as in the case of Bologna some five years later. They have no country and travel through other peoples' land; have no religion, but allow themselves to be baptized; live without care, collecting to them other vagrants of both sexes; practise fortune-telling and pick pockets.
Their Exodus Westwards after 1402 as Pilgrims or Strolling Players.
9. No one has explained this curious exodus of a seemingly settled people just after 1400. Gaster thinks the Turk inroads may account for it: Serb and Bulgar kingdoms had been overthrown and the native populace was dislocated: 'the first to be driven from their homes would be the nomad population'—which is perhaps not altogether convincing. No doubt immigrants from Anatolia would join them, perhaps remnants of Melkizedekites or Athingans, or Paulician sectaries. How they succeeded in winning the favour of Emperor and Pope we do not know. Alexander VI. in 1495 ordered a Count Martin Grougy, born of L.E., to take his family and company to Rome and Compostella and other holy spots on pilgrimage: a Count of Egmond writes a letter to all his officials to succour and protect the gipsies throughout his domains. Amiens in 1427 had (as we saw) obtained special papal indulgence for re-victualling the earl and his company. As itinerant actors and showmen they were ubiquitous: Lacroix (Manners, etc., in Middle Ages, London 1876), referring to cent. xvi., says the Zingari or Bohemians travel in companies, on foot or on horseback, sometimes with a conveyance for their accessories and portable stage (Horace's plaustro vexisse poemata Thespis). At the same time the Earl of Roslyn used every year to entertain such strolling players, who gave the name of 'Robin Hood' and 'Little John' to the two towers in the castle which they tenanted (R. A. Hay, Genealogie of Sainteclaires of Rosslyn, first publ.
