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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
CHAP. V. THE KINGDOM OF MAUSUL
6i
make a great deal of buckram 5 and other cloth. The
people are craftsmen and traders, and all are subject to
the Tartar King.]
NOTE I.—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. Badruddin
Lúltí, 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. (Qua'. 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 Ismaïl, Shah of Persia.—H. C. ]
[The population of Mosul is to-day 6i,000 inhabitants—(48,000 Musulmans, io,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 carne 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 Nastzíri. A notice of the Metropolitan sees, with a map, will be found in Cathay, p. ccxliv.
fátlzalík, written in our text (from G. T.) Jatolic, by Fr. Burchard and Ricold %aselic, stands for KaOoXch . No doubt it was originally Gzthalik, but altered in pronunciation by the Arabs. The term was applied by Nestorians to their Patriarch ; among the Jacobites to the /110-Ma 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'zíbkíy), received their name from Jacob Baradaeus or James Zanzale, Bishop of Edessa (so called, Mas'údi 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. T heir 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 Jazfrah, 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,
Coin of Badruddín of Mausul.
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