Global Middle Ages: Eastern Wisdom (Buddhistic) Teachings in Medieval European Literature. With a Focus on Barlaam and Josaphat

Abstract

In contrast to many recent attempts to establish concepts and platforms to study global literature, and this also in the pre-modern world, this article claims to present much more concrete examples to confirm that a certain degree of globalism existed already in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. While numerous scholars/editors have simply invited many more voices from all over the world to the same ‘table,’ i.e., literary histories, which has not really provided more substance to the notion of ‘global,’ the study of translated texts, such as those dealing with Barlaam and Josaphat, clearly confirms that some core Indian ideas and values, as originally developed by Buddha, had migrated through many stages of translations, to high medieval literature in Europe.