The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 · Chapter 18Part 18
This chapter is not translated yet. You are reading the original.
“And so Messers Nicolaus and Maffeus, with certain Tartars, were sent a second time to these parts; but Marcus Pauli was retained by the Emperor and employed in his military service, abiding with him for a space of 27 years. And the Cham, on account of his ability despatched him upon affairs of his to various parts of Tartary and India and the Islands, on which journeys he beheld many of the marvels of those regions. And concerning these he afterwards composed a book in the French vernacular, which said Book of Marvels, with others of the same kind, we do possess.” (Thesaur. Nov. Anecdot. III. 747.)
78. There is, however, a notable work which is ascribed to a rather early date in the 14th century, and which, though it contains no reference to Polo by name, shows a thorough acquaintance with his book, and borrows themes largely from it. This is the poetical Romance of Bauduin de Sebourc, an exceedingly clever and vivacious production, partaking largely of that bantering, half-mocking spirit which is, I believe, characteristic of many of the later mediæval French Romances.[14] Bauduin is a knight who, after a very wild and loose youth, goes through an extraordinary series of adventures, displaying great faith and courage, and eventually becomes King of Jerusalem. I will cite some of the traits evidently derived from our Traveller, which I have met with in a short examination of this curious work.
Bauduin, embarked on a dromond in the Indian Sea, is wrecked in the territory of Baudas, and near a city called Falise, which stands on the River of Baudas. The people of this city were an unbelieving race.
“Il ne créoient Dieu, Mahon, né Tervogant,
Ydole, cruchéfis, déable, né tirant.” P. 300.
Their only belief was this, that when a man died a great fire should be made beside his tomb, in which should be burned all his clothes, arms, and necessary furniture, whilst his horse and servant should be put to death, and then the dead man would have the benefit of all these useful properties in the other world.[15] Moreover, if it was the king that died—
“Sé li rois de la terre i aloit trespassant,
* * * * *
Si fasoit-on tuer, .viij. jour en un tenant,
Tout chiaus c’on encontroit par la chité passant,
Pour tenir compaingnie leur ségnor soffisant.
Telle estoit le créanche ou païs dont je cant!”[16] P. 301.
Baudin arrives when the king has been dead three days, and through dread of this custom all the people of the city are shut up in their houses. He enters an inn, and helps himself to a vast repast, having been fasting for three days. He is then seized and carried before the king, Polibans by name. We might have quoted this prince at p. 87 as an instance of the diffusion of the French tongue:
“Polibans sot Fransois, car on le doctrina:
j. renoiés de Franche .vij. ans i demora,
Qui li aprist Fransois, si que bel en parla.” P. 309.
Bauduin exclaims against their barbarous belief, and declares the Christian doctrine to the king, who acknowledges good points in it, but concludes:
“Vassaus, dist Polibans, à le chière hardie,
Jà ne crerrai vou Dieux, à nul jour de ma vie;
Né vostre Loy ne vaut une pomme pourie!” P. 311.
Bauduin proposes to prove his Faith by fighting the prince, himself unarmed, the latter with all his arms. The prince agrees, but is rather dismayed at Bauduin’s confidence, and desires his followers, in case of his own death, to burn with him horses, armour, etc., asking at the same time which of them would consent to burn along with him, in order to be his companions in the other world:
“Là en i ot .ije. dont cascuns s’escria:
Nous morons volentiers, quant vo corps mort sara!”[17] P. 313.
Bauduin’s prayer for help is miraculously granted; Polibans is beaten, and converted by a vision. He tells Bauduin that in his neighbourhood, beyond Baudas—
“ou .v. liewes, ou .vi.
Ché un felles prinches, orgoellieus et despis;
De la Rouge-Montaingne est Prinches et Marchis.
Or vous dirai comment il a ses gens nouris:
Je vous di que chius Roys a fait un Paradis
Tant noble et gratieus, et plain de tels déliis,
* * * * *
Car en che Paradis est un riex establis,
Qui se partist en trois, en che noble pourpris:
En l’un coert li clarés, d’espises bien garnis;
Et en l’autre li miés, qui les a resouffis;
Et li vins di pieument i queurt par droit avis—
* * * * *
Il n’i vente, né gèle. Che liés est de samis,
De riches dras de soie, bien ouvrés à devis.
Et aveukes tout che que je chi vous devis,
I a .ije. puchelles qui moult ont cler les vis,
Carolans et tresquans, menans gales et ris.
Et si est li dieuesse, dame et suppellatis,
Qui doctrine les autres et en fais et en dis,
Celle est la fille au Roy c’on dist des Haus-Assis.”[18] Pp. 319–320.
This Lady Ivorine, the Old Man’s daughter, is described among other points as having—
“Les iex vairs com faucons, nobles et agentis.”[19] P. 320.
The King of the Mountain collects all the young male children of the country, and has them brought up for nine or ten years:
“Dedens un lieu oscur: là les met-on toudis
Aveukes males bestes; kiens, et cas, et soris,
Culoères, et lisaerdes, escorpions petis.
Là endroit ne peut nuls avoir joie, né ris.” Pp. 320–321.
And after this dreary life they are shown the Paradise, and told that such shall be their portion if they do their Lord’s behest.
“S’il disoit à son homme: ‘Va-t-ent droit à Paris;
Si me fier d’un coutel le Roy de Saint Denis,
Jamais n’aresteroit, né par nuit né par dis,
S’aroit tué le Roy, voïant tous ches marchis;
Et déuist estre à fources traïnés et mal mis.’” P. 321.
Bauduin determines to see this Paradise and the lovely Ivorine. The road led by Baudas:
“Or avoit à che tamps, sé l’istoire ne ment,
En le chit de Baudas Kristiens jusqu’à cent;
Qui manonent illoec par tréu d’argent,
Que cascuns cristiens au Roy-Calife rent.
Li pères du Calife, qui régna longement,
Ama les Crestiens, et Dieu primièrement:
* * * * *
Et lor fist establir. j. monstier noble et gent,
Où Crestien faisoient faire lor sacrement.
Une mout noble pière lor donna proprement,
Où on avoit posé Mahon moult longement.”[20] P. 322.
The story is, in fact, that which Marco relates of Samarkand.[21] The Caliph dies. His son hates the Christians. His people complain of the toleration of the Christians and their minister; but he says his father had pledged him not to interfere, and he dared not forswear himself. If, without doing so, he could do them an ill turn, he would gladly. The people then suggest their claim to the stone:
“Or leur donna vos pères, dont che fu mesprisons.
Ceste pierre, biaus Sire, Crestiens demandons:
Il ne le porront rendre, pour vrai le vous disons,
Si li monstiers n’est mis et par pièches et par mons;
Et s’il estoit desfais, jamais ne le larons
Refaire chi-endroit. Ensément averons
Faites et acomplies nostres ententions.” P. 324.
The Caliph accordingly sends for Maistre Thumas, the Priest of the Christians, and tells him the stone must be given up:
“Il a .c. ans ut plus c’on i mist à solas
Mahon, le nostre Dieu: dont che n’est mie estas
Que li vous monstiers soit fais de nostre harnas!” P. 324.
Master Thomas, in great trouble, collects his flock, mounts the pulpit, and announces the calamity. Bauduin and his convert Polibans then arrive. Bauduin recommends confession, fasting, and prayer. They follow his advice, and on the third day the miracle occurs:
“L’escripture le dist, qui nous achertéfie
Que le pierre Mahon, qui ou mur fut fiquie,
Sali hors du piler, coi que nul vous en die,
Droit enmi le monstier, c’onques ne fut brisie.
Et demoura li traus, dont le pière ert widie,
Sans pière est sans quailliel, à cascune partie;
Chou deseure soustient, par divine maistrie,
Tout en air proprement, n’el tenés a falie.
Encore le voit-on en ichelle partie:
Qui croire ne m’en voelt, si voist; car je l’en prie!” P. 327.
The Caliph comes to see, and declares it to be the Devil’s doing. Seeing Polibans, who is his cousin, he hails him, but Polibans draws back, avowing his Christian faith. The Caliph in a rage has him off to prison. Bauduin becomes very ill, and has to sell his horse and arms. His disease is so offensive that he is thrust out of his hostel, and in his wretchedness sitting on a stone he still avows his faith, and confesses that even then he has not received his deserts. He goes to beg in the Christian quarter, and no one gives to him; but still his faith and love to God hold out:
“Ensément Bauduins chelle rue cherqua,
Tant qu’à .j. chavetier Bauduins s’arresta,
Qui chavates cousoit; son pain en garigna:
Jones fu et plaisans, apertement ouvra.
Bauduins le regarde, c’onques mot ne parla.” P. 334.
The cobler is charitable, gives him bread, shoes, and a grey coat that was a foot too short. He then asks Bauduin if he will not learn his trade; but that is too much for the knightly stomach:
“Et Bauduins respont, li preus et li membrus:
J’ameroie trop miex que je fuisse pendus!” P. 335.
The Caliph now in his Council expresses his vexation about the miracle, and says he does not know how to disprove the faith of the Christians. A very sage old Saracen who knew Hebrew, and Latin, and some thirty languages, makes a suggestion, which is, in fact, that about the moving of the Mountain, as related by Marco Polo.[22] Master Thomas is sent for again, and told that they must transport the high mountain of Thir to the valley of Joaquin, which lies to the westward. He goes away in new despair and causes his clerk to sonner le clocke for his people. Whilst they are weeping and wailing in the church, a voice is heard desiring them to seek a certain holy man who is at the good cobler’s, and to do him honour. God at his prayer will do a miracle. They go in procession to Bauduin, who thinks they are mocking him. They treat him as a saint, and strive to touch his old coat. At last he consents to pray along with the whole congregation.
The Caliph is in his palace with his princes, taking his ease at a window. Suddenly he starts up exclaiming:
“‘Seignour, par Mahoumet que j’aoure et tieng chier,
Le Mont de Thir enportent le déable d’enfeir!’
Li Califes s’écrie: ‘Seignour, franc palasin,
Voïés le Mont de Thir qui ch’est mis au chemin!
Vés-le-là tout en air, par mon Dieu Apolin;
Jà bientost le verrons ens ou val Joaquin!’” P. 345.
The Caliph is converted, releases Polibans, and is baptised, taking the name of Bauduin, to whom he expresses his fear of the Viex de la Montagne with his Hauts-Assis, telling anew the story of the Assassin’s Paradise, and so enlarges on the beauty of Ivorine that Bauduin is smitten, and his love heals his malady. Toleration is not learned however:
“Bauduins, li Califes, fist baptisier sa gent,
Et qui ne voilt Dieu crore, li teste on li pourfent!” P. 350.
The Caliph gives up his kingdom to Bauduin, proposing to follow him to the Wars of Syria. And Bauduin presents the Kingdom to the Cobler.
Bauduin, the Caliph, and Prince Polibans then proceed to visit the Mountain of the Old Man. The Caliph professes to him that they want help against Godfrey of Bouillon. The Viex says he does not give a bouton for Godfrey; he will send one of his Hauts-Assis straight to his tent, and give him a great knife of steel between fie et poumon!
After dinner they go out and witness the feat of devotion which we have quoted elsewhere.[23] They then see the Paradise and the lovely Ivorine, with whose beauty Bauduin is struck dumb. The lady had never smiled before; now she declares that he for whom she had long waited was come. Bauduin exclaims:
“‘Madame, fu-jou chou qui sui le vous soubgis?’
Quant la puchelle l’ot, lors li geta .j. ris;
Et li dist: ‘Bauduins, vous estes mes amis!’” Pp. 362–363.
The Old One is vexed, but speaks pleasantly to his daughter, who replies with frightfully bad language, and declares herself to be a Christian. The father calls out to the Caliph to kill her. The Caliph pulls out a big knife and gives him a blow that nearly cuts him in two. The amiable Ivorine says she will go with Bauduin:
“‘Sé mes pères est mors, n’en donne .j. paresis!’” P. 364.
We need not follow the story further, as I did not trace beyond this point any distinct derivation from our Traveller, with the exception of that allusion to the incombustible covering of the napkin of St. Veronica, which I have quoted at p. 216 of this volume. But including this, here are at least seven different themes borrowed from Marco Polo’s book, on which to be sure his poetical contemporary plays the most extraordinary variations.
[78 bis.—In the third volume of The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, Oxford, 1894, the Rev. Walter W. Skeat gives (pp. 372 seqq.) an Account of the Sources of the Canterbury Tales. Regarding The Squieres Tales, he says that one of his sources was the Travels of Marco; Mr. Keighley in his Tales and Popular Fictions, published in 1834, at p. 76, distinctly derives Chaucer’s Tale from the travels of Marco Polo. (Skeat, l. c., p. 463, note.) I cannot quote all the arguments given by the Rev. W. W. Skeat to support his theory, pp. 463–477.
Regarding the opinion of Professor Skeat of Chaucer’s indebtedness to Marco Polo, cf. Marco Polo and the Squire’s Tale, by Professor John Matthews Manly, vol. xi. of the Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 1896, pp. 349–362. Mr. Manly says (p. 360): “It seems clear, upon reviewing the whole problem, that if Chaucer used Marco Polo’s narrative, he either carelessly or intentionally confused all the features of the setting that could possibly be confused, and retained not a single really characteristic trait of any person, place or event. It is only by twisting everything that any part of Chaucer’s story can be brought into relation with any part of Polo’s. To do this might be allowable, if any rational explanation could be given for Chaucer’s supposed treatment of his ‘author,’ or if there were any scarcity of sources from which Chaucer might have obtained as much information about Tartary as he seems really to have possessed; but such an explanation would be difficult to devise, and there is no such scarcity. Any one of half a dozen accessible accounts could be distorted into almost if not quite as great resemblance to the Squire’s Tale as Marco Polo’s can.”
Mr. A. W. Pollard, in his edition of The Squire’s Tale (Lond., 1899) writes: “A very able paper, by Prof. J. M. Manly, demonstrates the needlessness of Prof. Skeat’s theory, which has introduced fresh complications into an already complicated story. My own belief is that, though we may illustrate the Squire’s Tale from these old accounts of Tartary, and especially from Marco Polo, because he has been so well edited by Colonel Yule, there is very little probability that Chaucer consulted any of them. It is much more likely that he found these details where he found more important parts of his story, i.e. in some lost romance. But if we must suppose that he provided his own local colour, we have no right to pin him down to using Marco Polo to the exclusion of other accessible authorities.” Mr. Pollard adds in a note (p. xiii.): “There are some features in these narratives, e.g. the account of the gorgeous dresses worn at the Kaan’s feast, which Chaucer with his love of colour could hardly have helped reproducing if he had known them.”—H. C.]
[1] See Ferrazzi, Manuele Dantesca, Bassano, 1865, p. 729.
[2] In Quaritch’s catalogue for Nov. 1870 there is only one old edition of Polo; there are nine of Maundevile. In 1839 there were nineteen MSS. of the latter author catalogued in the British Museum Library. There are now only six of Marco Polo. At least twenty-five editions of Maundevile and only five of Polo were printed in the 15th century.
[3] I have made personal enquiry at the National Libraries of Naples and Palermo, at the Communal Library in the latter city, and at the Benedictine Libraries of Monte Cassino, Monreale, S. Martino, and Catania.
In the 15th century, when Polo’s book had become more generally diffused we find three copies of it in the Catalogue of the Library of Charles VI. of France, made at the Louvre in 1423, by order of the Duke of Bedford.
The estimates of value are curious. They are in sols parisis, which we shall not estimate very wrongly at a shilling each:—
“No. 295. Item. Marcus Paulus; en ung cahier escript de lettre formée, en françois, à deux coulombes. Commt. ou iie. fo. ‘deux frères prescheurs,’ et ou derrenier ‘que sa arrières.’ X. s. p.
***
“No. 334. Item. Marcus Paulus. Couvert de drap d’or, bien escript & enluminé, de lettre de forme en françois, à deux coulombes. Commt. ou iie. fol.; ‘il fut Roys,’ & ou derrenier ‘propremen,’ à deux fermouers de laton. XV. s. p.
***
“No. 336. Item. Marcus Paulus; non enluminé, escript en françois, de lettre de forme. Commt. ou iie. fo. ‘vocata moult grant,’ & ou derrenier ‘ilec dist il.’ Couvert de cuir blanc, à deux fermouers de laton. XII. s. p.”
(Inventaire de la Bibliothèque du Roi Charles VI., etc. Paris, Société des Bibliophiles, 1867.)
[4] See Del Reggimento e de’ Costumi delle donne di Messer Francesco da Barberino, Roma, 1815, pp. 166 and 271. The latter passage runs thus, on Slavery:—
“E fu indutta prima da Noé,
E fu cagion lo vin, perchè si egge:
Ch’egli è un paese, dove
Son molti servi in parte di Cathay:
Che per questa cagione
Hanno a nimico il vino,
E non ne beon, nè voglion vedere.”
The author was born the year before Dante (1264), and though he lived to 1348 it is probable that the poems in question were written in his earlier years. Cathay was no doubt known by dim repute long before the final return of the Polos, both through the original journey of Nicolo and Maffeo, and by information gathered by the Missionary Friars. Indeed, in 1278 Pope Nicolas III., in consequence of information said to have come from Abaka Khan of Persia, that Kúblái was a baptised Christian, sent a party of Franciscans with a long letter to the Kaan Quobley, as he is termed. They never seem to have reached their destination. And in 1289 Nicolas IV. entrusted a similar mission to Friar John of Monte Corvino, which eventually led to very tangible results. Neither of the Papal letters, however, mentions Cathay. (See Mosheim, App. pp. 76 and 94.)
[5] See Muratori, IX. 583, seqq.; Bianconi, Mem. I. p. 37.
[6] This Friar makes a strange hotch-potch of what he had read, e.g.: “The Tartars, when they came out of the mountains, made them a king, viz., the son of Prester John, who is thus vulgarly termed Vetulus de la Montagna!” (Mon. Hist. Patr. Script. III. 1557.)
[7] G. Villani died in the great plague of 1348. But his book was begun soon after Marco’s was written, for he states that it was the sight of the memorials of greatness which he witnessed at Rome, during the Jubilee of 1300, that put it into his head to write the history of the rising glories of Florence, and that he began the work after his return home. (Bk. VIII. ch. 36.)
[8] Book V. ch. 29.
[9] Petri Aponensis Medici ac Philosophi Celeberrimi, Conciliator, Venice, 1521, fol. 97. Peter was born in 1250 at Abano, near Padua, and was Professor of Medicine at the University in the latter city. He twice fell into the claws of the Unholy Office, and only escaped them by death in 1316.
[10] [It is curious that this figure is almost exactly that which among oriental carpets is called a “cloud.” I have heard the term so applied by Vincent Robinson. It often appears in old Persian carpets, and also in Chinese designs. Mr. Purdon Clarke tells me it is called nebula in heraldry; it is also called in Chinese by a term signifying cloud; in Persian, by a term which he called silen-i-khitai, but of this I can make nothing.—MS. Note by Yule.]
[11] The great Magellanic cloud? In the account of Vincent Yanez Pinzon’s Voyage to the S.W. in 1499 as given in Ramusio (III. 15) after Pietro Martire d’Anghieria, it is said:—“Taking the astrolabe in hand, and ascertaining the Antarctic Pole, they did not see any star like our Pole Star; but they related that they saw another manner of stars very different from ours, and which they could not clearly discern because of a certain dimness which diffused itself about those stars, and obstructed the view of them.” Also the Kachh mariners told Lieutenant Leech that midway to Zanzibar there was a town (?) called Marethee, where the North Pole Star sinks below the horizon, and they steer by a fixed cloud in the heavens. (Bombay Govt. Selections, No. XV. N.S. p. 215.)
The great Magellan cloud is mentioned by an old Arab writer as a white blotch at the foot of Canopus, visible in the Tehama along the Red Sea, but not in Nejd or ’Irák. Humboldt, in quoting this, calculates that in A.D. 1000 the Great Magellan would have been visible at Aden some degrees above the horizon. (Examen, V. 235.)
[12] This passage contains points that are omitted in Polo’s book, besides the drawing implied to be from Marco’s own hand! The island is of course Sumatra. The animal is perhaps the peculiar Sumatran wild-goat, figured by Marsden, the hair of which on the back is “coarse and strong, almost like bristles.” (Sumatra, p. 115.)
[13] A splendid example of Abbot John’s Collection is the Livre des Merveilles of the Great French Library (No. 18 in our App. F.). This contains Polo, Odoric, William of Boldensel, the Book of the Estate of the Great Kaan by the Archbishop of Soltania, Maundevile, Hayton, and Ricold of Montecroce, of which all but Polo and Maundevile are French versions by this excellent Long John. A list of the Polo miniatures is given in App. F. of this Edition, p. 527.
It is a question for which there is sufficient ground, whether the Persian Historians Rashiduddin and Wassáf, one or other or both, did not derive certain information that appears in their histories, from Marco Polo personally, he having spent many months in Persia, and at the Court of Tabriz, when either or both may have been there. Such passages as that about the Cotton-trees of Guzerat (vol. ii. p. 393, and note), those about the horse trade with Maabar (id. p. 340, and note), about the brother-kings of that country (id. p. 331), about the naked savages of Necuveram (id. p. 306), about the wild people of Sumatra calling themselves subjects of the Great Kaan (id. pp. 285, 292, 293, 299), have so strong a resemblance to parallel passages in one or both of the above historians, as given in the first and third volumes of Elliot, that the probability, at least, of the Persian writers having derived their information from Polo might be fairly maintained.
[14] Li Romans de Bauduin de Sebourc IIIe Roy de Jhérusalem; Poēme du XIVe Siècle; Valenciennes, 1841. 2 vols. 8vo. I was indebted to two references of M. Pauthier’s for knowledge of the existence of this work. He cites the legends of the Mountain, and of the Stone of the Saracens from an abstract, but does not seem to have consulted the work itself, nor to have been aware of the extent of its borrowings from Marco Polo. M. Génin, from whose account Pauthier quotes, ascribes the poem to an early date after the death of Philip the Fair (1314). See Pauthier, pp. 57, 58, and 140.
[15] See Polo, vol. i. p. 204, and vol. ii. p. 191.
[16] See Polo, vol. i. p. 246.
[17] See Polo, vol. ii. p. 339.
[18] See Polo, vol. i. p. 140. Hashishi has got altered into Haus Assis.
[19] See vol. i. p. 358, note.
[20] See vol. i. p. 189, note 2.
[22] Vol. i. pp. 68 seqq. The virtuous cobler is not left out, but is made to play second fiddle to the hero Bauduin.
79. Marco Polo contributed such a vast amount of new facts to the knowledge of the Earth’s surface, that one might have expected his book to have had a sudden effect upon the Science of Geography: but no such result occurred speedily, nor was its beneficial effect of any long duration.
No doubt several causes contributed to the slowness of its action upon the notions of Cosmographers, of which the unreal character attributed to the Book, as a collection of romantic marvels rather than of geographical and historical facts, may have been one, as Santarem urges. But the essential causes were no doubt the imperfect nature of publication before the invention of the press; the traditional character which clogged geography as well as all other branches of knowledge in the Middle Ages; and the entire absence of scientific principle in what passed for geography, so that there was no organ competent to the assimilation of a large mass of new knowledge.
Of the action of the first cause no examples can be more striking than we find in the false conception of the Caspian as a gulf of the Ocean, entertained by Strabo, and the opposite error in regard to the Indian Sea held by Ptolemy, who regards it as an enclosed basin, when we contrast these with the correct ideas on both subjects possessed by Herodotus. The later Geographers no doubt knew his statements, but did not appreciate them, probably from not possessing the evidence on which they were based.
80. As regards the second cause alleged, we may say that down nearly to the middle of the 15th century cosmographers, as a rule, made scarcely any attempt to reform their maps by any elaborate search for new matter, or by lights that might be collected from recent travellers. Their world was in its outline that handed down by the traditions of their craft, as sanctioned by some Father of the Church, such as Orosius or Isidore, as sprinkled with a combination of classical and mediæval legend; Solinus being the great authority for the former. Almost universally the earth’s surface is represented as filling the greater part of a circular disk, rounded by the ocean; a fashion that already existed in the time of Aristotle and was ridiculed by him.[1] No dogma of false geography was more persistent or more pernicious than this. Jerusalem occupies the central point, because it was found written in the Prophet Ezekiel: “Haec dicit Dominus Deus: Ista est Jerusalem, in medio gentium posui eam, et in circuitu ejus terras;”[2] a declaration supposed to be corroborated by the Psalmist’s expression, regarded as prophetic of the death of Our Lord: “Deus autem, Rex noster, ante secula operatus est salutem in medio Terrae” (Ps. lxxiii. 12).[3] The Terrestrial Paradise was represented as occupying the extreme East, because it was found in Genesis that the Lord planted a garden eastward in Eden.[4] Gog and Magog were set in the far north or north-east, because it was said again in Ezekiel: “Ecce Ego super te Gog Principem capitis Mosoch et Thubal ... et ascendere te faciam de lateribus Aquilonis,” whilst probably the topography of those mysterious nationalities was completed by a girdle of mountains out of the Alexandrian Fables. The loose and scanty nomenclature was mainly borrowed from Pliny or Mela through such Fathers as we have named; whilst vacant spaces were occupied by Amazons, Arimaspians, and the realm of Prester John. A favourite representation of the inhabited earth was this ; a great O enclosing a T, which thus divides the circle in three parts; the greater or half-circle being Asia, the two quarter circles Europe and Africa.[5] These Maps were known to St. Augustine.[6]
81. Even Ptolemy seems to have been almost unknown; and indeed had his Geography been studied it might, with all its errors, have tended to some greater endeavours after accuracy. Roger Bacon, whilst lamenting the exceeding deficiency of geographical knowledge in the Latin world, and purposing to essay an exacter distribution of countries, says he will not attempt to do so by latitude and longitude, for that is a system of which the Latins have learned nothing. He himself, whilst still somewhat burdened by the authoritative dicta of “saints and sages” of past times, ventures at least to criticise some of the latter, such as Pliny and Ptolemy, and declares his intention to have recourse to the information of those who have travelled most extensively over the Earth’s surface. And judging from the good use he makes, in his description of the northern parts of the world, of the Travels of Rubruquis, whom he had known and questioned, besides diligently studying his narrative,[7] we might have expected much in Geography from this great man, had similar materials been available to him for other parts of the earth. He did attempt a map with mathematical determination of places, but it has not been preserved.[8]