Chapter 15

Of a woman healed.

A CERTAIN woman's tongue had so swollen that she could not shut her mouth at all, and with gaping jaws could in no wise hide the swelling. She was brought by her friends to the aforesaid church and presented to Rahere the prior. He -- as he was a man of much mercy -- having kindly compassion on her pain, offered a prayer for her to God and to his patron; then, revolving his relics, he dipped that which he had of our Lord's Cross in water and straightway washed the tongue of the patient therewith, and pointed upon it with the same tree (i. e. the portion of the cross) of life the sign of the cross. In the same hour all the swelling was allayed and the woman, glad and whole, returned to her own.

 

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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