When he reached the shrine he hung his arms up as a votive offering, and performed the vigil which chivalrous custom exacted from a squire before the morning of his being dubbed a knight.

This ceremony was observed point by point, according to the ritual he had read in _Amadis of Gaul_.
Next day he gave his raiment to a beggar, and assumed the garb of a mendicant pilgrim.

By self-dedication he had now made himself the Knight of Holy Church.
His first intention was to set sail for Palestine, with the object of preaching to the infidels.

But the plague prevented him from leaving port; and he retired to a Dominican convent at Manresa, a little town of Catalonia, north-west of Barcelona.

Here he abandoned himself to the crudest self-discipline.