Unknown author

Edited by J. P. Mahaffy

Two Early Tours in Ireland: The Voyage of Perilhos

1. The Voyage of Perilhos

It happened that, while I was with the Pope, the aforesaid King (of Aragon) don John, my natural lord, died, on account of which death, contrary to the will of God I became very mournful and sad, as much as any servant can be at the death of his lord, putting into my heart at this hour that I should go to the purgatory of Saint Patrick and that I should enter into it in order to know, if it were possible, whether I should find my lord in purgatory and the pains which he was suffering. And in this connection I called to mind the things and the words which I had heard said by some about the purgatory, and after some days, I spoke to the Pope, by way of confession, of this desire which I had to go and to enter into the said purgatory, telling  p.4 him all my intention, and he very urgently forbade me and prohibited me from trying it for anything in the world; and beyond what he said to me, he caused some cardinals his intimates to speak to me and especially two: the one was the titular of Tarragona, who was of the family the name of which is Galnielho (Calvillo); the other cardinal was called Josue de Sanct' Alena(?) ⁵ And in the presence of a brother of mine, called my lord Pos de Perelhos, the Pope urgently admonished me not to go there. So that they restrained me so urgently that scarcely could I escape from them; [yet] after some days, I spoke to the Pope, saying to him that on no account would I give up this journey; and, his blessing obtained, I set out on the day of Saint Mary in September, in the aforesaid year (viz. 1397 A.D.), and took my road through France. And I reached the court of the King at Paris, of whom I was a former servant, and indeed I was his chamberlain and the chamberlain of his father who also had fed me, and at a very early age indeed I became his chamberlain; and from the King of France, from his uncles and brothers, from the Duke of Berry and the Duke of Burgundy, I got letters of recommendation to the King of England (Richard II), who was his son-in-law, and to other lords of England {⬌} (for) beginning with the marriage, they had made a truce of thirty years. I started from Paris, and after several days' journey I came to Calais, where I put to sea to cross to England, where I arrived on All Saints' Day. Having left there, making my road to London, passing by Saint Thomas of Canterbury, I had news from London that the King of England was {⬌} in a great enclosed park, just like the Bois de Vincennes near Paris, called Got (?) near Oxford, at eight miles thence, where there is a great university, which place the English call Estancfort ⁶(?); in that direction it is very beautiful, and the king has there a very strong and beautiful domain, and great dwellings therein. And on account of the letters which I bore from the King of France I was very well received there, and they did me on the king's behalf great honour, and they had me guided to go safe through all his kingdom, which I traversed all without stopping.  p.5 It is true that I stayed ten days with the king. I set out from the coast and arrived after several days' journey in a district called Cheshire, which is on the border of Wales; I arrived at the city of Chester, and there I hired a ship to pass into Ireland; and in this I went along the coast of Wales; I reached a place called Holyhead; thence I set out and crossed the channel with a fair wind as far as the way to Ireland, {⬌} crossing to the Isle of Man, which became the king's by 100 knights in the time of King Arthur, and to-day is well populated and belongs to the King of England; and thence soon I crossed with good weather, and arrived in Ireland at the end of some days' crossing (or tacking), before the city of Belvi (Dublin?), which is a fairly big city. And there I found the Earl of March, who was cousin german of King Richard of England and of the Queen, and to him I told my intention of the journey which I wished to make; and he received me very notably, on account of the letters of the King of England and of the Queen, and he urgently advised me not to make the journey, saying that for two reasons I was not likely to make the said journey; the first is that I had to make a long road, and pass through lands of savage people, who had not a way of life of a kind to which anyone should trust himself; the other reason was that to enter the purgatory was a very dangerous thing, and many good knights had been lost and had not returned; so that on no account did he wish to tempt God nor to deceive me myself. To oppose my going the said Earl did all he could, and when he saw that I was so inclined, he gave me of his horses and of his jewels, and gave me two of his squires, one called John Dimi ⁷, who led me through the land which the King of England holds in Ireland (and as long as he guided me on horseback he did not let me spend anything, although he made the expense on me against my will), and the other called John Talbot, who knew the language of Ireland, and he was my interpreter; and these two had command to lead me to the Archbishop of Armagh, and thus they did it, and he is Primate in the island, and the Irish consider him as Pope. And him I found in the town of Diondan ⁸ (Drogheda?), which is as big as Puycerda or Tarragona. The aforesaid presented me to the Archbishop, to whom I gave letters from the King and Queen of England, and also from the Earl of March, and the said Archbishop received me very well and did me great honour; and he,  p.6 after he had known my desire, tried urgently to dissuade me from my journey, and admonished me not to go there, saying that beside the danger which there was in entering the purgatory, neither he nor anyone would be able to make me safe through the land of King O'Neill or of other lords, through the lands of whom I had to pass before I came to the purgatory; and if I did not wish to be lost beyond a doubt, that I should not on any account attempt it; and afterwards he put me in the sacristy of the great church, where he admonished me much and prayed me that I should not wish on any account to enter into the said purgatory, telling me much of dangers and of hurts which have happened in the purgatory to various people who were lost; and then he told me all the dangers which may happen or which are there, to which I answered according as God had furnished me, affirming that I would never abandon my journey; and when he saw that he could not make me give up my opinion, he gave me all the information he could, and gave me permission, and confessed me, and took with his hand our Lord very secretly, and told me that in a week he would be in a town called Dandela (Dundalk), and thus he did it. I now left him, and went to the said town, and thence I sent to King O'Neill who was in the city of Armagh, and he at once sent me safe conduct and one of his knights and another of his messengers to conduct me until I reached him. And the Archbishop came on the said day and brought indeed 100 soldiers armed in their manner to accompany me, and gave me another interpreter, cousin german of John Talbot, and he was called Thomas Talbot; and with the 100 men-at-arms I entered the land of the savage heretics (?), where King O'Neill was lord. And when I had ridden some five leagues, the said men dared not go further, since they were all great enemies; so that they remained on a hill, and I took leave and went forward. And after I had gone some half a league, I found the constable of King O'Neill with 100 horsemen, armed also in their manner, and to him I spoke. And I left him and reached the King, who received me well according to their manner and sent me a present of food, that is beef, for they use no bread nor drink wine, for they have none; but they drink water, and the great lords drink milk from magnificence, and some of them drink beef-tea. And since their customs are fairly strange to you, I will tell you as briefly as I  p.7 can something of their conditions and manners, and of what I saw at the King's court, with whom at my return I kept the feast of Christmas, although on my outward journey, when I was the first time with him, I had seen enough of it.

It is true that the Kingship goes by succession and to various Kings in that island, which is as great as the island of England; but the greatest is this O'Neill, and all the others are conquered by his family. He has indeed forty horsemen, riding without saddle on a cushion, and each wears a slashed cloak; moreover, they are armed with coats of mail, and wear them girded, and they have throatpieces of mail and round helmets of iron, with swords and sword-blades and lances very long, but very thin in the manner of the ancient lances, and they are two fathoms long; the swords are like those of the Saracens, which we call Genoese; the pommel and the hilt are of another kind: the pommel is like an extended hand, the blades are long and narrow like the little finger, and twisted, and they cut very well. This is the manner of their arms, and some make use of bows, which are as short as half a bow of England; but they shoot as far as the English ones, and they (the users) are just as bold, and for a long time they have been fighting with the English, and the King of England cannot get the better of them. Although they have various other ways of fighting, their manner of warring is like that of the Saracens, and they shout in the same way. And the great lords go clothed in a tunic without lining as far as the knee, and very decollete after the manner of women, and they wear great hooded cloaks which stretch to the girdle, and they wear the point of the hood as narrow as the finger; they wear neither trunk-hose nor sandals, nor do they wear breeches, and they put their spurs upon their bare heels. And in this state was the King on Christmas Day, and all the clerks and knights, bishops and abbots, and great lords. The common people go as they can, ill clothed, but the principal of them wear cloaks of woollen plush; and they show all the shameful parts, the women as well as the men. The poor people go naked, but all wear these cloaks, bad or good, and also the women. The Queen and her daughter and her sister were clothed and adorned with green; but the handmaidens of the queen, who were indeed twenty, were bare-foot, and were clothed just as I told you above,  p.8 and showed all they had and with as little shame as to show the face. And there were with the King three thousand horses, and many poor people, to whom the King gave great alms of oxflesh. And they are among the most beautiful men and the most beautiful women that I have seen in any part of the world. They sow no corn, and gather no wine, but their food is of beef, and the great lords drink milk, and the others beef-tea, and the common people water, and they have excellent butter, since all their meats are of oxen and cows and good horses. On Christmas Day, according to what the interpreters and some others who could speak Latin were saying, the King held court; but his table was not without rushes strewed on the ground, moreover near him they put more delicate grass to wipe his mouth, and they brought him the meat on sticks, just as people carry buckets: you may think how the squires were clothed, God knows it. The beasts eat only grass instead of oats, and the leaves of the holly, which they roast a little on account of the prickles which are on the leaves. And this is enough as to their customs, for I did not hear more said about them.

The King received me very well, and sent me an ox and his cook. There was no bread or wine in all his court, but as a great present he sent me two little cakes as thin as wafers, and they bent like raw dough, and they were of oats and earth, as black as coals, although they were tasty. The king gave me safe conduct to pass through his land, and through his people on foot and on horseback, and spoke much with me, asking me much of the Christian Kings, and especially of the King of France, and those of Aragon and of Castille and of their customs and of their manners of living; and as it seemed to me by his words, they consider their [own] customs the best and most perfect in the world. Their dwellings are commonly, and the greater part, near the oxen; and with the oxen they make their dwellings, and every day they go moving (i.e. they shift their quarters) through the pastures; in the manner of the alams (?) of Barbary, and of the land of the Sultan, they issued one day from their towns, and they go many together.

From the court of the King I set out and made my way through various lands as far as one of their towns called the Processio  p.9 (Pettigo?). ⁹ They did harm to no one ¹⁰, but they hold Saint Patrick in great devotion, and for long both the kingdoms and the kings have kept that town in safety, and the pilgrims who go there are obliged to leave their beasts here, for neither horses nor other beasts could pass the mountains or the waters. So that thence I went on foot to the town where the priory is, and in the priory is the purgatory, and there is there a great deep lake, on which the said island is. The water is good to drink, and in the lake there are various other islands. The bogs are so great on the island (viz. Ireland) that scarcely upon the highest mountains can one pass through the waters, and even then one goes knee-deep, so that on foot there is great difficulty, and on horseback even greater, and it would be wonderful if anyone could pass over. When I set out from the Processio, the lord of the place, who is a great lord, and his brother, who had great devotion to Saint Patrick, and helps much to direct the pilgrims, volunteered to go with me, and accompanied me as far as the monastery, where I was very well received. I crossed the lake by means of a boat (consisting) of a hollowed trunk, for there were no other boats there. The lord of the Processio and the prior who was there kept together. As soon as I got to the monastery, they asked me if I wished to enter into the purgatory, and I answered yes; and then they admonished me urgently that on no account should I wish to enter nor to tempt God, since not only was it a question {⬌} of the body, but of the body and of the soul, which is of more consequence, telling and showing me the dangers and the graves of those who died there. And when they saw my strong determination, they said, and especially the prior, that it was necessary that I should do according to the ordinances of the monastery, as Saint Patrick and his predecessors had ordained, according as it is in the chapter which speaks of Saint Patrick. And so I did, according to their ordinance, and I had to do, with great devotion, all that those do who on account of sicknesses or other dangers expect death.

[There follow pages of his adventures at the Purgatory, but no further facts about the country or about his return journey.]

I have little to add to these interesting narratives, which speak for themselves. In the second, the writer seems to have had little faith in the miracles of the Purgatory, and I have only given his letter in full because he tells us something of his return journey, which Perilhos does not. ¹¹ The adventures of various other narrators inside the Purgatory are given at length in Wright's book, which is a study on such mediaeval Purgatories, whereas my object here is only to reproduce impressions of Ireland from mediaeval observers.

What is here told corresponds very well with the observations of Gerald of Wales about 1200 A.D., long before either of them, and with the Elizabethan pictures of Ireland, such as Derrick's Image with its curious pictures, and Fynes Moryson's Itinerary. We may note it as a curious omission that Perelhos makes no mention of harpers at his Christmas feast with O'Neill. The same omission is to be noted in Chiericati, who did not attend such a feast, but who professes to give a general account  p.16 of the manners and customs of the people. But anyone experienced in such accounts must be content with what they tell, and only lament what they omit.

We have failed to identify many of the place-names, which the travellers set down phonetically as they heard them. But seeing that Perilhos gives us Yrnel for O'Neill, we may allow ourselves some liberty in our conjectures. Even so, we are completely at fault in many cases, and appeal to the learned Irish topographers to help us in the identification of these names. Where they represent monasteries, the task should not be hopeless. I had thought of delaying this publication till such researches had been made by some of my learned friends, but think it better that any good results they may obtain should be published separately and under their names.

J. P. MAHAFFY

Document details

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File description

Title statement

Title (uniform): Two Early Tours in Ireland: The Voyage of Perilhos

Editor: J. P. Mahaffy

Responsibility statement

Electronic edition compiled and proof-read by: Beatrix Färber

translated by: Thomas Rudmose-Brown

Edition statement

1. First draft.

Extent: 5440 words

Publication statement

Publisher: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork

Address: College Road, Cork, Ireland—http://www.ucc.ie/celt

Date: 2012

Distributor: CELT online at University College, Cork, Ireland.

CELT document ID: T100079

Availability: Available with prior consent of the CELT project for purposes of academic research and teaching only.

Notes statement

From Mahaffy'a article it appears that neither the English translation presented here nor the Latin version in O'Sullivan Beare's Compendium is complete. We are very grateful to Dr C. J. Woods, author of 'Travellers' accounts as source material for Irish historians' (Dublin 2009) for calling our attention to this travel account. We are also very grateful to Dr Alan Mac an Bhaird, Andorra, for lending his expertise in resolving queries about the text, and especially for making available the Catalan and Occitan version to CELT.

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Source description

Manuscript source

• Tour by Vescomte Ramón de Perilhos (or Perelhos; Perellós in modern Catalan): Manuscript of 1397 is lost; text is extant in a 1466 translation into Provençal.

Editions; translations; literature

1. Philip O'Sullivan Beare, Compendium Historiae Catholicae Iberniae (Lisbon 1621) 19–31 [Latin; translation (in part) of the tour].
2. Fynes Moryson, A History of Ireland from the year 1599 to 1603: with a short narration of the state of the kingdom from the year 1169; to which is added a description of Ireland. 2 vols. Dublin 1735. [A reprint of part 2 and 3, Book 3, chapter 5 of the Itinerary.]
3. Charles Hughes, Shakespeare's Europe. Unpublished Chapters of Fynes Moryson's Itinerary: being a Survey of the Condition of Europe at the end of the Sixteenth Century. With an Introduction and an Account of Fynes Moryson's Career. London: Sherratt & Hughes 1903 [for chapters on Ireland see especially pp 185–260; 285–289; 481–486].
4. Fynes Moryson, An itinerary, containing his ten yeeres travell through the twelve dominions of Germany, Bohmerland, Sweitzerland, Netherland, Denmarke, Poland, Italy, Turky, France, England, Scotland & Ireland. 4 vols. Printed at the University Press by Robert Maclehose & Company Ltd. for James Maclehose and Sons, Publishers to the University of Glasgow, 1907–1908. [Reprint of 1617 edition.]
5. Thomas Wright, St. Patrick's Purgatory: An Essay on the Legends of Purgatory, Hell and Paradise Current during the Middle Ages. (London: John Russell Smith 1844). [Contains a diplomatic edition of the most complete Latin version of St. Patrick's Purgatorium extant in BL, MS Royal 13B VIII, 12th century, 78–95.]
6. Selmar Eckleben, Die äteste Schilderung vom Fegefeuer des heiligen Patricius (Halle 1885).
7. Eduard Mall, 'Zur Geschichte der Legende vom Purgatorium des heiligen Patricius', Romanische Forschungen 6 (1891) 139–197.
8. Edward Armstrong; The Emperor Charles V. (London: Macmillan; New York: The Macmillan Company, 1902).
9. Thomas Atkinson Jenkins, The Espurgatoire Seint Patriz of Marie de France with a text of the Latin Original (Chicago 1903).
10. D. O'Connor, St Patrick's Purgatory, Lough Derg (Dublin 1903).
11. Alfred Jeanroy & A. Vignaux, Voyage au Purgatoire de St Patrice: visions de Tindal et de St Paul, Textes languedociens du quinzième siècle (Toulouse 1903).
12. Lucien Foulet, 'Marie de France et la légende du Purgatoire de Saint Patrice', Romanische Forschungen 22 (1908) 599–627.
13. Ramón Miquel y Planas, Llegendes de l'Altra Vida (Barcelona 1914), 133–174 (Viatge del Vescomte Ramón de Perellós y de Roda fet al Purgatori nomenat de Sant Patrici).
14. St John D. Seymour, St Patrick's Purgatory (Dundalk 1918).
15. Gilbert Waterhouse, 'St Patrick's Purgatory: A German Account', Hermathena 44 (1926) 30–51.
16. Sir Shane Leslie, Saint Patrick's Purgatory: A Record from History and Literature (London 1932).
17. Patrick MacBride, 'Saint Patrick's Purgatory in Spanish literature', Studies 25 (1936) 277–291.
18. Karl Warnke, Das Buch vom Espurgatoire S. Patrice der Marie de France und seine Quelle (Halle 1938). [Contains critical edition of Purgatorium version extant in BL, MS Royal 13B VIII.]
19. F. W. Locke, 'A new Date for the Composition of the Tractatus de Purgatorio Sancti Patricii', Speculum 40 (1965) 641–646.
20. John Ryan, 'St Patrick's Purgatory, Lough Derg', Clogher Record Album, ed Joseph Duffy, (Monaghan 1975) 13–26.
21. Robert Easting, 'The Date and Dedication of the Tractatus de Purgatorio Sancti Patricii', Speculum 53:4, October 1978, 778–783.
22. Yolande de Pontfarcy, 'Le Tractatus de Purgatorio Sancti Patricii de H. de Saltrey, sa date et ses sources', Peritia 3 (1984) 460–480.
23. Carol G. Zaleski, 'St. Patrick's Purgatory: Pilgrimage Motifs in a Medieval Otherworld Vision', Journal of the History of Ideas 46:4, Oct to Dec 1985, 467–485.
24. Jean-Michel Picard and Yolande de Pontfarcy, Saint Patrick's Purgatory: A Twelfth Century Tale of a Journey to the Other World. Four Courts Press, Dublin 1985 (with introduction and English translation).
25. Eileen Gardiner, Visions of Heaven and Hell before Dante, New York 1989, 149–195.
26. Claudia Di Fonzo, La leggenda del 'Purgatorio di S. Patrizio' nella tradizione di commento trecentesca, Comunicazione tenuta presso il Dipartimento di Italianistica della Sapienza di Roma il 10 giugno 1997, pubblicata in Dante e il locus inferni. Creazione letteraria e tradizione interpretativa a cura di S. Foà e S. Gentili, 'Studi (e testi) italiani' 4 (1999), 53–72.
27. See also Arlima.net: http://www.arlima.net/mp/purgatoire_de_saint_patrice.html.
28. For a bibliography on St Patrick's Purgatory see also http://www.hell-on-line.org/BibPatrick.html.

The edition used in the digital edition

‘Two Early Tours in Ireland’ (1914). In: Hermathena‍ 40. Ed. by Dublin Members of Trinity College, pp. 1–16.

You can add this reference to your bibliographic database by copying or downloading the following:

@article{T100079,
  editor 	 = {J. P. Mahaffy},
  title 	 = {Two Early Tours in Ireland},
  journal 	 = {Hermathena},
  editor 	 = {Members of Trinity College, Dublin},
  address 	 = {Dublin; London},
  publisher 	 = {Hodges, Figgis \& Co. Ltd.; Longmans, Green \& Co.},
  date 	 = {1914},
  volume 	 = {40},
  pages 	 = {1–16}
}
 T100079.bib

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Profile description

Creation: Article written by J. P. Mahaffy; the tour by Vescomte Ramón de Perilhos (Perelhos) is translated by Thomas Rudmose-Brown

Date: 1397 (original); 1914 (translation)

Language usage

• The translation is in English. (en)
• Some words are in Latin. (la)

Keywords: travel; description; prose; 14c; St Patrick's Purgatory; Lough Derg; Ramon de Perilhos (Perelhos); customs; O'Neills

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Revision description

(Most recent first)

1. 2012-06-08: Header modified; File proofed (2); content encoding and some footnotes added; file parsed; preliminary SGML and HTML versions created. (ed. Beatrix Färber)
2. 2012-05-22: File proofed (1); structural encoding applied; header with bibliographical detail created. (ed. Beatrix Färber)
3. 2012-05-22: Article captured by scanning. (text capture Beatrix Färber)