Fifteenth-Century Burgundy and the Islamic East

Abstract

In 1433, Burgundian traveller Bertrandon de la Broquière returned from a journey to the Orient, dressed as a Turk and presenting duke Philip the Good with a copy of the Qur’an. Using this encounter as a starting point, this thesis investigates Burgundy’s engagement with the Islamic East during the fifteenth century, bringing together sources that include travel accounts, interfaith polemic, visual arts, and the Roman de Gillion de Trazegnies. The Burgundian perspective has been neglected by scholarship, which this study attempts to address by repositioning these sources in the academic field of Christian views of Islam in the Middle Ages.