Book Two - Chapter 11
Of a certain man's son.
THERE was also in the town of Bernech [Barnack, in Northamptonshire] a certain man by name Spillman, who devoted his attention to agriculture and was wont to carry logs of timber to sell at London, and in consequence he was well known to many. This man had a boy who was ill with the grievous sickness of epilepsy. Now epilepsy is, as physicians tell us, a disease which compresses the lobes of the brain and hinders the natural functions, takes away sight, hearing, and the other senses of the body, and thus wears out the body itself with intense suffering. Labouring under this disease the boy was brought to the aforesaid church on the festival of the glorious apostle, and while the fourth lesson of his passion was being read [see Breviary, St. Bartholomew's Day] he recovered complete health of his limbs, approached to kiss the altar, and thus kindled those present not a little to praise God and the blessed apostle. Wherefore, not by the people only but also by the clergy, thanks were rendered to God in that He is good and His mercy endureth for ever.
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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