Chapter XII: Regional Geography (2)

The geographical chapter in Al-Battānī’s _Astronomy_, probably compiled from a redaction of Ptolemy’s _Geography_ and translated by Plato of Tivoli in our period, gave a description of the seas of the world.[1317] The Indian Ocean, Al-Battānī said, extends from the land of the negroes to the extreme limits of India, a distance of 8000 miles. Its width was 2200 miles, of which 1900 (Plato of Tivoli mistakenly translated this 3900) reach south of the equator. What lands lay beyond are not specified. From this sea four gulfs run into the land: first the Barbaric Sea, which extends into the “land of the negroes,” or Ethiopia, and may be the Gulf of Aden or possibly even Mozambique Channel; second, the Green Sea (Mare Viride), or our Red Sea, which reaches towards Hyla (Ailah?); third, the Persian Gulf (Mare Persicum); and, fourth, a second Green Sea, running out to the east towards China (“Thinae”) and representing the Bay of Bengal or possibly the China Sea. In the Indian Ocean there are some 1370 islands, among them a very large one called “Tibiariae” (Taprobane), or Sarandib (Ceylon), opposite the eastern coast of India, 3000 miles in circumference, full of great mountains and rivers, quantities of rubies and hyacinths, and surrounded by fifty-nine lesser isles. The traditional account of the many isles of the Indian seas so persistent in Arabic literature arose unquestionably from familiarity with the vast Malay Archipelago or at least with its western portion. On the other hand, whether we may assume, as some have done, that the exaggerated classical and Arabic estimates of the size of Ceylon had their origin in rumors of the existence of Australia[1318] is an obscure problem which we cannot attempt here to solve.

SCYTHIA AND CENTRAL ASIA

North of the mountain barrier enclosing India lay lands about which Western medieval knowledge was equally vague. “Upper Scythia, stretching from the Caspian Sea to the Seric Ocean and southward to the Caucasus, includes much habitable land but also much that is sterile: gold and gems abound there, but men avoid them on account of the griffons. Lower Scythia adjoins Hyrcania, so called from the Hyrcanian Forest, where a marvelous bird is found whose plumage glows in the dark. Iranea, or Iran, is next to Scythia on the west: a region of nomads who wander widely because of the sterility of the soil and who are horrible and ferocious (_portentuosi ac truces_), eaters of human flesh and drinkers of human blood.” In about these terms the author of the _De imagine mundi_ and Gervase of Tilbury, borrowing from Isidore,[1319] summed up very nearly all that was known of Central Asia before the great overland journeys of the thirteenth century to which brief reference has already been made.[1320] Several of the maps show large rivers—Araxes, Oxus, Oscorus, and even Acheron, the stream of Tartarus—rising in the Caucasus and flowing northward into the Caspian.[1321] The latter, in accordance with the usual classical tradition, is represented as a gulf of the encircling Ocean Stream.

BENJAMIN OF TUDELA ON CENTRAL ASIA

Benjamin of Tudela, who himself journeyed at least as far east as Baghdad, had opportunities for gaining information about Central and Northern Asia more favorable than those of his less traveled contemporaries. Samarkand he mentions briefly as a “great city on the confines of Persia” inhabited by 50,000 Jews. “Thence,” he adds, “it is four days’ journey to Tibet, the country in whose forests the musk is found” (Adler’s translation).[1322] He quotes the reports of Persian Jews that four of the lost ten tribes of Israel dwell in the mountains of Naisabur (in eastern Persia). These people were said to be independent and to dwell in a broad tract of land twenty days’ journey in extent, with cities and large villages among the mountains.[1323] Others associated the lost tribes with the abhorrent hordes of Gog and Magog.[1324] Benjamin goes on to tell us that these Jews were in league with the “Kufar-al-Turak, who worship the wind and live in the wilderness and who do not eat bread nor drink wine but live on raw, uncooked meat. They have no noses, and in lieu thereof they have two small holes through which they breathe” (Adler’s translation).[1325] He relates the confused story of wars between these undeniably Turanian tribes of the steppes of Turkestan and the “King of Persia” (the Seljuk Sultan, Sanjar), events which perhaps gave rise to a legend that became widespread in twelfth-century Europe and to which we must now turn.

PRESTER JOHN

The legend was the romantic story that in these far regions there lay a vast and powerful Christian kingdom ruled by a mighty potentate, Prester John. This tradition was the most important contribution of our period to regional geography, for, false as it was, it long persisted, became an integral part of late medieval geographical theory, and exerted in subsequent centuries a powerful influence on the course of exploration. The thirteenth-century Oriental travelers were constantly on the lookout for Prester John’s kingdom and, when it finally became obvious that there was no such kingdom in Asia, Prester John was transferred to Africa, where he was sought for by the Portuguese navigators of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. How did this strange legend come into existence, and what did it contribute to Western notions of Asia?

_Origins of the Legend_

Various elements seem to have given rise to it. Perhaps rumors of the existence of a Christian nation in Abyssinia may at a very early period have fostered belief in the existence of a great Christian potentate in Asia. India in Asia and Ethiopia in Africa were often confused both in antiquity and during the Middle Ages. Furthermore, the story of the visit of the Indian archbishop or patriarch, already referred to, encouraged belief in a numerous Asiatic Christian population. Some of the elements of the patriarch’s report became an integral part of one of the twelfth-century versions of the story of Prester John.

Then again, we have echoes of actual events in the East in Benjamin of Tudela’s _Itinerary_, as we have just seen, and in Otto of Freising’s _Chronicon_. Otto relates[1326] that in 1145 the bishop of Gabala in Syria had come to Viterbo to report to Pope Eugenius III, among other things, the fall of Edessa. Here Otto met the bishop, and what he learned is recorded in the _Chronicon_. This was to the effect that, not very long before, a certain John, king and priest, who dwelt in the Far East beyond Persia and Armenia and who, together with his tribe (_gens_), was a Christian, waged war with the Samiards (Saniards), two brothers who were kings of the Medes and Persians. John captured Ecbatana, the capital of the Samiards’ realm, defeated the brothers in battle, and put them to flight. He then proceeded to advance to the aid of the church at Jerusalem but was hindered from going very far by the river Tigris. Turning northwards in hope that the river would freeze over and thereby enable him to cross, he was finally constrained, after several years had elapsed, to give up the enterprise because continued warm weather prevented ice from forming. This John, Otto added, was said to have come of very ancient lineage, in fact, to have been one of the progeny of the Magi. The tribes under his command were perhaps the same as the “Kufar-al-Turak” of Benjamin of Tudela.[1327]

Though the attempt has been made to identify the Christian potentate of the legend with a chieftain of the Caucasus,[1328] the weight of evidence would seem to favor belief that the story in its more specific thirteenth-century form grew out of rumors of some Christian Mongol lord of Central Asia.[1329] It is certain that the Nestorian form of Christianity was strongly represented in Central Asia during this period and that two powerful tribes of these distant regions, the Keraïts and the Onguts, formed outposts of this faith. But, as Pelliot writes, “whatever may have been the origin of the famous legend of Prester John, ... it was to a prince of the Keraïts that the tradition was applied during the first half of the thirteenth century. All the Keraïts spoken of in the history of the Mongol dynasty seem to have been Christians; in any case this is true of the majority of them. In fact it was through marriage with Keraït princesses that Christianity penetrated even into the family of Jenghiz Khan.”[1330] Many of these Asiatic Christians bore Christian names preserved in Chinese forms, such as Yao-su-mu for Joseph or K’wo-li-ki-ssö for George.[1331] We learn from Marco Polo and other thirteenth-century travelers that Mongol princes often submitted to baptism, though this was probably done out of indifference to religion rather than as the expression of any deep-seated convictions.

On such slender foundations as the report in Otto’s _Chronicon_ or the anonymous account of the visit of the Patriarch John to Rome or on other rumors of events in the heart of Asia of which no record has been preserved, there was erected an elaborate, detailed, and wholly fanciful series of descriptions of Prester John and his realm, embellished by borrowings from the Romance of Alexander, from the legend of St. Thomas, and from that world of fable which constituted the medieval European conception of the Orient.

_Prester John’s Kingdom As Described in His “Letter”_

The most important description of Prester John’s kingdom is contained in the famous _Letter_, addressed in some manuscripts to Manuel, the Byzantine Emperor, in others to Frederick, the Roman Emperor; in still others, to the Pope. In this letter,[1332] the earliest version of which dates from before 1177, John tells that he is superior in wealth and power to all the kings of the world. His realm includes the three Indias and St. Thomas’ shrine. It extends across the desert of Babylon to the tower of Babel and contains seventy-two provinces, each ruled over by a king. Prester John is lord of the Amazons and Brahmins. In one direction his territory reaches out four months’ journey. In the other, no one can tell how far. “Only if you could count the stars of the heaven and the sands of the sea would you be able to form an estimate of our dominion and our power.” Many are the extraordinary features of this realm which abounds in milk and honey: here is one of the rivers of Paradise; here are streams that give forth gold and jewels; here pepper is gathered; here is the fountain of youth; and here a mysterious sea of sand fed by a river of rocks, beyond which dwell the ten tribes of the Jews, who, although they have their own kings, are nevertheless subject to the mighty Christian ruler. In one of the provinces near the torrid zone the salamander thrives, a “worm” which cannot live without fire and which makes a chrysalis about himself as do the silkworms (an interesting and unexpected bit of natural history embedded in the midst of fable). Prester John takes particular delight in expatiating on the enormous wealth of his country, on the virtues of its inhabitants—for among them there are neither liars nor adulterers nor indeed vice or crime of any description—and on their clemency and Christian piety. Every year the king makes a pilgrimage with his army across the serpent-infested Babylonian desert to the shrine of the prophet Daniel. A large part of the _Letter_ is taken up with a minute description of the royal palace—exactly like that which St. Thomas built for the King Gundophorus, of the king’s household, the grandees who wait upon him, the officials of the kingdom, etc., etc. In an early Latin version of the _Letter_, written probably in England, we are informed that there are people from all countries of the world at Prester John’s court;[1333] among the personal servants of the king there are Englishmen who wait upon him at table. No less than eleven thousand Englishmen are in his bodyguard, and every Englishman who comes to the court, whether clerk or knight, is invested with the order of knighthood. The French and Italian versions of the _Letter_, which were probably translated from this Latin text, substitute “François” and “Franceschi” for “Anglici.”

_Alliance With Prester John Desired_

During the thirteenth century it was the vain hope of the Popes and of the Christian kings of Europe to gain the alliance of some great power in the East—either the Mongols or Prester John—as an offset to Turkish encroachments on the Crusaders’ frontiers.[1334] Perhaps we may detect the beginnings of this policy in a letter of Pope Alexander III (1177) to John, “Magnificus rex Indorum sacerdotum sanctissimus.”[1335] The Pope informs the great king that he has heard of his piety through a certain Master Philip, papal physician, who had held conversation with distinguished and honorable persons of his realm. Consequently Alexander was sending this Philip to expound to him the tenets of Western Christianity and to convert him to the true Catholic faith. It seems probable that Alexander was acquainted with the supposed letter of Prester John to the Byzantine Emperor, though there is also strong probability that he had confused the stories of the Asiatic Prester John with reports regarding the Christian kingdom of Abyssinia—a source of much confusion at a later period than ours.

GOG AND MAGOG

The northern part of Asia was the reputed seat of the terrible tribes of Gog and Magog, whose eruption at the Last Day was destined to bring about the destruction of the human race. We have seen that Biblical prophecies were combined with the story of Alexander the Great’s enclosing of these tribes behind great walls. The legend appears in our period under various forms. Most of the maps show Gog and Magog, usually surrounded by a wall; some add disparaging epithets, such as “gens immunda.” Matthew Paris on his map of Palestine indicates in the north the walls whereby King Alexander the Great shut in Gog and Magog and states in the explanatory legend that from this same direction came the Tatars.[1336] In the _De imagine mundi_[1337] we find a simple statement that between the Caspian Mountains and the sea of that name dwelt those tribes who had been walled in by Alexander the Great, Gog and Magog, the fiercest of all peoples, eaters of the raw flesh of wild beasts and of human beings. The Moslems had placed Gog and Magog in the farthest corner of northeastern Asia: and in John of Seville’s translation of Al-Farghānī’s _Astronomy_ we find the land of Gog at the easternmost extremity of the sixth and seventh “climates” (those farthest north).[1338] Lambert li Tors speaks in the Romance of Alexander of “Gos et Magos” among the vassals of Porus: though they came forth with four hundred thousand men, Alexander, after he had defeated Porus, chased them back into the defiles of the mountains, where he shut them in with a great wall.[1339] In a later part of the Romance, the subdivision of Alexander’s kingdom at his death is explained: to Antigonus was given Syria and Persia as far as Mount Tus, together with the duty of standing guard over Gog and Magog.[1340] Otto of Freising also mentions these tribes.[1341] He derived his information from Frutolf’s _Chronica_,[1342] whence, in turn, it had come from the version of the Romance of Alexander known as the _Historia de praeliis_. In the days of Heraclius, Otto says, the “Agareni” (Saracens) devastated the lands of the empire and destroyed part of the army of Heraclius. In revenge the latter opened the Caspian Gates and let out those most savage tribes, which Alexander the Great had enclosed along the Caspian Sea on account of their heinousness, and inaugurated a war against the Saracens. By night, as a punishment sent by the Deity for this sacrilegious act, fifty-two thousand of Heraclius’ army were struck down by lightning, and, as a result of this terrible visitation, Heraclius himself died in the twenty-seventh year of his reign.

There were many variations of the legend of Gog and Magog. Elsewhere in Otto of Freising’s _Chronicon_[1343] we find an account, taken from Orosius, of the way in which Artaxerxes forced many of the Jews to dwell in Hyrcania near the Caspian Sea. It was believed that these people had multiplied greatly,[1344] and they were expected to burst forth on the world in the days of Antichrist. Though not here expressly called Gog and Magog, the connection is plain; and Godfrey of Viterbo relates how Alexander enclosed Gog and Magog, the “eleven [_sic_] tribes of the Jews.”[1345] We have already quoted[1346] Matthew Paris’ description of the Tatars who, he said, might be the same as the tribes whom Alexander enclosed—the ten tribes of Israel.

WESTERN ASIA

When we turn from the remote parts of the Orient to Western Asia we find ourselves in regions much better known to the Western world, though the traditional geography of these regions, founded on classical and Biblical authority, persisted in encyclopedic writings hardly influenced at all by the contacts that in reality had been established. The _De imagine mundi_, Gervase of Tilbury’s _Otia imperialia_, and other similar works add little to what Isidore and Orosius had written. Between the Indus and Tigris lie many countries, Arachosia, Parthia, Assyria, Persia, Media, all forming a harsh and mountainous tract called in Scripture “India” but more generally known as Parthia. Fire had been discovered in Persia.[1347] The Tigris, so called because it is as swift as a tiger, rises from a common source with the Euphrates in the mountains of Armenia.[1348] Thence the two rivers separate, leaving a long space between them known as Mesopotamia; the Tigris encircles Assyria and empties into the Dead Sea! Peter Comestor and the author of the _De imagine mundi_ accepted the views of Isidore regarding the source of the Tigris in the highlands of Armenia,[1349] but the latter adds to the already prevailing confusion by stating that both rivers of Mesopotamia debouch into the Mediterranean Sea. Gervase, on the other hand, corrects the error of the author of the _De imagine mundi_ by making them flow into the Red Sea (or Indian Ocean),[1350] as was depicted on most maps.

_Mesopotamia_

Mesopotamia was said to be famous as the site of Nineveh and of Chaldea, where astronomy was discovered;[1351] and Gervase of Tilbury dilates on the immense size of the walls of Babylon.[1352] Regarding Babylon, it is refreshing to find in Otto of Freising’s _Chronicon_ some really up-to-date information which he had derived from Frutolf.[1353] In the first place, he makes a careful distinction between Babylon and Cairo, to which the name of Babylon was commonly given. “Old Babylon,” he added, “as we learn from reliable men from across the seas, is partly inhabited at the present day and now called Baldach [Baghdad]. Part, however, as you would expect from the words of prophecy, is a desert waste extending for ten miles as far as the tower of Babel. The part which is inhabited and called Baldach is very large and populous.” He explains that here is the seat of the greatest priest of the Persians, whom they call “Caliph,” and who holds in some respects a position among these pagans parallel to that which the Pope at Rome holds among Christians.

With Baghdad we have at last come to a city that was actually visited and described during our period by Western Europeans whose descriptions have come down to us. The Jewish travelers, Benjamin of Tudela and Petachia of Ratisbon, appear to have sojourned in the Mesopotamian city in the seventh and ninth decades of the twelfth century respectively.

_Benjamin of Tudela on Baghdad_

Benjamin’s personal familiarity with Baghdad saved him from making Frutolf’s and Otto’s mistake of confusing the Abbasid capital with old Babylon. We gather from Benjamin’s _Itinerary_ that the latter is three days’ journey distant and that “the ruins of the palace of Nebuchadnezzar are still to be seen there, but people are afraid to enter them on account of serpents and scorpions” (Adler’s translation).[1354]

Baghdad, Benjamin writes (our quotations are from Adler’s translation), “is on the River Tigris,” which “divides the metropolis in two parts.” The city “is twenty miles in circumference, situated in a land of palms, gardens, and plantations, the like of which is not to be found in the whole land of Shinar. People come thither with merchandise from all lands. Wise men live there, philosophers who know all manner of wisdom, and magicians expert in all manner of witchcraft.”[1355] Benjamin was particularly interested in the Caliph, of whose palace, park, family, and widespread authority he writes in no little detail and in highly commendatory terms,[1356] for it seems that the Caliphs were more tolerant toward the Jews than were most Christian monarchs of the age. Besides treating of the Caliph, Benjamin tells about the “Head of the Captivity,” another powerful ruler whose headquarters were Baghdad and in whom the Caliph had vested authority over all the Jewish communities throughout the eastern Moslem world. A descendant of David, King of Israel, he was a man of great dignity and rank, held high in the esteem of the Mohammedans. His power extended “over all the communities of Shinar, Persia, Khurasan, and Sheba, which is El-Yemen, and Diyar Kalach (Bekr) and the land of Aram Naharaim (Mesopotamia) and over the dwellers in the mountains of Ararat and the land of the Alans, which is a land surrounded by mountains and has no outlet except by the iron gates which Alexander made but which were afterwards broken. Here are the people called Alani. His authority extends also over the land of Siberia [Sikbia?] and the communities in the land of Togarmim[1357] unto the mountains of Asveh and the land of Gurgan, the inhabitants of which are called Gurganim who dwell by the river Gihon (Oxus?); and these are the Girgashites who follow the Christian religion. Further it extends to the gates of Samarkand, the land of Tibet, and the land of India. In respect of all these countries the Head of the Captivity gives the communities power to appoint Rabbis and Ministers who come unto him to be consecrated and to receive his authority. They bring him offerings and gifts from the ends of the earth.”[1358]

Whether or not Benjamin was personally presented to the Head of the Captivity we are not informed. In any case he undoubtedly came into contact at Baghdad with Jews from all over Central and Western Asia and from them was able to gather those details regarding the Jewish communities which form such an important and interesting part of his _Itinerary_. Most striking in this connection are the data which he furnishes us about the Jews of Arabia.

_Benjamin of Tudela on Arabia_

The interior of that great peninsula until recently has remained very vaguely known to Western Christians, and in the Middle Ages there reigned almost complete ignorance regarding it. Gervase of Tilbury tells us (from Orosius) that Arabia lies between two seas and is the country of Mount Sinai, of the Queen of Sheba, and of frankincense.[1359] Beyond this and a few details about the Bedouins picked up by the Crusaders, nothing was known. Hence the information which Benjamin gives on the Jewish communities is of exceptional importance. If we may trust his figures, it would seem that there was at this time a large Jewish population both in Yemen and farther north. Benjamin’s conception of the geography of the peninsula, however, is remarkably confused. He tells us that at a distance of twenty-one days’ journey through the deserts from Hillah in Mesopotamia one comes to the land of Saba, or El-Yemen. Here he places the great Jewish cities of Tanai, Tilmas, Teima, and Kheibar. Neither Tilmas nor Tanai have been definitely identified. To the former Benjamin assigned a population of 100,000 Jews; to the latter, with the district surrounding, a population of no less than 300,000 Jews. They may represent Jewish settlements in Yemen, though Benjamin’s statement that Tilmas is only three days from Kheibar would seem to preclude this possibility. Tanai, on the other hand, has been thought to be Sanaa. Kheibar (to which Benjamin assigns 50,000 Jews) and Teima have long been well-known towns of northern Arabia not far from Medina. Now inhabited by half-breed negroes, these places were the centers of a Jewish population from before the times of Mohammed until as late as the sixteenth century.[1360]

Ina totally different connection Benjamin refers to Jews of the “land of Aden,” which he believed to be part of India, taking India to include southern Arabia and Ethiopia. Their country he describes as mountainous. The Jewish element in the population, he adds, “are not under the yoke of the Gentiles but possess castles on the summits of the mountains from which they make descents into the plain country called Libya, which is a Christian empire” (Adler’s translation).[1361] This is indeed confusing. If by Libya Abyssinia is meant—which is likely, for Abyssinia was a Christian kingdom from very early times—it seems peculiar that Benjamin makes no mention of the Red Sea intervening between the land of Aden in Arabia Felix and the African coasts which would have to be crossed by Jews of the Aden highlands in making war on the Abyssinians. Possibly Benjamin, like Marco Polo a century later, conceived of Aden as lying in Africa.[1362]

_Syria and Palestine_

Unlike all the rest of Asia, Syria and Palestine were well known at first hand to many European Christians. Yet, in writing about them, the makers of compilations like the _De imagine mundi_ and the _Otia imperialia_ were content to do little more than copy Isidore’s dry catalogue of the names of places rendered famous through Scriptural associations.[1363] The Dead Sea with its sinister neighborhood was the only natural feature of this part of the world which seems to have made a strong enough appeal to the imagination of these writers to impel them to add anything to what Isidore had said long before.[1364]

_Geographical Knowledge Enlarged by the Crusades_

On the other hand, the Levantine countries were familiar through the journeys of Western travelers, though their observations were not incorporated into the works of the scholarly compilers. Many were the motives that induced men of the West to visit the Nearer East. Religious enthusiasm and the desire for commercial gain, however, were paramount. The Crusades contributed more than any great series of events between the time of Claudius Ptolemy and the middle of the thirteenth century to the broadening of man’s geographical horizon, and, with it, the broadening of the whole range of human activity. We cannot attempt to discuss these wider aspects of the Crusading movement in any detail, but a few words must be said about the dissemination of regional knowledge that resulted from it. Feudal nobility, soldiers, pilgrims, and adventurers of all sorts and from all parts of the West were joined by Italian merchants in the great enterprise, the object of which was not only to redeem the holy places from the infidel but also to profit from the Levantine trade. Men of all ranks and callings, coming from every part of Christendom, made their way by land and sea to the Holy Land. Peasant, serf, and petty townsman, as well as powerful noble and church dignitary, were torn from old and familiar environments to wander through countries about which they had hitherto known next to nothing. In some cases the stories of their travels and adventures were preserved in chronicles and poems, but in most no permanent record was left. Nevertheless, the geographical knowledge of the average man was widened to an extent which we can scarcely appreciate at the present day. Before the Crusades communities throughout the greater part of Europe had lived very much to themselves, in limited contact with the outside world; but by the year 1200 it is safe to infer that practically every town and village of France, England, Germany, and Italy held someone who had visited the East and was not unready to tell about what he had seen there and on his way out and back. Just as the War of 1914–1918 has taught the world much European geography, so the Crusades taught all classes of Europe about the Holy Land and the routes thither. But the Crusades did more than give the people a wider knowledge of places: they brought them into contact with new customs, new religions, new ideals and modes of life, as well as with new types of landscape and terrain. All this tended to displace men from habitual and local modes of thought; Europe became more cosmopolitan, and the way was prepared for that profound change in man’s entire attitude towards life which we now call the Renaissance.

_Occidental Population of the Levant_

We can merely hint at these general results of the extension of geographical contact with the Levantine world and turn to the more specific problem of the limits to which Western penetration was actually pushed. The Occidental population of the states established after the First Crusade along the eastern border of the Mediterranean was composed primarily of the Frankish nobility and soldiery and of Italian traders.[1365] The former had established themselves in castles and garrisons, from which they ruled over widespread manorial estates tilled by native Syrians. The traders occupied large foreign quarters in such commercial centers as Acre, Jaffa, Ascalon, Tyre, and Tripoli on the coasts, and in the interior at Jerusalem. Trading privileges and the right to build up commercial colonies in the towns were granted to Genoese, Pisans, Venetians, and others in return for services rendered the Crusading armies by the Italian navies in the conquest of the coast towns and in the transportation of military forces. Through the reports brought back to Europe by returning soldiers, adventurers, and merchants, Syria and Palestine became more widely and accurately known in the West than most parts of Europe itself.

_European Occupation of Syria_

First-hand acquaintance with the Levant, however, did not, either in the twelfth or in the thirteenth century, necessarily lead to first-hand acquaintance with the neighboring countries that still lay under the domination of the Turk. At the time of its greatest extent the Kingdom of Jerusalem reached eastward to the edge of the desert plateau beyond the Jordan and Dead Sea and southward to Ailah on the Gulf of Akaba. Northeastward the upper Tigris marked the frontier of the County of Edessa. Beyond these restricted borders lay Saracen territory into which traders from the West did not dare to venture. Southern Mesopotamia was virtually _terra incognita_; and the men who held the small garrison posts along the eastern border of the states of the Crusaders were not prone to undertake rash enterprises in the enemy’s country.

The danger of such enterprises is illustrated by the fate of a Christian naval expedition sent down the Red Sea from Akaba in 1182–1183.[1366] A small fleet, fitted out by Reynauld of Châtillon, lord of the castle of Kerak beyond the Jordan, succeeded in getting almost as far as Yembo, the port of Medina. We are not told of its true purpose by the Arabic historians, who alone seem to have recorded this adventure, though the Arabs certainly believed that the Crusaders were bent upon plundering the tomb of the prophet at Medina. Perhaps its leaders harbored a fanatic hope of attacking the holy cities of Islam. At all events, the navy of Saladin, hastily summoned from Egypt, soon overtook and defeated the little squadron at Haura, and those of the Crusaders who escaped ashore were either killed by the Bedouins or sold into slavery.

But though, with a few exceptions, Europeans themselves did not go beyond these bounds of the Crusaders’ states, commercial relations were established with the more eastern regions.[1367] Antioch and Laodicea were the termini of two trade routes from Aleppo, whence came merchants from Rakka on the Euphrates and ultimately from Mesopotamia, Persia, and Central Asia. Asiatic goods were also sold at a great open fair in the Hauran country, at one time in the territory of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and undoubtedly frequented by Westerners. And the harbors of the kingdom were the _entrepôts_ of an extensive traffic from Arabia Felix and India by the Red Sea and across the Isthmus of Suez. At all of these points the Italians established connections with the Oriental merchants and learned from them much about Oriental lands and their products.

_Asia Minor_

During the early thirteenth century Asia Minor also became familiar ground to the men of the West.[1368] The establishment of the Latin Empire at Constantinople in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade was mainly responsible for this; but even before the close of the twelfth century the Venetians had become preponderant from a commercial point of view in the districts that had hitherto formed parts of the Byzantine Empire, and after 1204 they were in a position to conclude advantageous treaties with their Anatolian neighbors, Greek, Seljuk, and Armenian. Venetian merchants were to be seen in the important towns and along the highways of the peninsula. Italians, with Provençaux in their train, exploited the trade of the small Christian kingdom of Little Armenia (the ancient Cilicia) and penetrated from the Mediterranean into and across the Seljuk sultanate of Iconium, whose rulers were disposed to look with fairly friendly eyes on the Frankish trader. Even the Empire of Nicaea, a small remnant of the Greek dominions which had managed to preserve its independence after the Fourth Crusade, was constrained in 1219 to grant extensive trading privileges to the Venetians.

_Western Asia As Described by the Crusaders_

The knowledge of Western Asia acquired in these various ways was naturally enough reflected in the works of the historians, chroniclers, and poets of the Crusades, many of whom had themselves visited the places they describe. Their fresh and realistic accounts contrast strikingly with the sort of geographical writings we have so far been discussing in this chapter. From Dreesbach’s study of the Orient as described in the early French Crusading literature we may gain a concise idea of the sort of thing that impressed itself on the mind of the Occidental.[1369] His impressions of climate and landscape need not detain us here, as they have already been explained in early chapters.[1370] Of the natural resources, the wealth of the fruits of Syria, grapes, figs, pomegranates, almonds, olives, and locusts, were often the subject of wonder and admiration, and William of Tyre speaks enthusiastically of the great sugar plantations at Sur.[1371] Of the animals,[1372] the Arab horse and the camel attracted most attention; and the usefulness of the latter was known both as a beast of burden and as a swift traveler through the desert. A lively sketch of a man leading a camel laden with a large cask figures prominently on one variant of the Matthew Paris map of Palestine, and a legend reads: “Here abound camels, buffaloes (_bubali_), mules, and asses, which are used by the merchants trading between the peoples of the Orient and of the Occident.”[1373] Bears and lions, serpents and tarantulas, and carrier pigeons also invited notice; and the mosquito is mentioned by Ambroise, who says that though very small it has a terribly poisonous bite, bad enough to make every one, old and young alike, appear to be leprous:

“Que chescons, vielz ou damoisels,
Sembloit a estre tut mesels.”[1374]

Concerning the people[1375] of the Levant we find that the distinction between the nomadic desert-dwelling Bedouins and the bearded turban-wearing Saracens (townsfolk) was well understood. The Bedouins—contrary to their present reputation—were looked down upon as cowards in battle, and William of Tyre relates with some disgust that it was their custom to hang about on the outskirts of a fight until they saw which side was going to win and then to join the victors.[1376]

In commenting on the religion[1377] of the Saracens the medieval Christians made the fundamental error of supposing that Islam is an idolatrous cult and that Mohammed was worshipped as a god. Nevertheless they were far from inaccurate in their remarks on the various customs, habits, and minor beliefs of the Moslems, on such matters, for example, as the pilgrimage to Mecca, the prohibited eating of pork and drinking of wine, the importance of ablutions, polygamy, and the customs of divorce. William of Tyre describes[1378] the division of the Mohammedans into two great groups, Shiah and Sunni, and explains how the former held that Ali (“Haly”) was the only true prophet and the latter that Mohammed was the one messenger of God. Baghdad was referred to as the seat of the great “apostle” of the Saracens, or caliph, whom William of Tyre spoke of as a sovereign prince and chieftain whom all must obey; Cairo in Egypt was recognized as the capital of the caliphs of the rival Shiah persuasion.

Benjamin of Tudela also acquired some fairly clear ideas of Islam during his visits to Baghdad and to Egypt. He states that the Abbasid Caliph at Baghdad “is head of the Mohammedan religion, and all the kings of Islam obey him” and likens his position to that of the Christian Pope.[1379] In writing about Cairo he tells us that the subjects of the Emir were followers of Ali (hence Shiites), that they rose against the Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad, and that a lasting feud was kept up between the two factions.[1380]

Particular terror was inspired in the hearts of the Crusaders by that strange sect of Assassins,[1381] whose principal seat was at Alamut in Persia, the stronghold of the notorious Old Man of the Mountain, though most of the Crusaders mistakenly thought that the outlying fortress of Massiat in Syria was the abode of the Old Man. William of Tyre dilates[1382] on the treachery and murderous nature of this people; and in Ambroise’s _Estoire_ we find[1383] a vivid account of how the children of the Assassins were brought up to do the bidding of the Old Man in every detail and in particular to bring about the murder of his enemies.[1384]

_AFRICA_

EGYPT AS PART OF ASIA

Both the author of the _De imagine mundi_ and Gervase of Tilbury include an account of Egypt with their descriptions of the countries of Asia. They then take up the remainder of Asia and Europe before finally returning to Africa toward the close of the geographical parts of their books. This order of treatment, which accorded with classical traditions, usually included Egypt with Asia or at least, as in the _De imagine mundi_, made the Nile rather than the Red Sea the boundary between Asia and Africa.[1385] Certainly from an historical and cultural point of view Egypt has been more closely related to the Asiatic than to the African continent, even though geographically it forms a portion of the latter.[1386]

The description of Egypt in the _Otia imperialia_[1387] was copied in large part from the _De imagine mundi_,[1388] and this in turn had closely followed the words of Isidore.[1389] It ran somewhat as follows. Surrounded by the course of the Nile, which forms a letter _delta_,[1390] Lower Egypt comprises five thousand country estates; these are not watered by rainfall but by the floods of the river alone, for the skies of Egypt are never obscured by clouds. The capital of Egypt is Babylon (Cairo), built by Cambyses. Close to Thebes—a city founded by Cadmus, Agenor’s son and founder of Boeotian Thebes as well—are vast solitudes where there used to dwell a great company of hermits. The _De imagine mundi_ speaks of the island of Meroë and of Syene on the tropic in Upper Egypt, the latter famous for the well built there by the philosophers, into which the sun shines directly in the month of June.[1391] The Jerome map of Palestine also shows Egypt in considerable detail, one of the most important features being the lighthouse at Alexandria.[1392]

DESCRIPTIONS OF EGYPT

Egypt, like the Holy Land, was frequently visited by Western merchants throughout our entire period. Benjamin of Tudela testifies to the enormous trade carried on there with the West. Alexandria was the principal port whence the spices and luxuries of the Far East were transshipped to Europe. Benjamin spoke with high appreciation of the wide straight streets of the city and of the architectural beauty of its buildings. He was much impressed by the swarm of merchants from all over the world who congregated in its streets and markets.[1393] William of Tyre enlarged on the commercial importance of the great port and explained that the peppers, spices, ointments, drugs, lectuaries, precious stones, and silks of the Orient were brought first to Aden on the Red Sea and thence transported direct to Alexandria. He pointed out that Alexandria was also important as the meeting place of the river and maritime trades, and he gave a description of the local topography of the city.[1394] Merchants from various Occidental nations and city states of Italy had _fondachi_, or trading stations, in this cosmopolitan metropolis, which was, as Schaube says, more subjected to European influences than any other city of Islam.[1395] The Church endeavored to place severe restrictions on commerce with the infidel, in particular by the prohibition of the importation into Egypt of wood and iron, two materials of vital importance to the Saracens and much in demand. The restrictions, however, were disregarded, and trade flourished between Southern Europe and Egypt throughout nearly the entire twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, except for a short interruption at the time of the Third Crusade. In 1215–1216 there were said to be no fewer than three thousand Frankish merchants in Alexandria.[1396] Egypt was the objective of the Crusaders of the Fifth Crusade, who seized and held the city of Damietta from 1219 to 1221, and again under Louis IX of France, who held it from 1248 to 1249; but in the interval between these two Crusades the Emperor Frederick II was on friendly and even intimate terms with the sultans.[1397]

William of Tyre, who knew Egypt at first hand, gives a vivid picture of the fertile strip of country, hemmed in on either side by two deserts “in which the land is so burned and sterile that it supports no herb and no manner of tree, except where the river Nile waters the ground when it is in flood; in these parts alone a great abundance of wheat can grow.”[1398] He speaks of the flood of the Nile, between the months of June and September, and how it leaves a rich deposit of silt; of the palm gardens like a forest along the banks of the stream; and of the extensive orchards of fruit trees in the neighborhood of Alexandria.[1399] He also fully describes the caliph’s palace at Cairo and the Mamelukes, or sultan’s bodyguard, recruited from the children of captured enemies.[1400]

Benjamin of Tudela also marveled at the agricultural wealth of the flood plain of the Nile. The river alone, he said, irrigates and fertilizes the land, for “no rain falls, neither is ice or snow ever seen” (Adler’s translation). Among other curiosities he described the Nilometer, which measured the height of the flood waters, and he gave details regarding the agricultural crops and fruits. Benjamin quoted the correct explanation of the flood: “The Egyptians say that up the river, in the land of Al-Habash (Abyssinia), which is the land of Havilah, much rain descends at the time of the rising of the river, and this abundance of rain causes the river to rise and to cover the surface of the land” (Adler’s translation).[1401]

AFRICA WEST OF EGYPT

To the west of Egypt, according to the _De imagine mundi_, lies Africa, stretching from the Nile to the ocean. Here in order are the provinces of Libya, named from a queen of that name; Cyrenaica, called from the city of Cyrene; Pentapolis, from the five cities of Berenice, Arsinoë, Ptolemaïs, Apollonia, and Cyrene; Tripolis, from the three cities of Occasa, Berete, and Leptis Magna; Heusis, containing the site of Carthage; Getulia; Numidia, with Hippo, the home of St. Augustine; and Mauretania.[1402] The two Syrtes (Major and Minor), or shallow bays of the north coast of Africa, are shown on the Henry of Mayence map immediately to the west of Egypt.[1403] In the extreme west of Africa the _De imagine mundi_, with characteristic confusion, places Gades (Cadiz), from which the adjacent sea is called the Sea of Gades; and, on the borders of the ocean, Mount Atlas, a mountain of immense height, named after Atlas, once a king of Africa.[1404] These mountains also appear prominently on the St. Sever Beatus map as a long range running parallel to the Atlantic[1405] (see Fig. 2, p. 69, above). Other maps of the same group[1406] show two great peaks on the western coast of Africa, which seem to represent a confusion of the Atlas Mountains with the famous Pillars of Hercules. A legend on the St. Sever Beatus map in the neighborhood of Tangier (Tingi) draws attention to the fact that “this region produces monkeys and ostriches,”[1407] true certainly at the present day in regard to the former.

In the fourth and fifth decades of the twelfth century the Norman king of Sicily, Roger II, the patron of Edrisi, conquered many of the seaport towns along what is now the coast of Tunis; and, though the Latins were expelled from this region by the powerful Moroccan dynasty of the Almohads,[1408] who during the following decade came to supersede the Almoravids in the domination over North Africa and Spain, close commercial relations were maintained between the northern and southern coasts of the Mediterranean Sea throughout the century and a half with which we are concerned.[1409] The Genoese held the foremost place in the North African trade; but Pisan, Venetian, Massiliot, and Catalan merchants also frequented the markets of the seaboard towns. Under the Almohads, Ceuta and Bugia were important _entrepôts_ of Genoese trade; and when the Almohad dominions split up in the early years of the thirteenth century (1212–1238), these two towns fell into the hands of Genoa.[1410] Genoese fleets also ventured through the Strait of Gibraltar and not only tapped the commerce of the western coasts of the Iberian Peninsula but penetrated as far as Saleh on the Moroccan shore. Christians also found their way in various capacities into the interior of Maghreb, as the Moslems termed these western territories of Islam. During the Crusading epoch many Christians were taken captive in the wars in Spain and by pirates on the high seas; most of these were sold into slavery in the markets of the sea ports of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunis and sent to drag out lives of suffering in the towns of the interior. Towards the close of the twelfth century a Christian religious order was formed for the purpose of ameliorating the sufferings of the captives and of bringing about their redemption by exchange with Moslem captives held in Christendom.[1411] We have evidence that these “Redemptorists,” and the Franciscan and Dominican friars who were soon to follow them in the same work and who also served as ministers of the Christian religion to the European merchants engaged in business in Moslem countries, were not at all inhospitably received.[1412] Their work was facilitated by almost uniformly friendly relations between the papacy and the rulers of Morocco, and the number of Christians in this part of the world became so great by the fourth decade of the thirteenth century that an episcopal see was established in Fez (1233), subsequently to be removed to Morocco City.[1413] Another tie between Morocco and the Latin West was created by the maintenance at the court of the Almohads and their successors of a mercenary force composed for the most part of Spanish Christians from Catalonia and Aragon.[1414]

On certain of the Beatus maps a “sandy desert” is shown between Egypt, western Africa, and Ethiopia;[1415] and on the Psalter map it appears as a well-defined strip of territory labeled “sandy and sterile land.”[1416] This of course is no other than the Sahara,[1417] of which little or nothing was known, except that the Henry of Mayence map shows,[1418] far back in the desert, the Temple of Jupiter (Ammon), in the oasis of that name, known since antiquity, and the St. Sever Beatus map represents certain immense _salinae_, or salt pits (the two squares west of the Nile on Fig. 2, p. 69, above), said to wax and wane with the moon.[1419]

ETHIOPIA

South of Egypt and the Sahara lies Ethiopia. In the minds of medieval writers this name was not restricted to the region beyond Upper Egypt but was applied to the entire southern part of the known world, just as “India” sometimes was applied to the entire Far East. Indeed, from early classical times Ethiopia had itself been confused with India, and some of the writers whose works we are studying believed that the two regions were coterminous.

Nearly all the maps of the period carried the extremities of Ethiopia far to the east and minimized the size of the Red Sea and Indian Ocean in such a way as to bring Central Africa within no great distance of India. On the Jerome map of Palestine two tracts called “India Egyptii” and “India Ethiopie” were placed along the shores of the Red Sea opposite the mouths of the Indus.[1420] Gervase of Tilbury speaks of three peoples inhabiting Ethiopia: the Hesperi in the west, the Garamantes in the center, and the “Indians” in the east,[1421] and adds that there are one hundred and twenty provinces “from India into Ethiopia.”[1422] The _De imagine mundi_ places Saba, the city of the Queen of Sheba, in the easterly part of Ethiopia.[1423] It was conceded that Ethiopia is terribly hot on account of the proximity of the sun and that the soil there for the most part is dry and desert. Gervase speaks of the mighty Mount Climax of Ptolemy, Orosius, and other ancient writers in the midst of Ethiopia, a home of bearded women and similar marvels.

Some of the Beatus maps designate Ethiopia as a country “where there are races horrible on account of their strange faces and monstrous appearance. It extends as far as the borders of Egypt. It also abounds in wild beasts and serpents; and precious stones, cinnamon, and balsam are found there.”[1424] In fact, all remote parts of the world were made the habitats of marvels in the Middle Ages, and few parts of the known world were more remote than Ethiopia. In addition, the intimate connection between India and Ethiopia, which had persisted in the minds of men throughout so many ages, seems to have brought about a transference thither of many of those marvels and monsters that originally had been placed in the Far East. A most entertaining example of the peopling of Ethiopia by monstrous creatures is provided by the Psalter map and by the Ebstorf map of a period later than ours.[1425] On these the entire shore of the equatorial ocean along the southern border of the known world is lined with men that are tongueless, earless, noseless, or men that have four eyes or mouths and eyes on their breasts, and with cannibals, _cynocephali_, snake-eating troglodytes, and the like.

SOURCES OF THE NILE

The main interest in Ethiopia, however, lay in the fact that from this country comes that great river the problem of whose sources has puzzled mankind from the earliest ages down nearly to our own day. In classical times three theories had prevailed concerning the headwaters of the Nile.[1426] The correct theory, that of Eratosthenes and of Ptolemy, that the river rises in Ethiopia itself but far to the south, met with no recognition in our period. The second theory placed the sources in India and was closely allied with the very old belief that tended to confuse Ethiopia itself with India and can be traced back to Homeric or even pre-Homeric times.[1427] The third theory, which probably originated in vague rumors that reached the Carthaginians and later the Romans and still later the Moslems, of the eastward-flowing course of a great river south of the Sahara (a river which we now know to be the Niger), placed the headwaters of the Nile either in a great lake or else in the Atlas Mountains in western Africa close to the ocean.