Early Travels in Palestine Part 1

Early Travels in Palestine.

by Arculf et al.

INTRODUCTION.

The attentive reader of history cannot fail to remark how often, in the confusion of the middle ages, the very movements or principles which seem in themselves most barbarous, or are most strongly tinctured with the darkest shades of superst.i.tion, have been those which, in the sequel, gave the strongest impulse to the advancing spirit of civilization which has at length changed that dark past into this bright present. It is in the contemplation of this oft-recurring fact, that we trace, more distinctly, perhaps, than in any other, the inscrutable but unerring ways of that higher Providence to whose rule all things are subjected. Few of those duties enjoined by the ancient Romish Church were accompanied with, and seemed to lead to, more abuses and scandals than the pilgrimages to the Holy Land, so natural an attraction to every Christian; few were attended with so much bigotry, and blindness, and uncharitableness, or ended in observances and convictions so grossly superst.i.tious and so degrading to the intelligence of mankind. Yet it was this throwing of people upon the wide and distant scene, on which they were forced into continual intercourse, hostile or friendly, according to the circ.u.mstances of the moment, with people of different manners, creed, sentiment, and knowledge, that gradually softened down all prejudices, and paved the way for the entire destruction of that system to which it seemed intended to give support. If the seeds of civilization ever existed in the cloister, they were seeds cast upon the barren rock, and it was not until they were transplanted to another and richer soil, that they began to sprout and give promise of fruit.

Even in this point of view the narrative of those early pilgrimages must possess no ordinary degree of interest, and it gives us no little insight into the history of the march of intellectual improvement to accompany these early travellers in their wanderings, as they have themselves described them to us, and to watch their feelings and hear their opinions. The human mind is one of those important objects of study that we can never look upon from too many standing-places. But there is another point of view in which the narratives of the early pilgrims, of which so many have been preserved, are perhaps still more interesting. That favoured land to which they relate, the scene of so many events of deep import to our happiness in this world and in the future, has never lost its attractions, and more steps, as well as more eyes, are now turned towards it, than in those so-called ages of faith, when every mile on the road was believed to count in heaven for so much towards the redemption of the past crimes and offences, however great, of the traveller. Pilgrims innumerable still visit the holy places, with a purer faith and a less prejudiced understanding, yet with the desire of knowing what others in past ages saw, which is now not to be seen, or which is seen under different circ.u.mstances; to know what they thought of objects which still offer themselves to view; and to trace in their successive observations and reflections the gradual development of a thirst for discovery and knowledge which has at length given them the power of being so much wiser than their forefathers. It was the interest created by the objects these pilgrims visited personally, and the curiosity excited by the vague information obtained from intercourse with men who came from parts still more distant, that laid the first foundation of geographical science, and that first gave the impulse to geographical discovery.

A comparison of the numerous narratives to which we allude, places before our eyes the most distinct view we can possibly have of the various changes which have swept over the land of Palestine since it was s.n.a.t.c.hed from the power of the Roman emperors. The more ancient are, of course, the most interesting, because they relate to a period when a far greater number of monuments of still earlier antiquity remained in existence than it has been the lot of any modern pilgrims to visit, and the traditions of the locality were then much more deserving of attention, because they were so much nearer to the time of the events to which they related. It can hardly be supposed that the Christian inhabitants of Jerusalem and its neighbourhood, under the Romans, did not preserve some authentic traditions concerning the localities of the more important events of Gospel history.

We have fortunately one doc.u.ment of a very remarkable character, which has preserved to us the local traditions of the Christians of Syria under the Romans. It was first brought to light by the celebrated French antiquary, Pierre Pithou, who printed it, in 1588, from a ma.n.u.script in his own library, under the t.i.tle of "_Itinerarium a Burdigala Hierusalem usque_;" and it was afterwards inserted in the editions of the "_Antonine Itinerary_," by Schott and Wesseling. The author of this Itinerary was a Christian of Bordeaux, who visited the Holy Land in the year 333[1], and it was evidently compiled for the use of his countrymen. This visit took place two years before the consecration of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built by the emperor Constantine and his mother Helena. The compiler of this Itinerary, who is the first traveller to the East who has left us an account of his journey, departed from Bordeaux, then one of the chief cities of Gaul, pa.s.sed by Arles and other towns, and crossed the Alps into Italy, which country he traversed, pa.s.sing through Turin, Pavia, Milan, Brescia, Verona, &c., to the then magnificent city of Aquileia; thence he crossed the Julian Alps, and pa.s.sed through Noric.u.m, Pannonia, Illyria, Dacia, and Thrace, to Constantinople, and thence, after crossing the Bosphorus, he continued his route through Asia Minor to Syria. Hitherto the Itinerary is a mere recapitulation of names and distances, but, after his arrival in Syria, he continually interrupts his bare list of names, to mention some holy site, or other object which attracted his attention. On his arrival at Jerusalem, he gives us a long description of that city and its neighbourhood. From Jerusalem he returns to Constantinople, varying a little his route, and thence he retraces his steps as far as Heraclea in Thrace, where he leaves his former road, pa.s.sing through Macedonia to Thessalonica, and thence to Italy, where he visited Brundusium, Capua, and Rome, and thence returned to Milan.

Although this Itinerary has come down to us as a solitary narrative, we learn from the writings of some of the Greek fathers, that pilgrimages to the Holy Land had already, at that period, become so frequent as to lead to many abuses; and the early saints' lives have been the means of preserving to us brief notices of some of the adventures of the pilgrims, which are obscured by the incredible miracles with which those narratives abound. St. Porphyry, a Greek ecclesiastic of the end of the fourth century, after living five years as a hermit in the Thebaid of Egypt, went with his disciple Marcus to Jerusalem, visited the holy places, settled there, and finally became bishop of Gaza. St. Eusebius of Cremona, and his friend St. Jerome, embarked at Porto, in Italy, in June 385, in company with a great number of other pilgrims, and in the midst of tempests pa.s.sed the Ionian Sea and the Cyclades to Cyprus, where they were received by St. Epiphanius. They went thence to Antioch, where they were welcomed by St. Paulinus, who was bishop of that city, and from thence they proceeded to Jerusalem. After pa.s.sing some time in the holy city, and visiting the surrounding country, they went to Egypt, to visit the hermits of the Thebaid, and then returning, they took up their abode at Bethlehem, where they founded a monastery. Nearly at the same time, St. Paula, with her daughter, left Rome for Syria, and landed at Sidon, where she visited the tower of Elijah. At Caesarea she saw the house of the centurion Cornelius, which was changed into a church, and the house of St. Philip, with the chambers of his four daughters. Near Jerusalem she beheld the tomb of Helena, queen of Adiabene. The governor of Palestine, who was acquainted with the family of St. Paula, prepared to receive her in Jerusalem with due honours, but she preferred taking up her abode in a small cell, and she hastened to visit all the holy objects with which she was now surrounded. She went first to the church of the Holy Sepulchre, where she prostrated herself before the true cross, and entered the sepulchre itself, after having kissed the stone which the angels had taken from the entrance. On Mount Sion, she was shown the column to which Christ was bound when scourged, and which then sustained the gallery of a church. She saw also the spot where the Holy Ghost had descended on the Apostles on the day of Pentecost. She thence went to Bethlehem, visiting on the way the sepulchre of Rachel. At Bethlehem she descended into the grotto of the Nativity. She next visited the tower of Ader of the Flocks. At Bethphage, she saw the sepulchre of Lazarus, and the house of Martha and Mary; on Mount Ephraim, she was shown the sepulchre of Joshua, and of the high priest Eleazar; at Sichem, she entered the church built over the well of Jacob, where our Saviour spoke to the Samaritan woman; she next visited the sepulchres of the twelve patriarchs; and, at Sebaste, or Samaria, she saw those of Elisha and Abdias, as well as that of St. John the Baptist.

To the latter were brought, from all parts, people possessed with demons, to be cured. St. Paula went subsequently to Egypt, to visit the hermits of the desert, whence she returned to Bethlehem, where she built cells and hospitals for pilgrims, and there she lived in retirement till her death[2]. St. Antoninus visited the Holy Land early in the seventh century; his life contains some absurd legendary stories relating to the cross, which he saw in the church of Golgotha; and he tells that there stood on one part of Mount Sion an "idol of the Saracens," made of very white marble (no doubt an ancient sepulchre), which, at the time of the festival of that idol, suddenly became black as pitch, and after the festival was restored to its original colour. At Nazareth, St. Antoninus praises the beauty of the Jewish women who resided there; and he tells us that the land round that place was prodigiously fertile, and that it produced excellent wine, oil, and honey. The millet grew there to a greater height than elsewhere, and the straw was stronger. After visiting all the holy places, St. Antoninus, like all the other pilgrims who went to the east before the conquests of the Saracens, repaired to Egypt, to visit the hermits of the Thebaid. He landed at Alexandria, a very fine city, the people of which were light in disposition, but friendly to the travellers who came thither. He saw there, in the Nile, a mult.i.tude of crocodiles, a great number of which were collected together in a pond. Perhaps this was some remnant of the ancient worship of the Egyptians. On his return to Jerusalem, St. Antoninus fell sick, and was received into a hospital destined for poor pilgrims; he then went into Mesopotamia, and returned by sea to Italy, his native country.

Soon after this period, the circ.u.mstances of the pilgrims who arrived in the Holy Land were entirely changed, in consequence of the conquests of the Saracens, who, under Omar, obtained possession of Jerusalem in 637, by a capitulation, however, which allowed them the use of their churches on payment of a tribute, but forbade them to build new ones. This interdiction could not be in itself a great grievance, for the whole of Palestine must have been literally covered with churches when it pa.s.sed under the Mohammedan yoke. The conquerors soon saw that greater advantages would be reaped by preserving the holy places, and encouraging pilgrimage, than by destroying them; many of them, indeed their own creed taught them, were to be considered as objects of reverence; and thus for two or three centuries the Christians of the west continued to flock to the Holy Sepulchre as numerously as before, subject, perhaps, to not much greater taxation at the holy places than in former times, but exposed on their way to more or less insult and oppression, according to the political or local circ.u.mstances of the moment.

Not many years after it had thus fallen under the power of the Arabs, the Holy Land was visited by a French bishop named ARCULF, whose narrative stands at the head of the present volume. The French antiquaries have not been able to discover of what see Arculf was bishop, or when he lived; and all that is known of him is the statement of Ad.a.m.nan, who wrote down his narrative, that on his return from the east he was carried by contrary winds to the sh.o.r.es of Britain, and that he was received at Iona. We learn from Bede[3], that Ad.a.m.nan visited the court of the Northumbrian king Aldfrid, and that he then presented to the king his book on the Holy Places, which he had taken down from the dictation of bishop Arculf. The visit to king Aldfrid is generally placed in 703, but by an apparent misunderstanding of the words of Bede, and it is probable that it occurred at least as early as 701[4]. The pilgrimage of Arculf must thus have taken place in the latter part of the seventh century. In relating a miracle concerning the _sudarium_ or napkin taken from the head of our Saviour (which has not been thought worth retaining in the present translation), Arculf is made to speak of "Majuvias, king of the Saracens," as having lived in his time[5], and the character of the story leaves no doubt that the king referred to was Moawiyah, the first khalif of the dynasty of the Ommiades, who reigned from 661 to 679. I am inclined to think that Arculf's visit to Jerusalem must be placed not long after this khalif's death.

Arculf's travels, having been reduced to a sort of treatise by Ad.a.m.nan, do not always present the exact form of a personal narrative, and we cannot trace his course from his native land as we do those of most subsequent travellers. He seems to have followed in the steps of the more ancient pilgrims, and his visit to Egypt, with the avowal of his voyages up the Nile, can only be explained on the supposition that he also went to visit the Coptic monks of the Desert, who had been allowed to remain there, tributary to their Arabian conquerors. He either derived little satisfaction from this visit, or Ad.a.m.nan considered it as having no interest for his countrymen; and we find no allusion to the Egyptian monks in the later pilgrimages. Arculf speaks of no difficulties he had to encounter, and his narrative is of especial interest, from the circ.u.mstance of his visiting the country when all the buildings of the Roman age were still standing.

The narrative of bishop Arculf, besides its intrinsic value as a minute and accurate description of localities and monuments at this interesting period, is of especial importance to us, because, through the abridgment made by Bede, it became the text book on this subject among the Anglo-Saxons, and led to that pa.s.sion for pilgrimages with which they were soon afterwards seized, and which was not uncongenial to the character of that people whose adventurous steps have since been carried into every corner of the world.

Among the Anglo-Saxons who followed the example of Arculf, one of the most remarkable, and the earliest of whose adventures we have any account, was WILLIBALD, a kinsman, it is said, of the great Boniface, and a native of the kingdom of Wess.e.x, probably of Hampshire. His father, who appears to have been of high rank, was honoured with a place in the Roman calendar, under the t.i.tle of St. Richard. He, with his two sons, Willibald and Wunibald, and a daughter, afterwards so celebrated under the name of St. Walpurgis, left England probably in the year 718, and travelled through the land of the Franks on their way to Italy. At Lucca, Willibald's father sickened and died; and, having buried him, the three children reached Rome in safety, but there they were seized with a severe fever, on their recovery from which Willibald determined to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. I have fixed the date of his departure to the year 721, because that would place his departure from Tyre on his way to Constantinople, in 724; and I have stated on another occasion[6], that it is in the highest degree probable that the difficulties Willibald and his companions experienced in obtaining a pa.s.sport, and the troubles they met with in their departure from Syria, were coincident with the persecution of the Christian churches in that country in the year just alluded to, when the khalif Yezid II., at the end of his reign, had been instigated by the Jews to publish an edict against the paintings in the churches of his Christian subjects, in consequence of which many of the latter fled their homes. After the death of Yezid, hostilities recommenced between the Greeks and the Arabs, and continued during many years; and it is evident that the two countries were not yet at war when the pilgrims left. At the same time, the whole tenor of the narrative shows that they quitted Syria on account of some sudden change in the internal state of the country, and that they were anxious to get away, for they came to Tyre at the wrong season of the year for making the voyage to Constantinople, and they sailed in rough and tempestuous weather. In 740 or 741, Willibald was consecrated bishop of Eichstadt, being then forty-one years of age. He died, it is supposed, in the year 786. His life was written before his death, by a nun of Heidenheim, of whose name we are ignorant, but who was his kinswoman, and who took down the account of his travels, as she avows, from his own mouth.

The war with the Greeks did not, however, put a stop to pilgrimages from the west, but the travellers now seem to have been obliged to pa.s.s by way of Egypt. The geographer, Dicuil, in his treatise _De Mensura Orbis Terrae_, which he wrote at a very advanced age, in 825, tells us, when speaking of Egypt, that when a youth at school in France, he heard a monk named Fidelis give an account of his travels in Egypt and the Holy Land, to his master, Suibneus, and, from the accuracy with which he cites it, he must have taken notes at the time. He says, that Fidelis went with a party of pilgrims, clerks and laymen, who sailed direct to the mouth of the Nile, no doubt to Alexandria. Proceeding up the Nile a long way, they were struck with astonishment at the sight of the seven "barns" (_horrea_), built by Joseph, according to the number of the years of abundance, which looked at a distance like mountains, four in one place, and three in another. Curiosity led them to visit the group of three, and near them they found a lion, and eight men and women, all lying dead; "the lion had slain them by its strength, and they had killed the lion with their spears and swords, for the places occupied by both these groups of barns are deserts." They found that these buildings, in their whole elevation, were of stone; at the bottom they were square, in the upper part round, and twisted at the summit in a spire. Fidelis measured the side of one from one angle to the other, and found it to be four hundred feet. Then, entering their ships in the river Nile, they navigated direct to the entrance of the Red Sea, where they entered a port, not far to the east of which was the spot where Moses pa.s.sed on dry land. Fidelis wished to go to this place, where he expected to see the traces of Pharaoh's chariot wheels, but he could not prevail with the sailors to turn away from their own course. He observed, however, that the sea appeared there to be about six miles across. They sailed thence, without loss of time, along the western part of the Red Sea, or that part which extends itself in a gulf or bay far to the north. From thence we are left to suppose that they proceeded to Palestine[7]. The barns of Joseph were of course the pyramids, with respect to the form of the upper part of which the pilgrim might easily have been deceived; but it will be at once evident to any one acquainted with the geography of Egypt, that the channel by which he pa.s.sed in a ship from the Nile to the Red Sea, was the ancient ca.n.a.l of Hadrian.

This ca.n.a.l is said to have been repaired, and rendered navigable by the Arabs, not long after they had rendered themselves masters of Egypt, but we know that it was finally blocked up by the khalif Abu Giafar Almansor, in 767, to hinder provisions from being sent to the people of Mecca and Medina, who had revolted against his authority. It was therefore previous to this date that Fidelis visited Egypt.

Peace, broken immediately after the departure of Willibald, was not restored till the learned reign of the magnificent Haroun-er-Raschid (786-809), whose name, and his friendship and intercourse with the no less splendid monarch of the west, Charlemagne, have been so often celebrated in history and romance. Their friendship led to the opening of Palestine to the Christian pilgrims on much more liberal terms, and various privileges and comforts were secured for them in the holy city.

Pilgrimages now became more frequent, and several are mentioned during the latter part of the eighth and the course of the ninth centuries.

The only one of these pilgrims whose own account of his adventures has been preserved, was a Breton monk, evidently of the celebrated monastery of Mount St. Michel, named BERNARD, who is distinguished in the ma.n.u.scripts by the t.i.tle of _Bernardus Sapiens_, or Bernard the Wise, although we have no other testimony to his wisdom except the account of his pilgrimage. This very curious narrative was discovered by Mabillon, in a ma.n.u.script of the library of Rheims, and printed in the _Acta Sanctorum Ordinis Benedictini_. Bernard has given, at the commencement of this narrative, the date of the year in which he started. In Mabillon's text, and in a ma.n.u.script of the Cottonian Library, now lost, it is 870; while in another ma.n.u.script of the Cottonian Library, still existing, it is given as 970. Internal evidence at once fixes the date of Bernard's pilgrimage to the ninth century, and not to the tenth; and as it is evident that he was at Bari before the siege by Louis II., we can have little hesitation in considering both the dates given by the ma.n.u.scripts as errors of the scribes, and in fixing Bernard's departure to the year 867.

Bernard left Europe at a time when the Saracens of the west were engaged in hostility with the Christians, and he was obliged to furnish himself with a variety of protections. Although he points at the disadvantageous contrast between the barbarity and turbulence of the western Christians and the well regulated government of the Arabs in the east, it is quite evident that a change had taken place in the condition of the Christians in Syria, and that the pilgrims no longer enjoyed the immunities obtained for them by the emperor Charlemagne. They now, on the contrary, seem to have been subjected to extortions on every side. Bernard, like Fidelis, went by way of Egypt, and proceeded thence into Palestine by land. He is the first traveller who mentions the afterwards celebrated miracle of the holy fire. At Jerusalem Bernard lodged in the hostle which had been founded by Charlemagne, and which was still appropriated to its original destination.

Somewhere near this period a n.o.ble Breton of the name of Frotmond, who, with his brother, had committed one of those deeds of blood which so often stain the history of the middle ages, was condemned by the church to a penance, not uncommon in those times. A chain was close riveted round his body and his arms; and in this condition, covered only with a coa.r.s.e garment, his head sprinkled with ashes, he was to visit, bare-foot, the holy places, and wander about until G.o.d should deign to relieve him of his burthen. In the fourth year of his wanderings he returned to France, and went to the monastery of Redon, where he was miraculously delivered from his chains, which had already eaten deep into his flesh, at the tomb of St. Marcellinus. The account of his pilgrimage was collected from the traditions of the monastery long after Frotmond's death, by one of the monks. It is said that he and his brethren went direct to the coast of Syria, and made some stay at Jerusalem, practising there all kinds of austerities. They next went into Egypt, and took up their abode among the monks of the Thebaid, and then went to pray at the tomb of St. Cyprian, on the sea-coast, two leagues from Carthage. They then returned to Rome; but still not obtaining pardon of the pope (Benedict III.), they again pa.s.sed the sea to Jerusalem, from whence they went to Cana, in Galilee, and then they directed their course to the Red Sea. They next proceeded to the mountains of Armenia, and visited the spot where Noah's ark rested after the deluge. On their way they suffered all kinds of outrages from the infidels, who stripped them naked and scourged them cruelly. This, however, did not turn them from their purpose, and they went subsequently to Mount Sinai, where they remained three years, and so returned to Italy, and thence to France. Frotmond started on his wanderings in the year 868.

Other pilgrimages are mentioned as having taken place before the end of the ninth century, at which time new wars broke out between the Greeks and the Saracens, in the course of which the whole of Judea was taken from the Mohammedans by the emperor John Zimisces, and the holy places were again thrown open to pilgrims from all parts. On the death of Zimisces, in 976, the Greek empire again sunk into weakness, and Palestine was s.n.a.t.c.hed from them by the Fatimite khalifs of Egypt, whose policy it was at first to treat the Christians with lenity, seek commercial relations with the Franks, and encourage the pilgrimages to the holy places. But all these fair prospects were soon cut short by the accession to the throne of Hakem, the third khalif of the Fatimite dynasty, who threw his kingdom into confusion by his cruel despotism, and who made the unfortunate Christians feel the whole weight of his fury. They were everywhere oppressed and ma.s.sacred, their churches were taken from them, profaned, and destroyed, and the holy places were deserted. During the whole of the eleventh century the Christians of Syria were thus treated with every kind of indignity. Pilgrims still made their way to Jerusalem, and a great number of brief notices of their adventures are preserved by the numerous writers of the age; but they brought back with them little more than complaints of the profanations to which the holy places were exposed, and of the wretched condition to which their brothers in faith had been reduced. The celebrated Gerbert, afterwards pope, under the name of Sylvestre II., was one of the first who made the pilgrimage during the persecutions of Hakem; and on his return, in 986, he published a letter, in which he made Jerusalem deplore her misfortunes, and supplicated the whole Christian world to come to her aid. The French and the Italians were excited to vengeance, and they began to make pilgrimages in armed bodies, and even to attack the coasts of Syria. This only served to exasperate their enemies, who interdicted the Christians in their dominions from the exercise of their religion, took from them their churches, which they profaned by turning them into stables and to still more degrading purposes, and threw down the church of the Sepulchre, and the other sacred places in Jerusalem, in 1008. According to the best authorities the church of the Holy Sepulchre was rebuilt by Hakem's grandson, Al-Mostanser-Billah, between 1046 and 1048, in consequence of a treaty with the Byzantine emperor.

The news of these events threw all Christian Europe into consternation, and excited every where the desire for vengeance on the infidels; but it increased the eagerness for pilgrimage, and, in spite of all the insults and perils to which they were exposed, devotees of all ranks and conditions made their way to Jerusalem in crowds. New revolutions were, however, taking place there; for another people, the Seldjouk Turks, having rendered themselves masters of Persia, and established there a new dynasty of monarchs, the Aba.s.sides, pa.s.sed forwards into Mesopotamia, and then conquered Syria from the Fatimites. The Seldjouks took Jerusalem in 1071, ma.s.sacred both Saracens and Christians, and delivered up to pillagers the mosques as well as the churches. The fate of the pilgrims under the new rulers of Palestine was more deplorable than ever. They were not allowed to enter the gates of Jerusalem without payment of a very heavy tax; and, as most of them had been plundered on the way, if they had anything to tempt the merciless rapacity of the infidels, the greater part remained outside, to perish by hunger or by the sword. Those who gained admission into the city only entered to suffer new outrages, and, which was still worse, to see everything they held most sacred trodden under foot and defiled by unbelievers.

The Turks, in their turn, became divided and enfeebled; and the Fatimites made a successful effort to recover their power in Syria. In 1096 Jerusalem was delivered, by capitulation, to the general of the khalif Al-Mostaali-Billeh; but the change of masters seems to have ameliorated in no degree the condition of the Christians.

The cry of the eastern Christians had, however, already made itself effectually heard throughout Europe. The voice of Peter the Hermit was first raised in 1095, in the November of which year he stood by the pope, Urban II., at the council of Clermont, and the first crusade was proclaimed. The vast army of invaders a.s.sembled in the autumn of 1096, traversed Europe and Asia Minor, and those who escaped from the terrible sufferings and losses it experienced on the road reached Palestine in 1099, and took Jerusalem by a.s.sault on the 15th of June. Ten days after the conquerors elected G.o.dfrey of Boulogne king of Jerusalem.

The first pilgrim who followed the crusaders, who has left us a personal narrative, was an Anglo-Saxon named SaeWULF. Our only information relating to this personage, beyond what is found in his own relation, occurs in a pa.s.sage of William of Malmesbury which appears to relate to him. This writer, in his History of the English Bishops[8], tells us that Saewulf was a merchant who frequently repaired to bishop Wulstan, of Worcester, to confess his sins, and as frequently, when his fit of penitence was over, returned to his old courses. Wulstan advised him to quit the profession in which he met with so many temptations, and embrace a monastic life; and, on his refusal, the bishop prophesied that the time would arrive when he would take the habit which he now so obstinately refused. William of Malmesbury says that he himself witnessed the fulfilment of this prediction, when in his old age the merchant Saewulf became a monk in the abbey of Malmesbury. It is fair to suppose that, in a moment of penitence, the merchant sought to appease the divine wrath by undertaking the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the road to which had then been laid open by the first successes of the crusaders.

Nothing in the narrative proves that our traveller was a monk.

The date of Saewulf's voyage has been fixed by his learned editor, M.

D'Avezac, from internal evidence of the most satisfactory kind. Saewulf makes two or three allusions to historical personages in the course of his adventures. Thus, on his arrival at Cephalonia, he informs us that Robert Guiscard died there. This celebrated warrior, the first duke of the Normans in Italy, the father of the celebrated crusader Bohemond, prince of Tarentum, was meditating the conquest of Greece, when he died, according to some poisoned, in July 1085[9]. Further on Saewulf mentions two Christian princes, distinguished by their activity in the first crusade, as still living; Baldwin, king of Jerusalem, and Raymond, duke of Toulouse. The first was made king on the 25th of December, 1100, and the latter died on the 28th of February, 1105. Saewulf mentions further, that when he returned from Syria Tortosa was in the possession of duke Raymond, while Acre still remained in the hands of the Saracens. The latter place was captured on the 12th of March, 1102, while Acre did not fall into the hands of the Christians till the 15th of May, 1104. Now he informs us further that he embarked at Joppa, on his return on the day of Pentecost, which day in the year 1104 fell on the 5th of June, and, as Acre had then been taken, this could not be the year; and we have only to choose between 1102 and 1103. To remove all doubt on the subject, M. D'Avezac points out an element of calculation contained in Saewulf's text, which enables us to fix the exact date of his departure from Italy, after having brought it within so small a compa.s.s from the historical allusions. Saewulf says that he set sail from Monopoli on Sunday, the feast of St. Mildred. St. Mildred's day is the 13th of July, and that day fell on a Sunday in the year 1102. It was, he says, an unlucky day-_dies aegyptiaca_, and they fell in with a storm which drove them along the coast to Brindisi, whence, after a short stay to refit, they sailed again on an unlucky day. Now the ordinary formula to find the unlucky or Egyptiac days, composed by the medieval calculators, give us the 13th and 22nd of July, as falling under this character. It was, therefore, the 13th of July, 1102, when Saewulf sailed from Monopoli, and the 22nd of the same month when he left Brindisi; and it was the day of Pentecost, 1103, when he embarked at Joppa, on his return. These dates will agree very well with the age of the Saewulf mentioned by William of Malmesbury.

The events preceding, and connected with the crusades, had considerably modified the route followed by the pilgrims in their way to Jerusalem.

They had previously gone by way of Egypt, because it was no doubt safer to pa.s.s in ships employed in commerce with the Saracens, or to go with Saracenic pa.s.sports from the west, than to encounter the hostile feelings with which people were received who came into Syria from the neighbouring territory of the Greeks. But now they might proceed with greater security through the Christian states on the northern sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean, either visiting Constantinople before they proceeded to Jerusalem, or, if their eagerness to see the holy city overcame all other considerations, sailing along the coast of Greece and through the islands of the Archipelago. The latter course was taken by Saewulf; he sailed from Italy to the Ionian islands; proceeded overland to Negropont, where he embarked in another ship, and, after touching at several of the islands, proceeded along the coast of Asia Minor to Jaffa, whence he travelled by land to Jerusalem, reserving his visit to the metropolis of the Grecian empire for his return. The narrative appears to be truncated, which has deprived us of Saewulf's observations of Constantinople.

Saewulf's account of the disastrous storm which attended their arrival at Jaffa shows us what mult.i.tudes of pilgrims now crowded to the Holy Land.

Among these were people of all cla.s.ses, rich and poor, n.o.ble and ign.o.ble, laymen equally with monks and clergy. Some went in humility and meekness to visit the scene of their salvation, while others, embarking with crews of desperate marauders, although they went to the Holy City with the same professions, proceeded as privateers, or rather as pirates, plundering and devastating on their way. Among this latter cla.s.s the descendants of the sea-kings of the north appear to have been especially distinguished, and the Scandinavian sagas have preserved more than one narrative, half authentic and half romantic, of their adventures. It has been thought advisable to give, as a specimen of these, the story of SIGURD THE CRUSADER, a northern prince, whose presence at the capture of Beyrout, in 1110, is mentioned by William of Tyre.

The land of Palestine was at this time beginning to attract, in an unusual degree, the attention of another cla.s.s of travellers from western Europe-learned men of the Jewish nation-who were anxious to discover and to make known to their brethren the condition of the various synagogues in the East, after so many sanguinary revolutions, as well as to visit the burial-places of the eminent Hebrews of former days. Several of their relations, written in Hebrew, are still preserved in ma.n.u.script, and a few have been printed[10]. The earliest of these of any importance is that of BENJAMIN OF TUDELA. We have an "Itinerary of Palestine" made by Samuel bar Simson in 1210; a "Description of the Sacred Tombs" by a Jew of Paris named Jacob, in 1258; and several tracts of the same kind in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

Mr. Asher, to whom we owe the best edition of Benjamin of Tudela, has fixed the date of Benjamin's travels from his own narrative with great acuteness. It appears from different circ.u.mstances to which he alludes, that his visit to Rome must have taken place subsequent to 1159, that he was at Constantinople probably in December 1161, and that his account of Egypt, which almost concludes the work, must have been written prior to 1171[11]. "If we add to these dates," Mr. Asher observes, "that of his return, as given in the preface, we shall find that the narrative refers to a period of about fourteen years, viz. from 1159 or 1160, to 1173." To these dates pointed out by Mr. Asher, it may be added, that he appears to have been at Antioch immediately after the accession of Bohemond III. in 1163; and that he probably reached Sicily, on his way back, early in 1169. By comparing these dates with the general course of the narrative, I have endeavoured to arrange with tolerable accuracy the successive years of Benjamin's wanderings; the dates of which are given at the heads of the pages.

Rabbi Benjamin is the first European traveller whom we find taking a wider circuit in his travels than that which would have been restricted by the limits of Christian or Jewish pilgrimage. As Mr. Asher observes, he appears evidently to have been a merchant, and hence, though the object most at his heart seems to have been to note the number and condition of the Jews in the different countries he visited, he has preserved some valuable information relating to their trade and commerce at that period, and, in spite of some credulity, and an evident love of the marvellous, he describes what he saw with more good sense and accuracy than the Christian travellers of the same age. Benjamin, who was a Jew of Spain, began his travels from Saragossa, and proceeded through Italy and Greece to Constantinople, which city he describes at considerable length. He proceeded thence, by the Greek Islands, to Antioch, and thence through Syria, by Acre and Nablous, to Jerusalem.

From Jerusalem he went to Damascus, and from thence to Bagdad, but his route here and elsewhere appears to have been far from direct, as we often trace him moving backwards and forwards, to obtain information, or visit districts that lay out of the ordinary road. The actual extent of his wanderings towards the East appears doubtful; but it is certain he remained at Bagdad and in Persia two or three years, and he returned by way of Arabia and Nubia to Egypt. From Egypt he returned to Sicily, and he then made a tour in Germany before his final return home. Mr. Asher observes that there is "one very peculiar feature" in this work, by which its contents are divided into _what he saw_, and _what he heard_.

"In many towns, on the route from Saragossa to Bagdad, rabbi Benjamin mentions the names of the princ.i.p.al Jews, elders, and wardens of the congregations he met with. That a great number of the persons enumerated by rabbi Benjamin really were his contemporaries; and that the particulars he incidentally mentions of them are corroborated by other authorities, has been proved in the biographical notes furnished by Dr.

Zunz. We therefore do not hesitate to a.s.sert that rabbi Benjamin visited all those towns of which he names the elders and princ.i.p.als, and that the first portion of his narrative comprises an account of _what he saw_. But with Gihiagin, the very first stage beyond Bagdad, all such notices cease, and except those of two princes and of two rabbis, we look in vain for any other _names_. So very remarkable a difference between this and the preceding part of the work leads us to a.s.sert that rabbi Benjamin's travels did not extend beyond Bagdad, and that he there wrote down the second portion of our work, consisting of _what he heard_. Bagdad, at his time the seat of the prince of the Captivity, must have attracted numerous Jewish pilgrims from all regions, and, beyond doubt, was the fittest place for gathering those notices of the Jews and of trade in different parts of the world, the collecting of which was the aim of rabbi Benjamin's labours." It may be observed, further, that the information he thus collected agrees in general with that furnished by the contemporary Arabian geographers.

The travels of rabbi Benjamin had little, if any, influence on the state of geographical science amongst the Christians of the west; but a variety of causes-the thirst for novelty in science excited by the educational movement of the twelfth century, scattered information, gleaned from an increased intercourse with the Arabs, and the adventurous spirit raised by a hundred years of crusades-were now combining to render them every day more eager for information relating to distant lands, and this spirit received a new impulse from the astonishment and terror excited by the incursions of the Tartars in the earlier half of the thirteenth century. Shrewd and intelligent men were sent out by the monarchs of the west, nominally as amba.s.sadors, but really as spies, to ascertain who these dreaded invaders were, and whence they came, and to report on their strength and character. These envoys met at the court of the khan men of distant, and, to them, unknown countries, from whom they collected information relating to the central and eastern parts of Asia. Among the first of these envoys was John du Plan de Carpin, an Italian friar of the order of St. Francis, sent out by Pope Innocent IV., in the spring of 1245. He was followed immediately by Simon de St. Quentin, a Dominican monk, also sent by the pope; and a year or two later, in 1253, by William de Rubruk, another Franciscan, sent on an emba.s.sy to the Tartars by St. Louis. These, as well as other missionaries of the same century, have left behind them interesting narratives, several of which are preserved, and some of them are well known. Merchants, led by the hope of gain, followed in the steps of, and even preceded, the political or religious missionaries, and their objects being less restricted, they often penetrated into the remotest regions of Asia, where they sometimes settled, and rose to rank and wealth. One of these, an Italian named Marco Polo, on his return, after a long residence in Asia, in the middle of the thirteenth century, published the well known narrative, which conduced, more than any other work, to the development of geographical science, and which first gave the grand impulse to geographical research, that led to the more extensive and substantial knowledge which began to dawn in the following century.

From this time, although short descriptions of the Holy Land became more numerous than ever, travellers who published their personal narratives were seldom contented with the old limits of the subject, but they either visited themselves, or described from the information of others, some at least of the surrounding countries. This was carried at times almost to the extreme of affectation. A remarkable example is furnished to us in the book of SIR JOHN MAUNDEVILLE. This singular writer, more credulous than the most bigotted monk, appears to have visited the east with the double object of performing the pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre, and of seeking military service in foreign lands. Professedly a guide to pilgrims to Jerusalem, to which a large portion of the book is devoted, it contains, nevertheless, the description of nearly the whole of Asia, and of some parts of Africa and Europe, and extends to countries which its author visited and to many others which he certainly did not visit. From the rather equivocal light in which he exhibits himself, and the peculiar form of his work, it is impossible to trace the course of his travels, but he a.s.sures us that he set out from England in 1322, and that he returned home and compiled his book in 1356. It appears clear, from evidence furnished by the book itself, that Maundeville was in Egypt for some time previous to the year 1342[12], and a closer examination would probably fix the date of his presence in some other countries. But there can be no doubt that his book is partly a compilation, for we find him not only borrowing from ancient writers, like Solinus and Pliny, but it is quite evident that he made large use of the previous narratives of Marco Polo and of the Franciscan Oderic, who had travelled over a great part of Asia in the earlier years of the fourteenth century, and had published his account during Maundeville's absence in the east. It would not be difficult to a.n.a.lyze a great portion of Maundeville's book, and show from whence it was compiled.

It is now generally agreed that Marco Polo originally wrote the account of his travels in the French language, from which it was subsequently translated into Latin and Italian. French had now, indeed, become the general language of popular treatises, and it seems to be equally well established that in it was written the original text of Maundeville, who states expressly in the French copies preserved in ma.n.u.script, that he chose French in preference to Latin, as a language more generally understood, "especially by lords and knights, and others who understand not Latin."[13] We learn, from the colophon to some of the Latin copies, that he was at this time residing at Liege, where he is said to have ended his days, and that he soon afterwards translated his own book into Latin. An English version, said to be also from the pen of Maundeville himself, appeared soon afterwards, and the three versions must have become extremely popular within a few years after their publication, from the number of early copies that are still found among our various collections of ma.n.u.scripts. The travels of Sir John Maundeville form, perhaps, the most popular work of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and it continued long afterwards to be read eagerly in a variety of forms. Yet all we know of him with any certainty is his own statement that he was a native of St. Albans,-the rest of his biography, as commonly given, is a mere tissue of errors. Bale tells us that he died at Liege, on the 17th of November, 1371, and that he was buried there in the abbey of the Guillamites. Abraham Orbelius, in his "Itinerarium Belgiae," gives an epitaph from that abbey, which appears to be a comparatively recent fabrication. One of the ma.n.u.scripts, written in the fifteenth century, (MS. Harl. 3989,) says that Maundeville died at Liege in 1382.

Contemporary with Maundeville lived a German named variously Boldensel, Boldensle, and Boldenslave, who visited the east in 1336, and, on his return, published a description of the Holy Land, of which there is an early printed edition. It had been preceded by the description of the Holy Land by Brochard, published in 1332. From this time the narratives of travels in Palestine became much more numerous and more detailed, and I shall not attempt even a bare enumeration. The majority of them consist of little more than a repet.i.tion of the same facts and the same legends. Some, however, are far superior to the rest, by the interest of the narrative, and the novelty of the information gathered by the traveller. Two, belonging to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, stand pre-eminent in this respect, the narratives of Breydenbach and Rauwulf, which merit separate publication. I have selected to follow sir John Maundeville, the travels of BERTRANDON DE LA BROCQUIeRE, on account of their peculiar character.

The Turks, who were gradually overthrowing the empire of the Arabs in the east, were becoming formidable to the Christians also towards the end of the fourteenth century. Since the time of Brochard, who had written expressly to show how the east lay open to an attack from the Christians, several attempts had been made to raise a new crusade. La Brocquiere, like Maundeville, was a knight, and he held the high position of counsellor and first esquire carver to the duke of Burgundy. As was the case with so many others of his own cla.s.s, his pilgrimage to Jerusalem was the result of a vow, but the curiosity and ardour of the man-at-arms were perhaps more powerful in him than the mere calls of religion. He left Burgundy in the February of 1432, in company with other great lords of that country, pa.s.sed through Italy by way of Rome to Venice, and there embarked and proceeded by sea to Jaffa.

But when this holy pilgrimage was completed, as far as lay in his power to perform it, he undertook a pilgrimage of another kind, and in order to observe the manners and condition of the Turks, who were already threatening Constantinople, he formed the bold scheme of returning to France overland, which would lead him to traverse the western part of Asia and eastern Europe. The notices he has given us of the countries through which he pa.s.sed, some of them but imperfectly known even at present, combined with the interesting period at which the journey was made, give an especial importance to this narrative, which is marked by the accuracy and good sense of its writer, and exhibits none of the credulity of previous travellers. On his return to the court of Burgundy, La Brocquiere's appearance excited great interest, and duke Philip began to talk loudly of his intention to lead a crusade against the Infidels. It was probably to further his object that La Brocquiere compiled his narrative, which was published in French, soon after the year 1438, to which date he alludes in his text. The state of Europe, however, was not now favourable to a crusade, and the duke's designs never went further than a few empty proclamations, and some equally fruitless feasting and pageantry. The Turks were allowed to pursue their conquests, and the victorious Mohammed II. became master of Constantinople in the May of 1453.

Our notices of the medieval travellers would properly conclude here. A new era was opening upon the west as well as upon the east, and the last breath of the spirit of the crusades died, as the system which had nourished it sunk before the great religious Reformation of the sixteenth century. Instead of monks and soldiers, Europe, more enlightened, began soon afterwards to send merchants, and consuls, and amba.s.sadors. A clearer and more satisfactory light was now thrown on the geography of the Holy Land. The English traveller in Palestine of most authority in the seventeenth century was Sandys, who, however, often erred on the side of credulity. Before the end of the century came the well known HENRY MAUNDRELL, who, on account of the brevity of his narrative and the extreme accuracy of his descriptions, has been selected to conclude the present volume. We know little more of Maundrell than that he was a fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, which he left to take the appointment of chaplain to the English factory at Aleppo. It is not within our province to notice the works of subsequent travellers.

It will be necessary to make some statement to our readers of the manner in which the present volume has been edited, and of the sources from which the different works it contains have been derived.

The travels of bishop Arculf, (as compiled by Ad.a.m.nan,) as well as those of Bernard the Wise, and the life of Willibald, were printed in the Acta Sanctorum Ordinis S. Benedicti, Saec. III., Part II., in 1672. A previous edition of Arculf had been published in a small quarto volume, Ingoldstadt, 1619, which also contained the abridgment by Bede. The latter, under the t.i.tle of _Libellus de Locis Sanctis_, is included in the different editions of Bede's works, and will be found in the recent edition by Dr. Giles, accompanied with an English translation. Another edition of the narrative of Bernard was published from a ma.n.u.script in the Cottonian Library in the British Museum by M. Francisque Michel, in the Memoirs of the Society of Geography at Paris. M. Michel's text is in many respects inferior to that of Mabillon, but it contains the concluding paragraphs relating to the state of society in Egypt, Italy, and France, which were wanting in the ma.n.u.script from which Mabillon printed. But the new editor, M. Michel, has fallen into a very grave error; for the treatise of Bede, _De Locis Sanctis_, following in the Cottonian ma.n.u.script the tract of Bernard, he has mistaken them for one continued treatise, and printed them as such, accusing Mabillon of having printed only one half of his author. The narrative of Saewulf, the only ma.n.u.script of which is preserved in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, was published in the collection of the French Geographical Society by M. D'Avezac, from a transcript furnished by the editor of the present volume. M. D'Avezac has executed his task of editing with remarkable care and discrimination, but I fear that the transcript was in two or three instances inaccurate, and at the time of publication it was unfortunately not in the power of M. D'Avezac to have it collated with the original. One omission of some importance for the architectural history of the church of the Holy Sepulchre was very kindly pointed out to me by Professor Willis, and has been corrected in the translation. In describing this church, the text as printed by M.

D'Avezac contains the words, "Ista oratoria sanctissima continentur in atrio Dominici sepulchri ad orientalem plagam. In lateribus autem ipsius ecclesiae suae capellae sibi adhaerent praeclarissimae hinc inde, sicut ipsi participes Dominicae pa.s.sionis sibi in lateribus const.i.terunt hinc inde."

In the original ma.n.u.script the pa.s.sage stands thus, and is rendered intelligible-"Ista oratoria sanctissima continentur in atrio Dominici sepulchri ad orientalem plagam. In lateribus vero ipsius ecclesiae _duae_ capellae sibi adhaerent praeclarissimae hinc inde, _Sanctae Mariae scilicet Sanctique Johannis in honore_, sicut ipsi participes Dominicae pa.s.sionis sibi in lateribus const.i.terunt hinc inde."

These four narratives are here translated for the first time. In translating Bernard, the text of Mabillon has been compared with that of Michel. The narrative of Arculf has been somewhat abridged, and relieved of some miracles and theological observations that are totally without interest. It may be right to observe, also, that in the original ma.n.u.script this narrative is accompanied with plans of churches, copies of which are given in the edition of Mabillon, and in the editions of Bede's abridgement.

The translation of the Saga of Sigurd the Crusader, is taken, by the obliging permission of Mr. Laing, from his recently published "Hemskringla," or "Chronicle of the Kings of Norway."

A number of editions, and several translations, of the travels of Benjamin of Tudela, have appeared, but the only strictly correct one is that published by Mr. A. Asher, Berlin, 1840. The translation published in the present volume is a mere revision of the English version by Mr.

Asher, altered a little in the language, to make it more suitable for the popular English reader. My notes are chiefly abridged from the valuable volume of notes published by Mr. Asher in 1841.

The only edition of the English text of the book of Sir John Maundeville which correctly represents an original ma.n.u.script, is that published from the Cottonian Library in 1725, of which a reprint appeared in 1839, with an introduction, and some additional notes by Mr. Halliwell. The language of this edition has been modernized for the present volume. The travels of Bertrandon de la Brocquiere are preserved in a ma.n.u.script preserved in the Royal Library in Paris, from which they were published, with some abridgment and in modernized French, in the fifth volume of the Memoires of the Inst.i.tute of France, by Legrand d'Aussy. They were thence translated into English by Mr. Johns, and printed at his private press at Hafod, in 1807. This translation, which has become a rare book, has been here slightly revised, and a few ill.u.s.trative notes have been added. Maundrell's journey is reprinted from the original edition.

_Brompton, Aug. 28, 1848._