France/Germany
At Metz in Lorraine there lived a noble knight by the name of Alexander with his beautiful and virtuous wife Florentina. This knight vowed to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Grave. Unable to dissuade him from this journey, his sorrowful wife made for him a white shirt with a red cross and asked him to wear it.
The knight then journeyed abroad and was captured by the infidels. He and his unfortunate companions were hitched to a plow and under the blows of a whip were forced to till the fields until blood ran from their bodies. Miraculously, only the shirt that Alexander had received from his wife and which he always wore remained clean and unstained. Rain, sweat, and blood did it no harm, nor did it tear.
The Sultan himself learned of this rare circumstance, and he asked the slave precisely about his name, where he was from, and who had given him the shirt. The knight told him everything, adding, "I have the shirt from my virtuous wife. That it remains so white proves to me her continuing faithfulness and chastity."
The pagan, his curiosity aroused by this news, resolved to secretly send one of his people to Metz who should spare neither money nor property in order to seduce the knight's wife, and thus determine if the shirt's color would change.
The foreigner journeyed to Lorraine, scouted out the wife, then reported to her how miserable her husband was in the pagan land. This greatly saddened her, but she remained steadfastly virtuous. The emissary spent all his money in his unsuccessful attempts to seduce her, then returned to Turkey.
Soon afterward Florentina dressed herself as a pilgrim, took up her harp, which she played very well, and set forth following foreign pagan. She caught up with him in Venice, then traveled with him to the land of the pagans, without his recognizing her in her disguise.
Arriving at the pagan king's court, the pilgrim so captured him with singing and playing that great presents were offered to her. Rejecting them all, the pilgrim requested one of the captured Christians who were plowing. The request was granted, and Florentina, unrecognized, went to the prisoners, coming finally to the plow where her husband was hitched. Then she requested and received this prisoner, and together they journeyed safely across the sea until they arrived home in Germany. While still a two days' journey from Metz, the pilgrim said to Alexander, "Brother, our paths part here. As a remembrance give me a little piece from your shirt, whose miracle I have heard so much about, so that I can tell and convince others about it."
The knight agreed to this, cut a piece from the shirt and gave it to the pilgrim. Then they parted. However, Florentina took a shorter way and arrived in Metz one whole day earlier than he did. She put on her accustomed women's clothes and awaited her husband's arrival. Alexander greeted his wife most tenderly, but soon afterward his friends and relatives began whispering to him that Florentina had traveled about the world for twelve months, leading an immoral life and letting no one hear from her.
Alexander, burning with anger, ordered a feast where he publicly accused his wife of unbecoming behavior. Saying nothing, she left the room, went to her chamber, put on the pilgrim's garb that she had worn at that time, took up her harp, and then reappeared. Holding the piece cut from his shirt in her hand, she proved that she had been the pilgrim who had redeemed him from the plow. Then all her accusers fell silently at her feet, and her husband tearfully begged her for forgiveness.
- Source: Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Der
Mann im Pflug,
Deutsche Sagen, v. 2 (1818), no. 537.
- Translated by D. L. Ashliman.
- The Grimms' source: A Flemish chapbook entitled Florentina de
getrouwe.
- Lorraine is a region in France that has historical ties to Germany.
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