Virtue meant much more than an absence of sin. A cleric called Poppo, at the court of the Saxon king, Harold, around 963, kept arguing out loud at public banquets that there was only one God, and finally the king told him to prove it. The priest was arrested overnight and the next morning was shown the glowing piece of iron ‘of huge weight’ which he was to carry for the sake of the faith. He did so, without hesitation according to his biographers, ‘and carried it for as long as the king himself determined. He showed his unharmed hand to all; he made the faith credible to everyone.’
