Before Orientalism. Kim M. Phillips

that a fifteenth-century Irish prince could have found relevance in a thirteenth-century Venetian’s description of distant oriental lands. This shared interest could be called “European,” for want of a better word, without going overboard in seeking to identify the components of European sensibility. Medieval inhabitants of what we now term Western Europe possessed cultural commonalities—however loose and fragmentary—that gave them certain preoccupations and attitudes; however, they did not often seek to articulate or define these commonalities. “Europe” existed but was not yet so important that it needed detailed and frequent discussion.

      More pressing, perhaps, is to seek medieval perceptions of a secular Eurocentricism. This is a different task from identifying a sense of Christian superiority. Presumption of the truth and authority of Christianity—in this case, Latin Roman Christianity—over all other religions was after all a prerequisite of the faith. Religious pluralism was not a feature of medieval Catholicism, though it was possible for medieval Christians to look favorably on aspects of non-Christian religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism even if in the case of missionaries their positive views were influenced by optimism about the chances for conversions to Christianity.⁵⁷ Frederick II’s letter to Henry III certainly qualifies as an assertion of European might. Another statement of European superiority has been identified in the writings of Bartholomaeus Anglicus, the thirteenth-century encyclopedist, in his De proprietatibus rerum. Akbari states that his chapter on “Europa,” building on Isidore of Seville, revises notions of the primacy of Asia by arguing for the superiority of northern (that is, European) people by virtue of their cold climate. The cold breeds white men with closed pores who are “more ful and huge” of body and “more bold and hardy” of spirit than other men. Africans, because of burning sun, are black and short and the heat causes their spirits to pass through their open pores, making them “more cowards of herte.” Men of Asia are in the middle of these two extremes, though we should also note Bartholomaeus’s statement that Europe is “pere [peer]” to Asia “in nombre and noblete of men.”⁵⁸

      In the travel literature of our present focus, Eurocentrism of a secular sort was not entirely unknown but not a dominant motif. Jordan Catala asserts in his Mirabilia descripta that “there is no better land, no more beautiful, no people so honest, no foodstuffs so good or savoury, no dress so handsome, or manners so noble, as here in our own Christendom; and, above all, we have the true faith, though it be ill-kept,” and though he refers to “nostra Christianitate” rather than “Europa,” the former in this instance designates a worldly as well as spiritual entity.⁵⁹ Another statement of European superiority, though with specifically military connotations, is Carpini’s assertion that the wily Mongol forces may be defeated if engaged in battle “because they are fewer in number and weaker in body than the Christian peoples.”⁶⁰ “Mandeville” states his English nationality in the opening and closing sections of his Book in a way that might be taken for a kind of fictional patriotism, though not Eurocentrism as such. As we will see in Chapter 7, however, it was more common for medieval travelers to the far Orient to remark on the superiority of eastern realms and cultures, especially Chinese.

      Early modern specialists would need to answer the question of whether imperialist and colonialist enterprises in the Americas, Africa, and parts of Asia changed European self-perception dramatically, but in 1613 English travel anthologist Samuel Purchas made an assertion of European superiority that does seem novel in its hyperbole and in the range of endeavors covered. Europe surpasses other continents, he writes, not only in climate and in geographical advantages but also in people, cities, and great powers. Where else, he asks, do we find “such resolute courages, able bodies, well qualified minds?” What other lands are so “fortified with Castles, edified with Townes, crowned with Cities?” Purchas claims superiority for Europe in its “Arts and Inventions.” Asia and Africa may have supplied the birthplaces for the “Liberall Arts,” but Christian Europe is now preeminent in learning, “Mechanical Sciences,” “Musicall Inventions,” cooking, horse management, chemistry, the making of paper, mills, guns, printing, and all manner of scientific advances. “China yeelds babes and bables in [printing and guns] compared with us and ours: the rest of the World have them borrowed of us or not at all.” The military prowess of European nations is also unsurpassed, as are their feats of exploration. Europeans, moreover, are more than any other people God’s chosen, and few others will be saved. The European right to mastery over Africa, Asia, and the Americas, “almost every where admitting Europæan Colonies,” is thus proclaimed.⁶¹ Purchas’s claim for European greatness in every respect is not echoed in medieval travelers’ accounts of the Orient. It is, therefore, worth stressing that Eurocentric attitudes are not eternal but have a history. Even such an authority as Anthony Pagden can sketch a straightforward line of European sense of technological superiority from Herodotus through medieval crusaders and missionaries to Vespucci, stating that “[a]fter Columbus’s discovery of America and the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope … the European belief in the capacity of European science to dominate the world became even more assertive.”⁶² Such linearity is simply not justified.

      During the period c. 1245 to c. 1510, then, “Christendom” endured but was ailing, and “Europe” existed but was yet to be fully asserted. In the late medieval period the concept of Europe, as a region united not only by papal lordship and adherence to the Roman rite but also by a sense of ethnic and cultural unity, was gaining momentum as a replacement for the Christendom of the high Middle Ages but in relatively undeveloped form. Without a universal feeling of European cultural superiority, and without the sense of racial unity that later theories would endow—such as Blumenbach’s linking of European peoples under the banner of “Caucasian”⁶³—the idea of Europe was not in the forefront of authors’ minds when penning their accounts of distant Easts. As a result, the motivation to portray Asian peoples as Other to the European Self was not a pervasive theme.

      Curiosity, Wonder, and the Desire for Knowledge

      Medieval travelers’ responses to distant Orients were multifaceted. One cannot identify a single or dominant impulse guiding their texts or indeed the expectations of their audiences. One was the desire for hard information about peoples and places. This prevailed particularly in descriptions of Mongols, as the patrons of diplomatic travelers needed intelligence dossiers to help combat that new foe and consider options for alliances. Many of the missionary travelers also sought to provide their superiors with data on local populations and the friars’ successes with conversions. A further explanation may be proposed for late medieval interest in travel writing that applies particularly to works that were not produced to satisfy any obvious and immediate need and yet became the most widely reproduced. That is, readers of these books were seeking answers to big questions confronting them and their time. How does one live in a city? What should we eat? How should we dress? How should we talk? How should we conduct our sexual lives? What constitutes ideal femininity and masculinity? What is courtliness? What kinds of luxury should be admired? What is beautiful? In short, what should we be? How should we live?

      In late medieval Europe the “primarily agrarian, feudal, and monastic”⁶⁴ characteristics of early and high medieval Europe were gradually giving way to a more urbanized and mercantile society with growing interest in political theory and a splendid court culture. Fashion was emerging among the aristocratic elite, who also began to enjoy increasingly luxurious households and personal etiquette. Domestic and urban rituals were employed for the staging of power as a form of theater. At the same time the cataclysms of famine, plague, and warfare plunged European people into frequent periods of instability and hardship. Long detailed works like that of Marco Polo were popular partly because they dealt with so many topics that were of interest in a changing Europe: how to exchange currency, how to send information, how to enjoy life, how to govern well, how to organize a city, how to ensure food supply. The Divisament presents the idealized figure of Khubilai Khân as a model of benevolent governance and lauds his great palaces, fine dining, courtly entertainments, festivities, and hunting expeditions as exemplary of noble life.⁶⁵ Such topics were of increasing interest among European nobility, gentry, and, in certain regions, mercantile elites.

      Recent scholarship on curiosity and wonder in late medieval and early modern Europe can help frame our discussion of