Part 21 (2/2)

[334] Matt. xxvi. 39.

[335] Matth. x. 41.

[336] Joshua, ii. 9.

[337] Matth. iv. 3.

[338] This is a very ingenious attempt at derivation, like some others found in the book of Sir John Maundeville, who speaks again of the Georgian Christians at the end of Chapter X.

[339] This word probably means bitumen. The Latin text has _Dalem et dalketram_; the French, _De alym et d'alketran_. This would almost lead us to consider the French as the original text, from which the others were translated.

[340] Mount Royal, which stood in the immediate neighbourhood of the ancient Petra, was a place of some celebrity in the history of the crusades. It was said to have been impregnable from the strength of its position; and it was only taken by Saladin, in 1187, by starving the garrison.

[341] Psalms, cxx. 5.

[342] Luke, x. 13, 15. This is a curious example of the manner in which legends were raised on the misapplication of Scripture by the medieval theologians, who, in this respect, closely resembled the Talmudists among the Jews.

[343] 2 Sam. i. 21.

[344] Luke, i. 28.

[345] The foregoing pa.s.sages of Scripture, repeated as directed in Latin, composed, in fact, the common charm against thieves and robbers; and our forefathers seem to have had the simplicity to believe that, by a proper use of it, they were actually under those circ.u.mstances rendered invisible. The quotations are from Luke iv. 30; Exod. xv. 16.

The latter is wrongly quoted from the Psalter. The misinterpretation of the first pa.s.sage (it was believed that Jesus became invisible) appears to have arisen at a very early period.

[346] There was an immense ma.s.s of legendary matter of this kind current in the middle ages, with which it is necessary, in a certain degree, to be acquainted, in order to understand the literature and manners of our forefathers. It is to such legends that the old writers frequently allude when we suppose that they are merely misquoting Scripture.

[347] This is of course a little more legend. The notion that there was a town on the summit of Mount Tabor is probably a mistake of our traveller.

[348] This legend arose out of an interpretation given to Gen. iv. 23, 24. See, as an ill.u.s.tration, the scene in the ”Coventry Mysteries,” pp.

44-46.

[349] Matt. xiv. 31.

[350] Luke, xxiv. 30.

[351] Psalms, x.x.xii. 5.

[352] See before, p. 178.

[353] The khalif Motawakkel had, in A.D. 856, ordered the Christians and Jews to wear a broad girdle of leather; and they have continued to wear it in the east till modern times. From that epoch the Christians of Syria, who were mostly Jacobites or Nestorians, were called Christians of the girdle.

[354] It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that _sabbatum_, or _dies sabbati_, is the Latin for Sat.u.r.day.

[355] Ramah Gibeon, now El Jib. Douke is Ain Duk, the Greek ??? (see Robinson, ii. 308, 309). It requires considerable study and research to identify all the names mentioned by Maundeville in the sequel.

[356] We must take this as a little satire of Sir John Maundeville's against the vices of the day among his own countrymen; and it seems not to have been without its effect. There is an English metrical version of it in the ”Reliquiae Antiquae,” ii. 113.

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