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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
62 MARCO POLO BOOK I.
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 ; Ä1as'ríclr, II. 329-330 ; e'er. Qua/. 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 11Tauçili in the sense of muslin, and refers to passages in ` The Arabian Nights.' [Bretschneider (M d. 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 bave found no elucidation of Polo's application of mosolini to a class of merchants. But, in a letter of Pope Innocent I V. (1244) to the Dominicans in Palestine, we find classed as different bodies of Oriental Christians, c` jacobitae, Nestorltae, Geor;ranr, Graeci, ArmenT, 11laronttae, et P'Iosolini." (Le Quien, III. 1342.)
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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. KZírt is Turkish for a wolf, not Persian, which is Gurb; but the name (Karduchi, Kordiaei, etc.) is older, I imagine, than the Turkish language in that part of Asia. Quatremére refers it to the Persian gurd, " strong, valiant, hero." As regards the statement that some of the Kurds were Christians, Mas'údi 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.—I-I. C.]
NOTE 5.—Ramusio here, as in all passages where other texts have Buiherami 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, Chaldaeans, Sun-, Fire-, Calf-, and Devil-worshippers dwell one over the head of the other." (Ilc Tian. I. 191.)
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