Joseph the Hymnographer

ON SAINT JOSEPH THE HYMNOGRAPHER,

AT CONSTANTINOPLE.

IN THE YEAR 883.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Joseph the Hymnographer, at Constantinople (Saint)

BY D. P.

§ I. Sacred cult from MS Synaxaries. The times of the Roman legation and of the exile.

[1] Saint Joseph, from the writing of sacred hymns or Canons, the printed Menaia and very many MS Synaxaries—the Clermont, Chiffletian, Mazarin, An elogium to be recited among the sacred things, and others—call τὸν Ὑμνογράφον; but two preserved in the monastery of Grottaferrata call him τὸν Ποιητὴν τῶν κανόνων ("the Maker of Canons"); and they weave an elogium for him, some shorter, some longer; scarcely any without errors, marred by the carelessness of the copyists. Only the Synaxary which we first named, the Clermont (because lent from the library of our Parisian Clermont College), is for the most part accurate: from a Greek MS. which therefore we have judged more worthy than the rest to insert in this prolusion, intending to have a more expeditious course to what doubts are raised concerning the age of this Saint; which have no other foundation than that some bolder person has presumed of his own accord to interpolate a Life written by a nearly contemporary author by the addition of one word; and, reading "Leo the Iconoclast," added τὸν ἐν τῆς Ἰσαυρίας, not paying sufficient attention that the reign of Leo the Isaurian is distant a whole century from the times of the Patriarchs Ignatius and Photius, under whom he ought to have observed in the course of the Life that Joseph held the office of Skeuophylax in the Church of Constantinople. An exactly similar error on May 23 concerning

Saint Michael, Bishop of Synada, we noted has crept into the Menology of the Greeks, on January 5 at the Life of Saint Gregory of Akritas, page 290. The elogium of Saint Joseph cited above is as follows.

[2] "Our holy Father Joseph the Hymnographer was from the province of the Sicilians, his parents being Plotinus and Agatha; but in the devastation of his fatherland, saved with his mother and brothers, he went to the Peloponnese, A Sicilian by birth, and from there transferred to Thessalonica; and at the fifteenth year of his age, was tonsured in a certain monastery; he becomes a monk and Presbyter at Thessalonica where he ran through the whole sacred Scripture with such progress that he deserved to be ordained a Presbyter, and with Gregory the Decapolite he crossed over to Constantinople. But after, under Leo the Armenian, the heresy of the Iconoclasts, revived, had raised its head, the Orthodox begged Saint Gregory to dispatch Joseph to Rome, to announce to the faithful dwelling there what had happened. So he sailed thither; but intercepted by the ships of the barbarians, he was led away captive into Crete. he is freed from the Cretan prison by Saint Nicholas: On one of the nights there stood by him a certain one, bearing a pontifical appearance, who said: 'From Myra I have come here'; and taking a book, he ordered him to accept it. Joseph accepted, and read these words: 'Hasten, Merciful One, and speed, Compassionate One, to our aid: for you can if you wish.' And what he then sang, he saw fulfilled in the very deed, when, Theophilus having been taken from this life, the holy Church received back the adornment of the sacred images. Meanwhile the divine Joseph, freed from the prison, was safely brought to Constantinople.

[3] He builds an oratory of Saint Bartholomew. "He had found, while still in the regions of Thessalonica, a Relic of the holy Apostle Bartholomew. Taking this, therefore, he built a chapel under his name; and began with much solicitude to turn over in his mind how he might adorn his festival by composing sacred canticles; suppliant with tears and sobs, that he might deserve to have this desire of his fulfilled. And indeed he was made a partaker of it. For at night he beheld a certain reverend man at the side of the Epistle, who seemed to take the Gospel from the sacred table, and placing it upon Joseph's breast, to impart to him his blessing. From that time on he had the grace of composing hymns and so ready a faculty He writes and dictates Canons with wonderful facility. that some thought that he did not bring forth the sacred melodies of himself, but pronounced them, received from elsewhere and committed to memory, and furnished them to those who asked. Thus he illumined the whole Church with his hymns, and began to be celebrated on all lips, and to be held dear by all, not only common men, but also Princes and the Emperors themselves.

[4] he is banished to Cherson "Also contending much for the cause of the orthodox faith, he was banished to Cherson by the impious Armenian, the one called Bardas condemning him because he had nobly rebuked him. After whose death he was freed from Cherson by that outstanding Empress Theodora, he becomes Skeuophylax at Constantinople. who celebrated orthodoxy; and he was made the Custodian of the sacred vessels of the Great Church of God, with the divine Ignatius holding the Patriarchal See. Also, after his departure from this life, to Photius too (for he was declared Patriarch after Ignatius) he was in highest affection and esteem. Amid these things, fulfilling a long life-span laudably, and holily and innocently engaged in his office, he fell asleep in the Lord. It is said, it is said that his soul at death was led away by the Saints, that his holy soul, with the holy Martyrs and Angels leading the way, was carried up to heaven. For a certain man, having a useful servant, when this one had escaped by flight, went to Saint Theodore, commonly called Phanerotes, to ask him to reveal his servant to him. And spending there no little space of time, when he had learned nothing of the fugitive, he wished to depart, and would have departed, had not, day now dawning, being held by a spiritual discourse that was going on, he fallen asleep a little. And behold, he sees a Martyr, and hears him saying to him: 'Why are you sad? it is revealed. The poet Joseph dying this night, his soul has been led by all of us, whom he has honored with his canons and hymns, and placed before the sight of God. But now I am at hand, about to show what you wish. Go to that place (and he named the place); there you shall find your servant whom you seek.'"

[5] Joseph's exile was not to be imputed to Leo the Armenian, Thus far the aforesaid Synaxary, with all things rightly and in order, except as pertains to the authors of the exile imposed on Cherson, and thus also the time of the exile itself. For although Leo the Armenian is read to have had, as minister and torch of his savagery against the orthodox monks, a certain Bardas, his kinsman, yet the latter could in no way claim to himself any part in the vexing of Joseph: since, at the very beginning of the persecution aroused in the second year of Leo, he was sent as legate to Rome, and remained captive in Crete up to the year 820. Therefore Theophilus, but must have been attributed to Theophilus. called the impious one by authors everywhere on account of the iconoclasm renewed, ought here to have been written and understood; under whom Bardas, the brother of Saint Theodora Augusta, an incestuous and nefarious man, could easily with his sister's husband, most hostile to orthodox monks, have effected that Joseph, who rebuked his vices rather freely, should be banished. Thus certainly the author who composed the other of the MS Synaxaries of Grottaferrata arranged the matter, and the Acts of the Life agree most perfectly; which, although no mention is made of Bardas, place the whole blame on the worst Emperor of that time, namely Theophilus. In the said Synaxary it is read thus: "But certain envious men, when they had calumniated him of what had been said against Bardas Caesar, banished him to Cherson; whence after some time he returned to Constantinople, and was made custodian of the sacred vessels of the great church of God, His first arrival at Constantinople was under Leo, not the Isaurian; with Ignatius as Patriarch."

[6] We do not here touch on the more serious errors of the other Synaxaries, we only say that in none of them is the name of Leo the Isaurian noted, which, found in the Acts, so tormented our Octavius Cajetan in his Annotations upon them: that when he saw it followed that Joseph must have lived at least 170 years, he honestly confessed that so long an age, amid so many turbulent events, and so many hardships and exercises of the ascetic life, gave him trouble. Nonetheless he so disposed all things that are said hereafter in the Life, that doubtless he marks the worst Emperor mentioned above—under whom Joseph was cast into exile—as having been Constantine Copronymus, but to the Armenian, killed on the night of the Nativity. son of Leo the Isaurian and heir alike of the empire and of the impiety; and the Orthodox Emperors, under whom he was recalled to Constantinople, he interprets as Constantine and Irene. And that this might agree with the Menaia, which say that he was cast out on the occasion of Bardas, he concludes that Joseph was again driven out under Michael the Stammerer, and seems to have been restored by Saint Theodora. He also doubts whether Leo the Isaurian, whom Theophanes writes to have died on the 14th day before the Kalends of July, should rather be said to have died on the Nativity of the Lord, or whether after six months and as many days the news of his death was announced to Saint Joseph. All of which he could easily have discerned, if from the day of death indicated he had known to understand by it Leo the Armenian, so much later than the Isaurian; and to hold suspect that ἐκ τῆς Ἰσαυρίας this Saint does not seem to have been a Syracusan. inserted in the Acts, on account of the silence of all others and the enormous distance of time.

[7] By like reasoning the same Cajetan could not without difficulty have seen the vanity of that conjecture, by which he asserted Syracuse to have been Joseph's fatherland, because it is said in the Acts that "Joseph's fatherland was rendered more glorious by the parents of the Blessed man's so happy offspring than by Dionysius, who once in it reigned in the highest delights." For even if Dionysius had his royal palace at Syracuse, yet he ruled over the whole island, of which, not of some particular city of it, the Acts speak. Nor can it seem likely, amid so great a silence of all historians, that under the reign of Irene and Constantine, the barbarian pirates, not at that time very strong, had possessed themselves of a most fortified city—which, when they had obtained the rule of the rest of Sicily under Michael the Stammerer, they could not, nor Tauromenium either, make subject to their authority for 55 years; until the year 878, when, on May 21, victory befell them over the same, and confirmed the possession of the whole island, with great calamity to the sorely afflicted Church: which the monk Theodosius, who was present, describes in his Epistle to Leo the Archdeacon, rendered into Latin from the Greek MS and printed in Rocco Pirro in the Notice of the Church of Syracuse. Which same Pirro meanwhile asserts that Joseph was both a monk of the Basilian Order and a Syracusan; the latter persuaded by his own, the former by Cajetan's, conjecture; and he adds that his feast is celebrated at Syracuse on April 3, certainly after Cajetan began to seek out Sicilian Saints from the Greek Menaia and to propose them to his Islanders for veneration; for we do not think that cult is ancient at Syracuse, or founded on any tradition of the ancestors concerning Joseph.

§ II. The writers of the Life. The Canons composed. The time of death.

[8] The summary of the Life written by Theophanes the disciple, What we have said in the previous § about Bardas, and certain other circumstances more expressly noted in the Synaxaries than in the Life (such as that Saint Joseph was tonsured as a monk in his fifteenth year of age, that when his fatherland had been invaded by the Saracens he was saved with his mother and brothers, that he had nearly extemporaneous facility for composing Canons, that the place of exile was Cherson, that before the exile chains and blows had been laid on the Saint, that finally the vision of his glorious leading up to heaven, on the occasion of the fugitive sought in the temple of Saint Theodore Phanerotes or Revealer, befell that good man, who deserved to exist as witness of it to others)—these circumstances, I say, passed over in the more prolix Acts, make it credible to us that the summary of the Life (which above we gave from the Clermont MS, and which other MSS for the most part follow) is itself that which, written by the disciple of Saint Joseph, Theophanes, John the Deacon and Orator of the Great Church of God had before his eyes, to be set forth more fully and more ornately, which John the Deacon expanded, with many things that were lacking added. This, in part augmented and adorned, in part freely written down with the minutiae of the aforesaid circumstances omitted, we received from a Greek Codex of the Vatican Library, bearing the author's name as we have said: and we compared it with an apograph of another codex, written out by Daniel the monk and sacristan in the monastery of Saint Salvator at Messina, without the author's name, from shelf 20, number 52.

[9] This, first rendered into Latin by Father Augustine Floritus of our Society, as here it is published after a varied translation. was published among the Lives of the Sicilian Saints in the year 1657; then Ludovico Maraccio of Lucca, of the Congregation of the Clerks of the Mother of God, prepared another version of the same Life, together with the Canons on all the feasts of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the Theotocia scattered through all the ecclesiastical books of the Greeks, and bearing the name of Saint Joseph as author; all which the brother of the aforementioned Ludovico by blood and by the profession of religion, Hippolytus Maraccio,

illustrated with learned commentaries, calling it The Marial of Saint Joseph the Hymnographer, and published it at Rome in the year 1661. This version, adhering more closely to the words of the Greek text, we had preferred both to the former one and to another elaborated by a certain Philhellene of our province. But the folios excerpted from Maraccio's book, and prepared for the press in our manner, fell out from us at Amsterdam when, after the sad fate of the Blauian printing-house, we were gathering up the baggage to be carried back to Antwerp; nor now, when the defect is first noticed, is there anything more ready at hand than to receive from Octavius Cajetan the version of Floritus, and to compare it anew with the Greek text, with a very few changes made here and there where the matter shall appear to require it.

[10] Canons composed by Joseph Bishop of Thessalonica, Our Simon Wangnereck, in the Prolegomena to Marian Piety of the Greeks, excerpted from twelve volumes of the Menaia and seven other volumes of the Greek Church, in number 22, "On Two Holy Josephs, each a Hymnographer and Confessor among the Greeks," treats: of whom one was the Brother of Saint Theodore the Studite and Bishop of Thessalonica, to be honored on July 14, and had this noteworthy thing in the singing of his canticles, that his name, often omitted in the title, by means of the Acrostic or first letters of the strophes, around the last ode of his last Canon, to be distinguished from those which he composed here he always most carefully marked; the other, perhaps forty years younger, is this our Saint, to whom he thinks those Canons should be ascribed which have the bare name of Joseph attached. But because also the Canons of this latter Joseph of whom we are now treating are generally bound by some acrostic, the aforementioned Wangnereck thinks that to them, as more laboriously composed, that extemporaneous facility of dictating which we saw praised above from the Menaia, should be extended. Yet why should this be so laborious, that it could not be done by an experienced man on the spot? We ourselves learned by experience that the Canons of the Greeks, bound to no poetic meter, could be bound without great effort of mind to certain letters to be found at the beginning of each strophe by one to whom it was free to begin each strophe, connected by no order among themselves, with whatever word he wished: extemporaneous facility: when we rendered some such canons into Latin, with the same law of the acrostics being preserved, and that in a version bound to express the sense of the Greek words. But whether all those Canons which Maraccio inserted in his Marial, and which Cajetan asserts are found in the ritual books of the Greeks to the number of more than 300, are of this last Joseph, or whether some must be left to the earlier one, there is neither time nor worth the trouble to examine too carefully.

[11] Meanwhile the distinction designated above by Wangnereck is acceptable, namely that those Canons that this one is called κύρος Ιωσήφ which bear the bare name of Joseph without other title are of this our Joseph: whom Leo Allatius also seems to understand, in his dissertation on the books of the Greeks, when he names "Joseph the Melodist." To the Bishop of Thessalonica may be imputed the others which are called τοῦ Κύρου Ιωσήφ, "of Lord Joseph": for this appellation of honor denotes some more eminent rank. We confess, however, that this conjecture does not seem so firm that various things cannot be opposed to it that make the judgment doubtful. Besides these two, there does not appear to have been any third Joseph, who in the title of the MS Typicon this one called simply Joseph, whose also are the Canons on Saint Nicholas preserved at Rome in the Barberini Library, and praised by Leo Allatius on page 11 of the above-cited dissertation, is named, when it is said that "that Typicon contains the ecclesiastical constitution of all the feasts of the whole year, according to the tradition of the holy Fathers, namely, of Saint Sabas, and of the Studite, and especially of the Holy Mountain; and also part of the tradition of our most holy Father Joseph, possessor of the holy monastery which is called of Saint Nicholas τῶν κασούλων." For if that Joseph arranged a proper Office for his monastery, of which the Patron was Saint Nicholas: who, reading the Greek Paraklitikon (in which the ordinary office of the whole week, eight times varied according to the eight tones, is contained), and observing in it the second Canon of Feria V (for on each feria there are two Canons, and on Feria V the first is of the Apostles), with the Cathismata and Troparia pertaining to the same, to be concerning Saint Nicholas: who, I say, reading and observing this, and the monastery of Saint Nicholas τῶν κασούλων will not judge that Joseph τῶν κασούλων was the author of those eight Canons on Saint Nicholas? And indeed the acrostics of these Canons also have the name Ιωσήφ subjoined in this manner:

Ἦχος ά. Σοί Νικόλαε πρῶτον ἐισφέρω μέλος. Ιωσήφ.

And similarly in others, except in the Canons of the second and eighth tones, which are nonetheless manifestly of the same author. That this man therefore is not to be distinguished from our Joseph, both that similarity can persuade, and because we can prudently suppose that our Saint, freed from the Cretan captivity by the miracle of Saint Nicholas, preferred to put the monastery which he erected at Constantinople under the patronage of Saint Nicholas, in that deserted place to which, not far placed from the temple of Saint John Chrysostom, he is said (number 24) to have transferred his seat and school of cares, and there to have distributed the multitude of his disciples: in cells, perhaps extemporaneous, whence the monastery is called of Saint Nicholas "of the Casulae"—a word, like many other Constantinopolitan words, Ῥωμαϊκῷ; although the Acts nowhere mention a monastery named after Saint Nicholas, and the Saint afterwards named the added oratory after Saint Andrew the Apostle on account of his relics placed there, as is said in number 25.

[12] In what year of the Christian era and of his own age this Joseph of whom we treat died, the Acts nowhere express: died probably in the year 883 only in number 37 they say that he lasted long in life, and that on account of the grave labors in it, he must be judged to have endured a long martyrdom. But in number 34 they had said that, when the great and venerable Parasceve of the Lord's Passion was at hand, he had offered and commended his disciple, and the possessions of the church described in a little book, to Photius the Patriarch, expressing nothing further: and that which had been done, he had signified his approaching end; and presently a most violent fever, which put an end to his life, and (as is gathered from the context) lasted altogether for a few days. Hence, running through our mind the eight years during which, after the death of Ignatius, Photius held the Patriarchate, before he was deprived of that dignity in the year 888, in the time of Photius the Patriarch. and seeking a year which had Parasceve not after April 3, on which day we believe Saint Joseph died, nor so long before that between it and the day of death a longer time must be posited according to customs—no year occurs more fitting than 883, which had Parasceve on March 29, and the Wednesday of Paschal week on April 3. For if Joseph had died in the year 880, he would have died on the very day of Pascha; but the author of the Life would by no means, if it had been true, have omitted to express such and so notable a circumstance of the most festive day.

[13] Hence further you may conjecture about his age, that he who, at Leo the Armenian beginning the persecution, that is, in the year 814 of the common era, already initiated as a Presbyter, was judged suitable for the Roman legation, and therefore at least thirty, nearly a centenarian was not far from a hundred when he passed from this mortal life to the immortal beings above. By the same reasoning it may be understood that that incursion of the barbarians into Sicily, which drove Joseph with his mother and brothers from their homeland into the Peloponnese, was some years earlier than that mournful time when, after the murder of Leo the Armenian, Michael being occupied against the rebel Thomas, and putting aside every other care for him alone, Crete, Sicily, and the Cycladic islands were torn from the Roman Empire, What barbarians are to be understood in these Acts? as Leo Grammaticus writes. Namely those barbarians who before that time were content with piratical incursions for booty, then also acquired firm seats for their new dominion in the same islands. And as to what is said—that the ships which cut off the course of the ship that was sailing to Rome and carried Joseph captive into Crete were also barbarian—we take this thus, that they did not at that time already hold the island, but that pirates hired for the crime by the ministers of Leo the Armenian took care to drag back into the hands of the iconoclasts the refugee worshippers of the sacred images from Constantinople; and that they especially intended to arrest Joseph, whom they could not altogether keep secret was sailing as legate to Rome: for from the Acts it is clearly established that it was not the Saracens but the Iconoclasts in whose custody he was detained near Crete for nearly a whole six years.

LIFE

By John the Deacon

Translated by Augustine Floritus, S. J.

From the Greek MS of the Monastery of Saint Salvator,

Compared with the Vatican Greek MS.

Joseph the Hymnographer, at Constantinople (Saint)

BY John the DEACON. FROM THE GREEK MS.

FROM MSS.

PROLOGUE.

[1] Although any life of holy men calls the soul eager for virtue to imitation, The future Life of this Saint will be useful, and impels it vehemently, yet if to the holiness of life there is added also power of speech, and action is joined with contemplation, it is wonderful how much one eager for perfect virtue is inflamed to pursue both. For although for him who strives for heavenly beatitude, virtue is enough to procure it, yet if eloquence is joined with integrity of character, it more sharply argues the characters of others, and is a kind of model of virtue, to which all may look who, endowed with heavenly grace, aspire to it. Of this sort I have found Joseph to have been: a man of lofty and great soul in bearing labors, and of incomparable effort in acquiring virtues; and endowed by the Holy Spirit with no common supply of words and fertility of speech, for fitly honoring the men illustrious in sanctity of old with hymns.

[2] Therefore to pass over in silence so great a man, who was no less strong in eloquence than in probity, is altogether wrong: and most especially agreeable to reason, though less ornately written by a sinner, that what he most liberally performed for others, this same service should receive from our slenderness. For as it is most truly said that "praise is not becoming in the mouth of a sinner," yet our zeal, and a soul well affected toward him, may conciliate the holy man to us, to receive the sufficiently thin and simple kind of our speech, which he by no means demands from a rude man equal to his praises. For as the manner of life of each of us, diametrically opposed, varies very much, so also the faculty of speech in each differs and is sundered by the whole heaven. Since these things are so, shall we praise inelegantly and insipidly him who has elegantly and wittily celebrated the deeds of others? But he, when he sees us destitute of that gift and able to bring nothing but a ready soul, this very thing, we are confident, will be pleasing and acceptable to him. For neither does a face on which nature has bestowed remarkable beauty require paint and other cosmetics; nay rather it is soiled by colors and pigments borrowed from art.

[3] with the additions of what Theophanes had omitted. But the Life of Joseph a certain Theophanes, consecrated to the sacred Priesthood, and also a monk,

committed to writing; yet so that many things seem to have escaped him. Moreover, [a by these very things in which he abbreviated the Life of the Blessed man, he has given us courage to strive for a perfect narration.] But what commendation could ever have been equal to so great a splendor of virtue? what tongue would have recounted so many illustrious deeds? Surely they ought now to have been present whom he in life adorned with his eloquence, so that, knowing from whom the benefit of praise had been conferred upon them, they should more abundantly repay the same man. But we, whatever we are, in no way shall allow so great matters to be buried in darkness.

NOTES.

CHAPTER I.

The origin of Saint Joseph, and his excellent virtues in the monastic life.

[4] Joseph's fatherland was Sicily, the most happy and illustrious of all islands: which in truth Dionysius did not make so glorious In Sicily as Joseph's parents, who by so illustrious an offspring brought forth an immortal name for the fatherland. They were called Plotinus and Agatha, both distinguished cultivators of virtue and of the divine law; but they were made much more celebrated and noble by their son's sanctity—an offspring which owed nothing except to the work of prayer, and was the fruit of virtue. For he indeed abounded in great confidence and faith in God; she, bidding farewell to the transient and fleeting goods of the world, gave herself over to God alone, crossing the stormy sea of this life with the highest continence and temperance: so that both flourished like the Davidic vine, and bore the seasonable fruits of virtue, by which they drew many to their imitation. Nor did they so live that, indulging the lusts of the body, by the law and custom of the crowd, born of most pious parents, they gave themselves wholly over to pleasures and gaped after delights: but content with necessities only and what nature demands, whatever was left over they freely distributed to the poor, lest perhaps, pursuing through luxury delights in superfluous things, they should have God angry with them—who repaid this their outstanding love toward Him with so illustrious a pledge.

[5] But Joseph, although his parents for the sake of diversion urged him to the games which are the proper occupation of boys, was scarcely induced to it; the boy showed great maturity, for he was not delighted with boyish and playful things; but he was endowed with a serious nature and a certain maturity beyond that age: nay, even while his tongue was still babbling, he was diligently learning the sacred words. But after he had already begun to grow up, and to be reckoned among young men as an elder in counsel and prudence, he already displayed continence and fortitude in crushing the perverse desires of the soul, and showed to his age-mates what he was. For when he had seriously and constantly applied his mind to the arts worthy of a free man, he seemed to surpass all by, as they say, a royal cubit; and this indeed rightly, since he did not so much value these disciplines as the labor and care he put into acquiring virtue, by which he made greater progress in the studies of letters. For content with bread and water only until evening, spurning the other delicacies of banquets, hence he made very great progress in the disciplines: because a soul intent on the zeal for letters and prayer so raises the mind and depresses and weakens the body that it does not easily allow itself to be drawn to the allurements of pleasures; but is borne wholly into God, and devotes itself to acquiring disciplines. Thus he led a life pure and unstained by crime.

[6] With the barbarians devastating his homeland, But since for those who are of great soul, from the very outset of life, hard and heavy things are wont to threaten: a multitude of barbarians, attacking Joseph's homeland, brought it under their power. Here what foul and mournful thing did they not perpetrate? What calamity and miseries did they not bring? The young men were killed with the utmost cruelty; some were stripped of their goods; some, captives, were wretchedly led off to foreign lands; others, whom the propitious Deity regarded, leaving the homeland, procured safety by flight—among whom were Joseph's parents, who together with their son migrated to the Peloponnese, lacking homeland, property, friends, and necessities. he flees with his parents into the Peloponnese, But Joseph's soul, since he knew he was an exile, by no means judged that he had here found his homeland, nor a place for settling; but by a true pilgrimage his supernal homeland must be sought, and God must be found by a more exact way of living. Therefore, not yet pubescent, he set out from there to Thessalonica, the metropolis of Macedonia, from there he goes to Thessalonica lest perhaps, hindered by excessive love of his parents, he should through the stripping of all things be less free to fly forth to his beloved, and with full wings raise himself to Him: for to this the counsels of the noble youth were all directed. And this separation from his parents showed what the outcome of the matter would be.

[7] and being made a monk there For as soon as he reached Thessalonica, forthwith he gave himself to a certain man distinguished for continence and sanctity, who on account of his outstanding virtue was placed over the brethren who were exercising themselves in the monastery of the great God and our Savior, a monastery whose name was "Latomi," a miracle that had been performed there having given it the name. There, clothed in the monastic habit, with his hair tonsured, he cast off all fleeting things subject to destruction which are under the moon. Here what deed joined with virtue did he not perform? In what kind of spiritual wrestling-school did he not exercise himself? Absolutely, so that to all who should behold him and wish to imitate him, he might be an example of every industry and careful diligence. Nay, he devised a new way of fasting, by which he might seem to differ less from others, and hide his efforts more. He was so given to vigils that he surpasses the belief of those who pursue a more relaxed kind of life, filled with pleasures.

[8] His taciturnity was marvelous, not that he inquired into others' affairs in his soul, but that there might be no one he religiously keeps silence, who might interrupt his studies with words. His voice was so subdued that scarcely by curious people, otherwise intent, could it be caught: which are the first elements of true philosophy, and its very perfection. For if we have learned that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God, and the fear of God induces obedience to the divine laws, among which that is not the least by which we are commanded to place a door on our mouth, that neither should the mind be drawn to absurd thoughts, nor should the quiet of the soul be disturbed by useless and discordant words: it follows, by the testimony of David, that the keeping of the ways of God leads to and is followed by continence of the tongue. From that fountain other virtues flowed into him. he takes sleep on the ground, But who is so rude that he should not marvel and be amazed, and not extol to heaven his unconquered constancy in bearing labors? His bed was the ground, when he must indulge the necessity of nature; and he used a stone as a soft pillow. His sleep was perpetually very little, following the frugality of supper, during which the explanations of the sacred mysteries were often inscribed on his holy mind.

[9] he excels in the gift of tears, There will be one who will rightly gaze at the tears flowing from Joseph's eyes like a torrent, and his genuflections greater than all opinion; absolutely, so that his knees were hardened as if into stone from his mutual conversations with God, and from the habit of standing on his feet and bending them by night; and the hollowness of his eyes and the thinness of his eyelids from continual showers of tears. humility, Let another praise the supreme humility of the holy man's soul, when he would greet even the most abject men with his head bowed to the ground; moreover, his stable and firm force of charity, with which he embraced all without any distinction whatsoever. continence, And let some marvel at his continence and a soul free from all wandering: for when, according to the Apostle, he saw the law of the members repugnant to the law of the mind, he lifted himself wholly through the law of God, plainly so that he allowed no foul thought to creep into him, which is (as is clear from divine John, distinguished champion of the truth) a serpent lurking at the navel of the belly, stirring up turbulent motions in those who are drawn to the delights of the senses. Rom. 7:23 Again, let some extol his assiduous and intent zeal and labor in psalm-singing, and call such a generous athlete almost divine.

[10] to be compared to Joseph, Let some amplify in words his imitative power, when, like a busy bee flying over the meadows of sacred letters, and sincerely culling the most select of flowers, he acquired for himself every kind of virtue. As the exemplar of continence and purity, he set before his eyes the most chaste Joseph, whose power in restraining perverse lusts he emulated and above all admired: for he had war not with the Egyptian woman alone, but contended also with sin, as divine Paul says, even to blood: not only casting off his cloak, that he might escape the hands of the lustful woman dragging him to nefarious attempts, but also macerating the flesh by temperance, that he might avoid its deadly wounds, which it is wont to induce into us through these external and sense-moving things. Heb. 12:4 to Jacob, But he imitated Jacob's candid and in no way painted mind; for as he is said to have stolen the paternal blessing with his mother persuading him, not having pursued Esau, whom he hated from the very womb of his mother, so our supplanter, through the most dear and most loving Church of God, received the firstborn blessing, namely that he in turn should bless God with the sweetest cantilenas, which he himself piously and becomingly sang in honor of the firstborn who are enrolled in the number of the heavenly beings; supplanting the demon, and fleeing from him as far as possible, that with mind collected in itself and in no way dispersed to outward things, he might more fitly praise God and be more closely united with Him. But Abraham's migration, and his soul prepared and intent on obeying God, he imitated: to Abraham, not indeed going forth from Chaldea to Palestine, but putting the love of his parents after the divine; and holding nothing worth of these fleeting and perishable things, judged that an abject way of living should be led by him.

[11] having imitated the glories of all, But why is it necessary to enumerate them individually, and compare him through mystical interpretation with each? Indeed there is scarcely anything in the sacred books worthy of praise which he has not done, no one celebrated in the ancient histories whom he has not imitated. But, to bring the matter into few words, the whole life of this most holy Father can rightly be called a chain of all virtues, and a kind of form which not even they who strive with all their might toward the perfect holiness of manners could fashion and express in themselves: express, indeed? nay, not even emulate a part of Joseph's virtues. Accordingly, by the Superior of the monastery he was rebuked for so hard and harsh a way of living: for "a fast," he said, "is not the slayer of the body, but of the depraved lusts of the soul, on account of the connection and proximity between the two." Then he, who had learned to do nothing except obey, and in no way to resist those who directed him through the way of humility and modesty, did willingly what was commanded, and ate what was placed before him; referring and turning all things to the honor and glory of God.

When the elder saw this, The Abbot's prophecy concerning him, and saw that the man was much more excellent than another, he began to impel and incite him more sharply to the zeal for virtue and honor; plainly so that sometime, when the holy young man was absent, all the Brothers being assembled, he said in the prophetic spirit: "Truly this young man is a true disciple of Christ, and much more obedient to his precepts: he is the seat and dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit, who through his mouth shall bring forth hymns, the sound of which shall be diffused through the whole world."

[12] he shines before all others with good example, Joseph was plainly a receptacle of all virtues, from which he had joined together, as it were, a kind of ^b spiritual book, where one could read all kinds of teachings written down. For his soul, from the very beginning, already contained in itself the most good God; what belonged to Him he diligently meditated, and leaned with all his sinews upon the rightful observance of the divine precepts. And since his most fortified defense was continence, fasting, vigils, no earthly thoughts and images of fleeting things could attack and overthrow him. Which being so, Joseph seemed something portentous, who, like a most elegant statue, turned the eyes of all upon himself, and so drew them to himself that they marveled at nothing but Joseph alone. For when he spoke, from his mouth flowed speech sweeter than honey; or when he instructed others with the most wholesome admonitions to piety, there was scarcely one who thought he should any longer consult books. For what was there in the man that was not full of sweetness and charm? If the most hidden secrets of the sacred letters were to be brought out and expounded, this he did with such sweetness of rhythm that he easily eclipsed the fabulous Sirens; if he had to speak to the people about morals, with his speech at the same time he composed the turbulent motions of their soul; in short, graces seemed to sit in his mouth; and so great was his abundance and fullness in handing down precepts, that fountains and rivers seemed likely to dry up sooner than these to fail.

NOTES.

CHAPTER II.

Joseph, having set out with Saint Gregory of the Decapolis for Constantinople, is sent from there to Rome, and is carried off captive to Crete.

[13] Ordained Presbyter, Since then such was the holiness of his life, and he shone with so many and so great gifts, he judged that he could by no means, on account of his age, aspire to the summit of the Priesthood, or solicit so great a dignity of the Holy Spirit and so near to God; but compelled by force and unwilling, when he had been impelled by the whole company of the Brothers, and earnestly requested by the Bishop ^a of the city, he was initiated into the sacred Presbyterate. Then Joseph's way of life was so perfect and complete in all respects, that it could not be increased—not to say lessened. Continually there was a battle waged with the flesh, that the strong athlete might at last be mingled with the choir of the Celestials. Then might be seen perennial streams of tears, imitating the falls of rivers; and knees bent for whole nights, almost stone-hardened: but his breast had also hardened from frequent beatings with a stone. Moreover, he so harshly afflicted his flesh that you would say his limbs were loosened on every side, as one who had given himself wholly to God alone; and desired this one thing, longing with Paul, to be loosed from the chains of our mortality, and to join himself with Him whom alone he ardently loved.

[14] ^b [Therefore with God rewarding him with those goods which can befall here (but a good, nay, the best of goods, is to find one striving toward the same goal, and to join the course of virtue with him by a similarity of purpose) to Saint Gregory of Decapolis come to Thessalonica to Thessalonica came, which was fitting for him, that man great in life and celebrated for miracles, the glory of the Decapolis, or rather the ornament of all cities, the divine Gregory. He, when he came to the monastery where the distinguished soldier Joseph was strenuously and nobly fighting against spiritual enemies, and learned his manners, studies, and the state of his soul from the grace which stood out in his face (so ready are the souls of holy men to hunt for the pursuits of those whom they know to be of the same purpose in the pursuit of virtue), he is joined to him in friendship, is at once taken with him, and was so closely joined with him in body and soul that he could not at all be torn and separated from the man: for like seeks like by their very nature.

[15] and, having accompanied him to Constantinople But although the divine Gregory was pressed by business, and therefore had to depart from Thessalonica, yet he put off the journey, hindered, so to say, by holy love and benevolence toward Joseph. Therefore when he had to set out to the great city for weighty reasons, and was unable to bear with equanimity the separation from his most dear companion, he approaches the Superior of the monastery; before whom, using all persuasion of words, and moving every stone, he earnestly asked for Joseph as a companion of his journey: for he also had learned to yield to Gregory on account of his eminent virtue. Moreover, as soon as they had reached Constantinople, they turned aside into the temple ^c of Sergius and Bacchus, most mighty Martyrs of Christ. Then you might have seen Joseph, there he lives under his discipline. just as though initiated into virtues a little before, carrying out Gregory's commands diligently, and proving himself in every kind of exercise, as if he were now beginning for the first time: for now he reckoned as nothing what he had formerly performed with distinction, stretching himself to what was before. Nay, he opened all his past acts to him, and like a boy preparing for contests, he carried on in a body the life of beings without a bodily mass; and despising pleasures and all the allurements of the senses, he gave himself to God alone, and enjoyed His most sweet embraces: but under the open sky and on the ground he lay whenever he was to take sleep, that he might imitate Gregory, whom he saw practicing such hardness of life: for he had set him before himself as the exemplar and form of virtue, which he should altogether imitate and express in himself, daily disposing ascents in his heart.

[16] But since the judgments of God are what they are, not long after, Leo, ^d the Emperor Leo renewing the iconomachy, a most monstrous beast, holding the helm of the Empire, troubled the whole Church, moved by an ancient hatred, bringing a most cruel war against the most holy images. Then those to whom the true religion of Christ was older than the favor of Caesar wandered scattered over the whole world: some migrated to the Bosphorus, some ^e into Sicily; Gregory encourages the orthodox: others, going out to the tops of mountains, were fleeing the savage fury of that most cruel beast. The generous champion, and worshipper of the sacred icons, the most religious Gregory, did not endure this: but, putting on the breastplate of faith, he flew through the whole city, preached in the streets; frequented forums and alleys; and there freely and without any fear taught the truth, and persuaded them to have no faith in the deceits of Caesar, and to stop their ears altogether to his most pernicious trifles. Indeed, as the morning dew refreshes parched meadows, so his discourses refreshed the hearts of the good, and kept their spiritual health; so that almost an infinite multitude of monks, who at that time were dwelling in the great city, assembled together, pressed with prayers the great Gregory and by them asked, to send Joseph to Rome, a man not only with a fearless soul in speaking, but strong and constant in bearing labors; who should announce to the ^f Pope and all the Romans with what whirlwind of evils that city was vexed; and at the same time they might bring some aid to the Church of God grievously laboring. "For you now see, Father," they said, "what tragedies of evils are here daily being enacted; you see in what discrimination the fold of Christ is placed, since there is none to avenge the injury inflicted upon us."

[17] he persuades Joseph to go to Rome: The great Gregory willingly yielded, since the matter was one about which those were not so anxious to obtain, as he was willing and ready to give. Then, calling Joseph: "Now, son," he said, "is that time in which you are to show forth both the power of your speech and the most ardent love of God." And he, who had already long since learned to obey, with his head bowed, boarding a ship without any provision, hastened to go to Rome. But perhaps that was not God's counsel, who often through those things that seem contrary, is wont to bring about plainly wonderful things, beyond our opinion. And so they fell into the hands of barbarian pirates, here he is captured and led to Crete, and with several ships captured, together with the one in which Saint Joseph was being carried, he himself, a captive, is led away to Crete, and there bound with the heaviest chains is cast into prison.

[18] where he stirs his fellow captives to constancy, But wonderful was his gladness in chains, and with soothing words he consoled those who had undergone the same chance of fortune. For, good God, what is sweeter and more pleasant than those chains with which we are bound for the love of Christ, although they bring a little sadness and sorrow? "Therefore thanks," he said, "are to be given to God, since we have the sufficiently illustrious example of divine Paul, who from his chains, as from golden necklaces, took honor and ornament; and marvelously rejoiced because he had been held worthy to suffer insult for the name of Jesus." 1 Pet. 2:19 "Nay, and Jesus Christ, when he was reviled, did not threaten; but handed himself over to him who judged him unjustly, as the chief of the Apostles hands down. Heb. 4:16 There is indeed some sorrow and sadness from the feeling of pain; but it cannot be that anyone should be said to bear the yoke of Christ, unless without any fault he cleaves to the same footsteps which Christ trod, bearing what he bore for us: who, being God, and able to bring forth all things that he willed, and in another way to restore and reform the afflicted salvation of ungrateful men, yet willed that virtue be begotten from labor, by which the long-closed gate of heaven should be unlocked; nor has he shown us any approach to salvation except by a way crowded with troubles and labors. Since these things are so, what is the reason that we should not offer our own salvation to discrimination for the worship of the sacred images of Christ our Savior, and of his most chaste and most pure Mother? For thus, opposing and resisting the nefarious attempts of Caesar, we shall procure for ourselves divine grace, as the sacred words teach, and timely aid." Here and with other such discourses he both stirred and soothed the afflicted souls of those who were shut up in prison for Christ. And I perhaps would have believed that this was the cause of his being sent, by the wonderful providence of God, while being sent elsewhere, to Crete: that both the islands and the mainland might recognize the man's sanctity, and his no ordinary erudition.

[20] he strengthens a Bishop wavering from the weariness of prison In that place it happened that, when some Bishop or other, cast into prison, was, after the manner of men, tossed about by various waves of thoughts, and was in great danger of yielding to the heretics who overthrew the sacred images, the most holy man visits him, strengthens him with words, fortifies him with examples, and so the man

he brings, that for Christ and his image he does not hesitate to meet death. For He who well knew his feeble and weak strength, did not permit the man to be tempted beyond what he could bear; but brought him present aid, by sending Joseph as an anchor for a sailor tossed in a great storm of fluctuating thoughts. and another prone to apostasy Nor did the man of distinguished charity behave differently toward a common and poor man. This man, when he could not bear the sickness and grief of soul which the force of the torments produced, had already resolved with the utmost contempt to deny the ineffable mystery of our redemption, and to trample with a great crime on the image of Christ, equally God and man. Therefore Joseph, approaching the man, what words did he leave out which could soften even the hardest stones? what tears did he not pour out? now kissing his hands, now embracing his neck, that he might recall the poor fellow from his resolve, and draw him to seek gloriously for Christ a death which he afterwards obtained: and in what way this happened I shall briefly explain.

[20] It was now night, when the man had poured saving admonitions into the wretch's heart: but in the morning, when it was already growing light, he causes him to suffer martyrdom nobly, behold for you, a huge multitude of barbarians goes to the prison, carrying instruments for stretching him naked and for performing other butcheries. Soon they ask the man whether he still holds to the same resolution of soul, and is prepared to do what we just recounted, and to abjure the faith of Christ. But he, in no way terrified, having cast off his tunic: "I," he said, "with ready and willing soul shall meet a thousand deaths, if it could be, for our God and Savior." When he had said this, he at once gave himself up into the hands of the satellites. Then their Prefect orders the man to be suspended on a beam and his body to be pierced with arrows. You would have seen his eyes aimed at the shafts flowing, and his bowels, as David says, poured out like water. But meanwhile the generous athlete fought bravely, nor did his tongue cease, though tortured by the most grievous labors and the bitterness of pains, to preach Christ. Ps. 21:15 Then the fury of the barbarians, although they saw him so dreadfully punished, could not yet bear his words: so they hurled a huge stone at the man's head, with which, badly shattered, he rendered his most brave soul to his Creator.

[21] and he profits many others. And these things were done, as it were in passing, by the excellent soldier of Christ in Crete: this victim he consecrated to God most great and moderator of his affairs: for he did not think, as a captive in foreign soil or detained in prison, that he ought to use silence; but freely everywhere preached Christ, and pressed by evils and hardships, offered the victims of Martyrs to Christ; and bound by manacles and fetters, himself freed many from the hands of the most cruel tyrant.

NOTES.

CHAPTER III.

Joseph is divinely freed; he receives the gift of writing Canons; recalled from exile, he is made Skeuophylax.

[22] Come now, let us speak of his return to the seat of the Empire. On the night of the Lord's Nativity It was night, on which night the most holy Church of God is accustomed to celebrate the nativity of Christ: nor meanwhile did he, although he was pressed by thicker fetters, and was tied by the neck to a rack, cease to pour forth prayers to Christ, who put on our flesh, the whole night, and to continue his singing till cockcrow. He learns of the tyrant's death from Saint Nicholas, When behold, there stood by a certain one, larger than a man, gray-haired, conspicuous in sacred garment, and presenting great charm and grace of appearance: "I," he said, "having set out from Myra of Lycia, sent to you by the all-powerful God with wonderful swiftness, now bring you joyful tidings: for he who stirred up so many disturbances in the Church, and strove with all his might to scatter and drive in different directions the sacred sheep of Christ, falling from his kingdom, a most wicked and most pernicious man, by the supernal judgments, has departed, to be judged unto the day of revelation, as divine Paul says. But now you must return to Constantinople, that for the grace bestowed on you by the Holy Spirit you may strengthen many. Rom. 2:5 But swallow this chapter of a little book which I hand you." Moreover, he seemed to hold in his right hand a certain small portion of a book. Then he, bathed in great joy, said: "How sweet to the throat of my soul are these writings!" And there were inscribed these words: "Hasten, Merciful One, speed, Compassionate One, our help; since being willing, you are able." These words he is ordered by the holy man to sing sweetly and tunefully. Soon he sees the chains loosed from his neck and feet, and hears him saying, "I go before; do you follow me." But, O wonderful thing, O present help, O the ineffable mysteries of God most great and good, beyond all comprehension! seen by no one at all, he seems to cleave the air, and like wind is borne to the great city. For God, when there is need, gives such wings to His own, who fly up to Him with pure heart.

[23] where he finds Gregory dead and mourns him: Moreover, the force of so great a miracle stirred and kindled the man to the praises of the all-powerful God; but from another cause he was moved to weeping and sobs. For when he had scarcely shown himself to some of his well-wishers desirous of him, he learns that Gregory, a plainly divine man, the common consolation of all, the most solid glory of the Churches, the active and breathing image of all virtues, having completed almost infinite labors and dangers, had, embraced by them, departed from this ^a life to the longed-for dwellings of his God. Wherefore, after weeping and lamentations, taking himself with his own hands that most holy tabernacle, which still seemed alive and animated, pouring tears abundantly from his eyes, and abundantly bathing the feet of him who preached peace and good things, he broke forth into these voices: "How shall I bear your bereavement, Father? how shall I draw breath without you? he joins himself to his disciple John, who could soothe and take away the sadness and sorrow of my soul with gentle addresses? to whom shall I show the tides and straits of my cares, who, as Christ the Lord once did, should say, and there should be a great tranquillity? Why did you not send me first to the Lord, most blessed Father, that, breathing out my soul in your hands, helped by your prayers, I might safely escape the most filthy hands of the most rapacious robbers, besetting the way in the airy tract? But since, O generous one, it has pleased you to go before, I ask and beseech you, strengthen the weakness and feebleness of my soul, and with those intercessions in which you are now powerful and mighty before God, night and day direct me and all that is mine to the will of God alone; that, humbled under His mighty hand, supported by your prayers which in the sight of the most holy Trinity, shining with immense splendor and glory, you pour forth, I may safely sail this stormy sea of life, and, brought to a safe harbor, without any fear of separation, may forever see and enjoy you."

[24] Having prayed these things, he did not at all depart from the place where the divine Gregory had applied himself to the wrestling-school of philosophy, as one who desired to have John as a fellow-soldier in labors, the emulator and follower of the great Gregory, in whose company he had long spent his time, and he transfers the body of each here and there. with proofs of virtue continually given: because in John he seemed to see Gregory for himself; for in that man also was great force of speaking. But when John, worn out by fasts and vigils, passed to God, Joseph thought that he should leave that seat, and should seek out the temple dedicated to the great John, whom they name Chrysostom from his golden eloquence; transferring the most holy body of Gregory and of his follower John, as a most opulent treasure. And there such great concourses of men were made to his speech, which flowed from his mouth sweeter than honey, that they fed their ears and soul, so that they were excluded by the narrowness of the place. So, although the place was everywhere vast and deserted, yet there a monastery was erected, made most famous by a great frequency of disciples; in which, as in a most safe asylum, he placed the sacred relics of divine Gregory and of his companion John.

[25] Moreover, while still formerly dwelling in the regions of Thessaly, by a certain divine man, of incomparable knowledge, he happened to be given most sacred relics of the great ^b Apostle Bartholomew. He therefore resolved to build a temple to this man, who was daily performing many miracles; he builds an oratory of the Apostle Bartholomew, whom he often saw in his sleep, opening to him the heavenly mysteries, and explaining the difficulties of the sacred page. But when he was burning with great desire to adorn the holy Apostle with verses, yet he restrained himself, fearing that perhaps what he composed should come forth less acceptable and pleasing to him; and, like Moses, macerating his flesh for forty days, that he might receive the tablets of the divine songs; and with the doors of his senses closed, and his mind from all wandering collected in itself, he piously and reverently embraces the body of the holy Apostle. Nor did his labor frustrate the man. For on the day before that day on which the memory of Divine Bartholomew is celebrated, he sees a man clothed in a linen garment, ^c such as in Palestine they commonly use, holding the sacred doors of the temple, and calling Joseph to himself. He, striking ^d the veil of the sacred table, takes the ^e codex of the holy Gospel, and placing it on his ^f breast, says: "May the hand of the all-powerful God bless you, may seas of heavenly wisdom flow into your tongue, from whom he receives the faculty of composing hymns, may your heart be made the seat of the Holy Spirit, and your songs charm the whole world; that whoever enjoys them, captivated by the sweetness both of the words and the things, may be able to call them spiritual sirens." With these things said, the vision

vanished; but the words, sunk and sown deep in the furrows of his inmost heart, afterwards brought forth an abundant harvest.

[26] And this was the incitement of the divine charism, by which he also wonderfully helped the faithful, these the gifts of riches, this the incomparable benefit. Accordingly, as soon as he put his hand to writing verses, it is marvelous how he would soothe the ears with the sweetness of sound, and strike and stir souls with the gentle force of his thoughts. For what kind of music is there, which did not shine forth in them? what sweetness of song, what did not flash forth in the mouth of those who sang them? He even shook off all sleep and torpor from sluggish and lazy men, since they desired not only to charm their ears but also their minds with his sweet concert. Hence those were wonderfully refreshed, who strove to make progress in the perfect way of virtue; but those who were tossed by savage perturbations of mind, were calming all their sickness and wrath by listening to them; to those, finally, who were affected by joy and gladness, from the immense delight of mind, tears were elicited. Nay, even writers themselves, setting aside the verses of others, drew for themselves huge riches for writing songs from this one treasure of the divine Joseph, or, to speak more rightly, draw them daily. In fine, almost all peoples and nations, translating his songs into their own tongue, are so delighted by them, that they illumine with his chants the shadows of night, and prolong their vigils, putting sleep to flight, even to the sunbeams.

[27] and honored the Mother of God and the Saints. Moreover, who is so hard to weeping and so averse from all humanity, that, having read the most delightful and sweetest songs concerning the most Blessed ^g Virgin Mother of God, he is not at once carried away in a flood of tears, and, his soul softened, feels certain goads thrust into him to sorrow for and bewail his faults? But what shall I say of the variety of his songs and the manifold harmony in them? what of the sweetness and loveliness, with which, as with the most fragrant ointments, the poems of Joseph everywhere breathe? ^h Finally, if any man desires to know the life of that Saint whom on any given day the Church of God venerates, let him take an elegant poem of Joseph, and learn the manner of life of the very one who is individually praised. For since there the lives and deeds of almost all holy men are set forth in praises, surely he himself in each particular is found worthy of immortal praise, who so elegantly and gracefully knew how to accomplish it. Let others extol to heaven the modesty and lowliness of holy men, others their singular prudence, others finally their illustrious deeds; still let all with one voice proclaim the grace of the Holy Spirit, which was given from heaven with so lavish a hand to this incomparable man, so that of his songs it may be said, "Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world." Now our speech hastens to other matters. How many, drawn from the darkness of unbelief, He leads many to faith and chastity. did he bring to the knowledge of the Holy Trinity? how many did he persuade by his exhortations, that, bidding farewell to the world and all things, they should embrace the monastic profession? how many women did he induce to keep chastity? namely, that they might have their lamps continually burning, and thus together with their bridegroom Christ might enter to the wedding, however the cry should be made at midnight.

NOTES.

CHAPTER IV.

The last part of Joseph's life, and his glory after death.

[28] While these things were thus, behold, he is again driven into exile, Satan wagging his pestilential tail, and instigating the wicked ^a Emperor who at that time held the helm: for it could not happen that he should rest idle, For the sake of images he goes into exile; who, desiring vehemently to sift the good as well as wheat, was stirring up against them the minds pledged to himself. Hence a fierce war is waged against the unshaken and solid rock of the Church, to demolish the most sacred images of Christ and of the Saints; to whose cult, nevertheless, the most valiant man with all his strength was exhorting the people, and preaching the dogmas of the orthodox faith, not at home indeed or on the housetops, but in the streets with great liberty of speaking, was cast out of the city: in which exile he bore many calamities and hardships, nay, of his own accord summoned them upon himself. But not much later, the storm now abated, and the rudders of the Empire having been returned ^b to orthodox princes, recalled again to the city, he could in no way be induced to return, as one who in exile as much as in the most pleasant gardens of delights was enjoying Christ. he is recalled, the tyrant being dead; Yet, earnestly entreated by their prayers, which it was no longer lawful to resist; and drawn also by the charity with which he supremely burned toward his fellow-citizens; thinking that the frequent petitions of the Emperors ought to be granted, he returned from exile to Byzantium.

[29] There, other ecclesiastical honors being set aside, he was persuaded, he is made Skeuophylax by Ignatius the Patriarch. though with great reluctance, to take charge of guarding the vessels of the church. This office, however, he undertook not so much from the persuasions of the Princes, as moved by the prayers of the divine ^c Ignatius. For he, when he was burning with the most ardent zeal for Christ's honor, and had recently undertaken the helm of the sacred Pontificate committed to him, moved by the exceptional sanctity of the man, desired to have him as his companion and helper in labor and affairs, and, having found the pretext of this ministry, became possessor of his wishes. He therefore delighted vehemently in his company, and whatever he himself did not know, he learned from Joseph. Nor let it seem marvelous to anyone, if some of the incomprehensible mysteries of sacred Scripture were unknown to him, which our Joseph, both by the assiduity of his study and by the remarkable purity of his mind, both understood and explained with great grace: which is one of the gifts that St Paul enumerates.

[30] But Ignatius, worn out with old age as well as with labors, dear to Photius his successor, migrated to heaven: and in his place is substituted Photius, who held the first place in the Senate; because he was a man of distinguished eloquence, and endowed with remarkable knowledge of affairs, as well as with a brilliant acumen of genius, and assiduity in conducting and arranging affairs; ^d but this man, from the time he attained the Pontificate—to pass over the other things concerning that man, lest led by the subject itself I should be compelled to descend to reprehension of him—this one thing I say, that he himself also showed to this great Father Joseph a similar honor, and loved him from his heart, calling him a man of God, and revering him as an Angel, and naming him, because of the highest place imposed on him in all ecclesiastical affairs, the father of fathers.

[31] he instructs those sent to him by him, Moreover Photius was exhorting the chief men of ecclesiastical office, to open to the most holy Father all the recesses of their mind and their thoughts; which they willingly did, even before the exhortations of the Patriarch: for he was, as it is in the Song of Songs, of a very good nature, apt at restraining the little foxes of sinners, and killing the sinners of the rational earth, as David says, as also at strengthening and establishing souls in virtue. Cant. 2:15 On the contrary, those who, like a rolling ball, were headlong and prone to the enticements of the flesh, he stirred up the same, and from the foul filth of crimes lifted them up to God and to keeping continence. Ps. 100:8 Further those who, in holy leisure and a peaceful manner of living, were leading their life, immersed in the contemplation of the most august Trinity, he exhorted, never to let go the divine wing, or loosen their striving, or be carried away by pride and the empty wind of vainglory; since in that pursuit the common enemy is accustomed to stretch many snares of ambushes, and accordingly to thrust down into the abyss of eternal punishment those inflated by the wind of their own esteem. Besides this, he taught by what reason quiet and tranquillity of soul could be acquired; then how the seeds of knowledge implanted in us by nature vary and grow in each person according to his temperament. penetrating the very secrets of hearts. But why do I not tell greater and better things? The excellent man would look into their eyes, and by the very gaze would divine with what disease of mind each was held: yet he declined glory, lest he should seem an Angel to men; and lest he should shame any sinner, and by that favor make him more prone to sin: because namely it avails much to hide a crime, and this is reckoned only a work of modesty; for when the crime of the perpetrator comes to the ears of many, he is made shameless.

[32] Seized by sickness But since he was a man clothed with the burden of our humility, nay rather hiding the pearl of virtue in an earthen vessel, it was fitting that he should fly up to his God, should enjoy inaccessible light, about to obtain the most ample fruit of his labors.

And so the most valiant man falls sick, and in his rest is warned by a heavenly messenger, that the time of his departure to heaven is at hand. Already the days of fasting had passed, and the venerable Parasceve of the Lord's Passion was at hand. On that day he hands over to Photius a tablet, on which were described all the goods of those who had been committed to his care, he draws up accounts and offers them to the Patriarch and adds nothing else besides. But the Patriarch's mind was agitated by various waves of thought, pondering with himself, what these things meant, which not long after he was to know clearly. For the fever, with which the holy man was struggling, was such that by itself without any voice it declared the matter quite openly to all; yet he used it as an argument for rendering thanks to God.

[33] "I bless you," he said, "O God, because under the shadow of your wings you have kept me: and with prayer made now guard me to my last breath, and grant that I may escape unharmed the prince of darkness and the aery spectres, lest at any time my enemy rejoice over me. Because of my ignorances and the faults of my life, watch over your flock, O Word of the Father, and defend with that right hand of yours, with which you founded all things, to the end of the age. Favor the most beloved sons of the Church: grant perpetual rest and tranquillity to your spouse, illumine with your gifts the royal priesthood: crush proud Belial beneath the feet of those who defend faith and religion: drive all heresies, the foul pests of souls, from the Church: finally grant to my soul to be parted from this body placidly and peacefully. And although I well know that I am in no way of those who have been judged worthy that your Spirit should dwell in them, being what the filth and stains of my mind were; yet you, who are immeasurable goodness, and having received the Sacraments he dies joyful. do not look upon my sins, but make me worthy of the lot of your sons." Thus he: then he blessed those present, and for the absent he prayed fitting things: finally, having received the most sacred Mysteries, stretching his hands to heaven, like one who with a cheerful and glad countenance goes to meet a dearest friend, he rendered his most holy spirit to God most great.

[34] Here were to be seen swarms of monks flowing together from every side, shut out by the narrowness of the place because of the multitude; The funeral rites are celebrated and the infinite host of those committed to his care, all consuming themselves in weeping. Some called on him as father; some as teacher, some as the guide of their soul, some as consoler in calamities, all finally were proclaiming him who had become all things to all, that he might gain all. He is therefore borne out and buried beneath the earth, with a long order of lights and flames, he who had been most worthy of the eternal light. Those blessed spirits above were rejoicing, and led choirs, because they saw their citizen coming to them: on the contrary, mortals mourned, because they bore his parting with grief. The demons roared over the passage of that holy soul, nay rather, leaving the air, fled far away: and some of them, going mad over the long journey, were heard with confused and defiled air, complaining that they had by no means hindered his ascent, against the soul which was being led. The sacred air is restored by his passage, and the earth is consecrated with the treasure of so great a body.

[35] But this is by no means to be passed over. A certain one familiar to the Saint, a pious man sees the choirs of the Saints whose character no less adorned his eloquence than his eloquence his character, at the time when Joseph departed to heaven, seemed to himself to hear (for now he was far off) a voice as if calling him to itself. "Come out," it said, "stand and see wondrous and divine mysteries." He, having gone out of the house, as it seemed to him, sees the tracts of the heavenly spheres divided into two parts, and the ranks of all the Supernals departing from the blessed seats, not mingled and confused, but the Princes of the Apostles went before with their retinue, the Martyrs followed, then the Prophets, then the army of those who had led their life holily and piously in the Pontificate. The man, astonished, was beholding these prodigies, yet could not understand what they portended or signified. When things were thus, he again hears a voice: "Watch," it says, "and attend; for soon all things that you see shall be made plain to you." Then he sees four winged youths, and among them a maiden of honorable and liberal countenance and incredible loveliness. These were commanding the choirs of holy men, that they should receive the most blessed soul of him who had imitated their right deeds and their life, and had sung them in song. There they all seemed to embrace her with incredible joy, going before the most pure Mother of God.

[36] Again struck with stupor and admiration, the man going to meet the souls carried up by Angels, asked himself what that spirit was, which the heavenly hosts were deeming worthy of such great honor. Here he hears the Angels, who were leading the most happy soul to heaven, proclaiming in a clear voice: "This is Joseph, the glory and ornament of the whole Church, who both emulated the deeds of the Apostles and Martyrs, and committed them to writing, endowed with the grace of the Holy Spirit: now by the same the interchanges of praises and honors are repaid to him, nor is anyone left in the most spacious halls of heaven, who has not come forth to meet the herald and emulator of their virtues: for all the orders of the heavenly virtues were embracing him with great veneration." Moreover the man, all bathed in a slight sweat, was grievously tormented: that it was not lawful for him to see the remaining mysteries of the divine pomp: namely in what way he was carried up before the most holy Trinity, and piously adored it; and, the shadows and darkness being removed, clearly saw it, mingled with the choirs of the heavenly minds. ^e

[37] How rightly this honor was paid to Joseph. Nor is it at all to be wondered at, that he was deemed worthy of such great honor in his ascent: for rightly was he honored by those with whom he was always to be glorified, because he had imitated their life. Therefore with the Apostles he is numbered as an Apostle: with the Martyrs as a bloodless Martyr, because together with his life he prolonged his labor, praised by the testimony of his own conscience. With the Saints he dwells as a Saint, because he preserved his pure soul even from the least thought: with those foreknowing the future, as one who was by no means without the prophetic gift. But this he has more beyond all (that I may attribute something more to the Blessed one), that he as it were added a soul to all the rest, by composing encomiastic poems in his most beautiful songs: and therefore he deserved by all to be brought in to the heavenly bridal chamber with this kind of honor. Yet let us rather say, that with them he enjoys that dignity and brightness which proceeds from the throne of the holy Trinity: assisting which, and rejoicing in the fruition of most bright beauty, he remembers us, who honor him; and continually considers by what reason we may be able to measure out this sea of life without shipwreck, and come to the tranquil harbor.

[38] The author's peroration to the Saint. Do this, most faithful servant of God; calm in us the most hard rebellion of the flesh, and by your intercessions with God, bring it to pass that we may keep our minds unpolluted: for you have much confidence of obtaining, because you laid down your blessed soul for his image; and because you honored his Saints with your blessed labors, with the same I beseech, pray for us who desire always to have you as patron, and illuminate our minds, forming them to the mystic melody of the Spirit; that to the outer concert the inner may harmonize, and in the secret of the heart the spiritual symphony may always be heard; in this place of exile indeed in figure and type, but in the age to come perfectly and truly, in him who honored and glorified you, Christ, for ever. Amen.

NOTES.

ON ST RICHARD, BISHOP OF CHICHESTER IN ENGLAND.

IN THE YEAR 1253.

Richard, Bishop of Chichester in England (St)

BY D. P.

The injury done to St Wilfrid, Bishop of York, by Egfrid, King of the Northumbrians, the providence of God who orders all things turned to the salvation of the South Saxons, The South Saxons, with an Episcopal See when their king Edilwalch was brought to the Christian faith: who, soon grateful to his instructor, gave him the peninsula of Selsey, in which King Cedwalla was afterwards the founder of the Episcopal See together with a monastery. It lasted there for almost four centuries, until the Normans having obtained power in England, it seemed good to transfer the bishoprics of the provinces from obscure villages to more frequented places. translated to Chichester, Then, that is, about the year 1070, Stigand, chaplain of William the Conqueror, given as Prelate to the South Saxons, also transferred his See to Chichester, invited by the opportunity of the place and the hope of its future greatness rather than by regard for its present renown. For the city was of rather obscure fame before the Norman rule, though of very ancient origin, and was known only for the monastery of St Peter and the congregation of Nuns: but thereafter it was made the head of the province, and had Bishops in an unbroken series.

[2] Among these the thirteenth, in the time of Henry III, was Richard of Wych: 13th Bishop Richard of Wych who, after he was duly inscribed in the Catalogue of the Saints by Urban IV, the Churches of England undertook to celebrate his feast with the Office of nine Lessons (unless it fell in the time of the Passion) every year, as appears from the Breviary according to the use of the Church of Sarum printed in the years 1499 and 1557. inscribed among the Saints, he is venerated with Mass and ecclesiastical office, Recently also, by the kindness of our John Baptist Horenbeky, we received a remarkable MS Missal of the same or a similar Church in England, which still retains the marks of Henrician impiety, namely, the erasures by command of the schismatic king from the name of the Pope and of St Thomas of Canterbury; in which at the Mass of St Richard Bishop these proper Prayers are set: I. O God who made your Church to shine with glorious miracles through the merits of Blessed Richard your Confessor and Bishop: grant that we your servants, through his intercession, may come to the glory of eternal beatitude. II. Grant we beseech, merciful God, that by the intercession of Blessed Richard your Confessor and Bishop, the gift offered to the eyes of your majesty may obtain for us both the grace of living well, and acquire for us eternal glory. III. May these most holy mysteries received confer, Lord, upon us a salutary effect, of which Blessed Richard your Confessor and Bishop was a devout dispenser. So it is there, which we wished to be preserved here for the memory of posterity

if their lawful cult ever be restored to the Saints in England, the most kindly Lord looking upon the blood of so many Martyrs, and the most pious tears of so many of his faithful.

[3] The example of the English Churches was followed by the foreign Martyrologists, among whom Molanus in his Additions to Usuard, and the Carthusians of Cologne in both editions of the Martyrology, inserted him in the sacred Fasti, with the title of Bishop and Confessor. Galesinius adorned him with a longer eulogy: "In England, St Richard, Bishop and Confessor, who being made Bishop of Chichester, so shone with episcopal sanctity and every pastoral virtue, that, crowned with merits, he was inscribed in the number of Saints by Pope Urban." Canisius expressed the same in the German Martyrology, but in fewer words; more strictly the Roman praises him, "illustrious for sanctity and the glory of miracles." In the English Martyrology from Surius you have an accurate epitome of the Acts: inscribed in various Martyrologies, but the author, wishing to add the year of the Canonization on his own, gave 1260, when he should have given 1262: better in the second edition the year is omitted. Andrew Saussay also, in his supplement to the Gallican Martyrology, praises the same man at length, as one who had learned Philosophy at Paris, Theology at Orleans: which and other things we here omit, because from the Acts soon to be brought forward they will appear more distinctly. Besides the third day of April, The Translation is celebrated on 16 June. sacred to St Richard (as we said), in the aforesaid books of the English Churches we find also noted the day of his Translation, 16 June, with the office of nine Lessons, all, as before, from the common, under this proper Prayer: "O God who grant us to celebrate solemnly the Translation of your most holy Confessor and Bishop Richard; grant us we beseech by his merits and prayers, to pass from the misery of this world, and to come to the joys of heaven." We think that this Translation was nothing other than the elevation of the sacred body from the earth, and its transposition into a more splendid chest; which was solemnly carried on the shoulders of Bishops through the city of Chichester, and finally brought to a proper altar: as is wont to be done in similar cases, and especially when the miracles of some Saint increase. But by whom or in what year that matter was accomplished, we have not so far discovered by any indication: this one thing we see, that Ralph the writer of the Life, about whom afterwards, would not have passed over so celebrated an action, unless it was later than his writing.

[4] Acts written briefly before the canonization, Further, the first to write the Acts of St Richard, and in the first years from the Saint's death (certainly before the business of the Canonization was completed), was a certain Anonymous; briefly indeed, but accurately; and so John Capgrave inserted them in the new English Legend, whence we give them rather than from Surius, who changed the style. To him who suspected that this is the epitome of more copious Acts, which he had never seen, a much juster excuse is at hand, than to Baronius in his Notes to the Martyrology, when he cites two books of the Life of St Richard, known to him only from Molanus, and inconsiderately asserts that Surius described them in volume 2, since he in the title expressly confesses that he did not have them at hand at present. edited by Surius, Haraeus, Bzovius, with the style changed, Less still is to be pardoned to Francis Godwin, writing On the Bishops of Chichester, that Haraeus drew from the same books the things he handed down concerning Richard, when it is clearly evident that he followed the Life found in Capgrave, in the very beginning; where the matter of the bride transferred to the brother is treated differently than in the said books. Indeed that this epitome is more ancient is persuaded not only by this, that the author, content with the title of Blessed alone, refrains from naming him Saint; but also because he makes no mention even in a word of so solemn a Canonization, nor even of the business begun. here we give the primary acts from Capgrave: I add no more on this matter, because when both Acts are compared with each other, it will most clearly appear, that those from Capgrave are more ancient, but the others not only fuller, but also more attested.

[5] Others are given from MSS. Therefore we also give the second, described about the year 1270 by Brother Ralph, of the Order of Preachers, as he himself asserts. Godwin surnames him Bocking, Surius following the example of Molanus makes him a man of Chichester: neither is clear to us from MSS: but both are had from John Pitseus, among whose illustrious English writers is reckoned as number 383 Ralph Bocking, a native of the County of Southsaxia, which Ralph the Saint's Confessor composed, born of the city or territory of Chichester, a monk of the Order of Preachers of St Dominic, a man notable for the titles of piety and learning: on which accounts Saint Richard Bishop of Chichester loved the man, called him to himself, and made him his director in the secrets of conscience and in all things which pertain to God. Since therefore Ralph was a participant in all the counsels of so great a man, and from daily life with the man had thoroughly known the whole manner of his life, on his death he wrote in Latin, and that most fully, concerning his deeds, and dedicated the excellent work to Isabella, Countess of Arundel. When we learned from Molanus that this work was extant in MS at Louvain among the Martinists, Father Laurence Papebroch took upon himself the care of seeking out and transcribing it there, and sent it copied in his own hand from a most ancient exemplar, with variant readings also noted in the margin, which had also been noted on the same parchment in an ancient and almost faded script from another MS, which were also of use to us.

[6] Isabella, to whom Ralph inscribed his work, being married to Hugh de Albini, Count of Arundel, and to the Countess of Arundel, was widowed, very young, her husband not yet having passed the bounds of youth, in the year 1243, having borne no children by him: and so that noble inheritance, as Matthew Paris says, "was dispersed, to be distributed among four sisters": but she herself, in the eighth year after her husband's death, 1251, founded "one house of Nuns, not far from Len, at her own expense, namely from her free marriage portion, which is called Marram." This foundation was admitted by the Cistercian Order in the year next following, as is said on page 929 of volume 2 in the English Monasticon, where the whole charter of the foundation is set forth, and Isabella herself calls herself "daughter of William Earl of Warenne and Matilda Countess"; and among the witnesses of her donation, besides the Bishops of Norwich and Chichester, she names certain others, as well as her uterine brothers Roger and Hugh Bigod, and her full brother John de Warenne. For her mother Matilda, daughter of William Earl of Pembroke and Marshal of England, dedicated it to a most noble matron, was married to Hugh Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, and on his death had passed to second nuptials with the said William, Earl of Surrey. Joan, niece of the same Matilda from her sister and so cousin of Isabella, daughter of Guarin de Montchensy, had married William de Valence, uterine brother of King Henry III: and by this title he seems to be called "kinsman" by the said King. But how the same is said to be sprung from royal ancestors is to be sought further, Camden shedding light on the Counts of Surrey, whose first, named William, in the foundation of the Priory of Lewes, calls Queen Matilda, wife of King William Rufus of England, mother of his wife: and from this William, through a great-niece, the same sole heir of the stock, married to Hamelin, descends William the father of Isabella. Moreover she showed remarkable constancy and liberty of spirit in the year 1252; and compelled King Henry, although obstinate in his resolve to deny justice, to blush and to give place to equity, as Matthew Paris narrates at length.

[7] collected from the depositions of witnesses, Ralph professes that he used the Acts recited and confirmed in the Saint's Canonization, as they had been confusedly described in rough and disordered style from the sayings of the deponent witnesses: but he does not mention that prior Life: yet almost half of it, namely the latter part, he interwove word for word into his work; as also a good part of the Papal Bull, to the earlier Acts, which he nevertheless placed whole near the end. The same bull the same author had before his eyes in the earlier part of the Life, rather than the other Life, which explains individual matters more distinctly by the circumstances of places and times. and the Papal Bull. Bzovius in his Continuation of the Ecclesiastical Annals, having got this Bull alone, transcribed it with the style changed to the year 1246: The Saint's eulogy from Matthew Paris, a contemporary, undoubtedly he would have treated more fully of St Richard, if he had read Ralph, and known from him with what propensity of mind he had entered his own Order. At the same time as St Richard, Matthew Paris flourished, and made an end of writing his English History and of living in the seventh year after his death: who when he treats of the death of St Richard says: "He was a man of eminent knowledge and exceptional holiness, and for a while Clerk and special counsellor of Blessed Edmund, Archbishop of Canterbury: whose footsteps he strove step by step to follow. This man, not without the pregnant vaticination of Blessed Edmund, promoted to the dignity of the Prelacy, went to Pontigny, when the said Saint was to be translated; lest so special a friend should have been absent from so great and so private a solemnity. This one also, as a familiar of the household, was conscious of all his secrets, which for edification he plainly declared to inquirers."

[8] "Of this man therefore" (proceeds, not, as I judge, Matthew himself about himself; but another, perhaps to the margin of the autograph, who with his help wrote the Life of St Edmund. which thence passed into the text itself) "of this man, I say, by his assertions and also by those of Brother Robert Bacun, being made certain, the Lord Matthew of Paris, monk of the church of St Alban, wrote the Life of the aforesaid Saint Edmund" (to be given 16 November): so that of the same in part St Richard himself ought to be reckoned author: who nevertheless by his own style and name, Pitseus testifying, composed not one (as Gesner writes in his library) but seven books on ecclesiastical offices, with this beginning: "The office as by duty." These books, because the scurril of most filthy mouth John Bale, various writings of St Richard himself. turning the most true praises of the most holy man into vice, blasphemously said were compiled from the observances of the Roman Synagogue gathered together from all sides, we believe to have been most useful, and we hope they may sometime see the light, as also some others which he worked out: but especially several letters to Pope Innocent, against Henry III, King of England, usurping the ecclesiastical goods, of which the witnesses William Wodeford against Wiclif, and Boston of Bury in his catalog, are cited by Pitseus.

[9] Camden, in describing the Cornavii, the diocese of Worcester, in which the Saint was born, The miracle of the spring drawn forth and in it the town noble for salt springs, which gave to this its alumnus the surname "of Wych," says: "If I were to write that Richard, Bishop of Chichester, born hence, drew forth these springs by his prayers, I fear that I should seem to some too unjust toward divine providence, and too inclined to old wives' tales. Yet so far has the pious credulity of our elders been carried, that they not only firmly believed this and committed it to writing, but even conferred on him, as it were, divine honors on that account, since Urban IV had reckoned him in the number of the Divine for his knowledge of Pontifical Law and the integrity of his life."

We believe indeed that not all the miracles of St Richard which were proved in the Process were described by Ralph: yet we by no means believe that those who examined them and wrote them down in public records gave any occasion for so impudent a calumny. For if it had been believed (but how could it have been believed, since all the inhabitants and dwellers around Wych, who had seen those wells before Richard was born, defended against Camden's ignorance. and were not unaware that their town had long ago been named from them, would have had to refute it of manifest falsity?), if, I say, it had then been believed, Ralph would not have kept silent, when in no. 9 he treats professedly of these wells, and Richard's fatherland named from them. Perhaps the man has heard or read — as he wishes to seem, he is by no means light — that Richard drew forth a spring for rustics afflicted by drought in a mountain, and foretold that water would never be lacking there, even when it failed in the neighboring valleys: for this is borne by constant tradition of the inhabitants, and proved by frequent experience, as was once reported to us by a man of our Society well versed in those parts, Williamson, pointing out in a topographic map of Sussex toward the borders of Hampton a place near East Merden, about a hundred miles distant from St Richard's fatherland: which we wished to relate here, that it might appear with what slight fidelity or diligence heretics treat the memorials of the Saints, even those who are less acerb and more loving of antiquity.

LIFE from John Capgrave.

Richard, Bishop of Chichester in England (St)

BHL Number: 7208

FROM CAPGRAVE.

CHAPTER I.

The life, studies, offices of St Richard before he undertook the Episcopate.

[1] Richard of holy and perpetual memory, English by nation, of the diocese of Worcester, Sprung from honorable birth. in a village which from a salt well there is called Wike or Wych, was born of parents not ignoble according to the condition of the age, his father Richard, and his mother called Alice by name. When a youth, he so shunned dances, revels, and the vain kinds of similar spectacles by detesting them, that neither by blandishments nor by the persuasion of his peers, against the nature of his age, could he be bent or induced to them. All his contemporaries and fellow students he surpassed in a short time as much in the maturity of learning as in conversation and morals. His elder brother, meanwhile being under wardship during his minority, coming out of wardship at his full age, entered upon his land naked and exceedingly poor. he helps his poor brother by serving him: Richard, therefore, seeing his brother's poverty, since he had nothing whereby he could help him, gave himself up to him as a servant: where for no small time, in all patience, poverty, and great humiliation, now to the plough, now to the cart, now to other such works putting his hands, he humbly and modestly served: whence his brother took him back into such great affection, that by his charter he confirmed to him his whole inheritance.

[2] he resigns to him inheritance and an opulent bride, Afterward, when Richard had peacefully obtained the whole inheritance, his worldly friends began to treat of a certain noble and high-born girl to be joined to him in marriage. When his brother had understood this, and that Richard was now about to receive the said noble girl with many goods, he repented of the conferring of his land, and began to grieve ^a. But Richard, understanding this, said to his brother: "No, dearest brother, let not your heart be troubled because of this: for I shall be as courteous toward you as you have been to me. Behold I restore to you the land and the charter: but also the girl, if it please her and her friends: for I have never kissed her mouth." Immediately therefore Richard left both the land and the girl, he devotes himself to studies, and all his friends, and transferred himself to the studies of the University, first at Oxford, then at Paris, where he learned Logic. And so great was his affection for learning, that about food or clothing he cared little or nothing. For, as he was wont to relate, he and two of his companions living in a room had only one cape and tunic between them; and each of them had the lowest bed. When therefore one went out with the cape to hear a lecture, the others remained in the room; most joyful in the greatest poverty, and so alternately they went out: and bread and a little wine with ^b pottage sufficed them for food. For meats or fish, except on the Lord's day, or on a solemn day, or in the presence of companions or friends, their poverty did not permit them to eat: and yet he often related, that never in his life had he led a life so joyful, so delightful.

[3] And when Richard, adorned with the gifts of knowledge and eloquence, He lectures on the Arts at Oxford. was by all acclaimed worthy to ascend the master's chair there, he returned to his country, and turned aside to the University of Oxford: and there after a little time he ascended the master's chair; liberally studying to bestow upon others what he had before collected. Afterward Blessed Richard, setting out for Bologna, at Bologna hearing Canon Law for more than seven years so drank the honey-sweet streams of the Canons, that his master, being detained by infirmity, chose the said Richard above all his disciples to continue his lectures in his stead. He for half a year and more so prudently and humbly bore himself in that office, that from the whole University he merited to obtain singular praise and honor: he declines the nuptials offered him there: as also he found such favor with his master, that he, by the will of the daughter, affectionately offered his only daughter to him as heir, with all his lands and goods. But Blessed Richard, thinking of other things, inspired by the Holy Spirit, humbly gave him thanks; and setting forth certain courtly cautions and the cause of his pilgrimage, promised to fulfill their will on his return. And so Richard, returning to his own land, immediately after his arrival in England going back to the University of Oxford, living in labors, he is made Chancellor of Oxford: vigils, and manifold bodily affliction, was by unanimous consent there made Chancellor.

[4] then of Canterbury, But Blessed Edmund, then Archbishop of Canterbury, who had long before known his manner of life and discreet knowledge, and also Robert, Bishop of Lincoln, called Grosseteste, a man of venerable sanctity, at one and the same time, though the intention of either was unknown to the other, strove with great insistence to choose Master Richard as their Chancellor. At last, according to the wish of the said Father of Canterbury, whose prayers and mandates had come first, he freely complied, and reverently obeyed his will. Blessed Edmund therefore committed to him the proper inscription of his own name and the image of his dignity, namely title and seal, intimate with St Edmund the Archbishop: and the greater matters of the whole Archiepiscopate. Richard therefore began to grow daily in good things; and to exercise faithfully the ministry committed to him, pride being utterly put away; shaking his hands altogether from the acceptance of gifts, which is wont to blind the eyes even of the wise. For there were in him unspeakable equity, affable benignity, modest simplicity, simple humility, and the other tranquil morals and acts. He also constantly adhered to Blessed Edmund in his tribulations, both in his province and in exile; not unaware that those who have been companions of sufferings shall be so also of consolation, and those who suffer together shall reign together.

[5] But Blessed Edmund having died, Richard, loosed as much from the business of the court as from the care, he hears Theology at Orleans, betook himself to Theology to be learned at Orleans in the house of the Friars Preachers: not as many, who with their ears hear and do not understand, but hearing outwardly, he heard inwardly; that he might more efficaciously afterward fulfill what he heard: and, that for the Lord's flock he might offer the Son to the Father, he had himself there promoted to the sacred Order of the Presbyterate. And from the time of having taken the Sacerdotal Order, and being ordained Presbyter returns. he wore ornaments of vestments more humble. And when there he had brightly drunk the sweet cups of sacred Scripture, he proceeds to take up the care of his neighbors and to pasture his own sheep: for he returns to the one and only parish which he had, that in it he might console the faint-hearted and rebuke the unquiet.

NOTES.

CHAPTER II.

St Richard's promotion to the Episcopate; his labors, virtues in that office.

[6] Dismissed, he is recalled by Canterbury to his office: After these things the venerable Father Boniface, then Elect of the Church of Canterbury, successor of Blessed Edmund, desiring to experience for the profit of discipline the delightful cohabitation of so gracious a man, called him unwilling to his former office, namely to the Chancellorship of the Church of Canterbury. And afterward through the death of Ralph de Neville, formerly Bishop of the Church of Chichester, that Church was widowed of a Pastor. Wherefore the Canons of the said Church, license having first been obtained from Henry III King of England, as is the custom, elected as Bishop a certain courtier of the King, also a Canon of the same Church. Which election, he is elected Bishop of Chichester according to the laws of the Canons, was quashed by the said Boniface and certain of his Suffragans, men of eminent life and knowledge (among whom the said venerable Father Grosseteste, then Bishop of Lincoln, was one); because the said Canon elect was found less able in knowledge and morals: and the said Richard by the common consent of all was elected Bishop. Wherefore when to the royal ears was made known the quashing of the election of his Clerk, and the provision made of his enemy (as one who had adhered to Blessed Edmund in his causes, which he had against the King); the King, exceedingly indignant, ordered the goods of the Church of Chichester to be confiscated.

[7] going to the Pope to reclaim the goods seized by the angry King, But Blessed Richard, by the counsel of the aforesaid Prelates, with letters of the Elect of Canterbury, sets out to the King, demanding that all the temporalities pertaining to the Episcopate and his goods be delivered to him: which he could in no way obtain, but enduring long fatigues and many reproaches, to that last refuge in this world after God, I speak of the Apostolic See, he betook himself: where he also found the King's Proctors prepared and instructed against him. There then ruled the Roman Church Innocent the Fourth, of holy memory, he approaches the Pope and is consecrated: who receiving him kindly, having heard the causes of both parties, confirmed by the authority of his Holiness the provision made of Blessed Richard, and by the imposition of his sacred hands solemnly bestowed the gift of consecration. Now when a certain great Prelate from those parts had together with Blessed Richard received the gift of consecration, and it had come to receiving the holy unction, the Lord Pope, wishing to pour the holy oil from the ampulla upon the head of the aforesaid great one, could scarcely have a drop for baptizing the Prelate. But when to Blessed Richard

it had come, suddenly and wonderfully a great abundance of unction flowed over him; so that the ministers could scarcely, with linen cloths, keep that holy unction from descending from his head over his neck and body. Whence both the Lord Pope and the Cardinals and others wondering, a certain Cardinal said: "Truly this man has received the fullness of grace."

[8] returning to England he suffers many things, Richard, returning with Apostolic letters, did not fail to visit the tomb of Blessed Edmund, now flashing with miracles: and afterward coming into England, he found all the goods of the Church of Chichester consumed by the royal ministers: and a royal prohibition went forth publicly, that no one should lend him anything on loan, and when he had shown the King his Apostolic letters and mandates, he seemed to provoke the indignation and wrath of the King rather than reconciliation and favor. Whence, poor and destitute, departing from the King into his own diocese, lodged under another's roof, and placing his foot under another's table, he is received. He went out often meanwhile, visiting the places of his diocese, and administering the Sacraments as he saw needful. And that he might not be reputed slothful and a deserter of his own right, he went at times to the King's Court, humbly asking the restitution of the Church's goods: but with reproaches and contumelies he was always driven away. Whence once when he had seen the Dean of Chichester and the Canons of the same Church, because of the King's hard response, troubled and sad, with cheerful face he comforted them saying: "Do you not understand what is written, 'The Apostles went rejoicing from the presence of the council'? Acts 5:41 I say to you, that by the grace of God this tribulation shall be turned for us into joy."

[9] at length he is admitted to his exhausted possessions: Blessed Richard therefore sent to the Lord Pope the King's answer: who, wonderfully compassionating him, sent a most strict mandate to two Bishops of England, that they should warn the King to restore to Blessed Richard the manors and goods of the Church of Chichester within a set day; otherwise let them not fail to denounce throughout all England the sentences contained in the mandate. After two years, therefore, during which he thus fought by enduring tribulations, the King restored to him his manors, ruinous and bare. This blessed man, after taking up the Episcopal government, was made more fervent than usual in prayer, more profuse in the giving of alms, more rigid in the chastisement of his own body. And then the care of the poor was greater for him, his habit more abject, his gesture and speech more humble. At his table also a reading sounded: and if ever the reader ceased, he would treat, either of what had been read or of some edifying matters, with those sitting by.

[10] with most lavish alms When he happened to enter the villages of his diocese, he had the languishing, the sick, and the poor diligently sought out: and he was wont to visit them not only with the help of his alms, but even with the solace of his own presence, and spiritually to refresh them with the nourishment of the word of God. And when through his lavish alms his revenues were being consumed, and Lord Richard Bachedene (his carnal brother, to whom he had committed the care of temporal matters) said that his revenues were not sufficient for such great alms to such a multitude of the poor, he answered: "Is it just, dear brother, that we should eat and drink from golden and silver vessels, while Christ is tortured by hunger in his poor? And he added: "I know very well (as ^b my Father also did) how to take food from an earthen platter and bowl, and to taste drink: let the silver and golden vessels therefore be sold. And the horse too, on which I sit, is good and costly: let it be sold, I pray, and he devotes himself to other works of mercy, and with its price let Christ's poor be fed." And Blessed Richard knew not only to feed the needy with the help of sustenance, but also to clothe and shoe the naked alike, and even to bury the dead with his own hands. Often moreover, before it was asked, he gave alms to the poor: and when it was said to him, why he bestowed money on those not asking, he answered: "It is written, 'Lord, you have prevented him with the blessings of sweetness,' and that saying, 'That which is obtained by entreaties is bought dear enough.'" Ps. 20:4

[11] For poor Presbyters, worn out by old age, blind or otherwise disabled in body, he established a hospital; and lest they should be subjected to public begging, he mercifully ordered the necessary food and clothing for them there. He made one ^c loaf to abound at his blessing so much, God meanwhile multiplying the provision: that beyond the estimation of those standing by, when about three thousand poor had been abundantly refreshed with the customary portions, there remained over portions which according to the same distribution would have fed another hundred poor. And not once only or twice is this superabundance of his blessing proved to have been made, but often; he himself opening his hand, who fills every living thing with blessing. He also put on a hair-shirt as his garment, and putting on a cuirass over it, he uses a hairshirt and modest habit: added the arms of mortification. His garments and shoes were neither too shining nor too abject, but of a moderate and becoming habit, in which nothing of novelty could be noted. Nor did he wish his horses to be adorned with trappings shining with gold or silver, nor to carry about superfluous changes of clothing; not only avoiding pomp, but also fearing lest the poor, as Bernard writes, should cry saying: "What does gold do in the bridle of the Pontiff, while we labor miserably in hunger and cold?"

[12] A certain Lord John Filius-Alani, excommunicated for an injury done to the Church of Chichester, kind toward his adversaries: yet coming to him, he received familiarly and retained for dinner, saying: "As long as you are in our court, we will absolve you from the bond of excommunication; and at your departure, unless you come for satisfaction, we will revoke this absolution." And he said, that if some parties disagree or labor to recover their right, nevertheless charity or the signs of charity ought not to be withdrawn: "because if I wish to recover what is mine, I ought not to withdraw that which is God's." And he is proved to have done similar things concerning the Abbot of Fécamp, and the noble Lord Richard, then Earl of Cornwall, and the Countess of Kent: against whom he is known to have had causes for his Church; yet for contumelies he repaid honors, and friendship for enmities.

[13] severe for ecclesiastical discipline: A certain Clerk, who, drawing a nun from her monastery, had corrupted her, he deprived of the ecclesiastical benefice which he had in his diocese, with no small disgrace. And when the Lord King and the Archbishop of Canterbury and several other Prelates, Earls, and Barons poured forth prayers for the said Clerk, they found him inflexible in God's justice: and striking his breast he said: "As long as spirit remains in this body, such a ^d ribald, who corrupted and impregnated a professed nun, and still detains her as his harlot, shall not by my will obtain the care of souls in the Chichester Bishopric. Let the Lord here Archbishop, to whom the same Clerk has appealed, do as he shall wish to answer in the day of judgment before the Most High." And seeing his constancy they tried him no more. He also did another thing not unlike this toward three Vicars, who had been convicted of keeping concubines publicly: whom because they refused to dismiss, he by sentence deprived of their benefices. ^e The burghers also of Lewes, who had violently dragged out and hanged a certain thief who had taken refuge in a church, he compelled to exhume his corpse, putrid for a fortnight and more; and compelled to carry it back on their own shoulders to the church whence they had drawn it.

[14] When the burning of his houses and no small loss of his goods was announced to him, brave in bearing loss, while his household lamented and grieved, he himself with serene face and cheerful countenance, giving thanks to God, comforted those grieving, saying: "Be not saddened, friends, we have whence still to provide our necessities": and he added: "Because we have not made lavish alms as we ought, these things have happened to us: therefore we will and command, that from our goods henceforth alms be made more lavish." O treasure of a generous mind, gentle with his subjects, which not knowing to fail amid failures, knew from the very failure to increase its profit! He also terribly forbade his seneschals and bailiffs, under peril of souls and the attestation of divine judgment, that they should not unjustly exact anything from those belonging to him, or vex any with undue actions. The Saint himself sometimes mercifully released to those requesting things which by right belonged to him.

[15] He was unwilling by any means to admit his kinsmen, even those mature, to ecclesiastical benefices; giving nothing to his kinsmen, understanding that the prince of Pastors, the Lord, gave the keys of heaven not to Blessed John the Evangelist, his kinsman, but to the elder Peter, not related to him in any bodily way. He was also of such great meekness, that when going to Matins before the sun and daybreak, if he found his Clerks, as usually happens, heavy with sleep, he would again betake himself to private prayers, and would let them rest in peace, as if sweetly saying that saying of the Lord, "Sleep ye now and take your rest." Moreover, how much the devout libations of holy prayer offered to God pleased Blessed Richard, is shown in this: most devoted to prayer. that when he visited religious men or received those coming to him with the holy kiss, he was wont to say: "It is good to kiss lips fragrant with the incense of holy prayers, burned with devotion to God": commemorating this very thing from the custom of Blessed Edmund, as he often related.

NOTES.

CHAPTER III.

St Richard's preaching, death, miracles.

[16] How laboriously this Blessed Richard fulfilled the office of preaching, Preaching the Cross even in another diocese, how graciously he refreshed the contrite, heard and instructed those confessing, absolved the penitent, answered those consulting him, reformed the despairing, exhorted the zealous, strengthened the trembling, finally, how he became all things to all men, who shall suffice to narrate? For the help of the Holy Land he undertook the preaching of the Cross, delegated to him by the Pope: therefore beginning from the sanctuary of Chichester, passing through the maritime places, he came as far as the city of Canterbury. And on the tenth day before he came to that famous port which is called Dover, he began to fall sick. Yet he did not omit to labor in the Lord's field; but each day preaching, hearing confessions, confirming children, and also celebrating Orders, up to the exhaustion of his bodily strength he labored unceasingly.

[17] At Dover he dedicates the church of St Edmund: Coming therefore to Dover, he lodged in a certain house called the Hospital of God: and being asked by the master of the said hospital, he solemnly consecrated a certain church with a cemetery, built for the burial of the poor, in honor of his former Lord, Blessed Edmund, his patron; saying in his preaching on the same day, that ever from the time when he had taken up the office of consecration, he had wished and with all his prayers sought, that, before he closed his last day, he might be able to consecrate at least one basilica in honor of the said Lord Blessed Edmund. And then he said: "I give thanks to God, who has not defrauded me of the desire of my soul. And now I know," there fallen sick he said, "that the putting off of my tabernacle is at hand, which I ask to be strengthened by the suffrage of your prayers." On the following day ^a also, which was the day after the dedication of the aforesaid basilica, although weakened by the aforesaid labors and infirmity, yet the hour of rising not knowing how to delay himself, in the morning entering the oratory he began to chant the Psalms. While however he was standing to hear Mass, and the sickness growing worse he could not sustain his feeble limbs, as if suffering a swoon he is cast down upon the pavement. Lifted up therefore by the hands of his own, he is led back to bed, and there laid down.

[18] Then he said to a certain William, his Chaplain, very familiar to him, that he could not escape from that infirmity: he foretells his death, and bade him carefully prepare what was necessary for his funeral, lest his household perceiving it should be troubled: and to Master Simon de Terringes he appointed a certain day of his death: and having embraced the image of the Crucified, which he had devoutly asked to be brought to him, began sweetly to soothe the places of the wounds with the kisses of pious devotion, as if he saw the Savior freshly dying, saying these words: "I give thanks to you, Lord Jesus Christ, for all the benefits which you have bestowed upon me, for the pains and reproaches which you endured for me, for which that lamentable wailing truly befitted you, 'There is no sorrow like my sorrow.' And you know, Lord, that if it pleased you, I would be prepared to endure all reproaches and torments and death for you: and as you know this to be true, have mercy on me, because to you I commend my soul." and most piously dies, Repeating more frequently that voice of the Psalmist, which says, "Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit," and turning to the glorious Virgin alternately in heart and voice together, he said: "Mary, mother of grace, mother of mercy, do thou protect us from the enemy, and receive us in the hour of death": and he commanded the Chaplains, that they should not cease to say those words in his ears.

[19] in the 56th year of his age. Amid sighs therefore of pious devotion and words of holy prayer, with Religious Presbyters as well as Clerks, and faithful laymen standing by, Blessed Richard rendered to the Creator the soul to be joined with the supernal citizens. He passed from this world about the fifty-sixth year of his age, in the ninth year of his Pontificate, on the third before the Nones of April, about the middle of the night, in which that heavenly Bridegroom is described as about to come to the wedding. The body is exposed to veneration After his passage his holy body, weighed down with vigils, broken by the hardness of the earth on which he was accustomed frequently to lie, macerated with fasts, afflicted with many mortifications, appeared most bright beyond human custom, so that it seemed to bear a kind of sign of the future resurrection. Moreover, when the body was duly arranged and placed on the bier in a schema worthy of a Pontiff, and carried into the aforesaid church dedicated by him, on every side the concourse of the people flowed in crowds to such venerable obsequies; of people running together in troops, each counting himself happy, if he could touch even the bier, or handle the hem of the sacred vestments. Rings or necklaces, which touched the sacred body, they accounted sanctified and preserved as Relics. And because he had appointed his body to be buried at the Church of Chichester, and buried at Chichester it is borne to Chichester: and in that church, before the altar of Blessed Edmund, which he himself had dedicated on the northern side of the church, in a humble place he is buried: where great and marvelous miracles are done to God's praise.

[20] he shines with miracles, The limbs of certain contracted men, which naturally serve for walking, had been so totally contracted by the inveterate palsy of many years, that those limbs, being made unfit for such service, there was given them no faculty at all of walking: but he, whose works are wonderful, at his invocation, the limbs being suddenly raised to their accustomed vigor, lifted them to the liberty of free walking. Three dead, of whom the wheel of a running wagon had crushed one in the middle, but the rest a fever had extinguished, he who by dying destroyed death, bent by prayers poured forth in the name of the same, raised to life. And, what is not to be passed over in silence but to be proclaimed with solemn joy, into an abortive child from the womb, to be brought to the tomb, with his name invoked the Creator of souls infused a living soul. A certain man sick of fever was healed by the touch of Blessed Richard's cope. Another laboring with gout through his boots was restored to health.

[21] When fishermen after long labor had caught nothing, at his blessing they enclosed in the net four large and beautiful fish, of such a kind as they had never seen. When also he was crossing the sea by ship, by which also while living he had been honored, a very grievous storm having arisen, prayers being poured out to God and blessing given upon the sea, the storm is changed to tranquillity and the bad weather to bright air. In the Purification of Blessed Mary, when in procession all the candles had suddenly been extinguished by a whirlwind, the holy Prelate's candle, being kindled with the fire of a new light, was seen by all to shine. To a certain contracted boy, drink being given him in the cup of Blessed Edmund, by his blessing alone he restored a firm step and former health. To two others deprived of sight, by impressing the sign of the Cross upon the eye, he restored the sharpness of the eyes and clarity of light. Many sleeping in his bed, freed from the burnings of fevers, rendered thanks to God and his servant.

NOTES.

ANOTHER LIFE

By Friar Ralph of the Order of Preachers.

From a MS of the Monastery of St Martin of Louvain.

Richard, Bishop of Chichester, in England (St)

BHL Number: 7209

BY RALPH FROM MSS.

DEDICATORY LETTER.

[1] To the Lady of noble generosity and generous nobility, sprung from royal ancestors, from a father and mother of Comital dignity, Isabella, Countess of Arundel, one of the number of the Brothers of the Order of Preachers, poor brothers of Christ, yours in Christ, wishes the left hand of the heavenly Bridegroom under her head, and his right hand in embrace. For what else will she have in the desire of her heart, a young girl at a tender age widowed ^a from her husband, preeminent in nobility of family, in the sublimity of her Count, in elegance of body, in the flower of youth, and above all these in honesty of morals? What, I say, shall she do, He praises her for her chaste widowhood, but that which you have conceived to do by God's inspiration from the time of your widowhood, refusing after the likeness of the turtledove a repeated marital union; not by the necessity of a vow, but by the will alone of chaste purpose; that your chastity may be so much the more acceptable to the heavenly Bridegroom, as it is more freely from the pure will of the mind? Hence it is that, having laid aside the carnal solicitude of pleasing a husband, you more freely think and accomplish the things that are of God. O how great is the praise, how great the glory, nay of how great merit with God, that a young widow, desired through so many years by divers nobles, and solicitously invited and incited to marital consent by Kings and Princes, and also by other free men and matrons of either sex, should, in this body of human frailty, especially amid so many ridiculous nay pernicious examples of noble matrons (I do not say of young girls, but even of old women, and of those destitute of the hope of offspring because of a withered body), inflexibly have held the path of widowhood and purity. Already old and aged women marry young men and youths, freeborn women marry bastards, noble women marry slaves, ladies marry servants, to the waste of their own reputation, and the disgrace and reproach of their whole family, to the material of scandal and proverb of all the common folk, that they may satisfy only their own lust. But perhaps you will say, whoever you are such, "I have not done this because I could not contain; but because, a weak and infirm woman, I knew not nor could I govern the estates of my dowry and patrimony and the paraphernal rights." Hear, whoever speak thus, how you allege your own baseness. Hear, I say, not me, but Blessed Jerome sharply reproaching such: for he writes to a certain noble widow, saying among other things: Ep. to Furia "No woman therefore takes a husband that she may not sleep with him: or if truly lust does not goad, what such madness is it, to prostitute chastity in the manner of harlots, that riches may be increased; and for a thing vile and perishing, that modesty, which is precious and eternal, should be polluted?"

[2] But blessed be the Most High, you have escaped that reproach of those reproaching you, nor has he permitted it to fall upon you. Now therefore attend, you who have refused the love of a carnal spouse. Surely he is "beautiful in form above the sons of men," and hear what kind he seeks. and out of love to please Christ. "You are all fair, my friend," he says in the Song of love, "and there is no spot in you," that is: "Since you are my friend, it is necessary that you be all fair and without spot, that is, without the foulness of crime, mortal in mind and body." Cant. 4:7 And it is sufficiently fitting that the fair seek the fair, the fair also seek the fair. For having this spiritual beauty, pure confession works very much. Hence Bernard writes to a certain one named Sophia: "Love confession, on account of which you are loved: love confession, if you desire beauty." Epist. 113 To confession is joined comeliness, is joined beauty: "Confession," he says, "and beauty are in his sight." And again, "Confession is a good ornament of the soul, which both purges the sinner, and renders the just more purged." Let therefore your life accord, as much as you can strive, with your name, since you both follow the will of the heavenly Bridegroom, and spiritually follow the propriety of your name. For "Isabella," compounded from Hebrew and Latin, ^b seems to sound "beautiful woman." But you are not unaware of what is written, that "all the glory of the King's daughter is from within": because that which is from without, as Solomon testifies, is "deceptive grace and vain beauty." Vain, I say, and deceptive: and therefore it frequently serves rather the lover of baseness than the author of beauty; and that she may preserve chaste love in herself and her own, the corrupter rather than the creator; mire rather than heaven, according to that of Ezekiel, "How much fairer you are, come down." Prov. 31:30; Ezek. 32:19 And therefore we must cry out concerning certain English, now made Christians, in name only and not in name, what once Gregory cried out about the same English, but pagans: "Alas," he said, "that men of such bright countenance the author of darkness possesses, and so great a grace of brow carries a mind empty of internal joys." John the Deacon in the Life. But this also is above all to be guarded by you, that you who are zealous to avoid your own defilements

be not defiled by the filth of others. But, you say, wherefore does this look? Namely, lest what you shrink from in yourselves, you should endure in the flock of your household. For one diseased sheep brings both a stain to the flock and a crime to the shepherd, especially if he knew and could have prevented the pestilence of the sheep, or could have cast out a sheep infected with disease after it became known, and did not. "A little leaven," says the Apostle, "corrupts the whole lump." Believe me, not even the lawful commerce of spouses suits those wishing to live chastely. 1 Cor. 5:6

[3] To adorn therefore the inner face, take the excellent Life of the venerable Richard, he brings forward St Richard's Life, which set before the eyes of your mind in place of a mirror, and by his example lay aside what is foul and filthy, and with the ornament of morals compose whatever is necessary: that he whom you once beheld present in the world eye to eye, now lacking his bodily presence meanwhile, you may gaze upon his life as in a mirror. Which mirror will be able to serve for ornament not only to women keeping watch with pious devotion at the door of the tabernacle; but also to the Priests and ministers of God, proposed as a mirror to all: nay to all of either sex, both men and women, as a washing basin for cleanness. For so it is read in Exodus, that Moses made a laver, that is, a washing basin, from the mirrors of the women who kept watch at the tabernacle. Of whose number I might not undeservedly say that you are, who so solicitously are zealous to frequent watchings in the house of the Lord in honor of God and his glorious mother and the Saints, in canticles and spiritual hymns and the votive solemnities of Masses. Ex. 38:8 Whence also among the mirrors of sacred Scripture, and the Lives of the Saints, which are copiously held in your possession together, for the adornment of God's house and the building up of souls, examined by excellent men: you solicitously wished to commission the Life and miracles of the holy Bishop and our Father Richard, Bishop of Chichester. Which although they were confirmed by Pope Urban of good memory, having been first examined and proved by discreet men and beyond all exception; examined indeed by Walter ^c Bishop of Worcester of pious memory, and by the Provincial Prior of the Friars Preachers of England, a man of venerable religion and eminent knowledge, and that Brother Adam ^d de Marisco of the Order of Friars Minor, famous for the honesty of his morals and his knowledge; proved indeed by a numerous multitude of many witnesses: although, I say, and confirmed in the Canonization, they were recited and confirmed in the canonization of the same Saint; yet in a rough and unpolished style, as the sayings of the deponent witnesses contained, they were confusedly written down: whence it pleased you to call upon me, your servant, although very much less suited for this, composed by himself in better order and style. that, considering them more studiously, for the honor of God and the edification of the hearers, I should write and compose and order the aforesaid; especially because his life and conversation in many things, though I am unworthy, was not unknown to me while he was living. Trusting therefore in the merits of so great a Confessor, and in your prayers, and by the injunction of our venerable Father and Provincial Prior of England, Friar Robert ^e of Kilwardby, I approach what you have asked: praying him who stands glorious in his Saints, both that I may extol the merits of the Saint with worthy praises, and may write it with truthful style to the praise of God, and may bear away, the work completed, the reward for my labor, the pardon of sins and a share in his glory.

NOTES.

BOOK I.

The Life of St Richard Bishop.

PROLOGUE.

[4] "O God, your way is in holy things, what God is great like our God? Richard to be truly called a Saint: you are he who does marvels." Ps. 76:14 Because, as Cassiodorus says, in the beginning of the Ecclesiastical History ^a when he is about to write the life of the Saints: "A preface is very usefully placed at the head of a book, where the quality of the future work is indicated"; I also, about to write, though unworthy of life, unpolished in speech, with what style I may, the glorious life and blessed end of Blessed Richard, and the illustrious miracles also adorning the aforesaid Saint and the place of his burial, have resolved, at the beginning of this Preface, for the praise of God and of the Saint whose Life we hold in our hands to be written, to start my speech from the aforesaid words of the Psalmist: "O God, your way is in holy things," and the rest. Therefore in the preceding words there are three things to be considered, as regards the matter of which we are to speak, namely the proclamation of sanctity, when he says, "O God in the Saint": the vestige of Christ's imitation, when he says, "Your way": the confirming testimony of miracles, when he subjoins, "What God is great," etc. as one who, by imitating the sanctity of Christ, partakes of it, Concerning the first therefore it is to be known, that although the aforesaid words are expounded of Christ, who is called and is, according to Daniel, the "Saint of Saints," yet those same words of Daniel indicate that there exist other Saints, of whom he himself "antonomastically," and principally is Saint, and by whose participation others are and are called Saints, the Lord himself in Leviticus saying to his ministers, "Be you holy, because I am holy." Dan. 9:24; Lev. 11:44 For Augustine on the Lord's sermon on the mount says, that the Apostles, illumined "by the true light, which is Christ," are called "the light of the world." By like reasoning therefore, not unreasonably, those sanctified by Christ, who is the true Saint, can be called and held Saints.

[5] But perhaps someone will say: "Whence yet from the foregoing will it be necessary to believe, in faith and mildness, like Moses. that this one, of whom the discourse is, is a Saint?" I answer that in Ecclesiasticus concerning Moses it is read written: "In faith and mildness of his He made him a Saint," doubtless God. Eccli. 45:4 And behold another Moses here, who according to the Apostle "by faith left Egypt," not only moral, but even his native soil; exiled for justice, not fearing the animosity of a king, neither of a temporal one, nor of that one, whom Job names "king over all the sons of pride," being strengthened by the virtue of God; as could be plain to those seeing his manner of life, and will be clear to the faithful reading the history of his life. Job 41:25 Our new Moses, therefore, in faith, as regards himself; and in mildness, as regards his neighbor, God made a Saint: for these two in sum suffice for sanctity, that one should rightly hold the Catholic faith, and adorn the same with good morals. Not only however in faith, and made a Saint also in morals but also in morals, was he made and proved a Saint. Who, especially in our times, was more constant in faith or more sweet in the mildness of morals? In one showing surely the constancy of a lion, because "the just is as a bold lion"; in another the mildness of a lamb, according to the variety of things and times: according to which, while still young, he had learned from the Wise Man; "Be constant and mild, as the matter demands." Nor did he know only to show the faces of the Lion and the Lamb, but also four faces were his with the holy animals. Namely the face of a man, through the exhibition of meekness and humanity; the face of a lion, against the obstinate and rebellious, through the rigor of justice; the face of an ox, through the maceration of his own body (for he knew to present his body as "a living, holy victim, pleasing to God"); the face also of an eagle, in the contemplation of the true sun and in heavenly conversation.

[6] and embracing evangelical counsels, He had learned so strictly to bind himself to the divine precepts, that he was zealous to keep not only the way of God's commandments, but also the paths of the counsels. Whence also he refused lawful marriage offered him, though not unaware of what was said by the Apostle, "Concerning virgins I have no commandment," and, "If a virgin marries, she does not sin." 1 Cor. 7:25 And that he might more strictly keep in himself the counsels of life, and more effectively persuade others, deciding to keep the path of stricter life, he bound himself to that excellent order of Friars Preachers, and would have satisfied his vows, had not the Lord Pope, by approving the provision of the Archbishop of Canterbury made concerning him to the Bishopric of Chichester, absolved him from the aforesaid vow. Richard therefore, superadding the divine counsels to the precepts of the Most High, was zealous to acquire sanctity for himself, fulfilling the prophecy in which Zechariah says, "In that day that which is upon the bridle of the horse shall be 'Holy to the Lord.'" Zech. 14:20 What shall I call a bridle, unless a precept, by which the Psalmist prays the jaws of those to be restrained, who wandering through fields of license do not approach God? Ps. 31:9 What shall I call that which is upon the bridle, unless the divine counsel, which is superadded to precepts? What therefore is "upon the bridle of the horse" shall be "holy to the Lord": for those who superadd their counsels to the Lord's precepts acquire sanctity for themselves, and not undeservedly are called and are Saints. For a certain gloss on Leviticus says, "He who has vowed himself to God, separated from the business of the world, and from those who live carnally, that he may please him to whom he has shown himself, is called a Saint." This also, I am not deceived, is the reward of those keeping God's commands, and counsels, and canonized by the Roman See: of which the Psalmist says: "In keeping them there is much reward." Ps. 18:12 What of this, that the Roman See (which the Most High set above kingdoms and sees, that whatever she shall sanction be holy and ratified)

after most diligent examinations and most exact proofs, directed the venerable Richard to be enrolled in the catalogue of the Saints? The letters of whose canonization, both on account of the authority of the writer, and on account of the greater firmness of truth, and on account of the elegance of the style, I intend to place at the end of the present writing.

[7] I now believe it is sufficiently persuaded to every faithful person, how rightly the proclamation of sanctity should be attributed to Blessed Richard, so that it may be said of him, "O God, your way is in the Saint," etc. "Your way, O God," he says, "is in the Saint," that is, express footprints of imitation. For I now seem to see one soldier of the army of heaven, who had his body subjected to the spirit, of which army John speaks in the Apocalypse, that "the army of heaven was following the Lord on white horses." Apoc. 19:14 For what shall I call a chaste body, subject to the spirit, except a white horse, subject to its rider, restrained by the bridle of precepts, covered with the saddle of quietude, adorned with the various gifts of nature, as with trappings? But this Saint, of whom our speech is, keeping cleanness in this world, used his body as a horse. What are those girths, what the spurs added to the girths, what the iron reins, unless they presented a likeness of a horse under the pricking rider? Truly he whom he was following, "rejoiced as a giant to run the way," nor could he follow the runner, unless he expeditiously hastened. Behold now plainly one may see "the way of God in the Saint." For through this way (that I may answer Job asking), "light is scattered, heat is divided over the earth." Job 38:24 Light, I say, of example and of saving doctrine; he shone forth to others with a good example, and his heat indeed, through the fervor of good work and the ardor of charity, so divided itself over the earth, that those hearing his fame or doctrine, or having his presence in their sight, or warmed as if rubbed by familiar cohabitation, were so enlightened, warmed, and made fervent, that unless they covered themselves voluntarily under the shadow of impiety, there was none who could hide himself from his heat. O how much Walter of venerable memory, ^b once Bishop of Norwich, professed that from his cohabitation and intercourse he had profited in the study and fervor of spiritual life! For although the aforesaid Bishop, namely the venerable Walter, flourished in the Church of God with the ornaments of morals and holy actions and very devout service in the obsequy of God; yet from the friendly intercourse of Blessed Richard he was made more vigilant in prayers, more zealous in divine service, more fervent in preaching, more profuse in the giving of alms. O if it were permitted to describe the morals and life of this venerable Walter at present! truly he would render the whole sequence of the present history splendid and brilliant. But him whom the Lord himself rendered commendable in his life, and after death with celebrated fame, with the glory of miracles ^c testifying, adorned, has no need to be commended by the zeal of our littleness. Yet by the example of Blessed Richard (as has been foretasted, and as he was not ashamed to confess to me a wretch with his own mouth), he was daily made better in himself, and more acceptable to God in upright morals. For as Blessed Gregory says: "He who adheres to a holy man, from the assiduity of sight, the use of speaking, the example of his work, receives that he attends to the love of truth."

[8] and shone with many miracles. But now, as to what remains, let a succinct brevity run through it, namely the confirming testimony of miracles: and this he understands when he subjoins, "What God is great as our God?" As though he said: "None." For from his greatness, that is, goodness alone, it is that any should have sanctity, and that in him the way of God should be for imitation to others: and that he should make him shine with miracles for the confirmation of sanctity: and therefore he adds, "You are the God who do wonders." Ps. 67:36 And this is what he says elsewhere: "God is wonderful in his Saints." Behold miracles and sanctity: "the God of Israel himself shall give virtue" in affection, "and strength" in the effect of walking in the way of God: because he himself, according to Isaiah, "walks in the multitude of his strength," and without his help they could not follow him: and therefore in Mark it is said concerning the Apostles, surely holy: "Going forth (not so much by bodily step in material progress, as of heart in spiritual progress, that in them the way of God might appear) they preached everywhere, the Lord cooperating (Behold his help, that they might be able to the good), and confirming the word with signs following," namely that miracles divinely shown might confirm their sanctity and preaching. Is. 63:1; Mark 16:14 Nor do I think we should dwell longer on the attestation of miracles: since the following treatise must in great part turn about these matters touched upon. For first I think we should speak of his birth and virtuous life, secondly of certain signs bearing testimony to his sanctity, thirdly of his glorious passage and of the miracles by which the Lord magnified him.

NOTES.

CHAPTER I.

The birth, studies, and dignity of Chancellor of St Richard.

[9] Born of noble parents, Richard of holy memory, English by nation, of the diocese of Worcester, was born in a village which, according to the property of the English language, from a well of salt which is composed of pit-waters there, is called Wyche; of parents not ignoble according to the condition of the age, his father named Richard, his mother Alice; of whose name the proper word seems to have been a presage of the grace to be divinely conferred on him. For Peter of Ravenna says that the very names of the Saints often indicate merit, and bear testimony to insignia. Richard therefore ^b can etymologically be called as it were Laughing ("Ridens"), Dear ("Carus"), and Sweet ("Dulcis"): Richard is named: and Laughing indeed through the grace of conscience; and this as regards himself: for an open laugh of the outer man he rarely or not at all admitted, though he bore a certain cheerfulness of countenance for the grace of those sitting or standing by. And since the middle of his name, rather more truly the middle of his heart, is strewn with charity, he can be called Dear as regards God: for he who bestowed on him the merit of a pure conscience, repaid him the reward of his love. Sweet indeed he was as regards his neighbor, through the words of sweet affability and the wholesome counsels of life: because according to the voice of the Wise Man, "With ointment and various odors the heart is delighted, and by the good counsels of a friend the soul is sweetened": so that it may be metrically said of him: Prov. 27:9

"In the first of your name you laugh, you grow sweet in the last; If you seek the middle, you will be a dear friend."

[10] Whose gracious disposition and virtuous condition of morals seems sufficiently to accord with the name of the region and town from which he drew his origin. And indeed with the comeliness and grace of body and cheerfulness of countenance, and of Angelic purity he bore somehow an Angelic schema on earth, and strove to lead the life of Angels through the study of purity in the flesh, so that he led a conversation rather Angelic than human. For, a sinner of whatever sort, yet a professor of sacred Religion and Priest, who has written these things, is witness: that when, a few years before his passage from this world to the Father, it pleased the said Saint to lay bare his life and things committed to the said Friar; he found him to have so kept the flower of the flesh (as much as he could observe), that I reckon him to be counted in the number of those who "were not defiled with women, and singing a new song follow the Lamb whithersoever he goes": whence also English, as if Angelic, can not undeservedly be said. And that he might more perfectly imitate the celibacy of Angelic purity, and having obtained the virtues of the Apostolic salt, he refused utterly the lawful marriage of a certain girl offered him, as will be shown more plainly in its place: as it were holding in mind that which Truth says in the Gospel, that the Saints, "in the glory of the resurrection to be like the Angels, shall neither marry nor be given in marriage." Matt. 22:30 Aptly also from a place of salt he took the beginning of his birth, as one who, being about to be a successor of the Apostles, was by dignity and office performing their parts, to whom the Lord says, "You are the salt of the earth": whose speech also according to the Apostle was "always in grace seasoned with salt," prepared to repress the foulness of vices and to season the ornaments of morals. Matt. 5:13; Col. 4:6 And as from a fluid matter by the benefit of fire salt is turned into the solid matter of a stone, to be of use for the licking of weak animals: so also our Richard, from the fluid nature of the human race and from corruptible seed conceived and born, strengthened by the fire of the Holy Spirit and the benefit of the same grace, offered himself as the antidote of a medicinal stone to sinners languishing with the infirmity of sin. Behold also the vessel which, by Elisha's providing, was brought to him, new in the cleanness of purity, empty with the contempt of earthly happiness, concave with the humility of mind (for swelling repels what is poured in), in which the salt of saving wisdom being wholesomely poured, by the industry of the true Elisha, effectively healed the Jericho waters from the barrenness of praiseworthy exercise and the pestilential mortality of sin.

[11] He, therefore, from the years of adolescence applied to the studies of letters, like earth next to the heavenly blessing, receiving the rain of doctrine, began in due time to produce in equal measure the fruit and vigor of delightful growth. he refuses the inheritance offered by his brother: While therefore he was still flourishing in the years of youth, his elder brother, to whom by hereditary succession the rights of the patrimony pertained, judging Richard, though younger in age, more worthy of the possession of the inheritance, willingly gave him whatever right belonged to him. But Richard, "regenerated into a lively hope" through Christ, chose rather the incorruptible and unfading inheritance "kept in the heavens," whose sharing by him is in itself, and therefore not lessened by a multitude of brothers, than an earthly one, that he might freely say with the Psalmist: "The lines are fallen for me in goodly places, for my inheritance is goodly to me." Ps. 15:6 Richard therefore returned to the schools, Made Master of Arts, he lectures on them: diligently insisting on the study of letters: and that to the breast of the future highest Priest might not unreasonably be joined the Rational of judgment; after sufficient acquiring of the science of humbler letters, he thought the rational science, that is, Logic, should be approached, that he might be rendered more apt and sharper for understanding other things. In which he is known to have made such praiseworthy progress, that in the famous general Study most commendably

he is proved to have ruled the very Logic, and to have been worthy of the name of Master.

[12] Richard, therefore, ruling, was not without the governance of the Ruler above, directed and guarded. For, as is known by the attestation of faithful and religious men, when a certain scholar, about to ascend the master's chair at Oxford, had resolved to solemnize the beginnings of his mastership with a celebrated banquet, he was zealous to invite Master Richard of Wych, then famous for his knowledge and morals, to his feast and for the adornment of his table. in place of the banquet At the hour therefore of dining, when those who had been summoned came, a place befitting so great a person was assigned to Master Richard. When suddenly during the dinner the porters enter, saying that a certain young man of distinguished beauty was standing at the door, sitting on a horse, who when asked whether Master Richard of Wych was reclining inside with the rest, said that he ardently and hastily wished to enjoy his presence: and although he was earnestly and amicably asked by them to enter, that he might have a conversation with the said Master and be refreshed with joy, he by no means consented, but repeating this one thing again and again he asked that the said Master should without delay hasten to come to him. Master Richard therefore, hearing these things, quickly arose and went to the door. And when he looked about him here and there, and solicitously asked of those present, he understood that one of this sort had been there; but whither he had departed or when, none was found who could say.

[13] from the fall of a stone about to crush him, O the immense kindness of God, who so knows to magnify his mercies, that he makes safe those hoping in him! For while Master Richard, rising from the dinner, was delaying by seeking the youth here and there, behold an unexpected event, which would have turned all the merriment of the banquet, unless God had provided otherwise, into mourning. For from the stone wall, overhanging above, meanwhile a stone of such great mass fell where Master Richard had first been sitting, that there could be no doubt that, if he had continued sitting, his head would have been crushed. Luke 21:18 But he who by giving his own the hope of the future resurrection promised, saying, rescued by being called away by an Angel: "A hair of your head shall not perish," willed to preserve the head of his Richard, to be anointed with the oil of gladness in Pontifical dignity, from the destructive fall of the stone. Whence it ought not to be doubted that he who in the form of a youth was seeking Master Richard was of the number of those, concerning whom the Psalmist, promising God's protection to the just man, says: "He has given his Angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways: in their hands they shall bear you up, lest perchance you dash your foot against a stone." Ps. 90:11 Therefore he who promised, by Angels, to keep the feet of the holy from dashing against a stone, himself kept the head of Richard, lest it be hurt by a stone. Blessed Richard therefore continues, alike assiduous in teaching and learning; desiring from the teaching of his disciples to increase his own merit, from the profit of his disciples.

[14] made Doctor of Canon Law, And because in the Rational or Logion which was attached to the breast of the high Priest, according to the counsels of the divine disposition, Judgment and Truth ought to be inscribed; not without reason the future Bishop judged that the sanctions of the sacred Canons should be heard (which are known to consist by borrowing truth from the pages of Theology, and the equity of judgment from the laws of the Emperors). For these two things he was zealous so to inscribe on his breast, that he is known to have so far advanced over his contemporaries, that he deserved to attain not only the summit of a wise disciple, he is made Chancellor of the University. but also of a Doctor of eminent knowledge. To the praise of whose doctrine it seems to work no little, that in the same general Study he was by the very University made Chancellor with unanimous consent. In which office truly he disclosed in the effect of work the treasure of wisdom and knowledge, which he had stored in the cabinet of his mind. For he was a prudent and most diligent investigator in the discussions of causes, truthful in pronouncing; just in judgment, discreet in delivering sentences, composed in every action.

[15] taken up as Chancellor by St Edmund the Archbishop For Richard, planted abundantly with the seedlings of virtues, as it were an area of aromatics, through all things, the South wind blowing, and the North being driven far away, the fame of his sweetness began to be diffused on every side, so much that it came even to the notice of Edmund of holy memory, ^c then Archbishop of the Metropolis of Canterbury. Therefore, desiring to honor his Church with the bodily presence of so great and famous a man, and to adorn the household with his praiseworthy conversation; he had him summoned to himself, and placing him among his secretaries, committed to him the Chancellorship of his curia. Therefore Richard began daily to grow in good things, together with him he protects and adorns the Church, to exercise the ministry committed to him with the inflation of pride removed prudently, zealous in all things to provide for the quiet of his Lord the Archbishop, whom he knew to choose and equally love "the best part with Mary," and to counsel the usefulness of neighbors coming to the Archbishop's court for various causes: shaking his hands utterly from the acceptance of gifts in every cause or business, which are wont to blind the eyes even of the wise. The Archbishop rejoiced that by the solicitous discretion and discreet solicitude of his Chancellor he was freed from the tumults of external affairs: the Chancellor rejoiced to be formed by the sanctity and heavenly conversation of his Lord: they reclined upon each other, holy upon holy; master upon disciple, disciple upon master; father upon son, son upon father; so that to a lively beholder, spiritually conversing, there was to be seen two Cherubim of glory, protecting the Ark of the Lord, as two Cherubim the Propitiatory. that is, the Church of Canterbury, beholding each other with the eye of holy intention, and mutually touching each other with the wings of twin charity, the faces of their wills always turned toward the propitiatory, that is, toward him who "is the propitiation for our sins." Ex. 25:18 The aforesaid two Cherubim were nevertheless "of beaten work," that is, produced and wrought by the striking of hammers: because each of these Saints, namely Edmund and Richard, the one, that is, the Archbishop, by suffering; the other, that is, the disciple, by suffering-with and co-laboring, for the liberty of the Church and for justice, endured innumerable tribulations and straits, losses of goods and robberies, labors and annoyances of bodies, reproaches of words and contumelies, and finally the proscription of his province and exile, as if the hard and frequent strokes of hammers, upon the anvil of patience, like the most worthy matter of gold, without the tinkling of a murmur.

[16] both adumbrated in the two rods of Zechariah There were also two rods taken by Zechariah, one of which he called Beauty, namely the Archbishop, because of the beauty of the contemplative life adorning him, through which the soul becomes "beautiful in her delights and pleasant," but the other, that is, the Chancellor, he called "a line," because of the manifold occupation of the active life, with which in individual businesses he measured justly to each, as in a line of distribution. Zech. 11:7 to be called two great luminaries. But I should also not fear to call these two "the great luminaries," which joined in the firmament of the Church of Canterbury, would not generate an eclipse from their proximity, but would illumine the whole Church with the splendor of radiant light. Therefore constantly and perseveringly Saint Richard adhered to Blessed Edmund in his tribulations, as well in his province as in exile; not unaware that those who have been companions in sufferings shall together be so also in consolation; and those who suffer together shall reign together. Nor do I think to be passed over in silence those words of marvelous affection, which the same Edmund in his last will expressed concerning Blessed Richard: "Let us bequeath," he said, "to our beloved Chancellor, whom we have long since taken to our bosom, our cup." Which words Otto of holy memory, ^d then Legate of the Apostolic See in England, admiring not a little, had recited in his presence again and again.

[17] St Edmund being buried at Pontigny, But when, the course of his conflict having been completed, that happy spirit of Blessed Edmund, divested of the body and exchanging fatherland for exile, had returned to God from whom he had received it, to be joined with the company of rejoicing Angels; and the sacred clod of his body, burgeoning with incorruption, was buried at Pontigny; not undeservedly, bereft of the treasure of so great a pledge, the Clergy and people of the English mourned. Which nevertheless by divine will seems most justly to have been accomplished, that his body should be buried in peace, and the solace of so great a gift should be taken from his persecutors. Blessed Richard therefore, bereft of the bodily presence of so great and so beloved a Father, might perhaps have exceeded the bounds of sorrow, had he not feared to go against the divine disposition by murmuring; and had he not most certainly believed that the venerable Father himself had exchanged the misery of the present life for the immortality of the blessed life. The Father therefore died, and as it were did not die: for he left behind him, even if not in all things similar (which however I think ought to be left to divine knowledge), yet I confidently dare to assert, one fervently panting after his likeness, as far as human frailty permitted. O how frequent, how familiar, how to be uttered equally with his prayers and voice was to him that venerable name of Blessed Edmund! For as often as anything pertaining to the holy morals of Blessed Edmund was said, happened, Richard studies Theology at Orleans; or preached, he was wont to subjoin: "Thus to act, thus to speak, thus to bear himself, thus to preach, my Lord Saint Edmund was wont": for he was a diligent and solicitous rehearser of his acts, virtues, or words; but a much more solicitous imitator.

[18] Blessed Richard therefore, loosed both from the business of the court and from the solicitude of care, desiring to terminate with a due end the study of letters, which he had for a time intermitted, betook himself to Theology, and at Orleans in the house of the Friars Preachers, by hearing a certain Brother of the same Order, of praiseworthy knowledge, so profited therein, that for the greater part of the whole sacred library he heard and learned the text: not as many, who "with their ears hear and do not understand"; but hearing outwardly, he heard inwardly; that he might more efficaciously afterward fulfill what is said in the Apocalypse. Apoc. 12:17 "Let him that hears say, Come"; and that he might more worthily receive the reward of those hearing perfectly, which is promised in Job, "if they hear and observe, they shall accomplish their days in good and their years in glory." This also he desired in all things and through all to retain as the end of study, the limit of his knowledge, and the direction of his life, after him to whom he referred all things, God; that what he had learned by hearing to be done, he might accomplish by the truth of works. Whence not undeservedly in him was fulfilled what is written in the Gospel: "He that shall do and teach, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven," as well in the Church triumphant as militant. Matt. 4:19 When therefore he was studying Theology at Orleans, from the Diocesan of the place, ^e to whom the morals and knowledge of Blessed Richard were now not unknown, and consecrated as Priest he builds a chapel for him he received the order of the Priesthood: and thenceforth he so macerated the flesh, that, had he not, by the counsel of prudent friends, dealt with himself more indulgently, he would have caused his very flesh

to fail. By the assent of the Diocesan also, then at Orleans he erected an oratory in honor of Blessed Edmund, where he offered to God the solemnities of Masses and the devout libations of prayers.

NOTES.

CHAPTER II.

The consecration of Saint Richard and things done in his Bishopric.

[19] On the death of Ralph of Chichester, But now I have considered it worth while to describe the cause, order, and manner, in which he was taken up for the government of the Church of Chichester. When by the death of Ralph of good memory, surnamed ^a "de Neville," formerly Bishop of Chichester, the aforesaid Church was widowed of a Pastor, and to the Chapter of the aforesaid Church free faculty of election had been conceded, as is the custom, by the King of England Henry the Third, ^b a Catholic Prince; the Canons of the aforesaid Church assembling on the appointed day, elected for themselves as Pastor and Bishop a certain courtier ^c, believing they would perhaps have in this the king's ^d favor, yet an Archdeacon of the Church. But when they had presented the election made of him to the then Elect of the Metropolitan See ^e, named Boniface; having deliberated in counsel, he set a day on which he would inquire concerning the merits of the elect and of the election according to the statutes of the Canons. the election of a certain courtier is quashed, The appointed day therefore arriving, at the place set beforehand the Elect of Canterbury is present, with some of his suffragans, men of eminent life and knowledge: among whom that most famous former Bishop of Lincoln, the venerable Father Robert ^f, a not small member in the body of the Church (which also his surname, that is, "Great-head," commonly called "Grosse-teste," sufficiently proclaims), are present, and with them Masters and Clerks learned in both Laws. A diligent discussion therefore having been made concerning the election and the person of the Elect of Chichester, and his merits enumerated, and the knowledge and morals of the aforesaid Elect weighed, he was found lacking: and therefore by the counsel of the prudent who were present, his election was publicly quashed.

[20] and Richard is named Bishop, The Elect of Canterbury therefore, desiring to provide for the aforesaid Church deprived of its Pastor, as was then held by right and custom, before so solemn a council of discreet men should be dissolved, enjoined upon them, that having God before their eyes, and consulting the Church's utility, they should provide and name such and so great a man, on whom, without scruple of conscience and peril of soul, the burden of so great an office and the summit of so great a dignity could duly be imposed. And they, as men of virtues, approving his will (as was fitting), and desiring to obey him in all things, began to treat upon the business enjoined upon them. And he, whose Spirit once designated Nicholas to the assembly of Prelates united to provide for the Myrensian metropolis, now also inspired that our Richard should be set over the Church of Chichester. He, when the name of so fit a person was proposed to him, rejoiced very much (for he had heard concerning him that he was a valiant man, famous for his morals and wisdom, useful in all things in the Church's affairs, as one who had been to his predecessor, Blessed Edmund, a faithful coadjutor in the affairs of the Church of Canterbury, and an untiring companion in tribulations), and immediately, the college of Prelates and the congregation of Clergy and people being present, solemnly pronounced the provision made by him of the Church of Chichester of Master Richard of Wych; the Pontiffs and Clergy who were present devoutly praising God on this account, and also the Canons of the Chapter of Chichester magnificently praising God together for this, that of so great and so fit a person he had willed to provide for them and for his Church; and holding the provision received with unanimity, they blessed God with all their heart.

[21] the King being indignant in vain: When this deed had reached the royal ears ^g, some of the courtiers murmuring that both the quashing of the King's Clerk's election and the provision made of his enemy redounded to the King's dishonor (inasmuch as he was not afraid to bear himself as defender, against his lord the King, of Blessed Edmund in the causes which he had against the royal will and liberty as long as he lived, nor to oppose royal power); the King himself, conceiving no small indignation in mind, commanded the goods of the Church of Chichester to be ^h seized more strictly and harshly than usual, and began to rise up wholly both against the provision made and against the person of whom the provision was made. Richard therefore pondering, if he yielded, on the one hand the long desolation of the Church of Chichester; on the other hand, the persecution threatening him if he prosecuted from the dignity provided to him; on one side the innocence of his own conscience, on the other, if out of fear he yielded, the imitation of a pernicious example in like cases; and above these fearing, if he went against the provision made of him by so great and such men, he would go against the divine disposition; he chose rather, for the utility of the Church and the protection of her liberty, to prosecute his cause, than out of fear of persecution to yield. For then truly is it praiseworthy to undertake the Episcopate, when on account of it a more grievous persecution seems to threaten: for those who refuse to take up the pastoral government of the Church on account of persecution, by fleeing pastoral office join themselves to hirelings.

[22] Before Innocent IV against him When therefore Blessed Richard perceived the King's mind, after frequent suppliant admonitions of the Archbishop and other Prelates, and humble declaration of his own innocence and justice, inflexibly raised against him; commending himself and his cause to the divine grace, he betook himself to that supreme refuge of the oppressed after God in this world, I speak of the Apostolic See; not without fear of snares, under God's guidance: but there also he found the royal ⁱ Proctors, prepared and instructed against him. Then ruled the Roman Church Innocent IV of holy memory: who, having calmly heard the cause of his coming, paternally receiving him, compassionated with pious affection his labors and tribulations and the oppressions of the Church of Chichester. And not many days afterwards, the supreme Pontiff knowing the movement and will of the royal mind, and Blessed Richard's innocence and justice, and having weighed in the balance of justice the merits of both parties, he pleads his cause and is consecrated by him. confirmed by his sanction's authority the provision made of Blessed Richard: and not many days afterwards, the same Apostolic Pontiff by the imposition of his sacred hands solemnly bestowed on him the gift of consecration. Blessed Richard therefore having obtained, with the abundance of the mystic unction, a fruitful infusion of graces, and crowned with the Pontifical mitre; lest immediately, mixed with the crowd, he should seem to disturb the gift of so great a grace, he arranged to rest there for some time. Meanwhile also he took care to obtain immunities of his own Church or person, and Apostolic letters to be directed to the King of England concerning his peaceful entry into the kingdom of England, and the restitution of the possessions and things belonging to the Church of Chichester, and the reconciliation of the royal favor, sent back with Apostolic letters into England, which he had not by any means deserved to lose. Having obtained these, he took care to return, arranging to take the solicitous care of his flock for visiting his fatherland and diocese. Yet the body of his pious Father, Blessed Edmund, then shining with the frequent flashing of miracles, he was by no means willing to pass by unsaluted; not unworthy of that blessing which Naomi wished for Boaz, saying: "Blessed be he of the Lord, who has preserved the same grace toward the dead which he has shown to the living": and having sent messengers beforehand to explore cautiously the state of the kingdom of England and the King's mind toward his person, he himself follows hard on the heels. Ruth 2:20

[23] Blessed Richard therefore returns to his native soil, and enters it. he further offends the King, Yet what should he do, or where turn himself, or where receive himself? If he stretched out his hand to the movable goods of the Church of Chichester, he would labor in vain: for long before they had been consumed and distracted by the satellites of the royal curia. If he decided to take a loan for the daily necessaries of food; a royal prohibition had publicly and commonly preceded, that no one should lend him money or anything else: if he turned aside to his manors, neither was he permitted to come to his own, nor any of his to receive him there. Seeing these things, Blessed Richard thought the person of the King should be approached with the Apostolic mandate. Having therefore shown the King his mandates and those of the Apostolic See, he seemed to provoke the King's indignation and wrath rather than reconciliation and favor; the courtiers especially, and, what is painful, some Clerks being indignant and mocking that he had obtained from Christ's Vicar what he could not from his lord the King. exasperated by the flatterers, even Clerks: O blind cupidity! O cloud-obscured blindness of the ambition of the royal palace! Do you not remember that in Exodus, that Moses came forth horned not from the company or conversation of King Pharaoh, but from the company of God, the conversations of the divine law having been received? And behold another Moses, returning from the face of the Lord Pope, by no means ignorant of the divine law, horned with the mitre of his head, and shining more clearly with Pontifical insignia but more with morals: so that now envy, wasting before the brightness, cannot bear it; but, covered with the veil of envy, with the faithless people of the Jews, you do not dare to contemplate his face. Ex. 34:29

[24] which yet is not to be said, as though there were no good Clerks in the court, Let no one, I beseech, think that by the present series of words I sugillate all the courtiers of the royal curia in general, or thus inveigh against all. For although the ancient Canons, on account of certain things in which such courtiers were wont to be ensnared, forbid that they be taken up to holy Orders or ecclesiastical grades; yet there have been

often, and by the grace of God still are and will be, some entangled in the bonds of courts, by no means unworthy of the grade or dignity of ecclesiastical Order. I know Blessed Joseph was set over the house of Pharaoh and the kingdom as lord and prince, and governed the commonwealth to the utility of both the King and the people. I know Esdras and Zerubbabel conducted themselves prudently and holily before tyrant Kings, and with the favor equally of King and Queen obtained both the authority and the expenses of rebuilding the temple of the Lord, and the same were most worthy of the grade of Priesthood. What shall I say of Daniel and his companions, conversing under Nebuchadnezzar? I know also that David, chosen "according to God's heart," warring under Saul, from which so many illustrious Saints have come forth. not undeservedly deserved this praise: "For who was found faithful as David?" and so on. And that I may not be silent about our own, who of the English in his time was more faithful to the King, who more solicitous in the business of the kingdom, who purer in life, who more acceptable to Christ the King than that most glorious athlete, Blessed Thomas, that illustrious martyr? Yet this man, when he was a courtier, endured the persecutions of courtiers. There have also been, and still are in our times, those who, taken up from the service of the court to ecclesiastical government, have proved praiseworthy in life as well as in knowledge. Therefore, as I perceive, there are mixed in the courts "satan with the sons of God," accusers with Daniel, unbelievers and subverters and scorpions with Ezekiel: of whose number I should not undeservedly judge those who stirred up the King's mind, benign by its own nature, Catholic by divine grace, against Blessed Richard.

[25] Excluded from his own, he is received by Simon of Teringe, Whence poor and begging, departing from the King into his own diocese, he received himself as a guest coming into a foreign land: or rather, lodged under another's roof, placing his feet under another's table, he is received, learning by compulsion, as the common saying is, to be warmed by others' coals. Yet God, who is wont to be present to his own in tribulation, provided for him a man according to his own heart, living not far from the See of his diocese. This is he whose name may live forever and whose memorial may not be forsaken, Lord Simon of ^l Teringe, most celebrated alike in fame and conversation, and beyond others clothed with the bowels of charity. God had touched his heart; and receiving Blessed Richard, long before known in the best things, reverently as a father, he subjected his house, with the things he had or could have, to his governance. Yet Blessed Richard himself, knowing the man not to be very abounding in temporal things (as one who content with a sole and single benefice could never be persuaded to receive any dignity or another benefice), was content with few things; perhaps moved only by this, that he was by no means everywhere able to exhibit hospitality and provide for the poor from the goods of his Church, as the Episcopal state requires. Meanwhile also Blessed Richard shows what he can: he goes out through the villages, and fulfills the offices of a Bishop as he can: visiting the places of his diocese and monasteries, preaching, admonishing, devotedly administering the Sacraments, as he saw it necessary, according to the fittingness of places and times and persons. O servant of Christ Richard, recall the state and life which, when younger, you once proposed to hold by voice and vow, and, had not God ordered otherwise, as far as lay in you, you wished to assume, and rejoice nonetheless because you have now deserved to hold. What state, you ask, or what life do you mean? I mean the life of the Friars Preachers, which is, to preach Christ without property in poverty, to procure the salvation of souls, and to labor cheerfully in the Lord's harvest freely, trusting in his grace. Endure a little, and do what you do bravely: that you may not be deprived of the reward of voluntary poverty, and nevertheless may not be defrauded of the reward and dignity of the Pastoral office.

[26] Meanwhile, however, that he might not be reputed sluggish and a despiser of his own right, he is afflicted with insults in the court, he thinks he should approach the King's court, and diligently follows it, asking for the restitution of the goods of his Church from the King's grace, which belonged to him by justice. When therefore on a certain day he had entered the King's palace at ^m Windesore, a certain one of those whom they call Marshals, looking at him with a grim face, said: "How have you dared to enter here, when you are not unaware of the King's mind being grievously offended toward you?" But he, as he was very modest, confused by that word, peacefully left the palace, and outside, associated with the common people, awaited under the open sky; not cursing, not murmuring, but giving thanks to God, and praying for those persecuting and calumniating him. Thence also, through dry and sterile places, in labor and hardship, he follows the King's footsteps: as one who traveled with an empty purse; and the King's edict long since prohibiting, scarcely could he find one to lend him money or food for the necessities of sustenance. If ever he approaches the King to ask, he receives the reproaches of the satellites; and with the Apostle he entreats, and is blasphemed; he suffers persecution, and patiently endures: from those things, namely, which he once suffered with Blessed Edmund, and at length the King being appeased he learned patience. After two years, therefore, during which he thus fought with beasts, bearing double tribulations both of heart and body, the King, having frequently received the admonitions and mandates of the Apostolic See, other Prelates also and men fearing God nonetheless persuading the same, at the same time taking counsel for his own conscience and fame; restored his manors to the Bishop, and by letters and living voice grants that he may enter the Church of Chichester freely, and receive intact his estates and manors and peacefully possess them; pledging in good faith a certain sum of money for things taken away or unjustly detained. ⁿ Richard therefore, naked and despoiled, enters upon manors and estates stripped bare, fulfilled being what the Angel said to Esdras: "For this, O Esdras, empty things for the empty, and full for the full"; into the exhausted possessions of the Church he returns. because the satellites of the King took away with them their purses full from the plundering of the goods of the Church, and Blessed Richard received empty manors, empty of temporal goods. 4 Esd. 7:25

CHAPTER III.

How Richard fulfilled this rule of the Apostle: "A Bishop ought to be irreproachable, the husband of one wife, sober, prudent, hospitable."

[27] But because only divine things, as Gregory says, are those which make us rich in virtues; though empty of the things of the world, yet full of virtues, Blessed Richard returns to his Church, about to enrich her with life and word and excellent merits. How irreproachable he was, is proved How nobly and how virtuously as regards himself he lived, and how prudently and zealously he ruled his Church, the Apostolic rule, applied to his manner of life, will be able to show more plainly. The first particle of the Apostolic rule is this: "A Bishop ought to be irreproachable," or "without crime," which tends to the same. 1 Tim. 3:2 To persuade that our Richard was such, from his nomination to the Episcopate, first it can be persuaded by this, that he was named by so great and such discreet and holy men, and by the same giving counsel, the provision was made of him for the Church of Chichester. Nor indeed ought it to be reckoned a little, that is known to have been provided for by the counsel of so great men: for it is written: "In the counsel of the just and the congregation, great are the works of the Lord, sought out according to all his wills." Ps. 110:1 by his zeal against sinners, Secondly, by this, that he so severely persecuted the crime of those publicly confessed or convicted, that he seemed to represent another Phinees: and it is probable that a servant of Christ did not admit in himself what he persecuted in another: for in this case Blessed Jerome says, "With what liberty can he correct a sinner, when he himself silently answers to himself that he has committed the same things which he corrects?" by the silence of his rivals, Thirdly, because although he had many rivals for impeding the provision made of him, who would gladly have opposed against him the exception of crime; none

was found who dared, even from the suspicion of light fame, to do this, or presumed to do so, it being fulfilled what is written of Samuel: "No man accused him." Eccli. 26:22

[28] Fourthly, because witnesses beyond all exception deposed on oath, by the faith of many witnesses, that he led that way and that life without crime. Fifthly, that the Lord Pope, having diligently discussed the testimonies of the witnesses, concerning the cleanness of his life, publicly became witness and judge, by the Papal declaration, and in the confirmation and testimony of his Bull asserted in these words: "For this man from the beginnings of his earliest youth was led by the guidance of that Leader, and ruled and directed by the rule of that king, into whose cellars he always anxiously wished to follow him, and at last obtained, as we firmly believe, to be gloriously brought in; avoiding with discreet maturity, as if already established in advanced age, all things which youthful age is wont to embrace, pursued continence; the uncertain ways of adolescence and youth he strove to pass with a path so unpolluted, that he preserved his reputation unhurt from all infamy of carnal contagion." and that he always thought well of others; And, what I think should not be subtracted from these, the sixth is, that although he was very much saddened and groaned at the crimes of others which he heard, yet he was unwilling to give credence to those reporting them, unless legitimate proof had shown it. For so just men are wont according to the purity of their own conscience to esteem others, as on the contrary the perverse esteem others like themselves, the Wise Man testifying, "The fool, according to his own heart, will find a comparison." Eccli. 32:21 But this Saint, because he had learned that of every one it should be thought that he is good, until proved to the contrary; was zealous to put away far from his heart the vice of sinister suspicion, asking the Lord with the Psalmist, "Take away my reproach which I have suspected," and the Saint says in the same place, "Suspicion is a great vice of human nature: truly because this is what makes us to invent false things about our neighbors, to turn good things into evil by sinister interpretation, to defame their life by fastening a crime on others." Ps. 118:59

[29] Now how immune he was from the aforesaid vice, let it not be wearisome to hear by an example, as the occasion offers itself at present. While this holy man yet dwelt under the wings of Blessed Edmund, the same Saint Edmund was wont willingly to show his presence to religious women, and to those whom, by his conversation, either by admonishing to good or by making progress to better, as appeared when someone thought St Edmund he believed to stand in need. Whence once it happened, that when he was visiting a certain handmaid of God, his household waiting outside, and he was prolonging the conversation with her for a long time; a certain one of the household, not the least, bearing it ill and perverting it with wicked suspicion, is said to have murmured such things: "There lurks a snake in the grass, and under a lamb's fleece a fox: nor is all that shines like gold, gold. And more expressly: Our Lord the Archbishop, under pretext of such conversations, does and seeks another thing with women than is believed." to be speaking too long and privately with a woman But the servant of Christ, Richard, who deigned also to relate this to me, immediately was astounded and, as if, as they say, struck on the brow with a hammer, unable to dissemble the sadness which he had conceived from the word, bore a downcast countenance as the Archbishop was coming out of the house in which he had been sitting. Which the same Archbishop noting, as in him to whom he was wont frequently to turn his eyes, calling him to himself, said: "Master Richard, why has your countenance fallen, and your face appears sadder than usual? Hide not from me; for I know this is not without cause." To whom Master Richard reverently: "Such and such things," he said, "concerning your person have been said a little while ago: because of which my countenance does not allow to palliate the sadness of my mind." But Blessed Edmund, in the spirit of meekness consoling his son and excusing himself, into suspicion of unchastity. said: "Good Master, be not sad for this matter, nor lay this to heart: for know for certain, if it is about women, if all things that I ever did as to such sin were plainly written on my forehead and in sight, I would have nothing whereof to be ashamed." O glory of the testimony of conscience in a Prelate! O ardor of holy zeal in a disciple! Truly the glory of the master's conscience drove away the sadness of the disciple; the sadness of the disciple furnishes to the master an undoubted confidence from the zeal of holy fervor. How could he consent to a crime by perpetrating it in himself, who so grieved over a crime falsely imposed on another? And to whom the false suspicion of another brought the cause of such great sadness; how should he suspect a crime of his neighbor?

[30] Richard's continence is proved by the abdication of a rich bride: The second particle of the Apostolic rule is, "The husband of one wife," that is, only (supply) "of one," or "not of many," that is, let him not exceed monogamy. But when did our Richard divide his flesh by the union of many wives, when he refused the lawful marriage of one noble virgin out of love of continence? To show which, it pleases me to recite the words of Pope Urban himself of good memory, for the strength of greater authority. "By his firstborn brother," he says, "with the offer of yielding the patrimony which the same brother wholly held according to the custom of the country, he was invited to the conjugal matrimony of a certain noble girl; that he might pass into the lot of the Lord, he yielded to this cession; and espousing his soul with firm purpose to the heavenly Bridegroom, he of his own accord spurned the espousals of an earthly bride; aspiring to the privilege of chastity; not execrating the Sacrament of carnal matrimony." And consequently, commending this very thing, he exclaims: "O provident negotiation! O useful and ingenious commerce! He exchanged earthly things for heavenly, transitory for abiding, temporal for eternal: the pleasures of carnal marriage, anxious for those desiring them, full of repentance for those satiated, he abhorred; that he might obtain the delights of the undefiled bed, sweet and placid to those desiring them, grateful and greedy to those enjoying them." Nothing therefore was lacking to Blessed Richard as regards the Sacrament of unity, who "adhering to the Lord," stood one spirit with him, nor divided the integrity of his body at least by the union of one matrimony. For although nothing is lacking to the monogamous man for the sacrament, yet he is not altogether undivided, who is proved bound by the matrimonial debt to a wife. 1 Cor. 7:33 For the Apostle writes to the Corinthians: "He who is with a wife is solicitous about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and he is divided."

[31] Sobriety by the Papal Bull, The third particle of the Apostolic rule is: "Sober, not given to wine." Sobriety indeed, taking the word broadly, pertains to the moderation both of food and drink: for St Jerome writes concerning certain women: "There are some, who while sober in drink, are drunken with the superfluity of food." For the "sober" is said as if "established under a measure" ("sub bria"), that is, under measure: whatever, then, exceeds the measure of temperance seems to be drunkenness; from which he knew how prudently to guard himself, so that he never permitted the flesh to dominate the spirit. And although with him, not only in times of abstinence, but also on solemn days, on which the tables of the rich are wont to be filled with more delicate foods, I continued for months and days, and concerning these from my own sharing could testify from sight; yet I think the testimony of the Lord Pope in his Bull not undeservedly to be preferred on this: for he says, after certain praiseworthy things mentioned concerning him, "In the chastisement of his own body he was more rigid, stricter in the observance of discipline." Thus Pope Urban. At his table also a reading sounded: reading and pious discourse during refection, and if ever the reader ceased, he would treat either of what had been read or of some edifying matters with those sitting by. When, however, at the time of fasting it was to be drunk, either he himself was wont to read something useful, or to tell another, that he might propose something edifying: and if any notably good thing was said by any one, he would not fail to commend it with his own hands to a little book. For I remember him saying once to me: "The words which you proposed yesterday, I this night wrote in our book with my own hand." He also was wont to serene his very table with the cheerfulness of a good countenance: whom I often saw set aside the more delicate foods, and eat of bread moistened with wine or beer. the detestation of eating meat; So much, indeed, was he wont to condemn the vice of gluttony, that when lambs or kids or chickens were brought, as is usual, to the kitchen, he was wont to say, as if bewailing the death of the innocent: "O," he said, "if you were rational and could speak, how greatly would you curse our bellies! We indeed are the cause of your death: you, who are innocent, what worthy of death have you committed?" When also the dinner was finished, and it had come to the hymn-singing of thanksgiving, and devout thanksgiving. with hands and eyes lifted up, he rendered thanks to God so reverently and distinctly, that he could arouse no small material of devotion in those sitting by; always repeating that at the end: "May God grant us his help, as he knows we need."

[32] The fifth particle is: "Prudent." Concerning Blessed Richard's prudence no one is allowed to hesitate who has read over the things written above concerning him; His eminent prudence under St Edmund especially how grammar, logic, and the sacred Canons, and also Theology (through the knowledge of which a man is rendered prudent), he not only perfectly learned, but also certain of them elegantly taught. No less ought it to be ascribed to his prudence, that under Blessed Edmund, concerning the administration of the whole Archbishopric, the same Saint used his ministry; as Pope Urban testifies by his letters: "He so ministered, that in the truthfulness of speech, and he showed it in his own cause. the censure of justice, the mildness of meekness, the cultivation of humility, he showed himself lovable to all, useful to all; refreshing the poor with aid, the rich with counsel." What of the fact that in prosecuting either the cause of his own provision, or the justice of the Church of Chichester, he so wisely and prudently prosecuted it, and, grace following and accompanying, attained the due end?

[33] With the virtue of hospitality also God had so perfused the recesses of his heart, Eminent in hospitality and given to the works of mercy that he extended the bosom of mercy to every one coming to him, and, as much as was in him, would receive him even honorably under the roof of his material house, and would order the necessaries of this life to be exhibited according to the quality of persons: diligently recalling that word of the Lord, to be pronounced in the last crisis by him as witness: "I was a stranger and you took me in." He understood indeed with no deaf ear what Haymo the expositor says of the hospitality of Pontiffs in this place, where the Bishop is described as hospitable: "A layman or any ecclesiastic, if he gathers two or three poor into hospitality, fulfills the office of hospitality; but a Bishop, if he does not receive all, is reputed inhospitable." Matt. 25:35 And therefore, with the breadth of his charity ample, exceeding the palaces of his mansions, not content with the multitude of those coming, reckoning himself as a debtor to all the poor, he was zealous to succor the necessities of all, wherever in turning aside he found poor. by which he was wont to visit the sick as he passed: When he happened to enter the towns or villages of his diocese, he diligently

caused the languishing and sick and poor to be sought out, and was wont to visit them not only with the help of his alms but also with the solace of his own presence, and spiritually to refresh them with the nourishment of the word of God; instructing them to patience, and persuading them that "the furnace of poverty purges the stains of sin," and showing what great joys in the future follow true and voluntary poverty. For he had familiarly assumed for himself this office of spiritual alms, to season with the flavor of the word of God the food with which he refreshed the poor of Christ. And this indeed he was zealous to fulfill frequently by himself, but sometimes through the Friars Preachers or Minors.

[34] Indeed so far had the Father of mercies extended and dilated the bowels of his mercy, that when he was pressed by the straits of a threefold want, namely by the great obligation of debts, the taking away of the goods of his diocese, and in addition the constraint of ^b dearth and famine; never did that generous heart know, dilated by the breadth of true charity, in a scarcity of provisions rebuked by his steward to grow narrow. Nay even to his carnal brother, Lord Richard de Bachedene, a prudent man of the military order, to whom he had committed the care of temporal things, when he said to him that his goods could scarcely suffice for living, much less for pouring out such profuse alms to such a multitude of the poor; abounding in the bowels of piety, he answered: "Is it just, dear brother, Lord Richard, or acceptable in God's sight, that we should eat and drink from golden or silver vessels, while Christ is tortured by hunger in his poor, the poor themselves also failing by want of food and dying?" And he added: "I know very well, as ^c my Father also did, he orders the more precious things to be sold, to take food and taste drink from a wooden platter and bowl. Let the silver or golden vessels therefore be sold, and by their price let his members be fed, who redeemed us and them, not by these corruptible things of gold and silver, but by his precious blood. But also the horse, on which I sit, is good and costly: let it be sold, I pray, and by its price let Christ's poor be fed."

[35] But also whenever, visiting religious houses, he found them constrained by poverty or want, especially of provisions; although he himself was placed in straits, yet from his own need he was zealous to aid their want: whence for the sake of an example it may suffice at present to commemorate one. When he was visiting a certain house of nuns of Russparre in his diocese, and had learned that they were suffering want of provisions, he commanded his aforesaid Steward ^d, Lord Richard, to bestow upon the same nuns a certain sum of provision: and what he had ordered not being promptly carried out but the same Steward, dissimulating the Bishop's command, took no care to execute it. When this had come to the Bishop's ears, he commanded another provost of one of his manors to give, under heavy penalty, to the aforesaid nuns double the amount which he had first commanded, sharply rebuking the Steward very severely; and he said that he was no pupil, nor willing to be governed under the custody of such a tutor: that those could rightly be judged fools, who had judged himself worthy of the government of the Bishopric of Chichester, if it were necessary that he be ruled not by his own, but by the authority and will of his Steward. And, as I learned from one very faithful and very familiar with Blessed Richard, he bears it most heavily: never afterward could the aforesaid Steward, although he was his carnal brother, find in his sight such great grace of familiarity as before. Indeed the servant of God showed in this case that the virtue of mercy is, that he is not merciful to himself ^e nor pleasing to himself who strives to impede a work of mercy.

[36] But he knew not only to feed and give drink to the needy by the help of food; he does the same things by others also, when absent. but also to clothe and shoe the naked and cold alike; and to commit the dead to burial with his own hands. So devout, so solicitous, so most fervent to the works of mercy was he, that not only to those meeting him and present did he show these, but also commanded and enjoined his bailiffs and parish Priests to inquire after the sick and needy throughout the villages and parishes, that they might be assisted by his alms. To the Priests ^f of his manors also he gave charge, that they should reserve for him the bodies of the dead to be buried, while he was spending time in the same manors. For poor Priests, worn out with age, or weakened in sight, or blind or otherwise disabled in body, he established a hospital ^g on soil acquired by himself; and, that they might not be subjected to public mendicity to the disgrace of the church, mercifully ordered that food and clothing necessaries should be supplied to them there.

[37] And lest he should be rendered without merit or reward of some of the works of mercy, he erects a hospital for poor Clerks; the bowels of his mercy were not excluded by the enclosure of the prison from those imprisoned in custody and chained. Once it happened that a certain pregnant woman, not without the merit of her guilt, was held captive under chains and custody in a certain manor of his. the woman held under death-sentence until she should give birth, When this had become known to the Bishop coming there, having first explored an opportunity, he approached the place where the said woman was held bound; and with the keeper of the prison being freely sent off elsewhere by him, coming closer, he asks the woman the cause of her imprisonment. When he had learned that she was to be handed over to the judgment of death, the death being deferred only until she should give birth, helping her as much as he could and teaching her, he releases her from the prison to the church, he admonished her, penitent for her evils, to flee to the church which was nearby, which she did. The rumor therefore spreading, when it came to the Steward's ears, troubled and sad he enters the Bishop's hall: and when the Bishop inquired the causes of his trouble, "It is no wonder," he said: "for it will be necessary, though from want, to pay the King a hundred shillings of silver because of the escape of the prisoner." making little of the fine to be paid on that account. To whom the Bishop: "What or how much are a hundred shillings for the liberation of the life of one captive? Blessed be God who freed her."

[38] But what if I should here strive to insert his affection of compassion, the effect of his works of piety, the outstretched bowels of his largesse, the shown works of his mercy? I might perhaps be less believed by many, especially in these days in which perilous times not so much now threaten as stand; and there are "men lovers of themselves," and by this not compassionating their neighbors; whose bowels have become hard, and have constricted themselves with the curd of avarice; and the fleshy heart having been taken away, a stony heart has succeeded, which God, according to his promise through Ezekiel, may deign to take away from the midst of them. Ez. 11 & 36 But let this now suffice concerning this, since the matter of avarice by itself has known to so dilate itself, that it was both permitted and pleasing to the holy Prophet to say: "Avarice in the head of all." Amos 9:1 Returning therefore to the contrary matter, and how Richard "dispersed and gave to the poor," and how his justice in this part is shown to have pleased God by a manifest miracle, let us show from the letters of Pope Urban of good memory: "For at a certain time of dearth, an unexpected number of poor running to the alms of the same holy man, at his blessing the bread, which would not have sufficed many otherwise, he, the living bread, who descended from heaven, made the bread (which, estimated by the customary distribution at the refection of ninety poor, scarcely sufficed for the least part of the multitude in number that concurred) abound at his blessing so much, that beyond the estimate of those standing by, when nearly three thousand poor had been abundantly refreshed with the accustomed portions of those receiving, from the abundance of supernal mercy there remained over portions; after three thousand had been filled abounds: which according to the same estimate would have refreshed still a hundred poor." Not once only or twice is this superabundance of his blessing proved to have been done; but many times, he himself opening his hand, who fills every living thing with blessing. he allows his things to be pawned to the needy. To certain Masters also, coming to him at various times and complaining of excessive destitution, because they blushed at public mendicity; when money was lacking to him wherewith to aid their want, he ordered a gilt cup to be given to each, saying: "Take and pawn it, that you may have money for your necessities; and we, when it pleases God, ^h will redeem it."

[39] he himself rejoices to give out alms with his own hands, The servant of God also was wont by the way to bestow money with his own hand on poor meeting him, and to give them alms frequently turned aside from the way. And when it was sometimes said to him, "Why, Lord, do you not allow that the alms be distributed through the hand of some one of your household?" he used to say: "I both for the labor and for the gift hope to receive a double reward." If ever, when poor met him to ask, there was no money in his purse; he was wont to groan from his inmost, saying: "Alas! alas! the poor grieve and complain that nothing is given them, but to me there is greater cause of sadness because what to give is lacking ⁱ." Often, however, before it was asked, he bestowed alms on the poor: and when it was said to him, "Why did you give to them not asking?" he answered that it was written, "Lord, you have preceded him with the blessings of sweetness": and that, "What is obtained by prayers is bought dear enough." Ps. 20:4 Truly the man full of God understood the force of that old Proverb: "He who gives quickly, gives twice: who delays, does not give even once." For the cheerful and quick giver, from the affection of the heart and the bestowal of the gift, deservedly merits to carry off a double reward of retribution. O how firmly, how intimately the Apostolic lesson had clung to his heart, in which he says: "He who sows sparingly shall reap sparingly; and he who sows in blessings shall also reap of blessings." 2 Cor. 9:6 and willingly to bestow even upon those not asking. And therefore, parsimony being banished further away, he was so zealous for the abundance of blessings, that if he could not relieve another's misery from his own, he reckoned himself wretched. But Christ, the rewarder of good, pledging by the bestowal of the present gift the reward of the final retribution, as has often been said, multiplied the seed of his mercy in the present showing of the miracle, and multiplied the increases of the fruits of his justice in retribution; that now returning to his fatherland, he might bring back with exultation the sheaves of his merits.

NOTES.

CHAPTER IV.

The other part of the Apostolic rule, requiring the Bishop to be modest, adorned, a teacher, not a striker but moderate, fulfilled in Richard.

[40] Richard's modesty is proved Why should I further in writing commend the virtue of modesty in Blessed Richard? since it ought to suffice for the praise of his modesty, that he is proved to have unceasingly kept and shown it in his morals and words; and therefore he must rightly be believed to have been modest, that is, a guardian of modesty. If the zeal which he is proved to have had for modesty in others should, as is worthy, be commended in him; what is said to have been done by Blessed Nicholas concerning the modesty of three maidens is praiseworthily proclaimed, and Blessed Richard is known to have done not wholly in a dissimilar manner; from his zeal, by which he persuaded [women to preserve virginity.] who exacted from a certain girl of his parish, whom her father had arranged to be given in marriage, from the father himself, willing or unwilling, and with unwilling consent, that she should serve God in chastity. He is also said to have done a similar thing concerning another in the parish of Teringes. Nay, he was zealous to invite the aforesaid, and whatever others he could, to the resolve and vow of virginity or continence.

[41] How he was adorned with morals and virtues, Moreover, that he was adorned, as well within as without, alike with morals and virtues, none can doubt who has either seen his manner of life in his presence, or has read over the adornments of his morals, fenced round with the testimony of truthful witnesses. Whence also Pope Urban, in the letters of his canonization, asserts him to be adorned in life with virtues, and in death with miracles, as heaven with its luminaries. For after having described certain of his virtues, "The man of God," he says, "divine grace accompanying him, so ministered, that in truthfulness of speech, the censure of justice, the mildness of meekness, the cultivation of humility, he showed himself lovable to all, useful to all; refreshing the poor with aid, the rich with counsel. In these as a morning star shining, with his merits increasing, the Pontiff declares in the Bull of Canonization. he grew into the brightness of a full moon. For although virtues are wont sometimes to grow lukewarm, or to yield to ease, at the approach of desired dignity; while some are zealous to live more quietly, that they may remain longer in the dignity wished for and obtained; yet in this man, with the increase of higher rank, they grew. For being called to the government of the Church of Chichester, he became far more watchful than usual to his care, not sluggish to his work, gentle to his morals. From then the care of the poor was greater for him, a garment also of the greatest austerity, his habit more abject, his gesture and speech more humble. From then he was stronger in enduring persecutions, more constant in the defense of ecclesiastical liberty, more inflexible in the censure of justice, more fervent in prayer, more profuse in the giving of alms, more rigid in the chastisement of his own body, stricter in the observance of discipline, more prudent in the struggle of flesh and spirit; attending prudently to the frequent grapplings of these in the very struggle, he strove to wrestle more prudently, and forced the flesh to serve the spirit. He cast out the handmaid and her son, casting down the flesh and the incentives of the flesh. With vigils which, spurning his couch, he kept wide awake, he refreshed the spirit, fed it with fasts, and nourished it with the great assiduity of prayers.

[42] O industrious man! O prudence of a circumspect athlete! He imposed arms of weakening on the flesh, that the spirit might be armed with arms of strength; to the former he gave earthly arms, that the spirit might more easily bear heavenly arms. For that he might cautiously avoid the corruption of the flesh, by which he subjected the flesh to the spirit, having become a true Mordechai, he took both his name and omen; fulfilling the interpretation of the name, made "the bitter contrition of shameless flesh" ^a, and "bitterly crushing the shameless flesh" itself. For he put his garment a hair-shirt; and the goads of it, thongs, by pressing himself naked under the pricking of wooden and iron goads, he repressed; and putting on a cuirass over it, he added the arms of mortification. O the cautious sagacity of the fighter, and the sagacious caution! O the good guile against the enemy! So he armed the adversary, that he might weaken the armed one with arms, might safely contend with the weakened, in conflict might more quietly conquer, "not in a multitude of an army but a strength coming from heaven." This is the work of him, "in whose sight there is no difference" and miracles deserved of God to shine forth. whether many or few be freed. This is the work of him who taught that the lamp lit should not be placed under a bushel, but set upon a candlestick. This is the work of him, who fulfilled in work in Blessed Richard, what he taught in word. For the Father of lights, who gave him to walk in his light through the darkness of this world, in him kindled the lamp of merits: he placed it upon the candlestick of wondrous works, that through clear merits, as a moon shining, at length through the evidence of miracles he might advance to the brightness of the sun, and as a sun in the temple of the Christian faith might shine forth again.

[43] But if we turn to the adornment, that is, the decency due to a Pontiff, Using a decent, not vain habit, the gesture or habit of the outer man; as Possidius writes of that illustrious and great Pontiff, namely Blessed Augustine, so can truly be said of Blessed Richard, because his garments and shoes were neither too shining nor too abject, but of a moderate and becoming habit: in which nothing of novelty could be noted, nothing of vanity, nothing of superfluity, nothing that pertained to pride and vainglory. His outward gesture, the simulacrum of the inward man, indicated the composition of his mind: for he had in his countenance modesty, in his step gravity, in his stance reverence, in the motion of his limbs maturity, in his habit showing religion. Over his hairshirt and cuirass he put a white tunic, covered with a linen ephod, over the tunicle indeed, a pallium and cope, and to his Chaplains and Clerks (whom he called his companions) he wore similar things: and in such a schema, without any softness of bed, after the tearful and long-continuing insistence on prayers and vigils, rather leaning on his bed than prostrate, he committed his weary limbs to sleep, taking sleep that served the necessity of nature, not coming from the delight of the flesh. Sometimes also he prolonged his vigils in praying so much that, with knees and elbows cleaving to the pavement, with his mouth and face prostrate before the Lord upon the ground, sleep would creep upon him unwilling, and according to the prophetic saying, he would put his mouth in the dust, and with blessed Job sleep in the dust. Thren. 3:29 And indeed the bed, on the surface, was prepared with the cultivation worthy of a Pontiff: yet underneath it contained nothing of delicate softness. Job 7:21

[44] he was content with worn and cheap things, In furs also he avoided superfluous costliness, preferring lambskins to grey or squirrel. He preferred to provide for the necessities of the poor than for himself in the softness or costliness of garments or furs: following the example of that holy-remembered William of Auvergne, once Bishop ^b of the city of Paris; who before the King ^c of France, carrying the same cloak which on the day of his consecration he had worn as new, now with the antiquity of many years all the down of hairs consumed, and, as is commonly said, now worn to the very threads of the warp, heard from the King: "Father, you wear a slender and poor mantle." by the example of William, Bishop of Paris. And the Bishop answered: "Lord, it suffices me, who have so many daughters to give in marriage." Not that the holy man had carnal daughters; but calling the souls of the faithful, whose spiritual father he was, his daughters; of whom Paul speaks, "I have espoused you to one husband, to present a chaste virgin to Christ." 2 Cor. 11:2 ^d For such, namely, needy in spirit or body, the pious man was zealous to provide in their needs, rather than his own body in precious garments: nor less Blessed Richard, lest the want of the poor could be objected to him. whose history and Life we are at present weaving. But neither did he wish his horses to be adorned with trappings shining with gold, nor to carry about superfluous changes of clothing; not only avoiding pomp, but also fearing lest the naked and hungry poor, according to what Blessed Bernard writes to Henry, Bishop of Sens, cry out: "Tell the Pontiff, what does gold do in his bridle, while we labor miserably in hunger and cold? what do so many changes of clothing, either stretched on poles or folded in saddlebags, avail? Mules walk loaded with gems, and you do not trouble to cover our bare legs with sandals. Rings, little chains, bells, and certain nail-studded thongs, and many such things, as much showy in colors as precious in weight, hang from the necks of the mules; but on the sides of the brethren, not even half-girdles do you, while pitying, place."

[45] Learned himself, he usefully taught others: Concerning the grace of doctrine also, with which Blessed Richard shone, one is not to hesitate: since concerning him, even before he attained the dignity of Bishop, namely when he was Chancellor of Canterbury under Edmund, Pope Urban testifies, that the same Blessed Edmund reputed him, "the trusty breast of his counsel, the minister of justice, and the learned tongue of fruitful doctrine." For he had obtained from the abundant giver of graces the abundant experience of speech, "which is according to sound doctrine"; and he understood that sacred Scripture is "useful for arguing, for teaching, for correcting": and therefore, according to the quality of places, times, and persons, he fulfilled that of the Apostle, "Argue, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine." 2 Tim. 4:2 Moreover, the divine word of God in his mouth was vehemently fiery, and the servant of God loved it: not only for speaking, but rather for fulfilling in work; understanding and performing what the Apostle writes to Timothy: "But you, watch, labor in all things, do the work of an Evangelist, fulfill your ministry": namely, lest by a ministry of the word, empty of works, preaching to others, he himself should become reprobate. O how fervent a fire of pious devotion his speech was wont to breathe! because from the mouth of holy preachers preaching is so much the more fervent, and he fervently preached the Cross. as their teaching is not contrary

to their acts. Not only however in his own diocese, but also elsewhere, where need or opportunity offered itself, he most devoutly preached the word of God. Hence also by the authority of an Apostolic commission, he wholesomely and fruitfully completed ^g the preaching of the Cross ^e through the diocese of Canterbury ^f and of Chichester, committed to him.

[46] From the wondrous patience of this Saint also, amid so many and so great crises of persecutors and adversaries, Most patient in bearing injuries, it will plainly appear to readers and to those who have known him by sight, how far the temperance of his modesty had removed him from the rage of the striker. For a copious multitude of witnesses, bound under the oath of swearing and examined by the authority of the supreme Pontiff, testifies that he bore the robbery of his goods, the insults of words, the fatigues and miseries of himself and his own, not only equably and patiently, but also cheerfully and joyfully, so that he may deservedly be reckoned to belong to the lot of those of whom it is written, ^h "The Apostles went rejoicing from the presence of the council, because they were accounted worthy to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus." Acts 5:41 And not only this, but also according to the voice of the Lord's exhortation they learned to love enemies, and to render them good for evil, and to pray for persecutors and calumniators. And let it not be irksome, for the sake of edification and for a proof of this Saint's modesty and patience, he loved even enemies, to insert here some things out of many. Matt. 5:44 When amid the losses and annoyances which for two years and more he sustained from the royal court, at Lyons he had found that merchants were forbidden to grant him a loan in any way; he not only did not murmur, nor imprecated evil on any; but, showing, as it seemed, a more cheerful countenance, he was cast down in nothing; but also he comforted his own, promising God's benign help in timely aid.

[47] To the royal satellites also, who by cruelly raging against his goods had utterly dissipated the same, and did good to them. and who had so flared up in hatred of him, that one of them, unable to conceal the hatred which lurked in his heart, said that he was willing to be hanged, on condition that the Bishop should be hanged together with him; so benign, so modest, nay, so beneficent, when he had gained the possessions of the Bishopric, he showed himself, that he familiarly exhibited his table to the same evil-speaker and his companions, and frequently bestowed other benefits. In addition, when the noble man, Lord John ⁱ son of Alan, inflicted a grave injury on the Church of Chichester, over which, by God as author, this Saint presided, He seats John son of Alan, his adversary, at his table, and for this reason had been excommunicated by him; yet when he came to him, both he received familiarly, and ^k placed him near himself at table, and with gifts given, with the sweet address of his blessing and allocution honored him very much; and he said that if any parties disagree or labor concerning a matter in which they claim right for themselves or concerning the recovery of a right, yet nevertheless charity or the signs of charity ought not to be withdrawn among Christians: "because, if I wish to recover that which is mine, I ought not to withdraw that which is God's." Whence the same noble man, admiring beyond measure, said: "I have never seen or experienced such a man, who loved his adversaries and enemies, and responded with benefits to those inflicting grievances upon him." For the same noble Lord, namely John son of Alan, and intercedes for him with the King. when he had incurred the King's offense, the controversy between him and the Bishop not yet terminated, he appealed to the royal clemency for his reconciliation. Nor is he proved to have done things dissimilar to the aforesaid concerning the Abbot ^l of Fécamp, or the noble man Lord Richard ^m, then Count of Cornwall, or the Countess ⁿ of Kent, against whom he is known to have had causes for his Church; repaying honors for contumelies, and friendship for enmity.

[48] When a certain custodian of his Prebend of Dale, namely before he was consecrated as Bishop, he rewards the dissipators of his goods: had lost five of his horses by indiscreet vexation, and had uselessly consumed the goods of the same Prebend, and these things had been reported to him; passing over action, he caused to be given to the same the stipend of restitution along with a horse suitable for him, as if he had ministered faithfully and prudently. To a certain Priest also, to whom while he was in the schools he had committed the custody of his goods, and he had dissipated the same, not dissimilarly he repaid gain for his own loss, stipend for expense, good for evil. By such actions indeed toward enemies, the servant of God heaped up in their hearts the desolating coals of enmities and the kindling coals of charity; fulfilled being what Solomon says: "When the ways of a man please the Lord, he will convert even his enemies to peace": he becomes the author of concord to many others. and taught by that noble kind of conquering, he was unwilling to be conquered by evil, but to conquer evil in good. Prov. 16:7 Not only moreover was he peaceful with those that hated peace; but also he was wont, by the grace divinely infused to him and specially operating through him in this case, to recall others, as is wont to happen, discordant on various causes, to the good of concord: so that that of Ecclesiasticus, which is written of Moses, ought to pertain to the praise of this Saint: "In the time of wrath he became a reconciliation." Of this thing very many examples could be set: but, lest they generate disgust, I now arrange to pass them by. Eccli. 44:17 And what need will there be, after the signs of so great modesty and benignity, to describe him as not a striker, not quarrelsome? Needfully must all assault of turbulence and the tempest of rancor yield.

NOTES.

CHAPTER V.

The zeal of St Richard for justice, and his mind alien from all cupidity.

[49] Though he knew how to tolerate, dissimulate, and remit his own injuries, as has been said, A rigid avenger of ecclesiastical discipline, yet injuries inflicted on God and the Church, he knew as much as he could to avenge to the uttermost; especially where he saw rebellious contumacy and the impudence of disobedience to be present. For greater evidence of which I think some examples should at present be set, yet with names being kept silent, lest reproach be generated to those who have perhaps already done penance; nor lest new shame be struck into them; or lest we seem rather to be writing a satire than weaving the life of a Saint, though their names are manifestly expressed in the attestations of his canonization. A certain Clerk, therefore, noble indeed by birth, he deprives a ravisher Clerk of his benefice, but servile by dishonesty of life (for he corrupted a nun drawn from her monastery) he deprived of the ecclesiastical benefice which he had in his diocese, with no small disgrace: by a very equitable and approvable judgment, that he who deprived Christ of his spouse, might himself be justly deprived of the church, committed to him under the name of a spouse. And though on his behalf, because he was of noble blood, the King and Queen and other great nobles of the age and Prelates and Bishops of the Churches earnestly and frequently entreated that he might obtain the grace of restitution of his benefice; showing himself as inflexible as if he belonged to the number of those of whom it is written, "Their judges have been swallowed up joined to the rock," he yielded not to the prayers of any. Ps. 149:6 he yields to no intercession, ^a [And when once he was urgently asked on this matter by a Bishop of great authority, he replied: "Lord Bishop, I commit to you in this cause alone my power, at the peril of your soul, that as you wish to answer in the day of judgment before the highest Judge, so you may do." Hearing these things the Bishop refused altogether to undergo the burden of so great a crisis.]

[50] He did another thing not dissimilar concerning a certain Vicar (who was convicted of publicly keeping ^b a concubine, likewise another concubinary: whom he was unwilling to dismiss) by depriving him ^c by sentence of his benefice. A certain Knight also, who with sacrilegious daring had imprisoned a certain Priest, he forced, by the exacting censure of ecclesiastical rigor, to swear to stand to the mandates of the Church: he severely punishes violence done to a Priest: and under the religion of the oath given, to carry publicly the wooden stocks, with which he had caused the said Priest's feet to be constrained, on his own neck, as the yoke of an irrational beast, through the middle of the solemn market of ^d Lewes, and around the church in which the Priest who had suffered injury had ministered: a great price of money previously being offered for the redemption or commutation of the said penance, refused. The burghers also of Lewes, who had hanged a certain thief who had fled to a church, violently dragged out from it; he compelled to exhume the thief himself

now dead and buried at the gallows ^e, nay the corpse itself putrid, and to carry him back to the church, whence they had dragged him, on their own shoulders, as well as the violated asylum of the church: and commanded others, who had given counsel, to go fustigated with cords hung around their necks through the streets of Lewes and of adjacent townlets and towns, naked except for shirt and ^f breeches, compelled by the strictness of ecclesiastical rigor, and refused as dung the price offered for their redemption by them. For a synagogue of the Jews, He destroys a Jewish synagogue: which they had newly erected, he refused a large sum of money, and did not yield to prayers or price, until he caused it to be leveled to the ground and demolished.

[51] And not to be silent about some thing I perceived with eye-witness of the zeal of this Saint for justice; when the Rector of a certain church of the diocese of Norwich, of noble stock, with a certain great and noble Knight associated with him, came, about to ask the Diocesan ^g of the place concerning certain affairs, in the presence of Blessed Richard, in a habit less decent for a Clerk, he rebuked a foreign Clerk in the presence of his own Bishop, the Saint, seeing the Bishop of the place dissimulating, himself, not able, compelled by the zeal of justice, to dissimulate, rose; and rebuking the man who had come, said: "Do you become to appear thus before your Bishop and in such a schema of dress? Know that if you were of our diocese, I would severely animadvert upon you." And saying this, with his own hand he undid the mitre which he bore on his head, because he covered his baldness in a secular way. saying: "Are you not content with the work of your creator, unless you add to it in yourself?" (for he had twisted the hairs of the back of the head to the front part of the head, lest he should appear bald.) And the Saint, having drawn the cap from his own head (for he was, according to the sentence of the old law, "bald on the back and clean"), said: "Am I, because I am bald, to appear reprobate?" The Knight, however, who had come with him as an auxiliary, turning to me, said, "On this one's behalf I shall ask nothing": for he was astonished by the fervent correction of the man of God, and went out.

[52] Since the Apostle defines "cupidity" as "the root of all evils," 1 Tim. 6:10 and from the foregoing it may be clearer than light, most alien from cupidity, that where so many evident signs of justice and charity have appeared, no place could be in it for cupidity (because, as Pope Leo testifies, "in that heart can be no vestige of truth, in which avarice has set its home"); yet from the proclamation of Blessed Richard's largesse let it not be irksome to show how much he regarded the vice of cupidity as detestable. In youth, indeed, when in the School, nor while studying did he seek an ecclesiastical benefice. without the support of any temporal benefice, except the slender supply of his parents or friends, he was diligently laboring; he never by himself or another wished to procure that a benefice be conferred on him. To his companions also, sometimes speaking about having revenues or benefices, he was wont to say: "If we serve God faithfully, He will provide for us sufficiently: let us not care about such. He, whom we serve, will repay us more abundantly than we deserve." In that poor little provision of slender means also, he was always cheerful and rejoicing, committing the things he could have (as if not caring about worldly matters) to another's dispensing, content, though with little, with what was set before him. nor did he wish to possess many things at once, But having obtained an ecclesiastical benefice, he is proved to have been of wondrous liberality, as far as the quantity of his benefice extended, especially toward the poor. And although the bowels of his liberality lay open to all, he never wished to grow rich by the plurality of benefices. But also, if ever by the counsel of those fearing God he exchanged a church or prebend; never, unless the one he had before had been first resigned, did he admit a second: unwilling, truly, against the sacred Canons and consequently against his own conscience, to accept anything for temporal gain. And although he could have exhibited more liberal alms and expenses from several benefices than from one; yet he judged it better and more proper to bestow from a single one justly obtained, as he could, than, benefices being multiplied, to offer a sacrifice of praise from what was leavened.

[53] nor was he distressed by temporal losses, And because the things possessed with love are not lost without grief, from this can be conjectured how much this Saint had withdrawn his mind from the love of temporal things, who could not even show signs of grief at the loss of them. For when sometimes the burning of his houses and no small loss of his goods was announced, while his household lamented and grieved, he, with a serene face and more cheerful countenance, giving thanks to God, comforted those grieving, saying: "Be not sad: we still have whence to provide for ourselves in clothes and other necessaries." And he added: "Because we have not made lavish alms as we ought, these things have happened to us: and therefore we will and command, that from our goods henceforth the alms be made more liberal." O treasure of a generous mind, which, not knowing to fail amid failures, knew from the very failure to increase profit. But this is found only in those in whose hearts the failure of temporal things does not change the pious affections of charity. O word of Blessed Jerome verified in the experience of this Saint: nor by the old debts of his Church: "To the believer the whole world is of riches, but to the unbeliever even an obol is lacking." I confess, a wretch, I once wished to persuade him that for alleviating the debts of his diocese he should spare expenses, moderate costs: and scarcely had I ended the words, when the Saint subjoined: "Brother," he said, "this obligation of our diocese is not my iniquity nor my sin: why should I be thus punished for the sin of others, that I should withdraw from my guests the honor due, or alms from the poor? But neither is it just that I bring want upon my own house: because neither does this befit a Bishop."

[54] Truly for the praise of this Saint I am compelled to break forth into the words of the Bride, with which she praises the Bridegroom in the Canticles, having hands such as the Bridegroom's "His hands are turned, golden, full of hyacinths." Cant. 5:13 By "hands" the works of giving, which are done with the hands, are signified; these are "turned," because of easy motion; since he gave cheerfully. "His," she says: because he was zealous to give from his own and not from another's. "Golden": because even in precious things in giving he did not spare. "Full": because he had learned to give abundantly. His gifts could be compared to hyacinths, which have a heavenly color; because in giving and bestowing he fixed his intention on heavenly things. And that from eye-witness I may insert some things: I saw a certain man whom the Saint had arranged to honor with his gift, and entering at the hour of dining, he asked for water for washing: and when the man whom he had arranged to honor held a towel for his hands, as is the custom; the Bishop, having laid aside the ring which he wore on his finger, gave it to him, as if to be kept while he washed himself. And when after the drying of his hands he wished to hand back to the Bishop the ring which he was holding; he placed it on his own finger, saying, "Behold we have another, because in memory of us that shall remain with you." But what? So was he witty, so liberal, so courtly, so cheerful in countenance, that he could deservedly claim for himself the favor of all.

[55] To his stewards and ^h bailiffs, under peril of their souls and the attestation of divine judgment, ⁱ he terribly forbade them from unjustly exacting anything from the free men or those pertaining to him, or from vexing them with superfluous and undue exactions: nor did he permit anything to be extorted from his own, but the Saint himself, to such coming to him, sometimes even remitted mercifully those things which belonged to him by right. And not only this, but when sometimes his Stewards had, from certain of his men, received money in the name of mercy, because of their transgression, as is wont; having heard a complaint about this, he severely rebuked his Stewards on this account: and the very money, already received by his chamberlain, he commanded and caused to be restored without delay to those from whom it had been exacted, or received as a fine, preferring, according to the prophetic word, to "cast out avarice from calumny" rather than grow rich through it. Isa. 33:15 And while he was always most liberal in giving, in receiving, however, he often showed himself difficult: not unmindful of that word, of which Paul asserted in the Acts of the Apostles that we should be mindful, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." But from those who sometimes agitated causes before him by ordinary or delegated jurisdiction, or gifts to be admitted: he was wont in this case alone to contract those hands, prepared to extend themselves in the blessings of sweetness and in conferring gifts: worthy indeed of the deserved praise and reward of the just, of whom Isaiah says, "Who shakes his hands from every gift." Acts 20:35 And since "a gift" is not only from the hand, but also from the tongue and from service; rejecting the first, and the second (namely, the tongue of those praising and flattering him), he either utterly declined them, or with disgrace sharply rebuked them, saying with the Psalmist, "Let not the oil of the sinner anoint my head": namely, lest vainglory or flattery should be the extinction of the light of serene conscience; being cautious also lest with the foolish virgins he should buy oil too dearly, which afterward would exclude him from the joy of the nuptials at the coming of the Bridegroom. Isa. 37:15; Ps. 140:5 How he would have admitted the gift of undue service, when he frequently refused services even from those who were bound to serve him by right?

[56] But also I shall not be silent about this praise of his liberality and charity, which is established by faithful testimony and beyond every exception, deposited in the attestations of his sanctity; a truly good Pastor, namely, that he had so clothed himself with the bowels of charity and liberality within, and as regards the signs of actions and words without, with patience; that he was ready to disembowel himself that he might feed others, and to expose his own body to death that he might save others; by the example of the good Pastor, who to feed and redeem his own, emptied himself and laid down his life for us; Gregory so saying, "Christ the good Pastor laid down his life for the sheep, that he might convert his Body and Blood into our sacrament, and might fill the sheep which he had redeemed with the food of his flesh." Nor undeservedly do I think the name and omen of good Pastor should be attributed to Blessed Richard, who by the example of Paul, nay more of Christ, and liberal even in poverty was ready to lay out not only his own but also himself for his own. But neither can I be silent that the same Saint, leading his life abroad because of debts, that meanwhile for the time being he might spare expenses, and in some part might unburden himself of debts; while I was present and knowing with eye-witness, bestowed donations in gold and silver of vessels and furniture (although he then lived on another's stipend) so liberally upon pious uses from things very necessary for himself, as if remaining in his own diocese, he abounded in riches.

[57] O how deservedly the Wisdom of God the Father appointed this holy man the vicar and successor to those to whom he speaks saying, "You are the light of the world!" For nothing is more common than light: for as much to the rich

as to the poor, indifferent toward all, nay to those of middle rank and to all, it communicates its benefit, nay itself: and because, according to what is said, "Good is of itself communicative," not unreasonably, Blessed Richard, not only most liberal in dispensing his own, but even himself and even beyond himself, as I think, any one possessed of sound sense would extol with the praise of goodness. Matt. 5:14 O how many are there today, who, ignorant of the riches of this goodness, even if they avariciously retain the things they possess, provided yet they do not unjustly possess the goods of others by robbery or in any other way, reckon themselves good, and think they will go free from punishment in vain in the final judgment; not recalling, having the heart blinded by avarice, what truth in the Gospel foretells, to be said by him as judge in judgment, "I was hungry and you did not give," and the rest of the negatives of the works of mercy; and therefore, "Go, cursed ones," and the rest. Matt. 25:42 What then will chastity, what abstinence's sparingness, and despising all earthly things in comparison with heavenly, what the longsuffering of vigils and prayers be able to avail in that dreadful judgment, if the works of mercy and largesse alone are lacking? since the just judge has promised the joy of the heavenly kingdom only to the doers of these, and to those lacking these the perpetual torment of infernal punishment. Blessed Richard revolving this in the memorial of his heart, and not even for a little handing it over to oblivion, did not delay to bestow earthly things abundantly, that he might gain eternal things; by the example of that Gospel merchant, seeking good pearls, who, at length one precious one being found, for her alone leaves what he possesses, scatters what he has gathered: nothing in earthly things now pleases, and whatever was pleasing in the appearance of an earthly thing is seen as deformed; because the brightness alone of the precious pearl shines in the mind, Blessed Gregory thus expounding the aforesaid parable, which I also thought not incongruously to be applied to Blessed Richard.

[58] But why do I strive to show from the proclamation of this Saint's liberality, how far from himself he was zealous to banish the vice of cupidity? To banish, I say, according to the Apostolic rule. he was zealous, and accomplished in work. For since Richard did not confine his liberality within the bounds of termini, how could the vice contrary to this virtue find under any term a hiding-place in his heart? Necessarily must cupidity be exiled far beyond the world's limit from him; because Blessed Richard's liberality exceeded the terms of the world. Whence also, because we cannot in words comprehend the good of such great virtue, which he so copiously deigned to infuse in him whose greatness is without end, now we must come to that place where the Apostle asserts that the Bishop or the one to be Ordained ought to be well set over his own house.

NOTES.

CHAPTER VI.

How Richard, according to the Apostle, was well set over his own house, and no neophyte.

[59] For Bishops have their house divided as it were in three, over each of which parts it is necessary that he be well set. The first is with the flock of Clerks of the Cathedral church, the second his own proper household, the third the whole plebs of subjects. Over the first Blessed Richard was set, as master over disciples; over the second, as a father of a family over sons; over the third, as a nurse over little ones. And because, as for Clerks as Ambrose says, "The first ardor of learning is the nobility of the master," adorning himself thoroughly with nobility of morals, he was zealous to attract suitable disciples to his teaching, namely mature in age, decorated in morals, instructed in literary knowledge. And judging maturity of age suitable for discipleship, mature in age knowing that the mind of boys is light, their morals immature, and therefore less capable of wisdom, "Whom shall he teach knowledge," according to Isaiah, "or whom shall he make to understand the hearing? Those weaned from the milk, drawn away from the breasts": because in little boys is verified what the Prophet adds, "Command, command again." Is. 28:9 & 10 And again: "Command, command again discipline to prebended and beneficed boys; accustomed to read without regard to kinsmen, and concerning doctrine and discipline you will find what follows, 'A little there, a little there.'" Therefore he did not admit even his own immature kinsmen to benefices, unwilling to "build Sion with bloods": and understanding that the Prince of pastors, gave the keys of heaven, not to the young man who followed him clothed with linen, that is, to John the Evangelist his kinsman; but to the elder Peter, in no way pertaining to him in a carnal way. John 13:15 And why, except for the example of future Prelates, did he do this who said, "I have given you an example, that you also should do so?" which, according to Chrysostom on John, he wished to be understood not only in the washing of feet, but also in other things. He willed also that his disciples be adorned with morals; he wished them to be adorned with morals, desiring with the Maccabees to adorn the face of the temple with crowns, that is, worthy of a crown; and with gold ones, similar to gold in the splendor of life. He willed also that his disciples be instructed in literary knowledge; that they should not now have to be imbued with the first elements and knowledge; but be able in faith and morals and the perfection of knowledge: fearing truly lest he should offer the lame or blind to the Lord, against the precept of the Law. For he who has affection and not understanding, he is lame: but he who is ignorant, is blind and groping with the hand. He therefore wished to have good and useful disciples for his Church, for he was well set over the Church. and as much as lay in him to promote; teaching them wisely, sweetly, and joyfully: wisely, that he might instruct; sweetly, that he might entice, joyfully, that he might bend those obstinate in their own sense, if any were.

[60] To this part therefore he was well "set over," not ill substituted; as a degenerate progeny, through the cautious suborning of the electors: not by the armed prayers of Princes, nor by the price of any corrupt or corrupting persons, but of the true father, vicar of Christ, husband of the mother Church, by the gratuitous creation and gracious collocation, called by God as Aaron, was well set over the house of the Church of Chichester. He was also well set "over," that is, set above others on high, not ill set beneath: who having the first seat, had not the lowest life; but with the seat of honor gave example of holier life. Nevertheless he was well set over this house, that is, set preeminently, as the weather-vane ^a rises above the whole building: which the higher it is raised, the more it is opposed in front to the rushing tempests: so Blessed Richard, to whose adversaries he also fearlessly opposed himself. set above the rest by Pontifical dignity, was unwilling to lie hidden in leisure; but against whatever powers adverse and inflicting injury on the liberty of his Church, he was manfully zealous to oppose himself: certainly immune from that prophetic rebuke, by which he rebukes pastors slothful and torpid, saying: "You have not gone up against the adversary, you have not opposed yourselves as a wall for the house of Israel, that you might stand in the battle for the house of the Lord." Ezek. 13:5 For he had learned from that excellent Soldier of Christ, namely Blessed Edmund, while he was yet a new recruit warring under him, how he ought to oppose and expose himself against the powers contrary to the Church in similar causes. Which perhaps the aforesaid Blessed Edmund foreseeing in spirit, and prenouncing by deed the annoyances which Blessed Richard, the future Pontiff, should suffer; bequeathed to him in his last will the cup from which he was wont to drink, as if he said that which Christ is said to have said to the sons of Zebedee in the Gospel, "My cup indeed you shall drink." Matt. 20:23 The bitterness of this draught, which Blessed Richard drank, could at present be shown by many examples: but because in the foregoing we have touched on some, for the sake of the fastidious we at present pass them by in silence.

[61] He took care to have modest familiars, Also he was set over the second part of the house, namely over his own household, as the father of a family over his sons; striving to have them modest, prudent and faithful in all things. Modest indeed, that he might say what King David said of his household: "Walking in the unspotted way, this man ministered to me: he who works pride shall not dwell in the midst of my house: he who speaks unjust things has not been directed in the sight of my eyes." Ps. 100:16 Hence also the Apostle, describing elsewhere the Bishop, says, "Having sons subject in all chastity." 1 Tim. 3:4 For about to say, "Subject in chastity," he added "in all": that not only in work, but also in heart and in mouth the Pontiff's household may be chaste and modest. But in this matter, that is of modesty, Blessed Richard was so jealous and fervent, that having convicted any of his own of incontinence, however necessary and dear, he would irrecoverably expel him from his service: unwilling to neglect in his own the modesty which he was so zealous to embrace and love in himself: wishing also to be cautious lest the vice of his household should be turned to reproach, by those saying, "As the ruler of the city, so also those who dwell in it": and that ethical, "In company morals are formed": dreading also that terrible imprecation with which the Psalmist says, "Let death come upon them, and let them go down into hell alive: for wickedness in their dwellings, in the midst of them." Eccli. 10:2; Ps. 54:16 For this reason therefore he so burned with the fervor of zeal against such, that he would expel with great disgrace those who had done such things from his household; and would severely and publicly punish the women, accomplices of their incontinence; and would cause the little houses in which they had perpetrated such things to be utterly cast down; so that you would have seen him represent another Phinees in this matter. And although if he heard such men corrected, coming at some time to his table, he received and addressed them kindly, yet by the intervention

or prayers of any he would in future never join them again to his household.

[62] also prudent in managing temporal matters, He wished also, like a diligent father of a family, to have his sons prudent: that they might sagaciously understand what, to whom, how, and when each should dispense in the ministry committed to him. For although in all things and through all, liberality was dear to him, knowing that it was the patrimony of the Crucified whence he lived; he was unwilling that indiscreet prodigality should consume it. For this reason also he wished the sons of his household to be prudent, that their industry might becomingly provide him with the necessaries of the present day, lest he should be importunely distracted from the divine and spiritual offices which were more to his heart; not unmindful of that Gospel word, "Seek first, that he himself might more freely devote himself to spiritual things: that is, principally, the kingdom of God and his justice, and all these things" (namely the supports of the present life, which there also he wished to be understood literally) "shall be added to you." Luke 12:31 For he seemed to pant with all effort toward this, that he, stripped in heart, act, and mouth of every occupation and care of earthly things, might wholly attend to the divine: fulfilling that of the Apostle, "I shall sing with the spirit, I shall sing also with the mind: I shall pray with the spirit, I shall pray also with the mind." 2 Cor. 14:15 This also which he himself did in this matter, he willed his subjects to do, nay and all whom he knew to be present at saying or hearing the divine Office. Whence when once, in the presence of another Pontiff, he saw him occupied in other affairs, and treating with certain men at the time of chanting the Psalms, not able to restrain the fervor of his spirit: "Behold, Brother" (directing his words to me), he said, "how our Master conducts himself, attending to other things with the divine Office set aside." And he added: "It is your duty to admonish him about this, that he may correct himself." He wished the sons of his household to be prudent also: because "prudent" according to Haymo is said as if "seeing afar": that is, in every place and time, they should diligently attend to the things pertaining to the utility of their lord; not serving to the eye, nor giving themselves to idleness, but with intent occupation always providing something useful. For Origen says on Genesis, where Abraham received three Angels in hospitality: "Abraham hastens, Sara quickens her pace, the servant runs: in the house of the wise no one is idle."

[63] Also faithful in all things in mind, hand, and tongue he both wished and diligently admonished them to be: and finally faithful knowing that in a good servant fidelity must be joined with prudence, according to that, in mind, "Faithful and prudent, whom the Lord has set over his family," and so on. Matt. 24:45 And he wished them to have fidelity of mind and mouth, knowing that it is written: "Woe to the double heart and to wicked lips," and so on. Eccli. 2:14 It is a double heart, when one has one thing in mind, and shows outwardly another by word or work. But wicked lips are excommunicated lips: namely, which do not communicate with the heart. "Deceitful lips," says the Psalmist, "have spoken in heart and heart." Augustine says, "What is 'in heart and heart'? unless 'with a double heart.'" Ps. 11:3 And very deservedly did he wish the vice of duplicity to be far from his own, because it has troubled many who had peace; which peace the Lord himself, the highest Father of the family, first and principally willed to be commended to every house, saying to his disciples: "Whatever house you enter, first say, Tongue Peace to this house." Luke 9:4 Worthily then Blessed Richard, a vehement lover of peace and an efficacious reconciler of those in discord, that he might eliminate the causes of discord far from him, wished his own to be sons of truth, and consequently of peace. Zech. 8:19 Whence also the Prophet, joining the aforesaid virtues, said, "Love peace and truth." For those double in heart and double-tongued are wont to instil whispers and detractions in the ears of lords: which Blessed Richard above all detested, not unaware of what is written: "A whisperer and a double-tongued man shall be cursed among the peoples"; and that: "A prince who gladly hears lying words, and in hand: shall have all his ministers wicked." Eccli. 28:15; Prov. 29:12 He wished also his sons to be faithful in hand: lest, by infidelly handling the goods of the poor or the patrimony of the Crucified, they should incur sacrilege. For he had learned that not to give the goods of the poor to the poor is sacrilege, nay also, Jerome testifying, "exceeds the cruelty of all robbers." In every way therefore he wished his own to be faithful, lest if they did otherwise, they should incur that fault and mark which the Prophet says: "Your princes are faithless, companions of thieves": and Solomon: "He who shares with a thief, and so he was well set over his house, hates his soul." Isa. 1:23; Prov. 19:24 It is clear therefore why he willed the sons of his household (for so he was accustomed to name them) to be faithful.

[64] In this part therefore he was well set over his own house, not set beneath it: because he ruled them, and did not subject himself to their arrangements: though he did not spurn their sound counsels; but, when for the exigency of affairs he consulted the more discreet, as the discreet and wise man, he prudently admitted what seemed more advisable from the collation of those assisting and from his own discretion, and did not omit to prosecute this: not being unaware of that sentence of the Lord, to whom when the disciples had advised saying, not subjected. "Master, the Jews now wished to stone you, and will you go again into Judea?" he answered, "Are there not twelve hours in the day?" John 11:9 as though he said, with Blessed Augustine expounding, "Since I am the true day, and you twelve, who are my disciples, are as the hours of the day; it is just that you should follow me, who am the day; and not I, you": because truly it is very just, that the flock be directed by the counsel of the pastor, not the pastor be subjected to the counsel of the flock: unless perhaps the pastor be less wise, or seek counsel for the good of peace, or in this also show a form of humility. Also he well presided, as a father of the family, over his sons, giving them from himself the form of justice, the teachings of discipline, and the necessities of the present life.

[65] The third part of the Pontiff's house is the whole people of the whole diocese. He was zealous as toward little ones to cleanse his Diocesans who were filthy, Over this part also Blessed Richard was well set, as a nurse over little ones. For to the nurse it pertains to cleanse the filthy little one, to pacify the crying, to feed the hungry. So Blessed Richard cleansed the simpler folk, as little ones, squalid with the filth of sins, by the word of holy preaching, by the tearful compunction of pious prayer, by the discipline of severe correction. I say he cleansed by the word of holy preaching, supported by his help and instructed by the example of him who says to his disciples in the Gospel, "You are now clean because of the word which I have spoken to you." John 15:3 Likewise he cleansed them by the tearful compunction of pious prayer: for tears wash away offense; and consequently cleanse the subject: not only namely him who weeps, but also another for whom pious tears are poured out. Hence it is that in Ezekiel the foreheads of those groaning the sins of the house of Israel are bidden to be signed with "Thau." Ezek. 9:4 Whence to the mother of Blessed Augustine, weeping for the error of her son, it was said: "It cannot be that the son of these tears should perish." Likewise he cleansed them by the discipline of severe correction, because indeed "sometimes the rod of discipline drives away the folly of sin bound up in the heart," Solomon testifies: and as he says to a father chastising his son, "You shall strike him with the rod, and shall deliver his soul from death." Prov. 22:15 & 23:14

[66] He also pacified those crying or weeping, because he joined those weeping and confessing their sins pacifying those mourning, to the peace and unity of the church, by consoling them, fostering them, and embracing them with the bowels of compassion, by the example of him who says through Isaiah that he was sent, "that he might heal the contrite of heart, and preach to the captives forgiveness, and liberty to the bound, and to place consolation for the mourners of Sion." Isa. 61:1 He was also well set over this part of his house, to feed the hungry. as a nurse over little ones, to whom he gave the pasture of simpler doctrine, saying with the Apostle, "As to little ones in Christ I gave you milk to drink, not food." Likewise by the example of a good life, that to him may be referred what is written of David in the Psalm: "He fed them in the innocence of his heart, and in the understandings of his hands" (that is, in works formed by the understanding of an innocent heart) "he led them." 1 Cor. 3:2; Ps. 77:72 Likewise by the food of bodily nourishment, to whoever offered this food most largely, as one of the ministers of that King's household, who when about to make the marriage of his son said, "Whomsoever you shall find, call to the wedding." Indeed in the threefold pasture, which we have premised, he willed to fulfill what we read the Lord thrice said to Peter, "Feed my sheep." Matt. 22:9; John 21:15 Blessed Richard, at length, was well set over every part of his house; the first, as over the more secret chamber; the second, as the more common hall; the third, as the outer portico.

[67] Now what is placed at the end of the Apostolic rule concerning the condition of the Pontiff or the one to be ordained, A neophyte is forbidden to be ordained on account of the danger of pride: must be said: "Not a neophyte," he says. Who of those at least who have known Blessed Richard's life either by the report of fame, or by present conversation, or by reading the writing, will not plainly deny him to be a neophyte? For from his earliest childhood diligently imbued with the rudiments of the faith, the faith itself he is proved to have brightly adorned throughout the whole course of his life with pious morals, holy works, and splendors of knowledge: and he established the structure of his life upon so solid a foundation of humility, that the burden or honor of the Episcopal solicitude or dignity being imposed on him, he could not, God's grace protecting, incur the ruin of Lucifer's elation (which the Apostle names "the judgment of the devil," which he feared the neophyte also would fall into). O if one knew his signs of humility, his services of humiliation, his evident signs of meekness; you would judge him not at all unmindful of that teaching with which Tobias instructed his son: "Never," he says, "permit pride to rule in your sense or in your word." Tob. 4:14 And, to be silent about the other signs of true humility, Richard moreover was most humble as often as he had to speak of himself, when the matter required it, he called himself not Pontiff or Bishop of Chichester, but rather Priest: not unaware of the illustrious name of that elated Lucifer, how he stood open to pestilential ruin. He knew also that his prayers, which he frequently and fervently offered to the Lord, the more from a humble heart they were poured out, the more efficaciously in the heavenly audience they obtained what they asked; because, as it is written, "The prayer of him that humbles himself shall pierce the clouds." Eccl. 35:21

[68] He was of such meekness also, that when at Matins preceding the sun and the daybreak, if he found his Clerks, as is wont to happen, most meek, pausing heavy with sleep, meanwhile betaking himself to private prayers, he would let them rest in peace, as if sweetly saying that saying of the Lord

"Sleep now, and take your rest." Matt. 14:41

For he had so led the custom of rising early ^b for zeal of praying and chanting psalms, that if even in the spring or summer time, and devoted chiefly to the zeal of praying, when the nights are known to be ended in a shorter space, he did not precede the dawn and the trumpet of watches, groaning and as it were grieving, he would complain, saying: "Alas! the birds of heaven, irrational creatures, praising their Creator by singing, have today preceded me a wretch." For, desiring to gather the heavenly manna, he knew it was needful to precede the sun for the blessing, and to adore at the rising of the light. Nor was he himself content to bring the zeal of prayer, by the use of pious devotion, into a virtuous custom; but as a "curtain drawing a curtain," commending the utility of holy prayer to those of both sexes familiar to him, incited them to the devout instance of such praiseworthy exercise. He also persuaded, according to the doctrine of the Apostle, that the mind of him who prays should sometimes take up entreaty, sometimes prayer, sometimes petition, sometimes thanksgiving; either to arouse the devotion of the one praying; or to avoid the temptation of weariness or acedia: and he was zealous to instruct those dear to him for the understanding of the aforesaid ways of praying. Phil. 4:6 in which also he profited by reading the Office of the Holy Trinity: Whence when he was taking care to instruct a certain noble person, very familiar and dear to him, about this, and it had come to the point that he should teach her how thanksgivings should be composed; while he was solicitously meditating on this, sleep crept on; and (as he deigned to relate to me with sacred mouth) he heard a voice as if fallen from on high: "Look at the History ^c of the Holy Trinity." And he, being awakened, by turning over the aforesaid History, found in it "Honor, praise, blessing, glory," and also the same thanksgiving expressly chanted. And because it is written, "Give occasion to the wise, and wisdom shall be added to him," the matter thence taken, he fulfilled what he desired. Prov. 9:9 which when it was being written in the monastery of St Amand,

[69] Now what divine and worthy of relation I have known about this History of the Trinity, since the material offers itself, I have thought should be narrated. When we were heading for the town of Valenciennes in the land of the Count ^d of Flanders, where then the general Chapter ^e of the Friars Preachers was about to be celebrated, many of the Brothers turning aside to the monastery ^f of Saint Amand, placed not far from the aforesaid place; and the Abbot ^g and monks of the same place granted us gracious hospitality, among other words of holy edification, a conversation was held about the aforesaid History of the Holy Trinity. When behold a certain monk of venerable gray hair, of no small authority among the rest, subjoined: "A certain monk ^h of this monastery," he said, the place was found where the writer had ceased. "well learned and venerable in religion, composed, or rather compiled, in ancient times the History of which we speak. And when he was studiously intent on arranging a certain Responsory of the aforesaid History, the hour of night coming on too late, he left the work begun unfinished, and shut the volume in which he had written under lock. But when morning came, returning to the place of study to complete the work begun, what he had left unfinished, the closure of the chest being safe, he found, not by human work or genius, already completed: and wondering not a little, he announced this very thing to the Brothers. completed by a miracle. And the Responsory itself, unless I am mistaken, he named, ⁱ 'To the highest Trinity.'" Who would presume, with rash daring, to deny that the Spirit of him, who willed to complete the unfinished work of the aforesaid monk, incited also Blessed Richard, studying about the thanksgiving, in a vision to consider the work of the same History? But this must be left to the knowledge of him who works when he wills, and where he wills, and what he wills, and how he wills.

[70] And, to return to what we left by way of occasion; how much the devout libations of holy prayer pleased Blessed Richard, is shown at least in this, that when he was visiting religious men, or receiving those coming to him with the holy kiss, he was wont to say: "It is good to kiss lips fragrant with the incense of holy prayers offered to God with the fervor of devotion": commemorating this very thing from the custom of Blessed Edmund, How much Richard made of prayer, as he used to say. But what? So did he commend and venerate the zeal of praying in others, so in himself had he obtained the instance of prayer from the giver of graces, that it was not doubtful that he was a citizen of that Jerusalem, upon whom the Lord promised through Zechariah to pour out "the spirit of grace and of prayers." Zech. 12:10 But it pleases me to insert a certain vision, which appeared to a certain noble matron about the Saint, before he departed from this life, and also the Saint's letter expository of the vision. For it seemed to the aforesaid matron, that as in a certain ecstasy she heard a voice fallen to her saying: "The time will be brief: He always runs round: since Richard is with you." Whom when he had learned to be troubled over such a vision, he wrote her a letter containing these words: "To live in God, to be always in God, and to please God: which will be, on the heights not to savor high things, but to consent to the humble. There is nothing which so makes men agreeable to God and to men, as that by merit of life they be great, and by humility be the lowest. I cannot understand otherwise of you than of myself, because between us there is nothing else but truth, nor ever shall be. Therefore I do not care what the vanity of the world says.

[71] from a certain letter of his it is declared. "I understood that a certain vision in sleep must have troubled you, and this is not necessary: for great consolation lies in the aforesaid vision, to one understanding it well. 'The time will be brief.' It is true: for of time nothing can be held but a point: for of past time nothing is had, of the future, truly, nothing; but that which is present of time, is as a point or rather nothing: and therefore time is well said to be brief, and this is what Job says, 'The days of man are brief'; and elsewhere, 'My days are nothing.' Job 14:5 & 5:16 'He always runs round.' A circle becomes round, when the extremities of the circumference are joined, that is, the beginning and the end: and it signifies him who is called 'Alpha and Omega.' You know well also, that what is round is easily moved and runs; whereas a triangular or quadrangular thing is not moved: and it is written, 'Run, that you may obtain.' 1 Cor. 9:24 Is it necessary then to run? Yes. It is good therefore to be round, that one may run. And he runs swiftly, who loves ardently; he runs more swiftly, who loves more ardently. 'Since Richard is with you.' This is true from whole to whole. Let us therefore run that we may obtain, since in the stadium we are one in Christ Jesus. Dearest, here is no cause of disturbance: but let us think, that we may change this brevity into eternity, the brief time into the everlasting. 'Since Richard is with you,' pray the high King of heaven that he may have mercy on me, because I am with you: ask that God may give me virtue and will to do penance in this life, for you equally and for me, as he knows will be necessary to us: for St Gregory says, 'It is clear that he wished to hide from his judgment those whom, mercifully preceding, he made judges to themselves': and I say confidently, because after death we shall not need a saving victim, if before death we shall have been a victim to God himself. Let us therefore help one another, and run together, to finish our course through love."

NOTES.

CHAPTER VII.

Miracles performed by St Richard while he lived.

[72] St Richard raises up a contracted boy. Nor were divine prodigies of virtues lacking to the holy man, so distinguished for the sanctity of his morals, of which we think some at present to be inserted. When one day, namely before he was Bishop, at ^a Orpington in Kent, he had found a certain boy contracted and destitute of the office of his limbs, lying miserably before the door of the church, and asking aid of his misery from those passing by; the bowels of his mercy being stirred by compassion for the lying wretch, he had him carried to the house of his own dwelling, and, by the example of the Samaritan, had care taken of him. And when for some time the contracted one had stayed there, on a certain occasion the ^b Mayor and citizen of Chichester, named Reginald, was with the Saint, who seeing the wretch, asked who he was, or how

or whence he had come there. And Blessed Richard explaining to him the order of the matter and the condition of the wretch, the aforesaid Reginald answered: "Lord," he said, "have the boy brought into your presence, that, your hand being imposed, he may enjoy your blessing: for I am confident that by your holy blessing he will be cured." The Saint then had the boy brought at once to him, and giving a blessing, and drink being given him from the cup of Saint Edmund by his own hands, the boy was raised up and restored to health. O discreet circumspection of the man, giving him drink from the cup of St Edmund. and faithful, holy presumption on God's kindness! who both at the faith of the one praying, laid his hand upon the wretched one; and to flee empty glory, employed the suffrage of his former father and master, namely Blessed Edmund. I think the firm confidence of the Saint in God's kindness, and the victory over vainglory, is to be preferred to the sign or miracle: for I think what the Lord says to the disciples, returning with joy on account of the power of signs, pertains to this: "I saw Satan falling from heaven like lightning." Luke 10:18 "Behold, I have given you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and upon all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you: nevertheless, rejoice not in this," and so on.

[73] It is also related, by the assertion of trustworthy reporters, that after the gift of consecration had been obtained, In place of a shoot planted by him, while Blessed Richard was still staying in the house of that venerable man, Lord Simon, of whom mention has been made above, for the sake of exercise or meditation he would enter the garden; and he saw the trunk of a tree, sufficiently apt in his judgment for a shoot to be grafted on. So splitting the trunk with his own hands, he made it capable of the shoot, and inserted the shoot. And when in course of time the grafted shoot had begun to put forth leaves, it was broken by animals entering the garden through the negligence of the gardener. It happened therefore, that about the Octaves of the Apostles Peter and Paul Blessed Richard, and broken by the gardener's negligence, who had departed thence for a time, returned there, and entered the aforesaid garden. When behold the aforenamed Lord Simon said to Blessed Richard: "Alas, I grieve, because the work of your hands is spoiled: for the graft which your hand planted has perished through the negligence of the gardener." "Not so," said Richard, "shall it remain entirely": and taking a knife, he cut another shoot from a nearby tree and inserted it into the trunk already mentioned: and, wonderful to relate! he who once willed the rod of Aaron to germinate, flower, and bring forth fruit without the aid of moisture, himself, beyond the course of nature, at that time when the nourishing moisture flows more out of plants or trees than flows into them life for their being nourished, by a stupendous miracle made Blessed Richard's graft to green and grow, in another season he substitutes a new one: and in the same year to bring forth flowers and fruit: by which miracle it was sufficiently declared that Blessed Richard was called and chosen by God as Aaron, with the divine testimony in the book of Numbers thus agreeing: "Whom I shall choose of these, his rod shall germinate." Plainly an apt and fitting prodigy of the blessed man, of whom is written in the Psalm, under the metaphor of a fruitful tree: "All things whatsoever he shall do shall prosper": and Jeremiah: "His leaf shall be green, and in the time of drought he shall not be anxious: nor shall he ever cease to bring forth fruit." Num. 17:5; Ps. 1:3; Jer. 17:8

[74] he does not diminish the substance of his host: Another thing also, while Blessed Richard was conversing in the aforesaid house of Lord Simon, the Lord willed to show as an indication of his sanctity: for he who gave increase to the shoot planted by the Saint himself, showed through him by the flowing abundance of temporal things that at his entrance he had blessed the house of the Lord Simon already often named. For when for no little space of time the Saint had stayed there, and on account of his presence copious expenses were incurred, it was found at the end that the barns were filled with no less fullness of abundance of fruits, the storerooms overflowed, the repositories were stuffed, the cellars were redundant; by him blessing through the merits of Richard, and opening his hand, who promised through Malachi to "pour out blessing unto abundance": through whom also "the pitcher of meal of the widow feeding Elijah was not diminished, and the cruse of oil was not lessened." Mal. 3:10; 3 Kings 17:12

[75] To this is added, that when the same Saint was in a certain manor of his named ^c Catham, he multiplies beans to be distributed to the poor: and so great a multitude of the poor was flowing to him that bread was not sufficient; provision was made that, for the completion of the alms, a part of the provision of beans should be cooked. And when by chance the Bishop was passing through the place where the beans were being cooked, and he had understood that, for the distribution to be made to the poor, for lack of bread, beans were being cooked there; lifting his hand he gave a blessing, not void of the liberality of the divine gift: for when the love-feast to be distributed was hardly thought able to suffice for a third part of the multitude, he felt such largeness of his blessing, that each received a suitable sustenance for one day, and from the remainder some portion remained to be distributed: those present wondering and praising God.

[76] A candle miraculously rekindled in his hand Also in the aforesaid place of Catham the true light, which enlightens every man coming into this world, showed how truly Richard belonged to the lot of those to whom it was said, "You are the light of the world." For when on the day of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin the Saint himself was celebrating the solemn Office there, and the ministrations of the procession were performed in memory of those going forth to meet Christ; the candle which the Bishop bore in his hand, and also the candles of all who on that day according to custom bore lighted candles, were extinguished by the blast of a heavier breeze. And when for some time they had proceeded with the candles so extinguished, suddenly, the others wondering, the candle of the Bishop alone was rekindled with light. And when the Prelate, astonished, saw his own candle suddenly rekindled, he said to one of his standing beside him, he orders silence to be kept. "Who has kindled my candle?" And when he answered, "No one, Lord," the Bishop enjoined silence on the same, saying, "Be silent." For he was unwilling from the miraculous light to acquire for himself the light of vainglory, as if saying that of the Lord: "I receive not glory from men." John 5:41 O lamp worthily lifted upon the candlestick of the Church! who spurned the blast of popular breath, and directed the ray of his light to the Father of lights with sincere intention.

[77] To those laboring in vain at fishing Blessed Richard once being asked by the venerable and religious man John, formerly Prior of ^d Selborne, of the Order of St Augustine, in the diocese of Winchester, to turn aside to his house for the sake of being entertained; since the same Prior was known and dear to him from boyhood, and both were born of the same township and fellow-students in the same Study; bound by his prayers he turned aside to the aforesaid monastery. The Prior therefore, rejoicing not a little at the arrival of so great a guest (as he who had known very well that God was with him), in the Saint strove with all effort to honor the Lord, and in the Lord, him. Whence, as Martha solicitous about many things, not content with the things that were in sight, wishing to explore the hidden things of the inner parts; "Lord," he said to Blessed Richard, "may it please you to come down with us to the water, if perhaps by God's gift in your presence we may be able to catch some fish." The Saint assented, and went down with the Prior and others to a certain pond not far distant. And when, the net being cast with the greatest diligence, they had labored in drawing the catch, they caught nothing: he obtains a pike by his blessing. for the seine had been so rolled up and entangled, that it seemed it could neither catch nor retain fish. When, with their hope frustrated, they were already prepared to return, Master Nicholas of Wych, kinsman and familiar of Blessed Richard, who stood among the rest, said to the Saint: "Lord, raise your right hand and give a blessing." He gave it: and behold a pike, three feet long or more, lay stretched out upon the cords of the seine, restrained by no retention of the thread or cord of the seine or its mesh, but as if drawn and enticed out of the waters by the blessed man's blessing. Then all who were present, blessing God, ascribed this to the divine miracle and the Saint's merits.

[78] in a similar manner marine fish Not wholly dissimilar to the aforesaid miracle was that which we subjoin. When one day in his diocese he was making a passage through the bridge of Lewes, he saw fishermen very solicitous about catching fish. A certain one of the bailiffs of the Lord of Canterbury, intent on those fishing, was standing on the bridge: who, having reverently saluted the Bishop, said: "Lord, we have long labored and caught nothing: wait now, if it please you, a little, for the outcome of one throw, and give your blessing, that in it we may cast the net." And smiling, the Saint stood still, and with right hand raised blessed both the water and the fishermen, and said, "Cast now in the name of the Lord." And they, casting, drew; and bringing forth the net to the land, they found four exceedingly beautiful fish, which in the vernacular are called ^e mullets, such as were not wont to be caught in that water; in a river he provides fish for they are rather marine than fluvial. Whence it must not be incredible that the Creator of waters, at whose blessing "the waters brought forth every living and moving creature according to their kinds," even at the invocation of his name, by the blessing of his servant, brought forth fish such as he willed, and whence he willed. Whence the servant of Christ, ascribing nothing to himself of the miracle, had those fish offered to him carried to the Friars Minors who were staying in the same town; asserting that for their sake God had given those fish. At another time nevertheless, crossing a certain bridge of ^f Bramre, he saw fishermen who, laboring almost the whole day, had caught nothing, and seeing the Bishop, cried in a loud voice: "Lord, for the charity of God give us your blessing, because we have now labored in vain for so much time of the day." at another time a copious catch And the Saint, compassionating the wretched, with hand extended gave a blessing, and immediately they, casting the net, enclosed a copious multitude of fish.

[79] But now that in him may be verified what is written in the Psalm, "I shall set his hand in the sea, and his right hand in the rivers"; he who in the rivers willed to show his hand marvelous, showed his right hand also powerfully marvelous and marvelously powerful in the sea. Ps. 88:26 For when the Lord had put into his heart, The translation of St Edmund being celebrated at Pontigny, that together with other Prelates and Magnates he should translate the venerable body of his Father and Lord, Blessed Edmund, buried at Pontigny, to a higher place in the same monastery ^g, accompanied by that noble boy of distinguished talent Edmund de Lacy (whom the Lord quickly snatched from the world, lest either he should see the evils of England, or malice should change his understanding), he crossed the sea, and came as far as Pontigny. The solemnity therefore having been performed with honor

worthy of the aforesaid translation, solicitous for the care of his flock, he hastens to return with great zeal. Whence, not even to the Bishop ^h of Auxerre, a certainly good man and very dear to him, who earnestly asked to retain him for alleviating the debts of his Church, did he in any way wish to consent, saying that he had pledged himself not for the care of the Church of Auxerre, he refuses to stay at Auxerre; but rather of Chichester. For to him that pledge was more at heart than the obligation of money: in this fact alone rebuking certain Prelates, and showing them reprehensible; who, leaving their flocks undefended, and the sons, through no fault of their own, murmuring and offended at the Fathers' absence, dare to wander or to stay abroad for the sparing of expenses.

[80] But the servant of God, Richard, not so: but pondering in mind that of Proverbs, "My son, if you have pledged yourself for your friend, you have engaged your hand to a stranger," he strove to hasten, that he might direct, pasture, and inform his flock. Prov. 6:1 Whence also coming to Wissant ⁱ, namely a port of the sea, after waiting for some time for a favorable breeze for crossing, he called the shipmaster, and instantly asked to be led across the strait. and committing himself to the stormy sea, But the shipmaster alleging the immensity of the storm, the Bishop said: "Greater is the divine power, which will be able to calm the tempest, and to render the sea tranquil." Having embarked therefore in the little ship, the Bishop with his own commits himself to the sea. And behold the storm began to increase beyond measure, and the sea went and swelled so much that the little ship was tossed here and there beyond the steersman's purpose, and was almost covered by the waves. And behold a man of praiseworthy life, William by name, one of the Saint's Chaplains, said to the shipmaster: "Why did you dare to commit my Lord and us to such great crisis? now therefore lead us back to land more quickly." When the shipmaster answered that he could by no means do this, the aforesaid Chaplain said to the Bishop: "Lord, placed in such great peril, we beseech you not to delay to bless." And the Bishop, comforting them, by blessing the little boat he delivers it from danger. with raised hand gave a blessing, and betook himself for a little to the tried refuge of prayer. And behold, wonderful to see: for while other much larger ships were still in such great storm and peril of the sea, that scarcely with the greatest labor could they save their life; the little ship alone, in which the Bishop was with his own, after the blessing given by him, with a tranquil and prosperous course, traversing what remained of the sea, came to Dover ^k; all who had seen or could know about this marveling.

[81] To Edmund de Lacy And since mention has been made of the aforesaid Edmund above, who by hereditary right, if he had lived, would have been Count of Lincoln ^l, it pleases now to relate something which pertains to the distinguished memorial of the aforesaid noble, and is not alien from the praise of this Saint. For the aforesaid noble had been instructed in good morals from boyhood: from the time, however, when he had joined himself to Blessed Richard, he was made from good better, from devout more devout, and from day to day more fervent in augmenting the cult of God and the honor of Mother Church: whence also the Lord had put it into his mind to found for the Friars Preachers, whom he embraced in Christ more specially than other Religious, a church and dwelling on his own estate. And because, counsel being held with deliberation, this seemed especially possible in that town which is called ^m Pons-fractus; he went in his own person to the place, building a church for the Preachers in honor of SS Mary, Dominic and Richard, with discreet men both religious and secular associated with him, that he might invest the Brothers with the land, and lay the first stone of the foundation with his own hands, as patron and founder of the place. And having taken up a stone to do this, he threw it down with these words, saying: "In honor of our Lady Mary, Mother of God and Virgin, and of Saint Dominic Confessor, to whose Brothers I assign this very place, and also of Saint Richard Bishop ^o and Confessor, formerly my Lord and dearest friend, wishing to found a church in this place, I cast the first stone."

[82] the foundation stone is divided in three. And having said this he cast the stone; and immediately the stone, in which previously no fracture or fissure had been seen, before all who were standing and wondering, divided itself into three parts, by the very division proclaiming its approval of Edmund's vow, which he had first expressed with living voice by pronouncing the three saints. Which being done, the aforesaid noble stood firmer in the holy resolve, and more ardent to perfect what he had promised, and the spoils of his body (inasmuch as not much later he closed his last day) he bequeathed to be buried among the Brothers in that very church. Now there is there a church built of becoming work, in which (as the aforesaid Edmund willed and distinguished, and the Lord confirmed by the miracle) are preserved first the memories of the Mother of God Mary, secondly of our blessed Father Dominic, and afterwards of the Blessed Richard, Bishop and Confessor: by whose merits and prayers may the Most High be propitious to the soul of the Edmund above recited, and to us sinners. Amen. But, Reader, I do not wish this to escape the sharpness of your mind, how fittingly God wished and inspired that the memories of Blessed Richard and of Saint Dominic, the first Master of the Friars Preachers, should be joined: that he to whose Order Blessed Richard had been bound only by vow and will, Richard by the sign of the Cross heals a diseased eye, might be understood as associated with his glory in heaven.

[83] But of the miracles of healings, which the Lord through the hands of this Saint, while this corruptible body still quickened, deigned to work, to the praise of the Lord himself let us subjoin some. Richard by the sign of the Cross heals a diseased eye, There was a certain noble Lady named Alice, surnamed Tyrel, sometime the table-companion and as it were the associate of that noble and high-born Countess of Arundel, Isabella de Aubeny, whom the said Countess, understanding to be an honest widow adorned with upright morals, held very dear and acceptable. When she was weighed down in her right eye by grave pain and such a cloud of darkness that she could not see her own finger placed before her; on a certain day the Saint coming, to whom she was especially dear, asked saying: "Lady, what have you in your eye?" But she: "Good Father," she said, "I suffer grievously in the right eye." The Saint compassionating her, prayer being first poured out, signed the eye with his finger, and immediately she felt a mitigation of pain, and recovered the full faculty of seeing.

[84] Another miracle also not unlike the preceding, he who came to enlighten those he restored another that was extinguished. who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, deigned to declare through his servant. For a certain Walter by name, who once ministered in the Saint's service, being severely afflicted with grave infirmity, had utterly lost the sight of one eye. And when the blindness itself, with the scourge of infirmity retreating, did not retreat, on a certain day standing before the Saint in exhibiting the ministry of his office, the Saint said: "What evil do you suffer in your eye?" He answers: "Lord, I am entirely deprived of the sight of that eye, by the grievousness of my former infirmity." And the Saint: "Come," he said, "to me." And when he had come, the Saint, advancing, placing his sacred right thumb on the eye, and sealing it with the sign of the vivifying Cross, blessed it: and a little interval being made, the blindness being driven away, he received light, blessing God and publicly ascribing this to the Saint's merits.

[85] Nor only by the touch of his sacred hands did God deign to work signs and virtues of healings, one sick with quartan is healed by touching his cope, but also, from the garments which he sometimes used, or the shoes with which he walked shod, or from the bed or place in which he rested, sick men felt that virtue had gone forth to the effect of health. For when once he had given a certain [p] cope, which he had used for a time, to a certain Chaplain dear to him out of the grace of familiarity, the same Chaplain, understanding the Bishop's sanctity, received the cope itself reverently, not so much for using as for storing in the place of Relics. It happened therefore in that parish over which the aforesaid Priest presided (for he was Vicar and Dean) that someone was laboring grievously with the type of quartan fever; whose infirmity the Priest compassionating, and not unmindful of his Relics, placed the cope given him by the Saint upon the sick man at the very hour of the fit, with certain hope and unfeigned faith; admonishing him to have sure confidence that he could be delivered by the merits of Blessed Richard. Immediately therefore, as the sick man felt and touched the cope, he escaped the fit, and fully recovered.

[86] A certain man also, Richard of Catham by name, was performing the office of bailiff or reeve, a gouty man by the use of his boots, as is commonly said, in Blessed Richard's service. This man, when he was frequently vexed by the gout, which they call arthritis, on a certain occasion was so tormented by it that he could hardly move his feet. Which when it had become known to the holy man, he sent to him certain [q] boots which he used to wear; and the sick man, shod in them, quickly proved by experience through the full cure of his disease what virtue, from the contact of the sacred feet of blessed Richard, could be in the skins even of a dead animal: for as he himself afterward confessed with living voice, he was so perfectly cured, that he did not afterward feel any remains of the disease.

[87] Saint Richard once turned aside to the Abbey of Begeham [r] of the Order of Premonstratensian in the diocese of Chichester, whom they received graciously and joyfully as an Angel of the Lord. It happened therefore, after the Saint's departure from the aforesaid monastery, that a certain Canon was vexed by great anguish of pain in all his members, and a sick man lying in his bed. so much that scarcely for pain he knew what he did. Yet not unmindful of the sanctity of the guest whom they had lately received; when the Saint's bed, in which he had rested, still remained unmoved; good counsel came to him, to place himself in the very bed with the hope of recovering health. So stretching himself upon the Saint's bed, striking his breast with his hands, he began to pray in these words: "Lord God, I ask that through the love of him who here but lately slept and rested, you may grant me health; as I truly believe that he is a Saint in your sight." Which being said, all infirmity of pain being taken away, he was immediately restored to full health.

NOTES.

p With the English the word "cappa" taken without addition, is now a cap or little cap: but for a hooded cloak (which other nations would understand), it is not used without some addition: which we would believe obtained in England even in the 13th century, were it not that Matthew Paris manifestly uses the same word for a little pallium: whereby here also we prefer to understand "pallium."

q A "Botta" is "Ocrea" (boot), a word common to English, French, and Spanish.

r Begeham is within the fourth mile from the town of Lewes across the river, about the year 1200 translated thither from Ottegam (where it had been founded a little before) with a new accession of many estates: concerning which see the charters of donations and the confirmation of King John in the English Monasticon.

CHAPTER VIII.

Remarkable revelation concerning Richard's Pontificate and future glory: his final labors for the Church: sickness, death, burial.

[88] Not only himself about himself, The eminent Pontiff Richard, therefore, mighty with such insignia of healings and prodigies, and adorned with the titles of merits, is known nevertheless to have shone with the spirit of prophecy: for he both knew that he himself was to be taken to the summit of the Pontificate of the chair of Chichester before the burial of his predecessor; and foretold the time of his death by the Spirit revealing. But also to others concerning him presages of the future were divinely shown by revelations and inspirations. For Blessed Edmund, while he was standing in his service, foretold by the spirit of prophecy that he was to be Pontiff: and to a certain Priest, an honest man and devout to God, a vision worthy of relation appeared about his Pontificate. For on the night next before the day but to another also it was revealed concerning him through a vision when he was to be taken to the Bishopric, he saw in a dream a house outwardly very beautiful. But considering with himself and turning over in mind, whether with like beauty it shone within as it was seen to shine without, he drew nearer, as it seemed to him, to explore: and looking in he saw two men, girded with Pontifical insignia, whom gazing at more diligently, he recognized by their faces that one of them was Blessed Edmund, formerly Archbishop of Canterbury, and the other Master Richard of Wych, whose Life we are at present weaving; upon whose head Blessed Edmund seemed to place a mitre. But wondering why he was being clothed with Pontifical vestments, who had not yet obtained the insula of the Prelacy, and having contemplated with diligent gaze, he saw a certain person of elegant form, clothed in white, with hand extended toward them, saying that which the Church pronounces in the Lauds ^a of the Apostles Peter and Paul: "Glorious princes of the earth, as they loved one another in their life, so also in death they were not separated."

[89] the future Bishop, That I may therefore say of the aforesaid vision what seems to me to portend; by the beautiful house we can take the universal Church figured: of which the exterior part is that which militates, but the interior part that which triumphs: in both however it is beautiful and decorous: but the interior part is more beautiful, because it lacks the stain of temptation and tribulation; the exterior, though beautiful, is less so, because both are discolored by the aforesaid stain: whence in the Canticle also it is said, "Beautiful as the moon," as to the exterior part; "Chosen as the sun," as to the interior part: in which both were seen, because "before the secular ages they were predestined in the lot of the Saints." Cant. 6:9 But that upon the head of Blessed Richard Blessed Edmund seemed to place the Pontifical mitre, this perhaps is given to be understood, that by the aid of his merit he was to obtain, by God's ordaining, the destined prize of glory. The man also who clothed in white with extended hand said, by the intervention of St Edmund, once his friend. "Glorious princes," etc., both suggests the proof of Angelic revelation, and this is given to be understood, that both Saints, namely Edmund and Richard, were distinguished with the princedom of their own flesh as of earth, and with the primacy of Apostolic height; and nevertheless by the bond of charity so indivisible, that death itself could not break the knot of unity between them: for Jerome says, "Those whom the bond of charity has joined, the distance of place cannot disjoin." To which understanding this also draws me, that St Edmund at the hour of his passage said he had long ago taken Blessed Richard to his bosom, so that deservedly they may be said "in death not to be separated." But when the Priest, to whom the vision was revealed, was solicitously thinking about it; on the morrow the rumor grew abundant, that Master Richard of Wych had been taken to the Bishopric of Chichester: and when because of this he heard "Te Deum laudamus" being chanted, he also with the rest praising God, narrated the vision.

[90] He converts a Jew to the faith: This also I think not to be passed over, how fervent an emulator of the Christian faith he was, desiring its cult to be augmented both in merit and in number, and laboring with all his strength to this end. Whence as for impeding the increase of Jewish perfidy, as we have foretold, he did not permit the building of a new Synagogue; so he wished to receive Jews coming to the sacrament of the true faith, for the increase of Mother Church. Whence also a certain Jew, instructed in the faith by him and asking for the grace of baptism, at Westminster, in the presence of the King and a multitude of nobles, he solemnly baptized with his own hands, imposing on him the King's name with the King's own favor, and gratefully adopting the baptized as a son: in this truly augmenting the joy of Mother Church from the offspring of new regeneration; and giving no small incentive to the perfidious Synagogue to convert itself to the true faith.

[91] After a life therefore resplendent with the glory of miracles, and illustrious for the honesty of morals, from the Apostolic commission. by which following Christ he had learned to bear his cross continually, through which the world was crucified to him and he to the world; at length, that under the mystery of the Cross as well as in its ministry, in Christ and with Christ, he might take a glorious end of life, he received delegated from the Apostolic See the preaching of the Cross for the aid of the Holy Land. He proceeds therefore as minister and glorious preacher of the Cross of Christ; seeking to glory not in the Roman commission's ^b "pegma," but in the stigma of the cross, crying with the Apostle, "But let it be far from me to glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." Gal. 6:14 Already the man seems to be represented to me, to whom it is said in Ezekiel, "Pass through the midst of the city, in the midst of Jerusalem; and mark Thau upon the foreheads of men grieving and groaning over all the abominations which are done in the midst of it." Ezek. 9:4 He preaches the Cross with great fervor For this man, like that man clothed with the Ephod of purity, bore "the writer's inkhorn on his loins," preferring the testimonies of Scripture to all delights with the Psalmist, who said, "I have delighted in the way of your testimonies, as in all riches." Ps. 118:14 Beginning therefore from the sanctuary of Chichester, passing through the maritime places, and through the diocese and city of the Metropolitan See — I mean Canterbury, in a certain way our Jerusalem, because of the precious pledges of the glorious Martyrs and Pontiffs Thomas ^c and Elphege and other Saints — he was zealous to submit the fierce necks of sailors to the yoke of the Cross, through his own diocese and that of Canterbury. and by showing the abominations of sins and the punishments following for their vindication, strove to strike grief and mourning into his hearers, and thus the cross of punishment, as the sign of Thau, wholesomely impressed on them. He labors therefore in the Lord's field as an untiring cultivator, and with the plow of the Cross joined with the share of the tongue, he breaks up earthly hearts; and as a sower of Christ's word, with the dew of heavenly blessing applied, he saw with joy the furrows of justice germinate. For how graciously he refreshes the contrite, hears and instructs those confessing, absolves the penitent, responds to those consulting, reforms the despairing, exhorts the zealous, strengthens the trembling, finally, how he has become all things to all, who shall suffice to narrate? For because he wished to gain all to Christ, he was zealous to conform himself to all for Christ's sake.

[92] At Dover he consecrates the church of St Edmund: Among these things, however, preaching he came to that famous port of Kent which is called Dover, and lodged in the hospice house in the town. And being asked by the Master and Friars of the said hospice to dedicate a certain little church with a cemetery, built for the burial of the poor, in honor of his former Lord and patron Blessed Edmund, Bishop of Canterbury, he granted favor and assent with a glad mind and countenance. Going therefore to the place of the basilica to be dedicated, ^d he solemnly and devoutly consecrated it. While preaching, however (for he delivered a sermon that day to the people), he proposed these words: "Dearest, I ask you with me to bless the Lord and praise him, who out of his grace has granted us to be present at this dedication in honor of him and of the holy Father Edmund. For this is what I always, from the time when I obtained the gift of consecration, he foretells his death; desired: this is what with all my prayers I sought, that before I closed my last day, I might at least consecrate one basilica in his honor. Whence also from the inmost marrow of my heart I give thanks to God, who has not defrauded me of the desire of my soul. And now, Dearest, I know that the putting off of my tabernacle is swift, which I ask to be strengthened by the suffrages of your prayers." When therefore the Mass was finished with due celebrity, and the people confirmed with the sacred blessing, the Pontiff returns to the aforesaid hospice.

[93] [Behold, however, one of those familiarly dear to him, approaching him, namely before he had begun to sicken, asked for license to visit a certain church committed to him. But the Pontiff, not yielding to the one asking, answered: "If you now depart, you shall see an hour, before you return, in which not for the whole church would you wish to be separated from me."] ^e For now he foresaw that the hour was at hand when, paying the debt of nature, he should migrate from this world: he is seized with illness: in which he desired those dear to him to be present, hoping to consummate his going forth more happily by their prayer and presence: and about to say the last farewell, he wished his memory to be more strongly fixed in their hearts, and them to enjoy his paternal blessing. Therefore on the second day (Monday), namely on the morrow of that Sunday [f on which he had dedicated the aforesaid basilica, although he had already begun to have fever, yet not knowing how to delay himself at the hour of rising, in the morning he entered the oratory and began to chant the Psalms. When behold, the sickness growing worse, not able to sustain his feeble limbs, as if suffering a swoon, he is cast down upon the pavement. Therefore lifted up by the hands of his own, he is led back to bed, and there laid down. With the illness daily growing stronger, the holy man felt that the time of his calling from this world was at hand: and having called certain of those who had been his secretaries, he indicated this very thing to them: and bade them prepare so cautiously the necessaries for the funeral, that his household perceiving it should not be troubled. he is fortified with the sacraments:] Wishing also to fulfill what he had read, "At the end of a man is the unveiling of his works," he made a general confession of his life. Eccli. 11:29 For eager to consult the health of his soul rather than of his body, he took care to apply the salutary medicaments of the Sacraments principally.

[94] Yet also the bodily physicians were present, summoned by the diligent industry of his own: and when they were judging, considering the symptoms of the sick man, and also the sediment and color of the urine, before him concerning the quality of the illness; the Saint said, "It is not necessary now to be solicitous about the judgment of my urine: he asserts again that he is about to die, for death is now at the doors: by whose judgment it is clear that I am soon to leave the tabernacle of this body, and my spirit to be directed to him who gave it." Now when that venerable man of venerable life, Lord Simon of Teringe, with familiar daring, approached more closely to the bed of the sick man, and they were weaving words about the gravity of the illness; Lord Simon subjoined, "Lord," he said, "the times of the Lord's Passion are now at hand: and since you are a sharer of tribulation, you will be, by his bestowal, also of consolation." At which words the Saint was made more cheerful, as if transforming to himself that of the Psalmist, "I rejoiced in the things that were said to me, we shall go into the house of the Lord." Ps. 121:1 And turning his head to the one speaking with him, he said, "On the sixth feria I shall be at the great feast. and that on the sixth feria he will be in heaven keeping festival:" And since with his spirit weakened his words were now become as the whisper of a thin breeze, Lord Simon, not understanding the first words, was silent. Then the Bishop: "Do you not understand me well? Is not today ^g the fourth feria?" To whom he: "Yes, Lord." And the Saint: "Not," he said, "on this next fifth feria; but on the next following I shall enjoy that great feast." Which by the day and hour of his death the event afterward seemed to confirm.

[95] But when on account of great bodily weakness he was asked to take something at supper, and someone said, "Lord, you shall have only one dish at supper, eat it willingly"; he answered, "It suffices, and one ought to suffice at supper": and he added, "You know, what is that? he aspires uniquely to it: This is that, of which Blessed Philip said to Christ, 'Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us': and that dish may that Lord give me for my supper." John 4:8 For now with the direction of his mind he began to advance toward God, and by foretasting to see how sweet is the Lord; and with Martha's solicitude about many things set aside, he hungered fervently for that one, which Mary, choosing above others, is declared by the judgment of truth to be necessary. Embracing therefore the image of the Crucified, he embraces the Crucifix: which he had devoutly asked to be brought to him; understanding according to Blessed Basil that the honor of the image pertains to the prototype; the places of the wounds with the kisses of pious devotion, as if inflicted on the Savior freshly dying which he was seeing, he began sweetly to soothe, breaking forth into these words: "I give thanks to you, Lord Jesus Christ, for all the benefits which you have bestowed on me; for the punishments and reproaches which you have endured for me; for which that lamentable wailing truly befitted you, 'There is no sorrow like my sorrow.'" ^h

[96] he professes the faith: [And when the said Lord Simon was persuading him to hold firmly in mind the truth of the Catholic faith, which he had believed and taught, and to recall the memory of it; he answered: "Although you cannot fully now understand my words, yet I retain memory and senses as perfectly as I did seven years ago now passed, and by God's gift I shall retain them to the end."] And to the bystanders he said: "Put this putrid corpse down on the earth below." For the members of the body, which by the gift of nature he had elegant, as he knew how to subjugate them, while living afflicting them through the austerity of penance; so also in dying he knew to despise them through humility. Ps. 39:6 And that voice of the Psalmist which he says, "Into your hands, Lord, most piously he dies: I commend my spirit," repeating more frequently; and turning himself alternately to the glorious Virgin alike in heart and mouth, he said: "Mary, mother of grace, mother of mercy, do thou protect us from the enemy, and in the hour of death receive us": ⁱ [and he commanded his Chaplains that they should not cease to say those words in his ears.] Amid sighs therefore of pious devotion and words of holy prayer, with Religious, Presbyters, and Clerks, and faithful laymen standing by, the blessed Father Richard rendered to the Creator his soul, to be joined with the supernal citizens. He passed from this world about the fifty-sixth year of his age, and the ninth year of his Pontificate, ^k on the third day before the Nones of April, about the middle of the night, in which that heavenly Bridegroom is described as about to come to the nuptials, about to enjoy the joyousness of the heavenly hall with the same Bridegroom, by his bestowing, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns for ever and ever.

[97] When . . . ^l that organ of the Holy Spirit, I mean the body of Richard, was stripped for washing and for being clothed with Pontifical vestments, as is the custom; the flesh, which the roughness of the hair-shirt had plowed, which the weight of the cuirass had borne down, the dead body shines with miraculous whiteness. and the knotted penalty of various girdles had wounded, shone forth with such brightness of whiteness, that it seemed to bear even dead a certain sign of the future resurrection: and there was to be seen a lily of whiteness among the thorns of bruises: and while the marks of punishment, which he bore in life, distinguished with purple color the whiteness of the cross, they seemed to represent the appearance of a rose mingled with lilies. So that dearly beloved "fair and ruddy one" knew how, by the appearance of his color and beauty, even in dead flesh, to adorn his Thren. 4:7 Nazarites, of whom it is written: "Whiter than snow, brighter than milk, more ruddy than old ivory": of whose number he wished to declare by the notice of the aforesaid beauty that Blessed Richard was to be reckoned.

[98] The viscera are placed in the new church of St Edmund But because he had appointed his body to be buried at Chichester in his cathedral church before the day of his death, which was distant by no small interval from the place of his migration; I think it was effected not so much by human as by divine providence, that he who never was wont to close the bowels of his mercy to the needy, also dead should bestow even the bowels of his body on the poor. Whence his viscera separated from the body were reverently placed in the basilica which he had a little before dedicated for the burial of the poor in honor of St Edmund Confessor, his former Lord. Which who will not judge to have been done how fittingly? that his own viscera should contain the memory of Blessed Edmund, whom he had testified with words and also the writing of his last will, to have been taken into his bosom. In this very place, however, to those devoutly asking, through the bowels of the mercy of our God, and the merits of the Saint, heavenly benefits are granted. When the body had been arranged and placed in a schema worthy of a Pontiff on the bier, the body is exposed to the sight of the people: there arose on every side a concourse of the people; they gather in crowds to such venerable obsequies, each counts himself happy, if he can touch even the bier, or handle the hem of the sacred vestments, or with rings or necklaces, girdles or half-belts, touch the face, hands, or feet, storing them for themselves as a treasure and relics, because they reputed them sanctified by contact with the holy body.

[99] The body is therefore borne toward Chichester: and while it is carried through monasteries, It is borne to Chichester: churches, or villages and towns, with bells rung they run out solemnly chanting psalms alike and weeping: because even if they see themselves destitute of the bodily presence of so great a pastor, they hope to be protected in heavenly things by his patronage and intervention: they count themselves also blessed, with whom so great a treasure happens to be kept even for the space of one night. When therefore they had come to the city, adorned with the honor of his See; from streets and squares together at once rich and poor run in rivalry; and the rich indeed by the title of honor, and the poor by the heap of alms, in the present taken away, complain tearfully: yet both are refreshed and consoled, that being made more powerful in heaven than on earth, he will be able to succor both with a fitting benefit.

[100] he is honorably buried. When the body of the Pontiff had therefore been brought into the church, you would see music not inopportunely mingled with mourning: and while the devout sons, by chanting more melodiously, desire to offer to so great a Father the due service of honor, with the grief of bereavement compelling, and the song being interrupted by sobbing, the melodies of the nightingale and the sighs of the turtledove are joined together. But his venerable body was buried in the very church, before the altar of Blessed Edmund Confessor, which he himself had raised there on the northern side of the church, in a humble place; where great and marvelous miracles are done to God's praise, which the page of the following little book, by Christ's bestowing, will declare: by his bestowing, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns God, through all the ages of ages. Amen.

NOTES.

BOOK II.

The miracles after the death of Saint Richard.

PROLOGUE.

[2] "When a man has finished, then shall he begin," says Ecclesiasticus. Eccli. 18:6 How true the aforesaid sentence is, and clear even to the eyewitness, in Blessed Richard it may shine forth: who while he ended this mortal life, or rather this deathly life, on earth, by the virtue of miracles is proved to live in heaven. For how can he be denied to live, who by expelling death from the dead, and infusing life into the defunct, and applying a remedy in deadly diseases, seems to resist death? And what wonder is this? since the more truly he has now adhered to the true life, the more powerfully he will be able to assail death. But all this is to the glory of him who says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life": for through him the Saints walk, as through the way, lest they err in acting: they adhere to him, as to the truth, lest they be deceived in believing: from him they obtain, that they may not fail the life by dying. John 14:6 Blessed Richard, noting these things, while he ran through this mortal life, was zealous to order his faith, works, and end wholly to Christ's glory: that he might seem to say that of the Apostle, "Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether by death or by life." Phil. 1:2 Blessed Richard therefore magnified Christ in his body, living in the world, with holy actions and glorious miracles: Christ is also magnified in the same body, while he causes the tomb and memory of his servant to radiate with his virtue with the manifold glory of miracles: as the following little book, with the Lord's consent, will be able to declare.

CHAPTER I.

First part of the miracles done at the invocation of St Richard.

[2] The body of Blessed Richard, therefore, being buried in peace with the fathers, that his name may be proved to live forever, Christ makes the clod of the buried to germinate with manifold insignia of virtues, so that what is pronounced by the voice of Blessed Job in the praise of the Just may be fittingly adapted to Blessed Richard also: "You shall enter," he says, "into the sepulchre in abundance, as a heap of wheat is brought in in its time." Job 5:26 O how abundantly, how plentifully are the bowels of the needy filled with the wheat of this heap! O how much the fatness of this grain relieves pains and calms tumors, heals the languishing and strengthens the trembling! But now let the style turn to narrating his miracles in order. ^a

[3] Concerning the boy freed from the confine of death. When therefore, fame spreading, many prodigies of healings at the tomb of Blessed Richard, at the invocation of his name, were divinely done everywhere; it happened in the household of the noble Lady Countess of Arundel, who at that time was staying in the castle of Lewes, that a certain boy of that once noble man Hugh le Bigod, brother of the aforesaid Countess and Justiciar ^b of England, was held by a grievous disease of infirmity: whom Blessed Richard had once raised from the sacred Font. The disease therefore growing worse by days, it came to such a point, that in the judgment of the physicians he was altogether despaired of; because the signs of death appeared manifestly in him. Whence also the father of the boy, not bearing to witness the bereavement of his son in person; leaving there those who should provide the necessaries for the funeral, departed from the said castle. The Countess also, entering the oratory, and withdrawing mournfully from the place, lest she should see him dying, ordered that, when the boy migrated from this life, it should be announced to her. Standing around the bed of the dying one are his nurse, and also from the Countess's chamber noble damsels and ladies. And when sad over the confine of death they were conferring among themselves what was most to be done, a certain girl, of noble family, in name and in the event of grace Joanna, moved both by the tears of those weeping and by the affliction of the dying boy, having asked for a thread of ^c "licinium," began to measure the boy with these words, invoking Blessed Richard, and saying with great devotion of faith: "O St Richard, many miracles are proclaimed to be done by your holy merits on earth: whence I suppliantly ask, that, if what is said is true, you may now deign to show it in this boy, poured over with the wave of holy baptism by your holy hands: and entreat the blessed Virgin Mary, whom you specially loved on earth, that, by her help and entreaty of her Son, this boy, placed in the article of death, by your prayers may be restored to his former health: and that he whom you adorned with the name of your own, at the invocation also of your name, with Christ granting, may be rendered unharmed." Scarcely however had she completed the words by measuring the boy: and behold the boy, opening his eyes and mouth alike, designating her with her own name, said, "Give me one ^d oblation": which, being brought to him and tasted, he was immediately fully restored to complete health, so that he expressed by singing the joy of recovered health, desiring to walk, if it had been permitted to him. And so fully was he cured of the disease that afterward not even any vestiges of the infirmity remained: and it was done that he whom the Saint by the virtue of baptism regenerating had purged from the death of original sin, he also called back from the confine of bodily death. Which being learned, the father rejoices, the aunt exults, the kindred is glad, and the whole household dances for joy; blessing in prayer and voice alike the author of salvation, our Lord Jesus Christ, in his Saint Richard. To the truth of this miracle so many nobles, so many venerable for merit of life, so many credible for the truth of faith attest, that not to believe them would plainly seem absurd.

[4] That also is singularly marvelous and marvelously singular, Concerning an abortive child raised to life concerning a dead abortive about to be carried from the womb to the tomb, to the praise of him who "alone does great wonders," let it not be irksome to narrate. There was in the diocese of Chichester a village called ^e Pons-Roberti (Pontrobert), a certain Simon by name, surnamed "of the Cross," and his wife named Catherine, fearing God and of faith to be commended, as the event of the matter afterward proved. The aforesaid woman, therefore, having conceived by her husband, after she had been pregnant for some time, began grievously to be sick in one of her breasts. And when, with the pain of the disease increasing, a swelling enlarging with horrible blackness occupied the whole breast, and she was utterly destitute of the help of bodily medicine; she wholly turned to the divine, which she had learned God shows to the sick through the merits of his servant Richard. Her husband therefore being called, both together invoking the help of Blessed Richard, a vow having been made, they fold ^f up a denarius to be offered at his tomb: and on the same day, with pain and swelling being equally calmed, the woman felt herself fully cured in her breast, glorifying God in his Saint together with her husband. A time therefore having run out which was due to a woman's childbearing, when now the time of bringing forth was at hand, she began for two nights and a day to be afflicted beyond measure, not only by affliction of body, but also of mind: as she felt no vital motion through the space of one night and more in the fetus which she bore in her womb: whence both she and the midwives expected rather the grief of an abortive than the joy of a living birth. But on the morrow of Blessed John the Baptist beginning to dawn, the woman in labor began to be more vehemently tormented: for the fetus often came forth to the birth, but failing in strength brought forth with the birth. At length about the first hour of the day, with the accustomed order of birth changed, the feet of the one going forth first began to show themselves with one of the hands; and then, with the other hand twisted behind the back, the whole comes forth, bringing a deformed and sad spectacle to those looking on: for, showing no signs of life, it appeared squalid with foul blackness, fitter to be covered with the mound of earth than to be laid in a cradle. Whom the mother with the midwives, seeing him utterly dead, with the father of the boy summoned, scarcely knew what to do about the pitiful event. The mother, who had recently brought forth her son, not unmindful of the prior benefit received in the breast by Blessed Richard, said: "Lord God almighty, through the merits of Blessed Richard, render the spirit of life to this abortive: that at least, poured over with the wave of sacred baptism, he may be able to be aggregated into the number of your adopted sons." But the father, with no less confidence, repeating the same, added a vow saying: "O Blessed Richard, if you shall have infused vital spirit into this boy by your merits, that, reborn in Christ, he may obtain baptism, I will carry a wax boy, representing his image, to your tomb together with the boy, for the praise of God and the exalting of your memory." And with a denarius folded upon the boy for the confirmation of the vow and the honor of the Saint, and the boy's forehead signed with the Cross, immediately the boy opening both mouth and eyes, and emitting saliva through his mouth, by motion of the limbs and the drawing and emitting of vital air, plainly showed himself alive and unhurt, to those wondering and blessing God in his Saint Richard. Not only moreover did he obtain the grace of baptism, but he was so fully restored to life and unharmed that after the four following years he was presented before the examiners of Blessed Richard's life and miracles safe and cheerful.

[5] There was a certain man, John de Stokes by name, in the diocese of Chichester, Concerning a paralytic cured at his tomb who, while on a certain day he was playing with others, in the midst of playing by a sudden motion, which they call paralysis, was struck in the right side, and fell to the earth, and lost the use of his whole right part in an instant; nor could he rise at all, except supported by another's help. Having therefore been brought by the hands of those pitying him to a certain house which was nearby, he remained paralyzed for more than six years. His right hand therefore and his leg began to thicken with swelling, and to be pierced with a multitude of openings, with the infirmity which they call "fistula." The disease therefore growing through the increments of days, the bones, with matter dripping through the openings, began to be loosed from their proper joints, so that very many bones, both from the hand and the leg, together with the putrid tumor, seemed manifestly to come forth. While therefore he lay afflicted, miserably languishing, and destitute alike of medicament and the remedy of physicians; the fame concerning the virtues of Blessed Richard began frequently to strike the ears of the sick man. Greatly encouraged therefore by the hope of recovering health through the glorious merits of the Saint,

by prayer and voice alike, and by other means which he could, he instantly besought, that he be somehow led to the Saint's tomb. His host therefore, who had received him in his house out of hospitality for the whole time of his languor, compassionating his misery and moved by his outcry, led him to the Saint's tomb. There therefore from the vigil of the Lord's Nativity, by praying, supplicating, and entreating for the benefit of his health, he devoutly remained until the day of Saint John the Evangelist. On which day, namely, about the third ^g hour of the day, while the High Mass was being celebrated, he fell asleep over the Saint's sepulchre: and saw in dream a certain venerable person, clothed in white, saying to him, "Rise and walk." And immediately, when he was awakened, the custodian of the tomb was there: who seeing the sick man astonished, asks how he was. When he was telling him the manner of his vision, he answered: "Do you wish to try the strength of walking?" When he said, "I do," the custodian of the tomb began to help him by lifting him. And immediately the nerves, contracted by long languor, began to crackle with such a sound, as if they were breaking, while he extended his contracted limbs. The sick man, unable to contain himself alike for astonishment and joy, powerfully burst forth into the praise of God the Saviour and Saint Richard, to whose merits he ascribed this. He is therefore led to the great altar, and is led back to the tomb with the praises of the Clergy as well as the people, and at the following ninth hour he began to rise by himself, and to walk here and there. The stillate openings also began successively of themselves to close and dry up: and so, the pain of the ulcerous fistula being healed, and the old contraction of paralysis being cured, he was restored to long-desired wholeness. Blessed be God in all things. Amen.

[6] On the cure of a certain Religious woman's toothache. At London, in the monastery of the nuns of St Helen, there was a certain Prioress, commendable in religion and fame, herself also called Helen. This one, when she was afflicted with such grievous pain of teeth that she could scarcely eat or sleep; and for days the disease grew so strong, that she utterly knew not where to turn or what to do; there was a certain damsel, named Rose, among the nobles of England of no small fame and opinion, who also had been familiar and dear to Blessed Richard while he lived. The said Rose, therefore, hearing of the dire affliction of the aforesaid Prioress, since she had with her a little cloth dipped with Blessed Richard's blood, when his viscera had been separated from the body; taking confidence from the Saint's merits, came to the bed of the Prioress lying ill, and producing the little cloth which she had brought with her, diligently admonished her, truly trusting in the merits of Blessed Richard, whose Relics she had brought to her, devoutly to touch the place of pain with the aforesaid cloth, and to ask the Saint's help with all her heart. When this was done, on the following night, as sleep crept upon the Prioress, Blessed Richard appeared to her, conspicuous with elegant form and cheerful countenance; and gently drawing his hand around the place of pain, he said, "Cough up what you have in your mouth, and spit it out." At this voice she was awakened, and with the pain mitigated felt herself cured; and wishing to fulfill what the Saint had commanded, she strove to spit out by spitting what she felt of phlegm or saliva in her mouth. The holy Sister nuns hearing her coughing so strongly, coming to her ask what she has. And she: "I am cured," she said, "by Blessed Richard, formerly Bishop of Chichester, who appeared to me a little while ago, and touched my aching jaw with his hand, and admonished me to cough." On the morrow, to those coming to her, she set forth the order of her vision, and what is wondrous, she so properly described the form of body, gestures, countenance, and manner of speaking of him whom she had never seen in the world, that those who had known him familiarly alive in the flesh, astounded, affirmed for certain that Blessed Richard had truly appeared to her. And she so fully recovered, that thereafter she remained utterly without that pain and disease. Hence also she and the others conscious of this miracle said: "Truly a Saint, truly a friend of God is Blessed Richard, the glorious Confessor of Christ."

[7] On the cure of a certain paralytic woman Not far from the castle of Arundel of the diocese of Chichester is a certain little village called Biggenevre, in which a certain woman named Matilda performed the office of laundress in the service of the Lord and Lady, nobles of the aforesaid village. This woman one night, while lying in bed, by so sudden a contraction of nerves began to stiffen, that she was utterly unable to extend her feet or legs. Moreover, the contraction grew so great, that the heels of her feet firmly adhered to her buttocks; and so for six continuous years she remained contracted, so that she could nowhere move herself from a place without another's help. Whence once, when the house where she lay caught fire, and the peril of death from the fire was already threatening her, using only a cry, she was carried out by the hands of those pitying her and scarcely escaped the fire; and in the street where she was placed, she remained until the first hour of the next day, when the Lady of the village, moved by pity over her, commanded a certain man of the village to receive her into his house, bestowing daily provision on her. Meanwhile the rumor of the miracles of Blessed Richard grew: and she, although still contracted in body, yet with hope and faith of mind raised up, did not cease to ask, seek, knock with importunate cry, until some of the neighborhood, moved by mercy, placing her on a horse and binding her to the saddle, with four men nevertheless supporting her on the right and on the left, she was led to the Saint's tomb: and there for nine days earnestly imploring his help, she continuously remained. On the tenth day, however, so much did the pain of the disease grow strong, that she believed she was about to expire in an instant: nor less did those present think the same. When behold, being overcome by sleep, it seemed to her in sleeping that she extended her legs. Nor was the vision vain. For awakened, she found her legs entirely straight and extended: yet it did not seem she could walk. But with the hope of cure growing, she had herself led closer to the Saint's tomb by being lifted up, and there for the whole space of that day until the middle of the following night, she remained tearfully imploring the Saint's suffrages. And behold, about that hour of the night she endures the pain of a repeated turn, and sleep creeps upon her as before. After a little while, however, waking, with her legs extended, it seemed to her that she could walk. Calling those who were standing by, she asked that they raise her: and she began to walk by herself, and with her steps firmed, went up to the great altar to give thanks. Praises are devoutly paid to the Lord, glorious in the merits of his Saint Richard. Now the cure of this woman was done at the beginning of the solemnity of the Holy ^h Trinity, in whose honor namely the Cathedral church of Chichester stands founded, that the Saint's merits might be plain to many, and the miracle being seen by many, glory might be rendered to the Trinity itself. For the woman herself followed the solemn procession with firm step, and the vow of thanks being fulfilled, returned joyful and well to her own. But to the accumulation of this miracle it seems to add not a little, that from the radical seed of the parent this infirmity of contraction is said to have come to the aforesaid woman: for her mother is said both to have been struck by the same disease and to have died of it. But that the Creator of nature can act above nature is not doubtful, to whom from nature itself and all ⁱ "naturated" things be honor and glory for ever and ever.

[8] Not much dissimilar to the aforesaid miracle, it is reported to have happened on certain report concerning a certain Agnes, concerning a woman healed of paralysis surnamed Baraylle, of the village of Suwick. This woman, therefore, was for two whole years so continuously afflicted with the grievous disease of paralysis, that she could not speak, nor move herself from the navel downwards; but with her legs twisted back to her thighs, the heels of her feet seemed to be as if fastened to her buttocks: whence also she was so immobile, that she could not move herself anywhere even to seek necessaries for food. She at length, hearing the miracles of Blessed Richard and the virtues of healings which God was working through his merits in the bodies of the sick; with nods and signs which she could, with groaning she demanded to be led to the Saint's tomb. Where for some days devoutly imploring the Saint's patronage; both the loosing of her tongue that she might speak, and the extension of her legs that she might rise by herself and walk well, by the Saint's merits, powerfully alike and plainly, she obtained. Hence from all, conscious of her former disease and misery, thanksgiving and a voice of praise, as duly as devoutly, is paid to the Lord, who manifests Blessed Richard as glorious in merits.

[9] In the Priory of Wyke in the diocese of Chichester ^k there was a certain one, Richard by name, surnamed de Poleyn, concerning a certain deaf man healed. living in secular habit and in the service of the same house. This one was so obstructed by the disadvantage of deafness, that he could hear little or nothing, which was the more manifest to many, because, bearing the office of porter, he could in no way hide the defect of hearing. When therefore for a whole year and a half he was pressed by such deafness, by a very healthful instinct he devoutly approached the Saint's tomb, and there for a little while, by praying, he implored his suffrage, and by the swift recovery of hearing he felt how efficaciously Blessed Richard hears those truly entreating him. Returned therefore unharmed to his own, he joyfully brought back to all matter of praise and thanks.

[10] But not to be passed over is what is proved to have happened by a stupendous miracle in the castle called Almegele, concerning a certain boy raised to life. in the house of that noble man William de Beauchamp, Lord of the aforesaid castle. For the aforesaid Lord of the castle had joined his daughter in matrimonial union to a certain noble heir of a huge patrimony, when God granted a son from the wife taken. Moreover, the infant, after the fifth day from his birth, began to labor with a grievous disease. For with a cough, as it seemed, he was so anxiously vexed, that by the drawing of a thinner breath he could scarcely breathe; but with his breath utterly precluded, making in the inner part of his throat a sound from the trapped air similar to one gargling, as is the custom of dying old men, his tender breast's spirit being intercepted, he died. The nurse of the boy, therefore, and many of the bystanders, compassionating the pitiful case, and wishing to explore whether he was truly dead, now to his mouth, now to his nostrils, now to his eyes, now to his breast, and other parts of the body, apply their hands: for he had grown stiff with cold, nor even in his very mouth was even a lukewarmness of heat found. His chin also, which had fallen down, they raise to close the mouth; and immediately it fell back by itself. His eyes also, which death itself had closed, they opening; but by themselves they could not be closed: with hands again closing the eyes, they so remained closed. What more? Now the color of the flesh itself, changed to a muddy hue, indicated to those seeing the presence of death. The body of the dead one, therefore, for the delay of a journey of two miles lay thus extinguished, with only the Lord of the castle and the mother of the boy ignorant of this event;

lest those who had been sick should be further weakened by the grievous news. The bystanders also began to treat of wrapping the body in bands or sewing it in linen cloths. And behold a certain girl, daughter of the aforesaid Lord, Margaret by name, having heard of the boy's death, ran up with the others. And when some were invoking St John, others Blessed Nicholas, the aforesaid Margaret added: "Let us unanimously invoke Blessed Richard, formerly Bishop of Chichester, that as he raised a certain boy drowned in the waters, whose wax image in memory of the deed I inspected, so Christ may deign to raise this boy by his merits." And coming, she folded a denarius over the boy for the Saint's veneration. But while the girl was acclaiming together with the rest, and asking St Richard's help, immediately the boy began to move himself, to draw his foot toward him, to open his eyes, to emit spittle from his mouth, and to show manifest signs of restored life. Perhaps God willed, whose judgments are hidden, to hear those crying more quickly at the invocation of the name of St Richard, than of those glorious ones John and Nicholas, in the resuscitation of the boy; that he might glorify his holy Confessor Richard, not yet inscribed in the catalog of Saints, both among men, and show him glorious and powerful with himself in heaven, to whom be power, honor, and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

NOTES.

CHAPTER II.

The latter part of the miracles of St Richard after his death.

[11] There was in the district of Winterburry, which, Concerning a boy raised. to distinguish it from another of the same name ^a, is called "of the Earl," a certain one by the name of Walter, having a wife named Juliana, both under lawful matrimony faithfully leading a simple life. To these God had given male offspring, whom they caused to be called John, when he was baptized: to whom the very designation of name, by a marvelous miracle of divine grace, seems not in vain to have been given. When this one was about two years old, on the day of Blessed Mary Magdalene, with the air being more pleasant, perhaps for his own solace, but less cautiously, he was left in a public street. For when the hour of the day was about noon, there suddenly comes a certain driver presiding over a wagon, coming from the market drunk, as is the manner of that kind of men: and the more he agitates his beast with the whip, the more he himself is agitated in the neck with beer: and with the horse striking the boy with force, the boy is cast upon the ground supine, the wheel of the wagon, loaded with the rustic himself and two women and a mass of salt, passed with a piteous spectacle through the very tenderness of his belly: and left the boy bruised and extinguished. At such an unfortunate event, from every side both sexes run together, the pitiful mother herself, who had borne him, is roused at the cry; and with her hair scattered, not bearing the moaning bereavement of her tender offspring, swoons ^b to the earth, like one dying, falling down. The boy is borne by the hands of those grieving, to be refreshed by the blast of freer air; he is sprinkled in the face with cold water, he is palpated by the hands of those standing here and there, he is carried, lifted; if perhaps some vital sign should appear, it is explored; and there was no voice at all nor sense. At length there came Lord Gilbert, Rector of that very church and Priest; who seeing him covered with the pallor of death and no sign of life remaining in him; also seeing the mark of the wheel, across the belly near the navel, appearing from coagulated blood blacker than the other parts of the body, said: "Undoubtedly the boy is dead: nor is it wonderful, for if such a mass had pressed down a strong and robust man, it would altogether have extinguished him, how much more a tender little boy, not yet two years old in age? Let us depart," he said, "because hope of life for this one is no further." They would therefore have carried the boy into the house, and sewn him, as is the manner of the dead, in a linen cloth, had they not been waiting, according to the English custom of the ^c Coroners, for their arrival, to inspect the dead. The aforesaid Priest also wishing to depart, the mother of the dead one, beseeching under the attestation of the Lord's Passion and the glorious Virgin, compelled him to remain. While therefore they stood around the dead one, there came into the mind of the Priest a certain miracle which he had heard to have happened by the merits of Blessed Richard. Animated therefore divinely by this incitement, he began to say: "Let us all unanimously, suppliantly, and devoutly, bending our knees, entreat the Lord, that by the prayers of his Blessed Confessor Richard he may deign to infuse the spirit of life into this extinguished little one": and to this he admonished that each, to the honor of God and the glorious Virgin and Saint Richard, should say three "Our Father" and as many "Hail Mary" of the blessed Virgin. While the Priest himself was adding certain Psalms with prayer, before he ended the prayer, the boy began first to draw one foot, then another toward him, and afterward sat up by himself: and all present looking on and astonished, he began to open mouth and eyes, and not only of life restored, but of unhurt wholeness, to show the signs by a more cheerful laugh. Nor indeed did he only feel himself restored to life and health, but he felt such great vivacity of senses increased for him, that his mother, who both after and before had nursed him, testified by the very experience of the matter that he was more vigorous in strength and senses after the fall than before. The voice therefore of those wailing first and lamenting was turned to thanksgiving and the praise of Christ, who through the merits of his holy Richard willed to proffer such miracles of victory over death to mortals, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns God for all ages of ages.

[12] On a certain contracted man healed. It is also faithfully reported under the religion of a given oath, that a certain Richard by name of the village of Romsey was afflicted by a grievous contraction of nerves, so that for twenty weeks with his legs clinging to his buttocks, from the bed where thus contracted he continuously lay, without another's help he could in no way move himself. It happened therefore that a certain Vicar of a neighboring church visited him languishing: who seeing his infirmity, admonished him, hoping from God's mercy, to be obtained by the merits of Blessed Richard, to devote himself with suppliant heart to the aforesaid Saint: who, humbly obeying his admonitions, without delay at once devoted himself. The vow therefore being made, he felt the effect of his vow so efficacious and so swift through the merits of the Saint to whom he had devoted himself, that on the same day, without the help of a man, with the constriction of the nerves loosed, he both extended his legs, and came to the church without a leader or helper; himself praising God and Blessed Richard, and giving to others no less matter of praising.

[13] That also, as joyfully miraculous as miraculously joyful, I cannot be silent about; namely how God, On a bird which sang after being deprived of its tongue. who showed Blessed Richard glorious in the sea and in fishes while he lived, willed by a stupendous prodigy after death to magnify him in the birds of the air. For in that solemn Study which is known to flourish at Oxford, there was a certain scholar, who although he seemed in these outward things in the gesture of the outer man more cheerful, yet was not wholly without the devotion of faith, as will appear from the following miracle. This one, when he kept a certain little bird, which they call a "merula" (blackbird), enclosed in a cage, relieving by turns the care of his study by the sweet modulation of its voice, was carried with a marvelous fervor of delight over this. Whence when a certain very familiar companion had become more eager for the aforesaid little bird, he began under pretext of special fellowship attentively to entreat him, that he should not deny him the aforesaid little bird for his solace; but in hope of greater friendship and reward, should bestow it on him. He, not admitting the instance of the one asking, excused himself in the ways he could. He asserted that he would not give his glory to another, and that he, though most dear,

ought not to wonder if he preferred no one to himself in so great a solace. Also the bird, although in itself of little price, yet because, according to the voice of the Wise Man, "The joy of heart, this is the life of man," which he drew no little from the bird's melody, he would in no way give to anyone. Eccli. 30:23 The companion went away covered with shame, and no less moved with anger of heart: he thinks out what he should do: and agitated by the goads of envy, the solace which he himself could not obtain, he grieves that another possesses: he dissimulates however for a time, he enters the chamber of his companion frequently as before, and by the daring of familiarity penetrates the inmost secrets. But one day, solitude having been explored, he enters without a witness where the cage of the little bird was hanging: and having taken it in his hand, with the keenness of a penknife he cruelly cut off the tongue of the innocent one, by which it was wont to sound sweet modulations, and secretly withdrew. On the return therefore of the Lord whose the little bird was, he sees it, with feathers ruffled and wings drooping, with head hanging down, as if showing the pain of infirmity. Perceiving this, he orders new food to be placed in the bird's little trough. But when it neither ate, nor with the motion of a lighter gesture raised itself up in the wonted manner, nor brought forth anything of modulation, having taken it gently in his hand and desiring to inquire the cause of pain, with its mouth's ^d "forceps" opened, he found the tongue of his singer cut out. You would see then the sweetness of the lost solace set forth with the bitterness of grief; he runs about to each one, and complains as if he had borne the loss of no small thing: and when neither from his companions nor from servants he could learn the event of the deed, he stood confounded, not knowing what to do. There was at that time in that town a famous reporting of the miracles of Blessed Richard, formerly Chancellor there. And when there came to his mind the miracles of the aforesaid Saint, with words of this kind from the depths of his heart he began to entreat God: "Lord God, who have deigned to create even the birds of heaven, for the solace and support of human life equally, and who have granted me by your gift to be glad at the song of this little bird; assist, I pray, me supplicating, and by the merits of your glorious Bishop and Confessor Richard, whose merits with you are proclaimed acceptable by flashing signs and prodigies, restore to this bird the voice of its former melody, to the praise and glory of your name, and for declaring the Sanctity of Blessed Richard; that the former solace being restored to me, I may pay my vows before all, to the honor of the same Saint, to you the Lord God." Nor did the Lord long delay to demonstrate by a stupendous miracle the merit of his Richard: for the little bird, lacking the instrument, began to modulate such sweet ^e "notulae" (notes), that nothing of its former sweetness seemed to be lacking, the saying of the versicle being verified which the Poet says:

"The divine power plays in human matters."

So much indeed did the song of that bird appear more joyful, as it was more miraculous: whence at the little bird sounding the faithful join in praises to the Creator, who by the merits of Blessed Richard deigned by his power to work what nature could not. Of this miracle a certain one says in rhythm:

"Let the tongue sound special praises to him: / Whose praises a bird lacking tongue pronounces." ^f

[14] on the raising of a certain dead one. Let it come now to the praise of God, to be described with the pen, how from the privation of life, by the divine power through the merits of Blessed Richard, was a return to its ^g "habit." There was therefore in the village of Romsey a certain one, Walter de Dolinge by name, living at Romsey. This one had a son, Nicholas by name, who was about eight years old, and with an abscess growing inside his body, he began to be afflicted with a most grievous languor. For the swelling and pain grew, and in time the illness so grew strong through days of languishing, that scarcely could the sight or hearing of those pitying him bear the groans of the sick one and his miseries: but his friends and acquaintances, struck with the horror of his pain, withdrew far off as strangers, seeing the vehemence of the disease. Moreover, the horrid swelling of the breast now seemed to cut off the drawing of breath, and thus gradually the signs of threatening death began to appear; until with his limbs stiffening, and his eyes closed, an ashen color drawn over showed that the presence of death was plainly at hand. Placed therefore from the bed to the earth, he was declared by all to have breathed out his last spirit. Men were sent for Priests, to commend according to custom the soul of the dead to God: and now only of the funerals did they seem to need to treat, all asserting this alone, that he is dead. But because this death, not to destruction but rather for the glory of God, the Most High had ordained, that God might be glorified in his Saint Richard; behold after longer spaces of the day, a certain woman from among the bystanders suggested to the mother of the boy: "Devote and measure your son to Blessed Richard, for whom it is related that God both raises the dead, and cures the sick, and shows many prodigies to mortals." At which voice the mother of the dead one, as if awakened from sleep, with the confidence of hope resumed, taking a wick began to measure the boy, and, as she had been admonished, to devote him to Blessed Richard; devoutly supplicating, and earnestly entreating the bystanders to supplicate with her, that God, on account of the illustrious merits of his beloved Confessor Richard, looking upon her bereavement, might deign to restore life to her dead son. When the prayer was ended with devout intention of heart, the boy began, with his eyelids unclosed, to open his eyes a little; to move his feet, and to groan with sighs. Whence the mother, approaching the boy quickly, and placing her ear to the boy's mouth, coaxingly asks how and where he has been. And he first as if whispering with a thin voice answered: "I was in a most beautiful and pleasant place with God, and I saw before him men exceedingly beautiful, among whom also I beheld Blessed Richard, where I always wished to dwell: but Blessed Richard asked the Lord to give me to him. When this was done, Blessed Richard signing my breast with his hand and anointing it, drove all pain and infirmity from my body, and restored me, as you see, at once to former health and life." These things indeed at first as if palpitating he seemed to utter, and soon after raising his hands and sitting up, joyfully and plainly before all, he gave thanks to God and Blessed Richard for the restoration of health and life. Those who were present at this miracle, or by their relation hearing the same, or wherever the fame became known, giving thanks to God, blessed him, who willed by so remarkable a miracle to show his Saint Richard glorious to this world.

NOTES.

CHAPTER III.

The Canonization of St Richard: the Bull of Urban IV.

[15] The fame of his sanctity spread through England, When therefore Blessed Richard, still vigorous in mortal flesh, so flourished and was fragrant, that to those seeing and hearing he was of profit for examples of life and the rudiments of doctrine, and also by the glory of miracles, for incitements to divine praise; after the scythe of death also, he began to flourish with new and various prodigies, so that of him not undeservedly should be chanted: "The just man shall germinate as a lily, and shall flourish forever before the Lord." Hos. 14:6 Therefore, with the fame of his sanctity and the frequency of miracles spread through the English isle, the King with the nobles of the land, and all Orders running to the sepulchre, the Clergy with the Bishops, rich with poor, old with young, began to visit the Saint's thresholds in crowds, and to honor the place of his burial with various and precious gifts. Yet this Blessed one had not yet been enrolled in the number of the Saints by the judgment of the Supreme Pontiff: whence his successor ^a in the Chichester See the Bishop, holding frequent conversation on this with his Canons, The Bishop and Chapter of Chichester feared lest perhaps they should be found ungrateful to the benefits of divine grace, if for long they concealed such great works of God from the audience of the Supreme Pontiff, certain nobles of both sexes upbraiding them with negligence on this; especially since the offerings and gifts with which the faithful daily honored the Saint's sepulchre ought most justly on this business not undeservedly to be expended. To these things the King with the Magnates of the land favorably promise favor and aid toward the expediting of this matter. The King and Nobles of England ask Provisions therefore being made of prudent and discreet men and wholly suited to such a great business, the King himself sent letters of supplication, attesting the fame of his virtues and miracles both in life and after his death. The Prelates write, the Nobles and Magnates write, unanimously entreating the Supreme Pontiff that, for the honor of God and the strengthening of the Catholic faith, by his letters to some discreet and God-fearing Prelates he give in mandate, that summoning those who ought to be summoned for this, they should, by the attestations of the faithful, investigate what they might find concerning the aforesaid articles of his sanctity; and afterwards be zealous to intimate it to the ears of the Supreme Pontiff.

[16] and obtain from Alexander IV that an examination be instituted, There presided at that time over the Roman See Pope Alexander of holy memory, who granted with benign favor what was asked of him, and committed the execution of this business to men famous alike for knowledge and religion, whom in the beginning of this aforesaid work I have already indicated. Pope Alexander, however, his last day by the debt of nature terminating, the examination of witnesses indeed, which had been begun while he was living, they faithfully carried out: the report of the attestations however was delayed to the times of Urban of venerable memory, in the first year of whose Papacy, the report of which is made to Urban IV, men of venerable opinion, Master Nicholas of Wych, kinsman of the same Saint, and Lord William of Radinges, former Chaplain of the same Saint and privy to his secrets, both however Canons of Chichester, sent to the Roman Curia, strenuously and with full faith carried out the business of the canonization of Blessed Richard. An efficacious and strenuous persuader of this canonization before the Supreme Pontiff and the Cardinals and the other Prelates who were then present, was Master John of ^b Exeter of venerable memory, then Chancellor of York, but afterwards [c] Bishop of Winchester, a man of famous knowledge; and having taken a theme from the typical ornament of the legal Priest, who walked girded with gold, hyacinth, purple, and precious stones, he clearly set forth that our Evangelical Priest also, I mean Blessed Richard, bore the aforesaid in the ornament of morals. The Supreme Pontiff therefore, who canonizes St Richard on 22 January at Viterbo. with the Cardinals and a copious multitude of Clergy and people, on the day ^d of St Vincent, being at the house of the Friars Minors at Viterbo ^e, with the greatest devotion solemnly directed him to be enrolled in the Catalog of Saints

the Lord Pope himself with tears of joy pronouncing the sentence of canonization, all also giving thanks to God, who made St Richard similar to the Saints in glory. Amen.

[17] In the very Office of the Mass, which the Supreme Pontiff celebrated on that day, and composes the prayers to be read in the Mass; he composed and himself chanted the following prayers, to be chanted in the church in honor of the Saint. "Let us pray. O God, who to declare the merits of your Saints cause your Church to shine with miracles; grant us your servants, by the intercession of Blessed Richard, your Confessor and Bishop, happily to come to their fellowship. Through our Lord. Let us pray. Grant, we beseech, merciful God, that by the intercession of Blessed Richard your Confessor and Bishop, the gift offered to the eyes of your majesty, may both obtain for us the grace of living well, and acquire eternal glory after this life. Through our Lord." Similarly the Postcommunion: "May these sacrosanct mysteries received, Lord, confer on us a salutary effect, of which Blessed Richard was a devout dispenser. Through our Lord." He also added letters to all the Prelates of the Churches about his canonization, miracles, and sanctity, in which he also mandates the day of his migration from the world to be solemnly celebrated: of which letters this is the tenor.

[18] He invites the whole Church triumphant and militant "Urban, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to the venerable Brothers, Archbishops and Bishops, and to the beloved sons, Abbots, Priors, Deans, Archdeacons, Provosts, Archpresbyters, and other Prelates of the Churches, to whom these letters shall come, greeting and Apostolic blessing. ^f 'Let the Angelic host of the heavens now exult, let the divine mysteries exult': for the victory of the highest King, and the effect of his saving passion, shine forth in the creature of the human race. 'Let the Saints exult in glory, and rejoice in their beds' at a new fellow-citizen of heaven: who, being a dweller erstwhile of a house of clay, having an earthly foundation; after the flesh with its vices, after the world with its delights was overcome, after the triumph gained over the ancient enemy, the prison of the body being dissolved, made a fellow-countryman of the Heavenly, rests in the heavenly fatherland, inviting to rejoice and dwells in the starry mansions. Let Mother Church exult, joyful with the fruitfulness of new offspring; by whose merits she beholds the Catholic faith, founded upon the firm rock with stable firmness, to shine with illustrious miracles, and to be marked with signal signs: by which the deceitful fallacies of heretics are confuted, the obstinate perseverance of the Jews is confounded, and the inexcusable ignorance of the pagans is deprived of every veil of excuse. Let England break forth into jubilee, and meditate that by celebrated memory she has produced an Angelic man, a sharer in the glory of Angels. Let the Church of Chichester exult and rejoice, which deserved to have so great a Pastor, who living instructed her with saving admonitions, taught her with praiseworthy examples; dying, fortifies her with favor among men, and protects her by intercessions with God. Rejoicing therefore and exulting with joy, let her commemorate that she had on earth a patron, by whose patronage in heaven she is fortified.

[19] "Let all Christians, too, applaud and rejoice everywhere with flowing joy, and to glorify God as they consider the possessions of this world to have availed for eternal glory, so that affected by temporal pains they may obtain eternal joys; as they see the contempt of the world and of worldly things grow strong unto the principle of eternal inheritance; so that despising earthly things they may partake of supernal things, and become coheirs of Christ the Lord. Let them therefore clap their hands, let them jubilate with voices of exultation, let the applause of works exult, let the voice of psalms jubilate, let hands clap with pious works amid the devout dances of prayers, let voices sound, let well-sounding cymbals resound, let lips composed to the heart strike with a concordant harmony, let the heart love, the tongue cry out, the hand work unceasingly, let the people and the clergy joyful pass a day of joy, from the immensity of grace let them measure the measure of praise and joy. Let them therefore praise the Lord according to the multitude of his infinite greatness, let them praise him without end, wonderful in Blessed Richard of venerable memory, formerly Bishop of Chichester: whom he himself in his immense goodness, magnifying with the operation of virtues and the grace of healings, so illustrated with immense miracles, that in the diversity of grades of his state, in grace and glory he ascended by degrees.

[20] in Richard's eminent sanctity: "For in the state of subjection, he shone as a morning star in the midst of a cloud; while in the ignorance of youthful age, with the footstep of innocence firmed, he lived by example imitating. In the grade of Prelacy he shone as the moon full in her days, receiving greater increases both from the merits of growing virtues, than from the glory of the dignity obtained. But after his happy passage from this life, as a resplendent sun, thus he shone in the temple of God, while coruscating with evident signs, as with radiating beams of the sun, he deserved that the happy beginning, continued with a happier middle, be concluded with a most happy end. Such an end of his life indeed was due: for so did the Bestower of all good things give him to run through the courses of the present life, that dying to the world he might more happily deserve to live to God himself. Whose life, through which made a branch of the true vine he lives, planted in eternal life; whose course, through which the Father of mercies prepared for him access to the heavenly palace; whose wondrous miracles, by which miraculously through his merits the Lord and Ruler magnified his Church; let a succinct discourse, with favorable divine grace, for the proclamation of his praise, for instructing with new bulwarks the edifice of the Christian religion, for the instruction and joy of the present and future, run through with grateful compendium.

[21] for he, youth having been led piously and chastely, "For this man from the first beginnings of his earliest youth, led by the guidance of that Leader, ruled and directed by the rule of that king, following whom in his cellars, obeying him, he always anxiously wished, and at length obtained (as we firmly believe) to be gloriously brought in; devoting himself zealously to the virtues, offered his vows devotedly to the Lord of virtues: all things which youthful age is wont perniciously to embrace, as if now established in advanced age, avoiding them with discreet maturity, he pursued continence: the uncertain ways of adolescence and youth he strove to traverse with a path so unpolluted, that he preserved his reputation unhurt from every infamy of carnal contagion. He too when by his firstborn brother, the nuptials and inheritance refused induced to grace by his grateful service, not seduced by the cunning of any astuteness, with the offer of yielding the patrimony, which the same brother according to the custom of the country wholly held, was invited to the conjugal companionship of a certain noble girl; clean in heart of this world's unclean allurements, that he might pass into the lot of the Lord, he yielded to such yielding; and with firm purpose espousing his soul to the heavenly bridegroom, he of his own accord spurned the espousals of an earthly bride; aspiring to the privilege of chastity, not execrating the sacrament of carnal marriage. O provident negotiation! O useful and ingenious commerce! Earthly things he exchanged for heavenly, transitory for abiding, temporal for eternal. He despised the temporal patrimony, that he might become a sharer of the eternal inheritance: the pleasures of carnal wedlock, anxious for those desiring them, full of repentance for the satiated, he abhorred; that he might obtain the delights of the undefiled bed, sweet and placid for those desiring them, grateful and eager for those enjoying them. That he might be more abundantly filled with knowledge and virtues, he gave solicitous effort to study, and devoted himself virtuously to virtues.

[22] he gave himself to the pursuit of the virtues alone, "And because he brought a new vessel, namely a soul not infected with the stains of sins, to the true Elisha, he put into it the salt of wisdom, and so fructified it with virtues and the oil of shining fame, that advancing beyond his contemporaries in the knowledge of letters, he advanced so much in virtues and fame, that among the rest, nay with the rest, Blessed Edmund, then Archbishop of Canterbury, running at the proclamation of his knowledge and the odor of his praiseworthy conversation, took him into a share of singular familiarity, and to the office of Chancellor of Canterbury. and to the ministry of the Church: And when the fuller grace given him by the Lord had been proved by familiar experience, than common fame had promised; he used his ministry for the administration of the whole Archbishopric; he reputed him his right hand, 'the faithful breast of his counsel, a faithful minister of justice, and a learned tongue of fruitful doctrine.' And in these and other lesser administrations committed to his care, with true God's divine grace following him, he so ministered, that in the truthfulness of speech, the censure of justice, the mildness of meekness, the cultivation of humility, he showed himself lovable to all, useful to all; refreshing the poor with aid, the rich with counsel; in these shining as a morning star, with his increasing merits he grew into the brightness of a full moon. For although virtues are sometimes wont to grow lukewarm, or to yield to leisure, at the summit of desired dignity; while some are zealous to live more quietly, that they may persist longer in the desired and obtained dignity; in this one, however, with the increase of higher rank, they grew.

[23] "For he being called to the government of the Church of Chichester, afterwards made Bishop of Chichester, was made more than usual watchful to care, not sluggish to work, gentle to morals. Thence the care of the poor was greater for him, his habit more abject, his gesture and address more humble. Thence he was in enduring persecutions stronger, in defense of ecclesiastical liberty more constant, in the censure of justice more inflexible, in prayer more fervent, in the giving of alms more profuse, in the chastisement of his own body more rigid, stricter in the observance of discipline, in the struggle of flesh and spirit more prudent; attending prudently to the frequent wrestlings of these in the very wrestling, he was zealous to wrestle more prudently; he forced the flesh to serve the spirit, he cast out the handmaid and her son, casting down the flesh and the flesh's incentives: but with vigils which, spurning his couch, he kept wide awake, he refreshed the spirit; he fed it with fasts; he nourished it with the great assiduity of prayers. O industrious man, O the prudence of a circumspect athlete! He imposed arms of weakening on the flesh, that the spirit might be armed with arms of strength: to the flesh he gave earthly arms, that the spirit might more easily bear heavenly arms. For that he might cautiously avoid the corruption of the flesh, he led his life in the utmost austerity, having indeed become truly Mordechai, he took both his name and omen, while he fulfilled the interpretation of the name, becoming 'the bitter contrition of shameless flesh,' and bitterly crushing the shameless flesh itself. For he put his garment a hair-shirt, and its goads, thongs, by pressing himself naked under the pricking of wooden and iron goads, he repressed; and putting on a cuirass over it, he added the arms of mortification. O the cautious sagacity of the fighter, and the sagacious caution! O the good guile against the enemy! So he armed the adversary, that he might weaken the armed one with arms, might safely contend with the weakened, might in the conflict more quietly conquer, from the armed one obtain victory more virtuously.

[24] "These are the wondrous, these the praiseworthy victories of war; 'not in a multitude of an army, but a strength coming from heaven.' This is the work of him, 'in whose sight there is no difference,' and living even he shone with miracles, in 'delivering in many or few.' This is the work of him, who taught that the burning lamp should not be placed under a bushel, but set upon a candlestick. This is the work of him, who fulfilled in work in Blessed Richard what he taught in word: for the Father of lights, who gave him to walk through the darkness of this world in his light, kindled in him the lamp of merits: he placed it upon the candlestick of wondrous works, that through clear merits, as the moon shining, at length through the evidence of miracles he might advance to the brightness of the sun, and as a sun in the temple of the Christian faith shine forth, nor be hidden in

hidden places the works of such great brightness; which the same Supreme Pontiff deigned marvelously to work through him not only reigning with him, but also still though beyond the flesh yet living in the flesh, for the benefit of those suffering, for a miracle to those seeing and hearing, an example of imitation, and doctrine for advancing: of which, out of many, a brief series will for the sake of a burdensome multitude disclose some.

"For at a certain time of dearth, with an unexpected concourse of the needy running to the alms of the same blessed man, ^g especially by the stupendous multiplication of the bread; the bread which barely sufficing for the refreshment of ninety poor by the customary distribution, scarcely in number was enough for the least part of the multitude which came running; the living bread, which descended from heaven, at his blessing caused to abound, so much that beyond the estimate of those standing by, after nearly three thousand poor had been abundantly refreshed with the accustomed portions of those receiving, from the abundance of supernal piety the portions overflowed, which according to the same distribution would still have refreshed a hundred poor.

[25] but when dead he wondrously shone in body, "This man, the time of the dissolution of his body approaching, for several days before foretold the certain hour of his death (although nothing is more uncertain than that), the subsequent truth of the fact confirming the word. After his passage, his body before weighed down by vigils; broken by the hardness of the earth on which he was frequently wont to lie; macerated with fasts, afflicted with many mortifications; appeared most bright beyond human manner: so that it might be proved not oppressed by such pressures, but rather polished. At his invocation, contracted persons, whose limbs naturally serving for walking an inveterate paralysis of many years had so totally contracted, that and many restorations to health to the sick the same limbs being rendered unfit for such service, no faculty of walking at all was given; he, whose works are wondrous, by the limbs being suddenly raised to unaccustomed strength, raised them to the liberty of free walking. Ancient fistulas, concave with the contraction of many bones, and without hope of health dripping matter, by the merits of the same Saint, with the ulcers even suddenly healed, the clemency of divine piety dried up. Three dead, and to the very dead he granted life when invoked. of whom the wheel of a running wagon had crushed one in the middle, but a fever had extinguished the rest, he who by dying destroyed death, at prayers offered under his name raised to life. And what is not to be passed over in silence, but to be published with solemn joy, into a human body, on the point of being buried (born namely lifeless from the mother's body, to be transferred from the womb to the tomb), his name being invoked, the Creator of souls infused a living soul.

[26] "Indeed by these and other wondrous works attesting the sanctity of this Saint, and the truth of the Christian faith being spoken by the tongue of miracles, the people flocked together from every side, devotion grew, the Lord is praised for his saving graces, thanks are returned to the Author of salvation. The grace and common and celebrated fame concerning these things grew strong in the ears of Pope Alexander of happy memory, our predecessor, from the tabernacles of the English the voice of exultation and salvation thundered; to him the earnest supplication of our dearest sons in Christ, the illustrious King, Prelates, and other Magnates of England, humbly ascended. By the authority of our predecessor, the inquisition into the aforesaid was obtained; which having been examined and proved, Us and our Brothers, the truth in the inquisition itself being proved by religious Prelates, Counts, Barons, and others worthy of faith, and discussed by diligent examination, by our authority first through our venerable Brother the Bishop ^h of Tusculum, and at length by us and the same Brothers, to confound the enemies of the Church, was instructed concerning the wondrous life, glorious miracles and merits of the same Saint. Let heaven therefore exult with praises, let earth resound with joys, and let the Christian people sing the solemnities of this Saint with a joyful gathering. Let the hardness of the Jews be softened, let the ignorance of the pagans be instructed, let heresies be silent, let the deceitful lips of heretics hold their peace; nor let the deceitful little foxes any longer strive to destroy the crop of Christian religion with fiery tails and deceitful frauds; let them fear the strength of the Church, fortified with the defense of so great and such and like patrons; nor let their presumptuous temerity further presume to lie in wait against her, instructed with such great bulwarks of evident works and signs. Let those at least who do not rest in the testimonies of the true dogma, yield to evident signs; let those who persistently do not believe the Evangelical doctrine, at least believe the works; let them be turned away from the pathless ways of errors, let them be converted to the way of truth; that directed in the Lord's truth, they may more rightly trace the ways of this blessed man of faith and work by their footsteps, and be zealous to follow him, who walking in the unspotted way faithfully ministered to the Lord.

[127] "But since (as excepted from these a certain and undoubted belief firmly holds concerning him) the heavenly King has decreed to honor him thus in heaven, He declares that he enjoys heavenly glory, that, clothed as it were in regal vestments with the light of eternal brightness, and decorated with the diadem of everlasting glory, he may sit in the seat of supernal rest; it is fitting that by our ministry through all the circuit of the Christian Church, advancing in the vehicle of due veneration, he be honored on earth with joys flowing through the world and with praises poured forth everywhere. On which account, by the unanimous counsel and concordant consent of the same Brothers and of all the Prelates existing at the Apostolic See, on the feast of Blessed Vincent, on the 11th before the Kalends of February, him, the conqueror of the enemy of the human race, he commands his birthday, 3 April, to be celebrated annually, of the flesh, and of the world, we have directed to be inscribed in the catalog of Saints with celebrated joy. And therefore we mandate to your Universality by Apostolic writings, that on the third before the Nones of April (on which day his blessed spirit passed from the exile of the present life to the fatherland, and leaving the darkness of this world and entering the abyss of light, came to inaccessible light, happily dwelling in it, and happily held by the same) you solemnly celebrate his celebrated feasts, with modulated voices and marrow-filled hearts, every year, and cause them to be celebrated by your subjects; that venerating the same glorious and illustrious Confessor on earth, you may feel him a constant intercessor and propitious defender on high. And that to his venerable sepulchre a multitude of people may flow together the more abundantly as it is the more useful, and the venerable solemnity of the same Confessor be celebrated more solemnly; and he bestows Indulgences in his regard. to all truly penitent and confessed, who with devotion shall approach it on the day of his solemnity to implore his suffrages, every year in which they shall come there, trusting in the mercy of Almighty God and the authority of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, one year and forty days; and to those coming to the aforesaid sepulchre within the octave of the same feast, forty days of the penance enjoined upon them, we mercifully relax. Given at Viterbo, on the tenth before the Kalends of March, in the first year of our Pontificate." ⁱ

NOTES.

EPILOGUE.

Directed to the Bishop and Chapter of Chichester.

[128] He offers the Life of St Richard written at the command of the Countess widow. To the Pontiff of reverend sanctity of the sacred See of the Church of Chichester, successor of that formerly of distinguished sanctity, Blessed Richard, and to the whole venerable Chapter of the same Church, one to be reckoned by the name of a sinner rather than of a Preacher, Brother Ralph, your servant in the Lord, wishes to advance with the blessing of the supernal Father, and with the continual imitation of the aforesaid pious Father Richard. The providence of the heavenly disposition, with whom concerning the governance of his flock there is never oblivion, which once to Elijah, the holy Prophet, provided through the Sareptan widow for the sustentation of his hunger; he himself also in the present, through a widow, though not Sareptan, yet of no lower condition than the Sareptan, for writing the Life of Blessed Richard, as a food of the soul salutary, has ministered to me matter, by adding the urgency of her prayers. By the example therefore of the Prophet I do not think the salutary food of the soul, although ministered through the devout industry of a woman, should be despised. The history of the book of Kings commends the aforesaid Sareptan widow; but this one the lineage of Kings commends. To that one Elijah is sent to be fed; but to this one Christ comes daily in his members to be fed. For that one the Lord increased a little portion of oil in the cruse, and also a little meal of the pitcher; but of this one, amid so much profusion of expenses and alms, the Lord so increases the storerooms, that not only to strangers coming, but even to the very procurators and dispensers of things and possessions, he daily brings new astonishment; and he compares her with the Sareptan widow. those wondering indeed and on wondering at this conferring, how, in respect to the possessions of her means, the profusion of such inexhausted liberality is sufficient. That widow of the old law is commendable; this one of new grace, praiseworthy in life, birth, and opinion. That one finally, for refreshing her own and her son's soul with bread, collected two sticks: this one has learned to collect from the wood of the Lord's Passion, for the incentive of devotion and love, a bundle of myrrh and to place it between her breasts. To these things who knows if the Lord willed his life to be written through a woman's solicitude, who while he lived was so solicitously zealous to instruct the life of women, and especially of this one of whom we speak, for the advancement of virtues? She herself repaid what she could, and unwilling to appear ungrateful for the Saint's benefits, what she could not by herself she procured to be completed by another's labor. Which labor I, although unworthy, both for the sake of obtaining the suffrages of so great a Father, and for the devout insistence of the aforesaid widow,

namely the Countess of Arundel, Isabella namely de Albini, thought should be undertaken, following the truth of the life and miracles of the aforesaid Saint, examined by the Roman See, and the relation of the faithful. You therefore, as imitators of him who, not despising either the frailty of the female sex or the slightness of the offering, preferred the two mites of that Evangelical widow to the abundant treasury of the rich; the present treatise of the Life of Richard, to be read in your church to the honor of the Saint himself, attending rather to affection than to any defect of eloquence or condition, please deign to admit, if it pleases; and if you see anything in it worthy of correction, let not the line of your discretion refuse to correct it.