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Brokering Empire: Trans-Imperial Subjects between Venice and Istanbul
In Brokering Empire, E. Natalie Rothman explores the intersecting worlds of those who regularly traversed the early modern Venetian-Ottoman frontier, including colonial migrants, redeemed slaves, merchants, commercial brokers, religious converts, and diplomatic interpreters. In their sustained interactions across linguistic, religious, and political lines these trans-imperial subjects helped to shape shifting imperial and cultural boundaries, including the emerging distinction between Europe and the Levant.
Rothman argues that the period from 1570 to 1670 witnessed a gradual transformation in how Ottoman difference was conceived within Venetian institutions. Thanks in part to the activities of trans-imperial subjects, an early emphasis on juridical and commercial criteria gave way to conceptions of difference based on religion and language. Rothman begins her story in Venice's bustling marketplaces, where commercial brokers often defied the state's efforts both to tax foreign merchants and define Venetian citizenship. The story continues in a Venetian charitable institution where converts from Islam and Judaism and their Catholic Venetian patrons negotiated their mutual transformation. The story ends with Venice's diplomatic interpreters, the dragomans, who not only produced and disseminated knowledge about the Ottomans but also created dense networks of kinship and patronage across imperial boundaries. Rothman's new conceptual and empirical framework sheds light on institutional practices for managing juridical, religious, and ethnolinguistic difference in the Mediterranean and beyond.
352 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 7, 2011
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October 19, 2025
E. Natalie Rothman Studies Trans-Imperial Subjects In The Venetian & Roman Empires During The Period Ranging From 1570-1670.
The Republic of Venice & the Ottoman Empire were vastly different in their culture, religion, & trade customs, & the increased demand during the sixteenth & seventeenth centuries for individuals who were fluent in the languages, faiths, & trade practices of both powers necessitated the emergence of guilds & institutions whose primary function was to train & regulate this invaluable class of citizens that could facilitate, mediate, & if necessary, discipline the transactions & interactions occurring in trade hubs & commerce centers throughout the Eastern Mediterranean & Levant regions. The coexistence in large cities such as Venice & Istanbul of these two different ways of life also indirectly produced entirely new classes of citizens, such as supplicants & religious converts. The concept of intermeshing different faiths, cultures, & commerce can be loosely defined as trans-imperialism. These individuals who were uniquely associated with it are defined by E. Natalie Rothman as trans-imperial subjects, & are the primary subject in her award-winning study, Brokering Empire: Trans-Imperial Subjects between Venice & Istanbul.
Within the context of this study, trans-imperial subjects consisted of a small number of specialized professions & groups that fulfilled specific roles & pursued distinctive goals. Among their number were diplomatic interpreters, known as Dragomans, & commerce brokers, both classes designed to facilitate relations between empires during a very turbulent period for both powers, & the Catholic catechumens, which were candidates pursuing baptism & acceptance into the Catholic religion. The Venetians possessed a somewhat ambiguous relationship with the Ottomans between the Battle of Lepanto (1571) & the War of Crete (1669) -- they were on the losing side of the imperial tug-of-war being waged constantly throughout this period, alternating between periods of intense warfare & fragile, short-lived peace treaties that, more or less, amounted to appeasing the Ottomans while they prepared their next major offensive & slowly absorbed the once-prosperous Venetian trade colonies into their own considerable dominions; however, despite the outbreak of these conflicts, commerce & diplomatic relations had to continue. Rothman provides a number of fascinating photographs of documents from the era such as hiring contracts, baptismal certificates, period artwork, & floor plans, which add dimension to her richly detailed monograph.
This edition of E. Natalie Rothman's Brokering Empire: Trans-Imperial Subjects between Venice & Istanbul was first published in 2012 by Cornell University Press & features a 251-page main text that is divided into seven chapters, grouped into four parts: Mediation, Conversion, Translation, & Articulation. There is a formidable 47-page Bibliography with a number of interesting & unique titles, as well as appendices which mostly consist of untranslated Venetian tribunal depositions. Rothman's remarkable study is the winner of three separate literary awards - the Herbert Baxter Adams Prize, the Helen and Howard R. Marraro Prize, & the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation Book Prize.
The introduction's technical nomenclature can prove to be challenging, but the study itself is wonderfully well-composed, with the author favoring a clear, easy-to-understand writing style & anecdotal format which works well with the subject matter. She focuses on the different aspects of the trans-imperial dynamic between the empirical governments & their corresponding subject classes. The work reads as a series of engaging narrative vignettes that tell these remarkable individuals' harrowing stories. Religious converts petitioning for Venetian citizenship or Christian baptisms, industrious tradesmen seeking employment as commerce brokers, Venetian citizens training to become dragomans, or political brokers & interpreters -- this is primarily a study on the trans-imperial subjects themselves, however, their interactions are analyzed as well, & Rothman devotes an entire section of the book, Part IV, towards the discussion of them.
Chapter 1, Trans-Imperial Subjects as Supplicants & as Brokers, serves as an overview to the commerce broker role within the Venetian government & the various methods its citizens & émigrés utilized within the bureaucracy to enter the illustrious Venetian Brokers' Guild. Applicants were required to prepare a written summary of their life history & credentials, which in many cases was couched in nationalist-themed Venetian rhetoric that relied on the individual's work history & background to paint a sympathetic picture to the interlocutors charged with the application's approval or denial. This document was known in the Venetian dialect as a supplica, & the candidates were thus referred to as supplicants. Various examples of supplicae are provided alongside an always-fascinating mini-narrative, among them is Lorenzo Capessich of Sebenico, a Croatian-born man with roots in Dalmatia & Nauplion, & fluency in the Italian, Turkish, & Slavic languages, who sought a broker's license -- his moving supplica concludes with a poignant, heartfelt epitaph - "..I humbly petition reverently Your Serenity that it deign to grant me the favor that I be appointed Regular Broker, [so] that I will not stop laboring in that position to forever give preference with public service to the satisfaction of merchants for the growth of commerce."
The author's explanation of the two primary functions of the Venetian commerce broker can be summed up as, the assistance & facilitation of business deals between native Venetians & foreign merchants, & the due collection of taxes, called brokerage fees, from the said transactions. Oftentimes, the relationships between the brokers & the foreign merchants would possess a degree of affection, which tended to complicate matters for the Serenissima because there were instances when fugitives or runaways would seek refuge in the broker's house or estate, knowing that he regularly did business with individuals who were of that person's nationality, & the broker would, in some circumstances, shelter them & help them covertly arrange transport back to their native country. Or a broker would permit a number of transactions to be conducted "under the table", which avoided paying taxes on them for a reduced fee, & presumably would go directly into the broker's pocket, free of surcharge. This last scenario occurred frequently when the broker himself was not himself of Venetian descent.
The Venetian Brokers' Guild was a complex entity, & in Chapter 2, Brokering Commerce or Making Friends?, Rothman canvasses some of its characteristics as well as its governing bodies & juridical councils, but primarily the chapter discusses a variety of different cases in which trans-imperial subjects played a prominent role, for good or ill. There are instances where licensed brokers were conducting business with non-guild members, sometimes by mistake & other times as part of a network of friends who hoped to pocket extra ducats by bypassing guild taxes & tariffs. Other times, these infractions would consist of four-way transactions that included licensed or non-licensed brokers facilitating deals between foreign vendors & traders bartering one type of merchandise for another, without any money changing hands. The makeup of the Brokers' Guild was stratified into two different socio-economic groups, the rich, who naturally occupied the higher-rank positions, including tribunal members & presidents, & the often-financially-strained lower class, who generally show up in the guild records as being involved as litigants in trial proceedings.
Near the end of the chapter the author provides an eloquent excerpt from an obscure written work, William Leybourn's 1693 Panarithmologia or the Trader's Sure Guide, which is worth noting here due to its clear, concise definition of a merchant broker: "Brokers are Persons generally, that have had Misfortunes in the World, & have been bred Merchants, (or else they are not capacitated to be Brokers), for they must be Men that have Experience in Goods, in Exchanges, in Seasons for buying & selling: They must be Men faithful, & of Repute; for the things they are entrusted with, are of great Consequence: And these Men are employed betwixt Merchant & Tradesman; & their Imployment is to find the Merchant a Shop keeper, or rather Chapman for his Goods." Merchant brokers were ideally supposed to be of upright character, which rendered their interactions above moral reproach, & they were neither vendors nor artisans, but go-betweens who mediated & interpreted for each side, at times offering advice & counsel on conducting successful & profitable business transactions to the mutual benefit of all involved parties & also in the Serenissima's best interests.
Religious conversions to Catholicism from Islam, Judaism & Protestantism are covered in Chapter 3, Narrating Transitions, & the author explores a number of topics which include depositions - effectively religious attestations prepared by prospective converts, usually with the help of a prior or other ecclesiastic, briefly explaining the religious background of the person & their motivations for converting to Christianity. Rothman utilizes a concept developed by a Russian philosopher, Mikhail Bakhtin, called the chronotrope, & she employs it to introduce her own hypotheses - conjuncture & purposeful journeying, which, while they sound complicated, are marvelously explained in the text. The author has the very unique talent of being able to articulate her subject matter so effectively that no portion of the study is dull, or uninteresting -- it is easy to understand how the book was so well received that it won three prestigious literary awards. This chapter mainly focuses on the narratives & documentation for a number of Muslim-Catholic, Jewish-Catholic, & Protestant-Catholic conversions performed in Venice during the period ranging from 1570-1670.
A fascinating literary exploration of the archives of the Venetian House of Catechumens, the Pia Casa dei Catecumeni, serves as the primary subject for Chapter 4, Practicing Conversion. A catechumen is a person who is receiving religious instruction prior to becoming baptized into the Catholic faith. In this chapter Rothman covers different historians' theories regarding the House's charitable & subversive trends, & even alms-collecting patents, which were official writs giving the catechumen the legal right to collect charity on the House's behalf, as the House governors tended to discourage independent alms-collection by the students. Also analyzed is the percentage of catechumens who entered the House alone (88%), or with other relatives who were eventually baptized as well (12%), & the author also charts the catechumens' career paths after being baptized, comparing their profession's prestige with such factors as whom stood as the candidate's godparents, & how many godparents that individual had.
Venetian Dragomans were highly sought-after political brokers who were trained from birth to be translators & negotiators, & in Istanbul they would function & officiate during political meetings alongside their Turkish counterpart, the Ottoman Grand Dragoman, & they also performed more singular duties solely for the Serenissima, such as the translation of any intercepted Ottoman intelligence. The Venetian Public Dragoman would fulfill some of the duties of the commerce broker within the metropolitan area of the lagoon city, often referred to by the author as the Venetian metropole, & one of his most important responsibilities was to ensure the Turkish merchants & traders were not taken advantage of. The career paths of some of the men who were Venetian Dragomans are explored to a moderate degree of depth, & among the remarkable stories is that of Micheil Membré, a man from Cyprus whose astounding 49-year tenure as a Public Dragoman, from 1150-1569, was interspersed by collaborative efforts with several renowned cartographers of the day. "These cartographic enterprises combined commercial & political interests. By harnessing the specialized linguistic skills he had acquired in Istanbul & Persia to the service of Venetian commercial, scholarly, & diplomatic milieus, Membré, a seasoned entrepreneur, benefitted handsomely. His three surviving wills all left generous bequests to relatives & charities around the city." All of this material is covered in Chapter 5, Making Venetian Dragomans.
The penultimate section, Chapter 6, Articulating Difference, discusses the interactions between the Venetian Board of Trade, Public Dragoman, & commerce brokers, including the bitter controversy over a brokerage tax known as the terzo, 'a third', which was originally a standard rate charged to all brokerage transactions conducted by Turkish merchants in Venice in which the Public Dragoman was required to be present, but was later changed to also include Safavid & Jewish merchants as well. Regardless of whether the merchants actually needed the Dragoman's assistance, the tax was charged, & it amounted to a substantial source of revenue for the state, with the Board of Trade's estimates for the year 1587 approximating between 5,000-6,000 ducats. The Dragoman was permitted to keep a third of this sum, which added up to a considerable amount, & though she does not explain how, Rothman mentions that the burden of this was passed onto regular commerce brokers, who began charging their own, independent terzo to defray the cost, which the Board of Trade had strictly forbidden.
Overall, E. Natalie Rothman's Brokering Empire: Trans-Imperial Subjects between Venice & Istanbul is a fascinating study written in a format that the reviewer was unfamiliar with & still enjoyed a great deal. The unique subject matter combined with the anecdotal format makes for complex reading, requiring the reader's constant attention & a degree of focus that challenges him or her to the fullest. The skill level is intermediate to advanced, but the curriculum is certainly appealing enough to interest enthusiasts & general readers who are willing to devote some time to the volume. This study is well worth anyone's time, & provides a detailed look at an undoubtedly overlooked section of Venice's engaging history. Thank you so very much for reading, I hope that you enjoyed the review!
The Republic of Venice & the Ottoman Empire were vastly different in their culture, religion, & trade customs, & the increased demand during the sixteenth & seventeenth centuries for individuals who were fluent in the languages, faiths, & trade practices of both powers necessitated the emergence of guilds & institutions whose primary function was to train & regulate this invaluable class of citizens that could facilitate, mediate, & if necessary, discipline the transactions & interactions occurring in trade hubs & commerce centers throughout the Eastern Mediterranean & Levant regions. The coexistence in large cities such as Venice & Istanbul of these two different ways of life also indirectly produced entirely new classes of citizens, such as supplicants & religious converts. The concept of intermeshing different faiths, cultures, & commerce can be loosely defined as trans-imperialism. These individuals who were uniquely associated with it are defined by E. Natalie Rothman as trans-imperial subjects, & are the primary subject in her award-winning study, Brokering Empire: Trans-Imperial Subjects between Venice & Istanbul.
Within the context of this study, trans-imperial subjects consisted of a small number of specialized professions & groups that fulfilled specific roles & pursued distinctive goals. Among their number were diplomatic interpreters, known as Dragomans, & commerce brokers, both classes designed to facilitate relations between empires during a very turbulent period for both powers, & the Catholic catechumens, which were candidates pursuing baptism & acceptance into the Catholic religion. The Venetians possessed a somewhat ambiguous relationship with the Ottomans between the Battle of Lepanto (1571) & the War of Crete (1669) -- they were on the losing side of the imperial tug-of-war being waged constantly throughout this period, alternating between periods of intense warfare & fragile, short-lived peace treaties that, more or less, amounted to appeasing the Ottomans while they prepared their next major offensive & slowly absorbed the once-prosperous Venetian trade colonies into their own considerable dominions; however, despite the outbreak of these conflicts, commerce & diplomatic relations had to continue. Rothman provides a number of fascinating photographs of documents from the era such as hiring contracts, baptismal certificates, period artwork, & floor plans, which add dimension to her richly detailed monograph.
This edition of E. Natalie Rothman's Brokering Empire: Trans-Imperial Subjects between Venice & Istanbul was first published in 2012 by Cornell University Press & features a 251-page main text that is divided into seven chapters, grouped into four parts: Mediation, Conversion, Translation, & Articulation. There is a formidable 47-page Bibliography with a number of interesting & unique titles, as well as appendices which mostly consist of untranslated Venetian tribunal depositions. Rothman's remarkable study is the winner of three separate literary awards - the Herbert Baxter Adams Prize, the Helen and Howard R. Marraro Prize, & the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation Book Prize.
The introduction's technical nomenclature can prove to be challenging, but the study itself is wonderfully well-composed, with the author favoring a clear, easy-to-understand writing style & anecdotal format which works well with the subject matter. She focuses on the different aspects of the trans-imperial dynamic between the empirical governments & their corresponding subject classes. The work reads as a series of engaging narrative vignettes that tell these remarkable individuals' harrowing stories. Religious converts petitioning for Venetian citizenship or Christian baptisms, industrious tradesmen seeking employment as commerce brokers, Venetian citizens training to become dragomans, or political brokers & interpreters -- this is primarily a study on the trans-imperial subjects themselves, however, their interactions are analyzed as well, & Rothman devotes an entire section of the book, Part IV, towards the discussion of them.
Chapter 1, Trans-Imperial Subjects as Supplicants & as Brokers, serves as an overview to the commerce broker role within the Venetian government & the various methods its citizens & émigrés utilized within the bureaucracy to enter the illustrious Venetian Brokers' Guild. Applicants were required to prepare a written summary of their life history & credentials, which in many cases was couched in nationalist-themed Venetian rhetoric that relied on the individual's work history & background to paint a sympathetic picture to the interlocutors charged with the application's approval or denial. This document was known in the Venetian dialect as a supplica, & the candidates were thus referred to as supplicants. Various examples of supplicae are provided alongside an always-fascinating mini-narrative, among them is Lorenzo Capessich of Sebenico, a Croatian-born man with roots in Dalmatia & Nauplion, & fluency in the Italian, Turkish, & Slavic languages, who sought a broker's license -- his moving supplica concludes with a poignant, heartfelt epitaph - "..I humbly petition reverently Your Serenity that it deign to grant me the favor that I be appointed Regular Broker, [so] that I will not stop laboring in that position to forever give preference with public service to the satisfaction of merchants for the growth of commerce."
The author's explanation of the two primary functions of the Venetian commerce broker can be summed up as, the assistance & facilitation of business deals between native Venetians & foreign merchants, & the due collection of taxes, called brokerage fees, from the said transactions. Oftentimes, the relationships between the brokers & the foreign merchants would possess a degree of affection, which tended to complicate matters for the Serenissima because there were instances when fugitives or runaways would seek refuge in the broker's house or estate, knowing that he regularly did business with individuals who were of that person's nationality, & the broker would, in some circumstances, shelter them & help them covertly arrange transport back to their native country. Or a broker would permit a number of transactions to be conducted "under the table", which avoided paying taxes on them for a reduced fee, & presumably would go directly into the broker's pocket, free of surcharge. This last scenario occurred frequently when the broker himself was not himself of Venetian descent.
The Venetian Brokers' Guild was a complex entity, & in Chapter 2, Brokering Commerce or Making Friends?, Rothman canvasses some of its characteristics as well as its governing bodies & juridical councils, but primarily the chapter discusses a variety of different cases in which trans-imperial subjects played a prominent role, for good or ill. There are instances where licensed brokers were conducting business with non-guild members, sometimes by mistake & other times as part of a network of friends who hoped to pocket extra ducats by bypassing guild taxes & tariffs. Other times, these infractions would consist of four-way transactions that included licensed or non-licensed brokers facilitating deals between foreign vendors & traders bartering one type of merchandise for another, without any money changing hands. The makeup of the Brokers' Guild was stratified into two different socio-economic groups, the rich, who naturally occupied the higher-rank positions, including tribunal members & presidents, & the often-financially-strained lower class, who generally show up in the guild records as being involved as litigants in trial proceedings.
Near the end of the chapter the author provides an eloquent excerpt from an obscure written work, William Leybourn's 1693 Panarithmologia or the Trader's Sure Guide, which is worth noting here due to its clear, concise definition of a merchant broker: "Brokers are Persons generally, that have had Misfortunes in the World, & have been bred Merchants, (or else they are not capacitated to be Brokers), for they must be Men that have Experience in Goods, in Exchanges, in Seasons for buying & selling: They must be Men faithful, & of Repute; for the things they are entrusted with, are of great Consequence: And these Men are employed betwixt Merchant & Tradesman; & their Imployment is to find the Merchant a Shop keeper, or rather Chapman for his Goods." Merchant brokers were ideally supposed to be of upright character, which rendered their interactions above moral reproach, & they were neither vendors nor artisans, but go-betweens who mediated & interpreted for each side, at times offering advice & counsel on conducting successful & profitable business transactions to the mutual benefit of all involved parties & also in the Serenissima's best interests.
Religious conversions to Catholicism from Islam, Judaism & Protestantism are covered in Chapter 3, Narrating Transitions, & the author explores a number of topics which include depositions - effectively religious attestations prepared by prospective converts, usually with the help of a prior or other ecclesiastic, briefly explaining the religious background of the person & their motivations for converting to Christianity. Rothman utilizes a concept developed by a Russian philosopher, Mikhail Bakhtin, called the chronotrope, & she employs it to introduce her own hypotheses - conjuncture & purposeful journeying, which, while they sound complicated, are marvelously explained in the text. The author has the very unique talent of being able to articulate her subject matter so effectively that no portion of the study is dull, or uninteresting -- it is easy to understand how the book was so well received that it won three prestigious literary awards. This chapter mainly focuses on the narratives & documentation for a number of Muslim-Catholic, Jewish-Catholic, & Protestant-Catholic conversions performed in Venice during the period ranging from 1570-1670.
A fascinating literary exploration of the archives of the Venetian House of Catechumens, the Pia Casa dei Catecumeni, serves as the primary subject for Chapter 4, Practicing Conversion. A catechumen is a person who is receiving religious instruction prior to becoming baptized into the Catholic faith. In this chapter Rothman covers different historians' theories regarding the House's charitable & subversive trends, & even alms-collecting patents, which were official writs giving the catechumen the legal right to collect charity on the House's behalf, as the House governors tended to discourage independent alms-collection by the students. Also analyzed is the percentage of catechumens who entered the House alone (88%), or with other relatives who were eventually baptized as well (12%), & the author also charts the catechumens' career paths after being baptized, comparing their profession's prestige with such factors as whom stood as the candidate's godparents, & how many godparents that individual had.
Venetian Dragomans were highly sought-after political brokers who were trained from birth to be translators & negotiators, & in Istanbul they would function & officiate during political meetings alongside their Turkish counterpart, the Ottoman Grand Dragoman, & they also performed more singular duties solely for the Serenissima, such as the translation of any intercepted Ottoman intelligence. The Venetian Public Dragoman would fulfill some of the duties of the commerce broker within the metropolitan area of the lagoon city, often referred to by the author as the Venetian metropole, & one of his most important responsibilities was to ensure the Turkish merchants & traders were not taken advantage of. The career paths of some of the men who were Venetian Dragomans are explored to a moderate degree of depth, & among the remarkable stories is that of Micheil Membré, a man from Cyprus whose astounding 49-year tenure as a Public Dragoman, from 1150-1569, was interspersed by collaborative efforts with several renowned cartographers of the day. "These cartographic enterprises combined commercial & political interests. By harnessing the specialized linguistic skills he had acquired in Istanbul & Persia to the service of Venetian commercial, scholarly, & diplomatic milieus, Membré, a seasoned entrepreneur, benefitted handsomely. His three surviving wills all left generous bequests to relatives & charities around the city." All of this material is covered in Chapter 5, Making Venetian Dragomans.
The penultimate section, Chapter 6, Articulating Difference, discusses the interactions between the Venetian Board of Trade, Public Dragoman, & commerce brokers, including the bitter controversy over a brokerage tax known as the terzo, 'a third', which was originally a standard rate charged to all brokerage transactions conducted by Turkish merchants in Venice in which the Public Dragoman was required to be present, but was later changed to also include Safavid & Jewish merchants as well. Regardless of whether the merchants actually needed the Dragoman's assistance, the tax was charged, & it amounted to a substantial source of revenue for the state, with the Board of Trade's estimates for the year 1587 approximating between 5,000-6,000 ducats. The Dragoman was permitted to keep a third of this sum, which added up to a considerable amount, & though she does not explain how, Rothman mentions that the burden of this was passed onto regular commerce brokers, who began charging their own, independent terzo to defray the cost, which the Board of Trade had strictly forbidden.
Overall, E. Natalie Rothman's Brokering Empire: Trans-Imperial Subjects between Venice & Istanbul is a fascinating study written in a format that the reviewer was unfamiliar with & still enjoyed a great deal. The unique subject matter combined with the anecdotal format makes for complex reading, requiring the reader's constant attention & a degree of focus that challenges him or her to the fullest. The skill level is intermediate to advanced, but the curriculum is certainly appealing enough to interest enthusiasts & general readers who are willing to devote some time to the volume. This study is well worth anyone's time, & provides a detailed look at an undoubtedly overlooked section of Venice's engaging history. Thank you so very much for reading, I hope that you enjoyed the review!
June 25, 2021
had to read this for a university exam and i really liked it, it was a very interesting read.
personally, i didn't like the accent on linguistics but that's just because i hate the subject.
the rest of the book was very very interesting and very well-researched. i especially appreciated that at the end of the book the author added the venetian documents she used in her research in their entirety. as an italian, it was nice to read the originals.
personally, i didn't like the accent on linguistics but that's just because i hate the subject.
the rest of the book was very very interesting and very well-researched. i especially appreciated that at the end of the book the author added the venetian documents she used in her research in their entirety. as an italian, it was nice to read the originals.
November 3, 2016
Not a book for the nonspecialist, but an excellent argument about how trans-imperial subjects (commercial brokers, religious converts, and diplomatic interpreters) were instrumental in the boundary-marking process in an increasingly confessionalized eastern Mediterranean.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews