Muslims of Medieval Latin Christendom, c.1050–1614

Muslims of Medieval Latin Christendom, c.1050–1614
Author: Brian A. Catlos
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 649
Release: 2014-03-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 0521889391

An innovative study which explores how the presence of Muslim communities transformed Europe and stimulated Christian society to define itself.


Muslims of Medieval Latin Christendom, C.1050 1614

Muslims of Medieval Latin Christendom, C.1050 1614
Author: Associate Professor of History and Religious Studies Brian Catlos
Publisher:
Total Pages: 650
Release: 2014-05-10
Genre: Arabs
ISBN: 9781139921619

An innovative study which explores how the presence of Muslim communities transformed Europe and stimulated Christian society to define itself.


Infidel Kings and Unholy Warriors

Infidel Kings and Unholy Warriors
Author: Brian A. Catlos
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 471
Release: 2014-08-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 0374712050

An in-depth portrait of the Crusades-era Mediterranean world, and a new understanding of the forces that shaped it In Infidel Kings and Unholy Warriors, the award-winning scholar Brian Catlos puts us on the ground in the Mediterranean world of 1050–1200. We experience the sights and sounds of the region just as enlightened Islamic empires and primitive Christendom began to contest it. We learn about the siege tactics, theological disputes, and poetry of this enthralling time. And we see that people of different faiths coexisted far more frequently than we are commonly told. Catlos's meticulous reconstruction of the era allows him to stunningly overturn our most basic assumption about it: that it was defined by religious extremism. He brings to light many figures who were accepted as rulers by their ostensible foes. Samuel B. Naghrilla, a self-proclaimed Jewish messiah, became the force behind Muslim Granada. Bahram Pahlavuni, an Armenian Christian, wielded power in an Islamic caliphate. And Philip of Mahdia, a Muslim eunuch, rose to admiral in the service of Roger II, the Christian "King of Africa." What their lives reveal is that, then as now, politics were driven by a mix of self-interest, personality, and ideology. Catlos draws a similar lesson from his stirring chapters on the early Crusades, arguing that the notions of crusade and jihad were not causes of war but justifications. He imparts a crucial insight: the violence of the past cannot be blamed primarily on religion.


Sex, Gender, and Illegitimacy in the Castilian Noble Family, 1400–1600

Sex, Gender, and Illegitimacy in the Castilian Noble Family, 1400–1600
Author: Grace E. Coolidge
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2022-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 1496233638

Sex, Gender, and Illegitimacy in the Castilian Noble Family, 1400–1600 looks at illegitimacy across the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and analyzes its implications for gender and family structure in the Spanish nobility, a class whose actions, structure, and power had immense implications for the future of the country and empire. Grace E. Coolidge demonstrates that women and men were able to challenge traditional honor codes, repair damaged reputations, and manipulate ideals of marriage and sexuality to encompass extramarital sexuality and the nearly constant presence of illegitimate children. This flexibility and creativity in their sexual lives enabled members of the nobility to repair, strengthen, and maintain their otherwise fragile concept of dynasty and lineage, using illegitimate children and their mothers to successfully project the noble dynasty into the future—even in an age of rampant infant mortality that contributed to the frequent absence of male heirs. While benefiting the nobility as a whole, the presence of illegitimate children could also be disruptive to the inheritance process, and the entire system privileged noblemen and their aims and goals over the lives of women and children. This book enriches our understanding of the complex households and families of the Spanish nobility, challenging traditional images of a strict patriarchal system by uncovering the hidden lives that made that system function.


Before Mestizaje

Before Mestizaje
Author: Ben Vinson III
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2018
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107026431

This book deepens our understanding of race and the implications of racial mixture by examining the history of caste in colonial Mexico.


The Tunis Crusade of 1270

The Tunis Crusade of 1270
Author: Michael Lower
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2018-04-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 0191061832

Why did the last of the major European campaigns to reclaim Jerusalem end in an attack on Tunis, a peaceful North African port city thousands of miles from the Holy Land? In the first book-length study of the campaign in English, Michael Lower tells the story of how the classic era of crusading came to such an unexpected end. Unfolding against a backdrop of conflict and collaboration that extended from England to Inner Asia, the Tunis Crusade entangled people from every corner of the Mediterranean world. Within this expansive geographical playing field, the ambitions of four powerful Mediterranean dynasts would collide. While the slave-boy-turned-sultan Baybars of Egypt and the saint-king Louis IX of France waged a bitter battle for Syria, al-Mustansir of Tunis and Louis's younger brother Charles of Anjou struggled for control of the Sicilian Straits. When the conflicts over Syria and Sicily became intertwined in the late 1260s, the Tunis Crusade was the shocking result. While the history of the crusades is often told only from the crusaders' perspective, in The Tunis Crusade of 1270, Lower brings Arabic and European-language sources together to offer a panoramic view of these complex multilateral conflicts. Standing at the intersection of two established bodies of scholarship - European History and Near Eastern Studies - this volume contributes to both by opening up a new conversation about the place of crusading in medieval Mediterranean culture.


The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Europe

The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Europe
Author: Grace Davie
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 871
Release: 2022
Genre: History
ISBN: 0198834268

This authoritative collection offers a detailed overview of religious ideas, structures, and institutions in the making of Europe. Written by leading scholars in the field, it demonstrates the enduring presence of lived and institutionalised religion in the social networks of identity, policy, and power over two millennia of European history.


Multilingualism and History

Multilingualism and History
Author: Aneta Pavlenko
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 311
Release: 2023-03-31
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1009236245

We often hear that our world 'is more multilingual than ever before', but is it true? This book shatters that cliché. It is the first volume to shine light on the millennia-long history of multilingualism as a social, institutional and demographic phenomenon. Its fifteen chapters, written in clear, accessible language by prominent historians, classicists, and sociolinguists, span the period from the third century BC to the present day, and range from ancient Rome and Egypt to medieval London and Jerusalem, from Russian, Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires to modern Norway, Ukraine, and Spain. Going against the grain of traditional language histories, these thought-provoking case studies challenge stereotypical beliefs, foreground historic normativity of institutional multilingualism and language mixing, examine the transformation of polyglot societies into monolingual ones, and bring out the cognitive and affective dissonance in present-day orientations to multilingualism, where 'celebrations of linguistic diversity' coexist uneasily with creation of 'language police'.


The Last Ta'ifa

The Last Ta'ifa
Author: Anthony H. Minnema
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2024-05-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1501774905

In The Last Ta'ifa, Anthony H. Minnema shows how the Banu Hud, an Arab dynasty from Zaragoza, created and recreated their vision of an autonomous city-state (ta'ifa) in ways that reveal changes to legitimating strategies in al-Andalus and across the Mediterranean. In 1110, the Banu Hud lost control of their emirate in the north of Iberia and entered exile, ending their century-long rule. But far from accepting their fate, the dynasty adapted by serving Christian kings, nurturing rebellions, and carving out a new state in Murcia to recover, maintain, and grow their power. By tracing the Banu Hud across chronicles, charters, and coinage, Minnema shows how dynastic leaders borrowed their rivals' claims and symbols and engaged in similar types of military campaigns and complex alliances in an effort to cultivate authority. Drawing on Arabic, Latin, and vernacular sources, The Last Ta'ifa uses the history of the Banu Hud to connect the pursuit of legitimacy in al-Andalus to the politics of other emerging kingdoms and emirates. The actions of Hudid leaders, Minnema shows, echoed across the region as other kings, rebels, and adventurers employed parallel methods to gain power and resist the forces of centralization, highlighting the constructed nature of legitimacy in al-Andalus and the Mediterranean.