Prologue

In nomine sancte et indiuidue Trinitatis. Amen. In the year of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, 1398, on the afternoon of the feast of the Nativity of Our Lady, having obtained the blessing of Pope Benedict, I, Ramon, by the grace of God, Viscount of Perellós and Roda, Lord of the Barony of Ceret, set off from the city of Avignon, to make my way to Saint Patrick's Purgatory.

Since all men in this world wish to know about strange and wondrous things, and since such things are naturally more pleasing than those that one can learn about by word of mouth, for that very reason – having been brought up in my youth at the court of King Charles of France, where my lord father, who was his admiral and chamberlain, left me in the company of all the squires and knights of his realm and other Christian realms – I too wanted to find out about the marvellous and strange things that are in the world. For people came here from many places, and my heart was set on seeing with my own eyes the things of which I had heard different knights and other people speak. And, indeed, I set out in pursuit of the adventures of the world through all the lands of Christians and infidels, both Saracens and others belonging to the different sects that are in the world – wherever one may reasonably travel – so that, by the grace of God, I have seen most of the things that I had heard spoken of as strange and marvellous, both on land and at sea, and can bear true witness to those that I have seen. And I have undergone great dangers, expense and hardships both on land and sea, and these I have experienced and undergone in infidel as well as Christian lands. But I do not intend to describe them since they have no bearing on the matter, which I wish to pursue here, of the journey to Saint Patrick's Purgatory, which is in the land of Hibernia. A journey which, with the help of God, I have made and completed as well as anyone has ever done since the death of Saint Patrick.