Barnes. Pdf

Bartholemé Chattenée, Jurist 
Conclusions du procureur épitcopal 
The arguments offered by the counsel for the defence have been truly and weightily delivered, and must be accorded great and 
serious thought, for it is not lightly or at random that the court should hurl the bolt of excommunication, for being lightly or at 
random hurled, it may, by reason of its particular energy and force, if it fails to strike the object at which it is aimed, return 
against him who hurled it. The arguments offered by the 
[p. 78] 
counsel for the prosecution have also been delivered with much learning and education, and it is truly a deep sea in which it is 
impossible to touch bottom. 
In the matter raised by the procurator for the bestioles regarding the many generations of woodworm and whether this 
generation of woodworm summoned before us was the generation who committed the crime, we have this to say. Firstly, that it 
is stated in Holy Scripture in the book of Exodus that the Lord shall visit the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the 
third and fourth generation, and therefore in this matter the court has the power most piously to bring to judgment several 
generations of woodworm all of whom have offended against the Lord, which would indeed be a mighty act of justice to 
perform. And secondly, that if we accept the argument of the procurator pour les habitans that the bestioles are diabolically 
possessed, what could be more natural - in this case more foully unnatural - than that such possession should allow the 
woodworm to outlive their normal span of years, and thus it might be that only a single generation of creeping things have 
wrought all the damage unto the throne and the roof. In either case we have been much swayed by the argument of the 
procurator pour les habitans that the woodworm could not have been upon the Ark of Noah - for what prudent sea captain in 
his wisdom would permit such agents of shipwreck to board his vessel? - and therefore are not to be numbered among God's 
prime creations. What their status in the mighty hierarchy shall be - whether they be partly natural, whether they be living 
corruption, or whether they be creations of the devil - is a matter for those great doctors of the Church who weigh such matters. 
Neither can we know all of the myriad reasons why God should have permitted a plague of woodworm to infest this 
humble church. Perhaps beggars have been turned away from the door. Perhaps the tithes have not been paid regularly. 
Perhaps there has been frivolity inside the church, and the mansion of the Lord has been turned into a place of assignation, 
whereupon God sent the insects. We must never forget the duty of charity and the requirement to give alms, and did not 
[p. 79] 

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J
ULIAN 
B
ARNES
: A History of the World in 10 ½
 
Chapters 
26
Eusebius liken hell to a cold place where the wailing and gnashing of teeth are caused by the dreadful frost not the everlasting 
fire, and is not charity one of the means by which we throw ourselves upon the mercy of the Lord? Therefore, in 
recommending the sentence of excommunication on these bestioles who have so vilely and viciously ravaged the temple of the 
Lord, we do also recommend that all the penances and prayers customary in such cases be required of the habitans. 
Sentence du juge d'Église 
In the name and by virtue of God, the omnipotent, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and of Mary, the most blessed Mother of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, and by the authority of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, as well as by that which has made us a functionary 
in this case, having fortified ourselves with the Holy Cross, and having before our eyes the fear of God, we admonish the 
aforesaid woodworm as detestable vermin and command them, under pain of malediction, anathema and excommunication, to 
quit within seven days the church of Saint-Michel in the village of Mamirolle in the diocese of Besançon and to proceed 
without delay or hindrance to the pasture offered to them by the habitans, there to have their habitation and never again to 
infest the church of Saint-Michel. In order to make lawful this sentence, and to render effective any malediction, anathema and 
excommunication that may at any time be pronounced, the habitans of Mamirolle are hereby instructed to pay heedful 
attention to the duty of charity, to yield up their tithes as commanded by the Holy Church, to refrain from any frivolity in the 
House of the Lord, and once a year, on the anniversary of that hateful day when Hugo, Bishop of Besançon, was cast down 
into the darkness of imbecility ... 
Here the manuscript in the Archives Municipales de Besançon breaks off, without giving details of the annual penance or 
remembrance imposed by the court. It appears from the condition of the parchment that 
[p. 80]
in the course of the last four and a half centuries it has been attacked, perhaps on more than one occasion, by some species of 
termite, which has devoured the closing words of the juge d'Église.
[p. 81]