Fifteenth-century Castilian travel accounts as an example of relations between representatives of the christianitas latina and the Asian East

Abstract

Long before the conquest of the New World, Castilian envoys and travellers had been exploring the Middle East and Central Asia. The accounts of their journeys, known as libros de viajes, are a valuable source of information on the culture, ethnography, and geography of the areas they visited and a manifestation of the broad political horizons of the Castilian kings. The author of this article intends to outline the role played by these late medieval travel accounts in the history of Castile, and to discuss their impact on the interest in the Middle East and Asia among representatives of the Latin culture (christianitas latina). Ruy González de Clavijo’s travel account is particularly valuable here - his chronicle of a journey to Samarkand is one of the few testimonies of the presence of representatives of the Latin culture in the territories conquered by Timur and at his court. This article also analyses the differences between these libros de viajes and earlier texts written by, among others, Franciscan and Dominican missionaries and merchants who travelled to Central and East Asia.