ABSTRACT

The text of Richard Coer de Lion (RCL) 1 falls into the genre of English crusading literature and is an anti-Saracen text of “forced conversion or kill.” It soon becomes apparent to both audience and reader, however, that this text contains an element not included in other texts of the same genre: 2 that of cannibalism. Acts perpetrated upon “others” considered to be so inferior that they can be eaten without qualms, like animals. It is my aim to show how cannibalism in RCL is presented and justified through two very vivid descriptions of the preparation and eating of Saracens, and that this motif, in the way it is presented in this text, epitomizes intolerance and contempt toward the Saracens as the temporal and spiritual “other.”