Translating the Crusades: Historical Legacies of the Orientalist Translation Movement

• Applicant: Dr. James Wilson
• Subject Area: Medieval History ; Islamic Studies, Arabian Studies, Semitic Studies ; Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 565228837

Published between 1872–1906, the five volumes of the Recueil des historiens des croisades: historiens orientaux contain abridged editions and French translations of medieval Arabic sources relating to the crusading period. This collection has influenced how generations of historians have engaged with Arabic-Islamic perspectives on the crusades, a key historical facet of Christian-Muslim relations. Even today, non-Arabists remain reliant upon the Recueil and other contemporaneous translations. In light of ongoing postcolonial debates in and beyond the field of medieval studies, these translations and their repercussions warrant detailed examination. On the one hand, the Recueil constitutes an academically reflected attempt to understand Muslim views on crusading phenomena and related cross-cultural interaction, and to make these views accessible to a wider scholarly public. On the other hand, some of the individuals involved in the project—such as Antoine-Isaac Silvestre de Sacy (1758–1838) and William McGuckin de Slane (1801–1878)—have been accused of allowing Orientalist and even colonialist sentiments to undermine the scholarly integrity of their work. In an exemplary case study of Ibn al-ʿAdīm’s (d. 1262) historical writings, the project not only gauges the “ideological” content of these translations. It also applies fundamental philological and codicological approaches of medieval studies to this long-neglected corpus by placing the translations side by side with the original manuscripts and critical editions. This comparative approach enables an evaluation of editorial choices—such as omissions—and their impact upon the narrative structures of the underlying texts. Through careful scrutiny of the translations’ paratexs, preparatory documents, draft editions, reports of pertinent academic meetings, and correspondence between scholars, publishers and political actors, the project also reconstructs how 19th-century political and academic institutions actively supported this movement, thereby conferring increased prestige upon the practice of Orientalist translation, while simultaneously entangling some of the translators in European colonial activities. Ultimately, this project argues that an ambiguous relationship between Medievalism, Orientalism and Eurocentric attitudes shaped the 19th-century curation of this diverse collection of Arabic texts, and their subsequent academic reception. In light of recent events affecting relations between Europe and the Arab sphere, and ongoing discourses surrounding migration and right-wing populism, the epistemological legacies of Orientalist scholarship have taken on a new resonance. By subjecting the Recueil to close scrutiny from a general perspective and on the basis of concrete case studies, this project contributes to objectifying polarised and politicised debates on the relevance and legacy of scientific projects produced in the heyday of Orientalist and colonialist thought.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants