim Phillips, Department of History, University of Auckland
Suzanne Conklin Akbari, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto
John Tolan, Maison des Sciences de l’Homme Ange Guépin, Université de Nantes
Volume 1
A Christian Pilgrim
in Medieval Iraq
Riccoldo da Montecroce’s
Encounter with Islam
by
Rita George-Tvrtković
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
George Tvrtkovic, Rita author.

A Christian pilgrim in medieval Iraq : Riccoldo da Montecroce's encounter with Islam.
-- (Medieval voyaging ; 1)
1. Ricoldo, da Montecroce, 1242 or 3-1320. Liber peregrinationis.
2. Ricoldo, da Montecroce, 1242 or 3-1320. Epistolae ad ecclesiam triumphantem.
3. Ricoldo, da Montecroce, 1242 or 3-1320--Knowledge--Islam.
4. Ricoldo, da Montecroce, 1242 or 3-1320--Knowledge--Koran.
5. Christianity and other religions--Islam--Early works to 1800.
6. Koran--Christian interpretations--Early works to 1800.
I. Title II. Series
261.2'7'09022-dc23
ISBN-13: 9782503532370
© 2012, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher.
D/2012/0095/223
ISBN: 978-2-503-53237-0
Printed on acid-free paper
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction ix
Chapter 1. Riccoldo in situ 1
Chapter 2. Beyond Polemic: Genres and Context of Medieval ‘Dialogue’ 17
Chapter 3. Muslim Works of Perfection 43
Chapter 4. ‘I Read It in Arabic!’ 73
Chapter 5. Questioning Salvation History 89
Chapter 6. Wonder, Doubt, and Dissonance: Riccoldo’s Theology of Islam 107
Epilogue 135
Appendix A. Five Letters on the Fall of Acre (1291) 137
Appendix B. The Book of Pilgrimage 175
Select Bibliography 229
Indexes 241
Acknowledgements
I
would like to express heartfelt gratitude to the mentors whose advice and
support sustained me throughout my graduate studies at the University of
Notre Dame and who encouraged me in the initial stages of the Riccoldo
project: David Burrell, Bradley Malkovsky, Thomas Prügl, Rabbi Michael Signer
(of blessed memory), and most especially my dissertation director, Joseph
Wawrykow. Transforming my dissertation into a book was the next step, and I
would like to thank John Tolan for connecting me with the Medieval Voyaging se-
ries of Brepols Publishers. The following scholars read portions of the manuscript
and offered critical feedback: David Burr, Don Duclow, Jean-Marie Kauth, Jean-
Marie Mérigoux op, Bradley Malkovsky, Stephen Mossman, Devorah Schoenfeld,
Philip Timko osb, and Anne Marie Wolf. I presented various chapters at confer-
ences including the International Medieval Congress in Kalamazoo, the Catholic
Theological Society of America Annual Conference, and Ritus Infidelium at the
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, and I am grateful for the comments and
suggestions of colleagues present there. I would also like to thank Benedictine
University — especially my departmental colleagues and my very supportive
dean, María de la Cámara — for their encouragement. I am also grateful to the
University of Notre Dame for its Zahm Travel Grant, which enabled manuscript
study at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana and the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale
di Firenze. Garrett Smith offered valuable suggestions on the Latin translations,
Tania Colwell and Mary-Jo Arn provided astute editorial advice, and Bruce
Verhaaren deftly created the map. And I must acknowledge Anthony and Arlene
George and Izeta Tvrtković; your generosity enabled innumerable hours of writ-
ing. I am truly grateful for the assistance of each and every person named here, but
as is always the case with books, I alone bear responsibility for any errors or defi-
ciencies. Last on this list but first in my heart are my two children, Luka and Anya
Lucia, who have grown along with this volume, and my incomparable husband,
Zoran. This book is dedicated to you, ljubavi.
Rita George-Tvrtković
Eve of All Saints, 2012
692nd Anniversary of Riccoldo’s death
Chicago, Illinois
Introduction
S
oon after the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks,
Nicholas of Cusa penned his critique of the Qur’an, Cribratio alkorani.
In the prologue he lists his sources by name, including Robert of Ketton’s
twelfth-century translation of the Qur’an, Thomas Aquinas’s thirteenth-century
De rationibus fidei, and Riccoldo da Montecroce’s fourteenth-century Contra
legem Sarracenorum. Of them all, Cusa says that Contra legem was the most
pleasing. Riccoldo’s book evidently pleased others as well, for it influenced the
likes of Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who consulted a Greek
translation in 1385; King Ferdinand of Spain, who commissioned its retranslation
back into Latin from the Greek in 1502; and Martin Luther, who rendered it
into German in 1542. The number of extant Latin manuscripts (twenty-eight),
not to mention several medieval translations into the vernacular, attests to the
book’s widespread and enduring popularity.
This present study will not, however, centre on Contra legem, for the anti-
Islamic polemic it epitomizes is relatively well known.1 Rather, my book will
focus on two other texts by the Dominican missionary Riccoldo da Montecroce
(c. 1243–1320) which likewise treat of Islam but are of different genres. These
two texts, one a pilgrim’s itinerary and the other a set of letters, were never as
popular as the more useful Contra legem, despite the fact that both contain
commentary on Islam which is similar in both length and substance to that found
in more traditional polemics.
In the past, research into medieval interreligious relations focused on polemi-
cal texts like Contra legem. But more recently, scholars have noted the inadequacy
1
Representative works outlining the medieval Latin argument against Islam include Daniel,
Islam and the West; Peter the Venerable and Islam, ed. by Kritzeck; Kedar, Crusade and Mission;
and Tolan, Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination.
x Introduction
of the polemical literature to represent the full spectrum of medieval Christian

views of the other. Some have underscored the ‘limitations of the polemic sources
and the narrow view of the human personality they engender’ while others have
stressed the false distinction made between polemical and non-polemical texts.2
For example, Deborah Goodwin questions the sharp boundaries traditionally
made between medieval biblical exegesis and polemics.3 Given these concerns,
an examination of the account of Islam found in Riccoldo’s other, non-polemical
writings seems appropriate.
The first text to be analysed here is Liber peregrinationis, an itinerary in which
Riccoldo describes his mission-pilgrimage to the Middle East. The second is
Epistolae ad ecclesiam triumphantem, five letters to the heavenly court which
he writes in anguish after the 1291 fall of Acre. These two texts are noteworthy
because they include not only the standard arguments against Islam but also
significant ambivalence. In both, Riccoldo lauds Muslim praxis yet condemns
Islam as perfidious. He boasts about his Qur’anic knowledge and praises the
beauty of its Arabic, yet criticizes the very same book for being violent and
mendacious. He entertains the possibility that Muslim eschatological claims are
true, even as he affirms Christianity’s superiority over Islam. What is especially
interesting is the fact that Riccoldo himself seems aware of these inconsistencies,
for he regularly admits to bewilderment. His ambivalent feelings, his candor
about them, and the fact that he does not edit them out of his writings, is striking
for someone living at a time when personal experience was rarely considered
important, and even more rarely cited as an authoritative source for theology.
These two remarkable texts will serve as the focus of this book. While noting
elements of Riccoldo’s account of Islam which are consonant with mainstream
medieval views, I will concentrate on those aspects which reveal both originality
and ambivalence, to wit: his descriptions of Muslim praxis; his approach to
the Qur’an; his questioning of Christian salvation history; and his frequent
and explicit references both to his personal experiences of Muslims and to the
feelings of wonder and doubt such experiences elicited. These tensions and
inconsistencies should not be viewed as defects. Rather, their presence illuminates
the complexities inherent in interreligious encounter itself. While many scholars
today would argue for the overwhelmingly positive effect such encounters have
2
Burman, Reading the Qur’an in Latin Christendom, p. 5.
3
Goodwin, ‘Take Hold of the Robe of a Jew’, pp. 95–99. While Goodwin is referring to
twelfth-century Christians and Jews, her comments can also be applied to the literature sur-
rounding Christian-Muslim relations of the same era.
Introduction xi
on a person’s understanding of the other, Riccoldo’s experience demonstrates

that interreligious conversations can often produce as much discomfort and
destabilization as they do trust and understanding.4
Since medieval Christians assessed Islam primarily through their own internal
authorities and reasoning (that is, through scripture and tradition), this book
will attempt to read Riccoldo on his own terms by paying special attention to
the theological dimensions of his writings. While his four major works, Liber
peregrinationis, Epistolae ad ecclesiam triumphantem, Contra legem Sarracenorum,
and Ad nationes orientales,5 are all of distinct literary genres, I would like to
suggest that Riccoldo is actually pursuing the same goal in them all: working out
his own theological account of Islam, or ‘theology of Islam’. This key term will
be defined more thoroughly later in the introduction, but in short, a Christian
theology of Islam (and more broadly, a Christian theology of religions) seeks
to explain systematically other religions vis-à-vis Christianity. It is primarily
an internal discussion which draws upon Christian theological criteria and
traditional sources.
To date, very little has been written on Riccoldo in English. No monograph
in any language has analyzed his theology of Islam as such, nor placed him into
conversation with the current theology of religions debate. Such a conversa-
tion is sorely needed, given that substantive reflection on history, while usually
acknowledged as necessary, is frequently lacking in contemporary texts on the
Christian theology of religion.6 This lacuna is especially acute for the medieval
period, which is regularly glossed over by theologians in favour of the patristic
4
Marianne Moyaert highlights the oft-ignored discomforts produced by interfaith dialogue
in Moyaert, ‘Interreligious Dialogue and the Value of Openness’.
5
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Contra legem Sarracenorum, ed. by Mérigoux, pp. 60–142; Liber
peregrinationis, Latin text and French translation in Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregri-
nationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, pp. 36–205; Epistolae ad ecclesiam triumphantem, Latin
text edited by Reinhold Röhricht, and cited here as Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by
Röhricht; Ad nationes orientales, Latin text in Riccoldo da Montecroce, Ad nationes orientales,
ed. by Jensen; selections edited by Antoine Dondaine, in Dondaine, ‘Ricoldiana: notes sur les
œuvres de Riccoldo de Montecroce’, pp. 162–70. These texts will be described in more detail in
Chapter 2.
6
Such texts tend to be written by systematicians rather than historical theologians, and thus
most devote very few pages to the historical Christian views of other religions. For example,
DiNoia, The Diversity of Religions, devotes a scant six pages out of two hundred to history.
Clooney, Comparative Theology, is better, with sixteen pages out of one hundred and sixty-five.
One notable exception is Dupuis, Towards a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, of which
the entire first half is devoted to history.
xii Introduction
era.7 Likewise, a conversation between history and theology is equally needed on

the historical side, since recent scholarship on the literature surrounding medieval
Christian-Muslim relations has tended to focus more on the historical, philologi-
cal, or ethnographic dimensions of these texts, rather than on the theological.8
The goals of the present volume are threefold. The first is to examine the
account of Islam found in two Riccoldian texts of non-polemical genres. The
second is to focus on the theologically significant aspects of his account: his views
of Muslim praxis, his love of the Arabic language, and his questioning of Christian
salvation history. The third goal of this book is to highlight instances of wonder,
doubt, and dissonance in the friar’s account, while not ignoring his consonance
with the mainstream medieval view of Islam. My hope is that this modest study
will increase familiarity with Riccoldo among English-speaking medievalists,
historical theologians, and systematicians, especially those interested in the
history of Christian-Muslim relations, the theology of religions, and comparative
theology.
Riccoldo is unusual among medieval Latins for writing an account of Islam
which admits to significant unresolved tension. Against the twin extremes of
those who dismiss the medieval period as entirely intolerant, and those who
seek in it clear antecedents to contemporary pluralism, Riccoldo stands as a
complex character who acknowledges within himself a variety of contradictory
feelings in the face of the other. He expresses opinions few of his confreres do,
such as extended praise for Muslim good works, a deep affection for the Arabic
language, and true questions about Christian salvation history. Because of his
explicit ambivalence — whether genuine or rhetorical — Riccoldo cannot be
easily categorized either as an unequivocal friend or as a foe to Muslims. He
is a perplexing figure worthy of study by medieval historians, theologians, and
literary scholars alike because he poignantly expresses — perhaps better than
any other medieval writer — the deep tensions inherent in any interreligious
encounter.
7
Contemporary scholars who discuss the history of the theology of religions tend to favour
the patristic period over the medieval. Preferred patristic theologians include Justin Martyr
for his ‘seeds of the word’ and Origen for his doctrine of apokatastasis (universal salvation). In
Sullivan, Salvation outside the Church?, a largely historical work, Aquinas is the sole medieval
theologian discussed in detail.
8
To cite just two examples of recent scholarly treatments of Riccoldo which do not focus
on theology: Epstein, Purity Lost: Transgressing Boundaries in the Eastern Mediterranean
sees Riccoldo primarily as a cross-cultural traveller, while Burman, ‘Polemic, Philology, and
Ambivalence’, explores Riccoldo’s ambivalence towards the Qur’an through a philological lens.
Introduction xiii
Medieval Riccoldo, Modern Theology

As mentioned above, one of the goals of this book is to explore the theologically
significant aspects of Riccoldo’s account of Islam. To do so, I will be referring to
a key subdiscipline in contemporary theology, ‘Christian theology of religions’,
which has burgeoned in the last thirty years.9 This particular branch of theology
focuses on the meaning of religious pluralism in light of the Christian faith
by relating other religions to Christ and the church, addressing the meaning
and significance of multiple faiths within God’s single plan of salvation and
developing policies and attitudes to be adopted by Christians towards other
religions and their adherents.10 The Christian theology of religions is primarily
an internal discussion drawing upon authoritative sources such as scripture and
tradition; however, any good theology of religions must also be informed by
accurate knowledge of the non-Christian religions in question. In addition to
developing a general, overarching theology of religion, scholars working in this
field are also constructing more particularized theologies, such as a theology of
Judaism and a theology of Islam. The necessity of these particularized theologies
to the overall theology of religions project is underscored by Jacques Dupuis:
‘The question has indeed been asked whether a Christian theology of religions,
which claims to treat them all in bulk, is a viable project. To be concrete, should
not the theology of religions address itself individually to each of the religious
traditions in particular? It is being suggested, therefore, that what is required is a
distinct Christian theology of Islam, Hinduism, etc.’.11 But because particularized
theologies require so much specialized knowledge, some scholars have declared a
moratorium on the entire theology of religions project until more data has been
gathered.12 Instead, they have suggested alternatives such as comparative theology,
which can be defined as follows: ‘Doing Christian theology comparatively means
9
Works representative of the genre include Barnes, Theology and the Dialogue of Religions;
D’Costa, Theology and Religious Pluralism; DiNoia, The Diversity of Religions; Dupuis,
Towards a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism; Hick, God Has Many Names; and Knitter,
Introducing Theologies of Religion.
10
List adapted from DiNoia, The Diversity of Religions, pp. 14–19.
11
Dupuis, Towards a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, p. 8.
12
Fredericks, Faith among Faiths, states: ‘At this time in the history of Christianity, as
Christians look beyond their own faith into a world of immense religious diversity, a completely
satisfactory account of the meaning of non-Christian religions is no longer possible’ and adds
that some are ‘turning away from the question of a theology of religions and beginning to think
about Christianity in relation to other religions comparatively’ (pp. 165 and 139 respectively).
xiv Introduction
that Christians look upon the truths of non-Christian traditions as resources for
understanding their own faith’.13 Despite these concerns, others have continued to
develop particularized theologies of religions. Michael Fitzgerald, Claude Geffré,
and Robert Caspar are some prominent theologians who have been working in
recent decades to construct a Christian theology of Islam.
Reading a medieval Christian text in light of the modern ‘theology of
Islam’ must be done cautiously, lest it produce an anachronistic interpretation.
Nevertheless, viewing Riccoldo in this way prevents a different kind of misinter-
pretation. For example, one of Norman Daniel’s criticisms of medieval Christian
views of Islam is that ‘Christendom was relatively indifferent to what did not
touch immediate Christian interests […]. Islam was always a reflection of what
was familiar at home’.14 Daniel condemns medieval Christians for interpreting
Islam from within a Christian worldview, as if they should have been modern
scholars of religion or social scientists gathering data for objective ethnographic
studies. They were not. They were medieval theologians who approached other
religions in the way they knew best: from an internal theological viewpoint.15 In
so doing, they were in essence writing nascent Christian theologies of religions.
Because the theology of religions is a contemporary theological topic, not a
medieval one, this book will label Riccoldo’s theology of Islam ‘nascent’. After
all, most of his writings would not even have been classified as theological by
his medieval confreres. For example, the copy of Liber peregrinationis housed at
the Vatican Library is bound with manuscripts bearing titles such as Divisio orbis
terrarum and De novum et gentium varietatibus, all of which contain a good deal
of ethnographic and geographic subject matter.16 Liber peregrinationis is even
titled differently in the Vatican manuscript (Itinerarium terrae sanctae), another
reason to warrant its classification with the others.17 It could be even argued
13
Fredericks, Faith among Faiths, p. 139. For a more recent definition, see Clooney, Com
parative Theology, p. 16, who defines comparative theology as ‘learning across religious borders
in a way that discloses the truth of my faith, in the light of [another] faith’.
14
Daniel, Islam and the West, p. 253.
15
This is not to say that non-theological descriptions of other religions and cultures did
not exist in medieval Latin Christianity, only that such an approach was not the norm, at least
in texts of the genres analyzed in this book. Contemporary Christian theologians, many of
whom regularly utilize the methodologies of religious studies or social sciences or both in their
work, still feel it necessary to articulate the meaning of other religions from a purely Christian
theological standpoint.
16
Città della Vaticana, BAV, MS Barb. lat. 2687.
17
Five of the seven extant manuscripts of Liber peregrinationis are titled Itinerarium;
Introduction xv
that Riccoldo himself viewed Liber peregrinationis more as ethnography than

theology, since its very first line is reminiscent of the other titles with which it
is bound: ‘Continentur autem in hoc libro sub breuitate regna, gentes, prouin-
cie, leges, ritus, secte et hereses et monstra que inueni in partibus orientibus’
(Contained briefly in this book are the kingdoms, peoples, provinces, laws, rites,
sects, heresies, and monsters which I came upon in the eastern regions).18
While Riccoldo certainly did not intend to write a theology of Islam in the
modern sense, there is warrant to call his overall account — as pieced together
from his various writings of distinct genres — a ‘theology of Islam’, for two
reasons. First, Riccoldo bases his account of Islam explicitly on personal experi-
ence (he regularly uses the term experientia), and experience is one of the most
important authoritative sources in today’s theology of religion. Second, and more
fundamentally, he uses Christian theological authorities to explain Islam to an
internal audience.
Overview of Chapters
This book is divided into three broad sections. The first section (Introduction
and Chapter Six) serves as a theoretical frame which connects the medieval
Riccoldo to modern theology. The second section (Chapters One and Two)
provides background information, including Riccoldo’s biography and a brief
introduction to his historical context and the genres in which he wrote. The third
section (Chapters Three, Four, and Five) forms the exegetical heart of the book;
these three chapters delve deeply into the unique aspects of Riccoldo’s account of
Islam as found in his two non-polemical texts, Liber peregrinationis and Epistolae
ad ecclesiam triumphantem.
Chapter One, ‘Riccoldo in situ’, opens the book with a short biography of
Riccoldo: his life, his religious order, his itinerary. Chapter Two, ‘Beyond Polemic:
Genres and Context of Medieval “Dialogue”’, continues with an overview of the
most well-known genre of medieval interreligious discourse, the polemic. It goes
on to argue that a more nuanced view of medieval interreligious relations can
be obtained when non-polemical texts are studied. It then introduces Riccoldo’s
however, the preferred title is Liber peregrinationis, from the oldest and best manuscript (which
includes marginal notes by the author), Berlin, Staatsbibl., MS Lat. 4o 466. The medieval
itinerarium genre will be discussed in Chapter 2.
18
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 36. All page
references to the Latin text of the Liber peregrinationis are from this edition.
xvi Introduction
major writings, paying special attention to Liber peregrinationis and Epistolae and
their respective literary genres. The chapter also situates these texts within the
broader thirteenth-century context.
Chapter Three, ‘Muslim Works of Perfection’, offers a close analysis of Riccoldo’s
account of Islamic praxis in Liber peregrinationis and suggests three reasons for
its significance. First, the account contains considerable originality, in that it
describes Muslim customs rarely if ever mentioned by other medieval Christians,
such as the voluntary poverty of Baghdad’s religious scholars. Second, it discusses
with a fair amount of theological acumen certain quintessentially Muslim prac-
tices with no clear counterpart in Christianity (for example, the basmala), while
also noting what Riccoldo gets wrong (for example, his explanation for salawat).
And third, the account is not only accurate but positive, so much so that Riccoldo
declares Muslims to be more forgiving than Christians. These three elements of
Riccoldo’s account are noteworthy because they suggest that he was not simply
recycling the same tired data about Muslims circulating throughout Europe at
the time, but rather that he was offering — if only in this short section — a rela-
tively accurate view of lived Islam to his fellow Christians. The chapter will end
with a discussion of the dissonance inherent in Riccoldo’s positive account of
Muslim praxis, juxtaposed as it is with a six-point condemnation of the Qur’an.
Chapter Four, ‘I Read it in Arabic’, explores Riccoldo’s complex views of the
Qur’an. Much of what he has to say is negative and thus consonant with the
mainstream medieval Christian view, even if he is better informed by actual
knowledge of the Arabic text than most. But in the midst of his many harsh
criticisms are comments which reveal a deep affection for the Qur’an and its
idiom. It is this ambivalence which enables Riccoldo to call the Qur’an ‘diabolical’
in one breath and yet acknowledge that it contains ‘many useful things’ in the
next. Even in his most patently anti-Qur’anic work, Contra legem, he stops to
praise the poetry and rhythm of Qur’anic Arabic, and peppered throughout his
Epistolae is the constant boast, ‘I read it in Arabic’.
Chapter Five, ‘Questioning Salvation History’, focuses on Riccoldo’s approach
to history in the Epistolae, which is remarkable for not simply amending
traditional Christian chronologies to include Islam. Rather, his account seems
to question the very idea of salvation history itself. In his grief, he temporarily
entertains the possibility that the Qur’anic view of history, one in which Islam
dominates both temporally and spiritually, may be correct. His profound doubts
about history are implicit in the following questions posed in his letters: ‘Were
the Old Testament patriarchs really Saracens?’ and ‘Will Christ himself become
a Muslim on the last day?’. These are Muslim claims, and, due to recent events,
Riccoldo considers whether or not they could actually be true. By questioning
Introduction xvii
the traditional Christian scheme of history — and actually accepting, at least

temporarily, some Muslim historical claims in its place — the friar reveals not
only ambivalence towards Islam, but doubt about his own religion. Whether
or not his emotion and uncertainty are genuine or mere rhetorical strategy, his
unusual letters are worthy of serious attention.
The sixth and final chapter, ‘Wonder, Doubt, and Dissonance: Riccoldo’s
Theology of Islam’, focuses more on his method than the content of his work,
most especially his frequent and explicit references to personal experiences of
Muslims, and his description of the various emotional responses these experi-
ences elicited, such as surprise and doubt. While admitting his conflicted feel-
ings, Riccoldo is obviously uncomfortable with them. In Letter One, he expresses
astonishment repeatedly, but by Letter Five, he claims to have resolved, at least
partially, the contradiction he sees between the blasphemy of the Qur’an and the
recent worldly successes of Muslims. Yet even at the end of this letter, he confesses
that he ‘remains in the same doubt’.
The monograph includes two appendices containing the first complete
English translations of Liber peregrinationis and Epistolae ad ecclesiam trium-
phantem. I have based my translation of Liber peregrinationis on the 1997 criti-
cal Latin edition by René Kappler. For the Epistolae, I have consulted Reinhold
Röhricht’s 1884 version, the most current Latin edition. I have also incorporated
some of Emilio Panella’s 1989 corrections of Röhricht; these will be identified in
the footnotes.19
19
Panella, ‘Preghiera e protesta’.
Chapter 1
Riccoldo in situ
T
he rise of the mendicant orders in the early thirteenth century energized
and broadened the church’s evangelization efforts. Within a few years of
their founding, both the Dominicans and the Franciscans had explicitly
committed themselves to work for the salvation of all peoples throughout the
world. By 1217, the Order of Preachers had expanded its original goal of com-
batting heresy in southern France to embrace a more global mission,1 while the
Minorites’ Earlier Rule (c. 1221) devotes an entire chapter to non-Christians en-
titled ‘On Going among the Saracens and Other Unbelievers’.2 To foster their in-
ternational evangelization efforts, both the Dominicans and the Franciscans estab-
lished communities in North Africa and the Near East within twenty years of their
foundation,3 with the intent of bringing not only non-Christians into the fold, but
also various Eastern Christian ‘heretics’ separated from Rome.4 As a result, during
1
The order’s newly expanded mission was announced by Dominic at a chapter meeting on
15 August 1217, where the Dominicans were dispersed throughout the world; Constantine of
Orvieto, Legenda sancti Dominici, ed. by Scheeben, no. 26, pp. 263–352 (p. 304).
2
Francis of Assisi, ‘The Earlier Rule (The Rule without a Papal Seal)’, ed. and trans. by
Armstrong, Short, and Hellmann, i, chap. 16.
3
The Dominicans had established a province in the Holy Land (also called Transmarine or
Syria) by 1228, Hinnebusch, History of the Dominican Order, i, 173. They also had a presence in
Tunis by 1230; Berthier, ‘Un Maître orientaliste du xiiie siècle’, p. 272. The Franciscan province
of the Holy Land was founded at the General Chapter of 1217. By 1227, there were Franciscan
houses in Northern Africa (Ceuta and Damietta) and Palestine (Acre).
4
When Latin missions to Eastern Christians failed, some even advocated a crusade against
2 Chapter 1
the thirteenth century an unprecedented number of Western European religious

began to live as minorities in Islamic and other non-Christian regions.5
Riccoldo da Montecroce was among the first generations of international mis-
sionaries, living as he did for over a decade in Baghdad and familiarizing himself
with its various religions, languages, and cultures. Who was he, and how did he
come to be a part of this new era of mission?
Early Years
Scant information about the early life of Riccoldo Pennini da Montecroce
(c. 1243–1320) exists.6 In his own writings, Riccoldo reveals only one detail
about his youth: in the middle of a prayer asking Dominic and Francis to
intercede for him, he adds that he has been personally devoted to Francis ‘since
childhood’.7 This is an interesting admission, given the fact that Riccoldo is a
Dominican. Indeed, it would have made more sense for Riccoldo to have joined
the Franciscans rather than the Dominicans, for two reasons. First, his family
home was located in Florence’s San Pier Maggiore neighbourhood, which is
much closer to the Franciscans’ Santa Croce than to the Dominicans’ Santa Maria
Novella. Second, Riccoldo’s family was part of the craftsman-shopkeeper class
(popolo), and the popolo preferred, by far, the Franciscans over the Dominicans.8
them. See Spence, ‘Gregory IX’s Attempted Expeditions to the Latin Empire of Constantinople’.
5
Of course, Iberian Christians had been living as minorities under Muslim rule since the
early eighth century. Benjamin Kedar claims it was the first time Europeans launched any kind
of systematic mission directed at Muslims, a fact Kedar considers puzzling, given the number of
missions to other neighbouring non-Christian lands (Scandinavia, Hungary) underway centu-
ries earlier. He suggests that this was because Europeans were aware and fearful of the Muslim
prohibition against attacks on their religion, which held a death penalty for the preacher and
the potential apostate; Kedar, Crusade and Mission, pp. 4, 11.
6
The most significant modern studies of Riccoldo’s life, in chronological order, are:
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinacionis, ed. by Laurent; Riccoldo da Montecroce,
Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht; Mandonnet, ‘Fra Riccoldo de Monte-Cruce’; Monneret de Villard,
Il libro della Peregrinazione; Dondaine, ‘Ricoldiana: notes sur les œuvres de Riccoldo de
Montecroce’; Mérigoux, ‘L’ouvrage d’un frère prêcheur’; Panella, ‘Ricerche su Riccoldo da
Monte di Croce’; and Riccold de Monte Croce, ed. by Kappler.
7
‘O beate Francisce, cui ab infancia mea et usque nunc fui devotus’; Riccoldo da Monte
croce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, 3, p. 278. All page numbers to Epistolae refer to Röhricht’s
Latin edition.
8
‘Members of the popolo, therefore, were twice as likely as patricians to actually choose the
Franciscan order, not the physically nearest religious institution’; Lesnick, Preaching in Medieval
Riccoldo in situ 3
Aside from this one disclosure, however, Riccoldo is silent about his life
before and after his journey east. Luckily, the complete necrology of his priory,
Santa Maria Novella, is still extant; it contains many important facts about him
and three other family members who were also Dominicans there.9 The first line
of the entry identifies him as ‘Frater Riculdus10 de Monte Crucis’.11 He is called
a priest and bene litteratus, as well as a preacher and lector in ‘many great con-
vents’. The necrology goes on to discuss his journey ‘to Chaldea’ and states that
he reached the city of Baghdad and spent a long time there, learning Arabic and
attempting to convert the locals.12 The necrology also notes that Riccoldo was a
Dominican for fifty-three years and five months, served as both prior and subp-
rior at Santa Maria Novella, and died on 31 October 1320.13 From this we can
determine that Riccoldo entered the order in May of 1267; his birth year has
been suggested as 1243.14
While Riccoldo’s own entry does not mention his surname (Pennini) or
his Florentine neighbourhood of origin (San Pier Maggiore), both facts can
be obtained from the entries of three relatives who were also Dominicans at
Santa Maria Novella: Sinibaldus, Bencivenni, and Dominicus. The first two are
called ‘full brothers of Riccoldo’ in their obituaries, an identifier which hints at
Riccoldo’s importance in the community.15 Another clue to Riccoldo’s renown at
Florence, p. 49.
9
‘Necrologia’ di S. Maria Novella, ed. by Orlandi.
10
Mérigoux, ‘L’ouvrage d’un frère prêcheur’, p. 1, notes that the spelling of ‘Riccoldus’ (or
‘Riccoldo’, the diminutive of the Italian word ricco, ‘rich’) with two c’s is preferred because this
orthography is found in three key manuscripts, two of which include marginal notes written by
Riccoldo himself. In addition, Mérigoux reports, all the documents from the Archives of the
City of Florence use this spelling. The necrology of Santa Maria Novella and the Acts of the
Chapters of the Roman Province include both spellings.
11
It is now generally agreed that Monte Crucis refers to the town from which Riccoldo’s
ancestors originally hailed (e.g., Mérigoux, ‘L’ouvrage d’un frère prêcheur’, p. 15). Previously,
Monneret de Villard, Il libro della Peregrinazione, p. 14, had asserted that it could have been a
name assumed during his travels in the Holy Land, such as Burchard of Mt Zion had done.
12
‘Necrologia’ di S. Maria Novella, ed. by Orlandi, p. 222.
13
14
Mandonnet, ‘Fra Riccoldo de Monte-Cruce’, p. 44. Both Mérigoux, ‘L’ouvrage d’un frère
prêcheur’, p. 15, and Monneret de Villard, Il libro della Peregrinazione, p. 13, refer to Mandonnet
but do not venture a guess themselves.
15
‘Necrologia’ di S. Maria Novella, ed. by Orlandi, entries 192, 185, and 136, respec-
tively; Mérigoux, ‘L’ouvrage d’un frère prêcheur’, p. 14, notes that Riccoldo has two brothers
(Sinibaldus and Dominicus) but does not mention Bencivenni. Monneret de Villard, Il libro
4 Chapter 1
Santa Maria Novella is the length of his obituary, which at twenty-nine lines is
double or triple the length of most others.
Florentine Milieu
Aside from twelve or so years in the Middle East, Riccoldo lived most of his life
in Florence. This city, the place of his birth and death, was on the rise during the
second half of the thirteenth century. An unparalleled rural prosperity spurred
the immigration of humble country folk to the city, many of whom formed a
new urban class of artisans, craftsman, and shopkeepers.16 Riccoldo hailed from
this upwardly mobile social class, and went on to mingle with the patricians who
made up the majority of Dominicans at Santa Maria Novella.17 This priory was
founded in 1221, and in that year there were just twelve friars in residence, but
by 1300 there were ninety-six, making the Santa Maria Novella of Riccoldo’s time
one of the largest Dominican houses in all of Europe.18 The priory was notable not
only for its size, but for its importance as a centre of learning. Since thirteenth-
century Florence did not yet have its own university, Santa Maria Novella’s schola
served the academic needs of Dominican novices, local clergy,19 and possibly
even lay students such as Dante Alighieri.20 The priory’s educational importance
della Peregrinazione, p. 13, lists all three as brothers. However, it is not clear that Dominicus is
Riccoldo’s brother; despite having the same surname, Pennini, he is not identified as Riccoldo’s
brother like the others. But perhaps this is due to the fact that Dominicus died in 1285, before
Riccoldo embarked on his journey to the Middle East or became prior of the community,
either of which could have increased his fame in the order later. Another possible source of the
discrepancy could be different scribes: Petrus Macci wrote the necrology before 1301 (when
Dominicus’s was written), while Scholarius Squarcius was writing from 1301 to 1320, when the
others were written; ‘Necrologia’ di S. Maria Novella, ed. by Orlandi, p. 50.
16
This new urban class has been termed popolo by modern historians; Lesnick, Preaching in
Medieval Florence, pp. 2–3.
17
‘Compared to the Franciscans, [the Dominicans] had a significantly higher proportion
of patricians and a lower proportion of popolo’; Lesnick, Preaching in Medieval Florence, p. 66.
18
Lesnick, Preaching in Medieval Florence, p. 64.
19
‘Wherever there was a convent of Preachers, there was a convent school whose doors were
open to the public. For this reason it has sometimes been said that the Dominicans became the
schoolmasters of Europe’; Mulchahey, ‘First the Bow is Bent in Study’, p. xi.
20
According to Mulchahey, Dante himself claims to have attended ‘the schools of the
religious’ and ‘disputations of the philosophers’ in Florence. However, Mulchahey questions
this, citing the work of Emilio Panella in support, who observes that Santa Maria Novella never
operated a philosophy studium, and that only its lectures in theology (not philosophy) were
Riccoldo in situ 5
continued to grow over the years. In 1281 its schola21 was upgraded from a local
convent school to a provincial school of theology (studium particularis theolo-
giae); by 1305 it had achieved the status of a Dominican studium generale serving
all of central Italy.22 Santa Maria Novella also had a substantial library. In 1338
its collection had become so extensive that the construction of a separate build-
ing was required. That building was enlarged in 1421, and by 1489 the library
numbered nine hundred volumes.23 Its collection included original editions of
the writings of Santa Maria Novella’s own sons: Remigio de’ Girolami, Giordano
da Pisa, Jacob Passavanti, and Riccoldo.24 The library was also involved in the
transcription of books.25
It was within the walls of this great priory that Riccoldo’s desire to become
a missionary was fostered. And it was to this great priory he returned in 1300
after over a decade of travels. Riccoldo then spent the last twenty years of his life
composing and revising his major writings, answering papal charges regarding
questionable aspects of his work,26 serving as subprior and prior, and finally dying
there on the Eve of All Saints in the year 1320.
Two other elements of medieval Florentine culture with potential influence
on Riccoldo’s choice of missionary destination must be noted here. The first
is the Arabophilia present throughout much of the Italian peninsula during
open to the public. Mulchahey suggests that the sermons regularly and publicly preached from
the pulpit at Santa Maria Novella are the most likely source of the convent’s philosophical and
theological influence on Dante. See Mulchahey, ‘Education in Dante’s Florence Revisited’,
pp. 167–68.
21
By 1305, the school at Santa Maria Novella had become a studium generale as well as a
schola. Mulchahey defines the schola as a convent school which provided the most basic level
of education to friars and to others in the local community such as secular clergy and laymen,
while the studium generale was a regional school which offered more advanced theological and
philosophical study and which may or may not have been proximate to secular studia generalia
such as those at Paris. Santa Maria Novella’s studium generale, for example, was not associated
with any secular university during the thirteenth century. Mulchahey, ‘First the Bow is Bent in
Study’, pp. 132–34 and 351–96.
22
Mulchahey, ‘Education in Dante’s Florence Revisited’, pp. 144–46.
23
According to Orlandi, La biblioteca di S. Maria Novella, as quoted in Hinnebusch,
History of the Dominican Order, ii, 199.
24
Hinnebusch, History of the Dominican Order, ii, 208.
25
Hinnebusch, History of the Dominican Order, ii, 211.
26
Two documents allude to this fact. The necrology states that Riccoldo returned to Italy
for investigation of some ‘dubious points’; ‘Necrologia’ di S. Maria Novella, ed. by Orlandi,
p. 222. Also, a marginal note in the prohemium of Ad nationes states that he was awaiting a
papal decision about his characterization of certain Eastern Christians as heretics.
6 Chapter 1
the late thirteenth century. Interest in Arabic language, literature, philosophy,

and science was evident in many places: from the university at Bologna,
which became a centre of Averroism,27 to the Sicily of Frederick II, himself ‘an
accomplished Arabist’ who employed a full-time court translator,28 to Florence
itself, whose native son Dante’s Divine Comedy has been said to have been
influenced by Islamic literature.29 Scholars note that literature written in early
Italian vernacular was greatly affected by the scuola siciliana (Arabic poetry
written in Sicily), and that many Italian intellectuals of the time ‘were Arabized
and Arabizing’.30
The second element of thirteenth-century Italian culture with potential influ-
ence on Riccoldo was the sharp increase in travels east — not only to the Holy
Land, but further afield to Armenia, Georgia, Persia, and beyond. Florentines,
Venetians, and Genoese were among the greatest travellers of the thirteenth cen-
tury.31 Indeed, Riccoldo’s lifespan (c. 1243–1320) closely parallels that of the most
famous medieval voyager of all, Marco Polo (c. 1254–1324). These increased
European forays into Central and Eastern Asia were precipitated by two main
factors. First, in the hundred years between 1245 and 1345, new land routes into
the interior were opened up by the Mongol Empire, the unity of which ‘facilitated
East-West contact by removing all artificial barriers between the Yellow River
and the Danube’.32 Second, Genoese and Venetian merchants33 took the lead
in capitalizing on these new and potentially lucrative trade routes, establishing
outposts in Asia Minor, Armenia, Georgia, and Persia. Dominicans followed on
the merchants’ heels;34 in fact, some historians argue that the entire Dominican
27
Menocal, The Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History, pp. 121–22.
28
The translator was Michael Scot. Dante relegated Frederick II, Michael Scot, and other
Arabizers to hell. Dante was addressing a situation which Peter the Venerable had seen in Spain
150 years earlier: the attraction some Christians had to the Islamic/Arabic world.
29
Asín-Palacios, Islam and the Divine Comedy, was the first to suggest that Dante’s
descriptions of heaven and hell were influenced by the traditional Islamic story of the mi’raj,
which offers vivid pictures of Muhammad’s heavenly journey.
30
Menocal, The Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History, pp. 116, 121–22. Another scholar,
Jean Richard, also discusses this phenomenon in Richard, ‘The Eastern Mediterranean and its
Relations with the Hinterland’.
31
See Petech, ‘Les marchands italiens dans l’empire mongol’.
32
Guzman, ‘Simon of Saint-Quentin and the Dominican Mission’.
33
The Pisans had been involved earlier (twelfth century) in maritime trade in the eastern
Mediterranean; Richard, ‘The Eastern Mediterranean and its Relations with the Hinterland’, p. 4.
34
Dominicans working in the East were very much connected to the merchants; in fact
Riccoldo in situ 7
organization in the East was modelled on the structure of the Genoese commer-
cial empire.35 The Order of Preachers founded houses in Pera (Constantinople),
Caffa (Crimea), Trebizond (Turkey), and Chios (coastal Turkey); all four cities
were major bases of the Genoese maritime empire in the East.36 Several Italians
also served as the Latin bishops of eastern capitals such as Tabriz and Tbilisi dur-
ing the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.37 And finally, all four of the
vicar generals of the Dominican missionary organization Societas fratrum peregri-
nantium propter Christum inter gentes whose names we know were Italians.38
Genoa and Venice were not the only cities to figure large in these travels.
Riccoldo’s Florence also had connections to the East, most of them financial and
missionary. One of the most important sources of information about medieval
trade routes to the East was written by a Florentine merchant, Francesco Pegolotti,
in the first half of the fourteenth century.39 Furthermore, several missionaries
who became prominent leaders in the Middle East were in fact Dominicans from
Santa Maria Novella, including John of Florence, bishop of Tbilisi (d. 1347);
Fr. Michel Buti of Florence (d. c. 1388), preacher to the Muslims of Tabriz; and
Donat of Castel Fiorentino, who convinced a young Armenian convert to return
to Florence and join the order.40 In 1348 alone, the necrology of Santa Maria
Novella lists six Dominicans who had served as missionaries ‘contra Turchos’.
Because travelling east was so popular at the time, it is not surprising that Riccoldo
desired to visit not only the Holy Land (a fairly common Christian aspiration),
but also places much further afield.
Raymond Loenertz says that the Dominicans often gave absolution ‘too easily’ to the Genoese
merchants who were constantly breaking church censure of commerce with Muslims. See
Loenertz, ‘Les Missions dominicaines en Orient’, p. 6.
35
36
37
For example, a succession of Italian Dominicans served as bishop of Tabriz: first two
Dominicans from Siena, Bartolomeo Abagliati (1318) and Guillermo Ciggi (1329), followed
by Francesco Cinquini of Pisa. Loenertz, ‘Les Missions dominicaines en Orient’, p. 40.
38
Loenertz, ‘Les Missions dominicaines en Orient’, pp. 35–36: The Society’s first vicar
general was Franco of Perugia; in 1292 he was assigned as lecturer in the Sentences ‘at the
Convent of Florence’. The others are Andrea della Terza (from Orvieto), Jacques de Fossano
(from Genoa), and Jean Lunbello de Placentia.
39
Pegolotti worked for the famous Bardi banking house, which was also involved in
international commerce and thus was the source of his extensive knowledge of trade routes.
Guzman, ‘Simon of Saint-Quentin and the Dominican Mission’, p. 248.
40
Loenertz, La Société des Frères pérégrinants, pp. 103, 160, 173.
8 Chapter 1
The Dominican Approach to Mission

Riccoldo’s Dominican order was originally founded to fight heresy in southern
France, but by the winter of 1216–17 their mission had become truly universal.
It was at this time that Dominic had a vision in which he was commissioned by
Peter and Paul to preach, and saw his friars being scattered all over the world to do
so. The Dominicans targeted non-Christians, heretics, and errant Catholics with
their evangelization efforts.41 Their missionary strategy emphasized two foci:
first, defending the faith, and second, studying foreign languages. Defending the
faith involved refuting the other religion’s errors and then expounding orthodox
Christian doctrine. Since non-Christians did not accept the same authorities as
Christians (for example, scripture and the fathers), Dominicans tended to base
their arguments on a common authority: reason. Thomas Aquinas articulates this
strategy in his De rationibus fidei contra Saracenos, Grecos, Armenos ad Cantorem
Antiochenum, a letter ostensibly written in response to an Eastern Christian’s
questions about Islam:
De hoc tamen primo admonere te volo, quod in disputationibus contra infideles de
articulis fidei, non ad hoc conari debes, ut fidem rationibus necessariis probes [...]
Ad hoc igitur debet tendere Christiani disputatoris intentio in articulis fidei, non
ut fidem probet, sed ut fidem defendat.
(In disputations with unbelievers about the articles of faith, you should not try to
prove the faith […] yet because of its truth it cannot be refuted by any necessary
reason. So any Christian disputing about the articles of faith should not try to
prove the faith, but defend the faith.)42
Aquinas’s point is that some aspects of faith are rooted in divine revelation and
as such can never be proven by means of reason, although they cannot contradict
reason either.43 Thus, Dominicans wishing to persuade non-Christians about
the truth of Christianity focused their efforts on showing the falsity of the other
religion. Christian beliefs could not be proven true, but their inherent rationality
could be demonstrated, as could the irrationality of the other religion. This
method can clearly be seen in Riccoldo’s writings on Islam, where a main focus is
to show the rational implausibility of Islam.
41
Mulchahey, ‘First the Bow is Bent in Study’, pp. 48–49.
42
Aquinas, ‘Reasons for the Faith against Muslim Objections’, trans. by Kenny, chap. 2.
43
For more on the difference between the articles of faith and the preambles of faith, see de
Broglie, ‘La vraie notion thomiste des praeambula fidei’.
Riccoldo in situ 9
The other characteristic element of the Dominican missionary approach was

the concerted effort to learn foreign languages. Dominican missionaries to the
East, including Riccoldo, soon discovered how difficult it is to preach through
an interpreter. At the beginning of his journey, Riccoldo claims that he spent six
months in Tabriz preaching through an interpreter.44 It is likely that his experi-
ence in Tabriz was less than satisfactory, for once he reached Baghdad, he decided
to learn the local language for himself, and eventually did. His missionary hand-
book Ad nationes orientales numbers ‘learning foreign languages’ among five rec-
ommendations for successful proselytism, too.45
Riccoldo had merely taken to heart what the Dominican Order had been stress-
ing from its earliest years. In 1236, the General Chapter recommended the study
of local languages by missionaries, and indeed, in that year many friars stopped at
the Dominicans’ Jerusalem residence to learn some Arabic before continuing on
to Baghdad, while others went to Armenia to study regionally appropriate lan-
guages such as Georgian, Armenian, and Tartar.46 But it was not until the tenure
of the Catalonian Ramon de Penyafort, master general of the Dominicans from
1238–40, that language study was formalized in schools founded specifically for
this purpose. At Penyafort’s instigation, the Dominican province of Toledo estab-
lished a school of Arabic for friars in 1250; one of its most famous students was
Ramon Martí, who used his knowledge of Hebrew and Arabic to argue against
Jews and Muslims in Iberia.47 Other Dominican language schools were founded
at Tunis (c. 1250), Barcelona (1259), and Valencia (1281). Penyafort’s efforts were
later built upon by subsequent master generals such as Humbert of Romans, who
likewise encouraged language study.48
Another Catalonian mendicant who advocated language study was Ramon
Llull, a Franciscan tertiary who was influenced by Penyafort. Llull was devoted
to missionizing Muslims, and claimed to have learned Arabic himself with the
help of a Muslim servant. He claimed that he used his fluency in Arabic to preach
during missionary journeys to North Africa, as well as to write several anti-Islamic
44
‘Ibi substitimus per medium annum et predicabamus eis per turchimannum in lingua
arabica’; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 118.
Riccoldo explicitly states he was preaching ‘in Arabic’ in Persia, not Farsi.
45
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Ad nationes orientales, ed. by Jensen, part 5.
46
Richard, ‘L’enseignement des langues orientales en Occident’, p. 158.
47
Tolan, Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination, p. 234.
48
For example, a letter written in 1255 by Humbert of Romans encourages formal study of
Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, and ‘other barbarian languages’ at Dominican residences in the Holy
Land and further afield; Richard, ‘L’enseignement des langues orientales en Occident’, p. 159.
10 Chapter 1
tracts, none of which are extant.49 Llull was so convinced of the importance of
language study for missionaries that he founded a language school at Miramar
in Mallorca in 1276 and advocated at the Council of Vienne in 1311–12 for the
establishment of two university chairs each in Arabic, Chaldean, and Hebrew
language at Paris, Oxford, Bologna, and Salamanca.
While Dominican language schools in Europe were successful to an extent, it
is important to note that most missionaries gained linguistic fluency in the field.
This was true at least for Riccoldo, who acquired Arabic only after spending sig-
nificant time in Baghdad. Recall that earlier in his journey he had needed an inter-
preter to preach, a fact which seems to indicate either that he had not attended a
Dominican language school before embarking on his journey, or that he had not
benefitted greatly from what he had learned there. Furthermore, European lan-
guage schools rarely included the study of languages other than Arabic, Hebrew,
Chaldean (Syriac), and Greek. Thus, friars wishing to learn Armenian, Turkish,
or Tartar, for example, had to go to Dominican houses in places such as Caffa
or Tbilisi to get the training they needed.50 Only in the field could a missionary
become fluent in these more exotic languages.51 And indeed, many Dominican
priories in the East eventually did become impromptu centres of language learn-
ing and translation. For example, in Tbilisi the translation of the Dominican
Constitutions and Latin theological works into Armenian was undertaken under
the supervision of its Dominican bishop, John of Florence.52 And by 1330 the
Dominicans in Saraj (the Mongol capital on the Volga River) had produced the
Codex cumanicus, a trilingual glossary of proverbs in Latin, Persian, and Cuman.53
The two-pronged Dominican missionary strategy of defending the faith and
learning languages was advocated even by non-Dominicans. For example, one of
the suggestions for Christian missionaries made by the Franciscan Roger Bacon
looks surprisingly Dominican: ‘In regard to the conversion of unbelievers […] we
are not able to argue in this matter by quoting our law nor the authorities of the
sacred writers, because unbelievers deny Christ the Lord and his law and the sacred
writers. Wherefore we must seek for reasons in another way which is common to
49
Llull, Vita coaetana, ed. by Bonner, p. 19.
50
51
This fact was not lost on Pope John XXII, who had already recommended that
Dominicans establish centres of language study within the convents at Pera (Constantinople)
and Caffa (Crimea) in 1328.
52
Loenertz, La Société des Frères pérégrinants, p. 144.
53
Riccoldo in situ 11
Map 1. Cities visited by Riccoldo. Map created by Bruce Verhaaren.
us and to unbelievers, namely philosophy’.54 Bacon’s Opus maius also includes an

entire section entitled ‘The Utility of Grammar’, in which he argues for the neces-
sity of learning other languages. One of four reasons he gives as to why Latins
should learn Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic is ‘for the conversion of unbelievers’,
since ‘by neglecting languages they are neglecting the preaching of the faith’.55
Riccoldo’s Itinerary
Riccoldo’s circuitous route from Acre to Baghdad — which meanders north
through Tripoli and Tarsus, continues east through Turkey, Armenia, and Persia,
then backtracks west to the Tigris and only then turns southeast to Baghdad —
might seem at first glance much less preferable than a more direct route east.
However, once one learns the locations of Dominican houses in the Middle East,
Riccoldo’s northerly route makes more sense, since almost every major city he
mentions had a Dominican presence. Furthermore, most travellers of this time
took a similar route through Asia Minor and upper Mesopotamia, including the
54
Bacon, The Opus maius, trans. by Burke, ii, 793 (part vii, chap. 21).
55
Bacon, The Opus maius, trans. by Burke, i, 112 (part iii, chap. 13).
12 Chapter 1
papal envoy Ascelin, Franciscan missionary William of Rubruck, and Marco Polo.
This northerly route was the chief overland path to central and eastern Asia during
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.56 Its popularity was due partly to the fact
that other routes, such as the more direct one through Syria, had become ‘almost
impassable’ by 1260 due to the conquest of the region by the Egyptian Mamluks.57
This section will trace Riccoldo’s journey from Acre to Baghdad as recorded
in Liber peregrinationis. His itinerary gives witness to the presence of numerous
Dominican houses throughout the Middle East at the end of the thirteenth
century, for he either explicitly mentions or implies the existence of such houses
in several cities. For example, in Liber peregrinationis, he notes the location of
the Dominican residence at the foot of Mt Zion in Jerusalem. In Epistolae, he
mentions the ‘neighbourhood of our house’ in Tripoli and says that Franciscans
took refuge in ‘our house’ in Acre.58 In Letter One, he also mentions the
Dominicans who refused to leave Acre, preferring to be killed rather than
abandon their home and Christian neighbours.59 Later in his journey, he passes
through several other towns known to have had a Dominican presence at that
time, such as Sivas and Tabriz, even though he does not mention it. In Tabriz, for
example, where his party sojourned for a half year, it is almost certain that they
would have stayed at the Dominican residence there.
Established in 1228, the Dominicans’ Holy Land Province maintained a
certain importance, and Acre even more so because all friars travelling further
inland had to pass through it, the ‘head of routes to the East’.60 This was indeed the
case for Riccoldo, who at the end of 1288 disembarked in Acre, and from there
travelled throughout the Holy Land, visiting Nazareth, Bethlehem, Jerusalem,
and other significant pilgrimage sites. After returning to Acre, Riccoldo journeyed
north along the coast, through Tyre and Sidon, Tripoli, and Mount Lebanon.
He went on to Tarsus and Mamistra (Mopsuestia), the home of Theodore, ‘the
greatest heretic’, according to Riccoldo. Both cities had a Dominican presence by
56
57
Richard, ‘The Eastern Mediterranean and its Relations with the Hinterland’, p. 13.
58
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, 2, p. 273, and Riccoldo da
Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, 4, p. 291.
59
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, 1, p. 269. For more about the
Dominican priory at Acre, see Abel, ‘Le Couvent des Frères prêcheurs à Saint-Jean d’Acre’.
60
Loenertz, ‘Les Missions dominicaines en Orient’, p. 17. The Levant also retained its
importance since all Dominicans travelling in the interior remained under the obedience of the
provincial of the Holy Land.
Riccoldo in situ 13
the late thirteenth century,61 but he does not mention it. Moving east through
Asia Minor, he spends several pages describing Turkey (Turchia) and two tribes
living there (the ‘Turchymanni’ and the ‘horrible and monstrous Tartars’).62 He
then briefly mentions his passage through Lesser Armenia, including a stop at
Ayas in the Gulf of Alexandretta, a port city also visited by William of Rubruck
and Marco Polo.63 Riccoldo’s group then came upon a ‘beautiful city’ high in the
mountains, Arzerrum. This is Erzurum, or Nakhitchevan, in Greater Armenia; a
Dominican presence in this town can be confirmed by 1320, but the fact that he
stopped here suggests that Dominicans might have been there as early as 1289.64
And after Erzurum, he passed Mount Ararat, ‘upon which rests Noah’s ark’. 65 In
the letters, he also mentions that he was in Sebaste (Sivas) when he heard news
of the fall of Tripoli (27 April 1289); Sivas is yet another city with a Dominican
presence about which he is silent.
Another important Dominican community in what was then called Greater
Armenia which Riccoldo fails to mention (and does not say he visited) is the one
in Tiflis (Tbilisi, now in Georgia). The Dominican house there, one of the oldest
in the region, was mentioned in mid-century by two different papal envoys to the
Mongols: the Dominican Simon of Saint-Quentin in 1247 and the Franciscan
William of Rubruck in 1253–55. According to Simon’s account, the Dominican
Guichardus of Cremona had been living in Tbilisi for at least seven years, which
would mean that there had been a Dominican presence in the city since at least
1240.66 After leaving Armenia, Riccoldo enters Persia. The first major town he
notes is Tabriz (Tauricium), the ‘capital of Persia’. While he does not explicitly
mention a Dominican residence in Tabriz, the fact that his party remains there for
six months suggests the presence of such a house. Other cities in Persia in which
the Dominicans had established residences by the turn of the thirteenth century
— none of which Riccoldo mentions visiting — include Maraghah (c. 1304), the
religious centre of the Nestorians under Patriarch Yahballahah III, 1281–1317,67
61
62
‘Intrantes autem infra Turchiam inuenimus orribilem et monstruosam gentem
Tartarorum’; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 78.
63
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 77.
64
65
‘Inde uero procedentes contra finem Turchie inuenimus altissimum montem super quo req-
uieuit archa Noe’; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 114.
66
67
14 Chapter 1
Dehikerkan (by 1320),68 and Sultaniyeh (by 1321). These Persian houses served
as points of departure for missions further afield in Turkestan, India, and China.69
From Tabriz, Riccoldo backtracks west through Kurdistan to the Tigris
River, where he then turns southeast to follow its flow, passing through Mosul, a
town with large Jewish and Jacobite populations. He then continues on through
Tikrit (Techerith) and Samarra (the ruins of ancient Babylon), finally entering
Baghdad (Baldac) itself via the Tigris. Riccoldo says that when his party arrived
at the outskirts of Baghdad, they were met by ‘brothers of our order’.70 While he
never explicitly mentions a Dominican house in Baghdad, the fact that he was
welcomed upon arrival by several friars implies its existence.71 It is likely that the
Dominican presence in Baghdad was nearly fifty years old by the time he arrived;
the first residence may have been founded there as early as 1235–36.72
Riccoldo states that he was in Baghdad when he heard about the fall of Acre
(18 May 1291). He lived in the city for about ten years (the necrology says plurimo
tempore, a long time), during which he frequented Muslim schools, mosques,
and homes and studied the Arabic language and Islamic literature. At one point
during this decade (possibly 1295–96, according to Mérigoux), Riccoldo was
forced to work as a camel-driver in the deserts of Persia and Arabia.73 He may
have remained in modern-day Iraq as late as 1300, but by 21 March 1301, he
was back in Florence, according to an official municipal document.74 The total
number of years Riccoldo spent as a missionary-pilgrim in the East was thus
approximately twelve.75
The itinerary recounted in Liber peregrinationis, a journey which begins in the
Holy Land and ends in Baghdad, highlights Riccoldo’s exceptional qualifications
68
69
70
‘Venimus itaque per fluuium recto cursu usque Baldaccum ciuitatem mirabilem ubi
occurrerunt nobis fratres nostri ordinis extra ciuitatem’; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber
peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 136.
71
A manuscript (Assisi, Bibl. del Sacro Convento, MS 422) that preserves an exemplum of
Riccoldo’s includes a description of the Dominican house and oratory in Baghdad. Mérigoux,
‘L’ouvrage d’un frère prêcheur’, p. 17. For more about the Dominican house in Baghdad, see
Goormachtigh, ‘Histoire de la mission dominicaine’.
72
Altaner, Die Dominikanermissionen des 13. Jahrhunderts, pp. 73, 82.
73
Mérigoux, ‘L’ouvrage d’un frère prêcheur’, p. 26.
74
Riccoldo’s name is listed among several Dominican witnesses in a notary act of the city of
Florence, according to Mérigoux, ‘L’ouvrage d’un frère prêcheur’, pp. 16–17.
75
Panella, ‘Presentazione’, pp. xxxviii–xxxix.
Riccoldo in situ 15
to write an account of Islam. While much of what he says is similar to the main-
stream view, Riccoldo stands apart from other medieval Latins writing on Islam
because he lived in Baghdad for over a decade, knew the Arabic language, studied
with Muslim scholars, observed Islamic praxis, and refers to these experiences in
his writings. While he was certainly not the only European to live among Muslims
for an extended period of time, those who did (for example, Petrus Alfonsi and
William of Tripoli) rarely cite personal experience as such. Riccoldo’s firsthand
knowledge of Islam and Muslims and his frequent and explicit reference to this
knowledge make him a unique commentator on the religion.
Chapter 2
Beyond Polemic:
Genres and Context of Medieval ‘Dialogue’
R
iccoldo was a prolific and influential writer, and five of his texts are extant
today.1 Three of them — Epistolae, Liber peregrinationis, and Contra
legem — focus on Islam, but for centuries Contra legem was the main
object of scholarly inquiry, since the polemic was viewed as the main expression
of medieval Christian views of Islam.2 Today, however, some scholars caution
against making a false distinction between polemics and other types of literature,
and suggest that multiple genres must be studied simultaneously if the complex
nature of medieval interreligious relations is to be properly understood.3 It is
fortunate, therefore, that in Riccoldo we have a single author who wrote about
Islam in a variety of genres.
This chapter will discuss the three literary forms in which Riccoldo’s theology
of Islam can be found: letters, an itinerary, and a polemic. It will also discuss more
generally the role genre played in medieval Christian descriptions of the other,
1
Four have been mentioned thus far; the fifth, a commentary on the second book of
Aristotle’s Peri Hermenaias remains in unedited manuscript form. Since this commentary does
not contribute to Riccoldo’s theology of Islam, it will not be discussed in this book.
2
The manuscript record alone bears this out; there are twenty-eight extant Latin
manuscripts of Contra legem, and several medieval vernacular translations (into French, Italian,
Greek, and German), while there are only seven of Liber peregrinationis, four of Ad nationes,
and one each of Epistolae and the commentary on Peri Hermenaias.
3
Goodwin, ‘Take Hold of the Robe of a Jew’, pp. 95–99.
18 Chapter 2
and the historical context out of which these genres emerged. We begin with a
short introduction to medieval Latin views of non-Christians.
Historical Prelude: Medieval Christian Views of the Other

Despite their desire to construct a religiously monolithic society (christiani-
tas), medieval Latin Christians encountered diversity both within and beyond
Europe’s borders. The Roman church tended to categorize outsiders hierarchi-
cally: first and closest were the schismatics (separated mainly due to juridical rea-
sons, such as the Greeks), then came the heretics (separated due to perceived doc-
trinal errors, such as the Nestorians), then came the Jews (who were seen as the
non-Christians closest to the church, due to a shared scripture and heritage), then
Saracens, and finally pagans such as the Tartars. Descriptions of this hierarchy
abound during the medieval era, where it often served as the organizational struc-
ture for books on interreligious topics. For example, Riccoldo arranges the chap-
ters of Ad nationes orientales in exactly this order: he begins with the Jacobites
and Nestorians, then Jews, Saracens, and finally Tartars. The section titles of
Alain de Lille’s Quadripartita editio contra hereticos, Valdenses, Judeos et paganos
(also known as De fide catholica) follow a similar order: Contra hereticos, Contra
Valdenses, Contra Judaeos, and Contra paganos. The same hierarchy appears in the
very chronology of Peter the Venerable’s works: he wrote his first major polemic
against heretics, Tractatus contra Petrobrusianos Haereticos (c. 1134); he followed
this with a book against the Jews, Liber adversus Judaeorum inveteratam duritiem
(c. 1143); and he ended the series with two works against the Muslims, Summa
totius haeresis Saracenorum and Liber contra sectam sive haeresim Saracenorum
(post-1145). Even Thomas Aquinas employs this same hierarchy, though in
reverse, when he describes three kinds of unbelief in the Summa theologiae.4
The non-Christians closest to Rome in the hierarchy, and the ones with whom
most Europeans had the most contact, were the Jews. Christian theology had
had to respond to Judaism early on, and it did so mainly through the theory of
supersession or replacement, which stated that Christians and their ‘new’ covenant
4
‘There are several species of unbelief, determinate in number. For, since the sin of unbelief
consists in resisting the faith, this may happen in two ways: either the faith is resisted before
it has been accepted, and such is the unbelief of pagans or heathens; or the Christian faith is
resisted after it has been accepted, and this either in the figure, and such is the unbelief of the
Jews, or in the very manifestation of truth, and such is the unbelief of heretics’; Aquinas, Summa
theologiae, ii.ii.10.5.
Beyond Polemic 19
had replaced Jews and their ‘old’ covenant. Christians believed that they, not the
Jews, were the ‘true Israel’ (verus Israel) and thus God’s chosen people. Throughout
the medieval period, aside from rare exceptions, the preferred genre of Christian
writing about Jews was the polemical adversus Judaeos.5 And even though a few
twelfth-century exegetes such as Hugh of St Victor, Andrew of St Victor, and
Herbert of Bosham enriched their own biblical scholarship by studying Hebrew
scripture and language with local rabbis, others used their knowledge of Torah
and Talmud to buttress arguments against Judaism.6 Oral Christian-Jewish
‘dialogues’ were as one-sided as the written ones. For example, the Dominicans
organized (with the backing of civil authorities) several public disputations with
Jews in places such as Paris (1240) and Barcelona (1263). Naturally, Christian
and Jewish accounts of these debates differ widely; the Jewish authors viewed
them more as legal ‘trials’ against Judaism than authentic arguments between
equals.7 Public disputations between Dominicans and Jews evidently took place
in the East as well, if Riccoldo is to be believed, for he mentions witnessing a
debate between Dominicans and Jews in Mosul’s synagogue.8
In sum, medieval Christian writing about Jews, and the medieval Christian-
Jewish discourse in general, tended towards the contentious, despite common
scriptural and historical roots and despite instances of positive cultural, economic,
social, and intellectual interactions. Jews were a minority within Christendom,
but Christians believed that Judaism, though flawed, needed preserving, if only
to demonstrate the superiority of their own religion.
The relationship between medieval Muslims and Christians was different in
many respects, first of all because Islam arose after Christianity, and therefore
unlike Judaism has no intrinsic relationship to it (although some medieval Latins
viewed Islam as a Christian heresy). Unlike Judaism, which had always existed as
a minority religion within the borders of Christendom, Islam was a significant
5
For more on the adversus Judaeos genre, see Funkenstein, ‘Basic Types of Christian Anti-
Jewish Polemic’, and Contra Iudaeos: Ancient and Medieval Polemics, ed. by Limor and Strousma.
6
Twelfth-century Christians such as Petrus Alfonsi and Peter the Venerable were the first
to cite the Talmud in anti-Jewish arguments. In the thirteenth century, using the Talmud to
argue against Judaism became an increasingly popular polemical tactic among Jewish converts
to Christianity such as Pablo Christiani. See Cohen, Living Letters of the Law, pp. 167–218.
7
See especially Chazan, Barcelona and Beyond, and Maccoby, Judaism on Trial, which
includes translations of Jewish and Christian accounts of the disputations at Barcelona, Paris,
and Tortosa.
8
‘Ibi sunt multi Iudei et uicimus eos publica disputatione in sinagoga eorum’; Riccoldo da
Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 122.
20 Chapter 2
external threat in terms of both raw numbers and military strength. From the
eighth through the eighteenth centuries, Europeans considered Islam to be both
a rival religion and a serious political competitor which continually threatened its
eastern and southern boundaries — a very different position indeed from that of
the small, relatively powerless Jewish communities living within Europe.9
Despite minor differences in emphases, the vast majority of Latin Christian
theologians writing about Islam from the twelfth century on cover the same basic
topics, creating a fairly uniform medieval view. I say uniform, because the infor-
mation most of them provide is essentially the same: the same basic conclusions
about Islamic theology are reached (that Islam is a monotheistic religion and a
Christian heresy); the same few biographical facts about Muhammad are out-
lined (that he was illiterate); the same condemnations of his character and denial
of his claim to prophethood are repeated; the same conclusions about the origin
of the Qur’an are reached (that Muhammad was its author and that Arians and
Jews influenced him); the same Qur’anic verses are interpreted (for example, Sura
4. 171, Jesus as ‘word and spirit of God’); the same stories from hadith are cited
(for example, the story of the wife of Zaid as proof of Muhammad’s carnality);
the same spiritual genealogy is claimed (that Islam traces its roots to Ishmael, not
Abraham); and the same practices are described (polygyny, fasting, prayer).10
The strong parallels between medieval Latin (northern European)11 accounts
of Islam are partly due to heavy reliance on the same few sources, the most
9
Nicholas of Cusa acknowledges the relative powerlessless of European Jewry in De pace
fidei, when he says that their refusal to recognize Christ’s divinity will not impede world inter-
religious harmony, since ‘the Jews are few in number and will not be able to trouble the whole
world by force of arms’; Nicholas of Cusa, De pace fidei, ed. and trans. by Hopkins, p. 55.
10
For a book-length discussion of mainstream medieval Christian views of Islam, see the
original classic by Daniel, Islam and the West, or the newer Tolan, Saracens: Islam in the Medieval
European Imagination. See also George-Tvrtković, ‘Towards a Theology of Islam’.
11
Northern European Christians writing about Islam in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
followed the same approach as Andalusian Christians before them. See Burman, ‘Tathlith al-
wahdaniyah and the Twelfth-Century Andalusian-Christian Approach to Islam’ (p. 111), who
notes that ‘Andalusian-Christian works share certain common features, the most important of
which is their authors’ remarkable tendency to draw on and interweave material and methods
from at least three highly significant bodies of literature: 1) hadith; 2) Middle-Eastern Christian
theological and apologetic works written in Arabic; 3) contemporary Latin theology’. Burman
further notes that this method was used by an Andalusian Christian ‘in order to both refute
[Islam] and justify his own beliefs in the language of Islamic civilization’. The need to use the
‘language of Islamic civilization’ in one’s polemic against Islam would make sense for Andalusian
and Eastern Christians steeped in Arabic culture and ruled by a Muslim majority; but why would
Riccoldo, a Florentine whose audience was far removed from Islam, feel the need to do the same?
Beyond Polemic 21
influential of which were the Eastern Christian polemic Risalah al-Kindi; Peter
the Venerable’s so-called Toledan Collection12 (which includes Robert of Ketton’s
translation of the Qur’an, the Risalah, and various stories from the hadith); and
the Andalusian Liber denudinationis (formerly known as Contrarietas alfolica).13
It was common for medieval polemicists to copy what others had written before
them, since tradition was favoured over innovation. Even Christians with
substantial knowledge of Islamic literature copied from these same sources. For
example, while Riccoldo might have read about the mi’raj14 in Muslim literature,
his description of it in Contra legem almost exactly replicates the account found
in Liber denudinationis.15 Most used these sources without citing them. The late
medieval theologian Nicholas of Cusa (d. 1464) is a notable exception; in the
prologue to his Cribratio alkorani he carefully lists all his sources of information
about Islam, most of which are the very same ones used by earlier authors.16
12
For a discussion of the documents contained in the Toledan Collection see Peter the
Venerable and Islam, ed. by Kritzeck, and the seminal article, d’Alverny, ‘Deux traductions
latines du Coran au Moyen Âge’.
13
Daniel, Islam and the West, pp. 10–14. For a discussion of Riccoldo’s sources, see
Mérigoux, ‘L’ouvrage d’un frère prêcheur’, pp. 27–33.
14
The mi’raj was Muhammad’s night journey to Jerusalem and seven heavens. It is alluded
to in Sura 17. 1 and elaborated upon in the hadith. The classic work, Asín-Palacios, Islam and
the Divine Comedy, was the first of many to argue that the mi’raj influenced Dante’s renderings
of heaven and hell.
15
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Contra legem Sarracenorum, ed. by Mérigoux, p. 122.
16
‘As best I could, I made a careful attempt to understand the book of the laws of the Arabs
— [a book] which I obtained at Basel in the translation commissioned for us by Peter, Abbot
of Cluny. [I obtained it] together with a debate among those noble Arabs, [Risalah al-Kindi]
wherein one of them, a follower of Muhammad, attempted to win over another of them — who,
being eminent among the Arabs and quite learned, showed that the Christian faith, which he
zealously observed, ought rather to be accepted. There were also [contained within the Toledan
Collection] certain other works on the origins of Muhammad, his twelve successors in the
kingdom, and on his Doctrinae ad centum questiones. I left the book with Master John of Segovia
and journeyed to Constantinople, where among the Minorites who were living at [the Church
of ] the Holy Cross, I found the Koran in Arabic. […] I inquired whether any of the Greeks
had written against these foolish errors. And I learned only that John of Damascus, who lived a
little after the beginning of that sect, had written the very few things which were on hand there.
[…] Thereafter, in Rome, I saw the book of Brother Ricoldo of the Order of Preachers, who
studied Arabic in Baghdad; this [book] was more gratifying than the others. I also looked at the
Catholic writings of other brothers on this [same] subject-matter — especially at St. Thomas’s
De rationibus fidei ad Cantorem Antiochenum and, lastly, at [the writing] of the most reverend
lord and cardinal of St. Sixtus, who with cogent reasons refutes the heresies and the errors of
Muhammad’; Nicholas of Cusa, Cribratio alkorani, ed. and trans. by Hopkins, pp. 75–76.
22 Chapter 2
Yet despite the significant differences between Judaism and Islam, medieval
Christians often lumped Jews and Muslims together. In the thirteenth century,
Latins began to ignore the hierarchical distinctions they had made in the past
and expanded what had become a single ‘category of disbelief ’ to include both
religions. This single category could be seen in canon law, which for example
stated that both Jews and Muslims had to wear distinguishing dress, and that
neither were allowed to go outside on Good Friday, even though the latter
prohibition related specifically to Jews (who were traditionally accused of deicide
by Christians), not Muslims.17 While the hierarchy of religions described earlier
indicates that medieval Christians saw Judaism as closer to Christianity than
Islam, in practice both Jews and Muslims were labelled infidels, and by the mid-
thirteenth century both became equal targets of Christian evangelizing efforts.
Furthermore, the Roman church considered Eastern Christians to be candi-
dates for proselytism. Medieval Latin missionaries targeted not only ‘heretics’
like the Nestorians, but even the merely schismatic Greeks, whose wilful separa-
tion from Rome fostered heresy, it was claimed.18 Another major focus of four-
teenth-century Latin proselytism was the Armenian church, especially in Persia,
where minority communities could be found in almost every major city, includ-
ing Tabriz, Sultanyeh, Maraghah, and Dehikerkan.19 In the first half of the four-
teenth century, Pope John XXII sent several letters to Armenian bishops in Caffa
(Crimea); one letter demanded that Armenians show their adherence to the
Roman church by modifying their divine liturgy, while another letter congratu-
lates a former Armenian bishop, Paul, for ‘converting’ to the Roman Catholic
faith after being influenced by mendicant missionizing.20 The Dominicans espe-
cially concentrated on the Armenians: in 1343 they founded a society in Caffa
with the express goal of uniting the Armenian Church with Rome. 21 In Caffa,
the number of Armenians joining the Roman church was so great that by the fif-
teenth century, there were three ‘Armenian-Dominican’ priories in that town, one
of which produced a delegate to the unification Council of Ferrara-Florence.22
17
See Cohen, Living Letters of the Law, pp. 147–56, 219–20.
18
The heresy charge was levelled against the Greeks by Pope Gregory IX, who used it
to justify the employment of force against the Greeks in his reunification attempts; Spence,
‘Gregory IX’s Attempted Expeditions to the Latin Empire of Constantinople’, p. 168.
19
Loenertz, La Société des Frères pérégrinants, pp. 141–42, 189.
20
Loenertz, La Société des Frères pérégrinants, pp. 102–03.
21
22
Beyond Polemic 23
But Armenians were not the only Eastern Christians to be targeted. Latin mis-
sionaries proselytized among ‘diverse sects of schismatics’ in the East, including
Nestorians, Jacobites, Greeks, Georgians, and Armenians.23 In the 1230s, Pope
Gregory IX dispatched Franciscans to Georgia to negotiate for reunion, while Pope
Innocent III sent letters to the Greeks, Armenians, Bulgarians, and Serbs, asking
one and all to return to Rome.24 Riccoldo himself discusses at great length the the-
ological differences between Latins, Jacobites, and Nestorians in two of his books,
Ad nationes orientales and Liber peregrinationis. He describes several public debates
the Dominicans organized with Nestorian and Jacobite bishops in Nineveh and
Baghdad, and he even claims that after one such disputation, the Jacobite patriarch
of Nineveh actually agreed with the Dominicans and ‘fidem suam manu scriptam
nobis tradidit’ (handed us a profession of faith written in his own hand).25
The Dialogus
Latin efforts to condemn and convert heretics, Jews, and Muslims produced a
corollary form of discourse called the dialogus, a polemical genre which in the
twelfth century gained popularity in Europe and beyond. Prominent Christian
examples of the dialogus include Peter Abelard’s Dialogus inter philosophum,
Iudaeum, et Christianum, Gilbert Crispin’s Disputatio Christiani cum Gentili,
and Petrus Alfonsi’s Dialogi contra Judaeos (all twelfth century); Ramon Llull’s
Book of the Gentile and Three Wise Men (late thirteenth century); and Nicholas
of Cusa’s De pace fidei (mid-fifteenth century). There are also Jewish examples
of the dialogus such as the twelfth-century Kuzari by Yehudah Halevi, as well as
Muslim examples such as the thirteenth-century The Correct Answer to Those who
Changed the Religion of Christ by Ibn Taymīyah.26
23
One Dominican described the variety of Eastern Christians thus: ‘Ista Persida habitatur
[…] per Christianos scismaticos diversarum sectarum seu per Nestorianos, Jacobitas, Graecos,
Georgianos, Armenos’; Mirabilia descripta, by Jordan Cathala de Severac (c. 1329–30), as
quoted in Loenertz, ‘Les Missions dominicaines en Orient’, p. 75.
24
Spence, ‘Gregory IX’s Attempted Expeditions to the Latin Empire of Constantinople’,
p. 167.
25
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 130. Latins
required Eastern Christians to take an ‘oath of obedience’ to the Roman pope as a prerequisite
to reunification; Spence, ‘Gregory IX’s Attempted Expeditions to the Latin Empire of
Constantinople’, p. 166.
26
Ibn Taymīyah, ‘Al-Jawab al-Sahih li-Man Badal Din al-Masih’, trans. and ed. by Michel.
24 Chapter 2
What is most important to note about the medieval dialogus is that its
dialogue rarely reflects any real discourse, if by dialogue one has in mind a free
and honest exchange between two equal parties. Rather, the medieval dialogus is
essentially a fiction. That is, the words a Christian author places into the mouth
of a non-Christian usually do not represent that tradition authentically. Instead,
the Muslim or Jew often says things which either reflect negatively on his own
tradition or demonstrate the superiority of Christianity. For example, Ramon
Llull has his Jewish interlocutor say that the Hebrew language is an ‘impediment’,
and that study of the Talmud is a waste of time because it ‘prevents us from
having any knowledge of the next world’, something it is very difficult to imagine
a real Jew ever saying.27 The contrived nature of the medieval dialogus can also be
seen in Riccoldo’s accounts of alleged debates between Dominicans and Eastern
Christians; for example, he claims that after his confreres defeated the Jacobite
patriarch in a disputation, not only did the patriarch affirm his faith in the
Roman doctrine and authority, but he also allowed the Dominicans to ‘preach
the Catholic faith in Arabic’ in the centre of the town so that they could ‘show
the Jacobite clergy and laity their errors’.28 Such statements raise doubts about the
veracity of Riccoldo’s reports.
The popular dialogus genre provides insight into medieval Latin perspectives
on other religions, for it demonstrates that Christians rarely understood (or even
tried to understand) non-Christians on their own terms. Nor did Christians
attempt to present Judaism or Islam as these traditions would wish to be seen.
Rather, they defined Jews, Muslims, and others almost entirely through a Christian
lens. Thus the medieval dialogus genre itself can be seen as a nascent Christian
theology of religions, since it presented other religions mainly from a Christian
perspective, and was intended primarily for an internal Christian audience.
The mainstream medieval Latin perspective on non-Christians has been briefly
outlined here so that Riccoldo’s account of Islam can be more easily compared to
it. It is interesting to contrast his view of Islam with his view of Judaism; the former
is informed by serious study and vast personal experience, while the latter is most
decidedly not. His account of Jews and Judaism as found in Ad nationes orientales is
the standard medieval view; for example, he says that Jews are blind for not accept-
ing Christ as the messiah, that they crucified him knowingly, and that the diaspora
is punishment for it. In fact, he copies most of his argument from Ramon Martí’s
Capistrum Iudaeorum and even refers to this book explicitly. While Riccoldo
27
Llull, The Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men, ed. by Bonner, pp. 77–78.
28
Beyond Polemic 25
underscores his proficiency in Arabic and personal experience of Muslims, he never

claims to have studied Hebrew, or to have had any extended contact with Jews. The
disparity between his unremarkable account of Judaism and his original account
of Islam may perhaps be explained by the disparity between his intellectual and
personal experience — or lack thereof — of the two religious communities.
Riccoldo’s Famous Polemic

Riccoldo’s Contra legem Sarracenorum is not written in the form of a dialogus, but
it is a classic example of the medieval Latin polemic against Islam. Formerly known
as Confutatio alchorani or Improbatio alchorani,29 this book (written c. 1300) is
Riccoldo’s best-known and most popular, primarily due to its usefulness in the
Christian debate against Islam. There are twenty-eight Latin manuscripts extant
today.30 The oldest, dated to the early fourteenth century, is currently housed at
29
Daniel, Islam and the West, p. 404, notes that the former two titles refer to the title of
Picenus’s Latin retranslation of Cydones’s Greek translation. Contra legem Sarracenorum is the
preferred title today, since this is the title found on the oldest original Latin manuscript dating
from the early fourteenth century.
30
The twenty-eight Latin manuscripts listed by Mérigoux, ‘L’ouvrage d’un frère prê-
cheur’, pp. 35–36, are as follows: Avignon, Musée Calvet, MS 58, fols 205 r–220v; Basel,
Universitätsbibliothek Basel, MS A.x. 41, fols 184v–185r; Belluno, Biblioteca Lolliana, MS 30;
Bergamo, Biblioteca Civica, MS Locatelli 60 (40), fols 1–27; Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria,
MS 2655, fols 103r–116v; Cambridge, Corpus Christi College Library, MS 335, fols 74r–100;
Dresden, Sächsische Landesbibliothek, MS A 120 B, fols 206r–234v; Firenze, Biblioteca Medicea
Laurenziana, MS Acq. e Doni 431, fols 1 r–22r; Firenze, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di
Firenze, MS Conv. Sopp. C 8.1173, fols 185r–218r; Firenze, Biblioteca Riccardiana, MS 3026,
fols 5r–36v; Göttingen, Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen, 8 Patr.
Lat. 1832/19 (MS 262), fols 25–49; Kraków, Czartoryski Museum, MS 1401, fols 119v–167r;
Bernkastel-Kues, St-Nikolaus-Hospital, MS 107, fols 194r–232r; London, British Library, MS
Royal 13.E.9, fols 78–93; München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, MS Clm. 449, fols 120r–147r;
Napoli, Biblioteca Nazionale, MS vii.C.20, fols 94r–106v; Oviedo, Biblioteca del Cabildo, MS
24, fols 91r–113v; Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fonds latin 3655, fols 114r–119r;
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fonds latin 4230, fols 159v–183v; Paris, Bibliothèque
nationale de France, MS fonds latin 6225, fols 164r–174v; Pesaro, Biblioteca Oliveriana, MS
1381 (extracts); Roma, Santa Sabina Archivio Generalizio dell’Ordine dei Predicatori, MS
xiv.28b, fols 96v–154v; Sevilla, Biblioteca Capitular y Colombina, MS 82–1–7, fols 147r–173;
Toledo, Biblioteca del Cabildo, MS 21–10, fols 62 r–96v; Torino, Biblioteca Nazionale, MS
H.ii.33, fols 247r–267v; Città della Vaticana, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. lat. 7317,
fols 267v–300r; Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, MS 3141, fols 272v–281v; Wien,
Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, MS 3320, fols 52r–62r.
26 Chapter 2
the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze; the other twenty-seven date mainly
from the later fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The oldest manuscript — the
presence of which is mentioned as early as Tommaso Sardi’s 1489 inventory of
Santa Maria Novella’s library — includes marginal notes which scholars believe
come from the author’s own hand, along with some Arabic script found in no
other manuscript.31 If these marginalia are in fact Riccoldo’s, it would mean
that this manuscript dates to no later than 1320, the year of his death. When
Napoleon closed Santa Maria Novella in 1810, the manuscript was lost; it was
not until an inventory of the priory’s former collection was published in 1980
that the document was officially rediscovered.32
Yet Contra legem has enjoyed a wider circulation than these twenty-eight
Latin manuscripts alone might suggest. Within two centuries of its composition,
Riccoldo’s polemic was translated into several languages. Demetrius Cydones
rendered it into Greek sometime before 1385, the year he sent a copy Emperor
Manuel II Paleologus.33 It was also translated into Spanish in 1502. Cydones’s Greek
version was eventually translated back into Latin in 1506 by Bartholomew Picenus
at the request of King Ferdinand of Aragon.34 It was Picenus’s Latin version which
Martin Luther translated into German in 1542. In 1543, Theodore Bibliander
published both Cydones’s Greek version and Picenus’s Latin retranslation in his
collection of texts on Islam, and it is from Bibliander that Cydones’s Greek version
of Contra legem is taken by Migne to be included in his Patrologia Graeca.35 The
modern critical Latin edition by Jean-Marie Mérigoux (1986) is based on the
rediscovered Santa Maria Novella manuscript. Contra legem has yet to be translated
into English, although modern Italian and German versions do exist.36
31
Panella, ‘Presentazione’, pp. xxvii–xxviii, Mérigoux, ‘L’ouvrage d’un frère prêcheur’,
pp. 1–2, and Riccold de Monte Croce, ed. by Kappler, pp. 11–12, all argue that the marginal notes
are in the author’s own hand.
32
Pomaro, ‘Censimento dei manoscritti della Biblioteca di S. Maria Novella’.
33
Mérigoux, ‘L’ouvrage d’un frère prêcheur’, p. 53, shows where Manuel II Paleologus’s
‘dialogue’ with a Persian Muslim (made famous by Pope Benedict XVI’s 2006 speech at
Regensburg) demonstrates dependence on Riccoldo. See Manuel II Palaiologos, Entretiens avec
un musulman, ed. and trans. by Khoury.
34
Picenus rendered his name ‘Richardus’.
35
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Contra legem Sarracenorum, ed. by Migne (PG 154, cols 1077–
1543).
36
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Contra legem Sarracenorum, trans. by Rizzardi; Ricoldus de
Monte Crucis, Confutatio Alcorani (1300), in Riccoldo da Montecroce, Confutatio Alcorani, ed.
and trans. by Ehmann.
Beyond Polemic 27
Contra legem is a formal tract replete with scriptural, theological, and philo-
sophical references, including numerous quotations from Aristotle and Aquinas.
Most of Chapter Thirteen is taken verbatim from the Iberian anti-Islamic polemic
Liber denudationis (formerly Contrarietas alpholica).37 Because Contra legem has
so many references to scholarly sources, it has been suggested that Riccoldo wrote
it after he returned from Baghdad, when he had access to Santa Maria Novella’s
extensive library.38 In any case, scholars believe that Contra legem was written
before Ad nationes orientales, thanks to a textual reference in Ad nationes which
refers readers back to Contra legem.39 Since Ad nationes has been dated to around
1300, and both works are believed to have been written around the same time,40
it is likely that Contra legem was written earlier the same year.
What was Riccoldo’s purpose in writing Contra legem Sarracenorum? Kappler
and Mérigoux41 classify this text (along with Ad nationes) as didactic, that is, as
a comprehensive treatment of the Qur’an intended to assist other friars in their
missionary work by first refuting Saracen errors, then defending Christian truth.
Thus Contra legem is not only a polemic against Islam, but also an apology for
Christianity. As noted earlier, most medieval polemics against other religions
were not written for the direct consumption of non-Christians. In fact, in the
prologue to Contra legem, Riccoldo clearly identifies both an internal audience
(his fellow Dominicans) and an internal purpose (to help his confreres in
converting Muslims to Christianity).42
37
Mérigoux, ‘L’ouvrage d’un frère prêcheur’, pp. 31 and 117.
38
See also Riccoldo da Montecroce, Ad nationes orientales, ed. by Jensen; Mérigoux,
‘L’ouvrage d’un frère prêcheur’, pp. 27–33.
39
‘De saracenis autem nihil amplius addo ad illud, quod scripsi in illo tractatu “Quot sunt
dies serui tui”, vbi per legem eorum confutatur lex ipsa’ (I will add nothing more to that which I
have already written about the Saracens in the tract [Contra legem Sarracenorum, which begins]
‘How many are the days of your servant?’, where their law [Islam] is refuted by the Qur’an
itself.); Riccoldo da Montecroce, Ad nationes orientales, ed. by Jensen, part 3.
40
Panella, ‘Presentazione’, pp. xxvii–xxviii. In fact, the oldest copy of Contra legem is
bound with Ad nationes in BNCF, MS Conv. Sopp. C 8.1173; each text includes marginal notes
by the author.
41
Mérigoux, ‘L’ouvrage d’un frère prêcheur’, p. 19; Riccold de Monte Croce, ed. by Kappler, p. 10.
42
‘Nunc autem est mea intentio de summa ueritate confisus, confutare principales obsceni-
tates tam perfide legis, et dare occasionem aliis fratribus, per quem modum possunt facilius reuo-
care ad Deum sectatores tante perfidie’ (But my intention now is to rely on the highest truth, in
order to refute the chief obscenities of such a perfidious law, and to give other brothers the chance
and the means by which they can easily call back these sectarians from such perfidy to God);
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Contra legem Sarracenorum, ed. by Mérigoux, prologue, pp. 62–63.
28 Chapter 2
Exploring Other Genres

This very brief survey of the history of interreligious relations and its associated
genres might seem to reinforce the assumption that medieval Christians were
intolerant of religious diversity. Indeed, many were, as is evidenced by the sheer
number of vitriolic texts written by Christian clerics against Muslims, Jews, and
others during this period. To a certain extent, then, scholars studying the medieval
Christian theology of religion have been justified in focusing on polemics.43
Indeed, polemical texts should remain central to any inquiry into medieval
interreligious relations, given the importance medieval writers themselves placed
on them. The most popular Christian polemical texts against Islam — such as
John of Damascus’s De haeresibus, Risalat al-Kindi, Contra legem, and others
listed by Nicholas of Cusa — are part of a larger corpus which could be termed
adversus Sarracenos for its parallels to the adversus Judaeos genre. One would be
remiss to ignore them.
But has the role of polemics in medieval interreligious relations been over-
stated? After all, descriptions of Islam (sometimes even very detailed theological
assessments) can be found not only in the polemical literature but also in a wide
variety of genres including letters, itineraries, canon law, sermons, devotions, scrip-
tural commentaries, and even the marginalia of Latin translations of the Qur’an.44
But these non-polemical texts have until recently been ignored by scholars, which
is unfortunate because ‘dividing Christian discourse [on Jews or Muslims] into
genre categories prevents us from seeing the broader, sometimes contradictory,
power dynamics of that encounter’.45 While these diverse genres can contain
some polemical elements, they also offer a wider range of medieval perspectives
on Islam, since authors of other genres usually had goals distinct from that of the
polemic, which was to criticize other religions and to promote Christianity. In
sum, scholars who wish to obtain a more complete and nuanced understanding of
medieval Christian views of Islam cannot limit themselves to polemics alone, but
43
For example, Daniel, Islam and the West focuses mainly on the polemic. Even the more
recent study by Tolan, Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination, which is much
more comprehensive than Daniel, pays a great deal of attention to these highly influential
polemical texts.
44
For more on the Christian views of Islam found in the marginalia of Latin translations
of the Qur’an, see Burman, Reading the Qur’an in Latin Christendom. For a discussion of
the various views of Islam found in non-polemical medieval genres, see, for example, Tolan,
‘Veneratio Sarracenorum: Shared Devotion among Muslims and Christians’.
45
Goodwin, ‘Take Hold of the Robe of a Jew’, p. 97.
Beyond Polemic 29
must examine a variety of genres. This book, therefore, will focus on Riccoldo’s
account of Islam as found in two non-polemical texts: an itinerary and letters.
A Pilgrim’s Itinerary
Liber peregrinationis, a first-person account of Riccoldo’s voyage from Acre to

Baghdad, contains both theological and ethnographic elements.46 Indeed, the
friar declares early on that description is one of his primary goals: ‘Continentur
autem in hoc libro sub breuitate regna, gentes, prouincie, leges, ritus, secte, et
hereses et monstra que inueni in partibus orientis’ (Contained briefly in this book
are the kingdoms, peoples, provinces, laws, rites, sects, heresies, and monsters
which I came upon in the eastern regions).47 And descriptive it is: marriage rituals
of Tartars are mentioned, as is Kurdish dress, Mongol physiognomy, and the
practice of female circumcision among some Nestorians.48 It seems that Riccoldo’s
later readers viewed Liber peregrinationis more as ethnography than theology, for
its manuscripts tend to be bound with Marco Polo and Burchard of Mt Sion, not
Hugh of St Cher and Thomas Aquinas.
However, Liber peregrinationis is more than ethnography, for its theological
and missionary intentions are explicitly announced at the outset. Immediately
after Riccoldo states that he will be describing various cultures and religions, he
goes on to say why: ‘Ut fratres qui uellent laborem pro Christo adsumere pro
fide dilatanda sciant quo indigent et ubi et qualiter magis possunt proficere.’
(So that friars who wish to take on the task of spreading the faith for Christ will
know what they need to, as well as where and how they can achieve more).49 He
buttresses this didactic purpose with numerous religious justifications for his
trip: he assures his readers that by undertaking this pilgrimage, he is obeying the
pope and his master general, imitating Christ’s own earthly life, and solidifying
his vocation as a Dominican preacher and missionary.50
46
Palmira Brummett suggests that scholars ‘need to discuss what type of human description
is required for the designation “ethnology” to be applied’; Brummett, ‘Introduction: Genre,
Witness, and Time in the “Book” of Travels’, p. 2.
47
48
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, pp. 86–88;
p. 118; p. 146.
49
50
30 Chapter 2
That said, the Liber peregrinationis remains largely a travel narrative. In fact,
the majority of extant manuscripts list its title as Itinerarium.51 This is apropos,
given the fact that the itinerarium was an exceedingly popular genre of travel
writing throughout the medieval period.52 While the fourth century saw the first
Christian itineraries (Itinerarium Burdigalense, c. 333, and Itinerarium Egeriae,
c. 384), the genre became especially popular during the golden age of medieval
pilgrimage from approximately 1100 to 1500.53 During these years, itineraries
were written by Jewish pilgrims like Benjamin of Tudela, who visited not only
Jerusalem but also other religiously significant cities such as Rome and Baghdad
in the twelfth century, and Muslim pilgrims like Ibn Battuta, whose fourteenth-
century Rihla (itinerary) included Mecca and possibly even India.54 The rihla, a
genre of Arabic literature parallel to the Latin itinerarium, records travel inspired
by the Muslim concept of talab al-’ilm, the pursuit of knowledge.55 Yet Christian
pilgrims (including crusaders, who were called peregrini) composed the lion’s
share of medieval itineraria. One scholar estimates that at least five hundred
and twenty-six Christian pilgrims produced travel accounts of their journeys to
Jerusalem between 1100 and 1500.56 This number does not include accounts of
pilgrimages to other major medieval destinations such as Rome or Santiago de
Compostela, or to local sites such as Our Lady of Walsingham in England.
Medieval itineraria were ‘verbal maps’ that provided basic geographical infor-
mation such as descriptions of landmarks and distances between towns. The
51
Four out of seven manuscripts are entitled Itinerarium. The oldest manuscript, Berlin,
Staatsbibl., MS Lat. 4o 466, which includes additions in Riccoldo’s own hand (and upon which
Kappler’s critical Latin edition and my English translation are both based), is entitled Liber
peregrinationis.
52
Scholarly interest in medieval pilgrimage and travel writing has proliferated in the last
several decades. Some useful literature on this subject includes The ‘Book’ of Travels, ed. by
Brummett; Campbell, The Witness and the Other World; Chareyron, Pilgrims to Jerusalem in
the Middle Ages; Howard, Writers and Pilgrims; Journeys toward God, ed. by Sargent-Baur; Text
and Territory: Geographical Imagination in the Middle Ages, ed. by Tomasch and Gilles; and
Encyclopedia of Medieval Pilgrimage, ed. by Taylor.
53
Weber, Traveling through Text, pp. 33–34. There are no solid statistics as to the total
number of Christian pilgrims during this era, but one hint as to the popularity of pilgrimage
is in the famous group pilgrimage of 1064–65 led by the bishop of Bamberg, which numbered
seven thousand Germans.
54
Benjamin of Tudela, The Itinerary, trans. by Adler and Asher; Ibn Battuta, The Travels of
Ibn Battuta, trans. by Gibb and Beckingham.
55
See Netton, Seek Knowledge.
56
Weber, Traveling through Text, p. 46.
Beyond Polemic 31
accounts were intended to edify those who could not travel and assist those who
could. In fact, itineraries were often used instead of maps. Some are rudimen-
tary, listing only place names and distances (for instance, the laconic account of
the pilgrim of Bordeaux), while others offer a wide range of details from ethno-
graphic information to descriptions of flora and fauna, population estimates, rel-
evant scriptural citations, and local lore. Itineraries often included both first-hand
information obtained by the traveller himself, 57 and second-hand information
gathered from supposedly trustworthy sources. Authors often did not distinguish
between the two.58 Some medieval itineraria are more explicily religious, such
as Burchard de Mt Sion’s Descriptio Terrae Sanctae, Felix Fabri’s Evagatorium
in Terrae Sanctae, Arabiae et Egypti peregrinationem, and the Book of Margery
Kempe. Others are less so, such as Marco Polo’s Description of the World. Some
medieval itineraria do not even recount actual trips; Bonaventure’s Itinerarium
mentis in Deum is a spiritual journey, while Matthew Paris’s itinerary maps offer
virtual pilgrimages to Jerusalem envisioned by an English monk who had never
been there.59 But what differentiates a religious pilgrim’s itinerary from non-reli-
gious travel writing? The distinction is sometimes not so clear. Riccoldo’s ‘book
of pilgrimage’ contains many religious elements, such as frequent scriptural refer-
ences, descriptions of his entourage celebrating mass together, and pious inter-
jections such as ‘O my soul, O soul of a sinner’, which was declared upon reach-
ing an especially holy site. He even begins the book by explicitly linking his own
pilgrimage to Christ’s. But his itinerary also includes ethnographic descriptions,
sociological data, and economic information. In part due to the mixed nature of
medieval travelogues, some scholars are now questioning overly tidy distinctions
of genre and chronology that have often been made between medieval religious
itineraria and early modern travel narratives.60
The Mission-Pilgrimage
The first part of Liber peregrinationis describes the typical Christian pilgrimage
to Holy Land sites such as Nazareth, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem, but the second
57
Medieval pilgrims (and thus itinerary authors) were usually ‘he’, since medieval women
were strongly discouraged from travelling. Notable exceptions include the itineraria of Egeria
(fourth century) and Margery Kempe (fifteenth century). For more on women pilgrims, see
Craig, Wandering Women and Holy Matrons.
58
Weber, Traveling through Text, pp. 57–62.
59
Connolly, ‘Copying Maps by Matthew Paris’.
60
See Brummett, ‘Introduction: Genre, Witness, and Time in the “Book” of Travels’.
32 Chapter 2
part describes the continuation of the journey through what is now Turkey,
Armenia, Persia, Kurdistan, and Baghdad, ending in the city of Baghdad. Yet
Riccoldo entitles the entire text, not just the first part, ‘the book of pilgrimage’.61
Perhaps this is because he believed that his trip to Baghdad was an extension of
his Holy Land pilgrimage, the first part of which served as the necessary spiritual
foundation for his overall journey.
While mission and pilgrimage are often treated as distinct motivations for
Christian travel,62 for Riccoldo the two are very closely linked. He states as much
in the prologue:
Transiui mare ut loca illa corporaliter uiderem que Christus corporaliter uisitauit
[…] ut memoria passionis eius in mente mea imprimeretur tenacius et sanguis
Christi pro nostra salute effusus esset in robur et firmamentum ad predicandum et
moriendum pro illo qui mihi sua morte uitam donauerat
(I crossed the sea in order to see with my bodily eyes those places which Christ had
visited in the flesh […] so that the memory of his passion would be imprinted more
firmly upon my mind, and so that the blood of Christ which was spilled for our
salvation would give me the courage and strength to preach and die for him who
had given me life through his own death.)63
Riccoldo believed that his mission was to preach the Christian faith and
possibly be martyred for it, and he hoped that beginning his travels in the
Holy Land would inspire him to do this difficult work. He further solidifies
the link between mission and pilgrimage with numerous prayers asking God to
purify his intentions. Throughout his journey, Riccoldo finds ways to connect
particular Holy Land sites to his future Baghdad mission. For example, at Cana
he says: ‘rogaui Christum quod sicut aquam in uinum conuerterat ita aquam mee
insipidatis et indeuotionis conuerteret in uinum compunctionis et spiritualitis
saporis’ (I asked Christ who had turned water into wine to turn my water of
insipidity and infidelity into the wine of remorse and spiritual savour), while at
the Sea of Galilee he prays that Christ would ‘me ad sanctum suum discipulatum
61
As noted above, some manuscripts include the title Itinerarium, but Riccoldo himself
calls it the ‘Book of Pilgrimage’ in the first line of the text: ‘Incipit Liber peregrinationis fratris
R. ordinis predicatorum’; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by
Kappler, p. 36.
62
If the Crusades are classified as a type of Christian pilgrimage (which indeed they have
been), then the very title of the classic text, Kedar, Crusade and Mission, has already juxtaposed
the two.
63
Beyond Polemic 33
uocaret et faceret me piscatorem hominum’ (number me among his holy disciples

and make me a fisher of men).64 Riccoldo sees his Holy Land pilgrimage as the
spiritual basis for his entire missionary journey. Unlike most Christian pilgrims,
the Holy Land is not his final destination, but his starting point. It provides him
with the spiritual strength to do missionary work further afield. In this way, his
entire journey from Acre to Baghdad can be seen as a pilgrimage.
Riccoldo’s view of mission was influenced by both Dominican and Franciscan
approaches. This influence is apparent not only in his personal identity as a
Dominican and his admission of a childhood devotion to St Francis, but also in
numerous explicit connections he makes between his own missionary strategy
and that of Dominic and Francis. Throughout his writings, Riccoldo repeatedly
declares that his personal goal to ‘destroy’ or ‘nullify’ Islam was inspired by
specific acts of Francis and Dominic. For example, he cites Francis’s ordeal by fire
at Damietta in 1219 as clear proof of Francis’s zeal to convert the Saracens. He
even says that Francis’s goal was to ‘perfidiam Machometi destrueres’ (destroy
the perfidy of Mahomet).65 The wording is nearly identical to the wording
he uses elsewhere to describe his own goal: ‘Et ego sicut presumptuosus intra
memetipsum longo tempore cogitavi quod possem illum in tua virtute deicere et
eius doctrinam pestiferam evacuare’ (For a long time I presumptuously thought
that I could fight him by means of your [God’s] force and nullify his pernicious
doctrine).66 Furthermore, he claims that Dominic’s long beard was proof of an
‘ardent determination’ to attack Islam similar to his own.67 Riccoldo himself
seems to have imitated Dominic’s beard, for the necrology of Santa Maria Novella
mentions that he grew a ‘long beard’, and the oldest manuscript of Contra legem
contains an illustration of a bearded friar, presumably Riccoldo. In highlighting
these ‘facts’ about Francis and Dominic, he attempted to legitimize his personal
goal of converting the Muslims, by linking his own zeal directly to that of the
mendicant founders.
64
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, pp. 38 and 40.
65
Note on the spelling of the prophet’s name: when translating Riccoldo’s texts I will
retain his medieval spelling ‘Mahomet’; everywhere else I will use the contemporary spelling
‘Muhammad’.
66
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, 3, p. 278; also 1, p. 268.
67
See Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, 1, p. 268 and 3, p. 277. Dominic
did grow his beard as a symbol of his missionary intentions; however, he intended to visit lands
North (Prussia, Scandinavia), not the Middle East. Soon after growing this beard (c. 1217),
Dominic had a vision which underscored the universal nature of the Dominican Order’s
mission. Mulchahey, ‘First the Bow is Bent in Study’, p. 24.
34 Chapter 2
Riccoldo also attempted to justify his work among Muslims by connecting it

to the mission of the entire church, and to Christ himself. In fact, he says that the
reason he went east was to obey the wishes of both the pope and the master general
of his order. He repeats this claim in two different documents; the first time is
in Letter One when he mentions obedience to Christ’s vicar (see the quotation
above), while the second is at the very beginning of Liber peregrinationis:
‘Suscepta igitur obedientia domini pape mediante magistro ordinis incipiens
peregrinationem’ (In obedience therefore to the lord pope through the master
of my Order, I began my pilgrimage).68 Finally and perhaps most significantly,
Riccoldo links his own pilgrimage to Christ’s. The friar claims that his journey
imitates two important christological journeys: first, Christ’s ‘incarnational
pilgrimage’ from heaven to earth (which Riccoldo underscores with a quote from
John 16. 28, ‘I have gone from the Father and come into the world’),69 and second,
Christ’s flight to Egypt, which Riccoldo also calls a pilgrimage: ‘Natus et pauper
et paruulus nec sibi nec matri pepercit a longa et laboriosa peregrinatione sed
cum matre pauperi et sene baiulo peregrinatus in Egiptum ut fugeret aduersarios’
(He was born poor and insignificant, and neither he nor his mother were spared
from a long and labourious pilgrimage. With his poor mother and an old beast
of burden, he went on a pilgrimage to Egypt in order to flee his adversaries).70
Riccoldo justified his mission-pilgrimage theologically on several counts, all
unassailable: he was not undertaking this journey for selfish reasons, rather he
went in obedience to the Dominican master general and the pope, and in so
doing sought to imitate not only the mendicant founders Francis and Dominic,
but the original Pilgrim, Jesus Christ himself.71
Letters to Heaven
Riccoldo’s Epistolae ad ecclesiam triumphantem are unique. Written shortly after the
capture of Christian Acre by the Mamluks in 1291, these five letters are addressed
respectively to God the Father, the Virgin Mary, the Church Triumphant, the
Patriarch of Jerusalem, and St Gregory the Great. In these emotional letters,
Riccoldo grapples with the meaning of salvation history. He struggles to under-
68
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 38. In 1288,
the pope was Nicholas IV, a Franciscan; the Dominican Master General was Munio de Zamora.
69
70
71
In the Vulgate, Christ is actually called a pilgrim (peregrinus) while he was travelling on
the road to Emmaus (Luke 24. 13–35).
Beyond Polemic 35
stand why God has allowed Christian communities throughout the East to be
decimated by the Saracens, and begs God for help, or at least for an answer why.
He introduces the letters in a short prologue which sets the stage geographi-
cally, historically, biblically, and personally. He tells his readers that, as he writes,
he is sitting on the banks of the Tigris River, enjoying the ‘veritable paradise’ of
Baghdad’s gardens. He then juxtaposes this lush scene with the great sadness he
felt upon receiving news of Acre’s demise. His feelings of simultaneous delight
and despair are theologically significant, given that both the Garden of Eden and
the Babylonian Captivity were believed to have occurred on the very spot. And
in fact, Riccoldo alludes to both biblical events here.72 He then goes on to explain
why the fall of Acre has compelled him to reflect on salvation history, and to
write letters to the heavenly court:
Subito pre maxima tristicia in insolidam admirationem raptus cepi stupens cogitare
intencius solito iudicia Dei super gubernatione mundi et maxime super Sarracenos
et christianos, scilicet ex qua causa posset contingere tanta strages et deiectio populi
christiani et tanta prosperitas temporalis in gente perfida Sarracenorum. […]
Cogitavi super hoc scribere Deo et celesti curie, ubi et causam mee admirationis
expressi, desiderium aperui simul et pecii, ut Deus me in veritate et sinceritate fidei
confirmaret et christianos maxime captivos de manibus inimicorum eriperet
(In the midst of this great sadness, I was suddenly seized by a strange wonder. I
was stupefied in thinking about God’s judgement in governing the world and most
especially about the Saracens and the Christians. Why had such slaughter and deg-
radation befallen the Christian people, and such temporal prosperity been granted
to the perfidious race of the Saracens? [...] I decided to write to God and the celes-
tial court to express the source of my wonder and at the same time reveal my desire,
and also to ask God to confirm me in the truth and sincerity of my faith, and to
quickly put an end to the law, nay the perfidy, of the Saracens, and above all to
deliver the Christian captives from the hands of the enemies.)73
72
And so it came to pass that I was in Baghdad ‘among captives on the banks of the Chebar’
[Ezekiel 1. 1], the Tigris. A part of me delighted in the charm of the verdant place in which I
found myself, for it was like paradise […]. But the other part of me was urged to sadness over
the slaughter and servitude of the Christian people […] as their daughters, young children,
and elders were taken away crying, amid rumours that they were to be forced into prison and
slavery among barbarian nations in the remotest parts of the East (Et factum est cum essem in
Baldacto ‘in medio pativorum iuxta fluvium Chobar’ [Ezekiel 1. 1] Tigris, et me ex una parte
delectaret amenitas viridarij, in quo eram, quod erat quasi paradisus…et ex alia parte me urgeret
ad tristiciam strages et captura populi christiani […] cum puelle eorum et parvuli et senes cum
rumoribus ad partes remotissimas orientis inter barbaras nationes captivi et sclavi minabantur
gementes). Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, prologue, p. 264.
73
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, prologue, p. 264.
36 Chapter 2
Riccoldo hoped that God would not only confirm his faith in traditional salvation
history — a history in which Christianity would eventually triumph — but also
physically rescue the besieged Christians of the East. He ends the prologue by
stating that he composed his letters while he was in the midst of an ‘afflicted’
emotional state.
The last line of the prologue is not the only clue the friar provides as to the time
and place of the letters’ composition. The level of despair evident throughout all
five suggests that they were composed while the friar’s emotions were still very
raw—and therefore not too long after 1291. (Another possible explanation for
so much emotion, of course, is that he is using hyperbole as a rhetorical device.)
Further evidence as to the dating of Epistolae comes from the prologue of Contra
legem (written c. 1300), in which Riccoldo refers to the letters by name and claims
that he wrote them at the same time he was studying the Qur’an in Baghdad. 74
Furthermore, four of the letters end with the phrase ‘data in oriente’ (the fifth says
‘scripta in oriente’). Thus, at least according to Riccoldo’s own testimony, all the
letters were inspired while he was in modern-day Iraq, with at least one actually
having been written while he was still there.
Epistolary Genre
Riccoldo’s letters can be classified as a part of the medieval epistolary genre, a

genre which until lately has been relatively understudied.75 Despite a spate of
publications in the last few decades focusing on the letter-writing of medieval
and early modern women,76 there is still scant scholarship on the kind of let-
ter exemplified by Epistolae. Since Riccoldo’s letters are directed to divine and
deceased beings rather than to living persons, they could be characterized as a
type of imaginary letter.77 Riccoldo’s letters are also unusual for being addressed to
74
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Contra legem Sarracenorum, ed. by Mérigoux, prologue,
pp. 62–63.
75
According to Constable, Letters and Letter Collections. Before Constable, there was the
short article by Leclercq, ‘Le Genre épistolaire au Moyen Âge’. Since Constable, major studies
on the medieval epistolary genre include Murphy, ‘Ars dictaminis: The Art of Letter-Writing’;
Camargo, Ars dictaminis, Ars dictandi; and Letter-Writing Manuals and Instruction from
Antiquity to the Present, ed. by Poster and Mitchell.
76
Examples include Writing the Female Voice, ed. by Goldsmith; Dear Sister: Medieval
Women and the Epistolary Genre, ed. by Cherewatuk and Wiethaus; and Ray, Writing Gender in
Women’s Letter Collections.
77
Doty, ‘The Classification of Epistolary Literature’.
Beyond Polemic 37
heaven rather than the other way around; they are thus different from ‘letters from
heaven’ (Himmelsbriefe) which became popular during the early modern period.
Despite these unique elements, the Epistolae exhibit many features of the
typical medieval letter, which was considered a form of rhetoric. Riccoldo gener-
ally follows the standard five-part formula dictated by the ars dictaminis (rules
of letter composition): the salutatio, a greeting ‘consistent with social rank’; the
exordium or benevolentiae captatio, ‘the securing of good will’; the narratio, ‘an
orderly account of the matter under discussion’; the petitio, a specific request; and
the conclusio, a brief repetition of the narratio meant to ‘impress the recipient’s
memory’.78 All five of Riccoldo’s letters begin with a salutation directed to specific
recipients. For example, the first line of Letter Four reads:
Venerabili in Christo patri fratri Nicolao ordinis fratrum predicatorum, patri-
arche Iherosolimitano, et aliis fratribus qui mortui sunt in captione Accon, frater
Ricoldus eiusdem ordinis afflictus et miser peregrinus in partibus orientis pro fide
Christi predicanda se ipsum cum lacrimis et merore
(To the venerable Father in Christ, Friar Nicholas of the Order of Friars Preacher
and Patriarch of Jerusalem, and to the other friars who were killed when Acre was
captured. Friar Riccoldo of the same order, a pilgrim afflicted and miserable in
the eastern regions to preach the faith of Christ, presents himself with tears and
lamentation.)79
Letter Three is initially addressed ‘ad totam ecclesiam triumphantem et celestem

curiam’ (to the entire church triumphant and to the celestial curia),80 but the body
consists of several mini-letters addressed individually to nearly thirty heavenly
residents, including the angels, Moses, the patriarchs, Mary, Jesus, the evangelists,
the holy virgins, the anchorite fathers, Augustine, Jerome, Dominic, and Francis.
Within each mini-letter is a brief salutation and a repetition of the very same
narratio (Christians are suffering in the East) and petitio (help the Christians
defeat the Saracens). Perhaps Riccoldo was unaware that repetition is one of the
worst vices according to the ars dictaminis, but either he was too desperate to be
overly concerned with the rules of letter-writing, or he was purposely breaking
the rules for rhetorical emphasis.81
78
The five parts of a letter are derived from the anonymous Rationes dictandi, c. 1135, and
explained in Murphy, ‘Ars dictaminis: The Art of Letter-Writing’, pp. 220–23.
79
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, 4, p. 289.
80
81
Camargo, Ars dictaminis, Ars dictandi, p. 24, notes that ‘excessive repetition’ along with
38 Chapter 2
In many places, Riccoldo’s exordium includes statements so brash that they

have the potential to offend his audience rather than to secure their good will: ‘O
patroni nostri, non potestis vos iuvare christianos contra Machometum, an non
vultis? Certe credo, quod potestis et non vultis. Numquid et verum est, quod sitis
facti Sarraceni?’ (O patron saints, are you unable to help the Christians against
Mahomet, or are you unwilling? I truly believe that you are able but unwilling.
Can it be true that you have become Saracens?).82 Riccoldo seems to be aware that
these questions are on the borderline of theological acceptability, so whenever he
believes he has said something potentially offensive, he reiterates his lowly status
and desperation in the face of dire circumstances. For example, lest he offend
God almighty, Riccoldo includes the following disclaimer:
Tu scis quia non animo reprehendendi te, que loquor, exprimo, sed ex mea impa-
ciencia occasionem sumo loquendi tecum, ut et me instruas, qui michi magis es
intimus quam ego michi. Nec tempto, Domine, penetrare altitudinem tuam, quia
nullatenus comparo ei intellectum meum. Set desidero aliquantulum intelligere
misericordiam et veritatem tuam quam credit et amat cor meum
(You know that I do not wish to blame you with what I am saying. Rather, out
of my impatience I am taking the opportunity to speak with you so that you will
instruct me — you who are closer to me than I am to myself. O Lord, I am not try-
ing to penetrate your loftiness, because in no way can I compare my understanding
to it. But I desire to understand, if only a little, your mercy and truth, which my
heart believes in and loves.)83
Despite the great possibility for offence, Riccoldo retains this and many other near-
blasphemous statements in his letters. His questions are all the more surprising
when one considers the fact that ‘medieval letters were meant to be heard and
not merely seen’.84 Read silently they would have been shocking enough, but read
aloud, how much more so? It is possible that Riccoldo’s statements did not reflect
genuine feelings at all, but rather are rhetorical devices meant to underscore in a
visceral manner what he considered to be the truly scandalous nature of Islam’s
recent victories over Christianity.
excessive alliteration and excessive hiatus were among the vitia of letter-writing, according to
medieval letter-writing manuals.
82
83
84
Camargo, ‘Where’s the Brief ?’, p. 4.
Beyond Polemic 39
Another explanation for Riccoldo’s audacity might relate to the unusual iden-
tity of his recipients: the divine and the dead. But who were his intended listen-
ers, truly? His letters seem to be of the rare type Leclercq calls ‘l’epître fictive’,
which were never sent to anyone in particular but were meant for a broad audi-
ence.85 But if Riccoldo intended his letters to be public, which public did he have
in mind? Certainly not the church community at large; the theology in his letters
was too questionable. Perhaps he was addressing his fellow friars? At one point he
mentions writing real letters to the Master General of his order, but claims that he
never received an answer: ‘Magistro etiam qui me misit nescio quid accidit quia
de multis et lacrimosis litteris quas ei pro succursu transmisi nec cedulam aliquam
responsionis accepi’ (I do not know what happened to the master who sent me,
because I have not received a single scrap of response to the numerous tearful let-
ters I sent him requesting help).86 Perhaps the Epistolae were entirely private, and
Riccoldo was writing only for himself. After all, in Letter One he mentions that he
had been alone in Baghdad for quite some time: ‘Relictus sum solus in Baldacto
a sociis in profundis partibus orientis et de occidente a pluribus annis aliqua nova
non habeo de fratribus meis sive de ordine’ (I have been left alone by my compan-
ions in Baghdad in the depths of the East, and for many years I have had no news
from the West about my brothers or my Order).87 Where had the other friars
who had greeted him upon his arrival to Baghdad gone? Was Riccoldo the only
remaining Dominican in Baghdad? In any case, his letters probably never reached
a wide audience; today just a single manuscript remains.
Even though ‘personal expression’ and ‘unique voice’ were ‘antithetical to the
goals of most medieval letter writers’,88 it is possible that Riccoldo selected the
epistolary genre over others due to its ‘unusual flexibility in regard to authors,
topics, and audiences’.89 Like the medieval women authors who used letters
to ‘transcend not only genre but educational barriers’, perhaps the friar felt he
needed to transcend the normal modes of theological discourse in order to
respond adequately to catastrophe.90 Extraordinary times call for an extraordinary
theological genre, and the epistolary seems to have sufficed in this case.
85
Leclercq, ‘Le Genre épistolaire au Moyen Âge’, p. 66.
86
87
88
Camargo, ‘Where’s the Brief ?’, p. 8.
89
Cherewatuk and Wiethaus, ‘Introduction: Women Writing Letters in the Middle Ages’, p. 3.
90
Cherewatuk and Wiethaus, ‘Introduction: Women Writing Letters in the Middle Ages’, p. 3.
40 Chapter 2
Texts and Translations

Seven manuscripts of the Latin version of Liber peregrinationis exist today,91 the
oldest of which resides at the Berlin Staatsbibliothek. This manuscript appears to
have been transcribed by the same copyist who produced the joint Ad nationes-
Contra legem manuscript in Florence, and it too includes marginal notes by
Riccoldo.92 There is also a medieval French translation of the Liber by Jean Lelong
d’Ypres; six manuscripts are extant, including a famous early fifteenth-century
copy, which is beautifully illustrated (BnF, MS fr. 2810). The Liber was also
translated into Italian at some point during the fourteenth century; one complete
manuscript and two fragments are extant.93
Where does Liber peregrinationis fit in the Riccoldian chronology? Based
on content alone, it seems most likely that the Liber was written before Contra
legem, since Contra legem’s anti-Islamic argument is an elaboration of a more
rudimentary one found in the Liber. Indeed, given the embryonic nature of the
Liber’s polemic, its numerous anecdotes and first-hand descriptions and frequent
use of the first person, it is possible that Riccoldo took notes for, and perhaps
even wrote parts of, the Liber while he was still in Baghdad and completed the
text upon his return to Florence.94 The Berlin manuscript of the Liber includes a
reference to Contra legem, which at first might suggest that Contra legem is older,95
but unlike the reference to Contra legem in Ad nationes, which is integrated into
91
The seven manuscripts, as listed in Riccold de Monte Croce, ed. by Kappler, pp. 22–24, are
Berlin Staatsbibliothek, MS Lat. 4° 466; Città della Vaticana, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana,
MS Barberini lat. 2687; Torino, Biblioteca Nazionale, MS H.ii; Wölfenbuttel, Herzog August
Wolfenbüttel Bibliothek, MS Weissenburg 40, fols 73v–95r, paper; Wölfenbuttel, Herzog
August Wolfenbüttel Bibliothek, MS Weissenburg 41, fols 160v–179r; Paris, Bibliothèque
nationale de France, MS fonds latin 3343, fols 80v–85v; Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France,
MS fonds latin 6225, fols 154r–161v.
92
Berlin, Staatsbibl., MS Lat. 4o 466 served as the basis for René Kappler’s 1997 critical
Latin edition, which also includes a French translation; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregri-
nationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler. There is also an Italian translation: Riccoldo da Montecroce,
Libro della peregrinazione, trans. by Cappi.
93
Riccold de Monte Croce, ed. by Kappler, pp. 28–29.
94
Riccold de Monte Croce, ed. by Kappler, p. 10; Mérigoux, ‘L’ouvrage d’un frère prêcheur’,
pp. 18–19; and Panella, ‘Presentazione’, pp. xxxviii–xxxix, also place the Liber earlier in the
chronology for similar reasons.
95
‘Alia suptilia requires in alio opere nostro quod contra Maccomettum et alcoranum
composui’ (For additional details, see the other book I have written against Mahomet and the
Qur’an); Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 190.
Beyond Polemic 41
the text, the Liber’s reference is marginal and in the author’s own hand. It has
been suggested that Riccoldo added this note later, after he had completed Contra
legem, in an attempt to update the Liber.96
As for the Epistolae, a single manuscript is extant today at the Biblioteca
Apostolica Vaticana, but it is in such poor condition that consultation is rarely
permitted. It is not certain when and where the letters were composed, despite
the fact that four of them end with the declaration ‘data in Oriente’, and the fifth
with ‘scripta in Oriente’. The most recent critical edition of the Latin text remains
Röhricht’s of 1884, although a 1989 article by Emilio Panella corrects some of
Röhricht’s readings. The letters were translated into French in 1997 and into
Italian in 2005.97
Interestingly, two relatively unusual elements of Riccoldo’s Epistolae turn up
a century and a half later in De pace fidei, a book written by Nicholas of Cusa,
one of Riccoldo’s later admirers. First, both Epistolae and De pace fidei share a
similar circumstance: a recent, definitive Muslim victory over a Christian capital
which compels the authors to put pen to page (Nicholas writes in the wake of
the fall of Constantinople in 1453). And second, both authors look to heaven
for a solution to the crisis: Riccoldo writes letters to God and the celestial court
begging for help, while Nicholas envisions a heavenly interreligious dialogue with
God presiding.98 While it is unknown whether Nicholas ever read the Epistolae,
he was certainly familiar with Riccoldo’s writings, for not only does Nicholas
explicitly mention Contra legem in the prologue of Cribratio alkorani, but he even
states that of all the manuscripts he has studied regarding Islam, Riccoldo’s was
96
Panella, ‘Presentazione’, p. xxxix.
97
Translation into French by René Kappler: Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis,
ed. and trans. by Kappler; translation into Italian by Davide Cappi: Riccoldo da Montecroce,
Libro della peregrinazione, trans. by Cappi.
98
‘There was a certain man who, having formerly seen the sites in the regions of Constantinople,
was inflamed with zeal for God as a result of those deeds that were reported to have been perpe-
trated at Constantinople most recently and most cruelly by the King of the Turks. Consequently,
with many groanings he beseeched the Creator of all, because of His kindness, to restrain the per-
secution that was raging more fiercely than usual on account of the difference of rite between the
[two] religions. It came to pass that after a number of days — perhaps because of his prolonged,
incessant meditation — a vision was shown to this same zealous man. […] For he had been caught
up to an intellectual height where, as it were, in the presence of those who have departed from life
a hearing on this matter — [a hearing] in the council of the loftiest beings and under the presid-
ing direction of the Almighty — was being held’; Nicholas of Cusa, De pace fidei, ed. and trans. by
Hopkins, prologue, p. 33. For more on the parallels between Riccoldo and Nicholas, see George-
Tvrtković, ‘After the Fall: Riccoldo da Montecroce and Nicholas of Cusa on Religious Diversity’.
42 Chapter 2
‘the most pleasing’. Cusa eventually added a copy of Contra legem to his personal
library at Kues; the heavily annotated manuscript remains there to this day.99
* * *
Riccoldo’s four major writings ostensibly have different goals — to lament
(Epistolae), to describe (Liber), to dispute (Contra legem), to train (Ad nationes).
Yet through these different genres, the friar seems to have been working on the
very same question: what is Islam according to Christianity? Despite using literary
forms as diverse as letters, an itinerary, a polemic, and a handbook, Riccoldo seems
to be engaged in a single enterprise: constructing his own ‘theology of Islam’
based in part on his unique personal experiences of Muslims. In the following
three chapters, we turn to a closer examination of the distinctive elements of this
theology of Islam: Riccoldo’s complimentary descriptions of Muslim praxis, his
unabashed love of the Arabic language, his questioning of salvation history, and
the wonder, doubt, and dissonance which characterize his encounter with Islam
from beginning to end.
99
Biechler, ‘Three Manuscripts on Islam’.
Chapter 3
Muslim Works of Perfection*
T
he Second Vatican Council document Nostra Aetate of 1965 is significant
for offering the first positive theology of Islam at the conciliar level. Not
only does it highlight elements of Islamic theology which the Catholic
church affirms (such as belief in one God, judgement day, and so forth), but it
also singles out three Muslim practices — prayer, fasting, and almsgiving — as
particularly laudable.1 By including praxis in its theological appraisal of Islam,
Nostra Aetate continues a long tradition in the church which for centuries
acknowledged the existence of pious practices within Islam while condemning
much of its theology. This is even the case with medieval polemicists who argued
for the utter depravity of Islam. In fact, most medieval Latin Christians who
wrote about Islam — even those who had never actually observed Muslim praxis
— still mention prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
But why would Christians trying to construct an argument against Islam
mention any Muslim practice with the potential to be viewed positively by their
readers? One explanation is that ‘qualified praise of Muslim piety, sometimes
misread by modern scholars as “relative tolerance” is in fact a common topos’
intended not to compliment Muslims but to criticize lax Christians.2 This is
* An earlier version of a portion of this chapter was presented in March 2010 at a confer-
ence at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and published as George-Tvrtković, ‘Riccoldo
da Montecroce on bismillah and salawat’.
1
Vatican II, Nostra Aetate, section 3.
2
Tolan, ‘Looking East before 1453’, p. 14.
44 Chapter 3
largely true. Most medieval Christians did not highlight Muslim virtues in
order to praise the religion of Islam. Rather, they had other motivations: not
only to admonish wayward Christians, but also to demonstrate Muhammad’s
duplicity, or to show the deficiency of Muslim rituals in comparison to Christian
sacraments. Medieval Christians could not ignore the omnipresence of good
works in Islam, so they did mention them, but in such a way as to turn them into
fodder for argument.
But some medieval Christian accounts of Muslim praxis are more difficult to
explain, and Riccoldo’s is a case in point. As already mentioned in Chapter Two,
the largely negative picture of Islam that the friar paints in Contra legem is mostly
consonant with that of his contemporaries.3 Yet the Riccoldian corpus includes
not only the standard polemic against Islam, but also ambivalence and sometimes
even praise. Instances of all three can be found in Liber peregrinationis, where
Riccoldo juxtaposes a six-point condemnation of the Qur’an with an accurate
and complimentary description of what he calls seven Muslim ‘opera perfectionis’
(works of perfection).
How can this seeming contradiction be explained? Riccoldo himself saw the
inconsistency and attempted to rectify it by repeating the following disclaimer
twice along with his positive account of Muslim praxis: ‘Non supradicta narraui-
mus tam ad commendationem Sarracenorum quam ad confusionem aliquorum
Christianorum’ (We have narrated the above not so much to praise the Saracens
as to shame certain Christians).4 Even so, Riccoldo’s descriptions are so original,
accurate, and complimentary as to make readers doubt his caveat. Perhaps he
3
By contemporaries, I mean Latin theologians writing significant works about Islam during
what is called by Southern, Western Views of Islam in the Middle Ages, the ‘century of reason and
hope’, c. 1150 to 1300, beginning with Peter the Venerable, whose commissioning of the first
Latin translation of the Qur’an inaugurated an era in which new and relatively accurate infor-
mation about Islam entered Europe, and including the likes of Petrus Alfonsi, Alain de Lille,
Ramon Martí, Roger Bacon, William of Tripoli, and Ramon Llull. Scholars have traditionally
viewed Riccoldo as marking the end of this ‘hopeful’ era, since for two centuries after him, most
Latin Christians (and many Greeks as well) merely repeated the information which originated
from 1150 to 1300. However, a recent article by Mossman, ‘The Western Understanding of
Islamic Theology’, contends that Riccoldo was not the end of an era, but that other late medi-
eval figures had unique things to say about Islam. Mossman’s article examines the writings of
two other late medieval mendicants on Islam, the German Franciscan Marquard von Lindau
(d. 1392) and the Dominican Robert Holcot (d. c. 1349), along with Riccoldo.
4
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 172. Riccoldo
repeats the same proviso twice, once before and once after his description of the works of
perfection.
Muslim Works of Perfection 45
really did intend to shame his fellow Christians into good behaviour. Or perhaps
he was worried that without such a proviso, his readers would dismiss everything
he had to say. He may even have been worried that some Christians would be so
impressed with Muslim piety that they would convert to Islam, though this was
probably less a problem in fourteenth-century Italy than twelfth-century Spain.5
His true motivations remain unclear.
In any case, Riccoldo allowed his positive account of Muslim praxis to stand,
and it is worthy of study for three reasons. First, it contains considerable originality,
in that some of the Muslim customs Riccoldo describes were mentioned by few
if any other medieval Latins, and he includes some unique details which could
have been gained only through personal observation. Second, Riccoldo discusses
quintessentially Muslim practices, such as the basmala, which have no clear
counterpart in Christianity. This gives his account an air of authenticity, in that
it seems in places to present Islam on its own terms — at least as much as was
possible for a thirteenth-century Dominican missionary whose stated goal was
to ‘nullify’ Islam.6 And third, Riccoldo’s account is positive, so much so that he
declares some Muslim practices to be comparable to Christian practices, and
in one instance, even superior. These three aspects of Riccoldo’s account are
significant because they suggest he was not simply recycling the same data as his
confreres in order to further the same anti-Islamic arguments. Rather, it seems
that Riccoldo was offering, though probably unintentionally and certainly only
in this short section of Liber peregrinationis, a relatively accurate and sympathetic
view of lived Islam to his Christian audience.
Before describing Riccoldo’s unusual account, the typical medieval Christian
view of Muslim praxis must first be outlined. What follows is not intended to be
exhaustive, but only to introduce very broadly the overall context out of which
the friar wrote. Without an awareness of this context, the unique aspects of
Riccoldo’s description of Muslim praxis cannot be fully appreciated.
5
Peter the Venerable was most probably referring to Spain (which he visited in 1142–43)
when he said that one of the reasons he wrote against Islam was to dissuade Christians attracted
to Islam from converting. See the prologue of Peter the Venerable’s Summa totius haeresis
Saracenorum; Latin text and selected English translations in Peter the Venerable, Peter the
Venerable and Islam, ed. by Kritzeck (hereafter cited as Peter the Venerable, Summa totius haer-
esis Saracenorum, ed. and trans. by Kritzeck; see pp. 204–11 for the Latin text; English transla-
tions are integrated throughout the volume), Latin text and German translation in Peter the
Venerable, Summa totius haeresis Saracenorum, ed. by Glei.
6
‘Nos igitur cum desideraremus euacuare perfidiam Maccometti’; Riccoldo da Montecroce,
Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 156.
46 Chapter 3
Typical Medieval Christian Accounts of Muslim Praxis

It has been suggested that ‘authors who were interested in Islamic religious practice
were mostly those who, either directly or indirectly, had been in touch with Islam
at some point in their lives’.7 But the textual evidence suggests otherwise, since
most medieval Latin Christians writing about Islam — even those with little or
no direct experience of Muslims — mention prayer, fasting, almsgiving, ablution,
and circumcision. Christians never denied the existence of these exemplary
practices in Islam, even those writing in a polemical context. Instead, they tried to
demonstrate that these good works — no matter how ostensibly laudable — in
fact proved the Christian case against Islam.
However, some authors did manage to discuss Muslim praxis with some
degree of objectivity. This is true of the Iberian Petrus Alfonsi, whose Dialogi
contra Iudaeos, primarily an argument against Judaism, includes a whole chapter
on Islam. Alfonsi lists all five pillars, and his account is relatively accurate.8 For
example, he rightly notes that pregnant women, travellers, and the ill can post-
pone the Ramadan fast, and that some of the hajj rituals include circumambulat-
ing the black stone of the Ka’ba and throwing stones at the devil. Writing a few
decades after Alfonsi, the Cluniac abbot Peter the Venerable (d. 1156), whose
Summa totius sectam Saracenorum was intended to dispel ignorance about Islam
among his fellow monks, concedes that the religion ‘urges zeal for almsgiving and
certain works of mercy and praises prayer’.9 However, Peter is quick to point out
that Muslim good works are merely a ruse, promoted by Muhammad so that he
‘might not appear disgraceful in everything’ and in so doing win more converts.10
Others are even more critical. In some cases, this criticism results from viewing
Muslim practices as deficient Christian sacraments. For example, many theologi-
ans highlight wudu (the ritual washing required before prayer) because they saw
its similarities to baptism. In his Contra paganos, Alain de Lille (d. 1202/03) dis-
cusses wudu at length, and ultimately declares it to be insufficient for the remis-
sion of sins and thus inferior to baptism.11 Writing a few centuries later, Nicholas
7
8
Alfonsi, Dialogi contra Iudaeos, ed. by Mieth, v. The five pillars of Islam are: shahada
(affirming the statement ‘There is no God but God and Muhammad is his messenger’);
salat (prayer five times a day); sawm (fasting during Ramadan); zakat (almsgiving); and hajj
(pilgrimage to Mecca during the last month of the Islamic year).
9
Peter the Venerable, Summa totius haeresis Saracenorum, ed. and trans. by Kritzeck, p. 137.
10
Peter the Venerable, Summa totius haeresis Saracenorum, ed. and trans. by Kritzeck, p. 137.
11
Alain de Lille, Contra paganos, ed. by d’Alverny, chaps 9–10, pp. 341–43.
of Cusa (d. 1464) also saw parallels between wudu and baptism; however, unlike
Alain, who deemed wudu unsatisfactory, Cusa actually suggests that Muslim (and
Jewish) ‘washings’ are similar to Christian baptism,12 claiming that this practice is
just one example of how the ‘same one religion’ underlies different rites.13
Muslim practices that Christians could not understand were simply declared
to be irrational. For example, Petrus Alfonsi states that the hajj ritual which
requires pilgrims to throw stones at the devil ‘seems irrational since demons
don’t have bodies’.14 Riccoldo likewise labels as irrational another aspect of wudu:
‘while it is rational to wash, how much more unsatisfactory and irrational is it to
be smeared with dust’.15 Although he elsewhere states the reasons behind certain
Muslim rituals, in this case he does not seem to know why washing with sand
might be desirable.16 Instead, he immediately jumps to the conclusion that the
practice is irrational.
One might wonder why the vast majority of medieval Latins limited their
discussion of Muslim practices to the following short list: prayer, fasting,
almsgiving, wudu, circumcision, and abstinence from pork and wine. What
about the many other Muslim rituals? A few reasons may be suggested. First of
all, with the exception of the Iberians, most Europeans had no direct experience
of Muslims, and were therefore forced to rely exclusively on data found in the
same few sources, as was noted earlier.17 It is only in the thirteenth century that
12
‘For baptism is nothing other than a confession of that faith [in Christ] by means of
a sacramental sign […]. Baptismal washings occur, for religious devotion, both among the
Hebrews and among the Arabs; [accordingly] it will not be difficult for them to accept for their
profession of faith the washing instituted by Christ’; Nicholas of Cusa, De pace fidei, ed. and
trans. by Hopkins, p. 67.
13
‘We all know there is only one religion in a variety of rites’; Nicholas of Cusa, De pace
fidei, ed. and trans. by Hopkins, p. 35. Actually, by pointing out the similarities between the
rites of different religions, it would seem that Nicholas is also saying that in some cases the same
religion can also be presupposed due to ritual similarity, not only ritual diversity.
14
Alfonsi, Dialogi contra Iudaeos, ed. by Mieth, v.
15
‘Quin potius quanto lotio est rationabilis, tanto puluerizatio et fedatio est inconueniens
et irrationabilis’; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Contra legem Sarracenorum, ed. by Mérigoux,
chap. 8, p. 95.
16
Where water is not available, Muslims are permitted to perform wudu using sand
instead; this practice is called tayammum.
17
Riccoldo himself would eventually be included on the short list of medieval Latin sources
on Islam, being cited and translated well into the sixteenth century. For more on the Iberian
context, see Burman, Religious Polemic and the Intellectual History of the Mozarabs. Medieval
Iberians who wrote knowledgeably about Islamic praxis based on their own observations of
48 Chapter 3
we begin to see significant Latin Christian writing based on their experience in

the Middle East, and much of this comes from mendicants living in the field.
The second reason for the short list of practices is that Christians rarely discussed
Muslim praxis for its own sake, but only to further their own arguments against
Islam. Therefore, there was no need to include the full spectrum of Muslim
religious practices or to describe accurately and completely the details of
any particular ritual, since the goal was not to present Islam qua Islam, but to
demonstrate its falsity using descriptions of practices that Muslims might not
recognize as their own, and rationale that would convince only Christians.
Riccoldo’s ‘Works of Perfection’

This cursory glance at what other medieval Latin Christians were writing
about Muslim praxis is intended to set into relief Riccoldo’s account in Liber
peregrinationis. It goes without saying that the Liber as a whole is not sympathetic
towards Islam; indeed, it includes in embryonic form many of the very same
anti-Islamic arguments found in Riccoldo’s later and more widely read polemic
Contra legem Sarracenorum. But what makes the Liber’s discussion of Islam
noteworthy is that a section decrying the Qur’an as ‘morally lax, confusing,
obscure, mendacious, irrational, and violent’ is immediately preceded by a
lengthy, praise-filled description of seven Muslim practices which Riccoldo dubs
‘opera perfectionis’, or ‘works of perfection’.
Riccoldo’s account is significant for three reasons. First, it is original. Aside
from prayer and almsgiving — which were almost always mentioned by medieval
Latins — Riccoldo’s list includes five Islamic practices less frequently discussed
by Christians, namely: devotion to study, hospitality, reverence for the name of
God, concord among the universal Muslim community, and solemn demeanour.
Not only is Riccoldo’s list of Islamic works fairly original, but so are some of the
details he includes. His descriptions are peppered with minutiae which seem
unlikely to have been gleaned from books alone. Rather, many of the details
are so precise that they seem to be the result of direct personal observation. For
that praxis include Petrus Alfonsi, Ramon Martí, and Ramon Llull. One non-Iberian European
whose descriptions of praxis are as original as Riccoldo’s are those of William of Tripoli, whose
observations can be found in his Notitia, as well as in a text formerly attributed to him, De statu
sarracenorum, written by an anonymous author now termed ‘Pseudo-William of Tripoli’. See
both Latin texts and a German translation in William of Tripoli, Notitia de Machometo, De statu
Sarracenorum, ed. and trans. by Engels. On the theology of William of Tripoli, see O’Meara, ‘The
Theology and Times of William of Tripoli’.
example, while many other Christians note that Muslims pray five times a day or
that prayer is preceded by ablutions (both are facts which can be found in the
Qur’an),18 Riccoldo describes in detail the facial expressions and bodily postures
of Muslims he has actually seen praying.
Second, Riccoldo discusses quintessentially Muslim practices with no clear
counterpart in Christianity such as the basmala, which expresses the particular
devotion Muslims have to the name of God. In so doing, Riccoldo succeeds in
portraying an aspect of Islam which Muslims themselves would deem significant,
rather than affirming only those practices shared by Christians (such as prayer
and almsgiving).
And third, Riccoldo describes Muslim good works not only with relative
accuracy, but also with a fair amount of praise. Nearly one third of Liber
peregrinationis’s section on the Saracens is devoted to a systematic, detailed, and
positive description of the so-called works of perfection.19 This is noteworthy in
and of itself, since most medieval accounts of Muslim good works are brief and
critical, and attempt to explain them away.20 Riccoldo’s praise, on the other hand,
is such that not only does he deem Muslim practices like hospitality and devotion
to study comparable to that of Christians, but in the case of forgiveness, he even
asserts that Muslims are superior.
Unlike his confreres, Riccoldo does not simply rehash the very same details
in order to make the very same arguments. Rather, he actually provides some
original data about Islam qua Islam. This makes his account relatively accurate
and useful — not as fodder for argument, but as practical information meant
to increase the concrete knowledge of his fellow Dominicans. Indeed, Riccoldo
states in the prologue that the very reason he wrote Liber peregrinationis was to
provide an overview of Middle Eastern religions and cultures in order to assist
18
The requirement of ablution before prayer can be found in Suras 4. 43 and 5. 6; prayer
five times a day is discussed in Suras 11. 114; 17. 78; 30. 17–18.
19
Twenty-two pages of the Latin edition of Liber peregrinationis in Riccoldo da
Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler are devoted to the Saracens. Of
these, seven describe the works of perfection, thirteen discuss how the Qur’an is ‘morally lax,
confusing, obscure, mendacious, irrational, and violent’, and the remaining two describe the city
of Baghdad in general.
20
One notable exception is William of Tripoli’s Notitia de Machometo [Data on Mahomet],
which includes a long description of prayer and other devotional practices in the mosque, with
several short compliments interspersed throughout. At the end of this passage William declares
that Muslims ‘please God and man’, with their prayer, but only ‘if they have true faith’ (William
of Tripoli, Notitia de Machometo, ed. and trans. by Engels, chap. 15, p. 256).
50 Chapter 3
missionaries in their work.21 Of course, the medieval Dominicans did not use this
information to increase their respect for Islam as a religion, but to prove it false
and to convert Muslims to Christianity.
Despite Riccoldo’s repeated claim that he was praising Muslim works only
to shame Christians, his discussion of Islamic praxis in this section of Liber
peregrinationis remains remarkable given its originality, relatively positive tone,
and striking placement immediately before a condemnation of the Qur’an — a
condemnation no less passionate than his praise. Let us now turn to Riccoldo’s
works of perfection, presented in the order in which he discusses them.
Devotion to Study
Riccoldo notes that Saracens come from all over the Islamic world to study in
Baghdad, where the greatest schools,22 monasteries, and masters can be found.
Riccoldo goes on to explicitly equate Muslim and Christian houses of study,
observing that Baghdadi institutions ‘Habent autem in Baldacco plura loca
soli studio et contemplationi deputata ad modum magnorum monasteriorum
nostrorum’ (are devoted solely to study and contemplation in the manner of our
great monasteries).23 Riccoldo’s interest in Islamic institutions of higher learning
is not surprising, given his own scholarly background (which he mentions in
the prologue of Liber peregrinationis) and the prominent place scholarship held
within the Dominican Order, which provided a dispensation from communal
prayer for reasons of study.
Riccoldo is also impressed by the simplicity of Muslim students who he sees
living ‘in the greatest voluntary poverty’. This austere lifestyle is promoted by
the Baghdadi institutions themselves, for it is they who provide every foreign
21
22
‘Maxima studia’ and ‘generalia studia’. It is significant that Riccoldo uses the term studia
generalia here, for it suggests that he saw a direct parallel between Christian studia generalia in
Paris and elsewhere, and parallel Muslim institutions in Baghdad such as the Nizamiyya and
Mustansiriyya (both of which he mentions by name in Riccoldo da Montecroce, Contra legem
Sarracenorum, ed. by Mérigoux, chap. 13, p. 121). Michele Mulchahey notes, ‘To the minds of
most thirteenth-century men, a studium generale was an established school — a studium — with a
reputation such that it drew students from afar, giving it a “general” enrollment’; Mulchahey, ‘First
the Bow is Bent in Study’, p. 360. For more on the distinction between medieval universities and
studia generalia, see Universities and Schooling in Medieval Society, ed. by Courtenay and Mieth.
23
Emphasis is mine. Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by
Kappler, p. 158.
student with only the most basic of needs: ‘a cell, bread, and water’.24 It would
not be unexpected for Riccoldo, a Dominican who has taken a vow of poverty,
to have appreciated the ascetic dimensions of a Muslim scholar’s life. And
indeed, according to Riccoldo’s description, the asceticism required of Baghdadi
scholars and Dominican friars seems quite similar; for example, the Dominican
Constitutiones antiquae states that travelling preachers were allowed nothing but
the clothes on their back, and essentials such as books.25
After describing the voluntary poverty of Baghdad’s students, Riccoldo moves
to classroom etiquette. He observes the way students and masters alike take off
their shoes before entering the lecture hall to study the Qur’an. A former teacher
himself, Riccoldo seems to admire especially the classroom management skills of
the professors he has observed, remarking that they are able to lead discussions
marked by ‘great modesty and gentleness’.26
Riccoldo’s description of Muslim scholarship is not simply a generic account
of Islamic schools, teachers, and students. Rather, it explicitly acknowledges
several concrete similarities between the way Muslims and Christians approach
study. To Riccoldo, Baghdad resembled Paris27 as a centre of international theo
logical learning,28 its professors were comparable to the Parisian masters (he calls
them magistri), and the voluntary poverty of its students looked enough like
the voluntary poverty of mendicant scholars for him to highlight it here. And
the fact that Riccoldo notices that Muslim students and teachers remove their
shoes before entering a classroom suggests his recognition that study might be as
sacred an act for Muslims as it was for the Dominicans, who considered study a
form of prayer.29
24
‘Et uenientibus prouidetur in communi de cella et de pane et aqua, et hiis contenti
insistunt contemplationi et studio in maxima et uolontaria paupertate’; Riccoldo da Montecroce,
25
Constitutiones antiquae, ed. by Denifle, ii. 31. Dominican poverty was thus different from
Franciscan poverty, since Dominic allowed personal ownership of books but Francis did not.
26
27
Thirteenth-century Paris was home not only to a university, but also to Saint-Jacques,
the Dominican Order’s oldest and most famous studium generale.
28
It was common practice among medieval Muslims, like medieval friars, to travel for
study purposes (talab al-‘ilm). See Euben, Journeys to the Other Shore; and Netton, Seek
Knowledge.
29
Study is listed as the eighth way of prayer in Dominic, Nine Ways of Prayer, ed. by
Tugwell, pp. 101–02.
52 Chapter 3
Prayer
Riccoldo begins this section by admitting that he was ‘stupefied’ by the Muslim
devotion to prayer.30 He has already used similar language of ‘stupefaction’ to
describe his surprise at the very existence of works of perfection among the
Saracens.31 In this section, he says that his amazement is the result of his own
personal observations of Muslims praying daily. He tells his readers that this
experience was gained while he lived with a caravan for three and a half months
in the deserts of Arabia and Persia.32 During this time he was able to observe how
Muslims prayed, and what he saw so convinced him of their great commitment to
prayer that he repeats the words devotio and sollicitudo several times within a few
sentences. Their commitment to their five daily prayers is so strong, he says, that
in all the months he observed the Muslim camel-drivers in the wilderness, ‘there
was never any danger’ which kept them from praying at the appointed times.33
Another sign of the Saracen devotion to prayer is the fact that their prayers
involve both words and movement. Riccoldo describes the various types of
comportment he has seen among Muslims while praying: the faces of some drain
of all colour, some swoon, while others dance, change their voice, or shake their
heads. Some seem to be in ecstasy, while some appear possessed by demons. 34
Riccoldo seems to be describing Sufi prayer practices here rather than the more
formalized five-times-daily salat. But even so, these unusual movements further
reinforce Riccoldo’s belief that Muslims are greatly devoted to prayer, since they
are willing to surrender their entire bodies so completely to the experience.
The remainder of Riccoldo’s discussion of prayer, fully half of the section, is
devoted to wudu. In so doing, he is in line with his fellow Christians, most of
whom were similarly fascinated with Islam’s pre-prayer ablutions. Riccoldo notes
30
‘Nam tanta est in eis sollicitudo in oratione et tanta deuotio quod stupui cum per expe-
rientiam et uidi et probaui’; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by
Kappler, p. 160.
31
‘Obstupuimus quomodo cum lege tante perfidie poterant opera magne perfectionis
inueniri’; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 158.
32
‘Nam et ego iui tribus mensibus et dimidio continue et fui cum camelariis sarracenis in
deserto Arabie et Persarum’; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by
Kappler, p. 160.
33
34
‘Aliqui eorum pristinum faciei colorem subito in pallorem mutant, et uidentur rapi et
aliqui cadunt et aliqui saltant et uocem uariant et caput demittunt, ut aliqui ex eis uidentur rapi et
aliqui arrepticii’; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 160.
that Muslims observe a ‘great bodily cleanliness’, achieved through formulaic

washings without which they will not pray. He then goes on to list which body
parts are washed, and in what order: first their private parts, then hands, face, and
lastly the soles of the feet.35 Riccoldo notes that washing before prayer is ‘observed
by all the sects’ and then offers specific details about Hanafi wudu, which he says
is ‘reputed to be more perfect than the others’.36 As proof of Hanafi fastidiousness,
Riccoldo says that if they touch a cat, dog, or donkey, they must wash in at least
five hundred thousand buckets of water; to accomplish this they usually bathe
in a river. They are so scrupulous, claims Riccoldo, that even after submerging
themselves in a river, they must place a finger in the anus and smell it to confirm
their cleanliness.37
By emphasizing outlandish gestures and the details of bodily ablution,
Riccoldo displays a concern with the physical aspects of prayer. He does not tell
us what Muslims say when they pray, nor does he discuss the various cycles of
formal prostrations (ra’ka) in the five daily prayers.38 He does not venture into
intentionality either.39 So even though Riccoldo does include a few unique details
regarding Sufi prayer postures and the particularities of Hanafi wudu, in the end
his description of Muslim prayer is nearly as superficial as those of confreres such
as Petrus Alfonsi, who likewise lists perfunctorily all the body parts washed during
ablution.40 Despite beginning the section with great praise for the Muslim devo-
tion to prayer, Riccoldo ends on a much more conventional note by highlighting
those aspects of Islamic prayer which might have seemed exotic to a Christian
35
‘Ut nullo modo audeant orare nisi prius lauent culum et ueretrum, postea manus, deinde
faciem, ad ultimum plantas pedum, et sic orant’; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis,
ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 160.
36
The Hanafi, along with the Shafii, Hanbali, and Maliki, comprise the four traditional
schools of Islamic jurisprudence.
37
‘Postquam totus fuerit lotus infigit digitum in anum et ponit ad nares, et si sentit
aliquid fetoris non est aptus ut oret, sed in flumen reuertitur’; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber
38
William of Tripoli does. In William of Tripoli, Notitia de Machometo, ed. and trans. by
Engels, chap. 15, p. 256, he mentions the adhan (call to prayer); that on Fridays, Muslims can
pray either at the mosque or wherever they are; that Muslims use prayer rugs; that ra’ka vary
from three to five depending on the time of day; and that they face Mecca when they pray.
39
Only William of Tripoli speculates about Muslim intentionality: ‘In so doing [praying],
amazingly [mirabiliter], I think they please God and men, if they have true faith’; William of
Tripoli, Notitia de Machometo, ed. and trans. by Engels, chap. 15, p. 258. Evidently, William was
as stupefied as Riccoldo was regarding Muslim prayer.
40
Alfonsi, Dialogi contra Iudaeos, ed. by Mieth, v.
54 Chapter 3
audience, such as Sufis who dance, swoon, and appear possessed, and Hanafi anxi-
ety about the cleanliness of one’s anus. Unfortunately, it is this part of Riccoldo’s
discussion of Muslim prayer, not his praise of their devotion or discipline, which
is noticed and further underscored by later authors and illustrators.41
Almsgiving
Riccoldo begins this section by telling his Christian audience that the Saracens
exhibit great charity towards the poor, since the Qur’an strictly requires tithing
(this is a reference to zakat, or almsgiving; two and a half per cent, not ten per
cent, is required).42 Riccoldo even describes where the money is stored once it
has been donated, and how it is distributed; for example, some of the money is
earmarked for the freeing of slaves throughout the world. Riccoldo then offers
an additional reason (besides the obvious) why Muslims are so keen to liberate
slaves: ‘Dicunt “tot redimo pro anima patris mei et tot pro anima matris mee”’
(they say, ‘I have redeemed these for the soul of my father and these for the soul
of my mother’).43 He adds that poor Muslims who cannot afford to free human
slaves are allowed to free caged birds for the same reason.44 This practice sounds
similar to the Catholic tradition of saying prayers or offering alms to free the
souls of loved ones in purgatory; perhaps Riccoldo saw a connection, though he
does not mention it.45
41
Quite literally underscored. For example, in one fourteenth-century manuscript of
Liber peregrionationis (Città della Vaticana, BAV, MS Barb. lat. 2687, fols 1r–12v), Riccoldo’s
entire section on wudu has been underlined by a later annotator. Also, an early fifteenth-century
illustrated manuscript of a French translation of Liber peregrinationis (BnF, MS fr. 2810)
includes a less-than-complimentary image of Muslims checking their anuses during wudu;
another image shows them dancing and swooning in a mosque. For a discussion of these and
other illustrations in this manuscript, see Bousquet-Labouérie, ‘Face à l’Islam, Ricold de Monte
Croce (1288) et son imagier (1405)’.
42
‘Habent enim in alcorano strictum mandatum quod dent decimam’; Riccoldo da
43
44
45
There are two key events during the Islamic judgement process which seem to resemble
the traditional Catholic notion of purgatory: the chastisement or ‘pressure’ (daght) of the grave,
which is a form of purification for those awaiting final judgement, and the crossing of the bridge
(sirat) over hell after judgement, over which the saved will pass easily, the damned will fall off
permanently, and a third category of people will fall off only temporarily. The Qur’an alludes to
Riccoldo’s description of Muslim charity also includes a section on kindness

to animals. He notes that the Saracens even provide for the nourishment of dogs
in their wills; when wills have no such provision, it is the job of certain people
to care for these dogs.46 Muslims also give bread ‘alms’ for river birds; Riccoldo
affirms that he has personally witnessed the regular feeding of birds (at the sound
of a bell) in the cities of Baghdad and Nineveh.47
The section ends with a description of the exemplary medical care provided to
the mentally ill. Riccoldo claims that ‘many go insane’ because of Baghdad’s great
heat.48 These people are treated with compassion by the city, which funds one
hundred per cent of their care: ‘Habent iuxta ciuitatem pulcerrimum locum pro
istis fatuis et prouidetur eis optime in communi de cibo et seruitoribus et optimo
medico, quibus omnibus soluitur a communi’ (There is the most beautiful place
near the city for the mentally ill. The state provides them with optimal care: food,
servants, and the best doctor. All is paid for by the community).49 Riccoldo does
not say whether he had personally visited this institution, but in any case it is
clear that its very existence impressed him as yet another concrete example of
how well Muslims care for the most vulnerable members of society.50
Reverence for the Name of God
This section begins with a description of the common Muslim practice of

basmala. The basmala, shorthand for the phrase bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim
(‘In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate’), is the very first line of
the time in the grave but offers no specifics; it is elaborated upon in the hadith literature. See
Smith and Haddad, The Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection, pp. 45–48.
46
47
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, pp. 162, 164.
48
‘In Baldacco ubi infatuantur multi propter maximum calorem’; Riccoldo da Montecroce,
49
50
Benjamin of Tudela, an Iberian Jew who visited Baghdad in the late twelfth century describes
what appears to be the same institution in similar terms: ‘He [the Caliph] built on the other side of
the river […] a hospital consisting of blocks of houses and hospices for the sick poor who come to
be healed. Here there are about sixty physicians’ stores which are provided from the Caliph’s house
with drugs and whatever else may be required. Every sick man who comes is maintained at the
Caliph’s expense and is medically treated. Here is a building which is called Dar-al-Maristan, where
they keep charge of the demented people who have become insane in the towns through the great
heat in the summer’; Benjamin of Tudela, The Itinerary, trans. by Adler and Asher, p. 98.
56 Chapter 3
the Qur’an, and can be found at the beginning of every Qur’anic sura except the
ninth. The basmala is arguably the most oft-recited phrase in Islam, since it is said
during all five daily prayers as well as at many other times: for example, before one
writes a letter, starts a speech, leaves on a trip, or begins some other significant
act. Riccoldo’s portrayal of this characteristically Muslim practice is both accurate
and sympathetic:
Maxime osseruant quod nichil notabile faciunt uel dicunt, uel scribunt quod non
incipiant a nomine Dei. Vnde in suis litteris omnibus quas sibi inuicem mittunt
reuerenter nomen Domini prius scribunt et ideo diligenter osseruant quod nullum
scriptum dilanient uel in terram prohiciant. Si autem in terra inueniunt aliquid de
carta scriptum reuerenter recolligunt et ponunt in loco alto in fixuris murorum ne
nomen Domini conculcetur.
(They take the greatest care in never doing, saying, or writing anything of impor-
tance without first beginning with the name of God. Also in all letters they send to
each other, they first write reverently the name of the Lord and for that reason they
diligently take care to avoid destroying or throwing away any writing. If they find a
piece of paper covered with writing, they reverently pick it up and place it up high
into an opening in the wall, lest the name of the Lord be trampled underfoot.)51
This section is quite complimentary; note Riccoldo’s repeated use of the words
reuerenter and diligenter and maxime osseruant to describe the way in which
Muslims perform this act. While Riccoldo does not use the Arabic term
basmala here, he is precise enough that there can be little doubt what practice
he is describing. He notes correctly the context in which the basmala is used
— before ‘doing, saying, or writing anything of importance’. While there is
almost no occasion when the basmala would not be appropriate, Riccoldo adds
an important qualifier here: he specifies that the basmala is to be used before
beginning anything notabile. This language mimics the requirement found
in a hadith which states that any important act which is not begun with the
bismala will be considered defective and spiritually incomplete. Riccoldo seems
to understand the Islamic reasoning behind this common phrase: to remind
Muslims that every deed requires the proper intention, and that it is meritorious
to remember God’s name at all times.
In the next half of the section, Riccoldo focuses specifically on the written
(rather than spoken) basmala, and transitions into an extended commentary
on the reverence Muslims have for the written word. He even offers a detailed
description of what appears to have been common practice: picking up scraps
51
of paper off the ground to avoid desecrating God’s name. This section demon-
strates Riccoldo’s recognition of the importance of writing as a form of religious
expression in Islam, and of the sacred nature and potency of written words, most
especially the name of God.52 Riccoldo goes on to emphasize the importance of
God’s name by moving to a description of the respect with which Muslims say the
name of God: ‘Quando autem occurrit nomen Domini uel legendo uel loquendo
nunquam esset ausus ipsum nominare solum sed semper cum certa laude scilicet
“Deus laudetur ipse” uel aliquid tale’ (When they come across the name of the
Lord while reading or speaking, they never say [the name] alone, but always add a
laudation like, ‘God who is praised’, or something like this).53
He then describes the consequences of not showing proper respect for the
name of God: ‘Si quis autem Sarracenus Deum uel aliquem de prophetis eius
blasfemaret nunquam eum uiuere paterentur’ (If a Saracen blasphemes God or
one of the prophets, he will never be allowed to live).54 The final details in the
section describe briefly mosque cleanliness and proper etiquette (posture) as
further physical reflections of Muslim reverence for the name of God.
The fact that Riccoldo includes reverence for the name of God in his list of
Muslim works of perfection is significant. Unlike the other practices he mentions
(such as prayer, almsgiving, and studiousness), which he recognizes and praises
in Islam in part because they are already familiar to him as a Christian, in this
section he highlights a practice which finds no easy counterpart in his own
religion and one which Muslims themselves consider important. Furthermore,
his description of basmala is accurate enough that it would probably ring true to a
Muslim audience. Since many medieval Christian descriptions of non-Christian
practices are nearly unrecognizable to the group being described, it is noteworthy
that Riccoldo bothered to describe the basmala so carefully and so well.
Finally, Riccoldo’s description of the basmala demonstrates that he had
a more than superficial understanding of Islamic theology. When listing the
Muslim works of perfection, he is careful to entitle this one ‘reverence for the
name of God’, not merely ‘reverence for God’. This would suggest his knowledge
52
The ninety-nine names of God have long been a focus on Muslim devotion; this practice
is rooted in the Qur’an (Sura 20. 8), early ahadith, and key medieval texts such as al-Ghazali,
Ninety-Nine Beautiful Names of God.
53
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 164. This
statement of praise, subhanahu wa-ta’ala in Arabic (meaning ‘glorious and exalted is He’) is
reserved for God alone; it is distinct from the praises Muslims say after speaking the names of
Muhammad and other prophets (salawat).
54
58 Chapter 3
that the basmala reflects Islam’s particular focus on the divine name itself (not
just God),55 a fact lost on others. For example, the annotator who added section
headings to the manuscript of Liber peregrinationis at the Vatican ignored the
original title (found within the text of the same manuscript), ‘De reverentia
ad nomen Dei’, and instead wrote ‘De reverentia ad Deum’. This is the only
section heading in which the annotator changed Riccoldo’s original wording.
Perhaps the annotator was trying to save space, but in doing so he eliminated the
characteristically Islamic meaning of the practice.
Solemn Demeanour
This section highlights yet another unique Muslim virtue, grauitas in moribus,
which in this context could be translated as ‘solemn demeanour’, ‘strictness of
morals’, or ‘dignified behaviour’. Riccoldo is greatly impressed with the upright
behaviour and bearing of Baghdad’s Muslims. His descriptions of them clearly
stem from his own experience; in fact, he explicitly notes that his conclusions are
the result of personal observation over several years.56
The friar begins his discussion of Islamic morality with a description of pos-
ture. Indeed, they have earned his respect simply from the dignified way they
carry themselves:
Tanta est eis grauitas in moribus quod nunquam uideas ibi hominem sarracenum
incedentem capite eleuato uel oculis sublimibus, vel collo erecto, uel pectore tenso,
uel nauigando braciis, sed incessu maturo sicut perfecti religiosi et graues moribus,
etiam pueri parui.
(Their behaviour is so dignified that you would never see a Saracen there approach
with his head held high or his eyes raised, or with a stiff neck, puffed-up breast, or
outstretched arms. Rather, their gait — even that of small boys — is mature, as if
they were perfect monks of strict morals.)57
Riccoldo seems to be making a connection between comportment and morality

here. The Rule of St Augustine, adopted by his Dominican Order, makes a similar
55
Compare Suras 7. 180; 17. 110; 20. 8; and 59. 24, where some of the names of God
are listed. The hadith literature elaborates on this concept, and refers in many places to God’s
‘ninety-nine names’. Muslim prayer beads (tasbih) help the faithful reflect on the names of God.
56
‘In pluribus annis quibus cum eis conuersatus sum cum eis in Perside et in Baldacco’;
57
connection: ‘In your walking, standing, and every movement, let nothing occur
to give offense to anyone who sees you, but only what becomes your holy state
of life’.58 He and his fellow Dominicans evidently believed that modest external
behaviour both expresses and preserves inner holiness. A connection between
outward bearing and inward attitude is also made in the Qur’an, where modest
dress and behaviour is enjoined upon all believers.59
Another proof of Muslim morality, according to Riccoldo, is the type of music
popular among them. He notes that in Baghdad he has never heard Saracens sing
bawdy songs, a fact which seems to surprise him (perhaps because they were so
unlike the Christians he knew?). Rather, the only music he claims to have heard
among Muslims is religious in nature: ‘Non recolo me audisse nec semel cantum
uanitatis, sed semper cantum de laude Dei et de commendatione sue legis et sui
prophete’ (I never remember having heard a profane song; rather, their singing
was always in praise of God and to extol his law and his prophet).60 It is unclear
whether or not he is exaggerating, but in any case he felt that this particular claim
bolstered his argument about the dignity of Muslim behaviour.
And finally, the third indication of Muslim moral superiority observed by
Riccoldo is the complete lack of gossip and mockery he observed among them:
‘Nullus unquam deridet alium uel ei detrahit uel increpat’ (No one ever mocked
or disparaged or rebuked another person).61 The avoidance of backbiting, like
reverence for the name of God, is another characteristically Islamic practice
rooted in the Qur’an.62 Whether or not one suspects the friar of exaggerating
yet again, he has nevertheless highlighted a virtue which Muslims themselves
consider significant, but which other medieval Christians overlooked.63
58
Augustine of Hippo, Rule, 4. 21.
59
For example, Sura 24. 30–31 enjoins both modest dress and behaviour, thus linking
internal belief and external bearing: ‘Say to the believing men that they should lower their
gaze and guard their modesty: that will make for greater purity for them: And Allah is well
acquainted with all that they do. And say to the believing women that they should lower their
gaze and guard their modesty’.
60
61
62
The Qur’an expressly condemns ‘backbiting’; see Sura 49. 11–12. and Sura 104, which
describes the hellish punishment which awaits those who backbite.
63
Once again, Riccoldo’s confrere William of Tripoli is an exception; he briefly notes a
lack of verbal ridicule among Muslims in Notitia; see William of Tripoli, Notitia de Machometo,
ed. and trans. by Engels, chap. 15, p. 256.
60 Chapter 3
Hospitality
Although Riccoldo declares that Muslims in general (and Arabs in particular)

are known for their hospitality, in actuality not many other medieval Christians
include hospitality in their lists of Muslim praxis. William of Tripoli is one excep-
tion; even so he alludes to hospitality only in passing.64 Riccoldo, however, num-
bers hospitality among the works of perfection, and devotes several paragraphs
to what he calls their ‘affability towards strangers’. He begins by mentioning
the most basic aspects of Islamic hospitality: food and protection given to any-
one who knocks. He then goes on to describe the quality of their hospitality by
repeatedly using phrases reminiscent of the classic Christian verse on hospitality,
Hebrews 13. 2, such as ‘recipiebant nos sicut “angelos Dei” ’ (they received us
as ‘angels of God’).65 He says that he experienced this kind of hospitality eve-
rywhere: not only in private homes, but wherever he went, including mosques,
schools, and monasteries.
He claims that Muslim hospitality is not only due to their inherent affability,
but also their urbanitas. This is an interesting choice of words — and Riccoldo
uses the word urbanitas twice in this short paragraph — since other medieval
Christians often emphasized how uncivilized Muslims were. Thomas Aquinas, for
example, calls Muslims ‘brutes and desert wanderers’, while Petrus Alfonsi informs
his readers that ‘men at the time of Muhammad had neither law nor scripture,
and were ignorant of all good things except war and farming’.66 But Riccoldo
is so impressed with the courteous and urbane treatment he has received in the
homes of ‘noble and learned’ Muslims that he likens it to the kind of hospitality
he would receive from his fellow Dominicans: ‘Nam cum tanta letitia recipiebant
nos quod uidebatur nobis frequenter quod uere inuenissemus hospites ordinis, et
illos qui libentissime fratres recipiunt in domibus suis’ (For they received us with
such gladness that it often seemed to us that we had truly found hosts of our own
Order — hosts who welcomed us as freely as brothers into their own homes).67
This is a high compliment indeed; Riccoldo is claiming that the hospitality he has
64
William of Tripoli briefly alludes to mosque hospitality: ‘The prayer-houses are […]
always protected, yet the door is open; the stranger, who enters, may remain’; William of Tripoli,
Notitia de Machometo, ed. and trans. by Engels, chap. 15, p. 256.
65
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 156 and p. 166.
66
Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles, trans. by Pegis and others, i. 6; Alfonsi, Dialogi contra
Iudaeos, ed. by Mieth, v.
67
experienced in Muslim homes is akin to the intimate hospitality shown by one

Dominican brother to another.
Riccoldo then cites what he thinks is another example of Saracen hospitality
towards their Christian guests — the Muslim practice of praising the names of
prophets whenever spoken:
Frequenter enim quadam urbanitate et familiaritate petebant quod diceremus
aliquid de Deo uel aliquid ad commendationem Christi. Et quando coram nobis
nominabant Christum nunquam nominabant eum nisi cum digna laude, scilicet
‘Christus laudetur’ ipse uel aliquid tale
(Frequently out of a certain urbanity and intimacy, they asked us to say something
in praise of God or Christ. And whenever they said the name of Christ in our pres-
ence, they never did so without adding the appropriate acclamation, for example,
‘Christ be praised’ or something like that.)68
The Muslim practice to which Riccoldo is referring is called salawat or tasliya,

which is the repetition of the phrase salla ‘llahu ‘alayhi wa-sallama (‘May the
prayers and peace of God be upon him’) after the name of a prophet is spoken.
Scholars have noted that this refrain is ‘technically limited to Muhammad
alone […] but has been used widely in a variety of contexts throughout history’,
including to praise other prophets such as ‘Isa ( Jesus).69
It is significant that Riccoldo places his comments about salawat in the
section on hospitality, for it suggests his belief that Muslims only say this out of
respect for their guests. In other words, Riccoldo sees salawat as an expression of
Muslim hospitality towards Christians. In contrast, William of Tripoli, who also
mentions salawat, does not connect it to hospitality at all. Rather, he discusses
it in a section on mosque protocol, describing salawat as a kind of antiphon:
‘Interim dum aggregantur, unus de devotis incipit legere cordetenus sine libro
[…]. Et ubi nominatur Iesus, Maria, Ioseph aut Abraham vel nomen Machometi,
cordis quodam iubilo et oris susurrio dulci laudant Deum celi et frequenter
lacrime per maxillas descendunt’ (While gathered [in the mosque], one of the
faithful begins to read by heart […]. And wherever the name of Jesus, Mary,
Joseph or Abraham or Mahomet is mentioned, they praise God in heaven with a
heartfelt song and a sweet whisper from the mouth, and tears frequently fall down
their faces).70 In so doing, William demonstrates his awareness that praising
68
69
Rippin, ‘Tasliya’.
70
William of Tripoli, Notitia de Machometo, ed. and trans. by Engels, chap. 15, pp. 256–58.
62 Chapter 3
Jesus in this way is an internal Islamic practice. William recognizes that Muslims
praise Jesus because Islam considers him a prophet along with Abraham and
Muhammad, not because doing so would please their Christian friends. But this
is precisely what Riccoldo seems to think, since he explicitly states that Saracens
praise Christ ‘in our presence’ (coram nobis) and ‘out of a certain urbanity and
intimacy’ (quadam urbanitate et familiaritate). Furthermore, William’s account
highlights an important omission in Riccoldo’s definition of salawat. William
notes that the salawat is spoken after the names of prophets, and lists several,
including Jesus, Abraham, Joseph, and Muhammad. But Riccoldo fails entirely to
mention that Muslims say the salawat most often to praise Muhammad, not Jesus
or any other prophet.
Riccoldo’s errors are puzzling. First, one wonders how much he really knew
about Islam and the Arabic language if he could not understand the basic
reasoning behind a religious phrase as common as the salawat, something which
he certainly would have heard multiple times a day on the streets of Baghdad,
nearly as often as the basmala. Furthermore, elsewhere Riccoldo actually
mistranslates the very Qur’anic verse upon which the salawat is based.71 In the
Epistolae, he asks how it can be possible for God to ‘pray for’ Muhammad, and
cites Sura 33. 56 as proof that such a strange idea can be found in the Qur’an. (He
goes on to answer his own question affirmatively, citing the fall of Acre in 1291 as
proof that God does indeed ‘pray for’ Muhammad; he will later argue in Contra
legem against the absurdity of an omnipotent God ‘praying’ for anyone, and cites
his faulty translation of this verse as proof of the Qur’an’s irrationality.)72
Second, Riccoldo’s omission of the name of Muhammad in his description
of salawat is a glaring error. It seems unlikely that he would not have known that
71
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, 3; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Contra
legem Sarracenorum, ed. by Mérigoux, chap. 9, pp. 106–07.
72
Riccoldo mistranslates the following verse: ‘God and his angels shower blessings on
the prophet. O ye who believe! Ask blessings on him and salute him with a worthy salutation.’
Norman Daniel notes, ‘The idea of God’s praying derives from the Arabic use in this context
of the same word as is used for the ritual worship and prayer: in the Qur’anic verse cited by
Riccoldo it is yusaluna. Clearly it is ridiculous to insist that the word must mean pray on the
grounds that it means pray in other contexts; this is an extreme example of the Latin custom of
accusing Muslims of something that Muslims would themselves be found wholly to disown, of
claiming to know better than they what they themselves do or do not do, and then waxing as
rhetorical about it as if it were a crime they openly admitted. If the phrase yusaluna ‘ala were
really taken literally it would mean, not “pray for” but “say the ritual prayer on top of ”, so that
even the pedantry was inaccurate. Riccoldo can hardly have mentioned this idea to a Muslim in
the flesh’; Daniel, Islam and the West, p. 338.
the salawat was most often spoken after the name of Muhammad. Does Riccoldo
imply that the salawat is spoken solely in praise of Jesus because he did not know,
or because he was trying to emphasize something else? While his description of
salawat is somewhat misleading for implying that Muslims say it solely for the
benefit of Christians, his conclusion — that the salawat is additional proof of
Muslim hospitality — demonstrates the extent to which he tried to interpret
their practices in a positive light.
Mutual Concord
The section describing ‘mutual concord’ among Muslims is by far the longest in
the list of opera perfectionis — triple the length of any other. This is due to the
fact that several stories and personal observations are cited in support of what
might have seemed to Riccoldo’s audience to be his most surprising claim of all:
that the Muslims who Christians assume to be so violent are actually quite kind
to one another, for they ‘concordiam uero et amorem ita nutriunt ad inuicem ut
uere uideantur esse fratres’ (nourish between themselves a concord and mutual
love which is like that of brothers).73 To explain precisely what he means by this
brotherly love, Riccoldo begins by offering the first of several examples from his
own experience: ‘Nam etiam loquendo ad inuicem maxime ad extraneos dicit
unus alteri: “o fili matris mee”’(When speaking to each other, especially to
foreigners, one will say to the other: ‘O son of my mother’).74 This endearing
custom evidently struck Riccoldo as indicative of the true affection Muslims feel
for each other.
Perhaps an even greater indication of Muslim concord — greater because it
was practised not only at the level of individuals, but of nations — is that they
allow foreign co-religionists safe passage when travelling. According to Riccoldo,
‘Nec occidunt se inuicem nec expoliant, sed homo sarracenus securissimus transit
inter quoscumque extraneos et barbaros sarracenos’ (They will neither kill nor rob
one another. Rather, a Saracen travels very securely among foreign and barbarian
Saracens). 75 Intra-religious concord might not seem especially laudable.
However, if one considers the lack of concord between various Christians of the
time — for example, the sack of Constantinople by Frankish Crusaders in 1204,
or Latin Christian attempts to ‘convert’ Eastern Christians, or intercity conflict in
73
74
75
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, pp. 166, 168.
64 Chapter 3
late thirteenth-century Italy which made even local travel difficult — one might
see why Riccoldo would have regarded peace between various Muslim nations to
be worthy of praise.
Aware that his readers might be sceptical, Riccoldo offers the first of several
examples from his own personal experience. He claims that if one Muslim kills
another, either by accident or even maliciously, the family ‘rarely demands
vengeance’, but instead the brother or son of the victim tells the killer: ‘“Si te
occidero non rehabebo propter hoc eum”. Et addit, “Si malum est quod occisus
est unus Sarracenus, peius erit quod occidantur duo”’ (‘If I kill you I will not bring
him back.’ And he adds, ‘if it is bad for one Saracen to be killed, it will be worse
for two to be killed’).76 With this example, Riccoldo wants to highlight what
he believes to be a notable lack of vengeance among Muslims. Perhaps this was
striking when Riccoldo compared it to Christian behaviour, for he ends the entire
section with a rather shocking conclusion: while Christians are the ones who ask
God daily to ‘forgive us our debts as we forgive others’, it is in fact the Saracens
who ‘in remissionem iniurie tantum eos Sarraceni excedunt’ (surpass [Christians]
in the forgiveness of offences).77 This statement is particularly noteworthy, for in
it Riccoldo not only equates Muslim and Christian praxis, but he actually asserts
that Muslims surpass Christians.
Riccoldo’s account of Muslim concord is complimentary and filled with sto-
ries and personal observations. But it is also striking for its dissonant mix of strong
and seemingly contradictory opinions. For it is in this particular section that he
most abruptly and frequently vacillates between praising Muslims as loving and
forgiving, and then criticizing them as violent and merciless. This dissonance can
be seen in numerous sentences, such as this: ‘Ecce quanta concordia inter filios
iniquitatis’ (Such is the measure of concord which reigns between these sons of
iniquity).78 Another example of dissonance is his juxtaposition of the concord he
has seen among Muslims, who he claims have a ‘law of death’ (the Qur’an) with
the lack of concord he has seen among Christians, who have the ‘law of life’ (the
Gospels). He also includes numerous asides such as: ‘Vide quia illi qui habent
legem occisionis et mortis nolunt se ad inuicem occidere, et miseri Christiani, qui
legem uite habent et mandata pacis et dilectionis, se inuicem sine aliqua misera-
tione occidunt’ (See how they who have a law of killing and death do not wish to
kill each other, and the wretched Christians, who have the law of life and com-
76
77
78
mandments of peace and love kill each other without pity).79 Lest his Christian
readers begin to admire Saracens for being too kindhearted, Riccoldo ends the
section with several reminders that ‘nevertheless they have a law of killing’.
He recognizes that his positive experience of Muslim praxis contradicts his
theory that Islam is a false religion. Yet when writing about Muslim praxis in Liber
peregrinationis, he does not edit his experience to fit his theory. Rather, he retains
the positive account and lets the contradiction stand. Why? If Riccoldo really is
trying to shame Christians into good behaviour, what better way to do so than
to highlight the irony of the fact that Muslims, who possess an inferior book and
thus an inferior religion, nevertheless act much more virtuously than Christians,
even though the Christians possess a superior book and superior religion? This
might be argued solely on the basis of the account in Liber peregrinationis. But
the picture grows more complicated if his descriptions of Muslim praxis in other
writings are also considered.
Works of Perfection, or Virtues?

Riccoldo’s ambivalence towards Muslim good works is most evident in Liber
peregrinationis, as we have seen. But hints of it can also be found elsewhere.
For example, when describing Christians, Muslims, and Jews in the Epistolae,
Riccoldo allows Muslims to have works — or at least the appearance of works:
Christiani legem Dei habent et intellectum sine perfectione operis, Iudei vero Dei
sine intellectu et opere, Sarraceni vero quedam opera bona videntur habere sine
lege Dei penitus et intellectu.
(Christians have the law of God and understanding of it, but without the perfection
of works; Jews truly have the law of God but without understanding or works; and
Saracens truly seem to have certain good works, but without the complete law of
God or understanding of it.)80
The above passage seems to imply that no one, not even Christians, possess the
‘perfection of works’.81 But while Riccoldo claims here that Muslims only appear
to have good works (that is, they are disingenuous), the prayer that immedi-
ately follows seems to confirm his belief that Muslims do have works after all:
‘Da, Domina, Christianis opera perfectionis, Iudeis opera et intellectum legis, da
79
80
81
Meaning that no one has effectively ‘completed’ God’s law through works.
66 Chapter 3
Sarracenis legem et intellectum!’ (O Lady, give to Christians the works of perfec-

tion, to Jews works and an understanding of the law, and to Saracens the law and
an understanding of it).82 Riccoldo’s word choice here is telling, for he specifi-
cally asks that Christians be given ‘works of perfection’ (opera perfectionis), which
is precisely the term he uses in Liber peregrinationis to describe what Muslims
already possess. The prayer seems to confirm further Riccoldo’s belief that Muslims
already have the works of perfection.
Riccoldo’s ambivalence towards Muslim praxis is also evident in the last chap-
ter of Contra legem Sarracenorum, where even after sixteen chapters of polemic
against the Qur’an, he still admits that the book ‘contains works difficult to
implement, like circumcision, not drinking wine, avoiding inebriation, fasting,
praying, and giving according to one’s means’.83 However, he immediately miti-
gates this concession by adding that it doesn’t really matter what the Qur’an says,
since according to his experience, Muslims do not observe it anyway:
Quod autem eam non osseruent patet; bibunt enim uinum, inebriantur herbis,
comedunt illicita, non seruant ieiunium nec orationem, nec expendunt iuxta facul-
tatem et alia multa que melius nouit qui conuersationem eorum probauit
(Yet that they do not observe [the Qur’an] is obvious; for they drink wine, they get
inebriated with weed, they eat illicit things, they do not fast or pray, nor do they
give what they can, and many other things which one knows better who tries to
converse with them.)84
He repeats the same sentiment a few sentences later, once again citing his own
experience that ‘very few Saracens observe’ what the Qur’an commands.85
His ambivalence is further highlighted in other contradictory statements. For
example, in Liber peregrinationis’s section on charity, he says that the Qur’an con-
tains strict commands to give alms, yet a few pages later he denies that the Qur’an
contains anything whatsoever about virtue: ‘De uirtutibus autem et perfectione
intellectus nichil omnino dixit Maccomettus’ (But about virtues and the perfec-
82
83
‘Continet iterum difficultatem in opere ad implendum, ut de circumcisione fatienda
et de uino non bibendo et de ebrietate uitanda et de ieiunio et oratione et de expendendo
secundum facultatem sibi a Deo datam’; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Contra legem Sarracenorum,
ed. by Mérigoux, chap. 17, p. 142.
84
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Contra legem Sarracenorum, ed. by Mérigoux, chap. 17, p. 141.
85
‘Et multa alia que paucissimi Sarraceni seruant’; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Contra legem
Sarracenorum, ed. by Mérigoux, chap. 17, p. 142.
tion of the intellect, Mahomet said absolutely nothing).86 He repeats almost the
very same sentiment in Contra legem: ‘De virtutibus autem, puta de humilitate uel
patientia uel de pace uel abstinentia uel de caritate Dei et proximi uel de ultimo
fine, nichil notabile dixit’ (Now about virtues, humility, or patience, or peace, or
abstinence, or love of God or neighbour, and of the ultimate end, he said noth-
ing noteworthy).87 And in the Epistolae he goes a step further, claiming that the
Qur’an is not only passively silent about virtues, but actively corrupts them.88
These quotations are the only instances in Riccoldo’s entire corpus in which
he uses the term virtus instead of opera perfectionis when referring to Muslim
good works. What is interesting is that he uses the word virtus only when he
wants to deny that Muslims have any. Does this mean that he has made a clear
distinction between Christian virtues (that is, infused virtues, requiring the
gift of God’s grace) and Muslim good works, which while praiseworthy are
nevertheless inferior (that is, merely acquired virtues, which any rational person
could attain)?89 If this is indeed what Riccoldo means, then he would be in accord
with fellow Dominican Thomas Aquinas, who says that ‘unbelievers cannot do
those good works which proceed from grace, viz. meritorious works; yet they can,
to a certain extent, do those good works for which the good of nature suffices’.90
This is a distinct possibility. However, Riccoldo’s choice of the phrase opera
perfectionis to denote Muslim good works could also be interpreted another way.
A fundamental obligation of all religious orders, including the Dominicans, is
‘striving for perfection’.91 And what is perfection? For Aquinas, ‘the perfection
of the Christian life consists radically in charity’,92 which means following not
86
87
88
‘Nam parum post tua tempora [of Gregory] surrexit et in suo alchorano mores corrupit
et virtutes’; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, 3, p. 280.
89
For more on the difference between acquired and infused virtues, see Aquinas, Summa
theologiae, i.ii.51 and i.ii.63.
90
Aquinas, Summa theologiae, ii.ii.10.4.
91
Hinnebusch, History of the Dominican Order, i, 122. Aquinas confirms Hinnebusch’s
assertion in Aquinas, Summa theologiae, ii.ii.186.1. ‘In the Conferences of the Fathers
(Collat. i, 7) abbot Moses speaking of religious says: “We must recognize that we have to
undertake the hunger of fasting, watchings, bodily toil, privation, reading, and other acts of
virtue, in order by these degrees to mount to the perfection of charity.” Now things pertaining
to human acts are specified and denominated from the intention of the end. Therefore religious
belong to the state of perfection’.
92
Aquinas, Summa theologiae, ii.ii.184.1. Aquinas discusses the state of perfection in
general in Aquinas, Summa theologiae, ii.ii.184.1–8.
68 Chapter 3
only the commandments, but also the counsels of Christ, ‘which, like the com-
mandments, are directed to charity; yet not in the same way […]. [For example,]
Fastings, watchings, meditating on the Scriptures, penury and loss of all one’s
wealth, these are not perfection but means to perfection, since not in them does
the school of perfection find its end, but through them it achieves its end’.93 The
practices identified by Aquinas here — fasting, scripture study, and voluntary pov-
erty — particularly characterize religious life. They are also identical to several of
the Muslim practices Riccoldo calls ‘works of perfection’. While Riccoldo avoids
the technical theological term virtus when describing the Muslim works of per-
fection, by referring to them as opera perfectionis he seems to be equating them not
only with Christian virtue in general (since such acts are directed towards charity,
which ‘binds all the other virtues together in perfect unity’),94 but also with the
particular virtues practised by members of religious orders. Did Riccoldo believe
that Muslims, like his own Dominicans, were also striving for perfection?95
Islam on its Own Terms?

Most medieval Christian authors did not intend to present a balanced picture
of Islam. Rather, they had other motivations for describing the religion. For
example, the goal of polemicists was to demonstrate, almost always to a Christian-
only audience, the errors of Islam. Proving Islam to be false was really the flip
side of an apologetic for the truth of Christianity. In order to achieve this goal,
authors would highlight only those aspects of Islam that clearly supported their
case against it. Thus, the very same descriptions of Islam were repeated over and
over by Christians wishing to make the very same arguments.
Others brought up Islam not to argue against it, but to further entirely dif-
ferent arguments. For example, Thomas Aquinas’s cursory mention of Islam in
Summa contra Gentiles, i. 6 is not meant to attack the religion per se. Rather,
Islam is mentioned only tangentially, as a foil. The main point of i. 6 is to state
that those Christian truths which are beyond reason are known to human
beings only through revelation and confirmed through miracles. To prove this,
Aquinas brings up a counter example, Islam, which he says ‘proceeded in a way
93
94
95
Aquinas speaks of levels of perfection: ‘Religion denotes the state of perfection by
reason of the end intended. Hence it does not follow that whoever is in the state of perfection is
already perfect, but that he tends to perfection. [...] Thus all are not perfect in religion, but some
are beginners, some proficient’; Aquinas, Summa theologiae, ii.ii.186.1.
that is opposite to this’. In other words, unlike Christianity, Islam has not been
confirmed by miracles. Rather, says Aquinas, Muhammad ‘did not bring forth
any signs produced in a supernatural way, which alone fittingly gives witness to
divine inspiration’. Aquinas’s main goal in i. 6 is to prove his argument about
Christianity, and the few details about Islam which he provides are meant only
to serve that argument.96
Riccoldo does not do this, at least not in Liber peregrinationis. Even though
he claims to bring up Islamic praxis in order to shame Christians, in reality his
focus stays squarely on Muslim good works. His discussion of Islamic praxis is
not tangential to his main point, rather it is his main point. His descriptions are
not mere ammunition for a larger anti-Islamic argument; rather they take cen-
tre stage. The practices themselves, accurately and positively described, are at the
heart of this section. Granted, his account of Islam is far from unbiased. After all,
he was a thirteenth-century missionary who approached other religions as most
other missionaries did: from an explicitly theological perspective. Yet compared
to the writings of the vast majority of his confreres, Riccoldo’s account is note-
worthy for its fidelity. For much of what he says about Muslim praxis might actu-
ally be recognizable to Muslims themselves. Although it was most probably unin-
tentional, Riccoldo offers his fellow medieval Christians a rare glimpse of Islam
in and of itself, and this is significant, regardless of how limited a glimpse it is.
Riccoldo’s portrayal of praxis in Liber peregrinationis is so positive that he
cannot possibly use it to argue against Islam. Compare, for example, his description
to that of his confrere at Santa Maria Novella, the illustrious preacher Giordano
da Pisa (d. 1311), whose sermons include several near-verbatim quotations from
Riccoldo’s section on the reverence for the name of God.97 In a sermon dated
26 December 1305, Giordano ostensibly uses details from Liber peregrinationis
precisely in order to fulfil Riccoldo’s stated goal: to shame Christians into good
behaviour. The preacher mentions two details that appear to be taken directly from
Riccoldo: that Saracens have so much reverence for the name of God that they pick
up scraps of paper from the ground, and that blasphemy is punishable by death.98
96
It was long believed that Aquinas had written Summa contra Gentiles at the request of
Ramon Penyafort, who wanted to use it as a manual in the Spanish missionary schools. This
idea has now been contested by scholars who see the Summa contra Gentiles as a protreptic
(instructional text) directed primarily at Christians. See Jordan, ‘The Protreptic Structure of
Summa contra Gentiles’.
97
Emilio Panella makes the connection in Panella, ‘Ricerche su Riccoldo da Monte di
Croce’; see pp. 47–48 for a discussion of Riccoldo’s influence on Giordano.
98
Giordano da Rivalto [Giordano da Pisa], Prediche inedite, ed. by Narducci, p. 428.
70 Chapter 3
It is interesting to see how Giordano moulds Riccoldo’s account for his own
purposes. While two details appear to be taken from the Liber, in both cases
Giordano adds his own flourish for effect. When noting that Muslims pick up
scraps of paper, he omits Riccoldo’s ‘reverently’ and adds instead that they kiss
it. Then comes the second detail: that Muslims punish blasphemy with death.
Here Giordano adds another flourish: that Muslim will ‘immediately cut off the
head’ of a blasphemer, a detail which is not included in Riccoldo’s account but
which highlights the violence and irrationality of Muslims. Giordano does go on
to add other details about Islam for listeners who might not know: that Muslims
do not worship Muhammad as a god but honour him as a prophet, and that
Muslims ‘adore well the one God’. It seems as if Giordano is trying to educate his
audience in this case. But the famous preacher’s main goal in the sermon was to
hammer home a single point: that Muslims have more respect for Muhammad, a
mere prophet, than Christians have for Christ, the son of God. And just in case
his point was not clear, Giordano adds an insult which is absent in Riccoldo’s
account: ‘Look how much reverence they have for the name of a prophet, and
they are dogs!’99
Giordano’s sermon provides a concrete example of how Riccoldo’s account
was received by his contemporaries. Giordano follows Riccoldo’s suggestion that
his account of good works should not be used to praise Muslims, but to shame
Christians. Giordano does precisely this, and even uses the word ‘shame’ (ver-
gogna) in his sermon. But when comparing Giordano’s sermon with Riccoldo’s
account, clear differences emerge. Giordano takes two details from Riccoldo
and adds flourishes meant to heighten the dissonance between Muslims and
Christians: he says that Saracens kiss the scraps of paper they pick up, and that
they immediately cut off the heads of blasphemers. With these two additional
details, Giordano reinforces stereotypes common among medieval Christians:
that Muslims are irrational, violent, and fanatical. Even when Muslims do good
things like revering God’s name, says Giordano, they go to unacceptable extremes.
Riccoldo’s account, however, stresses the similarities between Christians and
Muslims: he describes Muslim actions sympathetically, and repeatedly uses posi-
tive adjectives such as reverently and diligently. Even though Giordano acknowl-
edges Islam to be monotheistic, at the end of the day Muslims are still cani, dogs.
Such epithets are entirely absent from Riccoldo.
Although Riccoldo warns that his account should not be used to praise
Muslims, in fact this is precisely what he does. Nor can he explain the presence of
99
Giordano da Rivalto [Giordano da Pisa], Prediche inedite, ed. by Narducci, p. 428.
these practices away, even with his lame caveat. Indeed, the very existence of these
good works truly surprises him: ‘Obstupuimus quomodo cum lege tante perfidie
poterant opera magne perfectionis inueniri’ (We were stupefied to see how, with
a law of such perfidy, works of great perfection are able to be found).100 Riccoldo
clearly sees the inconsistency between his theory (that Islam is a perfidious
religion) and his experience (that Muslims practise ‘works of perfection’), and
he is not afraid to say so. But by the time he writes his polemic Contra legem
Sarracenorum, the dissonance between his positive account of Muslim praxis and
his negative assessment of Islam must have become too great to bear. His solution?
Simply remove all mention of the works of perfection. And indeed, while the
later Contra legem includes and expands upon all the anti-Qur’anic arguments
begun in the earlier book Liber peregrinationis, the later book is practically silent
about Muslim works. In fact, what little he has to say about praxis in Contra
legem resembles the arguments of every other medieval Christian: he brings it up
only to explain it away. Like Peter the Venerable, Riccoldo admits that the Qur’an
‘contains works difficult to implement such as […] fasting and praying and giving
according to their means’.101 But how can he square even this grudging admission
of good praxis with his main argument: that Islam is a perfidious religion with a
violent, irrational book? He does so by claiming that anyone who has observed
the dealings of real Muslims — such as himself — knows that while the Qur’an
enjoins these practices, in actuality only a very few Saracens observe them.102
With Contra legem Sarracenorum — a later, more polished, and classically
polemical text — Riccoldo’s days of providing a fleeting yet authentic glimpse
into Muslim praxis were gone. The slim window which he had opened onto
lived Islam was now closed, and the man who was to become one of the most-
read anti-Islamic polemicists in the later Middle Ages had now taken a critical
position from the comfort of his armchair in Florence. His experiences on the
streets of Baghdad had evidently failed to make any lasting impression on him,
or at least on his theology of Islam. But while the original, positive, and reflective
account of Muslim praxis found in Liber peregrinationis was never as popular
as the conventional arguments of Contra legem, the account’s very existence
100
101
102
This very same argument is made by William of Tripoli, a fellow Dominican who also lived in
the Middle East, and also is notable for his positive accounts of Muslim praxis. William takes
pains to mention that ‘only faithful Saracens’ are successful in avoiding wine and pork; William
of Tripoli, Notitia de Machometo, ed. and trans. by Engels, chap. 2, p. 200.
72 Chapter 3
demonstrates the potentially transformative nature of interreligious encounter.

For if he had not known and observed Muslims firsthand, he would not have
had anything new to say about Islam; he would have simply repeated the same
tired data and arguments as his fellow medieval Christians. But because he did
have personal encounters with Muslims — and wrote about those experiences
as such — he was able to offer readers of Liber peregrinationis something more.
That something more was the honest acknowledgement of the surprise he felt
when he recognized a disjunction between what he assumed Islamic theology to
be (bad) and what he saw actual Muslims doing (good). Riccoldo’s account of
Muslim praxis does not further any arguments against Islam. Rather, it offers a
rare medieval Christian glimpse into Islam qua Islam. His account also hints at
the power of personal interreligious encounters. For it shows that such encounters
have the potential to shake the deepest assumptions of even the most resolute foe,
if only for a short while.
Chapter 4
‘I Read It in Arabic!’
I
mmediately following his positive account of the seven Muslim works
of perfection in Liber peregrinationis, Riccoldo outlines what he con-
siders to be six fundamental problems with the Qur’an: it is ‘lax, con-
fused, obscure, exceedingly mendacious, irrational, and violent’. The friar’s
assessment is, for the most part, consonant with the mainstream medieval
Christian view, even if his condemnation is better informed by actual knowl-
edge of the Arabic text. But what makes his opinion of the Qur’an interesting
are its glaring contradictions, which can be found not only among different
texts, but also within the very same text. For example, in Ad nationes orien-
tales, Riccoldo calls the Qur’an ‘diabolical’ in one breath and then acknowl-
edges that it contains ‘many useful things’ in the next.1 Furthermore, in the
midst of his many criticisms of the Qur’an are comments which reveal a deep
affection for the book and its idiom, Arabic. Even in his most patently anti-
Qur’anic work, Contra legem, he stops to praise the poetry and rhythm of
Qur’anic Arabic. And peppered throughout Epistolae is the constant boast,
‘I read the Qur’an in Arabic’. This chapter will discuss the ways in which
Riccoldo’s approach to the Qur’an is both consonant with and distinct from
that of his Christian confreres.
1
‘[Sarraceni] legem quidem habent diabolicam et mortiferam, licet in ea multa continean-
tur utilia’; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Ad nationes orientales, ed. by Jensen, prologue.
74 Chapter 4
Medieval Latin Views of the Qur’an

When assessing the Qur’an, medieval Christians concentrated on two inextricably
linked questions: Who wrote it, and what does it contain? The first question
was addressed by almost everyone, since authorship determined revelatory status,
and speculation about authorship required little or no familiarity with the text
itself. The second question regarding subject matter would seem to require more
knowledge to answer. However, Christian authors did not shy away from this
question either, no matter how ignorant they were of the actual contents of the
Qur’an. For to answer the first question was to answer the second, since a book
authored by demons or a sinful pseudoprophet certainly could not contain much
if anything of value. Therefore, medieval Christians almost uniformly condemned
the Qur’an as ‘perfidious’, ‘mendacious’, or ‘worthy of laughter’, while offering
precious little textual evidence to support their claims.
Most medieval Christians were aware that Muslims consider the Qur’an to
be God’s own word. Christians disagreed, of course, claiming instead that the
Qur’an was written by Muhammad — a mere human, and an evil one at that. That
Muhammad’s authorship was assumed is implied in the names Christians used
to refer to the Qur’an, for example, Riccoldo uses the term ‘liber machometi’
throughout Contra legem. This label would have been deemed unacceptable by
Muslims, since they believe Muhammad contributed nothing whatsoever to
the Qur’an. But despite this misnomer, some Latin Christians demonstrated a
basic knowledge of the Islamic notion of revelation. For example, William of
Tripoli (like John of Damascus before him) describes the revelatory process as
one of complete passivity on the part of the messenger: ‘Quinque libri doctrine
Dei descenderunt de celo’ (Five books of the doctrine of God descended from
the sky).2
Others demonstrate knowledge of the Qur’anic text itself; Peter the Venerable,
Petrus Alfonsi, William of Tripoli, Ramon Martí, and Riccoldo all refer directly
to the Qur’an in their writings, citing specific suras and often including verba-
tim quotations. Both Riccoldo and William recount the history of the Qur’an’s
compilation, each friar devoting at least an entire chapter to this subject.3 Pseudo-
2
William of Tripoli, Notitia de Machometo, ed. and trans. by Engels, chap. 6, p. 214.
3
Chapter 13 of Contra legem is entitled, ‘On the institution of the Qur’an, and who the
agent and inventor was of this law’. Pseudo-William of Tripoli, De statu Sarracenorum, ed. and
trans. by Engels, chap. 24 is entitled, ‘How the book of the Qur’an was compiled’, and William
of Tripoli, Notitia de Machometo, ed. and trans. by Engels, chap. 5 is entitled, ‘Whence and how
the law of Mahomet came to be’.
‘I Read It in Arabic!’ 75
William of Tripoli, for example, notes the fact that there were several early ver-
sions of the Qur’an and that Caliph Uthman selected a single, authoritative text.4
Riccoldo repeats a similar story (with a different protagonist), which he claims he
learned through his study of Islamic literature:
Narrant etiam quedam hystorie quod Mahometus ueneno motuus est nec habuit
populus Alchoranum. Cum autem Hebeubeker susciperet principatum precepit
quod quilibet recoleret que posset et hunc qui est pre manibus composuit Alchora-
num, reliquos autem combussit
(Some [Islamic] histories also narrate that Muhammad died of poison and the peo-
ple did not have the Qur’an. But when Abu Bakr accepted the position of leader, he
ordered that everyone collect what they could, and he composed this Qur’an out of
what was at hand, and burned the rest.)5
Of course, Riccoldo and both Williams mention the textual history of the Qur’an
only to prove that it could not be of divine origin.
Indeed, disproving the Qur’an’s divine origin is the main goal of Riccoldo’s
Contra legem. Each chapter focuses on a different reason why the Qur’an cannot
be the word of God; for example, because it does not have the harmonious style
or rhythm of other scripture (Chapter 4); because it contradicts itself (Chapter
6); because it does not attest to any miracle (Chapter 7); because it is not
rational (Chapter 8); because it contains evident falsities (Chapter 9); because
it is violent (Chapter 10). It has been suggested that the reason Riccoldo focuses
his anti-Islamic argument so squarely on the Qur’an (more so than any other
Christian polemical text until Nicholas of Cusa’s Cribratio alkorani, which itself
relies heavily on Contra legem) is the result of his deep questioning of salvation
history, which in turn is due to the trauma he experienced after the fall of Acre in
1291.6 Underlying his musings about salvation history is the more fundamental
question: is the Qur’an the word of God? In Letter One, Riccoldo wonders
whether Muhammad’s worldly success proves that it is: ‘Aliquibus quod tu Deus
sis factus executor alchorani. Nam plura eis concedis, quam ipse mendacissimus in
suo alchorano promittit, quod alchoranum appellat testamentum Dei et verbum
Dei’ (It seems to some that you, God, have become the executor of the Qur’an.
4
Pseudo-William of Tripoli, De statu Sarracenorum, ed. and trans. by Engels, chap. 24,
p. 334. Most Muslims today would deny the possibility of various early versions of the Qur’an.
For a discussion of the early Qur’an, see Brockett, ‘The Value of Hafs and Warsh Transmissions’.
5
6
Spath, ‘Beyond Conversion and Crusade’.
76 Chapter 4
For you allow too much of what this great liar himself promises in his Qur’an,
which he calls the testament of God and the word of God).7 For Riccoldo, all
of salvation history hinges on the question of whether or not the Qur’an is the
word of God, for if the Qur’an is in fact the word of God, then the view of history
Riccoldo held previously is no longer valid. As it was, the fall of Acre was so
traumatic that he was forced to consider the possibility of an alternative salvation
history, one in which God favours Muslims, not Christians. (His questioning of
salvation history will be discussed in greater detail in the next chapter.)
But even though Riccoldo considers the possibility that the Qur’an could be
the word of God in the Epistolae, in his other writings he comes to the same typical
medieval conclusions. For example, many Christians suggested that the Qur’an
was written by demons — not instead of, but in addition to, Muhammad, whom
Christians already linked to the devil. Both Roger Bacon and William of Tripoli
claim that the Qur’an must be ‘from men and demons’ rather than from God, due
to the carnal nature of its heaven.8 Alain de Lille asserts that Muhammad was
inspired by an evil spirit.9 And in Contra legem, Riccoldo discusses a Qur’anic
verse which he claims is proof of the book’s demonic origins:
De demonibus autem est in Alchorano speciale capitulum ubi expresse dicitur
quod demones in magna multitudine audiuerunt Alchoranum et letati sunt et
testati quod per ipsum poterant saluari, et dixerunt se esse Saracenos et saluati sunt.
Hoc autem quantam falsitatem contineat, non opus est ostendi aliquo argument
(In the Qur’an there is a specific chapter about demons where it is expressly stated
that a great multitude of demons heard the Qur’an and rejoiced and testified that
through it they could be saved, and they called themselves Saracens and were saved
[Sura 72. 1, 13–14]. However, this contains such a great lie that it does not need to
be demonstrated with any argument.)10
After asserting that the Qur’an was authored by a diabolical Muhammad with the
assistance of actual demons, medieval Christians then had to explain the simi-
7
8
Bacon, The Opus maius, trans. by Burke, ii, 805 (part vii, chap. 4); William of Tripoli,
9
Alain de Lille, Contra paganos, ed. by d’Alverny, p. 331.
10
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Contra legem Sarracenorum, ed. by Mérigoux, chap. 9. The
‘great lie’ to which Riccoldo refers is the idea that demons can be saved, which Christians had
long condemned as part of the Origenist heresy of universal salvation (apokatastasis). It seems
that Riccoldo felt Origenism to be sufficiently despised by his readers as to render argumentation
against it unnecessary.
larities between some stories in the Qur’an and Bible. They did so by claiming
that Muhammad took them from the Bible and changed them. Roger Bacon,
for example, suggests that ‘[a]lthough the Saracens follow in the main the law of
Venus, yet they derive much from the Jewish law and Christian law […] and they
retain many words of the Evangelists in their law’.11 Aquinas notes simply that
Muhammad ‘perverts almost all the testimonies of the Old and New Testaments
by making them into fabrications of his own, as can be seen by anyone who exam-
ines his laws’.12
Other authors provided more elaborate explanations for the connection
between the Bible and the Qur’an. One of the oldest and most common alleges
that Muhammad was instructed by Jews and Christian heretics. The eighth-
century theologian John of Damascus, one of the first Christians to mention
Islam, alludes to this idea briefly: ‘Mameth, who having been casually exposed to
the Old and New Testament and supposedly encountered an Arian monk, formed
a heresy of his own’.13 Petrus Alfonsi provides more details, including the names
of Muhammad’s Jewish teachers (Abdias and Cahbalahabar) and monk-teacher
(Baheyra), as well as Baheyra’s denomination ( Jacobite).14 Peter the Venerable
recounts a similar tale, but names the monk differently (Sergius), and stresses the
fact that Muhammad consulted both biblical and extrabiblical sources such as the
Talmud while he was writing the Qur’an:
Itaque Sergius coniunctus Mahumeth, quod ei deerat suppleuit, et scriptas sacras
[…] simulque apochriphorum fabulis eum plenissime imbuens […]. Adiuncti sunt
Iudei heretico […] non scripturarum ueritatem, sed fabulas suas quibus nunc usque
abundant, Mahumet Iudei insibilant. […] Sic ab optimis doctoribus, Iudeis et
hereticis, Mahumet institutus, Alcoran suum condidit, et tam ex fabulis Iudaicis,
quam ex hereticorum neniis confectam nefariam scipturam, barbaro illo suo modo
contexuit.
(And so Sergius joined with Muhammad, filled in what was lacking to him, and
explaining to him also the sacred scriptures […] and likewise completely infecting
him with the fables of the apocryphal writings […]. Then Jews were joined to the
heretic […] and whispered to Muhammad not the truth of the scriptures but their
own fables in which they abound even now. […] Thus Muhammad, instructed
by the best Jewish and heretical doctors, produced his Koran and wove in that
11
Bacon, The Opus maius, trans. by Burke, ii, 791–92 (part vii, chap. 4).
12
Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles, trans. by Pegis and others, i. 6.
13
John of Damascus, The ‘Heresy of the Ishmaelites’, trans. by Sahas, p. 133.
14
Alfonsi, Dialogi contra Iudaeos, ed. by Mieth, v, p. 95.
78 Chapter 4
barbarous fashion of his a diabolical scripture put together both from the Jewish
fables and the trifling songs of heretics.)15
Riccoldo’s account is very similar to Peter’s, but he adds that both Nestorians and
Jacobites were involved:
Et quia homo idiota erat, sine litteris, dedit ei diabolus comites sibi conuenientes
quosdam Iudeos hereticos et Christianos hereticos. Adhesit enim ei quidam Iaco-
bita, nomine Baheyra […] et quidam Iudei scilicet Finees et Abdia nomine Salon,
postea dictus Habdalla nomine Sellem et facti sunt Sarraceni, et quidam Nestorini
qui maxime conueniunt cum Saracenis, dicentes quod Deus non est natus de beata
uirgine, sed homo Iesus Christus. Et tunc quedam composuit Mahometus per
modum legis, accipiens a sociis quedam de ueteri testamento et quedam de nouo
(And because he was an ignorant and illiterate man, the devil gave him some of
his own allies, Jewish heretics and Christian heretics. For he attached himself to a
certain Jacobite named Baheyra […] and also some Jews, namely Finees and Abdia
called Salon, but afterwards called Habdalla and Sellem, and they became Saracens.
Also some Nestorians, who agree very closely with the Saracens, since they say that
God was not born of the Blessed Virgin, but only the man Jesus Christ. And then
through his allies, Muhammad composed some things for his law, indeed, adopted
some things from the Old Testament and some from the New.)16
A different explanation for the genesis of the Qur’an is offered by William of

Tripoli, who asserts that the book was pieced together by Muhammad’s com-
panions after his death. William claims that these companions, after seeing that
Christians and Jews possessed sacred books, decided to compose together ‘codi-
cem lingua eorum qui diceretur lex prophete Machometi et doctrina eius sibi per
Gabrielem angelum revelata’ (a codex in their language which they called the law
of the prophet Muhammad and said was revealed through the angel Gabriel).17
15
Peter the Venerable, Summa totius haeresis Saracenorum, ed. and trans. by Kritzeck,
pp. 129, 131, 132. It is not surprising that Peter the Venerable saw a connection between the
‘fables’ of the Qur’an and the ‘fables’ of the Jews; according to Kritzeck, Peter was the first
Northern European to mention the Talmud by name and use it extensively in his polemic
against the Jews, the Liber adversus Judaeorum inveteratam duritiem; Peter the Venerable and
Islam, ed. by Kritzeck, p. 25. (Alfonsi was the first to do so in Spain, according to Cohen, Living
Letters of the Law, p. 210).
16
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Contra legem Sarracenorum, ed. by Mérigoux, chap. 13,
pp. 118–19. Baheyra is Peter’s Sergius; Riccoldo emphasizes the Islamic roots of the story by
adding Baheyra’s name to the text in Arabic script (this interlinear addition, believed to have been
penned by Riccoldo himself, can only be found in BNCF, MS Conv. Sopp. C 8.1173). The story
of the monk Baheyra originates in the hadith literature; Roggema, The Legend of Sergius Baḥīrā.
17
But no matter how much or how little they knew about the Qur’an, medieval
authors were quick to pass judgement on it. The law of the Saracens, like that of
the Jews, is perfidious, says Riccoldo, because through it ‘tot homines decipiuntur
et tot anime sine cessatione ad eternam dampnationem deducuntur’ (so many
people are deceived and by which so many souls are led into eternal damnation
without respite).18 But while Riccoldo’s polemic against the Qur’an is rooted in
actual knowledge of the text — he repeatedly reminds his readers that he studied
the Qur’an in Arabic and includes many verbatim citations — other Christians
feel free to criticize the Qur’an without mentioning any specific content.
Following in the footsteps of John of Damascus (who repeats that the contents
of the Qur’an are ‘worthy only of laughter’ but provides no examples), Peter
the Venerable’s Summa is full of epithets but slim on evidence: he says that the
Qur’an is filled with ‘multa ridicula et insanissima deliramenta’ (many ridiculous
things and insane nonsense)’ and ‘antiquarum heresum feces’ (the dregs of ancient
heresies), and confuses the reader by mingling truth with falsity: ‘sic bona malis
permiscens, uera falsis confundens’.19 In this last observation, Peter is similar to
Aquinas, who likewise notes: ‘The truths that he taught were mingled with many
fables and with the doctrines of the greatest falsity […]. He perverts almost all the
testimonies of the Old and New Testaments by making them into fabrications of
his own, as can be seen by anyone who examines his law’.20 Although this last line
seems to imply that Aquinas had studied the Qur’an for himself, it is unknown
whether he actually did. The lack of specificity, at least in this short paragraph,
seems to suggest that Aquinas’s knowledge of Islam and its book was limited.21
Other Christian polemicists, however, had studied the Qur’an assiduously
and used this knowledge to buttress their anti-Islamic arguments. Like Riccoldo,
Petrus Alfonsi’s critique of the Qur’an includes actual citations from the text.
18
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, 3, p. 288. Perfidy was a term
commonly used by medieval Christians to describe Judaism; the fact that Riccoldo uses it
here to describe Islam lends some credence to Jeremy Cohen’s theory that thirteenth-century
theologians conflated Jews and Muslims into the same ‘category of disbelief ’. See Cohen, Living
Letters of the Law, p. 220.
19
Peter the Venerable, Summa totius haeresis Saracenorum, ed. and trans. by Kritzeck,
pp. 210, 136, and 140, respectively.
20
Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles, trans. by Pegis and others, i. 6. The idea that Islam and
other non-Christian religions contain a ‘mix of truth and falsehood’ is still present in the con-
temporary Catholic theology of religions, especially in official documents of the magisterium.
21
James Waltz claims that Aquinas got most of his information about Islam from Peter
the Venerable’s Summa and perhaps even from some of the documents of the Toledan Corpus;
Waltz, ‘Muhammad and Muslims in Thomas Aquinas’.
80 Chapter 4
But Alfonsi also provides several relatively dispassionate accounts of the contents
of the Qur’an, for example, a description of the five pillars and a comparison of
Islamic and Mosaic law, noting similarities (for example, stoning for adultery)
and differences (for example, the prohibition against alcohol). Yet Alfonsi still
condemns the Qur’an for being false and frivolous; the full title of Dialogi v is ‘De
Sarracenorum lege destruenda et sententiarum suarum stultitia confutanda’ (On
Destroying the Law of the Saracens and Confounding their Foolish Opinions).
And like Riccoldo, Alfonsi accuses the Qur’an of being ‘larga’ (lax).
In addition to larga, Riccoldo also says the Qur’an is ‘confusa, occulta,
mendacissima, irrationabilis, et uiolenta’.22 It is larga because it is ‘contra regulam
altissimi et summi philosophy [sic], scilicet Christi, qui dicit: “Arta est uia que
ducit ad uitam”’ (against the rule of the highest and best philosopher, namely
Christ, who says, ‘Narrow is the road which leads to life’ [Matthew 7. 13–14]).23
Riccoldo criticizes the Qur’an as confusa because it does not present stories
chronologically, and includes some contradictory commands which he claims
permit an action in one place but forbid it in another.24 The Qur’an is occulta
because ‘Saracens say there is no one who knows how to interpret the Qur’an
but God’, a belief which Riccoldo condemns because, ‘How can they observe
that which they do not understand?’ The Qur’an is mendacissima, says Riccoldo,
because its lies are obvious to anyone. And finally, Riccoldo calls the Qur’an a
law of violence and death for two reasons: because it was introduced through the
sword, and because following its advice leads to eternal death.25 Other medievals
such as Petrus Alfonsi, Peter the Venerable, William of Tripoli, and Thomas
Aquinas likewise accuse the Qur’an of being inherently violent.26
22
These six charges form the heart of Riccoldo’s anti-Qur’anic polemic in Liber peregrina-
tionis.
23
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 172. Riccoldo
is contrasting the ‘wide path’ of the Qur’an to the ‘narrow path’ of the gospel; he elaborates
on this same theme in Riccoldo da Montecroce, Contra legem Sarracenorum, ed. by Mérigoux,
chap. 5, pp. 81–82.
24
‘Non ordinem temporis uel loci’ and ‘Simul enim aliquid prohibet et concedit’; Riccoldo
da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 176.
25
‘Ingressa est Saracenismum, eorum qui per gladium intrauerunt sicut dictum est, et nunc
etiam suum cognoscentes errorem resipiscerent nisi gladium formidarent […]. Ducit ad mortem
eternam’; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Contra legem Sarracenorum, ed. by Mérigoux, chap. 10,
pp. 110–11.
26
For example, Aquinas claims that Islam spread by the sword in Aquinas, Summa contra
Gentiles, trans. by Pegis and others, i. 6, while William of Tripoli, Notitia de Machometo, ed. and
trans. by Engels, chap. 6, p. 216, states that the Qur’an requires the killing of enemies; Riccoldo
But by far the most damning aspect of the Qur’an, according to Riccoldo,
is its irrationality. Long sections of both Liber peregrinationis and Contra legem
are devoted to this topic; in fact Contra legem’s Chapter Eight, entitled ‘Quod
lex irrationabilis’, is over double the length of any other chapter. Here, Riccoldo
asserts that even without any miracles, it would have been possible for the Qur’an
to be accepted by the world and affirmed to be the law of God, if only it were
rational.27 Riccoldo then discusses four reasons that the Qur’an is not rational:
because of ‘its minister, rationale, works, and end’. Riccoldo notes the Qur’an’s
irrationality elsewhere; for example, in his Epistolae he repeatedly asserts that it is
irrational for the Qur’an to say that God prays for Muhammad, and wonders to
whom God’s prayer would be addressed.28
Another reason medieval Christians give for rejecting the Qur’an is simply
because it is not the Bible, nor do Muslims treat it like the Bible. The Qur’an must
be false, say both William of Tripoli and Riccoldo, for why else would Muslims
refuse to bring it out in public, dispute it with non-Muslims, or translate it into
other languages? For this is precisely what Christians do with the Bible, the true
word of God:
Scimus autem uerum aurum nec limam timet nec paragonem nec etiam ignem.
Et ideo Christiani, quia de ueritate Dei confidunt que fortissima est et ‘manet in
eternum,’ libenter cum aliis nationibus de Euangelio conferunt, gaudent cum ab
aliis legitur, et desiderant quod omnibus publicetur et in linguas alias transferatur
(We know that pure gold fears neither file, nor fire, nor the test. And therefore
Christians, trusting in God’s truth, which is most strong and endures forever, freely
debate about the Gospel with other nations, rejoice when it is read by others, and
desire for it to be made public to all and to be translated into other languages.)29
In addition, Riccoldo notices that the Qur’an’s lyrical quality is different from
the Bible’s. For him, this is another clear indication that the Qur’an is not from
makes the same erroneous assertion in Riccoldo da Montecroce, Contra legem Sarracenorum, ed.
by Mérigoux, chap. 8.
27
‘Etiam sine omni miraculo lex Mahometi posset acceptari a mundo et affirmari quod esset
lex Dei, dummodo esset rationabilis’; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Contra legem Sarracenorum, ed.
by Mérigoux, chap. 8, p. 90.
28
‘Sed quero te, Deus, quando tu oras pro Machometo et pro Sarracenis, quem rogas?’;
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, 3, p. 288. Daniel, Islam and the West,
p. 338, notes that Riccoldo’s claim (that the Qur’an says God ‘prays’ for Muhammad) is based on
his misreading of Sura 33. 56.
29
See William of Tripoli, Notitia de Machometo, ed. and trans. by Engels, chap. 12, p. 240.
82 Chapter 4
God.30 Despite having just acknowledged the beauty of Qur’anic Arabic, Riccoldo
nevertheless goes on to conclude that it cannot be God’s word, for the simple
reason that: ‘non est consuetudo Dei loqui mundo uel prophetis suis per uersus et
rithymos’ (It is not God’s custom to speak to the world or to his prophets through
verse and rhythm).31
Riccoldo’s Approach to the Qur’an

The denial of the Qur’an’s revelatory status is a major component of the medieval
theology of Islam in general, and Riccoldo’s argument in particular. Indeed, the
Qur’an is the main focus of his Contra legem Sarracenorum, which requires seven
teen chapters to denounce it. However, as noted above, seeds of Contra legem’s
extended anti-Qur’anic attack can also be found in both Liber peregrinationis
and Epistolae. Yet despite the condemnations of the Qur’an prevalent in all three
texts, Riccoldo himself is not entirely unequivocal. His ambivalence can most
easily be detected in the Liber and Epistolae, but traces can even be found in the
more polemical Contra legem. For in the midst of many criticisms, Riccoldo still
manages to praise the Qur’an’s poetic language, and frequently declares: ‘I read it
in Arabic in the Qur’an’ (legi arabyce in alchorano).
In Chapter Eleven of his Contra legem, Riccoldo argues that the Qur’an is
‘disorderly’. Yet at the very end of the same chapter, after having just concluded
that the book is historically anachronistic and thoroughly illogical,32 he includes
a few lines praising its sheer beauty: ‘Ordo autem uerborum grammaticaliter et
rithmice est ibi pulcherrimus. Nam fere totus liber tynnulus et rithmicus est, unde
et multum gloriantur Saraceni de tam pulchro et ornato modo loquendi arabice’
(But the order of the words is grammatically and rhythmically very beautiful
here. For the whole book is resonant and rhythmical, whence the Saracens greatly
exult in such a beautiful and ornate style of Arabic speech).33 Similar praises can
be found in Chapter Four, where he declares that the Qur’an’s lyrical quality is
30
Ironically, the inimitability (i’jaz) of the Qur’an is precisely what Muslims believe proves
its divine origin.
31
32
‘Nec recolo me inuenisse in toto libro unum argumentum recta positione et conuenienti
ordine’ (Nor do I recollect that I found in the whole book even one argument that comes
from a justified supposition or agreeable conclusion); Riccoldo da Montecroce, Contra legem
Sarracenorum, ed. by Mérigoux, chap. 11, p. 113.
33
‘obvious’ to anyone able to read it in the original Arabic. He is not alone among
his medieval Christian confreres in noticing the beauty of Qur’anic Arabic, of
course. For example, William of Tripoli also mentions it. However, William
praises the recitation of the Qur’an, emphasizing the mellifluous quality of the
reciter’s voice, rather than the inherent beauty of the Arabic language itself, as is
the case with Riccoldo.34
Riccoldo’s admiration for the Arabic language and his pride in being able to
read it is obvious. At least six times in his letters he explicitly informs his audience
that he has read something in the Qur’an ‘in Arabic’ or that he is unable to convey
to his readers the meaning of certain Arabic phrases in Latin, since, unlike him,
they do not know the language. He even flaunts his Arabic skill in the middle of
a prayer to the Virgin Mary: ‘legi arabice pluribus et pluribus locis in alchorano’
(I have read this in Arabic in many, many places in the Qur’an). Even though he
expects the Mother of God to already know what the Qur’an says about her, he
proceeds to recite parts of it to her anyway.35 Those who knew Riccoldo or his
books seem to have recognized the importance and relative rarity of his Arabic
proficiency. His obituary in the Santa Maria Novella necrology explicitly men-
tions his language skills: ‘In lingua arabica sic profecit quod in ipsa proponebat
populis verbum dei’ (He advanced in the Arabic language so that through it he
could relate the word of God to the people).36 Nicholas of Cusa likewise high-
lights Riccoldo’s Arabic language proficiency, right in the middle of a long list of
sources, because Nicholas believed that the friar’s language skills gave his book
on Islam additional authority. ‘Thereafter, in Rome I saw the book of Brother
Ricoldo of the Order of Preachers, who studied Arabic in Baghdad’.37
Riccoldo does not use the phrase ‘I read it in Arabic’ in Contra legem, but he
still finds ways to show off his language ability, even in this most polemical of
texts. In the prologue, he declares that while in Baghdad, he ‘diligently studied
Arabic language and literature’. A further allusion to his personal knowledge
of the language comes in Chapter Four, where Riccoldo mentions that the
rhythmic quality of Qur’anic Arabic ‘is obvious to its readers’; he certainly
numbers himself among such readers (and by readers he means specifically
34
35
‘Nonne legis arabice in pluribus et pluribus locis in alchorano? […] De te autem scripsit,
quod legi arabice pluribus et pluribus locis in alchorano, quod Maria virgo fuisti illa antiqua
Maria’; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, 2, p. 274.
36
37
Nicholas of Cusa, Cribratio alkorani, ed. and trans. by Hopkins, p. 76.
84 Chapter 4
readers of the Arabic Qur’an and not its Latin translation), since he adds, ‘Nec
tamen de hoc possum ponere conuenienter exemplum quia rithmus et uersus in
arabico non esset si per omnia et fideliter transferetur in latinum’ (But I cannot
propose a suitable example, because the rhythm and verse in Arabic is not able to
be translated fully and properly into Latin).38 Riccoldo makes similar statements
in Liber peregrinationis, often noting the difficulty of translating certain Arabic
words or phrases. Sometimes he provides his readers with Latin transliterations
of Arabic words, and occasionally he even includes the actual Arabic script
itself. The oldest manuscript of Contra legem in Florence contains a few words
in Arabic which some scholars believe were added by Riccoldo himself.39 These
words are omitted in later manuscripts, since copyists were unable to duplicate
the script.
Riccoldo is certainly not the only medieval Christian to incorporate actual
Arabic words and phrases into his writings, or even to mention his own fluency:
Ramon Llull claims that he studied Arabic with a Muslim servant, while William
of Tripoli peppers his Notitia with several Arabic phrases such as the shahada
(witness or creed): ‘La Ellech ella Alla Machomet resol Allah, quod est, non est
deus nisi Deus et Machometus Dei nuntius’ (La Ellech ella Alla Machomet resol
Allah, that is, there is no god but God and Mahomet is the messenger of God).40
However, Riccoldo calls attention to his own personal knowledge of Arabic more
often and more explicitly than the others.
But did he exaggerate his abilities? There are places where one wonders about
the level of his proficiency in Arabic. For example, as will be discussed in more
detail in the next chapter, Riccoldo claims throughout the Epistolae that Muslims
believe ‘God prays for Muhammad’. This erroneous (and illogical) conclusion is
based on a mistranslation of Sura 33. 58. Elsewhere he claims that the Qur’an
allows sodomy, even though it does not.41 Was his Arabic so poor that he trans-
lated the Qur’an incorrectly, or was he in fact getting his information about Islam
from other sources? Despite his claim that he had translated the Qur’an himself
38
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Contra legem Sarracenorum, ed. by Mérigoux, chap. 4, pp. 76–77.
39
For example, the name Baheyra in Arabic has been inserted into the text of chap. 11
in the Florentine manuscript of Contra legem (BNCF, MS Conv. Sopp. C 8.1173, fol. 208r).
According to Mérigoux and Panella, this addition was made by Riccoldo himself.
40
See his autobiography in Llull, Vita coaetana, ed. by Bonner, p. 19; William of Tripoli,
41
For more on Riccoldo’s errors, see Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht,
p. 283, nn. 100–04.
while living in Baghdad,42 the question remains: how well did Riccoldo really
know Arabic?43
No matter his level of fluency, it is obvious that he had a great admiration
for Qur’anic Arabic. As noted earlier, he calls certain phrases in the Qur’an
‘resonant and rhythmical’ and ‘beautiful and ornate’. But ultimately he uses
the book’s linguistic beauty to undermine its revelatory status. In so doing, he
uses an argument exactly opposite of that of the Muslims, who assert that the
‘inimitability’ (i’jaz) of Qur’anic Arabic confirms the book’s divine origin.
Riccoldo is aware of i’jaz, for he acknowledges that
Saraceni tamen et Arabes in hoc maxime gloriantur quod sermo legis eorum et
stilus est rithmicus. Et dicunt quod in hoc patet quod Deus fecit illum librum et
reuelauit Machometo de uerbo ad verbum, quia Machometus qui fuit homo idiota
nesciuisset adinuenire talem stilum et tales sententias
(The Saracens and Arabs glory exceedingly in the rhythmical wording and style of
their law, and they say that this shows that God made this book and revealed these
exact words to Mahomet, because Mahomet was an illiterate man who would not
have known how to speak in such a style and with such phrases.)44
But Riccoldo ultimately rejects the i’jaz argument, and instead concludes that
the Qur’an’s linguistic beauty is precisely what proves that the book is not from
God. His evidence? The Bible, which Christians believe is an authentic example
of divine language, is not written in poetic verse. This is all the proof he needs to
conclude that the Qur’an is not the word of God.
Reading the Qur’an ‘in God’s Presence’
It is not only what Riccoldo says about the Qur’an that demonstrates his
ambivalence. It is also how he treats the book itself and the context in which he
reads it. Riccoldo is unusual among medieval Christians for giving his audience
42
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Contra legem Sarracenorum, ed. by Mérigoux, prologue, p. 62:
‘Et cum inceperim eam in latinum transferre’ (And when I began to translate it into Latin).
43
Riccoldo’s Arabic knowledge has been confirmed recently by Thomas E. Burman, who
suggests that the Latin marginal glosses in an Arabic Qur’an in Paris (Bibliothèque nationale
de France, MS fonds arabe 384) are the friar’s. A critical edition of these glosses is currently
being prepared. See Burman, ‘How an Italian Friar Read his Arabic Qur’an’ and Déroche and
Gázquez, ‘Lire et traduire le Coran au Moyen Âge’.
44
86 Chapter 4
glimpses into the way he treats the physical book itself, and the manner in which
he chooses to read it. Some of Riccoldo’s most unusual behaviour towards the
Qur’an can be found in the Epistolae. For example, right in the middle of an
argument about Qur’anic blasphemy, after he has just accused the Qur’an of
attempting ‘tuam sanctissimam Trinitatem et misterium incarnacionis totaliter
evacuare conatur’ (to nullify completely your most holy trinity and the mystery
of the incarnation), he inserts a seemingly insignificant aside: ‘Nam te presente
legi arabyce in predicto alchorano’ (For in your presence I have read in Arabic
in the aforementioned Qur’an).45 Once again Riccoldo admits to having read
the Qur’an in Arabic, but what is more important here is that he says he read
it in God’s presence. This admission is actually quite significant, for it implies a
belief that the Qur’an is not merely an object of study, but a book worthy of
prayerful contemplation. By admitting that he read the Qur’an in God’s presence,
Riccoldo seems to equate reading the Qur’an with lectio divina, the ancient
Christian approach to Bible study.46 He has already acknowledged the fact that
Muslims approach the Qur’an prayerfully by mentioning in Liber peregrinationis
their practice of removing shoes before studying the Qur’an. But with the phrase
‘te presente legi’ Riccoldo seems to suggest that Christians like himself might
approach the Qur’an in the same way. Such an attitude towards the Qur’an is
uncommon but not entirely unknown among later medieval Christians. For
example, Nicholas of Cusa reads parts of the Qur’an in a sympathetic manner
which scholars have termed ‘pia interpretatio’ (pius or devout interpretation).47
Thomas Burman notes that some medieval European translators of the Qur’an
used an ‘elevated register of Latin’, which he believes may have been an attempt
to demonstrate the book’s significance for Muslims, even though the Christian
translators themselves did not affirm its revelatory status.48
But in addition to reading the Qur’an in God’s presence, Riccoldo does
something else surprising with the actual book itself. In this remarkable passage,
he implores Christ with the following request:
Sed oro te, legas quod de te dicit et de tua matre et de tuis apostolis. Ego autem pre
maximo dolore cordis et impatientia, ut nosti, frequenter cum legerem alchoranum
arabice, ipsum librum apertum posui super altare tuum coram ymagine tua et tue
45
46
Jean Leclercq describes lectio divina as a prayerful rumination on scripture done within
the context of monastic theology in Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God, p. 76.
47
See Hopkins, ‘The Role of pia interpretatio’.
48
Burman, Reading the Qur’an in Latin Christendom, p. 7.
sanctissime matris et dixi, ‘legatis, legatis, quod dicit Machometus!’ Et videtur mihi,
quod non vultis legere. Rogo igitur, quod non dedigneris audire pauca, que referam
(But I beg you, read what he says about you, your mother, and your apostles. As you
know, frequently when reading the Qur’an in Arabic with a heart full of utter grief
and impatience, I have placed the book open on your altar before your image and
that of your most holy mother, and said, ‘read, read what Mahomet says!’ And it
seems to me that you do not want to read. I ask, therefore, that you not disdain to
hear a little of what I recount to you.)49
This short paragraph is full of contradictions. First, in the midst of declaring that
the contents of the Qur’an trouble him, Riccoldo still feels it necessary to mention
yet again that he has read the book ‘in Arabic’. Second, he asks Christ not once
but three times to read the Qur’an for himself. In the end, Riccoldo even offers to
recite the Qur’an to Christ. Finally and perhaps most amazingly, the friar admits
that he has ‘frequently’ brought the blasphemous Qur’an into church with him.
And not only does he proceed to read the Muslim holy book while in the confines
of a church, but he also places it in a doubly sacred location: on an altar in front of
icons of Jesus and Mary. His behaviour would be condoned by neither Christians
nor Muslims, for while Christians would certainly be scandalized to see a Qur’an
on the altar reserved for the body of Christ, Muslims would likewise disapprove
of the Qur’an being placed before idolatrous icons.50 Riccoldo’s actions here are
puzzling indeed, since he appears to treat the book itself with respect even as he
admits to being horrified by its contents.
In short, Riccoldo’s ambivalence towards the Qur’an is revealed both by his
words and his deeds. His unequivocal admiration for the beauty of Qur’anic
Arabic, while not uncommon in thirteenth-century Europe,51 is nevertheless
striking within the context of Contra legem, given its explicitly polemical intent.52
49
50
Islamic law contains strict guidelines as to the proper handling and placement of the
Qur’an. Riccoldo would certainly have been aware of this and of Muslim iconoclasm in general,
since he has already noted in Letter 2 that Saracens had gouged out the eyes of icons of Jesus and
Mary throughout the Levant.
51
Menocal, The Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History, chap. 5, describes the Arabophilia
that characterized the thirteenth-century cultural elite of Italy. European interest in Arabic
philology would only reappear again in the sixteenth century, but such interest was mainly
linguistic, not theological.
52
Thomas Burman has also noted Riccoldo’s ‘profound ambivalence’ towards the Qur’an,
although Burman claims that most polemical literature, precisely because its goal is to win an
argument, has necessarily been stripped of all paradox and contradiction. But as this book makes
88 Chapter 4
And his strange treatment of the book itself, as highlighted by his actions in the
Epistolae (reading it in Arabic while ‘in God’s presence’, bringing it into church,
placing it on an altar in front of icons, and offering to recite portions of it to
Mary and Jesus) are highly unusual and theologically symbolic actions, since they
reveal a modicum of respect for both the Qur’an and its idiom. For a Latin writer
(and Dominican missionary, no less) to acknowledge the sacred character of the
Qur’an or the Arabic language itself, either explicitly or implicitly through words
and actions as striking as these, was rare among European philologists until the
seventeenth century,53 and among Christian theologians until the twentienth.54
clear, even Riccoldo’s polemical writings demonstrate ambivalence, thus lending further support
to Burman’s assertion that medieval Latin readers of the Qur’an held complex attitudes towards
it. See Burman, ‘Polemic, Philology, and Ambivalence’.
53
The revival of interest in Arabic among seventeenth-century European philologists
resulted in a spate of new translations of the Qur’an into Latin and vernacular languages. See
Daniel, Islam and the West, pp. 294–301.
54
The French Catholic Orientalist Louis Massignon (d. 1962) was perhaps one of the first
to highlight explicitly what he saw as the inherently sacred quality of Arabic: ‘[La langue] est
marquée du sceau d’inspiration […] parce que l’arabe est la plus archaïque et la plus pure des
langues sémitiques — prédisposée à être inspirée’; Massignon, ‘Les Sept Dormants’, p. 116.
Chapter 5
Questioning Salvation History
O
n 18 May 1291, the last Crusader stronghold in the Levant — the city
of Acre — was taken by the Mamluks.1 News of the event travelled
quickly throughout the entire region, eventually making its way to
Baghdad, where Riccoldo first heard about it. Not only did he learn that Eastern
Christian communities in Acre had been decimated, but he also got word that
many of his fellow friars — indeed entire Dominican communities in Acre,
Tripoli, Antioch, and Jerusalem — had been killed. Riccoldo even claims to have
seen evidence of the slaughter with his own eyes: in Letter Four he recalls finding
bloodied habits and breviaries for sale in Baghdad’s marketplace, and buying
them guiltily.
The fall of Acre not only pushes Riccoldo to the brink of despair, but it also
precipitates a serious theological crisis. How could perfidious Islam, the ‘law
of death’ be victorious over righteous Christianity, the ‘law of life’? 2 Many of
Riccoldo’s confreres were also struggling to answer this very same question. Most
did so by incorporating Islam into varying schemes of Christian salvation history.
For example, Joachim of Fiore viewed Islam as the sixth of seven historical perse-
cutions of the church, while Peter the Venerable called Muhammad the ‘precursor
1
In Letter 4, Riccoldo mentions that it was on a Friday that many Dominicans and other Chris
tians were massacred during mass; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, 4, p. 291.
2
In both Liber peregrinationis and Epistolae, Riccoldo repeatedly uses these phrases ‘law of
death’ and ‘law of life’ to describe Islam and Christianity, respectively. For example, ‘[Christians]
[…] qui nolunt facere pro lege uite quod dampnati faciunt pro lege mortis’; Riccoldo da
90 Chapter 5
to the antichrist’. Even Eastern Christians such as the Armenians and Nestorians,
who were more directly and permanently affected by Muslim hegemony than
Latin Christians, interpreted recent calamities through the lens of traditional
salvation history.3 They believed that their near annihilation was God’s judge-
ment upon them, and like their European coreligionists they drew heavily upon
apocalyptic language: ‘And because of our impenitence his [God’s] wrath was not
abated; rather, his hand is still raised to punish and chastise us […]. We are near-
ing death and hell’.4 But even despite such devastating losses, Eastern Christians
did not abandon the traditional view of salvation history.
What makes Riccoldo’s response so different is that he does not simply
modify already existing models of Christian salvation history to take Islam into
account. Rather, he is pushed to question the very idea of a Christ-centred his-
tory. Wallowing in doubt and anguish, he writes five letters to the heavenly curia
in which he seems to entertain the possibility that the Qur’anic view of history,
one in which Islam dominates both temporally and spiritually, may actually be
correct. Riccoldo’s profound questioning of Christian history is implicit (and
often very explicit) in queries such as, ‘Were the Old Testament patriarchs really
Saracens?’ and ‘Will Christ himself become a Muslim on the last day?’ These are
all Muslim claims, and by seeming to accept them, at least temporarily, Riccoldo
demonstrates the kind of uncertainty (and perhaps openness?) that catastrophe
can sometimes produce. His letters provide a candid glimpse into the way one
medieval Christian worked through a theological crisis which was not only per-
sonal, but also emblematic of the age.
Islam’s Place in Christian Salvation History

The Christian theological term ‘salvation history’ (Heilsgeschichte) is relatively
recent5 and somewhat contested,6 yet the idea of a sacred history (historia sacra)
3
See Bundy, ‘The Syriac and Armenian Christian Responses to the Islamification of the Mongols’.
4
An anonymous Armenian scribe in Xac’ikyan, xiv Dari Hayeren Jeragreri Hisatakaranner,
no. 65; Sanjian, 54 (1307), as quoted in Bundy, ‘The Syriac and Armenian Christian Responses
to the Islamification of the Mongols’, p. 41.
5
One early advocate for the term was the mid-nineteenth-century Lutheran biblical scholar
Johann Christian Hoffmann. Heilsgeschichte then became popular a hundred years later, when
many eminent theologians wrote entire books devoted to the subject, including Balthasar, Theologie
der Geschichte; Daniélou, Essai sur le mystère de l’histoire; Pannenberg, Offenbarung als Geschichte;
Cullmann, Christus und die Zeit; and Ratzinger, Die Geschichtstheologie des heiligen Bonaventura.
6
The idea remains central. However, recently some have questioned the notion of Christian
Questioning Salvation History 91
has always been central to Christian self-understanding. Distinct from but

related to secular history, Christian salvation history describes God’s saving work
among human beings in time; it sees Jesus Christ as the midpoint of a linear
history which began with creation and will end with his second coming. Using
this basic conception of history as their framework, most patristic and medieval
theologians divided history into a series of ages (aetate) or periods (status), the
number of which varied. A renewed focus on history in the twelfth century,
combined with increasing anxiety over Islamic hegemony in the thirteenth,
compelled many Christians to modify, sometimes radically, their traditional
models of salvation history. In an attempt to explain how Christian losses to
Muslims in the Middle East could fit into a single divine plan for humankind,
many theologians incorporated apocalyptic language into their revised historical
schemata; references to the antichrist in particular featured prominently.7
So while Riccoldo’s response to the fall of Acre (in the form of questions such
as ‘Does God pray for Muhammad?’) is unique, he was certainly not the only
medieval theologian struggling to make sense of recent events, or wondering how
Islam fit into Christian salvation history. Actually, Christians had been trying
to explain Islam’s presence since its rise in the early seventh century. One of the
first to do so was the eighth-century theologian John of Damascus, who seemed
surprised that the ‘still-prevailing deceptive superstition of the Ishmaelites’ had
lasted so long, and placed a discussion of Islam at the very end of his list of
heresies, almost as an afterthought.8
But just a few centuries later, Christians could see that Islam was around
to stay, and they could no longer afford to ignore it.9 Riccoldo observes (and
laments) the length of Islamic hegemony in the Middle East:
salvation history altogether, especially as it relates to those Eastern religions which envision
history as cyclical rather than linear (e.g., Hinduism and Buddhism). See Wilfred, ‘A Matter of
Theological Education’. For a contemporary theological discussion of the ‘problem of history’,
see Tilley, History, Theology, and Faith.
7
On medieval apocalypticism in general, see McGinn, Visions of the End; and The
Apocalypse in the Middle Ages, ed. by Emmerson and McGinn.
8
John of Damascus, The ‘Heresy of the Ishmaelites’, trans. by Sahas, chaps 100/101, p. 132.
The idea that Islam was a Christian heresy was to have a long life in Christian theology, and
features prominently in the writings of Peter the Venerable, Riccoldo, and many others.
9
David Burr notes that ‘The very duration of Islam constituted a theological problem.
Exegetes […] found it harder to understand why [God] had kept them around for 600 years
[…]. Their remarkable staying power seemed to suggest that they were destined to play a major
apocalyptic role’; Burr, ‘Antichrist and Islam in Medieval Franciscan Exegesis’, p. 147.
92 Chapter 5
Et tu tali bestie dedisti tantam potentiam contra christianos fere septingentis annis.
Vere credo, quod instent dies illi pessimi, de quibus tu ipsa veritatis prophetasti, sed
promisisti quod dies illi pessimi breviarentur. Quare igitur tam longo tempore tam
crudelissima bestia grassatur et dominatur in christianos?
(And it is to such a beast that you have given so much power against the Christians
for almost 700 years! Truly I believe that the worst days are approaching, those
which you who are truth itself prophesied. But you promised that these worst days
would be brief [Mark 13. 19–20]. Why then has such a cruel beast raged against
and dominated Christians for so long?)10
William of Tripoli, another Dominican living in the Levant a few decades before
Riccoldo, also tries to account for Islam’s phenomenal rise to power. In fact,
one of the three reasons he gives for writing his book Notitia de Machometo is
to explain ‘eorum secta ita vehementer et potenter dilatata’ (how their sect so
violently and powerfully has spread); he goes on to give a detailed history of the
Arab conquest, including the destruction of the Christian community in North
Africa, the martyrdom of Franciscans, and the rise of two Muslim emperors in
the East and the West.11 William is unable, however, to offer any concrete reasons
as to why Islam has been so successful.
One way medieval Christians explained recent Muslim victories was to equate
their era with the end times, and the rise of Islam with the coming of the anti-
christ. In so doing, they could incorporate Islam into an already existing scheme
of Christian history. Many medieval theologians, including Peter the Venerable,
Joachim of Fiore and his followers,12 and Roger Bacon follow John of Damascus in
calling Muhammad ‘the precursor to the Antichrist’.13 Peter the Venerable explains:
10
11
William of Tripoli, Notitia de Machometo, ed. and trans. by Engels, prologue, p. 194, and
chap. 3, pp. 202–08.
12
Burr, ‘Antichrist and Islam in Medieval Franciscan Exegesis’, mentions Peter John Olivi
(d. 1297) and Alexander Minorita (d. 1271) as two key Fiore disciples who ‘display significant
Joachite influence concerning the Muslims’, pp. 135–41. For Olivi, the ‘seven heads stand for
the seven centuries between the rise of Islam and the coming of Antichrist. The head that is
wounded and recovers signifies a future death and recovery of Islam. Elsewhere Olivi makes it
plain that he conceives this process […] in terms of a mass conversion of Muslims to Christianity
in the near future, followed by an Islamic resurgence’ (p. 137). Alexander Minorita was the only
Franciscan commentator to ‘reject the accepted seven-vision, seven-period model, proceeding
instead on the assumption that the Apocalypse should be read as a progressive history of the
church from the apostles in chapter 1 to the eschaton in chapter 22’.
13
John of Damascus, The ‘Heresy of the Ishmaelites’, trans. by Sahas, 100/101, p. 132;
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, 3, p. 280; Peter the Venerable, Summa
‘Impiissimus Mahumuth inter utrumque medius a diabolo prouisus ac preparatus

esse uidetur, qui et Arrii quodammodo supplementum, et Antichristi’ (This most
wicked Muhammad seems to have been appropriately provided and prepared by
the devil as the man between these two, so that he became both a supplement
to Arius and the greatest sustenance for the antichrist).14 Eastern Christians also
appealed to antichrist in their interpretation of history; one Armenian described
Muhammad as ‘a young one-eyed man who looked like the Antichrist who is to
arrive someday’.15
Despite Islam’s seven-hundred-year staying power and thirteenth-century
dominance over Christians in the Holy Land, many Christians still remained
confident that Islam would soon be eliminated. William of Tripoli concludes his
Notitia as follows:
Omnes predicant, credunt et expectant quod cito debet desinere Sarracenorum
status […]. Item omens predicant, prophetant, et expectant Sarracenos dividendos
in tres partes, quorum pars prima ad Christianos fugiet, secunda pars peribit sub
gladio et teria pars peribit in deserto. Amen
(All predict, believe, and hope that the position of the Saracens must come to an end
soon […]. Moreover, all predict, prophesy, and hope the Saracens will be divided
into three parts, of which the first part will flee to the Christians, the second part
will perish by the sword, and the third part will perish in the desert. Amen.)16
Roger Bacon seems even more certain that Christianity will prevail, offering not
only a precise date for the occurrence, but also citing a Muslim scholar to support
his assertion: ‘According to what Albumazar says in the eighth chapter of the sec-
ond book, the law of Mahomet cannot last more than 693 years […]. It is now the
665th year of the Arabs from the time of Mahomet, and therefore it will be quickly
destroyed by the grace of God, which must be a great consolation to Christians’.17
Are William and Roger expressing true Christian hope or mere wishful
thinking? Either way, the belief that Christianity would eventually defeat Islam
totius haeresis Saracenorum, ed. and trans. by Kritzeck, p. 208; Bacon, The Opus maius, trans. by
Burke, i, 289 (part iv, chap. 2).
14
Peter the Venerable, Summa totius haeresis Saracenorum, ed. and trans. by Kritzeck, p. 145–46.
15
Xac’ikyan, xiv Dari Hayeren Jeragreri Hisatakaranner, no. 61, Sanjian Colophons, 52,
cited in Bundy, ‘The Syriac and Armenian Christian Responses to the Islamification of the
Mongols’, p. 52.
16
17
Bacon, The Opus maius, trans. by Burke, i, 289 (part iv, chap. 2).
94 Chapter 5
was common. Others who shared Roger and William’s confidence include the
Franciscan exegetes Peter Auriol (d. 1322) and Alexander Minorita (d. 1271).18
Their optimism was reflected in part by the thirteenth-century popularity of a
seventh-century apocalyptic text, Revelations of the Pseudo-Methodius, which
according to Bernard McGinn contains ‘a vision of history which not only gave
hope for the future but […] at least implicitly encouraged active resistance against
the forces of evil’.19 Written in Syriac just a few decades after the rise of Islam,
Revelations of the Pseudo-Methodius eventually became one of the most ‘wide-
spread of medieval apocalyptic texts’ — quoted with regularity by theologians
who sought to explain Islam’s role in history and who were convinced of the reli-
gion’s eventual demise. It was only in the mid-fourteenth century that Christians
finally began to realize that Islam was not declining, but rising.20
Riccoldo’s Five Questions

Writing in the 1260s and 70s, Roger Bacon and William of Tripoli were convinced
that Islam would eventually be destroyed and Christianity would reign supreme.
As a result, they did not see the need to completely rewrite salvation history.
Riccoldo’s perspective is much different. Writing just two decades later and living
near the epicentre of the 1291 crisis, he does not share their confidence. After
hearing about the successive falls of Antioch, Tripoli, and Acre, and personally
witnessing the enslavement, slaughter, and mass conversion of so many Eastern
Christians in Baghdad, Riccoldo begins to wonder whether Islam will completely
eradicate Christianity in the East:
Ubique perdimur, ubique succumbimus cum Sarracenis non solum in bello corpo-
rali, sed eciam in pugna spirituali! Nam Sarraceni multos christianos occidunt, et
multi alii christiani, qui relicti sunt, legem ymmo perfidiam Sarracenorum suscipiunt
(Everywhere we are being destroyed. Everywhere we are succumbing to the Saracens,
not only in the war of the flesh, but in the battle of the spirit! For the Saracens
have killed many Christians, and many other Christians who have remained have
accepted the law, nay the perfidy, of the Saracens.)21
18
Burr, ‘Antichrist and Islam in Medieval Franciscan Exegesis’, pp. 139–41.
19
McGinn, Visions of the End, p. 70.
20
For example, Nicholas of Lyra (d. 1349). See Krey, ‘Nicholas of Lyra and Paul of Burgos
on Islam’.
21
Not only does Riccoldo not incorporate Islam into traditional Christian chrono
logies, but he even questions the validity of salvation history in the first place.
And then he goes one step further by entertaining the possibility — at least
rhetorically — that the Qur’anic view of history may in fact be correct.
Riccoldo’s suspension of belief in a Christ-centred history, no matter how
rhetorical or how temporary, might seem surprising given his explicit focus on
Christ at the beginning of Liber peregrinationis. Here is a missionary who at the
outset of his journey prayed for Christ to strengthen him, and who saw parallels
between Christ’s pilgrimage and his own. But his firm Christ-centred faith
seems almost entirely absent in the letters. Indeed, not a single one of the five is
addressed to Christ. Riccoldo does question Christ briefly in the middle of Letter
Three’s long litany to the saints, and what he says there is provocative:
Certe tu Dei virtus et Dei potentia es, nec est possibile, quod ab homine infirmaris.
Mee vero impatientie et insipientie videtur quod si tu non vis, quod aliquid de
fide in terra remaneat, non habes nisi relaxare habenas Machometo et dare ipsi
potentiam contra christianos sicut iam incepisti facere ab aliquibus annis
(Certainly you are the strength of God and the power of God, and it is not possible
for you to be weakened by a man. But in my impatience and foolishness it truly
seems to me that if you wished anything of the faith to remain on earth, you would
not have released the reins to Mahomet and given him power against the Christians
as you have already begun to do for some years now.)22
By expressing such great frustration, and by questioning the Son of God himself,
does Riccoldo cross a line?
Perhaps. But while Riccoldo considers the possibility that the Muslim view
of history may be correct, he clearly does not welcome it. In Letter Two, he
condemns the conversion of churches into mosques and stables and laments
the decimation of the Eastern Christian communities he had just visited during
his pilgrimage through the Holy Land, Anatolia, Persia, and modern-day
Iraq. Even so, he cannot help but be impressed with Islam’s great success: ‘Per
experienciam probamus quod quasi in omnibus prosperantur’ (We have seen
through experience that they [Saracens] have prospered in almost everything).23
The fact that his actual experience (of Muslim success and Christian defeat) does
not correspond with his theory about the two religions (that Islam is false and
Christianity true) surprises him enough to make him write five long letters. I say
22
23
96 Chapter 5
‘surprises’ quite purposely here, for he admits astonishment often in his letters;
indeed, he states in the prologue that it is surprise over the contradiction between
his theory of Islam and his experience of Muslims that motivated him to write in
the first place.
So how does Riccoldo solve this seeming incongruity between experience and
theory? At first, he offers a fairly traditional reason for Muslim dominance over
Christians: ‘Et credo, Domine, quod hec omnia pro nostris iniquitatibus patimur’
(O Lord, I believe that we are suffering all of this for our iniquities).24 As noted
earlier with the Armenian example, it was not uncommon for medieval Christians
to blame misfortune on themselves. Nor has it been uncommon for Christians
throughout all of history to acknowledge the presence of a ‘history of disaster’
(Unheilsgeschichte) within God’s overall plan of salvation.25 But in his attempts
to explain what happened at Acre, he goes beyond both divine punishment and
Unheilsgeschichte. Because the events of 1291 made the idea of salvation history
and indeed God himself unrecognizable to Riccoldo, the friar came to the conclu-
sion that God changed. He repeats this idea several times throughout the letters:
‘Ecce Domine, signa immutasti et innovasti mirabilia. […] An audeo dicere, quod
sis nobis mutatus in crudelem quia nunc perdidisti multos iustos cum aliquibus
impijs, qui consuevisti parcere multis impijs pro aliquibus iustis’ (Behold, O Lord,
you have changed the signs and altered your miracles […]. Dare I say that you have
changed into a cruel God? Because now you are destroying many of the righteous
along with a few of the wicked, you who were in the habit of sparing many of the
wicked for a few of the righteous).26 At the end of this same letter, Riccoldo actu-
ally says to God: ‘Si tibi placet ut regnet Machometus, indica nobis, ut eum vener-
emur’ (If it pleases you that Mahomet should rule, tell us so that we may venerate
him).27 A statement like this reveals the depths of Riccoldo’s despair.
Seeming to reject Christian salvation history in toto, Riccoldo then considers
five Muslim historical claims with the potential to replace it. While these
questions could be dismissed as merely rhetorical, I would argue that the inchoate
and emotional nature of the letters, not to mention their sheer audacity (for
example, the aforementioned willingness to venerate Muhammad) demands that
24
25
For more on the notion of Unheilsgeschichte, see Cullmann, Salvation in History, p. 76.
26
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, 1, p. 269. Here he is referring to
the biblical story in which Abraham asks God to save Sodom for the sake of ten just people
(Gen. 18. 32), and compares it to the destruction of Tripoli and Acre in his time, both cities
which he claims ‘surely contained more than ten just people in such a mass of Christians’.
27
readers take him seriously. Riccoldo does seem to consider the possibility that the
Islamic view of history is correct, if only for a short while.
The first question Riccoldo contemplates is: does God pray for Muhammad?
Riccoldo believes this is a Qur’anic claim, but the idea is actually based on a
misreading of Sura 33. 56.28 While he will argue later in Contra legem against
the absurdity of an omnipotent God praying for anyone, in Epistolae he actually
seems to entertain the notion: ‘Numquid illa hora forte Deus et angeli eius
oraverunt pro Machometo, sicut scriptum in alchorano?’ (Could it be perhaps
that at that very hour [when Acre fell], God and his angels were praying for
Mahomet as is written in the Qur’an?).29 After all, how else could a ‘runt’ like
Muhammad succeed, unless God were his corroborator? Later, Riccoldo answers
his own question, concluding that God and his angels do pray for Muslims, and
he fears the eventual consequences of this favouritism:
Certe non oportet quod amplius orent pro eo, quia si solum sic dimiserint nos
Deus et angeli eius et Sarraceni sic continuaverint sicut modo fecerunt in duobus
annis in Tripoli et in Accon, timeo, quod in paucis annis non invenietur in toto
mundo aliquis christianus
(Certainly they should not pray for him any more, because if God and his angels
abandon us in this way, and if the Saracens continue doing what they have been
doing for the past two years in Tripoli and Acre, then I fear that soon not a single
Christian will be found in the entire world.)30
Lamenting the utter failure of Christians, he adds, ‘Nunc proch dolor, e converso
hec mutatio dextere excelsi in levam et sinistram nobis, quia Sarraceni multos
christianos occiderunt, et multi ex christianis, qui remanent, legem, ymmo
perfidiam Machometis suscipiunt’ (And now, what sorrow! The right hand of the
Most High is no longer for us; it has changed into the pernicious left hand. For
the Saracens have killed many Christians, and many of the Christians who remain
have accepted the law — nay, the perfidy — of Mahomet).31 While it is certainly
part of the biblical tradition to speak of God rejecting or punishing his chosen
people (be they Christians or Jews),32 what is striking about Riccoldo’s statement
28
See Chapter 3 for more details.
29
30
31
32
Indeed, earlier in the Letter, Riccoldo cites Psalms 44 and 79, both of which describe
Israel asking God why he has abandoned them.
98 Chapter 5
here is that it implies that Muslims have inherited the favour and protection of
God’s right hand — something traditionally reserved for the ‘descendants of
Jacob and Joseph’ alone.33 Is Riccoldo hinting at a new supersession here, one in
which God’s favour has once again been transferred — this time not from Jews
to Christians (as medieval Christians believed), but from Christians to Muslims?
The second Muslim claim Riccoldo considers is whether or not the patri-
archs and apostles were Muslims (cf. Sura 2. 126–140 and 5. 111). Riccoldo
will eventually deny this claim in Contra legem. But in the Epistolae he accuses
both the apostles and the patriarchs of having been, and in fact still being, heav-
enly Saracens who pray for the success of earthly Muslims: ‘Quare facti fuistis
Sarraceni et imitatores Machometi?’ (Why did you become Saracens and imi-
tators of Mahomet?).34 By calling the apostles imitatores Machometi, Riccoldo
seems to be drawing a parallel to the medieval ideal of imitatio Christi. This sug-
gests the ultimate betrayal, for if the apostles are imitating Muhammad rather
than Christ, they have not only turned their backs on their fellow Christians, but
they have turned their backs on Christ himself.
If the beloved patriarchs and apostles have become Saracens — a truly amazing
suggestion indeed — then Riccoldo begins to wonder whether other equally
implausible Muslim claims about history might also true; for example, that God
sent the Flood because people refused to become Saracens. If all these Muslim
claims are in fact true, then he concludes that ‘Non est mirum si destruxisti
per Sarracenos Iherusalem, Iudeam, Galileam, Siriam, Antyochiam, Tripolim,
et Accon!’ (It is not surprising that through the Saracens you have destroyed
Jerusalem, Judea, Galilee, Syria, Antioch, Tripoli, and Acre!).35 Recent history
was starting to make sense, but only when viewed through a Muslim hermeneutic.
The third Muslim claim he entertains is the assertion that all Christians will
eventually convert to Islam. Of all the Muslim claims Riccoldo ponders in the
Epistolae, this one seemed the most likely to be true. Since he had seen for himself
how many Eastern Christians were becoming Muslims and how many churches
were being converted into stables, the idea that all Christians would eventually
embrace Islam seemed not only possible, but likely and imminent: ‘Timeo, quod
in paucis annis non invenietur in toto mundo aliquis christianus’ (I fear that
33
At the beginning of Letter 1, Riccoldo cites Psalm 77. 15, which goes on in verse 16 to
describe God using his ‘arm’ to perform wonders for his people, defined as the descendants of
Jacob and Joseph: ‘With your arm you redeemed your people, the descendants of Jacob and
Joseph’; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, 1, p. 265.
34
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, 3, pp. 283–84.
35
soon not a single Christian will be found in the entire world).36 But even though
Riccoldo was witnessing this particular Muslim eschatological claim seemingly on
its way to fulfilment, he still maintained that most Christians who had converted
to Islam did so under duress. He claimed that it was only extreme physical
need which forced most Christians to accept Islam and to forfeit the spiritual
benefits of their native religion: ‘Nonne vides, quod Christiani moriuntur fame
et siti, et quod fidem negant pro necessitatibus corporalibus ?’ (Haven’t you seen
Christians dying of hunger and thirst and renouncing their faith for the needs
of the body?).37 While Riccoldo had little choice but to accept the fact that the
majority of Eastern Christians would eventually embrace Islam — indeed, most
already had — he refused to admit that such conversions were genuine.
The fourth Muslim claim considered in the Epistolae is the idea that Christ
himself will become a Muslim on the last day. In Letter Two, he says that Muslims
‘communiter docmatizant et predicant quod Iesus, filius Marie, redibit circa
finem seculi et efficietur Sarracenus’ (commonly teach and preach that Jesus son
of Mary will come back at the end of the age, and that he will become a Saracen),
and adds that recent events corroborate their claim: ‘Video tamen manifeste
quod ipse multa dedit et concessit Sarracenis, si forte ista sunt preludia, quod
ipse vere efficietur Sarracenus’ (Yet I have seen clearly that he himself has given
and conceded much to the Saracens; perhaps this is a prelude to him actually
becoming a Saracen).38 By ‘conceded much’, Riccoldo not only means that Christ
has given the Holy Land to the Muslims, but also that he has allowed many Eastern
Christians to convert to Islam. Furthermore, these mass conversions suggested
that even Eastern Christians interpreted recent events as a foreshadowing of
Christ’s conversion to Islam on the last day. Of course, Muslims themselves had
already pointed to such events as preludes to Jesus’ conversion, Riccoldo tells
us. But it is only recently that Christians themselves, due to the severity of their
losses, began to wonder if the Muslim predictions about Christ were in fact
correct. Riccoldo even admits to the Virgin Mary that: ‘Ego usque nunc non
potui credere quod Iesus Christus, filius tuus, efficiatur Sarracenus’ (Until now,
I could not believe that Jesus Christ your son would become a Saracen).39 Only a
catastrophe like the fall of Acre could have forced him to change his mind. And
indeed, he does seem to conclude that the Muslims are correct, for he eventually
36
37
38
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, 2, p. 274–75.
39
100 Chapter 5
declares: ‘Nunc autem in fine temporum supervenit Mahometus, quem Sarraceni

dicunt esse fortiorem Christo’ (Now at the end of time Mahomet has arrived, he
who the Saracens say is greater than Christ).40
But he vacillates. For although the above statement seems to betray a belief
that the eschaton has arrived and that Christ is now a Muslim, elsewhere Riccoldo
rejects the possibility. In one place, Riccoldo even declares: ‘O Domina, tibi de
tuo filio credam et non Sarracenis!’ (O Lady, I will believe you about your son,
and not the Saracens).41 It seems as if Riccoldo is trying to convince himself more
than Mary here. He is not so certain after all. Later, he goes on to offer another,
more traditional interpretation of recent Muslim victories: that their successes
will actually serve to confirm their errors in the end.42 Thus, in the very same letter
we see Riccoldo coming to two very different conclusions: in one place he seems
to accept Muslim eschatology, but in another he explicitly rejects it in favour of a
more traditional Christian explanation. His confusion is clear.
The final and most important Muslim claim Riccoldo considers is whether
the Qur’an is the word of God; he repeats this question no less than five times
throughout the letters. Scripture was evidently the foundation of his entire view
of history, for if it were true that the Qur’an is the word of God, then he felt
he would have to reject the traditional Christian historia sacra altogether. Once
again, recent events are Riccoldo’s pretext for considering Muslim alternatives
to the Christian worldview. In Letter Three, he wonders aloud whether Saracen
victories in Tripoli and Acre confirm the Qur’an’s revelatory status. But the
current war is not the only reason he gives for wondering about the Qur’an.
Having personally witnessed the great reverence Muslims have for the Qur’an, he
declares that no book has ever been as honoured. Furthermore, their reverence
seems to inspire some ‘holy envy’ in him: ‘O utinam vel in tanta reverencia esset
evangelium apud christianos, in quanta est alchoranum apud Sarracenos!’ (Oh,
if only the gospel were as revered among Christians as the Qur’an is among the
Saracens).43 His observation of Muslim reverence of the Qur’an seems almost
40
41
42
‘Nam prospera eorum vertuntur eis in “fel aspidum intrinsecus”, quia ex omni victoria
et omni temporali prosperitate, quam assequuntur, pocius in suis erroribus confirmantur’ (For
their successes turn on them ‘like the venom of asps from within’ [ Job 20. 14]; after every
victory and temporal success they are more strongly confirmed in their errors); Riccoldo da
Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, 2, p. 275.
43
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, 3, p. 281. ‘Holy envy’ is a term coined
by the Lutheran theologian and biblical scholar Krister Stendahl to describe the moment in
enough to convince him that the book is in fact divinely inspired. He even asks
the following question aloud: ‘Si non est verbum Dei, unde ei tantus honor?’
(If it is not the word of God, then from where does such honour come?).44
Riccoldo ends with the following statement, which is not only a declaration of
what Muslims believe, but also a conclusion on his part: ‘Certissimum reputatur
quasi in omnibus partibus orientis, quod alchoranum sit verbum Dei’ (Almost
everywhere in the East it is very firmly believed that the Qur’an is the word of
God).45 Has his faith been swayed by majority rule?
Riccoldo’s questioning of the Qur’an’s revelatory status underlies his entire
debate with salvation history in his Epistolae. Even in Contra legem, he continues
to ask, ‘Is the Qur’an the word of God?’.46 More than any other, this question
consumes him. For if it were really true that the Qur’an is the word of God,
then Riccoldo could believe all the other Muslim claims about history: ‘Certe si
alchoranum esset sermo Dei, ut dicunt Sarraceni, et vos [patriarchs] procul dubio
Sarraceni fuistis!’ (Surely if the Qur’an were the word of God as the Saracens say,
then I do not doubt that you would have been Saracens!).47 The reverse was true,
too, for if God had given Muhammad so much temporal power, then it could be
concluded that God himself was the executor of the Qur’an.48 If what Riccoldo
considered most improbable were in fact true — that the Qur’an is the word of
God — then recent Christian catastrophes would cease to amaze him.
Getting Past the Impasse

Riccoldo is unusual among medieval Christians, not only for considering aloud
the possibility that Muslim eschatology may be true, but also for appearing, on
occasion, to conclude that it is. His deep ambivalence could be seen as a kind of
which the member of one religion discovers in another religion a quality or practice worthy of
admiration. See Stendahl, ‘From God’s Perspective We Are All Minorities’.
44
45
46
Spath, ‘Beyond Conversion and Crusade’, p. 157, likewise notes, ‘If scripture was to be
the answer to his crisis of faith […] then it would have to be on the basis of scripture that his
ultimate critique of Islamic theology be grounded’.
47
48
‘Et tu, Domine [...]. Machometo dedisti regnum terrenum, ymmo regna orbis terrarum
sibi […] ad India usque ad occidentalis partes [...]. Tu Deus sis factus executor alchorani.
Nam plura eis concedis, quam ipse mendacissimus in suo alchorano promittit’; Riccoldo da
Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, 1, pp. 266–67.
102 Chapter 5
theological ‘impasse’.49 Riccoldo seems to recognize the audacity of articulating his

personal theological conundrum, and thus prefaces some of his more outrageous
claims with an explicit acknowledgement of his highly emotional state: ‘Et iam
eciam inpaciencia videtur aliquibus, quod tu Deus sis factus executor alchorani’
(And now it seems to the impatient that you, God, have become the executor
of the Qur’an) and ‘Mee vero impatientie et insipientie videtur quod si tu non
vis, quod aliquid de fide in terra remaneat, non habes nisi relaxare habenas
Machometo et dare ipsi potentiam contra christianos’ (But in my impatience
and foolishness it truly seems to me that if you wished anything of the faith to
remain on earth, you would not have released the reins to Mahomet and given
him power against the Christians).50 Even though he regularly admits to being
‘impatient’ and ‘foolish’, he still worries that some of his more radical statements
will make the celestial curia less sympathetic to his plea:
Cepi aliquantulum pusillanimis esse ad scribendum eis epistolam […] ne forte sim
ab eis taliter elongatus per meam impatientiam aut per aliam causam quod non
inveniatur nuncius quis velit portare vel representare literas tante impatientie in
curia regis eterni
(I began to become a little more discouraged in having written a letter to them
[…] lest I should become so greatly removed from them through my impatience or
through other reasons such that a messenger could not be found who would want
to bring or represent such impatient letters to the court of the Eternal King.)51
Yet even despite these concerns, he never curbs his language. Throughout all five
letters, he persists in speaking ‘foolishly’ and ‘impatiently’ to his heavenly audi-
ence. But by the time he writes Contra legem perhaps nearly ten years later, his
bold questions and conflicted answers seem to have disappeared. In this classical
polemic, Riccoldo finally articulates what he believes to be a coherent explana-
tion for Islam’s place in history. Gone are his doubts about Christian salvation
history and his consideration of Muslim eschatology; here he offers a more typi-
cal medieval view:
Cum igitur ostensum sit quod Alchoranum, quod est lex Saracenorum, non est a
Deo, consequenter inquirendum est de discipulis Mahometi et institutione Alcho-
49
Constance FitzGerald has recently popularized the term ‘impasse’ among contemporary
Catholic theologians; her understanding of the term has been inspired in turn by John of the
Cross’s ‘dark night of the soul’. See FitzGerald, ‘Impasse and Dark Night’, and FitzGerald, ‘From
Impasse to Prophetic Hope’.
50
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, 1, p. 267 and 3, p. 286, respectively.
51
rani predicti. Et sciendum quod firmiter a sapientibus creditur, et rationibus effi-

cacibus comprobatur, quod principalis actor ipsius Alchorani non fuit homo sed
diabolus qui ex inuidia propria, et permissione diuina, propter peccata populi pre-
ualuit inchoare solemniter et efficaciter perfidiam Antichristi. Videns igitur diabo-
lus quod fides Christi crescebat in partibus orientis et quod idolatria deficiebat […]
cogitauit per fictionem cuiusdam legi, quasi medie inter nouam et ueteram, deci-
pere mundum. Et ad hoc exequendum assumpsit quendam hominem diabolicum,
nomine Mahometum, ritu idolatram, fortuna pauperem, mente superbissimum
et maleficiis famosum; et quidem libentius assumpsisset diabolus hominem bone
fame si fuisset permissus sicut et libentius primum temptasset hominem per aliud
animal in quo amplius ipsius malitia celaretur quam per serpentem si fuisset per-
missus. Sed non permisit diuina sapientia nisi ut tale animal assumeret et per talem
hominem mundum inuaderet ut mundus de facili posset aduertere qualis esset lex
data per talem legis latorem.
(It has been demonstrated that the Qur’an, which is law of the Saracens, is not from
God; consequently we must inquire about the disciples of Mahomet and the insti-
tution of the aforementioned Qur’an. And knowing firmly that it is believed by
their sages, and verified by efficacious reasons, that the main author of the Qur’an
was not a man but the devil who [from his own hatred and through divine permis-
sion because of the sins of the people] prevailed to solemnly and effectively set into
motion the treachery of the antichrist. Therefore, the devil, seeing that the faith
of Christ was growing in the East and that idolatry was failing […] devised the
invention of some law to deceive the world as if it were halfway between the Old
and New Testaments. And in order to carry this out effectively, he used a certain
diabolical man named Mahomet, of the rite of idolatry, poor in fortune, arrogant,
and famous for evil deeds. Yet the devil would have certainly more gladly used a
man of good repute, if he had been allowed, just as he would also have much rather
tempted man through another animal than through the serpent, which would have
concealed his vices better, if he had been allowed. But divine wisdom only permit-
ted such an animal and such a man to take possession of the world, so that the world
could easily discern what sort of a law it is that is given through such a lawgiver.)52
Just as with the works of perfection, which were prominent in the earlier Liber
peregrinationis but absent in the later Contra legem, we see a similar shift in
Riccoldo’s handling of salvation history. Unlike the earlier Epistolae which is
replete with questions and contradictions, the later Contra legem neither questions
Christian salvation history nor affirms Muslim eschatological claims. There is no
longer any uncertainty or ambivalence. Once again, Contra legem offers a more
typical medieval Christian view: that Islam is part of a single historia sacra, a false
52
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Contra legem Sarracenorum, ed. by Mérigoux, chap. 13, pp. 117–18.
104 Chapter 5
religion temporarily permitted by God as a chastisement for wayward Christians,

but a religion sure to be defeated in the end. Why the change? Riccoldo says he
is finally able to present this description of history in Contra legem’s Chapter
Thirteen only because he has proven in the previous twelve chapters that the
Qur’an is not the word of God. In Contra legem, Riccoldo has finally answered
the chief question he raised long ago while writing his Epistolae on the banks of
the Tigris. With this issue off the table, he could once again put his faith in the
Christian view of history.
* * *
Despite the neat conclusion Riccoldo presents in the later Contra legem, a
conclusion preferred by so many of his later Christian readers, the earlier Epistolae
remain. What to do with them? So what if they express a genuine theological
impasse? After all, Riccoldo was not the only medieval Christian to wonder
about Islam’s place in history. It is possible that others who grappled with the
same issue — Peter the Venerable, Joachim of Fiore, Roger Bacon, to name only a
few — did so precisely because they were likewise pushed to crisis.
Yet Riccoldo’s response in the Epistolae remains unique in two ways. First, the
letters were born out of the crucible of an immediate, personal experience. Unlike
Peter the Venerable, Joachim of Fiore, or Roger Bacon, all of whom had little or
no experience of Muslims, Riccoldo lived for over a decade in the Islamic world,
learned Arabic, studied Islam deeply with scholars, and engaged in conversations
with Muslims in their schools, mosques, and homes. To understand Riccoldo’s
theological conundrum, one must understand the complex and contradictory
experience out of which it emerged. The acute nature of his crisis was not simply
the product of a bad experience (the fall of Acre); it was also the result of a
positive experience (living in Baghdad). And because Riccoldo had witnessed
not only the worldly successes of Muslims but also their spiritual achievements,
his first response to the theological dilemma he faced was not to dismiss the
religion outright. His experience wouldn’t allow it. Other Christians asked why
Christianity was failing, but Riccoldo asked why Islam was succeeding. And the
only answer that made sense to him at that very moment, at least rhetorically, was
that God favoured Islam. None of Riccoldo’s Christian confreres considered for
a moment that Islam could be true. They simply assumed that it was false, and
from that assumption they tried to explain its troublesome presence within the
Christian scheme of history.
The second way in which Riccoldo’s response to Islam in the letters is unique
is that they preserve quite vividly the vacillation and despair inherent in a true
crisis. Riccoldo really seems to be struggling against the lure of Islam. After all,
he feels the need to voice his allegiance to Christianity frequently and in strange
ways, for example:
Set ego nolo effici Sarracenus. ‘Set quo ibo a spiritu tuo et quo a facie tua fugiam’ si
decrevisti quod totus mundus sit Sarracenus? Certe ego non possum consentire tam
inique legi, nec possum credere quod sit lex Dei. […] Et certe si apostoli, prophete
et patriarche facti sunt Sarraceni, satis et ego possem esse Sarracenus. Set quia nec
volui nec volo esse, privaverunt me sancto habitu ordinis mei, et tunc assumpsi
vestem et habitum camelarii ; nam camelarium me potuerunt facere Sarraceni non
autem Sarracenum
(Nor do I wish to become a Saracen. ‘But where can I go from your spirit, where
can I flee from your face’ [Psalm 139. 7], if you have decreed that the whole world
should be Saracen? I certainly cannot consent to such an iniquitous law, nor can
I believe that it is the law of God. […] And certainly if the apostles, prophets,
and patriarchs became Saracens, then it would be acceptable for me to become a
Saracen too. But because I did not, nor do not, wish to become a Saracen, they took
from me the holy habit of my order, and then I took on the clothing and habit of a
camel-driver, for the Saracens could make me a camel-driver, but not a Saracen.)53
But, it might be asked, are such curious statements expressions of an authentic

crisis, or are they just rhetoric? While it is possible they are a form of rhetoric,
the fact that Riccoldo does not resolve his doubts by the end of the letters seems
to suggest that they are something other than a rhetorical device such as aporia
(feigned doubt). For Riccoldo never answers any of the questions he raises in the
letters; they remain until the very end, where in the last paragraph he explicitly
admits that he ‘remains in the same doubt’. Nor do his letters offer any overarching
theory; such a theory comes only years later in Contra legem.
Even if Riccoldo’s questions are ‘merely’ rhetorical, they still reveal a measure
of the emotions he had when he first heard about the fall of Acre. This event
seems to have destabilized him enough to prevent him from constructing a
conventional or even a drastically revised Christian view of history, at least
not immediately. He was willing, if only for a moment, to throw out Christian
history altogether and replace it with a Muslim worldview. This willingness is
significant, no matter how fleeting it may have been. Even though his approach
to history eventually became more traditional (as is evidenced in the new version
of history found in Contra legem), his letters give witness to the kind of openness
to alternative world views that a crisis can sometimes produce. The doubt, fear,
53
106 Chapter 5
and confusion conveyed so clearly in his letters seem to suggest that, for a time,
Riccoldo was ambivalent not only about Islam, but even about his own religion.
The strong emotions expressed in Epistolae are partly the result of the friar’s
contradictory experiences while in Baghdad: Christian tragedy and impiety on
the one hand, and Muslim success and virtue on the other. Few other medieval
Latins had ever met a real-life Muslim, much less experienced the highs and
lows Riccoldo had. It is from the crucible of this complex relationship between
medieval Christians and Muslims, which played out not only in famous crusader
battles but also in not-so-famous mosques, classrooms, and living rooms, that
Riccoldo’s theological crisis is born, and through which it must be read.
Chapter 6
Wonder, Doubt, and Dissonance:

Riccoldo’s Theology of Islam
I
n the previous three chapters, we have seen Riccoldo praise Muslim works
but condemn Islam; wax poetic about the Qur’an’s beautiful phrasing but
criticize its contents; and express a willingness to accept Muslim eschatology
only to revert to Christian salvation history in the end. It is clear that the writings
of this celebrated polemicist — most especially Liber peregrinationis and
Epistolae, but even Contra legem Sarracenorum — are full of ambiguity, doubt,
and contradiction. Riccoldo himself admits to as much. But while he openly
acknowledges his conflicted feelings, he is obviously uncomfortable with them.
In Letter One he expresses astonishment repeatedly, but by Letter Five he claims
to have resolved, at least partially, the contradiction he sees between Qur’anic
blasphemy and recent Muslim successes. He wants to resolve the tension, and
moves in that direction. But even at the very end of the last letter, he admits
that he still ‘remains in the same doubt’. It is only years later, after writing Contra
legem, that he seems to have finally rid himself of uncertainty.
Riccoldo is a rare example of a medieval Christian willing to admit, in no
uncertain terms, significant unresolved tension in the face of Islam. He expresses
opinions not often found in the writings of his fellows: extended praise of
Muslim practice, audacious questioning of Christian salvation history, and true
affection for the Arabic language. His overall account of Islam is complex, and as
such it accurately reflects the equally complex nature of interreligious experience.
Riccoldo’s oeuvre, when read it its entirety, offers modern readers a glimpse at
the ambivalence about (and even openness to) non-Christians which was present
at the time. This final chapter will focus on Riccoldo’s method of theologizing
108 Chapter 6
about Islam, most especially his frequent and explicit references to interreligious
experience, that is, his firsthand observation of and personal interaction with
Muslims. The chapter will also discuss his descriptions of the emotions these
experiences elicited. The book will conclude by suggesting that Riccoldo’s
interreligious experience and ambivalent feelings remain worthy of attention
today, for two reasons. First, because they reveal the extent to which personal
contact with actual Muslims could affect, at least temporarily, a Christian
theologian’s narrative on Islam. For if Riccoldo had only read books about Islam
but had not interacted with actual Muslims, he might never have written such
positive descriptions of Muslim works, or such bold and questioning letters.
And second, because Riccoldo’s complex and honest response to these real-life
Muslims demonstrates the challenges one always faces when meeting the other.
The wonder, doubt, and dissonance inherent in this medieval friar’s account
illuminate the complicated reality of interreligious encounter.
Interreligious Experience
A key term coined in this book is ‘interreligious experience’, which can be
defined simply as Riccoldo’s firsthand observation of and personal interaction
with Muslims. A more robust definition of interreligious experience would
also include the notion of visuality, which Palmira Brummett identifies as a key
dimension of travel texts like Liber peregrinationis: ‘Visuality includes the nature
of the act and narration of eye-witnessing, its claims to authority, and the felt or
unfelt necessity of […] “on the spot portraiture” and the “fragrance of the shifting
moment”’.1 Such experience contains an inherent duality, says Brummett, for the
traveller both shapes and is shaped by what is seen: ‘the gaze shapes the sites […]
[and] the site shapes the traveller’s eye and the specific language whereby each
narrator addresses the question of sight: ethnic sight, proper sight, distant sight,
sacred sight, blind sight, hindsight, illusion, fabrication, concealment, artifice,
beguilement’.2 Riccoldo’s interreligious experience, as found both in Liber per-
egrinationis and in Epistolae, includes many of these dimensions.
This book favours the term ‘experience’ over ‘observation’, partly because
Riccoldo himself uses it, but also because of its resonances with contemporary
theology. However, it is important to note that medieval Christians tended not
to rely on personal experience as a reliable theological authority; they preferred
1
Brummett, ‘Introduction: Genre, Witness, and Time in the “Book” of Travels’, p. 34.
2
Brummett, ‘Introduction: Genre, Witness, and Time in the “Book” of Travels’, p. 34.
Wonder, Doubt, and Dissonance: Riccoldo’s Theology of Islam 109
scripture and tradition instead, and to a lesser extent, the philosophers.3 While
some monastic and mystical theologians did cite personal experience, it was
usually of the mystical sort, and it was always mediated by faith and scripture.4 For
example, while Bernard of Clairvaux encourages monks meditating on the Song
of Songs to ‘read from the book of experience’, he reminds them that ‘experience
is the fruit of faith’.5 Bernard’s definition of experience ‘is closely linked with a
whole environment. […] It is a biblical experience inseparable from liturgical
experience.’6 But aside from its use in medieval mystical texts, the term ‘experience’
did not gain importance in Christian theology until the nineteenth century; its
main proponents included Friedrich Schleiermacher and William James.7 These
Protestant theologians were using the term ‘experience’ similarly to the way in
which Bernard and other medieval mystics did: to refer to extraordinary human
encounters with the divine (what Rudolph Otto famously called the ‘mysterium
fascinans et tremendum’ (fearful and fascinating mystery)). At first, experience
was largely the domain of liberal Protestants; Catholic theologians eventually
appropriated the term, but not without some initial resistance from Rome. 8
By the mid-twentieth century, however, even major magisterial documents,
including several from the Second Vatican Council, would draw upon experience
as a source for theology.9 It is because of the council ‘that the conceptualization
3
Kilian McDonnell notes that experience had been cited as a theological authority by
Gregory of Nyssa and other patristic authors, but much less so by scholastics, who introduced
a distinction between spiritual or mystical theology and theology proper; McDonnell, ‘Spirit
and Experience in Bernard of Clairvaux’, p. 4. This distinction was not maintained by monastic
theologians such as Bernard of Clairvaux nor by their spiritual father, Gregory the Great, who
both refer explicitly to experience as an authoritative source of their theology.
4
For a discussion of the difference between monastic and scholastic theology, see
Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God, p. 2.
5
Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermones super Cantica canticorum, 3. 1 and 84. 7 respectively.
6
Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God, p. 213. Leclercq adds that the
monastic emphasis on experience is, in fact, ‘the crowning characteristic of their theological
method’.
7
Classic nineteenth-century texts on experience include Schleiermacher, The Christian
Faith and James, The Varieties of Religious Experience.
8
Pope Pius X’s criticism of experience is part of his overall argument against the methods
of modernist theologians in the 1907 encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis. Some Protestants
were equally critical of the use of experience in theology, most notably Karl Barth.
9
Especially Gaudium et Spes, which is explicitly premised on the church’s relationship to and
encounter with the modern world; the word ‘experience’ appears twenty-two times in this docu-
ment. It has been asserted that Vatican II’s theology as a whole is rooted in experience: ‘Gaudium
110 Chapter 6
of theology as the mediation of its sources in scripture, tradition, and experience

gained widespread acceptance in the Catholic tradition’.10 And so, by the end of
the twentieth century, ‘experience’ had become a key term for Christian theology,
even serving as the methodological foundation for various sub-disciplines
such as contextual theology.11 However, despite the prevalence of the term in
contemporary theological discourse, it is often unclear what exactly is meant by
it. George Schner notes the word’s inherent ambiguity: ‘In claiming that one’s
theology is “experiential”, one has not yet said very much […]. Not every appeal to
experience is an appeal to the same construal of experience, nor does it function
in the same role in the argument structure’.12
The Dutch theologian Edward Schillebeeckx is well known for articulating the
relationship between experience and theology. His book Christ, the Experience of
Jesus as Lord includes a section called ‘the authority of experiences’ which explic-
itly discusses the use of experience as a theological authority. Schillebeeckx begins
by defining human experience in general as ‘learning through direct contact with
people and things’.13 He then goes on to locate the authority of experience in its
ability to be a ‘critical and productive force’. While even authoritarian institu-
tions acknowledge the power of experience, they often attempt to integrate it in
such a way as to reduce its critical force and preserve the status quo.14 While the
experience to which Schillebeeckx refers here is not interreligious experience, but
the Christian experience of Christ in general and of suffering in particular, his
comments about the critical force of experience are relevant to this book, since
Riccoldo’s experience of Muslims, which is conspicuously unintegrated into the
theology of Islam found in his Epistolae and Liber peregrinationis, retains some of
its ‘critical force’, thus standing as a counterpoint to mainstream medieval views.
As is the case with experience in general, interreligious experience in par-
ticular is taken for granted today as an authoritative source for the theology of
et Spes and Nostra Aetate started life not as theological position papers but with what may loosely
be called the “facts of experience”’; Barnes, Theology and the Dialogue of Religions, p. 55.
10
Thiel, Imagination and Authority, p. 205. Thiel also notes the ambivalence the council
and post-conciliar magisterium have shown regarding the authority of individual experience as
it relates to the universal sensus fidei (pp. 208–09).
11
See for example Bevans, Models of Contextual Theology.
12
Schner, ‘The Appeal to Experience’, pp. 40–41. Most articles discussing the use of
experience as a theological authority acknowledge the term’s ambiguity. See also Lennon, ‘The
Notion of Experience’, and McDonnell, ‘Spirit and Experience in Bernard of Clairvaux’.
13
Schillebeeckx, Christ: The Experience of Jesus as Lord, p. 31.
14
Schillebeeckx, Christ: The Experience of Jesus as Lord, p. 37.
religions subdiscipline. For example, the 1991 Vatican document Dialogue and
Proclamation, a key text in the articulation of the current Catholic theology of
religions, states: ‘A just appraisal of other religious traditions normally presup-
poses close contact with them. This implies, besides theoretical knowledge,
practical experience of interreligious dialogue with the followers of these tradi-
tions’.15 Furthermore, many scholars writing on the theology of religions use the
overall context of pluralism as their starting point: Michael Barnes refers to an
‘all-pervasive context of otherness’, James Fredericks notes the ‘intrusive fact of
religious diversity’, Paul Griffiths acknowledges an ‘increasing Christian aware-
ness of deep diversity’, and Claude Geffré — who is the most explicit — writes, ‘It
is precisely the task of a hermeneutically oriented theology whose starting point
is the Church’s new historic experience [of religious pluralism] to reinterpret our
vision of God’s plan of salvation’.16
Not only do theologians use a generalized pluralist milieu as a source for their
theology of religions, but they also draw very explicitly on their own personal
encounters with non-Christians. In the midst of otherwise technical and imper-
sonal scholarly works, many theologians unapologetically insert first-person
accounts of their own interreligious experiences in order to lend authority to their
work. For example, Michael Barnes says ‘I write these words in the middle of a
strongly multi-faith town in west London where difference and otherness is very
definitely the context of everyday life’; James Fredericks admits ‘I am a Christian
who regularly gathers with Buddhist friends to learn from them the wisdom of
the Dharma’; and Paul Griffiths notes, ‘This situation is not uncommon for reli-
15
Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, Dialogue and Proclamation, section 14.
16
Barnes, Theology and the Dialogue of Religions, p. 3; Fredericks, Faith among Faiths,
p. 19; Griffiths, Problems of Religious Diversity, p. 95; Geffré, ‘From the Theology of Religious
Pluralism to an Interreligious Theology’, p. 55. Dupuis and Geffré go a step further in explic-
itly identifying religious plurality as a de jure part of God’s plan. Dupuis, Towards a Christian
Theology of Religious Pluralism, p. 10, notes: ‘The new perspective […] searches more deeply, in
the light of Christian faith, for the meaning in God’s design for humankind of the plurality of
living faiths and religious traditions with which we are surrounded.’ Griffiths, however, sees reli-
gious diversity to be on par with suffering, in other words, a de facto reality only to be tolerated:
‘The epistemic uneasiness often (and properly) produced by increasing Christian awareness of
deep diversity should be acknowledged as a neuralgic point of creative conceptual growth for
Christian thought of the same order of importance perhaps as is attention to the question of
apparently unmerited suffering’; Griffiths, Problems of Religious Diversity, p. 95. Griffiths’s view
mirrors that of Congregation on the Doctrine of the Faith, Dominus Iesus, Introduction, no. 4:
‘The Church’s constant missionary proclamation is endangered today by relativistic theories
which seek to justify religious pluralism, not only de facto but also de iure (or in principle).’
112 Chapter 6
gious people who come to know faithful religious aliens. It has certainly been
mine as a Christian in coming to know faithful Jews and Buddhists moderately
well’.17 In fact, interreligious experience is now drawn upon so regularly as the
basis for Christian theologies of religions today that its authoritative status is
often simply taken for granted. James Fredericks says ‘Christians must be creative
in their willingness to understand their tradition in new ways as a result of what
they have learned from their non-Christian neighbors’, but does not explain the
‘must’, and he simply assumes the reality of religious pluralism.18
While the inclusion of personal stories in formal theology of religion texts
seems de rigueur, the practice appears to be somewhat unconscious.19 There are,
however, some scholars who have been more intentional in citing personal inter-
religious experience. For example, Edmund Chia, a Malaysian theologian, begins
every chapter of his dissertation with a first-person description of his experiences
as executive director of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences.20 In addi-
tion, Jesuit theologians Jacques Dupuis and Michael Barnes are among the few
Europeans to explicitly reflect upon the use of interreligious experience as an
authoritative source for the theology of religions. Dupuis, a Belgian who worked
in India for thirty-four years, declares: ‘We must insist on the role of dialogue as
the necessary foundation of a theology of religions […]. From a point of depar-
ture in the praxis of dialogue, the inductive operation is immediately immersed
in the concrete religious experience of others’.21 He adds that the theology of reli-
gions, like any theology, must guarantee the ‘obligatory encounter of Christian
datum and experience’, but especially requires a stress on interreligious experience
‘because of its frequent omission in the past and the need to reestablish a balance
between the two sources’.22 Michael Barnes is equally cognizant of and explicit
about his methodology: ‘The proposals which I intend to develop in this book
are based on the different logical status of a theology which arises from reflection
on the actual engagement with the other’.23
17
Barnes, Theology and the Dialogue of Religions, p. 4; Fredericks, Faith among Faiths,
p. 163; Griffiths, Problems of Religious Diversity, p. 78.
18
Fredericks, Faith among Faiths, p. 20.
19
Most of the first-person statements quoted here are nonchalantly inserted into
paragraphs otherwise written entirely in the third person.
20
Chia, ‘Toward a Theology of Dialogue’.
21
22
23
Barnes, Theology and the Dialogue of Religions, p. 13.
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India has also been outspoken in pro-
moting interreligious experience as an authoritative source for the theology of
religions. The Indian bishops give two reasons for this. First, they declare that
the Asian context is inherently interreligious. Second and more forcefully, they
claim that they have been inspired to ‘read the signs of the times’ and recognize
dialogue (in other works, formalized interreligious experience) to be an authen-
tic source for theology: ‘This dialogical model is the new Asian way of being
church, promoting mutual understanding, harmony, and collabouration. This
way of relating to and serving other religions is indicated by a careful reading of
the signs of the times. It appears to us as God’s will for Christian communities
in Asia today. […] to be truly catholic, open and collaborating with the Word
which is actively present in the great religions’.24 In general, Asian theologians
have been much more insistent about the need for using interreligious experience
as a source for theology. While many European and American theologians cite
personal interreligious experience as a way to establish their own authority in the
field, Asian theologians focus on drawing attention to the all-pervasive reality of
interreligious experience as such. For them, interreligious experience is not only
an authoritative source for the theology of religions, but the context for Asian
theology as a whole.25
Riccoldo’s Interreligious Experience in Context

I have chosen to use the term ‘interreligious experience’ in this book rather than
synonyms such as ‘dialogue’ or ‘encounter’ mainly because Riccoldo himself uses
it. The phrases per experientiam or experientia teste appear no fewer than fourteen
times throughout his writings. I would like to suggest that Riccoldo’s use of the
word experientia seems more akin to the definition of ‘interreligious experience’
stated above (observation of and personal interaction with Muslims), than to
other medieval conceptions of the word. But how can we prevent ourselves from
superimposing a modern definition of experience onto Riccoldo’s use of the word
experientia? To guard against an anachronistic reading, this section will first
explore how the word experientia is used by three other medieval theologians:
24
Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India as cited in The Asian Synod: Texts and Com
mentaries, ed. by Phan, p. 21.
25
The Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC) identifies a ‘triple dialogue’ as
integral to the Asian reality: cultural dialogue, interreligious dialogue, and the dialogue with
the poor.
114 Chapter 6
Roger Bacon, Thomas Aquinas, and Bernard of Clairvaux. The use of this term by
these three will then be compared to Riccoldo’s use of the word in context.
Roger Bacon was one of the first Latin thinkers to differentiate experientia
(mere observation) and experimentum (controlled experiment), terms which
were used interchangeably throughout much of the medieval period to that
point.26 In Book vi of his Opus maius, entitled ‘Experimental Science’, Bacon
distinguishes between two modes of acquiring knowledge: argumentum, a logical
argument which puts forth a conclusion, and experientia, which verifies it. For
Bacon, experience is necessary because it produces results that reason alone
cannot discover: ‘Reasoning does not suffice, but experience does’. When Bacon
uses the word experientia he is referring mainly to scientific matters. However,
later in the same chapter he writes, ‘Experience is of two kinds; one is gained
through our external senses […] this experience is both human and philosophical
[…]. But this experience does not suffice […]. It is necessary, therefore, that the
intellect of man should be otherwise aided […] through the experience of divine
inspiration’.27 Therefore, Bacon’s experientia has a twofold meaning, and even
though his work largely focuses on the first kind of experience (that gained via
human senses), he does not ignore the second (that gained via divine revelation),
which, he concludes, is superior.28
Thomas Aquinas, on the other hand, says that ‘we have experientia when we
know single objects through the senses’.29 His definition of experience is based
on Aristotle’s notion of empeiria, which Aquinas discusses in his Commentary on
the Metaphysics. While knowledge of ‘single objects’, or particulars, can be gained
through the senses, Aquinas knew that unmediated sense data is not equivalent
to experience. Rather, sense data must first be stored in the memory, then collated
and interpreted.30 Thus, for Aquinas human experience is primarily a rational
26
Bacon got the distinction from the Arab scientist Alhazen, according to Hackett,
‘Experientia, Experimentum and Perception of Objects in Space’.
27
Bacon, The Opus maius, trans. by Burke, ii, 583–85 (part vi).
28
Bacon cites the Centiloquium of Pseudo-Ptolemy (Ahmed ibn-Yusuf ) to support his
opinion: ‘As Ptolemy states in the Centiloquium, “There are two roads by which we arrive at the
knowledge of facts, one through the experience of philosophy, and the other through divine
inspiration, which is the far better way”, as he says’; Bacon, The Opus maius, trans. by Burke, ii,
585 (part vi). Hackett, ‘Experientia, Experimentum and Perception of Objects in Space’, p. 113,
notes that this same text is also cited by Grosseteste, Albertus, and Aquinas.
29
Aquinas, Summa theologiae, i.54.5. For an extended discussion of Thomistic experientia,
see Lennon, ‘The Notion of Experience’.
30
Experience results ‘from the comparison of many singular things received in the memory’
(ex multis memoriis unius rei accipit homo experimentum de aliquo); Aquinas, Sententia super
act, and consequently it can be distinguished from the experience of animals or

angels.31 Furthermore, given its relation to the verb experiri, the noun experientia
also carries an additional meaning of ‘to try’ or ‘to prove’, as Aquinas notes: ‘To
test (tentare) is in the proper sense to make a trial (experimentum) of something’.32
Elsewhere Aquinas mentions another common definition of experientia:
‘experience in matters pertaining to action not only produces knowledge; it also
causes a certain habit, by reason of custom, which renders the action easier’.33 This
kind of practical experience, which can only be gained over a long period of time
(experientiam longi temporis)34 can be ‘a cause of hope’, concludes Aquinas, when
and if ‘it makes one reckon something possible which before the experience was
looked upon as impossible’.35 In sum, for Aquinas, experientia results from the
data which is gathered by the senses, stored in the memory, and processed and
collated by reason; it carries a connotation of proving, testing, or trying; it is also
what results from repetitive action over time.
In contrast to Aquinas and Bacon, the monastic theologian Bernard of Clair
vaux’s use of the word experientia, especially in his Sermons on the Song of Songs,
most approximates the way it is used by nineteenth-century theologians.36
In Bernard’s introduction to the Sermons, he tells his readers that their entire
exegetical exercise should be rooted in personal experience: ‘Today we read from
the book of our own experience. You must turn your attention inward’.37 Elsewhere
in the Sermons, Bernard refers directly to his own experience: ‘I speak to you of my
Metaphysicam, trans by Rowan, i.1.17.

31
Which Thomas does in Aquinas, Sententia super Metaphysicam, trans by Rowan, i.1
(animals) and Aquinas, Summa theologiae, i.54.5 (angels).
32
Aquinas, Summa theologiae, i.114.2. Aquinas uses the terms experientia and experimen-
tum interchangeably here.
33
Aquinas, Summa theologiae, i.ii.40.5. ad 1.
34
Aquinas, Summa theologiae, i.64.1. ad 5.
35
Aquinas, Summa theologiae, i.ii.40.5.
36
McDonnell, ‘Spirit and Experience in Bernard of Clairvaux’, p. 4, claims that the distinc-
tion between spiritual or mystical theology and ‘theology proper’ is artificial, since patristic and
monastic theologians did not separate the two.
37
‘Hodie legimus in libro experientiae. Convertimini ad vos ipsos et attendat unusquisque
conscientiam suam super hiis quae dicenda sunt’; Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermones super Cantica
canticorum, 3. 1. Commenting on this passage, Leclercq notes that Bernard and other early
Cistercians described the spiritual life in terms of experience, and that the expression ‘book of
experience’ is typical of their new vocabulary (Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermones super Cantica can-
ticorum, p. 100).
116 Chapter 6
experience, of what I myself have experienced’.38 He does not exclude the senses
from his understanding of experientia, as is proven by the many synonyms he
uses for experience, including sentire, gustare, desiderare, pati, affici, probare, and
comperire.39 But while Bernard does not discount sense experience, he is concerned
about its dependability: ‘Judge by faith and not by experience, because faith is true
but experience is fallacious’.40 Due to its unreliability, experience is not Bernard’s
ultimate norm; rather, faith and the scriptures are, since for him, ‘experience does
not exist outside of or apart from the specifically monastic and ecclesial culture
created by scripture, liturgy, and communal life’.41 Faith is the context of Bernard’s
experience and is anterior to it; thus his theology has been characterized as ‘credo
ut experiar’ (I believe that I may experience).42
Riccoldo’s experientia shares some similarities with all three medieval defini-
tions described above. However, his use of the term is unique in two ways: first,
he cites a peculiar kind of experience, personal interreligious experience (defined
above as firsthand observation of and interaction with Muslims). Second, he uses
the term inductively. That is, he sometimes draws upon personal experience as the
basis for his theology of Islam, which would suggest that interreligious experi-
ence functions as an authoritative source for him, if only implicitly. In so doing,
Riccoldo’s definition and use of the term experientia in these places approximates
the modern usage more than it does the medieval. To test this hypothesis, we
must examine Riccoldo’s use of the word experientia in context. The two phrases
in which the word most frequently appears in his writings are per experientiam
and experientia teste. As we shall see, per experientiam, which is usually accom-
panied by a first-person verb such as vidi and the emphatic ego, refers to specific
events which Riccoldo has personally witnessed, while experientia teste refers to
Riccoldo’s expertise in general.
The word experientia appears at the very beginning of Contra legem. Im
mediately after claiming that he has diligently studied the Qur’an and Arabic
with Muslim scholars, Riccoldo says that it is precisely this experience which has
convinced him of the perversity of the Qur’an:
38
Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermones super Cantica canticorum, 51. 3, as quoted in McDonnell,
‘Spirit and Experience in Bernard of Clairvaux’, p. 6.
39
McDonnell, ‘Spirit and Experience in Bernard of Clairvaux’, p. 14.
40
On Quadragesima, 5.5, as quoted by McDonnell, ‘Spirit and Experience in Bernard of
Clairvaux’, p. 16.
41
McDonnell, ‘Spirit and Experience in Bernard of Clairvaux’, p. 7.
42
Schuck, Das Hohe Lied des Hl. Bernhard von Clairvaux, p. 11. As cited by McDonnell,
‘Spirit and Experience in Bernard of Clairvaux’, p. 4.
Ibi pariter linguam et litteram arabicam didici. Et legem eorum diligentissime rele
gens et studiose in scolis et cum magistris ipsorum frequenter conferens, magis ac
magis per experientiam apprehendi peruersitatem predicte legis. Et cum inceperim
eam in latinum transferre, tot inueni fabulas et falsitates et blasphemias
(While there, I learned the Arabic language and its literature at the same time.
Reviewing their law most diligently and zealously in their schools, and conferring
frequently with their masters, through this experience I understood more and
more the perversity of the aforementioned law. And when I began to translate it
into Latin, I discovered so many fables and falsehoods and blasphemies.)43
In this passage, Riccoldo gives a few clues as to what he means by per experientiam.
First of all, he echoes Thomas’s idea that experience is gradually gained over time
(‘magis ac magis’). Second, his experience is acquired not only through contact
with actual texts, but also through the process of studying these texts, a process
which he says included studying the Arabic language and literature, going to
the schools and conferring with masters, and later translating the texts himself.
Thus in this case, experience confirms an opinion Riccoldo had before he ever
set foot in Baghdad: that the Qur’an is ‘perverse’.44 Here, Riccoldo’s definition
of experience is similar to Bacon’s. He begins with an argument or assumption
which is later confirmed by his own experience.
Elsewhere, the order is reversed: Riccoldo begins with a personal experience,
and then reaches a conclusion from it. In other words, in these instances he uses
the term inductively. For example, in both Liber peregrinationis and Epistolae,
Riccoldo refers to his experience of travelling with Muslims in a caravan for
over three months. He tells his readers that while he was living with them in
the deserts of Arabia and Persia he was ‘stupefied’ when ‘through experience’ he
observed the Muslim devotion to prayer.45 Riccoldo evidently had not held this
opinion earlier, since what he saw surprised him so much that he tells his readers it
‘stupefied’ him. Experience came first (he witnessed Muslims praying five times a
day for three months), followed by a conclusion (Muslims are devoted to prayer).
43
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Contra legem Sarracenorum, ed. by Mérigoux, prologue, p. 62.
44
Riccoldo claims that he viewed the Qur’an this way before he ever set foot in Baghdad,
since in the Prologue to Contra legem, he says that his belief that the Qur’an was a ‘deceitful
and nefarious law’ caused him so much grief that it compelled to ‘turn his feet in testimony’
[Psalm 119. 59] and travel to Baghdad; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Contra legem Sarracenorum,
ed. by Mérigoux, pp. 62–63.
45
Kappler, p. 160.
118 Chapter 6
These examples demonstrate Riccoldo’s frequent use of the actual word expe-
rientia. But he also refers to personal experience by first person form of verbs
such as vidi, audivi, or cognovi. For example, in Liber peregrinationis Riccoldo
says he saw for himself specific acts of kindness towards animals in Nineveh and
Baghdad.46 To further underscore the fact that these observations are indeed his
own, he often adds an emphatic ego.
Elsewhere, Riccoldo reminds his readers that they can trust his conclusions
about Muslims, since they are based on his experiences living in Baghdad and
Persia for ‘many years’.47 And as already noted, in the prologue of Contra legem
he gives precise details about the content of his Baghdad ‘experience’, which
included studying the Arabic language and literature, attending institutions of
higher learning, conferring frequently with scholars, and translating the Qur’an.
In Liber peregrinationis he adds that his experience also included some actual
conversations with Muslims in a variety of places including mosques, schools, and
private homes. His definition of experience can be summed up in one phrase:
‘attendimus diligenter legem ipsorum et opera’ (we applied ourselves diligently
to studying their law and works).48 For Riccoldo, experience of Islam is twofold;
it is gained not only through study but through conversations with Muslims and
observing actual praxis. And it is upon this twofold experience that some of his
initial conclusions about Islam are based.
But the friar not only refers to specific encounters with Muslims; he also
cites his general expertise in dealing with non-Christians. He does this the most
frequently in his final work, Ad nationes orientales, a primer meant to prepare
Dominican missionaries for the field. In the prologue, Riccoldo makes the follow-
ing generalization, which he claims is based on his own experience: ‘Experientia
teste, tartari facilius conuertuntur quam sarraceni, et sarraceni quam iudei, et
iudei quam christiani’ (Experience shows that the Tartars are more easily con-
verted than the Saracens, the Saracens more easily than the Jews, and the Jews
more easily than [heretical] Christians).49 This claim — that the further a reli-
gion is from Christianity doctrinally, the easier its adherents will accept the gospel
— is a conclusion he seems to have made primarily if not solely on the basis of his
own personal expertise; no additional details are given as proof. It is yet another
example of Riccoldo using the inductive method in his theology of religions.
46
47
‘In pluribus annis quibus cum eis conversatus sum cum eis in Perside et in Baldacco non
recolo’; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 166.
48
49
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Ad nationes orientales, ed. by Jensen, prologue.
Riccoldo makes a similar appeal to experience at the end of Ad nationes, when

he states that his list of five rules for missionaries is based on his own experience in
the field: ‘Quas regulas ego per experientiam didici cum dispendio peregrinationis
mee’ (I learned some rules through the experience gained during my pilgrimage).50
Here, he refers specifically to the source of his expertise: his journey to the East.
Once again, no other details are offered to support his claim. The fact that he con-
siders this short and vague reference to personal experience as sufficient reason for
his readers to follow his rules suggests that his opinions were already considered
authoritative by Dominicans at Santa Maria Novella and beyond.
Riccoldo’s use of experientia as an authoritative source for his theologizing
on Islam is noteworthy for two reasons. First, his definition of experience —
despite including elements of the medieval definition, especially the idea of
proving — is mainly about observing and interacting with Muslims. In short,
it is ‘interreligious experience’. Second, he uses this interreligious experience
inductively; that is, he draws on it to make conclusions about Islam. Sometimes
these experiences are so powerful and surprising that he is forced to change (at
least temporarily) his previously held assumptions. This suggests that Riccoldo,
like contemporary theologians, was using experience as an authoritative source
for his theologizing, whether or not he acknowledged it as such.51 In this way, he
can be seen as an example from tradition of the ‘new’ inductive method favoured
by many theologians today.
Furthermore, Riccoldo’s use of experience, at least in Liber peregrinationis
and Epistolae, seems to be an ‘appeal to that opinion qua experience as the
warrant for its acceptance as a norm or model, in a word, as a warrant for the
“authority” of my opinion’.52 And indeed, he does appear to claim that what he
says about Islam is not a mere ‘repetition of past opinions, but is the articulation
of the actual operative principles or convictions of an individual or group’ and
thus ‘calls into question the interlocutor’s opinion or the received opinion, and
asserts by contrast the truth’.53 His use of the word ‘experience’ is an attempt to
articulate the actual operative principles and convictions of Muslims he knew. In
50
51
‘The use of the rhetorical cipher [“in my experience”] derives from the need to give some
sort of emphasis to what follows it, to cause a particular kind of attention to be paid to both the
speaker and the opinion. At least two sorts of emphasis appear to be intended […] a variation
on the appeal to authority, and a counterappeal, whether acknowledged as such or not’; Schner,
‘The Appeal to Experience’, p. 43.
52
Schner, ‘The Appeal to Experience’, p. 43.
53
Schner, ‘The Appeal to Experience’, p. 43.
120 Chapter 6
so doing, he calls into question (albeit unknowingly) ‘received opinion’, that is,
the mainstream medieval Christian theology of Islam.
But Riccoldo was not alone among his confreres in recognizing the desirabil-
ity of interreligious experience. Other medieval Christians writing about Islam
likewise hint at the importance of such experience, and a few even claim to have it
themselves. For example, Ramon Llull begins The Book of the Gentile with a refer-
ence to his own experience of non-Christians: ‘Since for a long time we have had
dealings with unbelievers’, while Peter the Venerable recognizes his lack of expe-
rience by highlighting the great difference between himself, a French Christian
monk, and faraway Muslims, and confessing that he himself ‘never saw one’.54
Thomas Aquinas also mentions the usefulness of firsthand knowledge of non-
Christians, while admitting that most theologians of his day lacked such knowl-
edge, unlike patristic theologians:
To proceed against individual errors is a difficult business […] because the sacrile-
gious remarks of individual men who have erred are not so well known to us so that
we may use what they say as the basis of proceeding to a refutation of their errors.
This is indeed the method that the ancient Doctors of the church used in the refu-
tation of the Gentiles. For they could know the positions taken by the Gentiles
since they themselves had been Gentiles or had at least lived among them and been
instructed in their teaching.55
While these and other medieval authors note the importance of having interre-
ligious experience, and some of them claim to have such experience themselves,
very rarely do they cite experience as an authoritative source for their theology of
Islam as does Riccoldo. Furthermore, even those who do cite their own experience
do so in such a way as to prove Norman Daniel’s observation that ‘the basic lines
of theory were always stronger and more important than scientific observation. If
they conflicted, observation usually proved the weaker; often it aroused no inter-
est at all, but it was always subordinate’.56 This is surely not the case with Riccoldo,
who repeatedly registers surprise and amazement at the positive Muslim practices
he has observed, and who not only acknowledges the virtues he has witnessed,
but devotes significant space to their description and praise. Some of Riccoldo’s
experiences are so powerful that they actually seem to change his view of Islam, at
least temporarily. Used deductively, Riccoldo’s personal interreligious experiences
serve as the basis for what is, in places, a positive theology of Islam.
54
Llull, The Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men, ed. by Bonner, prologue, p. 110;
Peter the Venerable, Liber contra sectam, ed. and trans. by Kritzeck, book 1, p. 231.
55
Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles, trans. by Pegis and others, i. 2 (emphasis mine.)
56
Methodology
The introduction to this book noted the rapid and recent rise of the Christian
theology of religions and suggested that Riccoldo’s writings as a whole can be
seen as a precursor to this subdiscipline. But some scholars have criticized the
theology of religions project for being overly broad. In response to this, some
have narrowed their focus to particularized theologies such as the theology of
Judaism, while others have declared a moratorium on the entire theology of
religions project as such.57 They have suggested alternatives such as comparative
theology, which sees the study of other religions as a way to increase knowledge
about one’s own tradition.58 One important aspect of comparative theology is
learning about other religions ‘on their own terms’.59 This means reading sacred
texts in the original languages and in consultation with scholars from the
other religion.60 It would appear that Riccoldo’s approach to learning about
Islam bears some similarity to the methods used by contemporary comparative
theologians. Like them, Riccoldo takes Islamic texts seriously enough to study
them in the original language; he seeks out the advice of Muslim scholars; he
goes beyond book learning and includes cultural immersion and observation; he
uses his experiences to reflect critically on his own Christian faith; and finally,
he describes his encounters with Muslims honestly, admitting both surprise and
anxiety, and editing neither out of his writings.61 The fact that certain aspects of
Riccoldo’s approach to Islam are similar to those of contemporary comparative
theologians is remarkable, considering that his explicit goal was to demonstrate
the inferiority of Islam (unlike a comparative theologian, whose goal is to learn
from non-Christian religions).
57
See Fredericks, Faith among Faiths, especially pp. 139 and 165.
58
59
60
Francis Clooney describes interreligious reading and commentary as a form of dialogue;
Clooney, Comparative Theology, pp. 57–68.
61
These are all elements of what could be called the ‘comparative theology’ method, which
is discussed in Fredericks, Faith among Faiths, pp. 8–10, 139–40, 162–80. Riccoldo can also
be seen as occasionally following, to a greater or lesser degree, some of the rules for dialogue
articulated in Swidler, ‘The Dialogue Decalogue’, including: ‘The primary purpose of dialogue is
to learn, that is, to change and grow in the perception and understanding of reality’ (p. 31); ‘Each
participant must define himself and the one interpreted must be able to recognize herself in the
interpretation’ (p. 32); ‘Persons entering into interreligious dialogue must be at least minimally
self-critical of both themselves and their own religious or ideological traditions’ (p. 32); ‘Each
participant eventually must attempt to experience the partner’s religion “from within”’ (p. 33).
122 Chapter 6
We will now consider three aspects of Riccoldo’s approach to Islam: studying

texts in the original language; consulting Muslim scholars; and being self-critical
of Christianity in light of Islam. Riccoldo studied the Qur’an in Arabic, but he
was not the only Latin Christian in the thirteenth century to do so. Indeed, as
noted earlier, the Dominican Order had been operating language schools for
missionaries since the mid-1200s. Several medieval authors who wrote about
Islam displayed varying levels of competence in Arabic, including Petrus Alfonsi,
Ramon Llull, Ramon Martí, and William of Tripoli. However, it is Riccoldo
who most often used and most explicitly touted his knowledge of Arabic. It is
not known whether he studied Arabic in a Dominican language school before
he began his journey, but whatever he learned before undertaking his pilgrimage
proved inadequate, as can be seen from Liber peregrinationis, which suggests that
his language ability improved as he travelled. Early in the journey, he notes his
need for a translator in Tabriz, where his party stayed for six months. Perhaps
they used this time to practice their Arabic (and Farsi?), for by the time they
reached Nineveh (Mosul) in modern-day Iraq, he says that he was able to
preach in Arabic.62 And once Riccoldo arrived in Baghdad, his language skills
had evidently improved enough to enable him to study alongside Muslims in
schools,63 converse with them,64 and even debate the complexities of christology
and trinitarian theology with local Nestorians, employing both Arabic and
Chaldean terms.65 He seems to know these languages well enough — and to
62
‘In Niniue ciuitate grandi in platea propter multitudinem predicauimus fidem catholi-
cam arabice’; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 130.
In Mosul, the Dominicans were preaching to Jacobites, not Muslims.
63
‘Ibi [Baghdad] partier linguam et litteram arabicam didici. Et legem eorum diligentissime
relegens, et studiose in scolis et cum magistris ipsorum frequenter conferens’; Riccoldo da
Montecroce, Contra legem Sarracenorum, ed. by Mérigoux, prologue, p. 62.
64
‘Necesse habuimus aliquantulum conuersari cum eis’; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber
65
‘Et ne cogantur eum diuidere in duos filios dicunt esse unum sciacx arabicum id est una
persona, et ne cogantur dicere Deum esse natum ex uirgine diuidunt eum in duo acnum cal-
deum id est in duo supposita. Vnde ipsi omnes dicunt Christum esse unum sciacx et duo acnum,
quod secundum Nestorium qui fuit Grecus, sonat una persona et duo supposita. Ipsi tamen
Nestorini orientales sunt omnes Caldei et in caldeo legunt et orant. Vnde nullo modo sciunt
que est differentia inter acnum et sciacx’; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed.
and trans. by Kappler, p. 138. Kappler notes on p. 139 of his edition that in Berlin, Staatsbibl.,
MS Lat. 4o 466, Riccoldo himself added ‘arabicum’ and ‘caldeum’ above the appropriate terms
to indicate their linguistic origin. Riccoldo’s discussion of trinitarian theology a page later also
contains Latin transcriptions of several terms in Arabic and Chaldean.
respect the difficulties inherent in translating technical terminology — to note

the importance of asking the Nestorians precisely what they mean.66
Riccoldo believes his fluency in Arabic to be so significant that he cannot stop
mentioning it. Not only does he claim to have read the Qur’an in Arabic, but to
have translated it himself.67 He also mentions that he has read the gospel in both
Chaldean and Arabic.68 He believed so strongly in the importance of language study
that he encouraged his fellow friars to take his lead. In his list of five rules for mis-
sionaries found in his handbook Ad nationes orientales, the very first rule suggests
that friars learn the native language in all its various dialects.69 Written circa 1300,
the handbook’s focus on languages predates by a decade the Council of Vienne’s
call to set up chairs of Hebrew, Arabic, and Chaldean in European universities.
The friar does not merely boast about his own language ability, he also regu-
larly displays it in his arguments against Islam. His polemic includes many ver-
batim citations from the Qur’an (possibly from his own translation), as well as
the title of every sura in Arabic, along with a Latin translation.70 His writings
are peppered with many Arabic terms such as messelman (Muslim), mescita
(mosque), and menaram (minaret).71 The fact that Riccoldo uses the word mes-
selman (Arabic muslim) is noteworthy because while Muslims use it to describe
themselves, medieval Christians rarely did, preferring Saracen or Mohammedan
instead.72 But sometimes his use of Arabic seems gratuitous; for example, in his
66
‘Et igitur ualde utile querere ab eis que est diffinitio acnum et sciacx et que est differentia inter
acnum et sciacx’; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 138.
67
‘Et cum inceperim eam [the Qur’an] in latinum transferre’; Riccoldo da Montecroce,
Contra legem Sarracenorum, ed. by Mérigoux, prologue, p. 62.
68
In Letter 3, he says he has ‘diligently searched in vain’ for the name of Muhammad in the
Arabic and Chaldean gospels, while in Liber peregrinationis he says that the proof the gospels
have not been corrupted (contra the Muslim claim of tahrif) is the fact that despite the geo-
graphic and doctrinal separation between Eastern and Western Christians, ‘we find in the Arabic
and Chaldean gospels the same translation and same truth as that of the Greeks and Latins’.
69
70
In the Florence manuscript of Contra legem which contains Riccoldo’s own additions and
corrections, all Sura titles and Arabic terms have been underlined, and the spelling of one of the
Arabic terms has been carefully corrected with the interlinear addition of an ‘h’ to ‘Ismahelite’
(BNCF, MS Conv. Sopp. C 8.1173, fol. 205r).
71
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Contra legem Sarracenorum, ed. by Mérigoux, chap. 7, p. 88
(messelman); Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, 1, p. 266 (‘Sarracenos appel-
lant sed messalammos quod interpretatur salvati’); Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by
Röhricht, 2, p. 273 (mescita and menaram).
72
While Riccoldo uses the correct term in this one instance, he defines it incorrectly. He
says it means ‘saved’ (instead of ‘one who submits’); Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by
124 Chapter 6
discussion of Nestorian trinitarian theology, he notes that ‘Dicunt enim quod

pater et filius et spiritus, scilicet thelathe saffat quod interpretatur tres qualitates
cum tamen in caldeo dicant eos esse thelathe acanim et in arabico dicant eos esse
thelathe ascicas quod interpretatur tres personae uel tria supposita’ (They say that
the Father, Son, and Spirit are thelathe saffat which means ‘three qualities’: thus
in Chaldean they say thelathe acanim and in Arabic they say thelathe ascicas,
which means three persons or three substances).73 The terms in question are saf-
fat, acanim, and ascicas; it is unclear why Riccoldo feels the need to include the
Arabic word for three (thelathe) here except to display his own linguistic knowl-
edge, since the word for three is hardly under debate.
Riccoldo uses Arabic terms and Qur’anic quotations as much as if not more
often than other medieval Christians — even more than William of Tripoli,
Petrus Alfonsi, and Ramon Martί, all of whom include some Arabic in their
writings.74 For example, William does not usually use proper Arabic terms; for
example, instead of using the Arabic words for ‘mosque’, ‘minaret’, and ‘muezzin’,
he uses the Latin oratoria, pinnaculum, and preconem, respectively.75 It is highly
unlikely that William did not know the Arabic for these common Islamic terms;
perhaps he was trying to help his Latin readers understand what he was describing.
Riccoldo, on the other hand, might have taken the opportunity to further display
his knowledge by retaining the original Arabic words.
Riccoldo also uses his language skills to argue against specific Muslim claims.
For example, he tells his readers that he can refute the Muslim assertion that
Muhammad is predicted in the Christian gospel due to his own research: ‘Ego
vere ista non invenio in evangelio, nec in latino, nec in caldeo, nec in arabico, quod
quidem diligentissime in oriente perlegi’ (In truth I have not found this in the
gospel, neither in Latin, nor in Chaldean, nor in Arabic, yet I have most diligently
searched the entire East for it).76 Surprisingly, at one point Riccoldo seems to
Röhricht, 1, p. 266.
73
74
William comes closest to Riccoldo in terms of his use of Arabic: in William of Tripoli,
Notitia de Machometo, ed. and trans. by Engels, he notes that ‘Mahomet’s book of laws is called
the Qur’an or Furqan in Arabic’; he includes a transliteration of the shahada in Arabic (chap. 3,
p. 204); and he uses the term Meslemin for Muslims (chap. 6, p. 216). William also quotes the
entire Fatiha in Latin (chap. 7, p. 218). In chap. 8, p. 222, he mentions in passing that he himself
had personally translated some parts of the Qur’an into Latin. However, William does not boast
about his personal Arabic proficiency they way Riccoldo does.
75
76
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, 3, p. 282. Muslims traditionally
interpret the Paraclete in John 14. 26 as referring to Muhammad.
be using his Arabic abilities to improve Christian-Muslim understanding. His

efforts here, however, end up to be apologetic; that is, they ultimately benefit only
the Christian side by highlighting a common misunderstanding Muslims have
about Christian theology, not vice versa:
De Christianis autem dicit quod ipsi dant Deo participem, quod manifeste falsum
est. Dicunt enim Christani per totum mundum quod Deus est maxime unus et
simplicissimus. Preterea dicit in capitulo Delteube, quod interpretatur penitentia,
‘quod Christiani deificant episcopos suos et pontifices et religiosos,’ quod falsum
est. Hoc autem dixit Mahometus sicut ignarus lingue. Nam Christiani chaldei et
omnes orientales Christiani uocant episcopos et religiosos, causa honoris, raban,
quod interpretatur ‘magister,’ uel ‘maior meus.’ In lingua uero arabica Rab est nomen
Dei, quod interpretatur ‘Dominus’ absolute, et de solo Deo intelligitur sicut etiam
apud nos quando dicimus, ‘Dominus tecum.’ Credidit igitur Mahometus quod
Christiani uocarent eos deos.
(About the Christians he [Muhammad] says that they attribute a partner to God
[shirk], which is clearly false. For Christians throughout the world say that God is
one and the most simple. Moreover, it says in the chapter Delteube, which is trans-
lated repentance, that ‘the Christians deify their bishops and popes and religious’
[Sura 9. 31], which is false. But Mahomet said this as if he were ignorant of the
language. For out of honour, the Chaldean Christians and all the Eastern Chris-
tians call their bishops and religious raban, which means master or ‘my greater’. In
the Arabic language Rab is the name of God, which means absolute Lord, and it is
understood to refer only to God just it is among us when we say, ‘The Lord is with
you’. Therefore Mahomet believed that Christians were calling them gods.)77
The above arguments were all informed by at least a rudimentary knowledge of

Arabic and Chaldean. By making these languages such an integral part of his
argument, Riccoldo realized the dream of Peter the Venerable, who noted one
hundred and fifty years earlier that Latin misperceptions of Islam were largely due
to ignorance of the Arabic language.78
Another distinctive aspect of Riccoldo’s approach to Islam is his repeated,
explicit mention of having consulted Muslim scholars while studying Islam. As
has already been noted, Riccoldo says in the prologue to Contra legem that he
studied with Muslim magistri. Furthermore, in Liber peregrinationis he admits
that he chose Baghdad because it was the intellectual centre of the Islamic world.
77
78
While Peter never learned Arabic himself, he attributed Western ignorance of Islam to
ignorance of languages and texts, and bemoaned the dearth of Arabic speakers in twelfth-century
Europe in the prologue to Peter the Venerable, Liber contra sectam, ed. and trans. by Kritzeck.
126 Chapter 6
He evidently took advantage of this location, for he claims that he sought out
Muslim scholars in their schools, monasteries, and homes in order to converse
with them. Riccoldo’s eagerness to consult with Muslim scholars about the
Qur’an seems somewhat parallel to twelfth-century Victorine exegetes in Paris,
who sought out local rabbis to gain a better understanding of hebraica veritas,
the ‘Hebrew truth’ found in the Old Testament.79 By going directly to Muslims
to learn about Islam, Riccoldo was giving them the chance to define themselves,
regardless of whether he actually listened to what they had to say. Although he
ended up using most of the information he gained to fuel his anti-Islamic polemic,
he still managed to incorporate a few authentic details into his descriptions,
such as the characteristically Islamic focus on the name of God. The accurate
descriptions of Islam scattered throughout Riccoldo’s texts, some of which might
actually be recognizable to Muslims themselves, would probably not have been
possible if his knowledge of Islam had been based solely on books. By seeking out
Muslim scholars, he gained a more nuanced understanding of Islam (in places),
and unwittingly followed another rule of comparative theology: allowing the
other to self-define.80
Finally, in a very few instances, Riccoldo unknowingly follows another prac-
tice of modern comparative theologians: he uses his observations of lived Islam to
reflect critically on his own faith.81 For example, his claim that Muslims surpass
Christians in forgiveness has already been noted.82 This is his strongest criticism
of Christianity in light of Islam, but elsewhere he more subtly notes a contradic-
tion between the ideals articulated in the Qur’an and the Bible and the realities
of Islamic and Christian praxis. At least in Liber peregrinationis and Epistolae,
Riccoldo is not afraid to admit that Muslims are more forgiving than Christians,
79
See Grabois, ‘The Hebraica veritas and Jewish-Christian Intellectual Relations’. On the
Victorines, see Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages.
80
Swidler, ‘The Dialogue Decalogue’, Commandment no. 5: ‘Each participant must define
himself. Conversely, the one interpreted must be able to recognize herself in the interpretation’.
81
Swidler, ‘The Dialogue Decalogue’, Commandment no. 9, ‘Persons entering into inter-
religious dialogue must be at least minimally self-critical of both themselves and their own
religious or ideological traditions’. Fredericks also discusses self-criticism as a crucial element
of comparative theology in Fredericks, Faith among Faiths, pp. 166–67, while Jacques Dupuis
describes the ‘mutual asymmetrical complementarity’ which results from interreligious dialogue
in Dupuis, Christianity and the Religions, pp. 255–58. The 1991 Vatican document, Pontifical
Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, Dialogue and Proclamation, lists some of the ‘fruits of
dialogue’: purification (section 32), learning from the other (section 49), and the deepening of
one’s own faith (section 50).
82
or to criticize Christians for not living up to their own ideals.83 At one point, he
even says that he wishes that Christians would emulate the Muslim approach to
scripture: ‘O utinam vel in tanta reverencia esset evangelium apud christianos, in
quanta est alchoranum apud Sarracenos!’ (Oh, if only the gospel were as revered
among Christians as the Qur’an is among the Saracens).84 It is only after witness-
ing the great respect Muslims have for the Qur’an that Riccoldo recognizes the
Christian failure to revere their own holy book. With this one phrase, Riccoldo
does two things: he admits that Christian practice is imperfect and acknowledges
that Muslims might have something to teach. Elsewhere, Riccoldo prays that
God would grant the Jews ‘works and understanding’, and the Muslims ‘the law
and understanding’. While this prayer mainly highlights the deficiencies of Jews
and Muslims, it is notable that Riccoldo prays for Christians right along with
them, implying that they are deficient, too.85
Interreligious Experience qua Experience

A unique element of Riccoldo’s account of Islam is his use of personal interreli-
gious experience as a source for his theologizing. This is significant if only to pro-
vide a historical example of the inductive method so popular among theologians
today.86 However, Riccoldo’s reliance on interreligious experience is significant
not only as a method of doing theology but also as an authentic expression of the
very nature of interreligious encounter itself. I say authentic because his descrip-
tions of his encounters with Muslims include a wide range of contradictory emo-
83
Interestingly, even though Riccoldo sees a contradiction between his theory (the Qur’an
is bad, the Bible is good) and reality (Muslims are often virtuous, Christians are often evil), he
does not seem to consider the possibility that his conclusions about the Qur’an and the Bible
are false. Rather, he contrasts the Saracen literati who know the Qur’an to be false but follow
it anyway, and the Christian literati who know the gospel to be true but disregard it; Riccoldo
da Montecroce, Contra legem Sarracenorum, ed. by Mérigoux, chap. 10, p. 111. For more on
the common medieval Christian distinction between Muslim scholars and the average Muslim
faithful, see Tolan, ‘Saracen Philosophers Secretly Deride Islam’.
84
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, 3, p. 281. Just one line earlier, he
observed, ‘Iam quasi nichil reputatur evangelium in omnibus partibus orientis in comparacione
alchorani’.
85
Riccoldo also seems to pray for the good of both Christians and Muslims in a prayer for
peace; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, 2, p. 276.
86
Jacques Dupuis has called this inductive method ‘new’ in Dupuis, Towards a Christian
Theology of Religious Pluralism, p. 14.
128 Chapter 6
tions — wonder, confusion, anger, despair, and ambivalence — none of which

he tried to edit out of his writings or harmonize with his theoretical conclusions
about Islam. The inherent ambivalence of his account compels his readers to
reflect on interreligious experience qua experience.87
Three of Riccoldo’s most frequently expressed reactions to Muslims capture
the essence of interreligious encounter particularly well: contradiction, wonder,
and doubt. Seemingly contradictory statements, such as ‘the law of the Saracens is
diabolical and deadly yet it contains many useful things’, pervade Riccoldo’s writ-
ings.88 But is it anachronistic to call this a contradiction? Today, most theologians
take for granted the fact that experience informs theology, and assume that one’s
experience of non-Christians will affect one’s theologizing about other religions
in significant ways. In fact, some scholars go even further by asserting that posi-
tive experiences of the interreligious other will affect one’s theology of the other
positively,89 while negative experiences will affect one’s theology negatively.90 But
despite Riccoldo’s many positive experiences of Muslims, his writings still contain
mostly condemnations of Islam. Does this mean that Riccoldo contradicts him-
self ? If he had explicitly acknowledged the authority of interreligious experience
87
Michael Barnes says that ‘encounter with the irreducible mystery of otherness’ is an ‘all-
important factor’ which is often ignored when dialogue is a means to an end. Barnes claims that
his ‘theology of dialogue’ is different from others precisely because it ‘emerges from reflection
on the relational experience itself ’; Barnes, Theology and the Dialogue of Religions, p. 182.
88
‘Legem quidem habent diabolicam et mortiferam, licet in ea multa contineantur utilia’;
89
For example, Harold Coward states: ‘Spiritual growth arises not from religious isolation-
ism or exclusivism, but rather in the context of religious pluralism. The history of each major
religion demonstrates that in all cases the creative periods were marked by the challenge of plu-
ralism. It also squares with the experience of those now seriously engaged in dialogue, namely,
that the result is an enriching and deepening of one’s own religious experience’; Coward,
‘Religious Pluralism and the Future of Religions’, p. 63. Paul Griffiths is one of the few to explic-
itly question the assumption that interreligious experience will automatically produce a positive
view of other religions: ‘Suppose that this Christian comes to know some faithful Buddhists
very well and is forced perhaps reluctantly thereby to acknowledge that so far as he can tell these
qualities are evident in their lives to a very high degree, perhaps even to a higher degree than is
the case for his own life […]. Coming to think by way of a pattern of argument of this sort, that
alien teachings ought seriously to be considered is very far from coming to think them true’;
Griffiths, Problems of Religious Diversity, p. 78.
90
Recall Spath, ‘Beyond Conversion and Crusade’, discussed previously, who asserts that
Riccoldo’s earlier work, Liber peregrinationis, describes Islam in complementary terms because it
is the fruit of earlier, more positive encounters with Muslims, while his later work, Contra legem,
is more critical due to the trauma Riccoldo experienced when Acre fell.
as theologians do today, then it might be accurate to call these contradictions.

However, since Riccoldo was a medieval theologian, it is more likely that he did
not intentionally use interreligious experience as an authoritative source for his
theology of Islam. Thus in his case, there is no contradiction, since to Riccoldo’s
mind, his personal experiences of Muslims, whether positive or negative, had no
bearing on his theology of Islam.
Yet for contemporary theologians, the dissonance between Riccoldo’s expe-
rience and theory is too conspicuous to ignore. The very existence of such dis-
sonance in his formal writings is instructive, for it shows that while he probably
did not consider his interreligious experience to be an authoritative source for
theology, it still affected him greatly, so much so that he retained lengthy descrip-
tions of what he saw and heard along with frequent reminders of how much his
observations surprised him. Interreligious experience is clearly at the root of this
dissonance. Such dissonance is not uncommon among other medieval and early
modern Christians who simultaneously sought to learn about interreligious oth-
ers and to proselytize them. Francis Clooney describes a similar paradox in the
writings of seventeenth-century Jesuit missionaries in India: ‘We cannot miss
the tension inherent in this early scholarship: a continuing deep commitment
to missionary work aimed at the goal of conversion, accompanied by ever more
comprehensive and precise knowledge of religion in India’.91
Modern-day theologians should attend to the dissonance in Riccoldo’s
writings. On one hand, the dissonance could suggest that dialogue is futile, since
the friar’s mostly negative assessment of Islam persisted despite his living among
Muslims for over a decade, which might indicate that even protracted contact
with the other is not guaranteed to increase respect, understanding, and trust.
But perhaps Riccoldo’s thirteenth-century dissonance will inspire vigilance
instead of hopelessness among twenty-first century theorists and practitioners
of interreligious dialogue. For as the history of Christian-Muslim interaction
shows, the gradual improvement of relations between religions over time is not
inevitable. Moving from ignorance to knowledge and then back to ignorance is
always possible, as the medieval period demonstrates so well.92
There is another reason why theologians should pay attention to Riccoldo’s
dissonance: it is an example from tradition of the sort of tension acknowledged
91
Clooney, Comparative Theology, p. 29.
92
In successive chapters of Southern, Western Views of Islam in the Middle Ages, Richard
Southern illustrates such an ebb and flow in his description of three main eras in the medieval
European understanding of Islam: the age of ignorance (pre-Crusades); the age of ‘reason and
hope’ (1150–1300); the age of stagnation (1300–1650).
130 Chapter 6
by many today as a positive and indispensable aspect of interreligious dialogue.

In the conclusion to his book Faith among Faiths, James Fredericks includes a
section entitled ‘Living with Tension’, in which he contends that the practice
of comparative theology requires the maintenance of a tension between
‘commitment to the Christian tradition’ and ‘openness to the truths of non-
Christian religions’.93 He insists that comparative theologians must ‘resist the
temptation to overcome this tension’ since ‘losing our commitment to the
Christian tradition leads to the problem of relativism’ while ‘losing our sense of
the allure of other religious traditions […] would mean that we have cut ourselves
off from the power of non-Christians religions to inspire new insights within
us’.94 The problem with the entire theology of religions project, he says, is that all
such theories tend to lessen this tension, when in fact it should be retained. ‘The
real challenge is how to keep this tension creative’, he says.95 Jacques Dupuis also
touches on the necessity of tension in his book Towards a Christian Theology of
Religious Pluralism. In a section entitled ‘Beyond Western Categories’, Dupuis
notes the growing dissatisfaction of many theologians with what he calls the
Western aut-aut (either-or), which tends to highlight contradiction, in favour
of the more Eastern et-et (both-and), which he claims is preferable because it is
better able to hold seeming paradoxes in tension.96
Another theologian who stresses the importance of tension is Michael Barnes,
who points out that any honest interreligious encounter will result in ‘passivity,
dislocation, and vulnerability in the face of the other’.97 Barnes contends that the
uncomfortable tension inherent in interreligious encounter must be maintained,
since it has great potential for learning:
The more difficult challenge for a theology of dialogue is […] how the open-
ended process of negotiation with an often quite explicit threat to the stability
of faith can reveal ‘something of God’. […] [and] open a promise of engagement
with further dimensions of otherness. To hope is to be ready to be surprised, to be
93
94
95
Fredericks, Faith among Faiths, p. 170. Paul Griffiths also notes the tension inherent in
interreligious encounter; however, he sees this tension as something which must be overcome
rather than retained: ‘The epistemic uneasiness often (and properly) produced by increasing
Christian awareness of deep diversity should be acknowledged as a neuralgic point of creative
conceptual growth for Christian thought of the same order of importance perhaps as is attention
to the question of apparently unmerited suffering’; Griffiths, Problems of Religious Diversity, p. 95.
96
Dupuis, Towards a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, pp. 198–200.
97
Barnes, Theology and the Dialogue of Religions, p. 185.
challenged and maybe threatened […] to imagine the unimaginable, to live with the
provisional, to enter into a demanding engagement with others.98
Here, Barnes places interreligious experience — expressly as experience — at the
centre of his theology of religions (what he calls a ‘theology of dialogue’99) and
asks practitioners of dialogue to dwell in the discomfort and ambivalence that
such an experience might produce. Riccoldo’s varied and honest responses to his
encounters with Muslims are prime examples of what Barnes is talking about.
Another common Riccoldian response to his experience of Muslims is
wonder. In fact, the full title of his first letter is: ‘Epistola admirantis anime ad
Deum verum et vivum qui gubernat mundum et de blasfemiis Alcorani’ (Letter
of a soul astonished at the true and living God who governs the world, and about
the blasphemies of the Qur’an). This title juxtaposes his theory of Islam (that the
Qur’an is blasphemous) with his astonishing experience of Muslims in history
(God has allowed them to prosper anyway). This theme is repeated again and
again in his letters; for example, he repeats three times in Letter One alone that he
is ‘stupefied’ about Muslim successes, even while he underscores his certainty that
the Qur’an is blasphemous. The contradiction he sees between his experience (of
Muslim success and Christian defeat) and his theory about the essential nature
of the two religions (that Islam is evil and Christianity good), is so astonishing
that he says this is the reason he composed the letters in the first place.100 Another
paradox that he says has ‘stupefied’ him can be found in Liber peregrinationis,
where once again he highlights the paradox between what he believes to be a
true theory about Islam (that the Qur’an is perfidious) with what he has actually
observed Muslims doing (here, the seven works of perfection): ‘Obstupuimus
quomodo cum lege tante perfidie poterant opera magne perfectionis inueniri’
(We were stupefied to discover how, with a law of such perfidy, works of great
perfection could be found).101 A few sentences later, he again expresses surprise
(also using the word ‘stupui’) about the great devotion Muslims have for prayer,
which he claims to have witnessed personally.102 With these observations, the
98
Barnes, Theology and the Dialogue of Religions, pp. 185–86.
99
‘What I have called “ethical heterology” describes not a programme for engagement, but
a process of prayerful reflection on engagement — a theology of dialogue’; Barnes, Theology and
the Dialogue of Religions, p. 220.
100
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, prologue, p. 264.
101
102
Kappler, p. 160.
132 Chapter 6
friar identifies real-life experience as the direct cause of his astonishment, since it
contradicts his previously held assumptions about Islam.
While Riccoldo does not edit out his amazement at certain positive aspects of
Muslim praxis, nevertheless he does his best to maintain a negative assessment of
the religion as a whole. He does so by trying to explain away what he has observed.
For example, both before and after his praise-filled descriptions of Muslim works
in Liber peregrinationis, he explains his reason for writing: ‘Non supradicta
narrauimus tam commendationem Sarracenorum quam ad confusionem
aliquorum Christianorum qui nolunt facere pro lege uite quod dampnati faciunt
pro lege mortis’ (We have narrated the above not so much to praise the Saracens
as to shame the Christians who are unwilling to do for the law of life what
the damned are willing to do for the law of death).103 He does the same thing
throughout the Epistolae. In Letter One, he expresses astonishment repeatedly,
but by Letter Five, he claims to have resolved, at least partially, the contradiction
he sees between the blasphemy of the Qur’an and the success of Muslims. In
Letter Five, he says that meditating upon Gregory the Great’s Moralia has
provided a ‘theoretical response’ to his dilemma: ‘Semel loquitur Deus et secundo
ad ipsum non repetit […] castigaveris aliquos ut amicos, aliquos vero percusseris
ut inimicos’ (For God speaks once or twice to him but does not repeat […] you
have castigated some as friends […] while you beat others as enemies with a cruel
punishment).104 But even this solution is not entirely satisfactory, for he ends his
final letter by saying he still awaits a ‘practical response’ from God to resolve his
lingering uncertainty: ‘Adhuc in eadem dubitatione remaneo et etiam in maiori
timore quam prius, ne forte christianos orientales afflixeris istis temporibus, ut
inimicos vel etiam ut amicos affligendos diutius. […] Pro responsione denique
theorica gratias ago, practicam vero nichilominus affectuose atque indesinenter
expecto’ (As yet I remain in the same doubt. And I am also more greatly afraid
than before, lest you perhaps have been afflicting the Eastern Christians in these
times as enemies, or as friends who must be afflicted still further. […] I give thanks
for your theoretical response, but nevertheless I am still waiting affectionately
and ceaselessly for your practical response).105
Despite many attempts to explain away the source of his wonder, Riccoldo’s
writings retain numerous expressions of astonishment. In so doing, he seems to be
describing a feeling the biblical scholar Krister Stendahl called ‘holy envy’, when
103
104
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, 5, pp. 295–96.
105
one unexpectedly discovers a quality or practice worthy of admiration in another

religion. Furthermore, by choosing not to edit wonder, doubt, and dissonance out
of his writings, Riccoldo’s account of Islam — most especially his complimentary
descriptions of Muslim praxis, admiration for Qur’anic Arabic, and questioning
of salvation history — retains a level of intimacy and authenticity which can be
instructive. For by expressing uncertainty, indeed by ending his letters with the
admission ‘in eadem dubitatione remaneo’ (I remain in the same doubt), the friar
anticipates what is today seen as a desirable but difficult goal of interreligious
encounter: to dwell in the tension that results when different religions meet.
Riccoldo’s honest recognition of the conflicting emotions he felt in the face of
Muslims provides a historical example of what many theologians today suspect
is true: that encountering the other will always produce feelings of ambivalence,
whether the experience is had in the thirteenth century or the twenty-first.
Epilogue
A
t the beginning of Liber peregrinationis, Riccoldo boldly declares the
purpose of his trip: to ‘nullify the perfidy of Islam’. He did not go to
Baghdad to befriend Muslims or to increase his understanding of Islam.
However, despite his best intentions, this is precisely what happened. The fact
that he learned Arabic, studied Islamic texts with the aid of Muslim scholars,
and spent time in the homes of ‘the noble and the learned’ — which can collec-
tively be called his interreligious experience — did in fact increase his quantita-
tive knowledge of Islam. And what he learned challenged some of his deepest
assumptions, which he demonstrates in his writings by frequent admissions of
astonishment, as well as by numerous contradictions which seem to reveal genu-
ine ambivalence.
Riccoldo is hardly an unequivocal model for twenty-first century Christian-
Muslim relations. He began his missionary career convinced that Muslims needed
saving, and remained so until the end of his days. Even though he possessed
more accurate information about Islamic literature and practice than most of his
confreres, his theology of Islam was not so different from theirs. Yet Riccoldo
remains significant for several reasons. First, the theology of Islam expressed in his
writings, albeit nascent, adds depth and texture to our understanding of medieval
views of Islam, thus contributing to the theology of religions in general — a
project that demands both the study of historical theologies of religions and the
articulation of particularized theologies of Islam, Judaism, and so forth. Second,
the picture of Riccoldo which has emerged calls into question two common
assumptions: that medieval Christians were invariably intolerant, and that only
modern theologians refer to interreligious experience in constructing their views
of other religions. Riccoldo’s account of Islam, which can be gleaned from texts
as diverse as letters, a polemic, and an itinerary, demonstrates that the medieval
Christian theology of Islam was much more complex and ambiguous than is often
136 Epilogue
assumed today. And third, due to the wonder, doubt, and dissonance retained
in his writings, Riccoldo offers a rare and personal glimpse into the encounter
one medieval Christian had with Muslims — an important contribution to our
understanding of the nature of interreligious encounter as such.
Riccoldo’s complicated response to Muslims, captured so candidly in his writ-
ings, demonstrates the challenges one faces when encountering the other and
the extreme ambivalence which may result. How else could he write an entire
polemic against the perfidious Qur’an, yet admit to placing that very same book
on an altar before Christ? But at least Riccoldo is honest. He does not pretend
to understand everything about Islam by neatly systematizing the data he has
gathered, a common practice in both his day and ours. By choosing not to edit
out contradiction, even in his most polemical texts, Riccoldo paints a realistic
portrait of interreligious encounter, a phenomenon that can produce as much
discomfort and destabilization as it does trust and understanding. In so doing,
this medieval missionary stands as an unlikely reminder of a key aspect of inter-
religious encounter: tension. For scholars who study or engage in interreligious
or cross-cultural exchanges, this tension, like Riccoldo’s persistent wonder and
doubt, must not be minimized, ignored, or explained away. Rather, the tension
must be maintained, in the hope that it will eventually lead to deeper knowledge
of the other.
Appendix A
FIVE LETTERS ON THE FALL OF ACRE (1291)1

Riccoldo of Montecroce of the Order of Preachers
Prologue
Here begins the preface which explains what caused2 a friar of the Order of Preachers
to write letters regarding the prosperity of Saracens and the degradation of Chris
tians in these times. Aleph.
And so it came to pass that I was in Baghdad ‘among captives on the banks of
the Chebar’ [Ezekiel 1. 1], the Tigris. A part of me delighted in the charm of the
verdant place in which I found myself, for it was like paradise with its abundant
trees, fertility, and various fruits. The garden was irrigated by the waters of para-
dise, and houses of gold had been built all around. But the other part of me was
1
My English translation of Epistolae is based on the Latin edition by Reinhold Röhricht,
cited throughout as Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht. I have also consulted the
corrections of Röhricht in Panella, ‘Preghiera e protesta’. Both the Röhricht and Panella versions
are based on a single extant manuscript of Epistolae at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (Città
della Vaticana, BAV, MS Vat. lat. 7317, fols 249r–267r) which is currently in such poor condition
that the library rarely grants scholars access to it. Since I was unable to consult the manuscript, my
translation will depart from Röhricht only when Panella’s reading provides a significant improve-
ment; these departures will be noted. Also useful were the notes in Kappler’s French translation
of Epistolae in Riccoldo da Montecroce, Lettres, trans. by Kappler, pp. 209–52.
2
Causa movens. Riccoldo uses the same phrase to express the motivation for his mission-
pilgrimage in the prologue of Liber Peregrinationis.
138 Appendix A
urged to sadness over the slaughter and servitude of the Christian people and
their degradation after the lamentable loss of Acre, at which time I saw Saracens
prosperous and flourishing and Christians squalid and dismayed as their daugh-
ters, young children, and elders were taken away crying, amid rumours that they
were to be forced into prison and slavery among barbarian nations in the remot-
est parts of the East.
In the midst of this great sadness, I was suddenly seized by a strange wonder. I
was stupefied in thinking about God’s judgement concerning world governance,
and most especially concerning Saracens and Christians. Why had such slaughter
and degradation befallen the Christian people, and such temporal prosperity
been granted to the perfidious race of the Saracens?
At that point, since I was unable to prevail over my wonder nor find a solu-
tion, I decided to write to God and the celestial court to express the source of my
wonder and at the same time reveal my desire, and also to ask God to confirm me
in the truth and sincerity of my faith, and to quickly put an end to the law — nay
the perfidy — of the Saracens,3 and above all to deliver the Christian captives
from the hands of their enemies. While thus afflicted, I wrote the following let-
ters in the form of an embittered soul’s prayer.
LETTER ONE
Letter of an astonished soul to the true and living God who governs the world, and
about the blasphemies of the Qur’an.
To the king of the ages, to the immortal, invisible, and only God, be glory and
honour forever and ever, Amen. You are wonderful, O Lord, and ‘your works are
wonderful and your judgements are beyond wonderful’ [Romans 11. 33]. It is
not amazing that you perform miracles; rather it is more amazing that you do not
perform miracles. What is more, since you are so wonderful, I do not know what
is more amazing: that you perform miracles or that you — who are yourself won-
derful — do not. We have learned through your holy prophet David that ‘you are
the God who performs miracles’ [Psalm 77. 15]. If, then, my mind is raised a little
from the dusty earth and tries to contemplate you, it is astonished. If it observes
your works, it is astonished. If my mind meditates on your judgements, it is aston-
ished and stupefied. Who would enable me to know you and reach you, and come
before your throne? I will set my opinion before you, and fill my mouth with
reproach, so that I will know your response to me and understand what you say.
3
Panella, ‘Preghiera e protesta’, p. 23, adds ‘confirmaret et legi ymmo perfidie sarracenorum
finem cito imponeret et christianos’.
Appendix A 139
But now, overwhelmed with tribulation, I am unable to approach the sweetness

of contemplating you or the sweetness of your speech. I am dressed in sack cloth,
and my head is covered in ashes. For it is not possible to enter the court of the
eternal king dressed in the sack of mortality. As another Mordecai ‘on a street
in the middle of the city’ [Esther 4. 1], I will cry out, shouting and wailing. And
with this wailing, ‘I will walk right up to the gates of the palace’ [Esther 4. 2]. And
if perchance Esther’s maids and castrated eunuchs would ‘announce to Queen
Esther’ [Esther 4. 4], that is, the Virgin Mary, then through her the cause of my
weeping and complaining would ‘reach the king’ [Esther 4. 5]. Therefore, crying
and wailing in lamentation, I say to you: ‘O my God, you are the Lord indeed. Is it
proper for me to argue with you?’ Indeed I am unable to do so unless you permit
it. For I know, O Lord, ‘that all your judgements are just’ [Revelation 16. 7, 19. 2].
No one can fully understand these judgements nor criticize them legitimately.
O Lord, ‘you know all things’ [ John 21. 17]. You know that I do not wish to
blame you with what I am saying. Rather, out of my impatience I am taking the
opportunity to speak with you so that you will instruct me4 — you who are closer
to me than I am to myself. O Lord, I am not trying to penetrate your loftiness,
because in no way can I compare my understanding to it. But I desire to under-
stand, if only a little, your mercy and truth, which my heart believes in and loves.
‘For I do not seek understanding in order to believe, but I believe so that I may
understand. And I believe this because unless I believe, I will not understand.’5
Therefore, knowing that you perform miracles, it seems to me that you have
changed the signs and altered your miracles. In the past we learned through a holy
prophet that ‘you are the God who performs miracles’; we read that ‘you have made
your power known to the nations’ [Psalm 77. 15]. But how are you presently mak-
ing your power known among the nations, given the things which have befallen
your Christian people in our times, especially in Antioch, Tripoli, and Acre? The
Eastern nations are now saying publicly that you are impotent to help us.
Whether one speaks of gods or of lords, there is no other god for us but the
Lord Jesus Christ. They [the Saracens] say, as you know all too well, that the Lord
Jesus Christ is only a man and not God, and they say that the Lord Jesus Christ
is unable to help us against Mahomet.6 They also say (and they have exchanged
4
Panella, ‘Preghiera e protesta’, p. 23, reads instruas instead of Röhricht’s inservias; Riccoldo
da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, p. 265.
5
Anselm of Canterbury, Proslogion, ed. by Schmitt, chap. 1.
6
I will retain Riccoldo’s medieval spelling of ‘Mahomet’ in the translation. (Today the pre-
ferred spelling is ‘Muhammad’.)
140 Appendix A
insulting letters about this) that in these times the fortunes of Mahomet and
Christ have been in combat,7 and that the fortune of Mahomet has completely
surpassed that of Christ. Indeed it is now said openly among the people: ‘Where
is God? Where is the God of the Christians?’ And now not only the Saracens
insult us, but also the Jews and the Tartars. They say: ‘Christians believed that
Jesus son of Mary was able to help them, and that he was God. But now they
[Christians] say, “Where is our God?”’ O Lord, haven’t you heard how often and
in what way they accuse you, how often and in what way they disparage you and
your most holy Mother?
Why don’t you make your power known among the nations? We have learned
that, in the past, you quickly attended to the mocking voice of Sennacherib when
he said, ‘Where is the god of Hamath? Where is the god of Sepharvaim?’ [Isaiah
36. 19]. In one night you sent your angel, who killed 185,000 from among them
[Isaiah 37. 36]. ‘O Lord, why therefore do you now sleep?’ [Psalm 44. 24]. ‘Do
you not care that we are perishing?’ [Mark 4. 38]. The evangelist Mark not only
says that he [ Jesus] slept, but that ‘he slept on a pillow’. O pillow upon which the
watchful and holy one sleeps, can I shake you a little so that his vigilance may be
awakened? Your prophet spoke truly: ‘you have made your power known to the
nations’ [Psalm 77. 15]. But it is not sufficient that you made your power known
in the past; make it known now! Arise, O Lord, save us! Do it, and do not spurn
us in the end!
‘Why do you turn your face and forget our need and tribulations?’ [Lamen
tations 5. 20; see also Psalm 13. 2, Isaiah 54. 7–8]. Arise, O Lord, and save us, if
not on our account because we are sinners, then because by your name you liber-
ate us [Psalm 54. 3]. We are yours, O Lord, ‘and your holy name is invoked over us’
[ Jeremiah 14. 9]. For it is through you, O Christ, that we are called Christians and
it is through you, O Jesus the Saviour, that we are called saved. But the Saracens
believe that salvation is through their damned tyrant Mahomet, who became a
prophet through robbery and tyranny, and in following such a man they are no
longer called Saracens but Muslims,8 which means saved.9 And therefore they con-
sider us damned and persecute us because we follow you. They kill us with enmity
and consider themselves saved because they follow a robber and a murderer.
7
Panella, ‘Preghiera e protesta’, p. 23, adds ‘et fortuna Christi advice pugnaverunt et fortuna
Machometi’.
8
The Latin text reads ‘messalammos’. Medieval Christians rarely used the word ‘Muslim’
over Saracen.
9
Riccoldo offers the same incorrect interpretation of the word ‘Muslim’ in Contra legem
Sarracenorum, chap. 7.
Appendix A 141
And you, O Lord, irreproachable in wisdom and admirable in justice, you

have given strength to a sinful man, a criminal. To Mahomet, the greatest crimi-
nal, you have given an earthly kingdom — nay, you have given him and his people
rule over the whole world! He possesses peacefully and without opposition the
best, most fertile, and richest lands from India to the western regions. Indeed,
in their eastern kingdom, a large part of which I literally wandered through,10 I
saw and discovered remarkable delights, namely: spices, precious stones, balsam
trees, and the sweetest fruits — none of which can be fully understood without
experiencing them. The fertility and abundance of crops and fruit are theirs, as is
continual good weather. All this you gave to them, you who govern the earth with
everlasting reason. And it now seems to those who are weak in faith and intoler-
ant of suffering that you have justified and given life to the liar Mahomet in his
promises — the one who promises to give this land to those who follow him.
And now it seems to the impatient that you, God, have become the executor
of the Qur’an. For you allow too much of what this great liar himself promises in
his Qur’an, which he calls the testament of God and the word of God. Indeed,
you know better than we do how much this great liar himself blasphemes you in
the Qur’an. And while I will be silent about the rest, I will not be silent about
two things: that it [the Qur’an] attempts to nullify completely your most holy
trinity and the mystery of the incarnation. It removes the Son from the Father
and the Father from the Son, and the Holy Spirit from both. For in your presence
I have read in Arabic in the aforementioned Qur’an — not in one place but in
many places — that he has repeated in lieu of an effective argument that ‘It is
impossible for God to have a son, because he does not have a wife’ [Sura 6.101].
Indeed, whoever denies there is a son also denies that there is a father. But if there
is neither father nor son, from whom will the Holy Spirit proceed? In another
place in the Qur’an I read that ‘all sinners will obtain pardon from God, provided
that they do not say that God has a son’ [Sura 5:76]. Indeed, it says in many places,
just as I have read in that place, that ‘God prays for Mahomet’ [Sura 33. 56].11
And you have given horns to such a beast [Revelation 13. 1; compare Daniel
8. 4], so that he may conquer the world, kill your saints, and force them under
torture to deny the faith! O Lord, how many of your altars and churches they
have destroyed, and also with great contempt they have housed their followers
10
Panella, ‘Preghiera e protesta’, p. 23, replaces Röhricht’s ‘Circini’ with ‘circuivi’ and
‘nives’ with ‘inveni’; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, p. 266.
11
Riccoldo mistranslates Sura 33. 56, which actually reads: ‘God and his angels shower
blessings on the prophet. O ye who believe! Ask blessings on him and salute him with a worthy
salutation.’
142 Appendix A
and built mosques.12 How many Christians they have killed, excellent men and
preachers of the faith — by this I mean Friars Preacher and Friars Minor!13
How many of their tyrants have successively divided amongst themselves the
holy nuns consecrated to you, the faithful virgin spouses vowed to you! What
king, if he had the power to prevent it, would ever patiently tolerate another king
taking possession of his own lawful wife?
And it is to such a beast that you have given so much power against the
Christians for almost seven hundred years! Truly I believe that the worst days are
approaching, those which you who are truth itself prophesied. But you promised
that the very worst days would be brief [Mark 13. 19–20]. Why, then, has such
a cruel beast raged against and dominated Christians for so long? Why hasn’t
[God] raised up someone stronger than [Mahomet] who will defeat him, destroy
his arms, and distribute the spoils? [Luke 11. 22].
For a long time I presumptuously thought that I could fight him by means
of your force and nullify his pernicious doctrine. It is for this reason that I
voluntarily accepted this mission through obedience to your vicar and went to
the most distant parts of the East.
And when this feeble Friar Preacher wandered around preaching, he
proclaimed you, Christ, and came upon enemies of the faith who by means of
threats and beatings wanted to force me to preach Mahomet and his perfidious
law. With your help I refused, and after beatings which love bore easily, they took
from me the holy habit of my Order, and I, stripped and confused, took up the
habit of a camel-driver and the reins of a camel.
And so, I who for a long time had been a negligent Friar Preacher became an
attentive camel-driver. And crying with tears of joy, I said: ‘O Lord, I have heard
that Mahomet was a camel-driver. Have you not decreed that I, in the habit of a
camel-driver, would depose that camel-driver? For regardless of my dress, I will
not refuse to fight for you.’
But when I returned to my interior thoughts, I discovered daily through
experience that I could not accomplish what I had planned, and I said to myself,
‘maybe this is not accomplished because I have not become poor in apostolic
perfection as you commanded your holy apostles’ [Luke 10. 4]. And then
suddenly before my spirit, the great and most fervent preacher and founder of
the Order of Preachers appeared, the Blessed Dominic, whom you sent with
doctrines and miracles at the end of time from the western regions of the world.
12
Panella, ‘Preghiera e protesta’, p. 23, adds ‘stabulaverunt sequaces eius et mechitas fece
runt. Quot’.
13
Dominicans and Franciscans.
Appendix A 143
With what fervent intention did he attack Mahomet from the western regions
(and for this purpose he let his beard grow for some time), yet he did not destroy
this most ferocious beast. On the contrary, it was the beast Mahomet who killed
the Friars Preacher sent to preach in Morocco and other places.
Also appearing to my spirit was the perfect pauper and true lover of poverty,
Francis, the entirely orthodox and apostolic man who with fervent spirit attacked
the beast Mahomet in the eastern regions, asking the successor of Mahomet, the
sultan of Babylon, to put him either with the Saracens or alone into a burning
fire, in order to destroy the beast. But he did not destroy the beast.
The great and holy father of the Preachers, Master Jordan,14 holy and famous
in the world for his miracles and his teaching, crossed the sea in order to preach
to the Saracens, but he did not conquer the beast.
How therefore will a runt be able to do what these giants were unable to
accomplish? It seems that God is his [Mahomet’s] collaborator. I have not men-
tioned our secular princes: Louis, the holy king of France, and other holy kings
and barons, the many who in succession have crossed the sea and taken up the
sign of the cross and subjected themselves to unending hardships and the danger
of death in order to conquer this beast. They are the ones who have died on land
and at sea, who have been drowned and stifled in little rivers. Their example has
inspired other Christians who are fearful and weak in faith. And even now this
most ferocious beast does not cease to devour your holy ones. They are killed,
tortured, shackled, and imprisoned so they will deny your faith and be forced to
say that God had no son, since we have no inheritance except through your Son.
How long will you hold back, O Lord? Turn your face, O Lord, towards the
groaning of these captives. Vindicate them by your most holy blood which has
been poured out! Behold, the entire Holy Land — which you, the most holy,
visited bodily and consecrated with your precious blood — is groaning, deprived
of its Christian inhabitants. Where Christ was once publicly preached, Mahomet
is now proclaimed with loud cries day and night.15 I have heard that the seas of
Tripoli and Acre have reddened with the blood of massacres, and whoever did not
suffer the swords and arrows of the Saracens has been swallowed up by the sea.
Behold, O Lord, you have changed the signs and altered your miracles. We
read that in the past you drowned Pharaoh and the Egyptian people in the Red
Sea, and liberated the Jews. Now however the Patriarch of the Christians has been
14
Jordan of Saxony (c. 1190–1237) was the second Master General of the Order of Preachers.
15
Riccoldo is not entirely correct. The five-times-daily call to prayer (adhan) is primarily in
tended to praise God, not Muhammad. Muhammad’s name is mentioned only twice during the ad-
han — to recognize him as God’s messenger — while God’s name is repeated at least eleven times.
144 Appendix A
drowned with many Christians, and you have liberated the Egyptians. ‘Every
where we have become a source of shame for our neighbours’ [Psalms 44. 14,
79. 4]. O Lord, I believe that we are suffering all of this for our iniquities. But I am
greatly astonished that in the past you wished to spare the entire city of Sodom
for ten righteous persons [Genesis 18. 32], but is it possible that in all of Tripoli
or Acre, among such a multitude of Christians and religious, you could not find
ten righteous persons? And not only for ten, but for only one righteous person
you were willing to spare the Jews, for you said, ‘Wander the streets of Jerusalem,
observe and inspect, search her places; if you find one man who is doing justice
and seeking faith, I will look favourably upon him’ [ Jeremiah 5. 1]. But I have
heard that not only one or ten, but very many Friars Preacher remained in the city
of Acre. They could have left or fled, but they chose to die with the people of God.
They were killed so that others would have a foundation of faith. For doesn’t he
who seeks faith die for it?
Dare I say that you have changed into a cruel God? Because now you are
destroying many of the righteous along with a few of the wicked, you who were in
the habit of sparing many of the wicked for a few of the righteous. For in the past,
you delivered from the waters little Moses crying in the basket of bulrushes, so
that he would liberate others. And now with your permission, a most calamitous
flood has carried away the Patriarch, the father of the poor, a sober, modest, and
holy man, Brother Nicholas, a Friar Preacher, a man of the most pleasant con-
duct. With your permission, a bitter wave seized him from an armed boat, and a
raging sea swallowed him up, this wise man who wished to liberate an unavenged
people. Indeed many told this to me in an insulting tone, and until now I could
not believe it, that out of all those on the ship, he alone was drowned because he
wished to liberate others.
Is this how you deliver your people, O Lord? Is this how you deliver your
servant and spiritual minister, who with such fervour desired to praise and bless
you, and to preach in the holy city of Jerusalem? He who was unable to hold
back his tears when he spoke sweetly with me? And now I truly believe that you
have given him the heavenly city of Jerusalem and that he has come before you
in glory, O God, accompanied by a multitude of people and a retinue of reli-
gious and friars in such number, I believe, as no one else in our time. But you,
the all-powerful, have at your disposal a way other than the one by which you
brought him [Nicholas] and all his people in — a way without recourse to the
Mahometans16 who say that you, Jesus son of Mary from Nazareth in Galilee,
are only a man and not God, however great a prophet you may be. They also say
16
The Latin text reads Machometistas.
Appendix A 145
that Mahomet is greater than you before God and that you are unable to help us
against Mahomet. And when we say that, on the contrary, you are able to help us,
they conclude sophistically that he who is able to help his own people, but refuses
to do so, is even worse.
But look, while I do not pay attention to such sophistic arguments, it has
nevertheless been ostensibly demonstrated — nay proven — to me, because
following these events a great multitude of Christians renounced Christ and
became Saracens. ‘Woe is me, who will liberate me from this mortal body?’
[Romans 7. 24]. I waited steadfastly, as had become my custom, but the opposite
came to pass. For while the pagans killed many Christians, many pagans became
Christians. And now, what sorrow! The right hand of the Most High is no longer
for us; it has changed into the pernicious left hand. For the Saracens have killed
many Christians, and many of the Christians who remain have accepted the law
— nay, the perfidy — of Mahomet. Indeed, this is what afflicts me most of all.
And now I have no other consolation except you, O God. I have been left alone
in Baghdad, in the depths of the East, by my companions, and for many years I
have had no news from the West about my brothers or my Order. Likewise, I do
not know what happened to the master who sent me, because I have not received
any scrap of a response to the numerous tearful letters I sent him requesting help.
‘It is because of you that I am slain all day long, considered only as a sheep to
be slaughtered’ [Psalm 44. 23]. ‘I have become a foreigner to my brothers and
a stranger to the sons of my mother’ [see also Job 19. 13]. For you, O Lord, I
left the world and entered the Order. For you I left the Order, so to speak, and
came to proclaim you to the Saracens and Tartars. And I came into ‘the depths
of the sea and the storm has shattered me’ [ Jonah 2. 4, 6]. Let not the storm and
its floods overwhelm me! For I know, O Lord, that your mercy is kind, even if I
am not able to see it clearly now. Therefore I am begging you, O God, you who
created and redeemed me, to confirm me in my faith and to rescue the Christian
people quickly from the hands of the wicked! May your name be blessed from age
to age, because ‘wisdom and power are yours; you change the times and the ages,
and you establish and depose royal powers’ [Daniel 2. 20–21].
If it pleases you that Mahomet should rule, tell us so that we may venerate him.
‘Blessing and glory, wisdom and thanksgiving, honour and power, and might
be to our God forever and ever. Amen’ [Revelation 7. 12].
Given in the East.17
17
Riccoldo concludes his first four letters with ‘data in oriente’ (only the fifth has ‘scripta
in oriente’). I have translated data as ‘given’ but it could also be rendered as ‘written’ or ‘sent’.
146 Appendix A
LETTER TWO
And since Divine Mercy did not answer me as quickly as I desired, my afflicted and
anxious soul has added the following letter, written to the Queen of Heaven.
Letter to the Blessed Virgin Mary.18
To the most blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, Queen of Heaven, and advocate
of the world, to you be the joy and happiness which the soul of this afflicted Friar
Preacher lacks as he preaches in the eastern regions. I have already sent a letter
to Divine Wisdom about my sadness and astonishment, but until now I have
received no response which would instruct or console me. And now, O most
blessed queen, with this letter presented tearfully to you, I wish to declare the
cause of the same sadness and the same astonishment, but with different words
and reasons, so that your mercy will come quickly to the aid of miserable me.
I speak to you with such confidence and security, wretched sinner that I am,
because I am not ignorant of the fact that you have been established as a merci-
ful queen and advocate of sinners by the highest Judge in the celestial court. It
has occurred to me that for many years now while ‘I have reflected on my ways
and turned my feet’ [Psalm 119. 59]19 to give testimony to your son, the enemy
of the human race has hindered me in order to divert me, throwing many grave
dangers into the path of my pilgrimage, such that my fragility has been unable to
bear them. And when I, almost broken and quite delayed by so many bad turns,
heard a voice in my heart telling me: ‘Cast your thoughts on the Lord, for he
cares for you’ [i Peter 5. 7] and thereafter you may be certain that nothing will
be difficult, and no danger will befall you, for if you invoke the queen of mercy,
you will quickly obtain her protection’. Then I immediately put complete confi-
dence in you. And, moved by the name of the queen of mercy, I declared out of
a certain trust and intimacy: ‘Now if she will be for me a massaria and overseer, I
will walk securely’, for it is said in the common language of my city, as you know,
that a massaria is a woman who faithfully and carefully procures the necessities of
the house. And up to the present moment it has been proven to me thus through
experience that in all dangers and in great need you have come immediately to me
whenever I said, ‘now where is the massaria of the house?’ Meaning you by this, I
immediately received the protection of your holy patronage.
18
Panella, ‘Preghiera e protesta’, p. 24, adds ‘anxia et’ after ‘anima mea’ and changes ‘beatam
reginam Mariam’ to ‘beatam viginem Mariam’.
19
Riccoldo also cites Psalm 119 in the prologue of Liber peregrinationis; there, he presents
it as a primary motivation for his mission-pilgrimage to the East. Here, too, he explicitly links
this verse to pilgrimage, using the word peregrinatio later in the same sentence.
Appendix A 147
And now, behold! Afflicted, abandoned, and alone in a far-off land, with a
feeble body, sorrowful heart, and almost completely confused mind, I raise the
cry of an exile, not only as a son of Eve,20 but as the son of many. Alas, alas, I am
miserable! Woe is me, for at that time I came from western lands to the eastern
regions in order to preach Christ, to baptize, and to gather into the bosom of holy
Mother Church the very ones which I am now hearing and seeing be dispersed
and scattered.21 And it is not only from the bosom of holy Mother Church, but
from her very heart, that these Christians have been seized, slaughtered, put up
for sale, and sent to Baghdad and other remote eastern regions, in advance of a
multitude of captives.
I have diligently sought out and searched so that I might discover by chance
one of my Brother Preachers among the captives. But behold, it has been
reported to me that all have been killed. Old and young Christians have been
sold to foreigners. Chalices, vestments, and other altar-ornaments which had
been consecrated by spiritual ministers have been transferred to the tables of
the Saracens from the table of Christ and from service to the body and blood
of our Lord. The books of the prophets and the gospels have been thrown to the
dogs. What is most wretched of all is that they have chosen the most beautiful
from among the holy nuns and virgins betrothed to your most holy son to be
sent as presents to the kings and tyrants of the Saracens, so that they may bear
the children of Saracens. The others have been divided up and sold, and given
to performers who have taken them throughout the world, to the shame of
Christians and your most holy son Jesus Christ.
O Lady, we know that your son is the radiance of eternal light and a mirror
without blemish, who is pleased by nothing but the pure. But is it more pleasing
to him that the holy nuns and virgins have been forced to become actresses and
are running all over the world, or that they sing in the monastery of God and are
occupied with spiritual ministries? Is it more pleasing to him that the holy nuns
and virgins consecrated to him are the slaves and concubines of Saracens and are
bearing them Saracen children, or that they preserve the vow of virginity which
they have taken, and by your most holy son (through the passion of the Holy
20
Kappler notes that these lines are from the Salve Regina (‘Ad te clamamus, exsules filii
Evae’); Riccoldo da Montecroce, Lettres, trans. by Kappler, p. 220.
21
Riccoldo’s missionary goals included not only converting Muslims to Christianity, but
also reuniting ‘the flock’ of Eastern and Western Christians. Medieval Latin Christian efforts at
union did not resemble those of today’s ecumenists; Eastern Christians such as the Nestorians
and Jacobites (who were considered heretical by Latin Catholics due to what was believed to be
their non-Chalcedonian christologies) were seen as errant children who needed to return to the
bosom of the one true mother, the Roman Catholic Church.
148 Appendix A
Spirit) conceive holy things in holy contemplation, in order to give birth to the
works of charity? O Lady, see how it now seems to be fulfilled, that which the
greatest liar Mahomet himself said: that he was sent by God with the aid of arms22
to bear many children so that the population of Saracens would increase. Can it
be that they would have been lacking other women with whom to have children
if he [Christ] had not given them his own maid-servants — holy nuns and virgins
promised and betrothed to him since adolescence? What would your son Christ
deny to Mahomet, if he concedes his own maidens and rightful spouses to him?
We dare not deny that all these things have happened with your permission
and concession. If only the Saracens knew God, then they would be grateful to
him who has given them such victory! But in fact they are grateful to Mahomet;
they say that all these things have been procured for them by the merit of the
Qur’an. As for Christ, your most holy and all-powerful son, they disparage him,
saying ‘Christians have faith in a certain Jesus son of Mary, because he would be
God, but he cannot prevail over Mahomet’. They declare this and write insulting
letters to our princes and kings, saying that the fortunes of Christ have battled
the fortunes of Mahomet, and the fortunes of Mahomet have prevailed. But what
can I say, when signs of the hostility and hate of Saracens towards Christians and
Christ are manifest to all? For I am reporting only a little about many things
which are so terrible that I must blush in telling them to strangers. Yet your most
wise son is not ashamed to openly allow these things to be revealed to strangers
before friends.
I truly believe that you knew I was present in Sebaste,23 a city in Turkey, when
after receiving news about the sorrowful capture of Tripoli, they attached a
crucifix to the tail of a horse and dragged it in the mud throughout the whole city,
beginning in the area of the friars and Christians — and this on a Sunday — to the
great insult of Christians and Christ.
According to eyewitness accounts, isn’t it true that in all of Galilee and
Judea and Jerusalem and nearly everywhere the Saracens have found your image
and that of your most holy son, they have gouged out the eyes with spears and
swords and sticks, and abandoned them thus, as if they were all blind pictures,
to the insult of Christians and Christ? What mother would patiently endure the
blinding of her own son? In all of Turkey and Persia, and all the way to Baghdad,
22
Röhricht notes that this verse is not in the Qur’an but may be in the hadith literature;
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, p. 272. Thomas Aquinas uses the same
phrase ‘in virtute armorum’ to describe Muhammad’s success in Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles,
trans. by Pegis and others, i. 6.
23
Sivas.
Appendix A 149
have we not found all the Christian churches destroyed, or converted into stables
or mosques24 by the Saracens? And where they were unable to destroy a church or
convert it into a stable, they would immediately build next to it a mosque and a
minaret with a high tower, in order to proclaim the law — nay the perfidy — of
Mahomet above the heads of the Christians.
In Tabriz, a city in Persia, the large and beautiful church which Christians built
to honour Christ’s beloved disciple and your adopted son John the Evangelist, who
was commended to you sweetly by your son hanging on the cross [ John 19. 26–27],
they made into a Qur’anic school, in order to blaspheme Christ and the Evangelist.
But why do I speak of other places and cities, when in the holy city of Jerusalem
I found the great and most hallowed church on Mt Zion (where the Lord had
the wonderful last supper with his disciples and changed bread and wine into his
body and blood) shamelessly converted into a stable by the Saracens? Underneath
this same church they have displayed your humble cell, O Lady of Heaven, where
you lived the days of your life after the ascension of your son. And look how
every deserted place laments without its inhabitants, except where the Saracens
have erected a much higher building above the place where your most holy son’s
apostles received the Holy Spirit, and in this same place they proclaim day and
night the law — nay the perfidy — of Mahomet (that is, the Qur’an).
You know too well how many times they blaspheme you and your holy son in
the Qur’an. But I would not have been able to believe it if I had not read it with
my own eyes. For what amazes me most is how a mother could endure so patiently
and for so long such blasphemies against her son, or [how] an all-powerful son
[could endure such blasphemies] against his most holy mother or his most high
father. Have you not read in Arabic in many places in the Qur’an what Mahomet
presents as a demonstrative argument: ‘It is impossible for God to have a son,
because he doesn’t have a wife’? [Sura 6. 101]. In this brief, foolish, and seductive
verse, the obscene and most carnal blasphemer attempts to remove the son from
his father, and [to remove] the father and divinity from the son. And about you
he has written — for I have read it in Arabic in so many places in the Qur’an —
that you, O Virgin Mary, were the ancient Mary who lived at the time of Moses;
consequently he expressly declares that your father was Amram [Sura 66. 12], and
that Moses and Aaron were your brothers [Sura 19. 29].25 And about you, he
24
Riccoldo has mescita, a Latinized version of the Arabic word for mosque, masjid. Other
Christians were less faithful to the Arabic; for example, in his Notitia, William of Tripoli trans
lates mosque, minaret, and muezzin as oratoria, pinnaculum, and preconem, respectively; William
of Tripoli, Notitia de Machometo, ed. and trans. by Engels, chap. 15, p. 256.
25
Röhricht states that this verse is not in the Qur’an, but possibly in the hadith; Riccoldo
da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, p. 274.
150 Appendix A
says that you declared about your son Jesus that ‘it would be better to be dead
than to have borne such a son!’ And about your son, O Lady, you know that they
commonly teach and preach that Jesus son of Mary will come back at the end of
the age, and that he will become a Saracen.
You also know, O Lady, that in crossing the river of paradise, the Tigris, I found
a city in between Baghdad and Nineveh, the ancient Baghdad,26 where even now
(with a mule saddled and ready) they await the son of Ali,27 who died six hundred
years ago, and every Friday they display a mule prepared to receive him. And when
he comes, they say that Jesus son of Mary will appear and become a Saracen. O
Lady, I will believe you about your son and not the Saracens! Tell us, O Lady, was
your son made into, or did he become, a Saracen?28 Until now, I could not believe
that Jesus Christ your son would become a Saracen. Yet I have seen clearly that he
himself has given and conceded much to the Saracens. Perhaps this is a prelude to
him actually becoming a Saracen. But I say these things to you not to provoke you
to vengeance, you who I salute as Mother and Queen of mercy. I truly believe that
your most wise son did not peacefully concede so many temporal successes to the
Saracens; rather it was out of anger that he permitted them. For their successes
‘turn on them like the venom of asps from within’ [ Job 20. 14]; after every victory
and temporal success they are more strongly confirmed in their errors. For they
believe that they have received these things from their Mahomet, according to
the Qur’an. And thus it is precisely from the good things they have received that
they confirm being possessed by hell. And so once again, your son in his anger
concedes these successes to them.
But if your son, O Lady, is angry at Saracens, Jews, and Christians, then who
will be pleasing to him? For Christians have the law of God and understanding
of it, but without the perfection of works; Jews truly have the law of God but
without understanding or works; and Saracens truly seem to have certain good
works, but without the complete law of God or understanding of it. Where are
your ancient mercies, O Lady? Where is the abundant mercy of your most holy
son? O Lady, give to Christians the works of perfection,29 to Jews works and
26
The ‘ancient Baghdad’ to which Riccoldo refers is the city of Samarra.
27
Kappler notes that by ‘son of Ali’, Riccoldo is referring to the twelfth (‘hidden’) imam
of Shi’i Muslims whose shrine is located at Samarra; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Lettres, trans. by
Kappler, p. 223.
28
Panella, ‘Preghiera e protesta’, p. 24, notes that this entire sentence (‘Dic nobis, o Domina
[…] sarracenus?’), which is missing in the Röhricht edition, is the only readable fragment of a
more substantial omission.
29
Riccoldo uses this same term, ‘opera perfectionis’ (works of perfection), in reference to
Muslim works in Liber peregrinationis.
Appendix A 151
understanding of the law, and to Saracens the law and understanding of it! They
should know, I say, because they are human beings, that all would experience your
assistance, especially the Christians who have continuously celebrated your mem-
ory. Dangers have increased, while miracles, spiritual gifts, and temporal benefits
have decreased. It was once said: ‘compel them to enter’,30 but why are they now
compelled to leave? Where are your mercies and concern, and those of your holy
son, for the human race and above all for the poor indigents? Haven’t you seen
Christians dying of hunger and thirst and renouncing their faith for the needs of
the body, and that many others have followed them into sin?
Your son once had concern for poor indigents, saying, ‘Where will you obtain
bread?’ He once thought of them, saying, ‘If I send these hungry ones away,
they will collapse on the road’ [Mark 8. 3–4]. And now, you see that they are
collapsing on the roads and in the cities from great hunger and need. Can it be
that he does not care for us, when he was with us on the road? Can it be that he
now walks the four corners of the world but does not consider our affairs? But
where is the promise of the Truth who said, ‘Behold I am with you until the end
of the age’ [Matthew 28. 20]? Once, O Lady, you also had this same care. During
the wedding, you said lest they run out of wine, ‘They have no more wine’ [ John
2. 3]. And now when they have absolutely nothing to eat, you are silent? Since
‘the king has led you into the wine cellar’ [Song of Solomon 2. 4], into the room
of greatest abundance, will you be able to be silent? Then tell him to help us! And
say to us, ‘Eat, my friends, and drink and become inebriated with wine’ [Song of
Solomon 5. 1]. For just as your son sleeps on a pillow, likewise if you sleep in the
wine cellar — unless you say ‘I sleep, but my heart is awake’ [Song of Solomon
5. 2] so that both you and he care for us — only desperation will remain for us.
For your son prefers ‘that we do not arouse nor awaken you until you yourself
wish it’ [Song of Solomon 2. 7].
Therefore it is fitting that I humbly beseech your mercy, as much as I can, so
that you will attend quickly to our miseries and strive quickly to put an end to
the law — nay the perfidy — of Mahomet, and to the power of the Saracens; and
obtain in your son’s presence the transformation of the Lord’s anger and fury into
tranquillity and mercy, for both the Christians and the Saracens.
Hail to you, O Graceful one, and implore Christ for us always!
Given in the East.
30
Röhricht suggests that this quotation is from Augustine; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epis
tolae, ed. by Röhricht, p. 275.
152 Appendix A
LETTER THREE
Letter of an afflicted soul concerning the church militant, to the entire church
triumphant and to the celestial curia, against the blasphemy of the Qur’an.
To the glorious celestial court and to the church triumphant. An afflicted and
modest Friar Preacher, the least in the church militant, is lamenting and suffering
in the midst of captives in the depths of the East. May you rejoice greatly and for-
ever in great and everlasting gladness, but while you are in the midst of this great
joy, do not forget our miseries.
It would have been appropriate for me to speak of your glory and joy if the
same glory were also ours. But my distressed heart, preoccupied with many
miseries and in the midst of a crowd of captives, will not permit any joy, except
as much as I yearn for your joy in the future. But now I am afflicted with such
suffering that from the fullness of my heart I express suffering to them, and with
tears I am not ashamed to convey my sighs to those who are enjoying the heavenly
banquet: ‘Have pity on me! Have pity on me, O you my friends, for the hand of
the Lord has struck me!’ [ Job 19. 21]. I wish, however, to confer with you a bit
about the causes of my sorrow.
And if I say something from impatience which is not suitable to your status
or to my profession, would you plead for me before the highest court about my
impatience and hysterical grief ? For ‘I have become an object of derision, and the
word of the Lord has brought me derision and disgrace all day’ [ Jeremiah 20. 7, 8].
For I, wretched sinner that I am, have been sent to preach the faith of Christ
to the Saracens and Tartars, at a time when not only the Tartars and other nations
are becoming Saracens, but also the Christians. If things continue thus, and the
Saracens continue to do as they have done in the past two years in Tripoli and
Acre — killing and imprisoning and dragging Christians by torment and torture
into their perfidy — then very soon not a single Christian will remain in the
world. ‘Who will give water to my head, and a fountain of tears to my eyes? And
I will weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people’ [ Jeremiah
9. 1]. They have been slain, not by the sword but suffocated by the devil; they
have denied the faith of Christ through temptation or impatience, or weakened
and oppressed by hunger and necessity!
Alas, alas, alas, O Lord God! Have you deceived your people, the Christian
people, saying ‘peace, peace’ [Luke 24. 36] but behold, the sword has reached the
soul? For you, O Lord Jesus Christ, said when leaving your disciples, ‘my peace
I give to you, my peace I leave you’ [ John 14. 27]. And after you ascended to
heaven, war and the persecution of Christians lasted for three hundred years,
during which time Christians were killed nearly without ceasing. But they
Appendix A 153
were killing the body but not the soul, so that rather, on the contrary, the more
Christians they killed, the more the Christians increased. And look now at this
beast Mahomet — whose tyranny against the Christians you have reinforced for
nearly seven hundred years — he is killing the flesh, and they are abandoning the
faith. What should I do, poor and afflicted and left alone in the depths of the East
in the midst of captives, when I hear that thirty thousand Christians were killed
in one day, and when I hear and see the rest deny the faith of Christ and accept the
perfidy of Mahomet because their souls are suffering and spirits are despairing?
I have already sent letters about the cause of my sadness and wonder to Divine
Wisdom and to your mother, and I have not received any response of comfort.
Therefore, I will do as is customary for someone who endures unbearable injury
in the street and who exclaims with a loud voice: ‘Someone, help! Someone,
help!’ I will therefore call out under duress; I will call out in order to know if there
is someone who will respond to me. And I will turn to some of the saints with my
impatient complaint.
O great and holy father Dominic, O father and founder of the Order of
Preachers, you who were enflamed by the zeal of faith and piety against all kinds of
heretics, you nevertheless grew your beard with spiritual zeal against the Saracens!
You thought that you would be able to eradicate the Mahometans31 from the
West by the power of God. You wished to do so, but you were unable to! But now,
when you have gone to your God, when you have become more powerful and we
have such need for your protection, can you be silent?
Be more numerous; go before our God, be more numerous and cry out boldly!
For now you are able to join yourself to a great assembly; indeed, I believe you are
joined to many of your order who have been recently killed by the Saracens. I
have been searching anxiously among those who have returned from the capture
of Acre, but I have found no one to tell me if any Friar Preacher still lives. And
even now I am worried, searching among the captives if by chance to find one
of my Brothers Preacher, and I have found no one. But I have found habits and
vestments, as well as books and breviaries, in the hands of the Saracens. O Friars
Preacher! Where have you gone without your habits and breviaries? For it is not
your custom that your brothers go on a long journey without their habits and
breviaries. Indeed, those who returned from the destruction gave me a habit
pierced by a spear or sword, which was also red with a little blood. Thereupon I
lamented and cried, and I said: ‘this is the habit of my brothers, the habit of my
order!’ And I bought it for a modest price.
31
Text reads ‘Machometistas’.
154 Appendix A
O blessed Dominic, I have searched for my brothers, ‘sent from the valley of
Hebron, sent from the Western regions, I came to Shechem’ [see also Genesis
37. 14]. I came to a parched land and I have been scalded by the heat of the sun.
I came to preach the faith, and behold I have found many books and writings on
the faith but I have not found my brothers. ‘I am searching for my brothers. Tell
me where they are tending the flocks!’ [Genesis 37. 16]. And soon after, I learned
that they are tending the flock no more, but are in more fertile fields, being fed
by the Most Excellent Shepherd, for it was reported to me that all were killed.
‘O earth, do not cover my blood’ [ Job 16. 18]. Do not cover the blood which
has been spilled by my brothers. Let the tears of lament shed by prisoners come
before you!
O friars, I entreat you for the sake of the living God: cry out to God quickly
for us! Cry out quickly, before the jubilation of eternal glory inebriates you,
before you are overcome most profoundly by being among the clergy, lest your
sleep turn into torpor, and forgetting our misery you become negligent, just as
our other brothers who were killed in Tripoli and Antioch have been, and who up
until now have been delayed in procuring vengeance.
O blessed Francis, to whom I have been devoted since my youth until now,
O true lover of poverty, to you I cry and groan dolefully. Enflamed by the zeal of
faith and piety, you went before the sultan of Babylon and asked him to place you
in the middle of the fire, with Saracens or alone, in order to destroy the perfidy of
Mahomet. At least, that was what you wanted to do, but you were unable to do it.
And now that you have become so powerful in the heavenly curia, how can you
be silent, when such groans of all souls are multiplying? For your brothers who
did not wish to deny the faith are being killed, and many other secular religious
are being compelled by scourges and many punishments to deny the faith. Go
together, you and Blessed Dominic, before the Highest Judge on behalf of your
gang of paupers. Go together, support each other, and stand firm together! And
who is my adversary? Mahomet, this wicked, lewd blasphemer against God and
holy scripture! Actually, I am surprised that you two have not already demolished
him completely into oblivion.
O Saint Mary Magdalene, especially beloved by Christ, I invoke your protec-
tion against Mahomet and the Mahometan Saracens. For you know, O lady, that
the beautiful church which Christians built in your honour at Magdala I found
converted by the Saracens into a stable — a common stable for dumb animals.
And also, the beautiful church which Christians built for you in Bethany —
where Jesus, who is Love Divine, cried and summoned your brother Lazarus from
his tomb — this beautiful church, I say, I found defiled, having become a stable
for dumb animals.
Appendix A 155
O holy virgins most devoted to God, you of the fragile sex who have
triumphed both against the world and the devil, and who have consecrated your
bodies to God as temples of holy virginity and purity, to you I cry out, wailing
for the tyranny of Mahomet to be destroyed quickly! How long will he rule over
you, this lewd pervert — nay, this totally carnal, poisonous man? How long will
this contagious leper infect the world? I urge you by the virginity which you have
consecrated to God to put an end to this obscene law. Does not your zeal for (and
love of ) purity and virginity admonish you? Have you not seen how the virgins
and holy nuns who were formerly your companions have been led throughout the
world and been impregnated by the Saracens, and from them have given birth to
Saracen tyrants and provincial governors who surpass the other Saracens in their
hostility towards the Christians?
O holy eremite and anchorite fathers, monks, and men of contemplation, you
who have served God for a long time, where are your cells? Who now governs
your communities? Indeed, it is the successor of Mahomet, this sultan of Babylon,
Aman,32 your enemy and Christ’s, a lewd and deceitful man, who possesses all of
Egypt peacefully and without opposition.
O Saint Onuphrius, in what a state did I find your desert cell and the cells
of other saints who led a very holy life there after you. For fear of the Saracens,
Christians scarcely dare to approach!
O holy doctors of the church, O holy exegetes of sacred scripture, with sad
ness of heart I cry out to you to abolish the perfidy of the Qur’an! With great
eloquence and subtlety you have spoken about the catholic faith, about virtues
and against vices. And behold, now the doctrine of Mahomet, the perfidy of the
Qur’an, prevails in an attempt to utterly nullify our faith! And to say nothing
about the rest, they endeavour to totally extinguish the secret of the trinity and
the mystery of the incarnation, such that no other heretic ever fought more
inimically or efficaciously against our faith.
O Saint Augustine, O mind illuminated by God, under whose hand and power
was the city of Hippo — nay, all of Africa! In times past you suffered greatly when
the city of Hippo was besieged by an army of barbarians. And behold, now it is
not only besieged but, I do declare, all of Africa is possessed — nay, a great part
of the world is possessed, I say — by the Saracens who honour the Qur’an, that
blasphemy against the gospel!
32
Röhricht suggests that Aman (from the book of Esther) stands for the Mamluk sultan
of Egypt, Ashraf Khalil (1290–93), who conquered Acre in 1291; Riccoldo da Montecroce,
Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, p. 279.
156 Appendix A
O Saint Jerome, how you loved Ephrata, how much you desired Bethlehem,
where the Bread of angels and humans was born, where you translated the holy
books with great labour! Here they showed me the seat where you sat, and the tomb
of your devoted Paula, and the palace where you lived, and all is in ruins and has
been for a long time under the dominion of the Saracens who blaspheme Christ.
O Saint Gregory, O mind devoted to God, O examiner of hearts and regula-
tor of morals! You have written many useful things in your works (above all in
your Moralia), not against Mahomet, but rather against the devil and his imita-
tors, against the antichrist and his imitators. But behold, one of the greatest imi-
tators of the devil, that famous precursor of the antichrist, Mahomet, is avenging
himself against you! For a little after your time, he arose and corrupted morals
and virtues in his Qur’an. He has implanted vices in order to quietly extinguish
the Christian faith. He has destroyed Christian cities and churches, and now
it has been seven hundred years since he has prevailed by the force of his arms.
And after they destroyed Acre, they brought your book Moralia all the way to the
great city of Nineveh. For it was there that I ransomed your book as if it were a
captive slave who had found itself removed from Christendom more than a fifty
days’ journey by camel in all directions.
O holy martyrs, O genuine soldiers of Christ, you who shed your glorious
blood for the Lord, who honoured Christ perfectly in your life and imitated him
in death, behold how greatly Mahomet, that blasphemer and enemy of Christ,
prevails against us! Behold, for nearly seven hundred years now the sultan of
Babylon has ruled over the Christians. Behold how many Christians he has
tortured and forced to renounce the faith with punishments or bribes! Miracles
have ceased and scandals are on the increase, and you are silent!
O holy Mercury, you killed Julian the Apostate because he blasphemed
Christ; you pierced him with your victorious lance. And behold Mahomet, who
blasphemes Christ incomparably more than Julian, how much more he prevails!
Can it be that your lance is broken? Can it be that your arm is disabled? Where
were you when the successor of Mahomet, the sultan of Babylon, took Acre? For
it is said that in one day he killed more than thirty thousand Christians. Julian
never did this, nor did any other tyrant against the faith that I know of from
times past.
O assembly of apostles! O highest senators of eternal life! O princes of
churches and triumphal generals of war! What suffering and sorrow have
befallen us, for everywhere we are losing. Everywhere we are succumbing to
the Saracens, not only in the war of the flesh, but in the battle of the spirit! For
the Saracens have killed many Christians, and many other Christians who have
remained have accepted the law — nay the perfidy — of the Saracens. Christian
Appendix A 157
churches33 have been destroyed and Saracen mosques have been built. The books
of the holy evangelists have been burned and thrown into the sea, and the law
and perfidy of the Saracens has been exalted to the skies. Where Christ had
been preached freely, now Mahomet is even more freely preached. ‘Truth has
been overthrown from the earth, and falsehood’, nay error and blasphemy, ‘is
honoured’ [Daniel 7. 12]. And now everywhere in the East the gospel is thought
of as nothing in comparison to the Qur’an. Oh, if only the gospel were as revered
among Christians as the Qur’an is among the Saracens and Tartars! For in the
great city of Nineveh I found a missal taken as if it were a slave along with the
Christian booty from Acre; it contained the gospels and epistles. The Saracens
have forbidden this book, they wish to destroy it, and have scraped the letters
from its pages in order to make the drums and tambourines of which Easterners
make great use. How, therefore, can you sleep? Can it be that the gospel is better
off with the Saracens and Tartars than with the Christians? Can it be that a drum
will resound better than the gospel? What purpose have the books of your gospel
and epistles served? Christ said, ‘Do not throw pearls before swine’ [Matthew
7. 6], yet he himself is throwing pearls before swine and rabid dogs! Behold, the
books of the Christians are being scattered throughout the world like captives
and slaves of the Saracens and Tartars! Indeed, for a while our Lord kept his own
house in peace by a great force of arms, but now at the end of time Mahomet has
arrived, he who the Saracens say is greater than Christ. We do not concede this,
but we see that he is taking the spoils by force and distributing them as he wishes.
O patron saints, are you unable to help the Christians against Mahomet,
or are you unwilling? I truly believe that you are able but unwilling. Is it true
that you have become Saracens? Almost everywhere in the East it is very firmly
believed that the Qur’an is the word of God. If it is true that the Qur’an is the
word of God, then I do not doubt it to be true and certain that you apostles have
become Saracens and imitators34 of Mahomet. For thus I have read in the Qur’an,
in Chapter 3, that ‘when Jesus son of Mary perceived heresy in the sons of Israel,
he asked, ‘Who will defend God?’ The apostles, the most perfect, responded,
‘We will defend God, we are the faithful of God, we testify that we are Saracens
and imitators of Mahomet’ [Sura 3. 52]. I also read the same thing in Chapter 5,
that is, the chapter Elmeide which means ‘table’ [Sura 5. 111]. Surely, if you were
Saracens and imitators of Mahomet, then it is not surprising that you would not
wish to help the Christians against the Saracens and Mahomet.
33
Panella, ‘Preghiera e protesta’, p. 25, notes that in the manuscript there is an illegible pas-
sage after ecclesia.
34
The phrase ‘imitatores Machometi’ parallels ‘imitatores Christi’; the imitatio Christi was
central to medieval Christian piety and praxis.
158 Appendix A
But how it is that you were imitators of Mahomet when you preceded Mahomet
by more than five hundred years? How could you have been Saracens when
Mahomet said in the Qur’an that ‘God commanded him to be the first Saracen’
[Sura 6. 14, 163; Sura 39. 12]. But if it is true that you were Saracens, then how is
it that you did not write something for us about the Saracens or Mahomet? Would
it not have been better if we had found it written in the gospel and had become
Saracens voluntarily, if it pleased God, rather than the Saracens compelling us vio-
lently? We Christians are shouting and crying out, and there is no one to help!
But behold, O sorrow! For the Saracens say that the name of Mahomet is
written in the gospel and that Christ prophesied about him. I read in the Qur’an
in Chapter 61 that Jesus son of Mary said, ‘I am the messenger of God, O sons of
Israel, and I am a truthful messenger; I announce to you that an ambassador will
come after me and his name is Mahomet’ [Sura 61. 6]. But truly, I have not found
this in the gospel, neither in Latin, nor Chaldean, nor Arabic, yet I have most
diligently searched the entire East for it.
O holy evangelists, what did Mahomet do to you, that you are silent about
his name and did not put it in the gospel? For you wrote the names of Pilate
and Herod, who sanctioned his crucifiers; the name of Caiaphas, who gave the
sentence; of Judas, who handed him over; and of the devil, who tempted him.
Why then are you silent only about the name of Mahomet? But behold, in many
other places in his Qur’an Mahomet accuses you of lying. You have written that
Christ was crucified and died, but he says no, that he only appeared to have been
[Sura 4. 157]. In saying this, the Saracens prevail over us, and the Qur’an seems
to have prevailed greatly against the gospel throughout the East for nearly seven
hundred years now.
O Saint Paul, preacher of the truth and teacher of the nations, you who rein-
forced the faith, root out vices and sow virtues! Your epistles have been scattered
among the Saracens and they deride35 them contemptuously because you said
that Jesus Christ is God and son of God. For they have introduced as an effective
argument in the Qur’an that God can in no way have a son, because he doesn’t
have a wife. And in saying this they prevail over us, nay, they say that this is the
reason God afflicts us, because we have done wrong to have given him a son. You,
O Saint Paul, said, ‘Avoid fornication!’ [i Corinthians 6. 18]. And Mahomet in
his Qur’an permits fornication. You, O Saint Paul, said ‘It is good for a man not
to touch a woman’ [i Corinthians 7. 1]. Yet not only does he permit this, but
it seems that he has commanded men to fornicate with numerous women, so
35
Panella, ‘Preghiera e protesta’, p. 25, reads derident (deride; Röhricht has dividunt
(separate); Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, p. 282).
Appendix A 159
that many Saracens will be born.36 Mahomet uses such a tasteless and impudent
word in his Qur’an that everyone clearly understands him to be saying something
obscene and entirely carnal. For I have read this tasteless word in the Qur’an not
only in one place but in many. For he says thus, to use his own words: ‘Copulate37
with women, copulate’ [Sura 2. 223], and it will not be a sin for you, ‘provided
that you give them a dowry’.38 O Saint Paul, you are a messenger of God and your
advice is that it is good for a man not to touch a woman. But behold Mahomet
— a seducer who more people believe to be a messenger of God than you —
teaches and repeats, ‘copulate!’ And in saying this, he has prevailed over us for
nearly seven hundred years. How can you both be messengers of God, if there is
such a difference of opinion between you?
But why do I speak of fornication, when he speaks against you, nay against
nature and God, by expressly condoning the abominable vice that you said is a
disgrace, an indecency, and a vice against nature, such that you desired to eradicate
it in principle in your epistle to the Romans [1. 27]? In fact he has expressly
allowed sodomy for both men and women, as I have read in the Qur’an in the
second chapter about the red cow. He has said this clearly and with wording so
shameless that out of modesty I can neither say nor write it. But I will entrust it to
the holy angels who destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, who will read this chapter
faithfully and quickly, and will diligently report it to God who knows all things.
O holy prophets, Mahomet blasphemes you in his Qur’an, and you are silent?
Silent, silent, surely prophesy is silent, and in place of all the prophets, one reads
Mahomet. Because he says in the Qur’an that he is the seal of all the prophets!
[Sura 33. 40].
O Moses, O man devoted to and most familiar with God, you know that the
Saracens dogmatically teach that Mahomet39 will surpass you on the day of judge-
ment when the whole world gathers together, such that Mahomet will not come
on foot as others but certainly on a mule,40 and Moses will offer him his right
36
Röhricht notes that this is not in the Qur’an; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by
Röhricht, p. 283.
37
Panella, ‘Preghiera e protesta’, p. 25, reads futigate (copulate; Röhricht has fatigate
(harass, exhaust); Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, p. 283).
38
Röhricht notes that the second half of the sentence is not in the Qur’an; Riccoldo da
Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, p. 283.
39
Panella, ‘Preghiera e protesta’, p. 25, notes that the line ‘the Saracens dogmatically teach
that Mahomet’, omitted by Röhricht, is barely legible in the manuscript.
40
Röhricht believes that the mule is an allusion to Buraq, the mule-like animal upon which
Muhammad travelled during his heavenly journey (mi’raj); Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae,
ed. by Röhricht, p. 283.
160 Appendix A
hand! And surely this is fitting, for as he himself wrote in the Qur’an, Moses and
Aaron became Saracens before dying.
O holy patriarchs, O ancient fathers of the Old Testament, why did you
become Saracens and imitators of Mahomet? Surely if the Qur’an were the
word of God as the Saracens say, then I do not doubt that you would have been
Saracens! For I read in the Qur’an that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were Saracens;
I also read that Noah was a Saracen, and that the Flood came because Noah per-
sonally asked everyone to become Saracens, and they refused. O God, if you sent
the Flood into the world because they didn’t wish to become Saracens, then it is
not surprising that through the Saracens you have destroyed Jerusalem, Judea,
Galilee, Syria, Antioch, Tripoli, and Acre! For they were Christians, and they did
not wish to become Saracens.
Nor do I wish to become a Saracen. ‘But where can I go from your spirit, where
can I flee from your face’ [Psalm 139. 7], if you have decreed that the whole world
should be Saracen? I certainly cannot consent to such an iniquitous law, nor can
I believe that it is the law of God. Therefore I fled from the midst of Babylon,
and behold, in fleeing Babylon, I met in the desert the servants of the devil, the
ministers of Mahomet; they were Tartars in clothing, but Saracens in religion.
They flogged me and beat me to make me a Saracen, but their blows and insults
felt soft. Nay, love endured them as if it were a game. And certainly if the apostles,
prophets, and patriarchs became Saracens, then it would be acceptable for me
to become a Saracen, too. But because I did not, nor do not, wish to become a
Saracen, they took from me the holy habit of my order, and then I took on the
clothing and habit of a camel-driver, for the Saracens could make me a camel-
driver, but not a Saracen.
I will appeal to the holy angels. O holy angels, O celestial messengers, you
have been appointed as our guardians. Are you protecting the cities and churches
of the Christians in the Holy Land? They were given to the Saracens; they were
destroyed by the Saracens. The virgins and holy nuns who consecrated their
virginity to God and had once been the spouses of Our Lord have become the
concubines of the Saracens!
O paranymphs of the celestial court, are you unable to help us against the
Saracens, or are you unwilling? I would be surprised if you were unable, since
one of you once killed 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians [Isaiah 37. 36]. Can
it be that your power or your authority has diminished? But behold — O sor-
row! — I have discovered in the Qur’an that God’s angels pray for Mahomet!41
O holy angels of God, you pray for Mahomet? Spare us, O God, spare us! God
41
Riccoldo misreads Sura 33. 56.
Appendix A 161
commissioned you to be guardians of the walls of Jerusalem, that is, the church
[Isaiah 62. 6], and you pray for Mahomet — for Mahomet! — the enemy of
Christians, the enemy and blasphemer of the gospel? Certainly one of two
things seems evident to me: either you are not faithful to God, or the Qur’an
which says you pray for Mahomet is not the word of God.
But if it is not the word of God, then from where does such honour come, and
for so long, nearly seven hundred years? I truly believe that there has never been any
book in the world as honoured as the Qur’an. And I believe that there has never
been any book in the world which blasphemes God and the celestial court as much
as the Qur’an. Indeed, I myself have discovered blasphemies in the Qur’an, but in
all their actions I have found the Saracens to be very fortunate in temporal matters,
such that the bad seems to change into the good for them. For the Tartars came to
destroy the Saracens, but almost all the Tartars have become Saracens themselves.
Behold, the Christians frequently conspire against the Saracens, and almost all
their plans turn out badly for the Christians themselves. Which pope or emperor
or king, in scheming or planning for a long time against the sultan of Babylon, the
successor of Mahomet, has not been overcome by death or had his plans foiled?
For we read in the Qur’an that you angels pray for Mahomet and that the
Saracens are assisted by angels, and following this we have seen through experience
that they have prospered in almost everything. What remains for the simple, nay
the foolish (who in our times are infinitely numerous) to think, except that this
alone [Islam] is the true faith and not another?
O most blessed virgin, O Virgin Mary, mother of Christ — not that Mary,
sister of Moses and Aaron42 who became a leper — but you, Mary, virgin daughter
of Joachim, who was neither a leper nor was ever guilty of sin. Recently I sent
you another letter specifically about my sadness and suffering, but thus far I have
not received a response which has fully gladdened me! You, queen of mercy, have
incomparably exceeded and surpassed Queen Esther — and indeed, how much
danger did Queen Esther expose herself to for her own people when she went
before the king without permission, she who had not been summoned by him
for thirty days! [Esther 4. 11; 5. 1–2]. Indeed, you stand at the right hand of the
eternal king arrayed in gold, and you now speak to the most high not through
eunuchs but directly and with the greatest and most complete security. You have
the power to tell him everything; how can you be silent?
And I, sinner that I am, have confidence and great faith in your mercy. I
proclaim and cry out before the palace gates like another Mordecai, with rent
42
Riccoldo is referring to what he believed was an error in the Qur’an which confused
Mary, the mother of Jesus, with Miriam, the sister of Moses.
162 Appendix A
garments [Esther 4. 1] and a long beard; although I was in the habit of the Friars
Preacher they did not think I was a friar. Sometimes in the garb of a soldier, at
other times in the garb of a camel-driver, at still other times in the garb of the
Friars Preacher, I have travelled tirelessly throughout the eastern parts to preach
Christ to the Saracens and Tartars, at a time when not only Tartars but also
Christians are becoming Saracens.
How miserable I become when I see Christians mentally confounded, travel-
ling on the road as if they were insane with grief and fear of the Saracens! I see
the elderly and young maidens, infants and the innocent, filthy, pale, and weak,
searching for bread and not finding it. Actually, many of them now wish to be the
slaves of Saracens, so as to have bread to eat and not die of hunger.
I have seen maidens and old women crying at the foot of the crucifix, beating
their empty breasts, calling for help with worn-out voices, and waiting in vain
for this crucified image to come to their aid. And they cry inconsolably for their
children or husbands who have become the slaves of Saracens or who have been
killed by them. To whom do the wretched have recourse except the mother of
mercy? Mary, mother of grace, mother of mercy, Christians call on you with
one voice. Therefore, show yourself to be their mother. Show yourself to be the
mother of Christ whom Mahomet and the Saracens are demolishing in so many
different ways. Show yourself to be the mother of Christians whom the Saracens
are crucifying and afflicting in so many different ways! Do not be adverse to us
sinners, without whom you would not be worthy of such a position!
O Jesus Christ, son of the living God, we Christians have learned from you
and your apostles that you are true God and true man, and to preserve this
holy faith thousands have died! Young men and virgins, old people and young,
they have chosen to die a thousand deaths rather than to forsake this faith for a
moment. See how this most cruel beast has risen up against us, this bestial and
diabolical man Mahomet, and how much honour is granted to his book, and how
much power you have given to his people against your faithful Christians, and
for such a long time! O Lord, this has been so for nearly seven hundred years.
We believed that his movement and power would slow and weaken at the end,
because it is a movement and power founded on violence. But behold, in the end
it has increased and strengthened right up to now, while on the other hand — O
sorrow! — our faith and the power of Christians seems to have weakened.
Certainly you are the strength of God and the power of God, and it is not
possible for you to be weakened by a man. But in my impatience and foolishness,43
43
Panella, ‘Preghiera e protesta’, p. 25, adds ‘et insipientie.’
Appendix A 163
it truly seems to me that if you wished anything of the faith to remain on earth,
you would not have released the reins to Mahomet and given him power against
the Christians as you have already begun to do for some years now.
But I beg you, read what he says about you, your mother, and your apostles.
As you know, frequently when reading the Qur’an in Arabic with a heart full of
utter grief and impatience, I have placed the book open on your altar before your
image and that of your most holy mother and said, ‘read, read what Mahomet
says!’ And it seems to me that you do not want to read. I ask, therefore, that you
not disdain to hear a little of what I recount to you, and about the rest I will be
silent. I will tell you sorrowfully about one thing I have read. He says that you
have explained humbly before God that you are not God, that you never said
you were, and that you have never known God’s thoughts. Thus I have read in
Chapter Five, the chapter Elmeyde which means ‘table’, that: ‘God called Jesus
son of Mary and said to him, ‘Did you tell the world that you are God?’ And Jesus
son of Mary responded, ‘Praise to you, O God! You know everything. You know
what I am thinking and I do not know what you are thinking. Far be it from
me to say what is not true’ [Sura 5. 116]. Read, read, and give Mahomet power
against the Christians, as you wish!
O Holy Spirit, illuminator of all, O Paraclete, O Comforter of the poor, all
truth comes from you! ‘For no one is able to say “Lord Jesus” except through the
Holy Spirit’ [i Corinthians 12. 3]. And God knows how far Mahomet was from
you, he who uttered such falsities and impieties about the Lord Jesus Christ. I am
surprised that you allowed him to write the Qur’an, a book full of such lies and
blasphemies; yet you permitted him to blaspheme, this most lying blasphemer.
But you have allowed him to lie so openly and obviously that all men can clearly
perceive his pretense or lie. And surely we are easily able to prove his lie to be
blasphemy or foolishness, as much through prophecy as through theology. But
you have so strengthened him with temporal power and the force of arms that
you have given him more than he himself, this great liar, has written in his own
Qur’an. And what is worse, his power and destructive doctrine have begun to be
confirmed by miracles.44 For clearly, some miracles have occurred at sea and on
land at the capture of Tripoli and Acre, to the humiliation of Christians and the
triumph of Saracens.
O Most High Father, O Lord of heaven and earth, to you I complain about the
Saracens and Mahomet! You know, O Lord, that Mahomet does not in any way
want you to be called ‘father’, neither by your son who is in heaven, nor by your
44
Aquinas claims that Christianity is superior to Islam because it is confirmed by miracles
(and Islam is not); Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles, trans. by Pegis and others, i. 6.
164 Appendix A
servants who are on earth. What’s more, he says that if you had a son, the entire
world would have been destroyed because there would have been a separation
within you [Sura 23. 91]. But we accept through faith that ‘from you, the father,
all fatherhood in heaven and on earth takes its name’ [Ephesians 3. 15].
We have sinned against you alone, O God, and indeed you have chastised us
with a most cruel punishment! Even if we have not been the children that we
should be, you however are always as you should be, our father. You cannot deny
who you are in yourself. Make good your words, and show yourself to be our
father. Punish us as children who must be instructed, not as enemies who must be
destroyed! Strike us, kill us with your own power, and do not place a sword into a
furious hand, into the hand of your enemy and ours, Mahomet and the Saracens,
who torture and kill us because we are unwilling to deny your faith! For we know
that the Saracens ‘would have no power over us if it had not been given to them
from on high’ [ John 19. 11]. May your indignation against us cease! ‘Break the
arm of the sinner and the wicked!’ [Psalm 10.15]. May the Christians know that
you are God and father!
But behold, I have found astonishingly — nay regrettably — in the Qur’an
that you, O God, pray for Mahomet. Yes, I have read in Chapter 33 of the Qur’an
that God and his angels pray for Mahomet. I beg you in your name, O God, do
not pray for him any more! Because if you continue to pray for him even a little
bit more, he will easily subjugate the entire earth. For you have already prayed so
much for the Saracens that now Christians do not dare to confront them in war,
either on land or by sea. And behold, it is not surprising that the Christians flee
the Saracens and fear them, if God and his angels pray for Mahomet. What is
even more astonishing is that the Saracens have not already totally annihilated the
Christians, especially since you have been praying for them for such a long time.
But I ask you, O God, when you pray for Mahomet and the Saracens, whom
do you address? For I have found many things in the Qur’an that up until now I
have been unable to understand, but this is one of those things that I can in no
way understand, especially considering the opinion of the Saracens who abhor
the mystery of the incarnation as much as the secret of the trinity. But whom do
you address, O God, when you pray for them? Whom do you address? Do you
simply address yourself, do you address angels, do you address demons? Certainly
it is not proper for you to address demons; for they themselves are enough
concerned with the temporal prosperity of the Saracens and the advancement of
the Qur’an, for the Qur’an itself testifies that demons love the Qur’an and believe
in it, and that many demons have become Saracens. This is what I have read in
Chapter 77. And in the chapter Elgel, which means ‘demon’, when demons heard
the Qur’an, they were amazed and said to the other demons, ‘Listen, we have
Appendix A 165
heard the Qur’an, which leads to God, and we believe, and we testify that we are
Saracens’. And afterwards, the demons said to other demons, ‘Come, our people,
and receive the Qur’an, because through it we can return to God, etc’. This is what
is said there.
And although I have found an almost infinite number of lies in the Qur’an,
ultimately there is one thing that I firmly believe to be true, namely, that the
Qur’an pleases demons and they delight in it, just as if it were a decree coming
from their mouths. For I believe all the more that they themselves, more than
men, are the authors of the Qur’an, by which so many people are deceived and by
which so many souls are led into eternal damnation without respite. O God, I ask
you with all your holy saints and the entire heavenly court, since we afflicted and
miserable Christians are trapped under the rule of the Saracens, deign to deliver
us from such misery!
As for the Saracens, I humbly beseech you as much as I can, O Father of
heaven and earth, to show them that you are the true God and father of Our Lord
Jesus Christ, for many among them sin more out of ignorance than wickedness.
To you and all your saints be honour and glory, to the ages of ages, Amen!
Given in the East.
LETTER FOUR
Here begins a letter to the Venerable Friar, the Patriarch of Jerusalem and to the
other Friars Preacher who were killed at Acre.
To the venerable Father in Christ, Friar Nicholas of the Order of Friars Preacher
and Patriarch of Jerusalem, and to the other friars who were killed when Acre was
captured. Friar Riccoldo of the same order, a pilgrim afflicted and miserable in
the eastern regions to preach the faith of Christ, presents himself with tears and
lamentation.
How great was my grief and sadness of heart at the capture of Acre; each of
you can easily recognize it for yourselves because you were similarly put to the
test. For to the furthest parts of the East, as far as Baghdad where I was, news
came not only of this but also of the plundering of Christians. And while books
and vestments were being sold, young children and women were being paraded
around town publicly to the disgrace of Christians. Nuns and virgins consecrated
to God were also being sent to the kings and barons of the Saracens in order to get
a higher price. And I was there, grieving and sorrowful, searching anxiously for
one of my brothers, to redeem one of them if possible, or to minister to them, and
I was greatly astonished to find many vestments, tunics, books, and breviaries, but
166 Appendix A
no friars. For I knew that it is not our custom for friars to go without their tunics
and breviaries. And afterwards, some servants of Saracens who had returned from
the capture of Acre presented me with a very beautiful tunic which was pierced
with a sword or lance and also red with a little blood. I do not know which of you
had owned this tunic, but I bought it. And afterwards they told me that no Friar
Preacher had remained alive. I realized that the Saracens had killed you so that
you would not strengthen the faith of other captives.
‘Rejoice’, therefore, brothers in the Lord, ‘Again I say rejoice!’ [Philippians
4. 4]. Rejoice because you have been killed for the faith! For you could have fled,
you could have left the city, because our convent was by the sea. But you wished
to remain in the city to strengthen others in their faith. Can it be — against the
order of nature — that wickedness conquers wisdom? Surely, wisdom conquers
wickedness; and you will strengthen us in our faith just as I firmly hope, whether
or not the Saracens and Mahomet want it. I truly believe that you are the saints
and martyrs of God, for you were all sent by our superiors to Acre, and in service
to obedience you were killed for the good of obedience. Indeed, you remained in
order to strengthen others in their faith.
Everyone who knows the custom of the Saracens knows that the Saracens
would have very willingly spared you from death and bestowed great treasures
upon you if you would have denied the faith of Christ and become Saracens.
Therefore, I consider you to be martyrs of God in every way and to have died
for the faith even if you had been unable to flee at that time. Can it be that the
piety of Christ is less than the impiety of the sultan, since he was able to put
the innocent to death, while Christ was not able to rightly crown those who
died for him? I always give thanks to my God for you, you who have been given
God’s grace. And I am not surprised that you have abandoned your breviaries,
books, and tunics, for you no longer need them, because in Him you are rich in
all things, in all words, and in all knowledge, just as the witness of Christ has been
confirmed in you.
Indeed, you needed to abandon the tunic of mortality, because a person is not
allowed to enter into the court of the Eternal King dressed in a sack. Therefore,
rejoice, friars, because you have escaped the perils of this life! But you should rejoice
all the more because you have come before your God with the martyr’s palm.
And you should also rejoice, O Patriarch of Jerusalem, Friar Nicholas of the
Order of Preachers. For in place of the destroyed and forsaken Jerusalem which
you wished to see and to build for Christ, it more than suffices that you see the
Jerusalem which has been built in heaven with living stones, so that you may reign
there with Christ! And I was miserable when I first heard that you had drowned
in the sea; I was so sad that I became stupid and indolent. But now I rejoice
Appendix A 167
all the more, not that you were drowned, but because by drowning you have
undoubtedly delivered many people and preserved them in the faith of Christ.
You were a leader who did not fear for himself, but for his people. Happy is the
patriarch who thinks more about saving his people than about dying himself !
Happy is the pontiff who becomes a bridge himself, so that his people might cross
it and be freed! I therefore recognize in you, Father and Friar Nicholas, another
Jonah, who willingly threw himself into the sea in order to liberate others [ Jonah
1. 12]. And indeed, brother, you wished it to be so, you made it clear. But the
raging sea should never have swallowed up such a great man. I almost wish to
know in what sort of raging wave he perished. What seized such a wise man?
What kind of brackish sea filled with bitterness could swallow up a man of such
pleasant and holy conduct! Certainly even the fish who did not bring such a great
father of the poor to the shore should have been punished!
But upon further reflection, certainly you are not better nor more worthy
than Saint Clement, who allowed himself to be thrown into the sea and told his
disciples that he would remain there for some time. Therefore, may your body
be in the sea of Acre as long as it pleases God! May it be like a second Clement,
like the body of that clement and pious man! May you be for us like an anchor
and hope for the restoration of this place! Thus will our sadness be turned into
joy, when we find this to be an occasion of joy and dignity rather than fear it
as a cause of sadness and lamentation. Therefore rejoice, O father of the poor,
Friar Nicholas, Patriarch of Jerusalem! Rejoice, O you brothers who have gone
with him! Rejoice, O great and holy father Dominic! Rejoice, O Order of
Friars Preacher, who in service to holy obedience sent such a gift to heaven: so
great a patriarch and thirty friars, all at once. Truly I believe that our brothers
are rejoicing greatly in heaven to have received so many and such great guests;
indeed, you are not ‘strangers and aliens’ [Leviticus 25. 23] but ‘fellow citizens of
the saints and householders of God’ [Ephesians 2. 19]!
What a happy procession, from which the Friars Minor have not been
excluded! Indeed, I heard that when the hour of death drew near, some — I don’t
know who — of the very dear Friars Minor took refuge with you in our house,
and together with you were also killed. Rejoice in the Lord always, O friars!
Yet I march along in sadness because I remain among the sorrowful and
wretched. And when I wish to think something about eternal joy, I am
immediately immersed again in my usual sadness, and suddenly my heart and
words change, and I am tormented by suffering.
Woe is me, for I was born to see the misery of my people! Woe is me, for I have
seen such degradation of the Christian faith! Where is Tripoli, where is Acre,
where are the Christian churches which were there? Where are the relics of the
168 Appendix A
saints, where are the men and women religious who praised the Lord just like
morning stars? Where are the multitudes of Christian people who were there? In
truth, both religious and warriors have been killed. Children have been spared to
make them into Saracens. And matrons, nuns, and virgins have been given to the
Saracens as concubines and slaves, so that through them the Saracen population
will increase.
And you my brothers, tell me, when were you killed? Can you say when the
enemies of the Christian faith came to you? I heard that it was on a Friday at three
when you were killed. I heard that in the morning you all celebrated mass and
took communion, and that a great multitude of men, women, and children came
to you. I learned from a trustworthy religious lady (who had been captured by the
Saracens and was present when you were killed) that when the Saracens came to
you, you sang in a loud voice, ‘Veni Creator Spiritus’. And this is certainly fitting.
For if it is fitting for ‘Veni Creator Spiritus’ to be sung when one is received into
the Order of Preachers, then it is all the more fitting that it was sung when so
many Friars Preacher were received into the order of angels. While you were
singing thus, they killed you, and afterwards no one heard anything more about
you. Tell me, brothers, for whom did you say mass? I think it was for Our Lady or
for the Cross. Hail, holy mother! Hail, Mother Church, who produced so many
and such excellent sons in the midst of such lamentation and such sorrow! Your
sadness has been changed into joy [ Jeremiah 31. 13; John 16. 20].
But we who have been left behind, we who have survived, remain in oppression
and sadness. But it is proper that we boast, for my brothers sang with courage. It is
certainly proper that you boast in the cross. Truly, until this very moment I have
been experiencing torture and violent tribulation at the foot of the cross. You are
singing ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo!’ But I can only respond that on earth there is no
peace, but only great tribulation for men of good will. But you continued your
mass, this mass which had to end, because the Saracens had already entered the
city and killed Christians while you were saying mass. And after you finished mass,
the Saracens arrived red with the blood of the slaughtered, and they found you
filled and inebriated with the most holy blood of the Giver of Life, ‘whosoever
drinks it worthily […] if he dies, then he will live’ [see also John 6. 54–56, 11. 25].
‘Ite missa est, ite in pace!’45 But in truth, I have remained in grief, and your
blood has remained spilled, and your bodies unburied. O earth, do not cover up
the blood of my brothers, the blood which was shed, and do not find a place
within yourself to hide it!
45
The traditional conclusion to the mass.
Appendix A 169
I cry out, ‘I cry out and shout, and no one responds’ [ Job 19. 7]. I ask and I
do not receive, and yet it doesn’t seem to me that I ask wrongly, except that I do
not receive [see also James 4. 3]. ‘Can it be that my dispute is against men, so that
I should not rightly be saddened? And when I think of it I become scared, and
trembling shakes my body’ [ Job 21. 4, 6].
O friars, does it not seem that God has clearly awakened the ancient miracles
and is displaying them for the Saracens and against the Christians? Because after
these miracles, Christians have been killed, captured, tortured, and are denying
the faith. Indeed, could the city of Acre have been well defended by the Christians
who were there, if the Christians had thought in any way that it was God mitted
their city to be taken?
A Saracen shot a hostile arrow and it struck the Master of the Temple
between the stomach and the lungs, just like another Ahab, king of Israel [i Kings
22. 34–35]. He died late that evening when he could have protected the city, and
the next morning the city was immediately taken without any resistance.
And the Christians were overwhelmed by such a stupor — nay, such fear and
terror — that without reason they freely abandoned the walls and fortifications
of the city to the Saracens, as if an army of angels had marched against the
Christians. Could it be perhaps that at that very hour, God and his angels were
praying for Mahomet as it is written in the Qur’an? Certainly they should not
pray for him any more, because if God and his angels abandon us in this way, and
if the Saracens continue doing what they have been doing for the past two years
in Tripoli and Acre, then I fear that soon not a single Christian will be found in
the entire world.
As for me, I have just recently written letters asking for help to Divine Wisdom,
to his most holy Mother, and to the entire celestial court. And I have waited for
good things to come, but behold, it seems that only bad things are always multi-
plying. And not only have they not sent any assistance, but I have not received any
response either, and the word of the Lord has been realized for me: ‘Command
on command, command on command, rule on rule, rule on rule, a little here, a
little there’ [Isaiah 28. 13].46 And a few [Christians] have held out for a long time,
while the Saracens have been killing, robbing, and capturing Christians and forc-
ing them to renounce the faith of Christ and proclaim the perfidy of Mahomet.
And meanwhile the Saracens are impregnating Christian women, especially those
who were nuns and religious women, from whom (as experience has shown), the
famous have engendered the most powerful warriors of the century. They have
46
Kappler notes that this is a Latin transliteration of a Hebrew onomatopoeia; Riccoldo
da Montecroce, Lettres, trans. by Kappler, p. 248.
170 Appendix A
produced generals and sultans, amongst whom are found some of the most solici-
tous and faithful in exterminating the Christian people.
Therefore, I implore your fraternity with all my strength: join yourselves to
the most holy and blessed father Dominic, and present yourselves frequently
before the mother of God, the mother of pity and mercy! Show her your wounds,
your decapitated heads, and your bloody bodies — just as the Saracens left you on
that Friday after mass, you and those gathered with you. And arrange yourselves
so that the blessed Dominic, who has been received by Our Lady as a clever
servant, may extend a petition to her for the salvation of the Christian people,
and especially for aid to the Holy Land. And may he persuade, as much as he can,
the woman who is above all to bring our petition to the Most High King, or at
least to accept our cause, notwithstanding any injury which Christians may have
done to her or her son. If the blessed Dominic could do only this, tell him that he
can safely entrust the entire matter to her.
I ask you, brothers, for God’s sake and by means of your bloody tunics, that
you do not delay in helping us, and that in the tranquillity of your contemplation
you do not forget everything and do nothing. Do not be negligent like the other
friars who were killed at Antioch; they were killed and we have seen nothing
miraculous from them. For we believed that their holy blood so cruelly shed by
the Saracens would thus cry out effectively to God so that the Saracens would be
swiftly removed from the entire country. Yet things have continually been going
from bad to worse for us, and now the worst of all is coming to pass: we are being
ignominiously and shamefully deprived of the entire Holy Land and all of Syria.
O you friars, do not cease until our affair is brought to a definite end by the
grace of God and your zeal. For whatever you do from this point on, would you be
willing to indicate to me how quickly it will end, through your letters or a reliable
messenger? And in addition, I ask that you would tell me in private whether Our
Lady has received our petition favourably, for I believe that she has been greatly
offended in these times by so many sinful Christians. But because she is the queen
of mercy, she is easily placated; and because she is a mother, she is even tender
with her wicked children. But from the depths of my heart I say something to
you in secret that should be kept by you: I am very surprised that she has not yet
been placated. Although no one has forced her to, I have asked her with such
confidence, sinner that I am! Even so, as I said earlier, keep this and do not tell
her. For I am very much afraid that she regards me with indignation, not so much
for the weakness of my faith but for the surfeit of my confidence, sinner that I am.
Rejoice in the Lord always, and while you are rejoicing, remember the
tribulations of the unfortunate!
Given in the East.
Appendix A 171
LETTER FIVE
The divine response to everything previously stated, through the doctrine of Blessed
Pope Gregory.
And so after everything, it came to be that on the third day I was very anxiously
awaiting a response. And I was greatly surprised that they did not respond, either
through a messenger, a letter, or a clear dream that I could understand. Instead,
bad things seemed to be ever multiplying. I began to be even more astonished
than usual, and to be afraid in my impatience. I began to become a little more
discouraged in having written them a letter, especially since I did not know who
else to write to or what more to say, lest I should become so greatly removed from
them (through my impatience or other reasons) such that a messenger could not
be found who would want to bring or represent such impatient letters to the
court of the Eternal King.
But at any rate, I am in no way despairing, for I no longer believe that it is
possible for them to refuse me in the court where such assistance is ready for me,
where the Son is before the Father, where the Mother is before the Son. I am
asking for the protection of God and the heavenly court against Mahomet, who
clearly seems to be opposed to the Father, the Son, the Mother, and the entire
heavenly court. And therefore I am not defeated, for I firmly believe that they
will send me a practical response and not just a theoretical one. And that is what
I asked for: a practical response of deeds, not words.
Nevertheless, an agreeable and very promising response greatly cheered me.
For I especially desired to learn why the Lord was striking us with such a cruel
punishment inflicted by the blows of the enemy, and how long he would prolong
this difficult oppression, and for what reason the Lord was striking us by means
of the Saracens — people of such a perfidious faith who so flagrantly blaspheme
the entire celestial court.
Because they were not answering me with a reliable messenger, and trusting
in God’s benevolence, it occurred to me to ask other holy books for a response
from God regarding my astonishment. And because I had unopened before me
the book of Moralia of the blessed Gregory, I asked God to give me a response
out of the doctrine of blessed Gregory, who I had specifically addressed in my
lamentation.47 Therefore I prayed, saying: ‘O Saint Gregory, since you do not
wish to respond to me either through a trusty messenger or new letters, I ask
you to show me through your ancient doctrine why God has not answered me,
especially since I am in such an anxious and bitter state over the divine response’.
47
Gregory is one of the many saints Riccoldo implores in Letter 3.
172 Appendix A
And then I heard a voice in my heart […]48 saying ‘Tolle, lege, tolle, lege’.49 I
immediately opened the book, put down my finger, looked down, and a vision of
pure eloquence drew near to me. The Lord responded to my question completely
through his servant Gregory, so that it would not be necessary to debate our
question before another judge. My finger landed on the following passage from
Job [33. 13–14]: ‘Why do you complain against him for not responding to all
your words? For God speaks once or twice to him but does not repeat’.
Explaining this, Gregory, of whom I had requested a response, says:50 ‘It
is characteristic of an afflicted soul, when he sees things going contrary to his
wishes, to want the Lord to respond to him with words if possible, to explain
why things are this way and not that way […].51 Elihu, however, foreseeing that
the Lord would establish Holy Scripture so that in it he would respond openly
or secretly to the questions of all, says: ‘You rise up against him’, and so on.
And after, ‘God speaks once’, and so on, and ‘God says openly that he does not
respond to each heart with personal words, but speaks with such eloquence that
through this he satisfies every question. In scripture we will, in fact, find all our
trials, if we look […]’.52 Thus in scripture, everything which we endure individually
is answered collectively. The lives of those who came before serve as an example
for those who follow, and so on.
And a little later the blessed Gregory repeats, saying, ‘God speaks once or
twice to him but does not repeat’, because that which he revealed to our
fathers in Holy Scripture is meant to instruct us. Therefore let the holy doctors of
the church teach53 even the arrogant (when they observe on earth certain people
in the church suffering from pusillanimity) that God does not respond to all our
prayers, that is, to our personal thoughts or temptations. Nor does [God] any
longer satisfy through the voices of prophets or the angelic office now, because
holy scripture understands everything which can happen to an individual, and
takes care to shape the lives of those who follow by the example of those who
came before.
48
There is a lacuna in the manuscript.
49
‘Take and read’ is the famous phrase which sparks Augustine’s conversion in the Confessions.
50
Gregory the Great, Moralia in Iob, ed. by Adriaen, xxiii, 19, 34 (iii, 1169). Riccoldo’s
version of Moralia differs in several places.
51
Riccoldo skips some lines of the Moralia here.
52
More lines of the Moralia are omitted here.
53
Panella, ‘Preghiera e protesta’, p. 26, reads discant (Röhricht has dicant; Riccoldo da
Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, p. 295.
Appendix A 173
Thus Gregory has spoken. I give you thanks, O Lord, because you have satisfied
my question through your servant Gregory in such a way that nothing more of my
question remains! However, my impudent inquiry is not satisfied with this. For I
find in Holy Scripture that you have castigated some as friends so that they may
fear you or be on guard, while you beat others as enemies with a cruel punishment
so that you may begin from then on to damn and condemn them. You have also
allowed some to remain captive for a long time, while others you have liberated
quickly. As yet I remain in the same doubt. And I am also more greatly afraid than
before, lest perhaps you have been afflicting the Eastern Christians in these times
as enemies, or as friends who must be afflicted still further.
Wherefore, trusting in your abundant kindness, I am asking, I am begging, I
am knocking so that the door54 of divine mercy may open to me, and so that the
church in the eastern countries (which is exposed to such scorn by unbelievers
and which groans tearfully and is gravely afflicted by the persecution of the
Saracens) may very quickly be abundantly consoled and strengthened by divine
help. I give thanks for your theoretical response, but nevertheless I am still waiting
affectionately and ceaselessly for your practical response.
Written in the East.55
Explicit Deo gratias.
54
Perhaps clostrum (over Röhricht’s hostium).
55
Only the fifth letter concludes with ‘scripta in oriente’. The other four end with ‘data in
oriente’.
Appendix B
THE BOOK OF PILGRIMAGE
Prologue
Here begins the book of pilgrimage of Brother R[iccoldo] of the Order of
Preachers. Contained briefly in this book are the kingdoms, peoples, provinces,
laws, rites, sects, heresies, and monsters which I came upon in the eastern regions.
My reason for writing is so that friars who wish to take on the task of spreading
the faith for Christ will know what they need to, as well as where and how they
can achieve more.
Chapter One
I who am the least in the Order of Preachers have reflected frequently upon the
incomprehensibility and intensity of divine love for the human race, since God so
loved the world that he gave his only son. And the son of the most high himself
attentively reminded us of his own pilgrimage, so that we would not be ungrateful,
saying ‘I went out from the Father and have come into the world’ [ John 16. 28].
And indeed, before long he was born poor and insignificant, and neither he nor
his mother were spared from a long and labourious pilgrimage. With his poor
mother and an old beast of burden, he went on a pilgrimage to Egypt in order to
flee his adversaries — he who had no cause for fear. I judged myself to be a real
disgrace after having received such benefits as only he knows, and even more for
having been called to separate myself from the world and having been received
176 Appendix B
into such an Order to become his witness and preacher. ‘I have examined my ways
and turned my steps towards your decrees’ [Psalm 119. 59]. I tell you, I realized
that it was not prudent for me to sit and be idle for so long and to not try some
of the hardships of poverty and a long pilgrimage, especially considering the long
and labourious pilgrimages I had undertaken up to that point in order to study
the secular sciences which are called liberal.
Chapter Two
In obedience therefore to the lord pope through the master of my Order, I began
my pilgrimage. I crossed the sea in order to see with my bodily eyes those places
which Christ had visited in the flesh — above all the place where he deigned
to die for the salvation of the human race — so that the memory of his passion
would be imprinted more firmly upon my mind, and so that the blood of Christ
which was spilled for our salvation would give me the courage and strength to
preach and die for him who had given me life through his own death.
Galilee
So then I arrived in Acre, and along with many Christians we travelled a day’s
journey from there into Galilee. After about twenty miles we reached Cana of
Galilee, where Christ performed the first sign by changing water into wine. Cana
of Galilee is four or five miles from Nazareth. There, at the outskirts of the village,
we found the well where servants drew water to fill jars. There, we found the
location of the wedding and the place and shape of the jars. There, we chanted
and proclaimed the gospel of the wedding at Cana [ John 2. 1–11]. There, I
asked Christ who had turned water into wine to turn my water of insipidity and
infidelity into the wine of remorse and spiritual savour.
From there we travelled fifteen miles straight ahead to the village of
Genesareth, which is on the Sea of Galilee. There, while descending the mountain
which towers over the sea, we chanted the gospel about the two demoniacs Christ
cured by expelling a legion of demons from them and which he then drove into a
herd of swine [Matthew 8. 28–34]. In that place I asked the Lord to liberate me
from the harassment of demons.
From there we descended five miles into Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and
Peter, which is on the Sea of Galilee. We arrived at the seashore and chanted the
gospel there: ‘As Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers’,
and so on. [Matthew 4. 18–19; Mark 1. 16–20]. In that place I asked Christ to
number me among his holy disciples and to make me a fisher of men.
Appendix B 177
From there — about three miles — we climbed up the mountain above the
Sea of Galilee, where the Lord sat and gave a sermon to his disciples. And we
chanted the gospel, ‘Seeing the crowd, Christ went up the mountain’, and so on.
[Matthew 5. 1]. In that place, I asked the Lord to raise me completely from the
desire of earthly things, and to turn my mind towards things celestial.
Not far from there, we climbed one mile up the mountain where the Lord
made a feast out of five barley loaves, and we chanted the gospel and preached.
And afterwards, while sitting in a circle on the grass, we broke bread and all ate
with joy and tears. Near there is the old cistern into which they threw Joseph.
Also nearby, about ten miles away, is the castle of Saphet, the key to all Galilee.
From there we descended two miles to Capernaum, and we came to the place
where he cured the leper [Matthew 8. 2–4]. Afterwards, we came to the place
where Matthew sat at the customs post and collected taxes, and we chanted and
preached the gospel of the call of Matthew [Matthew 9. 9]. From there we went
along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and in two miles we arrived at the place of
the table, which is between Capernaum and Bethsaida, the place where the Lord
appeared to his disciples after the resurrection. Standing on the shore, he called
to them from the sea and invited them to eat breakfast [ John 21. 4–13]. We
chanted and preached the gospel, and we all ate in the place he had eaten bread
and fish with them. From there, continuing along the shore of the Sea of Galilee
six miles toward Bethsaida and Genesareth, we came to Magdala, the town of
Mary Magdalene, next to the pool of Genesareth. Weeping and wailing for the
beautiful church there, which we found was not destroyed but being used as a
stable, we chanted and preached the gospel of the Magdalene.1
From there, going five miles along the Sea of Tiberius, we came to the city
of Tiberius and discovered many places worthy of remembrance there. Among
many other things, I will note here about the Sea of Tiberius that all its water in
every place is the sweetest and most agreeable for drinking, despite the fact that
fetid, sulfurous, and brackish water enters it from many places.
From there, climbing a high mountain, we reached the highest mountain,
Tabor. We went ten miles to Bethulia, the small city of Judith [ Judith 8. 3–4],
and at the foot of the city we rested at the fountain to which the Jews, besieged
by Holofernes, escaped for restoration [ Judith 7. 12–13]. Passing five miles
through Bethulia, we went up to the highest mountain, Tabor, where we found
many great churches destroyed. We went higher, to the place where the Lord
1
It is unclear which reading Riccoldo means. Perhaps they read John 20 (where Mary Magdalene
encounters the risen Christ) or Luke 7. 36–50 (the ‘sinful woman’ who washes Jesus’ feet with her
tears; she is not named in the gospel but eventually became equated with Mary Magdalene).
178 Appendix B
was transfigured, and there we read the gospel of the transfiguration of the Lord
[Matthew 17. 1–9; Mark 9. 2–10; Luke 9. 28–36], and we proclaimed it while
weeping and marvelling at such destruction, and so on. Then we saw part of
Arabia and the mountain from which flow the springs of Ior and Dan, the sources
of the Jordan River. And then we saw the mountains of Gilboa [ii Samuel 1. 21].
At the foot of Mount Tabor is the great plain of Esdrelon which is called the
plain or field of beans, above which and opposite Mount Tabor is the little town
called Nain, where the Lord raised the son of a widow [Luke 7. 11–17]. Crossing
the great plain of Esdrelon and passing Nain, we hastened twelve miles towards
Nazareth. And ascending the mountain we came to the ‘Leap of the Lord’ [Luke
4. 28–30] from which the Jews wished to throw Christ after he began to read
scripture to them and preach. In that place we read and proclaimed the gospel.
They showed us some footprints and their path on a rock, which they say are the
footprints of Christ.
Nazareth
Then we went two miles to Nazareth. We found a large, almost completely
destroyed church there. Nothing of the original building remained, except for
the small room where the Annunciation took place; Our Lady preserved it as a
reminder of humility and poverty. The Lord’s Altar is also here, located at the place
where Our Lady was praying when the Angel Gabriel was sent to her, as well as
the Archangel Gabriel’s Altar, where Gabriel stood during the Annunciation. We
celebrated mass and proclaimed the word of God at both altars. And then we went
on a tour of the city, especially those places which were most frequented by Our
Lady and the boy Jesus. Near the city, we found a fountain which is greatly venerated
there because Our Lady often went to the fountain, and the boy Jesus frequently
brought his mother water from it. We also went to the synagogue in which Jesus
read the prophet Isaiah [Luke 4. 16–21]. All these places in Galilee, from the first
to the last, we found possessed by the Saracens in peace and tranquillity.
From Nazareth we went twelve miles to the castle of Saphet, where Zebedee’s
sons, John the Evangelist and St James, were born. Christians were living there.
From there, we turned back and travelled ten miles to Acre, which is a city of
Christians.
Judea and the Promised Land

From Acre we hastened towards Jerusalem. After going eight miles we reached
the Brook Kishon, where Elijah, through the hands of his servants, killed eight
Appendix B 179
hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and of the sacred grove [i Kings 18. 40].
Crossing, we went three miles to the city of Cayfa [Haifa] on the seashore. From
there we went two miles to the beautiful little mount of Carmel, where Elijah
assembled the multitude of Israel and refuted the priests of Baal, and so on. From
there we went ten miles to the Pilgrim’s Castle, the famous castle of the Knights
Templar, which is by the sea. From there we went twenty miles to Castle Caco
[Kakun].2 Then, we went twenty-five miles to St George. Then, twenty miles to
Betenopolis, which used to be a village of priests. Then, we went five miles to
Ramatha on Mount Ephraim, which is three miles from Jerusalem, and there we
visited the house of Samuel [i Samuel 1. 1–20 and 7. 17].
From there we went three miles to the holy city of Jerusalem, which can truly
be called a city of catastrophe and destruction. We went first to the church of
the Sepulchre of Our Lord Jesus Christ, but the Saracens would not let us enter.
From there we climbed Mt Zion, the city David conquered and built. We reached
the Tower of David, made of square stones so enormous that its destroyers failed
to tear it down completely, leaving something of it to posterity. Afterwards we
came to the place where St James the Greater was beheaded; a church now stands
there. In that church, at the place of the beheading, they showed us a monument
still stained red with blood.
After that we came to the place where the Cenacle used to be. This large spot
had been paved, and a grand church had been built there. One side contained
the room or dwelling of the blessed Virgin after the ascension of her son. On
the other side was the place where Christ ate with his disciples and performed
other signs that evening. Here is the altar where he instituted the sacrament of
the eucharist. Here also is the place where the disciples gathered when ‘suddenly
there came from the sky a noise’ [Acts of the Apostles 2. 2].3 And below that same
location is the dwelling where the disciples gathered in fear of the Jews, and the
place where he stood in their midst and said ‘Peace be with you’ [Luke 24. 36].
There is an altar there where we celebrated mass and preached the gospel while
lamenting and weeping, in great fear of being killed by the Saracens.
Right next to the church is the pillar where Christ was whipped; it is stained
red with Christ’s blood. Next to this is the house of Annas, the father-in-law of
Caiaphas [ John 18. 13]. Next to this is the place where Peter went out and wept
bitterly after having denied Christ. A church was built in memory of the denial,
or better, the tears and penance of Peter.
2
Variant medieval Latin spellings include Burchard of Mt Zion’s Chaco.
3
Pentecost.
180 Appendix B
From there we descended Mt Zion and came to the house of the Friars Preacher,
where there is still a garden. This place is between the temple of Solomon and the
temple of the Lord [Holy Sepulchre]. From the Temple of Solomon we saw the
place where St James the brother of the Lord was cast down — a great precipice
which towers over the Valley of Josaphat. This is the place completed by Solomon
when he built Millo [i Kings 9. 15, 24].
Leaving the city from there we entered the field of Aceldemac which is
a graveyard of pilgrims to this day. Right after that we came to the cells of
St Onuphrius and other holy fathers. From there we descended into the Valley of
Josaphat and came to the marvellous tomb of Pharaoh, which is said to have been
built by Solomon for his wife, the daughter of Pharaoh [i Kings 3. 1]. Solomon
loved her so much that he dedicated the Song of Songs to her.
From the Valley of Josaphat we descended twenty miles to Jericho, on the same
road taken by the man who ‘descended from Jerusalem to Jericho’ [Luke 10. 30]
which even now is deserted and dangerous and full of bandits. Descending five
miles, we came to the little fortress built by Ptolemy, son of Abubus. It was there
that Simon the High Priest, when he was drunk, was massacred along with his
sons during a banquet [i Maccabees 16. 16]. At this spot is a tower which even
today is called the Red Tower.
From there we descended ten miles to Jericho, which was almost deserted.
Then, hastening to the Jordan [River], we went four miles along its bank to the
place where John the Baptist lived. In that place, there is a beautiful monastery
built in his memory.
From there we went one mile along the Jordan to the place where John
baptized Christ. On the Feast of Epiphany, we found more than ten thousand
Christians from every race and nation gathered there for baptism and the feast.
We built an altar there next to the river, where we celebrated mass, preached,
and baptized, weeping tears of joy. When each person had been baptized and
proclaimed the Kyrie eleison, there were such cries and ululations that we believed
angels had descended from heaven and were crying out mournfully with us.
And then we chanted the gospel, ‘When all the people had been baptized’,
and so on [Luke 3. 21–22]. After the baptism, we ascended six miles from the
Jordan to the mountain of the Temptation in the desert where Jesus was led, and
to the place where he fasted for forty days and forty nights [Matthew 4 1–11]. A
church is there, and in its chapel we celebrated mass and preached to the many
Christians who had gathered there and to the hermits who lived in that very spot.
We learned from them the order of the places and dwellings of Christ.
They led us two miles from there to a place on the mountain which is very
high up and very difficult to reach. This is where the devil took him [Christ]
Appendix B 181
up the summit to show him all the kingdoms of the world. And truly this is an
apt location for temptation and cupidity, because he himself was in the desert
and had nothing good, and then suddenly at his feet on this beautiful plain was
everything good, for he was above the River Jordan and the Plain of Jericho upon
which are found streams, fountains, irrigated gardens of paradise, cane fields
where they grow sugar, and many mills to grind it. Here are the palm trees of
Jericho, here too are its rose gardens. Ten miles away we could see Sodom and
Gomorrah and other cities. We also could see the Dead Sea which is called the
Cursed Sea. From there we could see Ilcracco4 (the Petra of the desert) all the way
to the mountain of the daughter of Zion. At the very place of the Temptation, we
celebrated mass and preached the gospel.
From there we ascended twenty miles to Jerusalem by the same road Christ had
taken when going to his passion. Approaching Bethany, which is three miles from
Jerusalem, we came first to the place where Martha ran to meet Christ outside
town. And afterwards, in Bethany we came to the house of Lazarus and the tomb
from which the Lord called him, and we chanted the gospel and preached about
Lazarus. From there we went to Bethpage near the Mount of Olives and we came
to the place of the fig tree which shrivelled at the command of the Lord, and the
place from which he sent two disciples out for a donkey. From there we went one
mile to the Mount of Olives, to the place and stone of the Ascension of Christ
and many other miracles. And very near here is another mountain called Galilee;
they say this is the mountain that is understood in this verse: ‘eleven disciples
went to Galilee, to the mountain’, and so on [Matthew 28. 16]. It is not that the
mountain is in Galilee (for it is in Judea), but the mountain itself is called Galilee.
Others say that he meant Mount Tabor, which is actually in Galilee.
Descending from the Mount of Olives, we came to the place where Jesus, upon
seeing the city, wept for it. Here we took some olive branches, blessed them, and
gave them out to everyone, and we descended by the same road used by Christ
when he came down on Palm Sunday. We came to the Golden Gate through
which the Lord entered in procession; this gate is at the base of the Temple.
Then we went up into the city in order to go to Bethlehem (six miles away); we
left the city near Mt Zion. Near the city we found the Fountain of Rogel where
the royal garden used to be, where Adonijah son of Haggith held a banquet when
he wished to reign [I Kings 1].
From there, following the road by which the Magi went to Bethlehem, we
went one mile to the place where the star reappeared to them [Matthew 2. 9].
4
Kerak Castle was another Crusader fortress.
182 Appendix B
There is a church here built in memory of the star. From there we arrived at the
place where a lion transported four thousand martyrs.5 There is also a beautiful
monastery here where Saracen monks live.6
From there we went three miles to the place of Elias [i Kings 19. 1–8] via the
road between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. From there we went two miles to the
tomb of Rachel via the road to Effrata — a tomb so famous and so ancient that
the monument itself testifies to the fact.
From there we came to the field of chick peas, where nothing grows nor exists
except little stones which look like chick peas. They say that when Christ was
crossing the field, he asked a labourer sowing chick peas, ‘What are you sowing?’
He responded with derision, ‘seeds of stone’, and Christ said, ‘and stones you will
gather’. And they say that nothing has grown in this place ever since.
Bethlehem
From there we came to Bethlehem, the little city where the Great One was born
small. We found the beautiful church of Our Lady there. Inside the church there
was an inn with a narrow passage; on one side was the manger where they had
placed the Lord, and on the other side there was a kind of grotto or cave where
poor people lived closely together. There is also an altar here at the place where
Our Lady gave birth; we celebrated mass and preached here, and distributed
communion to the people. After solemn mass, we found a beautiful infant in
the manger, the son of a poor Christian woman who lived next to the church.
Rejoicing like the magi, we adored the newborn Christ in him; we gave gifts to
the child and then returned him to his mother.
From there we descended three miles to the field of the shepherds, who had
been the same region (three miles from Bethlehem). A great church, now in
ruins, had been built there in memory of the shepherds. Near here is the village
or hamlet of the prophets who appeared to Elijah and Elisha and said, ‘today your
master will be taken from you’ [ii Kings 2. 1–3]. From there we ascended via the
road which leads into Bethlehem, the same road which the shepherds took and
by which Joseph ascended with Mary, his pregnant wife. About one mile outside
of Bethlehem, we came to the place where Mary and Joseph, tired and thirsty,
rested. In that place they showed us a well from which, they say, water had risen
5
Kappler notes that the text and translation here are problematic; Riccoldo da Montecroce,
6
It is unclear what Riccoldo means by ‘Saracen monks’ here, or to which monastery he is
referring.
Appendix B 183
up to the top and provided a drink to the pregnant Virgin and her husband. From
there we returned to Bethlehem and the place of the Nativity. Next to the church
of Our Lady we discovered the house where Jerome translated the books of the
Bible, and the seat where he sat, and the place of the Dormition of St Paul.
From there we retraced our steps two miles to go to the house of Zechariah, who
lived three miles outside of Jerusalem. There we found the place where Elizabeth
first ran to meet Mary and the infant lept in her womb [Luke 1. 41]. Afterwards
we found the house of Zechariah. And close by, a third of a mile away, we found
the house of Elizabeth. Between the two ran a stream from a beautiful fountain.
Mary and Elizabeth frequently rested and conversed here while pregnant. It was
here that we also found the place where John the Baptist was born. From there,
going back towards Jerusalem two miles, we found the place where the great tree
was cut, from which the wood of the cross was made. From there we returned to
Jerusalem via the road by which Queen Candace’s eunuch, who was baptized by
Philip, descended. We discovered the road by which he came on a chariot while
reading Isaiah [Acts of the Apostles 8. 26–38].
Jerusalem, Again
Coming to Jerusalem in order to satisfy our desire to visit the Sepulchre, we again
went up Mt Zion where Christ ate the Last Supper with his disciples and washed
their feet. From there we descended via the same route he had used to go to the
garden after the Last Supper. And we came to the waters of Siloam, where Isaiah
was cleft in two.7 This is also the place where the Lord sent the man blind from
birth [ John 9. 7]. From there we crossed the Brook Kidron, which is in the Valley
of Josaphat and runs between the Mount of Olives and Jerusalem. Ascending the
Valley of Josaphat from there, we came to the place where the garden Jesus entered
used to be. And there we discovered the place where Jesus prayed and where he
was captured next to the garden; today it is called the Field of Flowers. Next to
this is the empty tomb8 of the Virgin, in the middle of the Valley of Josaphat.
There, in the Valley of Josaphat (which in fact is believed to be the place of
Judgement, between the Mount of Olives and Mount Calvary) we sat waiting for
Judgement, crying and trembling. We debated where the Most Just Judge would
7
Kappler notes that this episode is taken from an apocryphal text, the Martyrdom of
Isaiah; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 63. See also
Hebrews 11. 37.
8
Kappler notes that the word ‘empty’ (uacuum) was added to the margins of the text by
Riccoldo himself; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 64.
184 Appendix B
sit on high, and which side would be to his right and to his left. Then we each
chose a place to his right, and each marked his own spot with a stone as evidence.
I too picked up a stone and placed it there, taking a place to the right for myself
and for all those who had heard the Word of God from me, and persevered in the
faith and in the truth of the gospel. And thus I marked this place in stone at the
request of many faithful witnesses who were there, weeping.
From there we entered the beautiful tomb of the Virgin which the Saracens
have illuminated with many lamps and protect with great reverence. And we
rested there, chanting, celebrating mass, preaching, and distributing communion
among the people. Leaving there we came to a place nearby, the field where
Stephen was stoned [Acts of the Apostles 7. 58]. Ascending on the road by which
we entered Jerusalem through the Sabbath Gate,9 we came upon the Church
of St Anne, the mother of Our Lady. There, they showed us the spot they truly
believe is the birthplace of the Blessed Virgin. Her mother St Anne is buried
nearby. Near there, we found the Pool of Bethesda [ John 5. 1–9].
Ascending from there we found the house of Herod, and near there, the house
of Pilate.10 There we saw the Pavement, the place where the Lord was sentenced,
and the place in the street where the people stood in front of the palace when
Pilate came out to them. Ascending via the road Christ climbed while carrying
his cross, we came to the place where Christ said, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, do not
weep for me’ [Luke 23. 28]. They showed us there the place of the fainting11 of
Our Lady as she followed her son carrying the cross. And then they showed us
the monument which recalls the place where he fell.12 Near the road, they showed
us the house of Judas and his monument. Here, they showed us the place where
Christ, tired from carrying the cross, stopped and rested a little. Across from
here is the road going into the city where they met Simon the Cyrene as he was
coming out of his house and compelled him to take the cross of Christ. Near here
is the place which belongs to the Friars Minor.13 Ascending by a road which went
9
Also called the Sheep Gate in John 5. 2.
10
Here Riccoldo begins his journey along the Via Sacra, and goes on to mention several
places which would eventually become official stopping points or ‘stations’ (he uses the word
stactio) which are part of a popular devotional practice known as the ‘Stations of the Cross’.
11
The manuscripts have either ‘tramortitionis’ or ‘trasmortitionis’, which Kappler notes is
an Italianism; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 67.
12
According to the traditional Stations of the Cross, Jesus falls three times.
13
The Franciscans have had a house in Jerusalem since at least the early 1220s; later under
Muslim rule they became the ‘Guardians of the Holy Places’. It is very likely that the Franciscans
showed Riccoldo and his companions around the city.
Appendix B 185
directly past the place of Christ’s ascension, we came to the spot where they say
Helen identified the Lord’s cross, distinguishing his cross from the thieves’ crosses
by a sign of his resurrection from the dead.
The Holy Sepulchre of the Lord

Continuing from there we entered the Church of the Sepulchre. It is a very large
church which contains Mount Calvary and the place of the tomb. Ascending
Mount Calvary to the place where the Lord was crucified, we found the place
where the wood of the cross had been set in stone. Nearby was an image of the cross
in a mosaic which faced west, as the Lord did when he was crucified. At the bottom
of the stone into which the cross had been implanted is the station of the blessed
Virgin and St John, who stood next to the cross looking east into the face of Christ.
This is a place of such devotion that even if a person does not weep with
compassion for the Son who cried out and died on the cross, he would still be
forced to weep with compassion for the mother crying at Christ’s feet while he
was dying for us.
O my soul, O soul of a sinner, how can you continue to vivify and govern a
body of such corruption and contradiction? Why does this sorrow of compassion
not become for me the sorrow of death? If I were truly as devoted as I believe
myself to be, I would have been able to die of sorrow or joy in the fulfilment
of such desire. I searched diligently in order to see truly with my corporeal eyes
the body of my Lord suspended from the cross, but I did not see it except with
the eyes of faith. My corporeal eyes saw the place of the crucifixion, the rock
split from top to bottom [Matthew 27. 51], and a part of the column where the
Lord was whipped which supports the stone of the altar near the place where his
mother the Virgin wept. Near the back of this spot, they showed us the stone
upon which they placed his body, bound it in linen, and embalmed it with
aromatic oils before burial.
In order to find the Lord whom we could not find on Mount Calvary, we then
wished to return to the tomb, since they had buried him there. When I, miserable
me, arrived late I said, ‘let us go and search for the monument where they laid
him’. And assembling the Christians who were there — over one hundred of
them — I organized a procession from the column which they say is at the centre
of the world. We went down the path by which the Marys came with aromatic
spices. We proceeded along the path, asking ourselves in turn, ‘Who will remove
the stone from the entrance for us?’ and so on [Mark 16. 3]. Next, while we
approached we chanted in a loud voice and repeated Victimae paschali laudes.14
14
A sequence used during Easter mass.
186 Appendix B
Each one of us intoned a verse and then we all responded together. Going around
and around the tomb we searched diligently for the Lord, but without finding
him. All the while one of us was exclaiming ‘surrexit Christus spes mea. p. s. i. G’
in such a loud voice that the shouting and commotion were heard by the Saracens
outside the temple.15
Entering the tomb we came to a great rock at the doorway to the monument,
but it was rolled next to the doorway, and we exited without having found the
Lord. They showed us the place in the garden where he first appeared to Mary
Magdalene [ John 20. 11–18], as well as the road outside the garden where he
appeared to the other Marys and they embraced his feet [Matthew 28. 9].
In this same church is another church underneath which Helen dug and found
the cross. We descended more than twenty steps; the whole ditch was made of
stone. In the Church of the Sepulchre itself we celebrated mass, preached in turn,
and gave communion to the people, and we rested for a day and a night.
Leaving there and departing Jerusalem, we went eight miles by a straight path
to Emmaus [Luke 24. 13–35]. As we spoke about Christ, he approached us in
person and went with us through fields and beautiful places. Approaching the
town, we came to the place in the road where he feigned to go further, and later
to the place in Emmaus where they prepared dinner and recognized him. There is
a beautiful church here.
Returning ten miles from there, we went by Rama, the city of Joseph [of
Arimathea] who buried Christ, and from there, we went by Caesarea Philippi
which is on the sea.16 From there we went twenty-five miles to Castle Caco. From
there, approaching the Pilgrim’s Castle, we came to the grotto of the Virgin. This
grotto was the Virgin’s refuge; it is by the sea, on the road which goes from Egypt
to Judea or Galilee. For Joseph wished to avoid Judea and go to Galilee. And
when he was by the sea on the road which goes to Caesarea Philippi [sic], as he
rested on a rock, the rock melted and fashioned itself into a hollow bed which
hid the boy, Mary, and Joseph so they could not be seen by those coming after
them wishing to do them harm. Four miles from there we came to the Pilgrim’s
Castle, and then to Acre.
From Acre we crossed the sea near Tyre and Sidon, and went two hundred
miles to Tripoli.17 Nearby — about four miles away — there is a ‘fountain of
15
The initials ‘p. s. i. G.’ stand for ‘praecedet suos in Galileam’ (he preceded them to Galilee);
see Matthew 28. 7 and Mark 16. 7.
16
Kappler notes Riccoldo’s error; the city here is Caesarea Maritima, not Caeserea Philippi
(the latter town is inland); Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by
Kappler, p. 73.
17
Riccoldo is mistaken; the true distance between Acre and Tripoli (as the crow flies) is
Appendix B 187
gardens and a well of living waters’ [Song of Songs 4. 15]. Ten miles away we saw
the Mountain of Leopards [Mt Turbul], and twenty miles away, Mt Lebanon,
where the Maronites are, who say that Christ has one will but who agree with us
in everything else, more than any other Eastern sect.
Fifteen miles from there are the Assassins; the Easterners call them Ismailis,
sons of Ishmael. As long as they are killing and being killed, they think they will
receive the delights in which they believe eternal life consists. As for their law
[religion], they are Saracens.
From Tripoli we went twenty miles by sea and approached Tortosa. From that
place they showed us the plain between Mt Lebanon and Mt Black where Moses
[sic] constructed the ark.18 Then we entered [Lesser] Armenia at Laiacium.19 From
there we went thirty miles to Mamistra [Mopsuestia] where the greatest heretic
Bishop Theodore used to live, who — corrupting the entire gospel with his inter-
pretation — said that the Virgin was not a ‘God-bearer’ [Theotokos] but bore a
regular man and a ‘templum Dei’.20 We found his poisonous books among the
Nestorians throughout the East. For Nestorius was his [Theodore’s] disciple. Then
we passed near to Tarsus of Cilicia, from which came the blessed apostle Paul.21
Turkey and the Turkmens

Crossing [Lesser] Armenia, we entered Turkey and came upon the Turkmens,
a nearly bestial people who are Saracens and ordinarily live under the earth like
moles. They emerge from their burrows like mice and immediately fall into regi-
ment. They are a strong and ferocious people, especially the women; of this I will
recount but one story and remain silent about the rest. As we were going with
the camels, a pregnant Turkmen woman was following on foot, and when we
were in the desert that night she gave birth in silence. The next morning, we were
roughly half this.

18
Some manuscripts have Noah; others (including Berlin, Staatsbibl., MS Lat. 4o 466, the
manuscript upon which this translation is based) have Moses; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber
peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, pp. 74–75.
19
Riccoldo means Ayas, the city on the Gulf of Iskenderun (formerly Alexandretta).
20
The language in this sentence (including the distinction between Theotokos and
Christotokos and Theodore of Mopsuestia’s distinctive phrase ‘temple of God’) is taken directly
from the fifth-century christological arguments which resulted in a split between Chalcedonian
(e.g., Latin and Greek) and non-Chalcedonian (e.g., Nestorian and Jacobite) churches.
21
Dominicans were present in both Tarsus and Mamistra by the end of the thirteenth
century; Loenertz, La Société des Frères pérégrinants, p. 187.
188 Appendix B
astonished to discover a crying little infant being carried by the mother, who was
following the camels on foot as she had before.
The aforementioned Turkmens plot especially against the Greeks who live
near the Great Sea [Black Sea]. These Greeks killed a great many Franks. During
a certain excursion22 which the Franks had made against the Saracens, the Greeks
mixed limestone into flour, and the Franks took this powder from their fellow
Christians with great confidence; eating it with great confidence, many died.
However, we discovered through very trustworthy people that these Greeks
feared the Turkmens so much that they did not dare to leave their cities or villages
without bringing a readied harness with them by which they could be bound if
they come upon Turkmens, for they say that a Turkmen kills a man immediately
unless he finds a harness on him. For if the man carries a harness, the Turkmen
will bind him and sell him as a slave. For that reason when [the Greeks] leave
to plant their fields or go into the woods or do other work, each one brings a
harness with him for his own binding. And thus it is truly fulfiled in them just
as Solomon said: ‘By his own iniquities the wicked will be captured, and by the
ropes of his own sins he will be bound’ [Proverbs 5. 22].
The Tartars
Leaving Turkey, we came upon the horrible and monstrous tribe of the Tartars.
The Tartars differ greatly from all other nations of the world in appearance,
customs, and rite. In appearance, they have very large, broad faces, and small eyes
like narrow slits crossing the middle of the face, and beards so small that many
of them very much resemble apes, especially the old men. In customs they are
unlike everyone else because they do not have any manners, modesty, gratitude,
or attachment to a particular place as do other nations. Rather, they seem to hate
every city and every building of residence. For they have destroyed almost every
city, town, house, and building. And the more a person humbles himself before
them, the more they injure him. They believe that all reverence and all deference
towards them is not a favour but a requirement. They say that they are the true
lords of the world; they also say that God made the world for them alone, for them
to rule over and enjoy. They also say that the birds of the sky have announced to
men that they are the lords of the world and that the entire world must pay them
tribute and bring them gifts. Moreover, they say that the birds of the sky and the
beasts of the wilderness eat and drink by the grace of their emperor, the Khan.
22
The manuscript has the Italian word passagio.
Appendix B 189
When a Frank came to a great Tartar prince, the prince said to him, ‘What
did you bring me?’ and he said, ‘I brought nothing because I was unaware of your
magnificence’. And the prince said, ‘But didn’t the birds of the sky tell you when
you came into my province?’ And he responded, ‘It is possible that they spoke,
but I do not understand their language’. And then the prince was appeased, and
spared him.
In rite they differ from other nations because they do not pretend to have a
law from God as many other nations do. But they do believe in God and in a
certain law of nature. They live according to a kind of natural instinct, like beasts
and birds with winter and summer migrations, because they dread extreme heat
and cold. It is very cold in Turkey and Gazaria,23 and when the cold intensifies
too much, they complain against the Saracens or Christians of the country and
say they are certain that ‘some people have brought this great cold’. Then they
run through the city, and when they come upon a person fortified with furs and
many provisions against the cold, they seize him, plunder him, and take every-
thing from him, saying, ‘You brought this cold, provoking it with your many furs
and superfluous garments’.
Also, there are some actions they consider to be sins, and others they consider
as nothing. They consider both drunkenness and the subsequent vomiting to be
worthy of esteem, and they say that these are by the grace of their emperor the
Khan. They consider theft and plunder to be good sport. They detest lying and
love the truth. Above all, they value honour and want nothing but to honour
their own lords. When they write to their leaders, they have and observe such
reverence that they do not write the name of their leader while they are at home.
Rather, they leave an empty space, and only afterwards when they are outside do
they write the name in the margin. Whenever their lord dismounts his horse for
any reason, they all dismount. If it happens that their lord falls from his horse
during battle, they all dismount, even if they are in front of their enemy. They
observe such obedience towards their lord that when someone is condemned to
death, their lord says ‘assail him and make him sleep’, for they commonly say that
death is not death, but sleep. Then they approach the one who is to be killed
and tell him, ‘the lord commands us to assail you and make you sleep’. He then
responds, saying ‘he himself has said it and commands it’, and I have heard that
while he is saying ‘therefore, bind me’, they immediately bind his arms.
They consider beating or being beaten as almost nothing. For when a Tartar
beats someone with many lashes to the point of death, they believe that offering
23
Gazaria (also Aquilon) was a Genoese colony surrounding the Black Sea.
190 Appendix B
him a drink is sufficient recompense. And since he has been beaten so cruelly, he
is easily convinced to accept the wine.
They consider homicide to be very serious and avoid killing at all costs, except
for a good cause. A Khan kills another in order to exercise his sovereignty, but
he takes great care not to shed his own blood. They say that it is completely
unacceptable for the blood of the Great Khan to be spilled upon the earth, but it
is acceptable for him to be choked.
When the Great Khan dies, the one who ascends to take his place — whether
it is his son or someone else — takes all the wives of the deceased man and they
became his own wives and women. Indeed, they do not consider him to be the
Khan unless he has taken the wives and women of the other man; it is these
women who support and confirm the Great Khan.
Tartar women are held in great honour among them. They wear crowns taller
than those of all other women; these are worn in memory of the victory they had
against their enemies at a certain great river in the East. The Tartars were on one
side of the river and their enemies — stronger than they — were on the other
side. And the Tartars dared not cross the river. So the Tartars sent their women
into the camp; the women rode far under the cover of night and came against the
enemy from behind. The enemy said that these women and their army helped the
Tartars. For when the enemy of the Tartars heard that such an army was coming
against them, they fled in fright. For Tartar women have been trained for war
just like soldiers, and when the women saw that their enemies were preparing to
flee, the women attacked and achieved complete victory over them. The women
cut them down from one side of the river, and their husbands from the other.
And so, in memory of this victory the Tartars permit their women to wear tall
crowns over a cubit high. But lest their wives be overly proud, the Tartars require
these crowns to take the shape of a foot on top. And so at the summit of the
great crown one can find a kind of foot, in order to demonstrate that they did
not achieve victory on their own, but through the grace of their husbands who
sent them to their aid, as it is said: ‘these crowns are permitted to you, so that you
know you are under the power of your husbands’. And thus through a kind of
natural sense, it seems that they have dreamed what is written in divine law: ‘you
will be under the power of a man’ [Genesis 3. 16].
When Tartars take a wife, they buy her from her parents almost as if she were a
slave. And when they lead her to the wedding, the parents and siblings of the man
who is accepting her escort her with tambourines and singing, while the parents
and siblings of the woman follow her with lamentations and mourning as if she
had died. In the event of her husband’s death, the woman does not have much
power to return to her parents’ house. Rather, the siblings of the dead man can
Appendix B 191
marry her off at will, or hold her perpetually in the man’s house as if she were a
slave. And the Tartars are allowed to take many wives at the same time, although
the first wife is the most important; she is considered legitimate, while the others
are in fact more like concubines. But the Tartars respect all the women of the
world greatly, especially their own. It is these women who rule over both kingdom
and household, who buy and sell, who are ferocious and warlike. They ride horses
like men, and I have often seen them enter cities armed with bows and arrows
like men. And they are very faithful to their husbands. When the army of Abaga
[Abaqa Khan] fled from the Saracens in Syria, a great Tartar baron who had been
planning an insurrection was taken. When the Emperor Khan caught him, he
wanted to kill him, but the princesses and wives of the Tartars resisted, begging
him to give the baron to them instead. The wives took him, boiled him alive, and
gave little pieces of him to the army to eat, to serve as an example for others.
The Tartars and Resurrection24

The Tartars believe in and wait for a foolish resurrection which is the same as
this life, and therefore in death they provide for each one according to his means.
The poor cook meat in abundance and bury it with the dead man, surrounding
him on every side with cooked meat and new clothes in addition to the clothes
worn by the dead man. They also give him some money. The rich add a change of
clothing to the meat and money, and place expensive clothing, rolled up, under
the head of the dead man or woman. And they say to him: ‘If someone comes and
wishes to steal the clothes on your back, do not let him: give him what is under
your head. And if someone asks you a question about God, guard yourself well
and do not respond, but say only: ‘I know that God is God’. And this is how they
bury a man.
Great barons add to all this a good horse. When they prepare the dead man
for burial, his squire mounts his horse and runs it to exhaustion. Afterwards, he
washes the horse’s head with pure, strong wine. Then the horse is killed, and he
disembowels it and fills its stomach with green grass. And after that he thrusts a
large stake through its rear end and out its mouth. He leaves the impaled horse
suspended thus and commands it to be ready for whenever its lord wishes to arise.
Then they bury the dead man in his tomb.
When the emperor dies, they add all kinds of precious stones and also great
treasures to all of the above. And their custom is to bury up to twenty slaves and
24
Riccoldo is referring to the Christian belief in the resurrection of the body in general,
not the resurrection of Christ.
192 Appendix B
servants alive with the dead lord, so they will be ready to serve their lord when he
wishes to arise. But once when they did this in front of Christians, the Christians
were horrified and recoiled at the crime, saying that it is not permissible to bury
the living with the dead. And then they released the slaves.
The Tartars murmur greatly against the Christians, saying that they are
cruel and greedy because they do not provide their dead with money, food, or
clothing. For the Tartars await a foolish resurrection which is the same as this
corruptible life, and when they can bury their dead near the churches and
cemeteries of the Christians, they buy very expensive tombs from the bishops and
priests so that their dead may rise with the Christians. For the Tartar’s attitude
on the resurrection is very similar to the error of the Saracens and Jews on the
resurrection, which will be discussed later when we treat of the Saracens.
You must know that the Tartars honour the baxitas25 above all other men in
the world. A kind of idol-priest, these Indian men are very wise and exceedingly
well-ordered and dignified in behaviour.26 They are usually familiar with the
magical arts; they rely on the counsel and aid of demons and perform many tricks
and predict the future. One of the greatest among them was said to fly, but it
was discovered that he in fact did not fly but walked close to the earth without
touching it, and when he appeared to be sitting, nothing solid was holding him
up. Some of them say that there are 365 gods. Others say that the gods number one
hundred tomans. One toman is equal to ten thousand.27 But all agree that there is
only one principal god. They say that they are the brothers of the Christians, and
that they are of the same rite and belief as we are, but they do not know Christ.
They say that the Flood of Noah was not in their province and that the world
has endured for more than thirty thousand years. For they say that new idols are
always marked in stone after one thousand years and after ten thousand. These
men are black and sunburned, but their country is very temperate.
25
According to Kappler, the Latin word baxitas approximates the Uighur/Mongolian
word plumagehi. Plumagehis are also mentioned by Marco Polo during his visit to the Great
Khan; see Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 93. The
term was also used to describe some kinds of Tibetan Buddhist monks, even as an alternative
for lama.
26
Riccoldo says these men are ‘graues in moribus’, a wording similar to his praise of Saracen
morals later in the book: ‘grauitas in moribus’.
27
Riccoldo says ‘one hundred tomans’, which according to his definition is equal to one
million. Kappler suggests that tumanus is related to the Persian word toman or tumen, which is
in turn related to the Mongolian word touman, meaning ten thousand; Riccoldo da Montecroce,
Appendix B 193
The Tartars say they are the people of God, and because of this they claim
that many miracles are connected to their arrival and victories. They say that God
called them down from the mountains and into deserted places, and that he sent
them their own messengers: an animal and a bird of the desert, namely the hare
and the owl. And there is no doubt that certain miracles have been connected to
their arrival. But they are not the people of God as they believe, any more than
Alexander and his army were the special people of God for having closed off the
Caspian Mountains through a miracle, as is read in Historia scholastica,28 or any
more than Nebuchadnezzar was the servant of God simply because the prophet
called him the servant of God, saying ‘my servant Nebuchadnezzar’ [ Jeremiah
25. 9] — although he served God by humbling and punishing the stubborn and
proud Jewish people. The Tartars believe that at the end of the world, God will
summon a bestial people without any god, so that the countries and peoples
of the East who have become bestial and have forsaken the law of God will be
punished, and their land forsaken.
All Christian people and all Western people should gratefully remember that
at the same time the Lord sent the Tartars to the Eastern countries in order to kill
and destroy, he also sent his most faithful servants blessed Dominic and blessed
Francis to the Western countries in order to illuminate, instruct, and edify. And
as much as the latter have accomplished in their building up, so have the former
increased in their destroying. For the Tartars have committed such slaughter,
destruction, and catastrophe in the Eastern countries that he who has not seen it
would not believe it.
And it is for this reason that I am only briefly narrating the things which they
have done and the events which have taken place — all of which are worthy of
wonder. It seems that the first thing worthy of wonder is this: who is this people
of such an infinite number and so multitudinous, about whom nothing is said
clearly in the divine books or ancient histories? And how has such a people
been able to hide themselves in this way? Many believe that they are from the
ten tribes of the sons of Israel who had been taken captive. For Tiglath-pileser,
king of Assyria, first took three tribes captive [ii Kings 15. 29], and afterwards
Shalmaneser and Sennacherib, kings of the Assyrians, took the seven other tribes
captive [Tobit 1. 15] and placed them next to the River Gozan [i Chronicles 5. 26]
beyond the mountains of Media and Persia which many say are the mountains of
the Caspian. Throughout the entire time the Chaldean, Assyrian, Median, and
Persian monarchies endured, these tribes were unable to leave: it was forbidden
by public edict. But when the monarchy was transferred to the Greeks through
28
Petrus Comestor.
194 Appendix B
Alexander, Alexander miraculously closed the mountains so that there would

be no way they could escape. Moreover, Josephus and Methodius said that they
will come forth at the end of the world and commit a great massacre of humans
[Ezekiel 38–39; Revelation 20].
And it is for this reason that many people believe these aforementioned
Tartars, who have so suddenly appeared and emerged from the mountains near
the end of the world, have seized the regions of the East in order to destroy the
world. They base this on two arguments. First, they [the Tartars] hate Alexander
so intensely that they are unable to hear his name peacefully. Secondly, their
script is very similar to the script in Chaldea, where the Jews first originated,
and the Chaldean alphabet and language has many affinities to that of the Jews.
But there is a valid argument against this: they [the Tartars] do not seem to have
any knowledge of the law, Moses, the Exodus from Egypt, or the priesthood. In
addition, their appearance, form, and morals seem to be far different from those
of all the nations of the world, even the Jews.
They say that they are descended from Gog and Magog, from which they call
themselves Mongols, which is a corrupted form of Magogoli [Ezekiel 38. 14–16].
Methodius29 also said that Alexander imprisoned Gog and Magog — a very
polluted nation — and many others along with the sons of the captive Jews. He
also says that they will emerge at the end of time and will commit a great massacre
of humans. I leave the answer to someone more capable than I.
The Emergence of the Tartars

This is how they emerged. They lived beyond the mountains about which
Boethius was apparently speaking when he said that the fame of the Romans did
not reach that far. They lived in the wilderness like beasts; they were shepherds
and hunters. The mountains which separated the habitable province from the
wilderness were inaccessible, except through a place where there was a large,
uninhabited fortress. But when anyone approached, such an uproar was heard
— seemingly of horses and men — that all who heard it fled in terror. But this
sound was only a trick of the wind. Now, once when a Tartar was hunting he
was following his dogs which were pursuing a hare. Fleeing the dogs, the hare
ran directly to the fortress and entered. The aforementioned Tartar, impassioned
by the hunt, did not notice the uproar. But when he came close to the entrance
of the fortress, he was afraid to enter. At that moment, an owl arrived, perched
29
The seventh-century Syriac text of Pseudo-Methodius has been called the ‘crown of
Eastern Christian apocalyptic literature’ by McGinn, Visions of the End, p. 71.
Appendix B 195
above the entrance, and began to sing. The Tartar said to himself, ‘this is not a
place of human habitation, where a hare takes refuge and an owl sings’. And so
he entered confidently, and found no one. Looking around, he discovered the
uproar to be a fiction. He returned to his people and asked the chief if he could
cross securely, and they crossed thus. He reported to them how he had entered by
following the hare, and found evidence of the owl. And the Tartars declared that
although the hare had been forced by the dogs to flee, nevertheless it should be
accorded some honour because it showed [the Tartars] the way. And thus they
honour the hare, and commonly depict it on their armor and tents. As for the owl
that appeared and sang above the door without compulsion, they say that it was
an angel of God, and that God summoned them to go forth. And therefore they
say that the owl should be honoured more than the hare.
They thus have ordained that all elders and dignitaries have a feather, and all
of them wear owl plumage in their hats like crowns. Also, all those who wish to
be greatly respected and honoured place owl plumage in their hats. They have
killed so many owls that the birds can scarcely be found in eastern countries, but
merchants from far-off Western countries kill owls and import their plumage.
Good plumage sells for up to twenty libras. And thus the Tartars return bad for
good to their friend the owl, for while they say that they honour it, they kill it
and skin it, and make for themselves crowns out of the plumage of their friends.
In this, Tartars are similar to the demons in hell, because they make crowns for
themselves out of the souls and sinful lives of those who serve them, always
returning to their friends bad for good.
The Advance of the Tartars

Emerging from the mountains, the Tartars immediately considered how they
would subjugate the entire world. The Great Khan, whose name was Cinciscanis
[Genghis Khan] said to them: ‘only two things are required: namely, obedience
to the chief and concord among yourselves’. And then he brought before all of
them one hundred arrows bound tightly in a bundle. He then gave the bundle
to one strong man and ordered him to break the bundle. He could not, and the
Khan gave it to another man who could not break it either. He tried the same
with one hundred men, and no one could break it. Then he untied the bundle
and gave an arrow to one of the men, and on his command, he broke it by himself.
The Khan said, ‘See, as long as the arrows remained together, one hundred men
could not break them apart. When they were separated, it took only one to break
it. So it is with you. If you are united, no one will be able to conquer you; if you
are divided, one man will crush and conquer you easily’.
196 Appendix B
Then the Tartars divided into three squadrons. The squadron with the Great
Khan occupied the expansive province of Cathay all the way to far-off India. They
killed Prester John and seized his empire, and the son of the Great Khan took
Tachuscatun,30 the daughter of Prester John, as his wife. And they destroyed and
exterminated twelve great kingdoms in this region.
The second squadron crossed the ‘Iron Gate’,31 went around the Black Sea and
depopulated all of Gazaria of its Blaccos,32 Russians, Albanians, and Ruthenians.
They also destroyed Hungary and Poland, seizing and destroying twelve great
kingdoms from the Black Sea to Cumania.33
The third squadron crossed the Gion or Physon, the river of paradise, and
destroyed Khorasan,34 the land of the Medes and the Persians, and Baghdad,
the capital of the Saracens, [where they] killed the caliph. They also they seized
Turkey. They killed all the Corosmyas and seized and emptied Syria all the way to
Gaza. They took Jerusalem and gave it to the Christians. And they occupied the
whole country from the Indian Ocean to the Black Sea, and from the Black Sea to
the Mediterranean Sea to Gaza. There, the desert prevented them from crossing
into Egypt. They ravaged all these provinces of people who were practically
defenceless, armed with sticks and clothed in skins; some carried only bows.
But they rode little horses that were like goats. And from these men such horror
took hold of all the eastern provinces that in many cities, pregnant women had
miscarriages out of fear of their name alone. Who can say how many massacres
they committed? They spared no one but the Christians. When they came to
a city in the East near Baghdad where there was a great number of Christians
and many Saracens, the Khan ordered that no one was to enter the homes of the
Christians; they were to kill only the Saracens. But the Christians took almost all
of the Saracens into their homes. When he found out, the Khan ordered that the
Christians were to be killed along with the Saracens.
30
Kappler suggests that this might be a rendering of Doquz-hatun; Riccoldo da Monte
croce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 105.
31
Also called the ‘Caspian Gates’, the Iron Gate is a strategically important passage into the
Caucasus Mountains which is located near present-day Derbent, Russia, on the western coast of
the Caspian Sea.
32
Blaccos is the term used by William of Tyre and others for Romanians.
33
The medieval term Cumania refers to the territory which would become Moldavia and
eastern Wallachia. See Vásáry, Cumans and Tatars, pp. 138–42.
34
Khorasan includes parts of northeastern Iran, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan,
and Afghanistan.
Appendix B 197
Arriving in Baghdad, they found the Caliph residing in a marvellous palace

where an immense treasure had been amassed. God himself blinded [the Caliph]
so that in no way could he believe those who told him that the Tartars had
invaded. Seizing him, they gave him a very harsh but fair sentence: for three days
they gave him nothing to eat. Then when he asked for something to eat, they
placed gold, silver, and precious stones before him to eat. Refusing to eat this, he
said he would eat only bread. And they replied, ‘since you do not eat gold, but
bread like other men, then why have you amassed enough gold to be sufficient
for the entire world?’ And he answered, ‘I have not amassed this gold; I have only
saved it. For I found all this amassed by my predecessors’. They replied, ‘then why
did you not disperse the gold when you needed it to preserve yourself and your
people? For you would have been able to placate us with a quarter of this gold’.
He remained silent. They ordered the gold to be melted and strained into his
mouth, and they said to him: ‘you have been thirsty for gold, drink it!’ As for his
people, they massacred them for forty days straight.
They arrived at an exceedingly strong and invincible city which they were
unable to capture through negotiation, nor did its citizens wish to acquiesce.
Then God afflicted the people of this city with terrible sores which became
horribly swollen and they all died immediately. When the king of the city still
refused to acquiesce to the Tartars, the king’s own son cut off his father’s head
and hands and placed them in a large basket. He then took the keys of the city,
and placed them in the severed hands in the basket. Leaving the city, he brought
this as an offering to the leader of the Tartars. The offering was accepted by this
very cruel people; they immediately retreated from their siege and confirmed
the patricide and all his future generations as perpetual rulers, and gave him the
greatest privileges. After that, there was no other fortress which did not submit
to them.
They killed innumerable Saracens, especially their warriors, and sold their
women and children into slavery. But hearing that the Saracens claimed to be the
people of God and that they alone are saved through the law of the Qur’an and
the prayers of Mahomet, the Tartars examined their law. When they found that
it was exceedingly lax and contained nothing difficult either in belief or works,
they accepted their law and became Saracens, especially since the Tartars had
neither the law nor the prophets. Thus most of the Tartars became Saracens in
this way. For the Saracens acquired and gave the greatest gifts to them so that they
would convert. The Tartars converted and defended the Saracens and persecuted
Christians. But many Tartars loved the Christians and would have become
Christians, except the Christians did not want to give them gifts as the Saracens
had, and their law seemed rather difficult.
198 Appendix B
The First Emperor of the Tartars

The first Khan and emperor of the Tartars in Persia and in Baghdad was Hulagu,
a friend of the Christians and a very just man although he lacked a law or faith.
His son Abaga succeeded him; he was not as just. Abaga was succeeded by his son
Argon, a very wicked man guilty of every crime, but a friend of the Christians.
When the aforementioned Argon had shed much blood and had killed many
innocent women and children, he became gravely ill. A terrible, awe-inspiring
lady appeared to him in a dream. Growling, she took him by the chest and
said: ‘Come, answer to the Lord about the blood you have spilled’. And he said,
‘What Lord? Am I not the lord of the world?’ (For he was generally called so by
everyone, even the Christians, namely the lord of the world.) She said, ‘There is
another Lord’. Terrified, he remained awake, and quickly summoned a baxitas
and his high priests and asked them who is this lord who had called him with
such authority, and how could he be free of him? They told him that there is
someone in particular who has a blood vengeance and wishes to investigate him
about the blood of the many innocents he had shed, and that it is not possible to
evade him except through many alms. And then he wrote to all the eastern cities
that he would be freeing all the captives, and sent great treasures to them and gave
the greatest alms. Soon after, he died.
But that is enough about the Tartars. Now we will continue with our pilgrimage.
Proceeding through the coldest regions of Turkey, we came upon a beautiful
city situated at a very high place called Arzerrum [Erzurum], where it is so frigid
that we found a great many amputees. Some had lost their noses, while others had
lost one or two feet, or legs or hands — all on account of the cold.
From there we proceeded to the border of Turkey, where we found the very high
mountain upon which the ark of Noah rests.35 (This entire province, along with a
part of Persia, was formerly called Greater Armenia.) We saw this mountain from
afar; it is so high that from this we proved that all the rivers entering the Indian
Ocean descend from this place to the East. And this is a clear argument against the
Indians, who lie in saying that the Flood of Noah’s time did not reach them.
Persia
Proceeding toward Aquilon [Gazaria] from there, we entered Persia where we
found mountains and alps of salt. This salt is from the earth, not the sea; it does
not liquefy as easily as the other, nor is it as easily broken. They excavate and crush
35
Mt Ararat.
Appendix B 199
the salt just as in our country we excavate rock and afterwards crush it with iron
tools. In this same province there are oil wells, especially in the Mogan.36 Thus
from this province all the way to Baghdad and to India, the salt of the earth and
oil from these wells is used. In this entire region, one cannot find living olive trees
because of the cold, and in addition, the land is far from the sea; for this reason
it is believed that the Lord has provided them with salt of the earth and wells
of oil. And even though the inhabitants of this land are Saracens and evil men,
nevertheless the One who makes His sun to rise on the good and bad alike does
not deny them His benefits [Matthew 5. 45].
From there we proceeded through the kingdom of the Persians, and we came
to the pleasing and beautiful plain which is called the Plain of Latacta, where
there are stones which God has given the virtue of healing and mending every
wound, such that there is no need for doctors or any other medicine there. From
there we came to Tabriz, which is the capital of Persia.
In the city of Tabriz in Persia, among other marvels we discovered a wild beast
from India which is considered by some to be a wild ass. Due to the distinctiveness
and variety of its colours and the symmetry of its catabriature,37 it surpasses in
beauty all the beasts and animals of the world. We stayed in Tabriz for a half a
year and preached to them in the Arabic language through a translator.38
The Kurds
From there we proceeded south and came upon the Kurds: a fierce, monstrous
tribe whose wickedness and savagery exceeds that of all the other barbarous
nations we found. They live in the mountains and steep locations like wild goats.
It is for this reason that the Tartars, who have subjugated all the other eastern
nations, have been unable to conquer the Kurds.
They are called ‘Kurds’ [Curti] not because they are of short stature (for they
are very tall) but because ‘Kurd’ means ‘wolf ’ in the Persian language.39 They walk
36
The plain of Moghan (Mugan) stretches from northwestern Iran into Azerbaijan.
37
Berlin, Staatsbibl., MS Lat. 4o 466 has catabriature; other manuscripts have tactabriature.
Kappler translates this as ‘teintes diverses’; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed.
and trans. by Kappler, p. 119.
38
The Latin text has turchimannum; Kappler notes that this word could be read as Turchi
manni (Turkmen) or turchimannus (drogman); Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis,
ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 119. Kappler points to William of Rubruck’s similar use of the
word turgemanus.
39
The Latin word for Kurds, ‘Curti’, is similar to the word curtare, to cut short.
200 Appendix B
around half naked and unkempt, with long hair and beards, and they sport red
feathers in their hats signifying pride and power. Unless a Kurd commits a great
evil — treason, pillage, or murder — he has no honour with them, and he does not
dare to wear anything on his head nor can he find a wife. But if he accomplishes
some remarkably evil deed, they give him a wife and power according to the
magnitude of that evil; small if a small evil, and great if a great evil.
They are Saracens and have accepted the Qur’an. Many of them hate Chris
tians, especially the Franks, and above all the members of religious orders, whom
they have killed relentlessly. But God has turned their furor towards us into
mercy, for they showed great kindness to us when we were searching for our com-
panions lost in the wilderness. They retrieved them from the snow, built great
fires for us, and gave us wild honey and ‘manna from heaven’, both of which flow
abundantly in the wilderness.
First the Kurds were Chaldeans, then they were Christians, and then they
became Saracens due to the laxity of their law. Among them, three sins greatly
flourish: homicide, piracy, and treason. A person cannot rely on their promise or
oath. The aforementioned Kurds have many other bestial traits — too many to
report. For example, when one of them drowns in a river, they punish the river
by pouring water into bags and forcefully beating the bags, and dividing the river
into numerous branches, diverting and elongating its course in order to make it
labour more in its movement.
Nineveh
From there, we crossed a great expanse of land and came to Nineveh, 40 the
great city which is long in length, not width, since it is situated along the river
of paradise, the Tigris. There, they showed us the mountain where Jonah rested
[ Jonah 4. 5ff ] and the spring from which he drank, which has been called the
‘Spring of Jonah’ ever since. The city itself has been completely destroyed and
all that remains are ruins and ramparts. The city has now been reconstructed on
the other side of the river and is called Mosul. The king of the city is a Nestorian
Christian who listened willingly to the preaching of the faith, but he did not
change his rite. There are many Jews here, and we defeated them in a public
debate in their synagogue.
40
Near present-day Mosul.
Appendix B 201
The Jacobites41
Near this same city, beyond the river of paradise, is the very renowned and very
famous monastery of St Matthew, where the seat of the Jacobite patriarch is
located.42 They say three hundred monks are there. We went there and found men
of great abstinence and great prayer. For every day, in addition to another general
office which is very long, they pray the entire psalter while standing.
But they are heretics. They say that there is in Christ one substance, one
nature, one will, and one operation, namely the divine only. And they do not
baptize in the form of the [Latin] church or the form of the gospel, but they say
‘Let N. be baptized into sanctification and salvation and into the grace [of the
Holy Spirit] without defect, and into blessed resurrection, meaning from death
into eternal life. In the name of the Father, Amen, and of the Son, Amen, and of
the Holy Spirit, for life unto the ages of ages’.
They also use leavened bread. They mix together flour, yeast, water, salt, and
oil, and celebrate mass with this; they cannot celebrate mass unless the bread is
warm or fresh. They anoint the dead, not the sick, with holy oil at burial. The
third day after burial they pour rose water on the grave along with some potions
for the dead to drink, and the soul falls back into place and loses the hope of being
able to return to life and reunite with its body. After this, the soul completely
loses hope of coming back, and rests.
They confess their sins to God alone, and only in a general manner. They
have other numerous errors as well. But we were received in their monastery not
as men but as angels [Hebrews 13. 2].43 They told us about the many miracles
which their fathers and their monks had performed in this place; they showed
us especially a miracle of faith which did not happen secretly but openly. Once,
the Kurds which we have already mentioned above were gathering an army to
attack the monastery. And when they were unable to prevail, the invincible Kurds
41
Christians now associated with the Syriac Orthodox Church (with origins in the Patri
archate of Antioch) were formerly called Jacobites or ‘monophysites’ by Chalcedonian Christians;
the term is now considered derogatory.
42
St Matthew’s Monastery (Mar Mattai or Dayr Sheikh Matti), founded in the fourth
century, still exists near Mosul. Once home to hundreds of monks, only a few remain today.
The monastery contained a large library of Syriac texts and is the burial site of Bar Ebroyo (Bar
Hebraeus), a famous thirteenth-century Syrian writer and relative of the patriarch mentioned by
Riccoldo. See Yacoub III, The History of the Monastery of St. Matthew in Mosul, trans. by Moosa.
The headquarters (Maphrianate) of the Jacobite church in modern-day Iraq shifted between
Tikrit and Mar Mattai throughout the Middle Ages.
43
Later, Riccoldo says that the Saracens also welcomed them ‘as angels’.
202 Appendix B
became enraged, ascended the great mountain which is above the monastery,
and smashed a large boulder into the side of the mountain so that it would fall
directly over the monastery and kill the monks. While on its precipitous course,
the aforementioned boulder fell onto the high, strong walls of the monastery.
It did no damage, but instead was itself broken by the wall. The boulder was so
massive that it remained lodged in the wall, such that wall itself was reinforced.
When the very ferocious Kurds saw this, they retreated and dared not return
again. We saw the wall ourselves, along with the boulder in the wall, which was
not near the ground but much higher up: sufficient visual evidence of a divine
miracle, not a human act. They told us about many other miracles which would
take too long to recount here.
We approached them [the Jacobites] humbly and insistently so that they
would accept the word of God. They refused, fearful that we would deceive them
with the subtleties of scripture. They saw that we were literate men and they said
to us: ‘if we listen to you, you will drag us into your heresy’. One night there was
such an earthquake that we feared that not only the monastery would collapse,
but the boulder and the entire mountain as well. After that, they listened peace-
fully to our preaching, and when they heard that we intended to destroy their
errors, they believed that they could defeat us in a public disputation. They gath-
ered at the appointed time for the disputation, and they showed themselves to
be far from the truth, because a great number of them came with weapons. And
they chose, over all the other bishops, the one they considered to be the most
erudite and qualified to respond. And they lit many night candles and numer-
ous lanterns in a large room where they all sat together. And they asked us to tell
them why we had come to them. And we said that we had come for their salva-
tion. And receiving the Word, we praised them for the ‘works of perfection’44
they displayed, namely their strict and lengthy fasting, their great abstinence, and
the duration and devotion of their prayer. And we swore to them by the blood of
the crucifix they so greatly adore that we would not let them, despite such works,
descend into hell for their infidelity, and that [we would show them] especially
how they err so greatly about Christ. For while they say that he is true God and
true man, they assert that he has but one nature, one will, and one operation. And
listening peacefully to the reasoning and authorities against them, they were quite
dumbfounded. The Holy Spirit so deprived them of a response and words that
their silence plunged everyone present into a stupor, even us. And the one they
44
Riccoldo uses opera perfectionis to describe Jacobite good works here; this is the same
phrase he uses for Muslim good works later in the book.
Appendix B 203
had chosen to respond to us was converted before anyone else. And when they
complained why he did not respond, he told them in a clear voice in Chaldean:
‘Brothers, I declare that it is in no way possible to respond’. Then, a man old and
honoured among them arose, he whose sanctity gave him the prerogative above
all others and who they greatly trusted. He said tearfully in a loud voice in front
of them all, ‘I say to you, my brothers, that this religious who has come to us from
the West, as he said, and who has placed the Word of God before us now, is not
a man but an angel of God whom God has sent to us, or he is one of the apostles
who was with Christ. God has sent him to us so that we would not be damned’.
And turning towards the Friar Preacher who had put forth the Word, he said,
‘Say what you wish, because whatever you say, we will receive from you as if you
were one of the apostles’. And the elders among them accepted the Word calmly,
and they promised that they would preserve until death the faith which they had
received firm and complete from us.
But a crowd of other monks was foolishly disturbed in their hearts, and they
stirred up a violent uprising. The clamour and commotion amongst them was so
great that we feared they would kill each other. And when reasoning and scripture
failed them, they said that it would be a disgrace and a shame for them to now
change the faith which their fathers had preserved intact for eight hundred years,
just because some Westerners had seduced them with logic and subtle arguments.
In a few days, just as the number of faithful grew through many conversions, so
too did the rage of the unfaithful, to the point that the faithful asked to us leave
the monastery quickly, lest we be torn to pieces.
Nevertheless, their Patriarch, who at first had been totally conquered by us —
nay, by God — in the public disputation finally agreed completely with us in all
things, and handed us a profession of faith written in his own hand, in which he
openly confessed that in Christ there are two distinct and perfect natures, namely
the divine and the human.
And the clergy and population of the great city of Nineveh convened on a
broad street, and we preached the Catholic faith in Arabic before a multitude of
people. We pointed out the errors of the Jacobites in front of the clergy and the
Jacobite people, and the Patriarch himself and his clergy asserted that what we
said was true.
We have stated and written this not to praise ourselves, but only to glorify
God, the one by whose power these deeds were accomplished, the one who
performs miracles as he wishes, the one who not only confounded and defeated
the wisdom of the world through the apostles — who were Galileans and simple
fishermen — but also rebuked the foolishness of a prophet with the braying of an
ass [Numbers 22. 22–35].
204 Appendix B
But it has already been noted that due to the errors mentioned above, they
[the Jacobites] err very dangerously in many other things. For both the Jacobites
and the Nestorians, contrary to the gospel, break off a marriage for any reason,
and a divorced wife can take another husband if she wishes. And a divorced man
can take another wife if he pleases.
About the mystery of the holy trinity, both the Jacobites and the Nestorians
say that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are three persons, that is,
three qualities [qualitates]. Whence they say in Arabic thelathe saffat, which is
translated as three qualities.
Also, the Jacobites and all the Easterners do not know about purgatory, nor
do they believe that the souls of the blessed achieve eternal life until after the
resurrection of the body, or that the souls of the dead are tortured in hell until
after the Day of Judgement. They say that hell and paradise are the receptacles of
souls. And they say that the torture of the rich man who feasted [Luke 16. 19–31]
is only a parable. And there are many other errors which would take too long to
enumerate.
After this, we proceeded further through the great city of Nineveh, and we
came upon the river of paradise, the Tigris. And then we continued on inflated
rafts for more than two hundred miles to Baghdad. Midway into our journey, we
came upon a great city where there are many Maronites and the archbishop of the
Maronites. The Maronites are heretics from Mount Lebanon who say that there is
only one will in Christ.45 But the archbishop listened to our profession of faith in
Arabic, and he wrote to the pope in his own hand about the faith, as we wished,
on the subject of obedience to the pope and to the holy Roman church. In this
same city there are many Jacobites who received us almost like angels of God, and
offered us their most beautiful churches and monasteries. But the Jacobites of this
city had built a certain church of the dog, outside the city, in a town on the river
of paradise, and every year they have a festival of the dog. They say that they had,
quite literally, a dog of great virtue. The name of this town is Tikrit.
We came upon another great city along the river, the ancient Baghdad or
Babylon [Samarra]. Its great ruins made it seem almost like another Rome. Almost
totally destroyed, it had very few inhabitants: they were the Saracen partisans of
Ali.46 We learned that in actuality the inhabitants of this city were waiting for the
son of Ali who had died over six hundred years ago, and they maintain a noble
mule for him so they can receive him honourably. Their high priests present the
mule, saddled and ornamented, to their people every Friday when they gather to
45
Riccoldo is wrong; the Maronites of Lebanon were never monothelites.
46
Shi’a literally means ‘partisans’ (of Ali).
Appendix B 205
hear their law preached. They say that this aforementioned son of Ali will most
certainly return to them, and on that same day they say that Christ will appear
and become a Saracen.
And so we came directly to the marvellous city of Baghdad via the river.
Brothers of our Order met us outside the city; words are not able to express the
weeping and tears of joy which flowed when we saw them. Baghdad is a very
agreeable city through which the Tigris River flows. More than two hundred
thousand Saracens are believed to live in this city. Even though the city is inhabited
by Saracens it is under the dominion of the Tartars. The seat of Saracens was once
here, for the Caliph, which means the successor to Mahomet, used to reside here.
The seat of the Nestorians is also here.
The Nestorians
The Nestorians are heretics who follow Nestorius and Theodore. And they err
in many things, especially in regards to Christ. For they say that he has only one
nature, and that he was born of the Virgin Mary as just a man, and that only
afterwards did he obtain divine sonship through baptism and the holy works he
performed. Therefore they say that the Lord Jesus Christ is the son of God not by
nature, but by adoption. And they say that God is in this man just as in a temple.47
From this they say that the mystery of the incarnation was achieved through the
honour which this man had obtained, and through his will. As a result, many
of them say that in Christ there is but one will. Even though they concede that
Christ is true God and true man, and confess that Christ was born of the virgin,
they are nevertheless unwilling to confess that God was born of the virgin, or that
the virgin was the mother of God; they believe that she was the mother of a man
only.48 From this they say that it is not the same being which was born of God
the father from all eternity and born from the virgin his mother in time.49 And
47
One of Theodore of Mopsuestia’s trademark christological phrases is ‘Christ is the
temple of the Word’.
48
Riccoldo again refers to the Theotokos (‘God-bearer’ or mother of God) vs. Christotokos
(‘Christ-bearer’ or mother of Christ the man) controversy here. The Catholic Church and the
Assyrian Church of the East (the name of the Nestorian Church today) no longer disagree
about the terms Theotokos and Christotokos; the Common Christological Declaration signed in
1994 by Pope John Paul II and Catholicos Mar Dinkha IV acknowledges that the ‘same faith’ is
professed in these two different theological expressions.
49
The language of the Council of Chalcedon (451), which was rejected by the Nestorians,
states that Christ was ‘begotten from the Father before the ages as to the divinity and in the latter
days for us and our salvation was born as to his humanity from Mary the virgin mother of God’.
206 Appendix B
lest they be forced to say that he is divided into two sons, they say that he is one
sciacx, which means one person in Arabic. And lest they be forced to say that God
is born of a virgin, they divide him into two acnum, which means two substances
in Chaldean.50 From this they say that Christ has one sciacx and two acnum,
which, following Nestorius who was Greek, is expressed as one person and two
substances. These eastern Nestorians are all Chaldeans and they read and pray in
Chaldean. Thus they do not know the difference between acnum and sciacx, and
therefore it is very useful to ask them what the definition of acnum and sciacx is,
and what the difference between the two is. And in truth there is no great differ-
ence, except that sciax is the Arabic word for person, and acnum is the Chaldean
word for person. As a result, when they speak in Arabic they say that Christ is one
person and when they speak Chaldean they say that Christ is two persons.
Therefore, whatever they say about sciacx, they must also say about acnum,
and vice versa. But in truth they have given up neither [word], and in this way
they deny that God was born of the virgin, because they say they cannot find this
expression anywhere in scripture. By this same reasoning, they deny that God
or the true son of God suffered and died, and they say that Jesus Christ was a
prophet and servant of God according to Matthew and Isaiah, ‘Behold, this is my
chosen son’ [Matthew 3. 17; Isaiah 42. 1–4]. And thus their position with regard
to Christ, if examined closely, completely nullifies the mystery of the incarnation,
and therefore what they believe about Christ is nearly the same as the Saracens,
who say that Christ is the Word of God and that he was born of the Virgin and of
Holy Spirit.51 Whence I discovered in the ancient and authentic Saracen histories
that the Nestorians had been friends of Mahomet, and were allied with him, and
that this same Mahomet commanded his successors to protect the Nestorians
especially. The Saracens have diligently observed this up to the present day. But
the Saracens hate the Jacobites intensely, and have persecuted them because they
say that God was born of a woman and died on the cross. For this reason, not only
do the Saracens frequently kill the Jacobites, but so do the Nestorians.
50
Kappler notes that Berlin, Staatsbibl., MS Lat. 4o 466 contains two additions by Riccoldo:
‘in Arabic’ and ‘in Chaldean’; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by
Kappler, p. 139. The Chaldean (Syriac) word Riccoldo transcribes as acnum is qnuma. A similar
discussion of acnum and sciacx can be found in Riccoldo da Montecroce, Ad nationes orientales,
ed. by Jensen; Jensen notes that in this book, Riccoldo relies heavily on Aquinas’s Summa contra
Gentiles (4. 34–36) for his discussion of Nestorian and Jacobite christology, and suggests that
this is because Riccoldo had been reprimanded by Rome for calling these groups heretics.
51
Riccoldo knows that Muslims believe Jesus to have been born of Mary and the Holy
Spirit (Sura 4. 171), but not the son of God.
Appendix B 207
One time, the Jacobite patriarch or archbishop, a learned man, invited the
Nestorian patriarch to a public debate. They had to agree on the day they were
to appear before the Caliph of Baghdad, but the Nestorian patriarch was afraid.
He came with a Jacobite who hated the other Jacobites because they had not pro-
moted him to the archbishopric. [The Jacobite] told the Nestorians that they could
safely entrust their response to him, because he would make them victorious. They
assembled before the Caliph on the agreed-upon date, and the Nestorians declared
that this Jacobite cleric would be responding for them. Summoned once and then
twice by the Caliph, he delayed coming. But the third time he was asked to come
immediately. Finally, he came before the Caliph and the entire clergy, bringing a
hoe, a shovel, and tools with which to till the earth. When he was asked why he did
not immediately come to the Caliph, the lord of the world, and why he brought
digging tools, he begged their pardon, stating that he brought them to engage in
important work. He said, ‘the Angel Gabriel died yesterday evening, and I have just
dug his grave and buried him’. The Caliph wanted to tear his garments at such blas-
phemy, and declared that it is impossible for angels to die. The Jacobite said ‘Why
is it surprising that angels die and are buried, if God himself in his own person died
and was buried?’ And when the Caliph asked ‘who says that God himself died and
was buried?’ he replied ‘all the Jacobites say this’. When asked about this, all the
Jacobites affirmed that God had died and been buried. Then the Caliph ordered
all the Jacobites in the eastern lands to be killed. So many were killed that very few
remained. We say this to prove that the Saracens and Nestorians share the same dis-
agreement against the Jacobites: namely that God was born, died, and was buried.
The Nestorians err as much as the Jacobites and nearly all the Eastern Chris
tians about the mystery of the trinity. They say that the Father, Son, and Spirit
are52 thelathe saffat53 which means ‘three qualities’. Thus in Chaldean they say
thelathe acanim and in Arabic they say thelathe ascicas, which means three per-
sons or three substances [supposita].54 They also err in denying purgatory, and in
saying that before the Day of Judgement, neither the souls of the damned descend
52
Kappler notes that Berlin, Staatsbibl., MS Lat. 4o 466 has scilicet but he translates it as
sunt to retain the meaning; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by
Kappler, p. 145.
53
Saffat: sifa (pl. sifat) in Arabic means quality, attribute.
54
Sciax elsewhere in Liber peregrinationis and in Epistolae. Acnum is qnome in Syriac and
aqanim in Arabic. For background on how medieval Latin Christians understood Christ’s mode
of union, including the Latin view of Nestorian christology, see Cross, The Metaphysics of the
Incarnation, pp. 29–33. Jensen notes that this is the only part of Riccoldo’s argument against
the Nestorians and Jacobites in Ad nationes orientales that is his own and not Aquinas’s. See
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Ad nationes orientales, ed. by Jensen.
208 Appendix B
into hell nor are the souls of the blessed received into paradise. They baptize in
the form of the Greeks, namely ‘so-and-so is baptized in the name of the Father’,
and so on. They believe that the efficacy and perfection of baptism depends upon
a certain ointment which they make from a certain oil. They say it is necessary to
anoint the person being baptized with this ointment completely, because if any
part of the body is not anointed, the devil will enter there. The baptized are not
instructed in the faith nor are they examined about it. From yeast, they prepare
a dough with oil; they mix into the consecrated dough some other dough which
they have set aside, always renewing the new dough with the dough accepted, and
they say that it is a portion of the body of Christ which they accept from John
the Evangelist, who accepted from Christ in the supper a twofold part: he ate one
and gave them the other.
They do not confess their sins except to God, either in life or at the moment of
death. They practise circumcision in the eastern countries, and what is even more
monstrous, we have discovered in a city called Harba that they circumcise not
only little boys but also women. And although we were not able to understand
very well what they were cutting, we nevertheless discovered that they were in
fact circumcising girls.
Their eucharist, or rather the bread which they say is the body of Christ, they
give in the hand to men and women and small children; they also give people the
blood, or wine. They give no one communion or last rites at the moment of death.
Consecrated items such as holy water and blessed bread are deconsecrated when
they want to discard them. Their altar is deconsecrated (and a bishop is needed
to restore it) if a priest enters55 after he receives communion, or if someone enters
who is not a Nestorian, if someone enters without shoes or with a covered head, if
the lamp breaks or falls, or if a cat or another animal (except for a mouse) enters.
For only mice are allowed the privilege of being able to enter the altar without
deconsecrating it. It is also deconsecrated if a drop of water or rain falls there, and
many other things which would take too long to enumerate.
They contract marriage within the prohibited degrees [of consanguinity].
Marriages are dissolved, and he who divorces his wife to take another [does so]
with the permission of the church.56
55
The altar of the Nestorians, like other Oriental Orthodox Christians, is separated from
the main part of the church with a curtain (unlike the Eastern Orthodox, who use an icono
stasis). Only the priest may enter the altar area.
56
A line appears to be missing from Kappler’s Latin edition, Riccoldo da Montecroce,
Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 148, since his French translation includes an
additional sentence about priests who remarry after their wives die.
Appendix B 209
They have three masses, one is of Nestorius, the other is of Theodore the master
of Nestorius, and the other is called the mass of the apostles, in which there is
absolutely nothing in the form of body or blood. In the other [two] masses they
do have something of the form, but their intention is not to consecrate at that
very moment, but [to consecrate] later, near the end of mass with an invocation
of the Holy Spirit. And they have so many other errors that would take too long
to describe. To say much briefly, they expressly contradict the words spoken by
the Highest Master, ‘Narrow is the road which leads to life’ and so on [Matthew
7. 13–23]. For they commonly say that it is sufficient for the Christian to make
the sign of the cross on his own face, and pray towards the east, and eat pork.
But the other things which they have added are perfections. For they have great
abstinence; they pray much and fast much. Their religious, bishops, archbishops,
and patriarchs never eat meat or meat-based condiments, even if they are deathly
ill. In their manners and in their clothing, their religious, bishops, and superiors
exhibit great poverty, austerity, integrity, and humility. During Lent, all of them
(Nestorians and Jacobites, religious and secular priests) avoid fish and wine.
However, at other times they do not consider drunkenness a sin, but something
honourable. They consider lying to be almost nothing, and so forth.
They defend their errors in two ways. First, they say that many of them have
the spirit of prophecy and many can predict the future; and indeed through
experience we have learned this to be true for some of them. Second, they say
that many of their elders have performed many miracles. For among them it is
firmly believed that the light of heaven visibly descended upon Nestorius when
he celebrated mass. They say that their patriarch, whom they call iaffelit, which
means universal,57 left Baghdad (where his See is located) and went to Mecca
(where Mahomet is buried) in a moment and a blink of the eye. Mecca is more
than thirty days from Baghdad, and the Nestorians told of many similar miracles
performed by their heretical patriarchs.
When we arrived at the place in Baghdad where their See is located, they
received us at once with joy, but when they learned that we were preaching that
the Virgin is the mother of God, and saying that the blessed Virgin had given
birth to God and man, they immediately spoke out against us publicly in their
preaching, and shamelessly expelled us from their churches. And they washed
with rosewater the same church in which we had preached against Nestorius, and
in order to placate him they celebrated the solemn mass of Nestorius there.
57
Kappler notes that iaffelit is a variation of the word catholicos, and that Berlin, Staatsbibl.,
MS Lat. 4o 466 includes an explanatory marginal note which reads ‘universalis vel papa’;
210 Appendix B
When they expelled and excommunicated us from all their churches, and
refused to receive the word of God from us, we complained to their archbishop
that they had afflicted the servants of God thus — Christian men and religious
preachers who had travelled from a distant land for their salvation. Moved by an
impious piety, they obtained for us a good location, a church, and other neces-
sities, if we would only agree to stop preaching. We utterly refused to make a
pact with hell and death, and we said that we had not travelled to receive palaces
and churches from them, but only to preach the word of God to them freely. We
declared publicly to them that we would rather live as paupers in the street with-
out a home, and freely preach the truth of the faith out of love for Jesus Christ
(who was born for us in a poor inn), than receive any sort of palace or other tem-
poral things from them and stop preaching.
After that, their patriarch, who had been away more than a ten days’ journey,
arrived. When their patriarch — nay, their heresiarch — sat on his golden throne
and had his bishops, archbishops, and religious at his feet, we who were armed
with the spirit and power of God confounded them all, such that the patriarch
lied in front of everyone, and said that he was neither a Nestorian nor an imitator
of Nestorius. Everyone fell into a stunned silence and was unable to speak. After
this, the bishops and archbishops argued among themselves about the silence
which had so confounded everyone, and rebuked the patriarch himself with
harsh words, accusing him of being a Frank and an adversary of Nestorius. They
boasted that they could defeat us in a public disputation. A certain archbishop
was charged with the response. We gathered in a public place where the bishops,
archbishops, and many others were, and the Lord completely deprived them of a
response, such that not only the respondent but also everyone present was struck
with surprise and stupor. But when they so disgracefully and totally failed —
not only in responding but also in questioning — they became so frightened of
speaking with us that they no longer dared to appear before us. Many of them,
especially the oldest and most intelligent, realized that they were unable to defend
their own perfidy or to attack our faith, and declared, ‘we acknowledge that you
preach the truth of faith, but we do not dare to say this publicly to others, lest we
are excluded from society’. For they preferred the favour of men, not God. But
the patriarch, against the will of the bishops, appointed us to preach the word
of God freely in their churches. And so they began to listen and to return to the
faith, and they came to us to confess their sins.
The Saracens
The seat of the Saracens used to be in this same city of Baghdad; it was the capital
of study and religion as well as of power. The Caliph, which means successor to
Appendix B 211
Mahomet, once reigned from here. The Saracens say that he was the presence
of God on earth; the Tartars killed the Caliph as described above. A very large
population lives in this same city, much of which was destroyed.58 There are many
thousands of Christians and Jews here, and it is estimated that there are more than
two hundred thousand Saracens; everyone lives under the rule of the Tartars.
Here the Saracens have their largest schools and great masters. Here are many
Saracen religious orders. Here many diverse Islamic sects can be found together.
And here are the great monasteries of the Saracens which are called megerede,59
which means ‘contemplatives’.
Since we desired to nullify the perfidy of Mahomet, we intended to confront
them in their capital and in the place of their studium generale.60 It was necessary
for us to converse with them a good deal, and they received us as angels of God61 in
their schools [scolis] and studia, in their monasteries and churches or synagogues,
and in their homes. And we applied ourselves diligently to the study of their law
[the Qur’an] and works, and we were stupefied to discover how — with a law of
such perfidy — works of great perfection could be found.
The Saracen Works of Perfection

We will therefore refer briefly here to the Saracen works of perfection, more to
shame the Christians than to praise the Saracens. Who would not be amazed when
examining carefully how great is Saracen studiousness, devotion in prayer, mercy
towards the poor, reverence for the name of God and his prophets and holy places,
dignified behaviour, friendliness to foreigners, and concord and mutual love?
On the Studiousness of the Saracens

To say a great deal in only a few words, it must be known that the Saracens come
to Baghdad to study from diverse provinces. There are many places in Baghdad
58
Baghdad was destroyed by the Mongols (Tartars) in 1258.
59
Kappler notes that megedere is the transliteration of the Arabic mojarrad; Riccoldo da
60
Riccoldo uses the term studium generale here. A medieval European studium generale was
a religious order school (studium) often but not always connected to a university, and having ‘a
reputation such that it drew students from afar, giving it a “general” enrollment’; Mulchahey,
‘First the Bow is Bent in Study’, p. 360.
61
Hebrews 13. 2.
212 Appendix B
which are devoted solely to study and contemplation, in the manner of our great
monasteries.62 Students who come are provided a cell, bread, and water by the
community; with this they are content to meditate and study in the greatest
voluntary poverty.
In public schools where the Qur’an is commented upon, only the shoeless may
enter. Thus, both the master who explains and the students who listen leave their
shoes outside and enter barefoot into the schools, where they read and discuss
with the greatest gentleness and modesty.
On Prayer
What can I say about their prayer? For such is their solicitude in and devotion to
prayer that I was stupefied when, through experience, I saw it and witnessed it.
For I travelled three months and a half without interruption with Saracen camel-
drivers in the deserts of Arabia and Persia, and there was never any hardship or
crisis which prevented the Arab camel-drivers from praying at fixed hours day
and night, especially in the morning and evening.
For they display such devotion in prayer that they completely forsake all else.
The faces of some suddenly drain of all colour and seem enraptured, some swoon,
while others dance, change their voice, or shake their heads. Some seem to be
enraptured, while others are possessed by demons.
They observe the greatest bodily cleanliness while praying. They never dare to
pray without first washing their anus and penis, then their hands and face, and
lastly the soles of their feet; and then they pray.
All sects observe this practice, but among these sects the Hanafi are reputed
to be more perfect than the others. If they enter a public place and touch a cat,
dog, donkey, or something else unclean, they cannot wash for prayer except with
at least five hundred thousand buckets of water. For this they need a river. So
when they wish to pray, they enter the river. After everything is washed he places
a finger into his anus and puts it to his nose, and if he smells anything foul he is
not ready to pray. He must return to the river many times until he can place his
finger into his anus and then to his nose and smell nothing foul. Then he is ready
to pray.
62
Kappler notes that the friar might have been struck by the similarity between Baghdad’s
madrasas and the classic European centers of learning, monasteries (magnorum monasteriorum
nostrorum); Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 159.
Riccoldo could have had in mind older places of study such as those connected to monasteries
or the cathedral schools, or he might have been thinking of the newer mendicant studia.
Appendix B 213
On Almsgiving
As to mercy for the poor, you must know that the Saracens are the most chari-
table. They have in the Qur’an a strict command to tithe; if they acquire this
through force they must give one fifth. Furthermore, they prepare their last will
and place the money into the imperial treasury. At the appropriate time, they
open it and give it to a trustworthy Saracen who travels to different countries to
redeem Saracen slaves and prisoners who have been held captive by Christians
or other nations. Frequently they also buy back Christian slaves who have been
held captive among the Saracens and take them to the cemetery and say, ‘I have
redeemed these for the soul of my father and these for the soul of my mother’.
And the Saracens give letters of emancipation to the slaves and release them. Poor
Saracens who are unable to redeem anyone from slavery bring birds to the city,
capture them in cages, and proclaim: ‘Who wishes to buy these birds and set
them free for the soul of their father?’ And poor people buy them and set them
free, lest the soul of their father remain captive.
They even make wills to care for dogs, and in cities where there are many dogs
such as in Turkey, Persia, and also in Baghdad, we discovered that these dogs have
agents who seek out wills left for dogs. And when the wills are insufficient, they
go throughout the city asking for alms, and divide it among the dogs. They also
toss good bread alms to the river birds which congregate at certain times upon
hearing a particular sound; once assembled, alms are thrown to them, especially
in Baghdad and in the great city of Nineveh.
In Baghdad where many go mad due to the great heat, there is the most
beautiful place near the city for the mentally ill. The state provides them with
optimal care: food, servants, and the best doctor. All is paid for by the community.
On their Reverence for the Name of God

They have the greatest reverence for the name of God, and for prophets, saints,
and holy places. They take the greatest care in never doing, saying, or writing
anything of importance without first beginning with the name of God. Also in all
letters they send each other, they first write reverently the name of the Lord, and
for that reason they diligently take care to avoid destroying or throwing away any
writing. If they find a piece of paper covered with writing, they reverently pick it
up and place it up high into an opening in the wall, lest the name of the Lord be
trampled underfoot.
When they come across the name of the Lord while reading or speaking, they
never say [the name] alone, but always add a laudation like, ‘God who is praised’,
214 Appendix B
or something like this. If a Saracen blasphemes God or one of the prophets, he

will never be allowed to live.
They maintain the greatest cleanliness in their holy places and churches [sic],
and never enter there without removing their shoes first. They never spit there.
And when they sit there they take diligent care not to let their buttocks touch the
pavement; they sit with their buttocks on their heels. They teach their children
to sit in this way (namely on their heels), lest they grow tired sitting for so long
in the church.
On their Dignified Behaviour

Their behaviour is so dignified that you would never see a Saracen there approach
with his head held high or his eyes raised, or with a stiff neck, puffed-up breast, or
outstretched arms. Rather, their gait — even that of small boys — is mature, as if
they were perfect monks of strict morals.
In the many years I associated with them in Persia and in Baghdad, I never
remember having heard a profane song; rather, their singing was always in praise
of God and to extol his law and his prophet. No one ever mocked or disparaged
or rebuked another person.
On their Friendliness to Foreigners

Their friendliness and urbanity towards foreigners is such that we were received
as angels [Hebrews 13. 2] when we wished to enter the homes of the noble and
the learned. For they received us with such gladness that it often seemed to us
that we had truly found hosts of our own Order — hosts who welcomed us as
freely as brothers into their own homes. Frequently, out of a certain urbanity
and intimacy, they asked us to say something in praise of God or Christ. And
whenever they said the name of Christ in our presence, they never did so without
adding the appropriate acclamation, for example, ‘Christ be praised’ or something
like that.
One thing which upset them was our unwillingness to eat with them, because
the Saracens immediately prepare something to eat when they are visited by a
foreigner. And especially the Arabs, who are well known among the Saracens [for
hospitality], never harm a foreigner who has safely presented himself, uninvited,
to eat with them. Rather, they call the one who eats bread and salt with them
‘brother’, and afterwards they defend him against all others, even if he has killed
their own father.
Appendix B 215
On their Concord and Mutual Love

They foster such concord and mutual love that they truly seem to be brothers. For
when speaking to each other, especially to foreigners, one will say to the other:
‘O son of my mother’. What’s more, they will neither kill nor rob one another.
Rather, a Saracen travels very securely among foreign and barbarian Saracens.
Once, the sultan of Babylon sent a trustworthy soldier from Egypt to Syria to
be his representative and to govern the province, and sent him the tribute of that
province. He was immediately overcome with arrogance, and rebelled against his
own lord sultan, and the entire province with him. Angered, the sultan sent a
great army against him. The unfaithful soldier had gathered a large army on his
side. But when they were on opposite sides of a field with the battle imminent,
they said to each another, ‘Aren’t we all Saracens? We are not allowed to fight or
kill one another. Take the one who rebelled against his own lord and let us all be
in peace’. And immediately peace was established, and the greatest tranquillity.
Out of such a large army only one man was killed.
See how these people who have a law of killing and death refuse to kill one
another, while the wretched Christians, who have the law of life and command-
ments of peace and goodwill, kill each other without pity.
What’s more, if a Saracen kills another Saracen by accident or intentionally,
the son or brother of the slain man rarely demands vengeance. Rather, their
mutual friends settle the matter; they imprison the killer and take him to the
son or brother of the slain, who takes him and leads him to the cemetery and
says to him, ‘indeed you are the son of this dead man because you killed my
father. But if I kill you I will not bring him back’. And he adds, ‘if it is bad for one
Saracen to be killed, it would be worse for two to be killed’. And he says ‘Jecun
belle’ which means ‘let it be God’s’. And he cuts the hair of the murderer and
releases him in peace.
What therefore can they say in their defence, the Christians who say each day
‘forgive us our debts as we forgive’ and so on, when the Saracens surpass them in
the forgiveness of offences? [Matthew 6. 12; Luke 11. 3–4]. 63 Indeed, many of
them dread slaughter so much that they will not even kill a hen or a chicken. But
when they wish to eat a hen, they take it alive in their hands, go into the street,
and ask a passerby to kill it. This is what the Saracens do, who nevertheless have a
law of killing. So that their law might endure, they confidently expose themselves
to every danger. It is for this reason that they fight so vigorously and aid each
other so faithfully in battle — so that their law might endure. For they believe
63
This line is from the Our Father prayer.
216 Appendix B
that their law will endure as long as their strength and victory endure by the
sword. For theirs is a law of violence, as we will now see.
There was a Saracen by the name of Monchor who, during a long war between
the Saracens and Christians, saw another Saracen more virtuous than himself
thrown from his horse and in danger of being killed or captured by the Christians.
He immediately dismounted his horse and said, ‘get on my horse and flee, because
it would do more harm if you were killed or taken captive than if I were’. The
man did, and he escaped, and Monchor became a prisoner of war in his place.
The other who had escaped by horse became the sultan and freed Monchor from
prison by returning the King of Armenia (who the Saracens had been holding in
prison) to the Christians in exchange for him.
Behold what concord there is among the sons of iniquity, and what they do so
that their law of perdition will endure! And thus the Saracens are able to say to
the Christians: ‘“Blush with shame, O Sidon”, said the sea’ [Isaiah 23. 4].
We have narrated the above not so much to praise the Saracens as to shame
certain Christians who are unwilling to do for the law of life what the damned are
willing to do for the law of death.
On the Law of the Saracens

From now on we will speak briefly about the law of the Saracens. In sum, the law
of the Saracens is lax, confused, obscure, exceedingly mendacious, irrational, and
violent.
Their Law Is Lax

Firstly, their law is lax, by going against the rule of the philosophers of the world
who say that it is as difficult to live virtuously as it is to hit the bull’s eye of a
target with an arrow. It is also against the rule of the highest and best philosopher,
namely Christ, who says, ‘Narrow is the road which leads to life’ [Matthew
7. 13–14]. For [they believe that] nothing is necessary for salvation except to
say: ‘There is no god but God and Mahomet is the messenger of God’.64 For the
Saracens commonly believe that if a Saracen says this phrase alone, he will be
saved, even if he should commit all the sins in the world. Many other things are
permitted and commanded in their law, that is, the Qur’an. But in the next life,
there is no punishment for transgressions.
64
One becomes a Muslim by formally and publicly declaring this phrase, called the shahada.
Appendix B 217
It must be noted that when they are asked what praise Mahomet has placed
in the Qur’an (I believe more than one hundred times) they answer: ‘There is no
god but God’. Without doubt, there is no sect which contradicts this truth. But
this proposition is likewise true about everything: there is no dog but a dog, there
is no horse but a horse, and so on. But the Saracens wish to say that just as it is
obviously true that ‘there is no god but God’, so it is also true that ‘Mahomet is
the messenger of God’. But how greatly do they injure the truth of philosophy by
juxtaposing the most true of propositions with the most false, and how greatly do
they injure God by juxtaposing the truth of God with the falsity and wickedness
of Mahomet, which any sensible man can see for himself. And they believe that
by saying this phrase alone they will be saved! Their law is therefore lax, and the
devil has cleverly foreseen this, so that those who are unwilling to take the narrow
road which ascends to beatitude can take the wide road which easily descends
into Gehenna.
Their Law Is Confused

Also, their law is so confused that no one in the world can ascertain a clear order
in it. For it does not follow the order of time or place as do the other prophets
who prophesied at such a time, under such kings, or in such a place. Nor is the
order of topics similar to that of other books. For it is so confused that no one
can determine a clear reason why one chapter precedes or follows another. As a
result, the same story is sometimes placed in ten or more different locations. It is
therefore thoroughly confused without a clear order of chapters.
It is also confused in its explanation. For truly, one does not know what it
prohibits: it simultaneously prohibits and allows the same thing: ‘Don’t do
such-and-such which is prohibited by God; but if you do it, God is merciful and
compassionate and knows that you are weak’.
Their Law Is Obscure

Their law is also obscure in its interpretation. For among all the Saracens it is
stated with great certainty and approval that there is no one who knows how to
interpret the Qur’an except God alone. But how is it rational for God to give
humans a law, and want them to observe it but not understand it? Moreover, how
can they observe what they cannot understand?
Through their own interpretation, they render their law so confused that it
truly seems as if the god who gave it to them is foolish. For it is written that for-
nication and usury are forbidden. Yet no sale or purchase is prohibited, and for
218 Appendix B
this reason they do what they want. Therefore even the most perfect among the
Saracens go to brothels and say to a prostitute: ‘I desire you, but fornication is
not allowed. Sell yourself to me’. And she sells herself to him, and after paying
the price he says to her, ‘you are truly mine’. She allows this and he concludes,
‘According to our law, it is licit for me to do with you what I wish’. And then he
sleeps with her without fear. And it seems that Mahomet wishes the same thing
in the Qur’an, which clearly and indecently states: ‘Copulate with your wives.65
There is no sin in this, for you have paid the price you promised’ [Sura 2. 223].
Those who wish to engage in usury without sinning proceed in the same
manner. For there are some who keep a storehouse of money along with some
cheap things for sale, and when someone who needs money comes along, the
money lender protests, saying, ‘I am not keeping this money for usury because
it is not licit according to the Qur’an. But I will offer you the money for free if
you will buy something from me’. And then the lender gives him [the borrower]
money, and then he [the borrower] buys something and gives him an amount
which exceeds its value according to how much money he is borrowing, and for
how long. And in this way, they believe it is licit for you to accept whatever you
want from him. O you blind men! Do you believe that God gives such a law by
which both he and yourselves are deceived? For in this way, every transgression
becomes licit.
Their Law Is Exceedingly Mendacious

Their law is also exceedingly mendacious. For besides the Qur’an, the Saracens
have another book which Mahomet gave them, in which there are such lies and
such incredible things that to speak about them would be too tedious and too
unbelievable.66 And when the Saracens were astonished and asked Mahomet if
all these things were true, he responded that there are twelve thousand words
in this book which do not contain the truth, but that everything else is true.
Consequently, when someone discovers a false statement there and complains
to them about it, they respond that this is one of the twelve thousand lies, just as
Mahomet himself said, but that all the rest remains true and authoritative.
65
Kappler notes that three manuscripts have futigate (including the oldest, Berlin, Staats
bibl., MS Lat. 4o 466), while four have fatigate; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis,
ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 179.
66
Riccoldo is referring to the hadith, second only to the Qur’an in authority.
Appendix B 219
O you blind men! Is it not sufficient evidence for you to believe that Mahomet
and his book are lying, since not only does he tell lies but has also written down
twelve thousand of them and sent them to you in the same book? Can this book
of yours be the only authentic and truthful one, if it contains twelve thousand lies
according to the testimony of its own author? Indeed, the great doctor Augustine
said that if a person should find just one lie in the gospel, all the rest would be
considered a lie as well.67 But in speaking about the Qur’an, they are not content
to say that it is the book of Mahomet, but that it is truly the word of God. But
how is he not ashamed, this God who has uttered a Qur’an which states so many
obvious lies? For it is written in many places there that Mary the mother of Jesus
Christ was the sister of Aaron and Moses [Sura 3. 35–36]. But is it well known
that the Virgin Mary gave birth to Christ during the time of Caesar Augustus,
who ruled Rome and was the monarch at that time. It was he who ordered an
accounting of the entire world. At that time the kingdom of the Jews was divided
and Herod and his brother Philip reigned there under the chief priests Annas
and Caiaphas. This era in history included Jews, Gentiles, and Christians. But
Maryam, the daughter of Amram and the sister of Moses and Aaron, died in the
desert before the Jews entered the promised land, and this era in history included
only Jews and Christians. And at this time it is certain that Rome had not yet
been founded, nor had the Temple in Jerusalem been built. Also, at the time of
Christ’s passion, the ministers and high priests of the Temple testified that they
had not known the reign of anyone but Caesar. Therefore, more than 1500 years
had passed between these two accounts.
Likewise, the same Mahomet says in the chapter Ellcamar [Sura 54], which
means ‘moon’, that the moon had split apart in his own time, and that half fell
on a mountain which is called ‘red’, and the other half fell on another mountain
in another part of the city. But how could the moon have split apart? And if had
split apart, how could it have had the nature of heavy bodies which fall? And if
it had fallen, how did it not occupy a considerable part of the earth? Wouldn’t
the sea and all the swamps have been combined? How could such a miracle have
escaped the notice of the entire world? Nor do the Saracens use hyperbole or
simile. Neither do they interpret this book spiritually, as we do certain passages in
the book of Revelation. Rather, all their interpretations are literal. They say that
the moon really did split apart; Mahomet asked God to do it in order to reassure
his disciples who had demanded a sign from him.
67
Kappler notes that Riccoldo also refers to Augustine’s Epistolae, xxviii. 3 in Riccoldo
da Montecroce, Contra legem Sarracenorum, ed. by Mérigoux, chap. 9, lines 11–13; Riccoldo da
220 Appendix B
Their Law Is Irrational

The doctrine of the Qur’an is also irrational. Who could ever provide a rational
explanation for what has been written there about divorcing one’s spouse? For it
is written there that as many times as a man can divorce his wife, he can reconcile
with her. But if he wishes to reconcile with her after the third divorce, another
man must first take her for his wife and have sexual relations with her. What’s
more, even after the [second] man has had sexual relations with her, he can have
sex with her again in two exceptional cases. The first is that if he has had sex with
her during menstruation, he must have sex with her again after her menstruation
is over. The other exception is that if he has had sex with her when his penis is
not completely erect, then he must have sex with her again when it is completely
rigid. Then, if the second man wishes to divorce her, the first man who divorced
her can take her back.
It is truly shameful to report these things. But what is even more lamentable
is the extent to which such a diabolical law has misled so vast a portion of the
human race for nearly seven hundred years.
For is it not only irrational, nay, it is altogether improper, that this book which
they say is truly the word of God permits sodomy for both men and women, as
is manifestly clear in the chapter of the Cow.68 And even though they strive out
of shame to disguise this with various explanations, Mahomet stated it so clearly
and with words so tasteless and shameful that they cannot deny it or disguise it
among those who know the Arabic language. This is likewise attested to by their
great pontiff, a former Saracen and convert to Christianity, whose name is not
able to be written or pronounced in Latin letters, but his name in Arabic is …
[al-Xazi bi l’wazih].69
But what seems to be the most irrational and impossible is that in many places
in the Qur’an it is written that if a demon became the Devil it is because he did
not wish to follow God’s command to worship Adam. For it is written there
that God commanded the angels to worship Adam, and in Arabic this is written
with a word which can be understood to mean the kind of adoration required by
68
Riccoldo is incorrect; the Qur’an does not permit sodomy. He makes the same error in
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Epistolae, ed. by Röhricht, 3, p. 283, and Riccoldo da Montecroce,
Contra legem Sarracenorum, ed. by Mérigoux, chaps 1 and 6.
69
Some manuscripts leave a blank space here, while in others the letters are illegible;
according to Kappler, Berlin, Staatsbibl., MS Lat. 4o 466 has the Latin transcription here. See
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 184, and Panella,
‘Presentazione’, p. xvii.
Appendix B 221
latria, namely ... [‘abdu sajdu].70 But how can God forget his own precepts which
he has repeated so often, saying: ‘you shall worship the Lord your God and serve
him alone’?
Their law is no less irrational regarding the happiness and beatitude it prom-
ises at the Last End. It promises irrigated gardens, clothing, food, and beautiful
women whose pupils will be as black as ink and the whites of their eyes will be like
the egg of an ostrich. These women will be modest, waiting under veils. And all
of this is not interpreted through similes, but is accepted literally. For their great
theologian named Elhassen Elbassari71 says that the womb of one of these women
will grow as long as the distance one can ride a horse in a day without tiring it.
And he also says that a man’s penis will elongate to this same distance. And since
a Saracen would be burdened to bear such a long penis, he will compel seventy
Jews and seventy Christians to help him bear it.72 And this is what the Saracens
say about the paradise they await! Without a doubt, this is just as ridiculous as if
he had said something about a paradise of horses, mules, and asses.
But about virtues and the perfection of the intellect, Mahomet said absolutely
nothing. Indeed, in this he did well, because as an entirely deceitful and corrupt
man, he promised not happiness but that which was utmost in his own entirely car-
nal mind. And the Holy Spirit did not allow him to lie in this, except for lies which
are so evident that all would easily be able to discover the perversity of his teaching.
And when their sages began to curse the perversity of his law openly, and
when the law could be refuted by the books of the prophets, the book of Moses,
and the truthful books of the philosophers, the Caliph of Baghdad commanded
that nothing could be studied in Baghdad except the Qur’an. As a result, we
found them to know very little about either the truth of theology or the subtlety
of philosophy. Nevertheless, their sages put no faith in the sayings of the Qur’an.
In secret they deride it, but in public they honour it, for fear of the others. But the
multitude (duped and misled by a secret but perfectly just sentence of God) and
their common masters all affirm that nothing of the truth of theology or what is
necessary for salvation remains uncorrupted and whole in the prophets and in the
gospel except for what can be found in the Qur’an. They say that we have falsified
70
Latria is the worship reserved for God alone (as opposed to dulia, the veneration of
the saints). Panella reads Berlin, Staatsbibl., MS Lat. 4o 466 as ‘abdu sajdu’. See Riccoldo da
Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 184, for a list of the various
Latin transcriptions of Arabic found in the seven Liber peregrinationis manuscripts.
71
Al-Hasan Al-Basri (d. 728).
72
Kappler notes, after Mérigoux, that this anecdote is taken from Liber denudationis;
Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 187
222 Appendix B
the gospel and that the Jews have falsified the prophets and the law of Moses, since
neither in the law or the prophets or the gospel can one find written what is said in
the Qur’an. But this book holds exactly the opposite, for his writing goes against
everyone and the writings of everyone else go against him. For in the Qur’an,
Mahomet praises the pentateuch and the prophets and especially the psalms.
Truly, he praises Christ and the gospel above all, and declares that Christ says in
the gospel: ‘I announce to you that I will send an ambassador of God after me and
his name is Mahomet’.73 But because this is not written in our gospel, they do not
accept the gospel and say that we have corrupted it.74 But how could Christians
and Jews — who have such a great and ancient hatred for one another — have
agreed to falsify the pentateuch, prophets, and gospel, all of which had already
been written and published in every language throughout the entire world? How
could the Latins and Greeks have agreed with the Chaldeans (who are Nestorians
and Jacobites), who had separated from them through schism and excommuni-
cation before the time of Mahomet, and who are such adversaries? How could
they have agreed to change the gospel? Without doubt, the Nestorians have been
complete adversaries of the Jacobites since before the time of Mahomet; and both
the Jacobites and the Nestorians have been cut off from the Latins and the Greeks
since before the time of Mahomet. Despite this, we have discovered among them,
in both Chaldean and Arabic, the same translation and truth in the gospel as that
which is found among the Greeks and the Latins.
Furthermore, why did Christians remove from the gospel the name of Mahomet
— he who so praised Christ and the gospel — when they allowed to be written
there in full the names of Herod who persecuted him; Pilate, Annas, and Caiaphas
who crucified him; Judas who betrayed him; Peter who denied him, and so on?
Moreover, such an alteration and corruption of the gospel was either hidden
(and then it could not have been generally known that the truth of the gospel
remained in a few places), or it was generally known and manifest (and then it
could not have been hidden).
Moreover, if the Saracens know that the gospel has been corrupted and altered
among all the Christians in the whole world, then they should show us an intact
gospel in their possession. For in Baghdad and in Mecca there have been since
ancient times centres of study whose archives preserved the oldest books of the
73
Riccoldo is referring to the Islamic interpretation of John 14. 16, where paraclete is
understood to mean Muhammad (rather than the Holy Spirit).
74
Sura 61. 6. Riccoldo is describing tahrif, the Islamic doctrine that the scriptures
Christians and Jews currently possess are corrupted versions of the originals given by God to
Jesus and Moses.
Appendix B 223
Saracens, which they showed to us, and yet they were never able to show us
another gospel except for the one we have.
Likewise, what the Saracens say about the gospel and the prophets (that they
have been corrupted by the Christians and Jews) is expressly against their own
law. For Mahomet says to the Saracens in the Qur’an: ‘If any doubt should arise
among you, ask those who received books before you, namely the Christians
and Jews’. And afterwards he adds that God said to him: ‘We have preserved the
truth among them and we will [continue to] preserve it’. All this is introduced in
the Qur’an from the mouth of God, they say. Therefore, Mahomet sent them to
corrupt copies, and they made a liar out of God himself, since he did not preserve
his own truth in the books of Jews and Christians as he said.
We have only briefly mentioned these things, so that we might enable those
who are greater to attack this law of such perfidy more efficiently. For additional
details, see the other book I have written against Mahomet and the Qur’an.75
Sixth and Last, it Must Be Known that the Law of the Saracens is Violent
[Their law] was introduced through violence. As a result, they are most certain
that their law will endure only as long as they have victory by the sword. Every
Friday, they assemble at the ninth hour for prayer and an exposition of the law.
But before the preacher begins, he draws a sword and places it, unsheathed, in
a prominent place where it can be seen by everyone: this signifies that their law
began by the sword and will end by the sword.
They falsely attribute to their prophet many great miracles, namely: that
he split the moon and put it back together again, that the moon entered him
through his sleeve, that a camel spoke to him, that he ascended on a certain
creature — smaller than a mule and bigger than a donkey — and the name of
this creature was elberak,76 and that he travelled on this creature to the highest
heaven faster than the blink of an eye, and that once in heaven he obtained the
favour of an angel who cried for his own sins — an angel one hundred thousand
times larger than the whole universe, and many other miracles of this sort, all of
which is contrary to their Qur’an which states that God said to Mahomet: ‘I will
75
Kappler notes that this final line (which refers to Contra legem Sarracenorum) was added
to the right margin of Berlin, Staatsbibl., MS Lat. 4o 466, probably by Riccoldo himself, in order
to update the Liber peregrinationis; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrinationis, ed. and
trans. by Kappler, p. 191.
76
Riccoldo is referring to the famous night journey (al-isra) and ascension (mi’raj) of
Muhammad, in which he travelled to heaven on a mule-like beast called al-Buraq.
224 Appendix B
not permit you to perform miracles, because I know that they will not believe in
you. But I will give you the sword so that through violence you will compel them
to believe’.
But how would they not have believed in him if he had performed miracles,
they who believe in him and accept a law of such perfidy without a miracle? For in
the Qur’an, Mahomet himself prohibits belief in something unless it is written in
the Qur’an, and these miracles are not written in the Qur’an.
Moreover, he described two signs or arguments which he and the Saracens
judge entirely sufficient to prove that the Qur’an is the work of God and not a
person. One is that he says that such a book could not have been made either
by angels or by demons. The other is that he himself says that if the Qur’an were
not from God, there would be contradictions in it. But indeed there are many
contradictions in it, and it contradicts itself. For in many places it prohibits
Saracens from quarrelling or exchanging harsh words with men from another
sect. But they must abandon themselves freely to God, who guides whomever he
wishes and causes to err whomever he wishes. And so those who err do not have
to answer to God, because God himself causes them either to err or to advance.
He teaches in many places in the Qur’an, both at the beginning and the end:
‘kill those who do not believe, until they believe’ and so on.77 I concede the first
argument, namely that in no way could angels have either known how to or
wished to make a book filled with so many lies, blasphemies, and obscenities. But
in truth, the demons knew well how to do so; I believe therefore that with great
effort and attentiveness they composed such crimes and sins. For it is also written
in the Qur’an that the Qur’an pleases demons, and that when they heard Elgen
[Sura 46], which means ‘little demons’, they were filled with great admiration and
commended the book, and many demons became Saracens.
People can therefore defeat the Saracens and easily refute them through the
holy books, the authority of Holy Scripture, the books of the philosophers, and
the path of reason. But the easiest way of all is through the Qur’an itself, which
clearly manifests its own abominable falsity to all who read it.
People can also easily refute them by the wicked life of their prophet
Mahomet, who led a detestable life of extravagance, adultery, and robbery until
the end. And the response of the Saracens, who say that Moses killed and David
committed adultery and both were messengers and prophets of God, is without
merit because they did not end their lives in such sin, but they acquired contrition
77
Riccoldo mistranslates the word qatilu used in verses such as Sura 9. 29. According to
Kappler, this verb should be translated ‘fight’ and not ‘kill’; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber
Appendix B 225
and penitence. But Mahomet acquired neither penitence nor contrition. Rather,
to all his crimes he always added blasphemy, saying that ‘God commanded me
to commit such adultery’, as can be read in the Qur’an. When he took the wife
of his own friend named Zaid, as soon as he was accused, he said, ‘Woe to you,
Zaid, because God gave your wife to me in marriage, and Michael and Gabriel
are witnesses’.78 And thenceforth he made this a law and a chapter in the Qur’an.
He did the same thing when he slept with a Jacobite named Mary. When they
reproached him (because he had promised his own wives that he would not sleep
with the aforementioned Mary) he responded by saying, ‘God commanded me
not to keep my promise’. And he thenceforth made this a chapter in the Qur’an.79
Indeed, when the aforementioned wicked Mahomet called himself a prophet
and messenger of God destined through a miracle of generative strength to beget
many sons in order to increase the Saracen population, he was caught in a patent
lie because, despite having many wives, concubines, and maidservants, he had but
one daughter. Yet he boasted that he had the sexual strength of forty men.
These same Saracens introduce as an efficacious argument the fact that
Mahomet, an uneducated man, could not have made the Qur’an without
God, since it contains so many things from the Old and New Testaments. But
responding to this is easy, because even though the Qur’an contains many things
from the Old and New Testaments, there are also many things in it against both
the New and Old Testaments.
But even so, there is no doubt in all the countries of the East that Mahomet
had three teachers: two Jews, one named Salman the Persian and the other named
Abdallah (which means the servant of God), son of Sela. They both became
Saracens and taught him many things from the Old Testament and many things
from the Talmud. The third was a Christian monk named Baheyra, a Jacobite,
who told him many things from the New Testament, and little bit from a cer-
tain book about the infancy of the saviour,80 and about the Seven Sleepers.81 And
Mahomet wrote these things in the Qur’an. But I believe that his greatest teacher
was the devil.
78
The story of Zaid appears in Liber denudinationis. See Riccoldo da Montecroce, Contra
legem Sarracenorum, ed. by Mérigoux, pp. 91–92, and Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregri-
nationis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 197.
79
The story of Mary the Jacobite also appears in Liber denudinationis.
80
Riccoldo might be referring to one of the non-canonical gospels such as the Infancy
Gospel of Thomas.
81
The story of the Seven Sleepers can be found both in the Qur’an (Sura 18, ‘The Cave’)
and in Christian sources such as Jacob of Saruq (in Syriac), Gregory of Tours, and James of
Voragine’s Golden Legend.
226 Appendix B
The Miracles of the Saracens

It should be known that the Saracens claim that many among them have the
spirit of prophecy. Some speak the truth about the future, while many speak
falsehoods. They say that miracles appear to this day. But there are also some
tricks and false signs.
There are certain religious men in Turkey and Persia — where it is very cold
and where many die of the cold even when wearing much clothing — who walk
around completely naked. They cover themselves with an oil which is very effec-
tive against the cold, and because of this custom they do not fear the cold. In
Baghdad there are certain other religious men, ‘sons of perdition’, who having
given up all hope for themselves extinguish a great fire by trampling it with their
bare feet, so that others might admire them. And in front of other people, they
eat scorpions and serpents, not only raw but even alive. But they are completely
incapable of performing useful signs, such as healing the sick or something like
that. The only signs they can perform are those which the antichrist, and precur-
sors to the antichrist, can perform.
It must also be noted that Mahomet was not a universal prophet as the
Saracens say. Nevertheless, he sent two prophecies to the Saracens which I believe
to be quite true and applicable to the Saracen people. In the first, he said to them:
‘After me, you will be divided into seventy-three sects or divisions, out of which
only one will be saved. All the rest will be assigned to the fire’. After that, they did
indeed divide into many sects, and each one says to himself: ‘I am from the sect
that will be saved’.
There is another prophecy which I believe to be more true. For he himself
said to all the Saracens in the Qur’an that ‘There is no one among you who will
not go to the fire of hell’ [Sura 19. 71–72]. I believe most certainly that this will
be deemed appropriate for them by the One who lives and reigns forever. You
will find other things about Mahomet — about his life, death, doctrine, and
progression — in one of our other writings.82
On Monsters83
In Baghdad we saw many monsters and wondrous things. For we saw Pygmies
there who are only a cubit tall, who from the belt up seem to be very good looking
82
Another reference to Contra legem Sarracenorum. Kappler notes that this addition to the
manuscript was made by the copyist, not Riccoldo; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber peregrina-
tionis, ed. and trans. by Kappler, p. 201.
83
Kappler suggests that the remaining sections of Liber peregrinationis in Berlin, Staats
Appendix B 227
men except for their extremely short stature. Indeed, their legs appear to be like
those of chickens or other birds. They [the Saracens] brought them [the Pygmies]
from the islands of the East Indies and from remote deserts. They seem to be the
same people Aristotle said procreate in the third year, and live for seven.
In Baghdad we also saw a monstrous serpent which has four feet like a dog
and a horrible serpent’s tail in the rear. It was very tame with its owner but it
threatened other people horribly through its movements and by sticking out its
tongue. Also there was a very monstrous serpent which looked like a woman in its
face and hair, but the rest was a horrible serpent.
On the Sabbeans, which Means ‘Baptist’

A certain very monstrous people with a peculiar rite live in the desert near
Baghdad; they are called Sabbeans.84 Many of them came to us in Baghdad, hum-
bly asking us to go with them. They are very simple men, and they say that they
possess the hidden law of God which they have preserved by writing in beautiful
books, in a script somewhat between Chaldean and Arabic.
They detest Abraham because of circumcision; they venerate John the Baptist
above all. They only live on riverbanks, in the desert. So as not to be condemned
by God, they bathe day and night, so much so that when a woman sprinkles flour
by hand to make bread, she places the other hand in running water, lest she be
seized by death and thus be rejected by God because of a dough-covered hand.
They baptize not only adults and children, but also animals. When a cow
gives birth, they baptize both the calf and the cow. They say a kind of mass and
they offer bread and raisins in the [eucharistic] sacrifice, and when they celebrate
mass they wear seven vestments. They do not interact with any other nations,
except for buying and selling. They do not eat bread which has been touched by
someone from another rite. When they come to Baghdad or another city, they
buy flour at the market, draw water from the river, and make bread themselves,
and bake it themselves, so that they may eat. They pray much and observe
marriage conscientiously. Mahomet speaks very well of them in his Qur’an.
bibl., MS Lat. 4o 466 are written entirely in Riccoldo’s hand; Riccoldo da Montecroce, Liber
84
Also known as the Mandaeans. According to Puech, ‘Le plus ancien témoignage sur les
Mandéens’, Riccoldo’s is the earliest description of Mandaeans in western European literature.
For more on Riccoldo and the Mandaeans, see Lupieri, The Mandaeans, pp. 63–67.
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Indexes
Page numbers in italics refer to Map 1. Unless otherwise indicated, cross-references refer to
entries within the same index in which the cross-reference is located.
Index of Persons
Abraham: 20, 61–62, 96 n. 26, 160, 227 Clooney, Francis: xi n. 6, xiv n. 13, 121 n. 60,
Alain de Lille: 18, 44 n. 3, 46–47, 46 n. 11, 129, 129 n. 91
76, 76 n. 9 Cydones, Demetrius: 25 n. 29, 26
Alexander Minorita: 92 n. 12, 94
Alexander the Great: 193–94 Daniel, Norman: ix n. 1, xiv, xiv n. 14,
Ali: 150, 150 n. 27, 204–05, 204 n. 46 20 n. 10, 21 n. 13, 25 n. 29, 28 n. 43,
Andrew of St Victor: 19 46 n. 7, 62 n. 72, 81 n. 28, 88 n. 53,
Argon Khan see khans, Mongol 120, 120 n. 56
in Index of Subjects Dante: 4, 4 n. 20, 6, 6 nn. 28–29, 21 n. 14
Aristotle: 17 n. 1, 27, 114, 227 Dominic de Guzman: 1 n. 1, 2, 8, 33–34,
Ashraf Khalil see sultan of Babylon 33 n. 67, 37, 50 n. 25, 50 n. 29,
Augustine: 37, 58–59, 59 n. 58, 151 n. 30, 155 142–43, 153–54, 167, 170, 193
and beard: 33, 33 n. 67, 143, 152
Baheyra (Sergius): 77–78, 78 n. 16, Dupuis, Jacques: xii, xii n. 9, xii n. 11,
84 n. 39, 225 111 n. 16, 112, 112 nn. 21–22,
Bar Hebraeus (Bar Ebroyo): 201 n. 42 126 n. 81, 127 n. 86, 130, 130 n. 96
Barnes, Michael: xiii n. 9, 110 n. 9, 111,
111 n. 16, 112, 112 nn. 17, 23, Esther: 139, 161
128 n. 87, 130–31, 130 nn. 97–98
Benjamin of Tudela: 30, 30 n. 54, 55 n. 50 Felix Fabri: 31
Bernard of Clairvaux: 109, 109 nn. 3–5, Francis of Assisi: 1 n. 2, 2, 33–34, 37,
114, 115–16, 115 nn. 36–37, 51 n. 25, 143, 154, 193
116 nn. 38–42 meeting with sultan: 33, 143, 154
Bibliander, Theodore: 26 Riccoldo’s childhood devotion to: 2,
Bonaventure: 31 33, 154
Burchard de Mt Sion: 3 n. 11, 29, 31, 179 n. 2 Fredericks, James: xiii n. 12, xiv n. 13,
111, 111 n. 16, 112, 112 nn. 17–18,
Chia, Edmund: 112, 112 n. 20 121 nn. 57–61, 126 n. 81, 130,
Clement of Rome: 167 130 nn. 93–95
242 INDEXES
Geffré, Claude: xiv, 111, 111 n. 16 Mary Magdalene: 154, 177, 177 n. 1, 186
Genghis Khan: 195 Mary, Virgin: 34, 37, 61, 66, 83, 87, 87 n. 50,
Gilbert Crispin: 23 88, 99–100, 139, 140, 144, 146–51,
Giordano da Pisa (Giordano da Rivalto): 5, 161–62, 161 n. 42, 168, 170, 182–83,
69–70, 69 nn. 97–98, 70 n. 99 184, 186, 205, 205 n. 49, 206 n. 51, 219
Gregory IX, pope: 22 n. 18, 23 as Theotokos: 187, 187 n. 20, 205 n. 48, 209
Gregory the Great, pope: 34, 109 n. 3, 132, Letter to: 146–51
156, 171–73, 171 n. 47, 172 n. 50 Massignon, Louis: 88 n. 54
Letter to: 171–73 Matthew Paris: 31, 31 n. 59
Griffiths, Paul: 111–12, 111 n. 16, 128 n. 89, Mérigoux, Jean-Marie: 3 n. 10, 14, 25 n. 30,
130 n. 95 26, 27, 84 n. 39, 221 n. 72
Munio de Zamora, Dominican master
Helen, mother of Constantine: 185–86 general: 34 n. 68
Herbert of Bosham: 19 Muhammad: 6 n. 19, 20, 21 n. 14, 21 n. 16,
Hugh of St Victor: 19 33 n. 65, 44, 46, 57 n. 53, 60, 61–63,
Hulagu Khan see khans, Mongol 69, 70, 74, 75, 76–78, 81, 81 n. 28,
in Index of Subjects 84, 89, 91, 92–93, 96, 97–98, 101,
Humbert of Romans, Dominican master 123 n. 68, 124, 124 n. 76, 125, 139 n. 6;
general: 9, 9 n. 48 143 n. 15; see also Mahomet
Ibn Battuta: 30, 30 n. 54 Nestorius: 187, 205, 206, 209, 210
Ibn Taymīyah: 23, 23 n. 26 Nicholas IV, pope: 34 n. 68
Innocent III, pope: 23 Nicholas of Cusa: ix, 20 n. 9, 21, 21 n. 16,
Ishmael: 20, 187 23, 28, 41–42, 41 n. 98, 46–47,
47 nn. 12–13, 75, 83, 83 n. 37, 86
Jerome: 37, 156, 183 Nicholas, patriarch of Jerusalem: 37, 144,
Joachim of Fiore: 89, 92, 92 n. 12, 104 165–70
Job: 172 Letter to: 165–70
John XXII, pope: 10 n. 51, 22 Noah: 13, 160, 187 n. 18, 192, 198
John of Damascus: 21 n. 16, 28, 74, 77,
77 n. 13, 79, 91, 91 n. 8, 92, 92 n. 13 Onuphrius: 155, 180
John of Florence, bishop of Tbilisi: 7, 10
John the Baptist: 180, 183, 226 Panella, Emilio: xvii, 4 n. 20, 41, 69 n. 97,
Jonah: 167, 200 84 n. 39, 137 n. 1, 220 n. 70
Jordan of Saxony, Dominican master Paul: 8, 158–59, 183, 187
general: 143 n. 14 Peter Abelard: 23
Julian the Apostate: 156 Peter Auriol: 94
Peter the Venerable: 18, 19 n. 6, 21,
Louis IX, king of France: 143 21 n. 12, 44 n. 3, 45 n. 5, 46,
46 nn. 9–10, 71, 74, 77, 78 n. 15, 79,
Mahomet: 33, 33 n. 65, 139, 139 n. 6, 79 n. 19, 79 n. 21, 80, 89, 91 n. 8,
140–43, 143 n. 15, 144–64, 166, 169, 92–93, 92 n. 13, 93 n. 14, 104, 120,
171, 197, 205, 206, 209, 211, 216–17, 120 n. 54, 125, 125 n. 78
218–19, 220–25, 226, 227; see also Petrus Alfonsi: 15, 19 n. 6, 23, 44 n. 3, 46,
Muhammad 47, 53, 60, 74, 77, 79–80, 122, 124
Manuel Paleologus II, emperor of Picenus, Bartholomew: 25 n. 29, 26, 26 n. 34
Byzantium: ix, 26, 26 n. 33 Pseudo-Methodius: 194, 194 n. 29
Marco Polo: 6, 12, 13, 29, 31, 192 n. 25 Pseudo-William of Tripoli: 48 n. 17, 74–75,
Martin Luther: ix, 26 74 n. 3, 75 n. 4
INDEXES 243
Ramon de Penyafort, Dominican master Index of Place Names

general: 9, 69 n. 96
Ramon Llull: 9–10, 23, 24, 44 n. 3, 48 n. 17, Acre: x, 1 n. 3, 11, 11, 12, 12 n. 59, 14,
84, 120, 122 34–36, 62, 75, 76, 89, 91, 94, 96,
Ramon Martí: 9, 24, 44 n. 3, 48 n. 17, 74, 96 n. 26, 97–100, 104, 105, 128 n. 90,
122, 124 137–44, 152–53, 155 n. 32, 156–57,
Riccoldo da Montecroce: 160, 162, 165–70, 176, 178, 186,
and Arabic see Arabic language in Index of 186 n. 17; see also Fall of Acre in Index
Subjects of Subjects
and beard: 33, 162 Annunciation, church of the: 178
as camel-driver: 14, 52, 105, 142, 160, 162 Antioch: 8, 89, 94, 98, 139, 154, 160, 170,
early life: 2–4, 154 201 n. 41
family: 2–3, 3 n. 15 Ararat, mount: 13, 198 n. 35
itinerary: 11, 11–14 Armenia: 6, 9, 11, 13, 32, 187, 198, 216
necrology: 3, 3 n. 10, 4 n. 15, 5 n. 26, 7,
14, 33, 81 Babylon (Samarra): 11, 14, 35, 35 n. 72, 150,
Robert of Ketton: ix, 21 150 nn. 26–27, 160, 204–05
Roger Bacon: 10–11, 44 n. 3, 76–77, 92–94, Baghdad (Baldac): xvi, 2, 3, 9, 10, 11, 11, 12,
104, 114–15, 114 nn. 26–28, 117 14–15, 21 n. 16, 23, 27, 30, 32–33, 35,
35 n. 72, 36, 39, 40, 49 n. 19, 50–51,
Schillebeeckx, Edward: 110 55, 58, 59, 62, 71, 83, 85, 89, 94, 104,
Simon of Saint-Quentin: 13 106, 117, 117 n. 44, 118, 122, 125,
sultan of Babylon (Egypt): 143, 154, 155, 135, 137–38, 145, 147, 148, 150, 165,
155 n. 32, 151, 156, 166, 170, 215, 216, 196–97, 198, 199, 204–05, 210–14,
221, 222, 226, 227
Theodore of Mopsuestia: 12, 187, 187 n. 20, Dominican residence in: 14, 14 n. 71,
205 n. 47 39, 205
Thomas Aquinas: 27, 29, 60, 67–69, 77, Eastern Christians in: 23, 94, 122, 204–10
79, 79 n. 21, 80, 80 n. 26, 114–15, fall of (1258): 196–97, 210–11, 211 n. 58
120, 148 n. 22, 163 n. 44, 206 n. 50, hospital for the mentally ill: 55,
207 n. 54 55 n. 50, 213
monasteries, Muslim (megedere): 50, 211,
William of Rubruck: 12, 13, 199 n. 38 211 n. 59
William of Tripoli: 15, 44 n. 3, 48 n. 17, schools: 50–51, 50 n. 22, 118, 122,
49 n. 20, 53 nn. 38–39, 59 n. 63, 60, 125, 210–12, 212 n. 62, 221
60 n. 64, 61, 71 n. 102, 74–75, 76, 78, Bethany: 154, 181
80, 81, 83, 84, 89, 92–94, 122, 124, Bethlehem: 12, 31, 156, 181–83
124 n. 74, 149 n. 24 Bethsaida: 176, 177
Black Sea: 188, 189 n. 23, 196
Yahballahah III, patriarch (Nestorian): 13
Yehuda Halevi: 23 Caco (Kakun), castle: 179, 179 n. 2, 186
Caffa: 7, 10, 10 n. 51, 22
Calvary, mount: 183, 185–86
Cana: 32–33, 176
Caspian Sea: 193, 196 n. 31
Cenacle, church of the: 149, 179
Constantinople: ix, 7, 10 n. 51, 21 n. 16, 41,
41 n. 98, 63
Cumania: 196, 196 n. 33
244 INDEXES
Damietta: 1 n. 3, 33 Nativity, church of the: 182–83

Dog, church of the: 204 Nazareth: 12, 31, 144, 176, 178
Nineveh: 11, 23, 55, 118, 122, 150, 156,
Emmaus, church of: 186 157, 200–04, 213
Emmaus, town of: 34 n. 71, 186 Nizamiyya: 50 n. 22
Erzurum (Arzerrum): 11, 13, 198
Pera: 7, 10 n. 51
Florence: 2, 3 n. 10, 4–11, 14, 40, 71, 84 Persia: 6, 9, 9 n. 44, 10, 11, 13–14, 22, 32,
52, 95, 117, 118, 148, 149, 193, 196,
Galilee: 32, 98, 144, 148, 160, 176–78, 181, 198–99, 212, 213, 214, 226
186, 186 n. 15 Pilgrim’s, castle: 179, 186
Gazaria (Aquilon): 189, 189 n. 23, 196, 198
Samarra see Babylon
Haifa (Cayfa): 179 Santa Maria Novella: 2–5, 3 nn. 9–15,
Harba: 208 4 nn. 20–21, 7, 7 n. 38, 26, 27, 33,
Holy Sepulchre, church of the: 179, 180, 69, 83, 119
183, 185–86 Sivas (Sebaste): 11, 12, 13, 148, 148 n. 23
Syria: 98, 160, 170, 191, 196, 215
Iraq, places in see Babylon; Baghdad;
Tabriz (Tauricium): 7, 7 n. 37, 9, 11, 12,
Harba; Kurdistan; Mar Mattai; Mosul;
13–14, 22, 122, 149, 199
Nineveh; Samarra; Tigris, river; Tikrit
Tarsus: 11, 11, 12, 187, 187 n. 21
Tbilisi (Tiflis): 7, 10, 13
Jericho: 180–81 Tigris, river: 11, 11, 14, 35, 35 n. 72, 104,
Jerusalem: 9, 11, 12, 30, 31, 89, 98, 144, 148, 136, 150, 200, 201, 204–05
160, 161, 165, 166, 178–82, 183–86, Tikrit (Techerith): 14, 201 n. 42, 204
196, 219; see also Holy Sepulchre, Tripoli: 139, 143, 144, 148, 152, 154, 160,
church of the 163, 167, 169, 186, 186 n. 17, 187
John the Evangelist, church of: 149 Turkey: 7, 11, 11, 13, 32, 148, 187–89, 196,
Jordan, river: 178, 180–81 198, 213, 226
Josaphat, valley of: 180, 183–84
Judea: 98, 148, 160, 178–82, 186 Zion, mount: 12, 149, 179–80, 181, 183
Kerak (Ilcracco), castle: 181, 181 n. 4
Kurdistan: 14, 32, 199–200
Lebanon, mount: 187, 204
Mary Magdalene, church of: 177

Mar Mattai see monasteries, St Matthew
monasteries
in Baghdad (megedere): 50, 211, 211 n. 59
in Bethlehem (Saracen): 182, 182 n. 6
John the Baptist: 180
St Matthew (Mar Mattai): 11, 201–03,
201 n. 42
Mopsuetia (Mamistra): 11, 12–13, 187
Mosul: 11, 14, 19, 122, 200–04
Mustansiriyya: 50 n. 22
INDEXES 245
Index of Subjects councils

of Ferrara-Florence: 22
of Vienne: 10, 123
Ad nationes orientales: xi, 6 n. 26, 9, 17 n. 2, Second Vatican: 43, 109–10
18, 23, 24, 27, 27 n. 40, 40–41, 42, 73, Cribratio alkorani: ix, 21, 21 n. 16, 41, 75
118, 119, 123, 207 n. 54 Crusades: 32 n. 62, 129 n. 92
animals, Muslim kindness to: 55, 118 Cuman: 10
antichrist: 90, 91–93, 92 n. 12, 103, 156, 226
Arabic language: 25, 42, 62, 73–88, 104, De pace fidei: 20 n. 9, 23, 41, 41 n. 98,
107, 116–17, 118, 122–26, 133, 135, 47 nn. 12–13
141, 149, 158, 163, 199, 203, 204, De statu Sarracenorum: 48 n. 17, 74 n. 3
206, 206 n. 50, 207, 207 nn. 52–54, Dialogi contra Iudaeos: 23, 46, 47, 53,
211 n. 59, 220, 221 n. 70, 222, 227 53 n. 40, 60, 77, 80
Armenians: 7, 9, 10, 22–23, 23 n. 23, 90, Dialogue and Proclamation: 111, 126 n. 81
90 nn. 3–4, 93, 93 n. 15, 96 dialogus genre: 23–25
Assassins see Ismailis disputations see Dominicans, and
Assyrians: 160, 193, 205 n. 48 disputations
Dominicans (Friars Preacher):
baptism: 46–47, 47 n. 12, 147, 180, 201, and disputations: 8, 81
205, 208, 227; see also praxis, Eastern with Jacobites: 23, 24, 122, 202–03
Christian with Jews: 19, 19 n. 7, 200
baxitas (Mongol priest): 192, 192 n. 25, 198 with Nestorians: 23, 24, 122, 210
beard and language study: 8–11, 9 n. 48,
Dominic’s: 33, 33 n. 67, 143, 153 10 n. 51, 83, 121–25
Riccoldo’s: 33, 162 mission, approach to: 1–2, 8–11
Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men: residences in the Middle East: 9, 9 n. 48,
23, 24, 120 11–14, 14 n. 71, 167, 180, 187 n. 21
Buddhists: 111, 112, 128 n. 89, 192 n. 25 see also Santa Maria Novella in
Index of Place Names
caliphs: 55 n. 50, 75, 196–97, 205, 207, Eastern Christians: 1, 1 n. 4, 5 n. 26,
210–11, 221 20 n. 11, 22–23, 23 n. 23, 23 n. 25,
Capistrum Iudaeorum: 24 24, 63, 90, 93, 94, 98–99, 125, 132,
Chaldeans: 2, 125, 193, 200, 206, 207–08, 147 n. 21, 151, 173, 207
222 christology: 122, 122 n. 65, 187,
Chaldean language: 10, 122–25, 122 n. 65, 187 n. 20, 203–07, 205 nn. 47–49,
123 n. 68, 158, 194, 203, 206–07, 206 n. 50, 209; see also Theotokos
206 n. 50, 222, 227 disputations see Dominicans, and
comparative theology: xii, xiii–xiv, disputations
xiii n. 12, xiv n. 13, 121, 121 n. 61, praxis see praxis, Eastern Christian
126, 126 n. 81, 130 purgatory, denial of: 204, 207–08
Contra legem Sarracenorum: ix, xi, xvi, trinitarian theology: 204, 207–08,
17, 17 n. 2, 21, 21 n. 16, 25–27, 207 n. 54
25 nn. 29–30, 28, 33, 36, 40–42, 44, 48, see also Armenians; Chaldeans; Jacobites;
62, 66–67, 71, 72, 74–75, 74 n. 3, 76, Maronites; Nestorians
76 n. 10, 78, 80 n. 23, 81–85, 87, 97, Epistolae ad ecclesiam triumphantem: x–xi,
98, 101–05, 107, 116–17, 117 n. 44, xv–xvii, 12, 17, 34–39, 41–42, 62,
118, 123 n. 70, 125, 128 n. 90, 140 n. 9, 65–67, 73, 76, 81, 82, 84, 86–88,
223 n. 75, 226 n. 82 89–106, 107, 108, 110, 117, 119,
Contra paganos: 18, 46, 76 126–27, 131–33, 137–73
246 INDEXES
epistolary genre: 36–39 see also mosques; Muhammad in Index of

experience (experientia): x–xi, xv, xvii, 15, Persons; Muslim praxis; Qur’an
24, 25, 42, 46, 47, 48, 52, 58, 63–66, Ismailis (Assassins): 187
71–72, 95–96, 104, 106, 107–20, Italian language: 3 n. 10, 6, 17 n. 2, 26, 40,
127–33, 135, 142, 146, 161, 169, 209, 41, 146, 184 n. 11, 188 n. 22
212; see also interreligious experience
Jacobites: 14, 18, 23, 23 n. 23, 24, 77–78,
Fall of Acre (1291): x, 14, 34, 36, 62, 75, 89, 122 n. 62, 147 n. 21, 187 n. 20, 201–09,
94, 96, 137–38, 144, 153, 155 n. 32, 222, 225; see also Eastern Christians;
156, 163, 165–70 praxis, Eastern Christian
Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences Jews, Judaism: x n. 3, xiii, 9, 14, 18–25, 28,
(FABC): 112, 113 n. 25 30, 46, 65–66, 77–79, 97–98, 112, 118,
Franciscans (Friars Minor): 1, 1 nn. 2–3, 121, 126, 135, 140, 143–44, 150–51,
2, 2 n. 8, 4 n. 27, 9, 10, 12, 13, 23, 33, 177–78, 179, 192, 194, 200, 211, 219,
34 n. 68, 44 n. 3, 51 n. 25, 92, 92 n. 12, 221, 222–23, 222 n. 74, 225;
94, 142, 142 n. 13, 167, 184, 184 n. 13 see also synagogues
Franks: 63, 188, 200, 210
khans, Mongol: 195; see also Genghis Khan
genres, medieval: 17–39 in Index of Persons
Gog and Magog: 194 Knights Templar: 179
Greeks: 18, 21 n. 16, 22–23, 22 n. 18, Kurds (Curti): 14, 29, 199–200, 199 n. 39,
23 n. 23, 25 n. 29, 26, 44 n. 3, 123 n. 68, 201–02
187 n. 20, 188, 193–94, 206, 208, 222
lectio divina: 86, 86 n. 46
hadith: 20–21, 20 n. 11, 55 n. 45, 56, letters to heaven see epistolary genre
57 n. 52, 58 n. 55, 78 n. 16, 148 n. 22, Liber contra sectam sive haeresim
149 n. 25, 218–19, 218 n. 66 Saracenorum: 18, 120 n. 54, 125 n. 78
Hindus see Indians Liber denudinationis (formerly Confutatio
Historia scholastica: 193 alfolica): 21, 221 n. 72, 228 nn. 78–79
Liber peregrinationis: x, xi, xi n. 5, xiv–xvii,
iconoclasm, Muslim: 87 n. 50, 148, 149 12, 14, 17, 23, 29–34, 40–42, 44–45,
Indians (Hindus): 192, 198 48–50, 49 n. 19, 58, 65–72, 80 n. 22,
interreligious dialogue: x–xi, xi n. 4, 81, 82, 84, 86, 89 n. 2, 95, 103, 107,
121 n. 61, 126 n. 81, 127–31; see also 108, 110, 117, 118, 119, 122, 128 n. 90,
dialogus genre 131–32, 135, 137 n. 2, 146 n. 19,
interreligious experience: 107–20, 127–33, 150 n. 29, 175–227
135; see also experience illustrated manuscript: 54 n. 41
Islam
Hanafi: 53, 53 n. 36, 54, 212 Mamluks: 12, 34, 89, 155 n. 32
heaven, belief about: 21 n. 14, 223, Mandaeans (Sabbeans): 227, 227 n. 84
223 n. 76 Maronites: 187, 204, 204 n. 45
pillars of: 46 n. 8; see also praxis, Muslim mentally ill, Muslim care for: 55, 55 n. 50
shahada: 46 n. 8, 84, 124 n. 74, 216, mi’raj: 6 n. 19, 21, 21 n. 14, 159 n. 40,
216 n. 64, 217 223 n. 76
Shi’a: 150 n. 27, 187, 204–05, 204 n. 46 mission: 2–3, 2 n. 5, 5–15, 22–23, 27,
tahrif (corruption of scripture): 123 n. 68, 29, 31–34, 45, 49–50, 69, 69 n. 96,
221–23, 222 n. 74 111 n. 16, 118–25, 129, 135–36,
views of, medieval Latin: 18–23, 28 n. 44, 137 n. 2, 142, 146 n. 29, 147 n. 21,
67–72 175–80, 202–03, 209–11
INDEXES 247
and pilgrimage: 31–34, 137 n. 2, 142, praxis, Muslim

146 n. 29, 175–77 abstinence from pork and alcohol: 46–47,
see also Dominicans, mission 71 n. 102
Mongols: 6, 10, 12, 29, 192 n. 25, 192 n. 27, almsgiving (zakat): 43, 46–49, 54–55, 57,
194, 211 n. 58; see also Tartars 213
monsters: 29, 175, 226–27 basmala: xvi, 45, 49, 55–58, 62, 213–24
Moralia on Job: 132, 156, 171–73 circumcision: 43, 46–47
mosques: 14, 49 n. 20, 53 n. 38, 54 n. 41, divorce: 220
49 n. 20, 57, 60–61, 60 n. 64, 95, 104, exegesis, literal: 219, 221
106, 118, 123, 124, 142, 149, 149 n. 24, forgiveness: 49, 64, 126, 215
157, 213–14, 223 hajj rituals: 46–47
Muslims (Saracens) see Islam hospitality: 48–49, 60–63, 214
mosque etiquette: 49 n. 20, 57, 60 n. 64,
Nestorians: 13, 29, 78, 90, 122–24, 61–62, 213–14, 223
147 n. 21, 187, 187 n. 20, 200, polygyny: 20, 218, 225
204, 205–10, 222; see also Eastern prayer (salat): 20, 43, 46–49, 49 n. 20, 51,
Christians; Nestorius in Index of 52–54, 56, 86, 117, 131, 211, 212
Persons; praxis, Eastern Christian; salawat: xvi, 61–63, 213–14
Theotokos shahada: 84, 124 n. 74
Nostra Aetate: 43, 43 n. 1, 110 n. 9 sodomy: 84, 159, 220, 220 n. 68
Notitia de Machometo: 47 n. 17, 49 n. 20, study, devotion to: 48, 49, 50–51,
53 n. 38, 59 n. 63, 60 n. 64, 71 n. 102, 51 n. 28, 68, 211–12
74 n. 3, 78, 78 n. 17, 80 n. 26, usury: 217–18
81 n. 29, 83, 83 n. 34, 84, 92–93, wudu (ablution): 46–47, 47 n. 16, 49,
124 n. 74, 149 n. 24 49 n. 18, 52–54, 54 n. 41, 212
see also works of perfection
opera perfectionis see works of perfection Pygmies: 226–27
Opus maius: 76–77, 93–94, 114,
114 nn. 27–28
Quadripartita (De fide catholica): 18
Peri Hermenaias: 17 nn. 1–2 Qur’an
pilgrimage, pilgrim: x, 12, 37, 46–47, 95, and Riccoldo
119, 122, 146, 165, 175–77, 180, 198 ambivalence about: xvi, 44, 50, 87–88
and mission: 31–34, 137 n. 2, 142, criticisms, six: 80–85, 216–25
146 n. 29, 175–77 errors: 62, 62 n. 72, 84 n. 41, 186 n. 16,
itineraries, medieval: 11–15, 29–31 220 n. 68, 224 n. 77
praxis, Eastern Christian physical treatment of: 85–88, 136, 163
altar etiquette: 208–09, 208 n. 55 study of: 36, 116–17
abstinence from meat: 201–02, 209 i’jaz (inimitability): 81–82, 82 n. 30, 85
baptism: 201, 205, 208, 227 irrationality of: 62, 71, 73, 81, 220–23
circumcision (Nestorian): 208, 227 views of, typical medieval Latin: ix–x, 20,
circumcision, female (Nestorian): 29, 208 74–82
confession: 201 see also Contra legem Sarracenorum
divine liturgy (mass): 201, 209, 227
divorce: 204, 208
eucharist: 208, 227 Rationibus fidei: ix, 8, 21 n. 16
fasting: 201–02 Revelations of the Pseudo-Methodius: 94, 194,
marriage: 204, 208, 227 194 n. 29
prayer: 201, 202 Risalah al-Kindi: 21, 21 n. 16, 28
248 INDEXES
Sabbeans see Mandaeans

salvation history: x, xii, 34–36, 75–76,
89–106
Saracens (Muslims) see Islam
Seven Sleepers: 225, 225 n. 81
Summa contra gentiles: 60, 68–69, 69 n. 96,
77, 79, 79 n. 20, 80 n. 26, 148 n. 22,
163 n. 44, 206 n. 50
Summa theologiae: 18, 18 n. 4, 67 nn. 89–92,
68 nn. 93–95, 114–15
Summa totius haeresis Saracenorum: 18,
45 n. 5, 46, 78 n. 15, 78–79, 92–93,
93 n. 14
synagogues: 19, 178, 200, 211
Talmud: 19, 19 n. 6, 24, 77–78, 78 n. 15, 225

Tartars: 9, 10, 13, 18, 29, 118, 140, 145, 152,
157, 160–62, 188–98, 199, 205, 211,
211 n. 58; see also Mongols
theology of Islam, Christian: xi–xv, 17,
20 n. 10, 28 n. 44, 42, 43, 71, 82,
107–36
theology of religions, Christian: xi–xv, 24,
28–29, 79 n. 20, 111–13, 118, 121,
130–31
Theotokos: 187, 187 n. 20, 205 n. 48, 209
Toledan Collection: 21, 21 n. 12, 21 n. 16,
79 n. 21
Turkmens: 187–88
Vatican II Council see councils

Victorines: 19, 126, 126 n. 79
virtues: 65–68, 156, 204, 221; see also works
of perfection
works of perfection (opera perfectionis):

43–72, 73, 103, 131, 150, 150 n. 29,
202, 202 n. 44, 211–16
Medieval Voyaging
All volumes in this series are evaluated by an Editorial Board, strictly on academic
grounds, based on reports prepared by referees who have been commissioned
by virtue of their specialism in the appropriate field. The Board ensures that the
screening is done independently and without conflicts of interest. The definitive
texts supplied by authors are also subject to review by the Board before being
approved for publication. Further, the volumes are copyedited to conform to the
publisher’s stylebook and to the best international academic standards in the field.
In Preparation
Marianne O’Doherty, The Indies and the Medieval West: Thought, Report, Imagination

'A Christian Pilgrim in Medieval Iraq. Riccoldo Da Montecroce's Encounter With Islam' by Rita George-Tvrtkovic

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A Christian Pilgrim

George Tvrtkovic, Rita author.

© 2012, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

Chapter 1. Riccoldo in situ 1

Chapter 2. Beyond Polemic: Genres and Context of Medieval ‘Dialogue’ 17

Chapter 3. Muslim Works of Perfection 43

Chapter 4. ‘I Read It in Arabic!’ 73

Chapter 5. Questioning Salvation History 89

Chapter 6. Wonder, Doubt, and Dissonance: Riccoldo’s Theology of Islam 107

Appendix A. Five Letters on the Fall of Acre (1291) 137

Appendix B. The Book of Pilgrimage 175

Select Bibliography 229

of the polemical literature to represent the full spectrum of medieval Christian

on a person’s understanding of the other, Riccoldo’s experience demonstrates

era.7 Likewise, a conversation between history and theology is equally needed on

Medieval Riccoldo, Modern Theology

that Riccoldo himself viewed Liber peregrinationis more as ethnography than

the traditional Christian scheme of history — and actually accepting, at least

the thirteenth century an unprecedented number of Western European religious

the late thirteenth century. Interest in Arabic language, literature, philosophy,

The Dominican Approach to Mission

The other characteristic element of the Dominican missionary approach was

Map 1. Cities visited by Riccoldo. Map created by Bruce Verhaaren.

us and to unbelievers, namely philosophy’.54 Bacon’s Opus maius also includes an

Historical Prelude: Medieval Christian Views of the Other

underscores his proficiency in Arabic and personal experience of Muslims, he never

Riccoldo’s Famous Polemic

Exploring Other Genres

Liber peregrinationis, a first-person account of Riccoldo’s voyage from Acre to

uocaret et faceret me piscatorem hominum’ (number me among his holy disciples

Riccoldo also attempted to justify his work among Muslims by connecting it

Riccoldo’s letters can be classified as a part of the medieval epistolary genre, a

Letter Three is initially addressed ‘ad totam ecclesiam triumphantem et celestem

In many places, Riccoldo’s exordium includes statements so brash that they

Texts and Translations

Muslim Works of Perfection*

Typical Medieval Christian Accounts of Muslim Praxis

we begin to see significant Latin Christian writing based on their experience in

Riccoldo’s ‘Works of Perfection’

that Muslims observe a ‘great bodily cleanliness’, achieved through formulaic

Riccoldo’s description of Muslim charity also includes a section on kindness

Reverence for the Name of God

This section begins with a description of the common Muslim practice of

Riccoldo seems to be making a connection between comportment and morality

Although Riccoldo declares that Muslims in general (and Arabs in particular)

experienced in Muslim homes is akin to the intimate hospitality shown by one

The Muslim practice to which Riccoldo is referring is called salawat or tasliya,

Works of Perfection, or Virtues?

Sarracenis legem et intellectum!’ (O Lady, give to Christians the works of perfec-

Islam on its Own Terms?

demonstrates the potentially transformative nature of interreligious encounter.

Medieval Latin Views of the Qur’an

A different explanation for the genesis of the Qur’an is offered by William of

Riccoldo’s Approach to the Qur’an

Reading the Qur’an ‘in God’s Presence’

Questioning Salvation History

Islam’s Place in Christian Salvation History

has always been central to Christian self-understanding. Distinct from but

‘Impiissimus Mahumuth inter utrumque medius a diabolo prouisus ac preparatus

Riccoldo’s Five Questions

declares: ‘Nunc autem in fine temporum supervenit Mahometus, quem Sarraceni

Getting Past the Impasse

—— , Liber peregrinationis, in Riccold de Monte Croce: Pérégrination en Terre Sainte et au

—— , ‘L’Enseignement des langues orientales en Occident au Moyen-Âge’, in Jean Richard,