“The Greater Sea”: The Black Sea and Medieval Eurasia
David Abulafia University of Cambridge
Wed, 3/27 · 4:30 pm—6:00 pm · 010 East Pyne
Program in Medieval Studies; Eberhard L. Faber 1915 Memorial Fund in the Humanities Council; Center for Collaborative History
Join us for the annual Medieval Studies Faber Lecture with David Abulafia (University of Cambridge) on March 27 at 4:30 pm.
A reception will follow the lecture.
This event is free and open to the public. Please RSVP HERE.
The role of the Black Sea in medieval trade is often seen from the perspective of its links to the so-called Silk Roads stretching all the way to China, particularly in the wake of the Mongol conquests, or from the perspective of its links across the Mediterranean to the Italian cities whose merchants established trading colonies on its shores. This lecture attempts to shift the emphasis towards what was going on within the Black Sea itself, with its massive supplies of grain, wax, slaves – and caviar.
David Abulafia is Professor Emeritus of Mediterranean History at Cambridge University, where he is also a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College. His book The Great Sea: a Human History of the Mediterranean (2011) won the British Academy Medal and The Boundless Sea: a Human History of the Oceans won the Wolfson History Prize. Within the Mediterranean, he has written extensively about southern Italy in the Middle Ages and about the Catalan world. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and was created Commander of the Order of the British Empire by King Charles III in 2023.
This event is supported by the Eberhard L. Faber 1915 Memorial Fund in the Humanities Council, and co-sponsored by the Medieval Black Sea Project, Center for Collaborative History.
