Table of Contents

Introduction: a culture of travel: words institutions, and connections; 1. Accepting all comers': a cross-cultural institution in late antiquity; 2. the transition from Byzantium to the Dar al-Islam; 3. Commerce, charity, community, and the funduq; 4. Colonies before colonialism: western Christian trade and the evolution of the fondaco; 5. Conquest and commercial space: the case of Iberia; 6. Fondacos in Sicily, south Italy, and the Crusader states; 7. Changing patterns of Muslim commercial space in the later middle ages; 8. Christian commerce and the solidification of the fondaco system; 9. The fondaco in Mediterranean Europe; Conclusion: a changing world: new peoples and institutions in the early modern Mediterranean; Bibliography; Index.

Promotional Information

A study of the evolution of hostelries for travellers throughout the medieval Mediterranean world.

About the Author

Olivia Remie Constable is an associate professor in the History Department at the University of Notre Dame. She is the author of Trade and Traders in Muslim Spain: The Commercial Realignment of the Iberian Peninsula 900–1500 (CUP, 1994) and Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources (1997).

Reviews

'Constable has written a monumental book, covering the many semantic, political, economic and cross-cultural angles of a truly interdisciplinary historical enterprise. Its diachronic and geographic reach ... create[s] a rich narrative that is a delight to read, and it offers a veritable treasure house of information for classical scholars, medievalists and early modernists of many kinds ...'. Bryn Mawr Classical Review 'Drawing on a massive array of primary records, Constable brilliantly traces how the Greek pandocheion metamorphosed into the Arabic funduq, which in turn influenced the rise of the Latin fondacos ... This is what makes Housing the Stranger so magnificent, an exemplary piece of social history, painstakingly researched, always alive to regional variations and contradictions, and a fine account of how material practices shape and affect the language we speak, be we Arab, Jew, Christian or atheist.' BBC History '... a rich, easily followed, and informative presentation and analysis of the evidence ... this is a readable, scholarly, and well-researched book which neatly synthesizes a very wide range of source materials and offers significant new insights into the ways in which the western Christian and Islamic worlds interacted through commerce, politics, and cultural exchange over a period of almost a thousand years.' John Haldon, University of Birmingham 'This is a fantastic survey of the cultural and economic terrain of travellers in the middle Ages. Every detail of this institution is explored. This text will serve as a valuable resource for scholars, as well as a text for graduate and undergraduate surveys of the medieval economic world.' Mamluk Studies Review