(431) For Antoninus Martyr, see Tobler's edition of his work in the
Itinera, vol. i, p. 100, Geneva, 1877. For the Targum of Jerusalem, see
citation in Quaresmius, Terrae Sanctae Elucidation, Peregrinatio vi,
cap. xiv; new Venice edition. For Arculf, see Tobler. For Bede, see his
De Locis Sanctis in Tobler's Itinera, vol. i, p. 228. For an admirable
statement of the mediaeval theological view of scientific research,
see Eicken, Geschichte der mittelalterlichen Weltanschauung, Stuttgart,
1887, chap. vi.
In the tenth century new force is given to it by the pious Moslem Mukadassi. Speaking of the town of Segor, near the salt region, he says that the proper translation of its name is "Hell"; and of the lake he says, "Its waters are hot, even as though the place stood over hell-fire."
In the crusading period, immediately following, all the legends burst forth more brilliantly than ever.
The first of these new travellers who makes careful statements is Fulk of Chartres, who in 1100 accompanied King Baldwin to the Dead Sea and saw many wonders; but, though he visited the salt region at Usdum, he makes no mention of the salt pillar: evidently he had fallen on evil times; the older statues had probably been washed away, and no new one had happened to be washed out of the rocks just at that period.
But his misfortune was more than made up by the triumphant experience of a far more famous traveller, half a century later—Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela.
Rabbi Benjamin finds new evidences of miracle in the Dead Sea, and develops to a still higher point the legend of the salt statue of Lot's wife, enriching the world with the statement that it was steadily and miraculously rene wed; that, though the cattle of the region licked its surface, it never grew smaller. Again a thrill of joy went through the monasteries and pulpits of Christendom at this increasing "evidence of the truth of Scripture."
Toward the end of the thirteenth century there appeared in Palestine a traveller superior to most before or since—Count Burchard, monk of Mount Sion. He had the advantage of knowing something of Arabic, and his writings show him to have been observant and thoughtful. No statue of Lot's wife appears to have been washed clean of the salt rock at his visit, but he takes it for granted that the Dead Sea is "the mouth of hell," and that the vapour rising from it is the smoke from Satan's furnaces.
These ideas seem to have become part of the common stock, for Ernoul, who travelled to the Dead Sea during the same century, always speaks of it as the "Sea of Devils."
Near the beginning of the fourteenth century appeared the book of far wider influence which bears the name of Sir John Mandeville, and in the various editions of it myths and legends of the Dead Sea and of the pillar of salt burst forth into wonderful luxuriance.
This book tells us that masses of fiery matter are every day thrown up from the water "as large as a horse"; that, though it contains no living thing, it has been shown that men thrown into it can not die; and, finally, as if to prove the worthlessness of devout testimony to the miraculous, he says: "And whoever throws a piece of iron therein, it floats; and whoever throws a feather therein, it sinks to the bottom; and, because that is contrary to nature, I was not willing to believe it until I saw it."