City States in the Later Medieval Mediterranean World

Patrick Lantschner

doi:10.1093/pastj/gtab004

Abstract

Abstract This article offers a comparative study of city states in the Christian and Islamic spheres of the later medieval Mediterranean world, with a particular focus on Italy, Syria and al-Andalus. Medieval city states are not usually associated with the Islamic world, but rather with a narrative that has foregrounded the exceptional nature of European cities in world history, especially the famous city republics in Northern and Central Italy, and the role that city states played in the formation of European states. Yet city states were a phenomenon that could be observed across urbanized regions of the Mediterranean world where cities turned into important political arenas in the context of sustained political fragmentation. City states are best approached as political systems that were characterized by brittle regimes and experienced high levels of political volatility: they often lacked a clear boundary between the ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ of city states and were characterized by the multiple political organizations that crystallized in, and fought hard to control, urban political space. The most commonly shared type of political organization in city states was the urban lordship, but city-based lords usually found themselves in intense competition with elite-based collective associations, families and factions, and popular political organizations.

Highlights

The della Scala, iAmmar and iAqıl dynasties originated from within the urban societies of Verona, Tripoli, and Tyre, respectively, but the blurred line between city states and the world around them is even clearer for another kind of city-based ruler that featured in all the three regions under investigation here — regional political players and warlords who established themselves as city-based lords, often with the same aspiration of creating dynastic regimes
Under the Burids, the rajıs was at least for some of the time the head of the Burids’ civil administration and may have acted as their chief urban official.[88]. This is, not the type of formalization of urban institutions that we find in Italian cities, but it is as close as we can get to the official recognition of these political players by Burid princes
Medieval city states are not usually associated with the Islamic world, but rather with a narrative that has foregrounded the exceptional nature of European cities in world history, especially the famous city republics in Northern and Central Italy, and the role that city states played in the formation of European states

Summary

Introduction

Signori call into question the oft-made assumption that Italian city states were uniquely independent political entities, while Islamic city-based rulers were necessarily part of a wider umbrella, such as the caliphate or particular empires.

Objectives

Results

Conclusion