Diplomatics in the Eastern Mediterranean 1000-1500

In the politically and militarily complex world of the medieval Eastern Mediterranean people and entities of different ethnic, religious and linguistic backgrounds came into close contact at many different levels, from everyday dealings in the marketplace to high diplomacy between competing states, thus providing scope for fertile cross-cultural interaction and permeation. This collective volume examines aspects of intercultural communication as reflected in Byzantine, Latin and Arabic documentary sources originating from or relating to the Eastern Mediterranean and ranging from the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries. Twenty essays examine a variety of archival sources for the Latin East, explore chancery traditions in the culturally diverse society of Frankish Cyprus, and trace modes of communication and exchange between Byzantium, Islam and the West.
Contributors are: Jean Richard, David Jacoby, Benjamin Z. Kedar, Michel Balard, Peter Schreiner, Michel Balivet, Catherine Otten-Froux, Svetlana V. Bliznyuk, Brenda Bolton, Karl Borchardt, Nicholas Coureas, William O. Duba, Charalambos Gasparis, Hubert Houben, Angel Nicolaou-Konnari, Johannes Pahlitzsch, and Kostis Smyrlis.

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).

"...In short, this is a rich and varied collection, from which both undergraduates and advanced scholars will profit. It breaks important new ground in understanding the meeting of cultures and religions in the late-medieval Levant, and in particular on Cyprus, and shows us how much more is to be learned with the continued study and publication of surviving sources..."
The Medieval Review, March 2009, G.A. Loud
"...Dieser vorbildlich redigierte und äußerst anregende Band geht auf ein Kolloquium zurück, das das Department of History and Archeology der Universität Zypern im April 2006 veranstaltet hat... muss man den Herausgebern und den Verfassern der einzelnen Artikel danken für diesen vielseitigen und informativen Band, der ein wichtiger Beitrag zur mittelalterlichen Geschichte und Kulturgeschichte des östlichen Mittelmeerraums ist..."
Sehepunkte, May 2009, V. von Falkenhausen