A Tawdry Crow and an Impending Fall : Islam, Conversion and Crusade in William of Tripoli's Notitia de Machometo and De statu Sarracenorum

(eng) This thesis presents the works and visions on Islam, conversion and crusade ascribed to William of Tripoli, a Dominican friar who lived and worked during the middle of the 13th century in the Holy Land, and the concomitant research on these works and his persona. There are two treatises on his name, Notitia de Machometo and De statu Sarracenorum, of which the former has served as a model for the latter, which is strongly less polemical, expands on the historiographical aspect and was very popular in the medieval West. Considering its profoundly different approach to the topics discussed in Notitia, it is very likely that it is from the hand of another, European author and not of William. This thesis will discuss the historical setting, the persona of William of Tripoli, the contents and the debate on the authorship of the two works ascribed to him.