hy dungeon,
called by the sufferer, in one of his treatises, _teterrimo specu subtus
terram inter bufones et serpentes_,[289] and in another a
_latrina_,[290] or sink, to which I know nothing at all corresponding in
St Andrews save the underground chamber near the college hall,[291] and
the roughly-hewn cavern still subsisting in the rock to the north of the
house at the end of Castle Street, going down by the southern entrance
by thirty or more somewhat irregular steps through the rock, and
terminating in a small chamber of rounded or oval form, having an
opening in its roof originally little more than a foot in diameter, but
now considerably enlarged, and to which on the other side a covered
passage from the castle leads down. They might well abandon hope who
entered there, and possibly one at least of its uses was for literally
immuring those who were never again to have further intercourse with
their fellow-men. In this or some other equally horrible place the poor
canon was confined for eighteen or twenty days; and when, after repeated
remonstrances on the part of the king and the magistrates of the city,
the prior was obliged to produce his victim, he enjoined him strictly on
no account to utter one word about the shameful maltreatment to which he
had been subjected. Alesius, however, had suffered too horribly in this
place to let slip the opportunity so unexpectedly presented to him of
telling the worst to the friendly magistrates, and entreating them to
save him from all further risk of a repetition of this barbarous
cruelty. But the magistrates, though friendly, were easily persuaded
that all was now to go right. As soon, however, as they were got out of
the way under this persuasion, the prior upbraided the poor canon for
having divulged the whole disgusting truth which he had enjoined him to
conceal, and ordered him to be again placed in confinement, in which he
was left to languish for nearly a year. But this confinement was in a
less objectionable place, and apparently within the precincts of the
priory; and when the prior was absent the canons occasionally had the
prisoner brought out from his ward, and even permitted him, as in former
times, to take a leading part in the services at the altar. On one
occasion the prior, coming back unexpectedly, and seeing what occurred
in his absence, ordered Alesius at once into confinement, threatening on
the morrow to have him off to the old filthy place where his life