1st Edition

Islam and Papal Power in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe The Afterlives of a Popular Polemic

By Kate Waggoner Karchner Copyright 2025
220 Pages 1 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

220 Pages 1 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

220 Pages 1 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

Islam and Papal Power in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe  traces the influential history of another book: Riccoldo da Montecroce’s  Contra legem Sarracenorum . Around 1301, a Dominican missionary named Riccoldo da Montecroce wrote a treatise on the Qur’an, arguing against the validity of the Muslim faith. Over the next two hundred years, Europeans read, copied, translated, and circulated... Read more

Introduction: How an Italian Monk Came to Write a Bestselling Book on the Qur’an

1. Viral Vitriol: Reading and Reproducing an Anti-Islamic Polemic

2. Authority and Authenticity in the Making of an Early Modern Bestseller

3. Papal Power: Using Islam to Maintain Control of the Catholic Church

4. The Sword and the Pen: European Responses to the Rise of the Ottomans

5. Philosophy, Philology, and Polemic during the Renaissance

Afterword. Legacies from Martin Luther to 9/11

Appendix A. Contra legem Manuscript Corpus: Descriptions and Observations

Appendix B. Contents of the Contra legem Manuscript Corpus

Bibliography

Biography

Kate Waggoner Karchner is an independent scholar living and working in Ohio. Waggoner Karchner earned her PhD in History with a certificate in Medieval Studies from the University of Michigan in 2019. While there, Waggoner Karchner focused on medieval and early modern European history with an emphasis on religious history and Christian-Muslim relations. Waggoner Karchner’s past publications include “Two New Manuscript Copies of Riccoldo da Montecroce’s Contra legem Sarracenorum” (2019) and “Deciphering the Qur’an in late medieval Europe: Riccoldo da Montecroce, Nicholas of Cusa, and the text-centred development of interreligious dialogue” (2020).