Collection No Longer on Display: Restoring Medieval England’s Arabic Books to View

Abstract

A dominant cultural perception of the Middle Ages – manifested in the Victoria and Albert Museum's segregation of its ‘Medieval' and ‘Islamic Gallery' rooms – falsely positions England as isolated from its global influences. In reality, the translation of Arabic books, and the contacts necessary for that translation, transformed English culture. In a medieval context, ‘translation' refers both to the movement of a text between languages and the movement of relics. The arrival of Arabic books reflects these two meanings. In medieval England, Arabic books were materially and spiritually valuable; they were treasured, collected items, and collections in their own right – anthologies which acted as libraries, emulating the Islamicate archives from which they had travelled. This essay considers two case studies drawn from the Canterbury Tales: Chaucer's direct translation of the astrologer Sahl Ibn Bishr, in the Man of Law's Tale, and of the alchemist Muhammed Ibn Umail, in the Canon's Yeoman's Tale. Although Chaucer is known today as the ‘father of English', his medieval and early modern readers were aware of his indebtedness to inherited Arabic science. I argue that centring the Arabic presence in Chaucer’s works is no modern innovation, but a return to a traditional way of reading the Canterbury Tales which can be seen in practice in manuscript and early printed records. Surviving medieval English versions of Arabic texts offer material witnesses of cross-cultural dialogue, which deserve to be displayed and read.