ANTHROPOPHAGI AND EATERS OF RAW FLESH IN FRENCH LITERATURE OF THE

CRUSADE PERIOD: MYTH, TRADITION AND REALITY

Author(s): JILL TATTERSALL
Source: Medium Ævum , 1988, Vol. 57, No. 2 (1988), pp. 240-253
Published by: Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43629210

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 ANTHROPOPHAGI AND EATERS OF RAW FLESH IN FRENCH
LITERATURE OF THE CRUSADE PERIOD: MYTH, TRADITION
AND REALITY

The appearance of Montaigne's Des Cannibales , written c. 1578

simply reflect a growing popular interest in the New World. The e
marks the beginnings of a fundamental change in attitudes tow
inhabitants of distant regions, and their religion, customs and way of
evolution is epitomized in Montaigne's own disclaimer of traditiona
dice: 'chacun appelle barbarie ce qui n'est pas de son usage'.1 Mo
objectivity is the more striking in view of the especial revulsion that th
of anthropophagy arouses in any society in which human flesh is in t
taboo.
To thinkers of the Middle Ages such open-mindedness would not have
come naturally, and the Church's attitude to cannibalism was undoubtedly one
of abhorrence. However, the observations of mediaeval writers on the subject
are in practice surprisingly various and even, at times, difficult to assess. The
subject evidently exerted a grisly fascination over the public, as it does today,
but was expected to evoke different responses in different contexts. Peoples
with bizarre dietary habits, among them cannibals and eaters of raw flesh, are
mentioned in a wide range of vernacular French texts of the Crusade period;
yet the way in which they are presented is much influenced by literary
convention and formulaic diction. These races are, moreover, part of a cohort
of infinitely grotesque beings of outlandish appearance and customs whose
existence in remote regions of the globe was part of received love.2
A number of apparently distinct traditions existed, including one, inherited
from classical sources, of ritual murder and anthropophagy among Eastern
races; cannibalism among the tribes of Gog and Magog, a notion which
became incorporated in the Alexander legend; and the eating of raw animal or
human flesh by the Tartars, whose westward advance during the thirteenth
century caused widespread panic in Western Europe. In reality these and other
traditions prove to be curiously interlinked, offering an excellent illustration of
the mediaeval tendency to mingle indiscriminately the past and the present, the
religious and the secular, as well as to discount recent evidence in favour of
established ideas.
Different forms of cannibalism, arising from a variety of motivations, are
generally distinguished by anthropologists.3 The commonest may be outlined
as follows: first, 'need' cannibalism, when no other food is available, usually
felt to be more or less morally justifiable according to the desperation of the
situation; secondly, ritual or religious cannibalism - often a form of burial, it

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 Anthropophagi and Eaters of Raw Flesh 241

may also have a magic significance, as with the belief that a man w
hero's flesh will acquire some of his valour or that the revenge of a m
man's family may be forestalled if the victim is eaten; and, thi
'preference' or 'opportunity' sort of cannibalism, attributable to a sh
for human flesh. Linked with this is a fourth form of anthropophagy st
from a primitive level of culture which takes the view that human m
edible as any other. This form is more likely to be exocannibalistic: t
involve the eating of strangers. It is probably these last two types t
always aroused the greatest fear and horror among 'civilized'
Examples of all these forms are represented below, but they will for t
clarity be analysed in relation to the particular literary traditi
exemplify.
A large proportion of mediaeval geographical lore was, of course, inherited
from classical antiquity. Reports of Anthropophagi, Cyclopes and other cruel
and ferocious folk whose habitual, preferred or occasional diet is human flesh
or raw animal meat and blood occur not only in classical legend, as in Homer,
but in more didactic writings including those of Herodotus, Aristotle, Strabo
and Pliny. More significantly, they were taken up by such influential post-
classical Christian encyclopaedists as Soliņus in the third century ad and
Isidore of Seville in the seventh.4 Thus they found their way as standard
material into mediaeval treatises devoted to the physical world and its
inhabitants.

From the end of the twelfth century there was an increasing tendency to
translate or adapt learned encyclopaedic works from Latin into the vernacular
in order to make them available to a wider audience. This must have been due
at least in part to a growing desire for information about the outside world, a
taste aroused and fuelled by the Crusades and increased travel. Yet curiously
enough these popularizations continue to report ancient beliefs as if they
represent constant and unchanging facts. So, the present tense is used even to
describe distant tracts of territory about which no up-to-date information is
available. Some adaptors may, it is true, have been a little sceptical of accounts
of cannibalism. Brunetto Latini follows Isidore and Soliņus and their prede-
cessors in his description of the snowy wastes and vast uninhabited regions
lying eastward of the Scythian Ocean and the Caspian Sea: 'Apres i est la grant
deserte. Apres i sont Antropofagi, une gent mout aspres et mout fieres. Apres i
a une grandesime terre ki tote est plaine de bestes sauvages, si cruels ke l'on n'i
puet pas aler.'5 But, while Soliņus explains that the name of the race indicates
its cannibalistic ways, Brunetto says nothing directly of these. The highly
popular Image du monde , which drew on similar sources but was translated in
the mid-thirteenth century from a Latin original, is likewise unspecific as to
whether human flesh is included in the diet of the races living in the eastern
wastes surrounding the Earthly Paradise: 'La sont li jaiant et li chenilleu qui
deveurent tout et manjuent ausi com font leu et mainte autre male beste
sauvage.'6

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 242 Medium JEv um lvii.2

Other Old French texts based on learned sources are, however, more
explicit. Often they use their material for some symbolic or didactic purpose.
Isidore had mentioned the one-eyed Cyclopes as devourers of raw meat,
though not necessarily of human flesh (xi, iii, §16). A graphic account of the
Ciclopidés occurs in a vernacular moralizing version of Thomas of Cantimpré's
Liber de Monstruosis Hominibus Orientis.1 According to the poem, these cannibals
devour their victims alive:

Char ďomes menguent tos vis,

Le cors, les hances et le pis;
Le sane boivent, lapent con chien,
U je ne puis entendre bien.8

Another, similar race is compared to the guzzling, rapacious oppressors of the

poor (549-56). A gruesome account of 'preference' cannibalism occurs in the
version of the Alexander legend by Thomas of Kent, who draws chiefly on
Soliņus and Aethicus Ister for his lengthy portrait of oriental marvels. 9 Section
375, entitled ťDes Turs qe manguent genz e chiens', explains how the 'Turks'
live off raw, rotting flesh:

Al mestre regne ad gent qui sunt cruel e dure.

Maintenent lecherie de chescune luxure,
E vivent de char vive e de meinte ordure,
De chiens, de morticine e d'autre poreture,
E de totes [les] choses qe sunt contre nature.
Il sunt hidus e noirs e de grant estature;
Gorge[ie]nt de lur voiz, roe est lur parl[e]ure. (6019-25)

Accounts of ritual homicide and cannibalism, as reported in Herodotus and

Strabo and echoed by later encyclopaedists, also find their way into mediaeval
didactic texts on the physical world.10 They are again reported in the present
tense, as if still prevalent, but with relative impartiality. Brunetto Latini
continues to follow Soliņus closely, explaining that certain peoples kill and eat
their ageing fathers before they become ill or enfeebled - an act considered to
be of great piety ( Tresor , 1, exxii, §21). The Anglo-Norman Petite philosophie
merely reports the custom and explains Tel sunt tenu ke de ço faillent.'11 The
Image du monde is not quite sure whether to condemn or not: 'quant leur peres et
leur meres et leur autres parenz, que, quant il sont vieill et il sont près de
mourir, il les tuent et sacrefient soit a tort ou a droit, et en manjuent la char' (11,
ii, p. ni).
Perhaps surprisingly, it is Marco Polo, witness of so many strange customs,
who criticizes as ťun mout mauvés costumes' a similar practice which he
ascribes to the people of Dagroian (Sumatra). When a man or woman falls ill
soothsayers are called in to decide whether or not the patient will recover. If he
is condemned, professional executioners are sent for:
Ceste homes vienent e preinent lo malaides e li metent aucune chouse sor la boche, si que il
le font sofoger. Et quant il est mort, il le font cuire. E pui tuti les parens dou mors vienent

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 Anthropophagi and Eaters of Raw Flesh 243

e le menuient tout. Et si vous di qu'il menuient encore toutes les meroles que sunt de
les osse; e ce font il por ce que il ne velent que en remagne aucune sustance ...'2

This theme evidently took the fancy of the self-styled Sir John Mande
who embroidered on it in one section of his fantastical Voyage ent
'Comment il manguent leurs amis'.13
A garbled version of the same legend occurs in the French prose vers
formerly attributed to Rutebeuf, of the spurious Letter of Prester John.
separate traditions of 'preference' and ritual cannibalism have been fused
third has been added: the Gog and Magog legend. Listing the marvels of
East, the 'Priest' claims that in his domains dwell races which live off raw
both human and animal:

En l'autre partie dou desiert avons-nous houmes ki vivent de charcrue, ausi d'omme
coume de biestes; & saciés k'il ne doutent à morir: & quant uns des leur meurt, soit parens,
soit amis, il le menguent, & dient que c'est la mioudre chars qui soit; & li non de cele gent
sont Got & Magot, & Anich, Acherives, Parpho, Tenepi, Gaugamate, Agrimodi.'4

Now, according to early accretions to the Alexander story, the savage tribes of
Gog and Magog were pursued by Alexander and enclosed within a mountain
barrier. The theme is biblical in origin, deriving principally from Ezekiel
xxxviii-xxxix, but was greatly elaborated in early Jewish tradition.15 Thomas
of Kent gives a particularly graphic account of the evil habits of the tribes in
his version of the legend, and lists the various cannibalistic peoples descended
from Nimrod.16 Alexander himself rails against the devastation caused by Gog
and Magog and exclaims: 'De cestfe] ordure est trestuit le mond soillez',
warning his men of what will happen if the tribes are not defeated:
Il vendront as terres enbosoignez e irez,
Mangeront lur testes e lur meins e lur pez.
Al quer ay anguisse e dolur et pitez,
Car si ly bien decea est par eaux assaiez,
Toz les devoront cum leus aragez.
Ja tenent il char d'ome e le sane a deintez;
E s'il issent de ces mers, le mond est exiliez.'7

When the sides join battle, many of Alexander's men are eaten: their brains are
sucked out, their blood drunk and their flesh and bones devoured raw.
In this case the chronological perspectives are impossibly confused, with an
Old Testament myth transferred to a hero of antiquity and retold in mediaeval
terms. Yet this myth is found widely in texts outside the Alexander corpus, not
only in fictional works but also in authoritative didactic treatises describing the
physical world and its inhabitants. These, which derive their information from
Church Fathers such as Isidore as well as from the romance itself, refer to Gog
and Magog as still existing, as in the last two lines of this account:
Entre ce munt [Elbruz] e cele mer [Caspian]
Fist li rois Alisandre le fier

Gog e Magog si enfermer

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 244 Medium ¿Evum lvii.2

Ke il ne poent issir ne passer

Ce sunt une gent malostrue,
Ke humme e crue beste mang

This treatment of ancient notion

peculiar to the context; once san
uncritically, especially where the
up-to-date information was ava
authentic details of places he vi
Gog and Magog dwell beyond the
clear that their savage and cann
as a symbol of their unregenera
In several romances a composit
giant, as in Göemagog.10 Far fro
was evidently meant to denote e
For Gog and Magog were w
anthropophagous folk, on cert
century. To complicate matters
with the Ten Lost Tribes of Isra
supposedly enclosed in the Casp
with successive waves of barb
Goths and the Huns, an interest
tradition with contemporary ex
incursion of the Tartars - popula
into Eastern Europe in the thirt
with Gog and Magog, and to bel
of the Antichrist."
Here we come to a further merging of traditions, for in the Middle Ages it
was also thought by many that the Tartars (more correctly Tatars) or Mongols
were eaters of human flesh.23 Independently of the association with Gog and
Magog, this belief was in part simply a perpetuation of the ancient tradition
attaching to the Scythians. Accounts in Herodotus of their ritual cannibalism,
human sacrifice and sundry other dreadful practices had been echoed in one
form or another by, among others, Pliny, Soliņus and Isidore, who chose to
locate the Anthropophagi and/or Gog and Magog in or near Scythia.24
Thus it was not only the ignorant who accused the Tartars of cannibalism.
In a letter written in 1243 to the Archbishop of Bordeaux during the Mongol
invasion of Eastern Europe, Ivo of Narbonne declares that the Tartar
chieftains and their grotesque followers devour the bodies of their victims in
battle.25 Matthew Paris, quoting the letter, illustrates in gruesome detail the
spitting and roasting of one unfortunate captive and the beheading of another,
while a third sits bound by his wrists and hair to a tree. Dismembered limbs lie
about the ground.26
The very few travellers who actually went anywhere near the region itself
are rather more circumspect in what they say. Friar Rubruck, sent off on a

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 Anthropophagi and Eaters of Raw Flesh z45

missionary journey to the Great Khan in 1253, includes a lengthy ac

the Tartars in his report of his travels. In it he explains that in winter
any of their animals which happen to die, but makes no mention of
flesh. He does, however, claim that the Cumans, their close kin and
bours, have in the recent past resorted to cannibalism when fleeing f
Tartars.27 Carpini, dispatched on a similar mission shortly before R
merely remarks that the Tartars eat dogs, wolves, foxes and horses
addition human flesh 'when pushed by necessity' - probably nearer th
at least by the Crusade period.28 Of course, well-informed Latin acco
as these were unlikely to circulate widely.29 However, certain
historians who wrote in French also relate Tartar customs without a
the Tartars of cannibalism. In a detailed portrait of their way of life,
explains that they eat horseflesh for preference, brined and dried.50
consume the meat of dead animals, first putting it under their saddle
and preserve it. Robert de Clari too describes at length the habi
Cumans without mentioning cannibalism.51 These accounts seem refr
impartial and uncondemnatory compared to the biased portrait
constituted received opinion.
Certainly Marco Polo - who actually lived among the Mongols for
years - does not appear to accuse them of cannibalism. There i
confusion here, however, for he abruptly switches from an account
Great Khan and his court to the Tibetans, among whom, he says, ex
criminals are cooked and eaten.52 Marco also charges a number of oth
with preference' or 'opportunity' cannibalism, of which he disa
exceedingly. The people of Fugiu , 'les plus cruelz homes dou monde
enjoy human flesh provided the victim has died by the sword and n
natural causes.55 Ferocious in battle, they do their utmost to kill the
as to drink his blood and eat his flesh. Others capture foreigners and
only if they cannot ransom them: 'or ce est mult mavese mainere e
usance'.54 Marco also relates an expedition to man-eating parts of Su
during which he and his shipmates were forced to build a palisade t
them during the night from the local inhabitants.55
These didactic or pseudo-didactic texts, although they may disa
detail, transmit the same traditions and display quite predictable atti
the eating of human and raw animal flesh, ranging according to circu
from tacit disapproval to revulsion and outright condemnation. In t
French epic, less constrained by orthodox lore and more open to inve
fantasy, attitudes are harder to fathom.56 The subject-matter of the c
geste is dominated by conventional themes and modes of expression. O
cliché involves the portrayal of strange folk, often Saracen combatan
dress, diet and way of life. Races who live off raw animal meat and
appear from time to time among them, the practice being associated
with a primitive and savage way of life but also with regions where n
vines grow. In Huon de Bordeaux , a tere des Commains is visited by th

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 246 Medium íEvum lvii. 2

C'est une gent qui ne goustent

Mais le car crue, comme gainon
Tot adés gisent au vent et a l'o
Plus sont velu que viautre ne se
De lour orelles sont tout aco veté.
Li vasaus Hues les a moult redotés.'7

Even allowing for epic exaggeration, this is not incompatible with the
apparently authentic portrait of the Cumans by Robert de Clari, already
mentioned; their diet of raw flesh and horses' blood is also referred to in the
Liber de Monstruo sis Hominibus earlier quoted. But while in the epic there is
often a grain of fact in these reminiscences of enemies of long ago, the
geographical or topographical attributions tend to be wildly inaccurate or
incongruous. In La Mort Ajmeri de Narbonne , for example, a diet of raw meat
and blood is ascribed to a race of Sagittarii or centaurs who trade in spices -
and who live on the outskirts of Narbonne!

N'ont giens de blé qu'onques mie n'en vivent,

N'onques de pain ne virent une mie;
Mès la lor terre est essillie et gastie,
Et les forez plenieres et garnies
D'ors et de cers et d'autre venerie.

Li Sajetaire les bersent et ocient,

La char manjuent que il ne cuisent mie,
Et lo sane boivent, plus que vin le desi rent.' 8

On occasion Christian forces fear they may be eaten if they do not win their
battle. The Saracen Emir in Floovant favours torture and ritual cannibalism to
encourage his troops, as the French are warned:
... vos ferai morir
Et detraire a chevaus et les manbres tolir,
Puis vos ferai toz pandre, ardoir et anfoïr.
De la poudre ferai doner as Sarazins:
En bataile chanpaul an saront plus ard[i]z.»9

In La Chanson de Guillaume the Christian forces are ambushed by those of

Desramé and fifteen Saracen kings, who are reputed to eat people 'cun dragun
e lepparť.40 The theme is taken up in the Prise ď Orange, in which Bertran,
afraid that William will be recognized by the Saracens in his disguise, warns his
uncle 'Mengeront vos sanz pain et sanz farine' - perhaps merely a phrase
equivalent to they'll eat you alive!'41 Another epic cliché is the hideous black
Saracen giant with glowing red eyes; an occasional variant is the man-eating
ogre.42 There seems an appreciable element of ghoulish jocularity in these
descriptions, as in the Tee, fie, foe, fum' of folk-tales.
The recognizably folk element of sudden gruesome, frightening and cruel
interpolations in otherwise simple or banal narratives is, rather surprisingly,
also found in more courtly literature. The most obvious example is the
her^maere motif involving an unwitting act of cannibalism which the protago-

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 Anthropophagi and Eaters of Raw Flesh 247

nist is tricked into committing against a lover or close relative. A va

ancient Atreus-Thyestes legend, the theme occurs not only in two O
lais (one lost) but also in a full-length romance, Le Châtelain de Couc
an unfaithful wife is, without her knowledge, given the heart of h
eat by her vengeful husband.43 The story, moreover, is here attache
known historical figure. Its essence is tragic rather than hum
realization of the truth induces the utmost horror in the dupe, w
consequences. It also seems, at first sight, surprising to encounter ca
rites in a Grail romance, as in the thirteenth-century Perlesva
Gurgaran, a pagan king, boils his son's body, cuts it up and distribu
to all in the land.44 This is to forget not only the dependence of suc
traditional story-matter, but also the readiness of their public to a
most unspeakable customs with non-Christians. Added to these wer
familiarity with the rituals of death, and a lesser squeamishness resu
(for example) the often desperate measures taken to preserve the
notables who died while abroad or on a journey.45
Stranger still are accounts of cannibalistic Saracens in a small nu
Crusade poems purporting to describe the events of the recen
fragment of a rhymed 'history' of the First Crusade contains the
portrait:
Seignors, d'utre le Nil, d'une terre boschage,
I vindrent une gent de mult laid façonage:
Groinz et oreilles ont comme beste salvage,
Et soies comme pors, nel tenez a folage ...
Et manjuent l'un l'autre quant il lur a corage.46

The Conquête de Jérusalem , a work supposedly based on eyewitness authority

but subsequently reworked, also gives numerous details of a series of bizarre
peoples described as having fought with the Saracens in the First Crusade.47
There are hairy men and giants; also a beaked folk (the Espec) who pull out the
entrails of their victims with their claws (8043-7). Another race eats rotting
human flesh. These people have mouths and teeth in their stomachs:
Che sont et Gauffre, et Bogre et Cheneleu pullent.
Quant li hom est porris, si le menjue ou vent.
As poitrines lor tienent li menton et li dent. (8130-2)

There is a grim authorial warning: 'Se Damledex n'en pense, par son
conmandement,/Chist feront de no pople moult grant destruiemenť (8141-2).
Curiously enough, these cannibals again belong to learned, not popular,
tradition - to the catalogues of monstrous beings inhabiting the remoter parts
of the world transmitted via Pliny and others. But they were no doubt
included for their exotic as well as their learned connotations, although it is
hard to guess how far they were believed in, and how far intended to evoke
either fear or laughter.
There was, however, a particular reason why Christian accounts of the First
Crusade might have sought to blacken the Saracen opposition, and in

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 248 Medium JEv um lvii. 2

particular to accuse the 'pagans' of

rumours undoubtedly circulated a
Christian side during this same C
designed to distract attention from
episode for the French.
It is now acknowledged as fact
probably again later at the siege o
contingent ate human flesh.48 Th
Sumberg in an article on the Tafu
the main army, pillaging and
nominally under the control of its
demoted Norman squire. While th
Sumberg believed, various contem
silent on the subject, as indeed hav
According to Raymond d'Aguilers
dered the rotting Saracen corpses
but also appalled Frankish public
turn back from the campaign.51 Ye
by the two Old French poems L
Jérusalem , neither of which could
two works form a chronological se
twelfth-century remaniement by
later re workings of the cycle, th
increasingly exaggerated.52 Repea
Saracens that they will be eaten if t
a sinister and ferocious mob with
dens c'alesne, ne ponçon:/Voiés co
30). The actual episodes of canniba
more accurate historically, claims
events by one Richard le Pèlerin.5
documented famine) the Tafur , d
Hermit to ask him what to do. Pe
terms:
'C'est par vo lasqueté!
Alés, prandés ces Turs qui là sont par cel pré,
Bon ierent a mangier s'il sont quit et salé.'
Et dist li rois Tafurs: 'Vos dites vérité.' (4046-9)

Of course, the poem may be incorrect in attributing to Peter a dir

responsibility for what followed. It seems more likely that, his control over
mob being uncertain, he was forced to condone or ignore its actions. In t
successive laisses the gruesome preparations are retailed with gusto:
Les Turs ont escorciet, s'en ont le quir osté,
En l'eve et el rostier ont le car quisiné;
Assez en ont mangiet, mais de pain n'ont gosté ....
A lor couteis qu'il ont trençans et afilés

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 Anthropophagi and Eaters of Raw Flesh 249

Escorçoient les Turs, aval parmi les prés;

Voiant paiens, les ont par pieces decolpés,
En l'eve et es carbons les ont bien quisinés.
Volentiers les menjuent, sans pain, tos dessalés;
Et dist Ii uns a l'autre: 'Molt est cis savourés,
Mius vaut que cars de porc ne que bacons ullés,
Dehés ait qui morra tant corn en ait assés'. (4052-4, 4068-75)

The Turks smell the roasting flesh, and the poet dwells on their horr
grisly relish:
De cel furent paien durement esfreé;
Por le flair de la car sont al mur acouté,
De .XX. mil paiens sont li ribaut regardé,
K'il n'i a un seul Turc qui n'ait des iex ploré;
De lor gent qu'il manjuent ont grant dol demené:
Ahi! Mahomet sire, com grande cruelté!
Quar prent de cels ven janee qui si t'ont vergondé,
Quant il te gent manjuent, tot t'ont despersoné,
Ço ne sont pas François, ainçois sont vif malfé.
Mahomés les maldie et lor crestïenté!

Quar s'il le puent faire, tot sommes vergondé!' (4055-65)

Intoxicated by the Saracens' distress, the ribaut go on to violate Turkish

graves in the nearby cemeteries, throwing the corpses into the river or
skinning them. It is difficult to pin down the exact tone here, especially as the
work is the product of more than one hand and the manuscripts suggest
varying attitudes to the Tafur The poem continues with an anecdote to the
effect that Godfrey of Bouillon, arriving on the scene, laughingly gave the roi
Tafur a bottle of good wine to complete the feast (4096-106). While atrocities
on both sides are amply attested during this Crusade, there is no record in
Christian chronicles of any cannibalistic act perpetrated by a Saracen.56 The
verve with which the ruffians' activities are recounted is all the more striking.
True, they are shown as a fearsome mob, and S. Duparc-Quioc maintains that
Richard the Pilgrim speaks of them 'sans complaisance';57 it is true also that in
Jérusalem , where their role is played up, no cannibalistic act occurs, the
rumours circulating in the Saracen camp being merely reported without
denial. But, while the actions are seen to be horrible, there is no real
suggestion, in this popular version of events, that they are deeply discredit-
able, especially in the context of a Holy War. Perhaps the Tafur are felt already
to have achieved legendary status, with consequent exemption from ordinary
moral standards.
The theme was evidently not without its attraction. A Middle English poem
on the life of Richard Coeur de Lion transfers the tradition to the Third
Crusade.'8 Here the theme of cannibalism is treated at great length and is the
source of much humour at the Saracens' expense. Richard, lying seriously ill in
the Holy Land, cannot eat or drink but has a craving for pork. Since none is to
be had, he is instead given Saracen 'long pig', whereupon he makes an instant

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25o Medium My um lvii. 2

recovery. Soon after, he demands

corpse. 59 Far from being revol
psychological warfare and enterta
which every guest is served wit
marked with the victim's name. N
in the Anglo-Norman Crusade and
Latin chronicles.60 Though not to
rather surprisingly casts no slur
Raoul de Houdenc's allegorical 'dre
explains that in hell even the furn
sinners, whose bodies also yield a s
sauce, fat juicy usurers larded with
heretic, fried lawyers' tongues, pr
In summary, diverse traditions an
together. Reports of the geograph
ingly transmitted by writers of th
largely unchanged into authoritat
some of the grotesque races there
participated in recent events. To
doubt unjustly, habits associated w
Travellers such as Clari or Joinvill
brutishness of some Tartar custom
cannibalism. Yet many learned and
of Authority, to base their asserti
far as general attitudes are concer
operation. On the one hand, horro
and their reported treatment of
two popular narratives purport
Christians on a Christian mission
Moreover, if the situation arose
calculated sadism of the Tafur in c
Turks - thereby making a highly
As Raymond d'Aguilers suggested
horrifying to Christian onlooker
played as scenes of high comedy. T
assimilating the affair into Crusad
forgotten by some chroniclers. It is
macabre, almost sadistic vein of
works, a fact which would help to
would the popular animosity ag
dismissed en masse as no better t
Antioche when Saracen flesh is lik
Elsewhere, as seen, the eating of
large associated only with savage o
ritual endocannibalism as practised

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 Anthropophagi and Eaters of Raw Flesh 25 1

Extreme hardship is a great breaker-down of taboos. Famines were

common in the Middle Ages, and the terrible one of 103 1, when can
seems to have been rife, was not too distant a memory.65 Recollectio
sort must have had a twofold effect. To begin with, to know of
cannibalism close to home and near in time - albeit in extreme circumstances -
must have made the practice seem altogether less remote and improbable. At
the same time, people's deep-seated revulsion, especially insofar as it was based
on fear, may well have been thereby enhanced. It is debatable whether, from
the potential victim's standpoint, endocannibalism is any less horrific than
exocannibalism. In any case, here was an added reason for making light of the
subject, for converting fear into laughter. Remote tribes practising barbaric
rites might be viewed with lofty condemnation; cannibalism closer at hand, in
fact or fiction, elicited a treatment altogether more ambivalent.

Dept of French JILL TATTERSALL

University of Leicester

NOTES

1 Montaigne, Essais, i, xxxi.

2 On the widespread belief in their existence, see J. Block Friedman, The Monstrous
Medieval Art and Thought (Cambridge, Mass.; London, 1981).
» See, e.g., the discussion in The Encyclopaedia of Religion , ed. by Mircea Eliade (Ne
London, 1987), s.v. cannibalism.
4 C. lulii Solini Collectanea Rerum Mirabilium , ed. by Th. Mommsen (Berlin, 1895; repr. 1
XV, iv passim' l, i-ii; Isidoři Hispalensis Etymologiae sive Originum Libri XX, ed. by W. M
2 vols. (Oxford, 191 1), 11; ix, ii, §132. For selected references in Greek authors, see H. G
and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon , rev. edn (Oxford, 1940; repr. 1961), s.v. àv(ppC07
C. T. Lewis and C. Short, A Latin Dictionary (Oxford, 1859; repr. 195 1), give references
Pliny.
' Livres dou tresor , ed. by F. J. Carmody (Berkeley; Los Angeles, 1948), 1, cxxii, §§15-16.
6 L'Image du monde de Maitre Gossouin , ed. by O. H. Prior (Lausanne, 191 3), 11, ii (p. no).
7 Eine altfranņpsische moralisierende Bearbeitung des Liber von Thomas von Cantimpré, ed. by A. Hilka,
Abhandlungen der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Kl. 3, no. 7 (Berlin, 1933); in
the Image du monde, p. 112 and Introduction, p. 40, the Cyclopes are inoffensive, having been
confused with the parasol-footed Sciapodes.
8 Liber von Thomas von Cantimpré , ed. Hilka, 1455-8: a comparison is made with certain
overweening prelates.
9 The Anglo-Norman ' Alexander', ed. by B. Foster, 2 vols., ANTS (Oxford, 1976-7); on the
sources of the oriental wonders, see II, 63.
10 Cf. De Imagine Mundi , i, xi ( PL , CLXXII, cols. 115-18); Strabo, iv, v, §4, reports (without
vouching for) ritual cannibalism among the Irish, as well as mentioning the Scythians and certain
instances of 'need' cannibalism; Herodotus, hi, xxxviii, gives the story of Darius, who shocked the
Greeks by telling them that the Callatiae (an Indian tribe) ate their dead parents, and then shocked
the Callatiae by telling them that the Greeks burned their dead parents; cf. also Soliņus, xv, xiii;
LII, Xviii-XXV.
11 Petite Philosophie , ed. by W. H. Trethewey, ANTS (Oxford, 1939), pp, 593_6. Cf. also Perot de
Garbelei's Divisiones Mundi , ed. by O. H. Prior (Cambridge, 1924), 11. 405-12.
IZ Marco Polo, 7/ Milione' , prima edizione integrale , ed. by L. F. Benedetto (Florence, 1928), clxix (p.
173); see also Henry Yule's note in his edition and translation of The Book of Ser Marco Polo the
Venetian concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the East , new edn, rev. Henri Cordier, 2 vols.
(London, 1903), II, 298.

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 252 Medium JEvum lvii.2

'» Mandeville's Travels , ed. by M. Letts,

342-6); the Paris text, in the original Fr
14 Text in Oeuvres completes de Rutebeu
359); cf. also the verse version by Roau ď
des Briefes des Presbyters Johannes' b
620-36).
■' See G. Cary, The Medieval Alexander, ed. by D. J. A. Ross (Cambridge, 1956), pp. 18, 130-1.
16 Anglo-Norman Alexander , ed. Foster, cxlviii, entitled 'De Gog e de Magog qui mangerent la
gent'.
17 Ibid. 11. 6338, 6345-51; other versions give less graphic accounts.
Ig Petite Philosophie , ed. Trethewey, 11. 557-62; cf. Image, 11. ii (p. in).
■9 Histoire de St Louis , ed. by N. de Wailly, new edn (Paris, 19 14), §473.
20 See L.-F. Flutre, Table des noms propres ... dans les romans du moyen âge (Poitiers, 1962), pp. 89, 93.
21 See A. R. Anderson, Alexander's Gate , Gog and Magog, and the Inclosed Nations (Cambridge, Mass.,
1932), pp. 87-8; Guillaume de Roubrouck : Voyage dans l'Empire mongol , trans, by Claude and René
Kappler (Paris, 1985), pp. 270-2.
11 See C. W. Connell, 'Western views of the origin of the "Tartars": an example of the influence of
myth in the second half of the thirteenth century', Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies , III
(1973), 115-37.
2' Cf. Yule, Marco Polo , I, 313, although Connell, 'Western views', says very little of this
reputation. The term 'Tartar' attached all the more readily to the Mongols in view of the popular
etymology associated with it (from 'Tartarus', hell).
24 Pliny, Natural History , ed. and trans, by H. Rackham et al ., 10 vols., Loeb Classical Library
(Cambridge, Mass., 1938-62; repr. 1967), vii, ii, 512; Soliņus, Collectanea , xv, passim' Isidore,
Etymologiae , ix, ii; xiv, iii. 'Scythia' was used in antiquity to mean all regions to the north and
north-east of the Black Sea, i.e. beyond the civilized world.
25 See Yule, Marco Polo , I, 313.
26 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 16, f. i66r. Other references to similar grisly practices
are in Yule, Marco Polo , I, 3 1 2-1 3; W. W. Rockhill, The Journey of William of Rubruck to the Eastern
Parts of the World, njj-jj, as Narrated by Himself Hakluyt Society, 2nd ser., 4 (London, 1900;
repr. New York, 1967), pp. 63-4 n. 3.
27 Guillaume de Rubrouck, trans. Kappler, pp. 88, 148. On the identity of the Cumans or
Polovtsians, see ibid., pp. 259-60. The most recent edition of the Latin text is by A. Van den
Wyngaert OFM, in Sinica Franciscana , Vol. I (Florence, 1929), pp. 164-332.
28 See Rockhill, Journey of William Rubruck , p. 63 n. 3.
*9 See, e.g., G. H. T. Kimble, Geography in the Middle Ages (London, 1938), p. 135.
»° Histoire de Saint Louis , xcv ( Historiens et chroniqueurs du moyen âge , ed. by A. Pauphilet (Bruges,
1952), p. 315).
»' Robert de Clari, La Conquête de Constantinople , ed. by Ph. Lauer, CFMA (Paris, 1924), lxv,
11. 12-38.
}2 '// Milione ', ed. Benedetto, clxxv (p. 182). Marco may therefore intend this description to apply
to the Mongols, although Rubruck also mentions cannibalism - though of a ritual sort - in
connection with the Tibetans, claiming, however, that they have given up their former practice of
eating their dead parents through piety, while still (according to eyewitness evidence) converting
their skulls into fine drinking-cups (Rockhill, Journey of William of Rubruck , p. 151 and n. 2).
» Ibid- clxi (p. 166).
54 Ibid., clxix (p. 174).
» Ibid., clxvii (p. 171).
>6 It must be remembered that a less clear divide existed between fiction and non-hction in
mediaeval literature. Apart from other factors, Alexander, Arthur and Charlemagne and their
followers - heroes of numerous epics and romances - were, or were regarded as, historical, and
while one cannot say that all the exploits, often highly fanciful, attributed to them were believed,
neither can one say that they were actively disbelieved.
'7 Huon de Bordeaux, ed. by P. Ruelle (Brussels, i960), 11. 2915-20.
'8 La Mort Aymeri de Narbonne, ed. by J. Couraye du Parc, SATF (Pans, 1884), 11. 2442-9.

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 Anthropophagi and Eaters of Raw Flesh 25 3

»9 Floovant , ed. by S. Andolf (Uppsala, 1941), 11. 1839-43.

40 Chanson de Guillaume , ed. by D. McMillan, 2 vols., SATF (Paris, 1949-50), 11. 1716-
41 Prise ď Orangé , ed. by C. Régnier, 4th edn, Bibliothèque française et romane (Paris,
and note.

4î See, e.g., Aliscans, ed. by F. Guessard and A. de Montaiglon, APF (Paris, 1870; repr. New
York, 1966), 11. 5821-4, 6468-72.
4' Jake mes: Le Roman du Caste lain de Coucy et de la dame de F ay el , ed. by J. E. Matzke and
M. Delbouille, SATF (Paris, 1936). Further bibliographical information on the motif is in
K. Voretzsch, Introduction to the Study of Old French Literature, trans, by F. J. Du Mont (Halle,
193 1), pp. 266, 336, 421.
44 Perlesvaus , ed. by W. A. Nitze and T. A. Jenkins, 2 vols. (Chicago, 1932-7), Branch vi, 11. 2061-6.
The intention that the flesh be eaten, though not explicitly stated, is generally accepted. For likely
symbolism, see Thomas E. Kelly, Le Haut livre du Graal : Perlesvaus (Geneva, 1974), pp. 94-5.
45 See, e.g., M. Wade Labarge, Medieval Travellers : the Rich and the Restless (London, 1982),
pp. 195fr.
46 'Un récit en vers français de la première croisade fondé sur Baudri de BourgueiP, ed. by
P. Meyer, Romania , V (1876), 1-63 (2e morceau, 11. 67fr.).
47 La Conquête de Jérusalem , ed. by C. Hippeau, Collection des poètes français du moyen age (Pans,
1868); see also n. 2 above.
48 The contemporary sources on the episode, which form incontrovertible proof, have been
assembled in J. Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading (London, 1986), pp. 66, 181
n. 45.
4* L. A. M. Sumberg, 'The "Tafur" and the First Crusade', Mediaeval Studies , XXI (1959), 224-46.
'° E.g., S. Runciman, A History of the Crusades , Vol. I (Cambridge, 195 1; repr. Harmondsworth,
1965), although (following Anna Comnena), Runciman refers (pp. 128, 227-8) to the tradition that
at Nicaea the French 'roasted babies on spits' as well as later exhuming recently buried Turkish
corpses to rob them of their valuables. The best-known contemporary source of the episode at the
siege of Ma'arrat is Guibert de Nogent ( Historia Occidentalis, iv (p. 242 A)), who was familiar with
the anonymous Gesta Francorum : see S. Duparc-Quioc, La Chanson d'Antioche: Etude critique ,
2 vols., Documents relatifs à l'histoire des croisades, 11 (Paris, 1977-8), II, 210-11.
>' Le 'Liber* de Raymond ď Aguiler s, ed. by J. H. and L. L. Hill (Paris, 1969), p. 10 1.
51 Cf. L. A. M. Sumberg, La Chanson d'Antioche: Etude historique et littéraire (Paris, 1968), pp. 254fr.;
also S. Duparc-Quioc, Le Cycle de la Croisade (Paris, 195 5), p. 51.
" La Conquête de Jérusalem , ed. Hippeau, 11. 5806-9, 6428, 6766-7, 6788.
54 La Chanson d'Antioche , ed. Duparc-Quioc, I.
» E.g., the trouvère of MS D seems to like the Tafur , leaving out the remark 'Orible gent estoit'
(8928) and exaggerating their appetite, while MS C is less approving: cf. 11. 4115-18.
>6 Cf. Sumberg, 'The "Tafur"', p. 241 n. 77.
" La Chanson ď Antioche , ed. Duparc-Quioc, II, 217.
58 Der mittelenglische Versroman über Richard Löwenher ed. by Karl Brunner (Vienna, 191 3).
" Ibid., pp. 250fr. Cf. Galen, who said that human flesh is like pork and that Roman innkeepers
and butchers swindled their customers by giving them human meat: see L. Casson, Travel in the
Ancient World (London, 1974), p. 215.
60 The Crusade and Death of Richard I, ed. by R. C. Johnston, ANTS (Oxford, 1961).
61 In this, the Middle English poem is distinctly unusual: other episodes of cannibalism in Middle
English works lack humour, despite some affinities with the Old French epic. Extreme need is
evoked in the Siege of Jerusalem , ed. by E. Kolbing and M. Day, EETS, os, 188 (London, 1932):
here, in a scene of tragic pathos, a mother is driven to eat her own child (11. 1077-96). In the
alliterative Morte Arthure , ed. by John Finlayson (London, 1967), 11. 844-51, the practice is
attributed to a monstrous being, the giant of St Michael's Mount, who has a taste for human flesh
and has devoured 500 men and women and as many babies over seven winters.
61 Le Songe ď Enfer, ed. by P. Lebesgue (Paris, 1908; repr. Geneva, 1974), 11. 422fr.
6> Cf. Sumberg, 'The "Tafur"', pp. 245-6.

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