Earliest Foreign Account of China? // 9th cent. Accounts of China and India // Primary Source @VoicesofthePast

Earliest Foreign Account of China? // 9th cent. Accounts of China and India // Primary Source @VoicesofthePast

Uploaded February 2020 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

This account gives us our first truly foreign perspective of life inside the Middle Kingdom - a place where the dead are fed until the living are bankrupt, and healthcare and education are subsidized by the state. Written in 851 and added to 50 years later by renowned Arab sailor Abu Zayd al-Sirafi.

Enormous thanks to translator Tim Mackintosh-Smith and the Library of Arabic Literature for the use of this translation. nyupress.org/9781479830596/accounts-of-china-and-india

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— Music courtesy of:-
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David Kelly

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Dennis Jarvis

Earliest Foreign Account of China? // 9th cent. Accounts of China and India // Primary Source

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$The Magna Carta (1215) One of the most famous of all medieval texts. Magna Carta Libertatum (Medieval Latin for the Great Charter of the Liberties), commonly called Magna Carta, is a charter of rights agreed to by King John of England on 15 June 1215 after intense civil unrest within the kingdom. First drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury to make peace between the unpopular King and a group of rebel barons, it promised the protection of church rights, protection for the barons from illegal imprisonment, access to swift justice, and limitations on feudal payments to the Crown, to be implemented through a council of 25 barons. Ultimately neither side stood behind their commitments, and the charter was annulled by Pope Innocent III, leading to the First Barons War. After Johns death, the regency government of his young son, Henry III, reissued the document in 1216, stripped of some of its more radical content, in an unsuccessful bid to build political support for their cause. At the end of the war in 1217, it formed part of the peace treaty agreed at Lambeth, where the document acquired the name Magna Carta, to distinguish it from the smaller Charter of the Forest which was issued at the same time. Short of funds, Henry reissued the charter again in 1225 in exchange for a grant of new taxes. His son, Edward I, repeated the exercise in 1297, this time confirming it as part of Englands statute law. How do we actually know about history? Voices of the Past is a channel dedicated to recreating the original accounts from the people who lived through events, or who lived far closer to them than we do today. We do this word for word, with an accompanying soundtrack of rousing music and images. — Thanks for watching! Don’t forget to subscribe for new videos every single week! & Let us know in the comments what you’d like to see covered in the future. — Become a patron for as little as a dollar a month & help keep this project going:- https://www.patreon.com/historytimeUK — Don’t forget to subscribe to our primary channel History Time, where we make full length historical documentaries:- https://www.youtube.com/historytime — History Time is now a podcast. You can find us wherever you get your podcasts from. —Join our community on social media:- Twitter:- https://twitter.com/HistoryTimeUK/ Facebook:- https://www.facebook.com/HistoryTimeOfficial/ Instagram:- https://www.instagram.com/historytime_ig/ — Music courtesy of:- - Epidemic Sound - Joss Edwards Music:- https://soundcloud.com/jossedwardsmusic Kevin MacLeod — Voice actor & editor:- David Kelly Weve compiled a reading list of our favourite history books via the Amazon influencer program. If you do choose to purchase any of these incredible sources of information then Amazon will send us a tiny fraction of the earnings (as long as you do it through the link) (this means more and better content in the future) Ill keep adding to and updating the list as time goes on:- https://www.amazon.com/shop/historytime Are you a budding artist, writer, illustrator, cartographer, or music producer? Send us an email! No matter how professional you are or even if you’re just starting out, we can always use new music and images in my videos. Get in touch! I’d love to hear from you. We try to use copyright free images at all times. However if we have used any of your artwork or maps then please dont hesitate to contact me and we’ll be more than happy to give the appropriate credit.$

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Voices of the Past |

Earliest Foreign Account of China? // 9th cent. "Accounts of China and India" // Primary Source