less, and, as their father, sent them to school, and with his own sustained them and paid also the salary to their masters. He revested right courteously the poor naked of our Lord. It happed once that a poor man came against him, and he having as then nothing ready to give and taking greater care of the poor naked than of his own body, took a gown and a hood both of like cloth which he had do make for himself to wear, and gave them to the said poor man and went home barehead. He held hospitality indifferently for the poor pilgrims in a house which he did make for the nonce, to the which he administered both meat and drink, bed and fire for to warm them in winter. In wheresoever a place that he went the suffretous and poor, that ran to him from all sides, followed him, for all that he had was ready to their behoof as their own. He gave sudaries for to bury with the dead bodies, and with his own hands helped to bury them.
He chastised his flesh much sharply, for he was so accustomed to be in orisons and in prayers and to study, that the most part of the time he passed without sleep both day and night. If he were sore travailled by study, orisons, or going, that he as constrained must sleep, he slept on the earth, and instead of a pillow he laid under his head sometimes his book and sometimes a stone. He ware ever the hair under his shirt, whiles that yet he was in the office of the official in the city of Trygvier. He used brown bread and pottage such as commonly use poor labourers, and none other meat he ne had, and to his drink used cold water, and there lived with
