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adam_mcphee 's review for:
The Emperor and the Elephant: Christians and Muslims in the Age of Charlemagne
by Sam Ottewill-Soulsby
I really want to understand the Muslim polities in this time period as well as I understand the Carolingians and their Euro neighbours. It's still a fog but this book helped. There's some good stuff on Carolingian diplomacy in general, which I'd love to read more of. And does a good job of going beyond what kings were doing to show a more complex picture, which is something I really appreciate in Carolingian histories. Gave a more granular picture on stuff I sort of already knew about (Charlemagne sending money/support to Christians in the Abbasid Caliphate, the complex coalitions along the border marches between the Carolingians and Ummayyads).
Also it's funny how Charlemagne is seen as this crusading figure fighting Muslims on behalf of Christians, but that's not the case at all. He clearly sought friendship and alliances with Harun al-Rashid in the east, and in Spain the situation was so complex that it never narrowed down to a fight between one religion against another. I mean, Charlemagne's army fought one major battle in Spain, the biggest loss of his career, and it didn't involve Muslims on either side but rather Basques or proto-Basques who probably weren't Christian either! Charlemagne is such a weird character that way, its hard to pin him down: he probably deeply believed in Christianity but he was also using the church for his own ends and ignoring the parts that didn't work for him. He was both loved and resented for it (think about that monk's prophetic dreams of Charlemagne's genitals being gnawed by demons in hell). I dunno. Weird, fascinating guy.
Also it's funny how Charlemagne is seen as this crusading figure fighting Muslims on behalf of Christians, but that's not the case at all. He clearly sought friendship and alliances with Harun al-Rashid in the east, and in Spain the situation was so complex that it never narrowed down to a fight between one religion against another. I mean, Charlemagne's army fought one major battle in Spain, the biggest loss of his career, and it didn't involve Muslims on either side but rather Basques or proto-Basques who probably weren't Christian either! Charlemagne is such a weird character that way, its hard to pin him down: he probably deeply believed in Christianity but he was also using the church for his own ends and ignoring the parts that didn't work for him. He was both loved and resented for it (think about that monk's prophetic dreams of Charlemagne's genitals being gnawed by demons in hell). I dunno. Weird, fascinating guy.