HERE BEGINS THE ITINERARY OF RICHARD KING OF THE ENGLISH TO THE HOLY LAND,
MASTER GEOFFREY DE VINSAUF.
BOOK I.
Ch. I.—In the year of the Incarnate Word 1187, when Urban III. held the government of the Apostolic See, and Frederic was emperor of Germany; when Isaac was reigning at Constantinople, Philip in France, Henry in England, and Wil1iam in Sicily, the Lord's hand fell heavy upon his people, if indeed it is right to call those his people, whom uncleanness of life and habits, and the foulness of their vices, had alienated from his favour. Their licentiousness had indeed become so flagrant that they all of them, casting aside the veil of shame, rushed headlong, in the face of day, into crime. It would he a long task and incompatible with our present purpose to disclose the scenes of blood, robbery, and adultery, which disgraced them, for this work of mine is a history of deeds and not a moral treatise: but when the ancient enemy had diffused, far and near, the spirit of corruption, he more especially took possession of the land of Syria, so that other nations now drew an example of uncleanness from the same source which formerly had supplied them with the elements of religion. For this cause, therefore, the Lord seeing that the land of his birth and place of his passion had sunk into an abyss of turpitude, treated with neglect his inheritance, and suffered Saladin, the rod of his wrath, to put forth his fury to the destruction of that stiff-necked people; for he would rather that the Holy Land should, for a short time.
