Barnes. Pdf

bestioles do not live for more than a few brief summers? Yet we all know that an infestation of woodworm may proceed for 
many human generations before it cause the wood to break apart as it did under Hugo, Bishop of Besançon, reducing him to a 
condition of imbecility. From which we must conclude that the woodworm summoned before this court are merely the 
descendants of many generations of woodworm who have made their habitation in the church of Saint-Michel. If malign intent 
is to be ascribed to the bestioles, it is surely only to be ascribed to the first 
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generation of bestioles and not to their innocent posterity who without fault find themselves living where they do? On this 
ground, therefore, I apply again for the case to be non-suited. And further, there has been no evidence from the prosecution as 
to the occasion and date upon which the woodworm are alleged to have entered the wood. The procurator has attempted to 
maintain that the bestioles are not granted by Holy Scripture the right to inhabit cut wood. To which we reply, firstly that the 
Scripture does not in any patent form forbid them from so doing, secondly that if God had not intended them to eat the cut 
wood He would not have given them the instinct to do so, and thirdly that in the absence of evidence to the contrary, an 
accused being innocent until proved guilty, an assumption of priority of possession in the matter of the wood must be granted 
to the bestioles, namely that they were in the wood when it was cut by the woodsman who sold it to the joiner who fashioned it 
into the throne. Far from the woodworm infesting what Man has constructed, it is Man who has wilfully destroyed the 
woodworm's habitation and taken it for his own purpose. On which ground also we ask that the case be non-suited. 
In the second place, it is argued that the woodworm did not have passage on the Ark of Noah and therefore must be 
diabolically possessed. To which we reply, firstly that the Holy Scripture does not list every species of God's creation, and that 
the legal presumption should be that any creature was upon the Ark unless it be specifically stated that he was not. And 
secondly, that if as the procurator alleges the woodworm was not upon the Ark, then it is even more evident that Man has not 
been given dominion over this creature. God sent the baneful Flood to purge the world, and when the waters receded and the 
world was new-born, He gave Man dominion over the animals. But where is it written that He also gave him dominion over 
any animals which had not travelled upon the Ark? 
In the third place, it is a monstrous libel upon our pleading to claim that Hugo, Bishop of Besançon, according to our 
allegation, was thrust into the darkness of imbecility by God's own hand. We make no such allegation, for it would be the 
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J
ULIAN 
B
ARNES
: A History of the World in 10 ½
 
Chapters 
25
contention of a blasphemer. But indeed is it not the case that the ways of God are often most mysteriously hid from our gaze? 
When the Bishop of Grenoble fell from his horse and was killed we did not blame either the Lord or the horse or the 
woodworm. When the Bishop of Constance was lost overboard in the lake we did not conclude that God had hurled him into 
the water or that woodworm had destroyed the keel of the boat. When the pillar in the cloister of Saint Theodoric collapsed on 
the foot of the Bishop of Lyons causing him to walk ever thereafter with a staff, we did not blame the Lord or the pillar or the 
woodworm. The Lord's ways are indeed frequently hidden from us, but is it not also the case that the Lord has called down 
many plagues upon the unworthy? Did He not send a plague of frogs against Pharaoh? Did He not send lice and grievous 
swarms of flies upon the land of Egypt? Did He not, against that Pharaoh, send also a plague of boils, and thunder and hail, and 
a grievous plague of locusts? Did He not send hailstones against the Five Kings? Did He not strike even his own servant Job 
with boils? And it was for this reason that I called before you Father Godric and enquired of him for the records of the payment 
of tithes by the inhabitants of Mamirolle. And were there not many excuses proferred about the inclemency of the weather, and 
the crops that had failed, and the sickness there had been in the village, and the band of soldiers who had passed by and 
murdered several of the strong young men of the village? But for all this it was evident and plain that the tithes have not been 
paid as the Church lays down, that there has been wilful neglect amounting to disobedience of the Lord God and his spouse on 
earth the Church. And is it not therefore the case that, just as He sent a plague of locusts to scourge Pharaoh and grievous 
swarms of flies upon the land of Egypt, so he sent woodworm into the church to scourge the inhabitants for their disobedience? 
How can this have been done without the Lord's permission? Do we think Almighty God is so weak and timorous a creature 
that He is unable to protect His temple against these tiny bestioles? Surely it is a blasphemy to doubt God's power to do this. 
And therefore we must conclude that the infestation was either divinely ordered or divinely 
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permitted, that God sent the woodworm to punish the disobedient sinners and that the sinners should cower before His rage 
and scourge themselves for their sins and pay their tithes as they have been commanded. Truly, this is a matter for prayer and 
fasting and scourging and the hope of God's mercy rather than one for anathemata and excommunication against the agents, the 
very conduits of the Lord's purpose and intent. 
In the fourth place, therefore, acknowledging as we do that the woodworm are God's creatures and as such are entitled to 
sustenance even as man is entitled to sustenance, and acknowledging also that Justice shall be tempered by mercy, we submit, 
without prejudice to the foregoing, that the court demand of the habitans of Mamirolle, who have been so tardy in their 
payment of tithes, to nominate and set aside for the said bestioles alternative pasture, where they may graze peacefully without 
future harm to the church of Saint-Michel, and that the bestioles be commanded by the court, which has all such powers, to 
move to the said pasture. For what do my humble clients hope for and demand except to be allowed to live peaceably and in 
the dark without interference and wrongful accusation. Gentlemen, I make my final plea that the case be non-suited, and 
without prejudice that the bestioles be declared innocent, and without prejudice again that they be required to move to fresh 
pasture. I submit on their behalf to the judgment of the court.