AND in this countrey & in many other landes over the sea, it is a maner when they have warre and cities or castels beseged so strongly that they may send no messages to any lordes for socour then they write their letters & binde them about the neckes of doves and let them flie their wayes, bicause the dove is of that nature that he will returne againe to the place where he is brought up, and thus they do commonly in that countrey. And ye shal wete that among the Sarasins in many places dwel christen men under tribute and they are of divers maners, and divers maners of monkes, and they are all christened and have divers lawes, but they all beleve well in our Lord God, the father, the sonne, & in the Holy ghost, but yet they fayle in the articles of our faith, and they are called Jacobyns. For sainct James converted theym to the fayth, and sainct John baptised them, and they say that men shall onely shryve[1] them unto God, & not unto man for they saye that God bad not man shryve him unto another man. And therefore saith David in the Psalter in this maner of wise, Confitebor tibi, domine in toto Corde meo, &c. That is to saye, Lord I shall shrive me unto thee in all my hart. And in another place he saith thus, Delictum meum tibi cognitum feci. That is to saye, My trespasse I have made knowne unto thee. And in another place, Deus meus es tu & confitebor tibi. That is to saye, Thou art my god and I shall be shriven to thee. And in another place Quoniam cogitatio hominis confitebitur tibi, &c. That is to say, The thought of man shal be shriven to thee, and they knowe well the Bible and Psalter but they say it not in latin, but in their owne language, and they saye that David and other prophetes have sayde it. But Sainct Austyn and Saynct Gregory say, Qui scelera sua cogitat, & conversus fecerit, veniam sibi credat, That is to say, Who so knowith his syn and turneth, he may beleve to have forgivenesse. And Sainct Gregory sayth thus, Dominus potius mentem, quam verbum considerat, That is to saye, Our Lord taketh more kepe[2] to thought, than to worde, and Sainct Hilarius sayth, Longorum temporum crimina, ictu oculi pereunt, si cordis nata fuerit compunctio, That is to say, Synnes that are done of olde tyme perysh in twinkling of an eye, if despising of them be born in a mans heart. And therefore say they, men shal shrive them onely to God, by these authorities, & this (it) was the Apostles, & popes that came sithen haue ordeyned, that men shall shrive them to priestes & men as they are, & the cause is this, for they saye that a man that hath a sicknesse, men may giue him no good medecines but they know yt kinde of the sicknesse, also they say a man may give no covenable[3] penaunce but if he know ye sin. For there is a maner of synne that is grevouser to one man than it is to another, and therefore it is nedefull that a man should know and understande the kinde of sinne. And there be also other men that men call Surryens and they hold halfe our faith, and halfe the faith of the Grekes and they have longe berdes as the Grekes have.
And there ben[4] other that men call Georgiens, whome sainct George converted, and they doe more worship to halowes[5] of heaven than other doe, and they haue their crownes shaven, the clerkes haue rounde crowns, and the lewde[6] have crownes square, & they holde the Grekes lawe. And there be other that men call christen men of gyrding,[7] for as much as they were gyrdels underneth, some other men call Nestoryens, some Aryens, some Nubyens, some Gregours, and some Indiens that are of Prester Johns lande, and euery one of those haue some artycles of our belefe. But eche of them varye from other, and of their varyaunce it were to muche to declare.[8]
[1:] Confess.
[2:] Heed.
[3:] Convenient.
[4:] Be.
[5:] Saints.
[6:] Common people.
[7:] This arose from a curious ordinance in a.d. 856 of the Khalif Motawakkel, who ordered both Jews & Christians to wear leather girdles; hence those Christians who lived in Syria were called "Christians of the girdle."
[8:] Tell.
CAP. XL.
For to turne on this syde of Galyle.
NOW sythen I haue tolde you of many maners of men, that dwell in the countreys before said, now will I tourne againe to my waye for to tourne uppon this side. Now he that will tourne from the lande of Galyle, that I spake of, to come on this syde, he shall go through Damas that is a fayre citie & full of good marchaundises, and it is three Journeys from the sea and five journeis from Hierusalem, but they cary marchaundises upon camels, mules, horses and dromedaries and other maner of beastes. This citie of Damas founded Helyzeus, that was Abrahams servaunte before Ysaac was borne, and he thought to haue bene Abrahams heyre and therefore he named that citie Damas. And in that place slew Cayne his brother Abel, and besyde Damas is ye mount of Syry, and in yt Citie is many a Phisicion & yt holy man. S. Paule was a phisicion to saue mens bodys before yt he was Converted, and after, he was a phisicyon of soules. And from Damas men come by a place called our Lady of Sardmarch,[1] that is fiue myle from Damas & it is on a roch & there is a fayre churche and there dwell Monkes & Nunnes, crysten, in the church, behynde the high auter is a table of tree,[2] on the whiche table the ymage of our lady was depainted that many tymes was turned into fleshe, but the ymage is now sene but a lyttle, but evermore through grace of God, the table droppeth oyle, as it were an Olyfe, & there is a vessell of marble under the table to receive the oyle, thereof they giue to Pylgrimes, for it maketh whole many sicknesses, and he that kepeth it clenely a year, after a yeare, it turneth to fleshe and bloud. Betwene the citie of Darke and the citie of Raphane is a ryver that men call Sabatory, for on the Saterday it runneth fast, and all the weeke else it standeth styll and runneth not or little. And there is another ryver that in the night freseth fast and upon the day no frost is seene. And so men go by a citie that men call Berugh,[3] and there men go into the sea that will go into Cipres and they aryve at a porte of Sur or of Thyrry[4] & then men go to Cipres, or else men go or may goe from the porte of Thyry ryght, and come not to Cypres and arryve at some haven of Grece & there come men into those countreys by ways that I haue spoken of before.
