الفصل الفصل 27 · How a monk of Seville saved

Chapter 1.XXVII.

How a monk of Seville saved the close of the abbey from being ransacked by

the enemy.

So much they did, and so far they went pillaging and stealing, that at last

they came to Seville, where they robbed both men and women, and took all

they could catch: nothing was either too hot or too heavy for them.

Although the plague was there in the most part of all the houses, they

nevertheless entered everywhere, then plundered and carried away all that

was within, and yet for all this not one of them took any hurt, which is a

most wonderful case. For the curates, vicars, preachers, physicians,

chirurgeons, and apothecaries, who went to visit, to dress, to cure, to

heal, to preach unto and admonish those that were sick, were all dead of

the infection, and these devilish robbers and murderers caught never any

harm at all. Whence comes this to pass, my masters? I beseech you think

upon it. The town being thus pillaged, they went unto the abbey with a

horrible noise and tumult, but they found it shut and made fast against

them. Whereupon the body of the army marched forward towards a pass or

ford called the Gue de Vede, except seven companies of foot and two hundred

lancers, who, staying there, broke down the walls of the close, to waste,

spoil, and make havoc of all the vines and vintage within that place. The

monks (poor devils) knew not in that extremity to which of all their sancts

they should vow themselves. Nevertheless, at all adventures they rang the

bells ad capitulum capitulantes. There it was decreed that they should

make a fair procession, stuffed with good lectures, prayers, and litanies

contra hostium insidias, and jolly responses pro pace.

There was then in the abbey a claustral monk, called Friar John of the

funnels and gobbets, in French des entoumeures, young, gallant, frisk,

lusty, nimble, quick, active, bold, adventurous, resolute, tall, lean,

wide-mouthed, long-nosed, a fair despatcher of morning prayers, unbridler

of masses, and runner over of vigils; and, to conclude summarily in a word,

a right monk, if ever there was any, since the monking world monked a

monkery: for the rest, a clerk even to the teeth in matter of breviary.

This monk, hearing the noise that the enemy made within the enclosure of

the vineyard, went out to see what they were doing; and perceiving that

they were cutting and gathering the grapes, whereon was grounded the

foundation of all their next year’s wine, returned unto the choir of the

church where the other monks were, all amazed and astonished like so many

bell-melters. Whom when he heard sing, im, nim, pe, ne, ne, ne, ne, nene,

tum, ne, num, num, ini, i mi, co, o, no, o, o, neno, ne, no, no, no, rum,

nenum, num: It is well shit, well sung, said he. By the virtue of God,

why do not you sing, Panniers, farewell, vintage is done? The devil snatch

me, if they be not already within the middle of our close, and cut so well

both vines and grapes, that, by Cod’s body, there will not be found for

these four years to come so much as a gleaning in it. By the belly of

Sanct James, what shall we poor devils drink the while? Lord God! da mihi

potum. Then said the prior of the convent: What should this drunken

fellow do here? let him be carried to prison for troubling the divine

service. Nay, said the monk, the wine service, let us behave ourselves so

that it be not troubled; for you yourself, my lord prior, love to drink of

the best, and so doth every honest man. Never yet did a man of worth

dislike good wine, it is a monastical apophthegm. But these responses that

you chant here, by G--, are not in season. Wherefore is it, that our

devotions were instituted to be short in the time of harvest and vintage,

and long in the advent, and all the winter? The late friar, Massepelosse,

of good memory, a true zealous man, or else I give myself to the devil, of

our religion, told me, and I remember it well, how the reason was, that in

this season we might press and make the wine, and in winter whiff it up.

Hark you, my masters, you that love the wine, Cop’s body, follow me; for

Sanct Anthony burn me as freely as a faggot, if they get leave to taste one

drop of the liquor that will not now come and fight for relief of the vine.

Hog’s belly, the goods of the church! Ha, no, no. What the devil, Sanct

Thomas of England was well content to die for them; if I died in the same

cause, should not I be a sanct likewise? Yes. Yet shall not I die there

for all this, for it is I that must do it to others and send them

a-packing.

As he spake this he threw off his great monk’s habit, and laid hold upon

the staff of the cross, which was made of the heart of a sorbapple-tree, it

being of the length of a lance, round, of a full grip, and a little

powdered with lilies called flower de luce, the workmanship whereof was

almost all defaced and worn out. Thus went he out in a fair long-skirted

jacket, putting his frock scarfwise athwart his breast, and in this

equipage, with his staff, shaft or truncheon of the cross, laid on so

lustily, brisk, and fiercely upon his enemies, who, without any order, or

ensign, or trumpet, or drum, were busied in gathering the grapes of the

vineyard. For the cornets, guidons, and ensign-bearers had laid down their

standards, banners, and colours by the wall sides: the drummers had

knocked out the heads of their drums on one end to fill them with grapes:

the trumpeters were loaded with great bundles of bunches and huge knots of

clusters: in sum, everyone of them was out of array, and all in disorder.

He hurried, therefore, upon them so rudely, without crying gare or beware,

that he overthrew them like hogs, tumbled them over like swine, striking

athwart and alongst, and by one means or other laid so about him, after the

old fashion of fencing, that to some he beat out their brains, to others he

crushed their arms, battered their legs, and bethwacked their sides till

their ribs cracked with it. To others again he unjointed the spondyles or

knuckles of the neck, disfigured their chaps, gashed their faces, made

their cheeks hang flapping on their chin, and so swinged and balammed them

that they fell down before him like hay before a mower. To some others he

spoiled the frame of their kidneys, marred their backs, broke their

thigh-bones, pashed in their noses, poached out their eyes, cleft their

mandibles, tore their jaws, dung in their teeth into their throat, shook

asunder their omoplates or shoulder-blades, sphacelated their shins,

mortified their shanks, inflamed their ankles, heaved off of the hinges

their ishies, their sciatica or hip-gout, dislocated the joints of their

knees, squattered into pieces the boughts or pestles of their thighs, and

so thumped, mauled and belaboured them everywhere, that never was corn so

thick and threefold threshed upon by ploughmen’s flails as were the

pitifully disjointed members of their mangled bodies under the merciless

baton of the cross. If any offered to hide himself amongst the thickest of

the vines, he laid him squat as a flounder, bruised the ridge of his back,

and dashed his reins like a dog. If any thought by flight to escape, he

made his head to fly in pieces by the lamboidal commissure, which is a seam

in the hinder part of the skull. If anyone did scramble up into a tree,

thinking there to be safe, he rent up his perinee, and impaled him in at

the fundament. If any of his old acquaintance happened to cry out, Ha,

Friar John, my friend Friar John, quarter, quarter, I yield myself to you,

to you I render myself! So thou shalt, said he, and must, whether thou

wouldst or no, and withal render and yield up thy soul to all the devils in

hell; then suddenly gave them dronos, that is, so many knocks, thumps,

raps, dints, thwacks, and bangs, as sufficed to warn Pluto of their coming

and despatch them a-going. If any was so rash and full of temerity as to

resist him to his face, then was it he did show the strength of his

muscles, for without more ado he did transpierce him, by running him in at

the breast, through the mediastine and the heart. Others, again, he so

quashed and bebumped, that, with a sound bounce under the hollow of their

short ribs, he overturned their stomachs so that they died immediately. To

some, with a smart souse on the epigaster, he would make their midriff

swag, then, redoubling the blow, gave them such a homepush on the navel

that he made their puddings to gush out. To others through their ballocks

he pierced their bumgut, and left not bowel, tripe, nor entrail in their

body that had not felt the impetuosity, fierceness, and fury of his

violence. Believe, that it was the most horrible spectacle that ever one

saw. Some cried unto Sanct Barbe, others to St. George. O the holy Lady

Nytouch, said one, the good Sanctess; O our Lady of Succours, said another,

help, help! Others cried, Our Lady of Cunaut, of Loretto, of Good Tidings,

on the other side of the water St. Mary Over. Some vowed a pilgrimage to

St. James, and others to the holy handkerchief at Chamberry, which three

months after that burnt so well in the fire that they could not get one

thread of it saved. Others sent up their vows to St. Cadouin, others to

St. John d’Angely, and to St. Eutropius of Xaintes. Others again invoked

St. Mesmes of Chinon, St. Martin of Candes, St. Clouaud of Sinays, the holy

relics of Laurezay, with a thousand other jolly little sancts and santrels.

Some died without speaking, others spoke without dying; some died in

speaking, others spoke in dying. Others shouted as loud as they could

Confession, Confession, Confiteor, Miserere, In manus! So great was the

cry of the wounded, that the prior of the abbey with all his monks came

forth, who, when they saw these poor wretches so slain amongst the vines,

and wounded to death, confessed some of them. But whilst the priests were

busied in confessing them, the little monkies ran all to the place where

Friar John was, and asked him wherein he would be pleased to require their

assistance. To which he answered that they should cut the throats of those

he had thrown down upon the ground. They presently, leaving their outer

habits and cowls upon the rails, began to throttle and make an end of those

whom he had already crushed. Can you tell with what instruments they did

it? With fair gullies, which are little hulchbacked demi-knives, the iron

tool whereof is two inches long, and the wooden handle one inch thick, and

three inches in length, wherewith the little boys in our country cut ripe

walnuts in two while they are yet in the shell, and pick out the kernel,

and they found them very fit for the expediting of that weasand-slitting

exploit. In the meantime Friar John, with his formidable baton of the

cross, got to the breach which the enemies had made, and there stood to

snatch up those that endeavoured to escape. Some of the monkitos carried

the standards, banners, ensigns, guidons, and colours into their cells and

chambers to make garters of them. But when those that had been shriven

would have gone out at the gap of the said breach, the sturdy monk quashed

and felled them down with blows, saying, These men have had confession and

are penitent souls; they have got their absolution and gained the pardons;

they go into paradise as straight as a sickle, or as the way is to Faye

(like Crooked-Lane at Eastcheap). Thus by his prowess and valour were

discomfited all those of the army that entered into the close of the abbey,

unto the number of thirteen thousand, six hundred, twenty and two, besides

the women and little children, which is always to be understood. Never did

Maugis the Hermit bear himself more valiantly with his bourdon or pilgrim’s

staff against the Saracens, of whom is written in the Acts of the four sons

of Aymon, than did this monk against his enemies with the staff of the

cross.