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Medieval Lives 7: Long Distance Relationships

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Detail from Piri Ries’ 16th-century map of Cairo - (Wikimedia)

With all the medieval travel featured on the podcast—the trips across the Mediterranean, the Asian Steppe, and the Indian Ocean—of course we focus on the travellers themselves, the people actually making those trips, but whether they were merchants, envoys, or otherwise, they often left people behind, family that they were separated from for years at a time.

This episode is about those separations, the difficulties they caused, and what people did (or did not do) about them. We start with a letter from a merchant in Palermo, Sicily, move to one from an India trader in Aden, and finish with a pair of Rabbinic responses regarding a married couple in Egypt.

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

3 Things:

  1. Article by Heather Dalton on the travels of a cockatoo to 13th-century Sicily.

  2. Article by Minjie Su about four medieval love stories.

  3. Blog post about the correspondence of a "happy family" in 2nd-century Egypt.

Sources:

  • Goitein, S.D. Letters of Medieval Jewish Traders. Princeton University Press, 1973.

  • Hofmeester, Karin. “Jewish Ethics and Women’s Work in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Arab-Islamic World.” International Review of Social History 56 (2011): 141–64.

  • Melammed, Reneé Levine. “He Said, She Said: A Woman Teacher in Twelfth-Century Cairo.” AJS Review 22, no. 1 (1997): 19–35.

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The Cairo Geniza

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Interior of the Ben Ezra Synagogue

Today’s episode is not the story of an individual but rather of a collected body of sacred and secular writings, or rather bodies of writings. It’s a story of scripture, court records, correspondence, literature, scholarly studies, and more, of human life as it has left its echoes in writing.

This is the story of the Cairo Geniza, an incredible collection of historical documents, from medieval manuscripts to modern divorces. It's about how that collection, brought from the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat, Egypt, has reached us, and some of the figures involved.

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

3 Things:

  1. The photography of the Scottish twins, Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson

  2. A short Cambridge University Library video on the conservation of Geniza fragments and the painstaking work involved

  3. "From Cairo to Kolkata, Traces of a Vibrant Jewish Past" by Michael David Lukas

Sources:

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

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

  • Jefferson, Rebecca. The Cairo Genizah and the Age of Discovery in Egypt: The History and Provenance of a Jewish Archive. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022.

  • Jefferson, Rebecca. "Deconstructing ‘the Cairo Genizah’: A Fresh Look at Genizah Manuscript Discoveries in Cairo before 1897." The Jewish Quarterly Review 108, no. 4 (2018): 422–48.

  • Lewis, Agnes Smith. Eastern Pilgrims: The Travels of Three Ladies. Hurst and Blackett, 1870.

  • Outhwaite, Ben. "A Hoard of Hebrew MSS," Limn issue 6, The Total Archive.

  • Reif, Stefan. A Jewish Archive from Old Cairo: The History of Cambridge University's Genizah Collection. Routledge, 2013.

  • Princeton Geniza Project. https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/

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Medieval Lives 6: Wuhsha the Broker

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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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Brutus of Troy

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Illuminated initial from Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia regum Britanniae - (British Library)

The story of the legendary first kings of the Britons, complete with prophecy, a divine appearance, and a number of origin myths behind the names of Tours, Cornwall, New Troy, and Britain itself.

For this episode, we go to Geoffrey of Monmouth's chronicles for Britain's mythical Trojan origins, following Brutus of Troy as he receives visions from the goddess Diana and voyages to an Albion still inhabited by giants.

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

Sources:

  • Armitage, David. The Ideological Origins of the British Empire. Cambridge University Press, 2000.

  • Geoffrey of Monmouth. History of the Kings of Britain, translated by Aaron Thompson. In parentheses Publications Medieval Latin Series, 1999.

  • Gillingham, John. The English in the Twelfth Century: Imperialism, National Identity, and Political Values. Boydell Press, 2000.

  • Jeffs, Amy. Storyland: A New Mythology of Britain. riverrun, 2021.

  • Lavezzo, Kathy. Imagining a Medieval English Nation. University of Minnesota Press, 2004.

  • Spence, John. Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles. York Medieval Press, 2013.

  • Valerie I. J. Flint. “The Historia Regum Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth: Parody and Its Purpose. A Suggestion.” Speculum 54, no. 3 (1979): 447–68.

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Holinshed: The Scottish Source

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Scene from the 1577 Holinshed’s Chronicles - (British Library)

Today we step outside the usual medieval travel subject matter on the podcast for a look into William Shakespeare's historical source for the story of Macbeth, Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor, and of course, King of Scotland, or at least of Alba.

That story takes us to a 16th-century man named Reginald Wolfe, to Holinshed's Chronicles, and to the 11th-century doings of some familiar figures, of Duncan, Banquo, Macduff, Malcolm, and the rest. There are some familiar scenes, such as at Dunsinane Castle, but there are also unfamiliar elements like the murder of King Duffe, from which Shakespeare did a little borrowing.

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

Sources:

  • Holinshed, Raphael. Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland. J. Johnson, et al., 1808.

  • The Oxford Handbook of Holinshed's Chronicles, edited by Felicity Heal, Ian W. Archer, & Paulina Kewes. Oxford University Press, 2013.

  • McLuskie, Kathleen. Macbeth. Northcote House, 2009.

  • Patterson, Annabel. Reading Holinshed's Chronicles. University of Chicago Press, 1994.

  • Plomer, Henry Robert. A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., 1900.

  • Shakespeare, William. Macbeth, edited by Sandra Clark & Pamela Mason. Bloomsbury, 2015.

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The Saga of Grettir the Strong 7: The Romance of Thorstein and Spes

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Hermit and angel in the 14th-century Queen Mary Psalter - (British Library)

The Grettir Saga concludes with his half-brother Thorstein finding freedom and romance in Constantinople.

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

Sources:

  • Grettir's Saga, translated by Jesse Byock. Oxford University Press, 2009.

  • Grettir's Saga, translated by Denton Fox and Hermann Palsson. University of Toronto Press, 1974.

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The Saga of Grettir the Strong 6: Revenge in Constantinople

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Cristoforo Buondelmonti - City of Constantinople in the 15th-century Liber insularum Archipelagi

Grettir's half-brother goes looking for revenge, and his killer goes to join the Varangian Guard.

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

Sources:

  • Grettir's Saga, translated by Jesse Byock. Oxford University Press, 2009.

  • Grettir's Saga, translated by Denton Fox and Hermann Palsson. University of Toronto Press, 1974.

  • Collingwood, W.G. A Pilgrimage to the Saga-Steads of Iceland. W. Holmes, 1899.

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The Saga of Grettir the Strong 5: To Live and Die on Drangey

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Thurid casts her spells - Henry Justice Ford in Andrew Lang's Book of Romance Vol. IV

Grettir, his little brother, and their reluctant helper face a new threat on Drangey. His story comes to a conclusion but not his saga.

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

Sources:

  • Grettir's Saga, translated by Jesse Byock. Oxford University Press, 2009.

  • Grettir's Saga, translated by Denton Fox and Hermann Palsson. University of Toronto Press, 1974.

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The Saga of Grettir the Strong 4: The Brothers Asmundarson

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Grettir and the Troll - illustration by John Vernon Lord from “Grettir's Saga” in Icelandic Sagas, Volume 2

The conclusion of Grettir's story, part one. He and his brother look for refuge on the island of Drangey, but they aren't the only ones who are interested in that island.

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

Sources:

  • Grettir's Saga, translated by Jesse Byock. Oxford University Press, 2009.

  • Grettir's Saga, translated by Denton Fox and Hermann Palsson. University of Toronto Press, 1974.

  • Ljungqvist, Fredrik Charpentier. "Rape in the Icelandic Sagas: An Insight in the Perceptions about Sexual Assaults on Women in the Old Norse World," in Journal of Family History, 40(4), 431–447.

  • Tweedie, Ethel Brilliana. A Girl's Ride in Iceland. Horace Cox, 1895.

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The Saga of Grettir the Strong 3: A Lonely Exile

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Henry Justice Ford in Andrew Lang's Book of Romance Vol. IV

The life of an outlaw, complete with mountain-path brigandry, half-trolls, feats of physical prowess, friendship, and loneliness.

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

Sources:

  • Grettir's Saga, translated by Jesse Byock. Oxford University Press, 2009.

  • Grettir's Saga, translated by Denton Fox and Hermann Palsson. University of Toronto Press, 1974.

  • Pavey, Sophie. "Outlawed but Not Alone: Friendships Out of Bounds in Grettir’s Saga," UBC Arts One, Prof. Miranda Burgess Seminar, 2021.