Migration in the Medieval Mediterranean (Past Imperfect - ARC)

__Migration in the Medieval Mediterranean__ argues that the cross-Mediterranean movement of peoples was a central aspect of the medieval world. Medieval people migrated in search of safety after regime change, secure life amongst coreligionists, and prosperous careers. This kind of travel between Muslim and Christian regions demonstrates the mutual influences, interconnections, and communications linking them, surpassing the differences between the two civilizations. The contemporary influx of refugees from Africa and the Middle East into southern Europe is only the latest in a long tradition of migration in the central Mediterranean. Indeed, ships filled with migrants from northern Africa arrived at the shores of Sicily and southern Italy throughout the Middle Ages. But migration is only one part of this story: merchants, soldiers, diplomats, and intellectuals also crossed between Christendom and the Islamic world. This book argues that the political, social, religious, and economic history of the medieval central Mediterranean cannot be told as the history of two different spheres, Muslim and Christian. Instead, mutual influences, interconnections, and communications linked northern Africa and southern Europe, surpassing the differences between the two civilizations. It is time that the history of this region reflects such interdependence Migration in the Medieval Mediterranean argues that the cross-Mediterranean movement of peoples was a central aspect of the medieval world. Medieval people migrated in search of safety after regime change, secure life amongst coreligionists, and prosperous careers. This kind of travel between Muslim and Christian regions demonstrates the mutual influences, interconnections, and communications linking them, surpassing the differences between the two civilizations. Publisher description Rather than divide the medieval Mediterranean into "Christian Europe" and "Muslim North Africa," this book presents the region as a single, mutually influenced, interconnected whole.