Challenging the traditional conception of medieval Europe as insular and even xenophobic, Shirin A. Khanmohamadi's "In Light of Another's Word" looks to early ethnographic writers who were surprisingly aware of their own otherness, especially when faced with the far-flung peoples and cultures they meant to describe. These authors William of Rubruck among the Mongols, "John Mandeville" cataloguing the world's diverse wonders, Geraldus Cambrensis describing the manners of the twelfth-century Welsh, and Jean de Joinville in his account of the various Saracens encountered on the Seventh...
Challenging the traditional conception of medieval Europe as insular and even xenophobic, Shirin A. Khanmohamadi's "In Light of Another's Word" loo...