He had become an incurable hypochondriac. He said long after that he had been mad all his life, or at least not perfectly sane; and, in truth, eccentricities less strange than his have often been thought ground sufficient for absolving felons and for setting aside wills.
It was more and more regarded as the special function of the priest to administer absolution, though as late as the i 6th century we hear of laymen confessing to and absolving one another on the battlefield because no priest was at hand.