The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Marco Polo and da Pisa Rusticiano
CHAPTER V.
1435 words | Chapter 251
OF THE KINGDOM OF MAUSUL.
On the frontier of Armenia towards the south-east is the kingdom
of MAUSUL. It is a very great kingdom, and inhabited{1} by several
different kinds of people whom we shall now describe.
First there is a kind of people called ARABI, and these worship
Mahommet. Then there is another description of people who are NESTORIAN
and JACOBITE Christians. These have a Patriarch, whom they call the
JATOLIC, and this Patriarch creates Archbishops, and Abbots, and
Prelates of all other degrees, and sends them into every quarter, as to
India, to Baudas, or to Cathay, just as the Pope of Rome does in the
Latin countries. For you must know that though there is a very great
number of Christians in those countries, they are all Jacobites and
Nestorians; Christians indeed, but not in the fashion enjoined by the
Pope of Rome, for they come short in several points of the Faith.{2}
All the cloths of gold and silk that are called _Mosolins_ are made in
this country; and those great Merchants called _Mosolins_, who carry
for sale such quantities of spicery and pearls and cloths of silk and
gold, are also from this kingdom.{3}
There is yet another race of people who inhabit the mountains in that
quarter, and are called CURDS. Some of them are Christians, and some of
them are Saracens; but they are an evil generation, whose delight it is
to plunder merchants.{4}
[Near this province is another called MUS and MERDIN, producing an
immense quantity of cotton, from which they make a great deal of
buckram{5} and other cloth. The people are craftsmen and traders, and
all are subject to the Tartar King.]
[Illustration: Coin of Badruddín of Mausul.]
NOTE 1.—Polo could scarcely have been justified in calling MOSUL a
very great kingdom. This is a bad habit of his, as we shall have
to notice again. Badruddín Lúlú, the last Atabeg of Mosul of the
race of Zenghi had at the age of 96 taken sides with Hulaku, and
stood high in his favour. His son Malik Sálih, having revolted,
surrendered to the Mongols in 1261 on promise of life; which
promise they kept in Mongol fashion by torturing him to death.
Since then the kingdom had ceased to exist as such. Coins of
Badruddín remain with the name and titles of Mangku Kaan on their
reverse, and some of his and of other atabegs exhibit curious
imitations of Greek art. (_Quat. Rash._ p. 389; _Jour. As._ IV. VI.
141.).—H. Y. and H. C. [Mosul was pillaged by Timur at the end of
the 14th century; during the 15th it fell into the hands of the
Turkomans, and during the 16th, of Ismail, Shah of Persia.—H. C.]
[The population of Mosul is to-day 61,000 inhabitants—(48,000
Musulmans, 10,000 Christians belonging to various churches, and
3000 Jews).—H. C.]
NOTE 2.—The Nestorian Church was at this time and in the preceding
centuries diffused over Asia to an extent of which little
conception is generally entertained, having a chain of Bishops and
Metropolitans from Jerusalem to Peking. The Church derived its
name from Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, who was deposed
by the Council of Ephesus in 431. The chief “point of the Faith”
wherein it came short, was (at least in its most tangible form) the
doctrine that in Our Lord there were two Persons, one of the Divine
Word, the other of the Man Jesus; the former dwelling in the latter
as in a Temple, or uniting with the latter “as fire with iron.”
_Nestorin_, the term used by Polo, is almost a literal transcript
of the Arab form _Nastúri_. A notice of the Metropolitan sees, with
a map, will be found in _Cathay_, p. ccxliv.
_Játhalík_, written in our text (from G. T.) _Jatolic_, by Fr.
Burchard and Ricold _Jaselic_, stands for Καθολικóς. No doubt it
was originally _Gáthalík_, but altered in pronunciation by the
Arabs. The term was applied by Nestorians to their Patriarch; among
the Jacobites to the _Mafrián_ or Metropolitan. The Nestorian
Patriarch at this time resided at Baghdad. (_Assemani_, vol. iii.
pt. 2; _Per. Quat._ 91, 127.)
The Jacobites, or Jacobins, as they are called by writers of that
age (Ar. _Ya’úbkíy_), received their name from Jacob Baradaeus or
James Zanzale, Bishop of Edessa (so called, Mas’udi says, because
he was a maker of _barda’at_ or saddle-cloths), who gave a great
impulse to their doctrine in the 6th century. [At some time between
the years 541 and 578, he separated from the Church and became a
follower of the doctrine of Eutyches.—H. C.] The Jacobites then
formed an independent Church, which at one time spread over the
East at least as far as Sístán, where they had a see under the
Sassanian Kings. Their distinguishing tenet was _Monophysitism_,
viz., that Our Lord had but one Nature, the Divine. It was in
fact a rebound from Nestorian doctrine, but, as might be expected
in such a case, there was a vast number of shades of opinion
among both bodies. The chief locality of the Jacobites was in the
districts of Mosul, Tekrit, and Jazírah, and their Patriarch was
at this time settled at the Monastery of St. Matthew, near Mosul,
but afterwards, and to the present day, at or near Mardin. [They
have at present two patriarchates: the Monastery of Zapharan near
Baghdad and Etchmiadzin.—H. C.] The Armenian, Coptic, Abyssinian,
and Malabar Churches all hold some shade of the Jacobite doctrine,
though the first two at least have Patriarchs apart.
(_Assemani_, vol. ii.; _Le Quien_, II. 1596; _Mas’udi_, II.
329–330; _Per. Quat._ 124–129.)
NOTE 3.—We see here that _mosolin_ or _muslin_ had a very different
meaning from what it has now. A quotation from Ives by Marsden
shows it to have been applied in the middle of last century to
a strong cotton cloth made at Mosul. Dozy says the Arabs use
_Mauçili_ in the sense of muslin, and refers to passages in ‘The
Arabian Nights.’ [Bretschneider (_Med. Res._ II. p. 122) observes
“that in the narrative of Ch’ang Ch’un’s travels to the west in
1221, it is stated that in Samarkand the men of the lower classes
and the priests wrap their heads about with a piece of white
_mo-sze_. There can be no doubt that mo-sze here denotes ‘muslin,’
and the Chinese author seems to understand by this term the same
material which we are now used to call muslin.”—H. C.] I have found
no elucidation of Polo’s application of _mosolini_ to a class of
merchants. But, in a letter of Pope Innocent IV. (1244) to the
Dominicans in Palestine, we find classed as different bodies of
Oriental Christians, “_Jacobitae, Nestoritae, Georgiani, Graeci,
Armeni, Maronitae, et_ Mosolini.” (_Le Quien_, III. 1342.)
NOTE 4.—“The Curds,” says Ricold, “exceed in malignant ferocity all
the barbarous nations that I have seen.... They are called _Curti_,
not because they are curt in stature, but from the Persian word
for _Wolves_.... They have three principal vices, viz., Murder,
Robbery, and Treachery.” Some say they have not mended since,
but his etymology is doubtful. _Kúrt_ is Turkish for a wolf, not
Persian, which is _Gurg_; but the name (_Karduchi, Kordiaei_, etc.)
is older, I imagine, than the Turkish language in that part of
Asia. Quatremère refers it to the Persian _gurd_, “strong, valiant,
hero.” As regards the statement that some of the Kurds were
Christians, Mas’udi states that the Jacobites and certain other
Christians in the territory of Mosul and Mount Judi were reckoned
among the Kurds. (_Not. et Ext._ XIII. i. 304.) [The Kurds of Mosul
are in part nomadic and are called _Kotcheres_, but the greater
number are sedentary and cultivate cereals, cotton, tobacco, and
fruits. (_Cuinet._) Old Kurdistan had Shehrizor (Kerkuk, in the
sanjak of that name) as its capital.—H. C.]
NOTE 5.—Ramusio here, as in all passages where other texts
have _Bucherami_ and the like, puts _Boccassini_, a word which
has become obsolete in its turn. I see both _Bochayrani_ and
_Bochasini_ coupled, in a Genoese fiscal statute of 1339, quoted by
Pardessus. (_Lois Maritimes_, IV. 456.)
MUSH and MARDIN are in very different regions, but as their actual
interval is only about 120 miles, they _may_ have been under one
provincial government. Mush is essentially Armenian, and, though
the seat of a Pashalik, is now a wretched place. Mardin, on the
verge of the Mesopotamian Plain, rises in terraces on a lofty hill,
and there, says Hammer, “Sunnis and Shias, Catholic and Schismatic
Armenians, Jacobites, Nestorians, Chaldæans, Sun-, Fire-, Calf-,
and Devil-worshippers dwell one over the head of the other.”
(_Ilchan._ I. 191.)
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