Marta Manso Rubio
I have been fascinated by the Islamic world for as long as I can remember. The fact that Egypt and Turkey were the first non-European countries I visited when I was a child surely had something to do with it: the exoticism of their culture, the intricacies of their art, and their long history left their mark on me and fuelled that necessity of knowing more.
So, when I entered university, as part of my Bachelor’s degree in Humanities at Pompeu Fabra University (2006-2011), I took several courses on the History of Islam, Medieval Iberia and the Coexistence of the Three Religions, and the History of the Silk Route, since they were my main fields of interest. At the same time, I studied the Arabic language for three years as a complement to my Undergraduate studies, firstly in the Official Language School in Barcelona and afterward at King’s College London (2008-2009), during my Erasmus stay, with a short study stay in a language school in Marrakech, where I could experience the Arabic language in everyday life.
It was during my Master’s degree in Chinese Studies at Pompeu Fabra University (2011-2014) that I better understood the role of the Arabs in the development of the Silk Route, along with exploring the characteristics of medieval Islamic travel literature with my MA Dissertation. Moreover, thanks to a six-month stay at Beijing Foreign Studies University (2013), I could travel to Xi’an and visit the Muslim Quartier that still exists nowadays. I remember as if it were yesterday how astonished I was to enter the Great Mosque of Xi’an, a marvellous example of the adaptation of the Islamic religion to Chinese architecture!
However, it was thanks to completing a Master’s degree in Medieval Cultures at University of Barcelona (2013-2015) that I finally came into contact with the topic of Medieval Diplomacy between Christian and Muslim powers, especially with my MA Dissertation. Under the supervision of Roser Salicrú i Lluch, I analysed the treaties signed between the Crown of Aragon and the Muslim sultanates of the Western Mediterranean between 1336 and 1345. Conducting this study, which led to the start of a PhD, allowed me to acquire a deep understanding of the sources preserved in the Archives of the Crown of Aragon (ACA), as well as the historiographical background and skills necessary to analyse the nature of the diplomatic contacts established between those Christian and Muslim powers. Furthermore, it enabled me to participate in several projects that had a major impact on my formation, especially in the case of the International Research Project “The diplomatic exchanges between Islamic Mediterranean powers and Christian European cities in the Middle Ages: new methods for the analysis of documents” (i-LINK2014-0977), coordinated by Roser Salicrú i Lluch and funded by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), with the participation of the University of Barcelona (Mercè Viladrich), the University of Liège (Frédéric Bauden, Élise Franssen) and the MMSH-Aix-Marseille University (Mohamed Ouerfelli).
For these reasons, when I heard about the DiplomatiCon project, I could not help but be willing to participate! I first joined the project as a Research Assistant from February to August 2023, as part of the group in charge of surveying the Archives of the Crown of Aragon, the largest and most important documentary repository for the diplomatic contacts between the Crown of Aragon and the Mamluks, to discover still unknown documentary evidence and systematically organise it in a tailor-made database created for the project. Due to my previous experience in that archive, under the supervision of Roser Salicrú i Lluch, I coordinated the work of the other research assistants while examining the Royal Letters from James I (1213-1276), Peter III [IV] (1336-1387) and a group of letters from the reign of James II (1291-1327), as well as several chancery records preserved from the reign of Peter III [IV] (1336-1387), the most prolific king in terms of chancery records (with over 1.200 volumes!).
From September 2023, I am based at the University of Liège as a PhD student under the supervision of Frédéric Bauden and Roser Salicrú i Lluch, taking part in the Work Package 4 of the DiplomatiCon project, devoted to the study of translating culture. Indeed, under the project’s framework, my thesis aims to focus on the translators, interpreters, and brokers involved in the diplomatic exchanges between the Mamluk Sultanate and the Crown of Aragon, as well as in the translating process comprised of those contacts and its implications and significance, both in linguistic and cultural terms. Nevertheless, keeping in mind the long duration of these contacts, together with the vast amount of documentation preserved in the Archives of the Crown of Aragon, it will concentrate mostly on the period between the reigns of James II and Peter III the Ceremonious (1291-1387), since it seems to be the most prolific time in terms of diplomatic relations between both powers. It can be useful to understand how the foundations of these relations were laid.
It will pay attention to how these translating agents appear in the documentary sources, in terms of social and work categories, to establish a sort of terminological categorisation, and it will strive to conduct a prosopographic survey, with the identities, origins, social environments and networks of these translating agents at the centre of the analysis. Moreover, it will engage in an innovative approach with the study of the translating process, which will focus not only on the linguistic terms of these translations but also on the cultural transposition implied in those contacts and the social and legal horizons they had to deal with. To this extent, it will deal with unofficial records and narrative sources, which can offer a more exhaustive comprehension of the various stages of these translating processes.
Ultimately, it will strive to shed light upon the role that translators, interpreters, and brokers played in the configuration and development of the diplomatic exchanges between the Mamluk Sultanate and the Crown of Aragon in the context of the Late Medieval Mediterranean. In this sense, the continuous collaboration with my colleagues Evelina del Mercato, Gianluca Ratti, Michele Argentini, and, especially, Giacomo Mastrogregori and Queralt Penedès Fradera, who are also working in the context of the Crown of Aragon, is essential to achieve a more comprehensive, articulated and realistic picture of the diplomatic exchanges between Christian and Muslim powers in the Medieval Mediterranean.