Ogier d'Anglure
Ogier d’Anglure
(1395-6)
French noble.
Journal de voyage à Jérusalem et en Égypte (Journal of the voyage to Jerusalem and Egypt).
Middle French.
[248]
La cité de Babiloine siet sur ung fleuve qu'on appelle le Nil, qui est moult grosse rivière et large. Ce fleuve vient de Paradis terrestre, et passe par la terre Prestre Jean, et vient passer par Babiloine, et chiet en mer assés près d'Alixendre. Cedit flun vient ainsi comme d'entre orient et midi, et est trouble et blanc plus que n'est le flun Jourdain. Ainsi passe il tout par delez le Caire Et sachiés que cedit flun abreuve et arrouse la plus grant. partie du pays d'Egipte, et, quant il est trop hault; ilz ne peulent riens ahaner.
...
[248]
The city of Babylon is situated on the river that is called the Nile which is a very big and large body of water. The river starts in the Land of Paradise, flows through the land of Prester John, passes Babylon and flows into the [Mediterranean] sea at Alexandria. The river begins south-east and it is very silty and more trouble than the [River] Jordan. It also passes through Cairo. Knowing that the river quenches and floods a large part of the country of Egypt, and when it has flooded, they cannot grow anything.
...
In [the Abbey of Saint Anthony] resides a hundred brothers who lead a life of sanctity and excellence, because never do they drink wine or eat meat and fish, nor do they wear linen clothes. And truthfully, they give testimony to their goodness because they treat pilgrims very well and they willingly give them their food that they find without asking for anything in return. These brothers, of which we speak, are Jacobite Christians because they are circumcised and then baptised like us. They sing and celebrate their service very saintly in their language. They do not celebrate the offices of our Lord according to our rites and those of the Greeks, but they have other rites similar to those Christians in the land of Prester John. That is what we have been told.
Selected editions
Le saint voyage de Jherusalem du Seigneur d'Anglure, trans. F. Bonnardot and A. Longnon (Paris: 1879).
Vers Jérusalem. Itinéraires croisés au XIVe siècle, trans. M. Tarayre and N. Chareyron (Paris: 2008).
