Negotiating Cultures: Bilingual Surrender Treaties on the Crusader-Muslim Frontier under James the Conqueror

"James I 'the Conqueror', king of Arago-Catalonia, conquered Mediterranean Spain from Islam during fifty crusading years (1225- 1276). From his many surrender treaties, only two survive in their interlinear bilingual originals, both presented here. Each reflects the fragmentation of post-Almohed Islam, the warrior heroes of Islam carving recalcitrant principalities out of the confusion, the hard-fought local negotiations and the confrontation between two radically opposed mentalities." "The full meaning of these battered and deteriorated bits of parchment emerges only from minute reconstruction of the Arabic and Latinate texts and especially from ever widening circles of changing contexts in each world, an historical kaleidoscope." "Many surprises here await students of medieval Europe, the Islamic West, Spain, the Crusades, diplomacy, Mudejars/Moriscos, and cultural conflict and interchange."--Jacket Recently recovered Arabic-Latinate interlinear treaties, between James the Conqueror of Arago-Catalonia and the Muslims of Mediterranean Spain, illumine that hard-fought crusade (1225-1276), its many Islamic and European contexts, and the radically opposed mentalities involved.