Authors: Christopher I. Beckwith
Tags: #History, #General, #Asia, #Europe, #Eastern, #Central Asia
Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia From the Bronze Age to the Present (33 page)
The Franks
After the Great Wandering of Peoples finally ended in Western Europe, the people who dominated northern Gaul and western Germania were the Franks. They owed their success to the skill of several great leaders, most famously Clovis I (Hludovicus, r. 481–511), the son of Childeric I (d. 481) and grandson of Merovech (d. 456 or 457). Clovis established the capital of Francia in Paris in 508. He unified the Franks—mainly by killing the leaders of the other Frankish peoples—and established them as uncontested rulers of northern Gaul and environs. His sons completed the conquest of most of Gaul, Belgium, western Germania, and part of what is now Switzerland. Their control often slipped due to the perennial internecine succession struggles that plagued the Merovingian Dynasty, but Dagobert I (r. 629–639) inherited from his father, Chlothar II (Lothair, r. 584–629), a united kingdom. He and his successors were under the strong influence of the family of Pippin, Mayor of the Palace, whose members, from one branch or another, increasingly controlled the actual government of the Merovingian realm.
75
After Dagobert’s death, the Merovingian rulers were puppets of the “pre-Carolingian” mayoral dynasty of the Pippinids and Arnulfings. By the early seventh century, the government had come completely under the family’s control. Mayor of the Palace Carl (Charles Martel, r. 714–741) subdued rebels throughout the kingdom, including Eudo of Aquitaine, whom he defeated in 725. But the Arabs had invaded Spain in 711 from North Africa and conquered it, and Eudo (who was of Gascon or Basque origin) made an alliance with the neighboring Berber leader, Munnuza, whose stronghold was in the Pyrenees. Under ‘Abdal-Raḥman (r. 731–733/734), the new governor of Spain, the Arabs attacked Munnuza in the Pyrenees, defeated him, and continued on into southern Gaul, where they defeated Eudo north of the Garonne River. They plundered Bordeaux and Poitiers and then attacked Tours, where they were defeated by Carl in 733 or 734.
76
Carl and his brother Hildebrand (father of Nibelung) also subjugated Narbonne and Provence, which had similarly allied with the Arabs.
77
On his death, Carl was peacefully succeeded as Mayor of the Palace by his son, Pippin III (Pippin the Short, or Pepin, r. 741–768), who pursued his father’s policies and extended the Frankish realm as far as Spain, the Mediterranean, and Italy in the south, Saxony in the north, and the Avars of Pannonia in the east.
The Silk Road and Early Medieval Political Ideology
One of the most remarkable and least appreciated facts about the historical sources on the Early Middle Ages in Eurasia as a whole is their overwhelming emphasis on Central Eurasia, especially Central Asia. The Chinese, Old Tibetan, and Arabic historical sources, in particular, are full of detail on Central Asia, while even the more parochial Greek and Latin sources emphasize the significance of Central Eurasia for their realms. The reason for all this attention is clearly not modern historians’ imaginary threat of a nomad warrior invasion, which is virtually unmentioned in the sources. The reason for the attention seems rather to be the prosperous Silk Road economy and the existence of a shared political ideology across Eurasia that ensured nearly constant warfare.
This common ideology was one of the driving political-ideological forces behind all of the early medieval Eurasian state expansions, beginning with the Türk conquest.
78
Every empire had a distinctive term for its own ruler and never referred to any foreign ruler by that term in official documents.
79
Each nation believed its own emperor to be the sole rightful ruler of “all under Heaven,” and everyone else should be his subjects, whether submitted and dutiful ones or not-yet-subjugated, rebellious “slaves.” The punishment for rebelling or refusing to submit was war, but war was inevitable anyway throughout early medieval Eurasia as a whole, both because of the shared imperialistic political ideology of the time and because regular warfare had been a normal part of life since prehistoric times.
Each emperor thus proclaimed and attempted to actually establish his rule over the four directions, each of which was theoretically assigned to one of his subordinates. The clearest examples of the ideal Central Eurasian pol itical structure, sometimes referred to aptly as the “khan and four bey system,”
80
are attested in the Puyo and Koguryo kingdoms;
81
the Türk Empire, about which the Byzantine ambassador Maniakh told the Roman emperor that they had four “military governorships”
82
plus the ruler,
83
who belonged to the *Aršilas
84
clan; the Tibetan Empire (the highly theoretical four-horn structure
85
seems to be best explained in this way); the T’ang Empire, which established not only a Protectorate of the Pacified West but one over each of the other three directions as well;
86
the Khitan Empire; and later in the Mongol Empire and its successor states.
87
Partly because of this ideology, all early medieval empires attempted to expand in all directions. This was not unlike empires in other periods and places, but during the Early Middle Ages, for the first time in history, the great empires came into direct contact with each other and knew they were not alone. Each empire was forced to face the fact that it was actually one among equals. At first, none could accept this fact, so a diplomatic protocol developed in order to handle the practical necessity of dealing with foreign empires: the envoys of one empire to the other paid obeisance to the foreign ruler at his home court; the envoy’s obeisance was recorded locally in terminology that expressed his home empire’s subservience to the local empire; and when the envoy returned home, usually in the company of an envoy from the people visited, the latter similarly paid obeisance to the foreign envoy’s emperor.
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When the cultures and nation-states of Eurasia collided in the early eighth century, each knew that the others coveted control of Central Eurasia as much as it did. Each eagerly sought products, knowledge, and people from the other empires. They all made political alliances and coordinated military action, down to details, and even modified their own practices and beliefs to agree with or differ from the others. Despite the constant, unabashed warfare all across Eurasia in this period, the Silk Road economy prospered and grew mightily at least until the middle of the eighth century. The Eurasian world was connected together ever more closely politically, culturally, and especially economically, due mainly to the efforts of the Central Eurasians.
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1
see endnote 18 for discussion of the equation of Avar and Jou-jan.
2
See Beckwith (2005b) for this name.
3
On the name *Tumïn, written T’u-men
, and the Old Turkic inscriptional form
Bumïn,
see endnotes 10 and 17.
4
CS
50: 909.
5
For discussion of apparently mythological elements that are presented as historical fact in the sources, see the Türk national foundation story in the prologue and the notes to it.
6
Sinor (1990c: 295).
7
It has been thought that this tradition, and the fact that the Türk really were skilled iron metallurgists—confirmed by both Chinese and Greek historical sources—indicate that the cave was actually an iron mine; cf. Sinor (1990c: 296). In view of the close mythological parallel with the Koguryo, in which the cave (also in the mountains in the eastern part of the realm) is the abode of the grain god, this might be questioned.
8
In the mid-first century
AD
,
Turcae
‘Turks’ are mentioned there by Pomponius Mela. They are also mentioned in the
Natural History
of Pliny the Elder (Sinor 1990c: 285), spelled
Tyrcae
‘Türks’. However, from the sixth century on there is a steady movement of Turks from east to west. See Czeglédy (1983); cf. Golden (1992).
9
Their beliefs are similar to those of the Scythians and other early steppe peoples, as well as other later peoples. They seem to be important elements of the Central Eurasian Culture Complex and deserve the attention of historians of religion.
10
Clearly the same name as the Turkic leader BώΧα- Bôkhan, for Old Turkic
Buqan,
mentioned in Menander (Blockley 1985: 178–179, 277 n. 235). In standard “Middle Chinese,” pace Pulleyblank (1991), m- before a vowel was regularly pronounced
m
b-
(Beckwith 2002a, 2006b; cf. Pulleyblank 1984); there are many examples of this syllable onset used to transcribe Old Turkic words beginning with
b.
11
The title
yabghu
(i.e.,
yaß
γ
u)
goes back to the title of the governors-general of the five constituent parts of the Tokharian realm in Bactria, one of whom eventually rose to power and founded the Kushan Empire (Enoki et al. 1994: 171).
12
The ethnonym
Türk
is actually the same as the Anglicized
Turk
; the name was pronounced [tyrk], that is, Türk, and still is so pronounced in modern Turkish and most other Turkic languages today. The traditional scholarly convention of using the spelling Türk only for the people of the first two Turkic empires based in the Eastern Steppe is followed here. On the Chinese and other foreign transcriptions of the name, see Beckwith (2005, forthcoming-a).
13
Frye (1983: 156), Sinor (1990c: 299–301).
14
Sinor (1990c: 301–302).
15
The Scythians, or Northern Iranians, who were culturally and ethnolinguistically a single group at the beginning of their expansion, had earlier controlled the entire steppe zone. Like the later Turks, they gradually diverged over time.
16
His name was formerly read Taspar. See Yoshida and Moriyasu (1999) and Beckwith (2005b).
17
The name is an anachronism, but there is no other well-established geographical name for the region. It is also spelled Dzungaria, after the Khalkha dialect pronunciation. See the discussion of the name Junghar and its variants in Beckwith (forthcoming-b).
18
Tokhâristân at this time was roughly equivalent to the territory of present-day Afghanistan and some adjacent areas.
19
Frye (1983: 158).
20
Treadgold (1997: 231–241).
21
Treadgold (1997: 239–241, 287–293).
22
According to Treadgold (1997: 315 et seq.), the explicit reorganization of the empire into
themes,
or military governorships wherein the soldiers were settled on the land they defended, was the accomplishment of his grandson Constans II (r. 641–668), but the essentials of this reform seem to have been laid by Heraclius himself, on still earlier foundations; see the discussion by Ostrogorsky (1968: 96 et seq.). This “feudal” system had already spread far and wide across Eurasia and was also found among the Germanic, Arab, and Turkic peoples around the Byzantine Empire, including the Germanic Vandals who had settled in North Africa.
23
For detailed coverage of the Avars and their involvement in this war, see Pohl (1988).
24
Much excellent research has been published on the Khazars, including Dunlop (1954), Golden (1980), and many papers by Golden and by Thomas Noonan; see
http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11063130
and
http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/10075924
.
25
Treadgold (1997: 293–299), Frye (1983: 168–170).
26
Crone (1987) carefully reevaluates earlier theories about this trade and the rise of Islam. Her contention that the Arabs were not involved in the high-value luxury goods trade is contradicted by the musk trade, which she does mention, but which the Arabs seem to have dominated from pre-Islamic times on. For this trade, and musk in general, see King (2007).
27
Crone (1987: 246, 250).
28
On the controversy over the role of trade in the early Islamic expansion, see endnote
62
.
29
Frye (1983: 170–171).
30
On dubious views about Islam and the early Muslims in connection with the conquests, see endnote
63
.
31
On the popular but erroneous idea that the Arabs destroyed Persian and Greek libraries, see endnote
64
.
32
Shaban (1971: 24–34).
33
The Iranocentric view that the lands of Central Asia where Iranian languages were spoken, including Margiana, Bactriana, and Transoxiana, were Persian territories, and their people Persians, is incorrect. see endnote
65
.
34
Latin was abandoned as an administrative language. In its place Greek was made the official language of the empire (Ostrogorsky 1968: 106), though the Byzantines always referred to themselves as Romans right down to the end of their “Roman Empire” in 1453. In view of the Arabicization of nearly all of the non-Iranian-speaking regions of the Near East and North Africa after the Arab conquest, Heraclius may well have saved the Greek nation and language from disappearance.
35
Shaban (1970: 18–19). His son Pêrôz eventually fled to China. A
marzbân
was a ‘warden of the march, markgrave’, usually a district governor or military governor in the late Sasanid Empire and early Arab Caliphate (Kramers and Morony 1991). Yazdgerd is said to have been killed by the
marzbân
Mâhûî Sûrî in 31
AH
/
AD
634 (Yakubovskii and Bosworth 1991).
36
It was known at the time that the complex had originally been built as a Sasanid provincial capital. For the design, and the plan of the City of Peace, the Abbasid capital at Baghdad, which was based on the underlying plan of both Nawbahâr and Ctesiphon, see Beckwith (1984b), where Ctesiphon is incorrectly ruled out.
37
The usual date is 630; according to Ch’en (1992: 42–53), he was there in 628. On his studies there, see endnote
66
.
38
A general uprising broke out there in 653; though an army sent to subdue the rebellion was successful, the region again broke away immediately afterward. Upon Mu’âwiya’s succession as caliph, he sent a great expedition to Sîstân. The Arabs recaptured Zarang and took Kabul. However, most of the conquered areas long remained de facto independent.
39
Shaban (1971: 70–78). On the civil war, see endnote
67
.
40
He was the son of the dynastic founder and Tu-ku Ch’ieh-lo, who was from a non-Chinese aristocratic family.
41
Wechsler (1979a: 150–153).
42
Wechsler (1979a: 159). This was hardly a “diplomatic offensive
against”
the Eastern Türk (Wechsler 1979a: 187; emphasis added).
43
Wechsler (1979a: 157).
44
Sinor (1990c: 308).
45
See the epilogue for further discussion.
46
Wechsler (1979a: 185–186).
47
Dillon (1998: 360).
48
They were not, however, supported by Hsüan-tsung. Considering his actions with respect to An Lu-shan even before his rebellion, as well as many similar examples, it can only be concluded that Hsüan-tsung was a poor judge of character in general.
49
Owen (1981: 143). Li Po (701-ca. 763) was born in Central Asia and lived in Suyab (near what is now Tokmak in Kirghizstan). At some point in his youth his family moved to Szechuan, where he grew up. They may have been merchants, and it is suspected that he was only part Chinese. See Eide (1973: 388–389); cf. Owen (1981: 112). Though Li Po influenced other important poets of his day—most famously Tu Fu—he was ignored by most other poets during his lifetime.
50
TCTC
216: 6889.
51
In the Tibetan case, these elements include the ruler and his heroic companions, the comitatus, as the pinnacle of society; the burial of the ruler together with his comitatus, horses, and personal wealth in a great tumulus; and a strong interest in trade.
52
On the title Spurgyal and current ahistorical use of it by some scholars, see endnote
68
.
53
’Tibet’ is an exonym—a foreign name for the country. The name is related to the name of the Mongolic T’o-pa, or *Taghbač, and has nothing at all to do with the native name of the country,
Bod.
See the detailed discussion in Beckwith (2005b).
54
Actually, the Tibetans had earlier met the Sui Dynasty Chinese in exactly the same unpleasant circumstances; their realm was then known to the Chinese as
Fu kuo
‘the kingdom of Fu’ (Beckwith 1993: 17–19). The transcription
Fu
might reflect
Spu
or Bod, as many have suggested, but it would in either case be highly irregular.
55
Molè (1970: xii).
56
Beckwith (1993: 23). On the continuing misunderstanding of this marriage, see endnote
69
.
57
However, they seem to have spoken West Tokharian by about this time. The precise periodization (and localization) of the Tokharian languages of East Turkistan remains to be established.
58
Khotan, unlike the northern cities, was a strong center of Mahâyâna Buddhism.
59
Or Pacify-the-West Protectorate.
60
The claim that they really did is repeated in virtually everything written on the subject, but it is based on taking the grand statements in the Chinese dynastic histories at face value.
61
Despite Wu Chao’s de facto replacement of the T’ang and her ascension to the throne as China’s first and last female emperor (the practice of calling her Empress Wu is incorrect), she did not eliminate the T’ang rulers she supplanted, namely Chung-tsung (r. 684, and again 705–710) and Jui-tsung (nominal reign 684–690, and again 710–712). Like Wang Mang, she has thus been categorized as a usurper. Both ruled China effectively, but neither achieved legitimacy, and when, in each case, the supplanted imperial house was restored, their historical fate was sealed.
62
Some escaped to China, where they served in the T’ang military.
63
Shaban (1970: 48) suggests it was to reduce the taxes on their home principalities, which would be
dâr al-salâm
(pacified territory) rather than
dâr al-ḥarb
(enemy territory).
64
Shaban (1970: 66).
65
Shaban (1970: 67).
66
Shaban (1970: 67–75).
67
Beckwith (1993).
68
The previous rulers had belonged to the Yellow Bone clan.
69
This fear is explicitly discussed at some length in the dynastic histories for both the Han and the T’ang. Despite the frequently expressed claim (by the Chinese of the time and historians since then) that the Chinese did not need international trade and were uninterested in it, clearly they did need it and were intensely interested in it.
