CHAPTER IV.
WITH WHAT AUSTERITY AND MORTIFICATION THE HOLY FATHER LIVED.
Because for the most part this Holy Father lived in solitary convents, most remote from worldly tumults, or rather hermitages, all his rigorous penance could not be taken notice of by any. Nevertheless, we will set down some, which he could not hide from those with whom he conversed.
He did wear, for seven years together, a hair shirt, full of hard knots. St. Theresa affirmeth that he wore it twenty years.
Besides plates of iron, and other things wherewith he tyrannized ever his tender flesh. His disciplines were so frequent and bloody, that he seemed rather the trunk of a tree than a human body. He would never cover his head although it rained ever so fast, or the sun shined ever so hot. His diet was so slender and mean, that, in his youth, and old age, he did eat nothing but brown bread, and the most musty crusts that he could find. If sometimes he recreated himself with a few boiled herbs, he would not be so delicious as to eat them with oil. Being Superior he caused as many beans and peas to be boiled at once, as
