En son queor tint la félonie,
Purpensa soi d’une estoutie:
S’il jà lui veeir porreit,
Tut autrement le plait irroit.”
[794] Chron. Petrib. 1100. “And þæræfter on morgen æfter Hlammæsse dæge wearð se cyng Willelm on huntnoðe fram his anan men mid anre fla ofsceoten and syððan to Winceastre gebroht, and on þam biscoprice bebyrged.” The bishopric of course means the Old Minster, the episcopium.
[795] “Radulphus de Aquis,” says Giraldus, De Inst. Princ. 176. See below, [p. 335]. We are not told which of all the places called Aquæ is meant.
[796] See [Appendix SS].
[797] On the different versions of the death of Rufus, see [Appendix SS].
[798] William of Malmesbury (iv. 333) describes the process with some pomp of words; “Pridie quam excederet vita, vidit per quietem se phlebotomi ictu sanguinem emittere, radium cruoris in cælum usque protentum lucem obnubilare, diem interpolare.” But the common word for being bled is “minuere” (see Ducange in voc.), and the many monastic rules which forbid the practice of bleeding except at stated times would seem to imply that the process, if not liked in itself, was at least made use of as an excuse for idleness.
[799] Ib. “Lumen inferri præcipit.” This is a comment on the reform of Henry (v. 393), “Lucernarum usum noctibus in curia restituit, qui fuerat tempore fratris intermissus.”