UCLA

This project considers the representations of conversion from what is known as the “Saracen” faith to Latin Christianity in chansons de geste from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It examines how narratives of religious conversion negotiate interfaith differences as while reflecting imperialist, conquest ideologies in La Chanson de Guillaume, Fierabras, La Destruction de Rome, and Les Enfances Renier. I reveal that converts function as experimental entities with whom Latin Christian writers construct (and construct) gender ideals, elide genealogical taboos, service imperialist ideologies, and even make historiographical contributions.

These sources appear to champion Latin Christian supremacy, but I argue that they betray deep-seeded anxieties about the realities of the twelfth- and thirteenth-century Kingdom of France’s situation and ambivalence vis-�-vis thriving Islamic societies located east across the Mediterranean and in the south across the Pyrenees. While these texts contain narratives of conversion and cultural assimilation, they speak to the exigencies of their socio-historical moment all while thinking through and recounting militaristic campaigns of the eighth through eleventh centuries. In this way, conversion narratives are historiographically significant. Literature lends its voice to the historical landscape – one that speaks to burgeoning medieval French hopes, anxieties, and ideals in the face of human difference. It turns to the past to make sense of the present.

The three chapters of this dissertation reveal that there is no singular, universal way that these writers depict conversion and how converts become part of their new religious community. Ambivalence is a major hallmark of conversion narratives, offering valuable insights into the complex ways Latin Christian writers grapple with difficult questions about identity and handling human difference. I see this ambivalence as a reflection of the dynamic heterogeneity of the medieval Mediterranean and the interfaith encounters that the sea and its shores host. On one hand, conversion promises change and acceptance, yet on the other there are moments of distrust and discord. This dissertation embraces the ambiguity to look at how it relates to medieval French difficulties around how to articulate and to understand a sense of self in the face of a broader, multicultural landscape. By focusing on the various ways that conversion narratives unfold, I reveal how they articulate ways to think about identity, community formation, and belonging.