The Sea in the Middle

The Sea in the Middle presents an original and revisionist narrative of the development of the medieval west from late antiquity to the dawn of modernity. This textbook is uniquely centered on the Mediterranean and emphasizes the role played by peoples and cultures of Africa, Asia, and Europe in an age when Christians, Muslims, and Jews of various denominations engaged with each other in both conflict and collaboration.
 
Key features:

• Fifteen-chapter structure to aid classroom use  
• Sections in each chapter that feature key artifacts relevant to chapter themes
• Dynamic visuals, including 190 photos and 20 maps

The Sea in the Middle and its sourcebook companion, Texts from the Middle, pair together to provide a framework and materials that guide students through this complex but essential history—one that will appeal to the diverse student bodies of today.

Thomas E. Burman is Professor of History at University of Notre Dame. He is a scholar of Christian-Muslim-Jewish intellectual and cultural history in the medieval Mediterranean. His book Reading the Qur’an in Latin Christendom was awarded the Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History.  
 
Brian A. Catlos is Professor of Religious Studies at University of Colorado Boulder. He works on Christian-Muslim-Jewish relations in the premodern Mediterranean. His most recent book, Kingdoms of Faith: A New History of Islamic Spain, is available in eight languages and as an audiobook.

Mark D. Meyerson is Professor in the Department of History and Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto. He works on Christian-Muslim-Jewish relations in the premodern Mediterranean and on the history of violence. His book A Jewish Renaissance in Fifteenth-Century Spain was runner-up for the National Jewish Book Award, USA.

Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
A Note on Conventions

Introduction. The Mediterranean: Land, Sea, and People

PART I. THE HELLENO-ISLAMIC MEDITERRANEAN (650–1050 CE):
THE MAKING OF THE HELLENO-ISLAMIC MEDITERRANEAN 

1 The Legacy of Empire
  The Age of Empires 
  ARTIFACT: Negotiating Conquest: The Pact of ꞌUmar and the Treaty of Tudmir 
  Faith and Power
  ARTIFACT: Images of Empire: Basil II, Otto III, and ꞌAbd al-Malik

2 Mediterranean Connections
  Conflict and Integration
  ARTIFACT: al-Qahira (Cairo): The Evolution of an Imperial Capital
  Connection and Exchange 
  ARTIFACT: The Ribat-Funduq of Sousse (Susa): Military, Commercial, and Religious
  Infrastructure in the Islamic Mediterranean

3 Conversion and the Consolidation of Identities
  Muslim Conquest and Christian Conversion
  ARTIFACT: The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem
  Byzantine Christianity and the Eastern Churches
  The Imperial Church under Siege 
  ARTIFACT: The Church of Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom) in Constantinople 
  The Latin Church in the West 
  An Islamo-Judaic Mediterranean 

4 Peoples of the Book Reading Their Books
  ARTIFACT: Wearing God’s Book in Medieval Egypt
  God’s Books 
  Holy Books and Scholars
  Holy Books and Greco-Roman Thinking
  ARTIFACT: Medieval Readers: Greco-Roman Texts
  Interpretation, Unity, and Power
  ARTIFACT: Jewish Responsa and Muslim Fatwas 

PART II. AN AGE OF CONFLICT AND COLLABORATION (1050–1350 CE):
THE MEDITERRANEAN FROM THE EDGES

5 Holy and Unholy War 
  Pilgrims and Predators, ca. 1050–1150 
  ARTIFACT: Holy War
  The Contested Mediterranean, ca. 1150–1250 
  ARTIFACT: Venice’s St. Mark’s Square and the Plundering of the Past

6 A Connected Sea 
  Conflict and Integration, ca. 1250–1350
  ARTIFACT: Whose Art? Transregional Sensibilities and Itinerant Objects
  Mediterranean Connections, ca. 1050–1350
  ARTIFACT: To the Sea in Ships
  Strategies and Structures, ca. 1050–1350
  ARTIFACT: Mapping the Mediterranean and the World

7 Mediterranean Societies 
  The Politics of Diversity
  ARTIFACT: The Many Faces of Roger II
  Complex Societies 
  ARTIFACT: The Mosque and Hospital at Divriği 
  Cosmopolitan Communities 
  ARTIFACT: The Architecture of Power in the Iberian Peninsula

8 Reading Each Others’ Books 
  Translators and Terrific Stories 
  ARTIFACT: Alexander the Great in Latin, Hebrew, and Arabic
  Their Scripture, Our Language
  Talking Religion
  ARTIFACT: Interreligious Conversations, Real and Imagined

9 A Sea of Technology, Science, and Philosophy 
  Technology
  ARTIFACT: Qanat and Noria
  Science 
  ARTIFACT: The Seven Heavens
  Aristotle: The Master of All Who Know 

PART III. THE CONTEST FOR THE MEDITERRENEAN (1350–1650 CE):
NEW EMPIRES, NEW SECTS, NEW WORLDS

10 Imperial Rivalry and Sectarian Strife
   The Rise of Frontier Empires, ca. 1350–1500
   ARTIFACT: Papal Propaganda in Renaissance Rome
   The Duel of Empires and the Web of Alliances, ca. 1500–1650
   ARTIFACT: Dueling Caesars: Representations of Ottoman and Habsburg Imperial Power

11 Minorities and Diasporas
   Toward Religious Uniformity in the Catholic Mediterranean
   ARTIFACT: The Lead Books of Granada
   Religious Pluralism in the Muslim Mediterranean
   ARTIFACT: Orthodox Monasteries and the Ottoman Empire
   Diasporas
   ARTIFACT: The Jewish Ghetto in Venice 326

12 Slavery and Captivity, 650–1650
   Medieval Transformations of an Ancient Institution
   Life of the Enslaved
   ARTIFACT: The Ottoman Harem
   Captives and Ransoming 
   ARTIFACT: Malta Transformed: The Impact of the Order of the Knights of St. John
   Slavery and Racism
   ARTIFACT: Black Africans in the Art of Western Mediterranean Christians

13 Mystical Messiahs and Converts, Humanists and Armorers
   Mediterranean Mystics
   ARTIFACT: El Greco: Painting the Mystical across the Mediterranean
   Mediterranean Messiahs
   ARTIFACT: Mediterranean Predictions of the End, 1450–1650 
   Converts
   Humanists and Philosophers, Scientists and Engineers
   ARTIFACT: Optics and Eyeglasses

14 Family, Gender, and Honor, ca. 650–1650
   Honorable Families
   ARTIFACT: Marriage Issues in the Jewish Diaspora: The Case of the Ottoman Near East
   Women Inside, Women Outside
   ARTIFACT: Women and Inquisitors in the Early Modern Mediterranean
   Men and Violence

15 Mediterranean Economies and Societies in a Widening World
   Economy and Society after the Black Death
   ARTIFACT: The Venetian Arsenal and Venetian Galleys
   Economic and Social Problems in an Age of Empire
   The Mediterranean and the Atlantic
   ARTIFACT: Profit, Fear, and Fascination: Elizabethan England and the Muslim World

Epilogue: Luís de Torres in Cuba, Ishmael in the South Pacific: A World Grown
Larger, a Sea Grown Smaller?

Index