An Encounter with Alterity: Western Chronicles of the Third and Fourth Crusade and the Natural Environment of South-Eastern Europe

While relating the encounters between the crusaders and the inhabitants of South-Eastern Europe, the Western chronicles of the Third and Fourth crusade insist on the fundamental alterity of the local populations and of the environment in which they lived and thrived: the dense “silva Bulgarica” around the region of Belgrade, the Macedonian hills, the rich and fruitful Thracian plains, and the difficult mountains of the Stara Planina ridge, each with its own peculiar fauna, flora, natural resources, and an extraordinary array of dangers both natural and man-made. The crusaders (or those interpreting and reporting their thoughts) perceived very clearly that, although the landscape and the animal species they encountered were not entirely different from those they were familiar with, they were far more savage and dangerous. Nature appeared to them as primal and ominous, quite different from the tamed and organized landscape they knew and in which they felt relatively safe. The behaviour of the locals reproduced the alarming features of the environment: although Christian in their own way, they were an alien race, either savage and violent or treacherous and devious. Unsurprisingly, be they Slavs or Byzantines, they were usually compared to animals and, occasionally, treated as such.