The Discovery of Muscovy Part 6

The same monks are as great merchants as any in the land of Russia, and do occupy buying and selling as much as any other men, and have boats which pa.s.s to and fro in the rivers with merchandise from place to place where any other of their country do traffic.

They eat no flesh during their lives, as it is reported; but upon Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Sat.u.r.day, it is lawful for them to eat eggs, b.u.t.ter, cheese, and milk, and at all times to eat fish; and after this sort they lead their lives.

They wear all black garments, and so do none other in all the land, but at that abbey only.

They have no preachers--no, not one in all the land to instruct the people, so that there are many, and the most part of the poor in the country, who if one ask them how many G.o.ds there be, they will say a great many, meaning that every image which they have is a G.o.d; for all the country and the Emperor's Majesty himself will bless and bow and knock their heads before their images, insomuch that they will cry earnestly unto their images to help them to the things which they need. All men are bound by their law to have those images in their houses; and over every gate in all their towns and cities are images set up, unto which the people bow and bend, and knock their heads against the ground before them. As often as they come by any church or cross, they do in like manner. And when they come to any house, they bless themselves three or four times before they will salute any man in the house.

They reckon and hold it for great sin to touch or handle any of their images within the circle of the board where the painting is, but they keep them very daintily, and rich men deck them over and about with gold, silver, and stones, and hang them over and about with cloth-of-gold.

The priests are married as other men are, and wear all their garments as other men do, except their night-cap, which is cloth of some sad colour, being round, and reacheth unto the ears; their crowns are shaven, but the rest of their hair they let grow as long as Nature will permit, so that it hangeth beneath their ears upon their shoulders; their beards they never shave. If his wife happen to die, it is not lawful for him to marry again during his life.

They minister the Communion with bread and wine, after our order, but he breaketh the bread and putteth it into the cup unto the wine, and commonly some are partakers with them; and they take the bread out again with a spoon, together with part of the wine, and so take it themselves, and give it to others that receive with them after the same manner.

Their ceremonies are all, as they say, according to the Greek Church, used at this present day; and they allow no other religion but the Greeks' and their own, and will not permit any nation but the Greeks to be buried in their sacred burials or churchyards.

All their churches are full of images, unto the which the people, when they a.s.semble, do bow and knock their heads, as I have before said, that some will have k.n.o.bs upon their foreheads, with knocking, as great as eggs.

All their service is in the Russian tongue, and they and the common people have no other prayers but this, "Ghospodi Jesus Christos esine voze ponuloi nashe." That is to say, "O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of G.o.d, have mercy upon us;" and this is their prayer, so that the most part of the unlearned know neither Paternoster, nor the Belief, nor Ten Commandments, nor scarcely understand the one-half of the service which is read in their churches.

OF THEIR BAPTISM.

When any child is born, it is not baptised until the next Sunday; and if it chance that it be not baptised then, it must tarry until the second Sunday after the birth. And it is lawful for them to take as many G.o.dfathers and G.o.dmothers as they will; the more the better.

When they go to the church, the midwife goeth foremost, carrying the child; and the G.o.dfathers and G.o.dmothers follow into the midst of the church, where there is a small table ready set, and on it an earthen pot full of warm water, about the which the G.o.dfathers and G.o.dmothers with the child settle themselves. Then the clerk giveth unto every of them a small wax candle burning; then cometh the priest, and beginneth to say certain words which the G.o.dfathers and G.o.dmothers must answer word for word, among which one is, that the child shall forsake the Devil, and as that name is p.r.o.nounced, they must all spit at the word, as often as it is repeated. Then he blesseth the water which is in the pot, and doth breathe over it; then he taketh all the candles which the gossips have, and, holding them all in one hand, letteth part of them drop into the water, and then giveth every one his candle again. And when the water is sanctified he taketh the child and holdeth it in a small tub, and one of the G.o.dfathers taketh the pot with warm water, and poureth it all upon the child's head.

After this, he hath many more ceremonies--as anointing ears and eyes with spittle, and making certain crosses with oil upon the back, head, and breast of the child; then, taking the child in his arms, carrieth it to the images of St. Nicholas and Our Lady, &c., and speaketh unto the images, desiring them to take charge of the child, that he may live and believe as a Christian man or woman ought to do, with many other words. Then, coming back from the images, he taketh a pair of shears and clippeth the young and tender hairs of the child's head in three or four places; and then delivereth the child, whereunto every of the G.o.dfathers and G.o.dmothers lays a hand.

Then the priest chargeth them that the child be brought up in the faith and fear of G.o.d or Christ, and that it be instructed to cling and bow to the images, and so they make an end. Then one of the G.o.dfathers must hang a cross about the neck of the child, which he must always wear; for that Russian who hath not a cross about his neck, they esteem as no Christian man; and thereupon they say that we are no Christians, because we do not wear crosses as they do.

OF THEIR MATRIMONY.

Their matrimony is nothing solemnised, but rather in most points abominable, and, as near as I can learn, in this wise following:-

First, when there is love between the parties, the man sendeth unto the woman a small chest or box, wherein is a whip, needles, thread, silk, linen-cloth, shears, and such necessaries as she shall occupy when she is a wife; and perhaps sendeth therewithal raisins, figs, or some such things--giving her to understand that, if she do offend, she must be beaten with the whip; and by the needles, thread, cloth, &c., that she should apply herself diligently to sew, and do such things as she could best do; and by the raisins or fruits he meaneth, if she do well, no good thing shall be withdrawn from her, nor be too dear for her. And she sendeth unto him a s.h.i.+rt, handkerchiefs, and some such things of her own making. And now to the effect.

When they are agreed, and the day of marriage appointed, when they shall go towards the church, the bride will in no wise consent to go out of the house, but resisteth and striveth with them that would have her out, and feigneth herself to weep; yet in the end two women get her out, and lead her towards the church, her face being covered close, because of her dissimulation, that it should not be openly perceived; for she maketh a great noise, as though she were sobbing and weeping, until she come at the church, and then her face is uncovered. The man cometh after, among other of his friends, and they carry with them to the church a great pot with wine or mead.

Then the priest coupleth them together, much after our order, one promising to love and serve the other during their lives together, &c.; which being done, they begin to drink. And first the woman drinketh to the man, and when he hath drunk he letteth the cup fall to the ground, hasting immediately to tread upon it, and so doth she, and the one who treads first upon it must have the victory and be master at all times after, which commonly happeneth to the man, for he is readiest to set his foot on it, because he letteth it fall himself. Then they go home again, the woman's face being uncovered.

The boys in the streets cry out and make a noise in the meantime with very dishonest words.

When they come home, the wife is set at the upper end of the table, and the husband next unto her. They fall then to drinking, till they be all drunk; they perchance have a minstrel or two. And two naked men, who led her from the church, dance naked a long time before all the company. When they are weary of drinking, the bride and the bridegroom get them to bed (for it is in the evening always when any of them are married); and when they are going to bed, the bridegroom putteth certain money--both gold and silver, if he have it--into one of his boots, and then sitteth down in the chamber, crossing his legs; and then the bride must pluck off one of his boots, which she will, and if she happen on the boot wherein the money is, she hath not only the money for her labour, but is also at such choice as she need not ever from that day forth to pull off his boots; but if she miss the boot wherein the money is, she doth not only lose the money, but is also bound from that day forwards to pull off his boots continually.

Then they continue in drinking and making good cheer three days following, being accompanied with certain of their friends; and during the same three days he is called a duke, and she a d.u.c.h.ess, although they be very poor persons. And this is as much as I have learned of their matrimony; but one common rule is amongst them--if the woman be not beaten with the whip once a week, she will not be good, and therefore they look for it orderly; and the women say that if their husbands did not beat them, they should not love them.

They use to marry there very young--their sons at sixteen and eighteen years old, and the daughters at twelve or thirteen years, or younger. They use to keep their wives very closely--I mean, those that be of any reputation; so that a man shall not see one of them but at a chance, when she goeth to church at Christmas or at Easter, or else going to visit some of her friends.

The most part of the women use to ride astride in saddles with stirrups, as men do, and some of them on sleds, which in summer is not commendable.

The husband is bound to find the wife colours to paint her withal, for they use ordinarily to paint themselves; it is such a common practice among them that it is counted for no shame. They grease their faces with such colours that a man may discern them hanging on their faces almost a fight-shot off. I cannot so well liken them as to a miller's wife, for they look as though they were beaten about the face with a bag of meal; but their eyebrows they colour as black as jet.

The best property that the women have, is that they can sew well, and embroider with silk and gold excellently.

OF THEIR BURIAL.

When any man or woman dieth, they stretch him out, and put a new pair of shoes on his feet, because he hath a great journey to go; then do they wind him in a sheet, as we do; but they forget not to put a testimony in his right hand, which the priest giveth him to testify unto St. Nicholas that he died a Christian man or woman.

And they put the corse always in a coffin of wood, although the party be very poor--and when they go towards the church, the friends and kinsmen of the party departed carry in their hands small wax candles, and they weep and howl and make much lamentation.

They that be hanged or beheaded, or suchlike, have no testimony with them; how they are received into heaven, it is a wonder, without their pa.s.sport.

There are a great number of poor people among them who die daily for lack of sustenance, which is a pitiful case to behold; for there hath been buried in a small time, within these two years, above eighty persons young and old, who have died only for lack of sustenance; for if they had straw and water enough, they would make s.h.i.+ft to live; for a great many are forced in the winter to dry straw and stamp it, and to make bread thereof--or, at the least, they eat it instead of bread. In the summer they make good s.h.i.+ft with gra.s.s, herbs, and roots; barks of trees is good meat with them at all times. There is no people in the world, as I suppose, that live so miserably as do the poor in those parts; and the most part of them that have sufficient for themselves, and also to relieve others that need, are so unmerciful that they care not how many they see die of famine or hunger in the streets.

It is a country full of diseases, divers and evil; and the best remedy is for any of them, as they hold opinion, to go often unto the hothouses, as a manner every man hath one of his own, which he heateth commonly twice every week, and all the household sweat and wash themselves therein.

THE VOYAGES OF OHTHERE AND WULFSTAN To the White Sea and to the Mouth of the Vistula in the Time of Alfred the Great, with Notes on the Geography of Europe inserted by KING ALFRED, In his Translation of Orosius.

KING ALFRED'S OROSIUS. (FROM "ENGLISH WRITERS.")

One of King Alfred's labours for the enlightenment of his countrymen was a translation of the "Universal History of Orosius, from the Creation to the year of our Lord 416." This book had long been in high repute by the familiar name of "Orosius" among students and teachers in the monasteries; and it retained its credit so, that after the invention of printing it was one of the first works put into type, and appeared in numerous editions. The author was a Spanish Christian of the fifth century. Born at Tarragona and educated in Spain, he crossed over to Africa about the year 414, and received instruction from St. Augustine upon knotty questions of the origin of the soul and other matters. In Augustine's works are contained the "Consultation of Orosius with Augustine on the Error of the Priscillianists and Origenists," and a letter from Augustine to Orosius against them. Augustine sent Orosius to consult Jerome, who was in Palestine; and in his letter of introduction said, "Behold, there has come to me a religious young man, in catholic peace a brother, in age a son, in rank a co-presbyter, Orosius--of active talents, ready eloquence, ardent application, longing to be in G.o.d's house a vessel useful for disproving false and destructive doctrines, which have killed the souls of Spaniards much more grievously than the barbarian sword their bodies." In Palestine, towards the latter half of the year 415, Orosius attacked the Pelagians by writing against them a treatise on Free Will, and presenting a memorial against them to the Council of Diospolis. It was at the request of St Augustine that Orosius wrote his History.

The sack of Rome by Alaric having caused the Christians of Rome to doubt the efficacy of their faith, Augustine, while he himself wrote his "De Civitate Dei" to show from the history of the Church that the preaching of the Gospel could not augment the world's misery, incited Orosius to show the same thing in a compendium of profane history also. Orosius began his work in the year 410, when Augustine had got through ten books of his, and he finished it about the year 416. Like a good old-fas.h.i.+oned controversialist, he made very light of the argument of terror from the sack of Rome by Alaric, so representing the event that King Alfred, in his translation, thus abridged the detail:-

"Alaric, the most Christian and the mildest of kings, sacked Rome with so little violence, that he ordered no man should be slain, and that nothing should be taken away or injured that was in the churches. Soon after that, on the third day, they went out of the city of their own accord. There was not a single house burnt by their order."

In translating and adapting this book to the uses of his time, King Alfred did not trouble himself at all with its old ecclesiastical character, as what Pope Gelasius I. had called a book written "with wonderful brevity against heathen perversions. Looking to it exclusively as a digest of historical and geographical information, Alfred abridged, omitted, imitated, added, with a single regard to his purpose of producing a text-book of that cla.s.s of knowledge.

Omitting the end of the fifth book and the beginning of the sixth, and so running two books into one, he made the next and last book the sixth instead of the seventh, as it is in the original.

The "History of Orosius" itself is bald, confused; but it was enriched and improved by Alfred's addition to the first book of much new matter, enlarging knowledge of the geography of Europe, which he calls Germania, north of the Rhine and Danube. Alfred adds also to the same book geographical narratives taken from the lips of two travellers. One was Ohthere, a Norwegian, who sailed from Halgoland, on the coast of Norway, round the North Cape into the Cwen-Sae, or White Sea, and entered the mouth of the river Dwina, the voyage ending where there is now Archangel, the most northern of the Russian seaports. Ohthere afterwards made a second voyage from Halgoland along the west and south coast of Norway to the Bay of Christiania, and Sciringeshael, the port of Skerin, or Skien, near the entrance of the Christiania fjord. He then sailed southward, and reached in five days the Danish port aet Haedum, the capital town called Sleswic by the Saxons, but by the Danes Haithaby. The other traveller was Wulfstan, who sailed in the Baltic, from Slesvig in Denmark to Frische Haff within the Gulf of Danzig, reaching the Drausen Sea by Elbing. These voyages were taken from the travellers' own lips. Of Wulfstan's, the narrative pa.s.ses at one time into the form of direct personal narration--"Wulfstan said that he went . . . that he had . . . And then we had on our left the land of the Burgundians [Bornholmians], who had their own king. After the land of the Burgundians we had on our left," &c. The narrative of the other voyage opens with the sentence, "Ohthere told his lord, King Alfred." These three additions to "Orosius"--the Description of Europe, the two voyages of Ohthere, and the voyage of Wulfstan-- may be considered Alfred's own works.

The Description is the king's own account of Europe in his time, and the only authentic record of the Germanic nations, written by a contemporary, so early as the ninth century.

Ohthere was a man of great wealth and influence in Norway, as wealth was there reckoned; for he had 600 reindeer, including six decoy- deer; but though accounted one of the first men in the land, he had only twenty horned cattle, twenty sheep, and twenty swine. The little that he ploughed he ploughed with horses, and his chief revenue was in tribute of skin and bone from the Finns. The fame of his voyages attracted to him the attention of King Alfred. He said that he dwelt "Northmost of all northmen," in Halgoland; and wis.h.i.+ng to find out how far the land lay due north, and whether any man dwelt north of him--for the sake also of taking the walruses, "which have very good bone in their teeth; of these teeth they brought some to the king; and their hides are very good for s.h.i.+p-ropes"--he sailed northward. Ohthere may have obtained some of his wealth by whale-fis.h.i.+ng. He says that "in his own country is the best whale- hunting; they are eight-and-forty ells long, and the largest fifty ells long;" of these he said "that he was one of six who killed sixty in two days;" meaning, no doubt, that his vessel was one of six. He relates only what he saw. "The Biarmians," he says, "told him many stories both about their own land and about the countries which were around them, but he knew not what was true, because he did not see it himself."

Wulfstan was perhaps a Jutlander, and his voyage was confined to the Baltic. Neither his account nor that of Ohthere contradicts the opinion then held, that Scandinavia was a large island, and the Gulf of Bothnia or Cwaener Sea flowed into the North Sea.

THE GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE BY KING ALFRED, ETC.