Download PDF | (Studies in Medieval History and Culture) Luigi Andrea Berto - Christians and Muslims in Early Medieval Italy_ Perceptions, Encounters, and Clashes-Routledge (2019).
191 Pages
In the early Middle Ages, Italy became the target of Muslim expansionist campaigns. The Muslims conquered Sicily, ruling there for more than two centuries, and conducted many raids against the Italian Peninsula. During this period, however, Christians and Muslims were not always at war – trade flourished, and travel to the territories of the ‘other’ was not uncommon. By examining how Muslims and Christians perceived each other and how they communicated, this book brings the relationship between Muslims and Christians in early medieval Italy into clearer focus, showing that the followers of the Cross and those of the Crescent were in reality not as ignorant of one another as is commonly believed.
Luigi Andrea Berto is Professor of Medieval History at Western Michigan University, USA. His research focuses on medieval Italy and the Mediterranean, with a special interest in the use of the past and the relationships between Christians and Muslims.
Introduction
Muslim expansion into the western Mediterranean in the early Middle Ages had a great influence on Italy. Indeed, Muslims conquered Sicily, created some independent dominions in southern Italy, and frequently raided some parts of the Peninsula. Most of the primary sources about this period are narrative sources that focus above all on the events of war (war and violence have always been popular news), and therefore the image of adversaries portrayed in them is, unsurprisingly, negative. The idea of an unceasing state of belligerence between Muslims and Christians is, however, inaccurate. Without minimizing the extent of the destruction that occurred in these centuries, this study primarily intends to contextualize the features of those images, considering the existence of some nuances. To have a better understanding of the history of this period, besides examining the effects of wars and raids, this book will also analyze what was known about the ‘other’ as well as the relationships between them during peaceful times.
The epoch here examined is very broad, and Italy in these centuries was diverse economically, politically, and culturally. Consequently, I will not make any grand generalizations. What emerges for a specific context will not be considered valid for every part of Italy and for all the early Middle Ages. I hope this book will demonstrate the existence of a panorama of life and interaction more diversified than that usually depicted between Christians and Muslims. The chronological period under examination ranges from the first part of the ninth century to the late eleventh century, thus completing a cycle that begins with the Muslim conquest of Sicily and ends with the return of the island to Christian hands. Because the analysis will be comparative and the Muslim primary sources about the Norman conquest of Sicily are very brief, I will also examine Muslim works about Sicily and North Africa in the twelfth century, as they provide more detail.
In this way, it will be possible to make comparisons with texts in which the Muslims were those who suffered the attacks of Italian Christians. This book is addressed to a non-specialist audience and therefore issues related to sources, hypotheses, and historiographical debates will not be discussed here in order not to weigh down the text and the endnotes. Some information about the sources and bibliographical references are mentioned in the appendix. An overview of the main events will guide those unfamiliar with early medieval Italian history through this volume. As for terminology, the word ‘Arab’ will not be used, because most of the Muslims of the centuries examined here did not descend from the warriors who came from the Arabian Peninsula. They were, in fact, inhabitants of northwestern Africa and Sicily converted to Islam. To avoid too many repetitions, the word ‘Saracen’, which is the most common term for Muslims in the Christian sources, will be utilized as a synonym for Muslim. The dates will be indicated according to the Christian era, but when mentioning chronological references recorded in Muslim works, the dating quoted there will be reported as well. Keep in mind that ‘year zero’ of the Muslim era corresponds to ad 622 and that the Muslims follow the lunar calendar, which has 355 days.
The events
The Muslims’ arrival to Sicily in 827 was nothing new to the western Mediterranean. They had conquered easily almost all the Middle and Near East by taking advantage of the poor resistance of the local peoples and of the weakening of the Persian and Byzantine Empires (the latter being the heir of the Eastern Roman Empire); Mohammed’s (d. 632) successors, however, could not overcome the powerful defenses of Constantinople. Instead, they met greater success moving westward. The Muslim warriors arrived on the Atlantic coast of northwestern Africa near the end of the seventh century, and at the beginning of the next century easily conquered almost all the Iberian Peninsula. From these lands, they launched several incursions against Sicily and, above all, Sardinia. A famous precedent to these raids occurred shortly after 663, when, taking advantage of some conflicts among the Byzantines in Sicily, a Saracen fleet sailed from Alexandria and sacked Syracuse. Upon the Muslims’ arrival in Sicily in 827, the political situation in Italy was stable. The earthquake had taken place in the previous century, when the king of the Franks Charlemagne conquered the northern area of the kingdom of the Lombards, who had settled in Italy at the end of the sixth century.
During the eighth century, Rome and some parts of central Italy became independent of Constantinople’s authority. In the South, the Lombards of the Duchy of Benevento (consisting of the hinterland of Campania, Salerno, and some areas of Apulia, Basilicata, and Calabria) created an independent principality, while, on the Tyrrhenian coast, Naples became autonomous from the Byzantines. The remaining areas of southern Italy and Sicily belonged to Constantinople. As in other cases, in the Muslim campaign of 827, the faithful of Islam benefited from the dissensions among the Byzantines; on that occasion, a rebel imperial officer invited them to join him in fighting the Byzantines. The lack of a strong cohesion among the Christians on the island and the failure to send a large army from Constantinople, too busy on the eastern front, led the invaders to stay and conquer Sicily. It was not a quick war. Unlike the subjects of the southeastern provinces of the Byzantine Empire, most of the Sicilians did not have a strong grudge against the authorities of Constantinople, did not perceive the Muslims as liberators, and therefore decided to resist the invaders.
They did not face them in the open field, however, but preferred to lock themselves in their well-fortified cities. The Saracens had to besiege them, sometimes for many months, and conquer these cities one by one. Palermo fell in 831 and northwestern Sicily was subjugated in the following ten years. From there, the followers of Islam moved eastwards along the coast and took Messina in 842/843; six years later they occupied the southwestern part of the island and Ragusa. Thanks to the conquest of Castrogiovanni (present-day Enna), gained in 859 after several attempts, the Muslims controlled the central area of Sicily. The powerful defenses of the cities on the eastern coast, several insurrections, the help of the imperial fleet, and disagreements among the Muslims slowed the completion of the conquest of the island. After repeated attacks, Syracuse fell only in 878; Taormina in 902 (the latter subsequently returned to imperial control and was finally taken around 964). In the same period, the Muslims’ presence grew stronger in other areas of Italy as well. The quarrelsome Christian rulers of the South of the Peninsula often employed Saracen mercenaries in their struggles against each other. The further fragmentation of the power in that region, the near complete disappearance of the Byzantines from that territory, and the wars among Charlemagne’s grandchildren favored some enterprising Muslim military leaders. As soon as they discovered how weak their Christian employers were, they did not hesitate to create independent dominions in Apulia. They also established some strongholds on the coasts of Campania and Calabria.
The most famous domains were those of Bari and Taranto, created in the 840s. The settlement at the mouth of the Garigliano River between Latium and Campania, on the other hand, was founded forty years later. Contacts between these centers and the Saracens in Sicily likely took place, but their leaders acted independently from the Muslim authorities of the island, who were still engaged with the conquest of Sicily. Moreover, they only created small dominions from which no attempts were made to seize other areas. Their formation and survival were due more to the Christians’ weakness than to the Muslims’ power in those territories. The faithful of Islam used these bases to carry out raids along the coasts as well as throughout southern Italy. The victims of the Muslim raids were not exclusively the inhabitants of southern Italy. In the 840s, Allah’s followers carried out two expeditions through the Adriatic Sea: they pillaged several coastal cities and defeated the Venetian fleet twice. Thirty years later, they conducted another raid in the northern Adriatic Sea, then entered the Po River delta and set Comacchio on fire. The most spectacular incursion in these years was, however, the one carried out in 846 against Rome. The city was not taken, but the assailants looted the St. Peter and St. Paul basilicas, which were located outside the city walls. This raid against the heart of western Christianity had a great resonance in western Europe.
The Frankish emperor Lothar, who until then had been engaged in defending his dominions beyond the Alps, arranged an expedition led by his son Louis II against the Muslims of southern Italy. The only result, however, was the reconquest of Benevento from the Saracens’ control. Louis II, king of Italy since 844 and emperor since 855, had always lived in the Peninsula and demonstrated a great commitment to fighting the Muslims, but the lack of a large army and the ineffective collaboration on the part of the suspicious Christian rulers of the South prevented him from intervening effectively for several years. Only in 871 did he succeed in ending the Muslims’ control over Bari, thanks to the help provided by the Byzantine fleet and the southern Lombards. There were no further successes because, fearing that Louis II would demand his submission, the prince of Benevento imprisoned him shortly afterwards; he released the emperor only after extorting from him the promise that he would never enter those regions again unless invited. The Muslims took advantage of the Christian front’s disintegration to launch a large-scale attack against Salerno, an event that previously had never happened. The city was saved only because the Lombards managed to persuade Louis II to help them against such a powerful enemy.
The death of the sovereign in 875 without an heir began the struggle for the crown, and, after Louis II, no king of Italy had the interest or strength needed to deal with the Saracens in the South. The strengthening of Byzantine power in these years allowed them to regain Apulia, Basilicata, and Calabria and to prevent the creation of other Muslim dominions in the Lower Adriatic. The weakness of and the conflicts between the Lombards and the duchies of the Tyrrhenian coast, as well as the need for the Campanian city-states to enjoy peaceful relationships with the followers of Islam to ensure a certain degree of safety for their trade activities in the Tyrrhenian Sea, permitted the Saracens to continue their incursions in this region as well as in Latium.
It was in this chaotic period that the great monasteries of Saint Vincent at Volturno and Montecassino, which until then had been kept safe by giving tributes to the faithful of Islam, were plundered and burned by the Muslims in 881 and 883 respectively. In 915, during an unusual moment of cohesion, the pope and the main Christian powers of southern Italy formed an alliance and, with the help of a Byzantine fleet, managed to eliminate the Muslims’ base on the Garigliano, thus ending their raids in that area. The Saracens from Sicily kept attacking the Campanian coast, but more sporadically. The last serious assault occurred in 1016 against Salerno.
The most frequent and destructive raids were those carried out in Apulia and especially in nearby Calabria; the latter region was even the subject of attempted conquest. After taking Taormina in August 902, Emir Ibrāhīm II crossed the Strait of Messina and conquered Reggio Calabria, causing great apprehension in the South. His death by natural causes in the autumn of that year, during the siege of Cosenza, however, put an end to the campaign. Starting in 976, Abū al-Qasim led several attacks into the South of the Peninsula, resulting in the intervention of the German emperor Otto II, who was eager to enlarge his influence in that area. His disastrous defeat in Calabria in 982, however, ended his ambitions. Though defeated, this battle was not a total loss for the Christians, as the death of the Muslim commander persuaded his coreligionists to end their campaigns.
In the tenth and early eleventh centuries, Allah’s followers made their presence felt even further north. Sardinia was repeatedly assaulted and some areas of the island were occupied for several years. Raids from Sardinia, Spain, and Sicily struck the coasts of Tuscany and Liguria. Genoa and Pisa were pillaged twice. Thanks to their base at Fraxinetum in Provence, the Saracens managed to attack some points of the northwestern Alps and western Po Valley. The famous abbey of Novalesa, located in northwestern Piedmont, was abandoned by its monks for fear of the Muslims, who pillaged and burned it. On one occasion, they came within sixty kilometers of Pavia. As was the case for the Garigliano base, the stronghold of Fraxinetum could survive only thanks to the political fragmentation and rowdiness of the Christian rulers of southern France and northern Italy. When these dissensions were temporarily set aside, the base was easily eliminated in 973.
During the eleventh century, however, the tide had changed. The end of the political unity of the Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula and in Sicily was accompanied by the economic and military growth of Pisa and Genoa, who started attacking effectively throughout the Tyrrhenian Sea and in Sardinia. A clear sign of the change was the raid they carried out in 1087 against al-Mahdīya, one of the most important cities in Tunisia. Venice proved her power in the Adriatic Sea by stopping the Muslim siege of Bari in 1002. In the 960s, Constantinople tried unsuccessfully to regain Sicily.
In 1041–1042 the Byzantines, hoping to profit from the political instability of the island, made a new attempt. Led by the skillful general Maniakes, the imperial army easily conquered several cities. The commander, however, fell into disgrace shortly afterwards and was recalled to the capital. His achievements were thus wiped out and the army withdrew. Troubles for the Muslims, however, did not end there. Among Maniakes’s troops were some Norman mercenaries, captained by William of Hauteville. They had come in small groups from Normandy and soon became the new protagonists of the political scene in the South. After providing their services to the various rulers of the area, they managed to create their own dominions by using both weapons and marriages with members of the families ruling that area. The numerous members of the Hauteville family were the most successful of these Norman mercenaries. Driven by the impossibility of acquiring new territories in the South of the Peninsula, the youngest among them, Roger, invaded Sicily. In 1061 what had already happened in 827 took place again. The roles, however, were reversed.
The Norman leader accepted the invitation of the Sicilian emir Ibn al-Thumma to move to the island to fight his opponents, but the Muslim ruler had few supporters and Roger took care of his own interests. His conquest of Sicily was slightly quicker than that accomplished by the Saracens in the ninth century. A faster occupation of the island was prevented by interference from the Muslims of northwestern Africa and, especially, the small number of troops in his service. Except for a couple of large-scale battles, raids and sieges characterized this war. A vital turning point took place in 1072 with the occupation of Palermo, gained through the help provided by Robert Guiscard, Roger’s brother. Further conquests followed: Trapani (1077), Syracuse (1085), Castrogiovanni (1086), and Agrigento (1087).
The last area of resistance, located near Syracuse, was defeated in 1091. Unlike his brother Robert, Roger preferred to consolidate what he had acquired, refusing to undertake campaigns outside of Italy. He rejected the summons of the First Crusade, and he did not attack the Muslims in northwest Africa, with whom he had established peaceful relations. On the contrary, his son Roger II and his grandson William tried to conquer that area.
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