CHAPTER XVII.

Of the chastisement of his body.

HE was in his youth of a temperament full of fire and life; and when this began to make itself felt, and he perceived what a heavy burden he had in himself, it was very bitter and grievous to him; and he sought, by many devices and great penances, how he might bring his body 58into subjection to his spirit. He wore for a long time a hair shirt and an iron chain, until the blood ran from him; so that he was obliged to leave them off. He secretly caused an under garment to be made for him; and in the under garment he had strips of leather fixed, into which a hundred and fifty brass nails, pointed and filed sharp, were driven, and the points of the nails were always turned towards the flesh. He had this garment made very tight, and so arranged as to go round him and fasten in front, in order that it might fit the closer to his body, and the pointed nails might be driven into his flesh; and it was high enough to reach upwards to his navel. In this he used to sleep at night. Now in summer, when it was hot, and he was very tired and ill from his journeyings, or when he held the office of lecturer, he would some times, as he lay thus in bonds, and oppressed with toil, and tormented also by noxious insects, cry aloud, and give way to fretfulness, and twist round and round in agony, as a worm does when run through with a pointed needle. It often seemed to him as if he were lying upon an ant-hill from the torture caused by the in sects; for if he wished to sleep, or when he had fallen asleep, they vied with each other in biting 59and sucking him. Sometimes he would cry to Almighty God out of the fulness of his heart:—Alas! gentle God, what a dying is this! When a man is killed by murderers or strong beasts of prey, it is soon over; but I lie dying here under the cruel insects, and yet cannot die. The nights in winter were never so long, nor was the summer so hot, as to make him leave off this exercise. On the contrary, in order that he might get still less rest amid these torments, he devised something further. He bound a part of his girdle round his throat, and made out of it with skill two leather loops, into which he put his hands, and then locked his arms into them with two padlocks, and placed the keys on a plank beside his bed, where they remained until he rose for matins and unlocked himself. His arms were thus stretched upwards, and fastened one on each side his throat, and he made the fastenings so secure, that even if his cell had been on fire about him he could not have helped himself. This practice he continued until his hands and arms had become almost tremulous with the strain, and then he devised something else.

He had two leather gloves made for him, such as labourers usually wear when they gather 60briers, and he caused a brazier to fit them all over with sharp-pointed brass tacks, and he used to put them on at night. This he did in order that, if he should try while asleep to throw off the hair under-garment, or endeavour in any other way to relieve himself from the gnawings of the vile and hateful insects, the tacks might then stick into his body. And so it came to pass. If ever he sought to help himself with his hands in sleep, he drove the sharp tacks into his breast, and tore himself, making horrible rents, as if a bear had torn him with its sharp claws, so that his flesh festered at the arms and about the heart. When after many weeks the wounds had healed, he tore himself again and made fresh wounds. He continued this tormenting exercise for about sixteen years. At the end of this time, when his blood was now chilled, and the fire of his temperament destroyed, there appeared to him in a vision on Whit-Sunday a messenger from heaven, who told him that God required this of him no longer. Whereupon he discontinued it, and threw all these things away into a running stream.