[1] In 1729 the Abbé Fourmont found the seclusion of women extensively practised in Athens for fear of the Turks; see R.C. Christie, Essays and Papers, p. 69.
[2] More, English Works, 1557, f. 154 E.
[3] See F. Watson, Vives and the Renascence Education of Women, 1912.
[4] Biblia Latina, 1529, c. 2.
There is one thing in the world which is constantly with us, and which has probably continued unchanged throughout all ages of history: the weather. Yet Erasmus' writings contain no traces of that delight in brilliant sunshine which most Northerners feel, nor of that wonder at the beauties of the firmament which was so real to Homer. He frequently remarks that the weather was pestilent, that the winds blew and ceased not, that the sea was detestably rough and the clouds everlasting; but of the praise which accompanies enjoyment there is scarcely a word. His utmost is to say that the climate of a place is salubrious. He often describes his journeys. As he rode on horseback across the Alps or was carried down the Rhine in a boat, he must have had ample opportunity to behold the glories which Nature sometimes spreads before us in our Northern clime, and lavishes more constantly on less favoured regions. But the loveliness of blue skies and serene air, the glitter of distant snows, the soft radiance of the summer moon, and the golden architrave of the sunset he had no eyes to see.
Such indifference to the beauties of Nature admits, however, of some explanation. With a scantier population than that which now covers the earth, there was less agriculture and more of waste and unkempt places not yet reduced to the service of mankind. Solitudes were vaster and more complete. In a country so well cared for as England is to-day, it is difficult to imagine how unpleasing can be the aspect of land over which Nature still has the upper hand, how desolate and dreadful the great mountain areas which men now have to seek at the ends of the earth, where the smoke rises not and even the lone goatherd has not penetrated. To-day our difficulty is to escape from the thronging pressure of millions: we rarely experience what in the sixteenth century must often have been felt—the shrinking to leave, the joy of returning to, the kindly race of men. Ascham in the Toxophilus (1545), when discussing the relaxations open to the scholar who has been 'sore at his book', urges that 'walking alone into the field hath no token of courage in it'. But though this may have been true by that time in the immediate neighbourhood of English towns, it was not yet true abroad; for Thomas Starkey in his Dialogue (1538), almost as valuable a source as the Utopia, praises foreign cities with their resident nobles by comparison with English, which are neglected and dirty 'because gentlemen fly into the country to live, and let cities, castles and towns fall into ruin and decay'.
It is tantalizing, too, considering how abundant are Erasmus' literary remains, that we get so little description of places from him. He travelled far and wide, in the Low Countries, up and down the Rhine, through France, southwards to Rome and Naples. He was a year in Venice, three years at Cambridge, eight years at Basle, six at Freiburg. What precious information he might have given us about these places, which then as now were full of interesting buildings and treasures of art! what a mine of antiquarian detail, if he had expatiated occasionally! But a meagre description of Constance, a word or two about Basle in narrating an explosion there, glimpses of Walsingham and Canterbury in his colloquy on pilgrimages—that is almost all that can be culled from his works about the places he visited. When he came to Oxford, Merton tower had been gladdening men's eyes for scarcely fifty years, and the tower of Magdalen had just risen to rival its beauty; Duke Humfrey's Library and the Divinity School were still in their first glory, and the monks of St. Frideswide were contemplating transforming the choir of their church into the splendid Perpendicular such as Bray had achieved at Westminster and Windsor for Henry VII. But Erasmus tells us nothing of what he saw; only what he heard and said. This lack of enjoyment in Nature, lack of interest in topography and archaeology, was probably personal to him. It was not so with some of his friends. More and Ellenbog, as we have seen, could feel the beauty in the night
'Of cloudless climes and starry skies'.
Aleander in a diary records the exceptional brilliance of the planet Jupiter at the end of September 1513. He pointed it out to his pupils in the Collège de la Marche at Paris, and together they remarked that its rays were strong enough to cast a shadow. Ellenbog enjoyed the country, and Luther also was susceptible to its charms. Budaeus had a villa to which he delighted to escape from Paris, and where he laid out a fine estate. Beatus Rhenanus after thirty years retained impressions of Louis XII's gardens at Tours and Blois and of a 'hanging garden' in Paris; and could write a detailed account of the Fugger palace at Augsburg with its art treasures. Or think of the painters. The Flemings of the fifteenth century had learnt from the Italians to fit into their pictures landscapes seen through doors or windows, gleaming in sunshine, green and bright. Van Eyck's 'Adoration of the Lamb' is set in beautiful scenery; grassy slopes and banks studded with flowers, soft swelling hills, and blue distances crowned with the towers he knew so well, Utrecht and Maestricht and Cologne and Bruges. Even in the interiors of Durer and Holbein, where no window opens to let in the view, Nature is not left wholly unrepresented; for flowers often stand upon the tables, carnations and lilies and roses, arranged with taste and elegance. On the whole the enjoyment of Nature formed but a small part in the outlook of that age as compared with the prominence it receives in modern literature and life; but we should be wrong in inferring that it was wholly absent.
To the men of the fifteenth century the earth was still the centre of the universe: the sun moved round it like a more magnificent planet, and the stars had been created
Aristarchus had seen the truth, though he could not establish it, in the third century B.C. But Greek science had been forgotten in an age which knew no Greek; and it was not till after Erasmus' death that an obscure canon in a small Prussian town near Danzig—Nicholas Copernicus, 1473-1543—found out anew the secret of the world. This fruit of long cold watches on the tower of his church he printed with full demonstration, but he scarcely dared to publish the book: indeed a perfect copy only reached him a few days before his death. Even in the next century Galileo had to face imprisonment and threats of torture, because he would speak that which he knew. But when Erasmus was born, the earth itself was but partially revealed. Men knew not even whether it were round or flat; and the unplumbed sea could still estrange. The voyages of the Vikings had passed out of mind, and the eyes of Columbus and Vespucci had not yet seen the limits of that western ocean which so long fascinated their gaze. Polo had roamed far into the East; but as yet Diaz and da Gama had not crowned the hopes which so often drew Henry the Navigator to his Portuguese headland.
In the world of thought the conception of uniformity in Nature, though formed and to some extent accepted among the advanced, was still quite outside the ordinary mind. Miracles were an indispensable adjunct to the equipment of every saint; and might even be wrought by mere men, with the aid of the black arts. The Devil was an ever-present personality, going about to entrap and destroy the unwary. Clear-minded Luther held converse with him in his cell; and lesser demons were seen or suspected on every side. Thus in 1523 the Earl of Surrey writes to Wolsey describing a night attack on Jedburgh in a Border foray. The horses took fright, and their sudden panic threw all things into confusion. 'I dare not write', he says, 'the wonders that my Lord Dacre and all his company do say they saw that night, six times, of spirits and fearful sights. And universally all their company say plainly the Devil was that night among them six times.' In that gaunt and bleak Border country the traveller overtaken by night may feel a disquieting awe even in these days when the rising moon is no longer a lamp to guide enemies to the attack. Four hundred years ago, when it lay blood-stained and scarred with a thousand fights, bearing no crops to be fired, no homesteads to be sacked, we need not wonder if teams of demons swept down in the darkness and drove through and through the trembling ranks.
Again, in 1552 Melanchthon writes thus to a friend: 'In some cases no doubt the causes of madness and derangement are purely physical; but it is also quite certain that at times men's bodies are entered by devils who produce frenzies prognosticating things to come. Twelve years ago there was a woman in Saxony who had no learning of books, and yet, when she was vexed by a devil, after her paroxysms uttered Greek and Latin prophecies of the war that should be there. In Italy, too, I am told there was a woman, also quite unlearned, who during one of her devilish torments was asked what is the best line of Virgil, and replied, "Learn justice and to reverence the gods "'.1 In this second case it would seem that the Devil scarcely knew his own business.
Sudden death descending upon the wicked was a judgement of heaven, letting loose the powers of hell; and if the face of the corpse chanced to turn black, there was never any doubt but that Satan had flown off with the soul. Suspicions and accusations of witchcraft were rife; and an old woman had to be careful of the reputation of her cat. Wanderers among the mountains saw dragons; in the forests elves peeped at the woodmen from behind the trees, and fairies danced beneath the moon in the open places. The world had not been sufficiently explored for the absence of contrary experience to carry much weight; and the means for the dissemination of news were quite inadequate. In consequence men had not learnt to doubt the evidence of their senses and to regard things as too strange to be true. It was felt that anything might happen; and as a result almost everything did happen.
For example, in 1500 there was an outbreak of crosses in two villages not far from Sponheim; and next year the same thing happened at Liège. They appeared on any clothing that was light enough of hue; coloured crosses that no washing or treatment could remove. Men opened their coats to find crosses on their shirts: a woman would look down at her apron, and there, sure enough, was a cross. Clothes that had been folded up and put away in presses, came out with the sacred sign upon them. One day during the singing of the mass thirty men suddenly found themselves marked with crosses. They lasted for nine or ten days, and then gradually faded. It was afterwards remarked that where the crosses had been, the plague followed. Such is Trithemius' account in his chronicle: we may wonder how closely he had questioned his informants.
It is difficult for us to conceive a world in which news spreads mainly by word of mouth. Morning and evening it is poured forth to us, by many different agencies, in the daily press; and though many of these succumb to the temptation to be sensational, among the better sort there is a healthy rivalry which restrains exuberance and promotes accuracy. There is safety, too, in numbers. News which appears in one paper only, is looked at doubtfully until it is confirmed by the rest; but even unanimity amongst all papers will scarcely at first win acceptance for what is at all startling and out of the common, until time and the absence of contradiction may perhaps corroborate. In practice men of credit have learnt not to see the sea-serpent. For a picture of conditions in the sixteenth century we must sweep all the newspapers away. Kings had their heralds and towns their public messengers who took and of course brought back news. Caravans of merchants travelled along the great trade-routes; and their tongues and ears were not idle. Private persons, too, sent their servants on journeys to carry letters. But even so news had to travel by word of mouth; for even when letters were sent, we may be sure that any public news of importance beneath the seals and wafers had reached the bearers also.
But for what they told confirmation was not to be had for the asking. Not till chance brought further messengers was it possible to establish or contradict, and till then the first news held the field. Rumour stalked gigantic over the earth, often spreading falsehood and capturing belief, rarely, as in Indian bazars to-day, with mysterious swiftness forestalling the truth. In such a world caution seems the prime necessity; but men grow tired of caution when events are moving fast and the air is full of 'flying tales'. The general tendency was for them, if not to believe, at any rate to pass on, unverified reports, from the impossibility of reaching certainty. In such a world of bewilderment, sobriety of judgement does not thrive.
Two examples may show the difficulty of learning the truth. In 1477 Charles the Bold was killed at Nancy. That great Duke of Burgundy was not a person to be hidden under a bed. Yet nearly six years later reports were current that he had escaped from the battle and was in concealment. Again, Erasmus, during his residence at Bologna in 1507, made many friends. One of these was Paul Bombasius, a native of that town, who became secretary to Cardinal Pucci, and lost his life at Rome in May 1527, when the city was sacked by Charles V's troops; another was the delightful John de Pins, afterwards diplomatist and Bishop of Rieux. To him in 1532 Erasmus wrote asking for news of Bombasius. The Bishop replied that he had heard a rumour of his death, but hoped it was not true. Not till May 1535 could Erasmus report the result of inquiries made through a friend visiting Bologna, that Bombasius had fallen a victim to the Bourbon soldiery eight years before.
That the movements of the stars should affect human life is not easy to disprove even now, to any one who is determined to maintain the possibility of it; but under the training of modern science scarcely any one retains such a belief. Of the influence formerly attributed to the planets, traces survive in such epithets as mercurial, jovial, saturnine. Comets appearing in the sky caused widespread alarm, and any disasters that followed close were confidently connected with them. The most learned scientists observed the stars and cast horoscopes: Cardan, for instance, published a collection of the horoscopes of great men. The Church looked askance on astrology, suspecting it of connexion with forbidden arts; but it could not check the observance of lucky days and the warnings of the heavens. Even a Pope himself, Julius II, deferred his coronation until the stars were in a fortunate conjunction.
Every university student should be familiar with the story of Anthony Dalaber, undergraduate of St. Alban's Hall in Oxford, which Froude introduced into his History of England from Foxe's Book of Martyrs; it is the most vivid picture we have of university life in the early sixteenth century. Dalaber was one of a company of young men who were reading Lutheran books at Oxford. Wolsey, wishing to check this, had sent down orders in February 1528 to arrest a certain Master Garret, who was abetting them in the dissemination of heresy. The Vice-Chancellor, who was the Rector of Lincoln, seized Dalaber and put him in the stocks, but was too late for Garret, who had made off into Dorsetshire. He took counsel with the Warden of New College and with the Dean of Wolsey's new foundation, Cardinal College; and at length, as they could find out nothing, being 'in extreme pensiveness', they determined to consult an astrologer. They knew they were doing wrong. Such inquiries were forbidden by the law of the Church, and they were afraid; but they were more afraid of Wolsey. The man of science drew a figure upon the floor of his secret chamber, and made his calculations; at the end he reported that the fugitive was fled in a tawny coat to the South-east. The trembling officials hastily dispatched messengers to have the ports watched in Kent and Sussex, hoping that their transgression might at least be justified by success. They were successful: Master Garret was caught—trying to take ship at Bristol. It would need awesome circumstances indeed to send a modern Vice-Chancellor through the night to inquire of an astrologer.
In the realm of medicine, too, magic and the supernatural had great weight, and claimed a measure of success which is not unintelligible in these days, when the value of the will as an ally in healing is being understood. Erasmus, suffering from the stone, was presented by a Hungarian physician with an astrological mug, shaped like a lion, which was to cure his trouble. He used it and felt better, but was not sure how much to attribute to the lion. The famous Linacre, one of the founders of the College of Physicians, sent to Budaeus, a French court official and the first Greek scholar of the age, one gold ring and eighteen silver rings which had been blessed by Henry VIII, and had thus been made preservative against convulsions; and Budaeus presented them to his womenkind. We need not take this to imply that he thought little of them; more probably he reflected that convulsions are most frequent among the race of babies, and therefore distributed them where they would be most useful. Anyway, it was Linacre who sent them. With such notions abroad, quackery must have been rife, and serious medical practitioners had many difficulties to contend with. Some idea of these may be gained from a letter written by Wolfgang Rychard, a physician of high repute at Ulm, to a friend at Erfurt, whither he was thinking of sending his son to practise. He asks his friend to inquire of the apothecaries what was the status of doctors, whether they were allowed by the town council to hire houses for themselves and to live freely without exactions, as at Tubingen and universities in the South, or whether they were obliged to pay an annual fee to the town, before they might serve mankind with their healing art.
The feeble-minded and half-witted are nowadays caught up into asylums, for better care, and to ensure that their trouble dies with them. Of old it was thought that God gave them some recompense for their affliction by putting into their mouths truths and prophecies which were hidden from the wise; and thus the village soothsayer or witch often held a strong position in local politics. But it is surprising to find the Cardinal of Sion, Schinner, a clever and experienced diplomatist, writing in 1516, with complete seriousness: 'A Swiss idiot, who prophesies many true things, has foretold that the French will surfer a heavy blow next month'; as though the intelligence would really be of value to his correspondent.
But the prophet's credit varied with his circumstances. Early in the sixteenth century a Franciscan friar, naming himself Thomas of Illyria, wandered about through Southern France, calling on men to repent and rebuking the comfortable vices of the clergy. A wave of serious thought spread with him, and all the accompaniments of a religious revival, such as the twentieth century saw lately in Wales. As the 'saintly man' set foot in villages and towns, games and pleasures were suddenly abandoned, and the churches thronged to overflowing. His words were gathered up, especially those with which he wept over Guienne, that 'fair and delicious province, the Paradise of the world', and foretold the coming of foes who should burn the churches round Bordeaux while the townsmen looked on helplessly from their walls. For a time he retired to a hermitage on a headland by Arcachon, where miracles were quickly ascribed to him. An image of the Virgin was washed ashore, to be the protectress of his chapel. His prayers, and a cross drawn upon the sand, availed to rescue a ship that was in peril on the sea. When English pirates had plundered his shrine, the waves opened and swallowed them up. Later on he withdrew to Rome, where he won the confidence of Clement VII, and he died at Mentone. But his fame remained great in Guienne. Half a century onward, during the war of 1570, when from Bordeaux men saw the church of Lormont across the river burning in the name of religion, the old folks shook their heads and recalled the words of the saintly Thomas.
Less fortunate was a young Franconian herdsman, John Beheim, of Niklashausen—a 'poor illiterate', Trithemius calls him. In the summer of 1476, as he watched his flocks in the fields, he had a vision of the gracious Mother of God, who bade him preach repentance to the people. His fame soon spread, and multitudes gathered from great distances to hear him. The nearest knelt to entreat his blessing, those further off pressed up to touch him, and if possible, snatched off pieces of his garments, till he was driven to speak from an upper window. But his way was not plain. Instigated seemingly by others, he began to touch things social: taxes should not be paid to princes, nor tithes to clergy; rivers and forests were God's common gifts to men, where all might fish or hunt at will. Such words were not to be borne. The Bishop of Wurzburg, his diocesan, took counsel with the Archbishop of Mainz; and the prophet was ordered to be burnt. But death only increased his fame. Still greater crowds flocked to visit the scene of his holy life, until in January 1477 the Archbishop had the church of Niklashausen razed to the ground as the only means of suppressing this popular canonization.
We make a great mistake if we allow ourselves to suppose that because that age knew less than ours, because its bounds were narrower and the undispelled clouds lower down, it therefore thought itself feeble and purblind. By contrast with the strenuous hurry-push of modern life such movement as we can see, looking backwards, seems slow and uncertain of its aim; before the power of modern armaments how helpless all the might of Rome! It is easy to fall into the idea that our mediaeval forefathers moved in the awkward attitudes of pre-Raphaelite painting, that their speech sounded as quaint to them as it does to us now, and that it was hardly possible for them to take life seriously. But in fact each age is to itself modern, progressive, up-to-date; the strong and active pushing their way forward, impatient of trifling, and carrying their fellows with them. A future age that has leapt from one planet to another, or even from one system to another sun and its dependants, that has 'called forth Mazzaroth in his seasons, and loosed the bands of Orion', that has covered the earth with peace as with a garment and pierced the veil that cuts us off from the dead, will look back to us as groping blindly in darkness. But they will be wrong indeed if they think that we realize our blindness.
A still greater pitfall before us is that we read history not as men, but as gods, knowing the event. The name of Marathon to us implies not struggle, not danger, but triumph; and as we think of the little band of Athenians defiling from the mountains and looking on the sea, with the utmost determination we cannot quite enter into their thoughts. Of how little avail must have seemed this handful of lives, their last and best gift to Athens, against the might and majesty of Persia afloat before them. We know of that runner and of the rejoicing that broke out upon his words; and at the very opening of the scene the darkness is pierced by a gleam they could not see, a gleam which for us will not go out. Or think of Edwardes besieging the Sikhs in Multan with his puny force, half of whom, when he began, were in sympathy with the besieged. We know that the terrier's courage kept the tiger in; and, conscious of that, we cannot really place ourselves beside the young Engineer of 29, as with only one or two volunteers of his own race round him he kept the field during those four burning months in which British troops were not allowed to move. The tiger's paw had crushed those whom he had hastened to avenge: he did not know, as we know, that it was not to fall on him too.
There is the same difficulty with the course of years. With the history of four centuries before our minds, only by sustained effort of thought can we realize that the men of 1514 looked onward to 1600, as we to-day look towards 2000, as to a misty blank. We hardly trouble our heads with the future. The air is full of speculations, of attempts to forecast coming developments, the growth, the improvement that is to be. But we do not really look forward, more than a little way. The darkness is too dense: and besides, the needs of the present are very urgent. As we think of the sixteenth century, behind Henry VIII's breach with Rome, behind Edward VI's prayer-books, waits the figure of Pole, steadfast, biding his time; coming to salute Mary with the words of the angel to the Virgin; coming, as he hoped, to set things right for ever. And behind Pole are the Elizabethan settlement and the Puritans; ineradicable from our consciousness. To the Englishmen of 1514 Henry VIII was the divine young king whose prowess at Tournay, whose victory at Flodden seemed to his happy bride the reward of his piety: the name of Luther was unknown: Pole was an unconsidered child. Into their minds we cannot really enter unless we can think away everything that has happened since and call up a mist over the face of time.
[1] Aen. 6. 620.
To go on pilgrimage is an instinct which appears in most religions and at all ages. The idea underlying the practice seems to be that God is more nigh in some spots than in others, the desire to seek Him in a place where He may be found: for where God is, there men hope to win remission of sins. So widespread is this sentiment that both in Catholic Europe and in Asia it is not possible to travel far without coming upon sites invested in this way with a special holiness. The objects which draw men to peregrinate may be divided into three classes: natural features which are in themselves remarkable; places difficult of access, which can only be reached at cost of risk and effort; and sites which have been rendered holy by the visitation of God or the preservation of sacred relics. But this classification is not always clearly defined; for the same object of pilgrimage often falls into two categories at once.
Of striking natural features—self-created objects of veneration, as the Hindus call them—many kinds are found. There are chasms from which issue mysterious vapours, stimulating prophecy, such as Delphi, or Jwala Mukhi, sacred to Hindus and Sikhs, or the Grotta del Cane, near Naples. Caves with their dreadful gloom inspire a sense of supernatural presence. Such are the cave of Trophonius in Boeotia, St. Patrick's cave in Ireland, the grotto of Lourdes, Mariastein near Basle, and the great fissure of Amarnath in Kashmir, with its icy stalactite which is the special object of worship. Some of these add to their sanctity by difficulty of access: St. Patrick's cave is on an island in Lough Derg; Mariastein lies over the edge of a steep cliff; Amarnath is hidden among lofty mountains at 17000 feet above the sea.
Enormous stones, too, are apt to acquire holiness, arousing interest by their vast mass; as though they could hardly have been brought into independent existence, detached from the great earth, without some direct intervention of divine power. Such are the stone at Delphi, or the great rock, now enshrined in a Muhammadan mosque, which no doubt caused men to go up to Jerusalem in Jebusite days, before Israel came out of Egypt. (It is thought by pious Muhammadans to rest in the air without support; their tradition being that at the time of Muhammad's ascension into heaven this stone, which was his point of departure, sought to accompany him but was detained by an angel. To the Hebrews it was sacred as the rock on which Abraham was ready to offer Isaac; and also as a stone which kept down within the earth the receded waters of the Flood.) Meteoric stones have a sanctity as having fallen from heaven: for example, the lingam of Jagannath at Puri, and the famous black stone at Mecca. Wells also, for obvious reasons, tend to attract worship.
Of places inaccessible to which pilgrims toil, some are the sources of rivers, like Gangotri, whence springs the Ganges: others are islands, such as the Îles de Lérins off Cannes, Iona and Lindisfarne, or many off the West coast of Ireland: or distant headlands, like the Spanish Finisterre, or Rameshwaram, the extreme southern cape of the Indian peninsula. More numerous are those which lie high up on mountains or above precipitous rocks; such as the many peaks of Sinai, the lake on Haramuk in Kashmir, the cliffs of Rocamadour in Central France, which Piers Plowman mentions,1 or the grey cone of Athos. In a mild form such places may frequently be seen, in the pilgrimage churches and chapels which crown modest eminences beside many villages and towns of Catholic Europe: akin no doubt to the high places and hill-altars where lingered the heathen worship that the Israelite priests and prophets were continually trying to exterminate.
The third class of pilgrimage sites is of those which are sanctified through association with divinities or saints or relics: Gaya in Bihar, with its pilgrims' way leading pious Buddhists by long flights of steps up and down the circle of hills, like the great way at Bologna; Jerusalem, Rome, Canterbury, Trèves; and Santiago (St. James) de Compostella, rendered attractive also by remote distance. Or a settlement of hermits in a wilderness might become a place of pilgrimage, especially when death had heightened the fame enjoyed during their lives: such as Gueremeh in Cappadocia, St. Bertrand among the Pyrenees, or Einsiedeln above the Lake of Lucerne, where in 1487 died Nicholas the Hermit, reputed to have lived for twenty years without food. And we may make a special category for sacred houses; the Bait-ullah or Qaabah at Mecca, the house of the Virgin at Loretto, St. Columba's at Glencolumbkill, and the house in which St. Francis died, in dei Angeli at Assisi.
In many cases there is definite evidence to show that pilgrimage sites remain sacred even when religions change. Mecca was a resort of pilgrims in the first century B.C., 700 years before Muhammad. The Central-Asian shrines visited by Buddhist pilgrims from China on their way to India, Fa-hsien in the fifth and Hsuan-tsang in the seventh century, are now appropriated to Islam. The so-called foot-mark on Adam's Peak in Ceylon has been attributed by Brahmans to Siva, by Buddhists to Sakyamuni, by Gnostics to Ieu, by Muhammadans to Adam, and by the Portuguese Christians to either St. Thomas or the eunuch of Candace, queen of Ethiopia.2
In the age we are considering, we hear of Henry VII, Henry VIII, and even Wolsey going as pilgrims to Our Lady of Walsingham in Norfolk; and Colet took Erasmus with him to Canterbury. But the most renowned places of Christian pilgrimage were Rome, Santiago, and Jerusalem. Thither journeyed pilgrims in great numbers from all parts of Europe; bishops and abbots and clergy, both regular and secular, noblemen of every degree, wealthy merchants, scholars from the universities, civil officials and courtiers, and occasionally even women. Piety or superstition were doubtless the usual motives which led men to face the very considerable perils of the journey; but besides this there was probably in some cases the desire to see new scenes, and a love of adventure for its own sake. Holiday travel was scarcely known in those days. The discomforts were great, and there were still dangers of the ordinary kind, even in the most settled parts of Europe. The beginning of a story in one of More's English works shows how such travel was regarded—as at least unwise, and perhaps extravagant: 'Now was there a young gentleman which had married a merchant's wife. And having a little wanton money which him thought burned out the bottom of his purse, in the first year of his wedding he took his wife with him and went over the sea, for none other errand but to see Flanders and France, and ride out one summer in those countries.' But in the company of pilgrims there was some security, and accordingly the adventurous availed themselves of such opportunities. Thus Peter Falk, burgomaster of Freiburg in Switzerland, went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1515 and again in 1519; and had he not died on the second journey, he was projecting a visit to Portugal and Spain, perhaps to Compostella. He was a keen, interested man. A companion, who was a Cambridge scholar, describes him as taking an ape with him on board to make fun for his shipmates; wearing a gun hanging at his belt, being curious in novelties; carefully noting the names of places and the situations of towns, and using red ink to mark his guide-book.
The literature of pilgrimages is abundant, and consists primarily in narratives written by pilgrims themselves. A few of these were printed by the writers in their own day; many have been published by antiquarians in isolated periodicals; and in the volumes of the Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society there is a collection of translations. Professor Röhricht of Innsbruck has made a wonderful bibliography of German pilgrims to the Holy Land, replete with information and references. The narratives necessarily traverse the same ground, and repeat one another in many points; often reproducing from an early source exactly identical information of the guide-book order as to sites, routes, preparations, precautions, and so forth.
We have three English narratives of Erasmus' period: by William Wey, Fellow of Eton, who went to Jerusalem in 1458 and again in 1462; by Sir Richard Guilford, a Court official who made the journey in 1506; and by Sir Richard Torkington, a parish priest from Norfolk, who went in 1517. But besides these some Baedekers of the time survive; one entitled 'Information for Pilgrims unto the Holy Land'3 which was printed by Wynkyn de Worde at Westminster in 1498, and again by him in London in 1515 and 1524; another written by Hermann Kunig of Vach in 1495 and several times printed before 1521, 'Die Walfart und Strass zu sant Jacob'4 which gives the distance of each stage and notes inns and hospitals at which shelter might be found.
The Compostella pilgrimage was popular for many reasons, and no doubt began long before St. James had ousted St. Vincent from being patron-saint of Spain. The spot was remote, literally then at the end of the earth, 'beyond which', as another pilgrim says, 'there is no land any more, only water'. There was a great stone, too, in which later piety found the boat that had borne the saint's body from Jerusalem. And there were islands to be visited, one a St. Michael's Mount, round the shores of which should be gathered the cockle shells that were the emblems of pilgrimage duly performed: though the less active bought them at stalls high-heaped outside the cathedral doors, and the rich had them copied in silver and gold.
To the 'end of the earth' Northern Europe went most easily by sea, all others by land. Convoys gathered in Dartmouth in the lengthening days of spring, and crept along Slapton sands and round the unlighted Start, until there was no land any more, and summoning their courage they must steer out into the Bay of Biscay. This way went John of Gaunt to St. James in 1386, to be crowned King of Castile in the great Romanesque cathedral; and so, too, Chaucer must have pictured the Wyf of Bath visiting 'Galice'.
But Kunig's route lay overland: from Einsiedeln to Romans and Valence; over the Rhone by the famed bridge of the Holy Spirit, which even kings must cross on foot, to Uzès, Nîmes and Béziers; and then westwards into the sandy scant-populated lands where the track was scarcely to be found, except for the pilgrims' graves, often nameless, sometimes perhaps marked with such simple inscriptions as may still be seen on trees and crosses among the forests of the Alps. A Pyrenean pass led him to Roncesvalles; at Logroño the ancient bridge brought him over the Ebro, and so by Burgos and Leon to his journey's end, blessing the patrons—Kings of France and England and Navarre, Dukes of Burgundy—who had raised shelters for poor pilgrims on the way, and above all the Catholic Kings whose munificence had built a huge serai to welcome them in Santiago itself.
For Jerusalem the usual point of departure was Venice. Pilgrims congregated there from all parts of Western and Central Europe, and there were regular services of ships, sailing mostly in the summer months. The competition between shipmasters, or 'patrons', to secure custom was very keen. Thus Torkington records: 'On 3 May the patron of a new goodly ship with other merchants desired us pilgrims that we would come aboard and see his ship within: which ship lay afore St. Mark's Church. We all went in, and there they made us goodly cheer with diverse subtilties, as comfits and march-panes and sweet wines. Also 5 May the patron of another ship which lay in the sea five miles from Venice, desired us all pilgrims that we would come and see his ship. And the same day we all went with him; and there he provided for us a marvellous good dinner, where we had all manner of good victuals and wine.' Ultimately, Torkington sailed in a new ship of 800 tons,5 under a patron named Thomas Dodo. Only three days later another ship set sail with a large party of German pilgrims.
In all ages a great ship is a great wonder, representing for the time the final triumph of the shipwright's art. The monster vessel that set Lucian's friend dreaming at the Piraeus had but one mast; yet the curious from Athens flocked down to see her extraordinary proportions and to admire the sailors who had beaten up in her from Egypt against the Etesian winds in only seventy days. She was the ship of the hour: anything greater scarcely conceivable. Again, Macaulay returning from India in 1837 compares his comfortable sailing-ship to a huge floating hotel. Burton on his way to Mecca in 1853, when steaming across the Bay of Biscay in a vessel of 2000 tons, prophesies that sea-sickness is at an end now that such monsters ply across the ocean and laugh at the storm. How puny do they seem beside the Olympic and Imperator, at which we in our turn gaze wonderingly and think that engineering can no further go. It is amusing to find the same proud admiration in a traveller of 1517: 'Our ship was so great that when we came to land, we could not run her upon the beach like a galley, but must remain in deep water', the passengers going ashore in boats.
Quite a number of contracts between patron and pilgrim have been preserved. Some of the terms are as follows: 'that the ship shall be properly armed and manned, and carry a barber and a physician; that it shall only touch at the usual ports, and not stay more than three days at Cyprus, because of malaria there.' The Holy Land was in Turkish hands, and the Turks, though willing to receive the pilgrims, for the sake of the money they brought into the country, were not sorry to have opportunities of teaching the 'Christian dogs' their place. The authorities maintained some semblance of order and justice, but took little trouble to control their underlings; and in consequence the pilgrims suffered all kinds of minor oppressions. It is not surprising therefore to find that the contract stipulated that the patron should accompany them on all their journeyings in the Holy Land, even as far as the Jordan, and that he should pay all the tolls and tributes for them, except the small tips, just as Cook does to-day, and also make all arrangements for such pilgrims as wished to go on to Sinai. In view of this last possibility the stipulation was sometimes made that only half the passage-money should be paid at Venice; the other half at Jaffa on the return-journey. If a pilgrim died on the journey, the patron might not bury him at sea, unless there was no immediate prospect of reaching land.
The voyage outwards could be done in a month, but often took longer if the weather was bad, or if long halts were made at Rhodes and Cyprus. On shore the pilgrims worked as hard as any 'conducted' party to-day, being herded about to one sacred site after another, to the Holy Sepulchre, the vale of Josaphat, the Mount of Olives, Bethlehem, the mountains of Judea, the Jordan, and receiving in each place 'clean absolution'. Twelve or thirteen days was a fair time to allow for all this, including one or two days each way between Jaffa and Jerusalem; but Guilford's party were given 22. On the other hand we hear of another company which did it in nine.
The Holy Land guide-book of which we spoke is full of practical advice of all sorts: about distances, rates of exchange, terms of contract with a ship-master, tributes to be paid to the Saracens, and finally vocabularies of useful words, in Moresco, Greek, Turkish. Here are a few specimens:
'If ye shall go in a galley, make your covenant with the patron betime; and choose you a place in the said galley in the overmost stage. For in the lowest under it is right evil and smouldering hot and stinking.' The fare in this to Jaffa and back from Venice, including food, was 50 ducats, 'for to be in a good honest place, and to have your ease in the galley and also to be cherished'. In a carrick the fare was only 30 ducats: there 'choose you a chamber as nigh the middes of the ship as ye may; for there is least rolling or tumbling, to keep your brain and stomach in temper'. Amongst other arrangements to be made with the patron, 'Covenant that ye come not at Famagust in Cyprus for no thing. For many Englishmen and other also have died. For that air is so corrupt there about, and the water there also. Also see that the said patron give you every day hot meat twice at two meals, the forenoon at dinner and the afternoon at supper. And that the wine that ye shall drink be good, and the water fresh and not stinking, if ye come to have better, and also the biscuit.'
The traveller is recommended to buy in Venice a padlock with which to keep his cabin locked, three barrels, two for wine and one for water, and a chest to hold his stores and things: 'For though ye shall be at table with the patron, yet notwithstanding, ye shall full ofttimes have need to your own victuals, as bread, cheese, eggs, wine and other to make your collation. For some time ye shall have feeble bread and feeble wine and stinking water, so that many times ye will be right fain to eat of your own.' Besides this he will want 'confections and confortatives, green ginger, almonds, rice, figs, raisins great and small, pepper, saffron, cloves and loaf sugar'. For equipment he should take 'a little caldron, a frying-pan, dishes, plates, saucers, cups of glass, a grater for bread and such necessaries'. 'Also ye shall buy you a bed beside St. Mark's Church in Venice, where ye shall have a featherbed, a mattress, a pillow, two pair sheets and a quilt' for three ducats. 'And when ye come again, bring the same bed again, and ye shall have a ducat and a half for it again, though it be broken and worn. And mark his house and his name that ye bought it of, against ye come to Venice.' Further needs are 'a cage for half a dozen of hens or chickens' and 'half a bushel of millet seed for them': also 'a barrel for a siege for your chamber in the ship. It is full necessary, if ye were sick, that ye come not in the air.' The malady here considered is probably not that which is usually associated with the sea; though pilgrims were not immune from this any more than from other troubles.
On coming to haven towns, 'if ye shall tarry there three days, go betimes to land, for then ye may have lodging before another; for it will be taken up anon'. Similarly at Jaffa in choosing a mount for the ride up to Jerusalem 'be not too long behind your fellows; for an ye come betime, ye may choose the best mule' and 'ye shall pay no more for the best than for the worst'. 'Also take good heed to your knives and other small japes that ye bear upon you: for the Saracens will go talking by you and make good cheer; but they will steal from you if they may.' 'Also when ye shall ride to flume Jordan, take with you out of Jerusalem bread, wine, water, hard eggs and cheese and such victuals as ye may have for two days. For by all that way there is none to sell.'
Let us turn now to an individual narrative,6 that of Felix Fabri, a learned and sensible Dominican of Ulm (1442-1502). He had already made the journey once, out of piety, in 1480, with the company mentioned above, which had only nine days on shore. He was desirous to go also to St. Catherine's at Mount Sinai because she was his patroness-saint, to whom he had devoted himself on entering the Dominican order on her day (25 November) in 1452; and accordingly for the second time, in 1483, he procured from the Pope the permission, which every one needed, to visit the Holy Land: those that went without this being ipso facto excommunicate, until they did penance before the Warden of the Franciscans at Jerusalem. He gives us a picture of all that he went through, in the most minute details. During the day we see the pilgrims crowded together on deck, some drinking and singing, others playing dice or cards or that unfailing pastime for ship-life, chess. Talking, reading, telling their beads, writing diaries, sleeping, hunting in their clothes for vermin; so they spend their day. Some for exercise climb up the rigging, or jump, or brandish heavy weights: some drift about from one party to another, just watching what is going on. Our good friar complains of the habits of the noblemen, who gambled a great deal and were always making small wagers, which they paid with a cup of Malmsey wine. He also tells how the patron, to beguile the journey, produced a great piece of silk, which he offered as a prize for the pilgrims to play for.
At meal times, to which they are summoned by trumpets, the pilgrims race on to the poop: for they cannot all find seats, and those that come late have to sit among the crew. Noblemen, who have their own servants, are too fastidious to mingle with the crowd; and pay extra to the cooks,—poor, sweating fellows, toiling crossly in a tiny galley—for food which their servants bring to them on the main-deck, or even below. After the pilgrims, the captain and his council dine in state off silver dishes; and the captain's wine is tasted before he drinks it. At night all sleep below, in a cabin the dirt of which is indescribable. They wrangle over the places where they shall spread their beds, and knives are drawn. Some obstinately keep their candles burning, even though missiles come flying. Others talk noisily; and the drunken, even when quiet, snore. No wonder the poor friar longed for the peace of his own cell at home in Ulm.
Fabri has much practical advice to give. He bids his reader be careful in going up and down the companion, veritably a ladder in those times; not to sit down upon ropes, or on places covered with pitch, which often melts in the sun; not to get in the way of the crew and make them angry; not to drop things overboard or let his hat be blown off. 'Let the pilgrim beware of carrying a light upon deck at night; for the mariners dislike this strangely, and cannot endure lights when they are at work.' Small things are apt to be stolen, if left about: for on board ship men have no other way to get what they want. 'While you are writing, if you lay down your pen and turn your face away, your pen will be lost, even though you be among men whom you know: and if you lose it, you will have exceeding great trouble in getting another.'
To Fabri's annoyance the ship's company included one woman, an elderly lady, who came on board at the last moment with her husband, a Fleming. 'She seemed,' he says, 'when we first saw her, to be restless and inquisitive; as indeed she was. She ran hither and thither incessantly about the ship, and was full of curiosity, wanting to hear and see everything, and made herself hated exceedingly. Her husband was a decent man, and for his sake many held their tongues; but had he not been there, it would have gone hard with her. This woman was a thorn in the eyes of us all.' His delight was great, when she was left behind at Rhodes, having strayed away to some church outside the town. 'Except her husband, no one was sorry.' But their peace was short-lived, for this active lady procured a boat and overtook them at Cyprus; and Fabri could not help pitying the straits she had been put to. We may rather admire her courage in undertaking the pilgrimage at all, and especially the resource which she displayed on this very unpleasant emergency.
On the eve of St. John Baptist, after dark, the sailors made St. John's fire; stringing forty horn lanterns on a rope to the maintop, amid shouts and trumpeting and clapping of hands. Upon which Fabri makes this curious remark: 'Before this I never had beheld the practice of clapping the hands for joy, as it is said in Psalm 46. Nor could I have believed that the general clapping of many men's hands would have such great power to move the human mind to rejoicing.' With some misgiving he goes on to record that after the festivity the ship was left to drive of itself, both pilgrims and sailors betaking themselves to rest.
At Cyprus they had a few days, and Fabri led some of his companions to the summit of Mount Stavrovuni, near their port Salinae (Citium by the salt lakes of Larnaka), to visit the Church of Holy Cross—the cross of Dismas, the thief on the right hand, said to have been brought by that great finder of relics, the Empress Helena. By the way he was careful to explain that they must expect no miracle: 'we shall see none in Jerusalem, so how can there be one here?' In the church he read them a mass and preached, and at departing rang the church bell, saying that they would hear no bells again till they returned to Christendom.
When they set sail again, all eyes were turned Eastwards: happy would he be who should first sight the land of their desire. Fabri crept forward to the prow of the galley and sat for hours upon the horns, straining his gaze across the summer seas which whispered around the ship's stem: almost, he confesses, cursing night when it fell and cut off all hope till dawn. Before sunrise he was there again, and on 1 July the watchman in the maintop gave the glad shout. The pilgrims flocked up on deck and sang Te Deum with bounding joy. It was a tumult of harsh voices; but to Fabri in his happiness their various dissonance made sweet harmony.
On reaching Jaffa they lay for some days awaiting permission to land. At length all was ready. The ship's officers collected the tips due to them, and the pilgrims were put on shore: falling to kiss the ground as they struggled out of their boats through the surf. One by one they were brought before Turkish officials, who took record of their names and their fathers' names—an occasion on which noblemen often tried to pass themselves off as of low degree, to escape the higher fees due. Fabri notes that his Christian name, Felix, gave the official recorders some trouble: that he pronounced it again and again for them, but they could get nothing at all like it. Each pilgrim, when entered, was hurried off by Saracens, like sheep into a pen, and thrust into a row of caves along the sea-shore, known as St. Peter's Cellars. If they had suffered on board ship, their sufferings were multiplied now tenfold. Strict watch was kept upon them, and no one was allowed to leave the caves. Within, the ground was covered with semi-liquid filth. From the ship, as they lay waiting to land, Fabri had noticed the Saracens running in and out of the caves; and he argued that they were intentionally defiling them, to make it more disagreeable to the Christian dogs. But this seems hardly necessary. There had doubtless been other pilgrims before them. Droves of mankind can tread ground into a foul swamp as cattle tread a farmyard. With their feet the poor pilgrims managed to collect some of the impurities together into a heap in the centre; each man clearing enough space to lie down upon. Fabri found solace to his offended senses in thinking of his dear Lord lying in a hard manger, amongst all the defilements of the oxen.
After a time came traders selling rushes and branches of trees to make beds, unguents and perfumes and frankincense to burn, and attar of roses from Damascus. Others brought bread and water and lettuces and hot cakes made with eggs, which the pilgrims gladly bought; and, as the day wore on, with the much going to and fro the ground was slowly dried under their feet. At nightfall appeared a man armed, whom they took to be the owner of the caves. With menaces he extorted from each of them a penny, and in the morning again, before they could come out, another penny; to their great indignation against the captains and dragoman, who were sleeping in tents higher up the hill, and had by contract undertaken all these charges. So long as they were there, the pilgrims suffered continual annoyance from the Turks, who ran in among them pilfering, breaking any wine bottles they found, and provoking them to blows, in order to secure the fines of which the pilgrims would then be mulcted. One young man was so disgusted at it all that he went back on board and gave up his pilgrimage; living with the crew till the party came back from Jerusalem. They were indeed entirely in the hands of the Turks. It was not a case of moving when they were inclined. When the Turks wished, they were allowed to go forward: till then they were confined like prisoners. No date was fixed: the pilgrims just had to wait in patience, hoping that tomorrow or tomorrow or tomorrow would see them start.
Fabri records, however, that there was some justice available. Petty wrongs must go unredressed; but a pilgrim who had been gulled into buying coloured glass as gems to the value of five ducats, recovered his money by complaining to the local governor. A subordinate came down, took the money from the fraudulent trader by force, and restored it to its owner. Again Fabri testifies to the careful way in which the escort protected the company from molestation on its way up to Jerusalem. He is also at pains to refute the idea that the Turks compelled them to ride on donkeys, lest the land should be defiled by Christian feet: rather, he says, it is for our comfort and convenience. And indeed there was sufficient refutation in the regulation which compelled them to dismount on reaching any village and proceed through its narrow streets on foot.
Whilst waiting at Jaffa, Fabri to his great delight fell in with the donkey-boy who had gone up with him three years before; and was able to secure him again. The boy welcomed him, especially as Fabri had brought him a present of two iron stirrups from Ulm; and all the way served him most faithfully, picking him figs and grapes from the gardens they passed, sharing water and biscuit, and even giving him a goad for his mount—a concession which was not allowed to the ordinary pilgrim.
Their first march was to Ramlah, and on arrival they were penned for the day into a great serai, built by a Duke of Burgundy. It was still early, only 9 o'clock, for they had started before sunrise. After barring the gate to keep out the Turks, they set up an altar and celebrated mass. A sermon was preached by the Franciscan Warden of Jerusalem, in the course of which he gave them advice as to their behaviour towards those to whose tolerance they owed their position there—counsels which forty years later the fiery spirit of Loyola burned to set at nought, till the Franciscans were thankful to get him safely out of Jerusalem without open flouting of the masters—: not to go about alone; not to enter mosques or step over graves; not to insult Saracens when at prayer or by touching their beards; not to return blow for blow, but to make formal complaints; not to drink wine openly; to observe decorum and not rush to be first at the sacred sites; and generally to be circumspect in presence of the infidels, lest they mark what was done amiss and say, 'O thou bad Christian', a phrase which was familiar to them in both Italian and German. He further charged them that they must on no account chip fragments off the Holy Sepulchre and other sacred buildings; nor write their names or coats of arms upon the walls; and finally, he advised them to be careful in any money-transactions with Muhammadans, and to have no dealings at all with either Eastern Christians or German Jews.
After mass was over, they opened the gate and found the outer court filled with traders who brought them excellent food: fowls ready roasted, puddings of rice and milk, capital bread and eggs, and fruit of every kind, grapes, pomegranates, apples, oranges (pomerancia), lemons and water-melons; and in the afternoon they were allowed to go and have hot baths in the splendid marble hamáms. In the evening came a rumour that they were to proceed. They packed up their bundles and sat waiting for an hour or two; and then the rumour proved to be false. Meanwhile the sleeping-mats which they had hired for their stay had been rolled up by their owners and carried off; and the pilgrims had to sleep as best they might. Fabri made his way up on to the roof and passed the night there.
Waking early before sunrise he was much impressed to observe the devotion of the Muhammadans at their morning prayers: the long rows of kneeling figures, swaying forward together in reverent prostration, the grave faces and solemn tones. Surely, as he looked, he must have felt that God, even his God, was the God of all the earth, and would be a Father to those that sought Him so earnestly. At any rate he turned away, with a strong sense of contrast, to his own comrades waking to the day with laughing chatter and no thought of prayer. An episode of this halt was a visit from a Saracen fruit-seller upon whom Fabri looked with curiosity. Then, taking the man's hat, he spat upon it with every expression of disgust at its Saracen badge. The man, instead of resenting it, looked cautiously round and then spat on the badge himself, at the same time making the sign of the Cross. He was a Christian who had been forced into conversion, probably in expiation of some crime; and now hated his life. It was no uncommon thing. As their procession wound through village streets, the pilgrims would often see furtive signs made to them from inner chambers: unwilling converts signalling the symbol that they loved, to eyes that were sure to be sympathetic.
As Fabri made his way along, his heart was glad. His foot was on holy ground, and at every step new associations came floating into his thoughts. These were the mountains to which Moses had looked from Pisgah; here Jephthah's daughter had made plaint for her young life; hither had come Mary in the joy of the angel's message; the stones on which he stumbled might have felt the feet of Christ. At the hill called Mount Joy they should have seen Jerusalem; but the air was thick, and they could only make out the Mount of Olives. So they toiled on along their dusty way, between dry stone walls and thirsty vegetable-gardens, until, as they reached the crest of a low ridge, suddenly like a flash of light it shone before them, the City, the Holy City.
At once their footsteps quickened with new life; and when at length they found themselves in the courtyard of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, their pent-up emotions burst forth, into tears and groans, sweet wailings and deep sighs. Some lay powerless on the ground, forsaken by their strength and to all appearances dead. Others drifted from one corner to another, beating their breasts, as though urged by an evil spirit. Some knelt bare-kneed; as they prayed, stretching out their arms like a rood. Others were shaken with such violent sobs that they could only sit down and hold their heads in their hands. Some lost all command of themselves, and, forgetting how to behave, sought to please God with strange and childish gestures. On the other hand, Fabri noted some who stood quite unmoved, and merely mocked at the strange display: dull, unprofitable souls he calls them, brute beasts, not having the spirit of God. Their self-contained temperament misliked him, especially as thereafter they held aloof from those who had given way to such enthusiasm or, as they felt it, weakness.
We cannot company with the party to all the numerous sites that piety bade them visit. It was prodigiously fatiguing for them under the July sun, and the ranks grew thin as the weaker spirits fell out dead tired, to rest awhile in hospitable cloister or by cooling well. Fabri found it very toilsome to struggle after mental abstraction, to rise to such heights as he desired of devotion and comprehension of all the holy influences around him, to seize every opportunity of contemplation and lose nothing; being soon thoroughly exhausted with his bodily exertions. Some alleviation there was: when holy women—nuns of his own Order, who had a house in Jerusalem—washed his scapular and tunic for him, and wrought other works of charity for which he was very grateful.
The pilgrims had been warned not to wander away from their party. One day as they went to the Dead Sea, they halted at a monastery; and Fabri was tempted to ramble off alone to inspect a cliff which had been hollowed out by hermits into innumerable caves. It was a precipitous place; and at one point, where the path was narrow and the cliff fell sheer below, he encountered an Eastern Christian. Seeing that Fabri was afraid, the fellow began to trifle with him and demanded money; and in the end Fabri was obliged to open his slender purse. 'Ever since then', he says, 'I have abhorred the company of Christians of that sort more than that of Saracens and Arabs, and have trusted them less. Though perhaps he would not have thrown me down the precipice, even had I given him nothing, yet it was wicked of him to play with me in a place of such danger. If an Arab had done so, I should have been pleased at his play, and should have held him to be a good pagan; but I believe no good of that Christian.' When he rejoined his party, the patron told him that the Eastern Christians were least to be trusted of any men.
On arrival at Jordan there was much excitement. To bathe in that ancient river was thought to renew youth, and so all the pilgrims were eager to immerse themselves; even women of 80—a rather doubtful figure—plunging into the lukewarm stream. Some had brought bells to be blessed with Jordan water, others strips of material for clothes; and wealthier members of the party jumped in as they were, in order that the robes they had on might bring them luck in the future. Three things were forbidden to the pilgrims: (1) to swim across the stream, because in the excitement of emotion and amongst such crowds individuals had often been drowned; (2) to dive in, because the bottom was muddy; (3) to carry away phials of Jordan water. The first regulation was openly violated. On his first journey Fabri had swum across, but on the return had been seized with panic and nearly drowned. So this time he contented himself with drawing up his garments round his neck and sitting down in the shallow water among the crowd who were splashing about and jestingly baptizing one another. The prohibition of Jordan water was to appease the shipmen; for it was thought to cause storms when carried over the sea.
We have not time to follow Fabri in more detail. On 24 August he left Jerusalem with a small company of pilgrims who had not been deterred from undertaking the journey to Sinai. There was much dispute about the route they should follow. Some were for going by sea to Alexandria, others wished to march down the sea coast; but finally they made up their minds to go straight South across the desert. Starting from Gaza on 9 September they reached St. Catherine's on the 22nd. Five days of very hard work sufficed for them to see all the sacred sites and ascend the many towering peaks; and here again Fabri impressed upon his companions that the days of miracles were over, and that in these evil times God would show no more. On 27 September they set forth again, and journeying through Midian reached Cairo on 8 October; having picked up on the shore of the Red Sea oyster shells which should be an abiding witness of their pilgrimage. On 5 November they set sail from Alexandria; but summer had departed from the sea, and the winds blew obstinately. Three times they beat up to Cape Malea, before they could round the point and make sail for the North; and it was not till 8 Jan. 1484 that they landed in Venice. The pilgrimage was over after seven months, and with what Guilford's chaplain calls 'large departing of our money'.