ABSTRACT
In 1087 a sea-borne force comprising mainly Pisans and Genoese, but augmented by men from Rome and Amalfi, attacked and plundered the Moslem town of Mahdia and its suburb Zawila. Mahdia is situated on the North African coast, between Sousse and Sfax, in what is Tunisia. A wide variety of further sources, both Christian and Moslem, refer to the Mahdia campaign. So far as the Latin sources are concerned, they may be listed according to their provenance. The earliest record at Pisa comes in the Chronicon Pisanum. It gave a brief notice which may itself depend on the Carmen, for it added only local detail regarding the church of St Sixtus. Historians usually give 1087 as the date of the Mahdia campaign. The month of the attack on the Moslem cities is settled by the testimony of the Carmen that Zawila was won on the feast-day of the Pisan patron St Sixtus.
