Makuria (Dotawo) under King Basil

Who rules

Name

Basil (Basileios; counted Basil II in modern lists)

Title

King of Dotawo (the Old Nubian name of the joined kingdom of Makuria and Nobadia)

Since

Not pinned. A deed of about 1190-1198 (DBMNT 585) already dates by him; he is the reigning king in deeds of 30 December 1198 (DBMNT 586) and 16 August 1199 (DBMNT 588), four and a half months before 1 January 1200

Born

Not known; Godlewski (2019) makes him and his brother Georgios children in 1155, so he is probably in his fifties in 1200

Family

Son of David (who seized the Makurian throne in 1154) and of Iesusikol, sister of King Mouse (Moses); so the sister's son of Mouse, the heir under the Nubian custom of succession through the king's sister. Brother of Georgios (Georgios VI), who was co-king with Mouse in 1186. A queen mother (Old Nubian ngonnen) stands beside him in the deeds of 1198-1199, unnamed; Godlewski ties Iesusikol to Basil as queen mother. Wife and children not known

Confidence

medium

The Qasr Ibrim deeds name the reigning king in their dating formula. Mouse (Moses, often called Moses Georgios) is crowned in 1155 (DBMNT 581, 22 August 1155) and last dated on 1 November 1190 (DBMNT 584). A letter of 17 September 1186 (DBMNT 610) to the Coptic patriarch Mark III, asking him to ordain one Iesou as bishop, carries the king's titles; Godlewski (2019) reads the 1186 material as naming Mouse and Georgios VI together as kings of Makuria and Alodia.

Basil then dates the deeds of 1198 and 1199 alone. Whether Georgios VI was dead, retired or reigning elsewhere (in Alodia?) on 1 January 1200 is not pinned, nor whether Mouse was still alive (see notes)

Overlord

None. The kingdom is bound to Egypt only by the old treaty (baqt) and by its church's obedience to the Coptic patriarch of Alexandria.

What the realm holds

• Old Dongola, the capital: citadel, palaces, the Throne Hall of the ninth century, the cathedral and many churches, the monastery of the Holy Trinity (Kom H)
• The Dongola Reach from the Third Cataract to the Fourth Cataract, with Banganarti's pilgrimage church of the archangel Raphael and the monastery of Ghazali in the Wadi Abu Dom
• The Fourth Cataract and the reach to Abu Hamad and the Fifth Cataract, the border with Alodia (not exactly known)
• Nobadia (al-Maris), held through the eparch at Qasr Ibrim: Faras, Qasr Ibrim, Jebel Adda, the Second Cataract with Meinarti, the Batn al-Hajar, Sai, and the northern district of Tafa near the Egyptian frontier
• The Bayuda desert inside the great bend, with the road from the Wadi Abu Dom south towards Alodia
• The bishoprics of Dongola, Qasr Ibrim (Phrim, also Silmi), Faras (Pachoras), Sai and Kourte, with their churches and lands
• Possibly the crown of Alodia as well, if the personal union of Mouse's time continues (not pinned)

How it was acquired

Makuria absorbed Nobadia by the early eighth century; the joined kingdom is Dotawo in the Old Nubian deeds. Mouse (Moses), son of King Paulos of Alodia and of Mari, sister of Georgios V of Makuria, was eparch of the Alodian province of Palaga in 1154, took the Makurian throne from David in 1155 with Fatimid mediation, and later inherited Alodia (Godlewski 2019). His nephews Georgios and Basil followed him.

Allies and rivals

Egypt: since 1175 a quiet peace with the Ayyubid governor of Qus and Aswan, after the war of 1172-1175 (a Nubian army sacked Aswan in 1172; Turanshah, Saladin's brother, took Qasr Ibrim in January 1173 and left a Kurdish garrison that raided Lower Nubia for two years until a Nubian army came to Adindan in 1175 and the garrison withdrew). Alodia: a sister kingdom, joined to Makuria under Mouse; how things stand under Basil is not pinned. The Coptic patriarch of Alexandria consecrates the Nubian bishops; on 17 September 1186 King Mouses Georgios asked Patriarch Mark III to ordain one Iesou bishop, styling himself king of the Alodians, Makurians, Nobadians, Damalt( ) and Aksumites (DBMNT 610).

The Banu Kanz, Arabs driven out of Aswan by Saladin in 1174, live among the Nubians of the north. The Beja to the east are neighbours and traders. No war is recorded in 1199.

The realm that morning

At peace. Basil reigns at Dongola; Adama is eparch of Nobadia at Qasr Ibrim (16 August 1199). Lower Nubia has been Nubian again since 1175, and the deeds of 1198-1199 show the full Nubian administration working in the north, down to a domestikos at Tafa near the Egyptian frontier. Across the frontier Egypt is in civil war between al-Afdal and al-Adil, which keeps the Ayyubids busy in the north. Across the Fifth Cataract lies Alodia.

Wealth

The narrow farmland of the Nile banks and islands, watered by the flood and by the ox-driven waterwheel (saqiya), with barley, sorghum, wheat, dates and vines, and cattle; trade with Egypt through Aswan (slaves, ivory, ebony, hides, camels and ostrich feathers going north; grain, cloth, wine and manufactured goods coming south). The baqt, the ancient exchange of slaves for Egyptian goods, is not pinned for the Ayyubid years. The kingdom strikes no coins: exchange is mostly in kind, with Egyptian money in the north.

The church holds much land, and the deeds of Qasr Ibrim show land bought and sold among private owners.

Military

The Nubian archers were famous since the seventh century, and the army includes horsemen. Walled towns and forts: the citadel of Dongola, Qasr Ibrim on its cliff, Jebel Adda, Sai, the fortified houses of the Batn al-Hajar. In 1172 a Nubian army sacked Aswan; in 1175 a Nubian army forced the Ayyubid garrison out of Lower Nubia. No numbers are known.

Threats

• The Ayyubids, if the winner of the civil war wants a southern war or the frontier tribes provoke one
• Famine: the same Nile flood that will fail Egypt in summer 1200 waters Nubia first
• The Banu Kanz and other Arab groups settling in the north
• Raiders from the south: Ibn Sa'id reports the Damadim attacking Nubia in 1220 (later)

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. January to February 1200Al-Adil drives al-Afdal from Egypt and enters Cairo on 9 February 1200 (Abu'l-Fida, as drawn on the Egypt map); the governor of Qus and the garrison at Aswan, Makuria's only neighbours to the north, pass to his government.Depends on: The Ayyubid civil war going as it did. Stopped by: An al-Afdal victory near Bilbeis.
2. July to September 1200The Nile flood of 1200 is low (it fails to reach fourteen cubits in Egypt, Abu'l-Fida); the basin lands of Nubia flood poorly and the 1200-1201 harvest is thin, while famine in Egypt (1200-1202) cuts the grain trade north of Aswan and may drive hungry people south.Depends on: The Ethiopian rains; this is the natural course. Stopped by: Nothing in play; its effects in Nubia are inferred, not recorded.
3. About 1200-1203 (not pinned)A man the crusaders called the king of Nubia reaches Constantinople in 1203 on his way from Jerusalem to Rome and Santiago, saying he had set out with sixty companions (Robert de Clari). Simmons (2022) tentatively identifies him with Mouse (Moses), which would mean an old king who had given up the throne leaving Nubia about 1200-1202.Depends on: Mouse being alive and free to go; the identification is uncertain. Stopped by: His death, or war or famine at home.

Places of note

• Old Dongola: Capital, citadel and palaces
• Banganarti: Pilgrimage church of Raphael with royal portraits
• Qasr Ibrim: Seat of the eparch of Nobadia and of a bishop
• Faras: Cathedral town of Pachoras

Where the sources disagree

• The regional brief names Moses Georgios (attested about 1155-1190) as the last securely attested king; the Qasr Ibrim deeds name Basil as reigning king on 30 December 1198 and 16 August 1199 (DBMNT 586, 588), so Basil is the nearest attested king to 1 January 1200.
• Godlewski (2019) argues that Mouse and Georgios are two persons (Mouse with a co-king Georgios), not one king called Moses Georgios; the deeds and most modern lists still write Mouses Georgios.
• Wikipedia's list of rulers gives Moses 1155-1199 without a reference, and the article on him gives his reign to about 1198 and his death about 1203; neither is pinned by a dated document after 1190.
• The 1186 material names Mouse and Georgios VI as kings of Makuria and Alodia (Godlewski); whether Basil also holds Alodia is not known. The deeds of 1198-1199 call Basil only king of Dotawo, but the deeds called Mouse that too.

Evidence: The Old Nubian deeds from Qasr Ibrim (house 177, Archive 3) give the reigning king and the officials of Nobadia year by year to August 1199. Abu al-Makarim writes about 1200 but mostly from older sources. Little is known of Dongola's court in these years beyond the titles.

On the map: Only the Nile banks and islands were farmed; the deserts on either side are drawn to the kingdom because its people and caravans used them. The border with Alodia near the Fifth Cataract is an estimate.

Primary sources for this realm

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• Exhortations and Reflections on the Quarters and Monuments: the chapters on Nubia and the Beja, al-Maqrizi (about 1417 to 1442, at Cairo). Two centuries late, but al-Maqrizi copied earlier books that are now lost, above all the account of Nubia by Ibn Salim al-Aswani, who went as Fatimid envoy to Dongola about 970 and described the Nubian king, his court, the eparch, the church and the land, which is the fullest description of Makuria ever written and still broadly valid in 1200; he also gives the Beja tribes, the oases, the baqt treaty and the Ayyubid campaigns against Nubia of 1173. Read online
• History of the Patriarchs of the Coptic Church of Alexandria, Mawhub ibn Mansur ibn Mufarrij and continuators (Various) (compiled in Arabic 1088 to 1094 from Coptic lives; continued for the patriarchs of 1102 to 1243 and later). The Coptic church's own record. Read online
• Old Nubian and Greek documents from Qasr Ibrim and the Nubian royal documents (the dated Qasr Ibrim land sales and letters run from the 1150s to the 1460s; the royal documents of the 1180s and 1190s are the nearest to 1200). The only documents from inside Nubia: land sales, letters and legal texts from Qasr Ibrim in Old Nubian, dated by the reigning king, his eparch and the local officials, which give the names and titles of the court of Dotawo (the Nubians' own name for the kingdom) in the generation around 1200. Read online
• The History of the Churches and Monasteries of Egypt and some Neighbouring Countries, Abu al-Makarim (formerly attributed to Abu Salih the Armenian) (about 1177 to 1208; the core about 1200). The one Christian text written in Egypt around 1200 that looks south: it describes the kingdom of the Nubians with its king at Dongola, his churches, the eparch of Nobadia, the churches of Qasr Ibrim and the raid of Shams al-Dawla Turanshah in 1173, the kingdom of Alwa (Alodia) with its 400 churches and its capital Soba, and the Abyssinians with their king, their metropolitan sent from Alexandria, the church of Aksum and the Ark, as a Coptic churchman heard of them through the patriarchate. Read online
• Dictionary of Countries: the entries on Africa, Yaqut al-Hamawi (1224 to 1228, at Mosul and Aleppo). Entries written within a generation of 1200 from earlier books and from informants: Maqdishu (Mogadishu), described as a town of the Barbar (Somali) on the edge of the Zanj country with no single ruler but elders for each group, the earliest notice of the town; Manbasa (Mombasa), Lanjuya (Zanzibar) and the Zanj coast; Zayla, Barbara and the Dahlak islands; Dunqula (Dongola) and the Nubians; the Beja; Kanem, Zaghawa, Ghana, Kawkaw and the Sudan, mostly from al-Bakri and al-Idrisi; and the towns of Ifriqiya and the Maghreb. Read online
• The Picture of the Earth, Ibn Hawqal (about 977, revised to about 988). Two centuries old by 1200 but the only early geographer who had crossed the Sahara himself: he was at Sijilmasa and Awdaghust in 951, saw the gold trade and the famous cheque for 42,000 dinars, and described the king of Ghana as the richest on earth, with notes on the veiled Sanhaja, the Ibadi towns, the Fezzan, Nubia and Alodia, and the Zanj. Read online
• The Pleasure of One who Longs to Cross the Horizons (the Book of Roger), al-Idrisi (Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Sharif al-Idrisi) (completed in 1154 at Palermo, for Roger II of Sicily). The fullest geography of Africa a generation before 1200: the Maghreb and Ifriqiya town by town with distances and products; the Sahara routes through Sijilmasa, Awdaghust, Ghadames and Zawila; the Sudan with Ghana, Takrur, Sila, Barisa, Kawkaw (Gao) and Kugha, and Kanem with its towns Manan and Njimi; Nubia and Dongola, the Beja and the Red Sea ports; Zeila and Berbera; and the Zanj coast with Malindi, Mombasa, Qanbalu and Sofala with its gold, the earliest systematic notice of the Swahili towns. Read online
• Oriental Sources concerning Nubia, Various (collected and translated by Giovanni Vantini) (the collection published 1975). The standard collection, in English, of every eastern passage on Christian Nubia, and so the quickest way to all that was written about Makuria and Alodia near 1200: Abu al-Makarim, Ibn al-Athir on Turanshah's campaign of 1173, Ibn Jubayr and Yaqut, the History of the Patriarchs, Abu Shama, and the later Ibn Said, Abu'l-Fida, al-Nuwayri, Ibn Khaldun and al-Maqrizi (who preserves the tenth-century Ibn Salim al-Aswani).