Page:Goldenlegendlive00jaco.djvu/200

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186
S. Ives

such meat and drink by the space of eleven years, till he came to his death. He fasted eleven Lents and all the Advents of our Lord, and from the Ascension unto Pentecost, all ember days, all vigils of our Lady and of the apostles, and all other days stablished by holy church for to fast he fasted with bread and water. His pottage was of great coles or of other herbs or beans, or of radish root savoured only with salt without any other savour, sauf that sometimes he put in it a little flour and a little butter, and on Easterday above his accustomed pittance he ate two eggs. He never within the space of fourteen years before his death tasted of no wine, save only at mass after that he had taken the body and blood of our Lord, or else sometime when he dined with the bishop, for then within his water he put a little wine only for to change the colour. He fasted once by the space of seven days without any meat or drink, ever being in good health.

In his last sickness he ceased not to teach them that were about him, and he preached unto them of their salvation, and coming beneurely unto his last days, took humbly the sacraments of the body of our Lord and last unction, lying on a little straw. Three days before his death he had on his hood instead of kerchief about his head and had on his gown, and refusing all other things he was covered with a little and bad coverlet, saying that he was not worthy to have any other parements on him. The pure and clean [saint] then, having lived fifty years or thereabout, issuing in the year of grace thirteen hundred and three, the nineteenth day of May, that