Saint George Between Empires

This volume examines Saint George’s intertwined traditions in the competing states of the eastern Mediterranean and Transcaucasia, demonstrating how rival conceptions of this well-known saint became central to Crusader, Eastern Christian, and Islamic medieval visual cultures.

Saint George Between Empires links the visual cultures of Byzantium, North Africa, the Levant, Syria, and the Caucasus during the Crusader era to redraw our picture of interfaith relations and artistic networks. Heather Badamo recovers and recontextualizes a vast body of images and literature—from etiquette manuals and romances to miracle accounts and chronicles—to describe the history of Saint George during a period of religious and political fragmentation, between his “rise” to cross-cultural prominence in the eleventh century and his “globalization” in the fifteenth. In Badamo’s analysis, George emerges as an exemplar of cross-cultural encounter and global translation.

Featuring important new research on monuments and artworks that are no longer available to scholars as a result of the occupation of Syria and parts of Iraq, Saint George Between Empires will be welcomed by scholars of Byzantine, medieval, Islamic, and Eastern Christian art and cultural studies.

“This panoramic volume follows the images of military saints across Armenian, Byzantine, Coptic, Crusader, Georgian, Islamic, Syriac, and many other fields of study usually held separate. Badamo ties together the fragmented political map of the later medieval eastern Mediterranean in unexpected ways that cause us to rethink broader questions of global art and history.”—Benjamin Anderson, Cornell University

“Saint George Between Empires particularly excels in highlighting the importance of Saint George / al-Khiḍr in both Christian and Islamic contexts, and is by far the most all-encompassing study on this subject.”—Dr. Mat Immerzeel, Fellow International Studies, Leiden University

Heather A. Badamo is Assistant Professor in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

List of Illustrations

Maps

Acknowledgments

Nomenclature and Communities

Introduction: Image Networks of George in the Eastern Mediterranean and Transcaucasia

1. A Muslim in the Faith of Jesus

2. Holy Warriors and Imperial Aspirations

3. Dragons and Charismatic Heroes

4. The Culture of Slavery and the Salvation of Souls

5. Spiritual Combat and Coptic Authority in Ayyūbid Egypt

6. Jacobite Histories of the Crusades

Conclusion: An Exemplar of Interfaith Encounter

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Download a PDF sample chapter here: http://www.psupress.org/sample_chapter/Badamo_Introduction.pdf target= blank>Introduction

Art History & Architecture

           Medieval

History

           Medieval

Religious Studies & Religion

Medieval and Early Modern Studies

           Early Modern Art and Architecture

           Comparative Religions