90 GYPSIES. 



concocted to chime in with t'le prejadices of the times, 

 they contrived to hoodwink all Europe, get free passage 

 for themselves through the various countries, and secure 

 the privilege of living in their peculiar way without 

 molestation until at last they were found out through 

 their roguish and criminal goings-on, after which strenu- 

 ous laws were almost everj^^ where passed against them. 



They pretended to be pilgrims travelling as they did 

 under a vow. Sometimes the story ran that they were 

 Christian inhabitants of lower Egypt driven out by the 

 Saracens. The Pope or their bishops had laid this pen- 

 ance on them for some sacrilege or other and they showed 

 letters from the then pontiff and passes from the Em- 

 peror Sigismund all over Europe. These passes and 

 letters were probably forged. 



They travelled in bands or hordes, which on their first 

 arrival were quite large. Accompanied by their women 

 and children in carts and their droves of hoises, even as 

 now, they would camp down outside such towns as 

 Paris or Bologna (in both whicli places there are records 

 of their first coming), telling the burgesses their story 

 about the penance and soforth — which the burgesses 

 would immediately proceed, Middleage-fashion, to swal- 

 low whole — and then plying their customary trades of 

 iron and glass and basket making, horse trading — and 

 horse stealing — and, above all, fortune telling, until their 

 petty roguery and general impudence made the nuisance 

 unbearable, when they would be made to move on to the 

 next town or even out of the country. (See Borrow, 

 "Zincali," Chapter I, p. 15, and Encycl. Brit., Art. 

 "Gipsies.") The leaders of these bands assumed 

 various high sounding titles ; in the Sclavic lands 

 Vojvode, in Spain, Count, while in Scotland we have 

 " John Faw, Lord and Earl of Little Egypt," a character 

 of such importance that King James V actually made a 

 treaty with him. (Simpson, " Hist, of Gipsies," p. 101.) 



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