and he refused either to raise the ban or to permit the wonted ceremonies at the funeral. Nonetheless in defiance of his orders an armed band of soldiers marched into the town, and buried the dead body in the tomb, carefully closing it and mortarizing it after them. However, on the following morning the body was discovered naked, bruised and banged in the market square as though it had been violently thrown out of the church, although there was no mark or sign that the tomb had been in any way tampered with or touched. The soldiers, who had buried their leader, having opened the monument found only the cerements in which the corpse had been erstwhile wound, and so they buried it there a second time, placing seals and bars upon the church door inasmuch as it was impossible for anyone to enter. On the following morning, however, the body was discovered to have been thrown forth with even more contumely than before. Nevertheless they interred it a third time, but with the same result. This was repeated no less than five times in all, and at last they huddled the poor rotting carrion as best they might into a deep hole dug in some lonely spot far from consecrated ground. These terrible circumstances filled the hearts of all with such amaze that the neighbouring barons one and all, very humbly betook themselves to the bishop, and under most solemn promises made a treaty binding themselves to respect all the privileges of the church and amend their lives in every particular.
A very remarkable incident is related in the Greek Menion[40] that is to say the collection of the twelve books, one for every month, that contain the offices for immovable feasts in the Byzantine rite, and which in some wise correspond to the Propiuum sanctorum in the Roman breviary. The legend, it is true, offers certain difficulties which will be considered later, but it is certainly worth repeating as showing the extreme, and indeed exaggerated views the Greeks attached to excommunication. A certain coenobite of the desert near Alexandria had been excommunicated by the archimandrite for some act of disobedience, whereupon he forsook his monastery, left the desert and came to the city. No sooner, however, had he arrived here than he was arrested by the orders of the Governor, stripped of his habit, and ordered to offer sacrifice in the temple to idols. The Coenobite
