THE LIBRARY OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF

NORTH CAROLINA

umvEpq|TyftF_NORTH CAROLINA

THE LIBRARY OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF

NORTH CAROLINA

ENDOWED BY THE

DIALECTIC AND PHILANTHROPIC

SOCIETIES

G 89
.B38
y.2
c.2

UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL

00036909836

This book is due at the LOUIS R. WILSON LIBRARY on the
last date stamped under "Date Due." If not on hold it may be
renewed by bringing it to the library.

DATE RET

DATE RFT
DIE

5CT l^jgj

86T 1878

»

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2011 with funding from

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

http://www.archive.org/details/dawnofmoderngeog2beaz

THE DAWN OF

MODERN GEOGRAPHY

PART II

THE DAWN OF

MODERN GEOGRAPHY

VOL, II

A HISTORY OF

EXPLORATION AND GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE

FROM THE CLOSE OF THE NINTH TO

THE MIDDLE OF THE THIRTEENTH

CENTURY (c. A.D. 900-1260)

By C. RAYMOND BEAZLEY, M.A., F.R.G.S.

FELLOW OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD

WITH REPRODUCTIONS OF THE PRINCIPAL MAPS OF THE TIME

LONDON
HENRY FROWDE, AMEN CORNER

This volume was originally published by Mr. John Murray
in 1901.

1

THE DAWN OF

MODEKN GEOGKAPHY

PART II

A HISTORY OF

EXPLORATION AND GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE

FROM THE CLOSE OF THE NINTH TO

THE MIDDLE OF THE THIRTEENTH

CENTURY (c. AD. 900—1260)

By C. RAYMOND BEAZLEY, M.A., F.R.G.S.

FELLOW OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD

WITH REPRODUCTIONS OF THE PRINCIPAL MAPS OF THE TIME

LONDON

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET

1901

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN.

PREFACE

This volume carries on, into the Central Middle Ages, that
History of Mediaeval Geography — in exploration, travel, and
science — of which the first instalment was published in 1897.
The former period, which must be regarded as the Dark Age
of Geography, was taken as reaching from the Conversion of
the Eoman Empire to the close of the ninth century ; the
present, to which the name of ' Dawn ' is more strictly
applicable, covers the period from the close of the ninth to
the middle of the thirteenth century ; the two succeeding
centuries, from the middle of the thirteenth century to the
death of Henry the Navigator, in 1460, may be taken as
completing the story of geographical action and research in
the Middle Ages.

In the present volume we have to deal with the central
Mediaeval Period, and especially with (1) the explorations
and enterprises of the Northmen down to about a.d. 1066,
the eve of the Crusades ; (2) the history of pilgrim travel
to the Holy Land, and of other intercourse between Syria
and the Christian West, down to the middle of the thirteenth
century ; (3) the Hebrew geographers and travellers, especi-
ally the twelfth-century Benjamin of Tudela ; (4) the diplo-

Vlll PREFACE

matic and missionary travellers of the thirteenth century —
especially Carpini and Rubruquis — who took advantage of
the new routes and new conditions established by the
Mongol Conquests to penetrate further afield than any
one had yet ventured from Christian Europe ; (5) the
commercial intercourse, especially of the Mediterranean
basin, and the extension of Christian trade-adventure to
more distant regions ; (6) certain typical geographical
writings and plans of the Central Mediaeval time, and
especially those of the Byzantine Emperor, Constantine
VII. (Porphyrogennetos), of the German chronicler, Adam
of Bremen, and of the map-makers, Beatus of Valcavado
and his copyists, Henry of Mainz, Lambert of St. Omer,
and various anonymous designers, A fuller treatment of
the details of these map-schemes is given in an Appendix
on Maps, pp. 591-642. Under these six main heads an
account, it is hoped, will be found of every important geo-
graphical enterprise or speculation in Christendom, and
especially in Latin Christendom, during the Central Middle
Ages (c. a.d. 880-1260).

Two alterations from the original plan have been made
necessary by want of space. It has not been possible to insert
even an incomplete survey of Arab and Chinese exploration
and ' earth-study ' in this time ; and it has only been possible
to treat very partially the geosophical theorising of the
Scholastics. Thus Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus, Plato
of Tivoli and Gerard of Cremona, have been of necessity
almost entirely omitted from this volume ; but this is not of
any great moment, as all that is valuable for our purpose in
the writings of the Crusading period finds a sufficient place

PEEFACE IX

in chapter vii. ; and the geographical mythology of the Middle
Ages in general has been already considered at some length
{Dawn of Modern Geography, i. ch. vi.). In the centuries that
now concern us (from the tenth to the thirteenth) no fact
is more significant (though none has been more frequently
missed) than the steady but gradual waning of fanaticism,
the ever-growing change from the conditions of an earlier
period, when religious conceptions appear as of overwhelming
importance. For, in spite of the fact that religious wars are
officially the great interest of all classes, e.g. in the twelfth
century, the ambitions and ideals of the merchant are really
beginning to supplant these of the priest and the devotee ;
it is under the spur of commercial as much as of political
designs that Christian Europe sets about retrieving the
position that had been lost during the Dark Ages ; and the
discovery of a new world for trade is the permanent result
of the Crusades and the sign and abiding symbol of a true
Mediaeval Eenaissance (eleventh to thirteenth century).

The maps of this time (c. a.d. 900-1260) are numerous
and interesting, some of them showing a great advance on
any older Christian designs in the West. Our illustrations
(all taken from the original manuscript sources) include
three examples of the Spanish ' Beatus ' group, the ' Cotton '
map of the tenth century (a possibly Irish work of singular
merit), the Madaba Mosaic (a striking example of early
Byzantine cartography), and several plans of Matthew
Paris, including a map of England, which ranks among the
best designs executed in any country before the fourteenth
century and the beginning of the Portolani or compass coast-
charts.

Xll CONTENTS

PAGE

The discovery of Helluland, Markland, Vinland, and other
' American ' regions by the Norsemen — Rival narratives of
the Vinland Voyages — The enterprises of Biarne Heriulfson
and Leif Ericson — Leif Ericson's settlement in Vinland —
Thorvald Ericson ; his voyage and death in Vinland —
Fruitless venture of Thorstein Ericson — Voyage and settle-
ment of Thorfinn Karlsefne — His contest with the Skrae-
lings ; he abandons his purpose of Colonisation — Freydis,
Red Eric's daughter ; her Vinland voyage — Additional
details supplied by Red Eric's Saga, especially as to Thor-
finn Karlsefne, the ' Wonder Strand,' ' Hop,' the ' Unipeds,'
etc. — Later voyages to Vinland — ' White Man's Land ' and
' Great Ireland ' — Vinland Controversies — Possible identi-
fications for Vinland and the Skraelings— Olaf Haraldson ;
his early voyages in Western Europe ; succession to the
crown of Norway — Thorir Hund in the White Sea — Olaf's
intercourse with the Orkneys, Iceland, etc. — Olaf in the
Far North ; his war with Cnut and flight to Novgorod —
Olaf's fall ; minor travels, of Sighvat, etc. — Magnus the
Good and Harald Hardrada ; early wanderings of the
latter — Harald in Russia, at Constantinople and Jerusalem,
and in the Mediterranean — His later enterprises and Polar
projects 17-111

CHAPTER III

PILGRIM TRAVEL (CIRC. A.D. 900-1260)

Christian pilgrimage from the close of the ninth century to
the time of Pope Gregory VII. — The outlook at the close
of the First Millennium, especially in Latin Europe, Ire-
land, the Byzantine Empire, the Eastern and Western
Caliphates — Intercourse of the Latin world with Palestine —
Growing Byzantine influences in the Levant, a.d. 880-1030
— Latin journeys of the tenth and eleventh centuries to Syria
— Destruction of the Holy Sepulchre, a.d. 1010— French,
German, and other pilgrimages of 1035, 1038, 1053, 1054,
1058, 1064 — New Era with Hildebrand ; the outlook about
1070 — Causes and results of the Crusades — Pilgrim
travellers and writers at the time of the First Crusades —
The Innominati; the first of their anonymous narratives
described— Saewulf of Worcester ; his outward journey--

CONTENTS Xlll

Saewnlf's travels in Greece, the Archipelago, and Asia
Minor — Saewulf in Palestine ; storm at Jaffa — Saewulf
in Jerusalem ; marvels related by him — Saewulf' s descrip-
tion of Hebron, the Jordan, Galilee, and Lebanon — Saewnlf's
return journey — Abbot Daniel of Kiev ; peculiar value of
his journey and narrative — Daniel's outward journey, by
Constantinople, Rhodes, and Cyprus, to Jaffa — Daniel in
Jerusalem — Daniel's description of Mar Saba Convent, the
Jordan, various sites of Galilee, etc.— Daniel's account of
the Holy Fire ; his return to Russia — Scandinavian
pilgrims and pilgrim routes — King Sigurd of Norway —
His sea-journey to Palestine along the coast of Spain —
Sigurd's exploits in Spain and the Balearics — Sigurd in
Palestine ; the capture of Sidon— Sigurd at Constantinople ;
his return-journey overland — Adelard of Bath ; his literary
tour in the Levant — Later pilgrim journeys and narratives ;
their great number and comparative unimportance — Chief
sub-divisions — Fetellus ; his description of Jerusalem,
Mount Sinai, etc. — Marvels and myths — John of Wiirzburg
— John's merits ; vividness of his narrative — His protest
on behalf of the Germans in the crusades — Theoderich ;
artistic and observant character of his record — His probable
connection with John of Wiirzburg — Johannes Phokas ;
his references to Manuel Comnenus — The later Innominati
— Fragmentary pilgrim notices down to 1187 — Pilgrim nar-
ratives, 1187-1260 — The City of Jerusalem — Ernoul — James
de Vitry — Antony of Novgorod — Wilbrand of Oldenburg —
Thietmar — Sabbas of Servia — Fragmentary pilgrim
notices, 1187-1260 112-217

CHAPTER IV

BENJAMIN OF TUDELA AND OTHER JEWISH TRAVELLERS, TO THE MIDDLE
OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

Importance of Jewish travel in Middle Ages — Hebrew wan-
derers and geographers before Rabbi Benjamin — Jewish
missionaries in Yemen and among the Khazars — Tenth
century Correspondence between Chasdai at Cordova and
King Joseph in Khazaria — Date of Benjamin's travels — His
historical allusions — His profession as a merchant — Sub-
divisions of his journey and narrative — Benjamin's outward

XIV CONTENTS

route, through Eastern Spain, the Narbonnese, Provence,
Italy, Greece, etc. — His description of Constantinople
— His voyage to Syria — Merits of his notes on Syria ;
examples — His route from Damascus to Bagdad ; his
account of the latter — Position of the Abbasside Caliph and
the Jews of Bagdad, as portrayed by Benjamin — More
legendary character of Benjamin's Eecords, after Bagdad —
His stories of the Jews of Arabia, Persia, and Central Asia,
of Babylon, of the Tombs of the Prophets, of David El Roy,
and of the Assassins and Turks — Trade of the Persian Gulf,
and Indian Ocean — Malabar, Ceylon, and China — Aden,
Nubia, the Nile, and Egypt — Benjamin in Cairo and Alex-
andria— Catalogue of Merchants trading to Alexandria —
Benjamin's return by Sicily — His remarks on Germany and
Slavonia — Rabbi Moses Petachia of Ratisbon and Prague —
His journey to Syria through Eastern Europe and the
North of the Black Sea — His notes on ' Kedar ' and
' Meshech ' in Modern South Russia — Petachia in Georgia,
Armenia, and Mesopotamia — His journey from Bagdad to
Damascus — His account of Hebron and other Palestine sites
— Later Jewish travellers and geographers, 1200-1260 218-274

CHAPTER V

DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY
CARPINI, RUBRUQUIS, ETC.

New era created by the Mongul conquests — Christian attitude
towards the Mongols — Embassies despatched to the Tartar
Courts in 1245, 1247, 1249, 1252, etc.— the Mission, journey,
and narrative of John de Piano Carpini — His account of
the Tartar country, manners, history, etc. — Virtues and
vices of the Nomades — Widespread destruction effected by
the Mongols — Their skill in war ; their cruelty and avarice
— Universal ambitions of Ghenghiz's successors ; Carpini's
warning to Christendom — Carpini's outward route through
Bohemia, Poland and Russia ; arrival at Kiev — Journey
from the Dniepr to the Volga ; arrival at Batu's camp —
Carpini's description of the Steppes and their great rivers
— Journey from the Volga to Mongolia — Carpini's classifica-
tion of the regions surrounding Batu's camp and the Lower
Don — Arrival in the vallev of the Svr Daria — The ruined

CONTENTS XV

towns of Moslem Central Asia — Route by Lake Ala-Kul
over the dividing range west of Mongolia — Arrival at the
Great Khan's ' Horde ' — Ceremonial of the Court ; election
of Kuyuk Khan — Carpini's audiences of the Mongol
Emperor — Meetings with other Christians and Europeans,
envoys, prisoners, hostages, etc. — Carpini receives Kuyuk's
reply to the papal letters — His return by Batu's camp to
Kiev — Italian traders on the Dniepr — Mission of Andrew
of Longumeau — His ill-success — Peculiar route followed
by Andrew — Mission of William of Rubruquis — His com-
panions— Outward route by Constantinople and the Crimea
— Rubruquis' Black Sea Geography — His route from Sudak
to the Isthmus of Perekop — His account of the Tartar
manners and customs, the dwellings, food, fashions, laws,
and ceremonies of the Nomades — Rubruquis' journey to
the Don and Volga ; his account of the Finns of the Forest
Region to the North, and of the hill tribes of the Caucasus
to the South — Rubruquis at the camp of Sartach near the
Volga — Journey to the Camp of Batu — Passage of the Volga
— Arrival and reception at Batu's Court — Journey from the
Volga, over the Ural river, to the region of Lakes Balkhash
and Ala-Kul — Rubruquis' description of the Uigurs,
Tanguts, Tibetans, Cathayans, etc. ; his opinion of Nes-
torian Christians — Journey from Lake Ala-Kul, over the
dividing range, into Mongolia — Arrival at the Great Khan'a
Court, and reception there — Europeans at Mangu's Court —
Visit to Karakorum ; Rubruquis' account of the tribes of
the Far North — Controversies with Nestorians, Moslems,
Buddhists, Manichaeans, etc. — Mangu dismisses Rubruquis
with letters to St. Louis — Numerous envoys from the distant
parts at Mangu's Court — Rubruquis' return to Batu's camp —
News of Hayton, King of Little Armenia — Journey from
Batu's camp, through the Caucasus, to Armenia — Through
the Sultanate of Iconium to the coast of Cilicia — Com-
parative merits of Rubruquis and Carpini ; recent contro-
versy— King Hayton of Little Armenia ; his journey to
the Mongol Courts — Previous journey of the Constable
Sempad ; his stay at Samarcand — Hayton's route through
Kars, Derbent, and the Caucasus, to Batu on the Volga —
Thence over the Ural to the Great Khan Mangu — Hayton's
return through Eastern and Western ' Turkestan,' Ncrth
Persia, South Armenia, etc. — Hayton's stories of Buddhist
customs, etc. . 275-391

XVI CONTENTS

CHAPTER VI

COMMERCIAL TRAVEL (CIRC. A.D. 900-1260)

Mercantile activity of Mediaeval Latin Europe centred in Italy
— Commercial position of Constantinople — The results of
the Crusades in the commercial opening of the world —
Amain ; its early development — Wide extent of its
eleventh-century trade — Decline after the first Crusade,
especially from the Norman Conquest of 1131 — Amain and
maritime law — Venice ; origins of its trade and influence —
Early development of its constitution and prosperity
— Close connection of Venice with Constantinople —
Clandestine commerce with the Saracens — Intercourse
of Arenice with Germany and the Levant — Import-
ance of maritime routes to Syria during the Crusades —
Concessions granted to Western traders by Crusading
Princes ; various types of these concessions — Instances of
maritime aid furnished by Venice, etc., to crusading armies
— Venice and the Comneni — Close alliance with Alexius
Comnenus against the Normans — Venetian quarrel with
Manuel Comnenus — Struggle of Venice and her commercial
rivals for ascendancy in Byzantine trade — The ' Crusade '
of 1202-4 — Period of Venetian ascendancy under the Latin
Empire ; distant developments of their commerce — Venetian
intercourse with Moslem States in thirteenth century — De-
cline of Venetian influence in the Crusading States — Genoa ;
its origin, early history, and especial sphere of energy in
the Western Mediterranean — Active share of Genoa in the
Crusades — Intercourse with Constantinople ; treaties with
Manuel Comnenus — Intercourse with Egypt and North
Africa, with Spain, the Narbonnese, Provence, etc. —
Triumph of Genoa in Byzantine commerce at end of this
period, through restoration of Greek Empire — Pisa ; origin
and early history — Great prosperity in eleventh and
twelfth centuries — Extreme activity in Crusades — The
concessions of the Pisans in the Crusading States — Their
rivalry with Venice, even at Constantinople — Intercourse
with Egypt, North Africa, Spain, and the Provencal lands
— Decline of Pisa in the thirteenth century — Marseilles ;
its share in promoting pilgrimages and Crusades to Syria —
Its prosperity in eleventh and twelfth centuries — Rivalry
with Genoa — Intercourse with coasts of Western Medi-
terranean— Montpellier, Narbonne, and Barcelona ; their

CONTENTS

XV11

early prosperity — Narbonne as an intermediary between
England and Egypt — Influence of the Catalan seamen on
commercial and maritime law — Invention of the Portolani
perhaps due to Catalans — Biscayans, Castilians, Galicians,
and Portuguese ; their share in Mediaeval trade — Com-
mercial advances eastward from the Crusading States of
the Levant — Centres of trade in the kingdom of Jerusalem,
the Counties of Tripoli, Edessa, etc. — Damascus and
Bagdad as emporia — Pisan, Venetian, and other Christian
merchants in the Moslem Levant — Trebizond, Nicaea, and
Little Armenia as gates of trade-intercourse between East
and West — Trade route crossing Asia Minor, Mesopotamia,
Syria, and Arabia — Christian merchants on the Euxine
coasts, in the Steppe Country, and in Russia — The
chief emporia of the Black Sea ; Kaffa, Matracha, Sudak,
Tana, Kherson or Sevastopol, Trebizond, etc. — Little Ar-
menia as a centre of trade — New trade routes opened by
the Mongols — Importance of Egyptian commerce in central
mediaeval period — Continued prosperity of Alexandria —
Intercourse between Christendom and the Farther East
through Egypt 392-464

CHAPTER VII

GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION (CIRC. A.D. 900-1260)

Two chief examples of geographical writing taken : (1) By-
zantine, of tenth century ; (2) German of eleventh — With
these we must also notice (3) maps of the Xth, Xlth,
Xllth, and Xlllth centuries — (1) Constantine Porphyro-
gennetos ; his position as a geographer — The work On
the Administration of the Empire ; its high value and
interest — The writings On the Themes, Ceremonies, etc.,
of Byzantine Empire — Summary of the Administration ;
its main subdivisions — The Byzantine revival under the
Macedonian Dynasty — Byzantine influence on the sur-
rounding nations, especially the Slavonic — Range of By-
zantine geography in tenth century — The Neighbours,
friendly and hostile, of the Empire — The Bulgarians and
Constantinople — The Hungarians and Constantinople — The
Russians and Constantinople — The Petchinegs and Con-
stantinople— The Khazars and Constantinople — The Arabs
and Constantinople— Vassals of the Empire, especially in

XV111 CONTENTS

Italy, Dalraatia, the Crimea, the Caucasus, and Armenia —
Geographical information, as to many of these, from By-
zantine sources — Subjects of the Empire — The City of
Constantinople itself the Empire — Its universal attractions
— Employment of all races in its service — (2) Adam of
Bremen ; his importance in mediaeval geography — Adam
at the Court of Archbishop Adalbert of Bremen ; his
opportunities there — Adalbert and Svein, King of
Denmark, Adam's chief patrons and informants — Adam's
other sources — Adam's general geographical theories — His
description of the countries of Northern Europe — His
' Scythia ' — His account of the Scandinavian lands, of the
Baltic coasts, and of the chief ports of these seas, especially
Jumna and Birca — Adam's treatment of 'islands' in the
Northern Ocean — His notices of Iceland, Greenland, and
Vialand — The lands around Bremen and ' Saxonia ' —
Christian and Pagan Slaves — Russia and its metropolis of
Kiev, as treated by Adam — Finnish tribes of the Far North
— Harald Hardrada's venture in search of the Northern
limit of the world — (3) Maps of the Central Mediaeval
Period — The Beatus group, ' St. Sever,' ' Osma,' etc. —
Leading characteristics ; the Apostolic Pictures, etc. —
Illustrative details ; connection with cartography of later
imperial time — The so-called ' Jerome ' Maps — The
'Cottoniana ' or ' Arjglo-Saxon' Map; its merits, possible
origin, and special purpose — Its possible connection with
the Itinerary of Archbishop Sigeric of Canterbury — The
Map of Henry of Mainz ; connection with the ' Imago
Mundi ' of Honorius of Autun, and with the ' Psalter,;
' Ebstorf,' and ' Hereford ' Maps— The ' Psalter ' Map-
Illustrative details of all these related designs — Maps of
Lambert of St. Omer ; their connection with the ' Macro-
bius,' ' Sallust,' and T-0~sketches — Illustrative details of
all these — The leading TO maPs ; their connection with
classical schools — Map of Guiclo 'of Ravenna' — The
Madaba Map and the ' Situs Hierusalem ' as examples of
detailed ' Chorography ' — Illustrative details — Connection
of the ' Situs ' with other works — Lost maps of this
period 465-590

Appendix on Maps . , 591-642

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

>»-<

TO FACE PAGE

Examples of ' Beatus ' Cartography —

(a). The Map of 'St. Sever,' of c. a.d. 1030 . . .550

(/3). The 'Turin' Map of c. a. D. 1150 552

(y). The British Museum or so-called ' Spanish Arabic '

Map of a.d. 1109 554

The 'Cotton' or so-called ' Anglo-Saxon' Map of c. a.d. 990 560

The World-Map of Henry of Mainz, of c. a.d. 1110 . . 564

The Larger 'Jerome' Map (so-called) of the Twelfth

Century 566

The 'Psalter' Map of the Thirteenth Century . . . 568

The Macrobian ' Cotton ' Zone-Map of the Tenth Century . 574

The Climate Map of Petrus Alphonsus, c. a.d. 1110 . . 576

The Madaba Mosaic Map of the Sixth Century . . . 580

The 'Situs Hierusalem,' of c. a.d. 1100 582

Examples of Matthew Paris' Cartography (Middle of the
Thirteenth Century) —

(a). The ' England,' of the most finished ' Cotton ' form . 584
(/3). The ' World Map,' from the London copy . . .586
(>). The ' Itinerary ' from London to Apulia (South-Italian

section) ......... 588

(5). The ' Palestine,' from the best London copy . . 590

The World-Map of Guidu, c. a.d. 1119 632

THE DAWN OF MODERN GEOGRAPHY

CHAPTEE I

INTRODUCTION.

In a former volume we attempted to trace the story of
geographical movements and the records of travellers and
men of science from the conversion of the Eoman Empire
to the close of the ninth century, thus arriving at one of
the darkest periods of the Middle Ages. In the present, or
second, part of this survey of mediaeval geography our task
will be a different one. For here we begin upon a ground
which seems well-nigh entirely barren; we cross that desert
which separates the earlier and later Middle Age, the
' Eomanesque ' and the ' Gothic ' ; and we follow the
streamlet of western enterprise as it leads us into a country
far richer and more abundant than any we have traversed
since the age of Constantine (a.d. 900-1260),

Before the close of the eleventh century Christian Europe
has rallied from its decadence and apparent torpor, and is
on every side passing beyond its former bounds, reconquer-
ing ancient possessions, and seeking new fields for its
energy. The Crusades are the central expression of this
revival, which, though defeated in some of its immediate

A

2 INTRODUCTION [Ch.

objects, was entirely successful in kindling a spirit of
patriotism, of practical religious fervour, and of boundless
enterprise, whereby our Western World finally attained to
the discovery, conquest, colonisation, or trade-dominion of
the best portions of the earth.

The pilgrims, traders, and missionaries of the earlier
Middle Age have already shown us how far Christian Europe,
up to the close of the ninth century, was in touch with the
outside world. In the central mediaeval era which now
occupies us we find, on one side, a certain contraction, on
another an immense extension, of geographical enterprise.
In Central Asia and in the far East and South of that
Continent the Nestorian Missions slowly decline as Islam
advances, and as the Syrian starting-point of these same
missions becomes more and more a centre of Mohammedan
life. But to the north and west of Europe the Scandinavian
mariners (first as heathen, then as Christian, explorers), dis-
cover, ravage, or settle new lands beyond the furthest limits
of ancient knowledge. And as these northern adventurers
scatter themselves over the whole shore-line of the older
Christendom, as well as the coasts of Greenland, Vinland,
and North-Eastern Europe, they are slowly brought
into the federation of the Western Church, and thus the
pilgrim spirit is translated, as it were, into new and more
powerful forms. Christendom had seen a wonderful expan-
sion of the heathen North ; now that it had won the North-
men to itself it was ready to imitate their example. The
deliberate purpose of ecclesiastical statesmen gave direction
to a universal feeling of capacity and ambition chafing under
restraint. Even the struggle which, under Gregory VII.,
broke out between the Empire and the Papacy did not
prevent the combined efforts of Christian peoples and
warriors to win a new vantage ground in the Levant, and

I.] THE NORTHMEN IN EXPLORATION 3

to reopen for European enterprise a way to the more distant
East.

The discoveries and conquests of the Northmen fall
mainly within that first barren period to which we have
referred ; during much of this time they go on quite apart
from the life of Christendom, and at first appear in bitter
hostility to it. But the gradual association, incorporation,
or alliance of the Scandinavians with the nations they came
to plunder or to destroy, is perhaps the most decisive fact
in the story of the Christian Middle Ages, and affords a
basis and starting-point for every subsequent development.
The Crusades, the commercial and territorial expansion that
follows the Crusading movement, and the extension of
European spirit and influence towards ultimate predomin-
ance in the outside world, are all related to the formative,
provocative, and invigorative influence of the northern
invasions. The travels and adventures of Ohthere and Wulf-
stan, Eric Blood-axe and Eric Haraldson (c. a.d. 890, 918,
930), on the coasts of Lapland, the White Sea, and the Baltic;
of Olaf Tryggveson and Olaf the Saint in Russia and
Western Europe (c. 965-1015) ; the voyages of Thorir Hund
to the Dvina in the track of Ohthere (c, 1025) ; of Nadodd,
Gardar, Iugolf, Leif, Gunnbiorn, Red Eric, Leif Ericson,
and Thorfinn Karlsefne to Iceland, Greenland, and Vinland
(c. 805-1010) ; and of Harald Hardrada in Eastern Europe,
in the Mediterranean, and in the Polar Seas (c. 1035-1055),
stand out as the leading incidents in the history of this early
Scandinavian exploration of the outer world, and give the
outlines of a picture unmatched in the story of mediaeval
geography.

Apart from the work of the Norsemen, which must be
considered as introductory to the rest, the geographical move-
ments of the Latin world within this time (900-1260) fall

4 INTRODUCTION [Ch.

into three main divisions. First, we have the pre-Crusad-
ing journeys and writings of the tenth and eleventh
centuries ; secondly, those which fall within the first century
of Crusading activity ; thirdly, those which belong to the
time that follows Saladin's overthrow of the Latin Kingdom
of Jerusalem. In the first of these epochs we have material
of little importance in itself, and chiefly interesting as a
preparation for what was to come ; in the second a notable
extension of the horizon is obvious ; but it is not until the
third that we see men from Catholic Europe travelling
beyond the ancient limits, crossing the heart of Asia, and
bringing to the Court of China first-hand evidence of the
lands ' near the sunsetting.'

Among the chief figures of these three periods we have
in the first-named the famous Gerbert (Pope Sylvester
II.), whom a later tradition makes an early preacher of
Syrian Crusade, but whose alleged visit to the Holy Land
is more than doubtful; Duke Eobert of Normandy, who
certainly visited Jerusalem in 1035-1036 ; and his great
contemporaries, Fulk the Black, Count of Anjou, Ealdred,
Archbishop of York, Siegfried of Mainz, Hermann of
Bamberg, William of Angouleme, and Svein son of God wine
But there is no pilgrim journey of this time which stands
out in any marked degree, or has left records of such im-
portance as to bring into relief the personality of any par-
ticular traveller or writer. This pilgrim literature, of which
we have seen so many examples in the earlier Christian
centuries, begins again with the second division of our
subject, the century of the first three Crusades (1096-1191).
And in this literature the first names of note are Saewulf
of Worcester, Adelard or Athelard of Bath, and Daniel of
Kiev, three of that host of peaceful wanderers who followed
the conquerors of the First Crusade. Saewulf and Daniel have

1. 1 PILGRIMS OF THE CRUSADING AGE 5

left us their note-books, arid both of these belong to the new
time, a time full of life and personal interest, in sharp contrast
to the generations immediately preceding, when history is
almost inarticulate, and when even the bare outlines of
the world's leading figures are scarcely discernible. The
hordes of tenth and eleventh century pilgrims give no sign of
anything but the simplest penitential purpose, though every
fresh conversion of the northern nations * (especially since
the end of the First Millennium) had been bringing a new
stream of devotees to Italy and the Levant. But now, when
Mediaeval Christendom had begun to take shape, when a
revival of intellectual life had shown itself, and when re-
ligious passion had become more steady and less unworldly,
the discoverer, the scientific observer, and the merchant,
are blended with the pilgrim pure and simple in an ever
larger number of those records that have come down to us.

Thus Saewulf, the layman and the merchant; Adelard,
the investigator of nature ; Daniel, the Prussian monk and
patriot ; all show us something of the new face of things,
and suggest changes still greater. And it is here, even more
than in knowledge, or extent of travel, that these later
pilgrims show so marked an advance on the chief of their
predecessors. This is also the main interest in the journey of
King Sigurd of Norway, at this very time (1107-1111), for,
though his voyage added nothing definite to geographical
knowledge, he represents, in his person as a Crusading
Norseman, the meeting of two forces whose union was of
infinite promise for the future. For here is dramatically
combined the militant Christianity of the Western Church,
and the daring spirit of that race which had restored the
energies of European nations, and opened so much of land
and sea to European enterprise.

1 In which Hungary must be included.

6 INTRODUCTION LCh.

Our second period closes with the records of Benjamin
of Tudela (1159-1173), and other less important travellers,
whose horizon has broadened from the nearer East of the
Levant to the Middle Orient, to the lands beyond Syria, the
Euphrates, and the Caucasus. Thus the European is be-
ginning to enter a world outside the influence of his own
races and centres of power, even outside the purview of
the contracted Christendom of the Dark Ages ; a world
where the visitor becomes gradually conscious of a new light
radiating from the far distant, self-contained, and long
hidden1 civilisations of India and China.

The third period that here concerns us (c. 1190-1260)
brings the West into direct connection with those distant
regions, incredibly rich and populous and attractive as they
seemed to the Latin world of that time. Meantime, that
Latin world had committed a criminal blunder, and had
witnessed with apathy, almost with satisfaction, the fall of
two great disasters (one self-inflicted, the other unforeseen
and incalculable, but still more terrific) upon the common
interests of European nations. On one side, the Crusaders
of 1202-1204 had turned away from their promised work
to seize Constantinople, and found a Latin empire on the
ruins of the shrunken Byzantine State ; on another side, the
Eoman Church had seen (from the year 1213) the rise of
the Tartar Empire of Ghenghiz Khan and his successors,
without raising a finger to save the Christians of the Eussian
States, of Poland, or of Hungaiy. All else was forgotten ex-
cept the partial truths that the Greeks had broken com-
munion with Eome, and that the Tartars had weakened
Islam ; wild hopes of Mongol conversion wrere entertained
in the West; and Latin missions crossed Europe and Asia
to the court of the Great Khan. Thus John de Piano
1 I.e. from Mediaeval Europe.

I] COMMERCIAL, DIPLOMATIC, MISSIONARY TRAVEL 7

Carpini (1246-1247), William de Kubruquis (1253-1255),
Nicolo and Matteo Polo,1 uncles of Marco (1255-1269), with
many others, made their way to the headquarters of the
Nomacle princes, to Sarai on the Volga, to Karakorum near
Lake Baikal, and to the summer capital of Kublai Khan,
beside the wall of China.

Thus, by about 1260, we have reached a state of things
which is, in all respects, an advance on the Dark Age Period,
as shown in the seventh, eighth, or tenth centuries. The
outlook of the European has greatly extended ; the all-
absorbing ambitions of the first Saracens have been
thwarted ; it is not likely now that Christendom, however
endangered from time to time, will finally, and as a whole,
succumb to Islam. In particular, its geographical outlook,
its knowledge of the world, both practical and scientific,
has been widened and deepened, while that of its great
rival is already giving signs of an autumn, which, however
splendid, is an autumn still. We must not be deceived by
exceptions. No greater Moslem traveller ever lived than
the fourteenth-century Doctor of Tangier; yet it is un-
deniable that, in the fourteenth century, Moslem geography
and Moslem science are declining. Turks and Tartars by
successive invasions and devastations, Spanish Christians
by their incessant attacks, were slowly ruining the higher
culture of the Mohammedan world. We may, perhaps,
see the beginnings of this ruin even from the time of the
great encyclopaedist Yakut (f 1229); the slowly dying flame
blazes up once more in a brilliant farewell with the work
of Ibn Batuta and Abulfeda ; but after this there is little
but cold and darkness.

On the other hand, the close of the Crusading Era leaves
us at the end of the great scholastic age, at the abortive

1 Whose journey lies just outside the period of this volume.

8 INTRODUCTION [Oh.

conclusion of ail efforts for Latin domination in the Levant ;
but it also brings us to the completion of a great and fruitful
chapter of social and political growth, and to the beginning
of an even more decisive advance. For, as the warlike
spirit of Christendom seems to grow somewhat weary, and
as its efforts at founding new kingdoms (in Antioch, Cyprus,
Jerusalem, or Constantinople) appear more and more fruit-
less, a still greater extension of European life and knowledge
begins. The missionaries and merchants who followed the
Crusading armies to the Euphrates, and crept on to Ceylon
and the China Sea, brought Further and Central Asia —
Thesauri Arctium et divitis Indiae — within the ken of
the Frankish and Latin nations. Again, though baulked in
the Eastern Mediterranean, and disappointed in their hopes
of permanent advance along the Asiatic land-routes, the
European races turned, with an energy and daring im-
possible at an earlier time, to discover a maritime route to
India and China. As early as 1270 these attempts began
with the first voyages to the Canaries, and after two centuries
of slow endeavour the way round Africa was laid open. We
may notice that the Vinland voyages of the Northmen were
discoveries rather of special than general interest or useful-
ness ; unconnected as they were with the main lines of trade,
or with the general life of Christendom, they were never
realised or understood by the Western World at large. It
was otherwise with the explorations of Carpini, of Paibruquis,
of the Polos, and of the early Italian voyagers who first
sought the ' way by sea to the ports of India to trade there.'
And here we may repeat that the renaissance of Western
Europe in the Crusading age was fully as much an intel-
lectual as a material and political movement. Science was
at last touched and changed by the new life as completely
as the arts of war, of travel, of trade, or of missionary

I.] PROGRESS OF GEOGRAPHICAL STUDY 9

enterprise. And among other branches of science none
made greater progress than Geography. Eoger Bacon and
Albert of Bollstadt made distinct advances on all previous
mediaeval workers in this as in other fields. Plato of Tivoli,
Gerard of Cremona, Adelard of Bath, represented the new
spirit in Christian learning, which gladly confessed its
obligations to Moslem teachers, and did good service in the
translation and adaptation of Arabic texts for the use of
Latin Christians. Descriptive geography shows a remark-
able improvement, and may indeed be considered to have
recovered no small part of the spirit of Strabo. The purely
theoretical labours of Bacon, Albert, Adelard, and the rest,
must be left to a subsequent part of this enquiry ; but they
may fairly be alluded to here, as technically falling within
the present period. On the other hand, some detailed
reference is given in this volume to the Byzantine geography,
so admirably represented by the ' Porphyrogennetos,' Con-
stantine VII. (who, in the middle of the tenth century,
described the neighbours, vassals, and subjects of the Graeco-
Boman state), as well as to the principal Western rival, in pre-
Crusading times, of the Imperial student of Constantinople.
For, little more than a century after the appearance of the
royal author's treatise on the Administration of the Eastern
Empire (c. a.d. 953), Adam of Bremen gave a better survey
of ' Northern Parts ' and of recent discoveries in the same,
than had yet been attempted, better indeed than had yet
been possible. The explorations of the Vikings had passed
almost unnoticed by the main stream of European thought,
but the Annalist of the Church of Hamburg (c. a.d. 1070)
was a bright exception to a rule of ignorance and neglect.
For even if mediaeval Catholicism showed little practical
interest in the north-western movement of the tenth and
eleventh centuries, at least it saved itself, by Adam's work,

10 INTRODUCTION [Ch.

from the reproach of totally forgetting that movement, or
of omitting to enter on its register the existence of a fact so
memorable.

Once more, the diplomatic and missionary travellers of
the thirteenth century were not only explorers of a high
order, but did excellent service also to anthropology by their
careful observations of manners and customs, to philology
by their judicious enquiries into language, and to ethnology
by their truly scientific classification of the chie'f races of
Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It must not be
forgotten that they were the first Christian writers,
with the exception of some Byzantines, to give a truly
literary character to geographical writings ; and in the
person of the encyclopaedist, Vincent of Beauvais, their work
is closely connected with the Christian philosophy and
universal science of the schoolmen's ideal. Eoger Bacon
also is deeply indebted to Eubruquis, just as Eubruquis
and all other practical travellers are indebted to Bacon for
his fruitful study of nature, a study which included some of
the earliest investigations upon the polar properties of the
magnet. In the West, the Oxford scholar is only preceded,
in this last-named discovery, by Alexander Neckam, the
monk of St. Albans, by Guyot de Provins, the Languedoc
satirist and man of letters, and, more doubtfully, by some
of the daring voyagers of the Icelandic Sea.1

By the close of the period now in view (a.d. 900-1260)
the magnet, fitted with the compass-card, has been fully
adapted, at least in the Mediterranean, to the use of seamen ;
an elementary but approximate method of ascertaining posi-
tions has been secured by means of the Astrolabe ; and

1 CT. Lanclnamabok, as referred | the original text of Landnamabok,h\\t

to in Nordenskjold, Periplus, 50; is an insertion of about 1290-1300.
but this passage does not belong to |

L] GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE AND CARTOGRAPHY 11

no less important advances seem to have been made in
the delineation of the coast-lines of the world-surface. For,
though no specimen has survived of the new Portolani, or
Handy Outline-Maps, anterior to 1300, there can be no doubt
that the drawing of such maps commenced some years
before the Carte Piscine was executed ; and in these
maps the use of the compass, the beginnings of modern
survey-method, and the proper fixing of positions by
astronomical determination, are for the first time observable
in cartography. Within the limits of the Crusading time,
indeed, no survivals have yet been discovered of this new
type of map; on the contrary, our documents furnish us only
with designs of the normal mediaeval types. But even here
we have to notice a marked advance, both in quantity and
quality, upon the map-work of the former or Dark Age
period (a.d. 600-1000). The 'Beatus' examples, of which
only one, and that the rudest of all, could in any sense be
reckoned as falling within the first Christian Millennium,
continue through the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth
centuries to be reproduced in monkish schools ; and though
none of these copies are good in form, they occasionally
contain a fair amount of matter. Especially in the ' St.
Sever,' ' Osma,' and 'Gerona' manuscripts, this school of
map-making shows to some advantage by the side of the
usual Arabic monstrosities of this time ; and no student
of mediaeval geography can afford to neglect the Spanish
variety of pictured chart, for no one is more characteristic
of the earlier Middle Ages. The eighth-century cosmo-
graphy of the Anonymous Eavennese Geographer finds a
certain, though slight, cartographical explanation in the
twelfth-century maps of the so-called Guido or his copyist.
Another important family of Western maps is to be found
in the allied designs of Henry of Mainz, of the ' Psalter,'

1 2 INTRODUCTION [Ch.

of Hereford, and of Ebstorf, all probably descendants of an
eleventh-century original, and related also to certain twelfth-
century editions of two ancient sketches illustrating the
works of St. Jerome. Better in form than any of these, and
in all probability a work of Irish scholarship, is the tenth
century ' Cottoniana,' or ' Anglo-Saxon ' map, one of the
geographical surprises of a period whose obscurity and
barbarism are not without glimpses of light from quarters
outside of, and neglected by, the Teutonic and Latin worlds.
With this map we may probably connect the itinerary
of Archbishop Sigeric of Canterbury from England to Rome
(a.d. 990-994); for the 'Cottoniana' was perhaps the work
of an Irish scholar known to Sigeric, or resident in his
household. Again, rough sketches with an educational
purpose, exhibiting the various zones or climates and
the distribution of the great land areas, or illustrating
the geographical references of some favourite classical
authors, are exceedingly common ; and examples of these
may be found in Lambert of St. Omer, in the so-called
T-O and ' climate-maps,' and in the Macrobius and Sallust-
Designs. The work of Lambert, connected as it is with all
these families of elementary geographical world-plan, is
also a mappe-monde of considerable scope and content,
clearly antique in its detail, and recalling in the twelfth
century the pre-Christian theories of Greek speculators on
the other land masses supposed to exist beyond the ocean
to the south, west, or east of the Habitable World known
to man. Lastly, the English chronicler Matthew Paris
has left, at the very close of this era, a local map of
England of unusual merit, along with an ordinary and dis-
appointing mappe-monde, and several smaller essays in
cartography. The same attempt at specialising and so
improving draughtsmanship, by a rigid limitation of view to

I] CHRISTIAN CARTOGRAPHY : MOSLEM GEOGRAPHY 13

an area with which the designer was well acquainted, is
observable in the twelfth-century Plan of Jerusalem or Situs
Hicrusalem. It is humiliating, if not surprising, to find
that the Byzantine geographers of Justinian's age had
executed an even better representation of the Holy City
and its environs more than six hundred years before, as
shown in the recently discovered mosaic of Madaba. Less
ancient than this, and of far less value, but probably
anterior to the first Crusade, and remarkable as, for the
first time, showing us Jerusalem in the exact centre of
a round world-sketch, is another Byzantine map of T-O
pattern, the most elaborate example of its kind, which has
survived in a Latin transcript of 1110.

The Moslem Geography of this period (c, 950-1260) must
be held over to a subsequent volume for want of space, but
here we may very briefly notice how it continues during
these centuries, as during the eighth and ninth, to pour out
an enormous mass of work ; the greatest of Mohammedan
encyclopaedists, Yakut the Greek, belongs to the later
twelfth and earlier thirteenth century ; a century earlier,
Edrisi of Ceuta and Palermo accomplishes the most famous
of Arabic descriptions of the Oikoumene or Habitable World.
In the tenth century Mukaddasi and Albiruni (or Abu
Eihan) show themselves to be worthy successors of Masudi
and Ibn Haukal ; the travels of Ibn Mohalhal recall the distant
wanderings and hair-breadth escapes of Sinbad the Sailor ;
Nasir-i-Khusrau of Merv, on the eve of the first Crusade,
wins a reputation as a master in the literature of geography,
if not in the annals of adventure ; Al Heravi of Herat,
an earlier Ibn Batuta, traverses almost all the lands of
Islam, ' scribbling his name on every wall ' ; and these are
only the leading figures of a great company. On that more

14 INTRODUCTION [Ch.

purely scientific side of geography, where the Moslem
students of earlier time had accomplished so much,
Albiruni is perhaps the greatest name of any Mussulman
age or nation ; but as our period advances, and the Spanish
successes of the tenth century are followed by the disasters
of the eleventh, the re-action of the twelfth by the dis-
ruption of the thirteenth, it becomes ever more apparent
that Islam, as it recedes politically, is also intellectually
on the decline. For the age of Philip Augustus and Louis
IX. (118-1260) witnesses the overthrow of all the great
Mohammedan States which had arisen on the disruption of
the undivided Caliphate; witnesses the extinction of the chief
line of the Prophet's successors, who for 500 years had
wielded a papal, and often an imperial, power at Bagdad ;
and finally witnesses, as the complement of these calamities,
the ruin of the chief schools of Moslem culture.

China,1 during most of this period, has much less to do
with the Western world than before the revolution of a.d.
880. Internal troubles, partly caused by the older foreign
intercourse, serve as the excuse for a long reign of com-
parative exclusiveness ; but even during this time relations are
not wholly broken off between Islam and the Middle
Kingdom. The earlier Christianity of Nestorian type,
so prominent in the eighth century and the time of the
Singanf u inscription, fades almost entirely out of sight ; on
the other hand, the faith of the Koran gains many proselytes.
The incessant warlike activities of Central Asia and
' Chinese Turkestan' become at times a barrier to any
overland travel : the unity of China itself is broken up ;

kept over from this volume for want
of space ; the following summary,
however, gives the chief points of
celestial activity.

1 The detailed account of Chinese
explorations and geographical study
during this time, from the tenth to
the thirteenth centuries, has also to be

I.] MOSLEM AND CHINESE GEOGRAPHY 15

dynasty succeeds dynasty in a series of bewildering
revolutions; both the North and South, both the
Ho-ang-ho and the Yang-tse-kiang, are desolated by
anarchy ; and the weakness of the divided nation exposes
it to subjugation in detail by the arms of Ghenghiz
Khan and his successors.

After the Mongol conquest an extraordinary freedom of
intercourse is restored ; even European and Christian
travellers now penetrate to the Far East, and, what is still
more noticeable, repeate 1 embassies make their way from
China to the Western world. Just as in the remote past
Chang-kiang (b.c. 135) and Pan-chao (a.d. 94-102) had
travelled or conquered as far as the shores of the Caspian
and the borders of Persia and India, so now in the earlier
thirteenth century Chang-chun and others journey at
the command of the new Tartar sovereigns of Asia to the
Mongol camps in Afghanistan, Persia, and Georgia. Chinese
spies are sent by the Mongol Government into the countries
of Western Europe 1 in the same way that Carpini,
Ptubruquis, Ascelin, and their companions are despatched by
the Pope or the temporal sovereigns of Christendom to the
courts and camps of the Tartar Empire. The opening of China
and Central Asia (in a new and fuller sense) to the knowledge
of the Christian AVest is the work of the unifying, levelling,
and anti-fanatical Mongols, who break down the old walls
of partition at the same time that they erase not a few of the
old landmarks of former civilisation. With the restoration
of a native Chinese dynasty, and with the expulsion of
Kublai Khan's descendant from Pekin, the old exclusion,
the old fanaticism, the old barriers, are restored ; but for

1 Cf. the later embassy of the Nes- i (c. a.d. 1282) Rome, Paris, and
torian monk, Rabban Cauma, an Bordeaux, which he calls the capital
Uigur, bom at Pekin, who visits | of England.

16 INTRODUCTION [Ch. I.

Europeans the former ignorance, fear, and imprisonment of
spirit has for ever passed away ; and among the practical
objects of the new time none is more ardently pursued
than the re-discovery and exploitation of Cathay and India.
The overland missions end in failure, but their place is
taken by the explorers, traders, and preachers who find
new ways across the ocean ; to follow in the steps of Marco
Polo becomes the dream of every adventurous spirit ; and the
revelation which the thirteenth century brings to European
civilisation has permanent and vitalising results for every
Christian nation.

( 17 )

CHAPTEE II

l'HE NORSEMEN IN THE HISTORY OF EXPLORATION TO THE
BEGINNING OF THE CRUSADES

The discoveries, conquests, and colonies of the Norsemen
from the White Sea to America, throw the first glimpses
of light upon many parts of that ' barbarian ' world of
which ancient science, trade, and politics had known little
or nothing.1 And, indeed, it was natural that here, if

1 The numerous Foreign Coins in
Norse Countries of course do not
prove that the Roman world had a
first - hand knowledge of North-
Eastern Europe, but they point to
a considerable trading intercourse in
the later classical time and the
earlier Middle Age, such as is
further illustrated by the notes of
Pytheas upon the amber commerce,
by the order of Germanicus to his
fleet to sail to the amber island
(Glaesaria), and hy the Knight sent to
the amber coast by Julianus, Nero's
manager of gladiatorial shows. Cf
Pliny, Natural History, Book
xxxvii., ch. ii. The 'Knight' here
mentioned visited the amber markets
of the Baltic coasts, traversed the
regions of Germany abounding in
amber, and brought back such a
quantity that the nets used for pro-
tecting the ' podium' (i.e. the spec-
tators) at the amphitheatre against

the wild beasts were studded with
this article.

Among the coins may be noticed
e.g. — (1) Roman; of the following
Emperors; Augustus, Claudius, Nero,
Galba, Otho, Vitellins, Vespasian,
Titus, Domitian, Nerva, Trajan,
Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus
Aurelius, Commodus, Pertinax, Sep-
timius Severus, Caracalla and Geta,
Macrinus, Elagabalus, Alexander
Severus, Valens, Valentinian I.,
Gratian, Gordian, Gallienus, Aur-
elian, Tacitus, Decius, Probus, Cams,
Numeric n, Carinus, Diocletian,
Maximian, Constantius Chlorus,
Licimus, Constantine the Great,
Constantine II., Constantius, Con-
stans, Honorius, Valentinian III.,
Majorian, Libius Severus, Anthemius,
Romulus Augustulus, etc.

('2) Byzantine or of the Eastern
Empire after Theodosius the Great ;
Theodosius II.. Marcian, Leo I., Zeno,

18

THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION

[Oh.

anywhere, in 'Polar' lauds, rather than in Mediterranean
countries, European enterprise should first show signs of
new life after the paralysis of the Dark Ages. From
the rise of Islam the Saracens controlled the great trade
routes of the south and east. It was only on the west
and north that the coast was clear — of all but natural
dangers.

In the Moslem world men 'of the market-place' were
now busy in following up old lines of trade, or, as in
Eastern Africa, were discovering and exploiting new and
more promising routes ; men of science were commenting
o?i the ancient texts of Greek and Latin learning, or
adapting them to enlarged knowledge. But in Christendom,
in the long atrophy of mental and physical activity
which covers most of the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth
centuries of our era, the practical energy of heathen
enemies (for the Northmen were not seriously touched
by Christian influence till long after they had become a
terror to Europe) was the first sign of permanent revival.

Anastasius, Justin I., Justinian,
Tiberius II., Maurice, Constantine
Copronymus, Michael III. Several
others belonging to co-emperors, pre-
tenders, the lesser princelings of the
last years of the Western Empire and
consorts of various emperors have
also been brought to light ; besides a
vast number of barbaric imitations
and of defaced and unreadable coins.
The earliest coins found in Gottland
are those of Augustus. Then follow
those of Nero, and coins of all the
different emperors to Alexander
Severus ; the greatest number are
those of Trajan ; Hadrian ; Antoninus
Pius ; Faustina, wife of Antoninus
Pius ; Marcus Aurelius ; Faustina,
wife of Marcus Aurelius ; and

Commodus. In Hagestaborg the most
numerous were the three Antonines ;
the earliest was one of Nero, the
latest one of Septimius Severus.

The Byzantine coins from Con-
stantine the Great are mostly orna-
mental. A few coins of the Re-
publican Period have also been found
in Norse countries ; e.g. of the
families of Lucretia, Naevia, Sulpicia,
Funa, Publicia, Postumia, Procelia.
Tituria, Yeturia, Sicinia.

Many Arabic and other mediaeval
coins have also been found in Scan-
dinavian lands (see pp. 462-4?z. of this
volume), as well as an immense
number of other objects from the
Southern world.

II. CHIEF LINES OF NORSE ACTIVITY 19

With the awakening of physical energy and daring came
that of mental and spiritual vigour; the whole life of the
Middle Ages began afresh with the conversion of Scandi-
navia, of Kussia, and of Hungary ; but, in the abundant
and brilliant force of the mediaeval renaissance, we must
recognise the work of those Norsemen who had breathed
something of their own spirit into every Christian
nation.

The Norse discoveries were not only the first, they were
beyond comparison the chief, victories of European travel
and enterprise, in the truly Unknown World, between the
time of Constantine and the Crusades. The central fact of
European expansion in the Dark Ages is the advance of the
Scandinavian adventurers and settlers to the west, the south,
and the east in the last two hundred years of the first
Christian Millennium.

Of the three main lines of northern advance, the first,
the western or north-western, running by Caithness, the
Orkneys, the Shetlands, and the Faroes, reached Iceland,
Greenland, Baffin's Bay, and the shores of Newfoundland,
Labrador, and Nova Scotia ; 1 but, from the settlements on
the coasts and islands of Northern Britain, a fresh wave of
pirates and colonists swept down south-west into the narrow
seas of St. George's Channel, and beat upon the north and
east of Ireland and upon the western coasts of England
and of ' Bretland.'

The second invasion ran along the North German shore,
and, reaching the Straits of Dover, fell upon both sides of
the Channel, only varying in strength as the resistance was
stronger or weaker in England or in France. Pushing on
along this sea-path, the more daring adventurers united (off

1 Perhaps even Massachusetts, but I Voyages, 344-67), it is not necessary
as Dr. Storm has shown {Vinlancl I to bring Vinlaiid so far South.

20 THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION [Ch.

Cornwall and the Scilly Isles) with their Ostmen brethren
from Ireland, and sailed on to the plunder of the Bay of
Biscay and of Northern Spain. It was not long before some of
them had found out the wealth and weakness of the Moslem
Kingdom of Cordova, and were trying to force their way
up the Douro and the Tagus. From the great Northman
settlement on the Seine new and ever more daring ventures
brought little groups of ' Normans ' to South Italy and
Sicily, who formed a kingdom of the two Sicilies, carried
their ravages to the Saracen ports of North Africa,
and gave to a Norman prince the momentary lordship
over much of Tunis; just as from the same Normandy a
greater stream of conquest flowed across the Narrow Sea
to overwhelm the Old English State.

On the third or eastern side of the Norse expansion
there are likewise two main divisions ; one taking its road
across the Baltic, and proceeding north-east to Finland and
due east to Novgorod and Kussia, the other coasting along
Norway to Fin mark and the North Cape of Europe, to the
Murman coast of Lapland and the country of the Biarina-
men T on the White Sea and the Dvina.

The field of this activity was indeed immense, but it was
covered with a rapidity no less astonishing. It was in the
later years of Charles the Great (790 to 814) that the
Viking Keels first alarmed the Frankish coasts. In 797
they made their first descent on England ; 2 before the
middle of the ninth century they were threatening the whole
shore-line of Christendom, from Galicia to the Elbe ; in 840
they founded their first kingdom in Ireland, and even
earlier than this thev had become the terror of the Hebrides,

1 ' Perm.'

2 Cf. the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,
under the year 787, 'In his days'
[i.e. the West-Saxon KingBerhtric's,
a.d. 785-802] . . . 'first came three

ships of Northmen. . . . The reeve
rode to the place and would have
driven them to the king's town and
thev slew him,'

".] VALUE OF NORSK DISCOVERIES 21

the Shetlands, and the Orkneys;1 from 860 commenced
their attempts upon Iceland ; in 802 Rurik and his men
founded the Central State of mediaeval Russia. Pressing
on into still wider fields, they sighted Greenland soon after
877 ;2 in the last quarter of the ninth century they brought
their ships to the neighbourhood of the present" Arch-
angel, and in the first years of the tenth they won
Normandy from Charles the Simple by the treaty of Claire-
sur-Epte (922).3 This advance is almost as rapid as that of
the early Saracens. Within a hundred years from the first
disturbance of the old local independence by the levelling
power of the new national kingdoms, within three generations
from Halfdan the Black, the Vikings, first as ocean rovers
and buccaneers, then as rebellious emigrants, and finally
as founders of new states, had reached and passed beyond
the limits of the Old World to north and west, from
' Jacob's Land'4 to Finmark, and from Ireland to the Baltic.

Much of this of course was only the passing of a more
active race over ground, which had once been wrell known,
even if much of it was now being forgotten. But in the
far north-east and north-west, the Norsemen clearly enlarged
the horizon of knowledge — in the plains of Eastern Europe,
in the shorelands of North America, and along the coasts and
islands of the Arctic Seas.

On the side of America indeed the Norse discoveries were
not only an advance upon all that the older geography had
known ; they remained, throughout the Middle Ages, an

1 Cf. Dicuil, De Mensura Orbis
terrae (written in 825), vii. 15 ( = vii.
2, 3, Letronne).

2 The traditional date of Gunn-
biorn's discovery, winch the be.st
modern critics would bring down a
generation later, to the early years
of the tenth century.

3 The ' Norman ' settlement began
c. 912 ; the treaty was c. 922.

4 Galicia in North-West Spain, so
named from the Shrine of St. James
(Santiago) at Compostella. On the
Scandinavians in Spain, see pp. Ill,
176-9, of this volume ; Dozy, Rcclier-
ches. ii... especially pp. 295, 329-340.

22 THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION [Oh.

unique achievement. The Venetian, Welsh, Arabic, and
other claims to have rivalled the Scandinavians in this field
are utterly unsubstantial and untrustworthy. Ic is a fairly
certain fact that about the year of Christ 1000, the north-
west line of Viking advance reached at least as far as the
north-east shores of New England. Against all other
mediaeval voyages to the Western Continent one verdict
only can stand, a verdict of Not Proven.

The other lines of Norse advance, though marked by
equal daring and far greater military prowess, have less
originality, and occupy a much smaller place in the history
of exploration. There was roving and fighting in plenty,
the giving and taking of hard knocks with every nation,
from the White Sea to the Straits of Gibraltar, and from
Limerick to Constantinople ; and, as the Vikings discovered
new lands (new at least to themselves), they re-named most
of the capes and coasts, the rivers, islands, and countries
of Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia. Thus, Galicia
became ' Jacob's-Land ' ; Islam, outside ' Spanland,' passed
into ' Serk-' or ' Saracen-Land ' ; the Negro or even the
Moorish countries were the ' Lands of the Bluemen.' The
Hebudes or Hebrides were the ' South Isles ' ; Northern
and Western France ' Valland ' ; North Germany ' Saxland ' ;
the East Slav or Russian country ' Gardar,' ' Gardariki,' or
the ' Garth-realm.' The city of Constantine was the Great
Town or ' Miklagarth' ; Novgorod was ' Holmgarth ' ; but
this was a State which owed its greatness to a Viking
migration, and was long connected by ties of peculiar
intimacy with the Scandinavian lauds. Moreover, it belongs
to the field where Norse enterprise broke fresh ground ;
to the south and south-west, on the contrary, no rebel
Vikings, or royalist hunters of such rebels, sailed the seas
beyond the limits of the classical geography ; and, as

II. 1 UBIQUITY OF THE NORSEMEN 23

pilgrims, traders, travellers, and conquerors in the Medi-
terranean, their work was of course not one of exploration,
They bore a foremost part in breaking down the Moslem
rule in Southern Europe ; they visited the Holy Sites —

'When sacred Hierosolyma they'd relieved
And fed their eyes on Jordan's holy Hood,
Which the dear body of Lord God had laved,' —

they fought as ' Varangian ' bodyguards in the armies
of the great Byzantines, Nikephoros Phokas, John Tzi-
miskes, Basil II., or Maniakes ; but in all this they dis-
covered for themselves rather than for Europe.

One of the most typical references to Geography in the
Sagas is in the famous chapter at the beginning of the
mythology of the Heimshringla : — ' On the situation of
countries.' ' It is said that the earth - circle which the
human race inhabits is much cut asunder with bights and
bays, and that great seas run into the land from the outer
ocean. Of a certainty, it is known that a sea goes in at
Norva Sound,1 right up to the land of Jerusalem ; and from
that sea, again, a long bay, which is called the Black Sea,
goes off to the north-east, and it divides the two World-
Ridings, that is to say, Asia on the east from Europe on
the west. To the north of the Black Sea lies Sweden the
Great, or the Cold ; and this is reckoned by some as not less
in size than the Great Saracen-Land, or even the Great Land

1 Straits of Gibraltar, so named I honour to Skopti Ogmundson, at the
traditionally from one Norva, sup- j beginning of the twelfth century,
posed to be the first Norseman who j Skopti sailed with five long ships in

passed through this channel, in the
tenth century. But they had cer-
tainly gone through the Straits in the
ninth and even in the eighth century,

harvest to Flanders ; was there the
winter ; early in spring went on to
Valland ; in summer passed through
Norva Sound ; in harvest-time arrived

as Dozy has shown, Recherches, vol. ii. j at Rome. There Skopti died. 'Men
p. 295. On the other hand, Magnus said he was the first Norseman to sail
Barefoot's Saga, ch. xxii., gives this through Norva Sound,' etc.

24

THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION

[Ch.

of the Bluemen.1 And the northern parts of this Sweden lie
unpeopled by reason of the frost and the cold, just as the
southern parts of Blue-Land 2 are waste because of the sun's
burning. Mighty lordships are there in this Sweden, and
peoples of manifold kind and speech ; there are giants and
there are dwarfs — aye, and Bluemen,3 and folk of many kinds
and marvellous, and wild beasts, and dragons wondrous great.
Out of the north, from those mountains which lie outside of
all peopled lands, there comes a river which is rightly called
Tanais,4 and this falls into the ocean at the Black Sea, dividing
Asia from Europe.'

It seems impossible to identify with present-day sites the
famous places of the Norse Mythology ; even Asgard,5 Asgarth,
or Gods-town, can only be conjectured, and is, perhaps,
no place-name at all, but a term like the 'Age of Gold,'
expressive of a supposed condition of the race at an early
period. Here and there, however, even the Mythical Sagas
plainly refer to natural facts. Thus the great mountain
barrier from north-east to south-west, which parted Great
Sweden from other kingdoms, may well be an allusion to
the Ural Bange.0 Again, we are told that Odin wandered
westward to the Garth-realm or ' Gardariki,' and south to
' Saxland,' 7 where he made himself a great kingdom. These
are the terms in regular use, by the Norsemen of the historical
time, for the mediaeval Bussian and German lands. Once

1 Or Negroes.

2 Negro- Land.

8 Here perhaps Samoyedes.

4 The Don. Of old it was called
Tanabranch or Yanabranch, adds the
Saga ; the land between the Vana-
niouths was then called Vanland or
Vanhome ; cf. ch. i. of the Ynglinga
Saga.

5 Those who attempt identification
make Asgard either (1) Assor, or (2)

Chasgar in the Caucasus, the As-
purgum of Strabo. Ynglinga Saga,
ch. ii., fixes Asgard east of Tana-
branch in Asia, in the land of Asland
or Ashome, of which it was the chief
burg.

0 Ch. v. of Ynglinga Saga.

7 Ch. v. and ch. xxxii. of Ynglinga
Saga. The term 'Garth-realm' is,
though quite exceptionally, used also
for the Byzantine empire.

I'.] THE EARLIEST NORSE GEOGRAPHY 25

more, it is clear that a principal object of the mythological
narratives is to tell ns about Odin's settlement in Sweden,
and the daring exploits of the oldest Norsemen upon the
ocean.1 Even in those days there were many ' Sea-Kings
who ruled over men, but had no lands ' ; when ' he alone
might be called a Sea-King who never slept beneath sooty
roof timbers, and never drank at the hearth nook.' 2 Even
then, too, it was known that Sweden had ' such great wild
woods ' that it was many clays' journey across them. From
this Sweden it was that one of the earliest and most im-
portant Viking movements proceeded just a thousand years
ago. In 860-862 the Russian Slavs of the North, — or a
Scandinavian colony dominating these Slavs, and living
about old Novgorod on Lake Ilmen. about Lake Ladoga,
and about Isborsk, — asked for help against their hostile
brethren of the South, living about Kiev ; and in answer
to this appeal Rurik and his war-band arrived from the
lands of Upsala, and founded those mediaeval Russian
states, which in the tenth and eleventh centuries were
first the stealthy plunderers, then the open enemies, and
finally the allies in faith and in arms, of the Byzantine
Empire. So the oldest Russian annals3 gave the story;
and in its main lines it may be accepted as fairly repre-
senting the truth of an early pre-Christian intercourse,
between Scandinavia and the Eastern Slavs, which had
results of the first importance, and practically created a
new European national centre.

From the ninth to the twelfth century the intercourse

1 Ch. vii. of Ynglinga Saga men- j 3 Cf. Nestor s Chronicle, chs. xiii.

tions Odin's ship Skidbladnir, ' where-
in he would fare over mighty seas,'
and which he could ' fold together like
a napkin.'

" Ch. xxxiv. of Ynglinga Saga.

xv. ; under the years, a.m. 6368-70
( = a.d. S60-8G2). In a.D. 850, ac-
cording to Nestor, the Russian land
' beffan to take its name.'

26 THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION [Oh.

of Swedes, Danes, and Northmen with the Russian princi-
palities of ' Gardariki ' was constant and close ; and perhaps
most of all in the time of the Vinland voyages, when
Vladimir and Yaroslav reigned in Novgorod, and when the
two Olafs — the son of Tryggve and the Saint — found refuge
at that Court from the troubles of their own distracted
Norway. Marriage alliances between the Princes of Gardar
and those of Sweden are recorded x at least half a century
before the expedition of Rurik ; and in the later development
of the Russian people this Scandinavian element perhaps
counted for nearly as much as in some other countries where
it has been more fashionable to trace, and sometimes to
exaggerate, the 'influence of the Northmen.'

Considered as an organised and united state, the Norse
Kingdom began with Halfdan the Black and his son Harald
Fairhair, at the same time that Danish unity was first
achieved under Gorm the Old (860-935). These great
chiefs attacked, shook, and finally brought to an end the
old local independence ; and one result of this was a
strengthening of the Scandinavian movement of expansion
and aggression upon the outer world. For now, in the dis-
content that arose ' when Harald seized on the lands 2 of
Norway, the Outlands were found and peopled, and especially
the Faroes, and Shetland, and Iceland,' and the rebel Vikings
who fled before the new monarch took to piracy in the
Western Sea ; in winter they made their home in the Orkneys
and the Hebrides,3 and in summer they pillaged as far as
Norway. But after some years Harald grew tired of chasing

1 Cf. Icelandic Landnamabok, p.

195, in the genealogy of Thorbiorn.
' Gorm was a duke in Sweden . . .

nusson. Saga Library, vol. i., Pref.
p. xviii.

2 I.e. the tribal kingdoms.

his son married a daughter of Burislav, . 3 Sudreyar, the 'South isles' or
King of Gardar, in the East ' (c. J the Hebrides, ch. xx. of Harald
A. P. 820). Cf. also Morris and Mag- Fairhair's Saga.

H-] HARALI) FAIRHAIR AND THE VIKINGS 27

the pirates away from his coast, and sailed out into the
North Sea in pursuit of them.

He drove them out of Shetlands and Orkneys and
Hebrides, and even out of Man ; he ravaged the coasts of
Scotland ; and in the islands that he subdued he left a
deputy to govern in his name as Earl. Thus was
founded, about 920, the Norse Principality of the Orkneys,
whose troubled life was prolonged almost to the close of
the fifteenth century, when it was finally absorbed by the
Scottish Kingdom. From these Islands the Norsemen
raided Caithness and Sutherland, winning easy triumphs
over the Scots, and riding off to their ships with the heads
of Scottish chieftains tied to their horses.1 But the Orkney
settlements in the end gave more trouble than profit to
the central kingdom, and in exploration (as in civilisation)
they seem hardly ever to have become a real starting-point
of further progress.2

Far more useful in these respects were the early Viking
colonies in the Faroes. From these islands, as early as
about 860, one of the Norse leaders, ' Nadodd,' pushing
into the ocean to the far north-west, sighted Iceland.
He gave it the name of ' Snowlancl,' and reported that he
had found a desert land easy of settlement ; but his was
not the first visit. As early as 795 Irish hermits had
passed at least one winter on its shores, and the traces
of their cells and chapels — bells and ruins and crosses —
were quickly noticed by the Norsemen when they began
to settle there.3 Nadodd was followed in 864 by Gardar

1 See example in Ha raid Fair-
hair's Saga, ch, xxii.

2 Though rovers who haunted the
Orkneys constantly went on to
Iceland.

3 The ' Westman's Eyar ' or Irish-
man's Islands, off the Iceland coast,

are called after these ' papar ' or
priests. The early Norse settle-
ments in the Shetlands are curiously
commemorated, among other things,
by the name ' Sholto ' or ' the
Shetlander ' — only to be found in
Scotland nnd Iceland.

28

THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION

[Oh.

the Swede, who called the new land after himself; by
Eaven Floke, who in 867 was guided by the flight of
birds1 to the same country; and by the permanent settlers
of 874,2 led by Ingolf and Leif and other sheep-farmers of
the Faroes.

Even this was not enough. Three years later, in 877,
at the very time of the furthest Danish advance in England,
when Guthorm had driven the English king into the Isle
of Athelney, the Norsemen reached another stage in their
north-western advance ; for now Gunnbiorn 3 sighted a
reef or skerry and a great land in the ocean beyond
Iceland, which lie called 'White Shirt ' from its snowflelds,
and which Red Eric, a century later, re-named ' Greenland,'
in the hope of a 'good name' attracting settlers. By this
discovery the Old World had almost, as it were, stumbled
upon the New.

Geographically, this portion of the Arctic Continent
falls to the share of North America ; and once its fiords
had become in their turn centres of colonisation and of
further progress, the reaching of Labrador and Newfound-
land was natural enough. The real voyage lay between
Cape Farewell and the European Mainland ; it was indeed
a stormy and dangerous passage from the Bays of South
Greenland to the western regions of ' Helluland' or

1 Ravens. These birds, saj^s an
early addition (c. a.d. 1300) to the
Icelandic Landuamabok, originally a
work finished before 1148, were of
great use as guides to the sailors of
the northern countries, who had not
yet any lodestone. Cf. Nordenskjold,
Periplus, p. 50 (E. trans).

- Some think all these dates are
about thirty 3rears too early.

y Some think, however, that Gunn-
hiorn's voyage was of later date,

about 910-920, and that the skerry
which he saw was only part of the
high reef or ridge in the sea be-
tween Iceland and Greenland, now
under water, but in the ninth and
tenth centuries possibly above the sea
in ceriain parts. One record says
that Eric went to Greenland to dis-
cover the land which Gunnbiorn, son
of Ulf the Raven (Kraka), saw, when
he was driven west to Iceland and
discovered Gunnbiorn's reef.

II] DISCOVERY OF ICELAND AND GREENLAND 29

'Markland,' but the journey was not long, and, as far
as can be judged from scanty records, it was neither so
cold nor so ice-bound as at present.

But exploration had outrun settlement; the pace of
the Norse advance on this side slackened for a hundred
years; and it was not-till 984 or 986 that Eric the Tied,
exiled for manslaughter by the Icelanders, first led his
countrymen to plant themselves in ' Hvitserk.'

In this venture Eric set out from Snowfield-Jokul in
Iceland, and sailed west till he reached land — on the east
coast of Greenland — which did not appear very suitable
for a colony. From this landfall he coasted along to
the south, rounded a Cape (which he named 'Hvarf'1 or
' Wrath,' and which moderns call 'Farewell '), and wintered
on an island henceforth known by his name. Three years
in all he spent on this coast, prospecting for his intended
settlement ; then returning to Iceland, he brought back
so good a report of the land, that twenty- five ships
full of emigrants followed him on his final journey to
the Green Country. Only half of these persevered to the
end ; and with them the leader colonised Eric's Fiord,
the starting-point of a still more distant and memorable
series of adventures in the next generation.

In the same age that witnessed the conquests of
Halfdan the Black and Harald Fairhair, the fiercest
attacks fell upon England, France, and the North German
lauds from the coasts of Norway and Denmark. From
the first descent upon Wessex, in 797, their invasions of
Britain were incessant and terrible, but for a long time
spasmodic and impermanent. But in 855 the raiders
for the first time wintered in Northumbria, and in the
next twenty years they pressed continuously, and at last
1 Properly ' Turn.'

30

THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION

[Oh.

overwhelmingly, upon a large part of England. By 870
they had mastered nearly the whole of Northumbria and
Mercia ; and the following decade was marked by a
desperate fight for the possession of Wessex, which
resulted in the premature triumph of Guthorm, the final
victory of iElfred, and the peace of Wedmore, which
confined the invaders' rule to North and North -Eastern
England (877-878).

In 876 the Northmen had already made their first
settlement in France, after many years of warfare ; l and
it was from this side that Hasting drew the main part of
his strength in the repeated onslaughts which he led upon
Wessex at the end of Alfred's reign (891-896).

The rule of Harald Fairhair, by its ruthless suppression of
Viking piracy near home, also brought about the Norse con-
quest of Normandy. Hrodulf, Eholf, or Eolf ' the Ganger,'
the son of Eognvald the ' Mere Earl,' was an incor-
rigible raider, and so huge that no horse could bear
him ; ' wherefore he went always on foot, and from
this got his name.' By his constant plundering on
the Baltic coasts,2 he so enraged the king, that he
made Eolf an ' outlaw from all Norway.' His father
was Harald Fairhair's dearest friend, and his mother was
a poetess ; 3 but neither the one nor the other could
save their son from exile. He was driven west over

1 Marked by the sack of Limoges,
Bordeaux, Tours, Saintes, Nantes,
Toulouse, Orleans, Bayeux, Evreux,
Rouen, and other places, the great
simultaneous attack of 845 upon all
the three Frankish kingdoms, and
the various sieges of Paris, the first
of which was in 845 (followed by
those of 855, 861, and S85).

2 ' Eastlands.'

3 The Saga of Harold Fairhair,

ch. xxiv., gives the verses that
she sang to the king to dissuade
him : — ' Thou hast cast off Nefia's
namesake ; As a wolf from the land
thou driv'st him ; 'Tis ill to be wild
in quarrel With a wolf of Odin's war-
board. If he fare wild in the forest
He shall waste thy flock right
sorely.' Rolf's mother, Hild, was
the daughter of Rolf Nefia.

II. 1 VOYAGES TO W. EUROPE AND WHITE SEA 31

sea to the Hebrides ; l thence he made his way to the
North Coast of France and conquered Normandy. From
Normandy, in later time, started the free lances, who built
up a Norse Kingdom in South Italy, as well as the host
who, under a certain Bastard "William, Eolf's greatest
descendant, conquered the Island Kingdom to the north.

The ambition of Harald Fairhair was not content with
one expedition to Britain ; for soon after he went a
second time to the Orkneys to crush the ever-turbulent
pirates of the Western Islands ; but a far longer and
more daring voyage was that of his son Eric in about 930.
When the boy was twelve years old his father gave him
five long ships,2 and he went on an eight-years' war-
cruise in the Baltic, and along the Danish and German,
the French and Flemish, the British and Irish coasts.
Finally he sailed away north to Finmark, and right up to
Biarmaland. This is one of the earliest voyages that the Sagas
record to the region of the White Sea — the land of Perm,
or the heathen Biarma-men — a country which in after days
was often visited and plundered by Norse raiders and
merchants, and became famous also for its furs, its idol-
temple of Iomala, and the magic of its people. But early
as it is, this voyage of Eric Haraldson was anything but
a venture into the Unknown. Before the close of the
previous century (c. A.D. 890) Ohthere of Halogaland (who
afterwards described his journey to King iElfred of Wessex)
sailed from his home to the mouth of the Dvina round the
North Cape of Europe and along the Lapland or Finmark
coast and the shores of the White Sea. He lived, as he
thought, to the north of all the Northmen, on the mainland
by the Western Sea ; to the North of him was a waste,
peopled only by a few scattered Finns, hunters and fishers ;

1 ' Smith Isles.' 2 Cli. xxxiv. of ffara/d Fairlun'rs Saga.

32 THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION [Oh.

with the inquisitive instinct of his race he determined to
find out for himself how far this waste extended, and
whether any men lived beyond it. He was probably not
ignorant of the doings of Bjorgolf of Halogaland or Brynjolf
his son,1 who about this time collected the tribute of the
Finns for Harald Fairhair ; but even if such a rival had
preceded Ohthere to the North Cape or beyond, there seems
no clear evidence of any earlier Norseman picking out the
whole of the Biarmaland route. His journey was first
towards the pole for six days, till he had passed beyond
the furthest haunts of the whalers and come to where the
land turned eastward, running north no longer. Four days
in the new direction brought him to a point where the
shore began to run southward into the 'inland sea,' and
for five days more he followed the coast as it bent inwards
to the mouth of a great river, where the land was well tilled
and all peopled by the Biarnia-men. All the way he had
the waste upon his right and the open sea upon his left ;
he did not dare to enter the Biarmaland, but he opened
up a certain intercourse with the natives, and learnt from
them many things about their own country and the regions
near ; from his own observation he gave an excellent de-
scription of the long and narrow district in which the
Scandinavians of the Far North were hemmed in between
the wild mountains of the Finns and the ocean. Ohthere
was not only an explorer but a trader ; his White Sea
voyage was partly in search of walrus-ivory, and hides, and
some of the ' noble bones ' or tusks of this ' smallest of whales '
he probably displayed in later years among his trophies at
the English Court.

Nor was Ohthere the only precursor of Eric Haraldson
on the Biarmaland route. In 918-99 Eric Blood-axe made
1 Cf. Egil Skallac/rimson's Saga, chs. vii.-i.w

II- J VOYAGES TO THE WHITE SEA 33

a different sort of journey to the Dvina — an armed foray
which ended in a great battle with, and triumph over, the
Biarma-men, who mustered in great force to resist him.1
Meantime the fur trade of the Finmark coast had been
growing, in the latter years of Harald Fairhair, into a high-
prized monopoly of the crown ; and an impetus to Icelandic
migration from Halogaland and other Arctic provinces
of Norway was given by the King's quarrel with the house
and friends of Bjorgolf, who had so long acted like little
satraps on the Lapland coast. Thorolf, the heir of Bjorgolf's
grandson Bard, not only travelled far and wide in Finmark
as the royal steward, — collecting tribute, holding fairs, and
killing or expelling rivals, — but made alliances and armed
forays on his own account.2 Thus, in a.d. 897, in company
with Faravid, King of the Kvens, he attacked ' Kirialaland,'
in which we may possibly see the modern Korelia, to the
west of Biarmaland proper ; 3 but soon after this his schemes
of northern trade and dominion were abruptly checked by
the suspicion and hostility of his overlord.

Shortly before the introduction of Christianity into Ice-
land (from a.d. 996) we find Hallvard the Easterling, a
trader from the Bay of Christiania, urging the hero Gunnar
of Lithend to sail abroad with him, and boasting how he
had been to all lands between Norway and Ptussia, as well
as to Biarmaland.4 To this same mysterious region many
later journeys were made from the Norse Fiords throughout
the tenth and eleventh centuries ; and here, where in after

1 fgWs Saga, ch. xxxvii.

2 EgWs Saga, chs. x., xiii. , xiv.,
xvii.

3 Korelia, according to Engelhardt,
Russian Province of the Rorth, ch.
ii., had been already attacked by the
Scandinavians of King Eric Emimd-
son, before a.d. 833. This depends

on the identification of the Kvens
whom Eric invaded with Korelia.
Anyhow, Kvenland and Kiriala-land
together may be taken to stretch over
the region between the Gulf of Fin-
land and the White Sea.

4 Burnt Njal's Saga, ch. xxviii.

34 THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION [Oh.

time the traders of Great Novgorod gathered peltries for the
Hanse markets, and where still later the Tsars of Muscovy
gained their first outlet to the sea, the Northmen (in the
age of our iEthelstan and Eadmund and iEthelred) seem to
have done a profitable business. Thus King Harald Grey-
cloak, or Greyskin (c. a.d. 970), sailed in the long days of
summer to the banks of the Dvina, and 'gat exceeding
wealth.' x A much more famous journey was that of Thorir
Hund, about 1020 ; this is one of the most dramatic in-
cidents of the Sagas ; and from its context we may gather
that these voyages round the North Cape of Europe are
typical of a much larger number, as to which we have
only bare allusions or no record at all.

The same, of course, is true of Norse exploits in other
fields like the Baltic, where Halfdan the White and the
Black followed Eolf Ganger's steps to Esthonia, and gained
a famous name among the chief pioneers in one of the
favourite scenes of Viking adventure.2

Harald Fairhair's successor, Hakon the Good, was in
England at the Court of iEthelstan, when the first great
King of Norway died (934). There was a struggle for the
crown between Hakon and his brother Eric, and the usual

1 Ch. xiv. of Saga of Harald Grey-
cloak; the same event has a song to
commemorate it : — ' The conqueror
of the boastful Reddened the fire-
brand east there, All northward of
the township, Where saw I ■Biarm
folk running; Good word the men's
appeaser Found on the side of Dvina.'

- In this region the voyage of
Wulfstan from Haddeby in Denmark
is specially interesting, as apparently
enterprised by an Englishman (c. a.d.
890) at a very low time of English
trade and marine. JElfred describes
this journey,in his Orosius,&s complet-

ing a sort of periplus from the White
Sea round to Esthonia. Ohthere's
first voyage to the Dvina is followed
by a second to Haddeby ; then comes
Wulfstan, who, in seven days, reaches
Truso, on or near the river Elbing,
and describes the Wendland coast,
the river Vistula, the Frisches Haff
and Esthonia, — where stood many-
towns, and in every town a king ;
where the rich drank kumiss and the
poor mead; where honey and fish
abounded, and where strange burial
customs were to be witnessed,

II.]

VIKINGS IN THE BALTIC

35

refuge was sought by the pretender when his schemes had
failed. Eric sailed west over sea to the Orkneys, and then
south to England and Scotland ; and there he harried ' all
about.' yEthelstan gave him Northumberland, ' the fifth
part of England,' to hold in fief ; and Eric had his seat
at York, where Ragnar Lodbrok's sons had formerly dwelt,
in a country mostly peopled by Northmen.

But when King Eadmund came to the throne of Wessex,
Eric was driven out, and had to take to piracy on the
British and Irish coasts.

Meantime, the earlier Viking descents on the Baltic
shore-lands brought after them, as usual, the Norse king's
fleet ; for now King Hakon sailed along Skaney,1 ' Selund,'
and Gautland, slaying Vikings, both Danes or Wends.2
Here, again, a casual mention of the Saga opens a long
chapter of history. These Wends, or Slavs, settled on
the south Baltic coast, for centuries waged an incessant
warfare with the Scandinavian kingdoms on the north-
west, sometimes in alliance with one of their enemies
against another. Many Viking rovers, such as the half-
legendary hero Palnatoki, planted themselves along the
Wendish or Pomeranian shore, and one of their nests at
Jomsborg became especially famous. The struggle of ages
between Scandinavians, Germans, Finns, and Slavs, for
the control of the southern and eastern Baltic, opens in
this remote period, and, passing through many changes,
does not reach its present settlement till the time of
Napoleon (1790-1815); — when the Swedes, representing
Scandinavian influence, were finally thrust *out; when
the Finns, who for six hundred years had been their

1 Scania (hence 'Scandinavia'), dur-
ing most of the middle ages a Danish
possession, in the extreme south

of the modern Swedish Kingdom.

2 Germanic name for Slavs ; Saga
of Hakon the Good, ch. viii,

36 THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION [Oh.

subjects, were transferred by the agreement of Tilsit
and the armed force of Alexander I. to a new allegiance ;
and when Prussia representing Germanic, and Eussia
representing Slavonic elements, divided the whole region
as it is to-day.

Apart from this Baltic voyage, Hakon the Good's reign
does not give much evidence of Norse expansion or inter-
course with the outer world ; and the same is true of the
time of Harald Greycloak. We hear only of forays in
Ireland and Britain ; of the voyage to Biarmaland above
mentioned ; and of a poem by a celebrated skald * on the
men of Iceland. But with the age of 01 af Tryggveson
the range of Norse interests and adventures is suddenly
widened, and we hear of exploits in all countries from
Novgorod to Iceland, and from Spain to the Dvina. From
its beginning the life of young Olaf was that of a wanderer.
His first recollections were of exile, when his mother had
fled through Sweden to the Baltic, where Vikings captured
and enslaved them both, and where Olaf was sold to a
man named Klerk ' for a right good he-goat.' But this time
of misery did not last long ; for an uncle of Olaf's was
then living in Ptussia, at the Court of St. Vladimir,2 and,
coming into Esthonia to collect the taxes for the Lord of
Novgorod, he was able to free his nephew in dramatic
fashion, and to take him back to Holmgarth, keeping
his kinship a secret. One clay, however, Olaf was stand-
ing in the gate of Novgorod, already one of the greatest
marts of the north, looking at the traders as they came and
went, and seeing an old enemy, he brained him with an axe
in the free and simple fashion of the Norsemen. The

1 Eyvind Skald-spiller. See the the Great (and Saint), Grand Prince

Sagas, of Hakon, ch. ix. ; of Harald of Kiev, 980-1015. Earlier than

Greycloak, chs. xiv. and xviii. this the Saga shows him reigning

• 'Valdimar,' otherwise Vladimir as ' king ' at Novgorod.

n.l

SCANDINAVIANS AND THE BALTIC

37

barbarous Russian customs of the time put illiberal re-
strictions on the blood-foud, and Olaf was charged with
murder. But his uncle took him to the 'queen,' and the
'king' made peace and fixed the blood-money. Then the
latter was told about Olaf's race and history, and at last
he took him into his service. 'Olaf was nine winters old '
when he came to Novgorod,1 and he stayed nine years
more with ' King' Vladimir (a.D. 972-981).

It is perhaps worth notice in this narrative, not only
how close is the connection 2 between the Scandinavian and
Baltic Lands on one side, and the Russian Principalities on
the other, but also how Novgorod — ' Lord Novgorod the
Great,' on the Volkhov — is now, at the close of the tenth
century, the principal centre of power and trade and

1 'Garth-realm.'

- On this connection, besides the
references in the HeimsJcringla, we
may compare Laxdale Saga, ch. xii.,
where Gilli the Russian, apparently
a Scandinavian trading on tire East
Baltic coasts, sells the Icelandic
Viking and traveller Hosknld, a girl
slave, Melkorka, a daughter of
Myrkiartan the Irish King. Gilli
is noticed as weaiing a Russian hat.
Perhaps the Greek hat which Thorkel,
brother of Gisli, was wearing when
slain was likewise Russian : Gisli
the Outlaw's Saga, ch. xv. Also
cf. Saga of Burnt Njal, ch. xxx.,
where Gunnar. of Lithend harries in
Esthonia, near Revel, and in the isle
of Osel, off the Esthonian coast ; ch.
xxxi. of same, where among Gunnar's
presents to the King of Denmark
a Russian hat is recorded ; ch. lxxx.
of same, where Kolskegg the Ice-
lander, baptized in Denmark, fares
east to Russia (Garth-realm) and
stays there one winter on his way

to Constantinople ; ch. cxviii. of
same, where the half-fabulous ex-
ploits of Thorkell Foulmouth on
the east Baltic coasts are recounted,
e.g. the slaying of a wild man of the
woods (a half-human monster) as
well as of a tire-dragon in Adalsyssla,
etc.

Again • in EgiVs Saga, ch. xlvi.,
Egil Skallagrimson harries in Cour-
land : and in Eyrbyggia Saga, ch.
xxix., Biom, afterwards the Cham-
pion of the Broadvikings, banished
from Iceland for manslaughter, takes
service with Palnatoki, captain of
the Jomsborg Vikings, and makes
himself a great name in Baltic war-
fare. Once more in the Heath-
Slayings Saga, ch. xli., Bardi the
Icelander goes to Russia, and be-
comes one of the Russian Prince's
Yaerings or Scandinavian guard,
and wards the Prince's realm, but
is killed at last in a naval battle,
apparently while still in the Russian
service.

38 THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION [Ch.

national intercourse among those Kussian principalities in
their relation to the Baltic. We shall see that it keeps
this position all through the period of these Sagas ; long
after their records cease Old Novgorod is still one of the
greatest cities, and especially one of the greatest markets, in
Northern Europe. Its traders spread over all that we now
call the North of Eussia, to the coast of Lapland, the North
Sea, the Dvina, and the Petchora ; some of them appear to
have reached and crossed the Ural Eange, and carried their
wares into the lower valley of the Ob, a country often
known as Yugria. This far-reaching commerce must not
be too hastily construed as a political dominion ; such
an idea would probably be false, if applied to the
lands east and north of Lake Onega ; but, in the absence
of any other organised power throughout these vast dis-
tricts, this mercantile ascendency prepared the way for
the political sovereignty of Moscow. At the end of the
ninth century, or the beginning of the tenth, the men of
Novgorod had already penetrated into the basin of the
Northern Dvina ; x from about the year 1000 they begin
their visits to the more distant Petchora ; and in the course
of the next few years they make repeated attempts to cross
the dividing ridge into the land of ' Yugria ' and the valley
of the Ob. In 1032 they were repulsed by the natives in
trying to cross a certain pass in the Urals, called the Iron
Gates ; between 1096 and 1187 the trade dominion of the

1 See Charles Rahot, A travers
la Russie boreale, 1894, pp. 160-
170; Tchulkoff, Gcschichte des rus-
sichen Kommerzes ; and S. Somniier,
Sirieni, Ostiacchi, e Samoiedi deWOb,
1887; also Engelhardt, Russian Pro-
vince of the North, E. trans. 1899 ;
chs. ii., v.; pp. 42, 54, 55, 107-8;

Hakluyt Society, vol. i., p. 23.
Kholmogori, the chief Slav settlement
in the neighhourhood of the White
Sea, before the foundation of Arch-
angel in 1584, is mentioned by the
Grand Duke Ivan Ivanovitch (Ivan
II. of Moscow) in a letter to the
Posadnik (Governor) of the Dvina in

and Ear?ij Voyages to Russia, etc.. | 1355 or 1356.

ii.] Novgorod's trade and exploration 39

Novgorod republic claimed to have reached a linn establish-
ment both in the Petchora country and in Yugria ; but its
tenure was really of a more uncertain kind. It was utterly
extinguished between 1187 and 12G4; the attempts of the
Hanse merchants to recover their position in 1193 was
futile ; but in the later thirteenth century we find them again
enjoying their older access to these regions, their older
so-called tribute from the same. This mercantile ascend-
ency, intermittent as it probably was, appears beyond
dispute to have opened the way by which Ivan III. of
Moscow, on his concpviest of Novgorod, advanced to the
Arctic Ocean (1471-1478).

Novgorod merchants also penetrated to the Murman, or
north, coast of Lapland, at least as early as the opening of
the thirteenth century ; even in the eleventh and twelfth
it has been claimed that their settlements were to be found
on the banks of the Dvina, Onega, and Mezen, and by the
shores of the Northern Ocean. Hordes of freebooters from
the great city plundered and subjected the Finnish tribes of
Biarmaland, and the modern Pomors of Eussian Lapland are
descendants of these adventurers, or loshJcuiniM. In the
eleventh century the men of Novgorod are allied with
the Korelians, to the South-west of the White Sea, against
the Finnish Emi ; Kola is mentioned in 1264 by the
Eussian Chronicles ; and in 1323 Prince Yuri Danilovitch
of Novgorod concluded a treaty with Magnus, King of the
Swedes, by which Sweden engaged to respect the trade-
ascendency of Novgorod in Lapland, east of the Araranger
Fiord. Even in the eleventh century 1 Yaroslav the Wise
and St. Olaf of Norway concluded an arrangement about
these same countries, leaving to the Novgorod sphere of trade-
infiuence all the lands east of Lyngen Fiord.

1 According to Eric Berner (Works, Stockholm, 1740).

40 THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION [Oh.

On another side Novgorod faced Western Europe. Along
with Bruges and London it was from the thirteenth century
the greatest Mart of the Hansa, or Hanseatic League, in extra-
German lands. When other Russian or semi-Eussian
peoples and states were submerged by the Tartars, Novgorod
alone escaped. As time went on, it became more and more
German and Hanseatic ; until at last Eussians were laid under
heavy disabilities and treated as a subject race within its
territories ; and Novgorod became, instead of a centre of
Eussian life and trade, instead of an outlet to the Baltic,
the firmest barrier between that Slavonic trade and the
outer world. Thus from the Skra or code of the Hanseatic
settlement, Court of the Germans, or Court of St. Peter, at
Great Novgorod, we see that German trading settlements
were fixed there as early as the eleventh century ; but the
German ascendency dates from the privileges granted in
1269. The Hanseatic merchants enjoyed numerous ad-
vantages ; for example, if a native Eussian were bankrupt
German creditors must be paid first ; further, they had the
right of banishing such a bankrupt from the city with his
family. As tax, the Hanse merchants at first paid a piece
of cloth and a pair of gloves for their monopoly of the whole
trade of Livonia, afterwards nothing. No foreigner, except a
Hanseatic, might learn Eussian, and so endanger their
monopoly ; the whole province 1 was held responsible for
the crime of such an interloper. Finally, no Eussian,
under a penalty of 100 marks, was to be suffered to live
in Livonia ; Eussians were strictly forbidden to trade on the
sea, and punished with fine, imprisonment, and confisca-
tion of goods, for attempting to do so. This policy proved
the ruin of Novgorod; it became the ambition of the rising
power of Moscow to break through this barrier, to crush

1 Of Livonia.

II.]

NOVGOROD IN MEDIAEVAL COMMERCE

41

the power of that Republic which, once Russian, had become
the resolute enemy of Russia ; and the internal anarchy of
the great city destroyed the last hope of effective resistance.
In 1478 Tsar Ivan III. took it; a century later Ivan IV.
destroyed it utterly, carried away most of its people, and
removed its treasures, above all, its great bell that once had
called the citizens to public meeting or to riot ; at this day
it probably contains scarce a tenth of the numbers that
crowded its streets in the fifteenth century.1 The ruthless-
ness of the destruction proves the depth of the hatred it had
roused ; it had become in Russian eyes a traitor city, which
now strangled the commerce of its brethren, forbade them
to expand, to reach the sea, to navigate, or to learn of other
nations; cldenda est Carthago.

But in the time of Olaf Tryggveson and of St.
Vladimir, Novgorod was still Slav, still Russian 2 ; its trans-
formation into an anti-Slav out-post of Germany was yet to
come; nor was it accomplished till the end of the period
covered by this volume.

In about 995 young Olaf left Novgorod and sought his
fortune on the sea, a fortune that might bring him at last
to his own kingdom again. Vladimir had shown him all
honour ; he was made a Captain in the standing army of
defence ; with his own private wealth he formed a powerful
war-band ; but after a time the king grew jealous, and Olaf
took to the life of a Viking rover.

First he put out into the Baltic, the ' East Salt Sea,'

1 Without adopting the exagger-
ated figures of some chroniclers {e.g.
400,000), yet it seems probable that
Novgorod, in the time of its greatest
prosperity as a Hanseatic centre,
must have contained nearly a quarter
of a million of people ; in 1S97 it

had 20.000. Moscow, Riga, Revel,
Libau, ail profited by the depression
of Old Novgorod ;»but above all the
foundation and prosperity of St.
Petersburg fatally diverted the course
of trade.

'J Or rather Eusso-Scandinavian.

/

42 THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION [Ch.

and, sailing south, came to Wendland, where he married the
king's daughter and became ' ruler of that realm with her.' *
When the Emperor Otto II. attacked Denmark to make it
' take christening and the right troth,' Burislav, King of
the Wends, followed him with Olaf Tryggveson, who had
just come back from a Viking voyage to Gothland and
Sweden.2 Olaf stayed in Wendland three years ; then his
wife died, and he started again on his wanderings.3

From the Baltic he sailed to Friesland and Flanders, to
England and Scotland and Ireland. He raided in the
Hebrides and in Man, and thence made his way to the
Scilly Isles, Brittany, and the north-west of France.4 Four
years passed in these cruises, during which Olaf was
christened,5 and married again. His second wife was the
sister of the King of Dublin, Olaf Kuaran, of partly Norse,
partly Irish family ; and this marriage brought Tryggveson
again to Ireland. At this point happened the great change
in his life. From the career of a Viking, a pirate chief, the
possible founder of a new Norse kingdom in the west, he
was suddenly recalled to his old home, to that scene of
tierce dynastic and domestic strife which he had left while
an infant of a few days old.

After the fall of Harald Greycloak Norway had become
a sub-kingdom of Denmark, and was ruled by Earl Hakon
the Wise, one of the most capable and subtle statesmen that

1 Probably an exaggeration of the 4 ' Valland ' in which Normandy
Saga. King Burislav, Olaf s father- ; was often included.

indaw, evidently reigned down to 5 Before this he had called himself

the time of Olaf Tryggveson's de- Oli the Garthman (Novgorodian),but

parture from "Wendland. See chs. , in Scilly a hermit told him he should

xxi., xxii., xxix. of Olaf Tryggveson's ' be a glorious king, 'and many other

Saga. » : great works of Almighty God did he

2 Ch. xxv. and xxvi. of Olaf Trygg- , reveal' ; on which Olaf 'would fain
veson's Saga be christened, and so was he with

3 Ch. xxx. to xxxv. of Olaf Trygg- \ all his men': ch. xxxii. of Olaf
veson's Saga. \ Tryggveson's Saga.

1 ' And now so great,' says Snorri,
ch. lvi. of Olaf Tryggvcson's Saga,
'was tlie enmity against Hakon that
none durst name him other than
"The Evil Earl" for long after.

dealt ; for his high heart in battle
and his good hap withal. As says
Thorleif Redfellson : — Of no Earl
ever heard we 'Neath the Moon's
highway, Hakon, More famed than

Yet for many things was he worthy thou.' But to Snorri his ruin was

to be lord ; for the great stock he ; the decree of fate, the doom of his

came of; for the wisdom and insight, j obstinate paganism, and his unbridled

yea, and the bounty wherewith he license.

II.] EARLY VOYAGES OF OLAF TRYGOYESON 43

men had seen in the north. This Hakon had long sought
far and wide for young Tryggveson, and at last he heard
news of him in Ireland. So he sent out his friend Thorir
Klakka, who had ' gained a good knowledge of countries '
by piracy and by trade, and ordered him, under pretext of
a merchant voyage to Dublin, to find Olaf, and entrap him.
So Thorir came west from Norway to Ireland — a
common voyage enough in those days — and soon he fell in
with Tryggveson, who asked him many questions about
Norway and Earl Hakon. And Thorir said the earl was
indeed mighty, but all the people would rather have a king
of the blood of Harald Fairhair. Olaf caught at the
treacherous suggestion with the eagerness of an exile, and
set sail at once with live ships, taking Thorir in his
company. Passing through the Hebrides and Orkneys, he
soon arrived in Norway, and hurried northward, night and
day, so as to come unawares upon Earl Hakon, who was
well informed of every movement of his foe. The earl
would now have been sure of his prey but for one thing.
Since he sent Thorir Klakka to the west, the great men of
Norway had risen up in revolt; and now his own craft hod
supplied the malcontents with a formidable leader. The
whole country rallied round the young prince ; Hakon was
forced to fly ; and the usurper was soon after murdered by a
serf, who brought his head to Olaf, and lost his own head
for his pains.1

44

THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION

[Ch.

In the time of Hakon's rule we have a curious reference
to Pagan Iceland, its Norse settlers and their trade. 'It
had been made a law in Iceland that for every nose in the
land a scurvy rhyme should be made on the Dane King '
(Harald Gormson). For an Iceland ship had been cast away
in Denmark, and the Danes had plundered it as lawful
wreckage. To this a wild story is added of Harald's magic
against the Icelanders. He sent out a wizard who could
change his shape at will, and would have done infinite
mischief, but that he was baffled by the spirits of the land —
so, at least, the Iceland Sagas proudly recorded of their be-
loved country, where the fells and the hills were all full
of guardian monsters, and where mighty dragons and eagles,
bulls and giants, watched over the shore that no enemy
might enter.1

This was one repulse for Denmark ; it was a more serious
matter when the Jomsborg Vikings from Wendland2 and
Sweden, under King Svein, the son of Harald Gormson,
failed to drive Hakon out of Norway 3 as they had sworn
to do, and thus, breaking with their old ally, left him
unaided before Olaf Tryggveson, whose victory was for
Denmark the loss of a dependency.

From this time we hear less of any dealings with the
outer world, till, in referring to the conversion of Iceland,
the Saga gives us the famous narratives of the Vinland,
Markland, and other north-western voyages. We may notice

1 Chs. xxxvi. and xxxvii. of Olaf I their go-between in a peace with the

Tryggveson' s Saga.

2 Wendland may be roughly taken
as equal to the. modern Pomerania.

3 The Jomsborg Vikings had
already helped Svein against the
father Harald. Afterwards they had
kidnapped him, and forced him to be

Wends. This peace was connected
with marriage alliances between the
families of King Burislav and King
Svein. Cnut the Great was a son of
this Svein and his Wendish wife, and
thus partly Slav. See chs. xxxviii. -
xlvii. of Olaf Tryggveson a Saga.

II.]

INTERCOURSE OF ICELAND AND NORWAY

45

the eventful Baltic voyage of the merchant Lodin 1 which
brought about the freeing of King Olaf's mother from slavery ;
the journey of Dangbrandt 2 or Thangbrand, the ' Saxon '
priest, to Iceland, to preach the Christian Faith with the
help of some timely violence ; the meeting of the King with
the hero Kiartan and other men from Iceland ; and the
visit of Leif the Greenlander, son of Ked Eric, to Norway;3
but the chief interest of the poet-chronicler is fastened upon
the conversion of Norway. It is no business of ours here
to follow Olaf Tryggveson along that track of blood and
fire,4 by which he brought his subjects to enter the church ;
along the incidents of his contests with the warlocks, or
with ghosts, ' quickened in men's bodies by cunning of the
Finns ' ; 5 or along the intricacies of the political struggle
which at last crushed the King of Norway before the
League of Danes, Swedes, Wends, and Norse rebels. But
the Saga's references to Icelandic affairs, scanty as they are,
begin to assume more importance, and are especially in-
teresting as a preface to the record of that triumphant
advance of Norse discovery, which for a time linked Ice-
land with America.

1 Oh. lviii. of Olaf Tryggveson's
Saga. The reality of this voyage is
disputed by some.

2 Oh. lxxx. of Olaf Tryggveson's
Saga; chs. xcvii., xcviii. of Burnt
Xjal's Saga; and eh. xli. of the
Laxdale Saga, which rails him a
'Court Priest '

3 It was on his return from this
visit that Leif found Vinland, accord-
ing to Red Eric's Saga.

4 See oh. lxxxiii., lxxxvii., xeii. of
Olaf Tryggveson's Saga : ' the grim-
mest of all men was he in his wrath,
and marvellous pains laid he on his
foes. Some he burnt in the fire, some

he let wild hounds tear, some he gave
to serpents, some he stoned, some lie
cast from high rocks.' Yet Olaf was
also the 'gladdest and gamesomest
of men, kind and lowly, exceeding
eager, bountiful and glorious of attire,
and before all men for heart in battle,'
cli. xcii. of Olaf Tryggveson's Saga.
On the King's intercourse with the
Icelanders in Norway, and especially
with Kiartan, and the famous swim-
ming contest of these two strong
men in the Nid, cf. the Laxdale
Saga, chs. 40, 41, 42, 43, 46.

5 Ch. lxxxiii. and lxxx v. of Olaf
Tryggveson's Saga.

46 THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION [Ch.

The German Thangbrand1 was hardly the right man to
deal with independent folk like the Icelanders. He may
have been a good clerk, and a doughty man, but he was
headstrong and quarrelsome, and the effect of his preaching
was impaired by his frequent duels. Thus two skalds of
the Island paid with their lives for some scurrilous verses ;
and after three years the unlucky missionary came back to
King Olaf, saying that his task was hopeless. But already
the Icelanders who were in Norway had mostly ' taken
christening ' at the King's wish,2 and with the baptism of
Leif Ericson3 the conversion of Greenland was also begun.

Thus Olaf's reckless proselytism triumphed at last in the
north-west,4 but in the home kingdoms it seemed to rouse up
foes on every side. Among the rest, Queen Sigrid of Sweden,
a valuable ally to Norway, though infamous for her murder
of King 'Vissavald' of Novgorod, and others who had trusted
to her hospitality, was mortally affronted by Olaf over this
very matter ; 5 and her marriage with Svein Forkbeard of
Denmark added to the growing embarrassments of the new
King of Norway. Olaf's marriage with Thyri, the fugitive
wife of the Wend King Burislav, and the bitter enemy of
her brother King Svein, was a crowning stroke of im-
prudence. Moreover, he was not yet rid of all danger
from the race and friends of Earl Hakon, and the Saga
has some details of interest about the wanderings of Eric

1 Ch. lxxx., xci. of same.

2 Ch. lxxxviii., lxxxix., xc, xci. of
same.

3 Ch. xciii. of same. Apparently
a.d. 999. In ch. xciv. ' this summer,'
is defined as 'when Olaf had ruled
over Norway four winters.'

4 Ch. ciii. and civ. of same. Leifs
old pagan father was fond of sajdng
that all his son's good fortune in his
Yinland voyage was hardly a set off

to the bad luck he had brought on
the land with his jugglers and their
jugglery ; ch. civ.

5 Ch. xlviii. of same. The King's
refusal to marry this ' faded heathen
bitch,' and his blow in the face with
a glove, after the formal betrothal
had taken place, was accepted, as it
was clearly meant, for an open act of
political defiance.

II.] LAST YEARS OF OLAF TRYGGVESON 47

Hakonson, the leader of this party, who now joined the
alliance against Tryggveson. Eric had made friends with
the King of the Swedes, another Olaf, always ready to aid
those who threatened his western rival ; but at first, though
' much folk resorted from Norway to Earl Eric,' the time
had not come for a decisive struggle. So he went on a
Viking cruise to Gothland,1 waylaying ships of traders or
of other Vikings ; and he harried wide along the borders of
the sea. He sailed also south to Wendland, and to the
East Baltic coast, and raided the country of King Valdimir,
where he stormed the town of Aldeigia, on Lake Ladoga.

At last the storm broke. In the year of Christ 1000
Olaf Tryggveson,2 returning from a Wendland voyage, was
attacked off Svold, by his enemies, in overwhelming numbers,
and perished in the struggle. The words of his careless
scorn were long remembered. ' We fear not the Danes ; in
those blenchers there is no heart ; and, for the Swedes,
better were they at home licking their blood bowls, than
coming here under our weapons.' In his great ship, the
Long Serpent, he grappled with Eric Hakonson,3 and the
fight was long ; but the forces of the League were over-
powering. Even the great archer, Einar Thambarskelvir,
could not save the day. A Finn bowman of Earl Eric's
split Einar's bow asunder with an arrow, and at that loud
sound, the Saga would have us think, men stopped their
fighting for a moment, as in reverence for an omen of the
approaching end. ' Then spake King Olaf, " What brake
there so loud ? Norway, King, from thy hands," said
Einar.'

The rebel Norsemen now threw heavy beams on to the
bulwarks of the Long Serjyent, so as to heel it over, and

1 The Island. :i After beating off the Swedes and

- Ohs. evi.-cxx, of same. I Danes,

48 THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION [Ch.

give their weapons play ; then at last they cleared the deck
with repeated boarding rushes ; and Olaf leapt into the
water, throwing up his shield over him, and disappeared.

The Saga of Olaf Tryggveson inserts in the body of its
narrative,1 shortly before the fatal venture of the hero in
the Baltic, a record of the Xorse voyages in the far north-
west. These voyages have naturally become the most
famous, as they are the most brilliant and suggestive of
Scandinavian explorations ; and as their chief events refer
to the last years of this reign, it will be best, perhaps, to
take them in this place. Various criticisms have been
made upon portions of the narrative, and it seems probable
that in the long accepted text of these chapters ' on
Vinland Faring ' we have at least some interpolations, and
even more displacements of time-order and of the proper
sequence of events. In all examination or criticism of the
Vinland tradition, we have to distinguish between the two
forms in which this tradition has come down.2 The first,
earlier, and shorter form, is in the so-called Saga of Brie
the Reel (and of Thorfinn Karlsefne) ; the second, later,
and more elaborate text, is that of the Flatey Booh, which
has been adopted in certain manuscripts of the Heims-
kringla, and is the narrative most commonly known.

The Saga of Eric the Red survives in two manuscripts,
the older of about a.d. 1334, the later of about 1400. The
former is commonly known as the Boole of Hauk (i.e. of a
man who claimed descent from Thorfinn Karlsefne). In
its original form, the narrative was probably compiled
about a.d. 1300, and the surviving texts are transcripts

1 After ch. civ. of Olaf Tryggveson's
Saga, on the ' Christening of Green-
land.'

2 Cf. Storm, Studies on the Vinland

Voyages, especially pp. 319-325 ;
Reeves, JVineland the Good, especi-
ally pp. 19-52, 181-5, 79-83.

II.] THE VINLAND VOYAGES : RIVAL TEXTS 49

of one which the scribes do not seem to have always
understood. Those who have praised the Vinland narrative
in this form as always preferable to that of the Matey Book,
conveniently forget certain absurdities and contradictions
which are sometimes as troublesome as in the despised
version represented by the Heimshringla. But whatever
its difficulties, the Red Eric Saga has at least, like the
old Lord Lafeu, the ' privilege of antiquity upon it ' ; and
in many parts, if not in all, it represents a tradition of
considerable weight. On the whole it must be considered
as of superior authority where its record clashes with
Matey; but the case is different where the latter gives
us matter not represented at all in Bed Eric. We cannot
treat the omissions of the earlier manuscript as decisive
against details recorded in the later ; arguments from
silence are always dangerous, and doubly so in mediaeval
enquiries ; and the agreements between the rival texts
are sufficiently numerous to warrant the belief that the
once-received text of Matey in the main presents a trust-
worthy record. First of all, then, let us follow the story of
the fuller though later chronicle.

In the beginning we hear of the voyage of Biarne, the
son of Heriulf. From his earliest youth he desired to go
abroad — that is from Drepstok in Iceland, where his home
was. At last, one year, when Biarne possessed a merchant-
ship of his own, Heriulf went to Greenland with Eed Eric1

1 On this voyage Heriulf was
accompanied by a ' Christian man,
from the South isles ' (Hebrides), who
composed the Sea-rollers Song, evi-
dently in the stress of terrible
weather ; one stave is quoted in
Matey : ' Faultless searcher of monks'

o'er mc ' (i.e. guard me with thy
hand). Just before this Flatey
describes Leif's journey to Norway,
and his conversion by Olaf Trygg-
veson, ' sixteen winters after Erie
the Red went to colonise Greenland,'
which was ' fifteen winters before

hearts, He who Heaven's halls doth | Christianity was made law in Ice-
rule, Hold the hawk's seat ever I land.'

50

THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION

[Ch.

and settled at Heriulfsness, while Eric planted himself at
Brattahlid.1 Both settlements were in the extreme south-
west of Greenland, near Cape Farewell ; while hard by, at
Gardar, where afterwards the Bishops of Greenland had their
seat, lived Eric's daughter Freydis with her husband Thorvard.
Now, after a time, Biarne determined to go and spend
the winter with his father, though neither he nor his men
had ever been in the Greenland Sea before. He set out
accordingly, and sailed for three days. Then a north wind
with fog set in, and this lasted a great while. At the end
they saw the sun once more, and could distinguish the
quarters of the heaven ; and again they sailed on for a
day and a night,2 and came in sight of land. But Biarne
thought this could not be Greenland. They sailed close
up to it and saw that the country was level, without moun-
tains, and covered with wood, and that there were small
hillocks inland. Then they left this land on the larboard
side and sailed two days and nights, till again they sighted
firm ground. But Biarne thought this was no more Green-
land than what they had seen before. For this was flat
and covered with trees, and in Greenland there were great
ice-mountains. The ship's people would have landed
here, but Biarne forbade it. They put to sea again with
a south-west breeze and sailed for three clays and nights.
Then they saw a high mountainous land with ice-mountains,
which was clearly an island, so Biarne would not land
here either. Once more they stood out to sea with the
same breeze, and after three clays they came to Heriulfsness
in Greenland.3

1 A.i). 984 or 986, according to
tradition.

2 Lit. a doegr, which in the Sagas
always means a period of twenty-
i'onr hours, as Dr. Gustav Storm

demonstrates.

3 This is reckoned to have been
in the year of Christ 986, in the
vulgar chronology, which is very un-
certain.

II.] VOYAGES OF BIARNE AND LEIF 51

The next section introduces Leif Ericson. After some
time l Biarne came over from Greenland to Norway on a
visit to Earl Eric, and told men about his journey. ' But
folk thought he had not been eager to get knowledge,' as
he could not give any account of the new lands he had
visited. Soon he went (in the next summer) back to
Greenland, having set all to talk about the discovery
of unknown countries, One Norseman especially — and he
a Greenlander — was anxious to do more than talk. Leif
of Brattahlid, a son of Bed Eric, a large and powerful
man and of most imposing presence, went over to Biarne and
bought his ship. The loyal son urged his father to come
in command, ' for with him they were most likely to have
good luck ' ; but, when they were close to the ship Eric's
horse stumbled, and the old heathen drew back. ' 'Tis not
fated,' said he, ' that I should discover more lands than
this one of Greenland.' So Leif went without him. Yet
he had in the ship among his thirty-five companions, at
least one trusty counsellor, his foster-father from the South
Land,2 named Tyrker. They came first to the country which
Biarne had seen last of all, and here they went on shore.
There was no grass to be seen, but huge snowy mountains
in the upland, and from the sea to those mountains the
land was all like a table of flat rock, and it seemed to them
a region of no profit. But they went on shore all the same,
and Leif said : ' It has not been with us as with Biarne,
that we have gone not upon the land ; I will give it a
name, and the name shall be Helluland'3 (Slab-land).
Then they put to sea and found another land, and there
also they went on shore. Now this was flat and over-

1 The interval is left absolutely j some have conjectured for this visit,
uncertain in Flatcy, and there is no | 2 Germany,
authority for the year 994, which | 3 From ' hellu,' a flat stone.

52 THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION [Ch.

grown with wood, low-lying towards the sea, and the beach
had broad stretches of white sand. And Leif said : ' We
will give this a name according to its kind, and call it
Markland' (Woodland). Again they put to sea with an
on-shore wind from the north-east, and after two days and
nights they came to land once more. But first they went
on to an island which lay on the north side of this land,
and looked about them, for the weather was good. There
was dew upon the grass, and they thought they had never
tasted anything so sweet as this. Afterwards they sailed
into a sound or strait which lay between this island and a
ness that jutted out from the land on the north. Here
was shallow water at ebb-tide, and the Norsemen ran
their ship on land, but were not able at once to bring it
right into port. They were too eager to wait for it
to float again, so they rushed to the shore and came to
a place where a river flowed out of a lake. And as soon
as the vessel floated, they towed her up the stream into the
lake, and there they cast anchor, carrying their beds out of
the ship, and building themselves booths there. Then they
put all things in order for wintering, and built a large house ;
for the land seemed to them very good. They did not want
for fish food ; there were salmon both in the river and in
the lake, larger than they had ever seen. There was no
frost in winter, and the grass was not much withered, so
that no winter fodder, they thought, would be needed for
cattle- Day and night here were more equal 1 than in
Iceland or Greenland.

1 ' For on the shortest day the sun had fresh calculations made by two
was in the sky between Eyktarstad ] eminent astronomers, this implies a

and Dagmalstad,' lit. 'had Eyktar-
stad and Dagmalstad on the short
day.' According to Vigfusson (Dic-
tionary, under the word Eykt), who

day of seven hours ; according to
Hildebrand, of six hours; and accord-
ing to the editors of the Antiquitatcs
Americanac, a day of nine hours is

II.]

LEIF ERICSON IN VINLAND

53

When they had finished their house-building, Leif said
to his men : ' I will divide the crew in two parts', and so
explore this country. Half shall stay here and do the
work, while half shall search the land ; but these last shall
come back at night and not wander from each other.'
And this they did for some time. Leif himself, like his
men, took turns in staying at home and exploring the
country. One day there was a great discovery. Tyrker
did not return at night,1 and Leif started with twelve men
to find him ; but they had gone only a little way when
Tyrker met them. He was very merry, and in the
gladness of his heart he could only speak at first in
German, smiling and rolling his eyes, but no one could
understand him. After a while, growing calmer, he said
in Norse : ' Something new have I found — vines and
grapes ; believe me, it is true, for I was born where
there is no lack of vines and grapes.' And Leif said :
'Now we have to divide our work, day and day about.
We must gather grapes on the one, and on the other
we must cut vines and fell wood to load our ship.' So
a cargo of wood was hewn, and the stern boat was filled
with the grapes that they had cut [and of the trees of
that Vineland they took samples, and of the self-sown
wheat of its fields, and of its maple wood 2], and in the

meant. The last reckoning is en-
dorsed by Laing and Anderson,
Heimskringla, Preliminary Disserta-
tion, and by the mnch higher autho-
rity of Dr. Gustav Storm, Studies on
Finland Voyages, pp. 307-12, and
of Reeves, Wineland the Good, pp.
181-5.

1 Dr. Storm doubts the whole of
the Tyrker story, and considers it
an interpolation, like the narrative
of Biarne ; but the former he regards

as much more damaging to the credi-
bility of the Flatey narrative. On
the other hand, Tyrker is described
in a vivid way that does not wholly
suit this view. He had a prominent
forehead, restless eyes and small
features, was diminutive in stature,
and though nothing much to look
at, had great skill at handicraft.

2 ' Mosur.' These words are treated
as an interpolation by Reeves, Wine-
land the Good, p. 67.

54

THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION

[Ch.

spring they sailed away, and Leif called that country
Vinland [the Good, from the produce of its grapes]. With
a fair wind they came to Greenland,1 and its fells below
the glaciers ; and thereafter was Leif called the Lucky,
and gat much wealth and fame, and much talk was there
of that Vinland journey of his.

The third voyage was that of Leif's brother Thorvald.
When all other men praised the deeds that had been
lately done, he declared that it was not enough, and that
the new country should be more narrowly explored ; and
for that end he asked his brother to lend him his ship.
Leif granted it forthwith, and Thorvald put to sea with
thirty men. Nothing is told of their journey until they
came to ' Leif's Booths ' in Vinland, where they remained
all the winter. In the spring Thorvald ordered some of his
men to go westward in the ship's long-boat and explore
the coast. They did so, and found the land beautiful and
well-wooded, with but a small distance between the sea
and the woodland, great numbers of islands and shallows, and
a beach of white sand. They saw no sign of dwelling for
man or beast, save a wooden corn-barn upon an island
far toward the west, and in the autumn they returned
to Leif's Booths, where Thorvald passed another winter.
The next spring (or summer) he went out himself, first
eastward and then northward, to examine the land,
apparently with part only of his crew. After a time the
Norsemen came to a ness or cape,2 where a storm drove
them upon land and broke their keel, and they stayed a

1 On the way home he resciied
fifteen Norsemen including one Thorir,
and Gudrid his wife. This Gudrid
afterwards married Thorstein Ericson
and the explorer Thorfinn Karlsefne ;
hence the notice of this incident,

which helps to link on the achieve-
ments of Karlsefne to the family
story of Red Eric's house.

2 ' Kjalarness,' often taken to mean
Cape Cod, is perhaps better under-
stood as a point in Nova Scotia.

II] THORVALD ERICSON IN VINLAND 55

long while to repair the damage. And when they left,
they raised the keel upon the ness and named the place
KeeKNess [and so it was called by others after them].
Then they sailed along the land eastward and into the
mouth of the adjoining firth, till at last they sighted a
beautiful headland, covered with wood, where Thorvald
moored the vessel and laid out gangways to the beach, and
went on shore, saying : ' I would gladly set up my farm
here.'

But now they came upon the first traces of other men.
Far off, upon the white sandy beach, three distant specks
were sighted ; and these proved to be three skin boats of
the natives,1 with three men hiding under each. All these
people, save one, were taken and killed ; but he escaped
with his boat to a place within the fiord, where there seemed
to be several dwellings 'like little lumps on the ground.'
A heavy drowsiness now fell upon the iSTorsemen, and they
neglected to keep any watch, till a sudden cry aroused
them, 'Awake, Thorvald, awake, thou and all thy comrades,
if thou wilt save thy life.' And at the same moment came
a countless host from up the fiord- in skin-boats, and laid
themselves alongside. The Vikings put up their shield-wall
along the gunwale, and kept off the arrows of the Skraelings
till the foe was weary of the assault, and made away as
fast as they could, leaving Thorvald with a mortal wound
under the arm. He had but time to bid his men carry him
to the point where he had wished to settle — for it was fated
that he would stay there awhile, but with a cross at head
and feet — when his speech failed and he died, the first
victim of these hazardous western voyages. With his last
breath Thorvald warned his men to retrace their steps and
rejoin their companions: but they stayed in that country
1 Elsewhere called Skraelings,

56 THE NORSEMEN" AND EXPLORATION [Oh.

another winter, gathering wood and grapes, and loading their
ship ; next spring the united company returned to Eric's
Fiord in Greenland, bringing heavy tidings to Leif.

Another fruitless venture followed. Thorstein Ericson 1
had married Gudrid, the widow of Thorir the Easterlin",
whom Leif his brother had rescued from a rock in the
ocean. The misfortune of another brother made him take
a keener interest in the new discoveries ; and he now
bethought him that he would go to Vinland for Thorvald's
body. He equipped Leif's vessel, and with his wife and
twenty-five men he put to sea. But the whole summer
he drove about in the ocean without finding land, or know-
ing where he was ; and in the first week 2 of winter he
came back without result to Lysu Fiord in the ' Western
Bay ' of Greenland.

Then follows in the Saga a long and highly fabulous
story of Thorstein's death and the prophecies of his
corpse. The practical issue of all this was to be found
in the third marriage of Gudrid to an 'Iceland man,' as
foretold3 by the ghost — in other words, to the famous
Thorfinn Karlsefne, whose journey is next described.

He came in a ship4 from Norway to Greenland in the
year of Thorstein's death ; and stayed with Leif at
Brattahlid, the home of Bed Eric's clan. In the same
winter he married Gudrid, ' being a man of great wealth.'
At this time, as before, much was said about a A'inland
voyage; and both Gudrid and others urged Thorfinn to

1 At that time, adds Flatey [i.e. I :; The ghost also foretells that
when Tliorvald was buried at ' Cross- | Gudrid will in later days ' go

abroad and to the south,' i.e.
(probably) make a pilgrimage to
Rome.

4 No hint is given in Flatey of
more than one ship in this expe-
dition.

ness'], Christianity had become law
in Greenland, but Red Eric had
already died.

2 The Icelanders reckoned winter
from the first Saturday after the 14th
of October,

■II.] THORSTEIN ERIGSON AND THORFINN KARLSEFNE 57

undertake the same. Bat he determined, if he went at
all, to do more than reconnoitre and return. If possible,
he was resolved to settle and colonise, if not to conquer.
With these larger ambitions, an ampler force and greater
resources were necessary. So he took with him [in his
own ship] sixty men, five women, and cattle of all kinds ;
with his followers he made agreement that he and they
should .have equal shares in any gain that might be won ;
Leif once more lent his Booths in Vinland ; and Thorhnn
sailed out to the West, Probably he had with him men
who had already been on the voyage, for he escaped
Thorstein's ill-luck, and came direct to the Vine Country
with all his men and goods. The new settlers were
cheered to find that a storm had lately driven a whale
on shore at Leif's Booths, and thus provided them with
abundant food. They were soon busy gathering the grapes
of the favoured land, and they felled wood diligently for
shipping.1

The first winter passed quietly enough, but in the
summer the Norsemen became aware of the presence of the
Skraelings. Suddenly a great troop of. men issued from the
woods with skin bundles, making as if they would trade in
grey furs, sables, and all kinds of peltries, but coming
dangerously near to the cattle. Frightened by the bellow-
ing of a bull, they vanished again into the forest; but
ere long they returned, once more offering to barter. Now
they walked right up to the houses of Karlsefne's people,
and even tried to come in, but this was not permitted.

1 Placing it upon a cliff to dry, I restless and vicious ; game and fish
where the garrison often men was j are found in the country. One of the
afterwards sent, Flatey adds various
details which seem to point to a true
record — the cattle heing turned out
on the land, the males soon become

Skraelings, who seemed their chief,
kills one of his men with an axe be-
longing to the Northmen.

58 THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION [Oh.

Neither folk understood the speech of the other; but the
Skraelings showed by signs that they would like to have
weapons in exchange for their skins. Thorfmn forbade his
men to sell their arms, but he told the women to take out
milk and dairy stuff, and when the savages saw these things
they were eager to buy them. So the Skraelings ' carried
away their winnings in their stomachs,' and parted with
their furs to small advantage. But the Norsemen, full of
suspicion of their visitors, made a strong fence round the
habitation, and put all ready for defence, when the time of
need should come.

At the beginning of the next winter reappeared the
Skraelings in much greater number than before, with the
same wares. And again Karlsefne told the women to carry
out the same food as was best liked before, and nothing else.

But this meeting was not destined to pass off so peace-
ably, and the unseen powers showed plainly that a threaten-
ing future hung over the colonists. A child had just been
born to Thorfmn and Gudrid — Snorre, the earliest American
of European parentage whom history records. While the
mother sat by the cradle within the door there came a
shadow to the entrance, and a woman went in with a black
kirtle and a snood or fillet around her head; she had bright
chestnut hair and was very pale, and her eyes were larger
than are ever seen in the head of man. And the good wife
put out her hand to her that she might sit clown beside her,
' and lo, there was a great noise and the woman was no
longer there.' And at the same moment was one of the
Skraelings slain because he would take the weapons of the
Norsemen ; and all the savages tied. Then Karlsefne
ordered that some should go to the woods and make a
clearance for the cattle against the time that the Skraelings
might come out of the forest, and that ten other men

II.] THORFINN KARLSEFNE IN VINLAND 59

should go to a ness hard by.1 And just where he had
foretold, at a place between the forest and a lake, the
Norsemen fought with the Skraelings, and slew many of
them, and the rest fled into the forest.

With this outbreak all things were changed. The hope
of a peaceful settlement was gone ; and Thorfinn seems to
have despaired of settling in the new country on other than
peaceful terms. The numbers and the subtlety of the
barbarian foe ; their deadly arrows ; the warning fate of
Thorvald ; the vast distance of the colonists from their
nearest base in Greenland ; the scanty numbers of his
people : — all these must have weighed with Karlsefne and
led him to abandon the enterprise, so carefully prepared,
so vigorously begun. He remained in Vinland the rest of
that winter, but in the spring he returned with a heavy
load of wood and grapes and peltries, but also with the
weight of a great failure. For an enterprise had miscarried
which, as we now can see, might have altered the course of
history, which even at the time aroused great hopes, and
which, if successful, would certainly have added a new
chapter to the Middle-Age development of mankind.

According to Reel Eric Saga (although this is not
recorded in the Flaky Book) one of Thorfinn's lieutenants
was Thorvard of Gardar, the husband of Freydis, a bastard
daughter of Eed Eric and a woman of infinite villainy.
He and his wife thus form a link between the voyage just
recorded and that, of doubtful and highly mystical character,
which follows next and last in Matey. In the same summer
that Karlsefne returned from Vinland, a vessel arrived in
Greenland from Norway under two brethren, of Iceland race,
Helge and Finnboge, and they remained all that winter.
' And now men began to talk again about a Vinland
1 Probably a strategic point commanding the settlement,

60 THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION [Ch.

voyage, as both a gainful thing and an honourable ; '
and Freydis, coming from Gardar, proposed to these new-
comers that they should go with her to Vinland in their
ship and share equally in all the profit they might make.
Each side, Freydis and the brothers, had the right to take
thirty men — besides the women — but the cunning daughter
of Eric did not abide by the compact ; for her warriors
were thirty-five in number. Leif again lent his Booths,
and they sailed ; Helge and Finnboge having the larger ship,
but fewer men ; Freydis and Thorvard the smaller vessel,
with a stronger crew. When they came to Vinland, Freydis
declared Leif's houses were for the sole use of herself, Leif's
sister, and her people ; the others had no right there.
Therefore Helge and his brother built them a shed further
from the sea, on the borders of a lake. At first the settlers
had some sports in common, the brethren doing all in their
power to promote concord ; but as the leader of the other
party was steadily in search of a quarrel, the games soon
ceased, and none even went from one house to the other.

The final catastrophe is among the most mysterious
passages of the Saga, if the whole narrative of this voyage
be not rejected as a legendary and obviously unhistorical
addition. Thorvard, we are told, enraged to madness by
the false charges of his wife against Helge and Finnboge,
surprised and slaughtered them with all their followers,
and among them five women, whom Freydis murdered
with her own hand. The explanation is easy, that the
massacre was an act of jealous vengeance ; that Freydis
was an adulteress who urged Thorvard to this as a screen
for her own guilt, and that her accusations were not
wholly false ; but the Saga's extreme reticence and
obscurity puts a certain difficulty into this reading of the
story, and this difficulty is increased by the wholesale

II.] PREYDIS IN VINLAND til

character of the butchery, and the fate of the women. On
the whole, passion does not seem to be the complete explana-
tion of the tragedy, whose slow approach the Saga indicates
with all the mystery, but little of the subtlety or the coher-
ence, of a Greek dramatist.

Early in the next summer the survivors returned to
Eric's Fiord, pretending that their companions had stayed
behind in Vinland. Freydis had bribed her people to
conceal the crime, but most of it soon came out ; Leif dis-
covering part by the argument of torture as applied to three
of his sister's followers. The story ends with an incon-
clusiveness which excellently suits the narrative. Leif, after
all his vigorous efforts to ascertain the truth, does no more.
' I do not care to use severity,' he declares, more in the
style of a modern humanitarian than of an old Norseman,
' and therefore I will not treat Freydis as she deserves, but
this I will foretell of her, that her posterity can never thrive.'
There is but little more recorded in the Flateyarbok
of these Vinland voyages and their leaders, but a few
words are added on Thorfhm Karlsefne. Freydis had
only just returned to Eric's Fiord when he sailed from
Greenland back to Norway, ' and it was common talk that
never had a richer ship sailed on this voyage than the
vessel that he steered.' Being both rich and prosperous,
it is not astonishing that Thorfinn was now 'held in great
esteem,' even among the landed men of the home kingdom.
Next year he came again to Iceland, but soon after this he
died ; his wife Gudrid became a nun ; Snorre, his Vinland-
born son, seems never to have returned to his first home;
and so darkness falls upon the chief record of early
European discovery in the Atlantic Ocean.

The Saga of Eric the lied, in so far as it differs from

62 THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION [Ch.

the Flatey Book, or contains a fuller narrative, may be re-
garded (as we have seen) in the light of a primary text; and
it therefore remains for us to see what it adds to, or alters
in, the narrative of Vinland voyages already summarised.
Beginning with a reference to Leif Ericson as the discoverer
of the western country, not direct from Greenland but on
a return voyage from Norway to Eric's Fiord, and wholly
ignoring the previous journey of Biarne recorded in Flatey,
the Eric Saga adds a few points to the history of Thorstein's
fruitless adventure. No separate voyage of Thorvald Ericson
is admitted ; his fate is here associated with the great
enterprise of Thorfinn Karlsefne ; and Thorstein's voyage is
made an altogether earlier occurrence. Leif's account of
the western lands had given rise to much talk of explora-
tion, and both Bed Eric his father, and Thorstein his
brother, made ready to follow up his discoveries. Some
little time before there had arrived at Brattahlid1 a noble
Icelander, Thorbiorn Vifilson, and his daughter Gudrid or
Thurid. He was an old friend of Eric's, and a man of good
name and family, but his fortune had decayed, and he now
came to Greenland in a ship that plays a prominent part
in the Saga. With it Eric and Thorstein now made their
fruitless quest of Vinland, and with the same vessel (among
others) Thorfinn Karlsefne renewed the enterprise some
years later. Thorbiorn probably arrived at Eric's Eiord
during Leif's absence in Norway and 'America'; and both
he and all his household had already become Christians,
before the new faith had been made law in Iceland.

Eric and Thorstein, then, borrowed Thorbiorn's ship and
set out with twenty men ; but they could not steer the
course they wished, and were tossed about upon the ocean,
once coming in sight of Iceland, and at another time seeing

1 First at Heriulfsness.

n.] 'red eric's saga': fresh points 63

birds from the Irish coast. At the beginning of winter
they came back, exhausted and disappointed, to their home,
where Thorstein consoled himself with Thorbiorn's daughter.
Both texts agree in describing his death and the ghostly
wonders x that accompanied it, as well as the speed)^ arrival
of Thorfinn Karlsefne ; but from this point the Eric Saga
passes into a Thorfinn Saga, and is clearly based upon better
and fuller tradition than the Matey narrative. Thorfinn is
described as a successful and far-travelled merchant, but
no mere chapman, being of good family and a great grand-
son of the famous Icelander Thord the Yeller, a son of the
no less respectable Thord Horse-Head, and a descendant on
his great-grandmother's side of the Irish King Kiarval. In
his own ship he brought forty men from Norway to Green-
land, and he was accompanied by three friends, afterwards
prominent in the Vinland explorations, Snorre Thorbrandson,
Biarne Grimolfson, and Thorhall Cramlison ; the two latter
together commanded another vessel. He was cordially re-
ceived at Brattahlid, married the widow2 of Thorstein
Ericson, and adopted (with his new relationship) the Vinland
ambitions of Red Eric's house. With the aid of Snorre he
fitted out his own ship for the passage ; Biarne and Thor-
hall made ready theirs ; and a third, Thorbiorn's vessel, in
which Thorstein had ventured, was equipped by Thorvard,
the husband of Ereydis, Thorvald Ericson, and Thorhall
the huntsman, Eric's old steward and trusted adviser.
This Thorhall was a poor Christian, adds the Saga, but he
had a wide knowledge of unsettled lands; in appear-
ance he was dark and of giant build; he wTas elderly, over-
bearing, and taciturn, underhand in his dealings, offensive
in his language, always ready to stir up evil — in a word,
Eric's bad genius and the curse of Thorfmn's enterprise.

1 Though differing in various details.

2 Gudrid. Thorbiorn's daughter.

64 THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION [Oh.

The Saga suggests that he was no better than a wizard ;
he boasted openly that his patron, Thor the Trusty, was of
more avail than Christ ; he opposed Karlsefne in his plans,
and composed ribald verses on the poor success of the enter-
prise and the lack of vines in ' Vinland.'

The sixty men and five women of Thorfinn's company, as
given in Flateij, may have been the crew of his own ship ;
but they evidently formed only a part of the expedition.
The whole fleet carried one hundred and sixty persons.
They sailed first from Eric's Fiord, near Cape Earewell in
Greenland, northwards to the ' Western Bay,' just within
Davis Straits, and so to 'Biarne' [or Disco Island.1] From
this point they came south two days and nights to Hellu-
land, where they found many Arctic foxes and great slabs of
stone, some a dozen ells across. Two days further to the
south they came to Markland,'2 which they described as
well-wooded and stocked with animals ; thence, sailing on
to the south for a long space, they had land to starboard,
and at last came to a cape where they found a ship's keel,
and so named Keel-Ness. Here there were great strands
and long sand-beaches, and they called them the Wonder
Strands, because they were so long to sail by. After this
the shore was much broken with inlets ; and here they put
on land two of their swiftest people to explore the country.
Both these runners were Gaels (or Irish); they were named Haki
and Hakia ; and King Olaf Tryggveson had in former days
given them 3 to Leif Ericson. In three ' half days ' the Gaels

1 The ' Bear isle ' would be in N.
Lat. 60=, if this identification can be
maintained.

2 An island, adds the Saga here,
lay off this Forest land to the South-
East, and there they found a Bear,
and they called this Bear island
(Biarne), the same name as the first

place they reached after leaving the
West Bight or Vestribygd.

3 They were no doubt among the
captives he took on his Viking
cruises. The woman's name is also
written Hekia and Haekia ; these
Gaels were fleeter than deer, we are

II-] THORFINN KARLSEFNE : FULLER RECORDS 65

returned from the south with grapes and ears of wheat1
which grew wild, as they said. So the Norsemen sailed on
till they came to where the shore was broken with inlets ;
and they put into a fiord running into the land. And
in the mouth of this was an island swarming with eider
ducks, and round the island [and high into the fiord there
ran strong currents. So from these currents they named
them ' Stream Island ' and ' Stream Firth.' - Here Karlsefne
settled for the winter, enjoying the ' fine hilly country there-
abouts.' In the spring he dividedjiis people; northwards he
sent Thorhall with eight men to seek for Vinland,3 beyond
the Wonder Strands ; while he himself, with one hundred
and fifty followers, went south. Thorhall's party passed the
Wonder Strands and Keel-Ness, intending to cruise west-
ward around the Cape, but they were driven by westerly
gales away from the coast and out to sea. Finally, they
were thrown ashore in Ireland, where they were seized and
enslaved, Thorhall himself perishing. Meantime Thoriinn,
with the main body, cruised south for a long time until
they came to a river that flowed down from the upland into
a lake and so into the sea. At the mouth of this stream
were great bars, and it could only be entered at the height
of the flood-tide. They called the place ' Hop ' (a small land-
locked bay), and in the lowlands hereabouts they found
self-sown wheat fields, and vines upon the higher ground.
Every brook was full of fish, and the settlers caught halibut
in pits upon the shores. In the woods around were many

also told ; they were on board
Karlsefne's own ship ; they each
wore a garment [Irish ? ] called
Kiafal, open at the sides, sleeve-
loss, with a hood at the top, and
fastened between the legs with
buttons and loops.

1 In another reading, ' A bunch of

grapes and an ear of new-sown
wheat. '

2 Straum-ey and Straum-fiord.

n Here in the narrower sense, ap-
parently : viz. the country at Leif's
Booths. No distinction of this kind
appears in Flatey.

66 THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION [Ch.

wild animals of various kinds. They stayed here a fortnight
with their live stock in great contentment ; in their fancied
security they kept no watch. But early one morning there
came to them a fleet of skin-canoes, full of ill-looking
folk, of sallow colour, with large eyes, broad cheeks, and
ugly heads of hair.1 These people surveyed the strangers
for a time,2 and then paddled away to the southward, and
were lost to sight behind a cape that was near.

Thorfinn Karlsefne decided to winter at ' Hop,' and put
up dwelling-houses for his men a little above the bay,
some of their booths being near the lake, and others further
away. The weather was mild, without so much as one
fall of snow, and the Norsemen's cattle were able to live in
the open field. [On the shortest day the sun was above the
horizon during the watch before and after that of mid-day.]

After a time, when spring opened, the skin-canoes came
again from the south in such numbers that it was as if coals
had been scattered broadcast out before the bay, their crews
steering up close to the habitations of the colony. At first
they bartered grey furs for bits of red cloth and milk soup,
but soon they endeavoured to obtain weapons for their peltries,
and above all, spears and swords. Thorfinn and Snorre,
however, took care to prevent this exchange. As the barter
went on, an ever larger stock of furs was sold for the same
amount of red cloth, which the Skraelings would often bind
round their heads. Suddenly a bull that belonged to the
Northmen ran out of the woods bellowing, and the Skraelings

1 This has, of course, been termed
a ' pretty accurate description of
Esquimaux, and, unless an interpola-
tion, almost conclusive on the
Skraelings' identity. '

men took this for a sign of peace and
held up a white shield in answer. On
the Skraelings' second visit this was
repeated ; but on the third, the
natives, now becoming hostile, waved

3 The Saga adds that on their ap- ' their staves in a direction contrary

pearance they brandished staves with to the sun, and were answered with

a noise like Hails in the same direc- ; red shields.
tion as the sun moves. The Norse-

II.] THOEFINN KARLSEFNE : FULLER DETAILS 67

took fright and rowed away to the south along the coast.
For three weeks no more was seen of them ; but then they
approached again from the south in great numbers, as if a
stream were pouring down, brandishing staves in a menacing
manner, and uttering loud cries. Thorfinn, taking all these
signs as hostile, hoisted a red shield, and prepared to fight :
while the Skraelings sprang from their boats and discharged
missiles from slings upon Ivarlsefne's men. After a time a
weird thing happened. The natives raised on a pole a thing
like a ball, blackish in colour, and about the size of a sheep's
belly, and hurled this upon the ground above the Northmen.
It fell with a frightful noise and struck a panic into the
colonists, who fled up along the river-banks to some jutting
crags, where they fought again. The terror and confusion
of the Northmen was complete ; in vain Eed Eric's daughter
attempted to rally them ; one and all took refuge in the
forest. But the Skraelings in their turn were frightened by
the action of Freydis, who appeared to them like a super-
natural being. Thorbrand Snorreson lay dead on the ground,
his skull broken by a flat stone (the Saga here conveys the
impression that the Skraelings mysteriously surrounded and
destroyed their foes), but Freydis snatched up his sword,
pregnant as she was, bared her bosom, and struck herself on
the breast with it. At this portent the natives rushed back
to the shore, jumped into their boats, and rowed away.

After the battle, Karlsefne's people returned to their
homes, and began to ' weigh carefully what throng of men
that could have been, which had seemed to descend upon
them from the land.' They came to the strange conclusion
that this party of their assailants was only a delusion
of their own1 and that the real attack came from one

1 Apparently effected by witch-
craft. A story is added about the
savages finding an axe and trying it

first upon wood, then upon stone ; as
it failed to cut the latter they threw
it away.

08 THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION [Ch.

side only, from the sea and skin-canoes ; yet the settlers
were so dispirited by the enmity of the natives that they
resolved to abandon Hop. So they sailed away along the
coast, where, to the northward, they found and killed five
Skraelings, looking like banished men, and clad in skin
doublets, who were lying asleep on the beach, with their boat
beside them, containing some animal marrow mixed
with blood. Proceeding onwards, Thorfinn and his men
came to a cape that looked like a cake of dung from
the animals that lay there at night. Arriving again at
Stream Firth, they found abundance of all necessaries,
and here Biarne and Freydis remained behind (as some
say) with one hundred of the settlers ; while Thorfinn
Karlsefne, and Snorre Thorbrandson went to the south
with forty others ; this last force stayed at Hop about
two months, or a little less, and returned again to the
Stream Island and Bay in the same summer. After
this, Thorfinn left most of his people at Stream Fiord,
going on himself with one ship to look for Thorhall and
the eight lost men. He sailed round Keel-Ness, keeping
northward at first, and afterwards west, but could find no
one. All this time he had the land to larboard of him,
covered with thick forests and fringed with hills ; and these
hills, he thought, were all one range with the high ground at
Hop, Stream Fiord being about equidistant between the
two.

Karlsefne and his men coasted along this forest shore-
land till they came to a river which flowed from east to
west ; into the mouth of this they sailed, and lay to by the
southern bank of the same. Here a marvellous adventure
occurred : a Vnipecl, or one-legged man, came up close to the
ships and killed Thorvald Ericson, shooting an arrow into
his vitals, as he sat at the helm. Thorvald drew out the

ii] thorfinn's enterprise : fuller details G9

arrow before he died, and exclaimed : ' There is fat around my
paunch ; we have hit upon a faithful country, and yet we are
not like to get much profit by it.' The first clause of this
dying speech is exactly the same as part of the last song of
Thormod the Coal-brow Skald after the battle of Stiklestad ;
and the whole adventure is probably a compilation from the
fashionable mirabilia of the Middle Ages, which placed the
One-Legged Folk in various outlandish regions, usually in the
south of Africa. Some have thought the story is introduced
to give embellishment to the death of Thorvald Ericson, who
was too important a person to be dismissed in an ordinary
manner, and who, as we may fairly assume from the general
coincidence of this narrative with Flatey, really perished in
the new world.

The explorers now sailed away from the land of the
Unipeds ; they spent yet a third winter in the new world,
at Stream Fiord ; but here quarrels broke out between the
colonists over the women of their company, and in the
spring they returned to Greenland. Sailing with southerly
winds they came first to Markland ; and here they fell
in with five Skraelings. Two of these, who were boys, they
took with them, and taught the Norse tongue ; and from
them they learned much about the SkraeKng folk — as,
for instance, that they had a father named Uvaegi, a
mother called Vaetilldi, and two kinms, Avaldamon and
Valdidada, that they had no houses, that they lived in
holes and caves, and that they knew of a land ' on the
other side ' over against their country, inhabited by a race
clothed in white, wdio had a way of yelling loudly, and often
carried poles before them with rags attached. The North-
men believed this country must have been White Man's
Land or Ireland the Great. Karlsefne had, in the early
part of his venture, become separated from Thorhall ; now,

70 THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION [Ch.

on his return, he lost the company of one of his other
captains, Biarne Grimolfson, who was driven by storms into
the Irish Ocean, into waters so infested with worms that
his ship was like to sink, and it went hard with the crew
to save even a part of their number in the long-boat.1

So much for the narrative of the Western voyages enter-
prised by Bed Eric's House and friends, as told in Matey
and the Eric Saga ; these give us by far the most impor-
tant aud ample treatment of ' America ' in Scandinavian
literature ; and with their conclusion it only remains to add
a few scattered data to the most remarkable chapter
in mediaeval exploration. There are, however, some later
references to a continued but extremely slender intercourse
between Vinland and the Greenlandic and Icelandic settle-
ments of the Norsemen. Thus we hear of Bishop Eric
going to the Grape Country from Eric's Fiord in 1121 ;
and, more doubtfully, of clergy from the Greenland diocese
of Gardar, in the Austribygd, sailing to lands in the west,
far north of Vinland, in 1266; of the two Helgasons dis-
covering a country west of Iceland in 1285 ; and of a
voyage from Greenland to Markland in 1347, undertaken
by a crew of only seventeen men.

From 1112 to 1409 there was a regular succession of
Greenland bishops, and the names of seventeen have been
preserved, beginning with Arnold in 1124.2 Earlier than
this, in 1075, Archbishop Adalbert of Bremen had been
requested, by the Norse colonists of this remote Christian

1 Thorfinn's son Snorre, says Red
Eric Saga, was born during the first

Preliminary Dissertation to theHeims-
kringla, especially p. 186 ; and

autumn of Thoriinn Karlsefne's ex- Rasmus Anderson, America not

pedition, and was three winters old
when they took their departure.

discovered by Columbus, a good
study of the Vinland Voyages, with

! See S.Laing and Rasmus Anderson, i an absurd title, 1883.

II.]

LATER VOYAGES TO VINLAND

71

outpost, to send them clergy to baptize, bury, and perform
the sacraments of the Church.1 At the end of the Crusading
Period these Greenland colonists, in their two chief settle-
ments of the Eastern and Western Bays, were still maintain-
ing themselves against the climate and the savages, against
the ice and the Esquimaux. In the Austribygd or East
Bight, which was by far the more important, was placed the
Cathedral and the Bishop's home, eleven other churches, two
monasteries, and one hundred and ninety farms or groups of
dwellings, composing two little boroughs or towns ; in the
Vestribygd were three churches and ninety farms. At
other places, probably a good way to the north of these
plantations, definite traces of the old European life and
religion have been found,2 as at Kakortok and elsewhere
in the latitude of 60° — 60° 55' ; and the existence of these
well-built stone churches certainly confirms the Saga's
references to possible missionary efforts of the Greenland
priesthood in Vinland. But in the island of Kingiktorsoak,
to the north-west of Disco, and in north latitude 72° 55',
west longitude 56° 5', there is a more specific evidence
of the ultimate American direction of the more daring
Scandinavian keels. Here, on this barren islet at the
entrance of Baffin's Bay, an inscription in runes, dis-

1 So Adam of Bremen, iii. 11 (ch.
127 and Appendix).

2 Among the chief remains of ancient
settlement in Greenland are (1) At
Kakortok or Karkortok, on Igalikko
Fiord, N. Lat. 60° 50', W. Long.
Greemv. 44° 37', near the settlement
of Juliana Hope ; here the ruined
church measures 51 feet by 25, with
its stone walls, 4 feet thick, rising to
heights of 16 and 18 feet. Two
round arched windows, four windows
not arched, and two doorways, can
still be traced. (2) At the extremity

of Igalikko Fiord, N. Lat. 60° 55'
the foundations of a building, pro-
bably a church, have been discovered
(in 1830) ; these foundations measured
96 feet by 48 ; here was also a Runic
inscription in memory of one Vigdis,
a woman. (3) Foundations of build-
ings 120 feet by 100, apparently the
base of rows of dwellings ; founda-
tions of single houses ; and sepulchral
slabs, have also been brought to light
in and about Lat. N. 60\ Cf. Laing
and Anderson, Prelim. Dissert., pp.
188-190.

72 THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION [Oh.

covered in 1824, tells Low ' Erling Sigvatson and Biarne

Thordarson and Eindrid Oddson, in the Saturday before

Ascension Week, raised these marks and cleared ground,

in the year of Christ 1135.' Now, unless we can assume

an entire change of climate, the sea in the neighbourhood

of this island could not be navigated at any time in the

early summer within which Ascension Day must fall ; and

the inscription in this case would show that the men

who raised the marks and cleared the ground had also

wintered there.

Besides these references to, or evidences of, later

movements towards the American strand, we have a little

group of stories, variously understood as bearing on Vinland,

on the far south of North America, or on the Canary

Islands. Thus from a certain Rafn, a trader to Limerick,

his great-great-grandson, Are Frode,1 derived a tradition

which described how, about the year of Christ 983, one

Are Marson, of Iieykianess in Iceland, was driven by storms

out into the Western Sea, and came at last to a country

vhich he called White Man's Land, and others termed

Great Ireland. Thither he was followed in 999 by Biarne

Asbrandson, and in 1029 by Gudleif Gudlangson, surnamed

' the wealthy,' a settler at Stream Firth in Iceland, and a

great sea-farer, who owned a large trading ship. This Ireland

the Great — which men said was originally peopled by

Christians from Ireland — 'lay westward, in the Main, near

1 Are, the Learned, ' the first man
in Iceland who wrote down in the
Norse tongue both old and new
narratives of events,' c. A.D. 1067-
1147(8). He wrote ' 240 years after
the first settlement of Iceland by the
Norsem3iv e. a.d. 1117; but early
writer as he was, another preceded
him, viz. Isleif, the first bishop of
Iceland (appointed by Adalbert of

Bremen, and diedc. 1047), who com-
piled Histories of the Norse kings,
from Harald Fairhair to Magnus the
Good. Are's contemporary Saemund
(a.d. 1056-1133) was the author of
similar works. On the story of Are
Marson, see Landnamabok, ch. xxii.
Rafn was distantly related both to
Are Marson and Leif Ericson,
Landnama, Part II., ch. xxi.

II] WHITE MAN'S LAND AND GREAT IRELAND 73

Vinland the Good, and it was called six days' voyage west-
ward from Ireland thereto.' Are Marson was not able to
leave that land, as he desired, but was forced to stay, ' and
there, being among Christians, he was baptized, and held in
honour.' Bafn, of Limerick, was the first who told of
this ; but a certain Thorkel Gelleson also had somewhat
to relate about the same. For certain Icelanders told him
that they had heard from Thorfinn,1 Earl of the Orkneys,
how the aforesaid Are Marson had been recognised by
some of their countrymen in White Alan's Land, and how
he had sent back a token by which his friends knew that
it was he indeed.

Of the discovery of Gudleif Gudlaugson the Eyrbgggia
Saga gives a more or less detailed account. Towards the
end of the reign of St. Olaf (c, a.d. 1030), Gudleif went to
Dublin, on a trading voyage from Iceland to Ireland ; on
his return he sailed round Ireland by the west, and was
overtaken by a heavy storm from the east and north-east,
which drove him far out to sea in a south-westerly
direction. Neither he nor any of his men knew where
they were, and they drove about in the Ocean for the
greater part of the summer before they came to land. Here
they were seized by the natives, who came in crowds to
the vessel, and spoke a language which none of the Norse-
men understood, but which some thought a little like Irish.
The visitors observed that their captors were disputing
whether to make slaves of them or to put them to death.
But meantime a grand old man, of majestic presence, with
white hair, came riding along, and all the natives received
him with the greatest respect. He accosted the Icelanders
in the Norse language, and asked if Snorre, one of the chief
persons in Iceland, was still alive, and his sister Thurid.
1 Probably the great Earl Thorfinn II. (+1064) see p. 95.

74 THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION [Ch.

He would not tell his name, and advised the strangers not
to come there again, as the inhabitants were fierce and
inhospitable, and the land had no good harbours. He gave
them a gold ring to give to Thurid, whom he loved much
better than Snorre, her brother, and a sword for Thurid's
son. Gudleif brought these back to Dublin, and the next
summer home to Iceland, and it was thought that this
friend in distress was a certain Biorn,1 a skald and
warrior much respected, who had left Iceland in a ship
about 998, and had been lost sight of since. He had been
in love with Thurid, and was therefore persecuted by her
family, and especially by her brother and her husband ;
and this, concludes the story, was the ' whole truth known
concerning Biorn.' 2

It was in 1697 that Peringskjold published the first
edition of the Heimskringla, with Swedish and Latin trans-
lations of the original Icelandic. The manuscripts he used
are not now extant, but they were merely transcripts of
other manuscripts which we still possess.3 In 1777 Scheming
commenced a new issue, under the auspices of the Danish
government, from the collation of three manuscripts and
from Peringskj old's edition.4 The eight chapters which
contain the main Vinland narrative are often supposed to
be an interpolation in one of the manuscripts used by the
first editor. They do not occur in the three extant manu-

1 Biorn Breiclvikinga Kappa, the , Tryggveson in a swimming contest
'champion of the Broad vikings,' who in the Nicl.

first won himself a great name in ; 3 See Tor fa,exis,Historia Vinland iae

Baltic Viking warfare. Here he ; Antiquac.

joined the men of Jomsborg ; cf. 4 In six volumes folio. The mami-

Eyrhyggia Saga, chapters xlvii. and scripts were those in the Arne

lxiv. Magnaeus collection. This edition

2 Thurid's son (by Biorn, as com- was finished by Thorlacius and
monly supposed) was the famous Werlauff in 1826.

Kiartan who tried strength with Olaf

II.]

VINLAND CONTROVERSIES

75

scripts of the Heimskringla, but they must certainly be
earlier than the end of the fourteenth century, for they may
be found verbatim in a Codex1 written between 1387
and 1395.

The narrative of the Vinland voyages has unfortunately
next to no confirmation from monuments, but draws its
authority almost entirely from documents, of which some
were committed to writing in the latter, some in the earlier
years of the fourteenth century. The inscribed rocks, the
buildings, and the skeletons, which have been supposed to
witness to the truth of the Saga on American soil, have been,
with one exception, abandoned as evidence by all but en-
thusiasts. Thus the Dighton Writing Rock on the Taunton
River, near P>erkley in Massachusetts (in N. Lat. 41° 44'),
once claimed as a Runic inscription recording the voyage of
Thorfinn Karlsefne, is now generally supposed to be of
Indian origin, though it has certainly been tampered with
in very modern times.2 The Old Stone Mill at Newport
in Rhode Island is a still more doubtful relic ; and it seems
probable that, even if part of the structure is Indian and

1 The Codex Flateycnsis, which
numbers them as chs. cv.-cxiii. of
Olaf TryggxcsonJ s Saga, the same
position which they occupy in Per-
ingskjold's edition, and one which
they could not have held in Snorre's
original text. The Coder Flateycnsis
is not an original work of one author,
but a collection of Sagas transcribed
from older manuscripts. The ar-
rangement is chronological, and the
various narratives are artificially
grouped together under the reign in
which the several events happened,
even though not otherwise connected.
This most important manuscript is
so named from the Island of Flatey

in Brcidatiord in Iceland, where it
was long kept. In 1650 Bishop
Brynjolf Sveinson of Skalholt
bought it from the owner, Jonas
Torfason, for King Frederick III. of
Denmark, who gave in exchange
perpetual exemption from land-tax
to Jonas for his small estate. The
annals of the Codex Flateycnsis end
at a.d. 1395, and they were written
out by the Priest Magnus Thorhalson.
2 Of. Laing and Anderson, Pre-
liminary Dissertation, pp. 214-223.
These editors believe the marks on
the Dighton Rock are not letters at
all, but scratches or primitive draw-
ings made at various times.

76

THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION

[Ch.

only in part due to Governor Benedict Arnold,1 none of it
can with any certainty be attributed to the Norsemen. The
Skeleton in Armour, discovered in the early part of the
present century at Fall Eiver in Massachusetts, carries with
it, in spite of Longfellow's poem, no decisive evidence of
Norse origin. This, in fact, can only be asserted of one such
monument or material object west of G-reenland — the rock
inscription of Kingiktorsoak near the entrance of Baffin's Bay.2
In examining the narratives we must distinguish between
the general drift, which is credible enough, and the par-
ticular details, which are sometimes consistent and historical,
but sometimes the reverse. In other words, we cannot
doubt that the Norsemen, as recorded in this narrative,
really discovered lands to the west of Iceland and Greenland
which must be identified with parts of the American Con-
tinent ; but we may well doubt whether the record of this
great discovery is free from legendary and unhistorical
admixture. One point of some interest and importance,
though not expressly noticed3 in these Sagas as a reason
of the explorations, may be brought to corroborate their
evidence on the general facts they record. The scarcity of
wood in Iceland and Greenland not improbably exercised
an influence on the search for new lands. In the famous
Book of the Iceland settlers, known as the Landnamaboh,
it is told as a wonderful thing that one of the primitive

1 Later half of the seventeenth
century. Of. Laing and Anderson,
Preliminary Dissertation, pp. 226-
230.

1 All these relics are discussed by
Torfaeus and Arne Magnaeus, who
both incline to fix Vinland near the
month of the St. Lawrence, or in
Newfoundland. Storm appears to
argue with greater force for Nova
Scotia. See Studies on the Vinland

Voyages in Memoires de la Societe
royale des Antiquaircs du Nord,
nouvelle serie, 1888, pp. 344-346,
350-357, etc.

3 It is, however, in a sense alluded
to in the story about Karlsefne's
Vinland Wood, quoted below, and in
the frequent mention of shiploads
of wood brought from Norway and
the south and west by various
mariners, traders and explorers.

II. J YINLAND CONTROVERSIES 77

colonists, named Avang, found ' such great plenty of wood
where he settled, that he built himself a long-ship there-
with ' ; and in another Saga ] it is mentioned, with the same
astonishment, that the famous Hialte Skeggieson made for
himself at his own home a vessel so large that he sailed
therein to Norway. As a rule, the men of Iceland and
Greenland had to get their sea-going vessels from the
forests of Scandinavia ; for even in Iceland trees were rare,
and the drift-wood on their shores was an uncertain
material both in its supply and durability. Now, when
once the wooded countries of Yinland, Markland, and
Helluland had been discovered, it was natural enough to
go in quest of these western lands from which came so
much of the precious jetsam to the northern coasts of the
Viking settlements. Every explorer in the Flatey narrative
loads his ship with wood ; it is the first thing men seek
on landing ; to the last they are busied in adding to their
stock of the same. Thorfinn Karlsefne, on his return to
Norway, even disposes of some of this wood at a high price ;
he sold, we read, a piece of mosur or maple wood of Vinland
for a door bar or a besom, and a Bremen merchant paid
half a mark of gold for the same,

Some of the other details, however, as given in Flatey,
offer easy material for criticism and objection. For instance,
Leif and his successors arrive in Vinland in the spring, and
we can hardly suppose that a later month than June can
here be understood. It would indeed be a remarkable land
which was then producing grapes, ripe or almost ripe, and
ears of wheat. At the same time that the Norsemen were
gathering these precocious fruits, the eider ducks had just
laid their eggs on the Stream Isle,2 which would throw us
back to an early date in spring.

1 The Kristni Saya. 2 Straum-ey.

78

THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION [Oh.

The ducks and the grapes raise other difficulties. In
modern times the eider is hardly ever seen lower than 60°
north latitude ; yet here we have it in proximity to a
country that in many respects may be said to answer to
New England, or at least to the south of Nova Scotia.

Again, the whole story of Tyrker the German, tipsy with
eating grapes, reads like the fiction of an ale-drinker of
the north, who knew no more of wine than that it was the
juice of the grape.

To some the language of the Saga about the Skraelings
presents equal difficulties, and is no more credible than its
suggestions that grapes would intoxicate without vinous
fermentation, that wheat would grow without being sown,
/ and that a corn — or kiln — barn could be found in a land

without dwelling-houses. The question of these mysterious
people would seem, however, to belong to quite a different
category, and to be incapable of such hasty and con-
temptuous treatment. We must return to this point later
on, only expressing here our belief, first, that the Skraelings
may rather be identified with some vanished races of North
American Indians (such as the Beothuks or the Micmacs)
than with the Esquimaux; and secondly, that some
of the tribes of the latter race were living in the tenth
and eleventh centuries much further to the south than they
have been found in modern times. It is unfortunately
obvious, as various critics have pointed out, that the Saga's
account of the time occupied in sailing from land to land in
the Vinland voyages leads to no satisfactory result, for we
do not know how much was usually accomplished in the
' day' of twenty-four hours. The action of strong currents
from the south-west might often make them lose in one part
of the ' day ' almost as much as they had gained in another.
Thus it is by no means easy either to estimate the exact

II.] VINLAND CONTROVERSIES 79

value of the Saga's language on this point1 or to calculate
the position of the new discovered lands from such shadowy
data.

Again, the descriptions of these new lands are in many
cases equally vague and uncertain. The stony soil, scattered
with fragments of slate and affording little vegetation — this
applies equally to all the coast-line from Newfoundland
northwards ; and the name of Helluland or Slab-land would
suit almost any part of Labrador just as well as the Island
of Terra Nova. Once more, the notice of Markland, level
and covered with thick forests, might be written about
countless points of the North American shore ; and even
some of the details which seem conclusive do not really take
us much further. An island with a sound between it and
the mainland, a low shore with white sandy cliffs and
shallow water, a fiord or inlet of the sea, a river running out
of a lake, a bay between two headlands, these are facts
which look promising at first sight, but appear more and
more evasive when one seriously tries to fix the position of
the locality. For they are features common to nearly all
sea-coasts, and discoverable everywhere. .

On the other hand, more definite conceptions may be
drawn from the general picture of the Norse settlements in
this region, of their mode of life, and of the natural products
which they discovered. Putting aside for the moment some
inconsistent details of the winter climate, obviously
exaggerated in expression, it is clear that we have to deal
with countries which cannot be placed much further south
than the latitude of 41° North, or further north than the
latitude of 49° 55', according'2 to the estimate of the shortest

1 'They sailed three days,' 'two
days,' etc.

2 According to the best interpreta-
tion of the perplexing words, 'The sun

was in the sky between Eyktarstad
and Dagmalastad on the shortest day,'
lit., 'The sun had there Eyktarstad
and Dagmalastad on the short day.'

i

(

80 THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION [Oh.

day given us in the narrative of Leif's voyage and planta-
tion. On this day, it is said, the sun was above the horizon
in the watches immediately before and after that of mid-
day. Now in Iceland, on the shortest day, the whole course
of the sun was included in the one mid-day watch, which
began at 10.30 in the morning and ended at 1.30 in the
afternoon. The preceding watch would begin at 7.30 in
the morning; the succeeding watch would end at 4.30 in
the afternoon. According to the most natural reading of
the Saga's words, we must surely understand, not merely
that the sun rose sometime in the earliest and set sometime
in the latest watch, but that it was above the horizon
throughout these three watches. This would give us a day
of nine hours (7.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m.) and a latitude of
41° 24' 10", lying between Seaconnet and Judith Points,
which form the entrance to Mount Hope Bay in
Massachusetts. This Bay, and its river the Taunton, corre-
spond well with the Hop of the Saga and its neighbourhood.
It may or may not be conceivable that the name of
Hop, given by the Norsemen, was preserved in native
tradition,1 and so passed to the Puritan settlers of the
seventeenth century ; if so, this would be one of the most
curious survivals in history ; but neither this verbal identifi-
cation, nor the various local correspondencies of the Mount
Hope Bay district with the Norse descriptions, seem so
convincing, in reference to the general position of Vinland,
as another detail. The Saga tells us with the utmost
distinctness that there was no 2 frost in winter ; that winter
fodder was not3 needed for the cattle ; that day and night

1 In the form of Haup.

2 Admitting exaggeration here, we
may read 'little,' i.e. nothing that
could be named in comparison with
Iceland or Greenland.

" ' Would not be needed as they
thought' may surely be understood
as a positive statement, for we are
never told afterwards that they were
wrong in their supposition.

II.] VINLAND CONTROVERSIES 81

here were more equal than in Iceland or (the extreme
south of) Greenland ; and that wild vines grew in profusion,
and were such a feature of the land, that the Norsemen
named it from this very circumstance. It can hardly be
maintained that if these points are thrust aside, we can
any longer attach definite value to the narrative, which
would then become, at the best, an account of a true dis-
covery recorded in an entirely mythical form. And if these
details are accepted it seems useless to talk any longer of
looking for Vinland to the north of the St. Lawrence, where
a winter fully as severe as that of Iceland prevails. In
other words, we are absolutely compelled, either to reject
the whole body of the narrative, allowing truth only to a
general fact which the particulars have utterly distorted ;
or else to seek our Vinland at least as far south as Southern
Nova Scotia, where the northern limit of the wild vine is
to be found. The exact place matters little ; claimants as
good as Mount Hope Bay may be found to the north, and
have this advantage, that here, as in Nova Scotia, it is more
possible to bring together in one locality the wild vines of
Vinland and the skin-canoes of the Skraelings, the self-sown
wheat of the fields, and the sables, grey skins, and white furs
of the forest animals. What we are concerned with is the
impossibility of a far northern locality, so often and so
confidently assumed, for the site of Leif's Booths and
Thorfinn's Colony.

A word more on the question of the Skraelings. It has
been suggested that the terror of these folk at the bellowing
of Karlsefne's bull belongs to the emotions of an island
people who had never seen such an animal before ; whereas
any tribe living on the Continent would have known the
bison or musk ox.

Those who support the identification of these natives

F

82 THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION [Oh.

with the Esquimaux are entitled to argue rather strongly
from the fact that, although now confined to the far north,
it is tolerably certain that they were once spread over a
wider and more temperate area. From this, as from many
other points of view, it is truly unfortunate that the North
American Indians are extinct as a race in these regions,
and have left no written records. Among collectors of their
traditions it is often said that these same Indians were once
acquainted with the Esquimaux as near neighbours, and
regarded them with exactly the same feelings of dread as
the Norsemen, Danes and Swedes felt for the wizard and
dwarfish Finns and Lapps of the North of Europe.

From the details given in the Saga about the skin-boats
of the savages and other matters, the same school derives
still more confidence. We have here, they say, a simple
choice. In other words, we must either take the Skraelings
of the narrative to be Esquimaux, or we must look upon
the whole description here given of these strange people as
untrustworthy and beyond verification. As to one reference
we may be positive. Unquestionably the ugly, sallow, large-
eyed, broad-cheeked, shock-headed natives, who came in
skin-canoes to reconnoitre, and then advanced to trade,
and finally to fight, with Thorfinn's men, were Esquimaux
and nothing else.

Again, as to the insular ignorance of this people, who had
never seen cattle, and who seemed so dwarfish to the North-
men, what better terms could be chosen to draw a life-like
picture of the Esquimaux ? Some additional support is
given to this theory by the tradition which Are Frode
professed to give from the recollections of Thorkell Gelleson
of Helgafell (c. a.d. 1050-1150) who knew Greenland well,
and had spoken with one of Red Eric's original comrades.
The Norse colonists, according to Thorkell, found in Green-

H.J THE SKRAELINGS ; THEIR IDENTITY 83

land traces of human dwellings, fragments of boats, and
stone implements, from which ' one might guess that people
of the kind formerly inhabiting Vinland, and known among
the Greenlanders as Skraelings, must have passed there.' l

But the matter is not so easy of settlement. The words
preserved from the speech of the Skraeling boys taken in
Markland are entirely inconsistent with the tongue of the
Esquimaux, but agree somewhat better with the relics pre-
served of the Micmac and Beothuk languages spoken by
savages whom the sixteenth-century explorers discovered in
Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. The
Saga's picture of the physical characteristics of the Skraelings,
of their skin-canoes and cave (or boat) dwellings, would suit
the Beothuks or Micmacs quite as closely as the Esquimaux,
to judge from the descriptions of the former that have been
collected. While the fierce and treacherous nature of the
enemies of Thorvald Ericson and Thorfinn Karlsefne, and
their eagerness to trade in skins and furs, seem almost
decisive against the exclusive Esquimaux theory. May it
not be possible to hold that the Icelandic records here
contain references to both the races whose respective claims
to be the true and only Skraelings have been so vigorously
set in opposition.2

1 Cf. Are Frode's still extant Libel-
his Islandorum ; and Storm, Studies
mi Vinland Voyages, pp. 315, 316.

2 Undoubtedly the Skraelings of
Greenland were Esquimaux. But the
Norsemen probably applied the name
without much discrimination to very
dissimilar natives of the new-found
western lands 'over against' Green-
land. The word Skraelings was used
in the Sagas for decrepit people, of
low physique and culture. On the
skin-boats, also called ships, and
said to be rowed with several oars,

the Saga obviously mixes up details
suitable in some cases to Esquimaux,
in others to American Indians and
birch-bark canoes. The 'big-eyed'
appearance of the Skraelings agrees
well with that of the Micmacs, as
described by Lescarbot ; while the
narrowing forehead of the Indians
gives the broad-cheeked appearance.
The ' malicious look ' does not at all
suit the merry, bland, Esquimaux.
Cf. Storm, Studies on Vinland Voy-
ages, pp. 360-7.

84 THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION [Ch.

After the fall of Olaf Tryggveson the Heimskringla
leaves Norway and Norwegian matters, as it has already left
them more than once, to follow the early Viking career of a
future King. This was Olaf the younger, the later St. Olaf,
a son of Harald of Greenland, and the central figure in
the conversion of Scandinavia. Around him obviously
gathers the main interest of the narrative of the long series
of Norse rulers whom Snorre Sturleson describes ; only two
others appear in the Eoyal Sagas as comparable to him ; —
Olaf the son of Tryggve and Harald Hardrada. These two
share indeed in the first class of Snorre's heroes, but not in
the first place with St. Olaf. His early adventures, his reign
— officially described as fatal to heathendom — his tragic end,
the malice, witchcraft, and subtlety of his enemies, the
miracles of his relics, these form the largest canvas on which
the poet and the annalist has exercised his skill throughout
the whole of the Sagas.

The pre-eminent position thus assigned to Olaf Haraldson
is plainly due to Christian influence. He is first because
no other place can be given to the Eoyal Saint, the
saviour of his people, their guide within the fold of the
Catholic federation. Like St. Stephen of Hungary, like St.
Vladimir of Russia, like iEthelberht of Kent, Olaf the Holy
begins the history of his nation as a Christian, and therefore
as a civilised, state. What had gone before Olaf Tryggveson
was glorious but unhallowed ; the son of Tryggve had begun
the work but had not been able to finish ; and his cruelty
was so enormous that the Church shrank from canonising
such a man of blood. But the milder virtues of his
successor, firm as a king, gentle as a Christian, won the
homage of those to whom the Catholic religion meant light
and heathendom darkness.

Judged by other standards, neither the reign nor the

II]

EARLY VOYAGES OF ST. OLAF

85

person of St. Olaf were quite so important. Politically, his
figure is insignificant by the side of his great rival, Cnut of
Denmark, who ousts him from his kingdom. He can
scarcely be thought to equal the daring genius of Harakl
Hardrada. Still less can an impartial judgment place him
alongside the first of Norsemen, the greatest of their states-
men and empire builders. William the Conqueror or Eobert
Guiscard.1

Geographically, that is in relation to the side of history
with which we are here concerned, St. Olaf's reign is
likewise of secondary importance. It is true we have a fair
number of details, from this period, of undoubted value
in the chronicle of northern travel ; but of these perhaps
the chief item is the Biarma-land voyage of St. Olaf's wizard
enemy, Thorir Hund. Here again the life of Harakl
Hardrada offers us a more representative figure, and a wider
outlook on the great world beyond Norway.

When he was but twelve years old, young Olaf Haraldson,
like the son of Tryggve, started on a Viking voyage. First
he sailed to Sweden and Gothland ; then to Finland,2 where
at this early age the future saint fought victoriously against
the wizardry of these dangerous heathens ; then to Friesland
and England,3 where the kingdom of Wessex was now in
its death-struggle with the Dane. ' At that time Svein
Forkbeard and his men had gone wide over England, and
King ^Ethelred had fled to Valland,' or Normandy. Olaf
took up the cause of the English and fought bravely for
iEthelred. First he made for London, which the Danes

1 Or even the more shadowy
Rmik, if we look at the future
importance of that chieftain's life
and work.

2 Chs. iv. to ix. of *S7. Olaf's Saga.

3 Chs. x., xi. of same. When Olaf

was coasting along Friesland he lay
off ' high Kinnliinside,' says the Saga,
in heavy weather. Some have identi-
fied this with the Texel, in spite of
the epithet ' high.'

86

THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION

[Ch.

held ; and here Olaf and iEthelred went up the Thames
and made an onset on the bridge across the river, between
the city and the cheaping town of Southwark. Now this
bridge was so broad that waggons might pass each other
thereon ; and here were castles and bulwarks looking down
the stream : and under the bridge were piles stuck into the
bottom of the river. And when /Ethelred could not take
the bridge, Olaf, with a great raft cunningly devised, broke
it down, and so won the city. He had flake-hurdles made
of willow twigs and green wood, and laid all over his ships
sheds of wicker-work, and underneath the sheds he planted
staves so thick and high that it was a good palisade to fight
from. So he forced his way right up under London Bridge,
through showers of missiles, lashed cables round the piles
that upheld the structure, and then rowed down stream,
dragging the piles till they were loosened from under the
bridge, and all on top fell in.1

Four years 2 he stayed in England after this and won
battles for iEthelred ; but when the old King of Wessex died
he went south over sea, apparently to Normandy 3 and

1 Ch. xii. of St. Olaf's Saga.

2 Seemingly four ; though the Saga
says ' three ' cf. eh. xiii. beginning,
xv. beginning, and xiv. end, of St.
Ulafs Saga.

3 Chs. xv., xvi. of St. Olafs Saga.
In 'Valland,' he visited 'Kingnrth,'
' Grislapool,' ' Willianisby,' 'Fettle-
firth,' 'Seliupool,' "' Gunvaldsborg,'
a 'great and ancient' town, and
'Charles' Water.' In nearly all
these places, which mostly appear
hopeless of identification, he fough
and won battles against other Vik-
ings,— a fresh proof, if any were
needed, of the universal activity of
his race at this time. Ringfirth and
its castle on the heights, ' where

Vikings sat,' were perhaps in the
neighbourhood of Coutar.ces (?) or at
Mont St. 'Michel (?) : cf. Dozy, lie-
cherches su?' I'histoire . . . de FEspagm,
edition of 1881, ii. pp. 308-14,
according to which ' Charles' Water '
is the Bay of Cadiz. The fragments
of an older redaction of St. Olafs
Saga declare that at the 'Karlsar ' or
' Charles' Water, ' Olaf found idola-
ters, whose deities, a Siren and a
Boar, he kdled ; and here he got a
wind favourable for passing the Strait,
but was turned back by the vision.
Charles, or Karl, is here viewed by
Doz}T as merely a Norseman's version
of Hercules ('the great man'), and
this eminent scholar contends with

II.] EARLY VOYAGES OF ST. OLAF 87

Brittany, and the coasts of the Bay of Biscay and western
Spain, and after many victories determined to sail on to
Norva Sound or Gibraltar Straits, and so to Jerusalem. But
now there came to him in a dream a man, noble-looking
and well-favoured, yet awful, who bade him give up his
purpose, and go back to the lands of his birthright, ' for thou,
said he, shalt be a King of Norway for time everlasting.'

We may suppose that Olaf had now reached beyond
the Garonne and the Bay of Biscay as far as Cadiz and the
Pillars of Hercules ; but after this vision he turned back to
the valley of the Loire, and ravaged Poitou and Touraine,
raiding as far as the market town of Parthenay, a little
west of Poitiers.1 Thence he slowly retraced his steps to
Normandy. ' And now thirteen years had passed from the
fall of Olaf Tryggveson. And in Normandy there were
then two earls, William and Pobert, Lords of Rouen and
sons of Richard, who was the grandson of William Long-
sword,2 who was himself son of Rolf Ganger, who won
Normandy. And Emma, wife of /Ethelred, King of the
English, was sister of these earls ; who were akin to the
lords of Norway, and at all times the greatest friends of
the Northmen. So Olaf tarried the winter in Seine-water,
and had there a land of peace.'

Meantime Cnut the Dane had won 3 England from
iEthelred's sons ; and these last came to Rouen, while Olaf

much skill and persuasiveness for the
reality of the tradition that as late
as a.d. 1145 a colossal statue
of Hercules stood in the Bay of
Cadiz on a lofty pedestal ; at last it
was destroyed by the Moslems, to
whom (e.g. Masudi) we owe the
most exact description of the marvel
which gave name to the ' Strait of
the Idols of Copper.'

1 See chs. xvii. and xviii. of St.

Olafs Saga. The appearance in the
vision was afterwards supposed to
be the spirit of Olaf Tryggveson.

2 The Saga calls him Lcng-.<y ear,
eh. xix. of St. Olafs Saga.

:! Earl Eric of Normandy was Ins
ally in the conquest; and died ' of
blood letting in England,' just as
he was setting out on pilgrimage to
Rome. Ch. xxiii. of St. Olafs
Saga.

88 THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION [Oh.

was there, fresh from his western voyage. ' And they were
all together that winter in Normandy, and agreed that Olaf
should have Northumberland if they could get England
from the Danes.' In the spring the allies made a descent
upon England, but Cnut's men were too many for them ; so
Olaf, after winning a battle in Northumberland,1 sailed off to
Norway, where all the people welcomed him as their
king.2

The rest of this long Saga — though containing a goodly-
number of allusions to foreign lands, and especially to
Iceland and Greenland, the Orkneys and Shetlands, the
north of Scotland, Ireland, and Russia — has little direct
bearing on exploration, travel, or war, in distant parts.
Thorir Hund's Biartna-land or White Sea journey is the
chief glimpse afforded us of the outer world within this
period ; 3 and the story of this is as follows. One winter
(probably of the year 1023 or 1024) Olaf sent a trusty
servant of his to the north. This servant was Karli of
Halogaland, the most northerly province of Norway proper,
to which iElfred's Ohthere also belonged. Karli had more
to do than collect the King's moneys and leave his messages
in the uplands of Norway ; he was to sail right away north
to the White Sea and the Dvina. It was before all a com-
mercial venture ; the King and Karli joined in fitting out
a ship, and each was to have one half of the profits. So
Karli steered north to Halogaland early in the spring with
Gunstein his brother, and coasted up to Finmark. Going

1 The raid was at ' Youngford, ' the
battle at ' Wald ' ; ch. xxvi. of St.
Olaf's Saga.

2 Chs. xxvi., xxvii., xxviii.,
xxxvi. of St. Olaf's Saxja. We may
notice in ch. xxxii. the Cordovan
boots and hose which King Sigurd
Sow wore at his meeting with Olaf—

a trace of the early intercourse of the
Northmen with Southern Spain. Cf.
Dozy, Rccherches sur Vhistoire ale
la Mttirature de I'Espagne pendant
lemoyenage, third edition, 1881, vol.
II. pp. 250-871.

:J 1015-1030. See ch. cxliii. of St.
Olaf's Saga.

II] THORIR HUND IN THE WHITE SEA 89

thus, they passed close by the home of Thorir Hund of
Birch-Isle,1 who had a blood-feud to settle with Karli.
Thorir accordingly sent messages of the friendliest kind to
the passing ship, saying that he also was minded to fare
that summer to Biarma-land in their company and share
evenly in all winnings. So Karli and his brother bade
him join them with a force of the same strength as they
had (five-and-twenty men), but he brought a huge buss,
manned with his own house-carles, nearly eighty in number.
Then Gunstein became suspicious and would have turned
back, but Karli persisted, only remonstrating with Thorir
about his vessel and its crew. But Thorir declared in
such a venturous voyage one could not have too many
good men.

All the summer they sailed on in company, sometimes
one ship being ahead and sometimes the other, along
Finmark and round the North Cape and past the Murman
Coast of Lapland and over the White Sea to Biarma-land,
where they found a good market ; at this ' cheaping stead '
Thorir got some grey wares and beaver-skins and sables.
and Karli, with his well-filled purse, bought many peltries.
When the bartering was over they turned their prows for
home and sailed down the river Dvina. For all the traffic
was at a place some way from the mouth of the stream,
probably near the later Kholmogori, so famous in the time
of Queen Elizabeth and Tsar Ivan IV., of Chancellor and
Jenkinson and Burrough. While business lasted there had
been, as usual, a ' peace with the folk of the land ' ; but
now this was proclaimed to be at an end, and, for any more
profit, plunder was needed. So when they came out to the
sea, the crews met together, and Thorir asked if any one
was willing to go on land and gain wealth for himself ;
1 ' Biark-ey.'

90 THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION [Oh.

for wealth there was to be had, buried in the woods, or
under mounds, ' according to the wont of that land.' Thorir
was well acquainted with the grave hoards and other buried
treasures of the Biarma-men ; probably he had often made
the White Sea voyage before. And all said they would
venture if wealth was to be looked for. Thorir bade them
prepare to start at night ; they left a few men behind to
guard the ships, and the rest went on land and set
out.

' At first there were ilat fields and then a thick wood-
land.' Thorir went ahead, and ordered his followers to
move on silently, barking the trees to show the way back.
At last they came out into a great clearing in the wood ;
and in the clearing was a treasure-mound with a high
palisade and a door securely fastened. But Thorir had
timed it well ; one watch had just gone home, and the next
had not yet arrived. The Norse leader hastened up to the
fence, and, hooking his axe on the top, hauled himself over,
hand over hand, and opened the door from within. He
warned his men only to dig up the gold and silver, ' for
here also stands Iomala the God of the Biarma-men, and
let none dare to rob him.' But when they had loaded
themselves with booty, Thorir turned back to Iomala,
and took a silver bowl which stood in his lap, full of silver
pennies, and poured them into his cloak, while upon his arm
he slipped a bow which was over the bowl.

By that time all the men had got out through the
faggot fence, and became aware that Thorir had stayed
behind. So Karli turned back to look for him, and they
met inside the gate, and Karli saw that Thorir had got the
silver bowl. Then Karli himself ran into Iomala, and saw
that a thick collar was about his neck ; with his axe he
smote asunder the string at the back of the neck and took

II.] THORIR HUND IN THE WHITE SEA 91

the collar ; but the stroke was so mighty that Iomala's head
fell off, and a marvellous crash was heard.

' And straightway when that befell, the warders came
forth into the clearing and blew their horns ; and now
trumpets were heard on every side. So the Northmen
rushed into the wood, but behind they heard constant
whooping and crying, for the Biarma-men had come.' They
were lost but for Thorir. He had guided them to the
place, and now he guarded the rear, guarded it above all
with his wondrous witchery. Before him walked two
men carrying a great bag, 'and what was therein seemed
most like to ashes.' And Thorir dipped his hand in it, and
sowed it about their path, and at times he cast it forth
over his company, making them invisible.

' Thus they fared out of the wood and into the open
fields, while the Biarma-men rushed after them, behind and
on both sides, crying and yelling ; yet saw they never the
Norsemen and their weapons came not near. At the ships
Karli and his people went first aboard, and cast off into
the main ' ; then Thorir too sailed across the White Sea.1

The nights were still bright (it was the time of the
white nights of midsummer), and the Northmen sailed
the whole ' day ' and every day (of four-and-twenty hours)
till they came one evening to certain islands. There they
struck sail and cast anchor, waiting for the ebb, as there
was a strong current before them. And Thorir called upon
Karli to deliver up the collar of the idol Iomala, ' for then
ye had to thank me,' said he, ' for your lives ; and thou,
Karli, didst run us into the greatest peril.' But Karli
replied that the collar was King Olaf's. ' Thereafter Karli
tried to get away from Thorir, sailing as fast as he might ;
but he could not ; and so they came both to Geirsver. And

1 ' Witch-wick.'

92 THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION [Ch.

this is the first place where one who comes from the North
may lie to at a pier.' Thorir lay up the haven and Karli
further out. For the last time Thorir asked that they
should share the booty ; and on a final refusal, he killed
his rival and seized the precious collar ; he would have
sent Gunstein and all the rest after Karli, but they escaped
to King Olaf, abandoning their ship and its rich cargo.
' And thus Thorir Hund became one of the chief foes of
the king.'

The full effect of this was seen later, when Cnut the
Great's ambition threw him across Olaf's path, and when
every element of disaffection in Norway gathered round
the claims of the Danish king. Meantime Thorir remained
in his far northern Finmark home, carefully watching
events ; ever on his guard against king's messengers from
the South ; and again, more than once (if we may trust
some later allusions), going on the White Sea voyage,
buying reindeer skins, and gaining a deeper knowledge of
the witchcraft of the mysterious North.

St. Olaf's relations with Iceland are not of special im-
portance, but such as they are, they may be briefly noticed.
For instance, one Sighvat the Skald, whose father met
the king while he was on his western Viking voyage,
became a favourite poet of the Court. Both he and his
father were typical Icelanders in their keenness for long
trading journeys,1 and the king's favourite talk was with
old rovers (such as he himself had once been) about the
distant countries they had visited, such as Iceland and
Shetland and Faroe and Orkney ; 2 but in spite of his
fondness for these topics he did not fail to lay heavy

1 Ch. xli. of St. Olaf's Saga.

2 Ch. lvi. of the same. See also
chs. lxix. end, lxxi. Cf. moreover in
chs. xlv. , xlvii., the Saga's remark on

Olaf s contingent of '100 men in
Welsh Helms, ' on his ship the Karl's
Head.

II.] ST. OLAF, ICELAND, THE ORKNEYS, ETC. 93

dues upon Iceland ships, and to threaten Icelandic
independence.

At times St. Olaf used these distant islands as convenient
places of exile for his foes ; thus he sent his rebellious vassal
Eoerek 1 to Leif Ericson in charge of Thorarin the Icelander,
' of all men the sagest,' and a great seafarer, who had
been 'long in the Outlands, and was then dighting a
merchant ship of his own ' for Iceland. Greenland and
Eric's Fiord, however, he had never visited, and indeed he
seemed loath to take so great a voyage ; reluctantly yielding
in words to the king's wish, he found in stormy weather
a good excuse for keeping to his beaten track, and never
delivered his royal prisoner to Leif. '

From all this we can better understand the Saga when
it tells us how much the king had to do with the western
colonies of the Northmen, and how steadily he aimed at
binding them more closely to Norway itself. His political
schemes were foiled in Iceland, but he completed the con-
version of that country; he subjugated the Orkneys afresh;
and in all the Outlands he put down, at least for a time,
the eating of horse-flesh aod the exposure of infants,
practices viewed with about equal horror, as decisive
marks of paganism.

The history of the Orkneys during this time offers the
same savage and repulsive aspect as before. Nowhere did
the Viking nature degenerate into more aimless brutality
than in their settlements on the coasts and islands of
Northern Britain. The very names are significant. Eric
Blood-axe, Thorfinn Skull-cleaver, Ottar the Swart, Eyvind

1 Otherwise 'Roderie' or 'Rurik,'
an 'under-king,' afterwards famous as
the only sovereign buried in Iceland,
whom Olaf had blinded ; in revenge

Olaf in church ; felt that the saint
had no armour on ; and aimed a
dagger-stab at his heart, narrowly
missing his prey. Chs. lxxxv., lxxxvi.

the victim watched his time ; sat by | of St. Olafs Saga.

94

THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION

[Oh.

Urochs-horn, Einar Wry-mouth, these are among the
most prominent personages in the endless squabbles of
kites and crows which till the chronicle of the Norse
Earldoms in Caithness, the Hebrides, the Orkneys, and the
Shetlands. Before Harald Fairhair the Orkneys were
but a Viking lair ; 1 in his days they were ' builded,' that
is, reduced to order and made prosperous, according to the
cheerful optimism of the Heimskringla. In reality, they
remained almost as lawless and piratical as before ; their
dependence on Norway was vague and slight, and was
openly disavowed whenever it was found convenient to
do so ; their efforts to extend Norse rule in Scotland ended
at last in complete failure ; and, in contrast to Iceland,
as we have already noticed, they do not seem to have
formed a starting-point (to any appreciable extent) either
of new exploration or of new literature. Here, about 995,
Olaf Tryggveson, passing round these islands on his way
home from his early wanderings, 2 seized the reigning Earl
Sigurd ; and, in his usual hearty manner, offered him
christening or death. Sigurd's son, ' the Whelp,' he took
with him as a hostage to Norway ; but old Sigurd, when
the storm had passed, paid no more attention to his over-
lord, married the daughter of Malcolm, King of Scots, and
busied himself with raiding in Ireland. Just then hopes
of conquest were high among the western Norsemen — hopes
that from their Ostman kingdoms on the east coast they
might conquer the whole of Erin; but in 1014, Brian Boru3

1 See chs. xcix.-cix., of St. Olafs
Saga. On Norse travel to and from
Orkney, Shetland, etc., cf. also Saga
of Burnt Njal, chs. ix., lxxxiv.,
Ixxxviii.-ix. , cli.-iii., cliv.-clvi ; Eyr-
iiyggia Saga, chs. i., v., xxix. ; EgiVs
Saga, chs. iv., xxxiii., lxii. ; Grcttir's

Saga, chs. i.-iii., iv.-v. ; Laxdale
Saga, chs. iv., xi.. li.

2 Ch. Hi. of Olaf Tryggveson' s Saga.

3 The Munster-man, High King of
Ireland. His victory was won largely
by statesman dike alliance with the
Ostmen of the South and West.

II.] THE NORSEMEN IN THE ORKNEYS, FAROES. ETC. 95

overthrew the invaders at the great battle of Clontarf, and
among them fell Sigurd. His children inherited, not only
Orkney, hut Caithness and Sutherland, as fiefs of the King
of Scots ; one son, Einar Wry -mouth, was a famous raider
' about Ireland and Scotland and Bretland,' and suffered a
great defeat at the hands of the Irish under their King
Konofogor.1

Like a cuckoo in the nest, another and more famous son,
Thorfinn Skull-cleaver, as descendant of the great Scot king
Malcolm, devoted his restless energies and high abilities to
the ousting of his brothers from their share in the inheri-
tance, until at last one of the injured appealed to St. Olaf.
The king seized the chance to assert in a more formal way
his supreme lordship in Orkney and Shetland : but his dis-
astrous struggle with Cnut of Denmark again changed the face
of things ; Thorfinn became more powerful than of old, and
rose to be the ' noblest of all Earls of the Islands,' winning-
Shetland, and Orkney, and the Hebrides, and a great dominion
in Scotland and Ireland. ' From the Giant Isles to Dublin/
sang a skald, ' each man was counted Thorfinn's.' 2

The Faroe Islanders, at this time, also gave their allegiance
to the King of Norway ; and there it was settled that such
law and land-right should be held as he should frame, and
such tax paid as he should settle. But in practice the
gathering of Norway dues and the enforcing of Norway
laws proved to be a harder thing.3

1 Ch. lxxxvii. of St. Olaf's Saga.
It was in the same autumn that
Eyvind TJrocks-horn, a Norseman
high in favour with Olaf, was
murdered by Einar on his way back
to Norway from Ireland. See ch.
ciii. of St. Olaf's Saga.

- Ch. cix. of St. Olaf's Saga,
As to Olafa first successes, a

skald sang : ' The Shetlanders
grown leal now, To thee for thanes
are counted, Ne'er yet was seen an
Yngling In East-land who beneath
him Brake down the Isles of West
Land,' eh. cviii. of St. Olaf s Saga.
Harald Fairhair's exploits are con-
veniently forgotten.

3 Ch. cxxxvi. of St. Olaf's Saga.

96 THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION [Oh.

St. Olaf's reign was largely passed in a struggle against
three enemies, Onut of Denmark, Olaf of Sweden, and the
malcontents of his own country, led by Thorir Hund of
Birch Isle and Harek of Thiotta, In this connection we
hear again of Holmgarth or Novgorod, and of King Yaro-
slav. Olaf of Sweden, resolved at all costs to prevent the
marriage of his daughter with Olaf of Norway, gave her to
the Russian Prince ; and as her jointure she had ' Ladoga l
and the earldom thereto appertaining' (a.d. 1019). It
is now that Sweden, perhaps the oldest of Scandinavian
Kingdoms, begins to play a larger part in Scandinavian
history ; and the Heimskringla stops to give it a short
description,2 telling us of its ' Gautland ' Bishop and his
1100 Churches, and of Upsala, with the King's Seat and
the Archbishop's Chair, and the Hoard or Treasury, and the
place of the National Assembly. ' For in all matters the
Swedes yield to Upsala law, and the King's revenue is
called " Upsala wealth." St. Olaf's fate was, after all, to be
allied with the House of Sweden, while its King continued
his bitterest foe. One Princess was snatched from him,
but he was at last married to another, a daughter of the
Swede King by a Wendish or West-Slav mistress.3 Another
link with Baltic and Russian lands in this same time is the
story of Gudleik — Gudleik of Novgorod, as he was called,
though a Norseman, from his frequent journeys and large
business in the North-Slav countries. King Olaf, ever ready,

1 Already mentioned as ' Aldeigia- I Saga. Swedish 'public opinion,'
borg.' See chs. xcii., xcv. and was hotly in favour of the alliance
lxxxviii. - xci. of St. Olaf's Saga. with Norway. For our object their

Sigh vat, ch. xcii., hints perhaps
that Novgorod's money was de-
cisive : — 'I learned of many a
matter Of the good gold ward in

promise is of interest, that, if Olaf
the Swede gives his daughter to Olaf
'the Thick' (St. Olaf), they will
help him to win Estland, Finland,

Garth-realm. . . .' I Courland, Kir ial aland, and wide

2 Ch. lxxvi. of St. Olafs Saga. about the East Lands (Baltic

a Ch. lxxxix., xeiv. of St. Olaf's ' Coasts). Ch. lxxxi.

II.] OLAF IN HALOGALAND ; WAR WITH CNUT 97

as we have seen him before, to do some trading on his own
account, employed Gudleik to buy him things that were
hard to get in Norway, choice clothes for robes of state, and
furs of great price, and a rich table service.

Let us now turn from east to north. After he had
been king five years, Olaf took a journey to Halogaland,
with the double purpose of fixing his own power more
firmly, and of promoting the Christian Faith in those out-
lying regions.1 Here he stayed most of the summer, and
the chief landowners submitted outwardly to his power and
became his men. All the people of the region ' took
christening ' also at the king's order ; but after he had
gone it was seen that the new creed was but skin-deep in
Halogaland.

Olaf was now recalled to the South by a pressing danger,
and the storm that had long threatened from the West
broke at last upon his head. King Cnut ' the Kich,' ' the
Ancient,' or ' the Great,' Lord of Denmark by inheritance,
and of England by conquest, set himself to realize the
full scope of his ambition — a Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon
Empire of the North, which should finally embrace all
lands possessed or settled by Danes, Swedes, and Norsemen
from Ireland to Finland, from the Eyder to the North Cape
of Europe, and from the Channel to Greenland. The
Lordship of Norway was necessary for his plans, and he
had little scruple in ' craving the whole for his own.' He
sent a splendid embassy out of England to Norway, and
' right gloriously was their journey arrayed ' ; they argued
long with Olaf about their Mission — how Cnut's forefathers
had the realm in old time, how the Scot kings in
Fife had become his men, and so forth — but they could get
no submission, 'lhen the war broke out; just in time to
1 Chs. ex.. cxi. of St. Olaf s Saga.
c

98 THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION [Ch.

save the men of the Faroes, of Iceland, and of Halogaland
from an open struggle with Olaf.1 For that very spring a
ship had sailed from Norway to the Faroes with orders
which would have been difficult to evade, for the instant
despatch of a mission to Court, Similar, but even more
stringent, demands had been made upon Iceland, demands
of absolute submission, the acceptance of the laws of
Norway, and the payment of thane-tax and nose-tax, ' for
every nose a penny ' ; but the Icelanders with one accord
had refused all such talliages. Once more, Finn Arnison
was despatched to Halogaland, where he levied taxes and
fined Thorir Hund for the slaying of Ivarli and the seizing
of goods that were in his charge for the king. But
Thorir was again too skilful for his foes ; he cheated Finn
Arnison with a mere fraction of the fine, and fled to Cnut
with nearly all his Biarmaland wealth.2

Curious figures flit about the stage as the crisis approaches ;
Stein the Icelander, who fared abroad in a ship of his
own to the western coast of ' Gizki,' 3 was outlawed for a
murder and fled to Cnut ; Thorod, of the same land, who
went to gather taxes for Olaf in the border country between
Sweden and Norway, and afterwards returned to his Island-
home after a terrible adventure with a witch- wife ; Sighvat
the Skald, who wandered from Norway to Eome, and from
Rouen to England, on a merchant voyage ; Karl-o'-mere,4 ' one
of the greatest of lifters/ who turned from his Viking life to
become a firm friend and servant of St. Olaf, and was killed

1 Chs. cxlv. , cxlvi., cxlviii., cxlix. | humorous and dramatic incidents in
of St. Olaf's Saga. the Sagas ; ch. cxlix. of St. Olaf's

2 Thorir was forced to hand over Saga.

the gold collar of Iomala, but he 3 An isle off the Norwegian coast,

carried off great treasures of grey I in N. Lat. 62° 30'. Ch. cxlviii. of

skins and beaver. The story of St. Olaf's Saga.

his crafty fencing with his enemies 4 Chs. cli. , clii. , cliii. of St. Olaf's

in this difficulty is one of the most | Saga.

II.] ST. OLAF IN RUSSIA 99

in the Faroes, gathering in the Eoyal dues. All these
incidents show us the wide range of Norway's power at this
time, and show us, too, how feeble and uncertain was the
tenure of that power in the saintly but impolitic hands
from which the rule of the North was now slowly
passing.

Cnut's first attack was indecisive ; but in the second
campaign a universal defection, added to the immense
armaments of the invader, threw Norway into the hands of
the new ' Emperor of the Arctic,' and Olaf fled, where so
many Norse chieftains had fled before, to Novgorod.1 Here
King Yaroslav welcomed him heartily, and offered him the
government of Old Bulgaria on the Volga, over which the
Eussian Grand Prince now '2 claimed dominion. Here, in
the country of the Modern Kazan, the people were not yet
Christianised ; and the exile thought well of this offer ; but
his men were all loath to follow him so far. It was better,
they said, for him to try his fortune again in his own king-
dom before attempting anything more distant. It would
not have been an easy task to convert the Moslems of
' Bolghar,' which had formed a part of Islam from the close
of the ninth century, and which was never thoroughly
conquered by the Eussian princes of the Middle Ages,
though on occasion it acknowledged the vague suzerainty
of some of the most powerful East Slav rulers.3 For his
own part St. Olaf would have preferred to go on pilgrimage

1 Clis. clxxx., cxci. of the same,
a.d. 1020.

2 Ch. cxcviii. of same ; the ' domin-
ion called Volgaria, which is one
part of Garth-realm, where the folk
was heathen.'

3 On this Old Bulgaria of the
Middle Volga and Lower Kama, cf.
pp. 105«., 292n,, 303, 335, 341-2,
462-4/t. of this volume ; Ibn Da^ta

in Bossier's llomanische Studied, pp.
359-362, etc. ; Saveliev in Erman's
Archie, vi. pp. 91 -S ; Frahn's Ibn
Foslan, pp. 226, etc., 147, 168, 258,
266 ; Frahn in the Memoires de
VAcademie de St. Pitersbourg, serie
vi. torn. i. pp. 183-199 ; Masudi,
ii. 15, ed. Barbier de Meynard and
Pavet de Courteille.

100

THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION

[Ch.

right away to ' Jerusalem world/ and leave the struggles of
this life to others ; but the heavenly powers themselves
turned him from this abdication. A vision of Olaf Tryggve-
son,1 coupled with the persuasion of Biorn the marshal,
determined the king to try once more the chances of a
restoration ; and in the face of all dissuasion from the
prudent Yaroslav, he persisted in this resolution. He
crossed the ice, made his way to the open Baltic, and by the
time of the spring thaws appeared in Sweden.

Meantime Thorir Hund had been prospering since his
return with Cnut's host. He had made the Finn-journey
two winters and been long on the fells ; measureless wealth
had he won by chafferings with the Finns. Most notable
of all, he had made for himself twelve coats of reindeer skins
of Lapland, with such wizardry, that no weapon could bite
on them, ' aye, less than on ring-mail.' And both he and
Harek of Thiotta made ready to fight against Olaf if he
should come from the East. On the other hand, some of
the nobles stood for the old king, and chief among the last
was his young half-brother, afterwards famons as Harald
Hardrada, but as yet only a boy, fifteen years of age.

With Swedish guides St. Olaf moved slowly through the
Ironstone Land and Iamtland to Norway. And as he
moved he had a vision, the vision of his race ; he saw over
Thrandheim and all Norway, and ' ever wider over all the
world, both land and sea ; those homesteads where he had
been, and just as clearly those which he had never seen, aye,
and those of which he had never heard tell, both peopled
homesteads and unpeopled wastes, as wide as is the world.'

The two armies met at Stiklestad ; and there Thorir

1 Cf. St. Olafs Saga, chs. cxciv.-
cxcviii. , ccii.-cciii. The same vision
had already turned him back from

his early Viking life. See above,
p. 87.

II] ST. OLAF'S FALL ; MINOR TRAVELS 101

Hund, with his reindeer skins and his witchcraft, proved
too strong for the king. So he fell before the ' Hound
whom steel would not bite ' ; yet the same man was among
the first, after the death of Christ's anointed, to proclaim
his saintship and to attest his miracles. It was during
the time of his exile at Novgorod that Olaf really laid aside
the ruler and became the saint ; and the national feeling of
Norway, outraged by the rule of the Danish Usurper, made
the victim of Stiklestad a royal martyr, and the reverence
for his memory became the emblem of patriotism.

When St. Olaf left Novgorod and the kingdom of
Yaroslav to make another struggle for the crown, his young
son Magnus remained in the care of the Russian prince; and
after the battle of Stiklestad his step-brother Harald, the
future Hardrada, sought a like refuge at Holmgarth.1 It
was not long before one of the royal martyr's greatest foes
also came to Ladoga and Novgorod, and swore allegiance to
Magnus Olafson. Kalf Arnison2 had been one of the three
who cut down the old king at Stiklestad ; now, like the great
archer Einar,3 he was in revolt against King Cnut and had to
fly to Sweden and Gardariki.4 Sighvat the Skald, St. Olaf's
friend and favourite singer, was another prominent Norse-
man on whom Magnus could count. He came home soon
after the death of his old patron, and, staying in Sweden
during Magnus' exile, asked news of Olaf's son from all the
traders that he met on their way to or from Novgorod.
The distant wanderings of his race were typified in Sighvat;
whose home was in Iceland ; who had traded in England and
Valland;5 who had been to Rome on pilgrimage; and who
heard of Olaf's death while he was on his way from the

1 Novgorod. 4 Russia.

2 Ch. ccxl. of St. Olaf a Saga. 5 North and West France.

3 Tharabarskelfir. I

102

THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION

[Ch.

South across the Alps.1 Now he had travelled down into
Sweden with thoughts of a journey to Eussia, for, as he sang,
news from the East was full of the praises of the young king
in his exile, and even the birds of passage spoke of
him.2

Before many months came a far more decisive change of
fortune ; for Cnut the Great, so long ' held in worship ' by
all men of the North, died in England. But even earlier
than this the Loyalists were beginning to move once more.
From Novgorod to Ladoga, from Ladoga to the Baltic, and
across the narrow sea to Sweden, by the same route that his
father had gone on his last journey, Magnus Olafson made his
way back to Norway with very different prospects. He was
welcomed by almost every class and every district as
universally as his father had been rejected. The disappear-
ance of the Saint's rebel enemies soon followed. Thorir
Hund, the repentant chief of them, went on pilgrimage to
Jerusalem, — never, as some said, to return again. Harek of
Thiotta was killed ; Kalf Arnison had to fly the country ;
while others became Vikings in the Western Seas, and long
plundered the coasts and isles of Scotland, Ireland, and the
Hebrides.3

Magnus' reign was a brilliant one for Norway. Under
the misrule of Harald and Harthacnut, the Great Cnut's
work was all undone ; Norway was now able to gain the
better of Denmark;4 and St. Olafs son even made a claim
on that realm of England, from which Cnut had ruled his

1 ' On Alps by a burg one morning,
I stood and thought of the King.'
Ch. ix. of Magnus Good's Saga.

2 ' h'en though there fly betwixt
us The smallest fowls air-cleaving, I
hear of the snjall king's son As he
fares and my hopeisholiien.' Ch. ix.
of Magnus Saga.

3 See chs. xii., xiii.-xv. of Magnus
Saga, a.d. 1035-1047.

4 So far, at least, as to force Har-
thacnut to an agreement that who-
ever outlived the other should inherit
his kingdom. Under this treaty
Magnus ruled Denmark, 1042-1047,
chs. vii., xix. of Magnus Saga.

H.J MAGNUS GOOD ; HARALD HARDRADA 103

Empire, but which had now passed back to" the West
Saxon House in the person of Edward the Confessor. At
the peaceful answer of the English king, who would offer
no resistance, but simply appealed to the common justice
of princes, Magnus ' the Good,' with a sort of shame,
waived his demands. Now that England had cast out
the race of Cnut there seemed no shadow of quarrel; and
meantime there was work enough in the new dominions on
the Baltic and in wars with Wends,1 Courlanders, and
Saxons. What Magnus abandoned was left for a more
daring spirit and a more grasping ambition twenty years
later. That spirit and that ambition were incarnate in
Harald Hardrada. His life is perhaps the most perfect
example of the Norse type, as pirate-wanderer, free lance,
and conquering king. William the Conqueror, Cnut the
Ancient, Eobert Guiscard, Eoger of Sicily, are all in a
sense greater men of the same race — greater as organisers,
law-givers, administrators, and masters of statecraft. But
among all the Scandinavians there is no rover, no ad-
venturer, like the man who, after fighting in well-nigh
every land of Christians, or of the neighbours and enemies
of Christendom, yet hoped for time to sail off to the new-
found countries ' under the pole,' and so perfect a life of
unmatched variety by unmatched discovery. Fate, which
granted him many things, denied him the chance of being
a Barentz or a Hudson of the eleventh century. He had
fought with wild beasts in the Hippodrome of Constanti-

1 See chs. xxiv., xxv., xxvii. of i Here 'the Wends fell as thick and
same. In these campaigns Magnus fast as if they lay in wave drifts,'
captured Jomsborg, the famous
stronghold of Baltic Vikings, which
the Dane kings had so dreaded, and
won a great victory over his Slav and
Lettish adversaries at Heathby near ' ch. xxix. of same.
Skotborg- Water on Lyrshaw Heath.

ch. xxix. Duke Otto of Brunswick
'in Saxland,' son-in-law of St. Olaf,
was with him in this battle. Certain
(two) Iceland men were also present,

104 THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION [Oh.

nople ; he had bathed in the Jordan and cleared the Syrian
roads of robbers ; he had stormed eighty castles in Africa ;
he had succoured the Icelanders in famine ; and men knew
and feared him alike in Eussia and England. He lived as a
prince, a conqueror, or a guest, in Norway and in Novgorod,
in Sicily and in Yorkshire ; in his own songs he boasts that
he had sailed round Europe ; yet he never led his followers
into that unknown world where his countrymen had shown
the way. A true forerunner, in spirit, of those explorers who
have most greatly dared, he fell without one discovery.
Men of his own nation and time had been before him
every where ; but he united in himself the deeds and
the adventures, the conquests and the enterprises, of many.
Never more clearly than in him may be recognised that
northern spirit which was the very ground and impulse
of the movement of Europe towards the outer world, in
which lay, hidden yet certain, the future triumph of the
Christian nations over every rival.

To Snorre Sturleson, St. Olaf the Christianiser — the weak,
obstinate, religious king, who thought it sin even to cut chips
from a block of wood on the Sunday — is the central figure
in his country's history. And in a sense, for good or for
evil, Snorre was right. The conversion of the Scandinavian
people was indeed a turning point in their history. They
ceased to be the terror, they became the leaders, of the
Christian world. Yet the Norse genius for exploration,
though not for war, seems to decay with the conversion of
the race, and the subtlety and craft that is so marked in the
pagan Scandinavians is often replaced by an exceptional
simplicity and want of foresight among the later Christian
types of Norse nationality. The fierce contempt of life,
the unflinching pursuit of material gain, alike by strategy
or by force, never turned from its object by discouragement

II-] SCANDINAVIAN CHARACTEKlSTlCy 105

or resistance, disdaining no means to reach the goal, never
more dangerous than when repulsed, never more watchful
than when reposing, generous to a fault with friends, but
implacable with foes, waiting any time for vengeance, yet
never sacrificing, for a sentimental vengeance, solid gain —
these qualities, which mark so unmistakably Thorir Hund or
Harald Hardrada, Robert Guiscard or William of Normandy,
appear slowly to die out in the later generations of Christian
Northmen. In truth, men like Gustavus III. or Charles XII.
recall the prominent type of heathen Norsemen far less than
do some of the empire-builders of another country where the
Scandinavian blood had also left its mark. Ivan III., the
' Collector of Russian land,' and Harald Fairhair, the Unifier
of Norway ; Ivan IV. and Cnut of Denmark ; Yermak, the
Conqueror of Siberia, and Rolf the Conqueror of ' Valland,'
offer us parallels of no little suggestiveness. In both race-
histories there is a similar spirit at work, but working on
very different material. Out of a people all composed of
adventurers, it was perhaps harder to form a perfectly
unified state; leadership was more difficult where so many
could dispute the lead, and where so few were willing to
be led. But on the submissive and ductile nature of the
Slav there could be more easily impressed a sense of sub-
ordination and of discipline, which was not without its
value as a servant of high political ends.

Harald Hardrada was wounded in the battle where Holy
Olaf1 fell, but he was hidden by friends, healed of his
wounds, and sent east through Sweden to ' Garthrealm.'

1 See ch. i. of Harald Hardrada 's a skald (Bolverk) : — 'But the next

Saga and the verses : — ' The Burner year east in Garthrealm Ne'er heard

of the Bulgars There well availed his we of peace-waster Waxing more

brother,' etc. As to his life in Russia, famed than thou . . . Until at ship's

the Saga says nothing more of his bows Harald Saw Miklagarth's bright

wars against the (Volga) Bulgarians metals.' 'Miklagarth,' the 'Great

(ch. ii.), except to quote the lines of City,' is, of course, Constantinople.

106

THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION

[Oh.

There he remained some years with King Yaroslav, and
' fared wide about the East Ways,' till at last he went on
to seek his fortune in the service of the Byzantines, the
richest paymasters of Mediaeval Christendom, to whose
banner so many of Harald's countrymen had already flocked.
Zoe the Wealthy then reigned at Constantinople in the
name of Constantine Monomach, and employment was
at once given to the new-comer. First he fought for the
Empire in the ' Greek Sea,' and put down the Corsairs
that infested the Archipelago ; then he performed brilliant
deeds in more distant regions. After a time all the
Varangians of the Foreign Guard were put under Harald's
command, and he became the trusted leader of the motley
host, a Norse general not only over Norsemen, but over
Slavs, English, Germans, and men of Latin speech. But
he and his mercenaries claimed to be independent of the
Greek troops and their officer, declaring they were ' masters
of their own matters and bound in service only to the
kino.' i

1 Cf. chs. ii.-iv. of Harold Har-
drada's Saga. As to earlier journeys
of Northmen to Constantinople, cf.
e.g. (1) Grettir the Strong's Saga, chs.
lxxxviii. -xcv., where Thorbiorn
Angle, after slaying Grettir in Ice-
land, goes abroad to Norway and
Miklagarth, in the time of Michael
Katalaktos, when ' many Northmen '
were going to Byzantium and taking
' war-wage ' there. Like Thorbiorn
Angle, Thorstein Dromund, Grettir' s
avenger, enters the Vaering Guard,
wherein he discovers Thorbiorn. A
long story follows of his intrigues
with 'the lady Spes,' wife of one
Sigurd, but apparently herself a
Greek. ' In those days Harald
Sigurdson (Hardrada) was at Mikla-
garth.' Thorstein and Spes go to

Norway, and finally on pilgrimage
to Rome. (2) Slaying Stir's Saga,
under a.d. 1008-9, records how Guest
Thorhallson, after a manslaughter,
flies to Norway and Miklagarth,
where he prospers and remains.
Thorstein Stirson pursues but never
finds Guest. (3) Laxdale Saga, chs.
lxxii.-iii., lxxvii., tells how Bolli
Bollison goes abroad into southern
lands, ' for a man he thought was
deemed benighted who learnt nothing
further a-field than what was to be
seen in Iceland.' Bolli journeys to
Norway and Denmark, and so to
Miklagarth, where he stays many
winters. He enters the Vaering
Guard, and is the first Northman to
' take war- wage from the Greek King,'
who on parting with him bestows

If.] hardrada's early travels 107

United action became impossible, and most of the
Byzantines went back to the capital ; while Harald and
his men started to attack the Moslem lands of North Africa,
the richest country upon earth, as the Northmen believed.
Here followed many years of war and plunder and ad-
venture, and Harald gained ' exceeding much gold and
all kind of precious goods.' But the whole of this
wealth which he did not need for his own use, he sent
back to Novgorod by the hands of trusty men, and stored
it up in the keeping of his friend the Grand Duke Yaroslav.
; And after that he went to Sicily and took there various
Burgs with cunning devices ; and then fared he back to
Constantinople with his host, and arrayed his journey for
Jerusalem. All his wage-gold from the Greek king he left
behind, and so did the Vaerings who went to the Holy
City with him. Thus he came out to Jerusalem-laud, and
there all towns and castles, aye, and all the country, came
unburnt and unwasted into the power of Harald. And he
went to Jordan aud bathed him there, as is the way of
Palmers, and bestowed a great wealth on the Grave of the
Lord, and on the Holy Cross, and on the other relics of
Jerusalem-land. Moreover, he made safe the road to
Jordan, and slew folk that plundered and wasted
there.' 1

But when he came back to Constantinople he heard that
Magnus Olafson2 had become King of Norway and Den-
mark. So he 'gave word' to the King of the Greeks that
he would leave his service. Then Zoe charged Harald with

many splendid gifts, clothes of fur, I Emperor, and his becoming Captain
a scarlet cape, a gilt saddle, and
other things. (4) Burnt Njal's Saga,
ch. lxxx., narrates the journey of
Kolskegg through Russia to Mikla-

of the Vaeriug Guard.

1 See chs. vi.-xii. of Harald Har-
drada's Saga.

2 His 'brother's' son; a mistake

irth, his taking service under the | of the Saga for ' half-brother.'

108 THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION [Ch.

keeping back some of the booty which belonged to the
emperor ; and on this charge the captain of the Varangian
Guard was thrown into prison, and put in danger of his
life. But with the aid of St. Olaf, or by his own skill and
strength, he escaped from this peril, as from so many others
before, and took a savage vengeance as he tied.

At the head of his men he forced his way into the
sleeping chamber of the emperor and blinded him ; 1 then,
seizing the Princess Mary — whom he had fruitlessly wooed,
and for whose sake Zoe had become his enemy — he sailed
out into the Bosphorus with two galleys.2 Skilfully 'leap-
ing ' the chain that guarded the entrance, he passed over
the Euxine and the Sea of Azov,3 and so returned, probably
by way of Kiev and the Dniepr, to Novgorod and the Court
of Yaroslav the Law-giver.

Here he took into his own keeping all the treasures
which he had sent before from the South, ' and in that
hoard was so much wealth that no man of the North had
ever seen such in one man's owning.' For besides what
he had won in battle, Harald had the good fortune to earn
palace spoil three times in Constantinople, and ' that is the
custom whereby, when the G-reek King died,' his Vaering
Guards might go over all the king's palace-hoards and take
whatsoever they could carry off.

That winter Yaroslav gave Harald his daughter
Elizabeth ; and towards spring Hardrada and his wife
journeyed from Novgorod to Ladoga, equipped a fleet, and
sailed away from the East. First the adventurers turned
aside into Sweden, where they met with one Svein, after-

1 Chs. xiii. and xiv. of Harald
Hardrada' 's Saga.

2 Harald weighted his vessel, first
behind, till his prow was half across
the chain, and then before, so that

the galley fell forwards into the sea
on the other side, the crew rushing
first to one end, then to the other.

3 ' Ellipalta,' chs. xv. , xvi. of
Harald Hardrada's Saga.

n.] haiidrada's early travels 109

wards famous as Svein Estrithsou or Wolfson,1 Kiug of
Denmark (1047-1074). Harald and lie formed a league,
plundered Zealand and other coasts of Denmark, and
threatened Norway ; Magnus in alarm called out his
host against them ; but before joining battle he offered
Harald, as his kinsman, one-half of the kingdom, and a
division of all the loose wealth they had between them.
The offer was accepted, and so Hardrada came home to
Norway as joint king. ' And to Magnus and his court men
he gave wondrous things from the goods of the Greek King ' —
a mazer girt with silver, and a bowl of silver gilt filled with
silver pennies, and two gold rings that together weighed a
mark, and a cloak of brown purple lined with white skins —
and other noble presents from that land ' where men say
there are houses full of red gold.' 2

And not long after this Magnus died, and Harald became
sole king.3 We have nothing to do here with his wars
against Denmark and his old ally Svein Estrithson ; but
his friendship with the Icelanders is another matter. For
'great are the tales of King Harald that are set forth in
those songs which Icelandmen brought to him or his sons,
so firm a friend was he to all the folk of that land. Yea,
once when there was a dearth in Iceland, Harald sent thither
four ships with meal, and caused that meal to be sold right
cheap ; also he suffered the poor folk who could get
victuals over sea to fare abroad ; and he sent to Iceland
a church bell,' to the same church for which St. Olaf had
given4 the wood. The king's Iceland friends, Thorleik

1 See chs. xvii. -xviii. of Harald | from his southern treasures, though
Hardrada's Saga, and the verses of ! the skins might be Russian or
Valgard of the Mead : 'Thou ! Finnish.

steer'st forth thy ship, 0 Harald, | sa.i>. 1047.

'Neath fairest freight ; thou sailest, | 4 Cf. eh. xxxvi. of Harald Har-

With bottomless gold from the east drada's Saga. A bell given by St.

land, From Holmgarth.' ... i Olaf to a church in Iceland is also

2 All these, we may suppose, came ' recorded.

11.0 THE NORSEMEN AND EXPLORATION [Ch.

the Fair, Halclor the son of Snorre, Wolf the son of Uspak,
and the rest left deeply printed on the Icelandic poetry and
chronicles the tradition of Hardrada's splendid personality.
' Masterful was he, and given to rule, a mighty warrior, and
the boldest under weapons, more strong and deft in war
than any other lMn ; and so sage and cunning withal that,
as all men said, no lord ever was in northern lands so deep-
witted or so nimble of counsel.' But all men were not so
contented with his reign of iron. Like the chief kings of
Norway before him, Harald set himself to break down the
power of the landowners. He cut off or drove into exile, one
after another, all the nobles who opposed him ; and the
landsmen, says Hardrada's own Saga,1 wanted nothing but
a leader to rise in open revolt against him. Several of
the exiles fled to Svein Estrithson in Denmark, and took
service with him against the Vikings of the East Ways,
the Wends, and the Courlanders, as well as against Norway ;
others took refuge in England or Normandy,2 or went on
Viking cruises in the Western Seas.

One curious incident is the intercourse between King
Harald and his nephew Guthorm of Dublin, who often
came over to see his uncle, but whose business was
freebooting in the West, where he joined the Irish chieftain
Margath3 in ravaging the coasts of Wales, Cambria, and
Cornwall.

After a long4 but indecisive struggle of seventeen years
with Svein, Hardrada made peace ' on these terms, that he
should have Norway and Svein Denmark, unto the land-
borders which of old had been between Norway and
Denmark' ; and it was now, in the ensuing time of rest,

1 Chs. xxxvi. xlv. of Harald Har- I 3 Otherwise Margad. Chs. lvi., lvii.
drada's Saga, of same.

2 See chs. 1., li., liii.-lv. of same. 4 1047-1064 A.D.

II.]

HARDRADAS LATER ENTERPRISES

111

that Harald seems to have projected those Greenland, Vin-
land, and Polar journeys which made his name famous in
the North as that of no other kin" had been.1 But all these
schemes were cut short by the fatal English venture of 1066.
Here after several triumphs Harald failed and perished ;
but in falling he brought down his foe with him. The two
chief Norsemen of the world threw themselves on England
in the same year and season ; to crush the Northern invader
the South had been left bare ; and William of Normandy
landed in the same days of early autumn which ended the

struggle in Yorkshire.

1 See Adam of Bremen, GestaPonti-
ficum Hammaburgensis ecclesiae, iv.
38(247,Lappenberg). As to the North-
men's more distant wanderings, we
may notice : — (1) About a.d. 1000,
Gris Saeniingson is recorded as the first
Scandinavian merchant in Constanti-
nople ; cf. Antiquites russes, ii. 113;
Heyd, Covimcrce du Levant, i. 74. (2)
Before the conversion of the North-
men, Visby in Gothland was a great
centre of commerce ; and hoards of
Anglo-Saxon and Arab coins, anterior
to a.d. 1000, bear witness to this ; cf.
Bonnel, Russisch-Livlandisehe Chron-
ologic, Commentar, p. 24 ; Heyd,
Commerce, i. 63, 64. (3) Scandi-
navian, and especially Swedish, inter-
course with Russia, particularly with
Novgorod and its fairs, 860-1060, is
shown by many details in Kunik,
Bervfung der Schwedischcn Rodsen,
ii. 131, etc.; Rafn, Antiquites russes,
i. 295, 359, 432 ; ii. 119. (4) Accord-
ing to one tradition, the Goths of the
Crimea originated in a ninth-century
migration from Gothland, passing
through 'Gardariki'; cf. hiiant, Ex-
peditions des Scandinaves en Terrc
Sainte, 64-5. (5) On the 'Majuj,' or
Vikings, in Spain, their invasions

of 844, 858-61, 966-71, and 1014, and
embassy from Abderrahman II. to
distant isle (Orkneys ?) inhabited by
these ' Magogs,' cf. Dozy, Jtecherches,
ii. 252-340 ; Sebastian of Salamanca,
ch. 26 ; Dudo of St. Quentin, in
Duchesne, Hist. Norm. Script. 144 c-
152 a. In 844, besides attacking
Brigantia Pharos (near Corunna),
threatening Lisbon, and raiding
Seville, the Northmen made descents
on Africa, where a harbour near Arzilla
was long known as 'the Majuj port.'
Abderrahman II. 's envoy, Al Ghazal
of Jaen, went from Silves by sea to
Pirates' Court and returned via
Compostella. In 858-61 the Vikings
passed Straits of Gibraltar and went
as far as 'Greece' ; even before Charle-
magne's death (814) they had ap-
peared oft' the Narbonnese. In 1014,
they apparently sacked Tuy, which
some identify with St. Olaf's ' Gunn-
valdsborg'; Olaf's 'Seliupool' has
likewise been conjecturally fixed at
estuary of Sil or Minho. (6) On
early Norse descents in Erin, especi-
ally" in a.d. 851, 852, S54, S59, 866,
869, 870, cf. Annals of Ireland,
Dublin, 1860, pp. 159-163, 169. 175,
185. 189, 193.

( 112 ;

CHAPTER III

PILGRIM TRAVEL

In the first part of this survey of Mediaeval Geography we
brought the record of pilgrim-travel to the close of the
ninth century. The present chapter endeavours to supply
an account of this religious exploration during the next
350 years, reaching to the end of the Crusading era, the
fall of the Bagdad Caliphate, and the establishment of the
empire of the Mongol Tartars as the dominant power in
Asia and Eastern Europe. This long period may be sub-
divided into three ; the pre-Crusading time, closing with
the election of Gregory VII. to the Eoman See ; the time
of the first three Crusades, closing with the Saracen re-
capture of Jerusalem in 1187 ; and the time of the later
Crusading struggles, closing with the middle years of the
thirteenth century, when the hopes of the Latin Kingdoms
in the East were finally overthrown, and when new forces
had worked a revolution in the relations of Europe with the
Levant, Central Asia, and the Further East.

The first of these three epochs is naturally the least
interesting. Beginning with the era of the collapse of the
Frankish Monarchy of Charles the Great, it ends with the
accession of that great Pontiff, under whose inspiration the
Crusading movement finds its true commencement. With

Ch. III.] CHRISTIAN PILGRIMAGE C.A.D. 880-1070 113

this movement opens a new era for Western pilgrims.
Masters at length of the land so dear and so coveted, lords
of the house where they had so long been servants, the
Christians of the Latin world flocked in crowds to the re-
covered capital of the Holy Fields. On the other hand, in
the two centuries before this revolution we have but a few
records of Syrian pilgrimage, showing little activity in
comparison of some earlier times, the age of Constantine,
the age of Justinian, or the age of Charlemagne. And it
would be unreasonable to expect otherwise. There is no
darker century of Christian History than the tenth — at
least in the lands west of the Adriatic ; practical enterprise
and scientific interest were never more nearly extinct in
the races whose only bond of union was the Homan
Christianity, now becoming so sharply antagonistic to the
Churches of the East. Where men should have looked for
a leader and a gospel, there was now but a very sorry ghost
of the ancient Empire, sitting with crown and sceptre among
the ruins of pagan power. For this was the age of the
Pornocracy at Rome, and the Imperial Church was dis-
credited and incapacitated for leadership by a succession of
' human monsters ' (in the words of Baronius),1 who neither
took thought for decent morals nor good government, but
only for the favour of Theodora, Marozia, and other
' patronesses,' for the enjoyment of such poor luxury as the
age afforded, and for a complete immunity from the cares
of administration. The Imperial Frankish State was a
victim to the same effeminacy, and the same lack of govern-
ance ; and the result to the Temporal power was a complete
suspension for nearly a century of the Imperial name and
fact in the West, the collapse of the first Komano-German

1 ' Homines monstruosi, vita turpissimi, moribus perditissimi, usfpie-
quarpie f'oedissinri.'

II

114 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Oh.

kingdom of Charles the Great, Charles the Bald, and
Charles the Fat. From 888 to 962 this interregnum lasted,
and when at last the vitality of the German people once
more made head against internal discord and external in-
vasion, the Empire which Otto I. restored was even in
theory a narrower and less powerful body than the great
State which, to all seeming, Charlemagne had so firmly
welded together. The West Frank region, the France of
the later Middle Age, was now for ever detached from the
Eastern and more purely Germanic lands ; but this detach-
ment gave at first little promise of a strong and well-ordered
state on the west of the Rhone, Saone, and Meuse. Nowhere
in Christendom was the paralysis of the central power and the
victory of political feudalism more complete. In Spain, at
the close of the first millennium, the ruin of the Christian
kingdoms seemed almost as absolute as in the eighth century.
Barcelona and Compostella were both captured by the ' Hagib
Almanzor,' the great Moslem general of the Caliph Hisham of
Cordova (976-1002); Leon was overrun; the Christian ad-
vance in the central plateau was beaten back ; and the
Western Caliphate once more reached to the Pyrenees and
the Asturias. In England, the development of Wessex, under
King iElfred and his first successors, gave better hopes of a
united realm covering the main part of Britain, absorbing the
settled Danes and Northmen, and bidding defiance to fresh
Scandinavian attacks ; but the last quarter of the tenth
century blighted all this prospect. The new English King-
dom fell into hopeless decrepitude under iEthelred II. ; and
a similar decrepitude under Otto II. also threatened the
revived German Empire at this very time. On every side
the history of Latin Christendom in the tenth century is
a sombre record.

The weakness, the comparative anarchy, and the

III.] OUTLOOK AT CLOSE OF FIRST MILLENNIUM 115

ignoranee of one civilisation is often in strong contrast
with the firm rule and developed culture of others ; and at
this time Irish, Norse, Byzantine, and Moslem politics and
society appear to absorb all the light that has passed away
from the Latin world. The people, church, and schools of
Ireland close the most brilliant period of their history just as
the rest of the mediaeval Christian states are entering upon
the Renaissance of the Crusading age. In the terrible
pressure of Viking attacks a higher political life was de-
veloped, and while England was falling under Dane and
Norseman, Ireland seemed to be reaching its unity as a
great kingdom in the victory of Clontarf (1014). All through
the dark age of the Imperial interregnum and the Saxon
Dynasty the Irish school of art and literature, even of
geography, was probably superior to any other in Western
Europe ; and here we may remember that no map of the
earlier Middle Age has the accuracy of one attributed to an
Irish scholar-monk.1

Still more remarkable is the position of the Byzantine
Empire at this time (880-1025). In an age of general
Catholic and Latin weakness and barbarism the Orthodox,
Greek, or Eastern realm shows itself a better inheritor
of the name and glory of Old Koine : its Church pre-
serves a greater decency and displays a far larger
measure of activity ; its culture and literature suffer even
less in the comparison. While Islam is crushing for the
second time the Nazavenes of Spain, the Nazarenes of
Nikephoros Phokas, John Tzimiskes and Basil II. are win-
ning victories in the Levant, and lightening the hostile
pressure upon Christendom at large. While the missions
of the Latin Church are neglecting to carry forward the
work of St. Ansgar in the North, or of Cyril and Methodius
1 The ' Cottoniana. '

116 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Oh.

in the East, the Eussian lands are won to the Orthodox
Faith by the more persuasive influence and more gorgeous
ceremonial of the New Eome. In contrast to the atrophy
of all higher literature among the Franks of the tenth
century, the writings of Constantine VII., Born in the Purple?
are worthy of more notice than they might claim at another
time ; for his works are typical of a school of culture which
could hardly be found in Italy, France, Germany, or England
ill this age. They are typical also of a national and ad-
ministrative activity which soon after recovered Crete and
Cyprus, Antioch and Edessa, the suzerainty of Armenia and
the Crimea, and the ancient Imperial paramountcy in all those
Thracian lands which had been overrun- by the migration
of the Turkish Bulgarians from the Volga.

Once more the misery and poverty, the inaction and
barbarism of Latin countries in the later ninth century, and
the whole of the tenth, contrasts with an extraordinary
activity of Northern and heathen peoples. The Scandinavian
Vikings are not only the ravagers of Frankland and England ;
they are the superiors of Franks and English in the arts of life
and in literary instinct, as much as in military skill ; above
all, their spirit of enterprise and movement marks them out
as the leaders, if they were not to be the supplanters, of
European civilisation.

Outside the limits of the Christian world, Islam
claims in this period as much glory for its science and
letters, as much praise for its brilliant and tolerant culture,
though hardly as much attention for its universal ambitions,
as in the first centuries of the Caliphate. But in spite of
all appearances, the evidence of political, if not of social,
decay is now becoming too strong to be ignored, and when
the strength of Islam is regenerated for a time by Moors

1 Porphyrogennetos.

HI.] OUTLOOK AT CLOSE OF FIRST MILLENNIUM 117

and Berbers in the West, and by Turks in the East, it is a
regeneration of arms and manhood, but not of science or of
culture. Neither Seljuks nor Ottomans could found a
second Bagdad ; neither Almoravides nor Almohades could
permanently restore the prosperity of Cordova and Kair-
wan. Yet, until its political ruin in the thirteenth century,
the capital of Moslem Spain retained much of its intellectual
glory ; the name of Averroes was linked with the closing
years of Mohammedan rule in the valley of the Guadal-
quivir ; and even in its last and weakest time the Abbasside
Caliphate maintained a centre of Moslem learning at the
Home of Peace upon the Tigris.

Prom this survey we may gather that the Latin Geo-
graphy of the later ninth, the tenth, and the early eleventh
centuries, will prove to be a chronicle of little interest;
on the other hand, this chronicle, the record of Western
pilgrim-travel, is the necessary introduction to a decisive
period ; and however meagre in its interest or debased in
its form, yet it is saved from oblivion by a certain rough
abundance of material.

We must begin by briefly reviewing the somewhat arid
though lengthy catalogue of journeys, religious, diplomatic
and other, which alone furnish us with a sketch, one cannot
say a picture, of the relations between the Holy Places of
Syria and the nations of Western Europe, in the troublous
times we have now reached. The Pontificate of John VIII.
opens a new stage in these relations, about the year 880. For
now we have, for the first time, a definite pronouncement
from the Apostolic See on a point of high practical import-
ance to the would-be Crusaders of that time which prepared
men for the Crusades. All warriors killed in fighting against
Pagans and Unbelievers — were they, whatever their sins,
certain of Eternal Salvation ? This question had been some-

118

PILGRIM TRAVEL

[Ch.

what disputed, and the affirmative answer of John VIII.
was a victory for the spirit of Islam within the bosom of
Christendom. Before the rise of the Moslem danger, the
balance of opinion in the Church would probably have been
against such an unconditional absolution ; but the seventh
century had worked a change in the most peaceful of
Catholics ; and a repetition of seventh-century woes seemed
again to threaten Christendom, as men saw the Karling
empire dissolve. The papal pronouncement on this matter
(c. 876-882) may be specially connected with the embassies
of Theodosius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and of Elias III., his
successor, to the Church of Rome, the ' kings of the race
of Charles, and the Clergy of the West' (a.d. 878, 881).1 Of
these missions the former made a long stay in Italy ; as late
as the 2nd of May, 879, the envoys are still with Pope John,
who writes to Jerusalem excusing the delay, and promising

JOn these, (1) 'John VIII. to the
Bishops of Louis ["le Begue " or
"the Stammerer," King of France],'
of. Mansi, Concilia, xvii. 104 ; on
(2) the 881 embassy of Elks III.
to ' Charles the younger, Emperor,
and to all bishops, princes, and
nobles of the Kingdom of Gaul, ' (April-
October), cf. AA. SS., i.e. Acta
Sanctorum (May iii. , xlii.) ; Spicile-
gium Acherianum, ii. 370 ; on (3) that
of Theodosius, cf. Jaffe, Regesta Ponti-
ficum Romanorum, 2462 (= Jafle-
Wattenbach, 3242 ; ' Theodosius,
David, and Sabas, sent to John
VIII. by Theo losius, Patriarch of
Jerusa'em, 878'); for John VIIL'sex-
cuses on account of delay, cf. AA. SS.
May vii. 699 ; Jaffe, 2462 {Archives
de V Orient Latin, i. '22-31.). Count
Riant well contrasts the. declaration of
Johu VIII. with the letter of Adrian
I. to Charles the Great (778) when
the Frank King was starting on

a Spanish campaign. In this no
allusion whatever is made to this as
a Holy War, though waged against
Moslems. Leo IV., in 848, is the
only Pontiff who in any measure
anticipates John VIII. Calling the
Franks to the help of Rome against
the Saracens, he speaks of the
certainty of Celestial Reward for any
one killed in defending the capital of
Christendom. But (1) the defence of
Rome was a special matter and quite
different from a general state of war
against Saracens ; (2) Leo's language
ii vague ; (3) John VIII. 's pronounce-
ment includes aggressive as well as
defensive war. In 963, at the in-
stigation of St. Polyeuctes, Nike-
pforos Phokas issued a similar
edict, declaring that the soldiers
killed in his Syrian wars were
martyrs of the Church. (Cedrenus
II., 368 (Bonn ed.); Zonaras, bk.
xvi. ).

III. I PALESTINE AND THE LATIN WORLD 119

in explanation a consignment of money and necessaries
for the faithful of the Holy City. The Eastern Brethren
must remain to take back these gifts , they only awaited
the complete collection of the same. As to the second
mission of Elias III. in 881 (entrusted to a pair of monks,
named Gisbert and Reinard, who from their names must be
Western and not Syrian ecclesiastics), this was avowedly for
the collection of subsidies to free the Church of Jerusalem from
various building debts. The credentials of this' embassy,
a letter from the Patriarch to Charles the Fat, last of the
immediate successors of Charlemagne, gained sume notoriety
in the West ; a century later it was known in England,
and it is noticed of Asser the historian that he had read
the document in question. About the same time as this
appeal to the generosity of the Franks, and probably in
the year 883, occurs the famous journey of the West Saxons
Sighelm and JEthelstan. These ' gift-bearers,' probably
priests, ' carried to Rome the alms which King iElfred had
vowed to send thither, and also to India, to St. Thomas and
St. Bartholemew.' Between Rome and Malabar the
mission probably visited Jerusalem, and the English king,
in return for his offerings to these distant churches, received
presents of silks, spices, gums, and Eastern shawls.1

All these journeys to and from the Levant have a
certain similarity ; they are all connected with the poverty,
and so with the relief, of the subject Christians of the East;
and they may all be paralleled by earlier missions. Pope
John VIII. received the envoys of Theodosius and Elias III.,
and helped them to collect money in the West, just as
earlier popes had done in past time : Martin I. in 649 and

1 Of. William of Malmesbury, Gesta
Begum Anglorum, bk. ii. § 122 ;
Florence of Worcester, Chron., a.d.
SS3 : Roger of Wendover, Flores i

Hist. , ed. Coxe, i. 154 ; Sighelm
returned, and afterwards became
Bishop of Sherborne.

120 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Ch.

652-3 ; Gregory the Great in 596, 600, and 603 ; Leo the
Great in 453; Leo III. in 799, 800, 803, 807, and 809;
Gregory IV. in 834 and 840. On all these occasions
( servants of God ' from the Holy Land brought the letters,
the appeals for money, and the requests for military or
diplomatic aid, which the Eastern Christian poured out
with ever increasing frequency after the Moslem conquest
of Syria and Egypt. This was one side of the correspon-
dence. The other was shown in the Papal embassies to
Jerusalem, such as these of Julius I. in 342 ; of Anastasius I.
in 400 ; of Innocent L in 417 ; of Coelestine I. in 430 ; of Leo
the Great in 453, 454, and 457; of Gregory the Great in 591,
597, 601, and 603; it is also manifested in the Frankish
missions, of 765 from King Pepin, and of 797, 799, and 803
from Charles the Emperor. Of these last, the greater number
(if not all) probably visited Jerusalem, but as a rule they seem
to have been in the first place addressed to the Caliph at
Bagdad. Thus they called out the return of courtesies from
the Mussulman side, in the missions of 800, 802, and 807,
from Harun-al-Eashid,1 just as the embassy of 825 from Lewis
the Pious2 had its response in that of 831 from Al-Mamun.
In the period we have now reached, this diplomatic
intercourse is almost the only evidence of travel from
1 The last of which is especially i to Rome from Syria, cf. Acta

famous.

2 Entrusted to the monk Ragana-
rius. On the papal embassies to Syria
(Jerusalem) above noticed, cf. Jaffe,
Regesta Pontificum Romanorum, 81,
120, 156, 277-8, 291, 302, 728, 1127,
1396, 1515, 2462 '( = Jaffe- Watten-
bach, 282, 325, 373, etc.) ; for similar
Roman letters and missions to
Antioch, ibid. 102-7, 156, 169, 171,
993; 994, 1105, 1112, 1209, 2029,
2493, 3287, etc., extending from
a n. 415 to 1054. On the appeals

Sanctorum., May iii., i.-lxxii., Trac-
tatus praelhninaris ale episcopis et
patriarchis Sa* Hierosae EcclM ;
as well as the Appendix in the vol.
May vii., 696-706, of the Acta (pro-
perly an addition to the vol. May iii.),
on the Bishops and Patriarchs of
Jerusalem ; Archives de V Orient Latin,
i. 26-38, and especially 27-28 ; and
Jaff6, Reg. Pont. Rom., 291, 1110,
1396, 1515, 2462, etc. ; Jaffe, Monu-
mental Carolina, 382, 383, 3S6.

III.]

PALESTINE AND THE LATIN WORLD

121

Western Europe to Western Asia, and we are obliged there-
fore to notice in some details these meagre traces, which
alone survive, of geographical movement in the tenth
century.

About the year 900, the Patriarch Elias III. makes another
appeal to the Christian West — and in this appeal he is
joined by Pope Benedict IV. Their Holinesses address two
encyclicals to the faithful ; and both these letters introduce to
the charity of good Christians a certain Malacena, Bishop of
Amasia, and his mission of ransom. Some of his monks had
been taken captive by the Turks of the Caspian, and he
had started for Europe to collect the means for regaining
their freedom. The rich and powerful Christendom of the
West is again called to aid the elder sister of the East —
on evil times now fallen, and evil tongues. And yet one
thinks of Western Christendom, at this time, as in the
darkest of its dark ages.

In 932 a letter from the ' Bishop of the Holy City ' was
read at a council in Erfurt ; but this is the last trace for a
time of the Franco-Syrian connection and of the quasi-
protectorate of the Western Emperors over Christian
interests in Palestine which had been marked by so many
incidents : — by Charlemagne's buildings in Jerusalem, for
the comfort of Latin pilgrims ; by his acquisition of the
Keys of the Holy Sepulchre as a friendly gift from the ' Just '
Harun ; by the landed possession of the Syrian Church in
France and Italy;1 by the frequent embassies from Syria

1 Thus the Church of Jerusalem
had lands of its own at Neuvy and
Manriac, and apparently other real
property held in common with the
Abbey of Conques, cf. Archives de
V Orient Latin, i. 28 ; the Church of
Sinai also had property in Normandy,
cf. AA. SS., June i. 87-104, especially

89; Pertz, M.G. SS. ( = Monumenta
Germaniac, Scriptores), viii. 209, 210,
211, cf. AA. SS., June i. 87-104,
on the life and travels of St.
Symeon, the ' recluse of the Gate of
Trier.' He is sent (c. a.d. 1034-35)
from the Monastery of Mount Sinai
into the West to collect moneys pro-

122 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Ch.

to Frankland aud from Frankland to Syria ; as well as by
the alms sent yearly from the Karling Court to Jerusalem
during a great part of the reigns of Pepin, of Charles, and
of Louis the Pious.

Before the end of the ninth century this quasi-
protectorate had passed from the Franks to the Byzantines ;
and during the next hundred years successive emperors of
Constantinople asserted more and more closely their position
as guardians of the subject Christians of the Levant. Thus
Constantine VII.1 in 947 sends gifts to the Patriarch of
Jerusalem ; and in April of the same year the clerk Niketas,
in a letter to the Divine Emperor, inheritor of the name and
virtues of Constantine the Great, describes the Easter Eve
miracle of the Holy Fire, and the recent attempt of a ' cursed
Emir' to abrogate this festival. Several matters of later
date show the continuance of this Byzantine influence ; the
re-conquest of a great part of Syria by John Tzimiskes, a strik-
ing though temporary proof of the revived power of the Old
Empire (968-975) ; the introductions which Fulk the Black of
Anjou carried from Pope Sergius IV. to Basil II. (1011); and
the treaty of 1021 with the Fatimite Caliph of Cairo, whereby
the position of Constantinople as spokesman and champion
of Eastern Christianity was fully recognised. Another proof
of the same fact may be drawn from an interesting letter
of Pope Victor II. to the Empress-Begent Theodora, in which

mised by Richard, Duke of the Nor-
mans. One Eberwin, returning from
Palestine with a certain Richard,
Abbot of Verdun, meets him at
Antioch. Symeon tries to go with
Eberwin and Richard overland, but
is stopped at Belgrade ; he returns
to the sea, and so goes by Rome to
' Francia,' comes to Rouen, finds Duke
Richard just dead, and stays with
Abbot Richard and Eberwin. Poppo,

Archbishop of Trier, soon after goes
to Palestine and takes Symeon with
him and back. Finally Symeon
makes himself a cell at the Porta
Negra of Trier, and dies in great
sanctity.

1 Porphyrogennetos or ' Porphyro-
genitus.' For the interesting letter
of Niketas, 'least among clerics,'
cf. Archives cle VOrient Latin, i.
375-382.

IH. I PALESTINE AND THE LATIN WORLD 123

the Pontiff complains of the exactions which the Greek
guardians of the Holy Places levied upon Western pilgrims
(1054-1057). A recent journey of Bishop Helinand of
Laon was probably the immediate reason of this appeal ;
the story of his troubles in Jerusalem had turned back Lietbert
of Cambrai after a toilsome pilgrimage as far as Laodicea ;
and loud and bitter were the complaints of Greek ' in-
tolerance ' now heard at Eome.

Once more, the well-known tract, On the Situation of
Jerusalem,1 which by some critics has been assigned to the
epoch of the First Crusade, more probably belongs to the
period of Byzantine dominion in Syria during the middle
of the tenth century, and this period is also marked by
various imperial letters to distant rulers,2 expressive of the
revived power of the Greek rulers in Western Asia.

Towards the close of the tenth century we have rather
more frequent notices of Palestine pilgrimages from Western
and Northern Europe. One St. John of Parma visits the
Holy Sites six times, especially in 982. In 985, 986, and
988, the same journey is made by various monks from
Monte Cassino, John of Beneventum,. Leo, brother of Abbot
Aligernus, and others, together with a certain Count
Malefrid and his son. In 987 two Icelanders, Thorvald
Kodranson and Stefnir Thorgilson, make their appearance
at the Sepulchre of Christ — early results of that conversion
of the Northmen whose consequences for Europe, for
civilisation, and for Christendom were so deep and so
far-reaching. Not without dramatic interest is the scene
called up by this brief notice ; the picturesque historian

1 Quallter seta est civitas Hieru- i King of Armenia, probably spurious.
salem. For Victor II. 's complaint, cf. Aligne,

2 Kg. from John Tzimiskes to Patrologia Latina, cxlix. 961-962 ;
Leon, governor of Daron, probabiy Jane, Reg. Pout. Rum., no. 4015.
genuine; and from the same to Aschod,

124 PILGRIM TRAVEL [On.

might well enlarge upon the meeting of the huge-limbed,
fair-haired, blue-eyed sea-rovers from the North with those
Christians, knights and merchants, priests and monks, whose
most terrible enemies they had been, whose best allies they
were yet to be.

About 990 Poppo, Abbot of Stavelot, and in 997 Frederic,
Count of Verdun, each with a party of attendants, follow
in the same 'holy road.' In 993 1 another noble, Hugh,
Marquis of Tuscany, and his wife, Juliette, send2 gifts of
value to the Tomb of the Lord and to the Monastery of
Sta. Maria Latina in Jerusalem ; while about the same
time (995) Orestes the Patriarch despatches an embassy
to Pope John XV. (after the fashion of an earlier period),
asking questions about various matters of ritual and
discipline. A more doubtful record assigns to this epoch
an urgent appeal from the ' immaculate Spouse of God ' to
the sympathy and succour of the West. This outcry
against an even more unbearable Saracen oppression pro-
fessed to come through the famous Gerbert, afterwards Pope
Sylvester IL ; but it is probably one of those rhetorical
exercises to which the Crusading movement gave rise, and
it may be referred to an epoch sixty or seventy years later
than the great Pope who has so long stood sponsor for its
eloquence. The story of Gerbert's pilgrimage need not
perhaps be altogether discredited (c. a.d. 986) ; but his
famous letter is surrounded by too many difficulties for
modern enquiry to accept it, like Michaud,3 as a ' precious
monument' of the first pope who expressed the Crusading
sentiment.4

1 Charta of St. Victor of Marseilles,
in Martene, Amplissima Collcctio, i.,
347-348.

2 29th October 993.

3 Michaud, Bibliotheque des Croisa-
des, ii., 491, ed. of 1829.

4 Cf. Archives dc F Orient Latin, i.,
pp. 31-38, especially 34, note; 35, note.

III.] JOURNEYS OF X™ AND XI'H CENTURIES 125

With the eleventh century, as we have already noticed,
a new age begins : old things are passing away ; all things
are becoming new. It is the same in travel as in every-
thing else. Pilgrims are multiplied tenfold; and in the
words of Ralph Glaber, ' first went the meaner folk, then
men of middle rank, then many kings and counts, marquises
and bishops; yea, and even women also, a thing unknown
before.' Emmerad, a monk of Anzy ;x Makko of Constance,
about the year 1000, passing from West to East, cross the
path, but without meeting the person, of Simeon the
Armenian, who in the same year goes from East to West
with the commendatory letters of the Patriarch Arsenius.
We do not know if, at the Holy Sepulchre, they met with
some of the many pilgrims from Georgia, who also entered
' Sacred Hierosolyma ' this year. But this is only one
occasion out of many when such a meeting between the
furthest East and the furthest West of the Christian world
may have taken place, or did actually happen by the side
of the tomb of Christ. In 1002-3 an unnamed monk of
Tours, a hermit from Bamberg, and the terrible Black
Count of Anjou, Fulk Nerra, are the chief figures of our
Travellers' Register. Fulk made in all three journeys to
Syria ; his death in 1040, at Metz, was the closing incident
of the third and last of these expeditions. On his second
visit (it is said) he had to buy admission to the Holy City
for himself and his comrades. He was only allowed to
approach the 'all holy grave of the Lord' on promising
to insult the Cross ; evading this ordeal, he contrived to
bite off a piece of the rock with his ' teeth of iron,' and
returned with this relic to his own country, where he

1 Emmirad, Erairard or Emmerad,
passes nearly seven years at Jerusalem
according to AA. SS. April ii., 770.

The Acta for Jul. vi., 327, say of
Simeon the Armenian that he also
made the pilgrimage to Rome.

126

PILGRIM TRAVEL

[Ch.

presented it in triumph to his Abbey of Beaulieu. Pilgrim-
age, like adversity, sometimes made strange companions ;
in 1003 we have the legend of one Guy, a hermit from
Brabant, appearing at Jerusalem at the same time as
Olaf Tryggveson, the first Christian King of Norway.1 A
whole flock of Scandinavian devotees were said to have
followed soon after ; and two French abbots, Gauzlin of
Fleury in 1004, and Eoger of Figeac in 1005, probably met
some of these Northmen at the Holy Sepulchre. Many
travellers perished on the way ; Leger the deacon of Auxerre,
who was ' given the sea for his grave ' ; Andrew the knight,
buried at Jerusalem itself; Hictarius 'the blessed, taken
from earth by the mercy of God,' before he had reached
the tomb of Christ.2

A terrible event startled the pilgrim world in the first
years of the eleventh century (1010). Hakim Biamrillah,3
Fatimite Caliph, and temporal sovereign of Palestine, in
that madness which the Druses recognise as a Divine

1 This story is quite legendary.
Olaf Tryggveson died in 1000 at the
battle of Svold ; but his people clung
to a belief in his escape and continued
life in exile, and the tale of his
pilgrimage to Jerusalem formed a
part of this patriotic myth.

2 Cf. Migne, P.L., cxxxviii. 1229,
1232, 1252. On the other journeys
of St. John of Parma, etc., etc., here
referred to, cf. Archives de I'Orient
Latin, i. 34, note ; and AA. SS. Roll.
May v. 179-180; [July iv. 281];
April ii. 770 ; July vi. 327 ; Sept.
vi. 722 ; Sept. iv. 43 ; also Pertz,
M.G. SS., vii. 63, 636-642 ; xi. 295;
iv. 49 ; xx. 635 ; ix. 59 ; Thorvald's
Saga, ch. x., ed. Arne Magnaeus,
pp. 334-7 ; Constantine Porph., De
ochninistrando imperio, Bonn edition,

p. 199 ; Fornmanna Sogur, iii. 32-
34; x. 370; N. Arch. f. a. d. G.,
iii. 353 ; Mabillon, Ann. O.S.B.,
iv. 170 ; Riant, Expeditions . . .
des Scandinaves en terre sainte, 102-5,
117, 118 ; Bin. Lat. Hicros., II.
series chronolog. peregrin, a.d. 1064 ;
JRccueil des historiens de la France,
x. 282; x. 15 (= Ralph Glaber, ii.
4, on Fulk). See also page 217 note.
3 On Hakim, cf. what Nasir i-
Khusrau says at the end of his
account of Syria. On the destruc-
tion and reconstruction of the Holy
Sepulchre, cf. Ralph Glaber, Chron.,
iii. ch i. ; Will. Tyre, i. ch. iv. ;
Cedrenus, ed. Bonn, pp. 515, 521 :
Zonaras, xvii. : Makrizi, in De Sacy,
Chrcstomathie arabe, i. 98,

Ill] DESTRUCTION OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE 127

Emanation,1 destroyed the Christian buildings at the Holy
Sepulchre ; a few years later they were reconstructed
(a.d. 1021 ) ; but a wild cry of vengeance was raised by
many Catholics, and the Vandalism of Hakim unques-
tionably hastened the movement which, slowly gathering
strength during the next eighty years (1020-1096), burst
upon the Levant with the armed strength of the Crusaders.
The treaty of 1020-1, which put the Syrian Christians under
the special protection of the Byzantine Emperors, has been
already noticed, and is significant of the increased prestige
and power of Constantinople ; but it is perhaps even more
noteworthy, in view of future events, that so many Western
and Latin sovereigns now began to take up again the part
of Charlemagne in Palestine.

Thus the newly-converted Kings of Hungary, and
especially the great St. Stephen, came forward as founders
and benefactors, and more than one hospice for Roman
pilgrims was due to their liberality.2 Their example was
followed in 1063-70, by the Republic of Amain', which
shared so prominently with Pisa and Venice in maintaining
the naval department of the Crusading, armaments a genera-
tion later. The Norman Dukes also showed a keen interest in
the Christian East ; and Richard I., William Longsword, and
Richard II. all sent messengers with alms and presents to

1 The letters from the Jews of
Western Europe inciting him to this
action, which have passed into
documentary history, were probably
forgeries of a later date, invented to
justify the anti-Semitism of the Cru-
sading Era itself ; cf. Adhemar of
Chabanais, in Pertz, M.G. S.S., iv.,
137 ; viii. 210, 399 ; Ralph Glaber,
iii. ch. vii.

route from Western Europe to Syria.
' Nearly all those who wished to go
from Italy and Gaul to Jerusalem
began to forsake the accustomed way
by sea, and to make their passage
through this king's country
(Stephen's). He made the way very
safe for all, and thus allured by his
benevolence a countless multitude,
both of noble and common people,

2 For Hungary, on joining the , to start for Jerusalem.' R. Glaber,
Latin communion, became a main I Chron., iii. c. 1 (M.G., SS., vii. 62).

128 PILGRIM TRAVEL [On.

the Grave of Jesus. An embassy of Richard II. 's in 1026
is specially recorded: on this occasion a namesake, the Abbot
of Grace Dieu, made the pilgrimage on the Duke's behalf.
Like Pope Gregory I., Richard II. also exchanged gifts and
greetings with the monks of Mount Sinai. His successor,
Robert the Magnificent, father of William the Conqueror,
did even more. In 1035 he left his Duchy and went in
person to Jerusalem ; on his return he died at Nicaea, and
was laid in the Church of the Panagia in that city.

Once more, the Lords of Aquitaine, perhaps the greatest
Christian sovereigns in South-West Europe at this time,
joined in the prevailing fashion. Duke William III., l father
of monks, founder of churches, friend of the Roman See,'
made several pilgrimages both to Rome and to Compostella,
where the Shrine of St. James was rising into fame. Unable
himself to go as far as Syria, he sent there his trusty
minister, William of Angouleme, with a great company of
lords and prelates. This little army journeyed by the land
route through Hungary, received the hospitality of St.
Stephen, and enjoyed a prosperous and speedy ' accom-
plishment of vows.' Setting out in October, they were
in Jerusalem by March, and home again at Angouleme in
June.

Yet again, not a few eminent pilgrims came from England
about this time, and especially during the reign of Edward
the Confessor. Thus Svein or Swegen, the eldest son of
Earl Godwine, and the scandal of his house, made his way
to Jerusalem from Bruges at the time of the first Norman
ascendency in England and consequent exile of the Godwine
clan (1051-1052). His evil life had a good ending. He
died upon the Sacred Road, at the city of Constantine, ' on
Michael's Mass ' (1053). Some years later, in 1058, Ealdred,
Bishop of Worcester, more famous as Archbishop of

HI.] JOURNEYS OF ELEVENTH CENTURY 129

York l in the era of the Norman Conquest, went to Jerusalem
' with such splendour as none other had displayed before
him ; there he devoted himself to God ; and a worthy gift
he offered at the Lord's tomb, even a golden chalice of
wondrous work.'

Lastly, among many instances of German pilgrimage at
this time, let us take three famous journeys from the
middle of the eleventh century. In 1038 Poppo, Arch-
bishop of Trier, makes his way to Palestine along with the
hermit Symeon, afterwards canonised by Pope Benedict IX.
Again, in 1054, Pulcher, Arch-Chaplain of the Empire and
Vidame of Arras, takes leave of his master, the Emperor Henry
III., as he is on the point of setting out for the Holy Land
with Lietbert, Bishop of Cambrai and Arras. This voyage was
a sad failure ; the pilgrims fell among thieves, were ransomed
by the Catapan of Cyprus, and at Laodicea abandoned their
further journey. For here they met with Helinand,
Bishop of Laon, returning from Jerusalem, and he drew
such a picture of the troubles that awaited them in the
Holy City, that they decided to tempt God no further.2
Once more, in 1064, Siegfried, Archbishop of Mainz, and
Giinther, Bishop of Bamberg, with two other prelates, the
Bishops of Utrecht and Eatisbon, conduct an army of 7000

1 He acted at the Coronation of
William the Norman as chief Pre-
late (1066), Stigand of Canterbury
not being recognised by the Con-
queror.

2 Riant suggests that Victor's
appeal to the Empress Theodora (see
pp. 122-3) was the result of a meeting
at Cologne between the Pope and the
Bishop of Cambrai. Lietbert had
just returned from Laodicea with the
account of Helinand's miserable ex-
perience in Palestine ; Victor had
gone to Germany to gather aid against

the Saracens of the Mediterranean ;
we may notice that his complaint to
the Byzantine Government is written
from Cologne (at the beginning of
December 1056). With this we may
connect and contrast the alleged
Firman of the Caliph Mozaffer in
favour of the Christian Holy Places
(1023). The last, however, was re-
jected as spurious by Heyd, in the
original (German) edition of the Com-
merce du Levant, i., 116 ; cf. Archives
de r Orient Latin, i. 52 ; Bore, Lieux
Saints, p. 5.

I

130 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Ch.

pilgrims to Syria. Their numbers and their adventures
have led many chroniclers to call their journey a Crusade.
From their losses it might well have been an armed attack
on Islam, for of the seven thousand only two l returned.
Attacked by Saracen robbers near Jaffa, and 'hunted for
their rich apparel,' the party fled to a fortress, where
they held out three days,2 and then yielded, more from
panic than real necessity. Offering their money for their
life, they admitted the Moslem leaders within the wall.
Seventeen Saracens entered, and one who ' took the head-
ship of them ' singled out the Bishop of Bamberg as his
special victim. Unrolling his turban, he flung it round
the Prelate's neck with a joyful cry — ' Thou and all thou
hast are mine.' But the fighting bishops of the West were
different from the broken-spirited Christians of Syria. The
Prankish Churchman felled his captor with a blow of his
fist ; the rest of the company, regaining courage, seized and
bound all the other brigands who had come into their power,
then, closing the gates against the hordes outside, they held
the fort till the Lord of Eamleh came to their relief.3 One
other thing may be recorded of this journey. From letters
of the Provost of Passau we see how Bishop Giinther, of
Bamberg, had arranged for his journey through the neighbour-

57 ; Archives de I'Orient Latin, i.
53-56. On Fulcher or Foucher of
Arras, cf. Su<iendorf, Eegistrum, iii.
No. 6, pp. 12-13.

3 The Latin accounts do not dis-
tinguish enough between the Saracen
brigands (Bedouins, etc.) and the
settled inhabitants and garrisons,
who generally treated visitors well,
for the sake of commerce; e.g. in this
case, where the Egyptian garrison
at Jerusalem rescues the prisoners at
Ramleh.

1 Tbousand.

2 Cf. Marianus Scottus, Chronicle,
a.d. 1064 : the pilgrims when
attacked by the Arabs, fled to a
'castellum vacuum Cavar Salini
nomine' (i.e. probably Kafar Sallam,
abandoned in the eleventh century
by its inhabitants ; cf. Schefer's
Nasir - i - Khusrau, p. 63). On
Siegfried's journey, cf. Eccard, Corp.
hist. meal. aev. ii. 122-3 ; Sudendorf,
Regisirum, ii., No. 12, pp. 14-15 ;
Ibid. iii. No. 16, p. 28; Jaffe, Mon.
Bamb. No. 28, p. 54, No. 29, pp. 56,

III.] NEW ERA WITH HILDEBRAND 131

ing districts, and how elaborate such arrangements could be,
even in 1064. In the spring of 1065 Giinther writes to
his Diocesans, describing to them the course of his journey
down to his arrival at Laodicea, on the homeward way ; but
soon after this he died without reaching Germany.

With the accession of Hildebrand to the "Roman Pon-
tificate as Gregor}7 VII., we enter upon a new phase of
development. For this daring statesman first definitely
raised the question of a Crusade or armed expedition, under
the sanction of the Christian Church, to recover the Holy
Places of Palestine from the Saracens. The Byzantine re-
conquest had been only temporary, and the advance of the
Seljuk Turks had driven back Eastern Christendom into
narrower limits than ever before. Nothing but internal
trouble, and particularly the quarrel with the Empire, seems
to have taken from Gregory VII., and given to Urban II.,
the actual preaching and direction of the expedition which
was planned for 1075 or 1076, but did not start till 1097,
and was indefinitely postponed, in the opinion of most men,
by the outbreak of the struggle with Henry IV. and the
incident of Canossa. In the letters and appeals of Hilde-
brand we may see, moreover, the natural development of the
policy of a Holy War, entailing salvation on all who took
part therein. The close of the eleventh century realises the
aspirations of Leo IV. and John VIII.1 Now, also, we may
see a natural result of the conversion of the Hungarians
and the Northmen ; events which reopened to Western
Europe the long-interrupted land routes along the Danube
Valley, which furnished more direct means of access to the
Levant, and which supplied a new energy to Christendom.
Once more, the end of the First Millennium and the excite-

1 John VIII. to the Bishops of Louis [the Stammerer], cf. p. 118.

132

PILGRIM TRAVEL

[Ch.

ment it had caused may not have been wholly without its
influence on the Crusading movement. Many had expected
the end of the world with the year 1000 ; the fatal era had
come and gone without result ; but the excitement thus
aroused found a sedative in the passionate devotion of
pilgrimage and an outlet in the fiercer delights of a Crusade.
It is therefore in the general awakening and expansive
vigour 1 of the Christendom of Hildebrand's time that we
must look for the primary cause of the Crusades. The
outrages of Hakim, and the tyranny of the new Seljuk rule
at the Holy Places, were but secondary causes ; the victories
of the Spanish Christians, and their renewed peril from the
Almoravide invasion, only contributed what we may call
details of encouragement or stimulus; the root of the whole
movement lay in that new life stirring within the Christian
people, even before the Council of Clermont, and finding
more and more active expression in pilgrim travel, in
merchant enterprise, in revived scientific enquiry, in an
unappeasable and unmistakable determination to burst the
bonds which Islam and heathendom had wound so tightly
around Latin civilisation.

But, granting this, the secondary causes are none the
less essential. Because history lias been often too much
occupied with the more obvious and more personal springs
of action, yet in this, as in other epochs, it remains true
in the nature of things, that historical wilting must always
deal more fully with the clear-cut incidents of secondary
importance than with the vaguer and more general, even
if more vital, conditions of national or racial fitness. We
must recognise that the imminent danger of the Byzantine

1 In 10S7 Bari Mariners are si id
to have stolen the body of St. Nicolas
from Myra or Myrrha, in Lyoia ; cf.

the story of the Venetians in the
ninth century carrying off St. Mark's
body from Alexandria,

HI.] NEW ERA WITH HILDEBRAND 133

Empire from the Seljuk Turks, the cruel treatment of
pilgrims at the Holy Places, the preaching of Peter the
Hermit, the critical events in Spain, the writings and personal
leadership of Hildebrand and Urban II., would have been
useless without the revived strength and ambition of the
Christian peoples ; we may admit that this revived strength
and ambition would perhaps have found their outlet in a
similar movement without any of these particular incite-
ments ; but, after all, as events shaped themselves, it was the
sting of these incitements which immediately set in motion
the hitherto sluggish mass of Western Christendom and
united its long-scattered forces. We must therefore look one
moment at those events, or groups of incidents, which had
so profound an effect on the Christian world of the eleventh
century.

First, in the Levant itself, the rise of the Turks had
certainly produced before a.d. 1080 a deep, dangerous, and
irritating change in the position and prospects of Oriental
Christendom, and so, in a measure, of all Christians. As
early as the time of Justinian the formidable power of
those Tartar tribes had caused Byzantine statesmen to look
beyond the Oxus for a counterpoise to their Persian enemies.
But it was in the tenth century that the Turks first began
to play a leading part in the politics of the nearer East. As
the Caliphate of Bagdad decayed, Turkish soldiers were
more and more enlisted in its armies, and Turkish com-
manders put in charge of the palace and the capital, until
the Pontiff of Islam became a tool in their hands. The
action of Al Eadi (a.d. 940), in creating the office of Emir al
Omra, or Military Vizier, for the chiefs of these Turkish
bands, was a practical abdication of the remnants of Temporal
Power on the part of the Bagdad Caliphate, and the state
of things thus produced was in many ways similar to

134 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Ch.

that of the old Prankish monarchy in the time of the later
Merwings and Charles Martel. Finally, a new immigration
from Central Asia completed the change. In 1055, the
Seljuk Turks, after cutting short the dominions of the
Ghaznevides and humbling the successor of Mahmud,
pressed into the valley of the Tigris, and formally received
from the reigning Abbasside all the secular power of the
Commander of the Faithful. The new champions of Islam
soon cut short that Byzantine revival which in the tenth
and early eleventh centuries had restored so much of the
monarchy of Justinian.1 In 1065-1068 Armenia and
Georgia fell away to the Seljuk Empire; in 1071 a decisive
struggle between Turks and Romans took place at Manzikert.
Here were lost, at one blow, all the acquisitions of the
last century beyond Mount Taurus ; and this disaster
was followed by the inroads of the Turkish cavalry to the
shores of the Archipelago, the Hellespont, and the Bosphorus.
Nor were these inroads transitory. It was now that the
upland of Asia Minor permanently became a Turkish
possession and a new home of the Turkish race. This was
a heavier loss than Eastern Christendom had suffered since
the first conquests of the Saracens ; and the Byzantine
Empire was now reduced in Asia to a narrow strip of
coast, and was forced to recognise by treaty the permanent
cession of Galatia, Phrygia, and the other provinces of the
interior. The Turkish outposts established at Nicaea made
the Greeks tremble for the safety of Constantinople itself ;
any year might see a further Turkish advance into Europe ;
and what the Ottomans achieved in the fourteenth and

1 E.g. Crete, Cyprus, most of
Northern Syria, including Antioch,
and reaching as far South as Tripoli,
Northern Mesopotamia, and a
suzerainty over Armenia. Georgia,

Albania, the other regions of what
is now the Trans-Caucasus Province
of Russia and the South of the
Crimea.

HI.] NEW ERA WITH HILDEBRAND 135

fifteenth centuries was threatened as no vague contingency
at the close of the eleventh.

Such was the political problem facing Gregory VII. when
he looked eastwards ; and the most sluggish of the states-
men in Western Europe might well think it time to stir very
actively against the impending approach of Islam to the
Adriatic and the Valley of the Danube.

Secondly, the Seljuk Turks, in becoming masters of the
Abbasside dominions, acquired the control of Palestine.
The Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem was now guarded by a
band of Turcomans ; and their treatment of all Christians,
both residents and visitors, was harsh and oppressive.
Pilgrims returned to the West with terrible stories of insult
and cruelty ; and the nations which had tamely suffered the
sacrilege of Hakim, rose as one man to avenge the wrongs
proclaimed by Peter of Amiens.

Thirdly, the political dangers and popular resentments
of the East were reflected in the furthest West. After many
changes, it became clear, as the eleventh century drew on,
that Spanish Islam was declining. Before his death in
1002, the Vizier Almanzor had restored the Mohammedan
sway from Catalonia to Galicia ; but in the next generation
the Christian Kingdoms of Northern Spain had already
recovered, and more than recovered, their position as it had
stood before the accession of Abderrahman III. Meanwhile
in 1031, the Western Emirate, or Caliphate,1 came with
startling suddenness to an end, after a few years of violent
anarchy, and its dominions fell apart into various princi-
palities. The result of this was soon apparent. More and
more of the Central Highland was won back by the kings
of Leon and Castile ; the Valley of the Douro and the
western coast down to Coimbra, fell again into Christian

' 'Caliphate' in name, only from Abderrahman III.

136 PILGKIM TRAVEL [Ch.

hands; and in 1084 Alfonso VI. recaptured the old
capital of Toledo, and became master of the Upper Tagus,
the natural heart of the peninsula. He was checked by
a new and unexpected foe. In their despair the Spanish
Moslems called in the aid of that religious and political
movement in North Africa, which is generally known from
its ' Marabut,' or Prophet, as the ' Almoravide ' Revival. The
Moorish enthusiasts responded to the appeal, and in 1086
their leader Yusuf Ibn Tashfin crossed over into Andalusia
and defeated Alfonso in the battle of Zalacca. Succeeding
waves of Berber invasion held Spanish Christendom at bay
during most of the twelfth century ; and after the disaster
of 1086 a certain alarm was even felt lest Islam should
again advance to the Bay of Biscay and the Narbonnese ;
but with the aid of volunteers from the other kingdoms of the
West the new African peril was stubbornly faced and finally
repelled. As originally conceived by Gregory VII. and his
successors, it is probable that the Crusading impulse was
directed, in part at least, to the more complete overthrow
of Mohammedan power in the peninsula ; but the em-
bittered character of the eastern pilgrim-grievances, and the
extreme danger of the Byzantine world, finally directed the
entire stress of the new Christian armaments upon the
Levant. It is clear, however, that Leon and Castile, Aragon
and Portugal, shared at any rate in the benefits of the
diversion created by the Syrian wars, and in the support
thus incidentally afforded to Christian politics everywhere ;
while several incidents of the second and third Crusades
showed very effectively the strength and closeness of the
military alliance of the Catholic nations. Lisbon and the
Algarve were both reconquered with the aid of men from
Germany, France, England, and the Netherlands on their
way to Palestine ; and the close of the Crusading age saw

Ill-] CAUSES AND RESULTS OF THE CRUSADES 137

the Latin warriors triumphant in Spain, however unsuccess-
ful in the East.

Lastly, without attaching too much weight to the
Voltairean innuendo that the Popes and the Clerical Order
conceived and pressed on the religious wars with the
object of killing off the dangerous manhood of the Western
kingdoms, it is undeniable that we must give to the
Clerical Order the credit of organising and directing the
great Christian Jihad. The Church supplied the controll-
ing intelligence ; its exchequer supplied the funds for
much that was undertaken ; and, without the ecclesiastical
inspiration, the Crusades, though perhaps in some form
inevitable, would have had a very different character. At
the same time, it must be recognised that this clerical
inspiration gave the European nations of the Middle Age
their first glimpses of essential unity ; and that, along with
some political reverses, the new federation of the Western-
World under papal leadership won successes of the first-
order in commercial and social progress, and certain negative
advantages of no small moment in the military struggle.
For even if the Holy Land was not finally recovered, nor
the union of Eastern and Western Churches accomplished,
yet Islam was checked for a time in the Levant, and
permanently thrown back in Spain ; the incursions of the
Turco-Tartar hordes into Europe by way of Constantinople
were postponed ; and the land-travels of men who started
from the Latin Kingdoms of the East led to a decisive and
abiding extension of knowledge and civilisation. Thus
the indirect, unexpected, and sometimes unwelcome results
of the mediaeval duel of Cross and Crescent proved a rich
compensation for the barren and abortive character of the
central struggle in Palestine : European life was not im-
poverished but enriched by the religious wars ; and the only

138 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Ce.

doubt must be whether it was necessary through such
tribulation to enter into the brighter age of the great
discoveries.

Among the pilgrim travellers who may be traced between
the accession of Gregory VII. and the first Crusade, perhaps
the most important is the Anonymous devotee x who has left
us a brief note-book made up partly of his own observa-
tions, partly of extracts from much older records. The
earlier sections of this tract bear a close resemblance
to passages of the fourth-century Bordeaux Pilgrim, but
otherwise these jottings are almost without interest. The
' chamber covered with a single stone,' where Solomon
wrote the Book of Wisdom, is a repetition from the most ancient
surviving type of pilgrim-itinerary ; 2 the water-pot of Mount
Sinai, which incessantly ran with oil, may be compared
with a similar story in Thietmar ; 3 and in the confusion of
' Abraham's Castle ' at Hebron with a similar fortress at
Tekoa, there is only the repetition of what is often met
with elsewhere. It is, perhaps, more curious that this
work places Isaac's Mount of Sacrifice in the neighbour-
hood of the Patriarch's Castle, a more southerly location
than is given by any other pilgrim.

With this little tract we leave the earlier Middle Ages
and come to the transition period of the Holy Wars. One
of the last aggressions of the New Turkish Islam was
the reconquest of Antioch in 1084, after 116 years of
Byzantine rule; but in November, 1095, the Council of
Clermont decided that the Will of God4 was the re-
covery of Jerusalem and all Syria: in the summer of

i Usually known a9 ' Innominatus I 2 E.g. the Bordeaux Pilgrim
I.,' the first of a long series of un- of 333.

named pilgrim travellers of this i 3 a.d. 1217.
period, see pp. 203-7. 4 Dcus vult.

III.] THE 'FIRST ANONYMOUS*: SAEWULP 139

1096 the main host of the Crusaders set out in five
divisions ; Antioch was won in the beginning of June
1098; and on the 14th of July, 1099, the great object of
the enterprise was achieved, and the Cross was planted on
the walls of Sion. The victory was followed by its natural
results, and prominent among these was the arrival of
pilgrims who possessed the leisure and the ability to do
what had not been attempted since Bernard the Wise gave
men a full description in the Latin tongue of all the Holy
Places.

The earliest of this new group of writers came from a
remote country of the West, the most recent conquest of the
Norman Dukes of Eouen. This was the Englishman
Saewulf or Saewlf, a native of Worcester, certainly not the
first pilgrim traveller who followed in the wake of the first
Crusade, but the first who has left us the narrative of his
journey. He was evidently an ' Anglo-Saxon,' not a Norman
or French follower of the invaders of 1066 ; and he pursued
the despised calling of a trader. At least so we may fairly
gather from William of Malmesbury's account. The latter
tells us of one Saewulf, a merchant, who was in the habit
of confessing to Bishop Wulfstan of Worcester (1062-1096),
the last survivor of the Old English Episcopate. Wulfstan,
himself a man of saintly life, so much respected that the
Norman policy of ' No more Saxon Bishops ' made an ex-
ception of his case, often urged the monastic vows upon
Saewulf, whose morals, he thought, needed stricter discipline
But his penitent clung to the freedom of his lay estate,
and the Bishop fell back on a prophecy, that the sinner
would in the future eagerly seek for and embrace that
calling which he now refused when offered. William the
chronicler lived to see the fulfilment of this prediction,

140 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Ch.

when in his old age Saewulf became a monk in the Abbey
of Malmesbury.1

It was probably in a fit of penitence that our merchant
undertook his pilgrimage, sometime before his profession as
a monk, in the years 1102 and 1103. We can only date the
journey from the internal evidence of the narrative, but this
is circumstantial enough for our purpose, and we may con-
clude with tolerable certainty that Saewulf's outward
journey was in the summer of 1102, and his return in the
summer of 1103. We may even go further, with the help
of a fresh study of the text, and say that he started east-
wards from Monopoli in Apulia on Sunday, the 13th of July,
1102, and that he began his return journey from Jaffa on
the 17th of May, 1103.

The following details support this conclusion. Saewulf
tells us that Baldwin, ' the Flower of Kings,' possessed Jaffa,
Haifa, and other places on the Syrian Coast at the time of
his visit; now Baldwin was elected in succession to Godfrey
of Bouillon on Christmas Day, 1100. Again Tortosa was
then in the possession of 'Duke' Raymond; from other
sources we know that the Count of Toulouse took this
city on the 12th of March, 1102, almost three years before
his death, which occurred on the 28th of February, 1105.
Once more, our pilgrim implies, though in a rather vague
and negative manner, that Acre was still in the hands of
the Saracens; and this state of things lasted till the 15th of
May, 1104. Fourthly, Saewulf left Monopoli on the 'third
day before the Ides of July,' the Feast of St, Mildred, an
'Egyptian' or unlucky day for sailors, and a Sunday;

1 Cf. Will. Malm., Gest. Pontif., p. j with seven other fragments of an-

282; T. Wright, Biog. Brit. Lit.,
Anglo - Norman period, p. 38.
In the one existing MS. of
Saewulf, this narrative is bound up

cient works. Avezac suggests that
'Saewulf is only a nickname from
frequent journeys, like 'Sea-dog,'
but this is rather improbable.

in.] saewulf's outward journey 141

even without the definite statement first quoted, we could
fix the date here to the 13th of July 1102, which answers
all the other requirements, and which, with the 22nd of
July,1 was notoriously ill-omened, according to the mediaeval
calendars. Lastly, the traveller's embarkation at Jaffa, ' on
the Day of Pentecost,' after the completion of his journey
in the Holy Land, points to the Whitsunday of 1103 (17th
May), as in 1104 the festival occurred on the 5th of June,
three weeks after the fall of Acre, an event which he would
scarcely have omitted.

Besides these allusions, hasty and slight enough, though
not without their importance, there is little reference in
Saewulf to the events of his time or to the facts of general in-
terest in geography. He stops at Cephalonia to tell us that
there Robert Guiscard died ; 2 the great Norman conqueror
was too recent and too mighty a figure in Mediterranean
history for even a pilgrim to leave unnoticed ; and it is
possible that Saewulf's account of Constantinople contained
more notices of contemporary men and matters. But both
the openiug and the close of the narrative appear to have
been lost.

As to Saewulf's outward journey, we may notice that
he does not go by way of Egypt, for the most obvious
reasons. Egypt was a Moslem country, whose people,
except for special circumstances, would naturally make
common cause with their brethren of Syria against the
invading Christians. In earlier times the route through
Alexandiia had been common enough, but now Christian
pilgrims followed in the wake of their victorious armies
and Meets along the northern shores, or through the
northern waters, of the Mediterranean. Our present
narrative shows us the traveller following the most adven-
1 When Saewulf left 'Biandia' or Brmdisi. 2 July, 1085.

142 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Ch.

turous route, not troubling to take the safer and longer
way by Constantinople, but trusting to the new-grown
Christian power and trade at sea, and pressing directly
forward from Italy to the Ionian islands, from Negropont
to Ehodes, and from Rhodes to Palestine. Greece, on
the other hand, he crosses by land, probably in preference
to the troublesome circuit of the Morea ; but the rest of his
journey is on shipboard. His whole record demonstrates
how great was the recent increase of European influence
in the Levant, alike in war, in commerce, and in pilgrimage.
Nowhere is this more clearly marked than in his picture
of the great fleet at Jaffa, laden with palmers and merchan-
dise, which was destroyed by a tempest in that perilous
and unsheltered roadstead before his eyes.

Even the small amount of land travel performed by
Saewulf was against his inclination; 'conscious of his
unworthiness,' he is uncertain whether it was his sins,
or the badness of his ship, that hindered him from taking
without intermission, the ' direct course of the open sea.'

Of the first part of his journey — presumably from
England to South Italy — he says nothing, and professes
only to begin with a mention of the different islands at
which he touched. But his narrative really commences
with a list of the chief pilgrim ports — Bari, Barletta,1
Siponte or Manfredonia, Trani, and Otranto, the 'entrance-
harbour' of Apulia, then and later the favoured rival of
Brindisi for the narrow passage from Italy to Albania.
Saewulf himself did not make use of any of these ; he
took ship at the little harbour of Monopoli, about twenty
miles from Bari, on Sunday, the Feast of St. Mildred (13th
July, 1102). 'But,' he laments, 'as we set out at an
unlucky hour, we had not proceeded more than three

1 Saewulf s 'Barlo' or 'Barium,'

ni.] saewulf's outward journey 143

miles, when the violence of the waves wrecked our vessel.'
Refitting at Brindisi, and once more putting to sea with
strange persistence on an ill-omened day, the pilgrim had
a stormy passage to the isthmus of Corinth, by way of
Corfu (24th July), Cephalonia (1st August), and Patras,
famous for the martyrdom of St. Andrew. In this ' island '
the relics of the apostle had long been kept before their
translation to Constantinople ; here Saewulf probably
refers to the coast town near the entrance of the
Corinthian Gulf ; but, like other mediaeval writers, he
employs the term of ' isle ' in a generous sense for any
seaboard place, without much attention to the precisions
of geographical terminology.

In Corinth, where he ' suffered many hardships,' the
traveller begins to notice St. Paul's journeys and their
coincidences with his own wanderings, illustrating these
by occasional explanations of singular perversity. In the
Gulf of Corinth the sea route ended for a time, — after
Saewulf had crossed to ' Hosta ' or Livadostro, whence the
party made their way, ' some on foot, some on asses.' over
the Boeotian neck of land to the Strait of Euboea and the
port of Negropont (23rd August). On this march they
passed by the city of Thebes, or ' Stivas,' then celebrated as the
seat of the largest Jewish colony in the Byzantine Empire.
The voyage from Negropont brought Saewulf into the
iEgaean, and he touched at a number of islands and harbours
in his very devious course upon these waters — Petali or
Spili, near Marathon ; Andros, noted for its silk, samit, and
' sindals ' (thin shavings of gold and silver, from which
the precious tissues were made) ; Ancho, or Cos, where
Hippocrates was born (for so we may correct the pilgrim's
'Galen'); Naxos, Patmos, and Ehodes. He does not
appear to have visited Athens, 'where Paul preached/ and

144

PILGRIM TRAVEL

[Ch.

where a miraculous lamp still attested the sanctity of
the. place, nor the ' notable island ' of Crete, nor Ephesus,
' where St. John entered the sepulchre living ' ; but he
certainly spent some time at various points on the eastern
side of the Archipelago, including Cnidus,1 Syra, Samos,
Scio, and Mitylene. At Rhodes he stays a little to tell
us of its vanished marvel, the ' idol called Colossus,' one
of the seven wonders of the world. This was 125 feet
high ; but in spite of its bulk ' the Persians destroyed it,
with nearly all the land of Romania, when on their way
to Spain. These were the Colossians to whom St. Paul
wrote.' This ingenious confusion occurs in several of
the later pilgrims, who, like Saewulf, mix up Colossae and
Phrygia with the ' idol of Ehodes,' and name the people
of the country after their great monument. But here
the Persians are also confounded with the early Arabic
Saracens, and the Levant conquests of the latter appear as
part of the Moslem advance through North Africa into
the West of Europe. Saewulf's Romania is, of course,
the Roman Empire 2 of the East, and nothing else ; it is
an official and perfectly correct designation; but a very
slight knowledge of Mohammedan history would have
reminded the traveller that, when the Arabs conquered
Rhodes, their capitals were at Mecca and Damascus, that
Persia was then in no way the central country of Islam, and
that a century was yet to elapse before the foundation of
Bagdad.3 Once more, the effects of the great earthquake
in the third century B.C., and the damage wrought by

1 Lido.

2 From his later use of the term
Romania, it may he that here also
only the Asiatic Provinces are in-
tended.

3 A.D. 651, Conquest of Rhodes ;

a.d. 762, Foundation of Bagdad.
However, the Persians of Chosroes
II. captured Rhodes for a moment
in 616. This may partly account
for Saewulf's language here.

III-l SAEWULFS OUTWARD JOURNEY 145

subsequent calamities, are, of course, forgotten ; and the
ruin of the Colossus is imputed wholly to the infidels
who carted away for building purposes the remains of
the fallen statue in the seventh century after Christ,
under the first Ommeyad Caliph Moawiyah.

From Rhodes Saewulf made his way to Patara in
Lycia, the home of St. Nicolas, and one of the resting-
places of the English pilgrim Willibald 'during the rigour
of the winter' of 722. Not far off was the town of Myra,
where the Wonder-worker had his bishopric and became
famous throughout the Orient of the fourth century. Here
the saint died and was buried in the year 342 ; but his
relics had been translated to Bari shortly before the time
of Saewulf (a.d. 1087), perhaps to escape desecration at
the hands of the advancing Turks. Now, at the opening
of the twelfth century, Myra was an important harbour,
the anchorage-in-chief for the shipping of the ' Adriatic '
or Eastern Mediterranean, just as Constantinople was for
the marine of the /Egaean Sea. Here, again, the English
traveller reproduces a common usage of his time ; exactly
the same meaning is attached to the 'Adriatic' Sea by
Matthew Paris and many other writers of the central
mediaeval period. Near Patara Saewulf describes an
entirely desolate town » called ' Mogronissi,1 or the Long
Island of St. Mary,' which, from its churches and other
buildings, appeared to have been inhabited by the Christians
after they had been driven by the Turks from ' Alexandria,'
or Alexandretta, at the head of the Gulf of Scanderoon. This
Long Island was perhaps the modern Kakava, on the west
side of which Avezac has pointed out the ruins of a
church and town ; Saewulf's remark is one more evidence
of the changes wrought by the recent advance of Islam

1 Makro-nesos.
K

146 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Oh.

under the devastating leadership of the Seljuk Turks.
After worshipping at the Sepulchre of St, Nicolas, the
pilgrim sailed to the ' Island called Xindacopo,1 or Sixty
Oars, on account of the force of the sea ' ; this is apparently
the ancient Chelidonia at the south end of Finica Bay,
and from this point Saewulf took to the open sea, and
crossed the broad part of the 'Adriatic' to Paffus, Paphos
or Paffo,2 in the island of Cyprus. Another long voyage
out of sight of land brought the wanderer, after seven days,
to the coast of Palestine ; one night the stormy weather
forced his ship almost back to Cyprus ; but at last the
sunrise of the eighth day displayed the shore of the port
of Jaffa, and with extraordinary and unexpected joy he
landed in Syria on Sunday, the 12th of October, 1102. His
journey from Monopoli had consumed no less than thirteen
weeks, and all the time he had ' dwelt on the waves of
the sea, or in islands or deserted cots and sheds,' hoping
in vain for the hospitality of the suspicious and unfriendly
Greeks.

On the advice of one who spoke, as Saewulf afterwards
believed, by divine inspiration, the pilgrim went on shore
at once, and thus escaped a terrible visitation. Next morn-
ing, as he returned from church, he heard the roaring of the
sea and the shouts of the people. Dragged along with the
crowd to the shore, he saw waves swelling higher than
mountains, and countless bodies of the drowned scattered
over the beach, while fragments of ships were floating on
every side. The rage of the sea and the crashing of the
vessels drowned the clamour of the spectators. ' Our own
ship, being very large and strong, and others laden with

1 Apparently a corruption of e^-q-
Kovra KcoTrai shortened to '£ojt<x
Kwiral.

2 Here Saewulf makes a short ex-

cursion into the History of the Early
Church, the Mission of Barnabas, and
the life of St. Peter, confusing Acts
xiii. 2-4 with Acts xv. 22.

IH.] SAEWULF AT JAFFA: THE STORM 147

corn and merchandise, or with pilgrims going and returning,
still held by their anchors ; but how they were tossed by the
waves, how the crews were filled with terror, how they cast
overboard their merchandise. What eye could refrain from
tears ? ' Before long the ships were driven from their anchors
by the violence of the waves, which threw them, now up
aloft, now down below, until they were hurled upon the
rocks, and there beaten to and fro till they were dashed all
to pieces. ' For the violence of the wind would not allow
them to put out to sea, and the nature of the coast did not
permit them to put in to shore. Among the sailors and
pilgrims who had lost all hope of safety some remained on
the ships; others laid hold of the masts or beams of wood;
many, in a state of stupor, were drowned without any
attempt to save themselves. Some (incredible as this may
seem), before my very eyes, had their heads knocked off by
the rafters to which they clung for safety; while others
were swept out to sea on the beams which they hoped would
wash them to land. Even those who could swim had not
strength to battle with the waves, and very few who thus
trusted their own power reached the shore alive. Thus, out
of thirty very large ships, of which some were (as they call
them) Dromunds, some GuWfres, and some Cats, scarce seven
were saved. Of men and women there perished more than
a thousand.'

All the chief kinds of twelfth-century vessel were here
represented, and all alike suffered severely, an incidental
penalty of the new spirit of naval enterprise which was
drawing the marine of the Italian and Provencal cities, with
such force and suddenness, to the new homes of Chris: ian
power in the Levant. The Byzantine Emperor,1 at this
very time was famous for his navy of Dromunds or light
1 Alexius Comnenus.

148 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Ch.

galleys ; these ships appear to have been biremes, each tier
of oars having twenty-five benches, and each bench two
rowers ; while the Cats of the narrative have been conjectured
to resemble a modern Norwegian collier with a narrow
stern, projecting quarters, and deep waist. With the mis-
fortunes and terrors of Saewulfs companions we may
contrast the good luck and daring valour of Godric the
Pirate, a native of the same distant land as the Worcester
pilgrim, who, a few years later, fought his way through the
Saracen fleet, outside the same perilous roadstead, with a
spear-shaft for his banner.

From Jaffa Saewulf went up to Jerusalem by a road
which he, like Daniel of Kiev, found ' mountainous, rough,
and dangerous on account of the Saracens, who lay in wait
in the caves of the hills to surprise the Christians.' These
brigands were swift and subtle in their movements : at one
moment you saw them on every side ; at another they were
nowhere to be seen. On this road many travellers perished,
poor and weak, rich and strong alike ; many cut off by the
Saracens, more by heat and thirst ; many from want of
drink, more from too much drinking. The Kingdom of
Jerusalem was now only in its third, year, and Acre and
Ascalon (or Askelon) were still Moslem citadels. It was
little wonder, then, that roads were still unsafe. Entering
the Holy City from the west, under the citadel of King David,
by the Gate of David (or of Jaffa)> Saewulf first visited the
Holy Sepulchre ' built by the Archbishop Maximus, with the
patronage of the Emperor Constantine, after the discovery
of the Lord's Cross.' Like the Eussian Daniel, he notices that
the church was open to the sky ; it was situated, he avers, on
the slope of Mount Sion.

This was the third Christian building which had marked
the great scenes of the Crucifixion and Eesurrection ; the

III.] SAEWULF IN JERUSALEM 149

first, that of Helena or of Constantine, had been destroyed
by Chosroes and his Persians, the ' Pagans ' of Saewulf, in
614; the second had been demolished by Hakim Biamrillah
in 1010; the third, standing in the traveller's day, was an
erection of the years 1020-1026. Saewulf makes no clear
distinction between these, and seems to think that what he
visited was the original foundation of the fourth century ;
both here and elsewhere he was apparently at the mercy of
the Syrian or ' Assyrian ' Christians who undertook the
duty or the pleasure of guiding or misguiding the ignorant
but eager and credulous pilgrims from the West.

In Jerusalem Saewulf displays a good deal of learning,
often without any close relation to fact. Titus and
Vespasian destroyed Jerusalem to revenge Christ. Hadrian
first extended the city westwards to the Tower of David.
Justinian was said by some to have rebuilt the town and
the Temple of the Lord, but this was not true, according to
the witness of the Assyrians. The ordinary relics and holy
sites are elaborately described by our pilgrim. He quotes
the sentences x of Augustine on the question of Adam's
burial, not at Golgotha, but at Hebron ; and he locates
Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac, not on Moriah, but on Calvary.
One geographical monument is especially noticed.

At the ' head ' of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, in the
outside wall, and not far from the place of Calvary, was the
spot called Compas, which our Lord Himself signified and
measured with His own hands as the middle of the world,
according to the Psalmist's words : For God is my King of old,
working salvation in the midst of the earth?

1 Not in the standard collection of distributed among the sons of Noah,

these sentences by Prosper of Aqui- I and of Sheni burying the head in

taine. This story of Saewulf's is per- Judaea,

haps derived from James of Edessa, 2 Ps. lxxiii. 12.
who talks about Adan.'s bones being

150 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Oh.

Thus we find the same legends supported by the same
texts in the sixth, the seventh, and the twelfth centuries ;
and, from Saewulfs time, the centre of the world at Jerusalem,
as a definite object which could be seen and touched, became
more and more a fixed article of common belief ; most of the
anonymous pilgrims of the next centuries reproduce the
story in exact verbal agreement ; and with the Byzantine-
Latin sketch of 1110 the same feature begins to appear in
mediaeval maps. Reverence for tradition allied itself with
convenience ; and thus Com/pas, late into the fifteenth century,
was retained as the favourite umbilical spot.

In the Temple area Saewulf professes to recognise the
Beautiful Gate and the site of Bethel.1 The Holy of Holies,
he learnt, was in the hollow underneath the Bock of Sacrifice ;
there, too, the Lord, wearied with the insolence of the Jews,
was accustomed to hide and to repose Himself ; and there
were to be seen the footsteps of the Son of God.

As to the Golden Gate on the east side of the temple
area, Saewulf relates the story of Heraclius' entering here,
with the Lord's Cross, on his victorious return from Persia,
when 'the stones fell down and closed the passage, until,
humbling himself at the admonition of an angel, he de-
scended from his horse, and so the entrance was opened
unto him.'

Near the Holy Sepulchre was the famous monastery of
St. John the Baptist, the centre and home of the Order of
the Hospital which drew its first origin from a small founda-
tion of some pious merchants of Amalfi in the middle of the
eleventh century (a.d. 1048), and assumed its military
character (in 1118) shortly after the visit of Saewulf.
In this memorable year the Order of the Temple also took

1 We may contrast Saewulfs uncritical talk about Bethel with the
accurate remarks of John of Wiirzburg.

III.]

SAEWULF IN JERUSALEM

151

definite shape ; but the name of the greater society does
not occur in our present narrative ; and this omission,
coupled with the reference to the earlier and less celebrated
Hospital, in its primitive formr is another confirmation of
our traveller's date, at the very commencement of the twelfth
century.

The name of JElm (or ' Helias ') for Jerusalem, we are told,
was interpreted by some as meaning ' House of God ' ; this
Hebrew fable is accompanied by some Christian legends
hardly less wild, such as that of St. John as the first holder
of the 'Pontificate' of Jerusalem, or of St. Saba1 as one of
the ' Seventy-two disciples of the Lord.' The ' Chapel of
Galilee ' on the summit of Mount Olivet, the ' place of
Galilee ' on Mount Sion, the ' great city 2 of Galilee ' by
Mount Tabor, Nazareth on the Lake of Tiberias, the Garden
of Abraham in Jericho, the Bethlehem cistern wherein the
star3 of the Magi fell (according to the report of some),
are balanced, as instances of pious fable, by Saewulf's
matter-of-fact relations about the tombs of Jerome, Paula
and Eustochium, and the St. Saba monastery with its 300
inmates. Most of these religious men had been slain by the
Saracens a short time before Saewulf's visit, and the survivors
had fled to a convent of the same name (also noticed by
Daniel of Kiev) within the walls of Jerusalem, near the
Tower of David and the Jaffa Gate.

Saewulf's description of the sites of Hebron is especially
detailed and interesting; he enlarges on the ancient work-
manship of the patriarchal tombs and the smell of the
precious aromatics in the same, the strong castle that

1 St. Saba died 5th December, 532,
aged 94.

2 Cana (?)

3 In Willibald the figure of the

star is reflected in a well, c. 12. The
Saewulfian form of the story occurs
also in Mandeville.

152 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Ch.

surrounded the sacred monuments, and the humbler burial-
place of Joseph at the extremity of the fortress.

In a digression upon the Jordan the pilgrim gives us a
characteristic piece of his geographical phraseology : ' On this
side of the river Judaea extends to the Adriatic Sea, to the port
of Joppa ; on the other side is Arabia, hostile to Christians and
hateful to all who worship God, but possessing the mount
whence Elijah was carried into Heaven in a fiery chariot.'
Our pilgrim seems to have visited the Ghor in the Jericho
region, after which he went North to Sichem, Haifa,
Nazareth, and Cana of Galilee, where nothing was left standing
except the ' Monastery called after Architriclinius.' Here
again Saewulf preserves a characteristic mediaeval corruption,
which, copied by hosts of later writers, appears (among
others) in several of the Anonymous pilgrims and in John
of Wiirzburg ; and thus the ' Euler of the Feast,' named after
his title x becomes the patron saint of a celebrated con-
vent and an important figure in the literature of mediaeval
Christian devotion. Mount Tabor, ' covered in a marvellous
manner with grass and flowers,' rose in the middle of the
green plain of Galilee, overtopping all the mountains which
surrounded it. On the summit Saewulf notices the three
tabernacles or monasteries described by earlier visitors ; and
from this point the narrative now takes us six miles to the
Sea of Galilee, and so, after some wanderings, to Mount
Libanus. At the foot of this the Jordan boiled out in a
very rapid stream from the two fountains of Jor and Dan,
and far into its last home in the Dead Sea the milky waters
of the river, whiter than any other, could be distinguished
by their colour.

And so we come to the return journey. ' Having
worshipped to the best of our power,' concludes Saewulf, ' at

1 As given in the Gospel of St. John iii. 8, 9.

HI] SAKWDLF IN PALESTINE: RETURN JOURNEY 153

all the holy places in Jerusalem and round about, we took
ship at Joppa, on the day of Pentecost' (1103); but fearing
to meet with Saracen rovers in the open sea, the ship's
captain sailed close along the shore, past various port-towns,
some yet unconquered, some newly fallen into the hands of
the Franks. Among the latter were Azotum l or Arsuf,
Caesarea, Cayphas or Haifa, and Tortosa ; among the former
Tyre, Sidon, Acre, Byblus or Jebeil, Beyrout, Antaradus,
Tripolis, Laodicea or Latakiyeh, and Gabala or Gibel, ' where
are the mountains of Gilboa.' But in spite of their caution
the travellers did not quite escape. Between Acre and
Haifa, under the lee of Mount Carmel, they sighted a large
Saracen fleet, led by the Admiral of Tyre and Sidon, who
was ' carrying an army to Babylonia to assist the Chaldaeans
in making war on Jerusalem.' For the Fatimites of Cairo
were now sending relief to their brethren in Ascalon, hard
pressed by King Baldwin ; just as on the Northern frontier
the Moslems were recovering from their defeats, attacking
Edessa, and besieging the Norman Bohemond in his own
conquest of Antioch. With his usual recklessness Saewulf
confuses the mediaeval Babylon of Egypt with the Scriptural
Babylon of the Chaldees, and the enterprises of Moslems in
the twelfth century with the expeditions of various heathen
enemies of the Chosen People before the Christian Era. All
was one to him.

But in the present crisis matters at first were threaten-
ing ; the Christians could only muster three vessels ; and
two of these, full of unwarlike and timid palmers, incon-
tinently made off to Caesarea, disappearing with unpleasant
speed round the great headland of Carmel ; but their flight
did not dismay the men of the Dromund, in which Saewulf

1 The ancient Apollonia, north I Azotus or Ashdod to the south of
of Jaffa, not to he confnsed with | Jaffa,

154 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Oh.

had trusted himself. In all they numbered two hundred
warriors, and they were determined not to yield without a
struggle. The ship's stern-castle was garrisoned and every-
thing made ready for so stout a defence, that the infidels went
on their way. It was not the first or the last time that a
brave countenance proved the remedy in a desperate case.

This was on the Wednesday after Pentecost ; and eight
days later, striking across the open sea to Cyprus, the
wanderers arrived at St. Andrew's Haven, near the north-
east extremity of the island. Thence they reached the
mainland of Asia Minor, and coasted along to Ehodes,
passing Antiochetta, Myra,1 Satalia, and many other ports,
and narrowly escaping capture by pirates and shipwreck by
sudden tempests. Hiring a smaller vessel at Rhodes, on
the 23rd of June, that they might proceed more rapidly,
they hastened on to Constantinople, touching at Stromlo,
the ancient Astypalaea, ' a fair city entirely wasted by the
Turks,' Scio, where they changed their bark again, and
Tenit or Tenedos, near which, on the coast of 'Romania,'
was the ancient and renowned city of Troy. Saewulf learnt
from his Greek informants that the ruins of this place were
still visible over a space of many miles ; but he did not
land here, any more than at the 'great town of Smyrna,'
which he also passed at a distance, and briefly noticed in
his narrative, now shrunken to a series of very meagre jot-
tings. Coasting along the Troad, Saewulf entered the narrow
sea which the Ancient World knew as the Hellespont, and
the Middle Ages as the Strait of St. George. In the pilgrim's
language, it divided the two lands of Romania and Macedonia,
and through the narrow passage he sailed towards Byzan-
tium, ' having Greece on the right and Macedonia on the

1 Stamirra here. This, like I corruption of Myra or Myrrha in
Astamirle, was a regular mediaeval | Lycia.

II'.] SAEWULF'S RETURN: DANIEL OF KIEV 155

left.' The new meaning here given to ' Greece,' as if
synonymous with Mysia, is even more strange than the
arbitrary limitation of the terms Romania and Macedonia,
the one to Asiatic, the other to the European, provinces of
the Byzantine Empire. In the Dardanelles the traveller
notices the 'keys' of Constantinople, St. Phemius1 and
Samthe, perhaps the ancient Eleonta and Xanthos, so close
together, though on opposite sides of the Strait, that two
or three bow shots would reach across. Here, then, the
capital was almost impregnable from the sea. Saewulf passed
the 'Arm of St. George' about Michaelmas time in 1103, and
soon after this festival he arrived at Rodosto 2 with the weari-
some experience of some four months' voyage from Jaffa.

Our pilgrim was now close to Constantinople, and before
returning to his home he wished to perform his devotions in
the capital of Eastern Christendom ; but his narrative breaks
off abruptly at the ' noble' place of Eaclea or Heraclea, the
modern Eregli, on the north shore of the sea of Marmora,
' whence, as the Greeks say, Helen was carried off by Paris
Alexander.'

With Abbot Daniel of Kiev we come upon a new line
of pilgrim travel. He is not the earliest Russian devotee
whose journey to the Holy Land has been recorded. For
among instances of this tendency we have some unnamed
examples of 1022,3 and the mention of St. Varlaam, Abbot4
of the Lavra of Kiev, under the year 1062. But no record,
journal, or note-book, kept by a Russian traveller of this
age has yet been found.5 Daniel, at the opening of the

1 'St. Phemius the bishop.' Ap- ^'YlyovfjAvos — Abbot or Prior, which
parently a mistake for the Virgin is a! so Daniel's title.

and Martyr Euphemia. 5 Cf. H. M. Hagenmayer, Ekke-

2 'Rothostoca' in Saewulf. hardi uraugunsis abbatis ' Hicrosoly-

3 Mentioned in the life of Theo- mite'— Tubingen, 1877, pp. .360-362.
dosius of Kiev. I

156 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Ch.

twelfth century, is the oldest Eussian author, sacred or
secular, who has described a journey from his country to
any part of the outer world. More than that, he is
among the very earliest names in Eussian literature of any
sort. Part of 'Nestor's' chronicle (a.d. 1066-1115) maybe
some ten or fifteen years older, or even more ; but the father
of Russian history is Daniel's only important predecessor.
The present narrative was evidently much valued by our
pilgrim's countrymen, for seventy-five manuscripts of it
exist, the oldest being of a.d. 1-475.

Daniel's pilgrim record may be fixed to the years 1106-7,
with fair probability, from internal evidence. For one
thing, he tells us that his journey was in the reign of the
Grand Prince (Michael or) Mikhail Sviatopolk, son of Isiaslav
and grandson of Yaroslav the Law-giver, who ruled at Kiev
from 1093 to 1113. Again, he has a good deal to say of
his intercourse with Baldwin, King of Jerusalem from 1100
to 1118, and of the peculiar kindness shown him by the
Latin Prince. Thirdly, he notices that when he passed
through the Holy Land, Acre belonged to the Franks. It
was taken by them on the 26th of May, 1104, so Daniel's
visit must have been subsequent to this and to the time
of Saewulf's departure. Fourthly, he claims to have accom-
panied Baldwin on his expedition against Damascus ; this
appears to have been undertaken not earlier than 1106 or
later than 1108. These are the chief marks of time. But
it may also be remembered that Daniel, in his careful de-
scription of the miracle of the Holy Fire on Easter Eve,
makes no allusion to any Latin Patriarch, but puts one of
the Prankish bishops into the place which, as we know from
other sources,1 was usually assigned to his superior. This
coincides with the well-attested fact that there was no

1 Especially Fuleher of Chartres,

in.] Daniel's narrative: its value 157

Latin Patriarch at the date of Easter, 1107 ; for the See
was then vacant. Dagobert left the Holy City in 1103;
and Ebremar, his substitute, also started for Home towards
the end of 1106. Once more, Daniel specially mentions the
dangers from the Saracen outpost at Ascalon to Christian
troops and travellers in Syria ; and in this some have seen
not only a general statement, but a particular reference to
an attack of the Ascalon Moslems upon some passing
Christians on the way between Jaffa and Jerusalem, in the
year which saw the abortive commencement of the siege of
Sidon (1107).1 Our next pilgrim, King Sigurd of Norway,
helped (as we shall see), to bring this enterprise to a suc-
cessful end in 1110.

Daniel was the abbot,2 or in modern Greek-Church
phrase, the Archimandrite, of a Russian monastery, whose
name and position are unknown. From his reference to the
River Snov, a tributary of the Desna, which flows into the
Dniepr by Kiev, we may conjecture that his home was in
the Province of Tchernigov. Some have identified him with
a certain Daniel, who was Bishop of Suriev in 1115, and died
on 9th September 1122. In any case, he was closely con-
nected with the Mother of Russian Cities, when at the
height of her power and splendour, a good half-century
before her first overthrow in 1169. The Eastern Slavs had
been making steady progress since the migration of Rurik
and his Scandinavians to Old Novgorod in the ninth
century.3 The reigns of Oleg, who established the 'Varan-
gian ' power in Kiev ; of Igor and Sviatoslav, the great
pagan Rurikides, feared even at the Court of the Eastern
Empire ; and of Vladimir the Saint and Yaroslav the

1 Of. William of Tyre, and Des \ " Hegotimenos or ' Igumen.'
choses avenues cnJatcrre d'Outremer, \ 3 Traditionally, a.d. 862.
xi. 4, Paris, 1879, vol. i. 384.

158 PILGRIM TRAVEL IP«-.

Legislator, who brought their country within the pale
of Christian civilisation, were glorious memories of Daniel's
countrymen, even at this early time. Nor were these
memories only of war and conquest, of victory over heathen
enemies, or of daring raids upon the Imperial City on the
Bosphorus. The Russia of the eleventh and twelfth cen-
turies, though loosely knit in political organisation, was now
a different thing from the barbarian country a described by
Ibn Foslan and the other Arab explorers 200 years before.
Jury trial, justices in assize, and other refinements of the
higher mediaeval society, it had developed in a manner
closely similar to the lines of western progress. On the
other hand, its Church and faith and architecture, its code
of manners and morals, came to it from the Byzantines.
When Abbot Daniel started on his journey, few could have
suspected the weakness of the Russian States which seemed
so flourishing, so continuous in the advance of their pros-
perity and power. The next generations were yet to show
the fatal effects of a weak and doubtful centre, of divided
sovereignty, of unchecked feudalism in government.

The field covered by Daniel's pilgrimage was much wider
than that of most western devotees. Had he but recorded
the early stages of his journey from the middle Dniepr, his
work might perhaps have risen into the primary class of
mediaeval travel narratives. Even as it is, we must recog-
nise the value of those glimpses of Eastern Europe which
he gives us, those allusions to the pre-Mongolian princi-
palities of Eussia, whose life was so sternly cut short just
a century after his time by the Tartar sword, but whose
slavery proved the training for a second and greater time
of national growth.

1 Inhabited by people ' the most umvashen of all the men whom God
has made ' (Ibn Fozlan).

ii] daniel's narrative: its value 159

We must notice, moreover, in the present narrative, its
fulness of detail, its evident good faith, its anxiety to verify
by personal experience. Daniel is not without the credulity
of the wonder-seeker, and he makes terrible slips at times;
but wherever he has been himself his record is almost
always a true one, and where he has not been, he frankly
tells us that he only repeats the words of others. He makes
no pretence to rhetoric. ' Forgive me,1 my fathers, my
brethren, and my lords,' — so he closes one of his last
chapters, — ' do not despise the ignorance in which I have
been led to describe these holy places, in simple words,
without the skill of letters. If I have written without
learning, there is here at least no lie ; for I described
nothing that I did not see with my very eyes.'

Daniel's narrative shows us — if other evidence were
lacking — that Palestine was far from settled in the early
days of the Latin Kingdom. The roads from Jaffa to
Jerusalem, from Bethlehem to Hebron, from Jerusalem to
Jericho, were in constant danger from Saracen raiders.
The garrison of Ascalon were especially feared in the
neighbourhood of Lydda, in the wooded hill country near
Solomon's Pools, and in the Wilderness of Judaea. In
Central Palestine, Scythopolis or Bethshan was almost as
great a centre for Moslem hostility. So the ways from
Jerusalem to the Sea of Galilee, from Mount Tabor to
Nazareth, and from one side of the Lebanon to the other,
were all unsafe without an escort. Panthers and wild
asses were noticed by Daniel in the plateau land to the
west of the Dead Sea ; lions in the almost tropical jungle
of the Jordan Valley ; and date-palms in the hot lowlands
of Jericho and Bethshan.

The Russian pilgrim shows no sectarian feeling ; no

1 Ch. xcvi. in Itiniraircs ricsses, Sociele de FOrient Latin, 1889.

160 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Oh.

hostility is apparent — only once a shade of contempt1 — in
his language about the dominant Latin Church. On the
other hand, his religion ' humbles his unworthiness in the
dust.' We need not of course take too literally in his case,
any more than in Bunyan's, the violent self-accusation of one
who declares himself to be a scandal to the holy way, given
up to every vice, and incapable of doing good. It is prob-
able that our monk was led to undertake his journey,
among other things,2 by the news of the Christian conquest
of Jerusalem ; but he himself assigns his own sins as the
sole cause of this act of penitence. Yet with a breadth of
view which has often been an honour to the best men of
the Orthodox Church, he rejoices to think how many holy
souls, by practising good works, had reached the sacred
land in spirit, and been acceptable to God, without once
leaving home ; while sinners there were (' of whom I
am chief) who visited the holy places, and, swollen with
pride, lost all the fruit of their labour.

Abbot Daniel was apparently entertained at the various
Greek and Orthodox, even sometimes at the Latin Monas-
teries in Palestine ; and in particular, he seems to have owed
not a little to the guidance of an old monk from the Lavra
of St. Saba in the Kedron Gorge. Naturally, his traditions
are those of the Eastern Church ; 3 his knowledge of the
Bible and the Apocryphal Gospels is a knowledge of the
Greek text, as we may notice in the case of the pseudo-
Apostolic Protevangeliimi of James, from which he derives
some of his sacred lore.

1 In describing the service of the
descent of the Holy Fire, ' The Latins
began to mumble after their manner.'

- But we must remember that
though records are scanty, it is clear
that Russian Pilgrimage had begun

first Crusade ; and both in dress and
manners the Eastern Slavic peoples,
from their greater similarity to
Oriental standards, may have found
a better reception in the Levant than
Latin travellers.

to flow steadily to Syria before the 3 The ' Assyrians ' of Saewulf.

in.] Daniel's narrative : its value 161

From the present record it would appear that Orthodox
and Catholic, Greek and Latin, were now on friendly terms
in Syria, as in other parts of the Levant ; the same is
attested by the historians of this period ; and, indeed, it
is not till after the failure of the Council of Florence (1439-
1443) that the Eastern and Western Communions frankly
and entirely abandon the ground of common Christian
feeling for that of sectarian hatred. As examples of this
we may notice, among other points, the deference paid by
the King of Jerusalem to the clergy and monks of St. Saba ;
the Orthodox control of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,
even its keys being in Greek hands ; the superior honour
allowed to the hitter during some of the Eastern ceremonies
when the ' Orthodox lamps ' were placed on the sepulchre
itself, while those of the Latins were only hung around ;
and the union of the Franks with the Eastern Christians in
the service for Holy Saturday, and in the cry of Kyrie
Elcisoa. On the other hand, we have a somewhat different
account from Fulcher of Chartres, Daniel's chief parallel,
who was present on a famous Easter Eve, when the Holy
Fire failed to descend. For, while confirming Daniel in
almost all points, he says that in the Easter Eve service
the Lections were first read by the Latins in Latin, and
then by the Greeks in Greek ; also that the Patriarch of
the Latins opened the door of the sepulchre, whereas in
Daniel this is done by one of the Greek bishops.

Along with many excellences Daniel has the defects of
a scanty book- and place-knowledge. He puts Capernaum
on the sea coast near Carmel. He identifies Lydda l with

1 ' Formerly called Lydda, now seems to have recognised a Caper-

Rambilieh' (ch. lxiii. ). Daniel also naum on the Mediterranean near

identifies the Rama of Jeremiah, Carmel as well as a Capharnaum on

perhaps the modern Kuriet el'Enab, the Sea of Galilee. Daniel notices

with Rama, 4 versts from Emmaus the latter in ch. lxxxiii.
(cc. lxi. lxii.). The twelfth century

162 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Oh.

Earaleh ; Caesarea Philippi with the greater Caesarea on the
coast ; Samaria, Sebaste, or ' Sevastopol ' with Nablus or
Shechem ; Bethshan, the ' City of the Scythians,' with
Bashan, the home of Og. On the Sea of Galilee, the rivers
that flow into it, and the town of Decapolis, he has some
very strange geography. Andrew and Peter are the ' sons
of Zebedee.' l These and other surprises, especially the
often extravagant measurements of distance, can all be
paralleled from the narratives of Western pilgrims; they
are perhaps sometimes due to corruptions of the text ; and
they usually relate to parts which the Archimandrite did
not personally visit.

Abbot Daniel's account of the Holy Places, like Saewulf's,
has the special interest of preserving some record of a state of
things, and especially of buildings, which in great measure
passed away under the Frank rule in Syria, as larger
schemes of Western adaptation were carried out. Compar-
ing his narrative with that of the Worcester pilgrim, we
may say that it is in general fuller, as well as more accurate
and more observant ; several details 2 of interest in the Topo-
graphy of Palestine, omitted by his predecessor, are supplied
by him ; while there is scarcely anything in Saewulf which
is not also to be found in Daniel. His three excursions, to
the Jordan and Dead Sea, to Bethlehem and Hebron, and to
Damascus, were more extensive and more thorough than
those of most other devotees ; on the last-named journey
he had the advantage of accompanying Baldwin and his
troops, and thus of visiting places which no Christian could
have seen without an escort. Lastly, his account of Jeru-
salem is remarkably clear, minute, and accurate, the result

1 A confusion of Maik i. 16, 18, with Mark i. 19, 20.

2 E.g. the Pit of Jeremiah.

Hi-] Daniel's outward journey 163

of his long and studious sojourn at the Metochion of the
Community of St. Saba, near the Jaffa Gate.

On his outward way from Russia to Jerusalem Daniel's
record is somewhat meagre. Unfortunately, he begins with
Constantinople, so that we learn nothing about the first
part of his route. From the Bosphorus he goes over much
the same ground as Saewulf traverses on his return, by
Heraclea or Eregli, Gallipoli, and the north coast of the Sea
of Marmora, through the Dardanelles, and so into the
Mediterranean or ' Great Sea.'" Here Russian pilgrims
turned to the left for Jerusalem, and to the right for the
Holy Mountain of Athos or for the city of Old Rome.
Near Heraclea a sacred oil rose from the depths of the sea,
in honour of the martyrs who had suffered thereabout.
With this story of Daniel's we may compare a remark of
Strabo on the discharge of ' asphalt ' into the iEgaean
from Mount Athos, at the foot of which was another
Heraclea.1

Thence by way of Teuedos, Chios, and Ephesus (where
he tells us the usual wonders about the Tomb of St. John '2
and the Seven Sleepers), to Patmos, the rich and populous
Isle of Cos, Telos or Nisyros, celebrated for its production
of sulphur or 'Herod's torment,' and Rhodes. In this
island Prince Oleg the Rurikide had spent two summers and
winters ; this is abundantly confirmed from other sources ;
it was in 1079, according to the Russian annals, that he was
made prisoner and carried to ' Greece.' From Rhodes Daniel,
like Saewulf, coasted along Lycia, famous for the Tomb of
St. Nicolas and the storax that was gathered upon the hills
near the coast. Cyprus was notable not only for the relics
of St. Epiphanius, but also for a miraculous cross of the

1 Now Eraulitza ; cf. Strabo, frag- I - E.<j. the holy dust rising yearly
tnent 56. I from this sepulchre.

164

PILGRIM TRAVEL

[Ch.

Empress Helena, which, standing on a high mountain,1 did
not rest upon the ground but hung in space, supported by
divine power. ' I, the unworthy, worshipped this holy and
miraculous thing, and saw with my sinful eyes the divine
favour resting on this place.' From Cyprus to Jaffa the
pilgrim reckons 400 versts, or about 270 miles ; from Con-
stantinople to Rhodes it was 800 versts ; and from Rhodes
to Jaffa 800 more, making in all 1600 for the sea voyage
to Palestine. These distances, like the 30 versts given for
the way from Jaffa to Jerusalem, are fairly accurate ; but
with them we may contrast the 80 versts' interval between
Gallipoli and Abydos, the 40 versts allowed for the length
and breadth of Merom or Gennesareth, and the hardly less
exaggerated dimensions of the Sea of Tiberias or Galilee,
which is reckoned as 20 versts by 50.- In explanation or
excuse we must not forget that the Roman Itineraries had
now fallen out of use and memory, and that all measure-
ments had to be worked out afresh. Ten versts from Jaffa
brought Daniel to St. George of Lydda, where pilgrims often
rested, ' but in great fear,' for the place was desolate, and
unpleasantly near to the Saracen stronghold of Ascalon.
On the foundation of the Moslem Ramleh in the early
years of the eighth century,3 the whole population of Lydda
had been moved to the new town, and the ancient site
had been a waste ever since ; now, with the Crusading
period, a partial revival of the old town began again.

Approaching Jerusalem, the traveller first saw the Tower
of David, which then, as now, marked the entrance from

1 Mount Troodos.

2 All these are more than double
the true figures ; from Gallipoli to
Abydos is about 30 versts ; Merom is
about 10 versts by 5 (7 by 3i miles) ;
the Sea of Galilee 18 versts by 10

(12£ miles by 7).

3 Ramleh was founded by Sulei-
man Ibn Abd el Melek, a.d. 716 : cf.
Z.D.P.V. ( = ZeUschrift deutsch,
Palasti na-Vcreins), iv. 88.

III.] DANIEL IN JERUSALEM 165

Jaffa and the Mediterranean ; and, reaching a plateau 1 which
commanded the city about a verst from the walls, he dis-
mounted and ' adored the holy resurrection with the sign
of the cross.' Like almost all pilgrims, whether from West
or North, Daniel entered by the Western or Jaffa Gate,
otherwise known as the Gate of Benjamin, 'near to the
house of the Psalmist.' At that time the ' Portal of King
David,' as Saewulf calls it, belonged to a wall of narrower
circuit than the present, and so lay somewhat to the east of
the modern site. In exact agreement with his English
predecessor, the Eussian pilgrim notes that the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre wTas open to the sky in the middle of
the rotunda, and contained the Navel of the Earth.- Adjoin-
ing the umbilical spot, he adds, was the representation of
Christ in mosaic, with the inscription : The Sole of my Foot
is the 3/easurc3 for the Heaven and the Earth. To the
' Tower of David ' he was admitted, though the ' lowliest of
men,' with one companion, a certain Isdeslav ; he gives an
excellent description of this important fortress ; and, like
Bernard the Wise, he notices the neighbouring church of
St. Mamilla, where so many martyrs had suffered in the
Persian massacre of 614, 'when Heraclius was emperor.'
A little further to the west of the city he also mentions an
interesting link with the farthest west, an Iberian or Spanish
Convent, which is probably the famous Monastery of the
Cross.

Like St. Silvia of Aquitaine, Daniel shows an occasional
reluctance to accept or even to repeat every sacred story :

1 Perhaps an elevation on the way
to Bethel, now called ' El Mesharif.'

2 Some think the ' hell ' described
by Daniel near the Church of St.
Stephen, which split asunder at the
time of Christ's Crucifixion, is the
mount above 'Jeremiah's Grotto'

just outside the present north
wall.

3 Daniel gives all his measurements
of buildings in Russian Sagenes. A
little later he quotes some striking
passages from the Holy Week anthems
of the Eastern Church,

166 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Oh.

the traces of the blood of Zacharias ' slain between the
Temple and the Altar ' was a favourite pilgrim wonder ; but
Daniel will not admit that these traces were any longer
visible. ' Formerly they were, but not now.' Many
devotees also had discoursed on the marvellous remains of
the ancient temple. These had utterly disappeared, says
Daniel ; only some foundations were left. The present
church was built by a 'Saracen chief named Amor.' In spite
of the corruption of Omar's l name, it is sufficiently remark-
able to find a Christian pilgrim so far informed about Moslem
sovereigns and buildings.

We may suppose it was during the latter part of his
stay in Palestine that the Eussian Archimandrite passed
sixteen months'2 in the Jerusalem House, Metochion, or
Filiale, of the Lavra of St. Saba. This daughter-settlement,
a stone's-throw only from the Tower of David, was now oc-
cupied, and apparently even crowded, by the monks who had
just escaped from the destruction of the Mother-House and the
slaughter of their brethren in the Kedron Valley. It is also
noticed by Saewulf and by John of Wiirzburg ; and it affords a
good example of the constitution of the typical Lavra of the
Eastern Church. Here monks were lodged in separate cells,
though under a common superior ; and it was easy to form
out-settlements under this system, which afforded a sort of
compromise between the original Hermit- or Anchorite-life
of the earliest monks, and the community-life of later times
and of Western pattern. Whether before, or after, the sack
and massacre which had desolated the original House in the
wilderness of Judaea, Abbot Daniel paid a visit also to this
celebrated spot ; and his account of the hanging monastery
may be verified in all its details — the cells of the Lavra
attached to the rock, 'like stars in the firmament,' and
1 Of. William of Tyre, i. 2 ; viii. 3, for the Omar tradition. 2 Ch. i

III.]

DANIEL IN PALESTINE

167

the dry torrent bed ' of utmost depth ' beneath, shut in
between high walls of rock, from which the habitations of
the monks projected like the nests of birds. One of the
brethren, an aged man, ' well versed in Scripture,' became
the friend and guide of the Orthodox visitor, and under his
direction Daniel journeyed to the Sea of Tiberias, to Tabor,
to Nazareth, to Hebron, and to the Jordan. Another holy
man of Daniel's acquaintance, an anchorite, ' terrifying of
aspect, austere, and old,' lived as a Stylite or Pillar-saint
in a deep cavern on the south side of the Mount of Olives,
by the ' tomb * of St. Pelagia the courtezan ' ; and this is
probably the same ascetic whom the Frank army consulted
at the siege of Jerusalem in 1099.'2 From one or other of
these informants the Eussian pilgrim may have learnt the
time-honoured and absurd traditions which placed Mount
Herinon close to Jerusalem, and maintained the literal and
annual turning back or retrocession of the stream of Jordan
by a fanciful interpretation of certain passages in the
Psalms.3 But it was not from any ' Assyrian ' Christian or
native dragoman that he derived his suggestive comparison
of the Sacred Eiver with an object near his home and
familiar to himself. Never before or after in travel
literature, we may conjecture, was the Jordan likened to
the Snov in Little Eussia. Yet ' in every respect they
were alike, both in size and in depth, and in their winding
and rapid course.' Also the width of the Jordan at the
'Place of Baptism,' near Jericho, was the same as that
of the Snov at its mouth ; the numerous creeks of the two
streams, and their great sheets of stagnant water, offered
other points of likeness.

1 This is very frequently noticed
by pilgrims., e.g. by nearly all the
Innominati or Anonymous Pilgrims.

- According to Albert ot Aix.
3 Ct'. Ps. xlii. 8 ; cxiv. 5 ; Antoni-
nus Martyr, oh. xi,

168

PILGRIM TRAVEL

[ClT.

Daniel was not able to visit the Sea of Sodom, partly for
fear of ' miscreant Saracens,' partly from the dissuasions of
the faithful, who told him of the fetid smell rising from the
infernal lake, which none could approach without torment.
Speaking, therefore, only from hearsay, he naturally repeats
the fashionable fables : ' The Sea of Sodom exhales a burning
and malignant breath, which lays waste all the neighbour-
hood; it is dead and contains no living creature; and if the
Jordan carries any fish into it, they perish immediately and
cannot live one hour. A black pitch rises from the bottom
and covers the banks, and the foul vapours are like burning-
sulphur; the torments of hell lie under the sea.'

Beyond Jordan, adds Daniel, inverting the sense of a
famous text, was the land of Zebulon and Naphthali.
Here many of the western pilgrims, especially in the fourth,
fifth, and sixth centuries, had placed the Hill of Hermon ; but
the Slavonic visitor, with a certain independence not un-
common even in his traditionalism, locates it on the west or
opposite bank of the river.1 Hard by was the place where,
at the baptism of Jesus, the Jordan turned back and the
Sea of Sodom fled, ' seeing the Divinity in the midst of the
waters;' in the same neighbourhood was Mount Grabaon,
over which the sun stood still for half a day, so that Joshua
might triumph when he fought against Og, King of Bashan.
Along with this we may take some other distortions ; the
death of Absalom in a wood near Hebron ; the house of the

1 Rasing this on an interpretation
of Psalm xlii. 8, Daniel also describes
(eh. xxxiv. ) the Epiphany baptism of
Catechumens in the Jordan at mid-
night 'like Christ Himself ; in chs.
lv lvi. . he seems to place the sites of
both Sodom and Zoar west of the
Dead Sea. The place of the sacrifice
of Abraham at Hebron was one verst

from the double cavern of Macpelah
and also one verst from the valley of
Greznova, which was two versts from
Sigor or Zoar ; the picture of the
B.V.M., noticed in the Church of St
Gerasinus near Jericho, is now in
the Patriarchal Church of St. Con-
stantine at Jerusalem.

III.] DANIEL IN PALESTINE 169

Shunamite in the Saracen village of Jericho ; and the
healing of the two blind men at Bethshan or Bashan.
The fertility of the Hebron region arouses Daniel's admira-
tion ; but the town he describes, like Saewulf, as now a
mere waste. Here both these Christian travellers may be
usefully compared with Benjamin of Tudela ; but it is
not likely that either of them was able to anticipate the
Jewish traveller, and to enter those caves at Machpelah,
which were only made accessible in 1119.1 In the wooded
hills near Mamre, where 'God paved the soil with white
marble like the pavement of a church,' Daniel was in great
danger from the Moslem brigands of the highlands and
the ' miscreants ' of Ascalon ; but he came through in safety,
with a good and numerous company, under the escort of a
Saracen chief, and saw with his own eyes the stone column
of Lot's wife near Segor, and many other places of ' inde-
scribable sanctity,' on the west of the Dead Sea.2

After enumerating and describing all the places in and
around Jerusalem,15 the liussian pilgrim attempts a sort of
Itinerary of Northern and Central Palestine ; and here it is
he makes some of his strangest slips. Caesarea Philijypi,
on the coast of Palestine, thirty versts from Jaffa, was but
eight versts from Capernaum, which itself was not far from
the Great Sea or Mediterranean. With this we may com-
pare Benjamin of Tudela, who puts Capernaum four para-
sangs from the Kishon, and six from Caesarea : probably
both travellers intended by the term some place on the

1 Cf. Comte Riant. Archives de ' place is now shown near Mar
/'Orient Latin, iii. 411-421. Elias, between Jerusalem and Bethle-

2 Among these was the field near
Bethlehem, whence the angel carried
away the prophet Habakkuk to
Babylon and back again in the same
day and hour. Cf. Daniel, eh. Ivi. ;
Lievin, Guide Indica /ear, 331. This

hem.

:: Among other peculiarities here,
we may notice Daniel's 'Anatolia,'
apparently meant for 'Araunalr:
like his ' Aphrodisius ' for ' Epa-
phroditns,'

170

PILGRIM TRAVEL

[Ch.

Syrian coast near Mount Carrnel.1 However this may be,
here Antichrist was one day to manifest himself, and for
this reason the Latins had abandoned the town.

Six versts from Capernaum brought one to Mount Carmel,
where Elias slew the priests of Babel. Thence to Acre, now
occupied by the Franks, and the coast towns to the north,
' philosophic ' Beyrout, Great Antioch, Byblus, Tripolis,
Latakiyeh, Little Antioch in Cilicia, and Satalia or Adalia,
Most of these places Daniel passed without landing ; 2 he
probably took ship at Beyrout, and returned to Constantinople
by the same way that he had come. But all this was after
his tour in Galilee, a province of which he gives a detailed
account. It lay, he believed, to the east or ' summer sun-
rising ' of Jerusalem ; Daniel's fondness for fixing his
places by the position of the sun at the winter or summer
solstice is a reminiscence of the days when clocks and
watches did not exist, and., when 'pointer-stones were set3
up to mark the sun's furthest deviation north and south.'
From the Holy City to Tiberias the pilgrim travelled in the
company of King Baldwin, who was now 'making a road'
against Damascus and the sources of the Jordan. Thus he
passed in safety the Mountains of Gilboa,4 on which no
dew ever fell, and by way of the land of Samaria,5 a district

1 Athlit and Klid el Keniseh have
both been suggested. The latter is
apparently the Capernaum of William
of Tyre, Geoffrey de Vinsauf, and
James de Vitry. See Guerin,
Samarie, ii. 274-282, and Sir C.
Wilson in the P.P.T. Soc. Edu. of
Daniel.

2 Sir C. Wilson thinks Daniel
travelled by land either to Beyrout
or to Sueidiah, the port of Antioch,
and then embarked for Constanti-
nople. At Beyrout Daniel also

mentions the famous Eikon which
shed blood and water on being
pierced with a lance by blasphemous
Jews.

3 Cf. Sir C. Wilson in P.P.T. Soc.
Edn. of Daniel.

4 Gilboa was only 14 versts, 9h
miles, from Jerusalem, according to
Daniel. He is thinking, perhaps, of
Lubb&n, between Jerusalem and
Nablus.

5 Daniel repeats his confusion of
Samaria with Nablus in ch. xcv,

III.] DANIEL IN PALESTINE 171

so fertile as to be the Granary of Jerusalem,1 descended into
the great trough of the Ghor down to the Sea of Galilee.
The Jordan poured out of this lake, he tells us, in two
branches? one called Jor and the other Dan (here is an
improvement on the older stories) ; and near this exit Prince
Baldwin dined with all his troops. From this point the
Crusading army parted company with their guest, crossing
the Jordan at the old bridge, just below the lake ; while
Abbot Daniel pushed on to Tiberias, Tabor, and Nazareth,
escaping from the perils of lions, and the still more dangerous,
powerful, and impious Saracens of the Bethshan country.
: Unworthy sinner that I am, God granted me to see all
this land of Galilee upon which I never hoped to set my
eyes, all the holy places upon which Christ, our God, set His
feet.' Truthfully and fully, declares the pilgrim, has he
described all these places ; some others had not been
able properly to explore all they would fain tell of, and so
had been led into error ; others again had sought refuge
in lies and fables. But the company of Baldwin's troops
and the guidance of the old Sabaite monk, who had passed
thirty years in Galilee, saved the writer from such mischance.
He was able even to make trial of the fish of the lake —
especially a kind of carp, of taste excelling all other fish. The
Lake of Merom he only saw from a distance, and he describes it
very loosely, under the name of ' Gennesareth,' as larger in
area than the sea of Tiberias, with which it was linked by a
river, clearly a different stream from the Jordan of his

1 At Bethshan, Daniel locates the
stories of the Tribute Money, the
Stater in the Fish's Month, and the
healing of the Two Blind Men. See
Matthew xvii. 24-27 ; xxii. 17-21 ;
xx. 30-34.

2 Instead of the usnal ' fountains ' ;
the two branches which formed the

Jordan below the Sea of Galilee
may be our Jordan and Yennak
(Hieromax), or two arms of the Jor-
dan itself, which then perhaps en-
circled Kerak of Galilee (Sennabrin).
It is evident that in Daniel's mind
the Jordan began at the Sea of
Galilee.

172

PILGRIM TRAVEL

[OH.

geography. In this region was the great town of Decapolis,
and towards the east Mount Lebanon, infested by Saracens,
and therefore unapproachable, but from which (it was said)
there poured down twelve large streams, six towards the
east, and six towards the south ; the latter fell into
Gennesareth, the others flowed towards Antioch the Great ;
and the country between them was that Mesopotamia, or
Land between the rivers, wherein Abraham's ' Charran '
was to be found.1 Lebanon was out of Daniel's reach ;
but Tabor, a ' marvellous work of God,' he ascended with
six hours of ' toilsome labour.' His description is photo-
graphic. ' It is the highest of neighbouring mountains,
and is perfectly isolated, rising in majesty from the middle
of the plain like a round hay-cock, formed by art, and of
a great circuit withal.' Here2 took place not only the
Transfiguration, but the meeting of Melchisedek and
Abraham. In Nazareth, which had now passed into the
hands of the Crusaders, the Orthodox traveller was re-
ceived by the Latin bishop ; and from this point, or rather
from Cana of Galilee, he retraced his steps to Jerusalem
in the company of a large caravan, by way of Acre, Haifa,
Caesarea, and ' Samaria.' 3 The narrative ends with an
elaborate account of the Easter services in the Holy City,
with some words of praise and thanksgiving on the accom-
plishment of the traveller's pious hopes, and with a
commemoration of those countrymen of his whose names he
inscribed for the prayers of the faithful at the Lavra of
St, Saba.

Desirous of witnessing the descent of the Heavenly

1 All the mythical matter just pre-
ceding, like much in Saewulf. was
probably derived from that licensed
monstrosity, the ' Palestine Guide.'

2 Or close by, between Nazareth

and Tabor. ' Melchisedek often
comes there [still] to celebrate the
liturgy.' adds Daniel, eh. lxxxviii.
:f Nablus or Sliechem.

III.]

DANIEL AND THE HOLY FIRE : RETURN

173

Fire,1 ' when it comes down invisibly from Heaven and lights
all the lamps in the tomb of our Lord,' Daniel obtained an
audience of Prince Baldwin. ' On the Wednesday in
Holy Week, at the first hour of the day, wicked and un-
worthy as I was, I presented myself before the Prince and
saluted him. Perceiving my insignificance, he affectionately
called me to him, and said : " What will'st thou, Russian
Abbot ? " Fur he knew and loved me, being himself a
man of little pride and of great goodness and humility.
And I said : " My Prince and my Lord, I beg thee, for the
sake of God and of the Eussian Princes, permit me to place
my lamp on the Holy Sepulchre in the name of the whole
Russian land." ' Permission was granted with special
graciousness, and Daniel records with triumph that his
own lamp, being inside the Holy Grave, caught fire, but
none of the Frank lamps which hung above the Tomb
were so fortunate. On Baldwin's entrance into the Church
on Holy Saturday ' about the seventh hour,' Daniel
walked by his side with the Abbot of St. Saba, and close by?
among the throng of worshippers, were various friends and
companions from Kiev and Novgorod — Isiaslav Ivanovitch,
Gorodislav Mikhailovitch, the two Kashkitch, and others.
'Thanks be unto the mercy of God,' concludes Daniel,
'who has permitted my unworthiness to inscribe the names
of the Russian Princes in the Lavra of St. Saba — to wit
Mikhail Sviatopolk Isiaslavovitch,- in whose reign I made
this pilgrimage, Vassili Vladimirovitch, David Sviatoslavitch,
Mikhail, Oleg, and Pancrati Sviatoslavitch, and Gleb of

Minsk. Their names and those of their wives and children

>

and of the Russian bishops, abbots, and boyars, together with

lOn the Holy Fire, cf. Tobler,
Golgotha, 460-483.

- He was the grandson of Yaroslav

' the Great,' Grand Prince of Kiev,
famous for his Black Sea expeditions
against Constantinople (1016-1054).

174 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Ch.

all faithful Christians, I did not forget to commemorate at
each of the Holy Places.'

On his homeward journey, the Slav pilgrim was (like
Saewulf), attacked by pirates near Patara in Lycia — unlike
Saewulf, he did not wholly escape ; but though plundered
by the four galleys of these brigands, he saved his life, and
returned at last to the city of Constantine and Holy Eussia.
At the end of his wanderings he returns thanks to God for
his singular good fortune. Brigands, wild-beasts, and disease
had all threatened, but none had been able to touch his life.
Like an eagle taking its flight, he had been sustained by
the Divine Power ; like a stag, he had gone boldly forward,
without fatigue and without loitering. To his own country-
men and to modern students there is another interest in the
pilgrimage of Abbot Daniel ; for it is an expression in
written form of one of the chief elements of Slavonic life ;
it is among the earliest landmarks in the history of a great
people ; and it illustrates the truth that (with races as with
individuals) internal progress is constantly associated with
external activities, with an irresistible tendency to move out
into the world, to travel, to explore, perhaps to colonise and
to conquer.

From the time of the conversion of the Northmen a
constant stream of Scandinavian pilgrims had flowed to the
Levant. In the first quarter of the eleventh century, Denmark,
Sweden, and Norway had all alike thrown off their national
and official heathendom, though a local and unrecognised
paganism long survived in country districts; and it was
not long before some of the greatest Northmen are found
upon the pilgrim way. Three chief routes were followed
by Scandinavians bound for the Holy Places of Syria — the
Eastern, the Western, and the Eoman. The first of these,

HI.] SCANDINAVIAN PILGEIM-ROUTES 17 5

also called the Vaerings' Path, was historically the earliest
and led through the Slavo-Scandinavian principalities of
Russia to the Black Sea, the Bosphorus, and the Levant.
The second, or long sea - way, led round the coasts of
Northern and Western Europe and through the Straits of
Gibraltar. The third, or overland track, conducted the
Northman from any of the North Sea ports to Italy and
the Threshold of the Apostles, leaving him to proceed
eastward from one of the havens of ' Pouille.' We have
already seen how Thorir Hund, ' according to the talk of
many,' went off to the Holy Land after the battle of
Stiklestad ; and how Skopti Ogmundson, in the reign of
King Magnus Barefoot, sailed with five ships along Flanders
and France and Spain into the Mediterranean. Some said l
that Skopti was the first Northman to sail through the
Straits of Gibraltar ; 2 in any case, he and his sons died on
the journey, Skopti himself in Rome, others of his company
in Sicily, others again in Palestine or Constantinople. But
some of Skopti's followers made their way home again and
brought with them wonderful stories of the splendid or
sacred countries of the South ; and herewith they roused
the sons3 of King Magnus among others to imitate their
example. Magnus himself had been famous for his voyages
and conquests in the British Seas and Isles ; his children,
like most men in Norway, had the same old yearning
for glory and novelty and adventure ; and, where Harald
Hadrada had gone, ins successors were eager to follow. As
in Harald's time, Northmen could still win fabulous wealth
in the service" of the Byzantines; and whatever might be
the fate of men in this world, they were certain of the
next, if they journeyed in his steps to the Holy Places.

1 So Magnus Barcfool's Saga, ch. I - After the almost mythical Nona.
Xxii. ; cf. Sigurd's Saga, eh. i. 3 But see p. 23, note.

176 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Cfc.

And other weiglity reasons induced the sons of Magnus
Barefoot to take up the part of pilgrim warriors. The
Latin Conquest of Jerusalem had created new centres of
attraction for the enterprise, the commerce, the valour,
and the religion of every Christian country ; and North-
men might hope to carve out for themselves a kingdom
in the Levant as good as the new principalities of Syria.
In the Western Mediterranean such a kingdom had re-
warded the daring and the persistence of a few Norman
adventurers ; and, beside the examples of Kobert Guiscard
and Roger of Sicily, there were the still greater achieve-
ments of William the Bastard in Valland and in England,
to say nothing of the older feats of Bunk and of Rolf.

It was four years after the defeat and death of King
Magnus in Ireland (1103) that Sigurd, his son, began his
famous journey to Jerusalem (1107). First of all, he sailed
to England with sixty ships, and, arriving there about the
close of autumn, passed the winter at the Court of Henry
the Norman.1 In the spring of 1108 he set out again,
coasted along the West of France, and came about the
time of harvest to the ' James-land ' of Galicia, already
famous from its Shrine of Santiago at Compostella. Here
the Norsemen spent the next winter, and here they soon
fell to disputing, and then to fighting, with the ' Earl ' or
Ruler of the country, over their food supply, ' for it
was a poor barren land.' To replenish their larder they
plundered one of the Earl's castles, and sailed down
along the west shore-land of Spain in search of better
quarters. Near the mouth of the Tagus Sigurd met with
a fleet of ' heathen Vikings,' and took eight of their galleys ; 2
perhaps the reference here is rather to a Moslem than to a
Norse pirate-squadron, for Sigurd's host had now arrived on

1 Ch. iii. of Sigurd's Saga. 2 Ch. iv. of Sigurd's Saga.

in.] sigurd's outward journey 177

a field where the struggle between Christendom and islam
was proceeding very briskly. The successes of Alfonso VI.
of Leon and Castile had been checked in Central Spain by
the arrival of the Almoravides and the battle of Zalacca
(1086); but he continued to win ground along the Western
coast till 1093, even pushing up to the Tagus and storming
Lisbon. In the next year, however, the Christian advance
was forced back on this side also, Lisbon was retaken, and
Alfonso summoned the chivalry of Christendom to his aid.
Among the free lances who responded to the call was one
Henry of Burgundy, an ancestor of kings, though never
crowned himself ; he showed himself a valuable and faithful
ally, and he was rewarded with a partnership. In 1095
Alfonso conferred on Henry that county of Portugal which,
like the Austrian Duchy, began as a military frontier
against the heathen world, and which proved so useful and
so important in checking the renewed attack of Islam on
the West. The creation of this county or military district
was especially to guard Oporto, ' the port ' of Galicia ; it had
been effected only thirteen years before Sigurd's arrival at
the mouth of the Douro ; and it may be viewed as a second and
more successful essay in a scheme of frontier defence, which
in 1093 had set up a Lisbon County for Sueiro Mendes,
and which, though defeated on the Tagus, was still maintain-
ing the line of the Mondego at the time of Sigurd's visit.

The Northern Crusaders, like their followers in 1147 and
11S9, rendered yeoman service to the struggling Christians
of Spain under the Norse king's leadership (1108-9). The
Castle of Cintra, near Lisbon, was a centre of Moslem raids,
and Sigurd began by capturing it with all its stores and
putting its defenders to the sword.1 Next he attacked the

1 Ch. iv. Sigurd's Saga, of
which here quotes the court poet,
ftalldor Gabbler: ' No man he

spared who would not take The
Christian faith for Jesus' sake.'

M

178 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Ch.

great city of Lisbon, which even then, perhaps, contained
200,000 inhabitants, and which the Saga describes as half
Christian and half heathen, marking the dividing line be-
tween the rival faiths and politics of Spain.1 Since the year
716, it had been under Moslem rule, but for three brief
intervals, — in 792,2 851, and 1093, — it had fallen back under
Leon or Castile ; now, in 1109, though fiercely attacked by
Sigurd from the sea, and by ' Portugal ' from the land, it was
too strong to be taken, and its fate was deferred for almost
forty years, when the same kind of combination won the
decisive victory of 1147. The Norse fleet, though perforce
content with an empty victory and some plunder outside
Lisbon, did better work at Alcac,er 3 do Sal (a little further
to the south), which fell into their hands after another battle.
From this point King Sigurd made straight for Norva
Sound, and so entered the Middle Sea in the teeth of a
great pirate host, which vainly tried to bar his passage ; 4 here
again the ' Vikings ' of the Saga may be translated as Saracen
rovers, or even perhaps as a more national force ecpuipped by
the Moslems of Andalus and Barbary against their new enemy.
Soon the Mussulmans had to meet an attack from a fresh
quarter. Not satisfied with their Crusade in the west of
Spain, the Northmen now fall upon the east coast and the
Balearics. Here, where the ships of Moors or ' Bluemen '
had so long found a refuge, a storehouse, and a fortress, the
Christian warriors chased the Saracens into the hills, penned
them up in caverns, and harried, slew, and burnt wide
over Minorca and Iviga and Forminterra. In the last and
smallest of these islands a great throng of the Unbelievers

1 Ch. v. of Sigurd's Saga. j Algeciras, and the ' Moorish palace

2 On this occasion it Avas retained near Seville, called Alcasir,' have also
by the Christians till 812. been conjectured.

3 ' Alcasse ' in the Saga of King 4 Ch. vi. of Sigurd's Saga.
Sigurd, ch. v. The African Alcacers,

III.]

SIGUET) IN SPAIN AND SICILY

179

took shelter in a cave, whose entrance was fortified with two
stone walls, an outer and an inner, exceedingly difficult to
capture, or even to approach. For ' this cave lay on a
cliff, very sheer and steep, but with a rock hanging over it
from above. And the heathen kept guard well, and were
not afraid of the Northmen, but defied and taunted them
as cowards. Then Sigurd took a pair of ships'-boats and
drew them up the rock above the mouth of the cave ; and he
had thick ropes fastened around the stem and stern and
hull of each. Now in the boats went as many men as could
find room, and they were lowered by the ropes to the mouth
of the cave ; ' and so the heathen were driven with slings
and missiles from their defence. Then Sigurd went up the
rock with his host, and forced his way into the den, but the
heathen fled behind their inner rampart. ' And upon this
the king brought great trees, and made a pile of wood at the
mouth of the cavern, and set fire to it; and thus he slew or
burned all who were therein.' J It was a foretaste of the
permanent Christian conquest under James of Aragon a
century later.

Next spring the Northmen came to Sicily 2 and stayed there
a long time with their kinsman, Duke Eoger II. The vanity
or ignorance of the Saga-writer here inserts a patriotic tale
of Sigurd's condescension and generosity. Roger had bidden
his visitor to a feast and served him with his own hand.
But after six days of good cheer, the guest took his host by
the hand ' and led him up to the high seat and gave him
the name and right of King ; but before there had been only

1 As the skald Thorarin Curtfell
( = ' Stuttfeld ') sang : — ' The king's
men up the mountain-side Drag
two boats from the ocean's tide,
The two boats lay Like hill wolves
gray, Now o'er the rocks on ropes

they're swinging Well-manned, and
death to Bluemen bringing, They
hang before The robbers door,'
eh. vi. of Sigurd's Saga.
2 Cli. viii. of Sigurd's Saga,

180 PILGRIM TRAVEL LCh.

Earls in Sicily.' On the other hand, the Great Counts of the
Norman Dynasty dated their kingly title from the papal
grant of 1129 ; and if Roger, one of the most powerful and
civilised of Christian princes, had wished for any such
investiture by a temporal lord, he might have had it from
the Eastern or Western Emperor. In any case, it is clear
that if Sigurd really made any pretence of crowning the
future patron of Edrisi and conqueror of Tunis, then a boy
of thirteen years, it was only treated as a piece of pageantry
by the Court of Sicily.

In the summer, the Norse leader went on his way over
the ' Greek ' Sea to Palestine,1 landed at Acre (or at Beyrout,) 2
and went up to Jerusalem, where King Baldwin greeted him
well. The Latin Prince knew how to make the most of so
useful an ally in the critical struggle on the frontiers of
Christendom, and he showed his guest all the honour in his
power, even riding down with him to the Jordan and back
again. ' And he made him a goodly banquet and gave him
many relics, yea, a splinter out of the Holy Cross.' Yet the
Norse king had not quite forgotten the heathen traditions
of his people. For when he came to the sacred river, as he
boasted on his return, he swam over the stream, and there,
in a copse that was on the bank, he tied a knot and spoke
over it a spell, and till that knot was loosed he thought his
luck would not depart from him. But at the same time he
promised to spread the faith in Norway to the best of his
power, to pay his tithes, and to found an Archbishop's See,
if that were possible. Still better, he showed himself for-

1 Ch. x. of Sigurd's Saga. i the golden horse-shoes at Constan-
- According to William of Tyre, j tinople, which are inserted to prove
Sigurd landed at Beyrout. The best that no riches could dazzle the North-
text of K. Sigurd's Saga, chs. x.-xi. men, or find them unprepared with
does not give the well-known fables an equal display of power and
of the clothes at Jerusalem, or of grandeur.

HI.] SIGURD IN PALESTINE AND CONSTANTINOPLE 181

ward to take his share in the Holy War ; with his fleet he
helped in the capture of Sidon x (December, 1110); and all
that autumn and winter Northmen and Franks made
common cause against the Saracens. But at the beginning
of the next year (1111), Sigurd left Palestine and sailed off
to Cyprus and Constantinople.2 At Angel-Ness, perhaps the
mouth of the little river .Egos within the Dardanelles, he
stayed a fortnight, waiting for a side wind which would fill
his sails to the best advantage, and so set off his state entry
into the Golden Horn. At last the right breeze came, and
he coasted along towards the Great City ; even the Norsemen,
who had been so far and seen so much, were amazed at the
wealth and population of the country along the Sea of
Marmora and the Bosphorus. For ' over all that land there
were castles and towns and villages, one following upon the
other without any interval.' The full-spread sails of the
Crusading fleet stood so close, one beside the other, that ' it
looked as if it were all one wall ' or one ship ; and the
whole of the people of the region came out to see the passing
of King Sigurd. In honour of his visitor Alexius Comnenus
opened the Golden Gate, through which the sovereign only
was wont to ride, after a long absence, or a victory ; silk
stuffs were spread over all the streets of the city, from the
Golden Gate to ' Laktiarn ' or Blachernae, the quarter of the
emperor's finest palaces ; and the games were played in the
Hippodrome for the entertainment of the guests. The love
of sport was strong in all Norsemen, and nothing in their
long journey was more delightful to Sigurd's warriors than
the races and contests of the Arena at Constantinople.
Within ' a high wall built round about a field, like a round
bare Thing-Place, were earthen banks, and there men sat
while the games were held in the open field.' Byzantium was
1 Ch. xi. of Sigurd's Saga. 2 Chs. xi., xii. of Sigurd's Saga.

182 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Ch

then full of the masterpieces of ancient sculpture, so many of
which perished in the sacks of 1204 and 1453, and the
Scandinavian visitors, carrying their own traditions with
them everywhere, looked on these as ' records of the Asfolk
and the Giukings and the Volsungs ' — figures worked in
copper and metal with so much deftness, that they seemed
to be living creatures, and really present at the games.1 As
to the sports themselves, they were so artfully managed that
men seemed to be riding in the air ; and ' shooting fires '
were also displayed, together with the delights of harp-
playing and song and all kinds of music.

At the end of these spectacles the Norse leader prepared
for his return overland.2 As to his ships, he made a present
of them to the emperor, who gave him in exchange horses
for his men and a guide through all the Byzantine lands.
And so pleased were the Northmen with the city of
Constantine and its ruler and its people, that many of
Sigurd's army stayed behind and entered the Imperial
Service. The rest with their king marched home through
Bulgaria and Hungary, ' Pannonia ' and Bavaria, into
Suabia, where ' Lothaire, the Kaiser of Eome,' came out
to meet and salute the returning Crusader. At midsummer
the host reached Sleswick ; and so, through ' Heathby ' and
Denmark, they came to their own land. ' And that was the
talk of men, that never had there been a more splendid
journey out of Norway than was the journey of King
Siuurd.' 3

1 The Norsemen perhaps mistook
the Greek sculptures for statues of
their own heroes ; or, rather, gave
their own names to any 'heroic'
images they saw, ch. xii. of

probably, Greek-tire.

2 Ch. xiv. of Sigurd's Saga.

3 After his return, Sigurd con-
tracted a Russian alliance, and married
the grand-daughter of Yaldimar

Sigurd's Saga. The ' shooting tires ' of Holm-garth (Vladimir of Nov-
were probably tire - works; less gorod), ch. xxi. of Sigurd's Saga.

in.] sigurd's return : journey of adelard 183

While Sigurd of Norway was still upon his travels,
Adelard, or Athelard, of Bath, started upon a journey to
much the same quarter of the world with very different
objects. As a man of science rather than a devotee, a
warrior, or a merchant, his visit to the Levant appears
mainly as one of literary interest. ' He sought out the
causes of all things and the mysteries of nature ; ' and it was
with a rich spoil of ' letters,' or of manuscripts, that he
returned to Europe to translate one of the chief works of
early Saracen astronomy, the Kliavizmian Talks, which had
been compiled in the opening years of the ninth century
under the direction of the Caliph Al-Mamun.

After Sigurd and Adelard, the Catholic pilgrims of this
period, down to the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, are
of less interest and importance. The number of these
devotees who journey to Syria from the various distant
countries of Western Europe is immense, but among them
there are few wTho have left anything worthy of notice. In
the pre-Crusading Era there was some reason to attempt an
enumeration of the religious travellers who, in the absence
of other material, often represented (as in the seventh or
tenth centuries) nearly all that is known of geographical
movement in Christendom. But, as the Dark Ages pass
into the Crusading time, we are no longer left so poorly off.
From the middle of the eleventh century mediaeval Christen-
dom rapidly develops a civilisation in which every
department of human activity and interest is gradually
included. Among the rest, the problems of the world's
shape, the positions of various countries, their inhabitants
and products, occupy an ever-increasing share of attention,
and both from the practical and the theoretical side the field
of geography is explored afresh. Pilgrim-travel thus falls

184 PILGRIM TRAVEL [On.

into a very secondary position, and a minute attention to
the details of its later history would be entirely out of place ;
not merely because it would absorb a large amount of the
attention that should be given to more important develop
rnents, but also because it is no longer possible to find the
spirit of the genuine traveller so active among the visitors
to the Holy Places. Almost all the later pilgrims (from the
time of Sigurd) are of an inferior order to the best of the
earlier wanderers among the sacred fields of Palestine. After
the first quarter of the twelfth century there is hardly
any one who can be compared with Arculf, Willi bald,
Bernard, Saewulf, or Daniel ; in fact, men of this type now
attempt something beyond mere pilgrim-travel, and those
who go on the old rounds show less and less originality,
power of observation, or reliable knowledge, with each
succeeding century. As the type degenerates, its further
decline is hastened by the compilation of standard guide-
books, which may be faintly described as legendary and
inaccurate, and from which the later pilgrim narratives
blindly copy, to the ever more entire exclusion of anything
independent or scholarly. Two of these hand-books, known
as the Old and the New Compendium, are the source of most
of the tracts on the Holy Eoad which have been left us,
under various names from the time of the second Crusade
to the close of the Middle Ages.

Over a material so poor in quality, so dependent in
character, it is not worth while to spend much time ;
but we may briefly notice a few comparatively valuable
specimens of this literature, such as the compilations of
the so-called Fetellus about a.d. 1150, the records of John
of Wtirzburg and of Theoderich about 1160-70, the
pamphlet of the Byzantine Johannes Phokas of about 1185,
and the notes of a group of Anonymous pilgrim travellers

III.] MINOR PILGRIMS OF CRUSADING AGE 185

who journeyed to the Levant at various times between
1115 and 1187.

But if the Christian pilgrim-travel of the later twelfth
century is of small moment, the Itinerary of a Jewish
fellow wanderer is among the most valuable of the geo-
graphical works of the Middle Ages. The Reports of Rabbi
Benjamin of Tudela have usually been treated as a pilgrim
narrative, and classed with other Syrian travels of the same
period. But this arrangement is impossible, from any but
a mechanical point of view. Benjamin is a religious Jew
who visits the old homes of his people, and so describes
most of the sights noticed by the Christian devotees in the
Levant; but this is only a small part of the truth. Taken
as a whole, the Eabbi's outlook is not that of the religious
wayfarer pure and simple. He is first of all a merchant
and a collector of statistics for the use of other Hebrew
merchants and patriots ; his visit to Palestine is only
incidental to a much more extensive tour; and he really
forms a link between the older and narrower religious travel
arid such far-reaching and mainly secular enterprises as
the missions of Carpini, Rubruquis, and the Polos, to
Central and Further Asia. Besides this, the difference of
creed prevents us from grouping Benjamin with the
Christian pilgrim literature, probably as strange to him as he
to it, and based upon entirely different interests and objects.

In the remainder of this chapter, therefore, we must
finish the summary of Catholic and Orthodox Christian
pilgrimage in the two sub-divisions that remain to be
considered ; — from the complete establishment of the Latin
Kingdom to the fall of Jerusalem before the arms of
Saladin ; — and from the disasters of 1187 to the middle of
the thirteenth century and the close of the Crusading Age.
After this, Benjamin of Tudela and some other Jewish

186 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Ch.

travellers must be treated by themselves, as an appendix
to the more limited records of the older pilgrim wanderings,
and an introduction to the wider history of diplomatic and
commercial intercourse between Europe and Asia. That
commercial life which is at the root of so much in both
mediaeval and modern expansion, that element from which
almost all progress of the pre-scientific kind takes its
origin, is in Benjamin to a very marked degree, and
clearly separates him, as it separates the Polos, from the
purely theological travellers and geographers.

The short pilgrim-narrative which passes under the name
of Fetellus or FreteUus, Archdeacon of Antioch, about a.d.
1200, is probably at least half a century earlier in its original
and longer form, and it may perhaps be put back even to a
time before the year 1150.1 Thus from the context we see
that it was written before the building of the choir of the
Holy Sepulchre in the Crusaders' Church, and soon after the
foundation of the Order of the Templars in 1118. The
material of our present tract is of slight value, for it is badly
arranged, full of legendary gossip, and without any literary
form ; it illustrates, however, an important class of pilgrim
literature. This class may be defined as that of the im-
personal guide-book, usually anonymous, brief, and arid in
character, and in every way contrasting with the other type
of personal record guaranteed by the writer's name, and giving
a first-hand account of actual experience. Examples of the
latter are of course to be found in the chief pilgrim narratives
hitherto noticed, such as those of Saewulf, Daniel, and Sigurd ;
of the less valuable John of Wiirzburg and John Phokas a little
later; and of Arculf, Bernard, and Willibald in the earlier

1 Except for the reference in oh.
xxxiii. to the commencement of the

belongs to a later period of the twelfth
century, at least in its complete

'reat Crusading Church at Tyre, which i stage.

HI.] PILGRIM GUIDES AND JOURNALS ; FETELLUS 187

Middle Ages. On the other hand, we have instances of the
guide-book class from the time of the Bordeaux Itinerary ;
and here, in the twelfth century, we may sub-divide the same
under two varieties, a Latin and a French, the latter repre-
sented by the City of Jerusalem, the former by the so-called
Fetellus, or, more exactly, by the anonymous writer whom
Fetellus re-edited.

In his description of Jerusalem the author alludes to a
hospice for poor and infirm persons near the Holy Sepulchre ;
the same establishment is mentioned by Saewulf ; and it
was perhaps a descendant of the old house of Charles the
Great, described by Bernard the Wise. The Dead Sea, over
which no bird could fly, is here given the unusual name
of ' Eiver of the Devil ' ; and the destruction of the Cities of
the Plain is described as an act due to the instigation of
Satan. The Asphaltic Lake in which ancient ruins were
clearly to be seen, and in whose neighbourhood wine and
water alike became brackish, produced not only bitumen
and gem-like rock-salt, but also alum and mill-stones of
peculiar excellence. Hebron was the scene of the Creation,
as Tabor was of the earliest tithe-paying. For, like Daniel
and others, it is at Tabor that the narrative locates the
meeting of Abraham and Melchisedek, and the payment
of tenths by the conqueror to the priest of the Most High
God. The sacred land of Arabia, according to Fetellus, was
at first a solitude and a horror, but was irrigated, and so
made fertile, by Moses. Mount Sinai in this country, the
ascent of which was by 3500 steps cut in the rock, still
retained some evidence of its special and terrible character ;
smoke and Hashes of fire continually issued from it; and on
Sabbath days there appeared upon the crest a heavenly light,
sometimes lambent and like a fleece to look at, sometimes in
the manner of lightning and with the noise of thunder. The

188 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Ch.

monks and hermits who now lived there had the repute of
extraordinary sanctity, and men knew and revered them
from the furthest borders of Persia to those of Ethiopia. As
to the latter, the legend of Moses' conquest of the same is
here repeated ; while Mount Hor or Petra is described with
a special enthusiasm for the beauty of its scenery, and the
death of Aaron on this mountain becomes in the pilgrim
the story of a translation into Heaven.

Malbech or Baalbek, founded by Solomon, who called it
the ' House of the Forest of Lebanon,' is the repetition of a
local tradition l which still survives ; like John of Wiirzburg
and Daniel of Kiev, Fetellus, in giving the ordinary names
of Jor and Dan, apparently makes the latter answer to the
Hieromax, while the former or true Jordan is described
with fair accuracy, 'becoming a lake near Baneas,' and
afterwards passing from the marsh of Gennesareth or Merom
into the Sea of Galilee. It is probably from the strange
philology of the Old Compendium that our present summary
copies the 'Hebrew' name of Aulon for the Jordan depression ;
from Moslem sources is, perhaps, derived the strange ex-
planation of the sweetness of the Sea of Galilee, dependent on
its receiving from outside all that would pollute other waters.

At Samaria this narrative places the burial and original
tomb of St. John the Baptist, here agreeing with a very old
local tradition noticed by St. Jerome ; the Samaritan story
of the offering of Isaac on Mount Gerizim is also reproduced ;
and we cannot help supposing that the compiler must have
visited this region and been in special relations with some of
the Samaritan community.

Along witli many wild statements of distances there are
equally wild identifications of places, persons, and historical
events ; thus Antioch was the same as Eiblah or Eeblata
1 It occurs also in Uenjamiu of Tudela.

III.] FETELLUS ON JERUSALEM AND PALESTINE 189

uear Baalbek;1 Dor was but another name for Caesarea, as
Eramaus for Eleutheropolis ; the temple hill was the Bethel
of Jacob's vision ; Tyre was founded by Phoenicians from
the Bed Sea ; the army of Sennacherib was destroyed
between Bethlehem and Jerusalem ; and the Holy City was
founded by Melchisedek, who was identical with Shem the
Patriarch. Copying evidently from the same source as
John of Wiirzburg and the Anonymous pseudo-Beda,
Fetellus calls the Mosque of Omar the building of a
certain Amir of Memphis ; and close to this, he adds, were the
dwellings of the Templars, the new Christian soldiers who
guarded Jerusalem, and had special charge of the Noble
Sanctuary, using the vaults of Solomon's palace for their
stables.

At Acre, as the present guide-book truly remarks, there
was now constantly arriving a great number of ships from
the sea coast under Christian rule, between Ascalon and
Mount Taurus ; and hither the needful supplies of Asia
Mowed from Africa and Europe. This item of fact forms a
welcome change to the legends with which Fetellus ends
his Compendium — stories of the cave near Jerusalem to
which a lion conveyed in one night the bodies of 12,000
martyrs; of the miracles of St. Saba when he entertained
Thomas of Madaba in the country of the Arabs ; of the
miraculous Eikon at Beyrout, mentioned by so many
pilgrims ; and of the peculiar physical construction of the
crocodiles at Caesarea, who lacked an anus and could only
move their upper jaws.

If Fetellus supplies us with a fair specimen of the

1 Haifa, also, in F.'s mind, was no [ rightly identified with Lydda, is

other than Porphyrium (North of humorously explained as meaning

Sidon). This mistake is apparently ' Double City. '
from the Old Compendium. Diospolis,

190 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Ch.

anonymous compilation which served as a hand-book to
twelfth-century pilgrims, John of Wiirzburg is an evidence
that the spirit of the explorer and observer was still active
among some of these devotees, even after the firm establish-
ment of the Latin Principalities of the Orient. The German
cleric who now comes forward with a singularly vivid and
interesting narrative (soon after the second Crusade to all
seeming had established the Christian power in Syria on a
tinner basis than ever), may well compare in some respects
with such a traveller as Saewulf. For though the younger
man has left us a shorter and slighter record, he has given
a more distinct impression of his personality and his feelings ;
and if we are to take him as the teacher and leader of
Theoderich, his place is still more important in this obscure
branch of the history of travel.

John, a priest of the Church of Wiirzburg, and afterwards
bishop of that city, according to one authority,1 seems to
have visited Jerusalem between 1160 and 1170; and here
on St. James' Day, the 25th of July, he was present 2 at a
festival in the Church of St. Anne. Some 3 believe that John's
description of the Holy Land was written soon after the
year 1200 ; but in any case his visit must have taken place
before Saladin's recapture of Jerusalem in 1187. It is also
probable that his visit occurred just before the Byzantine
restoration of the Holy Sepulchre buildings which Theoderich
witnessed. The two pilgrims were probably well acquainted
with one another, for John dedicates his work to a Dietrich,
who seems to be no other than Theoderich.

Our present narrative is nominally limited to a description

1 The manuscript at Tegernsee, John, Bishop of Wiirzburg. His

which declares itself to be the pro- name, however, is not in the registers

perty of the Monastery of St. Quirinus of the bishops of this See.

(at Tegernsee), and to contain a '2 Ch. xvi.

description of Palestine by the Lord :i E.g. Fabricius,

Ill] JOHN OF WUJRZBURG 191

of Jerusalem and the immediate neighbourhood ; but this
limitation is ignored in practice ; and a detailed account
of the sacred places of Galilee is also given, in which *the
compiler has apparently used an older and now lost guide-
book. On the other hand, while John of Wurzburg dis-
tinctly alludes to the famous record of Bede and Arculf,
he does not quote the words or phrases of that narrative,
nor does he follow its arrangement of the subject-matter.
But in many places his expressions are identical with those •
of Theoderich ; and, while it is possible that herein the latter
may have simply copied from one whom he regarded as
his teacher, there are various indications that both pilgrims
drew from the standard travel-manual commonly called
the Old Compendium.

' John, who by the grace of God is that which he is in
the Church of Wti.rzbu.rg,' after offering his description of
the Holy Land, with all good wishes for a ' portion in the
Heavenly Jerusalem,' to his friend and follower Dietrich,
begins his itinerary at Nazareth, 'the chief town of Galilee,'
and thence proceeds to Mount Tabor, Little Herinon, and
various other places of Galilee and Central Palestine. So
at last he brings the reader through Samaria and Sichem up
to Jerusalem, the ' glorious metropolis ' of Judaea. ' Accord-
ing to philosophers,' the Holy City was placed in the middle
of the world ; and here among other wonders was that
Temple of which Pharaoh Necho had been the destroyer,
and Nebuchadnezzar the despoiler. Elsewhere, the pilgrim
seems to believe that the building of Solomon was identical
with that in which Christ was presented, Its restoration
in the Christian period had been effected by Helena, mother
of Constantine, by Heraclius, by Justinian, and by some
Emperor of 'Memphis' in Egypt — thus John mentions
various traditions without indicating any preference. The

192 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Oh.

last name is evidently the confusion of a guide-book in
common use, which informed the traveller that a Saracen
chief (elsewhere termed the ' Admiral Memphis ' or ' Nym-
phis ') rebuilt ' this Bethel ' in honour of ' God most High,1
because to Him all languages joined in rendering service.'
Incidentally, John alludes to an interesting but entirely
fabulous journey of the Great King Charles to this
place, where an angel from Heaven presented him with
a very holy relic,2 which was brought into the West, and
had a remarkable history. Charlemagne placed it in his
capital of Aachen or Aix-la-Chapelle 'in Gaul'; Charles
the Bald translated it to the Church of Charroux in Poitou ;
and in John's time it was still preserved there. Here we
see how the story had grown of the Frank emperor's
share in the history of Jerusalem, and how his real
interest in Christian monuments and his authentic pro-
vision for the comfort of Christian wayfarers had been
worked up into a series of sacred wanderings parallel
to those of the mediaevalised Alexander.

Among other details we may notice that the 'Altar
which stood in the open air ' on the Temple area had
been turned by the Saracens into a sun-dial ; and John
himself declares that many Moslems still came to pray
there, as this dial conveniently pointed towards Mecca
and the South. Again in the Palace of Solomon, at the
south-east corner of the Harani area, were the stables of
Solomon, of such size that 2000 horses or 1500 camels
could be stalled therein ; and near to this the Knights
Templars had a great enclosure containing many spacious
buildings, and a large new church not yet finished. John
compares the Order of the Temple of God with its rival
of the Hospital, much to the advantage of the latter, which

1 A Hah frebir. • Ch. iii. of John of Wiirzbnrg.

III.] JOHN OF WtJRZBURG 103

gave ten times more in alms, and lay under no aspersion
of treachery to the common cause like the Templars.1
The inscriptions, hymns, and memorial verses (here re-
corded) in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Mount
Sion and elsewhere, are a new feature in our Latin records
of Palestine pilgrimage, and show how elaborately every-
thing had been arranged under the Latin Kingdom for the
convenience and instruction of Christian visitors ; but the
ornaments added by Manuel Comnenus 2 (which soon
after figure so prominently) do not appear as yet. It
is remarkable that John makes no mention of the Holy Tire
described by Theoderich, and indeed by most pilgrims from
the time of Bernard the Wise.3 But in speaking of the
Tomb of Godfrey of Bouillon, he launches out in a vigorous
protest, on behalf of his German kinsmen, against the
French claim to the leading or exclusive share in the
victories of the Crusaders. ' For though Duke Godfrey is
honoured for himself, yet the taking of the city is not
credited to him and his Germans, although they had no
small share in that exploit ; but it is attributed to the
French alone. And some dispraisers- of our nation have
even scratched out the epitaph on the famous Wigger,4
because they could not deny that he was a German, and
have written over it the epitaph of some French Knight
or other. True it is that Godfrey and his brother Baldwin,
who was king in Jerusalem after him, were men of our
country. Yet since only a few of our people remained,
and the rest in great haste and home-sickness returned,

1 Alluding to the abortive Siege of
Damascus in July 1148, when the
Templars were accused of taking
Saracen bribes ; cf. John of W., ch. v.

2 1143-1180. His gifts to the Holy
Sepulchre were probably after 1170.

* Cf. Theoderich, ch. vii. ; also the

reference of the almost contemporary
Icelandic travellers (Soc. de I'Or. Lat.,
and see Riant, Scandinavcs en terre
Sainte, 226-300 ; Antiqultes muses, ii.
418, 422).

4 Wicker of Suabia. This out-
burst is in ch. xiii.

194 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Oh.

the entire city has fallen into the hands of other nations1
who took part in the Crusade, Frenchmen, Lorrainers,
Normans, Provencals, Auvergnats, Italians, Spaniards, and
Burgundians. And thus no part of Jerusalem, not even
in the smallest street, was set apart for the Germans ; - for
they themselves took no care in the matter, as they had no
intention of remaining ; and so their names were never
mentioned, and to the Franks alone was ascribed the glory.
Yet this province would long ago have extended its
boundaries beyond the Nile southward, and beyond
Damascus northward, if herein were as great a number
of Germans as of other nations.'

In spite of these complaints, however, John tells us
a little later of a church newly built and called the House
of the Germans, on the south side of the city, between
Sion and Moriah : but on this (he adds, with a grievance
even in his admission) hardly any except Germans bestowed
the smallest benefaction. At some of the places near
Jerusalem, the Wilrzburg traveller explains, describes, or
comments in a rather unusual manner — as at Hebron, a city
of Saracenic name, which in that language meant the City
of Four, because four patriarchs were buried in the double
cave of Machpelah;3 at Tyre, where the Tomb of Origen is
noticed ; and in the Ghor, or Jordan rift- valley, which the
writer defines, under the term of Avion,4 as stretching from

1 Elsewhere in the concluding ch.
(xxvii). John gives another list of
nations and languages represented in

definitely of a Rue des Alemans in
Jerusalem.

3 Adam, Abraham, Isaac and

Jerusalem, adding the names of ! Jacob. The Bordeaux Pilgrim and

Greeks, Bulgarians. Hungarians, many of the early Christian travellers

Scots, English, Bretons, Ruthenians i give only three ; but Adam is men-

or Russians, Bohemians, Georgians, I tioned by St. Paula, and becomes

Armenians, Jacobites, Nestorians,
Maronites, Syrians. Indians, Egyp-
tians, Copts, and ' Capheturiei.'

gradually fixed in the tradition.

4 John, like Fetellus and many
others (e.g. some of the Im

- But a few year later Ave hear ' minaii), copies the tradition of

III.]

JOHN OF WURZBURG

195

Lebanon to the desert of Pharan. It is not likely that the
pilgrim visited Mount Koyal,1 that ' royal mountain in Arabia
which the Lord Baldwin, King of the Franks in Jerusalem,
conquered and joiued to that land for the Christians.' This
fortress was east of the Jordan, between Kerak and Petra,
far to the south-east of the Dead Sea ; it was one of the
greatest of the Christian fortresses in the East ; and from
its foundation in 1115 it kept open the route from Central
Palestine to the Eed Sea. The country of Idumaea or
Edom, to which it really belonged, becomes, in John's
hands, an extensive and peculiar region ; for here he places
the venerable metropolis of Damascus, Job's Uz, and the
river Jabbok, as well as Mount Seir,'2 beneath which lay
Damascus itself. In the same land was Mount Lebanon
with its rivers, Orontes and Leontes (evidently intended by
the traveller's 'Abana and Pharphar, rivers of Damascus'),8
and Antioch, where for seven years ' St. Peter wore the
pontifical tiara.' Such confusions are common enough
among all the travellers of this time, when unable to verify
from personal experience ; and they do not weaken the
impression given us by other parts of this ' libel ' — the impres-
sion of a distinct personality, keenly patriotic and observant,
and perhaps not without a certain just pride in his assurance
to those who came after him, that he would not be envious
of any one who ' wrote better about those matters ' which
he had attempted to describe.

Theoderich, as we have seen, is probably the Dietrich

the ' Hebrew ' Aulon or Avion ; see
elis. xx. and xxv. This Greek name
was already in use for the Jordan
valley and the Arabah in Jerome's
time. Even the form of Ghor (Gorius
in John) is not Hebrew but Arabic.

1 Commonly known in Crusading
History as Le Crete de Montreal, and
called Shaubac by the Arabs.

- Mount Hermon, in this con-
nection, is evidently meant.

a See ch. xxv, of John of Wurzburg

19G

PILGRIM TRAVEL

[Ch.

mentioned by John of Wiirzburg as the follower to whom he
dedicates his record. Possibly also he was the same as the
Theoderich who became Bishop of Wiirzburgin 1223.1 Like
his master John, he was a German of the Ehine country ;
thus he compares the Church of the Holy Sepulchre with the
sacred buildings at Aachen, and mentions how on Palm
Sunday he and his friends buried, in the Potter's Field near
Jerusalem, a companion named Adolf of Cologne.

Theoderich's narrative is quite as full, definite, and
interesting as John's, and gives as great an impression
of the intelligent eye-witness. Thus,2 the people shouting
their ' dex aide ' and ' Saint Sepulchre ' while waiting, ' not
without tears,' for the descent of the Holy Eire; the
stacking up of the pilgrim crosses on the top of the rock
of Calvary and the bonfire made of them on Holy Saturday ;
the piling up of stones in the Valley of Hinnom by the
too trustful pilgrims, who expected to sit upon them on
the Day of Judgment ; 3 the evidences of the power of
the Templars and of the wealth and charity of the
Hospitallers ; the throng of ships in the dangerous harbour
of Acre and the pilgrim's own buss among them ; the Saracen
habit of making a great noise about the simplest things,
even the ploughing of a field; and the view from Quar-
antania, the so-called Mountain of the Temptation, over
the plain of the Jordan Valley, covered with pilgrim fi cures ■
all these are touches which mark the observer and even
the artist. Similar traces of reality, not without their
picturesque side as well, are the Frank names of Belmont,
Fontenoid, and Montjoye, which appear so typically in
these pages by the side of Jerusalem and Hebron. Like

1 This, however, is open to much
doubt.

2 Cf. Tobler.

3 Theoderich, however, looks on
this as a pious absurdity ; ' the simple
pilgrims delight themselves,' etc,

til.] THEODERICH 197

John of Wiirzburg, Theoderich gives us a picture of the
Holy Land in the last days of Frankish rule, still dominated
by Frankish customs and nomenclature, and covered by
Frankish buildings.

Our pilgrim seems to have landed at Acre, to have gone
thence direct to Jerusalem, to have visited Jericho and
the Jordan, and to have returned by much the same road.
The confusion of his account of the Sea of Gennesareth must
be held as an objection to the theory of Tobler, that he made
a special journey in Galilee, visiting Nazareth, Mount Tabor,
and Tiberias. From one reference * it is clear that the
writer was a priest ; but the exact date of his journey can
only be suggested approximately. Thus, in one place he
refers to the execution of some monks by the fanatic 2 and
' sanguinary ' Zenghi, the Father of Nur-ed-din ; 3 and else-
where he names the patriarch Fulcher,4 who held the See
from 1146 to 1157. Once more, an inscription which he
read on an altar5 in the Temple of the Lord declared that
the building of the same was finished in the fifty-third year
after the taking of Jerusalem and in the sixty-third after
the capture of Antioch ; and this, though a confused reference,
anyhow implies a time subsequent to 1150. Again he
gives the date of 1161 to the Christian capture of Paneas,6
Banias, or Belinas, near the sources of the Jordan ; and in
his description of the tombs of the kings of Jerusalem he
brings us down to Amaury or Amalrich, in whose reign

1 Ch. xxix. | (f 14th September 1146).

'Theoderich, eh. xxx. Imad-ed- I 3 Nur-ed-din Mahrmid, 1 15th May
din Zenghi, the great leader, who J 1174.

first stemmed the Crusading con-
quests in the Levant, was usually
called ' Sanguineus ' by the Latin
writers of the time ; and this cor- |
ruption of his name, as Gibbon
says, afforded a comfortable allusion
to his sanguinary character and end

4 Theoderich, ch. xii. Exactly the
same reference is given by John of
Wiirzburg, ch. xiii. (except for the
name of Fulcher).

5 Theoderich, ch. xv.

6 Theoderich, ch. xlv.

198 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Ch.

he certainly made his pilgrimage, and who died on the 11th
of June, 1173. Lastly, he laments that he was unable to
read the inscriptions on the arches in the Holy Sepulchre,
as the colouring was so faded, except for the hymn Ohristus
Resurgens, which was marked out in letters of gold, newly
gilded, like the turret or cupola and the cross above the
chapel.1 All this John of Wiirzburg had seen in silver only ;
and the difference points to Theoderich's visit happening
during the restorations of the Byzantine Emperor, Manuel
Comnenus, which took place between 1169 and 1180. The
two German travellers, however, use exactly the same
language about the new church, not yet finished, which the
Templars were building on Mount Moriah ; on the other
hand, John refers to another church 'now being built' over
Jacob's Well at Shechem, while Theoderich speaks of it as
complete. But this, again, we must balance by an exactly
reverse statement as to the Church of the Paternoster. A
new cistern, apparently the Birket-es- Sultan, is mentioned by
Theoderich between Jerusalem and Bethlehem ; and the
discovery of this is first confirmed by other sources in 1176.
From all this we may conclude that Theoderich's journey
was between 1169 and 1173 (the death of Amalrich), and
that it was only a little later than the visit of John of
Wiirzburg. His wanderings in Palestine were evidently in
the spring of the year ; he saw the ripe barley in the Plain
of Jericho on Monday in Holy Week ; and on the Wednesday
after Easter he was at Acre on his return journey.

In his description of Judaea Theoderich places Idumaea
to the north of ' Jewry ' ; and considers the rich plain of the
Jordan to extend as far as the Red Sea. From Mount
Quarantania he beheld a most extensive view, reaching
beyond Jericho and the ' Stream of Descent ' to the Dead

1 Theoderich. eh. v.

HI I THEOPERICH | JOHANNES PFOKAS 199

Sea, Arabia, and even Egypt; and it was here that he saw
more than sixty thousand pilgrims thronging over the flat
plain to wash in the waters of the sacred river, almost all
carrying candles, and visible also to the infidels who watched
them from the Arab mountains on the other side of Jordan.
In some respects Theoderich's Topography is better than the
average; thus he carefully distinguishes Caesarea Philippi
from Caesarea on the coast ; and it is probably from an earlier
' authority,' such as the Old Compendium, that he derives his
worst confusions, — Damascus standing on Mount Seir, the
rivers ' Abana and Pharphar ' flowing into the Mediterranean
along the courses of Orontes and Leontes ; x Mount Lebanon
dividing Phoenicia from ' Idumaea ' ; 2 and the Jordan passing
through the Sea of Galilee between Bethsaida and Capernaum.

The pamphlet of Johannes Phokas is one of the last
records of pilgrim-travel within the period of the Latin Pule
in Jerusalem ; and it is of special interest as representing
Byzantine geography. The writer was a Cretan by birth,
and the son of one Matthew Phokas, who afterwards became
a monk and died in the Island of Patmos. In his early life
Johannes served as a soldier in the army of Manuel Comnenus ;
but in the end he took the monastic vows, like his father,
and it was as a monk that he visited the Holy Land in 1185.

In his Brief Description of the Castles and Cities from
Antioch to Jerusalem he often mentions the Emperor
Manuel ; other personal reference is almost wanting in
his work, except that near the Jordan he mentions a Spanish
hermit who had formerly been a Stylite or Pillar-Saint near
the Gulf of Adalia or Attalia ; this man he had met in
earlier days when marching with the Imperial forces. The
author's style in this work is quite literary, and even rhe-

1 Exactly the same in John of W. 2 Perhaps for Ituraea.

200 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Ch.

torical, in marked contrast to the ordinary pilgrim traveller ;
he also shows a greater interest in classical antiquities and
profane history and letters than most of his kind ; and he
furnishes a proof that mediaeval Constantinople, with all
its faults, was more cultivated than most cities and countries
of the West,

After a short preface, Phokas begins with a notice of
Antioch ; once it surpassed almost all the cities of the East;
time and the hands of the Barbarians had extinguished its
prosperity ; but it still boasted of its lofty ramparts and
towers. The famous hill Casius or Caucasus, whose height
was so favourite a theme for ancient hyperbole, is less
interesting to the traveller than the classical remains and
the scenes of the exploits of various holy solitaries. Next
to Antioch came Laodicea,1 whose splendour had also been
dimmed by time; then by way of Gabala, Gibel, or Jebeleh,
the pilgrim moved on to Antaradus (Tartus or Tortosa) and
Tripolis. In the interior of the country, among the moun-
tains, Phokas describes the Chasysii or Assassins, a Saracen
nation, but neither belonging to Islam or Christendom,
and famous for their blind worship of their chief as God's
Ambassador, and for their execution of his commands, even
to the murder of the greatest princes. Mount Lebanon is
treated with enthusiasm ; its height, its clustering robes
of snow, and its pine, cedar, Cyprus, and fruit-bearing trees, all
awake the visitor's admiration ; while the harbours of
Beyrout and Sidon remind him of ancient descriptions, and
especially that of Achilles Tatius2 in his Lr.ukij^e, The
city of Tyre was still splendid, exceeding almost all the
ports of Phoenicia ; much larger than Tripolis, with a greater

1 Ch, iii. of Johannes Phokas. of the Greek Romance, The Loves of

2 Alexandrian rhetorician and Kleitophon and Leuhippe.
novelist of about a.d. 450-510. author

HI.] JOHANNES PHOKAS 201

and finer harbour than Beyrout, and famous for a fountain
of wonderful depth and volume. On all this coast, however,
Ptolemais or Acre was the most populous town, where nearly
all merchants and pilgrims landed, and where (from this
very circumstance) prevailed a constantly-recurring pestilence
and an irredeemable unhealthiness which made it highly
dangerous to visit.1

Phokas next describes the Holy Places of Nazareth and
its neighbourhood ; then from Galilee he comes south to
Nabliis and Jerusalem, travelling along a good road, all
paved with stone, which ran the whole distance between
Samaria and the Holy City.2 Here the traveller, who often
declines to repeat without examination the stories retailed
to visitors, quotes Josephus3 against the name Tou-er of
David, as applied to the ancient fortress by the Jaffa Gate,
and adds with cautious criticism that the existing tower of
stone was perhaps only a substitute for the ancient one of
marble. Passing on to other things, Phokas records how new
ornamentation in gold had been executed for the Holy
Sepulchre at the expense of the Emperor Manuel, ' my lord
and master'; and like his Orthodox brother, Daniel of
Kiev, describes the Kedron Convent of Mar Saba, over-
hanging a terrific chasm, and adorned with marbles from
the surrounding hills, where holy men, despising the world,
endured the unbearable heat of this barren and savage
gorge, and 'thus by means of quenchable lire extinguished
the unquenchable.' 4 Still more wonderful was the
Monastery of Khoziba, in the depths of the wilderness of
Judaea, where the cells lay in the mouths of caves ; where

1 Chs. iv.-ix. of Johannes Phokas.

2 Chs. x.-xiv. of Johannes
Phokas.

3 Who declared this Tower was

'while now it may be seen to be of
common stone.'

4 Among the saints buried her?
were the ancient poets, S3. Kosmas

built of polished white marble, i and John (of Damascus '().

202 PILGKIM TRAVEL [Oh.

the rock was heated by the sun till one could see tongues
of flame bursting forth from it ; and where the only drink-
ing water of the miserable ascetics received the full heat
of the noonday glare. Yet the monks of the Dead Sea
coast did not pass their whole life in devotion ; they par-
celled out the land, planted trees and crops, and grew vines,
building towers for the better care of their fields ; l but the
old Konian roads had fallen into decay, and the outlines of
their stone pavements could only be faintly traced. Within
two bow-shots of Jordan, the most holy of rivers, was
another monastery which Manuel had restored ; and among
other pious works of the same benefactor in this neighbour-
hood Phokas reckons the monastery of Mar Elias, between
Bethlehem and Jerusalem, and the great Church at Bethlehem,
where the portrait of the Byzantine Emperor had been placed
in the part reserved for the Latin rite.2 In the vicinity of
the sacred stream lived a Stylite Saint from the far West,
' a tall old Spaniard, pleasing and admirable, adorned with a
species of Divine grace,' and full of wonderful tales of
miraculous support from the devout assistance of a lion.
Still nearer to Jerusalem were other traces of Spanish
devotion ; — a holy solitary from this country, tenanting the
Pillar or Castle of Absalom, and a monastery close by the
walls of the city, full of monks from the Peninsula, while
among the inmates of St. Saba's Convent was another
Iberian. Phokas gives no explanation of this remarkable
prominence of Spanish devotees in the Holy Land during
these last days of the Latin Kingdom ; but at Mount
Carmel, we may remember, he also mentions a hermit
from Calabria in South Italv ; and recollecting that our

1 Chs. xix., xx. of Johannes
Phokas.

2 Phokas (ch. xxvii.) seems to

attribute the original building of
the latter to Manuel ; but this would
be almost incredible carelessness.

in.] PHOKAS ; THE ANONYMOUS PILGRIMS 203

writer was a Byzantine, we may see from this one narra-
tive how great a meeting-place for Christians of distant lands
was the Syria of the Latin domination.

Among the pilgrim-travellers of the Crusading age, we may
also reckon several Anonymous writers who describe the
visits they paid to Syria before the triumph of Saladin and
the misbelievers. The exact date of most of their journeys is
uncertain ; but the First of the Innominati, who is also the
earliest, cannot well be put later than 1098,1 and thus
slightly precedes the conquest of Jerusalem by the
Europeans under Godfrey of Bouillon. Next, perhaps,
we have the Fourth of the group (in the ordinary number-
ing), who may be fixed to some point within the first
quarter of the twelfth century. Neither of these offers
any features of marked interest, — except that the last-named
calculates his distances in German miles, and so appears
to belong to a nationality which, as John of Wiirzburg
bitterly remarks, was more prominent in the first days
of the Latin Kingdom than in the later times of Levantine
history. The Third place probably belongs to the Seventh
of this category, whom some would place about the close
of the reign of Manuel Comnenus (1180), but who need
not be later than the middle of the century (1140-50).
This tract is of even less value than the preceding ; but
the next of the series, commonly classified as the Sixth,
and otherwise known as the compilation of the Pseudo-
Baeda, occupies a much higher place. The author was
an Englishman; his manual was compiled between 1150
and 1170, as far as can be judged ; and while he shows
certain resemblances with Fetellus, John of Wiirzburg,
and Daniel of Kiev, his notes are probably based, for the

' See p. 138 of this vol.

204 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Cl!-

most part, on the Old Compendium, which all the later
pilgrims tend to reproduce with increasing servility. His
English speech appears from his play on the words ' Desert
of Sin ' and his explanation of the same, on the lucus a
non lucendo principle, as the 'holy waste.' Besides a short
account of the chief places of the Holy Land, he gives
us many of the stations of the route of the Israelites from
Egypt to Canaan. To him, as to so many others of his religion,
Hebron represented a prophetic revelation of the doctrine
of the Trinity, for here Abraham ' saw Three and worshipped
One.' Montreal Castle, the work of that ' brave lion
Baldwin ' ; Tyre, recently taken by the Crusaders, with
the help of the Venetian Navy ; Damascus built by Eliezer,
the steward of Abraham ; the streams of Jor and Dan
uniting at the foot of the mountains of Gilboa ; the ' Hebrew '
names of GJwr or Avalon for the Jordan Valley; Jerusalem
in the middle of the world ; the Church on the site of the
Temple, said to have been erected by the Saracen Admiral l
Nymphis ; these are the chief memoranda of this narrative,
and in almost all of them we are reminded of the Teutonic
descriptions of John and Theoderich. But the account here
given of the successive translations of the head of St. John
the Baptist to Alexandria, Constantinople, Poitou, and
Maurienne is probably extracted from Gregory of Tours ;
and the other curiosities of this note-book are mostly due
to the common source of so much error and absurdity,
(alike in the Wurzburg travellers and in the Ianominati),
that Old Compendium, which perhaps appeared in the third

1 In the text 'a certain Amrair- The title of Ammiraldus is, perhaps, a

aldus Nymphis,' for which last corruption of the Arabic 'Amir-al-

Memphis has been conjectured with.- ' Muinenin,' more usually appearing in

out much improving the sense, but . Christian histories under the form

at any rate making this passage agree | ' Miramamolin. '
more nearlv with John of Wiirzbure.

III.] THE ANONYMOUS PILGRIMS 205

decade of the twelfth century, soon after the Concordat of
Worms (c. A.D. 1128).

The Fifth place in order of date (c. 1170) is given by
some 1 to the (so-called) ' Second ' Anonymous, who bears
a marked similarity to the Bordeaux Pilgrim, with some
likenesses to Saewulf and Theoderich. There is no decisive
ground, however, for placing him before the era of 1187,
and he has been brought down to the very end of the
twelfth century by other scholars.

Sixth in order comes an Anonymous tract traditionally
numbered as Third, and perhaps belonging, like the former,
to about 1170-75. It ranks next to the Pseudo-Baeda in
value, and is the most picturesque and interesting of the
guide-books of the Innominati. Starting from Brindisi, the
author brings us to the city of ' Clarence ' in the ' Isle of
Eomania,' in which land he found a hundred and twenty-
three towns, good wine, and sweet air. The rich islands of
Candia and Cyprus are next described, and especial praise is
given to Baffo, its aromatics and jewels, clever workmen and
pious embroiderers. Two other Cyprian towns, Limasol and
Famagusta, are also commemorated ; the first for its place in
the annals of Chivalry, being the capital of both the great
orders of the Temple and the Hospital ; the second for
the refuge it afforded to the Community of the Holy Ghost,
often confused with the Hospital, but in reality quite dis-
tinct. Nothing else is known of the Hospitallers of Cyprus
or of the miracles worked by St. Patrick in that Island ; on
the other hand, the writer's notice of the frequented sea-
passage from the ports of Cyprus to those of Little Armenia
(or Cilicia) is amply confirmed by other sources, and prevent-;
us from dating his compilation too early in the twelft'i
century. From his constant and emphatic reference t >
1 E.g. Roliricbtj Bibliotheca Gengraphica Palaestinae,

206 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Ch.

the wines, aromatics, fair women, and other natural or arti-
ficial riches of the Levant, we may suppose this pilgrim
was not so stern an ascetic as some others of his class.

The traditional Eighth and Ninth of this series come
Seventh and Eighth in time ; only one, according to this
arrangement, is of later date, the so-called Fifth ; and
both belong to the last years of Latin ascendency (c. 1175-
85). The notes of the first-named contain memorial and
dedicatory verses, after the manner of John of Wiirzburg,
and place the Mountain of Little Hermon near Tabor,
without the usual pilgrim-duplicate of the ' Hill of Re-
joicing,' in the environs of Jerusalem.

The Fifth and last of these Anonymous travellers has left
a narrative in two parts, both of which seem to have been
written after the fall of Jerusalem in 1187, but describe
a journey made just before that date. Like Abbot Daniel
and Bishop Willi bald, the author refers, though in a guarded
manner, to the extraordinary tale of the well into which
dropped the Star of Bethlehem ; like Saewulf and others,
he alludes to the circle in the Holy Sepulchre which the
Lord declared to be the middle of the world. He also
gives special attention to the subject of the European
Settlements in Syria, such as those of the Genoese, Pisans,
and Venetians, maritime allies of the Frank land-forces,
cunning traders, and invincible at sea, who for their services
had been freed from all tribute and toll, and lived under
their own jurisdiction. Jealous and quarrelsome among them-
selves, they did much to mar the glory and happiness which
their courage, skill, and wealth deserved. The chief orders
of knighthood and the ecclesiastical divisions of the Latin
Kingdom are also noticed, and we are told (by the way)
that the Greek Bishop of Sinai was obedient to the Roman
Patriarch at Jerusalem. Among other notable things recorded

HI] MINOR PILGRIM NOTICES 207

are the four annual changes of colour in the water of Jacob's
well — from clear to muddy, from muddy to red, and from red
to green ; the fountain of Siloam flowing only three days a
week ; the apples of Adam plainly showing the marks of his
teeth ; the cotton which in Syria could be sown like wheat ;
and the balsam trees which would only give fruit to Chris-
tians. Like James de Vitry, the writer confuses Haifa and
Porphyrium ; like others, he disputes the vain story of
rainless Gilboa ; and like all mediaeval Latins, he finds in
' Mohammed ' and ' Mohammedanism ' x terms clearly ex-
pressive of idolatry, and useful as designations for the calves
of Bethel.

Last of all, there are various scattered and mostly insignifi-
cant writings of the twelfth century, which either refer to the
Syrian travels of their authors, or give some account of
the country and its Topography from the experiences of
other men, but which are of too slight a character for
separate treatment, As examples of the former class, we
may briefly refer to the works of Theotonius, prior of the
Convent of the Holy Cross at Coimbra in Portugal, who
twice visited Palestine about 1112-13; of Belardus of
Esculo, a pilgrim of a few years later (c. 1118-20) ;'2 and
of Burkhard or Gerard of Strassburg, whose itinerary is
of 1170-75. To the latter subdivision (of stay-at-home
writers) belong Dermot or Dermatitis, an Irishman, who
professed to have made a pilgrimage about 1115, but whose
Exhortation is probably a rhetorical exercise ; Achardus of
Arroasia, who wrote on the Temple of Solomon about 1120 ;

1 'Machometh' and 'Machomeria.' I description is perhaps connected with

2 The important itinerary of i the Copenhagen copy of the famous
Nicholas Saemundarson, Abbot of ; Plan of Jerusalem or Situs
the Benedictine House of Thing- ] Hierusalem), is treated elsewhere,
eyrar in Iceland (whose journey and pp. 217 note, 430 note.

208 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Ch.

Hugo of St. Victor, whose tract of 1135 on the Holy Places
is an excerpt from Baeda ; Peter, a deacon of Monte
Cassino, author of a similar pamphlet in or about 1137;
and Gerard of Nazareth, afterwards Bishop of Laodicea, the
biographer of various saints resident in the Holy Land
(c. 1160).1 To these we may add the name of another
Scandinavian devotee, Gissur Hallson, whose account of a
visit to Jerusalem in 1150-52 has disappeared, and who
must therefore be taken as typical of a third class, the
pilgrims who travelled but have left no record.

After the fall of the Holy City into Saladin's hands
the relations of the Christian world with Syria are com-
pletely changed, and Christian travel in the Levant begins
to follow new lines. We have already noticed the begin-
nings of this tendency : even in the earlier twelfth century
pilgrimage has ceased to attract the really enterprising
spirits, who increasingly find their natural calling in the
journeys of an expanding commerce, and leave the Via Sacra
to a humbler class of wayfarer. Here we need only repeat
that the last seventy years of the Crusading Age supply us
with nothing of special interest in pilgrim-travel. In fact,
there is only one first-hand description of the Lloly Places
in this time from a Latin source which is worthy of the
name, or anything more than a series of allusions, travellers'
tales, or citations from older writers. This is the old
French pamphlet known as the City of Jerusalem, of about
1220. By the side of this, but much inferior to it, are
certain passages in the works of historians and chroniclers,
such as Ernoul and James de Vitry, which may be taken
as representative of a large body of Crusading literature
referring to the geography of the Levant. While, in con-
1 As well as Othmar, another writer on the Holv Places, c. ll(v>,

ItL] THE CITY OF JERUSALEM 209

elusion, there are certain minor notices with which we may
continue and end in this period the list that has been
sketched out for the preceding epochs. Among these
slender records the City of Jerusalem naturally comes
first.

This tract, though it professes to describe the condition
of Jerusalem just before Saladin's reconquest, is undoubtedly
of the thirteenth century ; in some manuscripts it is accom-
panied by a second part, dealing with the other Holy Places
of Syria. Generally speaking, the notes here given us
resemble those of John of Wiirzburg and of Theoderich ;
they are somewhat less detailed, but they embrace a larger
number of subjects. In the second part, the mention of
Chateau Pelerin shows that the date of writing must have
been subsequent to 1218, when this Castle was erected by
the Templars. Again, the Castle of St. Margaret, on Mount
Carmel, is supposed to date only from 1209. Once more,
the writer refers to St. Chariton as having been dead eight
hundred years, and he died in 410. Thus the date of com-
position cannot well be earlier than about 1220. At the
very opening we meet the startling statement that Jerusalem
was no longer in the same place where it stood when Christ
was on Earth ; then it was on Mount Sion ; but in the
author's time only a few monks inhabited that hill, guarding
the traditional place of the Last Supper. Next, we hear of
the four Master Gates of the Holy Sepulchre ; of the Church
of St. James of Galicia ; of a street devoted to the cooking
of food for the pilgrims (and thence called Mal-quisinat/ of
the street of the Germans, noticed by John of Wiirzburg ;
and of the Exchange or Market of the Syrians and Latins.
Besides these, we have the Pool of the Germans, perhaps
connected with the establishment of the Teutonic Order,
and the Abbey of the Georgians, founded by monks from

o

210 PILGRIM TRAVEL LOh.

that country of Avegia or Amazonia which mediaeval and
classical legend placed in the neighbourhood of the
Caspian.

The second part of this tract describes the ordinary
route from Acre, Haifa, and Caesarea to Jaffa and Jeru-
salem ; from Jerusalem to the Jordan ; and from the Holy
City to Samaria and Galilee— altogether giving a pretty
complete list of the journeys usually performed by Syrian
devotees, and furnishing a number of distance-reckonings
which on the whole are extraordinarily accurate.

On the other hand, the miraculous and legendary element
is very strong here, and the mediaeval readings of Bible
history appear in their most complete distortions. As
examples of this we have the Chapel of St. Cornelius, ' who
was, after my Lord1 St. Peter, Archbishop of Caesarea';
the cloak of St. James of Galicia ; the print of the ten
fingers of Christ upon the stone ; and the miraculous virtues
of the Tomb of St. Catherine, which many wild beasts on
the mountains lived by licking. A peculiar story occurs
about the Sea of Galilee. ' On this sweet water lake of
Jordan, Christ ate with His Apostles after His resurrec-
tion ; but He only ate the backs of the fish, which were as
large as the roaches of the sweet waters of France, and all
the rest He threw back into the water, when the fish at
once moved again and swam away.' As to Tiberias, one of
the stories from the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy re-appears
in this tract ; for here was the torch which the Jews threw
at the Messiah when He showed them how to dye. In
Tortosa we have a mention of a very ancient Church of the
Theotokos, which the author supposes to have been the
oldest in the world to receive this dedication ; and, like James

1 'Moiiseigneur.5

in.] the 'city of Jerusalem': ernoul 211

de Vitry, he ascribes the building of the edifice to St.
Peter.1

In the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth chapters of
Ernoul's chronicle we have a description of various parts
of Palestine outside Jerusalem. This chronicle is of the
year 1231 ; it abounds in mistakes, and is of very small
value. Beginning with a notice of the Jordan, ' where it
rises, how it goes, and where it rests,' the troubadour-annalist
repeats the old rabbinical stories of the fountains of Jor and
Dan (or Dain), of the Ark of Noah and its building at
Arka on Mount Lebanon, and of the mountain of salt on
the shore of the Asphaltic Lake. The miracle of Cana is
transferred to Tiberias, and the incident is distorted into the
' Wedding of Archedeclin ' or Architriclin, — thus outdoing
Saewulf and the City of Jerusalem. For here Architriclinus,
the 'Eulerof the Feast,' appears as the bridegroom, and the
narrative of St. John is still more completely corrupted
than we find it in the Worcester Pilgrim. In mentioning
the town of ' Crac ' or Kerak, and its lordship to the east
of the Jordan, Ernoul refers to the Monastery of St. Catherine
on Mount Sinai, within the boundaries of the same lordship,
an outpost of Christendom, on the borders of Islam, where
thirteen monks lived in privation 'like Moses.' Near this
was the Eed Sea, through the midst of which ran the Eiver
of Paradise which Scripture called Pison or the Nile. In
the neighbourhood of Jericho (or ' Jericop ') ' walled with
adamant,' Ernoul describes the snake-charmino' which he

1 This still remains almost perfect,
having been turned into a Mosque,
but it was of course much later than
tradition made it, and both the fifth-
century Church of the B.V.M. at
Ephesus and the fourth - century
Chapel of the Virgin's Tomb at

Jerusalem were older. Many other
favourite legends of this neighbour-
hood re-appear in the City of Jeru-
salem : as, e.g. the miraculous picture
at Beyrout, and that at Sardenai,
near Damascus (Xolrc Dame de la
Roche).

212 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Oh.

may have witnessed there ; and as to the Samaritan com-
munity near Sebaste, he has a remarkable story of its
origin. It was colonised, he tells us, by the branches of that
race which were to be found in Alexandria and Damascus ;
and it is curious to notice that these Egyptian and Syrian
'churches' lasted to the seventeenth century. For the
rest, Ernoul is meagre and unsatisfactory ; his identifications
of ancient sites are generally wrong; and his estimates of
distance are reckless. Scarcely anywhere does he show
evidence of personal travel and first-hand knowledge, and
his account of Jerusalem is apparently derived almost
verbatim from an earlier work.

Among the descriptions of Syria which are historical,
antiquarian, or ecclesiastical rather than geographical, but
which, being accompanied by some personal knowledge
of the country, cannot be altogether neglected, that of James
de Vitry is prominent. Having been appointed Bishop
of Acre in 1217, the year of a futile Crusade under King-
Andrew of Hungary, James went with the Christian army
to the siege of Damietta in 1218, took an active part in
military operations both in Galilee and Egypt, and did not
finally leave Palestine till 1227. Thus he spent nearly ten
years of his life in the country whose history he attempts
to narrate, and if he had been endowed with any geogra-
phical interest, he might have compiled both maps and
descriptions far superior to anything then in Christian use,
but his mind was the mind of a rhetorician and a wonder-
seeker, and his hysterical style and marvellous tales are
untempered by any good critical faculty.

His identifications of places are little better than those
of the most casual visitor; thus we find here the old mis-
takes of Pelusium ' or ' Belbeis, Beersheba ' or ' Gibelin, and
so forth ; ' Hierapolis or Maubech ' is his reading of ' Heliopolis

III.]

ERNOUL ; JAMES DE VITBY

213

or Baalbek ' ; the name of ^Klia, given to Jerusalem, lie derives
from iElius, a Eoman quaestor, who rebuilt it after the
destruction by Titus ; Petra he places near Eabbath Amnion
' where Uriah was slain.' Whenever the Saracens got posses-
sion of the Holy City they set up the image of ' Machomet ' in
the Temple ; the historian adds a short and less mythical
account of the three great Orders of Chivalry closely con-
nected with the Holy Sites.1

As to the maritime intercourse between Western Europe
and the Levant, De Vitry is emphatic and suggestive.
The skill of the Italian merchants, as seamen, might have
been of great service to the Crusaders, if they had not been
more inclined to fight with one another than with the
infidels, and if they had not shared to the full the degenera-
tion which had overtaken the Latins in Syria and destroyed
the efficiency of the Temple and the Hospital. Further on,
among his notice of various sects, De Vitry gives us a little
incidental geography, as in the case of the Jacobites of Nubia,
^Ethiopia, and other countries ' as far as India ' ; of the Nes-
torians, living under that most puissant lord, Prester John ;
of the Georgians, among whom dwelt the Amazons ; of the
Mozarabic Christians of Africa and Spain ; of the Assassins
who were the chief sect of the Essenes ; and of the Sadducean
Jews living near the Caspian Mountains and the wall of
Alexander, who in the time of Antichrist were to return
to Palestine. Lastly, in his Topography of Syria, De Vitry
includes a province between the Tigris and the Euphrates,

1 Of these the Hospitallers are
said by De Vitry to have arisen from
the purely peaceful enterprise of
some Lombards, especially of Amalfi,
who brought merchandise to Syria,
and by presents induced the lord of
Egypt to let them build a Latin

Church near the Holy Sepulchre.
The St. John of the Hospital was,
according to De Vitry, [not St. John
the Baptist but] St. John the Chari-
table, of Cyprus, afterwards Patriarch
of Alexandria ; of. History of Jeru-
salem (abbreviated), ch. lxiv.

214 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Oh.

and a considerable portion of the Arabian Desert, while
among the three provinces that make up Palestine he
reckons Philistia and its capital at Caesarea Philippi.1

There only remain certain scattered contributions to
what may be called the Mediaeval Library of Syrian
geography, and of these only a few record actual travel ;
the rest are nothing more than declamations, allegories,
pious appeals, or topographical notes of a second-hand
order. The former class feebly maintains an old tradition
in the persons and writings of Antony of Novgorod
(c. 1200), Wilbrand of Oldenburg (c. 1212), Thietmar or
Thetmar (c. 1217), and Sabbas of Servia (c. 1225-1237).

Among these the ' great sinner ' Antony, a poor counter-
part of Abbot Daniel, represents the other main centre of
Russian life, the northern and commercial capital in the
South Baltic basin, of which he was archbishop or metro-
politan. He passed through Constantinople on the eve
of the Latin Conquest, and perhaps visited Palestine under
the restored Moslem rule, shortly after the death of Saladin ;
but among the details of his journey there are scarcely
any of general interest, and he has only recorded little more
than his impressions of the sacred places of Tsargrad, Yet,
in the allusions he occasionally makes to the religious inter-
course between the Byzantine world and his own people, and
to the condition of Byzantium itself in the last days of the
Older Eastern Empire, he establishes his claim to a position
of higher value than the average pilgrim wayfarer of this age.
Thus, in the gold paten which the Princess Olga had caused
to be made for the divine Liturgy in the Church of the
Eternal Wisdom ; in the ' model ' eikon of the Slav saints,
Boris and Gleb ; and in the relics of the Russian priest Leon,
1 Cf. History of Jerusalem, chs. lxxv.-lxxx., xevi,

HI.] JAMES DE VITRY ; ANTONY OF NOVGOROD 215

who had thrice made the journey to Jerusalem on foot,
and of the Lady Xenia, the daughter of Bracislav — we have
suggestions of a constant but little-known movement from
North-Eastern Europe to Constantinople and Palestine. And
the same suggestion lies in Antony's mention of the convent
of Match ukov ; of the Eussian ' embolon ' among the treasures
of the Imperial City; and of the embassy under Tverdiatina
Ostromiritza, Nedan, Domagir, Dmitri, and Negvar from
Roman, Grand Prince of Vladimir, to the Emperor Alexius
III. These envoys were present at a church council over
which the Emperor x presided ; and this council was pro-
bably that held in the May of 1199, at which the patriarch
John Kamateros also assisted. It is to Antony's descrip-
tions of the Church of St. Sophia and of the imperial ' palace
of gold ' that most of his readers would now turn with
especial interest ; but they would be disappointed if they
hoped to find here anything more than catalogues of relics,
(such as the shield of Constantino and the right hand of John
Baptist), descriptions of ' holy and appalling ' miracles, or
details of religious services, such as that of Matins in the
Patriarchal Church.

With the journey of the Archbishop of Xovgorod that
of another metropolitan naturally connects itself. In 1225-
1230 Sabbas of Servia, afterwards one of the saints of the
Eastern Church, made his way to Palestine, and compiled an
account of his visit in the Serbian dialect of Slavonic ; but
no proper record has survived of the alleged travels of St.
Euphrosyna, Princess of Polotsk, to the same country, at
the end of the twelfth century ; and these have accordingly
been dismissed, without sufficient cause, as purely mythical.
The itineraries of the Western pilgrims, Wilbrand of Olden-
burg and Thietmar, are almost entirely repetitions of

1 Angelas Conmenus, 119.1-1203,

216 PILGRIM TRAVEL [Oh.

material we have already had to notice, especially from John
of Wiirzburg and the Old Compendium; Wilbrand, how-
ever, has rather more to tell us about Asia Minor than the
generality of palmers. Last among the first-hand descrip-
tions of Palestine within this period, albeit of very doubtful
character, is the supposed book of James Pantaleon, Patriarch
of Jerusalem, commonly assigned to one of the last two
decades of the Crusading age (1250-1270).

The latter class of these writings, those of an entirely
derivative and untravelled authorship, include a tract by
Peter of Blois (about 1190), on the Length and Breadth of
Palestine, mostly composed of extracts from Jerome ; the Tri-
partite Relation of the monk Haymar (about 1199), on the
manners' and resources x of the Hagarenes or Saracens,
addressed to Innocent III, ; another work of the same
ecclesiastic, on the condition2 of the Holy Land about the
same date ; a short anonymous description of Jerusalem ;
and a fragment of an Itinerary 3 from the last years of the
twelfth century. Besides these, Radulphus Niger, as he
tells us himself in his chronicle (c. 1200), composed a short
account of the three principal pilgrim-routes to Jerusalem ;
Gervase of Tilbury, in his Otia Imperialia, of about 1211,
makes frequent reference to the geography of the Levant;
the same service is performed by Eustathius,4 who may be
reckoned among the latest and least of Greek geographers, in
his Parekbolai of nearly the same date (c. 1212) ; while Roger
of Wendover and Matthew Paris in their Mores Historiarum
(1236) and Chronica Major a (1250), conclude the list of
mediaeval annalists in this period who give us an allusive

1 Vires. 4 Of. Miiller, Geographi Grarci

2 Status. I Minores, ii. 373-391,
:1 In Libr. at Line. Coll. Oxford.

III.

WILBRAND OF OLDENBURG ; M. PARIS, ETC. 217

treatment of Syrian matters and Syrian intercourse with the
West. But Matthew Paris devoted more special attention
to this subject ; for he also composed a map of Palestine and
a variety of notes about Palestine travel and topography,
elsewhere noticed at length, and apparently based in part
upon a little guide-book of about 1231, Les PHerinages pour
alter en Jerusalem. It is more questionable whether
Matthew's wrork was in any way related to other still
more insignificant productions of this time, such as Philippe
Mousquet's rhymed description of the Holy Land (c. a.i>
1241), or the parallel sketch of Martinus Polonus (c. 1240-
1245V

1 Other pilgrimages of the Scandi-
navians to the Holy Land and in a
less degree to Rome and Compostella,
oiler man}r points of geographical
interest. For want of space we can
only note here the journeys, e.g. (1)
of Alfvin Haraldson, grandson of
Cnut the Great, e. a.d. 1060 ; (2) of
Svein Nordbaggi. Bishop of Rbskilde,
c. 1086 ; (3) of Lagman Gudrodson,
King of Man and the Isles, c. 1095 ;
(4) of Eric the Good, King of Den-
mark. 1102-3; (5) of Svein and
Eskill, brothers of Asker, first Arch-
bishop of Lund. c. 1150-3: (6) of
Eskill Kristiernson. second Archbishop
of Lund, c. 1164-8 ; (7) of Andres
Skialdabandr from Norway, c. 1229-
1230. All the above were peaceful
attempts, some unsuccessful, to visit
Jerusalem, with or without a journey
to Rome. Armed expeditions to
Palestine from Scandinavia are in-
stanced in the fleets of (1) Wimmer

or Guinemer of Boulogne and his
Danes and Frisians, 1096 ; (2) the
Northmen of Man and the South
Isles, 11S9-91 ; (3) the Danes and
Frisians who visit Compostella and
ravage Moslem Spain, 1189-91 ; (4)
the Norwegian Crusaders, Hreidar,
Ulf Laufnaes, etc., 1190. The pil-
grimage of Abbot Nicholas of Thing-
eyrar, 1151-4, is the best example of
the Norse ' Rome route.' From the
Eyder he traces an itinerary by
PaderboTn and Mainz to Basel, Vevey,
Mount St. Bernard, Aosta. Pavia, and
so, by Rome, to Bari and Monopoli.
Of. Scriptores Rerum Danic, i. 379;
iii. 338 ; Scriptores Rerum Germanic
xvii. 794-6 ; Dozy, Recherclies, ii. 295.
329-340'; Riant, Expeditions . . .
des Scand in airs en Terre Sainte pp.
62-7. 69-86, 125-6. 129, 131-9, 144-
215, 221, 225, 226-9, 230-9, 272-7.
290-305, 312-338. 342-3. 348-353.
354, 365.

( 218 )

CHAPTER IV

BENJAMIN OF TUDELA AND OTHER JEWISH TRAVELLERS

A new chapter of mediaeval travel begins with Rabbi
Benjamin of Tudela (c. 1159-1173). His Records are the
earliest important contributions of the Hebrew race to
geography ; they also mark a distinct advance in the move-
ment from west to east, whose outlook now began to reach
beyond the Euphrates to Central and Further Asia. Before
the time of Benjamin the Jews had often made extensive
journeys, being for various reasons especially useful as
envoys, negotiators, commercial travellers, and spies ; but
their geography, written and traditional, seems to have re-
mained at the rudimentary stage of the Old Testament, until
in the twelfth century their learned men first condescended
to study earth-knowledge as a science, or at least as a body
of fact. At first this new development was chiefly notice-
able in the more careful and systematic visitation and de-
scription of the old home-lands of the Hebrew people, and
above all of Syria itself; and here, as elsewhere, it was
apparently through the Crusading movement that the
change was brought about. For Jews as well as Christians
availed themselves of the fresh opportunities of travel to the
Holy Places of both religions ; and they also attempted to
discover and make known to their brethren in Europe, more

Ch. IV. 1 BENJAMIN'S PRECURSORS; JACOB BEN SHEARA 219

perfectly than before, the condition of the congregations of
the Levant, and the position and state of the sepulchres and
memorials of the great Hebrews of former days.

Long before the twelfth century, however, a certain
movement to and fro between distant Hebrew communities
is faintly shown by scanty records, and it will be convenient
in this place to treat these indications as introductory to
the central figure (and narrative) of Eabbi Benjamin, con-
cluding this chapter with a short account of Petachia of
Eatisbon and the other Israelites who contributed in theory
or practice to the progress of geography before the middle
of the thirteenth century.

The Talmud of Palestine or of Jerusalem, which in its
present form is of the later fourth century, contains some
topographical allusions, not only to regions within the
borders of Syria, but also to Egypt, Mesopotamia, and
Arabia. The sixth century Babylonian Talmud has a more
extended geographical outlook ; notices of Media, Persia (or
the Land of the Magi), and Cappadocia are here to be found
along with remarks on the general structure of the world,
the depths of the sea, the mountains of darkness, the seventy
nations, and the mysterious river Sambation. The journey
of Isaac the Jew, in the embassy sent by Charlemagne to
the Caliph Harun al Eashid (801, 802), was a proof of the
extreme value of the Hebrews as intermediaries in mediaeval
intercourse ; it was Isaac who furnished the report of this
mission to the Frank Emperor ; and it would seem that the
connection of the Prankish and Babylonian synagogues was
revived by this journey, for it is from about A.D, 850 that
we find the name of Prance mentioned in the decisions of
the Eastern Rabbis. Several other Jewish travels of the
ninth century are recorded. Thus about 820 Jacob ben
Sheara was sent to India by a Moslem prince to procure

220 BENJAMIN OF TUDELA, ETC. [Ch.

certain astronomical works ; again, some fifty years later,
another Hebrew wanderer, whose name is appropriated by
the half-fabulous relation of Eldacl the Danite, paid a visit
to the Jews of Arabia (c. a.d. 870). Saadia Gaon, of the Fay vim
in Egypt, who died a.d. 942, and Nathan, a Babylonian, who
flourished in the middle of the tenth century, have only
left some cursory geographical references to distant lands,
such as India ; but the son of Saadia, one Eabbi Dosa,
brings us into connection with a far more important person,
Chisdai or Chasdai ben Isaac, the physician and minister of
Abderrahman III., Caliph of Cordova. This Hebrew states-
man busied himself in collecting information upon the state
of the Jews in all the countries that sent embassies to
Cordova ; and in pursuit of this object he wrote (among
others) to Joseph, Prince of the Khazars, giving him an
account of Andalusia, and asking in return for some news
of the state of the Jewish Kingdom in South-Eastern Europe.
This letter was brought from the Guadalquivir to the
Volga by three Jewish messengers, Saul, Joseph, and Jacob
ben Eliezer (c. a.d. 959). It was in answer to a similar
enquiry about the Jews of Egypt that Chasdai received
a similar report from Eabbi Dosa ; and we may perhaps
consider that this correspondence was identical in object
with the travels of Benjamin of Tudela and Petachia
of Katisbon, only pursuing a different method to arrive at
the same end. That end was clearly the establishment of
a better understanding between the various communities of
Jews scattered over the world ; for this understanding, in
favourable times and circumstances, might develop into a
political unity, and thus the Jews might again play a
prominent part in history ; even without this, the financial
schemes and fraternal charities of the dispersed children of
Abraham could not fail to derive the greatest benefits from

IV.] ELDAD THE DANITE ; RABBI DOSA | CHASDAI 221

the maintenance and development of such a correspondence
as this of Chasdai. The very survival, indeed, of the Hebrew
race and religion was obviously in clanger from a complete
interruption of the communications between the often distant
synagogues ; and it was therefore natural that extensive
travel should be more in fashion among the Hebrews, to
whom it was so necessary, than among those Christians,
whose ideal for many centuries was rather one of self-
contained exclusiveness within the sacred limits of the
Greek or Roman civilisation. Many of these Jewish
wanderings have passed unrecorded ; others are only com-
memorated by a bare allusion ; others, again, survive in
a fragmentary state. But from what remains to us it is
clear that throughout the earlier Middle Ages, as in later
and more civilised times, the Jews of the most remote
countries had a system of correspondence, by letters and
messengers, which was surprisingly complete, probably
superior to any telegraphy in use among the Christians of
the Dark Ages, and responsible for a steady and remarkable
growth of Jewish influence.

In this connection we may notice that the tenth century
gave a certain strange and novel promise of the restoration
of Israel. The conversion of the Khazars, or at least of the
ruling clans of this people, was not the only or the earliest
incident of the kind, but it was apparently the most im-
portant acquisition of mediaeval Judaism ; and it offered
some hopes of providing a new and powerful centre for
the revival of Jewish nationality and ambitions. Among
older instances of successful proselytism, the leading place
perhaps belongs to that Hebrew dynasty and kingdom in
Yemen, or Homeritis, which, from about B.C. 120 till the
first quarter of the sixth century after Christ, maintained
the law of Moses as a privileged creed in South-Western

0 9O

BENJAMIN OF TUDELA, ETC.

[Oh.

Arabia. It was at last overthrown by the Christians of
Abyssinia (a.d. 522), fifty years before the birth of Moham-
med, after a savage persecution of the Nazarenes, to which
the Koran apparently alludes ; 1 but down to the time of
Mohammed's final success various Hebrew communities,
scattered over other parts of the Arabian peninsula, main-
tained themselves in considerable strength. With the
triumph of Islam the Prophet's fatherland was closed to all
except his followers; and obstinate Jews were expelled
without compunction ; but in the next century they found
a new home on the north of the Black Sea. About a.d.
740 a certain Bulan, King of the Khazars, determined to
abandon the older heathendom of his people. From the
sixth century this nation, usually considered as Turkish,
had been rising in importance and civilisation ; they had
gradually given up their nomadic habits, had adopted a settled
life, and had even developed a considerable commerce in fish,
furs, and slaves;2 their chief town, Amil, or Bilangiar, near
the modern Astrakhan, commanded the mouth of the Volsa,
and claimed an important share in the trade of the Caspian ;
while other Khazar settlements stretched from the estuary
of the ' A til ' to that of the Don. Another of their towns,
Semender, is mentioned by Edrisi as near Amil ; and their
dominion seems to have extended from the Caucasus and
the wall of Derbent in the South, to the latitude of
Moscow in the North. According to one tradition, the
ancient Persian ramparts in the Caucasus were erected by
Chosroes the Just as a barrier against the heathen Khazars ;

1 Chap, lxxxv. The Starr:/. ' By
the star-bespangled Heaven ; By the
predicted day ; By the witness and
the witnessed — Cursed were the con-
trivers of the pit of fire, when they
sat over against it and were witnesses

of what they inflicted on the be-
lievers . . . they hated them for
their faith in God.'

2 In exchange for money and other
products of the South.

IV.] CONVERSION OF THE KHAZARS 223

and beyond this rampart the early Arab travellers recog-
nised the same people as masters of the land. Thus
Sallam the Interpreter (in about 840) and Abul Hassan Ali,
of Bagdad, surnamed Al Masudi (in about 930), visited and
described Khazaria ; so did Ibn Foslan in 921-2, with the
special object of drawing it within the pale of Islam ; nor
were these the only efforts in this direction. A great
number of the people did actually embrace the religion of
Mohammed, and some of the early Caliphs relied upon their
friendship and support against Constantinople. In the
pursuit of their trade, however, the Khazars admitted
merchants of all races and faiths with equal tolerance, and
sometimes they appeared rather to incline to the Byzantines
against the Saracens ; but in the end they decided in favour of
the third of those claimants who were pressing them so hard.
Prince Bulan made careful enquiry, and found a brilliant
solution of the difficulty. Por the Christian admitted
Judaism to be the second best form of belief, and the same
was granted by the Moslem ; from this it was clear that the
best was really that which each disputant placed next to
his own ; and Bulan therefore decided in favour of the
Jewish creed, just as Hellenic opinion after the Persian
war decided in favour of Themistocles. After this, teachers
of the law of Moses were brought into the country, and
Judaism became a condition for the holder of the sovereign
power; but otherwise the old toleration continued till the
overthrow of the dynasty and the nation, about the year of
Christ 1000. Chasdai heard of all this through the envoys
of the Byzantine Empire at the Court of Cordova, and it
was by the medium of a German Jew (among others) that
he forwarded his famous epistle to King Joseph. The
international character of the Hebrew race in the tenth
century could not be better illustrated.

224 BENJAMIN OF TUDELA, ETC. [C'h.

Josippon ben Gorion (otherwise Joseph Gorionides) the
translator of Josephus ; Sherira ben Khanina, the principal
of the Hebrew Academy at Pumbeditha, a.d. 967-997 ;
and Assaf, the mathematician, of c. 1050, all wrote
upon geographical matters. With the name of Assaf
are connected some stories of fabulous travel, but none
of these are really important to the subject.1 After the
commencement of the Crusades, Nathan ben Jechiel of Eomc
(a.d. 1101) and Abraham ben Chija, an astronomer of Barce-
lona (1100-1130), continue the list of Jewish geographers —
if such a name can be applied to writers mainly concerned
with other interests, in whom geography is merely incidental
and allusive. On the other hand, Abraham ben Meir ben
Ezra, of Spain, who died at Borne in 1168, was a considerable
traveller, and visited in the course of his wanderings many
places of Italy, Provence, France, North Africa, Syria,2
Mesopotamia,2 and the Islands of the Mediterranean 2 and
British Seas.2 Unfortunately he left no proper account of
these journeys. Again Yehuda ben Elia Hadasi, a Karaite
Jew, lived and wrote in Constantinople in the middle of the
twelfth century (c. a.d. 1147), and in the course of his works
referred to various matters of physical geography and to the
dwelling-places of different religious sects. In the same
manner, Abraham Halevi ben Daud (or David), resident at
Toledo in 1161, may be counted among the Hebrew writers
who touch on things geographical ; and the same may be
said of the great Moses Maimonides (a.d. 1131-1204), who
was also a practical traveller, but whose works have only
the most meagre reference to the subject of earth-knowledge.

The change from these arid and scanty jottings to the

1 For they only give scattered I visits to Italy. France, and North
references. J Africa, but, according to one tradition

2 These are less certain than the i he wrote two pamphlets in London.

IV.J DATE OF BENJAMIN'S JOURNEY : ITS VALUE 225

Records of liabbi Benjamin is a great and significant one ;
but it is not likely that he. any more than his predecessors,
attracted the attention of many except his co-religionists.
His work was so primarily concerned with the men of his
own race, and the affairs and traditions of his own faith,
that it would be impossible for it to win the interest of
mediaeval Christendom. Thus the value of his narrative
was scarcely recognised until religious prejudice ceased to
govern the mind and literature of Europe. He visited the
Jewish colonies, from Navarre to Bagdad, and described
those beyond the Tigris as far as China ; but he wrote for
his own nation, and few others cared about him for many
centuries.

The date of Benjamin's travels may be fixed from in-
ternal evidence within fairly narrow limits. Thus his own
language makes it tolerably clear that he visited Borne after
the year 1159 ; that he was in Constantinople during the
reign of Manuel Comnenus, perhaps in the month of
December, 1161; and that his account of Egypt must have
been composed before 1171. It is also pretty evident that
he came to Bagdad after a partial revival of the temporal
power of the Abbasside Caliphs had begun with the vigorous
action of Moktafi (a.d. 1150-1160). The date of the Rabbi's
return, as given in his own preface, brings us to the year of
Christ 1173 ; he appears to have been in Antioch immediately
after the accession of Bohemund III. in 1163 ; and he evi-
dently arrived in Sicily, on his way home, before the close of
1169, while Archbishop Stephen of Palermo was still govern-
ing the island, as Chancellor, during the minority of
William II., the Good.

Benjamin's account of Bagdad and the Caliph is especi-
ally important in relation to what he says or implies about
the state of the Seljuk power in Western Asia (c. a.d.

226 BENJAMIN OF TUDELA [Oh.

1150-1160). This Empire, after a short time of undivided
strength, had now split up under three chief dynasties, and
was practically separated into three independent kingdoms.
Sultan San jar of Merv, a master-builder, a patron of art and
letters, and a brave but unlucky warrior, ruled on the
Murghab and the Oxus, controlling all the north-eastern
provinces: Massud, the 'Grand Sultan' or nominal head
of all the Seljuk houses, claimed to rule at Bagdad, and to
control the Caliphate and the central provinces ; Sultan
Zenghi of Mosul (with his sons Seif-ed-clin and Nur-ed-din)
was the most important prince on the western frontiers of
Asiatic Islam. But just before the era of Benjamin's visit to
Mesopotamia, great changes took place in these short-lived
kingdoms, through the deaths of both Massud and Sanjar
(1152-1153); the situation was made worse for the Seljuks
by the fact of Sanjar's death following upon a ruinous defeat
at the hands of the Ghozze Turks from beyond the Syr Daria ;
and the watchful Abbassides took full advantage of their
opportunity. The Caliph Moktafi, who had been as sub-
missive as his predecessors for the past sixteen years (1136-
1152), now threw off the yoke and recovered a good deal of
that imperial power which the weakness or necessity of Al
Eadi and others had forfeited in the earlier part of the tenth
century. Moktafi's successor, Mostanshed or Mostanieh,
maintained the position thus won ; and it was probably
under this, the second of the ' restored ' Caliphs, that
Babbi Benjamin came to Bagdad. His language confirms
what we know from other sources on a different point.

The family of Zenghi, from jealousy or policy, pursued an
opposite course of action from Sanjar and Massud, favouring
that revival of the Caliphate, which the senior Seljuks en-
deavoured in every way to hinder ; thus they gained many
privileges and a sensible increase of authority and dominion

IV. J benjamin's objects and calling 227

from the favour of the Abbassides. For, however feeble the
direct temporal sway of the Moslem pontiffs, they never
ceased to exercise a considerable secular influence, like the
Popes of Borne, through the medium of spiritual decrees,
favours, or censures.

It is fairly certain that Benjamin was not only a Rabbi,
but also a merchant ; and that his object was as much to
acquire and diffuse information about the commercial, as about
the religious, state of his countrymen in distant lands. From
Spain to Jerusalem his route seems accurately reflected in
his narrative ; but from Jerusalem to Damascus and Bagdad it
is evident that he does not follow the same method ; for here
no direct course is indicated, but only a series of wanderings,
backwards and forwards, and from side to side. It is
doubtful how far east he penetrated, but it can hardly
have been much further than Bagdad, where he must have
resided for a good space of time. Here it was that he
probably compiled the latter part of his Records, which he
divides under ' things seen ' and ' things heard.' The
almost complete absence of the smaller places and personal
names so fully recorded hitherto, as. well as the compara-
tively vague, unhistorical, and unscientific character of this
trans-Tigris section, allow of scarcely a doubt as to the
second-hand or traditional method now used to supplement
the first-hand observation of the earlier narrative. This
earlier narrative may be sub-divided in two parts, in one
of which ' things seen ' are described, in due order of time,
along a direct and clearly indicated route ; whereas in the
other, beginning from Jerusalem, although Benjamin still
treats exclusively of matters within his own knowledge, no
proper sequence is observed.

Lastly, it seems probable that much of the time con-
sumed by the Rabbi's journey was spent in live places —

228 BENJAMIN OF TUDELA [Cs,

firstly, in Constantinople ; secondly, in the ' City of David ' ;
thirdly, in the capital of the Abbassides and of the Jewish
Princes of the Captivity ; fourthly, in the great port of Alex-
andria ; and last, in Sicily, then perhaps the most civilised of
Christian countries : that part of the Records which goes
beyond the experience of the traveller himself was mainly
compiled, there is reason to believe, in one or other of these
centres of mediaeval life and thought. With Benjamin's
information usually agrees that furnished by the contem-
porary Arabic geographers and historians ; and it has been
proved by the researches of Zimz and others that the names
of Hebrew magnates, rabbis, and merchants, given by our
wayfarer in so many cities from Saragossa to Bagdad,
were really borne by prominent Jews of the twelfth century.

Benjamin's Records open with a preface which tells how
the son of Jonah, of Tudela, in the Kingdom of Navarre,
travelled through many distant countries ; how, when he
returned, he brought this report of the same to the country
of Castile, in the year 933 (a.d. 1173); how he took clown
in writing, at each place, what he saw or what was told him
by men of integrity, whose names were known in Spain ;
how the names of such reliable informants were mentioned
by the author under their respective abodes ; how the said
Benjamin was admitted to be a man of wisdom and pos-
sessed of deep knowledge ; and how, after strict enquiry, he
was also found to be a true witness and his words altogether
to be approved as credible.1

This being assured, the reader might proceed with con-
fidence in the steps of the Eabbi. The ' Eeports ' which follow
have perhaps been abridged from a longer original ; but the

1 This preface is of practically the same age as the narrative it intro-
duces, but by another hand. Cf. Asher, Benjamin. II., 1.

IV.] FROM SAEAGOSSA TO MARSEILLES 229

abridgment lias not, in any case, been made with the ruth-
lessness from which Petachia has suffered.

Starting at Saragossa and passing through Tortosa,
Benjamin came down the Ebro to Tarragona, famous for
cyclopean and pelasgic buildings unique in Spain ; these
had been much damaged by the Saracens in ad. 719, on
the overthrow of the Gothic and Christian kingdom ; but
in 1038 the Archbishop of Toledo had undertaken a partial
restoration, and thus the traveller's attention may have been
especially drawn to works which the present age has again
neglected.

Barcelona was a small port, but already frequented by
merchants from various cities and lands — Genoa. Pisa, Sicily,
Greece, and the more distant harbours of Palestine, as well
as Alexandria in Egypt. Thence the route lay through
Gerona, xTarbonne, famous for its university and legal
school, Beziers, and Har Gaash or Montpellier, a great
centre of trade, ranking next to Marseilles in this part of
the world, where Benjamin notices the presence of merchants
from Portugal or ' Algarve,' Lombardy and its havens of
Genoa and Pisa, Egypt and Palestine, England and Francia,
Greece and the Roman Empire. The Rabbi next visited
Nogres or Bourg de St. Gilles on the banks of the Rhone,
a famous place of Christian pilgrimage, and the home of a
prominent Jew, the steward of the leading Christian prince
of the Languedoc, Raymond V. of Toulouse. This fortunate
and powerful Hebrew, Abba Mari, was representative of the
extraordinary prosperity of his race in Provence and the
Narbonnese, wdiere Jews might be counted by hundreds in
every large city, and where alike in commercial and intel-
lectual matters they wielded an influence of strong and
subtle potency. Their connection with the heretical move-
ments, even then (c. 1160) agitating the South of France, has

230

BENJAMIN OF TUDELA

[Ch.

often been asserted ; it is easy to prove in one sense, difficult
in another ; probably their presence and the favour they
enjoyed in the dominions of the House of Toulouse was a
sign rather than a cause of the impending trouble ; as yet
it was not thought unbecoming to employ Jews in positions
of high trust about the Papal Court itself.

At Marseilles, Benjamin took ship for Genoa, and about
four days brought him from the ancient Phokaean city, still
celebrated for its commerce and learning, to the leading
Christian port of the Western Mediterranean. Genoa,
' mistress of the sea,' was now at war with Pisa ; but the
rivals had many points in common. Both were fortified ;
both were often disturbed by civil strife, when fighting raged
from house to house ; both possessed a brave and daring
populace, which would not suffer the rule of any king or
prince, but entrusted power to senators chosen by the
popular vote ; lastly, both had to lament a scanty Semitic
element.

At the close of the thirteenth century a later Jewish
traveller reported an almost total absence of his nation on
all this coast, from Provence to Rome ; Benjamin only
speaks of two * Israelites in Genoa, twenty in Pisa ; but
the former were visitors from the distant Ceuta on the
Straits of Gibraltar ; and the Tuscany of this period, like
the Scotland of more recent time, seems to have offered
but a poor opening for Hebrew industry.

From Pisa and its 10,000 embattled houses, covering a
vast area, the Rabbi moves on to Lucca and Rome, the
'metropolis' of Christendom. Even here Jews1 were

1 Milman, History of the Jews,
bk. xxvii. vol. iii. pp. 325-336,
edition of 1863, maintains the theory
that the Jews were better treated in
Italy than in any other Christian

country, partly because here they
monopolised wealth and trade far less
than elsewhere. The reference of
the text makes it probable that
Benjamin's visit to Rome was be-

IV.] FKOM PROVENCE TO ROME 231

found, some of them being in the service of the Pope ; one
was the steward of the household of Alexander III. and
minister of his private property. Thus the same pontiff
was the patron of ' Eabbi Daniel and Rabbi Jechiel ' and
of St. Thomas of Canterbury. Few better illustrations could
be desired of the tolerance and liberality which is sometimes
to be found even in the most exclusive circles of mediaeval
society.

In Borne Benjamin has many singular legends to tell
us, chiefly taken from the writings of Joseph ben Gorion,
and occasionally resembling similar tales in Christian writers
of which one in William of Malmesbury may be taken as an
example.1

Beginning with a fairly matter-of-fact account of the
' large place of worship called St. Peter's, on the site of
the wide-spreading palace of Julius Caesar,' the visitor goes on
to describe the eighty halls of the eighty eminent kings who
were all called Emperors, from Tarquin to Pepin, the father
of Charles, who first conquered Spain from the Saracens
Among these was the palace of Titus, who was rejected by
three hundred senators for having wasted three years over the
conquest of Jerusalem, which, according to their will, he should
have accomplished in two years ; here also was to be seen the
hall of King Galba, containing three hundred and sixty win-
dows, one for each day in the year, and having a circumfer-
ence of nearly three miles. Besides these wonders Benjamin
describes a cave underground, containing a king2 of Borne
upon his throne, with his queen and about one hundred
nobles of his Court, all embalmed and in good preservation.
To the Jewish visitor an object of special interest was St.

tween 1159 and 1161, or between 1165
and 1167 ; for Alexander III., though
he reigned 1159-1181, was away from

through fear of Frederic Barbarossa.

1 Gesta Eegum, ii., §§ 205, 206.

2 'The Kins' is Benjamin's ex-

the city 1161-1165 and 1167-1177, pressiou ; which, he leaves uncertain.

232 BENJAMIN OF TTJDELA [Ch.

John Lateran ; 1 for there were two copper pillars made by
Solomon, whose name was engraved upon each. The Jews
of Rome related that every year, about the 9th of Ab, the
time of the destruction of both Temples, these pillars
sweated so much that the water ran down from them.
There also was the cave in which Titus, the son of
Vespasian, hid the vessels of the Temple which he brought
from Jerusalem ; and in another cave on the banks of the
Tiber were the sepulchres of the ten martyrs, or ancient
teachers of the Mishna, who suffered in the period between
Vespasian and Hadrian. Opposite St. John Lateran there
were statues of Samson (with a lance of stone in his hand) ;
of Absalom, and of Constantine, who built the city ' which
is called after his name,' the last an equestrian figure in
copper gilt. Benjamin's Absalom may be difficult to
recognise, but his Samson is obviously a Hercules, We may
remember that as the Jewish traveller puts his own national
legends to fit classical objects in Rome, so King Sigurd's
Norsemen in Constantinople recognise in the figures of the
Hippodrome their own heroic Asers, Volsungers, and Giu-
kungers.

The next stage in the journey brings us through Capua
to ' Pozzuolo or Sorrento,' 2 ' a large city built by Tsintsan
Hadareser, who fled in fear of King David.' This town
had been inundated by the sea, and the streets and towers
of the submerged dwellings were still to be seen. It is
now well known that on this coast various old Roman villas
are covered by the sea, and this naturally gave rise to
stories of submerged cities. Here, also, were hot springs
producing the petroleum used by physicians ; and hot baths,
a cure, or at least a relief, for almost every disease, and

1 In Porta Latum, Benjamin calls it. I eh. 3, who also speaks of petroleum
- From Joseph Gorionides, hk. i. I here. Of, Asher's Benjamin, ii. 27.

IV.]

FEOM ROME TO CORFTT

233

frequented in summer by crowds of sick folk from the
whole of Lombardy. Thence fifteen miles along a causeway
under the mountains (built by Eomnlus, the founder of
Rome, who feared David King of Israel and Joab his
general) brought the traveller to Naples and Salerno,
where was the chief medical school of Latin Christendom,1
and where no less than six hundred Jews resided. For the
mediaeval world, whatever it might say against the Hebrew
race, generally admitted their pre-eminence in medicine.
Close by was Amalfi, where most people were busied in
trade, not tilling the ground, but buying everything for money,
though it is hardly true, as Benjamin says, that ' no one
dared make war upon them,' for the city had been sacked
by the Pisans in 1135 ; yet it existed as a Eepublic till 1310,
and had its consuls at Naples till 1190 ; Edrisi,2 about
1150, calls it a flourishing city; and even in its decay
it was still among the foremost ports of Italy. Next
Benjamin passes into Apulia, ' the Pul of Scripture ' ; and
here were the harbours of Trani, a favourite place for
pilgrim-embarkation to Jerusalem ; of Bari,3 which had been
destroyed by ' William of Sicily,' or rather by the Byzan-
tines of Manuel Comnenus during the reign of William the
Bad ; of Taranto and Brindisi ; and of Otranto, where the
Rabbi seems to have taken ship for Corfu.

This Island,4 long part of the Norman Kingdom of

1 Cf. Ordericus Vitalis, Hist. JEccl.
II. iii. 11 ; Gibbon, ch. lvi. (and
Bury's notes, vol. vi. pp. 189, 190,
of his edition) on the doctors of this
school, who were already celebrated
in the tenth century and from whose
work we possess fragments as early
as the eleventh. Cf. Asher's
Benjamin, ii. 28.

- Edrisi, ii. 253. Cf. Asher's Ben-

jamin, ii.. 30-1. Here, in contrast
to Salerno, were only twenty Jews.

3 Benjamin calls it St. Nicholas
de Bari, after the Church and Priory
built in 1098 and endowed by the
Norman Roger, Great Duke of
Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, and
successor of Robert Guiscard.

4 Here, alas, there was only one
Jew,

234 BENJAMIN OF TUDELA [Ch.

Sicily and South Italy, had been reconquered in 1149 by
the Emperor Manuel during that last flicker of Byzantine
energy which marks his reign ; but the traveller seems
ignorant of this change in its fortunes, and marks the
confines of the ' Kingdom of Greece ' at Arta and Patras.1

Of the Peloponnese Benjamin tells us little, merely
noticing Lepanto and Corinth ; but the great colony of two
thousand Jewish dyers and silk-workers in Thebes arrests
his attention, while the learning of the Babbis in the same
colony excites his admiration.2 No scholars like them were
to be found in the whole Greek Empire, save at Con-
stantinople ; the Hebrew element formed a tenth of the
entire city of ' Stivas ' ; and among their other trades or
handicrafts that of St. Paul was professed by many. Hard
by, on Mount Parnassus, was another settlement of Israelites,
two hundred strong, engaged on the unusual and uncon-
genial pursuit of agriculture.

From Thebes to the large city of Negropon't, a resort of
merchants from all parts ; from Negropont, by way of
Vlachia or Wallachia, to the great commercial harbour of
Armiro on the Gulf of Volo, frequented by Venetians,
Pisans, and Genoese ; and from Armiro to Saloniki, Dmi-
trizi near the Strymon, and Christopoli opposite Thasos,
Benjamin makes his way to Constantinople. He evidently
passed along the great coast road on the northern shore of the
Archipelago, and so perhaps entered the city of Constantine
by land, unless (like many) he took ship again at Christopoli.3

1 Benjamin's story of the origin of I Greece in the early Middle Ages.
Patras is copied from Joseph Gorion- j Asher believes that it was a "Walla-
ides, bk. ii. ch. 23. ■ chian town ; and the Vlachi or

2 Cf. Gibbon, ch. liii. pp. 71, 72, j Wallachians, an atheist people
of vol. vi. in Bury's edition. j nimble as deer — great brigands, inde-

3 Benjamin also passed (a) Jabus- \ pendent of all, and dreaded by all,
trisa, probably a Slav colony, dating not professing Christianity and hav-
from the great Slav immigration into | ing many Jewish names, — are men-

TV.] FROM PATEAS TO CONSTANTINOPLE 235

No mediaeval traveller has given a better account of the
Queen of Cities, and here at any rate the original text of
the narrative has probably escaped abridgment. The cir-
cumference of this : Metropolis of the Greeks and residence
of King Manuel ' was then a matter of eighteen miles. One
half of the city was bounded by the Continent, one half by
the sea ; and of this sea two arms here met together, the
one a branch or outlet of the Russian waters,1 the other of
the Spanish. Great stir and bustle prevailed at Con-
stantinople, because of the meeting therein of so many
merchants, who came from all parts of the world both by
land and sea, from Babylon and Mesopotamia, from Media
and Persia, from Egypt and Palestine, as well as from
Russia, Hungary, ' Budia ' or Bulgaria, Lombard}', Spain,
and the land 01 the Petchinegs.2 Bagdad alone equalled it
as an emporium. Moreover, at Constantinople was the
house of prayer called Santa Sophia, the metropolitan seat
of the Pope of the Greeks, who were at variance with the
Pope of Rome. All the other places of worship in the
whole world did not ecrual this in riches. It had pillars
and lamps of silver and gold, and altars as many as the clays
in the year. It is not surprising if the Eabbi trips among
all these details of Christian ritual ; but a laro;e number

tioned by the Eabbi immediately
afterwards ; (p)EctbenieaovIlavenique,
which seems now impossible to fix,
though noticed by several mediaeval
writers, e.g. Henri de Valenciennes,
Chronique, ed. Buchon, p. 259 ; (7)
Gardiki or Carcliki, a little town on
the Gulf of Volo and the seat of a
bishop ; and (5) Bissina, mentioned by
other mediaeval writers as Vissina,
Vessina, and Bezena. Saloniki in
Benjamin's figures contains more Jews
(500) than any other town in Greece,
Thebes excepted. 'Mitrizzi' or

Dmitrizi, near the ancient Amphi-
polis, is another Slav town. Drama
is the Dramine of Yillehardouin :
Nikephoros Gregoras also calls it
Drama ; it was near the ancient
Philippi.

1 The Black Sea is probably so
called because the Russian piratical
dashes across it had now become a
famous tradition.

2 This people, after 1122, when
the Byzantines decisively repulsed
their raids, had become more peaceful,
and taken to agriculture and trade,

236 BENJAMIN OF TUDELA [Oh.

of altars has never been the practice of the Eastern
Church.

In the Hippodrome, near the wall of the palace, the im-
perial sports were held ; and here the birthday of Jesus the
Nazarene was yearly celebrated with unequalled games.
Representatives of every nation under Heaven might then
be seen gathered together to witness the amazing feats of
jugglery and the fights of animals which were exhibited in
that place.

Benjamin describes like an eye-witness, and it has been
already suggested that he was present at the festivities of
the Christmastide of 1161, when Manuel Comnenus1 married
Maria, daughter of the Prince of Antioch. Likewise we
may well believe that the Jewish visitor saw the interior
of the Palace of Blachernae,2 its pillars and walls covered
with pure gold, its pictures of ancient battles and of the
victories of Manuel himself, its throne of gold adorned with
jewels, and its hanging crown suspended over the imperial
seat and blazing with precious stones so brilliant that the
room needed no other light.

The tribute brought to Constantinople every year from all
parts of Greece, in silks 3 and purple cloths and gold, rilled
many towers. The city alone paid up to 20,000 florins a
day, from the rents of hostelries and bazaars, and from the
gate and harbour duties paid by merchants entering the

1 1143-1180.

2 On the Palace of Blachernae, cf.
Niketas, In Manuel e ; Kinnamos, v.,

topographia, 1632 ; Jules Labarte, Le
Palais imperial, etc., 1861 ; and D.
Th. Bielaiev in his (Russian) essay

3; Gibbon, ch. liii. (vi.. 75-8, of | on the Palace, 1891

Bury's edition. Also see Bury's addi-
tional note 9 to vol. ii. p. 546) ; Le
Beau. 88, 38, who collects the de-

3 Gibbon, ch. liii., quotes Fal-
candus, the Sicilian historian (c. a.d.
1190), on the Greek manufacture of

tails from Niketas and Kinnamos ; silk. Falcandus describes all the

Ducange, Gonstantinopolis Christiana, various methods of working the silk,

especially bk. ii.. ch. iv., pp. 113-123 ; | and what he says is a good illustration

Petrus Gyllius, / v Constantinopolcos ' of Benjamin's language here.

iv.]

DESCRIPTION OF CONSTANTINOPLE

23?

town. Many rich Greeks dwelt in the country, in appear-
ance like princes, dressed in silk and gold and jewels, and
riding upon horses. Not less rich was the land itself, pro-
ducing bread, meat, wine, and every delicacy ; and here also
were learned men,1 well skilled in the Greek sciences, and
living in peace and comfort, every man under his vine and
fig-tree.

This brings Benjamin to the one shadow which he throws
over his glowing picture of the Byzantine State. The
Greeks had every luxury and every grace, but nothing
could give them the spirit of men. Like women they were
fit for no warlike enterprise themselves, but hired soldiers
of all nations (whom they called Barbarians) to carry on
their wars with the Sultan of the Turks.- No Jews dwelt
in the city with the Christians ; they were forced to reside
beyond that arm of the sea where they were shut in by the
' Channel of Sophia,' and they could reach the central part
of the town by water only.3 Nor could any Jew ride upon
a horse, save one, the Imperial Physician, by whose influence
the Hebrews enjoyed many relaxations of oppression, even
if no abatement of the popular hatred. For Jews were still
often beaten in the streets, and tanners took special delight
in pouring the water of their tanneries upon passing Israelites,
' who being thus defiled become objects of contempt to the

1 Asher, Benjamin ii. 51, refers
(following Gibbon, ch. liii.) to the
Byzantine scholars and writers, Anna
Komnena, the Empress Eudocia,
Stobaeus, Suidas, Eustathius, Tzet-
zes, etc., in illustration of this remark
of Benjamin's, which probably has
especial reference to Jewish scholars.

2 Thogarmim. Among the soldiers
whom the Greeks hired were (1) the
Vaerings or Varangians, mostly
Scandinavians and English, but also

sometimes including various Slavonic
or Slavo-Norse hands ; (2) these
Slavo-Norsemen reckoned separately,
viz. Russians, etc. ; and (3) Bul-
garians, Alans, Khazars, and other
Turco-Tartars.

3 The Jewish quarter, called
'Stanor' (Stenon), was beyond the
Galata Tower, near the entrance of the
Port of the Golden Horn, and on the
Bosphorus itself, cf. Villehardouin,
153 ; Asher, Benjamin, ii. , 53.

238

BENJAMIN OF TCDELA

[Oh.

Greeks.' The Hebrew trade was largely in silk and cloth,
and the place of their colony, 2500 strong, was called
Pera.1

From the Bosphorus, through Eodosto,2 G-allipoli,
Mitylene, Chios,3 Samos, and Ehodes, the next stage of the
Records brings us to Cyprus, where Benjamin was shocked
by the atrocities of certain heretic Jews, ' Cyprians and
Epicureans,' who profaned the eve of the Sabbath and
hallowed that of the Sunday.4 Two days' journey from
Cyprus was the frontier of Armenia the Little, and the
realm of Thoros,5 King of the Mountains (of Cilicia), whose
rule extended to the land of the Turks. From this it is
clear that the Eabbi passed by this coast before 1167, when
Thoros died, at peace and in terms of vassalage with the
Emperor Manuel, whom he had so long resisted. Benjamin
evidently crossed from Cyprus to the Cilician or Armenian
coast at Corycus or Korghos, the Kirkes of Edrisi ; and he
passed out of the dominions of the Byzantines or ' Javanites '
at Malmistras or Mopsuestia, which he strangely identifies
with Tarsus.0

A little beyond this border-line was Great Antioch,
strongly fortified, but overlooked by a very high mountain,
and possessed by Prince Bohemund 7 the Poitevin, surnamed
the Stammerer, who had succeeded to the principality of

1 By the Greeks themselves it was
generally reckoned a part of Galata.

2 lihadesta in Ptolemy, . formerly
Bisanthe ; the modern name first
occurs in Benjamin, next in Yille-
hardouin.

3 Then, as now, famous for its
Mastic, cf. Edrisi, ii. 127, who
makes Samos also a centre of this
trade.

4 So they were not Karaites, any-
how, as Rapaport points out.

6 The town of Dhuchiawas onThoro
frontier. Benjamin's phrase appar-
ently refers to his past life as a rebel.
On Kirkes, cf. Edrisi, ii. 130.

6 The two places, of course, were
thoroughly distinct, and about 45
miles from one another ; both had
been reconquered by Manuel Com-
nenus in 1155.

7 Bohemund III., Prince of
Antioch, 1163-1200. On Antioch, cf.
William of Tyre, iv. 9, 10.

IV.]

FROM THE BOSPHORTJS TO LEBANON

239

Antioch shortly before. Thence by way of Latakiyeh x and
under Mount Lebanon, where Benjamin stops to tell us about
the Assassins of this region, who did not believe in the
tenets of Mohammed, but in those of one whom they thought
' like unto the prophet Kharmath.' 2 This chief, their Lord
and Master in life and death, was called the Old Man;3 his
dwelling was in the city or castle of Cadmus,4 which was
the Kedemoth of Scripture in the land of Sihon ; and his
followers were the dread of all men, for they would kill
even a king whom their chief had once devoted to death.
They were now at war with the Frank Christians, and
especially with the Count of Tripoli ; 6 but they were just as
hostile to many of the Moslems. The name of these Assassins
is no doubt from the drug Hashish ; and their society,
which somewhat resembled the Templars as a union of war
and religion, was formed in Persia (c. a.d. 1090) by Hassan6
Ibn Sabah, at the Castle of Alamut, in the province of Eudbar.
Eadically, it was a branch of the Shiites or supporters of Ali,

1 Lega, the ancient Laodicea,
founded by Seleucus Nikator in
honour of his mother, cf. Edrisi, ii.
131.

2 Founder of the ' Carmathians,'
who held a doctrine of the transmigra-
tion of the souls of their founders.
In this the Assassins do not seem to
have agreed.

3 A translation of ShayJch [-a/-
Hashishin] ; also called the Shaykh or
Chieftain ( ' Old Man ' i.e. ' Elder ) of
the mouutain, i.e. Lebanon.

4 Cf. Asher, Benjamin, ii. 66, on
the ' castle of Cadmus in the country
of the Anziery.'

5 The Count of Tripoli in Ben-
jamin's time was Raymond II., also
Count of Toulouse and St. Gilles.
In 1187 he bequeathed the county of
Tripoli to his godson Raymond, son

of Bohemund III., thus uniting the
counties of Antioch and Tripoli from
the accession of Raymond's brother,
Bohemund IV.

6 A minority derive the name of
' Assassin ' from this Hassan. Cf. ,
besides liashid - ecl - din, (1) A.
Jourdain, Dynastic cles Ismaeliens,
and Notices et extraits, ix. 143, etc.

(2) De Sacy, Chrestomathie arabe, i.
130 ; Memoire sur les Assassins,
1809 ; and Religion cles Druzcs, 1838.

(3) Quatremere's Notices sur les As-
sassins ou Ismaeliens (Mines dc
VOrient), iv. 339. (4) Hammer,
Geschichte der Assassiner, 1818 ; E.
trans., 1835. (5) Wilken, GesckicJde
der Kreuzziige, ii. 240. (6) Ritter,
Erdkunde, viii. 577, etc. (7) Falconet,
in Acad. Inscr., xvii. 127-170; (8)
Guyard, in Journ. Asiat., 1877.

240 BENJAMIN OF TUDELA [Ch.

and so in alliance with the Fatimites of Egypt. The title
of Ismaelites or Ismadians, also applied to them, was derived
from Ismael, seventh Imam in the line of Ali, a descendant of
whom became founder of the Fatimites (a.d. 909). Properly,
the Assassins seem to have been themselves a branch of the
Ismaelian secret societies, who under a cloak of extreme
religiousness taught absolute atheism, lawlessness, and licence,
and hence were called Mulehet or heretics ; Alamut, their
stronghold in the Lebanon, was destroyed by Sultan Bibars
in 1270. Jebail or Byblus, Benjamin's next resting-place, was
governed at this time by seven Genoese chiefs, among whom
was one Julian (otherwise Hugo, otherwise William), of the
great family of the Embriaci ; to the same house also
belonged the Admiral of the Fleet which in 1109 took
Byblus from the Saracens.1 This victory was a leading-
incident of the Crusades, and the conqueror became feudal
lord of the city on condition of paying a certain annual sum
to the state of Genoa. In Benjamin's time the Government
of Byblus seems to have been carried on by a committee
of seven, six nominated by Genoa, while the seventh was
always an Embriaco, who acted as President of Council.
Two clays' journey from Byblus was Beyrout ; a little
further Saida or Sidon ; - and within twenty miles of the
last lived the Druses. This strange sect confessed no
religion ; their dwellings were on the summits of the
mountains and on the ridges of rocks ; and they were not
subject to any prince. Mount Hernion was their boundary.
Their life was vicious, and in their folly they believed in

1 Cf. William of Tyre, xi. 9, who I queror Willelmus.

says that Hugo Embriaco was govern- t - On Beyrout and Sidon, cf.

in" Byblus when he wrote (about | Edrisi, i. 354-356. On Benjamin's

a.d. 1180), 'being a grandson of ' story of the temple and idol of the

the Hugo who conquered it,' but j Ammonites at Jebail, cf. Strabo, xvi. ,

ail other historians call the con- | ii. 18.

IV.] DESCRIPTION OF JERUSALEM 241

the transmigration of souls ; but they were unequalled
mountain-climbers and lived on friendly terms with the Jews.

Benjamin was perhaps aware that their belief was
derived from the Carmathians, and that, according to some,
the Druses were originally known as Karmath ; like the
Assassins and Fatimites, they were probably a branch of the
Ali schism and so ' Ismaelians ' ; but the mad Fatimite
Caliph Hakim became their especial hero and prophet. All
these secret societies of early Islam adopted allegorical
interpretations of the Koran, and so broke every law of
Mohammed with untroubled conscience.

In Palestine itself Benjamin's descriptions are usually
much more accurate than those of the Christian pilgrims ; and
in Jerusalem he shows to peculiar advantage, giving as many
facts and little fiction. Thus he notices the ancient stones
in the lower part of the city walls, the stables and hospitals
of Solomon, the large prayer-house called 'Sepulchre'
(containing 'the tomb of that man, visited by all pilgrims'),
and the cupola, on the site of the Temple, built by, or
bearing the name of, Omar. In the Holy City, small as it
was, people of all tongues met together — Jacobites and
Armenians, Greeks and Georgians, Franks and Jews ;
these last, two hundred in number, had command of the
dyeing trade, and paid a yearly sum to the Christian king
for the monopoly of this business. The four Gates of
Jerusalem, the Tower of David, the position of the Templars,
and the character of their Order, the isolated situation of
Mount Sion, the sepulchral monuments 1 and high moun-
tains in the neighbourhood, are all well, though briefly,
described by the liabbi ; he is less satisfactory in some of
the more out-lying parts of his own sacred country. Caesarea

1 He tells us a long story about the miracles that had defeated a
recent attempt to enter the sepulchres of the kings of Judah.

242 BENJAMIN OF TUDELA [Oh.

on the coast lie identities with Gath of the Philistines ;
Haifa, the ancient Ephah, with Gath Hachepher ; St. George
with Luz ; Tebnin, near Tiberias, with Thimnatha in Judaea ;
and Capernaum with Kephar Thanchum, as well as with
Meon, the abode of Nabal the Carmelite. This last con-
fusion, arising from the two Carmels, is found in many other
writers ; and the same may be said of Benjamin's tale of
the Salt Pillar of Lot's wife — ' incessantly licked by sheep,
it always grows again, and remains as large as ever' — a
method of treatment which we have already had in the
sixth-century pilgrim, Antoninus Martyr.

With all this we are fortunately able to contrast many
excellent and reliable descriptions and references ; thus an
admirable account is here given of the Samaritans of Gerizim,
of the Patriarchal Tombs at Hebron, and of the neighbour-
hood of the Sea of Galilee, as well as of the cities of Acre
and New Tyre. The last-named, a beautiful town, with an
unrivalled port, was still famous for its glass and purple
dye ; 1 both of these manufactures were largely in the hands
of Jews, who, moreover, possessed a great ship-owning
interest. The harbour was guarded by two towers, and
a chain drawn across the entrance of the haven every
night ; from the walls of the city the curious might see
the remains of the ancient or Crowning Tyre, ' whose
merchants were princes and whose traffickers the honourable
of the earth,' 2 but which now lay, with all its towers,
markets, streets, and halls, at the bottom of the sea. Acre,
the frontier town of Palestine, was the place where most
pilgrims disembarked — at least, of those who took the
maritime routes. When Benjamin visited the country, it
was still in Christian hands, and was rightly considered the

1 Cf. Edrisi, i. 349. 2 Isaiah xxiii. 8,

IV.] TYRE, HEBRON, NABLUS, ETC. 243

key of the Syrian coast and the most capacious and con-
venient of Syrian harbours.

But it is perhaps at Hebron that the author's Palestine
narrative is most valuable. He carefully distinguishes
between the old town on the hill, long since ruined, and
the newer city in the held of Machpelah. Here was the
Church of St. Abraham, which, under the Mohammedan
rule, had been a synagogue (or mosque); and in this
building supposititious tombs of the patriarchs had been
erected. But if an additional fee were given to the keeper
of the cave, the real graves might be seen ; an iron door
opened, which itself dated from the time of the Hebrew
forefathers ; and, with a burning candle in his hand, the
visitor could descend into a first and second cave, neither
of which held anything, and so arrive at the third, where
the genuine tombs of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their
wives lay beneath an ever-burning lamp. All around were
tubs or casks full of the bones of Jews who had been laid
to rest in this most holy place, which (outside Jerusalem)
had but one rival, Nablus ] and Mount Gerizim. This also
was visited by Benjamin ; but here he found no Jews and
only a hundred Samaritans, observers of the Mosaic rite,
pure and simple, and called Cutheans. Among their
priests were descendants of Aaron ; the whole people
claimed to be of the tribe of Ephraim ; and they possessed
the bones of Joseph. Tn their synagogue on Mount Gerizim
they offered sacrifices and burnt-offerings, and this, they
pretended, was the Holy Temple, where sacrifices alone
might be offered. But in spite of their unquestionable
advantages, they were not full or true Hebrews ; three of
the letters of the alphabet were wanting in their pronuncia-

1 Benjamin accurately identifies I just one of the points where a Jew
NaMiis and Shechem, this being | would go right ; cf. Edrisi, i. 339,

244

BENJAMIN OF TUDELA

[Ch.

tion ; and from the lack of one their glory was taken away,
from the absence of the second they were denied the gift
of piety, and from the loss of the third it followed that
they had no humility. All their ceremonial care against
defilement, their changes of garments and frequent washings,
did not avail them.

In the vicinity of the Sea of Galilee the Records notice
a pretended sepulchre of Samuel, apparently forgetting the
plain statement of the Old Testament ; loosely assume
Paneas or Belinas to be the ancient Dan ; and, though not
giving the ordinary tradition of the fountains Jor and
Dan, only substitute another legend of more elaborate in-
accuracy. The Jordan, according to this story, issued from
a cave ; three miles beyond, the sacred river united its
waters with that of the Mocibite Arnon j in front of the
cave were vestiges of the image and altar of Mikha, an idol
of the children of Dan ; while close by was the site of Jero-
boam's shrine of the Golden Calf, at the northern confines
of Israel, towards the ' uttermost sea.' l So much, for legend.
With this Benjamin, after his manner, proceeds to mingle
some other and more useful, because contemporary, notices.

In Tiberias there lived a Jewish astrologer or astronomer
named Abraham, a typical figure in an age when learned
Hebrews so often acted as scientific advisers to the great men
of the earth, Alfonso X. of Castile, Sultan Seif-ed-din of Mosul,2
the early Caliphs, or the French kings of the twelfth century.
Benjamin of Tudela differs widely from Petachia of
Eatisbon in his reckoning of 'two hundred' Jews as re-
sident in the Holy City ; and remembering that the

1 The Mediterranean, as in Dent.
xi. 2-4, which Benjamin is probably
quoting.

- His Hebrew astronomer was
named Joseph ; cf. also Salomon of

Mesopotamia in the ninth (?) cen-
tury, at Nineveh ; R. Isaac, son of
Baruch, a.d. 1080; and another R.
Isaac, who nourished in France, c.
1150. See Asher, Benjamin, ii. 104.

IV.] OTHER PLACES IN PALESTINE 245

Crusaders killed most of ' Christ's enemies ' when they
took Jerusalem in 1099, and barred it against those enemies
as long and as much as possible, the estimate of ' one '
Hebrew, given by the German visitor, is certainly more
plausible. But there is a striking agreement between the
present Records and other writings of this time, on the
question of the fertility of Judaea ; near Bethlehem the
country then abounded with rivulets, wells, and springs ;
and only a land of considerable resources could have sus-
tained the numerous Christian garrisons which were camped
upon its soil. One of these fortresses, to which is signifi-
cantly given the Spanish name of Toron de los Cabatteros,
and which is placed at Shunem, was probably that now
called the Frank Mountain, to the south-east of the birth-
place of Jesus ; another was at Tbelin (the ' Yabneh of
Antiquity '), where the great Crusading house of Balian had
their home, and from whence they controlled their fiefs of
Jaffa and Ascalon.

It is curious that our Records, which aim at preserving a
memorial even of the smallest Jewish communities, and
which mention the obscure and decayed Ashdod or Palmis,
o rarely noticed in the Middle Ages, are wholly silent as to
Safed, near the Lake of Chinnereth or Merom. For here
was the principal Hebrew settlement in Palestine ; here in
later time, and probably at the era of Benjamin's visit, was
a university ; and near here the traveller must have passed, if
we may judge from his description of Merom or Maron, and
its cave, with the sepulchres of Hillel, Shammai, and other
noted teachers — a place of Israelitish pilgrimage within sight
of the ' City set on a hill' l

Damascus, lately seized by Sultan Nur-ed-din, ' King of
the Turks,' son and successor of Zenghi the old Atabeg
1 I.e. Safed. which Petachia also omits, cf. Asher, Benjamin, ii. 107-S.

246 BENJAMIN OF TUDELA [Ch.

of Mosul, and head of the Western branch of the Seljuk
race, was admired by the Hebrew wayfarer in common
with almost every visitor and in nearly the same language.
Its surroundings, within a circuit of fifteen miles, presented
gardens and orchards unequalled in the world ; so Moslems
termed the Ghutah of Damascus, along with Samarcand and
the neighbourhood of Basrah or Bassora, one of the three
earthly Paradises. All this beauty was the result of careful
irrigation ; for the waters of the Abana and Pharpar
(the Amana and Parpar of Benjamin) flowing from Mount
Hermon, on which the city leant, were carried in pipes
through the streets, markets, and houses of the oasis.

A great trade was maintained here between merchants of
all countries ; among these were numbered three thousand
Jews, two hundred Karaites, and four hundred Samaritans ;
here was also a seat of Hebrew learning, perhaps a survival
from the days when the Ommeyad Caliphs reigned at
Damascus, and impartially encouraged every kind of
science, even when professed by Christian or Rabbinical
doctors. The most notable of their buildings, the great
mosque or ' synagogue ' of Walid, is described with curious
awe and wonder by the traveller. It was formerly the
palace of Ben-Hadad, as men said, and one of its walls was
framed of glass, constructed by enchantment, and provided
with as many openings as there were days in the year. Into
these the sun threw its light in regular succession, and as
each of the openings was divided into twelve degrees, ac-
cording to the hours of the day, even the lesser parts of
time could be known. It is singular that Benjamin should
speak with bated breath of a building in glass which was
only the most splendid of many similar works in Moslem
countries or in China ; but he came, not from the highly
civilised Spain of Andalusia, but from the upland of the

IV. J DAMASCUS, BAALBEK, ETC. 247

Pyrenaean region, where such refinements were unknown,
or known merely as the triumphs of wizardry.

In Damascus, moreover, lived the President of the
University of Palestine ; until the Crusades this seat of
learning had been (for some time) in Jerusalem ; the Frank
conquest extinguished it ; but in Benjamin's day it was
revived in a new home. On this point the Records are con-
firmed by Moses Maimonides : and by Petachia, who also
agree in the statement that the presiding teachers of Syrian
Judaism were nominated by the Prince of the Captivity at
Bagdad.

Half a day's journey from Damascus brought the author
to Baalbek, not often visited or mentioned by mediaeval
travellers, and identified in one Hebrew tradition (here re-
produced) with Baalath in the Valley of Lebanon, built by
Solomon for Pharaoh's daughter. The stones of this
' palace ' were of enormous size, Benjamin truly remarks ;
some measured twenty spans by twelve ; no binding
material held them together ; and the whole thing was so
marvellous that some believed it could only have been
erected with the help of Asmodai. Tadmor in the desert,
the classical Palmyra, was also built by Solomon with
equally gigantic stones ; it was walled, and contained two
thousand warlike Jews, living far from any other habitation,
and engaged in constant hostilities with the Christians of
Northern Syria and with the subjects of Nur-ed-din.

It is not clear how the author made his way onwards
from Damascus to Aleppo and the Euphrates ; for, though
he mentions Tadmor, Hamath on the Orontes, Hazor, and
Bales or Pethor on the Euphrates at the edge of the desert,
it is by no means certain that he passed through all these
places ; his statements of distance are very loose, and the

' Commentary on the Mishna, A.D. 1167.

248 BENJAMIN OF TUDELA [Ch.

order of the localities mentioned is not always that of a
possible itinerary ; but of course the lapse of time and the
confusion of his notes may account for many inaccuracies.
He alludes to an earthquake which had recently laid
Hamath in ruins (a.d. 1157); and at Bales or Barbarissus
he records the tradition of Balaam's Tower ( ' may the name
of the wicked rot ' ), which the enemy of Israel built ' in
accordance with the hours of the day.' In Aleppo he
dwells on the scarcity of water, whereas Edrisi1 praises it
for the abundance of its supply ; all the Arabic authorities,
however, agree with Benjamin that this town was the
residence of ISTur-ed-din, and strongly fortified by him (1149-
1173). On the whole, it seems probable that the Eabbi
struck the Euphrates at Barbarissus and followed the course
of the great river through Davana or Kalat Jiaber (the ' fort
Jiaber ' of the Crusaders),2 to Bakka ; then, drawn aside like
Marco Polo by the commercial renown of Mosul, we may
suppose that he proceeded due east from the borders of
Mesopotamia through Nisibis, by a route sometimes ascribed
to Alexander the Great. Jiaber, he tells us, had been re-
tained by the Arabs when the Turkish invasions swept over
this country, and dispersed the children of the desert in
their ancient wastes ; Bakka, the Callinicum of the Greeks,
the scene of Al Bateni's astronomical observations (c. 900) in
an old palace of Harun-al-Bashid, was also on the frontier
of the Thogarmim,3 and rejoiced in a colony of seven
hundred Jews and a synagogue built by Ezra the scribe,
' when he returned from Jerusalem to Babylon.' Another of
Ezra's buildings was at Charrhae or Haran, the place of the
defeat of Crassus and the call of Abraham ; this spot was

1 Edrisi, ii. 136.

2 Thirty-five miles below Bir or
Birrah, an important river station,
where the Euphrates proper began,

according to one view.

s The Turks, cf. Lebrecht in Asher,
Benjamin, ii. 318-392.

IV.] MESOPOTAMIA, MOSUL, ETC. 249

reverenced ' even ' by Moslems, who suffered no one to erect
anything where tradition placed the House of the Common
Forefather, that ' true Moslem,' ' sound in faith,' preacher
of the Divine Unity, and teacher of the Resurrection, who,
according to Arabic belief, was himself (with Ishmael) the
builder of the Kaaba at Mecca, and specially called to be an
Imam or Minister of God to all mankind.1

A third synagogue, ascribed to Ezra, is noticed by
Benjamin at or near Bezebde, or Jezirah ben Omar, an
island in the Tigris, and a famous market for the trade
between Mosul and Armenia, where the Rabbi locates a
mosque of Omar constructed from the Ark of Noah. Four
miles from the river at this place was the Mount Ararat
on which the Ark had rested; thus the 'Sublime Mountain'
is calmly transferred from the other side of Kurdistan. In
the same confused manner Benjamin alludes to the great
Hebrew academy at Pumbeditha in Nehardea, which he
identifies with El Jubar on the Euphrates as the centre
of a large colony of Jews and the home of many eminent
scholars.

From Haran the narrative brings, us to Nisibis, a ' large
city plentifully watered,' and celebrated for the long
struggles waged over it by Rome and Persia ; here was a
considerable settlement 2 of Jews ; and from this meeting-place
of commercial and military highways we move onward to the
Tigris, reaching the Arrowy Stream a little north of
Mosul. In the neighbourhood of the ' Muslin ' town, on
the other side of the river, and united by a bridge with the

1 For these titles of Abraham, as Family of Imran, verses 60, 89; vi.,

given in the Koran, and all the
other details of the Moslem view,
cf. chs. ii., The Cow, verses 118-128,
130. 134, 260, 262; also lxxxvii.,
The Most High, verse 19 ; iii., The.

Cattle, verses 74-84, 162; xvi., The
Bee, verse 121 ; xxix., The Spider,
verses 15-30 ; xliii., Ornaments of
Gold, verses 25-27.
- One thousand.

250 BENJAMIN OF TUDELA [Ch.

mediaeval city, was Nineveh, the true Asshur of the Old
Testament, though Benjamin transfers this name to the site
of Mosul. The Assyrian capital lay in ruins, but its site
was covered with small towns and villages: hereabouts were
no fewer than seven thousand Jews, and among them a
prince of the House of David and a certain Rabbi Joseph,
the court-astronomer of Seif-ed-din, brother of Nur-ed-din of
Damascus.

Benjamin was now on the ' confines of Persia,' but he
stops here to mention Carchemish on the Euphrates, Eeho-
both on the same river, and a number of towns and Hebrew
sepulchres of note in the neighbourhood of Pumbeditha,
before commencing his minute and interesting account of
Bagdad, the ' metropolis of the Emir-al-Mumemin al Abassi,'
or Abbasside Caliph. This potentate, acknowledged by all
Saracenic kings, and holding a dignity over them just as the
Pope of Pome enjoyed over the Christians, was very
friendly towards the Jews, and many of his officers
were of that nation ; he understood all languages, was
versed in the law of Moses, and read and wrote the
Hebrew tongue. He enjoyed nothing but what he earned
by the labour of his own hands ; and therefore manu-
factured coverlets which he stamped with his seal, and
which his officers sold in the public market ; these articles
were bought by the nobles of the land, and from their pro-
duce his necessaries were provided. His character was
that of a trustworthy and kind-hearted man, but he was
generally invisible. Pilgrims who came to Bagdad from
distant lands, on their way to Mecca, often asked to see
the ' brightness of his face,' but were only allowed to behold
and kiss one end of his garment. All the brothers and
relatives of the Caliph were then confined within their
palaces and chained in iron, because of a recent rebellion.

IV. 1 DESCRIPTION OF BAGDAD 251

Only once a year did the Caliph leave his palace, at the
Feast of Ramadan, when he was escorted by princes of
Arabia, Persia, and even of Tibet, a land distant three
months' journey from Arabia. The reigning Pontiff', among
other building's, had erected houses, streets, and hostelries
for the sick poor, and sixty medical warehouses were pro-
vided with spices and other necessaries from his stores. Out
of pure charity he had also arranged for the confinement
and chaining in irons of all the insane, who were par-
ticularly numerous during the hot season.

The ' Prince of the Captivity ' (as the Jews called him),
the ' noble descendant of David ' (in the Moslem phrase), was
treated with great honour. All the Caliph's subjects had
to rise in his presence and salute him with respect, under a
penalty of a hundred stripes. On his visits to the sovereign
he was escorted by horsemen who cleared the road, himself
also riding on the noble animal so often forbidden to the
Jews, and wearing a turban on his head covered with a
white silk cloth and surmounted by a diadem. His
authority is defined by our traveller as extending over
Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia, Khorasan, Sheba, ' which is
Yemen,' Diarbekr, Armenia, the Land of Kota near Mount
Ararat, and the Land of the Alans, which was shut in
by mountains, and had no outlet except by the iron gates
made by Alexander. Nor was this all. His sway was
also acknowledged by the Jews in Sikbia and the pro-
vinces of the Turkomans, as far as the 'Aspisian' Moun-
tains ; in the country of the Georgians ' unto the river
Oxus (these are the Girgasim of Scripture and believe in
Christianity) ' ; and even in Tibet and India. This Jewish
High Priest also possessed hostelries, gardens, and orchards
in Babylonia, and extensive landed property. His
' cathedral,' the ' metropolitan synagogue,' was ornamented

252 BENJAMIN OF TUDELA [Oh.

with pillars of rich marble, plated with gold and silver ; it
was but one of twenty-eight prayer-houses in the city of
Bagdad, which also contained ten Hebrew colleges, but only
one thousand Jews.

So much for the leading personages of Bagdad. Coming
to other and lesser matters, Babbi Benjamin has to tell us
of the Hebrew professors and doctors of the city, and of
the Caliph's palace and park, three miles in extent, filled
with all kinds of beasts and trees, and containing a pond or
lake supplied with water from the Tigris. He also dilates
upon the palm-trees, gardens, and orchards, the philosophy,
science, and magic of the Mohammedan capital, as well as
upon the trade, flowing in from all countries, which made
it the equal, and more than the equal, of Constantinople.
We cannot but suspect an error in the traveller's figures,
when, after all this- exposition of the glories of an un-
paralleled ' metropolis,' he assigns a space of three miles as
the circuit of the same, and puts the number of its
Hebrew citizens at a bare seventieth of the Jewish
Community at Kufa. It has already been noticed that
Benjamin's visit was probably in or about the year of Christ,
1164, in the reign of Mostanieh-abul-Modhaffer, when
Bagdad had to a great extent recovered from its political
decay, and stood as high as ever in social and commercial
importance. A century was yet to elapse before ruin came
upon it with the descent of the Mongols (1258) ; and in the
middle of the Crusading age it may well have contained
half a million of human beings, a larger populace than could
be found in any city of Europe.

After Bagdad, as all careful readers have noticed,
Benjamin's narrative takes a different character. It is no
longer, for the most part, a record of personal travel ; it is
rather an attempt to supplement the first part ' of tilings

rV.] LEGENDS IN BENJAMIN 253

seen,' by a second, l of things heard.' The writer now
hastily surveys the world from China to Bagdad, and con-
cludes with a few particulars about lands to the far south
or north, like Arabia or Germany, as to which we cannot
always assume any personal experience on his part.

This second portion of Benjamin's work, abounding in
fables and pleasant stories, is not so characteristic as the
former. For the compiler is more truly a representative, not
of the geographical mythology of the twelfth century, but of
the historical and scientific spirit of observation and enquiry
which was slowly gaining upon the legendary temper of mind ;
and it will be enough to pass very briefly over the conces-
sions here made to romance, noticing, however, the not infre-
quent passages where the author reverts to matter of fact.

Babel or Babylon, a mass of ruins extending over thirty
miles, and containing the furnace of the three children,
the tower1 of the dispersed generation, and the palace of
Nebuchadnezzar, is described, in the manner of sixth-century
pilgrims, as unapproachable on account of the scorpions and
serpents that infested the site. Various wild stories follow, not
without some foundation in a long-past history, but tricked
out with almost Mandevillian extravagance, on the Hebrews
of Southern Arabia, who were Bechabites, and lived twenty-
one clays' journey through the desert of ' Yemen or Sheba.'
These rigid Talmudists were a terror to their neighbours ;
they fasted all their lives except on Sabbaths and Holy
days ; and they were always dressed in black. Their capital
was at the large city of Thema or Tehama ; and their
country extended sixteen days' journey towards the northern
mountain range. Still more incredible particulars are re-
lated of various other tribes of independent and warlike

1 Probably the Birs Nimrtid. Twenty thousand (0 Jews lived in the neigh-
bourhood of Babel, according to Benjamin ; of. Asher, ii. 139-HO,

254

BENJAMIN OF TUDELA

[Ch.

Israelites in the heart of the sacred land of Islam, for-
bidden to (and guarded against) all but Moslems since the
days of the Prophet. At Telmas were 100,000 similar,
though not as perfect, Eechabites ; in the notorious Chaibar
(so long the obstacle to Mohammed's progress and the chief
cause of his later hostility to Judaism), were 50,000 more ;
while in Thanaejm no less than 300,000 Hebrews lived in a
town fifteen square miles in area. Uninhabited deserts
separated these people from their neighbours.

In Khuzistan or Elam, Benjamin is mostly occupied with
the tomb of Daniel at Susa, — just as at Napacha, near
Babylon, he gives many details of the synagogue and
sepulchre of Ezekiel. As usual, Moslems vied with Jews
in paying honour to the ancient prophets of Israel. Noble
Mohammedans resorted to Napacha to pray at Ezekiel's
tomb,1 which no one dared plunder or profane, even in
time of war; here also Arabian merchants were to be found
mingled with Hebrews, at the Festivals of the New Year and
Atonement, when devotions were accompanied by trade, and
the best was made of both worlds. The library attached to
Ezekiel's shrine at this place, containing some manuscripts
coeval with the first temple ; the lamp that burnt day and
night upon his grave, and had never been extinguished
since the son of Buzi lighted it himself ; and the neighbouring
tombs of Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, — were all treated with
profound respect by the Unitarians of the Later Eevelation,
who honoured this holy spot with the surprising title of
an ' agreeable abode.'

Likewise at Susa Jewish gratitude remembered the

1 Near Napacha, which perhaps is
the Nachaba of Ptolemy. Benjamin
also notices the tomb of Nahum at
Ain Japhata, perhaps the site near

Elkoth, East of the Tigris, where
Col. Shiel was shown the sepulchre
of the Prophet. {Journal of the
Geographical Society, viii. 93).

IT,] JEWS OF PERSIA AND MIDDLE ASIA 255

honour lately paid to the sepulchre of Daniel by the leading
Seljuk prince and ' Supreme Commander of Persia,' Sultan
Sanjar Shah-ben-Shah, whose rule stretched from the Persian
Gulf to Samarcand and even Tibet — a four months' journey,
with the Shatt-el-Arab at one end, and at the other the moun-
tains and forests where the musk-producing deer was found.

When this great Emperor once visited Shushan, he ordered
the coffin of Daniel the prophet, enclosed in an outer shell of
glass, to be hung from the middle of the bridge over the
'River of Susa' by chains of iron: and so it remained in
the time of Rabbi Benjamin. For the greater honour of the
illustrious dead, no one was suffered to fish in the river over
a space of one mile on each side of the coffin.

From Shushan, whose exact position is still matter of
controversy, Benjamin proceeds (in his enumeration of
localities, if not in any real itinerary of his own) to the
River Holwan and the district of Mulehet (near the south
coast of the Caspian), possessed by a sect who did not believe
in Islam, but lived on the summit of high mountains, pay-
ing obedience only to the Old Man in the land of the
Assassins (of Lebanon). These mountains are evidently
grouped by the Rabbi with the range of Khaphton or
Zagros, in which were scattered more than a hundred
congregations of dispersed Jews, descendants of the captives
of Shalmaneser, like the Hebrews of Arabia already noticed.
In connection with the Jews of Amaria (reckoned among the
congregations of Mount Khaphton) the Records here insert
the long and wonderful story of David-el-roy, a pseudo-
Messiah, whose feats of magic were performed through a
knowledge of the Secret or Unrevealed Name of God. Armed
with this mystery, it was easy for him to cross rivers on his
outspread shawl, and to appear and disappear at will.

At Hamadan or Ecbatana Benjamin notices the tombs

256

BENJAMIN OF TUDELA

[Oh.

of Mordecai and Esther ; at Ispahan was the royal seat of
Persia ; at Shushan the palace of Ahasuerus and tomb of
Daniel, so highly honoured by the greatest of the Seljuk
Princes.1 Then, from Shiraz or Fars, near the Persian Gulf,
seven clays' journey only would conduct the traveller to
' Giva ' on the Oxus, close to the northern frontier of
Sultan Sanjar ; the distance is but a wild guess ; yet,
however the route may be shortened in the Rabbi's figures,
all that he says about Khiva, its extensive market, its
traders of all lands and tongues, and its flat surroundings,
is plausible enough. The fifty thousand Jews of Samarcand
seem more open to question ; but the future capital of Timur,
before the advent of the Mongols, must have contained a
great populace, if we are to put any faith at all in the Arab
geographers and historians who from the days of Ibn

1 The position of the ruins of Susa
or Shushan has been much disputed,
but it may now be fixed at (a) Susan,
35 Kil. 35 of Dizful in Khuzistan,
close to the intersection of N. Lat. 32,
E. Long. 48, rather than at (j3)
Sinister on the River Karun. The
tradition of the tomb of David is
very old ; it is to be found, e.g. in
Aasim of Kufa (c. A.D. 735). As to
various minor localities of Persia re-
ferred to in Benjamin, it may be
noticed here, e.g. that the Rabbi's
notes on the River Samarra and the
sepulchre of Ezra show how the land,
especially in the Shatt-el-Arab, must
have considerably altered. Perhaps
even as late as the twelfth century the
Tigris had a separate channel to the
Gulf. For Benjamin's City of Da-
baristan or Tabaristan (cf. Edrisi, ii.
180), Asher, ii. 168, suggests Faraha-
bad, the capital of Tabaristan
province. The Rabbi's ' Sura, ' to the
north of Bagdad, was foreight hundred

years the seat of a famous Hebrew
University ; his ' mountains of
Kazvin ' are probably the Elburz range
(Damavand, etc.) ; his ' Amaria' was
perhaps in the Holwan region, be-
tween Bagdad and Kazvin, where
Jewish tradition is still very strong
and traces of Jewish blood very
common. The Jews of Mulehet,
according to Benjamin, united with
the Assassins in their raids ; yet
they obeyed the Prince of the
Captivity at Bagdad, — a curious
inconsistency. On the Rabbi's ' land
of Kuth ' (or Kotha) in North Persia,
cf. 2 Kings xvii. 24-30 ; Josephus,
Antiquities, ix. 14, 3. On Hillah and
Babel, cf. Edrisi, ii. 160. On Mosul,
cf. Edrisi, ii. 148 ; Petachia, 171
(Wagenseil). On Napacha and the
tombs of Ezekiel and Nahum, so
carefully described by Niebuhr, cf.
Petachia, 197 ("Wagenseil), where
many details are added. See also
Asher, ii., 130-2, 136-143. 155-162.

IV.]

PARTICULARS OF THE FURTHER EAST

257

Haukal reserve their choicest superlatives for the Sogd.
The Hebrews of Northern Persia, as we have seen, some-
times combined with the Assassins ; they also allied them-
selves on occasion with the ' Ghozzes,' Oguz, or ' infidel '
Turks,1 who adored the wind and lived in the desert, ate no
bread or cooked meat, but endured a diet of raw flesh, and
being destitute of noses, breathed only through two small
holes. These monsters had invaded Iran 'about eighteen
years before ' ; probably Benjamin here refers to their great
triumph over Sanjar (1153-1156), when so many cities, from
Merv to Eai, fell before them.

On the Persian Gulf a considerable trade was still
maintained from Arabia, Yemen, India, and the islands of
the ocean, but there is no mention here, as in some earlier
writers, of the junks of China.

Prom the island-mart of Kish,2 ten days brought the
voyager to a famous bed of pearls3 at El Katif, and seven
more landed the sailor at Khnlam4 in Malabar, on the

Cf. Edrisi, i. 181 ; ii. 208-9. The
Ogouzesor Oguz in the twelfth century
moved across the Oxus to the east of
Balkh ; for a time they paid tribute
to Sultan Sanjar ; but in 1153 they
revolted, and in 1156 they defeated
and captured Sanjar, after a reign of
twenty years in Khorasan. After this
the Oguz stormed and sacked Merv,
Nishapur, and many other places.

2 Kish (otherwise Kaish, Keis, Qas
Kiis, or Keish) was the greatest port
of the Lower Persian Gulf, between
the eleventh and the fourteenth
centuries ; its prosperity comes
between that of Siraf and Ormuz.
Perhaps it is the Kataia of Nearchus'
Journal ; it is mentioned by M. Polo ;
by Edrisi and Abulfeda, who both ap-
parently copy an earlier writer ; and
by Kazwini. Cf. Asher, ii. 175-8.

3 Edrisi, i. 377, gives the same
account as Benjamin of the origin of
pearls. El Katif is the Kotaif of
Ibn Batuta, and perhaps corresponds
to the ancient Gerra. Cf. Edrisi, i.
371 ; Asher, ii. 178-9 ; it lay on the
Arabian shore of the Persian Gulf,
and had an important trade.

4 Otherwise Coulam, Culam, Culan,
Quilon, etc ; Edrisi, i. 176-7, says
the King of Kulam adored Buddha
— that is, at the end of the eleventh
century or beginning of the twelfth.
In the fourteenth century Ibn Batuta
vaguely calls the same potentate an
'infidel,' but perhaps Benjamin's
statement may refer to the Parsis,
who had lied for refuge to Malabar
from Moslem persecution. See
Ouseley's Travels, vols. i. and iii.,
and K. Bitter's Erdkunde, ii. 58 ;

258 BENJAMIN OF TUDELA [Cu.

confines of the Sun- Worshippers, children of Kush, all black
and given to astrology, but trustworthy in trade. Here the
heat was so great that all business was transacted at night.
Secretaries of the king reported upon the lading of every
ship ; and after this report had been made, goods might be
left about anywhere. If any articles were lost, they were
almost always brought to one of the royal officers specially
appointed to receive such things. Benjamin describes the
black and white pepper,1 the cinnamon, ginger, and other spices
of this land, where the dead were not buried but embalmed,
and he reprobates the enchantments of the people, whereby
the images of the sun revolved at dawn with wondrous
noise : — ' this their way is their folly.' Far beyond, a journey
of two-and-twenty days, lay Khandy or Ceylon,2 inhabited
by adorers of fire, among whom were twenty-three thousand
Jews. The worship of these necromancers, their suttee, their
Moloch-like ritual, and what some have thought to be their
doctrine of transmigration, are, perhaps, the grounds on which
Benjamin identifies them with the Druses of Syria.3

v. (i.) 594 ; v. 615 ; M. Polo, iii. 25 ;
Barbosa, 223 (Quatremere's Extracts),
pp. 157, 172, 173, of Hakl. Scc.'s
edition of the Description of East
African and Malabar Coasts.

On the white and black Jews of Mala-
bar, reported by R. Benjamin, cf Buch-
anan, Christian Researches; Asher, ii.
183-5 ; Ritter, Erdkunde, v. 595, etc.

of Taprobane and Britain ( De Munch,
ch. iii.) Benjamin's remarks on the
Jews of Ceylon suggest an intercourse
with Bagdad, via Kish — a mere
trifle to the intercourse between the
Moslems of Ceylon and Spain.

:; Their priests were unequalled nec-
romancers. In their houses of
prayer were ditches in which large

The white Jews of this colony claim i fires burnt ; through these they

to have settled in Malabar a.d. 231. | passed their children, and herein they

1 Noticed by every subsequent \ threw their dead. The great of this
traveller of importance in these i land sometimes burnt themselves
regions, especially Ibn Batuta. For ! alive, all applauding and saying, ' Oh,
'cinnamon' some read 'sugar-cane.' I happy are ye, and well shall it be

2 Cf. also the forms 'Cingala' and : with you.' While the devotee was
' Gingaleh ' ; see Ritter, Erdkunde, j burning, all showed the greatest joy,
vi. 44-02, who refers to Aristotle's j and played upon instruments. A
famous comparison of the positions ! few days after, the spirit of the dead

IV.]

CEYLON, MALABAR, CHINA, ADEN

259

From Cejdon the passage to China was made in forty
days. The Eabbi is one of the earliest Europeans to give to
the great country of the Far East its modern name,1 but he
only says that it lay to the eastward, and that, according to
some, the star Orion dominated the ungovernable sea of
Nikpha which bounded it. From the Arabian travellers or
story-tellers our present narrative borrows the story of the
ship-wrecked mariners saving themselves in the bides of
oxen and by the help of giant birds.2 At this time, as
before, there were certainly Jews in China ; and it may have
been this circumstance which led Benjamin to mention the
country ; but he says nothing of these Hebrew colonies ;
all he records about the Indian Ocean and the Far East is
probably from the hearsay of merchants and others whom
he met in Bagdad and at the head of the Persian Gulf.

Aden,3 ' the Eden of Scripture,' in ' Continental India,'

(or, as Benjamin thinks, the devil in
his image) would appear to his
family, and give orders for the dis-
charge of his debts. On the Druses
of Ceylon, cf. Anciennes Relations,
85, 165. On the Jews of Ceylon, cf.
Asher, ii. 188, and Edrisi, i. 72, who
gives them a position of great import-
ance, even politically. The name
' Cingala ' or ' Gingaleh ' is perhaps
connected with the tradition of an old
Chinese colony near Point de Galle.
Evidently Benjamin conceives Gin-
galeh as different from Khandy.

1 From the dynasty of the Kin ;
like 'Cathay,' from the previous
dynasty of the 'Khitai' or 'Kitai. '

2 Large eagles called griffins, who,
taking them for cattle, carried them
to their nests to consume at leisure.
The man then cut open the hide and
escaped. All this is probably ex-
tracted bv Benjamin from the stand-

ard book of travellers' tales to which
Sinbad owes so much ; cf. Edrisi, i,
96-7.

3 ' Continental ' or ' Middle' India,
' called Aden, and in Scripture Eden
in Thelasar.' There is a striking
parallel here with M. Polo, who
makes Abyssinia, plus the West
Arabian shore, equivalent to
'Middle,' 'Second,' or 'Continental'
India ; cf. the Persian name of
'Black Indians' for Abyssinians.
Benjamin's Khulan, mentioned im-
mediately after Gingaleh, is perhaps
Socotra, or some point near the en-
trance of the Persian Gulf. After it
the Records name Sebid (also in
Edrisi, i. 49), a very important
market, one hundred and thirty-two
miles from Sana'a in Yemen. For
'Eden in Thelasar,' cf. 2 Kings xix.
12 ; Isaiah xxxvii. 12 ; the only
Thelas(s)ar known is in Mesopotamia.

260

BENJAMIN OF TUDELA

[Ch.

famous for its mountains and its independent Jews, was at
war with the Christian Kingdom of Nubia.1 This reference
(as far as the Hebrews are concerned) seems like a con-
fusion with an earlier time, before the rise of the Prophet
Mohammed, when Jewish kings reigned in Yemen and
fought with the Christians of Abyssinia. In the twelfth
century Nubia was slowly becoming Islamised ; but this
process was not completed till the time of Albuquerque ;
and the Rabbi's notice of Christianity in that land is sound
enough.2 Thence he brings us through the Desert of Sheba
to Assuan, on the banks of the Nile or Pison, which here
came down from the country of the Blacks, inhabited by
people who often resembled the beasts, ate herbs, and were
without the notions of other men. From Assuan the
Records transport one to Khalua, whence caravans crossed
the Desert of Sahara in fifty clays ' even unto Zavilah,3 the
Havilah of Scripture, which is in the land of Ghanah.' 4 This
caravan trade was often endangered by sand-storms, but its
commerce was extensive ; iron, copper, fruit, pulse, and salt
were offered against gold and precious stones. The whole

1 On Christian Nubia, cf. Masudi,
i. 17-23, in Quatremere's Extracts.
On Assuan, the ancient Syene, so
important in early geographical cal-
culations, cf. Ibn Haukal, Eclrisi, and
Masudi, ii. 4, 9 (Quatremere).

2 Governed by a ' Sultan - al-
Habesh,' by whom perhaps we must
understand Prester John of Abys-
sinia. The Nile, in Benjamin, is also
called a ' Sea.' Masudi speaks of the
Nubian Apes, ii. 30 (Quatremere),
and perhaps is here misunderstood by
Benjamin. Cf. Asher, ii. 192-5.

3 Zavilah, Zuila, or Zuela, is in
Edrisi, i. 25S-9, and is said by him
to be remarkable for the splendour
of its bazaars, streets, and buildings.

Khalua or Alua is the Ghalua of
Edrisi, i. 33, and is mentioned by
several Arabic writers as a place of
Jacobite Christians and a * starting-
point for Sahara caravans. Ghanah
was doubtless the country of the
modern Jenne on the Upper Niger ;
cf. Azurara, Discovery and Conquest
of Guinea, Hakl. Soc. Edition, pp.
xlviii.-l. of vol. ii.

4 The town of Kuts, mentioned
immediately after as having thirty
thousand Jews, and lying on the
frontiers of Egypt, is identified by
some with Thebes, by others with
Apollinopolis Parva ; cf. Makrizi, i.
194 (Quatremere) ; Asher, Benjamin,
ii. 196.

IV.

NUBIA, THE SAHARA, NILE, EGYPT

261

land (or collection of lands) here referred to lay to the west
of Abyssinia.

Benjamin's visit to Cairo, the ' Metropolis of the Arabs
of the Sect of Ali,' must have been shortly before the
overthrow of the Fatimite Dynasty in 1171 ; but he says
nothing about Egyptian politics, though he describes1 the
overflowing of the Nile, the cause of its rise from heavy
rains in Abyssinia, and the Nilometer which marked the
stages of that rise. The granaries of Joseph in Old Cairo,
Misraim, or Memphis, Benjamin does not identify (like
so many Christian travellers) with the Pyramids, which
are separately described, as constructed with wondrous
magic and unequalled in the world. The Babbi concludes
his Egyptian notes with an interesting picture of Alexandria.
This great city had now been a Moslem town for five
hundred years ; but its commerce, as a market for all
nations, was still immense. It2 was built upon arches by
Alexander, the Macedonian, and in the outskirts of the city
was the school of Aristotle the Preceptor. Its long straight
streets were sometimes a mile long. The port was partly
formed by a pier extending a mile into the sea ; and here
was the High Tower, Lighthouse, or Minar, on the summit
of which stood the famous mirror of glass, wherein one

1 It is curious that Benjamin does
not mention the ' Canal of Joseph '
here, noticed by Kdrisi, i. 308-9.
The Rabbi's identification of Pithom
with the Fayi'im is doubtful. Benja-
min's Tsoan or Zoan, is apparently
a suburb of Cairo near the Mokattam
Hills. On the Xilometer, cf. Edrisi,
i. 310-2 : and Ritter, Erdkunde, i.
835. On the Delta mouths, see
Edrisi, i. 313, who makes only
four, two being natural branches,
the others canals. Benjamin's Old

Cairo or Memphis is apparently
Fostat; cf. Edrisi, i. 301-2. The
Records, in their treatment of
Egyptian places, do not show any
regular itinerary, but merely
enumerate the Jewish settlements.
The Jews of Egypt were apparently
not subject to the ' Prince of the
Captivity,' owing to Fatimite dread
of Bagdad influence. Cf. Asher, ii.
196-211.

2 Cf. William of Tyre, xix. 24 ;
Edrisi, i. 297-8 ; Asher, ii. 211-216.

262

BENJAMIN OF TUDELA

[Ch.

could perceive the approach of hostile ships at a distance
of fifty days. At last a Greek named Theodore, of great
cunning, arrived in the port, bringing tribute from his
king, who was then subject to Egypt. Under the pretence
of good fellowship he made the keeper of the lighthouse
dead-drunk, broke the mirror, and escaped.1 The Christians
then resisted the Egyptians with better success, and took
Crete and Cyprus from them. Without its mirror the
Pharos could still be seen at the distance of a hundred
miles, and its light at night was a guide to all mariners.
From all parts of Christendom merchants resorted to
Alexandria, — out of Tuscany, Lombard}', Apulia, Amalri,
Sicily, Valencia, Eakuvia, Spain, Catalonia, Roussillon,
Germany, Saxony, Denmark, England, Flanders, Hainault,
Normandy, France, Poitou, Anjou, Burgundy, Mediana,
Provence, Genoa, Pisa, Gascony, Aragon, and Navarre.2

has survived in Indian, Mohammedan,
and European forms. T. Wrightrefers
to the Old English poem of the Seven
Sages as a parallel.

2 The list of the twenty-eight
Christian states, whose people
traded to Alexandria, is unfortu-
nately uncertain here and there.
For 'Valencia' Asher suggests
' Florence,' as Valencia in 1170 was
not Christian at all; for 'Eakuvia'
Asher reads ' Ragusa ' ; for ' Cata-
lonia' Sprengel suggests 'Coralita'
or 'Sardinia.' 'Roussillon' is a
natural correction for the reading
of the text, which is not 'Russia' in
the MSS. and first editions, though
(as being nearer to this form) it
has been so altered. The ' German'
Traders are, no doubt, from Lubeek
and other Hanse towns. ' Mediana'
is perhaps 'Maine.' For 'England'
Zunz would read ' Galicia.' Cf.
Asher 's Benjamin, ii. 218-220.

1 Another version, given by
Langles, tells how a Greek spy
persuaded Walid, sixth of the Om-
meyads, to let him dig under the
Pharos for treasure. With this
excuse he destroyed both Pharos and
mirror. This Greek spy was in the
service of the Emperor Justinian II.,
or Anastasius II. ; he pretended to
be a deserter and to embrace Islam,
and so won the confidence of Walid.
According to the Arabs, the ob-
servatory of Alexandria was in the
Pharos.

Cf. the pilgrim Arculf, who tells
us how St. Mark's body then lay
(A.n. 690) in a church in Alex-
andria ; also Bernard the Wise, who
describes how the Venetians, some
time before his visit in 867, had
carried off the relics of this saint.
The story given above seems to have
been one of those which has almost
gone the round of the old world, and

IV.

TRADE OF ALEXANDRIA

263

Mohammedan traders came thither from Andalusia, Algarve,
Africa, and Arabia, as well as from the countries towards
India — Ab}Tssinia, Nubia, Yemen, Mesopotamia, and Syria.
From India they imported all sorts of spices, which were
bought by Christian merchants. The city was full of
bustle, and every community had its own fonteccho there.
It was probably from the lists of these fontecchi,1 from the
consulates (in modern language) of the various nations,
that Benjamin compiled this catalogue of the traders of
Alexandria.

Leaving Egypt, a land unequalled upon earth for its
cultivation, the traveller briefly notices Mount Sinai (on
the top of which stood a Church of Syrian monks) and
the arm of the Eed Sea,2 one day's journey from the Holy
Mountain, which itself was an off-shoot from the Indian
Ocean. For himself, he seems to have returned to Europe
by way of Damietta3 and Messina,4 where then assembled
most of the pilgrims for Jerusalem. Benjamin's note-book
concludes with a glowing description of the splendours of

1 These fontecchi ('pundak' in Asher suggests that the author is
Benjamin, from the Greek wavdoKeia)
were great compounds or enclosures
containing the establishments of
foreign traders, and including — (1)
their shops and warehouses ; (2)
baths, taverns, and bakehouses ; (3)
a church or chapel ; (4) a market-
place where men could carry on
trade, even if debarred from the
Moslem city outside. They were
therefore more than 'hostelries for
sea-captains,' as Asher calls them.

2 Ailah or Elim belonged, says
Benjamin, to the Bedawin Arabs ;
cf. Edrisi, i. 322. On Mount Sinai,
cf. Edrisi, i. 332, and Ibn Haukal,
who both speak of the Christian
House of Religion here. On Benja-
min's place-names in this last section

here copying an older pilgrim-route
from - Egypt to Mount Sinai, and
thence back to Damietta, whence
the voyage to Palestine was often
undertaken.

3 The 'Tennis' or 'Khanes' of
Benjamin (near Alexandria, on Lake
Menzaleh, which sometimes was also
called 'Tennis') is perhaps the
Almas of Edrisi, i. 128. Here
Asher thinks the Rabbi may have
embarked for Sicily, but Alexandria
is more likely. Damietta was
probably his first place of call after
embarkation.

4 Cf. Edrisi, ii. 81. Benjamin's
name of 'Lunir' for the Straits of
Messina is peculiar. Cf. Asher,
Benjamin, ii. 224.

264

BENJAMIN OF TUDELA, ETC.

[Ch.

Sicily,1 and a few remarks upon Germany, 'the country of
Bohemia called Prague,' France,2 and Eussia. This last was
very extensive, mountainous,3 and full of forests, and from
the gates of Prague to those of Kiev one travelled over the
lands of Slavonia,4 where intense cold kept all men within
their houses in winter, except for the chase of sables or
white squirrels.5

Eabbi Moses Petachia, a contemporary of Benjamin of
Tudela, visited the Levant within a very short time of
his predecessor. For Benjamin names one Daniel as the
Prince of the Captivity at the time of his stay in Bagdad ;
while Petachia says this same Daniel had been dead a year

1 On Palermo cf. Edrisi, ii. 76-8.
Benjamin's remark, 'Palermo is the
Viceroy's seat,' probably refers to
Stephen, Archbishop of Palermo,
Governor and Viceroy of the Norman
Kingdom. This was Stephen of
Rotrou, son of the Count of Perche ;
he was brought to Palermo and made
chancellor (c. a.d. 1166), during
the minority of William II. of Sicily,
by the Queen Mother Gentiles, who
acted as Regent, and her uncle the
Archbishop of Rouen.

Sicilian coral, referred to by
Benjamin as a ' stone ' found near
Trapani, is also mentioned by Edrisi,
i. 266-7, and modern books ; some
of it is valuable in commerce. Here
is another proof of Benjamin's calling
as a merchant. Cf. Asher, ii. 224-5.

2 Benjamin's ' Mount Maurienne '
was of course in the county so called,
then including nearly all modern
Savoy. The name is said to signify
'Moors-land,' and to come from the
Arab invasion of the ninth century.
A count of Maurienne and Turin
joined in the second Crusade.

3 The best explanation of this
phrase seems to be the Carpathians.

4 Called Khna'an or Canaan by
the Jews because of the prevalence
of slavery in Slav lands, even in
Bohemia (cf. Genesis ix. 25, 'cursed
be Canaan, a servant of servants
shall he be ' . . .). Hence the belief
of some Jews that the Slavs were
descendants of the Canaanites.
Among Jewish references to Slav
lands we have those of Petachia
(c. a.d. 1180), of Chasdai, the famous
Physician and Minister of Abder-
rahman III. of Cordova (c. 970),
and of Eliezer Ben Nathan (c. 1100).
The last-named seems to have visited
Russia, and refers to the images
(pictures or eikons) of saints on the
doors and walls of the houses. It
is curious that Moses Maimonides
uses the term Khna'ani or Canaanites
for the ' Syrian ' or Arabic invaders
of the Magreb or North- West
Africa.

5 'Vaiverges,' the Polish ' Wie-
worka.'

IV.] PETACHIA OF RATISBON 265

before his arrival in the Moslem capital. But we must
remember that the weaknesses and inaccuracies which are
sometimes to be found even in Benjamin appear much more
prominently in Petachia, who is in every way an inferior
writer and observer. So it may be well not to rely too
strictly on calculations depending upon the minute accuracy
of one of his remarks. Thus, while he agrees, as above
noticed, with Benjamin in his mention of the chief Rabbi
Daniel, he gives a different name 1 for the Father of the same
chief Babbi.

As with the writer, so with the text. If there is ground
for thinking that Benjamin's record has been abridged by an
editor, in the case of Petachia we know that what has come
down to us is only a selection. Large portions of what
appear to have been highly interesting matter have been
omitted by Babbi Yehuda the Pious, who acted as Petachia's
literary mouth-piece, and who frankly refused to write down
many of the details that were given him.2 This Babbi
Yehuda, like Petachia himself, was a native of Begensburg
or Batisbon in Bavaria, on the Upper Danube ; he was re-
lated to several famous Jewish doctors 3 of the later twelfth
and earlier thirteenth centuries ; and to him, as a man of
ripe judgment, the traveller submitted this report. The
result is an arid and disappointing summary of a journey
that deserved a better fate.

Petachia, after returning from his travels, if not before,
seems to have left the 'Jewish Athens' on the Danube,
and removed to Prague4 in Bohemia. The date of his

1 Chasdai in Benjamin. Shelomoh j Ben Jacob, and R. Nachman of
in Petachia. I Ratisbon. Yehuda died a.d. 1217

2 Cf. p. 13 of the London edition | or thereabouts.

of 1S56 : ' R. Yehuda would not j 4 So Zunz. The first edition of

write this down.' I Petachia was published in this city

3 For instance, his brothers were a.d. 1595, with a German transla-
R, Isaac Hallaban (the White) I tion,

266 BENJAMIN OF TUDELA, ETC. [Ch.

journey must apparently be fixed to a time before Saladin's
reconquest of Jerusalem and the Holy Land1 (1187); on
the other hand, his narrative is clearly a little later than
Rabbi Benjamin's ; we may, perhaps, assume that it lies
between the years 1180 and 1186.

Petachia's outward route, compared with Benjamin's,
is somewhat like that of Carpini in relation to his successor
Eubruquis. On one side we have a northern overland
journey traversing many of the regions of Eastern Europe ;
on the other side is the Southern Mediterranean or maritime
way more usually followed, at least by the literary travellers,
from "Western Christendom to the Levant. It is very
doubtful, however, whether this can be said of the mercantile
movements which, after all, must have employed a far
larger number of the journeying classes.

Petachia 2 set out from Prague, travelled through Poland,
and so came to Kiev on the Dniepr, even then, in its decay,
the capital of the Eussian lands. Erom Eussia the Eabbi
came in six days to the lower course of the Dniepr, where it
flowed through the land of Kedar, the country of the
Petchinegs and Romans. Through this land of Kedar, the
Ukraine of the Slavs, he next passed, and he describes it
faithfully enough, like some of the more trustworthy of sub-
sequent wanderers in the Tartar steppes. The people of this
country had no ships or boats, but crossed the rivers on rafts
of horse hide, which they tied to the tails of their living

1 This appears from Petachia's
language, but with less clearness
than one could wish.

2 In Wagenseil's Altilorf edition of
1687-1691 occurs the title, 'Circuit
of the Rabbi Petachia of Hatisbon,
brother of R. Isaac the White,
Author of the Tosephoth, and of

the Rabbi Nachman of Ratisbon.
And R. Petachia went round all the
countries as far as the river Samba-
tion.' Here we follow the divisions
and pages of the London edition of
1856, by Dr A. Benisch and W. P.
Ainsworth.

IV.] PETACHIA'S ROUTE ; PRAGUE TO KHAZARIA 267

horses.1 These last swam across and towed their masters
after them. The inhabitants of Kedar 2 ate no bread, but only
rice and cheese, millet boiled in milk, and raw or half-cooked
flesh. In this land strangers travelled under escort ; the
savage natives drank from skulls, and from vessels of copper,
which were made to resemble skulls ; their favourite oath
was by the drinking of blood. As a nation they lived in tents,
were excellent archers, and very far-sighted, perceiving objects
at more than a day's distance from them ; their country,
which it took Petachia sixteen days to cross, was wonder-
fully level ; and their government was in the hands of noble
families who lived unhampered by kingship. So far, allowing
for certain exaggerations of detail, the Rabbi is in complete
agreement with all careful observers of the Turco-Tartar
races from the time of Justinian ; but when he adds that the
folk of Kedar had beautiful eyes, because they ate no salt,
and were favoured with the scent of fragrant plants, it is
more difficult to follow him.

A gulf of the sea ran in between Kedar and Meshech 3
between the Ukraine and these shore - lands of the
Crimea and Sea of Azov, to which the name of Khazaria
clung centuries after the Khazar dominion had passed
away. Through Khazaria the Eabbi travelled about eight
days ; at the end of this country, seventeen rivers 4
which surrounded it came together and flowed into 'the
Sea,' whether the Black Sea or the Sea of Azov is not
quite clear. On the shallow waters of the latter, in

1 Cf. Xenophon, Anabasis, v. 10 ;
and the Tarikh-el-Kamil on the
passage of the Oxus by the Mongols
in a.d. 1219. . . .

2 In Kedar were no true Jews, but
a number of heretical Sectaries, who
claimed membership with the chosen
people.

3 The land of the Khazars.

4 The ' end of Khazaria ' should
bring one at least to the Don, but
this remark on the seventeen water-
courses, requiring a river with many
branches, does not suit the lower
Tanais, Dniepr, Volga, or any other
stream of this part.

268 BENJAMIN OF TUDELA, ETC. \Pb.

their furthest western reaches, often known to ancient
geographers as the Putrid or Stagnant Sea, to more
modern times as the Sea of Sivash, Petachia is un-
usually detailed. If the wind blew from this fetid marsh,
it was always fatal, he declares, to passers-by. All this ex-
aggeration is to heighten the contrast with the sweet waters
of the Black Sea on the other side of Meshech or Khazaria,
The Rabbi's terms of Kedar and Meshech, apparently used
as generic expressions for distant and barbarous countries,
are not in agreement with the ordinary usage of Jewish
writers, to whom Kedar is properly Arabia. As to the
Khazars, so famous in earlier times as the one important
addition which the Jewish Faith ever gained in Europe, they
had ceased to rule this country for more than one hundred
years when Petachia wrote ; first the Petchinegs, then the
Komans, had supplanted them in their Kingdom of the
Steppes, as they, in their turn, were to be supplanted by the
Mongols. In Petachia's time the old connection of the
Crimea with Constantinople had been strengthened by
Manuel Comnenus, and the people of the Peninsula pro-
fessed a direct allegiance to the Greek Emperors. To the
Jewish traveller the Karaite or heretic Jews were natur-
ally of special interest. These Sectarians, who rejected the
Talmud and all tradition, holding only by Scripture, had
been long established in the Crimea, and their principal
stronghold was near the modern Baktchi-Sarai. It is not
unnatural to suppose that they were in part, if not entirely,
descendants of the Judaising Khazars.

The next stage in his journey Petachia calls the Land of
Togarma1 which adjoined the Country of Ararat ;2 and in

1 Togarma, Petachia says, was i mim ' in the sense of ' Turks'

tributary to the King of Greece. country.'

Of. Benjamin of Tudela's ' Tho- 2 Petachia seems to allude to the

garma ' and ' Land of the Thogar- two P^aks of Ararat in a later

IV-] PETAOHIA'S ROUTE ; KHAZARIA TO BABYLON 269

these two expressions Georgia and Armenia are evidently
intended.1 Beyond this region was the Land of Islam.
Herein he travelled in eight days to Nisibis and the
neighbourhood of Diarbekr, having the range of Ararat 2 on
his right ; and at the end of these mountains he seems to
have gone eastwards from Nisibis to Mosul or Nineveh on
the Tigris, where the whole land was black like pitch. The
famous city which had once stood here, and the forests that
had covered this region, were now no more ; they had been
blotted out like the Cities of the Plain.

At Mosul Petachia fell ill, and from his language here
we may suppose that he was a rich man, and had some
fear of his death being hastened by the natural desire of
the Sultan to seize half his property, as the law allowed at
the death of a travelling Hebrew. Determined to disappoint
the grasping Moslems, the Eabbi recovered, and crossed the
Tigris on a raft of reeds ' dressed in his most beautiful
clothes,' perhaps in a sort of bravado.

From Nineveh 3 the traveller floated down the current
of the Arrowy Tigris to Babel, making the distance in
fifteen days. It is confusing enough to find him using

passage (p. 49 of Eng. Ed.), but he
declares tlie Ark was no longer there.

1 Both Georgians and Armenians
considered themselves descendants of
the Thogarma of Genesis x. 3, whom
some Jewish writers, e.g. Benjamin,
evidently think the ancestors of the
Turks (Thogarmim). There were hut
few Jews in the large cities of
this country.

2 As in other writers, Ararat is
here u<ed in two senses ; — first, the
Peak itself, the Turkish Kus-dagh ;
and secondly, the range extending
from the neighbourhood of Erivan
and the River Aras, down south-west

to Cilicia and the Mediterranean,
i.e. the Taurus. Near the modern
Diarbekr Petachia only mentions
Khosen-Kapha, perhaps the Saphe of
Ptolemy, the Supha of Plutarch, the
Turkish Hisu- Kapha. Nisibis was
an old Jewish centre of learning, of
which Ezra was the traditional
founder ; and there was a large
Hebrew colony in Petachia's days.
Cf. Ritter, Erdkunde, xi. 558, who
quotes a record of 30,000 Jewish
families living in and near Nisibis.

3 Here Petachia was much inter-
ested in an elephant that executed
criminals.

270 BENJAMIN OF TUDELA, ETC. [C«.

almost indiscriminately the three senses of the Eabbinieal
Babel (as employed for Mesopotamia, in a wider and a
narrower sense, as well as for a small district on the East
of the Euphrates, round Pumbeditha), but here the second
sense appears dominant ; for on reaching Babel the writer
goes in one day to Bagdad, the Metropolis of Islam, and the
seat of the Caliph, the 'Great King who ruled over nations.'
Petachia probably visited the city shortly after Benjamin,
and in the same period of the Caliphate. He describes1 it
as very large, more than one day across, and three days in
circuit ; for the rest, he agrees closely with Benjamin, es-
pecially as to the position and importance2 of the Jewish
colony and their Chief, the Head of the Captivity.

From Bagdad, Petachia travelled to Nehardea,3 Shushan,
Mella,4 and the graves of various Jewish Saints and Prophets.
Hereabouts he saw a remarkable animal, the flying camel,
which could go a mile in a second ; and in the same region he
collected many Jewish legends and miracle-stories, especially
of the tombs of Ezra and Ezekiel. Here, also, his geography
becomes more than ever confused ; from the neighbourhood
of Bagdad to Mount Sinai was all one mountain range, as
men reported.

The Jews of Babel, Persia, and Ivush (^Ethiopia or

1 One detail he adds to Benjamin, I li-din Allah (Abnl Abbas Ahmed
on the Gates of Bagdad, made of | VII , a.d. 11S0-1225).
polished copper, so bright that horses I 3 Often mentioned in the Talmud

were frightened by their glitter, etc.
2 He also gives the same extrava-
gantly low number of 1000 Hebrews
(with 2000 students in the Jewish
academy) in a city, which at this
time perhaps contained 500,000
people Petachia's Caliph was per-
haps either — (1) Mostadhi Billah,
1170-1179, or (2) one of his two

and Josephus, a stronghold of Baby-
lonian Jews corresponding to the
modern hamlets of Werdi and Irzah.
4 Perhaps the modern Mella, near
Birrah, on the Euphrates, although
this is much disputed. The tomb of
Daniel at Shushan or Snsa is de-
scribed in very similar language by
Benjamin, Petachia, and the Arab

successors. Carmoly suggests Nasir- | geographers, e.g. Ibn Haukal.

IV.] PETACHIA IN BAGDAD AND WEST PERSIA 271

Abyssinia),1 were numerous, but often suffered from oppres-
sion, as in ' Greece.' The Land of Israel was still subject to
the Christians (so Petachia hints rather than asserts), and the
Jews who lived there obeyed the spiritual commands of the
Head of the Academy at Bagdad.

Since he had left Bohemia, the Rabbi had journeyed
steadily towards the East, until his arrival at the ' Home of
Peace ' ; now he began to turn westward. He does not
himself remark upon what now appears the most curious
feature of his journey, his outward route by the northern
and eastern shores of the Black Sea, and consequent arrival
in Western Asia from a side almost unattempted by other
mediaeval travellers. Nor does he give any complete
itinerary of his return. He is content to furnish us with
ampler details of Palestine.

From Bagdad to the site of old Babylon, from Babylon
back to Mosul and Nisibis, thence to Haran, Aleppo, and
Damascus — so Petachia made his way into the Holy Land
of his race. He probably did not visit the river Samba-
tion, which his narrative begins by fixing as the goal of
his journey ; he only repeats the Rabbinical fables about
this marvellous stream, which stopped dead on the Sabbath,2
and which lay forty days' journey beyond the tomb of Ezekiel,
near the Mountains of Darkness, where the lost Ten Tribes
were imprisoned, awaiting the Coming of the Messiah.

In the Cities of the Caliph the traveller saw the envoys
of the king of Meshech,3 whose realm extended as far as

1 The regular Hebrew use of Kush | uental India, called Aden ' and its

(cf. Genesis x. 6 ; 1 Chron. i. 8, 9 ;
Isaiah, xi. 11) might imply either
(1) ^Ethiopia or (2) Arabia. Petachia
could hardly be ignorant that for five
centuries and a half Jews had been
excluded from the Holy Land of
Islam : but of. Benjamin on ' Conti-

' independent Jews.' Taking him
in the Abyssinian sense, Petaehia's
notice is interesting, and agrees with
other information.

- Cf. the other name ' Sabbation.'
3 ' Apparently here used for
Magog,' Benisch conjectures.

272 BENJAMIN OF TUDELA, ETC. [CH.

the aforesaid Mountains of Darkness, beyond which lived
the sons of Jonadab Ben Eechab. Here ! we seem to have a
confused reminiscence of an earlier time ; for the marvellous
conversion of the Seven Kings, and the visits of Eabbis
even from Egypt to instruct the people of Meshech in the
law of Moses, can hardly refer to anything else than the
Hebrew Kingdom of the Steppes.

The heat of Babylon was such that to Petachia it seemed
a different world ; from his description of the Jewish Service
here we might suppose that a knowledge of the Ancient
Hebrew music was still preserved. Some of the marvels
which our traveller notices at the tombs of the Prophets
may be frankly accepted ; for the supernatural lights that
appeared here were no doubt due in his time as well as ours
to springs of naphtha. Petachia's appetite for the miracu-
lous is stronger than Benjamin's, but his marvels are of the
same kind.

When he visited the ' goodly city ' of Damascus, it had
already passed under the hand of the king of Egypt, the
great Saladin, and this fate was soon to overtake the rest
of Syria. East of the Jordan, in the land of Sihon, king of
the Amorites, and of Og, king of Bashan, where no grass or
plant could grow, was the grave of Shem, which Petachia
saw with his own eyes, and thus could verify to be eighty
cubits (or forty yards) in length. Thence he moves onwards
to Tiberias, Acre, and Jerusalem, through a land teeming
with marvels. In the Holy City there was only one Jew
residing, and he paid a heavy tax to the Christian king.

Outside the walls, and standing upon Mount Olivet, was

a palace built by the Ishmaelites, while Jerusalem was still

in Moslem hands. The Salt Sea of Sodom and Gomorrah, in

the midst of an eternal desolation, was no longer marked by

1 Understanding by Meshech the Land of the Khazars

IV.] PETACHIA IN PALESTINE : LATER TRAVELLERS 273

the Salt Pillar of Lot's wife, as many had supposed ; and the
circuit of the whole land of Israel, which fame swelled to so
vast a size, could be made in three days. At Hebron the
abridgment has preserved rather more of the original narra-
tive. The keeper of the Cave of Machpelah, it may fairly be
supposed, had no authority to admit a Jew to the earliest
home of his race, whence Christians or Moslems have so long
claimed to exclude him ; but a gold piece gained entry
for Petachia. The Eabbi, however, was not satisfied ; he be-
came convinced that the real tombs of the Patriarchs were
still behind the bolts and bars of an inner wall ; and with
another gold piece he procured admission within the cave
itself, where he saw iron doors such as no man could make,
through which blew winds of unearthly power.1

After Benjamin of Tudela and Petachia of Eatisbon, there
are several indications of continued Jewish travel to Syria
and other parts of the Levant ; few of these are of import-
ance ; but one at least is worthy of a place in the class
headed by the Eabbi of Navarre, if we look either at the
extent of these travels, the variety of the same, or the in-
tellectual ability and linguistic skill of the wanderer.

This was Jehuda Charisi ben Salomo, who about a.d.
1216 journeyed by way of Egypt, through Alexandria and
Fostat, to Judaea and Jerusalem. In Palestine he also
visited Gaza, Ascalon, Acre, and Safed ; Damascus, Hems or
Emesa, Hamath, and Aleppo in Northern Syria ; Edessa,
Harran, and Eakka on the middle course of the Euphrates ;
Mosul, Bagdad, and the Shatt-el-Arab on the Tigris and in
the basin of the Persian Gulf ; in whose neighbourhood he

1 Petachia's description of the I detailed and interesting in mediaeval
Machpelah Cave ranks with that of j travel from Europe.
Benjamin of Tudela as the most |

S

274 BENJAMIN OF TUDELA, ETC. [Oh. IV.

also saw the tombs of Ezra and Ezekiel. He returned to
Moorish Spain, his native country, by way of Greece, passing
through Thebes, so famous as a Jewish centre, among other
places. In Christian Spain he made extensive journeys, as
well as in France ; in the former he acquainted himself with
Toledo, Calatayud, Lerida, and Barcelona ; in the latter, with
Narbonne, Beaucaire, and Marseilles, from which last he
sailed to Alexandria. Setting out on his journey in about
1216, he ended his wanderings in 1218 or 1219,1 and among
his other achievements he translated one of the most cele-
brated and delicate of Arabic literary treasures, the Assemblies
of Al Hariri.

Of other Hebrew travellers or geographers in this age we
need only notice the anonymous pilgrim, who about 1188
writes a letter detailing the miseries of the Jews in Jerusalem ;
Samuel ben Simson, who (some twenty years later) makes a
report on his travels among the Sepulchres of the Fathers
in the Promised Land (e. 1210); Hillel 'of Palestine,' whose
similar work, of almost the same date, is only known by a
fragmentary quotation (c. 1212); and Jacob Antoli of
Provence, who does not appear to have left his home on any
more distant wanderings than to Naples, where he died in
1231. His chief work lay in the translation of Ptolemy's
Almagest (from the Arabic of Averroes), and of the Celestial
Movements of Al Fergbani ; to the latter he added a geo-
graphical chapter, on the position of various towns ; and his
version was the basis of the standard Latin imprint of the
great Arabic astronomer.

1 He died c. 1255. On the
Hebrew travellers and geographers,
before and after Benjamin of Tudela

Essay on the Geographical Literature
of the Jews, at the end of Asher's
edition of Benjamin, vol. ii. , pp. 230-

and Petaehia of Ratisbon, cf. Zimz, 314,

( 275 )

CHAPTER V

DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL — CARPINI, RUBRUQUIS,

ETC.

The Conquests of the Mongols, and especially their two
great attacks on Eastern Europe in 1220-22 and 1238-39,
excited the attention of Christendom, not indeed enough to
still internal strife, but enough to call out a number of
writers, travellers, envoys, and statesmen who made the
Tartars their special object of study. Horror was blended
with approbation ; these new Huns were as revolting as the
men of Attila, but they promised to be very useful in
breaking down the power of Islam. Thus Alberic Trois-
Fontaines, Eoger Bacon, Matthew Paris, Vincent of Beauvais,
and the Pontiffs Gregory IX. and Innocent IV., with many
others, show a considerable hesitation and confusion of mind
in face of the new problem which had so suddenly arisen.
Alberic records with triumph in 1222 how the Mongols
retreated on hearing of the fall of Damietta into Christian
hands (1219); but in 1239 he describes them sympatheti-
cally.1 Matthew Paris tells how in 1238 the fear of the
Mongols made the people of Gothland and Friesland keep
away from the Yarmouth herring fishery ; 2 but elsewhere he

1 Referring (Cronican, a.d. 1222) to
John ' de Palatio ' Carpini, probably
our John de Piano Carpini (' Pian de
Carpine ' ) for his information. See

p. 391.

2 M. Paris, Cronica Majora, under
a.d. 123S ; Rolls Series Edition, vol,
iii. pp. 488-489,

276 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL LCu.

narrates the cold reception given to the ' Ismaelian ' or
' Assassin ' Ambassadors at the Court of Henry III., in
their appeal for aid against the Tartar hosts of Hulagu
Khan (1238) ; and he even seems to credit the story of
Mongol descent from the Lost Ten Tribes, in spite of the
cruelty and barbarism of their warfare. Roger Bacon, on
the contrary, appears to prefer an identification with Gog-
Magog and the armies of Antichrist, who had broken out of
their Caucasian or Arctic prison, and come forth to desolate
the world.

After the battle of Lignitz (9th April, 1241) and the
ravaging of Silesia, Poland, Hungary, and Moravia, Frederic
II. urged common action upon Henry III. of England and
the other princes of Christendom ; and this advocacy was
alone enough to make the Papacy lukewarm in its support
of the same object. Thus, although Innocent IV. writes
with many brave words to the Archbishop of Aquileia, and
Gregory IX. addresses consolations to the Queen of Georgia
and the King of Hungary ; although a papal encyclical is
issued for a Crusade against the heathen enemy ; and
although passionate exhortations are addressed to Christen-
dom to ' cease quarrelling, if one would not cease living,'
little was really attempted, and absolutely nothing was done,
in a military sense. At the Council at Lyons, however, in
1245, two diplomatic missions were organised, as embassies
from the Pope to the Grand Khan of the Mongols ; and on
the 9th of March the Pontifical commission was granted to
the envoys. Of these two missions, the first was to take a
northern route by way of Poland and Russia ; the second was
to proceed along a more southerly course, through Asia
Minor and Armenia. The former or Northern embassy was
committed to John cle Piano Carpini, a Franciscan of a House
near Perugia and Provincial of his Order at Cologne : the

V.] MISSIONS FROM EUROPE TO TARTAR Y 277

latter or Southern legation was put under another Francis-
can, a Portuguese named Lorenzo. Carpini started on the
16th of April, 1245 ; delivered his letters to Kuyuk Khan
near Karakorum ; and in the autumn of 1247 reappeared at
Lyons and handed Kuyuk's answer to the Pope.

On this most important journey (which there is a certain
regrettable tendency to depreciate) John de Piano went out
by way of Bohemia, Poland, and the Ukraine to Batu's camp
upon the Volga, and returned by the same way ; his chief
companion was one Benedict the Pole, a Brother of his own
Order, who acted as his interpreter in the earlier part of the
journey.

As to Lorenzo of Portugal, we hear nothing more about
his mission, but two years later we meet with him as a
Papal Legate in Asia Minor. Apparently his enterprise
was merged in, or superseded by, the new embassy of 1247.
This was addressed especially to the Mongol General Baitu,
commanding in Armenia ; it was likewise undertaken by
commission from the Pope ; and it was placed in the charge
of another Friar, Brother Ascelin or Anselm. Simon of
St. Quentin accompanied Ascelin,, as Benedict the Pole
accompanied Carpini, and an abstract of Simon's account,
but probably a mere fraction of the whole, is preserved by
Vincent of Beauvais. Ascelin was coldly received by the
Mongols, and did not return till 1250. The staff of this
mission was comparatively large, but as in some other
enterprises, the more pretentious schemes proved the least
successful. According to some writers the Dominican
Andrew of Longumeau, or Lonciumel, was also associated
with Ascelin, in the earlier part of his journey; he is not
mentioned by Simon ; but the Friars Alexander, Alberic,
and Guiscard of Cremona (the last of whom joined as an
interpreter at Tiflis), were certainly in the party.

278 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Ch.

A Frenchman was also at the head of the next important
legation from Christendom to the Mongols ; for even before
the return of Ascelin another mission had been sent to
Central Asia by the Most Christian king, the great St. Louis.
It is not unlikely that Carpini and Benedict, on their return
from the East, were presented to Louis IX., as it is more
than probable that they came into contact with his servant
William de Eubruquis at the French Court. When the
king went to the Levant in 1248, he took Kubruquis with
him ; and in the autumn of this year Friar William was
present at the reception of a Mongol embassy in Cyprus
by his sovereign. This embassy was from Ilchikadai, the
Tartar General commanding in Persia, who offered St. Louis
an alliance against the Moslems ; it was headed by one
David, who spread wild stories of the conversion of the
Nomade Court ; and King Louis promptly sent his answer by
the hands of Friar Andrew of Longumeau in the February
of 1249. Andrew reached Kuyuk's ' Horde ' on the Imil,
but he found the Great Khan had just died, and the Eegent
Ogul Gaimish received him as if he were bringing tribute
from the King of France, and sent an insulting answer.
Both the self-styled legation of David and the action of Ogul
Gaimish were afterwards repudiated in the strongest terms
by Mangu Khan.

In 1251 Brother Andrew returned from the Mongol Court,
with some messengers of the Empress Eegent and various
supposed evidences of the existence of the true faith among
the Mongols ; and it was on the strength of these, especially
in relation to Sartach, the son of Batu, occupying an im-
portant command on the north of the Black Sea, that the
French king now despatched William de Eubruquis on a
fresh mission.

But while the king was still at Caesarea, busy in fortifi-

v-1 MISSIONS TO TARTARY ; CARPINI 279

cations against the Saracens, there arrived at his Court, from
the Latin Emperor of Constantinople, one Philip de Toucy.
This Philip had gone not long before on a mission from
the Latin Emperor Baldwin II. to the Komans, and on this
journey he was probably the companion of one Baldwin of
Hainault, who married a Koman princess and made his way
to the Mongol headquarters in North Central Asia. Philip
de Toucy told King Louis the story of his journey ; and this
story made Rubruquis decide to travel through the .Koman
country in preference to the Armenian route. His em-
barkation probably took place at Acre ; his meeting with
his comrade Benedict of Cremona may have been in Con-
stantinople ; and from his mistakes in referring to the
Dynasty of Trebizond, it would appear that he had quitted
the Court of King Louis before the Comnenian embassy
arrived at Sidon in 1252 on a visit to the French king.

Of these various legations only two have left us a detailed
account of their journey ; but the narratives of Carpini and
Rubruquis, from their fulness, their accuracy, and their high
intelligence, are an ample compensation for the loss of others ;
and among all the materials for the history of exploration in
the Middle Ages there are none, before the time of Marco Polo,
which occupy so prominent and so indispensable a place.

And first of all, as to the earlier work. Carpini does not
begin with the narrative of his travels properly speaking, —
with his itinerary or geographical report, — nor does he, like
Rubruquis, interweave this with records of a sociological char-
acter. On the contrary, he leaves to the very end the task of
telling us about his journey, and gives the earlier, and by far
the greater, portion of his book to a minute account of the
manners, customs, and history of the ' Mongols whom we
call Tartars.' It was in this sense, no doubt, that he under-

280

DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL

[Ch.

stood his task. We must not forget his position ; it was the
same as that of the other envoys ; all of them alike were
commissioned for definite purposes, they did not go to please
themselves.

Our traveller, who afterwards became Archbishop of
Antivari (1248),1 and was now sent as Legate of the Apostolic
See to the Tartars and the other nations of the East (1245),
made a journey of sixteen months (February 1246 to June
1247) among the Oriental peoples, from the privations of which
he died soon after his return. Everything, he declares, which
was described by him, was either the result of personal
experience or of the information gained from trustworthy
Christian captives of the Tartars. The Pope ordered him
to observe with care ; and both he and Brother Benedict the
Pole, his companion and interpreter, obeyed this order to the
letter. So Carpini asseverates, and he further warns his
readers not to disbelieve what was new and startling in his
narrative merely because it was fresh to them. The Tartars,
he considers, had become by the increase of their power and
dominion, a pressing danger to the Christian Church, and in
spite of all difficulties he was anxious to see that danger in
its own home, and to forewarn his own people, by adequate
information, of the true nature of the peril which hung over
them.

In the course of his wanderings Friar John evidently
acquired a more bitter hatred of the Mongols than was the
case with Eubruquis ; but their general characterisation of
the Tartars is strikingly similar, and this close agreement is
a confirmation of the trustworthiness of both narratives.

1 Reckoned in Albania till 1878,
when annexed by Montenegro ; it lies
between the Lake of Skutari and the
sea; and now, as in the thirteenth
century, is the seat of a Roman Arch-

bishop ; it was under the Venetians
from 1450 to 1571. As the nearest
East Adriatic harbour to Bari, it had
a special interest for Italians.

V.I CAKPINl's NARRATIVE; DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURE 281

The report of Carpini's mission opens with an account
of the position, extent, and nature of the Tartar1 country.
It lay in that part where the east was (as it were) joined
to the north, and it was bounded on the east by Kitaia,
Cathaia, or North China, by the Solangi of Korea and
Manchuria, and by the aboriginal tribes of the Amur basin.
To the south was the land of the Saracens, and to the south-
west that of the Uigurs ; 2 west lay the Naimans ; north
was the all-encircling Ocean. The nature of the soil of
Tartary was sometimes a plain of sandy clay, sometimes a
region of high mountains. Here and there were woodlands,
but often were great stretches without any trees at all.
Not a hundredth part was really fruitful ; the oases had been
created by irrigation from the rivers, which, after all, were very
scarce. Hence there was also a noteworthy absence of towns.
Karakorum, indeed, near the seat of the Mongol Court
at Syra Orda, was reputed fairly large;3 but Carpini, though
within half-a-day's journey of this settlement, never saw it.
Viewed as a whole, ' Tartary ' was only good for pasturage.

The climate of this vast region was unequal, extreme, or,
as we should now say, 'continental.' Snow-storms, hail-
storms, and thunder-storms were of frequent occurrence,
and the winds were of terrific strength, driving the dust
with blinding force. Summer was the rainy season, if so it
could be called, for the rain was hardly enough to freshen
the thin grass. The changes of temperature were sudden
and most trying ; and with such a climate it was little
wonder that Tartary was poorer and more wretched (for all
its vastness) than could be expressed in words.

1 In the narrower sense of Mongol.

2 Huhiri ; Uigurs and Naimans
both seem to have belonged to the
Turco-Tartar stock. The latter were
outside (to north and north-east) of

the pre-Mongol empire of the Kara-
Khirai, the former were mostly with-
in the same.

3 An illusion dispelled by Rubru-
quis. Cf. p. 361.

282 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Oh.

In appearance the Tartars were different from all other
men — their faces broad, their cheek-bones projecting, their
noses small and flat, their eyes tiny, and their eyelids
drawn far up. Almost all had slender waists, small feet,
moderate stature (inclining to shortness), scanty beards,
shaven crowns. Their back hair they grew long like women.

Their wives were ' many as they would,' and they allowed
marriage between all except the nearest relations. Their
dress was the same for both sexes — tunics of buckram,
velvet, or silk stuffs, cut open from top to bottom, and
doubled over the breast. Married women, however, had
various peculiarities of apparel ; but the unmarried were
habited almost exactly like men.

Their dwellings were round tents of osier work, with a
circular hole in the top, admitting light and letting out the
smoke. A fire always burned in the middle of the hut,
whose size varied according to the owner's dignity. These
homes were moved freely from place to place — even in war
— sometimes being taken to pieces and packed, sometimes
transported whole on bullock waggons, but never left behind.1
Their chief riches lay in their cattle — camels, oxen, sheep,
goats, and horses, of which last they had a greater number,
Carpini imagined, than all other nations put together. As to
their religion, they believed in one God, but had no liturgy or
ritual ; and a reverence for certain idols of felt and silk, which
they believed to be the guardians of their cattle, was almost
their only trace of a cult, except for a vague honour paid
to the Southern Quarter of the Heavens as especially noble.

The ceremonial of passing foreign visitors between two
fires was carefully observed, and very lately a distinguished
stranger (or rather vassal) had fallen a victim to Mongol

1 So Herodotus, i. 216 ; iv. 46, 106, 121, and Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound,
vv. 709-722.

V.] CARPINI ON TARTAR MANNERS, ETC. 283

etiquette. Michael, a sou of the Priuce of Tchernigov
iu Eussia, had come to the Court of Batu on the Volga ;
he had been passed between the two fires to purify him and
avert the evil eye ; and he had then been ordered to bow
towards the South in reverence to Ghenghiz Khan. On his
persistent refusal, Batu sent one of his peers, the son of
Prince Yaroslav of Vladimir, to threaten him ; and as he
would not yield, he was kicked in the stomach by one of
the conqueror's ' satellites ' till he expired. With him
suffered one of his attendants, a certain Feodor, who urged
his master to be firm, and win the crown of martyrdom.

Carpini's description of this function, as it was performed
upon himself, may be compared with that given by the
Byzantine Zemarchus on his embassy to Dizabul the Turk
in 569. Two fires were lighted, and two spears were placed
alongside. A cord was stretched along the top of the spears,
and some shreds of buckram were tied on to this cord. Under
it, and between the fires, passed those who were to be purified.
At the same time, two women standing by threw water about
and made incantations. When any one in Tartary had been
killed by a thunderbolt, all the people of the district were
forced to undergo this purification.

The Tartars also adored the great powers of nature,
the sun and moon, water, earth, and fire ; for his own part,
the traveller seemed to think they might soon make im-
portant changes in their religion ; but the future conversion
of so many of their tribes to Islam does not appear to have
been clearly foreseen by him.

The Mongols were extremely jealous of their horses, as
the mainstay of their military power. While Carpini was in
their country, Andrew, Prince of Tchernigov, was executed
on an unproved charge of conveying these animals out of
Tartary and selling them elsewhere. His younger brother

284 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [°H-

came with the wife of the murdered man to Batu to beg for
the safe continuance of their land-holdings ; and with
circumstances of peculiar barbarity the two were forced into
an unwilling, and (as they believed) incestuous, union.

Though without any law, properly speaking, these Tartars
had certain traditions and prejudices which took the place of
a judicial system. Thus it was regarded as wicked to touch
fire, or even approach it, with a knife ; to flick arrows with a
whip ; to break one bone with another ; to beat a horse with
its bridle; or to kill young birds. But there was no preju-
dice, on the other hand, against robbery, torture, the pitiless
slaughter of their helpless victims, or fornication. They had
no idea of future rewards and punishments, but only of a life
after death where the present conditions would be exactly
reproduced.1

Their fondness for divinations and incantations was
remarkable, and the answers of their devils they believed to
be the oracles of God. All their enterprises were begun at
the New or Full Moon, to which they did homage as to their
Great Khan or Emperor.

By fire they thought all things were purified, and they
showed it the greatest reverence. Those who were present
at a deathbed could not go to Court again till the New
Moon. A spear shrouded in black felt at the door of a tent
signified a recent death. A table with food and drink was
buried with the departed chief, who was also provided with
a mare and foal, and a stallion with bridle and saddle, as his
provision for another life. Gold and silver were also
sometimes interred. The burial car and hut of the de-
ceased were usually destroyed, and his name 2 none might

1 Many curious similarities here
with American — Indian beliefs.

2 Carpini quotes the practice of

Okkodai Khan himself, the first
successor of Ghenghiz, in some of
these particulars.

v.]

GAEPINI ON TARTAR MANNERS, ETC.

285

mention to the third generation. Two' great cemeteries
existed in Tartary — one for their magnates, the other for their
warriors who were killed in Hungary ; and both these were
specially guarded and rigidly protected against intrusion.
The traveller himself nearly suffered death for accidentally
entering the latter. The Tartars, proceeds Carpini, had some
good qualities to balance their barbarism, cruelty, pride,
avarice, and filth. They wrere marvellously obedient to
their lords ; though the brigands of the world, as regarded
all other peoples, they were scrupulously honest among
themselves ; haughty and arrogant to every foreigner, they
were familiar, friendly, and respectful to one another. In
all enterprises their patience, endurance, and cheerfulness
were worthy of admiration. Their women had (unusual)
chastity ; so at least Carpini, unlike others, was inclined to
think ; though he allowed that their talk was foul to a
degree. Of their darker vices he says nothing.1 Though
often drunk, they were never quarrelsome in their cups.

On the other hand, their pride was disgusting. The
traveller himself experienced this ; he was also a witness
of their insulting behaviour towards Yaroslav of Vladimir,
titular chief2 of the Russian princes, towards a son of the
King and Queen of Georgia, towards the Prince of the
Solangi (of Korea and Manchuria), and towards many great
Sultans of Islam. The deceitfulness of the Tartars in their
dealings with other nations was inexpressible ; bland at first,
they usually sought to circumvent with cunning, and if this
did not succeed, they would bite like scorpions. They were

1 Cf. Dollinger, Heidentlmm it.
Christenthum , bk. ix. section L, sub-
section ii., quoting Sylv. de Sacy,
Journal des Savants. June 1829, p.
331, on the Uzbeg descendants of
the 'conquering hordes' ofGhenghiz

and Tinmr.

2 After the earlier fall of Kiev
1169, and still more after the Mongol
sack of 1240, Vladimir became the
chief of the Russian principalities, in
rivalry with Suzdal.

286 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Oh.

abominably dirty and foul in their habits ; avaricious, in-
solent, and untiring beggars, when they had got hold of a
wealthy stranger ; and yet mean and niggardly hosts withal.
At times, when pressed by hunger, as in the siege of a
certain city in Cathay, these Tartars would eat human flesh ;
but in general they could live on incredibly little, and there
was nothing too loathsome for them to devour. They were
so stingy that they would not even throw bones to their dogs
till they had sucked out the marrow.

Their favourite drink was mare's milk — Kosmos or
Kumiss — with a kind of home-brewed beer. A gruel of
millet and water was also much in use among them, and
on a cup or two of this they would go for the rest of the
day.

For adultery, theft, and murder among their own tribes
they inflicted death ; traitors were scourged, even the greatest
by the humblest ; for there was little difference in honour
between one Tartar and another ; in fact, they were a very
pure democracy, tempered only by military organisation.
From this last came their excellent archery and horseman-
ship, the result of incessant practice from babyhood. Even
the women rode, and often shot, admirably, using short stirrups
like the men. But nearly all their time the females were
employed in working at the clothing, furniture, and leathern
goods of their lords. The peaceful occupation of the men
was herding, and little else. They made use of a breed of
swift camels, both wild and tame (ancestors of the present
stock of Central Asia), whose speed astonished the Friar,
and has since become proverbial.1

Carpini next takes us through the history, ethnology, and
geography of the Tartar races. He tells us that the land of

1 Especially since the discoveries of Prejevalski. Cf. the stories of
Petachia on the -wild camel.

V.] HISTORY OF TARTAR CONQUESTS 287

Mongol or Mongol, 'in the Eastern parts' of the world, had
four chief divisions. These were the countries of the Yeka,
or Great Mongols ; of the Su, or Riverine Mongols, ' from a
stream in that land called Tartar ; ' l and of the Mekrit and
Merkit Mongols, who inhabited the Baikal basin.

All these tribes were essentially one ; but, to speak
precisely, Ghenghiz Khan belonged to the Yeka. He first
conquered the other Mongols and then the Kara-Khitai,
Uigurs, and Naimans. After the subjugation of the semi-
civilised and partly Nestorian ' Huiur ' 2 the victors adopted
the script of the conquered, and pushed on to the subjugation
of the Romans, of the Kirghiz Steppes, and of South Eussia,
on one side, and of the Kitai, Khitai, or people of North
China, on the other. In the last-named region there was
fabulous wealth ; silver was used, when stones were scarce,
for missiles, and the civilisation, literature, and religion of the
people was a thing to study. ' For it is said they have the
Old and New Testaments, the Lives of the Fathers, houses
like churches, stated times of prayer, saints and hermits.'
They worshipped one God, honoured Christianity and its
Scriptures, gave alms, believed in Eternal Life, and though
baptizing little, were of a gentle and humane disposition.
In appearance, they were somewhat like the Mongols,

1 Cf. M. Paris, Cronica Majora,
a.d 1234 ' dicti Tartari a Tar flumine
. . . habentes ducem nomine Caan.'
Avezac divides the Tartars into three
main groups — (1) Tunguses to the
east and north-east; (2) Mongols
in the middle ; (3) Turks in the
west.

The Mongols' original home was in
the Mountains of Burqan Qaldun
and the country between the Baikal
and the Upper Amur. The Empire

Dynasty from North China in the
twelfth century) roughly answered to
the modern Eastern or Chinese
Turkestan, the Russian Province of
Semiretchensk, and the basin of
the Chu ; the Naimaus occupied the
modern north-west Mongolia. Omyl,
Imil, or Emil is perhaps the modern
Chuguchak, near Lake Ala-Kul, in
the extreme north-west corner of
' Mongolia,' and just inside the
Russian frontier.

of the Kara-Khitai (arising out of , - Uigurs; mainly within the Kara-
the expulsion ol the Kitai or Khitai Khitai realm.

288 DIPLOxMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Oh.

beardless and broad in face ; their language was quite
peculiar. The)' were unsurpassed artificers, and their land
was rich in corn, wine, gold, silver, and silk.

Carpini adds some rather legendary details of the
Mongol conquest of 'Lesser India'" and of the 'Black
Saracens called iEthiops ' ; of the Tartar repulse from ' Great
India ' by the Christian warriors of Prester John, aided by
Greek Fire ; and of the monstrous races of men-women and
dog-shaped folk reported from distant parts of Asia. Similar
fables he repeats about the Adamant Mountains 1 in the
Caucasus or ' Caspian ' range ; about the cloud-concealed
natives long imprisoned in the bowels of the hills ; and
about the Troglodytic races, who fought the Tartars by
underground passages, and lived in terror of the mysterious
and fatal sound which accompanied the rising of the sun.

Ghenghiz Khan, proceeds Carpini more justly, was not
only a conqueror, but an organiser and lawgiver. He ordained
that his successors must be elected by a proper Kuriltai or
Meeting of Chiefs ; that any pretender to the throne not so
elected was to suffer death ; that the conquest of the whole
world was to be steadily pursued ; and that their army was
to have a definite organisation by tens, hundreds, thousands,
and tens of thousands. Further, the Great Khan divided his
empire into provinces, and fixed the location of each general
or prince in command ; these princes fixed the station of
the chief officers ; the chief officers did the same with their
inferiors ; and so on. Throughout all the Tartar posts
reigned implicit obedience, in death or life, in peace or
war.

The Great Khan enjoyed many special privileges — as to
his harem ; as to his posts and messengers (who everywhere
and at all times could requisition horses and provisions) ;

1 Discovered, he says, by Ghenghiz himself.

V.l HISTORY OF TARTAR CONQUESTS 289

and, in general, as to the property of his subjects throughout
his dominions. For, in the last resort, everything belonged
to the successor of Ghenghiz. One of the most valuable of
his perquisites was the tribute of brood-mares paid to him
by all the chiefs.

On his accession the new Khan Okkodai followed his
father's counsel by attacking the Saracen Romans and the
Mussulmans of Khwarezm1 or Khiva, Turcomania, and
Eastern Persia ; the work of Ghenghiz was vigorously
carried forward ; and his children soon captured the
famous merchant cities of Barchin, Iamkint, Ornas, and
others in the Aralley of the Jaxartes or Syr Daria.

Here, as elsewhere, the old life and prosperity of Central
Asia was blotted out. The Pagan Turks were next con-
quered, and then the Eussian principalities, where the
slaughter was terrible, especially at the ' metropolis ' of Kiev.
In his journey through this country Carpini passed by
countless skulls and bones, and saw for himself that the
once great and populous Mother of Eussian cities had
scarce two hundred houses left. Hence the devastation
spread to Poland and Hungary; to the land of the
heathen and Moslem Finns and Turks in the Middle Volga
basin, the Mordvinians, the Bulgarians,2 and the Bashkirs :

1 The Khwarezm Shah is the | mother - country ; his 'Great Hun-

' Altisoldanus ' of Carpini. This
Kingdom, centring in Khorasm(ia)
or Khiva on the Lower Oxns, at the
opening of the thirteenth century,
had extinguished the Seljuk do-

gary ' was the land of the Bashkirs.
He evidently knows little or nothing
about the Parossit*, who were said to
live by the smell of cooked meat.
But he is quite correct in thinking

minion except in Asia Minor, and ! that the Samoyedes' tents and clothes
extended over all modern Persia, | were of beasts' skins. As to the dog-
Afghanistan, Baluchistan, most of I faced men, and the story that they
Russian Central Asia, and much of ! spoke two words in human fashion
Trans-Caucasia. and barked for the third, Carpini is

2 Carpini evidently considers, and careful to mention this only as a
rightly, that Great Bulgaria, near the | common tale,
modern Kazan, was the Bulbars' i

290

DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL

[Ch.

and even to the half-fabulous Parossits, the Samoyedes, and
the dog-faced, ox-footed monsters of the far North.

In or near Armenia the conquering Mongols found, as
some asserted, a still more wonderful race — one-footed and
one-armed, with a hand in the middle of their breast, but
possessed of matchless speed. These folk, when tired of
hopping on their single feet, whirled themselves round and
round.1 Armenia, Georgia, and the Seljuk Sultanate of Eum
or Asia Minor, whose capital was at Iconium or Koniyeh,
were all overrun and placed under tribute, as was the land
of the Bagdad Caliph. This great potentate was now bound
to go humbly to the Mongol Court and pay his respects every
year.

Except in the case of the rout of the entire army, those
Tartars who lied in battle, or failed to follow their leaders,
were put to death. In every company of ten, each was
responsible for the rescue of any messmate taken prisoner.
Their weapons were bows, arrows, lances, and hand-axes,
with leathern or iron shields, breast-plates, and greaves.
The horses also had body armour. The military ruses and
ambushes of the Mongols were infinite ; their scouting system
most efficient ; their rafts (for crossing rivers) ingenious
beyond what one might have expected in so rude a people.
Their simulated retreats, their dummy warriors dressed to
represent real men and horses, their distant and ' back-
shooting' archery, their tactics in drawing on, entrapping,
surrounding, or pursuing the foe — all these well deserved
Carpini's clear description and enthusiastic praise. Not less
notable were their siege tactics ; mining and flooding, batter-
ing machines, Greek Fire, and other devices,2 if unsuccessful,

1 Here the believing spirit might
gratefully recognise the Cyclopodes
of Isidore.

2 E.g. Arvinam hominum lique-
faetam, poured in torrents upon the
besieged,

V.] THE TARTARS IN WAR; THEIR DEVICES 29 1

the}7 supplemented by the most rigid blockade. Nowhere
had their perfidy and cruelty been more shown than at the
surrender of towns, where no treaty bound them ; and they
only admitted in fact, whatever they might pretend in theory,
an unconditional surrender. Some nations talked of having
peace and treaties with them, but that was absurd, for they
really made peace with no one, except on absolute sub-
mission. Once their vassals, men were forced to fight for
them, and all promises of good treatment became empty
words. Thus, while Carpini was in Eussia, he witnessed the
merciless exactions of a Saracen envoy of Kuyuk and Batu,
who was levying a poll tax l and impressing troops for his
masters.

Their vassal princes, forced to make the terrible journey
to the Great Khan's Horde or Court in Mongolia itself,
were lucky if they escaped with insults. Sometimes they
were poisoned, sometimes executed on false charges, their
sons and daughters retained as hostages in perpetual cap-
tivity. The traveller saw this treatment inflicted on Yaro-
slav of Russia, as well as on a prince of the Alans and a
prince of the Solangi. The property inherited by such a
hostage on the death of his father was rarely suffered to
come into his possession.

In all states laid under tribute, a Mongol Prefect (or
' Baschat ' ) was the real ruler, and in such states number-
less extortions were practised by individual Tartars. A
city in Russia had been lately destroyed for opposing the
orders of a Prefect of this kind. All lawsuits between the
tributary princes had to be decided at the Great Khan's
Horde. A recent case of this was the well-known success

1 Viz. on each household one I black iltis, one black fox. Shivery
white bear's skin, one black beaver, was the only alternative to pay-
one black ' zabulvm ' or zibelin, one | ment,

292

DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL

[Cir.

of Prince David of Georgia, a son of adultery, who, by
appeal to the Mongol Court at Syra Orda, had ousted
Melic, the rightful heir.

Carpini adds a list of more than forty peoples or
countries1 who had fallen victims to the Mongol armies,
and of some others which up to that time had manfully and
with success resisted them. Unquestionably these scourges
of Heaven intended, if possible, to conquer the entire world,
literally and absolutely, according to the will of Ghenghiz
and the style of the Great Khan's seal : ' Kuyuk the strength
of God : God in Heaven and Kuyuk Khan on earth ; the seal
of the Lord of cdl men.' Already they had conquered the
whole earth, outside Christendom, and Christians might be
sure that their time was coming. Even while Carpini was in
Mongolia, Kuyuk raised his banner against the Church of
God and the Eoman Empire. There could be no mistake
what was involved in the Tartar Conquest — it was unheard-

1 These were — (1) the Khitai, Kitai,
or inhabitants of North China ; (2) the
Naiman(s), or people of north-west
Mongolia ; (3) Solangi of Korea and
Manchuria ; (4) Sarihuiur ; (5) Bash-
kirs, Bashkirts, or ' Bascarts of Great
Hungary' ; (6) Parossits; (7) Cassi;
(8) Jacobitae, Jacobites, or heretical
Christians of various Asiatic conn-
tries ; (9) Mordni or Mordvinians of
the Middle Volga ; (10) Samogedae or
Samoyedes of the Petchora country ;
(11) Kara-khitai or 'Black Chinese'
of Turkestan ; (12) Komans ; (13)
Tumat ; (14) Kergis or Kirghiz,
extending from the Angara to the
Altai; (15) Casmir or Kashmir ; (16)
Saracens of Persia, etc.; (17) Alans
or Assi of Modern South Russia ;
(18) Georgians or Obesi of Tifiis,
etc. ; (19) Nestorians ; (20) Turks ;
(21) Perses or Persians ; (22) Voyrat;
(23) Kara-nitai ; (24) Huyur, Huiuri,

or Uigurs ; (25) Bisermins or Moslems
of Turkestan and North Persia ; (26)
Turcomans, of the Akhal Tekke
region, etc. ; (27) Bileri, or 'Great
Bulgarians ' of the middle Volga, the
later Kazan and its neighbourhood;
(28) Cangitae or Canglae; (29) Khazars
or Gazari of Modern South - East
Russia ; (30) Tarci ; (31) Su Mongol ;
(32) Merki(t) Mongol ; (33) Mekrit
Mongol ; (34) Corola ; (35) Comuci ;
(36) Burithabet; (37) Comani (? re) ;
(38) Brutachi (Jews); (39) India
Minor or iEthiopia ; (40) Circassians;
(41) Kutheni or Russians; (42) Bal-
dach or Bagdad ; (43) Sarti or Sarts
of Western Turkestan.

Carpini's prophecies were not
wholly unfounded ; it was the con-
quest of China and Persia that most
effectually diverted the Tartar deluge
from Europe in the generation suc-
ceeding his journey of 1245-6-7,

V.j CARPINIS WARNINGS TO EUROPE 293

of misery, starvation, and insult, such as was faintly tasted
by the wretched envoys who had gone from Europe to the
Mongol Courts.

Carpini ends this part of his work by prophesying that
Livonia and Prussia will be the first attacked ; by warning
every Christian king and nation to make common cause
against ' these devils ' ; by promising success to a vigorous
and united resistance ; and by detailing various suggestions
as to the arms, discipline, fortifications, and military ruses
most useful in combating them. He then passes to the
record of his journey, perhaps the longest continuous piece
of land-travel accomplished by any European up to this time.

Carpini's route was by the Northern Way from Latin
Europe to the Mongol Headquarters. After quitting Lyons,
on the 16th of April 1245, he first tells us of his arrival at
the Court of Bohemia. Here the King, Wenceslas I., an old
friend and patron of the traveller's, advised him about the
next stages of his journey ; recommended him to go forward
by way of Poland and Eussia ; and promised the assistance
of various people of importance in the former country,
relations of his own, whose aid would be effective in all the
countries of the Eastern Slavs.1 Furnished with letters and
an escort, as well as fresh supplies of money, the friar now
pushed on from Bohemia to Silesia, where he was received
by Duke Boleslav, a nephew of Wenceslas, and himself a
personal acquaintance of John de Piano's. This prince,
like his uncle, forwarded the mission in every way, welcomed
the legates at his Court in Lignitz, and helped them on to
the borders of Conrad, Duke of Lenczy, his immediate

1 Of. pp. 733, 734 of Carpini's text,
Avezac's edition, in vol. iv. of the
Paris Geographical Society's Recueilde

voyages et de mimoires ; all references
are to this edition.

294 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Oh.

neighbour on the south-east, then resident in Cracow.1
There, Carpini tells us — apparently intending his readers
to understand the palace, castle, or dwelling in which this
Duke Conrad greeted the embassy — a providential meeting
occurred. ' Vassilko,' Duke of ' Russia/ had just arrived,
and from him the Latin envoys were able to gain much
valuable information about the Tartars. His brother
Daniel had just applied for, and obtained, a safe conduct for
a journey- to the camp of Batu ; 2 and he warned the new-
comers to be under no illusions. Any one who wished to
travel among the Tartars must have rich presents, and must
expect to be persecuted with demands ; the ' give, give ' of
the horse-leech was the ISTomade method of dealing with
all visitors ; no business could be done, and no respectful
treatment could be secured, without compliance in this
custom.

The Eussian princes here noticed were both on Carpini's
further route between Cracow and the Volga. ' Vassilko,'
otherwise Vassili or Basil, ' Duke ' of Vladimir and Volhynia,
(1214-1271), and Danil or Daniel, ' Duke ' of Galicia (1228-
12G4), had first struggled bravely against the Mongol deluge,
and then bowed to the inevitable, hoping by diplomacy to
recover a little of what they had lost in war. Daniel
especially was famous for his valour at the fatal battle of the
Kalka (13th May 1223), and for his later negotiations with
the Papacy. Herein he followed the example of his father,
Roman of Vladimir, with a similar result. For as he
wished for military aid against the Tartar rather than any
ecclesiastical benefits, and as Innocent IV. had only a kingly
title and spiritual favours, but no troops, to bestow, the life
faded out of the hopes which Carpini had excited or afforded,

1 Pages 734-6 of Carpini's text in the Recueil.
- Pages 735-6 of Carpini.

v-l CARPINI S ROUTE FROM BOHEMIA TO KIEV 295

and the promises which he had lavished, in his eagerness to
see the Russians march under the Papal Banner. However
futile in result, it was probably this matter which mainly
determined Friar John to take the northern overland route,
in preference to the Mediteranean and Black Sea voyage
enterprised by Kubruquis ; but neither at this nor at any
subsequent time was a permanent understanding effected
between the Eastern Slavs and the Church of Home.

In deference to Vassilko's advice, the Latin envoys,
before leaving Cracow, purchased or procured beaver skins
and other furs, current as money in some of the regions of
their future wanderings, and essential as aids to diplomacy
among the Mongols ; a under the escort of Duke Basil they
passed on into Ked Eussia ; and here their host, in deference
to a suggestion from his visitors, summoned the bishops of
his jurisdiction to hear the letters of the Pope and confer
upon the question of reunion. The Apostolic Briefs very
strongly urged the Separatists to return to the One Fold ; and
Carpini added arguments of his own, until he thought his
hearers were almost persuaded; but the end was, as usual,
evasion and postponement. The Parssians would give an
answer when Daniel came back from Batu's Camp ; as to
what their Roman friend had said, it was too important to be
decided off-hand.

"With a ' Piuthenian ' guide Carpini now pushed on to
Kiev.2 In his company were two other friars who had
joined him on the way — Brother Benedict in Poland,3 and
Brother Stephen in Bohemia ; from the former of these we
have a summary of the journey which in a few points is a
useful supplement to John de Piano's own record. Arriving

1 Page 735 of Carpini. 774-779 of the text in the llccueil

2 Page 736 of Carpini. of tlie Paris Geographical Society,
:t Benediet's additional narrative vol. is-, edition Avezac. See pages

of tlie Carpini mission is on pp. 390-1, note of this vol.

296 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Oh.

on the Dniepr after a trying march, the legates found the whole
country wasted and desolate, emptied of its men (whom the
Mongols had killed or enslaved), and overrun by Lithuanian
brigands. Only the ' metropolis ' itself, the ' Court of the
Golden Heads,' so terribly sacked in 1240, seemed to show a
certain, though attenuated, survival of settled life; and here,
on the edge of the wilderness, where no more towns could be
looked for, Friar John took counsel with a Tartar ' millen-
arius,' or chief-of-brigade; and received an emphatic warning
about his further journey. Only with Tartar horses could
he hope to accomplish the enormous stages which lay before
him, ' for they alone could find grass under the snow, or live,
as animals must in Tartary, without hay or straw.' l This
advice appeared sound enough ; for the Europeans were
beginning to discover that only Tartar bodies could stand
the fatigue and hunger of the route. Already, at Danilovka
in the Ukraine, Carpini had almost died from the privations
which ultimately killed him, and had made them carry him
in a cart through the deep snow and intense cold, ' so as not
to hinder the. business of Christendom' ; but he was partially
restored by the halt at Kiev ; and on the 4th of February,
1246, he was able to start again.'2 His course nowT lay down
the Dniepr, and leaving the heights from which the half-
ruined city of Saints 3 looked over the great stream, he made
his way to Kanov, or Kaniev, one hundred versts nearer
the sea, where the country was under the immediate rule
of the Tartars. Still following the course of the river to
the south-east, Friar John soon came to another hamlet,
where ruled a certain Alan, named Micheas, who represented
the Mongol chiefs in this part. He was a man full of all
malice and iniquity, who had before now sent to Kiev some
of his body-guard to induce the envoys to come to him on
1 Pages 736-737 of Carpini. 2 Page 737 of Carpini. 3 See page 391.

v-] PROM KIEV TO THE VOLGA 297

the way, falsely pretending that these were the officers of
Kurancha or Gorenza, his superior officer. His sole motive,
of course, was to extort presents, and having entrapped the
strangers, he squeezed them unmercifully ; as a small com-
pensation, he put them forward on their journey to the next
stage, where Carpini places the first encampment of the
Tartars, and where the visitors painfully endured the extor-
tions and insolence of these barbarians and their maddening
curiosity.1 The utter indifference of the Nomades to Papal
Legates, Papal Letters, or even the Papal Name, pained and
astonished the writer, who ineffectually declared to a scorn-
ful and suspicious auditory the earnest wish of the Eoman
Pontiff for peace between Christians and Tartars, for the
conversion of the heathen, and for the cessation of the
Mongol attacks upon Poles, Hungarians, Moravians, and
other peoples of Western Europe. The result of this oration
was a renewed demand for presents, and the loan of a guide
and pack-horses to the encampment of Kurancha.- This per-
sonage was the highest in power of any of the Tartar officers
whom the envoys had encountered ; he was in supreme
command of the forces on the western frontier, and had under
him sixty thousand men, wherewith to repel any sudden
attack from the side of Europe ; but he was subordinate to
Batu, whose only superior was the Grand Khan himself. He
would not allow the new-comers to pitch their tents close to
him, and sent his slave-stewards to find out what presents
he might expect. Like Micheas, his demands rose with
compliance, but at last he appeared to be satisfied, and
Carpini was admitted to his presence. At the entrance the
friar was instructed to bend the left knee three times, to
avoid touching the threshold with bis foot, and to explain the
object of his journey before the Mongol general and the
1 Page 738 of Carpini. - Page 739 of Carpini.

298 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Ch.

other nobles who had assembled to hear his declaration.
Kneeling, he presented the Papal Letters, but the interpreter
from Kiev proved almost useless, and as no one else more
competent appeared, the Briefs had to remain unexplained
and untranslated.1 The Legate, however, contrived to express
his wants, and with fresh guides and horses he resumed his
journey for the camp of Batu on the 26th of February, 1246.
Kurancha's ' Horde ' was probably in the neighbourhood of
the present Ekaterinoslav, and we know from Carpini himself
that its station was on the western side of the Dniepr. All
this time, therefore, the mission had been following the
' Borysthenes,' in its south-easterly trend as far as the
celebrated rapids ; now the route changed to a direction
almost due east, and the travellers struck across to the head
of the Sea of Azov, and crossed the Don near its mouth, some-
where about the site of the present Rostov. Thence to Batu's
Court, 'on the border of the Koman country,' the way was
east-north-east until the Lower Volga, about one hundred
miles above Astrakhan, was reached.2

Going as fast as the horses could trot, and changing them
three or four times a day, the envoys rode on from morn to
night (and often through a great part of the night itself), till
Wednesday in Holy Week, the 4th of April. Meanwhile
they were traversing the country of the Komans, the steppe-
zone between the Ukraine and the Aral Sea, watered by four
great rivers, to the first three of which Carpini gives the
Slavonic 3 names of ' Neper,' Don, and Volga. In this point
he shows an advanced accuracy ; even Rubruquis, who is so
much fuller and so often more precise, is here wanting ; but
Friar John had the advantage of Russian guides, while his

1 Pages 740-742 of Carpini. j or 'Cotton' Map of c. 990. This is

- Pages 742-744 of Carpini. j the earliest West European notice of

:; 'Neper' is in the 'Anglo-Saxon' any of these names.

v-] FROM KIEV TO THE VOLGA 299

great rival, from choice or necessity, is here dependent on his
classical knowledge, and so can supply nothing but an echo
of the old confused nomenclature. The new terms not only
bring us in touch with the modern world, but bring us into
an atmosphere of comparative certainty and precision.1

First of all, the traveller approaching from the west
crossed the Borysthenes of the ancients, the Neper of the
men of Kiev, on whose banks were two large Mongol bivouacs,
that of Kurancha to the west and that of Mauci to the east.
The latter was the second son of Chagatai Khan, and so a
grandson of Ghengbiz himself ; and Carpini had good cause
to remember his name, for he caused the embassy more grief
and trouble than any other of the Tartar magnates. Second
of the great prairie-streams was the Tanais or Don, the
accepted boundary, from the early days of Greek geography,
between Europe and Asia, and along this now roamed a
Nomade prince named Catan (perhaps the Seated of
Rubruquis), who had married Batu's sister. Third, still
further to the east, came the Volga (the Rha of Ptolemy, the
Atil, Athil, Itil, Etil, or Edil of most mediaeval geographers,
the Northern Tigris of Roger Bacon), whose vast basin was the
special domain of Batu, and the centre of the Mongol power
in the West. Fourth, and last, was the Jagac, Yaik, or Ural,
on each bank of which a millenarius, or mingatan, followed a
definite beat up and down the stream. This indeed was the
practice of all Tartar officers who had to guard the courses
of these rivers ; in winter they usually moved down to
the sea, while in summer they kept more towards the north
and the ' mountains ' ; perhaps by this last phrase we may
understand a supposed extension of the Urals to the west,
till they s-ank down into the great plain of the German and
Baltic lands. It is Rubruquis, and not Carpini, who makes
1 Page 743 of Carpini.

300 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Oh.

the Maeotid marshes of the North (transferred by him to
the neighbourhood of the Baltic) to be the spring and
source of these Euxine and Caspian water-courses.1

As to the sea which receives them, John de Piano vaguely
imagines it to be all one and the same ' Sea of Greece,' or
' Greater Sea,' from which flowed off the Bosphorus, or Strait
of St. George, to the city of Constantine ; along the shore of this
sea, as on the waters of the Dniepr, the envoys went perilously
over the ice ' many days in many places ' ; and into it flowed,
according to our author, Volga and Ural as well as Don and
Dneipr. Thus at last, after uncounted hardships, the
mission arrived at Batu's Horde, which then seems to have
been encamped very near the mouth of the Atil, and on the
left or eastern bank of the same, perhaps about the site of the
modern Krasnoi Yar. Here they had to endure the Nomade
ceremony of purification, and to pass between two fires ; they
were not allowed to pitch their tents within a league of the
Tartars ; and they were closely questioned by Eldegai, the
'procurator' or 'proctor' of Batu, as to their ability to
make a suitable present, as to the motives of their journey,
and as to their credentials. All having been explained, or
taken as capable of honest explanation, the envoys were
admitted to their first audience, and allowed to present their
letters, to make a formal declaration of their purposes, and
to ask for interpreters. This request was granted on Good
Friday, the 6th of April, 1246 ; translations of the 'commenda-
tory' documents were made into Eussian, Arabic, and Mongol ;
and a copy of the last was offered to Batu, who read and
noted it carefully, but neglected to pay any attention to the
bodily wants of his unlucky visitors. Since their arrival they
had only been able to procure a little millet in a bowl, and
1 Carpini, p. 743 ; cf. Rubruquis, p. 250.

V.] AT BATU'S COURT 301

this proved but a foretaste of the sufferings that awaited
them.1

The ceremonial of Batu's Court, as described by Carpini,
was a good example of the rude but martial splendour that
prevailed in the Tartar camps, and in a measure survived
until the extinction of Tartar independence. Like the Great
Khan himself, the Conqueror of Bussia and of Hungary
surrounded his presence with apparitors, ' proctors,' door-
keepers, chamberlains, and all the state of Nomade royalty ;
his throne was raised above all else, even the seats of his
sons and brothers ; to these last a bench in the middle of the
tent was allotted. The rest of the people sat behind them on
the ground, men to the right, women to the left. Among
Batu's possessions were some large and handsome linen
pavilions, trophies of the Hungarian campaign, which the
Christian visitors could not have inspected without bitter
recollections of the past and some uneasiness for the future.
No one was permitted to enter the presence of Batu, unless
he were an attendant or specially summoned ; the envoys, on
being introduced, did reverence, and were then placed upon
the left of the throne, the inferior or women's side, which on
their return from the Great Khan was exchanged for the
right or more honourable quarter. Near the door of the
audience chamber was the usual table with gold and silver
goblets of Kumiss and other drinks, and whenever the
Prince put the cup to his lips there was a burst of song and
playing on guitars. If Batu rode in public, an awning or
canopy was carried over his head, according to the etiquette
observed with all the members of the House of Ghenghiz.
The great general was kind to his own men, but they held
him in the utmost awe. To his enemies he was most cruel
and dangerous, for in him were united craft of a high order
1 Pases 743-745.

302 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Oh.

and long experience in war. To the Latin visitors he
showed himself, if not a generous host, at least an affable
and easy gaoler, and on the day following the presentation of
the Papal Letters, Carpini was ordered to proceed to the
Court of Kuyuk with the guides he had obtained at
Kurancha's Horde (Easter Eve, 7th April). Some of the
mission were to turn back and return to Europe with the
news of what had been accomplished up to that time ; among
these was probably Stephen of Bohemia, who had been one
of the chief supports of Friar John in the earlier stages of
the journey. It does not appear whether the Russian in-
terpreter from Suzdal, who had served Carpini with unusual
efficiency at Batu's camp, went any further with him.
In any case, none of those who now started on their return
were able to pass 1 the line guarded by Mauci until the chief of
the embassy reappeared, on his way back from Mongolia ;
they passed a wretched time of expectation and anxiety ;
and as they gradually abandoned hope of their more ad-
vanced companions, lost in the deserts of Central Asia,
they came also to despair of their own deliverance.2

On Easter Day (8th April 1246) 3 John de Piano, with
Benedict the Pole and the rest of his company, started on the
last and most arduous section of the route, lying between the
Volga and the Selenga ; ' and most tearfully we set out, not
knowing whether it was for life or for death.' The travellers
were all so reduced by their privations that hardly a man
could ride. During the whole of Lent their food had been
nothing but a porridge of millet and water, and their drink
snow melted in the kettle.4

At this point Carpini attempts a general survey of the

1 After recrossing the Don.

- Carpini, pp. 745-747.

3 According to Benedict, Easter

Tuesday. 10th April.
4 Carpini, p. 747,

V] THE PEOPLES OF ROMANIA, RUSSIA, ETC. 303

regions adjoining the line of march which he had followed
up to now, and these countries and their inhabitants he
classifies according to climate or latitude. On the whole, the
picture he thus gives us is clear and accurate, and speaks
well for his power of combining, sifting, and presenting a
mass of detail full of difficulty and bewilderment. Be-
ginning with Romania, which occupied the entire steppe or
prairie-zone to the north of the Euxine, the author places
behind this belt of land three rows of nations, gradually
nearing the Pole. First, reckoning from east to west, was
the group made up of Russians, Mordvins, Bilers of Great
Bulgaria, and Bascarts or Bashkirs, all inhabiting what
answers roughly to the Black-Earth zone immediately north
of the steppe region. Next came the Parossits and Samo-
yedes dwelling in the dense forest region to the north of the
fertile corn-land and sparser wood-country of the south ;
while north of these, again,, were the dog-faced men on the
' desert shores ' of the Ocean, wandering over the open
tundra, in the neighbourhood of, and even beyond, the
Arctic circle.1

To the south of the Koman country the Friar places,
apparently reckoning from east to west, the Caucasian and
Crimean tribes, and the nations of the Northern Black Sea
littoral — Alans, Circassians, Gazars or Khazars, and Greeks,
as well as Iberians, Georgians, Armenians, and Turks. To
these well-known names he adds the Zicci, a branch of the
Circassians or Cherkesses, in the Western Caucasus; the
Cachs or Kakhetians of the rich vine-growing country east
of Tiflis ; and the Brutachi, who were said to be Jews and
shaved their heads. Piubruquis and Benjamin of Tudela
also confirm this very ancient and interesting tradition of a
Caucasian Israel, referred to by so many Jewish writers, and
1 Oarpini, pp. 747-74S,

304 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Oh.

perhaps derived from the forcible transplanting.? of Assyrian
conquest. Western Europe was divided from Komania by
the intervening lands of the Hungarians, and of certain
Eussians (the Euthenians of Galicia are evidently in-
tended) ; it was a very long country, measured as it lay
between the rising and setting sun ; and the envoys' journey
through it was most wearisome. From the beginning of
Lent till the eighth day after Easter, they rode on at high
speed, changing horses five or even seven times a day, except
in those waste regions where such frequent relief was im-
possible, and where stronger horses had to be taken for
longer periods. All the natives had been either killed, en-
slaved, or expelled by the Tartars, and the same was the case
in the next land traversed by the mission. This was the
country of the Kangitae,1 often reckoned as a part of
Komania, where the same nomade life and the same Pagan
religion was to be found, where a terrible scarcity of water
prevailed, and where the wilderness, without tents or houses,
was only marked by the human skulls and bones, scattered
upon the ground like cattle-dung. Through this desolation
(where some of the escort of the Russian Prince Yaroslav
had lately missed their way and died of thirst) Carpini
travelled from the 16th of April to the middle of May, when
he entered a land of ' Bisermins,' or Moslems. Here the
Koman language was still prevalent, but the people held the
religion of the Saracens. Their difference of faith had not
saved them from a share in the common ruin ; everywhere
the visitors passed by desolated cities, towns, and villages.2
Friar John had now crossed the vast plains of what is
called by modern geography the Ural-Caspian depression,
from the basin of the Volga to that of the Syr Daria, and
from the region of Pagan tent-dwellers to the country of the
1 'Kanglae' nf Ruhrnquis. 2 Carpini, pp. 748-7-49, 750.

V. FROM THE VOLGA TO THE SYR DARIA 305

settled Mohammedan principalities of Central Asia ; but he
was not able to learn the name of the great river along which
his route here lay ; and he only records a few names of cities
and sovereigns. The country used to have a lord who was
called the High or Supreme Sultan ; 1 but he was killed by
the Tartars with all his house, and the writer could not even
discover his name. In his place the Mongol chiefs, Buri (or
Burin) and Kadan, sons of the same mother,2 ruled the
country from their camps near the borders of the province —
which borders the Friar does not say. He adds, however,
more definitely, that on the northern frontier, towards the
land of the Kara-Khitai and the ocean, was the station of
the Tartar Prince Sitan, a brother of Batu.

From the middle of May to the middle of June, from
Ascension Day till a week before the Feast of St. John the
Baptist, Carpini pressed on through this Saracen land, along
the valley of the lower and middle Jaxartes, past the famous
but wasted towns of Iamckint, Barchin, Ornas (or Otrar ?),3
and many others. After the election of Okkodai, the irre-
sistible Batu had concpaered all these places, then belonging
to the Empire of Ivhwarezm or Khiva, the domain of the
High Sultan. Iamckint and Barchin soon fell, but the
siege of Ornas was long and troublesome, and the city was
only taken by the heroic expedient of turning the course of
the river Syr, and flooding the town with all its houses and
its people. Before this time Ornas had been very rich and
populous, and the seat of a great market to which Christians
resorted from Khazaria and the countries of the Slavs, but
which was dominated by the Saracens as masters of the

1 ' Altisoldanus,' evidently the i ing to Carpini (p. 666). In either

Khwarezm Shah, or ruler of Khiva. ease, Kadan and Buri (as Rubruquis

(Carpini, p. 750). writes the name) were grandsons of

'l A wife of Okkodai, according to Ghenj<hiz.

Rashid-ed-din ; of Chagatai, accord- I ;; See p. 391,

306 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [CM.

city. The great river that flowed by the town passed on to
Iamckint, and fell into a sea (the Aral), after traversing the
country of the ' Bisermins ' ; thus Ornas was a sort of in-
land port,1 controlling the most northerly of the chief trade
routes that crossed Central Asia.

Carpini was now emerging from the boundless level of the
steppe regions ; for this country, reaching on the south
towards Jerusalem and Bagdad, had very high mountains,
the western outliers of the Thian Shan ; and these hilly
districts continued to check the rapidity of the envoy's
progress, till he again descended into the prairie region,
on the other side of the great Asian dividing wall.
The next stage of the journey was through the country
of the Kara-Khitai. Here the Mongols had rebuilt an
old town called Omyl or Imil; here their Emperor had
fixed one of his residences ; and here the visitors were
entertained by the representative of the Great Khan, all the
nobles of the town clapping hands before their guests as they
drank. Imil was part of the special domain of the new
Tartar Emperor, Kuyuk ; 2 it had been founded by the Kara-
Khitai more than a century before ; 3 its destruction was the
work of Ghenghiz ; and its restoration was due to Okkodai.
Hard by was a lake of moderate size, along which the
mission journeyed for several days, and which was probably
(although Carpini neglected to ask the name) the famous basin
of the Ala-Kul, just north of Kulja, on the other side of the
Zungarian Ala Tau. On the shore of this lake was a little
hill, whence issued in winter such storms of wind that one
could hardly pass, and that not without great danger. The
surface of the water was studded with islands, and many
small streams fringed with woodland flowed into this lofty
mountain basin, celebrated in modern times as the only

1 Uncle est quasi "port us. a Rubraqtiis' Keu Khan. s ALout 1125 a.d.

V.j FROM THE SYR DABIA TO MONGOLIA 307

prominent lake in Higher Asia which is not drying up, but
deepening and expanding.1

To the south of this region, as Carpini heard, was a great
desert (probably the Takla-Makan section of the Gobi), in
which lived wild men, destitute of speech, or even of joints
in their limbs, so that when they fell down they could not
rise of themselves. They were clothed in felt of camels'
hair, and built shelters against the wind of the same sub-
stance; if wounded with arrows, they staunched the blood
with grass, and fled swiftly before their pursuers.2

Passing one of the Great Khan's Hordes or Residences,
near which they rested a day in the midst of unusual plenty,
the Legation now entered the country of the Pagan Naimans,3
a cold mountain region where heavy snow and biting winds
greeted the strangers even at midsummer (28th and 29th June).
Like the Tartars, these Naimans, as well as their neighbours,
the Kara-Khitai, were purely nomadic, making no attempts
at agriculture, but dwelling in tents and living on their
flocks. Now they had been ruined and nearly exterminated
by the Mongols, and their extensive country, through which
Carpini travelled many days, was as desolate as the steppe
regions to the west. Finally, the envoys, leaving behind
them the last of the barriers which lay between them and
their goal, entered Mongolia, and on the 22nd of July arrived
at the court of Kuyuk, the Great Khan Designate, for whose
election the Kuriltai, or National Assembly of the Mongol
Notables, had just gathered. Okkodai, the first successor
of Ghenghiz, died in 1241, five years before ; but a long-
delay in the appointment of a new emperor was a common

1 Carpini, pp. 750-752 : Nouveau - Carpini, p. 646.

Dcctionnaire de Geographic Univer- 3 Some, though only a minority,

sellc [Vivien St. Martin ami L. of the Naimans seem to have Wen

Rousselet] art. Ala-kul. Nestorian Christians.

30 S DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL LCh.

incident enough among the Shepherd Kings, and it was no
easy matter to convene the Nomade princes from the four
corners of the Mongol Empire. Now that the electors had
fairly met, Carpini's guides, fearful of being too late for the
ceremony, hurried him on remorselessly. Going as fast as
the horses could trot, rising at dawn, and travelling till night
without a rest, he was often obliged to go supperless to
sleep, taking in the morning ' that which should have been
eaten overnight,' until the Imperial Horde was reached.1

The Kuriltai seems to have met, not where Bubrucpuis
found the Mongol Headcjuarters, but at a place called
Ormektua, half a day's journey from Karakorum. Both
' cities ' were probably close to the head- waters of the Orkhon,
about three hundred miles S.S.W. of the Baikal Lake, or Holy
Sea. Sura Orcla, as Carpini expressly tells us, was only the
name of the Imperial tent, court, or palace.2

When the legates reached the Court, Kuyuk assigned
them a tent and a fixed allowance of meat and drink, but
would not admit them to an audience until the formalities
of the election were over. Meantime translations of the
Papal Letters and of the other credentials of the mission had
been forwarded by Batu, and after five or six days Carpini
and his party were received by the Empress-Mother Tura-
kina, who had acted as Regent from the death of Okkodai,
and whose tent was the meeting-place of the electors.
Accompanied by a Tartar guard, the Latin visitors in-
spected the splendid pavilion that had been set up for the
Kuriltai — all of white velvet,3 and large enough, as Carpini
thought, for more than two thousand people. Around this
was a wooden paling, ornamented with various designs, and
pierced by two gates, one for the Great Khan and for him

1 Carpini. pp. 752-753. "' ' Purpura,' Carpini, p. 755.

2 ' Statio,' Carpini, p. 757. I

V.] CARPINI AT THE MONGOL COURT 309

alone, the other for all the privileged persons who were
allowed within the enclosure. Here all the Tartar chiefs
met together ; outside the Court they rode in circles over
hill and dale with their attendants ; when coming to their
Council they left their horses picketed about two bow-shots
from the tent, but kept their arms. Their apparel was
magnificent, and it varied with each day of the ceremonies ;
from white to red, from red to blue, from velvet to silk
brocade. When Kuyuk visited the Court in person, red was
the colour specially reserved to do him honour. The horses
of the nobles had gold-plating on their bits, saddles, cruppers,
and body-armour, and any of the common people who
ventured near them, or came within a certain distance of
the tent, were soundly beaten by the guards. Meantime,
within the pavilion, the chiefs discussed the election, soberly
till noon, more freely afterwards ; for at mid-day they began
drinking their mares' milk, and till evening they drank so
deeply that it was a sight to see. As they became more
and more genial with their liquor they called the Frankish
strangers inside, offered them Kumiss, and, on their refusal,
plied them with mead, vainly struggling to overcome the
obstinate temperance of their visitors. Among all the
princes or envoys who had come to the installation of
Kuyuk, none (except the Eussian Yaroslav) were treated
with such honour as Carpini and his friends.1 Yet the
whole world, as it were, was represented at this remote
Mongolian Horde ; ' for there were more than four thou-
sand ambassadors, some bringing tribute, some offering-
presents, as well as Sultans and chiefs who had come in
person, aud others again who were governors of provinces.'
Among this crowd the most notable were Prince Yaroslav
of Suzdal ; two sons of the King of Georgia ; several princes
1 So Friar John himself declares, p. 757,

310 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Oh.

of the Khitai and Solanges,1 from North China, Manchuria,
and Korea ; the emissary of the Caliph of Bagdad ; and
more than ten Moslem Sultans. From the Dniepr to the
Ho-ang-ho, and from the Persian Gulf to the Arctic circle,
all nations were eager to conciliate the favour of ' God in
Heaven and Kuyuk Khan on Earth.'2

Carpini spent, as far as his recollection would serve, a
good four weeks at or near the Syro Orda, and during this
time he believed the election of Kuyuk took place, though
with greal secrecy, and without any formal proclamation.
But, from the homage paid him, it was clear that the matter
was settled ; whenever Kuyuk came out of ' the tent,' they
sang to him and inclined before him certain staves tipped
with tufts of red wool, symbols of royalty which no other
chief enjoyed, and which, under the name of tughs, were for
many ages among the accompaniments of Tartar sovereignty
in Asia.3

The new Emperor was, in the writer's judgment, about
forty years old, perhaps forty-live, or even more ; he was of
medium stature, very reserved and dignified in manner, with
a reputation for great sagacity and (as the Christians at his
Court supposed) so favourable to the faith of Jesus, that he
would certainly declare himself a convert at no great dis-
tance of time. Christians (probably Kestorians) were
regularly maintained in his service and supplied from his
table ; a Christian chapel stood just in front of his tent,
and here service was publicly performed — all which was
peculiar to Kuyuk's household, and not permitted at the
Court of any other of the Mongol princes.4 Three or four
leagues from the Solemn Court, Imperial Pavilion, or Syra
Orda, was another camp or tent, called the Golden Horde, in a

1 Otherwise ' Kitai ' and 'Solangi.' I :! Carpini, p. 757.

- Carpini, pp. 754-757. I 4 Carpini, pp. 765-766,

V".] OARPINI AT THE MONGOL COURT 311

fine large plain near a river x flowing between mountains ; here
Kuyuk was to have been enthroned on the 15th of August,
but the ceremony was deferred for ten days, on account of a
storm of hail. This tent was a splendid piece of work; it
rested on pillars plated with gold and studded with gold
nails ; the top and sides were covered with silk brocades ; 2
and here at last, on the 24th of August, the enthronement of
the new Khan took place. A great multitude came together,
all standing with their faces towards the south, and con-
stantly bending the knee to that quarter of the heavens.
These observances continued for a long time, until the
moment of the installation had come. Then every one went
back into the tent, and placing Kuyuk on the imperial seat,
knelt before him and did homage — first the princes and
then the rest of the people, — the Friars alone abstaining
from the customary genuflections, though afterwards they
also paid the required marks of respect to the new ruler.
The clay ended with a gorging and drinking bout ; carts of
cooked meat were devoured with salted broth for sauce ;
mares' milk, mead, and other liquors were not spared ; and
that night saw only the beginning of a feast that lasted 3 in
proportion to the magnitude of the event it marked.

Here, at the Court of the Golden Horde, Carpini and his
friends, with the emissaries of the Solanges and many others,
were admitted to the Imperial presence ; Chingay,4 the pro-
tonotary, wrote down the names of all the envoys to be
received, and the names of those from whom they came,
and repeated the same in a loud voice before the Great
Khan and the assembled princes and nobles of the Court.
The ambassadors were then searched, lest they should have

1 Probably the Orkhon.

2 Baldakinis.

3 Seven days. Carpini, pp, 757-

758.

4 The Uigur prime minister of
Okkodai, who had lost favour in the
regency of Turakina. Carpini, pp,
758-759,

312 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Ch.

upon their persons any knives or other weapons ; they were
warned not to touch the threshold, to enter the presence by
the left door, and to bow the knee four times before the
throne. The presents offered to Kuyuk by various envoys
were here on view in the Golden Horde — silks and samits,
velvets and brocade, furs and gold embroidery, with a
canopy or awning 1 covered with precious stones and
designed for state occasions. From one governor of a
province came a caravan of camels covered with brocade
and a number of horses and mules in armour of leather
and iron ; on a hill near the Horde more than five hundred
carts-full of gold, silver, and silk were divided between the
Emperor and the Mongol princes, as accession-spoil ; the
Latin envoys alone had no gifts to offer. From the Khitai
of North China came a wonderful tent of red velvet, fitted
with a dais for the Great Khan's throne, and a royal seat of
ebony, marvellously carved, rounded behind, and approached
by steps, with lavish adornments of gold, pearls, and precious
stones. Benches were placed around the throne ; those on
the left were higher, and here sat the female courtiers, the
harem of the Great Khan ; on the right there were no raised
seats, but the chiefs sat on seats of lesser height in the
middle of the tent, their inferiors crowding behind
them.2

While Carpini was at the Mongol Court, Prince Yaroslav
of Suzdal died there — from poison, it was said, administered
by the Empress-mother with her own hand, at a banquet
she gave him. In any case, he fell ill after that same
banquet, and within seven days he died, and every one knew
how much the Tartars coveted his lands. To complete the
work of robbery, the Empress summoned to court Alexander,
son and heir of Yaroslav, afterwards famous and hallowed

1 Or umbrella. Carpini, p. 760. - Carpini, 758-761.

V.] CARPINI AT THE MONGOL COURT 313

as Alexander Nevski ; she was anxious, so ran the message,
to give him his father's lands ; but all believed that, if he
came, it would only be to death or life-long captivity ;
fortunately for himself, he was too wary to put his head in
the lioness' den.1

When the envoys of the Pope had been first presented
to Kuyuk, he dismissed them for a time to the Court of this
same treacherous Empress ; 2 he did not wish to meet the
western visitors just then, the Friar believed, for he had
determined in two days' time to unfurl his standard against
the whole of that Western World from which they came.
The imperial hospitality was not too generous ; for the month
which the envoys spent at Syra Orda was a time of terrible
privation ; the allowance of food which was given to the
four of them was barely sufficient for one ; the market was
too distant for them to buy anything ; and the guests were in
constant fear of the diminution of their supplies to starvation
point. But for the help of a Russian,3 named Kosmas, who,
as a goldsmith, was in high favour with the Khan, the whole
party might have died. This Kosmas had made the imperial
throne above described, and the seal with which Kuyuk's
answer to the Papal Letters was authenticated, and he showed
the visitors the haughty inscription on the seal of the
' Emperor of all men,' which our author gives in full else-
where.4 From some Russians and Hungarians, who spoke
Latin and French, and had come to Ormektua in the follow-
ing of various princes and ambassadors, Carpini learned
many details of the Khan's private life ; but most of all he
gathered from some Europeans, who had been in Mongolia,

1 Carpini, 761-762. He did not i ferring again to his 1 i i- - 1 days at

visit Mongolia until Turakina had Ormektua, before the election hail

ceased to hold power, after the com- taken place, p, 762.

plete installation of Kuyuk. :t Ruthenian, p. 763.

- Carpini is here apparently re- , 4 Seep. 292 of this vol,

314 DIPLOMATIC ANT MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Oh.

either as prisoners or artificers, for lengthy periods — ten,
twenty, or thirty years.1

After the Latin strangers had been some time under
the Emperor's charge (for their stay at the Court of the
Empress-mother fortunately lasted but a few days), they
underwent a visit from Chingay the protonotary. On behalf
of the Khan, he required a written statement of the objects
of the mission, as at Batu's Court; and in the same way, and
almost in the same words, this statement was furnished once
more ; perhaps Kuyuk wished to see whether this would
tally with the account given by Batu. After a few days
the legates were summoned to the imperial presence, and
required to state in words all that they wished to say. They
did so ; and various questions were now put to them, on be-
half of the Khan, by Chingay, Kadak, the ' procurator' of the
Empire, and other notaries and secretaries. Thus they were
asked if any one at the Papal Court could interpret the
Bussian, Saracen, or Tartar writing ; they replied that none
of these were in use at Rome, and that the best course was
to write in Tartar, and to give a translation of the same,
through the interpreters, in Latin. Among these interpreters
was one Temer, who had been a ' knight ' or attendant of
the unhappy Yaroslav, and had now entered the service of
the Khan.2

The suggestion of the Friars was adopted, and on the
11th of November they were again summoned, and furnished
with the Mongol answer to their letters, written in Latin and
Arabic as well as 'Tartar.' This document was read out
and translated word by word ; as the Latin version was
recited, the Friars were called on to explain each phrase,

1 Carpini, 762-763.

2 Carpini mentions three others
of YaroJav's suite, ' Dubarlaus,'

clerk who had also entered the

Khan's service, and two menials,
Jacob and Michael ; cf. pp. 763, 76-J,
771.

V.] CARPINfs RETURN 315

lest a mistake had been made in any word ; finally the
various draughts were compared with one another to guard
against omissions in any copy. The legates were provided
with Tartar guides for the return journey, and Kuyuk pro-
posed to send back with them some ambassadors of his own
to the States of Christian Europe and the Pope. He would
not, however, demean himself by making the offer, but only
gave a hint through the interpreters, who urged the Franks
to ask the Khan to execute what was in his heart ; the hint
was not taken, as Carpini and his fellows dreaded nothing-
more, in the interests of Christendom, than such an embassy,
which would be a mission of espionage, and not improbably
an immediate cause of war. So the matter dropped ; the
Friars returned to their quarters, and two days after, on the
13th November, they obtained their formal dismissal,
together with a missive from the Great Khan, signed and
sealed with his own seal. The Punpress-mother gave them
some parting presents, a fox-skin gown with the fur outside,
and a piece of velvet, but in this case she does not seem to
have added her favourite gift of poison.1

The return journey was even more arduous than the way
out, and the winter weather proved even more trying than
the summer. From the 13th of November to the 9th of
June Carpini struggled across the vast expanse between the
Mongol Court and Kiev, resting usually (when rest was
taken) in places on the open plain where one could scrape a
hole with the feet, and pile up the snow around as a pro-
tection, poor at the best, for often one woke to find all
covered with the drifts. It was on this homeward route that
the mission passed through a Bisermin or Moslem town,
called Lemfink, which was probably in the middle basin of
the Syr Daria, and perhaps near the present Tchimkent ; this
1 Carpini, pp. 764-767.

316 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [On.

is the only indication given us by Carpini's narrative of the
course he was now following, but there is no reason to
suppose that it was very different from that of his outward
way.1

On the 9th of May Friar John reappeared at Batu's
Camp upon the Volga, and reported to the Western Viceroy
what the Khan had written in answer to the Papal Letters.
Batu asked no further questions, but warned the envoys
fully and truly to declare the whole counsel of Kuyuk to
the Pope and the lords of Christendom. So saying, he dis-
missed them with safe conducts, and passed them on to his
lieutenant, Mauci, who guarded (as we have seen) the left
or eastern side of the Dniepr basin. Here they rescued
those members of their party who had vainly essayed to
return with news of the progress of the mission on its first
arrival in Batu's Horde ; these unfortunates had long aban-
doned all hope of Carpini's life and of their own freedom,
and expected nothing but an early death after a few hard
years of slavery. Still pushing on, the reunited friends
passed the next barrier or cordon, that on the right or
western bank of the Borysthenes, where ' Corenza ' com-
manded. Again Kurancha begged hard for presents in
return for the guides he furnished, but, ' as we had nothing/
says Carpini drily, ' we gave nothing.' In six days more,
Kiev was reached (9th June) ; this last stage of the journey
was marked by a meeting with the Russian Prince Roman
on his way to the Tartars, and with two other nobles of the
same race, a certain Prince ' Aloha,' and the ' Duke ' of
Tchernigov, who accompanied the mission on its return
through Russia.2

On Carpini's arrival, the people of Kiev came out in a
body to meet him and his friends, rejoicing over them as

1 Carpini, p. 768. " Carpini, pp. 768-769.

V.j MISSION OF ANDREW OF LONGUMEAU 317

if they had risen from the dead ; the Princes Daniel and
Vassilko entertained them at a conference on the question
of the Reunion of the Churches ; and for eight days their stay
was prolonged, in the enjoyment of a hospitable welcome-home,
which continued throughout all Russia, Poland, and Bohemia.
The Friar concludes with a too promising declaration of the
Eastern bishops, whose supposed wish ' to have the Pope
for their special lord and father, and the Holy Roman Church
for their lady and mistress,' was not destined to find much
confirmation in subsequent events. It is perhaps more
interesting to notice that Kiev was already showing some
revival as a centre of trade ; Carpini now met with several
merchants from Italy, who had come here by way of Con-
stantinople, the Black Sea, and ' Tartary,' apparently in the
period between his first visit and his return ; among others
were Michael of Genoa, Manuel of Venice, and Nicolas of
Pisa,1 representatives of the three chief commercial cities of
the Mediterranean.'2

Carpini returned to the Papal Court in the summer of
12-47,3 and in the very next year a fresh attempt was
made by a Christian sovereign to open friendly relations
with the Tartars, and to hasten their supposed inclination
towards the Catholic faith.

This was the mission of Andrew of Longumeau, who
was sent out by King Louis IX. of France, while holding
his Court4 in Cyprus in 1248. The King's letters were
addressed especially to Ilchikadai, the Mongol general
commanding in Persia, and through him to the Great

1 'Pisanus,' perhaps one Nic. of the privations lie had under-

Pisano,- the Venetian family of the gone.

Pisani. 4 During his absence from France,

'-' Carpini, pp. 769-772. on the unlucky venture of the sixth

:; Soon after his return, lie died Crusade.

318 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [OH.

Khan ; and they formed an answer to the embassy of a
certain David, who had been sent by Ilchikadai to St.
Louis, in the earlier part of the same year (1248). David
had reported that the mother of the Great Khan was a
Christian ; and that the Mongols were eager for an
alliance with Christendom against Islam ; he even reported
a decisive conversion of the Great Khan himself and all
his lords, at the Festival of the Epiphany, three years before.
This story of David's was interpreted, and partly supported
(according to one authority) by Brother Andrew of Longu-
meau, who, like Simon of St. Quentin, had been to the
Tartars in the company of Friar Ascelin x and the Southern
Papal mission of 1247, and had met this David at Kars, at the
camp of the Mongol general, Baiju, commanding in Armenia.

Now Brother Andrew was put in charge of King Louis'
return Embassy, and started from Cyprus for the Court
of Kuyuk in the middle of February, 1248-9, and in the
company of the aforesaid David, and of various priests,
friars and laymen, one of whom is said to have been
an Englishman.

The outward journey was probably made from Cyprus
to the coast of Little Armenia or Cilicia ; and from Little
Armenia overland through Asia Minor, in a north-easterly
direction, by way of Sivas and Erzerum, to Tillis, the capital
of Georgia. Hence we may suppose Andrew went to Tabriz,
where he would find Ilchikadai, and perhaps part with
David. Proceeding onward, the mission apparently skirted
the southern shore of the Caspian, and by way of Urgenj
or Khiva, Talas, and Tchimkent, pushed on to the Horde of
Kuyuk on the Imil.2 At Talas Andrew saw some Teutonic

1 Ascelin himself did not return : ing to Rubruquis, the Embassy fol-
to the Papal Court till '12.50. lowed the eastern shore of the Caspian

2 On the return journey, accord- for a long distance.

V.| MISSION 0* ANDREW OF LONGUMEAU 319

or German captives among the Tartars, a striking proof of
the far-reaching character of the Mongol raids ; but he seems
to have been unable to get speech with these prisoners. In
its main object the mission was a failure ; for, on arrival at
the Imil Court, it transpired that Kuyuk Khan had lately
died, and the visitors were received with haughty insolence
by the Regent Mother, Ogul Gaimish, who treated them like
tribute-bearers, and sent them back to King Louis with
insulting letters.1 On their return in 1251, they presented
a somewhat fantastic report to King Louis, identifying the
Mongols with Gog and Magog and the host of Antichrist,
and giving some account of the great conqueror, Ghenghiz
Khan, his wars and legislation, his encounter with Prester
John, and his supposed conversion to Christianity. Among
other evidences of this adoption of the True Faith by some
of the Tartars, they noticed eight hundred chapels, or what
they supposed were chapels, in one camp — all mounted on
the waggons of the Xomades. They also reported positively
as to the Christian belief of Sartach, the son of Batu. On
their way to and from the Mongol Court, they passed many
ruined cities and piles of human bones ; and, like preceding
and subsequent embassies, they witnessed and experienced
the Tartar ritual of passing all strangers (and their presents)
between two fires of purification.2 Their journey lasted a
year, and the average rate of their progress was ten leagues
a day. Brother Andrew's location of the prison of the
Gog-Magogs and companions of Antichrist, from which

1 Which Joinville gives as argent chascun an, que tu nous
follows: — ' Bone chose est de pez . . . retieignes a amis ; et se tu ne le fais,
cete chose te mandons, nous pour nous destruirons toy et ta gent. . . .
toy aviser ; car tu ne peus avoir 2 This was done with especial can

pez se tu ne has a nous, et tel
roy et tel . . . et touz les avons
mis a l'espee. Si te mandons qui tu
lion envoies taut ilc ton on et de ton

in the case of Friar Andrew's mission,
as some of its presents were destined
for the dead Kuvuk Khan.

320 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Oh.

the Mongols had escaped, among rocky mountains, in a
sandy desert at the eastern extremity of the world, clearly
refers to the Great Wall of China.

We know nothing more of the various attendants who are
said to have accompanied Andrew— Jehan Goderiche, a
priest and a member of the same Order, two other Friars,
various clergy of Poissy, Gerbert de Sens, Herbert ' lc
Sommelier,' two clerks, two sergeants-at-arms, Eobert 'the
clerk,' John of Carcassonne, and one William ; but it is
clear that this Legation accomplished one of the most
important and interesting of those diplomatic and missionary
journeys, which form a supplement to the travels of Carpini
and Rubruquis, and its route along the south and east
coasts of the Caspian is unique in Christian mediaeval
travel.

The ill-success of Brother Andrew's mission did not
prevent King Louis from making another effort, during his
stay in the Levant, to open intercourse with the Mongols.
In 1252 he despatched a Franciscan, named William, famous
as William de Kubruck or Rubruquis, from his native place
of Rubruck in French Flanders, on a new mission. Carefully
avoiding anything in the nature of an official embassy, the
French sovereign furnished Eubruquis with letters to the
Emperor of the Tartars, and to the Mongol Prince Sartach,
occupying a district to the north of the Black Sea, whose
mythical conversion to the Christian faith had been so
constantly asserted. A more critical mind than St. Louis'
might well have been deceived by the plenitude of lying
rumour as to the Catholic inclinations of the Mongols. As
Friar William only occupied a semi-private position, he had
but a small supply of money, but he was provided with a
richer stock of church vestments and books, Queen Margaret

V.] RTJBRUQUIS IN CONSTANTINOPLE 321

giving him an illuminated Psalter, and the King presenting
him with a Bible, and perhaps with that fine Arabic manu-
script which he mentions among the other treasures of his
baggage. Eubruquis probably embarked at Acre in the
spring of 1252, and in the company of that Philip de Toucy,1
who, as we have seen, had given St. Louis a great amount
of fresh intelligence about the Tartars. It was indeed his
journey, his visit to the French camp, and his report of the
travels and successes, marital and other, of Baldwin of
Hainault, which immediately decided both the mission of
Eubruquis itself, and the outward route of that mission.
In Constantinople Brother William must have remained
nearly a year, for it was not till the spring of 1253 that he
left the Imperial City for Mongolia ; and his travelling
companion, Friar Bartholomew of Cremona,2 probably joined
him in Byzantium, from an earlier station in the Bithynian
Nicaea. The mysterious personage so often mentioned in
his narrative, ' Homo Dei Turgemanus,' the interpreter or
dragoman of the party, may have come from Palestine or
may have joined at a later time ; there is nothing to show
his origin or nationality ; and it must remain uncertain
whether he was properly a guide and ' turgiman,' named
or nicknamed 'Homo Dei,' or whether he was ' Turgemanus,
that Man of God,' monk, or hermit, who was willing to act
the part of an interpreter for his Christian brethren. In
any case, he did not prove himself an efficient helper. The
other companions or servants3 who followed Rubruquis to
the Hordes of Batu and of Mangu have no clear individuality
in his pages, though some of them may have helped to pass

1 Son of Narjot (Joinville's Narjoe)
de Toucy, formerly Regent of the
Latin Empire of the East.

2 Who stayed behind at Mangu's
Court when Rubruquis returned.

3 E.g. Gosset.

322

DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL

[Ch.

on the knowledge of Central Asia, now acquired, to later
travellers.1

It was on the 7th of May, 1253, that Eubruquis set out
on his journey from Constantinople, and sailed into the
Black Sea, Pontus, or Mare Mains, whose length he estimates
at fourteen hundred miles, with a breadth at the narrowest
point of only three hundred,2 between Sinope and the
Crimea. Georgia and Constantinople, Turkey and the Land
of the. Khazars,3 were in his mind the four chief regions of
the Euxine shore-land, at the extremities of east and west,
of south and north, respectively. The traveller seems to
have made a straight course from the Bosphorus to Kherson
or Sevastopol,4 and then (without touching land) to have
coasted along the Tauric Chersonese as far as Soldaia or
Sudak, between the modern Livadia and Theodosia or Kaffa.
This Sudak was then a port for all the maritime traffic
between Turkey and Khazar-Land, between the north and
south coasts of the Black Sea. It had not yet been eclipsed
by Kaffa and the influence of the Genoese ; and it formed
(the author here invents a geography of his own) one ex-
tremity of the triangle formed by the Crimean or Khazarian
Peninsula.5 To the east of this the Eiver Tanais 6 fell into
the sea hard by the city of Matarcha or Matrica (in other

1 For Rubruquis's own report
attracted wonderfully little notice
for many centuries.

2 It is really seven hundred long,
by four hundred broad. Of. Rubru-
quis, pp. 213, 214, of text in vol. iv. of
Paris Geographical Society's Racueil
dc voyages et de memoires, to which
all references are made here.

3 Gazaria, Cassaria, Caesarea, i.e.
Xhazaria, are all names for the
Crimea at this time, used by Rubru-
quis, p. 214, and all refer to the

Khazar rule therein.

4 The traditional scene of the
martyrdom of St. Clement ; cf. the
sixth-century pilgrim, Theodosius,
in Itinera Terrae Sanctae, Saec. IV-
XI. (i.), Tobler's edition, 1877 ; Soc.
de rOrient Latin ; also Rubruquis,
pp. 214-215.

5 Surrounded by the sea on three
sides, or ' pretty well triangular in
shape,' Rubruquis, p. 214.

6 Don ; cf. Rubruquis, p. 215.

V.] FROM CONSTANTINOPLE TO THE CRIMEA 323

words, at the Strait of Kertch or Yenikale) ; for the Sea of
Azov was clearly not reckoned as anything more than a marsh
created by the Tanais. No large vessels could enter this
water, which over a length and breadth of seven hundred
miles1 never exceeded six paces in depths ; small barques, how-
ever, came from Constantinople up the Tanais to buy fish.
Beyond the estuary of this famous stream, for so many ages
the traditional boundary of Europe and Asia, lay the
Georgians or Iberians, and various other peoples,2 who
yielded no submission to the Tartars ; to the south was
Trebizond, with an imperial family related to the Greek
Emperors of Nicaea, once lords of Constantinople ; and in this
kingdom, in all the lands to the north of the Black Sea,
and even in many countries to the west of it,3 the overlord-
ship of the Mongols was unquestioned. As far as Slavonia
all men yielded them tribute, and in this tribute was now
included certain payments in a metal often exacted by
pastoral conquerors from more settled races. For every
household had to furnish an axe and a quantity of un-
wrought iron.

Bubruquis landed at Sudak on the 21st of May, and
found himself already famous. Merchants from Con-
stantinople had been spreading news of this ' envoy ' from
the Holy Land, and in spite of his wish to travel as a
simple monk, without any formal character, he was obliged
to admit his character as an ambassador, bringing letters
to Prince Sartach from King Louis. During his short
stay at Sudak, the traveller was lodged and entertained

1 Modern Geography estimates it
at 235 miles by 110.

2 E.g. Zicci ; cf. the Zvyoi, ZvyioL,
and liyivvol of Strabo, xi., ii. 14. The
Georgians or Iberi at this time were
certainly under tribute to the Tartars.
Cf. Rubrurpvis, p. 216, on the Zicci,

Suevi, and Hiberi, who 'do not obey

the Tartars.'

:i Such as ancient Thrace, the
' Wallachia ' or ' Vlachia' and 'Lesser
Bulgaria' of this time ; cf. Rulnu-
quis, p. 216.

324 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Oh.

by the Bishop, whose good report 1 of the Mongol chief
was not confirmed by the Friar's own experience a little
later. Misled by the advice of some Byzantine merchants,
ltubruquis purchased and borrowed ox-waggons for his
journey, in preference to horses ; such carts the Russians
used to carry furs ; and in them the Franks now stored
such poor offerings as they had brought to conciliate the
Tartar magnates. The slowness of these arbas more than
outweighed their advantages ; with them one travelled
twice as slow as in riding ; but the writer could only
learn by experience, and he set out from Sudak on the
1st of June with four waggons that had been bought, two
that had been lent, five horses for the five members of
the party, and two drivers or servants. The rank and file
of the mission was composed of the dragoman, Brother
Bartholomew of Cremona, one Gosset, who had special
charge of the presents, and a boy called Nicholas, who
had been redeemed from slavery at Constantinople by
Friar William's compassion and the money of the French
King.2

Along the coast of the Crimea, from Kherson to the
mouth of the Tanais, the sea was faced by lofty promontories
(the mountain range of the Tchatyr Dagh), and the shore
was studded with villages. Between Kherson and Sudak
alone the traveller counted forty of these hamlets, and nearly
every one had its own language or dialect ; not the least
remarkable was the Teutonic of various Gothic settlers.
To the north of the hilly region that faced the Black
Sea was a flat country, full of springs and rivulets, and
abounding in trees, and beyond this wooded zone, again,
was the steppe or prairie, a mighty plain, that stretched five

1 Professedly derived from a personal visit ; Rubruquis, p. 217.

2 Rubruquis, pp. 218-219.

V.] RUBRTJQUIS IN THE CRIMEA 325

days' journey to the isthmus which marked the beginning
of the Tauric Chersonese. This narrow spit of land was
intersected by a ditch, running from the Eastern to the
Western Sea, from the Azov to the Euxine, and affording
a means of defence against the outer world. In the neigh-
bourhood of the isthmus were brine-springs, and from
these the Mongol lords, Batu and Sartach, derived great
wealth. For all the neighbouring Eussian and Koman
lands, and many of the Black Sea traders, drew their
supply of salt from thence.1

Eubruquis now pauses to give an account, somewhat
in the manner of Carpini, but less methodical and elaborate,
of the manners and customs of the Tartars. It was on the
third day after leaving Sudak that Friar William first
encountered the masters of the great country he had
begun to traverse ; the shock of surprise which this
meeting left upon his mind was like that on a man
suddenly transported into another world or another
age of history ; but it was as much a part of his duty to
his sovereign to describe the people, as the country, of
the terrible and mysterious Mongol Empire.'2

These Barbarians, who had suddenly grown to such
power, and conquered all Scythia, from the Danube to
the rising of the sun, were utterly different from the
nations of Europe in their mode of life, which was absolutely
nomadic. In no place did these Tartars make use of fixed
dwellings ; everywhere they shifted their tents according
to the fancy of the moment, not knowing where their next
habitation would be. Yet this wandering life had certain
limitations. Every chief or captain, according to the
number of men in his command, knew how far his pasture-
lands extended. In winter they usually moved down to
1 Riibruquis, pp. 219 '220. - Rubruquis, pp. 220-238.

326 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Ch.

winter regions in the South ; in summer up to cooler lands
in the North. The waterless steppes were only grazed
over when covered with snow, for this snow was a sub-
stitute for water.1

As to the homes of these ISTomades, the}7 were tents of
felt, mounted on a framework of wicker or sticks, circular
in shape, and contracting at the top to a little round
hoop, above which a sort of collar projected, serving as
a chimney. This felt was often coated with chalk, clay,
or powdered bone ; it was usually white, but sometimes
black ; and it was decorated, especially at the ' chimney '
top and at the entrance, with embroidered designs in
colour, sometimes depicting vines and other trees, some-
times birds and beasts. These huts were carried on carts,
and measured up to thirty feet in diameter ; as many as
twenty-two oxen 2 were counted by the author, drawing-
one cart and tent ; the axle of this cart was as large as
the mast of a ship, and the driver stood at the door of
the house, and thence managed his team. For the trans-
port of their bedding and valuables, the Tartars made large
chests of osier wood, which were carried separately from
the tents and ox-waggons, on high carts drawn by camels.
A chief or rich man often had one or two hundred such carts,
and when he encamped, pitching his dwelling with the door
to the south, he would station these carts in rows like
walls on each side of the tent. In the case of a prince
like Batu, there was not only the central hut, where lie
himself had his Court, but separate tents for each of his
wives,3 and a number of smaller dwellings for attendants
and servants. For the wives of a chieftain, the place of
honour in camping was to the west ; inside the tent of the

1 Rubruquis, p. 220. " Numbering twenty-six in this

* In two rows of eleven each. ease.

V.] DESCRIPTION OF TARTAR MANNERS, ETC. 327

master, the women's side was on the east or left, the men's
on the west or right, while his own seat or couch was on
the north, and (when sitting) his face was always turned
towards the south. Over his head was hung a felt image
or puppet called his 'brother'; above the chief wife, or
' mistress,' was another doll, her ' brother ' ; and higher
up, between the two dummies, was a third, considered to
be the guardian of the whole dwelling. Other images of
the same kind were hung at the entrance, one on the men's
side with a mare's tit, one on the women's with a cow's
udder;1 at ail festivals these idols were solemnly sprinkled,
beginning with the 'brother' of the master, and this
ceremony was followed by libations to the various quarters
of the heavens. First, they made offering to the south,
to do reverence to the element of fire ; then to the east, to
do honour to the air ; next to the west, to show respect to
the water ; last to the north, in remembrance of the dead.
Each libation was thrice repeated, and accompanied with
genuflections. Before drinking, the Head of the House
poured a little on the ground, or (if seated on horseback)
on the horse's mane. At the entrance of the great tent
stood a bench with a skin of milk, or other drink, and
cups, and this was specially intended for the entertainment
of guests.2

The chief Tartar liquors were Kumiss, Kosmos, or mares'
milk in summer, and a cervisia or beer of rice, millet, and
honey in winter ; at their drinking bouts music played, and the
revellers clapped their hands and danced to the sound of the
guitar. Their food was indiscriminate and often revolting ; 3
but their skill and care in making jars of ox-hide and shoes

1 For men, among the Tartars,
milked the mares, women the cows.

2 Rubruquis, pp. 220-224 ; cf.
also Carpini, 616, 61S-620, 745.

s E.g. rats and mice ; conies with
long tails like cats and marmots are
also mentioned among 'small uu:-
mals "ood to eat.'

328 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Ch.

of horse-hide, in drying and mincing iiesh, and in saving
every particle of food, even to the bones, was admirable.
The making of Kumiss was a great feature of Tartar life,
and Friar William describes it minutely ; its taste he com-
pares to that of milk of almonds ; its effect was to intoxicate
weak heads and to make the inner man most joyful. Pure
water was carefully avoided by the Nomades, but cows' milk,
butter, and curds (of which they made a special preparation)
were all used by them.1

In his journey Eubruquis saw no deer, and few hares,
but many gazelles and wild asses like mules, to say
nothing of the great-homed sheep or argcdi, which no other
Christian traveller mentions till quite modern times.
Hawks and falcons played an important part in Tartar life.
With them the rich procured a large portion of their food ;
the poor made a living from their flocks of sheep, and the
slaves had to be content with dirty water.2

As to clothes ; — silks, gold stuffs, and cotton cloths were
obtained from Cathay and other lands in the East, or from
Persia and the South; furs came from Russia, Great
Bulgaria, and the Bashkir and Kirghiz lands in the North.
In winter the Tartars always wore at least two robes of fur,
and often a third ; the innermost, against the body, was of
course the best and most valuable ; the outer one would be
of inferior fox, wolf, or even dog-skin. Trousers of fur were
also worn, and the wealthy padded all their clothing with
silk stuffing, wonderfully soft, light, and warm. For this
silk the poor substituted cotton cloth or fine wool, picked
out of the coarser, which was used for the covering of tents
or baggage trunks, or for bedding. Tartar ropes were also
of wool, with a third part of horse-hair intermixed, and

: Rubruquis, pp. 224-229 ; cf. also I Paris, iv. 386-389 ; Joinville, 147-148.
Carpini. 637, 638, 640, 671 ; Matthew I - Rubruquis, pp. 229, 230.

V.] TARTAR DRESS, LAWS, AND CEREMONIES 329

their felt saddle-cloths and rain cloaks were excellent
inventions.1

The men's fashion of shaving the head in a square, leav-
ing a tuft of hair falling down to the eyebrows and tresses
at the side, which were plaited together as far as the ears ;
the dresses of the women, like those of the men, only some-
what longer ; the peculiar head- gear of the married females,
and especially of the wealthy among them ; the hideous
fashions of face-painting or smearing ; and the marriage
customs 2 obtaining in ' Scythia,' are described by Ru-
bruquis in close agreement with Carpini, but less adequately
and forcibly. He adds some curious details about the
Tartar dread of thunder,3 the separate occupations and
household duties of men and women, and their mode of
washing.4

The laws and criminal justice of the Mongols ottered
many points of resemblance to the Europe of that time.
Torture was freely used to compel confession ; ' grand
larceny ' was punished with death, small thefts with cruel
beatings ; no one could interfere in a duel ; adulterers, sor-
cerers, wizards and witches (except the authorised Shamans
of the Mongol State religion) were liable to the extreme
penalty. But the slaves of a master were wholly at his dis-
posal ; all the females might be made his concubines ; the
youngest son's inheritance might include the harem of his
father ; :' otherwise no widow married again. On the death of
any member of a household, and especially if the departed
were a 'Master,' or Head of a Family,0 loud lamentation

1 Rubruquis, pp. 230-232.

- E.g. marriage by capture.

:; When. e.g., they wrapped them-
selves in black felt, expelled all
strangers from the house, and
crouched under cover till the storm j ambiguous here, p. 23*3.
was over.

4 Rubruquis, pp. 232-235.

6 Except, of course, his own mother.

w So perhaps we should amend
Rubruquis' language ('if any one
dies,' etc.), which is confused and

330 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Ob.

was made, as in the more southern countries of the East ; no
taxes were paid for a year ; and no other dwelling might he
entered by the relatives for that time. In the case of the
nobles, the place of burial was always concealed, except from
those who watched the grave and prevented the approach of
any stranger. The Komans usually raised a great mound
over such a lord, and set up a statue or image of him, facing
east, and holding a cup in his hand. Other sepulchral monu-
ments were shaped like small pyramids ; others, again, were
like towers ; others like courtyards covered with flat stones,
round or square in shape, with four high vertical stones at
the corners facing the four points of the compass ; others
were mere empty houses of stone. Horses were generally
killed at the tomb, and their skins hung up facing the four
quarters of the heaven ; mares' milk was left for the dead
man to drink and meat for him to eat. Scrupulous care
was taken to prevent any one, except the soothsayers or
Shamans, visiting the sick, for fear lest an evil spirit or
deadly wind should come with those who entered.1

Such were the people among whom Eubruquis now
found himself. However different in other respects from
Europeans, these Tartars had as keen an eye to their own
interests as the most civilised people ; but as children of
nature they showed their insolence, suspicion, inquisitiveness,
and greed with even less reserve. A crowd of horsemen
surrounded the new-comers, who were forced to wait under
the shadow of their carts ; seeing the provisions of the
travellers, the ' escort ' demanded a share, and after tossing
off one flagon of wine, asked for another. No man, they
said, would come into a house with only one foot. Baffled
by Friar William's resolute economy, they examined him
narrowly about his identity, his credentials, and the object

1 Rubruquis, pp. 235-238.

V.] FIRST MEETINGS WITH TARTARS 331

of his journey ; but for answer they obtained only a de-
claration that their visitor had understood Prince Sartach
was a Christian, and was therefore bringing him letters
from the King of France. Eubruquis had also a missive
from the Latin Emperor of Constantinople to Scatai, who
commanded under Sartach in the Crimea ; and with the
help of this he procured at last oxen, horses, and guides.
But this bargain was not struck without a Ion" and weari-
some wrangle, the Tartars constantly renewing their de-
mands for presents, not only of bread and wine, but of
articles such as knives, gloves, purses, and belts. When
refused they became abusive, calling the Friar an impostor ;
for, as he soon found, they considered themselves lords of
the world, and thought there was nothing which any one had
the right to deny them ; as for gratitude, even with a view
to future favours, they made no pretence to it ; it was
something that they abstained from actual violence, but
their manner was such that the writer felt, at quitting them,
as if he had escaped out of the midst of devils.1

On the next day Eubruquis continued his slow journey
to the North, and soon came upon Scatai and his men,
who formed the first Tartar cordon near this part of the
Black Sea coast ; but for two months, from the time they
left Sudak until they came to Sartach, the Friar and his
companions never once slept in house or tent, but always
beneath their waggons or on the open ground. Nor did
they once behold a city, town, or village, but only the grave-
mounds of the Romans.8

The Horde or Camp of Scatai was on the move when
Eubruquis encountered it, and it seemed a veritable city of

1 Rubruquis, pp. 238-239, 240.

2 Rubruquis, p. 240. Soon after
entering the Tartar country, Friar
William had his first taste of mares'

milk, which made him break out
into a sweat with horror and sur-
prise, though afterwards he came
to think it very palatable.

332 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Qh.

tents and carts, herds and men, though the number of
warriors in this ' station ' was really below five hundred.
Scraping together a few small presents, the visitors came
into the presence of the Chief, who was seated on a couch,
holding a lute in his hand, with his wife beside him, a
hideous and almost noseless Tartar dame, her face besmeared
with some black unguent. The letters of the Emperor of
Constantinople, written in Greek, were presented ; but as no
one could interpret them, they were sent back to Soldaia for
translation, and hence ensued four days' delay (5th June —
8th June).1 But the time was not wholly wasted, for
Kubruquis met with some Christians 2 at this little Mongol
Court, and made some progress with the conversion of an
enquiring Saracen, who was finally repelled by a terrible
dilemma. For all over Tartary it was held that no Christian
could drink mares' milk. This was equivalent to renouncing
the faith, and all converts must choose between Christianity
and Kumiss.3

On Whitsunday or Pentecost (7th June), Scatai furnished
the mission with guides, and they set out the following day
' due north,' 4 towards the isthmus of Perekop, rejoicing as if
they had just passed through one of the gates of hell.
Their so-called guides robbed them audaciously, and progress
with the ox- waggons was very slow, but at last they reached
the end of the province, where the two seas came close
together, and the narrow tongue of land was crossed by the
famous trench already noticed.5 On the mainland, to the
north, there was another Mongol camp, full of men as
hideous as lepers, whose duty was to collect the tax from
the salt lakes and springs of the Crimea.6

1 Rubruquis, pp. 240-244.

- Alans, Hungarians, and Rutli-
enians, or Russians.

;! Without which last, the Moslem
plaintively declared, it was impossible

to live in these deserts. Rubruquis,
pp. 244-245.

4 Perhaps rather N.N.W.

ft Cf. Herodotus IV., 3.

6 Rubruquis, pp. 245-246.

V.] FROM THE CRIMEA TO THE DON 333

Thence ' due east,' x over the vast Continental steppe for
ten days, to the next Tartar camp, the sea lying on the right
or south all the way, while on the left or north was the
almost waterless prairie, over thirty days' journey across,
without forest, hill, or stone, but affording one of the finest
of pasture-grounds. ISTo long time ago the Romans2 or
Kipchak were masters of this country from the Danube to
the Tanais,3 a distance of two months' journey for a hard
rider. Beyond the borders of Europe, moreover, all was
theirs to the Etil,4 a stretch of ten days' good travel ; and
in the north their land bordered, upon the forests of Russia,
which extended from Poland and Hungary to the Don. The
whole of this region had been ravaged by the Tartars, and
was still being ravaged every clay. When the miserable
Russians could pay no more tribute, their oppressors drove
them off like sheep into the wilds, and set them to herd
their cattle. Beyond the Russian woods lay Prussia, which
had been lately conquered by the Teutonic Knights, and the
traveller supposed they might easily win Russia also, if they
would only take it in hand. For the good Friar somewhat
hastily concludes that the Tartars would all fly into the
deserts if they heard 'that great priest the Pope' was ready
to make a crusade against them.5

However this might be, for the present there was nothing
better to do than to push on to the east over the great plain,
with only earth and sky in view, save for a glimpse now and
again of the Sea of Azov on the right hand. Even the waste
had its advantages ; for there the travellers escaped the
filthiness, insolence, and importunity of the Tartars, whose
camps never supplied their guests with sufficient food, and
whose chiefs always demanded presents, without any return.6

1 North-east rather. 4 Volga.

- Called Valans (Alans) by the 5 Rubruquis, pp. 246-247.
Teutons, adds Rubruquis, p. 246. 6 Rubruquis, pp. 247-248.

- Don.

334 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Ch.

Soon after the middle of July 1 Rubruquis arrived at the
Tanais or Don, probably not far from the modern Kalateh.
At this stream, as men believed, was the boundary of Europe
and Asia, just as the Nile was the border of Asia and Africa ;
and here, on the line of the direct track between Sarai and
the Crimea, Batu and Sartach had established a ferry and a
colony of Eussian peasants to guard and manage it. This
village lay on the east bank of the river ; small boats were
used for transport ; and in order to carry over the waggons
two of these punts had to be used, lashed together, each
bearing one of the wheels. Another village, lower down the
Tanais, marked the place for winter crossing, when the
Tartar camps had all been moved southward ; and below
this again the river formed ' a great sea 2 of seven hundred
miles,' before it reached the Pontus. Its course marked
the Eastern border, not only of Europe in general, but of
Russia in particular ; its source was in the Maeotid fens,
which extended to the ocean in the north.3 Like its tribu-
taries, it abounded in fish, and its west bank was forest-
clad. Where the writer crossed the stream it was about as
broad as the Seine at Paris: the same point marked the
usual northern limit of the annual Tartar march, which now,
at the end of July, and the season of rye harvest, began to
turn south once more. In this region wheat could not
thrive,4 but millet abounded. The dress of the Eussian
peasants hereabout5 was peculiar enough for special notice,
especially the high-pointed felt caps of the men, resembling

1 ' A few days before the Feast i 2 The Azov Sea.
of St. Mary Magdalene ' (22nd July),
says Rubruquis, p. 249 ; he took from
this time to 31st July to traverse
the space between the Tanais and
Sartach's camp, which was three days'
journey from the Etil or Volga.

3 Rubruquis here creates a new
set of Maeotid Marshes in the north
or north-west of Russia.

4 Nowhere does it thrive better.

5 In the ferry settlement.

V.] FROM THE DON TO THE VOLGA 335

German fashions, and the gowns of the women, trimmed
from the feet to the knee with fur of vaire or minever.1

After some delay and great difficulty, Friar William
obtained fresh horses and oxen, the want of which kept
Mm three days at the Don ; the next problem was to find
the camp of Sartach in a country so destitute of people and
of landmarks; but at last, on the 31st July, the mission
arrived at the Horde of the ' Christian ' prince, happy
as shipwrecked mariners on reaching port. The region
beyond (and to the north of) the Tanais, was truly beautiful,
with rivers and forests, in whose dense woodland lived the
Finnish tribes of Moxel and Merdas, of Cheremiss and
Mordvin. Among these races the former were pure
Pagans, the latter Saracens ; they had no towns, but only
little hamlets in the forest ; in the past they had fought
under the Mongol banners against the Germans, and now
they hoped that these brave adversaries would come and
rescue them from the Tartar yoke. The Moxel householders
were given to hospitality, entertained passing merchants
without stint, and were not over jealous of their wives;
their furs were celebrated ; and honey, wax, hawks, and
herds of swine were among their other treasures.2

Beyond the country of the Moslem Merdas was the
Etil, the Volga of Carpini and the Eussians ; Eubruquis
had never set eyes upon so great a river ; and he wondered
'where away in the north' such a mighty mass of water ?J
could take its rise. He could only learn that it flowed
immediately from Great Bulgaria, or the neighbourhood of
the present Kazan, and passed southwards into a great
lake (the Caspian Sea) which had a circumference of four
months' journey, a mountainous shore on three sides, and

1 Rubniquis, pp. 249-251. 3 Rubruquis, p. 259.

- Rubruquis, pp. 251-252.

336

DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL

[Oh.

the steppe country to the north. Where he crossed these
rivers, the Don and Volga, were not more than ten days'
journey distant from each other, but in their lower course
they diverged widely, the one flowing into the Pontus, the
other into the aforesaid lake, which was known, among other
names, as the Sea of Mil,1

Far away in the south, beyond ' this desert,' which
Friar William was now traversing, lay the high mountains
of the Circassians, where the Christian Alans still main-
tained their resistance to the Tartars ; the Lesghian Saracens,
likewise independent, lived on the shore of the Caspian ; and
beyond Lesghia were the iron gates of Alexander, at the pass
of Derbent, through which the writer passed on his home-
ward way. For the present, he was travelling in a country
where the Kipchak or Koman tribes had till lately been
masters ; where some of the greatest Mongol camps had been
fixed since the invasion of Batu ; and where strangers, bound
for the Imperial Horde, had to obtain leave for their further
journey.2

On the 2nd of August the mission was admitted to an
audience of Sartach, at a point three days' march from the
Volga. The letters of King Louis w^ere produced, and as
Arabic and Syriac translations of the same had not been
forgotten, their tenor was easily made clear.3 The effect
was good ; permission was given to proceed ; and on the
next day Eubruquis set out for the Horde of Sartach's
overlord, the great Batu himself. Yet he did not pass
this stage without much trouble, from the greed and

: Also the names of Caspian Sea,
and Sea o/Sirsan (? Shirvan) are given
by Rubruquis, p. 265.

2 Rubruquis, pp. 252-253. Car-
pini, pp. 659, 679.

;: At the camp were some Armenian

priests who knew Turkish and Arabic,
and one at least who understood
Syriac. This was a companion of
that David, who in 1248 came to St.
Louis in Cyprus, on the mission from
Ilchikadai above referred to.

V.] FROM SARTACH TO THE VOLGA 337

curiosity of Sartach's people, and especially of a Nestorian,
named Koiak, who enjoyed great power in this ' Court,'
and who carefully detained most of the books and vest-
ments of his Christian brother, in charge for him against
his return. Koiak had heard of the King of France from
the Sieur Baldwin of Hainault,1 and believed him to be
the greatest lord among the Franks ; but this did not
hinder him from the unscrupulous appropriation of Frankish
property under the guise of safe-keeping ; and his final
advice to the travellers (' be patient and humble,') was
scarcely encouraging. One fond illusion was shattered at
Sartach's camp ; his visitors were warned not to call him
a Christian any more ; 2 he was a Mongol,3 and nothing else.
To the writer it even seemed as if he mocked at Christians.4

Three days after resuming the journey (5th-8th August),
Rubruquis came to the passage of the Etil, the greatest
of rivers, four times larger than the Seine, and very deep.
This last portion of the road was infested by brigands,
mostly escaped slaves of the Mongols, such as Russians,
Hungarians, and Alans ; and apart from this danger, there
was the fear of perishing from hunger in the waste. Sartach
had treated the strangers with even closer meanness than
was usual among the stingy Mongols. Not once in the four
days of their stay did he offer his guests any food, and as
he gave them nothing ' for the road,' they were driven to
live on the biscuit they had brought with them as a delicacy
for the Tartar nobles.5

1 Whose visit was probably after
1240, when he married a Koman
princess. He seems to have been
successful in reaching the Great

was not much observed, even by the
subjects of the Khans ; cf. p. 263 of
Rubruquis' text in the Paris Eecueil,

vol. iv.

Khan's Horde in Mongolia, perhaps I 3 ' Moal,' in Rubruquis.

after the visit of John de Piano I 4 Rubruquis, pp. 253-258, 259,

Carpini. ! 263.

2 Nor would he be called a Tartar, I 5 Rubruquis, pp. 258, 264. 26">. •

but this distinction, however valid, |

338 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL |Ch.

On the Volga, as on the Don, Friar William found a
ferry at the point where the steppe track reached the
stream ; this ferry marked the extreme northern point
of Batu's own summer march. Now, at the besinnins of
August, the Viceroy was retracing his steps and moving
down south towards the Caspian Sea. This alteration
of the Horde's movement brought Eubruquis near the
mouth of the Volga, and in his later journey onward to
Mongolia, he passed close by the northern side of the
mysterious inland water. On his return he came along
its western coast ; Friar Andrew of Longumeau had already
travelled by the southern and eastern shores ; and so clearer
notions of the Mediterranean of Central Asia began to obtain
in Europe. It was not true, Friar William remarks with
emphasis, that it was a gulf of the ocean. This opinion
was supported by the authority of the great St. Isidore,1
but it was baseless, all the same. To the south were the
' Caspian ' mountains and Persia ; to the east the mountains
of the Assassins or of Mulehet ; to the west the highlands of
the Alans, Lesghians, and Georgians, and the Iron Gates of
Derbent. Finally, to the north were the great plains once
ruled by the Komans,2 but now by the Mongols, and on this
side the Etil flowed into the sea.3

Paibrucpais seems to have reached the Volga not far from
the present Saratov ; five days to the northward was Great
Bulgaria, the later Kazan ; 4 and the Friar was perplexed to
think what devil had carried the religion of Mohammed so
far. But his immediate business was to rind Batu, who

1 One of Rubruquis' chief authori- 4 Which he also estimates at
ties, but used by him with dis- thirty days' journey north of the
crimination. : Iron Gates of Derbent. All along

2 Especially those called Canglae. this route there was no city, only
the Cangitae of John de Piano Carpini. : some villages where the Etil fell into

3 Rubruquis, pp. 265, 266. the sea.

V.] AT BATU'S CAMP 339

Lad started on a slow southward course which would not
be reversed till January. So he dropped down the Volga
in a boat, until he overtook the Horde, lying like a great
city stretched out for three or four leagues round about the
Chieftain's dwelling. 'And as among the people of Israel
each one knew on which side of the Tabernacle he had to
pitch his tent, so here men knew on which side of the Court
they must place themselves.' Only to the south of the
central tent and its main entrance no one could plant
himself.1

Here at last Friar William had an audience of the Mongol
king-maker, who alone could settle the question of his
further journey. It was a painful thought to the Frank
stranger that he had lost the vestments wherein he might
have come before the conqueror of Eastern Europe as be-
fitted the representative of a great king. Friar John of
Pelt/carp (as he terms Carpini) had never appeared in such
humble guise, lest he should bring a slight upon the Pope
who had sent him ; Andrew of Longumeau had not passed
this way on his journey to Kuyuk ; - and Eubruquis, in his
friar's dress, barefooted, with uncovered head, a ' spectacle
even to himself,' could do little to maintain the dignity of
his mission and of France. Warned to keep silence until
invited to speak, he waited ' the space of a miserere ' for
the first word of the Mongol Prince. Batu was seated on a
long divan, gilt, and raised upon a dais of three steps, with
one of his wives beside him ; he looked intently upon his
visitors, and to Friar William he seemed about the height
of ' my Lord John of Beaumont.' 3 The Viceroy's face,
' covered with red spots,' was hardly a pleasant sight, but
still more painful was his indifference to religion. For

Rubruquis, pp. 266-267. :; A companion of St. Louis in the

J Rtibruquis' Kcu Khan. I Hoi}' Land.

340 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Ch.

when Kubruquis, receiving permission to address the throne,
urged him on bended knees to seek the celestial goods of
baptism, he quietly smiled, while his courtiers broke out
into laughter and loud clapping of hands. Finally, after
the usual enquiries as to the name, country, sovereign, and
objects of his guests, he offered them Kumiss and dismissed
them, at the same time announcing his decision as to their
future progress. The party was to be divided; the two
Friars, William and Bartholemew, with the dragoman,1 were
to go on to the Great Khan Mangu, and the clerk Gosset
was to return to Sartach. But Gosset's superiors, in spite
of this pronouncement, were detained in Batu's company
for five weeks, and followed the slow wanderings of the
Mongol encampment down the Volga. Their sufferings were
pitiable. 'Sometimes my companion2 would say to me,
almost with tears in his eyes, It seems that I shall never
get any food again.' For the market which followed the
Horde was so far away that one could not reach it, ' having
to travel afoot from lack of horses.' After a time, the
strangers were relieved by some Hungarian prisoners, ' who
had once been clerks,' and by a Christian Koman who had
been baptised by certain Franciscans in Hungary ; from
these good friends they obtained food and drink ; and in
return Kubruquis wrote out for them the Hours of the
Virgin and the Office for the Dead, as he could not satisfy
their request for books.3

Friar William reckoned Batu's company at five hundred
heads of families, but not more ; from day to day he saw
him riding with all his Horde, and so could make a fair
estimate ; but he does not seem to have been admitted to
another audience, though he was told of the great chief's

1 ' Homo Dei Turginianus.' I mona.

2 Apparently Bartholemew of Cre- | s Rubraijuis, pp. 268-272.

V.] FROM BATU TO THE GREAT KHAN 34 L

constant enquiries about his visitors from the West. It was
not until the 14th of September that arrangements were
made for their departure. They were then furnished with
a guide, who warned them with a contemptuous air of the
length and cold of the journey (' four months in such weather,
that stones and trees were often split with frost'), and
threatened to abandon them on the way if they showed
any weakness. Next day, the 15th of September, they set
out, furnished with garments suitable for so extreme a
climate — sheepskin coats and breeches, boots and hoods of
Tartar fashion, felt stockings, and other necessaries.1

Their course was ' ever Eastward ' till the Feast of All
Saints (1st of November), and all the way they traversed the
land once inhabited by the Kanglae, or Eastern Komans,
having on the left or north the ' Great Bulgaria ' of the
Middle Volga, and on the right or south the Caspian Sea.
Twelve days' journey from the camp of Batu, they came to
the Jagac, Yaik, or Ural Paver, which flowed from the land
of Pascatir (or the Bashkirs) in the North, and like the Etil,
fell into the Caspian. The language of this people of
Pascatir, Eubruquis believed, was the same as that of
the Hungarians ; they were a purely pastoral race, owning
no fixed dwellings, and bordering on the west upon Great
Bulgaria. The Bulgarians, indeed, had some small cities*
but going eastward there were no more towns to be met
with ; all the tribes were shepherd and Nomacle in their
habits. From Pascatir (otherwise ' Old ' or ' Great '
Hungary ) once went forth the Huns, ' who were after-
wards the Hungarians,' 2 and ravaged as far as France
and Egypt ; with their iieet horses they crossed the
barriers of Alexander in the Caucasus ; and with them

1 Rubruquis, pp. 273-274. i Great Hungary '(emendation for 'Bul-

" 'Hence it is the same land as | gavia'), Rubruquis, p. 274.

342 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Oh.

went the Bulgars, the Vandals, and the Wallachians. The
Bulgars of the Danube, near Constantinople, were of this
stock. The Vlaks, Illaks, or Wallachians, lived originally
near the Bashkirs, and from a mingling of these races came
the people of the Land of Assan,1 south of the Danube.2

The languages of the Russians, Poles, Bohemians, Vandals,
and Slavons, adds Rubruquis with perfect correctness,
were related ; all these nations were supporters of the Huns
(and Hungarians) in old days, and of the Tartars in later time.
Here the Friar begins to wander a little, blaming the unlucky
Slavs for the very thing they had struggled against so
desperately ; but he was naturally sure of his information, as
he had it from those holy men,3 the Dominican Missionaries,
who had been among the Bashkirs before the advent of the
Tartars.4 Since then, ' Pascatir ' had been conquered by
the neighbouring (Saracen) Bulgars, and some of the people
had become Moslems.5

1 So we rode through the land of the Kanglae,5 resumes
the narrative, ' from the Feast of the Holy Cross to that of
All Saints (15th September to 1st November), and nearly
every day we went, as near as I reckon, about as far as from
Paris to Orleans,0 or sometimes more, according to our supply
of horses. Sometimes we changed these two or three times
a day ; at other times, we went two or three days without

1 This is the Southern Bulgaria i Cronicon, 564, under a. d. 1237.

here named after its famous Chief
Asen.

2 Rubruquis, pp. 274-275.

3 The studied .misrepresentation of
things Slavonic in the "West is
largely hased on old Roman Church

Four preaching friars, says Alberic,
hearing of the intended Tartar attack
upon Romania and Hungary, tra-
velled for a hundred days as far
as Old Hungary, and told on their
return how the Tartars, as they

prejudice against Eastern non- Papal ' found, had already invaded and sub-
Ohristianity. jugated Old Hungary.

4 A mission we only know of from i s Rubruquis, pp. 275-276.
Rubruquis, except for a vague refer- 6 Ninety-five kilometres.

ence in Alberic Trois Fontaines,

V.] HARDSHIPS OF THE JOURNEY 343

any change. Out of twenty or thirty horses that we had
(to choose from), we, as strangers, always got the worst.
True, they gave me a strong horse, because of my weight, but
I dared not ask if he rode easily or no, nor, indeed, could we
venture to complain about anything. So we had to bear
great hardships, sometimes riding two on one horse ;
hungry and thirsty, cold and weary, oftener than one could
reckon.' Not until evening did they have proper food, a
shoulder and ribs of mutton, and some meat broth, which the
half-starved travellers found invigorating and even delicious ;
but, besides this, they had only some millet gruel at the
beginning of the day. On Fridays they had to break their
fast, for the choice was mutton or nothing. At times this
meat had to be eaten half cooked, or nearly raw, for the
only fuel was the dung of animals, a few briars, or, still more
rarely, a little brushwood from the banks of streams. At
first their guide was at no pains to conceal his contempt for
his moneyless comrades, but he gradually came to know and
like them better, and then would often take them ' to pray ;
at the camp of some rich Mongol close to their route.
Many of these wealthy Xomades were descendants of
Ghenghiz Khan, 'scattered all over this vast sea-like plain' ;
they knew little of any world but their own prairies ; and yet,
like other Tartars, they catechised their visitor with a host
of impertinent questions : — Whether the Pope were really five
hundred years old or no ; whether the Franks had many
cattle, sheep, and horses ; what the ocean sea was like,
about which their visitor talked so much ; and how it could
possibly be endless, without shores.1

On the 31st of October the mission somewhat altered its
route ; from due east to south-east, as Eubruquis describes
it. Thirty-four days had elapsed since he crossed the Ural
1 Rubruquis, pp. 276-278.

344 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Ch.

River, probably below Uralsk, and we may fairly suppose
that he had long passed the ' huge wide lagoon ' of the Sea
of Aral,1 and had arrived (at least) in the longitude of the
modern Perovski, on the Lower Syr Daria. From this
point, perhaps near Julek, the envoys made their way 'by
certain mountains ' due south 2 for seven days. These
mountains wTere possibly the north-west outliers of the
Ala-Tau, or Alexander Range, separating the Syr Daria
basin from that of the steppe river Chu ; and this note of
the traveller's shows that he had now almost traversed the
great featureless steppe of the Aralo-Caspian lowland, and
was approaching the high country of Central Asia.3

On the seventh day of their new direction, the travellers
sighted very lofty mountains to the south,4 and entering a
plain, irrigated like a garden, reached a Moslem town called
Kinchat or Kenjek, in the Talas Valley (8th November).5
Here the Mongol commander came out to meet their guide,
who, as a young Tartar noble, must be received with befitting
honour ; the food and drink here offered was very welcome
(especially the ale, a mark of respect to the messengers of
the Khan) ; and the little band seems to have taken a short
rest at this station. Meantime, from the 29th of September,
the frost had begun, and ice was on the roads. Rubruquis
vainly enquired the name of the 'province' he had now
readied, but he could only learn the designation of the

1 Which, unlike Oarpini, he does a time,
not notice, even indirectly.

2 For due south we should read
probably south-east.

4 Probably these mountains were
the modern Alexander range, running
from about Aulie-Ata to the western

3 Rubruquis, p. 278. It is at this j end of Lake Issik-Kul.

point he mentions the wild ass of the
desert (called Killan by the Mongols)
and its extreme fleetness — a last re-
membrance of the vast uncultivated

1 A steppe river in its lower course,
lost in the plains on its way to join
the Chu ; it rises on south slopes of
the Alexander range, and flows past

steppe which he was now leaving for Aulie-Ata.

v.]

THE TEUTON CAPTIVES AT BOLAT

345

town. Kinchat was very small, but lay in a well-irrigated
neighbourhood, which produced the grape, and absorbed so
much water from the Eiver Talas, that it ' flowed not into
any sea, but was sucked into the ground, forming many
marshes.' x

On the next day (9th November) the mission came to
another village nearer the mountains, which Eubruquis, from
his knowledge of the classical geographers, supposed to be
the Caucasus of Central Asia. This (according to common
belief) ran right across the continent from west to east,
and the envoy supposed that he had already crossed it in
his passage of the southernmost spurs of the Ural range.
Near the point they had now reached was the town of
Talas, an important commercial centre for many centuries,
where in recent times had been planted a colony of Teuton2
slaves, belonging to Prince Buri, who perished in a family
quarrel with Batu. These slaves had since been transported
by Mangu Khan, with Batu's permission, to a certain
town called Bolat, a month's journey eastward, where
they were employed in the mining of gold3 and the
manufacture of arms. Later on, in his progress eastward,
Eubruquis passed within ' perhaps three days ' of Bolat,
which may be located in the neighbourhood of Lake Sairam,
slightly to the north of the modern Kulja. The mission

1 Rubruquis, pp. 278-279.

2 Visited by Hiouen-Thsang in the
early years of the seventh century,
and by many other Chinese as well as
Moslem travellers. Zemarchus, the
Byzantine, passed through Talas on
his journey in 571, and here the
Turkish Khan Dizabul entertained
his Roman friends at a famous ban-
quet, when defiance was hurled at
the common enemy, Persia (Menander

Protector, 228) ; Dawn of Modern
Geography, i. 186-8. Its site is now
uncertain, but it cannot have been very
far from the valley of the Syr Daria,
and Rubruquis believed it lay ' beyond'
his route in the direction, of the moun-
tains, six daj7s! journey ; conjecture at
present hovers between the two ex-
tremes of Turkestan and Aulie-Ata.

3 A tribute to the traditional skill
of Germans in mining-work.

346 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Ch.

was, however, forbidden to visit this Teuton colony, either
going or returning.1

Still proceeding eastwards and skirting the northern
slopes of the Alexander range, the Friar now entered the
proper domain of the Great Khan Mangu,2 and after a few
days, arrived at the Alps or High Land, where the Kara-
Khitai used to live ; here the party had to cross a great river
(the Hi) in a ferry-boat. Thence along a valley, past a ruined
camp, with mud walls,3 in a district not wholly unfertile,
through a ' goodly town ' called Equius, inhabited by Persian-
speaking Saracens,4 and across the spurs projecting from the
mountains in the great Southern range,5 into a beautiful
plain, with high mountains on the right, and on the left
a sea or lake 6 twenty-five days' journey in circumference.
The whole of this plain was fertilised by streams that flowed
from the adjoining mountains 7 into the lake, whose southern
shore was now traversed by Rubruquis, as the northern side
was passed by him on the return journey. Both to the north
and south were lofty heights, and in the plain had once
been not a few towns, but most of these had been destroyed
by the Mongols, to increase the area of pasture land, for
there was excellent pasturage in that country. However,
one large market-city remained, a place named Kailak,

1 Rubrucpuis, pp. 279-280.

2 Rubruquis notes, however, that
in practical power Batu was superior.
and his subjects, being more powerful, \ Rivers or Semiretchi, is a great closed

5 The Ala-tau.

,; The Ala-Kul. This lake in
the Russian Province of the Seven

were less careful to show honour to
Mangu's messengers than Mangu's
people to Batu's envoys. Mangu, of
course, was really the nominee of
Batu for the titular headship of the
Tartars.

3 Near the modern Kopal.

4 We may conjecture that this
locality corresponded to the modern
Lepsinsk, a little north of Kopal.

basin, north-east of Kopal and 190
kilometres east of Lake Balkhash ;
it is 75 kilometres from north to
south : 36 kilometres from east to
west. Its area is 1950 square kilo-
metres, which is increasing of late
years. It lies 237 metres above sea
level. Its principal affluent is the
Chamanti.

7 Now the ' Zunwarian Ala-tau.'

V.] FROM THE STEPPES INTO THE MOUNTAINS 347

frequented by many traders ; and here the company rested
twelve days, till they were joined by a 'certain secretary'
of Batu's, who, along with the travellers' guide., was to settle
various matters at Mangu's Horde.1

This country had once possessed a language and letters of
its own in which Nestorian books and rituals had been
composed ; but now it was all inhabited by Turcomans ;
and here for the first time Bubruquis saw the ' Idolatrous '
Shamanists and Buddhists, of whom he gives a long account.
Among the 'sects' or nations of this category the most edu-
cated, and (to a Christian) the nearest to the True Faith, were
the Uigurs, living in the mountains east of the Ala-kul
basin, and both in race and doctrine a mixture of Tartar,
ISTestorian, and Saracen, or, in other words, of Turco-Tartar,
Syrian, and Persian elements. In Kailak the Idolaters had
three temples ; two of these the Friar entered, ' to see their
foolishness ' ; - he noticed that they worshipped towards the
north, and that the Moslems abhorred this superstition
so much that they would not even discuss the subject with
him. Later on, at Karakornm, he saw a colossal image (of
Buddha) ' as large as we paint Saint Christopher,' and heard
of another, still greater, in Cathay, which could be seen at
a distance of two days' journey, as he was told by a

1 Eubruquis. pp. 280-281. j and Mekrits ; of. Carpmi, 645.

- In one of these he talked with a
man who had a little cross in ink
upon his hand, and who said he was
a Christian. Heyd, Commerce du
Levant, ii. 65, concludes that both
Uigurs and Naimans had many
Christians among them, but were
not, as a whole, Christian ; thus
preferring the view of Carpini, ' an
aeuter observer than Rubruquis.'
The latter s ' Krit and Merkit' are
probably equivalent to the Keraits

The Keraits were Nestorian Chris-
tians at any rate in part ; they lived
to the south-east of Lake Baikal, on
the rivers Orkhon and Tula. Abul-
faraj gives a story of their conversion
by the Nestorian Bishop of Merv in
1007. The Merkits or Mekrits seem
to have been still closer to Baikal,
in the valley of the lover Selenga :
cf. d'Ohsson, i. 54 ; Rockhill's Rubru-
quis, Hak. Soc, p. 111.

348

DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL

[Ch.

Nestorian who had just come from the Far East. The Uigurs
used bells like those of Christians, and their shaven celibate
priests, dressed in saffron-coloured robes, and living in
communities, had many points of likeness to the Catholic
sacerdotal and coenobitic orders.1 It was probably on this
account, he adds, that Eastern Christians did not use bells,
except indeed the Eussians or Eutheni, and the Greeks in
Khazaria or the Crimea. Their beads recalled to him the
Christian rosaries ; their repetitions of the Sacred Formula,
Om mani joadme hum, reminded him of Latin Prayers for
which men ' expected as many rewards from God as they
remembered God in saying them.' The Lama hats or mitres,
barbarian as they were, and the shaven faces under them,
almost made the stranger for a moment think that he had
come among the Franks once more. Their very ' palls ' or
stoles were like those worn by deacons of the Western
Church in Lent.2

The writing of the Uigurs, which, like Chinese, ran from
top to bottom of a page, the lines following one another from
left to right,3 had been adopted by the Mongols, and it was
in this script that Mangu Khan wrote to King Louis.
Their temples were full of pictures and sacred sentences
of magic virtue, hung up on separate slips ; like the ancient
Pagans, they burnt their dead, placing the ashes at the tops
of pyramids. Those Mongols who had conformed to the
Idolatry of the Uigurs nevertheless kept up much of their
old wizardry or Shamanism, especially venerating their
ancestors under the form of felt images, guarded by sooth-
sayers, and placed in special carts when the encampment

1 Their religious silence in choir
puzzled Rubruquis not a little, and he
tried in vain to make them speak.

- Rubruquis, pp. 282-286.

3 The Tanguts, on the other hand,

says Rubruquis, wrote from right to
left, and from below to above, like
Arabic. The Tibetan mode of writing
was like the Latin, and the characters
were similar (?).

V.] DESCRIPTION OF THE UIGURS, TANGUTS, ETC. 349

was on the move, or arranged in circles within a house or
tent 1 when the Horde had ' set down its dwellings.' 2

On the other band, those Uigurs, who lived much among
Christians or Mussulmans, had mostly become worshippers
of one only God. To Rubruquis this people was of
especial interest, as inhabiting the cities which first obeyed
Ghenghiz Khan and occupying the mountain land to the
south of the pasture country of Prester John. Their writing-
was known to almost all the Nestorians ; their language was the
foundation of all the Koman and Turkish dialects ; 3 and thus
their civilisation had left its mark on the brutal conquerors
who had almost exterminated them. Beyond the Uigurs to the
eastward, but in the same mountain region, lived the Tanguts
(of Kansu), once victorious over Ghenghiz himself, and
famous for their yaks — very strong cattle with hairy tails
like horses, which drew the big tent-dwellings of the
Mongols. These strange beasts were lower on their legs
than other oxen, but much stronger ; even their bellies and
backs were covered with hair. Their horns were slender,
long, curved, and so sharp that the points were always cut
off. Their cows, like bulls, furiously attacked red objects,
and no one could milk them without a song. Beyond the
Tanguts again were the misshapen and bestial folk of Tibet,
who once made a practice of eating their dead parents, and
still used handsome drinking-cups fashioned from the skulls
of their ancestors, so that they might have them in mind
even in the midst of their merry-making. Gold abounded
in this land, but no one hoarded it, fearing the vengeance of
God on such covetousness.4

Continuing his account of Asiatic peoples, liubruquis

1 Here no stranger might enter. ' I 2 Rubruquis, pp. 286-28S.

tried,' says Rubruquis, ' to force my s Rubruquis, p. 289.

way into one hut, but was most i 4 Rubruquis, pp. 288-289.
rudely treated,' p. 288.

350 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Oh.

next tells us about the ' Longa ' aucl ' Solanga,' of Manchuria
and Korea, whose envoys he saw at the Mongol Court,
dragging with them huge carts harnessed to six oxen
apiece. These people, the ' Solanges ' of Carpini, the
1 Sulangka ' of Moslem geographers, apparently inhabited
much of the basin of the Amur Proper, as well as those
of its great tributaries, the Zeya, Bureya, Sungari, and
Ussuri. They were small and swarthy, like Spaniards,
and wore tunics and hats1 somewhat in the fashion of
dalmatics and bishop's mitres, evidently resembling the head-
dress which has survived in Korea. At Court their envoy
always carried an ivory tablet, and in speaking with the
Great Khan or other magnates, he appeared to read off from
this what he had to say.2

Besides these quaint people, the Friar heard of another
race called Muc, who dwelt in towns, possessed their herds
in common, and were very suspicious of strangers, not permit-
ting them to go about the country ; the very scent of an Out-
lander, they declared, would madden the cattle. Here perhaps
we have an allusion to the non-Chinese aboriginals of Kansu,
of Szechuen, and of Yunnan, who now as then lived in
fortified settlements on mountain- tops, herded their flocks
together in the valleys near at hand, and practised a rigorous

people called Caulc and Manse, who
are evidently the Kaoli, or reigning
dynasty of Korea ; in 1231 Korea
had submitted to Ghenghiz, and the
king fled to ' islands near the con-
tinent,' perhaps those which Rubra -
quis mentions as joined to the main-
land by ice in winter. In 12-41
Korea, alter a revolt, submitted again,
and sent a mission to the Mongol
Court ; this mission may have been
seen by the Master William of Paris,
who told Rubruquis of it.
2 Rubruquis, pp. 290-291.

1 These hats were slightly lower in
front than behind, not pointed but
square at the top, and made of stiff
black buckram, polished so that it
shone in the sun like a mirror or
burnished helmet. At the temples
were long strips of the same stuff,
fastened to the mitre, and standing
out in the wind like horns. Some-
times these horns were folded across
the mitre over the temples, like hoops
over the head, and made handsome
ornaments. Later in his work Rubru-
quis refers to the islands of the

V.]

DESCRIPTION OF CATHAY, ETC.

351

restraint, not unconnected with money profits, on any
foreigners who came among them.1

Finally, in the same part of the world, was Great
Cathay,2 anciently called the Land of the Seres ; 3 thence
came those finest of silk stuffs styled Seric ; and there also
was a town named Seres. One of the cities of this
country was said to have walls of silver and towers
of gold ; 4 many of its provinces were still independent of
the Mongols. The Cathayans were small in stature, with the
tiniest of eyes, a highly nasal speech, and great skill in all
artisan crafts, fostered by an unbending hereditary tradition.5
Their land was on the shore of the ocean ; it possessed vines,
but rice was used in preference to grapes for the making
of wine. Here paper money was in use, and the writing of
the people was performed with a brush like a painter's. In
one figure they could combine the several letters of a whole
word. Their doctors were well acquainted with the virtues
of herbs, but used no diuretics ; this Rubruquis had seen
lor himself.'-' Many of this folk lived at Karakorum, and
those that were vassals of the Mongol Khan paid an
immense annual tribute, no less than fifteen thousand marks
a day, without counting supplies of food, and silk.

All these nations, given to idolatry, from Uigur-land to
Cathay, dwelt on the northern slopes of the Trans-Asian
Caucasus,7 as far as the Eastern Ocean, but on the south
of that Scythia which was inhabited by the shepherd
Mongols, lords and masters of all the races now described.

Scattered among them, and living after their manner,

! Rubruquis, p. 291.

J Or Northern China, pp. 291-292.

:; An identification which Rubru-
tjuis, rightly enough, is the first to
make explicit, p. 291.

4 Singanfu (?).

■' ' According to custom, all sons
followed the same trade as their
lathers,' p. 292.

0 It is, however, false.

7 In the classical exaggeration of
this term, cf. Rubruquis, p. 292.

352

DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL

[Oh.

but in reality of utterly different race and habits, were
to be found Nestorians and Saracens, as far as Cathay. In
the last-named the ISTestorians possessed colonies in fifteen
cities, a bishop in one town,1 and great influence everywhere,
but as to the Christianity and character of these ISTestorians
the less said the better.2 They were unutterably depraved,
often Pagans or Saracens in manners and customs, sometimes
polygamists, usually simoniacs, worse than the Mongols
themselves. Words failed to describe their imposture,
drunkenness, and ignorance; one of their priests, well known
to Eubruquis, affected to expel devils with simple purgatives,
being himself no cleric, but a cloth-weaver, innocent of
the rudiments of letters. Others practised sorcery with
swords, ashes, stones, or twigs ; they even used chalices
plundered from Christian lands in their heathenish divinations;
it was true they had induced the Imperial family 3 to show
honour to the sign of the Cross, and to observe the fast
of Jonah (or the three days before Septuagesima), but this
was no atonement for their evil lives and dogmatic short-
comings. For they ate meat on Fridays, kept this day as
a festival, like the Mohammedans, had a married priesthood,

Khan, who sent his children to be
blessed by him. But Chabot points
out how a Nestorian envoy from
Arghun, Rabban Sauma, visiting
Rome in 1288, was allowed by Pope
Nicholas IV. to celebrate Mass,
and was given Communion on Palm
Sunday by the Pontiff himself. To
the Nestorian Patriarch, Mar Jabala-

1 Segin (Rubruquis, p. 292), ap-
parently Singanfu or Chang'an, the
capital of China under the Han
dynasty and the site of the famous
Nestorian inscription.

- Cf. Rubruquis, pp. 29.3, 323-324,
320. Among other things, Rubruquis
accuses them of giving the bene-
diction of the Christian religion
without any proof of the acceptance
of the Faith. Thus, among other
things, he mentions the arrival of
a Nestorian monk (who was a
prudens homo into the bargain)
at Karakorum, his introduction
at Court by the Grand Secretary
Bulgai, and the favour of the Grand

ba III., valuable papal presents were
sent at this same time, e.g. a tiara,
ling, and vestments.

3 Mangu's eldest son had for tutor
a Nestorian priest named David, who,
whatever he taught his pupil, at any
rate learnt from the Tartars the art of
hard drinking.

V-] RUJBRUQTJLS CROSSES THR DIVIDING RANGE 353

and made use of sacred books in the Syriac tongue, a language
which they had now forgotten, and only read and chanted
like parrots. So with a parting outburst of Eoman hatred
against the Oriental Christianity whose depression was so
long a cause of secret satisfaction to the Latin Hierarchy,
the Friar returns to his Itinerary.1

On the 30th of November the mission left Kailak, passed
through a Nestoriau village,2 and after three days came to
the head of Lake Ala-Kul, tempestuous as the ocean.3 The
water was brackish ; and from the shores the travellers saw
the famous ' Island peak ' 4 in the bosom of the lake. From
lofty mountains in the south-east a valley opened towards
the Ala-Kul ; and among these mountains another lake was
visible,5 from which flowed a river, and along whose basin
blew a wind of terrible strength. This valley they crossed,
not without fear lest the blast should carry them into
the water below ; then, following a northerly direction
towards some heights covered with deep snow, they hastened
their pace so as to put two days' journey into one and
arrive sooner at the Great Khan's Horde. From the 6th
of December, along narrow paths and over a poor pasture-
land, they hurried on through cold so extreme that they
turned their sheepskins with the wool inside : 6 in another
week's time they arrived (13th December) at a gorge cele-
brated for its devils ; and here good words were needed to put
the unseen enemy to flight. So the Friars chanted the Creed
of Nicaea, and for their Tartar guides they wrote the shorter
Credo and the Pater Noster, not as ' charms to be carried

1 Rubruquis, p. 293. I 4 Or 'Ala tyube,' mentioned by

2 ' Singing joyfully, Salve regina.' various Chinese geographers.
;i Perhaps at that time it formed 5 The Ebi Nor.

one and the same water with the ; 6 Rockhill reads outside, the fashion
now separate Sassyk-Kul. worn in more moderate weather.

354

DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL

Ch.

on the head ' x but as ' saving words to be borne within
the heart.' 2

After passing these dangerous mountains, and the low
land once inhabited by the Naimans, in a northerly2, direction,
the travellers crossed a final range and descended into
the flat country of Mongolia itself, a plain vast as the sea
(26th December). On the next day they arrived at the Court
or Horde of the Great Khan, where they were wTetchedly
housed in a tiny hut, with scarce room enough for their
baggage and their beds ; their guide meanwhile occupied
a large dwelling, and regaled himself with rice wine, which,
to the Friar's discontented eye, seemed as good as the
best wine of Auxerre, ' saving only the perfume.' Eubruquis
was so troubled by the haughtiness of the Mongols, their
contemptuous treatment of himself and his friends, and
their obstinate belief in the submission of the King of
France, that he felt he would gladly give his life to the
preaching of a Crusade against these arrogant barbarians.4

The first reception of the envoys took place on the 28th of
December ; the bare feet 5 of the Friars caused great astonish-
ment ; and the crowd of onlookers gazed at the strangers as at
so many monsters, asking if they bad no use for their
members, that they exposed them to the frost so recklessly.
A Hungarian captive who was present recognised the habit
of the Order, and explained matters as well as be could ;

1 After the usual Tartar manner ;
cf. Chang-chun and Hiouen-Thsang
and their stories of aggressive goblins
(who pulled the hair of passengers
and were maddened like bulls at the
sight of anything red) in the Thian
Shan and Altai.

2 Eubruquis, pp. 293-295.

3 Probably north - east. These
mountains were perhaps those now

called the Tarbagatai. The Naiman
country was along the upper basin
of the Irtish and the shores of Lake
Zaisan,-from about Semipalatinsk to
the present Russo-Chinese frontier.

4 Rubruquis, pp. 296-300.

5 Rubruquis' imprudence was not
altogether without its reward; next
morning he found the tips of his toes
were frozen, p. 303.

V.]

RUBRUQUIS AT M ANGUS COURT

355

then came Bulgai, the Grand Secretary, l who examined
the visitors with the help of this Hungarian, and dismissed
them to their lodgings.2

Returning from Court, Rubruquis visited an Armenian
church, where he met a hermit, lank and swarthy, from the
land of Jerusalem, who had come to promise Mangu the
Empire of all Christendom if he would only embrace the
faith. Envoys of ' Vastacius,' the Greek Emperor of
Nicaea, were also at the Horde, as well as a Greek
' knight ' and many other ambassadors from Western
►States. All of these bore witness to the genuine character
of the new mission; on the 3rd of January 1254, the Friars
were admitted to the presence of Mangu ; and at the door
of the Imperial tent the Latin visitors sang the hymn of
the Nativity —

1 A solis ortus cardine

Et usque terrae limitem

Christum canamus principem

Natum Maria virgine.'

The felt hanging before the entrance was lifted up for
the Khan to hear the better; but, none the less, the visitors,
when they had clone their song of praise, were searched for
concealed weapons before they were permitted to enter the
Court-room. This was all hung with cloth of gold, and
had a great tire of wood and refuse, briars and saxaul roots
burning in a grate in the centre of the dwelling. Mangu
was seated on a couch, and appeared to be ' a little man, of
moderate height,' aged about iive-aud-forty years, dressed in
a skin spotted and glossy like a seal.3 Among various

1 A Nestorian who, through his
acquaintance with a Latin prisoner,
the goldsmith, Master William of
Paris, had made some progress to-
wards orthodoxy, and had even

learnt to fast on Fridays. Rubruquis,
p. 301.

2 Rubruquis, pp. 300-301.

3 This ' sea-cow ' skin probably
came from Lake Baikal.

o 0 b

DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL

[Ch.

drinks Eubruquis chose a cervisia, or ale of rice, clear and
flavoured like white wine ; but while he sipped a little ' out
of respect,' his interpreter was drinking deeply, and it was
not long before the Friar had to dispense with his services
' such as they were.' 1 His unfortunate proximity to the Court
butlers may have been the cause of this misfortune, but as he
was always tipsy on critical occasions, and at the best had a
feeble grasp of Western tongues, it did not much matter.
Mangu himself was very incoherent, and the royal interpreter
was only too proud to be like his master. So for a time the
visitors could understand little or nothing, until at last the
Khan roused their attention with a series of plain questions
about the kingdom of France — its sheep and cattle and horses,
and the possibilities of conquering the whole. Eubruquis had
scarce control sufficient to conceal his indignation, but he
returned an evasive answer, and gained the Khan's permis-
sion to stay two months at the Eoyal Horde. More than
this, he was offered permission to visit Karakorum.2

At the Court Eubruquis met with quite a little colony
of Europeans. Besides the embassies which had come to
bespeak the favour of Mangu, there were various captives,
like the woman Paquette3 of Metz, who had been made
prisoner in Hungary, and was married to a Eussian tent-
builder;4 or the goldsmith, William Buchier of Paris,5 who

1 Rubruquis, pp. 301-306. The
noble who had guided them from
Batu's camp, on his arrival at
Mangu's horde ceased to take further
interest in the strangers, and devoted
himself to his liquor.

2 Rubruquis, pp. 306-309.

3 Among other Europeans at the
Tartar Court Rubruquis mentions in
another connection, nearer the end
of his work, (1) a Teuton girl slave,
who had been thrown into a trance,

lasting three days, by the Mongol
diviners ; (2) a Hungarian who by
stealth had once been present at a
devil-evocation of these same diviners.

4 Houses (domos) is the word,
but the ordinary house in these parts
was, of course, the Central Asian tent
or yurt. Elsewhere Rubruquis tells
us that the houses in Karakorum
of more solid construction were made
by the Chinese.

5 Master William had been taken

v.]

UUBRUQUIS AT MANGDS COURT

357

worked for the Tartars in Karakorinn itself. These
captives had suffered unheard-of misery on the journey,
but they were now in better case, and made a good deal
of money at times. Thus Mangu had just given William
the Goldsmith 3000 marks and fifty workmen for a certain
contract, and to finish this he was bound to work his utmost.
He could not therefore spare Friar William the services of
his son as an interpreter, though he would have been a
good substitute for the tipsy knave whom Eubruquis had
been employing.1

At this Tartar Court the Friar also met a very clever
charlatan, a certain clerk from Acre, who called himself
Raymond, but whose real name was Theodoulos.2 This man
had started from Cyprus with Friar Andrew of Longumeau,
and journeyed with him as far as Persia; thence he had
proceeded to the Court of Mangu with stories of one Otho,
a bishop, who had received from Heaven letters in golden
characters, announcing the future triumph of the Mongols
over the whole world. With such flatteries Theodoulos
persuaded the Great Khan that he would be a useful agent
of Tartar ambition ; he was entrusted with the Imperial
passport of the Golden Tablet,3 and sent back to the West

prisoner at Belgrade, in Hungary,
where there was also a Norman
Bishop from Belleville near Rouen ;
a nephew of the Bishop was also
captured, whom Rubruquis saw
at Karakorum. William was first
in the service of Mangu's mother ;
then in that of the Great Khan's
Brother, Arabuccha ; finally in that
of Mangu himself. The Grand
Khan had given him 1000 marks for
his works at Karakorum. Arabuc-
cha had shown leanings towards
Christianity ; among other things he
had restrained the railings of certain

Saracens, because ' we know Messias
is God.' At that moment, in con-
firmation of his words, a terrible wind
arose, and devils were seen to rush
along with it.

1 Rubruquis, pp. 309-310.

2 He suggests also, though he does
not explicitly assert, the fraudulent
character of another envoy, a Damas-
cene Christian, who professed to
bring offers of tribute and alliance
from the Sultan ' of Mont Real and
Crae.'

3 This was put in the keeping
of Theodoulos' Mongol companion.

358 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Ch.

witli presents for the King of the Franks. In his company
was a Mongol spy, charged to observe and report upon the
roads, towns, men, and arms of Christian countries. As far
as Nicaea Theodoulos made his way unchallenged, but he was
unable to deceive his own people. The Greeks stopped him,
examined him, and threw him into prison ; the Golden Tablet
was returned to Mangu ; and at Erzerum, 'on the borders of
Turkey,' Friar William passed the bearers of the dishonoured
token on their way to Karakorum.1

While Eubruquis was at the Court another notable im-
postor, the Armenian monk and 'prophet' before-mentioned,
whose name was Sergius, boasted that he would baptise
Mangu on the Feast of the Epiphany next ensuing (6th
January, 1254). But as a fact, the Christian priests, the
Saracen Mollahs, and the Buddhist Bonzes were all equally
confident of their ascendency over the Khan, were all per-
mitted to enrol him among their devotees, and were all
alike victims of delusion. For he believed in none of their
creeds, and while they followed his Court like Hies after
honey, he only used them as a politic ruler, ready to welcome
any means of quieting subjects of other nationalities and
faiths. On the 12th of January, a week after the baptism,
Friar William was present at a Nestorian service2 which
the Great Khan attended with some of his household ; at
the Imperial request the Latin strangers also chanted a

The Tablet was ' like a plate of gold,
half a cubit long and a palm broad ;
he who carried it could command
what he pleased without delay.'
Mangu's presents to the King of
France were a strong bow which
two men could hardly bend, and two
' sounding' arrows, with silver heads,
full of holes, that whistled in the
air when shot (Rubruquis, pp. 311,
312) ; — examples of a famous Turco-

Tartar weapon. In haughty and
obscure terms Mangu offered the
French King peace and the Western
World, while the Tartars finished the
conquest of the Saracens.

1 Rubruquis, pp. 310-313.

2 On the other hand, on the Sth of
February, there was a Pagan or
Shamanist divination at Court, by
the blade-bones of sheep.

v.]

VISIT TO KARAKORUM

359

psalm;1 and the whole ended with a sort of orgie — the
Khan's ladies drinking, the Nestorian clerics singing and
' howling,' the Frank visitors partaking of the food which
came so rarely to their mouths, and looking on at the rest
with wearisome disgust.2

Some time after his arrival, Rubruquis found that the
Court was about to visit Karakorum, and obtained per-
mission to accompany its progress. On this journey ' north-
ward ' he verified the truthfulness of Baldwin of Hainault, who
' had been there,' and had told him, in Constantinople, how all
the rivers of this tract flowed from east to west, and how the
route was perpetually on the ascent. Still further, towards the
sun-rising, lay the famous Cathay, at a distance of twenty days,3
and on one side of the road was the home-land of Ghenghiz
and his tribe, to the east and south-east of Lake Baikal, ten
days from Karakorum. But throughout all this region no
city, town, or village was to be met with, but only the tents
of the Xomade Kirghiz, and the hunters and trappers4 who
chased birds and beasts over the frozen snow and ice on
shoes of polished bone. Yet nearer to the Pole lived in
abject poverty some wretched tribes, who bordered on the
west upon the Bashkirs of Great Hungary ; and north of
these again was a land of eternal cold, unknown to
men.6

In spite of all enquiries, the Friar could discover no
certain trace, or reliable news, of the monstrous races whom
classic authors had placed in these regions, except only the

1 The 'prose,' Veni, Sancte Spiritus
In rewardfortheircompliance Mangu's
queen or chief lady ottered them valu-
able presents, which they declined for
themselves, but allowed their drago-
man to accept. One of these, a piece of
gold and silk brocade, he sold for 80
bezants in Cyprus ; Rubruquis, p. 316.

2 Rubruquis, pp. 313, 315, etc.

3 According to the testimony of
certain priests, from the same Cathay.

4 Whom Rubruquis, p. 327, calls
Oengai, perhaps the modern Tun-
guses.

5 Rubruquis, pp. 32(3, 327, 334,
etc.

360 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Cm.

Chin-chin or Kangaroo-men, who lived, and leapt, in the far
Eastern countries beyond Cathay.1

On the 29th of March, while Mangu was still on his slow
progress towards Karakorum, through a mountainous
country swept by snowstorms and bitter winds, he received
news of the completion of his new palace in that settlement,
and at once hastened his pace. Early on the 5th of April
(Palm Sunday) he and his train were in sight of the town,
and at three in the afternoon of the same day the formal
entry took place. Eubruquis and his friends raised their
cross and banner, and passed through the Saracen quarter
and the market to the church, where the ISTestorians met them
in procession. After service the Franks dined with their
countryman, William of Paris, and his wife, a ' daughter of
Lorraine,' but born in Hungary ; one Basil,2 the son of an
Englishman, was also present. Master William kept the
day as a festival, for his work at the palace was the admira-
tion of the whole Court, and it was to see this that Mangu
had come. Within the high boundary wall that enclosed
the Imperial dwelling (like a monks' priory in a Christian
country), were many buildings, like barns or storehouses,
wherein the food supplies and treasures of the Khan re-
posed ; and in the entrance the French goldsmith had made a
silver tree, with four lions of silver at the roots of the same,
and pipes or conduits from the foot of the trunk to the top
of the branches, round which gilded serpents were twined,
and above which, at the summit of all, stood an angel with a
trumpet. In a vault beneath the tree a man could lie con-
cealed, and by means of the pipes that led up to the angel
he could blow the trumpet; this was a signal for the lions
and serpents to pour out wine and kumiss, honey-mead and

1 Rubruqiiis, pp. 327-328.

2 Also 'born in Hungary. '

V.l VISIT TO KARAKORUM 301

rice-ale, each drink being duly received in a separate bowl of
silver.1

In its structure the palace within the enclosure was not
unlike a church; it had a nave and two aisles separated by
columns and three gates on the south side. Before the
central gate stood the tree, and within, towards the north,
but looking out to the sacred quarter and the silver tree,
through the ' portal of honour.' stood the throne of the
Great Khan, 'like a divinity,' on a dais with two steps.
The length of the palace was from north to south, not from
east to west ; on the right hand, towards the sun-setting,
was the place of the male, on the left hand, towards the sun-
rising, of the female, courtiers.2

But although Karakorum was the capital, if any capital
there were, of the greatest Empire in the world, it was not as
large as St. Denys, near Paris, a mere bourgade among French
towns ; and this boasted palace was but a tenth of the size of
the great monastery at St. Denys. Besides the Saracen
quarter to the westward, already mentioned, in which were
the markets, and near which stood the palace, there was
also an artisan quarter to the east, chiefly inhabited by men
of Cathay. Beyond the town itself were the palaces of the
Court Secretaries ; other buildings of note were the twelve
idol temples, the two ' mahummeries ' or mosques, and the
Christian church ; the whole was surrounded by a mud wall
pierced by four gates. Each of these ports had a market ; —
for millet and other grain at the east ; for sheep and goats
at the west ; for oxen and waggons at the south ; and for
horses at the north.3

Ptubruquis' ill-compacted and gossiping narrative gives
many stories of his disputes with, and verbal triumphs over,

Rubruquis, pp. 334-336, 337. " Rubruquis, p. 33G.

3 Rubruquis, pp. 345-346.

362

DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL

[Ch.

the Nestorian and Armenian Theologians, and especially the
monk, to whose hospitality he had been assigned, and whose
Manichaeism1 was alone enough to alienate his guest. These
native Christians, according to Friar William, were as greedy
as the lowest Mongols ; not satisfied with getting drunk every
day at Court, they thrust themselves upon the unlucky
Western visitors whenever a present of food or wine had come
from the Khan's table; and thus the writer learnt from ex-
perience ' what a martyrdom was the charity of the poor,'
When in disfavour with Manga, these braggart ' Christians,'
showing themselves in their true light, thought nothing of an
offer to do a vital injury to the Christians of Europe, and to
go on missions as Tartar spies among the nations of the West,
as far as to St. James of Compostella. Their ' miracles
of healing ' were only done by the aid of violent purges
or emetics, which sometimes cured and sometimes killed,
and to obtain a generous testament from the dying, they
were known at times to kick and thrash them into obedience.
Even theft did not come amiss to some of them ; a crucifix
which William of Paris had made for Bulgai, the Grand
Secretary, was stolen by these missionaries.2 Yet in

1 ' Did not the devil,' he exclaimed
once in argument, ' bring earth on
the first day from the four parts of
the world, and did he not knead it
into clay and make the human body
thereof, and did not God breathe a
soul into the same ? '

2 As a matter of fact, the Nes-
torians, whatever their deficiencies,
were the only Christians who made
any impression on the Mongols, and
procured a comparatively favourable
treatment for the Christian subjects
of the Khan. Thus Hulagu, whose
wife was a Nestorian, usually spared
the lives of those who belonged to

this faith, while his slaughter of
Moslems was almost as terrible as
the massacres of Ghenghiz. King
Hayton the Elder, of Little Armenia,
has been wrongly counted as a
Nestorian, but he seems to have been
in close relations with the Nestorians
and with their help influenced the
Tartars to show greater favour to-
wards subject Christians : still more
powerful was the influence of a
Nestorian doctor, Simeon, who, as
early as 1241, appears as a prominent
person at the Mongol Court. Of.
Heyd, Commerce du Levant, ii.
67.

v-l RUBRUQUIS ON THE NESTORIANS 363

spite of their heresies and their wickedness, it was some
comfort to rind that they accepted Rome as the Head
of all the churches ; that, if the way were open, they
would gladly take their spiritual rulers from the Pope;
and that it was only need which made them obey the
Patriarch or Catholic at Bagdad, and receive from him
their priests, their relics, their sacred oil, and their altar-
tables.1

Like John de Piano, though perhaps not so poignantly,
Friar William and his friends suffered from hunger, cold,
the want of a good lodging, and every misery of barbarous
surroundings, during the chief part of their stay at Mangu's
Court. Occasionally the Khan sent them food and presents
of clothing ; and at the audiences be granted them they
might have taken some handsome and costly gifts of silk,
flax-cloth, and brocade, if their character had permitted it.
But, as a whole, their privations were great ; a poor thin
sheep had to serve them for a week ; on a day of plenty
they were forced to share with a swarm of self-invited
guests; and the season of Lent — when even fish was
tabooed, and when the winds and snowstorms of Mongolia
were most piercing — was only less terrible than the journey
from the Volga in midwinter.2

It was, therefore, not unwelcome to find, as the month
of May drew on, that the Mongol Court was preparing
to dismiss the French mission, and to send by their hands
Mangu's answer to King Louis. First of all, the Grand
Secretary3 examined the visitors as to their objects and
the objects of their Sovereign : demanded whether any other
embassies had been sent to the Khan by the King of France ;
and enquired whether they would escort a Mongol legation

1 Rubruquis, pp. 314-315, 324-328, I 2 Rubruquis, pp. 314, 315.
331-332, 334, 342-345, 349, 354. I 3 Bulgai.

364 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Oh.

back to Europe. In answer, they repeated what they had
said to Batu, and had already stated on their arrival at the
Imperial Horde ; referred to the visit of David and Friar
Andrew ; and professed their helplessness to undertake
so perilous and political a charge as was suggested. What-
ever their real feelings, they thought it well to declare that
their wish was still to remain at Mangu's Horde, and to
pray for him, his household, and his people. The formal
decision was postponed for a few days ; and meanwhile, the
Khan was entertained by a series of theological disputes,1 in
which Catholics and Nestorians, Armenians and Manichaeans,
Moslems and Idolaters, carried on a bloodless warfare,
sometimes one side ' writing down' the words of another as
' false ' or ' impossible,' sometimes bursting into laughter at
the outrageous statements of their adversaries, the whole
concluding in the usual manner with deep potations and
loud singing.2

At last, on the 31st of May, Friar William was summoned
to a decisive audience. Before he entered the presence, his
new interpreter, the son of Master William, warned him
that all was settled for his departure ; and so he found it.
Mangu was gracious, although Kubruquis had been accused
to him of insulting his Majesty with the name of idolater ;
he readily accepted the Frank's disclaimer ; and stretching
out to him the sceptre-staff on which he leaned, bade his
guest fear nothing. (If I had been fearful, murmured the
Friar to himself, I should not have come here.) Then,
helped by a not infrequent consultation of the flagon at

1 Among other things, Transmigia-
tion of Being was discussed, a little
after the fashion of Plato's Meno.
Master Wiiliara of Paris, at another
time, told Rubruquis of a boy from

old, who was capable of all forms
of reasoning, knew how to read and
write, and claimed three separate in-
carnations ; evidently this was a
'living Buddha' or ' Bodhisattva.'

Cathay, apparently about twelve years 2 Rubruquis, pp. 355-359.

v-l KUBRUQUls' PARTING WITH MANGTJ 3G5

his side, the Mongol Emperor began to confide in his
visitors as he had never done before. The Mongols believed in
one God, and they perceived that as God gave the hand
divers fingers, so He bestowed on man divers ways of life
and of belief. For to the Christians He entrusted ' Scrip-
tures that were not kept,' and to others He granted other
things. No one, they thought, should wrangle with another;
no one should pervert justice for money. At this glance of
sarcasm Eubruquis protested his own pure and peaceful
conduct, and the Khan, forestalling an exposition of the
Catholic Faith which his visitors were eager to give him,
announced his decision as to their return. They must go
back to Europe ; if they feared to conduct his ambassadors,
would they venture to be the bearers of his letters or
his messages ? On their consent, he again enquired about
the route they wished to follow, and, finding that they
hoped for 'travelling charges' and a guard as far as Armenia
the Little,3 he reminded them of the all-powerful Viceroy
in the West, through whose camp and with whose consent
they must journey. 'There are two eyes in one head, but
the two have one and the same vision ; from Batu you have
come, by way of Batu shall you return.' 2

Eubruquis, though not without joy at the prospect of
revisiting his King and country, was anxious to retain what
influence he had gained, in truth or fancy, over the Khan and
the Tartars ; and before leaving the Court he offered himself
as a priest to the ' poor slaves ' at Bolat, near Lake Sairam.
This colony of exiled Teutons he had not been allowed to visit
as an envoy ; perhaps he could gain access as a chaplain ; in
any case, had he the Imperial permission to return to the

1 I.e. Cilicia. I that, as the sun cast its rays over

2 Eubruquis, pp. 359-361. At all the earth, even so his own power
their first audience Man^u declared and (hat of Batu reached everywhere.

366

DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL

[Ch.

Mongol Empire ? In vague and general terms Mangu
assented ; then, with a parting cup, and an exhortation (which
must have sounded like irony) to comfort themselves with
food and guard their health, he dismissed the Friars, and they
saw him no more. To the last they hoped to hear from his
lips some hint of his inclination to the True Religion, but it
would have needed signs and wonders like those of Moses
to extort such a confession and to humble the pride of such
a monarch.1

There was not, indeed, much humility about the letters
which Rubruquis soon after received as the result of his
mission. Like Kuyuk's earlier epistle to the Pope, Mangu's
words breathed a haughty and fanatical sense of over-
mastering power by the grace of God : — ' This, by the
virtue of the Eternal, throughout the great world of the
Mongols, is the message of Mangu Khan to the Lord of
the French. Wherever ears can hear, wherever horses can
travel, there let it be heard and known : those who do not
believe, but resist Our Commandments, shall not be able to
see with their eyes, or hold with their hands, or walk with
their feet. The Commandments of the Eternal are what we
impart to you. If you will obey us, send your ambassadors,
that we may know whether you wish for peace or war.
But if you say, Our Country is far, our mountains are strong,
and our sea is wide, then you shall find what we can do.
For the Eternal makes plain what is difficult, and brings
near that which is afar off'.' Such was the substance,
with many repetitions, of the reply which the One lord of

1 Rubruquis, pp. 361-362. Many
of the chief ■women at Court seem to
have been Christians of a sort, e.g.
the mothers of Mangu, Hulagu, and
Kublai. These facts sujjported the
idea of a wider Christianity among

Mongols than really existed, and
fostered hopes of alliance between
Christendom and the Tartars, as well
as of the conversion of the Great
Khan.

V]

MANGU S LETTERS TO ST. LOUIS

367

Earth,1 inspired by the One God of Heaven, deigned to make
to a King whom he already regarded as a vassal anxious for
his favour. As to the previous missions to and from the
French Court in the Levant, they were nothing ; David was
an impostor, and Ogul Gaimish had no authority. For ' in
affairs of war and peace and the welfare of a great realm,
what could this woman, viler than a bitch, know or do?'2
At a concluding festival in Karakorum — on the 7th of
June and the next three days — a week after the final
audience, Friar William saw ever fresh tokens of the
Mongol power : — the envoy of the Caliph of Bagdad carried
in a litter between two mules ; the ambassadors of an
Indian Sultan who brought presents of hunting leopards
and greyhounds ; and the legates of the Sultan of Turkey
(Rum or Iconiuni). These Indians followed the same route
as Rubruquis, on his homeward way, for almost three weeks,
going steadily west, and to indicate the direction of their
country they pointed in the same quarter, a good example
of the ignorance and carelessness which is responsible for so
many of the local misconceptions of this Itinerary. Mean-
while, Brother Bartholomew of Cremona had decided to stay
behind ; for his part, soul and body could not endure the hard-
ships of the journey ; and Mangu was willing to keep and
maintain him at the Court. William of Paris, who, for
different reasons, could not leave the Horde, was entrusted
with a fixed sum3 to spend on the Friar's needs; an equal
sum was given from the Khan's treasury for the expenses of
the returning Franks ; and about the 6th of July, 1254,
Rubruquis set out for Batu and the Volga. With tears
he parted from Bartholomew and from his good friend the

1 According to the Alongol view,
Gherlghiz Khan, Son of Heaven, was
the one and only temporal lord from

whom all authority was derived.

2 Rubruquis, pp. 369-370-371.

3 Five ' iascot.'

368 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Ch.

goldsmith (once, like himself, a subject of the King of
France), who now sent to his old sovereign ' endless
salutations' and a present of mysterious value — a girdle
with a precious stone, such as the Tartars wore against
lightning. After refusing all other gifts,1 Friar William
accepted Mangu's parting offer of ' three plain gowns,' lest
it should seem that the royal bounty was treated with scorn ;
he had already permitted his interpreter, the ' Alan of God,'
to profit somewhat by the liberality of the Khan 2 and his
ladies ; and the nasic and buckram, the furs and silks and
cotton cloths, which were carried back to Cyprus, sold for
a good sum.3

In seventy days the mission accomplished the distance
between Karakorum and the camp of Batu, apparently
travelling (at least on part of the road) by a more northern
route than on the outward way. Almost the whole journey
was over desert country ; for fifteen days their path lay
by a stream winding through mountains ; but, except for one
tiny hamlet, and a number of graves, they never saw town,
village, or building during the whole of the time ; nor did
they take any rest, save for the time allotted to eating and
sleeping, and one day, when a forced halt occurred through
the want of horses. For the most part, they came through
the same ' nations,' but not through the same districts, as
they had traversed before. Three weeks out from Karakorum
they heard news of another wayfarer, whose visit had been
long expected, and who was evidently considered by the Tartars
to be far more important than the ambassadors of King Louis.
This was Havton, King of Little Armenia (the mediaeval

1 Except some pompion fur-gowns
in the depth of winter.

2 Mangu was at first, Rubruquis
thought, offended by their going to

diately to the Imperial Court ; but
the Khan evidently liked the envoys
more, and gave them better treat-
ment, than Kuyuk did Carpini.

Sartach instead of proceeding innue- | 3 Rubruquis, pp. 368-369, 372-374.

V.] RETURN TO THP> VOLGA 369

Christian kingdom in Cilicia and the Taurus) ; he and his
house had thrown themselves cordially into the Mongol
alliance ; and a common enmity to the Saracens kept up a
good understanding and a constant communication between
these distant and ill-matched friends, between giant and
dwarf. Much as he desired to meet Hayton, Eubruquis
just missed the royal visitor, who reached the Imperial
Horde in the middle 1 of September, when Friar William
must have been nearly half-way on his journey to the
Volga.2

By a strange coincidence the writer reappeared in the
Horde of Batu on the same day of the same month as he
had quitted it a year before.3 Here he found Gosset and the
others in safety, but miserable, poor, and hopeless; the
Tartars were already preparing to make slaves and cattle-
drivers of them ; and but for the arrival and help of King
Hayton, this would long ago have been their fate.4

Batu did not exercise the right which Mangu had granted
him, of revising, abridging, or altering the Imperial reply to
the French King ; nor did he object to the southern route
by Persia and Armenia ; but a month passed before a suit-
able guide was forthcoming. At last an Uigur was put in
charge of the party, and they started for the South, descend-
ing the banks of the Etil towards Sarai ; when they crossed
the great river near its mouth, they had to pass three main
branches (each of which was nearly twice as large as the
Nile at Damietta), and four lesser arms, composing a delta of
seven channels. In the middle of this waste of waters, an

1 The thirteenth. Hayton left | Court and in the neighbourhood of

Barchin, on the Syr Daria.
8 Rubruquis, pp. 375-376.

3 16 th September 1253 — 16th
September \'2i>4.

4 Rubruquis, p. 377.
A

Mangu, 1st November. On his way he
had visited both Sartach and Batu ;
and on his return he turned out of his
road to meet Sartach again, as the
latter was then on his 'ourney to

370 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Oh.

unwalled town, Summer-Keur by name, had resisted the
Tartars for eight years j1 Alans, Saracens, and even Germans,
were among its people ; and it seems not to have been far
from Batu's new capital or camp at Sarai. With a good
fortune that must have surprised the least despondent of his
company, Eubruquis succeeded in recovering most 2 of the
books and vestments that had been 'kept in charge' for him
so long ; the rest were left ' to please Sartach,' who really
cared for none of these things ; and on the 1st of November
the legation set out for the passage of the Caucasus.3 By
the loth of December they had reached the northern slope
of the mighty mountain range; but during the first fortnight
of November the way lay through a region absolutely desert,4
and once they almost died of thirst. Both the Alan and
the Lesghian tribes of the hill-country held out stubbornly
against the Mongols, and sometimes even raided their cattle
in the plains ; to pass the Iron Gates or Defile of Derbent
an escort of twenty men was furnished, — greatly to the
delight of Paibruquis, who had often longed to see the
Tartars under arms. This escort, however, was poorly
appointed ; of the twenty warriors only two had cuirasses, the
rest were equipped with nothing better than bows and arrows,
Persian caps, plates of iron, and jackets of leather, awkward
and ill-suited for active work in combat.5

The Iron Gates, made by Alexander of Macedon, between

1 How it had defended itself when
all these waters were frozen in
winter Rubruquis does not explain.

2 He gives a considerable list,
however, of articles he did not re-
cover, e.g. a gold-fringed altar-cloth,
a censer, the Psalter of the French

queen, a Bible in verse, and the I headed by one of Batu's sons
Arabic MS., worth thirty bezants, ' ■' Rubruquis, pp. 377-381
alreadv noticed,

3 'Mountains of the Alans.' as
Rubruquis calls them.

4 Between the place where Rubru-
quis met Batu's Horde and Sarai,
fifteen clays' journey, the country
was equally without inhabitants,
except for a party out hawking,

v.]

RUBRUQUIS PASSES THE CAUCASUS

371

the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian Sea, were marked
and guarded by a town (the city of Derbent), more than a
mile long, but so closely pressed between the hills and the
shore,1 that its width was never more than a stone's throw ;
it was strongly walled, with parapets and towers, but with-
out moats ; the only possible high-road lay through the
very middle of the city. Two days' journey beyond Derbent,
the travellers passed a Jewish colony at Samaron,2 and here
the route left the Caspian shore and struck inland, through
a wild, hilly country, abounding in remains of Alexander's
ramparts. Within certain other barriers in this region
Hebrew exiles were said to be imprisoned, but of these the
writer could learn nothing with any certainty. Still push-
ing on to the 'South,'3 through Samag or Shamaka, once the
capital of Shirvan, the travellers now descended into the
great plain of the Kur and lower Aras, in which the famous
cities of Tirlis, the 'head of Georgia,' and Ganges, the old
' metropolis ' of the Khorazmian conquerors,4 were to be found.
Friar William, for his part, made no excursions to
celebrated sites, but pushed on steadily to the south-west
' towards Africa ' ; leaving Persia on the left or south and
Georgia on the right or north ; and following the valley of
the Araxes, from the bridge 5 that spanned it, at its junction
with the Kur, to the chief encampment of the Mongol army
in the land of Hyrcania. This horde lay on the Upper Aras,
with special authority over the conquered Georgians, Turks,

1 Rubrucpiis is the only Western
Christian traveller of the pre-Polo
period who passes through the Iron
Gates of Derbent.

2 Edrisi's Semmur ; cf. Benjamin
of Tudela on the Hebrews trans-
planted by Shalmaneser Asher, ii.
] 58-162; also Carpini, 748, on the
'Jewish- Brutaehi.

3 ' South-west ' properly.

4 Of 1225 and following years ;
Rubrucpiis, pp. 381-383. Ganges,
Gansh or Genje, is the present
Elizabetjiol.

5 A pontoon, held together by
great iron chains. Here Rubrucpiis
quotes Virgil, dZneid, viii. 728 : —
' pontem dedignatur Araxes,'

372 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Oh.

and Persians, but subordinate to the Tartar Prince 1 govern-
ing at Tabriz ; their chief, Bachu Noian, entertained his
visitors, not with Kumiss, as the Friar had hoped, but with
wine, and sent them on to Naxua or Nakhitchivan, at the foot
of Ararat. Here Rubruquis kept the Festivals of Christmas
and the Epiphany in an almost deserted city ; where two
churches alone stood out of eighty ; where first the Saracens,
and then the Tartars, had worked their will on the luckless
Armenians ; but where the first resting-place of Noah was
still proudly shown. Close by was the Sacred Mountain
of the Ark, unscalable by mortal foot ; for though in itself
it did not appear too high for an ascent, a divine jealousy
forbade the human race to explore the ' Mother of the
World.' 2

In this ruined town of Naxua, one Friar Bernard, a
Dominican of Catalonia, was then staying, whose adventures
had been in singular contrast to the success of Pubruquis.
First he had been to Georgia with a Piim1 of the Holy
Sepulchre, who had landed possessions in that country;
then he had journeyed in the company of a Hungarian
Friar to the camp of Argun at Tabriz ; but permission ;to go
to Sartach ' was refused ; and he was kept in the Persian
city, miserably inactive and solitary, his colleague having
been sent back to Tifiis and the West, and his only com-
panion being a German lay brother, whose language he
could not understand.3

Friar William was detained by heavy snow at Naxua
till the 13th of January ; thence he travelled through the
country of Sahensa, Prince of Ani, a most unwilling vassal
of the Mongol, who professed allegiance to the Poman

1 The famous Argun, before this
time ; now superseded by one of
Mangu's brothers. Kars was at this
time the chief station of the Mongol

forces in this region.

2 Rubruquis, pp. 384-387.

3 Rubruquis, p. 387.

V.] RTJBEUQUIS PASSES THEOUGH ARMENIA 373

Church, and longed for the aid of the King of France.
His capital was a strong fortress, one of the most ancient
cities of Armenia, famous for its ' thousand and one ' (or
countless) churches, but now controlled and polluted by the
presence of a Mongol bailiff; and here Friar William
encountered five Dominicans, four of whom had come from
France direct, while the fifth had joined them in Syria.
They carried letters from the Pope to Sartach, Buri, and
Mangu ; but their position was simply that of mission-
aries ; and their only request of the Mongol lords was
permission to stay and preach. Eubruquis' advice was sound,
but hardly inspiriting : with the Papal letters they would
doubtless be able to enter the Tartar realms, but they must
take a good supply of patience and plenty of sound reasons
for their coming ; mere preachers would receive but scant
courtesy among the Nomades ; and, without an interpreter,
they would find their lot a hard one. After this warning
they started for Tifiis, where some other Friars of their
Order were then stationed, and the writer heard no more
of their mission.1

On the 15th of February, 1255, fifteen days' journey from
Nakhitchivan, Eubruquis entered 'Turkey' or the Sultanate
of Iconium, crossing the head waters of the Araxes, and
passing through Marsengen, between Kars and Erzerum.2
Is ear here he struck the upper course of the Western
Euphrates, and down this stream he journeyed for a week
to Camath or Kemakh, where the river turned 'southward'3
towards Aleppo, and where the traveller passed into the
ancient Cappadocia: thence over high snow-clad mountains

1 Eubruquis, pp. 3SS-390.

2 Though Piulnuquis mentions
Aarserum(-on) or Erzerum, ' a goodly
city,' he does not say that he visited
it. anv more than Arsengan orErzin-

ghian ; both, however, are probable
stations of his loute.

3 From Kemakh the Euphrates
continues a mainly westward course
for some distance.

374 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Ch.

and through Sivas or Sebaste,1 — the Cappadocian Caesarea, —
and Iconiurn, to Curta or Coiycus, on the coast of Cilicia or
Armenia the Little, the practical end of the journey. In
this last stage the writer saw the site of the Mongol victory
over the Turkish Sultan, where terrible earthquakes had
changed the face of the country, and the earth had opened
its mouth to drink in the blood of Saracens. In Erzinghian
alone these convulsions had destroyed ten thousand people of
name and standing, to say nothing of the nameless poor.
All through this land was evidence of the fulfilment of Isaiah's
words, 'Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain
shall be brought low.' 2

At Iconiurn Eubruquis was happily freed from his dis-
honest and troublesome Uigur guide, who, as he could get
no pay from his convoy, used his commission and the awful
name of Batu to extort money in every town. For here, at
the capital of the Seljuk Sultanate, were several Christian
merchants, and especially a Genoese, Nicholas of Santo Siro,3
formerly settled at Acre, who, with his partner, the Venetian
Boniface of Molendino, had completely monopolised the
alum trade of Turkey, and carried on so flourishing and
healthy a business, that what in former days fetched fifteen
bezants was now sold for fifty. It was with the aid of this
Nicholas that Friar William arrived at last on the Mediter-
ranean (5th May, 1255).4

After a short stay at ' Carta,' Eubruquis heard that
messengers had come from King Hayton to the Eegent
of the Kingdom ; and these messengers reported that the
Kinp: was now returning from the Court of Mangu, that
the Great Khan had reduced the tribute, and that in

1 In Lesser Armenia, says Eubru-
quis, strangely ; Caesarea he reached
on 4th April ; Iconiurn on 19th April.

2 Rubruquis, pp. 390-391.

3 Cf. what Carpini, 772, says of
the Italian Merchants at Kiev, p. 317
of this vol.

4 Rubruquis, pp. 391-392.

V.] END OF RUB-RUQUIS' JOURNEY 375

future nu mure Mongol embassies, so oppressive and ex-
tortionate,1 were to enter the friendly land of Little Armenia.
The Friar now likewise hastened to the Court at Sis, told
what he knew of Hayton's movements in Tartary, and ob-
tained leave to pass over to Cyprus. Here apparently he
trusted in his good fortune to find an easy journey to his
Sovereign. But the Provincial of his Order would not permit
him to quit the Levant; he dragged the illustrious
traveller to Antioch and Tripoli, finally ordering him to
stay at Acre, and hindering the delivery of his Record
to Louis. Iiubruquis therefore concludes by asking for
deliverance from this petty tyranny, by a few more words
about the recent history and political divisions of Asia
Minor, and by some suggestions for a fresh Crusade along the
overland route through Hungary.2

Carpini and Eubruquis are the foremost Western travellers
of the Middle Ages, before the time of Marco Polo, and
of late years something like a controversy has developed
itself over their respective merits; it may be regretted
that preference for the one should so constantly insist
on depreciation of the other ; yet" this controversy has had
the advantage of bringing out more clearly the many details
in which both these Friars contributed to the knowledge of
Christian Europe, the range and acuteness of their observation,
and the epoch-making character of their journeys. And first
of all, as to the later writer. Rubruquis' narrative has been,
deservedly praised of recent years ; it is certainly one of the
best records of travel in the Middle Ages ; and the journey
it chronicles is one of the most considerable ever performed

1 The Mongol embassy to Iconium
in two years cost for maintenance,
exclusive of bread and wine, about

£:500,000 (Vincent of Beauvais xxx.,
ch. 28).

2 Rubvuquis, pp. 392-394.

376 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Ch.

by a Latin Christian before the age of the great discoveries.
It is perfectly true that Friar William was an acute and
intelligent observer, and that he collected a mass of valuable
details on the geography, race-history, and manners, as well
as on the religions and languages, of Asia. It is also evident
that he was conscientious and thorough in preparing for
this distant and arduous journey, and that his knowledge of
Arabic x was of great service. This alone would show that
he had something of the gift of tongues ; but a more
surprising proof of his accomplishments may be found in his
acquaintance with the Mongol speech, of which he learnt
sufficient to check and put to shame his poor and tipsy
dragoman. But it would be unfair to treat him as the
sole worthy predecessor of Marco Polo ; to minimise the
credit belonging to Carpini in order to give more to his
successor 2 ; and to put down to the French envoy the
discovery of things which others had already noticed. Thus
in geography it has been indiscriminately claimed for him
that he was the first to indicate the true sources and course
of the Don and Volga, the inland character of the Caspian,
the identity of Cathay with the country of the classical
Seres, the true position of the Balkhash Lake, and the
character of that Central Asian depression, of which it
occupies the eastern extremity ; he is also credited with
the first description of Karakorum, the first mention
of Korea, and the first notice of some of the North Asiatic
aborigines.3 In natural history it may be more readily
granted that he is the first Western writer to mention
the wild ass, or kulan, of the Central Asiatic deserts, and
the great sheep of the Pamirs, now famous as the argali

1 Like Carpinf s acquaintance with
Slavonic.

2 Cf. Heyd's opinion, Commerce du
Levant, ii., 65, on Carpini ('Jean da

Piano de Carpine'), and his superiority
to Rubruquis as an observer.
3 Such as the Tungus or Oengai.

V.] COMPARISON OF CAR PINT AND RTJBRUQUIS 37?

or ovis poll ; as, in anthropology and philology, he deserves
the highest credit for his account of the Crimean Goths,
his identification of the Romans with the Kipchak and
Kanglae,1 or Kangitae, his careful distinction between the
Tartars and the Mongols proper, and his recognition of the
affinity of various dialects — those of Bashkirs2 and
Hungarians on one side, of Bussians, Poles, Bohemians, and
Vandals on another, and of Turks, Uigurs, and Komans
on a third. Excellent, also, is his suggestion of the Volga
origin of the Danube Bulgarians, and his account3 of the
Chinese, Tangut, Uigur, and Tibetan writings ; and not
less excellent is his description of the Christian communities
within the Mongol Empire, their rituals and tenets. We owe,
moreover, to him the earliest Western account of the Lama
system of Northern Buddhism in all its details, and of the
peculiar dress and ritual of the Uigurs.

But in this list there are several points in which the
primary credit is certainly not due to Bubruquis, and several
others where such credit may be easily overstated. As to
the languages and dialects of the Mongols and their subjects,
Bubruquis, no doubt, shows an advance on his predecessor,
and it is beyond dispute that he mentions more of the
animals of these wild regions ; but, on the whole, there is
something to be said for the old editors who treated Carpini
as the primary figure in the group of missionary and diplo-
matic travellers who preceded Marco Polo. For Carpini's
narrative is a masterpiece of clear and accurate description,
without needless digression ; and if its narrative of the
author's actual journey is briefer and slighter than that
of Bubruquis, its account of the Tartar manners, customs,
and history is not only beyond comparison superior, but

1 Carpini, however, clearly identi- ] 2 Or ' Pascatir.'
fies Komans, Kipchak, and Kangitae. | 3 With certain deductions.

378 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Ch.

is the best Latin treatment of the subject in the Middle
Ages. Even as to the journey or Itinerary, — Carpini is so
regular, orderly, and logical in his treatment of the matter in
hand, Rubruquis is so bewildering from his verbosity and his
incessant and long-sustained digressions — that the French-
man's greater mass of detailed observation does not leave
him so clear a supremacy after all. Carpini, in fact, is only
put at a disadvantage because his instructions forced him
to write the study of a people, rather than the account of a
journey ; and it is only natural that modern geographers
should have preferred the rival narrative as more copiously
and dominantly geographical. But it cannot be forgotten
that in some places where Rubruquis has received credit
for an ' earth-knowledge ' beyond that of his time (as in the
recognition of the inland character of the Caspian), very
inaccurate notions (as of the nations on the Caspian coasts)
likewise appear. His ideas of the geography of Eastern
Europe are in some respects like those of the early mediaeval
time, whereas Carpini, mixing more with the natives of the
country, has learnt his lesson almost from a modern point
of view. Sometimes, also, Rubruquis has been credited with
scientific triumphs of a rather shadowy kind. Thus he says
that the Don rises in a vast lake, and as it is true
that its source is in a little lake, much has been made
of the writer's insight. We must take this with what
immediately follows, and then we might be staggered at the
doctrine that this vast lake, under the name of the Maeotid
Marshes, stretched away to the Northern Ocean.1 Again,
Friar William makes the salt water basin of the Sea of
Azov a creation of the Don and a part of the same ; he puts
the Mountains of the Assassins or Mulehet on the east of
the Caspian ; and the compass-directions which he gives us

1 Cf. the American ' Verrazzano Sea ' Myth.

V".] COMPARISON OF CARPINI AND RUBRUQUIS 379

for his route are almost always astray — as in the section
between the Crimean Sudak and Batu's camp upon the
Volga, or in the reference to the position of India west of
Karakorum. Rubruquis' account of his journey from the
Caucasus to Cilicia may be compared with any part of
Carpini's Itinerary by those who still doubt the superior
lucidity and narrative-power of the older Friar;1 and Brother
William's references to the ruling family of Trebizond, to
the journey of the Armenian King Hayton, to the wall of
Alexander and the Iron Gates in the Caucasus, may be set
off against John de Piano's confused language about the Volga
and the Ural falling into the Sea of Greece.2 Rubruquis gives
an excellent description of the Mongol Court and of Kara-
korum ; he was, moreover, fortunate in meeting with good
information about China and Eastern Asia; but even here
he is not entirely beyond criticism.3 Thus, while in one
place he puts Cathay on the Eastern Ocean, with only sea
beyond it, in another place he makes other lands border
Cathay on the east.

Above all, those who would blot out the older traveller
in favour of the younger, forget that some respect is due to
priority. Carpi ni went to the East eight years before
William of Rubruck, and it is practically certain that the
French ecclesiastic had read (or heard) the narrative of his
Italian brother Polycarp? if not in the longer form, at any
rate in an epitome.

1 This part of Rubruquis' route is i the Sea of Greece. He may he think-
ing only of Don and Dniepr, but
in any case, his language would
mislead.

3 He is not alone in his mention of
Cathay, cf. Carpini, p. 653 (an admir-
able description) ; or of Turkey, cf.
Carpini, p. 680.

4 Cf. p. 268 of Rubruquis' text ; p.
339 of this vol.

almost impossible to reconstruct, and
its confusions, digressions, and repeti-
tions are endless; but nowhere does
Carpini leave us iu any doubt of his
road.

2 Carpini does not expressly say this ;
he enumerates Dniepr, Don, Volga,
and Ural ; says they were full of fish;
and adds that 'these rivers' fell into

380 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL Ch.

- But if there are some grounds for refusing to oust the
first great Latin traveller in Central Asia from the place
he has long held ; and if we may still ask for John de
Piano the special honour of a pioneer and a place in
mediaeval land-travel quite abreast of Friar William ; }7et,
on the other hand, the latter must never again be treated
with the neglect that has often been his lot. For the
envoy of Louis IX., when all deductions have been made,
was a man of extraordinary merit raid extraordinary success.
We may contrast the missions carried out by him and by
Carpini with the abortive attempts of Brother Bernard
the Catalan, and the other Friars whom Eubruquis en-
countered in the course of his juurney home, or with those
of Ascelin, Lawrence, and the rest of the official legates,
who by their failures had already thrown some light on the
difficulties of a Christian embassy to Mongolia.

It is unfortunate that we know nothing of his life, his
appearance, or his character, except for the casual remarks
of his own Itinerary on the heaviness of his body and the
poverty of his dress. But from lioger Bacon we have one
word more — a reference to a meeting of the English philoso-
pher with the French traveller,1 whose more important geo-
graphical passages are well summarised in the Opus Majus.

From the time of Bacon to that of Hakluyt no one
seems to have taken any interest in Eubruquis ; only with
Bergeron's translation of 1634: did his own country begin
to appreciate and study him; hitherto John de Piano had
obscured him only too effectually. Thus neither Vincent
of Beauvais, nor Wadding, the annalist of the Franciscans,
nor Gerard Mercator in Hakluyt's day, had any clear ideas
about the French traveller. It wTas not altogether unnatural
that Rubruquis should be neglected by the purely ecclesi-

1 In France, a few years after his return.

V.] COMPARISON OF CARPINI AND RUBRUQUIS 381

astical writers, for his journey was not of a purely ecclesi-
astical origin or character; he was not sent by the Pope,
by his Order, or by the Church, but by the King of France ;
and, like the Friar Andrew of Longumeau, he has often been
treated as a purely secular figure. But the indifference
shown him by 'profane' historians and geographers has
been far more inexplicable. Thus John Pits calls him an
Englishman, Wadding makes him a native of Brabant, and
others have credited him with two works upon the East —
one an Itinerary, and the other a History of the Tartars,
both being evidently sub-divisions or sub-titles of the report
we have. Only in the middle of the present century has the
Franciscan Order done justice in its records to one of the
most eminent of its sons;1 a little earlier (in 1839) the first
adequate edition appeared of the text of Eubruck, as well as
of Carpini. Yet at the beginning of the seventeenth century
Purchas had referred to the journey of Friar William as
a 'jewel of antiquity'; and in our own day both Peschel
and Yule have drawn attention to the comparative freedom
of both the Latin envoys from legendary twaddle, to their
vividness of narrative and humanity of outlook, and to their
admirable common sense. Both travellers had strong pre-
judices; both hated, and had cause to hate, the Mongols
who bullied and starved them ; both are naturally critical
of the Nestorian rivals of the Church of Pome ; but here
Pubruquis passes beyond the limits of the candid friend
or faithful dealer, and loads his pages with unconvincing
abuse of men more successful than himself in the con-
version and improvement of a hard-drinking, loose-living,
and supremely arrogant barbarian race.

One other traveller of this time remains, one who is

1 In Father Civezza's Storia universale dellc Mlssioni francescane,
] 857-1 861.

382 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Ch.

closely connected with William de Rubruquis. through the
evidence of the Friar's own narrative ; — Hayton, King of
Little Armenia. This mediaeval principality had been
founded in Cilicia by exiles from Great Armenia1 in the
North, who had set up an anti-Byzantine state in the
Taurus, and who, pressed between Constantinople and the
Saracens, were glad to ally themselves both with Franks
and Tartars — with the former, in faith as well as in arms ;
with the latter more vaguely, but not less skilfully. Leo II.,
in 1198, had taken the title of King, and received the holy
rites of unction and coronation from a Latin prelate, Conrad
of Wittelsbach, Archbishop of Mainz ; he married succes-
sively two Latin princesses, and conquered part of Isauria ;
but his capital remained in the highland fortress of Sis,
although the plain, from Tarsus to Alexanclretta, now pro-
fessed a like allegiance ; and not less significantly it was at
Sis that the new Patriarchate, created by the Southern
Armenia as a rival to Echmiadzin, found its home. Hayton
the traveller was son-in-law and successor of this Leo ; he
himself belonged to the family of Rupen, but he obtained
the throne by his marriage with Leo's only child Isabel, and
his father Constantine was but one of his subjects. Before
his accession in 1224 he had been constable and 'bailiff' of
the realm, and during a reign of five-and-forty years he had
to keep every soldier in constant readiness, and to exercise
every quality of a statesmanlike diplomacy, for the preserva-
tion of his little kingdom. All around him, in this time,
went on a struggle of fell and mighty opposites, a conflict
of powers so great that his own could hardly weigh in the
scale; but early in his reign he perceived one safe rule of

1 When the Byzantines killed King on incessant war against Constanti-

Gagik, one of his relatives, Rupen by nople. The Zeitun Armenians are a

name, escaped to the Taurus and j relic of the Kingdom of Rupen, Leo

established himself there, carrying ' II., and Hayton.

V.] JOURNEY OF THE ARMENIAN SEMPAD 383

policy ; and that rule, faithfully observed, brought his light
barque through a tempest fatal to many heavier, grander,
and more ancient vessels.

For King Hay ton,1 ' the pious friend of Christ,' was
quick to discern the overwhelming power of the Mongols,
and in spite of his Latin faith and friendship, he did not
hesitate to make terms, and even something of an alliance,
with the terrible Infidel. This good understanding had
already lasted some years, when (on the accession of Kuyuk
in 1248) Hayton commissioned his brother Sempad, the
Constable of the kingdom, on a mission to his new overlord,
to secure the continuance of friendly relations. Sempad was
absent four years on this embassy, and during this time he
despatched to his King a long letter, dated from Saurequant
or Samarcand, and full of details which helped to support
the current delusion as to the Christianity of large parts
of Central and Further Asia. He describes the gathering
of the Mongol lords and princes, for the election of Kuyuk,
from India and from Kashgar, from Chata and from
Tanchat, the home of the Three Kings of old. Here all
the people were Christians, and ' believed in the Three
Kings'; Christian churches2 stood before the gate of the
Khan's palace, and Christianity had become the religion of
this great Sovereign3 and his people. All over the East the
true believers were to be found, though scattered, possess-
ing fine, ancient, and well-built churches, many of which
had been despoiled by the Turks. It was Kuyuk's grand-
father, the great Ghenghiz himself, who first gave Christians
liberty of worship, and protected them from Saracen insults ;
now Moslems were despised and put to nought ; but the

1 In the MSS. usually 'Hethirm.' i and the Three Kings.'
a 'In their churches,' wrote Sem- a The Khan,

pad, ! I have seen pictures of Christ

384

DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL

[Oh.

Christian faith made less progress than it would have done
if its preachers in these parts of Asia had not been men of
indifferent character, who deserved a signal punishment.
Sempad concludes with a story of an Indian prince, a
Christian in faith, who, with the help of the Tartars, had
vanquished the Saracens ; in this tale was perhaps con-
tained both a suggestion to Hayton, who was pursuing a
similar policy, and a justification of his past conduct.

King Hayton himself undertook a similar journey about
two years after Sempad's return. On the accession of
Mangu he received an invitation, or command, from Batu,
the King-maker : and General established in the North, with
a countless multitude, upon the banks of the great river Etil ;
the faithful and favoured vassal of the Khan was summoned
to visit both the Western Horde upon the Volga and the
Imperial Court in Mongolia ; nor did he venture to disobey.
But in order to pass safely through the neighbouring Turkish
realms in the upland of Asia Minor, where he was hated and
feared as a prime enemy of Islam and a client of the
Mongols, he found it needful to disguise himself; and so,
almost unattended, without baggage and without servants,
after twelve days of hazardous travel, he arrived at Kars and
the first Tartar camp in the early spring of 1254. Here
Bachu Noian2 commanded, and under his protection the
Armenian Prince stayed some time at the foot of Mount
Aragadz or Alagoz, near the Metropolitan Church of
Echmiadzin, waiting for the presents3 which were to be
sent after him, and which soon appeared under the care

1 'Basileopator.'

2 The Baiju of some writers, the
Baachu of Rubruquis, 384 ; and the
General to whom the Pope sent Friar
Anselm in 1246-47.

3 It is evident that Hayton, hurry-

ing in disguise through the land of
his Turkish enemies, would avoid
encumbering himself with presents,
or drawing attention to his journey
by a numerous suite.

v.]

JOURNEY OF KING HAYTON

385

of a distinguished escort. This escort was apparently guided
by Basil the priest, who had brought Batu's summons from
the steppes ; and among the party were the Abbot James,
formerly an ambassador to Nicaea, who had negotiated
for an alliance with the Emperor John Palaeologus ;
also the Abbot Mekhitar of Skerra, who had paid an
earlier visit to ' the East,' a bishop named Stephen, and
two priests.

With this suite, and the indispensable offerings they
brought for the Tartar lords, Hayton resumed his journey,
and passed through Albania or the 'land of the Aghovans,'
the gate of Derbent, the fortress of Chor (beyond the giant
wall of the Caucasus) and the North Caspian plains, reaching at
last the camps of Batu and Sartach,1 where he was welcomed
with marked distinction, and the pretence, if not the reality,
of cordial friendship. On the 13th of May he set out again
on the next and most trying stage of his journey, to the
Court of Mangu, the 'immeasurably long' road beyond the
Caspian Sea. The narrative in this section 2 only stops to
mention the passage of the Paver Yaik or Ural ; the arrival
of Hayton at a place called Hor, midway between the
Hordes of Batu and Mangu ; the country of the Aumani or
Naiman on the Upper Irtish ; 3 and the land of the Kara-
Khitai close to the Imperial headquarters. On the 14th of
September the Great Khan received his ally in 'glittering
splendour,' accepted his presents, and for near fifty days

1 Sartach was a religious Christian,
declares the writer of Hayton's
Itinerary, Kirakos Gandaketsi. In
deference to Hayton, indulgence was
shown to those of Rubrinpuis' party
who had been left behind, and their
hard lot was bettered in various
ways. But for the King, these un-
fortunates believed, they would have

been enslaved while Rubruquis was
still in Mongolia.

2 It is supposed by Klaproth and
Yule that Hayton, on his outward
route, went far to the north of the
road of Carpini and Rubruquis ; but
this does not seem necessary.

3 Erthij, in Hayton's narrative,
i.e. the. Mongol Ertsis.

B

386

DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL

[Cii.

kept him as an honoured guest ; it was not till the 1st of
November that Hayton started on his return, by a route
so distinct from almost all other mediaeval Itineraries as to
deserve a more prominent place than has usually been
given it. After a month's1 travel the King reached a
place called G-humsghur, now unknown, but evidently
between Karakorum and Barkul;2 next he passed through
Berbalekh or Barkul and Bishbalig or Urumtsi ; and in
the neighbourhood of the latter he describes3 a race of wild
men scattered over a desert region, naked and without
speech or language, whose heads were covered not with
human but with horses' hair. In the same country were
wild horses, of black and yellow colour, larger in size than
the steeds tamed by man ; wild camels, also, with two humps,
and other marvels.

From the Pentapolis represented by the modern Urumtsi,4
Hayton passed through a number of towns whose position is
now conjectural — Yarlekh, Kuluk, Henkakh, and Jambalekh.
The last-named, however, is an important point in nearly all
the Chinese Itineraries of Central Asia belonging to this
time ; and it answers to their Chang-bala or Fung-jun-fu,
on the River Zeng, somewhere between the Thian Shan
and the Lake Bulkatsi Nor. The next stages, Khutapai or
Khutaiyai, and Anki- or Yangi-balekh, were probably in
the same river basin ; and both must be looked for west of
Jambalekh,5 and perhaps in the plain of Borotala, near
Lake Sairam. After this the narrative places the ' entrance

1 Thirty days.

2 One of the chief points in the
road from Lake Sairam and the
Balkhash basin along the northern
side of the Thian Shan and over the
Gobi Desert to China. Urumtsi,
due west of Barkul, is almost midway
between this point and Kulja.

3 Almost in the same language as
Rubruquis.

4 Bishbalig, 'the Five cities,' the
ancient centre of the Uigur nation.

5 On the main route from the
modern Khutukbai, north-west of
Urumtsi.

v.]

HAYTON IN TURKESTAN

387

of Turkestan/ x and the town of Phulat, Pulad, or Bolat — the
reported station of the Teuton captives, whom Bubruquis
so ardently desired to see, a leading place in the Central
Asia of the thirteenth-century Celestials, and to be fixed
with tolerable certainty in the immediate neighbourhood
of Lake Sairam, the Sut-kol of Hayton. Thence the way
led over the Borokhoro Mountains, a north-eastern branch
of the Thian Shan, and (leaving behind the ' Sea of Milk '
or ' White Lake of Tranquillity ' ) it brought the traveller
down into the basin of the Hi,2 on the western side of the
great dividing range, and so to the Town of Apples and Town
of Serpents,3 near the modern Korgos, to the west of the pre-
sent Kulja. From this point Hayton crossed a range called
Thoros (probably one of the outliers of the Russian
'Alexander' Mountains), and appeared before Hulagu —
the future, but already designated, conqueror of Bagdad —
at Talas,4 midway between the Syr Daria and the Chu.
To Hulagu,6 as Mangu's brother, was entrusted the supreme
command in the south-west of the Mongol Empire — the army
of the East or the Levant, as Hayton calls it — and he was to
take the leading part in the next, great forward movement
of Tartar conquest. In this movement, against the Moslem
world, it is not unlikely that King Hayton was to aid ;
and his journey to the Imperial Horde may have been
connected with the discussion of the anti-Saracen projects
dear to both the allies.

1 Tsckopruk and Dinka-balekh are
the places first mentioned in Hayton's
Record after the ' entry ' into Tur-
kestan. Neither can be fixed at all
with certainty, or even probability.

2 Hayton's Ilan-su.

3 (1) Halu-balekh or Almalik ; and
(2) Ilan-balekh ; (1) on the banks of
the Alimatu, or 'Apple-bearer,' which

joins the Korgos Gol, a northern
tributary of the Hi ; (2) the Cbinese
lli-bala, still marked by ruins on the
banks of the Ilan-liash-su, or 'river
of the Serpent's Head,' an affluent of
the Tsiu.

4 Probably not far from the modern
Aulie-Ata.

5 ' Hulavu ' in Hayton.

388 DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL [Oh.

From Talas,1 Hayton turned north-west, following in the
main the course of the Syr Daria, but keeping on the further
or north-east side of the Kara-tau range, to Barchin and
Sengak or Signak, on the 44th parallel of north latitude and
a little above the modern Julek, in the Valley of the
Jaxartes. Here Mount Thoros 2 began, and here was the
old home of the Seljuk Turks ; here also Hayton left his
road and went off to meet that ' religious Christian,' Prince
Sartach, who was on his way to Mangu, to receive the
iuvestiture of the Kipchak, according to one story ; to arrange
for taking part in the attack on Bagdad, according to
another. After this digression, Hayton returned to Signak
and retraced his course up the valley of the Syr — but this
time in the basin of the river itself and along the south-west
side of the Kara-tau — passing through the 'large city' of
Savran, Yasun or Hazret- i -Turkestan, Otrar the famous,
and Jizzak on the south-west of the Jaxartes, where he again
reached a land well known to all Westerns, the country
of Samarcand and Bokhara. Still moving south-west, he
crossed the Oxus3 (apparently near Charjui), and by way of
Merv and Sarakhs, entered Khorasan, and approached the
frontier of the Mulehet or Assassins, whose destruction had
been already decreed by Mangu Khan,4 and whose end was

1 Up to this point, from Urumtsi, i now unknown, even by guess, but
he had been following a mainly they were probably along the north-
westerly direction, with only a little east side of the Kara-tau. Hayton's
south in it. ' course in this section of his route

'2 The Kara - tau is evidently ; must have been very similar to

meant ; it is not really separated from | Carpini's. On Otrar, cf. John de

the Alexander Mountains with which
it unites by the Chatkal and Chi-
chichkan ranges.

3 The other places he names
between Talas and Signak : Khu-
tughtchin, Barkant, Sulghan, Uruso-
ghun, Kayi - kant, Khuzarkh

Piano, pp. 305-6 of this volume.

4 While Rubruquis was still at
the Mongol Court, Mangu was
warned of an Assassin emissary then
on the way to remove him, and in
consequence the extirpation of the
sect was immediately ordered, and

Kamots, and Khendakhoir, are mostly | executed in 1258.

v.]

HAYTON IN TURKESTAN AND ARMENIA

389

not long delayed. Skirting the southern coast of the
Caspian, and traversing the boundary province of Maz-
anderan, the Armenian prince seems to have visited the
great cities of Eai (or Khagae, near Teheran), Khazovin
(Kazvin, or Kasben), and Tavrez (or Tabriz) ; thence crossing
the Aras, he reappeared at the Court of Bachu, which had
apparently now been moved from Kars to the fortress of
Sitiens, near Lake Gokcha.1

Thanks to the powerful aid of his Mongol allies, Hayton's
journey was rapid ; it was only eight months after quitting
the Horde of Mangu that he reached the borders of his
kingdom (a.D. 1255); and here he at once resumed the
powers of government. He continued to exercise them until
his abdication in 1269, three years before his death ; his
scribe Kirakos, the actual compiler of the Eoyal Itinerary,
died in the same year as his master (a.d. 1272) ; and thus
passed from the world an intrepid and sagacious prince, who
by his timely friendship with the Power in being, may have
helped to avert a terrible storm from Christendom, and
whose great journey, if recorded by a competent hand, might
have ranked with the narratives, of the two chief Friar-
travellers of the West.

The scribe concludes with a glance at a few of the good
stories which King Hayton was not afraid to relate on his
return, and among these none was more curious than the
following, in which modern students have easily recognised
the mystical tenets of Buddhism. The idolaters of Cathay
worshipped a clay image called Shakemonia. This image re-

1 A substitute for Bachu or Eaiju,
one Khoja Noyan, seems to have
taken the command of the main
Tartar army at Kars. Both going
and returning Hayton stayed in the

house of one ' Kurd,' a Christian
prince of Armenia, in the village of
Vardenis, near Mount Arai and the
celebrated patriarchal monastery of
Echmiadzin.

390

DIPLOMATIC AND MISSIONARY TRAVEL

[Oh.

presented a deity who had ruled the world for three
thousand x years, and would still rule it for a hundred times
that period, or even more ; at the end of these ages he would
be replaced by another god, Madri ; and these names evidently
represent the deified sage Sakya Muni and the coming Buddha,

1 3040 exactly, thus putting
Gautama's birth about B.C. 1785 ;
the period yet to elapse was 35
tumans (each tuman being equal to
10,000 years). The name of Sakya
Muni is not recorded by any other
Christian traveller or writer of this
time.

Brother Benedict, the Pole, whose
short summary of Carpini's journey
was edited by Avezac in vol. iv. of
the Paris Geographical Society's
liecueil de Voyages et de Memo ires,
1839, pp. 774-779, adds very little
to the narrative of John de Piano.
The, principal points have already
been noticed in connection with Friar
John's account. We may add here —
(1) that according to Benedict 'an-
other ' Franciscan accompanied Carpini
from Lyons, on Easter I >ay, 16th April,
1245. This was Stephen of Bohemia,
as is shown by Wadding, Scriptores,
221. (2) Benedict joined Carpini,
'to act as interpreter,' at Breslau in
'Poland.' (3) Between Kurancha
(Curoniza) and Batu (Bati), the
journey took more than five weeks
' from the Sunday Invocavit to the
Thursday Coenae Domini,' i.e. from
the first Sunday in Lent, 20th Feb-
ruary, 1246, to Holy Thursday, 5th
April. H ere is a difference of one day
from Carjrini's reckoning. (4) The
great river Ethil, called Volga by the
Russians, is believed to be the Tanais.

(5) The Friars' presents to Batu were
forty beaver and eighty badger skins.

(6) The Friars refused to worship a

golden statue of the Emperor or
Great Khan, which stood in a cart
at Batu's Horde, but were compelled
to bow the head. (7) The Mission
left Batu for Kuyuk on Tuesday after
Easter, 10th April ; Carpini says
8th April. (8) The travellers
wrapped their legs in bandages to
bear the long rides better. (9)
Romania was full of wormwood
(absinciuni), 'as Ovid speaks of Pontus,
once the name of this very region.5
(10) In travelling through Romania,
the Friars had on their right the
Saxi, believed to be Goths and
Christians (in the Crimea); then the
Christian ' Gazars, ' in whose country
was the rich town of Ornarum,
Hooded by the Tartars (apparently
in a ditlerent region from Carpini's
' Ornas ') ; then the Christian ' Cir-
casses ' and Georgians. (11) In Russia
tbey had on the left the Pagan
iMorduans ( Vlordvfns), Bylers, and
Bascards, ' the ancient Ungari ' ;
then the Dog-Headed folk, and the
Parossits (Parocitae), Avho had mouths
so small that they could only suck
up liquid. (12) The river Ural
(Jagae) divided the Komans from
the Kangitae ; in the latter's country
were huge salt marshes which the
Friars took to be the Maeotid Fens.
(13) Thence through Turkey (Turkes-
tan), where they found the great city
of Ianckint (Yengui-kend). (14)
The Pagan Kara-Khitai were once
masters of the Tartars. (15) The
Mission stayed four months near the

v.]

HAYTON S TALES ; EENEDICT THE POLE

391

Maitreya, or Maidari, who was still waiting his time.
The whole nation of the idolaters of Cathay were ordained
priests, shaved their heads, wore a yellow dress, and lived
according to a rule of moderation ; they did not, however,
abstain from marriage, which was the legal status of all
these Turn between the ages of twenty and fifty. Beyond
Cathay, moreover, as the traveller had been told, there
were to be found men like great hairy dogs, and women
endowed with reason, a startling contrast to their sisters of
the civilised world. There also was a sandy island, rejoicing
in the possession of a sacred bone, called the Fish's Tooth,
and shaped like a tree ; and many another marvel was there,
of which the royal traveller could tell, but which his
secretary did not think lit to put in writing. As in the
case of the Jewish wayfarer, Petachia of Eatisbon, a bald
summary is all that has survived of an Itinerary little
inferior in value and interest to any other, even of this time
of freshly awakened activity and boundless enterprise.1

Imperial tent called Syra Orda. (16)
Kuyuk was elected by 5000 mighty
men, and received 3000 ambassadors.
(17) In formal audiences the Friars
had to put baldakin (purple tissue)
over their gowns, like all other
envoys. (18) The Syra Orda and
its appurtenances described — the Im-
perial dais, the screen-work above
the dais, the separate nights of steps.

(19) The mother of the Khan received
the Friars with kindness and courtesy.

(20) The warlike Georgians, named

after St. George their patron, were
respected by the Tartars for their
courage and strength : some of these
Georgians frecpiented the Friars'
society. (21) On their return the
Friars were accompanied lifteen days'
journey westward by the envoys of
the Sultan of Cairo (' Babylon'), who
afterwards struck off southward. (22)
The Friars, on their way home,
crossed the Rhine at Cologne.
1 Sec additional note on p. 642.

( 392

CHAPTER VI

COMMERCIAL TRAVEL

With the fall of the Roman Empire in the West the
maritime trade 1 of the Mediterranean rapidly decayed, and
almost down to the commencement of the Crusading Era
the commercial life of European Christendom, the heir of
Rome, was surprisingly feeble ; but the central period of the
Middle Ages is marked by a mercantile development so great
as to create a new era in politics and society ; and in this
time the trade of the great inland sea begins to spread into
regions beyond the Mediterranean basin, thus preparing the
way for the discovery of yet more distant regions. For the
present chapter it will be necessary, first, to summarise the
history of this development on the shores of the Marc In-
ternum itself; and, secondly, to trace the connections of
European commerce — through Egypt and Syria, the Euxine
coasts and Asia Minor — with Central, Southern, and Further
Asia, where the Western traders laid the foundations, or at
least built the scaffolding, of an ever-growing Western in-
fluence in the future.

1 The best account of mediaeval
trade in the Mediterranean and ad-
joining lands is certainly that of
Heyd, especially in the French
edition, Histoirc du Commerce du
Levant au moyen age, 1886, super-
seding Depping, Histoire du Commerce
entire le Levant et V Europe ; but a

very meritorious study of the same
is to be found in Wappaus' unfinished
work on Heinrich der Secfahrer ; — in
full. U nter suchungen iiber die . . .
Entdeckungen der Portugiesen unter
Heinrich chin Seefahrer, 1842 ; ii.
Abschnitt : Skizze des . . . See-
handels. . . .

h. VI.] ITALY AND BYZANTIUM IN COMMERCE 393

It is in Italy that the commercial (like the intellectual)
activity of mediaeval Europe is habitually centred ; and the
beginnings of the new mercantile life are best seen in the
rise of the Italian maritime cities, through which the Imperial
land renewed its youth even in the most troubled period of
the Dark Ages. The Byzantine reconquest in the sixth
century of so large a part of the Western Mediterranean did
little to restore the activity of commerce. For the policy of
Constantinople was not calculated to encourage trade ; it often
preferred to encourage extortion, monopoly, and the crudest
forms of protection ; and in spite of the matchless situation
of the city on the Bosphorus, the masters of that city, with
rare exceptions, looked on calmly at the advances of less
favoured and more industrious rivals, acquiesced in their
own growing infirmities, and were at last content to lean
upon Italian traders for the very necessities of mercantile
supply. Thus foreign ports came to control the finances and
even the politics of the empire ; acquired possessions on
every coast-line of the Byzantine waters ; guarded their
factories by forts, and their forts by fleets, in the Archipelago,
the Dardanelles, and the Bosphorus; and at last made the
successor of Constantine a pensioner and a dependent of the
haughty merchant princes of the West.

In the earlier Middle Ages the trade between Constanti-
nople and the West of Europe seems to have been strictly
limited; in periods of military activity (snch as the reigns of
Justinian, of the early Isaurians, or of Nikephoros Phokas
and his successors) munitions of war, stores of food and
clothing, and troops of mercenaries or volunteers, passed to
and fro ; but in quieter times the imperative needs of the
Eastern Empire were usually satisfied from the corn lands
of the Black Sea and the varied supplies of Asia Minor,
Greece, and the iEgaean Islands. In this state of commerce

394 COMMERCIAL TRAVEL [Oh.

there was little of that ' modern ' spirit so active in mediaeval
Italy, creating new wants, stimulating production, and multi-
plying consumers ; there was indeed more of such activity
in the dominions of the Eastern and Western Caliphs
than of the Byzantine Caesar during this time ; x and the
conquests of the Saracens established in Syria and Egypt a
more liberal commercial rule, and gave the central markets
of the Levant a freer access to countries which supplied, and
were supplied by, them.

The new mercantile life of Christian Europe began in the
north-east and south-west of Italy during the ninth century.
It arose in various maritime states, where local freedom had
been achieved, and where a victory had been gained over the
anarchy as well as the petty tyranny of the time. Thus
from the beginning it was both liberal and ambitious, and in
some ways it possessed a more highly developed character
than most of the trade of the ancient world. Eor it claimed
greater privileges on behalf of the trader, as such ; it attached
higher, and indeed supreme, importance to the free circula-
tion of trade ; it was more daring and speculative in its
operations ; it was less content with merely supplying
articles of primary necessity ; it dealt with conveniences and
luxuries in an ever larger degree ; and above all, it devoted
a more strenuous and inquisitive energy to the discovery and
conquest of promising markets, however remote.

In the upheaval of the Crusades, the first sigus of the
coming movement are given by the attacks of Genoa, Pisa,
and the Christian fleets of South Italy upon the Saracens of
Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and North Africa. The main line
of communication between Christendom and its new outposts
in the Crusading States of the Levant passed over the sea,
and was almost entirely maintained by the maritime re-
1 The pre-Crusading period.

VI. 1 THE CRUSADES AND COMMERCE 395

publics of the Mediterranean. Their fleets supplied what
has been called the bourgeois element in the Crusading
armies ; they also secured that indispensable command of
the sea by which alone most of the Syrian ports could be
reduced. The commercial cities of the West, moreover, had
not only a part in the foundation, but also a great share in
the organisation, of the Latin kingdoms and principalities
in the Orient. Alongside of the normal feudalism which
prevailed in these states was the republican constitution and
active mercantile life of Pisan, Genoese, Venetian, Massiliot,
and other colonies, planted in the heart of the freshly con-
quered harbour towns — Acre, Beirut, Tripoli, or Jaffa. The
heyday of the Crusading power on land was also the heyday
of the maritime prosperity of many Western cities ; and at
the conclusion of the religious wars the main result of the
struggle was clearly to be found in the expansion of
Christian trade, and in the assimilation of no small part
of Oriental and 'Moorish' civilisation. For the meeting
of East and West in this tremendous conflict brought little
permanent gain to Europe and the Catholic world, in the
political sense ; through the medium of commerce, on the
other hand, it directed the energies of the Christian nations
to their true future. The frontal attack of the Crusaders
was unsuccessful, but the Crusading struggle imparted a
new culture and material prosperity, an increased know-
ledge, an immensely extended wealth, a restless but obstinate
ambition, whose results were seen in the Renaissance of the
fifteenth and sixteenth century, in the great discoveries both
of geography and natural science, and in the final triumph
of European arms and enterprise throughout the world.

In all this may be recognised the working of a spirit called
out and fostered by the Mediterranean trade-republics ; but
ultimate success is only realised through the agency of

396 COMMERCIAL TRAVEL tf-'H.

more powerful and unified states, more adequate representa-
tives of the collective strength of Christian Europe. The
trade republics of the Middle Ages are nearer to the com-
mercial life of the modern world than the Old Empire ; but
the Old Empire must be reproduced in the great modern
nations before the commercial expansion could become a
political and racial victory. The work of Venice and Genoa,
Pisa and Amalfi, necessarily pass in the lapse of time to
France and England, Spain and Portugal. The narrowness
of resource, the lack of high political aim, the factious
littleness of the maritime cities, prevent their assuming a
part suitable to their wealth and industry, as the field of
action broadens at the close of the Middle Ages. The
ablest of their citizens, putting forward schemes too great
for the efforts of a town, are obliged to carry their sugges-
tions elsewhere ; thus Columbus, Verrazzano, and the Cabots
give to Spain, to France, and to England, new dominions
beyond the sea which patriotism would have offered to Genoa,
to Florence, and to Venice.

Venice in the north-east, and Amalfi in the south-west
of Italy, were the first leaders of a commercial movement
which cannot well be traced higher than the ninth ceniury.1
Like Naples and Gaeta, Amalfi still belonged in name to
the Eastern Empire, but as early as about 820 it had secured
free burgher rights and the position of a practically inde-
pendent city-state. Twenty years later its mercantile
marine is noticed in contemporary chronicles ; its successes
in the defence of Ptome and the incessant naval war against
the Saracens (notably in 847, 876, and 890) made it at the
close of the Carolingian period 2 the foremost champion of

1 But the lists of doges, practically I both cities much earlier, about
independent republican chiefs, nomin- 700.
ally vassals of Byzantium, begin in ' 2 About 850-900.

VI.]

EARLY GREATNESS OF AMALFI

397

Christian trade and sea power. At the opening of the tenth
century, the Amalfi tans possessed factories in Palermo, Syra-
cuse, Messina, and other cities of Sicily, in Durazzo on the
Eastern Adriatic coast, and in Constantinople. In the next
two hundred years they developed a respectable trade with
Egypt, Syria, the Byzantine Empire, and the Moslem world ;
at Antioch, even before 1098, they obtained a concession1
or ' quarter,' similar to those afterwards granted by the
Crusading conquerors ; at Jerusalem they obtained a similar
and more memorable privilege. By treaty with the Fatimite
Caliph of Cairo they erected in 1020 a church, and a little
later a hospital, in the Holy City ; within this precinct,
they exercised an undivided control down to the con-
quest of 1099, when the College (or Society) of Amalfitan
merchants became the military and monastic order of the
Hospital} During the Crusading period the prosperity and
power of Amalfi declined, and the Republic was only success-
ful in obtaining trivial concessions from the new Latin
masters of Syria ; as in Laodicea (or Latakiyeh) from
Bohemund III., in Tripoli from Raymond III., in Acre
from the King of Jerusalem. The last-named was their
principal settlement in the Levant ; but even this was a
small matter ; and the Amalfitan commerce with Cyprus and
Egypt in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was a depress-
ing contrast to that earlier period, when the Defender of the
Faith3 was the bulwark of Italian Christendom against
Saracen attack, the mistress of the chief Mediterranean
navy,4 and the principal Western market for the products
of Barbary, Egypt, and the Orient, — when the maritime
laws of the Tabula Amaljltana were current among traders

1 Including a hospice.

2 Otherwise the Knights of St. John
of Jerusalem.

3 Title conferred on Amalfi by Pope
Leo IV., 847-855.

4 At least west of the Adriatic.

398

COMMERCIAL TRAVEL

[Ch.

on every coast of the Inland Sea, — and when the coin-
age of the Republic was the chief medium of exchange
between Latin Europe and the Levant.1

Prima declit nautis usum magnetis Amalphis, said the
tradition which ascribed to Flavio Gioja2 of this city, the
' invention ' of the compass ; and although it is perfectly
clear that the polarity of the magnet-stone, and the quality
of definite direction residing in magnetised iron, had been
noticed before the time of Gioja in France, Italy, and
England, it may well have been a citizen of Amain who
first brought the magnet (fitted with its compass card)
into popular use, first among the mariners of his own
state, and afterwards among other seamen of Southern
Europe.

Meantime in the first half century of the Crusading age,
' Melphi' had fallen, like Naples, Salerno, or Biindisi, under

1 On the Maritime Lawa of the
Mediterranean in the Middle Ages,
cf. the Code termed // Consolato del
Mare, which, though claimed by some
as AmalKtan, by others as i isan or
Barcelonese, has been referred to
the tenth, the eleventh, and the
thirteenth centuries by various
students : it may contain matter
from each of these periods ; cf.
Boucher's French translation of II
Consolato, i. 72 ; Muratori, Dissertation
45 ; and Henry IV. 's charter to the
Fisans of 1081 ( ' consuetudiues, quas
habent de mari, sic . . . observa-
bimus '). Capmany refers the Code
in its final shape to the merchants
and lawyers of Barcelona under James
the Conqueror ; cf. Codigo de las
costumbres maritimas de Barcelona,
1791.

On the prosperity of Amain, cf.
William of Apulia, book iii. of his
Poema de rebus Normannorum, given

in Muratori, Her. Ital. ScrijAores, v.
267, and Dissertation 30.

' Urbs haec dives opum, populoque
referta videtur, Nulla magis locuples
argento, vestibus, auro. Partibus
innumeris ac plurimus urbe moratur
Nauta, maris coelique vias aperire
peritus. Hue et Alexandri di versa
feruntur at urbe, Re^is et Antiochi.
Haec . . . freta plurima transit.
Hie Arabes, Indi, Siculi noscuntur
et AM. Haec gens est totum prope
nobilitata per orbem, Et mercanda
ferens et amans mercata referre.'

This is curiously parallel to Donizo's
description of Pisa, but aj)parently
more exaggerated. The smallness of
the port shows that Amalli could
never have had a very great trade.

2 Otherwise Gisia, born at Posi-
tanum, a town in the ' Dukedom of
Amain,' and supposed to have made
a discovery of the pyxis nautica in
about a.d. 1320, or later.

VI.] DECLINE OF AMALFI 399

the land - power of the Normans, while at sea it had
undergone a decisive overthrow. The aggressions of Guay-
mar of Salerno and of the Norman conqueror, Robert
Guiscard, did not permanently destroy the liberties of the
place, but they were symptoms of coming destruction on one
side, like the overshadowing growth of Pisa and Genoa on
another. Roger II., King of Sicily and Grand Duke of
Apulia, the patron of Edrisi, the fine flower of Christian
culture among the sovereigns of the time, was execrated by
the republicans who had survived the usurpations of Guay-
mar and Guiscard ; for in 1131, on the surrender of the city,
its constitution was sacrificed, the town was incorporated
without distinction in the other dominions of the 'despot,'
and its marine was committed to a fatal struggle with
the Pisan enemies of Roger. The defeats of 1135 and 1137,
accompanied by the sack of the port1 itself, were symbolic of
a decay that had already begun ; trade had for some time
been passing into other hands ; and alike at Amalfi, at
Salerno, and at Trani, the Norman rule, a boon elsewhere,
could not hinder the slow progress of decay.

Yet in spite of this general and rapid decline, the mer-
chants of Amalfi retained their settlement at Constantinople
down to the overthrow of the Byzantine state in 1204 ; sub-
ject to the payment of a certain tribute to Venice,2 they
carried on that valuable trade in silk from the market of the
Bosphorus which they had been among the earliest Latins to
pursue ; and their monasteries in the Imperial City, in Jeru-
salem, and at Mount Athos, long remained to them in spite
of the ill-will of the Orthodox. Their factories and colonies
in Sicily, and especially at Messina, had arisen on the
Christian recovery of that rich island by Norman arms ; the
prosperity of these factories withered in the fierce commercial
1 4th-5th August, 1135. - From a.d. 1082.

400

COMMERCIAL TRAVEL

[Oh.

struggle with the greater harbours of Tuscany ; but, like the
Amalfitan fontecci in the Nile Delta, they seem to have
retained some vitality into the thirteenth century. The
Norman rulers, who could not permit the political independ-
ence of Salerno and Amalfi, were anxious to promote the
interests of these towns abroad ; thus in 1137, Roger II.
promises to obtain a reduction of the dues paid at Alexandria,
at least to the level of the tax on Sicilian goods.

At the sack of 1135, the Pisans were (falsely) said to have
carried off a unique copy of Justinian's Pandects ; they cer-
tainly bore away and transferred to themselves the glory and
prosperity of their rival; but for these calamities there was
some compensation in the gain of an important relic, the
body of St. Andrew, translated to Amalfi in 1208 ; and as
late as 1258 Amalfitan traders apparently continued to make
voyages to Alexandria and Acre.

While Amalfi in the South- West was passing out of sight,
Venice l in the North-East was rising to a position more lofty,
to a power more extensive and sustained, than any other of
the mediaeval trade-republics. In the Ostrogothic Kingdom
of Theodoric and his successors, as under the rule of the

1 On this Mediterranean trade of
Venice in earlier Middle Ages, cf.
Marin, St or id civile e politico del
commercio de Veneziani, especially
i., 118, 120, etc., 126-127, 145, 176;
ii. 47, 59, 63, 162-164, 210, 2 16, 220,
etc., 230, 232, 237, 246, 263, etc. ;
256, 293-295; iii. 25-2S, 62, etc.,
66, 53, 201, 109-128, 167, 282; iv.,
8, 246, 208-218, 253-254, 298-302;
vi.,337. Also see Dandolo. Ghronicon,
in Muratori, Her. Ital. Scriptorcs, vol.
xii. ; and the description of William
of Apulia in book iv. of his Poema de
rebus Normannorum, given in Mura-
tori, Her. Ital. Scriptorcs, v. '[classem]

populosa Venetia misit, Imperii
prece, dives opum, divesque viroruni,
Qua sinus Adriacisinterlitus, ultimus
undis Subjacet Arcturo. Sunt hujus
moenia gentis Circumspecta mari, nee
ab aedibus alter et aedis Alteriua
transire potest, nisi lintre vehatur.
Semper aquis habitant. Gens nulla
valentior ista iEquoreis bellis, rati-
umque per aequora ductu.' Also see
Marino Sanuto, Vite del Duchi
di Venczia, in Muratori, Eer. Ital.
Scriptores, xxii. (already reprinted
in the new Muratori, whose re-
issue from original MSS. has lately
begun).

H.] EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF VENICE 401

Byzantine exarchs who displaced the Ostrogoths, Eavenna
was the official capital of Italy ; its political importance was
for a time accompanied by the commercial greatness of a
port from which the sea has now retired. But within a
hundred years after the victory of Narses, the artificial trade
of Ravenna was already declining, all the more rapidly as
a genuine commercial state of the first order was rising to
prominence in close neighbourhood. The commerce of Venice
was originally concerned with the fish and sea-salt which the
boatmen of the lagoons found ready to their hand ; but the
beginnings of a wider traffic were not long in appearing.
From the time of Charlemagne the Queen of the Adriatic
began to take a place in the polities as well as in the com-
merce of the Latin world. Its situation had advantages
beyond any other harbour town of Italy. Separated from
the mainland by the sea, and from the open sea by the low
fringing walls of its lagpons, surrounded almost entirely by
shallows pierced only by a few deep channels, Venice was
usually considered by its own citizens, as by foreigners, to be
beyond attack ; the political troubles of the Continent made
it a refuge from the time of Attila ; and the absence of any
serious maritime rival on the Adriatic left open a valuable
and extensive field of operations for commerce, for colonisa-
tion, and even for conquest.

As early as the eighth century the infant republic had not
only begun to take its permanent constitutional shape ; it
had also adopted, consciously or unconsciously, the main rules
of its policy in external affairs. No mercantile state has
ever pursued a more constant, a more deliberate, or a more
prudent course of action ; and as in the case of Russia,
and the fictitious will of Peter the Great, men invented
some Testament, or Digest of fundamental principles, which
they supposed to have been left by the earliest chiefs of

2 c

402 COMMERCIAL TRAVEL [Oh.

the Republic, as their most sacred legacy to their successors.
It is not necessary to suppose any formal document ; but it
is necessary to realise that, very early in its career, the
Venetian State had reduced to practice certain rules of
policy, which all experience confirmed. Among these rules
the one that chiefly concerns us is that which goes to the
root of all, an absolute devotion to trade and maritime inter-
course, at the expense of all other interests, save only the
independence of the city itself. The principles of siding
always with the stronger, especially in maritime struggles, of
maintaining an exemption from excessive papal interference,
and of remaining on friendly terms, both with the Western
and Eastern Empires, both with the Franks and with the
Byzantines,1 were, in the nature of things, liable to modifica-
tion, and in later times we find Venice acting in clear opposi-
tion to some of them ; but however things might change, the
Republic always endeavoured to render itself indispensable
to every Christian State which possessed a powerful frontage
on the Mediterranean sea-board. Thus under the Doge
Orso Ipato (726-737), Venice assisted the exarch Eutychius
against the Lombards, and helped the Byzantines to recover
Ravenna. In recompense for this her citizens obtained from
the Greek Emperor many valuable rights of trade in the
Pentajpolis. Increased trade enabled them to strengthen their
marine, to drive Ravennese competition off the Adriatic, and
to combat their most troublesome enemies, the pirates of
Dalmatia.2 Their ever-growing prosperity now enabled
them to appear in the first rank among the foreign mer-

1 But above all with the latter,
whose side the Republic must espouse,
if unhappily forced to take part in
war between the two Empires.

2 Venetian dominion begins in Dal-

during the eleventh century, and in
1082-S5 is confirmed to the Republic
by Alexius Comnenus in reward for
aid against the Normans. From
1052 the Doge takes the title of Duke

matia, about 997, greatly increases of Dalmatia.

VI. ] VENICE AND CONSTANTINOPLE 403

chants who resorted to Constantinople ; they were wise
enough to side with Charles the Great in his Italian cam-
paigns ; and the help given by them at Pavia and elsewhere
was rewarded by extensive privileges in the new Germano-
Itoman Kingdom. In 864 they won decisive victories over
the Dalmatian sea-robbers, and about 870 the Doge Ursus
gained as complete a success near Taranto over the Saracen
pirates who then threatened the mouth of the Adriatic.
Both the Eastern and Western powers of Christendom were
grateful for this deliverance, and among other rewards they
gained from the Byzantines a new ' indulgence ' — free trade
in the Black Sea. Owing to Saracen conquests and Saracen
piracy in the Mediterranean ; owing, also, to the control of
the Euxine still possessed by the great Eastern State of
Christendom ; owing, lastly, to the continued importance of
the ancient trade road from Central and Further Asia, along
the Northern and Southern walls of the Caucasus, to the
ports of Colchis and Lazica ;— this concession was of peculiar
value, and it was utilised to the full.

Liudprand or Liutprand, the brilliant and querulous Bishop
of Cremona, who visited the Byzantine Court as the ambas-
sador of Otto I. in 950 arid 968, found a large number of
Venetian citizens in the Greek Army and of Venetian ships
in the harbour of Constantinople ; their merchants exported
the silks and stuffs nominally confined to the Empire by the
regulations of the Custom-house ; and the transport of letters
between North Italy, Germany, and the Christian Orient was
entrusted to the vessels of the Republic, until in 960 an angry
political correspondence between the West and the East
caused the abrupt suspension of this service by the Doge
Pietro Candiano (IV.).

Down to the middle of the twelfth century, when the
fatal quarrel with Manuel Comnenus altered the whole

404 COMMERCIAL TRAVEL tCfl.

direction of Venetian policy, the Byzantine alliance and the
Byzantine commerce were assiduously cultivated ; but even
this field did not exhaust the energies of a rapidly-growing
marine ; and in pursuit of fresh markets, Venice, like
Amalfi, was ready and eager to traffic with the enemies of
Christendom. Even in the time of Charles the Great there
is evidence of a clandestine intercourse of this sort with
Syria, Egypt, and North Africa, soon after detected
and forbidden by Leo V., the Armenian.1 The prohibition
was naturally evaded ; and when (in 971-972) a fresh
attempt was made by the warrior-prince John Tzimiskes,2
in alliance with the Pope, to render it effective, only the
trade in ship-timber, iron, and military material was called in
question. But even this, however readily conceded in
theory, was difficult to enforce in practice, unless all inter-
course with the Saracens was wholly broken off; and this
commerce, though deeply repugnant to the moral sense of
Christendom, and a standing danger to the entente cordiale with
Byzantium, seems never to have been suppressed. Within
twenty years after the compact of 972 the Doge Pietro
Orseolo3 sent ambassadors to 'all' the Moslem princes, at
the same time that he despatched a special embassy to
Constantinople, and obtained a reduction of dues from the
concpaeror Basil IT., in return for the free use of the Venetian
fleet, now, and in all future time, by the Byzantine troops
passing over into Italy (March, 992). The same Doge, by

1 At least as far as Syria and Egypt i regions with which the Byzantines
were concerned. ! had little or no immediate con-

2 The power of Constantinople at j cern.
this time was shown in John's threat of | 3 Pietro II., 992-1009. Perhaps only

burning every ship found transgress-
ing this rule, and in the immediate
stoppage of three vessels which were
sailing for Tripoli in Africa, and for
El Mehdia, the port of Kairwan,

the Moslem Courts near the Mediter-
ranean coasts are meant, viz., Alepjto,
Damascus, Kairwan, Palermo, and
Cairo. Cordova is more doubtful,
and Bagdad improbable.

VI.] VENICE AND CONSTANTINOPLE 405

his victories over the Croatian and Dalmatian pirates (in the
year 1000), made A^enice the undisputed mistress of the
Adriatic ; and by his treaties with Otto III., he renewed and
extended the ancient commerce of his people in the do-
minions of the Holy Empire. Germany and the North
Italian Upland were dependent on the Republic for the
products of the East; and when in 1017 four Venetian ships
laden with spices suffered shipwreck, the event is noticed by
a German chronicler 1 as a serious misfortune.

From its strict observance of a wise neutrality the State
reaped benefits in certain quarters and at certain times ; from
its almost unreserved allegiance to Byzantium in the time
of Byzantine revival (980-1020) it prepared itself to profit
yet more in the beginnings of Byzantine decline. Various
possessions of the Eastern Empire, especially on the
Adriatic coasts, were resigned 'on trust' to so staunch an
ally ; and from the new acquisitions were derived not only
strength of position, but increase of material resources, a
fresh supply of good seamen, and stores of excellent wood
for shipbuilding. With the reign of Alexius Comnenus,
Venice reached the height of its ambition as the friend, the
indispensable and favoured ally — not yet the supplanter — of
Orthodox Constantinople. The fleet of the Eepublic played
an important part in checking the progress of Robert Guis-
card, who had already stirred up the Dalmatian coast against
Venetian rule, and allied himself with Ragusa ; the services
thus rendered were great ; and great were the rewards. It was
now that the Amalfitaa colonies in the Greek Empire were
put under a tribute to the Church of St. Mark ; it was now
that all the chief ports of the Byzantine coasts and the
principal markets of the interior were opened to the traders
of Venice: — Latakiyeh and Antioch in Syria; Mopsuestia,
1 Thietmar, in Pevtz SS. III.. 860.

406 COMMERCIAL TRAVEL [Ch.

Adana,1 and Tarsus in Cilicia ; Attalia or Satalia in Pamphylia ;
Strobilos in Caria ; Chios, Ephesus, and Phocaea in Western
Asia Minor ; Heraclea and Selymbria on the Sea of Marmora ;
Chrysopolis near the mouth of the Strymon ; Demetrias
on the Gulf of Volo ; Abydos on the Hellespont ; Adrian-
ople and Athens ; Thebes and Thessalonioa ; Negropont,
Nauplia, and Corinth ; Corfu, Avlou, Durazzo, and several
other harbours on the western coast of Greece and Epirus.

Thus, in the years immediately preceding the first Crusade,
Venice had attained to a dominant position in all the waters
of the Byzantine Orient, and could look down upon every
rival. Amalfi, which alone could equal its antiquity, was
clearly falling out of the race, and was now stamped by the
law of Constantinople as the inferior and tributary of Venice
within the Eastern Empire. Pisa, Genoa, and the other
commercial republics were but parvenus beside the Bride of
the Adriatic ; their liberties, their institutions, their maritime
developments were younger; their achievements in the
great field of Mediterranean action less considerable. It was
not unnatural that the Venetians should presume on their
success, and take less advantage of the great movement of the
Religious Wars than others, less wealthy and prosperous,
who saw in this convulsion an unique opportunity for
advancement.

Yet it was, perhaps, surprising to the rulers and citizens of
the maritime states to find how important the over-sea routes
became in the course of the Crusading struggle. The land-
ways so extensively used on the first expedition of
1096(-99), proved wearisome, uncertain, and dangerous, con-

1 Properly Adatia. Antioch was in
Christian hands from 968 to 1084 ;
and was recovered by the Crusaders
in June 1098. Hciv, in about 1070,

a Serbian prince, Constantine Bo-
dinus ; here also they met with
citizens of Bari, who afterwards stole
the relics of St. Nicholas from Myra

the Venetians procured the release of in Lycia.

VI-] VENICE, ETC., IN THE CRUSADES 407

suming the time and dissipating the energies of the bravest
warriors. For regular intercourse between the Latin con-
querors in the Levant and their friends in Western Europe — ■
for a regular system of supplies from the base to the outposts — ■
naval communication was soon approved as the best possible
by all concerned — even though in that age it might truly be
said that no landsman went to sea unless obliged to do so,
for a voyage was being in prison with the additional chance
of being drowned. But the experience of the armies of
Godfrey of Bouillon, of Bohemund, and of Tancred, over-
threw Latin confidence in the Byzantines ; and with re-
markable energy the younger maritime states of the Medi-
terranean seized the chance thus offered them. If the " Holy
Places could only be held with the aid of ships and sailors,
harbours and transports, the republics of Italy, of Provence,
and of Catalonia would at least make this route an effective
one. By serving the cause of Christendom they served their
own ; they multiplied, many times over, their carrying trade ;
they largely increased their export and import commerce;
above all, they acquired a privileged, a more than half
political, position on the coasts of the Levant. As time went
on, and they became more indispensable to the Crusading
princes, they were able to dictate their terms more freely,
until the main burden of the Holy War rested upon them as
the chief holders of power.

The concessions won by the mercantile cities of the
Western Mediterranean in the eastern portion of the Inland
Sea wrere in close geographical agreement with their respective
fields of operation, with the sphere of interest claimed by
this state or that.1 Venice, for example, played a small part
in North Syria, where Genoa and Pisa dominated ; but from
Tyre southwards Pisa was of no account ; and in all lands

Cf. the Charter of the Ancona concession at Acre, 1257,

408 COMMERCIAL TRAVEL [Oh.

effectively subject to the Byzantine power no serious com-
petition disturbed the primacy of the Old Ally, until the
friendship of centuries was ruined by a short-sighted and in-
toxicated greed in the time of Manuel Comnenus.

The concessions granted to the Western traders in
Levantine ports, and especially those of the new kingdom
of Jerusalem, were of various kinds ; so far as they applied
to land, they might consist of scattered properties or small
estates lying out of the towns, and sometimes at a consider-
able distance up-country; within port-towns, such as Acre,
Jaffa, or Tyre, the grant was sometimes of a piece of waste
land free for building ; otherwise it might include a certain
number of houses, an entire street, or even a large portion
of the city. The obligations attached to such holding
were usually defensive ; offensive military service was rarely
mentioned ; but the grantees were bound to guard their
own property against attack, and could not claim the aid of
the feudal levies, except as a matter of grace and Christian
brotherhood.

The cunning traders and seamen of the commercial
republics looked on the Crusades with very different eyes
from the average Catholic lords and labourers of the inland
districts ; they were not without religious enthusiasm, but
they cultivated it rather as a useful commodity than as an
inevitable state of feeling; and they felt but little of the
blind hatred against Islam, and the passionate veneration
for the Gospel sites, which sincerely animated the great
body of the warriors and pilgrims they conveyed to
Palestine. Mercantile interest was never absent from
the minds of those who governed, bought, or sold in
Venice and Pisa, in Genoa and Amalfi ; and this will partly
explain why the greatest of Italian ports, and the most worldly-
wise of commercial oligarchies, did not embark in the new

VI.] VENICE IN THE CRUSADES 409

ventures with as much zeal as others who had less to lose.
For the Venetians were far more anxious to preserve and im-
prove their markets and their general predominance in the
Byzantine Empire than to endanger their whole position
by developing a Syrian commerce, viewed "by the Greeks
with no small jealousy. Yet their exertions were consider-
able. The competition of their rivals was alone sufficient
to compel a certain amount of activity ; and the friendship
of Constantinople did not compel them to submit to a
total exclusion from the new Syrian commerce. In 1099-
1100 they sent a fleet of 200 ships to Jaffa; yet in return
for their vigorous assistance, they only obtained from Godfrey
and Baldwin a number of rather trivial mercantile privileges.
Eleven years passed without any renewal of Venetian action
on a large scale; but in 1110 an armament of 100 vessels
helped (like King Sigurd of Norway) in the conquest of
Sidon ; in 1117 the mariners of the Republic gained a use-
ful victory over a Saracen fleet near Jaffa; in 1122 another
armada of 200 ships sailed to Syria, besieged Corfu on
the way, arrived in time to rescue the Prince of Jerusalem
from an awkward position, and at last compelled1 the sur-
render of Tyre in 1124. Again, in 1153, Venice took part
in the capture of Ascalon ; both these ports2 were special
objects of Venetian ambition; and by agreements of 1117
and 1118, renewed in 1130, they obtained the promise of
vast concessions in the same, proprietary rights over one
third part of each city, and a large share of the customs
revenue. By a vote of the Christian commanders at Acre
in 1117 the Venetian people were also declared free of
all dues and taxes in. several of the recently-conquered
ports,3 but this (like some other charters) was too large a
promise for easy fulfilment.

1 They also helped in the capture of I '2 Tyre and Ascalon.
Haifa. s Especially in North Syria.

410 COMMERCIAL TRAVEL [Ch.

By about 1130 Venice had its trading factories in all the
harbours of Palestine, and outside the proper domain of the
King of Jerusalem they pushed their interests in North
Syria ; a considerable fraction of their trade was carried
on with Aleppo and the Hinterland of Phoenicia through
Laodicea or Latakiyeh ; and both at Byblus and at Beirut
they secured large concessions (when the Moslem tide was
already returning) in 1217 and 1220.

Levantine travel, of a more extended, ambitious, and
worldly character, was promoted by the growth of Western
trade in these regions. Hitherto, at least in such stagnant
times as the eighth century, pilgrims had been almost
the only Europeans who journeyed in Syria, but now
commercial interests drew the more daring traders over
the Lebanon and the Jordan, and even (as the thirteenth
century drew on) to Mosul and to Bagdad. About the
middle of the Crusading period regular naval expeditions1
were organised for the conveyance of peaceful and other
voyagers from the Western Mediterranean twice in the
year. The summer 'tour' usually began about the Feast of
St. John Baptist, but was sometimes delayed into August or
September ; the earlier or spring fleet was due to start about
Easter, though often subject to delays which ran well into the
middle of May. Venice was the head-centre of this service,
and profited more than any other city from its continuance ;
at the commencement of the thirteenth century the Magni-
ficent Seignory authorised the addition of a winter sailing.

The Venetian aid given to Alexius Comnenus on the eve
of the first Crusade was renewed in 1109, when Bohemuncl,
the Norman, now Prince of Antioch, repeated his father's
attack upon Durazzo, in alliance with the fleets of Pisa and

1 Cf. Adam of Bremen on the I North Sea to Marseilles in the later
voyage of pilgrims round from the | eleventh century.

VI.] VENICE AND PILGRIM TRAVEL 411

Genoa. This aid was effective, and gained for Venice even
more extensive privileges than before ; the concessions in
Pera, in Constantinople itself, in Durazzo, and in other
cities of Romania, were enlarged; and an absolute im-
munity from dues and taxes, and from all but their own
jurisdiction throughout the Empire, was bestowed upon
the saviours of the New Home. Hence resulted a natural
increase of Venetian trade and power ; now that one city
enjoyed all the sunshine of the Byzantine Court, that city
became ever more prominent as a link between Eastern
and Western Christendom, and between the Christian
world as a whole and the heathen world of the Orient.
Incidentally, Venice now made a fresh start in commerce
with Germany and the ultramontane lands; as the
European staple of Mediterranean trade, she concluded
an advantageous treaty with the Emperor Lothair III.,
and, intoxicated with past success and present ambition,
she became reckless of her okler cautions, and careless of
the most valuable and ancient of her alliances. The
friendship of Byzantium had been a rule of policy with
the earlier doges and senators ; to preserve that friendship
the State had many times practised a self-denial irritating
to the pride and damaging to the fortunes of many citizens ;
but in 1155 the Seignory passed into the open alienation
of an unfriendly neutrality, refused aid to Manuel Comnenus
in his war with William of Sicily, and negotiated a trade
convention with the Norman. A common hostility to
Frederic Barbarossa still united Byzantines and Venetians
on one important point ; Manuel had lately granted the latter
certain fresh privileges, especially for the commerce with
Crete and Cyprus; and the breach now created1 was not

1 Unless we follow Heyd {Commerce | the arrest of Venetians in Constanti-
duLevant,i. 216-219)insupposingthat I nople, 12th March, 1171, was simply

412 COMMERCIAL TRAVEL [Ch.

of his seeking; but he had already shown a disposition to
admit other Italian traders to a share of favour, and this
was an unpardonable offence. On the outbreak of the
quarrel in 1155, as again on its renewal in 1171, the Roman
sovereign showed something of the vigour of a Tzimiskes
towards his troublesome Western ' vassals ' ; and punished
Venice with a savage and unexpected energy, worthy of the
last strong ruler of Christian Constantinople. Discarding
the ingrates of the Adriatic, he immediately made terms *
with the Genoese (1155), assigned them a quarter in the
Imperial City, and granted them free trade throughout his
dominions, with the exception of some Black Sea ports.2
Pisa, Eagusa, and Ancona were also invited to take a
share of the influence and commerce which Venice had
sacrificed. At Ancona Manuel established stores and
arsenals ; at Zara and Pola, Spalato and Eagusa, his
agents put fresh life into the auti- Venetian party ; every-
where his hand was against the proud city, and heavy
upon it. In reprisal, Venice incited Servia to make war
upon the Byzantines, and aided William of Sicily in his
struggles with Manuel's navy, and Frederic Barbarossa in
his siege of Ancona. The quarrel was appeased for a
time, only to break out again with greater violence in 1172;
many Venetians in Constantinople and elsewhere suffered
arrest and imprisonment; an immense quantity of goods
was confiscated ; and not until after the death of Manuel
in 1180 was a hollow friendship restored.

The renewed prohibition of trade and intercourse
between Christians and Saracens by the Lateran Council
of 1179 was an advantage to Constantinople, which now

to satisfy the greed of the Emperor ;
was without any decent pretext ; and
was not cansed, as Kinnamos says, by

insults to the Sovereign, and refusals

either to apologise or to compensate.

1 A treaty renewed in 1168-1170.

Venetian outrages upon the Genoese, - Rosia and Matracha; of. pp. 421.

VI.] VENICE QUARRELS WITH BYZANTIUM 413

again stood forth as the central market for the pro-
ducts of the East ; the Venetians had lost more than
they had gained from their quarrel with Manuel ; and
the accommodation of 1187 shows how many of their
factories and settlements were placed on Byzantine soil
and dependent upon a good understanding with Byzantium.
At Philadelphia, Abydos, Rodosto, Adrianople, Plovdiv or
Philippopolis, Saloniki, Thebes, and Corinth ; in several of
the iEgaean islands, such as Negropont, Chios, and Lemnos ;
above all, in Pera and Stambul itself, their interests were
important, and in many cases beyond the reach of immediate
support from the sea. Again, the recent war had enabled the
Genoese to appear as formidable rivals upon the Bosphorus,
the Pisans in Saloniki ; German, French, English, Eagusan,
and Amalntan merchants had all flocked to the Queen of Cities
in the later years of the twelfth century, during the season of
Venetian eclipse; Anconitan, Provencal, Spanish, and Danish
traders followed ; even Armenians, Russians, Hungarians,
Persians, Egyptians, and Syrians, Iberians of the Caucasus,
and Turks from the Seljuk Kingdom of Rum or Iconium,
came to increase the prosperity of a- market which Benjamin
of Tudela extols as only equalled by Bagdad.1 Venice had
need of all its energy, and stooped to employ more than
the usual subtleties of mediaeval policy, to regain lost
ground. In particular, she watched the prosperity of
Ragusa (trivial as it was by comparison) with keen
suspicion and constant intolerance ; asserting her supremacy
in 1171, and on four occasions during the early thirteenth
century ; and doing her utmost to hinder the Eagusan
intercourse with Nicaea and Trebizond (after the fourth
Crusade), with the Tsars of Bulgaria (especially from

1 Cf. Benjamin of Tudela on Constantinople ; and Asher's notes, vol. i
of his Benjamin, pp. 46, 49-51.

414 COMMERCIAL TRAVEL [Ch.

1197), and with the Sultans of Egypt, in whose port of
Alexandria Rabbi Benjamin saw vessels from Rahurphia.

The nominal reconciliation of Venetian and Byzantine
polity after the death of Manuel was not deep or lasting,
as the terrible anti-Latin riots of 1182 sufficiently proved;
many 'Adriatic' merchants resident1 in Constantinople
were then massacred ; and the new Emperor Alexius (III.)
failed to compensate the survivors for the losses they had
suffered. What was worse than all, he continued to show
favour to the Pisans and other dangerous competitors of
Venice ; generally speaking, the state of affairs was not
satisfactory to those who had so long held a commercial
monopoly of the ' Greek ' dominions. Day by day, com-
plained their enemies, the men of St. Mark pierced ever
deeper into the ' Henri-Pout ' and Asia Minor ; the commercial
agreements of 1187 and 1189 showed a great practical
advance on the 'privilege' of Alexius in 1082 ; but this was
no compensation, in the mind of ambitious Venetians, for
the increased success of their rivals. They did not hesitate,
therefore, at a desperate stroke to recover their ascendency ;
and already in 1202 they were making ready for the great
crime consummated in 1204 — the capture and sack of
Constantinople and the overthrow of the dynasty. The
decline of the Byzantine navy after the death of Manuel
left the ' regions of Marmora ' in a fatal state of exposure ;
in the last quarter of the twelfth century Pisan, Genoese,

1 The Latin quarters, gfj.[lo\ai, or | the cit}*, as is implied by the Vene-
embola, all lay upon the Golden
Horn ; and the Venetian adjoined
a part of the quay which perhaps
had once been (before Theodosius II.,
408-450) a Jewish leasehold in Pera.
Here probably Rabbi Benjamin of
Tudela lodged, if we may still suppose
a Hebrew interest in this section of ) adjoining the Bosphorus.

tian concession of K'80, ' ab Hebraica
ad Viglam.' Heyd, however, denies
the survival, Commerce du Levant, i.
249-250, and maintains that through-
out the earlier Middle Ages the Jewish
quarter of Constantinople was in the
port of Galata (and of Galata only)

VI] THE REVOLUTION OF 1204 415

and other pirates desolated the coasts and islands of the
iEgaean, and even ventured to within sight of the Bosphorus;
and when Philip Augustus of France returned from Palestine
in 1191 he found the Archipelago almost without inhabitants
except for a few colonies of corsairs.

Venice, then, in 1204, was firmly planted at Byzantium ;
it was even proposed to transfer to the Bosphorus the seat
of the Republic's Government; the Doge became Despot of
Romania; the victoiious city entitled itself Mistress of Two-
Fifths of the Roman Empire. Pera was made an immediate
possession, under a bailo or ijodcsta. ; all the coast towns
which could be secured shared the same fate, together with
a large part of the Morea (valuable for its silk manufactures)
Corfu, Crete or Candia, many small islands in the Archi-
pelago, and a portion of Negropont. Thus a chain of
Venetian possessions now stretched from the Adriatic to
the Black Sea ; a position of complete ascendency was
secured in all the Greek waters, and the Republic was
exalted to a rank among the world's chief powers. By the
same conquests the Venetians acquired a command of the
trade in Oriental and Arctic products, and especially in
silks, spices, aromatics, and costly furs and stuffs; the
commerce of the Empire was of all the greater importance,
because by the Black Sea route came so large a proportion
of the corn supply of the Mediterranean world. The new
masters of the Pontus pressed their advantages in every way.
They concluded treaties with the King of Little Armenia,
and the Emperor of Trebizond ; they opened an inter-
course with the new Mongol power then overflowing Georgia
and the east and north coasts of the Inhospitable Sea ; and
for the further development of their trade and influence
they founded Tana,1 at or near the mouth of the Don,

1 At the very close of the Latin domination in Constantinople, pro-
bably not before 12(30.

416 COMMERCIAL TRAVEL [Oh.

where in early times there had been a Graeco-Scythian
market. Nor was this enough for Venetian energy and
unscrupulousness. Ganging more accurately, as time went
on, the extreme stubbornness of the Saracen resistance
and the inherent weakness of the Latin states of Syria,
unsupported by any large racial emigration from the "West,
the republicans who had assumed with so much unction
the leadership of the fourth Crusade, soon gave up all
pretence of devotion to the Holy Y\rar. On the contrary,
they renewed their ancient and direct trade with the chief
Saracen markets, and even entered into close relations
with the principal Moslem sovereigns. Thus in 1219 the
Venetian podesta in Constantinople concluded a treaty of
commerce and friendship with Saladin of Iconium ; in 1229
a similar agreement was made with the Sultan of Aleppo,
an old and valued customer ; and with the rulers of
Egypt there was constant diplomatic and mercantile inter-
course. The Egyptian connection is referred to by Saewulf,
and illustrated by the treaties of 1158 and 1175, the latter
signed by the great Saladin and the Doge Sebastian Ziani ;
it was cemented by the unnatural events of 1202-1204.
The true centre of resistance to the Eastern Empire and the
Crusaders was in Egypt ; and the Egyptian Sultans felt a
lively gratitude to the Christian city which had undermined
one of the main bulwarks of Christendom.1 Especial favour
was therefore shown to Venetian traders ; in 1215, out of
3000 Frank merchants in Alexandria, a great proportion
were ' men of St. Mark ' ; and the renewed prohibition to

1 To divert Byzantine assistance [ ceive a relic (or iclolum) which is

from the Crusaders, Saladin had i captured on the way by the Vene-

eultivated a suspicious friendship j tians ; about the same time two

with Constantinople ; thus he sent j Genoese ships intercepted Venetian

presents to Isaac Angelus, 1185-95, j barks conveying an Embassy from

and in 1189 the Saracens living in Isaac to the Court of Egypt.
Constantinople are expecting to re-

VT.1 VENICE AND THE MOSLEM WORLD 417

export wood and iron from Italy (issued by P, Ziani in
1226) was merely taken as a concession in words to Catholic
prejudice, the fact of such export remaining, with un-
diminished profit to the good Catholics engaged in it.
While the Latin dominion continued at Byzantium (1204-
1266), Venice, as the controlling power in the Black Sea,
controlled that traffic in slaves which was to Egypt what
the corn trade was to other lands. In spite of prohibitions
from the Church and from their own Government, and in
spite of the scandal attaching to this commerce, Venetian
merchants continued to furnish Circassian boys and girls,
as well as European wood and iron, for the Cairo market;
and by the contracts of 1207-8, 1225, 1229,1 and 1238, they
put the seal, as men said, on their disgrace.

In Syria, meanwhile, the establishment of her power at
Byzantium, her frank abandonment of the Crusading cause,
and her intrigues with the Saracens, almost of necessity
compelled Venice to retire, gracefully or ungracefully, from
the front rank ; and after 1204 she only seems to have
given much attention to her colony at Acre — where Genoese,
Pisans, Florentines, Massiliots, and even English,'2 were
also represented in the gloomy years which registered the
slow ebbing of the Catholic tide and the approaching end
of Acre itself as a Crusading citadel.

In the second part of this chapter we shall have to
notice some of the evidence of the ubiquitous activity of
Venetian citizens beyond the immediate basin of the
Mediterranean, — in Bulgaria and at Iconium, at Kiev and
Damascus, in the upland of the Lesser Armenia, at Trebizond
and in the Crimea, at Tana and in the regions of the

1 The treaty of 1229 is open to ; tans, and citizens of Piacenza and
some doubt. Montpellier.

2 Also Luccans, Siennese, Anconi-

2 D

418 COMMERCIAL TRAVEL [Ch.

Caucasus. Here it is enough to remember how the Re-
public, under the Latin Empire, profited by its position as
chief intermediary x between the East and West, to conclude
new arrangements with the Western Powers, helpful to its
overland trade. In Italy, the cities of Bologna, Treviso,
Padua, Mantua, and Ravenna ; in Germany, the Emperors
Otto IV. and Frederic II., entered into treaty2 and gave
special assurances of favour to the Venetian carrying trade ;
in return, German merchants were now permitted to acquire
their own magazine and quarter in Venice, under the super-
intendence of three of the Grand Councillors.

From the first, Genoa 3 seemed marked by destiny to con-
trast with Venice. The latter, by its position and its history,
was drawn towards the Levant, the Eastern Mediterranean,
and the Empire of Constantinople ; the former was as
strongly linked with the western part of the Inland Sea,
with France, and especially with the German or Holy
Roman State. But the Ligurian Republic owed its great-
ness and its freedom to the Crusades, which, though Catholic
and International in their character, were geographically
something of an intrusion into the special field of Venetian
influence, and offered a splendid prize to the swift and
vigilant interloper. Genoa had been sacked by Moslem
pirates in 935, had fought by the side of Pisa for the

1 Together with Egypt. Venetian i the fourteenth century ('consul

activity in pioneer exploration east- | noster Siami'), is doubted by Heyd,

wards was remarkable ; cf. Nicolo I Commerce clu Levant, ii. 153, etc.

Conti in India, before 1444 ; the j ~ 1209 and 1220.
painter Francesco Brancaleone in 3 On Genoa's trade in the Mediter-

Abyssinia (c. 1450), even before the ranean in the earlier Middle Ages, cf.

Portuguese Covilham ; of. Bruce, : Oaffari, Annates Geiiuenses, in Mura-

Abyssinia, ii. 74, 92, etc. tori, Rcr. Itcd. Scriptores, vi. ; Uberti

The Venetian Consulate said to i Folieta, GenuensiumHistoria, inGrae-

have existed in Siam at the end of ' vius, Thesaurus antiquit. Italiae, i.

VL] EARLY ENTERPRISES OF GENOA 419

salvation of Sardinia,1 and had joined in the great expedition
of 1087 to the coast of Tunis; now it was ready to throw
itself into the Crusading tide with a sincerity and thorough-
ness which Venice could not imitate. For Genoa had no
double part to play and no Byzantine friendships to con-
ciliate, until the change of Venetian policy threw the Greeks
into alliance with a new friend.

The origin of the State as an independent body may be
found in a campagna or political association, founded at the
very close of the eleventh century, controlled by consuls
freely elected, and supported by the bishops of the city
against secular lords, such as the Oberti. In the pre-
Crusading period Pisa, Amalfi, and Venice all enjoyed a
more prominent position in Levantine waters ; the gorgeous
East was not yet held in fee by Genoa; and down to 1100
the future ally of the Palaeologi was content with Tyrr-
henian commerce. The Norman Conquest of Sicily, and the
heavy blows inflicted by the Tuscan republics on ' Barbary
corsairs ' during the second and third quarters of the
eleventh century, may be said to have cleared the road to
the East ; the danger of flank attack was reduced to a
negligible quantity ; and from Norman Sicily the Genoese
trader began to find his way to the Syrian and Egyptian
ports.

But it is with the year 1097 that Genoa first appears in
force upon these distant coasts; now, and again in 1099, she
despatched warships and transports in great force to Pales-
tine ; she took a foremost part in the conveyance of troops by
the maritime routes ; her citizens fought bravely at the siege
of Jerusalem ; and, in 1100, a large Genoese flotilla, arriving
at Laodicea, shared in the war on the Phoenician littoral.
The capture of Arsuf, Caesarea, and Tortosa in 1101, of

1 1015, 1016, etc.

420 COMMERCIAL TRAVEL \0A

Gibelet in 1104, of Tripoli in 1109, and of Beyrout in 1110,
rewarded their exertions, and furnished them with ample
rewards. Gibelet was made over to their care ; vast conces-
sions in Tripoli were added ; and these, with the advantages n
they had already secured at Antioch in 1098 (a like reward
for like assistance), constituted a kind of Genoese principality
in Northern ' Aramaea.' At the fall of Antioch the Ligurian
allies of Prince Bohemund shared with the son of Robert
Guiscard the responsibility of future holding and defence
(certain Provencal seamen from St. Gilles also pledging them-
selves to aid) ; and scarcely any recompense was too great for
such alliance. Among other spoils of this region the Italian
mariners captured an immense quantity of pepper, large
enough to supply each sailor with two pounds of pungent
treasure ; the watchful foresight of their leaders took care
that all privileges and properties bestowred upon the Genoese
should be recorded in letters of gold at the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre. The privilege granted by King Baldwin in
1105, and the new Antioch charter of 1106, also contributed
to the concessions enumerated on this tablet ; by the former,
quarters in Jaffa and Jerusalem were acquired, with exclu-
sive rights of administration and jurisdiction. Until 1112
Genoese power and influence steadily increased on the
Levantine coasts, but then came something of a break ; for
attention was diverted from East to AVest by the growing
urgency of the quarrel with Pisa, the battle for Corsica,
and the renewed struggle with the fleets of the Spanish and
North African Saracens. The dispute over their trading
rights at Constantinople also helped to call off their energies
from Palestine. The Republic, in fact, was driven to con-
centrate ; its vaulting ambition threatened to overleap itself ;
and forty years were needed to put things on a safe
1 Also a quarter in the city, 1106.

VI.] GENOA IN THE CRUSADES 421

footing in home waters. In 1154 the tide returned; from
this era Genoa speedily regained, by the ceaseless activity
and skilful diplomacy of its consuls, aided by papal favour,
the ground that had been lost in the Prankish States of the
Orient; and what was even more important, a new chapter
was now opened in its relations with Byzantium. Manuel
Comnenus, disgusted with Venice, threw open to the most
bitter rivals of the Old Ally a field which had long been
barred x against them ; but, in spite of large concessions in
Constantinople, and a grant of free trade to all the ports
of the Empire (except Eosia and Matracha2 on the North
Euxine coast), the Genoese were not content. The
two harbours interdicted to their commerce (apparently
at the Strait of Kertch and near the mouth of the
Kuban) were valuable for the fur and grain trade of the
North ; the jealous prohibition of the Byzantine Govern-
ment made them seem doubly worth entrance ; and Manuel's
price was high. In return for his favour, as displayed in
the treaties of 1155 and 1169, he expected the aid of the
Eepublic against the Hohenstaufen emperors of the West ;
but friendship with the Holy Empire (or German kingdom)
was as much a rule of state with Genoa as the Byzantine
alliance had been a principle with Venice, and both here

1 The Genoese, however, had a | brethren in Great Hungary, near the

factory in Constantinople at the Middle Volga. The region of

beginning of Manuel's reign ; this Matracha was separated by a river

was destroyed in a furious riot by from Ziccia, or Zichia, and the Zicci

Italian rivals in 1162. (mentioned by Carpini, in connection

- Rosia and Matracha (rot with Iberians, Georgians, and other

~Na.TO.pxa of Constantino Porphyro- ! nations of the Caucasus) ; on the

gennetos, the 'Matrica' of Rubruquis) ' west, according to Rubruquis, it was

practically commanded the North bounded by the Strait of Kertch,

Euxine littoral. It was through ! Zichia was reckoned among the most

Matracha that the Hungarian mis- northerly territories of the Byzantine

sionaries from the Theiss passed in Empire.
1230 on their way to their Pagan

422 COMMERCIAL TRAVEL [Oh.

and at Pisa the Comnenian policy was a failure ; in fact,
it was only at Ancona that Manuel's ambitions were com-
pletely realised. Both Venice and Constantinople wearied
of a conflict as injurious to the one as to the other; and
though the accord re-established at the close of Manuel's
reign veiled a deep resentment and a revengeful ambition,
it had at least the effect of restoring in great measure the
ascendency of the Venetians, and throwing back the in-
truders from Genoa into their earlier obscurity.

The latter, therefore, had to wait their time in Greek
waters, until the revolution of 1204 had created a final
severance between parties, whose position, as reversed in
1261, formed the answer to every prayer, and the realisa-
tion of every wish, of the enemies of Venice.

Meantime the Ligurians vigorously maintained their
interests in Palestine, and obtained a ' quarter ' in Acre, and
new charters and privileges in the dominions of Bohemund
III. of Antioch (1169 and 1189). Good account was also
made of an early friendship with the House of Ibelin, Lords
of Beyrout, and afterwards Eegents of Cyprus. At both
these points Genoa soon outstripped all rivals ; and no long
time after the beginning of the thirteenth century they
had the especial gratification of ruining the Pisan trade with
the Isle of ' Khittim.'

In Egypt Genoa had a certain commerce as early as
the tenth century,1 and concluded a treaty of commerce
with the Fatimite Caliphs ; but it is only in the middle
of the twelfth century that we have much evidence of this
ancient intercourse, now evidently grown to large propor-
tions. In documents covering the years 1155 to 1164

1 If we may so understand the
fragment of an Arab (Fatimite)
diploma preserved at Genoa, pro-
mising protection to the citizens of

a Western City. In 1063 Ingulf of
Croyland returns from Jaffa in a
Genoese ship.

VI.] GENOA AND THE .MOSLEM WEST 423

Alexandria is mentioned far more often1 than any other
Mediterranean port as the object of Genoese voyages, and
as furnishing the seamen of that city with most of their
Oriental wares — cloves, Brazil-wood, alum, and pepper. In

1131 a Genoese ship, returning from Alexandria, was
wrecked. Under the next year we still possess (if genuinely
historical and not merely an exercise of rhetoric) the cor-
respondence of two Genoese merchants upon details of the
Egyptian trade ; in 1177 a treaty with Saladin puts this
commerce upon a new footing.

As with Egypt, so with Tunis. The twelfth century saw
the old hostility rapidly fading away before the new dis-
position towards a mercantile intercourse profitable for both
sides; and in 1250 Genoa concluded (almost at the same
time as Venice) an agreement with that Moslem power
which had so long harassed Christian Italy. Here the
citizens of the former were nearer to their own special
field of action, the Tyrrhenian Sea ; for whatever they did,
attempted, or neglected in more distant parts, they clearly
grasped the fact that all else was nothing unless they
maintained their rank in the Western Mediterranean. From
about 1134 they had effectually weakened Pisa, and thrust
their most dangerous rival into a lower place ; then they
took up their old quarrel with Saracen sea-power, con-
veniently labelled 'piracy.' In 1145 they attacked the
Balearics, overran most of the islands, and destroyed many
nests of corsairs. Soon after, they turned against the
Moslems of Andalusia, stormed Almeria, and carried off
(among other spoil) the marbles which still form the main
front of the Cathedral of Genoa.

In the South of France they were very active. From

1132 (if not earlier) they possessed a factory in Narbonne ;

1 Sixty-six times,

424 COMMERCIAL TRAVEL [Oh.

in Montpelher they had already planted themselves before
the year 1121 ; their Provencal policy was directed towards
two objects. For one thiug, they tried to hinder any direct
intercourse between the ports of this region and the Levant;
for another, they did their utmost to ruin the home trade of
these cities, to take from them their carrying traffic, and
to prevent their developing that internal prosperity which
would enable them to struggle for new markets. Thus
they allied themselves with the Counts of Toulouse in
every attack upon the republican liberties of Marseilles
and Montpellier, especially in 1143 and 1174; they
struggled, with persistency worthy of a better cause, to
shut the Provencal merchants out of Sicily ; they hoped to
make the Western Mediterranean a Genoese lake. The
audacity of their pretensions may be gathered from their
demand (of 1109) upon Bertram of Toulouse, that none
but Genoese ships might enter the port of St. Gilles ; and
from the terms they sought to exact in 1143 and 1155,
terms which forbade the vessels of Marseilles and Mont-
pellier from calling at any port to the south and east of
Genoa.

Meantime they pushed their interests in Christian and
Moslem Spain. In 1127, a treaty with Count Raymond
Berenger III. ensured them free entrance into all ports from
Nizza to the Ebro, and protection in the same, on payment
of a moderate harbour due. This impost was removed : by
Raymond Berenger IV., together with ' landing customs '
and ' anchor money,' after their zealous and effective aid
in the campaigns of 1147 and 1148 ; and special rights of
property and settlement were granted them in Tortosa,
whose capture was mainly due to them. In return, they
promised reciprocal favours to Count Raymond's subjects
1 In harbours west of the Rhone.

VI.]

GENOA AND WESTERN EUROPE

425

in all the territories of Genoa ; and here the Barcelona
traders may have gained some real advantage.

The Genoese completed their work of making an open
trade route from Italy to the Atlantic by their compacts
with (resulting from naval victories over) the Moorish
princes of Valencia (1149), of Majorca (1181, 1188), of Tunis
(1250, etc.), and of the other Saracen principalities in North
Africa and Southern Spain. Having cleared a path to the
Straits of Gibraltar, the Genoese were the first Christian
mariners to attempt serious discovery in the Western Ocean,
and to seek for the long sea road to India, round the coast of
the Dark Continent. Incidentally, as they worked their way
towards the Pillars of Hercules, they created a dominant
Genoese interest on the adjacent coasts,1 and practically
excluded Pisan competition ; their seamen acquired an
immense influence in the naval development of Aragon,
Castile, Portugal, and Sicily ; even in Provence, to which
Genoa had been a true step-mother, Genoese merchants were
exceedingly powerful in financial and commercial matters,
nominally encouraging, often skilfully depressing, the trade
of these vigorous rivals.

But as this period draws to a close,2 the growth of great
centralised inland kingdoms both in France and Spain was
already foreshadowing a new period ; — when the most wealthy
and unscrupulous of mercantile republics would find itself
overmatched by superior resources and equal craft ; and
when, under the patronage of the new continental states,
navies of even greater power would arise, and discoveries

1 The Genoese also opened a trade
with Flanders very early ; in 1224. a
note of receipt in the Antwerp
archives recorded the presence of a
Genoese captain at Sluys.

The regular service between Venice
and Flanders did not begin till 1317.

2 About the middle of the thir=
teenth century.

426 COMMERCIAL TRAVEL [Ofl.

ruinous to Italian trade would be made in distant
seas.

Meanwhile the Genoese, secure in the West, at-
tempted a master-stroke in the East, by the overthrow of
the Venetianised Latin rule in Constantinople, the restoration
of the Greeks, and their own establishment as the indis-
pensable ally and commercial favourite of the Byzantines.
As the Christian dominion in Syria, one of the most
prosperous fields of past enterprise, was manifestly falling
to pieces ; as, moreover, it seemed daily more probable that
the Western intruders on the Bosphorus would be displaced
without any aid from others ; as, finally, the barriers of
common creed and race had been weakened by the action of
Venice herself, and by the traffic of centuries both with
Saracens and with heathen, — it was not in itself surprising
that Genoa in the crisis of 1261 took its station by the side of
Michael Palaeologus, and threw the whole weight of its re-
sources on his ' scale of fortune.' But the success of the new
policy was amazingly complete, and its consequences were
very marked. It raised Genoa to a position of full equality
with the mistress of the Adriatic, gave her for two centuries
the command of the Black Sea trade, and more than com-
pensated for the losses which inevitably followed on the ruin
of the Christian kingdoms in Syria. Shortly before the
Byzantine restoration events in Acre had made the Genoese
more and more determined to transfer their attention from
the Syrian coast to the Bosphorus and the Greek waters.
For in 1258 a union of rivals, headed by the Venetians
and Pisans, drove the unpopular Ligurians from Ptolemais
to Tyre (which they now made their head station in these
parts), to Cyprus, and to Cilicia or Little Armenia, where
they had secured their position by the commercial agree-
ments of 1201 and 1215.

VI.] GENOA AND BYZANTIUM J PISA 427

The origin of the Pisan Republic l was similar to that of
the Genoese. In the course of the eleventh century the
Marquis of Tuscany lost control over the city, and in
1085 a republican constitution was established by the
mediation of Bishop Daibert; a charter of pacification
was issued the same year, and consuls took the place of
the feudal lords. But throughout the last two generations
of feudal supremacy, Pisa, though still dependent, was
gaining a famous name at sea. It was of some importance
even in the tenth century; in 1017 it allied itself with
Genoa, and achieved the conquest of the great island of
Sardinia ; soon after began the Pisan attacks upon the
Barbary coasts. In 1035 the men of the Arno stormed
Bona, the ancient Hippo Regius ; in 1063 they forced
the port of Palermo; in 1083 and 1087 they made two
brilliant raids upon El Mehdia, the fortress-harbour of
Tunis. With the help of these deeds of arms they ex-
torted many trading privileges from the Moslem sovereigns
of the Western Mediterranean ; from Alexius Comnenus
they won the grant of a most favoured nation clause
in Byzantine waters ; in return for these concessions the
port of Pisa was freely opened to foreign commerce ; and
thus an amount of traffic was drawn to the city, so great
as to promise it at one time the first place among the
Emporia of the Mediterranean. Western Orthodoxy 2 was
shocked by the ' marine monsters ' from the ends of the
earth who thronged the streets of the city ; Pagans, Turks,
Libyans, Parthians, and Chaldaeans defiled the town and

1 On Pisa and its Mediterranean
career in the earlier Middle Ages, cf.
Chronica varia Pisava, in Muratori,
Her. Itcd. Scriptores, vi. For the
Syrian treaties and charters, cf.
Muratori, Aniiqutt. Ital. ii., and
Flam, dal Borgo, RaccoUadi Diplom.

- Of. Donizo, Life of Countess
Matilda, i., 20, in Muratori, Her. Ital.
Scriptores, v. and Dissertation 31.
' Qui pergit Pisas, videt illic monstra
marina Haec urbs Paganis, Turchis,
Libycis quoque Parthis Sordida :
Chaldaei sua lustrant moenia tetri,'

428 COMMERCIAL TRAVEL [Ch.

blackened its walls ; here, most of all, was to be seen
the triumph of commercialism over all the barriers of
Latin exclusiveness, over race, religion, and language alike.
The conquest of Majorca in 1114, following upon the
occupation of Sardinia, seemed to establish, firmly enough,
the supremacy of Pisa in the Tyrrhenian Sea, and its
citizens turned with extraordinary energy to the Levant.
They had already done yeoman service before Antioch
in 1098; in 1099 and 1100 a fleet of one hundred
and twenty sail, under the command of the city's own
prelate, Daibert, afterwards patriarch of Jerusalem, co-
operated in the sieges of Tyre and Acre. For such aid
a rich reward was not to be refused ; in Jaffa, Godfrey of
Bouillon bestowed on Pisan merchants an extensive
' quarter ' as a fief of the Patriarchate ; Tancred, the
Lord of Antioch, grauted similar concessions, with exemp-
tion from export and import dues, both in his capital and
in Laodicea. Later favours of 1154, of 1156 (from King
Baldwin III.), and of 1157 (from Amalric of Ascalon), pro-
moted Pisan trade, and protected the persons and property
of Pisan merchants, especially in the case of shipwrecks,
in the ' recognition ' of wills and testaments, and in other
matters of civil and criminal litigation.

In no other concessions do we possess greater detail
and fuller explanation than in the Pisan, which stipulate,
among other things,1 for the building of churches and private
houses, of stores, custom-houses, and courts of justice, of
factories and magazines, of baths, mills, and ovens ; for
a fixed proportion of the customs revenues ; and for the
rights of using their own weights and measures, and of
electing overseers or consuls of their own nation to safe-
guard their interests, both legal and commercial. No other

1 Taking one with another.

VI.] PISAN share in crusades 429

of the Italian Republics, moreover, amassed a richer store
of treaties, compacts, and agreements with the Crusading
princes ; nor could it well be otherwise, for Pisa devoted
herself more zealously to the Syrian trade than any of
her rivals. As her power waned, her energies, by a fatal
error of policy, were even more concentrated on this field
than before. Her fleet took the lead in attacking
Alexandria and the Moslems of Egypt, the most formid-
able of all ; King Amalric responded by concessions in
Tyre (1165) and by the promise of great rewards on the
conquest of the Nile valley (1168-69); fresh privileges
were secured in Antioch and Tripoli from Count Bohemund
111.(1170, 1172, and 1187) ; in the last days of the Latin
Kingdom, Baldwin IV. and Conrad of Montferrat were
equally generous at Acre, Jaffa, and Tyre (1182 and
1187-88). These three cities were the headquarters of
Pisan trade in the Eastern Mediterranean ; Jaffa contained
the most numerous of their colonies, the leading fundacum
or fontecco ; and at Tyre Pisan merchants dominated
throughout most of the twelfth century. Here their Sucietas
Humiliorum, was a trade guild, or commercial chamber, of
special interest, and the men of the Republic helped to
save the purple city from the Saracens in 1187. Even
after Syria had really slipped out of Prankish hands
Pisan diplomacy continued to exhort charters from the
powerless kings, princes, and counts, as in 1189, 1191,
1216 and 1229 ; when Gnido enlarged their property and
privileges in Tripoli ; when Conrad of Tyre and the Prince
of Antioch confirmed their older rights in towns where
only the shadow of former benefactions lingered ; and
when Frederic II. conferred useless favours, in Syria, on
the city whose power could no longer maintain itself in
the Tuscan seas.

430 COMMERCIAL TRAVEL [Oh.

At home the great enemy of Pisa was, of course, Genoa,
the faithful ally of the eleventh century, the destroyer of
the thirteenth ; but in the Levant Pisans were more
constantly at war with Venetians. Their conflicts in
Byzantine waters were incessant ; the Porto Pisano, on
the Lycian coast, east of Myra, was a nest of Tyrrhenian
' pirates ' ; and the efforts of Pisan statesmen were long
directed towards the securing of a direct route to Con-
stantinople, partly by sea and partly overland, by way
of Ancona, Zara, and Saloniki. This project, fortified by
treaties with Ancona, Zara, and Pola (1188, 1195, etc.),
was a direct challenge, like the earlier schemes of Manuel
Comnenus, to Venetian ascendency in the Adriatic, and
it was resisted with every weapon at the command of the
Seiguory ; on their side the Pisans did not hesitate to assist
every rebellion against Venetian authority (as at Pola in
1195) ; and their colony, grouped round the Church of St.
Nicholas in Byzantium, and secured by the agreements of
1111 and 1192, was a focus of every anti-Venetian element
in the Eastern Empire.

With Egypt, Pisan relations were marked by a brilliant
and fortunate duplicity. On one side they shared in the
Crusading enterprises against the Delta region, with such
energy as to win recognition in the Syrian principalities
and to gain a foremost place in the battle of concessions ;
on the other , side they used every art to promote their
trade with the Fatimite dominions.1 In 1154 their envoy
at Cairo, in his audience of the Caliph, promised that the
city would give no more aid to the Crusaders; and in 1160

1 In 1150 the famous Nicholas, i early as about 1100. The Pisans

Abbot of Tliing-Eyrar in Iceland, a | claimed, also, to have made voyages

pilgrim to Rome and Jerusalem, saw j to India by way of Egypt from 1175 ;

some Egyptian ships in the harbour this claim is doubted by Heyd, Com-

of Pisa, Relations probably began as | merce du Levant, ii., 154.

VI.]

PISA IN THE ADRIATIC, EGYPT, ETC.

431

the Moslem ruler of Egypt was complacent enough to
order the restoration of the Pisan fontecco in Alexandria ;
yet not many months had passed before Pisa inspired and
ltd the great attack of September, 1163. In 1156 the
King of Jerusalem had arranged with his allies that their
Egyptian trade should not be used to cover contraband
articles ; iron, wood, and pitch found in Pisan ships thither-
bound might be freely confiscated. As the Prankish power
declined, and the greatness of Saladin began to overshadow
the Levant, Pisa made great efforts to patch up a new
treaty; between 1176 and 1180 they sent three embassies
to Egypt; and their trouble was not without result. A
new privilege covered many a broken covenant in the
past.

With Spain and Sicily, the South of France, and the
Barbary States, the city maintained, and in some places ex-
tended, its commerce during the twelfth century; its traders
rivalled the Genoese in their activity at the fairs of St.
Gilles and Frejus ; and a treaty was concluded with
Montpellier in 1177,1 which must have strengthened the
Provencal cities in their struggle against Genoa. This
struggle had been, since 1119,2 an ever present danger of
Pisa herself, and each succeeding generation deepened the
enmity between the Tuscan ports. Till the very close of
the thirteenth century the battle was undecided, and the
Pisan power appeared fully equal to her foes, the Pisan
Empire more extensive and more splendid, the Pisan city
far more magnificent.3 But gradually the prospect darkened.

1 6th February.

2 The date of the first war between
Pisa and Genoa.

3 Pisa ' was the first Italian city
that took pride in architectural mag-
nificence.' Her Cathedral was built

in the eleventh century ; the baptis-
tery, the leaning tower, and the
arcades surrounding the Campo Santo,
were mostly of the twelfth, some
parts being of the thirteenth, cen-
tury.

432

COMMERCIAL TRAVEL

[Ch.

First of all, the Latin Empire in Constantinople, followed
by the Greek restoration, substituted a Venetian, displaced
in turn by a Genoese, monopoly, for the earlier and freer
conditions under which Pisan trade had flourished among the
Byzantines. The utter overthrow of the Crusading kingdoms
in the Levant crippled the Pisans' commerce in another
field, and their expulsion of the Genoese from Acre was
of little use, for all Christians alike were driven out in the
course of the next generation. Finally, the maritime
campaigns in the Western Mediterranean tended more
and more to failure, until, in 1284,1 the fleet was ruined
and the city too exhausted to equip another. The splendid
possessions of Elba and Sardinia were soon after torn
away, and the Metropolis itself fell under the heavy hand
of fate.

The chief Provencal ports, Marseilles,'2 Montpellier, and
Narbonne, were more important in the Crusading period
than is often supposed. The dazzling fame of "Venice, Genoa,
and Pisa has blinded the eyes of the modern world, and
some of the most interesting of the mediaeval maritime
states have been treated with ill-deserved neglect.

During a large part of the twelfth century the Massiliots
despatched their ' envoys ' to Syria twice a year, probably
accompanied by a trading fleet and some ships of war ; they
also took an active part in furnishing provisions, transports,
and loans of money to those embarking for the Holy War-.
Marseilles became a very favourite point of departure for
Western and Northern travellers to Syria ; pilgrims from the

1 In the Battle off the Island of
Meloria.

2 On the Mediterranean commerce
of Marseilles, Montpellier, etc., in
the earlier Middle Ages, cf. Heyd,

Commerce du Levant, i. 20, 23, 125,
131, 146-148, 181, 185, 186, 188, 189,
312, etc., 319, etc., 327, etc., 338, 364,
420.

VI.] MARSEILLES, MONTPELLIER, ETC. 433

North Sea coasts and the military monks of the Temple and
the Hospital specially favoured this route; and the Provencal
pilots were among the first to make an open course out of
sight of )and across the Mediterranean. This shortening
of landsmen's agonies to a voyage of fifteen days, between
Provence and Acre, begins in the middle of the twelfth
century, but is only attempted in summer weather, and by
the lighter class of vessels ; heavier ships continued to coast
along Italy, to pass through the Straits of Messina, and to
touch at Crete, Rhodes, and Cyprus. The devotion of Mar-
seilles in the sacred cause had its reward. In 1117 the
citizens received a quarter in Jerusalem, and in 1136 a
general exemption from dues in the Kingdom of Jerusalem ;
in 1152 Baldwin III. conferred on them the right of posses-
sing a street in each of the chief Syrian ports ; and in
1163, they obtained a valuable mortgage in Acre from Bishop
Rudolf of Bethlehem. In 1187 and 1190 they rendered
effective naval aid at Tyre and Acre, and in return, gained
an increase of their privileges, with the rights of possessing
their own house of justice, of building or repairing ships
in Syrian wTaters, and of strengthening their Palestine fleet
at discretion. Thus it came about that the Massiliots
possessed, in 1190, a sufficient navy for the transport of the
army of Cceur de Lion ; at this time their commerce with
Egypt was flourishing ; the attempts of Genoa to retard
their progress had been repelled; and the suzerainty of the
Counts of Provence had become nominal. The tariffs and
statutes of Marseilles in the thirteenth century show a
considerable traffic with the Moslem world, and especially
with North Africa ; with Little Armenia, Sicily, and South
Italy ; and indirectly with India.1 The factories at Ceuta,

1 In the dowry of a Marseilles girl of 1224, mace, ginger, cardamoms, and
galangale are mentioned.

2 F,

434 COMMERCIAL TRAVEL [Oh.

Bugia, Alexandria, and Acre were the leading outposts of the
city's commerce ; among all its local rivals only Montpellier
remained in serious competition ; St. Gilles (which traded
mainly at Tyre), Narbonne (whose intercourse was chiefly
with Acre), and Aigues Mortes (famous as the first sea-port
of the French kings) no longer disputed the supremacy of
Marseilles.

Yet, in the age of Frederic II. and Louis IX., the
growing power of the inland monarchy checked the de-
velopment even of the greatest Provencal cities as inde-
pendent republics. The Moslem recovery in the Levant
was not wholly beneficial to their trade and influence ; and
both Marseilles and Montpellier were made to feel, as the
thirteenth century drew on, that their future was being-
more closely bound up with the new kingdoms of France
and Spain. In 1204 Montpellier fell into the power of
Aragon ; but under the sane and vigorous rule of James I.
' the Conqueror,' its material welfare, far from suffering, was
so increased, that the city was reckoned among the leading-
markets of Christendom. Alexandria, Beyrout, Tripoli, and
Tyre were the favourite centres of its trade in the Levant ;
its commercial colony in the Delta, founded before 1250,
was especially famous ; and its Egyptian trade, like that
of Barcelona, was actively furthered by King James. In
1267 two citizens of Montpellier were despatched by him
on a mission partly diplomatic, partly commercial. The
result of this is not clear; but it is evident that after the
death of her great prince the town declined as a com-
mercial capital, and that its carrying trade passed into the
hands of Venetians and other Italians.

rTarbonne is of peculiar interest in the earlier Crusading
period as the medium of a trade between two distant
countries, England and Egypt, whose connections were

VI.]

CATALAN TRADE AND SEAMANSHIP

435

weakened in the later Middle Ages by the French conquest
of this region. This commercial route passed through
Bordeaux and Toulouse to the Mediterranean, and brought
the tin and copper of Britain to exchange against the pro-
ducts of the Levant.1

The Catalans'2 were the first among Spanish peoples
who developed on lines parallel to those of the Italian
commercial republics. As early as the ninth century,
the proceeds of land and water customs make an item in
the revenues of the Catalan princes ; the latter encouraged
maritime industry among their subjects in every way ; and
by the twelfth century Barcelona had become a free port
for all Mediterranean traders, and was entering upon
a very prosperous future. The temporary conquest of
Majorca in 1114 by the fleets of Pisa and Count Raymond
Berenger III., the commercial treaty of 1127 with Genoa,
the overthrow of Almeria in 1147, all helped forward the
marine and commerce of Catalonia ; Benjamin of Tudela, in
1159, witnesses to the resort of merchants from all parts
of the world to Barcelona ; many Italian merchants, by
settling in the Catalan ports, still further increased their
importance ; and trade between the north-east and the south
of the Peninsula attained considerable dimensions even
before the re-conquest of Valencia and Murcia, of Cordova
and Seville, by James I. of Aragou and St. Ferdinand of
Castile.

The Catalans also, like the Amalfitans, devoted special
attention, with excellent results, to the fixing and codifica-

1 Ibn Said.

- On the Catalan trade in the
earlier Middle Ages, cf. Capmany,
Memorias historicas sobre la marina,
commcrcio, y artes de Barcelona, and

especially the Collect io diplomatica in
torn. ii. ; Navarrete, . . Los Es-
poMoles . . . en las cruzadas, disei-
tacion hist.

436 COMMERCIAL TRAVEL [Ch.

tion of maritime and commercial law, to the system of
consular representation for the development of trade, and
to the elaboration of a scientific cartography, based on coast-
surveys. The latter achievement, which gave us the Porto-
lani — the first accurate maps of any part of the world — was
perhaps due, in its inception, rather to Genoese or Pisans
than to Catalans ; but the seamen of Barcelona and the
Balearics certainly had a share, and an important share, in
this work. The conquest of Majorca by James I. of Aragon
in 1227 freed Catalan trade from an old danger; and now a
commerce which was already respectable made rapid progress.
From 1 230 Barcelona merchants began to resort to foreign
parts in large numbers; from about 1260 their Levantine
traffic became really important. Yet before the close of the
twelfth century we hear of a joint-colony of Barcelonese
and Provencals at Tyre, and the Aragonese dominions
already imported spices from Syria and the Nile.

Almost wholly undisturbed by Church prohibitions, the
Catalans maintained a vigorous trade with the Mohammedan
states, both of Southern Spain and of Northern Africa, from
the opening of the twelfth century. Even with Egypt the
spice-commerce had so increased that in 1250 James I.
concluded a treaty with the Sultan of Cairo, through the
medium of two Barcelonese merchants engaged in this
traffic. The same king, thirteen years earlier, in 1237, had
guaranteed the shipbuilders of Barcelona state-protection
for their intercourse with Egypt — although this wood for
shipbuilding was among the articles which ecclesiastical
censures had long forbidden Christians to export under
any name to the unbelievers. No foreign vessel, James
ordained, might be freighted in Barcelona for Egypt, Syria,
or Barbary, while there remained in port any Catalan ship
bound for any of these countries.

VI.] COMMERCE AT BARCELONA, SEVILLE, ETC. 437

In the rise of Barcelona we see the drawbacks and the
advantages of a state, not under independent or republican
institutions — not aided, like Pisa, Genoa, or Venice, by its
participation in the Crusading movement- — but under the
protection of powerful Continental princes, and uniting a
measure of internal liberty with external obedience to a
land-power able to protect the commerce of its shores by
a far greater force than a maritime republic, pure and
simple, could ever display.

In Northern and Western Spain the Biscayans and
Galicians wTere, from an early age, hardy and daring
fishermen, and chased whales in the Atlantic. Later on,
some of their mariners were among the first to reach the
American cod-banks ; but, in the period that now concerns
us, we have very little to record, beyond a fishing charter
of St. Ferdinand in 1237, and the fact that these seamen
aided in the capture of Seville in 1247, blockading the
G-uadalquivir with a flotilla of their boats.

But in Seville itself, Ferdinand III., from 1249 onwards,
made serious attempts to create a Castilian Admiralty and
a genuine commercial interest. Many Pisan, Catalan, and
Genoese traders were induced by special privileges to settle
there, and every effort was put forth to maintain and
increase the old commerce of the city, which had been so
active under the Moors. Regulations were framed, an
admiral of Castile was stationed in the port, privileges of
various kinds were granted to enterprising merchants ; but
the incomplete subjection of Andalils, and the long wars
which still had to run their course in Southern Spain,
hindered the development of Seville. For the town was too
near the scenes of conflict and danger, and suffered from its
position, not on the sea itself, but on a river-channel, at a
considerable distance from the Main, and always liable to be

438 COMMERCIAL TRAVEL [Ch.

blocked by an enemy. It was not, moreover, till the follow-
ing century that the growth of discovery and enterprise
developed trade beyond the Straits of Gibraltar; and so
opened to Seville a field for which nature had fitted it, lying
as it did upon an oceanic stream. Before this its prosperity
was too dependent on Catalan and Genoese middlemen to
have an independent character of any value.

In that part of Western Spain, otherwise known as the
county and kingdom of Portugal, commercial development,
oversea enterprise, the spirit of adventure, the search for
distant treasure, does not show much activity before the close
of the Crusading Age. Yet even in the thirteenth century
a certain trade with Flanders and the north and wTest of
France had already begun, and the more distant Hanseatic 1
markets may have communicated with Lisbon and Oporto
(as with Venice and Genoa) through the factories of London
and Bruges.

The Crusading States of the Levant formed an advanced
base for Western commerce and trade, as well as for "Western
politics and concpuest. The former was, indeed, not inseparable
from the latter ; and after the ' Latin ' Kingdoms had already
fallen into decay, ' Latin ' and ' Frankish ' enterprise in trade
and travel continued very active, reaching further into the
Asiatic world than ever before ; but with the complete extinc-
tion of the principalities of Jerusalem, Antioch, Edessa, and
Tripoli, the old difficulty of a hostile and almost impenetrable
Islam once more confronted the European nations along the
coast line of Syria. The effect of this reaction, an effect
also of the discoveries that had been made both in the
Atlantic and in Asia, was seen in the fourteenth century
diversion of Christian advance from land to sea.2

1 Cf. Sartorius, Lappenberg, Ges- I 2 And from Western Asia to "Western
chichte der Hansa, i. 271 : ii. 80-90. | Africa.

VI.] WESTERN COMMERCE IN UPPER SYRIA, ETC. 439

The Kingdom of Jerusalem, in the narrower sense, was
not in command of many of the trade centres of the Levant,
and was not even close enough to the first-class Emporia to
influence them directly ; but, on the other hand, it was
master of all the land routes that connected Egypt and
Africa with Western Asia. ' Petra in the desert,' the
Crusaders' Kerak, answering to the ancient Kir Moab ;
Montreal or Shaubek, ' le Crac de Montreal,' corresponding
to the Edomite Petra; and Ailah or Elath, at the head of
the Elanitic gulf of the Eed Sea, controlled the ordinary
pilgrim and caravan routes from Damascus to Mecca, the
leading commercial roads for the sea - borne trade of
Western Asia with the South and East. The Mediterranean
coast route between Cairo and Damascus, passing through
Ascalon, was also at the mercy of the Crusaders of Jeru-
salem ; while their brethren at Edessa, Antioch, and Tripoli,
possessing the whole coast of Phoenicia and the gulf of Issus,
interrupted all the main lines of communication between
the central body of Asiatic Islam and the Mediterranean
Sea. Bagdad could only reach Cairo, the sacred region of
the Arabian Haj, or the lands of the Western Moslems
(in Spain, North Africa, or the islands), by an immense
circuit, or by risking a passage over Crusading territory.
It was significant that the crisis of 1187-88 arose from the
attack of the Castellan of Kerak on a Saracen caravan, and
the determination of Saladin, as ruler of Egypt, to break
through the cordon from Elath to the Anion, from the Eed
to the Dead Sea.

While the European dominion lasted, the iiax of Egypt,
the musk and rhubarb of Tibet, the pepper, cloves, aloes,
and camphor of the Indies, the ivory of Africa and
Hindustan, the incense and dates of Arabia, paid transit

440 COMMERCIAL TRAVEL [Ch.

dues for their passage through the Crusaders' country,1 and
the chief ports of this country did a considerable trade in
these precious wares. Acre, Tyre, Beyrout, Laodicea, and
Jaffa were the principal harbours in Latin hands on the
Levant coasts ; then came Caesarea, Ascalon, and Haifa
under Mount Carmel ; Tiberias, as an inland lake port,
was also of some importance ; in all of these the Chris-
tian merchants seem to have been served with Oriental
products by Saracen dealers. The fruits, cottons, silk,
pottery, and glass of Syria were all worth export, and could
be obtained without the aid of middlemen in the country
mastered by the Crusaders. Thus, John of Salisbury 2 has
a tale of a rich citizen of Canoesa who provided his
banquets with delicacies from Palestine and Tripoli. The
more daring Western traders even went up country to seek
their fortune in the great Mohammedan markets. It is
curious that the Princes of Antioch, — though possessing such
an excellent commercial situation, lying close to Aleppo
and Hamath (just as the Counts of Tripoli lay close to
Damascus and Hems), and commanding some of the most
frequented trade-routes, — did not exert themselves more
actively to promote commercial interests ; their charters to
trading cities, corporations, or individuals are few and far
between ; and one famous exception, the invitation to the
Genoese issued by Bohemund III. in 1169, seems to imply
in various expressions a past condition of improvident
neglect. The fall of Acre into Saladin's hands, though it
did not destroy Western commerce on this shore, greatly
impaired the free and favourable meeting of Eastern and
Western trade ; and, after its recovery, the port of St. John

1 As appears from the Assizes of I Heyd, Commerce du Levant, i. 178-
Jerusalem. 179.

2 De Nuyis carialium, viii. 7. Of.

VI.] CHIEF SYRIAN MARKETS 441

was more highly valued and more carefully guarded than
before, especially by the regular organisation of European
colonies, both mercantile and military in character.

The Moslem Hinterland to the Crusading Syria possessed
four chief markets — Aleppo, Damascus, Hems or Emesa, and
Hamath,1 behind which lay the still greater mart of Bagdad
and the lesser Emporia of Mosul and Bassora or Basra,
covering the line of the Tigris. Aleppo was a head centre
of the trade-route from the Abbasside Caliph's ' metropolis '
to Antioch and Laodicea on the Western Sea. This route
(which crossed the Euphrates at Rakka) Edrisi calls the
grand avenue of the trade of Irak, Persia, and Khorasan ;
and the silk market of Aleppo proved its connection with
the still more distant countries of the Far East. Even at
the close of the thirteenth century many Arenetian traders
were resident here for the sake of the commerce in Seric
goods, as well as in alum : the pigments and pepper
found at Antioch by the Crusaders, on the capture of
that city, also bore witness to an Indian commerce with
the Mediterranean by this path ; and the elder Sanuto is
probably right when he says (at the beginning of the four-
teenth century) that in old time most Oriental goods passed
along this way to the Roman Sea.2 Antioch, though not
itself on the open coast, communicated directly with the
latter by its harbour of Sueidieh3 or St. Simeon; while
Laodicea,4 not yet superseded by Alexandretta, was among
the best of Levantine havens ; the smaller port of Gibel to the
south, where the Genoese had planted themselves in force,

1 To which may be added Bostra. Sanuto, Secreta Fidelium cruris, p.

2 Cf. Ibn Butlan (d. 1052) in Yakut ; 22.

Wiistenfeld, Zeitschrift deutsch. mo?-- 3 St. Simeon of the Crusaders ;

genlajiclisch. Gescllschaft, iv. 50 ; Sevodi of the Armenians ; Sudi or

Kremer, Wien. Sitzungs-Bcriclite, Suction of the Greeks,
ph.-h. kl., April, 1850. 239, 243; i Latakiyeh.

442 COMMERCIAL TRAVEL [Oh.

gave another outlet of minor importance for this commerce.
The trade of Latakiyeh with Alexandria on the one side, and
with Aleppo on the other, reaching beyond to the Eed Sea
and the Euphrates, brought many Christian merchants to its
market, especially for spice, in which trade the Venetians
took the largest share.

From Aleppo a route, which was often followed by a
large amount of trade, ran to Damascus through Hems and
Hamath, from North to Central Syria ; at Emesa it was crossed
by another path of traffic, from east to west, descending to
Tortosa and Tripoli. These cities served as the harbours for
all this region, the upper part of the older Coele-Syria ; Tripoli,
in particular, was very prominent, and the resort of many
Armenian, Jewish, and Nestorian merchants ; while the little
port of Gibelet 1 or Byblus, lower down the coast, was notable
as a point eagerly competed for by Western traders.

Damascus, then as always, occupied the position of a first-
class market ; no revolutions, sieges, sacks, or other disasters,
could permanently affect the prosperity of the oasis, so
plainly marked out by Nature as among her favourite spots
of earth. Here was the starting-point, in Moslem times, of
the Syrian Haj, of the pilgrim and trade-route to Mecca and
Western and Southern Arabia ; here, also, was the meeting-
place of caravan roads from Mesopotamia, from Asia Minor,
from Persia and Central Asia, and from the Mediterranean
coasts. It had direct intercourse with the ports of the
Persian Gulf, with Bagdad, and the other markets of the
Tigris and Euphrates ; its relations with Egypt, though
necessarily more indirect, were still maintained during the
Crusading period. For, however risky the passage, or
however great the deviation, Damascus goods enjoyed so
high a name in all the lands of Islam and among all the
1 Cf. Edrisi, i. 356-359; ii. 130.137.

Vf.j TKADE OF ALEPPO, DAMASCUS, BAGDAD, ETC. 443

merchants of Christendom, that the most savage wars did
not wholly prevent their" circulation.

To the south-east of Damascus, Bostra in the Haurau,
Ituraea, or Argob (the wild, hilly country beyond the
Middle Jordan), had been an inland market of no small
consequence, but it had now decayed, and the ancient
and celebrated Fair of Meidan or Muzerib was not fre-
quented as in old time ; : even in the thirteenth century,
however, European traders occasionally appeared at it (to
say nothing of Saracens, from parts as distant as Irak) ;
during the brief time when the region formed part of the
Kingdom of Jerusalem, it would naturally be accessible to
Christian merchants. In any case, it was well known
under the names of Sutar or Suidc " to the Crusading
warriors, who made frequent raids into this country ; and
through it passed the great trade-route between Damascus,
Arabia, and the Ked Sea.

But all these towns, even Damascus, must be ranked
below Bagdad in the commercial as well as the political
sense. Until the fall of the Caliphate in 1258 the Abode
of Peace retained that primacy of wealth, population, traffic,
and honour which Benjamin of Tudela witnessed, and which
after its fall passed in a measure from Southern to Northern
Persia, from Bagdad to Tabriz. Among all the cities
of Western Asia it was supreme ; Cairo, Constantinople,
Alexandria, and Cordova were probably its nearest rivals
outside China. Upon it converged most of the great
commercial routes of Asia ; those which ran up and down
the Tigris, — to Bassora and the Persian Gulf, and so to

J Cf. Edrisi, i. 352-353. The com- | Mecca, April, 1503 ; see pp. 16-18 of

uiencement of its decay may be put ! the Hakhiyt Society's Edition of

in the later twelfth century. Through Varthema.

here (' Mezeribe,' as he calls it), I 2 Arabic SHwet.

\Tarthema passed on his way to I

444

COMMERCIAL TRAVEL

[Ch.

Southern and Eastern Asia, on one side, — to Mosul, Amida,1
Tabriz, and Armenia, on the other ; those also which passed
through Irak (by canal 2 or caravan) to the Euphrates, Bakka,
and the Western Asiatic coast lands ; those, finally, which
crossed Persia, Afghanistan, and Central Asia to India and
China. In Khotan and Ferghanah the merchants of Bagdad
obtained the musk and rhubarb of Tibet ; in Kabul and
Ghazni they met the dealers of Hindustan ; their still more
distant journeys to the Celestial Kingdom were usually by
sea to the port of Khan-fu ; 3 if they chose the land-way
they skirted the Takla-Makan desert either to the north
or south, either by Khotan or by Kulja.4

West of Eakka one of the principal lines of commerce
ran north-west through the Latin county of Edessa;5 but in
the fifty years of Crusading occupation there is no evidence
of Western traffic in this region, and all the trade appears to
remain in the hands of indigenous Armenians ; perhaps this
outpost of the Crusaders was in too dangerous a plight, and
too often harassed by enemies, for the development of much
peaceful activity.

There is but little positive evidence for the plausible
belief that Venetian and other Christian merchants, before

1 Diarbekr.

2 E.g. the Nahr-Issa (Tigris-Eu-
phrates Canal). Cf. Edrisi, i. 492,
etc. ; ii. 136, 144, 153, 214, etc. ;
Richthofen, China, i. 502, etc., 'an
indispensable commentary.' Also M.
Polo. ed. Pauthier, p. 45, etc. Polo's
remarks about Bagdad trade are
notable ; they show that even the
events of 1258 did not kill it ; in the
fourteenth century -wares from China,
Yemen, India, and the Zanzibar coast
are said to appear at the Bagdad
market once more.

y Answering to the modern Hang-

cheu-fu.

4 Cf. Heyd, Commerce, ii. 222, 223,
etc. The routes south of the Thian
Shan Mountains went from Khotan
along the valley of the Tarim and so
to Turfan, Khamil, and the end of the
Great Wall. One path skirted Lob
Nor ; another avoided this lake and
passed by Aksu and Karashar. The
latter was followed by Hiouen Thsang,
and Shah Rokh's envoys in 1420, as
well as by Haji Mohammed, the
Persian rhubarb merchant of the
sixteenth century.

5 1098-1144.

VI.] CHRISTIAN MERCHANTS IN UPPER SYRIA, ETC. 445

the time of Marco Polo, made their way into the Euphrates
region, and even beyond, to Mosul and Bagdad ; yet Aleppo
and Damascus they certainly visited ; and a claim was made
in the fourteenth century for Provencal enterprise at Bakka
in the twelfth. Bearing in mind how individual Venetians,
in the days of the Latin Empire at Constantinople, penetrated
into the very heart of Asia Minor and into Northern Persia
(where Pietro Vioni was residing in 1264), we can hardly
reject 1 as impossible the suggestion of a less daring, ex-
tensive, and hazardous enterprise on their part in Northern
Syria and Mesopotamia, under the most powerful of the
Kings and Counts of Jerusalem, Antioch, Tripoli, or
Edessa. At any rate, it would seem that the conquests
of G-henghiz Khan were first described to Christendom by
the ' people of Count Eaymond ' on their return to Tripoli
from various trading journeys in the upland, and especially
by some merchants whose trade lay in spices and precious
stones. It is also clear that about 1200 the Pisans were
doing an active business at Aleppo, and it is probable that,
by the douane-station of the ' Pons Ferri,' 2 over the Orontes,
they had already advanced still further inland.

These Syrian principalities were the chief examples of
the Crusading polity in the Levant, and (as we have seen) they
afforded excellent outworks and advanced posts for Latin
movement still further into Asia ; but they were not the only
fortresses gained by the inrush of West upon East, from
which new movements of war and commerce took their start.
Syria was a meeting-place for most kinds of Oriental goods,
but Constantinople was no less a world-emporium, and the

1 Heyd, however, refuses to accept
it, though lie gives. Commerce, ii. 110,
the case of Pietro Vioni's (Viglioni's)
will, made at Tabriz, 10th December,
1264.

- This would not necessarily take
them beyond Aleppo, but it points
to a further advance. Anyhow, they
crossed the ' Pons Ferri ' and paid dues
at this point.

446

COMMERCIAL TRAVEL

[Oh.

revolution of 1204 gave a practical monopoly herein to the
Venetians. From this point of vantage they started afresh,
and pushed on to exploit the wilder regions east and north
of the Bosphorus. Thus John de Piano Carpini, returning
in June, 1247, from the Tartar Court, met with several of
his countrymen trading at Kiev, and among them a Venetian
named Manuel, and two other merchants, both probably of
the same city, Jacobus Venerius or Eeverius1 'of Acre,' and
Nicolaus Pisanus.2 Had Friar John touched at the famous
ports of Eosia and Matracha on the north-east littoral of the
Euxine, he would have found there also a number of the men
of St. Mark, as in other parts of the Taman peninsula, at
Sudak or Soldaia in the Crimea, and at Trebizond and Sinope.
The ancient and important trade-route which crossed the
Caucasian isthmus to the south of the great range led
down,3 by the valley of the Eion or Phasis, to the Black
Sea ; but it threw off a branch which traversed the
Armenian plateau and united at Sivas or Sebaste in
Cappadocia with several other avenues of commerce, from
East, North, South and West, from Mesopotamia and
Persia, from Syria and Little Armenia, and from Sinope,
Nicaea, and Iconium. After 1214 Sinope was dependent on
the Seljuk Sultans of Rum, who attached a high value to
their window on the open sea ; through Sudak it had
intercourse with the north coast of the Pontus and the
Kipchak lands ; and the rulers of Iconium encouraged this
commerce to the utmost, even undertaking expeditions (as

1 Venerius, Heyd suggests, Com-
merce du Levant, i. 319, refers to
Giacomo, a member of the great house
of Venier which had a branch at Acre ;
the Pisanus here named was probably
a member of the Venetian house of
Pisani.

- Resides one Michael of Genoa,

from the great rival port. All these
Italian traders at Kiev had come
direct from Constantinople. Cf. the
text of Carpini in the Paris Geo-
graphical Society's Recueil, iv. p. 772.
3 After ascending from the Caspian
shore to the watershed near Tirlis. by
the valley of the Kur.

VI. J CHRISTIAN TRADERS IN 'TURKEY,' 'RUSSIA,' ETC. 447

iii 1227 1 to the Crimea) to chastise outrages upon their
subjects.

It must remain uncertain whether the Turkish, Seljuk,
or ' Rumi ' ports in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean
were open to "Western trade during the time of Latin
domination at Constantinople ; but there is abundant
evidence for the visits of Italian merchants to the kingdom
of Iconium, for their successful enterprises in the same,
and for the commercial understanding between the Sultans
of Rum and the Republics of Venice and Pisa. In 1219,
Venetian traders are recorded at Lampsacus, and a few
years later in ' Turkey ' or Turlinema2 itself: the commercial
rights of the Western visitors are guaranteed by treaties
of 1210, 1215, and 1220. The Provencals seem to have
also gained access to Turkey by means of a harbour on the
south coast of Asia Minor ; this town, lying ' opposite '
Cyprus, was known in the West by the names of Lo Proensal,
Prodenmlium, or Port of the Provencals ; and some account
must also be taken of Satalia, a haven which remained in the
hands of the Greeks till 1204, was then seized by the
Aldobrandini, and finally passed under Seljuk rule in 1207.

For pushing their commerce in the upland of Asia
Minor the Latins found some assistance (and perhaps
equal hindrance) from the Greeks and Armenians who
still lived there, not yet overwhelmed and extinguished,
though already surrounded and oppressed, by the Turkish
majority. These Eastern Christians were keen traders,
and took especial interest in the export of alum ; but when
Rubruquis passed through Iconium in 1255 this trade was
mainly controlled by the newcomers from the West; in
particular, a ' long firm ' of strange constitution, under a
Genoese and a Venetian, Nicolas de. Santo Siro of Acre, and
1 Under Alaeddin Kai'kobad. '-' The Seljuk dominions,

448 COMMERCIAL TRAVEL [Oh.

Boniface of Molendino,1 had monopolised all the alum in
' Turkey,' binding the Sultan to sell only to them, and raising
the price from fifteen bezants to fifty.

Politically, the Venetians were the most deadly enemies
of the Greek empires of Nicaea and Trebizond, the relics of
the great dominion they had shattered in 1204; but even
with these states the indefatigable merchants of the Adriatic
contrived to do some business as early as 1219. Here,
however, they were naturally at a disadvantage, and the
traders of Genoa and Lucca appear at Nice, from about
1230, with no indistinct foreshadowing of the future alliance,
which was to expel the Latins from Constantinople. This
alliance took shape about 1239 ; the Bulgarians joined hands
with their Orthodox brethren against the heretical Franks ;
and the Genoese loss of Rhodes in 1250, after a bare two
years of possession, added fuel to the flame of their hatred
against the intruding masters of the Archipelago and the
Bosphorus.

The kingdom of Trebizond,2 like those of Nicaea and the
Lesser Armenia, was a ' gate ' of trade for East and West
alike— of exit for Oriental, of entrance for European, pro-
ducts and dealers. Long before the revolution of 1204
Trebizond, as a frontier city of the Byzantines, had been a
meeting-place of traffic from many quarters;3 and as a
Euxine port its commerce with the north and east coasts of
the Pontus was ancient and respectable. The Mongol de-
struction of Bagdad gave a new opportunity to its enterprise,

1 Cf. Heyd, Commerce du Levant,
i. 302, and note, where ' Molendino '
is explained as referring to the
Venetian family of Molino, and the
Boniface in question is identified con-
jecturally with a eondottiere in the
service of the Sultan of Iconium,
1242-1243; cf. Sanuto, Secreta Fide-

Mum Cruris, p. 235, etc.

2 Formed as an independent state,
after the overthrow of Constantinople
in 1 204, by a branch of the Comnenian
family.

3 As noticed by Masudi, Al
Istakhri. and Ibn Haukal,

VI.] CHRISTIAN TRADERS IN THE BLACK SEA 449

as the desolated trade-routes of the South yielded for a time
to their Northern rivals ; and the restoration of Greek rule
at Constantinople put it once more in unimpeded com-
munication with the West.1 In 1266 two Massiliot traders
arrived at Trebizond with letters to the Emperor from
Charles of Anjou, Count of Provence ; with the aid of the
Comnenian Government these envoys hoped to reach the
Grand Khan of the Mongols, and deliver to him the letters
of their Lord ; but we do not know that they ever penetrated
into Tartary. If so, they probably followed the North Persian
trade-route, which came into fashion mi the advent of the
Mongols, from Trebizond to Erzinghian, Erzerum, Lake Van,
and Tabriz,2 and thence along the south coast of the Caspian
to Bokhara and Samarcand.

As to the other commercial tracks of Asia Minor, the
most famous and popular led from south-east to north-west,
and from north-east to south-west, — from Antioch through
Little Armenia3 to Iconium, Nicaea, and Constantinople,
or from the Caucasus and the Armenian Plateau through
Sivas and Kaisarieh4 to Ivonieh5 and the sea ports of
Lycia or Cilicia ; along the latter Friar William of Kubruck
journeyed on his return from the Mongol Courts on the
Orkhon and the Volga.

But the conquering Venetians of the thirteenth century
(and other Latins in their train) did not only push their
traffic into the centre of Anatolia from their new base at
Constantinople; they also advanced, as we have seen, to the
North Euxine coast, to the mouths of the Dniepr, Don,

1 The merchants of Trebizond,
however, only nndertook ' petty '
commerce, leaving higher things to
Western visitors.

2 This was afterwards traversed by 5 Iconium.
Clavijo, on his way to the Court of !

2 F

Timur, pp. 64, 69, 78, S9, etc., of
Hakluyt Society's edition.

3 Cilicia and the Taurus.

4 Sebaste and Caesarea.

450 COMMERCIAL TRAVEL [Oh.

Kuban, and Volga, eastward to the shores of the Caspian,
northward to the Eussian and Finnish lands above the
steppes of the Kipchak or Komans. As early as the twelfth
century, the Eussian Song of Igor boasts that the glory of the
hero Sviatoslav had reached Venetians as well as Greeks ;
in the thirteenth, Carpini and Eubruquis found the Western
traders active at Kiev and throughout the Crimea. It
would seem that the vague suzerainty of the Byzantine
Emperors over the North Euxine littoral,1 marked by
fortresses in the more vigorous times of Justinian, had
been reduced to vanishing point by the Komans, under
whose rule Latin trade soon gained a share in the
export fur-trade hitherto absorbed by Saracen dealers.
The Koman rule was replaced by that of the Mongols
in the second quarter of the thirteenth century (1223-
1239) ; but this change of masters did not destroy Western
commerce ; and the chief port of Komania — Sudak or Soldaia,
near the still more famous Kaffa,2 — retained its shipping,
its old administration, and its Greek bishop, paying a
moderate tribute; and sheltering a busy population of many
nationalities, among which Goths or Germans are noticed
by Eubruquis. Under Manuel Comnenus, as in earlier
times, Eosia and Matracha. Kherson and Tanais,3 had con-

1 None of these regions are men-
tioned by the Fraukish and Venetian
spoilers of the Eastern Empire in the
1204 treaty of partition ; some are
found later to be nominal possessions
of the Trebizond emperors. At Alusta
and Ursuf Justinian's Crimean for-
tresses still stand in good repair.

Paris Recueil.

3 Sevastopol and Azov. This last
was a very ancient town, cf. Strabo,
xi. 2, 423 ; Tana (not on the same
site) was probably a foundation of
the later thirteenth century ; there
is no clear trace of it earlier, as in
Eubruquis ; but the name occurs on

2 OrTheodosia. Soldaia is otherwise some of the earliest portolani {e.g.

called Sugdaia, Sodaia, Soldachia, j that of Pietro Vesconte), of. c. 1309-

Soltadia, Scholtadia, and Sudagh. j 1310. It was eighteen miles from

From its numerous Goths the whole the mouth of the Don, and on the

region was sometimes called Gothia ; j east side of the river, according to

cf. Rubruquis, p. 219, vol. iv. of the j Bembo,

VI.] CHRISTIAN TRADERS IN THE BLACK SEA 451

trolled the trade of this coast; later, as in the fourteenth
century, Tana and Kaffa were supreme ; and Ibn Batuta
(c. a.d. 1334), while praising the port of Sudak as 'one of
the finest' known, admits that the city, though 'formerly
very large,' had been mostly destroyed in wars between the
Greeks and Turks.1 It was still apparently at the height
of its prosperity when Nicolo and Maffio Polo,2 on their way
to sell their jewels at the Court of the Khan Berke, landed
on the Crimean shores (1260). As their brother, Marco Polo
the Elder, then trading at Constantinople, possessed a house
of business in Sudak, and as no other port in the neighbour-
hood could then pretend to the same importance, it was
probably here that the travellers disembarked; the Polo
property in Soldaia was, doubtless, typical of a numerous
class of Italian holdings in the Euxine; and the careful
preservation and maintenance of the same was also
characteristic. When old Marco retired from Constanti-
nople to Venice he left his Crimean house or houses in
the charge of his son Nicolas and his daughter Marocca;
by his will of 1280 he bequeathed them his distant estate ;
in the same manner the Genoese retained and transmitted
family holdings in Kaffa and Matracha.

The latter city, in the Taman peninsula, near the Strait
of Kertch and on a branch of the Kuban,3 was the political
and commercial centre of a large district covered with
villages. It had a port of fair depth, accessible to large
vessels, and as early as the tenth century it was a chief

1 According to Abulfeda, Chris-
tianity had been displaced by Islam
at Sudak, since Ibn Said (1250-
1274) ; in other words, between the
time of Paibrurjiiis and his own.

2 Their way lay through Sarai (to
Bulgar and back, up and down the

Caspian to Bokhara, and so to the
Great Wall of China, which they
were the first Europeans to cross.
Their way back brought them to
Lajazzo. We leave this journey to
another volume.

3 The Sakir, according to Edrisi,

Volga) along the west coast of the ' ii, 4.00,

452

COMMERCIAL TRAVEL

[Ch.

town of the Khazars, well-known to the Imperial author 1
of the tract on the Administration of the Byzantine Eealm.
In 966 it was captured (according to a somewhat dubious
tradition) by Eussian raiders, led by Prince Sviatoslav, and
became part of the Slavonic principality of Tmutorchan,
which disappears in the first quarter of the twelfth century.
Edrisi,2 however, knows nothing of this Russian occupation,
but tells us that the people of Matracha were at constant
feud with those of Eusia or Eosia, probably the celebrated
town of that name on the Sea of Azov. The ruling family or
families in Matrica during the thirteenth century seem to
have been Greek in speech and Christian in religion ; many
Greek laity and clergy were settled there about 1230 ; while
merchants3 from Constantinople (among whom Venetians
must have taken the leading place) traded in the harbour,
and thence crossed the Azov Sea in light boats to the
mouth of the Don, where good purchases of fish might be
had (c, a.d. 1250).

In the days of Byzantine power, as late as Manuel
Comnenus, the Greek commerce with these regions of Eosia

1 Constantine VII. (Porphyro-
gennetos) calls it Td Mdrapxa or Ta-
fidrapxa- In the fifteenth century
'Matrica' was still of some import-
ance, and was held for a time by the
Genoese, under the suzerainty of the
neighbouring Circassians.

2 Edrisi, ii. 400. The port of Eosia,
probably the same here and in Manuel's
treaty with the Genoese in 1169, is
mysterious ; Edrisi's Map marks a
Eosia at the mouth of the river of
the same name, flowing from Mount
Kokaia. The Strait of Kertch, both
in Edrisi and Rubruquis, is con-
sidered as the mouth of the Don.
Eosia probably stood either (1) near
the site of Kertch, Bosphorus, or

Vosporo ; or (2) on the other side of
the strait ; or (3) at the true mouth
of the Don, near the present Azov.
Possibly it is another name for the
ancient Tanais. Between Matracha,
on the Taman Bay, and Sudak,
Edrisi places two stations — (1) Butra
or Bute?-; (2) another, near Matracha,
adjoining the town of Rosia, and
much in the position of the modern
Kertch ; perhaps he misunderstood
a map he was copying ; cf. the Casal
(or Cassar) dcgli Eossi, of the fifteenth
century portolani, at the true mouth
of the Don ; and see Reinaud's
Aboulfeda, ii. 320 ; Frahn's Ibn
Foslan, pp. 31, 32.
3 Rubruquis, p. 215.

vi.]

CHIEF PORTS OF THE BLACK SEA

453

and Matracha, was highly valued by the princes and people
of Constantinople. Here was one reason for the jealous
exclusion of foreign interlopers (as in Manuel's prohibition
to the Genoese) ; another explanation of the same lay in
the very real danger that the Western merchant might sell
arms to the natives of the interior, and thus equip a power-
ful force against the unwarlike Greeks.

Ivaffa, ' the fort'1 of Constantine VII., the Theodosia of
the older Greeks, though its fame was of later time, could
boast a high antiquity. Originally a colony of the Mile-
sians, it seems to have been re-built by one of the Graeco-
Scythian kings of Bosphorus ; at the opening of the fourth
century, in the time of Constantine the Great, it marked
the frontier between the dominions of these princes and the
' Roman ' territory of Kherson or Sevastopol. As a natural
harbour it was only surpassed by one other upon this coast,2
and it was directly planted upon the commercial route from
the Bosphorus to the Volga and the Don. The Genoese
colony may have been founded before the events of 1204 ;3
but it probably resulted from the Greek restoration of 1261,
and the consequent destruction of Venetian ascendency in
the Pontus. Like Sudak and the rest of the Crimea, it was
treated by the Mongols as an immediate possession of the
House of Batu ; thus in 1265 the fugitive Sultan of Pium4

1 6 KtMpas, Constantino Porphyro-
gennetos, De Administrando Imperio,
552, 555, Bonn edition ; not in
Edrisi.

2 The long neglected inlet of
Sevastopol itself.

3 A collar is still shown in the
Imperial Treasuiy at Moscow, which
is said to have been won as spolia
opima by the Grand Prince or Duke
Vladimir Monomach in single combat
with the Genoese Governor of Katla

(c. A.P. 1100). The Imperial Am-
bassador to Moscow in 1517 and
1526, Sigismund von Herberstein, is
the first writer to give this story, in
his Rerum Muscovitarum Common-
tarii (i. ] 6 in edition of 1841 by Star-
czewski) ; the Polish Chronicler and
geographer Strykowski, also of the
sixteenth century, corroborates ; but
it must remain at present very doubt-
ful ; cf. Heyd, Commerce, ii. 161.
4 Or Iconium.

454

COMMERCIAL TRAVEL

[ClT.

was given an asylum in Armenia maritime/, (as it was often
called from its Armenian settlers) together with the town of
Sudagh as a fief. The first clear view we have of the Genoese
settlement is only in 1316, when its statutes are drawn up ;
from the terms of the concessions given and withheld by
Manuel Comnenus in 1155 and 1169, it does not seem likely
that the Ligurians were then established either at Kaffa or
at any other point on the Northern Euxine littoral. At the
most, they were occasional visitors.

On the same coast, or in the immediate neighbourhood,
the towns of Solgat, Porto Pisano, Sebastopolis, and Kherson
figured humbly in thirteenth-century trade. The first
of these, also called Krim, was in later time the residence
of the Emirs who governed the Crimea in the name of the
Mongol Khans of Sarai ; it lay a few miles west of Kaffa,
and was greatly frequented, especially for its furs, silks, and
spices, by the merchants of that port. Porto Pisano, defined
by Pegolotti, in the fourteenth century, as the first harbour
touched at after quitting Tana, may be on the site of the
present Siniavka ; in any case it was near the true mouth
of the Don;1 it is mentioned by a portolano of 1318 ; and
its name, which sufficiently indicates its origin, is to be
found even on maps of the seventeenth century. Sebastopolis,
near the modern Sukhum Kale in the Colchis region, on
the extreme east of the Pontus, was an important Byzantine
fortress under Justinian and later emperors ; after the
collapse of Imperial power it became the residence of a
Georgian prince ; its name occurs in some of the earliest
portolani ; and it seems to have been visited by Western
traders from about 1250.2 The inquisitive traders of the

1 Pegolotti, Pra/Mca della merea-
tura, p. 39 ; Heyd, Commerce du
Levant, ii. 166-167.

2 A small Latin community here
is noticed in 1330.

VI.]

CHIEF PORTS OF THE BLACK SEA

455

West also made occasional visits to the best of all the North
Euxine harbours, the ancient Kherson, the modern Sevastopol,
whose various names have caused so much confusion, whose
site was famous for the martyrdom of St. Clement of Eome,
but whose merits as a port were never realised in the Middle
Ages.1 They were left for Catherine IT. to discover, or at
least to proclaim and to use ; the Genoese might have made
it a greater Kaffa, if they had been able to extend their in-
fluence along the western shore of the Crimea ; but they
never seemed to have gained a firm position beyond Balaclava,
and their dominion was confined to the southern coast rim
between the mountains and the sea.

The mouth of the Don, whatever the port might be,
which at one time or another commanded the estuary, was
the starting-point of a trade-route, not unimportant during
the earlier Middle Ages, but brought into far greater
prominence by the Mongol victories and settlements. Hence,
through Sarai (or later, through Astrakhan), and round the
north coast of the Caspian, this commercial road brought
the dealer to the Aral Sea, the Syr and Amu Daria, and the
rich land of Khiva, Khwarezm, or Urgenj,2 and so along the
course of the Jaxartes to Otrar, Ferghanah, and Almalig.3
From this point the way to China lay through the pass of
the Iron Gates in the Thian Shan and brought the traveller
to Lake Sairam, Urumtsi, Khamil, and the western extremity

1 Jordanes (Jornandes) ascribes its
foundation to the Greeks of Heraclea
Pontica ; its livelihood was trade
with the Scythians ; and ' here the
greedy trader brought the rich pro-
duce of Asia.' The Huns (Hunuguri)
supplied this market with furs in
Jordanes' time ; but it never could
have aspired to rival Tana, Kaffa, or
Matracha. The neighbouring Bala-

clava did some trade in the fourteenth
century. Inkerman is apparently
mentioned in an inscription of 1247
as ' Kalamita.'

2 Also called Jorjan and Jorjaniah
by Arabs and Persians ; distinct from
the other Jorjan to the south-east of
the Caspian. Otrar was probably near
Talas, the modern Hazret-i-Turkestan.

3 Or Kulia.

456

COMMERCIAL TRAVEL

[Ch.

of the Great Wall.1 Finally the merchant,2 passing on into
the Pacific plain of Asia, would reach his goal either at
Kinsai or Pekin, where his purchases would be mostly of
silks, brocades, gold-threaded stuffs, spices, musk, rhubarb, and
galangale ; the export tea-trade appears to belong to a later
age, and was clearly unknown in the time of Marco Polo.3

A South-Caucasus and trans-Caspian route to the Far
East was also in use between the Don estuary and the Lower
Syr and Amu Daria by way of Sukhum-Kale or Sebastopolis
in Colchis, Derbent at the Caspian Gates, Trestrego near
the modern Krasnovodsk, and Khiva or Khwarezm.

Through the new Christian state of Little Armenia4 on
the Gulf of Issus, Western trade penetrated into the Upland
of Asia by another route. The kingdom of Eupen, at its
greatest extent, under King Leo II. (1187-1219), possessed
the south coast of Asia Minor from near Satalia to Alex-
andrfetta and even beyond, and in this shore-line were several
good harbours, notably Palli,5 Lajazzo, Corycus or Curco,
Tarsus, Adana, and Mamistra or Mopsuestia. Several

1 At Sucheu in Kansu.

2 Most traders followed the path
along the north, in preference to the
south, of the Thian Shan.

3 For he never mentions it ; Pauthier
(M. Polo, p. 384, note; 386), thinks he
means to allude to the tea-tree in
Assam (Gaindu), but this is very-
indistinct. Of. Heyd, Commerce, ii.
231, etc., 252-253 ; Yule, 31. Polo,
ii. 37, etc.

4 Founded near the time of the first
Crusade by a migration from Armenia
proper ; made important by Leo II. ;
its traditional policy was one of
alliance with Latins against Moslems
and Byzantines. Leo westernised his
realm, and introduced a feudal con-
stitution ; the Court was modelled on

Western examples ; the crown was
accepted from Henry VI. as a fief
of the Western Empire ; the Church
was united with Rome ; branches of
the Western Orders of Chivalry were
instituted. The Mongol conquests
brought them right up to the borders
of Little Armenia. The new routes
and new markets opened by the
Mongol conquests have not been
sufficiently noticed.

5 Pals or Plas. Also called Tortus
Palorum (or de Pallibus), the modern
Porto cli Plas. From Lajazzo, a
trade-route to Tabriz in North Persia
is described by Pegolotti in the four-
teenth century : Pratica del la mer-
catura, ch. vi. ; see pp. 299-301 of
Yule's Cathay and the tcay thither.

VI.] LITTLE ARMENIA AS A TRADE CENTRE 457

trade-routes crossed the country ; from Aleppo or Antioch
to Iconium and the Bosphorus ; from the Upper Euphrates
(by Marach) to the centre and West of Anatolia ; from the
harbour of Lajazzo to Northern Persia and Tabriz ; and from
Egypt, Arabia, and Syria to the North. The southern and
eastern roads met at Alexandretta, passed through the
coast towns of Mamistra and .Adana, and crossed the
Taurus by the pass of Gulek Boghaz.

The products of Little or Southern Armenia were varied
and highly prized, especially its cottons, camelots, and iron ; l
the most favoured among its Latin visitors were the Genoese,
whose embassy iu 1201 was well received, and gained an
increase of trading privileges by the treaty of 1215 ; a
diploma of Leo II., issued in March of this year, fixed the
dues payable by the Genoese at the passage of the river
Jihan, and provided against any extortion. In earlier days,
after the Greek emperors of the Byzantine revival (960-
1025) recovered this province, the Venetians had been fore-
most ; and their rights, as guaranteed in 1082, were confirmed
by treaties of 1201 and 1245.

Syrians, Persians, and other Moslems did business in
Little Armenia ; thus the Bagdad firm of Yussuf had a
branch for its cotton trade in Lajazzo ; and in 1268 a galley
full of rich wares belonging partly to Armenians, partly to
men of Acre, Tyre, and Antioch, and partly to various subjects
of the Mongol Khan of Persia,2 was seized in the harbour of
Corycus.

Both from Lesser Armenia and from the northern and
southern coasts of the Black Sea, from Lajazzo as well as
from Trebizond and Sudak, new or extended trade routes
were opened by the levelling conquests of the Mongols ;
the way from the Taurus to Tabriz and the Caucasus ran

1 From mines in Mount Taurus. - Abaka, successor of HuLi^u.

458 COMMERCIAL TRAVEL [Oh.

through Sivas, Erzinghian, and Erzerum ; and the rulers
of Sis and Tarsus were in a specially favourable position
to promote the traffic on this road. As Christian sovereigns
of the Eoman faith, and as favoured 'allies' of the Great
Khan, they formed a bond between the Latin and Tartar
worlds ; the Emperors of Trebizond occupied a similar but
less happy position ; for they were adherents of the ' Greek
schism,' on one hand, and counted rather as vassals than as
friends of the Mongols, on the other. It is not surprising,
therefore, that by the time of Marco Polo the Genoese seem to
have pushed on to the Caspian 1 — like the Eussian pirates and
pedlars of the tenth century — and to have begun a maritime
trade, especially concerned with silken stuffs, upon its
waters ; in the light of this fact, we shall better understand
the remarkable knowledge of the inland sea shown in the
early portolani.

Egypt, as we have seen, was of capital importance, both
in the politics and in the trade of the Crusading Era ; for
the Fatimites were the chief leaders of the Moslem resist-
ance to Western attack ; and among the three leading
markets of the world the Delta of the Nile must certainly
be counted, only inferior (if inferior at all) to Southern
Mesopotamia, or the Bagdad region, and the Bosphorus,
or neighbourhood of Constantinople. Both from the
Mediterranean and from the Eed Sea traffic flowed into
the 'market of two worlds,'2 as William of Tyre surnames
Alexandria ; by the former Egypt communicated with the
most distant countries of Europe — Flanders, England, the

1 Cf. Fralm, Iln Foslan, pp. 1-23, i Russian goods down to Itil (answer-
70, 147, 168, 226, 247, 258, 266; j ing to the modern Astrakhan); cf.

ibid, Be C'hasaris, pp. 591, 601,
etc. ; Masudi, ii. pp. 9. 11 ; Ibn
Dasta in Rossler, Romiinische Studien,
p. 362. The Bulgarians of the Volga,

Masudi, ii. 15 ; Heyd, Commerce, L,
60-62; Saveliev, Handel der Bolgaren
in Erman's ArcJiiv, vi. 96-98.

2 Properly, forum publicum utrique

however, usually carried most of the : orbi.

VI.]

EGYPT AS A TRADE CENTRE

459

Hanse Towns or the Scandinavian lands ; by the latter it
received the products and dealers of Yemen and Oman in
South-Western and South-Eastern Arabia, of India, and even
of China, But this last was carefully guarded against Christian
intruders, and all European merchants who wished to do
business in Egypt or with the regions of South-Western Asia
had to take what opportunities were offered them at the
market of Alexandria. The Frank conquest of Syria inter-
rupted the old pilgrim and trade route across the Sinai
peninsula, and compelled Egyptian commerce and travel to
fall back on the old road of the Ptolemies from the Middle
Nile to the ports on the west coast of the Eed Sea, the
ancient Myos Hormos and Berenice, the mediaeval Aidab.
To this shore came the import traffic from Aden and the
Indian Ocean ; a short passage of seventeen to twenty clays
with camel-caravans brought one to the Nile, at Syene l or at
Kus ; and from either of these harbours it was an easy river-
journey clown to Cairo and the Delta.

The importance of the Nile in this connection was in
part the explanation of the popular belief that the river of
Egypt, supposed to be identical with the Gihon of Scripture,
flowed from Paradise, and brought the spices, aloes, and
other products of Eden clown to the lands of fallen men ; '2
in the religious and book-learned world of Christendom
this view long survived the spread of juster notions in
commercial societies ; and even the latter may have re-
garded it with some satisfaction as attaching a greater

1 Assuan.

2 Cf. Edrisi, i. 28. 35-39, 49, 51,
127, 132, etc, 152, 313, 331, etc.
M. Polo's description of this com-
merci ■ 1 route from Aden to Alexandria
is somewhat inaccurate, especially in
his reckoning of time required hy
various stages. Kus and Assuan. not

Korosko, served as the Nile rendez-
vous for the Red Sea trade. James
de Vitry speaks of vessels coming
direct from the Indies to Damietta,
whereas three kinds of craft were
usually employed on the journey —
Ocean vessels, Red Sea vessels, and
Nile boats.

460 COMMERCIAL TRAVEL [Oh.

value, and so a higher price, to the articles imported from
Alexandria. At the great port of the Delta an amazing
quantity of spices was constantly being collected and dis-
tributed ; Benjamin of Tudela, William of Tyre, James de
Vitry, and Burkhard the ambassador of Frederic Barbarossa,1
are but the leading witnesses, among Latin writers and
travellers of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, to the
greatness of this ' market of all nations.' 2 Bosetta and
Damietta, though at a long interval, followed Alexandria in
wealth and prosperity ; the admirable waterway of the Nile,
the close proximity of the Bed Sea,3 the central and com-
manding position of Egypt both for war and commerce, gave
the ports of the Delta an unquestionable superiority over the
Syrian harbours.

But great as were the profits which the Egyptian trade
brought to Europe, this commerce had another side, wherein
European imports appeared no less indispensable to Egypt.
That wealthy country was wholly dependent on outside supply
for its wood and iron ; and in spite of every patriotic and
religious prejudice, and prohibition, Christian states continued
to furnish the Fatimite dominions with these vital articles
from the tenth to the twelfth century. After the time of
Saladin this commerce rather increased than diminished with
the growing sense of commercial interest ; the efforts of the
Popes (even of Innocent III.), of the Venetian Doges, of the
Genoese Consuls, of the Aragonese kings, were in vain
directed against it,4 with a zeal often feigned and never

1 1175 A.D.

2 Cf. Benjamin of Tudela on Alex-
andria ; see pp. 261-3 of this vol.

3 Connected with the Mediterranean
Sea by a freshwater canal at least as
old as Necho, and constantly renewed
and as constantly abandoned, down
to the middle of the eighth cen-

tury; cf. Dawn of Modern Geography,
i., p. 162.

4 Cf. e.g. the prohibitions by (1) The
Doge P. Ziani, 1226; (2) the Consuls of
Genoa, 1151 ; (3) James I. of Aragon,
both for Montpcllier and Barcelona
(1231-1274). The Pisan secret treaty
with Egypt in 1173 is a good example

VI.]

EGYPT AS A TRADE CENTRE

461

effective ; and while official proclamations were being issued
against a ' blasphemous trade,' it was secretly extended by
fresh treaties. The Italian and other Mediterranean
smugglers might perhaps claim that, if they retired, their
place would be taken by the Flemings, Saxons, Danes, and
other Northerners x who now made their appearance in the
markets of the Delta. In spite of the rage and terror
which Saladin's conquests produced ; in spite of the growing
sense that if the Holy War were ever to succeed, Egypt must
be conquered ; and in spite of the ' Egyptian ' character of
all the later Crusades,2 commercial ambitions steadily gained
upon political enmities. Thus Wilbrand of Oldenburg 3 re-
places Godfrey of Bouillon ; and the indifferentist, Frederic
II., nominal leader of a Crusade, maintains so close a
friendship 4 with the Sultan of Egypt that German mer-
chants (it is said) were able to travel in the company of
Egyptians to the Indies.5 Even if this story may be in
part accepted, it is probable that the journey in question
must be understood as no more than a voyage to Aden,6 —

of a numerous type ; cf. Werlauff,
Symbol. Geog. rued. aev. ; Hanotaux,
404. Even little states like Ancona,
Bari, Brindisi, Trani, and Barletta,
and other small ports of the Norman
Kingdom and Central Italy traded
with Alexandria, Eosetta, or Damietta
in the last century of the Crusading
period, 1170-1260.

1 Cf. Benjamin of Tudela on
Alexandria, see pp. 261-3 of this vol.
He adds, according to one emenda-
tion of the (here doubtful) text, the
Russians. Asher corrects this to men
of Roussillon, and this seems more
probable ; but Heyd defends the
old reading, and quotes Constantine
Porphyrogennetos and Ibn Khor-
dadbeh, as implying that the Rus-
sians navigated as far as Syria in

the tenth century — an exceedingly
doubtful theory. Normans and
Burgundians are also named by
Benjamin of Tudela among Alexan-
dria merchants ; it is curious that
as late as 1174 (as in 1153-1154) Nor-
man fleets attacked Egypt.

2 From 1202. The fourth Crusade
was officially announced as an attack
upon the Nile Delta.

a 1211.

4 In 1225-1240.

5 So Matthew Paris, Chr. Maj., v.
217, ed. Luard.

6 Cf. Ibn Alathir, in Rec. des hist,
des Crois., hist, orient., i. 597, and
Edi isi, i. 51 ; the latter specifies, among
the articles of the Aden market, musk,
pepper, camphor, galangale, cocoanuts,
aloes, ebony, ivory, and porcelain.

462

COMMERCIAL TRAVEL

[Ch.

the 'market of India and Zanzibar, of Abyssinia and Oman
and Persia,' — where, from remote time, Indian and Chinese
traders had often come to meet those of Arabia and Egypt,
and where Indian produce was usually transferred to the
lighter barks of the Eed Sea.1 A stricter criticism must
be applied to the Pisan claim of an ' Indian voyage ' by
way of Egypt in 1175, and not even the later Consulate
of Venice in Siam 2 can put this tale beyond question.3

1 Makrizi, in Quatremere, Memoires
sur VEgypte, ii. 162, etc.

2 At the end of the fourteenth
century.

3 Heyd, Commerce, ii. 153-156. As
to the Indian trade, cf. the strange
narrative in the Conoscimiento cle todos
los reynos y tierras y senorios que son
por el mundo, etc. (c. a.d. 1330) of a
journey of Sorleone Vivaldo to Maga-
doxo in East Africa, on the way to
India ; however fabulous the story
may be in many parts, the mention
of Magadoxo in this connection is
important, referring apparently to
the close of the thirteenth century,
and suggesting a well-known trade-
route, in use at the close of this
period of the Central Middle Ages
(c. 1260). In the early fourteenth
century (c. 1315), another member of
the Vivaldi family, one Benedetto,
seems to have gone to India by the
overland route from Lajazzo to Tabriz
and Ormuz.

The growing persistence, daring,
and success of the Christian trader of
the Crusading period corresponds to
an ever-increasing weakness and decay
of Moslem commerce, which, down to
the close of the eleventh century, un-
questionably controlled the purse-
strings of the world. How great the
mercantile ascendency of the Arabs
must have been in the pre-Crusading

time may be partly guessed from the
amount, the diffusion, and the chrono-
logy of the Mohammedan coins which
in orrr own day have been found buried
in European hoards. These range
from a.d 698 to 1010; they have
been discovered in the neighbourhood
of Kazan and Lake Ladoga, and in
the valley of the Pet>-hora, in the
Crimea and the vicinity of Mainz and
of Frankfort-on-Main, in Iceland and
England, and in almost every part of
the Baltic coasts, from the moufti of
the Oder to the Gulf of Finland, from
the ancient ' Jumna ' to ' Aldeigia-
borg.' In Esthonia, Livonia, and
Courland, more than 13,000 pieces
have been unearthed, and the vast
majority of the finds have been within
the borders of the modern Russian
state, especially on the Upper and
Middle Volga. As to this, we need
only recall the early mediaeval im-
portance of Bolghar and the early
Islamism of the Old Bulgarians of
this region, who, according to Ibn
Dasta, were paid in dirhems, and
bought whatever they wanted with
marten skins, constantly descending
the Volga (a river-journey of two
months) to trade at Itil or on the
shores of the Caspian, and even
making a regular business of caravan-
trade with Khwarezm or Khiva.
Through the medium, chiefly, of Arab

VI.]

THE RED SEA ROUTE TO INDIA

463

The development of piracy in the Persian Gulf during the
thirteenth century naturally increased the importance of
Aden and the Erythaean route ; the junks of Fo-kien,
under the Sung dynasty, stopped at Muscat and Aden,
in Oman and Yemen, and thus Egyptian commerce in
Southern and Further Asia was developed. An embassy
from Ceylon to Cairo in 1283 seems to have been, not the
commencement, but the continuation, of a direct commercial
intercourse dating from the middle of the century.

Thus the Red Sea avenue to India, and beyond, enjoyed
from time to time during the Middle Ages a decisive and
almost modern preponderance over the maritime route
from the Persian Gulf ; yet the latter was of great im-
portance during most of this period (950-1250), and it was

merchants, Byzantine jewellery and
money found its way to Bolghar, and
Ibn Foslan observed the use of the
same, not only among the Bulgarians,
but also among the less civilised and
commercial Russians. The conversion
of the Bulgars (or at least their de-
Islamising by the Russian princes and
others) in the eleventh century broke
up a trade-route which had depended
on the close connection of Bolghar
with the Mohammedan world, and
especially with the Central Asiatic
and Persian lands from which come
the vast majority of the Arab coins
referred to. Rich Moslems seem to
have had for many generations a
peculiar weakness for the furs of the
North, and, to a less degree, for the
amber of the Baltic ; commerce as
well as proselytism brought Arab
wanderers into mid- Russia ; and if
religion was the dominant interest
with Ibn Foslan, mercantile concep-
tions seem to underlie the remarks of
Masudi on the Ludaaneh, that 'largest
tribe of Russians,' whose trade, he

declares, extended not only to Kha-
zaria but also to the Bosphorus, the
New and the Old Rome, and even
Spain. Much of this commerce, if
we regard it as authentic, must have
passed through Moslem channels ;
but these were still the days of the
cosmopolitan activity of Islam and the
Arabs, whose simultaneous presence,
in Spain and the Narbonnese, in
South Italy and in Sicily, in Korea
and Japan, as well as on the Middle
Volga, testified in the tenth century
to a long-lost expansive and civilising
force in the faith and system of
Mohammed. During the ' Mace-
donian' revival of the Byzantine
State a great increase of trade was
recorded between Constantinople and
the Moslem world, especially of Spain ;
it may also be noticed how close and
active was the commercial intercourse
between Spain and Egypt in the tenth
century. Both were anti-Abbasside
states, one Ommeyad, the other
Fatimite ; and Chasdai, the Hebrew
minister of Abderrahman III., not

464

COMMERCIAL TRAVEL

[Ch. VI.

intimately connected with the overland ways already noticed
to Tabriz. From the latter traders could descend through
Persia by way of Yezd and Kerman to Bassora and the
Gulf; the voyage thence to China lay past Ormuz and the
Malabar coast.

only worked for his own race and
religion, but for his sovereign and
the Western Caliphate ; it was clearly
in the interest of Cordova to cultivate
friendship, and, if possible, alliance
with Cairo on one side and Khazaria
on the other. In this policy Con-
stantinople formed an almost indis-
pensable link ; here was one of many
reasons for the traditional amity of
the Eastern Caesars and the princes
of ' Magreb. '

Cf. Paul Saveliev, Ninnismatique
mahometane, and map showing
diffusion of Moslem coins ; ibid, . . .
Handel der Bulgaren ... in Erman's

Archiv., vi. ; Frahn, Bulletin de
VAcademie de St. Pete.rsbourg, t. ix.
Xos. 19, 20, 21 ; ibid, Ibn Fuslan,
pp. 1-23, 70-71, 147, 168, 174, 247,
258, 266; Masudi, ii., 9, 11, 15, 18;
Rafn, Antiquites russes, i. 295, 317,
426, 432 ; ii. 119 ; Heyd, Commerce du
Levant, i., 47-49, 50, 53, 58-59, 61-63,
67, 70-71, 74-76. Heyd identifies the
' Ludaaneh, ' not with any Russians
proper, but with the Slavic Lutchanes
or Luzanians of Lutsk in Volhynia, or
of Veliki Luki near Old Novgorod:
other writers have usually translated
the term either by ' Lithuanians ' or
' people of Ladoga. '

( 465 )

CHAPTER VII

GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION

In the former volume of this history l an attempt was made
to illustrate the chief types of European study or speculation
in geography during the first six hundred years of Christian
supremacy. The Statisticians, the Cosmographers, and the
Fabulists were examined in the writings of Dicuil and the
Ravennese, of Cosmas and of Solinus, of Capella, Macrobius,
Basil, x^Ethicus, and others. In the Central Middle-Age
period that now concerns us, Patristic geography passes
into Scholastic ; and while practical exploration steadily
advances with the travels of pirates, warriors, merchants
and diplomatists, theoretical ' earth knowledge ' shows like-
wise an unmistakable progress. Of this we shall take
three examples, one Byzantine, another German, the third
international ; and in the manual of Constantiue Porphyro-
gennetos On the Administration of the Empire, in Adam of
Bremen's History of the Church of Hamburg, and in the
chief Maps of the tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and earlier
thirteenth centuries, we shall hardly fail to recognise a very
different spirit from that which overshadows the Dark
Ages proper. Constantino VII. indeed belongs to a time
which, for Western Europe, is often considered to be among

1 Dawn of Modem Geography, i., pp. 243-391.

2g

466 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [°H-

the gloomiest of epochs ; but he represents Oriental
Christendom in the full tide of a revival (under the
' Macedonian ' Emperors), which in many ways led up
to, aided, or announced the mediaeval Renaissance of the
West. With Adam of Bremen, the signs of that Renaissance
are unmistakable ; we have reached the clear light and
true shining of a new life, soon to be expressed in action
by the Crusades, and in thought by the Schoolmen and
the Universities. Finally, in some of the Maps, even of
the tenth and eleventh centuries, and more conspicuously
in the later ' chorography ' of Matthew Paris, we have,
for the first time since the ruin of classical science, a
draughtsmanship which is not merely fanciful, and which
attempts to co-ordinate and express observation of material
fact. At the same time, we must not forget that at the
very close of the Crusading time, distinguished authors
may still be found expressing themselves in the spirit
of Solinus rather than of Ptolemy or Strabo. In the middle
of the thirteenth century, the scientific spirit and careful
enquiry of Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus may be con-
trasted with the bald and superstitious traditonalism of most
' philosophers ' ; geographical mythology and pseudo-science
continue to flourish till a much later date ; l and even to the
end of the Middle Ages, the Romance of Nature paralyses
the enquiry of a majority of students. From the ordinary
maps of this time, moreover, and in spite of certain marked
developments, one may see how little the increase of intellec-
tural activity is associated with truer views of the earth
surface among untravelled scholars ; books and charts are
multiplied, but they often seem only to repeat the vain
babblings of the wonder-seekers ; we have yet to wait for
the time when achievement and thought, action and retiec-

1 And may be illustrated by such works as the Borgian Map of c. a.d. 1450.

VII.]

CONST ANTINE VII. AS GEOGRAPHER

467

tion, discovery and enlightenment, are normally and adequately
connected. Only by the labours of a few was the mist dis-
pelled from the face of the earth.

§ 1. — Byzantine Geographers — Constantine VII.
(Porphyrogennctos)

Among the Byzantine geographers of this central
mediaeval period, the Imperial Encyclopaedist, Constantine
VII., better known by his surname of Porphyrogennctos1
(911-959), holds a primacy as unquestionable as that of
Procopius in the age of Justinian. The Dark- Age time,
whose beginnings are illustrated by the one writer, and
whose close is adorned by the other, can scarcely boast of
any names more illustrious in its literary and mental
history than these Byzantine authors, ' so accurate for their
own times, so loose or fabulous for preceding ages.'

Constantine VII., as the clear judgment of Gibbon2
acknowledged, is more to us as a geographer than as a
lawyer, moralist, economist, tactician, or master of cere-
monies. For though his Treatise On the Public Administra-
tion of the Empire, with its detailed account of the subjects,
vassals, and neighbours of the Byzantine state, is not free
from the defects of the Tactics, Ceremonies, Themes, Geo-
ponics, or Basilics, of the same royal author, yet it is
certainly distinguished by ' peculiar merits.' Tor it abounds
in details of contemporary (if not always first-hand) in-
formation upon the Barbarian world of Europe to the
north and north-east of Constantinople ; and as this
Barbarian world of the tenth century was in great measure

1 I.e. Bominthe Porphyry Chamber,
reserved for the use of the pregnant
empresses. This room was hung with

purple (Greek 'porphyry), the imperial
colour.

2 Decline and Fall, ch. liii.

468 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Ch.

a lasting (and not as so often before, an ephemeral) group
of nations, the photographic sketch of the Be Administrando
Imperio likewise remains as a record of abiding value.

For the history and geography of several of these nations,
it is in point of time the primary authority, a parallel for
South-Eastern Europe to the Mosaic Eecord for the Hebrews,
or to the Germania of Tacitus for the regions East of Ehine
and North of Danube. Its chief objects are to survey the
neighbours and vassals of the Empire ; to describe their
countries, to point out the various tribes which might be
considered friendly or hostile, useful or dangerous, to
Byzantine interests ; to draw out the rules of Imperial
policy in dealing with these barbarians ; to explain how they
might be weakened by divisions fomented, by subsidies and
promises liberally despatched, from Constantinople.

In the tenth century, the early eleventh, and the
middle of the twelfth, the Byzantine State was perhaps the
most important, the most civilised, and even the most power-
ful of Christian Kingdoms. In the course of its age-long
and obstinate resistance to the forces both of Moslem and
Barbarian invaders, it thrice renewed the energies which
befitted a Roman nation ; and among the sovereigns of the
Isaurian, Macedonian, and Comnenian dynasties, there were
some not wholly unworthy of the throne of Justinian. It is
the second of these three revivals that now concerns us,
when Basil I. saved the State from Michael the Drunkard ;
when the ' Macedonian ' or Slavo- Armenian House won back
province after province of the shrunken Empire ; and when
an imperial scholar, in defining the external policy of Con-
stantinople, revealed for the first time some of the new races
and future masters of Eastern Europe. This sketch, though
political and diplomatic in its essence, is incidentally a geo-

VII.] EXTENT OF BYZANTINE INFLUENCE 469

graphical monument of the first importance ; and, unless it is
studied with the prejudices so long traditional in Western
Europe, it will appear to give certain obvious lessons on the
place of Byzantium in the world of the Dark Ages. For it will
show us how the Eastern Empire, autocratic and central-
ised in its Government, influenced on one side by Levantine
luxury and on another by Scythian savagery, fighting with
diplomacy more often than with arms, and with spiritual
weapons more effectively than with temporal, was yet able
to extend its influence over an area1 scarcely less wide than
the sphere of its Western rival, in the days of the Saxon
Emperors.

Out of the hordes of Slavic and Turco-Tartar tribes on
the North-East, Byzantine civilisation helped to create the
Christian States of Bulgars, Magyars, Croats, Serbs, and
Russians. To the South-East, after the losses of the seventh
century, the Byzantine resistance maintained the line of the
Taurus against the forces of Islam ; saved Armenia,2 that all-
important vantage-ground of Western Asia, from an exclusive
Moslem domination ; and by the side of the decaying Cali-
phate of Bagdad (ruined as a political force from about 950)
exhibited afresh something of the ancient life and strength
of Borne. Yet on the Asiatic side the Byzantine recovery
left no permanent effects ; it delayed the triumph of the
earlier and more civilised Islam in the nearer East, — it did
not avert such a triumph under the leadership of barbarous
hordes ; and it repelled the Arab only to fall a prey to the
Turk, — Seljuk and Ottoman, — for ever incapable of founding
an Eastern Cordova, a new Bagdad, or a Northern Cairo. Thus
it was only in the precious moments of delay, in the time

1 From Kiev to Abyssinia, and Pamir, the other in the Armenian

from the Caspian to Sardinia. plateau, and the possession of either

- The mountain system of Asia has ; is of course a question of the first

two great centres or knots, one in the strategic value.

470 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Ch.

it saved for the development of the European nations, that
the Eastern Home can be said to have rescued Christendom
from the Saracens. But on the side of Europe the Byzantine
tradition, inspired by the subtle, attractive, proselytising
statecraft of ages, was not a mere incident of History. Con-
stantinople drew the Slav world into the Christian Society.
The new races of Sarmatia, some of them destined to a
long career and an abiding place in the European family,
gained from Byzantium an alphabet, a religion, the begin-
nings of a literature, and a great body of new conceptions in
government, law, and social organisation.1 And in the most
virile and expansive of the Slav peoples the Byzantine tradi-
tion, though strongly marked elsewhere, reaches its most
definite expression. Bulgars, Serbs, and Croats owed much
to the Bosphorus, and the influence of Constantinople was
a great part of their national life ; but the Russians owed still
more, and it was in the Principality of Kiev that Byzan-
tinism was most exactly reproduced.

In Geography, as we have seen, it is the Byzantine
Constantine VII. who gives us the first glimpse of the

1 It is hardly necessary to do more
than refer here to the Byzantine
function of handing on ancient Greek
learning, both to the Arabs and
Latins directly, and in a still larger
measure to the latter through the
former. Byzantium was truly the
' keeper of ancient treasure ' ; the
greater part of their science was
learnt by the Arabs from the Greek
books thejr found in the conquered
Byzantine towns of Syria, Egypt,
etc. ; and from this Graeco-Arabic
learning came (largely by way of
Spain) the first or mediaeval renais-
sance of letters in the eleventh
century (cf. Gerbert's life at Cordova
as a student). The second renais-

sance of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, as inspired by Byzantine
scholars flying before the Turks, is a
commonplace of history ; it is more
interesting to speculate, with Nor-
denskjold, how far the Portolani
compass-maps, or coast charts, of the
Western Mediterranean were origin-
ally derived from Byzantine sources,
either before or soon after the first
Crusade. The transference of thisgerm
of science cannot well in any case have
occurred before the eleventh-century
awakening of "Western intelligence,
but remembering the close connec-
tion of Venice and Amain with
Constantinople, it is difficult to ignore
the suggestion altogether.

VII.] BYZANTINE INFLUENCE ON SLAVS 471

habitat and movements of the nations which were destined
to prevail in Eastern Europe. The scanty rays of light
which the Scandinavian Sagas, following the track of
Rurik, begin to throw a little later from the North-West
towards Novgorod, are preceded by the far clearer beams of
a knowledge which radiates from the South-West and the
Imperial Chancery of Stambul to Kiev, the Dniepr, and the
Volga,

Western Europe betrayed and ruined the Eastern Empire
in the fourth 'Crusade' of 1202-1204, and thus having made
a fatal breach in the chief Levantine bastion of the Christian
fortress, abandoned to the Turks the kingdom and the city
which for so many centuries had kept out the unbeliever and
the barbarian, and which had not only been the protector,
but in a great measure the educator, of the new and still
halting civilisation of the German and Latin peoples. [Laving
accomplished the first two acts cf this brilliant drama, the
public opinion of the progressive nations consummated its
work in the third, — burying under contempt and obloquy
the history and the achievements of a people which, at
least in art,1 must be ever memorable, and which in the
science of diplomacy, the faculty of racial absorption, and
the field of law, was not unworthy of the great name that it
inherited. In some ways, the fate of Christian Byzantium
has been like that of Poland, but as its services were
greater, and its place in civilisation far more eminent, so its
fate has been more terrible and more despised. The Slav

1 For a long time Byzantine art is
a dominating influence in many
regions west of the Adriatic, and
from Perigueux to Eavenna, from
Venice to Trebizond, and from Pal-
ermo to Moscow, the influence of its
architecture may be traced. St. | all other artists
Sophia at Constantinople must al- '

ways rank as one of the greatest
human buildings, and, until the
thirteenth century, Christian archi-
tecture had nothing to put in the
same class with it. In mosaic work
| the Byzantines were the teachers of

472 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Oh.

peoples, to whom the Lower Empire gave letters, and law,
and religion, and the elements of civilisation, alone preserved
some feeling of gratitude and reverence for their Mother, the
Second Rome.

Constantine VII., fourth of the Macedonian line, was
himself an expression of the union of races within the
Empire, of the possibilities within the grasp of the most
distant provincials. His family, partly Slav, partly Ar-
menian in origin, had risen (through the talents of Basil I.)
to the headship of the State ; and the intruding House had
the longest as well as the most glorious reign among
Byzantine dynasties. Under their rule, the principle of
hereditary succession was firmly established, the monarchy
of Justinian was in great part re-established, the legislation
of the sixth century was amplified, and a remarkable series
of state-manuals was drawn up, which described in the most
minute detail2 the provinces of the Empire, the vassals who
adjoined it, and the hostile and dangerous nations who
pressed upon its borders or had established themselves
within its area. From a geographical stand-point, Con-
stantine is, of course, most important to us in the last
of these sub-divisions, as the describer of Bulgarians,
Magyars, Russians, Petchinegs, Khazars, and Arabs; but in
his treatment of the Italian, Dalmatian. Armenian, Crimean,
and Caucasian allies or dependents of Byzantium, the
imperial author is hardly less valuable. It was fortunate
for his work that the circumstances of history gave it a
permanence it could not have had in earlier time. In
Europe the Empire was racial iy complete ; the last foreign
invasions and immigrations (except for Turks and Mongols),3

1 86S-3S6 a.d. ! 3 Both insignificant in Europe

2 To say nothing of the Treatises from an ethnographical point of
on Court Ceremonial, Military view.
Tactics, Agriculture, etc.

VII.] THE ' ADMINISTRATION OF THE EMPIRE ' 473

had been accomplished ; and the age of change was over.
From the tenth century, the population of Byzantine lands,
on this side of the Straits, grows constantly more homo-
geneous. Beyond the limits of the Empire, once more, the
same broad fact is discernible, through the whole of South-
Eastern Europe ; here also the wanderings of the nations, the
ever-recurring waves of invasion which pass over the great
plain from East, North, West, and even South, during seven
centuries,1 are drawing to an end ; and the lands north and
east of Danube are beginning to settle down into a
condition ethnographically, if not politically, similar to the
present. We have now to deal with the settled and
permanent masters of the soil in ' Sarmatia,' ' Dacia,' and
great part of ' Russia.'

The author begins (in chaps. 1-8) with the nation
whose friendship and alliance he considers of most im-
portance— the Petchinegs or Patzinaks of the modern
Rumania and South- Western Russia. Having laid down
the principle that, with this race on the side of Rome, she
need not fear what other men could do to her, Constantine
proceeds to develop this thesis by showing that Russians,2
Hungarians,3 and Bulgars all feared these invincible savages,
and were all checked and held in by them, lying as they
did on the front of the first, on the flank of the second,
and on the rear of the third. The Petchinegs were also
useful for the commerce of Cherson, the great Crimean
dependency of the Empire, and could transport Greek wares,
or Roman Embassies, into the more distant lands of the
Khazars and the Zicci on the Don, Volga, and Kuban.

1 From the third to the tenth; ] 2 ot 'Puis. De Adm. Imp., eh. ii.
from the time of Deeius to the age of i 3 to tQu TovpKuv ytvos. De Adm.
the Macedonian and Saxon Emperors, i Imp., ch. iii.

474 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Ch.

Cherson is emphasized as the best starting-point of all
Byzantine trade and diplomacy on the North Euxine shores
to the East of the Dniepr; but another route is indicated
for envoys from the Bosphorus to the Western parts of
' Patzinakia,' by the rivers Danube, Dniepr, and Dniestr.

The Russians (separated from the Black and Azov Seas
by the Petchinegs, from the Caspian and Lower Volga by
the Khazars) are next described ; and the path of their
raids, from Old Novgorod l and Tchernigov, clown the Dniepr
to the Black Sea, is detailed ; a list of the cataracts which
break the lower course of the Borysthenes is also given
(chap. 9).

Next came the Khazars (then masters of the whole South-
East of modern Russia-in-Europe), and evidently held in
great suspicion by Constantino. Their neighbours, the Uzes
and Alans, it is noted with satisfaction, can both do them
considerable damage and cut off their supplies. The
Fortress of Cherson (by the site of the present Sevastopol)
and that of Sarkel (at the mouth of the Don) were well
protected from Khazar assailants, as long as a good under-
standing prevailed between ' Romans ' and Alans ; this under-
standing was therefore vital. Great, Black, or Old, Bulgaria
(on the Kama and Middle Volga) could also attack the
Khazars (chaps. 10-12).

The first part of the Administration concludes (chap.
13) with an account of the nations that bordered on the
Turks or Magyars,2 and the writer then passes to speak of
the insatiable greed and curiosity of these Northern barbarians,
and the necessity of never granting some of their favourite
demands. Such were requests for the secret of Greek Eire,3

1 Nemogarda in chap. ix. of the
Administration , and tov 'Nep.cyapdds.

2 The placing of the ' Patzinaks '

to the North is curious,
3 Uvp toypbv.

VII.] THE 'ADMINISTRATION OF THE EMPIRE' 475

for marriage alliances with princesses of the Imperial House,
and for crowns and robes of pre-eminent dignity ; 1 the
authority of Constantine the Great and Holy was to be
quoted in support of that firm refusal which was always
to be given.2

After the North, the South. In the next chapters (14-
25) we read of the Arabs ; of the descent, career, and creed of
Mohammed (here ludicrously misconceived) ; of the race of
the Fatimites ; and of the date of the ' Saracen Exodus ' (the
Hegira, Hijra, or Flight of the Prophet to Medina, is ap-
parently intended). A reference is made to the Chronicle of
Theophanes for an account of the death of Mohammed, the
succession of Abubekr, and certain details of the doctrine
of Islam, especially as to Paradise and its sensual joys.
The reigns of the first Caliphs ; Omar's capture of Jerusalem
and the 'blasphemous' temple therein erected by the victor ;
the Saracen capture of Pihodes, and removal of the Colossus ;
their early attacks on Constantinople ; their invasion of
Spain ; the vast extent of their conquests ; and the geography
of the Iberian peninsula ; 3 are illustrated from Theophanes
and other writers, mostly of slender value.

From the South and the extreme West, we now move
round to Italy and Illyria ; and here the Theme of Lombardy
and its governors, the melancholy story of decaying Eoman
influence in the Peninsula, the brighter story of the founding
of Venice, and the geography, races, and history of Dalmatia
and the neighbouring Serb and Croat lands, are dealt with
in turn (chaps. 26-36).

1 Called Ka,f.Le\avKLa.

2 Exceptions, however, certainly
occurred in the marriage-alliance rule
(e.g. cf. Leo 'the Khazar') and, d
fortiori, they must have occurred in
the robe-and-crown prohibition. The
secret of Greek Fire was probably

guarded with care, but Saracens are
found possessed of the discovery from
time to time.

3 Oddly denned at the beginning
of ch. 24, as forming two provinces
of Italy ('IraX/ay ^7rapx/ai\ i.r. of
the Roman dominion.

476 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Oh.

Having described at great length all the Illyrian peoples,
Constantine returns to the Petchinegs. In his opening
chapters he spoke of the value of their alliance to Byzantium,
and of their relations with surrounding nations ; now he adds
various details about their country, their former migration
from the Volga and Ural basins,1 and the eightfold division of
their nation, four tribes dwelling to the West, and four to the
East, of the Dniepr. A word is added about the six ruined
cities to be found in Western Patzinakia, and the traces
therein afforded of a vanished Christianity and a former
Roman civilisation (chap. 37). In the same way, the Adminis-
tration recurs to the Turks or Magyars (chap. 38), their racial
affinities, former habitat, and recent movement into the plains
of ' Great Moravia ' — the present Hungary.2 Something is also
said about the geography of this region, the social organisa-
tion of its new masters, their eight tribes, and the traces of
old Roman rule in their country (chaps. 39-41). An important
topographical chapter follows (No. 42), setting forth the
chief features of all the lands from the Danube to the
Caucasus ; and especially describing the positions of the
Danubian Belgrad, of Cherson and Bosporos3 in the Crimea,
of Sarkel at the mouth of the Tanais, of Tamatarcha or
Matrica on the Asiatic side of the Strait of Kertch, of Nikopsis
near the site of Sukhuni Kale, and of the adjoining land of
the Zicci, separated from Matarcha by the Uruk or Kuban.
Beyond or above the Zicci lay Kasakia, or the Cossack
country ; ' above ' Kasakia the Caucasus Mountains ; ' above '
the Caucasus the nation of the Alans. The Russian land on
the upper Dniepr, the lesser rivers between Danube and
Dniepr, especially the Bug or Bogu, the Maeotid Marsh or

1 Atel, Etil. or Itil, and Geeeh, or Petehineg tribes, is also mentioned.
Yaik. s Otherwise Panticapaeum, the

2 The name of Kangar or Kanka i modern Kertch.
iKdyyap) affected by three of the

VH.] THE 'ADMINISTRATION OF THE EMPIRE' 477

Sea of Azov, the shallow gulf of Nekropyla or Karkinit (the
Nigropolo of later Italian traders) on the West side of the
Crimean isthmus, are carefully described ; the distances are
given from one point to another ; and the imperial author
moves on to the East and to Armenia. The races and
countries of the North, he considers, have been sufficiently
described ; it remains to speak (in chaps. 43 and 44) of Daron
or Taron (to the west of Lake Van), of Manzikert (to the
North of the same), and of the fortress of Kars (in the heart of
the Armenian plateau), then the residence of the titular chief
of all Armenia, the ' King of kiDgs,' who, in Byzantine phrase,
appeared only as ' First among Archons.' The past relations
of all these petty states with Constantinople are recounted ;
and special attention is given to the affairs of the Georgians
or Iberians, an interesting, orthodox, but troublesome, nation
of allies or vassals, who figure largely in the pages of Constan-
tine (chaps. 45, 46). Their fortress of Adranutzion,1 near the
modern Olti, had long been coveted by the Greeks ; its
military strength was great ; and its market was a centre for
the trade (as its ramparts were the ' keys ') of Trebizond,
Iberia, Abkhasia, North Armenia, and the South Caucasian
slopes. The region of Arzen, or Erzerum, is identified with
the district of Adranutzion, and the story is added of that
diplomatic struggle for its possession which ended in the
victory of the Iberian princes.

Two chapters about Cyprus and its re-colonisation (Nos.
47 and 48) form a transition to the concluding part of the
Administration, which is almost entirely occupied with
internal affairs, such as recent changes in the organisation of
certain Themes (chap. 50), details of Byzantine naval service
(chap. 50), and an account of the invention of Greek Fire
(chap. 48), ascribed to the reign of Constantine Pogonatus, and

1 Otherwise Adranutze (to Adpavovri'i]).

478 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Oh.

the genius of one Kallinikos of Heliopolis. The concluding
chapter, however, on the history of Cherson (No. 53), recurs
to the field of external interests. It is much the longest in

O

the whole work, and was perhaps a separate tract in its
original form. Beginning with a record of the aid rendered
by the men of Cherson to Diocletian and Constantine the
Great (when they combated the ' rebel Scythians ' on the
banks of the Ister, and defeated the aggressive Bosporans near
Kaffa) 1 the author tells us of the rewards showered on the
faithful city, and concludes in a different spirit by suggesting
various measures that are to be taken against its trade and
livelihood in case of a revolt.

I. — In the foreign politics of the Byzantines, during most
of the tenth (as of the ninth) century, the Bulgarian
question was paramount. This Finnish people — whether
or not to be connected with those Huns2 who, after the
death of Attila, had fallen back to the basin of the Don and
the Azov sea-coast ; whether or no they may be recognised
in this region about the year 463 ; whether or no they
received in the fifth or sixth century a reinforcement of their
countrymen from the Older Bulgaria of the Middle Volga ;
whether or no they owned the supremacy of the Avars in the
lifetime of Heraclius and Mohammed — at any rate appeared
upon the Danubian frontiers of the Empire in the reign of
Constantine IV., surnamed Pogonatus, or the Bearded. They
crossed the border river in 679 ; they gradually overran,
conquered, and settled the whole of the country north of the

1 The story of Gykia, who saved
the city from the meditated treason
of her lord, related by Constantine,
in eh. 53 of the Administration, as
of a recent matter, is referred by
some to a much earlier period — about

36-16 B.C. ; cf. II. Garnett, E. Hist.
Rev. 1897, vol. xii. p. 100, etc. ;
Finlay, Greece, ii. 354-357.

2 Cf. Gibbon, chap. lv. ; Kruse,
Uebersicht d. Gcsch., tabs. 9-16.

VII.] CONSTANTINE ON THE BULGARIANS 479

Ehodope Mountains and east of the Albanian Highlands ;
and thus they became masters of a kingdom roughly
corresponding in area to the modern Principality, as
restored in 1878-1885. But as they seem to have retained
their power over a vast region to the north of the latter,
over all the Eastern part of our Hungary, over the Banat of
Temesvar, over Transylvania, and over Moldavia and
Wallachia, the Bulgars of the pre-Magyar time were
perhaps the most powerful nation of Eastern Europe,
and, except for their north-western neighbours, the Mor-
avians, they might be said to be as much the leading
race among Sarmatian peoples as the Franks had so
long been among Germanic, In 811 they defeated and
killed the Emperor Nikephoros I., whose skull was for
generations a favourite drinking-cup of the Bulgar princes ;
and the ' Boinan ' frontier shrank within limits even narrower
than (though often curiously similar to) the reduced Turkey x
of our own days. Adrianople and Thessalonica were close
to the borders of the diminished state, and almost within
sight of the Bulgar outposts. The Pontiff of Old Eome,
anxious to secure the rising power to Latin allegiance,
and indifferent, if not hostile, to the rights of Constantinople,
sent to Tsar Simeon (888-932) an imperial crown.

But the skilful intrigues of Leo VI. and the everlasting
migrations of wandering warrior-tribes from the East, cut
short this greater Bulgaria,2 at the close of the ninth century,
by the inroads of the Magyars and the Petchinegs ;3 all the
lands beyond the Danube (comprising some of the purest,

1 Especially to the borders of Euro • which he crushed altogether, with
pean Turkey, as defined by the San | Magyar help ; cf. Eambaud, L 'empire
Stet'ano Treaty of 1878.

2 Arnulf of Carinthia pursued the
same policy, on behalf of German in-
terests, towards Great Moravia (then
the most civilised of Slav states)

grec (edition of 1870), 328, based on
Codex diplomaticus Moraviac (edition
by Boczek), pp. 52, 70-73.
3 From about 8S9.

480 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Ch.

or blackest, of Bulgar settlements) were now lost ; and the
German alliance which an Embassy to Ludwig the Pious, or
Louis the Debonnair, may have attempted to secure (in 822),
was not forthcoming. This flirtation with the Western
Empire, like the advances of Krum and Simeon x to the
Saracen powers, probably aimed at the final overthrow
and partition of the Greek Empire ; in any case, this
ambition was notorious enough to suggest to the threatened
State the most desperate remedies — even an invitation to
more distant and more savage hordes. For a moment this
policy appeared little short of suicidal : the Bulgars, stripped
of half their empire,2 and at the same time consolidated into
a firmer and better compacted nation to the South of
the Danube, threw themselves with double fury against
Stambul itself.

But Simeon failed in his great attack of 924: a trace of
many years followed ; and when the struggle was renewed
in 966, Byzantine arms completed the triumph of Byzantine
diplomacy. Kikephoros Phokas, John Tzimiskes, and Basil
II., by successive stages, accomplished in the next half cen-
tury the conquest of all that remained of independent
Bulgaria, and restored the Danubian frontier of the Empire.
Yet the conquest was perhaps as much a peaceful as a
military one. Bulgarian merchants, even in the time of
Simeon and Leo IV., traded at Constantinople and Thessa-
lonica ; restrictions on their rights formed an excuse for
the invasion of 889 ; and the more the Barbarians saw of
Boman life and manners, the more powerless they became
to resist the manifold attractions, the subtle enervations, of

1 E.g. in S12, Krum attacked Mes-
embria with siege engines directed
by an Arab : in 925 Simeon signed
a treaty with the Fatimite, Al Madhi,

- From Trajan's Bridge westward,
the North Danube lands fell to the
Magj'ars ; east of this, to the Petchi-
uegs. Cf. Rambaud, L' empire grec,

to partition the Byzantine Empire. I pp. 320, 323, 324, 329, 331-337.

VII.]

CONSTANTINE ON THE HUNGARIANS

481

the civilised society they professed to despise. Like their
Finnish brethren the Magyars, they brought with them
from the Urals a marked capacity for a higher culture,
for a settled and commercial existence as well as fur a
military and roving life. Masters of the ports on the West
Euxine coast, such as Odessos, they had already developed
by 892 a profitable salt-trade with the Moravians ; l and for
generations they played a notable part as intermediaries
between German and Byzantine trade. They may perhaps be
credited with maintaining ' Consuls ' in the great Byzantine
markets, during the later years of Constantine VII. ; in any
case, their representatives were admitted to the Court festi-
vities with an honour shown to no other envoys ; and
Liutprand'2 vainly protested, in the name of the "Western
Emperor, against the precedence accorded to this most
favoured nation.3

II. — Like the Bulgars,the 'black swarm' of another Finnish
race left behind it an older settlement in the Eastern Volga
basin ; in their progress to South and West the Hungarians
absorbed into their eightfold nationality many Russians,
Komans, Petchinegs, and even Ishmaelites (or Moslem Bul-
gars,4 Khazars and Alans), who formed in later time a com-
pact colony of Unitarians in Pesth. The migration and final
home of this composite, but rapidly unified, people was a
close parallel to the movements and locations of the Avars,

1 Codex lUplom. Morav. 52, 70-73.

- Of. Liudprand (Liutprand), Lega-
tion, eh. 19; Constantine Porphyro-
gennetos, Ceremonies, i. 82 ; ii. 120.
4-30.

'■'• CI'. Rambaud, L'e-mpire grec,
346-358 ; 358-363. This was at the
banquet on the ' Feast of the Holy
Apostles.' 968. The Bxilgar envoy

was shaved in Hungarian fashion
gilt with a brazen chain, and ap-
parently a catechumen. Yet this
man was placed above the bishop
who represented the Holy Empire of
the West.

4 Otherwise Bulgars of the Volga,
whose conversion to Islam occurred
c. 920 a. n ; el'. Masudi, ii. 08.

Ii II

482 . GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Ofl.

three centuries earlier ; their iuroads carried them far into
Spain, Italy, and Flanders ; yet for many years their princes
owned the suzerainty and received the investiture of the
Khazar Khan.1 Their victory over Oleg outside Kiev 2 was
a passing triumph, the forcing of a barrier on their west-
ward march ; but in destroying the Moravian state and
cutting short the Bulgarian, in planting themselves upon
the middle Danube, as the new and permanent masters of
Western ' Carpathia,' they changed the face of Eastern
Europe, thrust a wedge between the Slavs of the North
and South, and so crippled the energies and blighted the
prospects of that race for ages.

To the Byzantines, whom they saved from the Bulgar
deluge, under whose ' patronage ' they first crossed the Car-
pathians and the Danube (888-889), and whose Christianity
they seemed to favour, they were never so repulsive as
to the nations of the AVest. One Magyar bravo 3 was
famed, or fabled, to have struck his battle - axe into the
Golden Gate of Stambul ; and the Venetian and Dalmatian
vassals of the Empire suffered no little misery at their
hands ; but these things were not so terrible as the sack
of Bremen 4 and St. Gall ; the baptism of two Hungarian
princes at Byzantium in 948 filled the Orthodox with
hope ; and before the mission of Piligrinus in 973, the
Greek Church appeared to be winning as valuable a triumph
among these ' Gog-Magogs ' 5 in the West as the conversion

1 Cf. Rambaud, L'empire grec, 346-
351.

2 Cf. Nestor, Chronicle, a. 6406;
' Anonymus,' ch. 8.

3 Botuncl by name ; cf. ' Anonymus, '

their barbarous neighbours, especially
the Moravians, and with Constanti-
nople, see Be Administrando Imperio,
chs. 3, 4, 13, 38, 39-42.

This name was very generally

ch. 42. j applied in these times, not merely to

4 Cf. Adam of Bremen, i. 54 (43, ,' the Magyars, but to other enemies of

Lapp.); Annals of Corbey, a. d. 915; on J Christendom, or even of Islam, e.g.

the Magyars and their relations with | Vikings : cf. the term Jlagioges, ap-

VII.] CONSTANTINE ON THE HUNGARIAN'S 483

of Olga and her Russians effected in the East. But
appearances were deceptive ; and the monk Hierotheos, sent
by Constantine VII., and consecrated by the Patriarch
Theophylact, as Orthodox Bishop of the Turks, found
his career impeded and his prospects threatened at the
Hungarian Court by a Latin emissary from the West, a
monk of the Black Forest. In the result, it was only
possible for the Byzantine to secure a minority of the
converts ; the victory of Otto the Great at the battle of
Augsburg practically decided the question in favour of
German and Latin influences ; and the marriage of King
Geysa with the Polish Adelheid helped to increase the
predominance of Papal Christianity. The education of St.
Stephen, a determining factor in the future of Hungary,
was decisively Latin,1 and only a fraction, though a large
one, continued to adhere to the Eastern Church. Yet the
religious buildings of the Orthodox Magyars were numer-
ous and splendid ; their pilgrim hospice at Constantinople
rivalled those at Eavenna and Pome ; and the Apostolic
Crown 2 of Hungary itself preserves the memory of Byzantine
influence, and apparently the name of Constantine VII.

Xot less dramatic than this later encounter of Greek and
Latin missionaries at the Hungarian Court was the earlier
meeting of envoys from Constantinople and Cordova in the

plied in 843 to the Northmen who recorded upon the Crown itself, the

attacked Lisbon (cf. Dozy, Mecherches, lower part of which seems to he of

ii. 252-340 ; Rambattd. L'empire grec : Greek, while the arches are of Koinan

Conde, Arabs in Spain, Part ii. chs. workmanship ; so Count Mailath,

45, 49 (i. 239-291, 299). Gcsch. d. Magyaren (1823), Anhang,

1 Rambaud, L'empire grec, 362. 7. from personal examination. The

363. coronation-robe of Hungary is another

-It is formed of two Crowns, erne piece of mixed workmanship, partly

given by the Pope, the oilier by an Byzantine, partly Arab. It was

Emperor Constantine who cannot presented in 1031 to the Church of

well have been other than Con- St. Maty at Stuhlwissenburg by

stantine VII. This last is expressly Gisela, consort of St. Stephen.

484 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Oh.

presence of Otto I., after the battle of Augsburg.1 But this
encounter was wholly amicable, for Greeks and Saracens,
from the two extremes of Europe, joined in congratulations
upon the overthrow of the Magyars. The arrows of the
Hungarians had troubled the frontiers of Galicia'2 and Thrace
alike ; yet in the Balkan Peninsula they had appeared rather
as freebooters than as butchers ; and from the time of Nike-
phoros Phokas, Hungarian mercenaries began to serve under
the imperial standards.3 The commerce of the Danube basin
and of the Northern Adriatic, which had been ruined by the
Pagan Magyars, revived under the first Christian Kings of
Hungary ; the corn of the Hungarian plain became a valu-
able export to Constantinople ; and furs and iron 4 were
exchanged for silks, gems, wines, and chased armour.5 Mer-
chants and pilgrims from the West were again free to cross
the ancient Dacia,G as they had not been for seven centuries,
and the re-opening of this new avenue gave an immediate
and considerable impulse to the Crusades.7

III. — Constantine VII. is, of course, supremely valuable

1 With this we may connect the , 4 But the export of horses, slaves,

journey of Liutfrid, a rich merchant and salt was strictly forbidden (Ram-

of Mainz, to the Byzantine Court, as ' baud, 361).

Ambassador of Otto I., in 949; his 5 Some of this, apparently of By-
route was through Venice ; of. Liud- i zantine manufacture, was used as
prand, Antapodosis, in Pertz, M. G. : early as the Battle of Augsburg.
SS., iii. 338 ; and Heyd, Commerce du \ l! Even the Great Moravia and
Levant, i. 80. \ Greater Bulgaria, which were shat-
- Cf. Masudi, ii. 58, 64. j tered by the Magyar invasion, did
3 E.g. in 968, Nikephoros Phokas j not afford the same securit^y to trade
takes forty Magyars with him to Syria ; j and travel .

mi the other hand, Tzimiskes, in the ' As early as 1092 Mohammedan

battle of Silistria, lights against merchants are also found in Hungary ;

Magyars allied with Russians, Petehi- I cf. Ladislai regis decretum, i. caj). 9,

negs and Bulgars ; cf. Liudprand, ! noticed in Heyd, Commerce du Levant,

Legation ; Leo the Deacon, vi. 12. i. 83. Earlier than this an Hungarian

who calls them Ovwoi ; Rambaud, | colony is settled in Constantinople, for

L'empire grec, 360, etc. I whom St. Stephen builds a church.

VII.] CONST ANTINE ON THE RUSSIANS 485

for his treatment of the Russians. Practically, he introduces
this people to European literature and history in the middle
of the tenth century, just as Ibn Foslan introduced them to
Moslem and Asiatic notice a generation earlier. More than
a hundred years were yet to elapse before any clearly
articulate voice l comes from within the Russian people
itself, in the shape of ' Nestor's ' Chronicle.

It is plain, from the Administration, that the Byzantine
chancery was fairly well informed upon the geography,
ethnology, and politics of the new Slavo-Scandinavian tribes
from Kiev to Novgorod, and from the Carpathians to the
Upper Volga.2 The Imperial author knows the names and
positions of the chief Russian towns, the distances between
various parts of the country. He is acquainted with the
story of the Varangian immigration of Rurik and his men ;
most of the Slavic, Finnish, and other tribes3 who owned a
vassalage to the Grand Prince of Kiev are to be found in
his pages ; and no less than twenty-two princelings of the
Rurik dynasty occur in the Ceremonies as joining with Igor
to sign the treaty of 9-14. He is even capable of giving us

1 In c. A. t>. 1110-1114. 'Nestor'is

only a traditional name for the authors
of this chronicle. Except possibly for
some folk - songs, and the pilgrim

southern part by the K bazars, the
Pecliinegs controlling all south of a
line drawn from the middle of the
Carpathians to the Dniepr near Kiev,

narrative of Daniel of Kiev, there is ! across the upper waters of the Sereth,

no earlier monument of Russian I Pruth, Dniestr and Bug.

literature. 3 E.g. Serbs, Slovenes, Drevlians.

2 The north-eastern boundary of
the Russian tribes at this time may
be roughly traced from the source of

The same number of Varangian sub-
reguli (22) is given by Nestor (aim.
6453) in reference to. this treaty. At

the Volga to Tver, thence south, or a \ the reception of Olga (956 or 957)

trifle south-west, to about Kaluga, ' Constantine Porphyrogennetos hini-

Orel and Kursk, thence south-west self {Ceremonies, ii. 15) made presents

to the Dniepr a little below Kiev to the deputies which these vassals

Moscow then lying outside these sent in the train of the Princess

limits.) Along the northern part of ! Regent ; cf. also Rambaud, V empire

this line the Rus principalities were grec, 366,

bordered by Finnish tribes, along the '

480 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Oh.

a good sketch of the social system which had super-imposed
the military rule of a few Viking aristocrats upon a mass
of anarchic and quarrelsome tribes of lower race. He
traces clearly and well the Itinerary from Novgorod to
Constantinople, by way of Smolensk, Tchernigov, Kiev, and
the cataracts of the Dniepr. Of these famous but not very
formidable waterfalls, he enumerates seven under both Slav
and Varangian x names ; and in three cases his terms have
survived.

The importance of Kiev as the meeting-place of inland
— especially riverine — traffic, and the value of the Crimean
coast, of the Isles of St. Gregory,2 of the Danube delta, of
the Bay of Varna and of the White River (of Akkerman)
in the Euxine, as half-way stations for Eussian and other
pirates, are not forgotten. Like the Anglo-Saxon Kings, the
early princes of the House of Rurik collected tribute and fed
their Court by means of constant progresses ; it was on one
of these that Igor was killed by the Drevlians, an episode
which became famous in early Russian history and the
theme of many songs. This important and typical custom of
princely touring, a mixture of freebooting and tax-gathering,
is not omitted by Constantine.3

Our author (when he wrote the Administration) could
hardly have foreseen the complete and rapid change which

1 Russian, as he calls them (Ad- \ especially St. Etherios, which also
ministration, ch. 9), understanding occurs in Nestor. In all the Ityzan-

by this word the Scandinavian aris-
tocracy of the Eussian lands. In the
same way Constantine Porphyro-
gennetos (Administration, ch. 9)
gives for Kiev the Slav name of Kioba

tine treaties with the Russian princes,
stipulations were inserted against the
military use of these points of vantage.
Cf, Ranibaud, L'empire grec, 370.
;i De Administrando Tmjjerio, ch.

or Kioaba (-ava) and the Scandina- 9. Cf. also Leo the Deacon, vi. 11,

vian term of Sambatas. Cf. Ram- ! who tells how Tzimiskes in Bulgaria,

baud, L'empire grec, 364-366. 970 a. p., recalls to Sviatoslav how his

2 Constantine Porphyrogennetos I father Igor had met his death ' in an

(Administration, ch. 9) mentions unjust war against the Gerjncms.'

VII.] CONSTANTINE ON THE RUSSIANS 487

Byzantine Christianity and civilisation would effect in these
cruel and detested foes of the Empire. It is true that he
records the journey of the Princess Olga in 956 (or 957),
but he does not allude to the baptism which (in the ordinary
tradition) made it memorable ; nor could any one anticipate
that the conversion of the Regent of Kiev would so speedily
carry with it that of the whole nation. Up to this time
there was nothing to indicate the peculiar connection of the
future between Constantinople and the Russian people ;
their savage and daring raids upon the Bosphorus — of
Askold and Dir under Michael III., of Oleg under Leo VI.,
and of Igor under Romanus Lecapenus — had left only a
memory of horror. Their attacks on the Black Sea ports>
and especially on Cherson or Sevastopol, dated from very
early times,1 were a constant clanger, and kept alive the
Byzantine alliance with the Petchinegs and Khazars, masters
in name of all the Xorthern littoral of the Euxine. The
still earlier tradition of friendship and alliance, instanced by
the Russian Embassy of 839 (to contract an alliance with
Theophilus and perhaps even with the House of Charles the
Great)2 had been disregarded from the time that Varangian
rule was firmly planted in Kiev ; and of all the heathen
enemies of Eastern Christendom, no single tribe (except the

1 E.g. 842, S52, 854. Cf. Rambaud,
L 'empire grec, 371.

2 E.g. According to Nestor,
Chronicle, ami. 6360, these envoys
of the Klmgan of the Ilos, making a
long detour to avoid the Petchinegs,
joined the company of some Byzan-
tine Ambassadors on their way to
Louis the Debonnair, and so came to
Ingelheim, where they were arrested
as Vikings, relations of the Northern
Pirates who were even then ravaging
the German coast. See also Annals
of St, Bal in, 839 A.D. ; Liudprand,

Antaiwdosis, v. 6. This is the earliest
certain reference to the Russian name
and people, and that on its Scandi-
navian side only. Theophanes in
a doubtful, and perhaps corrupt,
passage, reckons them among the
Byzantine allies in 774, but this is
very doubtful ; obviously mythical
is the story of Kij, founder of Kiev,
one of three Slav brothers established
on the Dniepr, his visit to Stambul.
and his honours from its Tsar, long
before Rurik.

488 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Oh

1 friendly ' Petchinegs) seemed more irreclaimable. Yet time
would show that the political and religious traditions of
Byzantium were to find in the Russian one of their aptest
pupils ; l that in the most barbarous of the Slavic folks the
Orthodox Church would acquire its firmest bulwark and
most powerful missionary ; that in these savage foes the
civilisation of Europe would gain a new rampart against the
incursions of Asiatic hordes.

The Scandinavian restlessness, the Viking capacity for
rapid, effective movement over vast distances, was shown not
only in the Eurikides' repeated dashes upon the Bosphorus,
by way of the Dniepr and the Euxine, but also in their
descents of the Volga, their appearance upon the shores of
the Caspian (as in 913), and their raids as far as the mighty
mountain-wall of the Caucasus, and even beyond it, for in
944 their warriors encountered a Moslem foe at Berdaa -
near the modem Elisavetpol. And the same qualities, with
different applications, are to be seen in the journeys of
Russian envoys and princes to Germany in 959, 973, 1040,
1042, and 1075 ;'i as in the commercial wanderings which

1 Politically. Venice is an even I Sviatoslav. See Heyd, Commerce da
better pupil. Levant, i. 70, and pp. 262, 458, 461 of

2 Of. Masudi, ii. IS. <>n the raids j this volume ; also Rambaud, L' empire
of 913 and 944, and the alleged early \ grec, 374-379. The geography and
Russian trade to Spain (?), Rome (?). trade of the Russians are treated in
and Syria (?). as well as Khazaria. j chs. 2, 9, 13, 37, 42, of the De

Their Syrian intercourse is also
noticed in a somewhat doubtful
passage of Benjamin of Tudela ; in
Ibn Khordaclbeh, ed. Barbier de
Meynard, Journal Asiatique, serie vi.
t. v. p. 514; in Constantine Por-
phyrogennetos himself, Be Adminis-
trando Imperio, p. 180, ed. Bonn ; as
well as in Nestor, who adds Blctelc
Bulgaria to the countries visited by
Russian merchants. Cf. the treaty | i. 79.
of 971 between John Tzimiskes and

AdmiiustranJo Imperio, as Avell as in
ch. 4, where the ' Turkish ' Magyars
are also treated.

3 This journey of 1075 was per-
formed by the grand prince Jsiaslav
or ' Isaeslav,' who came from Kiev to
Mainz to ask the aid of the Emperor
Henry IV., and brought with him a
number of valuable presents for that
end ; cf. Heyd, Commerce du Levant,

VII.] CONSTANTINO OX THE PETCHINEGS 489

planted the Russian trading colony of St. Manias l at Stambul,
and brought their adventurers to the fairs of Cherson, of
Trebizond, of Petra in Colchis, and of the Khazarian Itil,

near tlie site of Astrakhan. For of these enterprises, as of
similar mercantile ventures to both the Bulgar lands (on the
Danube and the Volga alike), and to the marts at the estuary
of the Don, there can lie no doubt; even if we discredit
the traditions of their tenth-century visits to Syria, Spain,
and Italy.

IV. — The Petchinegs, or Patzinaks, were then regarded as
the most powerful nation or group of tribes to the North of
the Pontus ; they ruled the whole country between the
Tanais and the Danube ; northward they controlled the
Steppe country up to nearly 50°, dominating the modern
Podolia, Bessarabia, and Ukraine ; and they are treated by
Constantino, in the first eight chapters of the Administra-
tion, with marked attention.- Their alliance, as we have
seen, he regards as of vital moment for the Empire ; to-
gether with the more suspected but less barbarous Khazars,
they commanded every opening into the Euxine from the
North ; and no Varangian raiders could descend the Don or
Dniepr in the teeth of their opposition ; unluckily, they
often preferred to wait till the plunderers returned from the
Bosphorus, or other parts of ' Rumania,' laden with booty.
They were too fond of gain, moreover, to refuse all traffic in
horses, oxen, and sheep with the northern bandits in whose

1 In 10-13 a serious riot occurred war that followed. A similar Russian

I'i'tween the citizens of Constantinople commercial colony seems to have

and the Russian merchants trading existed at Itil in the tenth century ;

in the city; cf. Cedrenus, ii. 551; '< cf. Masudi, ii. 9, 11.

Heyd, Commerce du Levant, i. 71. 2 Constantine Porphyrogennetos,

The death of a Russian in this tumult , Administration, chs. 1-8.
was the cause of, or excuse for. the

490 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Oh

land these animals could not breed ; l otherwise the Russian
marauders might almost be starved into submission.

Two chief routes led into the country of the Petchinegs ;
of these the Eastern path started from Cherson, and was the
most suitable for reaching the tribes between the Don and
Dniepr ; the Western began at the mouth of the latter, or
at the estuary of the Dniestr.2 These worthy and useful
allies did not, however, present many attractions, save to the
diplomatist or the soldier ; six ruined cities recalled a tradi-
tion of ancient Greek or Eoman settlements ; but the new
masters of the soil were Xomade shepherds, and hated town
life, as they hated Christianity, social order, and the morals
of settled peoples.3 AYnether cannibals 4 or no, their alliance
was to Constantine all-important for the safety of Cherson, of
the Bosphorus, and of the entire Euxine ; in his judgment,
they were also invaluable as guides and middlemen for
Byzantine trade in Khazaria, Russia, or the Caucasus;5 and
no trouble or sacrifice (except the secret of Greek Fire) was
too much to conciliate their friendship.

Byzantine diplomacy had already used them with telling
effect against the Greater Bulgaria of the ninth century, but
as a defensive instrument against the Russians they were
less serviceable. It suited their interest to overrun the
Wallachian and Moldavian lowlands ; it did not suit them
ecpially well to hinder the Vikings of the North from forays
against the Empire; it was even to their advantage to join
in any well-organised attack upon their rich ally. Thus in

1 This odd statement is in Be
Administrando Imperio, ch. 2.

2 Note the Slav names of these
rivers, Aavcnrpi, Aavaarpi, in Constan-
tine Porphyrogennetos {Administra-
tion, ch. 8), as in Carpini.

3 Be Administrando Imperio, c.
37. The six towns are called Aspron,

or White Stone City, Tnnkatai,
Kraknakatai, Salmakatai, Sakakatai,
Giaiukatai.

i So Matthew of Edessa, c. 85 (Du-
laurier).

5 Especially Zichia, or the land of
the Zicci, De Administrando Imperio,
chs. 6, 42.

VII.] CONSTANTINE ON THE KHAZARS 491

934 they were to be found beside the Hungarian ravagers of
Thrace ; in 944 they followed Igor in his second raid
against the heaven-protected city of Constantine ; in 970-971
they joined Sviatoslav in that great onslaught of the
Barbarian upon the Civilised World, which was repelled by
John Tzimiskes. Eleventh-century history records in 1026,
in 1051, and at other times, fresh iucursions of these highly-
salaried ' sheep-skins ' upon the lands of their friend and
pay-master ; and the persistent forgiveness shown by the
Imperial policy in their case can only be explained by the
overpowering dread of the Bulgars at Constantinople. This
danger was unquestionably lightened by the advance of the
Petchinegs to the Lower, as of the Magyars to the Upper,
Danube ; and for Byzantine friendship it was then enough to
be the traditional and necessary foe of the subjects of Krum
and Simeon.

Y. — The Petchinegs were the spoilt children of the Byzan-
tine Chancery ; the Khazars, on the other hand, though a far
more interesting and redeemable nationality, were treated
with coldness and suspicion. Yet their alliance, if sedulously
fostered, might have been more useful than that of the
undependable Nomades to the Xorth of the Danube. The
Judaism of their kings, the Mohammedanism of a large part
of the people, and the natural and necessary menace (to
Cherson) implied by their domination in the Crimea, probably
contributed to this reserved attitude on the part of the
Christian Caesars in the tenth century. Yet Heraclius,
Justinian II., and Leo the Isaurian l had not disdained to
treat of alliances with the Poyal House of this bravest and
most cultured nation of Scytliia ;2 and Leo IV.,3 by his snr-

1 On behalf of his son Constantine
V.

2 Justinian II. married a sister of
the Khazar Khan ; Constantine V. a

daughter of another Khagan and
Kludun.

'■'■ Son and successor of Constantine
V.

492 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Oh.

name of 'The Khazar,' confessed his origin, and bore witness
to the merits of both Soman and Barbarian stocks ; for if
the one was worthy to give an Emperor to Constantinople,
the other proved its power of government over so many
different nations by a marriage-policy of such liberality and
wisdom. Even the dress of the Khazars came into fashion
at Byzantium soon after Leo IV.1 But in the time of
Constantine VII., suspicion had taken the place of the older
friendship, and in 1016 the Byzantines found themselves
at war with a people who had usually respected, and some-
times protected, the Soman possessions of the Chersonese ; 2
who in 833 joined with the Greeks in the building of Sarkel,
at the estuary of the Don ; 3 whose soldiers formed a regular
contingent of the imperial army ; and who fought under the
banners of Some in Italy, in Thrace, in Crete, and in
Armenia.4 The great conqueror of the Macedonian House,
not satisfied with his overthrow of the Bulgarians and his
subjugation of Armenia, crushed5 the Khazar Empire, in
alliance with Vladimir of Kiev and the savage tribes
beyond the Volga, almost at the same time that the dominion
of the Petchinegs began also to decline. The realm which
under King Joseph (c. 948 A.D.) had reached from the
Caspian to the Volga near Tver, from the delta almost to the

1 Constantine Porphyrogennetos,
Ceremonies, i. 1.

,J And left their name to the Crimea
as Gazarla, or Khazaria. Cf. Rubru-
quis, j>. 214.

3 For the better protection of the
Azov sea-board. Sarkel seems to have
stood on the south side of the Tanais
estuary, a little below the later town
of Azov.

4 Cf. the forty-seven Khazars who
took part in the South-Italian expedi-
tion in the regency of Romanus
Lecapenus ; Constantine Porphyro-

gennetos, Ceremonies, ii. 44. The
Bulgarian Tsar Simeon, after his
victory in 889, furious to find Khazars
fighting against him (Kazar was
traditionally the brother of Bulgar),
cut olf all their noses. The Khazar
contingent, as a picturesque element
in the Byzantine army, was con-
stantly on show, especially at the
reception of foreign envoys ; cf, Con-
stantine Porphyrogennetos, Cere-
monies, ii. 15.

5 Cf. Nestor, Chronicle, eh. 12;
Cedrenus, ii. 464.

VII.] CONSTANTINE ON THE KHAZARS 493

source of the greatest European river;1 which had established
a kind of order and civilisation from Eupatoria to Derbent ;
which stamped its name for many ages on the Crimea, the
Euxine, and the Caspian ; - and which claimed tribute from
nine tribes on the Volga, fifteen nations of the Caucasus,
and thirteen peoples of the Black Sea littoral," was now
reduced to an uncertain and miserable existence in the
Steppes of the Kuban and the Terek. Even in the time of
Constantine VII. the Khazar Empire had been reduced by
almost half its area, and the Imperial diplomatist was
probably the less inclined to cultivate the friendship of
these Barbarians, as he had witnessed the steady shrinkage
of their power. In the eighth century their western frontier
had been marked by the Carpathians and the Dniestr ;
northward their rule had extended over all the lands here-
after known as Kussian. A little later, by a singular error
of policy, they dislodged the Petchinegs from the Steppe lands
of the Lower Volga and the neighbourhood of Itil ; but the
only result of this was to plant these same enemies more
firmly to the west of the Don.

Four chief cities seem to have flourished in the Khazaria
of the tenth century. First came Itil at the mouth of the
Volga, the political 4 and commercial capital of the country,

1 Though interrupted in the middle i the limits of the Khazar power. The
course by Old or Great Bulgaria, j Black Sea was also called at times
which controlled the river from about ; after the Khazars. See Rambaud,
Nijni Novgorod to below Samara. ' L' empire grec, 39-1.

2 Commonly called 'Sea of the 3 So King Joseph boasts to Chasdai,
Khazars/ especially in the Aral) Vizier of Abderrahman III. of Cor-
( Geographers, e.g. Masudi, ii. 19, dova. Even the Magyars, during most
edition of Barbier de Meynard and of the tenth century, accounted them-
Pavet de Courteille ; Hm Khor- > selves vassals of the Khazars.
dadbeh, pp. 471-472 ; Edrisi, ii. 332, 4 Joseph's letter to Chasdai speaks
ed. Jaubert ; cf. also Nestor, under : of three royal residences, but Ilil
6472-3 a.m. =964-5 A.D. ; 6367= I seems to have been the chief.

S99 ; 6370 = 862; 6292-3 = 884-5, on |

494 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Oh.

in a position where (as shown by the present Astrakhan) a
great city seems marked out by natural conditions.1 Here Ibn
Foslan (in about 920 A.D.) found thirty mosques ; a number of
synagogues, baths, and bazaars ; and a royal palace of brick,
in the midst of a great collection of felt tents and clay huts.
Here, too, Arab merchants met with the distant Bulgarians of
the North 2 and Eussians of the North-west ; boats descended
from the Kama, the Oka, and the Volga, or put in from various
parts of the Caspian ; all found security and a ready market
under a Jewish ruler. The other towns, — Taman or Tama-
tarcha, on the ruins of the old Greek colony of Phanagoria;
Bosporos or Panticapaeum, on the other or European side of
the Strait of Kertch ; and Sarkel8 or the White House, at the
mouth of the Don, answering to the Hellenic Tanais,- — were all
on the site of Greek Colonies or outposts ; and besides these
we have in Arab authors the names of some lesser settlements
in uncertain positions.4

VI. — Byzantine relations with the Arabs of East and West

1 To the south-west of Astrakhan
the ruins of Madchar are conjectured
to preserve a trace of a Magyar settle-
ment, planted here and abandoned in
the course of the Hungarian move-
ment from the Ob and the Urals to
the Danube.

2 From this point men journeyed
up the Volga to Bolghar, near Kazan,
not only for trade, but sometimes for
the sake of seeing the marvel of a
' Midnight Sun. ' This was a special
object of Ibn Batuta (who also
purposed a sledge journey to
the Arctic Ocean) in the fourteenth
century.

3 Built by the Khazars in alliance
with Petronas and a Greek force sent
by the Emperor Theophilus in S33 ;
here the exceptional policy of taking

measures against the Petchinegs was
followed.

4 One called 'Khazar,' another
Semender, another Bilandiar or
Balandiar : Semender is, perhaps,
Edrisi's Semmur on the Caspian,
some fifty miles from Derbent. It
must be remembered that while the
Khazar kings were Jewish, while
many of the people were Christians
(by the time of Constantine Porphyro-
gennetos), and while their relations
with Byzantium were important, still
the mass of the nation seem to have
been Mohammedan, and their inter-
course with Bagdad on one side, and
with Khwarezm or Khiva, Samarcand,
etc., on another, was even more pro-
minent than with the Eastern Empire.
Of. Masudi, Meadoios of Gold, eh. 17.

Vti.] constantine ON THE ARABS 495

were normally governed by a policy of friendship towards
the more distant, of hostility towards the nearer and more
dangerous. An active commercial, intellectual, and diplo-
matic intercourse subsisted between Constantinople and
Cordova;1 the Ceremonies record how a Spanish (Moslem)'2
embassy arrived in the Bosphorus in 946 ; Liudprand
mentions another on his first visit to the Imperial City in
950, just as he notes his meeting in Venice with a Byzantine
envoy, Salamon the eunuch, returning from Spain (94S or
949). A common fear of the Hungarians may explain some
of these missions; for Salamon, on this same journey to the
West, had also visited the Court of Otto, the great foe and
future queller of the Magyars. But a more obvious reason
may perhaps be found in the Greek schemes of crushing the
Mohammedan pirates of Crete, for which the friendship or
neutrality of the Spanish Moors, elder brothers who had
stayed at home, was obviously desirable. At all events, this
purpose is clearly discernible in the legation of 949 3 (when
Stephen the Ostiarius, with a squadron of three ships, sailed

1 Another evidence of the wide-
spread interest of Spanish Moslems
may be found in the travels of

us of Tortushi's visit to Mainz,
speaks of the spices of India and
the Far East — pepper, ginger, cloves,

Abubekr Mohammed, of Tortosa galangale, etc. — being obtainable

(hence surnamed ' Tortushi ') born ; in that city ; of. Wiistenfeld's

in 1059, who (sometime before 1083) edition of Kazwini, pp. 350, etc.,

visited Mainz, where he saw and ; 1843.

described some silver coins of 2 There is no clear evidence of

Samarcand, struck in 913-915 by [ intercourse at this time between

the Samanid prince Nassr II., son Byzantium and the Christian kiug-

of Ahmed. Cf. Quatremere in j doms of Spain, but some of these

Journal A siatiquc, seric v., t. xvii., I embassies may of course have conic

pp. 147. etc. ; Frahn, Memoircs dc • from the latter.

V Academic dc St. Pdtersbourg, seric i 3 For in this very year, 949, occurred

vi. , sciences politiques, t. ii., pp. 87, the great attempt of Constantine VII.

etc. (1834) ; Heyd. Commerce du ' to recover Crete, which failed ; Nik.

Levant, i. 50. 79-80. After 1083 : Phokas succeeded in 960, while

Tortushi settled in Egypt for the i Abderrahman III. was still reigning

rest of his life. Kazwini, who tells ! (912-961).

49 6 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION

[Ch.

to ' Iberia,') and perhaps in that from which Eabbi Chasdai
gleaned his information of the Jewish dynasty reigning in
Khazaria (c. 958 a.d.).1

It was probably by agreement with Abderrahman III
that the Byzantine iieet joined with Hugh of Provence to
extirpate another nest of Saracen pirates at Eraxinetum
about 941 ; just as in 916 the league of Pope John X., King
Berengar of Italy, and the Empress Zoe, had cut out a third
cancer from the body of Christendom, by destroying the
brigands of the Garigliano in the neighbourhood of Borne
itself.

With the Fatimites of Africa, on the other hand, there
was incessant trouble ; — a wearisome but indecisive struggle
in South Italy was ended for a time by the mission of John
Pilatus in 951 ;2 but there remained the haunting terror of a
joint attack from Bulgarian soldiers and ' Barbary ' sailors
upon the very heart of the empire. The faithful Calabrians in
925 captured the ambassadors of Simeon and Al Madhi, — the
former returning from a successful mission to the Infidel, — ■
sent them to Constantinople, and thus enabled Lecapenus
to avert the danger by skilful diplomacy and the prompt
payment of a liberal subsidy.0

In the Eastern Mediterranean the struggle between
Byzantines and Saracens (of the Abbasside or Bagdad obedi-
ence), continued obstinately throughout the tenth century.
Geographically, there is a certain interest in the steady
advance of the ' Boman ' armies into the Armenian and

1 Of. Rambaud, L'empire grec,
406-407 ; Liudprand, Antapodosis, vi.

2 ; Constantine Porphyrogennetos,
Ceremonies, ii. 15, 45, 48. The
Administration, ch. 25, shows a good
acquaintance with the three main
divisions of the tenth-century Mos-
lem (' Syrian ') world under the

Abbasside, Fatimite, and Onimeyad
Caliphs or 'A/.Lep/j.ov/j.ve'is.

2 The war, however, broke out
again in 956, when a storm destroyed
the Arab fleet oft' Palermo. Cedrenus,
ii., 359-360.

3 Cf. Cedrenus, ii. 356-357.

VII.] CONSTANTINE ON THE VASSAL-STATES 497

Caucasian regions from about 925. When the tide had once
turned, it ebbed fast ; for two centuries it had borne up the
Unitarians, after a first hundred years of rushing and resist-
less victory ; now it receded from Erzerum 1 and the Lake of
Van, from Iberia or Georgia, from the Upper Euphrates,
from the whole Armenian plateau. In Crete (as in Cyprus),
Islam still held its own ; the Greek attack of 940 in vain
marshalled against it Kussians, Armenians, Petchinegs,
Khazars, and other allies or mercenaries from the most
distant regions ; but the re-conquest of both islands was only
retarded for a decade.

VII. — The Vassals of the Empire, as surveyed by Con-
stantine VII., form a ring of defensive outworks, a series of
buffer-states, protecting the Roman world — or that fragment
of it which still remained effectively subject to Constanti-
nople— from the full brunt of barbarian attack. On the
other hand, to a more ambitious policy, they appeared
as distant dependencies needing constant support, as advance-
posts from which Imperial authority might be re-established
in lost provinces, as protectorates which a spirited policy
might transform into possessions.

Five chief groups of vassal states, — the Italian, Dal-
matian, Crimean, Armenian, and Caucasian, — extended the
influence and the nominal supremacy of the Byzantines from
Sardinia to Georgia and the basin of the Kur. When the
Ceremonies and Administration were compiled, the great
western island had practically fallen away from the Christian
cause and the standard of the Caesars ; yet even in 968
Xikephoros Phokas included among his servants, as he de-

1 Arzen or Theodosiopolis, captured these campaigns, cf. iiamband,

in 928, and 949, by the Greeks, and ' L'empire grec, pp. 422-427.
hold by them till after 1071. On

2 T

498 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Oh.

clared to Liudprand, the archon of Sardinia, as well as the
rulers of Amalfi and Gaeta, of Venice and Naples, of Salerno
and Capua.1 For the most part, however, these vassals (even
the Croats and Serbs of the ' Sirmian isthmus ' and the towns
of the pirate-haunted Dalmatian coast) obviously belong
to the better-known European and Christian world, and can-
not even be considered as lying on the outskirts of it. The
Byzantine relations with them do not therefore possess any
definite geographical interest, except as connected with the
commercial movements of the Mediterranean towards outer
regions, which have been already noticed. The customary
journeys of Venetian Doges and sons of Doges to Constanti-
nople, and their receptions and honours in the Imperial
town (receptions and honours which were viewed as a
confirmation of their present authority or future prospects) ;
the joint efforts of Venice and Byzantium to put down
the Croatian and Dalmatian piracy which so often inter,
rupted the diplomatic and mercantile connections between
the Suzerain of the Bosphorus and her ally of the Lagoons ;
the Saracen raids, which compelled the disobedient Eagnsa
(as in 871), to implore the aid of its mistress; the dim and
curious history of the Strategoi of Dalmatia,2 their revolts3

1 Archons, of the first pair; dukes ! ' Notitia Dignitattim ' the Strategos
or doges, of the second ; princes, of ' of Dalmatia ranked with the Strate-
the third. Of. Liudprand, Legation, | gos of Cherson ; cf. Constantine
c. 27 ; Constantine Porphyrogen- | Porphyrogennetos, Ceremonies, ii.
netos, Ceremonies, ii., 48 ; Rambaud, I 50,52. Maius, under Basil II. (986),
V empire gree, 439-441, 441-450. : is Prior of Zara as well as Proconsul

2 On this Adriatic and especially ! of Dalmatia ; and he seems to have
Illyrian history, cf. Rambaud, L'em- ' been Strategos when about 998 the
pire grce, pp. 450-484 ; especially i protection of the Empire's Dalmatian
444, 457, 460, 472-474, 480, 481-482. j subjects and the policing of the
Even the Graeco-Istrian town of Adriatic was committed to Venice,

Justinianopolis is accused before the

Suzerain of piracy in 933 (by Venice).

3 Such as that headed by Paul

of Zara in 806 ; in the Byzantine

as when, after the completion of his
Bulgai'ian triumphs, Basil II. resumed
Ids sovereignty ; Lucius, ii. 4-P,

VII.] THE DALMATIAN AND CRIMEAN VASSALS 499

and their submissions ; the tribute paid by various little
groups of South-Western Slavs x either to the Eastern
Emperor direct, or to Venice as representing the Empire ; 2 —
all testify to the wide-reaching but vague character of Byzan-
tine pretensions ; they do not show the influence of Con-
stantinople penetrating into that outer world with which
exploration was concerned.

Something, however, of a more definitely civilising and
geographical character accompanies the Imperial connec-
tions with the Crimea, the Caucasus, and Armenia. The
ancient Greek colonies on the North and East coasts of
the Pontus still continued (in some instances) to act as
advance-posts of civilisation in the tenth century after,
as in the fifth century before, Christ. But the glory of
Bosporos or Panticapaeum (the modern Kertch), of Olbia
(at the mouth of the Bug), even of Odessos (near the site
of the present Varna), had been eclipsed by Cherson 3 which
in the tenth century rivalled Trebizond as the leading-
port of the Euxine, and continued firm in its Byzan-
tine traditions till the eleventh century. Here the
Emperors Maurice and Basil L, Leo VI. and Constantine
VII., Eomanus II. and Nikephoros Phokas, Alexius and
Manuel Comnenus, coined money.4 Here Themistos
governed in the time of Diocletian, Diogenes in that of Con-
stantine I. ; to this place were exiled Pope Martin,5 various
enemies of Leo IV. and of Theophilus, and (most notable of
all) Justinian II., afterwards the city's mortal enemy, whose

1 As, for example, those of Krka I 4 Cf. De Saulcy, Essai de classifica-
ancl Osero. ; tion, plates iv. xviii.-xxi. xxvii.-

2 See Monumenta spcctantia his- j xxviii. ; on Cherson, cf. Constantine
toriam Slavorum meridionalium, j Porphyrogennetos, Administration,
1868. | oh. 53 ; Rambaud, L'empire grec, pp.

3 The Russian, though not the '•■ 484-494, especially 484-435, 486-489,
Byzantine 'Sevastopol.' 5 In 654,

500 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Ch-

onslaught for the moment threw it into alliance with, and
subjection to, the Khazars. On Cherson, in reward for its
many sendees, the great Justinian conferred exemption
from all imposts, and Constantine VII. expressly reaffirms
these privileges x ; we have already noticed his suggestion of
this port of call as the best route for diplomatic and other
missions from Constantinople, on their way to Khazars,
Petchinegs, or Russians. Here the Greek language was main-
tained : here the Barbarian invader was kept at bay ; behind
its massive walls of squared stones the Ionic columns of the
ancient Cherson perpetuated the memory of a past which
the ephemeral Nomade could not but dimly reverence.
Goths, Avars, Turks, Uzes, Huns, Bulgars, Petchinegs,
Khazars, Komans, ' Scythians ' of every kind and name,
successively wandered across the plain outside the ram-
parts of this eternal city, gazed upon its towers, threatened
its defenders, and disappeared in distance and oblivion ; but
sixteen centuries witnessed the Greek Colony, beside the finest
of Euxine harbours, still maintaining its Hellenic tongue,
blood, and allegiance, its Hellenistic Christianity, its racial
distinction, and its commercial prosperity : —

' A Homer's language murmuring in its streets,
And in its haven many a mast from Tyre.'

As the Middle Ages drew on, the importance of Cherson
declines ; under the Comneni it is of small account ; but in
the time of Constantine VII. it appears (like Zara in Dalmatia),
as the seat of an Imperial Strategos or Proconsul. Bosporos
had long deserted the cause of Greece and Pome, dropping
its classic name,2 affording a ready welcome and good market
to Pontic Pirates, and enriching itself with the plunder

1 Justinian, Norellae, 113, ch. 2 ;
Constantine Porphyrogennetos, De
Adininistrando Imperio, ch. 53,

'Icrropla ire pi rod K&ffrpov XepcrcDyoj,
- Panticapaeum,

VILj THE CRIMEAN VASSALS OF BYZANTIUM 501

of the Roman coasts; it had been recovered for a short time
by Justin I. ; but now, in the middle of the tenth century,
it was definitely a Khazar town. Tanais, at the estuary of
the Don, no longer survived; its place was taken by Sarkel
or by Rosia ; Phanagoria, opposite Bosporos on the Taman
side of the Strait of Kertch, perished as a Hellenic town
in the sixth century, and had only of late revived as Matrica
or Tamatarcha, so famous under the Comnenian dynasty ;
Odessos, Istriopolis, and the other outposts of the old
civilisation to the west of the Crimea had all fallen into
the hands of Bulgars or Petchinegs. Cherson alone remained
from this shipwreck of Pontic Hellenism, thanks in part
to the energetic measures of Justin I., of the great Justinian,
and of Theophilus. The latter sovereign, besides building
Sarkel (in alliance with the Ivhazars) as a barrier against
Petchineg incursions, replaced the old Republican and semi-
independent government in ' St. Clement's town,' by the
Byzantine provincial administration, and inaugurated the
rule of Strategoi, in addition to the Proteuontes and Archontes
of the past (c. a.d. 838).1 More than ever the city now
became an advance-post of Constantinople in the Scythian
world, a watch-tower against all movements of the Northern
barbarians. But the Imperial government was never very
tyrannical at Cherson; the status of vassal-city was never
entirely exchanged for that of subject-town. Yet Constantine
VII. directs the seizure of all the Jcardbia of the port in case of
revolt, the stoppage of supplies, and the imprisonment of
captured Chersonese ; their prosperity depended, he believes,
upon their position as carrying-traders between the Empire
and the Steppes ; and his view was too well founded for
any permanent breach to subsist. From Cherson the
Byzantines had the first news of a Russian descent of the
1 Cf. De Administrando Tmpcrio, ch. 42 ; Ceremonies, ii. .r>0

502 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Oh.

Dniepr,1 or of any other movement among the nations of the
North Pontic Regions. All diplomatic intercourse with
'Scythia' was managed through the medium of Cherson,
and by Chersonese advice; it was a native of this city2 who
conducted the delicate negotiation by which Nikephoros
Phokas drew on the Russians to attack Bulgaria.

The tenth century Byzantines therefore cannot be accused
(as Strabo accuses the Augustan Romans) of neglecting their
Black Sea interests, even in the far outlying Crimea. All
the three Russian treaties of the ' Macedonian ' Dynasty —
with Oleg, with Igor, and with Sviatoslav — expressly provided
for the safety of Cherson ; the Barbarian chiefs swore by the
Gods 3 of the Slavs that Korsiln should be left in peace ; the
treaties with the Khazars contained similar stipulations ;
and the distrust of these ' royal Scythians,' shown in the
pages of Constantine, seems to have been based upon a
conviction that they were, after all, the most dangerous of
possible aggressors in Taurica. Alans of the Caucasus,
Russians of the Dniepr, Bulgars of the Kama and Middle
Volga, were all salaried by Constantinople against the day
when ' Khazaria ' should attempt to sweep the Romans into
the sea. At Cherson the Khazar tongue was spoken as
much as Greek, and at certain times (as when the fury of
Justinian II. threatened the city) a Khazar governor4 with
a strong garrison held its walls and forts. But most of the
Barbarians around were interested in the fate, and anxious
for the prosperity, of the city. The Zicci of the Kuban, the

1 Cf. Nestor, eh. 27.

2 Kalokyr, son of a Proteuon of
Cherson; cf. Leo the Deacon, iv.,
9 ; Cedrenus, ii. 372. Chersonites
probably had exceptional qualities as
navigators and sea-warriors from their j A.M. 6415-6420, 6458.
experience of the stormy Euxine and ' 4 E.g. one named Tudun

of naval dangers ; cf. Liudprand's
account of Michael, commanding for
Nikophoros Phokas at Corfu, in 958
(Legation, end).

3 E.g. Perun and Volos, cf. Nestor,

VII.]

Highlanders of the Caucasus, and even the brutish Petchinegs
of the Steppes, were to be found in its markets, and exchanged
furs, hides, and honey, for the silks, linens, muslins, purples,
pepper, spices, and brocades of Byzantium and the South.1
After the days of Constantine VII., both Sviatoslav and
Vladimir I. of Kiev seem to have gained possession of
Chcrson, but neither injured it; for the citizens (according
to Leo the Deacon) had themselves invited the Russian
Princes, partly from discontent at the Imperial rule, partly
from desire for autonomy. It was a Christian priest,
Anastasius by name, afterwards Bishop of Kiev, who opened
the gates to Vladimir ; on his conversion, the concpieror built
a Church in the city, and professed to hold the place in right
of his Byzantine wife.

This Russian leasehold, however, like the Khazar occupa-
tion, proved but temporary ; and in spite of such occasional
lapses, Cherson retained the aspect of a Greek settlement,
and a certain real connection with the Empire, down to the
close of the twelfth century.'2 To the religious world it was
venerable as the traditional scene of the martyrdom of St.
Clement ; here Cyril, the Apostle of the Slavs, stayed to
learn the language of the Khazars before entering their
country; and here he discovered the bones of a Saint y
who was to become one of the Patrons of the Slavonic
world. Like Bosporos, Cherson was the seat of a Bishop or
Archbishop;4 the Chersonites were eager proselytisers ; and
their occasional acceptance of Barbarian rule may perhaps

1 Constantine Porphyrogennetos,
De Adiniaistrando Imperio, chs. 6,
53.

2 In 1190 Eupeterios, the ' illus-
trious General and Duke of Cherson,'

3 Clement.

4 Cf. Constantine Porphyrogen-
netos. Ceremonies, ii. 54, which adds
Nikopsis (about half-way between
the present Novo-Rossiisk and

figures in the Byzantine epigraphy, j Sukh urn- Kale) as a third See in the
Bockh, Inscript. Christ., No. 8740, ! ' eparchy ' of Zichia.
also Xos. 8742, 8757.

504 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Ch.

be explained by this missionary enthusiasm, which main-
tained an active ecclesiastical intercourse with Kiev, and
perhaps with Itil. But from the beginning of the thirteenth
century, the colony sinks into complete obscurity ; first
Sudak and then Kaffa1 drain away its trade and wealth
and people ; and in the sixteenth century its walls and
towers, and public buildings, with their marble and serpen-
tine, stood like the edifices of a magic city in the Arabian
Nights, without a living soul to use them.

In Armenia and the Caucasus, as in the Crimea, Con-
stantine VII. throws real light into the darkness. Since the
rise of the Caliphate the civilised world had been almost
confined to Arab notices of these regions for the maintenance
or extension of the knowledge which classical learning had
bequeathed ; and until the Byzantine revival, under the
Macedonian or Armenian dynasty, scarcely anything was
done for the description, the exploration, or the civilisation
of these regions, from the Greek or Eoman side.2 But from
the regency of Komanus Lecapenus (himself of Armenian
race, and probably well acquainted with the Armenian
language), an active and profitable intercourse was re-opened
between Byzantium and the Ibero-Arinenian lands. Thus
King Aschod, suzerain of all the Armenian principalities,
comes to the Bosphorus to beg for the aid of Constantine
and Zoe against the Arabs ; in 923 the Marshal or Curorpalata
of Armenia, also appears at Court; about the same time arrives

1 Theodosia.

2 The travels and descriptions of
Sallam the 'interpreter' (841-846
a.d.), reported by Ibn Khordadbeh
and Edrisi ; of Ibn Foslan, in 921 ; of
Masudi, in 943-946 ; of Al Isstakhri,
about 951 ; and of Ibn Haukal, at
various times between 942 and 972 ;
are the chief Moslem works dealing

with these countries before the
Crusades. Sallam is thought by
some to have reached even beyond
the Bashkir country; Ibn Foslan
probably did not go beyond Bulgar
and the lower Kama ; the last three
at most touched the lower Volga
region (Itil, etc).

II.]

THE ARMENIAN VASSALS OF BYZANTIUM

.05

an Iberian functionary of the same title, one Aderneseh ; and
nearly all the members of the great House of Daron make
similar journeys.1 On the other hand, Byzantine agents —
diplomatists, interpreters, or dragomans — were constantly
maintained in Armenia ; 2 and Byzantine Generals, in the
victorious advance of Constantine's later years, possessed
themselves of many of the chief strongholds of the country,
such as Erzerum.3 The same time is also full of treaties and
agreements, the results of Byzantine diplomacy. Thus in 920
the Patriarch John VI. writes to Nicolas, the Holiness of
Constantinople, to beg the aid of Constantine VII., his former
pupil ; 4 the Princes of Armenia and Iberia, not belonging to
the favoured House of Daron, express a pained surprise at
the exclusive favour shown to the latter; the nature of the
Byzantine tenure at Erzerum is defined by treaty ; 5 and the
threatened occupation of Adranutzion (whose capture by
the Patrician Constantine is immediately announced at
Byzantium, and recorded in the Imperial archives) is warded
off by a remonstrance from the Georgian chieftains.6

1 On the Armenian journeys to,
and relations with, Byzantium in the
time of Constantine Porphyrogen-
netos, see De Administrando Im-
perio, chs. 46, 45, 44, 43.

2 E.g. Sinutes, Constantine Krin-
ites, Constantios, Theodores, etc.
John Kurkuas or Gurgen, the captor
of Erzerum, and himself of Armenian
race, was the leading figure among
the Roman military leaders on the
eastern frontier at this time.

3 Otherwise Karin or Theodosio-
polis.

4 Cf. the History, chs. 100, 101,
107, 108, of John, the Catholic, or
Patriarch, of Armenia in question.
The letter of Nicolas is short and
business-like; it urges Armenians to
forget their divisions and unite

against the enemy of their faith, join-
ing with the Kings of Iberia, Abasgia,
and Albania; the two former of these
have already been exhorted to the
same effect from Byzantium ; the
Hhhpt ror crovmed of God will send
imposing forces. John writes at
great length to thank the Emperor
for his support. All Armenia
desires the alliance of the Emperor;
if any do not, they are not of Christ's
fold.

5 Especially with the Iberian
Princes, who were somewhat jealous
of any other power at Karin
(Erzerum).

G The Iberian chancery must have
bi en a wonder for the time, repeatedly
producing for the information of the
Byzantines documents which the

506 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Oh.

After the Arab disaster at Palermo had relieved
Byzantine, anxieties in the West, the new Eastern policy
was vigorously seconded by a fresh mission ; the suscepti-
bilities of Bagdad were ignored ; and an imperial Embassy
brought presents of splendid lamps to the tomb of St.
Thomas in the valley of the Eur.1 Times had changed
since the Armenian Princes had been content with the
protection and suzerainty of the Caliph ; under Basil T. they
had begun to seek once more the Roman investiture as well
as the Arabian ; during the tenth century this divided alle-
giance passed into one reserved for the Basileus alone.2

Under Constantine VII., the Armenian and Iberian
archons, the lesser chiefs of Colchis or Abkhasia on the
Euxine, of Albania on the Caspian, of Vaspuragan to the
east of Lake Van, of Gogovid or Gokovid 3 in the region of
Ararat, are often bound to the empire rather in a religious
than in a political obedience. The latter is still capable of
various interpretations, and may still at times be divided
between Bagdad and Stambul ; but as the ' spiritual sons ' 4

latter have not preserved ; — e.g. a
treat}1' signed by Romanns Lecapenns
and by Constantine VII. ; cf. JJe
Adminisirando Imperio, chs. 46. 45,
43.

1 Ramband, Uempire grec, 432 ;
Contin. Constantine VII., eh. 32.

2 Basil II. completed the victory,
and raised European influence in the

Catholic asserts the existence in the
Caucasus of Chekhs, Serbs, Croats,
Bulgars, as ■well as innumerable other
races. On the nine Armenian and
five Iberian vassals of the Empire, cf.
Constantine Porphyrogennetos, Cere-
monies, ii. 48 ; De Adminisirando
Imperio, chs. 43, 44, 45 : Rambaiid,
L'empire grec, 507-515.

Armenian plateau and the Caucasian ! 4 Cf. Constantine Porphyiogenne-

isthmus to its zenith, as far as the tos, Ceremonies, ii. 48, and a letter of

earlier Middle Ages are concerned. John Tzimiskes to Aschod III.,

3 Also of Moex or Mogh, to the ' archon of archons, or supreme head

South of Van and Mount Niphates ; of | of the Armenian chiefs, as head of

Vaitzor or Sisagan in the mountains | the Bagratid or Pagratid House,

of Siunia ; of the Serbots or Black j whose residence "was at Ears from

Children ; and of Khatsen or Artsakh j 92S to 961, at Ani, from 961 to 1041.

adjoining Sisagan and Lake Geghar- \ Cf. J\I atthew of Edessa, eh. 16.

ma. As to the Serbots, John the I

VII.] THE GEORGIAN VASSALS OF BYZANTIUM 507

of Gonstantine Augustus, as officers in the army of that
1 Soldier of God crowned by Jesus Christ,' the position of these
princes is clearly defined ; they are members of the Church
whose earthly head was the Caesar-Pontiff of Byzantium.

Both politically and ecclesiastically, Georgia or Iberia
stood apart; it owned no subjection to Armenia, and, unlike
the latter, its orthodoxy was unimpeachable. Its rule ex-
tended south-west into the Chorok valley, and included the
harbour of Batumi, but (then as now) the real seat ] of the
Georgian state and nation lay in the basin of the Kur and
the plain of Titiis.

Among all these vassal princes, and their more distin-
guished subjects, the Byzantine Court distributed titles,
pensions, honours, and promises ; some even possessed their
town-houses 2 or property in Constantinople ; the scholarly
distinctions of Doctor in Medicine,3 or in Philosophy, were
employed to reward the loyalty of others ; but sharp
reproaches were always ready for those vassals who had
been backward in good works ; and Constantine VII. deals
very faithfully with a Daronite kinglet and an Iberian
Marshal, who were suspected of preferring an Arab to a
Greek master at Erzerum.

As the tenth century advanced, and the power of the
Caliphate and of Levantine Islam as a whole was more
sensibly weakened, the Byzantines took up a stronger

1 Rambaud, L'empire grec, 512-514, | to be more than the St. Denis of

notes at least five Iberian or Ar-
menian principalities not noticed
by Constantine Porphyrogennetos ;
among these Gabau and Harar appear
the most important ; Varnjnani,

Georgia.

2 One called the House of the Bar-
barian was owned by Gregory the
(Taronite or) Daronite ; De Acl-
ministrando Imperio, cb. 43.

Andsevatsi and Aghdsnikh are more I 3 'Apxiarpds and viraros <pi\ocru(pwi> .

obscure. Mtzkhet, the ancient capital The former title was given to the

of the Iberian people in the fourth i famous physician, Leo, by John

and fifth centuries, had long ceased I Tzimiskes.

508 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Ch.

and more imperious position, and occupied many of the
strategic points which the Administration enumerates l to the
West and North of the Lake of Van. The wild Highlands
of the Ararat plateau became well known to Greek
soldiers and statesmen, as they had been to few since
Xenophon ; and it was here that in 1071 Romanus IV. faced
the advancing Turks on the fatal day of Manzikert. Con-
stantine VII. had witnessed, if he had not consented to, the
evacuation of the Georgian Adranutzion by his generals,
and even to the seizure of Erzerum by the Iberians ; in 943,
the attempt of the Orthodox or Byzantine party to consecrate
a church in the royal town of Kars, according to their rite,
was defeated by heretic Armenians. But Nikephoros Phokas
and John Tzimiskes compelled a more respectful attitude ;
the latter exacted a loyal and effective service from his
Armenian allies in his Eastern wars ; and Basil II., every-
where pursuing his policy of conquest, occupied the Iberian
province of Taikh,2 and the Armenian province of VaspuraQan;
seized many of the fortresses so ineffectually coveted by
his grandfather ; and placed Daron, Ani, and most of the
allied territories under Byzantine governors. For a short
time the chroniclers of the Empire could describe the new
provinces with a facility and thoroughness of opportunity
given by political domination.

The alliance in faith and arms was accompanied by a
certain commercial intercourse ; Adranutzion is praised by
Constantine VII., not only as a military position, but as a
market well placed at the meeting of routes from Iberia,
Abkhasia, the Trebizond coast, and all parts of the Armenian

1 Kars, Ani, Erzerum, Manzikert, I Impcrio, 44, 45, 46. All these places

Adranutzion or Ordchenharjh, Percri, ] were attacked, and most of them were

Khelath, Ardshish, Mastat. and j captured, by Basil II.

Almic, near Erzerum, were the chief j 2 Considered to represent all Iberia,
of these. Cf. Dc Admim'strando |

VII.] THE CAUCASIAN VASSALS OF BYZANTIUM 509

highland.1 The manufactured products of skilled Greek
workers (vases, instruments of music, purple and gold stuffs)
were exchanged here and elsewhere for the raw materials
which alone were to be had in this poor barren land.

The ceremonial influence of Byzantium was still more
clearly felt ; the petty courts of Ani, Kars, Mush, Van,
and Tiflis imitated the ritual and ornaments, the dignities
and procedure, of Constantinople. Georgia had its c/aro-
palatae and protospathairoi ; the former of these were in
constant correspondence with the Imperial Court, as directors
of Iberian policy ; while one of the latter (then an official
named Zurbaneles) is recorded to have paid a visit to
the Bosphorus 2 in the later years of Constantine VII. ;
he seems to have been charged with a regular diplomatic
mission (c. 952 a.p.)

In the remote highland of the Caucasus itself, at the
Western foot of which Greek settlements had been planted
at such an early age, and where the Byzantines maintained
a slender foothold till the close of the twelfth century,3
Constantine mentions three chief vassals of the Empire, the
Alanian, Abasgian,4 and Albanian princes. The two latter
are constantly found in alliance with Constantinople
against the Arabs ; the Albanians distinguished them-
selves by their enthusiasm for Orthodoxy and the Greek
rites against Armenian pravity ; an Archbishop of Alania

1 Cf. De Administrando Imperio, 3 Greek was still spoken in Larica

c. 46 ; Rambaud, L'empire grec, 521. in the sixth century, thanks to Greek

2 Like the Iberian curopalata,

Adraiiaseh, or Aderneseh, in about
923 ; (cf. Dc Adminisfrrando Imperio,
c. 45, apparently composed in 952) ;
perhaps this was one of many visits,

mei-chants ; cf. Rambaud, L'empire
grec, 485.

4 Or ' Abkhasian.' Abkbasia, like
Armenia., had its Patriarch or
Catholic, and Constantine Porphyro-

mostly unrecorded, on the part of gennetos. Ceremonies, ii. 48, gives

such officials. Adranaseh had received the formula of address for this ecclesi-

the dignity of ' Curopalata ' from the I astic.
Emperor Leo VI,

510 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Oh.

is recorded by Leo VI.,1 at the opening of the tenth
century.'2 Leo the Isaurian in 710, Thomas the Usurper
in 802, both appealed to the loyalty of these ' children
and dear allies ' ; under Constantine VII. they received a
subsidy for helping to guard Cherson and threatening the
rear of the K bazars.

In this country of Caucasia, — where every branch of the
human family had its representative ; where every wander-
ing nation and every exiled race left a fragment of itself ;
and where the varieties of language were ' known only unto
God,' — it would be difficult indeed to follow out the lesser
tribes of the Byzantine obedience.3 The Zicci and Cir-
cassians of the West or Euxine coast (two famous races who
stand on a very different footing from the Mokan, whom
Constantine so strangely places by the Maeotid Marsh, or
Sea of Azov), were well known to the Byzantines ; but they
do not occur in the list of Caucasian vassals given us in the
Ceremonies. Yet the Circassians were regularly visited by
the merchants of Trebizond, and as regularly frequented the
annual fairs of the Black Sea ports, where ' Bomans,'
Moslems, and Armenians met together ; 4 while the Zicci
possessed a distinct value in Byzantine policy as a check
upon the rear and flank of the Xhazars. Christianity had

1 In his Hypot y posis.

2 But in 932, according to Masudi,
II., 43, its misguided people drove
out their prelates, and broke off
communion with the Church of
Ohrysostom.

3 The Krebatades, the Kedonians
(perhaps a tribe, — the Jidans of
Masudi, — who lived near the Khazar
town of Semender), the Tzanarians
between Tiliis and the Pass of
Derbent, the Sarban (or Serbians ?),
and so forth. Add the Archons and
peoples of Ohrysa, Vretza (in Kak-

hetia), Mohan and Azia (or Ossetia,
in the neighbourhood of the Caspian
Gates or Pass of Dariel). On the
Caucasian vassals, cf. Constantine
Porphyrogennetos, Ceremonies, ii.,
48 ; Dc Achninistrando Imperio, 10,
11; Eambaud. V 'empire grec, 524-527.
Some of these, the Sarban, for in-
stance, are placed by Constantine in
the North-Central part, others to-
wards the East, of the Caucasian
chain.

4 Ibn Haukal, in d'Ohsson, Lea
peuples d>i Caucase, p. 26,

VII.] THE ARAB VASSALS OF BYZANTIUM 511

declined in the Caucasus since the days of Justinian : Islam
had made many converts and boasted of more ; l some tribes
still practised their ancient nature- worship, or the cult of
Fire ; others observed a selection of Jewish, Moslem, and
Christian beliefs and rites ; but, nevertheless, the religious
tie was a strong one, even in the tenth century, between
these regions and the capital of Eastern Christendom.

The Arabian vassals of the Empire, some of whom are
placed by the Ceremonies in Egypt, Persia, and Khorasan,
while others are evidenced by the diplomacy of the Mace-
donian House in Syria and Mesopotamia, are not of any
great geographical interest. Basil T., in his campaigns
against the Manichaeans of Tephrice, received the submission 2
of the Arab town of Taurus or Tarax, and the principality of
Locana ; both these were enrolled as allies of the Empire.
A little later, an Arab emir near Adapa, under Komanus I.,
the Emir of Melitene, submitted to Byzantium. John
Tzimiskes, the conqueror of Jerusalem, Damascus, and
Edessa, had a great number of Arab servants ; his letter
to Aschod III. of Edessa (a.d. 971) is famous ; but in all this
we only hear of well-known localities, far within the borders
of Moslem civilisation.

VIII. — The Subjects of the Byzantine empire, in distinction
from the Neighbours and Vassals of the same, offer compara-
tively little of geographical interest ; nor is the survey of
Constantine VII., in his treatise3 on the Themes, or military

1 E.g. the Jidan (or Kedonian ?) , King of Gurj or Georgia, reigning

Kings, living near the Gate or Pass | over Christian subjects, sounds most

of Derbent ; also the rulers of the i improbable, and is without con-

Kaitaks; cf. Masudi, ii.. 39, -40, i3, (irmation.

45-46. The Circassians were Fire- 2 Rambaud, L'empire greo, 528--529.

worshippers, according to Masudi. :; Cf. Rambaud, L'empire grcc,

Ibu Haukal's story of the Moslem 175-253.

512 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Oh.

subdivisions of the European and Asiatic Provinces, as
useful as his treatment of the neighbouring and vassal
nations. It is noteworthy, however, both from his pages
and other sources, that the New Eome, at the end of the
first millennium of Christian history, still showed something
of that cosmopolitan character which had marked the rule of
the Pagan Caesars. Latins and Teutons from the West,
from the Italian and Dalmatian Themes, and from the
countries beyond the Byzantine limits ; Arabs from East,
West, and South alike ; Armenians and Iberians ; Turks and
Finns ; Slavs and Caucasians — all found a place in the
service, in the armies and fleets, even in the hierarchy,
of the state. ' Like the College of Cardinals,' the official
nobility of Constantinople was ' recruited from the nota-
bilities of the world.' : Once baptised, the barbarian was
admitted in theory, often in practice, to the dignities of
State and Church alike.2 Among the troops led by Belisarius
and ISTarses had been Goths, Heruli, Vandals, Lombards,
Persians, Moors, and Huns ; Thomas the Rebel and Usurper, in
his rising against Michael II., is followed by Indians, Persians,
' Assyrians,' Zicci, and countless nationalities of the Caucasus ;
the legions of Constantine VII. and his successors, Xike-
phoros Tzimiskes, and Basil II., include Varangians or Eusso-
Scandinavians, Magyars and Khazars, as well as Prankish,
Slavonic, Bulgarian, Venetian, Amalfitan,3 and ' Patzinakian ' 3

1 Rambaud, V empire grec, 531-540. Catalans. Rambaud, 276-277, doubts

2 In spite of RambaucVs caution, the Petchinegs, as being such ob-
L'empire gree, 276. we may probably stinate Pagans. The Empire pre-
reckon among the Byzantine Mer- ferred to enrol Christian soldiers
cenaries Sabaeans, Shamanists, Odin- among its Barbarian troops. But
ists, and Nature Worshippers, even from the language of Constantine
a few Jews and Moslems. VII., one can hardly doubt that

3 Cf. Liudprand, Legation, p. 357 his most valued allies fought in the
(Partz), on the Italian troops ; ' Byzantine armies as well as in the
Nikeph. Greg., vii. 3, on the Byzantine cau*o.

VII-J COSMOPOLITAN BYZANTIUM 513

auxiliaries. Under the Comneni, Spanish Catalans fight
for the Eastern Rome in Asia Minor. The great names
in Byzantine military history are more often ' barbarian '
than not : from the Armenian Narses and Basil I.,1 John
Griirgen and Nikephoros Phokas, to the Spanish Guzman 2
under Constantine XI. (1066), the Slav generals of Basil I.
and Leo VI., and the Frankish, Scandinavian, or Russian
captains who served Constantine Monomach and Michael
Stratiotikos in Georgia and Armenia, in Mesopotamia,
and in Asia Minor.2

Above all did the Empire profit from its absorption of
two races, Slavs and Armenians. To the former belonged
Justin I. and his dynasty, as well as a part-interest in the
Macedonian House ; to the latter a preponderating share in
the blood of the Basils, of the family of Nikephoros Phokas,
of John Tzimiskes, of the Regent Romanus Lecapenus.
Even Michael III., whom Basil I. displaced in 867 (in order
to found a mainly Armenian dynasty, lasting for two
centuries), was himself a ' half-blood ' of the same nationality.

The poor, half-educated, barbarian peasant appears again
and again in Byzantine history upon the very throne of the
Caesars ; beginning as an immigrant settler, and soon finding
an employment suitable for his native energy, he drifts to the
great city, to the palace-guard or ministry, to the immediate
surroundings of the Emperor ; he becomes the trusted, indis-
pensable adviser and protector of a weary debauchee, or a
superstitious invalid ; thus finally he reaches the summit.
Short of this, he or his descendants fill the highest offices of
government — in State and Church ; the patriarchate is not
withheld from the scholar and the devotee ; the supple and

1 Basil I. must also be considered
as partly Slav. Basil II. is of course
descended from this Armeno-Mace-

2 Cf. Cedrenus, ii. 605, 616, 624,
630. On Guzman, cf. Matthew of
Edessa, eh. 91.

donian stock.

■1 K

514 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Oh.

statesmanlike ecclesiastic, whatever his origin or nation, can
always find a career. A Notitia Bignitatum of the Byzantine
realm, in the clays of Constantine VI L, would give us a
mosaic of races.

Constantinople shared with the centres of Arab learning
— such as Cordova and Bagdad — the honours of ancient
Athens in the eyes of the earlier mediaeval world. Gerbert
goes to Spain, but Liudprand eagerly accepts an embassy to
New Borne : the legation is a secondary matter, beside the
chance of seeing the greatest of Christian cities, and of
learning the philosophy and literature of Greece. For this
one might well sacrifice the half of one's fortune.1 So in the
eleventh century Adam of Paris, afterwards Bishop of
Spalatro, visits Byzantium to perfect himself in the art of
writing ; so the physician Honainus, in the time of Basil I.,
visits ' Greece ' to learn the medical language of civilisation.

§ 2. — Latin Geographers — Adam of Bremen'2

Adam of Bremen is not merely the Annalist of the Churches
of Bremen and Hamburg ; he is the first and best historian
of Northern Germany in the Middle Ages ; and in geography
he occupies a still more important place. The earliest
writer who mentions Yinland, the one contemporary who
has preserved a record of the Polar voyage of Harald
Hardrada, our primary authority on the pre-Hanseatic
trade of the North Sea and Baltic coasts, Adam shares
with King iElfred, or, more properly, with Ohthere and
Wulfstan, the pioneer honours in one great field of geo-
graphical knowledge.

Each of the four books, or main divisions, of Adam's work
(variously called Ecclesiastical History, Deeds of the Bishops of
1 Liudprand, Antapodosls, vi. 3. " Fl. 1070.

VII. ] ADAM OF BREMEN AS GEOGRAPHER 515

Hamburg, or History of the Chiefs1 of Bremen) has a different
content. The first deals with the conversion of these
'Saxon' regions, and the lives and Northern journeys of
the first Bishops of Bremen. The second recounts the
general history of Germany, and especially of the German
Church ; the wars of Germans and Slavs ; and the attacks
of the Northern invaders on various countries, for about a
century before Adam's time.2 The third book gives a life of
Archbishop Adalbert of Bremen, Adam's great patron. The
fourth is devoted to the geography of the Northern parts of
the world, and has been edited as a separate tract On the
Position of Denmark, and of Other Regions beyond Denmark?

The word Geography, here used by Adam himself of his
fourth and concluding section, is not very common in the
writers of the Middle Ages ; the term Geometry (applied to
one part of the Quadrivium) was used in exactly the same
sense,4 but with the express inclusion of what is now
called Ethnology or Antbropo-Geography ; and among
other mediaeval expressions for this study we have the
common De Natura reruni, De Natura locorum, De Mensura
Orbis Terrae, the equally common Cosmographia, and the
rarer Cosmimetria.

Adam lived on the borders of the patristic and scholastic
periods, and his geography may be said to look back upon
the one and forward upon the other. Born, according to the
generally accepted tradition, in Old Saxony on the North

1 Pracsules (here ' Bishops'). The
various general titles, Historia Ham-
maburgensis Ecclesiae, Gesta Hamb.
eccl. pontificuvi, etc., in some editions
are made to cover bk. iv. Descriptio
■insularum aquilonis, in some not.

2 C. a.d. 940-1040.

3 Cf. August in Bernard. DeAdamo j diversae ejus fades.
Bremensi Geographo, Paris, 1S95 ; K.

Kretschmer, Physische Erdkunde in
Mitlelalter ; Peschel's Geschichte der
Erdkunde, especially pp. 80-82 and 90,
has many excellent remarks on Adam,
and suggestive extracts from him.

4 As we see in Raban Maur, who
applies Gcometria to Toms Orbis et

516 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Oh.

German coast, he became a Canon of Bremen in or about
1069 ; he was also master1 of the Cathedral School and
Chronicler of the Church ; and he died, according to the
Diptychs of the See of Bremen, on October the 12th, probably
of the year 1076.

Two eminent men assisted him in the compilation of his
Annals, both directly and indirectly, both by their own
experience and by the varied advantages which their
patronage and hospitality secured. For it was at the
Courts of Archbishop Adalbert, his own diocesan, and of
Svein Estrithson,2 King of Denmark, that Adam picked
up and pieced together the fragments of new knowledge
which give so exceptional a value to his work. Though
not himself a great traveller, Adam seems to have had a
sufficiently good personal knowledge, not only of 'Saxony,'
and Thuringia, but also of Denmark as far as the Sound. It
is evident that he possessed the geographical instinct ; almost
every mention he makes of persons, places, or nations is
accompanied by some definition of their habitat or position.
The circumstances of the time were such as to invite some
attention to earth-knowledge, and the Bremen chronicler
was not deaf to the invitation. Everywhere old boundaries
were being broken down before the slow and troubled but
steady progress of Christianity eastwards along the North
German plain, and in the woods, hills, and heaths of the
Scandinavian countries.3 At the commencement of Adam's
own century not only Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, but
the far distant Iceland and Greenland had accepted the
new faith, although the Slavonic Wends of the South

1 One Vilecinus appears as school- [ men, c. 845 ; and united with the
master in his place in 1126. Church of Bremen, c. 847 ; from c.

2 OrAsuidson. 860, under St. Ansgar, it claimed

3 The Church of Hamburg was . authority over all ' Northern Re-
founded, c. 831 ; destroyed by North- I gions. '

VII.] ADAM AND ADALBERT 517

Baltic coast still struggled obstinately, and in 1066 for
the third time began a ' Pagan War.' In 1055 the first
Bishop of Iceland, by name Isleif, was appointed as a
suffragan of Bremen ; to the same Province were also
attached (in the course of the eleventh century) all the home-
lands of the Scandinavian peoples, to say nothing of Orkneys,
Faroes, Hebrides,1 and other scattered islands of the Northern
Ocean. Under Adam's patron, the great Adalbert, Bremen
was therefore at the height of its power and influence-
Political and ecclesiastical matters were then almost in-
separable ; and Adalbert, practically a Patriarch of the
North, wished to obtain the formal grant of the title, all
the more as he shared with Haniro of Cologne the guardian-
ship of the young Emperor Henry IV.2 His ambition was
not gratified, but he made Bremen an Arctic Borne and his
court the greatest centre of Northern learning. Italians,
Franks,3 Scots, Greeks, and Jews were all to be found
there ; likewise physicians, astrologers, painters, and
musicians, and among them such famous men as John
Scotus Erigena,4 Gualclo the Frenchman,5 Trasmundus the
painter-monk, the musician Guido of Italy, Aristo the
Greek, Adamatus the physician of Salerno, and the much-
travelled Bovo, who had thrice visited Jerusalem, knew
1 Babylon of the Saracens ' or Cairo of Egypt, and had
wandered through various other parts of the world. Many

1 It is curious that the Papal letters
of 1027 make no reference to the con-
version of Iceland and Greenland ;
this is first mentioned by Leo IX. in
1053. In 1103, 1110, and 1112,
Denmark, Sweden, and Norway were
successively separated from Bremen,
in the ecclesiastical sense. On Adam's
use of Orkneys, apparently including
Hebrides, cf. Hist. Har/ib. Eccl. iii.
11. etc. [ch. 127, Lappenberg], and

at end of bk. iii. (additions) ; also
his Descriptio insularum in bk. iv.
These Orkneys in former times had
had English and Scottish bishops,
but now Adalbert consecrated one
Turolf as Bishop of ' Blascona ' (a
now unknown site).

2 The future penitent of Canossa.

3 Lit. Gauls.

4 ' John of Ireland.'

5 'Gaul.'

518 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Ch.

Slav and Scandinavian merchants and pilgrims also passed
through Bremen, and were entertained by Adalbert, whose
court-circles (and Adam among the rest) were thus able
to hear the latest news of Rome, Compostella, and
Jerusalem on one side ; of Iceland, Greenland, Norway,
and the Baltic coasts on another ; even catching now and
then a hint of the new-found lands in the Far North-
West.1

In the midst of this brilliant society, Adalbert moved
like a king. The great mediaeval Churchman was seen to
full advantage in this man, of splendid presence, lofty
ambition, high lineage, rare eloquence, and fervent devotion.2
Of low amours he was free, an uncommon praise in that
age from the mouth of enemies ; and, like the High-Souled
Man, in whom Aristotle sketched the ideal of ancient
philosophy, he was full of gentleness and affability to his
inferiors — to the poor marvellously humble (often washing
the feet of thirty beggars) — but to his equals haughty
and unbending, as became one who claimed relationship
with the Imperial families both of the West and East.3 His
splendour and ostentation in household management, in
buildings both ecclesiastical and civil, in the maintenance
of body-guards and personal state, sound like descrip-
tions of an earlier and German Wolsey, and his faults
were not unlike the proud, liberal, brilliant, unscrupulous,

1 On the position of the See of | Lappenberg] ; also Lambert of Hers-

Bremen under Adalbert, as a centre
of Northern Civilisation, of. Adam,
iii. 23, 32, 57, 70 [ehs. 142, 150,
183, 201, Lappenberg], and Seiiol. 91.
2 On Adalbert, of. Adam, bk. iii.
passim, ami especially chs. 1, 2, 5,
7, 9, 10, 30, 31, 33, 35, 36, 38, 39,
45, 48, 57-59, 68, [chs. 118, 119,
120, 122, 124, 126, 127, 148, 149, 150,
151-156, 162, 165, 183-185, 196-199,

feld. in Pert/' edition of 1874, pp. 56,
57, 60, 68, 69; under a.d. 1063,
1065, 1006. Often, says Lambert,
in the service of the M ass, ' when he
offered the Saving Victim to God,
his emotion would overcome him, and
he w ept as he stood before the altar.
3 Alike with Otto III. and Theo-
phano, his wife.

VII.] ADALBERT AS RELIGIOUS EXPLORER 519

much-hated minister of Henry VIII. of England. Alike in
kindness and in anger both were regal ; alike in merits
and defects both were examples of a vigorous and gifted
human nature, of an energy and capacity, a love and hate,
a generosity and a harshness beyond that of common men.
During the life of the Emperor Henry III., Adalbert
had what he needed ; a firm master, who honoured his
talents, stimulated his abilities, and controlled his arrogance.
The death of his judicious patron diverted the Archbishop
more and more from his own proper work l to a purely
political life; he first aspired to a share in the custody
and education of the young Kaiser, then to the exclusive
control of his sovereign ; in these aims he succeeded ; but
in the hour of his success he threw aside all restraint, and
vented his open scorn and hatred upon the stupid, greedy,
boorish nobles, whom he had long ridiculed in the privacy
of his inner circle.2 The bishop's household might enjoy
their laugh, but their lord was ill-advised in publishing his
sarcasms, in braving too wide an enmity. What was worse,
he began to neglect business for alchemy, spiritism, jugglery,
or dice ; he seized lay lands and annexed them to the
estates of his Church with rather too liberal an eagerness ;
and after a few years of power the sceptre broke in his
hands at the diet of Tribur, a few months before the
Norman Conquest of England. What we may call his
religious exploration of the North is of special interest.
Scarcely did he become Archbishop of Bremen when he
despatched letters to ' the most remote of his clergy and to

1 As in his missions to the Orkneys
and Iceland.

2 Yet he was very proud of his
family connection with one of these
' hoors,' the Count Palatine of Saxony ;

man of obscure birth, practised a
shameless nepotism in bestowing
Church patronage, Adalbert despised
such vulgar means of support, and
made little attempt to create

but whereas Hanno of Cologne, as a I party.

520 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Oh.

other bishops of the Arctic regions ' ; x in these letters he
does not forget to allude to the islands in the depths of
the sea ; and he even expresses the hope of imitating his
apostolic predecessors,2 Ansgar and Eimbert, by a personal
journey to the distant parts of his vast diocese. In some
of his earliest letters, Adalbert warns the Bishop of Iceland
that he will soon make a visit as Metropolitan both to that
island and to Greenland ; but from this purpose he was
dissuaded by Svein of Denmark, who, as a practised traveller,
put before him some of the difficulties and dangers of the
way.3 Yet his interest in the countries of Northern
Europe was not thrown away ; he inspired the geographical
writings of his retainer, the master of the Cathedral school
of Bremen ; and we may fairly suppose that it was to
his permission, or perhaps suggestion, that Adam owed his
knowledge of the Archives of the See.4

Adam, in all probability, owed more to his bishop than
to all besides ; 5 but he owed not a little, as we have said,
to another great personage of his time, the subtle, fortunate,
and successful King Svein Estrithson, who, after a life of
many adventures and much profligacy, a visit to England,
and a residence of eleven years0 in Sweden, securely
established the independence of Denmark against powerful
and dangerous neighbours. His learning was extraordinary
for a layman at that time, and gained the especial praise
of Hildebrand ; no less remarkable was the king's well-
stored memory, preserving as in a book the record of so many

^daru, iii. 11 [ch. 172, Lappen-
berg].

2 Adam, iii. 70 [ch. 201, Lappen-
berg].

3 Adam, iii. 23, 70 ; iv. 35 [chs.
142, 201, 244, Lappenberg].

4 Including the lives of the wander-
ing missionaries Willibrord, Liudger,

and Ansgar ; and perhaps a diary and
itinerary of the last-named apostle,
no longer extant.

5 But Lappenberg maintains that
Svein, as the more practical man, gate
Adam his best information.

G 1031-1042,

VII.] ADAM AND SVEIN KSTRITHSON 521

of his people's exploits.1 Vessels sailing to the Baltic from
the ' outer coasts,' rarely appear to have called at Bremen in
Adam's day, but the city was a place of passage and stay for
many travellers from the Lower Rhine basin to the Danish
and Wendish markets of Sliaswig or Schleswig, Rosehald
or Roskilde, and Jumna. A large and constant stream of
visitors was thus attracted to Adalbert's court and town,
and although the broils which marked the later years
of his episcopate caused a decrease in the number of
merchants who resorted there, yet throughout the lifetime
of Adam, the Fair Haven of the Weser was indisputably
supreme among the harbours of the North German shore.

Meantime, during the whole reign of Svein Estrithson,2
Denmark was steadily growing in commercial strength ; its
markets were becoming famous among Moslem traders ;
and first among the Scandinavian kingdoms it was forming
intimate relations with the rest of Christendom. For Danish
merchants now made their way from the Baltic to the
Black Sea and the Russian upland, along the courses of
the Neva, Dvina, and Dniepr ; Scandinavian visitors were
not infrequently found at Novgorod and Kiev, as at Byzantium
and in the Mediterranean ; and in the Vaering or Varangian
body-guard of the Eastern Emperors, Russians, Norwegians,
Danes, Swedes, and English exiles found a common employ-
ment and a common field of honour and glory.

Adam's sources of information were partly oral and
partly written, and among the former we must reckon not
only his great patrons, Adalbert and Svein, but also many
lesser acquaintances, travellers whom he met at the Court of
Denmark and in the household of the Archbishop of
Bremen. Besides his patrons Adalbert and Svein, them-

1 Adam, iii. 53 ; ii. 41 [chs. 171, 84 Lappenberg].

2 A.D. 1047-1076.

522 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Oh.

selves repositories of information collected from many-
friends and visitors, we find the historian especially-
relying on an (unnamed) Danish bishop ; a Nordalbingian
noble; the companions of Bishop Adelward the Younger;
a Christian traveller who had witnessed the Pagan sacrifices
at Upsala ; William the Englishman, Bishop of Zeeland, who
had been Chancellor of Cnut the Great, and an intimate of
Svein Estrithson ; and Adelward, the Dean of Bremen,1
formerly 'Bishop of the Goths in Sweden.'

But like all men of his time, Adam put the authority of
classical writers far above this modern testimony, or the
vulgar witness of ordinary sense. He assumes that all the
regions of the North were known to the Eomans, but less
definitely, under different names ; he displays no small
anxiety to base his knowledge of Scandia upon the sure
testimony of Virgil, Lucan, and Horace ; and except for a
few writers of the age of Charlemagne and other ' Dark '
periods, his book-learning is mainly of the Julian and
Augustan time. Sallust'2 especially is employed, his style
imitated, his views and expressions introduced. Of the
early Christian or late Pagan writers he uses Macrobius3
and Capella, Solinus and Orosius, Paul the Deacon and
Gregory of Tours,4 Einhard and Bede. The Annals of
Fulda and the Deeds of the Saxons3 are responsible for.
some of Adam's history ; his general theory in physical
questions is largely derived from Bede's tract On the Nature
of Things,6 and still more from Capella's Nuptials of Philology
and Mercury? that ' fount of all science ' (in the enthusiastic

1 Adelward the Elder, as Adam
calls him.

2 As by Widukind and Lambert
of Hersfeld.

3 The Commentary on the Dream
of Scipio.

5 Really Rudolf's Translatio S.
Alexandria, wrongly ascribed to Ein-
hard by Adam.

6 Adam also uses Bede's De tern-
porinn ratione. Cf. p. 574 of this vol.

7 Especially bk. vi., On Geomitry

4 Perhaps in Fredegar's Epitome. I (including Geography).

VII.]

ADAM S LEARNING

523

language of Gregory of Tours), already accessible to Germans
in their own language by the middle of the eleventh century.
The Solinus used by him was no doubt the fifth-century
recension l with which the new title of Polyhistor was
associated. In all these respects Adam resembles other
mediaeval writers, and shows little superiority to his time,
except in a more guarded use of fabulous material.

Adam was probably ignorant of Greek, although some
Greek words occur in his work under Latin forms ; at this
time the knowledge of Greek was rare indeed among
Western Christians, and the revival of the study did not
begin till about half a century later, when William the
Monk brought a fresh stock of Greek manuscripts from
Constantinople to Paris. Yet Adam would seem to have
known something of Ptolemy, if only the shadow of that
great name which is also to be found in Cosmas,2 Cassiodorus,
the Eavennese Geographer, and iElfred the Great ; for until
the fifteenth century it is the name rather than the works
of the Alexandrian physicist which can be discerned in
Christian literature.

In particular, the geographical matter of Adam's work
may fairly be derived from these three sources of personal
knowledge, contemporary information, and writings of earlier
date, of the first century before Christ, or of the fifth, eighth,
and ninth centuries after Christ, by preference. And first,
as to his general theories, on the form of the earth and the
ocean. There are only two passages in Adam's writings
which can be said to bear upon abstract or mathematical

1 This probably contained the
Irish additions to which Mommsen
has drawn attention.

2 Cosmas Indicoplenstes, hi. 177,
182, Montfaucon ; Anon. Rav. iv. 4
[edition of Pinder and Parthey, p. 175,

lines 2, 11]. Cosmas of course is well
acquainted with the Ptolemaic system,
and most of the Christian Topography
is an attack upon its spherical and
geocentric theories.

524 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION Ch.

geography ; * one relates to the opinions of King Svein and
others on the length of the night in the island of Halaga-
land ; the other to the views of Solinus and Bede upon the
length of night and day in Thule, and the necessary in-
equality 2 in the seasons of light and darkness, arising from
the roundness of the earth, which nullified the little in-
equalities of valleys, mountains, and seas.3 Adam is quite
free from the wild theories of the northern heights behind
which the sun was hidden, although these venerable myths,
derived from Indian ' philosophers,' had enjoyed the support
of Cosmas, of the Eavennese geographer, and even of
Dicuil.4 In this also our annalist owes a measure of true
guidance to the eighth century, and especially to the
vigorous and manly work of Bede and Bishop Virgil,6
who in the midst of almost universal scientific depression
had done something to re-establish the experimental study
of nature. From the time that the great name of Bede could
be cited in its favour, the globular view of the earth had a
better chance of mediaeval acceptance ; for scientific theory
was no longer monopolised by the dangerous speculators of
the ancient world whose heathen doctrines the true Catholic
must needs suspect; and thus the naturalism which had been
confined to an insignificant minority,6 was, in the eleventh
century, already winning its way to a recognised position
and ultimate victory. As to the face of the earth and the
distribution of land and sea, Adam considers that terra firma

1 Ad. iv. 35, 37 [chs. 244, 246,
Lappenberg], and Schol. 152.

2 Demonstrated by the North-
umbrian philosopher.

6 K. Kretsehmer suggests that
before Bede the globular view of
earth was professed only by a very
small band of ' faddists' ; after

3 Bede, De rerum natura, c. 46 ; ; Hede, he seems to think it immedi-
De temporum ratione, c. 32. i ately became the creed of the majority

4 In a measure. I of learned men — rather too sudden a
s Of Salzburg. | transition.

VII.]

HARALD HARDRADAS ARCTIC JOURNEY

525

was entirely surrounded by the infinite and terrible ocean ; 1
the northern part of this ocean was covered with ice and
darkness, and was known as the frozen, glutinous, or darkling
sea ; 2 it was also conceived as ' thick ' or ' stiff' with salt, and
covered with black and aged ice, so dry as to burn in fire ;
the darkness of this region is illustrated by a story.3
Harald,4 the King of the Norsemen, and the most experi-
enced of their chiefs, not content with a life of matchless
adventure and good fortune, must needs examine the breadth
of the Northern Ocean, must even try and penetrate to the
Pole itself. Some Frisian mariners seem to have drawn
him on by reports of their extensive wanderings on the sea,
and Harald, who always ventured beyond the utmost of
other men, reached the very limit of the earth,5 and was
only saved with the utmost difficulty from falling headlong
into the depths of that ' profound chaos,' wherein the ebb of
ocean was swallowed up and again poured forth as the flow
or rising tide. Into the vortex of this appalling maelstrom
' at the darkling end of the failing world ' the reckless
Frisians (gripped by the ice and covered by the darkness)
wyere suddenly drawn ; but the ever-shifting current or
Eurvpus of the Main was so mighty and so variable, that

1 Ad. iv. 10, 34 [ohs. 217, 243,
Lappenberg]. This all-surrounding
ocean is not only a classical, bat a
German and Scandinavian tradition
prominent in the heathen mytho-
logy.

2 Adam's [a) Mare concretum,
also qualified by him as (b) caligans,
and (c) spissum a sale; (a) is com-
mon enough, a regular traditional
expression, e.g. in Capella and
Dicuil ; (b) is perhaps a Latin
translation of the Dumbshof of the
mythologies. The expression (c)
is no doubt connected with the

favourite doctrine of the scholastics
that the saltness of sea was due to
stagnation, a theory true enough as
regards lakes. The word (d) libersec,
glutinous, also applied to the northern
waters, has special reference to the
half-frozen ocean, such as exists off
much of the Lapland coast. It is
perhaps connected with the libberig
of the Bremen dialect, used in the
same sense as klcbrig.

3 Ad. iv. 38 fch. 247, Lappen-
berg].

4 Hardrada.

s ' According to report.'

526 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Ch.

while it destroyed it could also save, and while it swept
the victim down to the depths with one motion, with another
it carried him again into the upper air.

Like Macrobius, the Venerable Bede had clearly re-stated
the results of Greek science and Phoenician observation upon
the tides' ' obedience ' to the moon, yet Adam never gives us
this solution. He quotes various remarks of both these
writers x upon the phenomenon, but carefully avoids the
point.

Among the marvels of nature we find sufficiently plain
references to icebergs and a somewhat confused and symbolic
allusion to the volcanos of the Icelandic fells and the cur-
rents of the Icelandic shores. From these volcanos was
apparently procured an article of merchandise, called ' Olla
Vulcani,' '' an important item of trade at the Wendish mart
of Jumna near the mouth of the Oder.3 Here it was
known by the name of Greek fire ; and as the Greeks,
like all the ' Barbarians,' — Franks and Northmen, Slavs and
Saxons, — were well acquainted with this 'greatest of the
cities of Europe,' and frequently visited its market, the
name is scarcely to be attributed to sheer ignorance. Adam
shows far too great a knowledge of Iceland — its situation,
seasons, and commerce with Bremen — for us to suppose
that he was ignorant of its volcanos, and his allusion to
the black and burning ice near the great northern island

1 Among others, Lucan is also Geography, i. 154. This conception,
quoted. | coming from the Greek - speaking

2 'Vulcan's jar.' [ Mediterranean, perhaps explains the

3 Some have thought ' Olla ' is a I use of the term ' Greek fire ' in the
misreading for 'Wollin' at the mouth text here. On Iceland, cf. Saxo
of the Oder ; another theory derives \ Grammaticus, who calls it a place
it from 'Holle' (Hell) volcanos being j for the torture of tyrants ; one theory
constantly spoken of in the Middle I makes the 'Grerk fire ' of the text an
Ages as mouths of Hell ; cf. Willibald, expression for the torment of Greek
Hodocporicon, end (on A'ulcan's Isle Church heretics, who were numerous
in the Liparis) ; Dawn of Modem , at Jumna (or Jumne).

VIL] ADAM ON ICELAND 527

can hardly refer to anything but lava running down from
the fiery mountains to the 'frozen, dark, and burning' ocean.1

Once more, just as this Greek fire of the North may be
connected with Iceland, so we may link with the same
island the famous and obscure passage about the ' triple
Neptune,' which, with three straits, washed its shores,2 one
' green ' (or ice free), the second ' whitish ' (or ice bound), the
third ' black with fierce tempests.' It is true that the first
recorded eruption of Hekla was a little after Adam's day ; 3
but other volcanos of Iceland are known to have been
active in far earlier times, even in the ninth century, shortly
after the first settlement of the Northmen.

.Froin these allusions to abstract geography and to certain
phenomena of geographical interest, we must turn to Adam's
treatment of the countries of Northern Europe, in other
words, to his detailed topography. The unquestionable value
of the chronicler's descriptions is somewhat impaired by
his necessarily vague estimates of distance ; land-travellers
and mariners of that time had no sure means of determining
positions ; for, at the very earliest, they cannot be shown to
have used the compass before the closing years of the next
century.4 lu the case of some of the more important Northern
cities reckonings of latitude may already have been made
from the length of the longest day ; 5 but at sea the course
of ships could only be directed by empirical observations of

1 Ad. iv. 35 [ch. 244, Lappen-
berg], and Schol. 149. An apparent
misplacement of the text would seem
to imply that this ' Olla Vulcani '
was actually obtained at Jumna or
on the shore of Pomerania, but there
can be little doubt that the question
is of an article of import trade.

2 From the text (fretis alluitur ilia
insula) the reference is apparently to
Jumna, but no doubt in reality to

Iceland.

3 In the year 1104.

4 About a.d. 11 SO.

5 Thus at Roskilde such a reckon-
ing was made in 1274, and in other
cities similar computations were made
by order of the bishops, as in the
Book of Roskilde. The same reckon-
ing is used by the Sagas of Ked Eric,
etc., in estimating the position of
V inland.

528 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Ch.

the stars and of the flights of birds, such as the ravens
sacred to Odin and useful to the navigator from the
length and steadiness of their flight. Adam's usual com-
putation is by the day's journey of twelve hours,1 an
obviously uncertain measure, but assumed (on the Northern
Seas) to average about fifteen geographical miles. Still more
difficult and uncertain was such a reckoning on land ; for
there all depended on the state of roads, which in Denmark
were excellent, in Sweden poor, and in Norway and the Slav
countries of Eastern Europe almost non-existent.

It must remain doubtful how far the Northern knowledge
of the world extended in Adam's time, at least as regards
some of the more distant and obscure regions ; and it is
clear that while he preserves a notice of the Vinland or
American discoveries to the West, he has no conception of
the White Sea and Biarmaland explorations of the North-
men to the East. The Scythia of the Saxon geographer
includes the whole of Eastern and Northern Europe beyond
German limits, and comprises not only Wendland and the
modern Eussia, but sometimes Denmark, Sweden, and
Norway as well. Thus Birca in Sweden is a Scythian town,
and a great resort for Danish, Norse, and other Scythian
traders ; while Harald Hardrada, in his Byzantine service, was
constantly at war with Scythians!2 Such a use of the term
is hardly satisfactory from a geographical, historical, or
racial point of view, and it is complicated by Adam's
employment of the designation Greece, to cover all
Christians of the Eastern Church, from Eussia to Byzantium.
As to the latter, our author makes no secret of his Eoman
prejudices. The Greek schismatics, he believed, were quite

1 The same, according to Dr
Storm, Studies on the Vinland
Voyages, is the regular meaning
of the expression in all the Sagas,

the night never being included.

2 Cf. Ad. i. 62, 64 ; iii. 12 [chs.
47, 49, 130, Lappenberg]. See also
Schols. 63, 64.

VII.]

ADAM ON BALTIC NATIONS

529

as far removed from the Christian Faith as the Barbarians,1
and he feared that they would some day be the leaders in
the seduction of all Christendom, in that dark hour when
Antichrist would triumph, when Gog and Magog would
rage against the saints, and when the Lord would send fire
upon all those who dwelt at ease on the islands.'2 This time
of trial Adam sometimes considered to be very near ; the
end of the first millennium, and the tyranny of Harald
Hardrada, were both suggestive of the accomplishment of
the Reign of Evil, after a thousand years ; and although in
each case the fulness of time had not arrived, there were
many signs that the last day was at hand. For one thing,
the Slavs were now all going back to idolatry ; and no long
time before the historian wrote, the city of Hamburg had
been destroyed 3 by its Pagan enemies.

As to the Scandinavian peoples, Adam's language is
confused and uncritical ; he is content to identify them all
with the ancient Hyperboreans; and in the spirit of classical
and mediaeval philology he mingles together Goths and
Getae, Danes and Dacians, Swedes and Suevi. The last-
named, according to the powerful testimony of Orosius and
Solinus, once occupied the greater part of Germany, and
their rough mountainous country stretched far into Scythia
up to the Biphaean Hills.

The Bremen geographer is the first author of Latin
Europe to give us the (Slavonic ?) name of ' Baltic/ 4 but he has

1 Under the name of Barbarians,
Adam sometimes groups all who are
not of the Latin Church, both Pagans
and Greek Christians.

- Ad. i. 28 [ch. 22, Lappenberg];
cf. Ezekiel xxxix. 6.

3 An earlier fulfilment of the
prophecy of Ezekiel is seen by Adam
i 28 [ch. 22, Lappenberg], in the

capture of Borne by the Goths, a.d.
410. Ezekiel's words are specially
connected with the supposed mean-
ing of islands attached to the word
Magog.

4 Almost certainly from Bieli
(white), though most Latins con-
nected it with Battens, ' a belt. ' In
Lithuanian the name is ' Sulfas.'

2 L

530 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Ch.

somewhat distorted notions of its shape, and consequently of
the Scandinavian peninsula, island, or archipelago ; for in
treating of this vast region the writer commonly hovers
between these three conceptions.1 In one passage, however, he
frankly surrenders himself to the influence of the personal
testimony of ' some who knew the country well,' and asserts
roundly that the Baltic was entirely encompassed by land.
His informants declared that they had been overland all the
way from Sweden to ' Greece,' and but for the barbarism of
the peoples dwelling on this route, not so many would be
found to brave the dangers of the sea passage. In other
words, men preferred to cross the Baltic sooner than pass
through the Finnish tribes of the Eastern shorelands.

It is strange that on the question of the Northern
Euxine, where Adam had abundant information from
Danish and other contemporaries who had sailed over a
great part of it,2 he yet attaches so much importance to the
traditions of ancient writers usually destitute of all first-
hand information or original value. At the same time, he
does not neglect (as some would have done) the true
guidance that offered itself ; he only weakens, he does not
obliterate it by his traditions; and herein3 we have an
excellent example of his method and a good illustration of
his characteristic merits and defects. Martianus Capella
declared that the Maeotid Marsh, washing the Scythian shore or

1 As was the case with his more , Sueonia even to Greece']. On the

ignorant ' Authorities ' of antiquity ; j other hand, Adam makes Halagland

several of these made Scandinavia a : or Heiligiand (Halogaland) a separate

group of isles ; Ptolemy drew it as island from Scandinavia, and groups

one large island; with Adam begins it with A'inland, iv. 10, 37, 38 [chs.

the tendency towards the true or 217, 246-247, Lappenberg].

peninsular conception, iv. 15 [ch. - At least as far as the Gulf of

222, Lappenberg. ' Some w-ell ac- Finland to the north-east,

quainted with the localities assert I 3 Viz. in the Baltic question,
that men have gone overland, from

VII.] ADAM ON THE BALTIC 531

desert of the Getae, was the limit of that fourth gulf of Europe,
which commenced at the Hellespont; this Marsh, according
to the same authority, was itself a hay of the Northern
Ocean; and Adam is evidently disposed to think1 that the
Baltic (otherwise the Eastern, Barbarian, or Scythian Gulf)
formed the connection between the Marsh in question and
the Northern Seas, which by these channels might be said
to encircle Scythia. Einhard, the biographer of Charlemagne,
is also regarded as an important authority here; true, he had
given no name to this long and narrow gulf, which stretched
for an unknown distance from west to east,2 while in breadth
it never exceeded a hundred miles ; but in the main
his description 3 is quoted and adopted, without dispute
in some places, and with slight modification in others. In
the spirit of his teacher, Adam places Birca in Gothic
Sweden, just opposite the town of Jumna and the mouth of
the Oder, and declares that the breadth of the Baltic from
South to North was very moderate, and that the length had
never been properly computed. Yet the Bremen chronicler
is aware that the Baltic was not entirely confined to a main
channel running due east and west, but that it threw out
arms or branches far and wide ; he was also aware that its
breadth increased as it penetrated into the Continent. Once
more, the vague dogmatism of Einhard upon the ' unknown
length ' of the gulf (though confirmed by King Harald 4 of
Norway and Ganuz Wolf the Dane) is corrected by the
narrative of some Danish mariners, who themselves related
how with a favourino; breeze thev had s;one in a month from

1 On the Baltic cf. Ad. iv. 10,
11, 16, and 20 [chs. 217, 218, 223,
229, Lappenberg], which last follows
Capella and Einhard more doubtfully,
and Schols. 115, 117, 121. The
quotations are mostly from Einhard's
Life of Charles the Great, ch. 12,

a ' Above the Maeotid Marsh.'

3 Ignoring the northern bend of
the inland sea. as a whole.

4 Har.liada, who had in vain
attempted to reckon the size
(whether the area or the volume
is not clear) of the Baltic.

532 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Ch.

their own country to Ostrogard in Russia.1 Around the
Baltic Adam groups — correctly enough — a number of peoples
and races:2 Danes, on the southern shore towards Saxony;
Slavs, within and without the diocese s of Hamburg, from
the Elbe to the Oder ; Pomeranians, Poles, and Wends,
beyond the Oder ; Eussians in the Far East ; Northmen and
Swedes on the North. The kingdom of Eussia, or ' Euzzia,'
he regards as the most distant and extensive province of
the Wends, terminating the Baltic Gulf on the East ; to the
north of Eussia, and in the north-east coiner of the Baltic,
he seems to place the Land of Women (or of Amazons) and
the home of the Turks, perhaps supposed to lie between
Eussia and Sweden.

Adam was well aware that the Baltic joined the Western,
Britannic, or German Sea, itself a part of the all-encircling
and infinite ocean, by which men could sail round from
Scandinavia to the Byzantine lands ; one section of this
journey, the passage from Denmark to England, might be
made in three days with a favourable wind.4 To the south
of the Britannic Sea was Saxony (itself bounded on the
south by the Rhine, as ' Slavia ' by the Elbe) and Frisia,
sometimes reckoned as a part of Saxony ; to the west were
the Britons ; to the east Danes and Northmen ; to the north
the Orkneys and Iceland, ' at the extremity of the world';
thence the encompassing ocean flowed westward by Ireland,

1 On the Baltic investigations of
Harold Hardrada and Ganuz Wolf,
cf. Ad. iv. 11 [ch- 218, Lappenberg],
and Schol. 116 on Ruzzia and
Ostrogard.

2 On the peoples of the Baltic
littoral, cf. Ad. ii. 16; iv. 12, 13,
14 [chs. 62, 220-222, Lappenherg].

3 Parruchia. Among smaller Slav
tribes Adam mentions Wilzi and
Leuticii immediately west of the

Oder ; with the Turks he couples the
Slavonic Wizzi, Lami, and Scuta.

4 On the Western Ocean or North
Sea in general, cf. Ad. ii. 50; cf.
also, iv. 10 ; iii. 70 [chs. 89, 217,
201, Lappenberg], the last especially
refers to Adalbert's projected
journey to Denmark, Sweden, Nor-
way, the Orkneys and Iceland, from
which Svein Estrithson dissuaded
him.

VII.] ADAM ON THE NORTHERN OCEAN 533

eastward by Norway. The northern part of the sea was
called the Ocean of Darkness, and the chief islands herein
were Thule, Gronland,1 Halagland,2 and Vinland, all
apparently supposed to lie due north of Norway, close to the
edges of the abyss. But even in these distant lands (where
Adam remarks on the 'wild vines and self-sown wheat' of
Vinland), and in regions nearer home, he does not merely
give us a list of names, but he clothes these dry bones
with something of a body. For in most of the countries he
touches on he has many a detail to tell us about the soil
and its products, the animals and the people of various
regions, their mode of life, their language, and their real
or supposed relationship to other races ; in all this he is
constantly reminding us of his superiority to the common
mediaeval writer.

So far, we have followed Adam in his treatment of
Northern lands from two centres, or geographical points
of vantage, — the Baltic and the North Sea ; but his most
elaborate descriptions are compiled from a third — his own
town of Bremen and country of Saxony. A good deal of
repetition, and even contradiction, is caused by this continual
re-arrangement of his scheme, probably due to revision of
his material at different periods ; but repetitions and con-
tradictions are notes of mediaeval literature. As to Saxony,
he is content to repeat from Einhard that it contained no
small part of the German lands,3 and was bounded by Frisia
on the west, by Franconia and Thuringia on the south,
by Normania on the north, and by the country of the
Obodritae on the east. It is equally curious that he says
nothing of the Harz Mountains, unless he includes them

1 Greenland.

2 Halagaland or Halogaland.

3 Ad. i. 1-5, from Einhard, Life of
Charles, 15 ; cf. also, Ad. ii. 19,

[chs. 1-4, C6, Lappenberg], the last
mainly concerned with the Slavonic
peoples to the East of Saxony as far
as Kiev ' Chive.'

534 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Ch.

in the ' few hills ' that broke the Saxon plain. The rivers
of this region, and especially the Elbe, now maintained
(according to Adam) a large ship traffic ; but the province
grew no vines ; and here we have no doubt an allusion
to other German districts whose wine was already famous.
From his own observation, or theory, he adds the comparison
of Saxony to a triangle, one angle stretching south to the
Rhine, another north to the country of Hadelohe, the third
east beyond the Elbe.1 But the province is not always
defined in the same manner ; for both a wider and a narrower
conception of Saxonia occur ; in the latter sense, it is
bounded eastward by the Elbe ; 2 in the former it reaches
beyond that stream and includes the Nordalbingians and
the Slavonic Sorabi, whose land stretched far into Altmark.
Officially, however, the eastern border of the Saxon land
was defined with sufficient clearness by Charles the Great
and later Emperors ; and this border is minutely described
by Adam, from its ' southern ' point on the Elbe, near
Lauenburg, to its ' northern ' on the Baltic, near the Bay
of Kiel. The details here given may have been drawn from
an old map at Bremen or elsewhere, in the Bishop's library,
or the Chapter archives ; but if so, the map in question
cannot have been very scientific. Eor Adam's sketch
distorts Nordalbingia no less than Saxony ; and as the
latter has the Rhine for its southern boundary, so the
former has the Elbe.

To the west, beyond the Wapling Marsh3 and the

1 Acl. i. 1 [ch. 1, Lappenberg].
From angle to angle was a journey
of three days, except for the part
beyond the Elbe, where the Sorabi
lived, the Xordalbingians dwelling
on this side of the river.

2 As in Einhard. On the wider
sense, ef. Schol, 19, which speaks of

the Sorabi between the Elbe and Sala,
and ' others ' of this tribe as living
even beyond the Ara in Altmark.
Perhaps this was a result of know-
ledge acquired by Adam during his
residence in Magdeburg.
3 The modern river Wapel.

VII.]

ADAM ON SAXONY AND SLAVONIA

535

mouths of the river Wirraha, Saxonia was bordered or
continued by Frisia, a maritime region inaccessible from
its pathless marshes.1 Orosius had said the same thing
about Saxony itself, but Adam knew the country too well
to endorse the statement for his own time ; woods and
marshes are indeed features in his picture of this region,
cutting off one parrochia or one mark from another, but the
province, as a whole, watered by three large rivers,2 is no
longer a 'pathless waste.' The chronicler touches with a
light hand, and apparently with little interest, the geography
of Western countries. His eye is fixed on the wild and
little known regions to the east and north, and in this
characteristic, rare enough in later times, and extremely
remarkable in a German ecclesiastic of the eleventh century,
lies no small part of his value to the modern reader.

To the East of Saxony, Slavonia or Slavania is defined
as the most extensive province of Germany, inhabited by
Vandals, Wends,3 or Winuli, lying between Elbe and Oder,
and shut in by strong barriers of woodland, marsh, or river.
Reckoning with it the countries of the cognate Poles and
Bohemians, who lived on the other side of the Oder, used
the same language, and were characterised by the same
habits, it was fully ten times greater than Saxony. East-
ward it stretched infinitely ffPr to Hungary,4 Bulgaria,4 and
' Greece ' (or the Lands of the Eastern Church) ; its breadth
was measured from the Elbe to the Baltic, from south to
north ; and on its western extremity it touched the central
districts of the "reat diocese of Hainburg-and- Bremen. It

1 Sch. 3, which gives to Frisia 47
'pagi,' and adds to the other boun-
daries mentioned in the text, the
marsh of Emisgoe and the Ocean.

2 The Elbe, Wisurges, and Emisa.

3 Tho name Winuli seems to occur

first in Aclain, and is perhaps his vari-
ation of the common form Winedi
or Ve.ne.ti. Winuli qui olim Wandali,
ii. 13 [ch. t>4, Lappenbei'g].
4 Uhgria and Beguaria.

536 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Ch.

was divided in two parts by the river Peene or Panis,1 and
the Western Slavs on 'this' side of the stream2 belonged to
the jurisdiction of Hamburg. It was of these Western Slavs,
near Magdeburg and Hamburg, that Adam knew most ; he
was less acquainted with those between the middle Elbe and
Oder ; he had but a vague idea of the trans-Oder nations.
Yet the trade of Bremen with Jumna and other Baltic
havens had spread a certain knowledge even of these more
distant races, and Adam is perhaps not free from the common
tendency of reserving his highest admiration for the remote,
obscure, and strange. The 'noble city' of Jumna3 was
strongly hostile to the Faith ; and Saxons were only allowed
to live there if they dissembled their Christianity, and did not
insist on practising the rites of the Church in public. But
so notable a store of merchandise was there to be found,
and so many rarities could only be obtained in its market,
that peoples of every nation and climate flocked to it.
From Hamburg and the mouth of the Elbe was seven
days' journey by land ; and on the other side men took ship
from Jumna eastwards to the Land of the Prussians4 and

1 On the divisions of Slavania and
the river Panis, cf. Ad. ii. 18 ; iii.
18 [chs. 64, 137, Lappenberg], the
last on the progress of Christianity
beyond the Elbe ; Giesebreeht and
Lappenberg, in their controversy
abont Adam's Slavonia, seem to ignore
this division by the river Panis.

2 As to whom Adam's detailed de-
scriptions contrast forcibly with his
meagre and obscure notices of the more
distant Slavs. What he says of the
latter is generally introduced with a
dicitur. Of course the pagan Slavs
were really outside his province, as
historian of the Church of Hamburg.

3 Called Jumneta by Helmondius, i.
2 ; it must have been on the site of, or

near to, the modern Swinemilnde or
Wbllin, at the mouth of the Oder.
Here the products of Byzantium,
and even perhaps some of India,
were to be found ; cf. Heyd, Com-
merce du Levant, i. 77-7S ; St'oixm,
Gemcilde des russischen Iteichs, iv. 45.
4 On the Province (miscalled isle)
of Semland ( = Zemlya ?), and the
other Baltic islands adjoining the
Slav coasts, cf. Ad. iv. 18 [ch. 225,
Lappenberg]. On the Vistula, cf.
Ad. i. 2 ; ii. 78 [chs. 2, 117, Lappen-
berg]. Einhaid, Life of Charles, 15.
The name Wissula, Wisara, or Visula
( = Vistula.) is applied by Adam not
only to the great Wendish river, but
also to the Saxon stream "Weser or

YII.] ADAM ON SLAVONIA. PRUSSIANS, AND RUSSIANS 537

the Russian pori of Ostrogarcl, a voyage of fourteen days.
Adam knows nothing except the name of the Vistula, but
he has a good deal to say about the Prussians. The island
of Semland or Samland, which they inhabited, was on the
borders of the Poles and Russians ; and as a people they
were beyond dispute the most humane of mankind, ever
ready to assist ship-wrecked mariners, setting little value on
gold and silver, but much on their store of furs, and especially
on their marten skins, which they bartered for articles of
clothing.1 Excellent in all other respects, they had a fierce
hatred of Christianity, guarding their sacred groves and
fountains with jealous care against the approach of visitors.
They were blue-eyed, red-faced, and hirsute in appearance ;
their food was horse-flesh ; their drink mares' milk or even
blood ; and their government was utterly democratic, for they
endured no lordship among themselves. In all this Adam
is perhaps (like Tacitus) contrasting the savage virtues of
a primitive ideal with the civilised corruptions of a more
' refined ' society.2

Ruzzia or Russia, the last and greatest province of the
Wends, called Osirogard by the barbarous or pagan Danes,
and by some others Hmigard or Ghungard (as being the
original home of the Huns) is described by our author
as one might speak of a fertile garden,3 abounding with every
good thing.4 The metropolis of the country was the proud,

Visurgcs [ii. 78 ; ch. 117, Lappen-
berg], while Einhard likewise appears
to interchange these terms.

1Adam especially mentions the
women's garments called faldones or
feldr.

2 In this connection we may notice
the journeys of the famous merchant
Vidgaut of 'Samland,' who travelled
widely in the Russian plains, c. a.d.

ships, which, according to A dam him-
self, frequented the Swedish mark of
Birca ; ef. Ral'n, Antiquilcs russes,
ii. 134, etc. ; Adam in Pertz, M.G.
SS. vii. 305 ; and Heyd, Commerce
die Levant, i. 75-76.

3 The Scholiast, 116, expressly calls
it so.

4 Adam, iv. 11, 13, 19, and Schs.
63, 118, 116, on Ruzzia and Ostro-

1110-1120, as well as the 'Samland' i gard [olis. 66, 218, 221, Lappen-

538 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Oh.

ambitions Kiev or ' Chive,' emulous of the sceptre of Con-
stantinople, that brightest glory of Greece.

All these nations beyond the Oder, — Pomeranians, Poles,
Prussians, Bohemians, and Russians, — are included in Adam's
' Slavonia ' in the wider sense of that word ; for (as in the
case of Saxony) his use of the term varies greatly in ex-
tension.1 On the other hand, it is in the narrower sense
that he is speaking, when he tells us that Churches had been
set up everywhere in Slav-land, and that the country was
divided into eighteen districts.2 There are few mediaeval
subjects more confusing than the distribution of the Slavonic
peoples and their proper nomenclature. For although their
tribes appear to have been fixed in their habitations, they
have all the evasiveness of Nomade races, through the in-
cessant combinations and dissolutions of national groups.

Through the cloud of names and details given by Adam,
in his detailed summary of the South Baltic Slavs, we may
discern the definite existence of this race in Eastern
Holstein,3 in the islands of Eehmarn and Btigen, in Mecklen-
burg, in East and West Prussia, and in Pomerania. The
people of Piiigen, near Jumna and the mouth of the Panis,
were unique4 in their valour and their enjoyment of kingly
government ; they were powerful, piratical,5 and fiercely

berg]. The extreme aptness of

Adam's reference to Kiev or ' Chive '

and its ambitions needs no emphasis.

1 For the wider sense, cf. Ad. ii.

Sch. 117 [chs. 225, 226, Lappenberg].
Kugen was not far from Jumna.

5 Like the men of Fehmam or
Fembre, of. the Inibra or Fembra of

13, 19; iv. 13; for the narrower, | Ad. iv. 16, 18 [chs. 223, 225,

ii. 24, 40, 46-47, 69 ; iii. 19 [chs. | Lappenberg]. Fehmarn is called

60, 66, 221, 69, 138, 83, 86-87, 105, I Imbra on a chart of the fourteenth

Lappenberg]. ! century. Elsewhere, ii. 19 [ch. 66,

2 Perhaps the sub-divisions of the i Lappenberg], Adam seems to place
diocese of Oldenburg. the Runi, Rugi, or Riigen folk at

3 About the modern Oldenburg and the mouth of the Panis, — in kostio
the port of Heiliuenhafen. Peanis fluvii, — adjoining the town of

4 Among the Slavs. Ad. iv. 18, and Dimine. He is the first to locate

VII.]

ADAM ON SLAVONIA AND SCANDINAVIA

539

pagan ; later writers celebrate their devotion to trade, and
notice the resort of fishermen to their island in the November
of each year. The town of Retra, four days' journey from
Hamburg, and apparently situated between the Oder and
the Panis, was the capital of the chief Slavonic tribe and
the metropolis of all the Slavs ; and here was a famous idol-
temple, where a Christian bishop named John had paid with
his life for his ill-timed preaching.1

Adam quits Slavonia with a short reference to the Oder,
that greatest of Slavonic rivers, which rose in the depths of
forests like the Elbe, and near its source was not so far re-
moved from the latter, though in its lower course it diverged
widely. The chronicler now passes to Scandinavia, the next
great division of his topography, which he considers as ; almost
wholly divided into islands,' but already grouped in three
great realms, federations, or peoples, — of Norway, Sweden,
and Denmark. Of these he takes the last first, probably as
the nearest to his home, and as one of the lands with which
he was most intimately acquainted. It was bounded to the
south by the Eyder,2 and was severed from Norway by the
strait called Otto's Sound? where the; Restorer of the Empire

this tribe ; Widukincl (iii. 54), is the
first to mention them. No tribe of
Slavs was more celebrated in the
twelfth - century chroniclers. On
Magnopolis, ciuitas inclita Obodri-
torum, and the Mecklenburg Slavs,
cf. Ad. iii. 20, 19, 50 [chs. 13S,
139, 166, 167, Lappenberg] ; ibid, for
Razzisburg or Razzispurg and other
cities of the Obodriti. The Lingones,
beyond the Obodriti, mentioned by
Adam, occur in the ninth-century
Annals of Fulda. At the mouth of
the Panis was the town of Limine.

1 Ad. iii. 50 [ch. 167, Lappen-
berg]. The temple was dedicated to

Rcdigast, the Riedegost of Thietmar,
vi. 17 ; it seems to have been on an
island in a lake or marsh.

2 As fixed by the Emperor Conrad
and by Cnut the Great. The region
between the Eyder [cf. iv. 1, ch. '208,
Lappenberg], and the gulf and March
of Slia (or the Sleswig March) divided
Denmark from Saxony and Nordal-
bmgia. This strip of German territory
was now possessed by Denmark ; Ad.
ii. 3, 54 [chs. 50, 93, Lappenberg].

3 la cum unguium, qui JVendila
dicitur, Adam, iv. 1 [ch. 208, Lappen-
berg]. In iv. 16 [ch. 223, Lappen-
berg]. Wendila is an island.

540 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Ch.

made his way to the Northern Sea at the extremity of
Jutland.1 The wood of Isarnho in which the Eyder rose
was a more effectual wall of partition between Germany
and Denmark than the river ; to the south-east the forest
stretched away to the Slav town of Liubicen, or Old
Lubeck.

Jutland is characterised by Adam (almost in the terms
of a modern handbook) as sterile, the soil thickly impreg-
nated with salt, the population thin and scattered ; its only
towns of any note lay upon inlets of the sea.2 From one
of its three chief ports called Sliaswig or Schleswig, ships
sailed to Slavonia, Sweden, Semland, and ' Greece ' (in which
Ostrogard or Eussia is obviously included) ; from another,
Eipa, men journeyed to Frisia, England, and Saxony ; from
Aarhus was the route to Norway and the Danish Isles,
the chief of which was ' Seland ' or Zealand, in the depths
of the Baltic, containing the royal seat of the Danish Kings
at Eoskilde 3 and the gold hoards of the Vikings.4 Thence
one might look across to Scania or the southernmost and
peninsular province of Sweden, then reckoned as the 'last
part ' of Denmark.5 Finally, among these outlying Dane-
1 At Lymfiord, the modern Vend

syssel ; cf. Saxo Grammaticus, bk. x.,
Sch. 95. Jutland is Dania cis-nvirina
in Adam. ii. 3 ; iv. 1 [clis. 50, 208,
Lappenberg]. Dania trans-marina
includes the Danish Isles and Scania.
In Adam, iv.5 [ch. 212, Lappenberg],
a number of distance-reckonings are
given between Seland or Zealand,
Jutland, Fune, Scania, Aarhus, Lund-
(ona), and the Strait of Norway (the
Kattegat) on the north, as well as
to the Sinus Slavonicus on the south.
2 E.g. the three Bishoprics of Slias-
wig (Schleswig), Ripa, and Aarhus,
cf. Bede, Hist. Ecc. i. 15 ; Adam, i.
27, 59, 61 ; ii. 3, 34 ; and iv. 1 [chs.

21, 46-47, 50, 77, 208, Lappenberg].
Sliaswig was named from the arm of
the Baltic called Mia on which it
stood ; its harbour was also named
Heidaba. Very little is added to
Adam's description of Jutland by
Helmoldus, Saxo Grammaticus, and
Arnold the Slav chronicler, except
that the latter places the Amazons
here.

3 ' Roscbild' or ' Roschald' in Adam.

4 Of Copenhagen, or Hafnia, Adam
says nothing. Saxo Grammaticus, c.
a.d. 1180, is the first to mention it ;
cf. Ad. iv. 5, 6 [chs. 212, 213,
Lappenberg].

5 Ad. iv. 7 [ch. 214, Lappenberg].

VII.] ADAM ON DENMARK, NORWAY, ETC. 541

lands, besides Bornholm l (Holmus or Hulmo) in the Baltic,
famous as a good harbour for ships on their way to ' Greece '
and the Barbarian lands of the East, comes Helgoland or
Heligoland2 in the North Sea, confused by Adam with one
of the Frisian islets, and identified with the old cyclic story
of a country ever shrinking before the storms of ocean.3

And now, passing beyond the Danish Isles, ' another
world,' in our chronicler's imagination, was revealed in
Sweden and Norway, ' extensive regions of the north
hitherto almost unknown,' where King Svein, the son of
Estrith, for twelve years had fought and journeyed. From
his report of the land, if that might be trusted, it was certain
no one could traverse Norway in less than one month, or
Sweden 4 in less than two ; but in this reckoning the Danish
Scania is not included ; the latter was commonly assumed
to extend to the narrow, hilly, wooded neck of land called
Smaland, beyond which ' Grothia ' and ' Suedia ' began.

At the very end of the world, stretching into the
extremest region of the north, was the mountainous and
infertile Norway, commencing at the ' prominent rocks '
overhanging the Baltic Straits, and then bending backwards
towards the Pole, and encircling the shore of ocean with its
winding coasts, till at the Riphaean Hills, covered with
eternal snow, it ceased together with the weary earth
itself.

1 Ad. iv. 8, 16 [chs. 215, 223,
Lappenberg],

2 Otherwise 'Fohr' or 'Farria,'
Adam, iv. 3, and Sell. 104 [eh. 216,
Lappenberg]. The older name of
Foietisland is also given by Adam,
who places it near to Frisia or
Wisara, three days' rowing- voyage
from England, over against Hadeloa
or Efadcln, to the south of the Elbe
estuary. Its length, according to

Adam, was now scarcely eight miles,
its breadth four.

3 A story also associated with
Taprobane in Solinus, etc.

4 This lesser Sweden included the
whole region between 56J° and 62°
N. Lat., and for this Svein's estimate
is not excessive. Cf. on Scandinavia,
Ad. ii 22, 23 ; iv. 24, 25, 30, 81,
32 [chs. 68 69, 232-233, 239-241,
Lappenberg] ; and Schs. 122-132,

542 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Ch.

In his ' Sweden,' a land rich in cereals and honey, richest
of all in cattle, Adam follows carefully the local divisions
of 'Svithiod' and 'Gauthiod,'1 — the former including the
region about Lake Malar, the cradle of the Swedish king-
dom, and separated from the latter by the marshy depression
in which Lakes Wener and Wettern lie. Among the towns
of Sweden the most notable were Birca and Upsala,2 of
which the former, in the 'middle' of the country, looked
straight across the Baltic towards Jumna ; for, as we have
seen, Adam's conception of the Northern Pontus requires a
main direction east and west, though allowing for an arm
or branch which tended towards the Pole. To this Birca,
perhaps the Isle of Bjorko in Lake Malar, resorted Danes,
Northmen, Slavs, Sembi, and other Scythian peoples en-
gaged in commerce, all attracted thither by its admirable
position, almost equi-distant from every Baltic coast.3
Upsala, or Ubsola, accounted a holy city (just as Birca was
reckoned a leading market), and possessing a famous heathen
temple, where Odin, Thor, and Freya were appeased with
human sacrifice, is but slightly noticed in the Bremen

Much of this is from Solinus, chs. 15,
17, 30 ; Paul the Deacon, History of
the Lombards, i. 5 ; and Martianus
Capella, 663, 666, 683. As to its
chief town Trondhjem (Nidaros), and
the routes from Norwaythither, Adam
gives us nothing of special value.

1 Except that 'Gauthiod' is pushed
by Adam a little too far north, and
Sudermania included in it; iv. 21.
and Sch. 126 ; cf. also iii. 14 [chs.
132, 230, Lapp.]. The river Goth-
Elba, the Albis or Elbe of Scandi-
navia, flowing 'through the midst of
the Gothic peoples ' into the ocean,
on whose right were Goths and Danes,
and on whose left Northmen only, is
the modern Gotha-Elf.

2 Ad. iv. 20, 26, 28 ; i. 62 ; Sch.
121 [chs. 47, 229, 234, 236, Lapp.].
The Gothic capital Scarane (the
modern Skaraborg) near Lake Wener,
ii. 56, maybe added. Adam divides
Gothia into Wcstra-Gothia and Ostro-
Gothia, the former lying nearest to
Scania, the latter stretching to the
neighbourhood of Birca.

3 E.g. from Scania, five days, from
'Ruzzia' (Ostrogard), five. Its great-
ness seems to have ended about 1220,
when it was sacked by Esthonian
pirates ; but even in the twelfth
century Visby, in Gothland, had al-
ready quite eclipsed Birca ; cf. Ad. Sch.
138." On Upsala, cf. Ad. iv. 26, 27, 28
[chs. 234-237, Lappenberg],

VII.]

ADAM ON SWEDEN AND NORWAY

543

Annalist ; yet brief as are his words, Adam seems not un-
mindful of the unique position of the city, the first true
centre of Swedish nationality, one of the most ancient
homes of Northern letters, and even more sacred (and so
more prominent) in Pagan than in Christian times.

Between Norway and Sweden, but to the north of the
latter, Adam places various Finnish tribes inhabiting the
western parts of Halland and reaching down to the Gulf
of Bothnia, the ' Scrito-Finns ' of several mediaeval writers.1
Still farther towards the north-east lived pagan ' North-
men,' of monstrous life and visage, and given to magic
and incantations, by which they could even draw great
fish out of the sea. Their dwarfish stature, bearded women,
huntsmen's habits, and rare and precious furs — black fox,
black hare, white marten, and so forth — are suggestive (in
Adam's description) of the Lapp branch of that great Finnish

1 Of. Ad. iv. 24, 25 [chs. 232-233,
Lappenberg] ; Saxo Grammaticus,
Historia Daniae, bk. i. , Pref. ; Paul
the Deacon, i. 5, who explains the
term 'Scrito-Finns' by the German
word, sehreiten {stride), probably refer-
ring to the movements of these people
on snow-shoes ; of. the proverb Die
Sonne scheint, der Sehnee fallt, dar
Finne schreitet. Weinhold, Att-Nor-
dischcs Leben, p. 307, and Peschel,
Erdkunde, p. 88. Saxo places Hel-
singland, the capital of the Skrik-
Finns, or Scrito-Finns, on the west
coast of the Gulf of Bothnia. In iv.
25 [ch. 233, Lappenberg], Adam
repeats q summary of the boiders and
neighbours of Sweden ; to the south
the Baltic, to the north the Scrito-
Finns, to the east the Riphaean Hills,
etc.

The Ravennese Geographer (c. a.i>.
650) places the ' patria Scirdifen-
norum et Rerefennorum ' in a cold

hilly country on the Scythian Ocean
(iv. 12 ; edition by Pinder and Parthey,
p. 201 ) ; even Procopius, in the middle
of the sixth century, had heard the
name of the ' Sorithiphins,' Anccdota,
edition by Isambert, 1856, p. 602; King
iElfred (c. a.d. 890) has much more
definite knowledge of the ' Scrida-
finnas,' and in the 'Geography of
Europe,' which he adds to Orosius,
evidently means to place them in our
Lapland ; while Olaus Magnus, five
centuries after Adam of Bremen,
describes ' Scricfinnia ' as the land
between Finmark and Biarmia {e.g.
between Hammerfest and Archangel :
cf. Historia de gentibus septen-
trionalibus, i. 4. "With this agrees
Sebastian Cabot's world-map of 1544,
and Gerard Mercator's map of Russia
in his 1 595 Atbis. See also Hakluyt,
Voyages, i. p. 2S3 (edition of 1598-
1600).

544 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Ch.

stock which in the eleventh century covered all the north
of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, from the Latitude of
Novgorod. As to some of these Hyperborean peoples, ancient
wisdom had recorded that many virtues long since driven
out of the civilised world still lingered anion" these 'out-
casts,' and this tradition the historian did not venture
wholly to reject ; unhappily, he knew the Danes too well
to suppose that vice was absent from their nature. Of
Swedes and Norwegians1 he knew less, and so thought more.
Their temperance and devotion he declared were alike
marvellous ; their life was patriarchal and ' most noble ' ;
untouched by luxury, and living in a bracing, barren, and
hilly country, they were the bravest of men in war and the
most righteous in peace ; the faults of piracy and passion
were alone to be recorded.2 Thus in many ways these
Arctic races (like the Prussians) are idealised by the Bremen
chronicler, as the Old Germans had been by the moralising
criticism of Tacitus, eager to find a contrast to the wicked-
ness of a luxurious society. Yet even here Adam does
not surrender himself altogether to romance ; and he
carefully distinguishes between the more prosperous and
settled families of the Scandinavian farming class, who

1 Northmanni, Ad. iv. 30, 31
[chs. 239, 240, Lappenberg]. Ma-
sudi also refers to the black fox skins
which the Arabs brought from the
Northern peoples. Among other furs
Adam mentions the skins of the
white bear and urus (both of which
lived under water), and of the bubalus,
elax, and bison, iv. 31, end.

In iv. 25 [ch. 233, Lappenberg],
Adam describes the strong, agile,
dwarfish people of the Far North,
evidently Finnish Lapps, but un-
named, about whom King Svein had
told him ; their home was in moun-

tains, but they incessantly ravaged
the lowlands.

2 On the peoples, manners, etc., of
Scandinavia and Prussia, cf. Ad. iv.
IS, 21, 22-24, 25, 26, 27, 30, 31
[chs. 225-227, 230-235, 239-240, Lap-
penberg], and Schs. 118, 123, 125,
134, 135, 137. The virtues of the
Prussians, as Adam thought, had
been celebrated by Horace under
the name of Getae (Ad. iv. 18).
The one fault of the Swedes was in
midierum copula modum nesciunt,
iv. 21 [ch. 230, Lappenberg].

VII.]

EACES OF THE FAR NORTH

545

lived by tillage, the poor herdsmen, who eked out their
subsistence by piracy, and the barbarous hunters and
trappers of the furthest "North, whose lands stretched away
eastward to those Riphaean Mountains where they chased
their prey over the snow 1 with marvellous agility and
strength. Near the regions of the last-named an ancient
and reliable tradition (which had been lately verified beyond
possibility of doubt by Adam's contemporaries) placed the
Amazons, the Cyclopes, and other monstrous races, as well
as the more human Turks and Alans ; in all this there is
an evident confusion of traditions derived, on one side, from
the Caucasus, on the other, from the Ural Mountains and the
Central Asian Plains.

Under the title of ' remote islands ' in the Baltic, Cour-
land and Esthonia'2 are also noticed as possessions of Sweden ;
both were inhabited by cruel pagans ; and while the former
was not far from the Great Scandinavian market of Birca,

1 'On strange vehicles' (vehieuli)
adds Saxo, Preface, and bk. ii.,
evidently alluding to the snow-shoes
of the Lapps. On these subjects
Adam may have learnt something
from Bishop Adelward of Skaraborg,
who told him about the Terra
Feminarum of the Northern Ama-
zons, etc. ; cf. Ad. iii. 15 ; iv. 14,
19, 25 ; Sch. 119 [chs. 134, 222, 228,
233, Lappenberg]. Whether or no
the proper derivation of ' Cwenland '
is from the 'Quaines' or 'Cayani,'
as some have thought, the Cwens
were doubtless a branch of the
Finnish stock ; their country cer-
tainly lajr upon the Gulf of Bothnia
(called after them the Cwen Sea),
and towards the northern angle of
the same. They are usually distin-
guished by mediaeval geographers
from the Lapps or Ter-Finns ; but

the}' were certainly of the same race.
The legend of a tribe of Finnish
Amazons, living separate from men,
is based on a misunderstanding of
the name of ' Cwen ' ( : Woman '). To
perpetuate the race these female
warriors were said by the wilder
mythologists to associate at fixed
intervals with the Cynocephali of
the furthest North, monsters often
hunted by the Russians, according to
some veracious annalists ; cf. iEthicus
of Istria, edition by Wuttke, pi. 15.
J. R. Forster, Entdecku nyen in Norden ,
p. 75, was the first to show how the
Northern Geographers, knowing only
that Cwen meant 'female' in the
Germanic, Scandinavian, and Anglo-
Saxon dialects, took the Finnish
' Cwens to be a northern counter-
part of the Amazons.

2 ' Churland ' and 'JEstland.1

2 M

546 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Ch.

the latter was near Cwenland, the Kingdom of Women or
Eegion of the Amazons,1 apparently located near the modern
Helsingfors.

Lastly, as to the ' islands in the ocean,' Thule, Greenland,
Halogaland, and Vinland, Adam is really possessed of better
information than he could always command in his description
of the Baltic coasts. For as yet (about 1070) these regions
belonged to the metropolitan province of Bremen, and the
household of Archbishop Adalbert was naturally concerned
with their temporal and spiritual affairs.

Of England, Ireland, the Orkneys, and the other members
of ' Albion's Archipelago,' the chronicler has little to say
beyond the traditions of Strabo and Soliuus. Like the former,
he places Hibernia (' the land of Scots ') to the north of
Britain ; but he adds a few more modern estimates of
distance2 among these 'numerous and not despicable' isles
opposite Norway.

Thule,3 the last of lands, now called Iceland,4 from the ice
which here congealed the ocean, was in the depths of the

1 Of. Ad. iv. 16, 17 [chs. 223,
224, Lappenberg]. Giesebrecht,
Nordlandskunde, p. 183, assumes
that Gothia and Sweden proper
are conceived as islands by Adam,
but the latter nowhere commits
himself to a choice between an
island and peninsula as far as Scandi-
navia is concerned. Wulfstan, in
King JElfred, on the other hand,
commits himself to the peninsular
view, speaking of the isthmus be-
tween the ocean and the Baltic,
still more explicitly described in
Saxo Grammaticus, Preface.

2 E.g. from Trondhjem to the
Orkneys the navigation of a day
{per diem) ; from the Orkneys the
same distance either to Scotland or
England. Here Adam is very dif-

ferent from Solinus and Martianus
Capella. Britain is hardly noticed
by Adam except in reference to the
wars of Cnut the Great.

3 On Britain, Ireland, etc., cf.
Adam, ii. 50, 51, 53, 55, 59 [chs.
89, 90, 92, 94, 96, Lappenberg] ; on
the Orkneys or Orchad.es (called
by the barbarians Organes, and dis-
persed through the Ocean like the
Cyclades), Adam iv. 34 [ch. 243,
Lappenberg]. On Iceland, see Adam,
iv. 35 ; on Greenland, iv. 10, 35, 36 ;
on Halogaland, iv. 37, and Sch. 152 ;
on Vinland, iv. 38, and Sch. 37
[on Toki dux Winlandensis] ; on
the Frozen Ocean beyond Vinland,
iv. 39, 40 [chs. 217, 244-249, Lap-
penberg].

4 Island.

VII.] ICELAND, GREENLAND, VINLAND, ETC. 547

awful and infinite sea beyond Norway, and thus hidden from
the view of other countries. Yet both Eoman and Barbarian
writers, and especially the excellent Pytheas, had written
concerning the same not a little worthy of note. No crops
grew here, and the supply of wood was scanty ; like the
Swedes, the inhabitants were pastoral ; they dwelt in caves
beneath the ground, and led a life of holy and blessed
poverty, envied by none. Their bishop was their king, and
they had all things in common.

Still deeper in the ocean was Greenland, lying over
against the mountains of Sweden, or the Eiphaean Hills.
From Norway the distance was about the same as to Iceland,
a sail of five or seven days. It is clear that Adam puts
Greenland somewhat to the east of Iceland, for while the
latter is ' north of ' Britain the former is ' opposite to '
Norway. The name of the country is derived from the
Caerulean Sea that surrounded it; and from the same came
the colour of its people.

Halagland or Halogaland, on the contrary, was nearer
to Norway, and some said (but this view of the matter is not
endorsed by the annalist) that it was the ' last portion ' or
province of Norway itself, adjoining the land of the Scrito-
Finns, but inaccessible from its cold and the roughness of
its mountains.

Lastly, Vinland,1 so called from its vines of spontaneous
growth, was also famous for its self-sown wheat. King
Svein himself had told the author how many navigators had

1 Which Adam is the first mediaeval
writer to mention by name, thus
carrying its literary history back to
e. 1070. The later writers of the
Middle Age (outside Scandinavia)
who refer to Vinlaud are only two :
(1) Ordericus Vitalis, who died e. ' xxvii. p. 6
1145 (and whose ecclesiastical history '

reaches to 1142), in bk. x. of same,
mentions ' Yinlandia ' in connection
with Greenland, Iceland (Island),
and the Orkneys (Orcades) ; (2^
Albert the Great, who died 1280
in his Treatise Tie Natura Loco rum

548 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Oh.

discovered this region in the recesses of the Northern Ocean,
and how the well-assured opinion of certain Danes, apart
from all fables, attested the same. Adam does not, however,
attempt to give the position of Vinland, nor to estimate its
distance to other countries ; but his ideas are here affected
by a confusion similar to that which appears in some of the
Sagas. For whereas the peculiarities he himself records in
the products of the soil point to a more southerly region
than Saxony l (where the vine could not grow), he declares
that beyond Vinland all things were full of unbearable ice.
It was here, in the black darkness of the frozen ocean, that
Harald Hardrada and the adventurous nobles of Frisia had
run such risks in the clays of Alebrand, the predecessor of
Adalbert.2 This earliest of German expeditions to the Polar
countries had started from the mouth of the Weser,3 had
passed the Orkneys, and so had come with joyful song4
to Iceland. Thence they rowed on to the very axis of
the North, where they were almost engulfed in the abyss.
The strange island which they described as fortified with
high rocks like a town, and peopled by a dog-like folk who
lived and barked in caves beneath the ground, may have
been the east coast of Greenland ; in any case, the record
shows us one of the first enterprises of geographical dis-
covery which started, not from Ireland or Scandinavia, but
from the North German shore, where the League of Flanseatic
traders was already forming.

1 The. Sagas add the detail, that
from the length of daylight as well
as from the nature of the soil, Vin-
land was further south than Iceland

was Archbishop of Bremen and
Hamburg, 1035-1045.
;j Wirraha.

4 ' Proceeded with C'elcusma,' pro-

or Greenland. I perly the call (KeXevafia) of the row-

2 This properly refers to the voyage j ing master of a Greek trireme which

of the Frisian nobles, which perhaps I gave time to the" rowers,
preceded that of Harald. Alebrand

VII.]

THE BEATUS GKOUP OF MAPS

540

§ 3.— Maps l

The first group of maps that concerns us here is that which
starts from the design of the Spanish priest, Beatus, in the
latter years of the eighth century. The author was
famous in the general Church history of Spain as a leading
opponent of the A doptionist 2 heresy of Felix of Urgel and
Elipandus of Toledo, and along with Etherius, Bishop of
Osma, he maintained the eternal Godhead of Christ in
opposition to the view of those who taught that the Son
had been adopted and received into Divinity by the Father.
For some time Beatus appears to have led a monastic life
under Abbot Fidelis, of St. John of Pravia, near Oviedo ; his
death in 798 took place at the Benedictine House of Vallecava 3

1 For all these maps of the Central
Mediaeval Period, the best work of
reference is undoubtedly Konrad
Miller's Mappaemundi ; die aeltcsten
Weltkarten; Heft, i., Die Weltlcarte
des Beatus, with four map reproduc-
tions, and a scheme of the Beatus
group, 1895; Heft, ii., Atlas von 16
Lichtdrucktafeln, 1SP5 ; Heft, iii.,
Die kleincrcn Weltkarten, with 78
illustrations of maps, and several
schemes showing cartographical re-
lationship, 1895. Miller has thrown
great light on the connections,
probably or certainly existing be-
tween many examples of mediaeval
cartography, which formerly had
been treated as quite distinct ; lie
has been the first to draw attention
to several interesting designs ; and
he has brought to bear upon this
study an amount of conscientious
labour, critical acumen, and synthetic
ingenuity, never before devoted to
mediaeval maps. His weakness is

to insist overmuch on conscious
intellectual relationship from small
coincidences, e.g. in maps of widely
different dates and origins. San-
tarem's Essai swr Cosmogrwphie et . . .
Cartographic (1849-1852), and Lele-
wel's Geographic du moyen aye, have
been in, a great measure superseded
by Miller's writings, though they
may still be consulted with advan-
tage, and were in their time invalu-
able. Among more recent enquiries or
collections of permanent value may be
mentioned Jomard, Mon uments de Geo-
graphie, 1862 ; Cortembert, Trois des
plus aneiens mon uments de Geograph ie,
1877 ; Bevan and Phillot's Hereford
Map, 1877; Philippi's RekonstrvJction
d. Weltlcarte d. Agrippa, 1880 ; and
Walleser, Die Welt-Tafel des Raven-
na ton, 1894.

- The Adoptionist controversy be-
gins in 782.

3 Before his death, Beatus seems
to have become Abbot of this house.

550 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Oh.

or Valcavado,near Saldanha, in the Asturias. Queen Adosinda,
the wife of King Silo of Oviedo (774-783), was a patron and
firm friend of Beatus, her father-confessor ; by one tradition,
he was also teacher of the famous Alcuin, though another
story 1 describes him as a deaf mute, hardly capable of im-
parting instruction by ordinary methods. At any rate, he
shares a place with the celebrated scholar of Charlemagne's
Court in the pillory of Adoptionist polemic,2 and especially
in the rich vocabulary of Elipanclus. His great work, the
Commentary on the Apocalypse, appeared about the year
776, and among the many sumptuous illustrations of this
volume was a map of the world which (there is no good
reason to doubt) also came from the hand of Beatus or was
drawn under his supervision. The map in question seems
to have had a special object. It was probably executed to
portray the spread of the Christian faith over the earth, in
allusion to the texts which compare the world and the
kingdom of heaven to a field sown with seed.3 This idea
was expressed most clearly in a series of pictures of the
Twelve Apostles, each in the locality where tradition fixed
his preaching and his diocese. A note of the Latin Com-
mentary tells us plainly that these vignettes were an essential
feature of the map from the beginning; that they illustrated
the preaching or sowing of the Word ' in the field of this

1 Only in Eguren, Mem. dcsc.

2 Asinus silvestris, doctor bestia-
lium, foetid issimus Beatus, cam is
immunditia foriidus, are among the
vigorous allusions of the Archbishop
of Toledo, who pictures his opponent
returning ad thorum scorti, and com-
pares him to a madman, drank with
wine, thinking himself a prophet,
appointing an abbot for the animals
of the district of Liebana, and fore-
telling the immediate end of the

world. One Sunday he terrified his
hearers so that all of them fasted till
the ninth hour, expecting the con-
summation of the ages every moment ;
a worldling, named Hordonius, at last
suggested that it was as well to meet
death with a full meal. Cf. Letters
of Elipandus in Florez, Espaha
Saijrada, v. 509, 537, 543-557, etc.,
edition of 1763 ; K. Miller, Weltkarte
des Beatus, pp. 4, 5.

3 Cf. Matthew xiii. 1-9,18-23, 24-32,

-r«"f* — ; '^^fljtfiffS*t&!2._ "' " '*■*' '

THE (BEATUS) MAP OF 'ST. SEVER' OF C. A.D. 1030.

[To face p. 550.

VII.] BEATUS' ' DIVISIO APOSTOLOKDM 551

world ' ; and, by implication, that the apostolic portraits were
placed in certain definite cities or regions, to which their
work had special reference.1 Further, this Distribution (or
Divisio Apostolorum) was conceived as follows : — To Peter
was given Rome; to Andrew, Greece or Achaia ; to Thomas,
India ; to James, Spain ; to John, Asia ; to Matthew, Mace-
donia : to Philip, Gaul ; to Bartholomew, Lycaonia ; to Simon
Zelotes, Egypt ; to Matthias, Judaea ; to James, the brother
of the Lord, Jerusalem was assigned ; while for Paul there
was no such definite location, as his mission was to all the
world. His portrait, however, appeared upon the map along
with that of St. Peter, at Koine, as a co-founder of the
Apostolic See. The Commentary of Beatus (mainly based
upon St. Isidore of Seville) describes all this in writing ; but
the pictures themselves have only survived in one of the
ten existing copies of the map, that of Osma (1203 a.d.), and
of course the so-called portraits are all of one type, and that
an intensely sacerdotal one.

The ten copies of the Beatus map are of widely different
date from the tenth to the thirteenth century ; some, like that
of Turin, have been known for a considerable time ; most
have been brought to light within recent times ; all of them
till lately have been treated as distinct and isolated speci-
mens of Dark-Age cartography. They are, however, certainly
connected; they all occur in manuscripts of the same work,
the Apocalypse Commentary ; and there can be no doubt they
are all derivable from the common original, the design of the

1 El hiifahibus haec scminis grana
per agru m h ujus mundi metent. Quod
subjecta formula pichcrarum demon-
strat. Apostolic ' titles ' also occur in
e.g. Lambert of St. Omer. the Ebstorf
and Hereford maps, the Byzantine
Oxford of 1110. Matthew Paris, and

the same completeness. St. James
in Spain, St. Peter in Rome. St.
Thomas in India, are almost the
only cases. Osma leaves out (in its
pictures, though not in its text)
both Thaddeus and Judas the brother
of James, making up the full number

a plan at Velletri, but nowhere with ' with Paul and Matthias,

552 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Oh.

priest Beatus, in or near the year 776. The first in order of
date is that of 970, traditionally the work of a copyist named
Obeco, and known in recent times as the ' Ashbnrnham '
map, from its last possessor. But this, although the earliest
example, is of small value ; it omits nearly all the rivers, cities,
and hamlets given on other copies, and turns the oval form,1
which was almost certainly that of the original, into a
right-angled one. Next conies the ' St. Sever ' (now at
Paris), a work executed at the above-named Aquitanian
convent by the order of Gregory de Muntaner, Abbot from
1028 to 1072 ; this is the most valuable, the most carefully
executed, and the richest in content of all the transcripts.2
It is probably the nearest to the original type, and is
therefore primary in any attempted reconstruction of that
type. The copies which follow, known as the ' Madrid,' of
1047, and the ' Valladolid,' of 1035, seem to be, in great
measure, derivatives of the work of 970 ; they are un-
important, very debased, and further removed from the
original of 776 than any other, except their immediate
ancestor. The 'Gerona' of about 1100, and the 'London'
of 1109, like the 'Paris' of 1150, do not call for special
remark;3 but our next copy, the 'Turin' of the twelfth (?)
century, which is more closely related to the Gerona map
than any other, is perhaps the best-known example among
maps of a strictly Dark-Age character. It is not so ancient
or so important as once supposed ; but it has been before the
modern world for a century and a half, far longer than any

1 ' Ashbui'iiham ' alone is quite
square ; ' Paris 'of 1150 and ' Turin '
alone quite circular.

2 The name of the artist (or of one
among a group of executants respon-
sible for the map) may be conveyed
in an entry on fol. 6 of the Paris
MS., Bib. Nat., Lat. 8878 (contain-

ing 'St. Sever'), viz. Stephanus Garcia
Placidus. The measurements of this
codex are 370 millimetres by 290.

3 Except that ' Gerona's ' pictirre of
Jonah seized by a cuttle-fish off the
Spanish coast probably represents an
original feature.

^Jf«W._L . T'l i--

ul' 0. A.D. 1150.

VII. J THE TEN COPIES OF BEATUS' MAPS 553

other ' Beatus,' and it has become almost classic. Its
remarkable peculiarities have naturally made it a favourite
subject for reproduction. For though the celebrated wind-
blowers, so prominent here, are also to be found in other
mediaeval mcvppe-mondes,1 their execution on the Turin
example is- far more vigorous and detailed,2 and supplies
us with the most striking artistic feature in Beatus
Geography.

Last in point of date, though not of importance, are the
'Osma' copy of 120o and the 'Paris' of 1250. The
latter, indeed, presents a frightful confusion of lands and
seas, placing Palestine in the interior of Africa and
Southern Italy next to Jerusalem ; but it contains, neverthe-
less, some valuable reminiscences of original matter not so
prominent elsewhere. The map of Osma has much in
common with St. Sever, especially in its general form,
and, after the Aquitanian copy, it is certainly our best
example of this school or group of designs. In some points
it must indeed take the first place, as more directly repre-
senting the prototype. Thus in its pictures of the Twelve
Apostles it is unique, and explains to us the very fons ct
origo of the Beatus scheme: like the 'Paris' of 1250, it
represents the Skiapodes, or Shadow-footed men, of the
Southern Continent, an important feature (in all proba-
bility) of the primitive work ; while none of the Beatus

] As iu the 'Paris' of c. 1250, the : the picture was not a feature of the

latest of the Beatus copies ; cf. the work of 776 ; the simpler form of

angels in Henry of Mainz. ' the wind-blowers in the thirteenth-

- Where each wind-spirit is seated j century Paris has greater claims in

on a sack or iEolus-bag, out of which : this respect. The idea must be

he is squeezing a lively 'blast of air.' recognised as occurring in both the

This has become a favourite illustra- I 'Osma' and 'Valcavado' families,

tion of mediaeval thought. It is i which greatly strengthens its pre-

certain, however, that in this shape i tensions to originality.

554 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION

[Ch.

copies gives so good a delineation of the Lighthouse-Towers
at Alexandria and Brigantia.1

These ten copies of the map of 776 have been suggestively
classed in two main families,2 those of Osma and of Val-
cavado. To the former 3 belong the examples of 1080 4 (St.
Sever), of 1203 (Osma), and of 1250 4 (Paris); to the latter,
those of 970 (Ashburnham), 1035 (Valladolid), 1047.(Madrid),
and 1109 (London), with the Gerona of the closing eleventh
or early twelfth century, the Turin of about the same date,
and the Paris of 11 SO.4 The parting of these families
probably took place in the ninth century, and each appears
to have been immediately derived from certain lost inter-
mediates of the tenth century, such as the two executed in
whole or part5 by Emeterius of Valcavado between 968
and 978,

There is no graduation on any of these copies, although
certain lines ' showing through ' from the ruling and
writing on the other side of the page have sometimes been
mistaken for horizontal and vertical indications. In all the
designs, save one, the East is at the top ; the Paris of
1250, which substitutes the South (probably through Arabic

1 Here probably original Beatus
matter is reproduced. Osma is especi-
ally valuable in its representation of
the Levant or Eastern Mediterranean,
of the Nile, of Mount Taurus, and of
Taprobane. Among other maps of
the Central mediaeval period the
' Cottoniana ' offers the greatest like-
ness to Osma.

2 By Professor Konrad Miller,
Weltkarte cles Beatus, especially pp.
21-7. Miller also subdivides the Osma
family into stem (A), including 'St.
Sever ' and the ' Paris of c. 1250 '
or 'Paris II.'; and stem (B), in-
cluding the ' Osma ' of 1203 ; while
the Valcavado family is parted

into stem (C), comprising the
' Ashburnham ' of 970, the ' Valla-
dolid ' of 1035, the ' Madrid ' of 1047,
the ' London ' of 1109 ; and stem (D),
including the 'Gerona,' 'Turin,' and
twelfth - century ' Paris, ' otherwise
'Paris III.'

3 Much the more important ; — (1)
as ampler, (2) better scientifically, (3)
nearer to the original type ; both the
St. Sever and Osma copies belong to
this branch.

4 These dates are approximate.

5 Some of these intermediate copies
may yet be recovered in the recesses
of Spanish convents or elsewhere.

THE 'LONDON BEATUS' (SO-CALLED 'SPAMSII-AHABIC') MAP OF A.l). 11

VII.] COMMON FEATURES IN BEATUS MAPS 555

influence), makes this substitution with such inconsistency,
in regard to other parts of the map, that it is clear the
copyist is here departing from his original. Paradise is
placed in the extreme East, not on an isle (as in many other
designs), but on the mainland,1 encircled by unscalable
mountains, and accompanied by pictures either of Adam and
Eve or of the Four Sacred Rivers.2

The division of the Continents is usually the same as
that of the so-called T"0 niaps, Asia occupying the upper
half, while in the lower part Europe has the left-hand
quarter, Africa the right-hand. The western border of
Asia is formed by a series of rivers and narrow seas, from the
Don 3 to the Nile, while to the south of Africa, separated by
a strip of ocean, is4 the Southern, Australian, or Antipodean
Continent of ancient theory.1 According to this view, Africa
did not reach to the Equator, which was covered by the
Ocean zone above noticed ; this zone was of unbearable heat;
and beyond it again was a land of non-human monsters.
Of the Antipodes, in the strict sense, implying the earth's
rotundity, Beatus x gives no sign ; but on the other hand, he
utters no condemnation of a theory permitted, though not
endorsed, by the authority of St. Augustine.

In the Beatus designs the ocean is usually ornamented
with pictures of row-boats and fishes, which appear to
follow regular courses, as if to indicate the direction of
currents, or the periodical wanderings5 of tunny or herring
shoals. Among the various divisions of ocean it is notice-
able that the Red Sea is extended by nearly all the copyists,

1 Following Isidore of Seville.

- Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel, Euph-
rates.

:! Tanais.

4 On all but one of our ten copies,
and that the latest and most cor-

rupted (Paris of 1250). Even this
gives the 'Skiapod' in a corner, anil
hereby implies the southern land.

5 So, following Santarem, we may
perhaps guess from St. Sever and the
B, Mus. Map of 1109.

550 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Cfl.

not only along the whole southern coast of Asia,1 but along
that of Africa as well. The latter, of course, in all the
earlier mediaeval maps, has its length from East to "West, its
breadth from North to South.

The chief towns of the Habitable "World were probably
marked on the original of 776 by vignettes such as those of
the Peutinger Table ; these have survived on the Osma
of 1203 and the Paris of 1250 ; and are developed with
considerable sumptuousness and artistic beauty in the
Paris of 1150. Among these city-pictures the most
noticeable are those of Eome, Antioch, Jerusalem, and
Constantinople, with the beacons or lighthouses of Brigantia
and Alexandria.

There is not much of purely fabulous matter in the
Beatus designs ; the two most prominent of such indications
are the Phoenix of Arabia and the ' Skiapodes ' of the
Australian Continent.2 Jerusalem is never made the centre
of the earth,3 although the latest of our copies, the Paris
of 1250, shows a tendency in this direction. It is in the
' Sallust ' maps of the twelfth century and in the T"0
design of 1110 that this point is first expressed with perfect
clearness in cartography ; but of course it appears in written
descriptions or allusions of a far earlier date, and among
these we may instance that of the pilgrim Arculf, in about
690.4

Beatus himself, no doubt, considered his map as primarily

1 As so often iu classical geo- i Spain, the native country of the
graphy. designer.

- Both these features were probably
on the original Beatus of 776, like
Mount Sinai, and Jonah and the fish
(surviving in the Gerona copy). It
is curious that no reference is made
to the Arlc, the races of Gog-Maffoff,

a This conception does not acquire
definiteness and fixity till the Cru-
sading Period. One of its very
earliest instances is the Byzantine-
Oxford T-O map of 1110.

4 Cf. Dawn of Modern Geography.

the Tower of Babel, or the rivers of ' i. pp. 133, 338-9.

VII.]

CHIEF SOURCES OF BEATUS GEOGRAPHY

557

illustrative1 of the Old and New Testaments,- and of the
spread of the Catholic Faith : but in addition to the
Scriptures, he seems to have used two main authorities.
One of these was St. Isidore of Seville ; the other was a
Eoman province-map,3 bearing some resemblance to the
Peutinger Table. From the great Spanish theologian come
almost verbatim most of the longer inscriptions, or legenda ;
but we must not forget that Isidore himself usually
derived the matter of his geographical dissertations from
the cosmographies of the later Roman period. On the
other hand, no earlier source is known of the ' Apostolic '
pictures of Beatus, as far as embodiment on a mappe-monde
is concerned ; and this detail may well be a refinement
supplied by the priest of Valcavado himself; but of course
the apostolic locations or dioceses are found in very early
Christian tradition, and most of them are probably true
in fact. As to the Eoman province-map, it is perhaps
from this that Beatus and his copyists derived most of
their 'profane' geography.4 The Caspian Sea, the
Alexandrian Pharos, the Nile inscription, and the desert
where the Children of Israel wandered forty years, as
we have them in Beatus cartography,5 are closely parallel
to the representations of the Peutinger Table ; and the
relationship between these works is the key to all satisfac-
tory study of the ' Spanish designs.' The connection is shown
in many other details, as in the names of the peoples, cities,
hills, and rivers of various countries, and in the Indian,

1 From the manuscripts it is clear
that the Map was merely one orna-
ment of a splendid picture book, in
which every Apocalyptic incident
and monstrosity was duly figured.

2 Yet tin.' Bihlical loans are very
extensive, e.g. on Osina some thirty-
seven names, exclusive of the Apostles.

"' Apparently Beatus tries to mark
two of the Metropolitan towns in each
province. This is especially shown in
the Paris of 1150.

4 Though very few, if any, of their
longer inscriptions or legends.

5 Especially in St. Sever.

558 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Ch.

Syrian, and African legends ; while in Gaul not only are
the same, provinces named and the same divisions made,
but the more striking omissions of the Table occur also
in St. Sever. Of the one hundred and thirty-three names
of towns in the Beatus maps, more than ninety agree with
' Peutinger,' 1 and among these ninety parallels are to be
found all except two of the important places marked by
pictures ; 2 on the other hand, the great vignettes at Borne,
Constantinople, and Antioch (as we have them in the Table),
if existing in the work or works used by Beatus, have
undergone transformation and reduction to a much humbler
level. Further comparisons may be drawn from the similar
arrangement of towns in more than one region, and
especially in Greece or Achaia. The Francia of Beatus,
lying wholly to the east of the Rhine, is evidently copied
from a map or description of a date far earlier than the
eighth century ; in certain instances, where St. Sever
(for instance) gives names to places3 which are depicted, but
not titled, in Peutinger, the relationship of the Beatus group
with an old imperial map is still more pointedly suggested.4

On the other hand, the Beatus designs have nothing
similar to the Roman Itineraries, properly so called, or to
the station-, distance-, and road-markings of the Table. Nor,

1 Seven or eight later than Peu-
tinger Table ; seven Biblical ; nine
ancient names not in the Peutinger
Table ; fourteen old Gallic names
represented by more modern forms
on our copy of the Peutinger Table ; —
make up the rest. Beatus' use of
the Peutinger Table (or similar old
Roman map) was very eclectic any-
how. The names peculiar to the Paris
of c. 1250 are mostly in the Peutinger
Table or in Julius Honorius.

- Usually little houses.

3 E.ij. Catana, Cihale; Sardes,

Cartusium (?).

4 Besides the position of ' Francia,'
we may note that the Bactriaus in
India, three rivers in the Balkan Pen-
insula, four in Italy, one in Africa, 'and
the streams of the Caspian basin, are
identical in Beatus and the Peutinger
Table. Among mountains, the Atlas
and Cyrenaean ranges, and Mount
Emodus in India, may also be com-
pared. The arrangement of names in
various provinces, e.g. Achaia, is like-
wise closely similar. On the Beatus
maps cf. Appendix, pp. 591-605.

VII 1 THE COTTON MAP 559

of course, can the latter' s six hundred references to pagan
temples and worship be found in these plans of the tenth
and subsequent centuries. But, in spite of all differences,
we appear to have, in the various works derived from the
Spanish priest of Liebana and Vallecava, a Dark-Age
reflection of one or more cartographical works of the Old
Empire, free from all additions of the Crusading period,
and of inestimable value as a link between the ancient
and the mediaeval worlds.

The ' Cotton ' or ' Anglo-Saxon ' Map x now in the British
Museum, though of small size, is among the most interesting
of all mediaeval world-pictures, and gives us a design far
above the average. It portrays, with comparative fulness and
accuracy, various places, regions, and natural features else-
where omitted — or misunderstood — until a much later date ;
and its delineation of coast (and other) outlines forms a
striking contrast with such works as the Ashburnham or
Valcavado of 970. In fact, there is hardly any map of the
Middle Age, before the appearance of the Portolani, which
can be compared, in the general contour of the great land-
masses, with the ' Cottoniana.' 2 In its presentation of the
world as a whole, this design adopts a roughly square form,
and in this it recalls some of the most debased examples of
the Beatus group. But in the execution of this right-angled
scheme there is all the difference between the narrow
ignorance of an uncompromising symmetry, and a certain
respectable, if not highly developed, knowledge and scientific
insight.

1 - The last known monument of
the Roman geographical school,'
Lelewel strangely calls it, Geo-
graphic, pp. 10-13. It measures 21.2
by 17.6 centimetres.

2 Though of course later maps
of separate countries {e.g. Matthew
Paris' ' England ') are in some in-
stances much superior.

560 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Ch.

The 'Cottoniana' does not appear to belong to any one
of the ascertainable families of mediaeval maps. It is far
removed from all the members of the Beatus group ; it is
equally far removed from the school to which ' Henry of
Mainz,' the ' Psalter,' the ' Hereford,' and the ' Ebstorf ' plans
appear to belong. Nor has it any relation with the various
types of zone- (or climate-map) which we know under the
names of ' Macrobius,' ' Sallust,' or T"0 sketches. A certain
likeness, especially in the British Isles, may, indeed, be de-
scried between the ' Cottoniana ' and the ' Matthew Paris '
maps of the thirteenth century ; but this is not the detailed
and conscious resemblance of works really in touch with one
another, as model and copy ; it is rather the unstudied likeness
of good work in the same subject at widely different periods.
Matthew Paris, moreover, has all the advantages of his time.
He lived in one of the most flourishing and civilised of
mediaeval epochs, whereas the Cotton map comes upon us
as a surprise from one of the gloomiest Dark Ages of
the Latin world.

Some1 have pushed back the date of this example to the
ninth century and the time of King zElfred ; it is more prob-
ably of about a century later, the time of Archbishop Sigeric
of Canterbury (992-994). The map itself occurs in a copy of
Priscian's Perierjesis, a fifth-century manual of geography,
based upon an earlier treatise ;'2 but it stands in no special or
obvious relationship to the work it professedly illustrates.
It is, indeed, more closely linked with Orosius ; it has also
certain obligations to Pomponius Mela, St. Isidore of
Seville, and the topographical writings of St. Jerome ;
finally, it bears some indications of a much later time, the

1 E.g. Lelewel and Wuttke ; | after the Periegesis compiled by him
Santarem puts it as late as 1020. perhaps about A.i>. 100. On the' Cot -

- Of Diouysius, surnamed Periegctcs i toniana,' see Appendix, pp. 608-12.

VII. J THE COTTON MAP 561

age of the discoveries and migrations of the Northmen in
the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries. The correspondences
of various entries and delineations in the 'Cottoniana' with
certain names and descriptions in Adam of Bremen 1 afford
at least a possibility that the former sometimes drew from
the same originals as the great northern annalist, while some
of the names in the British Isles, in Gaul, and in the Far
East and North-East, support the tenth-century date, which
most scholars are now inclined to accept. The possibility
of so good 2 a work emanating from so dark a time, and so
uncultured a society, has been disputed ; but it is impossible
to press this sentimental objection in the face of so much
positive evidence to the contrary ; and from other designs,3
equally belonging to this Dark-Age period, we see that even
then it was possible to draught a respectable sketch of a
limited region. The map of St. Sever, a work of even
greater elaboration, though of less scientific character, was
produced before the dawn of the Crusading or Middle-Age
Eenaissance ; while the monstrosities of the Hereford and
Ebstorf maps disgraced the last and most splendid period
of the same ; — for the goodness of a map is by no means
an absolute matter of date ; even in the tenth century some-
thing belongs to the copyist himself and his immediate
original.

The comparative excellence of the 'Cottoniana' is perhaps
due to its being the production of an Irish scholar-monk
living in the household of the learned and travelled Arch-

1 Fl. 1070.

2 One of the most startling excel-
lencies of the Cotton is its insertion
of the Slav name of the Dniepr,
Naper fluv.

3 E.g. even the Albi map of
c. 730, in which some of the Mediter- I

2 >-

ranean coasts are at any rate better
than in most Arab maps. The
Mosaic map of Madaba, c. 550, of
course belongs to a highly civilised
period and country, Syria under
Justinian.

562 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Oh;

bishop Sigeric, with whose Itinerary 1 the present design has
several curious resemblances. In the British Isles of the
pre-Norman period, there is no school of learning, art, or
science comparable to that which sprang from the Irish
Church of Patrick, Colomba, and Aidan ; and the insertion
of the name of Armagh, so rarely found in mediaeval maps,
strengthens the view that here we have the handiwork of a
student who was trained in Irish schools, or derived his
knowledge from men so trained.

The chief authority is the geographical chapter of Paulus
Orosius,2 but a certain amount of antique material also
reappears, which is different from anything now to be found
in the Orosian writings. The scribe or draughtsman tells
us that he found, in the manuscript of Priscian's Periegcsis
used by him, a map which he supposed to have been drawn
by Priscian himself ; 3 this map, however, may well have been
a copy of the lost Orosian schema terrae ; and in any case
it was obviously the immediate original of the ' Cottoniana.'
Thus the latter design, unique among its contemporaries,
and therefore mysterious in its superiorit}^, is brought
into a possible relation with an earlier school of no con-
temptible attainment ; and, here as elsewhere, we may find
a process of evolution, of inter-connection, and of historical
development, bringing together the most surprising and
distant parallels, and throwing light upon a field where, as
in natural science, the mistaken ideas of separate and
unconnected existence had long prevailed.

A Eoman province-map may have been the source of the

1 From Rome to the English j and all its names of countries, with

Channel. See Appendix, pp. 612-4.
% Out of one hundred and forty-
six legends, seventy-five occur in
Orosius. These seventy-five contain
the textual basis of the whole map,

very few exceptions.

3 If the designer's story be accepted.
On Orosius, cf. Dawn of Modem Geo-
graphy, i. pp. 353-355.

VII.] MAP OF HENRY OF MAINZ 5 Go

divisions so clearly marked in Asia Minor, in Central and
South-Eastern Europe, and in North Africa ; while the
Biblical loans of the Cotton Scheme may be traced not only
in many names but in certain aspects of the general plan.
Indeed, it is obvious that here the design was not merely
indebted to the Scriptures for details such as almost all
mediaeval maps exhibit, but was to a large extent devised
for a special Biblical lesson. For just as the mappe-monde
of Beatus had for its radical purpose1 the delineation of the
Twelve Apostles, their dioceses, and their distribution over
the Habitable World as ' Sowers of the Word,' so the
1 Cottoniana,' perhaps based on a lost design of Paulus
Orosius, had for one of its main objects a picture of the
settlement of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.2

The map of Henry of Mainz (c. a.d. 1110) apparently
belongs to a family of cartographical works which may be
compared with the more closely-knit members of the Beatus
genealogy. In the present group are also included the tiny
Psalter map (of about 1230), and the Hereford and
Ebstorf examples from the later thirteenth century — huge
wall pictures which represented, in size though not in execu-
tion, the possible eleventh-century original more closely than
their elder but smaller brethren or cousins. Lastly, the
so-called 'Jerome' maps, of about 1150, may be collaterally
referred to the same family, through the medium of the
Mainz design.

The last-named is to be found in the Imago Munch of a
certain Henry, probably the same person as a Canon Henry
(Heinrich) who in 1111 appeared 3 before the Episcopal Court

1 In part at least.

2 The colouring of 'the ' Cottoniana'
is grey for most seas ; red for the
Persian ami Arabian Gulfs, the Nile

Valley, and the Lakes of .Africa
bright green for all mountains,
3 As a witness,

564 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Oh.

of Mainz :l possibly he is the same as the Archbishop Heniy,
who ruled this church between 1142 and 1152.2 In any
case, the map accompanies a work which was written about
1110, and was dedicated to the famous and unfortunate
Matilda, wife of the Emperor Henry V., daughter of
Henry I. of England, and mother of Henry II. This
work, the Imago Mundi de disjjositione orbis, a compendious
description of the world, containing also a short chronicle
of universal history,3 was copied and interpolated, but not
originally composed, by Henry of Mainz ; it was really the
work of a contemporary, Honorius of Autun. The map,
however, is apparently the addition of the scribe Henry,
and is not derived from Honorius, although it is based on
another and older design.

It is oval in form, of small size,4 and contains two
hundred and twenty-nine legends or inscriptions, together
with a large number of unnamed cities, mountains, and
rivers, whose titles can for the most part be ascertained
with the aid of its younger relatives, the Ebstorf, Psalter,
Hereford, and Jerome (?) plans. Although the present world-
scheme is apparently intended to illustrate the Imago
copied by Henry, the connection between the two is but
slender ; for (as in the case of the ' Cottoniana ' and the text
of Priscian it accompanies) the peculiarities of the chart
are often not in the manuscript, nor are those of the manu-

1 In 1121 this Canon Heinrich
appears as Priest of St. Victor ; in
1133 and onwards as a Priest attached
to the Cathedral (of Mainz). He is
mentioned in various charters.

2 This prelate was deposed on the
charge of opposing the election of

imagine mundi ; (2) De temporibus
matthesis ; (5) De aetatibus mundi
chronicon ; (6) Dc luminaribus sive
scriptoribus ecclcsiasticis ; (7) De
haeresibus ; are the chief. Honorius
died, according to some, in 1140 ;
according to others, after 1152.

Frederic Barbarossa as German King, ; 4 About 12 inches by 10 ; 29J by
and died in 1153. ' 20i centimetres. See Appendix, pp.

3 In seven books: of these (1) De 614-7.

564 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Oh.

of Mainz -,1 possibly he is the same as the Archbishop Henry,
who ruled this church between 1142 and 1152.2 In any
case, the map accompanies a work which was written about
1110, and was dedicated to the famous and unfortunate
Matilda, wife of the Emperor Henry V., daughter of
Henry I. of England, and mother of Henry II. This
work, the Imago Mundi de dispositione orbis, a compendious
description of the world, containing also a short chronicle
of universal history,3 was copied and interpolated, but not
originally composed, by Henry of Mainz ; it was really the
work of a contemporary, Honorius of Autun. The map,
however, is apparently the addition of the scribe Henry,
and is not derived from Honorius, although it is based on
another and older design.

It is oval in form, of small size,4 and contains two
hundred and twenty-nine legends or inscriptions, together
with a large number of unnamed cities, mountains, and
rivers, whose titles can for the most part be ascertained
with the aid of its younger relatives, the Ebstorf, Psalter,
Hereford, and Jerome (?) plans. Although the present world-
scheme is apparently intended to illustrate the Imago
copied by Henry, the connection between the two is but
slender ; for (as in the case of the ' Cottoniana ' and the text
of Priscian it accompanies) the peculiarities of the chart
are often not in the manuscript, nor are those of the manu-

1 In 1121 this Canon Heinrich
appears as Priest of St. Victor ; in
1133 and onwards as a Priest attached
to the Cathedral (of Mainz). He is
mentioned in various charters.

2 This prelate was deposed on the
charge of opposing the election of
Frederic Barbarossa as German King,

imagine mundi ; (2) De temporibus
mat thesis ; (5) De aetatibus mundi
chronicon ; (6) De luminaribus sive
scriptoribus ecclcsiasticis ; (7) De
haeresibus ; are the chief. Honorius
died, according to some, in 1140 ;
according to others, after 1152.
4 About 12 inches by 10 ; 29^ by

and died in 1153. i 20fr centimetres. See Appendix, pp.

3 In seven books : of these (1) De | 614-7.

I ■

I i |

VII.] MAP OF HENRY OF MAINZ 565

script usually represented in the map. On the other hand,
the Mainz design is obviously related to the Hereford map,
as an elder to a younger brother ; and the similarities of
detail in these two works may be traced in almost every
part of the world and in nearly every important feature of
the draughtsmanship. Thus both have the same widening
of the Mediterranean at its Eastern extremity, the same
projecting horns to represent the angles of the Levant, the
same elongation of the Black and Azov Seas, the same
approximation of the last to the Northern Ocean. Once more,
both have practically the same Nile system and the same
representation of African mountains, Asiatic rivers, and
Oceanic islands ; both give the boundary between Asia and
Africa in much the same way ; both omit to specify any
definite boundary between Asia and Europe ; both agree
in their arrangement of the surrounding ocean, in their
drawing of the chief parts of the continental coast-line, and
in various typical details.1 At the same time, the greater
size of the 'Hereford' enables it to admit a far larger content ;
and this greater mass of material appears still more clearly
on the ' Ebstorf,' while the little ' Psalter ' is naturally more
limited, though far more crowded, than the Mainz copy.
All these works probably spring from a great wall map of
the eleventh century; of this original, Henry's transcript
is more accurate but less complete ; the ' Hereford ' fuller,
but less true and scholarly."2

The relationship between ' Henry ' and the so-called
' Jerome ' maps is almost as close3 as that between Henry

1 Such as the British Isles, the from the common original, as well as

Caspian and Baltic Seas, the neigh- from Henry of Mainz, in making

bourhood of Paradise, and the lands Jerusalem the centre of the world,

of the Gog-Magogs, the Hyper- and in adopting an absolutely circular
boreans, and the Dog - Headed | instead of an oval form.
Folk. •" And closer than K. Miller seems

- Thus 'Hereford' probably departs to recognise.

566 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Oh.

and the Psalter. We only possess the Eastern part of the
Orbis antiqitv.s in the Jerome examples, but here the likeness
is marked ; while the treatment, in the Mainz design, of the
Twelve Tribes and their settlements corresponds with the
well-supported tradition that the celebrated and sainted
editor of the Vulgate, who passed so many years in Syria,
himself composed a separate treatise and map x upon the
subject.

The details in the Mainz design which are foreign to the
Jerome tradition may be divided into three classes, respec-
tively based upon iEthieus of Istria,2 upon Solinus, and upon
the contemporary knowledge of the Central Mediaeval period.
Among these last we may notice the references to the
Turks, the Danes, and the Saxons; the mention of the 'Lake
of Nile ' ; and the names of Rouen, Pisa, Iceland, Lombardy,
Frisia, and the Gulf of Venice.3

The so-called ' Jerome ' maps, though belonging (as
they stand) to the middle of the twelfth century,4 and
written in the script of that time, were possibly drawn
under the direction, if not by the hand, of that Father,
and were apparently intended to illustrate three of his
lesser treatises.5 Of these two map-sketches, one repre-
sents Palestine and Lower Egypt only ; the other deals
with the Levant in a wider sense, reaching out to the
Far East ; both are perhaps fragments of a lost maprpe-
monde.® They were evidently designed in colour, but this

1 Now lost.

2 On /Ethicus of Istria, of. Laicn of
Modern Geography, i. pp. 355-361 ;
on Solinus, ibid, pp. 246-273.

6 M:Af.? Veneticum, unique in
mediaeval maps. Among these
names the first three are in iEthieus ;
the fourth in Solinus ; the last six

especially.

4 c. 1150 A. D.

3 De Hebraicis Quaestionibus ; De
Nominibus Locorum; and De inter-
pretationibus Kominum Veteris ct
Xovl Testament!, composed in A.D.
33S.

'• But perhaps the real scope of the

>elong to Henry's own time more i larger map is rather the Bible World.

wwm

THE LARGER 'JEROME MAP OF TIIK TWELFTH CENTURY (MIDDLE).

[ To face p. 566.

VII.] THE 'JEROME' MAPS 567

has only been carried out in part ; the shape of each is
almost exactly square, the larger measuring about 12
inches, the smaller about 8, in length and breadth.1
The Palestine map is probably illustrative of a transla-
tion of the Onomasticoii" of Eusebius, made by Jerome ;
and the original work of the Greek historian seems also
to have been accompanied3 by a picture, or plan, of
Jerusalem and the Temple, as well as by a genealogical
scheme which showed the divisions and settlements of
the Twelve Tribes. This scheme was apparently trans-
ferred (either by Eusebius himself, or by an early copyist
of his writings) to a sketch-map, which served as a quarry
for many later draughtsmen ; among these we may per-
haps include Orosius in the fifth century and (through the
medium of Orosius) the designer of the 'Cottoniana' at the
end of the first millennium.

The Venerable Bede, in his work On the Place-Names in the
Acts of the Apostles, shows an intellectual relationship with
the ' Jerome ' maps so close as to support the belief that
he knew and used these works. Their content, both
' sacred ' and ' profane,' agrees closely with the fourth-
century date required, and with the other geographical
disquisitions of the great Roman Doctor ; they are em-
phatically pre-mediaeval ; indeed, they contain very few
entries, and those easy of interpolation,4 which refer to a
time distinctly later than St. Jerome. The Earthly
Paradise is not marked, nor the world-centre at Jeru-

1 More exactly (a) 35.5 by 35. S "' According to Jerome,

centimetres; and (/3) 23.6 by 22.1 4 Chief of these is tbe identification

centimetres. of Bulgaria and Moesia ('Moesia

'-' Cf. also Eusebius, On the Names liaec et Bulgaria'), which refers to

of Races, and the same writer's the Bulgar emigration (from the

Description of Judaea, both illus- Middle Volga, etc.) about 679 ; cf.

trated in these maps to a less degree. ]i}>. 478-9 of this vol.

568 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Oh.

salem ; and the richness of ancient geographical detail,
untouched by Dark- Age legend, points clearly to the time
of the Old Empire.

The draughtsman's original purpose was evidently the
illustration of the Biblical localities described in the
Onomasticon, and similar works ; just as Beatus started
with a purpose of depicting the Apostolic missions in
various regions ; or as the ' Macrobius ' and ' Sallust ' maps
originated in the desire of explaining certain passages in
those authors. But Jerome's wider design is carried into
regions beyond the scope of Eusebius' descriptive cata-
logue and even in the sectional Palestine-map there is a
certain difference of treatment. For whereas the Bishop
of Caesarea had left out some of the larger Syrian towns,
and enumerated many insignificant ones, St. Jerome's
sketch supplies us with nearly all the capitals and omits
some of the hamlets.

The extra-scriptural content of the 'Jerome' maps belongs
to the oldest type of post-Ptolemaic mappe-inoncle.1 Plinian
material is largely used, sometimes in a manner that reminds
one of Solinus, while some reference is apparently made to
a Eoman road map, similar to the Peutinger Table, which
marked the imperial provinces, with two of the leading towns
in each.2

The ' Psalter ' Map of about 1250 is the last example
we need take here of this family of cartographical designs ;
for ' Ebstorf ' and ' Hereford ' lie beyond the limits of the
period now under review (900-1260), and ' Henry of Mainz '
and the ' Jerome ' maps have been already noticed. The

1 The larger scheme has 278
legends ; the smaller, 195 ; 66 being
common to both ; and among these
only two or three appear to be later

than the fourth century.

2 On the ' Jerome ' maps see
Appendix, pp. 605-8.

THE -PSALTER' MAP OF TUP THIRTEENTH CENTURY (.MIDDLE).

[To face p. 568.

VII.] THE 'PSALTER' MAP 569

closest relative of the ' Psalter ' is the map of Ebstorf ; but
the former is more antique in character, and probably bears
a closer resemblance to the common original (in everything
except size and bulk of material) than any other of this
group. Especially this would seem to be true of the contour
and general delineation ; the argument from the antique
character of the legends and place-names, though it
supports this conclusion, is weakened by the obviously
weak scholarship of the draughtsman.

In the present design we have an extremely small
circular map, less than 4 inches1 in diameter, crowded
with written matter, supplying no less than one hundred
and forty-five inscriptions, but from a scientific point of
view terribly debased. The Gog-Magog region, and the
zone of monstrous races that runs along the southern
coast of Africa, are important marks of the geographical
mythology of the Middle Ages, like the trees of the Sun
and Moon, which come into the map from the Alexander
romance. Along with the 'Hereford' and the larger 'Jerome'
map, the ' Psalter ' is of peculiar value, as filling up a more
complete mediaeval picture of the Far East.

We may compare this work, as an illustration of a
Manuscript of the Book of Psalms, with the scheme of
Beatus, at least in this, that both originate in the ornamenta-
tion or illustration of a certain portion of Scripture ; — of
the Hebrew poetry in one case, of the Apocalypse in
the other. Illustrated Psalters2 are very ancient; the
British Museum possesses one of about a.d. 700 ; and
the Albi map3 of the eighth century, which occurs in a
volume of Glosses on the Gospels, furnishes another parallel
to this Biblical cartography.

1 8h centimetres exactly. lustrated 'Genesis' of the fifth century.

2 But in no other illustrated Psalter 3 Cf. Davm of Modern Geography,!.
lias a map been found ; of. also an il- , pp. 385-386.

570 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Ch.

Another, more obscure, but deeply interesting, family of
mediaeval maps falls within the limits of this period : it is
composed of the inter-related l designs of Lambert of St.
Omer, the ' Macrobius ' and ' Sallust ' map-illustrations, and
the 'Climate' and T"0 sketches.

Lambert, Canon of St, Omer, was the compiler of an
Encyclopaedia, called Liber Floridus, composed of extracts
from one hundred and ninety -two different works. Tn this
he has left us a chronicle which reaches to the year 1119,2
and which contains various maps, including a mappe-monde,
originally3 of a date at least earlier than 1125, and surviving
in three forms.4 In spite of a clearly-expressed intention of
supplying a complete world-map, the oldest copy, that of
Ghent, only gives us Europe, two Macrobian zone sketches,
and a T'O design ; the two later redactions,5 though con-
taining a less detailed Europe, both possess the complete
mappe-monde, together with a special and interesting addition.
Nowhere else in mediaeval cartography do we find greater
prominence assigned to the Unknown Southern Continent,
the ' Australian ' land of the ' Fabled Antipods.' On the
Paris manuscript a long inscription defines this ' region of
the South,' as ' temperate in climate, but unknown to the
sons of Adam,, having nothing which belongs G to our race.'
The Equatorial r Sea, which here divided the [great land
masses or continents of the] world, was not visible, proceeds

1 Consciously, according to Miller ;
but even if unconsciously, none the
less truly inter-related.

2 And alludes to a few matters
subsequent to 1119.

3 Like the text.

4 In the MSS. of Ghent, Wol-
fenbiittel and Paris. The Ghent
copy seems to have been written by
Lambert himself, certainly not later

than 1125. Its Europe contains some
remarkable peculiarities.

5 I.e. Wolfenbiittel and Paris of
about 1150. These are simply
different copies from the same
original, which was doubtless of
Lambert's own draughtsmanship.

fi ' Or is related.'

7 Lit,, ' Mediterranean.'

VII.] LAMBERT OF ST. OMER S MAPS 571

the legend, to human eye ; for the full strength of the sun l
always heated it, and permitted no passage to, or from, this
southern zone. In the latter, however, was a race of
Antipods (as some philosophers believed), wholly different
from man, through the difference of regions and climates.'2
' For when we are scorched with heat, they are chilled
with cold ; and the northern stars, which we are permitted to
discern, are entirely hidden from them.3 . . . Days and nights
they have of one length ; but the haste of the sun in the
ending of the winter solstice causes them to suffer winter
twice over.' 4

The ideas here expressed are supplemented by the
suggestion of two more unknown continents or earth-
islands, one in the Northern and the other in the Southern
hemisphere, lying in the expanse of an all-encircling and
dividing Ocean. Four land-masses, therefore, are apparently
assumed ; of these, the first two were the ancient OiJwumenS,5
and the 'Australian' region just described ; the others were on
the reverse side of the globe (corresponding in some respects
with the North and South America of later discoveries), and
were divided by a tropical arm of Ocean, in the same way
as the two ' islands ' of the Eastern Hemisphere. This,
at least, was the full theory of the ancient geographers, such
as Krates of Hallos, to whom Lambert's scheme must be
traced. The present map, however, only indicates the third
and fourth continents by little circles placed in the margin
of the Roman World, or Flabitable Earth, and respectively
; Going just overhead by the j 4 Lastly, to the south of this

milky way.'

- And ' of times and seasons. '
J The following curious words arc
added : — 'Nulla alia astra sunt, quae
illonun obtutibus denegentur. Et
quae simul cum illis oriuntur, simul
eveniunt in occasum.'

temperate Australia, Lambert places
a zone of extreme cold, uninhabitable
by living creatures.

5 Africa being supposed to end
north of the Equator, and the
Equatorial Belt itself to be covered
by an impassably hot tropical Ocean.

572 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Oh.

entitled ' Paradise,' to the North-East, and ' Our Antipodes,' :
to the South-West. The last term is clearly to be under-
stood of the Continental mass exactly opposite to Europe
on the other side of the globe, inhabited by living (but not
apparently human) beings, and having day and night in an
' opposite relation ' to our own ; while the Paradise island
is probably to be interpreted, in the same way, as precisely
antipodean to the Australian Continent already described.
The expression of this theory in Lambert's map was perhaps
derived in the first place from Macrobius or Martianus
Capella, but ultimately it depended on the speculations of
a much higher antiquity, like the apparent indication of
the Ecliptic 2 in this design, and the suggestion of a T"0
form in the general contour of 'Our World,'3 which is also
to be found here.

But if Lambert's ' universal ' conceptions are so narrowly
dependent upon classical antecedents, it may be expected
that the detailed material of the map will also display a
markedly antique character ; and indeed the relationship
between the mediaeval geographers and those of the later
Imperial time is seldom found in more complete expression.
Most of the hundred and eighty inscriptions are entirely
ancient, and must be referred to a lost design of the old
Eoman world : the chief additions to this pre-mediaeval

1 As to these (in the Western
Ocean) the legend here declares
' noctem diversam diesque contrarios
perferunt, et [occasus astrorum] ' ; the
last two words being Santarem's em-
endation for the ' estatoruni ' of Paris
and the ' estatem ' of Wolfenbiittel.
We may contrast Lambert's classical
and more scientific use of ' antipodes '
with the merely conventional {i.e.
mediaeval) employment of the term
in the Beatus Maps, The idea of an

under-sea course of rivers from a
trans-Oceanic Paradise to the Oikou-
vienS is common to Lambert and
Cosmas Indico-pleustes.

2 In the form of a crooked line
running over the Equator and marked
by three star-pictures. The obliquity
of the sun's path is clearly suggested.

3 I.e. The Oikoumeni, the
Northern or ' Roman ' land - mass
of the Eastern Hemisphere. See
Appendix, pp. G 2 1 - -1 .

VII.] LAMBEET AND THE ' MACROBIAN ' SCHEMES 573

material are made from the geography of Lambert's own
period. It does not appear that the writer derived his ideas
or place-names from the classical authors 1 named in the
Liber Floridus (with so little appearance of real knowledge) ;
on the contrary, both ground-plan and detail probably come
from a lost design of no small antiquity, in many respects
similar to that from which Macrobius drew.

The geographical passages of the last-named author 2 were
illustrated from an early period by certain zone — or climate —
sketches, depicting the chief belts or parallels of the world
from North to South, and adding special reference to various
chapters of the Commentary on the Dream of Scipio. More
particularly, these sketches illustrated the fifth chapter of the
second book of this Commentary — where the question of
the climates was discussed,- — -the close of the first book —
devoted to the attraction of the earth and the existence of
Antipodes, — and the seventh chapter of the second book —
which explained the celestial zones and ocean currents.

Ambrosius Aurelius Macrobius, who filled high offices of
state under the Emperor Honorius, was probably a Greek by
birth and a Pagan by religion ; his writings were very
popular in the mediaeval world, and he shares with Sallust
the honour of special map illustration, designed for him, if
not by him, and connected in his case (if not in that of
Sallust) with other groups of cartographical designs.

Among the Macrobian sketches,3 some give us nothing
but the five, or seven, zones : others picture the two earth-
islands of the Eastern hemisphere, which we have noticed

1 E.g. Sallust. Lucretius, and > illustrated by citations in the Liber
Ptolemy. Among later writers Isi- Floridus.

dore, Capella, and Orosius seem to
have the nearest relationship to
Lambert's thought, and are oftenest

2 Ambrosius Aurelius Theodosius
Macrobius, fl. c. a.d. 410.

3 See Appendix on Maps, pp. 625-6,

574 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Oh.

in Lambert of St. Omer. Here the encircling ocean covers
most of the earth's surface, and the land-masses are reduced,
in Cicero's words, to the position of ' specks ' upon the
water, while the chief currents from equator to pole are indi-
cated, apparently as the chief cause of the tides.

It is doubtful how soon the Macrobius plans were altered
by mediaeval copyists to the uncertain orientation which we
find in the manuscripts. But Macrobius himself, in his own
mind, certainly put the north at the top, for in one place1
he says that the Upper temperate zone was inhabited by
men of our race. In one of these climate-maps,2 a distinction
is drawn between the domesticated folk of the same temperate
zone and the wild men of the woods, who inhabited arctic
and torrid lands.

The Liber Moridus 3 of Lambert contains, besides the mappe-
moride, two Macrobian zone-maps ; and indications of the
same character, written or sketched, may be found in many
other mediaeval authors. Thus the Venerable Becle, in his
I)e temporum rationed discusses the five climates, and perhaps
supplies the accompanying map, in which the equinoctial
belt and the four great segments of the earth's circle are
described in strict agreement with Macrobius.5 Again, the
Imago Mundi of Honorius of Autun reproduces Macrobian
ideas, both in text and illustration ; 6 while another twelfth-
century work, the Philosophy of Nature1 of the Parisian
teacher, William of Conches,s contains three Macrobian maps,

1 Dream of Scipio ; or, in full,
Commentarius ex Cicerone in Som-
nium Scipionis, ii. 5.

2 Given in the Venice edition of
1489.

:) Cf. fols. 24, 225 in Ghent MS.
Also in the Hague MS.

4 Chapter xxxiv.

5 E.g. Comment. Soma. Scip.,\\. 6 :
each segment measures 63,090 stadia.

6 Of. the Macrobian zone-map in
the Paris MS. of the Imago.

7 Magna philosopMa naturae.

8 Near Evreux. He taught in Paris
c. a. n. 1150. Of the three maps
named, the first has the North, the
second has the East, and the third
the West, at the top. Sacrobosco's
map hereafter referred to, p. 575, has
the South uppermost.

IMJV

Snpe~Rias criwFt'Riuscn.'vRi.-tjuor) ixron peRcoeTrraco
Tfttrb ciKcuom.^r.rrciRiN-1111-qansi iNrSuT/tSTorus

Q.R"BIj5JDTCri PITU R-qu.O IHHADTTeKTtrR; GST e~Wl M SOISTI

'mus sniseKToiusTXK^^CK^Tj^ri?t:BT'i7\iai i issvyn

lUTCR SppeTOOR e-TiMpeKiau, HieMKtTS sicqao ptTtrr
1 jxr>et> i c7 e r i MCT rc a ricr orbis or»?v_Rt3 c q rr?ct qtioo o\ i o rv-
uioi yRiooRe esx xwTR,a>rsones\BjT,e esxcftjE^oepRekewsas

VCOTlCIjS ORBTg .^arBITUSIWST/VOTTS "OucewTlSW"1 Mqu.A
\c,i>jia otrOTScrS fPTIXEHS ~

9

If 5

• <*. i. ^^etm _ mat

THE MACROBIAN 'COTTON' ZONE-MAP OF THE TENTH CENTURY.

[To face]). 574.

VII.] ' MACROBIAN ' AND ' CLIMATE ' MAPS 575

— one sketching the five zones and the zodiac, another showing
the two earth islands of the Eastern hemisphere, the third
indicating the 'Habitable World,' in a T"Q form. Yet
again, the Abbess Herrade of Landsberg, in her Garden of
Delights (about 1180 A.D.), gives us a slight Macrobian zone-
sketch with the ecliptic ; and another of the same kind is to
be found in the Be Sphaera Muncli of John Halifax of Holy-
wood, in Yorkshire, the famous Sacrobosco. who flourished and
wrote in Paris about 1220.

Lastly, we may notice in certain copies of Hyginus, one l of
which is perhaps of the sixth century, a zone-map which
depicts the four land-masses in full Kratesian fashion.

The remaining climate-maps2 are not always easy to
distinguish, except by the absence of definite Macrobian
reference, and the addition of non -Macrobian matter, from
the zone-schemes just noticed. But the sketch of the Spanish
Jew, Tetrus Alfonsus of Huesca (of about the year- 11 00), is
obviously designed to illustrate the Hindu and Arabic con-
ception of the world-centre called ' Arym,' 3 and thus has a
special interest. ' Arym ' was sometimes considered as a
mathematical centre-point for the Habitable World, for the
Eastern hemisphere, or for the whole earth-circle ; sometimes
as ' the throne of Iblis,' a home of accursed spirits ; and
sometimes as a mysterious and lonely mountain in the midst
of the Indian Ocean. In the eleventh-century writings of
Gerard of Cremona, if not earlier,4 it passes into Latin
thought ; it is very prominent in Roger Bacon : and here in
Petrus Alfonsus, and other ' schematists,' it is adopted as a
geographical axiom of equal importance with the climates
and celestial directions.

1 Now at Wolfenbiittel, once at [ 3 Otherwise Aren, 'Anm,' or 'Arin.'
Bobbio. i E.g. in the tenth-century Plato

- See Appendix on Maps, pp. 626-7. of Tivoli,

576 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Oh.

Undoubtedly these climate-maps had their origin in
Greek science ; Marinus of Tyre, according to Masudi, com-
posed some of especial excellence, still existing in the tenth
century ; and among these classical examples two varieties
may be distinguished. In the former, the climate-scheme
was only part of a map-framework, and was combined with
an immense amount of other matter, as in the extant work
of Ptolemy, and probably in the lost designs of Marinus.
In the latter, this scheme was abstracted from all else, and
sketched in roughly outlined maps for the use of beginners.
It is the latter form that passes into mediaeval use.

Lastly, the St. Omer map is suggestive, not only of the
' Macrobius ' and other climate - sketches, but also of that
curious variety of mediaeval cartography, known as the T"0
maps.1 These are very numerous, but at the same time very
similar in character ; at least eighty manuscripts, reaching
from the eighth to the fifteenth century, contain designs of
this type ; and the conception of one and all is fully ex-
pressed in the lines of Dati : — 2

' Un T dentro a im O mostra il disegno
Como in tre parte fu diviso il mondo.'

In some of the earliest examples, however, the T and Q
formations are not combined, and the 'dividing letter' is
associated with square and oblong as well as with round,
enceintes.

As early as the fifth century before Christ, some of the
Ionic philosophers hit upon this as a convenient way of indicat-
ing the chief divisions of the OiJcoumene, or Habitable World,
and in spite of Aristotle's contempt, it survived as a popular
favourite, like the climate-sketches and Kratesian schemes
1 See Appendix on Maps, pp. 627-31. * Sphera, iii. 11,

•s

VII.] T-O maps 577

already referred to. There were man}' differences of detail,
though Greece was usually placed at the midst of the circle,1
and Delphi, or Delos, in the midst of Greece ; some of
these T or T-O designs made Europe — some Asia — the
largest of the Continents, but no one gave the pre-
dominance to Africa, then commonly believed to end on
this side of the Equator. These simple plans, grouping the
chief land-masses of the known world in an easily recognis-
able shape, were generally associated with the allied con-
ception of a centre for the circuit of the earth, for the
infinitely extended horizon. They did not of necessity deny
the theory of a globular earth; but they were concerned,
and only concerned, with its aspect as a surface, flat or
slightly curved, as apparent to the ordinary observer.

In some of the T"0 family, traces may also be observed
of the three-cornered representations which, like the square,
or four-sided, sketch-maps, were in favour in ancient schools.2
For the one, the threefold division of continents, of seas, of the
Christian Godhead ; for the other, the four quarters of the
heavens, the four chief winds, even the four Gospels, were
quoted ; and to each variety there are numerous allusions.
A clear description of a X scheme is given by St. Augustine,
who probably used a work of this kind, though at the same
time he can hardly have been ignorant of a very different
style of chart — the road-map, in ribbon form, of which we
possess a copy in the Peutinger Table.

The earliest among the T"0 examples of the Dark- Age
and Crusading Periods are to be found in the works of St.
Isidore;3 and in a measure these may be considered as
typical of all others. Here, besides the three continents, we

1 Where tin.' O form was combined two are here specially referred to as
with the X- archetypal ; eleven others in St. Isi-

2 Ci'. Orosius, II. ii. dore's works are quite unimportant,

3 Etymologies, xiv. 2, 3 ; of these

2 o

578 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Oh.

have the names of the three sons of Noah, one patriarch
being attached to each continent ; the East is at the top ; and
the ' Great ' or Mediterranean Sea occupies the whole of
the T-f°rmed intersection of the land.1 Other specimens
develop the simple titles of Asia, Skem, and the like, by
explanatory inscriptions which declare (for instance) that
Asia is named after a Queen Asia,2 and is inhabited by
27 peoples ; that Africa is derived from Afer, a descendant
of Abraham, and has 30 races with 360 towns ; and that
Europe, so called from the Europa of mythology, is over-
spread by the 15 tribes of the sons of Japbet, possessing
120 cities.

Besides the (sixth century) Isidorian examples, one other
T"0 maP — and only 01ie — deserves special mention. This
is the Byzantine sketch of 1110, now at Oxford, which
contains some features of high antiquity, and is one of the
earliest plans where Jerusalem appears in the centre of the
earth. Both Greek and Latin titles are here given for the
quarters of the heavens ; the Twelve Tribes of Israel and the
locations of the Twelve Apostles are indicated; and from
these indications, combined with the barbarous confusions
of Levantine place-names, we may with some assurance
infer that we have here a copy, poorly executed by an
ignorant scribe in Western Europe, of a Byzantine work
brought home by some of the earliest Crusaders about the
year 1100.3

The threefold division i of the world is expressed in some 5

1 Hence these are sometimes called
Noachic maps.

2 ' Of the posterity of Shem.'

:; St. John's Coll. Lihr., Cod.
membr. fol., xvii., fol. 6. For other
T"0 maps, e.g. the Strassbnrg of

c. 870, or the St. Omer of 1010
see Appendix, pp. 628-30.

4 Trifaria Orbis Divisio.

5 Especially those of ' Gorlitz ' and
' Rome.' In these the "[" has lost its
rigidity ; the idea of a central point

VII.]

T-O AND SALLTJST MAPS

579

of the 'Sallust' maps1 far better than in the T"0 plans of
the usual type. Here we have a partition of the Oikoumene
into fairly equal continents, but with less rigid symmetry,
and in a way more reconcilable with scientific views, Asia
having a slight preponderance, and definite allusion being-
added to the 17th, 18th, and 19th chapters of the Jagurtlia?
It was probably at an early date, long anterior to our
oldest surviving Sallust manuscript, if not in the lifetime
of the author himself, that the original Sallust map was
inserted ; but this plan was either admitted into very
few copies, or was replaced in most by an ordinary T"0
map, lacking all definite reference to Sallust materials.
The oldest example, the ' Leipzig,' of about 980, probably
shows us certain features of this primitive type, a pre-
Christian scheme, without Jerusalem, and with an over-
shadowing Home. For this primitive type the authorship
of a priest in North Italy, somewhere between 600 and
700, has been suggested ; but it may fairly be referred to a
time before the destruction, if not before the conversion, of
the Roman Empire in the West.3

Next in order we may glance at some examples 4 of
Cliorography , of the detailed representation of limited areas ;
and among these, the most elaborate belong to the school
we may call Sionist, as being concerned, mainly or ex-
clusively, with the topography of Jerusalem. The best-
known of these Sionist plans perhaps belongs to the
Crusading period, and goes by the name of the Situs

is not expressed ; and the general
conception refers rather to a threc-
comered world than to an exact
tripartite division of the same.

1 See Appendix on Maps, pp. 631 -2.

- Especially eh. 17. None of the

copies are important enough to be
described, except in the Appendix:
on Maps, pp. 631-2.

3 All existing Sallust maps conform
more or less closely to the T"0 type

4 See Appendix on Maps, pp. 633-8.

580 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION

[Oh.

Hicrusaleni ; but a far more important specimen has lately
come to light from a much earlier time.

The Mosaic Map of Madaba,1 which is here in question,
though a discovery of the last two decades, belongs to the
later time of Justinian (about 550), and may claim to be
the oldest existing specimen of Christian cartography. For
although the original designs of Cosmas Indicopleustes may
have been executed twenty or thirty years earlier, the
earliest manuscript we possess of the Christian Topography
does not carry us back further than the ninth century.
Compared with the latter, the Madaba Mosaic is of
much greater merit, as far as we can judge from its
broken and damaged state ; it is not unworthy of the
Restored Empire and its glories in arms, in legislation, or
in architecture ; and it increases our regret for the loss of
so much Byzantine work in this as in other fields.

The Madaba map covers Palestine and parts of Egypt and
Arabia ; one of its special objects is clearly to delineate the
Holy City ; and it probably reproduces with fair exactitude
the condition of Jerusalem half a century before the Persian
sack in 6142 The extension of the design is somewhat
similar to the smaller ' Jerome ' map, where Neapolis or
Nablus lies in the middle, and the Mediterranean forms
the Western limit. In its pictorial character, and especially
in its town-vignettes, the Madaba plan recalls both the
Peutinger Table, and some of the Beatus examples.3

Here then we have one of the oldest pictures yet dis-
covered of Jerusalem (outside the Egyptian and Assyrian

1 It should have been noticed in a
former volume, but that it has only
been described by European scholars
since the publication of The Dawn
of Modern Geography, vol. i., in
1S97.

2 Viz. c. a.d. 545-565.

3 Notably the 'Paris' of 1150
(' Paris iii.'), whose illustrations show
little resemblance to the sketches of
a flat design, but much to those of
a mosaic plan.

TttE>fi\DXBA

OF THE VI ^ CENTURY MIDDLE-

0 10 20 40 60 SO 100 120 .

""a UfljlOCClN

^ „ „ w

S&.'.

li

ij

THE MADABA MOSAIC MAP OF THE SIXTH CENTURY (MIDDLE).

[To face p. 580,

VII.]

THE MADABA MAP

581

monuments), one of the first specimens of Christian map-
making, and apparently one of the earliest illustrations of
the division of Palestine among the Twelve Tribes of Israel.1
It is of course strictly ecclesiastical in type, for it was
designed for the pavement of a church. Most of its
one hundred and thirty place-names correspond with the
notices of Eusebius ; 2 but one entry appears to refer to a
monastic foundation 3 of the early sixth century on the east
side of Jordan ; and in some places the text is unique.4

From the fragments discovered it is clear that the original
once occupied a space of about fifty by twenty feet ; the
length is from North to South ; but the east is at the top,
as in most primitive and mediaeval Christian designs. All
the north part of the mosaic has been destroyed, except two
morcels and what remains, in all about half of the complete
scheme, is mainly concerned with the country between
Nablus and the Nile. The orientation has been greatly
disturbed by the assumption of the Levant coast (from
Alexandria to Acre) as a base, supposed to furnish a line
running almost due north and south.

In general, this plan may be regarded as a decorative,
freely conceived, and well-informed, but not closely scientific,
illustration of Bible history. Names and objects are not
kept in any strict proportion ; the perspective is con-
ventional ; but the rich store of inscriptions furnishes not
a few details of interest. In the larger towns, such as
Jerusalem, Pelusium, and Gaza, an attempt is made to

1 This is conjectural, but very
probable, from the fragments as yet
recovered.

2 Especially in the Onomasticun,
i.e. the early-middle of the fourth
century.

:! The Convent of St. Saphas or

Sapsaphas, a saint contemporary with
Elias, Patriarch of Jerusalem, a.i>.
'49-1-518.' This place is named as
Sapsas by Johannes Moschos in the
seventh century.

4 Sometimes older and newer forms
are gr\ en together.

582 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION fc6=-

represent the principal streets by elaborate colonnades, and
even to portray some of the chief buildings, sometimes in
round, sometimes in angular forms. Cities of the second
class are indicated by sketches of walls flanked by round
towers. Each of the Tribes of Israel seems to have
originally appeared — the names being marked by great red
letters, accompanied in some cases by a text of Old Testa-
ment prophecy. But in what remains only six tribes can
still be found, and several of these {e.g. Symeon) survive
in a very fragmentary state.

In the plan of Jerusalem the two great streets, marked
by covered galleries, which run across the city from north
to south, probably represent the markets or bazaars of
Justinian's time, sacked by the Persians of Chosroes in
614; while the Church near the Western Gate, with its
round or apsidal end facing the Mediterranean, and its
staircase communicating with the colonnade street in the
centre of the town, represents the Holy Sepulchre of
Constantine and Helena, the first of the successive Chris-
tian sanctuaries on the site of the Passion.

In Lower Egypt and the Desert of Sinai are a number
of places and legends ; while three arms of the Nile are
enumerated — the Pelusiac to the north (east), an unnamed
and partially destroyed channel to the south (west), and
the Sabennitic in the middle, with three ramifications — Saitic,
Bucolic, and Bolbitic. These names are all inscribed along
the course of the stream.

The city of Madaba, Medaba, or Medeba,1 beyond the Dead
Sea, south of Heshbon, and south-east of Nebo or Pisgah,
was an important station of the Old Empire on its Arabian
frontier ; it lay upon the Eoman road which connected
Damascus with Petra and the Eed Sea ; and it was close

' Medaba usually in Roman writers ; Medeba in the Bible.

ubi MifitHlii.Miir-

7 \ \

THE SITUS HXERUSALEM, C. A.D. Hull.

| To face p. 582.

VII.

THE MADABA MAP AND THE ' SITUS '

583

to another road from Jerusalem and Jericho, which crossed
the Jordan and united with the Damascus-Petra route
at Heshbon. Once it belonged to the Tribe of Eeuben ;
from the fourth to the sixth century — from the time of
Constantine to the Moslem invasion — it was the seat of
a Christian bishop ; and thus it was not without remains
of some pretension when, after twelve centuries of neglect,
the Christians of Kerak migrated thither, and in clearing
away the rubbish,1 revealed the unsuspected treasure of
this mosaic-map.

The famous Plan of Jerusalem, or Situs Hicrusalem,2 of the
early twelfth century,3 has been often coupled with the tract
Qualiter sita est civitets Hierusalem, commonly supposed to be
a paraphrase of the material provided by the Situs. It is
probable, however, that Tobler and Molinier are right in
referring this pamphlet4 to the last quarter of the tenth
century, the era of the short-lived and partial Byzantine
reconquest of Syria under John Tzimiskes. One copy of
the Situs appears to have been sketched by the anonymous
compiler of the Gesta Francorum 5 : but the material of the
sketch, in relation to the Holy City itself, is far more ample
than what is given us in the Gesta. Professedly, but not
literally, the latter follows the narrative of Pulcher of
Chartres, who described the First Crusade as an eye-
witness ; but at times the Gesta agrees with the Situs,
and differs markedly from Fulcher. The tract on the
City of Jerusalem, however, is quite independent of the
Gesta, and assuming its aforesaid tenth-century origin,

J 1880. The map was found in
December 1896.
'J Sec Appendix on Maps, pp. 636-8.
:J Some put back the date to 1099.
4 The City of Jerusalem. For the

text of the Qualiter sita, est cicitas
Hierusalem, ef. Bociiti cle JJ Orient
Latin, seri<: geograpJiique, i. 2, 345;
edition by Tobler and Molinier.
5 Probably finished before 1109.

584 GEOGRAPHICAL THEOEY AND DESCRIPTION [Ch.

under Byzantine inspiration, it would seem that the
draughtsman of the Crusading Situs used the written de-
scription of Tzimiskes' time ; while the author of the Gcsta,
ignorant of the City of Jerusalem, is indirectly connected
with the same through the medium of the sketch-map l he
uses and transcribes.

From the insertions of the two leading copies 2 (at St. Omer
and Brussels), it appears that the Situs was but a section of
a more extensive original, representing parts of Galilee,3 the
Upper Jordan, and the Way of the Israelites from Egypt
through the desert. The later forms of this plan, such as
we have in the Copenhagen transcript, have lost all these
traces of a wider outlook ; even the surroundings of Jerusalem
are here wanting ; and various additions appear, of a date
clearly subsequent to the First Crusade. Thus the Temple
and Sepulchre of the Lord no longer show the round form
which is noticeable in the early copies of the Situs, referring
us to the buildings of the pre-Crusading period.

Lastly, the group of maps which own the common author-
ship of Matthew Paris 4 fitly closes the cartography of the
Central Mediaeval time.

In the twelfth and earlier thirteenth century, the monastery
of St. Albans possessed what may be called an historical
school, or institute, which was then5 the chief centre of
English chronicle, and with different environment might
have become the nucleus of a great university. Among the
writers of this school, the greatest was Matthew Paris
(1195-1259), whose three chief works contain various maps

1 The Situs.

2 Of these copies one belongs to a
twelfth-century manuscript of the
Gcsta, the other is hound up with
the Crusading records of Fuleher.

3 E.g. Tabor Magdalum, etc.

4 See AjipendixonMaps, pp. 638-42.

5 And in all for about two hundred
years.

wi.] matthew Paris' maps 585

and plans unsurpassed in mediaeval geography, before the
rise of the Portolani. Thus, in the Historia Major, or Cronica
Majora, we have the so-called Itinerary to the Holy Land, or
Stationes a Londinio ad. Hicrosolymam, as well as a mappe-
monde, a map of Palestine, and the first of Matthew's four
maps of England. Again, in the Historia Minor, or Historia
Anylorum, there is another form of the Palestine Itinerary,
the second and third maps of England, and the Situs
Britanniae. Lastly, in the History of St. Albans, a portion of
the supposed Pilgrim-road, as far as South Italy, is given in
another shape, together with the Schema Britanniac.

Matthew Paris, then, appears as the author of six
geographical designs ; a world-map, in two slightly different
forms ; a map of England, in four variants ; a purely con-
ventional sketch of the Heptarchy, in the form of a Rose cles
Vents;1 a plan, or schema, of the Eoman roads of the same
country ; a ' routier ' to Apulia from the English Court ; and
a map of Palestine, which tradition has wrongly joined with
the former, to make a Pilgrim Itinerary from London to
Jerusalem.

Among all designs of purely mediaeval origin, Matthew's
plans of England, as he knew it, show the best evidence of
critical study, the most systematic' attempt at an exact de-
lineation of a particular country. They are, in fact, remarkable
instances of what Ptolemy called Choroyraphy or regional
geography ; and they would be even more important, but for
another consideration. At the very time that the English
chronicler was draughting these maps, compass-charts (based
on coast-surveys, of a minuteness hitherto unknown) were
beginning in the south of Europe. Tn comparison with
these Portolani, Matthew's work is but secondary; for at his
best he only represents approximate and traditional know-
1 The Situs Britanniae. This has the East at the top.

586 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Ch.

ledge; the only bases of true geography, the fixing of
terrestial positions by celestial observations, and the in-
dependent and detailed examination of limited areas by
practical travellers,1 were first given us on an adequate scale
by the new school of Mediterranean pilots and map-makers.
The monk of St. Albans was, after all, a student and a
bookman, rather than an independent investigator of
nature.

His world-map,2 unlike his 'England,' is of small value,
though it is curiously different from all other mediaeval
designs ; perhaps its most interesting feature is an inscrip-
tion (placed in the neighbourhood of Mount Taurus) which
alludes to the three great wall-maps existing in or near
London at this time (c. 1250). One of these is ascribed to
a certain Eobert of Melkeley ; another is called the mapjpe-
monde of Waltham in Essex ; the third is termed the
property of the Lord King at his Court in Westminster.
This last (whether or no it hung in the Exchecpier, as some
have thought) had been ' figured by the direction ' of
Matthew Paris himself ; and perhaps the same authorship
may be assumed for the Waltham map. Some features of
these lost examples may have survived in the fourteenth-
century work of Eanulf Higden ; in size they must have
resembled the ' Hereford ' and ' Ebstorf ' designs ; but they
probably showed a better draughtsmanship, a wider and
sounder knowledge, and a less fabulous spirit than the latter.
Yet compared to Matthew's England, his surviving mappe-
monde is a disappointment ; and if we were to assume that
his wall-maps at Westminster and elsewhere presented merely

1 This, repeating infinitely the
actual experience of wayfarers, and
expressing the result in extremely
minute detail, was but faintly ap-
preciated by the Classical World and

was wholly unknown in the earlier
Middle Ages.

2 This measures 34.8 by 23.6
centimetres, and contains seventy-
nine legends.

"~—,:v7rtirraipw

lerSujl'.

.'i.i,+..,Vup. a^n

4

t cnvftTDoa- <-—» 3timnnTO-ftirtapftr6ift»ftoomavtomimtn , si

/If' . < «^v^ftiiiorirtmiifirn,nTnirn*o2feii;trtTatib,i 0^*

nwiil''

Cummin

1 qt> nrqi chums arcii frt m\w tfrfcvni ft nofft e
ffttnfl IntaMiSfc&hi vbtioroptx^-rqitn mis

M. PARIS' WORLD-MAP OP THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY (MIDDLE).

{To facejj. 58G.

YII-i matthew paris' world-map 587

the same features on a larger scale, there would be less
reason to regret the loss of these Orbes picti.

The chief thing worthy of remark in this world-map is
its limitation. For it is not really a mappe-monde, but
rather a sketch of Europe and the adjacent coasts ; only the
extreme northern edge of Africa is portrayed ; as to the
parts of Asia here given, the author has so little intention
of working them out in detail, that he covers most of the
spaces with the inscription just noticed, about the three
wall-maps. Even the Europe of this example is not
finished ; its northern coast is absolutely straight, and ap-
parently follows the requirements of the sheet or page
without attempting to represent the true shore-line. The
western littoral is scarcely better ; England, which
Matthew knew so well, is entirely omitted ; and it would
be difficult to rate the compiler's geography at a high level,
if we only possessed this design, and could not also refer to
the four maps he has left us of his native country.

These last (and especially the two examples in the
Cotton Library) are the finest achievements of mediaeval
student-geography.1 In Wales, Devon, and Cornwall, the
Humber estuary, the East Anglian peninsula, and the line
of the Severn, the execution is so good as to suggest
modern accuracy : but, on the other hand, highland, or
ultra-marine, Scotland, is treated as an island wholly
separated by the Firths of Forth and Clyde from the
southern region, to which it is united only by a bridge.

Heie also, fur the first time in Xorthern Europe, we have
a map with the Xorth at the top ; and in this we may see
a victory of revived scientific feeling over the ecclesiastical

1 They appear to tic from the i the map measures 33.8 by 22.3
annalist's own hand in the manu- centimetres.
scripts we possess. In the best copy

588 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION Ch.

preference for the East, and of North-European feeling
over the Arabic and other influence which had made the
South the primary quarter of the heavens. But the
Ptolemaic arrangement, here reproduced by Matthew, was
also better adapted for a sketch of the long and narrow
island of Britain, tapering towards the North,1 and hence
perhaps its reappearance in this map.

The Situs and Schema Britanniae are works of ex-
tremely slight interest ; but it may be remarked that the
latter, which deals with the four chief Eoman roads2 of
England, and makes them intersect at Dunstable, has a
peculiar orientation, with the West at the top.

Matthew's so-called Itinerary from London to the Holy
Land, with which has usually been reckoned his map of
Palestine, is not really a connected whole ; it is the result
of combining two different works, a pictorial representation
of the route between London and Apulia, and a sketch of the
Holy Land. In the former, the chief stations or halting-
places are indicated in sections of the route, beginning at
the North, the chief rivers and mountains of the journey also
appearing ; in the latter, we have a map of Palestine, with
the East at the top, in the ordinary ecclesiastical manner.
The connection of the two is simply in the fact that both
are by Matthew Paris ; that they are of almost the same
date ; and that each is written in Old French intermixed with
Latin.

The Itinerary to Apulia is not, therefore, part of a
pilgrim guide to the Holy Land ; but rather appears to be a

1 The East at the top would have
made Matthew's England run on to
two pages of the MS., broken in the
middle 1 >y the fold. Again the North
(from the Pole Star and Great Bear)
had obviously greater scientific
claims. The Anonymous Geographer

of Ravenna, in the seventh century,
claims to have composed a special
map of Britain, as well as his magpe-
monde, and this also is said to have
had the North at the top.

2 Ermine St., Watling St., Iek-
nield St., and the Fosse Way.

MATTHEW PARTS' ITINERARY FROM LONDON TO APULIA (SOUTH ITALIAN
SECTION) OP THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY (MIDDLE).

[To face p, 588.

vii.] matt, paris' England, Palestine, etc.

589

political sketch, with the following history. On St. Martin's
Day, 1252, one Master Albert, a Papal notary, appeared at
the English Court, and offered to Earl Richard of Cornwall the
Kingdom of Apulia, on behalf of Pope Innocent IV., titular
overlord of that realm. The Earl himself looked on the
gift as a ' dominion in the moon ' ; but his brother, King
Henry III., and the whole English Court party, were eager
to accept the offer ; and this Itinerary was probably com-
posed 1 during the abortive negotiations on the matter, with
the view of informing and fomenting English ambitions as
directed on South Italy.'2 This is confirmed by the fact that
the Itinerary proper reaches only to Pome ; at this point
it assumes a new character, and portrays the Norman lands
of Pouille, or Apulia, in considerable detail, enumerating all
the greater towns. No list of stations is given from South
Italy to the Holy Land, and it is pretty clear that none was
intended.

Matthew's sketch of Palestine,3 so often connected with
the Itinerary just mentioned, is in some of its more general
aspects parallel to the smaller ' Jerome ' map ; 4 but in de-
tails there is a great difference. For ' Jerome ' gives us
ancient names throughout, while the English chronicler
inserts many indications of thirteenth-century nomencla-
ture and history ; such as the fortress-enclosures of the
Templars, the Teutonic Knights, the Pisan and Genoese
merchants, and other Western corporations, in Acre ; or the
dwelling of the Old Man of the Mountain, or Chief of the

1 From descriptions, not always
with proper orientation.

- This is all recorded in the long
inscription or legend over ' Ponille ' ;
ct'. Historic*. Minor, iii. 126. Another
inscription at Trapes or Trapani in
Sicily tells how Earl Richard called
here « > ii his return from a Crusade.

3 This is accompanied by some
vagne indications of roads, which,
taken together with the camel
picture, points to a commercial object
in this design.

4 Both have the North at the top,
Palestine in the middle, and Egypl

I on the right.

590 GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY AND DESCRIPTION [Oh. VII.

Assassins, ' far towards the North.' The text of this map
is, in fact, closely related to various Itineraries of the period
of Latin domination in Syria, such as Lcs p&erinages pour
alter en Jdrusalevrij Lcs chemins et les p&erinages de la Terre
Sainte, or La device des chemins de Bahiloine (viz. Babylon
of Egypt). The first of these is of 1231, the second of
1265, the third of 1289-1291, but it is probable that
earlier redactions of the two last already existed in
Matthew's time, and were used by him.1

1 Thus La diviee mentions the
arm of the river which the ' French
King's people passed over ', and
herein appears to refer to St. Louis'
Crusade of 1251. Cf. SovtiU de
L'Orient, serie geographique, iii. vi.
87 ; x. 177 ; xiii. 237. Perhaps in his
Palestine, whose form is traditional,
while its content is largely novel (as
in other works of the same author),
Matthew Paris has worked up an older
mappc-monde ; with his Acre Ave may

compare Marino Sanuto's plan of
1320 — a later development on a
similar basis. From 1229 to 1291
Acre was the capital and the only
important relic of the Kingdom of
Jerusalem.

On Hasan Ibn Saba, founder of
the Assassins, cf. pp. 239-40 of this
volume ; the destruction of this sect
by the Mongols (in 1258) is one of
the last facts noticed in the Historia
Major.

,ii of tiiihtkkviii

( 591 )

APPENDIX ON MAPS

I. — In the case of the Beatus maps, there is evidence for the
existence (besides the Original of c. a. p. 776) of two primitive but
vanished copies from which all existing examples are derived.
The Commentary and its World-Picture were perhaps composed
at Valcavado. Of the two primitive copies, one appears to have
been made in the same house before the year 800, the other
at Osma or Uxama in Old Castile, otherwise famous as
an early home of St. Dominic.

In all probability, moreover, the primitive ' Osma,' of about
800, passed through another intermediate stage, which has
also perished, before reaching its oldest surviving form, in 'St.
Sever.' As descendants of the primitive Valcavado we must
likewise admit some intermediates, especially (A) one of about
900, the source of ' Ashburnham,' ' Valladolid,' 'Madrid,'
and ' London ' ; and (B) two of the tenth century, sources of
'Gerona,' 'Turin,' and 'Paris iii.' (of c. 1150), as well as of a lost
copy of the twelfth century (' Las Huelgas ').

Of the ten existing specimens three have been known for
some time ; the remaining seven have only been noticed lately.
St. Sever, Turin, and London were all described before 1850 ;
Turin, indeed, as early as 1749 ; the other two were dealt
with by Santarem in 1849. For the first adequate account of
the Ashburnham, Valladolid, Madrid, Gerona, Osma, and later
Paris copies we have to thank Professor Konrad Miller, whose
work has already made a revolution in the study of mediaeval
maps. See p. 549, n., of this vol.

As to the more important details of the various copies
other than St. Sever ; —

(A) The Paris of 1250 ('Paris ii.'). In this Jerusalem is
quite separate from Palestine ; and on the eastern rim of its
world occur Armenia, Arabia, Greece, and Pandemia (Pannonia).

592 APPENDIX ON MAPS

Paradise, originally at the top because that was the Eastern
quarter, has been left in the same position when a Southern
interpretation has been given to it, although the Christian
Eden is never conceived as being in the South (cf. Genesis
ii. 8). This map forms a link between St. Sever and Osma,
but is not derived from either. In its external form and
colouring it recalls St. Sever ; but, for instance, the red
striped bands on a yellow ground which in the Aquitanian
copy designate North and South, have lost their meaning in
the Paris example, remaining only as ornaments ; while the
Red Sea has retained its form and colour, though its direction
has been changed. The town-pictures, especially in Crete and
Cyprus, also resemble St. Sever, and these and other features
support the belief that the original work of Beatus is best
represented in the French copy of the eleventh century. From
the size and prominence of Astorga in Spain, encircled with a
brown and yellow band, we may suppose this was the place of
draughtsmanship. [Original in Paris, Bibl. Nat., MSS. Lat., nouv.
acq., 1366 ; the page measures 350 by 230 millimetres.]

(B) The Osma of 1203, first published by K. Miller, may
be called a more distant relative of St. Sever, which it almost
equals in value and with which it has common ground in its
general delineation of lands, rivers, and seas. It represents
Paradise simply by the springs of the Four Sacred Rivers. Osma
or Uxama is 56 kilometres to the south-west of Soria, in the
upper valley of the Douro. It was an ancient stronghold of
Sertorius, and St. Dominic was once a canon of the Church.
The manuscript measures 38 by 30 centimetres.

(C) The Valeavado or Aslibarnliam map, of about 970,
was also first published by K. Miller. It is, perhaps, one of
two copies made about this time from two earlier and slightly
different transcripts of the Beatus original. The present
example was drawn and written in Valeavado by Obeco, under
Abbot Sempronius, between the 8th of June, and the 8th of
September in one year ; the lost contemporary was made at
Tabara by Emeterius, between the 1st of May and the 27th
of July in a single summer. In the Valeavado of Obeco, the
later Ashburnham, a very inferior intermediate has been used,
and the new reproduction has made things worse. Most rivers
have been left out, and the only two that appear, the Nile
and the Danube, are represented like inland seas. Of the
town-pictures of the original only Jerusalem remains. The
canoes and fishes swimming in the encircling ocean are care-
fully preserved, like the mountains, though the latter are
conventionalised. The chief peculiarity of this copy is its

APPENDIX ON MAPS 593

absolutely right-angled form ; other copies approach, but none
equal, it in this respect. The West-Gothic character of the
Ashburnham script is also found in the next three copies,
'Valladolid,' 'Madrid,5 and 'London'— (Brit. Mus. of 1109)—
all of which may be treated as in part derivatives from the tran-
script of Obeco. This example is, however, too faded and
damaged for us to estimate its value fully. [Ashburnham
MSS., XV ; the page measures 38 by 28 centimetres.]

(D) The Valladolid copy of 1035 is in various ways less
complete than Ashburnham. For instance, it has not the two
trees (?) given by the latter in Asia, the similar tree in Ethiopia,
the names of the three Continents, or Paradise. On the other
hand, like the two next copies, it gives us the Pyrenees, which
are wanting in Ashburnham ; and it returns to the original oval
form, in preference to the right-angled. Ashburnham, Madrid,
and London portray woods upon the mountains ; Valladolid
only ornaments upon the hill-ranges. But, like Ashburnham,
Valladolid marks the Province -boundaries of Africa by ornamental
trees. [Original in Valladolid University Library, MS. 229,
parchment ; the page measures 335 by 225 millimetres.]

(E) The Madrid [Nat. Libr. ; measures 47 by 31 centi-
metres] is simply a copy of the Valladolid, with a few different
readings ; and the same may be said of —

(F) The London ox so-called ' Spanish- Arabic ' of 1109
[Brit, Mus., Add. MSS. 11695; measures 37.5 by 24.4 centi
metres], which is, however, the best preserved of all Beatus
maps, and shows some signs of copying both from Ashburnham
and Valladolid.

The remaining copies all belong to the Tabara, or Emeterius,
subdivision. There are apparently two lost intermediates of this
stem ; one already noticed, finished by Emeterius on the 27th
July, 970, was the same as a work begun by Magius in 968.
A twelfth-century copy of this existed till 1869 at the Mon-
astery of Las Huelgas. The other Emeterius copy seems to
have been made in 975 or 978, one Senior writing the script, and
Emeterius painting in the design, both working under a certain
Abbot Dominic lis. The work of Emeterius, in these copies, was
probably better than that of Obeco in his, just as the Gerona
and twelfth- century Paris are superior to the Ashburnham and
Valladolid.

(G) The Gerona copy, of about 1400, has preserved the
original oblong oval, as well as the boats and fishes in the ocean ;
[it measures 36 by 52 centimetres].

(H) The famous Turin of the twelfth century [Turin Libr*
MS. I., ii. 1 ; measures 39 by 27.5 centimetres], once supposed

2 p

594 APPENDIX ON MAPS

to be a mediaeval design of the first importance, is thought
by Miller to be a derivative of Gerona. It leaves out the boats
and fishes, and has some gross mis-readings. In the text of
this manuscript (viz. The Apocalypse Commentary, folios 45, 46),
though not in the map, stress is laid on the twelve Apostles.

(I) The Paris of the twelfth century, 'Paris iii.', a direct
copy from Emeterius, shares with Turin the peculiarity of a
circular shape. Though much mutilated, its town-pictures are
striking, and far excel anything in this line from the other
Beatus Maps. But to the copyist the pictorial part was
evidently more important than the geography, and the text
is very imperfect and disfigured. The Mediterranean cuts the
earth in two halves ; the Mediterranean Islands are put in
the ocean. The longer inscriptions of the original are all
omitted ; but three new names are given us, ' Anglia,' 'Irlanda,'
and ' Sevilia,'' and two names, 'Maiorga' and 'Toletum,' otherwise
missing from all the Valcavado copies. [In Paris, Bib. Nat.,
MSS. Lat., nouv. acq., 2290 ; measures 450 by 310 millimetres.]

The value of these designs lies chiefly in their high antiquity.
Four of them certainly belong to the pre-Crusading Period,
namely, St. Sever, Ashburnham, Valladolid, and Madrid ; and
both from their age and size, these plans are well worthy of
notice. "We have scarcely anything from Latin Christian
cartography of so early a date ; and the few specimens which
carry us back to a still older time are much slighter
sketches, such as the Albi map of the eighth century.
From the close similarity ' between all members of the Beatus
family, we may be pretty certain of the character, not merely
of the primitive copies or intermediates, but of the original
itself, as drawn by the 'obscure hill-man and cave-dweller' in
about 776.

The map of St. Sever is, except for the Valcavado-Ash-
burnham of 970, the oldest of our surviving examples ; the
Valcavado-stem copies for the most part show us a slighter and
more inaccurate type of sketch than, those of the Osma family,
lacking the all-important Apostolic pictures and various other
primitive features.

Of the ten Beatus copies, seven are oval, somewhat inclining
to the oblong ; the oldest one (Ashburnham) is right-angled ;
two of the latest (Turin and 'Paris iii.') are circular. What
was the original form ? This question can only lie answered by
remembering the conditions under which it was drawn.

All the copies before us are drawn on two pages ; each page
gives half the map, or half the world ; and perhaps the oblong

APPENDIX ON INI APS 595

so often to be noticed is cine to the copyist lengthening two halves
of a circle to nil up his space and give his work mure room. The
height of the map is, of course, the height of the manuscript in
all instances, thus supporting the theory that the elliptical form
was accidental. The comparatively short, upright axis, from
top to bottom of the single page, represents the Longitude, or
East to West prolongation, of the earth ; while the breadth, the
comparative!}7 long horizontal axis reaching across the two pages,
represents the Latitude, or North to South extension, of the
world. But neither in classical antiquity, nor in the Middle
Ages, do we meet with any geographer who believes the lati-
tudinal extension of the Oikoumene to be greater than the
longitudinal. If so, the very terms of ' latitude ' and ' longitude :
themselves would have been disputed ; but, on the contrary, they
were always accepted. Hence it will not do to use the Beatus
maps as a proof that the ancient Orbes pieti, and especially the
world-map of Agrippa, were oblong or elliptical.

It is probable that on the original Beatus both the Four
Sacred Rivers and the Ancestors of Mankind were depicted, as
on the Hereford and Ebstorf maps of the thirteenth century.
The rivers of Paradise come from Genesis ii. 11-14. The first
three are usually identified with the Indus or Ganges, the Nile,
and the Tigris. We have already described at some length in
Dawn of Modern Geography, i., pp. 332-334, 385-386, 391, the
patristic and mediaeval views on the inaccessibility of the
earthly Paradise [cf. also Midler, Geographi graeci minores, ii.,
513-514 ; the Ptavennese Geographer, Isidore, and Cosmas ; and
the Expositio totius mundi in the version of Junior Philosophus,
c. a.d. 350]. In the Beatus maps there is no clear evidence
of a T-0 design ; the horizontal line dividing Europe and Asia
is pushed up towards the top, and thus deflected from the actual
middle ; only the Osma map is here an exception. Whether
this deflection is intentional or not is doubtful. The X pattern
is prominent in mediaeval cartography for ages, from the time
of St. Augustine and Orosius ; it is certainly not, however, the
usual type of later classical map.

Beatus seems to have followed Isidore in limiting- Africa to
this side of the Equator, like many of the classical geographers,
Cicero, Pliny, Mela, etc. [cf. Cicero, Tusc, i. 28 ; Pliny, vi. 22 ;
Mela, i. 1 ; Solinus, liii., 1 ; Isidore, Orig., xiv. 5, 17]. All the
copies, except the Paris of 1250, mark the 'Antipod' region, and
even 'Paris ii.' gives us a relic of the Australian Continent by
indicating in a corner the Skiapod or shadow-footed monster
whom the Osma Map of 1203 shows us in the Southern Land;
this last was doubtless the original position.

596 APPENDIX ON MAPS

The map of St. Sever evidently confuses Taprobane with the
real Antipodean Land of some ancient geographers, and here are
uncritically mingled ancient traditions of Ceylon, Sumatra, and
other islands off the South of Asia [cf. the language of Pliny
and Solinus on Taprobane, often ami for long time supposed to he the
other Hemisphere or Land of the Ant icht hones. P. Mela also speaks
of the Antipodean Antichthones ; cf. the map of Lambert of St.
Omer, in the Paris and Wolfenbiittel copies].

The scientific champions of the Antipodean theory were
usually Greeks, and always men who believed in the globular
conception of the earth, like the Pythagoreans, Eratosthenes,
Posidonius, M. Capella, Krates, etc. The doctors of the Church,
such as Augustine and Isidore, who construct their system of
geography after an exclusively Latin model, either avoid any
acknowledgment of this globular conception (and its possible
corollary of 'feet to feet' Antichthones), or, as in the case of
Laetantius, absolutely reject such ideas as impious and absurd.
Of Antipodean peoples in the sense of inhabitants — monstrous,
however, rather than human — of a Southern temperate zone, there
was greater tolerance ; and it is this conception which is embodied
in the shadow-footed race of Osma and ' Paris ii.'

As to the circumambient fish and boats : the fish occur in
every example except the Turin map ; the boats are found on
St. Sever, Ashburnham, Valladolid, Gerona, and the Paris of the
twelfth century ('Paris iii.').

In the original Beatus, as in most mediaeval maps, the
lied Sea appears to have been coloured according to the name ;
but in the Paris of 1250, Valladolid, and Ashburnham, this tint is
confined in a more modern sense to the Arabian and Persian Gulfs ;
both these gulfs, on the Ashburnham and Valladolid examples,
are depicted, rather like mountains than seas, in red colour ; in
the Madrid, only the Arabian Gulf is still red ; in the London
the mountainous appearance is still more striking ; in the
Gerona, Turin, and twelfth-century Paris, both gulfs are tinted
with the ordinary hue of the sea. On every Beatus map
K. Miller recognises a trace of the original legends in this
part.

The Black Sea, the Sea of Azov, and the Caspian occur on
St. Sever and on Osma, but are wanting in all maps of the
Valcavado group. The mutilated Mediterannean is no better
than on other works of the earlier Middle Ages.

Only on our two best examples, St. Sever and Osma, do we
meet with mountains, namely the Pyrenees, Alps, Riphaean
Hills, Caucasus or Taurus, Sinai, and Atlas. The maps
of the Valcavado Group mark more clearly the Pillars of

APPENDIX ON MAPS 597

Hercules — with the two peals opposite to one another [Alpes in
Madrid and London, Cat pes in Ashburnham and Valladolid ; i.e.
apparently Calpe and Abyla], which play so great a part in
classical geography, and here are both placed in Africa. Osma
marks four African Alps, two on the south coast, two towards
the west [Alpes duo as one mountain, and Atlas as the other].

The rivers of the world are best portrayed on our best
copies (St. Sever and Osma) ; on our other examples, and
especially on the Paris of the thirteenth century, the representa-
tion of streams may sometimes be used for restoring the probable
contents of the original Beatus, which apparently contained no
Spanish rivers, but marked the Rhine, the Rhone, the Danube,
the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Jordan, the Nile with its delta,
and certain affluents of the Caspian.

As to towns, the Paris of 1150 shows unquestionable
developments on the original Beatus type, giving us vignettes
of Constantinople, Chalcedon, Ascalon, Toledo, Rome, Thes-
salonica, Babylon, Antioch, Toulouse, and Tangier or ' Tingi.'
All the great islands are illustrated with a battlemented town,
like several continental countries and regions, to which no city-
name is attached ; — e.g. England, Scotland, Ireland, Sardinia,
Sicily, Judaea, Pamphylia, Cappadocia, and Phrygia ('Frigida').
The original Beatus, probably marked four cities with pictures
(viz. Rome, Antioch, Constantinople, and Jerusalem), to saj^
nothing of the lighthouse-towers at Alexandria and Brigantia.

In St. Sever, as elsewhere, we must distinguish the additions
of the copyists from the original plan ; and to this original
plan we may fairly assign everything that is common to the two
chief families of the Beatus Group, to Osma and to Valcavado.
Where all the chief copies agree, we may suppose that we are
dealing with material from this original. Happily, the coinci-
dences between all the ten derivatives are so numerous that
we can from these alone form a pretty detailed picture of the
fundamental draught.

As to interpolations ; — In St. Sever, the Eerfesia S. Severi in
the south-west of France is of course a prominent addition,
being indeed the largest single picture in the map. Several
other peculiar place-names occur in the same part of the world ;
but these additions have been to the detriment of other regions,
e.g. the North- West, or Galician, corner of Spain, and South Italy.
The place-names between the Maeotis or Sea of Azov and the
Hellespont or Dardanelles are pushed rather to one side, towards
the right of the map ; and there are several dislocations in or
near the Bosphorus, Propontis, Hellespont, and JEgaean. Similar

598 APPENDIX ON MAPS

displacements occur in parts, and especially in certain rivers,
of Western Asia Minor, a region where St. Sever is inferior
to Osma. Some critics have thought that the longer legends
on the St. Sever example may be later additions, but this does
not seem to be the case. The inscriptions on the Nile, Ethiopia,
the Southern or Australian Continent, and Taprobane, are pro-
bably in accord with the original ; and as to the rest of these
elaborate legends, a great portion may be assigned to the same
source.

On Osma, as on Ashburnham, Valladolid, Madrid, London,
and 'Paris ii.', there is very little that can be regarded as inter-
polation, though the displacements and dislocations due to
inferior draughtsmanship are more prominent than on the Map
of St. Sever. On Osma Troja is perhaps an addition, like Aljpps
Galliarum in the four first examples of the Valcavado family.
On the London map of 1109 (here in contrast with St. Sever),
Scocia is given as a separate isle from Brittannia and to the
South of the latter. St. Sever also marks Britter. Ins. as well
as Brittannia, while Osma puts Scocia inferior on the mainland,
E.-N.-E. of Ger mania superior. But this is rather a dislocation
than an interpolation.

On the last three of our examples, viz. on Gerona, Turin, and
Paris iii., Seville, the Sea of St. George, and St. James of
Compost ell 'a are certainly additions of a time later than Beatus ;
the position of St. James in Galicia is also to be found in the
Osma copy of 1203. Paris ii. also appears to interpolate Astorga,
Sol et Lima, Mare Magnum (in the four corners), Mare Rubrum
(turned into the Arabian Gulf), Fines Romanorum . . . Francorum.
Here the Franks appear on the left bank of the PJiine, not
on the right or east, as in St. Sever.

As to Beatus' chief sources ; — With St. Jerome and Orosius
there is no direct correspondence, though the indirect relation is
uncpiestionable. The rediscovery of Isidore's lost World-Map
would perhaps show us the immediate inspiration of the work
of 776. Beatus apparently copies four long legends of one
class and eight of another, from Isidore verbatim. The four
in Ojiiestion are upon Armenia, Scythia Major, Albania, and
Hyrcania ; while the eight are on India, Mesopotamia, Babylonia,
Arabia, Taprobane, Nabatea, the Skiapodes, and the Quarta Pars
trans Oceanum. Beatus' legend about the Nile is not from
Isidore, in so many words, but from Orosius ; it is, however,
of a nature common to all the later classical geographers, and
is possibly connected with an ancient map. No definite
reference occurs in Beatus either to Solinus or to Augustine,

APPENDIX ON MAPS 599

although three passages, which are copied verbatim from
Isidore, are to some extent paralleled in the Dc Civitate Dei,
viz. on the Skiapodes, the Antipodes, and the Springs
among the Garamantes.

South France and Middle Italy offer certain other matters of
remark, e.g. the reference to the name and the sixth-century
migration of the Basques from the Pyrenees into the Lowlands, as
far as the Garonne ; the names of Septimania and Provence ;
the Lombard Duchies of Spoleto and Beneventum ; the general
correspondence of Beatus' Italy with the known history of
the seventh and eighth centuries ; and the contrast here shown
with the Anonymous Geographer of Ravenna. Beatus' Vasconia
(between the Pyrenees and the Garonne) agrees with the Roman
Province of Novempopulana or with the Anonymous Geographer of
Ravenna's Spano-Guasconia, but not with the latter's Guasconia,
which is first marked out by Gregory of Tours (c. a.d. 581). The
migration of the Basques here noticed was about 587. The
name of Septimania first appears (c. a.d. 473) in Sidonius
Apollinaris, for the "West Gothic Lands ; — viz. ; Narbonne,
Carcassonne, Toulouse, and the country to the Rhone, otherwise
the coast region of Narbonnensis Prima. Beatus' Provincia
is the south part of the Viennensis, as in Gregory of
Tours.

A few minor points may be noticed separately, especially as
to the sources of various details.

The points of the compass are only to be found in the St.
Sever and the Paris of 1250 ; the Wind-rose, so frequent in the
larger mediaeval maps of later time, only occurs in St. Sever.
The classical world used two kinds of Wind-rose ; one of these
was eight-fold, the other twelve-fold. Both of course were based
upon the four cardinal compass points. In the twelve -fold
division, which was the favourite one among Greek scientists
from the time of Aristotle, a classification of seven intermediate
winds played a part. It is this twelve-fold division which is
also to be found in Isidore, on the map of St. Sever, and in most
of the circular designs of the later Middle Age. The eight-fold
arrangement was derived from Eratosthenes, and was accepted
by PHny, by Orosius, and by Isidore of Seville, as a complement
to the twelve-fold partition.

An important feature on several of the Beatus maps (though
not on St. Sever) is the Faro, Pharos, or Lighthouse, on the
coast of Spain, which in several cases is accompanied by a
vignette or picture of the same. This is certainly the classical
beacon of Brigantia in Galicia, described by Orosius as looking
over towards Britain [cf. Orosius, History, ch. 33, Brigantia

600 APPENDIX ON MAPS

Gallaeciae civitas altissimam Farum et inter pauca memorandi
opens ad speculum Britanniae erigit].

The ' Oscorus ' River in Asia is certainly meant for the Oxus,
and this reading gives us perhaps an independent form of the
classical name. The two sources of the Jordan are in the ordi-
nary mediaeval manner, but especially recall the language of
Isidore and Eusebius [cf. Isidore, Mymol., xiii. 21, 20 ; Eusebius,
Onomasticon. 169, 1-7]. The fountain, cold by day and hot
by night, in the Land of the Garamantes in North Africa, and
the vast salt marshes in the same region, are perhaps from Pliny ;
the ' tawny race who eat no bread ' are otherwise unknown,
though the idea may be borrowed from the ' Wild- ' or ' Wolfish-
eaters ' of Solinus [cf. Pliny, Hist. Nat., v. 36; Solinus, 144;
Augustine, De Civ. Dei, xxi. 5 ; Isidore, Etymol., xiii. 13, 10.
The salt-marshes are referred to in Dicuil, 8, 7, 1, who says
that he had read about them in a 'cosmography']. The
Lighthouse at Alexandria may be derived from various classical
writers or maps, but among existing sources, the Peutinger
Table is perhaps the nearest parallel, nearer even than those
in Ammianus Marcellinus and the second map of St. Jerome
[cf. Tab. Peut., ix. 3]. Of course Beatus must be understood
to use or consult, not the Tab. Peut. in the stage we have it (of a
thirteenth-century copy), but in an earlier form, or in a parallel
example of the Roman Imperial cartography. In the Tab.
Peut. we are dealing with the only important survival of the
cartography in cpuestion, and it must therefore stand for the
whole class of Roman itinerary-maps from the time of Julius
Caesar. The inscription at the mouths of the Nile (describing
the course of the Great River) and that which deals with
the nomade Gaetulians are again parallel to the language of
the Peutinger Table and to Orosius ; the two Alps (or ' Calpes ')
of West Africa, already noticed, are perhaps likewise from
Orosius ; while the picture and description of the Australian
or Antipodean Land recalls the language of Isidore and Augus-
tine [cf. Tab. Peut., vii. 2, viii. 5, ix. 3 ; Orosius, Hist., chs.
12, 47 ; Isidore, Etymol., xiv. 5, 17 ; Augustine, Be Civ. Dei,
xvi. 9-18].

As to the old Roman Province-map from which Beatus seems
to have drawn so largely, a similar original was doubtless before
Isidore, Orosius, and Julius Honorius, who have given us short
extracts therefrom. The same map or maps served the Anony-
mous Geographer of Ravenna in good stead ; while the Peutinger
Table is, of course, a later form of the very same classical carto-

APPENDIX ON MAPS 601

graphy applied to a special purpose, the Government of the
Roman Empire.

Some have thought that Beatus used a map-design by
Orosius, now lost ; the existence of such a work is inferred
from various points in the Cotton or Anglo-Saxon map, in the
map of Henry of Mainz, and in that of Hereford; But a com-
parison shows certain differences which support the belief that
Beatus could not have used a map which was simply an illustra-
tion of the Orosian text. Thus the Asiatic ScytMa, and the lands
east of the Caspian Sea, as Beatus gives them, differ greatly
from Orosius and the Orosians (e.f/. Henry of Mainz, and the
so-called Richard of Haldingham), and agree much more nearly
with Isidore, the Ravennese Geographer, and the Peutinger
Table.

Some of the names which we find in Beatus' Syria and Asia
Minor (e.g. Laodicea, Philadelphia, Thyatira), occur here for the
last time in mediaeval cartography, and point strongly to an
archaeological use of such classical place-names as may be
found in the Table. The so-called Jerome maps, we may notice,
show the same tendencies and survivals. In the East two
Indian towns (Elimaida, Antiochia-Tarmata) are put in the
exact positions given by the Table, and are named by no writer
of later date, except the Ravennese, who is himself, of course,
strongly Peutingerian. There is an odd contrast between Britain
and Gaul, as treated by Beatus. The first-named, correspond-
ing (for the most part) to the lost western section of the Table,
is thoroughly antique in character ; and its five towns, all marked
by small pictures, agree with the chief British cities in
'Castorius,' as quoted by the Ravennese — 'Castorius' being
probably an older form of the Peutinger Table, as known in
the seventh century. On the other hand, Beatus' Gallic
towns have very different names from Peutinger' s ; the latter
are the old city-names of the Empire ; while Beatus, for the most
part, gives only the more modern cantonal or tribal names which
by the second half of the fourth century became attached to
the towns of Gaul. These modern names are often given by
the Tab. Pent, along with the ancient.

Two other correspondences of less extent and moment have
been inferred — with Ptolemy and with Julius Honorius. The
former depends upon one race-name otherwise unknown (the
Macusienses) and various names of seas which Isidore, Orosius,
and Mela also copied from the Geographer of Alexandria. The
latter rests on a single curious misreading in the name of a
Syrian river [Orestes for Orontes]. But we must not suppose
that Beatus made use of a* lame number of ancient sources.

602 APPENDIX ON MAPS

The text of some of the longer legends gives a fairly good
idea of the mental outlook of Beatns and his copyists. Thus, e.g.
Albania, so called from the whiteness of its people, and the colour
of their hair, extended from the East, close by the Caspian Sea,
and the shore of the Northern Ocean (into which the Caspian
was believed to flow) to the Maeotid Lakes (Sea of Azov), through
desert regions where the dogs were so strong and fierce that they
could take lions and kill them. Hyrcania, so called from the
Hyrcanian Wood (a confusion with the 'Hercinia Sylva' of
Germany) which lay 'under Scythia,' was full of tigers, panthers,
and pards. Many races lived here and in Scythia, among them
cannibals and blood-drinkers. Scythia, stretching from the
extreme East and the Seric Ocean to the Caspian Sea (at the
setting of the sun) and southward to the ridge of Caucasus,
abounded in gold and gems, in the best emeralds, and in the
most pure crystal ; but all these treasures were guarded by
Gryphons, and no man could approach thereunto. Armenia,
between the Taurus and the Caucasus, between Cappadocia
and the Caspian, was divided into two parts, the Greater and
the Less, and contained the source of the Tigris. Arabia, the
land of incense and perfumes, of myrrh and cinnamon, of the
phoenix and the sardonyx, was also called ' Saba,' from the son of
Chus. The Dead Sea, so named because it produced nothing
living, and received nothing from the race of living things, was
in length 780 stadia [or furlongs] and in breadth 150. [This
attempt at measurement is a very unusual feature in mediaeval
maps, and shows a curious, if unfortunate, precision, which at
any rate, marks a spirit of enquiry ; the figures given are twice
too great (cf. Isidore, xiii. 19, 3-4). Beatus also gives measure-
ments, in Roman miles, for the Islands of Britain, Corsica, and
Sardinia, as well as for Taprobane or ' Tapaprona.'] India, con-
taining many peoples and tongues, men of dark colour, great
elephants, and precious products, such as gems, ivory, aromatics,
ebony, cinnamon, and pepper, was also famous for its parrots, its
dragons, and its one-horned beasts [rhinoceros]. It was amazingly
fertile, with crops twice a year ; among its gems were diamonds,
pearls, burning carbuncles, and beryls ; it also possessed mountains
stored with gold, and guarded by dragons and monstrous men.
Among its islands were ' Chryse' and ' Argyre,' the isles of gold and
silver, and Taprobane, which lay far to the South, was divided
by a river, was only in part inhabited by men, had ten cities, and
was full of jewels and elephants. Ethiopia, stretching to the
borders of Egypt, abounded in races of diverse colour and
monstrous form. It possessed multitudes of wild beasts and
serpents, precious stones, cinnamon, and balsam. The Nile was

APPENDIX ON MAPS 603

said by some authors to rise far from Mount Atlas, and thereafter
to he speedily lost in the sands. But soon it emerged from the
desert, poured itself out into a vast lake, and thence flowed to
the Eastern Ocean, through Ethiopia. Here again, bending to
the left, it descended upon Egypt. The Austral Continent was
across the ocean in the Far South, hut was unknown to the men
of our world from the heat of the sun. There lived the Antipods
of fable.

Of the legends in the Beatus maps most, as we have said,
are to be found in Isidore, but some must have been ultimately
derived from far more ancient map-sources. Tims the notice of
Parthia plainly refers to a time before the Persian revival of a. p.
226; while the dimensions of the Dead Sea and Lake of Gennesaret,
in stadia, prove a considerable antiquity, and perhaps throw us
back to a source of the time of Pliny. Again, the legends as to the
Hellespont and Bosphorus correspond in substance with the de-
scriptions of Pliny, Mela, and Solinus ; and the measurements of
the greater Islands (Britain, etc.), in Roman miles, seem to be a
reminiscence of an Imperial itinerary.

As to the text which the Beatus maps are drawn to illustrate,
Commentaria in Apocalypsin is the title of the work in its various
manuscripts, without any mention of the author. Most cata-
logues call it anonymous or give impossible authorships (e.g.
Rhabanus Maurus or Raban Maur, Apringius of Badajoz, St.
Amandus, St. Victorinus of Pettau. Apringius lived at the
beginning of the sixth century ; he is one of Isidore's viri
illustres, and wrote a Commentary on the Apocalypse which
begins exactly like Beatus, Biformem divinae legis historiam, etc.).

But Morales (1577), Antonio, and Avezac saw that Beatus was
the author from (1) the dedication to Etherius ; (2) the tradition
of the Valcavado manuscript ; (3) the express assignment on
folio 9 of A^alladolid and Madrid ; — Esta otnu es de Beato solve el
Apocalipsi [cf. Avezac, Annates des Voyages, 1870, ii. 206-210 ;
Gutierrez, p. 20; Antonio, i., 277, on Madrid MS., Beato Etlierii
U.ramensis episcopi presbytero tribuit antiqua ejusdem in script io~\.

The Beatus Commentary has only once been printed — at
Madrid in 1770, ed. Florez. Of this one copy was used by
Avezac and Delisle ; another is in the British Museum ; another
is in Rome. [Bib. Casanatensis, D., v. 34 in CO. ; cf. vol. xxxiv.,
pp. 378-89, of Espana sagrada ; also mentioned by Alcazar in
160-1 as Commentaria sen Catena Patrum in Apocalypsin. It is
fairly described as a Catena; for it names and quotes from, e.g.,
Jerome, Augustine, Ambrose, Gregory, Isidore, Irenaeus, Ful-
gentius. and Apringius or ' Abrigius.']

The Commentary has three chief parts : (I) Introduction ;

604 APPENDIX ON MAPS

(2) Commentary Proper; (3) Appendix. (1) gives, with pictures,
the history of St. John and some sacred genealogies ; (3) gives
extracts from Jerome, On Daniel, and from Isidore, Etymol., vi.
xiii, 14, 6 ; ix. 5, 6 ; while (2) gives the Dedication to Etherius,
ascribes the Commentary mainly to the writings of Augustine
and Jerome (perhaps based on Victorinus), and supplies twelve
books of comment on the Revelation. It possesses numerous
miniatures in West-Gothic and semi-Byzantine style, e.g. 102 on
the 292 pages of St. Sever. Among these, in the Prologue to
Lib. ii., is the Map ; which follows extracts from Isidore, Etymol.,
books vii. and viii., especially vii. 9, 1-25, De Apostolus; cf. the
MS. of St. Sever, folios 45, 46. Then the text proceeds : These
are the twelve Disciples of Christ, Preachers of the Faith, and
Doctors of the Nations, Who, though they are all One, yet each of
them received a special assignment for his preaching in the World,
to wit; Peter, Rome; Andrew, Achaia [etc., as before, p. 551].
These are the twelve hours of the day, which, are illuminated by
Christ, the Sun; these are the twelve Gates of the Heavenly
Jerusalem; . . . these are the first Apostolical Church; . . . these
are the twelve Thrones . . . this is the Seed [of the Word] . . .
this Church toe believe and hold fast. . . . And, they will reap
with their sickles these grains of seed throughout the fields of this
ivorld . . . [etc., as before ; see p. 550-1].

The Divisio Apostolorum given by Beatus is antique in
character, differs from some later arrangements, and preserves
the tradition as in Isidore, De ortu et obitu Patrum ; and in
Freculf, Cronica, ii. 110 (Edn. of 1589); Augustine, On Psalm
86 ; Pope Gregory L, Evangelical Homilies, 17.

As to the date: — On Apoc, viii. Beatus speaks of the Sixth
Age of the World, ending in 838 of the Spanish Era ( = A.D. 800).
He also gives the years from Christ to the Present. Era, a computa-
tion which unfortunately varies in the MSS.

The original text of this Present Era seems to have been 814 of
the Spanish reckoning [ = a.d. 776] ; this is the reading of the two
manuscripts, St. Sever and St. Millan ii. [' S. M. de la Cogolla'].
The other manuscript readings, viz. 784, 785, 786, are probably
wrong ; for these were the years of Beatus' controversy with
Elipandus, and in the Commentary there is no reference to the
Adoptionist controversy. On the other hand, in Beatus' contro-
versial writings there are many references to the Commentary.
The Dedication to Etherius also appears to belong to the time
while Etherius was still an Abbot and not a Bishop.

Probably Beatus compiled two chief copies of his Commen-
tary ; one for himself and his monastery, one for Etherius. In
these two are the originals of the Osma and Valcavado stems.

APPENDIX ON MAPS 605

Of the Commentary there are fourteen existing manuscripts
(ten with map). Sixteen other manuscripts are recorded, but

now lost ; two of these are perhaps still recoverable.

II. — The so-called 'Jerome' maps [see pp. 566-8 of this
volume] are drawn and written in a uniform hand, with initial
letters in pure Romanesque character. The designs cover the
whole leaf without margin. A number of small, half-obliter-
ated marks show that the scribe had tried his hand upon
several names on the same sheet which afterwards bore the fair
copy. We may infer that the mure general map of the East,
covering most of the Bible Lands, was but a part of a larger
scheme, from the following, among other, points. In the middle
of this design are faint traces of red text, and in several places
there are relics still discernible of longer legends {e.g. one of
eight lines under Constantinople) ; while immediately to the
left of the Ganges is a picture of a house or temple, probably
representing a city. Now, if this map were solely a mediaeval
product, and originally the work of the scribe of the twelfth-
century manuscript, which once belonged to the Monastery of
St. Martin, at Tournai, it would be very difficult to explain
these ; and still more to explain another small but curious
point. For the copyist of the map of Palestine has transcribed
the figure LX in the neighbourhood of the Nile ; this number
is quite meaningless as it stands ; but it seems likely that it
is a page-mark of an older manuscript which was being mechani-
cally copied with the common mediaeval absence of critical
intelligence. This paging does not agree with that of the
manuscript we possess, where the map occurs at folio 64, verso,
and no leaf has been inserted. It would appear, therefore, that
in the earlier copy, Map No. 2 stood on the right hand, or on
folio 60, recto ; Map No. 1 on the left, at folio 59, verso.

St. Jerome himself, in his preface to the Liber de Lor is, de-
clares how he translated in due order Eusebius' description of the
Land of Judaea and of the City and Temple of Jerusalem, together
with his Enumeration of the cities, mountains, villages, rivers,
and other places mentioned in Scripture. The Church History
of Eusebius comes down to a.d. 324, and his geographical works,
which were ' published ' later, were probably not composed before
this year. The Onomasticon referred to by Jerome is dedicated
to Paulinus, Patriarch of Antioch, who died in 324 or 325.
Along with this went two other geographical writings, a Book
on the Names of Races, and a Description of Judaea.

Tbese writings of Eusebius perhaps contained several map-
sketches omitted by later copyists. At the conclusion of the

606 APPENDIX ON MAPS

Liber de Locis there follows in Migne's edition an explanation of
the Geographica Tabula Palaestinae ; . . . in hac exstruenda Mappa
supplere debui ... an explanation which is unintelligible as it
stands, except as implying that other manuscripts contained
maps at this place.

The connection between the 'Jerome' maps and Bedes
writings appears especially from the English scholar's placing
of various islands ; from his description of Cilicia, and other
parts of Asia Minor, such as Bithynia ; from his inter-
changing of Neapolis in Macedonia with Neapolis in Caria ;
from his fixing of Lydda on the coast of the Great Sea or
Mediterranean ; and from his account of the threefold Ethiopia.
We may compare in detail the agreements, e.g. of Cos,
(Jnidus, and Mitylene, the Insulae contra Asiam, and Samo-
thracia in Carpathico Sinu ; of Cilicia as a Provincia Asiae
quam Cygnus amnis intersecat, et Mons Amanus, cujus merninit
Salomon, a Ooelesyria separat ; of Bithynia, bordered by the
stream Jera or Hiera ; and of the Island of Chios lying over
against Bithynia. The note upon the River Cygnus Isidore
has also (xiv. 3, 45 of Etymologies) ; but the agreement with
the map of ' Jerome,' including the form Cygnus for Oydnus, can
hardly be accidental. The same is true of Bithynia. As to the
Neapolis mistake, cf. also Pliny, Hist. Nat, iv. 42 ; v. 107 ; and
Acts xvi. 11. On Ethiopia, see Isidore, Etymol., ix. 2, 128.
The last-named country Bede and ' Jerome ' agree in defining
as divided into the lands of (1) East India, (2) Tripolis and
the Garamante*, and (3) the Hesperian West: it starts, they
both declare, from the River Indus.

As to the origin of the ' Jerome ' Palestine map, this is fairly
well established by its agreement with the text of the Onomasti-
con, and by its internal indications of date.

On the larger design Crete is coupled with the Cyclades as the
Seventh Province of the Greeks, which was apparently an arrange-
ment of the fourth century, and perhaps of Constantine the
Great. Again, Emmaus, identified with Nicopolis, exactly agrees
with a definition of another and unquestionably original passage
of Jerome's. Lastly, the division of the Roman Provinces of
Lycaonia, Lycia, Dardania, Commagene, Jsauria, Mesopotamia
Syriae, and Syria Sobal, as shown on these maps, agrees well
with the known position of affairs at the end of the fourth
century. Thus Lycaonia Avas made a Province shortby before
A.D. 373; Lycia, between 313 and 325; Dardania between 385
and 400 ; Commagene in 297, under Diocletian ; Isauria in the
fourth century ; Syria Sobal shortly before 400. The identifica-
tion of these names in every case with Provinces is perhaps

APrENDIX ON MAPS 607

unwise. For, e.g. Lyeaonia may be merely a reference to Acts
xiv. 6, and Mesopotamia Syriae to the story of Jacob and Laban ;
while Syria Sobal, or Syria Salutaris, recalls Judith iii. 1. The
Province of Isauria is noticed by Laterculus Veronensis,
Ammianus Marcellinus, and the Notitia Dignitatum.

On the 'Jerome' maps the name-forms are not exclusively those
of the Onomasticon ; for besides the similarities with other works
of Jerome there are credible resemblances with St. Paula and St.
Silvia of Aquitaine ; while these designs also show certain cor-
respondences with Ptolemy, the Peutinger Table, Orosius, Mela,
the Alexand 'reis, or fabulous History of Alexander, Isidore, Pliny,
and Solinus. The ' Jerome ' draughtsman was perhaps guided in
his choice of extracts from the Natural History by a map-sketch
of Plinian geography, similar to that which Solinus possibly
used.

We may compare the present designs with Peutinger for, e.g.
various towns of Greece and the Bosforani ; with Ptolemy for Oxus
oppidum ; with Orosius for the Chuni (Huns) and the Bactriani ;
with Mela for the Euri ; with the Alexandreis for the Arae and
Columnae Alexandria Pori Regnum, and Alexandria, Ultima, with
the oracle, etc.

On the larger 'Jerome' map there are traces of the old Province
boundaries, e.g. of Isauria (whose Metropolis is given) as defined
in the later fourth century a.d. We may notice also the fol-
lowing peculiarities in the present designs : — (1) Gog and Magog
are of course identified with the Scythians, but not (as Ambrose
thought) with the Goths. This view is controverted by Jerome
(Hebr. Quaest., in Genesim, 318 ; 10, 2), and in the map by
the inscription Goti qui et Gite (Getae). (2) Barbaries here
specially refers (Map 1st) to the Slavs South of Danube ; cf.
Colossians iii. 11. (3) Theodosia here is, of course, Theodosia
or Kaffa in the Crimea. (4) Acheron on the Caspian agrees
with iEthicus, ch. 59 ; it is mentioned in the Argonautica,
and was often placed in Asia Minor. (5) Cl'ithewn is a river
probably identical with the ' Gesclithron ' (yys nXdOpov) of Pliny
(vii. 10) and Solinus (15, 20) who place it among the Arimas-
pians, connected with the old story, found in so many forms,
of an opening into the under world. K. Miller suggests
that its original was the petroleum springs at Baku. (6)
Albania here forms the land on the northern limit of the
Oilvumenr, as often in classical geography. (7) The River
Alanus, close by the Maeotid Marsh, is not in any writer
earlier than Jerome, but the people of the Alani are put in the
same part by Ammianus Marcellinus and Dionysius Periegetes ;
cf. Peutinger Table, ix. 3.

608 APPENDIX ON MAPS

Nothing prevents us from assuming the authorship of a
draughtsman of St. Jerome's time for the two works which we
have attempted to describe. No mediaeval writer could have
compiled designs of so purely classical a nature, except by
simple transcription of an older scheme ; on the other hand,
it is clearly an educated Christian who has here added to the
material of the Roman road-maps a certain number of Scriptural
names and allusions.

III. — As to the ' Cotton ' or ' Anglo-Saxon ' map, we may
notice that Jerusalem is well away from the central part of this
stpuare design ; that Taprobane occupies the place usually given
to the Terrestrial Paradise; that of the Nile's three sections,
the uppermost is called Dora ; that here we find Gog et Magog
to the West of the Caspian, the Turchi adjoining; and that the
draughtsman places the Bulgari between the Danube and the
Arctic Ocean. See pp. 559-563 of this vol.

The manuscript which contains the map [Cotton MSS., Tib.
B. v.] is made up of various pieces, collected by Ptobert Cotton
in 1598. The map is on folio 58, and is immediately followed
by a copy of Priscian's Latin version of the Periegesis of
Dionysius, — De situ terrae Priseiani Grammatici, quern de pris-
corum dictis excerpsit Ormistarum, — written in the same hand
as appears in the map. The Periegesis is followed on folios
75-77, by an Anglo-Saxon manuscript, of far older date than
any other in this volume ; and, from a Donation Formula given
on folio 88, it is fairly conjectured that the manuscript (at any
rate of part of this volume) in the time of Henry II. belonged
to Battle Abbey. But neither the Periegesis nor any other
manuscript, as far as folio 74, is of later date than Archbishop
Sigeric, whose Itinerary we must couple with the Cottoniana.
Sigeric's predecessor died in 989, Sigeric himself in 994. On
folio 20 of this volume he is referred to as 'Our Archbishop,'
and this entry (which implies that he was still alive) is in the
same handwriting as the Periegesis.

It is doubtful whether the handwriting apparent on the map
is of the same date and authorship as the folios from No. 88
onwards, which are perhaps later than 1000.

The handwriting is small and difficult, with peculiar forma-
tions of various letters ; e.g. C. written like P., O. like A., P. like
P. and A. Cortembert's reproduction, made in 1830 for the
Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, is the best edition before
K. Miller's, and gives the most accurate readings ; Bevan and
Phillot, Mediaeval Geography, 1874, p. xxxiv., come in second-
best in text readings, but commit more than forty mistakes ;

APPENDIX ON MAPS 609

while Santarem, Essai sur VHistoire de la CosmograpMe . . ., ii.
47-76, is terribly disappointing. As in the case of some of
the Beatus maps, certain lines appearing through the parch-
ment from the text on the other side have given rise to the
mistaken belief that the copyist used some kind of rude
graduation for his design. Or if not this, these lines were
perhaps, some have thought, intended to help the scribe in
the more exact following of his original, even if they were not
in any sense a survival of the graduation-net of Eratosthenes.
But all this is imaginary [cf. Santarem, Recherches, and Atlas,
Plate i. ; Penny Magazine, vi. 278-280, 1837 ; Brit. Mus. MS.,
Cataloyue, 11, 18-14; Cortembert, Trois des plus arte, monuments
de GeograpMe in Bulletin of Paris Geographical Society, vi. 14,
337, etc., 1877 ; Jomard, Monuments de Geog., Plate xiii., 1862 ;
Walleser, We/t-tafel des Ravenaten, i. 4, Mannheim, 1894].

A great part of the names that are not from Orosius are later
additions. For the most part the Orosian names would appear
to come directly, not from the Orosian text as we have it, but
from the lost Orosian map. For one thing, the position of
countries and places does not agree in all respects with the
Orosian text. Again, the name-forms on our present map are
in many Avays different from the Orosian text, but often remind
us of the early World-Maps closely related thereto.

The connection with Mela appears rather in the general idea
of the Oikoumene and of various countries than in the legends
or place-names in detail. Both Mela and the scribe of the
Cotfoniana conceive of the Habitable World as an oblong. They
also show a likeness in the following points : — The general contour
of Spain, Italy, the Gulf of Aquitaine, the- north coast of Europe
and Asia, the Caspian Sea with its bays and islands, the position
of Britain, — just opposite a great gulf or indent of the Continent, —
the Scythian Islands, the Burning Mountain in the extreme
south-east of Africa, the Promontory of the Western Horn, with
the twin Gulfs and the Seven Brother Mountains adjoining, the
two Syrtes, the Peninsula of Tyre, and the position of the
Mediterranean Islands. Both also appear greatly to exaggerate
the breadth of Asia Minor. Elsewhere the Cottoniana agrees
with Orosius in opposition to Mela, as in the north-east parts
of the Oikoumene, in the course of the Nile, and in the position
of the Pillars of Hercules.

Some of the Cotton names not to be found in Orosius occur
in Jerome ; — such are Gog and Magog, the Ark of Noah, Mount
Sinai, Nineveh, the Mountains of Armenia, Galilee, Jericho,
Ephesus, and other 'Bible places.' But here, of course, it is
not necessary to assume a direct use of the Father's writings.

610 APPENDIX ON MAPS

The Twelve Tribes of Israel, so clearly marked in our present
design, do not occur in Jerome's Palestine map, as we have it ;
but they were possibly transcribed (in the first instance) from
Eusebius, or directly from the Old Testament, by the Doctor
of the Church of Bethlehem, either in an earlier form of the
Palestine map than that which, we possess, or in another special
map, now lost.

With Isidore there are several, not very peculiar, coincidences ;
among these are the Griphi, Gryphons, or Griffins, Pentapolis
in Palestine (which is neither Biblical nor Eusebian), the Seven
Mountains (also in Mela), Tingis or Tangier, Zeugis, the City and
Promontory of the Hesperides, Byzacena, and the Dog-headed
Folk. Perhaps the scribe drew from the lost Isidorian map.

Some of the most modern names in the Cottoniana occur first
among the writers of the next age, in Adam of Bremen (c. a.d.
1067). Such are the Turks, the Huns, the Slavs, the Scrito-Finns
[Scriiefinnas, located in Island], and the countries of Iceland
{Island), Sleswig, and Norway. Turci are also in JEthieus of
Istria, and re-appear in the Ebstorf map, like Island, which may
also be found in Henry of Mainz. The Bulgari, perhaps, come
to the Cotton map from the liavennese Geographer, and are found
again in the Hereford map. Hunnorum gens perhaps refer to the
Magyars of our Hungary.

With Julius Honorius there is very slight connection. The
name of the Paver Hypauis (which is also in Mela) ceases for
many centuries with Honorius, and is only revived on this map.
Also the cities of Salerno, A^erona, and Tarsus offer a certain
analogy. A similar likeness with the Anonymous Pvavennese
may be found.

The Beatus maps contain nearly all the Orosian names, and
most of the non-Orosian, which are to be found on the Cottoniana.
A similar resemblance may be traced between our present design
and the later maps of Lambert of St. Omer, Ebstorf, the Psalter,
and Henry of Mainz.

The Biblical connections, traceable especially in the centre of
the Cotton map, include (directly or indirectly) the Twelve
Tribes, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Babylon, Tarsus, Caesarea Philippi,
and the Ark of Noah (among the Vignettes). Most of the
Biblical names of Hereford, Lambert, Henry of Mainz, the Psalter.
and Ebstorf are also to be found on the Cotton map, and are
perhaps in many cases borrowed directly by these later map-
designs from the earlier ' Anglo-Saxon ' work [cf. Decusa civitas,
near the Euxine, in Cotton, Henry of Mainz, and Hereford]. For
earlier parallels, cf. Evilatli in the Ravennese Geographer ; Monies

APPENDIX ON MAPS 611

Aurei in iEthicus and St. Isidore ; and the Desertum ubi Filii
Israel erraverunt xl. annis in the Peutinger Table.

Lastly, there are several names and several features which
show striking independence of any other known map-authority
of the earlier Middle Age. Among these are the five names in
Britain — Camri or Cambria, and Mar inn* portus in the north-
west ; Kent, London, and Winchester on the southern shore
(Kent being in the position of Devon) ; and Arama or Armagh
in Ireland ; — the South Bretons (Sud-Bryttas) in Northern Gaul,
the Golden Mountain of the Far East, and the Boreani and
' abundant lions ' of the north-east of Asia.

The bulbous projection of land on the coast north of
Jerusalem is perhaps meant for Carmel. Some idea (though
exaggerated) of the Syrtes on the North African coast is evi-
dently possessed by the draughtsman.

Of purely inland geography unconnected with the coast there
is not much in the Europe of this map ; cf. the Huns, Dalmatia,
Dardania, Histria, and Tracia, all circling round Pannonia. What
is now European Russia is contracted to a mere neck of laud.

In Asia there is much more inland geography, chiefly con-
nected with the Twelve Tribes and Biblical history. In Africa
the lakes east and west of the Lacus Salinarum near the north
coast are noteworthy ; like Brigantia (of lighthouse fame) in the
north-west of the Spanish peninsula. The Caspian, opening
into the Northern Ocean, is of unusual size. Mons Clinax{-rnax)
in the middle of the South African coast, is perhaps a misty
reference to the ' Chariot of the Gods ' as described by Hanno
and the Greek and Latin geographers who copied him ; while the
two small unnamed isles west of Mount Atlas are probably in-
tended for the Insulae Fortunatae.

England, Scotland, Ireland, Denmark [Neronoriveci or Neronor-
roen\, and France are better drawn on the Cotton than on any
other early mediaeval map ; there is also no small comparative
merit in the land of the Scrito-Finns and Island, representing our
Scandinavia, and in Sicily, whose three angles appear ; the north
coast of Asia Minor is likewise good. On the other hand, the
West Mediterranean is poor and very contracted ; the islands,
especially Sardinia (?), are unsatisfactory. France is so squeezed
between Spain and Italy that its south coast almost disappears,
except for the Gulf of Lyons, which is fairly well indicated. In
Italy, Ravenna on the south-west coast is curious; Verona appears
in the position of Aquileia. In Greece the name Macedonia seems
written over the Morea ; Athens and Attica are widely separated.

The early date usually, and, as far as we can judge, rightly,
assigned to the Cotton map, has been questioned on the ground

612 APPENDIX ON MAPS

of its correctness of form and multiplicity of detail. It is too
good, some have said, for the tenth century. But this objection,
as far as content goes, falls to the ground when Ave compare it
with the map of St. Sever and with the written data still remain-
ing as the basis of the lost map of Pomponius Mela.

III. (A). — With the Cotton Map may be associated, perhaps
in a very intimate relation, the Itinerary of Archbishop Sigeric of
Canterbury of about a.d. 992-994. [This occurs on folio 22 verso
of the same Cotton manuscript.] The only part of this which
is given in any detail is the return journey from Rome to
England ; and here we have a fairly adequate list of the
pilgrims' stopping-places [sub - mansiones], which must refer to
the night- or sleeping-stations. Hence, perhaps, the omission of
several towns, through which Sigeric's route must have led, such
as Langres. The day's march varies between seven and forty
kilometres ; the average gives us a little over eighteen, with four
hours' travelling as the mean. In the whole reckoning of eighty
days rainy ones are counted, during which very slow progress
was made ; so for tine weather we may perhaps raise the average
to about thirty kilometres per diem.

Sigeric's ordinary mode of progress was probably either on
horseback or on foot ; it is not likely that he could have made a
carriage-journey, at least over part of the route. From the
omission of many of the larger towns in his 'routier,' we may
infer that he was travelling incognito, and did not avail himself
of his position as Archbishop of Canterbury to bespeak the
hospitality of the great city prelates and religious houses in
France or Italy.

All Sigeric's reckonings are made with a certain ' conscious-
ness of his goal,' and a good general appreciation of the route
he was following, of its distance as a whole, and of its separate
sections in their parts. The road from Canterbury to Rome
must have been fairly Avell known ; thus Dunstan, Sigeric's
second predecessor in the See of Canterbury, had been to the
Apostolic See for his pallium in 960.

The eighty days' journey of Archbishop Sigeric is divided
into eight main sections, viz. from Rome to Forcassi ; from St.
Valentine (by Siena and Lucca) to Camajore : from Luna by
Parma to San Donnino ; from Fiorenzola to Piacenza; from
Piacenza to Ivrea and over the Great St. Bernard to Lausanne ;
from Lausanne to Besancon ; from Besancon to Rheims : and from
Rheims to the Sea. In the first section, to Forcassi, the pilgrim
goes along 1he Via Cassia; on the second section, along the Via
Clodia. In this last piece of the road our Itinerary seems to

APPENDIX ON MAPS 613

supply us with really valuable information, helping us to
supplement or correct the gaps or misreadings of the Antonine
Itinerary. The direct road from Lucca by way of Siena to La
Storta, though much frequented in the Middle Ages, 'is not
recorded in any ancient writing that we possess ' ; even the
Peutinger Table gives us only a short piece from Materno to
Foro Clodio [cf. the Itineraire Brugeois ; Lelewel, Epilogue, 296-
298. Matt. Paris gives the same route in 1253 ; — from Siena by
Acjuapendente, Bolsena, and Cesano to Rome ; and from Bologna
by Siena to Rome]. Whereas later travellers from Rome usually
journeyed on the Via Cassia as far as San Lorenzo, and first
struck the Via Gloclia at Aquapendente. Sigerie, during this
part of his route, seems to have kept to the Clodian road all the
way. This road appears to have led the wayfarer into the
neighbourhood of Luna, where it joined the Via Litoralis near a
certain Forum Clodii, which probably marked the north end of
the Via Gloclia. [At the south end of the Via Clodia there was
another Forum Clodii.] The road between Luna and San
Donnino, noticed by Sigerie, was in great use during the
Middle Ages at various times, and we find references to it in
the Itineraire Brugeois, and in Matthew Paris [cf. Matthew's
' Munt Bardun' and ' Punt Tremble ' ; and the Itin. Brug., xviii.; —
Lucca— 'Pont Tremoli' — Borgo San Donnino — Piacenza. Pont
Tremoli or Punt Tremble is at Parma]. Between San Donnino
and Piacenza the traveller goes along the Via Emilia; and
between Piacenza and Lausanne his route corresponds with
one that is marked upon the Peutinger Table. Bej'ond Lausanne
Sigeric's way leads through Arbe, Pontarlier, and Nods, to
Besancon, not along the present high road through Ornans, but
somewhat north of this. Between Besancon and Rheims the
Archbishop appears to keep closely to an old Roman military road
through Cussey over the River Oignon, through Seveux over the
Saone, and straight through Grenant to Langres and Ormancey,
where he rested after a heavy day's march of thirty-two kilometres.
At Bar-sur-Aube Sigerie appears to have met with the present
country road to Brienne, where again he passes on to a Roman
highway leading through Chalons to Rheims. The whole of this
section is quite in agreement with one of the routes marked on
the Peutinger Table, though the stopping-places are usually
different. Lastly, the concluding portion of the Itinerary, between
Rheims and the sea, offers certain difficulties in identification,
but it would appear to lead through Corbeny and near Peronne,
by Therouenne (the ancient ' Tervanna ') to Guisnes and some
point on the coast which is named Sumeran, and which must
clearly be sought somewhere between Calais and Cape Gris Nez.

614 APPENDIX ON MAPS

In all this the route probably runs, for the most part, along-
Roman roads. But the ancient Itineraries only assist us
between Therouenne and Arras [Sigeric's ' Aderats '], giving no
direct route from Arras to St. Quentin and Rheims.

Sigeric's journey shows us that in the tenth century men
could still use large sections of the old Roman roads which in
later time fell into almost complete disuse. It also gives us
various finger-posts for the course of the ancient travel and
trade-routes, even where ancient records leave us in some
doubt. More generally, it helps to illustrate the detailed
geographical knowledge of a very ignorant period along one
of the great highways connecting the ' Mother and Mistress '
of all Western churches with one of its most famous daughters.

IV. — For the map of Henry of Mainz ; — cf. MS., Ixvi. (earlier
D., xii. 1) in the C.C.C. Library, Cambridge, which contains not
only the Imago Mundi of Honorius of Autun, but also various
geographical sections of Pliny, a text of Rubruquis, an Itinerarium
ad Paradimm terrestrem, an Eputola Presbyteri Johannis, and
many other different writings, twenty-four in all. Nasmith's Cata-
logue of 1787 dates the Imago manuscript in this volume to the
thirteenth century ; Bevan and Phillot think it is of about 1180 ;
it once belonged to Sta. Maria de Salleia, otherwise the Monastery
of Sawley in Craven, Yorks, not the House of Salem in Swabia,
as Walleser suggests, Welt-tafel das Ravennaten, Mannheim, 1894,
p. 3. On Henry's career ; — cf. the Mainz Ada of 13th December,
1111, and see Bohmer, Regesta Archiep. Mogunt., Innsbruck, 1877,
i. 244. An Archdeacon Heinrich of Mainz is mentioned in
1104, and Bohmer thinks this is the same as the canon and
chaplain, and also the same as the Archbishop and the draughts-
man of our map. It is perhaps doubtful whether we have not
here four different persons — (l) The Archbishop ; (2) the Arch-
deacon ; (3) the Canon ; (4) the Map-maker. K. Miller would
identify 1, 3, and 4. For some time the Archbishop was the
tutor of Henry, son of the Emperor, Conrad III., who died in
1150. This prelate was buried at Eimbeck. He was of good
family ; the Counts of Wartberg were his cousins ; and he himself
is once referred to as Henry 'of Nassau.'

The Imago Mundi which this map illustrates has been some-
times wrongly ascribed to Anselm of Canterbury. The copy made
by Henry is older than any we possess of Honorius' work ; the
earliest known is of 1123 [cf. Brit. Mus., Cotton MSS., Cleopatra,
B.' iv.]. It is pretty certain that Honorius spent the last twenty
years of his life (1120 to 1140) in a German Monastery; some
think in a Religious House on the Austrian March. But most

APPENDIX ON MAPS 615

of his scientific works, and the Imago among them, were composed
while he was still a teacher at Antim, in the beginning of the
twelfth, or even at the end of the eleventh, century.

The map which Henry drew to illustrate his transcript of the
Imago of Honorius has remained in comparative obscurity till
recent times ; the text has been badly edited ; and the connection
of this work with others has been very dimly perceived. [Cf.
►Stanley, Catalogue of the Library of Archbishop Parker, 1722 ;
Nasmith, Catalogue of the C.C.C. Library, as above; Gough, British
Topography, 1780, i., 60 ; ibid, Essay on the Rise and Progress of
Geography in Great Britain, p. 6 ; T. Wright, St. Patrick's Pur-
gatory, 1894, p. 93, etc.; Santarem, Essaisur . . . Gosmographie, ii.
242-244; iii. 463-498, and Atlas ; Bevan and Phillot, Mediaeval
Geography, 1874, pp. xxxvi.-xxxix. Santarem's reconstruction of
Mediaeval Map Legends is notoriously faulty, and there is no
exception here to the general rule. But even Bevan and Phillot
have more than thirty misreadings.] In the four corners (instead
of winds, or wind-blowers) are four angels, whom Santarem regards
as pointing to Gog-Magog Land and to Paradise, and blocking
the way through the Straits of Gibraltar — perhaps too elaborate
an explanation. However, the angel in the left-hand top corner
is certainly pointing to ' Gog and Magog, an unclean race.' All
these angels have golden halos, and are variously coloured in
green and red ; while the figure on the upper left hand carries
something which has been variously interpreted as a cube or die,
a box, or a church. His clothes are green, except for an upper
cloak, which is red like the wings. Exactly the opposite arrange-
ment of colour is adopted with the angel that fronts him on the
right, _

All the seas, save the Persian and Arabian Gulfs, are light
green; the 'Red Seas,' the mountaius, and certain of the more
important names, are rubricated. Excluding the ' Jerome ' maps,
this is perhaps the richest in content and the best preserved
among all twelfth-century examples of cartography.

As to the want of exact correspondence between Henry's map
and the Imago, we may notice that the former's selection of
European cities is not represented in the latter, and that the
interchange of ' Thile ' and ' Tilos ' which we find on the Imago is
not in the map.

Santarem has well pointed out that the Hereford scheme was
a working up of Henry's design. As to this, we may compare the
varied outline of the coast, on the north of Europe and Asia, and
the position and outlines of the Baltic Sea, of the Scandinavian
peninsula, of the Caspian, and of the lands of the Gog-Magogs,
the Hyperboreans, and the Dog-headed Folk. The coast line near

616 APPENDIX ON MAPS

Paradise may also be compared, and the islands adjoining this
coast, such as ' Taraconta ' ; likewise the position and outline of
the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and the island of Taprobane. The
peninsular form of Italy is more developed on Henry of Mainz
than in the Hereford, but the delineation is not unlike.

The Nile of Henry of Mainz resembles the Cotton or Anglo-
Saxon map, as well as the Hereford, in adopting the theory
of three sections, viz. (a) a short one springing from a Lake
(Nitidis Laeus) near the Atlantic : (6) a long stretch from a
larger Lake (Lacus Maximus) running parallel to the Southern
Ocean, to a second point of submergence (hie mergitur) ; (c) the
Nile of Egypt, springing from a Fons Fialus near the Red Sea,
penetrating the Monte* Nibiae [i.e. Nubiae], and thence flowing in a
south-west direction to the Mediterranean. Both Hereford and
Henry of Mainz also introduce a Lake and River of Triton flow-
ing into the Middle Nile (in a south-west direction) from the
Altars of the PJiiJeni, which are wrongly placed, far from the
Mediterranean.

In Central Africa Orosius is probably the source of Henry of
Mainz' (and Hereford's) Euzareae Monies. To the east of these
are the Monies Ethiqpiae, Mount Atlas being near the Atlantic,
and Mons Hesperus further south. Henry of Mainz also agrees
with Hereford in the Mountains of Syria, East Asia, and Bactria,
and in the Caspian Gates.

The rivers of Asia also agree closely ; — e.(j. the Hydaspes,
Acesines, and Hypanis (drawn as independent of the Indus) ;
the Ganges (on the other side of Paradise, towards the north,
flowing due east) ; the Acheron and Oxus (flowing into the
Caspian) ; the two unnamed rivers on the west side of the
Caspian ; the Pactolus (flowing into the Euxine) ; and the
Cobar (Chebar (?), flowing into the upper Euphrates).

Among other coincidences are, (a) in Asia ; — the wall shutting
off the peninsula of the Gog-Magogs ; and the description of the
same people as unclean, of the Hyperboreans as untroubled by
disease and discord, of the Gryphons, Griffons, or Griffins as most
wicked, and of the Dog-headed Folk as adjoining the Arctic Ocean.
Also the notices of Amazonia, the Golden Mountains (cf. the
' Anglo-Saxon ' map), the Port of Cotonare, Mount Sephar on
the Indian Ocean, and the Tower of Enos just outside Paradise.
(6) In Africa ; — the Burning Mountain and the Seven Mountains
(here also cf. the ' Anglo-Saxon ' map) ; the Troglodytes near the
Middle Nile ; the River Lethon near Cyrene ; St. Augustine's
Hippo ; the Basilisk between Triton and the Nile ; the horseshoe-
formed Temple of Jupiter- Amnion; the Monasteries of St. Antony,
near the end of the Middle Nile ; and the Pepper Wood near

APPENDIX ON MAPS 617

the lied Sea ; together with other oddities which are common in
mediaeval cartography, e.g. the Pyramids as Barns, etc. (c) In
Europe ; — the Church of Santiago at Compostella, and near it a
Pharos (of Brigantia ?) ; the Danus, tributary of the Ebro, un-
named in ancient geography ; the boundary of the Danes and
Saxons ; and the heart-shaped town of Cardia near Constantinople.

As to Islands, Taraconta, Rapharrica, and Abalcia, on the
north coast of Asia, are from iEthicus ; Ganzmir (for Scanza or
Scandinavia) is a remarkable misreading, also found in Hereford.
Hister, Asia Minor, Galilea, Sinus Persicus, and some other names,
wanting on Hereford, but supplied by Henry of Mainz, are pro-
bably from the common original.

Various peculiarities of nomenclature, e.g. Mene, Island, Jahdk,
etc., are also common to both works ; but of course the Hereford
map is far larger, and contains much more, especially in relation
to classical material. The 229 legends of the one are over-
shadowed in the 1021 of the other. In the same way, among
the other relatives of Henry's map, Bbstorf (a work on the scale
of Hereford and a most close parallel to the latter) dwarfs its
elder cousin of Mainz with 1224 legends ; ' Jerome ' supplies 407 :
while the little Psalter map, Henry's younger brother, in spite of
all its crowding, can only give us 145. We may notice that,
among other works of similar nature, the Cotton map gives us
14G legends; Lambert of St. Omer, 180; Matthew Paris' world-
map, 81 ; the Beatus group, 477 ; while the vast scope of the
Peutinger Table offers 3400 inscriptions.

It is plain from the great number of nameless rivers, moun-
tains, and cities in the Mainz example, that the work may well
have been taken from a larger original. There is another proof
of the same in the eight half-circles which occur (apparently
without reason) along the oval margin of Henry's ocean ; from
other works we may recognise these as representing the places of
the eight intermediate winds.

In the draughtsmanship of Asia Minor, the Gulf of Issus, and
the Black Sea, the most striking analogies may be found between
Henry and ' Jerome ' ; and from a study of these particulars we
may feel practically certain that some correspondence may be
assumed. Henry's agreement with 'Jerome' is only, of course,
partial, even in the Eastern World ; but it is far closer than the
likeness between ' Jerome ' and the Hereford, Psalter, or Ebstorf
maps ; and we may believe it to be a true and conscious
relationship.

V.— The whole design of the 'Psalter' map [Brit, Mus. Add.
MSS., 6806] is, like the Hereford, a highly developed but

618 APPENDIX ON MAPS

scientifically debased example of semi-mythical Geography —
an elaborate exposition of strictly mediaeval habits of thought,
applied to Geography. It shows us ' World Knowledge ' re-
moved as far as possible from the comparative science of the
Ancient Imperial World, and as yet quite untouched by the
new light of the later Middle Age. In its debasement it may be
to some extent compared (like Hereford and Ebstorf) with the
map of Cosmas, ' the Indian traveller ' ; but its perversions are
of course very different, both in kind and degree. They are
in some ways more elaborate, and so more mischievous ; on the
other hand, they imply, taken as a whole, a more detailed know-
ledge of many parts, and a higher artistic sense.

At the top of the world-circle is the Saviour with uplifted
hands ; in His left He holds the globe of earth ; the latter has
the well-known T"0 formation of the Continents sketched upon
its surface. On both sides of the Saviour stand angels swinging
censers ; below are two dragons facing one another. On the
reverse of the page the dragons are again sketched below the
earth -circle, and crushed beneath the feet of the Saviour, whose
form thus serves as a background and support, as in the Ebstorf
example and in so many other pictures, to the circuit of the
earth. The border that surrounds the map is almost identical
in design with that of Hereford ; but the ' Psalter ' border is
executed in pure Piomanesque, the Hereford in Gothic. This
helps us to date the former about fifty years earlier than the
latter, i.e. c. 1250 a.d.

The ocean appears as a watery zone, of equal breadth in
every part, encircling the world. The various winds, each re-
presented by a head, as in the Hereford map and on the Beatus
of 1250 ('Paris ii.') are designed in suitable places along the
outer rim of ocean. [This sort of plan is prominent in later works,
like the great mappe-monde of Ranulf Higden.] In the titles
of these, the draughtsman of the Psalter map is unusually and
severely classical, giving us the famous old names of Aquilo
and S&ptentrio for the North, Zephyrus for the West, Atister
or Nofhus for the South, and Eurus or Euro-Notlius for the
East and South-East. The term Vulturnus, usually applied by
classical writers to the South-East wind, is assigned rather to
the North-North-East by the Psalter draughtsman. The Mediter-
ranean, Black Sea, Propontis, Caspian, and Red Sea are all
represented ; the waters of the Levant show unusual exaggera-
tion ; the Euxine is brought (as often elsewhere) very close to
the Northern Ocean. The coast from the delta of the Nile
round to Caesarea is monstrously distorted, almost resembling
the shore of a lake. The Caspian appears as a narrow indent

APPENDIX ON MAPS 619

of the Northern Sea, divided in two by a long peninsula (in the
extreme north-east of Asia), and encircled by the greatest
mountain-wall in the world, pierced apparently at one point by
the Gates of Alexander.

Paradise, in the Far East, is conceived in a somewhat excep-
tional manner. The sun pours out of its mouth the flood of
waters which flows through the Garden of Eden, and supplies
the five sacred rivers ; for the draughtsman has entered both
Ganges and Phison in this list. The heads of Adam and Eve
appear within the enclosure, which seems to be marked off with
lofty and symmetrical mountains. The Tree of the Temptation is
roughly drawn between the two faces. [Bevan and Phillot,
Mediaeval Geography, xlii., suggest the Arbre Sec, which they make
identical with the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil ; and
Yule, Marco Polo, ii. 397, refers us to legendary language about
the Dry Tree which would perhaps support such an identifica-
tion; — 'in the midst of Paradise was a fountain, whence flowed
four rivers, and over the fountain a great Tree bare of bark and
leaves.'] The trees of the Sun and Moon are here separately
indicated, close to Paradise on the south ; while the Tigris flows
direct from Paradise to the Indian Ocean^ and the Euphrates
(or rather one of two rivers so named) enters a mountain chain
west of Paradise, named Orcatoten, and thence flows to the
Persian Gulf. Of the Nile only the Egyptian portion is given.
The Arae Liberi et Colimae Herculi[s] occur near the Indus, but
the Arae AJexandri are near the border of Europe ; Albania, in
North-East Asia, recalls the ' Anglo-Saxon ' or ' Cotton ' map ;
Gyropolis, near the Caspian, is perhaps for Gyreschata on the
Jaxartes, famous for Alexander's siege ; Sclaveni occidentales,
near the Black Sea, are suggestive of much more modern times,
like the Island of Norvegia. The Arabian and Persian Gulfs
appear to be melted into one by the draughtsman of the Psalter
map, and in the same great indent he has put the ocean, off the
coast of India, filled with large islands. The Ganges has an
utterly false direction, flowing from the northern mountains,
nut into the sea, but to Paradise, like one of the two Euphrates
rivers, here delineated. North- West Africa is marked off (like
the north-east of Asia) by a belt, which was perhaps intended
for mountains, as in the other case, but remains as a mere linear
mark with the legend, Sandy and Desert Land.

Among the monsters of South Africa are Dog-headed Folk and
people with heads in various stages of aggressiveness, having
either descended between their shoulders or else absorbed the
entire trunk of the body. Besides these there are Cannibals,
a race with six fingers, Troglodytes, Serpent-eaters, Skiapodes,

G20 APPENDIX ON MAPS

and a nation that obtained shadow from the hugeness not of their
foot but of their lip ; tribes also without tongues, without ears, or
without noses; others who, having only a little hole for
mouths, were forced to suck their food through a reed ; ' Maritime
JEthiops ' with four eyes ; and beings who never walked, but
crawled on hands and feet. [These races, fourteen in all, come
mostly from Solinus ; many of them occur also on Ebstorf, on
Hereford, or on both.] The Ark of Noah appears very clearly
on a mountain of Armenia, and a large fish swims in the middle
of the Sea of Galilee, perhaps as a reminiscence of New Testament
history. The Barns of Joseph, close to Babylon of Egypt, show
ns that our artist has heard of the Pyramids. The most famous
cities of the ancient world, and the most famous sites of the
Bible Story, are nearly all represented ; while the immense
and symmetrical Jerusalem, in the very middle of the world,
forms a perfect centre to an exact circle. [One might ahnost
compare the ideal world of the Psalter, Hereford, and Ebstorf
maps, in its general shape, with the contour of real Moscow,
Jerusalem answering to the Kremlin.]

The closest relation of the Psalter map is the Ebstorf, which
is probably junior by at least half a century ; but the former is
remarkable for a number of old names which do not occur on
the maps of Ebstorf or Hereford. Its delineation of the mon-
strous races of the south show a more antique character, and so
probably a closer relationship to the common eleventh-century (?)
original. That original probably contained many names and
legends, attached to various indications of cities and natural
features, which have only partially survived in the derivatives.
In its text the Psalter map seems to be a very imperfect copy
of this original, both in amount and style, though it gives us
an astonishingly large mass of matter for its size. In its
delineation of the World-Picture our present example perhaps
reproduces its model better than in its text ; the scribe was
presumably better as a draughtsman than as a scholar.

The Psalter and Ebstorf have a curiously similar treatment
of the Caspian Rampart (otherwise 'Alexander's Wall,' the
' H3Tcanian Mountains,' or 'Barrier of the Jews'), shutting in
the Gog-Magogs and other monsters of the North ; but the
Gates of Alexander are more clearly marked on our present
copy than anywhere else in this Family of Maps. The two
baj^s which run off northward from the ' Erythraean ' indent of
the ocean are somewhat unusual in their position and concep-
tion ; one corresponds to the upper part of the Persian Gulf, the
other to the sea at the mouth of the Indus, the Gulf and K-unn
of Cutch, or perhaps the Gulf of Cambay. On the Psalter,

APPENDIX ON MAPS 621

'Jerome,' Hereford, and Ebstorf maps alike, Africa stretches
round very close to the neighbourhood of India ; and further
similarities may be observed in the unnatural abridgment of
the three peninsulas of Southern Europe, both Greek, Spanish,
and Italian.

With the Hereford map the textual correspondence is almost
as noticeable as with Ebstorf; and the differences in carto-
graphical form are often mere arbitrary eccentricities of the
designer. We may consider this little circular plan, so
minute in scale, so immense in the quantity of its details, as
a sort of bridge between the types of Ebstorf, Hereford, and
Mainz. At the same time, like Ebstorf and Hereford, it stands
much further away from the 'Jerome' maps than does the work
of Henry ; but, with the ' Jerome ' map of the Orient, it helps us
to fill up that great gap which has been left in the Far East of
the Ebstorf example. [Perhaps the trees of the Sun and Moon,
as shown in the Psalter, correspond to the Pillars of Alexander
and of Hercules in the original design.] Outside its own family
the Psalter map has some points of agreement both with Lambert
of St. Omer and with Beatus. Of modern names it gives us
several in Europe, one in Africa, none in Asia, The most
interesting of these are Damietta, in a wholly wrong position ;
the 'Ruscitae' or Russians, perhaps derived from the Ruzzia of
Adam of Bremen, the ' Olcus ' or Volga, the ' Land of the
Western Slavs,' 'Ala' or Halle in Germany, and three names
in Britain, viz. Scotland, Wales (' AValni '), and Cornwall.
[Bevan and Phillot were the first to describe and photograph
this map. See Mediaeval GeograjJiy, p. xli. Cf. also Anton
Springer, Die Psalter-Imitationen, Leipzig, 1880.]

VI. — Lambert of St. Omer was a son of one Onulf, canon
of that church, who died 26th January, 1077 ; he composed his
Liber Floridus at different dates, as well as from different authors
(cf. his own words ;— ' Ego Lambertus cancmicus iS. Audomeri
librum istum de diver sorum auctoruvt Jioribus contexui'). In his
chronicle he alludes to Pope Calixtus [I. (1119-1124) as then
reigning. Besides the world-map) and other designs noticed in
the text, pp. 570-3, he gives us lists of the winds and chief towns
of the world, and four astrological or astronomical schemes. [The
Ghent MS., apparently an autograph of Lambert's, is noticed in
1248 as belonging to the Cathedral Library of Ghent (St, Bavon).
Its map content is as follows : — (1) On folio 19, a T~0 sketch
(Spltaera triplicata gentium mundi) ; here the names of peoples
agree with Julius Honorius, in the JEthican Recension. (2) On
folio 20, a Sphaera Minotauri and a Domus Daedal i. (3) On folio

622 APPENDIX ON MAPS

24, an Or do Ventorum. (4) On the same folio, a Sphaera Macrobii
de V. Zonis. (5) On folio 28, the promise of the unexecuted
Mappa vel Or[ m ]esda Mundi. (6) On folio 49, a list of great towns,
especially Rome, Nineveh, Babylon, and Ecbatana. (7) On folio
88, a Terras Globus to illustrate Baeda, De Astrologia. (8) On folios
136-139, various genealogies, with a picture of Caesar Augustus
on folio 138. This is related to cartographical ideas through the
taxation, survey, and official mapping of the Roman world
attributed to Augustus. (9) On folio 225, another Macrobian
Zone map. (10) On folios 226-228, three astronomical sketches,
of Macrobian type. (11) On folio 241, the map of Europe above
referred to; cf. Santarem, Essai sur . . . Cosmographie, ii. 154, 155 ;
Pertz, Archie, vii. 540; Serapewn, 1842, 145-161, etc. ; 1845 (vi.),
59, etc. ; also the Messager den Sciences ltistoriques de Belgique,
1844, 473-506.

Besides the world-map the Paris manuscript contains (with
certain differences) several of the smaller designs which Ave find
in the Ghent copy of the Lambertian encyclopaedia. Thus we have
Augustus Caesar holding a T"0 world in his left hand, an
astronomical sketch, and an outline figure of the 'earth-globe.'

But on the Paris map all names of seas are wanting ; the
Mediterranean is indistinguishable from a river ; and the con-
tinents and countries lack all clear differentiation. The script,
moreover, is exceedingly difficult ; and Lambert's material has
been so much re-arranged that it is not easjr, in some cases, to
find any agreement with the indications of the Ghent copy.

The Wolfenbiittel manuscript is now known as 1 Gucliana lat.,
of the twelfth century ; Warnkonig, Geschichte von Flandem,
thinks this manuscript is older than that of Ghent, but this can-
not be maintained ; cf. Bethmann, Serapewn, vi. 64. The ' Paris '
is in Bibl. Nat., Suppl. Lat., 10 bis, and belongs to the end of the
thirteenth century ; it contains some beautiful miniatures (cf.
Santarem, Essai . . . sur Cosmographie, ii. 163-172, 198; and Atlas).
Other references to the Lambert maps, especially at Ghent, may
be found in Mone, Anzeiger fur die Kiinde der . . . Vorzeit,
Karlsruhe, 1836, p. 36, and Tafel i. ; St. Genois in Messager,
Ghent, 1844, p. 602, pi. iii. ; Santarem, Essai sur . . . Cosmo-
graphie, ii. 44, 82, 95, 157-160, 185, 197, and Atlas; Lelewel,
Atlas, pi. 8.]

On the Lambert maps the seas and rivers are usually green,
the mountains red ; but each of the three copies offers peculiarities
of its own. Ghent, though it only supplies us with Europe, gives
much more detail in this part of the world. Wolfenbiittel alone
gives Philistia, Palestine, Bactria, and the Mountains of Taurus
and Caucasus. Paris alone contains Gallia Comata, Troy, and
the Australian inscription. A similar but shorter description of

APPENDIX ON MAPS 623

the Southern Ocean occurs in one of the small Zone maps of the
Liber Floridus.

The conception worked out by Krates was shared to some
extent by Agathemeros and Martianus Capella, as well as by
Macrobius, Eumenius, Nonnus, Ampelius, and Kleomedes, and
was widely diffused in the later Imperial time. From the four-
fold Kratesian world, Berger, Erdlc. d. Griechen, iii., 123, 129,

plausibly derives the imperial ball £|=) with its two circles.

Lambert's exact language here is not without interest. First
we have the Terrestrial Paradise, with the unique addition of
Enoch and Elias, and from the same liow, as is customary,
the four sacred rivers of the Eastern World. Like Cosmas,
Lambert evidently intends these streams to have a subterranean
course between Paradise and ' Our World.'

Henry of Mainz offers some points of comparison (for instance,
in the form of Spain and the position of Italy) ; the Psalter map,
the ' Cottoniana/ and Guido also supply occasional analogies ; but
Lambert has no direct relation with any of these, is based on
a far older original, and can only be connected for any useful
result with the Macrobius-, Zone-, and Climate-maps.

The. modern names are scanty ; Norway, Flanders, Bavaria,
the Arm or Strait of St. George, and a few others, make up the
list. With Isidore there are some points of agreement which
mean nothing ; for they are such as may be found on ail old
maps, and afford no sufficient proof that Lambert used the
Doctor of the Church of Seville. The Orosius connections are
perhaps a little more definite, but they mainly depend on a
specialised but not identical use of two rare names — ' Samara ' and
'Octogorra' or 'Ottorogorra.' [On Lambert Ottorogorra is an
island instead of a river.] With Julius Honorius, on the other
hand, we may confidently assume a certain, though slight,
relationship ; for Lambert himself gives us in the Liber Floridus
a T-Q maP hi which the names of peoples and races to a
large extent agree with the iEthican Recension of Honorius ;
even some of the oddities are reproduced, such as the placing
of the Germanic folks in Asia. On the Lambert mappe-monde,
however, these names are differently written. Many of them are
also found in other old writers, so that we must not press unduly
the Honorian connection with Lambert's World-Picture.

With the Anonymous Bavennese there are some surprising
points of contact, as, for instance, in the mention and placing of
'Tuscia,' Neustria, 'Scanza,' Venetia, Sclavinia, Emilia, Istria,
Burgundia, the Huns, the Lazi, and Thyle (West of Spain).
With Martianus Capella there are certain possible resemblances,

624 APPENDIX ON MAPS

which, however, mostly apply just as well to Pomponius Mela
and Solinus ; — e.g. Magnesia as a Province ; Pontica and
' Margiane ' or Merv as Regions ; the Islands of the Sun and the
Gorgades. With Mela we may compare the ' Oceanus Scythicus ' ;
with Solinus ' Ahalcia,' ' Margiane ' is-also a Ptolemy coincidence.
With Beatus and the Peutinger Table, we have the common
peculiarity of the 'Vandals.' With iEthicus of Istria certain
doubtful coincidences may be found. But the Gryphons or
Griffins occur also in Isidore, and even earlier ; while the
language of Lambert about the Gog-Magogs, and the thirty-two
nations imprisoned by Alexander, is not identical with iEthicus,
though it recalls the language of the Istrian romancist, especially
in the matter of the number of these races of evil men here
mentioned. For only iEthicus, among all writers from whom
Lambert could have borrowed, speaks of gentes xzxii.

Lambert's Natural History is often curious, derived as it is
from various ancient works, somewhat imperfectly understood,
and often combined with apparent originality. Instances of
the latter are the fauns of India, the parrots and elephants
of Arabia, and the apes of Parthia. Lambert's Hjrrcanian tigers
are perhaps from Aminianus Marcellinus : his Arabian lions
from Strabo or Agatharcides ; his Indian pygmies and Arabian
cinnamon from Isidore ; his trees of the Sun and Moon from
the Alexander Romance of the Pseudo-Kallisthenes ; while
his Griffins of the North might be derived from many authors.

We must not, however, suppose that Lambert's mappe-monde
is a comjuilation from a large number of writers. It is not
impossible that Lambert's map, with the exception of a few
more recent names, was taken bodily from an ancient world-
sketch of the fourth or fifth century. But even if it is
the outcome (in its general outlines) of a lost original from
the latter days of the old Empire, yet it has been greatly
modified by its twelfth-century redactor, and in part at least it
truly belongs to the central mediaeval time. As to this, we ma}-
notice especially some of the islands in Lambert, such as Tritonia,
apparently a fancy name from the River Triton in ^Ethiopia ;
Betania or Britain, placed over against the Pillars of Hercules
or Straits of Gibraltar ; the Balearic's, defined as ' over against
Spain,' but located in the ocean ; and the Orcades or British
fringing-islets, thirty-three in number, lying over against Britain
and GofJiia. For Lambert's one ' Fortunate Island ' off Mt. Atlas,
and his Island of the Blessed (Beata) off Mauritania, we may
refer to the Anonymous Ravennese [ed. Finder and Parthey,
325, o ; 444, 3] ; for his similar blunder in the double Hibemia
the Beatus maps furnish parallels [cf. Santarem, JEssai sur . . .
Gosmographie, ii. 158-159].

APPENDIX ON MAPS 625

VII. — Macrobius was also the author of Saturnalia, which
deal with historical, critical, antiquarian, and mythological
matters ; and of a Grammatical Treatise which has perished,
except in an abridgment. Though he says that Latin was a
foreign tongue to him, he probably wrote these works in that
language [cf. Dawn of Modern Geography, i. pp. 343, 344].

The chief examples of Macrobian maps are (1) two of the
tenth century, mentioned by Santarem, Essaisur. . . Cosrniograjphie,
ii. 41, but without proper reference. (2) One of the tenth
century, at Paris, Bibl. Nat., 7,>85 (Santarem, ibid, ii. 47). (3)
One of the tenth or eleventh century (Santarem, ibid, iii.
460). (4) One of the ninth century, at Munich. (5) One of the
tenth or eleventh century, at Munich. (6) One of the twelfth
century, at Munich. (7) One of the eleventh or twelfth century,
at Bamberg. (8) One of the thirteenth century, at Berlin. (9)
One of the thirteenth century, at Berne. (10) Two of the
eleventh to thirteenth centuries, at Leyden (Vossian MSS.).
Nos. 4 to 11 are noticed in Jan's edition of Macrobius, 1848;
which Eyssenhardt, 1868, has made great use of. Many other
Macrobius manuscript-maps doubtless exist, but have not yet
been noticed.

A zone map of Macrobian type is found in the tenth-century
manuscript of Bede's De t&nvporum ratione, bound up with the
Periegesis of Priscian and the Cotton or ' Anglo-Saxon ' map ; in
every important respect it may be assumed to reproduce Bede's
original. It occurs in Cotton MS. Tib., B. V., folio 29 ; is un-
coloured, except for a green border ; is circular in form ; measures
ten inches across ; represents the globus terraqueus ; and seems
intended to show the movement of the oceans as well as the
position of the zones or climates. It has a slight sketch of the
Mediterranean, with two city-pictures, probably of Rome and
Jerusalem, and with the Pillars of Hercules. The continents are
indicated by inscriptions ; — Africa, Asia, JEqu.itania (sic) ; but no
drawing of their outlines is given. In the middle of the sketch
is an inscription, which gives an estimate of the four great
divisions of the world's circuit, with special reference to the ebb
and flow of the ocean, and a description of the equinoctial zone,
'almost entirely washed above and below by the sea, which
flows round about through the midst of the land, dividing the
whole earth into four islands, as it were; which islands are
inhabited . . ; and as through the midst of the land, so also
round about the circuit of the same, runs the sea, which from
heat or cold is untraversable ': — ' /Equinoctialis Zona hie incipiens
pene lata alluitur superius et inferius rnari, quod dum per me-
dium terrae circumldbitur, in II1I quasi insulas totus orbis

2 it

626 APPENDIX ON MAPS

dividitur } quae inhabitantur ; estenim solstitialis superior et inferior
habitabilis ; similiter superior et inferior hiemalis ; deque fit ut per
medium, et in circuitu orbis mare currat quod colore vel frigore est
intransmeabile : estque depreliensus totius orbis ambitus in stadiis
ducentis quinquaginta duobus millibus.' Besides this there are
only the five climate labels : Arcticus, JEstivus, yEquinoctialis,
Fliemalis, Antarcticus, and the four-fold inscription round the
rim, ' Hinc rejiuit Oceanus ad septentrionem [or, austrum] per
LXIII stadiorum,' twice repeated in each form.

This map goes with chapter 34 of the De temporum ratione ;
which again is based on St. Isidore, Etymol., iii., 43; xiii. 6;
De Nat. Rer., x. It shows some relationship to the Dijon
map of 1064 (MS. 269), which is, however, more astronomical
[cf. K. Miller, KJeineren WeltJcarten, 124].

[On Macrobian maps in the Imago Mundi of Honorius of
Autun, cf. Santarem, Essaisur . . . Cosmographie,u. 237, 239, etc. ;
Lelewel, GSog. Moyen Age, i. 53 ; and Atlas, plate viii. The
Magna de Naturis Pliilosopltia of William of Conches is some-
times wrongly ascribed to the Abbot William of Hirsau. There
is a thirteenth-century manuscript of this in the Stuttgart Public-
Library, Cod. med. and phys., No. 15. The maps are on folios
13, 25, 29 ; cf. Santarem, Essai, iii. 499-505.] The second of
William's designs shows round the earth-circle, as in the Baeda
example, the dimensions of the four segments ; the four great
tidal movements are also inscribed. Above the Earth-Island,
towards the left, is the Indian Sea ; below is the Mediterranean ;
to the left of the same are Europe and Cat pes; to the right,
Africa and Atlas.

In the Garden of Deliglits of Abbess Herrade, the Macrobian
map is on folio 10 A. In the manuscript of Hyginus, referred to
in text (p. 575), once at Bobbio, later at Wolfenbuttel, Figure
No. 160 is specially notable. Macrobian maps are also in the
Naples MSS., V. A. 12, V. A. 10 (12 bis) of eleventh and
twelfth centuries ; and in the Leipzig MS. xliii. (City Library)
of thirteenth century, at the conclusion of Walter's Alexand 'reis ;
cf. Wuttke, Serapeum, xiv. 249. According to Philippi, Zur
ReJxo?ist. d. WeMkarte d. Agrippa, i. 2, Cecco d'Ascoli (1257-
1327 A.D.) wrote a commentary to the De Sphaera Mundi of
Sacrobosco, and reproduced the zone map.

VIII. — The Climate map of Petrus Alphousus is in MS. 1218,
Suppl. Lat., of the Bibliothecpue Nationale, Paris. Arim, Arin, or
Aren occurs on Persian maps of the twelfth century as the umbilical
point of the earth, just as it is described by earlier writers of
the ninth and tenth centuries ; Roger Bacon identifies this spot
with Syene.

APPENDIX ON MAPS fi?7

Alphonsus clearly shows in tin's particular the fact of Arab
influence ; a confirmation of the same is seen in the orientation
of his little map, which gives the south at the top. Below the
Arim picture, which is here portrayed as a city of superhuman
size and grandeur, he designates seven habitable climates, and at
the foot of all a northern zone uninhabitable from the cold.

These Climate maps were probably common in the Moslem
Geography which arose under Al Mamun, and attained so great
a development in the ninth and tenth centuries. According to
Masudi they were coloured ; one of special merit was issued by
order of the Caliph Al Mamun ; but another standard example
was to be found in Ptolemy. This branch of cartography among
the Arabs and Franks was based on Greek originals ; many of
these originals, such as those examined by Masudi, are now
lost ; but we still possess enough in the way of written
descriptions to trace the development of the Climate-scheme,
and to see how greatly the primitive conception was modified
in the course of time [cf. Santarem, Essai sur . . . Cosmoijraphie,
i. 92 ; iii. 332]. At first the term Climate implied merely
the K/\/px, or supposed slope of the earth from a higher North
to a lower South, or vice verm ; secondly, from the time of the
great astronomer Hipparchus (c. B.C. 160), the different belts or
zones of the curved or spherical earth-surface (as determined
by the different lengths of the longest day at Syene, Alexandria,
Byzantium, and so forth) are understood. It was to illustrate
this leading feature of our world, especially for the aid of mathe-
matical and astronomical geography, that the Climate maps arose ;
in the wider sense of the word, all ancient designs of truly
scientific character, such as Ptolemy's, were climatic ; but of
course these works paid attention to many other things besides
climatic distinction. In the narrower sense, with which we are
here concerned, this last is the sole object.

IX. — Along with the elaborate and comparatively scientific
geography of Eratosthenes or Ptolemy, the ancient world also had
a popular system, represented in some of its phases by Krates
of Mallos, by Macrobius, and by the zone- or climate-sketches we
have already had to consider ; another side of the same is
portrayed in the ~T or TO designs. Thus Hipparchus (in
the second century B.C.) recommends students of Geography
to glance at the ancient map sketches as well as the scientific
plan of Eratosthenes. Again, Agathemerus says the Ancients
constantly drew the Habitable World in circular form ; putting
Hellas Proper in the midst of the Oikoumeni, and Delphi in
the midst of Hellas. Among Roman geographers a more

628 APPENDIX ON MAPS

favourite middle point was found in the iEgaean Sea, and
especially in the Isle of Delos ; but the complete agreement
of the " " maps of the earlier and later time is expressed by
Sallust in a famous passage of his Jugurtha [ch. 17, lin divisione
Orbis Terrae plerique partem tertiam Africani posuere ; pauci
tantummodo Asiam et Europam esse, sed Africani in Europa ; cf.
S. Berger, Geschichte d. ErdJc. d. Griechen, 1887, i. 10, 85 ;
ii. 64; also Biese, Geographi Latini Minores, p. 90. Other
descriptions confirm Sallust's language, and show us how
differently the area of the different continents was estimated
by various writers. Thus Pliny, dividing the whole land area
into sixty parts, makes Europe occupy twenty-eight, Asia nine-
teen, and Africa thirteen of these. Again, Orosius, at the
beginning of his cosmographical chapter, refers to the triple
estimate (of three continents) as well as to a double estimate,
based on the supposed preponderance of Europe. [Our ancestors
made a three-fold division of the Orb of the whole earth surrounded
by the limbus of ocean, and named those three parts Asia, Europe,
and Africa ; but some considered it better to treed only of two parts,
— Asia on one side, and Africa with Europe on the other. ~\ The
latter reckoning usually made Asia equal to Europe and Africa
together. In the cosmography of JEthicus {i.e. of Julius
Honorius) the three-fold division of Orosius is contrasted with
the four-fold arrangement of another tradition.

To the examples of T-0 designs mentioned in the text
pp. 577-8, we may add; — another in St. Isidore's De Natura
lierum (found in manuscripts even of the eighth centuiy) ; the
Roda-Madrid sketch of the ninth century ; the Strassburg of
about the same date ; the St. Omer of the tenth or eleventh
century ; and one of the eleventh century in Hermannus
Contractus' Chronicle of the Six Ages of the World. Besides
these there are eleven lesser sketches from various manuscripts
of St. Isidore's Origins or Etymologies, all before the end of the
thirteenth century ; a description of a X Design (illustrating
the Dicisio Terrae) in Bede, De Natura Rerum, ch. 51, which
was perhaps accompanied by a sketch with astronomical
additions, as reproduced in Migne. We have also from Baban
Maur [in his De Universo, xii. 2 ; copying Isidore, Etymol.,
xiv. 2] a repetition, not schematic but descriptive, of the chief
Isidorian plan of this kind, c a.d. 844 ; and various T Maps
in Honorius of Autun, in Guido, in Lambert of St. Omer,
in a Mons manuscript of Lucan's Pharsalia, in Walter of
Metz, and in Nikephoros Blemmidas. We must briefly examine
some of these.

APPENDIX ON MAPS 629

(1) The lesser Isidore X maps are in the following manu-
scripts : — (a) Paris, Bib. Nat., 7683 Lat, of tenth century ;
(/>) same Libr., Bib. Nat., Lat. S. G., 538, of tenth century
(this manuscript contains two X maps, one round, one square) ;
(c) Bib. Nat., Lat, Nav., 87, of twelfth century ; (d) Bib.
Nat., Lat. 7592, of eleventh to twelfth centuries ; (e) Bib.
Nat., Lat. 7590, of thirteenth century (this manuscript also
contains two X maps, one round, one square) ; (/) Bib. Nat.,
reference not yet known, mentioned by Santarem, Essai, ii.
284 ; (f/) Bib. Nat., Nav. 6, of thirteenth century. Besides
these nine Paris manuscripts (all falling within the period a.d.
900 to 12 GO), there are two in (//), a manuscript of the Library
of Metz, of thirteenth century, cf. Santarem, Essai sur . . .
Cosmographie, ii. 235-236, 283-284, 287 ; iii. 505-506 ; Otto's
edition of Isidore, p. 434, dealing with Etymol., xiv. 2, 3 ; and
Riese, Geograp7ii Latini Minores, 160, on the Isidorian X sketches
in the De Natura Rentm. (2) Santarem, Essai sur . . . Cosmo-
(jraphie, ii. 102, refers to a non-Isidorian plan of this kind, but
with marked peculiarities, in the Paris Bib. Nat., Lat. 5371, of
eleventh century. (3) Raban Maur merely repeats the Isidorian
data relative to the X~shaped Divisio Terrae ; and the same is
true of (4) the Roda-Madrid map, except that the latter supplies
a ninth-century sketch instead of a merely descriptive summary,
and adds, upon the three Continents, that Shem received the
Temperate Land, Japheth the Cold, Ham the Hot [cf. Santarem,
Essai sur . . . Cosmographie, ii. 32]. (5) The ninth-century
Strassburg X plan [ni the Strassburg MS. numbered c. iv. 15] is
rather more elaborate, from a geographical point of view. For it
attempts a rough estimate of the nomenclature of the principal
countries. Thus, for instance, Greece, Italy, Frisia, Saxony,
Germany, Dacia, Gothia, and Alamannia are found in Europe ;
the Amazons and the Moabites, Paradise and Egypt, India and
Galilee, in Asia ; Carthage and Mauritania, in Africa, Jeru-
salem is marked by a Greek cross, but is not at the centre
of the circle. (6) The St. Omer plan comes from the last leaf
of a manuscript collection of homilies written about 990-1010.
Besides the names of Europe and Africa, we find here England
and Hibernia, Thule, and Scandinavia \Scandzd\. On the Strass-
burg and St. Oiner plans, cf. Mone, in Anzeiger fur Kunde d. teutsch.
Vorzeit, 1836, p. 113, Taf. ii. ; Santarem,' Essai, ii. 81 ; Lelewel,
Geog. Moyen Age, i. 49, and Atlas, plate vii. The map is in the St,
Omer MS. No. 97. (7) Hermannus Contractus gives us only ih.e
simplest kind of sketch, with ' Noachic ' description ; but (8) the
Oxford of 1110 [in St. John's Coll. Libr., Cod. Membr. fob, xvii.,
folio 6 ; cf. Bevan and Pliillot, Med. Geog., xxxvi.] is veiy notable,

630 APPENDIX ON MAPS

e.g. for its Greek words. The diameter is about 6 J inches. The
Terrestrial Paradise does not appear. Though Africa is included
under Europe, the dividing arm of sea (Mediterranean) is given
as the stem of the X- r4"he number of 32 races given in
Armenia by this map may be compared with the 34 Albanian
races of Orosius, i. 2, 1, and the 32 Albanian and Armenian
peoples of the Anonymous Ravennese, ii. 12. Perhaps the map
was primarily intended to portray the 72 races of 'Greater Asia,'
the 27 races of Shem, the 15 of Japheth, the 30 of Ham, the 33
of Armenia (given as if in South Asia), Jerusalem or Sion, the
Cities of Refuge, the Tribes of Israel — 8 only given — and other
favourite mediaeval traditions. Also, there is a commencement of
a Dwisio A'postolorum ; — Paul in Athens, Peter in Caesarea, Andrew
in Achaia, John in Ephesus. The 72 races of Greater Asia
may be compared with Gervase of Tilbury, Otia Imperialia, ii. 1,
an alteration from the 70 of the Mosaic table. But the most
interesting point about this map is its evidence of Hellenic or
Byzantine authorship. Anatole, Mesembrios, Disis (i.e. Svo-i?), and
Arcton appear, along with Latin equivalents, at the Cardinal Points.
Many of the most important names are out of place ; thus Constan-
tinople is in Asia Minor, Athens north-east of Jerusalem, while
Judaea, Palestine, and Carthage stand in adjoining plots of what
is labelled Europe, but Avhich is drawn as if belonging to Africa,
With singular perversity Carthage is again repeated in the
extreme north-west, roughly in the position of the Pyrenees.
(9) Honorius of Autun's Imago Mundi is illustrated by a few
X Maps of no special interest, like the (10) Guido manuscripts in
Brussels and Florence, (11) some of the codices of Lambert of St.
Omer, and (12) the Moris text of Lucan's Pharsalia [cf. Santarem,
Essai sur . . . Cosmographie, ii. 176, 229, 237 ; Recherclies, plate
iii. ; Lelewel, Geog. Moyen Age, ii. 7 ; and Atlas, plate viii.]
These sketches immediately refer to the Archetypal passage of
Isidore, Etymol, xiv. 2, 3. (13) Walter of Metz, who about 1245
wrote a poem entitled Liber Mappae Mundi, or Images du Monde
in 5900 French verses, several times employs the X~0 scheme,
but in the rudest manner ; and the same may be said of (14),
Nikephoros Bleminidas, c. a.d. 1250. The latter's X plan (called
by Santarem a Sallust map) is accompanied by short Greek in-
dications designating the three Continents and the Nile, and
places the West at the top. [For Nik. Blem., see Paris Bib. Nat.,
1414, folio 3 ; Santarem, Essai sur . . . Cosmographie, ii. 245, 248-
254, 275; Spolm, Ni~k. Blem. Opuse., 1818; for Walter of Metz,
see Bib. Nat., 7991, 79, 29. The crucial passage for X"0 carto-
graphy is Isidore, Etymol., xiv. 2 ; Orbem dimidium duae tenent,
Eumjpa et Africa, alium vera dimidium sola Asia : sed ideo duae

APPENDIX ON MAPS 631

partes factae sunt, quia niter utramque ah Oceano Mare Magnum
ingreditur, quod eas intersecat. Quapropter si in duos partes,
Urientis et Occident is, orbem dicidas, Asia er it in una, in altera vera
Europa et Africa.]

X. — As to the Sallust maps, this curious little family of
mediaeval sketches was first properly noticed in its various con-
nections by AVuttke ; although Spohu had already drawn attention
to some of them. Lelewel, Philippi, and Konrad Miller have
somewhat developed the study of this group, but it can hardly
be doubted that it is capable of further expansion. As yet we
know of eight larger, and five smaller, Sallust maps ; of the
former category, five only fall within our present view. The
first of these is the tenth-century Leipzig ; two others, one of
the eleventh, the second of the thirteenth century, are now in the
same place ; the remaining two, both of the twelfth century, are
at present in the Libraries of Florence and Gorlitz.

The oldest example, of about a.d. 980, in the University
Library at Leipzig, occurs in a fragment of a manuscript of
the Catilina which has been used for bookbinding. It is
extremely faded and difficult to read ; but the traces of a
rather elaborate city-picture of Rome, some smaller sketches, and
various names, can still be discerned. This map conforms to the
X~0 type, places the East at the top, and employs the Tanais
and Nile in the division of continents. It was first noticed by
AVuttke, Zur Gesrhichte der Erdkunde des Mittelalters, p. 6.

The Leipzig of the eleventh century [City Library, MS. No.
xl, once the property of St. John in Magdeburg] from a manu-
script containing not only Sallust, but Lucan and Capella, is
the handsomest of all the Sallust maps, and gives pictures
of Rome, Troy, Babylon, Carthage, Cyrene, and Jerusalem.
Among mountains the Alps, the Lebanon, the Riphaean Hills,
the Atlas, and the Pyrenees are given ; among rivers the Nile,
Tanais, Danube, and Rhine ; for the general design a rather
free rendering of the T-O f°rm *s adopted [cf. Santarem, Essai
mr . . . Cosm., ii., 93 : Lelewel, Atlas, plate ix. ; Wuttke,
Zur Gescliiclite der Erdkunde ; and Serapeum for 185o, xiv., pp.
261-270].

The thirteenth-century Leipzig [City Library, No. lxviii.] is
of no particular interest, but appears most closely related to the
Gorlitz example of the twelfth century, which is one of the best
and least conventional specimens of the Sallust type [in the
Library of the Oberlausitzische Gesellschaft at Gorlitz], with
Jerusalem nearer to a central position than in the earlier
members of this family.

632 APPENDIX ON MAPS

The Florence of the twelfth century [Bib. Laur., Plut. 64,
Cod. 18] is only remarkable for its clear and excellent script,
and its emphatic indication of the Four Cardinal Points. Of
the lesser Sallust maps nearly all, as we have said before, are
simple X~0 sketches ; one is of the tenth century, and bears
underneath the inscription, 'Julius, the Emperor, divided the
whole world in its several parts ' [particulatim].

Two chief branches of this type may perhaps be traced back
earlier than the tenth century. From these all place-names come,
except for a few additions of later date, such as are found on the
eleventh-century Leipzig, and the twelfth-century Florence.

XL — In 1119 a certain Guido, of whom nothing more is
known, compiled a work of extracts, mainly geographical, in six
books. The first of these contained a description of Italy, with
extracts chiefly from the Anonymous Geographer of Ptavenna, but
also from the Antonine Itinerary and the Notitia Urbis. The
second book gave only extracts from Isidore of Seville ; while the
third, dealing with the general geography of the earth, combined
Isidorian excerpts \_Etymol., xiv. 3-5] with passages from the
Bavennese. The last three books gave a chronicle reaching
down to ad. 1108, with lists of the Lombard, Prankish, and
German kings, and special notices of the deeds of the Pisans and
Genoese against the Saracens. [See Brussels, Bib. Burg., 3897-
3918 ; Florence, Codex Biccardianus, 881, mostly written a.d.
1277-1280. From the archetypal passage in Isidore, Etymol.,
xiv. 2, 3, comes folio 44 of the Brussels manuscript, and folio 20
of the Florence.]

Two of the existing manuscripts of this work (those at
Brussels and Florence) contain map-pictures, one being a T-O
map of Isidorian type, and the other two works of a much higher
value. These last are only found in the Brussels manuscript,
and are devoted respectively to Italy and the World. The
world-map belongs to the passage where Guido roughly defines
the boundaries of the three Continents ; it is coloured, and
measures 13 centimetres across. The manuscript once belonged
to Cardinal Nicholas 'of Cusa,' who obtained it in Italy, and
presented it to a hospital which he founded in his native town of
Cues on the Moselle. Later on it passed through the hands of
the Bollandists into the ' Library of the Dukes of Burgundy.' The
mappe-monde is perhaps a copy of a larger work, of which a piece
is better represented in the sectional plan of Italy, which occurs
in the same manuscript. For the most part, the text agrees with
Orosius, the Bavennese Geographer, and Isidore ; but the names
of Barcelona, L}Tons, Samaria, and others (which do not occur in

THE WORLD-MAP OF OUTDO. C. A.D. 111!».

[ To fact p. 63S

APPENDIX ON MAPS 633

Guido's chief sources) show that this is no mere illustration of
these authors. The form of the Mediterranean is very peculiar,
and the size of the rivers and inland waters of the Continents is
more exaggerated than in almost any other mediaeval map. The
strange triangular formation, in which the Mediterranean from
one side, and the Black Sea and iEgaean from another, run south-
ward almost to the Sea of ^Ethiopia, naturally affects the shape
of Africa, whose northern coast has an unusual inclination to
the south-east. [For the world-map, see p. 547 in Finder and
Parthey's edition of the Ravennese Geographer and Guido, and
folio 51 verso, of the Brussels manuscript; for the Italy, p. 452 in
Pinder and Parthey, and folio 1 verso, of the Brussels manuscript.]

The Italy map, giving a large city-picture of Borne, is accom-
panied by square indications (as if taken from a statistical plan)
of the neighbouring Provinces, from Barcelona to Macedonia.

Besides these, the Brussels manuscript has a picture of an
ancient man of learning, with a scroll in his left hand. Some
identify this with Castorius, some with the Ravennese Geographer,
some with M. Agrippa. At the end of Guido's Maritime
Itinerary (Book iii.) there is a figure of Antonine, also with the
Cap of the Learned on his head, and sketches of Home, Ravenna,
the Pharos of Alexandria, Augustus, and Vespasian with a
globe. [These additional sketches are on folios 6, 31, 32, 51,
of the Brussels manuscript, cf. Bethmann in Pertz, Archiv.,
vii. 537-540 (1839) ; Reiffenberg in Bulletin de I'Acaci. Belg.,
1843, x. 1, 468; 2, 73; 1844, xi. 1, 15, 99; Bock in Annuaire
Bi/>. Roy. Belg., 1851, pp. 41-204 ; Santarem, Essai sur . . . Cos-
mographie, ii. 212, 238, and Atlas; Lelewel, Geog. Moyen Age, i.
]>. 89, and Atlas, plate viii., figs. 29-30; Philippi, Zur Rehonst.
d. Weltk. d. Agrippa, 1880, Ta£, i. 5.]

XII. — On the Maclaba map ; — cf. the Revue Bihlique for April,
1897 ; Germer-Durand, La Carte Mosaique de Madaba, Paris
(Maison de la bonne Presse), 1897 ; K. Miller, Rekondruierte
Karten, Arihang, pp. 148-154, 1898 ; A. Schulten, Die Mosaik-
karte von Madaba, 1900. To Father Kleophas, librarian of the
Greek Patriarch at Jerusalem, the discovery and preservation of
this map are chiefly due ; and some of the happiest suggestions
for its further reconstruction have also come from him. The
town of Madaba, mentioned by Josephus, Ptolemy, and
Stephanus of Byzantium, lies close to, a little south of, Hesh-
bon, but south-east of Nebo or Pisgah, and on the Roman Road
which came south from Damascus, passed through Rabbath
Amnion or Philadelphia, Heshbon, Madaba, Rabbath Moab
or Areopolis, and Kerak, and ran on to Petra and the Red Sea.

634 APPENDIX ON MAPS

At Heshbon it crossed the Roman Road from Jericho, which
ran south-east to the outposts on the edge of the desert.

The mountains of Palestine in this Mosaic are marked by
variegated lines. The Dead Sea here is remarkable for its ex-
aggerated size, its blue wave-lines, and the two great ships that
float upon its waters. In the Jordan and the Nile swim fishes ;
a piece of the Arabian Gulf is indicated in the extreme south.
In the desert fringing Palestine and Egypt the oases are marked
by palms ; in the desert itself lions pursue gazelles. Among
other features, the Serbonian Bog between Palestine and Egypt
is marked.

Out of the twelve tribes of Israel, only six can still be found
— Dan, Symeon, Juda, Ephraim, Benjamin, and Zabulon — and
several of these survive in a very fragmentary state. In con-
nection with Dan, the apostrophe of Deborah from Judges v.
17, is (juoted (tW rl —apocKet ttXolols ;) as to Benjamin, the
blessing of Moses from Dent, xxxiii. 12 is given (a-Kuifa 6 8[eo]^
£77-' (/.rTfp, kclI dva jxka-ov tmv 6p[(jji' uvtov K(i.Teivav(T^v\ probably
in allusion to the holy city, lying as it did within the territory,
but on the frontier, of Benjamin. Ephraim is associated with
the blessing of Jacob upon Joseph, from Gen. xlix. 25, and
with that of Moses upon the tribe of Ephraim from Deut. xxxiii.
13 ('Iwo~//<£ . . . ei'A6y?ycrei/ ere o Geo? evXoyiav yrj? e^oiV^s iravra
ko.I irdXw a7ro evAoyta? Kv[/3iov] rj yrj avrov). As for Zahulon,
there now only remain five letters from a clause of the prophecy
of Jacob in Gen. xlix. 13 ; but the whole sentence was fortunately
copied before this piece of the mosaic perished : Za/Sovkdn'

TrapdXtos KarotKyaeL, i<al —a.pa.Ti.ve.1 ecu? -iSon'os. The remaining

details of the map may be dealt with under the tribes above
mentioned, under the trans-Jordan region, and under Lower
Egypt and Sinaitic Arabia.

In the territory of Dan, Modeim or Moditha, 'whence came
the Maccabees ' ; Anob or Betoannaba, the Nob of Saul, accord-
ing to St, Jerome ; Lod, Lydda, or Diospolis ; Geth or Gath,
' one of the five satrapies of former days ' ; Ashdod in the upland ;
and Azotus on the sea, are the leading places indicated.

In Benjamin, the plan of Jerusalem naturally occupies the
chief place, Here the most prominent feature is the great
street flanked by colonnades which runs across the city from
the north gate to the south ; before the north gate there seems
to be a paved square, and on it a column, recalling the modern
title of 'Gate of the Pillar.' A second colonnade street runs
from this north gate to the suuth-east, crosses a lesser artery
which enters from the eastern gate, and then proceeds due
south, just within the east wall, and parallel to the main street.

APPENDIX ON MAPS 635

These two roads are marked all along by the covered galleries
or colonnades already noticed, and probably correspond to the
Si'o Srjfxocria, the two markets or bazaars, mentioned in an Arab
account of the Persian storm of 614. Three gates are indicated,
to north, east, and west ; the first two being apparently of much
greater size and importance than the third, which has rather the
appearance of a postern. To the south, at the end of the
great centre colonnade, appears what is probably the Church
of Holy Sion or the Coenaculum ; at the north-east extremity
of the city is another church, perhaps that of the Nativity
of the Virgin (now ' St. Anne ') ; while beyond the walls, to the
east, is the Church of Gethsemane and the Virgin's Tomb. The
territory of Benjamin appears undamaged upon this map ; and
the localities of Jericho, surrounded by palm-trees, in the midst
of which appears the 'sanctuary of Elisha' ; of Ephrata, 'where
the Lord journeyed'; of iElamon, 'where the moon stood still
at the bidding of the son of Nave ' ; of Bethabara, with the
Convent of St John Baptist ; of Rama and Gabaon ; and of
two road-stations respectively called 'the fourth' and 'the ninth'
(to T€TapTov . . . to ewa[rovJ), — appear together with a few less
important spots. Here, as elsewhere, the likenesses with St.
Jerome's topographical indications are very marked ; those with
Eusebius, Jerome's master in Palestine geography, being some-
what less close than in other places.

In Epliraim, part of the space (e.g. around Nablus) has
perished ; on what remains we have iEnon, ' near to Salem ' :
Silo, ' where stood the ark ' ; the tomb of Joseph : the well of
Jacob; 'Garizim'; and Sichem, 'otherwise Sikima and Salem ' (an
exact repetition of a peculiar notice" in Eusebius' Onomasticori).
Like the latter, again, the map places the mountains of blessing
and cursing near Jericho, though it has alreadjr marked them
in the right position near Nablus. The Aramaic term of 'tur,'
or mountain (Tovp), is annexed to both Yapt(ijx and Tw/Sv/A,
Gerizim and Ebal. The towns of Theraspis and Betomelgesis,
apparently assigned to Epliraim by the present design, are
unique ; no trace of them has elsewhere been found.

In Zabulon nothing remains beyond what has been already
noticed; but in Symeon we have Gerara, 'once a royal city of
the Philistines and southern limit of the Canaanites.' "Kv9a rb
YepapLTiKov (rdXrov, here is the wood [?] of Gerara, adds the map,
which also gives, in the territory of this tribe, Arad, 'whence
came the Aradians,' and Asemona, 'a town of the desert on
the frontier of Egypt,' Arad is the Adar of the Vulgate, and
Jethor, or Jethera, to the west of it, is the .Tether of the
Onoinasticon, which notes it as wholly inhabited by Christians.

636 APPENDIX ON MAPS

In the west of the land of Symeou, the mosaic records several
peculiar names (Edrain, Sobila, Seana, and Bethagidea ; cf. the
Edrai-Bethaglaim of Eusebins).

In Juda much of the original detail has been lost, but to
the south of Jerusalem is Akeldama, which is placed considerably
to the north of the common or traditionary site, supported by
St. Jerome ; the unusual position is no doubt due to Eusebius,
whose language here agrees with the map. Bethlehem Ephrata,
Kama, Bethsura (of the Maccabees), the Church of St. Philip
near the fountain where he baptised the Ethiopian, the terebinth-
oak of Mamre near Hebron, Ascalon, Gaza, and Beersheba, or
Berossaba, are the chief Judaean names ; and ' so far,' says the map
of the last-mentioned, ' came southward the limits of Judaea, even
from Dan, near Paneas, which is the border in the north.'
Gaza and Ascalon, though fragmentary, are evidently planned
as large towns, and a good deal of these city-pictures still
remain. Beyond the Jordan appear iEnon, ' now Saj^saphas ' ;
the Baths of Kallirrhoe, marked as three in number ; Kerak of
Moab [Kp]ax/-iw/ia, on a height, as in nature ; Betomarsea,
'otherwise Maiumas,' found only in this mosaic; Aia, perhaps
the Aie of the Onomasticon, the ancient Rabbath Moab, the
Greek Areopolis ; and Balak, ' or Zoora,' to the south of the
Dead Sea (Lot's Zoar). The principal inscription of this part
refers to the same Dead Sea, also called the Salt or Asphaltic
Lake, whose enormous size and detailed execution suggest that
it was well known to the designer. Finally, in Lower Egypt
and the desert of Sinai are a number of places and legends.
Among these are 'the Desert where the brazen serpent healed
the Israelites ' ; ' the Desert of Sin, where the manna was sent
down and the quail [sic] ' ; and Raphidim, ' where Israel fought
Amalek.'

According to a tradition at Madaba itself, the map, when
first uncovered, had a picture of the holy family flying into
Egypt, not along the coast as in later stories, but well inland
across the desert. Pthinocorura and several towns lie on the edge
of a curiously exaggerated stream marked as the frontier of Egypt
and Palestine ; in the Delta, Pelusium, though in fragments,
appears as a city of great size and splendour, second only to
Jerusalem ; Tanis, Sais, Xois, Athribis, Hermoupolis, and five
other Egyptian towns are also figured.

XIII. — As to the Situs Hierusalem ; — Fulcher of Chartres
(born 1048), accompanied the First Crusade, and described it, in
the course of a narrative ending in 112G; but long before this
extracts from his record must have found their way into "Western

APPENDIX ON MAPS 637

Europe. Thus, the text of the Gesta Francorum (1095-1106), is
for the most part in close agreement with Fulcher, and often
scarcely more than an excerpt from him. It also agrees closely
with the Plan of Jerusalem, which we have iioav to consider; but
in the topography of the Holy City neither the Gesta nor the
Situs are in accord with Fulcher. It is clear that the chronicler
of Chartres is not acquainted with this map, which has been termed
' certainly older ' than the Anonymous Gesta, but really seems to
have been draughted at the very same time that the Gesta was
being written (1099-1 1 (19). The latter can hardly be brought later
than 1109 ; for the chronicler finishes his work before Tripoli had
fallen into the power of the Christians (1109). So far as the two
difler, the Situs is plainly the original, and the Gesta the deriva-
tive, as is shown by the far richer content of the map, and by
some of its legends, neither referred to nor explained in the Deeds
of the Franks who took Jerusalem. [The Anonymous Author
of the latter prefaces his description of Jerusalem as follows : — ■
'Situs ipse Ciuitatis Sanctae, qui nunc est, murorumque ambitus,
licet a prisca et illustri veteris compositione . . . valde discrepet,
quaedam tamen teviporis illius [Xti] adhuc monumenta continet,
quibus . . . prae cunctis clarior cicitatibus . . . esse debet . . .
cf. the edition in Eecueil dex Historiens des Croisades orientaux,
torn. Hi., Paris, 1866, p. 487 etc.].

Eight copies of the former are known, of which only three are
of much importance, namely at St. Omer, at Brussels, and at
Copenhagen. The first of these, of the twelfth century, is from
a manuscript containing the Anonymous Gesta. The map is on
folio 15; cf. Zeitschrift d. deutscli. Pal.-Vereins, xv., Taf., 1-5;
p. 510, etc., 1892. The second is bound up with the writings of
Fulcher On the Deeds of the Pilgrims, and of Robert the Monk,
On the Occupation of Jerusalpm. This example, like the former,
shows us at the top of the sheet the whole course of the Jordan,
with a number of other place-names taken from, or at least
agreeing with, the ordinary description of Jerusalem, but some-
times wrongly placed. These, perhaps, result from compression,
and refer us to a wider original. At the end of the 3 1st chapter of
the Gesta, the Anonymous Author says, ' Nazareth autem uoi con-
ceptus est [Xtus,] et Galilea et Mare Tyberiadis, et Mons TJtabor . . .
longe a Hierusalem remota sunt.' It is just these places (excepting
' Galilee ') which are here interpolated without anjT particular con-
nection.

The Copenhagen copy, of the thirteenth century, is, like
its predecessors, a work of art, but has a much scantier content.
It comes from an Icelandic manuscript in the Danish Royal
Library, No. 736, 4 b. ; cf. Lelewel, Geog. Moyen Age, ii. 4, and

638 APPENDIX OX MAPS

n. o. Among the five later copies of the Situs the chief are
Count Riant's and the Montpellier example [Montpellier Library,
Cod. H., 142, folio 67] of the fourteenth century. The former
is perhaps transcribed from a Florentine manuscript, older than
any now existing. The city of Masphat, here both pictured
and named, appears without name on our other transcripts,
which are all executed with less care than this. Some of its
legends outside the city appear to be additions of the copyist,
and remind us of the twelfth-century pilgrim, John of TTurzburg

(c. A.D. 1165).

The Montpellier copy is in a manuscript which contains the
anonymous Gesta, but the map itself is fitted into the text of
Petrus Tudebodus, Historia de Hierosolimitano itinere, xiv. 1.
Here the older or round form of the city-plan is made square,
and the North is at the top, both signs of later authorship.

The other copies are of little interest ; the twelfth-century
Stuttgart (which alone contains Magdalum) is probably a copy
of the Brussels manuscript. It is also similar to the St. Omer
copy, and may conceivably have been transcribed from a common
original. Very different from all the tj-pes of the Situs hitherto
noticed are two other copies; — one at Cambrai, of about 1180,
whose shape is square; and one in London, of about 1200,
which is round.

XIV. — Of Matthew Paris map-workthe chief manuscripts are ; — ■
(1) Cambridge, C.C.C., xxvi. [ = earlier cix.] of thirteenth century ;
the Map of Palestine is on folio 3 b. (coloured) ; the mappe-monde
is at the end of this manuscript, (2) In the Brit. Mus. ; — Cotton
MSS., Nero, D. v. (with the loorld-map on folio 1), perhaps a copy
of the Corpus MS. (3) Ibid, Cotton, Claudius D. vi., with the Pilg.
[tin. on folios 2-5, the Situs Brit, on folio 6, the most finished
England on folio 8. (4) Ibid, Beg. 1-4, C. vii. (2), with England on
folio 5, verso. All these are manuscripts of the Historia Minor.

(5) Ibid, Cotton, Nero, D. i., is the chief manuscript of the
Historia S. Albani : on folios 183, 184 is part of the Pilg. Bin. :
on folio 185 a chart of the winds ; on folio 187 the Schema Brit.

(6) For another form of the Map of Palestine and the first
England cf. Cambridge, C.C.C., MS. xvi. [ = earlier cv.]. (7)
Brit. Mus., Cotton, Julius D. vii., folio 49, verso, has an interest-
ing and advanced form of Matthew's England.

The colouring of the mappe-monde is mostly red for place-
names, except those in the Mediterranean, such as Tyre, which
lie to the right of the Adriatic : these are black. Mountains are
portrayed in ochre, rivers in blue, for the most part ; the Medi-
terranean Sea in green,

APPENDIX ON MAPS 639

The inscription about the three world-maps is as follows :
Summatim facta est dispositio Mappa-Mundi Magistri Rober[ti] de
Melkeleia et Mappa-Mundi de Wattham. Mappa-Mundi D\omi~\ni
Regis quidem \sic\ est in camera sua apud Westmonasteriumfigurcitur
inordine[y.\., <yrdinal%\ Mathei deParisio. . . . Figuratur in eodem
ordine . . . quasi [ciamis] chlamys externa. Talis est scema
nostre\ae~\ partis Habitabilis, secundum pMlosophos, scilicet quarta
pars terre\ae], que\ae\ est triangularis fere : corpus terre[ae]
SP[H]ERICUM est. The chief peculiarity in the natural
features of the map is the broad arm of sea running west from the
Euxine. The Palus Maeotis is represented by two lakes near the
North Ocean, into which they throw a river. Many unnamed
rivers occur in Europe ; the only ones named are Rhone, Danube,
and ' El pie ' (Scheldt). For contemporary names, cf. Hungaria,
Polonia, Austria, Saxonia, Bavaria, Theutonia, Braibe (for
Brabant) ; Dacia (for Denmark) ; and the towns of Cologne, Pisa,
Bologna, and Janua (Genoa).

The text has some resemblance to the Hereford and Ebstorf
maps (especially the latter), and to Lambert of St. Omer, Henry
of Mainz, the Psalter, and the ' Cottoniana.' Most of the newer
names may be found on Ebstorf, as, for instance, Holland,
Burgundy, Flanders, Austria, Poland, Venice, Bavaria, ' Metis,'
' Hierapolis,' 'Teutonia ' ; but, after all, the great mass of name-
forms in this mappe-monde are old.

The form of the design is, on the contrary, novel and peculiar,
it has some relation to Henry of Mainz and Lambert of St. Omer ;
— the former of whom is not unlike Matthew in his islands, his
Italy, and his Balkan Peninsula with its curious western pro-
jection ; while the latter gives a similar course to the Danube
rloAving into the North Sea ; but the present scheme must not be
regarded as a derivative of either of these, but rather as itself a
stem-form not directly borrowed from any other plan that has
come down to us.

There are, as we have seen, no fewer than four copies of
Matthew's Engl ami in the manuscripts : — (1) Cambridge, O.C.C.,
xvi. [ = earlier CV.]. (2) London, Brit. Mus., Pi eg., 14, C. vii.,
folio 5, verso. (3) Brit, Mus., Cotton MSS., Claudius, D. vi.,
folio 8; on these three, cf. Gougli, Brit. Top., i., 61-64, 66-71,
and plates ii., iii., and iv. (4) Cotton, Julius, D. vii., folio
4<> ; this has been much damaged by verdigris. The first and
second copies (Cambridge and King's Library) both contain a.
similar note, Hunt Librum dedit, etc. ; both manuscripts
probably belonged to the Monastery of St. Albans ; and after
Matthew's death, this note was inserted in both by the same
scribe. The Cambridge copy is certainly not from any of the

640 APPENDIX ON MAPS

London examples. It is much richer in content than one of its
rivals (the King's Library map), and in various ways shows some-
thing of original work. We may therefore suppose that it also
comes from Matthew's hand. It exists on a mutilated leaf, of
which the lower third is wanting. Its measurements are 23 by
23.5 centimetres ; its execution is careful, and its detail is ample ;
but in all respects it is inferior to the Cotton redactions. The
King's Library example is a rougher draught, without any orna-
mental border, and with little more than half the names of the
Cotton. It is all in black except the sea, which is green ; the
execution is rather careless ; the measurements are 35 by 23
centimetres.

The third or Cotton form of Matthew's England is the best
and most complete. The execution is admirable, the colouring-
detailed and systematic. The sea on west and east is green, like
the inland gulfs and salt waters ; the rivers are blue or red ; the
province-divisions are marked (in some cases) in red and blue ;
the mountains and Roman walls (of Hadrian and the Antonines)
are yellow ; the legends and inscriptions are by turns red and
black. To the north the sea has been left uncoloured. At the
edges this map is somewhat bent inwards, and on the left border
something has been cut away.

As to the so-called Itinerary to the Holy Land, the London
MS., Reg. 14, C. vii., folios 2-5, gives the complete Itinerary to
Apulia. Here the distance between the stations is usually called
jumee ; cf. Gough, Brit. Tqpog., p. 85, plate vii. (for the English
part) ; Lelewel, Atlas, Tab. 24 ; Catalogue Brit. Mus. MSS., p.
14 ; Jomard, Monuments de la Gfeog., Tab. v. 1, 2, 3 [but Jomard
wrongly calls this a pilgrimage-map of 1318]. The Cotton MS.,
Nero, I), i., folio 183-184, though without the map of Palestine,
gives the same matter as the seven pages of the Reg. MS.
The Cambridge MS., C.C.C. xxvi., supplies the title of Stationes
a Londinio ad Hierasalem, and on folio 3 b., a sketch in
colours of the Holy Land [cf. Gough, Brit. Topog., p. 85,
plate vii., 2]. The Cambridge MS., C.C.C. xvi., has on folio 5 a
rich ' station ' map of Palestine in colours. The London Cotton
MS., Tiberius, E. vi. (of thirteenth century) would be valu-
able from its age, if not ruined by fire; its map of Palestine
in colour is on folio 2. The Brit. Mus. Lansdowne MS., 253, is
only a copy of the sixteenth century in the handwriting of
Camden, the antiquary ; the whole Itinerary is on folios
228-231.

For Matthew's map of Palestine cf. the edition of the text by
Michelant and Raynaud, Soc. de V Orient Latin, Serie Geo-
graphique, iii. 123-139 (1882). Two redactions are distin-

APPENDIX ON MAPS 641

guished by these editors, who regard Matthew's authorship as
certain.

XV. — Among the remaining and least important maps of
this period there is a little sketch which perhaps should
be associated with the T-O designs. This is the work of
Asaph the Jew, and is of the eleventh century ; it is the last
of twenty figures of cosmographical or astronomical significance.
The three Continents are roughly sketched, separated by the
Mare Mains or Mediterranean, the Tanais or Don, and the
Nile ; they are of nearly equal size ; but, as in Pliny, Europe is
slightly the largest, Africa the smallest. Here, therefore, we
have another example of the Triquetra or Trifaria Divisio, of
which we have already heard so much. The Arabic influence in
this work is clearly shown by the position of the south as the
primary quarter, at the top of the map. The original is in Paris,
Bib. Nat,, MSS., Lat., No. 4764 ; cf. Santarem, Essai sur . . .
Cosmo<jraphie, i. 54, 319-321.

There are certain representations of the world on the coins of
the Middle Ages, which also call for a brief remark ; though they
are perhaps less frequent during this later period than at an
earlier time, when classical conceptions exercised a more direct
influence. Under the Old Empire the globular form of the earth
was clearly realised and often portrayed. Surmounted by a
cross this globe first appears on the coins of Valentinian III., in
the fifth century ; and in the sixth and seventh we have
the same expressed on Merovingian money. Thus Theodebert I.
[d. 539], Theodebert II., and Childerich [d. 674] offer good
examples ; and on the seals of various mediaeval emperors
(among them Charles IV. and Wenzel) and of certain kings,
such as William the Conqueror of England (and Normandy),
the same is expressed.

The lost maps of this period are doubtless numerous, though
perhaps not in so great proportion as in the former period [a.d.
300-900]. Among these we may notice the following, some of
a rather traditional character.

The famous Gerbert, afterwards Pope Sylvester II., tells us in
his letters (under the date of about 983) that he had caused a map
to be painted [cf. Gerbert's Letters, No. 148. We may add,
though it belongs to the previous period, that the Abbey of
Reichenau possessed a still more ancient Mappa-Mundi, in two
rolls (' Rotuli ') ; so Regimbert's Catalogue of the Abbey Library
declared about a.d. 842 ; cf. Neugart, Ep. Const., i. 1, 540].
The Catalogue of the Munich Library contains vague references

2 s

642

APPENDIX ON MAPS

to several maps now unknown, two at Tegernsee, and one at
Werinher among others [cf. Munich Library, Codex Teg.,
541 ; the Munich Catalogue of a.d. 1500-1504, marked as Cod.
476 of the same library, folio 159 (mentioning a map marked
B 47) ; K. Miller, Weltkarte des Castorius, p. 9 ; Serapeum,
1841, pp. 248-268. Albert the Great, De Natura Locorum,
iii. 1, declares nos etiam brevem orbis mappam liuic open
adiungemus ; but this has not yet been found]. Also the
Monastery of Weihenstephan, according to a book-list of the
twelfth century, possessed a mappe-monde, which may have
passed into some great library.

ADDITIONAL NOTE TO PAGE 391.

As to the names of Carpini and
Rubruquis : — the former in Latin is
usually Johannes de Piano Carpini ;
emended forms, Carpinis or de Car-
pine, are suggested by the editors
of Analecta Franciscana (iii. 266).
Planum Carpinis or Planum Carpi is
the Latin form of Pian di Carpiua, the
modern [Pian la] Magione, about 14
miles from Perugia ; cf. F. Liverani,
Giovanni di Piano di Carpine, Siena,
1878. Rubruquis' name, in five MSS.
used by Michel and Wright in Keceuil

text of the Paris Geographical Society,
1839, is spelt Rub rue or Rubruk. He
was probably a native of Rubrouck,
in old French Flanders. As to
Asceliu's journey, Simon of St.
Quentin's account is in Vincent of
Beauvais, Spec. Hist., xxxi. Cahun,
Introd. a VHistoire de VAsie, p. 350,
suggests that in destruction of Kiev
and its trade Mongols acted partly
under influence of Venetians, jealous
of competition with their Black Sea
and Crimean commerce.

SHORT INDEX OF NAMES

Abderrahman III., Caliph of Cor-
dova, 493, 495, 496
Abraham, 244
Abraham ben Chija, 224
Abraham ben Meir ben Ezra, 224
Abraham Halevi ben David [Daud],

224
Abulfeda, 7, 451
Aehardns of Arroasia, 207
Adalbert. Archbishop of Bremen,

70, 72, 515-521, 532
Adamatns of Salerno, 517
Adam of Bremen, 9, 71, 111, 465,

466, 482, 514-548, 561
Adam of Paris, 514
Adelard of Bath, 4, 9, 183
Adelheid, Queen of Hungary, 483
Adehvard, Bishop, 522, 545 ; Dean.

522
Aderneseh, 504, 509
Adhemar of Chafanais, 127
Adolf of Cologne, 196
Adosinda, Queen, 550
Alfred the Great, 114, 119, 523, 543,

546, 560
^Ethelred II. of England, 85, 86,

87
^Ethelstan [and Sighelm], 119
^Ethieus of Istria, 545, 566
Alaeddin Kaikobad, Sultan, 447
Alberic, the friar, 277
Alberic Trois-Fontaines, 275, 342
Albert, Papal Notary, 589
Albert us Magnus, Albert of Ball-

stadt, 9, 466, 547
Albiruni, 14
Alcuin, 550

Aldobrandini, House of the, 447
Alebrand, Bisho]), 518
Alexander III., Pope, 231

Alexander the Great of Macedon,

261
Alexander, the friar, 277
Alexander Nevski of Russia, 312,

313
Alexius Comnenus, 147, 180, 402,

427, 499
Alfonso VI., 136, 177
Al Heravi of Herat, 13
Al-Mamun, Caliph, 120, 183
Almanzor, 135
'Aloha,' 316

Amain, trade of, 396-400
Amalrich, Amalric, or Amaury,

King of Jerusalem, 197, 198; 'of

Ascalon,' 428, 429
Anastasius I., Pope, 120
Anastasius of Cherson, 503
Andrew, pilgrim, 126
Andrew, Prince of Tchernigov, 283
Andrew of Longumeau or Lonci-

umel, 277, 278,^317-320, 339, 364
Anonjmious Pilgrims or 'Innomi-

nati,' 138, 152, 167, 184, 203-207,

274
Ansgar, St., 516, 520
Antoli (Jacob) of Provence, 274
Antoninus Martyr, 167
Arabuccha, Mongol Prince, 357
Arculf, pilgrim, 262, 556
Are Frode, 72, 82, 83
Are Marson, 72, 73
Arghun, Mongol General, 352. 372
Aristo, the Greek, 517
Aristotle, 576
Armenians, in Byzantine service,

468, 512, 513
Arnold, Bishop, 70
Arnold, the Chronicler, 540
Arnulf of Carinthia, 479

644

SHORT INDEX OF NAMES

Arsenius, Patriarch, 125

Ascelin or Anselm, friar-traveller,

277, 318
Asehod [III.], 'King' of Armenia,

123, 504, 506, 511
Askold and Dir, 187
Assaf, 224

Augustine, St., 557, 577
Avaldamon, 69
Avang, 77

Bachu (Baiju) Noian, Mongol

General, 318, 372, 384, 389
Bacon, Roger, 9, 10, 275, 276, 466.

575
Baeda, the Venerable Bede, 208,

522, 524, 526, 540, 574
Baitu, Mongol General, 277
Baldwin I., 140, 153, 156, 161, 170,

171, 180, 420
Baldwin II., 279
Baldwin III., 428, 433
Baldwin IV., 429
Baldwin of Hainault, 279, 321, 337,

359
Bardi, the Icelander, 37
Bartholemew of Cremona, friar-
traveller, 321, 324, 340, 367
Basil I., Emperor, 468, 472, 499, 506,

511, 513
Basil II., Emperor, 122, 492, 498,

506, 508, 512, 513
Basil, the priest, 385
Basil, the prisoner of the Mongol.

360
Batu, Mongol, Prince and General,

283, 300, 301, 314, 316, 334, 338-41,

345, 346, 365, 369, 384, 385, 390, 391
Batuta, Ibn ; see Ibn Batuta
Beatus, 11, 549-559, 591-605
Belardus of Esculo, pilgrim, 207
Benedict IV, Pope, 121
Benedict, the Pole, friar-traveller,

277-280, 302, 303, 390, 391
Ben-Hadad, 246
Benjamin of Tudela, 6, 169, 185,

186, 218-261, 303, 435, 460, 461,

488
Berengar, King of Italy, 496
Berke, 451

Bernard, friar-traveller, 372
Bertram of Toulouse, 424
Biarne Asbrandson, 72
Biarne Grimolfson, 63, 68, 70
Biarne Heriulfson, 49, 50, 51
Biarne Thordarson, 72

Bibars, Sultan, 240

Biorn, Champion of the Broad-
vikings, 37, 73, 74

Biorn, Marshal of St. Olaf, 100

Bjorgolf of Halogaland, 32, 33

Bohemund (various), 153, 238, 379,
420, 422, 429, 440

Boleslav, 293

Bolli Bollison, 106

Boniface of Molendino, 374, 448

Botund, 482

Bovo, 517

Biancaleone, Francesco, 418

Brian Born, 94, 115

Brynjolf Bjorgolfson, 32

Bulan, King of the Khazars, 222,
223

Bulgai, 352, 355, 362, 363

Bulgarians, 478-481

Buri, 305, 345

Burislav, King of 'Gaidar,' 26

Burislav, King of the Wends, 42,
44,46

Burkhard [or Gerhard] of Strass-
burg, 207

Burkhard, envoy of Frederic
Barbarossa, 460

Byzantine Agents in Armenia
[Sinutes, Constantine Krinites,
Constantios, Theodoros, etc.], 505

Caliphs, 225, 246, 250

Capella, Martianus, 522, 530, 542,

546
Carpini, John de Piano, friar-
traveller, 6, 7, 10, 266, 275, 276,

278, 279-317, 339, 374, 375-381,

390, 391, 421, 446, 450
Cassiodorus, 523
Castile, trade of, 437, 438
Catalans, Catalonia, trade of, 435-

437
Catan, 299

Catherine II. of Russia, 455
Chang-chun, 14
Charles of Anjou, Count of

Provence, 449
Charles the Great, Charlemagne,

120, 534
Chasdai [Chisdai] ben Isaac, 220,

222, 463, 493, 496
Chingay, protonotary of Mongol

Court, 311, 314
Chosroes I. of Persia, the Just,

222
Chosroes II. of Persia, 149

SHORT INDEX OF NAMES

645

Clavijo, 449

Cnut the Great, 85, 87, 96-402, 539
Coelestine 4., Pope, 420
Conrad, Emperor, 539
Conrad, Duke of Lenczy, 293
Conrad of Montferrat, 429
Conrad of Wittelsbaeh, 382
Constantine the Great, 448, 582
Constantino Monomach, 406
Constantine Pogonatus, 477, 478
Constantine V., 494
Constantine VII., Porphyro-

gennetos, 9, 446, 422, 426, 424,

452, 453, 465, 467-544
Constantine, the Patrician. 545
Conti, Nieolo, 448
Cosmas, 523, 524, 580
Cotton Map, 559-563, 608-642
Crusades, 4, 2
Cyril, Apostle of Slavs, 503

Dagobert [Daibert], 457, 427, 428
Daniel of Kiev, 4, 5, 448, 455-474
Daniel, Bishop of Suriev (? same as

preceding), 457
Daniel [Danil], Prince of Galicia,

294, 295, 347
Dati, 576
David- el-roy, 255
David, Prince of Georgia, 292
David, Nestorian priest, 352
David SviatoslaA'itch, 473
David, pseudo-en voy, 278, 348, 364,

367
Dermot [Dermatius], 207
Dicuil, 524, 525

Dietrich [Theoderich ?], 490, 495
Diogenes, Governor of Cherson,

499
Dionysius Periegetes, 560
Dizabul, the Turk, 283, 345
Donizo, 427
Dosa, Rabbi, 220
Dubarlaus, Jacob and Michael

(Attendants of Yaroslav of

Russia). 344

Ealdred, Archbishop of York, 4,

428, 429
Edrisi, 43, 248, 257, 260, 442, 443,

444, 454, 452, 459, 464, 493, 494,

504
Edward the Confessor. 403
Egil Skallagrimson, 37
Einar Thambarskelvir. 47
Einar Wry-mouth, 94, 95

Eindrid Oddson, 72

Einhard, 522, 534, 533, 534, 536, 537

Eldad, the Danite, 220

Eldegai, 300

Elias, Patriarch of Jerusalem,

various, 448, 449, 424, 584
Elipandus of Toledo, 549, 550
Emeterius of Valcavado, 554
Emma, wife of ^Ethelred II., 87
Emmerad of Anzy, 425
Eric, Bishop, 70

Eric Blood-axe (two), 3, 32, 33, 93
Eric, brother of Hakon the Good,

34, 35
Eric Einundson, 33
Eric Hakonson, 46, 47
Eric Haraldson, 3, 34
Eric of Normandv, Earl, 87
Eric the Red, 3, 28, 29, 46, 48, 49,

50, 54
Erling Sigvatson, 72
Ernoul, 208, 244, 242
Etherius, Bishop of Osma, 549
Eupeterius of Cherson, 503
Euphrosyna, 245
Eusebius, 567, 568, 584
Eustathius, 246
Eustochium, 454

Eutychius, Exarch of Ravenna, 402
Eyvind Skald-spiller, 36
Eyvind Urochs-horn, 93-95
Ezra, the Scribe, 248

Falcandus, 236

Faravid, King of the Kvens, 33

Felix of Urgel, 549

Feodor, 283

Ferdinand 411. of Castile, 435, 437

Fetellus or Fretellus, 484, 486-489

Fidelis, Abbot, 549

Finn Arnison, 98

Flavio Gioja (Gisia), 398

Frederic I., Emperor (Barbarossa),

460, 564
Frederic II., Emperor, 276, 402, 429,

464
Frederic of Verdun, 424
Freydis, daughter of Red Eric, 50,

59-64, 63, 67, 68
Frisian Explorers, 548
Fulcher of Arras, 429, 430
Fulcher of Chartres, 456, 464, 583
Fulcher, Patriarch of Jerusalem,

497
Fulk the Black Count of Anjou. 4,

422, 425

646

SHORT INDEX OF NAMES

Ganuz Wolf, 531, 532

Gauzlin of Fleury, 126

Genoa, trade of, 118-426

Gerard of Cremona, 575

Gerard of Nazareth, 208

Gerbert of Sens, 320

Gerbert (Pope Sylvester II.), 4, 124

Gervase of Tilbury, 216

Geysa, King of Hungary, 483

Ghenghiz Khan, 6, 287, 306, 307,

319, 350, 445
Gilli, 'the Russian,' 37
Gisbert and Reinard, 119
Gisela, Queen, 483
Gissur Hallson, 208
Gleb of Minsk, 173
Godfrey of Bouillon, 428
Godric, the Pirate, 148
Gorm, ' Duke in Sweden,' 26
Gorm the Old, 26
Gorodislav Mikhailoviteh, 173
Gosset, 321, 324, 340, 369
Gregory I., Pope, 120
Gregory IV., Pope, 120
Gregory VII., Pope (Hildebrand),

131, etc., 520
Gregory IX., Pope, 275, 276
Gregory, the Daronite, 507
Gregory of Tours, 523
Gualdo, ' the Frenchman,' 517
Guaymar of Salerno, 399
Gudleif Gudlaugson, 72, 73
Gudleik of Novgorod, 96, 97
Guclrid, 56-59, 61
Guest Thorhallson, 106
Guiclo ' of Italy,' 517
Guido ' of Ravenna,' 11, 632
Guido of Tripoli, 429
Guiscard of Cremona, 277
Guiscard, Robert, 399
Gunnar of Lithend, 33, 37
Gunnbiorn, 3, 21, 28
Gunstein, 88-92
Gimther of Bamberg, 129-131
Guthorm [Guthrum] of Dublin,

110
Guy of Brabant, 126
Guyot de Provins, 10
Guzman, 513

Haji, Mohammed, 444

Haki and Hakia, 64

Hakim, Caliph ,126.127, 149, 241

Hakon the Good, King, 31, 35, 36

Hakon the Wise, Earl, 42, 43, 44

Haldor Snorrison, 110

Halfdan the Black, King, 26
Halfdan, 'White' and 'Black,'

brothers, 34
Hallvard the Easterling, 33
Hanno of Cologne, 517, 519
Harald Fairhair, 26, 27, 30, 31
Harald Gormson, 44
Harald Greycloak, 34
Harald Harclrada, 3, 100, 101, 103-

111, 175, 525, 528, 529, 531, 532,

548
Harek of Thiotta, 96, 100, 102
Harun-al-Rashid, 120
Hasan Ibn Saba, 239, 590
Havton, King, 362, 368, 369, 374,

382-391
Helgasons (brothers), 70
Helge and Finnboge, 59-61
Helinand of Laon, 123, 129
Hemy III., Emperor, 519
Henry IV., Emperor, 488, 517
Hemy V., Emperor, 564
Henry I. of England, 176, 564
Hemy II. of England, 564
Henry III. of England, 276, 589
Hemy of Burgundv and Portugal,

177
Henry of Mainz, 11, 553, 560, 563-

566, 614-617
Heraclius, Emperor, 150, 491
Herberstein, Sigismund von, 453
Herbert ' le Sommelier,' 320
Heriulf of Drepstok, 49
Hermann of Bamberg, 4
Herrade of Landsberg, 575
Flialte Skeggieson, 77
Hictarius, pilgrim, 126
Hierotheos, 483
Hiouen-Thsang, 345, 442
Homo Dei Turgemanus, 321, 324,

368
Honainus, 514
Honorius of Autun, 564, 574
Hoskuld, the Viking, 37
Hugh of Provence, 496
Hugh of Tuscany, 124
Hugo of St. Victor, 208
Hulagu, 362, 387
Hungarians, Magvars, or ' Turks,'

474, 476, 481-484
Hyginus, 575

Ibelin, House of, 422

Ibn Batuta, 7, 257, 258, 451, 494

Ibn Biitlan, 441

Ibn Dasta, 458

SHORT INDEX OF NAMES

647

H)ii Foslan, 158, 223, 458, 463, 485,

494, 504
Ibii Haukal, 504, 510, 511
lbn Khordadbeh, 488, 493, 504
Ibn Mohalhal, 13
lbn Said, 435, 451
Igor, Prince of Russia, 157, 485, 486,
^491

Ilchikadai, 278, 317, 318
Ingolf and Leif, 3, 28
Innocent L, Pope, 120
Innocent III., Pope, 216, 460
Innocent IV., Pope, 275, 276, 589
Iomala, 90, 91, 98
Isaac, tbe Jew, 219
Isiaslav Ivanovitch, pilgrim, 173
Isiaslav, Prince, 156, 488
Isidore of Seville, 551, 555, 557, 560,

577, 578
Isleif, Bishop, 72. 517
Ismaelj 239

Ivan IL of Moscow, 38
Ivan III. of Moscow, 39, 41
Ivan IV. of Moscow, 41

Jacob ben Sheara, 219

James I. of Aragon, 434, 435, 436,

460
.lames of Edessa, 149
James de Vitry, 170, 208, 212-214,

459, 460
James, the Abbot, 385
Jelian Goderiche, 320
Jerome, St. [and Jerome maps],

151, 564, 565, 566-568, 569, 589, 605,

608
Johannes Moschos, 581
Johannes Phokas, 184, 199-203
John VIII. , Pope, 117, 118, 119
JohnX., Pope, 496
.John of Beaumont, 339
John of Beneventum, 123
.John of Carcassonne, 320
.John Gurgen [Kurkuas], Byzan-
tine General, 505, 513
John of Parma, St., 123
John Pilatus, 496
John of Salisbury, 440
.John Scotus Erigena, 517
John Tzimiskes, Emperor, 122,

123, 484, 486, 488, 491, 506, 507,

508, 511, 513, 583
John of Wurzburg, pilgrim, 150,

152, 166, 184, 190-195
John VI., Patriarch, 505, 506
John, Bishop and Martyr, 539

Jonah of Tudela, 228

Jordanes [Jornandes], 455

Joseph, Rabbi, 250

Joseph, King of the Khazars, 492,

493
Josippon ben Gorion, 224
Julian [alias Hugo, alias William],

Embriaco, 240
Juliette of Tuscany, 124
Julius I., Pope, 120
Julius Honorius, 558
Justin, 511
Justinian I., 450, 454, 500, 501,

511
Justinian II. , 491, 499, 500

Kadak, 314
Ivadan, 305
Kalf Arnison, 101, 102
Kallinikos of Heliopolis, 478
Kalokyr, 502

Karli of Halogaland, 88-92
Karl-o'-mere, 98
Kashkitch (the two), 173
Kazwini, 495
Kharmath, 239
Khazars, 472, 474, 491-494
Khoja Noian, 389
Kiartan, 45

Kirakos Gandaketsi, 385, 389
Klerk, 36
Koiak, 337

Kolskegg of Iceland, 37, 107
Kosmas, 313

Krates of Mallos, 571, 576
Krum, Tsar of Bulgarians, 480
Kublai Khan, 7
Kurancha, 297, 316
Kurd, the Armenian, 389
Kuyuk Khan, 277, 278, 292, 306-315,
383, 390, 391

Lambert of St. Omer, 12, 551, 570-

573, 574, 621-624
Leger, St. , Dean of Auxerre, 126
Leif and Ingolf, 3, 28
Leif Ericson, 3, 45, 46, 49, 51-54, 56,

57, 64, 77, 93
Leo II. of Little Armenia, King,

382, 456, 457
Leo III. the Isaurian, Emperor,

491, 510
Leo IV, 'the Khazar,' Emperor,

475, 480. 491, 492, 499
Leo VI., Emperor, 479, 499, 510
Leo I., Pope, 'the Great,' 120

648

SHORT INDEX OF NAMES

Leo III., Pope, 120

Leo IV., Pope, 119,397

Leo of Monte Cassino, 123

Leo, the physician, 507

Leon, Governor of Daron, 123

Lietbert of Cambrai, 123, 129

Liudprand [Liutprand, ' Luit-

prand'], 481, 484, 487, 495, 196,

498, 502, 512, 514
Liutfrid, 484
Lodin, merchant, 45
Lorenzo, 277
Lothair, Emperor, 182
Louis Lewis, Ludwig, the 'Pious,'

' Debonnair,' etc., Emperor, 120.

480, 487
Louis IX., St. Louis of France,

278, 317-321, 590

Macrobius [and Macrobian Maps],

526, 570, 573-576, 625-626
Madaba Map, 580-583, 633-636
Magnus Barefoot, King of Norway,

175, 176
Magnus the Good (Olafson), King

of Norway, 101-103, 107, 109
Maimonides, Moses, 224, 247, 264
Maius of Zara, 498
Makko of Constance, 125
Malacene, Bishop, 121
Malcolm, King of Scots, 94
Malefrid, Count, 123
Mangu Khan, Mongol Emperor,

278, 321, 340, 345,' 346, 354-369,

384-386
Manuel Comnenus, Emperor. 193,

198, 199, 201, 202, 421, 422, 430,

450, 453, 454, 499
Manuel of Venice, 317
Margaret, Queen of France, 320,

321
Margath [or Margad], 110
Mari, Abba, 229
Marinus of Tyre, 576
Marseilles, trade of, 432-434
Martin I., Pope, 119, 120
Masudi, Arabic Geographer, 87, 99,

223, 458, 463, 488, 489, 493, 494.

510, 511, 544, 576
Matthew of Edessa, 490, 506, 513
Matthew Paris, 2, 6, 12, 145, 216,

217, 275, 461, 551, 559, 560, 581-

590, 638-641
Mauci, 299, 302, 316
Maximus, Archbishop, 118
Mekhitar of Skerra, 385

Melic, 292

Melkorka, 37

Meshech, 271

Michael III., the Drunkard,

Emperor, 460, 513
Michael Palaeologus, Emperor, 426
Michael of Cherson, 502
Michael of Genoa, 317, 446
Michael of Tchernigov, 283
Michael Sviatopolk, 156, 173
Michael Sviatoslavitch, 173
Micheas, 296
Moawiyah, Calijoh, 145
Moktafi, Caliph, 226
Montpellier, trade of, 434, 435
Mostanshed or Mostanieh, 226
Mozaffer, Caliph, 129
Muntaner, Gregory de, Abbot of

St. Sever, 552
Myrkiartan, Irish King. 37

Nabal, the Carmelite, 242
Naclodd, Norse Explorer, 3, 27
Narbonne, trade of, 434, 435
Nasir-i-Khusrau [Arabic traveller],

13, 126
Nathan, 220, 264
Nathan ben Jechiel, 224
Neckam, Alexander, 10
' Nestor,' Russian Chronicles of, 25,

156, 485, 487, 488, 492, 495, 502
Nestorians, 2, 347, 348, 352. 353. 362,

364
Nicolas, Abbot of Thing-Eyrar,

430
Nicolas, companion of Rubruquis,

324
Nicolas, Patriarch of Constanti-
nople, 505
Nicolas ' Pisanus,' 317, 446
Nicolas of Santo Siro, 374, 447
Niger, Radulphus, 216
Nikephoros I., Emperor, 479
Nikephoros II., Phokas, Emperor,

484, 495, 497, 502, 508, 513
Niketas, 122
Northmen, 2, 3, 17-111
Norva, 23
Nur-ed-din, 215, 248

Obeco, 552

Odin, 24, 25

Ogul Gaimish, Mongol Empress,

278, 319, 367
Ohthere, Norse explorer. 3, 31, 32,

34

SHORT INDEX OF NAMES

649

Okkodai Khan, Mongol Emperor,

284, 289, 305, 306, 307, 308
Olaf Haraldson, St. Olaf, King of

Norway, 3, 39, 84-88, 94-104, 104,

409
Olaf Kuaraii, King of Dublin, 42
Olaf Tryggveson, King of Norway,

3, 30, 37. 44-48, 64, 87, 94
Olaf, King of Sweden, 47 [96J
Olaus Magnus, 543
Oleg, Prince of Russia, 457, 463.

482, 487
Oleg Sviatoslavitch, 473
Olga, Princess of Russia, 482, 483,

485, 487
Omar ('Amor'), Caliph, 466
Orderious Vitalis, 547
Orestes, Patriarch of Jerusalem,

124
Orosius, 529, 535, 543, 562, 563, 577
Orso Ipato, Doge of Venice, 402
Othmar, 208
Otto I., the Great, Emperor, 483.

484, 495, 539
Otto 114., Emperor, 548
Otto IV., Emperor. 448

Palnatoki, Viking Leader, '■]')

Pancrati Sviatoslavitch, 173

Paquette of Metz, 357

Paul, the Deacon, 542, 513

Paul of Zara, 19S

Paula, St., 451

Pegolotti, Balducci, merchant and

traveller, 454
Pepin, King of Franks, 420
Petachia, Rabbi Moses, 229, 247,

264, etc.
Petchinegs, 473, 476, 489-494, 492,

493, 494
Petronas, 494
Petrus Alfonsus or Alphousus of

Huesca, map of, 575, 626, 627
Philip de Toucy, 324
Pisa, trade of, 427-432
Plato of Tivoli, 575
Polo, Marco, 7. 275, 279, 151, 456,

459
Polo, Marocca, 451
Polo, Matteo, 7, 151
Polo, Nicolo, 7, 454
Pomponius Mela, 560
Poppo. Archbishop of Treves, 122,

129
Poppo of Stavelot, 124
Prester John, 349

Priscian, 560, 562

Procopius, 543

Psalter Map, 568, 569, 647-621

Pseudo-Baeda, 203-205

Ptolemy. Claudius, astronomer and

geographer, 523, 530, 576
Pvtheas of Marseilles, navigator,

'547

Raban Maur, Archbishop of Mainz,

545
Rabban Cauma, 352
Ram, the Limerick trader, 72, 73
Raganarius, 120
Ralph Glaber, 125, 126, 127
Ranulf Ffigden, 580
Rashid-ed-din, 305 *
Raven Floke, 28
Ravennese Geographer, 523, 521,

543, 588
Raymond, Count of Toulouse, 140,

229
Raymond II., Count of Tripoli, 240
Raymond III., Count of Tripoli,

397 [445]
Rajmiond Berenger III., 424, 435
Raymond Berenger IV., 424
Richard, Earl of Cornwall, 589
Richard, Abbot of Verdun, 122
Richard, Duke of the Normans,

various, 122, 127, 128
Rimbert, St., 529
Robert, the Clerk, 320
Robert, Duke of Normandy, 4, 12S
Robert Guiscard, 444, 176
Robert of Melkeley, 586
Roerek (Rurik) Vassal King 93
Roger I. of Sicily, 176
Roger II. of Sicily, 479, 480, 399, 400
Roger, Duke of Apulia, 233
Roger of Figeac, 426
Roger of Wendover, 246
Rolf, Hrolf or Hrodolf, the Ganger,

30, 34, 87, 476
Roman, 346
Romanus L, 544
Romanus IV., 508
Romanus Lecapenus, 492, 504, 506,

543
Rubruquis or Rubruck, William

de, Friar-traveller, 7, 40, 266, 278,

281, 298, 299, 303, 320-382, 424, 449,

450, 454, 452
Rudolf, Bishop of Bethlehem, 433
Rupen, the Armenian, 382, 456
Rurik. 21, 25. 457, 476

650

SHORT INDEX OF NAMES

Saadia Gaon, 220
Saabh, Hassan Ibn, 230
Sabbas of Servia, 215
Saerobosco (John Halifax of Holy-
wood), 575
Saemuncl, Bishoj), 72
Saewulf, pilgrim, 4, 5, 130-155, 160,

162, 163, 165, 166, 169
Sahensa, Prince of Ani, 372
Saladin, Sultan, 423, 439, 461
Salamon, Byzantine envoy, 495
Sallam the Interpreter, Arabic

traveller, 223, 504
Sallust maps, 578, 579, 631, 632
Sanjar, Sultan of Merv, 226, 255
Samuel ben Simson, 274
Sanuto, Marino, 590
Sapsas or Sapsaphas, 581
Sartach, Mongol Prince, 278, 319,

320, 323, 331, 334-337, 369, 385, 388
Saul, Joseph, and Jacob ben

Eliezer, 220
Saxo Grammaticus, historian, 526,

540, 543, 545, 546
Scatai, 331, 332
Seljuks, 226
Sempad, Constable of Armenia,

383, 384
Sergius, monk, 358
Sergius IV., Pope, 122
Shah Rokh, 444
Sherira ben Khanina, 224
Siegfried, Archbishop of Mainz,

pilgrim, 4, 129, 130
Sigeric, Archbishop of Canterbury,

traveller, 12, 560-562, 612-614
Sighvat the Skald, 96, 98, 101, 102
Sigrid of Sweden, Queen, 46
Sigurd of Norway, King, Pilgrim,

and Crusader, 5, 157, 176-183
Sigurd of Orkney, 94
Silo of Oviedo, King, 550
' Silvia of Aquitaine, ' St., 165
Simeon, Nestorian doctor, 362
Simeon, Tsar of Bulgarians, 479,

480, 492
Simon of St. Quentin, Friar-
traveller, 277, 318
Skopti Ogmundson, Norse

traveller, 23, 175
Skraelings, 55, 57-59, 66-69, 78, 81-

83
Snorri(e) Sturleson, eh. ii. passim,

especially p. 104
Snorri(e) Thorbrandson, 63
Snorii(e) Thorfinnson, 58, 61, 70

Solinus, 523, 524, 529, 541, 542, 546,

568
Stefnir Thorgilson, 123
Stein of Iceland, 98
Stephanus Garcia Placidus, 552
Stephen, Byzantine envoy, 495
Stephen of Hungary, St. and King,

127, 128, 483
Stephen, the Bishop, 385
Stephen of Bohemia, Friar -

traveller, 302, 390
Strabo, 163, 546
Sueiro Mendes, Count, 177
Svein Godwineson, 4, 128
Svein Estrithson [Astridson], 108-

110, 516, 520, 521, 532, 541, 544,

547
Svein Haraldson, ' Forkbeard, ' 44,

46, 85
Sviatoslav, Russian Prince, 157,

450, 452, 486, 488, 491, 503
Symeon [Simeon], the Armenian,

*125
Symeon, St., recluse of Treves,

'121, 122, 129

Tailored of Antioch, 428

Terrier, ' knight,' attendant of

Yaroslav of Russia, 314
Thaugbrand [Dangbrandt], priest

and missionary, 45, 46
Themistos, Governor of Cherson,

499
Theoderich [Dietrich], pilgrim, 184,

195-199
Theodora, Empress, 122
Theodore, 262
Theodosius, Patriarch, 118
Theodosius, David, and Sabas,

envoj's, 118
Theodoulos [Raymond], 357, 358
Theophanes, historian, 475, etc.
Theophano, Empress, 518
Theophilus, Emperor, 487, 494, 501
Theophylact, 483
Theotonius, pilgrim, 207
Thietmar, 215

Thomas the Usurper, 510, 512
Thorarin of Iceland, 93
Thorbrand Snorrison, 67
Thorbiorn Angle, 106
Thorbiorn Yifilson, 62, 63
Thogarma, Thogarmim, 237, 269
Thorfhm Karl, 73
Thorfiim Karlsefne, explorer, 3, 48,

56-59, 61, 62, 63-70, 75, 76, 77

SHORT INDEX OF NAMES

651

Thorfimi Skull-cleaver of Orkney,

93-95
Thorhall Gamlison, 63

Thorhall, the Huntsman, 63, 64, 65,

69
Thorir Hund, 3, 88-92, 96, 98, 100-

102. 175
Thorir, the Easterling, 56
Thorir Klakka, 43
Thorkell, brother of Gisli, 37
Thorkell Fouhnouth, 37
Thorkell Gelleson, 73, 82
Thorleik, the Fair, 109, 110
Thorolf, heir of Bjoigolf and Bard,

33
Thoros, 238

Thorstein Dromund, 106
Thorstein Erieson, 56, 62, 63
Thorstein Stirson, 106
Thorvald Erieson, 54-56, 62, 63, 68,

69
Thorvald (Thorvard), of Gardar,

son-indaw of Red Eric, 50, 59-61,

63
Thorvald Kodranson. 123
Thyri, -wife of Olaf Tryggveson, 16
Titus, Emperor, legend of, 232
Toki, ' dux Winlandensis," 546
• Tortushi ' (Abubekr Mohammed),

495
Touey Narjot de, 321 (see Philip de

Touey, 279)
Trasmundus, 517
Turakina, Mongol Empress, 308,

311,312,313, 314, 315
Turolf, 517
Tyrker 'the German," 51, 53, 78

Uvaegij 69

Yaetildi, 69

Valdidada, 69

Varlaam of Kiev, 155

Varthema, L. de, traveller, 443

Vassili Vladimiroviteh, 173

' Vassilko,' Prince of Russia, 294,

317
' \rastacius,' 355
Venice, trade of, 400-418
Venerius (' Reverius '), 446
Victor II., Pope, 122, 129
Vidgaut of ' Samland,' merchant

and traveller, 537
Vigdis, 71
Vilecinus, 516

Vincent of Beauvais, 10, 275, 277

Vioni [Viglioni], P., 445

Virgil, Bishop, 524

' Vissavald ' of Novgorod, 46

Vivaldo, Benedetto, 462

Vivaldo, Sorleone, 462

Vladimir of Kiev and Novgorod,

the Great, 36, 41, 47, 157, 492, 503
Vladimir Monomach, Prince of

Russia, 453

Walid, Caliph, 262

Widukind, 539

Wilbrand of Oldenburg, 215, 216,

461
William of Angouleme, 4, 128
William of Apulia, 398
William III. of Acmitaine, 128
William of Conches, 574, 575
William, the Englishman, Bishop,

522
William of Malmesbury, 139
William, the Monk, 523
William of Normandy, various, 87.

127
William of Paris, 350, 355-357, 360,

364, 367, 368
William of Tvre, 126, 157, 166. 170.

180, 458, 460"
William, companion of Andrew of

Longumeau, 320
Willibald. pilgrim, 145, 151, 526
Wolf, son of Uspak, 110
Wulfstan, Bishoi3 of Worcester,

St., 139
Wulfstan, navigator, 3, 34, 546

Yakut, Arabic Geographer, 7, 13
Yaroslav, Prince of Russia, 283,

285, 291,304, 309,312,313
Yaroslav, the Lawgiver of Kiev

and Novgorod, Prince of Russia,

39, 96, 99-101, 106-108, 156, 157,

158
Yehuda ben Elia Hadasi, 224
Yuri [George], Danilovitch of

Novgorod, 39
Yussuf, Mercantile House of, 457
Yusuf Ibn Tashfin, 136

Zemarchus, 283, 345
Zenghi, Atabeg, of Mosul, 197, 226
Ziani, P., Doge of Venice, 417, 460
Zurbaneles, 509

PRINTED AT THE EDINBURGH PRESS,
9 AND 11 YOUNG STREET