Human Circus: Journeys in the Medieval World

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: 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. 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