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THE TRAVELS OF RABBI BENJAMIN OF TUDELA.

IT is a curious fact that, while we are fairly well acquainted with the geography of the ancient world, and still better with that of modern times, dating from the Reformation, a great blank occurs in our knowledge about the period of the Middle Ages. The downfall of the Roman Empire and the occupation of Western Europe by barbarous nations, ignorant of even the elements of civilised life, extinguished all scientific research. Many centuries elapsed before geography, which had to share the fate of the other sciences, was revived. The state of Europe at the time of the Crusades can only be dimly inferred from the romantic narratives and chronicles of the period that deal with the valiant deeds of the doughty knights. Travellers for business were probably but few in those days; travellers for pleasure still fewer, if they existed at all; and such as there were were in all probability illiterate, and hence unable to comply with Bacon's primary demand from a traveller, that he should keep a diary and register his observations.

The most notable of all mediæval travellers is, of course, Marco Polo. We should certainly have been great losers had he not recorded his adventures at the court of Kublai Khan, and we have at length passed the ignorant stage that sneers at or rejects all that seems strange and unwonted as mere fiction. We have learnt to sift the valuable grain from the chaff without arrogantly tossing

away the whole as useless. Those were days when accurate knowledge was not so easily acquired, when verbal information had to be largely relied on, and the result was a strange commingling of fiction and fact.

Besides Marco Polo, the name of Abdallatif is familiar as an Egyptian traveller to whom we owe the narrative of the failure that occurred in the Nile inundations towards the end of the twelfth century, when for a time cannibalism was practised in the Delta. Then there was Rabbi Pethachia, of Ratisbon, who journeyed in the middle of that century. Pethachia was probably a rich man, impelled to travel by a strong desire to visit his distant brethren and the graves of the Hebrew saints, an object quite in accordance with the spirit of the day.

His narrative, which has come down to us much mutilated and abridged, is, for the period, copious in description, but his facts are not always accurate. To Edrisi we owe the first real geographical treatise, written for Roger II., King of Sicily, and which for three centuries formed the basis of all geographical knowledge. We have only one more name to add, that of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, and the scanty record of the period is substantially closed. Perhaps of all these travellers the name of this Jew is the least familiar-certainly not as familiar as that of Marco Polo, with whose narrative his Itinerary presents some striking

similarities, though he lived before him, and was consequently the first European who penetrated so far eastward.

It is presumed by scholars that this Itinerary of Rabbi Benjamin shared the fate of Marco Polo's travels in being abridged from the original journal by copyists and translators, and since no complete and genuine MS. has as yet been discovered, we are obliged to content ourselves with those that exist, fragmentary and imperfect though they are. The work, which was well known to the learned in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, and had gained credit among Jews and Christians, was never printed until the sixteenth century, when an edition appeared at Constantinople, printed

-as it had been written-in the Rabbinic character. This edition is extremely rare; the Bodleian possesses an incomplete copy. In the seventeenth century the work was translated into Latin, and since then into French, English, Dutch and German. Probably few general readers have taken the trouble to peruse the quaint, brief utterances of this ancient Spanish Jew; and yet his narrative, for all the narrow space in which its information is compressed, by no means lacks interest, and will, we hope, be found to repay analysis.

The first object of interest to us is naturally the writer himself. Little is known about him, and only by inference from the events named by him can we fix the exact date of his visit to various cities.

He was a Spaniard, and lived before the Jews were persecuted and oppressed in the name of charity and love; indeed, in his day the Jews held a respected position in Christian Spain. They filled posts of honour and were permitted to bear arms and rank as knights.

The Jewish congregation of Tudela, a little town on the Ebro, had even actively asserted their equality with the Christians and Mahommedans of the place, and possessed a military tower for their proper security. Rabbi Benjamin was a native of this town, and his birth must certainly have occurred in the early part of the twelfth century. The object of his travels is never stated by him, but it was probably of a mercantile character. His descriptions are such as a sober merchant, voyaging for his business, but observing besides, would be likely to give. This view is further confirmed by the accuracy with which he notices the state of trade in the various places he visits. Besides this, it is very evident that Rabbi Benjamin endeavoured to become acquainted with the state of his brethren in the countries through which he passed. He sought out all the Jewish synagogues, and has recorded the names of the various rabbis, the principal Jewish residents, and the number of their congregations. Hence his narrative contains the fullest account extant of the state of the Jews in the

twelfth century. He is accused, on insufficient grounds, of having overstated these numbers for the purpose of glorifying his nation, and the fidelity of his work has been impugned as having been written only for the purpose of celebrating his own people.

That

the writer was a pious Hebrew is very obvious, and a fact he never even attempts or seeks to disguise; but why this fact should invalidate the veracity of a very plain, straightforward, and unimaginative Jewish merchant is not so obvious. It is highly probable that with his commercial objects he combined a curiosity similar to that of the Chinese traveller FaHian, who early in the seventh

century visited India to investigate the condition of his Buddhist coreligionists. We do not, therefore, doubt his geographical accuracy, whenever he turns aside to make any statement of this nature. As Gibbon justly remarks, "The errors and fictions of the Jewish rabbi are not a sufficient ground to deny the reality of his travels." Moreover, Rabbi Benjamin is particularly remarkable for his caution; and it is here that the contrast between him and Pethrachia, between the commercial traveller and the tourist, is so amusingly marked, in parts where they have traversed the same ground.

So

cautious indeed is Rabbi Benjamin, that he draws a careful distinction between "what he heard" and "what he saw." Considering the state of knowledge at the time when he wrote, the marvel is not at the fables and fictions that have crept into his narrative, but that these are so few and that the whole is distinguished by such accuracy and sobriety.

It has been computed that the Itinerary refers to a period extending over about fourteen years, falling between the second and third crusade-probably from 1159 to 1173. Tibet appears to have been the furthest goal of the rabbi's journey. He probably thus combined the object of a pilgrimage with his commercial purposes. Jerusalem and Bagdad were to Jews what Mecca is to the Mahommedan. Jerusalem was the city of their hopes, while Bagdad was in those days the seat of the last princes of the Jewish nation; for the eastern Jews at that time enjoyed, to some extent, the right of self-government.

Now, so mutilated, incomplete, or abridged is the Itinerary of

Rabbi Benjamin, that we might even have remained ignorant of his name, but for a preface written by some later hand, whose authenticity has never been doubted. It embodies all known to us of our traveller.

"This book," so runs the preface, " contains the report of Rabbi Benjamin, the son of Jonah of blessed memory, of Tudela in the kingdom of Navarre. This man travelled through many and distant countries, as related in this account, and wrote down in every place whatever he saw or what was told him by men of integrity, whose names were known in Spain. Rabbi Benjamin also mentions some of the principal men in the places he visited, and when he returned he brought this report along with him. to the land of Castile in the year 933 (1173).

Rabbi

"The above-mentioned Benjamin was a man of wisdom and understanding, and of much information; and, after strict inquiry, his words were found to be true and correct, for he was a true man." Then follows the diary:

"I first set out from the city of Saragossa, and proceeded down the river Ebro to Tortosa," says Rabbi Benjamin, thus plunging into medias res, and stating neither date nor mode of conveyance, though in this instance it can be inferred. That he does not mention his means of locomotion is to be regretted, but he is always careful to tell us how many days' journey the places he visits lie apart. Two days' journey, he tells us, brought him from Tortosa to Tarragona, that most ancient city of Spain, which is supposed to have been built by the Phoenicians, and whose Cyclopæan remains evidently impressed the Rabbi, though he only notes down

*We have throughout availed ourselves of A. Asher's translation of the Hebrew text (London and Berlin, 1840).

the fact of their existence with the unpretentious solemnity that characterises his narrative. Two more days brought him to Barcelona. "The city, though small, is handsome, and is situated on the seashore. Merchants resort thither for goods from all parts of the world-from Greece, from Pisa, Genoa, and Sicily, from Alexandria in Egypt, from Palestine and the adjacent countries." Four days and a half brings him to Narbonne; this journey must have been performed by sea. Narbonne would appear to have been a place of repute among the Jews of that time, in consequence of the study of the Law carried on there, which spread thence over all countries. Rabbi Celonymos (honourable name) is mentioned as a teacher of great distinction, "and a descendant of the house of David," adds R. Benjamin," as proved by his pedigree." This latter addendum is characteristic of our author's caution. The weakness of boasting of noble descent would appear to be as old as the world, and Davidites, or descendants of the house of David, were naturally held in especial reverence as the tribe whence the Messiah should issue. In consequence of exterminating wars and the dispersion, the records of the old families had been often lost, and spurious pedigrees grew by no means uncommon. This man's pedigree seems, however, to have satisfied R. Benjamin as to its genuineness, and a remark he goes on to make concerning him gives a striking picture of the political state of the French Jews of that time, which was apparently by no means as favourable as that of their

Spanish brethren. "This man holds landed property from the sovereigns of the country of which nobody can deprive him by force." The permission to hold property in land was evidently granted as a

favour, and the protection of the ruler required, in order to shelter the Israelites from those who were then, as now, jealous of their superior wealth. They cannot, however, have laboured under any crushing restrictions, as was the case in later times. Both at Semel and Beaucaire the Jews presided over a university, where they taught Scriptural and Talmudic learning; and at Bourg de St. Gilles, a place of pilgrimage to pious Christians, who here visited the shrine of St. Egidius (St. Giles), a Jew was one of the household officers of Raymond, the Prince of Toulouse, who took soactive a part in the Crusades. We are very fond of vaunting our superior toleration as opposed to that of the dark ages, but when we meet with statements like these we are forced to pause and consider whether we have really advanced so much in this, the greatest of all social virtues.

From Marseilles our author took ship for Genoa, a journey then of about four days, where he only found two Jewish residents. Genoa was at the time engaged in one of its numerous wars with Pisa. "Pisa," he tells us, "is of very great extent, containing about ten thousand houses, from which war is carried on in times of civil commotion. All the inhabitants are brave, no king nor prince rules over them, the supreme authority being vested in senators chosen by the people." Only twenty Jewish residents were discovered here; at Lucca there were forty, but in Rome, to which a six days' journey brought our author, matters stood well with his Hebrew brethren. He found two hundred Jews living there, much respected and exempt from tribute. Those were not the days when

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of shame, or the annual Christian sermon at which the Jews were driven like cattle to attend, and sundry wretched ones suffered themselves to be converted time after time in consideration of a few pieces of silver; Christian attentions abolished by Pius IX. These were the days of Pope Alexander III., the wise and firm pontiff who resisted Frederic Barbarossa, and supported the Lombard League. He was ceedingly well disposed towards the Hebrews; many of them were officers in his service, and a Rabbi was actually steward of his household, and minister of his private property. In the third General Council of the Lateran, Alexander accorded to them yet further privileges, notwithstanding some obstinate resistance evinced by various divines attending the assembly. The only restriction imposed on them was prohibition against keeping Christian servants. No wonder Rabbi Benjamin was pleased at the condition of his Roman brethren; no wonder that Jews honour the memory of this Pope, and that on his return from the exile into which he had been forced by the pretension of the anti-Pope, they went out in procession to meet him, bearing flags and the roll of the law. It would appear that R. Benjamin's visit occurred soon after this event.

At Rome our author went to see some of its sights, besides visiting the Hebrew congregations. It is not said how long he stayed, but his visits in most places were brief, which once more supports the idea that they were prompted by business, and not by pleasure. After recording that Rome is divided into two parts by the Tiber, he narrates that "the city contains numerous buildings and structures entirely different from

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all other buildings on the face of the earth. The extent of ground covered by ruined and inhabited Rome amounts to four and twenty miles." He then proceeds to mention a few of its wonders, and finally winds up as though wearied out, "Rome contains many other remarkable buildings and works, the whole of which nobody can enumerate." The list of those which he does enumerate shows a quaint mixture of fact and absurdity; but in those days even Romans knew so little regarding the monuments of their city, and even the learned, as shown by Gibbon, gave credence to such fantastic myths, that a charge of excessive credulity can hardly be brought against this simple Jewish traveller. Besides, ought we to say anything, who know how much even the modern tourist absorbs ? R. Benjamin tells us that, “In the outskirts of Rome is the palace of Titus who was rejected by three hundred senators in consequence of his having wasted three years in the conquest of Jerusalem, which task, according to their will, he ought to have accomplished in two years." Now, the so-named ruins R. Benjamin doubtless saw, and the story was told him. He also visited the hall of the palace of Vespasian; the "large place of worship called St. Peter of Rome, and the large palace of Julius Cæsar." He was shown a Cave wherein he was told Titus hid the vessels of the Temple of Jerusalem, and another cave that was said to hold the bones of the ten Jewish martyrs, teachers of the Mishna, who suffered violent death about the time of Hadrian. At San Giovanni in Porta Latina he was shown the two copper pillars that had been constructed by Solomon, whose name they bore engraved, and the Jews in Rome told him

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