570: Contacts with the Pre-Islamic Arab World in the Pilgrimage Report of Antoninus Placentinus

Abstract

The pilgrimage account of the anonymous man who is commonly known as “Antoninus” from Piacenza gives insights into a Latin-Christian perception of the pre-Islamic sphere. The pilgrim not only visited numerous places he had previously only known from the Bible, but also encountered Arab groups which he referred to as “Saracens.” These are portrayed as rather poor, pagan, and potentially aggressive desert dwellers. Unlike better-informed contemporaries, he seems to have known little about either the actual conditions of contemporary Arab groups, or their partial Christianisation.