The Mozarab and Greek Christians of Castile and Sicily, ca. 1100-1500

FAIN: FT-62068-14

Aaron Moreno
St. Mary's University (San Antonio, TX 78228-5433)

This project will further our understanding of shifting communal identification in a multicultural world by supporting the comparative research of two medieval indigenous Christian groups which resided in two formerly Islamic realms: the culturally Arabic Mozarabs of Castile and the culturally Greek Christians of Sicily (ca 1100-1500). Specifically, an NEH Summer Grant would allow me to complete my research in June and July 2014 by consulting key medieval Sicilian documents currently located in the archives of Paris, France and Toledo, Spain. My findings would be shared with the academic community and general public through the publishing of a scholarly monograph and the creation of a website dedicated to the open-access sharing of population databases and family trees that are essential to the collective study of pre-modern groups.

Associated Products

Digital Prosopographies (Database/Archive/Digital Edition)
Title: Digital Prosopographies
Author: Aaron Moreno
Abstract: Thanks to the funding of the NEH, I am in the process of creating an open-access website which provides a portal for scholars of pre-modern collective communal histories to publish their raw prosopographical data, whether in the form of population databases or family trees. Such an endeavor will allow other researchers to not only better engage the monographs or journal articles relying on the corresponding information but also observe additional historical trends beyond original investigator’s purview. Furthermore, such data could be used as an educational tool for students whose linguistic limitations or lack of documentary access had previously prevented them from conducting cultural analyses on historical populations.
Year: 2015
Access Model: Open Access

It's Greek to Whom? The Performance of Indigenous Identity in Medieval Sicily. (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: It's Greek to Whom? The Performance of Indigenous Identity in Medieval Sicily.
Abstract: This public lecture will demonstrate that roughly 150 years after Sicily's eleventh-century conquest by the Romance-speaking Normans, the island's native Greek-speaking population had largely ceased to write in Greek. Priests of Greek-rite churches, certain notaries, and certain judges, however, continued to "perform" their Greek heritage for the late thirteenth and fourteenth-century Sicilian population, whether by redacting documents in Greek, signing their name in Greek, or even employing another individual to subscribe their name in Greek. This presentation will explore the respective motivations of these populations for drawing attention to their Greek heritage.
Author: Aaron Moreno
Date: 11/20/2014
Location: Saint Mary's University, San Antonio, TX

Course Enrichment Materials (Course or Curricular Material)
Title: Course Enrichment Materials
Author: Aaron Moreno
Abstract: A core curriculum course at Saint Mary's University, entitled "Foundations of Civilization," gives professors the opportunity to craft unique history courses that address historical periods of significant cultural interaction. My "Foundations of Civilization" course focuses on the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim worlds of the medieval Mediterranean. Thanks to my archival research, I can give more nuanced lectures about border regions of the Christian-ruled and Muslim world realms. I can also show students fascinating pictures of manuscripts with Greek, Latin, and Arabic signatures - a perfect example of the mixing of cultures.
Year: 2014
Audience: Undergraduate

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