1.19.21
Someone else says that one of the popes, Innocent III364 I think, excommunicated King Louis and his father but that the French bishops abrogated the sentence and ordered him to cancel it, and that Pope Innocent IV365 convened the thirteenth synod against the emperor Frederick II366 in 1245 and there found him guilty of unbelief and of taking Muslim girls as concubines. The emperor’s preachers and the members of his party stood up for him and responded by accusing the pope of having deflowered a virgin and of taking bribes on more than one occasion. Another has said that the aforementioned pope seduced the aforementioned emperor’s physician into slipping poison into his food, and that Pope Lucius II367 on one occasion took command in person of besieging Rome and died as the result of a stone striking him in the head; that Pope Clement XV368 used to roam about in Vienne369 and Lyons collecting money with his mistress, that a Dominican monk poisoned Emperor Henry on the orders of the pope (and at communion too!), that in 1200 two popes jostled for the throne, each gathering his party in readiness for a fight, on the banner of each the image of the keys, that one of these seized the liturgical vessels of the church of Saint Peter and sold them in preparation for the war, and that Pope Urban370 used to torture any cardinal who disagreed with him. At this time also, the French state refused to acknowledge the pope and its bishops ruled tyrannically over the people. Some say that Pope John XXIII371 was accused of poisoning his predecessor, selling church offices, murdering a number of innocents, and being both an unbeliever and a sodomite, as a result of which he was deposed by the emperor.372 And so it continues, beyond the scope of this book, for it has not been my intention to belittle religion; I simply provide the foregoing by way of a digression.
1.19.22
However, if what these French authors say is true, then my brother was far more pious and godly than these leaders of the church, for no one ever accused him of practicing sodomy or adultery or poisoning anyone or inciting sons to kill their fathers, or of making off with the church plate or behaving unjustly or rebelling against his sovereign or taking bribes. The whole matter comes down to no more than arguments between him and a patriarch over things that have no fixed measure or number or weight or volume. You might say that the steps from Qannūbīn to Sijjīn373 are three in number; he might say three hundred; I might say three thousand — what role do prison and torment have to play in such matters? If, on the other hand, what these writers say is lies and slanders, that would call for them to be punished and for retribution to be exacted upon them for slandering God’s priests and successors with libels so vile no fetish-worshipper could come up with anything more appalling. In fact, however, we are not aware of any of them having been tortured or banished or scared out of their houses or summarily removed from their abodes — quite the opposite, as their books have been printed time and time again and are priced in the market as scholarly works.
1.19.23
Someone may say, “This memorandum of yours is addressed to the present patriarch, who is a man of virtuous and noble qualities and not the one who imprisoned and killed your brother, who was his predecessor.” I reply, “I am aware of that, but so long as he believes that what his predecessor did was right he is his partner and sooner or later will mete out the same treatment to those who have followed in my brother’s footsteps. By the same token, all metropolitans, bishops, priests, and monks are equally blameworthy if they condone what the deceased patriarch did. I would have preferred to conclude this memorandum with a word of censure addressed to His Excellency Metropolitan Būlus Musʿad, our maternal uncle and confidential secretary to the patriarch. But I see that I’m in danger of going on too long, and what I’ve said above should be enough for the wise.”
(1) The “creaser” (al-qasāmī) is “the person who gives clothes their first folding, so that they take their creases according to the way he makes them.”
(1) “Countess” is the feminine of “Count,” a title of nobility among the Franks.
CHAPTER 20: THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MARKET-MEN AND BAG-MEN
1.20.1
You must know that the Market-men are famous everywhere, for they have, since ancient times, held a monopoly over the goods, which they keep in warehouses of theirs, declaring, “We shall exact revenge on anyone who does not buy from our warehouses.” They have also hidden the price list from the buyers and jacked up the prices of the various items to an exorbitant degree, demanding from the buyer several times the original price. More recently they opened workshops and warehouses in all the cities, and they have kept these dark, with no apertures or openings for the light, and they sell from them without showing the true colors of the goods or the kind of cloth. They keep the items they sell wrapped and packaged, and the buyer takes them and goes off without having set eyes on them. They have innumerable weavers, tailors, darners, and dyers, and these make them whatever they ask for.
1.20.2
One year it happened that a devastating die-off of cattle occurred, and the land was laid waste. Their stocks of wool and silk were thus reduced, and the looms and workshops were close to falling idle. One among them, a man of sound judgment and perspicuity, decided to use hair and certain kinds of plant in place of the silk and other stuffs that they could not find, and the work that he did with such materials was so well and cleverly made that most people were taken in. Then a company of those hard-pressed types who have been driven by their poverty-stricken situations to broaden the scope of their thinking and to look into and compare and contrast things — for the majority of scholars and original thinkers are vagabonds — went to one of the warehouses to buy what they needed and took what they’d bought to their homes, wrapped and untouched, as usual.
1.20.3
Now one of them was in love with and wanted to marry a woman, and he’d bought her a handkerchief. When he presented it to her in the presence of the others — it being noted that she was, like all women, skilled at examination and inspection and the uncovering of what is hidden — she took the handkerchief and, before thanking him for his kindness, brought it close to the light of the lamp (for she was visiting him at night), only to find in it a large hole, even though the light was weak and on the point of going out. Before them all, she cried, “Woe to him who sold you this! He cheated you. It’s got a hole in it as big as the one that holds you in thrall!” When they heard this, they were put on their guard, some picking apart what they’d bought, others measuring their clothes against their bodies, and so on, until it became plain to them that the wares were not what they’d asked for. He who had gone to buy something red found it was black, he who had wanted a long robe found it was short, and he who had wanted silk found it was cotton.