Prester John, Christian Enclosure, and the Spatial Transmission of Islamic Alterity in the Twelfth-Century West

Abstract

[PDF] In 1142 Peter the Venerable (also known as Peter of Montboissier), abbot of Cluny, traveled to Spain at the request of Emperor Alfonso VII with the ostensible goal of visiting the Cluniac monasteries of Spain.2 Having established a reputation for reform during his twenty-year abbacy (a crucial time in the history of Cluny), Peter had also recently emerged as a powerful international figure, shadowed in influence perhaps only by his friend (and sometimes rival) Bernard of Clairvaux. Although contemporary records show that Peter did indeed perform his immediate duties as a visiting abbot, he fulfilled the major goal of his trip elsewhere in Spain—that of assembling a group of scholars who would together produce a systematic Latin account of Islamic doctrine.