Chapter 25

Of a man who could not sleep.

A CERTAIN man very well known at Norwich, at a time when he had lost blood, and did not take care of himself as was expedient, had lost the repose of sleep. Now, how grateful and how necessary that is to man it is not necessary to set forth. It indeed lightens the sweat of the day, and after labour refreshes a man for labour, and keeps whole and sound the nature not only of men but also of beasts. This poor man, lacking this, had passed sleepless nights for about seven years. Forthwith his sinews were contracted with horrible leanness, his face was rough and wrinkled, and the bones of his body were exposed, so that they could be counted by those who beheld him. On the top of his trouble there came upon him poverty, so that he, formerly endowed with friends and money, but now destitute of both, was given up to complete idleness, and could provide neither for himself nor his household.

But in the seventh year of his misfortune, when the relics of the church of St. Bartholomew had been brought and deposited in the oratory of St. Nicholas at Yarmouth, he came devoutly to these relics and, humbly prostrating himself, asked and sought a remedy, and found it. He knocked and our porter opened to him, and God gloriously showed towards him the bowels of His mercy. For, when lying on the ground he had multiplied his prayers, he began to sleep, and after he had slept for some time he arose whole and returned to his own, giving thanks to God, who both striketh dead, smiteth, and healeth.

 

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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