The Pope asked him why he turned his back upon the Holy Sacrament.
“I felt myself unworthy to look upon it face to face,” he answered.
“You are a pilgrim?” said the Pope.
“Yes,” answered Ulenspiegel, “and I am come from Flanders to beg remission of my sins.”
The Pope absolved and blessed him, and Ulenspiegel departed in the company of his landlady, who paid over to him his hundred florins. And with this good store of money he departed from Rome and set out to return again to the land of Flanders.
But he had to pay seven ducats for the certificate of his pardon, all scribed upon parchment.
XXXI
In those days there came to Damme two brothers of the Premonstratensian Order, sellers of indulgences. And over their monastic robes they wore beautiful jackets bordered with lace.
When it was fine they stood outside the porch of the church, and under the porch when it was wet, and there they stuck up their tariff; and this was the scale of charges: for six liards a hundred years’ indulgence, for one patard two hundred years, three hundred years for half a sovereign, four hundred years for seven florins, and so on according to the price—indulgences plenary or semi-plenary, and pardons for all the most terrible crimes.