Analysis Process: Students may work alone. The instructor will provide 12 Mystery Packets assigned at random. Each packet will have three primary sources. One source will be a textual source, one will be an image of a work of art, and one will be images of a cultural artifact or object. The sources in the packet are associated with each other and reflect a certain event, place, or era that is based on our reading in the textbook. The contents of the packets will not be labeled. It is up to the students to investigate what the sources represent. Important questions that should be answered by research include: What era did the contents of the packet represent? Where did the contents come from? What event or series of events do the contents explain? Who wrote the text? Was this person an eyewitness? Is there a specific reason for the creation of the contents? Who might be the audience for the contents? Are the contents about a real or fictitious event? What information does each source convey? Research Log: All of the research must be documented. Each student should keep their own research log. This should list each search for information and where the information was found, such as websites or database searches. These research logs will be submitted and the completeness of the log will be worth up to 20 points of the project grade. Grading will be based upon the scope and thoroughness of the research. You are free to format the research log as you see fit. You may use free software that will aid you in this such as Zotero or Endnote, or just make notations in a document format. This is a part of the mystery packet Chapter XXX Of the Royal Estate of Prester John. And of a rich man that made a marvellous castle and cleped it Paradise and of his subtlety. This emperor, Prester John, holds full great land, and hath many full noble cities and good towns in his realm and many great diverse isles and large. For all the country of Ind is devised in isles for the great floods that come from Paradise, that depart all the land in many parts. And also in the sea he hath full many isles. And the best city in the Isle of Pentexoire is Nyse, that is a full royal city and a noble, and full rich. This Prester John hath under him many kings and many isles and many diverse folk of diverse conditions. And this land is full good and rich, but not so rich as is the land of the great Chan. For the merchants come not thither so commonly for to buy merchandises, as they do in the land of the great Chan, for it is too far to travel to. And on that other part, in the Isle of Cathay, men find all manner thing that is need to man–cloths of gold, of silk, of spicery and all manner avoirdupois. And therefore, albeit that men have greater cheap in the Isle of Prester John, natheles, men dread the long way and the great perils m the sea in those parts. For in many places of the sea be great rocks of stones of the adamant, that of his proper nature draweth iron to him. And therefore there pass no ships that have either bonds or nails of iron within them. And if there do, anon the rocks of the adamants draw them to them, that never they may go thence. I myself have seen afar in that sea, as though it had been a great isle full of trees and buscaylle, full of thorns and briars, great plenty. And the shipmen 2 told us, that all that was of ships that were drawn thither by the adamants, for the iron that was in them. And of the rotten-ness, and other thing that was within the ships, grew such buscaylle, and thorns and briars and green grass, and such manner of thing; and of the masts and the sail-yards; it seemed a great wood or a grove. And such rocks be in many places thereabout. And therefore dare not the merchants pass there, but if they know well the passages, or else that they have good lodes men. And also they dread the long way. And therefore they go to Cathay, for it is more nigh. And yet it is not so nigh, but that men must be travelling by sea and land, eleven months or twelve, from Genoa or from Venice, or he come to Cathay. And yet is the land of Prester John more far by many dreadful journeys. And the merchants pass by the kingdom of Persia, and go to a city that is clept Hermes, for Hermes the philosopher founded it. And after that they pass an arm of the sea, and then they go to another city that is clept Golbache. And there they find merchandises, and of popinjays, as great plenty as men find here of geese. And if they will pass further, they may go sikerly enough. In that country is but little wheat or barley, and therefore they eat rice and honey and milk and cheese and fruit. This Emperor Prester John taketh always to his wife the daughter of the great Chan; and the great Chan also, in the same wise, the daughter of Prester John. For these two be the greatest lords under the firmament.
