THE SCENE: The Abbot of St. Denis recalls with relish the extreme punishments that were meted out against a group of men who had committed murder in a church.
THE TEXT: Attacking them with swords, they piously slaughtered the impious, mutilated the limbs of some, disemboweled others with great pleasure, and piled even greater cruelty upon them, considering it still too kind. No one should doubt that the hand of God sped so swift a revenge when both the living and dead were thrown through the windows. Bristling with countless arrows like hedgehogs, their bodies stopped short in the air, vibrating on the sharp points of lances as if the ground itself rejected them. The French hit upon the following unusual revenge for William’s unusual deed. When he was alive he had lacked a brain, and now that he was dead he lacked a heart, for they ripped it from his entrails and impaled it on a stake, swollen as it was with fraud and evil. They left it set up in a conspicuous place for many days to make public their revenge for this wickedness.
– The Deeds of Louis the Fat, Suger, 12th Century AD
