And as they searched his
chambers they found in a chest two shirts of hair made full of great
knots, and then they said: Certainly he was a good man; and coming
down into the churchyard they began to dread and fear that the ground
would not have borne them, and were marvellously aghast, but they
supposed that the earth would have swallowed them all quick. And then
they knew that they had done amiss. And soon it was known all about,
how that he was martyred, and anon after they took his holy body and
unclothed him and found bishop's clothing above and the habit of a
monk under. And next his flesh he wore hard hair, full of knots, which
was his shirt, and his breech was of the same, and the knots sticked
fast within his skin, and all his body full of worms; he suffered
great pain. And he was thus martyred the year of Our Lord one thousand
one hundred and seventy-one, and was fifty-three years old. And soon
after tidings came to the King how he was slain, wherefore the King
took great sorrow, and sent to Rome for his absolution...."
Of the King's penance Voragine says nothing, but indeed it must have
reverberated through Europe, though not perhaps with so enormous a
rumour as the humiliation of the Emperor Henry IV.
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