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Books by Christopher Wright
In The Gattilusio Lordships and the Aegean World 1355-1462, Christopher Wright offers a window in... more In The Gattilusio Lordships and the Aegean World 1355-1462, Christopher Wright offers a window into the culturally and politically diverse late medieval Aegean. The overlapping influences of the contrasting networks of power at work in the region are explored through the history of one of many small and distinctive political units that flourished in this fragmented environment, the lordships of the Gattilusio family, centred on Lesbos. Though Genoese in origin, they owed their position to Byzantine authority. Though active in crusading, they cultivated congenial relations with the Ottomans. Though Catholic, they afforded exceptional freedom to the Orthodox Church. Their regime is shown to represent both a unique fusion of influences and a revealing microcosm of its times.
Papers by Christopher Wright
In the fifteenth century, the hitherto usually close relations between the Genoese community and ... more In the fifteenth century, the hitherto usually close relations between the Genoese community and the Order of the Knights of St John were threatened by an increase in tension and incidents of violence. The difficulties between them in this period were due less to their contrasting approaches to relations with Muslim powers than to the Order’s increasingly strong ties to Genoa’s traditional enemies, the Catalan subjects of the Crown of Aragon. These arose from the growing importance of Catalan and Aragonese knights in the Order, of Catalan merchants and financiers in the Knights’ base at Rhodes, and of the Aragonese Crown to the interests of the Order. Combined with the intensification of hostilities between Genoese and Catalans in the same period, this development produced recurrent antagonism between Genoa and the Hospitallers, manifested primarily in acts of piracy and the resulting reprisals. Such difficulties reflected the nature of the Order as a political power which was also a multinational association, and the tendency for violence between communities to impinge on other groups with whom their membership overlapped or was closely associated. This article examines this process of contagious recrimination, but also the ways in which it was contained by the enduring mutual connections, internal subdivisions and policies of the Order and the Genoese community.
Viator 45/3, 2014
This article examines the contribution made by the lenders who advanced the money needed to pay t... more This article examines the contribution made by the lenders who advanced the money needed to pay the ransom of the captured leaders of the Crusade of Nikopolis and to meet their expenses during their captivity and journey home, the aims of the lenders and the extent to which they benefited from the enterprise. While a number of groups took part, the preponderant part was played by the Genoese community. This is explained in terms of their exceptionally close commercial and political ties to France and Burgundy at this time, and of the precarious position of Christians in the eastern Mediterranean in the face of the Ottoman threat. The extent to which the assistance given to the prisoners amounted to a successful investment in financial terms and as a means of gaining influence with the powerful is assessed and stark divergences between the experiences of different lenders identified.
J. Demetracopoulos and Ch. Dendrinos (eds), When East Met West: the reception of Latin theological and philosophical thought in late Byzantium, Acts of the Institute of Classical Studies Intl. Byzantine Colloquium, London, 11-12 June 2012, Nicolaus: Rivista di Teologia ecumenico-patristica 2013/1, 2013
Catherine Holmes, Jonathan Harris and Eugenia Russell (eds.), Byzantines, Latins and Turks in the Eastern Mediterranean after 1150, 2012
Conor Kostick (ed.), The Crusades and the Near East: Cultural Histories, 2011
Journal of Medieval History 36, 2010
This article publishes a document from the archives of the Order of Saint John recording the Hosp... more This article publishes a document from the archives of the Order of Saint John recording the Hospitallers’ concession of an alum exploration and mining monopoly, an appalto, to a group of Florentines in 1442, and examines the implications of this agreement for the economic development of the Latin East in this period. This enterprise forms part of a pattern showing Florentine merchants attempting to extend their activities further up the alum supply chain and so to gain increasing control over a commodity of vital importance to their city’s economy, for which they had been dependent on the Genoese who dominated the trade. This development in turn forms part of a wider fifteenth-century trend of the Florentines interloping in areas of activity previously the preserve of other communities, principally the Venetians and Genoese, with a long-established maritime, territorial, diplomatic and commercial position in the eastern Mediterranean. It also forms part of a pattern of new speculative alum mining enterprises in the Aegean in the mid-fifteenth century, calling into question the traditional view that the alum trade was afflicted by a glut at this time, and thus also the traditional explanation of the ensuing consolidation of alum firms. The article also compares this document with a previously published contract issued the preceding year, concluding that the differences between them reflect the developing familiarity of the Hospitaller leadership with the mining business, while their common characteristics confirm the currency of the term appalto in the mining business of this period as denoting a monopoly. It tentatively concludes that this effort to establish an alum mining industry in Hospitaller territory was probably ultimately unsuccessful.
Collaborative Electronic Publications by Christopher Wright
Book Reviews by Christopher Wright
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies (forthcoming), 2014
English Historical Review 128, 2013
Anglo-Hellenic Review 40, 2009
Conference Presentations by Christopher Wright
In the course of the Palaiologan era, the loss of its principal blocs of continuous territory tur... more In the course of the Palaiologan era, the loss of its principal blocs of continuous territory turned the Byzantine Empire into an archipelago of islands and continental enclaves linked by sea, whose compartmentalisation was often heightened by the devolution of imperial prerogatives. In this respect, Byzantium gained a greater resemblance to the maritime networks formed by Latin groups in the formerly Byzantine world. Although its islands constituted an increased proportion of the empire’s territorial base, they were seldom chosen for the ‘appanages’ of imperial princes, though they did become a focus of ambition for lower-ranking individuals. This pattern may in part reflect the endurance of the traditional function of islands as places of political confinement, albeit in modified form. This practice persisted even as the logic behind it was undermined by the changed realities of maritime power, particularly where the empire’s politics intersected most forcefully with those of the Italian maritime communities. The same realities helped make an alternative form of devolution upon individuals, concessions to imperial associates from the Latin world. Thus the status of islands in the Palaiologan political order reflects both the impact of Latin power and aspirations on Byzantine practice and the resilience of the Empire’s own traditions.
For the Italian maritime cities, far more than for other societies in western Europe, crusading i... more For the Italian maritime cities, far more than for other societies in western Europe, crusading in the eastern Mediterranean was entwined with more routine activities and concerns, reflecting their distinctive bridging role between the zones of crusade recruitment and of military action. Their commercial and later territorial connections in the East inextricably entangled every turn of the crusading movement in that region in a web of material interests on which it could have a profound impact, precluding any isolation of crusading from the more mundane preoccupations of the maritime powers. The frequency with which the seafarers' involvement in crusading took a subsidiary form, providing transport to travelling contingents or later fielding naval forces on behalf of others, embedded their activity in the geographical context of their landward connections, complementing the contextualisation imposed by their far-flung overseas links. In these respects, Venice was set apart even from its closest counterparts by its location and by the longevity and extent of its ties to the Byzantine world, as well as by the precocious establishment of its maritime empire and its durability as a major naval power. This paper will examine how these elements of Venice's context impinged upon the city's role in an evolving crusading movement.
In the early decades of crusading, in which the forces of the maritime powers autonomously complemented rather than being fused with the activities of other crusaders, the most significantly distinctive quality of Venice's context of connections was the long-standing and extensive nature of its eastern interests, splayed out along the routes plied by fleets travelling to the Holy Land, encouraging the mingling of crusading action with the assertion of Venetian prerogatives in the Adriatic and in the Byzantine sphere, a combination with a long and eventful history. The progressive abandonment of land routes linked the role of the maritime cities increasingly to transport and escort of the armies of others, and hence to their geographical position as nodes on transit routes. Consequently, the diversion to other routes of many of the crusaders from the natural catchment area for its services as a port undercut Venice's prominence in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Its acquisition of an empire in the East through the principal exception to this pattern, the Fourth Crusade, would later cement the city's early and enduring engagement with the transformed crusading movement of the late Middle Ages, transferred increasingly to the defensive and to the erstwhile Byzantine world. In this era, the particular distribution of Venice's territorial and commercial interests modulated the relative strength of the disincentives operating in different areas of an increasingly Muslim-dominated environment to constrain its participation in crusading. Becoming preponderant as a port of departure, as a provider of naval power for hire and as the often reluctant mainstay of Christian cooperation at sea, Venetian crusading developed a symbiotic relationship with that of Hungary, counterposing their persistent rivalry.
In The Gattilusio Lordships and the Aegean World 1355-1462, Christopher Wright offers a window in... more In The Gattilusio Lordships and the Aegean World 1355-1462, Christopher Wright offers a window into the culturally and politically diverse late medieval Aegean. The overlapping influences of the contrasting networks of power at work in the region are explored through the history of one of many small and distinctive political units that flourished in this fragmented environment, the lordships of the Gattilusio family, centred on Lesbos. Though Genoese in origin, they owed their position to Byzantine authority. Though active in crusading, they cultivated congenial relations with the Ottomans. Though Catholic, they afforded exceptional freedom to the Orthodox Church. Their regime is shown to represent both a unique fusion of influences and a revealing microcosm of its times.
In the fifteenth century, the hitherto usually close relations between the Genoese community and ... more In the fifteenth century, the hitherto usually close relations between the Genoese community and the Order of the Knights of St John were threatened by an increase in tension and incidents of violence. The difficulties between them in this period were due less to their contrasting approaches to relations with Muslim powers than to the Order’s increasingly strong ties to Genoa’s traditional enemies, the Catalan subjects of the Crown of Aragon. These arose from the growing importance of Catalan and Aragonese knights in the Order, of Catalan merchants and financiers in the Knights’ base at Rhodes, and of the Aragonese Crown to the interests of the Order. Combined with the intensification of hostilities between Genoese and Catalans in the same period, this development produced recurrent antagonism between Genoa and the Hospitallers, manifested primarily in acts of piracy and the resulting reprisals. Such difficulties reflected the nature of the Order as a political power which was also a multinational association, and the tendency for violence between communities to impinge on other groups with whom their membership overlapped or was closely associated. This article examines this process of contagious recrimination, but also the ways in which it was contained by the enduring mutual connections, internal subdivisions and policies of the Order and the Genoese community.
Viator 45/3, 2014
This article examines the contribution made by the lenders who advanced the money needed to pay t... more This article examines the contribution made by the lenders who advanced the money needed to pay the ransom of the captured leaders of the Crusade of Nikopolis and to meet their expenses during their captivity and journey home, the aims of the lenders and the extent to which they benefited from the enterprise. While a number of groups took part, the preponderant part was played by the Genoese community. This is explained in terms of their exceptionally close commercial and political ties to France and Burgundy at this time, and of the precarious position of Christians in the eastern Mediterranean in the face of the Ottoman threat. The extent to which the assistance given to the prisoners amounted to a successful investment in financial terms and as a means of gaining influence with the powerful is assessed and stark divergences between the experiences of different lenders identified.
J. Demetracopoulos and Ch. Dendrinos (eds), When East Met West: the reception of Latin theological and philosophical thought in late Byzantium, Acts of the Institute of Classical Studies Intl. Byzantine Colloquium, London, 11-12 June 2012, Nicolaus: Rivista di Teologia ecumenico-patristica 2013/1, 2013
Catherine Holmes, Jonathan Harris and Eugenia Russell (eds.), Byzantines, Latins and Turks in the Eastern Mediterranean after 1150, 2012
Conor Kostick (ed.), The Crusades and the Near East: Cultural Histories, 2011
Journal of Medieval History 36, 2010
This article publishes a document from the archives of the Order of Saint John recording the Hosp... more This article publishes a document from the archives of the Order of Saint John recording the Hospitallers’ concession of an alum exploration and mining monopoly, an appalto, to a group of Florentines in 1442, and examines the implications of this agreement for the economic development of the Latin East in this period. This enterprise forms part of a pattern showing Florentine merchants attempting to extend their activities further up the alum supply chain and so to gain increasing control over a commodity of vital importance to their city’s economy, for which they had been dependent on the Genoese who dominated the trade. This development in turn forms part of a wider fifteenth-century trend of the Florentines interloping in areas of activity previously the preserve of other communities, principally the Venetians and Genoese, with a long-established maritime, territorial, diplomatic and commercial position in the eastern Mediterranean. It also forms part of a pattern of new speculative alum mining enterprises in the Aegean in the mid-fifteenth century, calling into question the traditional view that the alum trade was afflicted by a glut at this time, and thus also the traditional explanation of the ensuing consolidation of alum firms. The article also compares this document with a previously published contract issued the preceding year, concluding that the differences between them reflect the developing familiarity of the Hospitaller leadership with the mining business, while their common characteristics confirm the currency of the term appalto in the mining business of this period as denoting a monopoly. It tentatively concludes that this effort to establish an alum mining industry in Hospitaller territory was probably ultimately unsuccessful.
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies (forthcoming), 2014
English Historical Review 128, 2013
Anglo-Hellenic Review 40, 2009
In the course of the Palaiologan era, the loss of its principal blocs of continuous territory tur... more In the course of the Palaiologan era, the loss of its principal blocs of continuous territory turned the Byzantine Empire into an archipelago of islands and continental enclaves linked by sea, whose compartmentalisation was often heightened by the devolution of imperial prerogatives. In this respect, Byzantium gained a greater resemblance to the maritime networks formed by Latin groups in the formerly Byzantine world. Although its islands constituted an increased proportion of the empire’s territorial base, they were seldom chosen for the ‘appanages’ of imperial princes, though they did become a focus of ambition for lower-ranking individuals. This pattern may in part reflect the endurance of the traditional function of islands as places of political confinement, albeit in modified form. This practice persisted even as the logic behind it was undermined by the changed realities of maritime power, particularly where the empire’s politics intersected most forcefully with those of the Italian maritime communities. The same realities helped make an alternative form of devolution upon individuals, concessions to imperial associates from the Latin world. Thus the status of islands in the Palaiologan political order reflects both the impact of Latin power and aspirations on Byzantine practice and the resilience of the Empire’s own traditions.
For the Italian maritime cities, far more than for other societies in western Europe, crusading i... more For the Italian maritime cities, far more than for other societies in western Europe, crusading in the eastern Mediterranean was entwined with more routine activities and concerns, reflecting their distinctive bridging role between the zones of crusade recruitment and of military action. Their commercial and later territorial connections in the East inextricably entangled every turn of the crusading movement in that region in a web of material interests on which it could have a profound impact, precluding any isolation of crusading from the more mundane preoccupations of the maritime powers. The frequency with which the seafarers' involvement in crusading took a subsidiary form, providing transport to travelling contingents or later fielding naval forces on behalf of others, embedded their activity in the geographical context of their landward connections, complementing the contextualisation imposed by their far-flung overseas links. In these respects, Venice was set apart even from its closest counterparts by its location and by the longevity and extent of its ties to the Byzantine world, as well as by the precocious establishment of its maritime empire and its durability as a major naval power. This paper will examine how these elements of Venice's context impinged upon the city's role in an evolving crusading movement.
In the early decades of crusading, in which the forces of the maritime powers autonomously complemented rather than being fused with the activities of other crusaders, the most significantly distinctive quality of Venice's context of connections was the long-standing and extensive nature of its eastern interests, splayed out along the routes plied by fleets travelling to the Holy Land, encouraging the mingling of crusading action with the assertion of Venetian prerogatives in the Adriatic and in the Byzantine sphere, a combination with a long and eventful history. The progressive abandonment of land routes linked the role of the maritime cities increasingly to transport and escort of the armies of others, and hence to their geographical position as nodes on transit routes. Consequently, the diversion to other routes of many of the crusaders from the natural catchment area for its services as a port undercut Venice's prominence in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Its acquisition of an empire in the East through the principal exception to this pattern, the Fourth Crusade, would later cement the city's early and enduring engagement with the transformed crusading movement of the late Middle Ages, transferred increasingly to the defensive and to the erstwhile Byzantine world. In this era, the particular distribution of Venice's territorial and commercial interests modulated the relative strength of the disincentives operating in different areas of an increasingly Muslim-dominated environment to constrain its participation in crusading. Becoming preponderant as a port of departure, as a provider of naval power for hire and as the often reluctant mainstay of Christian cooperation at sea, Venetian crusading developed a symbiotic relationship with that of Hungary, counterposing their persistent rivalry.