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The Victorian Invention of Medieval Cairo: A Case Study of Medievalism and the Construction of the East

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2016

Paula Sanders
Paula Sanders*
Affiliation:
Rice University
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Review of Middle East Studies , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , December 2003 , pp. 179 - 199
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Copyright © Middle East Studies Association of North America 2003

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References

1 Çelik, Zeynep, Displaying the Orient: Architecture of Islam at Nineteenth-Century World’s Fairs (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992)Google Scholar; Çelik, Zeynep, The Remaking of Istanbul: Portrait of an Ottoman City in the Nineteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993 [1986]).Google Scholar See also the special issue of Design Book Review on orientalism (Issue 29/30 B Summer/Fall 1993); Crinson, Mark, Empire Building: Orientalism and Victorian Architecture (London: Routledge, 1996)Google Scholar; Figures de l’orientalisme en architecture, special issue of Revue du Monde Musulman et de la Méditerranée 73/74 (1994). See also the new study by Reid, Donald Malcolm, Whose Pharaohs? Archaeology, Museums, and Egyptian National Identity from Napoleon to World War I (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002),Google Scholar which demonstrates how Egyptian and European archaeologists shaped and reshaped the Egyptian past and, consequently, modern Egyptian national identity.

2 The question of what Egyptians thought and the categories they used in configuring their past is an equally important issue. Reid, Donald Malcolm, Whose Pharaohs? Archaeology, Museums, and Egyptian National Identity from Napoleon to World War I (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002),Google Scholar deals with many of these categories, but his concern is not the idea of the medieval. This important new work also discusses the relationship between Egyptology and other archaeological disciplines in Egypt. The term “modern” is, of course, equally deserving of similar scrutiny, but space does not allow it here.

3 See Breisach, Ernst, Historiography: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, 2nd edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), ch. 13 and p. 206.Google Scholar

4 Ibid., p. 207.

5 For a discussion of eighteenth and nineteenth century ideas about the city in general, see Schorske, Carl, “The Idea of the City in European Thought: Voltaire to Spengler,” in Thinking with History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), pp. 37–55.Google Scholar

6 Schorske, , “Idea of the City,” p. 38.Google Scholar See also Briggs, Asa, Victorian Cities (New York: Harper & Row, 1965)Google Scholar; I include here Pirenne’s notion of the city as the birthplace of the middle class, because, although written in 1922, the ideas are fundamentally of the nineteenth century, see Pirenne, Henri, Medieval Cities: Their Origins and the Revival of Trade, tr. Halsey, Frank D. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, [1925] 1952).Google Scholar

7 See Breisach, , Historiography, pp. 242–45Google Scholar; Schorske, , “Idea of the City,” pp. 38–40Google Scholar; Dellheim, Charles, The Face of the Past: the Preservation of the Medieval Inheritance in Victorian England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982)Google Scholar; Briggs, Victorian Cities. On English ambivalence to industrialism, see Wiener, Martin J., English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit, 1850–1980 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).Google Scholar

8 Lane-Poole, Stanley, The Art of the Saracens in Egypt, 2 parts, (Published for the Committee of Council on Education by Chapman and Hall, Limited, 1886),Google Scholar part I, v. But see A. J. Butler’s critique of the distinction, which he thought was considerably less valuable than Lane-Poole, and which struck him as being, in fact, contradictory: The Academy, July 3, 1886, No. 739, p. 15.Google Scholar

9 Reynolds-Ball, Eustace A., The City of the Caliphs: A Popular Study of Cairo and its Environs and the Nile and its Antiquities(London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1898 [Boston: Estes and Lauriat, 1897]), pp. 1–2.Google Scholar

10 The Athenaeum, February 12, 1881, p. 239.

11 Edwards, Amelia, letter to The Times, January 13, 1883, p. 12/aGoogle Scholar; unsigned article, “The Protection of the Monuments of Cairo,” The Times, July 30, 1883, p. 4/e-f.

12 Rev. Walker, F.A.Nine Hundred Miles Up the Nile (London: West, Newman & Co., 1884), p. 75.Google Scholar

13 Egyptian Gazette, January 27,1885, p. 2.

14 Further Correspondence Respecting the Reorganization of Egypt [Egypt. No. 14 (1883)], C.-3696 [Chadwick-Healy, 89.687], No. 17, “The Earl of Dufferin to Earl Granville,” Cairo, , April 2, 1883.Google Scholar

15 Butler, , review of The Art of the Saracens in Egypt, in The Academy, July 3, 1886, No. 739, pp. 14–15.Google Scholar

16 See, for example, The Times, March 6, 1896, p. 3/f, “A Note on Preservation of Cairo’s Medieval Monuments.”

17 Lane, Edward William, Cairo Fifty Years Ago, edited by Lane-Poole, Stanley (London: John Murray, 1896),Google Scholar but based on portions of Lane’s “Description of Egypt” written during his first visit to Egypt in 1825–28 [British Museum Add. 34080–88], revised around 1835, and copied by Reginald Stuart Poole (Lane’s nephew and Stanley Lane-Poole’s uncle) in 1847. See also Edward William Lane, An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians (numerous editions); Lane, Edward William, Description of Egypt, edited by Thompson, Jason (Cairo, Egypt: The American University in Cairo Press, 2000).Google Scholar

18 The Academy, January 23, 1897, pp. 99–100: “The book is prefaced by a map of mediaeval Cairo.…” However, “medieval” does not displace other terms: the review of the same book in The Times, December 5, 1896, p. 10/b, refers to the “old Arab city.”

19 The Times, January 3, 1882, reporting the decree that established the Comité de conservation des monuments de l’art arabe.

20 The Builder, vol. XLIII (1882), pp. 452ff.

21 The Athenaeum, March 22, 1884, pp. 383-84, reporting and summarizing the publication of the first reports of the Comité de Conservation des Monuments de l’Art Arabe.

22 Lane-Poole, Stanley, letter to The Athenaeum, March 17, 1883, p. 350.Google Scholar

23 Lane-Poole, Stanley, Cairo: Sketches of its History, Monuments, and Social Life (London: J. S. Virtue and Col, 1892),Google Scholar Preface. See also the review in The Times, November 3,1892, p. 11/a, quoting this passage.

24 The Times, February 29,1896, p. 6/d-e. On the Comité, see Reid, Donald Malcolm, “Cultural Imperialism and Nationalism: The Struggle to Define and Control the Heritage of Arab Art in Cairo,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 24 (1992): 57–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; El-Habashi, Alaa and Warner, Nicholas, “Recording the monuments of Cairo: an Introduction and Overview,” Annales Islamologiques 32 (1998): 81–99Google Scholar; Bierman, Irene, “Art and Architecture in the Medieval Period” in The Cambridge History of Egypt, Volume One, ed. Petry, Carl F. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), chapter 13, esp. pp. 343–45.Google Scholar

25 “The Citadel of Cairo,” in The Athenaeum, June 26, 1897, No. 3635, p.848.

26 The Athenaeum, March 21, 1896, No. 3569, p. 372.

27 The Athenaeum, July 19, 1890, No. 3273, p. 89/a-c.

28 Baedeker, Karl, ed. Lower Egypt and the Peninsula of Sinai, 3rd edition (Leipsic: Karl Baedeker, 1895)Google Scholar; also, Egypt, Handbook for Travelers, 4th edition (Leipsic: Karl Baedeker, 1898). The fourth edition is the edition in which Baedeker first consolidated its two publications, Lower Egypt and Upper Egypt into a single volume.

29 Baedeker, , “Outline of the History of Egypt,” in Egypt, 3rd edition (1895), pp. civ–cxxiiGoogle Scholar; Baedeker, , “Outline of the History of Egypt,” in Egypt, 4th edition (1898), pp. xcv–cxxi.Google Scholar

30 The first five volumes in the History of Egypt series dealt with the I–XXX dynasties, the Ptolemies, and the Roman period. Lane-Poole, Stanley, The Story of Cairo (London: J. M. Dent & Co., 1902).Google Scholar The “Mediaeval Town” series includes volumes on the following cities: Assisi, Avignon, Bruges, Brussels, Cairo, Cambridge, Canterbury, Chartres, Constantinople, Coventry, Dublin, Edinburgh, Ferrara, Florence, Jerusalem, London, Lucca, Milan, Moscow, Nuremberg, Oxford, Padua, Paris, Perugia, Pisa, Prague, Rome, Rouen, Santiago, Seville, Siena, Toledo, Venice, and Verona.

31 Lane-Poole, Story of Cairo, p. vii

32 Lane-Poole, Stanley, The story of the Nations: Mediaeval India Under Mohammedan Rule, 712–1764 (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1903), p. iii.Google Scholar It is no coincidence that Lane-Poole’s brother, Reginald Lane Poole, was himself a distinguished historian of medieval Europe and one of the founding editors of The English Historical Review(1886). See the obituary published in The English Historical Review CCXVII (January, 1940): 1–7. On the Lane-Poole brothers, see also the entries in the Dictionary of National Biography.

33 On these issues, see Dellheim, Face of the Past, Dellheim, Charles, “Interpreting Victorian Medievalism,” in History and Community: Essays in Victorian Medievalism, ed. Boos, Florence S. (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1992), pp. 39–55.Google Scholar

34 Egyptian Gazette, January 27, 1885, p. 2.

35 For an enlightening discussion of the systemic exclusion of Egyptians from the discipline of Egyptology in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, see Reid, Donald, “Indigenous Egyptology: The Decolonization of a Profession?,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 105 (1985) : 233–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36 Egypt, No. 14 (1883) C.3696, Further Correspondence Respecting the Reorganization of Egypt, No. 28 (Foreign Office, April 19, 1883). The destruction of antiquities as a result of tourism was a source of increasing concern. See, for example, a small item in the “Fine-Art Gossip” column of The Athenaeum, February 25, 1882, No. 2835, p. 258, citing an article in The Builder. “In the thirty years that Egypt has been thus visited more harm has been done to its old buildings than in the centuries of so much abused neglect which have passed over the country. The destruction caused by the tourists is really serious....” Stanley Lane-Poole lamented, “…it is vain to try to restore the lost fragments that travelled Goths have stolen from the mosques and houses of Cairo,” in “The Preservation of the Monuments of Cairo,” The Athenaeum, March 17, 1883, No. 2890, pp. 350–51.

37 The Earl of Dufferin to Granville, Earl, Egypt. No. 14 (1883), Further Correspondence Respecting the Reorganization of Egypt [C.3696], Inclosure No. 17 (Cairo, April 2, 1883), p. 14.Google Scholar

38 Report on the finances, administration, and condition of Egypt, and the progress of reforms [Egypt. No. 1 (1896)], House of Commons Sessional Papers C7978, Vol. XCVII (1896). The first report in 1896 is particularly extensive, and includes a report by Stanley Lane-Poole prepared at the request of Lord Cromer, see Inclosure 5, “Report by Mr. Stanley Lane Pole on the Preservation of Arab Monuments.” Report on…reforms[Egypt No. 2 (1897)], C8332 [Chadwyck-Healey, 103.927]Google Scholar; [Egypt. No. 1 (1898)] C8815; Egypt. No. 3 (1899) C9231; Egypt No. 1 (1900) Cd.95; Egypt No. 1 (1901) Cd.441.

39 See Said, Edward, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1979),Google Scholar esp. chapter 1.

40 See Tignor, Robert, Modernization and British Colonial Rule in Egypt, 1882–1914 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966), esp. pp. 82–86.Google Scholar

41 Lane-Poole, Stanley, The Story of Cairo (London: J. M. Dent & Co., 1906 [1902]), p. 5.Google Scholar

42 For a list of these societies, see Dellheim, Face of the Past.

43 See Ibid., p. 37.

44 Reynolds-Ball, , City of the Caliphs, p. 1.Google Scholar

45 “Mehemet Ali and Ismail may be considered by the artist and antiquarian to have done their best to vulgarise, that is, Europeanise, the City of the Mamelukes.” Reynolds-Ball, , City of the Caliphs, p. 2.Google Scholar

46 Reynolds-Ball, , City of the Caliphs, p. 3.Google Scholar

47 On this point, see Ussama Makdisi’s elegant essay, “Mapping the Orient: Non-Western Modernization, Imperialism and the End of Romanticism” (forthcoming).

48 Carpenter, Mary Thorn, In Cairo and Jerusalem: An Eastern Note-Book (New York: Anson D. F. Randolph and Co., 1894), pp. 9–10.Google Scholar

49 Collins, Jeffrey G., The Egyptian Elite Under Cromer, 1882–1907 (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1984), pp. 22–23,Google Scholar citing Egypt, Ministry of Finances, Census Department, The Census of Egypt Taken in 1907 (Cairo, 1909): “There is one important point which must be borne in mind when looking at the increase, not only in Cairo and Alexandria, but also in several other of the larger towns of Egypt; and that is the effect that an influx of Europeans has upon the town populations as a whole. It is believed that in portions of many urban areas the native residents have actually been replaced by foreigners, and that in many cases&the result has been to actually drive a portion of the indigenous community not to other quarters of the same town, but altogether out of the urban area.” I intend for my use of the term “hybridity” to call to mind Victorian ideas about race, which are important to a full understanding of British colonialism, its assumptions, and meanings. I will explore these ideas about race and their implications for the invention of medieval Cairo elsewhere.

50 Herz, Max, Catalogue of the National Museum of Arab Art, ed. Lane-Poole, Stanley (London: B. Quaritch, 1896Google Scholar [Original edition in French, 1895]), p. ix.

51 “The Proposed New Street at Cairo,” The Athenaeum, November 30, 1889, No. 3240, p. 749.

52 Tignor, , Modernization, pp. 82–83.Google Scholar

53 Cited in Tignor, , Modernization, p. 156n. 13,Google Scholar where the full reference is given: Baring to Salisbury, No. 174, February 21, 1892, Cromer Papers, PRO, FO 633/6.

54 The Athenaeum, November 27,1886, pp. 712–13.

55 See Jones, Owen, The Grammar of Ornament(London: Day & Son, 1856).Google Scholar

56 Reynolds-Ball, , City of the Caliphs, p. 54.Google Scholar