'Cities on Edge’: Urbanism along the Early Medieval Mediterranean Insular (and Coastal) Frontiers, workshop with Luca Zavagno (Bilkent University), Princeton University, November 22, 2024, 12:30–2:00 pm

Respondent: Helmut Reimitz, Princeton University

The trajectories of urbanism in both Western Europe, Byzantine, and Islamic Mediterranean in the passage from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages have often been characterized by the long debate on the social, political, economic as well as urbanistic, and architectural nature of the transition from Classical polis to Medieval city often characterized by its fortification).  Moreover, this was, in turn, influenced and molded by another long-lasting historiographical discussion centered on the so-called Pirennian divide, which pointed to the Arab invasions as the watershed in the history of the Great Sea. The latter -from the middle of the seventh century onwards- became a “Muslim Lake,” and this brought about the end of its role as a highway for trade and exchange of goods and ideas. These were confined to the eastern basin of the Mediterranean and nurtured an extraordinary boom of urban-centered artisanal and commercial activities, which only much later expanded to its western half.

It is, however, important to notice how both these interpretative frameworks rested on the changes experienced by urban entities within their geopolitical structures of political and military power; consequently, the role of insular and coastal frontiers, or better, the areas of the Mediterranean acting as zones of cultural and economic interface fostering the creation or development of material and cultural innovations.  In the period under scrutiny, cities have never been included among these. Indeed, both “new cities” and, eventually, the existence of economically resilient urban centers can be archaeologically documented across the early Medieval Mediterranean islands and coastlines.

Therefore, in this workshop, I will analyze the role played by cities “on insular (as well as coastal) edge” like Salamis-Constantia in Cyprus, Cagliari in Sardinia, Gortyn in Crete, Palermo, Catania, and Syracuse in Sicily, as well as Comacchio (in the northern Adriatic), and Amalfi (in the Thyrrenian), for they acted as catalysts of socio-cultural, political, and economic interactions across the frontiers of a politically and economically fragmented Mediterranean; I hope to prove that the peculiar geostrategic position of these cities, the role they played as floating between “hegemonic political and economic systems and nearly complete integration in such systems,” and their economic vitality draw a picture of urbanism which complemented with more “traditional” urban developments as these predicated on political, religious, and administrative functions or military and strategic relevance for hegemonic empires.

Luca Zavagno is Associate Professor of Byzantine Studies in the Department of History and Department of Archaeology at Bilkent University. He is a 2024–2025 Visiting Fellow at the Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies.