Monstrous Fantasies

"In the wake of the Muslim capture of Acre in 1291, literary works began to circulate around Europe that fantasized not only about the Christian European reconquest of the Holy Land but the wholesale conversion or slaughter of the 'infidels' who lived there. In medieval England-the focus of this book-these texts repurposed Arthurian and Charlemagne legends and historical romances to give voice to this trauma, cultural anxiety, and murderous xenophobia, even influencing Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. "-