Mamluk Egypt: foundations that perpetuated a patron's name

The frame

The Met's timeline page for Egypt, 1000-1400 CE, marks "Mamluk sultanate, 1250-1517", and the following page, for 1400-1600, marks "Mamluk rule, 1250-1517". UNESCO's "Historic Cairo" page gives the Mamluk state the same span and distinguishes monuments of the Bahri Mamluks (1250-1382) and of the Burgi Mamluks (1382-1517). According to UNESCO, in this period Cairo's urban fabric expanded to take in earlier cities. Sources 1, 2, 3.

Boundaries and overlaps

At the start, the page for 1000-1400 describes the Mamluk sultanate emerging from the weakening of the Ayyubid kingdoms in 1250-1260, while the Ayyubid bar runs to 1252; on this site the years 1250-1252 belong to both periods. At the end, the page for 1400-1600 dates to 1516-1517 the conquest of Syria and Egypt by Ottoman armies under Selim, which brought the Mamluk sultanate to an end, and begins "Ottoman rule" in 1517. The Egypt page therefore ends in 1517, while the site's Levant page for the Middle Ages ends in 1516: each page takes a different year of the same two-year event, and there is no dispute here about the event itself. Sources 1, 2.

What the source says about patronage

The page for 1000-1400 says that Mamluk architectural patronage focused on public and pious foundations, including madrasas, mausolea, minarets and, in some cases, hospitals, and that such foundations ensured the survival of the patron's wealth and perpetuated his name, both of which were threatened by problems of inheritance and the confiscation of family fortunes. This is the source's general explanation of the phenomenon; any particular building needs evidence of its own. Source 1.

On this site

Three articles are placed in this period. "The complex of Qalawun: wealth and name in Mamluk patronage" deals with the complex of 1283-1285 and with what the general explanation can say about a single case. "The complex of Sultan Hasan: a building project begun in 1356" deals with a building for which the source gives only a start date, and which UNESCO calls a madrasa. "Qaitbay's funerary complex: a sultan's tomb and the city in his time" deals with the complex of 1472-1474 and with what the source says, and does not say, about the link between a sultan's tomb and building in the city. Sources 1, 2, 3.