Marie Legendre
Senior Lecturer in Islamic History
- Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
- School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures
Contact details
- Email: marie.legendre@ed.ac.uk
Background
Dr Legendre earned her PhD from the University of Leiden 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).
Beyond the Books Series 4 Episode 4 Marie Legendre
Dr Legendre is on research leave until January 2028.
Undergraduate teaching
Islamic History A: The Formation of the Islamic World
Islamic History B: From the Crusades to the ‘Gunpowder Empires’
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 Seventh Century: The Transformation of East Rome and the Rise of Islam (with Dr Yannis Stouraitis)
Guest lecturer:
- Critical Reading in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
In 2029/2020 then 2024-2026, Marie Legendre was Programme Director of the MSc Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies MSc - Postgraduate taught programmes | The University of Edinburgh
Open to PhD supervision enquiries?
Yes
Current PhD students supervised
Rik Janssen, 'The Empire Built by ‘Turkish’ Bow: Revising Ottoman Archery'
Samir Zhani, 'The Politics of Words: Al-Jahiz’s Oeuvre Reconsidered'
Past PhD students supervised
Georgi Obatnin, 'Coins and Money: Monetary Circulation, Taxation, and Society in Pre-Fatimid Egypt' (2026)
Stefano Nicastro, ‘Egyptian-Genoese Commercial and Diplomatic Relationships: The Genoese Community in al-ʾIskandariyya and the 1290 Agreement between the Egyptian Dawla and the Commune of Genoa’ (2026)
Dalia Hussein, 'Ownership, Tax and State. Land use in Abbasid Egypt' (2026)
Abdulla Haidar, ‘Aspects of Marwānid political thought: Between religious and tribal modes of legitimation’ (2025)
Nasser Alfalasi, 'Ibn al-Muqaffa': Tragedy, Legacy, and the Adab of Governance’ (2024)
Sarah Slingluff, ‘Forgotten Umayyad Forts in Castilla-La Mancha: The History of the Fortress of Zorita and its Role in Cultural Memory' (2024)
Leone Pecorini Goodall, ‘Sons and daughters of the caliphate: succession politics in the Marwanid and early Abbasid family (64-216/684-831)’ (2024)
Matteo Randazzo, ‘Sicily and Crete between Byzantium and the Dar al-Islam (Late 7th - Mid 10th Century): An Archaeological Contribution’ (2021)
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-founder and co-director of the Centre for Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine Studies
Centre for Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine Studies | The University of Edinburgh
She is President of the International Society for Arabic Papyrology (ISAP) The International Society for Arabic Papyrology - Institut für den Nahen und Mittleren Osten - LMU München
She is also co-founder and co-editor in chief of the Journal of Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine Studies (with Petros Bouras-Vallianatos, Yannis Stouraitis and Daisy Livingston)
Journal of Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine Studies : (euppublishing.com)
And co-founder and co-editor of the book series on States before Modernity (with Antoine Borrut and Michael Cook):
Since September 2021, Dr Legendre is directing the research project Caliphal Finances: The Finances of the Caliphate: Abbasid Fiscal Practice in Islamic Late Antiquity (2021-2027), a five-year, European Research Council-funded project:
Caliphal Finances is the first large-scale research project on the administrative and fiscal history of the early Caliphate starting with the view from below through a study of papyrus documents in Greek, Coptic and Arabic written in Egypt (8th-10th century). Egyptian papyri are concerned with everyday arrangements for fiscal collection in secondary urban centres, villages and monasteries of the Nile valley. Capitalising on this material, the project studies the organisation of tax collection, tax rates and categories of taxpayers. The project team (PI + 3 post-docs + 2 PhDs) traces mechanisms of tax delegation and tax guarantee and how provincial revenues reached the caliph, incorporating information found in provincial chronicles, in coinage and in material culture with that of the papyri. Connections between administrators and local elites, religious and linguistic communities, their convergence on fiscal questions, their loyalty or resistance to the Caliphate are all being assessed. In a field largely dominated by religious history, Caliphal Finances renews our understanding of the dynamics of change in pre-modern state structures, with a focus on the political and moral economy of the early Caliphate as much as on the complexity of local agency.
For more information, see: Caliphal Finances – The Finances of the Caliphate: Abbasid Fiscal Practice in Islamic Late Antiquity
Dr Legendre is also co-convener of the Balzan Seminar on the Formation, Maintenance, and Failure of states in Muslim Societies (with Michael Cook and Antoine Borrut).