Mansur Boase gives seminar on Anselm Turmeda at QMUL

Yesterday, Mansur Boase (Queens’ College, Cambridge) delivered a seminar entitled “The Early Story of Fra Anselm Turmeda: A 14th century Franciscan from Mallorca who converted to Islam and wrote in three languages” at Queen Mary University of London.

The seminar was based on the work of his late father, Roger Boase, an honorary senior fellow at Queen Mary. After providing historical and biographical context on Turmeda’s life and origins, Mansur Boase offered a more detailed analysis of the Franciscan’s literary contributions in Catalan, Arabic, and Latin. A speaker of Hebrew as well, Turmeda referred to himself with the epithet O de les tres lletres mestre or “master of the three written languages”. This fascinating seminar concluded with a Q&A session, during which attendees had the opportunity to discuss Turmeda’s multilingual and multicultural legacy in greater depth.