By Ian Quinn (Fall 2022)
It is only through time the most staggering warnings are proved to be perceived as such. And while The King of Tars is mere fiction among real-world events dealing with the same issues, its presentation of them successfully displays a story that is as grim a warning sign as any history book. The depiction of religious prejudice and forced conversion in The King of Tars exhibits the societal values of the time of its creation through rather timeless racist and devout beliefs.
Before diving into what the work implies through its story, it would be beneficial to know how said story goes. The romance begins with the Sultan of Damascus sending his messengers to the King of Tars, with the goal of proposing marriage to the former’s daughter, the Princess of Tars. This request is denied as the King will not have his daughter marry a person of pagan faith when she is already a devout Christian. Upon hearing this, the Sultan gathers his army and attacks the Christians with overwhelming force and success. Seeing the tragedy her refusal has caused, the Princess agrees to the Sultan’s proposal of marriage, who wholeheartedly agrees and takes her to his Damascus. However, they are not married immediately due to the Sultan’s grievance about the Princess’s Christian faith. On the first night, she sleeps alone and dreams of black dogs and demons harassing her. Then, one of the dogs who had chased her through her dream suddenly turns into Jesus Christ. He promises her his help and not to fear the Sultan’s paganism. The next day, the Sultan takes the Princess to his temple, ordering her to convert to his religion or have her father and therefore his kingdom destroyed. Seemingly without any other option, she agrees and kisses every deity idol to signify her conversion. However, the Princess remains a Christian in secret and prays every night when she is alone. The couple is soon married, and the Princess eventually becomes pregnant. When the baby is delivered, it is a mass of dead flesh with no bones or human features. Enraged, the Sultan blames the child’s state on the princess’s lack of faith. However, after failing to bring life to the baby with his prayers, he becomes disillusioned, offering the Princess to convert to Christianity if a priest of the faith can perform the miracle. The Sultan asks for a priest named Cleophas, who was found as one of his prisoners. The priest christens the deformed child who then transforms into a living and perfectly healthy being. To keep his side of the deal, the Sultan agrees to learn the Christian faith from the priest. Eventually, he chooses to have a baptism, which causes his skin to change from black to white. The Sultan then invites the King of Tars to Damascus with the goal of having all his people convert to Christianity. The King brings his army and is joyfully reunited with his daughter. Much of Damascus converts to the Christian faith whereas the rest are executed. The neighboring Saracen kingdoms soon declare war on the Sultan for his conversion, but they are swiftly defeated even with their superior numbers. The defeated kingdoms undergo Christian conversions of their own, with the people who refuse to be executed as well.
The King of Tars is in the form of chivalric romance, a popular kind of literature from the Medieval Europe originating in the 12th century. The text was originally written in prose but began using rhyme verse as the practice became popular. In the terms of The King of Tars, the original version utilizes rhyme in old English while the modern translation has none. The chivalric romance typically describes a quest of a protagonist with substantial heroic qualities and a damsel in distress. There is a celebrated code of the genre featuring loyalty, honor, courtly love, and sin. Yet when comparing these characteristics of the genre to the text at hand, The King of Tars displays only one (with a focus on sin). In fact, the use of satire shows the lack of cliché in the text through its representations of the protagonists. The Sultan can be described as ill-mannered and dirty in personality, which directly opposes the cliché of a knight in shining armor seen in older romances. On the other hand, the Princess can be defined as a real protagonist rather than a plot device when comparing her to previous damsels in distress. The long, sought-after victory over Damascus is directly attained through her sacrifices and planning.
However, the genre-based left turns of the narrative make its social themes all the clearer. The King of Tars displays the ideology of us and them with both the kingdoms of Tars and Damascus being representative of it. In fact, the favoritism of the anonymous author for Tars’ Christian faith allows for the reader to see the protagonist and antagonist as both sides on a societal level are quite equal. But the principal ideology is still prevalent and can display the real-world prejudices during the time this work was written. From a period encapsulating the years 500 to 1500, European writers did in fact remark upon skin color cultural differences; their view of these physical traits also fed into the birth of modern scientific racism (Ramey, 2018). Yet compared to the systematically applied genetics seen in the nineteenth century onward, the medieval writers did not see race in a similar light, instead viewing racial differences as a conundrum of inheritance and non-inheritance (Ramey, 2018). Essentially, the traits a person might gain could be through the birthing process while also defining the non-inheritance viewpoint with situations of poor parenting or negative social influence. In all honesty, this convoluted system of armchair genetics appears to want the ideas of racial prejudice to blossom rather than finding a useful system in understanding the inheritance of offspring.
Writers of chivalric romances had a clear influence on this philosophy and the anonymous one behind The King of Tars is no different. With the prior-mentioned aspect of favoritism in the text, it is seen through the direct relationship of the Sultan and the Princess. The latter has a primary description at the start of the text described “as white as the feather of a swan” and how “a lovelier woman had never lived” (Tars, 12, 9). When comparing to her husband the Sultan, it starts with the marriage being described as “Such a pity it was to see. The lady who was so beautiful of complexion. To have so hideous a husband!” (Tars, 391-393). While it is clear it was the choice of the Princess to marry the Sultan and how the latter is an utter tyrant, the emphasis on skin complexion says more about the writer and his time rather than the characters. Along with the marriage is the couple’s child which exhibits brief yet potent mentions of prejudice. When the baby is brought to stable health by the priest, the line “Then came the Sultan, who[se skin] was black;,” demonstrates a forceful reminder from the author on what to believe about the Sultan and Damascus in contrast to the Princess and Tars, that being the convoluted prejudice system the writers of the time had created.
Yet there is more to the text’s representation of these beliefs than it seems. As stated before in understanding the characteristics of the chivalric romance genre, sin is the only traditional aspect seen in The King of Tars. Therefore, religion takes a major role in the story, and it does so in a way that connects directly to the themes of racial prejudice seen before. To give some context, the conflict between Christianity and the “pagan” religions of eastern countries to Europe had been significant since the Roman Empire. However, unlike what is preached through gospel and sermon, the dramatic shift from paganism to Christianity for most of these countries had far more to do with military strategy rather than divine superiority (Ehrman, 2019). It was the Roman Emperor Constantine who found Christianity to be the right direction forward for the empire, which in effect gave name of the faith an army of millions. In contrast, the other pagan religions did not work to appease one God but many, therefore allowing no ideological point of emphasis for their beliefs. Christianity is monotheistic (the belief in one God) which allowed for the citizens of Rome to rally behind one divine power. However, this led to the main problem seen in the religious conflict of the real world and The King of Tars; the dilemma of us and them. As a result, Christianity’s newfound military might, and “inherently” superior exclusivity of belief destroyed and forcefully converted almost every nearby pagan religion (Ehrman, 2019).
The main conflict between Tars and Damascus is representative of a kind of religious clash that would be during the conception of the text. Tars is mentioned to follow Christianity where Damascus is only referred to as a pagan religion (although it is believed to be Islam) (Ramey 2018). However, the belief of these religions goes farther than a way of life but also the principles of appearance. Whereas the people of Tars are white and are described like angels in relation to their physique, those in Damascus are described as black, dirty, and rude. The Princess even has a dream which reflects these observations in the form of demons and black hounds (Tars, 421-435). These observations of the two central kingdoms not only display favoritism of the writer but their beliefs of the plausibility for forced conversion on Damascus’s part. The seeds of such an action are planted when the Sultan and Princess’s baby is brought to life by Cleophas, a priest who had been captured (Tars, 769-83). This scene represents the importance of Christianity towards the future of not only the pagan Damascus, but every other pagan country. With this miracle, the Sultan undergoes the transformation of being a Christian, culminating in his baptism which saw “His skin, which was black and ugly, Became completely white by the grace of God, Clear and without blemish” (Tars, 928-930). The religious standard of the world is pure whiteness through Christianity according to the anonymous author. This belief is solidified when the Princess relays to the Sultan “Do convert every which one of your subjects, Both the old and the young. Whoever will not be christened, See that he is put to death Without any delay.” (Tars, 956-960). The absolute belief of Christianity exhibited by the Princess, the King, and all the people of Tars exemplifies the us and them philosophy to a point of passion which views mass murder as acceptable. Of course, the practice of religious murder had been done for centuries up to this point, yet it is horrifying nonetheless to see the power of doing so conjoining into one central religion.
It is unfortunate to see the fictional country of Damascus is only a representation of what dozens of countries faced in the medieval era. And of course, it is important to understand there is no innocent party in this situation; if given the resources and pronounced rallying cry, many of those dozens would aim for the power Christianity attained. However, to propose the plausibility of such conflict with themes of ideological division that still exist represent the warning The King of Tars is. Racial and religious prejudice has not waned in the centuries since its conception. The world is still a hot plate for mass destruction through these prejudices and it is only with texts like this where the warning of any more of this conflict persists. The King of Tars should not be viewed as a relic due to its outdated beliefs. It should be viewed as seminal literature for how much truth those beliefs bring to the table.
Works Cited
The King of Tars. The Auchinleck Manuscript, edited by David Burnley and Alison Wiggins, translated by Blake Hahn, The National Library of Scotland, 2003.
Burgess, Adam. “Medieval Chivalric Romance.” ThoughtCo., 14 Aug. 2019, https://www.thoughtco.com/the-medieval-chivalric-romance-740720
Ramey, Lynn. “Race and Identity in Medieval Europe.” Black Perspectives, 20 Jul. 2018, https://www.aaihs.org/race-and-identity-in-medieval-europe/
Ehrman, Bart. “Inside the Conversion Tactics of the Early Christian Church.” History, 31 Jan. 2019, https://www.history.com/news/inside-the-conversion-tactics-of-the-early-christian-church
This work is licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
