Military Diasporas

Building of Empire in the Middle East and Europe (550 BCE-1500 CE)

Georg Christ, Patrick Sänger, Mike Carr, Georg Christ, Patrick Sänger, Mike Carr

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN: 9781000774078
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

Military Diasporas proposes a new research approach to analyse the role of foreign military personnel as composite and partly imagined para-ethnic groups.

These groups not only buttressed a state or empire's military might but crucially connected, policed, and administered (parts of) realms as a transcultural and transimperial class while representing the polity's universal or at least cosmopolitan aspirations at court or on diplomatic and military missions. Case studies of foreign militaries with a focus on their diasporic elements include the Achaemenid Empire, Ptolemaic Egypt, and the Roman Empire in the ancient world. These are followed by chapters on the Sassanid and Islamic occupation of Egypt, Byzantium, the Latin Aegean (Catalan Company) to Iberian Christian noblemen serving North African Islamic rulers, Mamluks and Italian Stradiots, followed by chapters on military diasporas in Hungary, the Teutonic Order including the Sword Brethren, and the Swiss military. The volume thus covers a broad band of military diasporic experiences and highlights aspects of their role in the building of state and empire from Antiquity to the late Middle Ages and from Persia via Egypt to the Baltic.

With a broad chronological and geographic range, this volume is the ideal resource for upper-level undergraduates, postgraduates, and scholars interested in the history of war and warfare from Antiquity to the sixteenth century.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction: Military Diasporas and Diasporic Groups as Engines of Empire: An Introductory Research Agenda
• 1 Military Diasporas in an Achaemenid Perspective
• 2 Immigrant Soldiers and Ptolemaic Policy in Hellenistic Egypt (Late Fourth Century-30 BCE): Reflections on a Military Diaspora and Its Components
• 3 Syrian Recruits and Units in the Roman Army: A Military Diaspora?
• 4 Participants in the Emperor’s Glory: The Statues for Generals in Late Antique Rome
• 5 The Persian and Arab Occupations of Egypt in the Seventh Century
• 6 Alexios, Emperor of the Diasporas? The Komnenian Revolt of 1081 and Foreign Military Groups in Byzantium
• 7 The Catalan Company as a Military Diasporic Group in Medieval Greece and Asia Minor
• 8 Christian Expatriates in Muslim Lands: The Many Roles of Aragonese Mercenaries in Medieval Northern Africa
• 9 Professional Turks or Military Diaspora? The Mamluks and Dynamics of Ethnicity in Late Medieval Egypt and Syria
• 10 Stradioti: A Balkan Military Diaspora in Early Modern Europe
• 11 Military Auxiliaries in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Hungary: Nomads vs. Crusader Knights
• 12 Medieval Queens and the Diaspora of Escort, Conquest, the Crusades, and Military Orders
• 13 Encountering the Heathen on the Baltic Frontier: The Order of the Sword Brethren and the Teutonic Order in Thirteenth-Century Livonia
• 14 A Military Diaspora in Medieval Christendom: The Teutonic Order
• 15 The Cold Winter Campaign of 1511: Swiss Military Autonomy and Heteronomy during the Transalpine Campaigns
• Index