Le prince oriental dans le genre narratif français médiéval

Abstract For the medieval West, the distant and strange Orient was a source of mysterious fascination and dreamlike inspiration, which is still remembered in literary works. The East attracts medieval Western people with its wealth and its art of living, just as much as it frightens them with its cruel customs. For Western medieval man, the ‘pagans’ who populated these lands symbolised the Other par excellence, in their language, their religion and their way of life. Standing out from the anonymous mass with their strong character, the Saracen chieftains are not only present in the texts for the local colour: they are the enemy who must be triumphed over, converted, and whose women, lands and horses must be taken. Our corpus of verse novels and chansons de geste features these terrifying yet admirable characters. The aim of this article is to draw up a composite portrait of the Eastern chieftains featured in these narrative and epic texts, crystallising the battle between East and West: on the one hand, the Frankish knight, the Christian king, the perfect Western hero; on the other, the Muslim emir, the Saracen admiral, both cruel and aesthetic, the absolute enemy whose undeniable values were, despite everything, recognised by authors and jugglers.