Lives of Frankish princes from al-afadī’s biographical dictionary, al-wafī bil-wafayat

This article endeavours to bring to the English reader unpublished historical sources about Frankish figuers in the fourteenth century biographical dictionary al-wafī bil-wafayat. This work, one of the largest biographical dictionaries in the history of the genre in Arabic, was written by Khalīl b. Aibak ala al-Dīn, al-afadī who was born in 1297 to a Mamluk father and a respected amir of the Mamluk military troops in afad. This article analyse nine biographies of Frankish historical figures and endeavours to answer the question: how original were al-afadī’s biographies on Frankish princes?