And Ye Shall Understand, That The People That He Hath So Many Hosts
Of, About Him And About His Wives And His Soil, They Dwell Not
Continually With Him.
But always, when him liketh, they be sent
for.
And after, when they have done, they return to their own
households, save only they that be dwelling with him in household
for to serve him and his wives and his sons for to govern his
household. And albeit, that the others be departed from him after
that they have performed their service, yet there abideth
continually with him in court 50,000 men at horse and 200,000 men a
foot, without minstrels and those that keep wild beasts and divers
birds, of the which I have told you the number before.
Under the firmament is not so great a lord, ne so mighty, ne so
rich as is the great Chan; not Prester John, that is emperor of the
high Ind, ne the Soldan of Babylon, ne the Emperor of Persia. All
these ne be not in comparison to the great Chan, neither of might,
ne of noblesse, ne of royalty, ne of riches; for in all these he
passeth all earthly princes. Wherefore it is great harm that he
believeth not faithfully in God. And natheles he will gladly hear
speak of God. And he suffereth well that Christian men dwell in
his lordship, and that men of his faith be made Christian men if
they will, throughout all his country; for he defendeth no man to
hold no law other than him liketh.
In that country some men hath an hundred wives, some sixty, some
more, some less. And they take the next of their kin to their
wives, save only that they out-take their mothers, their daughters,
and their sisters of the mother's side; but their sisters on the
father's side of another woman they may well take, and their
brothers' wives also after their death, and their step-mothers also
in the same wise.
CHAPTER XXVI
OF THE LAW AND THE CUSTOMS OF THE TARTARIANS DWELLING IN CATHAY.
AND HOW THAT MEN DO WHEN THE EMPEROR SHALL DIE, AND HOW HE SHALL BE
CHOSEN
THE folk of that country use all long clothes without furs. And
they be clothed with precious cloths of Tartary, and of cloths of
gold. And their clothes be slit at the side, and they be fastened
with laces of silk. And they clothe them also with pilches, and
the hide without; and they use neither cape ne hood. And in the
same manner as the men go, the women go, so that no man may unneth
know the men from the women, save only those women that be married,
that bear the token upon their heads of a man's foot, in sign that
they be under man's foot and under subjection of man.
And their wives ne dwell not together, but every of them by
herself; and the husband may lie with whom of them that him liketh.
Everych hath his house, both man and woman.
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