La Flor des Estoires d.27Orient Hayton of Corycus

while in france, hayton compiled geography of asia, 1 of first of middle ages, la flor des estoires d orient (latin: flos historiarum terre orientis, flower of stories of orient ). work consists of 4 books of unequal lengths, main part being contained in book 3, after entire work referred history of tartars .

book 1 describes geography of asia divided kingdoms of cathay (china), tars (uyghurs), turkestan, khwarazmia, cumania, india, persia, media, armenia, georgia, chaldea, mesopotamia, land of turks (seljuks) , syria.

book 2 gives account of lordship of saracens , i.e. muslim conquests of 7th century , succeeding caliphates.

book 3, known history of tartars , provides account of rise of mongol empire, , of recent events in near east, relating history of armenian kingdom , interaction mongol ilkhanate, had been tributary since 1236. hayton dictated text 1 nicolas faulcon using french language. faulcon prepared latin translation of french text. work completed , presented pope clement v in 1307.

the work concludes plan new crusade, hayton proposed should organised in alliance ilkhan. hayton s promotion of ilkhanid alliance, , association parties in complex armenian , cypriot politics of day, make work rather tendentious. thus, hayton keen ascribe motives mongol actions endear them papal audience, account of ilkhan hülegü s rather destructive invasion of syria (1259–60):

khan wanted go jerusalem in order deliver holy land saracens , remit christians. king hethum happy request, , assembled great score of men on foot , on horse, because, in time, kingdom of armenia in such state had 12,000 soldiers on horse , 60,000 soldiers on foot .

faulcon s text preserved in numerous manuscripts, total of 18 of french text , 32 of latin text (two not independent witnesses notebooks or indices of variants). of these manuscripts still date first half of 14th century. french text: turin university library iv.30, paris bnf nouv. acq. fr. 886, vienna national library no. 2620; latin text: paris bnf lat. 5515 , lat. 14693.

there french text, translated faulcon s latin text 1 jean le long in 1351 (preserved in 3 manuscripts). in addition there 1 aragonese translation made juan fernández de heredia, grand master of hospitallers, besides former catalan translation having maybe same origin, , 1 english language manuscript of 16th century, presumably made henry viii.

the editio princeps prepared in paris in 1510, based on faulcon s french text. faulcon s latin text appeared in haguenau (1529), basel (1532) , helmstedt 1585, jean le long s french version in paris (1529). english translation (independent of english manuscript text) richard pynson printed in london in 1520s. other translations included german (strasbourg 1534), dutch (antwerpen 1563), italian (venice 1559, 1562, 1562) , spanish (córdoba 1595) versions.

a modern edition of text prepared (with modern french translation , commentary) jean dardel in 1906 recueil des historiens des croisades.