ARABIST TRANSLATORS IN SOUTHERN FRANCE THE SECOND HALF OF THE 11TH TO THE 13TH CENTURY: COMPOSITION, FIELDS OF ACTIVITY, AND HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE

Abstract

this article offers a source-based reconstruction of the translators active in southern France from the second half of the eleventh century to the end of the thirteenth century. Drawing on narrative sources and manuscript evidence, it identifies eight translators and classifies them according to origin, geography of activity, and modes of participation in translation. The study demonstrates that southern France, especially Marseille and Montpellier, functioned as an important zone of intellectual mediation in the transmission of Arabic scientific learning to Latin Europe. Particular attention is given to the Ibn Tibbon family, Arnoldo de Villanova, and Armengaud Blaise, whose activities show that translation in this milieu involved not only the rendering of texts into new languages, but also commentary, adaptation, and pedagogical reformulation. The article argues that the southern French translation movement emerged within a multilingual and multicultural scholarly environment and made a substantial contribution to the dissemination of medicine, astronomy, and philosophy in medieval Europe. By clarifying the identities and roles of the translators active in this region, the study also corrects a number of historiographical confusions that have persisted in earlier scholarship.