Record details
| Title | Peter the Saracen |
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| Image |
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| Description | In 1205, King John employed a man called Peter the Saracen as a maker of crossbows at Northampton Castle. The term 'Saracen' described someone of North African or Middle Eastern origin and Peter was one of the first recorded Muslims in England. |
| Location | Peter's plaque is located next to Northampton Train Station, on the red brick wall on Black Lion Hill, close to the pedestrian entrance and the post box. NN1 1SP. |
| Summary |
During the Middle Ages, Northampton Castle was a royal residence and the seat of several parliaments. King John (1199-1216) is known to have visited the Castle on 30 separate occasions and moved the Royal Treasury there in 1205. Financial records from July 1205 show that King John employed a man called Peter the Saracen as a maker of crossbows. The records state that King John gave a ‘…mandate to the Constable of Northampton to retain Peter the Saracen, the maker of crossbows, and another with him for the King’s service, and allow him 9d. per day.’ The Constable of Northampton Castle is also recorded as purchasing a robe for Peter’s wife together with ‘utensils and other necessaries in conjunction with the royal crossbows.’ Today, the word "Saracen" is mainly associated with the Crusades, a series of bloody European invasions into the Middle East that took place between 1095 and 1291. European Christian knights used the term Saracen to denote their foes in the Holy Land. However, the term was generally used to denote cultural and religious rather than racial difference. Peter the Saracen was probably one of the first Muslims to be recorded in England. It may be that he came to England following Richard I (1157-1199) after the Third Crusade (1189-1192). The high wage he received shows that he was not a prisoner and was probably employed to make more powerful crossbows with horn than was the norm in the East. His presence suggests that there may have craftspeople of North African and Middle Eastern origin in England in the Middle Ages. Peter the Saracen is described as a maker of crossbows. The correct term for a Medieval Crossbow is an Arbalest. During the second half of the 12th Century and throughout the 13th Century, the crossbow was the dominant handheld missile weapon in most of Western Europe. King John spent significant sums of money on armaments and at least six royal crossbow workshops were established during his reign. It may well be that he established a crossbow workshop in Northampton and that Peter the Saracen was employed there. The Northampton Black History Association has researched the presence and contributions of Black people to the development of British society and Northamptonshire’s local history over the past 500 years. ‘Sharing the Past' has been co-operatively written by members of the association, and chronicles the black presence in Northamptonshire since the first evidence, of Peter the Saracen, crossbow maker, in the early 13th Century. |