Here the judgment inflicted on a false executor is recorded, as a warning to those who fail to respect the wishes of the dead.
When Charlemagne’s army was at Bayonne, a soldier called Romaricus was taken critically ill, and, at the point of death, received the eucharist and absolution from a priest. He bequeathed his horse to a relative, who was to sell the beast and give the money to the priest and the poor.
But after he died his kinsman sold the horse for a hundred pence, and spent the money on women and wine. However bad deeds are quickly followed by divine justice. Within thirty days the ghost of the dead man appeared in his sleep, saying: “How could you misspend the alms given to you for the redemption of my soul? They would have got me forgiveness of my sins from God! Through your injustice I have been punished for thirty days in hell; to-morrow you will go to the same place to be punished, but I will go into Paradise”
The ghost disappeared, and his relative stayed all night, trembling.
The next day, as he was telling the story to his companions, and the whole army was talking about it, suddenly a noise like the roaring of lions, wolves, and bull-calves rent the air, and a troop of demons grabbed him in their talons, and took him away, alive and sane. And then? Cavalry and infantry searched the valleys and mountains without success; but twelve days later, as the army was marching through a deserted part of Navarre, they found his dead body smashed on the sharp rocks, a league above the sea, four days’ from the city. There the demons had left his corpse, tearing his soul off to hell.
Be warned, if tempted to follow his example.