Mendicants who suffered from or could simulate nervous diseases like St. Vitus's dance, were quick to realize their opportunity, and two letters telling the story were circulated as credentials by pretended survivors of the band. Both are influenced in form by a sermon of St. Augustine of Hippo which embodies a similar story (Migne, _Patrologia_, vol. xxxviii, col. 1443). The first (Letter of Otbert), which claims to be issued by Peregrinus bishop of Cologne, spread rapidly through Western Europe. This was the version that Mannyng found in William of Wadington. The second (Letter of Theodric) makes Bruno bishop of Toul, afterwards Pope Leo IX, vouch for the facts. It was incorporated in the account of the miraculous cure of Theodric at the shrine of St. Edith of Wilton, and is known only from English sources. This was the text that Mannyng used. A later English version, without merit, is found in the dreary fifteenth-century _Life of St. Editha_ (ed. Horstmann, ll. 4063 ff.). * * * * * 1 ff. _games_: Dances and shows in the churchyard were constantly condemned by the Church in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In 1287 a synod at Exeter rules _ne quisquam luctas, choreas, vel alios ludos inhonestos in coemeteriis exercere praesumat, praecipue in vigiliis et festis sanctorum_. See Chambers, _The Mediaeval Stage_, vol. i, pp. 90 ff. 6. _or tabure bete_: Note the use of _bete_ infin. as a verbal noun = _betyng_; cp. XI _b_ 184-5. 10-12. 'And he (_sc._ a good priest) will become angered sooner than one who has no learning, and who does not understand Holy Writ.' 15 ff. _noght... none_: An accumulation of negatives in ME. makes the negation more emphatic. Here the writer wavers between two forms of expression: (1) 'do not sing carols in holy places', and (2) 'to sing carols in holy places is sacrilege'. 25-8. _yn þys londe_, &c. The cure of Theodric, not the dance, took place in England. Brightgiva is said to have been abbess of Wilton at the time (1065), and 'King Edward' is Edward the Confessor (1042-66). 34-5. The church of Kölbigk is dedicated to St. Magnus, of whom nothing certain is known. The memory of St. Bukcestre, if ever there was such a saint, appears to be preserved only in this story. 36. _þat þey come to_: Construe with _hyt_ in l. 35. 37 ff. _Here names of alle_: The twelve followers of Gerlew are named in the Latin text, but Mannyng gives only the principal actors. The inconsistency is still more marked in the Bodleian MS., which after l. 40 adds:— _Þe ouþer twelue here names alle Þus were þey wrete, as y can kalle._ Otherwise the Bodleian MS. is very closely related to the Harleian, sharing most of its errors and peculiarities.