The Greeks and Armeni are always enemies, and I will tell you why it is so, because I have heard it from the Armenians. The Tartars came into Greece with forty thousand men, and did much harm to the country, and then lay siege to Constantinoppel. Then the emperor of Constantinoppel sent to the king of Armenia for forty knights, the best he had in the land, and asked him to help him. The king asked how many there were [of the enemy]; the ambassador replied to him, that there were forty thousand. Then the king of Armenia selected forty knights, the best he had in his land: “I will send forty knights to the emperor, who will, with God’s help, exterminate the Infidels, and drive them by force out of the country.” When the knights came near Constantinoppel to the emperor, then the ambassador told him what he was ordered to say. The emperor thought that the king of Armenia wanted to make fun of him; and on the third day, the knights went before the emperor, and asked to be allowed to go at the enemy. The emperor asked them if they meant to overcome forty thousand men? They asked to be allowed to go out, and that the gate should be shut after them, for they should have Almighty God on their side, and would fight with Him for the Christian faith, to do which they had come, or else they would die. He gave them leave, and they went out amongst the enemy, and killed eleven hundred of them, besides the prisoners they brought to the gate; but the emperor would not let them come in, unless they also killed the prisoners, so they killed them all in front of the gate. The emperor was frightened at this, and took great care of them, and treated them very well, and they fought with the enemy every day, and every day did them much harm in the fight, and in a short time expelled the enemy from the city, and drove them out of the country. And when the devoted knights had driven away the Tartars, they went to the emperor, and wanted leave to return to their king; but the emperor took council how he was to put them to death, and invited them to stay with him three days longer; he would shew them great honour and consideration, and called out aloud: “Whoever wishes to eat and drink and live well at the emperor’s court for three days, let him come.” He sent a pure virgin to each knight at his separate lodging, and this he did that the virgins might be got with child by the knights, and that they should leave their seed there; because the emperor told his lords that he wanted to take the fruit from the trees and fell the trees, thinking, that after he had killed the knights, the king of Ermenia would become subject to him. On the third night, he ordered that all the knights should be killed in their lodgings, which was done, with the exception of one who had been warned by the young woman he had with him. He returned and complained to the king that all his companions had been killed by [order of] the emperor.