ABSTRACT
The following chapter, which might be called ‘Frankish scenes and Frankish customs, seen through the eyes of a Muslim’, consists largely of extracts from the celebrated Autobiography of Usama ibn Munqidh, the gallant and cultured amīr of Shaizar whose life spanned almost the whole of the first century of the Crusades. His memoirs, a rich jumble of juicy anecdotes and references to historical events, are stuffed with passages recalling his encounters with the Franks in peace and in war, passages in which hostility, curiosity and sympathy appear in turn. These little episodes are sometimes delightfully paradoxical, and offer a welcome relief from the monotonous scenes of warfare that fill the pages of the professional historians.
