to the Simon whom I have called the lesser. For there was, without doubt, a thousand times less evil in the sick burgess’s demon than in that very ferocious demon of the savagely raging girl, as is made plain by the extent and quantity of the greater and lesser evils of each demon. For a second time I beg those who are going to read this not to begrudge me one further comparison between the aforesaid Simons, since I consider this one far superior to the preceding comparison. For what is finer among men, or more reasonable in the very nature of things, than the highest comparisons rightly explained? For a man is rightly compared when his comparison has a direct relation; on this account Simon Peter said, ‘When the middle of the night is passed, I now awake of my own accord so that sleep does not come to me again. This happens to me because I have formed the habit of recalling to memory at that time the words of my lord Jesus, which I heard from him himself; and for this reason, in my desire for them, I rouse my mind, and command my thoughts, so that I should be awake to each one of my Lord’s sayings; and in recalling and retracing them, I truly hold them in my mind. From this I have therefore acquired in myself, by the grace of my Lord, the habit of waking: desiring the words of my Lord to dwell in my heart with all delight. Thus by the introduction of some inexpressible principle to my mind through such a habit, my old custom is changed.’ (It is set out in this way at the beginning of the second book of Clement’s History.)¹ The Simon whom I mentioned before is most fitted for a comparison with this man. For a comparison, unless it has something suitably comparable placed next to itself, is not adequate when posed by itself with this man. [For a comparison, unless it have something suitably comparable placed next to itself, is not adequate when posed \by itself/ .] And so Simon de Montfort, a man incomparable, as it were, to anyone in our times, was comparable to Simon Peter. Simon de Montfort, after he had sworn an oath with the barons at the king’s bidding, with the king himself having sworn as well, in fact, before Simon, that he would faithfully adhere to the provisions of the barons recorded in a roll by the responsible men of England at Oxford, began as it were to deny himself in a manner similar to Simon Peter and to engage in night-time devotions, and did not deviate from this practice until the day of his death. He would rise every night around midnight at the signal of a noiseless clock—if it is even appropriate to call the provision he made a clock—which never failed him once he adopted such a form of timekeeping. His clock was a wax candle that he lit every night at the time he usually went to sleep; on this candle he inscribed by divine guidance a mark according to the varying length of the nights, whether short or long, so that when it reached that mark, around midnight, he got out of bed every night as though divinely roused, and so noiselessly that \none/of those sleeping with him heard him, nor were they aware that he had risen. Indeed, he would do this habitually, just as if one of the most precise clocks had woken him; then you would see him, stripped of the old habit of having to sleep until the crowing of the fowls \or cockerels/, or the dawning of the day, and clothed with the new habit of Simon Peter as to waking, so that, from the hour of the night at which he had arisen, until the night-time of the following day, sleep would no longer come upon him, just as sleep was believed not to have come upon Simon Peter. See the very pleasing comparison of Simon to Simon! While the one kept up continual prayer