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Remarks on some European names in the Syriac life of Mār Yaḇalāhā

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 May 2016

FRANÇOIS DE BLOIS
FRANÇOIS DE BLOIS*
Affiliation:
University [email protected]
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Extract

The biography of the Nestorian patriarch Mār Yaḇalāhā III and of his teacher Rabban Ṣawmā is a well-known book, arguably the most interesting historical work in Syriac, and an important source for the history of the Ilkhanate and its relations with Western Europe.

Type
Part III: The Sources
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 26 , Issue 1-2 , January 2016 , pp. 229 - 234
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2016 

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References

1 Histoire de Mar Jab-Alaha, patriarche, et de Raban Sauma, (ed.) par Paul Bedjan (title also in Syriac), (Paris, 1888).

2 (same title), 2e édition, revue et corrigée, (Paris (printed Leipzig) 1895).

3 Chabot, J. B., “Histoire du patriarche Mar Jabalaha III et du moine Rabban Çauma”, Revue de l'Orient Latin, 1, 1893, pp. 567–610 Google Scholar; 2, 1894, pp. 73-142, 235-304. [Also published as a separatum (Paris, Ernest Leroux, 1895).]

4 Literarisches Centralblatt für Deutschland, 1889, col. 842-4.

5 The monks of Ḳûblâi Khân, London 1928.

6 История Мар Ябалахи III и Раббан Саумы, (Moscow, 1958).

7 F. Altheim, Geschichte der Hunnen III, (Berlin, 1961), pp. 190-217.

8 Rossabi, M., Voyager from Xanadu, (Tokyo etc., 1992)Google Scholar.

9 Storia di Mar Yahballaha e di Rabban Sauma, (Turin, 2000). [A 2nd edition of this has since appeared (Moncalieri, 2009).]

10 Ṣawmā is presumably an abbreviation for “bar Ṣawmā”, “son of a fast”, as Rohrbacher in fact calls him, (the higher clergy of the Nestorian Church do not eat meat, and it is common for ladies of priestly families to refrain from meat while pregnant in expectation that they might give birth to a son), but in the text he is styled simply “Rabban Ṣawmā” (our lord Ṣawmā).

11 F. C. Andreas, “Bruchstücke einer Pehlevi-Übersetzung der Psalmen”, aus dem Nachlaß herausgegeben von K. Barr, SPAW 1933, pp. 91–152.

12 See “The Middle-Persian inscription from Constantinople: Sasanian or post-Sasanian?”, Studia Iranica 19, 1990, pp. 209-218.

13 Sims-Williams, N., “Early New Persian in Syriac script: Two texts from Turfan”, BSOAS 74, 2011, pp. 353–374 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Here, and in what follows, I ignore the fanciful vocalisations in the published text (in this case: ʼīlnāḡtar) and cite only the consonants.

15 Chabot, ROL 2 p. 82 n. 2.

16 Borbone p. 76 n.3.

17 Altheim, p. 112.

18 “The name of the Black Sea”, Iranian languages and texts from Iran and Turan, Ronald E. Emmerick Memorial Volume, Wiesbaden 2007, pp. 1-8, especially pp. 3-4 (with further references).

19 Tafel, G. L. Fr., Thomas, G. M. (eds.), Urkunden zur älteren Handels- und Staatsgeschichte der Republik Venedig, III, Vienna 1857, pp. 62–89 Google Scholar.

20 Ibid . p. 70.

21 Ibid . p. 82.

22 I am not sure whether in the thirteenth century Μαύρη had already its modern pronunciation /mavri/, or still had a diphthong. In the Latin version one can, of course, read either Mauri- or Mavri-. Michael the Syrian speaks of “black ( ) slaves”, which would be but another spelling for mawrāyē; see Brockelmann, Lexicon syriacum p. 378, Payne-Smith, Thesaurus syriacus col. 2051 (Sokoloff's English translation of Brockelmann p.730a has wrongly: ).

23 Brockelmann p. 329a (Brockelmann/Sokoloff p. 624a).

24 In this I follow Borbone p. 71 n. 4.

25 Brockelmann p. 55a (Brockelmann/Sokoloff p. 111b).

26 I made this suggestion in my paper “The life of Mar Yabhalaha and its source ‘in Persian’”, presented at VIIum Symposium Syriacum, Uppsala, 1996, but not published. It is reported succinctly by Klein, W. in his book Das Nestorianische Christentum an den Handelswegen durch Kyrgyzstan bis zum 14. Jh., (Turnhout, 2000), p. 191CrossRefGoogle Scholar n. 329.

27 Cited in Payne-Smith col. 3243.