Interpreters in Franco-Muslim Negotiations

Abstract

When the Franks invaded the eastern Mediterranean in the late eleventh century, they not only encountered peoples of different religions, cultures, and political regimes – they encountered peoples of different tongues. As a result, interpreters were vital in every conceivable arena of Muslim-Frankish interaction, including diplomacy, where language – even more than religion or politics – was the fundamental barrier to peace between rulers. Yet, despite their central role in the history of Muslim-Frankish diplomacy, interpreters are peripheral in the historiography. Modern historians, with a few recent exceptions, have shown little interest in uncovering the identities and roles of these often-invisible historical actors. This article is an attempt to move the interpreter-envoy from the periphery of crusader diplomacy (and historiography) to his rightful place in the center. I focus my arguments on the role of interpreter-envoys during the Third Crusade, a moment with particularly rich sources on Muslim-Frankish diplomacy in both Latin and Arabic. In the first sections of the article, I explore the question of identity: who typically functioned as diplomatic interpreters in the Third Crusade. In the final section, I explore the question of agency: how these interpreters were implicated in Muslim-Frankish diplomacy.