Article 28

If you had lived back thenWho would you have been? Most likely, a peasant

At the turn of the last millennium, mostof Europe’s population was dirt-poor,scratching out an existence at the whimof a lord. Elsewhere, things weren’tmuch better, though a lucky few couldcontrol their destinies.

A SOLDIER’S FORTUNE

As the third son born to a chieftain ofa small principality in Turkistan, AbuMansur Subuktigin seemed destined fora life of shepherding and marauding. Butby the time of his death in A.D. 997, hehad become a renowned statesman andfounded the powerful Islamic Ghaznaviddynasty.

Such was life for the ambitious Is-lamic slave soldier.

ISLAMIC MAMELUKES were multi-talented fighters,

the atomic weapon of the Middle Ages.

The import of slaves to be used as sol-diers probably began on a large scale inA.D. 833. Al-Mu’tasim, an Abbasid ca-liph, was in search of a few good men toguard his palace in Baghdad—preferablybright, strapping young fellows whowere good with bows and arrows. Localboys were out of the question—Arabswere not inclined to be warriors. Butyoung Turkic men were. Already a hotcommodity on the slave market as houseservants and male sex partners, Turksalso had a reputation as excellent archersand horsemen.

Young Turks. The caliph snapped upan army of them. And what started as asmall personal guard became a sophisti-cated regiment that helped Abbasid suc-cessors conquer Pakistan, Afghanistan,Uzbekistan, and parts of Kazakhstan.Soon other caliphs and sultans were reg-ularly dispatching agents to the steppesof Central Asia to buy boys as young as10 from their families or warlords. Thusbegan 10 centuries of mamelukes—inArabic, “owned ones,”—who, like Sub-uktigin, sometimes ended up quite theopposite.

Mamelukes were not slaves in the tra-ditional sense. Although they were in-deed owned by caliphs, sultans, and

anyone else who could afford a privatearmy, they were elite members of Is-lamic society—so admired that severalMuslims were caught trying to sell them-selves into slavery (under Islamic law,Muslims cannot become slaves butslaves can become Muslims).

Their fierce loyalty was instilled in avigorous training course that could spanmost of a boy’s adolescence. Young,malleable boys emerged as disciplined,well-connected, state-of-the-art fighters.Georgetown University Prof. John Vollcalls them “the atomic weapon of theMiddle Ages,” referring to their uniqueability to shoot arrows from all direc-tions (including backward) while at fullgallop.

The mamelukes displayed skills offthe battlefield, too. After the lastAyyubid sultan was killed by Louis IX’scrusaders in 1249, mamelukes murderedhis successors, and a mameluke namedBaybars became the first ruler of the Ma-meluke dynasty, which lasted until Otto-man Turks invaded Cairo in 1517. At itsheight, this slave meritocracy controlledEgypt, Syria, Medina, and Mecca—thereligious and commercial centers of theMiddle East—making it the most pros-perous and longest surviving Islamic dy-nasty in history. —Margaret Loftus

PEASANT DANGERS

The Anglo-Saxon elite are no greatmystery to scholars. Scores of texts re-counting their regal dress, lavish feasts,and political machinations have survivedthe centuries. The peasantry, by contrast,is virtually absent from the chronicles ofthe day. The paucity of information is so

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frustrating, says Henry Weisser, a Colo-rado State University professor and au-thor of the forth coming England: AnIllustrated History, that he remembers acolleague once remarking that “he wouldgive his right arm to know how a peasantfelt.”

FOR THE PEASANT,the line between subsistence

and hunger was fine, and a single misfortune could

spell doom.

Still, archaeological digs and a fewdocuments like tax decrees or churchhandbooks provide a dim picture ofhardscrabble peasant life. The typical hutwas whitewashed sod with a thatchedroof, no windows, and a dirt floor. A fewstones at the center harbored hot coalsfor warmth and cooking. Straw-filledpallets served as bedding; families sleptalongside their underfed animals.

The day began before dawn, withblack bread and herb-spiced ale. Clad insimple, coarse cloaks, men headed out toplow their tiny plots, while womentended to the beasts or prepared gruel.The line between subsistence and hungerwas fine, and a single misfortune—anearly frost, sick oxen—could spelldoom. Though plain, the peasant diet ofpeas, beans, and whole-grain breads wasmuch healthier than the aristocratic fareof fatty game and honeyed treats. Butgood health was evasive; as many as athird of peasant children never cele-brated their first birthday. Icy wintersand dysentery were deadly. Fungus-rid-den grain, eaten during famines, couldlead to ergotism, or “St. Anthony’s fire,”a poisoning that causes hallucinationsand limb loss. Settlements were rou-tinely pillaged and burned by the merci-less Norse.

Players. Yet woe was not the peas-ant’s sole companion. There was ale-soaked celebration on Midsummer’sDay, with wrestling bouts or other roughgames. Though parish churches wererare, religious devotion was the center-piece of life. “Peasants would sort ofworship at the fringes,” says Allen

Frantzen, an English professor at LoyolaUniversity Chicago and general editor ofthe journal Essays in Medieval Studies.“There might well have been peasantswho would only have worshiped withroaming preachers in the open air.”

Survival was foremost in the peasantmind, a preoccupation scarcely changedby one of the new millennium’s mostseminal events—the Norman Conquestof 1066, which barely registered. “The[new] lord would look alien and foreignand speak a different language,” saysWeisser. “But as far as life goes for apeasant, it was still nasty, brutish, andshort.” —B.I.K.

BEST AND BRIGHTEST

When Al Gore set out to “reinvent”government, he probably didn’t have thesweeping transformations of Song dy-nasty China in mind. Pity. Because at theturn of the last millennium, an elite corpsof scholar-officials established one ofthe world’s first meritocracies—a civilservice based on brains, not bloodlines—and set the stage for a host of innovationsthat would endure for centuries, from

school systems and foreign aid to the useof paper currency.

These so-called mandarins (the termwas later coined by the British) wereChina’s best and brightest—moral au-thorities versed in Confucian classicsand plucked to serve as imperial minis-ters or town magistrates by passing a se-ries of rigorous local, provincial, andpalace exams. Getting accepted to Har-vard is a snap by comparison. “The mag-nitude of their accomplishments isimpressive,” says Stephen West, a pro-fessor of Chinese literature at the Uni-versity of California–Berkeley. “Itwould be as if a Henry Kissinger was asgifted a poet as Robert Hass. Or if W. H.Auden was also a superb governmentalpolicy specialist.”

Scholars in training. The process be-gan around age 5, when boys learned tobow respectfully and recite lines fromclassical texts. Families, many of themwealthy landowners or merchants, thenmight hire tutors to teach the writing of

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Article 28. If you had lived back then

Chinese characters and the study of Con-fucius. Only the most promising teenag-ers would head to the capital city ofKaifeng to master the poetry, essay writ-ing, and Confucian scholarship thatformed the core of the palace-levelexam. Many failed. Only 50 studentsaced the highest, or jin-shi, test in 998,and Song literature is filled with tales ofyoung scholars led astray by wine andwomen.

Such brilliance was required to man-age the burgeoning commercial and cul-tural hub that China had become duringthe 10th century. Tea, originally im-ported from Southeast Asia more than100 years earlier, now was the most pop-ular drink on the planet, and the centralgovernment included an elaborate bu-reaucracy to regulate trade and collecttaxes. Mandarins managed the moneysupply, maintained security in the prov-inces, and settled legal wrangles.

Serving the government was a nobleand powerful profession, but it also washard work. Court began at 5 a.m., and10-day workweeks were the norm, withtwo days off in between. Still, life washardly glum. Along with banquets everyother day, many mandarins had house-hold entertainers and concubines. Re-search by University of California–Davis Chinese historian Beverly Bosslersuggests that some of these consorts—aswell as many mothers and sisters—mayhave been almost as well educated as themen in their lives. —Mary Lord

BORN TO PRAY

For a Brahman around 1000, apoca-lypse would come in the blink of an eye,but the next one wasn’t due for another427,898 years. The blink would be thatof the god Shiva, who’d open the thirdeye in the center of his forehead and in-cinerate the entire universe with his all-piercing sight. He’d done it an infinitenumber of times before, would do it aninfinite number of times again, so therewasn’t much cause for alarm. Indians inthe year 1000 were living in the KaliYuga, the last (and most miserable)phase of an endless cycle of birth, flores-cence, decay, and death.

THE POOREST PUJARI from the humblest fishing

village in the Indian realm of Chola was superior to

the king himself.

Even to a small-town pujari (ritualpriest), such knowledge would be com-monplace. Pujaris were just one of themany types of Brahmans, each of whomhad distinct responsibilities. The task ofthe pujari caste was to perform pujas, re-ligious ceremonies held on any occasionthat might benefit from a bit of divineoversight. Any Brahman could recite theholy scriptures, but a Hindu paying for apuja for, say, a daughter’s weddingwould want to hire a trained profes-sional.

Higher than king. A pujari mighthave assisted in the coronation of one ofthe Chola dynasty’s greatest monarchs.

People in the tropical parts of India knewA.D. 1000 as the 15th year in the reign ofKing Rajaraja (the name is modestlytranslatable as “King Kingking”). In aritual sense, however, the poorest pujarifrom the humblest fishing village in theChola realm was superior to KingKingking himself; the mightiest mon-arch was still a mere Kshatriya—one ofa class of knights and nobles inferior tothe Brahmans. While not necessarily richor powerful, Brahmans were consideredhuman manifestations of the divine spirititself. Even a small-town pujari had tosafeguard his purity with an elaborate setof taboos. He could eat neither meat nor(if he was particularly strict) animalproducts such as eggs, cheese, or milk.He had to avoid defilement by membersof ritually polluting castes, such as la-trine cleaners, leather tanners, and brew-ers of alcohol. Not only was he forbiddento have physical contact with people thenseen as “untouchable”; a Brahmancouldn’t eat food prepared by them,drink water drawn from their wells, oreven (in some parts of the South) let oneof their shadows dart across his toe.

The son of a washerman became awasherman; the son of a pujari became apujari. No change in this life—but therewere an infinite number of lives left tolive. An untouchable butcher whoworked hard might be reincarnated as arespectable craftsman. An unjust kingmight return as the lowest hauler of trashin all the lands he once ruled. Dharma,the law of the cosmos, is also a Sanskritword for justice. —Jonah Blank

Felonious Monks

Religious reform is always tricky, buta millennium ago, the rival kings of Ti-bet managed to agree on a remarkablymodern solution: They hired an outsideconsultant.

Coaxed north by a hefty sum of gold,legendary Indian guru Atisha trekked tothe rugged Tibetan highlands in 1042.He and his followers were faced with achallenge: The Buddhism that had beenintroduced to Tibet centuries earlier wascorrupt, rife with misinterpretations, andmixed with the popular, shamanistic Bonreligion.

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Later writings describe a land inchaos. An empire that had rivaledChina’s just two centuries earlier wasnow broken and divided. Worse, somepeople had taken sacred metaphors fartoo literally. “These ‘robber-monks’ kid-napped and killed men and women, atethem, drank alcohol, and indulged insexual intercourse,” according to histo-rian Rolf Alfred Stein, in Tibetan Civili-zation.

Atisha to the rescue. The famed 60-year-old monk set down strict rules bar-ring sex, possessions, travel, and intoxi-cants. Other Buddhist teachers followedin his wake, many fleeing Muslim perse-cution in India. The religious ordersfounded by Atisha and those who fol-lowed him were sponsored by noblefamilies, who gained credibility throughthe association.

In exchange, the learned lamas servedas teachers, adminstrators, and priests.

Typically, the head of each Tibetan mon-astery was the son of a noble family, andthe office was hereditary. Since monkswere celibate, control would pass fromuncle to nephew. Educated and worldly,the lamas helped run the monastic estatesand counseled the kings.

Bureaucrats. “After the 13th cen-tury, the lamas gradually came to form abureaucracy, administering the countrybut ultimately accountable to the kingsand noble families,” says Robert Thur-man, professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhiststudies at Columbia. Scholars believelife in the monasteries changed little overthe centuries. Unlike Europeans at thetime, Tibetan monks ate well. The stapleof monastic and peasant life was barleygrown in mountain fields that were irri-gated by glacial melt. Monks supple-mented their diet with a wide variety ofyak products, including milk, cheese,butter, and meat.

The monasteries grew in power,thriving until the Chinese invasion of Ti-bet in 1950, when many of the largestmonasteries and centuries-old religiouslibraries were destroyed. Led by theDalai Lama, the monks who fled thecountry continue to follow the traditionsset down by Atisha. —Andrew Curry

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From U.S. News & World Report, August 16-23, 1999, pp. 80, 82-83. © 1999 by U.S. News & World Report. Reprinted by permission.

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