THE PILGRIMS OF THE MIDDLE AGES I.

A KEEN interest in the Near East was aroused in Europe by the Crusades. At their conclusion travellers of every kind, more especially pilgrims and merchants, started for Palestine and Sinai, eager to visit the holy places, and to see some of the marvels of which the Crusaders had brought back accounts to their homes. The movement was for a time hindered by the difficulties which were raised by the Sultan, who suspected a further alliance between the “Franks” and the Tartars. But the princes of Europe interfered on behalf of the pilgrims, and Sultan Melik el Nasir, who ruled with some interruptions from 1293 to 1341, was a man of wider outlook, who entered into diplomatic relations with the Pope, the king of Aragon, and the king of France. He did his utmost to protect the pilgrims. Crowds of them now started for the Holy Land, a certain number extending their voyage to the shrine of St. Katherine in Sinai, a visit to which formed part of the so-called Long Pilgrimage.

The flow of pilgrims was naturally influenced by the social and political events of the day. Of those who took the Long Pilgrimage, six,[264] between the years 1331 and 1346, wrote an account of their journey, and made mention of Sinai. After this there was a break, no doubt attributable to the Black Death which swept across Europe in 1348-49, and to the war which Peter, king of Cyprus, waged on Egypt, which led to the sack of Alexandria in 1365. Towards the close of the century pilgrims again became numerous, and six further accounts between the years 1384 and 1397 describe a visit to St. Katherine.[265] Again, during the first half of the fifteenth century visitors to St. Katherine were relatively few, whereas large parties of pilgrims sought the convent between 1460 and 1497, several members of the same party sometimes writing a description of their journey.

The pilgrims, for the most part, sailed from a port in Italy, more especially from Genoa or Venice, in galleys, which were timed to meet the caravans which brought the produce of the East to Alexandria and Jaffa. From Alexandria they went to Babylon (Cairo), where they procured a firmÂn from the Sultan which established their peaceful intentions in the eyes of the Bedawyn (Baldensel, p. 343; Frescobaldo, 1384, p. 99, etc.). Or they went to Jaffa and Jerusalem where those who wished to extend their pilgrimage to Sinai proceeded on mule-back to Gaza, where camels were chartered for crossing the desert. Travel was facilitated at the time by the permanent foothold which the Franciscans, following in the wake of St. Francis himself (1226), had secured at Jerusalem and at Gaza, and by the establishment, in various cities, of consuls whose chief duty it was to befriend and protect the pilgrims. The cities of Florence, Venice, Genoa, and the Catalans each had a consul in Alexandria in 1384 (Frescobaldo, p. 72). Venice had a consul in Jaffa in 1413, and one in Jerusalem in 1415.[266] There was a house or hostel set apart for the use of pilgrims in Cairo in 1384 (Sigoli, p. 16), where food was given to poor pilgrims who were on their way to St. Katherine (Martone, p. 596).

Among the earlier accounts was that of the friar Antoninus of Cremona, who set out from Cairo to Sinai with seven Latin pilgrims in 1331, going on to Jerusalem by way of Gaza. The wish to visit the shrine of St. Katherine was aroused in him by paintings, representing her story, which were a gift to his city by a merchant of Piacenza (p. 170). Again, there was the Italian notary, Jacopo of Verona, who, after a stay in the Holy Land in 1335, proceeded to Gaza, which he left on August 28, arriving at the convent on September 10. Jacopo mentioned as stopping places between Gaza and the convent, Nocale (Kala’at en Nakhl) “in our language called Phurfur” (? bran), and Colebmaleo. At Nocale at the Fountain of the Sultan (Puteus Soldani) he met over twelve thousand pilgrims with six thousand camels, who were on their way back from Mecca, and who moved in bands according to the countries to which they belonged, an arrangement which greatly impressed Jacopo (p. 228). At the Puteus Soldani the Seigneur d’Anglure who was on his way from Gaza to the convent in October of 1395, met ten thousand Moslim pilgrims (p. 45).

Another pilgrim, Wilhelm de Baldensel, in the summer of 1336, rode on horseback from Cairo to the convent in ten days, much to the surprise of the monks. From here he went on to Jerusalem (p. 344). Again, Ludolf of Sudheim, during the thirteen years which he spent travelling in the East visited the convent some time between 1336 and 1341, and Sir John Maundeville was there some time in the course of his twenty-five years of travel. These pilgrims, like Thietmar, in 1216 found the relics of St. Katherine enshrined in a marble chest or sarcophagus which stood in the convent church, and were allowed to see them after they had been the usual round of the sights (Ludolf, p. 840).

The relics of St. Katherine consisted of the head and some of the limbs. Jacopo stated that, besides these, the monks had bones stored away in another chest or arca (p. 230). Maundeville writes he saw “the head of St. Katherine rolled in a bleeding cloth, and many other holy and venerable relics, which I looked at carefully and often with unworthy eyes” (p. 60). Wilhelm de Baldensel first noted a silver scoop or spoon which was used for taking up the drops of oil which exuded “not from the sarcophagus, but from the bones” (p. 344), and which was given in small glass phials to the pilgrims (Jacopo, p. 230). This use of a scoop shows that the oil flowed less plentifully than at the time when the chest that contained the bones stood on the height, where it was “drawn off” by Simeon.

The view was now held that the body of the saint was originally laid by the angels, “not on the Mount of the Law, but on the Mount of St. Katherine,” as we learn from Antoninus. Here the impress made by the body on the stone was shown, which induced the pilgrims to make the ascent of the Gebel KatrÎn. The impress of the body was seen also by Rudolf von Fraymansperg, who visited Sinai in 1346 (p. 359), by Simone Sigoli in 1384 (p. 84), and by others. According to different accounts, the body lay exposed on the height two or three or four or five hundred years before it was brought to the convent.

Other legends are related by the pilgrims. Antoninus stated that about a hundred “ravens” were fed every day at the convent kitchen in memory of Elijah, who was fed by ravens (p. 167). Sir John Maundeville improved on this statement by relating that “all ravens, choughs and crows of the district flew once a year in pilgrimage to the convent bearing a branch of bay or olive” (p. 59). In connection with these legends, both the story of Elijah, and the “ravens” that flocked to the convent, it is well to bear in mind that the words for raven and Arab sound alike in Arabic.

Many hanging lamps were now kept burning in the convent church, the number of which Jacopo estimated as three hundred. Sir John held that they indicated the presence of as many monks, and he added that when the prelate of the abbey died, his lamp went out and lit again of its own accord, if his successor were worthy (p. 60).

On the Mount of the Law stood the small church which at one time contained the relics of St. Katherine, and which continued to contain bodies of saints as late as 1384. Near it was the cavern in which Moses stood when the Lord passed (Sigoli, p. 82; Maundeville, p. 62). Beyond it was the small mosque which the Saracens sought in pilgrimage, and which to Antoninus was “an idol of abomination” (p. 168).

The relative position of these buildings and sites is shown on the topographical sketch made by Jacopo, which is here reproduced (Fig. 20). On it we note the convent church with[159]
[160] its tower, and we are told that inside the convent walls there “stood likewise a mosque with a tower of its own, from which the cazes, or priest of the Saracens, proclaimed the Mohammedan faith, a proceeding to which the kalogeri or monks could raise no objection, since they were under the dominion of the Sultan who would have it so” (c. 1335, p. 321). This mosque of the maladetta fede was noticed also by the party of distinguished Italians who came to Sinai from Cairo in 1384. These included Leonardo dei Niccoli Frescobaldo from Florence, Simone Sigoli from Venice, and a certain Giorgio di Messer Gucci di Dino, each of whom was attended by his serving man.

The sketch of Jacopo further shows the path leading up from the convent to the Mount of the Law “where the law was given to Moses,” with the chapel “where the Blessed Mary appeared;” the church of St. Elijah; and the mosque of the Saracens. There is also a garden with a fountain, and a zigzag path leading up to a higher mountain where “lay the body of the Blessed Katherine.” From the summit of this mountain Jacopo saw the Red Sea, and watched the ships that carried pepper, ginger, cinnamon, and other spicery from India. He also went the two days’ journey to Tur, which he called Elim, where he bathed in the Red Sea. Here he saw the place where the Israelites came out of the water, and remains of the Pharaoh, apparently bones, lying on the sea shore. In the belief that this was Elim of the Bible, he noticed that there were here, not seventy palm trees as stated, but ten thousand date palms, the produce of which the monks sold at a high price at Cairo (p. 237). From an Arabic source we hear that special attention was given to Tur in the year 1378, by Salah ed Din Ibn Gourram, grand vizier of Egypt.[267]

The number of pilgrims from Europe who visited Sinai is difficult to estimate. The guide who was engaged to conduct the Italians from Cairo to the convent in 1384, had taken pilgrims along this route seventy-six times (Sigoli, p. 15). The knights who wished to be enrolled as Knights of the Order of St. Katherine, hung up their arms in the convent church (Tafur: “dexe mis armis”), and received a badge which showed a broken wheel that was pierced by a sword. Some pilgrims noted the names and scutcheons of earlier ones, which, together with coats of arms, were scratched on the wall spaces.

The zeal of the pilgrims was responsible for further developments in the story of St. Katherine. Ludolf of Sudheim in 1341 sought the spot outside Alexandria where the saint was beheaded (p. 827); the Italians of 1384 identified the prison in which she was confined, the columns on which were placed the spiked wheels that broke of their own accord, and her dwelling place “where now stands the palace of the lamelech,” i.e. the emir of the Sultan (Sigoli, p. 90; Frescobaldo, p. 82). The columns which were of red porphyry were noticed also by Thomas of Swynburne, an Englishman and mayor of Bordeaux at the time, who paid a hurried visit to Egypt and Sinai in 1392, of which his companion, Briggs, wrote a short account.

And more than this. The oldest account of Katherine claimed for her royal descent. The Speculum of Vincent of Beauvais (c. 1190-1264) gave her father’s name as Costus. Another line of tradition called him Constantius and made him into a king of Cyprus, where the monks of Sinai had possessions in the year 1216. A chapel dedicated to St. Katherine situated near “Salamina” or Constantia in Cyprus, was visited by Ludolf in 1341 (p. 826). In the year 1394 Niccolo de Martone, the Italian notary from Carniola, whose desire “to reach the dominion of the blessed Virgin in Sinai” took him to the East, went from Famagusta in Cyprus to Constantia, which in his estimation was built by Constantius, the father of St. Katherine. Here he saw the palace and the chamber, “now in ruins,” where St. Katherine dwelt, and near it her chapel, which many persons sought in pilgrimage (p. 632). From Famagusta he visited an island to which St. Katherine went at the suggestion of her mother, in order to consult a hermit regarding her marriage. His advice was that she should wed Christ, and in the night an angel appeared, who gave her a ring (p. 633). This is the first we hear of the mystic marriage of St. Katherine, which henceforth formed an incident in her legend and was further developed. The History of St. Katherine, which was written by the Augustinian monk Capgrave about the year 1430, described how a hermit named Adrian was sent to Alexandria by the Queen of Heaven. He took the maid into the desert where Christ appeared to her in a dream and gave her a ring.[268] This incident does not appear in the story of St. Katherine as told in the Legenda Aurea of Jacopo of Voragine, which was written about the year 1255. But the English version of the Golden Legend, which was printed by the Caxton Press about the year 1483, described the gift of an actual ring, further developing the story. For according to this account Costus, king of Cyprus and the father of the saint, was the son of Constantius, king of Armenia, whose second wife was Helena, the daughter of King Cole of Britain, and the mother of the emperor Constantine. Thus St. Katherine was linked up with the kings of Britain on the one side, and with the emperors of Rome on the other!

In the convent of Sinai no attention was given to these developments, and the Life of St. Katherine that was read in the convent confined itself to the facts related by Simeon Metaphrastes.

The convent reached the high-water mark of its prosperity during the fourteenth century. It drew a large income from its outlying possessions, it received gifts from the Sultan and from the pilgrims, it levied tribute on the goods that were unshipped at Tur. The basis of this arrangement is not directly stated, but the writer Piloti, about the year 1440, declared that the tax levied on the goods at Tur was 10 per cent. of their value,[269] and the Ritter von Harff, about the year 1497, held that the monks went shares with the Sultan in the profit made on the goods.[270]

The Italians who visited the convent in 1384 found two hundred monks in residence, of whom one hundred and fifty served the convent chapels, and fifty the chapels on the Mount of the Law. There were besides a very large number of Moslim, who dwelt inside the convent precincts (Frescobaldo, p. 121).

Food was cooked in the convent kitchen every day for four hundred persons, in huge cauldrons that came from Venice, and were conveyed across the desert on camel-back (Frescobaldo, p. 167). Largess was distributed daily to a thousand Arabs of the desert (Ibid., p. 121). In the year 1393 the monks and their dependents were two hundred and eighty in number, and two loaves were given daily to each pilgrim and to every Arab and mariner, of whom large crowds applied for food at the convent (Martone, p. 608).

Some of the pilgrims supply information on the Saracens or Bedawyn, who all through showed an independent spirit. During the whole of the Mameluk dynasty (1250-1517), they were complete masters of Suez. Wilhelm de Baldensel, calling them Ridelbim, stated that they lived on their camels and goats, neither sowing nor reaping, and eating such bread as they procured in Syria and Egypt. They were brown, fleet-footed, and carried a shield and a spear, rode on camels, wrapped themselves in linen, and acknowledged the authority of the Sultan, who, however, gave them presents since they could easily expel him and occupy Syria and Egypt (p. 345). Antoninus in 1331 also remarked that the Arabs had no fear of the Sultan (p. 165), and Ludolf held that the Sultan lavished on them gifts and flattery, since they could easily subjugate his territory (p. 89).

The attitude of these Bedawyn in matters of religion was perplexing to the Europeans, who began with looking upon Mohammad the Prophet as the incarnation of all wickedness, and then realised that his followers had a standard of dignity and hospitality which were by no means despicable. Ludolf, in 1341, noted that the Saracens did homage to St. Katherine (p. 66), and Frescobaldo remarked that the Saracens held the mountains of Sinai in veneration. “And be it known,” he continued, “that the Saracens reverence the Virgin Mary, St. John the Baptist, St. Katherine, and all the patriarchs of the Old Testament and hold that Christ was the great prophet previous to Mohammad; also that Christ was not born of the flesh, but that the Divine Father, through the lips of an angel, sent the Divine Word, and that in many ways they approximate our faith” (pp. 91, 101).

An English poem of about the year 1425 is extant, which describes the chief sites of pilgrimage at the time. They included the shrine of St. James of Compostella in Spain, the city of Rome, Jerusalem, and Mount Sinai. The poem is about 1500 lines long, of which about thirty deal with Mount Sinai, and are as follows (the spelling is modernised):

In that mount up high
Is a minster of our Lady:
The minster of the Bush, men call it,
Wherein the body of St. Katherine was put.
Also behind the high altar
Is where Jesus did appear
In that church to Moses,
When he kept Jethro of Midian’s sheep truly.
In the midst of that hill is a place
Where did penance the prophet Elijah;
On the height of that hill, by Clerk’s saws,
God gave to Moses both the Laws
Written in tables, without miss.
Plenary remission then it is.
A garden there is at no distance
Where Onorius (i.e. Onophrius) did his penance.
Another hill also is there,
To which angels did bear
The blessed body of St. Katherine,
She was a holy virgin.
Under that hill trust thou me,
There runneth the Red Sea.
At each of these places, that I told,
Is VII years, and VII “lentonez,”[271] be thou bold.
Thus from Sinai would I skip
And tell of the pilgrimage of Egypt; etc.[272]