Guillaume Adam

Guillaume Adam

(c. 1314)

Papal missionary.

De Modo Saracenos Extirpandi.

Latin.

Nam oportuit terram mari Indico contiguam et aliquas insulas perlustrare, quia sic vie, quam causa predicandi in Ethiopiam habebam facere, disposicio requirebat. De qua Ethiopia multa et magna compassion est quod tantus et talis populus et tam infinitus suc percat, et a nostrorum memoria totaliter sit abscisus.

…

Dispositionem autem hanc scio, non narratore alio mediante, nempe quia fui in dictis insulis novem mensibus commoratus, quando volebam, causa predicande fidei, cum quibusdam aliis ordinis mei, meis sociis, in Ethiopiam proficisci. De qua Ethiopia, et de quibusdam insulis, possem stupenda narrare, quod material libelli hujusmodi id rennuit et quam intend, in hoc oposculo nisi brevitas non requirit.

(In fact, it was necessary to travel around the earth, the sea, and some contiguous islands of India, because this way was the path to Ethiopia, which I had to do to preach the cause of providence. With regard to this, the people of Ethiopia have infinite and a great piercing compassion, and it will be completely cut off from our remembrance.

…

The dispositions of this, I know, it is not by means of another narrator, that is to say, because I was in the said islands and stayed for nine months, and when I wanted, preached the cause of faith, together with some others of my order, and with my companions, went to Ethiopia. But concerning this in Ethiopia, and of some of the islands, there are astonishing things to tell, [but] that the material is absent because what I desire, does not require a book of this kind except a short booklet.)

Selected editions

Receuil des Historians des Croisades. Documents Arméniens. Tome II (Paris: 1906).