Embrico of Mainz: Historia de Mahumete

This narrative poem in elegiac couplets tells a fictional and hostile story of the rise of Muhammad, divided into numbered cantos. It is preceded by a brief editorial notice, from an older edition that printed it among the works of Hildebert of Le Mans, which calls it a mere poetic exercise rather than history, noting that it places the origin of the sect in the time of Theodosius and Ambrose and includes the tale of a calf secretly raised to become a bull, tamed by Muhammad so that he might become king. The poem features an apostate hypocrite who schemes to make Muhammad ruler of Libya, and scenes of public assemblies with speeches by the young and the old.

The poem, now usually attributed to Embrico of Mainz, is one of the earliest Latin literary treatments of Muhammad and reflects the fantastic and polemical image of Islam current in western Europe before and around the time of the crusades. It has little value as information about Islam, but it is important for the history of Western perceptions of Muslims and for the vigorous Latin verse narrative of its period. The editor’s note at the start is not part of the poem.