Clifford Backman

Clifford Backman is a historian specializing in Mediterranean society of the late Middle Ages, with an emphasis on the Crown of Aragon countries. He teaches both halves of the Western Civilization sequence in the BU Department of History, a survey of medieval Europe, lecture courses on medieval intellectual life and the history of the Crusades, and an undergraduate seminar on “Monks, Friars, and Saints,” among other things.

Professor Backman has written two books on medieval Sicily and a general history of the Middle Ages, and is now completing a book on Christian-Muslim-Jewish relations from the Middle Ages to the present. He has published articles and reviews in about a dozen US and European journals. Future projects include a biography of a medieval Spanish king (James II of the Crown of Aragon), a study of the moral idea of tolerance in Western thought, and critical editions of works by Arnau de Vilanova (the heretic who was personal physician to four consecutive popes) and Humbert de Romans (the third Minister-General of the Dominican Order).

Click here to visit his faculty profile at the website of the BU Department of History.