Note 1066 — Chapter II · RELIGION IN DAILY LIFE.
S. G. C. (Samuel George Chetwynd) Middlemore translation
Their reputation oscillated even then between two extremes. They must be distinguished from the hermit-monks. The line was not always clearly drawn in this respect. The Spoletans, who travelled about working miracles, took St. Anthony and St. Paul as their patrons, the latter on account of the snakes which they carried with them. We read of the money they got from the peasantry even in the thirteenth century by a sort of clerical conjuring. Their horses were trained to kneel down at the name of St. Anthony. They pretended to collect for hospitals (Massuccio, nov. 18; Bandello iii., nov. 17). Firenzuola in his Asino d’Oro makes them play the part of the begging priests in Apulejus.