This book synthesizes three fields of inquiry on the cutting edge of scholarship in medieval studies and world history: the history of medieval Sicily; the history of maritime violence, often named as piracy; and digital humanities. By merging these seemingly disparate strands in the scholarship of world history and medieval studies into a single volume, this book offers new insights into the history of medieval Sicily and the study of maritime violence. As several of the essays in this volume demonstrate, maritime violence fundamentally shaped experience in the medieval Mediterranean, as every ship that sailed, even those launched for commerce or travel, anticipated the possibility of encountering pirates, or dabbling in piracy themselves.
Author(s): Emily Sohmer Tai, Kathryn L. Reyerson
Series: Mediterranean Perspectives
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 358
City: Cham
Mapping Pre-Modern Sicily: Maritime Violence, Cultural Exchange, and Imagination in the Mediterranean
Acknowledgments
Contents
Notes on Contributors
List of Figures
List of Maps
List of Tables
Chapter 1: Introduction
Part I: Maritime Violence: Piracy and War
Chapter 2: Struggle for the Strait
Physical Description
Strategic Significance
Struggles of Antiquity
Struggles of the Early Middle Ages
Struggles of the High Middle Ages
Struggles of the Late Middle Ages
Strategic Significance Lost
Chapter 3: Continuum of Violence in the Mediterranean World: The Case of Roger de Lauria
The Charge of Piracy
The Sources
Medieval Piracy
Battles and Raids
Medieval Admirals and the Performance of Piracy
Conclusion
Chapter 4: The Art of Raiding: The Catalan-Aragonese Raid of the Aegean in 1292
The Raid
Goods Seized and Their Value
Repercussions
Conclusion
Chapter 5: Sicily’s Financial and Logistical Contribution: During the Military Campaign of Alfonso V for Conquest of Naples
Part II: Travel and Trade
Chapter 6: Trade Relations Between Sicily, Ifrı̄qiya, and Egypt Under the Fatimids and Zirids of Ifrı̄qiya (Tenth–Eleventh Centuries)
Renowned and Exported Productions from Sicily
The Growth of Maritime Trade in Sicily
Conclusion
Chapter 7: The Increase of Good Customs: Muslim Resistance and Material Concerns in Post-Norman Sicily
Chapter 8: Trade Between the French Midi and the Kingdom of Sicily
Introduction
Southern French Merchants in the Kingdom of Sicily
Trade Under Foreign Flag: The Trading Ventures of the “Sanctus Egidius” and “Girfalcus” (1248)
Conclusion
Chapter 9: Compassion, Fear, Fugitive Slaves, and a Pirates’ Shrine: Lampedusa, ca. 1550–ca. 1750
Part III: Literary and Material Culture
Chapter 10: The End of Muslim Sicily: A Poetics of Fitna
Arabic Historiographers on the End of Muslim Sicily
What Is Fitna?
Al-Tamīmī’s “Ifranjiyya”
Ibn Ḥamdīs’s Fitna
Conclusion
Chapter 11: Neocastro’s Epic History
Chapter 12: “The Luxuriant Southern Scene” Textiles as Reflections of Power in the Kingdom of Southern Italy and Sicily
Chapter 13: Ghosts of Admiral Roger: Piracy and Political Fantasy in Tirant lo Blanc
Corsairs and Crusaders: Models for Tirant lo Blanc
Tirant lo Blanc as Corsair Admiral
Piracy and Mediterranean “Connectivity”
Conclusion
Part IV: Digital Sicily
Chapter 14: Digital Mapping Technology and the War of the Sicilian Vespers: Using New Methods to Better Understand Old Problems
Introduction
Project Description and the Integration of Digital Mapping Technology
New Directions for History and Digital Mapping
Conclusions
Chapter 15: The Norman Sicily Project: An Ongoing, Web-Based Effort to Promote the Island’s Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Past
Methodology
An Example of What We Can Learn from the Project: Connections Between People and Places
Another Example of What We Can Learn from the Project: An Opportunity for Comparison
Conclusion
Bibliography
Archival Sources
Printed Primary Sources
Secondary Sources
Databases and Resources
Digital Software Sites
Index
