olas, were obliged to put up at a
little inn called the Barracks. There the wife found herself so ill,
that the two men were obliged to carry her to the burgh of St.
Nicholas. Directly she was under the church porch, she walked easily,
and felt no more pain. This fact has been reported to me by the
sacristan and the four persons. The last thing that the defunct said
to the bride was, that she should neither speak to nor appear to her
again until half the pilgrimages should be accomplished. The simple
and natural manner in which these good people related this fact to us
makes me believe that it is certain.

It is not said that this young woman had incurred excommunication, but
apparently she was bound by a vow or promise which she had made, to
accomplish these pilgrimages, which she imposed upon the other young
wife who succeeded her. Also, we see that she did not enter the Church
of St. Nicholas; she only accompanied the pilgrims to the church door.

We may here add the instance of that crowd of pilgrims who, in the
time of Pope Leo IX., passed at the foot of the wall of Narne, as I
have before related, and who performed their purgatory by going from
pilgrimage to pilgrimage.

Footnotes:

[508] Melchior. lib. de Statu Mortuorum.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

ARGUMENT CONCERNING THE EXCOMMUNICATED WHO QUIT CHURCHES.

All that we have just reported concerning the bodies of persons who
had been excommunicated leaving their tombs during mass, and returning
into them after the service, deserves particular attention.

It seems that a thing which passed before the eyes of a whole
population in broad day, and in the midst of the most redoubtable
mysteries, can be neither denied nor disputed. Nevertheless, it may be
asked, How these bodies came out? Were they whole, or in a state of
decay? naked, or clad in their own dress, or in the linen and bandages
which had enveloped them in the tomb? Where, also, did they go?

The cause of their forthcoming is well noted; it was the major
excommunication. This penalty is decreed only to mortal sin.[509]
Those persons had, then, died in the career of deadly sin, and were
consequently condemned and in hell; for if there is naught in question
but a minor excommunication, why should they go out of the church
after death with such terrible and extraordinary circumstances, since
that ecclesiastical excommunication does not deprive one absolutely
of communion with the faithful, or of ent