Early Travels in Palestine: Comprising the Narratives of Arculf, Willibald, Bernard, Sæwulf, Sigurd, Benjamin of Tudela, Sir John Maundeville, de la Brocquière, and Maundrell
History
Early Travels in Palestine: Comprising the Narratives of Arculf, Willibald, Bernard, Sæwulf, Sigurd, Benjamin of Tudela, Sir John Maundeville, de la Brocquière, and Maundrell
Middle East -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800; Palestine -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800
Although the men of Greece are Christians, yet they vary from our faith;
for they say that the Holy Ghost may not come of the Son, but only of
the Father. And they are not obedient to the Church of Rome, nor to the
pope; for they say that their patriarch hath as much power over the sea
as the pope hath on this side the sea. And therefore pope John XXII.
sent letters to them, how Christian faith should be all one, and that
they should be obedient to the pope, who is God's vicar on earth, to
whom God gave his full power to bind and to assoil, and therefore they
should be obedient to him. But they sent back divers answers, amongst
others saying thus: "We believe well that thy power is great upon thy
subjects. We may not suffer thy great pride. We are not in purpose to
fulfil thy great covetousness. The Lord be with thee; for our Lord is
with us.—Farewell." And no other answer might he have of them. They
make their sacrament of the altar of unleavened bread, because
our Lord made it of such bread when he made his Maundy[290]. And on
Shere-Thursday they make their unleavened bread, in token of the Maundy,
and dry it in the sun, and keep it all the year, and give it to sick men
instead of God's body. And they make but one unction when they christen
children. They anoint not the sick. And they say that there is no
purgatory, and that the souls shall have neither joy nor pain till the
day of doom. They say, moreover, that fornication is not a deadly sin,
but a thing that is according to nature; and that men and women should
wed but once; and whosoever weddeth oftener than once, their children
are bastards, and begotten in sin. Their priests also are wedded. They
say, also, that usury is no deadly sin; and they sell benefices of holy
church; and so do men in other places, (God amend it when his will is!)
and that is a great scandal; for now is simony king crowned in holy
church: God amend it for his mercy! And they say that in Lent men shall
not fast, or sing mass, except on the Saturday and on the Sunday. And
they fast not on the Saturdays, except it be Christmas Eve, or Easter
Eve. They suffer not the Latins to sing at their altars; and if they do
by any chance, they immediately wash the altar with holy water. And they
say, that there should be but one mass said at one altar upon one day.
They say also that our Lord never ate, but that he made sign of eating.
They say, moreover, that we sin deadly in shaving our beards; for the
beard is token of a man, and the gift of our Lord. And they say that we
sin deadly in eating of animals that were forbidden in the Old
Testament and by the old law, as swine, hares, and other beasts that
chew not their cud. And they say that we sin in eating flesh on the days
before Ash Wednesday, and in eating flesh on the Wednesday, and eggs and
cheese on the Fridays. And they curse all those who abstain from eating
flesh on the Saturday. The emperor of Constantinople appoints the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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