Page:The Chronicle of Clemendy.pdf/67

 dogmatical affairs. Nevertheless, on St. Petronilla de Clochasterio her feast they not only discussed Divinity and the Symbols of Holy Church, but even wrangled thereon, contradicting one another bitterly and stubbornly; and pelting each other with infamous accusations and malevolent censures all as if they had been Præses, Opponent and Respondent in the Schools at Oxon. At last my lord Bryan de Monte-Fixo of Estrighoil, and my lord Lawrence de Salso Marisco of Uske, fell together on my lord of Burgavenny, insinuating with indecent perspicuity that his ancestor Walter de Baladun had brought home counterfeit reliques from the Holy Land; whereupon there was a silence, for this was a dreadful thing to say, and my lord of Burgavenny's moustachios grew as stiff and upright as the tails of two dogs before they begin to fly at each other's throats. But in this silence voices came up from the lower table where the squires were sitting, and lo and behold these gentry were doing exactly the same thing as their lords, namely wrangling and disputing on the tenets of our Holy Church. The which was evidently pernicious and unbearable, so the three Barons vehemently commanded their esquires to hold their peace and go on drinking like honest gentlemen, and moreover they enforced this pious precept by example, till they were as drunk as it is possible for Lord Marcher to be; and finally were carried to bed by six of their Clerks in Chancery. And this is the very manner in which the Burgavennians celebrated the festival of St. Petronilla de Clochasterio. And for the space of a hundred years Sir Jenkin Thomas (but the