Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/820

 DOCUMENTS Dircctoriiiiu ad Faciendum Passaginiii Transiiiariimm. In the present number of the American Historical Review I have attempted to edit the first part of a work, hitherto only existing in manuscript/ which I venture to think is of great interest and value, and which has suffered from a remarkable neglect during the 450 years of printing. For an infinite deal of matter has issued from the press very inferior in all respects to this Dircctoriuin ad facien- dum passagiuui transniarinum or Directorium ad passagium, as it is more briefly called by its author. What is here given amounts to nearly two-thirds of the entire work — which runs to about 24,000 words — is addressed to King Philip VI. of France (Philip of Valois), and was submitted to the council of the French king on July 26, 1330. In the royal registers of the French kingdom it is described as the proposal of a certain wise prelate, formerly a Dominican, and now an archbishop in the empire of Constantinople ; but, as we see from the narrative itself, the writer had evidently been a missionary in Persia, and that perhaps for many years. His main object is evidently the same as that of his famous 'enetian contemporary Marino Sanuto the elder, in the Sccreta Fidelium Crucis; he aims at reviving the crusading energies of Western Europe, though primarily against the Byzantine Empire and the Eastern Church — the objects of his bitterest hate : the purpose of a legitimate crusade, against the ^Moslem, though undeniably present to his mind, is as undeniably in the background. On the other hand, the conquest of Russia, a land of Greek Christianity only less impor- tant than the Eastern Empire itself, and its subjugation to papal obedience, occupies a very prominent place in his thoughts; various routes to the Levant are lengthily discussed ; an easy victory over the Turks is predicted ; and something like a policy is sketched in outline for the administration of the Orient, thus conquered, by its new Catholic rulers. Incidentally the " sage prelate " refers to his own wide and long experience of the Nearer and ]Iiddle East. He had seen armies of well-nigh all these countries go forth to war ; he had been with 'Except for the extracts printed by Quetif in the Scriptorcs Ord is ProcJi- (810)