The Peoples of Sicily: A Multicultural Legacy (Sicilian Medieval Studies)
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About this book
Can the eclectic history of the world s most conquered island be a lesson for our times? Home to Normans Byzantines Arabs Germans and Jews medieval Sicily was a crossroads of cultures ethnicities and faiths. Here where Europe Asia and Africa met was the epitome of diversity. Bilingualism was the norm womens rights were defended and the environment was protected. Literacy soared while philosophy science and the arts triumphed. Kings like Roger II whose legal code of 1140 famously referred to "the diversity of our people " welcomed foreign luminaries at court in what emerged as one of the most prosperous states in Europe encompassing the island of Sicily and most of the Italian peninsula south of Rome. Queens like Rogers daughter Constance and daughter-in-law Margaret emerged as the strongest female rulers in the medieval Mediterranean governing a multiconfessional society of Muslims Jews and the Christians of the Byzantine East and Latin West. This history is a lesson for our times.
