Représenter l’altérité politique. Titres et attributs des souverains musulmans dans les textes et les images de croisade

Abstract

Titles and attributes of Muslim sovereigns in crusade writings and pictures. The writings and images on crusades abound with testimonies of how the Muslim world was perceived by the medieval West. The political differences of the crusaders’ennemies have thus been approached in various ways : on the one hand, historians who described Muslim protagonists within their institutions and, on the other hand, illuminators who had to illustrate some episodes of the crusade, mainly in secular workshops of the North of France and of Flanders between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. The analysis of written and figurative representations of Muslim sovereignty reveals the ambivalence of their approach, as regards a foreign institution. Indeed, the titles the writers resorted to, the attributes of Muslim dignitaries and some aspects of the court ceremonial reveal a variegated appraisal of their sovereignty ; now stigmatised, now assimilated with Western culture ; and thus devoid of any original dimension.