Chapter 14 - War and Religion

Summary

In the literary field, the intertwinement of war and religion is nowhere as prominent as in epic poetry. Within the European horizon Christian-Muslim confrontations are prominent, not only in chansons de geste and in Renaissance epics, the standard highlights of literary history, but right back to early Muslim-Byzantine confrontations and Carolingian warfare in the Iberian Peninsula, as well as through the seventeenth and even the eighteenth centuries. This chapter explores ways in which epic poetry participates in spatial delineations and cultural articulations of Europe as a Christian realm from the Iberian Peninsula through the Mediterranean to Central and Eastern Europe. It also considers ways in which a variety of nuances may be detected beyond the overall religious framing of conflicts: empathy vis-à-vis the enemy may be articulated, and problematic behavior of national-imperial soldiery may be exposed; admiration for aspects of Muslim culture – and even for major enemies – may be articulated; furthermore commercial as well as other secular concerns (like piracy) may motivate warfare that is framed as religious.