‘Trade, Travel and Transmission in the Medieval Mediterranean’

– University of Cambridge, 8–10 July 2013

Our 2013 conference took place on 8-10th July 2013 at Churchill College, Cambridge (UK) with the theme of ‘Trade, Travel and Transmission in the Medieval Mediterranean’. It attracted over 60 speakers from a wide range of countries such as Italy, the US, Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Bulgaria, Turkey and Australia, with keynote lectures from Prof. Carole Hillenbrand (University of Edinburgh, UK) and Prof. David Abulafia (University of Cambridge, UK). This three-day conference brought scholars together to explore the interaction of the various peoples, societies, faiths and cultures of the medieval Mediterranean, a region which had been commonly represented as divided by significant religious and cultural differences. The objective of the conference was to highlight the extent to which the Medieval Mediterranean was not just an area of conflict but also a highly permeable frontier across which people, goods and ideas crossed and influenced neighbouring cultures and societies. Many of the papers presented will be published in forthcoming issues of the society's journal al-Masāq: Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean.