Conversion et attentes eschatologiques à l’époque de Timur : Jean de Sultaniyya et les Arméniens

The Libellus de notitia orbis by John, archbishop of Sultaniyya (c. 1404), provides a comprehensive description of the peoples, regions, and religions of the world during the period of the Timurid and Ottoman conquests, paying particular attention to the situation of Christianity. This work, addressed to Western rulers, provides a rare testimony of Armenians and of the multi-layered nature of their relations with the Latins, which has so far been overlooked. As a Dominican who had been active in Persia, Armenia, and the Black Sea region and was repeatedly involved in diplomatic missions to Europe, John reveals how the Armenians fit into Latin polemical attitudes, unionist approaches, crusading dreams, ethnographic curiosity, and wider eschatological tensions in the troublesome context of the Great Schism and of Timur’s military conquests in Central and Western Asia.