Jabala
1 2022-07-20T19:11:03-07:00 Christopher Taylor // christopher.eric.taylor@gmail.com 946e2cf6115688379f338b70e5b6f6c039f8ba6f 5281 1 plain 2022-07-20T19:11:03-07:00 Christopher Taylor // christopher.eric.taylor@gmail.com 946e2cf6115688379f338b70e5b6f6c039f8ba6fThis page is referenced by:
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The Two Cities, A Chronicle of Universal History
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De Duabus Civitatibus (1157-1158)
Inspired by civil unrest in Germany and written shortly after the fall of Edessa in 1143, Otto of Freising's Historia de duabus civitatibus has come to be known for providing an important early source on the figure of Prester John.
Oddly enough, this vital information is nothing more than an a recorded anecdote from 1145 that tells of a colleague of Otto's called Hugh of Jabala, a bishop from Lebanon, who was relaying news of a promising Nestorian Christian prince, Iohannes.
According to Otto, widely reputed to be a trustworthy historian, this Iohannes, hailing from the distant East of the Magi, had recently conquered Persia and headed West to assist crusaders in their defense of the Holy Land. Unfortunately, Otto relates, a flooded Tigris River prevented him from aiding his Latin Christian brethren.
Although this rumor spawned the centuries-long belief in an Eastern potentate capable of uniting Christendom, the initial account of an Eastern anti-Islamic leader was later revealed to refer to the deeds of the Qara Khitai, a nomadic Chinese tribe descending from Manchuria.
Nevertheless, despite historical mistranslation and Iohannes's failure to reach even Byzantium, this rumor helped set in motion a belated European recognition of the world beyond the Tigris, a world that remained controlled by a heterodoxically Christian sovereign.
From Slessarev, Prester John: The Letter and the Legend (pp. 27-28):He [i.e. Hugh] related also that not many years before a certain John, a king and priest who dwells beyond Persia and Armenia in the uttermost East and, with all his people, is a Christian but a Nestorian, made war on the brother kings of Persians and Medes, called Samiardi, and stormed Ekbatana (the seat of their kingdom) of which mention has been made above.
When the aforesaid kings met him with an army composed of Persians, Medes and Assyrians a battle ensued which lasted for three days, since both parties were willing to die rather than turn in flight. Prester John, for so they are accustomed to call him, putting the Persians to flight with dreadful carnage finally emerged victorious.
He said that after this victory the aforesaid John moved his army to the aid of the Church in Jerusalem. But that when he had reached the river Tigris and was unable to transport his army across that river by any evidence he turned towards the north, where, he had learned, this stream was frozen over on account of the winter’s cold.
When he had tarried there for several years without, however, seeing his heart’s desire realized (the continued mild weather prevented it), and lost many of his soldiers because of the unfamiliar climate he was forced to return home.
It is said that he is a lineal descendent of the Magi, of whom mention is made in the Gospel, and that, ruling over the same peoples which they governed, he enjoys such great glory and wealth that he uses no scepter save one of emerald. Inflamed by the example of his fathers who came to adore Christ in his manger, he hand planned to go to Jerusalem but my reason aforesaid he was prevented—so men say. But enough of this.”
In analyzing this anecdote that arguably sparked the Prester John fever across Europe, Niayesh (p. 157) notes the structural "ambivalence" of Hugh's account, noting that his story was "caught half-way between the pagan past of classical authorities and the present of Christian Crusaders":[Prester John] is vaguely located in extremo Oriente and is made to fight the long extinct nations of the Medes and Assyrians, rather than directly facing contemporary 'Saracens.' He beats them back to Ecbatana, which was the ancient capital of the the Medes vanquished and destroyed by Cyrus the Great in 550 BCE, i.e. about twelve centuries before Otto wrote his chronicle. As for the mysterious name of John's kingly adversaries, the 'Samiardi', it recalls the Persian 'Smerdis', name of the murdered brother of Cambyses, son and heir to Cyrus the Great.
Brewer edits and translates the relevant passages of the chronicle (pp. 43-45). -
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Yeh-lu Ta-shih
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The leader of the nomadic remnant of the Western Liao dynasty known as the Kara Khitai, Yeh-lü Ta-shi was one of the early historical personages misunderstood to be Prester John.
As Silverberg (p. 11) recalls, Yeh-lü Ta-shi was a descendent of the first Khitan Emperor of China. After escaping to central Asia in 1124 with about 200 followers following the collapse of the Liao Dynasty, Yeh-lü Ta-shi was able to establish a new kingdom by winning the support of local Turkish tribes. His 1141 victory over the Seljuk Turks was subsequently mistranslated into a victory of eastern Christians over a formidable Muslim army at a time when western Europe desperately needed a sign of hope after a streak of failed crusading ventures.
During this process of mistranslation, Yeh-lü Ta-shih morphed into an early model for later stories about Prester John. According to Hugh of Jabala's anecdote, recorded in Bishop Otto of Friesing's universal history, a certain Nestorian king called Presbyter Iohannes had defeated a large Muslim army in Ecbatana [note: this actually happened in Samarkand] and had plans to continue to Jerusalem, if not thwarted by an inability to cross the Tigris River. This story turned out to be a mutated retelling of lead of the Qara Khitai Yeh-lü Ta-shi's defeat of Seljuk Sultan Sanjar, though there are several important differences.
First, as Silverberg (pg. 12) points out, Yeh-lü Ta-shi was known to have received "a classical academic Chinese education" and is not known in any Chinese historical text to have been a Christian.
Second, Although he and his army did defeat the Seljuks in 1141, this battle occurred near Samarkand (modern Uzbekistan), not some 2,000 km west in Ecbatana (modern Iran), as Hugh of Jabala reports. Yeh-lü died in either 1143 or 1144 having not traveled much further west than Samarkand.