recover my senses." ("Tanquam furibundum et mente captum catenis et vinculis me statim fortiter astringatis, et arcta custodia," etc.[16]) That at this period the influence of the moon in producing lunacy was recognized (as, indeed, when and where was it not?) is proved by observations of the above writer, Giraldus of Wales, in his "Topographica Hibernica," vol. v. p. 79. "Those," he observes, "are called lunatics whose attacks are exacerbated every month when the moon is full." He combats the interpretation of an expositor of Saint Matthew, who said that the insane are spoken of by him as lunatics, not because their madness comes by the moon, but because the devil, who causes insanity, avails himself of the phases of the moon (_lunaria tempora_). Giraldus, on the contrary, observes that the expositor might have said not less truly that the malady was in consequence of the humours being enormously increased in some persons when the moon is full. The name of Giraldus is associated with a celebrated holy well in Flintshire, that of St. Winifred, said to be the most famous in the British Isles. At her shrine he offered his devotions in the twelfth century, when he says, "She seemed still to retain her miraculous powers." The cure of lunacy at this well is not particularized, but it is highly probable from the practice resorted to, as we shall see, at others in Britain.[17] I may here say that there is not much to be found in Chaucer (1328-1400) bearing in any way upon the insane, though he occasionally uses the word "wodeness" for madness, and "wood" or "wod" for the furiously insane.[18] So again in an old English miscellany of the thirteenth century, translated from the Latin, we read-- "Ofte we brennen in mod And werden so weren wod;" that is to say, "Oft do we burn in rage and become as it were mad." I have, in examining that curious book, the "Vision of William concerning Piers the Plowman," written in 1393 by William Langland,[19] found one or two passages having reference to my subject which are worth citing. The author, after saying that beggars whose churches are brew-houses may be left to starve, adds that there are some, however, who are idiotic or lunatic. He also says that men give gifts to minstrels, and so should the rich help God's minstrels, namely, lunatics. This is one of the rare instances in which the insane are spoken of in kindly terms by the old writers, although it would be quite unfair to regard what was doubtless harsh treatment as intentionally cruel. Piers the Plowman speaks of men and women wanting in wit, whom he styles "lunatik lollares," that is, persons who loll about, who care for neither cold nor heat, and are "meuynge after the mone." He says that-- "Moneyless they walke With a good wil, witless, meny wyde contreys Ryght as Peter dade and Paul, save that they preche nat."