Understanding the Wider World: (Re)Introducing Nubia and Ethiopia to Europe in the Age of the Crusades

My thesis analyses the development of Latin and Greek knowledge about Nubia and Ethiopia and its dissemination in Europe after antiquity. It focuses on the Crusades as the rejuvenating force behind the evolution and further expansion of this knowledge throughout Europe during the period prior to the arrival of the Portugese in the Red Sea in the late fifteenth century. It highlights the interdependent relationship between knowledge and exchange and the roles of Nubia and Ethiopia in European mentality between the better known periods of contact in the sixth and fifteenth centuries. 

My research interests focus primarily on the international history of Nubia and Ethiopia and their exchanges with the wider world, broadly between the period c.300-c.1650. Other interests include: the wider 'medieval' African continent, the Crusades, Byzantium, networks, knowledge exchange, trade (Saharan and Indian Ocean), embassies, Red Sea geopolitics, exploration, cartography, Prester John, archaeology, historical memory, the global Middle Ages.  

I'm currently working on two forthcoming book chapters seperately analysing Nubians in Crusader song and the evolution of European-Nubian contacts between c.1100-c.1500. 

Iredell PhD Studentship (3 years fees+stipend)

I'm currently a seminar tutor on Hist100: 'From the Medieval to the Modern: History and Historians'.

A full range of given conference papers can be found at https://lancaster.academia.edu/AdamSimmons

Source Editor at www.medievalnubia.info