vided an important meeting-place for Christian, Muslim, and Jewish culture. An influential school of translation emerged in Toledo under the leadership of the Italian Gerard of Cremona (c. 1114-87) and attracted scholars from all over Europe. Its main area of interest was scientific and mathematical works, such as those of the Muslim Averroes of Cordoba ( 1126-98), many of which preserved Greek learning which had been lost to the west. But the distinguished abbot of Cluny, Peter the Venerable, on a visit to Spain in 1141, commissioned a translation into Latin of the Koran and other short Muslim texts from a team which reflected the cosmopolitan nature of Toledan scholarship: an Englishman, Robert, probably from Ketton in Rutland; Hermann from the northern Balkans; a Mozarab, Peter of Toledo, and a Muslim, Muhammad, also from Toledo. They were to provide the first material from which a scholarly refutation of Muslim beliefs could be made which would raise the level of understanding amongst western theologians about Islam from the abyss of legend and uninformed supposition in which it had previously languished. Jewish scholars also made a major contribution. They could move with ease between Latin, Hebrew, and Arabic and often provided a vital link in the chain of translation. But distinguished scholars such as Moses Maimonides ( 1135-1204), perhaps the greatest commentator on the Torah, made their own specifically Jewish contribution to the cultural achievements of the period. On a less elevated level, Peter Alfonsi (the converted Jew Moses SephardÃ) was responsible through his works for the introduction of many oriental tales into the literature of western Europe--both Chaucer and Boccaccio were to draw upon his stories. Many of the musical instruments familiar to medieval men were also of Moorish origin. The conflicts and contacts between Christian, Muslim, and Jew provided a stimulus not only to the ideology and intellect of medieval Europe, but also to its imagination.
In the tenth century the Muslim threat to peace in Italy came from raiding. Liutprand, bishop of Cremona wrote that the
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