Mediterranean Influence on the Cultures of Britain, 1100–1300

The cultures of Britain were anything but insular in the central Middle Ages, though English, Scottish, and Welsh scholars of a nationalist bent have sometimes tried to downplay foreign influences. The widespread adoption of many aspects of French culture is, of course, hard to ignore, but Mediterranean influence on British culture is less well known. Scholars in individual fields are aware of specific borrowings but there has been no attempt to show how frequent such borrowings were in a range of areas, which is needed to demonstrate the overall importance of medieval Britain’s debt to Mediterranean cultures. This paper is a brief attempt to survey the various borrowings. Drawing on the previous paper, it begins by noting the cultural influence of material imports, including silks, ivory carving, and Islamic glassware and ceramics. The paper then turns to cooking. Everyone knows about the medieval love of spices, but British cooks had an unusual affinity for Mediterranean cuisine. In addition, a number of Mediterranean animals were introduced into Britain, including fallow deer, rabbits, and peacocks, mostly for cultural rather than economic reasons. Accommodating such species even led to changes in the landscape through the creation of deer parks and rabbit warrens. The paper then turns to the many Islamic and Byzantine artistic and architectural influences. Literary borrowings were less widespread, but Petrus Alphonsus, a converted Spanish Jew who resided in England for a time, introduced stories from Arabic sources into Western European literature. The most profound adoption of Mediterranean culture came from the influx of Arabic learning, and though this was a European phenomenon, scholars who travelled from Britain to Iberia and other regions to translate Arabic works were disproportionately important in the process. Collectively, as the paper shows, Mediterranean influence on the cultures of Britain was profound.