Eunuchs and Slaves in the Court of the Norman Kings of Sicily

Eunuchs and slaves in the court of the Norman kings of Sicily

Jeremy Johns

Bibliography

(a) General: Primary Sources Ak̲ h̲ bār al-Ṣīn wa-l-Hind = Jean Sauvaget (ed. & trans.), ’Aḫbār aṣ-Ṣīn wa l-Hind: relation de la Chine et de l'Inde rédigée en 851, Paris: Belles Lettres, 1948. [Chinese eunuchs are indigenous; in Islam, all are foreigners: p. 37] Ottaviano Bon, A description of the Grand Signor’s seraglio, or Turkish emperour’s court, London, Martin & Ridley, 1650. Online via OLIS (republished as The Sultan’s seraglio: an intimate portrait of life at the Ottoman court, ed. Godfrey Goodwin, London: Saqi, 1996). John Lewis Burckhardt, Travels in Nubia, London: John Murray, 1819. Online via OLIS. [Castration of black slaves by Coptic monks at Zāwiyat al-Dayr, Asyūt, Upper Egypt, April–May 1813: pp. 328–331.] Jean Chardin, Voyages du chevalier Chardin, en perse, et autres lieux de l'orient, enrichis d’un grand nombre de belles figures en taille-douce, representant les antiquités et les choses remarquables du pays. Nouvelle édition, Paris: Le Normant, 1811. [Eunuchs in 17th-century Persia:, vol. 6, pp. 40–45] Antoine-Barthelemy Clot-Bey, Aperçu general sur l’Égypte, 2 vols, Paris: Fortin, Masson, 1840. [Eunuchs in mid 19th-century Egypt: vol. 1, pp. 336–340.] Ibn Ḥawqal, Ṣūrat al-arḍ, Bibliotheca geographorum arabicorum 2, 2nd edn. J.H. Kramers, Leiden, 1938–39; French trans. J.H. Kramers and Gaston Wiet, 2 vols, Beirut, 1964. [All eunuchs come from Spain: vol. 1, p. 110 / trans. 1, 110] Ibn Khurradādhbih, Kitāb al-masālik wa-l-mamālik, Bibliotheca geographorum Arabicorum 6, ed. M.J. de Goeje, Leiden: Brill, 1889. [p.153. Eng. trans. with thorough discussion and bibliography (up to 1974) in Charles Pellat, “al-Rād̲ h̲ āniyya” Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, ed. P. Bearman et al., Brill. Online via OLIS. Ibn Rusta, Kitāb al-Aʿlāk an-Nafīsa, ed. M.J. De Goeje, Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabicorum, Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1892. Fr. tr. by G. Wiet, Les Atours précieux, Cairo 1955 al-Jāhiz, Kitāb al-Hayawan, ed. ʿAbd al-Salām Hārūn, 2 vols, Cairo: al-Bābī, 1945, vol. 1, pp. 106– 131. No English trans. but summarised in French by Moussa 1982 below. (Condensed in al- Jāḥiẓ, Mufākharat al-jawārī wa-l-ghilmān, ed. C. Pellat, Beirut: Dār al-Makshūf, 1957, pp. 52–55.) al-Masʿūdī, Murūj al-dhahab wa-maʿādin al-jawhar / Les prairies d'or, ed. & Fr. trans. Charles Barbier de Meynard & Charles Pellat, 9 vols, Paris: Société asiatique, 1861–1917. Online via OLIS [Different methods of castration: vol. 8, pp. 147–150; trans. Paul Lunde & Caroline Stone, The Meadows of Gold: the Abbasids, London & New York: Kegan Paul, 1989, pp.345– 346]. al-Muqaddasī, Kitāb aḥsan al-taqāsīm fī maʿrifat al-āqālīm, Bibliotheca geographorum Arabicorum 3, ed. M.J. de Goeje, Leiden: Brill, 1906; Eng. trans., Basil Anthony Collins & Muhammad Hamid al-Tai, The best divisions for knowledge of the regions: a translation of Ahsan al- taqasim fi maʿrifat al-aqalim, [Doha, Qatar]: Centre for Muslim Contribution to Civilization; Reading: Garnet, 1994. [Eunuchs and castration: p. 242; trans. 216–217.] Sabuncuoğlu Şerefeddin, Cerrāḥiyyetü’l-Ḫāniyye, ed. İlter Uzel, 2 vols., Ankara, 1992.

1 (b) General: Secondary Sources

Glaire D. Anderson, “Concubines, eunuchs and patronage in early Islamic Córdoba”, in Therese Martin (ed.), Reassessing the roles of women as ‘makers’ of medieval art and architecture, 2 vols., Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2012, vol. 2, pp. 633–670. Online Academia.edu. David Ayalon, “On the eunuchs in Islam”, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 1 (1979) 67–124 (reprinted in idem, Outsiders in the lands of Islam: Mamluks, Mongols and eunuchs, London: Variorum Reprints, 1988) ______Eunuchs, caliphs and sultans: a study of power relationships, Jerusalem: Hebrew University, Magnes Press, 1999. Taef Kamal el-Azhari, “Influence of Eunuchs in the Ayyubid Kingdom”, in ed. Urbain Vermeulen & J. Van Steenbergen (eds.), Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk eras, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 4, Louvain: Peeters 2004, pp. 127–142. ______“Gender and history in the Fatimid State: the case of eunuchs 909-1171”, Online International Journal of Arts and Humanities, 2/1 (2013) 9–21 Sussan Babaie, Kathryn Babayan, Ina Baghdiantz-McCabe, Massumeh Farhad, Slaves of the Shah: New Elites of Safavid Iran, London: I.B. Tauris, 2004. Online via Academia.edu Barry Baldwin, “Carzimasium: a Greek Word?”, Glotta, 58 (1980) 266. Online via OLIS Peter Browe, Zur Geschichte der Entmannung: eine religions- und rechtsgeschichtliche Studie, Breslau : Müller & Seiffert, 1936 Robert Brunschvig, “ʿAbd”, Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, ed. P. Bearman et al., Brill. Online via OLIS. Nadia Maria El-Cheikh, “Servants at the gate: eunuchs at the court of al-Muqtadir,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 48/2 (2005) 234–252. Online via OLIS. Cristina De La Puente, “Sin liaje, sin alcurnia, sin hogar: eunuchos en al andalus e época Omeya”, in idem (ed.), Estudios onomástico-biográficos de al Andalus 13: Identidades marginales, Madrid: C.S.I.C., 2003, pp. 147–193. ______“Slaves in al-Andalus through Mālikī wathā’iq works (4th–6th Centuries H / 10th–12th centuries CE): marriage and slavery as factors of social categorisation”, Annales islamologiques 42 (2008) 187–210. Ayşe Ezgi Dikici, “The making of Ottoman court eunuchs: origins, recruitment paths, family ties, and ‘domestic production”, Archivum Ottomanicum 30 (2013) 105–136. Murray Gordon, Slavery in the Arab world, New York: New Amsterdam Books, 1985. Antoni Grabowski, “Eunuch between economy and philology. The case of carzimasium”, Mélanges de l’École française de Rome - Moyen Âge, 127/1 (2015). Revised version online at Academia.edu. Jan S. Hogendorn, “‘The hideous trade’: economic aspects of the ‘manufacture’ and sale of eunuchs”, Paideuma: Mitteilungen zur Kulturkunde (Frobenius-Gesellschaft), 45 (1999) 137–160. ______“The location of the ‘manufacture’ of eunuchs”, in Miura Toru and John Edward Philips (eds.), Slave elites in the Middle East and Africa: a comparative study, London & New York: Kegan Paul, 2000, 41–68. Keith Hopkins, Conquerors and slaves, Cambridge: C.U.P., 1980. Online via OLIS. Jennifer W. Jay, “Another side of Chinese eunuch history: castration, marriage, adoption, and burial”, Canadian Journal of History / Annales canadiennes d’histoire, 28 (1993) 459–478. Bernard Lewis, Race and slavery in the Middle East: an historical enquiry, New York & Oxford: O.U.P., 1992 etc. Online OLIS. Georges Marçais, “Ghāniya”, Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, ed. P. Bearman et al., Brill. Online via OLIS.

2 Shaun Elizabeth Marmon, Eunuchs and scared boundaries in Islamic society, New York and Oxford: O.U.P., 1995. Online via OLIS. Mohamed Meouwak, Ṣaqāliba, eunuques et esclaves à la conquête du pouvoir: géographie et histoire des élites politiques “marginales” dans l'Espagne umayyade, Helsinki : Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 2004. Taisuke Mitamura, Chinese eunuchs: the structure of intimate politics, trans. Charles A. Pomeroy, Rutland (Vt): Tuttle, 1970 A. Cheikh Moussa, “Gāḥiẓ et les eunuques ou la confusion de meme et de l’autre”, Arabica, 29 (1982) 184–214. Online via OLIS. Charles Pellat, Anne K.S Lambton and Cengiz Orhonlu, “K̲h̲ āṣī”, Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, ed. P. Bearman et al., Brill. Online via OLIS. ______“al-Rād̲ h̲ āniyya”, Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, ed. P. Bearman et al., Brill. Online via OLIS. Norman Mosley Penzer, The Harem: An Account of the Institution as it Existed in the Palace of the Turkish Sultans, with a History of the Grand Seraglio from its Foundation to Modern Times, Philadelphia: Harrap, 1936. Various reprints. Kathryn Reusch, “‘That which was missing’: the archaeology of castration”, Unpublished D.Phil., School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, 2013. Lutz Richter-Bernburg, “Castration”, Encylopedia Iranica, 5 (1990) 70–73. Also online. Kathryn M. Ringrose, The perfect servant: eunuchs and the social construction of gender in Byzantium, Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2003 Online via OLIS. Elizabeth Savage (ed.), The human commodity: perspectives on the trans-Saharan slave trade, London, Cass, 1992. George Carter Stent, “Chinese Eunuchs”, Journal of North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 11 (1887) 143–184. Michael Toch, “Jews and commerce: modern fancies and medieval realities”, in S. Cavaciocchi (ed.), Il ruolo economico delle minoranze in Europa. Secc. XIII-XVIII (Atti della XXXI Settimana di Studi, Istituto Francesco Datini, Prato), Florence, 2000, pp. 43–58. Reprinted in Peasants and Jews in Medieval Germany: Studies in Cultural, Social and Economic History, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003. ______The economic history of European Jews: Late Antiquity and early Middle Ages, Leiden: Brill, 2013, especially pp. 178–190. Shaun Tougher, The eunuch in Byzantine history and society, London: Routledge, 2008. Shaun Tougher & Raʿanan Boustan (eds.), Eunuchs in antiquity and beyond, [Papers from a conference entitled “Neither woman nor man: eunuchs in antiquity and beyond”, Cardiff, 26– 28 July 1999.] London: Classical Press of Wales and Duckworth, 2002. Larissa Tracy, Castration and culture in the Middle Ages, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2013. Shih-shan Henry Tsai, The eunuchs in the Ming dynasty = Ming tai huan kuan, New York: State University of New York Press, 1996. Susan Tuchel, Kastration im Mittelalter, Universität Düsseldorf, 1998. Charles Verlinden, L’esclavage dans l’Europe médiévale, 2 vols, Bruges: De Tempel, 1955, 1977. Arent Jan Wensinck, “K̲h̲ādim”, Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, ed. P. Bearman et al., Brill. Online via OLIS. John Ralph Willis, Slaves and slavery in Muslim Africa, 2 vols, London: Cass, 1985. Michael Winter, Egyptian Society under Ottoman rule 1517-1798, London & New York: Routledge, 1992. Online via OLIS

3 (c) Eunuchs in Norman Sicily: Primary sources

Note: The Arabic sources are conveniently collected in Michele Amari (ed.), Biblioteca arabo-sicula: Arabic texts, 1 vol. and 2 apps., Lepizig, 1857–1887 (BAS1); Italian trans. 2 vols and 1 app., Turin, 1880–1889 (BASIt.1); revised Arabic texts (although with a few out-dated editions — e.g. Ibn Ḥawqal — and notable omissions — e.g. Ibn Qalāqis), 2 vols, Palermo, 1988 (BAS2); revised It. trans., 3 vols, Palermo 1997–1998 (BASIt.2). “Hugo Falcandus” La historia o Liber de Regno Sicilie e la Epistola ad Petrum panormitane ecclesie thesaurarium, ed. Giovanni Battista Siragusa, Rome: Forzani, 2 vols, 1897–1904. Online https://archive.org/stream/lahistoria00falc#page/n0/mode/2up. Eng. trans. Graham A. Loud and Thomas Wiedemann, The history of the tyrants of Sicily by "Hugo Falcandus," 1154-69, Manchester, M.U.P., 1998. Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil fī l-taʾrīkh, ed. C.J. Tornberg, 13 vols, Leipzig, vol. 11, pp. 123–124 (BAS2, vol. 1, 338; BASIt2, vol. 2, p. 376; Eng. trans. Donald Richards, Chronicle of Ibn al-Athīr, Part 2, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2007, pp. 63–64). Ibn Jubayr, Riḥlat al-Kinānī, 2a ed., a cura di M.J. de Goeje e W. Wright, Gibb Memorial Series, 5, Oxford, 1907, pp. 324–327. Eng. trans. Ronald J.C. Broadhurst, London: 1952 and various reprints, pp. 340–343. (BAS2, vol. 1, 86–88; BASIt2, vol. 2, 119–122.) Ibn Khaldūn, Muqadimma, ed. M. Quatremère, 3 vols, Paris, 1858, vol. 2, pp. 37–38 (BAS2, vol. 2, 515; BASIt2, p. 568) ______al-ʿIbar, 7 vols, Būlāq, 1868, vol. 5, p. 204 (BAS2, vol. 2, 553; BASIt2, p. 608); vol. 6, 191 (BAS2, vol. 2, 559; BASIt2, p. 614). Ibn Qalāqis: for texts concerning Richard, see notes and discussion in Johns, Arabic administration (below) pp. 233–234. (Not in BAS.) Romuald of Salerno, Chronicon, Rerum Italicum Scriptores, 2nd ser., vol. 8, ed. Carlo Alberto Garufi, Bologna, 1935. [Trial of Philip of al-Mahdīya, pp. 234–236; 242.]

(d) Eunuchs in Norman Sicily: Secondary Sources Pietro Corrao, “Il servo”, in Giosué Musca, Condizione umana e ruoli sociali nel Mezzogiorno normanno-svevo. Atti delle none giornate normanno-sveve: Bari, 17–20 ottobre 1989, Centro di studi normanno-svevi, Università degli Studi di Bari, Bari: Dedalo, 1991, pp. 61–78. Pascual Corsi, “L’eunuco”, in Giosué Musca, Condizione umana e ruoli sociali nel Mezzogiorno normanno-svevo. Atti delle none giornate normanno-sveve: Bari, 17–20 ottobre 1989, Centro di studi normanno-svevi, Università degli Studi di Bari, Bari: Dedalo, 1991, pp. 251–278. Vincenzo D’Alessandro, “ Servi e liberi”, in Giosué Musca, Uomo e ambiente nel Mezziogiorno normanno-svevo. Atti delle ottave giornate normanno-sveve: Bari, 20–23 ottobre 1987, Centro di studi normanno-svevi, Università degli Studi di Bari, Bari: Dedalo, 1989, pp. 293– 318. Vincenzo Epifano, “Ruggero II e Filippo di Al Mahdiah”, Archivio storico siciliano, NS 30 (1905– 1906) 471–505. Jeremy Johns, Arabic Administration and Norman Kingship in Sicily: The Royal Dīwān, Cambridge University Press, 2002, especially Chapter 9, “The ‘people of his state’. The ‘palace saracens’ and the royal dīwān”, pp. 212–256. Online via Academia.edu ______and Nadia Jamil, “Signs of the Times: Arabic Signatures as a Measure of Acculturation in Norman Sicily”, Muqarnas 21 (= Essays in Honor of Michael Rogers, Leiden: Brill) 2004, pp. 181–192. Online via Academia.edu. ______“L’iscrizioni arabe dei re normanni di Sicilia: una rilettura” / “The Arabic inscriptions of the Norman kings of Sicily: a reinterpretation”, in Maria Andaloro (ed.), Nobiles Officinae: perle, filigrane e trame di seta dal Palazzo Reale di Palermo / The Royal Workshops in Palermo during the Reigns of the Norman and Hohenstaufen Kings of Sicily in the 12th and 13th century, Catania: Giuseppe Maimone, 2006, pp. 47–67 / 324–337. Online via Academia.edu.

4 ______“Lastra con iscrizione trilingue di Pietro (Barrūn) il Gaito, eunuco alla corte di Ruggero II” / “Trilingual inscription of Peter-Barrun, a eunuch of Roger II”, in Maria Andaloro (ed.), Nobiles Officinae: perle, filigrane e trame di seta dal Palazzo Reale di Palermo / The Royal Workshops in Palermo during the Reigns of the Norman and Hohenstaufen Kings of Sicily in the 12th and 13th century, Catania: Giuseppe Maimone, 2006, pp. 510–511 / 771–772. Online via Academia.edu. ______“The Bible, the Qur'ān and the Royal Eunuchs in the Cappella Palatina”, in Thomas Dittelbach (ed.), Die Cappella Palatina in Palermo - Geschichte, Kunst, Funktionen. Forschungsergebnisse der Restaurierung Hg. im Auftrag der Stiftung Würth, Künzelsau: Swiridoff Verlag 2011, pp. 198–216 (German with illustrations), pp. 413–23 (Italian), pp. 560–70 (English). Online via Academia.edu. ______“Petrus/[Pierron]/Barrūn/Perroun/Aḥmad al-Ṣiqillī: the Siculo-Norman crypto-Muslim Berber eunuch who became Almohad qāʾid al-asāṭīl”, al-ʿUsur al-Wusta 2016, forthcoming

Terms for eunuchs in Norman Sicily al-fatā, pl. al-fityān, lit. “youth”, from verb fatiya / yaftā, “to be youthful”: a common euphemism for “eunuch” (e.g. Umayyad al-Andalus), for young and old alike; in both Umayyad Andalus and Sicily (and elsewhere) used as a title in royal documents, inscriptions etc., e.g. al-fatā Barrūn, “the eunuch Pierron”. al-fityān al-majābīb (Ibn Jubayr): “totally castrated eunuchs”. Ibn Jubayr’s source (Messina, winter 1184): “one of the eunuchs, called ʿAbd al-Masīḥ, “the Servant of the Messiah”, who is one of their leaders, and one of the most prominent amongst them”. al-khādim, pl. al-khuddām, “domestic servant” (Ibn Jubayr, Ibn al-Athīr, etc.: pace Ayalon, may or may not mean “eunuch”, but often does) al-khaṣīy, pl. al-khiṣyān (Ibn Qalāqis): “eunuch”; eunuchus, “eunuch” < Greek εὐνοῦχος, < εὐνή bed + -οχ- ablaut-stem of ἔχειν to keep; the literal sense is thus a bedchamber guard or attendant (all Greek and most Latin narrative sources) devirati homines (“Hugo Falcandus”), lit. “un-manned men”: < devirātus coined from Latin ēvirātus, “castrated” < ēvirāre < ē “out” + vir “man”. neutri, “neuters” (Peter of Eboli) Putifares, “Potiphars”(Peter of Eboli: cf. “Putiphar eunuchus Pharaonis magister militum” (Genesis 38:35); “Putiphar eunuchus Pharaonis, princeps exercitus, vir aegyptius” (G. 39:1) al-qāʾid, “the chief”, > Latin gaytus: title borne by the eunuch who headed branches of the royal administration in Latin chronicles and in Arabic, Greek and Latin documents, e.g. al-qāʾid Barrūn = ὁ κάϊτης Περρούν = gaytus Petrus servus effeminatus (“Hugo Falcandus”), “a [male] slave made woman”: < Latin effēminātus, < effēmināre, < ex “out” + fēmina “woman”.