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NORMANS IN EUROPEAN HISTORY
tres in 1145 and spread throughout the length and breadth of Normandy. Forming associations of those who confessed their sins, received penance, and reconciled themselves with their enemies, the faithful harnessed themselves to carts filled with stone, timber, food, and whatever might help the churches which they sought to serve, and drew them long miles until they seemed to fulfill the saying of the prophet, "the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels." The abbot of Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives, to whom we owe our fullest account of the movement, tells us of these processions:[1]
When they halt on the road, nothing is heard but the confession of sins and pure and suppliant prayer to God to obtain pardon. At the voice of the priests preaching peace hatred is forgotten, discord thrown aside, debts are remitted, the unity of hearts is established. But if any one is so far advanced in evil as to be unwilling to pardon an offender or obey the pious admonition of the priest, his offering is instantly thrown from the wagon as impure, and he himself is ignominiously and shamefully excluded from the society of the holy. There, as a result of the prayers of the faithful, one may see the sick and infirm rise whole from their wagons, the dumb open their mouths to the praise of God, the possessed recover a sane mind. The priests who preside over each wagon are seen exhorting all to repentance, confession, lamentations, and the resolution of a better life, while old and young and even little children, prostrate on the ground, call on the Mother of God and utter to her, from the depth of their hearts, sobs and sighs, with words of confession and praise. . . . After the faithful resume their march to the sound of trumpets and the
- ↑ The text is printed in the Bibliothèque de l'École des Chartes, xxi, pp. 120 ff.
