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Copyright of Zbornik radova Fakulteta islamskih nauka u Sarajevu is the property of Zbornik radova Fakulteta islamskih nauka u Sarajevu and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

By the Late Middle Ages, mounted troops - cavalry in the form of knights - are established as the dominant battlefield arm in North-Western Europe. This paper considers the development of cavalry after the Germanic Barbarian Successor Kingdoms such as the Visigoths in Spain or the Carolingian Franks emerged from Roman Late Antiquity and their encounters with Islam, as with the Moors in Iberia or the Saracens (Arabs and Turks) during the Crusades, since an important part of literature ascribes advances in European horse breeding and horsemanship to Arab influence. Special attention is paid to information about horse types or breeds, conformation, tactics - fighting with lance and bow - and training. Genetic studies and the archaeological record are incorporated to test the literary tradition.

Throughout the twelfth century, a number of Arabic-speaking Muslims produced poetry in the court of the Normans of Sicily. This article examines literary figures active under Roger II in the context of their interlocutors, professional colleagues, and other contemporaries around the western Mediterranean and North Africa. It argues that, in this context, most of the Sicilian Arab literary figures were only secondarily poets, their primary role being within a chancery or other administrative milieu, and that they continued to assert an undiminished Islamic identity, although living under Christian rule. This identity is mirrored in the intertextual play on topoi (maʿānī) found in Sicilian Arabic poetry, which was heavily engaged with cultural activity around the Mediterranean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Norman in 1969 emphasised a linguistic difference between the Vedic compound yogakṣema- interpreted as a dvandva ("exertion and rest") and the widely distributed Early Buddhist compound yogakkhema-, analysed as a tatpuruṣa "rest from exertion". On the basis of our analysis of the relevant Pali sources and of the more ancient Vedic occurrences—some of which are quite far from the earliest denotation of the two cyclic phases (yóga- and kṣéma-) of the assumed semi-nomadic Indo-Āryan life—we have undertaken a classification of the several meanings of this compound, in order to distinguish their different facets and to enable us to easily bring about the comparison proposed by Norman in 1969 and in 1993 [1991]. Unlike Norman, we eventually postulated a common reading of this compound as a tatpuruṣa originally denoting an almost material target of welfare, from which both the Brāhmaṇic and the Buddhist usages, whose meaning is predominantly immaterial (ritual or wisdom-oriented), might have developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the twelfth century, a number of Arabic-speaking Muslims produced poetry in the court of the Normans of Sicily. This article examines literary figures active under Roger II in the context of their interlocutors, professional colleagues, and other contemporaries around the western Mediterranean and North Africa. It argues that, in this context, most of the Sicilian Arab literary figures were only secondarily poets, their primary role being within a chancery or other administrative milieu, and that they continued to assert an undiminished Islamic identity, although living under Christian rule. This identity is mirrored in the intertextual play on topoi (maānī) found in Sicilian Arabic poetry, which was heavily engaged with cultural activity around the Mediterranean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sigillography brings to our attention a huge number of individuals that would otherwise have remained unknown. Thousands of seals survive that bear, together with religious images, inscriptions indicating the name of their owner, a title and the office held. Based upon the corpus of published seals, the article investigates the contribution of lead seals to our understanding of identity in Byzantium. The geographic expansion of Byzantium in the tenth and eleventh centuries brought a host of populations within the empire’s frontier which for the most part were not Greek-speaking, including Armenians, Georgians, and Christian Arabs. As a consequence, oriental languages appear on Byzantine seals. The seals often show an image of the Virgin or a Saint on one side and an inscription on the other side, or they bear inscriptions on both sides. The legends can be in Arabic or Syriac, Armenian or Georgian alone or are sometimes “mixed”, for instance in Arabic and Greek or Arabic and Syriac. The seal of Andronikos Rogerios – a Westerner who, however, seems to have been fully integrated into Byzantine society – clearly shows Western influence in the choice of the seals’s image. The article discusses the function of inscriptions and images found on seals as a means of understanding ethnic, social, cultural and linguistic identities.

In the middle ages, particularly between the 10th – 14th centuries, the Diocese of Salerno was among the most important ones in southern Italy. Its earliest records date back to the late 5th century and during the 10th it was elevated to archdiocese; so the city of Salerno became the center of a large diocese, among the largest of Southern Italy. This essay reconstructs the history of diocese and its public symbols (like the cathedral), demonstrating consistency with that of other Italian dioceses but, at the same time, also highlighting some specifi city resulting from more general historical dynamics of Salerno and the role it played in the southern part of Italy.

Through an Anglo-Norman case study, this article highlights the value of normative liturgical material for scholars interested in the role that saints' cults played in the history and identity of religious communities. The records of Anglo-Saxon cults are largely the work of Anglo-Norman monks. Historians exploring why this was the case have therefore concentrated upon hagiographical texts about individual Anglo-Saxon saints composed in and for monastic communities in the post-Conquest period. This article shifts the focus away from the monastic to those secular clerical communities that did not commission specific accounts, and away from individual cults, to uncover the potential of historical martyrologies for showing how such secular communities remembered and understood their own past through the cult of saints. Exeter Cathedral Library, MS 3518, is a copy of the martyrology by the ninthcentury Frankish monk, Usuard of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, written in and for Exeter cathedral's canons in the mid-twelfth century. Through investigation of the context in which it was produced and how its contents were adapted to this locality, this article uncovers the various different layers of the past behind its compilation. It further suggests that this manuscript is based on a pre-Conquest model, pointing to the textual debt Anglo-Norman churchmen owed to their Anglo-Saxon predecessors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the mutable and adaptive royal image of King Roger II of Sicily (r. 1130-1154) by examining his royal coinage in its Mediterranean context. Two case studies demonstrate how Roger, who ruled over a culturally diverse group of regions in Sicily and southern Italy, appropriated these regions' equally diverse histories, images, and traditions of rule when minting his royal coinage. In recently-conquered Sicily, this meant the slow but steady Christianization of previously Islamicate images of rule on coins, and in southern Italy, the imitation of earlier Byzantine imperial coins that had circulated in the region. The adaptability of the royal image to specific contingencies was due in large part to the novelty and uncertain legitimacy of the Kingdom of Sicily. The kingdom's lack of historical precedent meant that the king and his advisors were free to appropriate the historical traditions of other, more venerable political entities to suit the needs of the crown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Annales de Normandie is the property of Annales de Normandie and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Annales de Normandie is the property of Annales de Normandie and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Sicily were conquered by Muslim Arabs who founded the state of Aglius in İfrîkiyye in the 9th century. After the Ağlebids, the Fatimids became the dominant İslâmic city for two and a half centuries in Sicily. In the 11th century the ruler of the island which is Normans, did not reject the existing high İslâmic culture also benefited from by owning it. They are not satisfied enough, but they are carried forward with their work, including the intellectual accumulation in the east. Aglebids in İfrîkiyye has crucial impact on İslâmists, İslâmic history, İslâmic culture and civilization, and Europe-İslâm interaction. When they were founded at 800 around Tunisian state, they have finished an age of chaos that lasts for a period of time and they have given the region confidence and stability. This confidence and stability firstly led agricultural development and trade and then industrial, military and intellectual improvement. They followed the Abbasids in improving mental sciences like every subject and with the establishment of "Beytülhikme" they initiate the works in mental sciences such as Medicine, Philosophy, Mathematics and Astronomy in that region. This step has not only affected the region, but also influenced Andalusia even the Europe with the conqueror of Sicily. This study has been sought answers to questions such as how and why Sicily was conquered by the Agnies, what innovations the Agnies brought to the island, and the effects of them, Norman ruling over the island and how they protect and improve the İslâmic culture. In addition, it predicts İslâm Civilizations' effect on Sicily and Europe about the collection of the knowledge of Muslim world in Sicily by Normans and being a high İslâmic culture reflection. Also, it is an attempt to understand when and how it influenced Europe's intellectual and cultural life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of History Studies (13094688) is the property of History Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper examines the Frankish presence in Byzantium during 11th century. It was stressed that the mentioned period was the time of a great influx of westerners to the East. At first, most of them visited Constantinople as pilgrims during return journey from the Holy Land. The author points out that the term Franks (Frankoi) was basically attributed to the Eastern Franks/Germans, while in the course of time the Byzantines started to use it to identify rather Western Franks (i.e. French, Normans, Burgundians etc.). The author studies the circumstances in which the new mercenaries and adventurers meet the Empire, trying to define the reason of their success. Another issue investigated in the text is the extent to which Franks got promoted within the social hierarchy in Byzantium during the 11th century. Finally, the author argues that before the presence of great families such as Petraliphai, Raoul or Rogerioi there was at least one house of Frankish descent, which was raised significantly earlier and whose founder was Herve Frankopoulos.

Ever since H. R. Idris categorized the last forty years of the Zirid emirate (972-1148) as one of "agony," the characterization has stuck. According to his narrative, the fall of the Zirid dynasty was as inevitable as the ascent of the Normans in Sicily, who exploited the Zirids for years before seizing their capital of Mahdia in 1148. This article challenges this anachronistic view of the Zirid dynasty by showing the relative strength of the Zirids throughout the 1110s and 1120s, as they made strategic alliances with other Muslim powers in the Mediterranean and won multiple victories against the Normans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The release of the Old World Drought Atlas (OWDA) in November 2015 provides historians with an unprecedented glimpse into the climate of the medieval world. Through the careful examination of tree-ring data provided by the OWDA, historians can better gauge how the environment affected the course of medieval Mediterranean history, particularly in times and places where textual data is sparse, such as North Africa. The case studies of the Norman conquest of the coast of Ifrīqiyya in the 1140s and the invasion by the Banū Hilāl in the mid-eleventh century show the utility of the OWDA for gaining a better understanding the medieval Mediterranean. In particular, OWDA data shows that the arrival of the Banū Hilāl into Ifrīqiyya coincided with a period of extended drought that is not documented in the written sources and suggests that increased competition for scarce resources was instrumental to their entrance into the region. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

BY THE MIDDLE OF THE 15TH CENTURY a series of lordships had become firmly established along Gaelic Ireland’s western seaboard. These territories were controlled by a number of semi-autonomous kin groups, or ‘septs’. They were not homogenous entities but instead emerged under varying socio-political conditions and negotiated their relationships with society and landscape in multiple ways. Both physical geography and environment played a significant part in shaping the settlement and economic structures of each group. While this was a relatively conservative society, rooted in the traditions of the past, the lordships were also outward facing in their social and economic outlook. Rather than being remote and marginalised, these groupings were embedded within the broader north-western Atlantic social world, tied to the Continent through trade, the fishing industry and the increasingly cultural interconnectedness of society. However, by the close of the 16th century the lordships were under considerable stress following centuries of internecine conflict and increasing pressure from the English administration in Dublin and London. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Saint Gerland of Besançon († 1100), patron of the diocese of Agrigento and Norman bishop, enjoys a fame almost exclusive to Agrigento. In his time, however, his sanctity was well known in Norman Sicily to the point of being portrayed in the mosaics of the cathedral of Monreal. Moreover, at Besançon, he was also magister scholarum and the corpus of works which circulated in medieval Europe under the name of Gerland, described by modern criticism as the Computist, could be ascribed to him. In this case, the bishop of Agrigento would have to be esteemed also for the value of his teaching within the debates of the eleventh century concerning the use of dialectic in theology. However, the saint's biography does not resolve all the doubts about this identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sicily, which was home of several civilizations in its history, was conquered by Muslims in the 9th century. The Muslims also attacked directly Italy after conquest of island. The island was dominated by Islamic cultur until the Norman conquest in the 11th century. The culture of religious tolerance towards the followers of other religions created by the Muslims contiuned also in the time of Normans. From that time on the Muslims benefited from this tolerance policy. The Muslims, who had a great influence even in the time of the Normans, even though it had become somewhat weak, contributed greatly to the transfer of the scientific experience and wisdom of the East from Sicily into the West. In addition to the tolerance culture mentioned, the reign of Frederick was a time during which the scientific knowledge transmitted by the West from the East reached its climax. After Friedrich's death, however, began a period during which the policy of tolerance and protection towards the Muslims came to an end. Finally, since the beginning of the 14th century, the oppressions, massacres and Christianization policies of the pope and the French Anjou dynasty led to the gradual disappearance of the Muslim population in Sicily and Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper suggests that Michael Attaleiates, the eleventh-century Byzantine historian, purposefully changed the ethnic label for his contemporary Norman mercenaries from ‘Frank’ to ‘Latin’ in order to portray these figures as ethnically close to the Byzantines of his own day. In addition, it suggests that Attaleiates’ motives for such a portrayal lay in his argument that Norman mercenaries were a potential solution to the empire's challenges with the Seljuks. This article examines the ways in which Attaleiates positively portrayed Norman mercenaries in Byzantium, and how he crafted historical parallels between them and the Latins of Byzantium's Roman past. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]