Transmediterranean History
type: channel
description: “Transmediterranean History” (ISSN 2942-2760) provides access to commented excerpts of primary sources in their original language and in translation that cover transmediterranean themes in the period between 600 and 1650. A chronological list of all source excerpts can be found below.
language: en
publication name: Transmediterranean History
issn: 2942-2760
items: 1231: The Muslims of Menorca Submit to the Crown of Aragon in the Treaty of Capdepera
items: 996: Yaḥyā b. Saʿīd al-Anṭākī on a Pogrom against Foreign Christian Traders in Old Cairo
items: 1340–1345: Ibn Qayyim al-Ǧawziyya on the Question of Permanent Truce
items: 1336–1341: Ludolf of Sudheim’s Travel Account on a “Rite of the Saracens” in Sicily
items: 871–873: Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos on the Revenge of Soldanos of Bari
items: 1513: The Hospitallers of Rhodes Appeal for Support against the Ottomans at the Fifth Lateran Council
items: 1142? The Rise and Fall of Focerò in a Greek Petition to King Roger II of Sicily
items: 840–866: al-Balāḏurī on Muslim Control over Bari
items: 1293: A Catalan Treaty between Aragonese and Mamluk Sovereigns, from the Archives of the Crown of Aragon
items: 1169–1171: The Cathedral Canons of Cefalù on the Significance of their Cathedral in the Norman regnum Sicilie
items: 1064: Amatus of Montecassino on the Christian Conquest of Barbastro
items: 1022/1027: Ibn Ḥazm on the Relations between Masters and Female Slaves in al-Andalus
items: 1241: Matthaeus Parisiensis on Jewish Smuggling and the Mongol Expansion
items: 1185: Ibn Ǧubayr and a Local Muslim Leader Assess the Situation of Muslims in Sicily
items: 1187: Caesarius of Heisterbach and a Muslim’s French Critique of Christian Depravity in the Latin East
items: 1107–1110: Snorri Sturluson‘s Depiction of Sigurd I’s “Voyage to Jerusalem”
items: 1263: Nachmanides on the Disputation of Barcelona in his Sefer Vikuaḥ
items: 1412: al-Qalqašandī Describes the Iberian Christian Realms of his Time
items: 1177: Ibn al-ʿAdīm on a Zengid Commander of “Frankish” Origin
items: 1190: A Letter from al-Mahdiyya Reports on a Muslim Uprising in Sicily
items: 1185–1207: The Story of the Man from Upper Egypt and His Frankish Wife
items: 1143–1147: Otto of Freising Identifies Baghdad and Cairo with Old and New Babylon
items: 1321: Sancho I of Mallorca Writes to James II of Aragon about the “Lepers’ Plot”
items: 962: Al-Maqqarī on the Oath of Allegiance Given by the Rulers of León to al-Ḥakam II
items: Before 1044: ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq al-Ṣiqillī on the Purchase of Christian and Muslim Females in Sicily
items: 1489: Fernando del Pulgar on a Mamlūk Threat Against the Catholic Monarchs
items: 982: Thietmar of Merseburg on the Battle at Capo Colonna
items: 1254: Treaty between the Mamlūk Sultan al-Malik al-Muʿizz and the Venetians
items: 1116–1126: Ibn al-ʿAdīm on Christian–Muslim Crop Sharing (munāṣafa) Treaties
items: 629–641: The So-called Chronicle of Fredegar Explains the Intrusion of the "Saracens" into the Eastern Roman Empire

1231: The Muslims of Menorca Submit to the Crown of Aragon in the Treaty of Capdepera
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description: In June 1231, the Muslims of Menorca submitted to the authority of the Crown of Aragon without a fight. The outcome of the surrender negotiations was recorded in the so-called Treaty of Capdepera, probably composed originally in Arabic and Latin and one of only three surviving surrender treaties from the period of the Catalan-Aragonese expansion in the first half of the thirteenth century. This article situates Menorca’s submission within the broader context of the military campaigns of James I of Aragon between 1229 and 1245, which were directed both against the Balearic Islands and extensive parts of the eastern Iberian mainland. Through comparison with selected cases from this period, the analysis traces how the Muslims of Menorca reached a collective decision and how both sides negotiated and reconciled their respective Islamic and Christian conceptions of allegiance. The article argues that the agreement allowed the island to retain a status distinct from that of the neighbouring islands and the mainland territories, while nevertheless serving as a model for subsequent surrender negotiations.
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creator: Eric Böhme
creator: Robert Friedrich
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 Transmediterranean History https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2026-05-21
publication date: 2026-05-21
doi: 10.18148/tmh/2026.8.1.80

996: Yaḥyā b. Saʿīd al-Anṭākī on a Pogrom against Foreign Christian Traders in Old Cairo
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description: In spring 386/996, an angry mob accused a group of Christians classified as “Byzantines” (al-Rūm) of having laid fire to the new Fāṭimid fleet in the shipyard of Old Cairo. The fleet was just about to set out to support the caliph al-ʿAzīz bi-llāh in his war against Byzantium. More than one hundred Christians were killed; massive looting and a harsh reaction on the part of the authorities ensued. This incident—reported by the contemporary Arabic-Christian chronicler Yaḥyā b. Saʿīd al-Anṭākī, and narrated in two versions in the later works of al-Maqrīzī—has been contextualised differently. One strand of scholarship uses this episode to discuss the Fāṭimids’ treatment of ḏimmīs, i.e. non-Muslims under Muslim rule. Another strand identifies these “Byzantine” Christians as Amalfitans, thus regarding the incident as evidence for intensifying economic relations between southern Italy and Egypt. The article brings these two perspectives together by comparing Yaḥyā b. Saʿīd’s depiction of events with those of al-Maqrīzī and by situating the episode within the broader contexts of Fāṭimid–Byzantine relations, interconfessional and interreligious coexistence in Egypt, and transmediterranean trade.
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creator: Daniel G. König
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 Transmediterranean History https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2026-03-31
publication date: 2026-03-31
doi: 10.18148/tmh/2026.8.1.98

1340–1345: Ibn Qayyim al-Ǧawziyya on the Question of Permanent Truce
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description: This article analyses Ibn Qayyim al-Ǧawziyya’s discussion of permanent truce (al-hudna al-muṭlaqa) in his “Legal Judgements about the People of Protected Status” (Aḥkām ahl al-ḏimma). Focusing on Ibn al-Qayyim’s method and arguments, the article examines the content of a relevant section from the work, situating it within the broader discussion of “truce” in the Sunnī legal tradition. Ibn al-Qayyim manages to ground permanent truce in the Prophetic tradition. Both his argument and its justification do not conform to anything we find in Sunnī law, including Ibn al-Qayyim’s own Ḥanbalī school. The article thus underscores the creativity and dynamism of Islamic jurists who often think outside the box, even in instances where they agree with their predecessors, let alone cases where they disagree. The article also points out a major inaccuracy in modern research about truce in Islamic law, i.e. the claim that the latter does not allow for a truce to exceed ten years.
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creator: Suleiman Ali Mourad
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 Transmediterranean History https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2026-01-20
publication date: 2026-01-20
doi: 10.18148/tmh/2026.8.1.99

1336–1341: Ludolf of Sudheim’s Travel Account on a “Rite of the Saracens” in Sicily
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description: In the mid-fourteenth century, the pilgrim and traveler Ludolf of Sudheim reported in his “Book of the Journey to the Holy Land” (De itinere Terrae sanctae liber) that three different Christian rites existed in Sicily—a Latin rite, a rite of the Greeks, and one of the “Saracens.” The present article discusses this statement with the help of contemporary German translations of the travel account. In doing so, it considers what exactly Ludolf understood by “rite” and which groups of people the term “Saracens” might refer to. It probably designated a group of Arabic-speaking Christians, only some of whom were the descendants of Muslims who had converted to Christianity.
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creator: Theresa Bachhuber
rights: Copyright (c) 2026 Transmediterranean History https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2026-01-05
publication date: 2026-01-05
doi: 10.18148/tmh/2026.8.1.97

871–873: Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos on the Revenge of Soldanos of Bari
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description: The article deals with a passage in Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos’ De administrando imperio that contains a rather idiosyncratic description of the conquest of Muslim-ruled Bari and its aftermath. Complementing southern Italian Latin-Christian as well as Arabic-Islamic texts on the end of the emirate in the early 870s, Constantine’s version highlights the contribution of Byzantine forces, claims that Louis II of Italy and the Langobard nobles of southern Italy were outwitted by the amīr Sawdān, and presents the entire reconquest of Bari as the successful re-integration of a lost city into the Eastern Roman Empire. Engaging with the narrative’s sources and parallel evidence, the article reveals the constructed bias of a passage that may, nonetheless, shed additional light on Christian–Muslim relations in southern Italy of the late ninth century.
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creator: Zachary Chitwood
creator: Daniel G. König
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Transmediterranean History https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2025-12-16
publication date: 2025-12-16
doi: 10.18148/tmh/2025.7.2.96

1513: The Hospitallers of Rhodes Appeal for Support against the Ottomans at the Fifth Lateran Council
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description: This article describes an address made by Giovanni Battista de Gargiis, a member of the Knights Hospitaller, at the eighth session of the Fifth Lateran Council in December 1513. In it, he appealed to both the papacy and Europe’s secular rulers to send aid to the Hospitallers on Rhodes to counter the threat of an imminent Ottoman invasion. Drawing on this source, this article discusses the emergence of the Hospitallers in Jerusalem and the Holy Land, and their eventual transfer to the island fortress of Rhodes. In doing so, it considers the broader geopolitical consequences of the Hospitallers’ presence in the eastern Mediterranean, with an eye to the order’s interactions with Latin-Christian rulers in Europe, as well as Muslim rulers in the Levant and North Africa. The source is held to be unusual for the way it draws on a broader body of political and religious ideas and imperatives in an effort to rally European-Christian support for the defence of Rhodes and the conquest of Muslim-held territories, such as Constantinople and Jerusalem.
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creator: John Aspinwall
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Transmediterranean History https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2025-12-03
publication date: 2025-12-03
doi: 10.18148/tmh/2025.7.2.95

1142? The Rise and Fall of Focerò in a Greek Petition to King Roger II of Sicily
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description: This Greek petition from Norman Sicily under king Roger II (r. 1130–1154) reports back on events in the post-conquest period of the 1090s when the king’s father, count Roger I (d. 1101) was establishing and re-organising a rudimentary form of administration over lands and men on the island. The petition not only sheds light on these processes, but it also recalls that there had been serious and sustained rebellions in Calabria and Sicily against the authority of Roger's wife, Adelaide (r. 1101–1112), the mother of the future king, Roger II. During this time, a new settlement of Focerò, where many families had been ordered to live and work, had been repeatedly attacked and destroyed.
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creator: Alex Metcalfe
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Transmediterranean History https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2025-12-16
publication date: 2025-12-16
doi: 10.18148/tmh/2025.7.2.94

840–866: al-Balāḏurī on Muslim Control over Bari
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description: This article discusses the establishment of Muslim control over Bari (ca. 225/840 or 232/847) as reported in al-Balāḏurī’s (d. 279/892) Kitāb Futūḥ al-buldān, the earliest extant account to document the enterprise from a Muslim perspective. Drawing on this source, the commentary explores the history of Muslim-ruled Bari, the likely backgrounds and affiliations of its rulers, and their efforts at administrative consolidation, especially under Sawdān (d. after 871). It also considers Sawdān’s interactions with Christian and Jewish actors, as well as Bari’s wider geopolitical context, including Frankish–Byzantine attempts to reclaim the city. While Arabic-Islamic texts only give a cursory narrative of this short-lived episode, southern Italian historiography has long emphasised its regional significance. Taken together, the case of Bari illustrates Christian–Muslim entanglements through warfare, migration, and diplomacy in the ninth-century central Mediterranean.
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creator: Theresa Jäckh
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Transmediterranean History https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2025-09-11
publication date: 2025-09-11
doi: 10.18148/tmh/2025.7.1.93

1293: A Catalan Treaty between Aragonese and Mamluk Sovereigns, from the Archives of the Crown of Aragon
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description: This article examines the Catalan version of a treaty negotiated by King James II of Aragon (r. 1291–1327) and the Mamlūk sultan al-Ašraf Ḫalīl (r. 689–693/1290–1293) in 1293, whose Arabic version was the subject of a previous article in Transmediterranean History (2022). Adding to this article, the study at hand details the unusual characteristics of this diplomatic agreement in the context of the later Crusades. It analyses the treaty’s key points, including the unexpected military aid pledged by the King of Aragon, the measures designed to facilitate trade between Catalonian subjects and the Mamlūk sultanate, and the text’s emphasis on friendship and concord between the two sovereigns and their states. The article ends by reassessing the complex legacy of this atypical agreement.
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creator: Damien Coulon
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Transmediterranean History https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2025-10-01
publication date: 2025-10-01
doi: 10.18148/tmh/2025.7.2.92

1169–1171: The Cathedral Canons of Cefalù on the Significance of their Cathedral in the Norman regnum Sicilie
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description: Shortly before William II acceded the throne of Sicily (r. 1166–1189, self-governing from 1171 onwards), the cathedral chapter of Cefalù turned to the king, asking him to transfer the remains of his grandfather, Roger II (r. 1130–1154), to Cefalù. As the first king of the newly founded regnum Sicilie, Roger II had initiated the foundation of the diocese of Cefalù in 1131. The design of its magnificent cathedral is often cited as an example of the so-called Arab-Norman architectural style, which is said to visualise the island’s multicultural heritage. This article argues that the ultimately unfinished project of Cefalù’s cathedral also reflects internal tensions between high-ranking Latin dignitaries and shifting priorities in the representation of royal power.
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creator: Alexandra-Sophie Popst
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Transmediterranean History https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2025-08-18
publication date: 2025-08-18
doi: 10.18148/tmh/2025.7.1.91

1064: Amatus of Montecassino on the Christian Conquest of Barbastro
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description: The Historia Normannorum by Amatus of Montecassino provides the most detailed account of the conquest of Barbastro in 1064 from a Christian perspective. Although the city was retaken by Muslim forces only one year later, the campaign is considered a significant event in the history of Christian-Muslim relations on the Iberian Peninsula. Decisive factors in this regard were the involvement of the Holy See, the religiously charged nature of the campaign, and the participation of fighters from different Christian realms. Amatus’s account emphasises both the supraregional character and the religious dimension of the undertaking. His report provides an example for the role and function of depictions of interreligious violence in Christian historiography and illustrates how Christian defeats were interpreted.
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creator: Mats Pfeifer
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Transmediterranean History https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2025-06-30
publication date: 2025-06-30
doi: 10.18148/tmh/2025.7.1.89

1022/1027: Ibn Ḥazm on the Relations between Masters and Female Slaves in al-Andalus
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description: In his treatise on love, “Necklace of the Dove” (Ṭawq al-ḥamāma), the Andalusī polymath Ibn Ḥazm (d. 456/1064) repeatedly deals with the relations between Muslim masters and female slaves in al-Andalus of the late tenth and early eleventh century. Although we cannot rule out that some of these female slaves were Muslims, most of them probably had non-Muslim roots. As opposed to sale contracts that focus on the female slave as an object, or juridical works that describe the relationship between masters and female slaves in legal terms, Ibn Ḥazm gives insight into the psychology of these relations. In this context, he credits female slaves with a high degree of agency within an obviously asymmetric patriarchal hierarchy. Presenting one excerpt as an example, the article gives insight into the range of relationships between masters and female slaves as described by Ibn Ḥazm. In this way, it discusses a variant of interreligious relations and communication that was prevalent in Muslim-ruled societies of the pre-modern period.
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creator: Daniel G. König
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Transmediterranean History https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2025-06-30
publication date: 2025-06-30
doi: 10.18148/tmh/2025.7.1.88

1241: Matthaeus Parisiensis on Jewish Smuggling and the Mongol Expansion
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description: For the year 1241, the Chronica majora by Matthaeus Parisiensis reports on an alleged Jewish plot to deliver weapons to the Mongols. The Mongols had only recently advanced into Eastern Europe and are described here as co-religionists of the supposed Jewish conspirators. This episode provides a well-known example of antisemitic popular feeling in mid-thirteenth-century England. At the same time, it illustrates how a Latin-Christian historiographer created “knowledge” about the Mongol invaders. The article deals with this conspiracy theory against the backdrop of a pan-European regime of economic sanctions put in place against the (Muslim) targets of papal crusading policy. Whereas the interplay of embargoes and sanctions-busting structures the chronicle’s conspiracy theory, the episode also elucidates the potentials and problems of implementing sanctions across the Mediterranean.
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creator: Maximiliane Berger
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Transmediterranean History https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2024-12-15
publication date: 2024-12-15
doi: 10.18148/tmh/2024.6.2.87

1185: Ibn Ǧubayr and a Local Muslim Leader Assess the Situation of Muslims in Sicily
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description: Between 578/1182–1183 and 581/1185, Ibn Ǧubayr al-Kinānī, a functionary of the Almohad governor of Granada, went on the pilgrimage to Mecca. On his journey home via the Mediterranean Sea, shipwreck forced him to spend the winter 580/1184–1185 in Sicily. During his stay, he travelled through the island and recorded the living conditions of the local Muslim population, already living under Christian rule since 120 years. This article focusses on Ibn Ǧubayr’s meeting with Abū l-Qāsim Muḥammad b. Ḥammūd b. al-Ḥaǧar, a leading figure among the Sicilian Muslims. Balancing the traveller’s account with information from parallel sources, the article shows that both Ibn Ǧubayr and his interlocutor took great care to present Muslim life under Norman rule in way that would enlist the support of a transmediterranean Muslim audience for the Muslim community of Sicily.
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creator: Eric Böhme
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Transmediterranean History https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2024-12-04
publication date: 2024-12-04
doi: 10.18148/tmh/2024.6.2.86

1187: Caesarius of Heisterbach and a Muslim’s French Critique of Christian Depravity in the Latin East
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description: The Dialogus miraculorum is a collection of stories that serve to teach novices the ideals of monastic life. In this work, the Cistercian monk, Caesarius of Heisterbach, recounts a curious story related to him by the former chamberlain of his monastery, a certain William. Arriving in Acre in 1187, when the city had just been taken by Saladin’s troops, William is said to have engaged with an Ayyūbid noble. Speaking French, this noble explained that the inhabitants of the Latin East owed their defeat to their growing decadence. In view of the story’s obvious moral, the article discusses to which extent the anecdote reproduces a literary paradigm known from earlier Christian reactions to defeat. It investigates whether the narrative concords with Caesarius’s attitude towards Muslims and crusading as depicted in the rest of the work. Last but not least, it uses the noble’s French language skills as an example to illustrate what this story can tell us about Christian–Muslim interaction and communication in a crusading context.
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creator: Daniel G. König
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Transmediterranean History https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2024-11-25
publication date: 2024-11-25
doi: 10.18148/tmh/2024.6.2.85

1107–1110: Snorri Sturluson‘s Depiction of Sigurd I’s “Voyage to Jerusalem”
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description: In a three-year campaign, the Norwegian king Sigurd I led 3,000 men to the Holy Land, where he conquered the city of Sidon with King Baldwin I of Jerusalem. His military campaign has been interpreted early on as a crusade, although he and his retinue spent the larger part of their journey attacking coastal cities and islands in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean—regardless of whether they were ruled by Muslims or Christians. Taking contemporary Arabic, Latin, and Old Nordic sources into account, the article examines the king’s saga dedicated to Sigurd as written by the Icelandic scholar Snorri Sturluson (d. 1241). Snorri describes an extended campaign displaying all characteristics of a typical Viking Age voyage. This raises the question whether Sigurd’s journey to Jerusalem can really count as a crusade.
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creator: Juan Rothenhäusler
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Transmediterranean History https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2024-11-01
publication date: 2024-11-01
doi: 10.18148/tmh/2024.6.2.83

1263: Nachmanides on the Disputation of Barcelona in his Sefer Vikuaḥ
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description: Nachmanides’s Sefer Vikuaḥ records the so-called Barcelona Disputation of 1263, one of three famous debates between Christians and Jews in the Middle Ages. In these staged debates, Christian and Jewish participants publicly disputed interpretations of the Bible and extra-Biblical Jewish texts, such as the Talmud. These debates provide an insight into Jewish–Christian relations in an age of Christian expansionism and important social transformations and illustrate how increasingly rampant forms of aggressive Christian proselytism contributed to the wider decline of these relations in late medieval Europe.
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creator: Kate Tinson
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Transmediterranean History https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2024-10-30
publication date: 2024-10-30
doi: 10.18148/tmh/2024.6.1.82

1412: al-Qalqašandī Describes the Iberian Christian Realms of his Time
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description: A short fragment devoted to the situation of the Christian kingdoms on the Iberian Peninsula in Ṣubḥ al-aʿšā, the most famous work of the Egyptian chancery secretary, al-Qalqašandī (d. 821/1418), has been criticised by Spanish historiography for containing inaccurate and outdated information. Looking at this text from the broader perspective of Mamlūk encyclopaedism, this article investigates why, how, and for which purpose this passage was actually written. This makes it possible to contextualise it within a scholarly debate revolving around the Arabic-Islamic documentation of Christian Europe and the interest Arabic-Islamic scholars displayed in European-Christian societies.
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creator: Alejandro Peláez Martín
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Transmediterranean History https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2024-10-18
publication date: 2024-10-18
doi: 10.18148/tmh/2024.6.1.81

1177: Ibn al-ʿAdīm on a Zengid Commander of “Frankish” Origin
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description: This extract from Ibn al-ʿAdīm’s Zubdat al-ḥalab min taʾrīḫ Ḥalab, indicates that Saʿd al-Dīn Kumuštikīn, a military commander and eunuch in Zengid service, was of “Frankish origin” (aṣluhu faranǧī). The article examines the veracity of this claim and discusses its potential implications. If accurate, it provides important contextual information about the importance attached to ethno-religious identity by political elites in the crusader-era Levant. Even if we dispute Kumuštikīn’s “Frankish” descent, the manner in which these events were framed by Ibn al-ʿAdīm and his contemporaries provides insight into how “authorial agency” shaped the historiographical documentation of the transition from Zengid to Ayyūbid rule in sixth/twelfth- and seventh/thirteenth-century Syria and Egypt.
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creator: James Wilson
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Transmediterranean History https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2024-07-03
publication date: 2024-07-03
doi: 10.18148/tmh/2024.6.1.79

1190: A Letter from al-Mahdiyya Reports on a Muslim Uprising in Sicily
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description: In late summer 1190, Saladin’s head of chancery al-Qāḍī al-Fāḍil informed the Sultan, then busy with fighting the Franks in Syria, that a letter had arrived in Alexandria from Almohad al-Mahdiyya. Among the news it reported from the West was information on a Muslim uprising in Norman Sicily. The article aims at contextualizing this elusive revolt in a three-step analysis: first, the information given in the letter will be compared to alternative accounts in order to gain a fuller picture of the events. As a second step, the article will discuss why and by whom the news from the island would have been transmitted to al-Mahdiyya, and from there to Alexandria. Finally, it will ask whether the dissemination of this news to North Africa and Egypt had any effect on the situation of Sicily’s Muslim insurgents.
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creator: Eric Böhme
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Transmediterranean History https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2024-06-06
publication date: 2024-06-06
doi: 10.18148/tmh/2024.6.1.78

1185–1207: The Story of the Man from Upper Egypt and His Frankish Wife
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description: In its later versions, the collection of tales known as 1001 Nights contains “The Story of the Man from Upper Egypt and His Frankish Wife” (Ḥikāyat al-Ṣaʿīdī wa-zawǧatihi al-ifranǧiyya), whose earliest written evidence hails from the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century. The story as such unfolds in the Ayyūbid period between 1185 and 1207 and describes events that led up to and followed from the Battle of Ḥiṭṭīn. Its main protagonist is a flax merchant from Upper Egypt who falls in love with a Frankish woman from Acre and eventually marries her. The article describes the story’s historical setting and analyses its narrative patterns. Discussing to which degree a fictional text can provide insight into the historical realities of Ayyūbid Syria and Egypt, it comments on various issues that form part of the narrative, including slavery and captivity, romance and marriage, and different instances of interreligious communication.
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creator: Daniel G. König
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Transmediterranean History https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2024-06-05
publication date: 2024-06-05
doi: 10.18148/tmh/2024.6.1.77

1143–1147: Otto of Freising Identifies Baghdad and Cairo with Old and New Babylon
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description: The article focuses on the depiction of Babylon in the Historia de duabus civitatibus by Otto, bishop of Freising (sed. 1138–1158). Otto uses this toponym to refer to the Mesopotamian city known from the Bible, but also to ʿAbbāsid Baghdad and Fāṭimid Cairo. To write these passages, Otto mainly relied on topographical knowledge of biblical, ancient, and patristic provenance. These he enriched selectively with contemporary knowledge, which he probably acquired from informants residing in the Latin East. Otto tried to convert these different pieces of information into a coherent narrative with Babylon at the centre. Otto’s comments make clear that the elite of the Staufen became increasingly interested in Muslim-ruled Egypt in the context of the Second Crusade. As opposed to later Staufen reporters such as Burchard of Strasbourg, however, Otto was apparently not yet able to acquire enough current information about this country.
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creator: Niklas Hann von Weyhern
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Transmediterranean History https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2023-12-15
publication date: 2023-12-15
doi: 10.18148/tmh/2023.5.2.76

1321: Sancho I of Mallorca Writes to James II of Aragon about the “Lepers’ Plot”
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description: In 1321, the so-called Lepers’ Plot caused widespread chaos and violence against lepers and Jews in Southern France, the Mallorcan County of Roussillon, and Aragon. The article focuses on a document that shows the Kings of Mallorca and Aragon communicating about the alleged plot and how it may affect their respective population. The article analyses the series of events and associated anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim polemics as part of a strong trend of “othering.” This trend was not only characteristic of Christian majority societies in the late medieval period, but led to unprecedented outbursts of violence against minority groups.
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creator: Kate Tinson
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Transmediterranean History https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2024-04-30
publication date: 2024-04-30
doi: 10.18148/tmh/2024.6.1.75

962: Al-Maqqarī on the Oath of Allegiance Given by the Rulers of León to al-Ḥakam II
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description: The Islamic oath of allegiance (bayʿa) is traditionally regarded as a political tool that formalises a relationship of dependency between a Muslim ruler and his Muslim subjects. This article discusses a case from fourth/tenth-century al-Andalus, in which the bayʿa is used to formalise a relationship of dependency between the Umayyad caliphate of Córdoba and different representatives of the kingdom of León. It shows that this extraordinary use of a tool of internal policy in a foreign policy context can be explained against the backdrop of the Umayyad caliphate’s strategy in North Africa. There, it tried to gain a foothold by employing the same measures used vis-à-vis the kingdom of León.
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creator: Alejandro Peláez Martín
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Transmediterranean History https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2023-12-15
publication date: 2023-12-15
doi: 10.18148/tmh/2023.5.2.74

Before 1044: ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq al-Ṣiqillī on the Purchase of Christian and Muslim Females in Sicily
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description: In a legal treatise, known as “Refinement of the Student and the Benefit of the Willing” (Tahḏīb al-ṭālib wa-fāʾidat al-rāġib), the Mālikī Sicilian jurist ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq al-Ṣiqillī recorded a legal discussion between his teacher Abū Bakr and himself that dealt with the purchase of enslaved Christian and Muslim girls. The article uses this discussion not only to shed light on the role played by slavery in Sicily in the first half of the fifth/eleventh century, but also to illustrate the transmediterranean dimensions of legal exchange between and beyond Sicily and Ifrīqiya. Although the Sicilian legal infrastructure was generally indebted to the Qayrawānī jurisprudence, the Sicilian jurists had to develop their own solutions to certain legal issues, as in the case of legal questions arising from the purchase of Christian and Muslim slave girls.
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creator: Hossameldin Ali
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Transmediterranean History https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2023-12-15
publication date: 2023-12-15
doi: 10.18148/tmh/2023.5.2.73

1489: Fernando del Pulgar on a Mamlūk Threat Against the Catholic Monarchs
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description: While they were besieging the city of Baza in 1489, the Catholic monarchs, Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, received an embassy. Two Franciscan friars brought a series of letters addressed to the pope, in which the Mamlūk sultan of Egypt addressed the grievances suffered by the Muslims of Granada because of the war waged against the Naṣrid emirate. Moreover, he threatened to retaliate against the Christians living in his dominions if the Catholic Monarchs did not cease their aggression against Granada immediately. So far, scholarship has interpreted these menaces as the pure rhetoric of a Mamlūk sultan who presented himself as the global defender of Muslims, but was aware of his inability to carry out their threats. By considering the diplomatic use of threats as a tool of political communication, this article argues that threats constituted an important element in Christian-Muslim diplomatic relations in the medieval period.
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creator: Alejandro Peláez Martín
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Transmediterranean History https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2023-12-15
publication date: 2023-12-15
doi: 10.18148/tmh/2023.5.2.72

982: Thietmar of Merseburg on the Battle at Capo Colonna
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description: In July 982, the armies of Emperor Otto II and Abū l-Qāsim of Sicily clashed in the Battle of Capo Colonna in Calabria, with the Ottonian ruler suffering a crushing defeat and only narrowly escaping with his own life. For the chronicler Thietmar of Merseburg (sed. 1009-1018), this was also a consequence of Otto‘s misguided church policy, which had led to the temporary dissolution of the bishopric of Merseburg in 981. This unusual, but for Thietmar‘s chronicle almost typical combination of local Saxon and Mediterranean developments stands at the centre of the article. His view of the events of 982 will also be compared with alternative accounts from Latin-Christian and Arabic-Islamic perspectives in order to provide a comprehensive picture of a turning point in Ottonian Italian politics in the late tenth century.
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creator: Victoria Hayn
creator: Eric Böhme
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Transmediterranean History https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2023-12-15
publication date: 2023-12-15
doi: 10.18148/tmh/2023.5.2.71

1254: Treaty between the Mamlūk Sultan al-Malik al-Muʿizz and the Venetians
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description: The trade agreement concluded in 652/1254 between Mamlūk Egypt and the Republic of Venice resulted from a special political situation: during the failed French Crusade of 1249–1250, military slaves known as Mamlūks had taken over rule in Egypt. Under their new, still somewhat insecure sultan al-Malik al-Muʿizz, they reached a first treaty agreement with a European-Christian power. A comparison with an earlier trade agreement concluded in 636/1238 under Ayyūbid rule shows, however, that the crusade and the resulting change of regime in Egypt had done little to change the conditions of Venetian trade. The treaty of 652/1254 can thus be placed in a longer history of bilateral trade relations between Venice and Egypt that is characterised by continuity. It also offers interesting insights into the everyday life of Venetian merchants in Alexandria.
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creator: Lennard Pelikan
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Transmediterranean History https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2023-12-15
publication date: 2023-12-15
doi: 10.18148/tmh/2023.5.2.70

1116–1126: Ibn al-ʿAdīm on Christian–Muslim Crop Sharing (munāṣafa) Treaties
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description: This article reviews descriptions of Christian–Muslim crop sharing treaties (munāṣafāt) provided by the seventh/thirteenth-century Aleppine historian Ibn al-ʿAdīm (d. 660/1262) in his chronicle “The Cream of the Milk from the History of Aleppo” (Zubdat al-ḥalab min tārīḫ Ḥalab). The reports of these agreements help to shed light on three features of Christian–Muslim interactions in the Syrian Levant of the crusading period: first, that an appreciation of the ways in which Ibn al-ʿAdīm emphasises the historical significance of his family can help us to better understand his coverage of the early decades of crusader settlement; second, that the crusader movement probably did not facilitate the transfer of diplomatic mechanisms and infrastructures of agricultural administration from the Latin-Christian sphere to the Eastern Mediterranean; and third, that a combination of workforce shortages, a reluctance among Muslim majority communities to accept Frankish rule, and ideological pragmatism shaped Frankish land-sharing policy in rural Syria.
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creator: James Wilson
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Transmediterranean History https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2023-10-18
publication date: 2023-10-18
doi: 10.18148/tmh/2023.5.1.69

629–641: The So-called Chronicle of Fredegar Explains the Intrusion of the "Saracens" into the Eastern Roman Empire
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description: The so-called Chronicle of Fredegar reports on the prophecy of the Eastern Roman Emperor Heraclius and the ensuing invasion of the Muslim groups called “Saracens” into the Eastern Roman Empire. It forms the earliest written tradition about the beginning of the Arabic-Islamic expansion in the seventh century. Seen together with later testimonies from other parts of the Mediterranean, this account gives witness to the transmediterranean diffusion of particular narrative elements from the seventh century onwards. By integrating his narrative about the Eastern Roman emperor into a history of the Frankish realm, the chronicler establishes a connection between the two realms in general and their rulers in particular.
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creator: Lukas Müller
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Transmediterranean History https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
date: 2023-10-18
publication date: 2023-10-18
doi: 10.18148/tmh/2023.5.1.68