Medieval Lives 6: Wuhsha the Broker

Fragment of testimony on Wuhsha’s child - (Princeton Geniza Project)

Today's episode takes us to medieval Egypt, to old Cairo in the 11th and 12th century, to Fustat, to the Fatimid Caliphate during the period of the First Crusade, and to the life of a medieval woman named Wuhsha al-dallala who stands out in her time for strength, independence, and wild financial success (through lending and investment in trading ventures, including one to Gujarat, India). Her history comes to us through the fragments of the Cairo Geniza, in legal documents, and in a will.

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

Sources:

• Abramson, Henry. "Wuhsha the Broker Jewish Women in the Medieval Economy." December 6th, 2012, lecture.

• Frenkel, Miriam. "Charity in Jewish Society of the Medieval Mediterranean World." In Charity and Giving in Monotheistic Religions, edited by Miriam Frenkel & Yaacov Lev. Walter de Gruyter, 2009.

• Goitein, S. D. A Mediterranean Society, Volume III: The Family. University of California Press, 1978. 

• Goitein, S. D. “A Jewish Business Woman of the Eleventh Century.” The Jewish Quarterly Review 57 (1967): 225–42.

• Goitein, S. D. & Friedman, Mordechai Akiva. India Traders of the Middle Ages: Documents from the Cairo Geniza. Brill, 2008.

• Hoffman, Adina & Cole, Peter. Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza. Knopf, 2011.

• Zinger, Oded. Women, gender and law: Marital disputes according to documents of the Cairo Geniza. Princeton University, 2014.

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Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi 5: The Year 598

Earthquake, and hiding kings, in Revelation, 14th century - (British Library)

Another year of drought, another of famine, and even more disasters pile on for the early-13th-century Egyptians. We also see Abd al-Latif make a surprising 20th-century appearance.

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

Sources:

• Abd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī. A Physician on the Nile: A Description of Egypt and Journal of the Famine Years. NYU Press, 2021.

• Barber, Malcolm. The Crusader States. Yale University Press, 2012.

• Dols, Michael Walters. The Black Death in the Middle East. Princeton University Press, 2019.

• Ellis, Richard. Imagining Atlantis. Knopf, 2012.

• Modern, John. Neuromatic: Or, A Particular History of Religion and the Brain. University of Chicago Press, 2021.

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Abd al-Latif Baghdadi 4: Consuming the Present

Image from the Luzerner Schilling, a 16th-century manuscript (Wikimedia)

What happens when the river fails to rise? In 597 (1200), Abd al-Latif found famine, crime, and cannibalism.

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

Sources:

• Abd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī. A Physician on the Nile: A Description of Egypt and Journal of the Famine Years. NYU Press, 2021.

• Lev, Yaacov. Administration of Justice in Medieval Egypt: From the 7th to the 12th Century. Edinburgh University Press, 2020.

• Lewicka, Paulina B. Food and Foodways of Medieval Cairenes: Aspects of Life in an Islamic Metropolis of the Eastern Mediterranean. Brill, 2011.

• Traveling Through Egypt: From 450 B.C. to the Twentieth Century, edited by Deborah Manley & Sahar Abdel-Hakim. American University in Cairo Press, 2008.

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Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi 3: Harvesting the Past

The Sphinx, as it appears in Frederic Louis Norden's 1755 Voyage d'Égypte et de Nubie (Wikimedia)

Like many people ever since, and even now, Abd al-Latif was fascinated by Egypt's ancient sites and structures, the pyramids and the Sphinx. He was fascinated, but also disgusted with how their stones and contents had been treated as his contemporaries looked to them less with wonder, more with greed.

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

Sources:

• Abd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī. A Physician on the Nile: A Description of Egypt and Journal of the Famine Years. NYU Press, 2021.

• Bonadeo, Cecilia Martini. ʿAbd Al-Laṭīf Al-Baġdādī’s Philosophical Journey From Aristotle’s Metaphysics to the ‘Metaphysical Science’. Brill, 2013.

• Ibn Abi Usaybi'a. A Literary History of Medicine. Edited by E. Savage-Smith, S. Swain, and G.J. van Gelder. Leiden, 2020.

• Joosse, Peter. The Physician as a Rebellious Intellectual. Peter Lang, 2014.

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Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi 2: On Egyptian Flora and Fauna

Miniature from a copy of Kitab al-hashaish, an Arabic translation of Dioscorides’s De Materia Medica. (The David Collection)

We continue the Abd al-Latif series and dig into his observations on Egypt, its plants and animals, the hybrid banana and the terrifying sea horse.

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

Sources:

• Abd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī. A Physician on the Nile: A Description of Egypt and Journal of the Famine Years. NYU Press, 2021.

• Bonadeo, Cecilia Martini. ʿAbd Al-Laṭīf Al-Baġdādī’s Philosophical Journey From Aristotle’s Metaphysics to the ‘Metaphysical Science’. Brill, 2013.

• Ibn Abi Usaybi'a. A Literary History of Medicine. Edited by E. Savage-Smith, S. Swain, and G.J. van Gelder. Leiden, 2020.

• Joosse, Peter. The Physician as a Rebellious Intellectual. Peter Lang, 2014.

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Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi 1: Scholars, Sultans & Money

Born in the 12th century, Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi travelled the Ayyubid world in search of students, mentors, and patrons. His curiosity stands out, and does his impatience with scholars who, as he saw it, wasted their time with alchemy or other unimportant topics.

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

Sources:

• ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī. A Physician on the Nile: A Description of Egypt and Journal of the Famine Years. NYU Press, 2021.

• Bonadeo, Cecilia Martini. ʿAbd Al-Laṭīf Al-Baġdādī’s Philosophical Journey From Aristotle’s Metaphysics to the ‘Metaphysical Science’. Brill, 2013.

• Ibn Abi Usaybi'a. A Literary History of Medicine. Edited by E. Savage-Smith, S. Swain, and G.J. van Gelder. Leiden, 2020.

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Prester John 2.5: Papal Correspondence

Pope Alexander III and the Ambassador - Spinello Aretino

A shorter episode, on a letter from Pope Alexander III to Prester John.

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

Sources:

• Prester John: The Legend and its Sources, compiled and translated by Keagan Brewer. Taylor & Francis, 2019.

• Pope Alexander III (1159–81): The Art of Survival. Taylor & Francis, 2016.

• Rachewiltz, Igor de. Papal Envoys to the Great Khans. Stanford University Press, 1971.

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Prester John 2: Where From and What For

Prester John comfortably enthroned in East Africa - Detail from the Queen Mary Atlas, MS 5415 A British Library

On the many fantastic additions to the Letter of Prester John (Dragons! Strange Bakeries! Etc!), and on the theories around it.

Sources:

• Prester John: The Legend and its Sources, compiled and translated by Keagan Brewer. Taylor & Francis, 2019.

• Nowell, Charles E. "The Historical Prester John." Speculum 28, no. 3 (1953).

• Romm, James S. The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought Geography, Exploration, and Fiction. Princeton University Press, 2019.

• Wang, I-Chun. "Alexander the Great, Prester John, Strabo of Amasia, and Wonders of the East." CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 14.5 (2012).

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Prester John 1: The Letter

From "Le Livre des Merveilles", 15th century. From the Gallica Digital Library. (Wikimedia)

The legend in its early forms: the arrival in Rome of a patriarch from the east, the chronicles of Otto of Freising, and that famous "letter."

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

Sources:

• Otto of Freising, Chronicon, ed. G.H. Pertz, MGH SSRG (Hanover: Hahn, 1867), VII, 33, (pp. 334-35), translated by James Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary History, (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1962). Accessed at Fordham University Internet Medieval Sourcebook.

• Prester John: The Legend and its Sources, compiled and translated by Keagan Brewer. Taylor & Francis, 2019.

• Baring-Gould, Sabine. Curious Myths of the Middle Ages. Roberts Brothers, 1867.

• Heng, Geraldine. The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages. Cambridge University Press, 2018.

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Eustace the Black Monk

Eustace’s death at the 1217 Battle of Sandwich as depicted by Matthew Paris in the Chronica Majora

This is the story of a monk, a sorcerer, a pirate, a woodland outlaw, and a master of disguise. His name is Eustace.

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here, my Ko-fi is here, and Paypal is here.

Sources:

• Burgess, Glyn S. Two Medieval Outlaws: Eustace the Monk and Fouke Fitz Waryn. D.S. Brewer, 1997.

• Davis, Alex. Imagining Inheritance from Chaucer to Shakespeare. Oxford University Press, 2020.

• Ohlgren, Thomas H. Medieval Outlaws: Twelve Tales in Modern English Translation. Parlor Press, 2005.

• Seal, Graham. Outlaw Heroes in Myth and History. Anthem Press, 2011.

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