Christian Berbers

The Christian Berber Saint Augustine with his mother Saint Monica

Christian Berbers are Berber adherents of the Christian faith.

Characteristics

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, it is estimated that there are nearly half a million Christian Berbers, many living in Western Europe and in the Americas. Nearly three hundred thousands live in the Maghreb, from Morocco and Algeria to Tunisia and Libya.

Christianity came to Berber North Africa in the Roman era: according to historian Theodore Mommsen all Roman Africa was nearly fully Christian by the fifth century. Its influence declined during the chaotic period of the Vandal invasions but was partially strengthened in the succeeding Byzantine period, only to disappear gradually after the Arab invasions of the seventh century.[1] Berbers enjoyed a huge socio-cultural development during Roman domination: there were famous writers like Therentius, Lactantius, Martianus Capella, Marcus Cornelius Fronto, Apuleius and Tertullianus, Christian saints (from Scillitan Martyrs to Cyprian, Victor Maurus, Saint Monica and Saint'Augustine), Roman popes like Pope Victor I, Pope Miltiades, Pope Gelasius I and even Roman emperors like Septimius Severus, founder of a Dynasty, to Macrinus and Emilianus. There were even some Romano-Berber states fully Christian, where the kings (like Masuna and Garmul of the Kingdom of Altava) created beautiful Christian jedars and mausoleums like the one called "Tomb of the Christians" near Caesarea.

The disappearance of Christianity among Romanised Berbers is attributed to Arab invaders, through massacres and enslavement: for example, in 670 AD the cities of Hadrumetum and Cululis were completely destroyed and more than 80,000 inhabitants sold as slaves in Damascus.[2]

For several centuries after the Arab conquest, some communities of native Christians remained in the southern part of Tunisia, without receiving external assistance to revive their faith. The oases of Jarîd and Nefzaoua, controlled by Ibadite Muslims, constituted the last refuge for those North-African Christians. Some contemporary historians believe that they survived until the fourteenth or even until the eighteenth century.

According to Claude Lepelley, Latin Western Christianity was born in North Africa. Indeed after Augustus, some decades before the end of the first century, Christian communities were already numerous and dynamic. Africa saw the birth of the Berber Augustine of Hippo (Saint'Augustine), father of the Church whose thought was to have a decisive influence on Christianity in the Middle Ages and in the Modern Era [3]

The African influence on Rome was already being felt by 189 AD, when Victor, an African from Leptis Magna, was elected pope in Rome (189-198). That shows the position that the Church of Africa must have had in Rome from the end of the second century on. And in the third and fourth it was to continue to increase.[4]

In the centuries until the arrival of the Arabs, Berber Christian leaders such as Lactantius, Augustine, Tertullian, Marius Victorinus, Ticonius, Cyprian, Saint Monica (along with rivals Arius and Donatus Magnus) influenced the Christian world outside Africa with responses to Gnosticism, Arianism, Montanism, Marcionism, Pelagianism and Manichaeism, and the idea of the University, understanding of the Trinity, Vetus Latina translations, methods of exegesis and biblical interpretation, ecumenical councils, monasticism, Neoplatonism and African literary, dialectical and rhetorical traditions.[5]

History

The first appearance document that allows us to understand Christianity in Berber Africa is located in the Africa of the early Christians, before the year 180 AD: the "Acts of the Martyrs scillitans" . This is the record of attendance of a dozen Christians (called Scillitan Martyrs) in a village of Africa Proconsularis still not identified, in front of the proconsul of Africa.[6]

The early history of Christianity in Africa is closely linked to the person of Tertullian. Born from pagan parents (his father was a Roman centurion and his mother was probably a Romanised Berber) he joined the Christian community in Carthage in 195 AD and became close to the local municipal elite, which protected him against repression by the authorities. Having received the priesthood, he fought in his early writings for the Christian Church to be officially recognized by the Roman Empire.

We can talk, after Tertullian, of "African Christianity" as it adopts a specific character, making himself conspicuous by his intransigence. To grow in number of followers he anchored in popular Berber life the Christian doctrine, in order to emancipate all the institutions that structured the pagan Roman society of the time. But what separates and most opposed the Roman authorities and the community of Christians, it is undoubtedly the fact that they refused to serve in the army of the Empire. Tertullian emphasized this difficulty of reconciling the military oath with that given at baptism,[7] because for him the greatest dilemma for Christians was the probability of killing opponents during the fighting. It was something incompatible with the message of Christ's life: this was a violation of the sixth commandment, according to Tertullian.

Christian Mosaic at National Museum of Bardo (Tunisia).

This politico-religious choice caused violent conflict and persecutions: Christians were accused of endangering the Roman Empire, when they refused military service (and this was done during a period which required a greater need for soldiers). So, Tertullian provoked sanctions by the authorities that led to killings, creating the martyrs very specific to the Christian religion.

Indeed the historical period of the African Church begins in 180 AD with groups of martyrs. At a somewhat later date the writings of Tertullian tell us how rapidly African Christianity had grown. It had passed the Roman military lines, and spread among the peoples to the south and southeast of the Aures mountains. About the year 200 AD there was a violent persecution at Carthage and in the provinces held by the Romans. We gain information as to its various phases from the martyrdom of St. Perpetua and the treatises of Tertullian. Christianity, however, did not even then cease to make distant conquests; Christian epitaphs are to be found at Sour el Ghozlane, dated 227 AD, and at Tipasa, dated 238 AD. These dates are assured. If we rely on texts less definite we may admit that the evangelization of Northern Africa began very early and was totally complete by the fifth century.

Indeed by the opening of the third century there was a large Christian population in the towns and even in the country districts, which included not only the poor, but also persons of the highest rank. A council held at Carthage about the year 220 AD was attended by eighteen bishops from the province of Numidia. Another council, held in the time of Cyprian, about the middle of the third century, was attended by eighty-seven bishops. But at this period the African Church went through a very grave crisis.

The Emperor Decius published an edict that made many martyrs and confessors, and not a few apostates. A certain bishop, followed by his whole community, was to be seen sacrificing to the gods. The apostates (see Lapsi) and the timid who had bought a certificate of apostasy for money (see Libellatici) became so numerous as to believe they could lay down the law to the Church, and demand their restoration to ecclesiastical communion, a state of affairs that gave rise to controversies and deplorable troubles.

Yet the Church of Africa had martyrs, even at such a time. The persecutions at the end of the third (and at the beginning of the fourth century) did not only make martyrs like the Martyrs of Abitinae[8] or Saint Victor, they also gave rise to a minority that claimed that Christians could deliver the sacred books and the archives of the Church to the officers of the State, without lapsing from the faith. (See Traditors.)

The accession of Constantine found the African Church torn apart by controversies and heresies; Catholics and Donatists contended not only in polemics, but also in a violent and bloody way. A law of Constantine (318 AD) deprived the Donatists of their churches, most of which they had taken from the Catholics. They had, however, grown so powerful that even such a measure failed to crush them. They were so numerous that a Donatist Council, held at Carthage, in 327 AD, was attended by 270 bishops.

Attempts at reconciliation, suggested by the Emperor Constantius II, only widened the breach and led to armed repression, an ever-growing disquiet, and an enmity that became increasingly embittered. Yet, in the very midst of these troubles, the Primate of Carthage, Gratus, declared (in the year 349): "God has restored Africa to religious unity." Julian's accession (361) and his permission to all religious exiles to return to their homes added to the troubles of the African Church. A Donatist bishop sat in the seceded see of Carthage, in opposition to the orthodox bishop. One act of violence followed another and begat new conflicts. About this period, Optatus, Bishop of Milevi, began to combat the sect by his writings. A few years later, St. Augustine, converted at Milan, returned to his native land, and entered the lists against every kind of error. Paganism had by that time ceased to be a menace to the Church; in 399 AD the temples were closed at Carthage. Nevertheless the energy and genius of Augustine were abundantly occupied in training the clergy and instructing the faithful, as well as in theological controversy with the heretics. For forty years, from 390 to 430 AD, the Councils of Carthage (see African Synods), which reunited a great part of the African Episcopate, public discussions with the Donatists, sermons, homilies, scriptural commentaries, followed almost without interval; an unparalleled activity that had commensurate results.

Pelagianism, which had made great strides in Africa, was condemned at the Council of Carthage in 412 AD. Donatism, also, and Semi-Pelagianism were stricken to death at an hour when political events of the utmost gravity changed the history and the destiny of the African Church. Conflict between Carthage and Rome on the regulation of the African Church came to the fore when Apiarius of Sicca appeal his excommunication to Rome and thus challenging the authority of Cathage. Count Boniface had summoned the Vandals to Africa in 426 AD, and by 429 AD the invasion was completed. The barbarians advanced rapidly and made themselves masters of cities and provinces. In 430 AD St. Augustine died, during the siege of Hippo; nine years later Geiseric, King of the Vandals, took possession of Carthage. Then began for the African Church an era of persecution of a kind hitherto unknown. The Vandals were Arians. Not only did they wish to establish their own Arianism, but they were bent on the destruction of Catholicism.

Churches the invasion had left standing were either transferred to the Arians or withdrawn from the Catholics and closed to public worship. The intervention of the Emperor Zeno (474-491 AD) and the conclusion of a treaty of peace with Geiseric, were followed by a transient calm. The churches were opened, and the Catholics were allowed to choose a bishop (476 AD), but the death of Geiserich, and the edict of Hunneric, in 484 AD, made matters worse than before. A contemporary writer, Victor of Vita, has told us what we know of this long history of the Vandal persecution.

Christian Berber girl from 1905 Tunisia, showing a berber decoration -according to historian Villaverde- similar to a cross on her forehead

During the last years of Vandal rule in Africa, St. Fulgentius, Bishop of Ruspe, exercised a fortunate influence over the princes of the Vandal dynasty, who were no longer completely barbaric, but whose culture, wholly Roman and Byzantine, equalled that of their native subjects. Yet the Vandal monarchy, which had lasted for nearly a century, seemed less firmly established than at its beginning.

The Vandal kingdom allowed the creation of some Romano-Berber states at the borders, but fell a century later, conquered by the Byzantine empire, which established an African prefecture, and later the Exarchate of Carthage. Nearly all Berbers were Christians since the third century, to the point that one of the most famous and important Christian saints was Berber: Saint Augustine.[9] But in the Atlas mountains was still worshipped some form of paganism and idolatry when the Vandals arrived: Pope Gelasius I, a Berber born in what is now Kabylia, successfully converted to Christianity around 492 AD all the Berbers of the Aures (who were the last to defend Romanised north western-Africa with their queen Kahina from the Moslem invasion).

Indeed these Berber states are often called "Neo-Latin" because were post-Roman (meaning: no more under the Roman Empire authority), with a local and differentiated Latin language mixed with many local Berberisms, and with a Christian religion. They even initially developed a local form of heresy called Donatism: this "Donatismus" was a Christian sect within the Roman Province of Africa that flourished in the fourth, fifth and early sixth centuries inside communities of Berber Christians. The "Donatists" (named for the Berber Christian bishop Donatus Magnus) were members of a schismatic church not in communion with the churches of the Catholic tradition in Late Antiquity. Some of their Christian kings (like those of the Regnum Maurorum et Romanorum) left the monuments called Djeddars. Furthermore during the fifth century the area was fully Christianized, according to historian Theodore Mommsen, and the kings were probably buried in a mausoleum called "Djeddar" in Berber.[10] Historian Gabriel Camps [11] thinks that some Berber kings (like Masuna and Garmul) were buried in a Djeddar near Frenda.

In 533 AD a Byzantine fleet appeared off the coast of Africa. The battle of Ad Decimum won the initiative for the invading Byzantines. The taking of Carthage, the flight of vandal king Gelimer, and the battle of Tricamarum, about the middle of December, completed their destruction and their disappearance.

The victor, Belisarius, had but to show himself in order to reconquer the greater part of the coast, and to place the cities under the authority of the Emperor Justinian. A council held at Carthage in 534 AD was attended by 220 bishops representing all the churches. It issued a decree forbidding the public exercise of Arian worship. The establishment of Byzantine rule, however, was far from restoring unity to the African Church. The Councils of Carthage brought together the bishops of Proconsular Africa, Byzacena, and Numidia, but those of Tripolitana and Mauretania were absent. Mauretania had, in fact, regained its political autonomy, during the Vandal period. A native dynasty had been set up, and the Byzantine army of occupation never succeeded in conquering a part of the country so far from their base at Carthage.

The reign of Justinian marks a sad period in the history of the African Church, due to the part taken by the clergy in the matter known as that of the Three Chapters. While one part of the episcopate wasted its time and energies in fruitless theological discussions, others failed of their duty. It was under these circumstances that Pope Gregory the Great sent men to Africa, whose lofty character contributed greatly to increase the prestige of the Roman Church. The notary Hilarus became in some sense a papal legate with authority over the African Bishops. He left them in no doubt as to their duty, instructed or reprimanded them, and summoned councils in the Pope's name. With the help of the metropolitan of Carthage, he succeeded in restoring unity, peace, and ecclesiastical discipline in the African Church, which drew strength from so fortunate a change even so surely as the See of Rome regained in respect and authority. However Justinian promoted Christianity in Berber Africa: for example, he made in Septem (actual Ceuta) an important Christian center in Mauretania Tingitana, as recent discovered ruins of a Roman basilica showed.[12]

This renewal of vigour, however, was not of long duration. The Arabs, who had conquered Egypt, made their way into Byzantine Africa. In 647 AD the Caliph Othman gave orders for a direct attack on Berber Africa, and an army that had gained a victory at Sbeitla against Byzantine and Christian Berber armies, withdrew on payment of a large ransom. Some years of respite ensued. The African Church showed its firm attachment to orthodoxy by remaining loyal to Pope Martin I (649-655 AD) in his conflict with the Emperor of Byzantium. The last forty years of the seventh century witnessed the gradual fall of the fragments of Byzantine Africa into the hands of the Arabs. The Berber, or native tribes, which before this had seemed on the way to conversion to the Gospel, passed in a short time, and without resistance, to Islam. Carthage was taken by the Arabs in 695 AD. Two years later it was re-entered by the Byzantine Patrician John, but only for a brief period; in 698 AD Hassan once more took possession of the capital of Northern Africa, destroying totally the city. He killed half the inhabitants and enslaved the other half, erasing forever in this way the main center of Greco-Roman presence and influence in the Maghreb.

The conventional historical view is that the full conquest of North Africa by the Islamic Umayyad Caliphate in 709 AD effectively ended Christianity in Africa for several centuries.[13] The prevailing view is that the Church at that time lacked the backbone of a monastic tradition and was still suffering from the aftermath of heresies including the so-called Donatist heresy, and this contributed to the earlier obliteration of the Church in the present day Tamazgha.[14] However, new scholarship disputes this. There are reports that the Christian faith persisted in the region from Tripolitania (present-day western Libya) to present-day Morocco for several centuries after the completion of the Arab conquest done at the beginning of the eighth century.

By the ninth century, we know that Christians, though no longer numerous, were still to be found in all the major towns of North Africa, including the new centres established by the Arabs at Fes,Tlemcen, Tiaret, Bejaïa, Tunis, Kairouan and Mahdiya. Unfortunately, we know very little about thesedogged survivors.The churches which disappeared earliest appear to have been those of the east –Alexandria, and then Carthage, Hippo, Sitifis– ironically the localities where the Christian community had been strongest, but also the places longest subjected to the sticks and the carrots of Islam. Paradoxically, the Christians survived best where they had been weakest – in Morocco...A Christian community had existed at Volubilis since Roman times. It had been little affected by the Vandals or Byzantines: their influence never extended much beyond their outposts at Tangier and Ceuta. By the seventh century, Volubilis and the surrounding area were administered by a council of ostensibly Christian leaders with Latin names. Other Christians, fleeing the Muslim advance, reached Volubilis from east and west, seeking refuge in the Christian stronghold; among their number were the remnant of Kosaila’s Awreba tribe. Inscriptions with Latin names and titles have been found there, dated AD 655, that is eight years after Oqba’s march to the Atlantic. An eighth century manuscript mentions a Christian Overseer at Tangier, and by AD 833 the church in Ceuta still had an Overseer. In AD 986, the Andalusian geographer el-Bekri found a Christian community with a meeting hall at Tlemcen, Algeria. Brief Latin inscriptions are found from the end of the tenth century in En-Ngila, Libya, and as late as the mid-eleventh century in Kairouan. Letters were still being written to Christian leaders in North Africa in the latter half of the eleventh century, and the fact that these letters were in Latin testify to the continuing survival of that language. We hear of an Overseer in Gummi (Mahdiya), Tunisia, in AD 1053, and a good sized Christian community at Ouargla throughout the tenth to thirteenth centuries. But the traces of Christianity become sparser as the centuries progress. By the mid-eleventh century, there were no more than five Overseers known in North Africa, and twenty years later, only two. A new Overseer was chosen at Hippo in AD 1074, but he was sent by the Muslim governor to Rome for the ceremony of appointment because the stipulated three Overseers could not be found in Africa...In AD 1114 there was still an Overseer in Bejaïa (Algeria)... Robin Daniel

A Christian community is recorded around 1114 AD in Qal'a in central Algeria. From the same years there are Christian tombs near Tripoli and in the Gebel Nafusa in Libya. There is also evidence of religious pilgrimages after 850 AD and until the eleventh century to tombs of Christian saints outside of the city of Carthage, and evidence of religious contacts with Christians of Muslim Spain. In addition, calendar reforms adopted in Europe at this time were disseminated amongst the indigenous Christians of Tunis, which would have not been possible had there been an absence of contact with Rome.

Christian Berber Malika Oufkir signs her book, "Freedom: The Story of My Second Life", at the 2006 Texas Book Festival

In 1135-1155 AD there was the existence of the Norman kingdom of Africa in coastal Tunisia and Christian Berbers in this Roger II's kingdom for a few decades were protected: the local Christian community, until then largely servile and enslaved, benefited from Roger's rule and even grew with some Italian Christians who moved there.[15] Christian Bishop Cosmas of Mahdia made a trip to Rome around 1145 AD to be confirmed by Pope Eugene III and also to Palermo to visit his new sovereign. The anonymous continuator of Sigebert of Gembloux refers to Cosmas as returning to Africa "a free man".[16] But in 1156-1160 AD the Almohads reconquered the region [17] and the small local Christian Berber community was attacked and disappeared. Anyway, some very small communities survived in southern Tunisia and western Tripolitania for another century[18]

Only the small island of Tabarka in northern Tunisia remained in Christian hands until the beginning of the Renaissance, because property of the Republic of Pisa (that was allowed by the Bey of Tunisia to do coral extraction and commerce[19]).

In the nineteenth century Christianity returned between Maghreb Berbers: the Roman Catholic Church was reintroduced in Algeria after the French conquest, when the diocese of Algiers was established in 1838 AD. But in 1685 AD, following to the revocation of the Nantes edict, some European Protestant families have already arrived in Tunis, while the Vicariate apostolic of Tunis was re-established in 1843 AD. Around 1930 AD there was in the Maghreb a relatively huge community of Christian Berbers. But after the process of decolonization their number was greatly reduced. Actually nearly 1% of the Maghreb population is Christian (mainly Protestant and Catholic) and most of them are Berbers. In areas like the Algerian Kabylie, the Christian Berbers are nearly 5% of the population.

Actually some Christian Berbers are worldwide famous, like Malika Oufkir, a Moroccan writer and former "disappeared" person. She is the daughter of General Mohamed Oufkir and a cousin of fellow Moroccan writer and actress Leila Shenna. She (jailed many years by the king of Morocco) and her siblings are converts from Islam to Catholicism. She wrote in her book, "Stolen Lives": "we had rejected Islam, which had brought us nothing good, and opted for Catholicism instead."[20]

Capsa, the last Romano-Berber city to remain Christian

Tunisia 's Gafsa was called Capsa when was part of the Roman Africa and was an important city near the Fossatum Africae. Capsa was conquered by Rome in 106 BC and was done "colonia" and "municipium" by Trajan, growing in importance as can be seen by the "Roman pools" (deep 4 meters) and mosaics recently discovered. According to historian Theodore Mommsen Capsa in the Septimius Severus decades had more than 30000 inhabitants and was one of the most important commercial centers of the Roman limes in Africa.

The Roman city was conquered by the Vandals, but soon remained independent: Capsa was the capital of a Romano-Berber kingdom in the sixth century until the Byzantine invasion.

Capsa in Roman times was near the "limes romanus" called Fossatum Africae

Indeed the Vandals dominated Capsa until the death of Genseric (477 AD), when it was occupied by the Berbers who created in the city the capital of a kingdom that was later submitted to Byzantium's Justinian I (527-565 AD). Under the Byzantines the city was the capital of their province Byzacena and enjoyed an economic revival, while general Solomon built in 540 AD a new city wall naming the city "Capsa-Justiniana".

The Arab Oqba Ibn Nafi conquered Gafsa in 688 AD, however he faced strong resistance from the Berbers.[21] After the Arab conquest Capsa started to lose importance, substituted by the Moslem founded Kairouan.

Al Yacoubi reports that this time its inhabitants were considered Romanized Berber and Al-Idrissi says they continued to speak an African Latin and part of them remained faithful to the Christian religion. - Gafsa ASM

Gafsa is considered, by historians like Camps and Laverde, the place in north Africa where, until the thirteenth century, the last speakers of the African Romance survived, and probably the Christianity was practiced for another century in the "Roman pools" of the old town (where there are evidences of baptism performed until the fourteenth century). Around the tenth century Christians moved from the coasts of Tunisia and got refuge in Gafsa and surroundings, according to Ibn Batuta.

In 1135-1155 AD existed the Kingdom of Africa and Capsa was conquered by the Christian Normans, who protected the local Christian Berbers for a few years until the Moslem Almohads reconquered the city.[22]

In the second half of the fifteenth century, the Roman humanist Paolo Pompilio reported that the territory of Gafsa was a populated land of small villages where villagers speak in an almost intact "Latinity", as in the Aures mountains.[23] Indeed Berber Christians continued to live in Tunis, Capsa and Nefzaoua in the south of Tunisia up until the end of the fifteenth century, while they did not recognize the new Catholicism from the Renaissance Roman Papacy.

This was not the case with the Berber Christians of Mauretania's Septem, who seem to have been assimilated in the Christianity of nearby Spain (and who are considered the only survivors until today of the Christian autochthonous faith in Roman Africa, even if we have no confirmed proofs of their existence from the early thirteenth century until the arrival of the Portuguese in the late fourteenth century).

In the first quarter of the fifteenth century, the native Christians of Tunis, though much assimilated, extended their church, perhaps because the last Christians from all over the Maghreb had gathered there.[24] This is the last written reference to native Christianity in North-West Africa: Tunis and Capsa seem to have been the last citadels from over fourteen hundred years of continuous Christianity in North-West Africa. With assimilation in the sea of Islam, native Christianity now died out all over the Maghreb.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Deeb, Mary Jane. "Religious minorities" Algeria (Country Study). Federal Research Division, Library of Congress; Helen Chapan Metz, ed. December 1993. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  2. ↑ Theófanes, "Chronographia".pág. 491
  3. ↑ Alain Corbin History of Christianity (St. Augustine ) Ed Seuil Paris,2007 p.120
  4. ↑ Heny Tessier: The African roots of Latin Christianity
  5. ↑ Oden, Thomas C. How Africa shaped the Christian Mind, IVP 2007.
  6. ↑ LES MARTYRS I
  7. ↑ Tertullien, De corona militis, I.
  8. ↑ Martyrs of Abitinae (in Italian)
  9. ↑ Henri Tessier. "Investigations" issue #3. Institute of Augustinian studies. Paris, 2003
  10. ↑ Christian Djeddars
  11. ↑ Gabriel Camps. "Rex gentium Maurorum et Romanorum. Recherches sur les royaumes de Maurétanie des VIe et VIIe siècles"
  12. ↑ Roman basilica article, with related Video
  13. ↑ Anne-Marie Edde, "Communautés chrétiennes en Pays d'Islam, du début de VIIe Siècle au Milieu du XIIe Sièc". p.41
  14. ↑ The Disappearance of Christianity from North Africa in the Wake of the Rise of Islam C. J. Speel, II Church History, Vol. 29, No. 4 (Dec., 1960), pp. 379-397
  15. ↑ Dalli Charles."Bridging Europe and Africa: Norman Sicily's Other Kingdom".
  16. ↑ Abulafia, David. "The Norman Kingdom of Africa and the Norman Expeditions to Majorca and the Muslim Mediterranean" p. 37
  17. ↑ Francesco Gabrieli. "Normanni e Arabi"
  18. ↑ Les dernières communautés chrétiennes autochtones d’Afrique du Nord (in french)
  19. ↑ Corallo e Tabarka (in italiano)
  20. ↑ Malika Oufkir: the American Making of a Moroccan Star
  21. ↑ History of Gafsa (in French)
  22. ↑ Capsa and the Normans p. 125
  23. ↑ Jean-Louis Charlet. A humanist testimony on African Latinity and Greek spoken by the "Choriates": Paolo Pompilio p. 243-245.
  24. ↑ Mohammed Talbi. "Le Christianisme maghrébin" p. 122

Bibliography