Multiculturalism in Lusignan Kingdom of Cyprus

This doctorate thesis examines the matter of multiculturality in the Lusignan Kingdom of Cyprus between its establishment in 1192 and 1489, when it was placed under Venetian rule. Its point of focus is to develop an idea as to how people from these different cultures lived together, rather than to define the multicultural structure on the island and present a list of the variety of cultures. Therefore, the study gives thought to the subjects of how people from different cultures saw each other, the identities they defined each other with and how they determined the boundaries of others. The fact that Cyprus was in a relatively busy geographical area of the Eastern Mediterranean, due to trade, the pilgrimages and migration and that it always played a critical role in the political control of the Mediterranean resulted in the island possessing a cosmopolitan, complex and hybrid social structure in all periods. On the other hand, the Crusades led to people possessing various cultural discourses coming to and settling in this region. Intensive immigration to Cyprus began with the ending of the Christian domination in these settlements, and the complex structure of society became even more varied. This study sets off from the theory that people from different cultural groups possessed more than one discourse in terms of their identity and that they communicated with each other taking into account beneficial and casal identifications in their relationships with each other, in order to examine the boundaries between the cultural groups, the manner in which people lived together and how they saw each other, within the light of various primary resources such as the laws, the records of the church council and church documents, the letters written by the Papacy to the administration of the island, the records held by the notaries and the narratives of travellers, as well as secondary studies on the subject. This doctorate thesis, which aims to bring a new outlook and understanding to the cultural studies in the field, also aims for a closer recognition and interpretation of the socio-cultural dynamics in both Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean region during the late Middle Ages. Keywords: Cyprus, Lusignans, Multiculturality, Identity, Multiple Identities Theory