Conversing with the enemy: miraculous encounters between Christians and Muslims in the Italo-Greek saints' Lives

Abstract

The Italo-Greek saints’ Lives from early medieval southern Italy have been viewed as evidence for violent opposition between Christians and Muslims in the area. I argue instead that these texts demonstrate ambivalence toward the Muslim presence: while painting Muslims as frightening and violent outsiders, they also depict them as capable of engaging in extended and mutually beneficial conversations with Christians. Analysis of selected such episodes complicates our perspective on cross-confessional encounters in early medieval southern Italy, showing that they could encompass both peace and violence and that mutual intelligibility was the presumed basis for interpersonal encounters. These hagiographical depictions of Muslim–Christian conversations also reveal the nature and process of mutual intelligibility, whether through speech, writing, or bodily gesture.