Read Online Bible and Sword by Barbara W. Tuchman - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Barbara W. Tuchman
Ads: Link
book in that day was so widely read in England or on the Continent. Originally written in Latin and translated by the author himself (if one may believe him) into French and English, the book caught such interest that versions appeared in Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Walloon, Bohemian, German, Danish, and Irish, and some three hundred manuscripts have survived. As soon as printing was invented Mandeville was one of the earliest to be printed, a German edition appearing in 1475 and one in English in 1503. The long-lasting popularity of his book contributed much to the sense of familiarity with Palestine.
Whatever his deficiencies in honesty, Mandeville makes up for them by his enthusiasm for his subject, his inexhaustible supply of information, whether fact or fable, and his exuberance in sharing all of it with his readers. Palestine he says flatly was chosen of God as “the best and most worthy land, and the most virtuous land of all the world, for it is the heart and middle of all the world.” He enters by way of Egypt, where he pauses to remark of the pyramids that they were the “granaries of Joseph” which he caused to be built to store grain against bad times. He adds without prejudice that “some men say that they are sepulchers of great lords that were formerly; but this is not true.” Twelve days’ journeying takes him to Mt. Sinai, and he retells all the adventures of Moses and the children of Israel in the wilderness, including the passage of the Red Sea, “which is not redder than other seas but in some places the gravel is red and therefore they call it the Red Sea.” The narrative is liberally laced with an immense variety of nonscriptural miracles and natural wonders such as the annual pilgrimage of “ravens, crows and other fowls of that country” to the monastery of St. Catherine’s at the foot of Mt. Sinai, “and each brings a branch of bays or olive in its beak and leaves it there.”
From Mt. Sinai another thirteen days takes the traveler across the desert to Gaza, city of Samson and Beersheba, which, says Mandeville, was founded by Bathsheba, “wife of Sir Uriah, the knight.” The Dead Sea of course provides him with unexampled profusion of wonders, as that a man can cast iron into it that will float, but a feather will sink. At Hebron, the oldest city of Palestine, the dwelling and burial place of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and of their wives and so as sacred to the Moslem sons of Ishmael as to the Jews, Mandeville reports a prophecy associated with a dead oak tree there: “A lord, a prince of the west side of the world, shall win the Land of Promise, that is the Holy Land, with the help of the Christians, and he shall cause mass to be performed under that dying tree and then thetree shall become green and bear both fruit and leaves. And through that miracle many Jews and Saracens shall be converted to the Christian faith.” This curious insistence on the convertibility of the Jews will reappear frequently in later chapters, especially in the earnest if misguided efforts of the Evangelical movement. But though the prophecy was forever to remain futile, the first half of it was eventually fulfilled if one can recognize “a prince of the west” in Field Marshal Allenby.
Beginning in the fifteenth century there is a notable change in the tone of Palestine travel diaries, with less of the fabulous and more practical tourist information. By now pilgrimages had become an organized traffic, and a returned pilgrim who tried to awe his listeners with wondrous tales was likely to be tripped up, for too many had been there before him. A regular galley service operated out of Venice, making about five round trips to Jaffa a year, usually going in the spring and early summer. Each of these galleys, privately owned though under the supervision of the Venetian state, could carry as many as a hundred pilgrims, and trading vessels making the voyage to Eastern ports also carried pilgrims for extra profit.
Whatever his deficiencies in honesty, Mandeville makes up for them by his enthusiasm for his subject, his inexhaustible supply of information, whether fact or fable, and his exuberance in sharing all of it with his readers. Palestine he says flatly was chosen of God as “the best and most worthy land, and the most virtuous land of all the world, for it is the heart and middle of all the world.” He enters by way of Egypt, where he pauses to remark of the pyramids that they were the “granaries of Joseph” which he caused to be built to store grain against bad times. He adds without prejudice that “some men say that they are sepulchers of great lords that were formerly; but this is not true.” Twelve days’ journeying takes him to Mt. Sinai, and he retells all the adventures of Moses and the children of Israel in the wilderness, including the passage of the Red Sea, “which is not redder than other seas but in some places the gravel is red and therefore they call it the Red Sea.” The narrative is liberally laced with an immense variety of nonscriptural miracles and natural wonders such as the annual pilgrimage of “ravens, crows and other fowls of that country” to the monastery of St. Catherine’s at the foot of Mt. Sinai, “and each brings a branch of bays or olive in its beak and leaves it there.”
From Mt. Sinai another thirteen days takes the traveler across the desert to Gaza, city of Samson and Beersheba, which, says Mandeville, was founded by Bathsheba, “wife of Sir Uriah, the knight.” The Dead Sea of course provides him with unexampled profusion of wonders, as that a man can cast iron into it that will float, but a feather will sink. At Hebron, the oldest city of Palestine, the dwelling and burial place of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and of their wives and so as sacred to the Moslem sons of Ishmael as to the Jews, Mandeville reports a prophecy associated with a dead oak tree there: “A lord, a prince of the west side of the world, shall win the Land of Promise, that is the Holy Land, with the help of the Christians, and he shall cause mass to be performed under that dying tree and then thetree shall become green and bear both fruit and leaves. And through that miracle many Jews and Saracens shall be converted to the Christian faith.” This curious insistence on the convertibility of the Jews will reappear frequently in later chapters, especially in the earnest if misguided efforts of the Evangelical movement. But though the prophecy was forever to remain futile, the first half of it was eventually fulfilled if one can recognize “a prince of the west” in Field Marshal Allenby.
Beginning in the fifteenth century there is a notable change in the tone of Palestine travel diaries, with less of the fabulous and more practical tourist information. By now pilgrimages had become an organized traffic, and a returned pilgrim who tried to awe his listeners with wondrous tales was likely to be tripped up, for too many had been there before him. A regular galley service operated out of Venice, making about five round trips to Jaffa a year, usually going in the spring and early summer. Each of these galleys, privately owned though under the supervision of the Venetian state, could carry as many as a hundred pilgrims, and trading vessels making the voyage to Eastern ports also carried pilgrims for extra profit.
Similar Books
