Throughout the Christian medieval period of the kingdoms of Nubia (c. sixth-fifteenth centuries), ideas, goods, and peoples traversed vast distances. Judging from primarily external sources, the Nubian diaspora has seldom been thought of as vast, whether in number or geographical scope, both in terms of the relocated and a nonpermanently domiciled diaspora. Prior to the Christianisation of the kingdoms of Nobadia, Makuria, and Alwa in the sixth century, likely Nubian delegations, consisting of "Ethiopes," were received in both Rome and Constantinople alongside ones from neighbouring peoples, such as the Blemmyes and Aksumites. Yet, medieval Nubia is more often seen as inclusive rather than diasporic. This brief discussion will further show that Nubians were an interactive society within the wider Mediterranean, a topic most commonly seen in the debate on Nubian trade. 1 Above all, it argues that Nubians had a long relationship with Mediterranean societies that has primarily been overlooked in scholarship. Whilst the evidence presented here is not aimed to be definitive, it does highlight that Nubia's Mediterranean connections may even have been more diverse than what Giovanni Ruffini argued for in his book Medieval Nubia whilst describing Nubia as a "Mediterranean society in Africa." 2 May we even argue for a more developed thesis of interaction? What about the Nubian societies throughout the Mediterranean who interacted with other communities both spiritually and financially? It will be argued here that these questions should be revisited and have potential to further expand Ruffini's Mediterranean thesis. One limitation to such a study is that of focus. Here, only the Christian diaspora will be discussed. Without doubt, the Nubian presence within the Islamic realms was extensive, not least due to 1 For example Osman, Economy and Trade, pp. 113-127 compared to Adams, Qasr Ibrim, pp. 211-212, 249-250. 2 Ruffini, Medieval Nubia.

What happens to the ability to retrace networks when individual agents cannot be named and current archaeology is limited? In these circumstances, such networks cannot be traced, but, as this case study will show, they can be reconstructed and their effects can still be witnessed. This article will highlight how Latin European intellectual development regarding the Christian African kingdoms of Nubia and Ethiopia is due to multiple and far-reaching networks between Latin Europeans, Africans, and other Eastern groups, especially in the wider Red Sea region, despite scant direct evidence for the existence of such extensive intellectual networks. Instead, the absence of direct evidence for Latin European engagement with the Red Sea needs to be situated within the wider development of Latin European understandings of Nubia and Ethiopia throughout the twelfth century as a result of interaction with varied peoples, not least with Africans themselves. The developing Latin European understanding of Nubia is a result of multiple and varied exchanges.

The Portuguese engagement with the continent of Africa following the conquest of Ceuta in 1415 was framed, among numerous conditions, as a crusade (Portuguese: cruzada). However, crusading influences on Portuguese expansion are often sidelined in favour of economic motives. Unlike North and north-east Africa's connected histories with the Crusades (1095–1291) and the continual role of crusading in the following centuries, the fifteenth century offered a new arena. Kongo's adoption of Christianity in the late fifteenth century was the first time that an African power can be viewed as engaging in crusading ideology as a Latin Christian power. Significantly, Kongo was converted by Portuguese missionaries who were undertaking their own crusade. Yet, the crusading influence on Kongo's early development of its Christianity has hitherto been overlooked in Africanist scholarship. Similarly, the situation in Kongo remains a lacuna in Crusades scholarship too. This article calls for a closer discussion between the histories of Africa and the Crusades through the case of Kongo and comparative African examples, such as Benin and Ndongo, to highlight the need to better connect these histories.

The visit of the Nubian “king” to Constantinople in 1203 during the Fourth Crusade was a unique episode in the history of crusading and survives in only one account, that of the French knight Robert de Clari. No other Crusade witnessed a similar encounter with a Nubian royal, yet the “king’s” appeareance is not described by any other Latin European, or even alluded to in contemporary Byzantine documents either. Despite this apparent ignorance in the sources, the “king” and his companions were seemingly the product of centuries of interactions between Christian Nubia and the Mediterranean which had developed over 600 years and remained intact despite the disturbances of the Arab conquests and the Crusades, as well as recently formed connections. This article seeks to situate the visit within these interactions to better understand how and why this encounter occured.

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