In Switzerland from 1516 to 1525 - James Aitken Wylie

neighborhood. The small town of Aarberg, three
leagues from Bern, had, some years before, been
much damaged by fire and floods. The good people
of the place were taught to believe that these
calamities had befallen them for the sin they had
committed in insulting a nuncio of the Pope. The
nuncio, to punish the affront he had received at
their hands, and which reflected on the Church
whose servant he was, had excommunicated them,
and cursed them, and threatened to bury their
village seven fathoms deep in the earth. They had
recourse to Samson to lift off a malediction which
had already brought so many woes upon them, and
the last and most dreadful of which yet awaited
them. The lords of Bern used their mediation for
the poor people.
The good monk was compassionate. He
granted, but of course not without a sum of money,
a plenary indulgence, which removed the
excommunication of the nuncio, and permitted the
inhabitants to sleep in peace. Whether it is owing
to Samson's indulgence we shall not say, but the
fact is undeniable that the little town of Aarberg is
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