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Medieval Lives 4: Chen Cheng, his Travels, and his Troubles at Work

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Detail from a 15th-century illustrated telling of a Nizami story, commissioned in Herat. (Met Museum)

A standalone episode on medieval diplomacy, on the travels, career, and narrative of a 14th and 15th century Ming Dynasty diplomat and administrator, and on the history around him. Chen Cheng would suffer professional setbacks outside of his control, as the the Jianwen Emperor would be replaced by the Yongle Emperor, and he would make the overland journey from China to see Shah Rukh, the son of Timur (Tamerlane), in Timurid Herat.

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

Sources:

  • Hecker, Felicia J. “A Fifteenth-Century Chinese Diplomat in Herat.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 3, no. 1 (1993): 85–98.

  • Rossabi, Morris. “Two Ming Envoys to Inner Asia.” T’oung Pao 62, no. 1/3 (1976): 1–34.

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Ghiyath al-Din Naqqash 2: AM Feasting & Other Diplomatic Concerns

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17th-century painting by anonymous artist - (Wikimedia)

A story of medieval travel and diplomacy, the 15th-century story of Ghiyath al-Din and the other Timurid envoys, and their visit to Yongle's Beijing on behalf of Timur's son Shah Rukh.

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

Sources:

  • "Report to Mirza Baysunghur on the Timurid Legation to the Ming Court at Peking," in A Century of Princes: Sources on Timurid History and Art, selected and translated by W. M. Thackston. Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture, 1989.

  • Ford, Graeme. "The Uses of Persian in Imperial China: The Translation Practices of the Great Ming," in The Persianate World, edited by Nile Green. University of California Press, 2019.

  • Hecker, Felicia J. “A Fifteenth-Century Chinese Diplomat in Herat,” in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 3, no. 1 (1993): 85–98.

  • Lipman, Jonathan N. Familiar Strangers: A History of Muslims in Northwest China. University of Washington Press, 2011.

  • Park, Hyunhee. Mapping the Chinese and Islamic Worlds: Cross-Cultural Exchange in Pre-Modern Asia. Cambridge University Press, 2012.

  • Rossabi, Morris. A History of China. Wiley, 2013.

  • Rossabi, Morris. "Two Ming Envoys to Inner Asia," in T’oung Pao 62, no. 1/3 (1976): 1–34.

  • Tsai, Shih-shan Henry. Perpetual Happiness. University of Washington Press, 2011.

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Ghiyath al-Din Naqqash 1: A Timurid Painter in Ming China

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The Yongle Emperor

In the early 15th century, Shah Rukh, the son of Timur, sent an embassy east to the target of his father's last military campaign, Ming China. Making that journey from Timurid Herat to the home of the Yongle Emperor (with stops along the way at Samarkand, Tashkent, Hami, Ganzhou, and finally Khanbaliq) was a chronicler and painter named Ghiyāth al-Dīn. His story is one of medieval diplomacy and travel.

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

Sources:

  • "Report to Mirza Baysunghur on the Timurid Legation to the Ming Court at Peking," in A Century of Princes: Sources on Timurid History and Art, selected and translated by W. M. Thackston. Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture, 1989.

  • Ford, Graeme. "The Uses of Persian in Imperial China: The Translation Practices of the Great Ming," in The Persianate World, edited by Nile Green. University of California Press, 2019.

  • Lipman, Jonathan N. Familiar Strangers A History of Muslims in Northwest China. University of Washington Press, 2011.

  • Park, Hyunhee. Mapping the Chinese and Islamic Worlds: Cross-Cultural Exchange in Pre-Modern Asia. Cambridge University Press, 2012.

  • Rossabi, Morris. A History of China. Wiley, 2013.

  • Rossabi, Morris. "Two Ming Envoys to Inner Asia," in T’oung Pao 62, no. 1/3 (1976): 1–34.

  • Tsai, Shih-shan Henry. Perpetual Happiness. University of Washington Press, 2011.

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Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi 5: The Year 598

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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.

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Abd al-Latif Baghdadi 4: Consuming the Present

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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.

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Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi 3: Harvesting the Past

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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.

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Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi 2: On Egyptian Flora and Fauna

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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.

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Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi 1: Scholars, Sultans & Money

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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.

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Medieval Lives 3: An Anonymous Journey to Mecca

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A 17th-century depiction of Mecca currently held by the Louvre. (Wikimedia)

Today's episode centres on an anonymous 16th-century account of the Hajj that first appeared in English in a 1599 Hakluyt publication.

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

Sources:

  • Hakluyt, Richard. The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques & Discoveries of the English Nation. James MacLehose and Sons, 1904.

  • One Thousand Roads to Mecca: Ten Centuries of Travelers Writing about the Muslim Pilgrimage, edited by Michael Wolfe. Grove Atlantic, 2015.

  • The Hajj: Pilgrimage in Islam. edited by Eric Tagliacozzo & Shawkat M. Toorawa. Cambridge University Press, 2016.

  • Peters, F.E. The Hajj: The Muslim Pilgrimage to Mecca and the Holy Places. Princeton University Press, 2021.

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Prester John 10: The End is not the End

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Prester John before a crucifix in an early 15th-century book of Mandeville’s Travels.

It's the end of the Prester John story, or at least the end for now. The priest-king pops up in Tibet and dives into the world of fiction and comics, and the Dalai Lama makes an appearance.

The History of Sport podcast which I mention can be found here and on all the other usual podcast platforms.

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.

  • Ames, Richard. The Jacobite Conventicle. R. Stafford, 1692.

  • Rachewiltz, Igor de. Prester John and Europe's Discovery of East Asia. Australian National University Press, 1972.

  • Salvadore, Matteo. The African Prester John and the Birth of Ethiopian-European Relations, 1402-1555. Taylor & Francis, 2016.

  • Shakespeare, William. Much Ado about Nothing. Penguin, 2005.