The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries

by James J. Walsh

DOORWAY OF GIOTTO'S TOWER (FLORENCE)

PRINCIPAL DOOR OF BAPTISTERY (PISA, DIOTISALVI)

The writer says: "This sagacious and honest observer is denounced as an ignorant and untruthful blunderer by Isaac Jacob Schmidt (a man no doubt of useful learning, of a kind rare in his day but narrow and long-headed and in natural acumen and candour far inferior to the Thirteenth Century friar whom he maligns), simply because the evidence of the latter as to the Turkish dialect of the Uigurs traversed a pet heresy long since exploded which Schmidt entertained, namely, that the Uigurs were by race and language Tibetan."

Some of the descriptions of the towns through which the travelers passed are interesting because of comparisons with towns of corresponding size in Europe. Karakorum, for instance, was described as a small city about the same size as the town of St. Denis near Paris. In Karakorum the ambassador missionary maintained a public disputation with certain pagan priests in the presence of three of the secretaries of the Khan. The religion of these umpires is rather interesting from its diversity: the first was a Christian, the second a Mohammedan, and the third a Buddhist. A very interesting feature of the disputation was the fact that the Khan ordered under pain of death that none of the disputants should slander, traduce, or abuse his adversaries, or endeavor by rumor or insinuations to excite popular indignation against them. This would seem to indicate that the great Tartar Khan who is usually considered to have been a cruel, ignorant despot, whose one quality that gave him supremacy was military valor, was really a large, liberal-minded man. His idea seems to have been to discover [{406}] the truth of these different religions and adopt that one which was adjudged to have the best groundwork of reason for it. It is easy to understand, however, that such a disputation argued through interpreters wholly ignorant of the subject and without any proper understanding of the nice distinctions of words or any practise in conveying their proper significance, could come to no serious conclusion. The arguments, therefore, fell flat and a decision was not rendered.

Friar William's work was not unappreciated by his contemporaries and even its scientific value was thoroughly realized. It is not surprising, of course, that his great contemporary in the Franciscan order, Roger Bacon, should have come to the knowledge of his Brother Minorite's book and should have made frequent and copious quotations from it in the geographical section of his Opus Majus, which was written some time during the seventh decade of the Thirteenth Century. Bacon says that Brother William traversed the Oriental and Northern regions and the places adjacent to them, and wrote accounts of them for the illustrious King of France who sent him on the expedition to Tartary. He adds: "I have read his book diligently and have compared it with similar accounts." Roger Bacon recognized by a sort of scientific intuition of his own, certain passages which have proved to be the best in recent times. The description, for instance, of the Caspian was the best down to this time, and Friar William corrects the error made by Isidore, and which had generally been accepted before this, that the Caspian Sea was a gulf. Rubruk, as quoted by Roger Bacon, states very explicitly that it nowhere touches the ocean but is surrounded on all sides by land. For those who do not think that the foundations of scientific geography were laid until recent times, a little consultation of Roger Bacon's Opus Majus would undoubtedly be a revelation.

It is probably with regard to language that one might reasonably expect to find least that would be of interest to modern scholars in Friar William's book. As might easily have been gathered from previous references, however, it is here that the most frequent surprises as to the acuity of this medieval traveler await the modern reader. Scientific philology is so much a product of the last century, that it is difficult to [{407}] understand how this old-time missionary was able to reach so many almost intuitive recognitions of the origin and relationships of the languages of the people among whom he traveled. He came in contact with the group of nations occupying what is now known as the Near East, whose languages, as is well known, have constituted a series of the most difficult problems with which philology had to deal until its thorough establishment on scientific lines enabled it to separate them properly. It is all the more surprising then, to find that Friar William should have so much in his book that even the modern philologist will read with attention and unstinted admiration.

With regard to this Colonel Yule, whose personal experience makes him a valuable guide in such matters, has written a paragraph which contains so much compressed information that we venture to quote it entire. It furnishes the grounds for the claim (which might seem overstrained if it were not that its author was himself one of the greatest of modern explorers) that William was an acute and most intelligent observer, keen in the acquisition of knowledge; and the author in fact of one of the best narratives of travel in existence. Col. Yule says:

"Of his interest and acumen in matters of language we may cite examples. The language of the Pascatir (or Bashkirds) and of the Hungarians is the same, as, he had learned from Dominicans who had been among them. The language of the Ruthenians, Poles, Bohemians, and Slavonians is one, and is the same with that of the Wandals or Wends. In the town of Equinus (immediately beyond the Ili, perhaps Aspara) the people were Mohammedans speaking Persian, though so far remote from Persia. The Yugurs (or Uigurs) of the country about the Cailac had formed a language and character of their own, and in that language and character the Nestorians of that tract used to perform their office and write their books. The Yugurs are those among whom are found the fountain and root of the Turkish and Comanian tongue. Their character has been adopted by the Moghals. In using it they begin writing from the top and write downwards, whilst line follows line from left to right. The Nestorians say their service, and have their holy book in Syriac, but know nothing of the [{408}] language, just as some of our Monks sing the mass without knowing Latin. The Tibet people write as we do, and their letters have a strong resemblance to ours. The Tangut people write from right to left like the Arabs, and their lines advance upwards."