Thus even the rational Florentine
historian Villani ascribed floods and fires to the "too great
pride of the city of Florence and the ingratitude of the
citizens toward God," which, "of course," says a recent
historian, "meant their insufficient attention to the
ceremonies of religion."[332b]
In the thirteenth century the Cistercian monk, Cesarius of
Heisterbach, popularized the doctrine in central Europe. His
rich collection of anecdotes for the illustration of religious
truths was the favourite recreative reading in the convents for
three centuries, and exercised great influence over the thought
of the later Middle Ages. In this work he relates several
instances of the Divine use of lightning, both for rescue and
for punishment. Thus he tells us how the steward (_cellerarius_)
of his own monastery was saved from the clutch of a robber by a
clap of thunder which, in answer to his prayer, burst suddenly
from the sky and frightened the bandit from his purpose: how, in
a Saxon theatre, twenty men were struck down, while a priest
escaped, not because he was not a greater sinner than the rest,
but because the thunderbolt had respect for his profession! It
is Cesarius, too, who tells us the story of the priest of
Treves, struck by lightning in his own church, whither he had
gone to ring the bell against the storm, and whose sins were
revealed by the course of the lightning, for it tore his clothes
from him and consumed certain parts of his body, showing that
the sins for which he was punished were vanity and unchastity.
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