medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
No, it's not such an argument. What would make you think that my
challenging utterances that seemed counterfactual (because they could
be read to imply that the Christian conquest of Sicily in the eleventh
century entailed mass slaughters and/or mass imprisonments of local
Muslim populations) must have been so motivated?
Best (I suppose),
John Dillon
On Tuesday, January 3, 2006, at 2:20 pm, Mariano Paniello wrote:
>Is it just me, or is this another one of those "they killed more of us
>than we did of them, so we're better" arguments?
and then quoted me as follows (same thread, Sun, 1 Jan 2006 16:55:27 -
0600):
>>On Sunday, January 1, 2006, at 2:31 pm, V. Kerry Inman wrote, quoting
>>Richard Ostling's AP summary of Curp's piece:
> > > Christians' situation in the East began to deteriorate militarily
> > > in 903 when Muslims sacked Thessalonica, the Byzantines' second-
> > > ranking city, and enslaved 30,000 inhabitants. In 931 they took
> > > Ankariya (present-day Ankara) and enslaved thousands more.
>
> Opinion: and in Sicily and Andalusia? There are horror stories on
> all sides.
>>Was there in fact mass enslavement of Sicilian Muslims by the island's
>>eleventh-century Christian conquerors? If there was not, what horror
>>stories of equal magnitude from that set of events are there to be set
>>against the mass enslavements reported to have occurred at
Thessaloniki
>>and Ankara? If there are none (and subjection to a Christian
equivalent
>>of dhimmitude, though not pretty, should not be equated with actual
>>enslavement), what scholarly purpose is served by suggesting that
there
>>were?
> > >
> > > In 1064 the Turks seized the capital of Christian Armenia,
> > > slaughtering the populace and imprisoning 30,000 people. Then, in
> > > the climactic Battle of Mantzikert in 1071, the Muslims virtually
> > > crushed Byzantine military power.
> > >
> > > In Curp's telling, it was that disaster that provoked the Crusades
> > > in response.
>
> Opinion: and in Sicily and Andalusia? There are horror stories on
> all sides.
>>Again, were large Muslim populations in Sicily actually slaughtered or
>>imprisoned, or even deprived of previous freedom of mobility to the
>>extent that the surviving Armenians of Kars seem to have been
>>immediately after their conquest by Alp Arslan or the Greeks of
>>Philomelium (today's Aksehir) are reported to have been between
_their_
>>Turkish conquest and their removal by the emperor Manuel in 1146? If
>>they were not so slaughtered or imprisoned, what comparable horror
>>stories are there from eleventh-century Sicily? And if there are
none,
>>what scholarly purpose is served by suggesting that there were?
Best,
John Dillon
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