Friendship and Trust between Medieval Princes: Affective Strategies for Navigating Intercultural Difference across the Mediterranean

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 348-373
Author(s):  
Tania M. Colwell
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Effective Strategy ◽  
Spiritual Leaders ◽  
Reciprocal Exchange ◽  
Affective Attitude ◽  
The Mediterranean

Abstract This essay analyses the rhetoric of friendship in John of Sulṭāniyya’s translation of a Persian letter from the Mongol-Turkic leader Temür (Tamerlaine) to the French king Charles VI in 1402/3. It examines how the discourse of political friendship was an effective strategy for navigating intercultural difference between princely rulers across the Mediterranean in the later Middle Ages. Friendship language and practices functioned as a diplomatic paradigm for cultivating an affective attitude of trust between secular and spiritual leaders. Central to eliciting trust were performances of goodwill and the demonstrable commitment of individual parties to engage in a reciprocal exchange of benefits and obligations. Negotiating intercultural friendships enabled European elites to effect political change while adopting models of masculine authority independent of the hegemonic warrior tradition of medieval leadership.

Medieval Transculturality in the Mediterranean from a Literary-Historical Perspective. The Case of Rudolf von Ems’ Der guote Gêrhart (ca. 1220–1225)

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-160
Author(s):  
Albrecht Classen
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Mediterranean Studies ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The Middle Ages

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.

Where Three Worlds Met

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Davis-Secord
Keyword(s):  
Mediterranean Sea ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Mediterranean Region ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Communication ◽  
Dominant Culture ◽  
Trade Networks ◽  
Cross Cultural Communication ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Intellectual Networks

Sicily is a lush and culturally rich island at the center of the Mediterranean Sea. Throughout its history, the island has been conquered and colonized by successive waves of peoples from across the Mediterranean region. In the early and central Middle Ages, the island was ruled and occupied in turn by Greek Christians, Muslims, and Latin Christians. This book investigates Sicily's place within the religious, diplomatic, military, commercial, and intellectual networks of the Mediterranean by tracing the patterns of travel, trade, and communication among Christians (Latin and Greek), Muslims, and Jews. By looking at the island across this long expanse of time and during the periods of transition from one dominant culture to another, the book uncovers the patterns that defined and redefined the broader Muslim–Christian encounter in the Middle Ages. Sicily was a nexus for cross-cultural communication not because of its geographical placement at the center of the Mediterranean but because of the specific roles the island played in a variety of travel and trade networks in the Mediterranean region.

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