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.

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Prester John 3: The Fifth Crusade

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.

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Prester John 2.5: Papal Correspondence

Pope Alexander III and the Ambassador - Spinello Aretino

A shorter episode, on a letter from Pope Alexander III to Prester John.

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.

• Pope Alexander III (1159–81): The Art of Survival. Taylor & Francis, 2016.

• Rachewiltz, Igor de. Papal Envoys to the Great Khans. Stanford University Press, 1971.

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Prester John 2: Where From and What For

Prester John comfortably enthroned in East Africa - Detail from the Queen Mary Atlas, MS 5415 A British Library

On the many fantastic additions to the Letter of Prester John (Dragons! Strange Bakeries! Etc!), and on the theories around it.

Sources:

• Prester John: The Legend and its Sources, compiled and translated by Keagan Brewer. Taylor & Francis, 2019.

• Nowell, Charles E. "The Historical Prester John." Speculum 28, no. 3 (1953).

• Romm, James S. The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought Geography, Exploration, and Fiction. Princeton University Press, 2019.

• Wang, I-Chun. "Alexander the Great, Prester John, Strabo of Amasia, and Wonders of the East." CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 14.5 (2012).

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Prester John 1: The Letter

From "Le Livre des Merveilles", 15th century. From the Gallica Digital Library. (Wikimedia)

The legend in its early forms: the arrival in Rome of a patriarch from the east, the chronicles of Otto of Freising, and that famous "letter."

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

Sources:

• Otto of Freising, Chronicon, ed. G.H. Pertz, MGH SSRG (Hanover: Hahn, 1867), VII, 33, (pp. 334-35), translated by James Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary History, (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1962). Accessed at Fordham University Internet Medieval Sourcebook.

• Prester John: The Legend and its Sources, compiled and translated by Keagan Brewer. Taylor & Francis, 2019.

• Baring-Gould, Sabine. Curious Myths of the Middle Ages. Roberts Brothers, 1867.

• Heng, Geraldine. The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages. Cambridge University Press, 2018.

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Medieval Lives 2: Ramon Llull

Detail from The Life of Ramon Llull - Wikimedia

Ramon Llull sat down one night to write a love song, but instead he experienced a religious vision that would totally change the direction of his life.

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

Sources:

• Doctor Illuminatus: A Ramon Llull Reader, edited by Anthony Bonner. Princeton University Press, 1993.

• Other Middle Ages: Witnesses at the Margins of Medieval Society, edited by Michael Goodich. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998.

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Abd-al-Razzāq Samarqandī 3: To Home, to Herat

1550 map of the Arabian Sea and surrounding lands - Wikimedia

The Timurid ambassador's time in India comes to an end, and he heads for home.

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

Sources:

• India in the Fifteenth Century: Being a Collection of Narratives of Voyages to India. Edited by Richard Henry Major. Hakluyt Society, 1857.

• Alam, Muzaffar and Subrahmanyam, Sanjay. Indo-Persian Travels in the Age of Discoveries, 1400–1800. Cambridge University Press, 2007.

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Abd-al-Razzaq Samarqandi 2: City of Victory

Chariot and Temple at Hampi - Wikimedia

Shah Rukh's ambassador to the Indian city of Qaliqut arrives at the heart of the Vijayanagara Empire, finding much to admire but also war, a usurper, and uncertainties about his own status. We visit Hampi, the centre of that late-medieval power, and we talk about elephants.

Sources:

• India in the Fifteenth Century: Being a Collection of Narratives of Voyages to India. Edited by Richard Henry Major. Hakluyt Society, 1857.

• Alam, Muzaffar and Subrahmanyam, Sanjay. Indo-Persian Travels in the Age of Discoveries, 1400–1800. Cambridge University Press, 2007.

• Caine, William Sproston. Picturesque India: A Handbook for European Travellers. G. Routledge, 1891.

• Prange, Sebastian R. Monsoon Islam: Trade and Faith on the Medieval Malabar Coast. Cambridge University Press, 2018.

• Ray, Aniruddha. "The Rise and Fall of Vijayanagar – an Alternative Hypothesis to "Hindu Nationalism" Thesis," in Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, Vol. 64, 2003.

• Sewell, Robert. A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar. Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1900.

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Abd-al-Razzaq Samarqandi 1: The Unwilling Envoy

Qāliqūṭ / Calicut as depicted in Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg’s atlas Civitates orbis terrarum, 1572

It's 1442, and Shah Rukh, the son of Timur, is sending an ambassador to Qaliqut / Kozhikode on the Indian coast. That ambassador, Abd-al-Razzāq, sails from Hormuz and experiences delays, sickness, death, and disappointment. Making matters worse, he never actually wanted to go.

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

Sources:

• India in the Fifteenth Century: Being a Collection of Narratives of Voyages to India. Edited by Richard Henry Major. Hakluyt Society, 1857.

• Alam, Muzaffar and Subrahmanyam, Sanjay. Indo-Persian Travels in the Age of Discoveries, 1400–1800. Cambridge University Press, 2007.

• Prange, Sebastian R. Monsoon Islam: Trade and Faith on the Medieval Malabar Coast. Cambridge University Press, 2018.

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Medieval Lives 1: al-Ghazāl

Abd al-Rahman III Receiving the Ambassador at the Court of Cordoba, Dionisio Baixeras Verdaguer (note that the emir in this story is Abd al-Rahman II)

This is a story about Abū Zakariyyāʾ Yaḥyā ibn Ḥakam al-Bakrī al-Jayyānī, known also as al-Ghazāl (the Gazelle). It's the story of a 9th century poet on an embassy from the Emirate of Córdoba to a Viking ruler.

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

Sources:

• Allen, W.E.D. "The Poet and the Spae-Wife: An Attempt to Reconstruct Al-Ghazal’s Embassy to the Vikings," Saga Book, Vol. 15, No. 3 (1960).

• Hermes, Nizar F. The [European] Other in Medieval Arabic Literature and Culture: Ninth-Twelfth Century AD. Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

• Pons-Sanchez, Sara M. "Whom did al-Ghazal meet? An Exchange of Embassies Between the Arabs From al-Andalus and the Vikings," Saga Book, Vol. 28 (2004).

• "A Hispano-Muslim Embassy to the Vikings in 845: An Account of al-Ghazal’s Journey to the North" at ballandalus.wordpress.com.

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