Encyclopedia of world history (facts on file library of world history) 7 volume set ( PDFDrive ) 1421

Leo Africanus (Hassan El Wazzan)

the Vietnamese political system. If the dynasty could
not protect a village, the villages would often support
a rebel movement, which then had to provide security
and to institutionalize their political power. Although it
ensured the preservation of a sense of national and cultural identity, the strength of the villages was a factor
contributing to the political instability of the society as
it expanded southward.
Beginning in 1527, Vietnam came under the control
of two families, the Trinh, dominant in the northern,
and the Nguyen in the southern part. Their military and
political rivalry destabilized Le dynasty and brought its
end in 1788. The new Nguyen dynasty ruled Vietnam
into the modern period.
Further reading: Haines, David W. “Reflections of Kinship
and Society under Vietnam’s Le Dynasty.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. 15, No. 2 (September 1984); Karnow,
Stanley. Vietnam: A History. New York: Viking Press, 1983;
Nguyen-Van-Thai and Nguyen-Van-Mung. A Short History
of Vietnam. Saigon, South Vietnam: 1958; Vinh, Pham Kim.
Vietnam: A Comprehensive History. Fountain Valley, CA:
Pham Kim Vinh Research Institute, 1992.

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other popes and bishops. Leo never recognized the gravity of the Reformation, and the Counter-Reformation
did not come about until after his death. He was a great
patron of the arts and prepared a critical edition of the
works of Dante. His greatest contribution was his support of the collection of historical Christian manuscripts

and the merging of the Medici family library with the
papal library.
See also Medici family.
Further reading: Duffy, Eamon. Saints & Sinners: A History
of the Popes. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002;
Maxwell-Stuart, P. G. Chronicles of the Popes: A Reign-byReign Record of the Papacy from St. Peter to the Present.
New York: Thames & Hudson, 1997; Pham, John-Peter.
Heirs of the Fisherman: Behind the Scenes of Papal Death
and Succession. Oxford and New York: Oxford University
Press, 2004.
James Russell

Leo Africanus (Hassan El Wazzan)
(c. 1494–1554) Moroccan traveler

Jitendra Uttam

Leo X

(1475–1521) pope
Pope Leo X was born Giovanni de’ Medici in Florence
on December 11, 1475, and died in Rome on December
1, 1521. He was the second son of Lorenzo the Magnificent. He became abbot of Font Douce in France in
1483, at the age of eight. Under political pressure by
Lorenzo Giovanni, he was made a cardinal at age 13 by
Pope Innocent VIII. His family’s political dealings caused
friction in late 15th century Italy, and Giovanni fled to
France at the election of Pope Alexander VI. He was captured by the French army at the defeat of the combined
papal and Spanish armies in 1512 at Ravenna, probably
for purposes of ransom. Giovanni was elected pope on

February 21, 1513, at age 38, again because of the political pressures of his family on the college of cardinals. He
lived a lavish life and expended the papal treasury within
two years of his election; he also sold offices within the
church to raise money to support the papacy.
This practice, known as simony, led in part to the
Reformation in Germany and other parts of Europe.
The reformers argued against the selling of church offices and indulgences, practices taken up by Leo X and

Leo Africanus exemplified the positive cross-cultural exchanges between the Muslim and Christian worlds in the
15th and 16th centuries. Hassan El Wazzan was born circa 1494 in Granada during the last years of Muslim rule
in Spain. His family, following the example of Boabdil,
the last Muslim ruler of Granada, went into exile to Fez
in present-day Morocco around 1502 after the final Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula by Christian forces.
Leo Africanus received a classical Islamic education at
the well-known Quarawin (Kairaouine) mosque and university in Fez. He worked for a short time in a maristan,
a combination hospital and asylum for the mentally ill.
While in his teens, he accompanied a relative on major
diplomatic missions within Morocco and Africa. Leo
Africanus lived during an age of political and cultural
changes. He twice visited the famed city of Timbuktu,
as well as much of the Sudan in western Africa (Mali
and Mauritania), Constantinople, and Cairo, where he
saw the defeat of the Mamluks by Ottoman forces.
In 1518, the ship he was traveling on from Egypt
to Tunis was captured by Portuguese Christian pirates
(corsairs); however, owing to his learning and diplomatic experience he was not sold into slavery as a
galley slave but was given to Pope Leo X as a gift.
The pope made use of Leo Africanus’s knowledge of
Arabic and the Muslim world in his dealings with