” When I came hither he wished it,” I said, ” but since, during my long delay, he has received no news; he thinks that you have committed a crime, and that I have been taken and bound; and his whole soul, like that of a lioness bereft of her whelps, is inflamed with a desire through just wrath to take vengeance, and to renounce the marriage and to pour out his anger upon you,”
“If he attempts it,” they said, ” we will not say Italy but not even the poor Saxony where he was born – where the inhabitants wear the skins of wild beasts-will protect him. With our money, which gives us our power, we will arouse all the nations against him; and we will break him in pieces like a potter’s vessel, which, when broken can not be brought into shape again.
All nations except to us Romans
And as we imagine that Al thou, in his honor, hast bought some costly garments, we order you to bring them before us. What are fit for you shall be marked with a leaden seal and left to you; but those which are prohibited to all nations except to us Romans, shall be taken away and the price returned.”
When this had been done they took away from me five most costly purple stuffs; considering yourselves and all the Italians, Saxons, Franks, Bavarians, Swabians-nay, all nations-as unworthy to be adorned with such vestments. How unworthy, how shameful it is, that these soft, effeminate, long-sleeved, hooded, veiled, lying, neutral gendered, idle creatures should go clad in purple, while you heroes-strong men, namely, skilled in war, full of faith and love, reverencing God, full of virtues-may not! What is this, if it be not contumely?
“But where,” I said, “is the word of your emperor, where the imperial promise? For when I said farewell to him, I asked him up to what price he would permit me to buy vestments in honor of my church. And he said: “Buy whatever ones and as many as you do wish;’ and in thus designating the quantity and the quality, he clearly did not make a distinction as if he had said ‘excepting this and this.’ Leo, the marshal of the court, his brother, is witness; Enodisius, the interpreter, John, Romanus, are witnesses. I myself am witness, since even without the interpreter, I understood what the emperor said.”
Read More about Report of his Mission to Constantinople part 18
