Medieval Empire Research Articles

Kilka wizji Europy. Szkic na marginesie aktualnych lektur

The article presents the reflection on current propositions regarding new ideas of the European integrity in the social and political literature of the last years. Having assumed that the present economic crisis concerning especially the common currency – euro, therefore the crisis touching the European Union member states directly, has provoked the serious identity problem of the European Union itself, many authors are looking for other visions and there is a whole range of them: from the Union breaking-up (“Good-bye Europe”), through the social contract (as with Rousseau), and the neo-empire (revival of the medieval empire), the post-national democracy (without national states, without Westphalian states) to close federation. As they do not have the character of realistic projects ready to be applied, one cannot omit them, because they are building the excellent doctrinal background to the European integration.

‘Hier existiert noch das alte heilige deutsche Reich’: The Legacy of the Holy Roman Empire and the Unity of Germany

The legacy of the Holy Roman Empire continued to preoccupy Germans into the middle of the twentieth century. The article examines the role which the empire played in thinking about the unity of Germany in the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries. Before 1871 memories of the early modern Reich were prominent. Thereafter Prussian historians generally invoked the medieval Hohenstaufen Empire as a model while their Austrian counterparts cultivated memories of a Catholic Austrian-led empire. The association of these ideas with Nazism finally resulted in a general loss of interest in the Reich, which the revival of scholarly interest in it since the 1960s has not reversed.

Empress Dowager Cixi: the concubine who launched modern China

Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908) is the most important woman in Chinese history. She ruled China for decades and brought a medieval empire into the modern age. At the age of sixteen, in a nationwide selection for royal consorts, Cixi was chosen as one of the emperor's numerous concubines and sexual partners. When he died in 1861, their five-year-old son succeeded to the throne. Cixi at once launched a palace coup against the regents appointed by her husband and made herself the real ruler of China - behind the throne, literally, with a silk screen separating her from her officials who were all male. In this groundbreaking biography, Jung Chang vividly describes how Cixi fought against monumental obstacles to change China. Under her the ancient country attained virtually all the attributes of a modern state: industries, railways, electricity, telegraph, and an army and navy with up-to-date weaponry. It was she who abolished gruesome punishments like 'death by a thousand cuts' and put an end to foot-binding. She inaugurated women's liberation, and embarked on the path to introduce parliamentary elections to China. Jung Chang comprehensively overturns the conventional view of Cixi as a diehard conservative and cruel despot. Cixi reigned during extraordinary times and had to deal with a host of major national crises: the Taiping and Boxer Rebellions, wars with France and Japan - and the invasion by eight allied powers including Britain, Germany, Russia and the United States. Jung Chang not only records the Empress Dowager's conduct of domestic and foreign affairs, but also takes the reader into the depths of her splendid Summer Palace and the harem of Beijing's Forbidden City, where she lived surrounded by eunuchs - with one of whom she fell in love, with tragic consequences. The world Jung Chang describes here, in fascinating detail, seems almost unbelievable in its extraordinary mixture of the very old and the very new. Based on newly available, mostly Chinese, historical documents such as court records, official and private correspondence, diaries and eye-witness accounts, this biography will revolutionise historical thinking about a crucial period in China's - and the world's - history. Packed with drama, fast-paced and gripping, it is both a panoramic depiction of the birth of modern China and an intimate portrait of a woman: as the concubine to a monarch, as the absolute ruler of a third of the world's population, and as a unique stateswoman.

KOSOVO – HISTORY AND ACTUALITY

AbstractThe Kosovo region was always the “cause of fight” between Serbians and Albanians,Kosovo becoming a long source of hate between the two populations. The Serbiansconsidered Kosovo the “Saint Land”, some kind of Jerusalem. They provided historicalarguments as well: they were saying that the territory of Kosovo province was situated in thecentre of their medieval empire; on this territory were the main religious “flags”, whichhelped the Serbians to achieve their own cultural identity, in this region being situated theirmain monasteries built during the medieval period.The Serbian writer Dobrico Ćosić stated in 1999 that Kosovo province “is not only apiece of land, it represents the Serbian identity itself. With the loss of Kosovo... the Serbianpeople was mutilated”.In this study, a range of observations are provided on etymology, a brief history, aswell as the causes which determined the beginning of conflict.

ReviewJudith Herrin, Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009. Paper. Pp. 440; 8 color and 42 b&w figs. $19.95. ISBN: 9780691143699. [Cloth edition published in 2007 but not reviewed.

Previous articleNext article No AccessReviewsReview Judith Herrin, Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009. Paper. Pp. 440; 8 color and 42 b&w figs. $19.95. ISBN: 9780691143699. [Cloth edition published in 2007 but not reviewed.]Christopher LivanosChristopher Livanos 1 University of Wisconsin, Madison Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Speculum Volume 87, Number 3July 2012 The journal of the Medieval Academy of America Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1017/S0038713412002321 Views: 24Total views on this site Copyright © The Medieval Academy of America 2012PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Bishops in the Medieval Empire: New Perspectives on the Church, State and Episcopal Office

AbstractThrough the mid‐20th century, most historical research on bishops and the episcopate in early medieval Germany and the Holy Roman Empire was carried out within a conceptual framework known as the Imperial Church System (Reichskirchensystem), a merging of the early medieval church and royal government. The Reichskirchensystem grew out of a tradition of 19th century political history which took as its primary concern the evolution of the modern constitutional state and viewed the church and its personnel – namely bishops – as mostly negative influences on those processes over time. In the post‐war period, new approaches to constitutional and social history in the German academy prompted scholars to recast bishops as aristocratic elites and focus on the way they exercised lordship, or Herrschaft. More recently, studies of the episcopacy in Germany have embraced a variety of interdisciplinary methods and new approaches to medieval sources and begun to explore the ways bishops construed their power as a unique sphere of authority within the political and social worlds of the Middle Ages.

Leo III and the Anemodoulion

Abstract The Anemodoulion, a Constantinopolitan tetrapylon decorated with numerous figural reliefs and crowned by a weathervane, has traditionally been seen as an entirely late antique construction. A re-evaluation of the medieval sources shows that, while the tetrapylon itself was constructed in late antiquity, its figural decoration and conversion into a weathervane likely date to the reign of Leo III (717–741). Viewed in connection with other monuments of Leo's reign, in particular the gate of the Kontoskalion Harbor, and historical accounts of the end of the Arab siege of 717/18, the Anemodoulion may be interpreted as a triumphal monument celebrating the dispersal of the Arab fleet via a powerful storm. It thus provides new insight into the earliest efforts of the Isaurian emperors to rebuild Constantinople as a fitting capital for a medieval empire.

Constitutional Exchange in Japan: From Shogunate to Parliamentary Democracy

This paper uses some recent work from constitutional political economy to analyze the politics of Japan as it shifted from a medieval empire or federation to a modern parliamentary state in the late nineteenth century. The analysis suggests that the Tokugawa period, the Meiji restoration, and its transition to constitutional monarchy can be understood as settings in which a good deal of constitutional exchange took place. This is not to say that all changes in Japanese history are lawful constitutional reforms or motivated by obvious self-interest, but is to say that constitutional negotiations and self-interest are important determinants of constitutional reform. Even in cases in which military threats are important considerations, resistance to change can be reduced by attempting to find reforms that advance mutual interests and minimize unproductive conflict. The alignment of liberal political and economic interests that produced democracies in many European countries was not quite sufficient to do so in Japan in the 1920s. On the other hand, they clearly produced substantial liberalization of Japanese governance in the half century that followed the Meiji restoration.

Things Fall Together: The Past and Future Africas of T. O. Elias's Africa and the Development of International Law

AbstractThis article investigates T. O. Elias's constructions of past and future Africas in Africa and the Development of International Law. It locates Elias within Nigeria's educated elite and its oscillating constructions of past and future Africas, and turns specifically to Elias's romanticized African past of the great medieval empires as a source of legitimacy within the broader ‘development’ of international law. The article works through his depiction of ‘customary’ law in Nigeria and how the African past maintains its presence in current law, and then addresses Elias's depiction of the future represented by new pan-African institutions. Finally, the article discusses Elias's depiction of a liberating future or ‘modern’ international law – the move from consent to consensus – in which Africa seems important only within the broader population of new states, and how his conception of international law – citing Jenks and Jessup, Friedmann and Falk – with its commitment to law's reflection of society, fits comfortably within the traditions of a modern sociological jurisprudence.

Making Peace and War in the 'City State' of Worms, 1235-1273

Specialists working on the western medieval empire have long identified the cities of Northern Italy as politically precocious in comparison with contemporary cities in the German kingdom. In particular, scholars have emphasized the development of de facto, if not de jure, sovereignty in the cities of Lombardy and Tuscany, including Florence, Sienna, and particularly Milan, based on their ability to make peace and wage war on their own behalf without the interference of secular or ecclesiastical princes. The present study examines the development of the capacity by the German Rhineland city of Worms to make peace and wage war on its own behalf during the mid-thirteenth century, long before German cities are thought to have had these attributes of sovereignty. Although focusing on Worms, this study calls into question the broader chronology of urban political development in the German kingdom and northern Italy during the later middle ages.

Constitutional Exchange in Japan: From Shogunate to Parliamentary Democracy

This paper uses some recent work from constitutional political economy to analyze the politics of Japan as it shifted from a medieval empire or federation to a modern parliamentary state in the late nineteenth century. The analysis suggests that the Tokugawa period, the Meiji restoration, and its transition to constitutional monarchy can be understood as settings in which a good deal of constitutional exchange took place. This is not to say that all changes in Japanese history are lawful constitutional reforms or motivated by obvious self-interest, but is to say that constitutional negotiations and self-interest are important determinants of constitutional reform. Even in cases in which military threats are important considerations, resistance to change can be reduced by attempting to find reforms that advance mutual interests and minimize unproductive conflict. The alignment of liberal political and economic interests that produced democracies in many European countries was not quite sufficient to do so in Japan in the 1920s. On the other hand, they clearly produced substantial liberalization of Japanese governance in the half century that followed the Meiji restoration.

Charlemagne: Father of a Continent (review)

Reviewed by: Charlemagne: Father of a Continent John D. Hosler Charlemagne: Father of a Continent. By Alessandro Barbero. Translated by Allan Cameron. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. ISBN 0-520-23943-1. Map. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. 426. $29.95. An updated, English-language biography of Charles the Great would be a welcome addition to the modern canon on the mighty Carolingian king and emperor, as the best recent efforts to tackle the subject have been in French (Jean Favier, Charlemagne, 1999) and German (Dieter Hägermann, Karl der Grosse, 3rd ed., 2001). Alessandro Barbero is therefore poised to fill a gap with this English-language edition of his 2000 biography, Carlo Magno, Un Padre dell'Europa. While the book is a page turner and one of the most readable works on Charlemagne to appear in years, in this endeavor he only partially succeeds. [End Page 490] Readers accustomed to Allan Cameron's past translations will find his effort here to be equally satisfying and even enjoyable, and Barbero is clearly a master of his subject and period. Charles is studied as an energetic king actively involved not only in warfare but also Frankish economy, culture, and the early medieval Church. On the latter, the author repeatedly (and convincingly) argues that it was Charles, not Popes Adrian I and Leo III, who was the practical leader of the Church in the eighth and ninth centuries. He dances gracefully through the complicated issues of Carolingian justice and economy, and his examination of Charlemagne's relations with Byzantium addresses an important and oft-neglected aspect of Western foreign relations (pp. 77–85). One rather touchy aspect of Charlemagne's legacy has been its nationalistic appropriation in Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: Charles has been alternatively claimed and attacked for being either French or German, while in fact he was neither. Barbero succinctly corrects such mistakes, extending the work of Patrick Geary and others who seek to detach these inept claims to the heritage of early medieval empires (pp. 102–9). Barbero's historiographical approach, however, may generate consternation for some readers. While frequently examining the nuances of the medieval evidence in the text, he refrains from offering detailed discussions of modern scholarly debates. Those he does examine tend to be of the older variety, such as his lengthy discussion of the Pirenne thesis (pp. 109–13). The rest are relegated to an annotated bibliography, and, as a result, several fascinating subjects such as the dispute over Charles's own role in the coronation of 800 (pp. 89–94) receive less coverage than deserved. The bibliography itself is separated by chapter and is quite thorough; one notable omission is Richard E. Sullivan, "The Carolingian Age: Reflections on Its Place in the History of the Middle Ages," Speculum 64 (1989): 267–306. Readers of this journal will no doubt be interested in Barbero's discussion of the Carolingian military. Chapters Two and Three are narratives of Charlemagne's wars against the Lombards and the Pagans (Saxons, Muslims, and Avars), and are quite informative and well-suited for a historical biography. Chapter Eleven, "The Frankish Military Machine," fares rather worse. The author seems less at ease with the practice of warfare than the social aspects of armies. He energetically jumps into the debate over the size of Carolingian armies but cites none of the numerous studies on the subject; his assessment of infantry and cavalry armament seems fair but, again, is unsubstantiated. Much of Barbero's evidence here is from extant documents, but as medieval historians have consistently demonstrated, literal readings of monkish military descriptions can be problematic. The bibliography for Chapter Eleven is wide-ranging but somewhat dated. In addition, aside from some remarks on patronage, Barbero is silent on the question of the supposed Carolingian feudal order. Given Charlemagne's frequent association with the outdated concept of feudalism, a little attention here would have been appreciated, especially in relation to questions of military organization and logistics. And unlike his treatment of other thorny scholarly issues, Barbero does not examine the feudal question within the bibliography, save for [End Page 491] a short dismissal of Susan Reynolds's landmark study Fiefs...

Transnacionalinis identitetas ir paveldas: lietuviškumas diasporoje

Manipuliavimas bet kuriuo ir bet kurio paveldo – ypač tautinio – aspektu vyksta ne tik ir ne tiek tautinės valstybės viduje, bet nė kiek nemažiau ir už jos ribų. Emigrantus, pabėgėlius, deportuotuosius ir kitus persikėlusius ar perkeltuosius sieja ne tik socialinė atmintis apie „namų šalį“, bet ir transplantuoti, reprodukuojami bei sumeistraujami tautiniai paveldai. Šio rašinio tikslas – nubrėžti kai kurių socialinių strategijų, socialinių tinklų, įvaizdžių ir diskursų kontūrus, bendrais bruožais aptarti su konkrečiu etniškumu/nacionalumu sukibusio tapatumo kultūrines praktikas, kitaip sakant lietuviškumą – kaip savitą lietuviškos kultūros ir paveldo formą; t. y. kaip „lietuviškumą“ įsivaizdavo ir įsivaizduoja, konstravo ir tebekonstruoja bei/ar siekia užginčyti skirtingos Amerikos lietuvių bangos ir kartos. Remiuosi 2000–2002 m. JAV Vidurio Vakarų valstijose atliktų antropologinių lauko tyrimų duomenimis. Didžiausias dėmesys skirtas Rytų ir Pietų Ilinojaus (įskaitant Westville, Collinsville, West-Frankfort ir Herrin) bei Misurio (St. Louis miesto rytinės dalies) valstijų buvusių angliakasių bendruomenių likučiams bei lietuvių gyvenamiesiems rajonams Èikagoje (įskaitant Brighten Park ir Marquette Park).

Institutional Fleecing: The Slow Death of Dutch Provinces

Many theories on organizational change depart from the assumption of change for the better, that is, change in order to gain a stronger position in relation to its competitors, to become more effective or efficient, or at least to improve the organization. It is our idea that the theories developed on this basis are biased. Contrasting to this dominant approach, this article gives a longitudinal analysis of the development in an organization in decline. It is directed at explaining the downfall of a Dutch province. In the medieval empire of Charlemagne it was one of the most powerful duchies of Europe. Later it became one of the seven provinces in the powerful Dutch Republic, and nowadays it has lost nearly all its tasks and functions. Departing from neo-institutional theory this paper seeks the major causes for this downfall and specifies some of the relations in the theoretical model of punctuated equilibrium. It concludes that the historical institutional dynamics can be seen as a self-enforcing process in which punctuations can be explained by the increasing distance between individual preferences within the organization, and the pressures originating from developments in the environment.

Christianity and Islam - the development of modern science and the genesis of the modern (just) state: research

This article focuses on the formal similarities between Christianity and the Islam present during the later middle ages - a period in which both legacies subscribed to a relatively totalitarian societal condition manifested in the existence of their respective empires. The ideal of the Corpus Christi as the societas perfecta of medieval Christianity is explained in the light of the contest between church and state during the later middle ages. This legacy was eventually challenged by an intellectual movement initiated by John the Scott and William of Ockham that caused the breaking apart of the former ecclesiastically unified culture. The alternative development within the Islam world is sketched before the spirit of modernity is explained as a secularization of biblical Christianity. Humanism initially inspired explicitly totalitarian theories of the state. It was only within the Protestant countries of Europe that the modern constitutional state under the rule of law emerged, accompanied by a process of societal differentiation unparalleled in world history. Although the more recent attempts of Islamic countries to benefit from the fruits of the modern natural sciences inspired them to introduce the teaching of the natural sciences within the Muslim world, these countries did not succeed in benefiting from the significant transformation of the medieval empires into modern democratic states. Since the Muslim world is still embedded in the relatively undifferentiated embrace of a societal setting guided and integrated by the Muslim faith it did not succeed as yet to transcend the inherent limitations entailed in a typical empire in the classical sense of the word. Acta Theologica Vol.24(1) 2004: 168-185

Empire of the Mind: New Work in Mande Studies

Readers outside the field of Mande studies may be forgiven for suspecting the descendents of the medieval empire of Mali of continuing imperial ambitions. Although the political and military might of the Mande world has been drastically reduced since the time of Sunjata (of popular memory), or even of the more troublesome Samori Toure in the nineteenth century, its influence remains powerful, and its traditional culture (those elements hearkening back to the precolonial era) seems less endangered by modernization and globalization than is true elsewhere in Africa. Mande culture is in fact exporting itself: the griots 1 of the Mande world are now to be found well-established across the industrialized world, and to some extent they have helped to define the outsider's vision of the African preservation of the past. Within the Mande world, the performance tradition may be undergoing some changes in repertory and theme, but it has adapted itself to the world of the microphone, the loudspeaker, and the cassette recorder. It also continues to inform the world of contemporary authors such as Ahmadou Kourouma or Massa Makan Diabate, and for some readers that connection may define the usefulness of the titles [End Page 129] considered in this essay, which are all devoted to local forms of verbal art, as documentation or as analysis of the social context. Seven of the titles fall neatly into two groups: four are editions of texts, and three are straightforward monographs on the jeliw, the specialist producers of some of the texts. The eighth book, by Sory Kamara, straddles the division to some extent; it contains his (enriched) translations of some recorded material, but contextualizes it in a poetic and personal meditation.

Empire and Order: The Concept of Empire, 800-1800

Preface Introduction From the Carolingian Empire to the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation Other Medieval Empires The Papal Conception of Empire The Emperor as Dominus Mundi Empires - Metaphysical and Moral The Golden Age of Empire Empire and State Index

Dynast und Kirche. Studien zum Verhältnis von Kirche und Staat im späteren Mittelalter und in der Neuzeit by Alfred A. Strnad

BOOK REVIEWS73 beyond Valencia and the mendicants and so makes a valuable contribution to our consideration of these issues. James William Brodman University ofCentralArkansas Dynast und Kirche. Studien zum Verhältnis von Kirche und Staat im späteren Mittelalter und in der Neuzeit. By Alfred A. Strnad. Edited by Josef Gelmi und Helmut Gritsch in collaboration with Caroline Baldemair. [Innsbrucker Historische Studien,Vols. 18/19·] (Innsbruck: Studien Verlag. 1997. Pp. xxxii, 688. ÖS 650.00.) This is a collection of twenty-three studies, six of which were hitherto unpublished , by the Ordinarius for modern history at the University of Innsbruck, the chair established originally in 1887 for Ludwig Pastor, the well-known historian of the popes. The anthology was edited by his students on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday. It reflects the honoree's distinguished career as a historical researcher. Having obtained his doctorate under Alphons Lhotsky, the Nestor ofAustrian medievalists, he then worked in the Institut für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, that nursery of painstaking diplomatics, as assistant to its director, Leo Santifaller. In 1964 he transferred to the department for historical studies at the Austrian Cultural Institute in Rome,where he remained for thirteen years before he took up his present appointment in 1976. Much of his time there was spent in the Vatican Archives, particularly for his study of the earlier career of the humanist Enea Silvio de' Piccolomini, the later Pius II, and the Piccolomini family,who were closely involved in Austria. While most of this collection deals with the later Middle Ages, some articles spill over into the early modern, particularly the Counter-Reformation, period. The last one takes us even to the end of World War I. One of the purposes the editors had in mind in pubUshing these studies was to fill a perceived gap in the historiography of the late medieval Habsburgs, especially their ecclesiastical policy. Whereas this work may not fulfill the desideratum completely, it certainly lays the groundwork for such a book. With the possible exception of the first study, the essays reflect a good old-fashioned German approach to the writing of history ,namely, a conscientious and minute search for, and examination of,relevant sources, including what to us may seem trivial biographical data of semiobscure personalities. But in a surprising manner Strnad is able to use these details to shed light on broader issues. Sometimes he finds it even necessary to correct his old mentor, Lhotsky. The only truly interpretative study is the first one, his unpublished "The Holy Roman Empire in the Late Middle Ages: Insights into Imperial Concepts." In it we have a sweeping but acute interpretation of the notion of the medieval Empire and the part that the Habsburgs played in it from the death of the Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick II to the Imperial reformulation at the time of the Habsburg Emperor Charles V Using the overarching idea of a universal Empire 74BOOK REVIEWS that would bring about peace and justice as found in Dante's De Monarchia, Strnad gives us an outline, albeit subjective at times, of the character and policy of the various German kings or emperors. His account clearly shows that his sympathies lie with the Habsburg dukes in their rivalries with the Imperial rulers of the Luxemburg line. It does not prevent him from disapproving the vacillations and indecisiveness of the Habsburg Frederick III. This survey sets the tone for much that is to follow in the subsequent articles, many ofwhich are concerned with the attempt of the Austrian territorial rulers to seize control over the church within their lands, a struggle that involved them, inter alia, with the prince-archbishop of Salzburg, the see of Passau, and the Luxemburg Emperor Charles IV, not to speak of their own intra-family quarrels. For example, in his second study, also unpublished, the author traces the history of the diocese of Seckau in the province of Styria, which was started ostensibly as a suffragan see of the metropolitan of Salzburg in 1 164, but became a point offriction between the archbishop and the territorial ruler over the appointment of the bishop. Somewhat similarly the see of Passau became a pawn in the power...

A Nation's Readers: Cultural Integration and the Schoolbook Canon in Wilhelmine Germany

This article compares the contents of reading books used in the elementary schools ("Volksschulen") of different regions of Imperial Germany around the turn‐of‐the‐century to ask how regionally controlled schools could have contributed to building German national identity. During the decades preceding World War I, children throughout the recently unified “Kaiserreich” read from a shared canon of poems and stories which emphasized themes of community, self‐sacrifice, and death, and encouraged emotional ties to the hometown or. region. The most frequently appearing texts in the historical sections of the reading books invoked the medieval empire and featured more Swabians and Saxons than Hohenzollerns, but many geographical and historical reading selections in each book described the locality or region. Reading books for young Germans promoted a national identity based on shared values and loyalty to homeland while acknowledging the varied backgrounds of children in different parts of the nation.

Sharia and Christianity in Nigeria: Islam and a 'Secular' State

Sharza in the pre-colonial period' Sharia is as old as Islam in Nigeria. Islam followed the trade routes of the medieval empires: Kanem-Borno in the east, Mali and later Songhay in the west. Hausaland was a backwater or transit land between these powers until the fall of Songhay in 1592. At that time the Hausa states came into prominence and entered into direct trade relations with North Africa. The first-mentioned medieval empire, KanemBorno, had its origins in moder Chad. In the 13th century there was in Cairo a hostel for its students of Islam. Around the late 14th century the Kanem rulers moved to Borno in Nigeria.2 The Mais (kings of Boro) professed Islam, but only during the reign of Mai Idris Aloma (1571-1603) did the majority of the leading men of the empire become Muslim.3 The Mais had to tolerate a good deal of traditional religious practice in their domains and to a certain extent even in their courts. Kano and Katsina were two Hausa states which were on the trade routes between Kanem and the west, and came under the influence of Muslim traders who passed through or settled there. The Kano Chronicle mentions the coming of Wangara (Malian) dais (missionaries) at the time of King Yaji around 1380, who brought books of Law and Tradition.4 Some Fulani dais came during the reign of Yakubu, around 1460, bringing books on theology and etymology.5 At this time Islam seems to have struck firm roots as the religion of the kings, even though the majority of their subjects were non-Muslim. Islam in Hausaland received a strong boost from the Algerian alMaghili (d. 1504), who had to flee his homeland because of his strong