Chapter XIV. Of the rigour of discipline

Of the Conversation of S. Francis and the Brethren

21. Christ's strenuous knight never spared his body, but exposed it, as something alien to himself, to all ill-treatment both in deed and word. Any one who should enumerate the things this man endured would exceed that Apostolic passage¹ wherein the distresses of the Saints are rehearsed. Moreover, all that first school so subjected themselves to every discomfort that it was thought wickedness for any one to refresh himself by aught save the consolation of the Spirit. And whereas they girded and clothed themselves with iron hoops and coats of mail and afflicted themselves with many vigils and continual fasts, they would have succumbed many a time had they not relaxed the rigour of such abstinence at the diligent admonition of their tender shepherd.