Herman - An Unfinished Life - Life And Times Of Herman De Carinthia (1110 - Ca 1154) - Part Two - The Book Of Damascus And Andalus

Herman - An Unfinished Life - Life And Times Of Herman De Carinthia (1110 - Ca 1154) Part One

Herman’s work is about Enlightenment, which would give way to light, Renaissance, and pave the way for modern democracy. This article – first of its kind - divided into chapters – books- aims to reconstruct some of the time and places Herman de Carinthia lived and worked.

THE BOOK OF DAMASCUS
If Paradise be on earth, Damascus must be it.
It is heaven, Damascus can parallel and mach it.

writes Herman’s contemporary Ibn- Jubayr

Endless covered bazaars. Its workshops products from textiles. Its carpets, cloths and padlocks were exported to the most distant countries. Its roses blossomed in thousand varieties. Peacocks strutted around free. Apricot trees were in blossom and fountains murmured. Water and greenery. Beds in flowers. Citrus trees, dense orchards and sparkling brooks. Here and there a minaret would shot up. Herman`s tone neutral, his voice flat. For these people, the term "philosopher" denoted anything too closely associated with the profane Greek sciences and more generally anything which was neither religion, nor literature, an eminent "failasuf" Herman. Time has two faces, Herman said to himself. It has two dimensions, its length is measured by the rhythm of the sun, but its depth by the rhythm of passion. In the dense darkness there was a disorder by rustle of silk and a whiff of perfume. There was so much of new knowledge to acquire every day. The city attracted all those, who were searching for fortune or knowledge.

Damascus is the gift of the Barada. The river gushes forth almost full grown immediately below main streams to irrigate a desert area and convert it into "one of the three earthly paradises." Like a pearl in an emerald of green—from the time of Naaman, the Syrian general of the mid-ninth pre-Christian century, until today, the Damascenes have not ceased in poetry and prose to sing the beauty of their river and the fertility of their city. Damascus is more than an agricultural post. A "port", situated at the east end of a west-to-east trade route. A center of route radiation northward to its only rival in Syria—Aleppo—and to Asia Minor, southward to Palestine and on to the Hijaz, and eastward through an almost lifeless 500-mile desert to Baghdad, and through Baghdad to Mesopotamia and Persia.

Its people call it Dimashq, a term that presumably goes back to the time immemorial. This gives it a life-span justifying its claim of being one of the longest continuously inhabited city known. Towards end of the second millennium B.C. it became the capital of an Aramaean kingdom extending from the Euphrates, through eastern Syria and Transjordan, to the Dead Sea. Aramaic had established itself as the language of commerce, culture and government from the Mediterranean to the Tigris. Aramaic remained the lingua franca of the entire region. Damascus is also one of three gathering places, along with Baghdad and Cairo for Haj pilgrims to Makka Mukarama.

Soft jasmine – scented breezes into a scattering of star-like light across the plain, dimming into the dark oasis beyond. The silent gardens stood blurred green with river mist in whose setting shimmered the city. The songs rise above the dust and the mingle with smells of mint and garlic and apricots. Spring brings warmth back to the city, blankets spread in blossoms and orchards. As the weeks of springtime pass, apple, cherry, apricot and pear trees take turns at center stage in a wonderland of pale color and light.

Damascus has inspired legends, visions, and literary tributes. Herman’s contemporary Ibn Jubayr beheld her "ringed by her orchards as a halo rings the moon." The waters of Damascus are another source of pride and legends. In Damascus, Herman reported, prices are moderate, fruits and snow abound, and the products of both hot and cold climes are found. Nowhere else will be seen such magnificent hot baths, nor such beautiful fountains, Herman was captured by vistas of water and mountains he remembered seeing on the Barada river. A great contrast to exterior… enter by a low narrow door, even he had to stoop, to go through, and thereafter passing through a small courtyard, find yourself in a large court paved with marble, white mosaic with colored marble, with fountains playing and flowers and orange and lemon trees making a pleasant shade and perfume, on one side a room entirely open with raised dais, diwan, and decorated, the many other rooms accessible by smallish door on court. All the rooms have … mirrors on walls and ceiling, highly and gorgeously decorated, and mirrors everywhere, amid the decoration little bits of mirror, and all wood work inlaid with ivory and mother of pearl, Herman wrote home to Carinthia.

In 1138 Herman and Robert continued their quest for knowledge in Andalus and Occitania.

THE BOOK OF ANDALUS
Toledo, Leon, Najera, Pamplona

Surrounded by fields, of wheat and barley, olive groves and above all by fine orchards. Harvest of wheat, pears, citrons, oranges, bananas, saffron and sugar cane…The Arabs called their Iberian domain Andalus – a direct reference to the Vandals, who occupied the peninsula in the fifth century and whose legacy was still pervasive when Muslim forces arrived in the eighth – and the same name survives today in the name of Spain’s southern province, Andalusia.

The year is 719 Muslim settlers entered the Iberian Peninsula. They are laying the foundations of a civilization that will endure for almost 800 years. Muslim armies, bolstered by recently arrived troops from northern and southern Arabia - Syrians and Yemenis - crossed the Pyrenees, probing deep into what they call "the Great Land," Ard al-Kbirah. They quickly capture most of Visigothic Septimania. including the once-great Roman center of Narbonne, in Arabic Arbuna. Samh's aim was to strike westward, take the Garonne River valley, capture Toulouse (Tolosa) - then the capital of Eudes, Duke of Aquitaine - and open up a vast territory stretching all the way to the Atlantic and back south through Andalusia to the Mediterranean and the Maghrib.

But he first he would return to Andalus to muster fresh troops. Reinforced, he crossed back into Occitania in early spring, 721, and immediately marched west towards Toulouse. The siege of Toulouse, with its near – impregnable walls, lasted until early summer. The defenders, short of provisions, were close to surrendering when around June 9, 721, Eudes of Aquitaine returned at the head of a large force, and launched a highly successful encircling movement. Recent research by Toulouse historian Sydney Forado shows that I was in fact the battle of Toulouse in 721, much more than the battle of Poitiers, also called the battle of Tours, 11 years later, which prevented further, and possibly more permanent, Muslim gains in southern France.
But just as significantly, Eudes victory at Toulouse would result in a number of Islamo-Christian political alliances in southwestern France, initiating those first crucial cultural and commercial exchanges between Muslim Spain on the one hand and Languedeoc, Gascony, southern Aquitaine, the Pyrenees, Septimania and Provance on the other.

Muslem Spain would prove an immensely fertile ground for learning, for producing a long series of intellectual esthetic and scientific advances. This blossoming was due in part to the spirit of tolerance that prevailed for much thought not all, of the history of Andalus. A tolerance extended not only to other religious groups but operative within Muslim society as well. At its peak, Andalus experienced a golden ages of civilization that was the envy of all Europe, and which set the stage for the European Renaissance that followed. Muslim, Christian, and Jews interacted in a convivencia – a "living together" – of tolerance and cooperation unparalleled in its time. The caliphate of Córdoba would come to embody in the tenth century the richest economy, the most sophisticated civilization and the most imposing political system in the western world.

Europe found itself awash with new ideas and new customs, and streams that followed northward from the Iberian Peninsula. The westward flow of Arabic translations of writings by Greek, Persian and other scholars and authors, along with Arab commentaries and contributions, had begun around the year 800. By the end of the 10th century, various schools in Córdoba, capital of Andalus and the leading intellectual center in Andalus or Muslim Spain in the 10th and 11th century, employed hundreds of translators and just as many copyists - many of them women - working closely with Mozarab specialists – Christianized Arabs, and interpreters, translating hundreds, perhaps thousands, of manuscripts from Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo and Alexandria. At Córdoba's apogee, its ateliers were producing some 60,000 bound volumes each year. What began as a movement of poetry, music and literature across the Pyreness, was transformed to a steady flow of mathematics, astronomy, medicine and agricultural expertise – on such subject as raising Merimo sheep, irrigation, horticulture. It is safe to assume that a part of this output found its way across the Pyrenees into the abbeys, monasteries and learning centers of Narbonne, Toulouse, Montpellier and Nimes. Oviedo, then called Asturia soon became the main channel for transmitting scientific knowledge from Andalus through Catalunya, Aragon and Navarre into southern France.

The period from the tenth to the sixteenth century saw a major change in the geographical boundaries between the Christian and Muslim nations. At the start of the period, Muslims held the southern two thirds of the Spanish peninsula, and all the islands in the western Mediterranean. As result they also controlled the sea trade route in the western Mediterranean. By 1031, when Andalus began to fragment under attack by Castilian forces, Mozarab and other exiles form Cordoba and Toledo crossed the Pyrenees into southern France, taking with them, more than 200 years worth of accumulated knowledge, and a good part of the city’s former royal Visigothic library. When Toledo fell to the Christians in 1085, another effort was made to transfer the legacy of the ancient Greeks to another language, this time to Latin. It was Muslim disunity, and series of weak rulers, that led to a Christian re-conquest of most of Spain during the first two centuries. All but the kingdom of Granada was in Christian hands. Granada eventually fell, but not until 1492. Spain during this period, and until the inquisition, was generally a place of mutual toleration. The main ground for the re-conquest were those of political ambition and power rather than specifically religious. As the Muslims and Jews were being driven out of the western Mediterranean, a new power was arising in the east. The Seljuk Turks would first appear in the eastern Islamic empire. It was the Byzantine emperor’s call for help to the west which was the catalyst for the Crusades, although many other factors were involved. Despite the passage of 500 year, Andalus continues to cast its spell. As the birthplace of some of the world’s outstanding scholars and artisans, the home of dazzling architectural masterpiece, and the setting of a brilliant society notable for both the height of its achievements and the depths of its decadence, Andalus retains its emotional impact and its privilege place in Muslim historical memory.

All things come to an end!
Even death itself dies the death of things.
Destiny is chameleon-colored.
Its very essence is transformation.
In its hands we are like a game of chess.

And the king may be lost for the sake of a pawn.
So shake off the world, and find repose.
For earth turn to desert, and man die.
Say to this lowly world: the secret of the
Higher world lies hidden at Aghmat..
AlMu’tamid, King of Seville

TOLEDO
Muslim settlers disembarked on the southern coast of Spain in 711 and arrived in Toledo the following year, they begun their long and tolerant rule of the city they called Tulaytilah. The tolerance was repaid. When King Alfonso VI of Castile re-conquered Toledo in 1085, he offered generous conditions to its citizens, thus continuing a period of convivencia, withMuslims. The glory of Toledo in the 11th century was the development of exact sciences. Here one could meet the matematician AlWaggadi and AlTugimi, the geometers Ibn AlAttar, and Ibn Hamis, who were also astronomers. Muhammed . Assafar, who in 1029 made an astrolab, AlBagunis and Ibn Wafid, the rising star AlZarqti, Said Andalusi of Toledo, who left important information on the "Classification of Nations" and "Cultural Contact between Races and Nations", also valuable notes about misunderstanding between various communities and how to bring humanity closer in their outlook upon the world.

Think of greenery which springs up after the rain, said Herman to himself.

PETER AND THE HISTORY OF THE TOLEDO PROJECT
The study of Islam in the West started with Peter the Venerable’s sponsorship of a translation of the Qur’an and other Arabic works into Latin, which occurred around 1140 CE. This was the first translation of the Qur’an and the first time that it could be read by western scholars. Pierre Maurice de Montbossier, known as Peter the Venerable or Peter of Cluny, was elected abbot of Cluny in 1122, when he was only 28 years old. This was not that surprising as Peter was the grandnephew of a previous abbot, Hugh. Cluny was one of the great centers of middle medieval monasticism. It established itself as a reforming movement among monasteries, and it grew, particularly under the guidance of its second abbot, St Odo. There were over 1000 Cluniac houses throughout Europe including many in Spain. By the time Peter was appointed there was a significant issue of both finance and discipline among the houses. Peter was chosen as abbot in order to maintain Cluny’s greatness, and to bring it back to its founding principles. Peter became arguably the second greatest abbot of Cluny. He was to rule as abbot for thirty-four years, during which his order was continually competing for power with the Cistercian order. Peter was an energetic man, in spite of delicate health. He was used to a demanding schedule of daily liturgy, preaching and teaching. He needed to travel widely in order to direct the affairs of the Cluniac order, and was involved in both ecclesiastical and secular politics as befitted a man of his standing at that time. Whilst it is generally thought that Peter was a peaceful man, some would suggest a pacifist, others as a man of violence than any of his contemporaries. There is no doubt that he was a man of personal conviction and courage.

It was around the middle of his period as abbot, in 1142, that Peter journeyed to Spain, for the purpose, of obtaining much needed funds from Emperor Alfonso VII. The details of his itinerary are unsurprisingly vague, but he is able to be placed at or near Pamplona, Burgos and Salamanca, and he may well have visited Compostella. It is presumed that it is whilst there that Peter encountered or became aware of the existent school of translation in Toledo. Toledo had been captured from the Muslims in 1085, and had been made the primatial seat of the Spanish church in 1088. It would thus have been no surprise if Peter had chosen to visit it. There were large collections of Arabic books, and large numbers of its population could speak and read Arabic. From 1125 onwards the Archbishop of Toledo, Archbishop Raimundo, had sponsored a school of translation, bringing into Latin the vast corpus of works available in the city. This school attracted scholars from all over Europe.

This school was the central expression of the phenomena which became known as the twelfth century renaissance. Works translated include those in mathematics, science and philosophy. Irrespective of whether Peter visited the school of Toledo, it is known that he met with Archbishop Raimundo at Salamanca in 1142. At one of these to places the possibility of a translation of information about Islam into Latin must have occurred, and Peter began to put it into effect. Certainly the three main translators who Peter engaged on the work were all associated in some way with the school. There were five men engaged on the project. Herman de Carinthia was accustomed to working with Robert of Ketton on translations, the pair had worked mainly in the field of astronomy and geometry, Muhammed, a Muslim, whose role was to check the fidelity of the translation, but we know little more about him. Robert of Ketton, was the main translator of the Qur’an, Peter of Toledo is credited to be the person who planned and annotated the collection, but we know little about him either. Peter of Poitiers was Peter the Venerable’s notary, or secretary, and acted to "polish and set in order" the final translation, as he knew no Arabic, but could write well in Latin. It is also possible that, he may have acted as his representative, and prepared some of the material which the abbot later used to write his contributions to the Toledo corpus.

The translations were made in 1142 and 1143, and comprised five of the seven works in the Toledo Corpus. The Fabulae Sacacenorum and The Liber Generationis Mahumet contain an uneven mixture of purportedly Islamic legends and traditions. The Doctrina Mahumet is a traceable Islamic work, although of dubious theological value, which takes the form of dialogue. The most significant item of the collection was the translation of the Qur’an, the first complete translation of the Qur’an in any language. This translation has considerable flaws. The final translation was that of the letter of Al-Kindi, an Arabic Christian apologetic work.

In spite of the long contact between the two cultures. Peter’s portrait is not one which Muslims would recognize as faithful to their religion. So what sense can be made of Peter’s approach to Islam and why Peter was attempting the project at all. The First Crusade had proved a significant success, and a second was being preached. Peter was aware of his limitations, both as a person and from his position. He was also aware of his strengths and opportunities. He had the resources as head of the Cluniac monasteries to create another weapon against the "Saracens". He was a scholar and he recognized that a scholarly attack on Islam was as necessary to the crusading cause as a physical attack. He recognized the opportunity that the school of translation at Toledo gave him to provide that weapon.

NAVARRE
La Rioja lies on the western side of the Ebro Valley and is full of different geographical features. There is the Upper Rioja which is mountainous and humid and stretches from the spurs of La Demanda Sierra as far as the Ebro. It is different from the Lower Rioja, which is flat and has an almost Mediterranean climate. It is a crossroads where many cultures settled. La Rioja has a history full of important events. Out of the stones of the Monasteries of San Millan de Suso and Yuso grew the beginnings of the language of Castile. The people of La Rioja have lived in the company of Basques, Romans, Arabs, Navarrese and Castilians. It was not by chance that Najera was the centre of the Cantabrian Dukedom and later the capital of its empire. It was the court of the Kingdom of Navarre and La Rioja as well as the main link between the Kingdoms of Castile-Leon and Aragon. Navarra's historical function lay in international diplomacy. While Navarra seemed to be a state of insignificant size, Navarrese kings again and again played important roles in international policy. It was King John II. of Navarra, also King of Aragon, who in 1479 arranged the marriage between Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, a marriage that would lead to the creation of modern Spain.

The death of a queen in childbirth and the grief of her bereaved husband are represented on one of the most memorable tombs produced in Spain during the twelfth century: that of Dona Blanca of Navarre (d. 1156), wife of Sancho III, king of Castile In addition to Blanca's deathbed, a scene that includes her husband swooning, biblical stories concerning mothers and their children - dramas of sacrifice and salvation - are represented. The simplicity with which the figures are rendered makes their powerful emotions seem all the stronger; these images impress themselves indelibly onto the mind. The tomb reliefs achieve thereby the central purpose of a funerary monument: to perpetuate the memory of the deceased by recalling her to the living. Blanca's sarcophagus would become a significant example of the exploration of human emotion in the visual and literary arts of the twelfth century. Dona Blanca Garces was an infanta, a princess, of the kingdom of Navarre, a crucial link in the power structure of Christian Spain in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Najera was an early capital of that state, and the residence of the Navarrese kings. In 1151, Blanca became the wife of Sancho III el Deseado (the Beloved). The two reigned briefly as king and queen of Castile. Sadly, Alfonso was left an orphan before reaching the age of three, his father died too of unspecified causes in 1158. The preservation of Blanca's memory and of her tomb is due to the fact that her son, who went on to become Alfonso VIII el Noble (the Noble) of Castile, was one of the great kings of medieval Spain, he decisively weakened the Muslim hold on the Peninsula. Blanca stands as a romantic figure to the historians of the past, while the expressive quality of her tomb remains a source of fascination to the viewer even today.

PAMPLONA
Pamplona also Irunea/Irunea, is the capital city of Navarre, Spain. The area around Pamplona is hot, dry, arid. The city itself is very green. Located at an altitude of 444 m above sea level on a hill overlooking the Arga River and the surrounding valley are picturesque villages, exceptional landscapes, and beautiful parks. This is the place where Herman`s schoolmate and friend Robert of Ketton would became the Archdeacon of Pamplona after being commissioned by Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny, to translate the Quran into Latin. It was the first translation of the book into a European language. It was here that Peter was meeting the four translators Robert of 'Ketton, Hermann de Carinthia, Master Peter of Toledo and the Muslim named Muhammed. Robert, Herman and Master Peter were not Cluniacs and had no known ties with Santa María de Nájera, Peter's encountering at least the first two, and probably all four, scholars in the Ebro region, may indicates that they were in the vicinity because and traveling with manuscripts from Toledo Herman de Carinthia, in particular, devoted himself almost entirely to science, to astronomy, mathematics and philosophy and it seems likely that the translation may have been pressed upon him. The quartet accompanied the abbot of Cluny westward beyond Nájera and the work of translating may have proceeded en route and the completion of Hermann de Carinthia’s version of the De Generatione Mahumet at Leon. From Burgos Peter would pass through Nájera and Pamplona again. At Pamplona, he may have left Peter of Poitiers, and the secretary and Robert of Ketton, who did not complete his translation of the Quran until sometime between 16 June and 16 July, 1143.

The first of the summer heat but in the gardens of Pamplona flowers had no radiance. Pamplona and the green hills would at times remember Herman of his native Carinthia. At first Herman was pleased the visitors and news from home.
The death was sudden and unexpected.. .

To die – takes just a little while. They say it does not hurt.
It’s only fainter – by degrees – and then – it’s out of sight.
A darker Ribbon – for a Day – a Crape upon the Hat –
And then the pretty sunshine comes – And helps us to forget –
The absent – mystic – creature – that but for love of us – had gone to sleep-
The soundest time – without the weariness.

PART THREE THE BOOK OF OCCITANIA AND EPILOGE WHEN KNOWLEDGE KNEW NO BORDESR