Ghost Empire

by Richard Fidler

  THEN, IN 1165, a startling letter appeared in Constantinople, addressed to Alexius’s grandson, the emperor, Manuel Comnenus. It began with a hearty salutation,

  John, priest by the almighty power of God and the might of our Lord Jesus Christ, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, to his friend Manuel, prince of Constantinople, greeting!

  Our Majesty has been informed that you hold our Excellency in love and that the report of our greatness has reached you.

  The author of the letter identified himself as none other than Prester John. In his extraordinary message he casually boasted of the fabulous land he ruled over, one literally ‘streaming with honey and overflowing with milk’:

  Our land extends beyond India, where rests the body of the holy apostle Thomas; it reaches towards the sunrise over the wastes, and it trends toward deserted Babylon near the Tower of Babel . . .

  Our land is the home of elephants, dromedaries, camels, crocodiles, meta-collinarum, cametennus, tensevetes, wild asses, white and red lions, white bears, white merules, crickets, griffins, tigers, lamias, hyenas, wild horses, wild oxen, and wild men – men with horns, one-eyed men, men with eyes before and behind, centaurs, fauns, satyrs, pygmies, forty-ell high giants, cyclopses, and similar women. It is the home, too, of the phoenix and of nearly all living animals.

  The letter caused a sensation in Constantinople. Minstrels put some of its phrases into song. No one was certain what kind of a creature a ‘tensevete’ or a ‘meta-collinarum’ was, but it all sounded so intriguing, and, given that so little was known of the lands in the Far East, it seemed at least possible that such things might exist.

  The ancient Romans were long accustomed to bizarre tales of eastern marvels spread by returning sailors and merchants. India was known to be the home of men with dogs’ heads, of headless people with faces on their chests, and of wild men without mouths who lived on the scent of flesh, fruit and flowers.

  THE LETTER FROM THE great Christian kingdom of the east raised the question: who were these Christians, and how did they get there? There could only be one answer: they had to be Nestorians.

  The Nestorians had left the eastern Roman empire more than six hundred years earlier. They were followers of a fifth-century Patriarch of Constantinople named Nestorius, who had become embroiled in those early arcane disputes about the nature of Christ. Nestorius had come up with his own formula: that Jesus contained both human and divine elements that were distinctly different, but which coexisted within his nature like separate islands in the same sea. Unfortunately for Nestorius, his ideas were deemed heretical; he was sacked from his office and sent into exile.

  But even as Nestorius faded into obscurity, his two-in-one concept picked up support throughout the empire. The proponents of this formula were labelled ‘Nestorians’ by their opponents and expelled from the church. In time, the Nestorians tired of official persecution and drifted east, into lands almost entirely unknown to the Romans.

  The seventh-century Arab conquests disrupted the usual lines of communication between Constantinople and its former provinces in the Middle East, so contact with the Nestorians petered out. But from time to time, travellers and merchants would wander into Constantinople with intriguing tales of a mysterious Christian people who were said to dwell in India and in the lands beyond Persia.

  PRESTER JOHN’S LETTER was a hoax, of course, some kind of medieval prank. But the author had told the Christians of Europe just what they wanted to hear. The letter was translated into several languages and copied all over Europe. Pope Alexander III was intrigued enough to reach out to Prester John in a letter, hailing him as the ‘illustrious and magnificent king of the Indies’. The pope entrusted the delivery of the letter to Philip, his court physician and closest friend. Philip sailed out from Italy on a Venetian galley and disembarked somewhere near Palestine. He was last seen heading out into the desert, looking for a kingdom ‘near the Tower of Babel’, and was never heard from again.

  THE LEGEND OF PRESTER JOHN was a case of Chinese whispers: second-, third- or fourth-hand accounts that got grander in the telling. But there was a germ of truth inside the story. Those vague rumours the Crusaders had picked up in the Holy Land were most likely distorted accounts of the Battle of Qatwan, where a heavy defeat was inflicted on the Seljuks by the warriors of Yelü Dashi, the great Khan of the Mongols.

  Yelü Dashi’s victory at Qatwan had made him the master of Central Asia; his followers acclaimed him as Gur-khan, ‘the Universal Khan’, a title that may have been translated in Syriac to Yuhanan, which is close enough to the Latin name Johannes or John. Yelü Dashi was not a Christian, but many of his subjects were indeed followers of the lost church of Nestorius, descendants of Mongol tribesmen converted by Nestorian missionaries five hundred years earlier.

  THE EXILED NESTORIANS had established churches first in Persia, and then Arabia and India. In the seventh century, Nestorian Christianity came to Tang-dynasty China, where it blended into Buddhist beliefs and practices.

  Today, in the ancient Chinese capital of Xi’an there still exists a stele, a black limestone slab erected in 781, that proudly tells how Nestorian Christianity came to China. The headpiece features a cross surrounded by dragons and a lotus blossom, and is titled Memorial of the Propagation in China of the Luminous Religion from Daqin (‘Daqin’ being the ancient Chinese term for the Roman empire).

  Nestorian priests in Palm Sunday procession, Gaochang, China.

  Creative Commons/Gryffindor

  A wall painting in the abandoned city of Gaochang depicts a Palm Sunday procession from the seventh century, with a Chinese priest performing holy communion, while three other priests carry palm fronds in their hands.

  Nestorian Christianity thrived in China until the fourteenth century, when the Ming dynasty overthrew the Mongols and expelled all foreign influences from the Middle Kingdom. The Mongols of Central Asia converted to Islam.

  POPE ALEXANDER EVENTUALLY gave up all hope of seeing his friend Philip again, or of receiving a reply to his letter to Prester John. Still, the Christian leaders held out hope of a grand alliance with the mysterious Priest-King of the east. In 1221 there were fresh rumours of another crushing Muslim defeat at the hands of a ‘King David of India’, said to be the son or grandson of Prester John. Again, it seems a Mongol khan had been mistaken for a Christian King: the ‘King David’ in question was actually Genghis Khan, who had just won a shattering victory over the Khwarezmian empire of Persia.

  The Mongol conquests opened up the east to European trade once again, and Prester John’s letter transformed the mysterious east of the European imagination from a wild hinterland filled with terrors to a glittering kingdom of wonders that enticed many to the Silk Road, including curious and ambitious merchants such as Niccolò and Maffeo Polo, father and uncle of Marco Polo.

  But if Prester John’s letter had led the Romans to believe the Far East was a land of marvels and fantastical beasts, the Chinese had long believed the same to be true of the west. A tenth-century history called the Book of Tang records a surprisingly accurate description of Constantinople, which the Chinese knew as the distant city of Fu-Lin:

  The walls of their capital are built of granite, and are of enormous height. The city contains in all over 100,000 households. In the south it faces the great sea . . . In the palaces, pillars are made of lapis lazuli, the floors of bronze, the leaves of folding doors of ivory, beams of fragrant wood . . .

  When, during the height of summer, the inhabitants are oppressed by heat, they lead water up and make it flow over the platform, spreading it all over the roof by a secret contrivance so that one sees and knows not how it is done, but simply hears the noise of a well on the roof; suddenly you see streams of water rushing down from the four eaves like a cataract; the draught caused thereby produces a cooling wind.

  The Romans and the Chinese shared surprisingly similar misconceptions of each other as they peered at one another from either end of the Eurasian landmass. The ancient Ro
mans believed the Chinese harvested their silk by combing it from the leaves of a tree. The Chinese in turn believed the Romans procured their cotton by combing the hair of a special kind of ‘water sheep’.

  Creature from the Classic of Mountains and Seas.

  public domain

  An ancient Chinese book, the Classic of Mountains and Seas, contains stories and illustrations of the freakish people who were said to dwell in the distant lands to the west. The Slavs are portrayed as ogres with flaming red hair and round green teacup eyes that can project green rays of envy. The Hun-like nomads of the north-west are depicted as bizarre savages, whose children are born without bones and who sometimes grow wings. And, as in Constantinople, there are stories of torso-faced dancing savages, only it was claimed that these abominations were creatures of the west.

  THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE in 1453 coincided with the advent of Europe’s Age of Exploration, and the slow, dawning understanding that headless, torso-faced dancing people were nowhere to be found anywhere in the world. As the last unmapped parts of the globe were charted in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the new literary genres of science fiction and fantasy arrived to identify places where fantastical creatures of the imagination might still be discovered. HG Wells put his monsters on Mars. Jules Verne conceived of an imaginary opening to the centre of the Earth in Iceland, which led to a subterranean world of dinosaurs and giants. In the twentieth century, it was possible to imagine that humans might encounter weird creatures on other planets, but now, as we comprehend the vast distances of interstellar space, we’ve had to resign that hope. An astronomer once told me he was secretly longing for NASA’s Huygens probe to reveal the presence of extraterrestrial fish swimming beneath the icy crust of Titan. The probe sent back disappointing images of a brown, pebbly surface. Hard scientific truths are driving us further into fantasy.

  The Romans of Constantinople had no need to push all the weird creatures of their imagination into the sky or under the ground. In their minds, all that was required was to push out in a boat, or climb onto a camel, and head towards the distant horizon.

  The Floating Nun

  TODAY, if we think of saints at all, we think of them as serene and forbearing creatures, but in medieval Constantinople, saints were like superheroes, gifted men and women who could fly through the sky, read minds and hurl fireballs at demons. The convents of the city, like the monasteries, produced their share of super-powered saints. The most formidable of these was Irene of Chrysobalanton.

  IN 855, THEODORA, the empress-regent, announced a competition to find a bride for her son Michael, who had just turned fifteen. Ambitious families all over the empire sent young daughters to Constantinople to compete in the bride-show. Among them was a ten-year-old named Irene, who arrived at the city gates from Cappadocia with servants and baggage.

  Irene was renowned for her ‘moral grace and corporeal beauty’ and had been clothed by her parents in a ‘most rich and splendid outfit’. But she came too late: a bride had already been chosen for Michael. Although a child, Irene freely chose to enter the Convent of Chrysobalanton within the city.

  Once she had taken her vows, Irene became inspired by the works of St Arsenios, a holy man who practised a motionless, yet strenuous, exercise to purify his soul: Arsenios would stand completely still throughout the night with his hands extended to the east. He would only drop this pose when he felt the morning sun shining on his face.

  Irene begged the Abbess to be allowed to attempt this exercise herself, so that she might be cleansed of all human frailty and come ever closer to God. With the Abbess’s consent, Irene eagerly took up the routine, standing still in her cell with her arms outstretched to heaven. She did this for whole days and nights.

  Rumours of Irene’s virtue began to spread through the city; it was said that she was more angel than human. Irene grew into adulthood and after some years, she was appointed Abbess with the blessing of the Patriarch of Constantinople.

  THEN ONE DAY a strange thought came into her mind. It occurred to her that she should ask God for the gift of second sight, so that she might know what her sisters were up to in secret. Irene gave herself over to prayer and weeping until an angel appeared and granted her wish. The following day she called in each of the sisters to come and sit with her in a chamber at the rear of the church. Irene intimated to each that she knew of secret things they had said and done, provoking them to confess and to promise to reform their behaviour.

  ONE NIGHT, WHILE UPRIGHT and motionless in her cell, Irene became aware there were demons in the room. The demons tried to break her stance but Irene was undaunted and moved not an inch. Then the most insolent of the demons began to taunt her.

  ‘Irene is made of wood!’ he sneered. ‘She is carried on wooden legs!’

  Irene said nothing and remained immobile.

  ‘How long will you oppress us?’ cried the demon. ‘How long will you burn us?’

  Then the creature stretched out his hand, grabbed a torch and set fire to Irene. Still she remained immobile.

  One of the sisters was roused by the scent of smoke. She rushed into the cell and hurriedly extinguished the fire.

  Irene at last lowered her arms. She slowly turned to the sister.

  ‘Why did you do that, my child?’ she asked.

  Irene explained that while she was burning, she had received a vision of an angel who was about to place a wreath of flowers upon her head.

  ‘But,’ she said, ‘because of your concern, he left me and went away with his wreath. I hate a gift that causes me a loss.’

  IRENE RECOVERED from her burns and continued to practise her standing exercises. She fasted and consumed very little water, and began to look haggard. On one occasion she held her stance for a whole week but when it came time to lower her arms, she discovered her joints had lost their flexibility. Sisters were called to help, and as they did so, they heard her joints crack.

  One night a sister peeped out of her cell window and saw Irene in the forecourt of the church, levitating three feet above the ground, praying with her hands extended towards heaven. The sister was amazed to see the cypress trees bow their crowns to Irene.

  The following morning the sisters of the convent discovered silk scarves tied to the treetops.

  THE HAGIOGRAPHY of St Irene is full of such stories. Once you remove the supernatural elements, it’s possible to read it as the tale of an insufferable busybody peering in on her poor sisters in their private moments, perhaps through a hole in the wall. A clumsy accident that leads to her habit catching fire on a lamp wick is re-created into a heroic victory over demonic temptation.

  A convent was one of the few places in Constantinople where a woman might enjoy a degree of independence and authority, but it came at the price of eternal vigilance against external threats to her sisters’ celibacy. And indeed Irene was once called upon to deal with a young labourer named Nicholas who worked in the convent’s vineyard. Nicholas had apparently fallen in love with one of the sisters and was tormented at night by his lustful thoughts for her.

  Irene suspected the Devil’s hand at work. She ordered Nicholas to be trussed up and strapped to a pillar in the church. Nicholas, wild with unholy fury, broke free of his bonds and attacked a priest, biting into his flesh. Irene stepped forward and commanded Nicolas to be still and he was instantly immobilised. Irene knelt and prayed for him. Then she stood up and commanded the demon to leave his body. Nicholas was cured. Thus purged of his wickedness, he was permitted to return to work in the vineyard. If the impure thoughts ever returned, Nicholas kept them to himself.

  Gylo

  IN CONSTANTINOPLE, sex, pregnancy and childbirth were bound up with magical practises that originated in the dim pagan past. Women drank concoctions made from rabbit blood, goose fat or turpentine, which they hoped would make them fertile. For contraception, a woman would sometimes wear a magical amulet containing a portion of a cat’s liver.

  If a couple remained childless, they
prayed anxiously to the Virgin Mary, the defender of the city, to intercede on their behalf. But Mary was an impossible role model, having succeeded at motherhood without engaging in the sordid business of sexual congress. A new mother was regarded as unclean, and kept from the sacraments for forty days. In this polluted state, she was believed to be in danger of attracting demons and witches into the nursery that could take the lives of infant children. The worst of these demons was Gylo, a female demon whose ‘body was darkness and her hair savage’; she had wings and the lower body of a serpent.

  The legend of Gylo originates in ancient Babylon. She was said to be the vengeful ghost of a young woman who had died a virgin, and was driven to take the lives of children out of spite and envy. Gylo flew across the city at night and could slip into houses, even when the doors and windows were barred. She would slither through the house, up into the nursery, and strangle a sleeping child. Amulets and icons were placed over the beds of sleeping infants to ward her off.

  Fear of Gylo was very real in Constantinople. A childless old woman who behaved in ways that her neighbours might regard as eccentric could find herself arrested and hauled into a courtroom, accused of being possessed by Gylo. If convicted, the woman could be subject to a harrowing rite of exorcism, in which every single one of the demon’s twelve-and-a-half names had to be carefully recited by a priest.* If any one name was omitted, it left an opening for Gylo to hide inside that name, protected from the rite of the exorcism.

  FOR NEW MOTHERS, no better role model existed than the Blessed Virgin. Icon painters lovingly portrayed her with her newborn child in ways that shine a light on various aspects of the intimate mother– son relationship. In the Hodegetria, ‘She Who Shows the Way’, we see the mother who wants us to appreciate the blameless virtue of her son: Mary looks us straight in the eye while gesturing towards the baby Jesus with one hand; ‘You should be like my perfect son’, she seems to say. In her guise as the Lady Eleousa, the Virgin of Tenderness, Mary gives herself over to adoration of the child; she’s the besotted mother, with the infant Christ nestled against her cheek. Sometimes her face is flushed with sadness, as she seems to anticipate the crucifixion that awaits her baby boy.