(1.) “the village of Mambertal.”—“Mambertal” for Mamre, by which name
Hebron also was known (Gen. xii, 18; xxxv, 27), and was probably so
called after Mamre the Amorite, the friend of Abraham (Gen. xiv,
13). Sir John Mandevile’s tradition of the Dry Tree (_Voyages and
Travels_, etc.) as it was related to him, agrees almost word for word
with the tale in the text, except that Sir John saw an oak, whereas
Schiltberger’s tree was called by the Infidels “carpe” (Sir John writes
Dirpe), and selvy is the Turkish for cypress. Commentators on the Holy
Scriptures have said that plains of Mamre (Gen. xiii, 18; xviii, 1) is
a mis-translation for oaks of Mamre, but the Turkish for oak is meyshe.
The great tree seen by Robinson in 1838 (_Biblical Researches_, etc.,
ii, 81) was an oak; it measured 22-1/2 feet in circumference in the
lower part, the branches extending over a diameter of 89 feet. It stood
solitarily near a well in the midst of a field, and was sound and in a
thriving state. A long and comprehensive note on the Arbre Sec or Arbre
Sol, will be found in Yule’s Marco Polo, i, 132.—ED.
(2.) “it is well taken care of.”—The distance from Hebron to Jerusalem,
as given in chapter 40, is correct (Raumer, _Palæstina_, etc., 201); so
is the statement that Hebron was the chief city of the Philistines, for
Josephus (_Wars_, etc., xii, 10) says that it was a royal city of the
Canaanites.
“Carpe” may have indicated the caroub or locust tree (_Die charube von
Kufin_; see Rosen, _Die Patriarchengruft zu Hebron_, in _Zeitschrift
f. allg. Erdk._, neue Folge, xiv, 426), or the turpentine tree,
which Josephus and others have stated grew in those parts, where
a small and sterile valley still bears the significant name of
Sallet-el-Boutmeh—Place of the Turpentine tree. In course of time,
the turpentine tree of Josephus became confounded with Abraham’s
oak, mentioned in the Bible, which the Russian pilgrim Daniel
(Noroff, _Péler. en T. S._, 77) says he found in leaf, and might
have been a huge tree of the sort noticed by Robinson. The tree
seen by Schiltberger must have been of another kind, because it was
withered; he could not otherwise have transmitted to us the prophecy
so encouraging to our own desires, and in accordance with the
presentiments of the Infidels themselves, that the day will come when
they shall be expelled from the holy places.
No person is allowed to enter the mosque wherein the holy patriarchs
lie (see page 60), as was the case in the 15th century, unless
provided with the sultan’s firman. We are told by Novairi and other
authors (Makrizi by Quatremère, ii, 249), that when the sultan Bibars,
1260-1264, visited Khalil (Hebron), and learnt that Christians and Jews
were permitted to enter upon payment of a fee, he at once put a stop
to the practice. Hammer (_Gesch. der Ilchane_, etc., 129) states that
Mussulmans have held Hebron in great estimation since the reign of the
caliph Mostershid (stabbed to death by an assassin in 1120), when the
remains of several bodies found in the caves, were passed off as being
those of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, although, according to Moses, they
were interred at Hebron, where their places of sepulture are pointed
out by Christians.
The author of Itinerarium Hierosolymitanum (Parthey et Pinder, _Itiner.
Ant. Aug._, etc., 283) thus writes with reference to the beautiful
church constructed by Constantine the Great near the turpentine tree of
Abraham: “Inde Terebinth Cebron mil. ii, ubi est memoria per quadrum
ex lapidibus miræ pulchritudinis, in qua positi sunt Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, Sarra, Rebecca et Lea.”
About the year 600, there was already a cathedral in the quadrum, and
twelve months later Bishop Arnulphus found the monolith cenotaphs
of the three patriarchs, one being that of Adam; other smaller ones
were assigned to their wives. At that period Hebron belonged to the
Arabs, who gloried in their descent from Abraham, which accounts for
the erection by them of a mosque over the remains of their ancestor.
It was only after the conquest of Jerusalem by the Crusaders that the
place was made over to the Christians for religious purposes; this we
learn from Sœwulf (_Recueil de Voy. et de Mém._, etc., 817–854) who
went to Palestine in 1102, and the Russian pilgrim Daniel (Noroff,
_Péler. en T. S._, 95), who in 1115 saw a superb edifice at Hebron,
in the crypt of which was the sepulchre of the patriarch within a
chapel of circular form. Rosen says that the presence of Jews within
this sanctuary was tolerated by the Crusaders, a privilege, however,
for which they had to pay, according to the evidence of Benjamin of
Tudela, and of his co-religionist Petachy of Ratisbon, who travelled
in Palestine twelve years later. Hebron passed into the hands of
the Mussulmans long before the fall of Acre, after which event the
Christians in their turn were taxed for the liberty of entering.
Among those of Schiltberger’s predecessors who have left an account of
what they saw and learnt during their sojourn in Palestine, are the
German monk, Brocardus, towards the close of the 13th century—Sir John
Mandevile, 1372—and the German pilgrim, Ludolph von Suchem, whose work,
_Libellus de Itinere ad T. S._, is considered the best itinerary for
the Holy Land in the 14th century.
De Lannoy was in Palestine at about the same time as the author, but
does not report having been at Hebron; he however supplies a list of
the holy places, that was compiled, as he states, by Pope Sylvester
at the request of the emperor Constantine and of “Sainte Helaine”,
his mother. Three cities of “Ebron” are included: “La neufve et la
moienne, de laquelle est l’esglise où sont ensepvelis Adam, Abraham,
Isaac et Jacob et leurs femmes”.... “_Item_, Ebron, la vielle, en
laquelle David regna sept ans et six mois.” It is desirable that these
two passages should be quoted, because in the works I have cited, such
as Noroff’s, Raumer’s, Rosen’s, and in others which dwell largely on
Hebron, one city only of the name is mentioned.—BRUUN.
(3.) “but now there is only a pillar.”—If tradition is to be relied
on, it was the mother of Constantine who built the Church of the
Annunciation, which had already ceased to exist in Schiltberger’s
time. In 1620 a handsome church was erected on the same site (Raumer,
_Palæstina_, etc., 136), and a column at the foot of seventeen steps
indicated the spot where the angel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin; it
was possibly the pillar referred to in the text. The pilgrim Daniel
describes the earliest church, situated in the centre of the city, as
being large and handsome, and enclosing three altars. It was destroyed
by the sultan Bibars in 1263 (Weil, _Gesch. der Chal._, iv, 46; Makrizi
by Quatremère, I, i, 200).—BRUUN.