The Indies and the Medieval West: Thought, Report, Imagination (Medieval Voyaging)

394 Pages·2013·7.718 MB·English

by  Marianne O'Doherty

The Indies and the
Medieval West
MEDIEVAL VOYAGING
General Editors
Margaret Clunies-Ross, University of Sydney
Geraldine Barnes, University of Sydney
Editorial Board
Alfred Hiatt, Department of English, Queen Mary College, University of London
Kim Phillips, Department of History, University of Auckland
Suzanne Conklin Akbari, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto
John Tolan, Maison des Sciences de l’Homme Ange Guépin, Université de Nantes
Volume 2
The Indies and the
Medieval West
Thought, Report, Imagination
by
Marianne O’Doherty
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
© 2013, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher.
D/2013/0095/192
ISBN: 978-2-503-53276-9
Printed on acid-free paper
Contents
Illustrations vii
Acknowledgements xi
Abbreviations xiii
Introduction 1
Part i. Vere unus alter mundus:
Traditions and Travellers
Chapter 1. Classical Traditions of India and Medieval Transformations 13
Chapter 2. Other Coordinates:
The Indies of Late Medieval European Travellers 53
Part ii. Embodied Encounters:
Travellers’ Texts and their Readers
Chapter 3. Changing Places:
The Unstable Indies of Vernacular Readers 105
Chapter 4. A Moral and Geographical Education:
Latin Accounts of the Indies and their Readers 161
vi Contents
Part iii. Geographical and
Cartographic Reorientations
Chapter 5. Debating Diversity in an Interconnected World:
The Indies in the Book of Sir John Mandeville 203
Chapter 6. Placing the Indies in Space and Time:
Cartographic Representations, c. 1200–c. 1450 241
Conclusion: Multiple Medieval Indies, Globalization, and Rebellion 297
Appendices: Manuscripts of Travel Accounts Discussed in Part ii 305
Bibliography 329
Index of Manuscripts 357
General Index 363
Illustrations
Figures
Figure 1, p. 22. World map from a manuscript of Macrobius, Commentarii
c. 1000 (? south German). Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS D’Orville 77,
fol. 100r.
Figure 2, p. 136. Miniature accompanying the Devisement du monde’s chapter
on ‘la contree de Cianda’ (southern Vietnam). Paris, 1330s. London, British
Library, MS Royal 19 D.i, fol. 120v.
Figure 3, p. 136. Miniature showing Quinsai (Hangzhou) surrounded by water,
Devisement. London, British Library, MS Royal 19 D.i, fol. 113r.
Figure 4, p. 137. Crusaders arrive in the Holy Land in Jean de Vignay’s Directoire
a faire le passage de la Terre Sainte. London, British Library, MS Royal 19
D.i, fol. 187v.
Figure 5, p. 137. Crusaders and Saracens in battle in Jean de Vignay’s Directoire.
London, British Library, MS Royal 19 D.i, fol. 189v.
Figure 6, p. 138. Illustration accompanying the chapter on ‘la province de
Manabar’ (the Coromandel Coast), Devisement. London, British Library,
MS Royal 19 D.i, fol. 125r.
Figure 7, p. 138. City of Quinsai (Hangzhou), Devisement. Oxford, Bodleian
Library, MS Bodley 264, fol. 258v.
Figure 8, p. 139. Port of Zaiton (Quanzhou), Devisement. Oxford, Bodleian
Library, MS Bodley 264, fol. 259v.
Figure 9, p. 139. The islands of India: illustration accom panying the opening
chapter of the ‘Livre de Inde’, Devisement. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS
Bodley 264, fol. 260r.
viii ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure 10, p. 140. Monstrous races in the illustration accompanying the chap-
ter on Cianba (southern Vietnam), Devisement. Oxford, Bodleian Library,
MS Bodley 264, fol. 262r.
Figure 11, p. 140. Alexander’s army defeats the wild men, Alexandre de Paris’s
Li Romans du bon roy Alixandre. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 264,
fol. 66v.
Figure 12, p. 141. The Islands of Men and Women, Devisement. New York,
Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M. 723, fol. 245r.
Figure 13, p. 141. The island of Seillan, Devisement. New York, Pierpont Morgan
Library, MS M. 723, fol. 225v.
Figure 14, p. 142. Brahman merchants in India, Devisement. New York, Pierpont
Morgan Library, MS M. 723, fol. 237r.
Figure 15, p. 142. Monstrous races, Devisement. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale
de France, MS fonds français 2810, fol. 29v.
Figure 16, p. 143. Animals of Ely, Greater India, Devisement. Paris, Bibliothèque
nationale de France, MS fonds français 2810, fol. 85r.
Figure 17, p. 143. Fishing for jewels in Sillan (Sri Lanka), Odorico, Itinerarium.
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fonds français 2810, fol. 106v.
Figure 18, p. 144. Collecting flour, honey, and poison from the trees in Naten,
Itinerarium. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fonds français
2810, fol. 105r.
Figure 19, p. 144. Kublai Khan hunting, Ciandu (Shangdu), Devisement. Paris,
Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fonds français 2810, fol. 31v.
Figure 20, p. 145. Brahman merchants bring jewels to the king of Lar, with
labourers in the background, Devisement. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de
France, MS fonds français 2810, fol. 83r.
Figure 21, p. 145. Cynocephali, attributed to Angamanan (Andaman), Devise­
ment. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fonds français 2810,
fol. 76v.
Figure 22, p. 146. Cynocephali, attributed to Nicuveram (Nicobar), Itinerarium.
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fonds français 2810, fol. 106r.
Figure 23, p. 146. Pepper harvesting at Coilun (Kollam), Devisement. Paris,
Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fonds français 2810, fol. 84r.
ILLUSTRATIONS ix
Figure 24, p. 185. Annotated leaf from a fourteenth-century English copy of
Odorico da Pordenone, Itinerarium. British Library, MS Arundel 13, fol. 30v.
Figure 25, p. 187. Annotated leaf from a late fifteenth-century Italian copy of
Poggio Bracciolini’s India. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Canon. Misc.
280, fol. 71v.
Figure 26, p. 243. Ptolemaic world map from the Atlante of Andrea Bianco.
Venice, 1436. Venezia, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, MS It. Z. 76 (=4783),
fol. 9.
Figure 27, p. 245. Mappamundi in Andrea Bianco’s Atlante. Venezia, Biblioteca
Nazionale Marciana, MS It. Z. 76 (=4783), fol. 8.
Figure 28, p. 247. Detail of the Indies from the Ebstorf World Map (recon struc-
tion), with East at top. Reconstruction at Ebskart, Leuphana Universität
Lüneburg.
Figure 29, p. 249. East-oriented mappamundi from a copy of Honorius Augusto-
dunensis’s Imago mundi from Sawley Abbey, Yorkshire. Twelfth to thirteenth
century. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 66, p. 2.
Figure 30, p. 250. World map in a Psalter copied around the 1260s. London,
British Library, MS Additional 28681, fol. 9r.
Figure 31, p. 252. East-oriented mappamundi of Ranulf Higden, Polychronicon
England, c. 1340s. San Marino, Huntington Library, MS HM 132, fol. 4v.
Figure 32, p. 260. Larger east-oriented mappamundi accompanying Ramsey
Abbey’s copy of Ranulph Higden’s Polychronicon England, later fourteenth
century. London, British Library, MS Royal 14 C.ix, fols 1v–2r.
Figures 33 and 34, pp. 274–75. The Indies on Cresques Abraham’s mapamondi,
the Catalan Atlas. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fonds es-
pagnol 30.
Figure 35, p. 290. Detail of subcontinental India and the Indian Ocean from
Fra Mauro’s mid-fifteenth-century Venetian world map. Venezia, Biblioteca
Nazionale Marciana.
Map
Map 1, pp. 62–63. The Indian Ocean and surrounding regions with key medi-
eval locations noted.
x ILLUSTRATIONS
Plates
Plate 1, p. 267. Ebstorf World Map (reconstruction). East is to the top. Recon­
struc tion at Ebskart, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg.
Plate 2, pp. 268–69. World Map of Fra Mauro. Mid­fifteenth century. South to
the top. Venezia, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana.
Plate 3, p. 270. Atelier of Pietro Vesconte, world map to accompany Marino
Sanudo Torsello, Liber secretorum fidelium crucis, c. 1325. East is to the top.
London, British Library, MS Additional 27376*, fols 187v–188r.
Tables
Table 1, pp. 310–11 (Appendix 1a). Vernacular Manuscripts of Marco Polo
from France and Franco phone Europe.
Table 2, pp. 312–13 (Appendix 1b). Marco Polo Manuscripts in Italian Ver­
naculars.
Table 3, pp. 314–15 (Appendix 1c). Odorico da Pordenone Manuscripts in
Francophone Europe and Iberia.
Table 4, pp. 316–17 (Appendix 1d) Odorico da Pordenone Manuscripts in
Italian Vernaculars.
Table 5, pp. 318–21 (Appendix 2a). Latin Manuscripts of Marco Polo by Region.
Table 6, pp. 322–25 (Appendix 2b). Latin Manuscripts of Odorico da Porde­
none by Region.
Table 7, pp. 326–27 (Appendix 2c). Latin Manuscripts of Poggio’s India.