2025/07/13 by Verena Krebs · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · #Reformation and Early Modern Christianity
paper · doi:10.1080/03044181.2025.2522745
This essay takes the 1429 execution of a Persian merchant in Mamlūk Cairo, sent by a Christian king in the Horn of Africa to procure relics in Latin Europe, as a point of departure for reflecting on the so-called Global Middle Ages. Like countless objects in museum collections that quietly refute the geographies they were long seen to illustrate, his story shows how ‘medieval’ people and things often far exceeded the boundaries imposed on them by modern historians. I argue for viewing the Global Medieval as a methodological approach: a shared language that enables more capacious forms of historical analysis for the period between ca. 500 and 1500. Doing so requires collaborative, interdisciplinary work across materials, languages, and fields – and journals willing to support that work in editorial practice. This Comment is part of a special issue marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Journal of Medieval History.