SOURCE: “The Western Attitude toward Islam during the Period of the Crusades,” Speculum, Vol. I, No. 3, 1931, pp. 330–43.

In the following essay, Munro surveys the extent to which anti-Muslim propaganda was utilized by papal and literary sources during the Crusades to encourage the crusading movement.

At the time of the First Crusade, very little was known in western Europe about the Muslims and their religion.¹ This may seem strange, as Prutz points out², when we consider how long the Christians had been fighting against the followers of the Prophet and how many pilgrims had visited the Holy Land. In the accounts of the pilgrimages there is little if any information about the Prophet or the beliefs of Islam and very little about the character and customs of the Saracens. What little is said in the earlier accounts is favorable. A passage from Bernard the Wise has often been quoted...