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0098 Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.2
Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.2 / Page 98 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000042
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338   RECOLLECTIONS OF TRAVEL IN THE EAST,

winter was over, having been well fed, well clothed, loaded with handsome presents, and supplied by the King with horses and travelling expenses, we proceeded to ARDIALEC [the capital] of the Middle Empire. There we built a church, bought a piece of ground, dug wells,1 sung masses and baptized several; preaching freely and openly, notwithstanding the fact that only the year before the Bishop and six other Minor Friars had there undergone for Christ's sake a glorious martyrdom, illustrated by brilliant miracles. The names of these martyrs were Friar Richard the Bishop, a Burgundian by nation, Friar Francis of Alessandria, Friar Paschal of Spain (this one was a prophet and saw the heavens open, and foretold the martyrdom which should befal him and his brethren, and the overthrow of the Tartars of Saray by a flood, and the destruction of Armalec in vengeance for their martyrdom, and that the Emperor would be slain on the third day after their martyrdom, and many other glorious things) ; Friar Laurence of Ancona, Friar Peter, an Indian friar who acted as their interpreter, and Gillott, a merchant.2

Towards the end of the third year after our departure from the Papal Court, quitting Armalec we came to the CYOLLOS'

etc. But 'ûOos means drink of the beer genus. The Venice MS. has Tyriacam, probably for Theriacam. I imagine however that Dobner is substantially right, and that something strong and sweet is meant. Rubruquis, nearly a century before, took with him for Uzbek's ancestors vinum muscatel.

1 " Ubi fecimus ecolesiam, emimus arearn, fecimus fontes, cantavimus missas," etc. The fontes are not very intelligible. Prof. Kunstmann suggests fonticum (Ital. fondaco) for fontes, which is possible, as that word is blundered in another passage of this MS.

2 On these Armalec martyrs see ante, p. 186 segq. The statement of Marignolli that their death took place the year before his arrival, appears to fix it to 1339, instead of 1340 or later as stated by ecclesiastical chroniclers. Dobner goes eminently astray here, confounding these Franciscans, martyred in Turkestan in the fourteenth century, with those Franciscans who were martyred in Japan in the seventeenth, and whose formal canonization lately made so much noise. Accordingly he thinks it

probable that Armalec was one of the Islands of Japan, and Saray another !