Human Circus: Journeys in the Medieval World

The first Europeans wash up on Japanese shores, bringing the musket as they do so, and Pinto would have you believe that he is with them. If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here. I'm on BlueSky @a-devon.bsky.social, Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. Sources: The Travels of Mendes Pinto, edited and translated by Rebecca D. Catz. University of Chicago Press, 1989. Cooper, Michael. The Southern Barbarians: The First Europeans in Japan. Kodansha, 1971. Lidin, Olof G. Tanegashima: The Arrival of Europe in Japan. Routledge, 2003. Perrin, Noel. Giving Up the Gun: Japan's Reversion to the Sword, 1543-1879. David R. Godine, 1979. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Pinto's story continues, and the Portuguese traveller makes his way across China as a prisoner, describing some its towns, cities, and countryside as he goes. His China, which he may not have actually visited himself, is dotted with the remnants of previous Portuguese actions, an envoy's gravestone and the remnants of failed embassies. If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. Sources: The Travels of Mendes Pinto, edited and translated by Rebecca D. Catz. University of Chicago Press, 1989. Hart, Thomas R. ?Style and Substance in the Peregrination.? Portuguese Studies 2 (1986): 49?55.  Hart, Thomas R. ?True or False: Problems of the ?Peregrination.?? Portuguese Studies 13 (1997): 35?42. Rubiés, Joan-Pau. "The Oriental Voices of Mendes Pinto, or the Traveller as Ethnologist in Portuguese India." Portuguese Studies 10 (1994): 24?43. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Our Portuguese adventurer resumes his piratical ways and runs into trouble on the coast of China. He and de Faria find silver in abundance, but also shipwreck, poverty, and leeches. If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. Sources: The Travels of Mendes Pinto, edited and translated by Rebecca D. Catz. University of Chicago Press, 1989. Hart, Thomas R. ?Style and Substance in the Peregrination.? Portuguese Studies 2 (1986): 49?55.  Hart, Thomas R. ?True or False: Problems of the ?Peregrination.?? Portuguese Studies 13 (1997): 35?42. Rubiés, Joan-Pau. "The Oriental Voices of Mendes Pinto, or the Traveller as Ethnologist in Portuguese India." Portuguese Studies 10 (1994): 24?43. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Not a Christmas episode, but a winter one: winter in various Old English sources and winter now. Happy New Year and thanks for listening! If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. Sources: Clare, John. Major Works. Oxford University Press, 2004. Gopnik, Adam. Winter: Five Windows on the Season. House of Anansi, 2011. Hostetter, Aaron K. Translation of "Andreas" - https://oldenglishpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/andreas/ Hostetter, Aaron K. Translation of "The Menologium" - https://oldenglishpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/the-menologium/ McKennitt, Loreena. To Drive the Cold Winter Away. Quinlan Road, 1987.  Parker, Eleanor. Winters in the World: A Journey Through the Anglo-Saxon Year. Reaktion Books, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Pinto and his colleagues embark on a quest for revenge against a certain pirate, and in the process indulge in quite a bit of piracy themselves along the coasts of Champa and Hainan. Ships are seized, silks are stolen, and brains are squeezed out. If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. Source: The Travels of Mendes Pinto, edited and translated by Rebecca D. Catz. University of Chicago Press, 1989. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Fernao Mendes Pinto recovers from shipwreck and captivity, neither his first nor his last, and returns to the story of the Aceh Sultanate. If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. Sources: The Travels of Mendes Pinto, edited and translated by Rebecca D. Catz. University of Chicago Press, 1989. Aceh Sultanate: State, Society, Religion and Trade (2 vols.): The Dutch Sources, 1636-1661, edited by Takeshi Ito. Brill, 2015. Göksoy, ?smail Hakk?. "Ottoman-Aceh relations as documented in Turkish sources," in Mapping the Acehnese Past, edited by R. Michael Feener, Patrick Daly, and Anthony Reed. Brill, 2011. Pinto, Paulo Jorge De Sousa. The Portuguese and the Straits of Melaka, 1575-1619: Power, Trade and Diplomacy. NUS Press, 2012. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From William of Newburgh's 12th-century chronicle, "History of English Affairs," these stories aren't really about Halloween, but they do feel a little Halloween-ish. There's no Michael Myers, zombies, or vampires, but there are strange portents in the sky, toads locked in stone, faerie banquets, green children, and a good number of demons. If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. 3 Things: At Stanford's Arcade, an article on heavenly portents and fire from the sky during the Little Ice Age. At Medievalists.net, an article on the history of monsters, monstrosity, and dehumanization. On the British Library's medieval manuscripts blog, charms against evil from their collection. Sources: The Church Historians of England, translated by Joseph Stevenson. Seeley's, 1856.  Watkins, C.S.. History and the Supernatural in Medieval England. Cambridge University Press, 2007. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The story of the 16th-century Portuguese traveller, writer, soldier, envoy, and so much more, takes us to Malaysia, to the city of Malacca (Melaka), and to diplomatic missions among nearby rulers. If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. Sources: The Travels of Mendes Pinto, edited and translated by Rebecca D. Catz. University of Chicago Press, 1989. The Commentaries of the Great Afonso Dalboquerque, Second Viceroy of India, translated by Walter de Gray Birch. Hakluyt, 1875. Boxer, C.R. The Portuguese Seaborne Empire 1415-1825. Carcanet, 1991. Diffie, Bailey Wallys. Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415-1580. University of Minnesota Press, 1977. Newitt, Malyn. A History of Portuguese Overseas Expansion 1400?1668. Routledge, 2004. Paine, Lincoln. The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World. Knopf Doubleday, 2015. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Pinto visits the "Land of Prester John," faces trouble on the Red Sea, and brushes up against the 1538 Siege of Diu. He takes part in combat along the Indian coast, grumbles as to his lot in life, and is whisked about by boat to Massawa, Mokha, Qeshm, Chaul, Goa, Honnavar, and Diu, before heading further east. If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. Sources: The Travels of Mendes Pinto, edited and translated by Rebecca D. Catz. University of Chicago Press, 1989. Casale, Giancarlo. The Ottoman Age of Exploration. Oxford University Press, 2010. Pearson, N.M. The Portuguese in India. Cambridge University Press, 2006. 3 Things: Article on ambergris, a substance which makes fairly frequent appearances on this podcast. Podcast episode on ?The Ottoman Red Sea.? Article on the Ottoman coffee crackdown. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Fernão Mendes Pinto, respected by many of his contemporaries for the expertise knowledge which he'd gained through his travels, absolutely synonymous for others with lies and exaggerations.  From humble beginnings and vaguely unfortunate events in his early life, Pinto would find a place for himself in the 16th-century world of colonial Portugal, would write himself into it if necessary. He was, he said, ?13 times a prisoner and 17 a slave.? As Rebecca Catz writes, he served as a ?soldier, merchant, pirate, ambassador, missionary, doctor?the list is not complete.? He ran afoul of pirates, was shipwrecked, and robbed royal tombs. The characters in his story included a saint, an Indonesian ruler, the mother of Prester John, a Japanese lord, and someone who may or may not have been the Dalai Lama. He claimed to be among the very first Europeans to set foot in Japan, but then he claimed to be a lot of things. If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. 3 Things: Article on the history of the mango and a Portuguese connection. Article about the discovery of a shipwreck, thought to have come from Vasco da Gama?s armada. The story of the rhino of Lisbon. Sources: The Travels of Mendes Pinto, edited and translated by Rebecca D. Catz. University of Chicago Press, 1989. The Portuguese in West Africa, 1415?1670: A Documentary History, edited by Malyn Newitt. Cambridge University Press, 2010. Pearson, N.M. The Portuguese in India. Cambridge University Press, 2006.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. 3 Things: Article by Heather Dalton on the travels of a cockatoo to 13th-century Sicily. Article by Minjie Su about four medieval love stories. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today?s episode is not the story of an individual but rather of a collected body of sacred and secular writings, or rather bodies of writings. It?s a story of scripture, court records, correspondence, literature, scholarly studies, and more, of human life as it has left its echoes in writing. This is the story of the Cairo Geniza, an incredible collection of historical documents, from medieval manuscripts to modern divorces. It's about how that collection, brought from the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat, Egypt, has reached us, and some of the figures involved. If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. 3 Things: The photography of the Scottish twins, Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson A short Cambridge University Library video on the conservation of Geniza fragments and the painstaking work involved "From Cairo to Kolkata, Traces of a Vibrant Jewish Past" by Michael David Lukas Sources: Goitein, S. D. A Mediterranean Society, Volume III: The Family. University of California Press, 1978.  Hoffman, Adina & Cole, Peter. Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza. Shocken Books, 2011.  Jefferson, Rebecca. The Cairo Genizah and the Age of Discovery in Egypt: The History and Provenance of a Jewish Archive. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022. Jefferson, Rebecca. "Deconstructing ?the Cairo Genizah?: A Fresh Look at Genizah Manuscript Discoveries in Cairo before 1897." The Jewish Quarterly Review 108, no. 4 (2018): 422?48. Lewis, Agnes Smith. Eastern Pilgrims: The Travels of Three Ladies. Hurst and Blackett, 1870. Outhwaite, Ben. "A Hoard of Hebrew MSS," Limn issue 6, The Total Archive. Reif, Stefan. A Jewish Archive from Old Cairo: The History of Cambridge University's Genizah Collection. Routledge, 2013. Princeton Geniza Project. https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode takes us to medieval Egypt, to old Cairo in the 11th and 12th century, to Fustat, to the Fatimid Caliphate during the period of the First Crusade, and to the life of a medieval woman named Wuhsha al-dallala who stands out in her time for strength, independence, and wild financial success (through lending and investment in trading ventures, including one to Gujarat, India). Her history comes to us through the fragments of the Cairo Geniza, in legal documents, and in a will. If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. Sources: Abramson, Henry. "Wuhsha the Broker Jewish Women in the Medieval Economy." December 6th, 2012, lecture. Frenkel, Miriam. "Charity in Jewish Society of the Medieval Mediterranean World." In Charity and Giving in Monotheistic Religions, edited by Miriam Frenkel & Yaacov Lev. Walter de Gruyter, 2009. Goitein, S. D. A Mediterranean Society, Volume III: The Family. University of California Press, 1978.  Goitein, S. D. ?A Jewish Business Woman of the Eleventh Century.? The Jewish Quarterly Review 57 (1967): 225?42. Goitein, S. D. & Friedman, Mordechai Akiva. India Traders of the Middle Ages: Documents from the Cairo Geniza. Brill, 2008. Hoffman, Adina & Cole, Peter. Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza. Knopf, 2011. Zinger, Oded. Women, gender and law: Marital disputes according to documents of the Cairo Geniza. Princeton University, 2014. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The story of the legendary first kings of the Britons, complete with prophecy, a divine appearance, and a number of origin myths behind the names of Tours, Cornwall, New Troy, and Britain itself. For this episode, we go to Geoffrey of Monmouth's chronicles for Britain's mythical Trojan origins, following Brutus of Troy as he receives visions from the goddess Diana and voyages to an Albion still inhabited by giants. If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. Sources: Armitage, David. The Ideological Origins of the British Empire. Cambridge University Press, 2000. Geoffrey of Monmouth. History of the Kings of Britain, translated by Aaron Thompson. In parentheses Publications Medieval Latin Series, 1999. Gillingham, John. The English in the Twelfth Century: Imperialism, National Identity, and Political Values. Boydell Press, 2000. Jeffs, Amy. Storyland: A New Mythology of Britain. riverrun, 2021. Lavezzo, Kathy. Imagining a Medieval English Nation. University of Minnesota Press, 2004. Spence, John. Reimagining History in Anglo-Norman Prose Chronicles. York Medieval Press, 2013. Valerie I. J. Flint. ?The Historia Regum Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth: Parody and Its Purpose. A Suggestion.? Speculum 54, no. 3 (1979): 447?68. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today we step outside the usual medieval travel subject matter on the podcast for a look into William Shakespeare's historical source for the story of Macbeth, Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor, and of course, King of Scotland, or at least of Alba. That story takes us to a 16th-century man named Reginald Wolfe, to Holinshed's Chronicles, and to the 11th-century doings of some familiar figures, of Duncan, Banquo, Macduff, Malcolm, and the rest. There are some familiar scenes, such as at Dunsinane Castle, but there are also unfamiliar elements like the murder of King Duffe, from which Shakespeare did a little borrowing. If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. Sources: Holinshed, Raphael. Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland. J. Johnson, et al., 1808. The Oxford Handbook of Holinshed's Chronicles, edited by Felicity Heal, Ian W. Archer, & Paulina Kewes. Oxford University Press, 2013. McLuskie, Kathleen. Macbeth. Northcote House, 2009. Patterson, Annabel. Reading Holinshed's Chronicles. University of Chicago Press, 1994. Plomer, Henry Robert. A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., 1900. Shakespeare, William. Macbeth, edited by Sandra Clark & Pamela Mason. Bloomsbury, 2015. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is the final episode of a narrative series on the Icelandic saga of a famed outlaw. The Grettir Saga concludes without Grettir the Strong. His half-brother Thorstein finds freedom and romance in Constantinople before the story takes one last turn, a religious one that will take us to Norway and then Rome. If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. Sources: Grettir's Saga, translated by Jesse Byock. Oxford University Press, 2009. Grettir's Saga, translated by Denton Fox and Hermann Palsson. University of Toronto Press, 1974. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is the sixth episode of a narrative series on the Icelandic saga of a famed outlaw. Grettir the Strong's half-brother goes looking for revenge, and his killer goes to join the Varangian Guard. The journey takes us from Iceland to Norway, and on to Constantinople. If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. Sources: Grettir's Saga, translated by Jesse Byock. Oxford University Press, 2009. Grettir's Saga, translated by Denton Fox and Hermann Palsson. University of Toronto Press, 1974. Collingwood, W.G. A Pilgrimage to the Saga-Steads of Iceland. W. Holmes, 1899. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is the fifth episode of a narrative series on the Icelandic saga of a famed outlaw. Grettir the Strong, his little brother, and their reluctant helper face a new threat on Drangey. His story comes to a conclusion but not his saga. If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. Sources: Grettir's Saga, translated by Jesse Byock. Oxford University Press, 2009. Grettir's Saga, translated by Denton Fox and Hermann Palsson. University of Toronto Press, 1974. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is the fourth episode of a narrative series on the Icelandic saga of a famed outlaw. Grettir the Strong and his brother look for refuge on the island of Drangey in northern Iceland, but they aren't the only ones who are interested in the island. If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. Sources: Grettir's Saga, translated by Jesse Byock. Oxford University Press, 2009. Grettir's Saga, translated by Denton Fox and Hermann Palsson. University of Toronto Press, 1974. Ljungqvist, Fredrik Charpentier. "Rape in the Icelandic Sagas: An Insight in the Perceptions about Sexual Assaults on Women in the Old Norse World," in Journal of Family History, 40(4), 431?447. Tweedie, Ethel Brilliana. A Girl's Ride in Iceland. Horace Cox, 1895. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is the third episode of a narrative series on the Icelandic saga of a famed outlaw. Grettir wanders Iceland, never able to stay in one place for too long. He is cursed to fear the dark and wish for company because of it, even as that company wishes him dead. If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. Sources: Grettir's Saga, translated by Jesse Byock. Oxford University Press, 2009. Pavey, Sophie. "Outlawed but Not Alone: Friendships Out of Bounds in Grettir?s Saga," UBC Arts One, Prof. Miranda Burgess Seminar, 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is the second episode of a narrative series on the Icelandic saga of a famed outlaw. Grettir the Strong's story continues. Following his fight with the undead draugr, he feels the effects of Glamr's curse as his luck turns against him and he is outlawed once more. If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. Sources: Grettir's Saga, translated by Jesse Byock. Oxford University Press, 2009. Grettir's Saga, translated by Denton Fox and Hermann Palsson. University of Toronto Press, 1974. Three Icelandic Outlaw Sagas, translated by George Johnston and Anthony Faulkes. Everyman, 2001. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is the first episode of a narrative series on the Icelandic saga of a famed outlaw. The Saga of Grettir the Strong opens with his grandfather leaving King Harald's Norway for Iceland. We follow its portrayal of Grettir's troubled childhood and his tests of strength against boulders, men, bears, and (for some Halloween appropriate listening) draugr, the undead of the burial mound. If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. Sources: Grettir's Saga, translated by Jesse Byock. Oxford University Press, 2009. Grettir's Saga, translated by Denton Fox and Hermann Palsson. University of Toronto Press, 1974. Three Icelandic Outlaw Sagas, translated by George Johnston and Anthony Faulkes. Everyman, 2001. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

T?j al-D?n ?Al? ibn Anjab ibn al-S??? was born in the last years of the 12th century and lived until the last quarter of the 13th. He was a prolific writer who grew up Abbasid Baghdad and saw it fall to the Mongol invasion of Hulagu Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan. His solitary work that survives in its entirety is Consorts of the Caliphs: Women and the Court of Baghdad. In that book, he reaches all the way back to Hamm?dah bint ??s?, who was married to al-Mans?r the Abbasid dynastic founder and died in 780, and all the way up to Sh?h?n, a contemporary of his and the concubine of al-Mustansir who died in 1242. He fills its pages with the women of the Abbasid caliphal court, women who appear there as wives, concubines, poets, and more. This episode is about some of those medieval women. If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. Sources: Ibn al-S?'?. Consorts of the Caliphs: Women and the Court of Baghdad, edited by Shawkat M. Toorawa. New York University Press, 2015. Caswell, F.M. The Slave Girls of Baghdad: The Qiyan in the Early Abbasid Era. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2011. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 Ghiy?th al-D?n. 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. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. Sources: Abd al-La??f al-Baghd?d?. 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. Ellis, Richard. Imagining Atlantis. Knopf, 2012. Modern, John. Neuromatic: Or, A Particular History of Religion and the Brain. University of Chicago Press, 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. Sources: Abd al-La??f al-Baghd?d?. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. Sources: Abd al-La??f al-Baghd?d?. A Physician on the Nile: A Description of Egypt and Journal of the Famine Years. NYU Press, 2021. Bonadeo, Cecilia Martini. ?Abd Al-La??f Al-Ba?d?d??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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We continue the Abd al-Latif series and dig into his observations on Egypt. If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. Sources: Abd al-La??f al-Baghd?d?. A Physician on the Nile: A Description of Egypt and Journal of the Famine Years. NYU Press, 2021. Bonadeo, Cecilia Martini. ?Abd Al-La??f Al-Ba?d?d??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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. Sources: ?Abd al-La??f al-Baghd?d?. A Physician on the Nile: A Description of Egypt and Journal of the Famine Years. NYU Press, 2021. Bonadeo, Cecilia Martini. ?Abd Al-La??f Al-Ba?d?d??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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is a preview of my new/other podcast. It has its own podcast feed, so I won't be bombarding you with other episodes on this feed, but I'm putting this one here in case anyone is interested. You can find more on Apple Podcasts and all the usual other platforms. Back soon with the next Human Circus episode! Today's episode is about a piece of baseball history, very early baseball history. It's about an 18th-century children's book, about a nationalistic effort to claim ownership over baseball, and about a mining engineer's nostalgic memories of the game's early days. It's about Albert Spalding, the Spalding of so much sports equipment, Abner Graves, the mining engineer in question, and the Civil War general, Abner Doubleday. It's about John Newbery, the man for whom the Newbery Medal for American children's literature is named. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What happens to a mythical priest-king when you get too close to him? Does he just disappear? If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. Sources: Prester John: The Legend and its Sources, compiled and translated by Keagan Brewer. Taylor & Francis, 2019. Ray, John. A Collection of Curious Travels & Voyages. 1693. Salvadore, Matteo. The African Prester John and the Birth of Ethiopian-European Relations, 1402-1555. Taylor & Francis, 2016. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the early years of the 16th-century, Ethiopia's regent, Eleni, sent an ambassador to Portugal to propose an alliance. She sent a man named Mateus. Unfortunately for Mateus, almost nobody believed him. If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. Sources: Prester John: The Legend and its Sources, compiled and translated by Keagan Brewer. Taylor & Francis, 2019. The Commentaries of the Great Afonso Dalboquerque, Second Viceroy of India. Hakluyt Society, 1875.  Alvares, Francisco. Narrative of the Portuguese embassy to Abyssinia during the years 1520-1527. Hakluyt Society, 1881. Baldridge, Cates. Prisoners of Prester John: The Portuguese Mission to Ethiopia in Search of the Mythical King, 1520-1526. McFarland, 2012. Diffie, Bailey Wallys & Winius, George Davison. Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415-1580. University of Minnesota Press, 1977. Eliav-Feldon, Miriam. Renaissance Impostors and Proofs of Identity. Palgrave-Macmillan, 2012. Knobler, Adam. Mythology and Diplomacy in the Age of Exploration. Brill, 2016. Krebs, Verena. Medieval Ethiopian Kingship, Craft, and Diplomacy with Latin Europe. Springer International, 2021. Rogers, Francis Millet. The Quest for Eastern Christians: Travels and Rumor in the Age of Discovery. University of Minnesota Press, 1962. Salvadore, Matteo. The African Prester John and the Birth of Ethiopian-European Relations, 1402-1555. Taylor & Francis, 2016. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I finished this episode before Christmas and uploaded it to Patreon, only to completely forget to upload it anywhere else. So if you're wondering why I'm on here talking (very unnecessarily!) about how I won't have another episode out before Christmas, etc., that's why! That aside, this episode is not any kind of a Christmas special anyways. It's the continuation of my Prester John story, on the trip to Prester John's Ethiopia, and on the Portuguese crown's pursuit of the priest-king and how that story was connected to the developing ones of exploration and colonialism. If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. Sources: A Journal of the First Voyage of Vasco Da Gama, 1497-1499, translated by Ernst Georg Ravenstein. The Hakluyt Society, 1898 Prester John: The Legend and its Sources, compiled and translated by Keagan Brewer. Taylor & Francis, 2019. Ferreira, Susannah. The Crown, the Court and the Casa Da Índia Political Centralization in Portugal 1479-1521. Brill, 2015. Knobler, Adam. Mythology and Diplomacy in the Age of Exploration. Brill, 2016. Krebs, Verena. Medieval Ethiopian Kingship, Craft, and Diplomacy with Latin Europe. Springer International, 2021. Krebs, Verena. "Re-examining Foresti's Supplementum Chronicarum and the 'Ethiopian' embassy to Europe of 1306," in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Volume 82, Issue 3 (October 2019) . Kurt, Andrew. "The search for Prester John, a projected crusade and the eroding prestige of Ethiopian kings, c .1200 ? c .1540," in Journal of Medieval History, 39.3 (September 2013). Salvadore, Matteo. The African Prester John and the Birth of Ethiopian-European Relations, 1402-1555. Taylor & Francis, 2016. Salvadore, Matteo. "The Ethiopian Age of Exploration: Prester John's Discovery of Europe, 1306-1458," in Journal of World History, Vol. 21, No. 4 (December 2010). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is the first of two episodes on the next jump in the Prester John narrative, as the story pivots to Ethiopia and as Ethiopian envoys and pilgrims travel in 15th-century Italy and Spain. If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. Sources: Prester John: The Legend and its Sources, compiled and translated by Keagan Brewer. Taylor & Francis, 2019. Knobler, Adam. Mythology and Diplomacy in the Age of Exploration. Brill, 2016. Krebs, Verena. Medieval Ethiopian Kingship, Craft, and Diplomacy with Latin Europe. Springer International, 2021. Krebs, Verena. "Re-examining Foresti's Supplementum Chronicarum and the 'Ethiopian' embassy to Europe of 1306," in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Volume 82, Issue 3 (October 2019) . Kurt, Andrew. "The search for Prester John, a projected crusade and the eroding prestige of Ethiopian kings, c .1200 ? c .1540," in Journal of Medieval History, 39.3 (September 2013). Salvadore, Matteo. The African Prester John and the Birth of Ethiopian-European Relations, 1402-1555. Taylor & Francis, 2016. Salvadore, Matteo. "The Ethiopian Age of Exploration: Prester John's Discovery of Europe, 1306-1458," in Journal of World History, Vol. 21, No. 4 (December 2010). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Medieval stories of the paranormal, for Halloween or any time really. Featuring invisible devils, water sprites, and helpful hands. If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. Sources: Gesta Romanorum, translated by Charles Swan. George Bell & Sons, 1905. Joynes, Andrew. Medieval Ghost Stories: An Anthology of Miracles, Marvels and Prodigies. Boydell, 2006. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On the many fantastic additions to the Letter of Prester John (Dragons! Strange Bakeries! Etc!), and on the theories around it. If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble at https://www.redbubble.com/people/humancircus. 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). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble at https://www.redbubble.com/people/humancircus. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble at https://www.redbubble.com/people/humancircus. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble at https://www.redbubble.com/people/humancircus. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble at https://www.redbubble.com/people/humancircus. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's 1442, and Shah Rukh, the son of Timur, is sending an ambassador for Qaliqut / Kozhikode on the Indian coast. That ambassador, Abd-al-Razz?q, 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. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble at https://www.redbubble.com/people/humancircus. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is a story about Ab? Zakariyy?? Ya?y? ibn ?akam al-Bakr? al-Jayy?n?, known also as al-Ghaz?l (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. I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble at https://www.redbubble.com/people/humancircus. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices