REGIONAL GEOGRAPHY
We shall not attempt the thankless and impossible task of giving a
complete conspectus of Western regional lore in the twelfth and early
thirteenth centuries. This chapter, like its predecessors, consists
largely of illustrative examples.
_GENERAL CHARACTER OF REGIONAL KNOWLEDGE OF THE PERIOD_
GEOGRAPHY OF TRADITION AND GEOGRAPHY OF OBSERVATION
We explained in the Introduction that there were two kinds of
geographical information available in the Middle Ages—information
derived from earlier literature and information derived from
contemporary tradition and observation. In the period we are studying,
these were found among men of very different interests and activities,
and hence they usually failed to blend. It is true that now and then in
a work of erudition of the time we come across a report of some original
observation made by the writer himself or learned by him from a
contemporary; but these data were seldom really assimilated into the
body of the text, seldom used as a check on the assertions of older
authorities. They seem to float like drops of oil on the deep, or
shallow, waters of authoritative learning. Conversely, in works
recording contemporary events—histories, chronicles, letters—we often
come across facts and theories that were taken from older books; but
these were infrequently subjected to critical examination in the light
of contemporary knowledge. On the contrary, they were usually treated
with indulgence or respect merely because they were old, even when
observed phenomena seemed to prove them false.
In the present as in the foregoing parts of this book the attempt is
made to distinguish between these two distinct types of geographical
lore. For many regions the geographical ideas are indicated that were
derived from Pliny, Solinus, Isidore, Bede, and other encyclopedists and
that found expression in treatises like the _De imagine mundi_, the
_Otia imperialia_, and the _Image du monde_. In contrast to these there
is set forth the kind of information that was being gathered by
contemporary eyewitnesses.
GRADATIONS OF ACCURACY OF KNOWLEDGE
Maps are sometimes drawn at the present day to show the state of
progress of geographical knowledge. Upon these by various tints or
shadings are indicated tracts that are accurately surveyed, partially
surveyed, known only through route traverses, known only through reports
from natives, or totally unknown. No such map could be constructed to
show the character of regional knowledge in the Middle Ages, because our
sources of information are not sufficiently complete and because the
knowledge both actually and potentially available varied from country to
country, from community to community, even from individual to
individual. The printing press and facility of communication between the
peoples of the world has rendered scientific knowledge or, at any rate,
the possibility of obtaining scientific knowledge the common property of
all modern civilizations. An Australian student, for instance, if he is
willing to take the time and trouble, can learn through research
virtually all that is known to Danish or Icelandic scholars about the
geography of Greenland. In the Middle Ages, on the contrary, we may feel
certain that the Danes and Norwegians had at hand much detailed
information on Greenland and the Arctic shores of Europe that the
Italian had no means whatever of obtaining. Correspondingly, the Italian
trader of Genoa or Venice unquestionably knew a great deal about remote
parts of Asia and North Africa that could never reach the ears of an
author of a _De imagine mundi_ or of a Lambert of St. Omer, writing in
quiet cloisters of France or Belgium.
Yet if, for these reasons, we cannot show on a map the gradations in the
character and accuracy of Western geographical knowledge in the age of
the Crusades, such gradations nevertheless existed. From the point of
view of Western Europe as a whole they might be grouped in a broad way
as follows. First there were the well-known regions about which
knowledge was derived and kept fresh through active commercial,
diplomatic, ecclesiastical, military, and scholarly enterprise. These
regions may be said to have included most of Europe west of the Elbe and
Hungary. They also included the overland routes to Constantinople, the
shores of the Mediterranean, and the Holy Land. From the point of view
of the Scandinavian peoples, who were great travelers, they took in not
only the foregoing regions but also the Baltic coasts, southern Norway
and Sweden, and Iceland. Beyond the bounds of the well-known areas lay a
second group of areas about which a fair amount of reasonably
trustworthy information was at hand, derived from one of three sources:
(1) reports of occasional travelers; (2) more or less reliable hearsay;
(3) classical descriptions drawn from literary sources. Much of Western
Asia and North Africa fell within this category and, for the
Scandinavians, Greenland. Beyond lay the third group of regions known
only through the vaguest of rumors—the domains of fabulous monsters and
legendary men. To some writers India was such a land, to others Russia
and northern Scandinavia, to still others the legendary isles that lay
concealed in the Western Ocean. Finally, beyond them came those regions
lying without the known world, about which the men of the Middle Ages
themselves would have acknowledged that they knew nothing: the austral
continent, the countries of the antipodeans, _antoikoi_, _antichthones_,
which have been discussed in an earlier chapter. No boundaries could be
drawn setting off these various tracts from one another; the well-known
shaded off imperceptibly into the less well-known, and the vaguely known
merged into fairyland; within each well-known tract were islands of
doubt and mystery, and fabulous stories were told of even the most
commonplace features of the landscape.
_THE “OIKOUMENE” AS A WHOLE_
Before turning to the various regions of the known world—the
_oikoumene_, as the Greeks called it; the _orbis terrarum_ or
_habitatio_ of the Romans—something must be said concerning theories
about the _oikoumene_ as a whole, about its center, and about Paradise
and the four rivers of Paradise. It was usually supposed that the
_oikoumene_ itself occupies a relatively restricted part of the surface
of the globe. The words of Seneca to the effect that there is only a
short distance from Spain to India imply that the known world must
stretch out over much more than a half of the circumference of the
sphere.[1175] Though these words were often read in our period, scant
attention was paid either to them or to the Arabic interpretation of
Aristotle’s similar theory until a later date. Roger Bacon’s specific
explanation that the _habitatio_ extends around much more than half the
earth’s circumference represents an opinion that was exceptional.[1176]
The majority of the thinkers of the twelfth and early thirteenth
centuries who speculated on the subject at all were probably under the
spell of the theory fostered by Macrobius, which made our habitable
portion of the earth one of four similar regions separated from each
other by two oceans.[1177] This undoubtedly was the view most widely
accepted, but in addition the idea was perhaps already being propounded
early in the twelfth century that the lands of the known world form
merely a small portion of the surface of the terrestrial sphere emerging
above the surface of a larger, enveloping sphere of water.[1178]
THE “OIKOUMENE” DIVIDED INTO THREE PARTS
The writers of the Crusading age were unanimous in dividing the
_oikoumene_ itself into three parts, Asia, Libya (or Africa), and
Europe. Bernard Sylvester said: “In two parts the ether, and likewise in
two parts the air, but in three parts you are to understand that the
land is divided,”[1179] almost as if a tripartite division of the lands
were in accord with a law of nature. This division was inevitable in
view of what was known of the arrangement of lands and seas.
Orosius,[1180] however, had spoken of certain writers who would split
the known world in two, making Africa a part of Europe “because of its
small size” and making Asia as large as Africa and Europe together.
Those who had preferred to conceive of Africa as a separate continent,
he had said, did so not on account of its size but because it is cut off
from Europe by an arm of the sea. These words of Orosius were quoted by
Otto of Freising[1181] and by Gervase of Tilbury.[1182] The theory that
Asia is equal in size to Europe and Africa put together is reproduced by
the author of the _De situ terrarum_,[1183] and upon it was based that
symmetrical division of the world’s surface which we find depicted on
the so-called T-O maps of the early Middle Ages.[1184]
Isidore of Seville drew largely from Orosius in writing his chapters on
geography. Theoretically he accepted the tripartite division,[1185] but
in his actual treatment of the countries of the world he appended a
discussion of islands to his discussion of the continents. In this he
was followed by the author of the _De imagine mundi_ and by many other
writers of the time,[1186] all of whom declared that the earth’s surface
is divided in three, but added chapters on the islands after their
descriptions of Asia, Africa, and Europe.
_THE CENTER OF THE “OIKOUMENE”_
JERUSALEM AS THE CENTER
During the Middle Ages the idea that Jerusalem is at the center of the
_oikoumene_ seems gradually to have gained ground. Arculf, a bishop of
an unknown see in Gaul and pilgrim to the Holy Land, so described it as
early as the close of the seventh century;[1187] but the tradition does
not appear to have become established in the cartography of the West
until the twelfth or even the thirteenth century.[1188] To place
Jerusalem at the center was to recognize the preëminence given that city
in Scripture, not only in the New but also in the Old Testament.[1189]
It is natural for primitive peoples to think that the most holy of all
places occupies a central position:[1190] the Greeks believed that
either Delphi or Olympus was the navel of the earth;[1191] the
Scandinavians thought the same was true of Asgard; the Hindus, of Mount
Meru; the Babylonians, of Nippur.[1192] Gervase of Tilbury argues in a
confused, semi-theological manner on the position of Jerusalem:[1193]
Augustus, he believed, had thought that Judea was the heart of the earth
because that Emperor had begun a survey of the provinces of the empire
there; in addition, from texts of the Bible Gervase attempted to
demonstrate that Jerusalem is halfway between the North and the South,
that by “antithesis” it must be halfway between the East and the West,
and consequently must be at the center of the known world.
THE EXACT POSITION OF THE EARTH’S CENTER
There seems to have existed in the minds of writers some confusion as to
the exact spot that marks the navel of the earth. A map of the year 1110
identifies it with Mount Zion.[1194] The pilgrim Saewulf, who was in the
Holy Land in 1102 and 1103, says:[1195] “At the head of the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre, in the wall outside, not far from the place called
Calvary, is the place called Compas, which our Lord Jesus Christ himself
signified and measured with his own hand as the middle of the world,
according to the words of the Psalmist, ‘For God is my king of old,
working salvation in the midst of the earth.’ But some say that this is
the place where our Lord Jesus Christ first appeared to Mary Magdalene,
while she sought him weeping and thought he had been a gardener, as is
related in the Gospels” (Thomas Wright’s translation).[1196]
In certain astronomical notes of the early twelfth century an anonymous
writer (possibly Adelard of Bath) asserts that Mount “Amor reorum” is
the center of the earth and that he proved this to be the case by
experiment.[1197] It would seem that upon this mountain (possibly Mount
Moriah) he hung a log, twelve cubits long by three in diameter,
suspending it vertically in the air by means of a rope, and that at the
time of the summer solstice he observed that the shadow of the log was
directly beneath and circular in shape. This, he asserted, showed that
Mount “Amor reorum” was the center of the earth. To clinch the veracity
of his observation, he added that he had not been drinking wine and that
his eyes were not satiated with sleep. Although the sun is not directly
overhead at the summer solstice in Palestine, the same idea reappears in
the _Otia imperialia_ of Gervase of Tilbury.[1198] Gervase seems to
favor, as the center of the earth, the well where Christ spoke to the
Samaritan woman.[1199] He adds that this well has the characteristic
that philosophers attribute to wells on the Tropic of Cancer at Syene in
Africa, that is to say, that the sun shines directly into it at the
summer solstice every year.
_THE TERRESTRIAL PARADISE_
PARADISE IN THE EAST
Most medieval maps include in the eastern part of the world a picture of
the Terrestrial Paradise,[1200] surrounded by a high wall or mountain
range and containing within it figures of Adam and Eve and the
serpent[1201] (see above, Fig. 2, p. 69). “The first place in the East
is Paradise, a garden famous for its delights, where man can never go,
for a fiery wall surrounds it and reaches to the sky. Here is the tree
of life which gives immortality, here the fountain which divides into
four streams that go forth and water the world.”[1202] “Around Paradise
extends a savage, trackless waste, infested with wild beasts and
serpents.”[1203]
This was the orthodox medieval view, to be found in Peter Abelard’s
commentary on the Works of the Six Days,[1204] in the _De situ
terrarum_,[1205] and in the _Image du monde_.[1206] Gervase of Tilbury
copies it word for word from the _De imagine mundi_[1207] but gives
additional details in another connection,[1208]where he tells us that
Paradise was the seat of the first of the four universal monarchies,
that of Adam; that it was so called because of its delights, for
“delight” is the meaning of the word “Eden,” and that the Garden makes a
spot of marvelous deliciousness, separated from our inhabited earth by a
long tract of land and sea and elevated so high that it reaches the
sphere of the moon, so high that the waters of the Deluge failed to
disturb it.[1209] Peter Lombard explained why it is thought that
Paradise is in the East:[1210] Scripture, he said, teaches us that God
made man outside of Paradise and placed him ready-fashioned in the
Garden of Delights which had been planted by the divine power at the
beginning of time (_a principio_). In an old translation, Peter
explained, instead of this phrase, _a principio_, the words _ad
Orientem_ were given, and consequently the earlier translator would have
had us believe that Paradise was to be found in the eastern parts of the
earth. Peter added that a long stretch of land and sea cut Paradise off
from the regions inhabited by men and that it was situated on a height
touching the circle of the moon’s orbit, whence it came about that the
waters of the Deluge could not penetrate thither.
It was generally agreed that Paradise is in Asia,[1211] although this
was not a universal belief. Hermann the Dalmatian in 1143 asserted that
there was “no mean opinion” that Paradise lies beyond “Amphitrites,” the
ocean which encircles the earth from north to south, and that
indications of its presence had been found both to eastward and to
westward.[1212] Gervase said that it could be forcibly argued that the
Garden lies beyond the Torrid Zone and is inaccessible to man, though he
did not commit himself either for or against this theory.[1213] Robert
Grosseteste speaks of theologians who would place Paradise under the
equator.[1214] Otto of Freising’s words[1215] also seem to imply
indirectly that the Garden is not in Asia, for Otto tells us that
Alexander the Great conquered the entire Orient from Scythia to the ends
of the earth. The same idea may be gathered from the _De situ
terrarum_,[1216] which places the Seres and not Paradise in the farthest
East, and also from the cycle of romances of Alexander, which relate how
the Macedonian hero conquered all those Oriental regions where Paradise
was usually supposed to be. The _mappaemundi_ of Henry of Mayence[1217]
and of Lambert of St. Omer[1218] place Paradise on an island beyond the
easternmost limits of the habitable world; but St. Brandan found the
Saint’s Land of Promise (probably no other than Paradise) far out in the
Western Ocean.[1219] As a matter of fact there was no uniformity of
opinion regarding the geographical position of the Happy Land: St.
Augustine, whose works were read during our period, had even gone so far
as to state that Paradise had no real existence at all but was merely an
allegorical conception.[1220] A child is not worried about the latitude
and longitude of fairyland, and the average man of the Middle Ages was
just as little worried about the exact whereabouts of the Garden of
Eden.
Nevertheless, in one version of the Romance of Alexander a logical
outcome of the conqueror’s travels in the Far East was recognized. In
the _Iter ad Paradisum_[1221] Alexander is actually brought to the gates
of Paradise. When he had subjugated India he came to a broad river which
he understood to be the Ganges; embarking with five hundred men on a
ship that happened to be at hand, he arrived at the end of a month
before an immense city surrounded by a wall on all sides. Here, after
various adventures, he learned from a Jew that this city was the place
where the souls of the just were sojourning until the Last Judgment or,
in other words, that it was the Terrestrial Paradise.
JOURNEYS TO PARADISE
The _Iter ad Paradisum_ and the various versions of the legend of St.
Brandan’s voyage are examples of a type of story very common in the
Middle Ages, the story of actual journeys to Paradise by mortal
men.[1222] Among these we should include the account of the visit there
of Adam’s son, Seth, who brought back seeds from the tree of knowledge
which were planted in Adam’s mouth after the latter’s death; the seeds
ultimately sprouted into a great tree, the wood of which was used to
make Christ’s cross.[1223] Tales were told of the sojourns of pious
monks in Paradise and of how on their return to the homes of men they
found that what had seemed only three days in the Garden of Delights was
in reality a period of three hundred years. Godfrey of Viterbo in his
_Pantheon_[1224] relates a tale of a hundred brothers who, like St.
Brandan, made widespread explorations in the ocean before coming to
Paradise, a golden mountain redolent with wonderful odors and adorned
with an image of the Virgin and Child. Another story, dating from an
earlier time but undoubtedly well known during our period, was that of
the fabulous St. Macarius.[1225] Three brothers from a convent between
the Tigris and Euphrates set out to find the place where “the earth
joins the sky.” After crossing Persia they entered India—a land of
wonders, of cynocephali and of pygmies, of serpents and of darkness.
Here they came upon the altars set up by Alexander the Great to mark the
limits of his wanderings,[1226] and beyond them reached miraculous
countries filled with giants and birds that talked. At last, about
twenty miles from the Terrestrial Paradise, they found Macarius, a man
of hoary age, dwelling in a cave on friendly terms with two lions.
Macarius told them a romantic story, in the course of which he described
the wonders of Paradise but, alas, emphasized the fact that this
long-sought-for garden was absolutely inaccessible to human beings.
THE RIVERS OF PARADISE
The account of the four rivers of Paradise, like other passages in
Scripture, was interpreted both allegorically and literally. In the
religious art of our period these streams were often depicted in stone,
glass, or miniature as symbolizing the four evangelists spreading the
gospel throughout the world.[1227] Neckam, after mentioning Paradise and
the rivers, goes on to explain that, just as the world is watered by the
four streams, so “by the gift of the Holy Ghost the garden of the Holy
Church is irrigated by the four virtues, Justice, Temperance, Fortitude,
and Prudence.”[1228] Literal interpretation of the passage, on the other
hand, would present difficulties to the modern hydrographer, but these
difficulties were easily overcome in the Middle Ages by appeal to the
familiar theory of subterranean watercourses.[1229]
The author of the _De imagine mundi_,[1230] copying from Isidore,[1231]
makes the four rivers disappear into the ground, whence they spring
forth in lands far distant; and some of the maps of our period represent
all four rivers as rising from a central source within the Garden and
vanishing into the earth at its walls or not far beyond. The Psalter
map,[1232] on the other hand, shows no less than five rivers issuing
from an aperture leading out of Paradise and spreading out like a fan
over the interior of Asia. Abelard[1233] explains carefully that if we
interpret the Bible correctly there can be but one river within
Paradise, that this divides into four outside of the Garden, and that
the names given to each of the four are applied to those parts only
“which flow from their sources to the sea.” We may assume that he refers
here to the portions of the rivers between points where they issue from
their subterranean passages and their mouths. Some writers would seem to
imply, Abelard continues, that we cannot take literally the words of the
Bible because the sources of some of the four streams are known and
those of others are not. But, he asks, may not those streams, whose
sources are supposedly known, in reality arise elsewhere far away and
pass through numerous countries before issuing forth to the knowledge of
mankind? There is no question but that this is the case with many
streams, as is shown, he adds, by the statement in Boethius’ _De
consolatione philosophiae_ (a famous work of the sixth century much read
throughout the Middle Ages) that “the Tigris and the Euphrates spring
from one source.”
One version of the legend of Prester John informs us that the four
rivers of Paradise all arise in a spring in the mountains of India and
water the two Indias.[1234] Like most rivers of Prester John’s realm,
they give forth quantities of gold and precious stones at regular
intervals three times a year.
Discussion of the individual characteristics of each of the four rivers
falls more logically with the treatment of the ideas concerning the
countries through which they flow and will be reserved until later. In
most of the geographical works of our period, however, the rivers
receive special consideration immediately after the remarks on Paradise
and before the description of the regions of Asia. Their unusual origin
and character, as described in Scripture, entitled them to particular
distinction: they were holy streams to Jew and Christian alike. It is,
then, a peculiarly eloquent commentary on the paganism of Bernard
Sylvester to find that he mentions and describes the Euphrates, Tigris,
and Nile in his _De mundi universitate_[1235] without referring to
Paradise in connection with any of these three streams. To his thinking
they would seem to have occupied no higher or holier place among streams
than Tiber, Rhone, or Seine.
_ASIA_
There are no more absorbing chapters in the history of geography than
those connected with the growth of European knowledge of Asia in
antiquity and during the Middle Ages [1236] and with its converse, the
growth of Oriental knowledge of the Occident.[1237] Of late years the
historical and archeological investigations of Albert von Le Coq, Sir
Aurel Stein, Edouard Chavannes, Paul Pelliot, and Albert Herrmann have
thrown a flood of light on the connections that existed in the earlier
medieval period between eastern and western Asia. While these early
connections may have brought some vague information regarding the Far
East to the Byzantine world, they probably exerted almost no influence
upon the conceptions of Asia prevalent in Western Europe before the
middle of the thirteenth century.
THE OPENING OF ASIA IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY
Relations between the Far East and Far West, however, were profoundly
modified by certain events that took place during the first half of the
thirteenth century. As a result of these events, Farther Asia for the
first time in history was opened to Occidental travelers. Beginning with
the year 1245 no inconsiderable number of European missionaries and
traders made their way overland through the hitherto unknown heart of
the continent and penetrated to the mysterious region of Cathay (China)
at the ultimate point of the world. For somewhat more than a century the
veil of the Extreme Orient was drawn aside, but drawn aside only again
to be closed when the disruption of the Mongol empires and the rise of
the Ottoman Turks barred the overland routes. It remained for Portuguese
and Spanish seafarers of the great age of maritime exploration to
rediscover the Far East. The history of the earlier relations of eastern
and western Asia and of the opening of that continent in the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries, however, falls outside our province and cannot
be discussed in detail in the present volume. A few words, nevertheless,
must be said on this subject in order that the traditional geographical
lore of Asia in our period may be seen in its proper perspective.
THE MONGOL CONQUESTS
The events that led to the overland journeys sprang from the
establishment of what was probably the most extensive military empire
the world has ever known.[1238] Toward the end of the twelfth century,
Temujin, chief of a small tribe dwelling near the headwaters of the
Amur, consolidated his dominion over the neighboring Mongol peoples of
the steppes north and northwest of China. Proclaimed “Chinkkis Khan”
(Jenghiz Khan), or “Inflexible Emperor,” in 1206, he soon conquered
northern China and turned his hordes to the west; Turkestan was
subjugated, Persia was invaded, and in 1222–1224 a detachment overran
southern Russia in the course of a great whirlwind raid that completely
encircled the Caspian Sea. Jenghiz Khan died in 1227, but under his
successors the wave of conquest swept still farther westward. Toward the
close of the thirties the steppes of Russia were again overwhelmed, in
1240 Poland was devastated, and the Christian army of Henry of Silesia
was defeated in 1241 at Liegnitz, near Breslau. Meanwhile another Mongol
army was ravaging Hungary and had even driven the king of that country
to seek refuge in an island off the Dalmatian coast. Relief to the
stricken people of Central Europe came, however, in 1243 when news of
the death of the Great Khan caused the invaders to withdraw to the
plains of Russia, there to maintain their hold for many centuries to
come.
These visitations of the Tatars, as the Mongols were called, took Europe
unaware. “Barely a rumour” of the invasion of Russia in 1222 had
“reached western Europe,” writes Rockhill,[1239] “and contemporary
writers have left us but few brief references to it.” The first full
description of the Tatars is given in Matthew Paris’ _Chronica
maiora_[1240] for the date 1240, the following extracts of which, as
translated by Rockhill, are worth quoting: “That the joys of mortal men
be not enduring, nor worldly happiness long lasting without
lamentations, in this same year (i.e. 1240) a detestable nation of
Satan, to wit, the countless army of the Tartars, broke loose from its
mountain-environed home, and piercing the solid rocks (of the Caucasus),
poured forth like devils from the Tartarus, so that they are rightly
called Tartari or Tartarians. Swarming like locusts over the face of the
earth, they have brought terrible devastation to the eastern parts (of
Europe), laying it waste with fire and carnage.... They are inhuman and
beastly, rather monsters than men, thirsting for and drinking blood,
tearing and devouring the flesh of dogs and men, dressed in ox-hides,
armed with plates of iron, short and stout, thickset, strong,
invincible, indefatigable, their backs unprotected, their breasts
covered with armour.... They are without human laws, know no comforts,
are more ferocious than lions or bears, have boats made of ox-hides,
which ten or twelve of them own in common: they are able to swim or to
manage a boat, so that they can cross the largest and swiftest rivers
without let or hindrance, drinking turbid or muddy water when blood
fails them (as beverage).... They know no other language than their own,
which no one else knows; for until now there has been no access to them,
nor did they go forth (from their own country); ... They wander about
with their flocks and their wives, who are taught to fight like men....
It is believed that these Tartars, of cursed memory, are of the ten
tribes who, having forsaken the Mosaic law, followed after the golden
calves, and whom Alexander the Macedonian endeavoured at first to shut
up in the rugged mountains of the Caspians with bitumen-covered
rocks.[1241] When he saw that the undertaking exceeded the power of man,
he invoked the might of the God of Israel, and the tops of the mountains
came together, and an inaccessible and impassable place was made.... It
is written in sacred history that they shall come out toward the end of
the world, and shall make a great slaughter of men. There arises,
however, a doubt whether the Tartars now coming from there be really
they, for they do not use the Hebrew tongue, neither do they know the
laws of Moses, nor have they laws, nor are they governed by them....”
Despite the impression of extreme ferocity reflected in this passage,
after the warlike ardor of conquest had somewhat subsided, the Mongols
showed themselves not intolerant in their attitude toward strangers and
not unreceptive of foreign influence. The immediate result of their
withdrawal from Hungary to Russia and the consequent removal of the
direct menace to Central Europe was the dispatch of Christian
ecclesiastics as ambassadors to the Mongol lords. Rumors had come to
Europe that these nomads from the Far East were monotheists, and hope
sprang up that they might be converted to Roman Catholic Christianity
and used to offset the reviving Moslem power menacing the Christian
states of the Holy Land.[1242] The origin of the rumors which gave rise
to this elusive hope is to be sought in the fact that the Nestorian form
of Christianity had been firmly established among some of the Mongol
tribes north of the Great Wall of China and was represented even in
their ruling dynasty. Furthermore, these rumors seemed to confirm and be
confirmed by the reports that had been in circulation since the twelfth
century of the existence of a great Christian kingdom of Prester John in
the remote interior of Asia.[1243]
THIRTEENTH-CENTURY JOURNEYS
The journeys of the diplomatic missions sent out by Pope Innocent IV and
by Louis IX, King of France, in 1245 and the years immediately following
have often been described.[1244] The Pope’s envoy, John of Pian de
Carpine,[1245] and Louis’ representative, William of Rubruck,[1246]
reached the Mongol capital at Karakorum, near Lake Baikal, and on their
return wrote graphic narratives of their journeys, which have been
preserved and which give full account of the Tatars and their customs.
Many of the observations made by John of Pian de Carpine and by Simon of
St. Quentin (who took part in an expedition under Friar Ascelin, or
Anselm, sent by the Pope to a Mongol ruler in Persia in 1247) are
included in the _Speculum historiale_ of Vincent of Beauvais.[1247] The
geographical information acquired by Rubruck, although it was ignored by
other writers of the period, found its way to Roger Bacon, who
incorporated much of it in the _Opus majus_.[1248]
The way shown by Pian de Carpine and Rubruck was soon followed by Nicolo
and Maffeo Polo, whose incentive was commercial, and by their far more
famous son and nephew, Marco.[1249] Marco Polo’s amazing wanderings were
succeeded by the journeys of others, among them the wonderful missionary
enterprises of John of Monte Corvino, Riccold of Monte Croce, and
Orderic of Pordenone. The story of these and other travels of the
period,[1250] fascinatingly told in the third volume of Beazley’s _Dawn
of Modern Geography_, falls far beyond the limits of our subject.
Suffice it to remark, however, that the wanderings of the adventurous
traders and friars were generally forgotten in the West during the
centuries that followed and were largely ignored, even in the literature
of the time itself. Marco Polo was branded as an impostor, and the
traditional lore of eastern Asia that had come down from the days of the
Roman Empire, together with its accretions of legend and romance, was
held to be more worthy of credence than the observations of
eyewitnesses. We must now turn to this traditional lore as expressed in
the writings of the time of the Crusades.
THE GREAT MOUNTAIN SYSTEM OF ASIA
Asia, the author of the _De imagine mundi_[1251] tells us, quoting from
Isidore,[1252] derived its name from a queen of that name.
The great system of mountains which runs eastward through the heart of
the continent—the Caucasus, the ranges of northern Persia, the Hindu
Kush, the Himalayas—was well known to the Greek geographers, and the men
of our time had acquired some hazy notions about it through reading
Orosius and Isidore.[1253] Gervase of Tilbury,[1254] copying
Orosius,[1255] tells how the Caucasus, joined by the “Imabus” (Imaus),
divides India from Scythia and extends the entire length of Asia as far
east as the Seric Ocean, though bearing different names in its eastern
parts. Several of the maps show a straight range of mountains running
east and west across the continent and labeled with various names
(Taurus, Caucasus, Ceraunius, Paropamisus).[1256] The Jerome map[1257]
reveals, on the other hand, many mountains in Asia but does not make
them continuous.
According to the _De imagine mundi_, the Caucasus divides the countries
of southern from those of northern Asia. Among the former were India,
Parthia, Mesopotamia, and Palestine, reaching in a straight line from
the Far East to the Mediterranean.[1258] Egypt, which was regarded as
belonging to Asia by the Greek geographers and by Isidore, was held to
adjoin Palestine on the west, and to be part of this southern tier of
countries. North of the Caucasus were the lands of the Seres, Bactria,
Hyrcania, and Scythia, in the east, and in western Asia, Armenia, the
country of Mount Ararat, Cappadocia (“where mares conceive through the
wind alone and give birth to foals that live only three years”), and
finally Asia Minor, almost completely surrounded by the sea.[1259]
THE LAND OF THE “SERES”
At the eastern end of Asia, Gervase, following the Roman geographers,
had placed the Seres on the shores of an ocean named after them.[1260]
“Seres” was a classical designation of the people of China in so far as
that country was the terminus of the overland route toward the Far East
described by Pliny and Ptolemy. Beyond vast solitudes, the former had
said,[1261] you come to this remote land, where the people comb silk
from the trees; though they carry on an extensive trade in this
commodity, they avoid all personal dealings with strangers (whose
commercial morality must have been high) by leaving the silk on the
banks of streams to be picked up by those who wish to procure it.
Solinus [1262] copied Pliny’s account, but Isidore,[1263] followed by
the author of the _De imagine mundi_,[1264] gives us less detail, merely
stating that Seres is a city of the East, from which were named the
Seric region, the people, and a kind of cloth. Pausanias first among
classical writers had understood that silk comes from a worm. The silk
manufacture was introduced into the Byzantine Empire in 552 A. D., and
it may well be from Byzantine sources that there originated the more or
less correct understanding of its production revealed in the _Letter of
Prester John_,[1265] where we are informed that the salamander is a worm
which makes a sort of capsule (_pellicula_) around him, “as do the other
worms that make silk.”
CHINA
If the land of the Seres lay at the end of the overland route eastward,
the sea route ended, according to the _Periplus of the Erythraean Sea_,
at the land of “Thin” (China), and according to Ptolemy’s _Geography_ at
the country of the “Sinae.”[1266] Here we have the first use in the West
of the word “China,” knowledge of which had probably reached the
Occident through Arabic channels, though not until the sixteenth century
was it recognized that the land of the “Seres” (Cathay) and “China” were
the same.[1267] An indication of the Ptolemaic “Sinae” is found in Plato
of Tivoli’s translation of Al-Battānī’s _Astronomy_:[1268] here a branch
of the Indian Ocean is described as reaching to the furthest point of
India where lies “Thiema” (China).
Benjamin of Tudela also speaks of the country of “Zin,” or China, in the
uttermost East near the reputed Sea of Nikpa, where violent and stormy
winds blow—possibly the typhoons of Far Eastern waters. Ships carried
into this sea by the winds stick fast there; their supplies of food give
out, and the crews often die of starvation. In order to avoid this fate,
some of the men, armed with knives, throw themselves into the sea and
are carried to shore in the talons of an enormous bird, the griffon. By
slaying the griffon with their knives they are able to escape.[1269]
This story reminds us, on the one hand, of Western reports of the
congealed sea[1270] and, on the other, of Arabic tales of the Rukh,
which reappear in Marco Polo’s travels.[1271]
INDIA
_Subdivisions_
More abundant and somewhat more accurate information was to be had
regarding India. This name was applied loosely to cover all of Farther
Asia: the anonymous report of the visit of the Patriarch John of India
to Rome in 1122 calls India the ultimate border of the world. The
Pseudo-Abdias[1272] had quoted “certain historiographers” as asserting
that there are three Indias, the first facing Ethiopia, the second
facing the country of the Medes, and the third occupying the end of the
earth, with the realm of darkness on one side and the ocean on the
other. The threefold division of India was found on many of the
maps.[1273] It was adopted by Ordericus Vitalis in his _Historia
ecclesiastica_.[1274] It undoubtedly inspired the declaration in the
_Letter of Prester John_[1275] that that potentate rules over the “three
Indias,” and probably with it in mind Gervase of Tilbury[1276] spoke of
“India superior,” where St. Bartholomew, “India inferior,” where St.
Thomas, and “India meridiana,” where St. Matthew preached. On the other
hand, there is evidence of a twofold division of India in the
_Elysaeus_[1277] account of Prester John’s kingdom. The broad and loose
medieval usage of the term “India” is especially well shown in the
_Image du monde_, where it comprises not only what we now know as
Hindustan but also Persia.[1278]
Limiting ourselves to the narrower definition of India, the tract
between the Himalayas and the ocean, let us see what was believed to
exist there.
_Facts Known About India_
A few facts were known, many half-facts, and a great many more fables.
This knowledge and misinformation was based to a very large extent on
classical authority, for little new had been learned about these parts
of the world since the days of Pliny. First let us examine the facts and
half-facts.[1279] It was known that much of India lies beyond the tropic
so that the shadows fall south in summer and north in winter. It was
known that a giant range of mountains encloses India on the north, and
perhaps there was a hint of familiarity with the Himalayan forests in
the old story of trees so lofty that they touch the skies. It was
likewise known that the Ganges takes its rise in the mountains to the
north and is joined by many streams. According to Isidore, who was
followed by the _De imagine mundi_, Peter Abelard, Gervase of Tilbury,
Peter Comestor, and a host of other plagiarizers,[1280] the Ganges is no
other than the Pison, one of the rivers of Paradise, which springs from
Mount Orcobares and flows eastward to the ocean. Peter Comestor
explains[1281] that “Phison” may mean “flock,” because ten rivers join
to make this stream,[1282] an interpretation in which we see perhaps a
reflection of the true characteristics of the great stream of India, so
strikingly different from the other three “rivers of Paradise” by reason
of its multitude of tributaries. The same idea, or possibly even a
suggestion of the Ganges delta with its many outlets, is found in the
_Letter of Prester John_[1283] where the river Ydonus is mentioned as
one of the streams of Paradise, flowing across a pagan province of the
realm of the great Christian potentate and spreading its branches
throughout the entire area. The “Ydonus” doubtless means the Pison, or
Ganges. It was also known in the time we are studying that there are
other mighty rivers of India, among them the Indus, sweeping into the
ocean.[1284] Likewise it was appreciated that India supports an immense
population and enormous riches; that many of the people are
Brahmins—though little enough was understood about their religion; and
that some of them practiced the custom of suttee, which prescribed that
wives burn themselves on the funeral pyres of their husbands.
Benjamin of Tudela acquired (probably in Mesopotamia) some information
about Khulam, or Quilon, a great medieval seaport on the Malabar coast.
He comments briefly on the honesty and dark complexions of the natives,
the intense heat of the summer, the practices connected with the
cultivation of pepper, the customs of embalming the dead, and the
superstitions of sun worship.[1285]
_Marvels of India_
But India was above all else a land of marvels (Fig. 8). Here were
pygmies who fight with storks and giants who combat with griffons; here
were “gymnosophists” who contemplate the sun all day, standing in the
hot rays first on one leg and then on the other; here were men with feet
turned backward and eight toes on each foot; _cynocephali_, or men with
dogs’ heads and claws, who bark and snarl; people whose women give birth
to but one child and that one with white hair; races whose hair is white
in youth but turns dark with age; one-eyed men; people who shade
themselves from the sun by lying on their backs and holding up a single
huge foot (_skiapodes_); persons who live on the smell of food alone;
headless men with eyes in their stomachs; forest peoples with hairy
bodies, dogs’ teeth, and terrific voices; and a variety of horrible
non-human monsters combining the parts of several animals.[1286]
These marvels and more still are related by nearly all the Western
writers of our period who concern themselves with India and the Orient.
They originated, as we have seen, early in classical times. Collected by
Ctesias,[1287] Pliny, Solinus and others, they were passed on to our
age, when we find them faithfully retold by the author of the _De
imagine mundi_, by Gervase of Tilbury, by Rudolf of Hohen-Ems,[1288] and
in the _Image du monde_. They made their way into the Romance of
Alexander as exemplified by the _Pseudo-Callisthenes_ and the _Letter
from Alexander to Aristotle_. In short, the “marvels of India” were a
stock feature of medieval geography.[1289] They figure on maps and in
miniatures and even in architectural sculpture—a _skiapod_ helps adorn
the façade of Sens cathedral.
Two mythological personages and one historical character, the story of
whose exploits became mythological in the Middle Ages, were supposed to
have visited India. These were Bacchus (Liber Pater), Hercules, and
Alexander the Great. The Altar of Liber and the Column of Hercules are
shown on the Psalter map in the region between the Red Sea and
Paradise.[1290] On the Jerome map of Palestine two columns mark the
ultimate limits of the journeys of Alexander and of Hercules.[1291] _The
Letter of Alexander to Aristotle_ mentions the miraculous trees of the
sun and moon, which spoke oracular words to the Macedonian conqueror and
figured widely in the medieval geography of the Far East, appearing
prominently on many of the maps.[1292]
_Legend of St. Thomas in India_
Though classical antiquity was the main source of medieval knowledge and
fancy concerning India, it was not the only source. The mysterious
Ophir, whence came the gold and jewels of Solomon, was placed in India
on the Lambert map [1293] and on the Jerome map of the world.[1294]
There also early came into existence a well-rooted idea that this
country was the home of a large and flourishing Christian colony. The
origins of the latter belief are to be found in reports which had
filtered through to Europe at an early date of St. Thomas the Apostle’s
preaching of the gospel in India and of the existence of Nestorian
Christianity in southern Hindustan.[1295] The story of St. Thomas
contains some elements of geographical interest.[1296] Christ was said
to have sold Thomas to the merchant Habban in order that he might be
taken to India to convert the people. Once arrived there by ship, having
landed at a port of Sandaruk, or Andrapolis, he succeeded in gaining for
the Christian religion the king, Gundophorus, and his brothers. The
saint built for the king a palace in heaven. According to the original
story, this palace was not a real structure but merely the symbol of a
heavenly habitation for the monarch. As the legend was subsequently
developed, St. Thomas was represented as an architect whom Gundophorus
summoned to his court to build an actual dwelling, and one of the
miracles by which the saint succeeded in converting the Indian potentate
to Christianity was his almost instantaneous construction of the palace.
The legend then proceeds to relate how St. Thomas was conducted by one
Siphorius to the kingdom of a certain Mazdeus, of his martyrdom at the
hands of the latter, and of the subsequent removal of his body to Edessa
in Syria.
[Illustration:
FIG. 8—Two sections from the Hereford map to illustrate the marvels of
India. (From the reproduction accompanying Miller, _Mappaemundi_,
vol. iv, 1896.)
In this first section are shown, among others, a _skiapod_, or
sunshade-footed man (to the left), and _cynocephali_, or men with
dogs’ heads.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 8 (second section)—In this section is shown a _mantichora_, or
beast with a man’s head and a lion’s body.
]
The stories of St. Thomas and St. Bartholomew were often retold during
our period, notably, for instance, in the _Historia ecclesiastica_ of
Ordericus Vitalis.[1297] The Osma Beatus map[1298] shows heads
representing the twelve apostles in the various countries of the world;
that of St. Thomas is placed in India (see Fig. 4, p. 123, above). The
unknown writer of the _Letter of Prester John_ was undoubtedly familiar
with the legend of St. Thomas, because he makes Prester John’s palace
correspond exactly to the palace built by the saint.[1299] This legend
was a favorite subject for representation in the sculptures of
cathedrals and stained glass windows of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries.[1300]
_Visit of Patriarch John of India to Rome_
Belief in the existence of a large Christian population in Asia was
reënforced by an obscure event that took place in Rome in 1122. We have
an anonymous account[1301] of the visit of a certain Patriarch John of
India in that year and of the stupendous sensation which it created in
the Roman curia and throughout the whole of Italy. The narrator informs
us that in the course of countless ages no native was ever known to have
come from those distant and barbaric Oriental regions, nor had any one
ever before been seen in Italy who had actually been there.[1302] The
purpose of the patriarch’s visit to the West originally was to procure
at Byzantium the pallium and the confirmation of his office, which he
had recently assumed on the death of his predecessor. At Byzantium,
however, being told that Rome was in reality the capital of the
world,[1303] he proceeded thither along with some homeward-bound Roman
ambassadors and while in Rome gave a lecture about his native country
before the papal curia. The principal city, he said, was Hulna, on the
river Pison, one of the four rivers of Paradise; the city was of huge
size, surrounded by gigantic walls and inhabited by faithful Christians.
Outside the walls there was a mountain encircled by a very deep lake and
on the top of the mountain was situated the Church of St. Thomas.
Surrounding the lake were twelve monasteries erected in honor of the
twelve apostles. The Church of St. Thomas was inaccessible except once a
year, when the waters of the lake disappeared, allowing pilgrims to
approach. The Patriarch John then went on to explain in considerable
detail the marvels and miracles connected with the church.
We should be inclined—and justifiably—to reject the story of Patriarch
John’s visit as wholly fanciful, did it not seem to be confirmed by a
letter[1304] to a certain Count Thomas written by Odo, abbot of St. Remi
in Rheims (1118–1151), who happened to be in Rome at the time John was
there. The report of Odo about this event was probably not derived from
the anonymous account, from which it differs in several minor details.
Among other matters, according to Odo, John speaks of a river, not a
lake, surrounding the shrine of St. Thomas and of how its waters
diminished as a result of drought and became passable to a boy of seven
years during eight days before and eight days after the festival of the
apostle. The whole clergy and (Christian) people of India were said to
gather here on this occasion.
We shall see shortly that these stories contributed to the formation of
the curious medieval belief in the existence of a great Christian
kingdom in the heart of Asia. First, however, we must consider what
notions were current regarding the seas and islands to the south of
India and the vast tracts to the northward beyond the Himalayan barrier.
INDIAN OCEAN
A very brilliant feature on the maps of our period is the Red Sea,
almost invariably colored red. This name was given to the entire Indian
Ocean, and the red color was applied to the Persian Gulf as well as to
the “Arabian Gulf,” or Red Sea proper. The name “Indian Ocean” was also
occasionally used, as, for example, on the Jerome map of the East.[1305]
The Greeks had acquired some fairly correct information about the
northwestern shores of the Indian Ocean and had heard vague rumors of
the great peninsula and islands east and south of India: Malaya, Ceylon,
Sumatra. Confused reports of the geography of Taprobane, or Ceylon, are
found in classical works as far back as the time of the expedition of
Alexander. Pliny, Solinus, Ptolemy, and others described Taprobane in
some detail but exaggerated its dimensions to enormous proportions.
Pomponius Mela had spoken of the islands of Chryse, lying off the
eastern promontory of Asia, and Argyre, off the mouth of the Ganges.
Perhaps these represented some vague knowledge of the Andamans or
Nicobars or the Malay Peninsula; and certainly we recognize the
last-named in the Aurea Chersonesus of Ptolemy.
_Islands of the Indian Ocean_
Some relics of this classical knowledge of Indian seas and isles was
retained in the Middle Ages. Isidore[1306] had spoken of “Chrisa” and
“Argare” as full of gold and silver and perpetually blooming flowers,
with mountains of gold guarded by dragons and griffons. This account
found its way into the _De imagine mundi_[1307] and was copied by
Gervase of Tilbury;[1308] the islands themselves, together with the
“Island of the Sun” of Pliny, Mela, Solinus, and others, figured on many
contemporary maps.[1309] Orosius had said that in Taprobane there were
ten cities.[1310] Isidore, whom Gervase of Tilbury copied, added that
the dimensions of the island were 875 by 625 miles, that it has two
summers and two winters each year, and that the vegetation always
remains green.[1311] Solinus had described[1312] Taprobane as being
divided in two by a river; one half, he said, was full of wild beasts,
but the other was inhabited by men. This division of the island is
perpetuated on the Henry of Mayence,[1313] Jerome,[1314] Hereford,[1315]
and Ebstorf maps.[1316]
_Al-Battānī on the Indian Ocean_
The geographical chapter in Al-Battānī’s _Astronomy_, probably compiled
from a redaction of Ptolemy’s _Geography_ and translated by Plato of
Tivoli in our period, gave a description of the seas of the world.[1317]
The Indian Ocean, Al-Battānī said, extends from the land of the negroes
to the extreme limits of India, a distance of 8000 miles. Its width was
2200 miles, of which 1900 (Plato of Tivoli mistakenly translated this
3900) reach south of the equator. What lands lay beyond are not
specified. From this sea four gulfs run into the land: first the
Barbaric Sea, which extends into the “land of the negroes,” or Ethiopia,
and may be the Gulf of Aden or possibly even Mozambique Channel; second,
the Green Sea (Mare Viride), or our Red Sea, which reaches towards Hyla
(Ailah?); third, the Persian Gulf (Mare Persicum); and, fourth, a second
Green Sea, running out to the east towards China (“Thinae”) and
representing the Bay of Bengal or possibly the China Sea. In the Indian
Ocean there are some 1370 islands, among them a very large one called
“Tibiariae” (Taprobane), or Sarandib (Ceylon), opposite the eastern
coast of India, 3000 miles in circumference, full of great mountains and
rivers, quantities of rubies and hyacinths, and surrounded by fifty-nine
lesser isles. The traditional account of the many isles of the Indian
seas so persistent in Arabic literature arose unquestionably from
familiarity with the vast Malay Archipelago or at least with its western
portion. On the other hand, whether we may assume, as some have done,
that the exaggerated classical and Arabic estimates of the size of
Ceylon had their origin in rumors of the existence of Australia[1318] is
an obscure problem which we cannot attempt here to solve.
SCYTHIA AND CENTRAL ASIA
North of the mountain barrier enclosing India lay lands about which
Western medieval knowledge was equally vague. “Upper Scythia, stretching
from the Caspian Sea to the Seric Ocean and southward to the Caucasus,
includes much habitable land but also much that is sterile: gold and
gems abound there, but men avoid them on account of the griffons. Lower
Scythia adjoins Hyrcania, so called from the Hyrcanian Forest, where a
marvelous bird is found whose plumage glows in the dark. Iranea, or
Iran, is next to Scythia on the west: a region of nomads who wander
widely because of the sterility of the soil and who are horrible and
ferocious (_portentuosi ac truces_), eaters of human flesh and drinkers
of human blood.” In about these terms the author of the _De imagine
mundi_ and Gervase of Tilbury, borrowing from Isidore,[1319] summed up
very nearly all that was known of Central Asia before the great overland
journeys of the thirteenth century to which brief reference has already
been made.[1320] Several of the maps show large rivers—Araxes, Oxus,
Oscorus, and even Acheron, the stream of Tartarus—rising in the Caucasus
and flowing northward into the Caspian.[1321] The latter, in accordance
with the usual classical tradition, is represented as a gulf of the
encircling Ocean Stream.
BENJAMIN OF TUDELA ON CENTRAL ASIA
Benjamin of Tudela, who himself journeyed at least as far east as
Baghdad, had opportunities for gaining information about Central and
Northern Asia more favorable than those of his less traveled
contemporaries. Samarkand he mentions briefly as a “great city on the
confines of Persia” inhabited by 50,000 Jews. “Thence,” he adds, “it is
four days’ journey to Tibet, the country in whose forests the musk is
found” (Adler’s translation).[1322] He quotes the reports of Persian
Jews that four of the lost ten tribes of Israel dwell in the mountains
of Naisabur (in eastern Persia). These people were said to be
independent and to dwell in a broad tract of land twenty days’ journey
in extent, with cities and large villages among the mountains.[1323]
Others associated the lost tribes with the abhorrent hordes of Gog and
Magog.[1324] Benjamin goes on to tell us that these Jews were in league
with the “Kufar-al-Turak, who worship the wind and live in the
wilderness and who do not eat bread nor drink wine but live on raw,
uncooked meat. They have no noses, and in lieu thereof they have two
small holes through which they breathe” (Adler’s translation).[1325] He
relates the confused story of wars between these undeniably Turanian
tribes of the steppes of Turkestan and the “King of Persia” (the Seljuk
Sultan, Sanjar), events which perhaps gave rise to a legend that became
widespread in twelfth-century Europe and to which we must now turn.
PRESTER JOHN
The legend was the romantic story that in these far regions there lay a
vast and powerful Christian kingdom ruled by a mighty potentate, Prester
John. This tradition was the most important contribution of our period
to regional geography, for, false as it was, it long persisted, became
an integral part of late medieval geographical theory, and exerted in
subsequent centuries a powerful influence on the course of exploration.
The thirteenth-century Oriental travelers were constantly on the lookout
for Prester John’s kingdom and, when it finally became obvious that
there was no such kingdom in Asia, Prester John was transferred to
Africa, where he was sought for by the Portuguese navigators of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. How did this strange legend come
into existence, and what did it contribute to Western notions of Asia?
_Origins of the Legend_
Various elements seem to have given rise to it. Perhaps rumors of the
existence of a Christian nation in Abyssinia may at a very early period
have fostered belief in the existence of a great Christian potentate in
Asia. India in Asia and Ethiopia in Africa were often confused both in
antiquity and during the Middle Ages. Furthermore, the story of the
visit of the Indian archbishop or patriarch, already referred to,
encouraged belief in a numerous Asiatic Christian population. Some of
the elements of the patriarch’s report became an integral part of one of
the twelfth-century versions of the story of Prester John.
Then again, we have echoes of actual events in the East in Benjamin of
Tudela’s _Itinerary_, as we have just seen, and in Otto of Freising’s
_Chronicon_. Otto relates[1326] that in 1145 the bishop of Gabala in
Syria had come to Viterbo to report to Pope Eugenius III, among other
things, the fall of Edessa. Here Otto met the bishop, and what he
learned is recorded in the _Chronicon_. This was to the effect that, not
very long before, a certain John, king and priest, who dwelt in the Far
East beyond Persia and Armenia and who, together with his tribe
(_gens_), was a Christian, waged war with the Samiards (Saniards), two
brothers who were kings of the Medes and Persians. John captured
Ecbatana, the capital of the Samiards’ realm, defeated the brothers in
battle, and put them to flight. He then proceeded to advance to the aid
of the church at Jerusalem but was hindered from going very far by the
river Tigris. Turning northwards in hope that the river would freeze
over and thereby enable him to cross, he was finally constrained, after
several years had elapsed, to give up the enterprise because continued
warm weather prevented ice from forming. This John, Otto added, was said
to have come of very ancient lineage, in fact, to have been one of the
progeny of the Magi. The tribes under his command were perhaps the same
as the “Kufar-al-Turak” of Benjamin of Tudela.[1327]
Though the attempt has been made to identify the Christian potentate of
the legend with a chieftain of the Caucasus,[1328] the weight of
evidence would seem to favor belief that the story in its more specific
thirteenth-century form grew out of rumors of some Christian Mongol lord
of Central Asia.[1329] It is certain that the Nestorian form of
Christianity was strongly represented in Central Asia during this period
and that two powerful tribes of these distant regions, the Keraïts and
the Onguts, formed outposts of this faith. But, as Pelliot writes,
“whatever may have been the origin of the famous legend of Prester
John, ... it was to a prince of the Keraïts that the tradition was
applied during the first half of the thirteenth century. All the Keraïts
spoken of in the history of the Mongol dynasty seem to have been
Christians; in any case this is true of the majority of them. In fact it
was through marriage with Keraït princesses that Christianity penetrated
even into the family of Jenghiz Khan.”[1330] Many of these Asiatic
Christians bore Christian names preserved in Chinese forms, such as
Yao-su-mu for Joseph or K’wo-li-ki-ssö for George.[1331] We learn from
Marco Polo and other thirteenth-century travelers that Mongol princes
often submitted to baptism, though this was probably done out of
indifference to religion rather than as the expression of any
deep-seated convictions.
On such slender foundations as the report in Otto’s _Chronicon_ or the
anonymous account of the visit of the Patriarch John to Rome or on other
rumors of events in the heart of Asia of which no record has been
preserved, there was erected an elaborate, detailed, and wholly fanciful
series of descriptions of Prester John and his realm, embellished by
borrowings from the Romance of Alexander, from the legend of St. Thomas,
and from that world of fable which constituted the medieval European
conception of the Orient.
_Prester John’s Kingdom As Described in His “Letter”_
The most important description of Prester John’s kingdom is contained in
the famous _Letter_, addressed in some manuscripts to Manuel, the
Byzantine Emperor, in others to Frederick, the Roman Emperor; in still
others, to the Pope. In this letter,[1332] the earliest version of which
dates from before 1177, John tells that he is superior in wealth and
power to all the kings of the world. His realm includes the three Indias
and St. Thomas’ shrine. It extends across the desert of Babylon to the
tower of Babel and contains seventy-two provinces, each ruled over by a
king. Prester John is lord of the Amazons and Brahmins. In one direction
his territory reaches out four months’ journey. In the other, no one can
tell how far. “Only if you could count the stars of the heaven and the
sands of the sea would you be able to form an estimate of our dominion
and our power.” Many are the extraordinary features of this realm which
abounds in milk and honey: here is one of the rivers of Paradise; here
are streams that give forth gold and jewels; here pepper is gathered;
here is the fountain of youth; and here a mysterious sea of sand fed by
a river of rocks, beyond which dwell the ten tribes of the Jews, who,
although they have their own kings, are nevertheless subject to the
mighty Christian ruler. In one of the provinces near the torrid zone the
salamander thrives, a “worm” which cannot live without fire and which
makes a chrysalis about himself as do the silkworms (an interesting and
unexpected bit of natural history embedded in the midst of fable).
Prester John takes particular delight in expatiating on the enormous
wealth of his country, on the virtues of its inhabitants—for among them
there are neither liars nor adulterers nor indeed vice or crime of any
description—and on their clemency and Christian piety. Every year the
king makes a pilgrimage with his army across the serpent-infested
Babylonian desert to the shrine of the prophet Daniel. A large part of
the _Letter_ is taken up with a minute description of the royal
palace—exactly like that which St. Thomas built for the King
Gundophorus, of the king’s household, the grandees who wait upon him,
the officials of the kingdom, etc., etc. In an early Latin version of
the _Letter_, written probably in England, we are informed that there
are people from all countries of the world at Prester John’s
court;[1333] among the personal servants of the king there are
Englishmen who wait upon him at table. No less than eleven thousand
Englishmen are in his bodyguard, and every Englishman who comes to the
court, whether clerk or knight, is invested with the order of
knighthood. The French and Italian versions of the _Letter_, which were
probably translated from this Latin text, substitute “François” and
“Franceschi” for “Anglici.”
_Alliance With Prester John Desired_
During the thirteenth century it was the vain hope of the Popes and of
the Christian kings of Europe to gain the alliance of some great power
in the East—either the Mongols or Prester John—as an offset to Turkish
encroachments on the Crusaders’ frontiers.[1334] Perhaps we may detect
the beginnings of this policy in a letter of Pope Alexander III (1177)
to John, “Magnificus rex Indorum sacerdotum sanctissimus.”[1335] The
Pope informs the great king that he has heard of his piety through a
certain Master Philip, papal physician, who had held conversation with
distinguished and honorable persons of his realm. Consequently Alexander
was sending this Philip to expound to him the tenets of Western
Christianity and to convert him to the true Catholic faith. It seems
probable that Alexander was acquainted with the supposed letter of
Prester John to the Byzantine Emperor, though there is also strong
probability that he had confused the stories of the Asiatic Prester John
with reports regarding the Christian kingdom of Abyssinia—a source of
much confusion at a later period than ours.
GOG AND MAGOG
The northern part of Asia was the reputed seat of the terrible tribes of
Gog and Magog, whose eruption at the Last Day was destined to bring
about the destruction of the human race. We have seen that Biblical
prophecies were combined with the story of Alexander the Great’s
enclosing of these tribes behind great walls. The legend appears in our
period under various forms. Most of the maps show Gog and Magog, usually
surrounded by a wall; some add disparaging epithets, such as “gens
immunda.” Matthew Paris on his map of Palestine indicates in the north
the walls whereby King Alexander the Great shut in Gog and Magog and
states in the explanatory legend that from this same direction came the
Tatars.[1336] In the _De imagine mundi_[1337] we find a simple statement
that between the Caspian Mountains and the sea of that name dwelt those
tribes who had been walled in by Alexander the Great, Gog and Magog, the
fiercest of all peoples, eaters of the raw flesh of wild beasts and of
human beings. The Moslems had placed Gog and Magog in the farthest
corner of northeastern Asia: and in John of Seville’s translation of
Al-Farghānī’s _Astronomy_ we find the land of Gog at the easternmost
extremity of the sixth and seventh “climates” (those farthest
north).[1338] Lambert li Tors speaks in the Romance of Alexander of “Gos
et Magos” among the vassals of Porus: though they came forth with four
hundred thousand men, Alexander, after he had defeated Porus, chased
them back into the defiles of the mountains, where he shut them in with
a great wall.[1339] In a later part of the Romance, the subdivision of
Alexander’s kingdom at his death is explained: to Antigonus was given
Syria and Persia as far as Mount Tus, together with the duty of standing
guard over Gog and Magog.[1340] Otto of Freising also mentions these
tribes.[1341] He derived his information from Frutolf’s
_Chronica_,[1342] whence, in turn, it had come from the version of the
Romance of Alexander known as the _Historia de praeliis_. In the days of
Heraclius, Otto says, the “Agareni” (Saracens) devastated the lands of
the empire and destroyed part of the army of Heraclius. In revenge the
latter opened the Caspian Gates and let out those most savage tribes,
which Alexander the Great had enclosed along the Caspian Sea on account
of their heinousness, and inaugurated a war against the Saracens. By
night, as a punishment sent by the Deity for this sacrilegious act,
fifty-two thousand of Heraclius’ army were struck down by lightning,
and, as a result of this terrible visitation, Heraclius himself died in
the twenty-seventh year of his reign.
There were many variations of the legend of Gog and Magog. Elsewhere in
Otto of Freising’s _Chronicon_[1343] we find an account, taken from
Orosius, of the way in which Artaxerxes forced many of the Jews to dwell
in Hyrcania near the Caspian Sea. It was believed that these people had
multiplied greatly,[1344] and they were expected to burst forth on the
world in the days of Antichrist. Though not here expressly called Gog
and Magog, the connection is plain; and Godfrey of Viterbo relates how
Alexander enclosed Gog and Magog, the “eleven [_sic_] tribes of the
Jews.”[1345] We have already quoted[1346] Matthew Paris’ description of
the Tatars who, he said, might be the same as the tribes whom Alexander
enclosed—the ten tribes of Israel.
WESTERN ASIA
When we turn from the remote parts of the Orient to Western Asia we find
ourselves in regions much better known to the Western world, though the
traditional geography of these regions, founded on classical and
Biblical authority, persisted in encyclopedic writings hardly influenced
at all by the contacts that in reality had been established. The _De
imagine mundi_, Gervase of Tilbury’s _Otia imperialia_, and other
similar works add little to what Isidore and Orosius had written.
Between the Indus and Tigris lie many countries, Arachosia, Parthia,
Assyria, Persia, Media, all forming a harsh and mountainous tract called
in Scripture “India” but more generally known as Parthia. Fire had been
discovered in Persia.[1347] The Tigris, so called because it is as swift
as a tiger, rises from a common source with the Euphrates in the
mountains of Armenia.[1348] Thence the two rivers separate, leaving a
long space between them known as Mesopotamia; the Tigris encircles
Assyria and empties into the Dead Sea! Peter Comestor and the author of
the _De imagine mundi_ accepted the views of Isidore regarding the
source of the Tigris in the highlands of Armenia,[1349] but the latter
adds to the already prevailing confusion by stating that both rivers of
Mesopotamia debouch into the Mediterranean Sea. Gervase, on the other
hand, corrects the error of the author of the _De imagine mundi_ by
making them flow into the Red Sea (or Indian Ocean),[1350] as was
depicted on most maps.
_Mesopotamia_
Mesopotamia was said to be famous as the site of Nineveh and of Chaldea,
where astronomy was discovered;[1351] and Gervase of Tilbury dilates on
the immense size of the walls of Babylon.[1352] Regarding Babylon, it is
refreshing to find in Otto of Freising’s _Chronicon_ some really
up-to-date information which he had derived from Frutolf.[1353] In the
first place, he makes a careful distinction between Babylon and Cairo,
to which the name of Babylon was commonly given. “Old Babylon,” he
added, “as we learn from reliable men from across the seas, is partly
inhabited at the present day and now called Baldach [Baghdad]. Part,
however, as you would expect from the words of prophecy, is a desert
waste extending for ten miles as far as the tower of Babel. The part
which is inhabited and called Baldach is very large and populous.” He
explains that here is the seat of the greatest priest of the Persians,
whom they call “Caliph,” and who holds in some respects a position among
these pagans parallel to that which the Pope at Rome holds among
Christians.
With Baghdad we have at last come to a city that was actually visited
and described during our period by Western Europeans whose descriptions
have come down to us. The Jewish travelers, Benjamin of Tudela and
Petachia of Ratisbon, appear to have sojourned in the Mesopotamian city
in the seventh and ninth decades of the twelfth century respectively.
_Benjamin of Tudela on Baghdad_
Benjamin’s personal familiarity with Baghdad saved him from making
Frutolf’s and Otto’s mistake of confusing the Abbasid capital with old
Babylon. We gather from Benjamin’s _Itinerary_ that the latter is three
days’ journey distant and that “the ruins of the palace of
Nebuchadnezzar are still to be seen there, but people are afraid to
enter them on account of serpents and scorpions” (Adler’s
translation).[1354]
Baghdad, Benjamin writes (our quotations are from Adler’s translation),
“is on the River Tigris,” which “divides the metropolis in two parts.”
The city “is twenty miles in circumference, situated in a land of palms,
gardens, and plantations, the like of which is not to be found in the
whole land of Shinar. People come thither with merchandise from all
lands. Wise men live there, philosophers who know all manner of wisdom,
and magicians expert in all manner of witchcraft.”[1355] Benjamin was
particularly interested in the Caliph, of whose palace, park, family,
and widespread authority he writes in no little detail and in highly
commendatory terms,[1356] for it seems that the Caliphs were more
tolerant toward the Jews than were most Christian monarchs of the age.
Besides treating of the Caliph, Benjamin tells about the “Head of the
Captivity,” another powerful ruler whose headquarters were Baghdad and
in whom the Caliph had vested authority over all the Jewish communities
throughout the eastern Moslem world. A descendant of David, King of
Israel, he was a man of great dignity and rank, held high in the esteem
of the Mohammedans. His power extended “over all the communities of
Shinar, Persia, Khurasan, and Sheba, which is El-Yemen, and Diyar Kalach
(Bekr) and the land of Aram Naharaim (Mesopotamia) and over the dwellers
in the mountains of Ararat and the land of the Alans, which is a land
surrounded by mountains and has no outlet except by the iron gates which
Alexander made but which were afterwards broken. Here are the people
called Alani. His authority extends also over the land of Siberia
[Sikbia?] and the communities in the land of Togarmim[1357] unto the
mountains of Asveh and the land of Gurgan, the inhabitants of which are
called Gurganim who dwell by the river Gihon (Oxus?); and these are the
Girgashites who follow the Christian religion. Further it extends to the
gates of Samarkand, the land of Tibet, and the land of India. In respect
of all these countries the Head of the Captivity gives the communities
power to appoint Rabbis and Ministers who come unto him to be
consecrated and to receive his authority. They bring him offerings and
gifts from the ends of the earth.”[1358]
Whether or not Benjamin was personally presented to the Head of the
Captivity we are not informed. In any case he undoubtedly came into
contact at Baghdad with Jews from all over Central and Western Asia and
from them was able to gather those details regarding the Jewish
communities which form such an important and interesting part of his
_Itinerary_. Most striking in this connection are the data which he
furnishes us about the Jews of Arabia.
_Benjamin of Tudela on Arabia_
The interior of that great peninsula until recently has remained very
vaguely known to Western Christians, and in the Middle Ages there
reigned almost complete ignorance regarding it. Gervase of Tilbury tells
us (from Orosius) that Arabia lies between two seas and is the country
of Mount Sinai, of the Queen of Sheba, and of frankincense.[1359] Beyond
this and a few details about the Bedouins picked up by the Crusaders,
nothing was known. Hence the information which Benjamin gives on the
Jewish communities is of exceptional importance. If we may trust his
figures, it would seem that there was at this time a large Jewish
population both in Yemen and farther north. Benjamin’s conception of the
geography of the peninsula, however, is remarkably confused. He tells us
that at a distance of twenty-one days’ journey through the deserts from
Hillah in Mesopotamia one comes to the land of Saba, or El-Yemen. Here
he places the great Jewish cities of Tanai, Tilmas, Teima, and Kheibar.
Neither Tilmas nor Tanai have been definitely identified. To the former
Benjamin assigned a population of 100,000 Jews; to the latter, with the
district surrounding, a population of no less than 300,000 Jews. They
may represent Jewish settlements in Yemen, though Benjamin’s statement
that Tilmas is only three days from Kheibar would seem to preclude this
possibility. Tanai, on the other hand, has been thought to be Sanaa.
Kheibar (to which Benjamin assigns 50,000 Jews) and Teima have long been
well-known towns of northern Arabia not far from Medina. Now inhabited
by half-breed negroes, these places were the centers of a Jewish
population from before the times of Mohammed until as late as the
sixteenth century.[1360]
Ina totally different connection Benjamin refers to Jews of the “land of
Aden,” which he believed to be part of India, taking India to include
southern Arabia and Ethiopia. Their country he describes as mountainous.
The Jewish element in the population, he adds, “are not under the yoke
of the Gentiles but possess castles on the summits of the mountains from
which they make descents into the plain country called Libya, which is a
Christian empire” (Adler’s translation).[1361] This is indeed confusing.
If by Libya Abyssinia is meant—which is likely, for Abyssinia was a
Christian kingdom from very early times—it seems peculiar that Benjamin
makes no mention of the Red Sea intervening between the land of Aden in
Arabia Felix and the African coasts which would have to be crossed by
Jews of the Aden highlands in making war on the Abyssinians. Possibly
Benjamin, like Marco Polo a century later, conceived of Aden as lying in
Africa.[1362]
_Syria and Palestine_
Unlike all the rest of Asia, Syria and Palestine were well known at
first hand to many European Christians. Yet, in writing about them, the
makers of compilations like the _De imagine mundi_ and the _Otia
imperialia_ were content to do little more than copy Isidore’s dry
catalogue of the names of places rendered famous through Scriptural
associations.[1363] The Dead Sea with its sinister neighborhood was the
only natural feature of this part of the world which seems to have made
a strong enough appeal to the imagination of these writers to impel them
to add anything to what Isidore had said long before.[1364]
_Geographical Knowledge Enlarged by the Crusades_
On the other hand, the Levantine countries were familiar through the
journeys of Western travelers, though their observations were not
incorporated into the works of the scholarly compilers. Many were the
motives that induced men of the West to visit the Nearer East. Religious
enthusiasm and the desire for commercial gain, however, were paramount.
The Crusades contributed more than any great series of events between
the time of Claudius Ptolemy and the middle of the thirteenth century to
the broadening of man’s geographical horizon, and, with it, the
broadening of the whole range of human activity. We cannot attempt to
discuss these wider aspects of the Crusading movement in any detail, but
a few words must be said about the dissemination of regional knowledge
that resulted from it. Feudal nobility, soldiers, pilgrims, and
adventurers of all sorts and from all parts of the West were joined by
Italian merchants in the great enterprise, the object of which was not
only to redeem the holy places from the infidel but also to profit from
the Levantine trade. Men of all ranks and callings, coming from every
part of Christendom, made their way by land and sea to the Holy Land.
Peasant, serf, and petty townsman, as well as powerful noble and church
dignitary, were torn from old and familiar environments to wander
through countries about which they had hitherto known next to nothing.
In some cases the stories of their travels and adventures were preserved
in chronicles and poems, but in most no permanent record was left.
Nevertheless, the geographical knowledge of the average man was widened
to an extent which we can scarcely appreciate at the present day. Before
the Crusades communities throughout the greater part of Europe had lived
very much to themselves, in limited contact with the outside world; but
by the year 1200 it is safe to infer that practically every town and
village of France, England, Germany, and Italy held someone who had
visited the East and was not unready to tell about what he had seen
there and on his way out and back. Just as the War of 1914–1918 has
taught the world much European geography, so the Crusades taught all
classes of Europe about the Holy Land and the routes thither. But the
Crusades did more than give the people a wider knowledge of places: they
brought them into contact with new customs, new religions, new ideals
and modes of life, as well as with new types of landscape and terrain.
All this tended to displace men from habitual and local modes of
thought; Europe became more cosmopolitan, and the way was prepared for
that profound change in man’s entire attitude towards life which we now
call the Renaissance.
_Occidental Population of the Levant_
We can merely hint at these general results of the extension of
geographical contact with the Levantine world and turn to the more
specific problem of the limits to which Western penetration was actually
pushed. The Occidental population of the states established after the
First Crusade along the eastern border of the Mediterranean was composed
primarily of the Frankish nobility and soldiery and of Italian
traders.[1365] The former had established themselves in castles and
garrisons, from which they ruled over widespread manorial estates tilled
by native Syrians. The traders occupied large foreign quarters in such
commercial centers as Acre, Jaffa, Ascalon, Tyre, and Tripoli on the
coasts, and in the interior at Jerusalem. Trading privileges and the
right to build up commercial colonies in the towns were granted to
Genoese, Pisans, Venetians, and others in return for services rendered
the Crusading armies by the Italian navies in the conquest of the coast
towns and in the transportation of military forces. Through the reports
brought back to Europe by returning soldiers, adventurers, and
merchants, Syria and Palestine became more widely and accurately known
in the West than most parts of Europe itself.
_European Occupation of Syria_
First-hand acquaintance with the Levant, however, did not, either in the
twelfth or in the thirteenth century, necessarily lead to first-hand
acquaintance with the neighboring countries that still lay under the
domination of the Turk. At the time of its greatest extent the Kingdom
of Jerusalem reached eastward to the edge of the desert plateau beyond
the Jordan and Dead Sea and southward to Ailah on the Gulf of Akaba.
Northeastward the upper Tigris marked the frontier of the County of
Edessa. Beyond these restricted borders lay Saracen territory into which
traders from the West did not dare to venture. Southern Mesopotamia was
virtually _terra incognita_; and the men who held the small garrison
posts along the eastern border of the states of the Crusaders were not
prone to undertake rash enterprises in the enemy’s country.
The danger of such enterprises is illustrated by the fate of a Christian
naval expedition sent down the Red Sea from Akaba in 1182–1183.[1366] A
small fleet, fitted out by Reynauld of Châtillon, lord of the castle of
Kerak beyond the Jordan, succeeded in getting almost as far as Yembo,
the port of Medina. We are not told of its true purpose by the Arabic
historians, who alone seem to have recorded this adventure, though the
Arabs certainly believed that the Crusaders were bent upon plundering
the tomb of the prophet at Medina. Perhaps its leaders harbored a
fanatic hope of attacking the holy cities of Islam. At all events, the
navy of Saladin, hastily summoned from Egypt, soon overtook and defeated
the little squadron at Haura, and those of the Crusaders who escaped
ashore were either killed by the Bedouins or sold into slavery.
But though, with a few exceptions, Europeans themselves did not go
beyond these bounds of the Crusaders’ states, commercial relations were
established with the more eastern regions.[1367] Antioch and Laodicea
were the termini of two trade routes from Aleppo, whence came merchants
from Rakka on the Euphrates and ultimately from Mesopotamia, Persia, and
Central Asia. Asiatic goods were also sold at a great open fair in the
Hauran country, at one time in the territory of the Kingdom of Jerusalem
and undoubtedly frequented by Westerners. And the harbors of the kingdom
were the _entrepôts_ of an extensive traffic from Arabia Felix and India
by the Red Sea and across the Isthmus of Suez. At all of these points
the Italians established connections with the Oriental merchants and
learned from them much about Oriental lands and their products.
_Asia Minor_
During the early thirteenth century Asia Minor also became familiar
ground to the men of the West.[1368] The establishment of the Latin
Empire at Constantinople in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade was mainly
responsible for this; but even before the close of the twelfth century
the Venetians had become preponderant from a commercial point of view in
the districts that had hitherto formed parts of the Byzantine Empire,
and after 1204 they were in a position to conclude advantageous treaties
with their Anatolian neighbors, Greek, Seljuk, and Armenian. Venetian
merchants were to be seen in the important towns and along the highways
of the peninsula. Italians, with Provençaux in their train, exploited
the trade of the small Christian kingdom of Little Armenia (the ancient
Cilicia) and penetrated from the Mediterranean into and across the
Seljuk sultanate of Iconium, whose rulers were disposed to look with
fairly friendly eyes on the Frankish trader. Even the Empire of Nicaea,
a small remnant of the Greek dominions which had managed to preserve its
independence after the Fourth Crusade, was constrained in 1219 to grant
extensive trading privileges to the Venetians.
_Western Asia As Described by the Crusaders_
The knowledge of Western Asia acquired in these various ways was
naturally enough reflected in the works of the historians, chroniclers,
and poets of the Crusades, many of whom had themselves visited the
places they describe. Their fresh and realistic accounts contrast
strikingly with the sort of geographical writings we have so far been
discussing in this chapter. From Dreesbach’s study of the Orient as
described in the early French Crusading literature we may gain a concise
idea of the sort of thing that impressed itself on the mind of the
Occidental.[1369] His impressions of climate and landscape need not
detain us here, as they have already been explained in early
chapters.[1370] Of the natural resources, the wealth of the fruits of
Syria, grapes, figs, pomegranates, almonds, olives, and locusts, were
often the subject of wonder and admiration, and William of Tyre speaks
enthusiastically of the great sugar plantations at Sur.[1371] Of the
animals,[1372] the Arab horse and the camel attracted most attention;
and the usefulness of the latter was known both as a beast of burden and
as a swift traveler through the desert. A lively sketch of a man leading
a camel laden with a large cask figures prominently on one variant of
the Matthew Paris map of Palestine, and a legend reads: “Here abound
camels, buffaloes (_bubali_), mules, and asses, which are used by the
merchants trading between the peoples of the Orient and of the
Occident.”[1373] Bears and lions, serpents and tarantulas, and carrier
pigeons also invited notice; and the mosquito is mentioned by Ambroise,
who says that though very small it has a terribly poisonous bite, bad
enough to make every one, old and young alike, appear to be leprous:
“Que chescons, vielz ou damoisels,
Sembloit a estre tut mesels.”[1374]
Concerning the people[1375] of the Levant we find that the distinction
between the nomadic desert-dwelling Bedouins and the bearded
turban-wearing Saracens (townsfolk) was well understood. The
Bedouins—contrary to their present reputation—were looked down upon as
cowards in battle, and William of Tyre relates with some disgust that it
was their custom to hang about on the outskirts of a fight until they
saw which side was going to win and then to join the victors.[1376]
In commenting on the religion[1377] of the Saracens the medieval
Christians made the fundamental error of supposing that Islam is an
idolatrous cult and that Mohammed was worshipped as a god. Nevertheless
they were far from inaccurate in their remarks on the various customs,
habits, and minor beliefs of the Moslems, on such matters, for example,
as the pilgrimage to Mecca, the prohibited eating of pork and drinking
of wine, the importance of ablutions, polygamy, and the customs of
divorce. William of Tyre describes[1378] the division of the Mohammedans
into two great groups, Shiah and Sunni, and explains how the former held
that Ali (“Haly”) was the only true prophet and the latter that Mohammed
was the one messenger of God. Baghdad was referred to as the seat of the
great “apostle” of the Saracens, or caliph, whom William of Tyre spoke
of as a sovereign prince and chieftain whom all must obey; Cairo in
Egypt was recognized as the capital of the caliphs of the rival Shiah
persuasion.
Benjamin of Tudela also acquired some fairly clear ideas of Islam during
his visits to Baghdad and to Egypt. He states that the Abbasid Caliph at
Baghdad “is head of the Mohammedan religion, and all the kings of Islam
obey him” and likens his position to that of the Christian Pope.[1379]
In writing about Cairo he tells us that the subjects of the Emir were
followers of Ali (hence Shiites), that they rose against the Abbasid
Caliph of Baghdad, and that a lasting feud was kept up between the two
factions.[1380]
Particular terror was inspired in the hearts of the Crusaders by that
strange sect of Assassins,[1381] whose principal seat was at Alamut in
Persia, the stronghold of the notorious Old Man of the Mountain, though
most of the Crusaders mistakenly thought that the outlying fortress of
Massiat in Syria was the abode of the Old Man. William of Tyre
dilates[1382] on the treachery and murderous nature of this people; and
in Ambroise’s _Estoire_ we find[1383] a vivid account of how the
children of the Assassins were brought up to do the bidding of the Old
Man in every detail and in particular to bring about the murder of his
enemies.[1384]
_AFRICA_
EGYPT AS PART OF ASIA
Both the author of the _De imagine mundi_ and Gervase of Tilbury include
an account of Egypt with their descriptions of the countries of Asia.
They then take up the remainder of Asia and Europe before finally
returning to Africa toward the close of the geographical parts of their
books. This order of treatment, which accorded with classical
traditions, usually included Egypt with Asia or at least, as in the _De
imagine mundi_, made the Nile rather than the Red Sea the boundary
between Asia and Africa.[1385] Certainly from an historical and cultural
point of view Egypt has been more closely related to the Asiatic than to
the African continent, even though geographically it forms a portion of
the latter.[1386]
The description of Egypt in the _Otia imperialia_[1387] was copied in
large part from the _De imagine mundi_,[1388] and this in turn had
closely followed the words of Isidore.[1389] It ran somewhat as follows.
Surrounded by the course of the Nile, which forms a letter
_delta_,[1390] Lower Egypt comprises five thousand country estates;
these are not watered by rainfall but by the floods of the river alone,
for the skies of Egypt are never obscured by clouds. The capital of
Egypt is Babylon (Cairo), built by Cambyses. Close to Thebes—a city
founded by Cadmus, Agenor’s son and founder of Boeotian Thebes as
well—are vast solitudes where there used to dwell a great company of
hermits. The _De imagine mundi_ speaks of the island of Meroë and of
Syene on the tropic in Upper Egypt, the latter famous for the well built
there by the philosophers, into which the sun shines directly in the
month of June.[1391] The Jerome map of Palestine also shows Egypt in
considerable detail, one of the most important features being the
lighthouse at Alexandria.[1392]
DESCRIPTIONS OF EGYPT
Egypt, like the Holy Land, was frequently visited by Western merchants
throughout our entire period. Benjamin of Tudela testifies to the
enormous trade carried on there with the West. Alexandria was the
principal port whence the spices and luxuries of the Far East were
transshipped to Europe. Benjamin spoke with high appreciation of the
wide straight streets of the city and of the architectural beauty of its
buildings. He was much impressed by the swarm of merchants from all over
the world who congregated in its streets and markets.[1393] William of
Tyre enlarged on the commercial importance of the great port and
explained that the peppers, spices, ointments, drugs, lectuaries,
precious stones, and silks of the Orient were brought first to Aden on
the Red Sea and thence transported direct to Alexandria. He pointed out
that Alexandria was also important as the meeting place of the river and
maritime trades, and he gave a description of the local topography of
the city.[1394] Merchants from various Occidental nations and city
states of Italy had _fondachi_, or trading stations, in this
cosmopolitan metropolis, which was, as Schaube says, more subjected to
European influences than any other city of Islam.[1395] The Church
endeavored to place severe restrictions on commerce with the infidel, in
particular by the prohibition of the importation into Egypt of wood and
iron, two materials of vital importance to the Saracens and much in
demand. The restrictions, however, were disregarded, and trade
flourished between Southern Europe and Egypt throughout nearly the
entire twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, except for a short
interruption at the time of the Third Crusade. In 1215–1216 there were
said to be no fewer than three thousand Frankish merchants in
Alexandria.[1396] Egypt was the objective of the Crusaders of the Fifth
Crusade, who seized and held the city of Damietta from 1219 to 1221, and
again under Louis IX of France, who held it from 1248 to 1249; but in
the interval between these two Crusades the Emperor Frederick II was on
friendly and even intimate terms with the sultans.[1397]
William of Tyre, who knew Egypt at first hand, gives a vivid picture of
the fertile strip of country, hemmed in on either side by two deserts
“in which the land is so burned and sterile that it supports no herb and
no manner of tree, except where the river Nile waters the ground when it
is in flood; in these parts alone a great abundance of wheat can
grow.”[1398] He speaks of the flood of the Nile, between the months of
June and September, and how it leaves a rich deposit of silt; of the
palm gardens like a forest along the banks of the stream; and of the
extensive orchards of fruit trees in the neighborhood of
Alexandria.[1399] He also fully describes the caliph’s palace at Cairo
and the Mamelukes, or sultan’s bodyguard, recruited from the children of
captured enemies.[1400]
Benjamin of Tudela also marveled at the agricultural wealth of the flood
plain of the Nile. The river alone, he said, irrigates and fertilizes
the land, for “no rain falls, neither is ice or snow ever seen” (Adler’s
translation). Among other curiosities he described the Nilometer, which
measured the height of the flood waters, and he gave details regarding
the agricultural crops and fruits. Benjamin quoted the correct
explanation of the flood: “The Egyptians say that up the river, in the
land of Al-Habash (Abyssinia), which is the land of Havilah, much rain
descends at the time of the rising of the river, and this abundance of
rain causes the river to rise and to cover the surface of the land”
(Adler’s translation).[1401]
AFRICA WEST OF EGYPT
To the west of Egypt, according to the _De imagine mundi_, lies Africa,
stretching from the Nile to the ocean. Here in order are the provinces
of Libya, named from a queen of that name; Cyrenaica, called from the
city of Cyrene; Pentapolis, from the five cities of Berenice, Arsinoë,
Ptolemaïs, Apollonia, and Cyrene; Tripolis, from the three cities of
Occasa, Berete, and Leptis Magna; Heusis, containing the site of
Carthage; Getulia; Numidia, with Hippo, the home of St. Augustine; and
Mauretania.[1402] The two Syrtes (Major and Minor), or shallow bays of
the north coast of Africa, are shown on the Henry of Mayence map
immediately to the west of Egypt.[1403] In the extreme west of Africa
the _De imagine mundi_, with characteristic confusion, places Gades
(Cadiz), from which the adjacent sea is called the Sea of Gades; and, on
the borders of the ocean, Mount Atlas, a mountain of immense height,
named after Atlas, once a king of Africa.[1404] These mountains also
appear prominently on the St. Sever Beatus map as a long range running
parallel to the Atlantic[1405] (see Fig. 2, p. 69, above). Other maps of
the same group[1406] show two great peaks on the western coast of
Africa, which seem to represent a confusion of the Atlas Mountains with
the famous Pillars of Hercules. A legend on the St. Sever Beatus map in
the neighborhood of Tangier (Tingi) draws attention to the fact that
“this region produces monkeys and ostriches,”[1407] true certainly at
the present day in regard to the former.
In the fourth and fifth decades of the twelfth century the Norman king
of Sicily, Roger II, the patron of Edrisi, conquered many of the seaport
towns along what is now the coast of Tunis; and, though the Latins were
expelled from this region by the powerful Moroccan dynasty of the
Almohads,[1408] who during the following decade came to supersede the
Almoravids in the domination over North Africa and Spain, close
commercial relations were maintained between the northern and southern
coasts of the Mediterranean Sea throughout the century and a half with
which we are concerned.[1409] The Genoese held the foremost place in the
North African trade; but Pisan, Venetian, Massiliot, and Catalan
merchants also frequented the markets of the seaboard towns. Under the
Almohads, Ceuta and Bugia were important _entrepôts_ of Genoese trade;
and when the Almohad dominions split up in the early years of the
thirteenth century (1212–1238), these two towns fell into the hands of
Genoa.[1410] Genoese fleets also ventured through the Strait of
Gibraltar and not only tapped the commerce of the western coasts of the
Iberian Peninsula but penetrated as far as Saleh on the Moroccan shore.
Christians also found their way in various capacities into the interior
of Maghreb, as the Moslems termed these western territories of Islam.
During the Crusading epoch many Christians were taken captive in the
wars in Spain and by pirates on the high seas; most of these were sold
into slavery in the markets of the sea ports of Morocco, Algeria, and
Tunis and sent to drag out lives of suffering in the towns of the
interior. Towards the close of the twelfth century a Christian religious
order was formed for the purpose of ameliorating the sufferings of the
captives and of bringing about their redemption by exchange with Moslem
captives held in Christendom.[1411] We have evidence that these
“Redemptorists,” and the Franciscan and Dominican friars who were soon
to follow them in the same work and who also served as ministers of the
Christian religion to the European merchants engaged in business in
Moslem countries, were not at all inhospitably received.[1412] Their
work was facilitated by almost uniformly friendly relations between the
papacy and the rulers of Morocco, and the number of Christians in this
part of the world became so great by the fourth decade of the thirteenth
century that an episcopal see was established in Fez (1233),
subsequently to be removed to Morocco City.[1413] Another tie between
Morocco and the Latin West was created by the maintenance at the court
of the Almohads and their successors of a mercenary force composed for
the most part of Spanish Christians from Catalonia and Aragon.[1414]
On certain of the Beatus maps a “sandy desert” is shown between Egypt,
western Africa, and Ethiopia;[1415] and on the Psalter map it appears as
a well-defined strip of territory labeled “sandy and sterile
land.”[1416] This of course is no other than the Sahara,[1417] of which
little or nothing was known, except that the Henry of Mayence map
shows,[1418] far back in the desert, the Temple of Jupiter (Ammon), in
the oasis of that name, known since antiquity, and the St. Sever Beatus
map represents certain immense _salinae_, or salt pits (the two squares
west of the Nile on Fig. 2, p. 69, above), said to wax and wane with the
moon.[1419]
ETHIOPIA
South of Egypt and the Sahara lies Ethiopia. In the minds of medieval
writers this name was not restricted to the region beyond Upper Egypt
but was applied to the entire southern part of the known world, just as
“India” sometimes was applied to the entire Far East. Indeed, from early
classical times Ethiopia had itself been confused with India, and some
of the writers whose works we are studying believed that the two regions
were coterminous.
Nearly all the maps of the period carried the extremities of Ethiopia
far to the east and minimized the size of the Red Sea and Indian Ocean
in such a way as to bring Central Africa within no great distance of
India. On the Jerome map of Palestine two tracts called “India Egyptii”
and “India Ethiopie” were placed along the shores of the Red Sea
opposite the mouths of the Indus.[1420] Gervase of Tilbury speaks of
three peoples inhabiting Ethiopia: the Hesperi in the west, the
Garamantes in the center, and the “Indians” in the east,[1421] and adds
that there are one hundred and twenty provinces “from India into
Ethiopia.”[1422] The _De imagine mundi_ places Saba, the city of the
Queen of Sheba, in the easterly part of Ethiopia.[1423] It was conceded
that Ethiopia is terribly hot on account of the proximity of the sun and
that the soil there for the most part is dry and desert. Gervase speaks
of the mighty Mount Climax of Ptolemy, Orosius, and other ancient
writers in the midst of Ethiopia, a home of bearded women and similar
marvels.
Some of the Beatus maps designate Ethiopia as a country “where there are
races horrible on account of their strange faces and monstrous
appearance. It extends as far as the borders of Egypt. It also abounds
in wild beasts and serpents; and precious stones, cinnamon, and balsam
are found there.”[1424] In fact, all remote parts of the world were made
the habitats of marvels in the Middle Ages, and few parts of the known
world were more remote than Ethiopia. In addition, the intimate
connection between India and Ethiopia, which had persisted in the minds
of men throughout so many ages, seems to have brought about a
transference thither of many of those marvels and monsters that
originally had been placed in the Far East. A most entertaining example
of the peopling of Ethiopia by monstrous creatures is provided by the
Psalter map and by the Ebstorf map of a period later than ours.[1425] On
these the entire shore of the equatorial ocean along the southern border
of the known world is lined with men that are tongueless, earless,
noseless, or men that have four eyes or mouths and eyes on their
breasts, and with cannibals, _cynocephali_, snake-eating troglodytes,
and the like.
SOURCES OF THE NILE