Medieval History

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

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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.

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Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi 4: Consuming the Present

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What happens when the river fails to rise? In 597 (1200), Abd al-Latif found famine, crime, and cannibalism.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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Prester John 3: The Fifth Crusade

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The crusaders make their way first to Acre and then to Damietta. Perhaps someone would be along to help them soon?

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Prester John 2.5: Papal Correspondence

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

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Prester John 2: Where From and What For

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

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Prester John 1: The Letter

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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."

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Abd-al-Razzaq Samarqandi 2: City of Victory

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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.

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Medieval Lives 1: al-Ghazāl

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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.

Ibn Fadlan 1: From Baghdad with Very Cold Beards

Ahmad ibn Fadlan travels from early 10th century Baghdad on a diplomatic mission to the Volga Bulgars. There is a Viking funeral in his future, along with unfamiliar cultures and extremely cold weather. It's not The 13th Warrior, which it loosely inspired, but it is a good story.

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Salah ad-Din 4: The Beginning of the End

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This is the end of my Salah ad-Din series, part one. As I mention in the episode, I was aiming to wrap things up here, even aiming to do so with an extra-long episode, but there's just too much left to do that. So, this is the end, part one. In this episode, we follow the Salah ad-Din story after the Battle of Hattin and up to the arrival of King Richard the Lionheart at Acre.

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Salah ad-Din 2: A Syrian Election

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The story of Salah ad-Din's expansion from Egypt back into Syria, his brushes with Rashid ad-Din Sinan's Assassins, his constant lobbying of the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad, his struggles with the Zengid remnants and with a cast of enemies among the crusader states including Baldwin the Leper, Reynold de Chatillon, Raymond of Tripoli, and King Amalric of Jerusalem.

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The Sons of Maimon 2: What is Done is Gone

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Moses and David ben Maimon make their home in Fatimid - soon to be Ayyubid - Egypt, where the Nile and caravan routes linked the Mediterranean ports to the Red Sea and the crossing to the coast of India, a crossing David would attempt to make.

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The Sons of Maimon 1: Exile

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This is my first episode on Maimonides/Moses and his little brother David, on their exile from their homeland in Al-Andalus, and on their winding way to Egypt, which would be their long-term home.

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Rabban Bar Sauma 4: Ilkhanid End Times

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The conclusion of the Rabban Bar Sauma series. It's Bar Sauma's return to the Ilkhanate and the results of his journey. It's the end of the line for him and his friend the catholicus, and it's the changes that were going on in the Ilkhanate and how they affected the Church of the East and our main characters.