Interpolating Polemic: Islam, muslims, and Muhammad in Bernhard von Breidenbach’s late-Medieval pilgrimage account Peregrinatio in terram sanctam

Abstract

Whereas interpolation has been comprehensively examined in relation to itinerary passages in late medieval pilgrimage writing, this article examines it as a tool for anti-Islamic polemic in Bernhard von Breidenbach’s Peregrinatio in terram sanctam. The article centers on the (dis)continuities of polemical discourse on Islam, Muslims and the prophet Muhammad between the German version of the pilgrimage account first published in Mainz in 1486, and the Latin religious polemics it interpolates extensively, namely two texts by converso authors: Petrus Alfonsi’s Dialogus contra iudaeos and Paulus de Santa Maria’s Additiones ad Postillam Nicolai de Lyra. These comparative case studies reveal two complementary interpolative approaches. The first is to edit borrowed text passages to fit the argumentative structure of the target text. The second is to juxtapose borrowed text with original contrasting argumentation in the target text. Both contribute towards an argumentatively scathing and rhetorically emotive anti-Islamic polemic, which expands on the Latin canon of established tropes and arguments on which this vernacular pilgrimage account draws.