as yet I had not spoken to, nor seen, except at the baptism, when
he was half dead with the cold, and I could not speak to him there.
He rejoiced greatly at my visit, and would not give me his hand
to kiss it, but rather wished to throw himself on the ground with
demonstrations of kissing my feet. When we were seated both together
on a bedstead, the beginning of our conversation was to give thanks
to God for bringing us together. Then he began to speak of the great
pleasure he had received from what they had related to him of what I
had said on several occasions, and from what he had seen had passed
with me at the baptism, and from the great clearness with which I had
spoken the truth in the presence of the Prester, which he would not
believe from him, the Abima, because he was alone; and that if he had
a partner or two, who would assist him in speaking the truth, he would
withdraw the Prester from many things and errors, in which he was with
his people. Upon this there came in a priest of his, a white man, son
of a Gibete, that is, a white man born in this country. This one asked
why we were not circumcised, since Christ had been so. I answered that
it was true that Christ had been circumcised, and that he chose it in
order to fulfil the law which was in force at that time, and in order
not to be accused before the time of being a breaker of the law: and
afterwards it had been commanded to cease circumcision. This priest
next said that he was the son of a Frank, and that when he was born
his father would not have him circumcised, and when he was already
twenty years old and his father had died, he had gone to bed entire,
and in the morning found himself cut smaller: how would that be since
God no longer would have circumcision. I answered him that it would be
a great lie, because although God had not forbidden circumcision, yet
he would not be sufficiently worthy nor so holy, that God should have
wrought a miracle for him, and from imperfect to make him perfect: and
if it was so as he said, that he went to bed entire and found himself
cut, the devil must have cut him to make a mockery of him. The Abima,
with as many as were in the house, were seized with much laughter,
and the Abima rejoiced much; and this priest, from this time forward
became much my friend, and came every day to our mass, and was very
friendly with the Portuguese. The Abima sent for wine and fruit, and
sent with me to our tents much bread and wine and a cow. On the 8th day
of January the Abima Mark conferred orders, and I went to see their
manner of giving them, and it is as follows. They pitched a white tent
in a large plain without inhabitants, where there were quite five or
six thousand people to be ordained. The Abima arrived upon a mule, and
I with him, as I came in his company, and many others who came with
him. In the midst of these people he made a speech from his mule in
Arabic, which one of his priests translated into Abyssinian. I asked
the interpreter that I brought with me what the Abima said. He told me
that he said if there was anyone here who had two wives or more, even
though one was dead, that he was not to become a priest, and that if he
did become a priest, that he excommunicated him, and held him to be
accursed by the curse of God. Having made this speech he went to sit on
a chair in front of the said tent, and before him sat three priests on
the ground with several books in their hands, and others which ruled
the office; and they made all sit down, as many as were to be ordained,
squatting,[184] that is to say, upon their heels. This in three very
long rows, and each row ended at the three priests who had the books.
And there they examined them a very short examination, for each one did
not read more than two or three words: then they go to one who stands
behind these with a vase of ink and a stamp like a seal, and he puts
this stamp on the flat of the right arm. Then they rose from where they
came, and went to sit in the middle of the plain in a clump, in which
sat all those that had been examined, and there were very few who did
not pass. When this examination was ended, the Abima went into the tent
and sat on the said chair. This tent had two entrances, and they put
all the examined persons in a line, one before another, and they passed
before the Abima, entering by one door and going out by the other: when
they passed before him, he put his hand on their head, and said words
which I did not understand, and so there did not remain one for whom
this ceremony was not done. Here he took a book in his hands and read a
piece for himself, and held a cross in his hand, and made with it the
sign of the cross over them. This ceremony being concluded, a priest
who was with the Abima went out to the door of the tent, and read from
a book something like an epistle or gospel; then the Abima said mass,
which was not more than as much as one might say the psalm _Miserere
mei Deus_ three times. And he gave the communion to these priests,
who were two thousand three hundred and fifty seven, all mass priests:
because the mass priests are ordained by themselves, and the deacons
by themselves on another day: and the Abima told me that the deacons
were ordained in all the orders as far as deacon, like St. Stephen. And
later I saw men ordained _zagonais_ and priests of the mass all
in one day, and this several times, because he conferred orders almost
every day, and always in great number, because they come to him from
all the kingdoms and lordships of the Prester, for there is no other
who ordains these priests. They are not put down in a register, nor do
they carry a letter, or other certificate of their orders; and as to
the number which I named, which was 2,357, I did not count them, but I
asked the person who had the charge, and he told me this number, and
certainly it seems to me that it would be true. As to the orders of
_zagonais_,[185] I will relate where I saw them and was present at
them.
CAP. XCVII.--_How the Prester questioned me about the ceremony
of holy orders, and also how I went to the lesser orders which
they call zagonais, and what sort of people are ordained._
On the following day, 9th of January, Prester John sent to call me,
and as soon as I arrived, there came a message to say that they had
told him that I had been to see how they made his priests, and what
did I think of it? I answered that I had seen two things, which if I
had not seen, even though another should have told them to me with
an oath, I should not have believed, and which would not be believed
from me, although I should affirm that I had seen them, as I did see
them. One was the multitude of clergy and crosses at the reception
of His Highness, and the other was the great number of priests that
I had seen ordained together; and the office seemed to me very good,
but what did not seem to me good was the great indecency with which
those priests came who were ordained; and so I had seen the order of
the Church transgressed in the ordaining of those priests. Then there
came a message that I should not be astonished at any of these things,
for, as to his reception, there had only come to it the priests of the
churches of his ancestors which were in those districts, and that these
wore mitres, and hats, and crosses, which his ancestors had left them;
and that the clergy who had been ordained were very few for what there
usually are, as there are always about five or six thousand ordained;
and now there were few because they did not know that the Abima was
coming: and he asked me to tell him what indecency I had seen and
what breach of the commands of the Church. I answered that it seemed
to me very indecent and a very shameful thing that priests who were
ordained for the mass, and were to receive the body of the Lord, to
come almost naked and showing their nakedness, and that Adam and Eve as
soon as they had sinned saw that they were naked and covered themselves
because they had to appear before the Lord: and these had to receive
him: and also that a friar had come entirely blind, how was he, who
never had eyes, to be made a priest for the mass: also another entirely
paralysed of the right hand, and four or five who were paralysed in
the legs: these also they made priests, and a priest had to be sound
in his limbs. The answer came, that he rejoiced much that I looked at
all things and spoke of what did not seem to me right, so as to amend
them. As to the priests that were naked he would see to that. With
respect to the cripples, that I should speak to Ajaze Raphael, who was
present on the occasion. This Ajaze Raphael was the honourable priest
and great gentleman to whom we were entrusted when we came to the
Court. Then I went to dine with him in his tent, and before we dined he
sent for a book, which, according to what they read in it, must have
been a sacramental of their fashion, and he read in it that a priest
had to be complete, as I had said. I told him that the book spoke the
truth, and that a priest had to be complete in age, judgment, learning,
and limbs: and that those that I saw and had called cripples were
wanting in some of their limbs; firstly, the blind man who had never
seen, how could he know learning, or administer the sacrament? The
Ajaze answered, that I had good reason if our books spoke thus. I said
that they did so, and at great length. He asked me what such as these
would do if they had not alms from the church. I answered that in this
country I did not know, but that in our country such as these, being
given to the church, might serve and would have alms in the churches
and monasteries, and such as the blind would be organ blowers and bell
ringers, and do other things which there are there, and which there
are not in this country. And if they did not serve in monasteries or
churches, that the Kings of the country had in their cities and towns
large hospitals, with much revenue, for the blind and cripples, and
sick and poor. The Ajaze answered, that this all seemed very good, and
that the Prester should know it, and would be much pleased.
On the 10th day of the said month of January the Abima made deacons.
They do not examine for this office, and they make deacons of children
in the lap who cannot yet speak, and, to the age of fifteen years,
when they are still unmarried, and if they are married, they cannot be
deacons. Those who are going to be mass priests, as soon as they are
deacons they get married, and, when married, are ordained for the mass;
because if they got ordained for the mass before being married, they
could not afterwards be married or have a wife. The children who can
neither speak nor walk, are carried by men in their arms, because women
cannot enter into the church, and their lamentations resemble those of
kids in a yard without the mothers, when they are separated and are
dying of hunger, because they finish the office at hours of vespers;
and they are without food because they have to receive the communion.
The little children of such age we know that they cannot read, and of
the bigger ones there are but few who can read, and the ceremony with
regard to them is this. The Abima is seated on a chair in the church
tent, and these deacons pass before him in a line after he has said a
short prayer, and when they pass thus, he cuts a lock of hair from the
head of each; then he takes the book and again reads a prayer; they
come another time and he gives them keys to touch, and they open the
door of the tent or only put their hands to it.[186] Also they put a
cloth on their head, and each of these things they do in turn; and he
gives them small earthenware pots (to touch),[187] for there are no
cruets there; and they return another time and he puts his hands upon
their heads; and between each of these things he always prays a little,
and the little ones come in arms, as has been said. Then they follow
with their mass, and at the end of it they give the communion to all
of them, and it is an amazing thing the danger of the little ones, for
even by force of water they cannot make them swallow the Sacrament,
both on account of their tender age, and their much crying. This office
having been concluded, the Abima begged me to come and dine with him
at his abode, and when I was there he asked me to give him my opinion
of that office, as I had been present, and had seen it well, and the
Prester had sent to tell him to talk to me about the said office,
because he would find in me good reason. Then I told him what I had
said to Ajaze Rafael of the enormity and indecency of the priests and
cripples and blind men who had come to be ordained. He answered, that
the Prester had already sent him word of this, and of what had passed
about it, and of what ought to be done, and also he had sent him word
of what the Ajaze had said, but he asked me about the zagonais whom
he had just made. I said to him that his services seemed to me very
good, but that to ordain children newly born, and great ignorant boys,
did not seem to me well, neither should it be done in the house of
God. He answered that God had brought us to this country to speak the
truth, and that he only did that which he was commanded, and that the
Prester ordered him to make zagonais[188] of all the children, and that
they would learn, because he was very old, and he did not know when
they would have another Abima, and that this country had already been
twenty-three years without an Abima, and that it was not very long ago
that they had sent two thousand ounces of gold to Cairo in search for
an Abima: and on account of the wars of the Sultan[189] with the Turk,
they had not sent him, and they had taken the gold, and that now God
had brought us to this country for us to speak the truth, and that this
country might quickly be provided with an Abima, because his life as
Abima was short. After these two times of going to see how orders were
conferred, I went an infinite number of times later to see them, for
they were given nearly every day, and also on Sundays, for they did not
wait for the four seasons, nor Lent. If some day they desisted from
conferring them, then at once some came to me and made friends with me
without my knowing them before, and they entreated me for the love of
God to speak to the Abima, and ask him to confer orders, as they had
nothing to eat: and if I went to ask it of him at vespers, at that time
he ordered the tent to be pitched in order to confer them next day; and
certainly I never asked it but what he did it, for he had a very good
will towards me; and all the things which I said to him he used to do
them as though I had been his equal in dignity.
CAP. XCVIII.--_How long a time the Prester’s country was without
an Abima, and for what cause and where they go to seek them, and
of the state of the Abima, and how he goes when he rides._
How this country was for twenty-three years without an Abima: they
say that after the time when the Abima died in the time of the great
grandfather of this Prester, who was named Zeriaco, the father of
Alexander, the grandfather of this king, and father of his father Nahu,
for ten years after the death of the said Abima, the Prester would not
send for another, and he said he did not choose that an Abima should
come from Alexandria, and that he should not come from Rome, for he
did not choose it, and he would rather lose his countries than have
a reverend father from the country of the heretics: and he died also
at the end of ten years that the country had been without an Abima:
and his son Alexander, grandfather of this Prester, had remained in
the same opinion for thirteen years without choosing to send for an
Abima, until the people complained, saying that now there were neither
priests nor zagonais to serve the churches, and that the servants being
lost, the churches would be lost, and that when the churches were
lost the faith would be lost. Therefore, seeing this, Alexander sent
to Cairo to seek for an Abima from the Patriarch of Alexandria who
was there, and he sent him two, so that one should succeed the other,
and both were alive in our time. Whilst we were here the Abima Jacob
died, who was to succeed this one who is now living; and he told me
that he had been fifty years in the country, and that he had come as
white as he now was, and he was then of the age of sixty-five years,
and that he was getting to the age of one hundred and twenty and odd
years. That the Prester who sent for them was most Christian, and that
soon after they had come, the Prester John by his command had ordered
that Saturday should not be kept, and that they should not do other
erroneous ceremonies which they used to do, and that they should eat
pig’s flesh and all other meat, although it had not had its throat cut.
When this had begun to be done at the Court and its neighbourhood, not
very long ago, there came to this country two Franks, who are still
living in it, that is to say, one Marcoreo, a Venetian, and after him
Pero de Covilhan, a Portuguese; these, when they arrived, before they
were at Court, began to keep the usages of the country which are still
kept in some parts, that is, to keep Saturdays, and to eat like the
people of the country. Some priests and friars who pretended to know
something of the Bible seeing this, came to the Prester and complained
of the two Abimas, principally of the Vicar, and saying, What thing is
this? these Franks who have now come from Frankland, each one from his
own kingdom, and they keep our ancient customs, how is it that this
Abima, who came from Alexandria, orders things to be done which are not
written in the books? and on this account the Prester had given orders
to return to the former usages. This the Abima related to me, giving
great thanks to God for our arrival, and because the Prester had seen
and heard our mass, and was much pleased with all our offices, and
Church matters, and he, the Abima, hoped in God that by our coming,
and others who should come after us, this country would return to the
truth, and he did not pray to the Lord for anything else but to grant
him life until he should see in this country a ruler of the Church of
Rome, and to hear tell that the Latin mass was celebrated in the house
of Mekkah which belongs to Mahomed; and he trusted in God that it would
soon be, because the Abyssinians had a prophecy that there would not be
more than a hundred Popes in their country, and that then there would
be a new ruler belonging to the Church of Rome, and that the Abima
would complete the hundred; and also he held it to be a prophecy that
the Franks from the end of the earth would come by sea and would join
with the Abyssinians, and would destroy Jiddah and Tor[190] and Mekkah;
and that so many people would cross over and would pull down Mekkah,
and without moving would hand the stones from one to another and would
throw them into the Red Sea, and Mekkah would remain a razed plain, and
that also they would take the great city of Cairo, and upon that there
would be great differences as to whose it should be, and the Franks
would remain in the great city.
The manner of this Abima in his person and state is in this wise. I
will relate how he was in his tent, for I never saw him more than once
in his house. He is always seated on a bedstead, such as the great
people of this country are accustomed to use, and he has a curtain over
the bedstead: he wears a white cotton robe of fine thin stuff, and in
India from whence it comes it is called cacha: he has an upper garment
which does not seem like a good cloak for rain,[191] nor like a church
cloak, he has a hood like that of a cloak for rain, it is of camlet of
blue silk. On his head he has a large turban, also of blue stuff, and,
as I have said, he is a very old man, small and bald. He has a beard
like very white wool, thin and of middling length, for in this country
the clergy do not use to wear beards. He is pleasing in his speech, and
rarely speaks without giving thanks to God. When he goes out to the
King’s tent, or to confer orders, he goes on a mule well caparisoned
and accompanied by many both on mules and on foot. He carries a cross
in his hand, and at his side they carry three crosses on poles raised
higher than him. With respect to this I told him that these crosses
ought to go in front of him. He told me that the cross which he carried
in his hand was most excellent, and that no others had to go before
it. He carries before him through all the country wherever he goes
two tall umbrellas with long supports, like those of the Prester, but
not rich; there also go before him four men with whips, who make the
people withdraw on each side where he goes on the roads. The country
is covered with children and youths and priests and friars who follow
after him shouting, each in his language. I asked what they shouted,
they told me that they said: My lord make us priests or zagonais, and
may God grant you a long life.
CAP. XCIX.--_Of the assembly of clergy, which took place in the
church of Macham Selasem when they consecrated it, and of the
translation of the King Nahum, father of this Prester, and of a
small church there is there._
Saturday, the 12th day of January, there was a great assemblage of
clergy in the said church, and all the night they were engaged in much
chaunting and sounding of instruments, and they said that they were
consecrating the church. Mass had not yet been said in this church,
for it was said in another small church which was close to this, in
which was buried the father of this Prester; and he wished to remove
him to the large church which he had ordered to be built and had
commenced in his lifetime, and which his son had finished; and they
said that it was thirteen years since he died. On the Sunday, when it
was morning, they said mass in this church. This church already has, at
its beginning, four hundred canons with large revenues, and they have
increased as the others did, and they have not enough to eat. On the
15th of the said month we were all summoned, and they told us to go to
the said church, where there were more than two thousand priests, and
as many zagonais; these were together before the principal entrance to
the church, and inside the circuit, which is almost part of it. The
Prester was within his curtains upon the space above the steps of the
principal entrance, before him were the before mentioned clergy, and
they made a great office, with singing, and instruments, and dancing,
and leaping. When a great part of the office had been performed, the
Prester sent to ask what we thought of it. We replied that things
done for the service of God in His name, all seemed good to us, and
certainly they did a service that was agreeable to see as a thing done
in praise of God. Soon he again sent to ask which seemed to us the
best mode, this or ours, and which pleased us most, we were to say
which, and that they would take. Here we answered that God would be
served in many ways, and that this office seemed to us good, and that
also ours seemed to us good, because all was for God, and the one and
the other were done with one object, namely, to serve God, and obtain
merit before Him. Then there came another message, that we were not to
keep anything back in our hearts, and to send and tell him the truth.
Then we sent word that we had already said the truth, and that we kept
back nothing in our hearts; and so we remained there until the end of
the office. This being ended, they ordered all the people to go out of
the church, and all the clergy, and we also with them, and they sent
to place us on the north side, and told us to remain quiet there. The
clergy and people all went to the small church, where the father of
this Prester was buried, and there entered it, as many as it would
hold. Whilst we remained thus, not knowing why we had been sent to this
place, there passed between us and the great church all the clergy and
people in a very well ordered procession, and they brought the remains
of the father of the Prester, and carried them to the great church;
and there came in this procession the Abima Marcos, who was very much
fatigued, and two men supported him under the arms on account of his
great age. Moreover, there came in it the Queens, that is, the Queen
Helena, mother of the Prester, and the Queen his wife; and each of
them with her black parasol for mourning, because, before, they had
white parasols. All the people also were covered with black cloths, and
wept and uttered loud cries, saying: _Abeto_, _abeto_, which
means, “O Lord, O Lord”. They said this so dolefully, that we, standing
where we were, all wept. The bier in which the remains came was under a
canopy of brocade, closed in with curtains of satin. So they placed the
bier and canopy in the church, in the cross part, where we stood with
the people who could not enter the church. We came to this office at
sunrise, and we went away by night with torches.
CAP. C.--_Of the conversation which the ambassador had with the
Prester about carpets, and how the Prester ordered for us an
evening’s entertainment and banquet._