Cap. li.—Of the church of Ancona, and how in the kingdom of Angote iron and salt are current for money, and of a monastery which is in a cave.
On the following Wednesday we travelled (not a long way), and began to descend through a large and beautiful valley and lowland, where there were large fields of millet and beans. This vale is named the country of Ancona. At the head of this vale is a very noble church named St. Mary of Ancona (as they say), of great revenues. This church has many canons, and an Alicanate over them. Besides these canons it has many priests and friars. All the large churches here and further on are named King’s churches, all have canons, whom they call Debeteras, and in all an Alicanate, who is like a prior. This church has two small bells, badly made, and they are low down near the ground, and as yet we had not seen any others in all the country that we had gone through. We remained in this town till Thursday, because there is then a great market, which they call gabeja.[86] In this country, and in all the kingdom of Angote, iron is current as money. It is made like a shovel, and this shape is of no advantage for anything, except for making something else with it. Of these pieces of iron, ten, eleven, and sometimes twelve, are worth a drachm, which in our Portugal, or in India, would be worth a cruzado (as has been said). Salt also is current as money, because it is current in all the country: here six or seven blocks of salt are worth one piece of iron. From here there lies almost opposite to the westward, a large country named Abrigima: it is a country of very high mountains, and very cold. On the top of this mountain there is much matting grass,[87] and they say that it is very good. I brought some of it to the Genoese who were with us, and they said that they had never seen so good, and that it was better than that of Alicante. The provisions of these mountains are all barley in the low ground, and wheat in the valleys, the best that can be named among many other good wheats. The flocks, both cows, sheep, and goats, are very small, as in the country of Maia, between Douro and Minho, in Portugal. They call this country Abime raz, it is under Angote raz, which is the kingdom of Angote. This country of Abrigima is six days’ journey in length, and three in breadth. They say that after the country of Aquaxumo became christian with its neighbourhood, this country followed next after it. In this country the Kings had their tribunal, as the Queens had in Aquaxumo. Whilst this country is so sterile, and at first sight sad, there are in it the edifices which I saw. First, in a very high mountain, there is a very great cave, and within it is a handsome monastery, house of Our Lady, named Iconoamelaca,[88] which means: God gives it plenty; and the spot of land is named Acate. The house is not so large, as is its elegance. It has not got large revenues, yet it has a great number of friars and nuns. The friars have their dwelling above the cavern, entirely enclosed, and they go down to the monastery by a single path. The nuns have their dwelling below the cavern, they are not enclosed, they live upon the slope of the mountain. All these friars and nuns dig and prune in this country, and they sow wheat and barley, which they eat, for the monastery gives them little. The affection which they bear to this country, and to the monastery, makes them dwell there. This monastery is inside this cavern, and well built in a cross, well contained in the cave, so that they go freely with their procession round the building. In front of the door of this house there is a wall ten or twelve fathoms long, and as high as the edge of the cave, and between the wall and door of the monastery, for there are no churches within the enclosure of the cave, there is a space of five fathoms, here the nuns stand to hear the offices, and here they receive the communion. This station of the nuns lies to the south, because the church lies east and west, and the station is on the side of the epistle.[89] Above this cave, descending from the mountain, a river runs during the whole year, and the water falls on the right hand of this monastery, near the place where the nuns are, much beyond the wall which shelters them. The friars, even if they were much more numerous than they are, would find room in the cave around the church, although they do not enter it. The monastery, or body of the church, has three doors, that is, one principal, and two side doors, as though it were in the open air, and one is wide. And because I say that it is in the form of a cross, it is in this manner, namely, of the form and size of a monastery of San Frutuoso, which is close to the city of Braga, in the kingdom of Portugal.
Cap. lii.—Of a church of canons who are in another cave in this same lordship, in which lie a Prester John and a Patriarch of Alexandria.
This monastery before mentioned possesses, at two days’ journey to the west, a large and rich church in another cave; according to my judgment three large ships with their masts would find room in this cave. The entrance to it is not larger than to allow two carts with their side rails[90] to enter. Above this cave the mountain continues to rise for quite two leagues. I walked over them, and was near dying in them from the great ascent, and with the great cold there was. God protected me. And I was fastened to a cord, and a strong slave to pull it, who assisted me to ascend, and another behind who drove the mules, because I did not send them in front for fear of their falling upon me. We started before morning, and at midday we had not finished ascending the ground. This church which is in this cave is very large, like a cathedral, with its large naves, very well wrought, and well vaulted: it has three very rich chapels, and well adorned altars. The entrance of this cave is to the east, and the backs of the chapels are that way, and if one goes at the hour of tierce[91] there is no seeing in the church, all the offices are done with lamps. There are in this church (as they say) two hundred canons or debeteras, according to their language; I saw an infinite number, they have not got friars; they have an alicanate, a very noble prior; he is over all of them, as has been said before. They say that it has much revenue. These canons are like well-to-do and honourable men. This church is named Imbra Christus, which means the path of Christ. Entering this cave a man faces the chapels, and on the right hand when one enters are two painted chambers, which belonged to a King who lived in this cave, and who ordered this church to be built. On the epistle side are three honoured sepulchres, and as yet we had not seen others such in Ethiopia. This principally is high, and has five steps all around it. The tombs are in this manner. This tomb is covered with a large cloth of brocade, and velvet of Mekkah, one cloth of one stuff, and another of the other, which on both sides reach the ground. It was covered over, because it was the day of its great festival. They say that this tomb belongs to the King who lived here, whose name was Abraham. And the other two sepulchres are of the same fashion, except that one of them has four steps, and the other three: and all are in the middle of the cave. They say that the largest of these two belongs to a Patriarch of Alexandria, who came to see this King, having heard of his sanctity, and he died here. The smallest and the lowest belongs they say to a daughter of this King. They also say that this King was a mass priest for forty years, and that after he withdrew himself he said mass in this church each day: and this is written in a large and ancient book, which I saw with my eyes and had in my hands, quite like a chronicle or life of this King, and they went over part of it with me during two days that I was there at leisure. Among other miracles which they related of this King, and which they read to me in this book, is that when he wished to celebrate the angels administered to him what was requisite, that is, bread and wine, and this was in those forty years that he was in retreat. In the beginning of this book this King is painted with the state of a priest before the altar, and from a window in the same painting there comes out a hand with a roll and a little pitcher of wine, as though it brought bread and wine; and so it is painted in the principal chapel. (I say that I heard and saw it read in the book.) And besides that the canons told me that the stone of which this church was built had come from Jerusalem, and that it is like the stone of Jerusalem, which is dark and of a fine grain. And going on the mountain above, where my slave led me or assisted me, at the top of the mountain I found an ancient quarry, with great excavations and many pieces of stone, and very large stones with ancient wedges.[92] I looked at these stones with great care, and this stone is of the same colour and grain as that of the church, because I broke off some pieces of it, and examined it well, and knew that it was the same stone, and that the stone for the church had been brought from here, and had not come from Jerusalem as they had told me. It is also written in the said book that during the whole life of this King he had not taken dues from his vassals, and if anyone brought them to him, that he ordered them to be distributed among the poor; and his maintenance was from the great tillage which he used to order to be made. It is also written that to this King it was revealed that there ought not to be any relations of the King in his dominions, that all of them should be shut up, except only the eldest son, the heir, as will be related further on. I saw this church the day of its feast, in order to see that which I had heard of it. There came to it that day fully twenty persons, and all as many as come to it in pilgrimage have to receive the communion. This feast was on a Sunday, and they said mass very quickly, and then they commenced giving the communion at all the three doors of the church, and they finished after nightfall. This I saw because I was at the beginning, and I went away to dinner, and I returned and remained until they finished with torches.
Cap. liii.—Of the great church edifices that there are in the country of Abuxima, which King Lalibela built, and of his tomb in the church of Golgotha.
At a day’s journey from this church of Imbra Christo are edifices, the like of which and so many, cannot, as it appears to me, be found in the world, and they are churches entirely excavated in the rock, very well hewn. The names of these churches are these: Emanuel, St. Saviour, St. Mary, Holy Cross, St. George, Golgotha, Bethlehem, Marcoreos, the Martyrs. The principal one is Lalibela. This Lalibela, they say, was a King in this same country for eighty years, and he was King before the one before mentioned who was named Abraham. This King ordered these edifices to be made. He does not lie in the church which bears his name, he lies in the church of Golgotha, which is the church of the fewest buildings here. It is in this manner: all excavated in the stone itself, a hundred and twenty spans in length, and seventy-two spans in width. The ceiling of this church rests on five supports, two on each side, and one in the centre, like fives of dice, and the ceiling or roof is all flat like the floor of the church, the sides also are worked in a fine fashion, also the windows, and the doors with all the tracery, which could be told, so that neither a jeweller in silver, nor a worker of wax in wax, could do more work. The tomb of this King is in the same manner as that of Santiago of Galicia, at Compostella, and it is in this manner: the gallery which goes round the church is like a cloister, and lower than the body of the church, and one goes down from the church to this gallery; there are three windows on each side, that is to say, at that height which the church is higher than the gallery, and as much as the body of the church extends, so much is excavated below, and to as much depth as there is height above the floor of the church. And if one looks through each of these windows which is opposite the sun, one sees the tomb at the right of the high altar. In the centre of the body of the church is the sign of a door like a trap door, it is covered up with a large stone, like an altar stone, fitting very exactly in that door. They say that this is the entrance to the lower chamber, and that no one enters there, nor does it appear that that stone or door can be raised. This stone has a hole in the centre which pierces it through, its size is three palms.[93] All the pilgrims put their hands into this stone (which hardly find room), and say that many miracles are done here. On the left hand side, when one goes from the principal door before the principal chapel, there is a tomb cut in the same rock as the church, which they say is made after the manner of the sepulchre of Christ in Jerusalem. So they hold it in honour and veneration and reverence, as becomes the memory to which it belongs. In the other part of the church are two great images carved in the wall itself, which remain in a manner separated from it. They showed me these things as though I should be amazed at seeing them. One of the images is of St. Peter, the other of St. John: they give them great reverence. This church also possesses a separate chapel, almost a church; this has naves on six supports, that is, three on each side. This is very well constructed, with much elegance: the middle nave is raised and arched, its windows and doorways are well wrought, that is, the principal door, and one side door, for the other gives entrance to the principal church. This chapel is as broad as it is long, that is, fifty-two spans broad, and as many in length. It has another chapel, very high and small, like a pinnacle,[94] with many windows in the same height: these also have as much width as length, that is, twelve spans. This church and its chapels have their altars and canopies, with their supports, made of the rock itself, it also has a very great circuit cut out of the rock. The circuit is on the same level as the church itself, and is all square: all its walls are pierced with holes the size of the mouth of a barrel. All these holes are stopped up with small stones, and they say that they are tombs, and such they appear to be, because some have been stopped up since a long time, others recently. The entrance of this circuit is below the rock, at a great depth and measure of thirteen spans, all artificially excavated, or worked with the pickaxe, for here there is no digging, because the stone is hard, and for great walls like the Porto in Portugal.