Nomads and Christianity in the Middle Ages

1975 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 209-221
Author(s):  
W. H. C. Frend

Why did Christianity decline relatively to Islam in wide areas of the Mediterranean world during the European Middle Ages? The problem has deserved more attention than it has received from historians, for the pattern is not a consistent one and the decline where it took place, cannot be explained on the grounds of Moslem military superiority alone. The first generation of Moslem conquerors that so decisively defeated the Byzantine armies were plunderers who sought booty and revenge for past wrongs suffered at the hands of the Byzantine authorities or simply from the agricultural and urban populations of the east Roman frontier provinces. Confronted with undreamed of success, they had little idea of establishing either civil government or settling in the areas they had conquered. They had little desire also to convert their new Christian subjects, for that would diminish the flow of tribute exacted in exchange for protection. Yet as time went on, Christianity in the eastern Mediterranean showed none of the survival and recuperative power that characterised the Orthodox Church in the Balkans during the five centuries of Ottoman occupation from 1390–1912. Of the areas overrun by successive Moslem invaders down to 1400 only Spain, Sicily and Crete re-emerged as Christian territories.

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-160
Author(s):  
Albrecht Classen

Abstract Most scholars working on the concept of transculturality consider it a modern phenomenon, but we can discover forms of transculturality already in the Middle Ages, and this in terms of political, scholarly, artistic, medical and literary exchanges. Within the framework of Mediterranean Studies, this article examines the extraordinary case of Rudolf von Ems’ Der guote Gêrhart (ca. 1220–1225) which illustrates how much the Mediterranean world proved to be a highly useful backdrop for the description of transcultural exchanges between the protagonist and a Moroccan castellan, Stranmûr. The verse narrative is based on the experiences of a wealthy Cologne merchant who proves to be extraordinarily open to other cultures, languages and religions and encounters an equally minded Muslim lord. We would not be far off by describing the poet’s projections as a case of medieval tolerance.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentí Rull ◽  
Teresa Vegas-Vilarrúbia ◽  
Juan Pablo Corella ◽  
Mari C. Trapote ◽  
Encarni Montoya ◽  
...  

The Pyrenean Lake Montcortès sediments hold the longest continuous and absolutely varve-dated record of the Mediterranean region, encompassing the last three millennia, from the Late Bronze Age to the present. The reconstruction of vegetation and landscape dynamics during this time period has advanced gradually, following the progress of absolute dating by varve counting, and has been progressively published and updated in a number of papers dealing with specific time intervals at different temporal resolutions. This paper synthesizes all these studies in a single composite paleoecological sequence constrained by a single age-depth varve model. The final resolution of this reconstruction is bidecadal, on average, but some periods have been resolved at quasidecadal (Middle Ages) and subdecadal (Modern Age to present) resolutions. The study is focused on the timing of anthropization and the further development of vegetation under climatic and anthropogenic drivers until the shaping of present landscapes. An additional advantage of Montcortès is that the local history of the Pallars region, where the lake is located, is well documented and can be easily correlated with the paleoecological record. Contrary to former interpretations of general landscape anthropization of the Pyrenees during the Middle Ages, the Montcortès catchment was irreversibly transformed by anthropic activities at the beginning of the Iron Age (ca. 750-650 BCE). From this point, the catchment underwent successive transformations due to varied human uses (fire, grazing, cereal cultivation, weed/ruderal plant expansions, hemp cultivation/retting), which have been related to the different cultural phases and sociopolitical changes documented in the local historical records. The regional forests, dominated by Pinus and Quercus, experienced four main clearance events (RD) during the Iron Age (RD1; ca. 300 BCE), the Roman Period (RD2; ca. 300 CE), the Middle Ages (RD3; ca. 1000 CE) and the Modern Age (RD4; ca. 1800 CE). The detailed trends of the last two deforestation events and their causes could be studied at a decadal resolution, which significantly improved interpretation quality in ecological terms. The potential effects of climatic changes and the eventual interactions with human activities on catchment vegetation and regional forests throughout the record have also been discussed. The Montcortès record has been compared with other records at local (Pyrenees), regional (Iberian Peninsula) and biome (Mediterranean) scales. Locally and regionally, anthropization times and further ecological trends showed significant heterogeneity according to elevation, biogeographical patterns and cultural trends. The most significant coincidence is an intensification of human pressure, as noted in forest clearing and extensive land use, during several phases of the Middle Ages. At the Mediterranean level, the Montcortès record emerges as a unique sequence for the western sector of this biome that should be complemented with similar archives from the central and eastern Mediterranean. The most promising candidates for such sequences are discussed on the basis of available Mediterranean varved records.


1996 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence McCrank ◽  
Joseph O'Callaghan ◽  
Norman Roth ◽  
Jill Webster ◽  
Míkel de Epalza ◽  
...  

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