The date of Sæwulf's voyage has been fixed by his learned editor, M. D'Avezac, from internal evidence of the most satisfactory kind. Sæwulf makes two or three allusions to historical personages in the course of his adventures. Thus, on his arrival at Cephalonia, he informs us that Robert Guiscard died there. This celebrated warrior, the first duke of the Normans in Italy, the father of the celebrated crusader Bohemond, prince of Tarentum, was meditating the conquest of Greece, when he died, according to some poisoned, in July 1085[9]. Further on Sæwulf mentions two Christian princes, distinguished by their activity in the first crusade, as still living; Baldwin, king of Jerusalem, and Raymond, duke of Toulouse. The first was made king on the 25th of December, 1100, and the latter died on the 28th of February, 1105. Sæwulf mentions further, that when he returned from Syria Tortosa was in the possession of duke Raymond, while Acre still remained in the hands of the Saracens. The latter place was captured on the 12th of March, 1102, while Acre did not fall into the hands of the Christians till the 15th of May, 1104. Now he informs us further that he embarked at Joppa, on his return on the day of Pentecost, which day in the year 1104 fell on the 5th of June, and, as Acre had then been taken, this could not be the year; and we have only to choose between 1102 and 1103. To remove all doubt on the subject, M. D'Avezac points out an element of calculation contained in Sæwulf's text, which enables us to fix the exact date of his departure from Italy, after having brought it within so small a compass from the historical allusions. Sæwulf says that he set sail from Monopoli on Sunday, the feast of St. Mildred. St. Mildred's day is the 13th of July, and that day fell on a Sunday in the year 1102. It was, he says, an unlucky day—dies Ægyptiaca, and they fell in with a storm which drove them along the coast to Brindisi, whence, after a short stay to refit, they sailed again on an unlucky day. Now the ordinary formula to find the unlucky or Egyptiac days, composed by the medieval calculators, give us the 13th and 22nd of July, as falling under this character. It was, therefore, the 13th of July, 1102, when Sæwulf sailed from Monopoli, and the 22nd of the same month when he left Brindisi; and it was the day of Pentecost, 1103, when he embarked at Joppa, on his return. These dates will agree very well with the age of the Sæwulf mentioned by William of Malmesbury.
The events preceding, and connected with the crusades, had considerably modified the route followed by the pilgrims in their way to Jerusalem. They had previously gone by way of Egypt, because it was no doubt safer to pass in ships employed in commerce with the Saracens, or to go with Saracenic passports from the west, than to encounter the hostile feelings with which people were received who came into Syria from the neighbouring territory of the Greeks. But now they might proceed with greater security through the Christian states on the northern shores of the Mediterranean, either visiting Constantinople before they proceeded to Jerusalem, or, if their eagerness to see the holy city overcame all other considerations, sailing along the coast of Greece and through the islands of the Archipelago. The latter course was taken by Sæwulf; he sailed from Italy to the Ionian islands; proceeded overland to Negropont, where he embarked in another ship, and, after touching at several of the islands, proceeded along the coast of Asia Minor to Jaffa, whence he travelled by land to Jerusalem, reserving his visit to the metropolis of the Grecian empire for his return. The narrative appears to be truncated, which has deprived us of Sæwulf's observations of Constantinople.
Sæwulf's account of the disastrous storm which attended their arrival at Jaffa shows us what multitudes of pilgrims now crowded to the Holy Land. Among these were people of all classes, rich and poor, noble and ignoble, laymen equally with monks and clergy. Some went in humility and meekness to visit the scene of their salvation, while others, embarking with crews of desperate marauders, although they went to the Holy City with the same professions, proceeded as privateers, or rather as pirates, plundering and devastating on their way. Among this latter class the descendants of the sea-kings of the north appear to have been especially distinguished, and the Scandinavian sagas have preserved more than one narrative, half authentic and half romantic, of their adventures. It has been thought advisable to give, as a specimen of these, the story of Sigurd the Crusader, a northern prince, whose presence at the capture of Beyrout, in 1110, is mentioned by William of Tyre.
The land of Palestine was at this time beginning to attract, in an unusual degree, the attention of another class of travellers from western Europe—learned men of the Jewish nation—who were anxious to discover and to make known to their brethren the condition of the various synagogues in the East, after so many sanguinary revolutions, as well as to visit the burial-places of the eminent Hebrews of former days. Several of their relations, written in Hebrew, are still preserved in manuscript, and a few have been printed[10]. The earliest of these of any importance is that of Benjamin of Tudela. We have an "Itinerary of Palestine" made by Samuel bar Simson in 1210; a "Description of the Sacred Tombs" by a Jew of Paris named Jacob, in 1258; and several tracts of the same kind in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
Mr. Asher, to whom we owe the best edition of Benjamin of Tudela, has fixed the date of Benjamin's travels from his own narrative with great acuteness. It appears from different circumstances to which he alludes, that his visit to Rome must have taken place subsequent to 1159, that he was at Constantinople probably in December 1161, and that his account of Egypt, which almost concludes the work, must have been written prior to 1171[11]. "If we add to these dates," Mr. Asher observes, "that of his return, as given in the preface, we shall find that the narrative refers to a period of about fourteen years, viz. from 1159 or 1160, to 1173." To these dates pointed out by Mr. Asher, it may be added, that he appears to have been at Antioch immediately after the accession of Bohemond III. in 1163; and that he probably reached Sicily, on his way back, early in 1169. By comparing these dates with the general course of the narrative, I have endeavoured to arrange with tolerable accuracy the successive years of Benjamin's wanderings; the dates of which are given at the heads of the pages.
Rabbi Benjamin is the first European traveller whom we find taking a wider circuit in his travels than that which would have been restricted by the limits of Christian or Jewish pilgrimage. As Mr. Asher observes, he appears evidently to have been a merchant, and hence, though the object most at his heart seems to have been to note the number and condition of the Jews in the different countries he visited, he has preserved some valuable information relating to their trade and commerce at that period, and, in spite of some credulity, and an evident love of the marvellous, he describes what he saw with more good sense and accuracy than the Christian travellers of the same age. Benjamin, who was a Jew of Spain, began his travels from Saragossa, and proceeded through Italy and Greece to Constantinople, which city he describes at considerable length. He proceeded thence, by the Greek Islands, to Antioch, and thence through Syria, by Acre and Nablous, to Jerusalem. From Jerusalem he went to Damascus, and from thence to Bagdad, but his route here and elsewhere appears to have been far from direct, as we often trace him moving backwards and forwards, to obtain information, or visit districts that lay out of the ordinary road. The actual extent of his wanderings towards the East appears doubtful; but it is certain he remained at Bagdad and in Persia two or three years, and he returned by way of Arabia and Nubia to Egypt. From Egypt he returned to Sicily, and he then made a tour in Germany before his final return home. Mr. Asher observes that there is "one very peculiar feature" in this work, by which its contents are divided into what he saw, and what he heard. "In many towns, on the route from Saragossa to Bagdad, rabbi Benjamin mentions the names of the principal Jews, elders, and wardens of the congregations he met with. That a great number of the persons enumerated by rabbi Benjamin really were his contemporaries; and that the particulars he incidentally mentions of them are corroborated by other authorities, has been proved in the biographical notes furnished by Dr. Zunz. We therefore do not hesitate to assert that rabbi Benjamin visited all those towns of which he names the elders and principals, and that the first portion of his narrative comprises an account of what he saw. But with Gihiagin, the very first stage beyond Bagdad, all such notices cease, and except those of two princes and of two rabbis, we look in vain for any other names. So very remarkable a difference between this and the preceding part of the work leads us to assert that rabbi Benjamin's travels did not extend beyond Bagdad, and that he there wrote down the second portion of our work, consisting of what he heard. Bagdad, at his time the seat of the prince of the Captivity, must have attracted numerous Jewish pilgrims from all regions, and, beyond doubt, was the fittest place for gathering those notices of the Jews and of trade in different parts of the world, the collecting of which was the aim of rabbi Benjamin's labours." It may be observed, further, that the information he thus collected agrees in general with that furnished by the contemporary Arabian geographers.
The travels of rabbi Benjamin had little, if any, influence on the state of geographical science amongst the Christians of the west; but a variety of causes—the thirst for novelty in science excited by the educational movement of the twelfth century, scattered information, gleaned from an increased intercourse with the Arabs, and the adventurous spirit raised by a hundred years of crusades—were now combining to render them every day more eager for information relating to distant lands, and this spirit received a new impulse from the astonishment and terror excited by the incursions of the Tartars in the earlier half of the thirteenth century. Shrewd and intelligent men were sent out by the monarchs of the west, nominally as ambassadors, but really as spies, to ascertain who these dreaded invaders were, and whence they came, and to report on their strength and character. These envoys met at the court of the khan men of distant, and, to them, unknown countries, from whom they collected information relating to the central and eastern parts of Asia. Among the first of these envoys was John du Plan de Carpin, an Italian friar of the order of St. Francis, sent out by Pope Innocent IV., in the spring of 1245. He was followed immediately by Simon de St. Quentin, a Dominican monk, also sent by the pope; and a year or two later, in 1253, by William de Rubruk, another Franciscan, sent on an embassy to the Tartars by St. Louis. These, as well as other missionaries of the same century, have left behind them interesting narratives, several of which are preserved, and some of them are well known. Merchants, led by the hope of gain, followed in the steps of, and even preceded, the political or religious missionaries, and their objects being less restricted, they often penetrated into the remotest regions of Asia, where they sometimes settled, and rose to rank and wealth. One of these, an Italian named Marco Polo, on his return, after a long residence in Asia, in the middle of the thirteenth century, published the well known narrative, which conduced, more than any other work, to the development of geographical science, and which first gave the grand impulse to geographical research, that led to the more extensive and substantial knowledge which began to dawn in the following century.
From this time, although short descriptions of the Holy Land became more numerous than ever, travellers who published their personal narratives were seldom contented with the old limits of the subject, but they either visited themselves, or described from the information of others, some at least of the surrounding countries. This was carried at times almost to the extreme of affectation. A remarkable example is furnished to us in the book of Sir John Maundeville. This singular writer, more credulous than the most bigotted monk, appears to have visited the east with the double object of performing the pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre, and of seeking military service in foreign lands. Professedly a guide to pilgrims to Jerusalem, to which a large portion of the book is devoted, it contains, nevertheless, the description of nearly the whole of Asia, and of some parts of Africa and Europe, and extends to countries which its author visited and to many others which he certainly did not visit. From the rather equivocal light in which he exhibits himself, and the peculiar form of his work, it is impossible to trace the course of his travels, but he assures us that he set out from England in 1322, and that he returned home and compiled his book in 1356. It appears clear, from evidence furnished by the book itself, that Maundeville was in Egypt for some time previous to the year 1342[12], and a closer examination would probably fix the date of his presence in some other countries. But there can be no doubt that his book is partly a compilation, for we find him not only borrowing from ancient writers, like Solinus and Pliny, but it is quite evident that he made large use of the previous narratives of Marco Polo and of the Franciscan Oderic, who had travelled over a great part of Asia in the earlier years of the fourteenth century, and had published his account during Maundeville's absence in the east. It would not be difficult to analyze a great portion of Maundeville's book, and show from whence it was compiled.
It is now generally agreed that Marco Polo originally wrote the account of his travels in the French language, from which it was subsequently translated into Latin and Italian. French had now, indeed, become the general language of popular treatises, and it seems to be equally well established that in it was written the original text of Maundeville, who states expressly in the French copies preserved in manuscript, that he chose French in preference to Latin, as a language more generally understood, "especially by lords and knights, and others who understand not Latin."[13] We learn, from the colophon to some of the Latin copies, that he was at this time residing at Liege, where he is said to have ended his days, and that he soon afterwards translated his own book into Latin. An English version, said to be also from the pen of Maundeville himself, appeared soon afterwards, and the three versions must have become extremely popular within a few years after their publication, from the number of early copies that are still found among our various collections of manuscripts. The travels of Sir John Maundeville form, perhaps, the most popular work of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and it continued long afterwards to be read eagerly in a variety of forms. Yet all we know of him with any certainty is his own statement that he was a native of St. Albans,—the rest of his biography, as commonly given, is a mere tissue of errors. Bale tells us that he died at Liege, on the 17th of November, 1371, and that he was buried there in the abbey of the Guillamites. Abraham Orbelius, in his "Itinerarium Belgiæ," gives an epitaph from that abbey, which appears to be a comparatively recent fabrication. One of the manuscripts, written in the fifteenth century, (MS. Harl. 3989,) says that Maundeville died at Liege in 1382.
Contemporary with Maundeville lived a German named variously Boldensel, Boldensle, and Boldenslave, who visited the east in 1336, and, on his return, published a description of the Holy Land, of which there is an early printed edition. It had been preceded by the description of the Holy Land by Brochard, published in 1332. From this time the narratives of travels in Palestine became much more numerous and more detailed, and I shall not attempt even a bare enumeration. The majority of them consist of little more than a repetition of the same facts and the same legends. Some, however, are far superior to the rest, by the interest of the narrative, and the novelty of the information gathered by the traveller. Two, belonging to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, stand pre-eminent in this respect, the narratives of Breydenbach and Rauwulf, which merit separate publication. I have selected to follow sir John Maundeville, the travels of Bertrandon de la Brocquière, on account of their peculiar character.