History of medieval Sicily

1) Knowledge and understanding

The course deals with the Sicilian historical parable between late antiquity and the late Middle Ages within a context of Euro-Mediterranean history and at the intersection of political-institutional, cultural, socio-economic, material and settlement components.

2) Ability to apply knowledge and understanding

The acquired knowledge will be aimed at the ability to comparatively read the various evolutionary phases of the Sicilian Middle Ages, acquiring awareness of the systemic game between the material, political and cultural determinants that have shaped the structural characters of the island's history as a complex result of internal and external factors declined linked to state and power dimensions of an imperial and monarchical character.

3) Autonomy of judgement

The knowledge thus acquired can be applied to the reading and interpretation of written and material sources in order to implement independent judgment and the ability to independently apply skills

4) Communication skills

During the lectures, students will be invited to critically intervene on the topics covered, possibly also after studying in depth bibliographic materials specifically provided by the teacher.

5) Learning skills

The debate arising from the guided interaction with the teacher will be aimed at implementing the critical spirit towards the thematic nuclei addressed and at measuring the ability to deepen through the reading and analysis of supplementary articles of the basic bibliography and functional to the final oral examination.

1. Late antique and Byzantine Sicily:

- Civil and military administrative cadres

- The urban and rural settlement

- The religious organization

2. Islamic Aghlabid and Fatimid Sicily:

- Political-institutional and commercial relations with Ifrīqiya

- Arabization and Islamization of the island space

- The internal border

- The fiscal administration                       

- Urban and rural transformations

- Palermo polynuclear madīna with a Mediterranean breath

- Relations with the Christian population

- The Kalbite emirate and its fragmentation in ṭā'ifāt

3.  Norman and Swabian Sicily:

- The modalities of the conquest led by the Altavilla

- The reorganization of the ecclesiastical network

- Policies of recovery of Greek monasticism

- The legal and fiscal framework of the Muslim populations

- The villagers

- The noble powers

- Lombard immigration and Latinization processes

- Administrative changes in the royal age and multilingualism of administrative practices

- Opening up to economic operators and northern mercantile interests

- The baronial revolts in the reign of William I

- The factors of dissolution and fall of the Altavilla dynasty

- The Swabian monarchy and the introduction of new aristocratic élites

- The Federician policy between state property reconstruction, district reorganizations and the creation of a new castral system

- The traumatic epilogue of Sicilian islām

4. Angevin Sicily:

- Continuity and fractures between the Swabian heritage and the Angevin kingdom

- The royal feudality

5. The War of the Vespers:

- The promoting forces of the Vespers: Sicilian ruling classes of Ghibelline tradition and political-mercantile dynamism of the crown of Aragon

6. Fourteenth-century Sicily from the independent kingdom until the restoration of the Martini:

- The new reign of Frederick III between extensions of the noble class and the promotion of cities and inhabited lands (terre)

- Institutional arrangements of the universitates: officers appointed by the monarchy and local government bodies

- The fourteenth-century transformations of the rural habitat between the affirmation of large estates and the decline of the villages

- The island in the mirror of the crisis of the fourteenth century between epidemics, wars and famines

- Mediterranean markets and the role of Ligurian and Tuscan merchants and businessmen

- The internal market

- occupation of public apparatuses, control of taxation and dominion over urban centers by the great baronial aristocracy

- Restoration of royal power and public property at the hands of the Martini

7. Viceroyal Sicily in the Iberian monarchy of the early fifteenth century:

- The reintegration of the island into the domains of the Aragonese Crown

- Military and mercantile immigration of new Iberian elements

- Peculiarities of the Sicilian 'viceroyalty'

- Treaty regime of alphonsine power and the role of the island Parliament

- New financial and administrative mechanisms under Alfonso il Magnanimo

- Urban realities between patricians, burgisi and populares

- The rural world of fifteenth-century Sicily between the sunset of the village, new population strategies, grain economies and investments in specialized crops

- A. Vanoli, La Sicilia musulmana, Il Mulino, Bologna 2012

- P. Corrao, M. Gallina, C. Villa, L’Italia mediterranea e gli incontri di civiltà, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2001, pp. 95-168

- V. D’Alessandro. P. Corrao, Geografia amministrativa e potere sul territorio nella Sicilia tardomedievale (secoli XIII-XIV), in  L’organizzazione del territorio in Italia e in Germania: secoli XIII-XIV, a cura di G. Chittolini e D. Willoweit, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1994, pp. 395-444

 

Supplementary articles and essays provided in pdf by the teacher via the Studium platform

 

Please remember that in compliance with art 171 L22.04.1941, n. 633 and its amendments, it is illegal to copy entire books or journals, only 15% of their content can be copied.

For further information on sanctions and regulations concerning photocopying please refer to the regulations on copyright (Linee Guida sulla Gestione dei Diritti d’Autore) provided by AIDRO - Associazione Italiana per i Diritti di Riproduzione delle opere dell’ingegno (the Italian Association on Copyright).

All the books listed in the programs can be consulted in the Library.