The Mediterranean World
OVERVIEW
The crossing of the Atlantic did not suddenly make other oceans redundant. The Mediterranean became busier than ever in the sixteenth century. The region had long been platform for exchanges of all kinds: economic, political, artistic, intellectual. It was also the source of much that Europeans took across the Atlantic, from ships to sugar plantations. Italian city-states such as Venice and Genoa continued to flourish in the sixteenth century and beyond. The main expansionist power in the period was the Ottoman empire, which took over Constantinople/Istanbul in 1453. This was a shock to many Christians; so was the steady advance of the Ottomans into North Africa and Eastern Europe in the sixteenth century. Battles between Venetian and Ottoman navies were big and bloody. But Europeans also found much to admire in Ottoman culture. There were many exchanges between the two cultures, from commodities such as coffee to diplomatic alliances such as the one between the French and Ottoman rulers. The lecture looks at the Mediterranean region in the context of interactions between Christian and Islamic powers.
The seminar looks at travel narratives. This was an old genre that gained a new lease of life in sixteenth-century Europe as a result of the printing press and voyages of conquest and expansion. Travel narratives are a promising source for the study of cross-cultural exchange. But they were also shaped by the ideas, interests and prejudices of the authors--and of the publishers and editors who brought out many editions of these works across the early modern period. In this seminar, we look at a Mediterranean genre of travel narrative: those written by English people captured by slave traders based in North Africa.
ESSENTIAL READING
Baldwin, James E. 'European Relations with the Ottoman World.’ In Beat Kümin (ed.), The European World, 1500-1800: An Introduction to Early Modern History, 4th edn. (2022), 171-181.
'Strange and Wonderful Things Happened to Richard Hasleton.' In Daniel Vitkus (ed.), Piracy, Slavery, and Redemption: Barbary Captivity Narratives from Early Modern England (2001), pp. 88-92. Text available from Google Books here.Link opens in a new window
Capp, Bernard. 'Prologue' and 'Introduction.' In British Slaves and Barbary Corsairs, 1580-1750 (Oxford University Press, 2022), pp. 1-6, 7-21.
PRIMARY SOURCE QUESTIONS
- why does the king of Couco want to find out what Hasleton's occupation was?
- according to Hasleton, what skills were the Muslims trying to learn from him?
- what were the 'many temptations' laid before him? Why is he presenting these as 'temptations'?
- how do you see Hasleton's narrative differently after reading the pieces by Bernard Capp?
GENERAL QUESTIONS
- what makes the Mediterranean distinctive in the early modern period?
- to what extent is the Mediterranean a useful framework for historical enquiry?
- what was the place of the Mediterranean in the world economy after 1500?
- how did piracy affect trading networks and daily life in the Mediterranean?
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RECOMMENDED READING
Abulafia, David. ‘Mediterraneans’ in W. V. Harris, ed., Rethinking the Mediterranean (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) pp. 64–93.
Dalrymple, W., 'The Porous Frontiers of Islam and Christendom: A Clash or Fusion of Civilisations?' in G. MacLean, ed., Re-Orienting the Renaissance. Cultural Exchanges with the East (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) (the article can be accessed by clicking on 'Front Matter', just before the 'Introduction')
Catlos, Brian, ‘Why the Mediterranean?’ in Brian Catlos and Sharon Kinoshita (eds) Can We Talk Mediterranean? Mediterranean Perspectives (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), pp.1-17
Catlos, Brian A. ‘Mediterranean Studies and the Medieval West, or Never Trust a “Mediterraneanist.”’ Speculum 101, no. 1 (2026): 351–57
Colley, Linda, Captives: Britain, Empire and the World, 1600-1850 (Jonathan Cape, 2002)
Das, Nandini and Tim Youngs (eds). The Cambridge History of Travel Writing (Cambridge University Press, 2019), esp. chap. 4 ('Early Modern Travel Writing (1): Print and Early Modern European Travel Writing'), and chap. 5 ('Early Modern Travel Writing (2): English Travel Writing')
Gelder, Martin van. 'The Republic’s Renegades: Dutch Converts to Islam in Seventeenth-Century Diplomatic Relations with North Africa.' Journal of Early Modern History 19, 2-3 (2015): 175-198
Greene, Molly, ‘The Early Modern Mediterranean’ in Peregrine Horden and Sharon Kinoshita, eds., A Companion to Mediterranean History (Wiley, 2014), pp. 91-106.
Hutchings, Mark, ‘Acting Pirates: Converting a Christian Turned Turk’ in Claire Jowitt, ed., Pirates? The Politics of Plunder1550-1650, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), pp. 90-104.
Matar, Nabil, ‘Piracy and Captivity in the Early Modern Mediterranean: The Perspective from Barbary’ in Claire Jowitt, ed., Pirates? The Politics of Plunder1550-1650, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), pp.56-73
FURTHER READING:
The Mediterranean:
Abulafia, David, The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean (2011)
Birchwood, M., and M. Dimmock, ‘Introduction’ M. North, ed. Cultural Encounters Between East and West, 1453–1699 (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2005) pp. 1–9.
Braudel, Fernand, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, 2 vols. (New York: Harper & Row, 1972) pp. 312-25.
Burke, Peter, ‘Fernand Braudel’ in S. Clark, ed., The Annales School. Critical Assessments, vol. III, Fernand Braudel (London: Routledge, 1999) pp. 111–123.
Fusaro, M., C. Heywood, M. S. Omri, eds., Trade and Cultural Exchange in the Early Modern Mediterranean: Braudel’s Maritime Legacy (London: I.B.Tauris, 2010)
Greene, Molly, A Shared World. Christians and Muslims in the Early Modern Mediterranean, (Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2000)
Greene, Molly, Catholic Pirates and Greek Merchants: A Maritime History of Early Modern Mediterranean (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010)
Grove, A. T., and O. Rackham, The Nature of Mediterranean Europe: An Ecological History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001).
Harris, W. V., Rethinking the Mediterranean (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)
Horden, Peregrine, and N. Purcell, The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History. (Oxford: Wiley, 2000).
Hughes, J. D., The Mediterranean: An Environmental History (Santa Barbara: ABCCLIO, 2005)
Matar, Nabil, In the Lands of the Christians. Arabic Travel Writing in the Seventeenth Century (London: Routledge, 2003)
Piterberg, G., T. F. Ruiz and G. Symcox, eds., Braudel Revisited. The Mediterranean World. 1600–1800 (Toronto: University Press, 2010)
Rothman, E. N., Brokering Empire. Trans-Imperial Subjects between Venice and Istanbul (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012).
Pirates and Corsairs:
Amirell, S. E. et al., (eds), Persistent Piracy: Maritime Violence and State-Formation in Global Historical Perspective (2014)
Davis, Robert C., Christian slaves, Muslim masters. White slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast, and Italy, 1500–1800 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003)
Davis, Robert C., Holy War and Human Bondage. Tales of Christian-Muslim Slavery in the Early Modern Mediterranean (Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2009)
Friedman, E. G., Spanish Captives in North Africa in the Early Modern Age. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983)
Matar, Nabil, Britain and Barbary, 1589–1689 (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2005)
Vitkus, Daniel J., ed., Piracy, Slavery, and Redemption. Barbary Captivity Narratives from Early Modern England. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001).
Weiss, G. L., Captives and Corsairs: France and Slavery in the Early Modern Mediterranean (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011).
