Caput 10
Greed and Falsehood
A knight sells a silver dish given by King Ladislaus, but a greedy count falsely claims it was stolen, and King Stephen refers the case to Bishop Walter for judgment.
So a certain knight, under pressing need, offered for sale to a certain count a silver dish that the pious king had given to his father; but that same count, drawn by the heat of greed, pretended it had been secretly stolen from him. So King Stephen, Coloman's son, entrusted this case to Walter, bishop of Várad, to be settled by a lawful judgment.1
Judgment at the Tomb
Bishop Walter places the dish on Saint Ladislaus's tomb for divine judgment, and when the presumptuous count tries to take it, he falls as if dead, unable to rise.
Trusting completely in the merits of the blessed king, he decreed by judicial sentence that the dish should be placed on the tomb of the holy king Ladislaus, so that the Lord might prove which of them ought rightfully to have it. So the count, presuming far too much of himself, came up to the tomb to take the dish—and at once he fell as if dead, and so badly stunned that he neither deserved to receive the dish nor could rise from the ground.
Read the original Latin
Quidam itaque miles urgente necessitate scutellam argenteam, quam patri suo pius rex donauerat, cuidam comiti uenalem exposuit, sed eam idem comes ardore cupiditatis illectus a se furtim sublatam esse confinxit. rex itaque Stephanus Colomanni filius hanc causam Walthero Waradiensi episcopo legitimo fine terminandam commisit.
qui de meritis beati regis certissime confidens, per sentenciam iudiciariam decreuit, quod eam scutella super sepulchrum sancti regis Ladislai poneretur, ut comprobaret dominus, quis illorum eam iuste deberet habere. comes ergo nimium de se presumendo, scutellam accepturus ad sepulchrum accessit, statimque cecidit uelud mortuus, et uehementer attonitus neque scutellam meruit accipere, neque de terra potuit resurgere.
Notes
- 1 ↩Waradiensi rendered as 'of Várad' (medieval Waradin / Nagyvárad); place-name form may be standardized later.
Legenda Sancti Ladislai regis (Life of Saint Ladislaus of Hungary) companion
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