Broadens the perspective of recent work on the discourse of the Muslim Other in medieval Christendom by investigating pertinent texts, art, and artefacts, situating these local discourses of the Muslim Other in the larger cultural context of proto-Eurocentric discourse.

Little attention has been focused the representation of Muslims in medieval Germany. Proceeding from a grounded use of contemporary cultural theory and close textual analysis, this study focuses Muslims in several core texts representing drama, epic, and lyric written by the most important writers of medieval Germany. Far from simply adding medieval Germany to the growing scholarly list of the 'pre-post-colonializing' European cultures, the study provides important new perspectives.