Project

Historical biography, hagiography and the marvelous in late medieval Egypt, Syria and France: a comparative study of the diachronic use of mirabilia in the biographical traditions of Baybars, Qalāwūn, al-Nāṣir Muḥammad and Louis IX.

Code

01D37714

Duration

01 October 2014 → 30 September 2018

Funding

Regional and community funding: Special Research Fund

Promotor

Jo Van Steenbergen

Fellow

Gowaart Van Den Bossche

Research disciplines

Humanities and the arts
- History
- Language studies
- Literary studies

Keywords

mirabilia historiography Middle Ages Arabic Language and text analysis Middle East Arabic literature Authorship Biography Mamluk history Medieval chronicles History Literary studies

Project description

This research is a comparative study of the historical biographical traditions about the Mamluk sultans Baybars, Qalāwūn and al-Nāṣir Muḥammad and the French king Louis IX. A specific focus will be on the use of mirabilia, marvelous anecdotes somewhere in between fact, fiction and hagiography which figure prominently in the biographical traditionbs of all these monarchs.