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Daniel the Traveller

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Explorer from Kievan Rus

Daniel the Traveller, known also as Daniel the Pilgrim (Russian: Даниил Паломник), Daniel of Kyiv, or Abbot Daniel, was the first travel writer from the Kievan Rus. He is known for travelling to the Holy Land in the aftermath of the First Crusade and his descriptions are important records of the region during that time. Some have identified him with a certain Daniel, bishop of Yuryev [ru; uk] between 1115 and 1122.

Travels

Archimandrite Daniel journeyed to the West from the Rus monastery where he lived as an igumen. This monastery was probably near Chernihiv in Ukraine, in the Land of Chernihivshchyna. Daniel's narratives begin at Constantinople. He began his travels in the early 12th century and was likely in Constantinople around 1106 to 1108. Daniel stayed in the Jerusalem area for over a year and took various trips around Palestine and Syria. During this time he explored the Dead Sea, Hebron, and Damascus. He learned much of the regions from his three major excursions to the Dead Sea and Lower Jordan (which he compares to the Snov River), Bethlehem and Hebron, and Damascus. Daniel wrote his journeys in narratives he titled Puteshestive igumena Daniila — Life and Pilgrimage of Daniel, Hegumen from the Land of the Rus.

When coming to Jerusalem from Jaffa, he mentions that this was where ‘Saracens sally forth and kill travellers’, he also attested to several venerable sites that was ‘destroyed by the pagans’. When going to Lake Tiberias, he dodged ‘fierce pagans who attack travellers at the river-fords’ and lions that roamed the countryside in ‘great numbers’. He prayed for his life when he walked unescorted on the narrow pass between Mount Tabor and Nazareth as he was warned that local villagers do ‘kill travellers in those terrible mountains’. He survived the trip, returning to Kyiv with a small piece of the rock from Christ’s tomb kept by him as a relic.

Daniel's description of the Holy Land preserves a record of conditions that are peculiarly characteristic of the time. He describes the Saracen raiding almost up to the walls of Christian Jerusalem and the friendly relations between Roman and Eastern churches in Syria. Daniel visited Palestine in the reign of Baldwin I of Jerusalem and apparently soon after the crusader capture of Acre in 1104. He claims to have accompanied Baldwin on an expedition against Damascus (c. 1107). Daniel's narratives show that Baldwin treated him with much friendliness. Daniel records that several of his friends from Kyiv and Old Novgorod were present with him at the Easter Eve miracle in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Significance

Daniel's account of Jerusalem is descriptive and accurate. His observant and detailed record of Palestine is one of the most valuable medieval documents that exist. Daniel had some knowledge of both Greek and Latin and so was able to use interpreters. He writes, It is impossible to come to know all the holy places without guides and interpreters. He writes of a holy man of great learning, well advanced in years, who had lived in the Galilee for thirty years and had accompanied him in Palestine, however he made some major mistakes in topography and history. Daniel visited about sixty places in the area.

While Daniel was not the first traveller to leave the Rus, his travels were the first which there are written records of. There were warriors, merchants, and earlier pilgrims who had travelled from the Kievan Rus to the outside world before the twelfth century; however, none left written records that have come down to the present day. Daniel was one of the first European travellers to travel long distances on foot and keep a written account of his travels – a travelog.

Daniel's narratives are also important in the history of the Old East Slavic language and in the study of ritual and liturgy of the time (i.e. description of the Easter services in Jerusalem and the Descent of the Holy Fire).

Manuscripts

There are seventy-six manuscripts of Daniel's narratives of which only five are before the year 1500. The oldest of his narratives is dated 1475 of which three editions still exist in Saint Petersburg at the Library of Ecclesiastical History.

Notes

  1. Anzovin, p. 201, item 3391: "The first Russian travel-writer was Daniel of Kiev, called in Russian Daniel Kievsky."
  2. Merriam-Webster, p. 298 Daniel, the Pilgrim, also called Daniel of Kiev, (fl. 12th century). The earliest known Russian travel writer, whose account of his pilgrimage to the Holy Land is the earliest surviving record in Russian of such a trip.
  3. ^ Beazley, C. Raymond (1900). "The Oldest Monument of Russian Travel". Transactions of the Royal Historical Society. 14: 175–185. doi:10.2307/3678151. JSTOR 3678151. S2CID 162641720. "Daniel is the earliest Russian author, sacred or secular, who has described a journey from his country to any other part of the outer world."
  4. The Pilgrimage of Abbot Daniel at A History of Russian Literature: 11th-13th century. Accessed September 2020.
  5. ^  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Beazley, Charles Raymond (1911). "Daniel of Kiev". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 7 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 808.
  6. ^ "Danylo, the Ukrainian 12th-century pilgrim". Retrieved 2008-09-04.
  7. ^ Merriam-Webster, p. 298
  8. ^ Anzovin, p. 201, item 3391
  9. Jones, Dan (2017). "Chapter 1: A golden basin, filled with scorpions". The Templars. Head of Zeus. ISBN 978-1-78185-890-5.

Bibliography

Daniel's text

Nasir Khusraw's text

Secondary literature

  • Anzovin, Steven, Famous First Facts', H. W. Wilson Company (2000), ISBN 0-8242-0958-3
  • C. R. Beazley, Dawn of Modern Geography, ii. 155–174. (C. R. B.), has the account of Daniel.
  • I. P. Sakharov's (St Petersburg, 1849), Narratives of the Russian People, vol. ii. bk. viii. pp. 1–45.
  • Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature, Merriam-Webster (1995), ISBN 0-87779-042-6
  • C.W. Wilson, ed., The Pilgrimage of the Russian Abbot Daniel to the Holy Land, 1106-1107 A.D. (London, 1895).

External links

Medieval Christian descriptions and travel guides of the Holy Land
Cartography
Late Roman and
Byzantine period
Early Islamic period
Crusader period
Later Islamic period
Many of these texts have been translated and published by the Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society.
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