Twenty-first International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

Between the seventh and ninth centuries Muslims conquered vast areas in the Near East and the Mediterranean that were predominantly inhabited by Christians. This phenomenon was repeated in the Late Middle Ages and at the beginning of the early Modern Era by the Ottomans, who occupied what remained of the Byzantine Empire as well as vast areas of the Balkans and of Eastern Europe. Between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries, Christians created an analogous situation, by taking possession of territories that were mostly inhabited by Muslims (the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and, for a little over a century, a region corresponding roughly to modern-day Israel and Lebanon). The goal of this study is to examine the various forms of hostility towards subjects not professing the rulers’ religion. Moreover, it shows that there were not relevant differences between what Christians under the Crescent and Muslims under the Cross experienced in the pre-modern Mediterranean.