Description
Book SynopsisThe Mongol Archive in Late Medieval France is the first comprehensive study of contact between France and the Mongols in the late Middle Ages. As these realms expanded across Eurasiathe French through crusade and settlement, the Mongols through conquesttheir encounters altered each other's understanding of the world and their place in it. The Mongol influence on French culture is visible in what Mark Cruse calls the Mongol archivea wide range of materials including chronicles, crusade treatises, encyclopedias, manuscript illuminations, maps, romances, and travel accountsrevealing how the French court made sense of a people previously unknown to the European intellectual tradition. Cruse mines this archive of Franco-Mongol contact to reassess France's place in the continental history of medieval Eurasia. By comparing the French and Mongol courts, Cruse shows how their similarities allowed meaningful communication between them and highlights the surprising connectionsdiplomatic, intellec
