Saracens and Sheikhs: Romance in Context

Romance was the most popular secular genre in late medieval England, and approximately 120 romances in Middle English survive today.1 Written in the vernacular, these popular texts circulated widely and enjoyed a diverse audience, composed of both elite and lower status readers and listeners. Composed, on the whole, in verse, Middle English romances flourished in the years 1350–1500 and feature stock characters, motifs, and storylines, including references to Saracens and to the East that occur with surprising regularity. In the course of my research for this book, I identified forty-two Middle English verse romances that refer to Saracens or the East, albeit in widely varying ways, including descriptions of monstrous Saracens, cross-religious battles or tournaments, the wearing of Saracen textiles, and the conversion of Saracens to Christianity. Appendix 1 details these forty-two romances, their date of composition, number of extant manuscripts, and their Saracen elements, indicating an enduring fascination with the Saracen East throughout the Middle Ages.