HL 4.47

English

But king Rothari indeed, after he had held the sovereignty sixteen years and four months, departed from life I and left the kingdom of the Langobards to his son Rodoald. When he had been buried near the church of St. John the Baptist,' after some time, a certain man inflamed by wicked cupidity opened his sepulcher at night and took away whatever he found among the ornaments of his body. St. John appearing to him in a vision frightened him dreadfully and said to him, "Why did you dare to touch the body of that man? Although he may not have been of the true faith yet he has commended himself to me. Because therefore you have presumed to do this thing you will never hereafter have admission into my church." And so it occurred; for as often soever as he wished to enter the sanctuary of St. John, straightway his throat would be hit as if by a very powerful boxer and thus stricken, he suddenly fell down backwards. I speak the truth in Christ; he who saw with his own eyes that very thing done related this to me. Rodoald then received the kingdom of the Langobards after the death of his father, and united with himself in marriage Gundiperga the daughter of Agilulf and Theudelinda. This Gundiperga in imitation of her mother, just as the latter had done in Modicia (Monza), so the former within the city of Ticinum (Pavia) built a church in honor of St. John the Baptist, which she decorated wonderfully with gold and silver and draperies and enriched bountifully with particular articles, and in it her body lies buried. And when she had been accused to her husband of the crime of adultery, her own slave, Carellus by name, besought the king that he might fight in single combat for the honor of his mistress, with him who had imputed the crime to the queen. And when he had gone into single combat with that accuser he overcame him in the presence of the whole people. The queen indeed after this was done, returned to her former dignity.

Latin