The Travels of Marco Polo 1: Chapter 46

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CHAPTER XLVI.

OF THE CITY OF CARACORON.

[.... only relevant parts of notes are retained as relevant to Armenia]

NOTE 4.--The idea that a Christian potentate of enormous wealth and power, and bearing this title, ruled over vast tracts in the far East, was universal in Europe from the middle of the 12th to the end of the 13th century, after which time the Asiatic story seems gradually to have died away, whilst the Royal Presbyter was assigned to a locus in Abyssinia; the equivocal application of the term _India_ to the East of Asia and the East of Africa facilitating this transfer. Indeed I have a suspicion, contrary to the view now generally taken, that the term may from the first have belonged to the Abyssinian Prince, though circumstances led to its being applied in another quarter for a time. It appears to me almost certain that the letter of Pope Alexander III., preserved by R. Hoveden, and written in 1177 to the _Magnificus Rex Indorum, Sacerdotum sanctissimus_, was meant for the King of Abyssinia.

Be that as it may, the inordinate report of Prester John's magnificence became especially diffused from about the year 1165, when a letter full of the most extravagant details was circulated, which purported to have been addressed by this potentate to the Greek Emperor Manuel, the Roman Emperor Frederick, the Pope, and other Christian sovereigns. By the circulation of this letter, glaring fiction as it is, the idea of this Christian Conqueror was planted deep in the mind of Europe, and twined itself round every rumour of revolution in further Asia. Even when the din of the conquests of Chinghiz began to be audible in the West, he was invested with the character of a Christian King, and more or less confounded with the mysterious Prester John.

The first notice of a conquering Asiatic potentate so styled had been brought to Europe by the Syrian Bishop of Gabala (_Jibal_, south of Laodicea in Northern Syria), who came, in 1145, to lay various grievances before Pope Eugene III. He reported that not long before a certain John, inhabiting the extreme East, king and Nestorian priest, and claiming descent from the Three Wise Kings, had made war on the _Samiard_ Kings of the Medes and Persians, and had taken Ecbatana their capital. He was then proceeding to the deliverance of Jerusalem, but was stopped by the Tigris, which he could not cross, and compelled by disease in his host to retire.

M. d'Avezac first showed to whom this account must apply, and the subject has more recently been set forth with great completeness and learning by Dr. Gustavus Oppert. The conqueror in question was the founder of Kara Khitai, which existed as a great Empire in Asia during the last two-thirds of the 12th century. This chief was a prince of the Khitan dynasty of Liao, who escaped with a body of followers from Northern China on the overthrow of that dynasty by the _Kin_ or Niuchen about 1125. He is called by the Chinese historians Yeliu Tashi; by Abulghazi, Nuzi Taigri Ili; and by Rashiduddin, Nushi (or Fushi) Taifu. Being well received by the Uighúrs and other tribes west of the Desert who had been subject to the Khitan Empire, he gathered an army and commenced a course of conquest which eventually extended over Eastern and Western Turkestan, including Khwarizm, which became tributary to him. He took the title of _Gurkhan_, said to mean Universal or Suzerain Khan, and fixed at Bala Sagun, north of the Thian Shan, the capital of his Empire, which became known as _Kará_ (Black) _Khitai_.[1] [The dynasty being named by the Chinese _Si-Liao_ (Western Liao) lasted till it was destroyed in 1218.--H. C.] In 1141 he came to the aid of the King of Khwarizm against _Sanjar_ the Seljukian sovereign of Persia (whence the _Samiard_ of the Syrian Bishop), who had just taken Samarkand, and defeated that prince with great slaughter. Though the Gurkhan himself is not described to have extended his conquests into Persia, the King of Khwarizm followed up the victory by an invasion of that country, in which he plundered the treasury and cities of Sanjar.

Admitting this Karacathayan prince to be the first conqueror (in Asia, at all events) to whom the name of Prester John was applied, it still remains obscure how that name arose. Oppert supposes that _Gurkhan_ or _Kurkhan_, softened in West Turkish pronunciation into _Yurkan_, was confounded with _Yochanan_ or _Johannes_; but he finds no evidence of the conqueror's profession of Christianity except the fact, notable certainly, that the daughter of the last of his brief dynasty is recorded to have been a Christian. Indeed, D'Ohsson says that the first Gurkhan was a Buddhist, though on what authority is not clear. There seems a probability at least that it was an error in the original ascription of Christianity to the Karacathayan prince, which caused the confusions as to the identity of Prester John which appear in the next century, of which we shall presently speak. Leaving this doubtful point, it has been plausibly suggested that the title of Presbyter Johannes was connected with the legends of the immortality of John the Apostle ([Greek: ho presbýteros], as he calls himself in the 2nd and 3rd epistles), and the belief referred to by some of the Fathers that he would be the Forerunner of our Lord's second coming, as John the Baptist had been of His first.

A new theory regarding the original Prester John has been propounded by Professor Bruun of Odessa, in a Russian work entitled _The Migrations of Prester John_. The author has been good enough to send me large extracts of this essay in (French) translation; and I will endeavour to set forth the main points as well as the small space that can be given to the matter will admit. Some remarks and notes shall be added, but I am not in a position to do justice to Professor Bruun's views, from the want of access to some of his most important authorities, such as Brosset's _History of Georgia_, and its appendices.

It will be well, before going further, to give the essential parts of the passage in the History of Bishop Otto of Freisingen (referred to in vol i. p. 229), which contains the first allusion to a personage styled Prester John:

"We saw also there [at Rome in 1145] the afore-mentioned Bishop of Gabala, from Syria.... We heard him bewailing with tears the peril of the Church beyond-sea since the capture of Edessa, and uttering his intention on that account to cross the Alps and seek aid from the King of the Romans and the King of the Franks. He was also telling us how, not many years before, one JOHN, KING and PRIEST, who dwells in the extreme Orient beyond Persia and Armenia, and is (with his people) a Christian, but a Nestorian, had waged war against the brother Kings of the Persians and Medes who are called the Samiards, and had captured Ecbatana, of which we have spoken above, the seat of their dominion. The said Kings having met him with their forces made up of Persians, Medes, and Assyrians, the battle had been maintained for 3 days, either side preferring death to flight. But at last PRESBYTER JOHN (for so they are wont to style him), having routed the Persians, came forth the victor from a most sanguinary battle. After this victory (he went on to say) the aforesaid John was advancing to fight in aid of the Church at Jerusalem; but when he arrived at the Tigris, and found there no possible means of transport for his army, he turned northward, as he had heard that the river in that quarter was frozen over in winter-time. Halting there for some years[2] in expectation of a frost, which never came, owing to the mildness of the season, he lost many of his people through the unaccustomed climate, and was obliged to return homewards. This personage is said to be of the ancient race of those Magi who are mentioned in the Gospel, and to rule the same nations that they did, and to have such glory and wealth that he uses (they say) only an emerald sceptre. It was (they say) from his being fired by the example of his fathers, who came to adore Christ in the cradle, that he was proposing to go to Jerusalem, when he was prevented by the cause already alleged."

Professor Bruun will not accept Oppert's explanation, which identifies this King and Priest with the Gur-Khan of Karacathay, for whose profession of Christianity there is indeed (as has been indicated--supra) no real evidence; who could not be said to have made an attack upon any pair of brother Kings of the Persians and the Medes, nor to have captured Ecbatana (a city, whatever its identity, of Media); who could never have had any intention of coming to Jerusalem; and whose geographical position in no way suggested the mention of Armenia.

Professor Bruun thinks he finds a warrior much better answering to the indications in the Georgian prince John Orbelian, the general-in-chief under several successive Kings of Georgia in that age.

At the time when the Gur-Khan defeated Sanjar the real brothers of the latter had been long dead; Sanjar had withdrawn from interference with the affairs of Western Persia; and Hamadán (if this is to be regarded as Ecbatana) was no residence of his. But it was the residence of Sanjar's nephew Mas'úd, in whose hands was now the dominion of Western Persia; whilst Mas'úd's nephew, Dáúd, held Media, i.e. Azerbeiján, Arrán, and Armenia. It is in these two princes that Professor Bruun sees the _Samiardi fratres_ of the German chronicler.

Again the expression "extreme Orient" is to be interpreted by local usage. And with the people of Little Armenia, through whom probably such intelligence reached the Bishop of Gabala, the expression the _East_ signified specifically Great Armenia (which was then a part of the kingdom of Georgia and Abkhasia), as Dulaurier has stated.[3]

It is true that the Georgians were not really Nestorians, but followers of the Greek Church. It was the fact, however, that in general, the Armenians, whom the Greeks accused of following the Jacobite errors, retorted upon members of the Greek Church with the reproach of the opposite heresy of Nestorianism. And the attribution of Nestorianism to a Georgian Prince is, like the expression "_extreme East_," an indication of the Armenian channel through which the story came.

The intention to march to the aid of the Christians in Palestine is more like the act of a Georgian General than that of a Karacathayan Khan; and there are in the history of the Kingdom of Jerusalem several indications of the proposal at least of Georgian assistance.

The personage in question is said to have come from the country of the Magi, from whom he was descended. But these have frequently been supposed to come from Great Armenia. E.g. Friar Jordanus says they came from Moghán.[4]

The name _Ecbatana_ has been so variously applied that it was likely to lead to ambiguities. But it so happens that, in a previous passage of his History, Bishop Otto of Freisingen, in rehearsing some Oriental information gathered apparently from the same Bishop of Gabala, has shown what was the place that he had been taught to identify with Ecbatana, viz. the old Armenian city of ANI.[5] Now this city was captured from the Turks, on behalf of the King of Georgia, David the Restorer, by his great _sbasalar_,[6] John Orbelian, in 1123-24.

Professor Bruun also lays stress upon a passage in a German chronicle of date some years later than Otho's work:

"1141. Liupoldus dux Bawariorum obiit, Henrico fratre ejus succedente in ducatu. Iohannes Presbyter Rex Armeniae et Indiae cum duobus regibus fratribus Persarum et Medorum pugnavit et vicit."[7]

He asks how the Gur-Khan of Karakhitai could be styled King of _Armenia_ and of India? It may be asked, _per contra_, how either the King of Georgia or his _Peshwa_ (to use the Mahratta analogy of John Orbelian's position) could be styled King of Armenia and of _India_? In reply to this, Professor Bruun adduces a variety of quotations which he considers as showing that the term _India_ was applied to some Caucasian region.

My own conviction is that the report of Otto of Freisingen is not merely the _first mention_ of a great Asiatic potentate called Prester John, but that his statement is the whole and sole basis of good faith on which the story of such a potentate rested; and I am quite as willing to believe, on due evidence, that the nucleus of fact to which his statement referred, and on which such a pile of long-enduring fiction was erected, occurred in Armenia as that it occurred in Turan. Indeed in many respects the story would thus be more comprehensible. One cannot attach any value to the quotation from the Annalist in Pertz, because there seems no reason to doubt that the passage is a mere adaptation of the report by Bishop Otto, of whose work the Annalist makes other use, as is indeed admitted by Professor Bruun, who (be it said) is a pattern of candour in controversy. But much else that the Professor alleges is interesting and striking. The fact that Azerbeijan and the adjoining regions were known as "the East" is patent to the readers of this book in many a page, where the Khan and his Mongols in occupation of that region are styled by Polo _Lord of the_ LEVANT, _Tartars of the_ LEVANT (i.e. of the East), even when the speaker's standpoint is in far Cathay.[8] The mention of _Aní_ as identical with the Ecbatana of which Otto had heard is a remarkable circumstance which I think even Oppert has overlooked. That this Georgian hero _was_ a Christian and that his name _was_ John are considerable facts. Oppert's conversion of Korkhan into Yokhanan or John is anything but satisfactory. The identification proposed again makes it quite intelligible how the so-called Prester John should have talked about coming to the aid of the Crusaders; a point so difficult to explain on Oppert's theory, that he has been obliged to introduce a duplicate John in the person of a Greek Emperor to solve that knot; another of the weaker links in his argument. In fact, Professor Bruun's thesis seems to me more than fairly successful in _paving the way_ for the introduction of a Caucasian Prester John; the barriers are removed, the carpets are spread, the trumpets sound royally--but the conquering hero comes not!

He does very nearly come. The almost royal power and splendour of the Orbelians at this time is on record: "They held the office of _Sbasalar_ or Generalissimo of all Georgia. All the officers of the King's Palace were under their authority. Besides that they had 12 standards of their own, and under each standard 1000 warriors mustered. As the custom was for the King's flag to be white and the pennon over it red, it was ruled that the Orpelian flag should be red and the pennon white.... At banquets they alone had the right to couches whilst other princes had cushions only. Their food was served on silver; and to them it belonged to crown the kings."[9] Orpel Ivané, i.e. John Orbelian, Grand _Sbasalar_, was for years the pride of Georgia and the hammer of the Turks. In 1123-1124 he wrested from them Tiflis and the whole country up to the Araxes, including _Ani_, as we have said. His King David, the Restorer, bestowed on him large additional domains from the new conquests; and the like brilliant service and career of conquest was continued under David's sons and successors, Demetrius and George; his later achievements, however, and some of the most brilliant, occurring after the date of the Bishop of Gabala's visit to Rome. But still we hear of no actual conflict with the chief princes of the Seljukian house, and of no event in his history so important as to account for his being made to play the part of Presbyter Johannes in the story of the Bishop of Gabala. Professor Bruun's most forcible observation in reference to this rather serious difficulty is that the historians have transmitted to us extremely little detail concerning the reign of Demetrius II., and do not even agree as to its duration. Carebat vate sacro: "It was," says Brosset, "long and glorious, but it lacked a commemorator." If new facts can be alleged, the identity may still be proved. But meantime the conquests of the Gur-Khan and his defeat of Sanjar, just at a time which suits the story, are indubitable, and this great advantage Oppert's thesis retains. As regards the claim to the title of _Presbyter_ nothing worth mentioning is alleged on either side.

When the Mongol Conquests threw Asia open to Frank travellers in the middle of the 13th century, their minds were full of Prester John; they sought in vain for an adequate representative, but it was not in the nature of things but they should find _some_ representative. In fact they found _several_. Apparently no real tradition existed among the Eastern Christians of any such personage, but the persistent demand produced a supply, and the honour of identification with Prester John, after hovering over one head and another, settled finally upon that of the King of the Keraits, whom we find to play the part in our text.

Thus in Plano Carpini's single mention of Prester John as the King of the Christians of India the Greater, who defeats the Tartars by an elaborate stratagem, Oppert recognizes Sultan Jaláluddín of Khwarizm and his temporary success over the Mongols in Afghanistan. In the Armenian Prince Sempad's account, on the other hand, this Christian King of India is _aided_ by the Tartars to defeat and harass the neighbouring Saracens, his enemies, and becomes the Mongol's vassal. In the statement of Rubruquis, though distinct reference is made to the conquering Gurkhan (under the name of Coir Cham of Caracatay), the title of _King John_ is assigned to the Naiman Prince (_Kushluk_), who had married the daughter of the last lineal sovereign of Karakhitai, and usurped his power, whilst, with a strange complication of confusion, UNC, Prince of the Crit and Merkit (Kerait and Merkit, two great tribes of Mongolia)[10] and Lord of Karákorum, is made the brother and successor of this Naiman Prince. His version of the story, as it proceeds, has so much resemblance to Polo's, that we shall quote the words. The Crit and Merkit, he says, were Nestorian Christians. "But their Lord had abandoned the worship of Christ to follow idols, and kept by him those priests of the idols who are all devil-raisers and sorcerers. Beyond his pastures, at the distance of ten or fifteen days' journey, were the pastures of the MOAL (Mongol), who were a very poor people, without a leader and without any religion except sorceries and divinations, such as all the people of those parts put so much faith in. Next to Moal was another poor tribe called TARTAR. King John having died without an heir, his brother Unc got his wealth, and caused himself to be proclaimed Cham, and sent out his flocks and herds even to the borders of Moal. At that time there was a certain blacksmith called Chinghis among the tribe of Moal, and he used to lift the cattle of Unc Chan as often as he had a chance, insomuch that the herdsmen of Unc Chan made complaint to their master. The latter assembled an army, and invaded the land of the Moal in search of Chinghis, but he fled and hid himself among the Tartars. So Unc, having plundered the Moal and Tartars, returned home. And Chinghis addressed the Tartars and Moal, saying: 'It is because we have no leader that we are thus oppressed by our neighbours.' So both Tartars and Moal made Chinghis himself their leader and captain. And having got a host quietly together, he made a sudden onslaught upon Unc and conquered him, and compelled him to flee into Cathay. On that occasion his daughter was taken, and given by Chinghis to one of his sons, to whom she bore Mangu, who now reigneth.... The land in which they (the Mongols) first were, and where the residence of Chinghis still exists, is called _Onan Kerule_.[11] But because Caracoran is in the country which was their first conquest, they regard it as a royal city, and there hold the elections of their Chan."

Here we see plainly that the Unc Chan of Rubruquis is the Unc Can or Unecan of Polo. In the narrative of the former, Unc is only _connected_ with King or Prester John; in that of the latter, rehearsing the story as heard some 20 or 25 years later, the two are _identified_. The shadowy _rôle_ of Prester John has passed from the Ruler of Kara Khitai to the Chief of the Keraits. This transfer brings us to another history.

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