And The Folk Of The Country Do
Great Worship And Reverence To His Signet Or Seal, And Kneel
Thereto As Lowly As We Do To CORPUS DOMINI.
And yet men do full
greater reverence to his letters; for the admiral and all other
lords that they
Be shewed to, before or they receive them, they
kneel down; and then they take them and put them on their heads;
and after, they kiss them and then they read them, kneeling with
great reverence; and then they offer them to do all that the bearer
asketh.
And in this TEMPLUM DOMINI were some-time canons regulars, and they
had an abbot to whom they were obedient; and in this temple was
Charlemagne when that the angel brought him the prepuce of our Lord
Jesus Christ of his circumcision; and after, King Charles let bring
it to Paris into his chapel, and after that he let bring it to
Peyteres, and after that to Chartres.
And ye shall understand, that this is not the temple that Solomon
made, for that temple dured not but 1102 year. For Titus,
Vespasian's son, Emperor of Rome, had laid siege about Jerusalem
for to discomfit the Jews; for they put our Lord to death, without
leave of the emperor. And, when he had won the city, he burnt the
temple and beat it down, and all the city, and took the Jews and
did them to death - 1,100,000; and the others he put in prison and
sold them to servage, - thirty for one penny; for they said they
bought Jesu for thirty pennies, and he made of them better cheap
when he gave thirty for one penny.
And after that time, Julian Apostate, that was emperor, gave leave
to the Jews to make the temple of Jerusalem, for he hated Christian
men. And yet he was christened, but he forsook his law, and became
a renegade. And when the Jews had made the temple, came an
earthquaking, and cast it down (as God would) and destroyed all
that they had made.
And after that, Adrian, that was Emperor of Rome, and of the
lineage of Troy, made Jerusalem again and the temple in the same
manner as Solomon made it. And he would not suffer no Jews to
dwell there, but only Christian men. For although it were so that
he was not christened, yet he loved Christian men more than any
other nation save his own. This emperor let enclose the church of
Saint Sepulchre, and walled it within the city; that, before, was
without the city, long time before. And he would have changed the
name of Jerusalem, and have clept it Aelia; but that name lasted
not long.
Also, ye shall understand, that the Saracens do much reverence to
that temple, and they say, that that place is right holy. And when
they go in they go bare-foot, and kneel many times. And when my
fellows and I saw that, when we came in we did off our shoes and
came in bare-foot, and thought that we should do as much worship
and reverence thereto, as any of the misbelieving men should, and
as great compunction in heart to have.
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