Daily Medieval

Yesterday I teased information about Prester John. I wrote about him long ago ( here and here ), and he got mentioned in other contexts (mo...

Pope Honorius III (fl.1216 - 1227), in a letter dated 20 June 1221, referred to "forces coming from the Far East to rescue the Holy Lan...

Hugh of Jabala tells Pope Eugene about Prester John Many of you know about the decades when the papacy was headquartered in Avignon (fi...

Dimashq. دمشق. Dimishe'. al-Sh ām. The City of Jasmine. "Oldest continuously inhabited city in the world." Damascus. I...

In the Middle Ages, the evidence suggests that Ethiopia was a Christian nation surrounded by hostile Muslim territories. Medieval manuscript...

Almost 100 manuscripts exist that are part of the legend of Prester John , mostly copies of the letter supposedly written from him to one or...

That "inaccessible area" in Asia mentioned in the Finding Paradise entry fascinated Europeans. Knowledge of the lands to the ea...