The one time I heard him lecture was in Oxford about a topic covered in that book, the Islamic colony the Emperor created for his Islamic subjects at Lucera.
His biography Frederick II: A Medieval Emperor is both academic and readable, and sees the Emperor not as a medieval ‘New Man’ or indeed ‘Superhero’ in the tradition of Ernst Kantorowicz or Thomas Curtis van Cleve, but rather as a man of his time and status, with all that says about the rich variety of the thirteenth century, about Imperial and Sicilian courts and claims, about rulership and politics. It makes perfect sense rather than seeking to depict a man out of his times.
In recent years Prof Abulafia has been a notable critic of alarming trends in academia and a champion of academic freedom of expression. Both for that and his work as a historian he will be sadly missed.
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