However, Liprand was not deterred. "Look at my amputated nose and ears!" he cried, "I am a confessor for Christ. I will try the ordeal by fire to substantiate my charge. Grossulani is a simoniac, by gift of hand, gift of tongue, and gift of homage." And he gave his wolf-skin cloak and some bottles of wine in exchange for wood, which the crowd carried off and heaped up in a great pile against the wall of the monastery of St. Ambrogio. The Archbishop sent his servants, and they overturned the stack, and scattered the wood. Then the crowd of "boys and girls, men and women," poured through the main streets, roaring, "Away with Grossulani, away with him!" and clamoured around the doors of the archiepiscopal palace, so that Grossulani, fearing for his life, said, "Be it so, let the fellow try the fire, or let him leave Milan." His servants with difficulty appeased the people, by promising that the ordeal should be undergone on the following Palm Sunday evening. "I will not leave the city," said Liprand; "but now I have no money for buying wood, and I will not sell my books, as I keep them for my nephew Landulf, now at school." So the magistrates of the city prepared a pile of billets of oak wood. On the appointed day Liprand, barefooted, in sackcloth, bearing a cross, went to the Church of Saints Gervasius and Protasius and sung mass. Grossulani also, bearing a cross, entered the same church and mounted the pulpit, attended by Ariald de Marignano, and Berard, Judge of Asti. Silence being made, and Liprand having taken his place barefooted "on the marble stone at the entrance to the choir, containing an image of Hercules," Grossulani addressed the people; "Listen, and I will silence this man in three words." Then turning to Liprand, he asked, "You have charged me with being a simoniac. To whom have I given anything? Answer me." Liprand, raising his eyes to the pulpit, pointed to those who occupied it and said, "Look at those three great devils, who think to confound me by their wit and wealth.[44] I appeal to the judgment of God." [44] "Proposuisti quod ego sum simoniacus per munus a manu. Modo die: cui dedi; Tunc presbyter super populum oculos aperuit, et digitum ad eos, qui stabunt in pulpito, extendit, dicens, Videte tres grandissimos diabolos, qui per ingenium et pecuniam suam putant me confundere." Grossulani said, "But I ask what act of simony do you lay to my charge?" Liprand answered, "Do you answer me, What is the lightest form of simony?" The Archbishop, after some consideration, answered, "To refrain from deposing a simoniac." "And I say that is simony which consists in deposing an abbot from his abbacy, a bishop from his bishopric, and an archbishop from his archbishopric."[45]