Marie Legendre
Senior Lecturer in Islamic History

- Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
- School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures
Contact details
- Tel: +44 (0)131 6509872
- Email: marie.legendre@ed.ac.uk
Background
Dr Legendre earned her PhD from the University of Leiden (2013) and Université Paris-Sorbonne (Paris 4) (2014).
Before coming to Edinburgh in September 2018, she worked as Departmental Lecturer in Early Islamic History at the Faculty of Oriental Studies of the University of Oxford (2012-2014) and Lecturer in the History of the Pre-Modern Middle East at SOAS University of London (2016-2018). She was also a postdoctoral researcher at the Laboratoire d’Excellence sur les Études Méditerranéennes (LabexMed), Aix-Marseille Université (2014-2016).
Undergraduate teaching
Islamic History A: The Formation of the Islamic World
Islamic History B: From the Crusades to the ‘Gunpowder Empires’
The First Muslim Empire: Islam before Sunnism and Shi‘ism
The Seventh Century: The Transformation of East Rome and the Rise of Islam (with Dr Yannis Stouraitis)
Guest lecturer:
- Islamic and Middle Eastern Cultures
Postgraduate teaching
The Umayyad Empire: The Islamic World in its Late Antique Context
The Seventh Century: The Transformation of East Rome and the Rise of Islam (with Dr Yannis Stouraitis)
Msc in Late Antique, Byzantine and Islamic Studies:
Guest lecturer:
- Critical Reading in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
- Approaches to the Long Late Antiquity
Open to PhD supervision enquiries?
Yes
Areas of interest for supervision
Dr Legendre also supervises dissertations for the Msc in Late Antique, Byzantine and Islamic Studies.
Current PhD students supervised
Nasser Alfalasi, 'The development of administrative and fiscal literature in the early Abbasid period’
Kieran Hagan, 'Empire in the Islamic North: The textual construction of the Islamic Empire and Imperialism in Islamic and Armenian texts'
Abdulla Haidar, ‘Marwān b. al-Ḥakam in Early Arabic Sources’
Dalia Hussein, 'Land Taxes and Land Tenure in Abbasid Egypt'
Stefano Nicastro, ‘Genoa in the Islamic Mediterranean: Transmission of knowledge between terra christianorum and the Dār al-Islām and Islamic perceptions of a Latin state in the later Middle Ages’
Sam Nwokoro, ‘Social and Religious Resources in the Making of Melkite Christianity under Umayyad Rule: A Study of Legislation, Administration, Martyrology and Theology’
Georgi Obatnin, 'The Monetization of Taxation in Abbasid Egypt'
Leone Pecorini Goodall, ‘Heirs to the Caliphate: Continuity, territoriality and gender in the accession of the late Umayyads and early Abbasids’
Sarah Slingluff, ‘Occlusion and remembering al-Andalus in the cultural sites of Castilla-La Mancha’
Past PhD students supervised
Matteo Randazzo, ‘Sicily and Crete between Byzantium and Islam’
Research summary
Dr Legendre's research interests include Late Antique and early Islamic history, especially administrative and economic history (500–1200), the early Islamic conquest, administrative and fiscal history of the Umayyad and Abbasid empires, women and gender, Arabic and Coptic papyrology and multilingualism.
Dr Legendre is co-director of the research Centre for Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine Studies Research Group
Centre for Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine Studies | The University of Edinburgh
She is also co-editor of the Journal of Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine Studies (Edinburgh University Press):
Journal of Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine Studies : (euppublishing.com)
Starting in September 2021, Dr Legendre will direct the research project Caliphal Finances: The Finances of the Caliphate: Abbasid Fiscal Practice in Islamic Late Antiquity (2021-2026), a five-year, European Research Council-funded project to provide for the first time a view ‘from below’ on Abbasid fiscal history through a study of papyrus documents in Greek, Coptic and Arabic written in Egypt.
For more information, see: Caliphal Finances | The University of Edinburgh
Current research interests
• Late antique and early Islamic administration and fiscal practices • Early Islamic Egypt • Umayyad and Abbasid history • Women in early Islam • Arabic papyrology • Coptic papyrology • Multilingualism-
Lignées féminines et dynamiques Égypte-Syrie-Iraq au début de l’époque marwanide: A propos de : MABRA Joshua, 2017, Princely authority in the early Marwānid state : The life of ʻAbd al-ʻAzīz ibn Marwān (d. 86/705), Piscataway, NJ, Gorgias Press.
In:
Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée, vol. 152
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
Aspects of Umayyad administration
(25 pages)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315691411
Research output: › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Published) -
Book review: Jennifer A. Cromwell, Recording Village Life: A Coptic Scribe in Early Islamic Egypt. New Texts from Ancient Cultures 8 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017), xxiv + 287 pp. ISBN 978-0-472-13048-1. Price: $90.00 (cloth).
(8 pages)
In:
Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā, vol. 27, pp. 272-279
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Book/Film/Article review (Published) -
Introduction: Authority and Control in the Countryside
(9 pages)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004386549_002
Research output: › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Published) -
Authority and Control in the Countryside: From Antiquity to Islam in the Mediterranean and Near East (6th-10th Century)
(594 pages)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004386549
Research output: › Book (Published) -
Landowners, Caliphs and state policy over landholdings in the Egyptian countryside
(28 pages)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004386549_013
Research output: › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Published) -
Une stèle funéraire datée de 871
Research output: › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Published) -
Arabic thoughts, Greek numbers, coptic script: Two accounting documents from Fatimid Fayyum
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004345171_005
Research output: › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Published) -
Neither Byzantine nor Islamic? The duke of the Thebaid and the formation of the Umayyad state: The duke of the Thebaid and the formation of the Umayyad state
In:
Historical Research, vol. 89, pp. 3-18
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/hisr.v89.243
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
Islamic conquest, territorial reorganization and empire formation: A study of 7th Century movements of population in the light of Egyptian papyri
Research output: › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Published) -
Perméabilité linguistique et anthroponymique entre copte et arabe: Exemple de comptes en caractères coptes du Fayoum fatimide, en Annexe: Répertoire des anthroponymes arabes attestés dans les documents coptes
Research output: › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Published) -
Hiérarchie administrative et formation de l’État islamique dans la campagne égyptienne pré-ṭūlūnide
Research output: › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Published) -
Réutilisation, notes et ratures: Une lettre fragmentaire et un recensement de bétail dans un papyrus arabe de la bibliothèque Laurentienne
In:
Analecta Papyrologica, vol. 23-24
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)