Browsing by Subject "Mediterranean"
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Item The Frankish Nobility and The Fall of Acre: Diplomacy, Society, and War in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, c.1240-1291(2016-10) Izzo, JesseIn May of 1291, armies of the Mamluk dynasty, a Sunni Muslim regime based in Cairo, overwhelmed the defenses of the city of Acre, thereby conquering the last major stronghold in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. This brought to a close nearly two hundred years of Frankish settlement in Syria and destroyed the last vestiges of the principalities the Franks had established there during and immediately after the First Crusade (1095-1099). There has long been a pervasive assumption among scholars that the kingdom was terminally weak by the early thirteenth century; that the Franks living there had little control over their own affairs; and that its eventual conquest by a neighboring Muslim power was all but inevitable. In this dissertation I challenge these assumptions through a close study of the nobility’s military and diplomatic actions and an analysis of how these actions fit into the broader context of their social and cultural attitudes during the period c.1240-1291. I conclude that the Franks remained more diplomatically and military relevant than commonly believed and that it was a pervasive attitude of political and social competition among its leading nobles and their perception of threat to their economic, social, and political dominance of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from other segments within Frankish society that proved to be its undoing.Item Imagining the Mediterranean: Disruption and Connectivity in Medieval Iberian Tales of the Sea(2013-06) Parmley, NicholasDespite the importance of the Mediterranean Sea, much literary scholarship of the twentieth century has fixed its gaze on the ports and hinterlands that mark only the beginning and end of maritime travel. My research responds to this lacuna by investigating medieval tales of the sea and seafaring produced by authors of the diverse linguistic and confessional communities that inhabited the Iberian Peninsula in the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. These historical groups not only thrived on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, but many of them braved its depths, in turn creating complex networks of cultural exchange. And as the authors and subjects of these texts adhered to different faiths and wrote in several languages, the tales they tell reveal not only the rich cultural heritage of the Mediterranean, but a complex space of cross-cultural contact and exchange. Real or imagined, the tales these authors tell are of importance to our understanding of a diverse people and a rich cultural heritage of the Mediterranean. Written in Hebrew, Arabic, and Romance, by and for kings, clerics and exiles, the authors whose work I explore reveal a space of constantly shifting geographical boundaries, political frontiers, and religious identities. But before the protagonists of their tales arrive at port, wreck into land, or are swallowed by the sea, each entices us to consider their point of view, a perspective from amidst the tumultuous waves. I hope to demonstrate through a reading and examination of these texts, both individually and together, how the Mediterranean offers us a reorientation of critical perspective which expands the traditional national literature approach of Spanish Studies to include aspects of Jewish and Arabic history and literature, as well as the contingency of discrete cultural production that cannot be erased by an overgeneralized category of "the Mediterranean." A such, I hope to show how Iberia, as a space of multiplicity, may be viewed as emblematic of Mediterranean Studies as currently articulated. Thus we may explore how Iberian cultural production participates in--and is a product of--a more broadly conceived and shared Mediterranean space of cross-cultural contact and intellectual exchange.Item Liquid Spaces, Liquid Selves: The Construction of Mercantile Identity in the Medieval Mediterranean(2016-11) Joyeux, RachelThis project provides an analysis of medieval French, Franco-Italian, and Italian literature that foregrounds the mutation of cultural and trade exchanges across the Mediterranean, showing how the locus of social and political value fundamentally altered as emergent mercantile spaces supplanted violent battlefields and tournaments as shapers of identity in the northern Mediterranean. Through a reading of twelfth- and thirteenth-century literary texts, this dissertation examines the ways in which the domination and mastery of domestic, French mercantile spaces and practices work to leverage protagonists across social strata and facilitate decisive power-shifts. Centering on the figure of the medieval businessman—the mutable, traveling merchant and his spaces of exchange—this study examines how he emerges as a surprisingly transformative and understudied force in the premodern literary imagination. Liquid identities, both in terms of the liquidity of a merchant’s resources/resourcefulness, as well as the perceived mutability or fluidity of the mercantile ‘self,’ emerge as pivotal agents of change and reconciliation, particularly when this identity is assumed by men and women of noble origins. Questions of identity and gender in spaces of exchange across Francophone lands and the greater Mediterranean drive this analysis, exploring the relation between the problematic concepts of hybridity, cross-dressing, and assimilation for Christian communities regularly trading in Arab lands. This project analyzes these issues through the lens of socio-economic, spatial, and gender theory (Pierre Bourdieu, Judith Butler, Henri Lefebvre) to address how the instability of identities and gender roles in mercantile spaces allow for the dissemination of powerful self narratives. As many characters seeking to shift social codes are female, this project addresses the question of how traditional scholarly research on medieval mercantile exchange, typically filtered through the figure of “the (male) merchant,” might be enriched if broached and read from the perspective of gender. Thus, this project reconsiders the representation of mercantile spaces in the medieval Mediterranean world as male gendered through a study of the regular occupation (and mastery) of certain spaces of exchange by female and ambiguously gendered characters.Item The Norman Kingdom of Africa and the Medieval Mediterranean(2018-03) King, MattDuring the twelfth century, the Mediterranean Sea contained a complex array of economic, political, military, religious, and social networks. My dissertation explores the relationship of two dynasties that were at the center of these networks: the Norman lords of Sicily and the Zirid emirs of Ifriqiya (roughly modern-day Tunisia, eastern Algeria, and western Libya) in the years leading up to the Norman conquest of Zirid lands and the formation of the Norman Kingdom of Africa (1148-1160). Previous scholarship, particularly work written by French colonial historians, has emphasized the triumph of the Christian Normans over their Muslim foes and disregarded the agency of the Zirids. I show that the medieval sources tell a different story. Latin and Arabic texts attest to the importance of the Zirid emirs of Ifriqiya to larger networks in the Mediterranean. In 1123, for example, the Zirid emir al-Hasan ibn ‘Ali united a group of Arab and Berber (indigenous North African) tribes to defeat the navy of the Norman lord Roger II. Several years later, al-Hasan ibn ‘Ali formed an alliance with the Almoravids of Morocco to raid cities along the coast of Sicily. Zirid power in Ifriqiya only waned in the wake of a decade-long drought, which allowed the opportunistic Normans to seize Zirid lands. The Normans under Roger II and his son William I ruled the coastline of Ifriqiya for twelve years, during which time they made small changes to its society that favored Christians over Muslims while occasionally proclaiming themselves “King of Africa.” Arabic chroniclers writing about the Norman conquest of Ifriqiya did not acknowledge the legitimacy of the Normans’ kingship in Ifriqiya and instead presented the Normans as one prong of a Mediterranean-wide “Frankish” assault upon the lands of Islam, one that warranted jihad on all fronts.Item Stable isotopic investigation of late Neogene terrestrial paleoecology and paleoclimate of the circum-Mediterranean region(2010-08) Matson, Samuel DeanThe late Neogene was an interval of important global change, in which gradual cooling and aridification resulted in terrestrial ecosystems over much of the world that became essentially modern. The geologic record of the circum-Mediterranean region presents an exceptional opportunity to examine the interplay of tectonics, biology, and climate during this important transition, because the paleogeography of this region was influenced heavily by a unique tectonic situation governed by both large-scale convergence between Europe and Africa and smaller-scale extension within the Mediterranean Basin. Effects of this distinct tectonic regime include the establishment of land bridges that allowed migration of animals between Europe, Africa, and Asia, large-scale desiccation of inland seas due to tectonic closure of seaways connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, and development of intramontane basins that preserve an extensive sedimentary record of past continental environments. In combination with this unique tectonic situation, regional climatic and ecological effects in the circum-Mediterranean region resulted in a late Neogene transition to modern terrestrial ecosystems that was in many ways different than general global patterns. In order to better undstand the late Neogene transition both regionally and globally, the research presented here focuses on reconstruction of terrestrial paleoclimate and paleoecology in Spain and Italy through the development of a stable isotopic record from biogenic and and authigenic minerals preserved in fossil mammals and continental sediments. vii A reconstruction of Late Miocene to Pleistocene paleoclimate and paleoecology in Spain was developed through analysis of the oxygen isotopic composition (δ18O) of biogenic phosphate in tooth enamel and dentine from fossil mammals. Comparisons of δ18O between clades are consistent with morphological interpretations of habitat and physiology, and suggest a semi-aquatic habitat for anthracotheres, hippopotamids, and castorids, and open or mixed habitats for most gracile taxa such as equids and cervids. Comparisons of enamel and dentine δ18O indicate slight diagenetic alteration of dentine, but also suggest that such comparisons can be used to reconstruct reasonable values of diagenetic water δ18O. Since the δ18O of modern horses has been demonstrated to be a reasonable proxy for the δ18O of local meteoric water, which is in turn strongly dependent on mean annual temperature (MAT) for modern mid- to high-latitudes, the δ18O of fossil horses from Spain was used to reconstruct terrestrial paleotemperature. These reconstructions are consistent with global cooling during the late Cenozoic, with MAT for the late Miocene that is warmer than today by ~1–2 ºC in NE Spain and by ~4–5 ºC in SE Spain. The difference of ~8–9 ºC between NE and SE Spain for the Late Miocene is ~60% greater than the MAT difference between these same areas today. To examine the ways in which a desiccated Mediterranean Basin affected surrounding terrestrial environments during the Messinian Salinity Crisis (MSC), a paleoclimatic record of this event was developed through integrated analyses of sedimentology, δ18O, and the stable carbon isotopic composition (δ13C) of latest Miocene authigenic carbonates from the Baza Basin in southern Spain. A transition from dolomite- and calcite-rich palustrine and distal alluvial fan sediments to lacustrine diatomites and calcite-rich limestones is accompanied by a decrease in both δ13C and δ18O, reflecting increased lake level under a wetter climate. The mean δ18O of latest Miocene lacustrine calcite is significantly lower than that of modern closed-basin lakes in the Iberian Peninsula, and likely represents overflow or through-flow conditions with inflow waters derived from the surrounding Betic mountains. This result is consistent with some aspects of climate model reconstructions of the MSC, which suggest strengthened storm tracks from the Atlantic Ocean over southern Europe. Orographic uplift of these air masses along the Betic Cordillera may have resulted in enhanced precipitation and runoff in southern Spain. To examine the interplay between tectonics, environmental change, and biological evolution, a paleoecological record was developed from the δ13C of Late Miocene paleosols from the Baccinello Basin in northern Italy. These paleosols span the extinction of Oreopithecus bambolii, which was the only European hominoid to survive an important extinction event ca. 9.6 Ma. Oreopithecus is important for understanding the evolutionary history of Late Miocene hominoids, since its peculiar morphology precludes a simple interpretation of its phylogenetic position. The paleosol δ13C values show very low temporal and spatial variability (indicating plant ecosystem stability through time) and provide no evidence for ecologically significant changes in floral composition spanning the Oreopithecus extinction event. These results validate assumptions about the importance of tectonics and species interaction as an underlying cause for the extinction of Oreopithecus and its associated fauna. The paleosol δ13C values fall entirely within the range of isotopic variability for modern plants following the C3 photosynthetic pathway, indicating that C4 vegetation was not an important component of biomass. The research presented in this dissertation underscores the importance of the Mediterranean region for consideration of the interplay of climate, tectonics, and ecology during important global transitions occurring in the Late Miocene. The results of this research validate the utility of stable isotopic approaches to paleoenvironmental reconstruction, and provide a powerful complement to independent means of reconstructing terrestrial systems that are complex and often poorly understood, but nevertheless an extremely important component of the Earth System.