Ancient boat found in Java

A seafaring ship dating back to the 6th or 7th century has been discovered in Central Java. The boat appears to use the classic lashed-lug construction commonly found in this region. This may have been a fishing boat and lead net connectors/sinkers were found along with the remains. The artifact will be left were it is guarded by a bamboo fence and a model made for museum display.
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Ancient boat reveals shipbuilding skills of Java’s seafarers

Suherdjoko , The Jakarta Post , Rembang, Central Java | Fri, 07/10/2009 11:49 AM | Java Brew

Historians have long wondered just how Indonesians in the 6th and 7th centuries built their boats. A recent archaeological discovery sheds some light on the mystery.

In July last year, an ancient boat, measuring 15.6 meters long and 4 meters wide was discovered in Punjulharjo village, Rembang district, in Rembang regency.

A team from the Yogyakarta Archaeology Center made a detailed study of the site, about 200 meters inland from the Java Sea coastline, from June 17 to 26 this year.

Ancient mariner: A member of the Yogyakarta Archaeology Team works on the site of a 1,200-year-old boat uncovered in Rembang, Central Java. (JP/Suherdjoko)

The boat, approximately 1,200 years old, was found buried near the Central Java northern coastline, with its bow lying to the west and its stern in the east. Head of Punjulharjo village Nursalim said eight local residents had stumbled across the ancient relic while making a pond.

“The land was originally planted with coconuts, followed by secondary crops,” he told The Jakarta Post. “But as the soil was not fertile enough, they decided to make a pond. That’s when they noticed the buried boat, its main part still in its whole form, as they dug deeper.”

According to the chairman of the Yogyakarta archaeology team, Novida Abbas, the ancient boat is the most complete ever found in Indonesia. “So far we have only got wooden planks and other separate pieces. The discovery in Rembang is 50 percent intact,” Novida said. “We can see the actual shape of the boat and its construction technology...

Read the whole article.


Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

Gavin Menzies' "1434: The Year a Magnificent..."

I'd like to touch on a few things from Gavin Menzies latest book, 1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance published in June, 2008. This is not meant to be a review of the book but mainly to focus on the "Eastern ambassador" and his connection with the voyages of Columbus and Magellan, something I have discussed previously.

While I have some fundamental disagreements with Menzies, again, he has done a service by bringing out things that rankle the herds of Eurocentric scholarship, who use double standards when playing the game of cultural-technological diffusion.

The origins of the Renaissance are complex, and I probably should steer away from this part of his book, but I can't resist making a few comments that will come later on.

On the important point of the Eastern ambassador, on which Menzies whole thesis lies, it is difficult to understand why he does not mention what should be considered the "official" account of this envoy. That is, the account of Poggio Bracciolini, the papal secretary at the time of the visit to Florence.

Now, Menzies claims that this ambassador came from China and was brought by a squadron from Zheng He's great treasure fleet.

Menzies source is a letter from Paolo Toscanelli to Christopher Columbus, a document whose authenticity has been disputed by some scholars. Having read all the arguments, I believe that Toscanelli's letter is authentic, but that still does not excuse Menzies from at least discussing Poggio's account.

The two documents differ in that Poggio describes the envoy as coming from a Nestorian Christian kingdom in "Upper India" located a few weeks journey from "Cathay," the old name for northern China. Toscanelli seems to think that this kingdom is linked with the 'Great Khan,' i.e. the old Mongol ruler of China.

At the time, the Mongols had already been replaced by the Ming Dynasty in China, and Toscanelli's confusion seems to center on the mention of Nestorian Christians. There existed old accounts, related to Prester John, that the Great Khan had become a Nestorian Christian. It seems that upon hearing about a far eastern Nestorian kingdom, Toscanelli connected the envoy's account with these old legends that equated the Great Khan with Prester John.

Now earlier I have mentioned that "Upper India" during this period generally meant Southeast Asia, although it was also used at times for South China. The mention of a Nestorian kingdom this far east is nothing but code for the old Prester John of the Indies.

In an earlier post, I discussed the letter of Ferdinand and Isabella given to Columbus with the space for the addressee left blank. This letter was meant for any Eastern potentate including Prester John and the Great Khan, that Columbus happened to encounter. The letter mentions the Spanish monarchs having heard reports from the East about a desire to learn about the Christian kingdoms of Europe.

Ferdinand and Isabella are certainly referring to the Eastern ambassador in Florence, who was the last envoy mentioned coming from the areas that Columbus was heading toward on his fateful journey. According to Menzies, this ambassador arrived in 1434, although it can also be argued that he came in 1441.

Rather than arriving with a Chinese squadron though it seems that the ambassador arrived with Nicolo di Conti along with the rest of the entourage of papal envoy Alberto de Sarteano.

One could hardly imagine that the Quatracento writers would have missed something as spectacular as the visit of a Chinese naval force composed of ships unlike anything seen in Europe of the time. Yet, the history of the period is silent about any such maritime event.


Prester John's envoy

According to Pero Tafur, Nicolo di Conti stayed under the protection of Prester John of the Indies during most of his time in the East. Di Conti himself mentions Nestorians near Cathay when interviewed by Poggio Bracciolini.

Tafur's account states that Prester John was interested in learning more about Europe -- mirroring the desire of the foreign potentates mentioned in Ferdinand and Isabella's letter. Furthermore, di Conti claimed, according to Tafur, that Prester John had sent envoys to the West, apparently on unsuccessful missions.

Therefore, when di Conti returned to Europe it would make sense that Prester John would send along an envoy with him i.e. Menzies' Eastern ambassador. This would tie in the Nestorians mentioned by di Conti to Poggio, and the Nestorian kingdom that the latter assigns to the Eastern ambassador. That Nestorian kingdom, of course, is the kingdom of Prester John!

Indeed, Pope Eugenius IV actually addresses a letter to this eastern king addressing him though as "Emperor Thomas of the Indians," since the Portuguese had earlier convinced the Vatican to address the Ethiopian emperor as "Emperor Prester John of Ethiopia."

Apparently the Eastern ambassador made enough of a friendly impression that when Columbus set sail on his epochal voyage, he headed directly toward the location he thought the kingdom was located, i.e., the East Indies. That Columbus was headed for the Indies is proven by his ultimate destination during his multiple voyages and by the name by which the new land became to be known.

The Spanish considered the Americas as part of the "Indias," from which the indigenous peoples became known as "Indios" (Indians).

"India" here meant the East Indies, the source of the spices like nutmeg and cloves and also, Columbus thought, the gold of biblical Ophir.

The admiral was heading, thus, to "Upper India," to the friendly Nestorian Christian kingdom of the Eastern ambassador, or so he thought. Magellan also was apparently seeking the same friendly contact for both men navigated toward the same latitudes that would have brought them to the "East Indies" i.e., modern insular Southeast Asia. For it was here apparently that the ambassador, and possibly also di Conti, had located the fabled kingdom in their accounts to Poggio (and the ambassador's account to Toscanelli).


Dawn of the Renaissance

Menzies claims that the Eastern ambassador brought with him "distinguished men of great learning,"and some important Chinese documents including the Nung Shu, an agricultural manual; a Chinese astronomical calendar and Chinese world maps. He asserts that the founders of the Renaissance copied directly from these works sparking a great awakening in art and learning.

Indeed, the explosion of humanism, art and invention that typically is associated with the Renaissance began at about the middle of the 15th century. There were, of course, some 'proto-Renaissance' developments earlier, but nothing that stood out so much from what was happening elsewhere.

So Menzies timing is not off. There may have been many factors that led to the Renaissance including the wealth and slave labor afforded by the Venetian and Genoan maritime trade networks. These factors allowed the elite of northern Italy more leisure time for intellectual and artistic pursuits - something that was supported also by the patronage of the House of Medici.

However, one could still ask why Tuscany and its center of Florence, the birth place of the Renaissance, rather than say Venice or Genoa? And why at that specific period in the mid-15th century?

Menzies suggests the Chinese works, but how likely is it that the Florentines had actual treatises like the Nung Shu? If they did, such a document would be a great artifact for study not only of its technical content, but of the Chinese language itself. We would expect that such documents would be mentioned, and illustrated, in Renaissance works.

One can admit that many new inventions spring up suddenly during this period and some of these are very similar, but usually not exactly similar to earlier Chinese inventions. But not all are related to Chinese technology. For example, one of Menzies' sources, Lynne White, suggests that the concept of the windmill actually derives from the Tibetan prayer wheel.

Both White and Menzies mention the many "Tartar" slaves, mostly young women, that were brought into northern Italy at the time by Genoan and Venetian merchants. One invention that Menzies mentions -- the piston and/or chain pump -- is specifically called a "Tartar" pump by writers of that time. Some scholars suggest that these Tartars came from the region between Tibet and China, and thus would have been exposed to technologies like the Tibetan prayer wheel.

So it appears that there were many streams of information flowing into Florence during the mid-15th century, but that much of these idea were probably flowing through word-of-mouth rather than via exchange of documents.

Could it be that the great foreign host brought to the Council of Florence by Sarteano, including probably di Conti and the Eastern ambassador, contributed in no small way to this influx of ideas?

If the Eastern ambassador was accompanied by "distinguished men of great learning" as suggested by the letter of Toscanelli, it appears that the information was transmitted orally, thus accounting for the inexactness in the relationship of the technologies in the widely-separated areas involved.

While many of these inventions could certainly have been developed in China, where there is much documentation, the ideas did not necessarily have to be transmitted by any particular ethnic group.

Interestingly, many of the new ideas mentioned by Menzies relate quite directly to the problem of maritime navigation. I have argued that the Eastern king, known in the West as "Prester John," had attempted for some time to encourage Europe to become involved in the maritime spice trade in order to counterbalance Muslim expansion. This included the possible transfer of sea charts like the ones mentioned by Marco Polo, who links them with the navigators of the "Sea of Chin" and the "Isles of India." These navigators told Polo of golden Cipango and the 7,000+ islands that existed in that eastern sea.

In a nutshell, I enjoyed Menzies book even if I disagreed with some key points. Great reading to get a new perspective on all the factors that contributed to the European Renaissance. However, one should follow up on any of the more controversial proposals made by the author.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References


Menzies, Gavin. 1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance. New York: William Morrow, 2008.

White, Lynn, Jr. " Tibet, India, and Malaya as Sources of Mediaeval Technology," American Historical Review, 54, 1960.

__. Medieval Technology and Social Change. Oxford. 1962

The Muslim Letters of Prester John

We have examined how Prester John sent letters to the Papacy and the Christian kingdoms of the West.

Equating Prester John with the historical king of Zabag known as the Mihraj, we have also seen how the latter king reached out to the kingdoms of Tibet, India and China, by sending gifts and supporting building projects abroad. Prester John, likewise, had proposed building projects in his message to Pope Alexander III.

The Mihraj was also in the habit of sending letters to the emperor of China, and the Sung Dynasty annals state that his kingdom used Chinese characters when sending such official correspondence. Two such letters are mentioned explicitely in the annals -- one in 1017 to the emperor and cast in "golden characters," and the other in 1080 from the king's daughter, in Chinese characters, addressed to the superintendent of trade. The latter however would not receive the letter but instead forwarded it to the emperor.

As discussed previously, in this author's opinion these overtures were part of the king's attraction policy that took on a special emphasis when Zabag's trade routes were infringed upon by expanding Muslim influence.

However, there may have been a time when the Mihraj also attempted to reach out to the Sunni Muslim juggernaut at the very beginning of the Umayyad Caliphate. S. Q. Fatimi has analyzed two letters from the "Mihraj" to the first Umayyad caliph Mu'awiyah in in 661 CE, and to the caliph Umar ibn abd al-Aziz (717-20). Fatimi marshals evidence to show that this king of "al-Hind" is, in fact, the ruler of Zabag. The very title "Mihraj" or "Mahraj" was used specifically in Muslim texts for the monarch of Zabag.

The first letter is recorded by al-Jahiz (783-869) in Kitab al-Hayawan. According to Jahiz, Abd al-Malik b. Umayr (822-3) saw the letter from the diwan (secretary) of Mu'awiyah and it was passed from him to Abu Ya'qub al-Thaqafi who relayed it to al-Haytham b. Adi, the source of al-Jahiz.

Unfortunately, Jahiz only records the greeting of the letter from the king of al-Hind "in whose stables are a thousand elephants, (and) whose palace is built of bright gold and silver, who is served by a thousand daughters of the kings, and who possesses two rivers, which irrigate aloes plants, to Mu'awiyah..."

The second letter is found in Al-Iqd al-Farid by Abd Rabbih (860-940) who gives as his source Nu'aym b. Hammad.

Nu'aym b. Hammad wrote: "the king of al-Hind sent, a letter to Umar b. Abd al-Aziz, which ran as follows: From the King of kings [Malik al-Amlak], who is the descendant of a thousand kings, in whose stables are a thousand elephants, and in whose territories are two rivers which irrigate plants of aloes, odoriferous herbs, nutmeg, and camphor, whose fragrance spreads the distance of twelve miles -- to the king of the Arabs, who does not associate other gods with God. I have sent to you a gift, which is not much of a gift but a greetings and I wish that you may send to me someone who might teach me Islam and instruct me in its Laws."

Similarities with Prester John's letter

Now we can immediately note some resemblances of these two letters with those sent centuries later by Prester John to the Christian emperors and kings.

First, there is the mention of the gift, which is not unusual in communication between kings. There is also the flowery, somewhat pompous, self-introduction of the king. In particular, the Mihraj uses the title "King of Kings" or Malik al-Amlak just as Prester John refers to himself as Rex Regnum "King of Kings." Both monarchs claim to have many elephants at their command, and there is also the mention from both the Mihraj and Prester John of a palace constructed with precious metals.

In Prester John's communication with Alexander III, he asks for instruction in the Catholic religion, and we see the same request, but this time with reference to Islam, in the second letter of the Mihraj.

Ibn Tighribirdi (1410-1470) gives another version of the second letter, on the authority of Ibn Asakir, in which he adds a sentence near the end: "I have sent you a present of musk, amber, incense and camphor, Please accept it, for I am your brother in Islam." This would suggest that the Mihraj had accepted Islam, and Fatimi suggests that the king may have converted, but that the religion was latter rejected by his descendants. Another possibility, of course, is that Ibn Tighribirdi's late account uses unreliable sources. In either case, there is no evidence that Islam was practiced widely in Zabag at any point in its history.

However, we do see that the Mihraj follows a similar pattern of open patronage of multiple religions that we have suggested earlier was part of a long-standing royal policy of Zabag.

With reference to the "two rivers" mentioned in the Mihraj's letter, we note again the suggestion that one title for the king of the isles dating from ancient times was "Lord of the River." Fatimi, who holds that Zabag should be equated with Srivijaya, thinks that rivers mentioned are the Batanghari in Jambi and the Musi in Palembang.

The two rivers, in my view, would represent the primary drainage courses for the two sacred mountains, Pinatubo and Arayat. The Pampanga River, although it has its source further north, passes very close to Arayat and right through the town called Arayat, and thus was associated with that mountain. The river of Pinatubo could have been the Guagua River, but also the Masantol river which joins the Pampanga River in Masantol, where I have suggested the Zabag emporium was located. Visitors and merchants would have entered into the emporium by sailing up the Pampanga River and registering at the royal palace at Malauli before preceding further upstream.

In the Mihraj's letters, he mentions the spices of his kingdom including nutmeg, which was found only in the islands around and including Maluku (the Moluccas) and Mindanao. Nutmeg along with clove buds, which was found only in Maluku region, were traded mainly along the "Clove Route," which lead to the northwest along what the Chinese called the "Eastern Ship Route." I have suggested that this trade route was controlled primarily by the Mihraj.

The letters of the Mihraj can be viewed as early examples of a tradition of correspondence used by the king of Zabag to accomplish geopolitical goals. The timing of the letter coincided with the accounts of the Sayabiga, the natives of Zabag that I have suggested acted as agents of the Mihraj in latter times. However, the course of history would suggest that a "friendly" outcome was not achieved, and the kingdom of Zabag would later have to pursue other courses of action.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Fatimi, SQ. "Two Letters from Maharaja to the Khalifah", Islamic Studies (Karachi), 2, 1 (1963), 121-40.

Rost, Reinhold. Miscellaneous Papers Relating to Indo-China. London: Trübner & Co, 1886, 188-91.

Apocalypse, Swan Knight and the Crusades

Turning a bit to more esoteric matters, the legend of the Swan Knight, it has been mentioned, was included in the genealogy of the famous leader of the First Crusade, Godfrey of Bouillon.

William of Tyre around the year 1170 was the first to mention this connection:

We pass over, intentionally, the fable of the Swan, although many people regard it as a fact, that from it he (Godfrey de Bouillon) had his origin, because this story seems destitute of truth.

From this quote we can surmise that the story of Godfrey's descent from the Swan Knight was already current and that there were "many people" who took it quite seriously; although William of Tyre was not one of them. The latter, who was archbishop of Tyre, was raised in Jerusalem when that city was co-ruled by Melisende, the daughter of Godfrey de Bouillon's cousin Baldwin II.

The legendary crusader histories, known as the Crusade Cycle, beginning shortly after William of Tyre wrote the statement above, appear to have been composed by those believers in the Swan Knight story.

Whether fictional or, at least party, based in truth, the Swan Knight origin of Godfrey de Bouillon can be shown to have links with the millenial thought that pervaded Europe in the period leading up to the First Crusade.


Apocalypse and the Crusades


There is some evidence that many people in Europe expected the apocalypse around the year 1000. The texts of Adso, Abbo and Glaber seem to indicate an increasing concern in this area in the lead up to the new millenium. Some believed the invasion of the Magyars heralded the beginning of the end-times.

When the year 1000 came and past, these millenarian feelings did not subside. These apprehensions were based as much on extra-biblical prophecies like the Sibylline oracles and Pseudo-Methodius, and their reworkings, as on the canonical works like Daniel or Revelations.

Pope Gregory VII in 1074 might be considered the first to, unsuccessfully, call for a crusade when he mentioned his plans to himself lead an expedition of 50,000 in liberating the Holy Sepulchre. It appears from Gregory VII's statements that he was casting himself as the Last Emperor mentioned in the Tiburtine Sibyl.

In 1086, Benzo, bishop of Alba, called on the emperor Henry IV to conquer Rome, Constantinople and Jerusalem, again mentioning the prophetic liberation of the Holy Sepulchre and reworking passages from the Cuman Sibyl into his message. In describing the Second Crusade, Otto of Freising quoted Sibylline works that mention the "pilgrim God" (peregrini Dei), and he describes the invading crusaders as "pilgrims" to the Holy Land.

H. Hagenmeyer's analysis of the Gesta Francorum, the anonymous chronicle of the First Crusade written by a member of Bohemund I of Antioch's expedition, gives an idea of the importance of the sibyls to crusader thought. Hagenmeyer found that the only written works referred to in the Gesta are the Bible and the "Sibylline prophecies."

Sibylline literature is known for its references to a savior "king from the east," a concept that I believe is important in both Godfrey's Swan Knight link and in the claims made in the letters of Prester John in the following century. Pseudo-Methodius, whose prophecies were also popular during this time, has his own version of the king from the east in Jonitus, the extra-biblical fourth son of Noah who settles in the "region of the Sun" (hiliu chora) to the East where we find the lands of Eden and Nod.

Pseudo-Methodius predicts one or two conquering Christian emperors in the last days. One will come from "the seed of Chuseth, the daughter of Phol, king of Ethiopia" arising as 'King of the Romans.' There is also a conquering king who descends, at least in collateral line, from Jonitus in the East. The prophecies do not clearly separate these two and that may be why latter writers wrote of two prominent Christian kings in the end-times. For example, Jacques de Vitry in the early part of the 13th century, wrote of a King of the West, who he equates with Frederick Barbarossa, and a King of the East, or Prester John, whom de Vitry identifies with the news trickling in of Genghis Khan's conquests.

We know from three prominent Benedictine historians of the period -- Guibert of Nogent, Baldric of Bourgueil and Robert the Monk -- that the crusades were viewed , in certain circles at least, as fulfillment of biblical prophecy. Another indication of the millenarian environment is the case of Count Emicho of Flonheim and leader of the "German Crusade" who claimed he was himself the Last Emperor who would lead his armies to the final battle.

The King of the East concept appears to be directly linked with Godfrey de Bouillon's descent from the Swan Knight in the Crusade Cycle and other medieval literature.


House of Bouillon and the Swan Knight

The three earliest versions of the story linking Godfrey de Bouillon with the Swan Knight are Dolopathos, Elioxe and Beatrix, generally dated between the last quarter of the 12th century and first half of the 13th century.

Dolopathos -- A king meets a fairy woman who claims to be queen of the forest. The two marry and produce seven children with golden chains around their neck. The sons become swans until all except one are changed back to humans. The brother that remains a swan pulls a knight, the Swan Knight, in a boat using his gold chain.

Elioxe -- King Lothair from 'beyond Hungary,' meets the fairy Elioxe who comes from inside a mountain. They have seven swan children including one who is said will become a "king of the orient," (un roi d'Orient). Again one brother remains a swan and pulls the boat of his Swan Knight brother.

King Oriant of Lillefort (Illefort) the "strong island," marries Beatrix and the rest of the story follows the same pattern with swan children, and the Swan Knight drawn in his boat by his swan brother. "Oriant" or "Oryant" is an archaic form of French "Orient," and this name has been linked by some with "un roi d'Orient" of Elioxe.

These early stories mention either a 'king of the east' or indicate a fairy kingdom, which might also be an indication of an eastern location. Elioxe places the scene vaguely "beyond Hungary." The late 13th century Lohengrin places the Swan Knight in India along with the Holy Grail.

From the 15th to 17th centuries, a series of works claiming earlier sources have the Swan Knight born in the terrestrial paradise, and founding the House of Cleves rather than that of Bouillon. In 1478 Gert van der Schuren, secretary of the first Duke of Cleves, says that the Swan Knight "comes from the earthly paradise, which some call the Grail." He claimed to have learned this from a lost 13th century work of Helinandus. Dutch historian John Veldenaer in 1480 also citing earlier sources says: "Some chronicles say that the Knight of the Swan came out of the ' Gral,' as the paradise on earth was earlier called."

In 1609, the tutor of the Duke of Cleves named Stephanus Vinandus Pighius claimed that: "Some ancient chronicles assert that this Helius came from a certain splendid earthly paradise called Grail and that he came in a boat."

The words gral, grail, graele, etc. in these accounts is thought to be the same "graal" first mentioned by Chretien i.e, the Holy Grail; and thus refers to the Grail Realm. In Parzival, Wolfram von Eschenbach writes:

Upon a silken cushion green
She bore the wish of paradise,
Root and branch before their eyes.
A thing it was they called the grail.
Earthly wishes' fullest tale...

The grail's a prize from Eden's shore,
Earthly pleasures' fullest store,
In much 'tis heaven's counterpart

The Swan Knight associated with the House of Cleves was not apparently the same one found in the legend of Godfrey de Bouillon as Pighius says that the knight arrives at Nimegen in 732. According to the legend, the Swan Knight is called forth on his mission by a bell located in the earthly paradise or in some mountain on his unknown home. Therefore, he is sent periodically over the ages to perform his calling, which seems linked with protecting the rights of women. In three cases, he defends the duchesses of Brabant and Cleves; and the countess of Bouillon -- all in the Low Countries that are today known as Benelux -- from marauding dukes intent on forcibly taking their inheritance.

Pighius, Hermann Stangefol (1656) and other later writers tended to dismiss the wondrous tales of an earthly paradise and gave other explanations, for example, that the Swan Knight came from a monastery called Paradise in Thurgau.

However, in the earlier accounts the concept of the terrestrial paradise places it squarely at the furthest East in the Indies. Even Parzival's Wasteland, the realm of the Grail, while appearing to refer to Jerusalem in part, also by analogy, points to the eastern paradise and it was there that Lohengrin, his Swan Knight, was born.



The Ebstorf Map (1234) of Gervase of Tilbury is a traditional "flat earth" type of map showing the world in the form of the Corpus Domini. Notice the head of Christ at the top of the map, which signifies the East, near Paradise; with the feet at the bottom, or West; and the hands in the directions North and South, or right and left respectively. Click on image for full scalable version.



Close-up showing Christ's head signifying the East, to the left of which is the Terrestrial Paradise in an inset with Adam, Eve, the Tree of Knowledge and the Serpent. Notice the word "India" below this depiction of the Garden of Eden near the right-hand corner.



Gervais crammed all the legendary places of the East and the Indies found in the Alexandrine and other romances in his mappa mundi. Click on image for full version detailing certain locations and peoples including Chryse, the Cynocephali, the Kingdom of Women and the Tomb of St. Thomas.


Now the Crusade Cycle generally has the Swan Knight coming in his boat to Nijmegen (Nymegen) or Mainz, drawn by a swan, to rescue the lady of Bouillon from the Duke of Saxony. Their daughter becomes the mother, so they say, of Godfrey of Bouillon.

We find the story of a child, Sceaf, coming on a rudderless boat to Scandea (Scandinavia) in Beowulf and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle both of the 8th century. Here it appears to be borrowed partly from Pseudo-Methodius as Sceaf is called, like Jonitus, the fourth son of Noah in the Anglo-Saxon genealogies and regnal lists. The European writers further made Sceaf the ark-born son of Noah from which idea apparently was derived the Swan Knight's boat.

Jonitus was closely associated in medieval Europe with Paradise, living himself in Nod to the east of Eden; and credited with having brought the seeds, fruit or branches of the Tree of Paradise from which was planted the tree used to make the cross of Christ.

Again, it was one of the lineage of Jonitus who would come in the end-times to conquer the Saracens and Jerusalem heralding the Second Coming. In Gerbert de Montreuil's continuation of Chretien's Conte du Graal written around 1226-30, Perceval is told in a vision that he will have a son from whose seed will descend the Swan Knight, who will in turn liberate Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre. Here again we find the Tiburtine Sibyl's prophecy of the Last Emperor who regains the tomb of Christ.

Whether fiction or (partly) truth, giving Godfrey the leader of the First Crusade a descent from the Swan Knight was to link him, at least through analogy, with Sibylline prophecies of the "king from the East," and with those of Pseudo-Methodius by suggesting lineage from Jonitus.

Swan Knight tales are centered in the multi-lingual areas of French Walloon, Flemish and Dutch speakers -- now known as Benelux -- and a bit southward into the German-speaking area of Mainz. Across northern France was the locus of fairy-related tales in Brittany and Anjou, also multi-lingual. This whole region between and including Brittany and the Netherlands contributed most of the participants in the First Crusade.

Interesting from an esoteric standpoint were the stories of the marriages of the Swan Knight and the Melusine, the female fairy type, with "humans." In the case of the Melusine, her husband was instructed never to look at her while she bathed. Inevitably the curious husband would succumb to curiosity discovering his wife's serpent form. The Swan Knight had the condition that his wife should never ask his true name or origin. Again, the wife would eventually break the agreement upon which the Swan Knight would take his leave on a swan-pulled boat headed for regions unknown.

In each case, there was a need to keep the real identity, the fairy identity, secret. Interesting also is the swan or bird identity of the male fairy, while the female fairy is serpentine -- a pattern that we have discussed here before.


The case of Prester John

In the century that followed the First Crusade, we find also that Prester John apparently makes claims in his famed letters based on the same concept of the millenarian "king from the east."

There have been attempts to analyze the internal evidence provided by the Prester John letters, one of the best undertaken by Vsevolod Slessarev.

Slessarev surmised, primarily due to the negative comments made against the Byzantine emperor, that the author of the letter to Manuel must have been a forgery by a Western Christian author. However, as noted by Sabine Baring-Gould, the slights against Rome appear even more intense in the same letter. Indeed, the eastern king says that one of his descendents would conquer Rome and all the Western Christian kingdoms!

In the letter addressed to the "Emperor of Rome" (Frederick Barbarossa) and the "King of France," Prester John only mentions his promise to retake the Holy Sepulchre and "all the Promised Land."

Nowhere does Prester John claim to be a member of, or the desire to be a member of, the Byzantine or Roman churches. Indeed, the importance given to St. Thomas and the titles of church officials attached to his kingdom give, as Baring-Gould notes, a solid indication of Nestorian bias. And in the message given by Hugh of Gabala earlier in the century, Prester John is expressely described as a Nestorian king.

The insults to Byzantine and Western Christian kingdoms make it unlikely also that the letters were sent by anyone living in those kingdoms. Yet, the knowledge of the political intrigues of Jerusalem, including those involving the Templars, hint that the letters were at least informed by someone living close to but not in the crusader kingdoms.

One manuscript of the letter to Emperor Manuel contains a note indicating it was translated from Greek into Latin by Archbishop Christian of Mainz. Versions of this letter do contain Greco-Latin forms such as "Romeon" instead of "Romanorum." Another manuscript claims to be translated into Latin from Arabic. Quite probably, the letters mentioned by Albericus in the Chronicon were in different languages -- the one to Emperor Manuel in Greek and that to Emperor Frederick in Latin -- for example.

There would have been little difficulty in obtaining translators for these letters. Many learned Arabs were very familiar with Greek, having helped preserved the ancient Greek corpus, and some were also versed in Latin. Aspects of the Alexandrine romantic literature, which pervade the Prester John letters, would have been widely familiar to scholars in the Muslim world.

As to the claim of forgery, we can note again as earlier in this blog that both letters mentioned here give indications of a previous meeting of envoys, who may also have aided in the composition of the letters between the monarchs.

In the letter to Manuel, we read:

Receive the dignity of our hierarch in our name and use it for they own sake, because we gladly use your vase of oil, in order that we mutually strengthen and corroborate our virtue.

Also according to Albericus:

Our Majesty has been informed that you hold our Excellency in love, and that the report of our greatness has reached you. Moreover we have heard through our treasurer that you have been pleased to send to us some objects of art and interest, that our Exaltedness might be gratified thereby.

Being human, I receive it in good part, and we have ordered our treasurer to send you some of our articles in return.

And in the letter to Frederick and Louie VII, Prester John states:

We beg you to keep in mind the holy pilgrimage, and may it take place soon, and may you be brave and of great courage, and pray, do not forget to put to death those treacherous Templars and pagans and, please, send us an answer with the envoy who brought the presents.

These statements indicate that envoys had been working behind the scenes and also suggest a previous exchange of gifts. Similar contact between envoys in found in Pope Alexander III's letter to Prester John. Obviously had such contact not taken place, the letters would be immediately revealed as fraudulent. Thus, a consistent tradition would indicate that such diplomatic contacts had taken place during the events recorded by Albericus starting in 1165. There must have been reasonable cause for the Pope, emperors and other kings to whom the letters were sent to have believed in their validity and in the integrity of the envoys. In addition, they must have had some reason to believe in the possibility of the self-described "Prester John" to fulfill some of the promises he offered in the correspondence.

However, the reason for mentioning these letters here is that both give indications that Prester John was appealing to the same millenarian yearnings that helped fuel the crusades, and which were likely linked with the Swan Knight legend.

In the letter to Frederick Barbarossa and Louis VII, Prester John promises to liberate the Holy Sepulchre and capture the entire Christian Holy Land -- a link with Sibylline prophecy. Furthermore he states that his own success was prophesied to his father:

Know that I had been blessed before I was born, for God sent an angel to my father who told him to build a palace full of God's grace and a chamber of paradise for the child to come, who was to be the greatest king on earth and to live for a long time.

The letter to Manuel also gives apocalyptic utterances:

These accursed fifteen nations will burst forth from the four quarters of the earth at the end of the world, in the times of Antichrist, and overrun all the abodes of the Saints as well as the great city Rome, which, by the way, we are prepared to give to our son who will be born, along with all Italy, Germany, the two Gauls, Britain and Scotland. We shall also give him Spain and all the land as far as the icy sea. The nations to which I have alluded, according to the words of the prophet, shall not stand in the judgment, on account of their offensive practices, but will be consumed to ashes by a fire which will fall on them from heaven.

Prester John was in effect claiming to be the promised "king from the east" of the pre-crusade prophecies.

As an aside it is worth mentioning that Prester John apparently had also requested Alexander III for permission to build a church in Rome and an altar in Jerusalem. Previously we have noted that the king of Zabag had engaged, as part of his policy of attraction, in building projects in India and China. Edrisi, writing around 1154, states that the king of Zabag was still actively trading along the African coast at that time. However, we hear nothing of the envoy sent by Alexander III to Prester John. Maybe this is not too surprising as Chinese annals record that the last envoys sent from this kingdom came in the year 1178, only a year after Alexander III's envoy was dispatched. The eastern king was named in transliterated Chinese characters Si-li-ma-ha-la-sha.

After the 1178 embassy, no more is heard of the kingdom during the remainder of the Sung dynasty or in the Yuan dynasty that followed.


Swan Knight as sleeping hero

In most versions of the Swan Knight tale, the hero comes sleeping on a boat from his mysterious homeland.

In the Wartburgkrieg written in the first half of the 13th century, we read:

How Arthur lives within the mount and many heroes bold,
Hundreds she to me did name;
With him from Britain's isle they came,
Nor may their names to any churl be told.

And Arthur too has sent forth knights
To Christendom since he departed mortal sight.
Hear how these a tocsin calls

Many thousand miles away,
Wherefrom a noble count hath lost his life in fray;
Hear how pride hath made him false,

Hear too the tale about this bell: all of Arthur's singers
Must leave their art and cease to sing,
For in their ears the bell doth ring,
Whence in the court no trace of pleasure lingers.

The Sibyl's child, Felicia,
With Arthur there both she and Juno are,
That from Saint Brandan's lips I know full well. Nor yet does Klinsor this explain,
Who is the knight whom Arthur has sent out again,
And neither does he say who 'tis who rings the bell. . . .

Canst thou to us in song explain
How Loherangrin by Arthur was sent forth again?"

Here King Arthur lives within a far-off hollow mountain together with Loherangrin, the Swan Knight, and other notables -- the Roman goddess Juno; Felicia, daughter of the Sibyl; and St. Brandon, who sailed east from Ireland to the "Island of Paradise" also called the "Promised Land of the Saints" never to be heard from again. This is the mountain of the "sleeping heroes" that appears so often in later medieval works.

Arthur probably first appears in a subterranean realm in Etienne's Draco Normannicus (1167-9) were he is described as 'King of the Underworld' in the far-off Antipodes. This is Avalon, or as called in Tristan, 'Avelun, the fairy land.'

Gervais of Tilbury and Caesarius of Heisterbach, both writing in the same period as the Wartburgkrieg also mention the underground realm of Arthur. However, rather than place the Arthurian underworld in the Garden of Eden, they rather place it in or on Mt. Aetna in Silicy, the entrance to Hell in some medieval traditions. Caesarius writes:

At the time when Emperor Henry had subjugated Sicily there was in the bishopric of Palermo a certain deacon who was, I think, a German. When one day he lost his best palfrey he sent his servant to look for it in various places. The servant met an old man who said to him: ' Where are you going and what are you looking for?' When the servant replied that he was hunting for his master's horse the old man rejoined that he knew where it was. ' And where?' asked the servant. ' In Mount Gyber [Aetna],' was the reply: ' there my lord King Arthur has it, and this mountain spits forth fire like Vesuvius.' To the astonished servant he said further, ' Tell your master that he come here in forty days to the court of King Arthur. If you neglect to tell him you will be heavily punished.' The servant went back and tremblingly told his master what he had heard. When the deacon heard he had been invited to the court of Arthur he laughed, but on the day set he was stricken and died. These things Godescalcus, canon of Bonn, told us, and said that they happened in recent times.

In this description, the domain of Arthur is described in volcanic terms as it "spits forth fire like Vesuvius."


Joe and the Volcano

The idea that the grail paradise of the Swan Knight was volcanic may also be seen in a latter tradition that equates this mountain home with the Venusberg of Tannhauser fame.

The Saxon Chronicle of Caspar Abel discovered in 1732 but dated to the 15th century says of Lohengrin "that he came from that mountain where Venus is in the grail." This hollow mountain of Venus is likened to hell and the fires of Vesuvius in the Tannhauser literature.

We can venture to the land of Prester John during medieval times for signs of active volcanoes near the area where most medieval geographers placed the Terrestrial Paradise.

In the mid-ninth century, we read in the Akbar al-Sin wa'l Hind: "...near Zabaj is a mountain called the Mountain of Fire, which it is not possible to approach. Smoke escapes from it by day and a flame by night, and from its foot comes forth a spring of cold fresh water and a spring of hot water."

Al-Mas'udi, writing about a century later, says:

There is no volcano on earth which makes a greater noise, nor any the smoke of which is more black, or the flames more copious, than that which is in the kingdom of the Maharaj [Zabag].

He further describes this volcano:

From these mountains issues fire, by day and night. By day it has a dark appearance, and at night it shines red. It rises to such a height, that it reaches the regions of the heaven (i.e. it ascends above the atmosphere). The explosion is accompanied with a noise like the loudest thunder. Sometimes a strange sound proceeds from these volcanos, which is indicative that their king will die; and, if the sound is lower, it foretells the death of one of their chiefs. They know the meaning of these sounds, by long habit and experience. This is one of the great chimneys (craters) of the earth. At no great distance is another island, from which, constantly, the sound of drums, lutes, fifes, and other musical instruments, and the noise of dancing, and various amusements, are heard. Sailors, who have passed this place, believe that the Dajjal (Antichrist) occupies this island.

Prester John's letters mention a river of stones and sea of sand that can also be interpreted as representing volcanic activity:

"Three days' journey from this sea are mountains from which rolls down a stony, waterless river, which opens into the sandy sea. As soon as the stream reaches the sea, its stones vanish in it, and are never seen again....In our territory is a certain waterless sea consisting of tumbling billows of sand never at rest. None have crossed this sea -- it lacks water all together, yet fish of various kinds are cast up upon the beach, very tasty, and the like are nowhere else to be seen."

The river of stones is part of a quite unusual reference to the Sambatyon River that sequestered the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel. The references to the Sambatyon in Jewish literature appear to describe volcanic events. We also find in Prester John's letter to Emperor Manuel, mention of the salamander and the fire-proof cloth that it was supposed to spin:

In one of our lands, hight Zone, are worms called in our tongue Salamanders. These worms can only live in fire, and they build cocoons like silkworms, which are unwound by the ladies of our palace, and spun into cloth and dresses, which are worn by our Exaltedness. These dresses in order to be cleaned and washed are cast into flames.

Similar tales are told in Chinese works at least by 520 CE in the Liang Si Gong Zhi where we hear of the "Island of Fire" and "Burning Mountain" located near Fusang, the Cynocephali and the Kingdom of Women. These latter kingdoms are linked to very much the same region that is later known as Sanfotsi and Toupo i.e, the lands of Zabag and Wakwak, although the Liang Si Gong Zhi gives exaggerated distances between these lands.

Upon the summit of the mountain Yen- kuen [Burning Mountain] there live fire rats (ho-shu), the hair of which serves also for the fabrication of an incombustible stuff, which is cleansed by fire instead of by water.

Berthold Laufer thought the material described was not asbestos, as sometimes suggested, but instead a type of barkcloth made of "a certain wood, which, laid in the fire, burns, sparkles, and flames, yet consumes not, and yet a man may rub it to powder betwixt his fingers."

He quotes the Liang annals contemporary with the previous source: "On Volcano Island there are trees which grow in the fire. The people in the vicinity of the island peel off the bark, and spin and weave it into cloth hardly a few feet in length. This they work into kerchiefs, which do not differ in appearance from textiles made of palm and hemp fibres...".

Curiously, Sung Dynasty writings do not mention the volcanic eruptions given for the 100-year period between the 9th and 10th centuries found in Muslim works. Ma Tuan-lin does mention volcanic islands in the region concerned, but he appears to be copying much earlier works.

If we take that this volcano mentioned is Pinatubo, the documented eruptions are either too early or too late to match the related time period. However, J.C. Gaillard has noted that wood samples dating from 1670-1802 bp related to the filling of the paleo-shoreline of the Pampanga Bay may indicate an undocumented eruption phase. A vast area of the Pampanga Bay was filled with sediment, and Gaillard rightly notes that this likely did not happen after the last pre-Pinatubo eruption known as the Buag phase (800-500 bp), since Spanish chronicles make no mention of the phenomenon.

The wood sample dated at 1670 bp (WW-4685) would put the event very close to the eruptive activity indicated in the Liang Dynasty records. And there is evidence that the sedimentation mostly ended by 1000 bp when sea levels reached their present state. We could then postulate that instead of one massive explosive eruption, there was a long eruptive phase likely consisting of periodic eruptions that gradually filled in the Pampanga Bay between 1800 bp and 1000 bp.

Such eruptive activity and filling in of the Pampanga Bay could account for the river of stones and the sea of sand mentioned in Prester John's letter that would have been written about a century after the shoreline stabilized. However, either some minor activity may have continued or else the long history of volcanic eruption had worked its way into local tradition.

Additionally we find that both Prester John's letter and the Chinese notices of Sanfotsi (Zabag) contain references to subterranean regions.

From Prester John:

Near the wilderness trickles between barren mountains a subterranean rill, which can only by chance be reached, for only occasionally the earth gapes, and he who would descend must do it with precipitation, ere the earth closes again.

And from Zhao Rugua's description of Sanfotsi:

There is an old tradition that the ground in this country once suddenly gaped open and out of the cavern came many myriads of cattle, which rushed off in herds into the mountains, though the people all tried to get them for food. Afterwards the crevice got stopped up with bamboo and trees and disappeared.

We can see then a good match between the volcanic, underworld paradise of the Swan Knight and Arthur, and the historical eastern kingdoms of Zabag-Sanfotsi; and I would also suggest the kingdom of Prester John.

Here we have the same region where Iranian legend places Kangdez the hollow mountain fortress of sleeping heroes waiting for the apocalypse, and the Sea of Milk where Visnu's sleeping avatars await the end of the old era before awakening.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Baring-Gould, S. Curious Myths of the Middle Ages. London: Rivingtons, 1867.

Collins, John Joseph. The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature. The biblical resource series. Grand Rapids, Mich: William B. Eerdmans, 1998.

Frassetto, Michael. The Year 1000: Religious and Social Response to the Turning of the First Millennium. New York: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2002.

Gaillard, J.C. "Mt Pinatubo and the Kapampangan region before 1991," IN: K-list: Kapampangan List, 2005, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/k-list/message/11263.

Gaillard, J.C., F.G. Delfin, Jr., E.Z. Dizon, J.A. Larkin, V.J. Paz, E.G. Ramos, C.T. Remotigue, K.S. Rodolfo, F.P. Siringan, J.L.A. Soria, J.V. Umbal. "Anthropogenic dimension of the eruption of Mount Pinatubo, Philippines, between 800 and 500 years BP," L’anthropologie. 102(2), 2005: 249-266.

Laufer, Berthold. "Asbestos and Salamander: An Essay in Chinese and Hellenistic Folklore," T'oung-pao XVI, 1915, 299-373.

Myers, Geoffrey M., Emanuel J. Mickel, and Jan Nelson. La Naissance Du Chevalier Au Cygne. The Old French Crusade cycle, v. 1. University: University of Alabama Press, 1977.

Schein, Sylvia. Gateway to the Heavenly City: Crusader Jerusalem and the Catholic West (1099-1187). Church, faith, and culture in the medieval West. Aldershot, Hants, England: Ashgate, 2005.

Schwartz, Hillel. Century's End: A Cultural History of the Fin De Siècle--from the 990s Through the 1990s. New York: Doubleday, 1990.

Slessarev, Vsevolod. Prester John; The Letter and the Legend. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1959.

Soria, J., Siringan, F., Parreno, P. "Compaction rates and paleo-sea levels along the delta complex north of Manila Bay, Luzon Island, Philippines," Science Diliman, North America, 17, jun. 2007. Available at: http://journals.upd.edu.ph/index.php/sciencediliman/article/view/63/14. Date accessed: 09 May. 2009.

Rice types in Europe

In relation to the last posting, I'm still doing research on this topic but would like to introduce it at this time.

The type of rice grown in Europe since medieval times -- like the paella of Valencia and the arborio of the Po Valley in Italy -- are of the Japonica variety. Rice agriculture in Spain as previously mentioned began possibly as early as the 8th century and definitely existed already by the 10th century. Rice was introduced into Italy probably in the 15th century or earlier, possibly from Spain.

Although I know of no studies yet that have investigated the types of rice used in medieval Europe, the general type can be ascertained by rice dishes traditional in the areas involved. Paella, which comes from the Moorish word for "leftover" was a dish made by mixing rice with other leftover foods, and thus dates from Muslim times. It always involved sticky, short to medium grain rice i.e., Japonica types. In the same sense, risotto also involves a short to medium grain sticky rice that has the ability to absorb liquid and release starch into the dish, a quality not found with long grain varieties.


Risotto (via Wikipedia)

In Egypt, while both Indica and Japonica varieties are now raised, the evidence points to Japonica as the older type.

Also, we can surmise by the practices used from the Shatt al-Arab to Valencia since medieval times that the rice varieties had to be planted entirely in wet fields -- something that is a requirement for Japonica but not Indica.

Regards.
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento