Constantine The African - The Historians of Constantine

The Historians of Constantine

The twelfth century monk Peter the Deacon is the first historian to have written the biography of Constantine. He noted that Constantine was a 'Saracen', the medieval Franco-Italian term meaning a Muslim from North Africa. Later historians such as De Renzi and Daremberg, curator of the National Library in Paris, and Leclerc, author of "History of Arab Medicine", relied on Diaconus' account. The German Steinscheider wrote a book dedicated to Constantine, which was printed in Berlin in 1865. The Orientalist Karl Sudhoff made his Berber-Islamic thesis when he discovered new and important documents touching on Constantine's life and religion in the village of Trinity Della Cave, northern Italy; these documents were published in the journal Arkioun in 1922.