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This book reveals the medieval Mediterranean region as a richly nuanced space of places and peoples connected by a body of water, but far from unified-and seeks to challenge what we think we know about the medieval Mediterranean and the world it influenced.
Reflective of the diversity of the Mediterranean region, the contributors are an international body of scholars that bring together topics that are seemingly disparate but are in fact in a vibrant conversation with one another. The volume seeks to shed new light and perspectives on familiar topics. Each chapter begins with secondary commentary for context, and is followed by primary sources comprised of images and texts that invite careful reading, lively discussion, and possibilities for deeper research. Topics that are discussed include: Archaeology and Architecture, Stories of Travel and Encounter, Literature and Poetry, Matters of Faith, Crusades, Monarchies and Conflict, Ties that Bind, and Around the Mediterranean World.
Windows into the Medieval Mediterranean is simultaneously a scholarly and reader-friendly book intended to engage undergraduate and graduate students, scholars, and anyone interested in the Mediterranean of the Middles Ages.
List of contents
Part 1: Archaeology and Architecture
1.Cross-cultural Encounters on Byzantine Islands (ca.600-ca.900): An Archaeological Perspective
Zavagno, Luca
Part 2: Stories of Travel and Encounter
2. Cultural Interconnectedness Between China and the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages
Broilo, Federica A.
3. Between the Sands of the Sahara and the Waves of the Mediterranean: The Fleet as a Model of Political and Economic Expansion of the Almoravid Empire (508/1115-541/1147)
Lourinho, Inês
Part 3: Literature and Poetry
4. A Collection of Indian Fables Across Medieval Mediterranean Cultures
Carretero-Martínez, Gonzalo
5. The Depiction of Morals and Virtues in Renaissance Poetry
Wirth, Matthew
6. Human and Nonhuman "Others" in Chrétien's Yvain
White, Victoria
Part 4: Matters of Faith
7. Discord and Concord on the Basis of Faith Between the East Syriac and Byzantine Churches in the Early Medieval Mediterranean World
Popa, Catalin-Stefan
8. Traveling Hagiography: The Exchange of Saints' Lives Across the Medieval Mediterranean
Politano, Cristina
Part 5: Crusades
9. The Crusader States in the Foreign Policy of the First Mamluks
Filipau, Aliaksandr
10. "God Wills It": Pope Urban II, the Anti-Pope Clement III, and the Reasons for the First Crusade
Woodson, Hue
Part 6: Monarchies and Conflict
11. "May God Destroy the Spanish," North African Sixteenth Century Ottomanophilia Through Mapmaking
Kahlaoui, Tarek
12. The Nasrid Sultanate of Granada, and the Frontier (Twelfth to Fifteenth Centuries)
Carrasco-Melo, Diego
13. A Crown for Queen Isabella: Symbols, Contested Authority, and Royal Intervention in Early Modern Granada
Morera, Luis X.
Part 7: Ties That Bind
14. The Macedonian Dynasty: Marriage and Politics in the Third/Ninth Century
Panagiotou, Stavros
15. A Woman's Affair: Dowries in Genoese Chios in the Late Middle Ages
Ravera, Chiara
16. Byzantines and Brides: Negotiating Romanness and Kinship Across Frontiers
Magnolia, Alex
Part 8: Around the Mediterranean World
17. Disease in the Medieval Mediterranean
Thacker, Brenda
18. Between Baghdad and The Mediterranean
PreJean, Chris
19. Nomads in the Medieval Mediterranean: Mobility and Counter-Mobility in a Changing World
Freeman, Margaret Helen
20. Unwilling Migrants: Slave Trade Between the Balkan Peninsula and the Mediterranean Between 1280 and 1350
Stojkovski , Boris
21. Piracy in the Medieval Mediterranean
Parker, Matthew E.
22. Conclusion: An Ending and Maybe a Beginning
About the author
Jeanette M. Fregulia, Ph.D. is Associate Professor and Chair, Department of History, Carroll College, Helena, Montana. Her research interests include merchants and trade in the pre-modern Mediterranean. Her most recent publication is A Rich and Tantalizing Brew: A History of How Coffee Connected the World (2019).
Summary
This book reveals the medieval Mediterranean region as a richly nuanced space of places and peoples connected by a body of water, but far from unified – and seeks to challenge what we think we know about the medieval Mediterranean, and the world it influenced.
