Undergraduate Course: Merchants, Pirates and Crusaders in the Late Medieval Mediterranean (HIST10530)
Course Outline
| School | School of History, Classics and Archaeology |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 40 |
ECTS Credits | 20 |
| Summary | The eastern Mediterranean in the later Middle Ages was a region of extreme diversity and fragmentation, where groups of different religious and cultural backgrounds - Latins, Greeks, Turks, Mongols and Mamluks - all vied for power, yet few achieved it. This course focusses on how these peoples interacted against a backdrop of endemic instability and violence, focussing on instances of cooperation, e.g. trade and diplomacy, as well as conflict, e.g. piracy, slavery and religious warfare. |
| Course description |
The course will be structured around three themes. The first will focus on cross-cultural diplomacy, with a particular emphasis on how marriage alliances, religious conversion and informal mechanisms of diplomacy worked across the Latin-Greek-Mongol-Turkish-Mamluk worlds. The second will explore cross-cultural brokers, namely individuals who moved across this region and also into western Europe and Central Asia as merchants, ambassadors, mercenaries, and scholars, asking what pressures drove them to leave their homelands and what methods they adopted in order to survive and prosper in ostensibly 'foreign' lands. The third will concentrate on slavery, captivity and forceable migration, exploring the interplay between religious difference, race (as it was understood in the period) and enslavement. It will also tie in with the previous themes by discussing the roles enslaved people played in the different societies of the Mediterranean world and the position of the slave trade in the politics and diplomacy of the region.
The study of History inevitably involves the study of difficult topics that we encourage students to approach in a respectful, scholarly, and sensitive manner. Nevertheless, we remain conscious that some students may wish to prepare themselves for the discussion of difficult topics. In particular, the course organiser has outlined that the following topics may be discussed in this course, whether in class or through required or recommended primary and secondary sources: religious violence, slavery. While this list indicates sensitive topics students are likely to encounter, it is not exhaustive because course organisers cannot entirely predict the directions discussions may take in tutorials or seminars, or through the wider reading that students may conduct for the course.
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Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2025/26, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Full Year |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
400
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 44,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 8,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
348 )
|
| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
80 %,
Practical Exam
20 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Coursework:
2x 1,000 word essay plans (20%)
2x 4,500 word essays (60%)
Non-written Skills:
Class participation (20%) |
| Feedback |
Students are expected to discuss their coursework with the Course Organiser at least once prior to submission, and are encouraged to do so more often. Meetings can take place with the Course Organiser during their published office hours or by appointment. Students will also receive feedback on their coursework, and will have the opportunity to discuss that feedback further with the Course Organiser. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate a detailed understanding of the relevant areas of late medieval Mediterranean history
- Execute defined research and produce structured and analytical essays on aspects of the course
- Critically analyse the sources relevant to the course and be familiar with their strengths and limitations
- Work effectively with classmates and take part in detailed discussions and debates
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Reading List
- Barker, H., That Most Precious Merchandise: The Mediterranean Trade in Black Sea Slaves, 1260-1500 (2019).
- Bruning, J. & S.R. Huseini (eds.), Slavery in Byzantium and the Medieval Islamicate World: Texts and Contexts = Special Issue of Slavery and Abolition 44.4 (2023).
- Carr, M., Merchant Crusaders in the Aegean, 1291-1352 (2015).
- Carr, M. & Chrissis, N. (eds), Contact and Conflict in Frankish Greece and the Aegean, 1204-1453 (2014).
- Epstein, S., Purity Lost: Transgressing Boundaries in the Eastern Mediterranean, 1000-1400 (2007).
- Grant. A.C., Greek Captives and Mediterranean Slavery, 1260¿1460 (2024).
- Heebøll-Holm, t. et al. (eds), Merchants, Pirates and Smugglers: Criminalization, Economics, and the Transformation of the Maritime World (2019).
- Horden, P. & S. Kinoshita (eds), A Companion to Mediterranean History (2014).
- Jaspert, N. et al. (eds), Cultural Brokers at Mediterranean Courts in the Middle Ages (2013)
- Rojas, F., & P.E. Thomson (eds), Queering the Medieval Mediterranean: Transcultural Sea of Sex, Gender, Identity, and Culture (2021).
- Teaching Medieval Slavery and Captivity website (https://medievalslavery.org/) |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
- Skills in research development and analysis
- Oral communication skills
- Written communication skills
- Group working |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Michael Carr
Tel: (0131 6)50 2554
Email: Mike.Carr@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
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