Medieval Worlds Comparative & Interdisciplinary Studies
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medieval worlds comparative & interdisciplinary studies No. 3 /2016 medieval worlds comparative & interdisciplinary studies medieval worlds comparative & interdisciplinary studies Volume 2016.3 medieval worlds comparative & interdisciplinary studies The journal is funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) project OAJ-52. All rights reserved ISSN 2412-3196 Online Edition Media Owner: Institute for Medieval Research Copyright © 2015 by Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna Cover design, layout: Anneke Gerloff Austrian Academy of Sciences Press A-1011 Wien, Postfach 471, Postgasse 7/4 Tel. +43-1-515 81/DW 3402-3406, +43-1-512 9050 Fax +43-1-515 81/DW 3400 http://hw.oeaw.ac.at, http://verlag.oeaw.ac.at Editors Walter Pohl, Austrian Academy of Sciences/University of Vienna Andre Gingrich, Austrian Academy of Sciences/University of Vienna Editorial Board Maximilian Diesenberger, Austrian Academy of Sciences Bert Fragner, Austrian Academy of Sciences Christian Gastgeber, Austrian Academy of Sciences Johann Heiß, Austrian Academy of Sciences Claudia Rapp, Austrian Academy of Sciences/University of Vienna Irene van Renswoude, Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands/ Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Pavlína Rychterová, Austrian Academy of Sciences Veronika Wieser, Austrian Academy of Sciences International Advisory Board Glenn Bowman , University of Kent Sabrina Corbellini, University of Groningen Mayke de Jong, Utrecht University Nicola di Cosmo, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton Stefan Esders, Free University of Berlin Patrick Geary, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton John Haldon, Princeton University William C. Jordan, Princeton University Osamu Kano, Nagoya University Birgit Kellner, Heidelberg University Hugh Kennedy, SOAS, University of London Gábor Klaniczay, Central European University Lars Boje Mortensen, University of Southern Denmark Elisabeth Lambourn, De Montfort University Leicester Eduardo Manzano, Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales (CSIC) Helmut Reimitz, Princeton University Marina Rustow, John Hopkins University Dittmar Schorkowitz, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology Teresa Shawcross, Princeton University Naomi Standen, University of Birmingham John Tolan, University of Nantes Przemysław Urbańczyk, Polish Academy of Sciences Dan Varisco, Qatar University Luo Xin, Peking University Journal Management Celine Wawruschka Homepage www.medievalworlds.net Table of Contents Editor’s Preface 2 Daniel König Charlemagne’s ›Jihād‹ Revisited: Debating the Islamic Contribution to an Epochal Change in the History of Christianization 3 Tsvetelin Stepanov Venerating St. Michael the Archangel in the Holy Roman Empire and in Bulgaria, Tenth–Eleventh Centuries: Similarities, Differences, Transformations 41 Jesse Torgerson Could Isidore’s Chronicle Have Delighted Cicero? Using the Concept of Genre to Compare Ancient and Medieval Chronicles 65 Thomas Ertl and Markus Mayer Acculturation and Elimination: Europe’s Interaction with the Other (Fourteenth–Sixteenth Century) 83 Thematic Cluster: Tribes, Ethnicity and the Nation (1) Miriam Adan Jones A Chosen Missionary People? Willibrord, Boniface, and the Election of the Angli 98 Marieke Brandt Heroic History, Disruptive Genealogy: al-Ḥasan al-Hamdānī and the Historical Formation of the Shākir Tribe (Wāʿilah and Dahm) in al-Jawf, Yemen 116 Dan Mahoney The Political Agency of Kurds as an Ethnic Group in Late Medieval South Arabia 146 Conference Report Anna Frauscher, Jelle Wassenaar, Veronika Wieser Making Ends Meet. Cross-Cultural Perspectives on the End of Times in Medieval Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism 158 medieval worlds • No. 3 • 2016 Editor’s Preface Walter Pohl Since its launch ›Medieval Worlds‹ has become well-established, and attracts a rising number of visitors and downloads. Currently, it is indexed by CrossRef, ERIH PLUS, EZB and DOAJ, and we are in the process of extending our listings. If you want to stay informed about new issues and calls for papers, we invite you to sign up for our mailing list by using this link: http://medieval.vlg.oeaw.ac.at/index.php/medievalworlds/user/register. This will only generate a few e-mails a year, and your address will of course remain strictly confidential. ›Medieval Worlds‹ is owned and financed by the Institute for Medieval Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and receives funding from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF project OAJ 52). It is strictly non-commercial and has no publication or download fees. After two thematic issues volume 3 of ›Medieval Worlds‹ is the first open issue of the journal, and we are glad to have received a fair number of submissions of high quality. In this issue, we also launch the format of ›thematic clusters‹, which can consist of smaller or larger groups of papers addressing a common topic from different regional and/or disciplinary angles. This time, the topic is ›Tribes, ethnicity and the nation‹; it will be continued in issue 5 with a further group of papers. Clusters of papers, or ideas for them, can of course also be submitted. For the time being, we will have open calls for the July issue, and a thematic issue in December. Issue 4, due out 1 December 2016, will deal with history, archaeology and ge- netics, and with the methodological problems raised by their interdisciplinary collaboration. For issue 5 (2017), an open call has been announced. Besides, we also invite project presenta- tions and conference reports in the field of medieval comparative and global history. eISSN-Nr. 2412-3196 DOI 10.1553/medievalworlds_no3_2016s2 medieval worlds • No. 3 • 2016 • 2 Charlemagne’s ›Jihād‹ Revisited: Debating the Islamic Contribution to an Epochal Change in the History of Christianization Daniel G. König* In 2006, Yitzhak Hen published an article under the title »Charlemagne’s Jihad«, proposing that Charlemagne’s policy of forced conversion of the Saxons – the earliest combination of conquest and forced conversion in the history of Christianity – had actually been mo- delled on a typically ›Islamic‹ approach to other religious groups. Hen argued that Charle- magne’s expedition to Zaragoza in 777-778 as well as his reception of Hispanic refugees such as Theodulf at court acquainted the Frankish king with this Islamic approach which was then duly applied to the Saxons. The primary aim of the article is to raise and – at least partially – answer questions that arise from Hen’s hypothesis. The first part of the article is thus ded- icated to questioning if Islam of the late eighth century had already developed a systematic approach to non-Muslim religions that could be adopted by external observers. Even if Islam had already developed clear principles of dealing with other religions in the period under investigation, it cannot be taken for granted that the Carolingians and their informants were aware of these principles. The second part of the article then examines what Charlemagne and his entourage could have known about the Muslim treatment of non-Muslims. Since Hen’s entire argument hinges on specific passages of the Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae which he defines as ›Islamic‹, this part of the article also discusses if these passages clearly reflect Islamic influence or rather build on previous Christian methods of dealing with other religions and of promoting the expansion of Christianity. Against this backdrop, the conclu- sion takes into account the possible historical causes for the Carolingian merging of conquest and forced conversion. Keywords: Charlemagne; Saxons; forced conversion; Islam; Islamic influence; cultural transfer; Carolingian-Umayyad relations; al-Andalus; Spanish March Charlemagne’s forced conversion of the Saxons represents a landmark in the late antique and early medieval process of Christianization. For the first time in the history of Christianity, the latter was imposed during an outright conquest.1 Religious coercion had, of course, already existed in the Roman Empire, even before Christianity became the official religion. In the middle of the third century, the emperors De- cius and Valerian tried to force Christians to participate in the imperial cult, whereas Diocle- tian and Galerius launched a persecution of Manichaeans and Christians at the beginning of * Correspondence details: Daniel G. König, Karl Jaspers Centre for Advanced Transcultural Studies, Voßstraße 2, Building 4400, room 020, 69115 Heidelberg, Germany, email: [email protected]. 1 Cf. Fletcher, Conversion of Europe, 216; Becher, Gewaltmission, 329. eISSN-Nr. 2412-3196 DOI 10.1553/medievalworlds_no3_2016s3 medieval worlds • No. 3 • 2016 • 3-40 4 Daniel G. König the fourth century.2 A period of religious ambiguity after Constantine Iʹs rise to power ended with the legal abolition of non-Christian cults by Theodosius I in the 380s. In various sectors of society, this legal framework backed groups who took violent measures against religious non-conformists: the pogrom against the Jews of Minorca in 418 that resulted in the latter’s mass conversion to Christianity as well as pope Leo’s I campaign against the Manichaeans of Rome in the years 443-45 may serve as two examples.3 All these forms of religious coercion have one thing in common, however: they were directed against the empire’s own subjects. Being in a rather defensive position in Late Antiquity, the Empire never seems to have sought to impose Christianity on extra-imperial populations by the means of warfare.4 Among post-Roman elites, Christianity spread mainly by missionary