44 THE CURIOUS LORE OF PRECIOUS STONES
Richesse a girdle hadde upon
The bokel of it was of a stoon
Of Vertue greet, and mochel of might.
That stoon was greetly for to love,
And til a riche mannes bihove
Worth al the gold in Rome and Fryse.
The mordaunt22
wrought in noble wyse, Was of a stoon full precious, That was so fyn
and vertuous, That hool a man it coude make Of palasye and of tooth-ake.2'
At
the trial, in 1232, of Hubert de Burgh, chief justiciar, one of the
charges brought against him was that he had surreptitiously removed
from the English treasury an exceedingly valuable stone, possessing
the virtue of rendering the wearer invincible in battle, and had given
it to Llewellyn, King of "Wales, the enemy of his own sovereign, Henry
III of England (1207-1227).24 This must have taken place about 1228, when Henry was engaged in a war with the Welsh.
That
precious stones could, under certain circumstances, lose the powers
inherent in them was firmly believed in medieval times. If handled or
even gazed upon by impure persons and sinners, some of the
virtues of the stones departed from them. Indeed, there were those who
held that precious stones, in common with all created things, were
corrupted by the sin of Adam. Therefore, in order to restore their
pristine virtue it might become
22 A projection serving to fasten down the belt.
23 Compleat Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, ed. Skeat, Oxford, 1849, vol. i, p. 139.
M Matthœi Paris, " Historia major," London, 1684, p. 318.
