The stories of early interpreters
Looking for Interpreter Zero in the era before the Norman Conquest or the Crusades can seem unpromising. There is very little material on language use at that time, which is why the record of the Strasbourg Oaths in Nithard’s (795-844) Historiae or De dissensionibus filiorum Ludovici pii (Histories or On the Dissensions of the Sons of Louis the Pious) is so significant. What we get from this …
1066 is a key date in British history, marking the beginning of the Norman Conquest that led to years of upheaval as William the Conqueror consolidated his rule, repressed rebellions, redistributed estates and built castles. This is one of the most studied periods of British history; our interest here is in some details in the landscape, namely languages, communication and …
Fulcher of Chartres, one of the chroniclers of the First Crusade, was an insider who travelled with Duke Robert of Normandy and Count Stephen of Blois. He had every reason to know when communication within a given group might present problems. Outside observers had little time for the nuances of regional participation: Anna Komnene referred to the Crusaders as Kelts, …
After Alexios I Komnenos (reigned 1081-1118) seized power in Byzantium in 1081 he became involved in a series of negotiations, understandings and alliances as he sought to protect his land from depredations and conquest from all sides. His agreements with Normans and Turks in the 1080s can be read as a prelude to his most significant rapprochement: the embassy he sent …
The succession of rulers jockeying for position after the 1031 collapse of the Córdoba Caliphate made for a shifting cultural and political landscape on the Iberian peninsula. Christian power was slowly asserted against the Almoravid and then Almohar rulers who swept in from the Maghreb in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. By 1250, Granada was the only Moslem kingdom left …
The Umayyad Caliph of Cordoba, Abd ar-Rahman III (889/91 – 961) needed intermediaries as he sought to consolidate his rule, and they were almost always non-Moslems. There is some suggestion that by the mid-tenth century the Arab elites in al-Andalus had become closed in on themselves and reluctant to deal with non-Moslems Be that as it may, the Caliph’s protracted …