Eating enemies, eating sins

Abstract

Anthropophagy in the Eracles Italian vulgarizationOf the various types of cannibalism that occurred in the Middle Ages several can be found in the Crusade chronicles. This paper aims to introduce some of the anthropophagic episodes featured in the First Crusade reports. The text instigating this research is a Tuscan vulgarization of the Histoire d'Eracles. The Latin work by William of Tyre -Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum -was written between 1169 and 1184 and was amply translated in Old French at the beginning of the thirteenth century 1 . The original chronicle reported facts dating back from 1095 until the author's death, whereas the French translation was complemented with events that occurred up until 1291; these continuations are tightly bound to the Chronique d'Ernoul et Bernard le Trésorier, a chronicle of the events of Outremer written by a supporter of the Ibelin family and later reworked 2 . This new text, composed of the translation from William's Historia and its continuations, is called Eracles 3 . The French tradition of the Eracles comprises approximately 46 manuscripts 4 , whereas, as far as