{"title":"Bees in the Medieval Maghreb: Wax, Honey and Cross-Cultural Trade in the Western Mediterranean","authors":"Alexandra Sapoznik","doi":"10.1163/15700674-12340115","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12340115","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Believed to originate in Paradise and set apart in their chastity, bees were potent religious symbols in medieval Christianity and Islam. This article explores how these beliefs drove an extensive trade in wax and honey, and examines the role of Jews, conversos, Christians, and Muslims in this trade. Further, it considers the environmental context and the extent to which religious prohibitions against trade between Christians and Muslims may have provided economic opportunities for Jewish merchants, while examining the economic and cultural relationships between members of the three Abrahamic religions.","PeriodicalId":52521,"journal":{"name":"Medieval Encounters","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47816406","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Between Sanudo and Fedanzola: Ashtori Ha-Parḥi as Mediator","authors":"Amichay Schwartz","doi":"10.1163/15700674-12340103","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12340103","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This essay will examine the close similarity between the treatises of a Franciscan monk named Giovanni di Fedanzola and a Jewish sage named Ashtori Ha-Parḥi in the fourteenth-century Holy Land. The absence of guides for Christian pilgrims after the final departure of the Crusaders in 1291 was filled inter alia by Jews, and some new traditions regarding toponyms and geographical identifications were adopted by Christians as a result. Fedanzola mostly relied on his predecessors Burchardus de Monte Sion and Marino Sanudo. However, I will demonstrate that there are some instances where Fedanzola accepts Jewish traditions regarding locations mentioned in the Old Testament, with Ashtori Ha-Parḥi as his source. I will also show that positing a relationship between the two can clarify some obscure passages in Ashtori’s treatise, Kaftor va-feraḥ.","PeriodicalId":52521,"journal":{"name":"Medieval Encounters","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45499348","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Easter Ban in the Merovingian Kingdoms: Ideal and Reality","authors":"G. Halfond","doi":"10.1163/15700674-12340104","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12340104","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In mid-sixth-century Gaul, two episcopal councils issued canons, in 538 and 581/3, respectively, attempting to prohibit interaction between Jews and Christians between Maundy Thursday and Easter Sunday. The canons suggested that Jews, through their obstinate impiety, posed a threat to their Christian neighbors, particularly during that festal season associated with proselytization. While there is not corroborating evidence that the Merovingian-era Easter ban ever was put into effect, it should be understood not simply as an expression of Christian triumphalism, but rather as a sincere effort by the Gallo-Frankish bishops to protect their flocks from the “unbelieving Jews.” In an unintended consequence, the ban assigned far greater power and influence to Gallic Jews than they actually enjoyed.","PeriodicalId":52521,"journal":{"name":"Medieval Encounters","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48374157","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Cities of Strangers: Making Lives in Medieval Europe, written by Miri Rubin","authors":"T. S. Miller","doi":"10.1163/15700674-12340107","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12340107","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":52521,"journal":{"name":"Medieval Encounters","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48587209","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Feeling of History. Islam, Romanticism, and Andalusia","authors":"Fernando Rodríguez Mediano","doi":"10.1163/15700674-12340105","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12340105","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":52521,"journal":{"name":"Medieval Encounters","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48491097","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"War and Memory at the Time of the Fifth Crusade, written by Megan Cassidy-Welch","authors":"N. Paul","doi":"10.1163/15700674-12340106","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12340106","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":52521,"journal":{"name":"Medieval Encounters","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42817383","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Fluid Boundaries: Christian Sacred Space and Islamic Relics in an Early Ḥadīth","authors":"Adam Bursi","doi":"10.1163/15700674-12340108","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12340108","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article examines a ḥadīth text that illustrates the complicated interactions between Christian and Islamic sacred spaces in the early period of Islamic rule in the Near East. In this narrative, the Prophet Muḥammad gives a group of Arabs instructions for how to convert a church into a mosque, telling them to use his ablution water for cleansing and repurposing the Christian space for Muslim worship. Contextualizing this narrative in terms of early Muslim-Christian relations, as well as late antique Christian religious texts and practices, my analysis compares this story with Christian traditions regarding the collection and usage of contact relics from holy persons and places. I argue that this story offers an example of early Islamic texts’ engagement with, and adaptation of, Christian literary themes and ritual practices in order to validate early Islamic religious claims.","PeriodicalId":52521,"journal":{"name":"Medieval Encounters","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48212701","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ecumenical Mysticism: On Conversion in the Eastern Tradition of Ordene de Chevalerie","authors":"U. Shachar","doi":"10.1163/15700674-12340099","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12340099","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Historians celebrate the Old French Ordene de Chevalerie as an important landmark in the history of French nobility. The version of Ordene that most scholars have studied showcases Saladin’s interest in Christian chivalry but stops short of his actual dubbing. An often-neglected prose recension of this tale that first appeared in an oriental history of Outremer goes a step further, imagining the sultan to have truly become a knight “in the Christian fashion.” This version of the story, I argue, portrays Christian dubbing not only as a ceremony through which young aristocrats were admitted into a society of warriors, but also as an instrument for spiritual ascent that non-Christians could experience without renouncing their own faith. As such, the story echoes the widespread near-eastern trope of ecumenical mysticism, in which members of various faiths were seen to partake in mystical practices that belonged to neighboring traditions.","PeriodicalId":52521,"journal":{"name":"Medieval Encounters","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43744623","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Medieval Empires and the Culture of Competition: Literary Duels at Islamic and Christian Courts, written by Samuel England","authors":"Jonathan P. Decter","doi":"10.1163/15700674-12340100","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12340100","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":52521,"journal":{"name":"Medieval Encounters","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49467164","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Andalus and Sefarad: On Philosophy and Its History in Islamic Spain, written by Sarah Stroumsa","authors":"J. Diamond","doi":"10.1163/15700674-12340101","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12340101","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":52521,"journal":{"name":"Medieval Encounters","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42140020","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}