Eastern Europe - The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques And Discoveries Of The English Nation - Volume 2 - Collected By Richard Hakluyt
- Page 108 of 162 - First - Home
Quando etiam aliquis de magnis
curijs infirmatur, ponunt custodes longe circa curiam, qui infra illos
terminos neminem permittunt transire:
Timent enim ne mali spiritus vel
ventus veniant cum ingredientibus. Ipsos diuinatores vocant tanquam
sacerdotes suos.
The same in English.
Of their execution of iustice and iudgement: and of their deaths and
burials. Chap. 10.
Concerning their lawes or their execution of iustice, your Maiesty is to be
aduertised, and when two men fight, no third man dare intrude himself to
part them. Yea, the father dare not help his owne sonne. But he that goes
by the worst must appeale vnto the court of his lord. And whosoeuer els
offereth him any violence after appeale, is put to death. But he must go
presently without all delay: and he that hath suffered the iniury, carieth
him, as it were captiue. They punish no man with sentence of death, vnles
hee bee taken in the deede doing, or confesseth the same. But being accused
by the multitude, they put him vnto extreame torture to make him confesse
the trueth. They punish murther with death, and carnall copulation also
with any other besides his owne. By his own, I meane his wife or his maid
seruant, for he may vse his slaue as he listeth himself. Heinous theft also
or felony they punish with death. For a light theft, as namely for stealing
of a ram, the party (not being apprehended in the deed doing, but otherwise
detected) is cruelly beaten. And if the executioner laies on an 100.
strokes, he must haue an 100. staues, namely for such as are beaten vpon
sentence giuen in the court. Also counterfeit messengers, because they
feine themselues to be messengers, when as indeed they are none at all,
they punish with death. Sacrilegious persons they vse in like manner (of
which kind of malefactors your Maiesty shall vnderstand more fully
hereafter) because they esteeme such to be witches. When any man dieth,
they lament and howle most pitifully for him: and the said mourners are
free from paying any tribute for one whole yeare after. Also whosoeuer is
present at the house where any one growen to mans estate lieth dead, he
must not enter into the court of Mangu-Can til one whole yere be expired.
If it were a child deceased he must not enter into the said court til the
next moneth after. Neere vnto the graue of the partie deceased they alwaies
leaue one cottage. If any of their nobles (being of the stock of Chingis,
who was their first lord and father) deceaseth, his sepulcher is vnknowen.
And alwayes about those places where they interre their nobles, there is
one house of men to keep the sepulchers. I could not learn that they vse to
hide treasures in the graues of their dead. The Comanians build a great
toomb ouer their dead, and erect the image of the dead party thereupon,
with his face towards the East, holding a drinking cup in his hand, before
his nauel.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 108 of 162
Words from 54920 to 55434
of 82784