Iberian Sources for the History of Trade with North Africa and the Levant, ca. 1350-1510

Abstract

Abstract Throughout the last decade, problems of cross-cultural contact and exchange have claimed the attention of a growing number of economic, social, and cultural historians. One particular zone of cross-cultural interaction that has now re-emerged rather dramatically into the limelight, at least in European scholarship, is the “forgotten frontier” between the worlds of Christianity and Islam in the Mediterranean and along the Atlantic coast of Morocco. One might suppose that this field has already been very heavily worked, but this is not so, especially where the later Middle Ages are concerned. Systematic new research has been hampered, in particular, by the lack of a handy introductory guide to the relevant archival sources, and by an extremely dispersed secondary literature. This contribution seeks to bring a partial remedy by offering a critical review and a basic typology of the Iberian sources for the history of the Maghrib and Levant trade, and a concise listing of those archival holdings and sources that have yielded rewarding data thus far.