From The Travels of Sir John
Mandeville (c. 1356?)
And, therefore, I shall tell you what the soldan told me upon a day in his chamber. He let void
out of his chamber all manner of men, lords and others, for he would speak with
me in counsel. And there he asked me how the Christian men governed them
in our country. And I said him, “Right well, thanked be God!”
And he said me, “Truly nay! For ye
Christian men reck right nought,
how untruly to serve God! Ye should give ensample to the lewd people for
to do well, and ye give them ensample to do evil. For the commons, upon
festival days, when they should go to church to serve God, then go they to
taverns, and be there in gluttony all the day and all night, and eat and drink
as beasts that have no reason, and wit not when they have enough. . . . They should be simple, meek and true, and full
of alms-deeds, as Jesu was, in whom they trow; but they be all the contrary, and ever inclined to
the evil, and to do evil. And they be so
covetous, that, for a little silver, they sell their daughters, their sisters
and their own wives to put them to lechery. And one withdraweth
the wife of another, and none of them holdeth faith
to another; but they defoul their law that Jesu Christ betook them to keep for their salvation.
And thus, for their sins, have they lost all this land that we hold. For,
for their sins, their God hath taken them into our hands, not only by strength
of ourself, but for their
sins. For we know well, in very sooth, that
when ye serve God, God will help you; and when he is with you, no man may be
against you. And that know we well by our prophecies, that Christian men
shall win again this land out of our hands, when they serve God more devoutly;
but as long as they be of foul and of unclean living (as they be now) we have
no dread of them in no kind, for their God will not help them in no wise.”
And then I asked him, how he knew the state of
Christian men. And he answered me, that he knew all the state of all courts
of Christian kings and princes and the state of the commons also by his
messengers that he sent to all lands, in manner as they were merchants of
precious stones, of cloths of gold and of other things, for to know the manner
of every country amongst Christian men. And then he let clepe in all the lords that he made void first out of his
chamber, and there he shewed me four that were great
lords in the country, that told me of my country and of many other Christian
countries, as well as they had been of the same country; and they spake French right well, and the soldan
also; whereof I had great marvel.
Alas! that it is great slander to our faith and
to our law, when folk that be without law shall reprove us and undernim us of our sins, and they that should be converted
to Christ and to the law of Jesu by our good
ensamples and by our acceptable life to God, and so converted to the law of Jesu Christ, be, through our wickedness and evil living,
far from us and strangers from the holy and very belief, shall thus appeal us
and hold us for wicked livers and cursed. And truly they say sooth, for
the Saracens be good and faithful; for they keep entirely the commandment of
the holy book Alkaron that God sent them by his
messenger Mahomet, to the which, as they say, Saint Gabriel the angel oftentime told the will of God.