Conceptualizing Frankish-Muslim partition truces in the Coastal Plain and Greater Syria (502-684 AH/1108-9-1285 AD)

Résumé En

This paper is an attempt to clarify the development, function, and conceptualization of various shared‐revenue arrangements concluded between Franks and Muslims. I first catalogue truces that established partitions while assessing their defining characteristics. Concentrations of such arrangements existed in the decades immediately following the First Crusade and continued to exist up to the time of ʿImād al‐Dīn Zengi’s reign (523–541/1129–1146). They became common once again in the Anjouin‐Ayyubid period (late sixth/twelfth century), and appear to reach a zenith, in terms of quantity and complexity, in the second half of the seventh/thirteenth century. They then disappeared abruptly along with the last Frankish outposts of the Latin Kingdom. In the second part of this paper, I analyze how Frankish and Muslim conceptualizations of property and territory may have informed two slightly different but reconcilable notions of partition agreements. The Arabic munāṣafāt, relatable to the commercial realm, and the specific stipulations attached to partitions in the extant Arabic truces of the Mamluk period (1250–1517), emphasize the importance of sources of revenue and their fair division as the basic underlying concept, whereas the Latin sources, related to ecclesiastical and royal conventions of property ownership, emphasize, accordingly, rights to property within which sources of revenue were located. These slightly differing conceptualizations may have had an impact on the Franks’ or Muslims’ understanding of their responsibilities in territories “held” in common, and therefore may have affected their commitment to the upkeep of these lands. Based on an analysis of these conceptualizations of ownership and territory, I argue that Frankish‐Muslim partition truces were never characterized by the division of sovereignty as is the case for modern condominium treaties. Rather, the only basis for partition truces in the medieval Frankish‐Muslim context was a division of revenue that resembled tributary status since the partition territory invariably remained under the rule of the weaker party.