Conceptualizing Frankish-Muslim Partition Truces in the Coastal Plain and Greater Syria

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This paper is an attempt to clarify the development, function, and conceptualization of shared‐revenue arrangements between Franks and Muslims in the Coastal Plain (al-Sāḥil) and Greater Syria (Bilād al-Shām) in the medieval period. I first catalogue truces that established partitions while assessing their defining characteristics. I then analyze how Frankish and Muslim conceptualizations of property and territory may have informed two slightly different notions of partitioning. Based on an analysis of these conceptualizations of ownership and territory, I argue that the only basis for partition truces in the Frankish‐Muslim context was a division of revenue that resembled tributary status.