The young man of about twenty-eight--the exact year of his birth is unknown--found himself a cripple for life.
To while away the long hours of convalescence he asked for the romances of chivalry but was unable to get them and read in their place legends of the saints and a life of Christ by Ludolph of Saxony.

His imagination took fire at the new possibilities of heroism and of fame.

"What if you should be a saint like Dominic or Francis ?" he asked himself, "ay, what if you should even surpass them in sanctity ?" His choice was fixed.

He took Madonna for his lady and determined to become a soldier of Christ.
As soon as he was able to move he made a pilgrimage to Seville and Manresa and there dedicated his arms in a church in imitation of the knights he had read about in _Amadis of Gaul_.

Then, with a general confession and much fasting and mortification of the flesh, began a period of doubt and spiritual anguish {400} that has sometimes been compared with that of Luther.