The Angevins and the Charter (1154-1216): The Beginning of English Law, the Invasion of Ireland and the Crusades
History
The Angevins and the Charter (1154-1216): The Beginning of English Law, the Invasion of Ireland and the Crusades
Great Britain -- History -- Angevin period, 1154-1216 -- Sources; Magna Carta
Every race of men, out of every nation which is under heaven, resort
thither in great numbers; every nation has introduced into that city its
vices and bad manners. No one lives in it without offence; there is not
a single street in it that does not abound in miserable, obscene
wretches; there, in proportion as any man has exceeded in wickedness, so
much is he the better. I am not ignorant of the disposition I am
exhorting; you have, in addition to your youth, an ardent disposition, a
slowness of memory and a soberness of reason between extremes. I feel in
myself no uneasiness about you, unless you should abide with men of
corrupt lives; for from our associations our manners are formed. But let
that be as it may. You will come to London. Behold! I warn you, whatever
of evil or perversity there is in any, whatever in all parts of the
world, you will find in that city alone. Go not to the dances of
panders, nor mix yourself up with the herds of the houses of ill fame;
avoid the talus and the dice, the theatre and the tavern. You will find
more braggadocios there than in all France, while the number of
flatterers is infinite. Stage-players, buffoons, those that have no hair
on their bodies, Garamantes, pickthanks, catamites, effeminate
evildoers, lewd musical girls, druggists, lustful persons,
fortune-tellers, extortioners, nightly strollers, magicians, mimics,
common beggars, tatterdemalions--this whole crew has filled every house.
So if you do not wish to live with the shameful, you will not dwell in
London.
THE TOWNS OF ENGLAND.
I am not speaking against the learned, whether monks or Jews; although,
still, from their very dwelling together with such evil persons, I
should esteem them less perfect there than elsewhere.
Nor does my advice go so far, as that you should betake yourself to no
city; with my counsel you will take up your residence nowhere but in a
town, though it remains to say in what.
Therefore, if you should land near Canterbury, you will have to lose
your way, if even you should but pass through it. It is an assemblage of
the vilest, entirely devoted to their--I know not whom, but who has been
lately canonized, and had been the Archbishop of Canterbury, as
everywhere they die in the open day in the streets for want of bread and
employment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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