The Mercenary Mediterranean
Sovereignty, Religion, and Violence in the Medieval Crown of Aragon
- Contents
- Review Quotes
Table of Contents
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
On Names, Places, Dates, and Transcriptions
Introduction: A Mercenary Logic
Chapter One: Etymologies and Etiologies
Chapter Two: A Sovereign Crisis
Chapter Three: Sovereigns and Slaves
Chapter Four: A Mercenary Economy
Chapter Five: The Unpaid Debt
Chapter Six: The Worst Men in the World
Epilogue: Medievalism and Secularism
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
On Names, Places, Dates, and Transcriptions
Introduction: A Mercenary Logic
Chapter One: Etymologies and Etiologies
Chapter Two: A Sovereign Crisis
Chapter Three: Sovereigns and Slaves
Chapter Four: A Mercenary Economy
Chapter Five: The Unpaid Debt
Chapter Six: The Worst Men in the World
Epilogue: Medievalism and Secularism
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Review Quotes
American Historical Review
"Fancy has put forward a deeply learned and beautifully woven argument, in a thought-provoking and discomforting study that constitutes a major contribution to the history of medieval Spain."
Choice
Readers are confronted with multilayered loyalties, military needs, and powerful ambitions that defy the habitual designations of reconquest, crusade, and jihad to this kind of state policy making. . . . Highly recommended.”
Bulletin for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies
“Fascinating. . . . The Mercenary Mediterranean has made a remarkable number of major contributions . . . and offers valuable lessons for any scholar interested in medieval ethno-religious relations, royal/imperial authority, or the political history of the western Mediterranean.”
Journal of Religion and Violence
“The Mercenary Mediterranean is an ambitious and sophisticated book, elegantly written and thoughtfully conceptualized, that propels Hussein Fancy to the front ranks of scholars working on the medieval Crown of Aragon.”
Medieval Encounters
“The Archive of the Crown of Aragon has served as a reliable source for scholars to produce groundbreaking studies on interfaith relations. To a list that includes Burns, Boswell, Nirenberg, and others, we must add Hussein Fancy, whose present volume will be essential reading not only for the discipline of interfaith relations, but of religious history as well.”
Mediterranean Historical Review
“This is an engaging and far-ranging book, written in lively and evocative prose, which brings the worlds of the jenets to life; it will appeal to both scholars and students, whether specialists in the history of the medieval Spains, or not. . . . Exemplary. . . . A ripping tale.”
Vincent Barletta, Stanford University
“Like David Nirenberg’s now-classic Communities of Violence and Olivia Remie Constable’s vital work in this area, The Mercenary Mediterranean will be of immense importance to historians of medieval Iberia. Original and intellectually ambitious, this book will likely become a landmark for scholars in the field, placing Fancy at the forefront of the new generation of Mediterraneanists working in medieval literary and cultural studies.”
Paul Freedman, Yale University
"The Mercenary Mediterranean fundamentally advances our understanding of soldiers recruited from North Africa to fight for the Crown of Aragon. More than just another example of border-crossing or the malleability of religious identity, the case of the jenets demonstrates the paradoxes and strangeness of medieval warfare and faith. Fancy argues convincingly that religion, far from being shoved aside by other factors, remains central to comprehending warfare, cultural conflict, cultural rapprochement and ideas of empire. This is among the most important and thought-provoking books on Mediterranean and Iberian history of recent years."
David Nirenberg, University of Chicago
"Fancy begins this extraordinary journey with a pawned sword and five men on mules at the borders of Valencia. By its end he has ranged across mountain, sea, and desert, across centuries and languages, in pursuit--like some relentless historical posse--of mercenary bands of Muslims, Christians, and Jews. His narrative is everywhere astonishing, as he shows us how medieval power was woven out of their migrations across the western Mediterranean, and in the process makes us question the nature of our own modern world."
Teo Ruiz, University of California, Los Angeles
"Fancy’s remarkable deployment of archival material from the Archivo de la Corona de Aragón, Arabic chronicle sources, and other North African material makes The Mercenary Mediterranean a superb contribution to our understanding of the unexplored relationships between the jenets, or Muslim mercenaries, and the Crown of Aragon. With unfailing insightfulness, Fancy unravels the complex world of relations between Islam and Christianity, the Crown of Aragon and North African polities, and the role of warfare in binding and separating the medieval Western Mediterranean world. This is a major scholarly achievement."
Reviews in History
"A fascinating, compelling, and at times provocative study of how political power, religious identity, and the complexities of interfaith relations actually shaped a period which has since become renowned for its bewilderingly intertwined legacies of both violence and coexistence."
Sehepunkte
"Fancy had the linguistic skills (Latin, Spanish, Catalan, Arabic), the time, and the interest to investigate a seemingly obscure subject that informs us both about medieval attitudes toward multi-culturalism and the modern debate over how to integrate Muslim minorities."
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