Old Worlds, New Worlds

Pre-modern European history is replete with moments of encounter. At the end of arduous sea and land journeys, and en route, Europeans met people who challenged their assumptions and certainties about the world. Some sought riches, others allies; some looked for Christian converts and some aimed for conquest. Others experienced the forced cultural encounter of exile. Many travelled only in imagination, forming ideas which have become foundational to modern mentalities: race, ethnicity, nation, and the nature of humanity. The consequences were profound: both productive and destructive. At the beginning of the third millennium CE we occupy a world shaped by those centuries of travel and encounter. This collection examines key themes and moments in European cultural expansion. Unlike many studies it spans both the medieval and early modern periods, challenging the stereotype of the post-Columbus ‘age of discovery’. There is room too for examining cross-cultural relationships within Europe and regions closely linked to it, to show that curiosity, conflict and transformation could result from such meetings as they did in more far-flung realms. Several essays deal with authors, events, and ideas which will be unfamiliar to most readers but which deserve greater attention in the history of encounter and exploration.

Introduction — LISA BAILEY, LINDSAY DIGGELMANN, AND KIM M. PHILLIPS

Of Grifons and Tyrants: Anglo-Norman Views of the Mediterranean World during the Third Crusade — LINDSAY DIGGELMANN

The King, the Bishop, and the Dog Who Killed Him: Canine Cultural Encounters and Medieval Armenian Identity — CHRISTOPHER MACEVITT

Oriental Sexualities in European Representation, c. 1245–c. 1500 — KIM M. PHILLIPS

Fashioning New Worlds from Old Words: Roger Barlow’s A Brief Summe of Geographie, c. 1541 — HEATHER DALTON

Old World Philosophy in a New World: From Natural Slave to Natural Man — DANIEL R. BRUNSTETTER

‘As much desired as it was wondered at’: Old World Encounters with New World Tobacco — KAREN JILLINGS

Humouring Racial Encounters in the Anglo-Atlantic, c. 1580–1720 — MARK S. DAWSON

Hermaphrodites in the New World: Gabriel de Foigny and Terra Incognita Australis — NICHOLAS KEENE

Mission to Tahiti: Cultural Translations in Eighteenth-Century Spanish Journals and Coastal Views — MERCEDES MAROTO CAMINO

List of Contributors

Index