Thomas Cantimpratanus (of Chantimpré in Brabant) was the son of a noble who had fought under our Richard I in the Holy Land. A hermit near Antioch, to whom the father had confessed his sins, warned him that some of them would keep him long in purgatory unless he bred up one of his sons to the priesthood. The child Thomas was therefore sent to school at Liège, where (as he tells us himself) he spent eleven years. At the age of fifteen he was much impressed by Jacques de Vitry's preaching. In early manhood he became a Canon Regular at Chantimpré, but passed over to the stricter Dominicans about 1231. He became a very distinguished preacher, a suffragan bishop, and a fairly voluminous writer. By far the most valuable of his works is the Bonum Universale de Apibus, a treatise on virtues and vices by analogy with the life of the bee, illustrated by personal and historical anecdotes. This was written somewhere about 1260; my extracts are from the Douay edition of 1597.

A MOTHER'S TEARS
(Lib. II, c. liii, p. 415.)

It was my own mother who told me the story which I am about to relate. My grandmother had a firstborn son of most excellent promise, comely beyond the wont of children, at whose death she mourned and could not be consoled, partly, perchance, through a foreboding of future ills; for after him she had another son who, though he was renowned in knighthood, yet, seduced by the pomp of vain glory, became an utter prodigal and squandered his paternal inheritance. His mother, therefore, as we have said, mourned for her firstborn with a grief that could not be consoled, until one day, as she went by the way, she saw in her vision a band of youths moving onwards, as it seemed to her, with exceeding great joy; and she, remembering her son and weeping that she saw him not in this joyful band, suddenly beheld him trailing weary footsteps after the rest. Then with a grievous cry the mother asked: "How comes it, my son, that thou goest alone; lagging thus behind the rest?" Then he opened the side of his cloak and showed her a heavy water-pot, saying: "Behold, dear mother, the tears which thou hast vainly shed for me, through the weight whereof I must needs linger behind the rest! Thou therefore shalt turn thy tears to God, and pour forth thy pious and devout heart in the presence of the Sacrifice of Christ's Body, with alms to the poor: then only shall I be freed from the burden wherewith I am now grieved."

(Coulton I, p.118-119)