The business of human trafficking: slaves and money between Western Italy and the House of Islam before the crusades (c.900–c.1100)

ABSTRACT

Before the First Crusade, the maritime cities of Italy imported precious objects from Islamic regions. The question of what they exported in return has long occupied historians. Due to the large economic disparity between Latin Italy and the wealthier House of Islam, human trafficking offered a strong profit opportunity to merchants from Amalfi, Pisa and other ports. This was because the price of a slave in Egypt or North Africa, at around 20 gold dinars, represented a large sum in the silver currency zones of Latin Europe, especially compared to low prices in Italy. Even moderate numbers of trafficked humans may therefore have provided the capital for further maritime economic expansion. Moreover, slaves offered a commodity with low infrastructure and transportation requirements, unlike bulk agricultural products, as well as unique advantages in market access, which suggests that slave trading preceded investment in other branches of commerce.     

Yaḥyā Dawlatābādī’s Contribution to Persian Poetic Modernity

In 1912, Ya?yā Dawlatābādī composed two poems, the form of which diverged greatly from the canonical rules of tradition. Both poems were based on syllabic meters. Critics and historians of modern Persian literature have given these poems little consideration, and discussed them merely from the point of view of metrics. When compared to the great modernist endeavors in the poetry of the time, these pieces were judged severely, or altogether disavowed. This paper aims to show that, beyond mere metrical audacity, Ya?yā Dawlatābādī’s syllabic poems were in fact innovative. As the article argues, they were born out of the same quest for fresh poetic forms that induced contemporaneous modernists to create new, individualized poetic patterns.     

Authorial Voices and the Sense of an Ending in Persian Diaries: Notes on Eʿtemād al-Saltaneh and ʿAlam

This essay examines certain common themes as well as conflicting voices in two extensive sets of Persian diaries, written almost a century apart, by Mohammad-Hasan Khān E?temād al-Saltaneh (1843?96), a long-time courtier and confidant of Nāser al-Din Shah Qajar (r. 1848?86) and Asadollāh ?Alam (1919?78) a close associate and court minister of Mohammad-Reza Shah Pahlavi (r. 1941?79). On the whole these diaries provide significant amounts of information about the inner workings of the court and the overall institutional setup of the Iranian state in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Although in writing their diaries these authors did not set out to produce a literary work, and nor did they intend to chronicle a general history, each in his own way captured his respective epoch and, within their limitations of time, scope, and insight, each reflected a broad range of private and social relationships. Also each in his own way echoed older ministerial voices, reminiscent of the voice that often resonates in the “mirror for princes” genre, of part player part intimate observer, and with a certain sense of admonition and resignation, lamenting the loss of an era which they felt was slipping away as they wrote.     

The Italian Neolithic: A Synthesis of Research

This paper reviews the distinctive economic and social development of Neolithic Italy and its islands, from ca. 6000 B.C. until the emergence of the Copper Age ca. 3500 B.C. Through a synthesis of traditional interpretations and more recent discussions relating to early farming economies, social and technological developments, settlement, and landscape, the complex regional patterns are described. The development of archaeological studies in Italy, the biases in regional and chronological data collection, the regional patterns of cultures and landscapes, and the emergence of distinctive funerary, artistic and economic activities reveal a wealth of varied and intriguing archaeological information from a wide variety of sources that link parallel developments in the Mediterranean and Europe.     

King John and St Wulfstan

In accordance with the terms of his will, King John was buried near to the shrine of St Wulfstan in Worcester cathedral despite his apparent intention earlier in the reign to be buried in a Cistercian house. When and why John might have developed his particular interest in Wulfstan, the last Anglo-Saxon bishop, are considered and attention is drawn to the relevance of a famous legend linking Wulfstan and Edward the Confessor to King John's dispute with Innocent III over the king's authority in the appointment of bishops. The revival of Wulfstan's cult, which led to his formal canonisation in 1203, is seen as part of a general interest in indigenous saints, both Anglo-Saxon and contemporary, in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The suggestion is made that this concern with national saints provides the context for John's devotion to St Wulfstan and for the significant choice of his place of burial.     

AN INSCRIBED NABATAEAN BRONZE OBJECT DEDICATED TO OBODAS THE GOD FROM WĀDĪ MŪSĀ, SOUTHERN JORDAN

Abstract

A part of a Nabataean bronze inscribed object has been found recently in Wādī Mūsā, near Petra, Jordan. The text, which is dated to the reign of the last Nabataean king, Rabbel II (ad 70–106), is of great interest since it contains words that occur for the first time in Nabataean. It mentions a dedication made by a priest and his son to ‘Obodas the God’ in Gaia. In sum, it adds significant new data to our knowledge of the Nabataean kingdom and its religion.     

A Late Iron Age settlement in Wādī Banī Ḫālid: First season of the joint Omani-Italian archaeological project

This paper introduces the first results of the joint Omani-Italian archaeological project at Wādī Banī Ḫālid (northern Šarqiyyah governorate, eastern al-Ḥaǧar), where a dense Iron Age and ancient Islamic occupation was detected. The aim of the project is the definition of the Iron Age settlement patterns along the eastern al-Ḥaǧar landscape and its relationship with both the coastal areas and the al-Ḥaǧar inner piedmont sites of central Oman. In fact, this project follows previous studies of the coastal environment between Muscat and Raʾs al-Ḥadd, where several seasonal fishermen villages were investigated, and their connections with inner permanent sites, such as Lizq, recognised during the Early Iron Age II (1300–600 BCE). Therefore, Wādī Banī Ḫālid stands as a peculiar case of an Iron Age territorial unit, a natural scenario made of a narrow alluvial valley which provided natural conditions for the development of a complex culture. Moreover, the material culture emerged after a first excavation campaign proved that the main occupational phase of the imposing fortified settlement WBK1 is the Late Iron Age (late first millennium BCE to third–fourth centuries CE), thus hopefully allowing new questions to be posed for the definition of Late Iron Age cultures and the chronology in central Oman, which is mostly known based on the excavation of funerary evidence. For this reason, the first part of the paper focuses on the results of the first season in Wādī Banī Ḫālid, and the second part discusses the links between Wādī Banī Ḫālid and the south-eastern Arabia general framework during the Late Iron Age.     

List of figures and acknowledgements

The purpose of this section of the Journal of medieval history is to include a brief notice of new books in medieval history, and to list new editions and reprints, appearing during the months immediately preceding the date of publication of each issue. The Journal will not carry reviews; it asks publishers to send, instead of copies of new books, brief notices about them of not more than 150 words in length. To meet the cost of this exercise, the Journal is obliged to charge a fee of $10 (£5) for a brief announcement (max. 150 words) and $5 (£2.50) for listing a reprint or new edition. Texts of such announcements and details of reprints, together with remittance, should be sent to the Publisher, from whom further details of the scheme may be had.     

Regni et pacis inquietatrix : Zur Rolle der kaiserin Mathilde in der ‘anarchie’

Richer de Refham came to London during the 1290s and quickly established himself as a successful mercer. He expanded his initial business interests to include money-lending and property holdings, and became a leading landowner in London by acquiring the property of old families who had dominated the city's business and political life, and of some of his political enemies. His acquisitions led him into constant litigation and, undoubtedly, are connected to his political affiliations and conflicts.De Refham, who came from a family of East Anglian knights, was eventually enfeoffed with lands in Norfolk and Essex. The grants raise questions as to the identity of the grantors, the political and social relationships which existed between the grantors and grantee, and the significance of the enfeoffments to de Refham's social and economic position.With close ties to the mercantile class and rural knights, de Refham may have had a significant influence on the formation of those bonds which brought together the diverse and often conflicting interests of the knights and burgesses in the emerging House of Commons.     

Prelude to War: The Russian Siege and Storming of the Fortress of Ganjeh, 1803–4

This essay is the full account, the first in English, of the correspondence between the Russian general, Paul Tsitsianov, and the governor of the khanate of Ganjeh, Javād Khān Qajar. Drawing on contemporary Russian and Iranian records, it includes a daily account of Tsitsianov’s preparation, siege and the storming of the fortress of Ganjeh, which led to the First Russo-Iranian War (1804–13). The essay further includes two special maps—the first is the map of the South Caucasus in 1800 and the route of the invasion; while the second is based on a rare Russian military map that reveals the siege and storming of the fortress.     

Kush-e Pildandān,the Anti-Hero: Polemics of Power in Late Antique Iran

This study examines the character of Kush-e Pildandān, the anti-hero of the Kushnāmeh, by arguing that the protagonist of the poem represents the monarchs of the Kushan dynasty. In order to substantiate this claim, the Kushnāmeh is introduced and the process of its formation and its reflections of Kushan history are examined. Then the various components of this image of the enemy are discussed. What is revealed is a polemical strategy of creating an enemy, a unique insight into the political ideology of the Sasanian period. The study offers a glimpse into the ideological discourse of political power in the Late Antique period, and how they drew upon a shared conceptualization of the past.     

The court of the Lionheart on crusade, 1190–2

The source material that records the history of the Third Crusade gives the impression that Richard was a king who found it easy to interact with people from different backgrounds. Though he was one of the greatest warrior-kings of the medieval era, he was comfortable with churchmen and knights, with Frenchmen and Anglo-Normans, with lords and clerks, with his men and his father’s men. No doubt every royal court was a bustling, perhaps nearly chaotic, environment, but the individuals found in this study indicate that the court of Richard I was not an ivory tower to which only his barons had access.     

Anti-Jewish rhetoric in Guibert of Nogent's Dei gesta per Francos

When Guibert of Nogent, a Benedictine monk living in northern France, re-wrote the anonymous Gesta Francorum, an eyewitness chronicle of the First Crusade, he changed more than just the style and the title. One of Guibert's most significant additions to his model was vitriolic anti-Jewish rhetoric. The present article explains some of the reasons why Guibert felt the need to deride the Jews of the Old Testament, particularly the Maccabees, as part of his narrative of the First Crusade. It attempts to demonstrate that Guibert's playing down the achievements of Jewish warriors of the past was inseparable from his aim to present crusading, to quote Jonathan Riley-Smith, in ‘theologically acceptable terms’, as a spiritual enterprise.     

When the Subject is the Object: Islamic Advice Literature Modes and the Treatment of Slavery in The Qābūs Nāmih and The Nasirean Ethics

This paper investigates the difference of perspective which informs The Qābūs Nāmih's and The Nasirean Ethics’ respective treatments of the topic of slavery. While in various parts of their discussions both works show an engagement with each side of the hybrid status of a slave's existence as both subject and object, The Qābūs Nāmih deals with the issue almost entirely in terms of the slave's status as an object, while The Nasirean Ethics engages this issue with clear acknowledgments to his/her status as a subject. It is possible that the divergent approaches of these two works are a reflection of the two distinct modes of the genre of Islamic advice literature in which they were respectively written.