(1.) “and on the spike he must rot.”—Among those who had reigned or
assumed the supreme power in Egypt, appear the names of “Marochloch”
and “Jusuphda”, intended for Barkok and Faradj; also “Mathas”,
whose reign intervened between that of “Marochloch” and “Jusuphda”.
The successors of the latter were “Zechem”, “Schyachin”, and
“Malleckchafcharff” also known as “Balmander”, who was no other than
Boursbaï, 1422–1438; he assumed upon his accession, according to
custom, the title of Ak Melyk, and the distinctive prefix of Alashraf
Seif uddin Aboul-Nazr—The most Noble Sword of the Faith, and Father of
Victory (Weil, _Gesch. der Chal._, v, 167). “Mathas” was Mintash or
Mantash, governor of Malatia, who, after having for a time replaced
Barkok, perished in 1393 by being broken on the wheel. It is possible,
however, that Arabian authors have otherwise described the mode of
Mantash’s execution, through misapprehension, because the sawing in two
parts was a punishment of antiquity, practised in eastern countries
other than Egypt. Dion Cassius (lxviii, 32) relates that the Jews in
Cyrene and Egypt, under Trajan, having revolted, sawed in two the
Romans and Greeks who fell into their hands, staining their faces with
the blood of their victims, and adorning themselves with the skin. In
one of the admirable notes to his translation of Makrizi, Quatremère
(i, 72, note 103) cites numerous instances of this kind of punishment
in Schiltberger’s day, not in Egypt only, but also in Persia and among
the Mongols. The Russian princes captured after the battle of the
Kalka, in 1223, were thus tortured (Karamsin, _Hist. de Russie_, iii,
291).
“Zechem” is to be identified with Jakam, governor of Syria, who
revolted against Faradj. He was acknowledged as sultan in Syria, but
succumbed in a war with Kara Yelek in 1405–06.
“Schyachin” is a name that slightly recalls to mind Sheykh Mahmoud,
sultan in 1421; he was successor to the caliph Abbas al-mustein Billahy
who reigned for a few months after the death of Faradj in 1412; but
Sheykh Mahmoud died a natural death at an advanced age, and could not
therefore have been the ruler whose execution Schiltberger describes
so minutely, that he must have been a witness to his torments. None of
Boursbaï’s predecessors—Ahmed, the eldest son of Mahmoud—Tater, an old
Mamelouk—or Mohammed, the youngest son of Mahmoud, deposed by Boursbaï,
met with the fate of “Schyachin”, a name intended perhaps for Azahiri,
governor of Safad, who raised the standard of revolt at the very
commencement of Boursbaï’s reign. He was deserted by his followers,
and having surrendered was put to torture, 1422, perhaps enduring the
sufferings to which “Schyachin” was subjected.—BRUUN.
(2.) “his title and superscription.”—Neumann believes that this letter,
with the titles it confers on the sultan, was the invention of the
Armenians who communicated it to the author; but there is nothing
very extraordinary or improbable in the statement, that Boursbaï had
sent letters to various Christian potentates upon the occasion of his
daughter’s marriage, because that sovereign entertained diplomatic and
commercial relations with the maritime republics of Italy, with the
kings of Aragon and Cyprus, and the emperor of Byzantium, to each of
whom, and not to the Pope, was addressed the letter to “Rom”, a word
allowably substituted for Roum, a name which included Greece and the
Turkish possessions in Europe.—BRUUN.
(3.) “the all-powerful of Carthago.”—Boursbaï certainly committed an
anachronism in styling himself the autocrat of Carthage, for he could
only have possessed the ruins of that city. As the successor of the
Fatimites, or protector of the Abbasside caliphate, the sultan may have
claimed Tunis, built partly at his own expense, near the remains of
Rome’s ancient rival, whose renown in Africa must have survived, and
whose name may therefore have been preferred to that of Tunis. But I am
more inclined to substitute for Carthage that noted sanctuary of Islam,
Kairvan, called by Aboulfeda, Cayroan, and which was considered the
most beautiful city in Magreb.—BRUUN.
(4.) “Lord of Zuspillen, Lord of the highest God in
Jherusalem.”—“Zuspillen” is applicable either to Sicily, which at one
time belonged to the Aghlabites, or still more so to Seville, called
Ishbilia by the Persians.
In a letter to Shah Rokh the son of Timour, in 833 of the Hegira, the
sultan Boursbaï styles himself Lord of Jerusalem; possibly the sense of
the passage turned by Schiltberger into “ain herr des obristen gots,”
which, being an imitation of the Hebrew, was Hebrew to him.—BRUUN.
(5.) “Capadocie.”—It is doubtful whether Boursbaï, or the inventor of
his titles, would have mentioned any one place for the second time,
yet the name “Capadocie” appears twice. In his letter to Shah Rokh,
Boursbaï entitles Jerusalem, the Venerable; so that this “Capadocie”
may have been similarly intended for an appellation, since the region
of that name would be quite out of place between Jerusalem and the
Jordan. It is possible, however, that for “Capadocie” we should read
Capernaum, now known as Tell-Hum, where are many ruins which comprise
those of an edifice surpassing in grandeur and magnificence anything
Robinson (_Biblical Researches_, etc.) saw in Palestine.—BRUUN.
(6.) “her son our nephew of Nazareth.”—It may fairly be doubted whether
this passage was really included amongst the sultan’s titles, its
appearance in the MS. being due to some misconception on the part
of the author, from his being but indifferently initiated in the
mysteries of Mahomedanism; how, otherwise, could he have supposed
that his protector had entitled Jesus his “neff”—nephew. With regard
to Bethlehem and Nazareth, names conceivably included in the list,
Schiltberger may have been informed that Mahomedans revere our Saviour
as being one of their own Neby or chief prophets; or he may have been
told that Christ was designated Neffs, Neps—spirit, soul. Jesus is also
called Rouh—the Spirit of God.
Through some similar misconception, Boursbaï is made to boast of
his relationship to the Virgin Mary, which could not have been
the case either, seeing that she, in like manner, is venerated by
Mussulmans.—BRUUN.
(7.) “seventy-two towers all embellished with marble.”—That the number
seventy-two was employed by Asiatics to designate a large number,
is demonstrated by numerous examples, other than the following.
Seventy-two was the number of tribes in Syria; of the Mahomedan sects;
of the disciples of our Saviour; of the Persian Mushids; of the towers
of Jeziret-ibn-Omer, etc., etc. As to the seventy-two towers of
“Germoni”, Robinson (_Biblical Researches_, etc.) has noted that Hermon
is surrounded as if by a belt of temples.
“Talapharum” is the well-known Tell-el-Faras at the termination of
Jabal-el-Heis, a spur of Jabal-el-Sheykh or Hermon.—BRUUN.
(8.) “inhabited by seventy-two languages.”—This “great forest” is the
Caucasus, the extent of the great mountain range in a direct line from
sea to sea, agreeing exactly with the length given. The seventy-two
languages are the seventy-two nationalities (Dorn, _Geog. Cauc._, 221),
each of which spoke a different tongue; they were the seventy-two
nations confined by Alexander beyond the Caspian Gates.
There exists a tradition, that when upon his death-bed Mahomet
recommended to the faithful the conquest of the Caucasus, a country he
had ever held in special veneration, so that several Shyite sects place
it, in point of sanctity, above the cities of Arabia (D’Ohsson, _Des
Peup. du Cauc._, ii, 182). It is therefore not at all strange that the
sovereignty over a region so specially blessed and in which the sultan
himself was born, should have been included amongst his dignities,
since he was entitled, in a measure, to consider the power of the
founder of Alexandria to be his heritage.
Claiming the monarchy, as he did, over the forests of the Caucasus,
the sultan naturally added thereunto his possession of Cappadocia, a
portion of which did indeed belong to him, and wherein he had every
right to situate Paradise. Mahomedans believe, as do Christians and
Jews, that the Garden was in a beautiful land called Adn, watered by a
marvellous river which was the source of the Euphrates, of the Tigris,
the Jihoun (Pyramus of the ancients) and the Syhoun (Sarus), all in
Cappadocia or in its immediate neighbourhood. Really, Boursbaï was
no farther out in his calculations, than were those learned men who
recognised the two last-named rivers in the Oxus and Jaxartes (Hammer),
in the Araxes and Phasis (Brugsch), and even in the Volga and Indus
(Raumer).—BRUUN.
(9.) “the guardian of the caves.”—The disappearance, A.D. 873, at the
age of twelve, of Mohammed the descendant of Ali and the twelfth and
last Imam, in a cave near Sermen Rey, distant thirty-two miles from
Baghdad, gave rise to numerous conjectures, all of equal absurdity.
The Shyites believe that this Mehdy, or celestial judge, is still in
the unknown cave, and they await his return as impatiently as do the
Jews that of the Messiah. The Sunnites are satisfied that when the
world comes to an end, he will make his appearance accompanied by three
hundred and sixty celestial spirits, and prevail upon the people of the
earth to embrace Islamism (D’Ohsson, _Tableau. général de l’E. O._, i,
152).
The sultan of Egypt is said to have styled himself “the guardian of the
caves” (ein vogt der hellen), perhaps because the cavern was under his
protection; but it is also possible that for “hellen” we should read
Helle or Halle, the German for Hillah, on the site of ancient Babylon,
and celebrated for such holy places in its neighbourhood as Kerbela and
Mesjyd Ali, the Campo Santo to which the Shyites perform pilgrimages
(Ritter, _Die Erdkunde_ etc., ix, 842, 869, 955).—BRUUN.
(10.) “Destructor of the Gods.”—It is impossible to agree with Penzel,
that Schiltberger entertained the strange notion of having seen a
protector of hell in that Boursbaï, whom Penzel himself admits had
glorified himself as being the friend of all gods (aller Götter
Freund), because the last title on the list is “Destructor of the
Gods” (Ain mäg der götter). But here Penzel is again at fault in his
interpretation of Schiltberger’s meaning, because the monarch who
claimed to be the Light of the true Faith (S. de Sacy, _Chrestom.
Arabe_, 322), rather than boast of his friendship for the gods,
would have declared himself to be, in keeping with the tenets of his
religion, the implacable enemy to idolatry, a destructor of gods, a
Mahhy, transformed in the text into “mäg”.
There is some difficulty in accounting for the sultan’s usurpation of
the title of “the mighty emperor of Constantinoppel”. In his letter to
Shah Rokh, alluded to in note 4, page 184, he wrote as follows: “The
kings of the earth have come from all parts as the bearers of their
homage. The King of Hormuz, the Sultan of Hisn, the son of Karaman;
these princes, sovereigns of their countries, the Sultan of the revered
city of Mecca, the Sultans of Yemen, of Magreb, and of Tekrour, the
King of Cyprus, since dead, all have presented themselves at my Court”.
This king of Cyprus, who was named John and died in 1432, was captured
by the Egyptians on their expedition to the island in 1426, and being
forced to acknowledge the suzerainty of the sultan, agreed to pay
annual tribute to the amount of twenty thousand dinars, to enable him
to obtain his freedom (Weil, _Gesch. der Chal._, v, 177). John II.,
emperor of Byzantium, sought, but in vain, to intercede for the king by
entering into negociations with the sultan (_ibid._, 173), upon which
occasion he may possibly have stooped to pay homage as others did, for
he was not ashamed at another time to prostrate himself and kiss the
Pope’s slipper. It is likely enough that he presented himself under the
name of Tekrour, a country Silvester de Sacy is at a loss to determine.
Tekrour, however, need not have been the name of a country at all, but
a corruption of Takfour, a designation in the East for the emperor of
Constantinople.
The homage of the ruling powers on earth, did not suffice to satisfy
the despot Boursbaï, for his ambition wafted him to the skies (“the
lord [of the places] where Enoch and Helyas are buried”), the place of
sepulture, say the Mahomedans, of their prophets Enoch, and Elias the
protector of travellers, and who is believed by the Jews to have been
borne away to heaven (D’Ohsson, _l. c._, i, 51, 111).
Another title, though less bombastic, is still more puzzling, unless
“Kaylamer” is to be identified with the fortress of Kalamil visited
in 1221 by Willbrand of Oldenburg (Viv. de Saint-Martin, _Desc. de
l’A. M._, i, 488), after leaving Mamistra (Mopsvesta of the ancients,
Mimistra of the Byzantines, the actual Missis). When upon this
journey, Willbrand left on his right hand a place called the King’s
Black Castle, an indication that conducts us with Saint-Martin to the
defile known to the ancients as the Pylæ Armeniæ or Pylæ Ciliciæ,
now called Demyr Kapou by the Turks; evidently the same locality
as that noticed by Marino Sanudo (_Liber Secret. Fidel._, etc.,
221—Pauthier, Marco Polo, cxxxii, 1). “Tartari autem sequenti anno
(1260) violenter irrumpentes, ceperunt Alapiam, Harem, Hamam, Calamelam
et Damascum.” The fortress of Calamela being included among the
chief cities in Syria, it is to be inferred that its strategical and
commercial importance had greatly increased during the half century
that transpired after Willbrand’s visit. Nor does Calamila seem to
have escaped the notice of Italian navigators, for the name, slightly
varied, appears in the hydrographic charts of the 14th century. In the
Catalan atlas, 1375, for instance, Caramila is evidently the same as
the Cramela spoken of by the author of _Liber Secretorum Fidelium_,
etc., who observes that it stood on the site of ancient Issus, the gulf
of this city being marked on the chart, “golfo de Cramela”. At that
time, Cramela divided the possessions of the sultan of Egypt from those
of the king of Armenia; and considering its importance, the sultan may
not have disdained to style himself amir of Calamila, transformed by
Schiltberger into “Amorach of Kaylamer”.
The next name, “Galgarien”, is undoubtedly intended for Khozary or
Gazary, described by Marino Sanudo (Kunstmann, _Stud. über M. S._
105) as Galgaria, a dependancy of the Tatars, inhabited by “Gothi et
aliqui Alani”. It was a Genoese possession in the Crimea, whence was
carried on a large export trade, chiefly in slaves to Alexandria,
where many afterwards became men of note; but Khozary was a dependancy
of Kiptchak, a name that signifies—hollow tree—the distinctive title
immediately following that of “the mighty emperor of Galgarien” as
“the Lord of the withered tree”. The rulers of Kiptchak, or khans of
the Golden Horde, were long bound by the strictest ties of friendship
to the sultans of Egypt, and as zealous followers of Mahomet, were
not likely to question their right to hold the first place among the
monarchs of Islam.
That the high position attained by those sultans did not influence them
against according their protection to Christian potentates, is evident
from the intimate relations that existed between themselves and the
kings or emperors of Abyssinia, among whom should certainly be included
“Prester John, in enclosed Rumany”.
It is now generally admitted that Marco Polo, with his usual good
faith, stated the precise truth in affirming that in his time, one
George, a descendent of Prester John, became the governor of a province
as a vassal of China. This prince professed the Roman Catholic faith,
instead of Nestorianism as did his grandfather Ovang Khan, chief
of the Keraits, and not, as Oppert has sought to prove (_Der Presb.
Johannes in Sage und Gesch._, etc., Berlin, 1864) of the Gour Khan
of the Karakhitaians mentioned by Rubruquis. In either case it is
pretty certain that so soon as European intercourse with the interior
of Asia decreased, the existence of a Christian state on the Nile,
to the south of Egypt, became more generally known; a state to which
Haythoun, the Armenian historian, had already directed the Pope’s
attention (_De Tartaria_, c. 57, apud Webb, _A Survey of Egypt and
Syria_, etc., 394), and it thereafter became the custom to metamorphose
the Christian monarch of the Nubians and Abyssinians into Prester John.
Like Schiltberger, De Lannoy (_Voy. et Ambass._, 93) knew of no other
Prester John, and far from admitting his dependance on the sultan, a
condition to be inferred by the title of protector attributed to the
latter by Schiltberger, the knight implies that it was rather the
sultan who was in a state of dependance on Prester John, in whose power
it lay to “destourber le cruschon” of the Nile, which he certainly
would have done, but for the fear of victimising the many Christians in
Egypt.
In another chapter, De Lannoy terms these Christians “Christians of
the girdle”, a name that was applied, says his commentator (Webb), in
consequence of a law promulgated A.D. 856 by the caliph Motonakek,
which prescribed that Jews and Christians should wear a broad leathern
girdle. It appears, however, that in course of time the Nestorians and
Jacobites also became subject to the same law, and this accounts for
the expression, “Prester John, in enclosed Rumany”, which, if intended
for Abyssinia, a country mistaken by Marco Polo and De Lannoy for that
of the Brahmins, would indicate that the former was inhabited by the
Christians of the girdle. (De Lannoy styles the primate of the Copts,
the primate of India.) That they were believed to be in Abyssinia is
proved in the following lines from Juan de la Encina’s narrative of his
journey to Jerusalem in the year 1500.
“Hay muchas naciones alli de Christianos,
De Griegos, Latinos, y de Jacobitas,
Y de los Armenios, y mas Maronistas
Y de la cintura, que son Gorgianos:
Y de estos parecen los mas Indianos,
De habito y gesto mas feo, que pulcro:
Mas quanto al gozar del Santo Sepulcro
Son prógimos todos en Christo y hermanos.”
This author evidently confounds the Georgians with the Abhases and the
latter with the Abyssinians, as had frequently been done before him.
In quoting from documents preserved among the archives at Königsberg,
a letter from Conrad of Jungingen, Grand-Master of the Teutonic
Order, dated January 20, 1407, and addressed to Prester John, “regi
Abassiæ”, Karamsin (_Hist. de Russie_, iii, 388), observes, that
the superscription applies to the king of Abhase in the region of
the Caucasus, and not to the king of Abyssinia. We read, likewise,
in the chronicle of Alberic (_Rel. de Jean du Plan de Carpin_, 161)
that the legate Pelagius “misit nuntios suos in Abyssiniam terram et
Georgianorum, qui sunt viri catholici”.
The friendship that existed between the “negus christianissimus” and
the sultan was certainly but rarely interrupted, probably because
they sympathised in each other’s apprehensions; but the sentiments
entertained by Boursbaï towards the caliph, must have been of a
different nature, so that he may have taken upon himself to borrow the
title of “guardian of Wadach”, or Baghdad.—BRUUN.
(11.) “This is done on all the roads of the king-sultan.”—It would
appear that during the author’s stay in Egypt, the ladies of that
country exceeded all bounds in the abuse of the freedom they were
permitted to enjoy during the Baïram festivities, judging by the severe
measures adopted by the sultan, to their prejudice, in 1432 (Weil,
_Gesch. der Chal._, v, 208). It was forbidden to every woman, and there
were no exceptions, to leave her house, so that the unmarried even
incurred the risk of dying of starvation. This law was subsequently
modified in favour of coloured slaves and old women, and the young
were only permitted to leave their home for the bath, on the express
understanding that they returned immediately afterwards.
By another decree, promulgated in the early part of his reign, the
sultan Boursbaï abolished the ancient custom which required that the
ground should be kissed by all who were admitted to his presence; and
it was thenceforth ordained, that according to the rank of the person
introduced, so his hand or the hem of his garment should be kissed. But
he was soon persuaded to resort to the old usage, except that instead
of kissing the ground with the mouth, those presented were to touch the
ground with the hand, which was then to be kissed. Schiltberger could
not have been in Egypt before the abolition of the above ridiculous
and barbarous custom, in the first year of Boursbaï’s reign; but there
were no doubt numerous instances in his day of obsequious courtiers and
other parasites who did actually kiss the ground. The ceremonial and
etiquette observed at the presentation and reception of ambassadors,
was in accordance with the customs of the Turks and Tatars upon such
occasions.
The little bell for post-horses was introduced by the Mongols into
Russia, and having been in use on post-roads ever since the time of
their domination, has substituted the horn of the French and German
postillion.—BRUUN.
(12.) “and they send it to whosoever it belongs.”—Pigeons were employed
in Asia as earners, in very remote times. It was pigeon service of
which the daughter of the governor of Atra, Hatra, or al Hadr, availed
herself, that enabled Sapor, king of Persia, 240–271, to capture the
city which the emperor Severus had failed to take. It is recorded by
numerous European and Eastern writers, that the pigeon-post was in
general use in Syria and Egypt during the Crusades. In his story of the
Crusade under Henry VI., in 1196, Arnold, bishop of Lubeck, describes
the training of pigeons, which was similar to what we read in the
text, and observes that “the Infidels are more highly gifted than the
children of light”, the training of pigeons being the invention of the
Infidels, whose practice was imitated by their enemies. After the fall
of Baïrouth in 1197, Boemund, prince of Antioch, announced the good
tidings to his subjects by despatching a pigeon.
Khalil Daheri (Quatremère, i, 55, note 77), an Arabian writer of the
15th century, reports that Belbeis, Salehieh, Katia, and Varradeh or
Barideh, were the pigeon-post stations on the road to Syria. According
to Makrizi (_ibid._, 56), Varradeh was distant eighteen miles from
Alarih. Query? Fort Arich or el-Arich in Lower Egypt, where the French
capitulation was signed in 1800. Aboul-Mahazin declares that Bir
al-Kady—The Kady’s well—must have marked the limits of Syria and Egypt.
Another Arabian writer (Abd-Allatif, _S. de Sacy edition_, 43) calls
Alarich, Alaris—changed by the bishop of Lubeck, as his German editors
believe, into Ahir, a name almost to be identified with “Archey”, one
of the principal pigeon stations.—BRUUN.
(13.) “sacka.”—Literally, in Turkish, a water-carrier. A pelican is sákà
koútchou.—ED.