A Collaborative Research Program
UC Santa Cruz/ Université de Marc-Bloch (Strasbourg)/ Université de Paris I - Sorbonne Panthéon
Fall 2007 – Spring 2009
The UC France-Berkeley Fund, administered by the UC Berkeley Institute of European Studies and the Ministère des Affaires Étrangeres, France is sponsoring “Inter-Confessional Relations and Trade in the Medieval Mediterranean/Relations interconfessionnelles et commerce en Méditerranée au Moyen Âge.” This program of collaborative research and exchange, co-organized by Brian A. Catlos (UC Santa Cruz) and Damien Coulon (Université Marc-Bloch, Strasbourg), with the collaboration of Dominique Valérian (Université de Paris, Patheon-Sorbonne) and Prof. Ramzi Rouighi (University of Southern California) focuses on the role of inter-confessional relations in the development of trade in the Medieval Mediterranean and the role of trade in the shaping of inter-confessional relations.
The now-discredited “Pirenne thesis” imagined the emergence of ‘Europe’ as a consequence of the interruption of Mediterranean trade following the Islamic conquests. Subsequent work has shown the opposite: that the emergence of an Islamic trade system was a catalyst in European economic (and technological and cultural) development between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries, and that the particular character of the Mediterranean region and of Muslim-Christian relations were crucial in these processes. Moreover, recent work on economic, social and political relations in and across the Muslim and Christian Mediterranean have shown that – notwithstanding phenomena such as Crusades and religious war – ethno-religious identity was malleable and ambiguous and that political relations in the zone cannot be consistently characterized in terms “conflict of civilizations.”
The goal of this project is to examine Medieval trade between the Latin West and the Muslim Mediterranean in an interdisciplinary light. We will explore the implications of this trade on both Christian and Muslim society in order to better understand the general principles underlying such relations around the Mediterranean.
The first phase of this exchange takes place in February 2008, when Professors Coulon and Valérian visited California for a series of events at UCSC and USC. This included a round-table session, "Commerce and Religious Identity in the Late Medieval Mediterranean," which was co-sponsored by stevenson and Cowell Colleges (UCSC). The meeting and th reception which followed was attended by faculty from a number of departments at UCSC, as well as by scholars from Bay Area universities and members of the public. A second meeting was held at the University of Southern California with the support of the Center for Religious and Civic Culture and USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute. The moderator and co-organizer was Ramzi Rouighi (History, USC) and Catlos, Coulon and Valerian each presented papers: “Confessional Identity, Crusade and Commerce in the Medieval Mediterranean,” Interconfessional Relations in Long Distance Trade at the End of the Middle Ages," and “The Role of the Andalusi Diaspora in the Commerce of Maghrebian ports, XI-XV centuries." Together the round-table and the three papers presented here provoked a discussion regarding the nature of communal identity and trade, the permeability of rigidity of ethno-religious identity, and the agency of traders in the formation of ethno-religious identity and relations both across and within confessional groups. Coulon concentrated on the role of Western, particularly Catalan traders in the development of notions of the East, Valérian suggested that Maghribian culture and society was dramatically transformed by an early Andalusi exodus, and Catlos proposed that apparent contradictions and counter-currents in ecumenical relations can be accounted for by conceiving of such relations playing out on three distinct but interdependent planes of engagement.
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| UC-France Berkeley Roundtable, Feb. 15, 2008 | Roundtable Reading Pack | USC Program, Feb. 20, 2008 |
From left to right:
Dominique Valerian, Brian Catlos, Damien Coulon
The second phase of the program took place in October 2008, when Catlos journeyed to Strasbourg and Paris. The Strasbourg component of the exchange was directed by Damien Coulon in his capacity as co-director (with Nicolas Bourguinat) of the 'Equipe d'Accueil' of the Université Marc-Bloch (Strasbourg) under the aegis of the MISHA (Maison Interuniversitaire des Sciences de l'Homme Alsace). For the last few years the group has focused on the theme "Mobilité-Echanges-Transferts" (2005–2008) and is now beginning a second phase, investigating “Frontières-Transfrontières” (2009–2011). Catlos presented a paper to faculty and graduate students at the Université Marc Bloch meant to bridge the two themes, and connect them explicitly to the Mediterranean. “Where Do We the Draw the Line? Borders and Frontiers in Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean” set out to interrogate the notion of historiographical regions, which he maintains should be seen as circumstantial or situational, rather than concrete. Specifically, he proposed that there are many contexts in medieval history in which the Mediterranean takes on a regional coherence which is as substantial or more so that that of Europe.
In Paris, Catlos, Coulon and Valérian discussed strategies for carrying their project forward and for disseminating their results both on-line and as a hard-copy publication. On 23 & 24 October the a collaborative research group directed by Laurent Feller (History, Paris I Sorbonne-Panthéon), Michel Kaplan (History, Paris I Sorbonne-Panthéon), François Menant (École Normale Supérieure), and Christophe Picard (History, Université de Paris I) held a two-day colloquium entitled, Elites rurales méditerranéennes au Moyen Âge (Ve-XVe siècle) (see program), which gathered French and North American specialists on the Latin, Byzantine and Islamic world to present a series of working papers, including Catlos’s “Sketching a Pre-Modern Colonial Elite: Muslim Communities and their Rulers in Medieval Christian Iberia.” This is was the first phase of a longer-term project under the sponsorship of the Université de Paris. Subsequent developments include a website aimed at facilitating the collaboration of the participants (hosted on the Ménestrel webiste) and a larger conference to be held in Rome in September 2009. A volume is planned. To date the project has resulted in a very stimulating series of discussions among the three primary participants, which has pushed each of their work forward and has contributed to a more complex view of the process by which religious identity and commercial policy were intertwined in the Medieval Mediterranean. In addition to the prospect of publications in the short to mid-term, the ground-work for permanent long-term collaboration has been laid. Coulon and Valérian are serving on the Advisory Board of the Mediterranean Seminar, and Catlos will continue to collaborate both with the Espace d’Acceuil, based at Strasbourg, and with the "Élites rurales" project, based in Paris.