Numen 57 (2010) 154–185 brill.nl/nu Beyond the Horizons of Legends: Traditional Imagery and Direct Experience in Medieval Accounts of Asia Jana Valtrová* Department for the Study of Religions, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, Arna Nováka 1, 602 00 Brno, Czech Republic
[email protected] Abstract Te article deals with several medieval travel accounts about Asia, which were pro- duced during the 13th and 14th centuries, in the time of the so called Mongol mis- sion. Tese reports were written by Franciscan and also some Dominican missionaries, namely William of Rubruck, John Plano of Carpini, Odoric of Pordenone, John of Marignola, Jordanus Catalanus and a few others. Te aim of the article is to analyze the encounter of European travelers’ “traditional” ideas about Asia with the actual reality. Did the friars mostly rely on their anticipations, or were they open to new information, even if this could destroy views often advocated by eminent authorities of European medieval thought? Te article analyses three “traditional” topoi, each of them in the context of the above-mentioned reports: earthly paradise, the kingdom of Prester John and human monsters. All of them belonged to the medieval lore regarding the East, as testified by many literary as well as pictorial documents. Each of the authors adopted a slightly different strategy for how to solve the potential con- flicts between “tradition” and experience. Finally, I suggest conceptualizing the prob- lem of “tradition” and experience in medieval travel accounts with reference to a typology of “otherness” created by Karlheinz Ohle. According to Ohle, a “cognitive Other” (1) is an unknown, never encountered Other which can only be imagined, whereas a “normative Other” (2), is an Other which is directly encountered and grad- ually explored.