‘An impromptu entertainment by three minstrels.’
Five days’ march, through Mignano, Ceprano, Anagni, and a place called ‘Mulera,’ which I cannot identify, brought them to Rome. At Rome they spent Christmas. A doctor was called in to attend one of the grooms, and medicine was obtained for a horse, possibly without avail, as two horses were bought for thirty florins, from ‘the merchants of the Ricardi.’ On Sunday, the 28th, the journey was resumed, Isola and Sutri forming the first day’s march, Viterbo and Monte Fiascone the second. Acquapendente was reached on Tuesday, and here they spent 18d. on ‘a small box (cofinello) in which to carry eel pies.’ Passing San Quirico, Siena was reached on the 1st of January, their road after that leading through San Cossiano, Pistoia, and Buggione, to Lucca. From Lucca they struck across to the coast, through Avenza and Sarzana to Sestri, and so up by Rapallo and Recco to Genoa, which they reached on Sunday, January 11. At Genoa they found their companions, who had come round by sea. A house was hired from Pucino Roncini, the galley was unloaded and paid off, its cost from Trebizond to Genoa being £200, a sum more formidable in appearance than in reality, as the Genoese pound was only about 3s. 6d. of English money. Tamorace the Tartar was dismissed with the present of a silver cup, and there remained only the leopard to link them with the East.
At Genoa the series of accounts terminates, but the dispatch of a messenger to the Marquess of Saluzzo suggests that our travellers were going through his territory, by the same road that Henry of Bolingbroke, Earl of Derby and afterwards King of England, followed just a century later on his return from Venice and the East, taking with him, by a coincidence, a leopard. In that case they would have gone inland, past Novi, Asti, and Turin to Chambéry in Savoy, then northwards to Châlons, and by Beaune, Châtillon, and Nogent-sur-Saône to Paris. Thence they would probably have made for Wissant, and so across to Dover, reaching England about the beginning of September, 1293, or rather earlier, after two years of almost continual travelling. Of the wonderful things that they saw, and the yet more wonderful things that they heard—tales of monstrous men, uncanny beasts, and evil spirits—of their adventures, perils of shipwreck, and perils of robbers, no record has survived; but something of their slow journeying, the trying desert marches, the vexatious delays of contrary winds, pleasantly varied by the relaxation of a halt in some great city, we have managed to piece together.
Such exceptional voyages as those of Geoffrey of Langley to Tabriz or of Gonzalez de Clavijo to Samarcand are interesting for their rarity; but a value of another kind attaches to the embassy of Hugh de Vere to the Papal Court in 1298. It was a placid and uneventful journey, and would seem to have been not merely without adventures, but without incidents. Beyond the trifling worries attendant on pack saddles and harness that required constant repairs, the trifling interest derived from varying changes of diet, and the complication of accounts caused by the existence of an entirely fresh monetary standard in each state through which the travellers passed, there was little to record but the list of stages on the journey. As, however, the route followed was the main road to Rome, along which passed a constant stream of pilgrims, prompted by piety or a wish to see the world—priests seeking benefices for themselves or curses for their neighbours; penitents desiring absolution; appellants with their wallets stuffed with deeds, decrees, and legal precedents, and their appellees carrying the weightier argument of English gold—it is worth while following the embassy and noting the stopping-places. Most of these are identical with those used by Henry of Bolingbroke on his return from Venice almost a century later, and were, therefore, evidently the usual stages on this road.
Pilgrims.
Hugh de Vere and his suite, consisting of two knights, two chaplains, a clerk, ten esquires, and some thirty grooms and other attendants, assembled at Paris on Good Friday, April 4, 1298, and next day rode as far as Rozoy, contenting themselves on the journey, as it was a fast day, with fish and fruit. The next day being Easter Sunday they did not start until after dinner, but reached Provins, fifty miles south-east of Paris, in the evening. From Provins of the Roses the cavalcade passed by Pavillon down the valley of the Seine to Bar-sur-Seine, where, Lent being over, they feasted on meat and pies and flauns, a kind of mediæval pancake particularly popular at Easter-time, according to Haliwell. They soon entered Burgundy, and turning south through Montbard followed for some distance the route now taken by the Canal de Bourgogne with its innumerable locks, and after halting a night at ‘Flori’—which occurs in Bolingbroke’s account as ‘Floreyn,’ but would seem to have dwindled out of the maps if not out of existence—reached Beaune; and still doing an average of thirty miles a day came to Lyons, stopping at Tournus and Bellville on the way, on Monday, April 14. After following the valley of the Rhone a few miles farther south, they turned off eastwards near Vienne through St. Georges to Voiron and thence northwards, passing close to the Grande Chartreuse, across the borders of Savoy to Chambéry. So far the currency in use had been ‘neir Turneis,’ or black money of Tours, 14d. of ‘petit tournois’ being equivalent to one ‘gros tournois,’ the standard to which all other denominations are reduced in these accounts, a coin worth approximately 3d. sterling; but now and all the way through Savoy and Piedmont payments are entered in ‘Vieneys,’ of which seventeen went to the ‘gros tournois.’
Through the mountainous district of Savoy progress was markedly slower, the sixty miles from Chambéry to Susa taking six days. The road by which they travelled followed the valley of the Arc, as does the modern railway, past Montmélian, la Chambre, and St. Michel; but as the Mont Cenis tunnel had not then been completed the ambassador and his suite had to go farther east to Lansle Bourg, toiling up Mont Cenis to the hospice founded on that storm-swept road by the pious King Louis, first of his name, and then dropping down to Piedmont and the ancient town of Susa, where after the hardships of the day’s journey they regaled themselves with ‘tartes et flaunes.’ Whether it was the climbing or the flauns I do not know, but next day Sir Hugh’s palfreman was ill, and another servant had to be put in his place at Avigliano. On Friday, April 25, Turin was reached, and a stay was made here until the following Tuesday, a rest that must have been welcome after three weeks’ continuous travelling. Portmanteaux and bags were repaired, clothes washed, and bodies reinvigorated by a more varied choice of food than was possible while travelling; shoulders of mutton, pigeons, chickens, figs, grapes, and other fruit were bought, and the cook prepared ‘charlet,’ evidently an ancestress of the aristocratic Charlotte Russe rather than of her plebeian namesake Apple Charlotte, as the constituents were milk and eggs. The journey was resumed on Wednesday, April 30, the route lying eastwards through Chivasso and Moncalvo to an unidentifiable place, ‘Basseignanh,’ evidently just across the Po in Lombardy, as here the coinage becomes ‘emperials,’ of which it required twenty to make a ‘gros tournois.’ Lomello, Pavia, Piacenza, Borgo San Donnino (where for the first time we note a purchase of cheese, for which the district is still famous), Parma, Reggio, and Modena follow in uneventful succession, but instead of continuing along the same line to Bologna, as does the modern traveller, the embassy now turned sharply to the south-west to Sassuolo. In this more countrified district the rate of exchange fell, and the ‘gros tournois’ was only worth eighteen instead of twenty ‘emperials,’ but as a compensation the accountant notes under Frassinoro, the next station on the road through the picturesque valley of the Secchia, that the expenses of four days were small, thanks to the presents of ‘la Marcoys.’ I am not clear as to the identity of this Marquess; all this part of Italy was a mass of little lordships and semi-independent principalities, but for the most part their lords were Dukes. The Marquess of Carrara seems a reasonable suggestion—if I am right in thinking that there was such a person, and am not confusing him with the Marquess of Carabas, who, from his occurrence in the history of Puss in Boots, was presumably a noble of Catalonia. Lucca was reached on the eve of Ascension Day, and the feast itself was spent at Pistoia, where the coinage in use was ‘Pisans,’ the ‘gros tournois’ being worth 4s. 2d. of Pisan money. The same currency continued in use in Florence and Siena, after which ‘curteneys’ are introduced, the ‘gros tournois’ being worth 5s. of this money, which, however, was only in use for two days, during which halts were made at Acquapendente and Santa Cristina, a town on the shore of the Lake of Bolsena, which name commemorates that saint’s escape from martyrdom by drowning, thanks to the miraculous buoyancy of her millstone, on which she floated to shore as St. Piran floated on his stone to the delectable duchy of Cornwall. After this the accounts are kept at Viterbo in ‘paperins,’ 3s. 4d. of papal money being equivalent to the ‘gros tournois,’ changing next day, for the last time on the way out, to ‘provis,’ at 2s. 10d. Passing Sutri and Isola, Rome was reached on Whit Monday. Here they found Master Thomas of Southwark, who had been sent on ahead to hire lodgings and furniture, and here they spent six weeks.
