Early Travels in Palestine Part 21

[309] Ephraem Cyrus.

[310] The legend of Theophilus, who sold himself to the evil one, and then repented, and was saved from the devil by the Virgin Mary, was a popular one in the Middle Ages. See Jubinal's Rutebeuf, vol. ii. pages 79 and 260. He is commonly said to have lived at Adana, in Cilicia.

[311] Susa.

[312] A spurious book, purporting to be the exposition of dreams compiled by the prophet Daniel, was very popular in the middle ages, and is the work here alluded to.

[313] _i. e._ The people of Barbary.

[314] Rosetta.

[315] This account of the Phnix is taken from Pliny's Natural History, x. 2, and xi. 37. The legend of the Phnix was a very favourite one throughout the middle ages.

[316] The story is taken from one of the apocryphal books of the Eastern sectarians, which had a considerable influence on the legendary literature of the medieval church.

[317] The wonderful adventures of Alexander the Great in his Indian expedition, and the marvels he met with, are the subject of a mult.i.tude of extraordinary legends in the middle ages, and exerted no little influence on geography and natural science down to a comparatively recent period. The hero was made to give an account of them in a supposit.i.tious letter to his preceptor Aristotle, which was published in almost every language in Western Europe, and is of frequent recurrence in medieval ma.n.u.scripts.

[318] These are, of course, the pyramids. See the slight allusion to them in Benjamin of Tudela, p. 121.

[319] Brindisi, the ancient Brundusium.

[320] See before, p. 22.

[321] Exod. iii. 5.

[322] 1 Kings, xix. 8.

[323] This pretended imprint of Moses' body, and some of the other remarkable things described by Maundeville, were still shown to visitors in the earlier part of the last century.

[324] Psalms, cx.x.xii. 6.

[325] The medieval legendary history of the three kings will be found printed at the end of the first volume of the "Chester Mysteries."

[326] Rachel had but two children, Joseph and Benjamin; but by them she had twelve grandchildren. Gen. xlvi. 20-22.

[327] Perhaps Maundeville reckons from the capture of Acre, in 1291, when the Christians lost their last footing in the Holy Land. Jerusalem was finally taken from the Christians by the Turks in October, 1244.

[328] The _Vitas Patrum_ was the most popular collection of saints'

legends in the middle ages.

[329] See before, pp. 4, 38.

[330] John, xix. 26.

[331] Gen. xxviii. 16.

[332] Acts, iii. 2.

[333] Matt. ix. 6.

[334] Matt. xxvi. 39.

[335] Matth. x. 41.

[336] Joshua, ii. 9.

[337] Matth. iv. 3.

[338] This is a very ingenious attempt at derivation, like some others found in the book of Sir John Maundeville, who speaks again of the Georgian Christians at the end of Chapter X.

[339] This word probably means bitumen. The Latin text has _Dalem et dalketram_; the French, _De alym et d'alketran_. This would almost lead us to consider the French as the original text, from which the others were translated.

[340] Mount Royal, which stood in the immediate neighbourhood of the ancient Petra, was a place of some celebrity in the history of the crusades. It was said to have been impregnable from the strength of its position; and it was only taken by Saladin, in 1187, by starving the garrison.

[341] Psalms, cxx. 5.

[342] Luke, x. 13, 15. This is a curious example of the manner in which legends were raised on the misapplication of Scripture by the medieval theologians, who, in this respect, closely resembled the Talmudists among the Jews.

[343] 2 Sam. i. 21.

[344] Luke, i. 28.

[345] The foregoing pa.s.sages of Scripture, repeated as directed in Latin, composed, in fact, the common charm against thieves and robbers; and our forefathers seem to have had the simplicity to believe that, by a proper use of it, they were actually under those circ.u.mstances rendered invisible. The quotations are from Luke iv. 30; Exod. xv. 16.

The latter is wrongly quoted from the Psalter. The misinterpretation of the first pa.s.sage (it was believed that Jesus became invisible) appears to have arisen at a very early period.

[346] There was an immense ma.s.s of legendary matter of this kind current in the middle ages, with which it is necessary, in a certain degree, to be acquainted, in order to understand the literature and manners of our forefathers. It is to such legends that the old writers frequently allude when we suppose that they are merely misquoting Scripture.

[347] This is of course a little more legend. The notion that there was a town on the summit of Mount Tabor is probably a mistake of our traveller.

[348] This legend arose out of an interpretation given to Gen. iv. 23, 24. See, as an ill.u.s.tration, the scene in the "Coventry Mysteries," pp.

44-46.

[349] Matt. xiv. 31.

[350] Luke, xxiv. 30.

[351] Psalms, x.x.xii. 5.

[352] See before, p. 178.

[353] The khalif Motawakkel had, in A.D. 856, ordered the Christians and Jews to wear a broad girdle of leather; and they have continued to wear it in the east till modern times. From that epoch the Christians of Syria, who were mostly Jacobites or Nestorians, were called Christians of the girdle.

[354] It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that _sabbatum_, or _dies sabbati_, is the Latin for Sat.u.r.day.

[355] Ramah Gibeon, now El Jib. Douke is Ain Duk, the Greek ??? (see Robinson, ii. 308, 309). It requires considerable study and research to identify all the names mentioned by Maundeville in the sequel.

[356] We must take this as a little satire of Sir John Maundeville's against the vices of the day among his own countrymen; and it seems not to have been without its effect. There is an English metrical version of it in the "Reliquiae Antiquae," ii. 113.