The old English versions of the Gesta Romanorum: edited for the first time from manuscripts in the British Museum and University Library, Cambridge, with an introduction and notes / By Sir Frederic Madden. Printed for the Roxburghe Club.

Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The old English versions of the Gesta Romanorum: edited for the first time from manuscripts in the British Museum and University Library, Cambridge, with an introduction and notes / By Sir Frederic Madden. Printed for the Roxburghe Club. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    him of all his clothis, and bette him soore, and so lete hem alle go withe gret confusione, &c. Moralite. Deere frendis, this Emperour is our Lord Jhesu Crist, the whiche hathe made a lawe, that eche man that is blind, sell, euery ertheley man that synnythe, by instigacione of the Deville, of the wordle, or of the fleshe, that if he be sory for his synnys, as blind men ben for hire dorkenesse, he shalle haue an Cs, that is to sey, an hundride sithis ioy of victorie ; as he seyithe, Centuplum accipietis, et vitam eternam pos- sidebitis, vt supra. And so is a synner callid blind. The felowis that comythe to the tauerne, er synners, that gon ofte tyme to the tauerne of the Deville, and drinkithe, scil. wastithe and consumythe alle the vertuys that thei receivid in baptisme ; and so the Deville spoilithe [c- 2 ] hem of alle the goodis that they haue y-done. They drowe cut, scil. dilectacione, and custome of synne; and the sort of synne fallithe vp on him that is with oute r^twisnesse or mercy. Suche a man is wilfully blynde, as was Judas, that betrayd Crist, his Lord, withoute ony suggestione; and therfore his synne was the moore. And therfore when suche on comithe to the stiwarde, scil. prelatis of holy chirche, he may not li3tly haue grace.—Why ? For they ben not in the wey to leve hire synne. And therfore late vs not synne wilfully; but if we synne by sikenesse, or frailte, anoon late vs with shrifte, and contricione, and fulfilling of penaunce, do it away, to haue remissione of our synnes, and ioy perdurable, that graunt vs the Lord, Qui cum patre, &c.