Book Two - Chapter 18

Of a certain young woman.

A CERTAIN young woman in the City of London was known to many and became better known by her service as a handmaid in that she used to be hired to serve many. She once was seduced by a certain profligate from the benefit of honest labour to the pleasures of unclean sin and, willingly admitting the robber of her chastity, was despoiled of her priceless treasure. And soon the wages of sin followed, and she who prostituted her flesh lost utterly her soundness of mind, and the limbs which were the weapons of sin were turned into weapons of madness. The heart, which is the chief part of man, was darkened by the oppression of the devil to which it was allied, and, because in her sin she refused to stand in awe of God, in her punishment she comprehended neither God nor herself. Her eyes were at one time strained upwards; at another they rolled terribly; her clothes were rent by her hands; her tongue was unbridled in blasphemy, shamelessness, and inanity. As her madness increased, she was confined in stricter bonds, and when those were easily burst by her fury others were added, and thus she was carried to the hospital of the aforesaid church. A contraction of her limbs followed shortly after, so that she could nowise use them freely. Amid the misery of such a calamity mercy of the most blessed apostle came upon her and graciously delivered the woman from her madness, mightily straightened the cripple and sent her sound to her home.

 

The Book of the Foundation of St. Bartholomew's, Smithfield Rendered into Modern English from the original Latin version preserved in the British Museum, numbered Vespasian B. IX, by Mr. Humphrey H. King and Mr. William Barnard for use in the Records of St. Bartholomew's Priory by E.A. Webb.

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