Note 46 — INTRODUCTION.

So says the Saga. Fordun says that the use of his tongue and of one eye was in some measure left him. The letter of Pope Innocent, addressed to the Bishop of Orkney, prescribing the penance to be performed by the man who mutilated the bishop, only mentions the cutting out of the tongue. It is as follows:—

“We have learnt by your letters that Lomberd, a layman, the bearer of these presents, accompanied his earl on an expedition into Caithness; that there the Earl’s army stormed a castle, killed almost all who were in it, and took prisoner the Bishop of Caithness; and that this Lomberd, as he says, was compelled by some of the earl’s soldiery to cut out the bishop’s tongue. Now because the sin is great and grievous, in absolving him, according to the form of the church, we have prescribed this penance for satisfaction of his offence, and to the terror of others:—That he shall hasten home, and bare-footed, and naked, except breeches, and a short woollen vest without sleeves, having his tongue tied by a string, and drawn out so as to project beyond his lips, and the ends of the string bound round his neck, with rods in his hand, in sight of all men, walk for fifteen days successively through his own native district, the district of the mutilated bishop, and the neighbouring country; he shall go to the door of the church without entering, and there, prostrate on the earth, undergo discipline with the rods he is to carry; he is thus to spend each day in silence and fasting until evening, when he shall support nature with bread and water only; after these fifteen days are passed he shall prepare within a month to set out for Jerusalem, and there labour in the service of the Cross for three years; he shall never more bear arms against Christians; for two years he shall fast every Friday on bread and water, unless by the indulgence of some discreet bishop, or on account of bodily infirmity, this abstinence be mitigated. Do you then receive him returning in this manner, and see that he observe the penance enjoined him.” (Epist. Innoc. III. Lib. iii. No. 77; Diplom. Norvegicum, vii. 3.)