Saracen was a term for Muslims widely used in Europe during
the later medieval era. The term's meaning evolved during its history.
In the early centuries AD in Greek and Latin it referred to a people who
lived in desert areas in and near the Roman province of Arabia, and who were specifically distinguished from Arabs.[1][2] In Europe during the Early Medieval era, the term began to be used to describe Arab tribes as well.[3] By the 12th century, Saracen had become synonymous with Muslim
in Medieval Latin literature. This expansion of the meaning had begun
centuries earlier among the Byzantine Greeks, as evidenced in Byzantine
Greek documents from the 8th century.[1][4][5]
Both Hippolytus and Uranius mention three distinct peoples in Arabia during the first half of the third century: the Saraceni, the Taeni and the Arabes.[2] The Taeni, later identified with the Arabic speaking people called Tayy, were located around the Khaybar oasis north of Medina, and also in an area stretching up to the Euphrates river, while the Saraceni were placed north of them.[2] These Saracens located in the northern Hejaz appear as people with a certain military ability who are opponents of the Roman Empire and who were characterized by the Romans as barbarians.[2]
The Saracens are described as forming the equites (heavy cavalry) from Phoenicia and Thamud.[7] In one document the defeated enemies of Diocletian's campaign in the Syrian desert are described as Saracens. Other 4th century military reports make no mention of Arabs but refer to as Saracens groups ranging as far east as Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) that were involved in battles on both the Persian and Roman sides.[7][8] They are described in the Roman administrative document Notitia dignitatum—dating from the time of Theodosius I in the 4th century—as comprising distinctive units in the composition of the Roman army and they are distinguished in the document from Arabs and Iiluturaens.[7]
An illumination depicting Romans punishing Cretan Saracens, taken from the Madrid Skylitzes, a 12th-century Byzantine manuscript.
An illumination from the Auchinleck manuscript, a 14th-century manuscript which included The King of Tars.
Usage of the term in the Latin West changed as the Middle Ages progressed, but its connotation remained negative and its exact definition continued to be unclear.[9] In an 8th century polemical work, John of Damascus criticized the Saracens as followers of a false prophet and "forerunner[s] to the Antichrist."[10] Two centuries later, Europeans perceived Saracens as poor, uneducated idolaters belonging to a group wholly separate from the Arabs who brought Aristotle to the Latin West and the Moors and Berbers fighting Christians in Spain;
someone who got all of his or her information on Islam from medieval
sources would not conclude the three groups represented one continuous
culture.[9]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saracen
Early usage and origins
Ptolemy's Geography from the second century CE describes Sarakene as a region in the northern Sinai peninsula.[2] Ptolemy also mentions a people called the Sarakenoi living in north-western Arabia (near neighbor to the Sinai).[2] Eusebius of Caesarea references Saracens in his Ecclesiastical history, in which he narrates an account wherein Dionysus, Bishop of Alexandria mentions Saracens in a letter while describing the Roman emperor Decius' persecution: "Many were, in the Arabian mountain, enslaved by the barbarous sarkenoi."[2] The Historia Augusta also refers to an attack by Saraceni on Pescennius Niger's army in Egypt in 193 CE but provides little information on who they might have been.[6]Both Hippolytus and Uranius mention three distinct peoples in Arabia during the first half of the third century: the Saraceni, the Taeni and the Arabes.[2] The Taeni, later identified with the Arabic speaking people called Tayy, were located around the Khaybar oasis north of Medina, and also in an area stretching up to the Euphrates river, while the Saraceni were placed north of them.[2] These Saracens located in the northern Hejaz appear as people with a certain military ability who are opponents of the Roman Empire and who were characterized by the Romans as barbarians.[2]
The Saracens are described as forming the equites (heavy cavalry) from Phoenicia and Thamud.[7] In one document the defeated enemies of Diocletian's campaign in the Syrian desert are described as Saracens. Other 4th century military reports make no mention of Arabs but refer to as Saracens groups ranging as far east as Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) that were involved in battles on both the Persian and Roman sides.[7][8] They are described in the Roman administrative document Notitia dignitatum—dating from the time of Theodosius I in the 4th century—as comprising distinctive units in the composition of the Roman army and they are distinguished in the document from Arabs and Iiluturaens.[7]
Medieval usage
Medieval literature and ethnicity
By the 12th century, Medieval Europeans had more specific conceptions of Islam and "Saracen" had become an ethnic and religious marker.[1][11] In some Medieval literature Saracens—that is, Muslims—are black-skinned, while Christians are fair-skinned. An example is in The King of Tars, a medieval romance.[12][13] The Song of Roland, an Old French 11th-century heroic poem, takes the association of black skin with Saracens a step further by making it their only exotic feature.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saracen
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