Download or read book The Indies and the Medieval West written by Marianne O'Doherty and published by Brepols Publishers. This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2014 ESSE Book award (in Cat B. Cultural Studies-Jr. Scholar) This volume offers a wide-ranging and interdisciplinary treatment of European representations of the Indies between the twelfth and the fifteenth centuries. Drawing on encyclopedias, cosmographies and cartography, romance, hagiography, and legend, it traces the influence of classical, late antique, and early medieval ideas on the later medieval geographical imagination, including the imagined and experienced Indies of European travellers. Addressing the evidence of Latin and vernacular manuscripts, the book explores readers' encounters with the most widely read travellers' accounts, in particular, those of Marco Polo, Odorico da Pordenone, and Niccolo Conti. Chapters on The Book of Sir John Mandeville, medieval Europe's most idiosyncratic yet popular work of geography, alongside world maps produced across Europe, point to the ways in which representations of the Indies were inflected by temporal concerns, specifically, their relationship to Latin Christendom's past, present, and future. The Indies relates the texts, documents, maps, and manuscripts it discusses closely to the changing ideological concerns of their times, notably those of mission and conversion, crusade, conquest, and economics. Nonetheless, the relationships that the work delineates between spatial representations and notions of dominance, whether religious, political, economic, or epistemic, have implications for the post-medieval world.
Download or read book Matters of Engagement written by Daniela Hacke and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-11-05 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By drawing on a broad range of disciplinary and cross-disciplinary expertise, this study addresses the history of emotions in relation to cross-cultural movement, exchange, contact, and changing connections in the later medieval and early modern periods. All essays in this volume focus on the performance and negotiation of identity in situations of cultural contact, with particular emphasis on emotional practices. They cover a wide range of thematic and disciplinary areas and are organized around the primary sources on which they are based. The edited volume brings together two major areas in contemporary humanities: the study of how emotions were understood, expressed, and performed in shaping premodern transcultural relations, and the study of premodern cultural movements, contacts, exchanges, and understandings as emotionally charged encounters. In discussing these hitherto separated historiographies together, this study sheds new light on the role of emotions within Europe and amongst non-Europeans and Europeans between 1100 and 1800. The discussion of emotions in a wide range of sources including letters, images, material culture, travel writing, and literary accounts makes Matters of Engagement an invaluable source for both scholars and students concerned with the history of premodern emotions.
Download or read book The Prester John Legend between East and West During the Crusades written by Ahmed M. A. Sheir and published by Trivent Publishing. This book was released on 2022-06-22 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book considers the history of the Prester John legend and its impact on the Crusades, investigating its entangled mythical history between East and West during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The present study thus responds to the still pressing need for a comprehensive historical investigation of the twelfth and thirteenth crusading history of the legend and its impact on the Muslim-Crusader encounters, examining various Latin, Arabic, Syriac, and Coptic accounts. It further reflects on new eastern aspects of the legend, presenting a new Arab scholarly view. This book first charts a pre-history of the legend in the late ancient Christian prophecy of the Last Emperor down to the emergence of the legend in the mid-twelfth century. Second, the work presents a historical discussion of the legend and its association with actual occurrences in the Far East and the Levant, analysing the legend history under the crusading crisis and the imperial papal schism in Europe. Meanwhile, the work considers the vague Prester John Letter addressed to Manuel I Komnenus, Byzantine Emperor, and its elaborate conception of a mythical eastern kingdom, revealing imaginative parallels on the wondrous East and legendary Eastern Christian kings in Arabic Muslim and Christian accounts of the Muslim geographer and cartographer al-Idrisi, the Coptic Abu al-Makarim and the Syriac Ibn al-'Ibri (Bar Hebraeus), among others. Moreover, the book examines how the legend impacted war and peace processes between the Ayyubids and the Crusaders during the Fifth Crusade against Egypt (1217-1221), revealing how it was mingled with Arabic and Eastern Christian prophecies at the time. The study concludes by investigating the perception of Prester John by the papal and European envoys to the Mongols in the thirteenth century, revealing how the legend was instrumentalised (and even weaponised) to establish a Latin-Mongol crusade through a parallel exploration of relevant Latin, Arabic and Syriac sources.
Download or read book The East and West in Late Medieval Travel Writings written by Na Chang and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2024-10-07 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book traces the history of encounter between Eastern and Western cultures by closely examining a body of medieval travel writings penned or related by Europeans and by inhabitants of East Asia. Whilst these texts are usually considered in the context of kindred European or Chinese literature, this study will make a case for considering them as a common literature of medieval encounters with foreign people. For the modern historian writing in a world that so consciously thinks of itself as ‘global’, these accounts offer a precious lens through which to enter into the world before globalization. In particular, the book shows that these narratives show the similarity in how Eastern and Western travellers thought and behaved in the face of difference, and will show that individuals often held somewhat different views, shaped by their particular experience or agendas, than those of their government or of local cultural convention.
Download or read book The Martyrdom of the Franciscans written by Christopher MacEvitt and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2020-03-06 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of three hundred years of medieval Franciscan history that focuses on martyrdom While hagiographies tell of Christian martyrs who have died in an astonishing number of ways and places, slain by members of many different groups, martyrdom in a Franciscan context generally meant death at Muslim hands; indeed, in Franciscan discourse, "death by Saracen" came to rival or even surpass other definitions of what made a martyr. The centrality of Islam to Franciscan conceptions of martyrdom becomes even more apparent—and problematic—when we realize that many of the martyr narratives were largely invented. Franciscan authors were free to choose the antagonist they wanted, Christopher MacEvitt observes, and they almost always chose Muslims. However, martyrdom in Franciscan accounts rarely leads to conversion of the infidel, nor is it accompanied, as is so often the case in earlier hagiographical accounts, by any miraculous manifestation. If the importance of preaching to infidels was written into the official Franciscan Rule of Order, the Order did not demonstrate much interest in conversion, and the primary efforts of friars in Muslim lands were devoted to preaching not to the native populations but to the Latin Christians—mercenaries, merchants, and captives—living there. Franciscan attitudes toward conversion and martyrdom changed dramatically in the beginning of the fourteenth century, however, when accounts of the martyrdom of four Franciscans said to have died while preaching in India were written. The speed with which the accounts of their martyrdom spread had less to do with the world beyond Christendom than with ecclesiastical affairs within, MacEvitt contends. The Martyrdom of the Franciscans shows how, for Franciscans, martyrdom accounts could at once offer veiled critique of papal policies toward the Order, a substitute for the rigorous pursuit of poverty, and a symbolic way to overcome Islam by denying Muslims the solace of conversion.
Download or read book Medieval Ethnographies written by Joan-Pau Rubies and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-05-15 with total page 453 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the twelfth century, a growing sense of cultural confidence in the Latin West (at the same time that the central lands of Islam suffered from numerous waves of conquest and devastation) was accompanied by the increasing importance of the genre of empirical ethnographies. From a a global perspective what is most distinctive of Europe is the genre's long-term impact rather than its mere empirical potential, or its ethnocentrism (all of which can also be found in China and in Islamic cultures). Hence what needs emphasizing is the multiplication of original writings over time, their increased circulation, and their authoritative status as a 'scientific' discourse. The empirical bent was more characteristic of travel accounts than of theological disputations - in fact, the less elaborate the theological discourse, the stronger the ethnographic impulse (although many travel writers were clerics). This anthology of classic articles in the history of medieval ethnographies illustrates this theme with reference to the contexts and genres of travel writing, the transformation of enduring myths (ranging from oriental marvels to the virtuous ascetics of India or Prester John), the practical expression of particular encounters from the Mongols to the Atlantic, and the various attempts to explain cultural differences, either through the concept of barbarism, or through geography and climate.
Download or read book Wonder and Skepticism in the Middle Ages written by Keagan Brewer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-01-29 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wonder and Skepticism in the Middle Ages explores the response by medieval society to tales of marvels and the supernatural, which ranged from firm belief to outright rejection, and asks why the believers believed, and why the skeptical disbelieved. Despite living in a world whose structures more often than not supported belief, there were still a great many who disbelieved, most notably scholastic philosophers who began a polemical programme against belief in marvels. Keagan Brewer reevaluates the Middle Ages’ reputation as an era of credulity by considering the evidence for incidences of marvels, miracles and the supernatural and demonstrating the reasons people did and did not believe in such things. Using an array of contemporary sources, he shows that medieval responders sought evidence in the commonality of a report, similarity of one event to another, theological explanations and from people with status to show that those who believed in marvels and miracles did so only because the wonders had passed evidentiary testing. In particular, he examines both emotional and rational reactions to wondrous phenomena, and why some were readily accepted and others rejected. This book is an important contribution to the history of emotions and belief in the Middle Ages.
Download or read book The Mongol World written by Timothy May and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-05-25 with total page 1332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing upon research carried out in several different languages and across a variety of disciplines, The Mongol World documents how Mongol rule shaped the trajectory of Eurasian history from Central Europe to the Korean Peninsula, from the thirteenth century to the fifteenth century. Contributing authors consider how intercontinental environmental, economic, and intellectual trends affected the Empire as a whole and, where appropriate, situate regional political, social, and religious shifts within the context of the broader Mongol Empire. Issues pertaining to the Mongols and their role within the societies that they conquered therefore take precedence over the historical narrative of the societies that they conquered. Alongside the formation, conquests, administration, and political structure of the Mongol Empire, the second section examines archaeology and art history, family and royal households, science and exploration, and religion, which provides greater insight into the social history of the Empire -- an aspect often neglected by traditional dynastic and political histories. With 58 chapters written by both senior and early-career scholars, the volume is an essential resource for all students and scholars who study the Mongol Empire from its origins to its disintegration and legacy.
Download or read book Cartography between Christian Europe and the Arabic Islamic World 1100 1500 written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-06-17 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cartography between Christian Europe and the Arabic-Islamic World offers a timely assessment of interaction between medieval Christian European and Arabic-Islamic geographical thought, making the case for significant but limited cultural transfer across a range of map genres.
Download or read book Medieval Record written by Alfred J. Andrea and published by Hackett Publishing. This book was released on 2020-03-01 with total page 501 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fully updated and revised, this edition of a classic medieval source collection features: Clear modern English translations, based on the best available critical editions, of more than 116 documentary sources—more than any other book of its kindThirty-four artifactual sources ranging from fine art to everyday itemsA broad topical, geographical, and chronological approach, including textual and artifactual selections that shed light on such often-overlooked cohorts as women, Jews in Christian Europe, Byzantium, and Islam, and that range in time from the second century to 1493Introductions and notes setting each source in its historical contextA detailed Student's Guide providing step-by-step instruction on how to analyze documentary and artifactual sourcesNumerous illustrations in each chapterTopical Contents and a Glossary to assist students in their research
Download or read book The Medieval Expansion of Europe written by J. R. S. Phillips and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1988-10-21 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This detailed study shows how the medieval tradition of exploration was rooted in Classical ideas of the world, and how the age of the Vikings, Marco Polo, and the crusaders paved the way for the famous voyages of the Renaissance. In the world which saw the great journeys of Marco Polo and Eric the Red it was still believed that the equator was too hot to cross, that distant lands were populated by a breed of men who shaded themselves with one large foot, and that in Asia there lived a Christian king who would help Europe defeat its enemies. Yet this was also an age of expansion for the medieval world, with trade and travel between Europe and other continents flourishing as never before. These were the centuries in which the Vikings reached North America, the crusaders established states in Palestine and Syria, merchants and missionaries travelled to the Asian dominions ofthe Mongol Great Khans, and adventurers were lured by dreams of African gold and the quest for Prester John. In this detailed survey, Dr J.R.S. Phillips draws on a large, often controversial body of evidence to show how the medieval European tradition of exploration was rooted in Classical ideas of the world, and how it in turn paved the way for the great exploratory journeys of the Renaissance. The book includes maps showing the extent of medieval Europe.
Download or read book Medieval Civilization written by Roscoe Lewis Ashley and published by . This book was released on 1916 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Amerasia written by Elizabeth Horodowich and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2023-09-05 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A connected world as imagined by early modern European artists, mapmakers, and writers, where Asia and the Americas were on a continuum America and Asia mingled in the geographical and cultural imagination of Europe for well over a century after 1492. Through an array of texts, maps, objects, and images produced between 1492 and 1700, this compelling and revelatory study immerses the reader in a vision of a world where Mexico really was India, North America was an extension of China, and South America was marked by a variety of biblical and Asian sites. It asks, further: What does it mean that the Amerasian worldview predominated at a time when Europe itself was coming into cultural self-definition? Each of the chapters focuses on a particular artifact, map, image, or book that illuminates aspects of Amerasia from specific European cultural milieus. Amerasia shows how it was possible to inhabit a world where America and Asia were connected either imaginatively when viewed from afar, or in reality when traveling through the newly encountered lands. Readers will learn why early modern maps regularly label Mexico as India, why the “Amazonas” region was named after a race of Asian female warriors, and why artifacts and manuscripts that we now identify as Indian and Chinese are entangled in European collections with what we now label Americana. Elizabeth Horodowich and Alexander Nagel pose a dynamic model of the world and of Europe’s place in it that was eclipsed by the rise of Eurocentric colonialist narratives in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. To rediscover this history is an essential part of coming to terms with the emergent polyfocal global reality of our own time.
Download or read book The Medieval Frontiers of Latin Christendom written by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-05-15 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The aim of this first volume in the series "The Expansion of Latin Europe" is to sketch the outlines of medieval expansion, illustrating some of the major topics that historians have examined in the course of demonstrating the links between medieval and modern experiences. The articles reprinted here show that European expansion began not in 1492 following Columbus's voyages but earlier as European Christian society re-arose from the ruins of the Carolingian Empire. The two phases of expansion were linked but the second period did not simply replicate the medieval experience. Medieval expansion occurred as farmers, merchants, and missionaries reduced forests to farmland and pasture, created new towns, and converted the peoples encountered along the frontiers to Christianity. Later colonizers subsequently adapted the medieval experience to suit their new frontiers in the New World.
Download or read book Geography and Religious Knowledge in the Medieval World written by Christoph Mauntel and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the medieval world, geographical knowledge was influenced by religious ideas and beliefs. Whereas this point is well analysed for the Latin-Christian world, the religious character of the Arabic-Islamic geographic tradition has not yet been scrutinised in detail. This volume addresses this desideratum and combines case studies from both traditions of geographic thinking. The contributions comprise in-depth analyses of individual geographical works as for example those of al-Idrisi or Lambert of Saint-Omer, different forms of presenting geographical knowledge such as TO-diagrams or globes as well as performative aspects of studying and meditating geographical knowledge. Focussing on texts as well as on maps, the contributions open up a comparative perspective on how religious knowledge influenced the way the world and its geography were perceived and described int the medieval world.
Download or read book The Mineral and the Visual written by Brigitte Buettner and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2022-06-29 with total page 501 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Opulent jeweled objects ranked among the most highly valued works of art in the European Middle Ages. At the same time, precious stones prompted sophisticated reflections on the power of nature and the experience of mineralized beings. Beyond a visual regime that put a premium on brilliant materiality, how can we account for the ubiquity of gems in medieval thought? In The Mineral and the Visual, art historian Brigitte Buettner examines the social roles, cultural meanings, and active agency of precious stones in secular medieval art. Exploring the layered roles played by gems in aesthetic, ideological, intellectual, and economic practices, Buettner focuses on three significant categories of art: the jeweled crown, the pictorialized lapidary, and the illustrated travel account. The global gem trade brought coveted jewels from the Indies to goldsmiths’ workshops in Paris, fashionable bodies in London, and the crowns of kings across Europe, and Buettner shows that Europe’s literal and metaphorical enrichment was predicated on the importation of gems and ideas from Byzantium, the Islamic world, Persia, and India. Original, transhistorical, and cross-disciplinary, The Mineral and the Visual engages important methodological questions about the work of culture in its material dimension. It will be especially useful to scholars and students interested in medieval art history, material culture, and medieval history.
Download or read book Framing the World written by Margaret Small and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2020 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A timely examination of the ways in which sixteenth-century understandings of the world were framed by classical theory.
