And when, after twenty days, I did go away, from there, that man to whom I had given the carpet ordered the ship’s master, after passing a certain promontory, to put me ashore and let me die of hunger. This he did because he bad searched my baggage to see if I had any purple vestments concealed, and, when he had wanted to take one, I had prevented him. Oh you Michaels, you Michaels, where have I ever found so many of you and such ones! For my ‘keeper in Constantinople gave me over to his rival Michael – a bad man to a worse, the worse one to a rascal.
My guide was also called Michael-a simple man, indeed, but one whose simplicity harmed me almost as much as the wickedness of the others. But from the hands of these little Michaels I came into you, O great Michael half hermit, half monk! I tell you and I tell you truly; the bath will not avail you, in which you do assiduously get drank for love of St. John the Baptist! For those who seek God falsely, shall never merit to find Him!
(The manuscript containing Liutprand’s report breaks off here suddenly.)
translated in the appendix of Ernest F. Henderson, , Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages , (London: George Bell, 1910), pp. 440-477 [pagination preserved] The text has been modernized slightly by the changing of archaic verb forms [“thou wert” and so forth], and by the Americanization of the spelling.
Liudprand of Cremona (c.922-c.972): Embassy to Constantinople, 963 excerpts
Liudprand of Cremona (c.922-c.972) made several trips to Constantinople. Embassy to Constantinople discusses his tmission to the Emperor Nicephorus Phocas on behalf of Emperor Otto I.of the Holy Roman Empire.
… On the fourth of June, as I said above, we arrived at Constantinople and waited with our horses in heavy rain outside the Carian gate until five o’clock in the afternoon. At five o’clock Nicephorus ordered us to be admitted on foot, for he did not think us worthy to use the horses with which your clemency bad provided us, and we were escorted to the aforesaid hateful, waterless, draughty stone house. On the sixth of June, which was the Saturday before Pentecost, I was brought before the emperor’s brother Leo, marshal of the court and chancellor; and there we tired ourselves with a fierce argument over your imperial title.
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