What love had he to us his subjects, when he that
never trespassed, would for trespassers suffer death!
Right well
ought us for to love and worship, to dread and serve such a Lord;
and to worship and praise such an holy land, that brought forth
such fruit, through the which every man is saved, but it be his own
default. Well may that land be called delectable and a fructuous
land, that was be-bled and moisted with the precious blood of our
Lord Jesu Christ; the which is the same land that our Lord behight
us in heritage. And in that land he would die, as seised, to leave
it to us, his children.
Wherefore every good Christian man, that is of power, and hath
whereof, should pain him with all his strength for to conquer our
right heritage, and chase out all the misbelieving men. For we be
clept Christian men, after Christ our Father. And if we be right
children of Christ, we ought for to challenge the heritage, that
our Father left us, and do it out of heathen men's hands. But now
pride, covetise, and envy have so inflamed the hearts of lords of
the world, that they are more busy for to dis-herit their
neighbours, more than for to challenge or to conquer their right
heritage before-said. And the common people, that would put their
bodies and their chattels, to conquer our heritage, they may not do
it without the lords. For a sembly of people without a chieftain,
or a chief lord, is as a flock of sheep without a shepherd; the
which departeth and disperpleth and wit never whither to go. But
would God, that the temporal lords and all worldly lords were at
good accord, and with the common people would take this holy voyage
over the sea! Then I trow well, that within a little time, our
right heritage before-said should be reconciled and put in the
hands of the right heirs of Jesu Christ.
And, for as much as it is long time passed, that there was no
general passage ne voyage over the sea; and many men desire for to
hear speak of the Holy Land, and have thereof great solace and
comfort; I, John Mandeville, Knight, albeit I be not worthy, that
was born in England, in the town of St. Albans, and passed the sea
in the year of our Lord Jesu Christ, 1322, in the day of St.
Michael; and hitherto been long time over the sea, and have seen
and gone through many diverse lands, and many provinces and
kingdoms and isles and have passed throughout Turkey, Armenia the
little and the great; through Tartary, Persia, Syria, Arabia, Egypt
the high and the low; through Lybia, Chaldea, and a great part of
Ethiopia; through Amazonia, Ind the less and the more, a great
part; and throughout many other Isles, that be about Ind; where
dwell many diverse folks, and of diverse manners and laws, and of
diverse shapes of men.
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