by David Keys
Hasdai ibn Shaprut had heard about the existence of the Jewish kingdom through Roman diplomats.
See Chapters 3 and 11.
The Umayyad and then the Abbasid caliphates.
The Khazar court was based in the Khazar capital Itil (or Atil, the Turkic name for the Volga) in the great river’s delta. Its exact location has never been found. Some scholars suspect it now lies under the Caspian Sea—a sort of steppe Atlantis, having been engulfed by rising sea levels. Others believe it still awaits discovery by archaeologists on land, somewhere near the modern Russian city of Astrakhan.
From the Book of Kingdoms and Roads, as quoted in The Thirteenth Tribe.
The Thirteenth Tribe by Arthur Koestler, Hutchinson, 1976.
There are only a few thousand Karaites worldwide today, mainly in Israel, eastern Europe, Egypt, Russia, and the United States.
From a tenth-century letter written by King Joseph to Hasdai ibn Shaprut of Spain, quoted in The Thirteenth Tribe.
The rest of the population of the Khazar empire were other mainly Turkic groups (Bulgars, etc.), plus groups of Slavs and probably some Goths and Iranians, among others.
The rulers of the pre-Ottoman Seljuk empire of Turkey.
Qazwini.
Suggestion by D. M. Dunlop.
According to Arthur Koestler’s book The Thirteenth Tribe, quoting the Russian scholar M. I. Artamonov.
The Pecheneg Turks, a nomadic steppe people living between the Ural and Volga rivers, were driven westward by other tribes in the late eighth and ninth centuries. As a result they collided with the Magyars (Hungarians) and forced them to move westward into what was to become Hungary.
Pressburg Ecclesiastical Council, 1309.
The tenth-century letter is published in Khazarian Hebrew Documents of the 10th Century, by Golb and Pritsak, Cornell University Press, 1982.
In later medieval times, these centers also attracted substantial Karaite populations.
If the Khazar empire had remained pagan, it would have been much more likely to convert eventually to Islam—but once it had adopted another form of monotheism (in this case, Judaism), conversion to Islam became inherently less likely.
This DNA data was published in Nature, volume 394, 9 July 1998, pages 138–139, in a chart in an article by M. G. Thomas et al., entitled “Origins of Old Testament Priests.”
The text of the tenth-century letter is reproduced in Khazarian Hebrew Documents of the 10th Century, by Golb and Pritsak, Cornell University Press, 1982.
CHAPTER 13
For more details of this, see Chapter 15.
I examined all sixty British and near Continental weather entries for the 480–650 period in the Meteorological Office, Geophysical Memoirs number 70, Meteorological Chronology to A.D. 1450 by C. E. Britton, HMSO, 1937. Britton compiled his chronology by using information contained in large numbers of medieval and later chronicles and surveys. For this period, his main source was a survey compiled in the eighteenth century (published in two volumes in London in 1749) by Dr. Thomas Short. Known as A General Chronological History of the Air, Weather, Seasons, Meteors, Etc., the work appears to make use of many medieval sources, some of which are presumably now lost. On balance, I suspect that the sixth-century entries derived from Short’s work are genuine, because many of them are concentrated around the 535–555 period—the precise time when world climate is known to have been in an unstable condition. Britton, however, unaware of the wider international evidence, naturally thought they must be fictitious. In the introduction to his chronology, Britton says that Short spent fifteen years researching and that “his labour in hunting down obscure sources must have been prodigious.” In this period, the key Short-derived entries (referred to on page 105 above) from Britton’s Meteorological Chronology are for the years 536, 540, 548, 550, and 555. The 545 entry in Britton’s work is derived from Natural Phenomena: And Chronology of the Seasons by Edward J. Lowe (London, 1870). The 554 entry derives from Roger of Wendover. Another key entry, from the reign of the Kentish King Ochte, derives from The History of England by John Seller (London, 1696), who presumably was quoting from a now lost medieval source.
They were written by Welsh monks in the tenth century, utilizing older, now unknown sources.
Directed by Jacqueline Nowakowski of the Cornwall Archaeological Unit.
In the Irish kingdom of Raithliu.
Excavated in 1966–1990 by Philip Barker, University of Birmingham.
A site that until around A.D. 300 had been the exercise hall of the city’s public baths complex.
The interpretation of events at Wroxeter is based on archaeological evidence provided by, and discussions with, Roger White of the University of Birmingham, who has made an in-depth study of the structural history of the site. The north wall of this ancient chapel is now known as the Old Work, the only piece of imposing masonry surviving at Wroxeter.
The only fairly well documented medieval plague epidemic in England was the Black Death. In the peak eighteen-month mortality period in the late 1340s, 47 or 48 percent of the population is thought to have died (estimate in The Black Death, translated and edited by Rosemary Horrox). That, however, is an average figure. In some areas much higher percentages perished. Indeed, Horrox says that the most common contemporary claim—presumably derived from severe local experiences—was that scarcely a tenth of the population survived.
CHAPTER 14
Up till now, virtually all academics have taken the view that the concept of the “Waste Land” in the Arthurian romances was pure literary invention or at best inspired by myths.
Sometimes referred to, erroneously, as the Mabinogion.
The name Annals of Ulster is the English translation of the Latin name Annales Ultoniensis—the title arbitrarily given by the English in the seventeenth century to a late-sixteenth-century chronicle called the Annale Senait. The work consists of material copied from at least two earlier manuscripts—the probably tenth-century Liber Cuanach and a probably eighth- or ninth-century chronicle of unknown name, neither of which are now extant. Those manuscripts were derived in turn from long-lost annals written by Irish monks on the Scottish island of Iona between 550 and 740 and then by later monks in Kells in Ireland between 740 and 1000.
The Old French Arthurian Vulgate and Post-Vulgate in Translation, edited by Norris J. Lacy, published by Garland, 1993/96, volume 4, page 65.
From The Mabinogion, translated by Jeffrey Gantz, Penguin, 1976.
As implied in the twelfth-century Story of the Grail, by Chrétien de Troyes.
Dyfed in the Mabinogi.
First mentioned in the History of the Kings of Britain, it originally may have referred to the west Midlands.
The History of the Kings of Britain, by Geoffrey of Monmouth, translated by Lewis Thorpe, published by Penguin, 1996.
From page 87 of The Story of the Grail—The Contes del Graal or Perceval, translated by William W. Kibler, and published by Garland, 1990.
From The High Book of the Grail: A Translation of the 13th-Century Romance of Perlesvaus, translated by Nigel Bryant, and published by D. S. Brewer/Rowman and Littlefield, 1978, page 90.
From The Elucidation, translated by Sebastian Evans in Sources of the Grail, selected and introduced by John Matthews.
From page 65 of The Lancelot-Grail in Translation, volume 4, translated by E. Jane-Burns and published by Garland, 1995.
From pages 212–214 of The Post-Vulgate in Translation, volume 4, translated by Martha Asher, published by Garland, 1995.
The identification of Waste Land material from the Arthurian romances in this chapter is based on research carried out for this book by a specialist in medieval Arthurian romance, Elspeth Kennedy of Oxford University.
CHAPTER 15
Translation as published in The Age of Arthur, by John Morris, 1973. The name Cynddylan is pronounced “Kinthullen.”
Certainly the settlement discontinuity phenomenon that hit the southwest in the mid–sixth century did n
ot affect the Anglo-Saxon east until sometime in the first half of the seventh century.
From Gildas: Arthurian Period Sources, volume 7, translated by M. Winterbottom, Phillimore, 1978.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle text covering this period was written in the ninth century, utilizing earlier sources that are now lost.
Translation as published in The Age of Arthur, by John Morris. The river name Dwyryw is pronounced “Dwiry-oo.”
Translation as published in The Age of Arthur, by John Morris. The place name Catraeth is pronounced “Katrithe.” Mynydawc is pronounced “Minoothog.”
Translation as published in The Age of Arthur, by John Morris.
Contrary to common assumption, the word Bretwalda has nothing to do with the word Britain. It was derived from the title Brytenwalda, meaning “wide ruler.” It was only later misspelled and therefore misinterpreted as Bretwalda, that is, “ruler of the Britons.” However, as “wide ruler,” the Brytenwalda was indeed “ruler of Britain”!
CHAPTER 16
From The Annals of Ulster, edited by Seán Mac Airt and Gearóid Mac Niocaill and published by the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1983.
The Irish tree-ring record for this period is described by Mike Baillie on pages 212–217 of the journal Holocene, volume 4, 1994.
The Irish chronicle called the Cronicum Scotorum is a seventeenth-century copy of an original of unknown name written sometime between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries. That is in turn derived from annals written down by Irish monks on the Scottish island of Iona between 550 and 740, and then by later monks in Kells in Ireland between 740 and 1000.
Because dates in the various Irish annals often conflict with each other and events in some annals even appear twice or three times under different dates, I have used the annals-derived synchronized chronology recently worked out by the Irish chronologist Dan McCarthy of Trinity College, Dublin, and published by him on the Internet at: http://www.cs.tcd.ie/Dan.McCarthy/Chronology/synchronisms/annals-chron.htm. His analysis of Irish chronological data appeared in an article entitled “The Chronology of the Irish Annals” in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, section C (1998), pages 203–255.
Estimated by Matthew Stout, author of The Irish Ringfort, published by Four Courts Press, Dublin. Ring forts were not the only defensive structures built at this time. Many communities built fortified artificial islands in the middle of lakes. Known as crannogs, these manmade island fortresses must have been virtually impregnable. Of the hundreds of Irish crannogs that survive, only around fourteen have ever been precisely dated (using dendrochronology)—and nine were built in the period 550–620. The dates for seven of these were published in Tree Ring Dating and Archaeology, by M. Baillie, Croom Helm, London, 1982.
CHAPTER 17
From The History of the Franks, by Gregory of Tours, translated by Lewis Thorpe and published by Penguin, 1974.
See Chapter 2.
See Chapters 13 and 19, respectively.
CHAPTER 18
The Romans had long referred to the Iberian Peninsula as a whole as Hispania, but that had been a purely geographical term. This is the first time that a name derived from it is given to a Roman political unit.
The Suevic kingdom had been Arian for some eighty years, having converted to that heresy from Catholicism in the 470s.
Reccopolis, now just ruins, is located near the village of Zorita de Los Canes, thirty miles southeast of Guadalajara.
Victoriacum has never been located by archaeologists, but it was situated in northern Spain near the border with the Basque country.
Often referred to as Hispano-Romans.
An alternative account of Hermenegild’s career maintains that he converted to Catholicism only after he had revolted against his father, and that his reason for converting was to more easily obtain Roman imperial military backing. Whichever sequence of events is correct, the conversion illustrates the catalytic impact of the Roman conquest of Spain’s far south.
Quoted in The Goths in Spain, by E. A. Thompson, Oxford University Press, 1969.
It is known from historical sources that Spain was hit by the plague at least three times—in 542/543 (according to the Chronicle of Saragossa) and in 580 and 588 (according to The History of the Franks, by Gregory of Tours).
CHAPTER 19
The Bei shi actually says that the edict was issued in the “third month” of the Chinese calendar for the year 535, which in Western terms corresponded to 18 April to 17 May.
From the Bei shi.
The Emperor Wu of the Liang Dynasty.
There had been peasant revolts before, but with the climatic chaos and famines of the mid–sixth century, the frequency and scale of them seems to have increased.
From The Lament for the South by Yu Xin, translated by William T. Graham and published by Cambridge University Press, 1980.
Emperor Jianwen, which translated means, literally, “the frugal and cultured one.”
Undoubtedly both north and south China suffered terribly from the climatic problems of the mid–sixth century. But politically, the disaster harmed the south much more than the north. In 534 (the year before the climatic chaos started), the north Chinese state (united for the previous ninety-four years) split into rival western and eastern halves. In keeping with previous northern tradition, both northern states (northwest and northeast) developed highly centralized administrative systems despite the climatic problems. This was much easier to achieve in the north than in the south for two reasons. First, the northern economy and social system was much less complex than its southern counterpart and could be centralized more easily. And second, the northern ruling dynasties were non-Chinese—Mongolian—in origin and derived their political power from soldiers drawn from a military caste (of Mongolian origin) that was not dependent on agriculture or tax-derived pay. By contrast, the southern state had to depend on mercenary troops who had a comparatively lowly social status and who had to be paid out of tax-derived revenues. In the north, centralized government was developed by introducing innovations in famine relief, tax collection, land reform, and the securing of military loyalty. Then, in 577, the northwest Chinese state conquered its northeast rival, thus forming a united northern Chinese empire that was soon to invade and conquer the south, whose more complex economy and society had been much more vulnerable to dislocation during the climatic chaos of the mid–sixth century.
CHAPTER 20
Condensed adaptation of the lengthy, twenty-point letter of accusation written by the emperor of northern China to his southern opposite number.
The details of the military campaign are from the Sui Dynasty annals, the Sui shu.
Lake Tai.
The Sui shu.
Quoted in The Sui Dynasty, by Arthur Wright, published by Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1978.
CHAPTER 21
The Samguk sagi, or The Histories of the Three Kingdoms, compiled in the mid–twelfth century A.D. and based on now mainly lost sources.
For more detail on Japan, see Chapter 22.
535 is the date proposed by the prominent Korean historian Ki-Baik Lee in his New History of Korea, page 59.
CHAPTER 22
From page 34 of the Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697, translated into English by W. G. Aston, and published by Charles E. Tuttle, Rutland, Vermont.
Also sometimes called the Nihongi. The Nihon shoki was compiled in the eighth century, based on records that are now-lost and which even then were probably incomplete. The words may be being put into the mouth of the king by the eighth-century compilers, or they may be “borrowed” from now-lost Chinese texts referring to events in China, or they may be a genuine approximation of what was said. However, because of the date, the adjacent events, and the virtual certainty that Japan was hit by drought and famine along with China, Korea, and other regions in the mid-530s, the 536 Nihon shoki entry should be seen, at the very least, as reflecting an all-too-real event in Japan at tha
t time in which nothing could “cure hunger” and where people really were “starving of cold.” The Nihon shoki for this early period is often regarded as being of doubtful historical value, but the apparent accuracy of the 536 “starving of cold” entry increases, by implication, the historical credibility of the other mid-sixth-century entries.
The year 538 is the most likely date for the mission and the resultant introduction of Buddhism to Japan. It is the date given in three key sources: Hoo teisets; a temple manuscript called The Daianji Shinjo Daitoku ki, written in the first half of the eighth century; and an early-ninth-century memorial document. The only source that disagrees is the Nihon shoki, which gives a date of 552—possibly because, in the Japanese and Chinese sexagenary cycle, 552 was the 1,500th “anniversary” of the Parinirvana of the Buddha, an anniversary that people believed would usher in a new Buddhist era. It would therefore have been appropriate and propitious from a Buddhist religious perspective for the early-eighth-century authors of the Nihon shoki to choose 552 as the date for the arrival of Buddhism in Japan. The best analysis of this dating issue—a study that indeed supports the 538 date and to which I am indebted—is by Stanley Weinstein, Yale University Seminar Paper 2, Jordan Lectures in Comparative Religion, 1991.
Buddhism was a key issue—but it was probably symbolic of a much wider area of disagreement and conflict, including perhaps access to trade, resources, and power, and the preservation of tradition.
Major smallpox epidemics often occur every thirty to fifty years with smaller outbreaks in between, as the size of an outbreak depends on the percentage of the population that has not experienced it before.
