Ann Christys - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Ann Christys
Al-Masāq, 2024
The articles in this volume are based on papers read at the International Medieval Congress in 20... more The articles in this volume are based on papers read at the International Medieval Congress in 2022 in response to a call for papers on the theme, "Borders". Defining boundaries was, of course, as important and ubiquitous an activity in the Islamic West as elsewhere; as Maribel Fierro shows, even a severed head had to know where it stood. The overall impression given by these articles, however is one of ambiguity and change. Difference was defined and borders were constructed, but they did not remain fixed. Rather, they were negotiated in both senses of the word, as the meaning of the border changed, or strategies developed that allowed some individuals to cross over it. For too long the subject of borders in the medieval Islamic West has been dominated by questions of interfaith relations and especially by the contest between Muslims and Christians. This has generated an immense bibliography. 1 Islamic legal scholars in al-Andalus and North Africa were engaged in defining boundaries between Muslims and non-Muslims and ruling on those who infringed them. 2 In the Christian West, from the period of the Crusades to modern times, colonisation and orientalism built a conceptual "separation wall", over which European Christians, adventurers and scholars alike, peered to disparage the Muslim "Other". In the twenty-first century anti-Muslim polemic continues to poison the public sphere, not least in the denial by some Spaniards that Muslims played an important role in their national history. 3 Barely a chink has been made in these perceptions, except perhaps in the United States, by those who have argued for the existence in medieval Spain of a climate of mutual tolerance ("convivencia"), 4 a nebulous concept which Eduardo Manzano has characterised as "based more on generic perceptions-the supposed existence of tolerance, pacific coexistence and the broad and free circulation of ideas-than clearly defined historical
Al-Masāq, 28:1, 57-66, 2016
In the early 970s, groups of Vikings (al-Majūs in Arabic) appeared off the western coast of al-An... more In the early 970s, groups of Vikings (al-Majūs in Arabic) appeared off the western coast of al-Andalus. Al-Ḥ akam II (r. 961-976) sent a fleet and his army against them. The detail of his response survives in citations from earlier historians in the Muqtabas of Ibn Ḥ ayyān (987/8-1076). The account of this period of Viking activity that Ibn Ḥ ayyān preserved is more detailed than descriptions of earlier campaigns in the Arabic chronicles. It is also more remote from the pirates themselves, since Ibn Ḥ ayyān, or his sources, narrated events as seen from the twin centres of Umayyad power: Córdoba, and the palace of Madīnat al-Zahrāʾ. 1
Rome and Byzantium in the Visigothic Kingdom: Beyond Imitatio Imperii ed. Damián Fernández, Molly Lester, and Jamie Wood, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023
Historians of the fijirst half century after 711 rely on the so-called Mozarabic Chronicle, writte... more Historians of the fijirst half century after 711 rely on the so-called Mozarabic Chronicle, written within the East Roman chronographic tradition. Several statements in the chronicle appear to be corroborated by coins and lead seals with Arabic inscriptions found in the peninsula that also have Byzantine antecedents. This chapter looks at the ways that material evidence for imitation, reinvention, or the strategic adoption of the Roman and Byzantine past can inform the debate about rupture and continuity in Iberia after 711.
Stefan Esders, Yaniv Fox, Yitzhak Hen and Laury Sarti (eds) East and West in the Early Middle Ages, Cambridge: CUP,, 2019
This article uses Arabic narratives of campaigns in Ifranja, the land of the Franks, during the M... more This article uses Arabic narratives of campaigns in Ifranja, the land of the Franks, during the Merovingian period and references to the frontier with Francia in the work of Andalusi geographers such as al-Bakrı̄ (1019–94).8 It will be argued that it seemed inevitable to many of these authors that the Islamic empire ended where it did.
The Arabic and Latin sources for al-Andalus mention several Christians who held high office in th... more The Arabic and Latin sources for al-Andalus mention several Christians who held high office in the Umayyad administration in the ninth and tenth centuries. How did Christians and Christian converts to Islam attain the command of written Arabic they would have needed to be appointed to such positions? The article focuses on Ḥafṣ ibn Albar's introduction to his translation of the Psalter into Arabic, which directly addresses this question. It also considers other Christians who were schooled in Arabic, some of whom chose martyrdom rather than assimilation into the elite. In al-Andalus, as in other parts of the Islamic world, local elites contributed to the maintenance of imperial rule in the first centuries after the conquests with the aid of new members recruited from the indigenous population. The key to advancement of non-Muslims in the bureaucratic aristocracy of the Umayyad regime was a good command of the language of administration. Much has been written about the loss of Latin that the assimilation of Christians into Muslim society entailed. Less attention has been paid to the question of how Christians and converts to Islam attained a command of written Arabic that enabled them to serve in the highest positions in Muslim society. This article asks what we can deduce about how well elite Christians knew Arabic and how they learned it. It focuses on the mid to late ninth century when some fifty Christians made the ultimate protest against Islam, an indication of the stress that these developments imposed on Andalusi society.
The history of al-Andalus under the Umayyads (AH 138-422 / AD 756-1031) is that of the ruling fam... more The history of al-Andalus under the Umayyads (AH 138-422 / AD 756-1031) is that of the ruling family and of their capital. The scene moves from Córdoba only when emirs, caliphs and their generals leave the capital to campaign against rebels, or against the ‘Galicians’ and the ‘Franks’ to the north. Geographers writing in Arabic from the tenth century onwards recorded some of the roads that these expeditions might have followed, in the form of itineraries that depict Córdoba as the hub of a network of roads that led to all parts of al-Andalus and beyond.
Yet is not easy to move from itineraries to connectivity, to populate these roads, and the peninsula’s navigable rivers, with everyday traffic.
“Made by the ancients”: Romanness in al-Andalus, in Walter Pohl, Clemens Gantner, Cinzia Grifoni ... more “Made by the ancients”: Romanness in al-Andalus, in Walter Pohl, Clemens Gantner, Cinzia Grifoni and Marianne Pollheimer-Mohaupt (eds) Transformations of Romanness. Early Medieval Regions and Identities, Millennium-Studien zu Kultur und Geschichte des erstens Jahrtausends n. Chr./Millennium Studies in the culture and history of the first millennium C.E., volume 71, Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2018, 379-392
This paper explores the vocabulary of the Qur'ān in texts composed in Latin and Arabic by Christi... more This paper explores the vocabulary of the Qur'ān in texts composed in Latin and Arabic by Christians in al-Andalus in the period up to the end of the ninth century. The main focus of the paper is a comparison between the Arabic translation of Orosius' Seven books of history against the pagans and the History attributed to Ibn Ḥabīb (d. 853). Both are works of universal history showing the hand of God at work in the history of humankind. The Qur'ān was crucially important for Ibn Ḥabīb in conveying this message. Did this translate into Christian universal history in Arabic?
in Marco Di Branco/Kordula Wolf (a cura di), “Guerra santa” e conquiste islamiche nel Mediterran... more in Marco Di Branco/Kordula Wolf (a cura di), “Guerra santa” e conquiste islamiche nel Mediterraneo (VII–XI secolo), Roma: Viella 2014, 79-94.
in Matthias Maser, Klaus Herbers, Michele C. Ferrari and Hartmut Bobzin, Von Mozarabern zu Mozara... more in Matthias Maser, Klaus Herbers, Michele C. Ferrari and Hartmut Bobzin, Von Mozarabern zu Mozarabismen. Zur Vielfalt kultureller Ordnungen auf der mittelalterlichen Iberischen Halbinsel, Münster, Aschendorff, 2014 297-306.
Visions of Community in the post-Roman World, ed. Walter Pohl, Clemens Gantner and Richard Payne, Ashgate, pp.447-457 , 2012
Modern historians of the Viking Age have paid little attention to the activities of the Norsemen ... more Modern historians of the Viking Age have paid little attention to the activities of the Norsemen in Spain and the Mediterranean. There were significant attacks in the 840s and 50s, between 964 and 971, and raids continued into the twelfth century.
Wendy Davies and Paul Fouracre (eds.) The Languages of Gifts in the Early Middle Ages, pp.149-170., 2010
Caroline Goodson, Anne E. Lester and Carol Symes (eds.) Cities, Texts and Social Networks, 400-1500. Experiences and Perceptions of Medieval Urban Space, Farnham, Surrey and Burlington, Ashgate, pp.103-124. , 2010
Al-Masaq, 21/3, 2009 pp.289-300.
Cross, Crescent and Conversion. Studies on Medieval Spain and Christendom in Memory of Richard Fletcher ed. Simon Barton and Peter Linehan (Leiden and Boston: Brill), pp.87-108. , 2008
Revista di storia del cristianesimo, pp.29-48., Jan 1, 2007
Al-Masāq, 2024
The articles in this volume are based on papers read at the International Medieval Congress in 20... more The articles in this volume are based on papers read at the International Medieval Congress in 2022 in response to a call for papers on the theme, "Borders". Defining boundaries was, of course, as important and ubiquitous an activity in the Islamic West as elsewhere; as Maribel Fierro shows, even a severed head had to know where it stood. The overall impression given by these articles, however is one of ambiguity and change. Difference was defined and borders were constructed, but they did not remain fixed. Rather, they were negotiated in both senses of the word, as the meaning of the border changed, or strategies developed that allowed some individuals to cross over it. For too long the subject of borders in the medieval Islamic West has been dominated by questions of interfaith relations and especially by the contest between Muslims and Christians. This has generated an immense bibliography. 1 Islamic legal scholars in al-Andalus and North Africa were engaged in defining boundaries between Muslims and non-Muslims and ruling on those who infringed them. 2 In the Christian West, from the period of the Crusades to modern times, colonisation and orientalism built a conceptual "separation wall", over which European Christians, adventurers and scholars alike, peered to disparage the Muslim "Other". In the twenty-first century anti-Muslim polemic continues to poison the public sphere, not least in the denial by some Spaniards that Muslims played an important role in their national history. 3 Barely a chink has been made in these perceptions, except perhaps in the United States, by those who have argued for the existence in medieval Spain of a climate of mutual tolerance ("convivencia"), 4 a nebulous concept which Eduardo Manzano has characterised as "based more on generic perceptions-the supposed existence of tolerance, pacific coexistence and the broad and free circulation of ideas-than clearly defined historical
Al-Masāq, 28:1, 57-66, 2016
In the early 970s, groups of Vikings (al-Majūs in Arabic) appeared off the western coast of al-An... more In the early 970s, groups of Vikings (al-Majūs in Arabic) appeared off the western coast of al-Andalus. Al-Ḥ akam II (r. 961-976) sent a fleet and his army against them. The detail of his response survives in citations from earlier historians in the Muqtabas of Ibn Ḥ ayyān (987/8-1076). The account of this period of Viking activity that Ibn Ḥ ayyān preserved is more detailed than descriptions of earlier campaigns in the Arabic chronicles. It is also more remote from the pirates themselves, since Ibn Ḥ ayyān, or his sources, narrated events as seen from the twin centres of Umayyad power: Córdoba, and the palace of Madīnat al-Zahrāʾ. 1
Rome and Byzantium in the Visigothic Kingdom: Beyond Imitatio Imperii ed. Damián Fernández, Molly Lester, and Jamie Wood, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023
Historians of the fijirst half century after 711 rely on the so-called Mozarabic Chronicle, writte... more Historians of the fijirst half century after 711 rely on the so-called Mozarabic Chronicle, written within the East Roman chronographic tradition. Several statements in the chronicle appear to be corroborated by coins and lead seals with Arabic inscriptions found in the peninsula that also have Byzantine antecedents. This chapter looks at the ways that material evidence for imitation, reinvention, or the strategic adoption of the Roman and Byzantine past can inform the debate about rupture and continuity in Iberia after 711.
Stefan Esders, Yaniv Fox, Yitzhak Hen and Laury Sarti (eds) East and West in the Early Middle Ages, Cambridge: CUP,, 2019
This article uses Arabic narratives of campaigns in Ifranja, the land of the Franks, during the M... more This article uses Arabic narratives of campaigns in Ifranja, the land of the Franks, during the Merovingian period and references to the frontier with Francia in the work of Andalusi geographers such as al-Bakrı̄ (1019–94).8 It will be argued that it seemed inevitable to many of these authors that the Islamic empire ended where it did.
The Arabic and Latin sources for al-Andalus mention several Christians who held high office in th... more The Arabic and Latin sources for al-Andalus mention several Christians who held high office in the Umayyad administration in the ninth and tenth centuries. How did Christians and Christian converts to Islam attain the command of written Arabic they would have needed to be appointed to such positions? The article focuses on Ḥafṣ ibn Albar's introduction to his translation of the Psalter into Arabic, which directly addresses this question. It also considers other Christians who were schooled in Arabic, some of whom chose martyrdom rather than assimilation into the elite. In al-Andalus, as in other parts of the Islamic world, local elites contributed to the maintenance of imperial rule in the first centuries after the conquests with the aid of new members recruited from the indigenous population. The key to advancement of non-Muslims in the bureaucratic aristocracy of the Umayyad regime was a good command of the language of administration. Much has been written about the loss of Latin that the assimilation of Christians into Muslim society entailed. Less attention has been paid to the question of how Christians and converts to Islam attained a command of written Arabic that enabled them to serve in the highest positions in Muslim society. This article asks what we can deduce about how well elite Christians knew Arabic and how they learned it. It focuses on the mid to late ninth century when some fifty Christians made the ultimate protest against Islam, an indication of the stress that these developments imposed on Andalusi society.
The history of al-Andalus under the Umayyads (AH 138-422 / AD 756-1031) is that of the ruling fam... more The history of al-Andalus under the Umayyads (AH 138-422 / AD 756-1031) is that of the ruling family and of their capital. The scene moves from Córdoba only when emirs, caliphs and their generals leave the capital to campaign against rebels, or against the ‘Galicians’ and the ‘Franks’ to the north. Geographers writing in Arabic from the tenth century onwards recorded some of the roads that these expeditions might have followed, in the form of itineraries that depict Córdoba as the hub of a network of roads that led to all parts of al-Andalus and beyond.
Yet is not easy to move from itineraries to connectivity, to populate these roads, and the peninsula’s navigable rivers, with everyday traffic.
“Made by the ancients”: Romanness in al-Andalus, in Walter Pohl, Clemens Gantner, Cinzia Grifoni ... more “Made by the ancients”: Romanness in al-Andalus, in Walter Pohl, Clemens Gantner, Cinzia Grifoni and Marianne Pollheimer-Mohaupt (eds) Transformations of Romanness. Early Medieval Regions and Identities, Millennium-Studien zu Kultur und Geschichte des erstens Jahrtausends n. Chr./Millennium Studies in the culture and history of the first millennium C.E., volume 71, Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2018, 379-392
This paper explores the vocabulary of the Qur'ān in texts composed in Latin and Arabic by Christi... more This paper explores the vocabulary of the Qur'ān in texts composed in Latin and Arabic by Christians in al-Andalus in the period up to the end of the ninth century. The main focus of the paper is a comparison between the Arabic translation of Orosius' Seven books of history against the pagans and the History attributed to Ibn Ḥabīb (d. 853). Both are works of universal history showing the hand of God at work in the history of humankind. The Qur'ān was crucially important for Ibn Ḥabīb in conveying this message. Did this translate into Christian universal history in Arabic?
in Marco Di Branco/Kordula Wolf (a cura di), “Guerra santa” e conquiste islamiche nel Mediterran... more in Marco Di Branco/Kordula Wolf (a cura di), “Guerra santa” e conquiste islamiche nel Mediterraneo (VII–XI secolo), Roma: Viella 2014, 79-94.
in Matthias Maser, Klaus Herbers, Michele C. Ferrari and Hartmut Bobzin, Von Mozarabern zu Mozara... more in Matthias Maser, Klaus Herbers, Michele C. Ferrari and Hartmut Bobzin, Von Mozarabern zu Mozarabismen. Zur Vielfalt kultureller Ordnungen auf der mittelalterlichen Iberischen Halbinsel, Münster, Aschendorff, 2014 297-306.
Visions of Community in the post-Roman World, ed. Walter Pohl, Clemens Gantner and Richard Payne, Ashgate, pp.447-457 , 2012
Modern historians of the Viking Age have paid little attention to the activities of the Norsemen ... more Modern historians of the Viking Age have paid little attention to the activities of the Norsemen in Spain and the Mediterranean. There were significant attacks in the 840s and 50s, between 964 and 971, and raids continued into the twelfth century.
Wendy Davies and Paul Fouracre (eds.) The Languages of Gifts in the Early Middle Ages, pp.149-170., 2010
Caroline Goodson, Anne E. Lester and Carol Symes (eds.) Cities, Texts and Social Networks, 400-1500. Experiences and Perceptions of Medieval Urban Space, Farnham, Surrey and Burlington, Ashgate, pp.103-124. , 2010
Al-Masaq, 21/3, 2009 pp.289-300.
Cross, Crescent and Conversion. Studies on Medieval Spain and Christendom in Memory of Richard Fletcher ed. Simon Barton and Peter Linehan (Leiden and Boston: Brill), pp.87-108. , 2008
Revista di storia del cristianesimo, pp.29-48., Jan 1, 2007
Viking activity in Iberia (modern Spain and Portugal) and the Mediterranean has received little a... more Viking activity in Iberia (modern Spain and Portugal) and the Mediterranean has received little attention in general histories of the Viking Age, even though Vikings raided Christian northern Spain and Muslim al-Andalus over at least two centuries, attacked North Africa, southern Francia and Italy and may have sailed to Byzantium. Vikings killed a bishop of Santiago de Compostela and several heroes of the Old Norse sagas were said to have raided in Spain. This book surveys a wide range of material that includes histories and geographical works written in Arabic, Latin and Romance, charters, archaeology and place name evidence. It discusses the way that different authors characterized the raiders, and whether we can be sure that all of them were indeed Vikings. It shows how the stories about them could become more elaborate with each retelling, creatively implicating prominent figures in the defence against these pirates. Most of the Viking activity in the south was probably small-scale raiding for slaves, although some of the captives were ransomed. Yet they were perceived as a threat by the rulers of Christian and Muslim Iberia, who raised fortifications and built fleets to use against them. Arabic authors and their Latin contemporaries remembered Vikings in Iberia in surprisingly similar ways. How they did so sheds light on contemporary responses to Vikings throughout the medieval world.
Cultures of Eschatology, 2 Vols., 2020
See all contributions OA here: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110597745/html ... more See all contributions OA here: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110597745/html
In all religions, in the medieval West as in the East, ideas about the past, the present and the future were shaped by expectations related to the End. The volumes Cultures of Eschatology explore the many ways apocalyptic thought and visions of the end intersected with the development of pre-modern religio-political communities, with social changes and with the emergence of new intellectual and literary traditions.
The two volumes present a wide variety of case studies from the early Christian communities of Antiquity, through the times of the Islamic expansion and the Crusades and up to modern receptions, from the Latin West to the Byzantine Empire, from South Yemen to the Hidden Lands of Tibetan Buddhism. Examining apocalypticism, messianism and eschatology in medieval Christian, Islamic, Hindu and Buddhist communities, the contributions paint a multi-faceted picture of End-Time scenarios and provide their readers with a broad array of source material from different historical contexts.
The first volume, Empires and Scriptural Authorities, examines the formation of literary and visual apocalyptic traditions, and the role they played as vehicles for defining a community’s religious and political enemies. The second volume, Time, Death and Afterlife, focuses on key topics of eschatology: death, judgment, afterlife and the perception of time and its end. It also analyses modern readings and interpretations of eschatological concepts.
Gracchi Books, 2020
Michael J. Kelly – Preface: Iberian Rivalries Ian Wood – Introduction Lisa Kaaren Bailey – “The... more Michael J. Kelly – Preface: Iberian Rivalries
Ian Wood – Introduction
Lisa Kaaren Bailey – “The Innocence of the Dead Crowned You, the Glory of the Triumphant Crowned Me”: The Strange Rivalry between Bethlehem and Lyon in Eusebius Gallicanus Sermon 11
Michael Burrows – Tours vs. Bourges: The Secular and Ecclesiastical Discourse of Inter-City Relationships in the Accounts of Gregory of Tours
Ann Christys – Did All Roads Lead to Córdoba under the Umayyads?
Dimitris J. Kyrtatas – Religious Conflict in Roman Nicomedia
Javier Martínez Jiménez – Reccopolitani and Other Town Dwellers in the Southern Meseta during the Visigothic Period of State Formation
Pedro Mateos Cruz – Augusta Emerita in Late Antiquity: The Transformation of Its Urban Layout During the Fourth and Fifth Centuries CE
Michael Mulryan – The So-Called “Oriental Quarter” of Ostia: Regions III.XVI–VII, a Neighborhood in Late Antiquity
Isabel Sánchez Ramos – Looking through Landscapes: Ideology and Power in the Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo
Mark Lewis Tizzoni – Locating Carthage in the Vandal Era
Douglas Underwood – Good Neighbors and Good Walls: Urban Development and Trade Networks in Late Antique South Gaul