Cluny and the Muslims of La Garde-Freinet: Hagiography and the Problem of Islam in Medieval Europe

In the summer of 972 a group of Muslim brigands based in the south of France near La Garde-Freinet abducted the abbot of Cluny as he and his entourage crossed the Alps en route from Rome to Burgundy. Ultimately, the abbot was set free, but the audacity of this abduction outraged Christian leaders and galvanized the will of local lords. Shortly thereafter, Count William of Arles marshaled an army and succeeded in wiping out the Muslim stronghold.

The monks of Cluny kept this tale alive over the next century. Scott G. Bruce explores the telling and retelling of this story, focusing on the representation of Islam in each account and how that representation changed over time. The culminating figure in this study is Peter the Venerable, one of Europe's leading intellectuals and abbot of Cluny from 1122 to 1156, who commissioned Latin translations of Muslim texts such as the Qur'an. Cluny and the Muslims of La Garde-Freinet provides us with an unparalleled opportunity to examine Christian perceptions of Islam in the Crusading era.

Scott G. Bruce is Professor of Medieval History at Fordham University in the Bronx, New York. He is the author of Silence and Sign Language in Medieval Monasticism and editor of Ecologies and Economies in Medieval and Early Modern Europe.