Fanuensis ergo mercator ou le petit monde d'un homme d'affaires génois,le juge Guarnerius (1210–1221)

Analysis of thirteenth-century Genoese minute-books frequently offers precise details about Genoese society and the economy of Genoa at that time. By re-grouping the entries relating to a single personage, the judge Guarnerius, one realises that the famous dictum Januensis ergo mercator, “Genoese therefore merchant”, needs reconsideration in the light of the fact that, though all the Genoese were effectively involved in commercial transactions, some were much more engaged than others. Thus Guarnerius, because of the scale of his investments and the role played around him by members of his family or household, appears in the years 1212–1220 as an early example of the Genoese professional merchant. The question arises whether, from the start of the thirteenth century, there was not already at Genoa a group of specialised businessmen from which a truly professional class of merchants was about to evolve. If such a hypothesis is confirmed, some reflections on the origins of Genoese capitalism are called for.     

Writing the History of the “Persian Arabs”: The Pre-Islamic Perspective on the “Naṣrids” of al-Ḥīrah

Modern scholarship on Arabs in the pre-Islamic period has focused on Rome's Arab allies—the so-called “Jafnids” or “Ghassānids,” with much less attention paid to Persia's Arab allies, the so-called “Na?rid” or “Lakhmid” dynasty of Arab leaders at al-?īrah in Iraq. This article examines select pre-Islamic sources for the Persian Arabs, showing that even with the meager evidence available to us, and the lack of archaeological material, it is possible to draw a relatively complex portrait of the Persian Arabs. This article situates the Persian Arabs as important figures in some key themes and phenomena of late antiquity, such as the growth of Christian communities, the conflict between Rome and Persia, and the struggle for influence in the Arabian peninsula.     

‘Eastern History with Western Eyes’: E.A. Freeman,Islam and Orientalism

E.A. Freeman is remembered today as a confident proponent of English superiority, whose historical writings were distorted by mid-Victorian prejudices in favour of the Aryan race. This perspective privileges some of Freeman's ideas and works above others, and obscures the complexities of his view of the past which only fully emerge through an examination of his two neglected works on the East: The History and Conquests of the Saracens (1856) and The Ottoman Power in Europe (1877). In analysing Freeman's obscure Oriental volumes this article uses the insights of Edward Said who argued that the West exploits the East according to contemporary exigency and consistently represents the Orient as ‘other’. It demonstrates that Freeman composed the Saracens and Ottoman Power in direct response to Britain's support of the Ottoman Empire during the Crimean War and Eastern Crisis, and re-arranged the past to represent the Turk as distinct from, and inferior to, the West. Freeman's account of the distinctiveness of the Orient, however, suggests the need to revise literature on Western approaches to the East which has assumed that antagonism towards Islam declined in the modern period, or was masked behind narratives that purported to be secular and objective but which continued to empower Europe and subjugate the Orient. Juxtaposing Freeman's narratives on Western and Eastern history, I argue that his association of Christianity with European progress and Islam with Eastern barbarism is key to understanding his deep fear of cultural contact with the Orient. Far from bolstering the strength and power of the West vis-à-vis the East, Freeman's account of the fearful barbarity of the Islamic Orient is underpinned by his belief in an anti-Christian, Judeo-Islamic, conspiracy that threatened the West with degeneration and recapitulation.     

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.     

Laïcité as assimilation,laïcité as negotiation: Political geographies of secularism in the French public school

Laïcité, France's idiosyncratic form of secularism, is a complex concept that is dense with historical genealogy, practical contradictions and – crucially – political geographies. In particular, contemporary laïcité is characterized by a state-sponsored model of universal citizenship that regards French Muslims' identity claims with mistrust. This tension, always latent, was brought to the fore by a series of attacks perpetrated self-styled jihadists in January 2015, centered on the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo notorious for its provocations against Islam. The attacks and their aftermath also highlighted a key space where conflicts over laïcité often play out: the French public school, the école républicaine. This institution was conceived in its modern form as a mechanism to assimilate through laïque pedagogy. Today it is a highly visible space where the optics of race and gender contribute to a narrative of Muslim communautarisme, a willful and defiant communalism that rejects the republican community of citizens.Following a handful of incidents in which students refused to participate in a moment of silence for the victims of the January 2015 attacks, the Ministry of Education undertook an initiative involving disciplinary and pedagogical supports for laïcité in the schools, called the Great Mobilisation for the Republic's Values. Like other past interventions in this area, it operationalizes an assimilating vision of laïcité to bring recalcitrant peripheries into compliance with republican norms. At the same time, though, it reveals the agency of the peripheries to negotiate the terms of laïcité according to local knowledge and needs. On the basis of interviews with educators serving in schools where elements of the Grand Mobilisation were carried out, I show how they push back against the overarching narratives that characterize the initiative and in so doing construct localized and nuanced understandings of the laïque social pact.