Attitudes Towards the Mongols in Medieval Literature: The XXII Kings of Gog and Magog from the Court of Frederick II to Jean de Mandeville

"Attitudes Towards the Mongols in Medieval literature: The XXII Kings of Gog and Magog from the Court of Frederick II to Jean de Mandeville." This article gives an example of how myth and historical fact interpenetrated in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It shows how texts on the wonders of nature and an episode from the Alexander Romance were brought together and progressively modified during the period in which Europeans first became aware of the Mongols. These modifications reflect the change of attitude towards the Mongols, from the initial hope that they-would help western Christians and destroy Islam from the rear, through a period in which they were viewed with deep mistrust and fear, to a time when they could safely be relegated to the pages of an entertaining and not-too- factual travel book. The first half of the article describes the nature and sources of a recently discovered text-the Mirabilia mundi-which identifies the races of Gog and Magog with the Mongols and forms the starting point of the discussion. The second half attempts to locate this text and its relatives in their historical context, and ends with an account of its influence on Jean de Mandeville's Travels.