The Saracens of King Horn

Abstract

The date of composition of King Horn has in recent years been moved from ca. 1225 to ca. 1250, or even as late as the 1270s, as more information about the three manuscripts of the poem has become available.' Nevertheless, King Horn still seems to lie at, or at least very near, the beginning of the Middle English romance tradition, and it thus holds a special interest as a potential indicator of the way in which that tradition came into existence. This paper explores one key element in King Horn as a step towards a better understanding of both the poem itself and its literary context. It has become a commonplace of King Horn scholarship to see in the plot of exile and return some reflection of events of the later Anglo-Saxon period. Horn's own homeland is Suddene (140), and that of his bride is Westernesse (163). His adventures take him also to Yrlonde (774, 1024) and, more briefly, to Reynes (971, 1541). These lands are apparently not far apart;2 and, since Yrlonde is evidently to be identified as Ireland, and not only King Horn but also the other early extant versions of the Horn story were produced in England,3 it has been assumed that the action takes place principally or entirely in the British Isles. Yet the foreigners who invade Suddene, Westernesse, and Ireland are Sarazins 'Saracens' (40, 613, and, by implication, 88191). There could have been no memory of an invasion of the British Isles by any of the peoples belonging to the world of Islam to whom this term was applied.4 The only non-Christian invaders who came after the English them-