Word: felix
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...Frater Felix Fabri, a Dominican, was born in Zurich about 1441, of a well-to-do family named Schmidt. He was a jolly friar, and he "dared, among great things and true, grave things and holy, to mingle things silly, improbable, and comical" with such gusto that a reader may sometimes think he has strayed into a company bound for Canterbury...
Perils by Sea. Friar Felix made two expeditions to the Holy Land, in 1480 and 1483. In both cases he crossed the Alps and took ship at Venice. On his first trip, the ship was a ratty old bireme captained by Agostino Contarini, one of the most notorious profiteers on the Jaffa...
...come in late, and he would have his light splattered out by the contents of a neighbor's chamber pot. After the pilgrims finally landed at Jaffa, they were "rushed round the usual Holy Places in the utmost haste and hardly given any time to rest." Dissatisfied, Felix made up his mind to take the trip again...
...Collectors by Land. On trips through open country they were stopped by Arab bands, and forced to give a head tax. One time Felix almost gave his head, when a mounted Arab ran full tilt at him and "tore my cap off" with his lance. If it wasn't the Moslems it was their bats, which were reputed to bite off the noses of strangers and fly away with them. "Men who have long noses," Felix concluded soberly, "are in greater danger than others...
...strong wine] till the bottles were empty." Some of the priests got into a wrangle over their turn to celebrate Mass, and the lay pilgrims were forced to intervene. And then there were those pilgrims who went about scratching their names on everything in sight, and hunting for souvenirs. Felix's own "irreproachable" collection of relics included pebbles from holy places and thorned twigs from the Mount of Olives...