To refer, for instance, to the use of the one word "zounds!" This strikes us now-a-days as anything but a very solemn or a very momentous form of adjuration. But in unreformed England--the England that still adored the _Genetrix incorrupta_, and had earned among the devout the title of Our Lady's Dower, it was absolutely impossible to surpass in blasphemy the hideous import that had been imparted to the user of the word. It was in fact nothing else than a rebellious and mutinous rendering of the once sacred oath taken by the wounds of the Redeemer. There are few who can probably now realise the conspicuous place then occupied in the Catholic worship by the legends relating to the five several incisions in the body of Christ. The monkish representations of the wounds were depicted in countless rosaries and Books of Hours. Confraternities were formed in the Church for their greater veneration. There were occasions when papal absolution was specially extended to those worshippers who paid their devotions to the wound in the side of Christ. The so-called measurement of them was even preserved in families, and was reputed to be a charm.[22] In the great northern insurrection of 1536, known as the Pilgrimage of Grace, the Five Wounds was the badge under which York and Lincoln farmers marched to avenge the spoliation of the monasteries. Such was the oath in the days of the last King Henry. Its more modern application scarcely requires illustration, but if any such were needed, we might find it in the villainous lines which Lord Byron wrote in connection with a certain trip on board the _Lisbon_ packet.
To the present hour, in Italy, the popular oaths are in close alliance with the Romanist faith. The ordinary exclamation "_Per l'ostia_" is the equivalent of "God's bread!" that so long did duty in England of the pre-Reformation era. A modern traveller has noticed how distinct an impress has been set upon Italian swearing by the particular notions of heavenly beings that are inculcated by the national creed. A workman in an art-studio was heard vociferating in such terms as "_Per Christo_," "_Per sangue di Christo_," "_Per maladetto sangue di Christo_," whereupon the following conversation occurred:--