Monreale and the Muslims
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and Arabicised (linguistically)? Or were they first generation converts who had yet to assimilate into the mores of the ‘Latin’ Christian community which they found quite alien? If Ibn Óawqal’s tenth-century description of rural family structures was correct: namely, that the men were Muslim and the women Christian, then it is possible that family units were unusually susceptible to socio-religious splits along gender lines. In this respect, Ibn Jubayr expressed specific concerns about the dissolution of families through apostasy when disputes arose within them. One wonders how much of the Sicilian Muslim community had dissipated unnoticed as the men (some of whom may have been converts to Islam in the first place) gradually adopted the ways of their mothers, daughters, wives and sisters. However, that there is no solution to unravelling this area of the social and cultural history of the island, is in itself proof of the complexity and ill-defined relationships between Sicilian Arab-Christians, ‘Greeks’ and local Muslims. The question of dress code is important since it indicates a degree of separation between culture, fashion and the arts on one level, and political power on another, such that it was possible for Christians to emulate luxurious ‘Oriental’ styles even though Muslims were obviously marginalised as a politico-religious underclass. As we shall see in the next chapter, similarly fraught relationships between society, religion, the arts and political power are also central to interpretations of Arab elements of Sicilian kingship.
Notes 1 On Monreale, see Lynn White, Latin Monasticism in Norman Sicily (Cambridge, MA, 1938), pp. 132–45, and G. A. Loud, The Latin Church (Cambridge, 2007), passim, but especially pp. 329–39. On Nicodemus, see Malaterra, II.45 p. 53, Amatus, VI.19, p. 282. For the early royal charter materials, see Carlo Alfonso Garufi, Catalogo illustrato del tabulario di Santa Maria nuova in Monreale (Palermo, 1902). For the Arabic–Greek and Arabic–Latin confirmations, see Cusa, Diplomi, pp. 134–286. A new critical edition of these royal documents is being prepared by myself in collaboration with Jeremy Johns. 2 For William II as a restorer, see Matthew, Norman Kingdom, p. 203: ‘building on the site of the former archbishop’s cathedral ... removes any doubt that the king was already planning to revive a metropolitan see’. 3 Ernst Kitzinger, The Mosaics of Monreale (Palermo, 1960). 4 For the background to Monreale and its implications for the church, see White, Latin Monasticism, pp. 132–44, and Loud, Latin Church, pp. 329–39. 5 Richard of San Germano, p. 6. Trans. G. A. Loud (available online): ‘It was in fact on the chancellor’s advice that the king had the said church of the Virgin built within the diocese of Palermo and secured an archbishop for it from the Roman church. The archbishop realised that this had been done on the chancellor’s prompting, for the two hated each other and, while they appeared friendly in public, they freely criticised each other (through envy) in private.’