And Wit Ye Well, That The Land Of Promission Is In Syria.
For The Realm Of Syria Dureth From The Deserts Of Arabia Unto
Cilicia, And That Is Armenia The Great; That Is To Say, From The
South To The North.
And, from the east to the west, it dureth from
the great deserts of Arabia unto the West Sea.
But in that realm
of Syria is the kingdom of Judea and many other provinces, as
Palestine, Galilee, Little Cilicia, and many other.
In that country and other countries beyond they have a custom, when
they shall use war, and when men hold siege about city or castle,
and they within dare not send out messengers with letters from lord
to lord for to ask succour, they make their letters and bind them
to the neck of a culver, and let the culver flee. And the culvers
be so taught, that they flee with those letters to the very place
that men would send them to. For the culvers be nourished in those
places where they be sent to, and they send them thus, for to bear
their letters. And the culvers return again whereas they be
nourished; and so they do commonly.
And ye shall understand that amongst the Saracens, one part and
other, dwell many Christian men of many manners and diverse names.
And all be baptized and have diverse laws and diverse customs. But
all believe in God the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost; but
always fail they in some articles of our faith. Some of these be
clept Jacobites, for Saint James converted them and Saint John
baptized them. They say that a man shall make his confession only
to God, and not to a man; for only to him should man yield him
guilty of all that he hath misdone. Ne God ordained not, ne never
devised, ne the prophet neither, that a man should shrive him to
another (as they say), but only to God. As Moses writeth in the
Bible, and as David saith in the Psalter Book; CONFITEBOR TIBI,
DOMINE, IN TOTO CORDE MEO, and DELICTUM MEUM TIBI COGNITUM FECI,
and DEUS MEUS ES TU, & CONFITEBOR TIBI, and QUONIAM COGITATIO
HOMINIS CONFITEBITUR TIBI, etc. For they know all the Bible and
the Psalter. And therefore allege they so the letter. But they
allege not the authorities thus in Latin, but in their language
full apertly, and say well, that David and other prophets say it.
Natheles, Saint Augustine and Saint Gregory say thus:- Augustinus:
QUI SCELERA SUA COGITAT, & CONVERSUS FUERIT, VENIAM SIBI CREDAT.
Gregorius: DOMINUS POTIUS MENTEM QUAM VERBA RESPICIT. And Saint
Hilary saith: LONGORUM TEMPORUM CRIMINA, IN ICTU OCULI PEREUNT, SI
CORDIS NATA FUERIT COMPUNCTIO. And for such authorities they say,
that only to God shall a man knowledge his defaults, yielding
himself guilty and crying him mercy, and behoting to him to amend
himself. And therefore, when they will shrive them, they take fire
and set it beside them, and cast therein powder of frankincense;
and in the smoke thereof they shrive them to God, and cry him
mercy.
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