Mapping Pre-Modern Sicily : Maritime Violence, Cultural Exchange, and Imagination in the Mediterranean, 800-1700

This book synthesizes three fields of inquiry on the cutting edge of scholarship in medieval studies and world history: the history of medieval Sicily; the history of maritime violence, often named as piracy ; and digital humanities. By merging these seemingly disparate strands in the scholarship of world history and medieval studies into a single volume, this book offers new insights into the history of medieval Sicily and the study of maritime violence. As several of the essays in this volume demonstrate, maritime violence fundamentally shaped experience in the medieval Mediterranean, as every ship that sailed, even those launched for commerce or travel, anticipated the possibility of encountering pirates, or dabbling in piracy themselves. Mapping Pre-Modern Sicily: Maritime Violence, Cultural Exchange, and Imagination in the Mediterranean 7 Acknowledgments 8 Contents 9 Notes on Contributors 12 List of Figures 18 List of Maps 22 List of Tables 23 Chapter 1: Introduction 24 Part I: Maritime Violence: Piracy and War 33 Chapter 2: Struggle for the Strait 34 Physical Description 34 Strategic Significance 37 Struggles of Antiquity 39 Struggles of the Early Middle Ages 43 Struggles of the High Middle Ages 46 Struggles of the Late Middle Ages 50 Strategic Significance Lost 52 Chapter 3: Continuum of Violence in the Mediterranean World: The Case of Roger de Lauria 54 The Charge of Piracy 56 The Sources 58 Medieval Piracy 60 Battles and Raids 62 Medieval Admirals and the Performance of Piracy 65 Conclusion 72 Chapter 4: The Art of Raiding: The Catalan-Aragonese Raid of the Aegean in 1292 73 The Raid 74 Goods Seized and Their Value 82 Repercussions 92 Conclusion 94 Chapter 5: Sicily’s Financial and Logistical Contribution: During the Military Campaign of Alfonso V for Conquest of Naples 95 Part II: Travel and Trade 111 Chapter 6: Trade Relations Between Sicily, Ifrı̄qiya, and Egypt Under the Fatimids and Zirids of Ifrı̄qiya (Tenth–Eleventh Centuries) 112 Renowned and Exported Productions from Sicily 114 The Growth of Maritime Trade in Sicily 119 Conclusion 127 Chapter 7: The Increase of Good Customs: Muslim Resistance and Material Concerns in Post-Norman Sicily 129 Chapter 8: Trade Between the French Midi and the Kingdom of Sicily 146 Introduction 146 Southern French Merchants in the Kingdom of Sicily 149 Trade Under Foreign Flag: The Trading Ventures of the “Sanctus Egidius” and “Girfalcus” (1248) 156 Conclusion 164 Chapter 9: Compassion, Fear, Fugitive Slaves, and a Pirates’ Shrine: Lampedusa, ca. 1550–ca. 1750 166 Part III: Literary and Material Culture 190 Chapter 10: The End of Muslim Sicily: A Poetics of Fitna 191 Arabic Historiographers on the End of Muslim Sicily 193 What Is Fitna? 198 Al-Tamīmī’s “Ifranjiyya” 201 Ibn Ḥamdīs’s Fitna 206 Conclusion 208 Chapter 11: Neocastro’s Epic History 209 Chapter 12: “The Luxuriant Southern Scene” Textiles as Reflections of Power in the Kingdom of Southern Italy and Sicily 223 Chapter 13: Ghosts of Admiral Roger: Piracy and Political Fantasy in Tirant lo Blanc 241 Corsairs and Crusaders: Models for Tirant lo Blanc 243 Tirant lo Blanc as Corsair Admiral 247 Piracy and Mediterranean “Connectivity” 250 Conclusion 257 Part IV: Digital Sicily 259 Chapter 14: Digital Mapping Technology and the War of the Sicilian Vespers: Using New Methods to Better Understand Old Problems 260 Introduction 260 Project Description and the Integration of Digital Mapping Technology 264 New Directions for History and Digital Mapping 280 Conclusions 283 Chapter 15: The Norman Sicily Project: An Ongoing, Web-Based Effort to Promote the Island’s Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Past 284 Methodology 292 An Example of What We Can Learn from the Project: Connections Between People and Places 298 Another Example of What We Can Learn from the Project: An Opportunity for Comparison 300 Conclusion 306 Bibliography 307 Archival Sources 307 Printed Primary Sources 307 Secondary Sources 319 Databases and Resources 342 Digital Software Sites 343 Index 344