[182] Ibid. p. 143b. I have omitted the words: “which (the right shoulder) appeared as though severed from the body; and similarly one rib seemed severed from the others …” They have precisely the same “colour,” and no doubt proceed from the same contributor, as the longer passage relative to her supposed stigmatization, absent from all the MSS., but given in the printed Vita on the authority of Argentina.
[183] Vita, pp. 143c, 71c. The second passage, though occurring in an early chapter of the Vita, undoubtedly belongs to these final months and fits well into this particular day.
[184] Ibid. p. 144a. I have accepted this passage, because of its great vividness. But pp. 139b-145b of the printed Vita do not exist in the MSS.
[185] Ibid. p. 145b. On pp. 145c, 146a, she is said to have, during this time, seen many visions of Angels, to have laughed in their company, and to have herself recounted this after these occurrences. She is similarly declared to have seen Evil Spirits (i Demoni), but only with slight fear. And these passages occur also in the MSS.—But they stand so entirely outside of any context or attribution to any definite days; such general assertions prove, throughout the Vita, to be so little trustworthy; and they are such vague and colourless doubles of similar, but definitely dated and characterized, reports to be accepted in their place a little lower down, that I cannot but reject them here.
[186] Vita, pp. 144b; 145c.
[187] Ibid. p. 145c.
[188] Ibid. p. 146b.
[189] Vita, pp. 146c-147c.
[190] Lingard’s History of England, ed. 1855, Vol. IV, p. 166; James Gairdner, Henry VII, London, 1889, p. 208.
[191] The five passages of the Vita concerning Physicians (pp. 71c, 72a; 145c, 146b; 146c-147c; 158c, 159a) all bear very clear marks of successive additions, glosses, and re-castings,—always in the direction indicated above.