Born in the 13th century, Pietro d'Abano was referred to variously as “the Great Lombard,” “the Conciliator,” and, in at least one case, a “great necromancer.” This scholar and physician faced variously troubles relating to heresy or sorcery, and stories swirl around him of calling on demons or magically making spent coins return to his purse.
Medieval Lives 7: Long Distance Relationships
Detail from Piri Ries’ 16th-century map of Cairo - (Wikimedia)
With all the medieval travel featured on the podcast—the trips across the Mediterranean, the Asian Steppe, and the Indian Ocean—of course we focus on the travellers themselves, the people actually making those trips, but whether they were merchants, envoys, or otherwise, they often left people behind, family that they were separated from for years at a time.
This episode is about those separations, the difficulties they caused, and what people did (or did not do) about them. We start with a letter from a merchant in Palermo, Sicily, move to one from an India trader in Aden, and finish with a pair of Rabbinic responses regarding a married couple in Egypt.
If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.
3 Things:
Article by Heather Dalton on the travels of a cockatoo to 13th-century Sicily.
Blog post about the correspondence of a "happy family" in 2nd-century Egypt.
Sources:
Goitein, S.D. Letters of Medieval Jewish Traders. Princeton University Press, 1973.
Hofmeester, Karin. “Jewish Ethics and Women’s Work in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Arab-Islamic World.” International Review of Social History 56 (2011): 141–64.
Melammed, Reneé Levine. “He Said, She Said: A Woman Teacher in Twelfth-Century Cairo.” AJS Review 22, no. 1 (1997): 19–35.
Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi 5: The Year 598
Earthquake, and hiding kings, in Revelation, 14th century - (British Library)
Another year of drought, another of famine, and even more disasters pile on for the early-13th-century Egyptians. We also see Abd al-Latif make a surprising 20th-century appearance.
If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.
Sources:
Abd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī. A Physician on the Nile: A Description of Egypt and Journal of the Famine Years. NYU Press, 2021.
Barber, Malcolm. The Crusader States. Yale University Press, 2012.
Dols, Michael Walters. The Black Death in the Middle East. Princeton University Press, 2019.
Ellis, Richard. Imagining Atlantis. Knopf, 2012.
Modern, John. Neuromatic: Or, A Particular History of Religion and the Brain. University of Chicago Press, 2021.
Abd al-Latif Baghdadi 4: Consuming the Present
Image from the Luzerner Schilling, a 16th-century manuscript (Wikimedia)
What happens when the river fails to rise? In 597 (1200), Abd al-Latif found famine, crime, and cannibalism.
If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.
Sources:
Abd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī. A Physician on the Nile: A Description of Egypt and Journal of the Famine Years. NYU Press, 2021.
Lev, Yaacov. Administration of Justice in Medieval Egypt: From the 7th to the 12th Century. Edinburgh University Press, 2020.
Lewicka, Paulina B. Food and Foodways of Medieval Cairenes: Aspects of Life in an Islamic Metropolis of the Eastern Mediterranean. Brill, 2011.
Traveling Through Egypt: From 450 B.C. to the Twentieth Century, edited by Deborah Manley & Sahar Abdel-Hakim. American University in Cairo Press, 2008.
Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi 3: Harvesting the Past
The Sphinx, as it appears in Frederic Louis Norden's 1755 Voyage d'Égypte et de Nubie (Wikimedia)
Like many people ever since, and even now, Abd al-Latif was fascinated by Egypt's ancient sites and structures, the pyramids and the Sphinx. He was fascinated, but also disgusted with how their stones and contents had been treated as his contemporaries looked to them less with wonder, more with greed.
If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.
Sources:
Abd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī. A Physician on the Nile: A Description of Egypt and Journal of the Famine Years. NYU Press, 2021.
Bonadeo, Cecilia Martini. ʿAbd Al-Laṭīf Al-Baġdādī’s Philosophical Journey From Aristotle’s Metaphysics to the ‘Metaphysical Science’. Brill, 2013.
Ibn Abi Usaybi'a. A Literary History of Medicine. Edited by E. Savage-Smith, S. Swain, and G.J. van Gelder. Leiden, 2020.
Joosse, Peter. The Physician as a Rebellious Intellectual. Peter Lang, 2014.
Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi 2: On Egyptian Flora and Fauna
Miniature from a copy of Kitab al-hashaish, an Arabic translation of Dioscorides’s De Materia Medica. (The David Collection)
We continue the Abd al-Latif series and dig into his observations on Egypt, its plants and animals, the hybrid banana and the terrifying sea horse.
If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.
Sources:
Abd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī. A Physician on the Nile: A Description of Egypt and Journal of the Famine Years. NYU Press, 2021.
Bonadeo, Cecilia Martini. ʿAbd Al-Laṭīf Al-Baġdādī’s Philosophical Journey From Aristotle’s Metaphysics to the ‘Metaphysical Science’. Brill, 2013.
Ibn Abi Usaybi'a. A Literary History of Medicine. Edited by E. Savage-Smith, S. Swain, and G.J. van Gelder. Leiden, 2020.
Joosse, Peter. The Physician as a Rebellious Intellectual. Peter Lang, 2014.
Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi 1: Scholars, Sultans & Money
Born in the 12th century, Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi travelled the Ayyubid world in search of students, mentors, and patrons. His curiosity stands out, and does his impatience with scholars who, as he saw it, wasted their time with alchemy or other unimportant topics.
If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.
Sources:
ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī. A Physician on the Nile: A Description of Egypt and Journal of the Famine Years. NYU Press, 2021.
Bonadeo, Cecilia Martini. ʿAbd Al-Laṭīf Al-Baġdādī’s Philosophical Journey From Aristotle’s Metaphysics to the ‘Metaphysical Science’. Brill, 2013.
Ibn Abi Usaybi'a. A Literary History of Medicine. Edited by E. Savage-Smith, S. Swain, and G.J. van Gelder. Leiden, 2020.
Prester John 5: The Mongol Priest-King
Ong Khan, sometimes identified as Prester John, in Marco Polo’s Le Livre des Merveilles - Wikimedia
The Mongols, their conquests, and the travellers who went to see them were all going to necessitate some changes to the Prester John narrative. This episode is all about those changes.
If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.
Sources:
Prester John: The Legend and its Sources, compiled and translated by Keagan Brewer. Taylor & Francis, 2019.
Sir John Mandeville: The Book of Marvels and Travels, translated by Anthony Bale. Oxford University Press, 2012.
Aigle, Denise. The Mongol Empire Between Myth and Reality. Brill, 2014.
Jackson, Peter. The Mongols and the West:1221-1410. Routledge, 2018.
Rachewiltz, Igor de. Prester John and Europe's Discovery of East Asia. Australian National University Press, 1972.
Prester John 4: Waiting for David
King David (though not the one in this episode) in the Westminster Psalter
After their success at Damietta, the participants in the Fifth Crusade decide what to do next, and they wait for a certain someone...
If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.
Sources:
Prester John: The Legend and its Sources, compiled and translated by Keagan Brewer. Taylor & Francis, 2019.
Crusade and Christendom: Annotated Documents in Translation from Innocent III to the Fall of Acre, 1187-1291. Edited by Jessalynn Bird, et al. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013.
The Fifth Crusade in Context: The Crusading Movement in the Early Thirteenth Century. Edited by E.J. Mylod, et al. Routledge, 2016.
Brownworth, Lars. In Distant Lands: A Short History of the Crusades. Crux Publishing Ltd, 2017.
Cassidy-Welch, Megan. War and Memory at the Time of the Fifth Crusade. Penn State University Press, 2019.
Madden, Thomas F. The New Concise History of the Crusades. Rowman & Littlefield, 2005.
Powell, James M. Anatomy of a Crusade, 1213-1221. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986.
Powell, James M. Innocent III: Vicar of Christ Or Lord of the World? Catholic University of America Press, 1994.
Prester John 3: The Fifth Crusade
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Attack on tower near Damietta by members of the Fifth Crusade - From the Chronica Majora of Matthew Paris
The crusaders make their way first to Acre and then to Damietta. Perhaps someone would be along to help them soon?
If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.
Sources:
Prester John: The Legend and its Sources, compiled and translated by Keagan Brewer. Taylor & Francis, 2019.
Crusade and Christendom: Annotated Documents in Translation from Innocent III to the Fall of Acre, 1187-1291. Edited by Jessalynn Bird, et al. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013.
The Fifth Crusade in Context: The Crusading Movement in the Early Thirteenth Century. Edited by E.J. Mylod, et al. Routledge, 2016.
Brownworth, Lars. In Distant Lands: A Short History of the Crusades. Crux Publishing Ltd, 2017.
Cassidy-Welch, Megan. War and Memory at the Time of the Fifth Crusade. Penn State University Press, 2019.
Madden, Thomas F. The New Concise History of the Crusades. Rowman & Littlefield, 2005.
Powell, James M. Anatomy of a Crusade, 1213-1221. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986.
Powell, James M. Innocent III: Vicar of Christ Or Lord of the World? Catholic University of America Press, 1994.