On Tuesday we were all summoned, that is to say, the ambassador and those who were with him; we went and remained before the first gate or entrance a good three hours, it was very cold and quite night. We entered through the enclosures as before on two occasions that we entered them. There were many more people assembled than on any of the other times, and many with arms, and more lighted candles before the doors; and they did not detain us there long, but soon bade us enter with the ambassador, nine Portuguese, beyond the curtains. Beyond these curtains we found others of still richer texture, and they bade us pass these also. Having passed these last we found a large and rich dais of very splendid carpets. In front of this dais were other curtains of much greater splendour, and whilst we were stopping before them they opened them in two parts, for they were drawn together, and there we saw Prester John sitting on a platform of six steps very richly adorned. He had on his head a high crown of gold and silver, that is to say, one piece of gold and another of silver placed vertically, and a silver cross in his hand; there was a piece of blue tafetan before his face which covered his mouth and beard, and from time to time they lowered it and the whole of his face appeared, and again they raised it. At his right hand he had a page with a flat silver cross in his hand, with figures pierced in it with a graving tool: from where we stood it was not possible to make out these figures on the cross, but I saw it later, and saw the figures. The Prester was dressed in a rich robe of brocade, and silk shirt of wide sleeves which looked like a pelisse. From his knees downwards he had a rich cloth well spread out like a bishop’s apron, and he was sitting as they paint God the Father on the wall. Besides the page with the cross, there stood on each side of him another, each with a drawn sword in his hand. In age, complexion, and stature, he is a young man, not very dark. His complexion might be chestnut or bay,[166] not very dark in colour, he is an elegant man of middling stature, they said that he was twenty-three years of age, and he looks like that, his face is round, the eyes large, the nose high in the middle, and his beard is beginning to grow. In his presence and state he fully looks like the great lord that he is. We were about the space of two lances distant from him. Messages came and went all through the Cabeata. On each side of the platform were four pages richly dressed, each with lighted candles in their hands. When the questions and answers were ended, the ambassador gave to the Cabeata the letters and instructions of the captain-major put into their language and characters; and he gave them to the Prester, who read them very speedily, and said as he read them: If these letters are from the captain-major, how do they speak for the King of Portugal? The ambassador gave him for answer: How could the captain-major write without speaking for the King his sovereign, whose captain-major he was in the Indies. Here the questions ceased, and he again said, that, besides giving many thanks to God for this favour which had been granted to him in seeing those whom his predecessors had not seen, neither he had imagined that he should see, his wishes were that he should rejoice if the King of Portugal would order forts to be built in Masua and Suaquem, because he was afraid that the Turks our adversaries would make themselves strong in the said places; for if such should be the case they would rout him, and us Portuguese, and that for those said places he would give all the stores and men and provisions that might be necessary: but it appeared to him that it would be better to take Zeila, because it was better supplied with provisions, and by taking that city everything would be secure, because supplies went thence to Aden, and to Jiddah and Mekkah and all Arabia, as far as Tor and Cairo. There was a reply to this, saying that there was no obstacle[167] to taking Zeila nor all the other towns, because where the power of the King of Portugal reached, the towns became unpeopled, and they did not wait even for the shadow of the ships; and also that Zeila was outside of the strait, and Masua and Suaquem were within the strait; and when a fortress was constructed in each of these towns, from thence they might conquer Jiddah and Mekkah, and all the other places as far as Cairo, and the navigation would be defended from the Rumys and Turks who are in Zebid. This seemed good to the Prester, and he again said that he would give the provisions and all that was necessary for this expenditure and fleet. The ambassador said that His Highness should name where and through whom they should have these provisions. The Prester replied that he would give orders to those who were to provide them, and should afterwards remain as captain in the fortress wherever it was built. The ambassador said that a fortress could not remain without a captain, and that if His Highness thought it would be for his service, that he would ask the captain-major to leave him here to be captain. And so we took leave with good words, and we went away contented, and chiefly with the sight of him.
Cap. lxxxiii.—How I was summoned, and of the questions which they put to me respecting the lives of St. Jerome, St. Dominick, and St. Francis.
On the following day, the 20th of November, I was summoned by the Prester, and he asked me many questions, among which was that I should tell him what were the lives led by St. Jerome, St. Dominick, and St. Francis, and what sort of men they were, and what country they were natives of; because, in the letter of the captain-major, it was mentioned that the King of Portugal had established houses of these Saints in the places which he had taken; that is to say, in Manicongo, in Benim, and in the Indies. I replied to him, but not consecutively, that St. Jerome had been Patriarch of Jerusalem and a native of Greece or Slavonia; that St. Dominic was a native of Spain, of the bishopric of Osma; and St. Francis a native of Italy; and I gave a long account of their orders, as I knew of them, and also referring to the book in which I had their lives; and I spoke much to him of the great houses of these blessed Saints which there are in Frankland; and that from them had proceeded many other saints on account of the holy lives they led. He then told me through the interpreter to show him the lives of these saints, since I said that I had them. Then they put forward another question, which they had already asked me before, namely, since we were Christians and they also, how was it that there was difference between them and us who doubted of the Churches of Antioch and Constantinople and that of Rome; and that each followed its business like Rome and Antioch, and that Antioch had anciently been the head until the Council of Pope Leon, at which were three hundred and eighteen bishops? I replied that I had already before told His Highness that there was no doubt that Antioch in Greece had been the head, and that St. Peter had been for five years bishop in it, and that later for twenty-five years he had been bishop in Rome, and this would prove to be the truth by the saying of Christ which said: “Upon thee, Peter, will I found my Church”; and that St. Peter and St. Paul had suffered in Rome, and their bodies lie there, where the true Church is. To this, there was no further reply. Then they came to another matter, namely, whether we did all that the Pope commanded. I told them we did, and that so we were obliged to do by the article of our own holy faith in which we confess that we believe in the Holy Mother the Church, which is the Catholic Faith: and the Pope is the Church, and he whom he binds shall be bound, and he whom he looses shall be loosed, and not only the living, but also the dead, from the pains of Purgatory. Upon this, they answered me: That if the Pope ordered anything which the Apostles had not written, that they would break it; and if their abima were to order it, that they would burn it, that is, the order. I answered them, that we observed whatever the Pope ordered, because he is the head of the Church, and as his title is Holy Father, so he orders nothing except holy things taken from the Books of the Prophets, from which the Apostles took the same, and from the text of the gospels which the four evangelists wrote; and also from those books of the Holy Mother Church, from which the holy doctors take the things which are necessary, and which lie dispersed in them, and which for simple persons are difficult to understand, if the Holy Father, with his learned men, were not to declare and teach them, because he and his learned men are illuminated by the Holy Spirit. As also the Holy Father, Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops, Patriarchs, and other rectors of the Church are preachers and proclaimers of their holy faith, of whom the country of the Prester was greatly wanting, for if there were any learned men in his country, they are so for themselves only, and not in order to proclaim, declare, and teach others, and they should know that everything was not declared nor written in the books, but on many heads, only by figures and parables. And so wrote St. John, in the twentieth chapter of his gospel, that Jesus Christ did many signs and miracles in the presence of his disciples which are not written in the books. Still, upon this they told me that we were not bound to observe what the Pope ordered, but only the Council of Pope Leon, which was all of the Apostles. I answered them, that I knew nothing else of the Council of Pope Leon, except what I had already told them; that is, that in it it was established and ordained that Our Lady should be called Mother of God, and also that they made the great creed: and that by the Apostles we are obliged to hold and believe all the things belonging to the Church of Rome; and they taught us to believe in the Holy Mother Church, which is the Catholic Faith, which is not more than one Church, that is, the Roman, in which St. Peter is the head, and his successors in his chair succeed him in the power which Christ gave him when he said to him: “I give thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven.” And, although in other times Constantinople was a head, it changed to Rome because there was the truth. Then came the answer that my reasoning seemed to him to be good. They came again with another question, asking why there were not in Ethiopia nor in their country and lordships as many saints and sainted women as in Italy, and that in Germany and in Greece there were many saints? I replied, that it appeared to me that in those parts there had ruled many Emperors and their lieutenants who were Pagans and cruel men, and that the Christians who had been converted to the faith of Jesus Christ were so constant in the faith, that they preferred to die for Christ rather than worship idols and follow a bad sect; and on that account it seemed to me that there were many martyrs in those parts, and so many confessors and virgins, because, seeing the constancy and fortitude of the martyrs, and hearing the many and great preachings which, since the ascension of Christ until now, there have always been in Frankland, they would always follow the true faith, and thus there were there many saints, men and women. Upon this came an answer, that what I had said was true, and that he rejoiced to hear it so clearly put; but that I should send him word if I knew how long it was since this country of Ethiopia belonged to Christians and had been converted to the faith of Jesus Christ. I sent to tell him that I did not know, but it seemed to me that it would not be a long time after the death of Christ, because this country was converted by the eunuch of Queen Candace, who was baptised and instructed in the faith by the Apostle St. Philip; and that the Apostle St. Matthew had also arrived in these parts, but that I did not know whether this country had again belonged to Gentiles or to other nations. The answer came, that only the country of Tigray, which is in Ethiopia, had been converted by this eunuch, and the rest had been won and converted by arms, as he did every day; and the first conversion of Queen Candace was ten years after the death of Christ, and since that time until now Ethiopia had always been ruled and governed by Christians, and therefore there had not been martyrs here, neither had it been necessary, and that many men and women in their kingdom led holy lives and went to Jerusalem and died saints; and he wished me to show him next day the lives of St. Jerome, St. Francis, and St. Dominic, and Quirici, whom they call Quercos, and the life of Pope Leon.
Cap. lxxxiv.—How the lives of the said Saints were taken to him, and how he had them translated into his language, and of the satisfaction they felt at our mass, and how Prester John sent for us and clothed us.
On the following day, Thursday, the 21st of the said month, Prester John sent for my Flos Sanctorum, telling me to send it with the lives of the before-named saints marked. I sent him the book with the lives of those saints marked, and they soon sent back the book, and with it came two friars who said that the Prester ordered them to write the name of each saint in their writing over each figure, and also the pictures of the Passion of Christ: and as to the pictures of the Passion, they were to put where and how each subject had happened, and as to the lives of the saints they put their names. Having taken away the book, it was again sent back with the friars, and a message that they were to put from what country each saint was, and where he suffered, and what life each had led; and this for all the saints in the Flos Sanctorum. We did what he commanded with respect to those saints, and found out where they lived, and were born, and where they died, and other particulars. On the following Friday, the said friars came with the book to extract the lives of the before-mentioned saints. We spent several days in drawing them up, as they were long, and it was a very laborious task to translate our language into theirs. Besides these lives, we compared some lives of other saints which they possessed with those of our Flos Sanctorum; they were those of St. Sebastian, St. Antony, and St. Baralam;[168] of this St. Baralam they had the life, but not his feast day, and they inquired of me very earnestly for his day; I found myself in sore straits, because I did not find it in any calendar, and I came upon it later in the calendar of an almanack, and when I told them the day, they at once ordered it to be put down in their books, and the day to be observed. I did not venture to go there without taking the calendar book with me, because they used to ask for the day of some saint, and wanted me to tell it to them at once off hand.
On Sunday, St. Catharine’s day,[169] Prester John sent some canons and priests of the principal clergy of his house to hear our Mass, which we used to sing on Saturdays, Sundays, and feast-days. They were there from the beginning to the end. The interpreter told us that these men said that at this office they had heard a Mass not of men but of angels; and at all that we said, there was present a Venetian painter, who said that his name was Nicolas Brancaliam, a resident in this country of more than forty years (and he knew the language of the country well); he was a very honourable person, and a great gentleman, although a painter. He was like the herald[170] of these canons and priests, and told them what was being done in the Mass, such as the “Kyrios”, the “Gloria”, the “Dominus vobiscum”, which meant “calamelos”, which means “the Lord be with you”; and so of the epistle and gospel and all other things. This man was herald, and they said that he was a friar before he came to this country. These canons and priests spread the fame of this office of Mass throughout the district, and said they never expected to see such another, and they complained of nothing else except that one priest only said the Mass, and that the communion was not given to all that were there. I gave the answer which I have before related in another chapter; it seemed to me that they were satisfied with the answer, and from this time forward many more came to our Mass.
On this Sunday, the Prester sent a very good horse to the ambassador, at which some of our company murmured, as though it grieved them. Also on this Sunday, and at such hours that we were already asleep, the Prester sent to call us. We went and entered with the formalities of other occasions, and we arrived before the first curtains; there they gave us rich garments, and they bade the ambassador enter beyond the curtains, and there they gave him his dress: then they bade us all enter (for we were now dressed) before the presence of the Prester where he was upon the platform, with the state of the former time. And then many things took place, among which the first was, that the Franks might go away in peace, and the ambassador and his company, and that one Frank of those who were here at first, and who was named Nicolas Muça, should remain, and that he would write by him; and that he had to write with letters of gold, and that he could not write immediately, so that the ambassador should go on slowly at his own pace, and the Frank would carry the letters to him. The ambassador replied that he would not go away without an answer, because thus he could not give a good account of himself, and that he would wait as long as His Highness ordered, but withal he entreated His Highness to dismiss him in good time, so that he might meet with the fleet of the captain-major in Masua. The Prester answered with his own words, that he was pleased, and asked the ambassador whether he would remain at Masua as captain. The ambassador said that his wish was to go and see the King of Portugal his sovereign, but that in this he would do whatever His Highness commanded, because the King of Portugal and his captain-major would hold that to be for his service; and with that he sent us to our tents.