The Travels of Sir John Mandeville

In this church is a well, like a cistern, which is called Probatica Piscina [the Pool of Bethesda], and it once had five entrances. In that cistern the angels used to come and bathe and disturb the water, and the man who first bathed therein after the disturbing of the water was made whole of whatever sickness he had. There was the man healed who had been sick for thirty-eight years. Then our Lord said to him Tolle grabatum tuum et ambula, which is to say, ‘Take up thy bed and walk.’ A little thence was the house of Pilate, and also the House of Herod, the King who had the Innocents slaughtered. The same Herod was a wicked and cruel man. For first he made away with his wife, whom he loved above all other creatures; and because of the great love he had for her, when he saw her dead he went out of his mind and stayed that way a long time. Afterwards, when in course of time he had come to his right mind, he had the children he had of her slain. And then he had his other wife killed, and a son he had by her, and his own mother. So he would gave done to his brother, but he died before he could achieve his purpose. And when he saw he was dying , he sent for his sister and all the great lords of the land, and when they had come he had all the lords put in a tower; he said to his sister that he well knew that the people of his country would not mourn for him when he was dead, and so he made her swear that she would put all those lords to death as soon as he was dead, ‘for so all the country will sorrow when I die’. He made his will thus, and died soon after. But his sister did not do his will; for as soon as he was dead she released the lords from the tower and told them what her brother had wanted, and let them go where they would. You ought to know that there were three Herods, which were wicked and cruel men. The one I have just been speaking of was called Herod Ascalonyte [Herod the Great]; he who cut off the head of John the Baptist was called Herod Antipater [Antipas]; and Herod Agrippa had Saint James killed, the brother of the Evangelist Saint John, and put Saint Peter in prison.