“You are a strange kind of priest,” said Orm, “with your sins and your crazed women. But you still have not told us why you came here.”
“Why did you not marry, like a sensible man,” said Ylva, “since your lust for women is so strong?”
“Some men hold that a priest should not marry,” said the magister. “Your own priest, here, is wifeless; though it may be that he is more godly than I and so better able to resist temptation.”
“I have had more important things to bother about than women,” said Father Willibald. “And now, God be praised, I have reached the age where such temptations no longer exist. But the blessed apostles have held differing views on this subject. St. Peter himself was married, and even went so far as to take his wife with him on his travels among the heathens. St. Paul, however, was of another mind and remained unmarried throughout his life; which may be the reason why he traveled farther and wrote more. For many years now godly men have inclined to the opinion of St. Paul, and St. Benedict’s abbots in France now hold that priests should avoid marriage and, if possible, all forms of carnal indulgence. Though it is my belief that it will be some time before all priests can be persuaded to deny themselves to that extent.”
“You speak aright,” said the magister. “I remember that the French Abbot Odo and his pupils preached that marriage was an evil thing for a servant of Christ, and I hold their opinion to be correct on the matter. But the Devil’s cunning is immeasurable, and many are his devices; so that now you see me here, an outcast and a lost wanderer in the wilderness, because I refused to enter into marriage. This was the second of the sins that the witch-woman prophesied would be my lot. And I dare not imagine what the third will be.”
They begged him earnestly to continue with his story, and after Ylva had fortified him with a strong drink, he told them about his second sin.
1. Black sorcery.
2. Counting with Arabic numerals, a science little practiced at this time.
CHAPTER EIGHT
CONCERNING THE SINFUL MAGISTER’S SECOND SIN AND THE PENANCE TO WHICH HE WAS CONDEMNED FOR IT
TO continue with my story,” proceeded the magister in a melancholy voice, “I must tell you that not far from Hedeby there dwells a woman by the name of Thordis. She is of noble birth, and is one of the richest women in those parts, with broad estates and many herds; and she was born and brought up a heathen. Because of her wealth, she has been married three times, though she is still but young; and all her husbands have died violent deaths in wars or feuds. When the third was killed, she fell into a deep melancholy and came of her own accord to Bishop Eckard to tell him that she desired to seek help from God. The Bishop himself instructed her in the Christian doctrine and subsequently baptized her; after which she attended Mass regularly, riding to church at the head of a large procession of followers with as much noise and clanging of weapons as any warchieftain. Her pride was great and her temper refractory, and at first she refused to allow her followers to divest themselves of their weapons before entering the church; for if they did so, she said, they would make a poor show as they marched down the aisle. Eventually, however, the Bishop succeeded in persuading her to consent to this; and he bade us treat her always with the utmost patience, because she was in a position to do much good to God’s holy Church. Nor can I deny that she came several times to the Bishop with rich gifts. But she was difficult to handle, and especially so toward me. For she had no sooner set eyes on me than she conceived a fierce passion for my body, and on one occasion after Mass she waited alone for me in the porch and asked me to bless her. I did so; whereupon she allowed her eyes to roam over my body and told me that if I would only pay some attention to my hair and beard, as a man should do, I would be fitted for higher duties than that of conducting Mass. ‘You are welcome to visit my house whenever you please,’ she added, ‘and I shall see to it that you do not regret your visit.’ Then she seized me by the ears and kissed me shamelessly, though my deacon was standing beside us; and so I was left in great bewilderment and terror. By God’s help, I had by now become strong at resisting the temptations of women and was determined to conduct myself unimpeachably; besides which, she was not so beautiful as the two women who had led me astray in Maastricht. I had, therefore, no fears of being seduced by her; but I was alarmed lest she might act crazily, and it was a great misfortune that the good Bishop Eckard happened to be away at this time, at a church conference at Mainz. I persuaded the deacon to say nothing of what he had seen, though he laughed much about it in his ignorance and folly; and that evening I prayed to God to help me against this woman. When I rose from my prayers, I felt wonderfully strengthened, and decided that she must have been sent to show me how well I was now able to resist the temptations of the flesh. But the next time she came to the church, I found myself no less fearful of her than before; and while the choir was still singing, I fled as fast as I could into the sacristy, that I might avoid meeting her. But, disdaining all modesty, she pursued me and caught me before I could leave the church, and inquired why I had not been to visit her, despite her invitation that I should do so. I replied that my time was wholly occupied with important duties. ‘Nothing can be more important than this,’ she said, ‘for you are the man I wish to marry, though you are one of the shaven sort; and I should have thought that you would have had better sense than to let me sit and wait for you to come to me, after the evidence I had given you of my affection.’ By this time I was greatly confused and could not at first think of any more courageous reply than that, for various reasons, I could not leave the church while the Bishop was absent. Then, however, my courage rose, and I told her in a determined manner that marriage was not a pleasure in which the servants of Christ could indulge, and that the blessed fathers of the Church would not approve of a woman entering upon marriage for the fourth time. She grew pale as I addressed her, and came menacingly nearer to me while I was yet speaking. ‘Are you a gelding?’ she said, ‘or am I too old to excite you?’ She looked very dangerous in her wrath, so I seized a crucifix and held it before her and began to pray that the evil spirit might be driven out of her; but she snatched it from my hand so violently that she fell over backwards and struck her head against the great robe-chest. But she leaped instantly to her feet, crying loudly for help; and I—I know not what I did. Then my destiny, from which there is no escape, was further fulfilled; for in the fight that now ensued, in the church and the porch and in the square outside, between her men, who were trying to help her, and good men from the town, who were trying to help me, men were killed on both sides, including a subdeacon, who had his head cut off by a sword, and Canon Andreas, who came rushing out of the Bishop’s palace to stop the fight and received a stone on the skull, from which he died the next day. At last the woman was driven off, together with such of her followers as were still able to run; but my despair was great when I surveyed the scene of the battle and reflected that two priests had been killed because of me. When Bishop Eckard returned and heard the news, he found that I was mostly to blame; for, he said, he had strictly ordered that the woman Thordis was to be handled with the utmost care and patience by us all, and I had disobeyed that instruction. I ought, he said, to have complied with her wishes. I begged him to condemn me to the severest possible punishment, for the thought of my sin pained me grievously, even though I knew that I could not have avoided it. I told him of the wisewoman’s prophecy and how I had now committed the second of the three sins of which I was fated to be the author. The Bishop said that he would prefer that I should not be at Hedeby when the time came for me to commit the third; and at last they thought of a fit penance for me to undergo. He bade me make a pilgrimage northwards to the country of the wild Smalanders, to ransom from them God’s zealous servant Father Sebastian, who three years ago was sent to preach the gospel to them, ever since when he has languished there in bitter serfdom. Thither am I now bound, and this is the mission on which I have come. Now you know as much as I do about me and my misfortunes.”