The Nubian “King” in Constantinople (1203): Interactions between Nubia and the Mediterranean

Abstract

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.