On Bir-On Üçüncü Yüzyıllarda Doğu Akdeniz'de Kültür Geçirgenliği: "Kitap Resimleri"

Abstract

Following the birth and spread of Islam, Eastern Mediterranean was being ruled by two different monotheistic religion -the other one being Christianity-, and organizations which were taken shape with them until eleventh century. The most advanced of these organizations were Byzantine Empire and Abbasid Caliphate. In the eleventh century, Turks from the east and Crusaders from the west arrived in the Eastern Mediterranean. Hence, distribution of power in the region began to change.

The Comnenos Dynasty took over governance of Byzantine Empire towards the end of the eleventh century. In the same period, Seljukids established close relations with Abbasid Caliphate and began to rule the land of Islam. Most part of Anatolia was turned into darülislâm from darülharb by Turks, who stepped into Anatolia from the east and settled in the region. In 1095, The Papacy raised the idea of conquest of the Holy Land in Clermont Council in order to canalize all Catholic Christianity for same purpose. The idea was adopted by populace firstly, and then turned into more than four great Crusades in which a lot of monarchs, like dukes or kings, came together for the following two centuries.

Even though this complicated policy and war atmosphere seemed to be a sharp separation among each sides, was enriched the culture of the Eastern Mediterranean. Turks achieved to settle down in the region, but Crusaders had to return to their homeland in the second half of thirteenth-century. In this context, at the two centuries of intersection in the Eastern Mediterranean, it is relatively distinguishable the contributions of Crusaders to the established cultures and what they carried from them to their own. The Knight Hospitallers, for instance, contributed to the “institutionalization” of medical understanding based on the Hebrew tradition in the Eastern Mediterranean. As an opposite example, it was probably first time Crusaders have seen strategy board games such as chess in the same region. These two factual examples of certain transmission in the Eastern Mediterranean testified in both their written and visual sources.

Illustrated manuscripts of the era are important sources of art history in which cultural transmission in the Eastern Mediterranean can be scrutinized, as information they contain is transferred by written and visual means used at the same time. Apart from Byzantine, Islamic and Crusader works, which were produced in the region, illustrated manuscripts which contained same kind of cultural transmission were produced in Europe in the same period also. Melisende Psalter, for instance, is one of the Crusader illustrated manuscript which was prepared in Levant, while Libro de ajedrez is another illustrated manuscript in which the Eastern Mediterranean influances can be observed, was prepared in Castilla.