Library › Eddius Stephanus › Life of St Wilfrid
Life of St Wilfrid
Eddius Stephanus, tr. Colgrave, 1927
49. Of Our Excommunication
But his enemies who usurped possession of our holy bishop’s substance declared that we and those who participated with us were excommunicated from the heritage of the faithful; and they so utterly abjured communion with us that they decreed that if one of our abbots or priests was invited to eat with one of the faithful laity, and blessed the meal set before him with the sign of the cross of God, it must be thrown out of doors and cast away as if offered to idols; and the vessels from which our men fed, they ordered to be first washed, as though polluted with filth, before anyone else touched them.