Diplomatics in the Eastern Mediterranean 1000-1500 ─ Aspects of Cross-Cultural Communication

This volume of the Brill series on the medieval Mediterranean discusses the diplomatic documents that passed between Arab, Greek and Latin states in the Near East. Articles cover treaties, letters between rulers and charters. The time period includes 1000-1500 c.e. with most being thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The leaders who dictated the letters include popes, sultans, emperors, Italian merchant/princes, kings, abbots and heads of the military orders. While there is a great diversity in the tone, the common thread is that lines of international communication were open and that multi-lingual clerks provided translations both of cultural and language differences. Distributed in North America by David Brown Book Co. Annotation c2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Alexander Beihammer, Ph.D. (Vienna 1999), teaches Byzantine history at the University of Cyprus. He has published on Byzantine diplomatics and on political and cross-cultural relations between Byzantium and the Arab World. His last book is on Greek documents and letters from early Frankish Cyprus (Nicosia, 2007).Maria G. Parani, D.Phil. (Oxford 2000), teaches Byzantine art and archaeology at the University of Cyprus. Her publications on artistic production and daily life in Byzantium include Reconstructing the Reality of Images: Byzantine Material Culture and Religious Iconography (11th-15th centuries) (Brill 2003).Christopher D. Schabel, Ph.D. (Iowa 1994), teaches medieval history at the University of Cyprus. He recently published Theological Quodlibeta in the Middle Ages, two volumes (Brill 2006-2007), (with Russell Friedman) Francis of Marchia (Brill 2006), and (with Angel Nicolaou-Konnari) Cyprus (Brill 2005).