Sandalwood was a trade item of considerable value in antiquity. Chau Ju-Kua (Zhao Rugua) stated concerning yellow (or "white") sandalwood (Santalum album) in the 12th century that "in burning it surpasses all other incenses."
In China and India, and generally among Buddhists and Hindus, sandalwood was prized as an aromatic, for carving, and as a medicine. The wood has been an important material for sacred sculpture among Buddhists and continues to be an important component of incense throughout East and South Asia.
Yellow Sandalwood
Santalum album was the primary sandalwood used in the ancient and medieval trade and was known as yellow or white sandalwood. The species is native from eastern Java to eastern Indonesia and was particularly abundant, in former times, in the islands of Timor and Sumba.
Timor appears to have been the main source of sandalwood prior to European colonization. Pigafetta exaggerated when he said "nowhere else is white sandalwood found" speaking about the island of Timor. De Orta stated that yellow sandalwood grew in Timor "where it is in greatest quantity and called chandam and is known by that name in all the lands around Malacca."
There is some confusion over whether Santalum album is native to South India. Early in the 20th century, C.E.C. Fisher, after studying the distribution and historical diffusion of the species, suggested that sandalwood was introduced into India during the pre-Christian era, and that it had to be reintroduced periodically. Fisher noted that yellow sandalwood in South India grew almost exclusively around villages or abandoned village sites. In other words, the sandalwood trees did not appear to grow in the wild.
Early Europeans like Duarte Barbosa, Cesar Fedrici, Ralph Fitch and Jan Huyghen van Linschoten, writing from the early to late 16th century, all agreed that Santalum album while in great demand in India, was generally shipped in from Timor. Barbosa, Fedrici and Rheede's Hortus Indicus Malabaricus all expressly suggest that yellow sandalwood did not grow in India.
Although yellow/white sandalwood is mentioned in both India and China in ancient times, the mention of Timor occurs only during the Sung Dynasty when it was called Ti-wu. Later in Ming times, Timor is known mostly as Ti-wen. This has brought up the question as to whether the ancient yellow sandalwood actually referred to some other wood like fragrant red sandalwood (Pterocarpus santalinus). However, the general lack of any literary evidence suggesting a medieval replacement of the ancient product; the description of yellow sandalwood and its unique properties, and the hoary differentiation of different types of sandalwood support the common view that Santalum album was traded in antiquity.
Medieval trade routes
As mentioned previously, including in the last blog post, Sanfotsi (Sanfoqi) had established something of a monopoly in sandalwood during at least some period of the Sung Dynasty.
However, a number of countries are listed in Sung sources as entrepots, possibly secondary to Sanfotsi, including Fo-lo-an and Tan-tan, both apparently located somewhere on mainland Southeast Asia.
Timor itself according to Sung sources was a dependency of Toupo, so Sanfotsi seems to have mainly acted as an entrepot for countries beyond this region. In Yuan times, both Sanfotsi and Toupo apparently disappear. At that time, Mindanao may have taken over the trade as successor to Toupo if we accept such an identification for the Yuan Dynasty country known as Min-to-lang.
Mindanao, possibly the Maranao and Cotabato nations, Butuan and Sulu were perfectly positioned to trade with areas like Maluku for cloves, nutmeg and mace; and with Timor for sandalwood. In latter times, they appear to have been middlemen for these southern areas in the trade with the northern entrepot of Luzon. From Luzon, these products reached the rest of Asia. This also seems to be the case during the Sung Dynasty with Toupo transferring the southern aromatics to the Sanfotsi entrepot.
During Spanish times, Luzon continued to act as an important sandalwood trading post, but with Santalum album going extinct in Timor, Pacific sandalwood species, particularly from Fiji, came into play in the Manila marketplace.
Sandalwood, princesses and goddesses
Sandalwood has an interesting connection with two goddesses -- Kuan-yin and Tara -- the two deities thought by many scholars to have a common origin.
Both Kuan-yin and Tara are viewed as emanations, forms, or as the female aspects of the god (Bodhisattva) Avalokitesvara by Buddhists. Both goddesses are seen as protectors of seafarers against harm from the ocean. Both have strong Tantric links, and both are specifically connected with stories of their origin in Southeast Asia.
Tara, and to a lesser extent, Kuan-yin are often placed in the island of Potala in the "Southern Ocean." On this island is said to be a famed sandalwood forest. In Tibetan tradition, the goddess is particularly associated with this forest in the form "Tara of the Sandalwood Forest."
There was also a Sandalwood Forest located in or south of Shambhala in Tibetan Buddhist texts, so there may be some conflation or confusion between the locations of Potala and Shambhala.
In the medieval Sadhanamala and the 6th-7th century Astanga Samgraha, a Tantric adept known as Nagarjuna, possibly referring to the great Mahayana philosopher of the same name, is said to have brought Tara and the alchemical mineral mercury from across the sea into India. This Tara, or rather worship of Tara, is known as Mahacina-tara, "Tara from Mahacina."
While the location of Mahacina may have been confused and used differently at times, I have noted earlier in this blog that the evidence points to its primary and most common usage was to describe and area extending through and including Tibet and mainland Southeast Asia. One Tara myth found in Hindu Tantrism claims that the goddess arises from the Milky Ocean -- when that sea was churned by the Gods and Demons. This Milky Ocean was also viewed geographically as far to the east of India. In the Ramayana, when the Varanas search for Sita in the eastern regions they travel through the Milky Ocean and related areas like the Golden Isle.
Likewise, Kuan-yin in her early form is known as Kuan-yin-Nan-hai or "Kuan-yin of the South Seas," a reference to the region of Southeast Asia.
There is even a story that Kuan-yin originated from an actual Buddhist princess that lived in a kingdom south of China called Hsing Lin. The text containing this story dates to the mid-12th century and is derived from materials about 150 years older. The story, however, is said in the text to take place during the time of the 7th century BCE monk Tao-hsüan.
The southern kingdom, according to this account, was said to stretch from India in the West to Fo-ts'i (佛齊)in the East. It was at Fo-ts'i that the princess known as Miao Shan, and also as "South Seas Kuan-yin" and "Kuan-yin with the Horse Head" was born.
The land known as Fo-ts'i 佛齊 may be a shortened reference to what later is known as San-fo-ts'i or 三佛齊.
Sanfotsi, as noted, was an important country in the sandalwood trade. One of the empire's dependencies known as Fo-lo-an was also described as a sandalwood entrepot. Now the Miao Shan story states that the princess became a staunch Buddhist, but had a falling out with her father, the king. She was said to have taken refuge at a Buddhist monastery, which in the Chinese story is located in China.
However, there is some evidence that this location may have been in Fo-lo-an, thus explaining the connection with the Southern Seas (Nan-hai).
According to Chau Ju-Kua, the Sanfotsi princes made a journey to offer incense to a "Holy Buddha" in Fo-lo-an during the Full Moon of the 6th month. The Ming encyclopedia known as the San-tsai Tu-hui describes this "Buddha" instead as two copper goddesses whose birthday was celebrated again on the 15th day of the 6th moon. This same day of the 6th month was said by Chau Ju-kua to be a good day for return voyages to China from places like Fo-lo-an and Poni, i.e., the summer monsoonal winds blew ships toward the north. The goddesses are mentioned as protecting Fo-lo-an from threats, i.e., pirates, that come from the sea.
Now in some locations of China, Kuan-yin's festival was held on the 19th day of the 6th month, so quite close to the date mentioned by Chau Ju-kua and the San-tsai Tu-hui. Also, in some locations of Tibet, like Kham, during the summer retreat known as Yarney that begins on the 15th day of the 6th month, people worship and thank Tara by making the Four Mandala Offering. According to Nagarjuna, "in the sixth month one consorts with the divine women of the gods."
Tara images
The text of the San-tsai Tu-hui also contains two engravings that are said to resemble the form of "Kuan-yin with the Horse's Head." The images have three heads with the horse head placed on a triple crown. De Groot also noted that the goddess figures matched that of Mat-tsu-po, a form of Miao Shan.
Chau Ju-Kua mentions two Buddhas that came flying in to Fo-lo-an, one with four arms and one with six arms. The form of Kuan-yin addressed here is known in two principal forms, four-armed and six-armed, so we can say with some certainity that these goddesses of Fo-lo-an were representations of Kuan-yin/Tara.
Fo-lo-an is mentioned as belonging to the Western Ship Route along with Annam and Cambodia. This would seem to indicate the Upper Coast of Indochina, a noted source of cinnabar and mercury, but other notices may suggest a location further down the coast possibly in modern day Malaysia or Thailand.
If we take the story of the princess as historical, then it would appear that a Fo-ts'i, i.e., Sanfotsi princess went to Fo-lo-an to practice Buddhism in a monastery. The latter country was a sandalwood trading partner with Fo-ts'i. Latter on after the death of the princess, Sanfotsi princes continued to come to Fo-lo-an during the summer (6th moon) to offer incense to icons of the ancient, probably related princess.
Tibetans also have a story of a princess known as Yeshe Dawa who embraces Buddhism and later becomes the goddess Tara. In connection with the sandalwood trade, according to a Buddhist story that explains Tara's role as sea goddess, a ship from the Isle of Jewels, loaded with a cargo of jewels, and one from the Isle of White Sandalwood, loaded with white sandalwood, were saved by Tara after a Buddhist layperson on board one of the ships prayed to the goddess. Note that the goddesses of Fo-lo-an also had a protective function against sea threats.
Thus, it can be suggested that at one time during the sandalwood trade when San-fo-ts'i and Fo-lo-an enjoyed a close relationship, a princess estranged from her father, the king, left to practice Buddhism on Fo-lo-an, somewhere on mainland Southeast Asia. In the story, she reconciles with her father later on, thus, explaining possibly the pilgrimage of the Sanfotsi princes to Fo-lo-an to offer incense to the images of the goddess. From Fo-lo-an, i.e., Mahacina, the goddess travels East and West as Tara and Kuan-yin. Nagarjuna is said to be the one that carries this form of worship to India. This goddess becomes closely associated with the Sandalwood Forest, an allusion to the ancient sandalwood trade.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento
References
Beyer, Stephan. The cult of Tārā: magic and ritual in Tibet. Berkeley [u.a.]: Univ. of California Pr, 1978.
Cordier, Henri, Gustaaf Schlegel, Edouard Chavannes, Paul Pelliot, J. J. L. Duyvendak, and Paul Demiéville. Tʻung pao. Tʻoung pao. International journal of Chinese studies. Leiden: E.J. Brill [etc.], 1890, 402-6.
Donkin, R. A. Between East and West : the Moluccas and the Traffic in Spices Up to the Arrival of Europeans. Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, 248. Philadelphia, PA: American Philosophical Society, 2003, 13-18, 160-2.
__. Dragon's Brain Perfume: An Historical Geography of Camphor. Brill's Indological library, v. 14. Leiden: Brill, 1999.
White, David Gordon. The Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions in Medieval India. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996, 65-6.
Willson, Martin. In praise of Tārā: songs to the saviouress ; source texts from India and Tibet on Buddhism's great goddess. Women's studies. Boston, Mass: Wisdom Publ, 1996, 181-2.
Zhao, Rukuo, Friedrich Hirth, and William Woodville Rockhill. Chau Ju-Kua: His Work on the Chinese and Arab Trade in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, Entitled Chu-Fanchï. New York: Paragon Book Reprint Corp, 1966.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Sunday, July 19, 2009
More on the Clove Route
Cloves (Eugenia Caryophyllata) are mentioned in Chinese texts by the early Han Dynasty (3rd century BCE), which recommended chewing clove buds to freshen the breath before an audience with the emperor.
However, it was not until the 3rd century CE, that we hear from K'ang T'ai of some vague information as to the source countries of cloves. They are stated to come from the islands of Ma-wu somewhere to the east of Fu-nan, a name generally associated with the ancient kingdom of Cambodia. The Liang-shu states that Ma-wu was to the east of Toupo (She-po, Chu-po). This latter state has been mentioned in this blog as a main rival of Sanfotsi.
The 7th century monk I Ching (Yijing) states that cloves came from Kun-lun, which during this time was synonymous with the Sanskrit toponym Dvipantara, meaning broadly the insular Southeast Asian region. I Ching though seems to be referring to the area south of the Philippines.
From about this same time, we also hear from the Arabic letters of the Mihraj, the king of Zabag (Sanfotsi), who mentions the two rivers of his kingdom that irrigate aloes, nutmeg and camphor. This seems to be mainly an allegorical representation since nutmeg is found only in eastern Indonesia and the southern Philippines, while aloes are found only in the islands further north and on the mainland.
Al-Mas'udi and other Muslim writers seem to indicate that the Mihraj controlled the trade in spices like cloves and nutmeg, which came from the same general region. Europeans thought that exotic eastern spices like cinnamon and aloeswood came from the Garden of Eden. Jean de Joinville in the 13th century includes cloves among these spices that were traded into Europe from Egypt but coming originally, so he thought, from the Terrestrial Paradise. The latter location during this time was considered part of the domains belonging to Prester John.
We have to wait until the Sung Dynasty sources to find much more detailed information about the clove trade and the routes taken by cloves, related spices like nutmeg and mace, and another related trade item, sandalwood.
Clove trade during the Sung Dynasty
Chau Ju-kua (Zhau Rugua) states that cloves and nutmeg were produced in two kingdoms that belonged to the southeastern empire of Toupo, which I have described previously as centered in the Cotabato region of Mindanao (southern Philippines).
Trading ships from Toupo headed to China, according to Sung Dynasty sources, used the following course:
Click on image for larger view of area between the Paracel Islands and Spratly Islands in the central South China Sea. This area was dangerous for medieval shipping and was avoided due to the many shoals, reefs, rocks and low-lying islands. Ships from Quanzhou (top of map) during the Sung Dynasty sailed the Western Ship Route to reach Chiao-chih (Tonkin), Chan-ch'eng (Annam, northern Vietnam), Chen-la (Khmer empire, South Vietnam and Cambodia) and destinations further south and west. The Eastern Ship Route sailed due south from Quanzhou to Sanfotsi (Luzon), Mai (Mindoro), Toupo (Mindanao) and to the clove and sandalwood sources in Maluku and Timor further to the south.
Of course, this is the shortest route from the sources of cloves and nutmeg to the ports of South China.
During the Spanish Galleon trade, Central Luzon, i.e., Manila was the main entrepot for the clove trade to all of Asia. Portuguese and Asian traders carried cloves and related spices from Manila to ports extending from India to Japan. And there is indication that this was the case before the Spaniards came as well. Pigafetta reported Luzon trading ships as far south as Timor trading in sandalwood, and noted that a boat on the island of Samar was loaded with "cloves, cinnamon, pepper, nutmegs, mace, gold, and other things."
During the Sung Dynasty, cloves were offered as official gifts by Sanfotsi, Toupo, Butuan, Champa and the Chola empire. Whether these periodic "tribute" missions, generally undertaken at the ascension of a new monarch, can really indicate the totality of the spice trade is questionable. There are indications of a more regular yearly "unofficial" trade going on that was not clearly documented.
The large number of cloves offered as gifts to China by Champa is quite interesting.
In the blog post, "On the Titles Ari and Apu," I mentioned the large number of Champa envoys that used what I suggested was the Sanfotsi royal title Ari, which was found in Chinese texts in the form "Li" 李.
I speculated that there may have been intermarriages between Champa and Sanfotsi royals that could account for the apparent use of the title in Champa. Now, I have come across some more information that could help explain the contacts between the two countries.
In the Song hui-yao ji-gao (宋會藥輯稿), the Champa envoy Bu-lu-die-di-jia (布祿爹地加) is said to have stated that Champa had "fled" to Fo-shi country -- apparently referring to the flight of the country's rulers. Later in the work it is stated, and alluded to also in the Sung-shi, that the Champa king Yang-tuo-pai (楊陀排) whose reign began in 990 CE, was born in Fo-shi country.
There has been much scholarly discussion over what name "Fo-shi" was meant to transcribe. Paul Pelliot had suggested that Fo-shi was the Chinese rendering of Sanskrit Bhoga, while Georges Coedès thought it should instead by Vijaya.
In interpreting the aforementioned linkages between Champa and Fo-shi in the Song hui-yao, it is generally suggested that incidents refer to the temporary relocation of the Cham capital from Indrapura to the city of Vijaya after the invasion of the Vietnamese emperor Lê Hoàn.
However, there is a possibility that Fo-shi is actually an island kingdom located to the southeast of Canton mentioned by I Ching, which has been discussed previously in this blog. The Song hui-yao uses the term Fo-shi-guo (佛逝國) with the word "guo" possibly indicating another country (other than Champa). The text also mentions Sanfotsi, so it could be that Fo-shi refers to the original old country within the new Sanfotsi empire. In any case, the name "Fo-shi" is not used by other Chinese texts for the city of Vijaya in Champa.
We could propose that these events, as interpreted here, led to intermarriage between the royal familes in the two regions faciliating the trade in cloves, and also the use of the title Ari by many Champa envoys.
Sandalwood trade
Pigafetta mentions Luzon ships loading sandalwood from Timor during Magellan's circumnavigation voyage.
His note is important not only because it indicates how far the Luzon kingdom was trading to the South, but also due to the close link between the sandalwood trade and that of spices like cloves and nutmeg.
According to the Canton Stories (Pingzhou Ketan) of Zhu Yu (1118-9 CE), Sanfotsi had established a monopoly on the sandalwood trade:
According to Chau Ju-Kua, the main source of sandalwood was Ti-wu, the Chinese name for Timor (also Ti-wen). Official sandalwood gifts to the Chinese emperor throughout history are thought to have almost exclusively originated in Timor. As with cloves, Chau Ju-kua states that Sanfotsi acted as an entrepot of sandalwood. He further states that sandalwood together with cloves were shipped from Sanfotsi to Nan-p'i (Malabar). Muslim texts generally agree with the Chinese sources as they list sandalwood as one of the products traded in Zabag.
During the Yuan Dynasty, sandalwood was said to come from a location known as Min-to-lang situated in the "East Ocean" mentioned together with well-known kingdoms like Butuan and Sulu. Some have speculated that this name could refer to Mindanao or Mindoro, but it is far from certain.
During the Ming Dynasty though, it is clear that Luzon was involved in the sandalwood trade. Pigafetta states: "All the sandal wood and wax that is traded by the inhabitants of Java and Malaca is traded for in that region [Timor]. We found a junk from Lozon there, which had come thither to trade in sandal wood."
According to a Brunei navigator who spoke with Legaspi during the Spanish invasion of the Philippines, the Luzon and Brunei trading ships dealing between the Manila Bay and points southward were considered "Chinese junks" because they acted as middlemen selling Chinese goods.
During Spanish times, Manila also acted as an entrepot of sandalwood, although unlike the situation with cloves where it had acted as the main trading source for Asia, it competed in the sandalwood trade with Batavia due to Dutch influence in Timor.
The route of cloves and sandalwood from their source lands to ports in South China was a natural one, the shortest route, and the one described in medieval texts using the Eastern Ship Route to avoid the treacherous shoals, reefs, rocks and islands of the central South China Sea.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento
References
Junker, Laura Lee. Raiding, Trading, and Feasting: The Political Economy of Philippine Chiefdoms, Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2000, 192-8.
Lach, Donald F., and Edwin J. Van Kley. Asia in the Making of Europe: Volume III, the Century of Advance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998, 37.
Ptak, Roderich. China's Seaborne Trade with South and Southeast Asia, 1200-1750. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998.
Wade, Geoff. "Champa in the Song hui-yao" ARI Working Paper, No. 53, 2005, www.nus.ari.edu.sg/pub/wps.htm.
However, it was not until the 3rd century CE, that we hear from K'ang T'ai of some vague information as to the source countries of cloves. They are stated to come from the islands of Ma-wu somewhere to the east of Fu-nan, a name generally associated with the ancient kingdom of Cambodia. The Liang-shu states that Ma-wu was to the east of Toupo (She-po, Chu-po). This latter state has been mentioned in this blog as a main rival of Sanfotsi.
The 7th century monk I Ching (Yijing) states that cloves came from Kun-lun, which during this time was synonymous with the Sanskrit toponym Dvipantara, meaning broadly the insular Southeast Asian region. I Ching though seems to be referring to the area south of the Philippines.
From about this same time, we also hear from the Arabic letters of the Mihraj, the king of Zabag (Sanfotsi), who mentions the two rivers of his kingdom that irrigate aloes, nutmeg and camphor. This seems to be mainly an allegorical representation since nutmeg is found only in eastern Indonesia and the southern Philippines, while aloes are found only in the islands further north and on the mainland.
Al-Mas'udi and other Muslim writers seem to indicate that the Mihraj controlled the trade in spices like cloves and nutmeg, which came from the same general region. Europeans thought that exotic eastern spices like cinnamon and aloeswood came from the Garden of Eden. Jean de Joinville in the 13th century includes cloves among these spices that were traded into Europe from Egypt but coming originally, so he thought, from the Terrestrial Paradise. The latter location during this time was considered part of the domains belonging to Prester John.
We have to wait until the Sung Dynasty sources to find much more detailed information about the clove trade and the routes taken by cloves, related spices like nutmeg and mace, and another related trade item, sandalwood.
Clove trade during the Sung Dynasty
Chau Ju-kua (Zhau Rugua) states that cloves and nutmeg were produced in two kingdoms that belonged to the southeastern empire of Toupo, which I have described previously as centered in the Cotabato region of Mindanao (southern Philippines).
Trading ships from Toupo headed to China, according to Sung Dynasty sources, used the following course:
- Starting from Toupo, two weeks heading northwest before reaching Poni
- A week northwest arriving at Mai (Mindoro)
- A few days northwest to Sanfotsi (Central Luzon)
- From Sanfotsi, ships could head due north for Quanzhou or northwest for Canton.
Click on image for larger view of area between the Paracel Islands and Spratly Islands in the central South China Sea. This area was dangerous for medieval shipping and was avoided due to the many shoals, reefs, rocks and low-lying islands. Ships from Quanzhou (top of map) during the Sung Dynasty sailed the Western Ship Route to reach Chiao-chih (Tonkin), Chan-ch'eng (Annam, northern Vietnam), Chen-la (Khmer empire, South Vietnam and Cambodia) and destinations further south and west. The Eastern Ship Route sailed due south from Quanzhou to Sanfotsi (Luzon), Mai (Mindoro), Toupo (Mindanao) and to the clove and sandalwood sources in Maluku and Timor further to the south.
Of course, this is the shortest route from the sources of cloves and nutmeg to the ports of South China.
During the Spanish Galleon trade, Central Luzon, i.e., Manila was the main entrepot for the clove trade to all of Asia. Portuguese and Asian traders carried cloves and related spices from Manila to ports extending from India to Japan. And there is indication that this was the case before the Spaniards came as well. Pigafetta reported Luzon trading ships as far south as Timor trading in sandalwood, and noted that a boat on the island of Samar was loaded with "cloves, cinnamon, pepper, nutmegs, mace, gold, and other things."
During the Sung Dynasty, cloves were offered as official gifts by Sanfotsi, Toupo, Butuan, Champa and the Chola empire. Whether these periodic "tribute" missions, generally undertaken at the ascension of a new monarch, can really indicate the totality of the spice trade is questionable. There are indications of a more regular yearly "unofficial" trade going on that was not clearly documented.
The large number of cloves offered as gifts to China by Champa is quite interesting.
Cloves as Official Gifts during Sung Dynasty
Country Year Quantity Envoy Champa 977 50 jin Li Pai Champa 986 50 jin Li Chao-xian Sanfotsi 988 50 jin Pu Yao-tuo-li Toupo 992 10 jin Pu Ya-li Champa 1007 Bu-lu-die-di-jia Butuan 1007 Champa 1011 30 jin Pu sa-duo-po Sanfotsi 1017 30 jin Pu Mou-xi Champa 1018 80 jin Luo-pi-di-jia Champa 1072 Chola 1077 Sanfotsi 1156 30 jin
Notice that all envoys except two have the titles Pu (Apu) or Li (Ari). Possibly Bu-lu-die-di-jia has an error for "Pu" in the first syllable.
In the blog post, "On the Titles Ari and Apu," I mentioned the large number of Champa envoys that used what I suggested was the Sanfotsi royal title Ari, which was found in Chinese texts in the form "Li" 李.
I speculated that there may have been intermarriages between Champa and Sanfotsi royals that could account for the apparent use of the title in Champa. Now, I have come across some more information that could help explain the contacts between the two countries.
In the Song hui-yao ji-gao (宋會藥輯稿), the Champa envoy Bu-lu-die-di-jia (布祿爹地加) is said to have stated that Champa had "fled" to Fo-shi country -- apparently referring to the flight of the country's rulers. Later in the work it is stated, and alluded to also in the Sung-shi, that the Champa king Yang-tuo-pai (楊陀排) whose reign began in 990 CE, was born in Fo-shi country.
There has been much scholarly discussion over what name "Fo-shi" was meant to transcribe. Paul Pelliot had suggested that Fo-shi was the Chinese rendering of Sanskrit Bhoga, while Georges Coedès thought it should instead by Vijaya.
In interpreting the aforementioned linkages between Champa and Fo-shi in the Song hui-yao, it is generally suggested that incidents refer to the temporary relocation of the Cham capital from Indrapura to the city of Vijaya after the invasion of the Vietnamese emperor Lê Hoàn.
However, there is a possibility that Fo-shi is actually an island kingdom located to the southeast of Canton mentioned by I Ching, which has been discussed previously in this blog. The Song hui-yao uses the term Fo-shi-guo (佛逝國) with the word "guo" possibly indicating another country (other than Champa). The text also mentions Sanfotsi, so it could be that Fo-shi refers to the original old country within the new Sanfotsi empire. In any case, the name "Fo-shi" is not used by other Chinese texts for the city of Vijaya in Champa.
We could propose that these events, as interpreted here, led to intermarriage between the royal familes in the two regions faciliating the trade in cloves, and also the use of the title Ari by many Champa envoys.
Sandalwood trade
Pigafetta mentions Luzon ships loading sandalwood from Timor during Magellan's circumnavigation voyage.
His note is important not only because it indicates how far the Luzon kingdom was trading to the South, but also due to the close link between the sandalwood trade and that of spices like cloves and nutmeg.
According to the Canton Stories (Pingzhou Ketan) of Zhu Yu (1118-9 CE), Sanfotsi had established a monopoly on the sandalwood trade:
In recent times Sanfotsi established a sandalwood monopoly and the ruler orders merchants to sell to him. The product's market value increases several times. The subjects of that country do not dare sell privately. This is an effective system. The country is right in the center of the Southern Sea. Ta-Shih [Perso-Muslim] countries are far to the West. Chinese bound for Ta-Shih reach Sanfotsi and repair their ships and exchange goods. Distant merchants congregate here and therefore it is considered the most prosperous place.
According to Chau Ju-Kua, the main source of sandalwood was Ti-wu, the Chinese name for Timor (also Ti-wen). Official sandalwood gifts to the Chinese emperor throughout history are thought to have almost exclusively originated in Timor. As with cloves, Chau Ju-kua states that Sanfotsi acted as an entrepot of sandalwood. He further states that sandalwood together with cloves were shipped from Sanfotsi to Nan-p'i (Malabar). Muslim texts generally agree with the Chinese sources as they list sandalwood as one of the products traded in Zabag.
During the Yuan Dynasty, sandalwood was said to come from a location known as Min-to-lang situated in the "East Ocean" mentioned together with well-known kingdoms like Butuan and Sulu. Some have speculated that this name could refer to Mindanao or Mindoro, but it is far from certain.
During the Ming Dynasty though, it is clear that Luzon was involved in the sandalwood trade. Pigafetta states: "All the sandal wood and wax that is traded by the inhabitants of Java and Malaca is traded for in that region [Timor]. We found a junk from Lozon there, which had come thither to trade in sandal wood."
According to a Brunei navigator who spoke with Legaspi during the Spanish invasion of the Philippines, the Luzon and Brunei trading ships dealing between the Manila Bay and points southward were considered "Chinese junks" because they acted as middlemen selling Chinese goods.
During Spanish times, Manila also acted as an entrepot of sandalwood, although unlike the situation with cloves where it had acted as the main trading source for Asia, it competed in the sandalwood trade with Batavia due to Dutch influence in Timor.
The route of cloves and sandalwood from their source lands to ports in South China was a natural one, the shortest route, and the one described in medieval texts using the Eastern Ship Route to avoid the treacherous shoals, reefs, rocks and islands of the central South China Sea.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento
References
Junker, Laura Lee. Raiding, Trading, and Feasting: The Political Economy of Philippine Chiefdoms, Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2000, 192-8.
Lach, Donald F., and Edwin J. Van Kley. Asia in the Making of Europe: Volume III, the Century of Advance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998, 37.
Ptak, Roderich. China's Seaborne Trade with South and Southeast Asia, 1200-1750. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998.
Wade, Geoff. "Champa in the Song hui-yao" ARI Working Paper, No. 53, 2005, www.nus.ari.edu.sg/pub/wps.htm.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
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.
---
Read the whole article.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento
---
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.”
Read the whole article.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
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
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
Sunday, May 31, 2009
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.
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 imply 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.
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 imply 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.
Friday, May 08, 2009
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:
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.
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:
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:
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:
The letter to Manuel also gives apocalyptic utterances:
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:
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:
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:
He further describes this volcano:
Prester John's letters mention a river of stones and sea of sand that can also be interpreted as representing volcanic activity:
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:
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.
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:
And from Zhao Rugua's description of Sanfotsi:
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.
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 greenThe 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.
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
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.And in the letter to Frederick and Louie VII, Prester John states:
Being human, I receive it in good part, and we have ordered our treasurer to send you some of our articles in return.
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.
Thursday, April 23, 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
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
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Introduction of rice and tropical crops into Moorish Spain
Rice may have been introduced into Moorish Spain as early as the late 8th century. By the time of Hakam II in the mid-10th century, we learn from his secretary Arib bin Sa'id that tropical crops like rice (Ar. al-ruz, Sp. arroz), sugar cane (Ar. al-sukkar, Sp. azucar), ginger, banana, watermelon, oranges (Ar., Sp. naranja), lemon (Ar. laimun, Sp. limon) and other citrus were grown in Spain. This general type of agriculture involving these crops was known as filaha hindiyya or "Indian agriculture."
While I'm not aware of any detailed exposition of the transfer of rice agriculture across North Africa to Spain, the general spread of rice in the western Muslim regions during this period is linked with the Zutt and Sayabiga as discussed before. In the early 8th century, these groups were relocated from Mesopotamia to Antioch in Syria where up to 8,000 water buffalo were transported. As mentioned in the previous blog, at the ascension of Hakam II, there is some evidence of domestic water buffalo in Muslim Spain. The 9th century ruler of Egypt and Syria, Tulun, was said to have died from dysentery after drinking too much buffalo milk while in Antioch, so at least by this time we could expect the buffalo to have reached North Africa.
The rice agriculture of Spain like that of the Shatt al-Arab was of the wet paddy type in which the plant was raised entirely in submerged fields. These fields were built in areas that normally flooded, like the Albufera lake region in Valencia, using dikes, canals and in some cases terraces. Most of the rice and sugar cane fields were located on the eastern coast in areas like Valencia, Murcia and Andalusia. Also interesting is the apparent introduction of the use of verbascum as a fish poison during the Moorish periods. The use of verbascum fish poison appears in Arab literature in the medieval period known by the name mahi zahraj or mahi zahre.
Irrigated fields in the Albufera region, Valencia, Spain. Abundant rice and sugar cane fields can still be seen in some areas of Valencia and Murcia. Click image for full view.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento
References
Dymock, William, Charles James Hislop Warden, and David Hooper. Pharmacographia Indica. A History of the Principal Drugs of Vegetable Origin, Met with in British India. London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., ld; [etc.], 1890.
Imamuddin, S. M. Some Aspects of the Socio-Economic and Cultural History of Muslim Spain, 711-1492 A.D. Medieval Iberian Peninsula. Texts and studies, v. 2. Leiden: Brill, 1965.
Mez, Adam, S. Khuda Bukhsh, and D. S. Margoliouth. The Renaissance of Islam. 1973.
O'Callaghan, Joseph F. A History of Medieval Spain. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
While I'm not aware of any detailed exposition of the transfer of rice agriculture across North Africa to Spain, the general spread of rice in the western Muslim regions during this period is linked with the Zutt and Sayabiga as discussed before. In the early 8th century, these groups were relocated from Mesopotamia to Antioch in Syria where up to 8,000 water buffalo were transported. As mentioned in the previous blog, at the ascension of Hakam II, there is some evidence of domestic water buffalo in Muslim Spain. The 9th century ruler of Egypt and Syria, Tulun, was said to have died from dysentery after drinking too much buffalo milk while in Antioch, so at least by this time we could expect the buffalo to have reached North Africa.
The rice agriculture of Spain like that of the Shatt al-Arab was of the wet paddy type in which the plant was raised entirely in submerged fields. These fields were built in areas that normally flooded, like the Albufera lake region in Valencia, using dikes, canals and in some cases terraces. Most of the rice and sugar cane fields were located on the eastern coast in areas like Valencia, Murcia and Andalusia. Also interesting is the apparent introduction of the use of verbascum as a fish poison during the Moorish periods. The use of verbascum fish poison appears in Arab literature in the medieval period known by the name mahi zahraj or mahi zahre.
Irrigated fields in the Albufera region, Valencia, Spain. Abundant rice and sugar cane fields can still be seen in some areas of Valencia and Murcia. Click image for full view.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento
References
Dymock, William, Charles James Hislop Warden, and David Hooper. Pharmacographia Indica. A History of the Principal Drugs of Vegetable Origin, Met with in British India. London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., ld; [etc.], 1890.
Imamuddin, S. M. Some Aspects of the Socio-Economic and Cultural History of Muslim Spain, 711-1492 A.D. Medieval Iberian Peninsula. Texts and studies, v. 2. Leiden: Brill, 1965.
Mez, Adam, S. Khuda Bukhsh, and D. S. Margoliouth. The Renaissance of Islam. 1973.
O'Callaghan, Joseph F. A History of Medieval Spain. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
Friday, April 03, 2009
More on the Fee of Europe
Not long after the time of Serlingpa, we read in Europe about Prester John of the Indies -- of his exploits or of his visit to Rome, or of the arrival of his envoys.
During the same period, rather peculiar stories crop up that link up certain noble houses with the Fee -- the Fairies or Fay -- of Brittany; and at the same time with far-off India, or more correctly, the Indies.
Generally the trend has been to dismiss these suggestions as fantastic elements added to legendary history -- a literature though that was taken quite seriously in many circles from commoner to royalty. However, as I have discussed before there is evidence that the medieval epic literature was used, at least in some cases, as a form of political commentary, or as a means of conveying non-politically correct historical events. It's a good time given the previous posts to expand on this whole thesis.
Previously I have suggested that Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival actually alludes to the Angevin and Plantagenet history (House of Anjou). The first person to suggest this connection, I believe, was Jessie Laidlay Weston. Let's look at some of the parallels:
Now previously I have claimed that many of the Grail and Arthurian romances had used older Celtic legends to cast the Norman invasion of England as liberation of Celts from their Anglo-Saxon oppressors. Also the fairy descent ascribed repeatedly to both the rulers of Anjou and Brittany (Arthur) is directly related to repeated appearance of the Indies and its inhabitants in the same literature.
However, before I continue let me first give some background on the historical sources leading up to this period.
Dissolution of the Carolingian empire
During the Carolingian empire, strangers were protected by the empire through reciprocal treaties like that with the Danes in 873. The poet Theodulf, for example, mentions Arab traders at Arles in 812.
As the empire crumbled, a black hole of literature and historical records ensues particularly throughout the 10th century. Brittany had allied with the Vikings against the Franks in the 8th century, and eventually also Anjou finds itself in the Norman orbit.
The Vikings were a motley lot who readily accepted strangers into their fold. In the east, they carried on a brisk trade with Muslims and the Byzantine empire. People of all backgrounds could be found among them both slave and free. There is also some evidence that they may have traded with Moorish Spain. In 845, Abd al-Rahman II sent an embassy to the King of the Vikings for reasons that are not spelled out. Mas'udi claimed that the Rus, a term thought by many to refer to Varangians and Northmen, carried their trade as far "as Spain, Rome, Constantinople, and the Khazar." This period would have been a prime opportunity for foreigners, even from very distant lands, to settle in the areas of Brittany and Anjou.
As the Frankish empire broke up, the comital families that had acted as regional military governors under imperial appointment began to make sovereign claims on their territories. The counts of Anjou were one such family. Before Count Fulk IV in the 11th century, nothing was known of the Angevin family.
Fulk IV himself wrote a family history and encouraged the monks of St Aubin in the capital of Angers to create genealogies for the house of Anjou. He is also believed to have encouraged archdeacon Renaud to write a history of the family for the annals of St. Aubin. Like most genealogies and histories of other counts, those of Fulk IV were drawn from memory.
For example, although Fulk IV claims not to have known about the earliest Angevin counts, the chroniclers expand his genealogy back to the Carolingians and following the Merovingian dynasty back to the ancient Trojans. Many details and family members are added, by different writers, and these vary widely from one version to another. Relationships between noble families suddenly appear out of nowhere. In other words, there is little to vouch for much that is recorded before Fulk IV.
Many of the genealogies and histories including the legendary histories were designed to help the comital families gain recognition and acceptance of their sovereign claims. In such an environment, it would make little sense to link one's lineage and family history with fairies, demons and far-off India and the Indies. There are other good reasons to look at these connections as reality rather than fable.
First, the Grail and Arthurian literature appears at the same period that we begin to hear of actual visitors from "India" in Europe. Geoffrey of Monmouth was probably the first of the pro-Norman-Angevin-Briton writers. He was a subject of Henry II (Henry Fitz-Empress Plantagenet) and thus could be expected to be favorable to the House of Anjou. His key works, Prophecies of Merlin and History of the Kings of Britain came out around 1135 and 1136 respectively.
Earlier in 1122, we hear that a certain 'John, Patriarch of the Indies' had visited Calixtus I at Rome. The audience is preserved in two different sources -- the Chronicon of Albericus Trium Fontium and in a letter by St. Remy abbot Oddo to a Count Thomas, --this letter forming part of Mabillon's collection Vetera Analecta. Oddo actually witnessed the meeting between Patriach John and Calixtus I, with the former describing the 'communion of St. Thomas.'
Patriarch John is first combined with Prester John as early as the end of the 12th century in the Narrative of Eliseus, and in the 15th century the earliest publication of Prester John's letter includes the account of Patriarch John in a Latin chapbook.
About a decade after Geoffrey's works, Hugh of Gabala reports of Prester John's military exploits in Persia recorded by both Albericus and Otto of Freising. Then in 1165, Albericus reports that Prester John had sent envoys with letters to many Christian kingdoms and particularly to Emperors Manuel I and Frederick Barbarossa. In 1177, Pope Alexander III's physician Philippus meets envoys of Prester John while traveling in the east and carries a message, possibly in the form of a letter, to the Pope.
We can consider that some if not all these envoys of Prester John were from the "Indies," and that possibly even the king himself had visited Rome if we accept the account of 1122 and its identification of Patriarch John with Prester John!
The next reason to believe in the reality of the foreign elements in the literature is that we see therein a host of "Orientalisms" especially with reference to the Holy Grail beliefs. One could assign these to the random flow of eastern influence that occurred after the start of the Crusades and the fall of Toledo. However, I have attempted to show that these elements surrounding the Grail legend have a specificity that links very well the suggestions made in this blog.
Lastly, the linkage with Prester John, although not found in the very earliest works, very readily gives a motive for such long-range contacts that agree with the campaign of the King of the Isles in the furthest Indies. The kingdom of Zabag, I have suggested, started intensely increasing its normal policy of attraction starting at least in the 10th century if not a few centuries earlier. This intensification came as a response to new competition along the martime spice routes caused by Sunni Islamic expansion. Prester John offered the hope of an ally who could supposedly usher all the forces of the East and India to aid the West in defeating a common foe.
East meets West
Epic literature of the 12th and 13th centuries abounds with references to India, which again defines the general geographical region of the Indies, the region furthest east in the known world of medieval Europe. Princes, princesses, messengers and others from India are an integral part of the literature, and they are not found so much in the East as in the European setting.
If India and its inhabitants are not mentioned, then one can be assured that fairies and the fairy kingdom will be found. And in no small number of these works, the Indies and the fairy kingdom are equated either explicitly or implicitly.
Let's take, for example, the possibly first pro-Angevin writer of this genre, Geoffrey of Monmouth. He has the wounded Arthur taken to the island of Avalon where he is healed by Morgen.
At this time, Avalon was an unknown element, so Geoffrey is taking the Celtic hero and placing him in a foreign land or otherworld location. There has been a great deal of speculation as to what Geoffrey meant by Avalon ranging from the Fortunate Isles (Canaries) to India and the Americas. The best information is that gleaned nearest to Geoffrey's own time or as near to it as possible.
The chanson de geste Huon of Bordeaux is generally dated either to the final third of the 12th century or the first half of the 13th. According to the earlier dating the author could have been a contemporary of Geoffrey. His hero ventures to India in the farthest East to a fairy kingdom known as Momur and ruled by the dwarf king Oberon. That this Momur is the same as Geoffrey's Avalon is evident in that both Arthur and Morgan la Fay are found living there.
However, we can get even closer to Geoffrey's time and milieu. Gerald of Wales, who wrote during the late 12th and early 13th century was actually a royal chaplain of Henry II Plantagenet. He wrote that Avalon was actually found at Glastonbury, not far away at all.
Gerald though, despite his Norman and Welsh descent, was a known anti-Angevin. In works that were composed through much of his career but published only later in life, Gerald harshly criticized the Angevins, much preferring the Capet family of France. In 1216, about seven years before his death, he supported a plan during the First Baron's War to put Louis VIII of France on the English throne in place of the Plantagenets.
He was also the one who characterized the strange blood of the Angevins as coming from the Devil in contrast, say, to von Eschenbach's positive account of descent from the fairies Mazadan and Terdelaschoye. And it was Gerald of Wales who attempted to extinguish the strongly-held Celtic belief in the returning Arthur, the once and future king, by reporting that the coffins and bones of King Arthur along with Guinevere had been found at Glastonbury, in what may be the world's earliest known case of fake archaeology. And finally, Gerald had strongly attacked Geoffrey's works on the history of Britain.
Now, there is an even better source, in this case pro-Angevin, in Etienne de Rouen who wrote Draco Normannicus between 1167 and 1169.
Etienne's work is a purported letter from Arthur to Henry II during the latter's campaign in Brittany during 1167. Arthur, who is ruling in Avalon together with his sister Morgan, warns Henry II against invading Brittany threatening to return with his own army from Avalon. Henry responds by defending his right to Brittany and promising out of reverence for Arthur that he would rule Brittany under Arthur's law. That law is the fatorum lege, which might be translated as "fairy law" from fata "fairy" marking the first connection of Avalon with the Fee.
What is interesting about Etienne's account is that he repeatedly refers to Avalon as the Antipodes, a region known from ancient Greek sources. In the older conception of a flat earth, the Antipodes was thought of as the southernmost quarter of the world. However, Etienne describes the Antipodes as the "other side of the earth" and the "lower hemisphere," suggesting something quite different -- a world divided into halves rather than quarters. He also equates the Antipodes with the Underworld. Mildred Leake Day says about the term "lower hemisphere":
Day may be alluding here to the Celtic belief that the Sun enters the sea at night with the sea often closely linked with the Underworld in the same mythology.
Chretien de Troyes in Eric and Enide tells of a noble king of the dwarfs called Bilis who rules in the Antipodes in the lower hemisphere and visits the court of Arthur. Recall that the fairy king Oberon who, according to Huon of Bordeaux rules in India, and the Indian Cundrie's brother Malcreatiure along with herself at times, are also described as dwarfs.
The idea of the Antipodes lying in the far east (or west) is found in latter times, for example, Dante in the early 14th century placed Mt. Purgatory in the Antipodes 180 degrees East or West of Jerusalem. It was on Mt. Purgatory that the Terrestrial Paradise was found. The text of John of Mandeville supports the idea that Judea lies midway between Paradise and the Antipodes of Paradise stating that, according to John's own reckoning while traveling in the East, Judea sits 96 degrees to the west of Paradise.
More relevant though, as it was published before Geoffrey of Monmouth's time, is the Liber Floridus of Lambertus Audomarensis written in 1120. Lambertus places the Terrestrial Paradise in the extreme East with the Antipodes of Paradise in the extreme West stating: "Here live our antipodes, but they have a different night, and days which are contrary to ours, and so for the setting of the stars." Obviously this gives a spherical view of the earth with the hemispheres divided into east and west. Etienne appears to place Britain at the center when referring to the lower hemisphere as the 'other side of the world,' and thus the lower hemisphere would begin at 90 degrees to both the east and west.
Analyzing the literature from Geoffrey of Monmouth to Wolfram von Eschenbach we can suggest an attempt to use legendary history, which was taken very seriously at the time, as a backdrop to legitimize the Norman invasion and resulting Angevin ascendancy in terms of a Celtic liberation from Anglo-Saxon dominance. There is also a quite obvious attempt to legitimize and even to romanticize some strange or foreign element in the Angevin lineage that is linked with "India" and/or the fairy race -- a connection that also extends to the legendary Arthur.
No shortage of Indians
In the Welsh epic, Peredur seeks his promised love in the Indies. In Tandareis und Flordibel (mid-13th c.), Flordibel, who visits the Knights of the Round Table reveals that she is an Indian princess.
Wolfram's Willehalm has the Indian King Gorhant fighting in the battle of Alischanz. In Der Jüngere Titurel, the Holy Grail is transported to India, the land from which the Grail Maiden also hails, and in Lohengrin, the Swan Knight himself declares that he has come from the Indies. Both of these works are from the late 13th century.
In the Dutch Walewain (1350), the hero embarks on a distant journey to fetch the fair Ysabel, daughter of Assentijn, King of the Indies. And these are just a few examples.
While Indian characters like Secundille and Flordibel are portrayed as beautiful, some of the Indians in the poems are described in stark contrast. Thus, while Peredur's amour of fairy descent s described as the fairest damsel, the sorceress Cundrie, the loathly damsel, is portrayed in much different terms:
Melusine is a typical beautiful fairy found in folktales and made popular in the 14th century by the writer Jean d'Arras. Said to have been a descendant of the kings of Brittany, Melusine may have been claimed as an ancestress by the counts of Lusignan, Luxembourg, Forez and Lorraine.
The equation or linkage of fairies with Indians, or fairy land with the Indies is found repeatedly in the epic literature. Again, Huon of Bordeaux finds fairy land and its king Oberon in India, something Spenser recreates much later in The Faerie Queene. The sister of Flordibel's father, King of India, is said to be a fairy. Jean d'Arras places fairy land in the Indies as does Boiardo and Ariosto. Roman d'Ogier le Danois and Le Batard de Bouillon both place Avalon in the Indies near the Terrestrial Paradise.
The way thither
That visitors from afar would come into Europe after the beginning of the Crusades is not that unusual. There is the testimony regarding the Patriarch of the Indies, and John of Wurzburg tells of Christians from India among the inhabitants of the Crusader kingdom of Jerusalem around 1165. Sicily under Frederick II is also described as a very diverse society.
However, if we take seriously Wolfram's genealogy explaining the fairy/demon descent of Parzival, i.e., Henry Fitz-Empress, then he would descend in five generations from Mazadan and Terdelaschoye. That would be two generations back from Fulk IV who is said to have been born in 1043 before the First Crusade, and before the Crusader route to Jerusalem was open.
Probably the easiest way to Europe before that time would be along the North African trade routes to Moorish Spain. Wolfram seems to suggest this journey for Feirefiz, for example, and he has Cundrie listing what some identify as Hispano-Arabic star names.
A wide range of products flowed into Andalus from the Indies including aloeswood, musk and camphor. Aloeswood is used in Parzival to fumigate the festering wound of Anfortas, the Fisher King. Indian traders in Islamic Spain, or at least the Jewish ones, often used the nisba surname al-dajaji or al-dajjaj meaning "chicken dealer." The ports of Seville and Almeria were designated as refuge for foreigners "to which people come from all regions" according to the 11th century geographer al-Udhri.
Water buffalo may also have been brought from the East to turn irrigation wheels like the saqiya. Twenty buffalo horns were presented to al-Hakam II on his enthronement that were not included on a list of foreign gifts suggesting that they were domestic. The movement of water buffalo, at least in early times, was linked with the Zutt and Sayabiga as I have described previously in this blog.
The geographer Al-Mas'udi gives an interesting account with reference to Spain during his time that is worth investigating -- a similar story had been given earlier in the 9th century by the traveler Sulaiman.
Now if we take the fairy kingdom of Mazadan as the land of Prester John -- identified as the same as Suvarnadvipa, Sanfotsi, etc. -- we know from the last posting that Serlingpa ruled there in the early part of the 11th century. His successor was on the throne by 1028, so going back two generations from Fulk IV who was born in 1043, we have the possibility of a descent through Serlingpa!
So if we look at the background of the First Crusade from the "Prester John" standpoint of origin, many of the families involved in that campaign had at least legendary links with the fairy folk. They include Godfrey de Bouillon, leader of the First Crusade, who supposedly descends from the Swan Knight, the son of King Orient. The connections of the Swan Knight with the fairy lineage have been discussed earlier. Godfrey's brother Baldwin I, was the first king of Jerusalem, and his cousin Baldwin II, the second Jerusalem monarch. The Angevin link has already been discussed, and then there were the Lusignans who were closely linked in legend with the Melusine, and provided the last king, Guy de Lusignan.
The families involved in the early crusades tended to come more from northern France and many had close blood relationship with each other. Pope Urban II who called for the First Crusade hailed from Champagne in the same region of northern France. Champagne was ruled by the House of Blois, one of the leading families involved in the First Crusade.
In the east, the king who would become "Prester John," according to this analysis had already been working diplomatically forging relations with the Sung Dynasty, the Palas and Cholas of India, and the kingdoms of Tibet in an effort to protect his part in the spice trade routes. He may already have had sealed a similar relationship with the Nizaris who had organized into the Assassin brotherhood in 1090. If so, the Crusaders would have had an "ally" waiting for them in the East when they arrived later in the decade through the work of Prester John, who would have been distantly related to some of the leading comital families involved.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento
References
Constable, Olivia R. Trade and Traders in Muslim Spain: The Commercial Realignment of the Iberian Peninsula, 900-1500. Cambridge studies in medieval life and thought, Ser. 4, 24. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Day, Mildred Leake, and Etienne. Latin Arthurian literature. Arthurian archives, 11. Cambridge, UK: D.S. Brewer, 2005, 50-2.
Echard, Siân. Arthurian Narrative in the Latin Tradition. Cambridge studies in medieval literature, 36. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, 85-8.
Higgins, Iain Macleod. Writing East: The "Travels" of Sir John Mandeville. The Middle Ages series. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997, 142.
Imamuddin, S. M. Muslim Spain 711-1492 A.D.: A Sociological Study. Medieval Iberian Peninsula, v. 2. Leiden: Brill, 1981, 97-8.
Lichtblau, Karin, and Christa Tuczay. Matière de Bretagne. Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2005.
Owen, Henry. Gerald the Welshman. London: D. Nutt, 1904, 135-141.
Remy, Arthur Frank Joseph. The Influence of India and Persia on the Poetry of Germany. New York: AMS Press, 1966.
Verhulst, Adriaan E. The Carolingian Economy. Cambridge medieval textbooks. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002, 105.
Vernon, William Warren, Benvenutus, and Dante Alighieri. Readings on the Purgatorio of Dante. Macmillan Co, 1897.
Wolfram, and Jessie Laidlay Weston. Parzival, A Knightly Epic. New York: G.E. Stechert & Co, 1912, 291-4.
During the same period, rather peculiar stories crop up that link up certain noble houses with the Fee -- the Fairies or Fay -- of Brittany; and at the same time with far-off India, or more correctly, the Indies.
Generally the trend has been to dismiss these suggestions as fantastic elements added to legendary history -- a literature though that was taken quite seriously in many circles from commoner to royalty. However, as I have discussed before there is evidence that the medieval epic literature was used, at least in some cases, as a form of political commentary, or as a means of conveying non-politically correct historical events. It's a good time given the previous posts to expand on this whole thesis.
Previously I have suggested that Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival actually alludes to the Angevin and Plantagenet history (House of Anjou). The first person to suggest this connection, I believe, was Jessie Laidlay Weston. Let's look at some of the parallels:
Wolfram's Angevins Historical Angevins Son of Angevin count gains throne by marrying widowed empress, a queen of two countries Geoffrey V, son of the Count of Anjou, marries widowed Empress Matilda, queen of England and Normandy The son of the empress and Angevin is deposed by a knight and two brothers Henry Fitz-Empress, son of Matilda and Geoffrey V, is usurped by the brothers Theobald and Stephen of Blois. The Angevin husband of the empress descends from the king Mazadan, who is said to marry the fairy Terre-de-la-schoie, this latter name possibly a reference to Morgan la Fay. Mazadan is also Arthur's ancestor according to Wolfram. Angevin tradition recorded by Gerald of Wales and others states that one of the early Angevin ancestors married a woman of "demon blood." This tradition was passed on among the Plantagenets themselves. The Angevin's first heroic deed is to defeat in single combat Heuteger, the Scotchman, who appeared every morning before the gates of Patelamunt, to challenge the besieged knights. This appears to throw back to the Angevin count Geoffrey I who, during the siege of Paris by the Danes, is said to have defeated Ethelwulf who had daily offered challenges simiilar to those of Heuteger. Nantes is made Arthur's chief city and both the Round Table and his capital are located there Brittany and Anjou had a long conflict over possession of Nantes, which lied within the borders of Brittany. The bard Kiot claimed to have searched the records of France, Britain, Ireland and Anjou to find the story of the Grail. Henry Fitz-Empress was King of England, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, Count of Anjou and Lord of Ireland.
Now previously I have claimed that many of the Grail and Arthurian romances had used older Celtic legends to cast the Norman invasion of England as liberation of Celts from their Anglo-Saxon oppressors. Also the fairy descent ascribed repeatedly to both the rulers of Anjou and Brittany (Arthur) is directly related to repeated appearance of the Indies and its inhabitants in the same literature.
However, before I continue let me first give some background on the historical sources leading up to this period.
Dissolution of the Carolingian empire
During the Carolingian empire, strangers were protected by the empire through reciprocal treaties like that with the Danes in 873. The poet Theodulf, for example, mentions Arab traders at Arles in 812.
As the empire crumbled, a black hole of literature and historical records ensues particularly throughout the 10th century. Brittany had allied with the Vikings against the Franks in the 8th century, and eventually also Anjou finds itself in the Norman orbit.
The Vikings were a motley lot who readily accepted strangers into their fold. In the east, they carried on a brisk trade with Muslims and the Byzantine empire. People of all backgrounds could be found among them both slave and free. There is also some evidence that they may have traded with Moorish Spain. In 845, Abd al-Rahman II sent an embassy to the King of the Vikings for reasons that are not spelled out. Mas'udi claimed that the Rus, a term thought by many to refer to Varangians and Northmen, carried their trade as far "as Spain, Rome, Constantinople, and the Khazar." This period would have been a prime opportunity for foreigners, even from very distant lands, to settle in the areas of Brittany and Anjou.
As the Frankish empire broke up, the comital families that had acted as regional military governors under imperial appointment began to make sovereign claims on their territories. The counts of Anjou were one such family. Before Count Fulk IV in the 11th century, nothing was known of the Angevin family.
Fulk IV himself wrote a family history and encouraged the monks of St Aubin in the capital of Angers to create genealogies for the house of Anjou. He is also believed to have encouraged archdeacon Renaud to write a history of the family for the annals of St. Aubin. Like most genealogies and histories of other counts, those of Fulk IV were drawn from memory.
For example, although Fulk IV claims not to have known about the earliest Angevin counts, the chroniclers expand his genealogy back to the Carolingians and following the Merovingian dynasty back to the ancient Trojans. Many details and family members are added, by different writers, and these vary widely from one version to another. Relationships between noble families suddenly appear out of nowhere. In other words, there is little to vouch for much that is recorded before Fulk IV.
Many of the genealogies and histories including the legendary histories were designed to help the comital families gain recognition and acceptance of their sovereign claims. In such an environment, it would make little sense to link one's lineage and family history with fairies, demons and far-off India and the Indies. There are other good reasons to look at these connections as reality rather than fable.
First, the Grail and Arthurian literature appears at the same period that we begin to hear of actual visitors from "India" in Europe. Geoffrey of Monmouth was probably the first of the pro-Norman-Angevin-Briton writers. He was a subject of Henry II (Henry Fitz-Empress Plantagenet) and thus could be expected to be favorable to the House of Anjou. His key works, Prophecies of Merlin and History of the Kings of Britain came out around 1135 and 1136 respectively.
Earlier in 1122, we hear that a certain 'John, Patriarch of the Indies' had visited Calixtus I at Rome. The audience is preserved in two different sources -- the Chronicon of Albericus Trium Fontium and in a letter by St. Remy abbot Oddo to a Count Thomas, --this letter forming part of Mabillon's collection Vetera Analecta. Oddo actually witnessed the meeting between Patriach John and Calixtus I, with the former describing the 'communion of St. Thomas.'
Patriarch John is first combined with Prester John as early as the end of the 12th century in the Narrative of Eliseus, and in the 15th century the earliest publication of Prester John's letter includes the account of Patriarch John in a Latin chapbook.
About a decade after Geoffrey's works, Hugh of Gabala reports of Prester John's military exploits in Persia recorded by both Albericus and Otto of Freising. Then in 1165, Albericus reports that Prester John had sent envoys with letters to many Christian kingdoms and particularly to Emperors Manuel I and Frederick Barbarossa. In 1177, Pope Alexander III's physician Philippus meets envoys of Prester John while traveling in the east and carries a message, possibly in the form of a letter, to the Pope.
We can consider that some if not all these envoys of Prester John were from the "Indies," and that possibly even the king himself had visited Rome if we accept the account of 1122 and its identification of Patriarch John with Prester John!
The next reason to believe in the reality of the foreign elements in the literature is that we see therein a host of "Orientalisms" especially with reference to the Holy Grail beliefs. One could assign these to the random flow of eastern influence that occurred after the start of the Crusades and the fall of Toledo. However, I have attempted to show that these elements surrounding the Grail legend have a specificity that links very well the suggestions made in this blog.
Lastly, the linkage with Prester John, although not found in the very earliest works, very readily gives a motive for such long-range contacts that agree with the campaign of the King of the Isles in the furthest Indies. The kingdom of Zabag, I have suggested, started intensely increasing its normal policy of attraction starting at least in the 10th century if not a few centuries earlier. This intensification came as a response to new competition along the martime spice routes caused by Sunni Islamic expansion. Prester John offered the hope of an ally who could supposedly usher all the forces of the East and India to aid the West in defeating a common foe.
East meets West
Epic literature of the 12th and 13th centuries abounds with references to India, which again defines the general geographical region of the Indies, the region furthest east in the known world of medieval Europe. Princes, princesses, messengers and others from India are an integral part of the literature, and they are not found so much in the East as in the European setting.
If India and its inhabitants are not mentioned, then one can be assured that fairies and the fairy kingdom will be found. And in no small number of these works, the Indies and the fairy kingdom are equated either explicitly or implicitly.
Let's take, for example, the possibly first pro-Angevin writer of this genre, Geoffrey of Monmouth. He has the wounded Arthur taken to the island of Avalon where he is healed by Morgen.
At this time, Avalon was an unknown element, so Geoffrey is taking the Celtic hero and placing him in a foreign land or otherworld location. There has been a great deal of speculation as to what Geoffrey meant by Avalon ranging from the Fortunate Isles (Canaries) to India and the Americas. The best information is that gleaned nearest to Geoffrey's own time or as near to it as possible.
The chanson de geste Huon of Bordeaux is generally dated either to the final third of the 12th century or the first half of the 13th. According to the earlier dating the author could have been a contemporary of Geoffrey. His hero ventures to India in the farthest East to a fairy kingdom known as Momur and ruled by the dwarf king Oberon. That this Momur is the same as Geoffrey's Avalon is evident in that both Arthur and Morgan la Fay are found living there.
However, we can get even closer to Geoffrey's time and milieu. Gerald of Wales, who wrote during the late 12th and early 13th century was actually a royal chaplain of Henry II Plantagenet. He wrote that Avalon was actually found at Glastonbury, not far away at all.
Gerald though, despite his Norman and Welsh descent, was a known anti-Angevin. In works that were composed through much of his career but published only later in life, Gerald harshly criticized the Angevins, much preferring the Capet family of France. In 1216, about seven years before his death, he supported a plan during the First Baron's War to put Louis VIII of France on the English throne in place of the Plantagenets.
He was also the one who characterized the strange blood of the Angevins as coming from the Devil in contrast, say, to von Eschenbach's positive account of descent from the fairies Mazadan and Terdelaschoye. And it was Gerald of Wales who attempted to extinguish the strongly-held Celtic belief in the returning Arthur, the once and future king, by reporting that the coffins and bones of King Arthur along with Guinevere had been found at Glastonbury, in what may be the world's earliest known case of fake archaeology. And finally, Gerald had strongly attacked Geoffrey's works on the history of Britain.
Now, there is an even better source, in this case pro-Angevin, in Etienne de Rouen who wrote Draco Normannicus between 1167 and 1169.
Etienne's work is a purported letter from Arthur to Henry II during the latter's campaign in Brittany during 1167. Arthur, who is ruling in Avalon together with his sister Morgan, warns Henry II against invading Brittany threatening to return with his own army from Avalon. Henry responds by defending his right to Brittany and promising out of reverence for Arthur that he would rule Brittany under Arthur's law. That law is the fatorum lege, which might be translated as "fairy law" from fata "fairy" marking the first connection of Avalon with the Fee.
What is interesting about Etienne's account is that he repeatedly refers to Avalon as the Antipodes, a region known from ancient Greek sources. In the older conception of a flat earth, the Antipodes was thought of as the southernmost quarter of the world. However, Etienne describes the Antipodes as the "other side of the earth" and the "lower hemisphere," suggesting something quite different -- a world divided into halves rather than quarters. He also equates the Antipodes with the Underworld. Mildred Leake Day says about the term "lower hemisphere":
This does not mean Africa or the other continents not yet discovered by Europeans. Etienne is specific that the Antipodes are living on the other side of the world, not below the equator but in the far east. The reality of a spherical earth had been known since ancient times from the simple observations of the disappearing horizon at sea and the shadow of the earth in the eclipse of the moon. The circumference of the earth was assumed in most cases India and the Spice Islands were considered in educated views to be on the opposite side of the earth.
Day may be alluding here to the Celtic belief that the Sun enters the sea at night with the sea often closely linked with the Underworld in the same mythology.
Chretien de Troyes in Eric and Enide tells of a noble king of the dwarfs called Bilis who rules in the Antipodes in the lower hemisphere and visits the court of Arthur. Recall that the fairy king Oberon who, according to Huon of Bordeaux rules in India, and the Indian Cundrie's brother Malcreatiure along with herself at times, are also described as dwarfs.
The idea of the Antipodes lying in the far east (or west) is found in latter times, for example, Dante in the early 14th century placed Mt. Purgatory in the Antipodes 180 degrees East or West of Jerusalem. It was on Mt. Purgatory that the Terrestrial Paradise was found. The text of John of Mandeville supports the idea that Judea lies midway between Paradise and the Antipodes of Paradise stating that, according to John's own reckoning while traveling in the East, Judea sits 96 degrees to the west of Paradise.
More relevant though, as it was published before Geoffrey of Monmouth's time, is the Liber Floridus of Lambertus Audomarensis written in 1120. Lambertus places the Terrestrial Paradise in the extreme East with the Antipodes of Paradise in the extreme West stating: "Here live our antipodes, but they have a different night, and days which are contrary to ours, and so for the setting of the stars." Obviously this gives a spherical view of the earth with the hemispheres divided into east and west. Etienne appears to place Britain at the center when referring to the lower hemisphere as the 'other side of the world,' and thus the lower hemisphere would begin at 90 degrees to both the east and west.
Analyzing the literature from Geoffrey of Monmouth to Wolfram von Eschenbach we can suggest an attempt to use legendary history, which was taken very seriously at the time, as a backdrop to legitimize the Norman invasion and resulting Angevin ascendancy in terms of a Celtic liberation from Anglo-Saxon dominance. There is also a quite obvious attempt to legitimize and even to romanticize some strange or foreign element in the Angevin lineage that is linked with "India" and/or the fairy race -- a connection that also extends to the legendary Arthur.
No shortage of Indians
In the Welsh epic, Peredur seeks his promised love in the Indies. In Tandareis und Flordibel (mid-13th c.), Flordibel, who visits the Knights of the Round Table reveals that she is an Indian princess.
Wolfram's Willehalm has the Indian King Gorhant fighting in the battle of Alischanz. In Der Jüngere Titurel, the Holy Grail is transported to India, the land from which the Grail Maiden also hails, and in Lohengrin, the Swan Knight himself declares that he has come from the Indies. Both of these works are from the late 13th century.
In the Dutch Walewain (1350), the hero embarks on a distant journey to fetch the fair Ysabel, daughter of Assentijn, King of the Indies. And these are just a few examples.
While Indian characters like Secundille and Flordibel are portrayed as beautiful, some of the Indians in the poems are described in stark contrast. Thus, while Peredur's amour of fairy descent s described as the fairest damsel, the sorceress Cundrie, the loathly damsel, is portrayed in much different terms:
...they saw a girl coming on a tawny mule, clutching a whip in her right hand. Her hair hung in two tresses, black and twisted: and if the words of my source are true, there was no creature so utterly ugly even in Hell. You have never seen iron as black as her neck and hands, but that was little compared to the rest of her ugliness: her eyes were just two holes, tiny as the eyes of a rat; her nose was like a cat's or monkey's, her lips like an ass's or a cow's; her teeth were so discoloured that they looked like egg-yolk; and she had a beard like a billy-goat. She had a hump in the middle of her chest and her back was like a crook ... She greeted the king and his barons all together...The fairy folk also are alternately described as beautiful and ugly. Some are short and even dwarfs, while others are described as tall. They can be either fair or dark-skinned. Morgan la Fay, for example, is herself sometimes described as beautiful, and ugly at other times.
-- Chrétien, Le Roman de Perceval ou le Conte du Graal
And thereupon they saw a black curly-headed maiden enter, riding upon a yellow mule, with jagged thongs in her hand to urge it on; and having a rough and hideous aspect. Blacker were her face and her two hands than the blackest iron covered with pitch; and her hue was not more frightful than her form. High cheeks had she, and a face lengthened downwards, and a short nose with distended nostrils. And one eye was of a piercing mottled grey, and the other was as black as jet, deep-sunk in her head. And her teeth were long and yellow, more yellow were they than the flower of the broom. And her stomach rose from the breast bone, higher than her chin. And her back was in the shape of a crook, and her legs were large and bony. And her figure was very thin and spare, except her feet and her legs, which were of huge size. And she greeted Arthur and all his household except Peredur.
-- Peredur
Melusine is a typical beautiful fairy found in folktales and made popular in the 14th century by the writer Jean d'Arras. Said to have been a descendant of the kings of Brittany, Melusine may have been claimed as an ancestress by the counts of Lusignan, Luxembourg, Forez and Lorraine.
The equation or linkage of fairies with Indians, or fairy land with the Indies is found repeatedly in the epic literature. Again, Huon of Bordeaux finds fairy land and its king Oberon in India, something Spenser recreates much later in The Faerie Queene. The sister of Flordibel's father, King of India, is said to be a fairy. Jean d'Arras places fairy land in the Indies as does Boiardo and Ariosto. Roman d'Ogier le Danois and Le Batard de Bouillon both place Avalon in the Indies near the Terrestrial Paradise.
The way thither
That visitors from afar would come into Europe after the beginning of the Crusades is not that unusual. There is the testimony regarding the Patriarch of the Indies, and John of Wurzburg tells of Christians from India among the inhabitants of the Crusader kingdom of Jerusalem around 1165. Sicily under Frederick II is also described as a very diverse society.
However, if we take seriously Wolfram's genealogy explaining the fairy/demon descent of Parzival, i.e., Henry Fitz-Empress, then he would descend in five generations from Mazadan and Terdelaschoye. That would be two generations back from Fulk IV who is said to have been born in 1043 before the First Crusade, and before the Crusader route to Jerusalem was open.
Probably the easiest way to Europe before that time would be along the North African trade routes to Moorish Spain. Wolfram seems to suggest this journey for Feirefiz, for example, and he has Cundrie listing what some identify as Hispano-Arabic star names.
A wide range of products flowed into Andalus from the Indies including aloeswood, musk and camphor. Aloeswood is used in Parzival to fumigate the festering wound of Anfortas, the Fisher King. Indian traders in Islamic Spain, or at least the Jewish ones, often used the nisba surname al-dajaji or al-dajjaj meaning "chicken dealer." The ports of Seville and Almeria were designated as refuge for foreigners "to which people come from all regions" according to the 11th century geographer al-Udhri.
Water buffalo may also have been brought from the East to turn irrigation wheels like the saqiya. Twenty buffalo horns were presented to al-Hakam II on his enthronement that were not included on a list of foreign gifts suggesting that they were domestic. The movement of water buffalo, at least in early times, was linked with the Zutt and Sayabiga as I have described previously in this blog.
The geographer Al-Mas'udi gives an interesting account with reference to Spain during his time that is worth investigating -- a similar story had been given earlier in the 9th century by the traveler Sulaiman.
In the Mediterranean, not far from Crete, planks of vessels of Indian plantain wood have been found, which were well cut and joined with fibres of the cocoa nut tree. It was evident that they were of wrecked vessels, and had been a long time in water; vessels of this description are only found in the Abyssinian sea, for the vessels of the Mediterranean and of the West are all joined with nails. In the Abyssinian sea, iron nails would not be applicable for ship building, for the water of that sea corrodes the iron, and the nails become thinner and weaker in the water; hence the planks are joined with fibres and besmeared with grease and quicklime. This is a proof that the seas have a communication. The sea towards China and the country of es-Sila goes all round the country of the Turks, and has a communication with the sea of the West (the Atlantic), through some straits of the great ocean.
Now if we take the fairy kingdom of Mazadan as the land of Prester John -- identified as the same as Suvarnadvipa, Sanfotsi, etc. -- we know from the last posting that Serlingpa ruled there in the early part of the 11th century. His successor was on the throne by 1028, so going back two generations from Fulk IV who was born in 1043, we have the possibility of a descent through Serlingpa!
So if we look at the background of the First Crusade from the "Prester John" standpoint of origin, many of the families involved in that campaign had at least legendary links with the fairy folk. They include Godfrey de Bouillon, leader of the First Crusade, who supposedly descends from the Swan Knight, the son of King Orient. The connections of the Swan Knight with the fairy lineage have been discussed earlier. Godfrey's brother Baldwin I, was the first king of Jerusalem, and his cousin Baldwin II, the second Jerusalem monarch. The Angevin link has already been discussed, and then there were the Lusignans who were closely linked in legend with the Melusine, and provided the last king, Guy de Lusignan.
The families involved in the early crusades tended to come more from northern France and many had close blood relationship with each other. Pope Urban II who called for the First Crusade hailed from Champagne in the same region of northern France. Champagne was ruled by the House of Blois, one of the leading families involved in the First Crusade.
In the east, the king who would become "Prester John," according to this analysis had already been working diplomatically forging relations with the Sung Dynasty, the Palas and Cholas of India, and the kingdoms of Tibet in an effort to protect his part in the spice trade routes. He may already have had sealed a similar relationship with the Nizaris who had organized into the Assassin brotherhood in 1090. If so, the Crusaders would have had an "ally" waiting for them in the East when they arrived later in the decade through the work of Prester John, who would have been distantly related to some of the leading comital families involved.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento
References
Constable, Olivia R. Trade and Traders in Muslim Spain: The Commercial Realignment of the Iberian Peninsula, 900-1500. Cambridge studies in medieval life and thought, Ser. 4, 24. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Day, Mildred Leake, and Etienne. Latin Arthurian literature. Arthurian archives, 11. Cambridge, UK: D.S. Brewer, 2005, 50-2.
Echard, Siân. Arthurian Narrative in the Latin Tradition. Cambridge studies in medieval literature, 36. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, 85-8.
Higgins, Iain Macleod. Writing East: The "Travels" of Sir John Mandeville. The Middle Ages series. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997, 142.
Imamuddin, S. M. Muslim Spain 711-1492 A.D.: A Sociological Study. Medieval Iberian Peninsula, v. 2. Leiden: Brill, 1981, 97-8.
Lichtblau, Karin, and Christa Tuczay. Matière de Bretagne. Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2005.
Owen, Henry. Gerald the Welshman. London: D. Nutt, 1904, 135-141.
Remy, Arthur Frank Joseph. The Influence of India and Persia on the Poetry of Germany. New York: AMS Press, 1966.
Verhulst, Adriaan E. The Carolingian Economy. Cambridge medieval textbooks. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002, 105.
Vernon, William Warren, Benvenutus, and Dante Alighieri. Readings on the Purgatorio of Dante. Macmillan Co, 1897.
Wolfram, and Jessie Laidlay Weston. Parzival, A Knightly Epic. New York: G.E. Stechert & Co, 1912, 291-4.
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