The Assassins (23 page)

Transcription

Diacritical marks have been omitted from the text, but are retained, for the convenience of the specialist reader, in the notes and index. The transcription in the passages cited from published translations has been slightly modified to accord with the system used in this book.

Chapter z (pages z-zg)

The treatment of the Assassins in mediaeval Western literature has been discussed by C. E. Nowell, `The Old Man of the Mountain', in Speculum, xxii (1947), 497-519, and by L. Olschki, Storia letteraria Belle scoperte geografzche, Florence 1937, 215-22. A brief survey of Western scholarship on the Assassins and related sects is included in B. Lewis, `The sources for the history of the Syrian Assassins', in Speculum, xxvii (1952), 475-89. Bibliographies of Ismaili studies were prepared by Asaf A. A. Fyzee, `Materials for an Ismaili bibliography: 1920-34', in JBBRAS, NS. xi (1935), 59-65, `Additional notes for an Ismaili bibliography', ibid., xii (1936), Io7-9; and `Materials for an Ismaili bibliography: 1936-1938', ibid., xvi (1940), 99-101. More recent articles (but not books) are listed in J. D. Pearson, Index Islamicus z9o6-z955, Cambridge 1958, 89-9o, and Supplement, Cambridge 1962, 29. On the origins and use of the term reference may be made to the standard etymological and historical dictionaries of English, French, Italian and other European languages, and to the article `Hashishiyya' in EI(2).

i Brocardus, Directorium ad passagium faciendum, in RHC, E, Documents armeniens, ii, Paris 1906, 496-7.

2 Villani, Cronica, ix, 290-1; Dante, Inferno, xix, 49-50; cit. in Vocabulario della lingua italiana, s.v. assassino.

3 The report of Gerhard (possibly, as the editor suggests, an error for Burchard), vice-dominus of Strasburg, is cited by the German chronicler Arnold of Lubeck in his Chronicon Slavorum, vii, 8 (ed. W. Wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen, Stuttgart-Berlin 1907, ii, 240).

4 William of Tyre, Historia rerum inpartibus transmarinis gestarum, xx, 31, ed. J. P. Migne, Patrologia, cci, Paris 1903, 81o-1; cf. English translation by E. A. Babcock and A. C. Krey, A history of deeds done beyond the sea, ii, New York 1943, 391

5 Chronicon, iv, 16, ed. Wattenbach, 178-9.

6 F. M. Chambers, `The troubadours and the Assassins', in Modern Language Notes, lxiv (1949), 245-51. Olschki notes a similar passage in a sonnet probably written by Dante in his youth, in which the poet describes the devotion of the lover to his love as greater than that of the Assassin to the Old Man or the priest to God (Storia, 215).

7 Cont. William of Tyre, xxiv, 27, ed. Migne, Patrologia, cci, 958-9; Matthew of Paris, Chronica Majora, ed. H. R. Luard, Rerum britannicarum medii aevi scriptores, 57, iii, London 1876, 488-9; Joinville, Histoire de Saint Louis, chapter lxxxix, in Historiens et chroniqueurs du moyen dge, ed. A. Pauphilet, Paris 1952, 307-I0.

8 Nowell, 515, citing the French translation in Collection des memoires relatifs a 1'histoire de France, xxii, 47 f.; Latin text in his Historia Orientalis, i, 1062, in Bongars, Gesta Dei per Francos, Hanover 1611.

9 The journey of William of Rubruck to the eastern parts of the world, z 253-55, translated and edited by W. W. Rockhill, London i9oo, i 18, 222; The texts and versions of John de Plano Carpini and William de Rubruquis, ed. C. R. Beazley, London 1903, 170, 216, 324. Other versions speak of 4oo assassins.