Chapter I.
TO TEACH YOU THE WAY OUT OF ENGLAND TO CONSTANTINOPLE.
In the name of God, glorious and Almighty. He that will pass over the sea to go to the city of Jerusalem may go many ways, both by sea and land, according to the country that he cometh from: many ways come to one end. But you must not expect that I will tell you all the towns, and cities, and castles, that men shall go by; for then should I make too long a tale: but only some countries and the principal places that men shall go through to go the right way. First, if a man come from the west side of the world, as England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, or Norway, he may, if he will, go through Almaine (Germany) and through the kingdom of Hungary, which borders on the land of Polaine (Poland), and to the land of Pannonia, and so to Silesia. And the king of Hungary is a great and mighty lord, and possesses great lordships and much land. For he holds the kingdom of Hungary, Sclavonia, and a great part of Comania and Bulgaria, which men call the land of Bougres, and the realm of Russia a great part, whereof he hath made a duchy, that extendeth unto the land of Nyflan, and borders on Prussia. And we go through the land of this lord, through a city that is called Cypron, and by the castle of Neaseborough, and by the evil town, which is situated towards the end of Hungary. And there men pass the river Danube, which is a very great river, and it goeth into Almaine, under the hills of Lombardy; and it receives forty other rivers, and runs through Hungary and through Greece and through Thrace, and entereth into the sea, towards the east, so roughly and so sharply, that the water of the sea is fresh and keeps its sweetness twenty miles from shore.
And after, men go to Belgrave, and enter the land of Bougres; and there men pass a bridge of stone, which is upon the river Marrok. And men pass through the land of Pyncemartz, and come to Greece to the city of Nye, and to the city of Fynepape, and after to the city of Adrianople, and then to Constantinople, which was formerly called Byzantium, where the emperor of Greece usually dwells. And there is the fairest and noblest church in the world, that of St. Sophia. And before the church is the image of the emperor Justinian, covered with gold, and he sits crowned upon a horse; and he formerly held a round apple of gold in his hand, but it is fallen down; and they say there, that it is a token that the emperor hath lost a great part of his lands and lordships. For he was emperor of Romania and of Greece, of all Asia the Less, and of the land of Syria, of the land of Judea, in which is Jerusalem, and of the land of Egypt, of Persia, and of Arabia; but he hath lost all but Greece; and men would many times restore the apple to the hand of the image, but it will not hold it. This apple betokens the lordship which he had over all the world, which is round; and the other hand he lifts up towards the east, in token to menace the misdoers. This image stands upon a pillar of marble at Constantinople.