There’s Arabian gold in those medieval history books

In the course of his holiday reading, Peter Hellyer discovers a link between Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Arabian Peninsula

View of the recumbent tomb figures of Henry II, King of England, and his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, in the royal abbey of Fontevraud, west of France. Frank Perry / AFP

One of the benefits of a holiday is that it is an opportunity to step back from the daily challenges of work and to allow the mind to wander off in pursuit of new experiences and new ideas. Not that matters related to work are ever very far away, for me anyway, but the time to think quietly and to stand back is of enormous value.

Apart from pursuing hobbies, like birdwatching in a cooler climate, one of the things I value most is the opportunity to read more. Some of the books I am reading on my current break in the British Channel Island of Jersey are light, trashy novels – they may amuse, but scarcely educate and stimulate.

Others, though, are quite different. I’ve recently derived much pleasure from reading books on British and European medieval history, refreshing and expanding on knowledge learnt at school or university that has long since been forgotten.

I’m currently reading a well-researched study of Eleanor of Aquitaine, a remarkable 12th century duchess who was queen of France and then of England. She was also the mother of two English kings and of the wives of a German emperor, a king of Sicily and a king of Castile, now part of Spain. One of those English kings, Richard the Lionheart, crossed swords with the great Muslim leader Saladin during one of the Crusades.

The details of Eleanor’s marital and political career are fascinating, though scarcely of much relevance to a UAE audience today. But the biography had a throwaway line in a description of London in about 1150 that grabbed my attention and prompted further thought. At that time, over 850 years ago, England was trading with western Europe, Scandinavia, the Baltic and the Mediterranean, and “gold was even imported from Arabia”.

That gold, I assume, must have come from what is now Saudi Arabia, where mines were reopened a few years ago. Who today is aware that Arabia exported gold to western Europe so long ago?

There is other evidence, too, of the contribution made by Arabia in the past to the flowering of prosperity and of culture in western Europe. Not long after Eleanor of Aquitaine – and perhaps during her lifetime, too – merchants from the Italian city-states of Venice and Genoa were making their way overland to the Gulf, to trade with Julfar, in Ras Al Khaimah, and the kingdom of Hormuz.

From there, fine Gulf pearls made their way back to the courts and the potentates of Europe. Some of those pearls can be seen in paintings of the Renaissance era. Over 1,000 years earlier, other pearls from the Gulf were highly prized by the ladies of imperial Rome, as, indeed, they were in the courts of late 19th century Europe.

There was the transfer of ideas, too. In 1145, an English contemporary of Eleanor, Robert of Chester, introduced the Arabic system of algebra to Europe. Either he or another early English scholar, Adelard of Bath, were the first to introduce Arabic numerals to Europe, though not until the 16th century did they finally replace the old Roman numerals.

Political and religious conflicts, like those engendered by the initial expansion and then waning of the early Arab-Islamic and the later Ottoman empires, attract attention from historians, and rightly so, although one wishes that they were better known, better understood. These ancient connections of goods and ideas, though, are also fundamental elements of the histories of the Arab world, stretching right into the Arabian peninsula, and of Europe, including its westernmost extremities.

The importance of a greater focus on the history and heritage of the UAE and of the peninsula as a whole, in our educational system is widely recognised: it’s an essential part of the promotion of the country’s national identity. Perhaps, in that, the gold jewellery of Eleanor of Aquitaine has a part to play.

Peter Hellyer is a consultant specialising in the UAE’s history and culture