Many stories have been told about the Rom during the mid 1400’s to the early 1500’s. During this period strife was intense in France, made worse with the appearance of the Saracens, who appeared at Sisteron, in Provence; and on the 18th. of July, 1422, a chronicler of Bologna mentions the arrival in that town of a troop of foreigners, commanded by a certain André, Duke of Egypt, and composed of at least one hundred persons, including women and children.
It is written that “They encamped inside and outside the gate di Galiera, with the exception of the duke, who lodged at the inn del Re. During the fifteen days which they spent at Bologna a number of the people of the town went to see them, and especially to see “the wife of the duke,” who, it was said, knew how to foretell future events, and to tell what was to happen to people, what their fortunes would be, the number of their children, if they were good or bad, and many other things.”

It is here that rumor of theft and deceit run rampant against the Rom. Many claimed that after visiting the home of the Duke of Egypt their purses were stolen, and it was said that the dresses of women were cut. The style of their thievery was daring, brazen, in fact.

The women, classified as “Egyptian” women walked about the town in groups of six or seven,creating a distraction, telling them their fortunes, or bartering in shops, one of their number would lay her hands on anything which was within reach.   So many robberies were committed in this way, it is reported , that the magistrates of the town and the ecclesiastical authorities forbade the inhabitants from visiting the Egyptians’ camp, or from having any interaction with them, under penalty of excommunication and of a fine of fifty livres.

Besides this, by a strange application of the Laws of Retaliation, those who had been robbed by these foreigners were permitted to rob them to the extent of the value of the things stolen. As the story goes, in retaliation, , the Bolognians entered a stable in which several of the Egyptians’ horses were kept, and took out one of the finest of them. In order to recover him the Egyptians agreed to restore what they had taken, and the restitution was made. But perceiving that they could no longer do any good for themselves in this province, they struck their tents and started for Rome, to which city they said they were bound to go, not only in order to accomplish a pilgrimage imposed upon them by the Sultan, who had expelled them from their own land, but especially to obtain letters of absolution from the Holy Father.