Introduction

This review of the duties and the organisation of the royal dīwān is almost exclusively concerned with the Arabic administration, to the exclusion of the Greek and the Latin; with al-dīwān, not ἡ δουάνα (ē douana), nor the duana. As the very existence of these Greek and Latin terms indicates, this is a wholly artificial distinction, but a review of the entire administration of Norman Sicily lies beyond the scope of this work. It would, moreover, largely retrace the steps so recently taken by Hiroshi Takayama in his study of the administration of the Norman kingdom; and would do so without a significant corpus of new evidence yet being available. Although he and I may not always agree upon every twist and turn of that tortuous, and often still obscure path, our destination is essentially the same. Indeed, without Takayama's clear perception of the regional variations between the different provinces of the kingdom, it would have been impossible for me to focus so closely upon the Arabic administration of the island of Sicily, ignoring the mainland provinces of the duchy of Apulia, the principality of Capua, and – to a lesser extent – Calabria. Again, Takayama's vision of a flexible, omnicompetent administration, cuts the Gordian knot so tightly tied by generations of administrative and constitutional historians determined to identify a rigid organisational structure that might be compared to the English exchequer. It also makes room for a study such as this, which concentrates upon only one part of the loose and changeable whole.