In That Place Was Wont To Be A Fair Church; And Many Other There
Were; But They Be All Beaten Down.
There was wont to be the head
of Saint John Baptist, enclosed in the wall.
But the Emperor
Theodosius let draw it out, and found it wrapped in a little cloth,
all bloody; and so he let it to be born to Constantinople. And yet
at Constantinople is the hinder part of the head, and the fore part
of the head, till under the chin, is at Rome under the church of
Saint Silvester, where be nuns of an hundred orders: and it is yet
all broilly, as though it were half-burnt, for the Emperor Julianus
above-said, of his cursedness and malice, let burn that part with
the other bones, and yet it sheweth; and this thing hath been
proved both by popes and by emperors. And the jaws beneath, that
hold to the chin, and a part of the ashes and the platter that the
head was laid in, when it was smitten off, is at Genoa; and the
Genoese make of it great feast, and so do the Saracens also. And
some men say that the head of Saint John is at Amiens in Picardy;
and other men say that it is the head of Saint John the Bishop. I
wot never, but God knoweth; but in what wise that men worship it,
the blessed Saint John holds him a-paid.
From this city of Sebast unto Jerusalem is twelve mile. And
between the hills of that country there is a well that four sithes
in the year changeth his colour, sometime green, sometime red,
sometime clear and sometime trouble; and men clepe that well, Job.
And the folk of that country, that men clepe Samaritans, were
converted and baptized by the apostles; but they hold not well
their doctrine, and always they hold laws by themselves, varying
from Christian men, from Saracens, Jews and Paynims. And the
Samaritans lieve well in one God, and they say well that there is
but only one God, that all formed, and all shall doom; and they
hold the Bible after the letter, and they use the Psalter as the
Jews do. And they say that they be the right sons of God. And
among all other folk, they say that they be best beloved of God,
and that to them belongeth the heritage that God behight to his
beloved children. And they have also diverse clothing and shape to
look on than other folk have; for they wrap their heads in red
linen cloth, in difference from others. And the Saracens wrap
their heads in white linen cloth; and the Christian men, that dwell
in the country, wrap them in blue of Ind; and the Jews in yellow
cloth. In that country dwell many of the Jews, paying tribute as
Christian men do. And if ye will know the letters that the Jews
use they be such, and the names be as they clepe them written
above, in manner of their A. B. C.
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