Gilbert

ON SAINT GILBERT

Bishop of Caithness in Scotland.

ABOUT THE YEAR 1240.

Gilbert, Bishop of Caithness, in Scotland (St.)

G. H.

[1] Caithness is the last Northern province in the kingdom of Scotland, very near to the Orkney Islands, under which formerly were also contained the neighboring provinces of Sutherland, Strathnaver, Edir-da-Cheulis, and Assynt.

Over these in the 13th century presided Bishop St. Gilbert, Memory in the Martyrologies: inscribed in various calendars on the present day: of whom Greven in the Supplement of Usuard makes mention thus: "Of Gilbert, Bishop of Caithness and Confessor." Which the same words, copied thence, are read in the German Martyrology of Canisius. But Ferrarius in his General Catalogue refers to him thus: "In Moray of Saint Gilbert, Bishop of Caithness": to which Dempster adds in his Scottish Menology, "Who piously and strenuously defended the Scottish Church against the impotence of the English." Saint Gilbert had formerly been Archdeacon of Moray, between which province and Sutherland (in whose city Dunrodden the Bishops of Caithness afterwards resided) lies the rather widely extended province of Armanothia.

David Camerarius in his Scottish Menology celebrates him with this longer eulogy:

[2] "Saint Gilbert, Bishop and Confessor, most celebrated to this day in the Caithness province of Scotland: Eulogy in Camerarius, for he is held as the Patron and tutelary saint of the people of Caithness. And with good reason: since through the encouragement and vigilance of this holy man, they emerged from the mire of vices, and no few hospitals for the poor were erected in that province: and various other monuments of piety, built by himself, are to be seen; which display the piety of this holy man, and the paternal love toward the people of Caithness, to the eyes of those who behold them. Saint Gilbert was of Moravian origin, and a most ardent defender of the liberty of the Scottish Church against the bold attempts of the Archbishop of York: whence afterwards he received the Bishopric of Caithness, as a token of the liberty of the Scottish Clergy which he constantly defended and strongly won. Liberty of the Churches defended: Concerning this liberty vindicated, under King William XCIII, John Leslie writes these things: 'Hugh the Cardinal, Legate from the Supreme Pontiff, visited England: he summoned the Bishops from all Scotland to Northampton on a certain day: when all had come on the day, for that observance which they owed to the Supreme Pontiff, he exhorted them to obey the Archbishop of York. Gilbert, a Moravian youth, instructed in true piety and intimate learning, argued most keenly on the contrary, with polished oration and supported by the strength of reasons: that the Scottish Church, which hitherto had fulfilled the measures of its duty in the highest liberty, should not now at last be pressed down by alien power, as by a kind of servitude.' He afterwards received the Bishopric of Caithness, as the reward of the liberty of the Scottish Clergy constantly defended and strongly won: and because he was distinguished in the highest sanctity of life, and shone with miracles both living and dead, with the highest veneration, was numbered among the Divine ones, and worshiped by all." So Leslie, whom being cited, the earlier things John Azor relates in part 2 of his Moral Institutions book 3 on the 4th precept of the Decalogue, chapter 36.

[3] Hector Boece, in book 13 of the History of the Scots, expounds at length the proposition of Hugh the Cardinal to the Bishops of Scotland, and subjoins that response of Saint Gilbert: The response of St. Gilbert. "Already from when they had received the Christian faith, Scotland had been free, subject to no one outside their own region, except to the one Pontiff, as Vicar of Christ. It was unjust now for the Pontiff to demand that the Scots be subjected to the English, with whom they waged almost continual wars. But if he sought piety and concord among them, first, nothing anywhere had been committed by the Bishops, on account of which they ought deservedly to be deprived of their liberty. Next, it was not needful to cast abroad a seedbed of new wars among foreigners: if anything among them worthy of correction (which hitherto has not been the case) should be committed, that would be the King's concern. But piety and the other virtues if they sought, they had distinguished men in virtues

and erudition: who by their labors and vigils teach. Therefore the King most greatly besought and entreated the Supreme Pontiff, that for the present he be content; nor to make his kingdom, which had never ill deserved of him or of the Roman See, subject to its enemies." Then it is added: "The matter therefore being unaccomplished, the Legate departed. This Gilbert, afterwards made Bishop of Caithness, while he was among the living, was a man of a certain wonderful holiness of life; and therefore, after he had satisfied the necessity of nature, and had laid down that fragile body of human nature, he was received into the number of the Divine ones." Thus far Boece.

[4] The letter which Pope Clement III then wrote to William, King of Scotland, his death about the year 1240. on the exemption of the Churches of his land, Roger of Hoveden published, in the latter part of the Annals of England under Henry II; Matthew Paris, and the collectors of Councils. The letter was given at the Lateran on the 3rd of the Ides of March, in the first year of his Pontificate, which was the year of Christ 1189. But King William remained alive until 1214: whom his son Alexander then succeeded, under whom Saint Gilbert being ordained Bishop, presided over his diocese for more than twenty years, so that his death may be referred to about the year 1240. Camerarius in his Menology adds these things: "They relate that Saint Gilbert at death said to those standing by: Admonitions before death: Three things I commend to you, which I myself in life always kept. To harm no one: and if anyone should be harmed, not to seek revenge on the one harming. Second, to bear patiently the scourges which God sends upon us: for he chastises every son whom he receives. Third, to obey Superiors and Rulers, and to be an offence to no one."

[5] To these we subjoin a compendium of his life, from the ancient Aberdeen Breviary, distributed there into six Lessons, which on his feast, on the first day of April, were accustomed to be recited at Matins: where the Lessons of the Third Nocturn were assigned from the exposition of the Gospel: "Watch, because you know not at what hour your Lord will come," etc. The rest from the Common of a Pontiff and Confessor, except this Antiphon at the Magnificat with its Oration:

"Gilbert taught the norm of charity to all,

Who has already shone with miracles of divine virtue, And gave all his things to works of piety."

"O God, who willed Blessed Gilbert the Pontiff to be marked by the curing of many infirmities, Oration, and by miraculous acts; make us, through his intercession of merits, to be healed from the languors of soul and body; and to come to the glory which you have conferred on him."

COMPENDIUM OF LIFE.

From the Aberdeen Breviary.

Gilbert, Bishop of Caithness, in Scotland (St.)

BHL Number: 3528

[1] Scotland, through the most illustrious princes William and Alexander, most strenuous Kings of the same region, for very many courses of time, surrendered to the dominion under their empire with diadem and scepter; in the northern part of that kingdom, a man of great continence, probity, and faith through times of this kind, Gilbert by name, flourished distinguished in works and miraculous deeds, and shone with virtues; who although from the stem of sufficiently noble Nobles of the kingdom of Scotland had taken his lineage; yet by the honor of the faith of Christ and good morals had existed much more noble and more illustrious. St. Gilbert of noble stock,

[2] In his boyhood years given over to the studies of letters, in the times of adolescence and youth he emerged sufficiently learned. But when he had come to a more perfect age, Archdeacon of Moray, on account of the eminence of his knowledge of the divine Scriptures and the excellence of his honorableness, he was allotted the name and honor of the Archdeaconship of the Church of Moray. Meanwhile, as much as he had advanced in years of age, so much did he profit in wisdom and grace with God and men, praising everywhere in his deeds the Omnipotent God himself and the Saints.

[3] Having perceived therefore by the aforesaid Kings the sagacity of his prudence and circumspection, in both temporal and spiritual things, they set him over individually for the things to be done for the Kings in the northern part of Scotland, set over the northern part of Scotland by the King, and for the guarding and building of castles, and the repair of other buildings for the use of the King and the commonwealth. Wherefore he was held almost hateful by many of that region, and they machinated by means by which they could to stir up enmity between himself and the King. For the account books, in which for the account to be rendered to the King, he used to put in writing the individual things received by him, as the times required, the account books burned, he receives again unharmed. malevolent men secretly at night set on fire: and when these had been consumed, by the King, through the persuasions of those who hated him, he was summoned. Doubtful what he should do, lest he fall into the hatred of the King himself, with prayer poured out to God, the account books formerly burned by fire, are restored unharmed in their entirety.

[4] But several courses of years having passed, the man devoted to God, the Lord Adam Bishop of Caithness, having been slain by some of his own diocesans, Adam, Bishop of Caithness, slain by his own people, with not the least ferocity, with deadly arms brought to death; King Alexander aforesaid, certified of the execrable deed of such a crime, lest that unspeakable and most atrocious crime should be left unpunished, all the male sex of those criminals, up to the fourth and fifth generation (the ones who had laid hands on the anointed Bishop having been slain and crushed for this), immediately had castrated: and soon, with the strengthened assent of all the people and Clergy, by divine grace of the Holy Spirit they took Blessed Gilbert as Bishop, is substituted: and asked that he be consecrated: which also was rightly demanded.

[5] Consecrated therefore as Bishop of Caithness, he ruled his diocese more than twenty years, and governed it on earth. he restores speech to a mute: When a certain miserable man deprived of speech had come to Blessed Gilbert for the restoration of the same speech, and unceasingly entreated him; the man of God moved by piety, by his prayer to God, for him, first making the sign of the Cross, touching his tongue with the thumb of the right hand, at once he was restored from then to his former speech, and spoke rightly, blessing God, who had given such power to his Confessor of healing the sick from languors.

[6] he makes the salmon fishing fruitful. A hired fisherman possessed the salmon fishery, from the Lord of that land of Caithness, on assurance for a certain sum of money: who when he had laid out much money for the sake of fishing, that thence he might satisfy the Lord from the said fishery, and by such sterility of the waters had caught nothing at all; and fearing lest the fatal time for the courses of salmon should roll round soon; asked Blessed Gilbert with earnest mind, to wash his holy hands in the said water, whence he might draw salmon fry to the land. The washing of the sacred hands having been made, the salmon swam to the said fisherman more abundantly; and what he should give back to the Lord, with a hundred-fold interest, they brought back to him. After very many other distinguished miracles, Blessed Gilbert, He dies on April 1. full of grace and great strength, on the Kalends of April flew to the heavens above the sky; and in the Church of Caithness, built with his own hands, he rests in blessed peace hitherto, upheld by and illustrious for various miracles.