Frankish States Research Articles

Реформа чина Евхаристии (ordo Missae) во Франкском государстве (VIII–IX в.). Богословские и церковно-политические аспекты

Статья посвящена исследованию богословского (идейного) и религиозно-политического аспектов реформы чина литургии (Мессы) во Франкском государстве в VIII– IX вв. Церковные преобразования были частью масштабных государственных реформ, целью которых провозглашалось восстановление Римской империи (Renovatio imperii Romanorum). Эта цель предполагала не формальное воссоздание прежней Западной Римской империи, упраздненной в 476 г., а построение новой теократической imperia christiana, объединяющей население франкского королевства в единый народ Божий (populus Dei). Одним из важнейших направлений церковной реформы стала унификация богослужения по образцу Римской Церкви. Церковь Рима мыслилась «главою всех Церквей (omnium vere ecclesiarum caput)», а Древний Рим — духовным центром христианской цивилизации. Введение единого обряда богослужения преследовало также и очевидную политическую цель — единство и сплоченность народа вокруг Церкви под властью короля, а с 800 г. — императора, как верховного покровителя и защитника христианской веры. Однако следование римской литургической традиции как образцу не означало слепого копирования. Римские богослужебные книги редактировались и дополнялись галликанскими чинами церковных служб и формулярами. Таким образом, возникла гибридная Римско-Франкская литургическая традиция, распространившаяся впоследствии по всей Европе и, в том числе, в самом Риме. Имперские идеи и амбиции Карла Великого породили неизбежное соперничество с Константинополем. Борьба за имперский статус стала причиной введения учения о «двойном» исхождении Святого Духа от Отца и Сына и чтения Символа Веры (Credo) с прибавлением Filioque. The article is focused on the study of the theological (ideological) and religious-political aspects of the reform of the eucharist liturgy (of the Mass) in the Frankish state in the VIII–IX centuries. Church reforms were part of the large-scale state reforms, the purpose of which was proclaimed the restoration of the Roman Empire (Renovatio imperii Romanorum). This aim was not a formal restoration of the old Western Roman Empire, which had been dissolved in 476, but the building of a new theocratic Imperia christiana, uniting the population of the Frankish kingdom into a single people of God (populus Dei). One of the most important directions of the ecclesiastical reform was the unification of divine service on the model of the Roman Church. The Church of Rome was thought to be “the head of all Churches (omnium vere ecclesiarum caput)”, and ancient Rome was thought to be the spiritual center of Christian civilization. The introduction of a single rite of worship also pursued an obvious political goal — the unity and cohesion of the people around the Church under the authority of the king, and from 800 AD. — emperor as the supreme patron and defender of the Christian faith. However, following the Roman liturgical tradition as a model did not mean blind copying. Roman liturgical books were edited and supplemented with Gallican rites and formularies. Thus, a hybrid Romano-Frankish liturgical tradition emerged, which later spread throughout Europe, including Rome itself. Charlemagne’s imperial ideas and ambitions created an inevitable competition with Constantinople. The struggle for imperial status led to the introduction of the doctrine of the “double” proceeding of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son and the reading of the Creed (Credo) with the addition of Filioque.

«ТЕРПЕНИЕ, С КОТОРЫМ НАДЛЕЖИТ ПРИСВАИВАТЬ РЕЛИКВИИ»: О НЕКОТОРЫХ СЮЖЕТАХ В ИСТОРИИ КУЛЬТА СВ. ЦЕЗАРИЯ АРЕЛАТСКОГО

This article systematises the evidence from various sources on the cult of St Cesarius, bishop of Arles (502-543). During the late Antiquity he was one of the main figures in the Church of Southern Gaul. Cesarius' cult had the potential to extend beyond Provence: the bishop was known as a wonder-worker not only in Arles, his sermons were popular in various parts of Europe, his status as the first papal vicar in Gaul could become an argument in foreign policy for Frankish kings and the papacy. For the first time in the West, Caesarius developed a Rule specifically for the ascetic community of women («The Rule for Virgins») and may have laid the foundations of the normative tradition of medieval female monasticism. However, the potential opportunities were never realized, and the cult of Caesarius remained local. Among the reasons are the following: the inconsistency of the bishop with the hagiographic model that prevailed in late Antiquity, the unacceptability for the Merovingians of his position in relation to the Arian kings, the burial of the saint away from the tombs of the martyrs, the peripheral status of Provence in the vast Frankish state. At the turn of the 20th-21st centuries, an unexpected surge of interest in the bishop's relics was caused by the restoration of his funeral vestments. The natural science methods used in the study of sacred objects made it possible to make important observations in the field of material culture. Several museum exhibitions outlined the range of objects associated with the name of the bishop, archival work made it possible to clarify its history. These events have become a kind of «appropriation of relics» by Caesarius of Arles by means of the age of high technology. As a result, the bishop is now perhaps a more famous person than during the 1500 yea rs that have passed since his death.

Food in the Frankish Levant: a Case Study of Cultural Borrowing

Abstract The Crusader movement called for the liberation of the Holy Land and the expulsion of non-Christians. Yet in reality, the Frankish states of Edessa, Antioch, Tripoli and Jerusalem, established as the result of the Crusades, were to become heterogeneous societies, with a plurality of ethnic and religious groups ruled by a Latin Frankish elite. In recent decades, historians, art historians and archaeologists have turned much attention to the study of influences and cultural borrowing in artistic, architectural, religious, military, governmental, administrative and intellectual activities that resulted from almost two centuries of co-existence of the Latins with the local population in the Levant: Eastern Christians, Muslims, and Jews. This article strives to contribute to this ongoing discussion by analyzing some aspects of everyday life in the Frankish Levant, focusing mainly on foodstuffs and food habits. The study of preservation of culinary traditions, consumption of new food products, as well as technological and administrative changes related to food production, are valuable tools in understanding coexistence and cultural borrowing in the Frankish Levant.

FEATURES OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE OLD HIGH GERMAN CONSONANTISM

The article examines the main processes associated with the formation and development of writing in the Old High German period of the formation of the German language. The Old High German period is primarily the period of the formation of the German nation, first within the Frankish state, and later the East Frankish state, ending with the proclamation of the German Empire in 962. Actually, the written tradition of the German language is connected with church life. In the monastery cells, theological treatises, prayers, and psalms were translated into German, historical works were written, and biblical commentaries were compiled for the school and for the education of priests. Monasteries became the centers of education and spiritual life of the early feudal society. At this time, a new form of existence of the German language was formed in the form of a set of territorial dialects. The article notes that The Old High German dialects differ from each other in phonetic, morphological, lexical, and even syntactic aspects. In other words, almost every dialect had its own spelling and phonetic features. However, the unity of the German language was always ensured by the kinship of the dialects, the general trends in the development of their phonetic and grammatical structure, and interaction with a particularly strong influence of the Frankish dialect on others. The development of the graphic system in this period is complex due to the adaptation of the Latin alphabet to German pronunciation. At that time, there was not only a single orthographic norm for the German language in general, but also a single spelling of certain words or morphemes within the framework of a single written document. The main written works of that time are analysed, taking into account the dialectal features of each of them. It has been found that under the influence of Latin, the German script undergoes significant changes, but retains its linguistic independence, particularly in the consonant system.

A library of Charles the Great and her lot

In article has іnterdisciplinary character and is written at the interface of the branches, such as a history of the Middle Ages, a history of the book as well as a history of the librarianship. An aim of article is to sum up the study of development of the royal libraries and their lot by the case of library of emperor Charles the Great, which is considered as first united court library in the Frankish state. In the article traces an author a chronology of development of the certain theories and hypotheses about the structure of the royal library and her lot, which were propounded and developed in the course of the last twelve centuries until early 2014, as it was all over the world celebrated 1200 years since the death of her founder. In consequence of study of the numerous German-language publications, which were published over the last 70 years, was it established, that a substance of collection in the royal library of Charles the Great consists of the publications about the religion, the philosophy, the history and other humanities, which the promіnet persons could use in those days, and also the separate editions about the natural sciences, the manuscripts, few teaching aids and reference books too. Аn author came to the conclusion, that some aspects of activity of the contoversial politician such Charles the Great were studied extremely insufficient. Among their number is a question of the concern of Charles to the librarianship, because a king had found a state library. But he hadn't given at the same time an attention to the problems of conservation of the collections for the posterity, such as to the problems of collecting and filling of the gaps by means of rewriting of the rare works, which were kept in the other institutions, specifically in the monasteries. It is appears in consequence of study of the modern publications about the Early Middle Ages such as about the government of Charles the Great, that the library collections were turned over religious institutions of all sorts after his death in late january 814.

Relations Between the East Frankish State and Kyivan Rus in the Tenth - Eleventh Centuries

Relations Between the East Frankish State and Kyivan Rus in the Tenth - Eleventh Centuries

Settlement Pattern and Land Use under the Frankish Feudal System in the Northwestern Peloponnese (Thirteenth–Mid-Fifteenth Centuries)

Abstract Following the Fourth Crusade, one of the Frankish states that were established in former Byzantine territories was the Principality of Morea, in the Peloponnese. A strict hierarchy consisting of the prince, the barons, and the fief-knights quickly implemented a feudal system and imposed it on the locals; towers were erected and settlements were relocated. Fieldwork in the Patras area, in the northwestern Peloponnese, has focused on identifying the implementation of the feudal system on the level of the barony and that of the fief. Data are drawn from surface surveys and from historical records, including Ottoman tax registers. Spatial analysis in GIS is used to examine the role of the towers in the economic and social life of the subordinate settlements and how the exercise of power manifests itself in the landscape.

The Process of Writing and Promulgation of Acts in the Early Chancellery Practice of the Frankish State and Old Rus

The paper is dedicated to the early chancellery practices of the Frankish State and Old Rus as well as to the differences and the similarities of the early immunity chaters of those two countries. In medieval Latin sources, the word kancellaria is known from the 12th century. In what concerns Rus and the Russian State, it is used somewhat conventionally up to c. 1700. Institutions comprising some staff of scribes are known in the Russian State not earlier than in the 15th—16th centuries. The offices of dyaks (later transforming into prikazes and chets) emerged only in the first half and the middle of the 16th century. Contrary to the early medieval West, chancellery was not a special institution at the court, but rather a structure within a central state office. Due to this, acts often were composed in scriptoria, and the originals of the earliest of them are written in bookish hands. The practice of composing charters by beneficiaries, known in the early Frankish State, was characteristic to Rus until at least the second half of the 16th century. Although princely scribes are known to compose some kinds of acts from the late 13th and the 14th centuries, many other long continued to be written in monastic scriptoria.

Phenotypic diversity of skulls in the Merovingian population (Norroy‐le‐Veneur cemetery, 7th century AD, Moselle, France) in the context of Early Medieval Europe

AbstractWestern Europe underwent a major sociocultural and economic transformation from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. This so‐called Migration Period is characterized by invasions of various western and eastern non‐Romanized peoples, as well as by nomadic Huns. The Frankish state was the only Germanic state to successfully survive this period. Nevertheless, the arrival of unknown populations could have influenced the autochthonous Frankish population. Biological contacts between them are strongly reflected phenotypically in head/skull dimensions. The aim of this craniometric analysis of the Merovingian cemetery at Norroy‐le‐Veneur (NV), present‐day France, is to contribute to an understanding of population changes during the Migration Period. The NV data were compared, using univariate statistical analysis adapted to the state of preservation of the skulls without the use of imputation techniques, with the current database of European burials. Intersexual and interpopulation differences were tested by bootstrap two‐sample t test applied to winsorized measurements, indices and their z scores. Overall, NV is similar in terms of skull shape to the other Merovingian cemeteries. Males have significantly longer ultradolichocephalic skulls than dolichocephalic females and greater biauricular width. NV is significantly different to burials in present‐day Hungary, its individuals having significantly longer skulls, wider faces and wider skulls in the biauricular region. The NV individuals have significantly higher values of biauricular width than people from burials in Austria and Czechia‐Bohemia and lower length‐width index values than individuals from burials in Moravia (skulls are longer).The different shape of the skulls from Hungarian territory in the Early Middle Ages is due to the arrival of the Huns and Near‐Eastern Sarmat‐Alan populations, characterized by shorter and wider skulls, in the Carpathian Basin. The results suggest that they probably did not interfere too much genotypically in western European regions and did not significantly affect the Germanic Franks.

On the Origins of Komitats in the First Bulgarian Empire

The article gives a critical review of previous views on the origin of komitats as administrative units in the Early Medieval Bulgarian State. Among the Bulgarian researchers, the opinion of their Byzantine origin prevailed, while the only Western researcher dealing with the problem, T. Wasilewski, advocated the thesis of their relationship with Western Europe, suggesting some of the conclusions of I. Venedikov. It is concluded that at the beginning of the 9th century, when Bulgaria expanded its territory almost doubled, its population is multiethnic and already has direct neighbors in the face of Byzantium and the Frankish state needed a new administrative division. The administrative division of the two countries is decided in two fundamentally different ways. In search of ways to solve the problem, the Byzantine themae system and the marks of the Frankish state are presented. Between komitats and the themae system the similarities are only formal, whereas the comparison with the marks proved to be much more efficient. In this case, similarities are found with regard to their location, their way of setting up, the powers and the way of appointing their governors, as well as the names and powers of the governors. The presence of komitats on the northern and western borders of the Early Medieval Bulgarian state was established, but not in the direction of Constantinople. These parts are directly subordinate to the central government, and this division of ‘inside’ and ‘out’ is characteristic of both early-medieval Bulgaria and the Frankish state of that period. It is pointed out the possibility that the Boritarkans are an intermediary between the central authority and the komitats, and on the basis of the source data the possibility is presented that they are directly subordinated to the komiti.

The daily life of franks according to written sources at the time of Gregory of Tours: clothing, military affairs, urban life and customs

This paper is a logical continuation of our paper The daily life of Franks according to written sources at the time of Gregory of Tours, I: diseases, medicine, hygiene and food. This paper is an attempt to collect and systematize information about the material conditions of life in the Frankish state of the Merovingians in the 6thcentury in the descriptions of contemporary authors. The choice of the topic is due to the need to compose a complete picture of a persons life from the beginning of the early Middle Ages, which until now has remained poorly researched, unlike the Carolingian period. The sources used are the writings of Gregory of Tours, Venantius Fortunatus, Apollinaris Sidonius, The Chronicle of Fredegar, The History Book of the Franks and others. The paper collects data on the clothes of various population groups, on the weapons and armor of the Franks and the level of military affairs development, on cities and urban life, and some features of the mentality of so far half barbaric society. The collected material allows us to state that: a) the sources of the early Merovingian period, in contrast to the Carolingian era, are distinguished by the extreme scarcity of data in the field of genesis; b) despite a rather primitive look of clothing, it possessed considerable material value, as well as it had a significant essence, c) Roman cities continued to exist on the territory of Gallia, but largely lost their urban character, turning into fortified centers, and c) Christianization had very little influence on the moral character of the Franks; society remained largely barbaric, although some features indicate the beginning of the formation of a new civilization.

The daily life of the Francs according to written sources at the time of Gregory of Tours: diseases, medicine, hygiene and food

This paper is an attempt to collect and systematize information about the material conditions of life in the Frankish state of the Merovingians in the 6th century. The choice of the topic is due to the need to compose a complete picture of a persons life from the beginning of the early Middle Ages, which until now has remained poorly researched, unlike the Carolingian period. The sources used are the writings of Gregory of Tours, Venantius Fortunatus, Apollinaris Sidonius, The Chronicle of Fredegar, The History Book of the Franks and others. The paper contains data on the diseases and epidemics that were widespread during the mentioned period, methods of their treatment and the state of medicine in general, hygiene in the Frankish society, as well as the diet and composition of products. The collected material says that: a) the sources of the early Merovingian period are extremely scarce data in the field of life descriptions; b) the Frankish society was very vulnerable to a wide variety of diseases, and the priority of faith over medicine did not allow them to resist; c) ideas about the absence of elementary hygiene in the early Middle Ages are greatly exaggerated, and d) the set of consumed products was distinguished by simplicity and at the same time diversity with rudimentary skills in cooking.

Politics and diplomacy in the Latin East: The principality of Antioch in historiographical perspective

AbstractOne of four “crusader states” formed following the First Crusade, the principality of Antioch was built on turbulent foundations. Its Latin settlers faced not only various Islamic powers, they also had to contend with the Byzantine Empire, whose rulers claimed the city and its environs for themselves; the Armenian Christians of Cilicia; and the rival machinations of the other Frankish states, particularly the kingdom of Jerusalem. The instability this facilitated, and the power of those who vied for influence with Antioch, has had a profound impact on modern historiography. Thus, the principality has been portrayed as a rigorous autocratic state, whose relationships—internal and external—were primarily shaped by outside forces. This article explores these trends, proposing that the principality of Antioch's power structures were far more dynamic than once imagined and that its ruling elites played a more proactive, delicate diplomatic game than historians have recognised.

Approaches to the Study of Migration during the Crusades

The crusades were arguably the largest migration events that involved medieval Europeans. A range of archaeological and textual methods have been used in the past in order to try to understand the process of migration and settlement in the Frankish states in the eastern Mediterranean. Archaeological methods include identifying the building plans of European-style houses in the Latin East, and finding European items such as coins, brooches and belt buckles in burials. Textual approaches using manuscripts from the Frankish East include the spelling of words in texts indicating the accent of the author, the use of words particular to specific European regions, the names of Europeans in lists of settlers, and mention of European toponymic bynames among those recorded in documents. Here we also introduce recent results of an archaeological method that had not previously been applied to crusade-related migration: the analysis of oxygen and strontium isotopes in teeth from excavated human skeletal remains. This technique has been applied to crusader-period burials at Caesarea and the farming village of Parvum Gerinum, both in the kingdom of Jerusalem, in order to identify which individuals were probably born in the East and which had spent their childhood in Europe. The results suggest that the majority of those tested from the cemeteries of Caesarea were born in Europe; and we have been able to identify the specific region of origin for a proportion of those migrants.

Florian Steger and Kay Peter Jankrift (eds), Gesundheit – Krankheit. Kulturtransfer medizinischen Wissens von der Spätantike bis in die Frühe Neuzeit, Cologne, Böhlau Verlag, 2004, pp. vi, 270, €34.90 (hardback 3-412-13803-7).

The scope of this volume is ambitious, spanning a millennium, covering both western Europe and the east, and including topics as diverse as surgery in the Frankish states and “paleness” as an illness in early modern poetry. Three papers are in English (Peregrine Horden, John Henderson, Piers Mitchell), with German summaries, but unfortunately English summaries are not given for the German contributions, something which would have broadened the appeal of this volume for those with a phobia for German. Nevertheless, it is worth venturing in, as there is much of interest here. The volume is organized chronologically, and divides into three sections: late antique, medieval, and early modern. Mischa Meier's paper centres around the intriguing hypothesis that the writing of history altered in response to the experience of plague in the late antique world. She focuses principally on eastern authors but concludes with Pope Gregory the Great and Gregory of Tours in the west. Gernot Kirchner picks up where Meier ends, discussing Gregory of Tours' concept of healing, the literary models he draws on, and his attitudes towards doctors. As with Meier's paper, the principal emphasis is on the literary representation of illness and healing rather than medical practice. Peregrine Horden, in contrast, starts with the development in late antiquity in the east of the physical space designated as a “hospital”, but argues that it was brought into existence—and gained its symbolic force—as part of the theological and political power struggle between groupings within Christianity (“Arian” and “Catholic”). There is then a slightly uncomfortable jump in chronology from late antiquity to the Crusades, perhaps inevitable in a single volume attempting such a large chronological sweep. However, with three papers on late antiquity, one could have covered at least part of the seventh to tenth centuries, perhaps focusing on the manuscript transmission and use of medical texts from antiquity to the middle ages. What is good in this volume, however, is the balance between east and west, and this is exemplified by Johannes Pahlitzsch's fascinating exploration of the mobility of Christian, Jewish and Samaritan doctors in the east across political and religious borders. Jewish doctors, this time in the west, are also the focus of Peter Kay Jankrift's contribution. The mobility of these doctors in the west, however, means that evidence about their activities is sparse and Jankrift persuasively argues that historians should respond to this by taking a broad comparative approach between regions. Piers Mitchell also grapples with a lack of direct evidence for types of elective surgery performed in the Frankish states and instead he mines court records, chronicles and Arab sources to infer the types of elective surgical procedures (such as cauterization, treatment of haemorrhoids and possibly also cutting of gums for scurvy) that patients expected surgeons to perform successfully. The early modern section of the volume opens with John Henderson's paper on early modern hospitals. In a welcome departure from the overwhelmingly literary source base of the volume as a whole, he draws on iconographic as well as textual evidence in order to attempt to reconstruct a patient's experience from entry to discharge (or death) in Renaissance hospitals in Florence. This is followed by a timely look by Renate Wittern at the contemporary reception of Andreas Vesalius' famous anatomical work De fabrica, not least by Vesalius' own former teacher, Jacobus Sylvius. Florian Steger focuses on a perhaps less universally famous, but nevertheless important, figure of the medical Renaissance, Georgius Agricola, and specifically his 1528 dialogue ‘Bermannus sive de re metallica’. Steger argues that Agricola's dialogue should be viewed as part of the ongoing contemporary debate on what constituted “true” or “right” anatomy or medicine. Daniel Schafer's paper is the most closely focused in the collection on the concrete transmission of medical texts from antiquity to the Renaissance. Sensibly, rather than attempting a complete survey, he focuses on a single theme which is now receiving increasing attention from historians, namely texts relating to ageing and prolonging life. Sandra Pott, in contrast, considers poetry about the plague and “paleness”. She argues that not only did a “medicalization” of poetry take place in the early modern period, but that in turn medical discourse was influenced by poetry. Overall, this collection has some strong contributions and although few contributors discuss it explicitly, they collectively deal with the concept of “transmission” in a creative way, considering the transmission not just of medical texts but also of medical personnel, medical knowledge and language across linguistic, chronological, political and religious boundaries.

Child Health in the Crusader Period Inhabitants of Tel Jezreel, Israel

This study assesses the state of health of children from the medieval Christian population living at Tel Jezreel, when it was known as Parvum Gerinum. This is the first ever project to investigate health at a farming village in the Frankish States of the Latin East during the crusader period. In consequence, the findings at a population level are of particular importance.Analysis of the skeletal remains of fifty children allowed determination of the age when each died. This shows that 60% of child deaths occurred by the age of one year, and that age distribution was similar to the poorest developing world countries today. Comparison with research in these modern populations allows us to suggest which types of disease were most likely to have been responsible for deaths in the different age groups. This age at death profile and nonspecific indicators of ill health were compared with other archaeological series of childhood skeletal remains from the Middle East. This suggests that health amongst the children at Parvum Gerinum was probably better than the children at a twelfth century crusader castle in Jordan, but worse than health in children from a Bronze Age site in Anatolia.

Medicine in the Crusades: warfare, wounds, and the medieval surgeon

List of illustrations List of tables Preface Introduction 1. Medical practitioners in the Frankish states 2. Hospitals on the battlefield and in the towns 3. Archaeological evidence for trauma and surgery in the medieval period 4. Torture and mutilation 5. Injuries and their treatment 6. The practice of elective surgery and bloodletting 7. Exchange of medical knowledge with the crusades 8. Frankish medical legislation Conclusion Bibliography Index.

Militarization to Nomadization: The Middle and Late Islamic Periods

Ayyubid, Mamluk, and Ottoman are the often only vaguely familiar political designations of the Middle and Late Islamic periods of Palestine. Together spanning over seven centuries, their rule of the region began under the leadership of the politically and military gifted Salah al-Din (d. 1193), who established the Ayyubid Dynasty, unifying the Muslim Levant and dealing with the Frankish states that had been founded by the Crusaders. Nearly a century later, a bloodless military coup brought the Mamluk Sultanate into being with its fascinating institution of importing slaves who were enculturated, educated, and entrained in the military arts. The Sultanate was a novelty, representing the first time Mamluks succeeded in creating their own state. Incorporating Palestine into their Cairo-based empire, the Mamluk empire became what was then the longest living, autonomous Islamic state in Egypt, surpassed only by its successor, the Ottoman Sultanate. The Ottomans, who, like the Mamluks, were a military dynasty, swept through Palestine in 1516. In the first hundred years of their governance, some of palestine's larger towns received Ottoman patronage. Suleiman the Magnificient stands out for the attention he showered on Jerusalem, beautifying the Dome of the Rock and repairing the town's walls and gates. Soon, however, the Ottomans lost interest in a region so distant from their capitol in Anatolia. Investment gave way to neglect, and for two centuries there was little governance emanating from the central administration. Tribal sheiks rose in the vacuum, and local autonomy characterized a fairly splintered region. Ottoman resurgence in the nineteenth century imposed a stronger, more involved government and ambitious projects with international scope : the Suez Canal (1869) and the Hijaz Railway (finished in 1908), whetting the interest of European powers. Britain terminated Ottoman rule at the conclusion of the first World War.

The treaties of the early Mamluk sultans with the Frankish states

Arabic sources have preserved the texts of seven treaties concluded in the second half of the seventh/thirteenth century between the Mamluk sultans al-Ẓāhir Baybars and al-Manṣūr Qalāwūn on the one hand, and various authorities in the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem and in Antioch-Tripoli on the other. Four are given by the Egyptian chancery clerk al-Qalqashandī in his encyclopaedic compilation, Ṣubḥ al-a'shā. This was completed in 814/1412, over 120 years after the extinction of the Frankish states, but the treaties were transcribed (as al-Qalqashandī tells us) from an earlier work by a clerk in Qalāwūn's chancery, Muḥammad b. al-Mukarram. Two of Qalāwūn's other treaties are found in his biography, written by the contemporary chancery clerk, Muḥyi al-Dīn ibn 'Abd al-Ẓāhir (d. 692/1292). Yet another of Qalāwūn's treaties was preserved by the contemporary chronicler, Baybars al-Manṣurī (d. 725/1325).

Paulus Albarus of Muslim Cordova

In the year of the Incarnation 839, there occurred an event which alarmed the inhabitants of Frankland: a royal chaplain named Bodo, nobly born and a deacon in Holy Orders, under singularly dramatic circumstances abandoned the Christian faith for Judaism, changed his name to Eleazar, took a Jewish wife, and went to live in Saracenic Spain. The incident is remarkable for three reasons. First, it shows the vitality of Jewish proselytism in the ninth-century Western world. Secondly, it had some effect on the relations between the Frankish state and the Spanish Muslim government.