Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface and acknowledgements
- List and concordance of documents
- Transliteration and abbreviations
- Chapter 1 The Dār Fūr Sultanate
- Chapter 2 Estate and privilege
- Chapter 3 Literacy and Chancery
- Chapter 4 A Diplomatic Commentary
- Chapter 5 Translations and Commentary
- Sources and bibliography
- Notes
- Indices
Preface and acknowledgements
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface and acknowledgements
- List and concordance of documents
- Transliteration and abbreviations
- Chapter 1 The Dār Fūr Sultanate
- Chapter 2 Estate and privilege
- Chapter 3 Literacy and Chancery
- Chapter 4 A Diplomatic Commentary
- Chapter 5 Translations and Commentary
- Sources and bibliography
- Notes
- Indices
Summary
We present here translations of forty-seven documents chosen from a total now approaching five hundred concerning land and related matters issued by the sultans of Dār Fūr or their officials in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. For the most part the documents have survived as family archives preserved by the descendants of those to whom they were originally addressed. In making our selection, we have sought to illustrate the main administrative developments of the period as presented in the whole corpus. Thus the archives of three holy families are given (I to XXIII), the archive of a chief and his patrons (XXIV to XXXVII), five documents (XXXVIII to XLI) concerning two princesses, and finally six (XLII to XLVII) dealing with the land of two merchants. These proportions do not reflect the whole corpus where the papers of the holy families predominate, since they have been the most successful in holding on to both their land and their documents.
The introduction tries to situate the charters and court records within the environment which produced them. Chapter 1 gives a brief summary of the political and administrative history of the Dār Fūr sultanate; chapter 2, again briefly, outlines the principles whereby privileged status, rights in people and landed estates were granted. Chapters 3 and 4 take up the question of literacy and of the existence of a formal chancery and present a brief diplomatic commentary.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Land in Dar FurCharters and Related Documents from the Dar Fur Sultanate, pp. ix - xiiPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1983