had a
far more trustworthy authority in the person of Hilduin, a former
abbot of theirs, who had travelled for a long time throughout
Greece for the purpose of investigating this very question. He,
they insisted, had by his writings removed all possible doubt on
the subject, and had securely established the truth of the
traditional belief.

One of the monks went so far as to ask me brazenly which of the
two, Bede or Hilduin, I considered the better authority on this
point. I replied that the authority of Bede, whose writings are
held in high esteem by the whole Latin Church, appeared to me the
better. Thereupon in a great rage they began to cry out that at
last I had openly proved the hatred I had always felt for our
monastery, and that I was seeking to disgrace it in the eyes of the
whole kingdom, robbing it of the honour in which it had
particularly gloried, by thus denying that the Areopagite was their
patron saint. To this I answered that I had never denied the fact,
and that I did not much care whether their patron was the
Areopagite or some one else, provided only he had received his
crown from God. Thereupon they ran to the abbot and told him of the
misdemeanour with which they charged me.

The abbot listened to their story with delight, rejoicing at having
found a chance to crush me, for the greater vileness of his life
made him fear me more even than the rest did. Accordingly he
summoned his council, and when the brethren had assembled he
violently threatened me, declaring that he would straightway send
me to the king, by him to be punished for having thus sullied his
crown and the glory of his royalty. And until he should hand me
over to the king, he ordered that I should be closely guarded. In
vain did I offer to submit to the customary discipline if I had in
any way been guilty. Then, horrified at their wickedness, which
seemed to crown the ill fortune I had so long endured, and in utter
despair at the apparent conspiracy of the whole world against me, I
fled secretly from the monastery by night, helped thereto by some
of the monks who took pity on me, and likewise aided by some of my
scholars.

I made my way to a region where I had formerly dwelt, hard by the
lands of Count Theobald (of Champagne). He himself had some slight
acquaintance with me, and had compassion on me by reason of my
persecutions, of which the story had reached him. I found a home
there within the walls of Provins, in a priory of t