Fluid borders. Early Medieval Southern Italy in the Interplay between Competing Religious and Political Powers (9th – Early 10th Centuries)

Dr. Kordula Wolf

John Scylitzes’ Synopsis of Histories: Σουλδάνοϛ (Sawdān) negotiates with a captive envoy of emperor Basil I to avoid Byzantine military supply for Benevento and Capua both besieged by Muslim troops in the aftermath of the conquest of the Emirate of Bari in 871 (Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, MS Graecus Vitr. 26-2, fol. 97r, Sicily 12th cent. © Wikimedia Commons).

The research project deals with the Muslim presence in pre-Norman southern Italy by analysing it in connection with both border-region issues and questions of perception and of dealing with cultural or religious differences. Based on recent approaches of transcultural research, this study challenges common spatial categories and stereotypical group assignments, which until now have influenced relevant scientific literature. The main focus is on the Muslim settlement near the Garigliano river at the Gaetan-Capuan border (883–915). From this perspective, not only the Lombard principalities (Benevento, Salerno, Capua) and the neighboring duchies (Naples, Gaeta, Amalfi) come into view, but also the wider Mediterranean context during the Aghlabid period.From 2010–2012 the project was financed by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft foundation (DFG), and between 2010 and 2015 it was carried out in close collaboration with Dr. Marco Di Branco who specialises in Byzantine and Arab studies.In 2012 a cooperation with the "Ministero per i Beni culturali e le Attività culturali – Soprintendenza per i Beni archeologici del Lazio" was established, with the aim of determining the location of the Muslim settlement near the Garigliano.

Dr. Kordula Wolf
Researcher, Responsible for Early und High Middle Ages, Head of Editing and Public Relations, Editor of the Series "Bibliothek des Deutschen Historischen Instituts in Rom", Technical Support for the Online Publications (without Databases)
Biography
Publications
+39 06 66049269
wolf[at]dhi-roma.it

Podcast: Jenseits der eigenen Religion. Verflechtungen und Aushandlungsprozesse im Mittelalter, in: Wissen-Entgrenzen-Podcast 15, 15.9.2023, URL: https://soundcloud.com/maxweberstiftung/15-mittelalter.

Publications related to the project

Kordula Wolf, Facing the Muslims in Rome and Naples. Social Cohesion and its Limits in the Ninth-Century Roman Church, in: Walter Pohl/Andreas Fischer (Eds.), Social Cohesion and Its Limits, Wien: Akademie-Verlag 2024 (Forschungen zur Geschichte des Mittelalters) [in press].

Kordula Wolf, Confini labili e la vulnerabilità della costa campana nell'Alto Medioevo, in: Antonino Tranchina/Kordula Wolf/Tanja Michalsky (Eds.), Tra Terra e Mare. Architettura e potere sulla costa del Tirreno meridionale, Roma: Campisano 2023 (Quaderni della Bibliotheca Hertziana 12), ISBN 979-12-80956-27-9, pp. 11–31.

Kordula Wolf, "Nec patiaris populum Domini ab illis divinitus fulminandis Agarenis discerpi". Handling 'Saracen' Violence in Ninth-Century Southern Italy, in: Christopher Heath/Robert Houghton (Eds.), Conflict and Violence in Medieval Italy 568–1154, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2022 (Italy in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages), ISBN 978-94-6298-517-9, pp. 149–183, DOI: 10.1515/9789048536207-007.

Marco Di Branco, 915. La battaglia del Garigliano. Cristiani e musulmani nell'Italia medievale, Bologna 2019.

Kordula Wolf/Klaus Herbers (Ed.), Southern Italy as Contact Area and Border Region during the Early Middle Ages. Religious-Cultural Heterogeneity and Competing Powers in Local, Transregional and Universal Dimensions, Köln et al.: Böhlau Verlag 2018 (Beihefte zum Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 80), ISBN 978-3-412-50926-2.

Kordula Wolf/Klaus Herbers, (Re-)Thinking Early Medieval Southern Italy as a Border Region, in: Kordula Wolf/Klaus Herbers (Ed.), Southern Italy as Contact Area and Border Region during the Early Middle Ages. Religious-Cultural Heterogeneity and Competing Powers in Local, Transregional and Universal Dimensions, Köln et al.: Böhlau Verlag 2018 (Beihefte zum Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 80), pp. 9–37.

Marco Di Branco, Musulmani in Italia. Storia di una presenza (VIII–XIV secolo), Roma 2017 (Collana didattica 3).

Marco Di Branco/Kordula Wolf, "(…) Capuamque primariam universam redegit in cinerem". Il mito della distruzione di Capua antica nell'841, in: Federico Marazzi (Ed.), Felix Terra. Capua e la Terra di Lavoro in età longobarda (secc. VIII–XI), Cerro a Volturno (IS): Volturnia Edizioni 2017 (Studi Vulturnensi, vol. 9), ISBN 978-88-96092-47-7, pp. 195–206.

Marco Di Branco, Gli Arabi in Italia = Medioevo. Dossier 9 (2017) [monografical issue].

Kordula Wolf, Muslimisches Sizilien, in: QFIAB 95 (De Gruyter: 2015), pp. 459–462 [publ. 2016].

Marco Di Branco/Kordula Wolf, Hindered Passages. The Failed Muslim Conquest of Southern Italy, in: Journal of Transcultural Medieval Studies 1 (De Gruyter: 2014), pp. 51–73.

Marco Di Branco/Kordula Wolf, Berber und Araber im Maghreb und in Europa, in: Michael Borgolte (Ed.), Migrationen im Mittelalter. Ein Handbuch, Berlin-Boston: De Gruyter 2014, pp. 149–159.

Marco Di Branco/Gianmatteo Matullo/Kordula Wolf, Nuove ricerche sull'insediamento islamico presso il Garigliano (883–915), in: Elena Calandra/Giuseppina Ghini/Zaccaria Mari (Ed.), Lazio e Sabina 10. Atti del Convegno "Decimo Incontro di Studi sul Lazio e la Sabina", Roma, 4–6 giugno 2013, Roma 2014 (Lavori e Studi della Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici del Lazio 10), pp. 273–280, URL: http://archeologialazio.beniculturali.it/getFile.php?id=772.

Marco Di Branco/Kordula Wolf (Ed.), "Guerra santa" e conquiste islamiche nel Mediterraneo (VII–XI secolo), Roma: Viella 2014 (I libri di Viella 179), ISBN 978-88-6728-308-8.

Marco Di Branco, Dalla guerra navale alla conquista delle grandi isole del Mediterraneo. Cipro, Rodi, Creta, in: Marco Di Branco/Kordula Wolf (Ed.), "Guerra santa" e conquiste islamiche nel Mediterraneo (VII–XI secolo), Roma 2014 (I libri di Viella 179), pp. 65–77.

Marco Di Branco/Kordula Wolf, Terra di conquista? I Musulmani in Italia meridionale nell'epoca aghlabita (184/800–269/909), in: Marco Di Branco/Kordula Wolf (Ed.), "Guerra santa" e conquiste islamiche nel Mediterraneo (VII–XI secolo), Roma: Viella 2014 (I libri di Viella 179), pp. 125–165.

Kordula Wolf, Introduzione, in: Marco Di Branco/Kordula Wolf (Ed.), "Guerra santa" e conquiste islamiche nel Mediterraneo (VII–XI secolo), Roma: Viella 2014 (I libri di Viella 179), pp. 7–16.

Kordula Wolf, Gli hypati di Gaeta, papa Giovanni VIII e i Saraceni: Tra dinamiche locali e transregionali, in: Bullettino dell'Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo 116 (ISIME: 2014), pp. 25–59.

Marco Di Branco/Kordula Wolf, Art. Berbers and Arabs in the Maghreb and Europe [Medieval Period], in: The Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration, ed. by Immanuel Ness, vol. 2: A–Cro, Chichester et al.: Wiley 2013, pp. 695–702.

Marco Di Branco/Kordula Wolf, Fließende Grenzen zwischen Christentum und Islam. Forschungen am Deutschen Historischen Institut in Rom zum vornormannischen Unteritalien im Spannungsfeld rivalisierender Religionen und politischer Mächte, in: Jahrbuch der historischen Forschung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Berichtsjahr 2012, ed. by the Arbeitsgemeinschaft historischer Forschungseinrichtungen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, München: Oldenburg Verlag 2013, pp. 15–20.

Kordula Wolf, Auf dem Pfade Allahs. Ǧihād und muslimische Migrationen auf dem süditalienischen Festland (9.–11. Jahrhundert), in: Michael Borgolte/Matthias M. Tischler (Ed.), Transkulturelle Verflechtungen im mittelalterlichen Jahrtautausend. Europa, Ostasien, Afrika, Darmstadt: Wissenschafltiche Buchgesellschaft 2012, pp. 120–166.

Marco Di Branco, Due notizie concernenti l'Italia meridionale dal Kitāb al-‘uyūn wa ’l-ḥadā’iq fī aḫbār al-ḥaqā’iq (Libro delle fonti e dei giardini riguardo la storia dei fatti veridici), in: Archivio storico per la Calabria e la Lucania LXXVII (2011), pp. 5–13.