diplomatica sicilian muslim rule in sicily

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Diplomatica Siciliana

Author(s): John WansbroughReviewed work(s):Source: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 47,No. 1 (1984), pp. 10-21Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of School of Oriental and African StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/618315 .

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DIPLOMATICA SICILIANA

By JOHNWANSBROUGH

The study of Muslim rule and its vestiges in medieval Sicily has a long anddistinguished pedigree. In the nineteenth century the impetus was both

scholarly and political, to which the monumental works of Amari and De MasLatrie bear eloquent witness. In more recent times the motive has been simpleand straightforward curiosity about a remarkable instance of cultural sym-biosis. The parameters are now either linguistic or historical or both, and the

gain is substantial. With the reprint exactly a century after its original publi-cation in Palermo of Salvatore Cusa's I Diplomi Grecied Arabi di Sicilia one

might be permitted to suppose that a reassessment of the earlier scholarshipis underway.1 But the commemoration is itself curiously unhelpful: we areoffered a

typographicallyreduced

replicaof the

originalinnocent of comment

save for two pages of very generalobservationsby Albrecht Noth on the signifi-cance of Cusa's compilation for students of Islamic history. Neither referenceto subsequent work nor indication of a present project is included, a circum-stance that only with generosity could be regarded as tantalizing.

Now, formal investigation of the Norman chancery was established earlyin this century with the studies of Kehr, Lagumina and Chalandon,2and ex-tensive Sicilianmaterial is adducedin the long since standardwork of Bresslau.3Co-ordinationof these data with evidence from Muslimchanceries,while hardly

neglected, has attracted somewhat less attention. Here the field is complicatedby a polyglot phenomenonand the necessity of tracing a network of diplomaticand commercial relations which covered the entire medieval Mediterraneanworld. It was not merely a matter of detecting correspondences n chancerypractice, in itself arduous enough, but of reconstructingthe ambience in whichcontacts occurred and influences were transmitted. In this domain extra-

ordinary service has been rendered by the several monographsof Goitein andBraudel.4 The central, indeed indispensable, concept is that of linguafrancaand the spectrum of contact, juxtaposition and formation which it evokes.

Bilingual instruments exhibit only one aspect of the problem: there are alsothe formulae of petition and responsa, oath and witness, seal and corroboratio,

1S. Cusa, I Diplomi Greci edArabi di Sicilia, pubblicatinel testooriginale, tradottied illustrati,I, 1 and 2, Palermo, 1868, 1882 = Nachdruck der Ausgaben Palermo mit einem Vorwort vonAlbrecht Noth, Bohlau Verlag, Koln u. Wien, 1982.

2 K. Kehr, Die Urkundender normannisch-sizilischenK6nige, Innsbruck, 1902; B. and G.Lagumina, Codicediplomaticodei Guideidi Sicilia, Palermo, 1884-1909; F. Chalandon, Histoirede la domination normande en Italie et en Sicile, Paris, 1907; cf. L. Menager,Amiratus 'Aurpair,L'fEmiratet les origines de l'amiraute (XIe-XIIIe siecles), Paris 1960, using inter alios C. Garufi,I documentiinediti dell'epocanormanna in Sicilia, Palermo, 1899; E. Caspar, Roger II (1105-1154) und die Griindung der normannisch-sicilischenMonarchie, Innsbruck, 1904; P. Collura,Appendice al Regestodei diplomi di Re Ruggero compilato da Erich Caspar, Atti del ConvegnoInternazionaledi Studi Ruggeriani, ii, Palermo, 1955, 545-625.

3H. Bresslau, Handbuchder Urkundenlehreur Deutschlandund Italien, (3. Auflage) Berlin,1958.

4 S. D. Goitein, A Mediterraneansociety, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967-78; F. Braudel,

La Mediterraneeet le monde mediterraneena l'epoquede Philippe II, (2nd ed.), Paris, 1966; cf.S. Bono, ' Le relazioni commerciali fra i paesi del Maghreb e l'Italia nel Medioevo ', Quadernidell'Istituto Italiano di cultura di Tripoli, Tripoli, 1967, drawing upon M. L. de Mas Latrie,Traites de paix et de commerceet documents divers concernantles relations des Chretiensavec lesArabes de l'Afrique septentrionaleau Moyen Age, Paris, 1866 (repr. New York s.d.); W. Heyd,Historie du commercedu Levant au Moyen-Age, Leipzig, 1885-86 (repr. Amsterdam, 1959);M. Amari, Storia dei Musulmani di Sicilia, (2. edizione), pubblicata con note a cura di C. A.Nallino, Catania, 1933-37 (ad Mas Latrie, cf. SMS, ii, p. 424 no. 1, and ad Cusa, SMS, I, p. xxxii,ii, p. 898 n. 1).




title and salutation, all of which may and often do reveal calque or other more

peripheral influence. To distinguish between 'original' and 'translation' canbe difficult, if not altogether impossible.5

Cusa's work was in the event never completed: the texts were printed butneither translated nor adequately provided with plates. Amari was to someextent able to extrapolate historical and linguistic data from the collection,but little in the way of material specifically diplomatic. Of 202 documentsthere are 49 composed wholly or partly in Arabic, the latter being in someinstances no more than a witness formula and signature appended to predomi-nantly Greek,occasionallyLatin texts. Theirchronologicalspanis 1079(?)-1629,for the Sicilian chancery 1095(?)-1242 (Uberto Fallamonaca under Frederick

II), covering thus both Norman and Hohenstaufen regimes, though the latterdate does not, as will be seen, represent the extinction of Arabic in Sicily.Cusa's texts

(pp. 1-691)are

accompanied byan

introductory essay (pp.v-

xxii), a summary of their contents in chronologicalorder(pp. 695-747), indexesof personal and place names subdivided into Greek,Arabic and Latin (pp. 751-

840), a glossary of Greek, Arabic and Latin terms (pp. 843-57), a list of thedocuments by provenance (pp. 859-62), and six plates, fragmentary and ofinferior quality (for nos. 102, 113, 79, 2, 4, 156, and 202, in that sequence).Indisputably a valuable compilation, but none the less a torso, of which the

quality is hardly enhanced by the reprint. It is at least accessible, and for thatdeed appropriateacknowledgement is in order.6

The Sicilian Arabic documents are the following:

6. (pp. 1-3) dtd 1095(?), an assignment (plateia/jarlda) by Roger I of 95villani to the cathedral of Santa Maria in Palermo (cf. SMS, III, p. 255n. 1).

7. (pp. 541-9) dtd 1095, an assignment of 398 villani by Roger I to the

bishop of Catania (cf. SMS, III, p. 245 n. 3, p. 253 n. 1, p. 307 n. 1).14. (pp. 505-6) dtd twelfth century, a sale of land to the monastery of

Bardali (cf. SMS, III, p. 263 n. 2).23. (pp. 402-3) dtd 1109, a letter of protection from the countess Adelaide

in favour of the monastery of San Filippo in Demenna (cf. SMS, II,

p. 350 n. 3).

31. (pp. 610-3) dtd 1113, a sale of land in La Favara (Palermo) to oneZaccaria b. Sulayman.

43. (pp. 6-12) dtd 1132, an exchange of water rights on agriculturalland westof Palermo between one 'Abd al-Rahman al-Lawati and Husayn b. 'Allal-Kindi (cf. SMS, inI, p. 263 n. 2).

45. (pp. 515-7) dtd 1133, a cession of land in Casale di Mirto by R. Avenelto S. Bartolomeo of Lipari (cf. SMS, III, p. 362 n. 2).

47. (pp. 517-9) dtd 1134, a tax exemption issued by Roger II in favour ofthe bishopric of Lipari.

49. (pp. 650-2) dtd 1134(?) = 1164, a cession of land in Petralia by Roger II

(=William I) to the monastery of Santa Maria di Gadera.54. (pp. 61-7) dtd 1137, a purchase of property in Palermo by one Gualtiero

for the archbishopof Messina (cf. SMS, III, p. 263 n. 2, 323 n. 2).

5 See BSOAS, xxvIII, 3, 1965, 483-7; and BSOAS, xxxiv, 1, 1971, 30-2.6 For the present (and provisional) location of some of these documents, see BSOAS, xxx,

2, 1967, p. 305 n. 1: Cusa no. 201, being a letter dated 1628 from the Druze amir Fakhr al-dinII, is of course, like no. 202 (dated 1629 and in Turkish, from the same source), irrelevant to astudy of Sicilian chancery practice.

11

VOL. XLVII. PART 1. 2



JOHN WANSBROUGH

61. (pp. 22-3) dtd 1146(!), an assignment of four villani by Pietro Marchese

to the church of San Nicola outside Palermo on the Corleoneroad (cf.SMS, III, p. 359 n. 3).

70. (pp. 68-70) dtd 1143, an assignment of ten villani and considerable pro-

perty by Georgeof Antioch to the church of Santa Mariadell'Ammiraglioin Palermo (cf. SMS, III, p. 317 n. 6, p. 457 n. 2).

73. (pp. 614-5) dtd 1144, a list of 24 villani assigned by Roger II to the

archbishop-elect of Palermo.

77. (pp. 563-85) dtd 1145, a list (plateia/jar7da)of 525 villani with dependents

assigned by Roger II to the bishop of Catania (cf. SMS, III, p. 288 n. 2,

p. 327 n. 2).78. (pp. 586-95) dtd 1145(?), a fragmentary list (cf. nos. 7 and 77) and con-

taining266 names

(cf.SMS, III,

p.288 n. 2).

79. (pp. 472-80) dtd 1145, an assignment by order of Roger II to the bishopof Cefalu of 188 + 37 villani (cf. SMS, III, p. 288 n. 2, p. 361 n. 1).

82. (pp. 127-9) dtd 1145, an assignment by Roger II of 35 villani to Walter

Forestal, Chiesa di Monreale (cf. SMS, III, p, 245 n. 1).89. (pp. 28-30) dtd 1149, an assignment of agricultural land in Casale di

Wazan to the church of Churchuro (Giato) (cf. SMS, III, p. 251 n. 1,

p. 293 n. 1, p. 315 n. 3).90. (pp. 502-4) dtd 1150/65(?), a pledge of personal (!) collateral by one

'Uthman, a pilgrim, for services rendered (cf. SMS, III, p. 242 n. 3).91.

(pp. 130-4)dtd

1151,an

assignment by RogerII to the convent of Santa

MariaMaddalenain Corleone50 villani and other property (cf. SMS, III,

p. 244 n. 4, p. 315 n. 3).93. (pp. 34-6) dtd 1154, a renewal (rather than copy!) of no. 89 (cf. SMS,

III, p. 246 n. 1, p. 251 n. 1).101. (pp. 622-6) dtd 1161, a sale of land by the dTwdn f William I to Ya'qub

b. Fadlfn b. Salih, lying outside Palermo near the fountain of Sa'id.

102. (pp. 101-6) dtd 1161, a sale of property in Palermo to the Chiesa dell'

Castello (della Magionedi Palermo) (cf., SMS, III,p. 263 n. 2, p. 323 n. 2).105. (pp. 107-8) dtd 1165, a sale of property outside Palermo by one Leone

b. Abi 'l-Faraj(?) to Tommaso b. Bagalabitar.109. (pp. 76-7) dtd 1169, a sale of property in Palermo by one Cristodulob.

Bussit to one Roberto, marshal in Siracusa.

110. (pp. 37-9) dtd 1168/9(?), an assignment of property by William I to the

Ospedale situated in Khandaq al-Qiruz, together with certain villani (cf.SMS, in, p. 246 n. 1, p. 251 n. 1, p. 315 n. 3).

111. (pp. 78-9) dtd 1170, a sale of property in Palermo by one Giovanni di

Medici to one Cerbinabint Cerbo Similia.

117. (pp. 663-4) dtd 1172, a sale of property near Palermo at Surtie by one

Cristodulabint 'Abd al-Rahman to the qa'id Hamza (cf. SMS, III, p. 269

n. 4, p. 272 n. 1?).119. (pp. 80-3) dtd 1172, a boundary specification of the Casale al-Sha'rani

donated by Georgeof Antiochto the churchof Santa Mariadell'Ammiraglioin Palermo (cf. SMS, III,p. 269 n. 4, p. 292 n. 1).

123. (pp. 665-6) dtd 1173, sale of a vineyard in Lamis near Palermo by one

Nicola son of CristoduloTaneperito one Giusto.

129. (pp. 111-2) dtd 1177, an affidavit of three villani formerly attached to

the monastery (?) under the abbot Teobaldo (cf. SMS, III, p. 245 n. 1,

p. 254 n. 1, p. 256 n. 6: Chiesa della Magione).

12




132. (pp. 134-79) dtd 1178, a list (plateia/jarida) of 1232 villani assigned byWilliam II to the monastery of Santa Maria Nuova di Monreale; cf.

SMS, III, p. 245 n. 1, p. 329 n. 3).134. (pp. 667-8) dtd 1179, a sale of property in Palermo by one Abu 'l-Tayyib

to the qa'id Giovanni (cf. SMS, III, p. 270 n. 1?).135. (pp. 39-43) dtd 1180, a purchase of agricultural property in La Favara

(Palermo) by the archbishopGualtiero(cf. SMS, III,p. 264 n. 2).137. (pp. 179-244) dtd 1182, boundary specificationsof lands ceded by William

II to the monastery of Santa Maria Nuova di Monreale; (cf. SMS, IIn,

p. 224 n. 6, p. 317 n. 3, p. 326 n. 1, p. 504 n. 3).141. (pp. 491-3) dtd 1183, a sale of property in Palermo by one Mas'ud b.

Tamr al-Qurashi to a Lady Margaret from a convent in Agrigento (cf.SMS, III, p. 264 n. 2).

143. (pp. 245-86) dtd 1183, a list (plateia/jarida) of 729 villani assigned byWilliam II to the church of Santa Maria Nuova di Monreale; (cf. SMS,II, p. 245 n. 1, p. 251 n. 1).

144. (pp. 109-10) dtd 1183, a sale of property in Palermo by one Biagio,prelate of the Regia Cappella, to Bartolomeo of Salerno.

150. (pp. 669-70) dtd 1185, a transfer of agricultural property in Calamintoone Giorgio from 'Abd al-'Aziz, in order to plant a vineyard.

155. (pp. 83-5) dtd 1187(?),a transferof agriculturalland to the qa'id Giovannifrom the church of Sant Andrea di Bebene in Chemonia,such land uponthe death of the former to revert to the holding of the church (cf. SMS,

III, p. 270 n. 1).156. (pp. 495-6) dtd 1187, a transfer of property to the Jewish community

of Siracusafrom the bishop of Cefalu,for the extension of their cemetery(cf. SMS, II, p. 298 n. 2).

160. (pp. 44-6) dtd 1190, a purchase of property in Palermo by one Nicola

Ashqar from Zaynab bint 'Abdallah al-Ansari (cf. SMS, iii p. 264 n. 2,

p. 330 n. 1!).169. (pp. 496-8) dtd 1193; a purchase of property in Castrogiovanni by one

Gilu al-Nasrani from Ibrahim b. Muhammad al-Qurashi (cf. SMS, III,

p. 264 n. 2).

171. (pp. 87-8) dtd 1196, a sale by Costanza bint Abi 'l-Fadl of her share of afondaco in Palermo to one Giovanni di Melfi (cf. SMS, III, p. 264 n. 2).

172. (pp. 499-501) dtd 1196, a purchase of property in Palermo by one Pietro,

priest, on behalf of Goffredo Armanno from 'Uthman b. Yfsuf al-Hawari

(cf. SMS, III, p. 264 n. 2).178. (pp. 645-9) dtd 1213, an Arabic version from a Latin original testifying

to the lease of property held by the church of Santa Maria Latina.188. (pp. 676-8) dtd 1238, a cession of property to the monastery of Santa

Maria della Grotta by Uberto Fallamonaca b. 'Abd al-Rahman, qa'idof Palermo (cf. no. 190 infra).

190. (pp. 602-5) dtd 1242, a specification of property in Chifali held by thechurch in Agrigento, issued by the chancellor Uberto Fallamonaca (cf.SMS, III, p. 628 n. 1, p. 897 n. 2, and no. 188 supra).

Of these 48 documents the following contain only a witness formula and/or signature in Arabic: nos. 105, 109, 111, 117, 123, 134, 144, 150, 171 and188, all in Greek context. The plateia/jarTda ormat, with names and rubricstranscribed in both Arabic and Greek, is exhibited in nos. 6, 7, 61, 70, 73, 77,78, 79, 82, 91, 110, 132 and 143. Bilingual Greek and Arabic in a different

13



JOHN WANSBROUGH

format are nos. 23, 45, 47, 49, 101 and 119. Bilingual Latin and Arabic arenos. 137, 155 and 190. In Arabic alone are nos. 14, 31, 43, 54, 89, 90, 93, 102,129, 135, 141, 160, 169, 172 and 178. And one document, no. 156, is in Judaeo-Arabic. Several of these, in addition to Amari's employment of them, havebeen the object of further examination.7 Unexpectedly, in the light of his

laconic preface to the reprint, the most recent publication on the Cusa docu-ments is that of Albrecht Noth.8 His study deals with the chancery decreesof Roger II (1111-54): nos. 45, 47, 70, 73, 79, 77, 78, 82, 91, 89, 93 and 49,in that order.

Now, the primary value of this study is its meticulous investigation ofNorman chancery practice in the wider framework of Muslim diplomatic.Noth's comparative material is drawn from contemporary Fatimid sources

and, of course,the classic encyclopaediaof the MamlukchancellorQalqashandi.9Since seven of the 12 specimens belong to the jar7da category (see above) andthus represent a Sicilian Arabic phenomenon almost sui generis, points of con-tact are limited if not quite absent (cf. pp. 243-4). Onthe other hand, boundaryspecifications (hudud)as in nos. 45, 49, 89 and 93 might most profitably have

been compared with the waqf format widely attested throughout the Islamicworld.10 The remaining document, no. 47, is a tax (customs) exemption not

unlike a clause of the standard marssumssued in Levantine chanceries." In

other words,the harvest is meagre,but it may be said that the author has madethe most of it. Writing material (parchment)and court hand are discussed insome detail, and tend to confirm the presencein Palermo of professionalArabic

scribes (pp. 236-9).12 Structureand formula, on the other hand, while generally

7 BSOAS, xxx, 2, 1967, p. 305 n. 1; i.e., nos. 23 (La Mantia, op. cit.), 45, 70, 119 (Menager,op. cit.), 132, 143 (Noel des Vergers, art. cit.), 190 (Collura, op. cit.), to which may be addedno. 90 (Sauvaire, JA, 1882, 122-6, adduced by Amari, SMS, iI, p. 242 n. 3); cf. also n. 2 supra.

8A. Noth, Die arabischen Dokumente Rogers II., apud C. Briihl, Urkunden and Kanzlei

Konig RogersII. von Sizilien, Bohlau Verlag (!), Koln u. Wien, 1978, 217-61. In addition to the12 ' royal' documents in Cusa, four similar instruments from the Archivo Ducal de Medinaceliin Seville are briefly adduced (pp. 230-31). Some five documents of private origin from thesame period (Cusanos. 31, 43, 54, 61 and 90) are not treated here (cf. p. 236, bottom), but thereare throughout the study remarks indicating further projects (e.g., p. 233 n. 92, pp. 235, 240,

259, 261). Absence of reference to all this in his preface to the reprint is something of a puzzle.For knowledge of Noth's article as well as other bibliographicaI am indebted to Dr. JeremyJohns, whose Oxford thesis (1983), entitled 'The Muslims of Norman Sicily c. 1060-c. 1194'is in fact the latest and most significant contribution to this field. Written under the supervisionof my colleague Dr. Michael Brett, this study deals in particular with the territory of SantaMaria di Monreajeas extrapolated from the chancery charters (jard'id). In an appendix Johnshas analysed, armongstother materials, 23 of the documents first printed by Cusa, Vorarbeiten ohis planned and much needed edition of these.

9i.e. S. M. Stern, Fatimid decrees, London, 1964 (see BSOAS, xxviii, 3, 1965, 633-6);Qalqashandi, Kitdb subh al-a'sha, Cairo, 1913-19; further material may be found, for the West,in L. Seco de Lucena, Documentos Arabigo-Granadinos,Madrid, 1961, and W. Hoenerbach,

Spanisch-Islamische Urkundenaus der Zeit der Nasriden und Moriscos, Bonn, 1965 (see BSOAS,xxx, 1, 1967, 185-7), and in general, apud S. M. Stern (ed.), Documents rom Islamic chanceries,Oxford, 1965.

10e.g. L. A. Mayer, The buildings of Qaytbayas describedin his endowmentdeed, London,1938; R. Vesely, An Arab diplomatic document rom Egypt: The endowmentdeed of MahmudPasha dated 974/1567, Prague, 1971.

11e.g. apud Documentsfrom Islamic chanceries, 39-79; BSOAS, xxviii, 3, 1965, 483-523;BSOAS, xxxiv, 1, 1971, 20-35, all of the foregoing of course rather later than the Sicilianmaterial. On the other hand, Muslim diplomatic exhibits constant and perennial features.

12 Neither my memory (after 18 years!) nor my photographs of the Sicilian documents permitan assertion as to their Maghribi script, nor, for that matter, do the author's remarks, save

possibly his mention (p. 238) of the dil without ligature. In view of the distinct Maghribicharacter of Sicilian Arabic (see below), the absence of paleographic evidence provokes at leasta question about the personnel of the Norman chancery. The document partially illustrated inCusa pl. II (no. 79 = Noth E.) could have been produced anywhere in the Levant.

14




familiar, do not exhibit verifiable dependence upon any known chancery tradi-tion. The standard components: 13

Protokoll (fawdtih)invocatio: basmala/hamdala

cipher: 'alamaintitulatio: 'unwan

inscriptio: ta'rif (alqdb)salutatio: du'd

Text (matn)arenga: sharh

expositio: iblagh (ammd ba'd)petitio: qissa/ruq'a

dispositio: hukm/marsumsanctio: ta'kidcomminatio: la'nacorroboratio: kha t al-sharif

Eschatokoll (khawdtim)devotio/apprecatio : istithn' /hasbala/taslTyadatum: ta'rikh(kutiba i)testes: shdhid/qasmsiglum: hr/hd' = intahd/sahha

are largely, but also eccentrically, attested. Initial position of the date (p. 240)

could well signal the arenga (sic!), but the habit extends more or less consis-tently to private documents (e.g. nos. 129, 135, 156) and just might exhibitan Italian (i.e. West Roman as contrasted with Byzantine) tradition.14 Stillwithin the arenga (p. 241), I should be inclined to read the locution li ajlitamh.siha wandirdsiha (Cusa, pp. 127, 473, 563) as synonymous parallelism,i.e. 'for the purpose of their examination and study', the latter term beingalmost certainly a cognate of Heb. nidrash.15 With regard to the intitulatio,I might add that the author's concern with al-majlis al-sdamy (pp. 241, 246-

8) seems a little exaggerated: in Muslim chancery practice it was always,whatever the rank, an individual epithet.16

Of more general interest is the problem of chancery languages. The em-ployment of three in medieval Palermo has provoked a good deal of specu-lation over many years: from Ibn Jubayr's astonishment in the twelfth

century to Noth's cautious conclusion that for Roger II at least the functionof Arabic was to some extent symbolic (p. 250: 'eine gewisse konfirmativeoder auch programmatische Funktion'; p. 261: 'konfirmative Funktiondes Arabischen als fremdes Idiom; Arabisch hohen Stils als Mittel zur Selbst-

darstellung des Herrschers, einem "Herrschaftszeichen " nahekommend').

13A specimen is described in BSOAS, xxv, 3, 1962, 463-8; cf. W. Bjirkman, BeitrdgezurGeschichteder Staatskanzlei im islamischen Agypten, Hamburg, 1928, 116-7, and El, 2nd ed.,

s.v. Diplomatic.14 See Bresslau, op. cit., II, 395-6, 452-4, and all of the chapter 393-478; neither Byzantinechancery documents nor the Greek-Arabic papyri from Egypt exhibit this phenomenon, cf.F. Dolger, ByzantinischeDiplomatik, Ettal, 1956; N. Abbott, The Kurrahpapyri from Aphrodito,Chicago, 1938; A. Grohmann, Einfihrung und Chrestomathie zur arabischen Papyruskunde,Prague, 1954, esp. 219-32. Worthy of note in this context is also the initial corroboratio(sa4ha...)apud Cusa nos. 54, 102, 129, which may signal renewal or translation or both.

15cf. Dozy, Supplement I, 433 s.v. d.r.s., with reference to Schiaparelli (ed.), VocabulistainArabico29, 308, 593; the calque is ancient: e.g. baytal-midrds,apud Ibn Ishaq, Sira (ed. Cairo,1955, I, 552 = Sectarian Milieu, 18).

16 In addition to Ernst, Sultansurkunden, cited p. 247 n. 154, see also BSOAS, xxvI, 3, 1963,506-7 and refs. to CIA.

15



JOHN WANSBROUGH

A practical moment in the composition of the jara'id does not go unnoticed

(pp. 259-60), northe value of Greektransliterationsfor the Sicilianonomasticon.And beyond that, both phonology and morphology provide ample evidence of

a Maghribi dialect.17 Whatever the motives in the Norman chancery for theuse of Arabic, the linguistic substance exhibits not a cultural loan but rather,a native tradition, to which I am also tempted to attribute the relevant docu-

mentary format, despite specific similarities to other Muslim traditions.The very fact, indeed, of a plurality of chancery languagesmight be thought

sufficient to distinguish Palermo from general Islamic practice. The Norman

chancery was, of course, not Islamic but Roman, where in both East and West

Kanzleimehrsprachigkeit,f not the rule was at least practised.18 In the Muslim

world, the phenomenon is marginalbut attested: in Istanbul and Bah9esaray,Fez and, in emergencies, Cairo.19 Decisions of this sort exhibit not so much

fluency as necessity, conditioned by the current prestige of a lingua franca.Employment, for example, of Italian in the medieval Mediterraneanworld is

ubiquitous, much as Frenchafterthe late sixteenth century becamethe languageof international diplomacy.20 And such innovation is not merely linguistic,but also rhetorical: the novelty is initially formulaic, may become paradig-matic, and eventually achieve revolutionary status, especially in the sphereof juridical expression.21 The polyglot phenomenon is, in short, an index to

the process and rate of cultural symbiosis and, with the possible exception of

Muslim Spain, no better illustration than Norman Sicily can be found for the

entire course of medieval European history.

The use of chancery formularies is attested as early as Cicero, and withthe adoption of Roman law by the Germanicstates becameestablishedpractice,as of course in the East, with its translation into Greek. For the Islamic world

Qalqashandi'smonumentalworkrepresentsthe achievement of a long traditionof adabal-katibfor which, despite abundant evidence of translation into Arabic

of Hellenic and Hellenistic rhetoric, foreign derivation need not be assumed.22

17See J. Blau, JAOS, 88, 3, 1968, 522-3, ad R. Di Pietro and G. Selim, 'The language situ-ation in Arab Sicily ', Linguistic Studies in Memoryof R. S. Harrell, Washington, 1967, 19-35.

18 cf. Bresslau, op. cit., I, 325-92 (Latin, Greek, Italian, French, German); Dolger, op. cit.,240-1 n. 104 (Greek and Latin), 295-8.

19e.g. V. L. Menage, 'Seven Ottoman documents from the reign of Mehemmed II ', apudDocumentsfrom Islamic Chanceries, 81-118 (Italian and Greek); P. Wittek, 'The Turkishdocuments in Hakluyt's

'Voyages

'', Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research,xix, 57,

136-7 = S. Skilliter, William Harborneand the trade with Turkey (1578-1582), Oxford 1977,86-103 (see BSOAS, XLII, 1, 1979, 152-3); B. Lewis, 'Some Danish-Tatar exchanges in theseventeenth century', apud Zeki Veledi Togan's Armagan, Istanbul 1950-55, 137-44 (and two

plates), (Ottoman Turkish and Polish!); H. de Castries, Les sources inedites de'histoire du

Maroc, Paris, 1905-, Pays-Bas I, docs. 193 and 209; 24 Dec 1610 (Dutch and French). Qalqas-handi, Subh VII, 294 (mughli = Chagatay?).

20 e.g. the treaty of 1507 between Mamlik Egypt and the French/Catalan merchants, printedin M. Charriere,Negotiations de la France dans le Levant, Paris, 1848,, 121-9. Earlier, Greekhad been a Levantine chancery language: E. Zachariadou,

'Sept traites in6dits entre Venise

et lesmirats d'Aydin et de Mente?e (1331-1407) ', in Studi Preottomani e Ottomani, Naples,1976, 229-40.

21 e.g. the Venetian paradigm for Mamluik-Florentinecommercial treaties, BSOAS, xxvIII,3, 1965, esp. 483-7; and for the Mamluik-Ragusantreaty of 1514, apud G. Elezovic, Turski

Spomenici, Beograd, 1952, I, 2, 175-82; for the commercial treaty between Pisa and the B.

Khurasan (Tunis) of 1157, an Egyptian format is fairly clear, see H. Idris, La Berberieorientalesous les Zirides (Xe-XIIe siecles), Paris, 1962,I, 681-4; the Moroccan-Dutch treaty of 1610

(supran. 19) became the model for all subsequent relations of the Moroccancourt with Europeanpowers; an example of rhetorical formulae concealingjuridical innovation is treated in BSOAS,xxxIV, 1, 1971 (the Mamluik-Florentinesafe-conduct of 1507), esp. p. 30, n. 41, p. 32, n. 54. In

early MuslimEgypt administrative terminology was largely the product of calque, see Grohmann,

op. cit., p. 107, n. 1.22 For Rome: Bresslau, op. cit.,n, 225-97; for Byzantium, Dolger, op. cit., 338-45; for

the Islamic world: Bjorkman, op. cit., 87 ff.

16




In practice, dependenceupon the formulary (Ar. 'ilm al-shurut/'ilm al-wath&'iq)is extensively documented, both with and without the anticipated calques.23

Apartfrom notarial formulae, the

complementaryroles of

petitio: dispositioas well as what I have elsewheredescribedas ' directives ' facilitated the transfernot merely of substantial portions of text but of fundamental structural char-acteristics from one languageto another.24A similarprocesswill have producedthe Sicilian plateia/jarida format. But however terse, however monotonous,the material is literary and the attendant problems of genesis and elaboration

literary ones. The formulary exhibits the pedagogical impulse common to all

rhetorica,associated in Rome with the names of Ciceroand Quintillian, in theMuslim world with those of, interalios, Ibn al-Khatib and Qalqashandi. Hand-

books were the products of scribes (kdtib/escribano)who were concerned not

only with the standard locution but who aspired also to the phrase both aptand felicitous in the art of persuasive language. The literaturethus engenderedmay be described as a kind of ' epistolary mimesis ' (ars dictaminis/epistolarissermo), for which the rules of correct usage were originally of belletristic in-

spiration.25 If the agent of this evolution had literary pretensions, he alsomanifested the expertise of a civil servant and was able to articulate his aimsand his competence in a traditional, hence acceptable, form. The 'chanceryhandbook' is thus identifiable as a component of creative literary instruction

(Ar. baldgha= inshd'), and not merely as an inventory of established conven-tion.26

But the exigencies of daily life could intervene. In a candid passage

Qalqashandi depicts the production of a treaty bound to frustrate a con-scientious chancery official. Because the paragraphillustrates so well the cir-

cumstances of an emergent lingua franca (in this case Arabic), I had long since

wished to adduce it in discussion of that topic, but was in the event anticipatedby P. M. Holt.27 Compromise between the two languages involved (bothcolloquial) was achieved in the form of a rough draft (musawwada),and one

might be entitled to question the priority of 'translation' and ' original '.

Historical instances are not uncommon. Which, for example, of the threedocuments granted by Selim to the Venetians after his occupation of Egypt

23 e.g. W. Hoenerbach, ' Some notes on the legal language of Christian and Islamic deeds ',JAOS, 81, 1961, 34-8; idem, Spanisch-Islamische Urkunden,esp. xxxii-xxxxiv on the Notariat

(cf. R. Vesely in Archiv Orientalni, 38, 1970, 499-502; an interesting specimen is Hoenerbachno. 38 (pp. 318-25 and pls. LXVII-LXX): an aljamia text with notarial attestation in Arabic

(here siglum = signature).24 BSOAS, xxv, 3, 1962, p. 466 nn. 2, 6; Documentsfrom Islamic chanceries,p. 47 nn. 31,

33; BSOAS, xxvIII, 3, 1965, p. 494, n. 35; see also S. M. Stem,' Three petitions of the Fatimid

period ', Oriens, 15, 1962, 172-209; idem, 'Petitions from the Ayyiibid period ', BSOAS,xxvii, 1, 1964, 1-32; idem,

' Petitions from the Mamluikperiod (Notes on the MamlTik ocumentsfrom Sinai) ', BSOAS, xxIX, 2, 1966, 233-76.

25 It is, I think, important to adduce here the work of E. R. Curtius in order to stress theessentially literary nature of this development: ' Dass die Rhetorik zur Brieflehre wird, hatnichts tberraschendes. Die Entwicklung war durch die Briefsammlungen des Plinius, desSymmachus, des Sidonius vorbereitet, aber auch durch die Staatsbriefe Cassiodors . . . Neu ist

nun aber im 11. Jahrhundert der Versuch, die ganze Rhetorik der Lehre vom Briefstil unter-zuordnen', see Europdische Literatur und Lateinisches Mittelalter, Bern, 1948, 83-4 s.v. arsdictaminis.

26 Re scriptorregis: kdtibal-sirr, see Hoenerbach, Urkunden,xxi-xxxii; and forthe role of thescribe as creator of the rhetorical canon, G. von Grunebaum, Kritik und Dichtkunst,Wiesbaden,1955, 148-9; an excellent example in Arabic is Abu'l-Husayn b. Wahb. the tenth-centuryauthor of Al-Burhdnfi wujuh al-baydn,of which the entire fourth section is devoted to chanceryrhetoric (edd. A. Matlub and H. Hadithi, Baghdad, 1967, 313-438).

27 Qalqashandi, Subh XIV, 70-1 = P. Holt, ' The Treaties of the early Mamlfuk ultans withthe Frankish states ', BSOAS, XLIII, 1, 1980, 68. The passage exhibits ' chancery practice in thefield ', so to speak, where a mutual demand for intelligibility resulted in a compromise with therhetorical ideal.

17



JOHN WANSBROUGH

can be called the 'original': the Arabic marsum,the Turkishfirman, or theItalian firman with a gold tughra and preserved in the Archivio di Stato inVenice? While I should not wish to discount the Turkish version, the Arabic

document represents traditional arrangements in Cairo, and the Italian one,after all, is what its appointed envoys were able to present to the Signoria.28

In multiple versions discrepanciescould be read as accidental or intentional:the Arabic and Latin copies of a commercialtreaty concluded in 1421 betweenFlorence and Hafsid Tunis contain variant renderingsof a clause guaranteeingprotection against corsairs.29 For the treaty between France and Tripoli in1830 the French text contains a supplementary article stipulating in cases of

dispute the priority of that version over the Arabic one, which does not includethe stipulation.30 A bizarreexegetical aid to interpretationof the Pisan-Hafsid

treaty of 1366 is exhibited in the Italian version transliterated in Maghribi

script, possibly an interpreter'sdraft or even a scribal exercise, but more likelya working copy for use on the quayside.31

Now, these items, which could easily be multiplied, suggest a degree of

informality in the drafting of even international documents, and it might be

supposed that private papers were patient of similar, if indeed not greater,departures from chancery standards. In the field, as it were, much would

depend upon the negotiators and scribes recruitedto set down the agreements.While the names of major chancery figures (e.g. Uberto Fallamonaca inthirteenth century Palermo: Cusanos. 188 and 190) tend to be recorded,thoseof lesser rank and especially of those whose employment was ad hoc do not.

From time to time the odd detail turns up, e.g. in the paragraphof Qalqashandiadduced above, or in the remarks of the Valencian pilgrim Ibn Jubayr about

the bilingual Christian clerks in the customs office at Acre.32 In several NorthAfrican treaties the names of Jewish interpreters appear, employed by Euro-

pean consuls for the production of parallel versions, but probably also because

they could negotiate in several languages.33 A celebrated example of such

linguistic proficiency was the Mamlfk dragoman Taghri Berdi.3 While one

would hesitate to ascribe the polyglot phenomenon in the medieval Mediter-ranean world entirely to the Jewish diaspora, it is surely a matter of someinterest to note that it was precisely those communities who continued to

28See BSOAS, XLII, 1, 1979, 152-3; V. L. M6nage, IJMES, 12, 1980, 374-5, is scepticalabout the role of the marsum(ed. Moritz), regardsthe Turkishfirman (ed. Gokbilgin) as principal,and does not mention the Italian instrument (ASV, Documenti Turchi, busta XVIII = RegestiBombaci no. 63 (dtd. 21 Sha'ban 923/8 September 1517). Dr. Skilliter, op. cit., 102-3, acknow-

ledges, more generously, the strength of the North Africantradition, to which of coursethe Arabicmarstm belongs.

29See R. Brunschvig, La Berberieorientalesous les Hafsides, Paris, 1940-47, I, 232-5 (thetexts are printed, respectively, in Amari, I Diplomi arabi, v and 151 f., 326 f.; and Mas Latrie,op. cit., vi-vii and 269-310; together with a record of their disagreement as to the significanceof this feature).

30See E. Rossi, Storia di Tripoli e della Tripolitania (dalla conquistaaraba al 1911), ed. M.Nallino, Rome, 1968, 281; for the French text, cf. G. de Martens, Nouveau recueil deraitis,

x, 52-7; and for the Arabic, Umar b. Ismail, Inhiydr hukm al-usra al-Qarama liyya, Beirut,

1966, 448-51 (doc. 32).31 Brunschvig, op. cit., I, 185; texts apud Amari, op. cit., 115-22; see also D. Barbera,Elementi Italo-Siculo-Veneziano-Genovesinei linguaggi Arabo e Turco, Beirut, 1940, 59-63, fora kind of phonetic transcription emphasizingthe Sicilian (!) vernacularand its role in the diffusionof a Mediterranean lingua franca. Rather more sophisticated studies of this kind are nowavailable in G. Pellegrini, Gli arabismi delle lingue neolatine, Brescia, 1972.

32 Ibn Jubayr, Ribla, Beirut, 1959, 275-6.33Brunschvig, op. cit., I, 413-4: with reference to Mas Latrie, op. cit., ii, 122, 142-3, 164,

167-9, 354 (i.e. from 1267-1445); see also E. Ashtor, ' New data for the history of LevantineJewries in the fifteenth century

',Bulletin of the Institute of Jewish Studies, (UCL),I i, 1975,

esp. 88-90 (drawing upon the Archivio di Stato, Venice).34See BSOAS, xxvi, 3, 1963, 503-30.

18




employ Arabic long after the final deportation from Sicily of Muslimsin 1246.35Between that date and their own expulsion from the island in 1492 the survivalof Judaeo-Arabic as a juridical instrument is attested by (so far) some 60

documents.But the story is much older. The history of Sicilian Jewry, and most

especially of the ancient settlement at Syracuse, dates very likely to B.C.E.

and has been recently sketched by N. Golb.36 The occasion was his publicationof the earliest Arabic document emanating from the jamd'atal-yahad, preservedin the Cairo Genizah and bearing the date 4780 (anno mundi) = 1020 (C.E.).It is the record of a court action concerning the whereabouts of mysteriouslyvanished and fungible property (a silver ingot), and is generally (in the lightof the document's preservation: see pl. 1) obscure. The format is that of the

proces-verbal (ma'aseh... be-m6shabbetdin) in two parts (lines 1-14 and 15-

28) and unembellished by chancery features other than date (twice) and sig-natures (five preserved). One has the impressionof a draft, to be subsequentlyelaborated accordingto whatever formularythe court might employ. But thatis conjecture, and not necessarily confirmedby the colloquial character of thetext. I would, incidentally, propose that in line (8) naqas (=naqash) ilayhmin 'illatih means 'he complained to him of his illness'; that in line (10)'an al-bddT= 'an al-bdddh' in bad humour'; and that in line (19) thaman

al-fidda is ' the value of the silver ', dhahab'ayn is ' gold coin ', and al-an;f is

probably to be read al-anuf = 'the obstinate one '. From material such asthis it is of course difficultto draw conclusions about Sicilian chancery practice,

even in the sphere of private litigation.And the same must be said of the property transfer, also emanating from

the Jewish community in Syracuse and dated 1187. Of this, the only Judaeo-Arabic document in Cusa'scollection (no. 156), I attempted with but moderatesuccess an edition some years ago.37 Golb's censure was enthusiastic but

exaggerated. He is certainly correct about the signatories to the document,but of course wrong about the possibility of a Jewish name Balaam.38 Thenumber of rotls in line 7 is a misprint in the Arabic text, but also a result of

my surprisethat in the Hebrew text'

16 ' should be written y&d-wvw.I still

preferto read the smear between rotl and intdj as a preposition (?min) but am

prepared to dispense there with the definite article = lam. And with regardto that last point, I am impenitent about my failure to detect the allegedligature: the phenomenon is attested not merely in Judaeo-Arabic (see inaddition to the referencesp. 309 n. 4 also H. Fleischer, ZDMG, 1864, 335 top)but Judaeo-Persian.39 In any case, no evidence to the contrary may be seenin the spelling of sant lugia = Santa Lucia: nowhere in Arabic orthographyhas a final short vowel to be indicated (cf. sant mariya = Santa Maria apudCusa 82, 245 and passim). About final qof/kdf I am admittedly not sure.

Incidentally, the word in line 13 is not al-khatvwwl ut 1-hawvl,nd in line 7Cusahas neither wa-intdj nor m inintdj (the suggestion was mine alone). About

the formula nun-'ayin n=naho 'eden,Golb is quite right, but I did propose analternative nishmat5 'eden (p. 308). Finally, I now suspect that there is in

35Amari, SMS, III, 611-33.36 N. Golb,

' A Judaeo-Arabic court document of Syracuse, A.D. 1020 ', JNES, 32, 1-2, 1973,105-23, being Oxford, Bodleian, MS Heb. d. 79 fol. 36 (not listed in Shaked's bibliography).

37 'A Judaeo-Arabic document from Sicily ', BSOAS, xxx, 2, 1967, 305-13; cf. Golb, art.cit., 108 n. 26.

38 See A. Scheiber, ' War der Name Balaam gebrauchlich bei den Juden? ', in The MuslimEast: studies in honour of Julius Germanus(ed. G. Kaldy-Nagy), Budapest, 1974, 35-7.

39 See A. Netzer, ' Daniyal-nama and its linguistic features', IOS, ii, 1972, 305-14, esp. 309.

19



JOHN WANSBROUGH

fact only one witness (shdhid)to the document, namely, Ya'qob Hazzan, andthat the word following Da'ud b. Salman is tager= tdjir (merchant, possiblybroker).

The one formal feature shared by this document with others from Sicilyis the initial date phrase lammd kdna bi-ta'rikh(see above), clearly an arengastructure common to the place or to the period. The Judaeo-Arabic instru-ment next in chronological order exhibits the same feature, but nothing elserelevant to a study of diplomatic: dated 20 April 1418 (but covering the periodto 4 August), it is a record of payments for wine to a wholesaler from several

publicans, carried out in the presence of a witness and with reference (line 4)to notarial confirmation.40 Because the document is bilingual (Judaeo-Arabicand Sicilian vernacular!) it is, like the jarida/plateia format in Cusa(see above),of considerablevalue for linguistic analysis, especially in the onomasticon. Its

discovery in the notarial acts of the Corte Pretoriana (Archivio di Stato,Palermo) illustrates the dependenceof Sicilian Jews uponthe Catholicjudiciary,a circumstance corroborated by the presence there of an additional 58 such

papers dating from 1407 to 1492.41 Largely affidavits, these contain a gooddeal of prosopographicalevidence for fifteenth-century Sicily, but also, and of

equal importance, abundant witness to the creation of a Mischsprache, inwhich a kind of loose Semitic syntax is fitted out with technical terms ofRomance origin, e.g. copia (no. 1 and passim), setula (no. 6 and passim),polizza (ibid; like the former, ultimately of Greek origin), cauzione (no. 7),contrattu (no. 8 and passim), incensu (no. 12 and passim), ospedale (no. 18),

notaru (no. 16 and passim), quietanzia (no. 24), condennatoria (no. 25), pro-curatore (ibid and passim), bancu/bancali (nos. 26 and 37), testamento (no. 29),creditore (no. 42), sentenzia (no. 49). In such briefpieces as these, with maximalformulaic content, the syntax is indeed virtually a slot-structure, and theoverall linguistic yield will be essentially lexical.42

Now, the Sicilian phenomenon is both historically and linguistically ofsuch richness as to justify the most exacting scrutiny of its documentation.That the mere reprinting of Cusais hardly adequate to this task ought by now

to be clear. A proper edition would have to take account of the material inseveral ways. First, and possibly foremost, are the data of toponymy and

prosopography: where and under what conditions did the various strata ofthe population live ? The question is sociological and its answer(s)ought to be

intelligibly framed to that end. Amari's parameters can hardly be those of

today, and I detect in subsequent studies the absence of methodological con-

cern. Second, and from the point of view I regardas most urgent, are the dataof linguistic function and register: which language was employed when and

where, and with what degree of interferencefrom which identifiable substrata?

Here, the question is not (or at least oughtnot to be) merely philological and

diachronic, but structural and synchronic. Why and how, in other words, was

40 A. Giuffrida and B. Rocco, 'Una bilingue arabo-sicula ', Annali dell'Istituto OrientalediNapoli, N. S. xxIV, 1974, 109-22.

41 A. Giuffridaand B. Rocco,' Documenti Giudeo-arabinel sec. xv a Palermo', Studi Magrebini,viii (Centrodi Studi Magrebini,Napoli), 1976, 53-110; the 60 items include both the documentcited in n. 40 ( = no. 5) and H. Bresc and S. D. Goitein,

'Un inventaire dotal de Juifs siciliens

(1479) ', Melanges d'Archeologieet d'Histoire de'Ecole Franqaise de Rome, 82, 1970, 903-17(= no. 15), being ASP, Notaro Pietro Tagliante, 1175.

42 Lexical treatment of this phenomenon is of course ancient: cf. K. Lokotsch. EtymologischesWorterbuchereuropdischenWorter rientalischenUrsprungs,Heidelberg, 1927; and the referencessupra n. 31 to Barbera and Pellegrini; the very best example of the entire genre must be H. andR. Kahane and A. Tietze, The Lingua Franca in the Levant(Turkish nautical termsof Italian andGreekorigin), Urbana, Illinois, 1958.

20




a standard (chancery or juridical) language altered to meet the exigencies of

daily commerce? Paradigms for this kind of investigation have been for sometime available, from the impressive if somewhat timid probings of Schuchardt

to the extraordinary achievements of Weinreich and Hymes.43 All that is

required here is a degree of interdisciplinary cooperation: the absence of a

living informant for medieval Sicily is, in the light of its abundant documen-

tation, hardly an obstacle.Save for the single specimen of Judaeo-Arabic,the three languages exhibited

in Cusa's collection would seem each to represent a marginal standard, some-times (though not quite accurately) called koine, and provoke the impressionof underlying diglossia.44 While the idiom of the Giuffrida-Roccodocumentscould with some justice be described as pidgin, it may have been restricted to

very particularcontexts of the sort depicted. About the Syracusan documents

of 1020 and 1187 there is a distinct parochial quality as though intended onlyfor internal (communal)consumption. Of juridical content, however, they had

surely at some point to be submitted to external scrutiny, possibly even trans-cribed or translated into the chancery standard. It is difficult to suppose that

any extended community in medieval Sicily was monolingual, and least of allthe Jewish ones. Their use of Arabic might just, especially after 1246, be seenas a social code, much as Muslim employment of the language before that datecould be so interpreted, with its attendant and symbolic overtones (see above).More likely, however, is the hypothesis of common resort to a lingua franca,and one invested in Sicily as in contemporary Muslim Spain with venerable

tradition and proven utility.45

43 See H. Schuchardt, ' Die Lingua Franca ', Zeitschrift ur RomanischePhilologie, 33, 1909,441-61; U. Weinreich, Languages in contact,Paris, 1968; D. Hymes (ed.), Language in cultureand society, New York 1964; idem (ed.), Pidginization and creolizationof languages, Cambridge,1971; not without value is M. Cohen, Materiaux pour une sociologie du langage, Paris, 1971(1956).

44See D. Cohen,'

Koin&,langues communes et dialectes arabes ', Arabica, 9, 1962, 121-44;J. Blau, ' The Beginnings of the Arabic diglossia: a study of the origins of Neoarabic ', Afro-asiatic Linguistics, 4, 1977, (issue 4 = pp. 1-28).

45 See BSOAS, XLI, 3, 1978, 587-8 re F. Corriente,A grammaticalsketchof theSpanish Arabicdialect bundle, Madrid, 1977; and cf. C. A. Ferguson, ' The role of Arabic in Ethiopia: a socio-linguistic perspective ', Languages and Linguistics Monograph Series, 23, 1970, 355-68.

21