[586] “Le Saint Voyage de Jérusalem du Seigneur d’Anglure,” ed. Bonnardot and Longnon, 1878, p. 99.
[587] “The Itineraries of William Wey, Fellow of Eton College, to Jerusalem, A.D. 1458 and A.D. 1462, and to Saint James of Compostela, A.D. 1456.” London, 1857, Roxburghe Club, pp. 5, 6. In his first journey to Palestine, duly “consecratus ad modum peregrinorum,” Wey started from Venice with a band of 197 pilgrims embarked on two galleys. Born about 1407, a graduate of Oxford, Wey became after the last of his journeys an Augustinian monk at Edington, Wiltshire, and died there in 1476. He wrote his Itineraries “rogatus a devotis viris” (p. 56); the text in Latin, the “prevysyoun” for travellers in English.
[588] Pages 102–116. Such a map is exhibited in one of the glass cases of the Bodleian Library at Oxford. It is probable, but not quite sure, that this is really the map of William Wey, the one he calls “mappa mea” in his book. It has been reproduced in fac-simile: “Map of the Holy Land, illustrating the Itineraries of W. Wey, Roxburghe Club, 1867.” It is seven feet in length and sixteen and a half inches in breadth. See also: “De passagiis in Terram Sanctam,” edit. G. M. Thomas, Venice, 1879, folio, “Société de l’Orient Latin.” This work contains extracts from a “Chronologia magna,” compiled in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, with maps and plans, one especially of Jerusalem and adjoining places.
[589] P. 95.
[590] “A good preuysyoun,” “Itineraries,” p. 4.
[591] “A good preuysyoun,” “Itineraries,” pp. 5, 6.
[592] Ibid. The same scramble for asses is going on even now in Palestine and Egypt, and modern “Saracens” are careful to ingratiate themselves with the traveller by addressing to him a few words in the language of his supposed nationality; one such at the foot of the Pyramids some years ago, would keep repeating to us, as a sesame for our purses, these three magic words: “Bonaparte, quarante siècles.” We had not, however, to deplore the disappearance of any “knyves and other smal thynges.”
[593] William Wey and his companions pay to the “Saracen lords” fifteen ducats: “Et sic in Terra Sancta fuimus xiij diebus, pro quibus solvimus pro conductu nostro dominis Saracenis xv ducatus.” But there were two rival sultans at war with each other, each claiming the Holy Land; and just as the pilgrims were about to leave, the one of those potentates whom they had not paid got the upper hand, and they had to give fifty ducats to his new governor of Jerusalem. “Itineraries,” p. 99. The second Boucicaut going around the holy places for the second time within a few months in 1389, is made by the Saracens to pay again. Delaville le Roulx, “La France en Orient,” i. 165.
[594] Ogier VIII, lord of Anglure, part of whose castle on the Aube river still remains, died about 1402. One of his companions held the pen for the troop during the journey and wrote the account of it entitled, in the MS. at the National Library, Paris: “Cy après s’ensuit le contenu du saint voyage de Jherusalem et le chemin pour aller à Saincte Catherine du Mont Synay et ainsi à Saint Anthoine et Saint Pol ès loingtains desers de Egipte,” 1395; best ed. the above quoted one by Bonnardot and Longnon.
[595] “Voiage and Travaile of Sir John Maundeville,” ed. Halliwell, 1866, p. 52.