Blanquerna

GLORIA IN EXCELSIS DEO

The Pope Blanquerna went into the Consiftory with the Cardinals to the end that through their good works glory might be given to God in the Heavens1 ; and the Pope said to the Cardinals that he prayed them that they would assift him to use his office to the glory of God, in such wise that they might be able to bring men back to the firft intent of the offices and the sciences, namely, that glory might be given to God ; for the world has come to such a sinful ftate, that there is scarce any man who has his intent di reded toward that thing for the which he was created, nor for the which he holds the office which is his. While the Pope

GLORIA IN EXCELSIS DEO spake thus with the Cardinals, a Saracen messenger came before him and the Cardinals, and presented to him a letter from the Soldan of Babylon. In that letter were written many things, and among them the Soldan said to the Pope that he marvelled greatly concerning him, and concerning all the kings and princes of the Chriftians, that in conquer¬ ing the Holy Land beyond the seas they a fled according to the manner of the prophet Mahomet, who held by force of arms the lands which he conquered. He marvelled that the Pope and the Chriilians worked not after the manner of Jesus Christ and of the Apoitles, who through preach¬ ing and through martyrdom converted the world, and that they followed not the manner of those who preceded them in conquering other countries; for this cause, he said, God willed not that they should possess the Holy Land beyond the seas. These letters the Saracen brought to the Holy Apoflolic Father, and like letters brought he to the kings and princes of the Chriflians. Deeply thought the Pope and the Cardinals upon the words which the Soldan had written to them; and Ramin the Fool spake these words: “ Faith sent Hope to Contrition, that she might send her Devotion and Pardon, to the end that they might honour her in those places wherein her Beloved is dis¬ honoured.” The Jeiler of Valour said that Valour is brought to great dishonour in those places wherein the Son of God and the Apoftles did her more grace and honour than in any place which is in the world. After these words there entered the Court a messenger bringing the news that two unbelievers had been suborned to slay a Christian king, and that they had now themselves been delivered up to a cruel death. When he had spoken these words, the Jefter of Valour said : “ Of what avail are the humility and charity of Jesus Chriil which He had himself towards His people, when He willed to suffer Passion of them, if unbelievers, who are in error, have greater devotion in dying for their mailer than have Chriilians in honouring their superior? ” The

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Fool saw two Cardinals speaking, and he supposed that they spake of his Beloved, but they spake of the eleilion of two bishops who had been eledled after a content ; where¬ fore the Fool said to the Cardinals that the moil pleasant words are those that are between the Lover and the Beloved.

2. The Pope was marvellously moved to ordain how that example might be given of the faith of Holy Church and how the devotion to the honour of God which aforetime exited might return; so he sent messengers throughout divers lands to the superiors of religious houses and to the Mailers of the Temple and of the Hospital that they should come to speak with him concerning the making of ordi¬ nances whereby glory should be given to God. When all these had come, and were before the Pope and the Cardinals, Ram6n the Fool spake thus : “ The Lover and the Beloved met, and kept silence with their tongues; and their eyes, wherewith they made signs of love, were in tears ; and the love of the one spake with the love of the other.” “ This ilory,” said the Jeiler of Valour, “ has relation to that which has been reported to the Holy Father and the Cardinals concerning the Soldan and the assassins; and if naught that is useful follows therefrom, great wrong is done to Valour, and the moft honourable of creatures, who die for love, are not loved; albeit it is of greater valour that lovers should speak the one to the other than that mouths should cat.” The Fool said : “ A certain man wrote, and in a book he wrote the names of lovers and loved, and a man that was a lover enquired of him if in that book he had written the name of his beloved ; and he that wrote said to him : “ Hail thou eaten food that was cooked with the fire of love ? And hail thou washed thine hands with the tears of thine eyes? And art thou inebriated and be¬ come as a fool through the love which thou hail drunk ? Hail thou ever been in peril that thou mighteil honour thy beloved ? Hail thou the materials of love wherewith a man may make ink for thy beloved to write ? If all these things

GLORIA IN EXCELSIS DEO be not so, then is thy beloved not worthy to be written of in this book.”

3. After these words, the Pope and the Cardinals and the religious, to honour the glory of God, ordained that to all monks that had learning there should be assigned friars to teach divers languages, and that throughout the world there should be budded divers houses, which for their needs should be sufficiently provided and endowed, according to the manner of the monastery of Miramar, which is in the Island of Majorca. Right good seemed this ordinance to the Pope and to all the reft, and the Pope sent messengers through all the lands of the unbelievers to bring back certain of them to learn their language and that they at Rome might learn the tongues of these unbelievers, and that certain men should return with them to preach to the others in these lands, and that to those unbelievers that learned Latin, and gained a knowledge of the Holy Catholic Faith, should be given money and garments and palfreys, that they might praise the Chriftians, who when they had returned to their own lands would continue to assift and

4. Of the whole world the Pope made twelve parts, and appointed to represent him twelve men, who should go each one throughout his part and learn of its eftate, to the end that the Pope might know the eftate of the whole world. It came to pass that those who went to the un¬ believers brought from Alexandria and from Georgia and from India and Greece Chriftians who were monks, that they might dwell among us, and that their will might be united with the will of our monks, and that during this union and relationship they might be inftrufted in divers manners concerning certain errors againft the faith, and should then go and inftrudf those that were in their country. Wherefore the Pope sent also some of our monks to the monks aforesaid, and ordered that each year they should send to him a certain number of their friars, that they

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might dwell with us, and, while they dwelt among us, learn our language.

5. “ Beloved sons 1 ” said the Pope to the monks : “ Jews and Saracens are among us who believe in error, and dis¬ believe and despise the Holy Faith whereby we are bound to honour the glory of God. I desire and ask that to these Jews and Saracens who are in the lands of the Christians there be assigned certain persons to teach them Latin and to expound the Scriptures, and that within a certain time they shall learn these, and if they have not done so, that there shall follow punishment; and while they learn let them be provided for from the possessions of Holy Church ; and after they have learned let them be made free men and honoured above all others, and then will they convert their fellows and be the better fitted to understand the truth and to convert these others.”

6. When the Pope had spoken these words, the Cham¬ berlain said that, if the Pope made this establishment, the Jews and the Saracens that are among the Christians would take flight to other lands and the income of Holy Church would be diminished. But Ram6n the Fool said to the Chamberlain: "Once on a time a man loved a woman, and said to her that he loved her more than any woman beside, and the woman enquired of him wherefore he loved her more than any other woman, and he replied that it was because she was fairer than any. The woman made sign with her hand in a certain direftion, saying that in that direftion there was a woman that was fairer ; and when the man turned and looked in that direftion the woman said that if there were another woman that was fairer, he would love her more, and this signified that his love to her was not perfeft." The JeSter of Valour said that if there were another thing better than God the Chamberlain would love it more than God; so there was question among them which thing was the more contrary to the glory of God and to Valour, whether the diminution of the income of Holy 326

GLORIA IN EXCELSIS DEO Church or the dishonour which the Jews and the Saracens show to the glory of God and to Valour.

7. As the Pope desired, even so was it ordained. After this the Pope enquired of the M afters of the Temple and of the Hospital what part they would take in honouring the glory of God, and both these Mailers answered and said that they were already in the Holy Land beyond the seas to defend that land and to give example of the Catholic Faith. The Jester enquired of Ramin the Fool if the love which he had to his Beloved was growing in proportion as his Beloved gave him greater pleasures. The Fool an¬ swered : “ If I could love Him more, it would follow that I should love Him less if He diminished the pleasures which He gives me.” And he said likewise that, since he could not do other than love his Beloved, neither could he increase the love which he bore to Him; but the trials which he suffered grew daily, and the greater they were, the more were the joys increased which he had in loving his Beloved.” The Holy Apoilolic Father said to the two Masters that from that which was signified by the aforesaid words, it followed that to honour the glory of God both the Mailers should make ordinance whereby an Order should be created, that the Jeiler of Valour should not cry out upon the dishonour which is done to Valour by disputes concerning that wherein there would be agreement if they made an Order. He said furthermore that they should use their houses and masterships to make schools and places of iludy, wherein their knights should learn certain brief arguments, by means of the Brief An of finding Truth 1 ; that they might prove the articles of the Holy Faith and give counsel to Mailers, princes and prelates through the art aforesaid ; and that they might learn divers languages, and go to kings and princes of the unbelievers that one kmght might challenge another to maintain, by feats of arms or by learning, the honour and truth which beseem the valour

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that is in the Holy Catholic Faith. The ordinance afore¬ mentioned was granted to the Pope by the two Mailers and by all the friars of their Order, and Ramon the Fool spake these words: “ Humility conquered Pride, and the Lover said to his Beloved : ‘ If Thou, Beloved, wert to die, I should go to weep upon Thy tomb.’ And the Beloved answered : ‘ Weep before the Cross, which is My monu¬ ment.’ The Lover wept bitterly, and said that through over much weeping the sight of his eyes was blinded and knowledge became clear to the eyes of his understanding. Wherefore the Order did all that it could to honour the glory of God.”

8. According to the manner aforesaid, the Holy Apos¬ tolic Father made ordinance concerning the ordinance of the glory of God, and he appointed officers and ministers, and representatives to see that this order was carried out ; and he endeavoured daily with all his power to bring it to pass that benefit might come from the ordinance afore¬ mentioned. It came to pass one day that Ram6n the Fool and the Jeftcr of Valour brought ink and paper before the Pope, and said that they desired to send in writing the aforementioned ordinance to the Soldan and the Caliph of Bagdad, that they might sec if they had subjefts as noble as those of the Pope, or could make as fair an ordinance as the Pope had made to do honour to the glory of God in the Heavens and cause Valour to return to the world.

9. It came to pass one day that the Cardinal of Domine Deus sent to a certain country to spy out the government of the Bishop and all the princes of that country. While this spy was in that land, commandment came from the Pope to the Bishop that he should provide yearly for fifty Tartars and ten friars whom the Pope sent to that diocese, that the Tartars might teach their language to the friars and the friars teach theirs to the Tartars, according as it was ordained in the Court; and that the Bishop should found a monailery without the city where they should live, 328

GLORIA IN EXCELSIS DEO and that endowment should be given to it in perpetuity. Greatly was the Bishop displeased at the commandment which the Pope had given him, bewailing the expense thereof ; and he spake ill of the Pope and of the Cardinals in the presence of the prince of that country. But the Prince rebuked the Bishop fternly, and said that never before had he heard of any Pope or any Cardinals who had to such extent and to the be4l of their power made ordi¬ nances whereby the glory of God was so greatly honoured, and that he himself, to honour the glory of God, and to follow the good example which the Pope and the Cardinals gave him, desired to have a share in the expenses which the students would incur, and to bear the moiety of the coft of the monastery. The King praised the ordinance of the Pope and of the Cardinals greatly, and said that it seemed to him that the time had come wherein God desired that His servants should do Him great honour, and that those that had grayed should be converted.

io. So soon as the spy had heard the words which the Prince and the Bishop had uttered, he reported in writing to his lord the Cardinal those very words that he had heard, and he wrote likewise that, according to the knowledge which he had gained, the Bishop had bought a caflle for a nephew of his for twenty thousand pounds. These letters were read in the Consi&ory before the Pope and the Cardinals, and the Cardinal to whom the letter had come wrote down the name of the king, to the end that, if an expedition were set on foot,1 or an occasion occurred wherein the Church might show any favour to a king, it should be shown to that king. The Pope sent his messenger to the King, and gave him thanks, and com¬ manded that the caftle should be his, and that he should

BLANQUERNA

give ten thousand pounds for the building of the monastery ; and he sent to the chapter of that diocese commanding that, if the Bishop desired not to hold his office and contribute that which he commanded him to give, they should eleft another in his place, and that the Bishop who had spoken ill of him should have only the income of a canon. The Fool said to the Beloved: “Pay me and give me my recompense for the time that I have served Thee." The Beloved increased in his Lover his love for Him and the grief which he had suffered for the sake of love, and He said to him: “ Behold the Pope and the Cardinals who honour the glory of their Lord.” And the JeStcr sent letters by Devotion to comfort Valour, who wept for the dishonour which for long her enemies had done to her

II. Throughout all the world went forth the fame of the holy life of the Pope and the great good which he did, and daily was valour increased and dishonour diminished. The good which came from the ordinance which the Pope had established illumined the whole world, and brought devotion to them that heard the ordinance recounted ; and throughout all the world was sent in writing an account of the process of the making thereof. It chanced one day that the Pope had sent to a Saracen king a knight who was also a pricSt, and of the Order of Science and Chivalry. This knight by force of arms vanquished ten knights one after the other on different days, and after this he vanquished all the wise men of that land by his arguments, and proved to all that the Holy Catholic Faith was true. By messengers of such singular talent, and by many more, did the ordi¬ nance aforementioned, which was established by the Holy ApoSlolic Father, illumine the world.

12. It came to pass that of the fifty Tartars who learned our language and gained understanding of our faith, thirty were converted, and the Pope sent them with five friars to the Court of the Khan. These thirty, together with the 33°

ET IN TERRA PAX five friars who had learned the language of the Tartars, came before the great Khan, and preached the faith of the Christians, and converted many people in his Court, and they turned the great Khan from the error wherein he lived and made him to doubt it; and after a time, by process of this doubt, he came to everlasting life.

13. In a certain land there were Studying ten Jews and ten Saracens together with ten friars of religion ; and when they had learned our holy law and our letters, the half of them were converted to our law, and they preached our law to other Jews, and to Saracens our holy Christian faith, in the presence of many that had not yet been converted, and thus did they daily and continually. And because the Papal Court did all that was in its power, and through the continuance of the disputation, and because truth has power over falsehood, God gave grace to all the Jews and Saracens of that country so that they were converted and baptized, and preached to others the Holy Faith. Wherefore the good and the honour which, through the Pope Blanquerna, was done to the Christian Faith, can in no wise be recounted.