Global Middle Ages: Eastern Wisdom (Buddhistic) Teachings in Medieval European Literature. With a Focus on Barlaam and Josaphat
Keywords:
Global literature, medieval globalism, Barlaam and Josaphat, Jacobus de Voragine, Rudolf von Ems, the Laubacher Barlaam, literary translations, Buddhism in medieval Europe, Asia and Europe in the Middle Ages
Abstract
In contrast to many recent attempts to establish concepts and platforms to study global literature, and this also in the pre-modern world, this article claims to present much more concrete examples to confirm that a certain degree of globalism existed already in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. While numerous scholars/editors have simply invited many more voices from all over the world to the same ‘table,’ i.e., literary histories, which has not really provided more substance to the notion of ‘global,’ the study of translated texts, such as those dealing with Barlaam and Josaphat, clearly confirms that some core Indian ideas and values, as originally developed by Buddha, had migrated through many stages of translations, to high medieval literature in Europe.
References
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[2] Recent years have seen extensive new research on all those nomadic people, whether the Huns, the Avars, the Magyars, or the Mongols. See, for instance, Walter Pohl, The Avars: A Steppe Empire in Central Europe, 567-822. Trans. from the German (3rd ed., 2015; Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press, 2018); Ruotsala, Antti, Europeans and Mongols in the Middle of the Thirteenth Century: Encountering the Other. Suomalaisen Tiedeakatemian Toimituksia, Humaniora, 314 (Helsinki: The Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, 2001); Timothy May, The Mongols. Past imperfect (Leeds: ARC Humanities Press, 2020).
[3] See now Sæbjørg Walaker Nordeide and Kevin J. Edwards, The Vikings. Past imperfect (Leeds: ARC Humanities Press, 2020); Vikings Across Boundaries: Viking-Age Transformations II, ed. Hanne Lovise Aannestad, Elise Naumann, Heidi Lund Berg, Hanne Lovise Aannestad, Unn Pedersen, and Marianne Moen. Culture, Environment and Adaptation in the North, 2 (New York and London: Routledge, 2020).
[4] See now the contributions to Travel, Time, and Space in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Time: Explorations of Worldly Perceptions and Processes of Identity Formation, ed. Albrecht Classen. Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, 22 (Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2018).
[5] Johann Schiltberger, The Bondage and Travels of Johann Schiltberger, a Native of Bavaria, in Europe, Asia, and Africa 1396‒1427, trans. from the Heidelberg ms. ed. in 1859 by Karl Friedrich Neumann by J. Buchan Telfer. With notes by P. Bruun and a preface, introduction and notes by the translator and editor (London: Hakluyt Society, 1897); cf. also the recent edition: Hans Schiltberger, Als Sklave im Osmanischen Reich und bei den Tataren: 1394‒?1427, ed. Ulrich Schlemmer. Alte abenteuerliche Reiseberichte (Wiesbaden: Ed. Erdmann, 2008); and for a German translation, see Johann Schiltbergers Irrfahrt durch den Orient: Der aufsehenerregende Bericht einer Reise, die 1394 begann und erst nach über 30 Jahren ein Ende fand. Aus dem Mittelhochdeutschen übertragen und herausgegeben von Markus Tremmel. Bayerische Abenteuer (Taufkirchen: Via Verbis Bavarica, 2000). For recent studies, see Albrecht Classen, “Global Travel in the Late Middle Ages: The Eyewitness Account of Johann Schiltberger,” Medieval History Journal 23.1 (2020): 1–28 (online at: https://doi.org/10.1177/0971945819895896); id., “The Topic of Imprisonment in Medieval German Literature: With an Emphasis on Johann Schiltberger’s Account About his 30-Year Enslavement in the East,” Studia Neophilologica (2020):
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00393274.2020.1755362 (both last accessed on April 24, 2021).
[6] Quoted from Romane des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts, ed. Jan-Dirk Müller. Bibliothek der frühen Neuzeit, 1 (Frankfurt a. M.: Deutscher Klassiker Verein, 1990), 385‒585; here 491. For a review of the relevant research and the central topics, see Albrecht Classen, The German Volksbuch. A Critical History of a Late-Medieval Genre. Studies in German Language and Literature, 15 (Lewiston, NY, Queenston, and Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press, 1995, reissued 1999), 163–83; cf. also Anne Simon, “The Fortunatus Volksbuch in the Light of Later Mediaeval Travel Literature,” Fifteenth-Century Studies 12 (1987): 175–86; Hannes Kästner, Fortunatus – Peregrinator mundi: Welterfahrung und Selbsterkenntnis im ersten deutschen Prosaroman der Neuzeit. Rombach Wissenschaft – Reihe Litterae (Freiburg i. Br.: Verlag Rombach, 1990), 76–106; Albrecht Classen, “Die Welt eines spätmittelalterlichen Kaufmannsreisenden. Ein mentalitätsgeschichtliches Dokument der Frühneuzeit: Fortunatus,” Monatshefte 86.1 (1994): 22–44; id., “The Crusader as Lover and Tourist: Utopian Elements in Late Medieval German Literature: From Herzog Ernst to Reinfried von Braunschweig and Fortunatus,” Current Topics in Medieval German Literature: Texts and Analyses (Kalamazoo Papers 2000–2006), ed. Sibylle Jefferis. Göppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik, 748 (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 2008), 83–102; id., “The Encounter with the Foreign in Medieval and Early Modern German Literature: Fictionality as a Springboard for Non-Xenophobic Approaches in the Middle Ages: Herzog Ernst, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Konrad von Würzburg, Die Heidin, and Fortunatus,” East Meets West in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: Transcultural Experiences in the Premodern World, ed. Albrecht Classen. Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, 14 (Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2013), 457–87; id., “Fremdbegegnung, Dialog, Austausch, und Staunen: Xenologische Phänomene in der deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters. Vom Hildebrandslied bis zum Fortunatus,” Mediaevistik 26 (2013): 183–206.
[7] See the comments by Jan-Dirk Müller, ed., Romane, 1210; as to Mandeville, see, for instance, Mary Campbell. The Witness and the Other World: Exotic European Travel Writing,400-1600 (Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press, 1988); and Kim Phillips, Before Orientalism: Asian Peoples and Cultures in European Travel Writing, 1245-1510. The Middle Ages Series (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014); Eastward Bound: Travel and Travellers, 1050-1550, ed. Rosamund Allen (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004). For eastern, specifically Arabic perspectives, see Nizar F. Hermes, The [European] Other in Medieval Arabic Literature and Culture: Ninth-Twelfth Century AD. The New Middle Ages (New York and London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). For the text by Mandeville, see The Book of John Mandeville with Related Texts, ed. and trans. Ian Higgins (Cambridge, MA: Hackett Publishing, 2011).
[8] Shayne Aaron Legassie, The Medieval Invention of Travel (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2017).
[9] Sonja Brentjes, Alexander Fidora, and Matthias M. Tischler, “Towards a New Approach to Medieval Cross-Cultural Exchanges,” Journal of Transcultural Medieval Studies 1.1 (2014): 9-50; with an extensive bibliography.
[10] Die Meerfahrt: Balthasar Springers Reise zur Pfefferküste: mit einem Faksimile des Buches von 1509, ed. Andreas Erhard and Eva Ramminger (Innsbruck: Haymon-Verlag, 1998); Albrecht Classen, “India Perceived Through the Eyes of Sixteenth-Century Readers: Ludovico de Varthema’s Bestseller on the Early Modern Book Markets—A Narrative Landmark of the Emerging Positive Evaluation of curiositas,” Medievalia et Humanistica 40 (2015): 1-24.
[11] Albrecht Classen, “Indien: Imagination und Erfahrungswelt in Antike und Mittelalter,” Mittelalter-Mythen, V. Ed. Ulrich Müller and Werner Wunderlich (St. Gall: UVK, 2008), 359-72; for early modern perspectives, see id., “India Perceived Through the Eyes of Sixteenth-Century Readers: Ludovico de Varthema’s Bestseller on the Early Modern Book Markets—A Narrative Landmark of the Emerging Positive Evaluation of curiositas,” Medievalia et Humanistica 40 (2015): 1-24.
[12] Herweg, Mathias, ed. Herzog Ernst: Mittelhochdeutsch / Neuhochdeutsch, ed. Mathias Herweg. In der Fassung B (Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam jun., 2019).
[13] Lienert, Elisabeth, ed. Pfaffe Lambrecht: Alexanderroman. Mittelhochdeutsch / Neuhochdeutsch. Stuttgart: Reclam 2007).
[14] Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival. Studienausgabe, ed. Karl Lachmann (6th ed.), trans. into German by Peter Knecht, intro. by Bernd Schirok (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1998).
[15] U. Knefelkamp, “Indien,” Lexikon des Mittelalter, vol. V: Hiera-Mittel bis Lukanien (Munich and Zurich: Artemis Verlag, 1991), 404-05.
[16] Geraldine Heng, The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018).
[17] East Meets West in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: Transcultural Experiences in the Premodern World, ed. Albrecht Classen. Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, 14. Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2013); D’Orient en Occident: les recueils de fables enchâssées avant les “Mille et une Nuits” de Galland; (Barlaam et Josaphat, Calila et Dimna, Disciplina clericalis, Roman des Sept Sages), ed. Marion Uhlig and Yasmina Foehr-Janssens. Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, 16 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014); Die Figur des Herrschers in der Exempelliteratur – Transkulturelle Perspektiven, ed. Mechthild Albert and Ulrike Becker. Studien zu Macht und Herrschaft, 8 (Göttingen: V&R unipress; Bonn University Press, 2020).
[18] The Pancatantra: The Book of India’s Folk Wisdom, trans. Patrick Olivelle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). For a truly solid overview of the history of this famous collection and its reception, along with a great bibliography, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panchatantra (last accessed on April 24, 2021). See now Nasrullah Munshi, Kalila and Dimna, trans. from the Persian by Wheeler Thackston (Indianapolis, IN, and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 2019). For a case of a late medieval German translation, see Albrecht Classen, “India, Persia, and Arabia in the Mind of a Late Fifteenth-Century German Author: Transcultural Experiences through the Literary Discourse. Antonius von Pforr and His Buch der Beispiele der Alten Weisen,” Philological Quarterly 99.2 (2020): 119–45.
[19] Romedio Schmitz-Esser, “The Buddha and the Medieval West: Changing Perspectives on Cultural Exchange Between Asia and Europe in the Middle Ages,” Travel, Time, and Space (see note 2), 311-30; for Asian textiles at least in the Byzantine world, see Jaroslav Folda, “The Use of Çintamani as Ornaments: A Case study in the Afterlife of Forms,” Byzantine Images and Their Afterlives: Essays in Honor of Annemarie Weyl Carr, ed. Lynn Jones (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), 183-204; see also Jens T. Wollesen, “East Meets West and the Problem with Those Pictures,” East Meets West in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: Transcultural Experiences in the Premodern World, ed. Albrecht Classen. Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, 14 (Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2013), 341-88.
[20] Evgeny Khvalkov, The Colonies of Genoa in the Black Sea Region: Evolution and Transformation. Routledge Research in Medieval Studies, 11 (New York and London: Routledge, 2018); id., “Population de Caffa génoise à la lumière des livres comptables des années 1423-1424 et 1461-1462,” Mediaevistik 33 (2020): 155-65.
[21] Albrecht Classen, “Kulturelle und religiöse Kontakte zwischen dem christlichen Europa und dem buddhistischen Indien während des Mittelalters: Rudolfs von Ems Barlaam und Josaphat im europäischen Kontext.” Fabula 41 (2000): 203–28; Constanza Cordoni, “Barlaam und Josaphat in der europäischen Literatur des Mittelalters,” Ph.D. diss., Vienna, 2010. See also the contributions to Barlaam und Josaphat: Neue Perspektiven auf ein europäisches Phänomen, ed. Constanza Cordoni und Matthias Meyer (Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2015); Jacques Le Goff, In Search of Sacred Time: Jacobus de Voragine and The Golden Legend, transl. by Lydia G. Cochrane (2011; Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014).
[22] Gertrud Blaschitz, “Farbiger Innenraum – genealogische Metapher? Barlaam- und Josaphat-Fresken in der Kremser ‘Gozzoburg’,” Farbe im Mittelalter: Materialität – Medialität – Semantik, ed. Ingrid Bennewitz and Andrea Schindler. Akten des 13. Symposiums des Mediävistenverbandes vom 1. bis 5. März 2009 in Bamberg (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2011), 159–74; eadem, “‘Barlaam und Josaphat’ als Vorlage für Wandmalereien in der Gozzoburg von Krems,” Medium Aevum Quotidianum 57 (2008): 28–48. For critical comments, see Christian Opitz, “Die Wandmalereien im Turmzimmer der Kremser Gozzoburg. Ein herrschaftliches Bildprogramm des späten 13. Jahrhunderts,” Österreichische Zeitschrift für Kunst und Denkmalpflege 62 (2008): 588–602. Andreas Zajic, Kulturgeschichte der Überlieferung im Mittelalter. Quellen und Methoden zur Geschichte Mittel- und Südosteuropas, ed. Elisabeth Gruber, Christina Lutter, Oliver Jens Schmitt (Cologne, Weimar, and Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 2017), 294–300; but confer also Gertrud Blaschitz, “‘Barlaam und Josaphat’ im moldawischen Kloster Neamt, Neamt, Rumänien,” Barlaam und Josaphat: Neue Perspektiven auf ein europäisches Phänomen, ed. Constanza Cordoni und Matthias Meyer (Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2015), 21–42. I summarize here the overview provided by Romedio Schmitz-Esser, 327, n. 49, 328, n. 52.
[23] Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, trans. William Granger Ryan (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), vol. 2, no. 180, 355-166. Jacobus de Voragine, La légende dorée, trans. from the French by Jean-Baptiste-Marie Roze (Paris: Citadelles & Mazenod, 2008). See also the edition and German translation, Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda aurea: die Heiligenlegenden des Mittelalters. Hrsg., neu übersetzt und mit einem ausführlichen Anhang versehen von Matthias Hackemann (Cologne: Anaconda, 2008). For a pragmatic approach to our text sample, see Reading Medieval Latin with the Legend of Barlaam and Josaphat, ed. and supplied with commentary by Donka D. Markus. Michigan Classical Commentaries (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2018).
[24] Historiae animae utilis de Barlaam et Ioasaph, ed. Robert Volk. Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos, 6. Patristische Texte und Studien, 60-61 (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2006).
[25] Mattia Cavagna, “Barlaam and Josaphat in the ‘legenda aurea’ and the ‘Miroir historia’: A Tale Twice Framed,” Barlaam und Josaphat (see note 15), 85-100.
[26] Die Historia von den sieben weisen Meistern und dem Kaiser Diocletianus. Nach der Gießener Handschrift 104 mit einer Einleitung und Erläuterungen, ed. Ralf-Henning Steinmetz. Altdeutsche Textbibliothek, 116 (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 2001). See also Obermaier, S. (2004). Das Fabelbuch als Rahmenerzählung: Intertextualität und Intratextualität als Wege zur Interpretation des Buchs der Beispiele der alten Weisen Antons von Pforr. Beihefte zum Euphorion, 48 (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2004).
[27] Reinaldo Ayerbe-Chaux, El Conde Lucanor: Materia tradicional y originalidad creadora (Madrid: J. Porrúa Turanzas, 1975). Mario Cossío Olavide, “‘Algunos moros muy sabidores’: Virtuous Muslim Kings in Examples 30 and 41 of ‘El conde Lucanor’,” Bulletin of Spanish Studies 97.2 (2020): 127-38; see also Maria Cecilia Ruiz, “Theft in Juan Manuel’s El Conde Lucanor,” Crime and Punishment in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age: Mental-Historical Investigations of Basic Human Problems and Social Responses, ed. Albrecht Classen and Connie Scarborough. Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, 11 (Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2012), 247-80.
[28] Giuseppe Tucci, Joseph M. Kitagawa, and Frank E. Reynolds, “Buddhism,” online at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Buddhism/The-life-of-the-Buddha; see also https://www.diamondway-buddhism.org/buddhism/buddha/; https://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/buddha.html (all last accessed on April 25, 2021). For a scholarly rendition, see Chikō Komatsu The Way to Peace: The Life and Teachings of the Buddha, trans. from the Japanese (Kyoto: Hōzōkan Publ. Co., 1989).
[29] Barlaam und Josaphat, ed. Cordoni and Meyer (see note 17).
[30] Toward a Global Middle Ages: Encountering the World Through Illuminated Manuscripts, ed. Bryan C. Keene (Los Angeles, CA: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2019), 3-4.
[31] María Jesús Lacarra, “The Figure of the Ruler in ‘Calila e Dimna’ and the ‘Exemplario contra los engaños y peligros del mundo’,” Die Figur des Herrschers (see note 12), 53-71. She limits herself to the Spanish tradition and traces it back primarily to Arabic sources. But, as we know already, the lines of transmission often go much further back to Persia and then India; see José Manuel Pedrosa, “Los cuentos en la España medieval entre la voz y la lettra,” Cuentística castellana medieval, ed. Marta Haro Cortés. Vol. 1: Origen, consolidación y evolución. Del ‘Calila e Dimna’ al ‘Exemplario contra los engaños y peligros del mundo. Colección Parnaseo, 6 (Valencia: Universitat de València, 2013), 229-47 (easily accessible online at: http://parnaseo.uv.es/AulaMedieval/AulaMedieval.php?id=CuentosMedievales (last accessed on April 25, 2021).
[32] Constanza Cordoni, Barlaam und Josaphat in der europäischen Literatur des Mittelalters: Darstellung der Stofftraditionen - Bibliographie - Studien (Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2014).
[33] Helmut de Boor, Die höfische Literatur: Vorbereitung, Blüte, Ausklang 1170-1250. Geschichte der deutschen Literatur von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart, 2 (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1966), 176-87.
[34]“‘Barlaam’-Bruchstücke,” ed. Franz Pfeiffer, Zeitschrift für deutsches Alterthum 1 (1841): 126-35. Online at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20649870?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents (last accessed on April 25, 2021).
[35] The latest account is provided online at: https://handschriftencensus.de/werke/321 (last accessed on April 25, 2021).
[36] Rudolf von Ems, Barlaam und Josaphat. Dichtungen des deutschen Mittelalters, 3. Nachdruck mit einem Anhang, einem Nachwort und einem Register von Heinz Rupp (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1965); online at: https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb10107283?page=1 (last accessed on April 25, 2021).
[37] Joachim Bumke, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur im hohen Mittelalter (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1990), 394-95.
[38] Helmut de Boor, Die deutsche Literatur im späten Mittelalter. Part I: 1250-1350. 5th ed. Newly revised by Johannes Janota. Geschichte der deutschen Literatur von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart, III/1 (1962; Munich: C. H. Beck, 1997), 459-61.
[39] Alexanderdichtungen im Mittelalter: Kulturelle Selbstbestimmung im Kontext literarischer Beziehungen, ed. Jan Cölln, Susanne Friede, and Hartmut Wulfram. Veröffentlichungen aus dem Göttinger Sonderforschungsbereich 529 “Internationalität nationaler Literaturen”, 1 (Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2000).
[40] The Travels of Marco Polo, trans. and with an intro. by Ronald Latham (London: Penguin, 1958); for recent critical studies, see the contributions to Marco Polo and the Encounter of East and West, ed. Suzanne Conklin Akbari and Amilcare Iannucci (Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press, 2008). One of the best studies continues to be by John Larner, Marco Polo and the Discovery of the World (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1999); cf. also Albrecht Classen, “Marco Polos Il Milione/Le Divisement du Monde: der Mythos vom Osten,” Mittelalter Mythen. Herrscher, Helden, Heilige. Ulrich Müller and Werner Wunderlich, eds. (St. Gall: UVK, 1996), 423-36; id., “Marco Polo and John Mandeville: The Traveler as Authority Figure, the Real and the Imaginary,” Authorities in the Middle Ages: Influence, Legitimacy, and Power in Medieval Society, ed. Sini Kangas, Mia Korpiola, and Tuija Aionen. Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, 12 (Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2013), 239-48.
[41] Edward Said, Orientalism (London: Routledge, 1978); Khanmohamadi, Sh. A., In Light of Another’s Word: European Ethnography in the Middle Ages. The Middle Ages Series (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014).
[42] McComas Taylor, “The Panchatantra: World Literature Before ‘World Literature,’” A Companion to World Literature, ed. Ken Seigneurie. Vol. 1: Third Millennium BCE to 600 CE, ed. Wiebke Denecke and Ilaria L. E. Ramelli (Hoboken, NJ, and Chichester, West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, 2020), 561-75; here 572.
[43] This is, as I see it, the major problem with the six-volume set, A Companion to World Literature (see note 35). Cf. also Roland Wenzlhuemer, Doing Global History: An Introduction in Six Concepts (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020). Salisbury, J. E., ed. (2009). The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Global Medieval Life and Culture. 3 vols (Westport, CT, and London: Greenwood, 2009); Heng, G., and Ramey, L. (2014). Early Globalities, Global Literatures: Introducing a Special Issue on the Global Middle Ages. Literature Compass, 1–6; online at: 10.1111/lic3.12156;
[44] Azadeh Yamini-Hamedani, “On Transcendence and Literariness,” A Companion to World Literature (see. note 35), vol. 2, 774-82; here 776.
[45] Forde, Simon. The Encyclopedia of the Global Middle Ages. London: ARC Humanities Press, 2019; online at: https://www.bloomsburymedievalstudies.com/encyclopedia?docid=b-9781350990005.
[46] Die Historia von den sieben weisen Meistern und dem Kaiser Diocletianus (see note 22); see also Le roman des sept sages, ed. Jean Misrahi. Rpt. (1933; Geneva: Slatkine, 1975); Le roman de Dolopathos: edition du manuscrit H 436 de le Bibliothèque de l’Ecole de Médecine de Montpellier, ed. Jean-Luc Leclanche. Les classiques français du Moyen Âge, 126 (Paris: Champion, 1997).
[2] Recent years have seen extensive new research on all those nomadic people, whether the Huns, the Avars, the Magyars, or the Mongols. See, for instance, Walter Pohl, The Avars: A Steppe Empire in Central Europe, 567-822. Trans. from the German (3rd ed., 2015; Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press, 2018); Ruotsala, Antti, Europeans and Mongols in the Middle of the Thirteenth Century: Encountering the Other. Suomalaisen Tiedeakatemian Toimituksia, Humaniora, 314 (Helsinki: The Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, 2001); Timothy May, The Mongols. Past imperfect (Leeds: ARC Humanities Press, 2020).
[3] See now Sæbjørg Walaker Nordeide and Kevin J. Edwards, The Vikings. Past imperfect (Leeds: ARC Humanities Press, 2020); Vikings Across Boundaries: Viking-Age Transformations II, ed. Hanne Lovise Aannestad, Elise Naumann, Heidi Lund Berg, Hanne Lovise Aannestad, Unn Pedersen, and Marianne Moen. Culture, Environment and Adaptation in the North, 2 (New York and London: Routledge, 2020).
[4] See now the contributions to Travel, Time, and Space in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Time: Explorations of Worldly Perceptions and Processes of Identity Formation, ed. Albrecht Classen. Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, 22 (Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2018).
[5] Johann Schiltberger, The Bondage and Travels of Johann Schiltberger, a Native of Bavaria, in Europe, Asia, and Africa 1396‒1427, trans. from the Heidelberg ms. ed. in 1859 by Karl Friedrich Neumann by J. Buchan Telfer. With notes by P. Bruun and a preface, introduction and notes by the translator and editor (London: Hakluyt Society, 1897); cf. also the recent edition: Hans Schiltberger, Als Sklave im Osmanischen Reich und bei den Tataren: 1394‒?1427, ed. Ulrich Schlemmer. Alte abenteuerliche Reiseberichte (Wiesbaden: Ed. Erdmann, 2008); and for a German translation, see Johann Schiltbergers Irrfahrt durch den Orient: Der aufsehenerregende Bericht einer Reise, die 1394 begann und erst nach über 30 Jahren ein Ende fand. Aus dem Mittelhochdeutschen übertragen und herausgegeben von Markus Tremmel. Bayerische Abenteuer (Taufkirchen: Via Verbis Bavarica, 2000). For recent studies, see Albrecht Classen, “Global Travel in the Late Middle Ages: The Eyewitness Account of Johann Schiltberger,” Medieval History Journal 23.1 (2020): 1–28 (online at: https://doi.org/10.1177/0971945819895896); id., “The Topic of Imprisonment in Medieval German Literature: With an Emphasis on Johann Schiltberger’s Account About his 30-Year Enslavement in the East,” Studia Neophilologica (2020):
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00393274.2020.1755362 (both last accessed on April 24, 2021).
[6] Quoted from Romane des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts, ed. Jan-Dirk Müller. Bibliothek der frühen Neuzeit, 1 (Frankfurt a. M.: Deutscher Klassiker Verein, 1990), 385‒585; here 491. For a review of the relevant research and the central topics, see Albrecht Classen, The German Volksbuch. A Critical History of a Late-Medieval Genre. Studies in German Language and Literature, 15 (Lewiston, NY, Queenston, and Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press, 1995, reissued 1999), 163–83; cf. also Anne Simon, “The Fortunatus Volksbuch in the Light of Later Mediaeval Travel Literature,” Fifteenth-Century Studies 12 (1987): 175–86; Hannes Kästner, Fortunatus – Peregrinator mundi: Welterfahrung und Selbsterkenntnis im ersten deutschen Prosaroman der Neuzeit. Rombach Wissenschaft – Reihe Litterae (Freiburg i. Br.: Verlag Rombach, 1990), 76–106; Albrecht Classen, “Die Welt eines spätmittelalterlichen Kaufmannsreisenden. Ein mentalitätsgeschichtliches Dokument der Frühneuzeit: Fortunatus,” Monatshefte 86.1 (1994): 22–44; id., “The Crusader as Lover and Tourist: Utopian Elements in Late Medieval German Literature: From Herzog Ernst to Reinfried von Braunschweig and Fortunatus,” Current Topics in Medieval German Literature: Texts and Analyses (Kalamazoo Papers 2000–2006), ed. Sibylle Jefferis. Göppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik, 748 (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 2008), 83–102; id., “The Encounter with the Foreign in Medieval and Early Modern German Literature: Fictionality as a Springboard for Non-Xenophobic Approaches in the Middle Ages: Herzog Ernst, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Konrad von Würzburg, Die Heidin, and Fortunatus,” East Meets West in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: Transcultural Experiences in the Premodern World, ed. Albrecht Classen. Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, 14 (Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2013), 457–87; id., “Fremdbegegnung, Dialog, Austausch, und Staunen: Xenologische Phänomene in der deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters. Vom Hildebrandslied bis zum Fortunatus,” Mediaevistik 26 (2013): 183–206.
[7] See the comments by Jan-Dirk Müller, ed., Romane, 1210; as to Mandeville, see, for instance, Mary Campbell. The Witness and the Other World: Exotic European Travel Writing,400-1600 (Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press, 1988); and Kim Phillips, Before Orientalism: Asian Peoples and Cultures in European Travel Writing, 1245-1510. The Middle Ages Series (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014); Eastward Bound: Travel and Travellers, 1050-1550, ed. Rosamund Allen (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004). For eastern, specifically Arabic perspectives, see Nizar F. Hermes, The [European] Other in Medieval Arabic Literature and Culture: Ninth-Twelfth Century AD. The New Middle Ages (New York and London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). For the text by Mandeville, see The Book of John Mandeville with Related Texts, ed. and trans. Ian Higgins (Cambridge, MA: Hackett Publishing, 2011).
[8] Shayne Aaron Legassie, The Medieval Invention of Travel (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2017).
[9] Sonja Brentjes, Alexander Fidora, and Matthias M. Tischler, “Towards a New Approach to Medieval Cross-Cultural Exchanges,” Journal of Transcultural Medieval Studies 1.1 (2014): 9-50; with an extensive bibliography.
[10] Die Meerfahrt: Balthasar Springers Reise zur Pfefferküste: mit einem Faksimile des Buches von 1509, ed. Andreas Erhard and Eva Ramminger (Innsbruck: Haymon-Verlag, 1998); Albrecht Classen, “India Perceived Through the Eyes of Sixteenth-Century Readers: Ludovico de Varthema’s Bestseller on the Early Modern Book Markets—A Narrative Landmark of the Emerging Positive Evaluation of curiositas,” Medievalia et Humanistica 40 (2015): 1-24.
[11] Albrecht Classen, “Indien: Imagination und Erfahrungswelt in Antike und Mittelalter,” Mittelalter-Mythen, V. Ed. Ulrich Müller and Werner Wunderlich (St. Gall: UVK, 2008), 359-72; for early modern perspectives, see id., “India Perceived Through the Eyes of Sixteenth-Century Readers: Ludovico de Varthema’s Bestseller on the Early Modern Book Markets—A Narrative Landmark of the Emerging Positive Evaluation of curiositas,” Medievalia et Humanistica 40 (2015): 1-24.
[12] Herweg, Mathias, ed. Herzog Ernst: Mittelhochdeutsch / Neuhochdeutsch, ed. Mathias Herweg. In der Fassung B (Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam jun., 2019).
[13] Lienert, Elisabeth, ed. Pfaffe Lambrecht: Alexanderroman. Mittelhochdeutsch / Neuhochdeutsch. Stuttgart: Reclam 2007).
[14] Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival. Studienausgabe, ed. Karl Lachmann (6th ed.), trans. into German by Peter Knecht, intro. by Bernd Schirok (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1998).
[15] U. Knefelkamp, “Indien,” Lexikon des Mittelalter, vol. V: Hiera-Mittel bis Lukanien (Munich and Zurich: Artemis Verlag, 1991), 404-05.
[16] Geraldine Heng, The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018).
[17] East Meets West in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: Transcultural Experiences in the Premodern World, ed. Albrecht Classen. Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, 14. Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2013); D’Orient en Occident: les recueils de fables enchâssées avant les “Mille et une Nuits” de Galland; (Barlaam et Josaphat, Calila et Dimna, Disciplina clericalis, Roman des Sept Sages), ed. Marion Uhlig and Yasmina Foehr-Janssens. Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, 16 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014); Die Figur des Herrschers in der Exempelliteratur – Transkulturelle Perspektiven, ed. Mechthild Albert and Ulrike Becker. Studien zu Macht und Herrschaft, 8 (Göttingen: V&R unipress; Bonn University Press, 2020).
[18] The Pancatantra: The Book of India’s Folk Wisdom, trans. Patrick Olivelle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). For a truly solid overview of the history of this famous collection and its reception, along with a great bibliography, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panchatantra (last accessed on April 24, 2021). See now Nasrullah Munshi, Kalila and Dimna, trans. from the Persian by Wheeler Thackston (Indianapolis, IN, and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 2019). For a case of a late medieval German translation, see Albrecht Classen, “India, Persia, and Arabia in the Mind of a Late Fifteenth-Century German Author: Transcultural Experiences through the Literary Discourse. Antonius von Pforr and His Buch der Beispiele der Alten Weisen,” Philological Quarterly 99.2 (2020): 119–45.
[19] Romedio Schmitz-Esser, “The Buddha and the Medieval West: Changing Perspectives on Cultural Exchange Between Asia and Europe in the Middle Ages,” Travel, Time, and Space (see note 2), 311-30; for Asian textiles at least in the Byzantine world, see Jaroslav Folda, “The Use of Çintamani as Ornaments: A Case study in the Afterlife of Forms,” Byzantine Images and Their Afterlives: Essays in Honor of Annemarie Weyl Carr, ed. Lynn Jones (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), 183-204; see also Jens T. Wollesen, “East Meets West and the Problem with Those Pictures,” East Meets West in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: Transcultural Experiences in the Premodern World, ed. Albrecht Classen. Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, 14 (Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2013), 341-88.
[20] Evgeny Khvalkov, The Colonies of Genoa in the Black Sea Region: Evolution and Transformation. Routledge Research in Medieval Studies, 11 (New York and London: Routledge, 2018); id., “Population de Caffa génoise à la lumière des livres comptables des années 1423-1424 et 1461-1462,” Mediaevistik 33 (2020): 155-65.
[21] Albrecht Classen, “Kulturelle und religiöse Kontakte zwischen dem christlichen Europa und dem buddhistischen Indien während des Mittelalters: Rudolfs von Ems Barlaam und Josaphat im europäischen Kontext.” Fabula 41 (2000): 203–28; Constanza Cordoni, “Barlaam und Josaphat in der europäischen Literatur des Mittelalters,” Ph.D. diss., Vienna, 2010. See also the contributions to Barlaam und Josaphat: Neue Perspektiven auf ein europäisches Phänomen, ed. Constanza Cordoni und Matthias Meyer (Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2015); Jacques Le Goff, In Search of Sacred Time: Jacobus de Voragine and The Golden Legend, transl. by Lydia G. Cochrane (2011; Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014).
[22] Gertrud Blaschitz, “Farbiger Innenraum – genealogische Metapher? Barlaam- und Josaphat-Fresken in der Kremser ‘Gozzoburg’,” Farbe im Mittelalter: Materialität – Medialität – Semantik, ed. Ingrid Bennewitz and Andrea Schindler. Akten des 13. Symposiums des Mediävistenverbandes vom 1. bis 5. März 2009 in Bamberg (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2011), 159–74; eadem, “‘Barlaam und Josaphat’ als Vorlage für Wandmalereien in der Gozzoburg von Krems,” Medium Aevum Quotidianum 57 (2008): 28–48. For critical comments, see Christian Opitz, “Die Wandmalereien im Turmzimmer der Kremser Gozzoburg. Ein herrschaftliches Bildprogramm des späten 13. Jahrhunderts,” Österreichische Zeitschrift für Kunst und Denkmalpflege 62 (2008): 588–602. Andreas Zajic, Kulturgeschichte der Überlieferung im Mittelalter. Quellen und Methoden zur Geschichte Mittel- und Südosteuropas, ed. Elisabeth Gruber, Christina Lutter, Oliver Jens Schmitt (Cologne, Weimar, and Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 2017), 294–300; but confer also Gertrud Blaschitz, “‘Barlaam und Josaphat’ im moldawischen Kloster Neamt, Neamt, Rumänien,” Barlaam und Josaphat: Neue Perspektiven auf ein europäisches Phänomen, ed. Constanza Cordoni und Matthias Meyer (Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2015), 21–42. I summarize here the overview provided by Romedio Schmitz-Esser, 327, n. 49, 328, n. 52.
[23] Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, trans. William Granger Ryan (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), vol. 2, no. 180, 355-166. Jacobus de Voragine, La légende dorée, trans. from the French by Jean-Baptiste-Marie Roze (Paris: Citadelles & Mazenod, 2008). See also the edition and German translation, Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda aurea: die Heiligenlegenden des Mittelalters. Hrsg., neu übersetzt und mit einem ausführlichen Anhang versehen von Matthias Hackemann (Cologne: Anaconda, 2008). For a pragmatic approach to our text sample, see Reading Medieval Latin with the Legend of Barlaam and Josaphat, ed. and supplied with commentary by Donka D. Markus. Michigan Classical Commentaries (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2018).
[24] Historiae animae utilis de Barlaam et Ioasaph, ed. Robert Volk. Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos, 6. Patristische Texte und Studien, 60-61 (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2006).
[25] Mattia Cavagna, “Barlaam and Josaphat in the ‘legenda aurea’ and the ‘Miroir historia’: A Tale Twice Framed,” Barlaam und Josaphat (see note 15), 85-100.
[26] Die Historia von den sieben weisen Meistern und dem Kaiser Diocletianus. Nach der Gießener Handschrift 104 mit einer Einleitung und Erläuterungen, ed. Ralf-Henning Steinmetz. Altdeutsche Textbibliothek, 116 (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 2001). See also Obermaier, S. (2004). Das Fabelbuch als Rahmenerzählung: Intertextualität und Intratextualität als Wege zur Interpretation des Buchs der Beispiele der alten Weisen Antons von Pforr. Beihefte zum Euphorion, 48 (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2004).
[27] Reinaldo Ayerbe-Chaux, El Conde Lucanor: Materia tradicional y originalidad creadora (Madrid: J. Porrúa Turanzas, 1975). Mario Cossío Olavide, “‘Algunos moros muy sabidores’: Virtuous Muslim Kings in Examples 30 and 41 of ‘El conde Lucanor’,” Bulletin of Spanish Studies 97.2 (2020): 127-38; see also Maria Cecilia Ruiz, “Theft in Juan Manuel’s El Conde Lucanor,” Crime and Punishment in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age: Mental-Historical Investigations of Basic Human Problems and Social Responses, ed. Albrecht Classen and Connie Scarborough. Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, 11 (Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2012), 247-80.
[28] Giuseppe Tucci, Joseph M. Kitagawa, and Frank E. Reynolds, “Buddhism,” online at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Buddhism/The-life-of-the-Buddha; see also https://www.diamondway-buddhism.org/buddhism/buddha/; https://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/buddha.html (all last accessed on April 25, 2021). For a scholarly rendition, see Chikō Komatsu The Way to Peace: The Life and Teachings of the Buddha, trans. from the Japanese (Kyoto: Hōzōkan Publ. Co., 1989).
[29] Barlaam und Josaphat, ed. Cordoni and Meyer (see note 17).
[30] Toward a Global Middle Ages: Encountering the World Through Illuminated Manuscripts, ed. Bryan C. Keene (Los Angeles, CA: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2019), 3-4.
[31] María Jesús Lacarra, “The Figure of the Ruler in ‘Calila e Dimna’ and the ‘Exemplario contra los engaños y peligros del mundo’,” Die Figur des Herrschers (see note 12), 53-71. She limits herself to the Spanish tradition and traces it back primarily to Arabic sources. But, as we know already, the lines of transmission often go much further back to Persia and then India; see José Manuel Pedrosa, “Los cuentos en la España medieval entre la voz y la lettra,” Cuentística castellana medieval, ed. Marta Haro Cortés. Vol. 1: Origen, consolidación y evolución. Del ‘Calila e Dimna’ al ‘Exemplario contra los engaños y peligros del mundo. Colección Parnaseo, 6 (Valencia: Universitat de València, 2013), 229-47 (easily accessible online at: http://parnaseo.uv.es/AulaMedieval/AulaMedieval.php?id=CuentosMedievales (last accessed on April 25, 2021).
[32] Constanza Cordoni, Barlaam und Josaphat in der europäischen Literatur des Mittelalters: Darstellung der Stofftraditionen - Bibliographie - Studien (Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2014).
[33] Helmut de Boor, Die höfische Literatur: Vorbereitung, Blüte, Ausklang 1170-1250. Geschichte der deutschen Literatur von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart, 2 (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1966), 176-87.
[34]“‘Barlaam’-Bruchstücke,” ed. Franz Pfeiffer, Zeitschrift für deutsches Alterthum 1 (1841): 126-35. Online at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20649870?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents (last accessed on April 25, 2021).
[35] The latest account is provided online at: https://handschriftencensus.de/werke/321 (last accessed on April 25, 2021).
[36] Rudolf von Ems, Barlaam und Josaphat. Dichtungen des deutschen Mittelalters, 3. Nachdruck mit einem Anhang, einem Nachwort und einem Register von Heinz Rupp (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1965); online at: https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb10107283?page=1 (last accessed on April 25, 2021).
[37] Joachim Bumke, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur im hohen Mittelalter (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1990), 394-95.
[38] Helmut de Boor, Die deutsche Literatur im späten Mittelalter. Part I: 1250-1350. 5th ed. Newly revised by Johannes Janota. Geschichte der deutschen Literatur von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart, III/1 (1962; Munich: C. H. Beck, 1997), 459-61.
[39] Alexanderdichtungen im Mittelalter: Kulturelle Selbstbestimmung im Kontext literarischer Beziehungen, ed. Jan Cölln, Susanne Friede, and Hartmut Wulfram. Veröffentlichungen aus dem Göttinger Sonderforschungsbereich 529 “Internationalität nationaler Literaturen”, 1 (Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2000).
[40] The Travels of Marco Polo, trans. and with an intro. by Ronald Latham (London: Penguin, 1958); for recent critical studies, see the contributions to Marco Polo and the Encounter of East and West, ed. Suzanne Conklin Akbari and Amilcare Iannucci (Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press, 2008). One of the best studies continues to be by John Larner, Marco Polo and the Discovery of the World (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1999); cf. also Albrecht Classen, “Marco Polos Il Milione/Le Divisement du Monde: der Mythos vom Osten,” Mittelalter Mythen. Herrscher, Helden, Heilige. Ulrich Müller and Werner Wunderlich, eds. (St. Gall: UVK, 1996), 423-36; id., “Marco Polo and John Mandeville: The Traveler as Authority Figure, the Real and the Imaginary,” Authorities in the Middle Ages: Influence, Legitimacy, and Power in Medieval Society, ed. Sini Kangas, Mia Korpiola, and Tuija Aionen. Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, 12 (Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2013), 239-48.
[41] Edward Said, Orientalism (London: Routledge, 1978); Khanmohamadi, Sh. A., In Light of Another’s Word: European Ethnography in the Middle Ages. The Middle Ages Series (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014).
[42] McComas Taylor, “The Panchatantra: World Literature Before ‘World Literature,’” A Companion to World Literature, ed. Ken Seigneurie. Vol. 1: Third Millennium BCE to 600 CE, ed. Wiebke Denecke and Ilaria L. E. Ramelli (Hoboken, NJ, and Chichester, West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, 2020), 561-75; here 572.
[43] This is, as I see it, the major problem with the six-volume set, A Companion to World Literature (see note 35). Cf. also Roland Wenzlhuemer, Doing Global History: An Introduction in Six Concepts (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020). Salisbury, J. E., ed. (2009). The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Global Medieval Life and Culture. 3 vols (Westport, CT, and London: Greenwood, 2009); Heng, G., and Ramey, L. (2014). Early Globalities, Global Literatures: Introducing a Special Issue on the Global Middle Ages. Literature Compass, 1–6; online at: 10.1111/lic3.12156;
[44] Azadeh Yamini-Hamedani, “On Transcendence and Literariness,” A Companion to World Literature (see. note 35), vol. 2, 774-82; here 776.
[45] Forde, Simon. The Encyclopedia of the Global Middle Ages. London: ARC Humanities Press, 2019; online at: https://www.bloomsburymedievalstudies.com/encyclopedia?docid=b-9781350990005.
[46] Die Historia von den sieben weisen Meistern und dem Kaiser Diocletianus (see note 22); see also Le roman des sept sages, ed. Jean Misrahi. Rpt. (1933; Geneva: Slatkine, 1975); Le roman de Dolopathos: edition du manuscrit H 436 de le Bibliothèque de l’Ecole de Médecine de Montpellier, ed. Jean-Luc Leclanche. Les classiques français du Moyen Âge, 126 (Paris: Champion, 1997).
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