Cultural contacts between early medieval England, Northern Africa and the Middle East

This blog post introduces four new knowledge clips about an interesting topic: cultural contacts between ‘the East’ and ‘the West’ in the Early Middle Ages!

How much contact was there between early medieval England and the Middle East?

Fatima al Moufridji (one of my students at Leiden University, now doing her MA Viking and Early Medieval English Studies in Nottingham) was wondering about this very question, when she was introduced to a special coin from 8th-century England. The coin bears the name of the Anglo-Saxon king Offa of Mercia (757-796) but also has an inscription in Arabic; how did that happen and what other traces of cultural contact between England and Arabic speaking regions might be found? To find answers to these questions, Fatima and I applied for some funding from Leiden University’s Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) fund. Our application was granted and we set out to make four short educational videos with the help of Leiden University’s Thomas Vorisek to spread awareness of the fact that early medieval England was not as isolated as one might think.

The links to the four videos are available at the bottom of this blog post, but just to peak your interest and give you a taste of the kind of texts, objects and individuals you might find in these videos, we each share our ‘top fives’ below!

Fatima al Moufridji’s top five

• The Wonders of the East: “In our third video, we describe the Old English texts in the Beowulf manuscript that are not Beowulf – intriguingly, all these texts deal with the areas we now refer to as Northern Africa and the Middle East. My favourite one is ‘The Wonders of the East’, an Old English text that describes a wide variety of weird beings and monsters that live out in ‘the East’, ranging from headless monsters to exploding chickens! Being a Pokémon fan helps put this in the 1st spot, since it is basically an early medieval Pokedex.”
• Theodore & Hadrian: “Our iconic duo! I think not crediting these two easterners for all they started in early Medieval England would be a crime: hailing from Northern Africa and the Middle East, Theodore and Hadrian established a famous school in England near the end of the seventh century, as we discuss in our fourth video. And what is interesting is that at Leiden University, we actually have an early medieval manuscript that can be linked to their educational efforts!”
• Anglo-Saxon dreambook: “Did Anglo-Saxons really dream about exotic animals like camels and lions? And what did they think these dreams meant? It was interesting to see what kind of predictions people came up with when it comes to their dreams, one of the things that fascinated me the most about this aspect. And guess where they got their information from?”
• Hygeburg (fl. 760-780): “A nun, responsible for writing down the travel stories of the Anglo-Saxon pilgrim Willibald who travelled through the Holy Land. Even though she did not write down her own experiences, she did give us a great piece of evidence for our second video, on people travelling long distances. I personally do suspect that she may have had a little crush on Willibald, whom she showers in praise!”
• Bede’s Ecclesiastical history of the English people: “Our videos are full of tongue-twisters, with quotations in Old English, Latin and Arabic, but somehow the word I struggled most with was “ecclesiastical”, part of the title of one of our favourite and most important sources: Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People – loved pronouncing that!”

Thijs Porck’s top five

• Offa coin: “The Offa coin with its Arabic inscription is such an interesting object and really epitomizes the idea behind our videos: there was contact between these distant regions! It was really cool to listen to Fatima read out the inscription and see her pointing out some of the errors that the Anglo-Saxon die-cutter made in our first video.”
• Leofwine silk: “I have a particular fascination for the Anglo-Saxon missionaries that brought Christianity to the Low Countries, people like Willibrord, Boniface and Leofwine (Lebuinus). So, I was pleasantly surprised that we could include some of these inspiring people in our videos: as it turns out, Boniface had a thing for exotic gifts and the bones of Leofwine were preserved in an piece of fabric that would have come in via the famous Silk Road. The Leofwine silk also allowed us to make one (of several) silly jokes.”
• The Leiden Glossary: “Leiden University has the biggest collection of medieval manuscripts in the Netherlands and we also have a number of Old English manuscripts. Being able to showcase one of these with a link to the famous school of Theodore and Hadrian was a particular delight in making our fourth video!”
• Willibald: “Willibald travelled all the way to the Holy Land and thanks to Hygeburg we know quite a lot about his experiences. One of the challenges of making our second video about this super-interesting text was the lack of illustrations, so I had a go at drawing scenes from his journeys myself!”
• Cynocephali: “Dog-headed people! What a strange and awkward idea, but, apparently, pretty common in Anglo-Saxon imaginations of the East. We were surprised (and Fatima slightly annoyed) at how often these beings seemed to recur in the Beowulf manuscript!”

Want to find out more about all these interesting objects, texts and individuals? Watch our videos below or via this playlist on YouTube!

Video 1: Traces of trade between early medieval England and the Middle East: Coins, cloth and condiments

What are all these Arabic coins doing in early medieval England? What did Anglo-Saxons use exotic silks for and where did they get their spices? Join us as we explore some traces of trade between the East and the West in the early Middle Ages!

Video 2: Early medieval encounters: Travelling Arabs and Anglo-Saxons

Did you know that people travelled long distances in the Early Middle Ages? Learn more about a tenth-century Arabic description of Britain, the travels of St. Willibald through the Middle East and some pro-tips on using a calabash!

Video 3: Old English imaginations of the East: The other texts in the Beowulf manuscript

Beowulf is awesome! But the other Old English texts in the Beowulf manuscript are interesting as well – not in the least because they give us an idea of how Anglo-Saxons imagined areas including Northern Africa and the Middle East.

Video 4: Anglo-Saxon learning and intellectual import from the Middle East and Northern Africa

Learn more about the inspiring story of Theodore and Hadrian, two scholars from Northern Africa and the Middle East, who made their way to early medieval England! We also discuss the origins of some Anglo-Saxon medical texts (what’s up with all the snakes!?) and the engimatic prognostic texts!