by Giles Milton
knights
Master William de Yetham Master John de Maundeville Master Jakes Benne Wautier de Gauwaye
clerks
166
L.^
I
The King's Pardon
This was not the first time that this particular John Mandeville had been sent to Scotland by the king; a previous visit, on 20 November 1312, had also earned him a mention of thanks in a roll of Scottish records.
Could this conceivably be Sir John Mandeville of The Travels'? There is every possibility that it was, for if Sir John had indeed been a member of the Black Notley family of Mandevilles, he would have been born and raised within a few miles of Robert Bruce's family home. Bruce, too, had lived in Essex, and at least one of the Black Notley clan had married close associates of his family.
There were other links as well. When Sir Thomas Mandeville— John's possible father—was captured during the battle of Bannock-burn, Bruce himself intervened to have Sir Thomas released. He even paid £94—a vast sum of money in those days—to ensure that he was freed without suffering any harm.
Given the delicate circumstances surrounding the expedition to Scotland, a Mandeville from Black Notley would have made the perfect mediator.
The shelves nearest the main door of the British Library reading room are stacked with row upon row of identically sized volumes which are bound, for the most part, in red Morocco leather with chiselled gold lettering. Few people use this section of the library, and for good reason. These shelves are home to Britain's state papers—a day-by-day record of interminably dull events. As you walk past row upon row of books, you find yourself moving further back in time: two volumes cover the reign of George II; three deal with William III; there are dozens for Charles I, and a few plump books for Henry VIII. Two steps more and I was into the reigns of the Plantagenet kings, and at the bottom of one of the shelves, I found documents written during the reign of King Edward II. His affairs of state merited four volumes.
For some weeks I had been trying to verify an account which claimed that the de Bohuns—the overlords of the Mandevilles—had been involved in the murder of the king's favourite. Piers Gaveston. That Gaveston was brutally executed is not in doubt, and the playwright Christopher Marlowe based his drama Edward the Second on sound historical facts. But it wasn't until I looked at the state papers for
The Riddle and the Knight
Edward II's reign that I realized that Mandeville was just as involved as the de Bohuns. For underneath the date, 16 October 1313, was the following notice written on behalf of the king: "Westminster: Pardon to Thomas, earl of Lancaster, and his adherents, followers, and confederates, of all causes of anger, indignation, suits, accusations &c arisen in any manner on account of Peter de Gavaston, from the time of the king's marriage with his dear companion Isabelle ..."—surely a hint of irony here, for Edward hated his wife—". . . whether on account of the capture, detention, or death of Peter de Gavaston or in any other manner touching or concerning Peter de Gavaston, or that which befel him/'
The document went on to list all those pardoned for complicity in the murder of the king's favourite. This list began, naturally enough, with the most senior—Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford and Essex—but it also included all his retainers in order of rank. And whose name should appear halfway down the third column? None other than John Mandeville.
Was this my Sir John? He was certainly the right age. He was from the right family. He fitted the dates. And in every way he sounded like the author of The Travels. At last—I was sure—I'd found my man.
ah? ^tnat BtBtrt
lohn Mandevile, Knight, borne in the Towne of Saint Albons, was so well giuen to the studie of Learning from his childhood, that he seemed to plant a good part of his felicitie in the same . . . hee was rauished with a mightie desire to see the greater parts of the World, as Asia and Africa. Having therefore provided all things necessarie for his journey, hee departed from his Countrey in the yeere of Christ 1332. lllustrium Maioris Britanniae Scriptorum, John Bale, 1548
^^^ he journey from Jerusalem to Eilat began as drama and ended I I as farce. The bus had scarcely left the outskirts of the Holy City ^^^ before the road swooped downv^ards, and continued to plummet for some forty miles. By the time we reached the Dead Sea, we had dropped from 1,000 feet above sea level to 1,200 feet below.
Eilat is a further three hours' drive across the Negev desert—a bleak route with only the occasional army camp to break the monotony of the landscape. The sparkling blue waters of the Red Sea entice the eyes after the dust of the Negev, but any dreams of an Oriental Cote d'Azur are shattered as soon as you enter the half-finished concrete resort of Eilat. The Israeli Tourist Board advertises the town as a year-round paradise, but the snake in this particular paradise is the airport which town planners have placed slap-bang in the centre of town.
Travellers heading onwards to Egypt must change onto a local bus which runs to and from the military checkpoint at the border, some twenty minutes from the town centre. Two hundred yards of no-man's-land and several dozen well-equipped troops separate the friendly states of Israel and Egypt.
A huge Hilton Hotel stands right on the border, surrounded by a
The Riddle and the Knight
cluster of tourist facilities. Built before the Camp David accords handed the Sinai peninsula back to Egypt, this sliver of land was disputed until 1989 when it, too, was signed over to Egypt. The border was redrawn several hundred metres to the west, the hotel found itself no longer in Israel, and the tourists, put off by the sight of soldiers with guns slung from their shoulders, stayed away. Despite this, the hotel remains open to the few who choose to spend their holiday on a beach surrounded by barbed wire.
The scenery changes dramatically almost as soon as you enter Egypt. Where the Negev is bleak and uninviting, Sinai is barren but impressive. Dry scrub is replaced by waterless desert, and dust-blown hills by brilliant pink mountains which centuries of desert sun have spliced into towering needles and tortuous chasms.
For thousands of years, this wilderness was home to nomadic Bedouin who roamed the peninsula with their camels and wives in search of food and water. Sometimes they would journey to the sea, where they could fish for their food, but more often they wandered through the desolate heartland of the Sinai, living in black woollen tents and battling against drought and death.
There are still a few who continue this lifestyle, but most have abandoned hardship for the pleasures of a life by the sea. Tourist resorts have sprung up along the Red Sea coast, and hotels are constantly under construction. In Mandeville's day, the Bedouin murdered tourists. Now they serve them pizzas in air-conditioned hotels.
I had left Jerusalem later than I intended—it was after 10 a.m.— and by the time I had crossed the border into Egypt, it was past two o'clock. I was heading to the Greek Orthodox monastery of St. Catherine's, which Sir John describes in great detail, but any chance of reaching this lonely desert outpost before nightfall was looking increasingly unlikely, especially when a couple of men at the border told me the last bus had already gone.
"No bus," echoed a group of taxi drivers in unison. "You come with me," shouted one.
"Eh, monsieur, I take you to monastery," said another.
"My car is a Mercedes," boasted a third.
"How much?" I asked.
The Sinai Desert
"Good price for you," said the first. "English we hke. Gooood En-ghsh . . . Gooood price."
"How much?"
He looked me up and down and smiled. "For you/' he said, bowing his head deeply in an attempt to stress his generosity, "for you, the special price is one hundred fifty dollars."
I laughed and the price plummeted. "One hunded dollars."
I smiled and it dropped again. "Eighty dollars."
There was a pause before he spoke again. "Seventy?"
The price was still dropping when I was joined by Richard, an English tour rep who was spending his two months' leave in Sinai, as
he did every year.
"You're mad to take a taxi to St. Catherine's," he warned. "Get the bus to Darhab instead. You'll be able to get a lift to the monastery tomorrow." Twenty minutes later Richard and I, along with a couple of Germans and several Israelis, were en route to the Red Sea resort of Darhab.
It was dark when we arrived in the town, but Richard said there would be no problem finding somewhere to stay. "It's a great place," he said. "There are hotels, restaurants, bars ... I spent a month here last year and loved it."
He recommended the Moonlight Beach Hotel and was so enthusiastic in his praise that I decided to take him at his word. It sounded too good to be true: a friendly, family-run establishment situated right on the beach. But Darhab wasn't quite as he had described it; the town centre was little more than a collection of makeshift restaurants and bars strung out along a dirt track. The place was filled with young hippies slowly getting stoned as they sat on the rush matting of the restaurant floors.
Our hotel had enthusiastically embraced the easygoing lifestyle of Darhab. It didn't have any rooms, just thatched sheds where you could unroll a bedmat—if you had one. The owner, a thin man with nicotine-brown teeth, seemed overcome with lethargy; he was slouched by an outdoor fire and made no effort to get up when we arrived and asked to stay. "Sit down," he said. "Have some tea." And he proceeded to pour over-stewed tea into glasses smeared with grease.
The Riddle and the Knight
"You are welcome in Darhab/' he said as he handed me a bag of hashish. Richard intercepted it and exchanged the bag's contents for a bottle of duty-free vodka. I asked the price of the room and the owner said 6op a night.
"I said it would be cheap/' said Richard as he lay back in the dirt. "Ah, Darhab . . . it's good to be back."
As we sat around the fire, and as the stars lit up the sky one by one, I asked Ahmad, the owner, if he was a Bedouin.
"Of course," he said. "I am from the Towarah tribe. My father came to Darhab for work, and now I run this hotel. One day, I think, we will be rich."
And the rest of his tribe? "Pff," he said as he swept his arm around his head. "We are all over the place. I have relatives here in Darhab, in Nuweiba, in Sharm el Sheik, and even a few living in Cairo now."
I was intrigued to know if he had ever heard of the Jebaliyeh tribe, for I'd been told that they were descendants of a strange Christian tribe from Europe. But Ahmad said I was talking nonsense. "They are from Sinai," he assured me. "Jebel means mountain, and they are Bedouin from the mountain." There was a moment's pause: "But why do you ask so many questions? Drink some vodka. Smoke some grass. This is Darhab." And he sat back on the rug by the fire with a large grin on his face.
When I switched on my torch in the middle of the night, I discovered that the room was seething with bedbugs and that the walls were splattered with bloodstains. By the morning, I was covered in bites. I got up early, paid my 6op, and walked to the bus stop. I wouldn't come back to Darhab in a hurry.
Long before I set out from England, I felt that Sir John's account of St. Catherine's monastery would be a crucial test of his Travels. This was not simply because his descriptions of the buildings are more detailed than those of other places he visited: I had also been told that many medieval knights who travelled here as pilgrims had carved their names into the walls of the refectory. Could it be possible that Sir John, too, had left his name?
Staying inside the monastery, however, is no easy matter. The monks of St. Catherine's have never been keen on outsiders disturbing
The Sinai Desert
their life of prayer, and virtually all pilgrims who wish to spend a few nights here are told to sleep in the newly built hostel nearby. But I had one factor in my favour. A French friend of mine called Jean had spent several years as a monk at St. Catherine's, and had written a long and pleading letter to one of his former colleagues—a Frenchman named Father Justin—asking all at St. Catherine's to help me with my research. I was pinning all my hopes on this letter as I set off from Darhab towards the monastery.
The bus slowly chugged across the Sinai peninsula—crossing numerous military checkpoints left behind after the 1967 Egypt-Israeli war— and finally came to a halt about half a mile from St. Catherine's. Three of us got off and began walking up the narrow track towards the building, but we soon found ourselves joined by four air-conditioned tourist buses which pulled up and discharged a huge crowd of day-trippers from Israel. They were all clutching camcorders and bottles of Coke, shattering my expectations of a silent monastery under a silent sky.
Despite the crowds, the first glimpse of St. Catherine's is breathtaking. Built as a fortress and constructed from local materials, its huge mud walls appear to have pushed themselves out of the desert floor. Behind these walls, the massive bulk of Mount Sinai rears into the sky, while a second mountain looms over the far end of the valley.
As I walked up to the main entrance, elbowing my way through the crowds, I pulled the letter from my bag. With so many people arriving, I felt sure that the monks would never let me stay.
"I've come to see Father Justin," I said to the doorman. "I've got a letter for him."
"He is not here," he replied. "He's in the mountains."
"When will he return?"
He shrugged his shoulders and held up his hands. "Who knows," he said. "Maybe tomorrow. Perhaps not until next week."
I explained that 1 wanted to stay in the monastery.
"Impossible. You can stay in the pilgrims' hostel down the road," he said, "but you can't stay in the monastery."
"Is there anyone else I can ask?" He shrugged his shoulders for a second time and pointed into the courtyard. "Ask one of the monks," he said. "They might know more."
The Riddle and the Knight
The narrow stone gateway opened into a cobbled alley that wound around the outside of the monastery's church. A monk stood gazing at the sky, and although I coughed a couple of times to attract his attention, it was only when I began explaining my problem that he looked at me.
"You must speak with Father John/' he said. "He is the only one who can give you permission to stay. You'll find him upstairs."
Father John was sitting behind a large desk, and he looked up when I entered the room. He had a cUpped beard and white hair, and he frowned when I handed him the letter for Father Justin. As he read it, I explained that my wife was Orthodox, and I'd been married in the Orthodox Church.
"So you're looking for a knight," he said with a perfect com.mand of English. "It goes without saying that you may stay in the monastery. How many days will you need ... ?"
Holy men have been living in the Sinai peninsula from the earliest days of Christianity. Not only was this the place where Moses had heard the word of God, it was also far from the persecutions of pagan Rome.
But life here was not easy. Sinai is a desert with scant food and little water, and many of the earliest settlers died of thirst or starvation. Even when they began to gather around the wells, life was little better, for they were easy prey for the murderous Bedouin, who had long ago adapted to the harsh environment.
The holy men continued with their struggle despite terrible difficulties and eventually built a small church on the site of the burning bush. An early pilgrim—a noblewoman called Etheria—visited this church in the fourth century and recorded her experiences of the place: "There were many cells of holy men there, and a church in the place where the bush is . . . there is a very pleasant garden in front of the church, containing excellent and abundant water."
The thick walls of the church did little to discourage the attacks by the Bedouin, and eventually the monks decided that enough was enough: in the sixth century they wrote to the Byzantine Emperor Justinian begging for his protection. He granted their request and agreed
The Sinai Desert
to send assistance to help them build a monastic fortress on the site of the burning bush. This is the monastery that survives to this day, the monastery now known as St. Catherine's
.
It wasn't long before the monks faced a new threat, for in the seventh century the Sinai peninsula was conquered by Muslims. The building was frequently faced with destruction, and it wasn't until the Prophet Mohammed himself intervened—or so the local legend goes— that the building and the monks were spared.
Even this didn't stop the occasional mad ruler from attempting to destroy the place. In looo A.D. Caliph al-Hakim—the fanatical Egyptian Sultan who demolished the Holy Sepulchre—declared his intention of flattening the monastery and marched towards it with his troops. It was only when the monks met him in the desert and implored him to save it, claiming it was a sacred site for Muslims as well as Christians, that the fortress was spared. They even told Hakim that there was a mosque within the monastery walls, and as they slowly journeyed with him towards St. Catherine's, they sent secret envoys back to the monastery to warn the monks to hastily construct a mosque.
It was about this time that a monk miraculously stumbled across a body on the summit of Mount Sinai. It was, he declared, the remains of St. Catherine, and it had been placed on the mountain by angels. The bones were immediately transferred to the church, and the monastery—which had originally been famed for its position beside the burning bush—now became known to all as St. Catherine's. The fame of these relics soon spread far and wide, and as the cult of St. Catherine became popular in Europe, pilgrims began to make their way to Sinai to venerate her remains. By the time Sir John came here, thousands had visited the monastery, prayed beside her tomb, and taken home oil that oozed from the bones of the saint.
Sir John's description could almost have been written today. "The monks who live there," he writes, "are Arabians and Greeks, and they are dressed like hermits; there is a large convent of them. They live on dates and roots and herbs . . . [and] are devout men and lead a pure life, and live in great abstinence and great penance."
Though the number of monks has declined from some four hun-