[MR] Saracens

[Brett W. McCoy]

On Sun, 14 Apr 2002, Ginny Barnett wrote:

> I've received a request for information about Saracens, apparently in
> response to an incidental mention of them on one of the Marinus web pages.
> The gentleman lives in Minnesota and asked, "Who and when were Saracens?"
> and "What did their clothing look like?"  He's looking for web links.
>
> He also attached a sketch of clothing he thinks he remembers seeing in a
> book, and hoped I would be able to identify the clothing and who the people
> were.
>
> Is there someone on this list to whom I can refer him, or can anyone
> recommend someone I can send him to?  My knowledge about Saracens consists
> of being able to spell the word, and that's about it.

'Saracen' is a generic term used during the Crusades that refers to Middle
Eastern peoples (i.e., Muslims) hostile to the Christian crusaders.  In a
similar manner the Middle Eastern peoples used the term 'Franks' to refer
to Europeans or 'Romans' to refer to the peoples of Constantinople
(Byzantine, to use yhe non-period term). During the Crusades, the Saracens
meant Seljuks, Arabs, Persians, Kurds, etc.

A good resource for starting off on Middle Eastern research in the SCA is
http://www.al-mustarib.org.

A basic look at Seljuk Turk garb can be found here:

http://www-personal.une.edu.au/~tdawson/turk_man.html
http://www-personal.une.edu.au/~tdawson/turk_woman.html

-- Istvan
(who plays a Turkified Wallachian in the SCA)
                                          http://www.chapelperilous.net/
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God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to
change the things we can, and wisdom to know the difference.