14th Century Authors as Readers north and south of the Mediterranean

This session focuses on evidences on late medieval authors’ act of reading and studying. The two speakers analyze two cases dating back to the 14th century, relating to two different geographical and cultural contexts: the French monarchy and the Mamluk sultanate. Michèle Goyens examines the multiple traces left by the translation work on the pseudo-Aristotelian text Problemata, carried out by Évrart de Conty, active at the court of Charles V of France. Élise Franssen deals with al-Ṣafadī’s Tadhkira, reconstructing the author’s reading and his library from his notes.

Speakers: Professor Michèle Goyens (KU Leuven) and Élise Franssen, Post-doctoral researcher, (Université de Liège).

Chair: Benoit Grevin

Barbarians and Romans: dynamics of integration in Late Antique Hispania

Register here to receive the Zoom link:

https://theofed-cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_xAq5tttIRyGGgOBJLHS1xQ

This session will delve into the interactions that took place between the various ethnic and religious groups of Late Antique Hispania, trying to cast light into the factors and the strategies that led to their integration, as well as the role played in this process by the civil, the ecclesiastical institutions and the common population. A particular attention will be devoted to the strategies and the resources employed for coexistence, integration and collaboration among the different Late Antique Hispanic communities, examining individual and collective attitudes favourable to integration and its effectiveness as mediation and social structuring.

Speakers:

Purificación Ubric Rabaneda (Universidad de Granada)

Pablo Poveda Arias (Universidad de Valladolid)

Oriol Dinarés Cabrerizo (Universidad de Alcalá)

Mattia C. Chiriatti(Universidad de Granada)

Making martyrs in medieval Iberia

Devotional culture in early medieval Iberia was dominated by martyrs. With very few records of non-martyr saints, we are left to wonder what made martyrs such compelling figures. In this seminar, we will explore some of the ways martyrs were imagined and constructed in Iberia through a variety of different source types: theological, liturgical and musical. Placing the veneration of martyr saints in its historical context will allow us to address broader questions of its role in Christian-Muslim relations, cultural transfer across the Mediterranean, and the meaning of sanctity for medieval Christians.

Speakers:

Kati Ihnat (Radboud University Nijmegen)

Melanie Shaffer (Radboud University Nijmegen)

Cathrien Hoijinck (Radboud University Nijmegen)

Historiography and Politics in the Late Medieval Islamic Mediterranean

While Ibn Khaldun remains the most famous historian from the late medieval Islamic world, this panel will highlight some of the lesser known riches of historical writing from the 14th and 15th centuries. The papers will present case studies of Baybars al-Mansuri (d. 1325) writing in Mamluk Egypt, Ibn al-Khatib (d. 1374) in Nasrid Granada, and Ibn al-Shamma‘ (d. after 1457) in Hafsid Tunisia. These historians produced works of universal, local, and dynastic history, all building on long and shared legacies of historical writing. The panel explores how common concerns of patronage, political power, legitimacy and memory informed their historical narratives.

Speakers:

Gowaart Van Den Bossche

Mohamad Ballan

Sébastien Garnier

Chair:

Jo van Steenbergen

Shared Sacred Space – Confronting Narratives of Conversion

The Mediterranean has been a theatre of both sharing and contesting sacred space between Christianity and Islam. While some shrines appear to feature syncretic devotions, other places see the symbolic conversion of the sacred space. Especially in contested territories between Christianity and Islam, religious power dynamics often cause mosques and churches to transcend their function as mere buildings. The transformations of Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque at the time of the Crusades, of Córdoba’s Umayyad Mosque following the Reconquista, and of Istanbul’s Aya Sophia, are famous examples that resonate until today. However, while popular narratives of the conversion of these edifices dominate modern scholarship, the archaeological evidence is often less straight forward. Focusing on aspects of their own research and examples from the Levant and Al-Andalus, this panel will discuss the extent to which these narratives ought to be nuanced, and how both medieval and modern communities have interacted with these sacred spaces.

Speakers:

Dr Carmen González Gutiérrez (Universidad de Córdoba)

Dr Hagit Nol (Université libre de Bruxelles)

Dr Alejandro García-Sanjuán (Universidad de Huelva)

Chair:

Dr Jan Vandeburie (University of Leicester)

Mobility, Belonging and Community in the Mediterranean City (Barcelona, Venice and Constantinople 1400-1550)

This session offers a parallel analysis on the processes of community-building, social advancement and agency in the late medieval Mediterranean. It focuses on three cities that will take us from one shore of the Mediterranean to the other. The urban contexts of Barcelona, Venice and Constantinople allow us to delve into the different ways that individuals and groups strove to improve their position within the fabric of the late medieval city. Consequently, the papers in this session will consider issues such as, the importance of sociability in the creation of belonging, the role of profession in the establishment of urban hierarchies and the agency of foreign communities in the shaping of urban life.

Speakers:

Lisa Dallavalle

Özden Mercan

Carolina Obradors-Suazo

Archives and Record-keeping in the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean

Speakers:

  • Prof. Marina Rustow (Princeton University)

  • Dr Benedikt Reier (University of Hamburg)

  • Dr Daisy Livingston (University of Hamburg)

Chair:

  • Dr Alessandro Silvestri (IMF-CSIC, Barcelona)

It is well known that writing was important in medieval Muslim societies and research is increasingly showing there to have also been considerable energy invested in the production and preservation of written documents. In a region whose history has been written disproportionately using narrative texts rather than original documents, the recognition of its archival history has major potential to reshape our understanding of this period and region. In this webinar we discuss archiving in the medieval Arabic-speaking Eastern Mediterranean, covering an extended period from the time of the Fatimid caliphs to the demise of the Mamluk sultans (10th to 16th centuries CE). We present three case-studies which showcase a diverse range of historical actors, exploring state record-keeping, the archival practices of religious scholars, and the preservation of legal documents, to illustrate the rich and complex archival history of this region.

Image: MS Riyad King Saud University Library, Majmūʿ Qāf1:34, fols 4b-5a.


Bees in the Medieval Mediterranean: Economic, Environmental and Cultural perspectives

Our webinar for May is Bees in the Medieval Mediterranean on 17 May at 5pm (UTC + 1)

Speakers: Dr Alexandra Sapoznik (King's College London) and Lluis Sales Fava (Bee Project) (IEM-Universidade Nova de Lisboa). 

Chaired Dr Roser Salicrú

Register: https://theofed-cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_LtA0xK7FTGqSfE0RcJENmw

Bees and bee products were of tremendous cultural significance in the later middle ages. Wax was necessary for many aspects of Christian religious devotion, while honey held a particular importance in medieval Islam. In this session we will examine how these cultural preferencesdrove a lucrative and far-reaching trade in beeswax, combining the products of domestic apiculture and large-scale imports to support increasingly costly and spectacular forms of Christian devotion, demonstrating interconnections of economy, environment and culture in the pre-modern world.

Mobility, Belonging and Community in the Mediterranean City

Rescheduled for 2022/23

The subject of the next webinar in our ‘Local & Global perspectives’ series is on Tuesday 26 April at 5pm UTC+1) is ‘Mobility, Belonging and Community in the Mediterranean City (Barcelona, Venice and Constantinople, 1400-1550)’

Speakers: Dr Lisa Dallavalle, Dr Özden Mercan and Dr Carolina Obradors-Suaz

Chair: Dr Roser Salicrú i Lluch

Abstract: This session offers a parallel analysis on the processes of community-building, social advancement and agency in the late medieval Mediterranean. It focuses on three cities that will take us from one shore of the Mediterranean to the other. The urban contexts of Barcelona, Venice and Constantinople allow us to delve into the different ways that individuals and groups strove to improve their position within the fabric of the late medieval city. Consequently, the papers in this session will consider issues such as, the importance of sociability in the creation of belonging, the role of profession in the establishment of urban hierarchies and the agency of foreign communities in the shaping of urban life.

[Image: Piri Reis, Map of the Eastern Part of the City of Venice, from Piri Reis, Book on Navigation, late 11th century AH/AD 17th century-early 12th century AH/ AD 18th century (Ottoman), W.658, fol.185b. 

The Walters Art Museum, acquired by Henry Walters. 

Map of the Eastern Part of the City of Venice | W.658.185B | The Walters Art Museum

Licensed under CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)]