"Maps, Monsters and Misericords: From Creation to " Topic

…Apocalypse

"Introduction: Scythia, India, Ethiopia, were some of the distant lands long ago described by Pliny and Solinus as exotic, alien, and populated by strange peoples in comparison to the known Roman world In the Middle Ages, the same descriptions of far-away places and strange peoples again captured the imagination insofar as many Europeans heard reports of distant lands from returning crusaders and pilgrims that whet their appetites for more.

Known only through hearsay and inhabiting countries beyond the reach of the crusades, the stories of the strange and monstrous races unleashed a fascination with imagined deformities of these folk. Their bodies, attire, habits of eating and locomotion, sexual behavior, treatment of elders and methods of rulership, as described by the ancients, rekindled interest in that rich source of the fantastic to be revisited as comparisons to the European Christian standard Strange and monstrous peoples were originally described by ancient texts and they were incorporated into the medieval collective lore of the distant through the « Wonders of the East », bestiaries, and other odd assortments of information about freakish folks…"
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Amicalement
Armand