Book Two - Chapter 2

Of a man [in the Latin, de puero] released from bonds.

IT happened upon a time that a certain poor man came to London for the sake of buying victuals. His wife was wont also to come often from the country to the city to sustain their poor life and to receive from the matrons of the city the price of her labour for spinning work which she had sold. And this poor man with his wife was accustomed each year to visit the portals of the blessed Bartholomew with his offering, and humbly to commit himself to the protection of the holy relics of the same church. But that old serpent, the enemy of all the human race, who is ever ready to devour, or at least to disturb, the peace of the faithful, grudging the tranquillity and clean poverty of these two, suggested to a certain agent of his villainy that he should lay a trap for this poor man. So that crafty Alured the crier (for that was his name) rose early in the morning and lay in wait like a lion to seize the poor man. And without delay the innocent man met the robber, and the rascal seized the skirt of his cloak and, bawling out a horrible charge of lewdness, accused him of theft and struck him with his fist, saying wickedly -- "Where be thy goods the toll of which by robbery and often deceiving the sheriff's officers, thou hast a thousand times evaded and thieved?" While the poor man is preparing to answer, there run up several who are privy to the same trick, and accuse the innocent man and strike him, and kick him, bind him with thongs, and take him captive. Now when they had come to the house of the crier -- nay, rather of the liar -- they bind him with fetters and beat him with scourges, requiring of him, what he had not, a great sum of money. At length, wearied with flogging, they put upon his neck an iron contrivance, a collar of immense weight, and a chain fixed from the other side of the inner court through the middle of the wall that they might keep him more safely, and when they had girded him with it they fastened it firmly with a peg. Thus the poor wretch, without help and without mercy, spent some days in tears and sighs, in cold and grief. On a sabbath, however, when, as their custom was, the canons of St. Bartholomew's church, before dawn -- matins being finished -- were singing Te Deum Laudamus, and a peal of bells was rung, the aforesaid poor man who was confined in bonds, hearing the sound of the bells and the strain of the hymns -- for the house in which he was tortured was almost adjoining the church -- began with devout mind and lamentable voice to cry out and, as well as he knew and could, to call upon St. Bartholomew. And when he had so done earnestly and often he gained the object of his pious prayer, and presently felt himself no longer burdened with his irons as before. So, raising his hands and arms he discovered that he was loosed, and leaping forth with all the iron contrivance came to the door and found it open. And as he was carrying the huge chain and collar of iron, and fetters of immense weight and was making a great noise, the said Alured -- being wakened -- leapt from his bed, and followed him at a swift pace. But soon, as he came out and saw him fleeing by the light of the moon, he wished to pursue, and wished to cry out, but by the will of God he could neither stir a step nor utter a sound.

Thus the poor man, escaping by the good Bartholomew and entering his church with great joy, prostrated himself before the holy altar of the apostle, by whose protection he confessed and rejoiced that his freedom had been gained, and, returning thanks to God and to him, he related to those who stood by the tale of the benefit conferred upon him from heaven.

 

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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