Human Circus: Journeys in the Medieval World D Field

In the late-summer of 1914, a city burns and its university library with it. Unusually for this podcast, the story takes us into WWI, but there are medieval connections to the story of Louvain (Leuven) and what happened when the German army came to town.
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Sources:

Bazydlo, Angela. “Manuscript lost in WWI fire turns up in Clark Archives.” https://clarknow.clarku.edu/2021/08/30/manuscript-lost-in-wwi-fire-turns-up-in-clark-archives/


Battles, Matthew. Library: An Unquiet History. W. W. Norton & Company, 2011.

Battles, Matthew. “Knowledge on Fire.” The American Scholar 72, no. 3 (2003): 35–51.

Bouwman, André. “Book burning in Louvain, 1914.” https://www.leidenspecialcollectionsblog.nl/articles/book-burning-in-louvain-1914


Delannoy, Paul. “The Library at the University of Louvain,” The Nineteenth Century, Vol. LXXVII - No. 59, p. 1061 May 1915.

Derez, Mark. “The Flames of Louvain: a Library as a Cultural Icon and a Political Vehicle,” What do we lose when we lose a library? Proceedings of the conference held at the KU Leuven 9-11 September 2015.


Gusejnova, Dina. “Librarians as Agents of German Foreign Policy and the Cultural Consequences of the First World War.” The Historical Journal 66, no. 4 (2023): 864–86.

Kipling, Rudyard. “In Aid of Recruiting.” https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/readers-guide/rg_speeches_29.htm


Kramer, Alan. Dynamic of Destruction: Culture and Mass Killing in the First World War. Oxford University Press, 2008.

Matin, A. Michael. “‘The Hun is at the Gate!’: Historicizing Kipling's Militaristic Rhetoric, From the Imperial Periphery to the National Center: Part Two: The French, Russian, and German Threats to Great Britain.” Studies in the Novel 31, no. 4 (1999): 432–70. http://www.jstor.org/stable/29533357.


Ovenden, Richard. Burning the Books. Harvard University Press, 2020.

Ovenden, Richard. “One of Europe’s Great Libraries Didn’t Stand a Chance… In Either of the World Wars.” https://lithub.com/one-of-europes-great-libraries-didnt-stand-a-chance-in-either-of-the-world-wars/   


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The Fernao Mendes Pinto story reaches its conclusion, and he finally reaches Portugal once more.
If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.
I'm on BlueSky @a-devon.bsky.social, Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble.
Sources:


The Travels of Mendes Pinto, edited and translated by Rebecca D. Catz. University of Chicago Press, 1989.

Hart, Thomas R. “Style and Substance in the Peregrination.” Portuguese Studies 2 (1986).

Hart, Thomas R. “True or False: Problems of the ‘Peregrination.’” Portuguese Studies 13 (1997).

Rubiés, Joan Pau. “Real and Imaginary Dialogues in the Jesuit Mission of Sixteenth-Century Japan.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 55, no. 2/3 (2012).

Rubiés, Joan Pau. “The Oriental Voices of Mendes Pinto, or the Traveller as Ethnologist in Portuguese India.” Portuguese Studies 10 (1994).

Spence, Jonathan D. The Chan's Great Continent: China in Western Minds. W. W. Norton & Company, 1999.


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The story of Fernao Mendes Pinto intersects with that of the Jesuit saint, Francis Xavier, and takes him back to Japan.
If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.
I'm on BlueSky @a-devon.bsky.social, Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble.
Sources:


The Travels of Mendes Pinto, edited and translated by Rebecca D. Catz. University of Chicago Press, 1989.

App, Urs. “St. Francis Xavier’s Discovery of Japanese Buddhism: A Chapter in the European Discovery of Buddhism (Part 1: Before the Arrival in Japan, 1547-1549).” The Eastern Buddhist 30, no. 1 (1997).

Rubiés, Joan Pau. “Real and Imaginary Dialogues in the Jesuit Mission of Sixteenth-Century Japan.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 55, no. 2/3 (2012).

Willis, Clive. “Captain Jorge Álvares and Father Luís Fróis S.J.: Two Early Portuguese Descriptions of Japan and the Japanese.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 22, no. 2 (2012).


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The first Europeans wash up on Japanese shores, bringing the musket as they do so, and Pinto would have you believe that he is with them.
If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.
I'm on BlueSky @a-devon.bsky.social, Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble.
Sources:


The Travels of Mendes Pinto, edited and translated by Rebecca D. Catz. University of Chicago Press, 1989.

Cooper, Michael. The Southern Barbarians: The First Europeans in Japan. Kodansha, 1971.

Lidin, Olof G. Tanegashima: The Arrival of Europe in Japan. Routledge, 2003.

Perrin, Noel. Giving Up the Gun: Japan's Reversion to the Sword, 1543-1879. David R. Godine, 1979.


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Pinto's story continues, and the Portuguese traveller makes his way across China as a prisoner, describing some its towns, cities, and countryside as he goes. His China, which he may not have actually visited himself, is dotted with the remnants of previous Portuguese actions, an envoy's gravestone and the remnants of failed embassies.
If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.
I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble.
Sources:


The Travels of Mendes Pinto, edited and translated by Rebecca D. Catz. University of Chicago Press, 1989.

Hart, Thomas R. “Style and Substance in the Peregrination.” Portuguese Studies 2 (1986): 49–55. 

Hart, Thomas R. “True or False: Problems of the ‘Peregrination.’” Portuguese Studies 13 (1997): 35–42.

Rubiés, Joan-Pau. "The Oriental Voices of Mendes Pinto, or the Traveller as Ethnologist in Portuguese India." Portuguese Studies 10 (1994): 24–43.


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Our Portuguese adventurer resumes his piratical ways and runs into trouble on the coast of China. He and de Faria find silver in abundance, but also shipwreck, poverty, and leeches.
If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.
I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble.
Sources:


The Travels of Mendes Pinto, edited and translated by Rebecca D. Catz. University of Chicago Press, 1989.

Hart, Thomas R. “Style and Substance in the Peregrination.” Portuguese Studies 2 (1986): 49–55. 

Hart, Thomas R. “True or False: Problems of the ‘Peregrination.’” Portuguese Studies 13 (1997): 35–42.

Rubiés, Joan-Pau. "The Oriental Voices of Mendes Pinto, or the Traveller as Ethnologist in Portuguese India." Portuguese Studies 10 (1994): 24–43.


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