CHAPTER III.
DESCRIPTION OF THE GREATER HERMENIA.
This is a great country. It begins at a city called ARZINGA, at which they
weave the best buckrams in the world. It possesses also the best baths
from natural springs that are anywhere to be found.[NOTE 1] The people of
the country are Armenians, and are subject to the Tartar. There are many
towns and villages in the country, but the noblest of their cities is
Arzinga, which is the See of an Archbishop, and then ARZIRON and
ARZIZI.[NOTE 2]
The country is indeed a passing great one, and in the summer it is
frequented by the whole host of the Tartars of the Levant, because it then
furnishes them with such excellent pasture for their cattle. But in winter
the cold is past all bounds, so in that season they quit this country and
go to a warmer region, where they find other good pastures. [At a castle
called PAIPURTH, that you pass in going from Trebizond to Tauris, there is
a very good silver mine.[NOTE 3]]
And you must know that it is in this country of Armenia that the Ark of
Noah exists on the top of a certain great mountain [on the summit of which
snow is so constant that no one can ascend;[NOTE 4] for the snow never
melts, and is constantly added to by new falls. Below, however, the snow
does melt, and runs down, producing such rich and abundant herbage that in
summer cattle are sent to pasture from a long way round about, and it
never fails them. The melting snow also causes a great amount of mud on
the mountain].
The country is bounded on the south by a kingdom called Mosul, the people
of which are Jacobite and Nestorian Christians, of whom I shall have more
to tell you presently. On the north it is bounded by the Land of the
Georgians, of whom also I shall speak. On the confines towards Georgiania
there is a fountain from which oil springs in great abundance, insomuch
that a hundred shiploads might be taken from it at one time. This oil is
not good to use with food, but 'tis good to burn, and is also used to
anoint camels that have the mange. People come from vast distances to
fetch it, for in all the countries round about they have no other
oil.[NOTE 5]
Now, having done with Great Armenia, we will tell you of Georgiania.
NOTE 1. - [Erzinjan, Erzinga, or Eriza, in the vilayet of Erzrum, was
rebuilt in 1784, after having been destroyed by an earthquake.
"Arzendjan," says Ibn Batuta, II. p. 294, "is in possession of
well-established markets; there are manufactured fine stuffs, which are
called after its name." It was at Erzinjan that was fought in 1244 the
great battle, which placed the Seljuk Turks under the dependency of the
Mongol Khans. - H. C.] I do not find mention of its hot springs by modern
travellers, but Lazari says Armenians assured him of their existence. There
are plenty of others in Polo's route through the country, as at Ilija,
close to Erzrum, and at Hassan Kala.
The Buckrams of Arzinga are mentioned both by Pegolotti (circa 1340) and
by Giov. d'Uzzano (1442). But what were they?
Buckram in the modern sense is a coarse open texture of cotton or hemp,
loaded with gum, and used to stiffen certain articles of dress. But this
was certainly not the mediaeval sense. Nor is it easy to bring the
mediaeval uses of the term under a single explanation. Indeed Mr. Marsh
suggests that probably two different words have coalesced. Fr.-Michel says
that Bouqueran was at first applied to a light cotton stuff of the
nature of muslin, and afterwards to linen, but I do not see that he
makes out this history of the application. Douet d'Arcq, in his Comptes
de l'Argenterie, etc., explains the word simply in the modern sense, but
there seems nothing in his text to bear this out.
A quotation in Raynouard's Romance Dictionary has "Vestirs de polpra e
de bisso que est bocaran," where Raynouard renders bisso as lin; a
quotation in Ducange also makes Buckram the equivalent of Bissus; and
Michel quotes from an inventory of 1365, "unam culcitram pinctam (qu.
punctam?) albam factam de bisso aliter boquerant."
Mr. Marsh again produces quotations, in which the word is used as a
proverbial example of whiteness, and inclines to think that it was a
bleached cloth with a lustrous surface.
It certainly was not necessarily linen. Giovanni Villani, in a passage
which is curious in more ways than one, tells how the citizens of Florence
established races for their troops, and, among other prizes, was one which
consisted of a Bucherame di bambagine (of cotton). Polo, near the end of
the Book (Bk. III. ch. xxxiv.), speaking of Abyssinia, says, according to
Pauthier's text: "Et si y fait on moult beaux bouquerans et autres draps
de coton." The G. T. is, indeed, more ambiguous: "Il hi se font maint
biaus dras banbacin e bocaran" (cotton and buckram). When, however, he
uses the same expression with reference to the delicate stuffs woven on
the coast of Telingana, there can be no doubt that a cotton texture is
meant, and apparently a fine muslin. (See Bk. III. ch. xviii.) Buckram is
generally named as an article of price, chier bouquerant, rice
boquerans, etc, but not always, for Polo in one passage (Bk. II. ch.
xlv.) seems to speak of it as the clothing of the poor people of Eastern
Tibet.
Plano Carpini says the tunics of the Tartars were either of buckram
(bukeranum), of purpura (a texture, perhaps velvet), or of baudekin,
a cloth of gold (pp. 614-615). When the envoys of the Old Man of the
Mountain tried to bully St. Lewis, one had a case of daggers to be offered
in defiance, another a bouqueran for a winding sheet (Joinville, p.
136.)
In accounts of materials for the use of Anne Boleyn in the time of her
prosperity, bokeram frequently appears for "lyning and taynting" (?)
gowns, lining sleeves, cloaks, a bed, etc., but it can scarcely have been
for mere stiffening, as the colour of the buckram is generally specified
as the same as that of the dress.
