Professor David Abulafia

Professor of Mediterranean History

Gonville and Caius College Cambridge CB2 1TA Tel: (+44) (0)1223 332473 dsa1000@cam.ac.uk

Research Interests

Economic, social and political history of the Mediterranean lands in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, especially southern Italy, the Italian 'despotisms' and the Italian islands (viewing Italian history from an unconventionally southern perspective); also the trade and society of the Spanish lands of the Crown of Aragon. More generally, the interaction of the three religions in medieval Spain and Sicily, including the problem of Jewish (and Muslim) 'servitude'. A major interest is the opening of the eastern and western Atlantic in the fifteenth and early sixteenth century, with particular emphasis on the encounter of Europeans with native peoples.
Also the Levant trade, links between Italy and the lands across the Adriatic, and 19th and 20th century historiography of medieval Europe. Now writing a general history of the Mediterranean for Penguin.

Undergraduate Teaching

The main undergraduate papers taught are: in Part I, 'European History, 1200-1520'; and, in Part II, a third-year source based Special Subject on 'Atlantic Encounters in the Age of Columbus'; from 2008/9 (with Dr Anna Sapir Abulafia), a Part II Specified Paper on 'The Jewish Presence in Medieval Society'.

Research Supervision and Graduate Teaching

Topics of Ph.D. students currently or recently supervised include the Norman Sicilian fleet, the Lombard Leagues, the expulsion of the Jews and Muslims from Portugal, the ideology of monarchy in Renaissance Naples, China in the late medieval European imagination. Also supervises students studying for the M.Phil.s in Historical Studies, in Medieval History and in Early Modern History. Co-chairman of Graduate Research Seminar in Medieval History.

Chief Publications

• The Two Italies. Economic relations between the Norman Kingdom of Sicily and the northern communes 1977; Italian edn., 1991.
• Italy, Sicily and the Mediterranean, 1100-1400 1987.
• Frederick II. A medieval emperor London and NY, 1988; third English edn., 2001; Italian edn., 1990; German edn., 1991.
• Spain and 1492: unity and uniformity under Ferdinand and Isabella 1992.
• Commerce and Conquest in the Mediterranean, 1100-1500 1993.
• A Mediterranean Emporium: the Catalan Kingdom of Majorca 1994; Spanish edn., 1996.
• The Western Mediterranean Kingdoms, 1200-1500. The Struggle for Dominion 1997; Italian edn., 1999.
• Mediterranean Encounters, Economic, Religious and Political, 1100-1550 2000.
• The Discovery of Mankind. Atlantic Encounters in the Age of Columbus, 2008.
• (ed.) Church and City, 1000-1500. Studies in honour of Christopher Brooke ed. with M. Rubin and M. Franklin, 1992.
• (ed.) The French descent into Renaissance Italy, 1494-5. Antecedents and effects 1995. Italian edn., 2005.
• (ed.) En las costas del Mediterráneo occidental. Las ciudades de la Peninsula Ibérica y del reino de Mallorca y el comercio mediterráneo en la Edad Media ed. with B. Garí, Barcelona, 1997.
• (ed.) The New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 5, c.1198-1300 1999.
• (ed.) Medieval Frontiers: concepts and practices, ed. with N. Berend, 2002.
• (ed.) The Mediterranean in History [English, American, French, Spanish, German, Greek, Turkish editions] 2003.
• (ed.) Italy in the Central Middle Ages 2004.