Band 2, Heft 2 -

Medieval Levantine Arabic sources contain two separate but synonymous terms for ‘count’ – a title borne by many crusaders. These terms are “qūm.ṣ” and “kund”. Although past scholars have agreed that “kund” was a transliteration of Old French “conte”, they have disagreed on whether “qūm.ṣ” derived from Latin “comes” or Occitan “coms”. This paper argues in favour of the Latin etymology. The paper then proposes that the distinction in the usage of “kund” and “qūm.ṣ” depended on the medium through which Arabophones communicated with the Franks in question. Latin “comes” likely entered Arabic as “qūmiṣ” via translations of Latin documents produced by the chanceries of the settled Syro-Frankish aristocracy. Meanwhile, French “conte” entered Arabic as “kund” via less formal oral contact between Arabophones and temporarily visiting crusaders and pilgrims.

The aim of this paper is to provide a linguistic and onomastic description of the proper names and other Hebrew biblical realia transcribed and translated into Latin in the Talmudic tractate of Sanhedrin (thirteenth century). The Latin translation of Sanhedrin is a part of the Talmudic corpus known as Extractiones de Talmud ; it is the largest Latin translation of the Talmud and was produced in Paris by Christian theologians in the 1240s. While the Extractiones are a quite exhaustive translation of the Talmud, they are not complete, but offer a selection of different Talmudic tractates that were of theological interest in order to strengthen the Christian faith in a context of anti-Jewish polemic. An onomastic approach to the Latin Sanhedrin will allow us to describe philologically the Hebrew words underlying the Latin transcription. It will also give us information about the criteria of transcription followed by the Latin translators of the Talmud.

In the late fifteenth century, William Caxton translated into English and published a version of the best-known collection of saints’ lives in medieval Europe, the Legenda aurea . It was the longest and most expensive book he ever produced. Caxton used various sources, including Latin and French versions of the Legenda , to create a collection accessible to the book-buying public who were literate in the vernacular in late-fifteenth and early sixteenth-century England. The Golden Legend includes fifteen lives that incorporate Saracens or Turks into their narratives. It describes their interactions with Christians, both peaceful and violent, as well as their capacity for conversion. The depiction of Muslims in this popular sermon collection would have formed part of the cultural construction of Islamic people in England at the turn of the sixteenth century.

To this day, the unique iconography of a fifteenth-century painting of culturally mixed character made by the Cretan artist Andreas Ritzos has not been sufficiently explained. So far, the motif of the letters “IHS” encapsulating narrative scenes of the passion has been linked to the widely propagated devotion of St. Bernardine of Siena to the name of Jesus. However, several elements contradict a direct reference to Bernardine propaganda. The concept underlying the panel seems to be a more complex and highly erudite one. The fact that Christian Kabbalists discussed many of its topics suggests that the iconography of the panel was influenced by Kabbalistic ideas, probably due to the intense relations between Crete and Venice in particular and Italy in general as a centre of Christian Kabbalistic lore. In any event, the panel proves to be a result of the thriving climate of intellectual, religious and artistic syncretism in Renaissance Crete.