Galterius

ON SAINT GALTERIUS,

ABBOT OF SAINT MARTIN NEAR PONTOISE IN GAUL.

TOWARD THE END OF THE 11TH CENTURY.

Galterius, Abbot of Saint Martin, of the Order of Saint Benedict, near Pontoise in Gaul (St.)

BY G. H.

The Vexin country at this time is reckoned to be double, distinguished by the river Epte: one part of this subject to the dominion of Normandy is commonly called the Norman Vexin; as the other part is called the French Vexin, added to the government of the Île-de-France, as they call it. In this is reckoned the chief city of Pontoise, by some called Pontoesia, situated at the river Oise, to the ancients Oesia: in whose suburbs at the Viosne was built in the eleventh century of Christ the illustrious monastery of the Benedictine Order, first consecrated to Saint Germanus, then to Saint Martin: of Saint Galterius, Abbot of Pontoise: concerning whose foundation, also confirmed by a diploma of King Philip I of the Franks, Arthur du Monstier treats at length in Neustria Pia, page 550 and following. To the rule of this Abbey there was summoned from the ancient Resbach monastery, once built by Saint Audoenus, and appointed first Abbot Saint Galterius, by some called Galterus, Gualterus, Walterus, and Gauterius: concerning whose acts and holiness of life we here inquire. We have obtained of his Acts hitherto unpublished two copies, both ancient and illustrious: Acts from the ancient Legendaries, of these we give in the first place, those which are found in the old Legendaries or Breviaries, and are accustomed to be recited in the Ecclesiastical Office for the Lessons at Matins, both in the monastery of the men at Pontoise, and in the monastery of the women of Blessed Mary at Bertaucourt, which owes its origin to the same Saint Galterius: as is indicated more fully below in chapter 3 of this Life. We give them from the Tongres manuscript of the Canons Regular, and from the Huy manuscript of the Crosier Brothers. The same were long ago submitted by André du Chesne, Cosmographer of the Most Christian King, and recently by Hippolyte Vrayet, monk of Corbie, both most loving of our studies. These are the Acts concerning Saint Galterius, partly drawn from those which we give in the second place, partly things lacking in the said Acts added from elsewhere and more complete.

[2] Then in the second place we give Acts very ancient, written by a monk of Pontoise, and a disciple of Saint Galterius, and for the most part an eye witness: thus in number 16 he reckons himself among those whom he had loved with paternal affection, other acts written by his disciple, and whom he had instructed, drawn away from worldly allurements, in the fear of God. And at the end of chapter 2, "Moreover," he says, "let us recount what

we have seen and heard, the glorious great deeds of the same blessed man." These Acts are extant written in a parchment codex in the said Abbey of Saint Martin at Pontoise, and through the care of our Frederick Flouët they were transcribed from there in the year 1651, and were transmitted to us; but before, accurately collated with the original by Michel Alix, Official of Cergy and Parish Priest of Saint Audoenus Laumosne, who testified this by his subscription, on June 12 of the said year 1651. At the end of these Acts very many miracles are said to be shown, as the little page of the following book testifies: with a History of miracles, and in the Prologue to the History of the miracles he asserts that he has written the Life and passing of Blessed Gauterius, and wishes now to write his miracles; and everywhere he displays himself an eye witness. This history, we returning from Rome through the Gauls, found at Paris with Francis du Chesne, son of the aforementioned André, in the second volume of Collections, and here we give it; and we subjoin to these the Charter of Canonization, and the Charter of Canonization. found in the box of the relics of Saint Galterius, in the year 1655, on the 4th day of May, and transmitted to us by the Hippolyte Vrayet previously indicated in the year 1666.

[3] Day of death on Parasceve, Saint Galterius died on Parasceve, toward nightfall, that is, on the day of the Lord's Passion, namely the sixth feria before the Paschal feast. The year 1095 is added, when with cycle of the Moon 13, of the Sun 12, Dominical letter G, Easter fell on the day March 25. Hence, when we had obtained the former Life, we had decided to give it on March 23: but we were in doubt whether perhaps the year was begun from the Paschal feast, and accordingly he had died on April 11, Easter being celebrated on the 13th of the same month. But the second Life is thus concluded: "Our Blessed Father Gauterius of holy memory passed away on the 6th day before the Ides of April, in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord 1095, Indiction III." Which because they do not cohere as is clear from what has been said, whether April 8. we have expunged as added to the Life itself afterwards by another. Meanwhile we have taken care to inquire concerning the true Birthday of the Holy Abbot among the Pontoise monks themselves, whose Prior wrote back on June 19 of the year 1666, that in the ancient Martyrology of his monastery his death is referred to this April 8 in these words: "On the 6th day before the Ides of April, at the castle of Pontoise the passing of Saint Galterius the Abbot:" and the Prior adds, that on the same day the feast is celebrated in the said Pontoise Abbey of Saint Martin, and earnestly requests that the Acts of Saint Galterius be inserted in our work at that day. The Sammarthani in volume 4 of Gallia Christiana, where they treat of this Abbey, think that Saint Galterius died on the 6th day before the Ides of April, on the day of Parasceve, Indiction III, in the year 1110, when with cycle of the Moon 9, of the Sun 27, Dominical letter B, Easter was celebrated on the day April 10. But since in both Lives Saint Galterius is said to have flourished from the time of Leo IX until the time of Urban II, under the Frankish Kings Henry and Philip, he must necessarily have died earlier. For if he had lived until the year 1110, he would have attained the 11th year of Pope Paschal II elected after the death of Urban, and the second year of Louis the Fat, King of the Franks. What if it be said that he died in the year 1097, on the third day of April on Parasceve, and on the 8th day of April the 4th feria after Easter was handed over for burial? Thus the day of deposition, as has often been done elsewhere, would have been taken for the day of death. In the Florarium MS. the day of deposition is assigned to April 12 with the year 1091: but the day May 3 by Molanus and the Brussels Carthusians in Greven, and in Wion, but confusing in the Notes with the Abbot of Melrose in Scotland.

[4] Another mark concerning the translation of the body is clearly expressed in the cited Charter of Canonization, day of Translation May 3, and it is the year 1153, the 3rd day of May, on the feast of the Invention of the Holy Cross: at which day in the Pontoise Martyrology these things are read: "On the 5th day before the Nones of May. At the castle of Pontoise the translation of Saint Galterius the Abbot." But the festive memory of this translation from the beginning was transferred to the following day, it is celebrated on May 4, May 4: which day from the year 1548, by the authority of Francis de Harlay de Chamvalon, Archbishop of Rouen, and with the consent of the Pontoise community, began to be celebrated with the greatest solemnity, and with the royal faculty there was joined to it an annual fair continuing for two days. elsewhere he is venerated on May 30, In the Abbey of the nuns of Blessed Mary of Bertaucourt Saint Galbertus is venerated on the day May 30: which feast is also observed by Claudius Robertus in Gallia Christiana, Ignatius Josephus of Saint Mary in the History of Abbeville, Arthur du Monstier in Neustria Pia page 551, and André Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology: who with a very long encomium, drawn from the Acts, celebrates him, and near the end has these things: "He departed indeed to his reward released from the flesh on the 6th day before the Ides of April, but because that day often falls on the funerals of the Savior, the passing of the blessed man is deferred to this day to be venerated." Chrysostom Henriquez in the Cistercian Menology refers him to May 2, and asserts that he wonderfully adorned the Cistercian Order with excellent virtues. Which things fall of their own accord, nor do they need refutation.

LIFE

From ancient manuscript codices.

Galterius, Abbot of Martin, Order of Benedict, near Pontoise in Gaul (St.)

BHL Number: 8798

FROM MSS.

PROLOGUE.

[1] The present day offers material for divine praise and cause for exultation to the monastic order; cause of the writing. which, as a debt of canonical duty, gives back to us the pleasant and solemn memory of Blessed Walter. For when times were already bent toward evil, and the charity of many cloistered men was growing cold, Walter, like the sun bursting from the clouds, like a rose rising from a thornbush, shone forth as the honor of the order, nay, rather the order itself of monks: whose beginning and progress, and finally his glorious end, to describe I believe meritorious for me, and by God's persuasion working fruitful for hearers.

CHAPTER I.

Saint Galterius' formation: His monastic Life at Resbach, his Abbatial Life at Pontoise. His various flights thence.

[2] In the territory of the Ambianeses, in the region of Wimareus ^a, in the village which is called Andain-villa ^b, Walter was born. Who when in his boyhood years had been devoted by his parents to liberal disciplines; with the flowing grace of his talent beyond the strength of his little age, he was imbued with the first rudiments. But at the beginning of adolescence, showing signs of his future perfection, he went out from his land and from his kinship, Instructed in various sciences he instructs others: and from the house of his father, that he might as a happy peripatetic hear many sciences and diverse opinions from various masters. Thus proving all things, retaining what was good, more fully taught, he was made a teacher, and endeavored to teach faithfully and to be useful, ruling famous schools, frequented by the great and the greater.

[3] Already a man of great name, with the Spirit working within, he began to fear lest worldly pomp should entice his mind, deliberating about his state of life he puts on hair-shirt, and lest the plague of vainglory should extinguish the spirit: and he conceived the counsel of the Gospel, that as a poor man taking up his cross he might follow the crucified Jesus Christ poor for the world: he chose far from the tumult of the age the safer life of cloistered men and the better part of Mary to be preferred. Yet, seasoning the offered sacrifice with the salt of discretion, taming the flesh with harsh hair-shirt, he wished first to prove himself long in the world; lest the regular austerity of the order suddenly assumed, he becomes a monk of Resbach, under an unaccustomed burden should make the despairing one change his mind. At length strengthened by such exercise, he betook himself to the cloister of Resbach ^c: where as to the traditions of the order, he was long a novice; but as to the holiness of life, he quickly surpassed the rest.

[4] Furthermore, charity condemning no inert leisure, considered at that time a certain commoner, imprisoned by the Provost of the monastery, for the exacting of his faults, with his bread he refreshes a captive, and afflicted by long fasting, so that he was already almost failing from hunger. Moved therefore, the man of God by the bowels of compassion, secretly keeping back the bread given for his own refreshment, he who had read that of Augustine, "Have charity, and do whatever you will"; feared not the transgression of a pious cause; but in the silence of the untimely night going out from the cloister, he approached the prison, and opening it he loosed the bonds of the captive, and revives him with the bread which he had brought. and releasing him carried on his shoulders he is flogged: He then drew him out, wasted with hunger, and carries him on his own shoulders, like a lost sheep, to the place where, loosed, free flight was open. First, however, he received from him a promise of faith, that he would not inflict any evil for the punishment which he had justly endured afterwards upon that church or its persons: but also for this release that he would give glory to God, patiently bearing contumely, and thus yield to him a crown. This deed did not lie hidden from the Brothers; it was reported to the Abbot: who without mercy flogged the man of mercy, with punishment inflicted for a work which merited an eternal reward.

[5] Absent he is elected Abbot of Pontoise, In these times, not far from the castle of Pontoise, certain Brothers subjecting themselves to the monastic rule, chose a place to inhabit, where, a Monastery having been founded, the devotion of the faithful conferred possessions, by which they might be sustained, devoted to the divine offices. And lest they should be, without a Pastor, like wandering sheep, they began to deliberate about an Abbot. And having heard of the fame of the aforementioned man, spread far and wide, they elected him, that he might be induced to this, exhibiting every kind of effort: Who refusing more strongly and resisting, with difficulty was at length conquered, and drawn to that office. And having received the Pontifical benediction, when by King Philip ^d, the Advocate of his monastery, the pastoral staff was delivered to him, and the royal hand gripped him near the curved part; and is instituted by the King: the Abbot took the staff above that hand at the curved part, saying: "Not from beneath your hand, but from above do I receive this staff: for not from you do I receive the governance of the Church, but from God." Which brave deed the King and those who were present commending within themselves, began to revere such constancy of a humble person. He excels in every virtue, Promoted therefore to the grade of dignity, he strove to ascend by the grades of virtues. Who neither a respecter of persons nor a palpater of crimes, showed himself mild and gentle to the good, terrible to the unjust. He was of lofty stature, handsome in countenance, angelic in appearance, composed in act; lowly in dress, clear in talent, prudent in counsel, sweet in eloquence: generous to others, very sparing to himself; even treading on the whirlwinds of fortune, just as in prosperity so in adversity he persisted with unmoved mind and face: and also with a certain craft of the Holy Spirit putting on various forms, he appeared humble to the gentle, terrible to the proud, great to the powerful, equal to the poor: nor less admirable was his eloquence, plain to the simple, and admirable to the learned.

[6] He flees to Cluny, But since a blessed man is always fearful, he began to fear lest in this state also glory should tickle his mind, or God should more severely exact of him the faults of his subjects. Slipping therefore from the monastery by a clandestine flight, he transferred himself to the cloister of the Cluniacs, long desired by him, where at that time the choicer school of virtues was vigorous. And concealing who and how great he was,

how humbly and devotedly he showed himself there, and with how great merits he shone forth in that Religion, the fame of the neighboring places has proclaimed; which flying as far as the ears of his subjects, filled the land with its good odor. Therefore the Brothers stirred up sought their Master solicitously: whom the Abbot of Cluny unwillingly restored, compelled by the authority of his superiors. But Blessed Galterius returning, spent a short time among those Brothers, transferring himself to a certain grotto, returning he lives in a grotto, situated not far from the monastery, where for a long time the servant of God led an eremitical life. However, frequented there both by his own and by others, he left the same place, imitating perhaps the anchorite, who is read to have said, that one enjoying the discourse of men is not worthy of the conversation of Angels.

[7] With the aforesaid causes, or perhaps with another hidden from us, deciding to be far from his monastery, he went to a certain island near the city of Tours, and fleeing again, on an island near Tours. there having obtained a little church founded in honor of the holy Martyrs Cosmas and Damian ^f, suiting his solitude. But neither can a lamp in the midst, nor a city set upon a mountain, nor Galterius lie hidden in that place: but he is visited in troops by the people of Tours, honored with gifts: which he received for himself unwillingly, but that he might distribute them to the poor. For one day, all things being exhausted in similar uses, he gave his books as a pledge to a certain importunate poor man, that that poor man might retain the money for himself. Once also he gave a tunic given to him by the Brothers of the Major monastery to a poor man, and clothing Christ in the poor man, the chilly giver warmed the needy one.

NOTES.

CHAPTER II.

Roman journey, admonition of the King and Bishops, other penances and virtues.

[8] At length, betrayed by Agarinus, accustomed to travel through holy places, at Pontoise. The Brothers of his monastery prepare a journey, and hasten to the said island, and find whom they seek. They plead before him, that his monastery has collapsed in spiritual things through his absence, and that temporal things have been scattered. Then, wrapped around his knees, with a shower of tears they barely moved him, his return obtained with difficulty. Brought back to Pontoise, Returning, however, he collected the scattered, restored the collapsed, solidified the broken, informed the motives of those straying. Then a cause arose that he should visit the Roman Curia; and having visited according to custom the thresholds of the Saints, he begged Pope Gregory from Hildebrand ^a for absolution from his undertaken rule. Who, knowing the blessed man's holiness, delighted in his discourse, although refusing to accede to his petition about laying down the rule. But with him detained with much honor for many days, at length he enjoined upon him, with license given to return, that he faithfully guard the flock committed to him. Nor moreover should he waver, unless by the familiar counsel of the Holy Spirit this command should be changed. He seeks Rome:

[9] Returning therefore to the care of the flock, he strove thus to lead the sheep through the pastures of life, that they might deserve to be placed in the heavenly folds. Moreover a flame burning within vehemently, He admonishes the King: he gnawed at the crimes of the powerful no less constantly than confidently. For once, noting and rebuking Philip King of the Franks, a most bitter man, for the crime of simony, he said: "It is not lawful for you to give ecclesiastical dignities, much less to sell them; by selling them you give an example to buyers, and thus you are made guilty of the crimes of others." Likewise concerning certain commands of the already mentioned Pope, namely of not hearing the Mass of a Priest having a concubine, ^b with a council of Bishops convoked at Paris, and the Bishops gathered in council, when they judged these things too hard and unworthy to be equally fulfilled; the holy man, who then happened to be present, boldly resisted in their face. Inflamed with zeal the Bishops judged him a blasphemer and enemy of the Kingdom, with the King's attendants incited and animated: who having seized and bound the Saint of God consigned him to prison. He went, however, from the sight of the council rejoicing, because he was held worthy to suffer contumely for Christ: but liberated by the intervention of friends, and returning to his own, he undertook a life more austere than usual.

[10] In giving alms he did not wish the trumpet to sound before him, but openly repelling the poor, he conferred generous benefits on them most secretly. He gives alms secretly through others: Whence one day to honorable men, Marcellus the Bishop and Raymund the Deacon of Pontoise, he committed no small sum to be distributed to the poor, pretending that it had been delivered to him by a certain friend for these uses; and forbade them to reveal this secret while he lived. So bountiful was he to the poor of Christ that he denied to the needy neither a little knife nor anything else which he could do without. In the cell beside his church with how many torments he afflicted his flesh, he is great in afflicting his body, he alone knows who contemplates all things. There his bed was felt, and a cheap mat covered with a hair-shirt: so that it could scarcely be discerned where he laid his head or where he placed his feet. ^c Linen sleeves appeared sewn onto the hair-shirt, lest the hair-shirt be detected. From knotted thongs having made a scourge he so harshly disciplined himself, that although he withdrew to a more remote chamber, yet the noise of blows was often heard by the sacristans of the church and others.

[11] He aspires to the lowest services, Clothing he did not change except when loosed by excessive age or given to the poor. Often he exercised the office of reader, often of cook in the refectory. Sometimes he prepared the oven for baking breads. Whence one day, failing through excessive mortification of flesh, he fell before the mouth of the oven, carried back by the hands of his disciples into the cell. Rarely eating in the refectory, he had a familiar who from his wine cup, the wine having been taken out, secretly poured in water, so that by the Brothers he might be believed to be refreshed with wine, and to have drunk from it. in prayer he keeps watch. In his cell he received loaves and beans cooked without fat or delicate flavor: and since so many loaves were often taken out for the uses of the poor, as many as were brought in, it is clear that he was then content with beans and water. He received water on Saturday for his own uses, which should suffice through the following week. The others entering the dormitory after the matins psalms, vigilant in prayer, he was sometimes found to have fallen asleep, with his head wrapped between his knees. But he detested sitting in the church as the crime of sloth. His limbs, fainting with fasting and age, he supported with a staff when they failed.

NOTES.

CHAPTER III.

The monastery of Bertaucourt constructed; the illness and death of Saint Galterius.

[12] In these days, by divine revelation worthy of the merits of his singular life ^a to Galterius, there appeared the Blessed Mother Virgin Mary, thus speaking: ^b "Arise, Galterius, prepare the journey, warned by the appearance of the Mother of God, and go to Bertaucourt, and there near arrange a church: for I have chosen a place there, to which women may come together to show me service and honor." These things said, she disappeared, leaving the man weighing the judgment on the things heard in the balance of discretion: and because he did not yet give credence, he desisted from carrying out the command. Returning at length the blessed Virgin, rebuking her minister for sloth, and repeating the command, impressed a blow of her hand on his face, so that the traces of her fingers appeared on his face for a long time afterwards, they say. He goes to Bertaucourt, Thinking within himself and saying, "Because I have not seen Bertaucourt and do not know the place"; the journey instructed he went on pilgrimage, commending himself to divine wisdom; and inquiring from travelers about those parts, fully instructed, beyond the city of Amiens five leagues distant ^c he found the desired goal.

[13] There in a wooded place beside the waters he rested and remained, building there a little house and a chapel. To which there was then made a gathering of peoples, that they might carry away from him the food of eternal life. But also to women he more secretly explained the cause of his coming and the revelation, that he might animate devoted women to show service there to the Blessed Virgin. But since, as the poet says,

Nothing is more intolerable than a rich woman,

and thence he is driven out by a powerful woman, at Bertaucourt a certain matron held sway, to whom at the persuasion of the devil it was said, that on account of that man's presence no small damage was imminent to her; for the multitude flowing in would trample her crops, and the possessions which she had consigned to herself, as if by an army coming upon them, carts and horsemen would make public, if that man of great name should remain there longer. She, however, acquiescing in the counsel of the ancient enemy, drove the man of God from the seat of God, who is struck with sudden death: and compelled him to leave her territory: but offended that his purpose was unfulfilled, he returned to his own seat. But the detestable deed was in a short time followed by punishment. For when that Lady with her people on a certain solemn day was admonished to go to the church, she rose from her chair, and falling backward by sudden death expired with broken neck.

[14] But although Satan strives with all his efforts to impede a good purpose, yet he can do nothing except as much as is permitted him by the divine power. For the holy and noble women Godelendis and Helwigis devoting themselves to the Lord, a monastery is constructed under Abbess Godelendis. gathered at the chosen place with great possessions. Tearing up even the shrubs with their own hands, they extend both the acquired possessions and the buildings. In a short time, however, with other women dedicated to God flowing together, and the devotion of the faithful conferring ample benefits there, a church was founded there also in honor of the Blessed Virgin, and enriched and endowed with estates bestowed there. The virgins

serving there God and the blessed Virgin under the rule of Blessed Benedict, after Blessed Galterius' passing, in the third year, had the aforementioned Godelendis consecrated as the first Abbess of that place. ^d But that heavenly Dispenser, who hanging on the cross scarcely converted one thief, but through his disciples afterwards enlarged his Church; returned his Saint to the desolate flock, before he had advanced much in that place; nevertheless he gave increase to his planting.

[15] Restored, however, to his place, from humble he made himself humbler, and from meek meeker. For when one day in Chapter he had accused his sins and negligence and insufficiency, He asks to be flogged by his own and obtains it, for these he suppliantly asks to receive the correction of the scourge on bended knees from the Brothers. They abhorring such a thing, since he persevered in his insistence, he hardly obtained what he asked: whence made more cheerful, that day he took food joyful with the Brothers. With the time of his dissolution approaching on Palm Sunday, entering the Chapter, with sweet and amicable exhortation he opened and urged the way of salvation to the Brothers. Then to the people, who on that day had come together in large numbers according to the processional custom, with the Count of Beaumont ^e present when he was making a sermon, there approached a certain matron conspicuous in too ambitious ornament, so that her train sweeping stirred up dust in the eyes of the bystanders. he reproaches the luxury of female clothing, Offended therefore, the man of God, when he called her in prophetic spirit a demoniac, rebuking such luxury of ornament, cried out that the shameless woman would come on the following Lord's day into his sight much more gloriously. To whom he replied: "Indeed you will come, but in a state much different from that which you now bear."

[16] But on the following day celebrating Mass, he with difficulty completed it, seized by fever, seized by a grave force of fever. Having called a certain one, for whom he had prepared parchments for writing a Breviary, he said: "Cease from your purpose, let the parchments be left for other uses of the Brothers, they will not be of least profit to me hereafter." There came to him on that day a messenger from the Countess of Beaumont, sick in a certain villa not far from Pontoise, signifying to him the command of that Lady, desiring greatly to be visited by him. To whom the man of God, full of the Spirit of God, he predicts his own death and the Countess': replied: "May the grace of God grant us that she may see me in the heavenly fatherland: for in this age she will see me no more." But with the illness urging, the Brothers having been summoned, he was anointed with Holy Oil, absolving the Brothers from all things to be absolved. Whom grieving very much for his departure he began to console, and taught with what spirit they ought to choose a Pastor. With frequent persuasions also he animated them to voluntarily bear the yoke of the Lord, openly made an express imitator of Christ, who after he came into Jerusalem on the Sunday before his Passion, on the intermediate days did not cease to preach the word of God and to exhort his disciples.

[17] Then the holy man, on the day of the Lord's Passion having received the Body of Christ, fell asleep in the Lord, and he dies on the day of Parasceve, with liberty given to his spirit to fly away to those above: whose flesh so shone, that the extinguished one displayed a certain beauty of resurrection. When indeed the Brothers were honorably handing over his body for burial, the peoples stirred up by fame from afar, with incomparable lamentation together with the monks mourned his departure, esteeming it as a most grievous loss to themselves. Most blessed Galterius flourished from the time of Leo ^f the Pope until the time of Urban II, under Henry ^g the father and Henry the son reigning, under the Frankish Kings Henry ^h and Philip, and a little later the Countess: in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1041 taken away from the light: but on that same day the aforesaid Countess is said to have died, as if following the man whose discourse and sight she desired.

[18] But on the following Sunday, the matron, who with pompous apparel had offended the holy man, as you have heard; that his prophecy might be fulfilled, seized by a demon, was brought to the sepulchre of the blessed Confessor. miracles are performed. By his merits, after much insistence of the prayers which the faithful offered to the Lord for her, liberated from the demon she was restored to health. By this miracle afterwards induced those who were held by various languors, rejoiced that the suffrage of this Saint had prevailed for them; our Lord Jesus Christ working these things to the glory of his Saint, to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit is honor and glory, world without end. Amen.

NOTES.

ANOTHER LIFE

By a monk his disciple.

From the Pontoise MS.

Galterius, Abbot of Martin, of the Order of Benedict, near Pontoise in Gaul (St.)

BHL Number: 8796

BY A DISCIPLE FROM MS.

PROLOGUE.

[1] Since we see that the most ancient Poets, even Gentiles, have committed in their writings to tenacious memory the sayings and deeds of the old Gentiles with diligent solicitude, and with most illustrious eloquence and most delightful sweetness of words have extolled their merits; it seems worthy to hand down for the notice of posterity the contests and victories of the soldiers of the heavenly King, by which they subdued this world's pomp with its prince, for the utility of posterity. For indeed "to hide the secret of the king is good": The Lives of the Saints are written to the praise of God, but "to recite and confess the works of God is honorable." But it is worth while to attend to how many goods arise from these narrations. It is the praise of God, when the deeds of the Saints, for whom he stood forth as cooperator, are recited. For marvelous, as the Psalmist says, "is the Lord in his Saints." Ps. 67:36 The Saint is proclaimed in all his works. Through these the minds of many are stirred up to do well, enemies of the Christian name are cast down, the devil with his presumption is confounded. and incentive to readers. But for narrating these things I consider myself unequal to the merits, unequal in sense, unpolished in speech: but I beg his piety to render me somewhat fit for these things, who, when he willed, from the rock brought forth water for the thirsting people, made a brute animal form human words, and rendered the tongues of infants eloquent. But whoever shall be so inclined as to read this little edition of my small wit, be not suddenly moved, do not suddenly burst forth into censure, judging me unlearned and inert: do not attend here to the elegance of the sayings or the rusticity of the words, but to the truth of the matter which I am about to narrate: do not seek what you may reprehend, but whence you may profit.

CHAPTER I.

Saint Galterius' formation: his monastic Life at Resbach, his Abbatial Life at Pontoise: his various flight thence.

[2] Let us give thanks, most dear Brothers, to the Divine excellence, who after the Apostles and Apostolic men does not cease to guard his Church redeemed by his precious blood, ceaselessly granting to her examples from which she may profit; a lamp, by which she may seek those things which are to be sought, and flee those things which are to be fled. Among the most Christian defenders and champions of the holy Church, a great light, the man of God Gauterius, shone forth in our times: of how great merit he was the following page will declare. This man flourished in the times of ^a Pope Leo, Alexander, Gregory, who was called Hildebrand, Galterius flourishes in the 11th century, until the times of Pope Urban, named Odo; in the days of Henry the elder and Henry the younger, Emperors, reigning in his time Robert King of the Franks, Henry and Philip Kings of the Franks. This man from the earliest flower of youth, leaving his paternal soil, parents, and kinsmen, gave his work to the studies of letters, traversing the neighboring regions and distant: instructed in letters, he teaches others: whatever anywhere he found, which he could add to the fullness of his knowledge, he by no means sluggishly hid in the storeroom of his heart. But after he had been sufficiently and abundantly imbued in the liberal arts, that is Grammar, Rhetoric, and Dialectic; he began to have disciples, ruling many and most famous schools: and the treasures of knowledge, which with much labor and sweat he had sought, he began to open and pour forth to others.

[3] Then a divine ardor touched his mind, that all things which are of this world being left, deliberating about the state of life, free from all things he might be at leisure for God alone, and in the port of tranquil station he might fix the anchor of good action, where he might not fear the shipwreck of his ship. For first, as a man of great counsel, still placed in the secular habit, he proved himself with many arguments, wearing down his flesh with frequent fastings; he assumes afflictions of the flesh. clothed in the roughest hair-shirt, from the shoulders to the loins. With such exercises the soldier of Christ accustomed himself, lest suddenly he should seek so great a burden, and unaccustomed to the burden, terrified by fear should flee. Good Jesus! how sweet your calling! how sweet and pleasant the illumination of your hope! For those whom you suddenly call, them you also justify; but those whom you justify, them you also glorify. Therefore the man of God, he becomes a monk at Resbach, taught by heavenly mastery, sought the monastery of Resbach: and renouncing all things which he was seen to possess, he began to be a disciple of truth; and with the secular habit changed, he put off the old man with his actions; and put on the new man, who was created in the justice and holiness of truth: and there as long as he lived and tarried, he deserved to be an example of true religion to others: and he who among others was lower in order, he strove to be first in working.

[4] He feeds the imprisoned man with his own bread, Meanwhile it happened that a man, his faults exacting it, was imprisoned by the Provost of the monastery, and was vehemently afflicted by him, and was withering with hunger and thirst. To whose suffering the man of God, with compassion, and sighing from the depth of his heart, did not fear the most harsh rebuke or hard return of blows which he was about to suffer from his Abbot or the other Brothers. And in the nocturnal silence with all sleeping, he unsealed the bolts of the prison, he carries him out on his shoulders and lets him go, and refreshed the man with bread which he had taken away from himself; moreover drawing him out from the prison, he imposed him on his shoulders, and loosing all his chains, at length permitted him to go free: exacting from him only the promise of faith that he would not

henceforth harm the church, nor return to anyone evil for evil which he had suffered. and for this he is flogged: When morning came the man is sought and not found, and that the man of God was privy to this matter is discovered: by the Abbot and the other Brothers he is vehemently rebuked, afflicted with bitter blows: but he embraces this with all patience and alacrity of mind.

[5] At the same time certain Brothers began, at the instigation and providence of God, beside the castle of Pontoise, to build a certain monastery, in which, with all things set aside, they decreed to serve God. But not wishing to be of the order of those whom Blessed Benedict ^b calls Sarabaites, who approved by no rule, living under no one's mastery, in the newly erected monastery at Pontoise, two or three together, are enclosed not in the Lord's sheepfolds but in their own; to whom the pleasure of desires is a law, since whatever they think or choose, this they consider holy, but what they will not, this they judge unlawful: guarding against being called or being such; because they had previously known the man of God, they asked that he preside as Abbot over them: and although he long and greatly resisted, by the will of God according to their desire they accepted him, and had him ordained and consecrated for themselves. Having been ordained Abbot he strove by double teaching to preside over and profit his disciples, he is made the first Abbot, namely to show all good and holy things more by deeds than words, so that to intelligible and more honest minds he might show the divine precepts with his words; to the hard of heart and simpler set forth in his deeds the example of living well, chastising his body according to the Apostle, and reducing it into servitude, lest perchance when he preached to others, he himself might become reprobate. 1 Cor. 9:27 Moreover the man of God was adorned with all preachable and becoming morals; to the mild and humble gentle and lovable; to the proud and disobedient by the very feeling terrible: among the poor and middling and rich he knew how to conduct himself well: so that the rich and middling venerated him as higher than themselves, but the poor judged him a poor man equal to themselves. The shapeliness of his form was by no means contemptible, nay, much praiseworthy; for he was of lofty stature, handsome in countenance, angelic in appearance. Not uncomposed in act, he excels in every virtue: always lowly in habit; not easy in laughter, not heavy with sadness; not joyful in prosperity, not sad in adversity; bright in eloquence, sweet in address; generous to others, sparing to himself. But who could worthily repeat how great a grace of exhortation, how great of preaching proceeded from his mouth by divine gift, when all literature was rendered dumb at his preaching, when generally in all a most devout compunction of heart was born? For the man of God had a lively discourse, a tongue taught to speak, so that his words were intelligible to the simpler, admirable to the more learned. Although he was apt in all things, although he seemed useful for all things; yet knowing and frequently revolving in mind that he had taken up a heavy burden, and because the government of souls is the art of arts, and fearing the future discussion over the sheep committed to him, and that whatever negligence that highest Shepherd could detect in anyone would fall to the shepherd's blame; as if laboring under a burden, he sought reasonably to lay down so great a weight. From which when he was hindered by the dissuasion of many probable men, he attempted secretly to flee.

[6] Therefore having heard the fame of the religion and holy conversation of the Brothers of Cluny, namely that those Brothers, above all whom all Gaul contained in her bosom, held the world and its concupiscence in contempt; that they anticipated each other in honor; and that their weaknesses, He departs secretly to Cluny, whether of morals or of bodies, they bore most patiently; and that with all humble subjection they were obedient to each other, and no one followed what seemed useful to himself, but rather what others felt; that they had the bowels of charity; that they loved their Abbot with sincere love; that they preferred nothing to the love of God; this place the servant of God, believing he could be hidden, chose to seek. Coming therefore to the place, he was received with all devotion by the Abbot and the other Brothers; received, he dwelt humbly among them, and recognizing from them what he had learned by hearing, rejoiced; gave thanks, and rejoiced that he had escaped the peril he feared; and believing he had found a safe hiding place, did not indicate that he had been an Abbot. These things indeed were done by divine providence, that in them he might take an example of mortification, which he might show to us, his disciples, by the document of good action. Meanwhile the Brothers of the already mentioned monastery of Pontoise, bearing his absence with annoyance, went to John ^c then of Rouen, of good memory, the Archbishop, asking that they receive letters sealed with the seal of his authority, by which they might bring the servant of God back to his place. What more? Letters having been received from the Archbishop and presented in his name to the Abbot of Cluny, with God as author he is brought back to his place, and is received with the joy and wish of all. Afterwards the man of God hid in a certain grotto, returning he lay hidden in a grotto: not far from the monastery of which by God's disposing he had been given Abbot: in which he dedicated his body to God by abstinence and vigils and keener disciplines, by which he sacrificed his outer man.

[7] But afterwards he had a certain notable hiding place of his concealment, he lives on the island of Saints Cosmas and Damian near Tours: on an island which is in view of the city of Tours, on which there is a church, dedicated to the name of Saints Cosmas and Damian and sanctified with honor. On this for a long time tarrying, with how great harshness he tamed his body, with what fastings and what vigils continuing day and night he endured, with what alms he stood forth profuse, the tongue is not sufficient to tell. For to you Jesus Christ alone are his works known, from whom no secret is hidden, no one's conscience is concealed: you alone he sought to make sharer of his secret, whom alone he believed the most faithful rewarder. Then the man of God began to be frequented by the inhabitants of that city, and to be venerated by the more noble both Clerics and Laity: who recognizing in him so great wisdom, humility, and probity of morals, and he gives large alms. heard from him admonitions of salvation, and loved him with all affection. Therefore, to him unwilling and much resisting, they sent frequent gifts, which at least might be spent by him on the necessities of the poor. All of which distributing with a liberal hand, he also offered to the Lord all his own things, whatever he was seen to have: so that one day to a poor man coming to him and asking alms, having nothing at all to give, he gave him his books, that he might receive mutual money for them, which the man of God would afterwards redeem. At another time also he gave to the same poor man his clothing, that is, a tunic and cowl, which the day before yesterday the Major-monastery had sent him, precious indeed and new. And thus the man of God truly clothed Christ in the poor man, and the chilly giver warmed the needy one.

NOTES.

CHAPTER II.

Roman journey. The King and Bishops admonished in Council.

[8] Brought back to Pontoise, Meanwhile he was sought by his disciples, and was not found: but by a certain pilgrim, Guarinus by name, who was going round the places of the Saints on pilgrimage, at length by God's will he is discovered; found, it is announced to the monastery: the prayers of the Brothers are directed to him; the destruction of the same monastery, which had almost been destroyed in his absence, and its disorder is suggested; and yielding to so many prayers, to the house of which he had specially been given Pastor, he goes to Rome, he is brought back. Afterwards, however, he seeks the Pope of the city of Rome, Hildebrand ^a by name; by whose counsel and authority at least he might be able to avert such a burden. In whose presence, the man of God with tears and intimate sighs of heart begged forgiveness, frequently crying out that he was unworthy of so great a burden, and was by no means fit for the honor. Having stayed some days at Rome, he becomes known and familiar to the Lord Apostolic, and is frequently called to discourse. For seeing in the man of God an admirable fullness of knowledge and praiseworthy humility, he is sent back by the Supreme Pontiff: he decided to recall him with the Apostolic benediction to his former grade, rebuking him with gentle words; saying that it was not worthy that a man so fit, able to profit himself and others, should be intent on his own utility; that he ought to return to his monastery, and govern with God's help the Lord's sheep, which he had undertaken to feed. But seeing that his mind remained inflexible in its opinion, with supreme obedience and Apostolic authority he enjoined upon him the pastoral care, and besides struck him with anathema, if henceforth without his permission he should leave his monastery, which he had undertaken to rule. Then the man of God, strengthened by Apostolic authority and benediction, returned to his place, and thereafter did not seek a way of escape. But how he lived the rest of his life, or how he migrated from this age, or by what miracles after his blessed end he shone forth, so far as we have been able to know the following discourse will declare.

[9] The man of God was so tenacious of justice and right, that he spared none sinning, none wishing to defend his injustice: nay, he would contradict Kings or any powers acting perversely with the free voice of reason. For he knew and also frequently revolved in mind what through the Prophet the Lord reproaches to those dissembling the sins of men, saying: A lover of justice, "You have not gone up against the adversary, nor have you set up a wall for the house of Israel, to stand in battle in the day of the Lord." Ezek. 13:5 For they do not go up against the adversary, who do not contradict with the free voice of reason any powers acting perversely; and in the day of the Lord they do not stand for the house of Israel, and do not oppose a wall, who do not defend the faithful innocent against the injustice of the perverse from the authority of justice: for they hardly reprehend anyone with open voice for his fault; but what is graver, if sometimes any person in this age has offended, his offenses many times are praised, while they are not reprehended, lest if they be reprehended they may perhaps oppose. Whence one day, when he sought conversation with Philip King of the Franks, that one knowing the great constancy and fortitude of mind of the man of God, by which he did not soothe the sins of the erring, but struck them; blushed to be noted before his Magnates by his harsh invective, and therefore asked for a private meeting. Which obtained, the man of God began thus to speak to him: "Since we hold it certain, and without any ambiguity believe, that for the good or evil which we do here, He admonishes the King, either glory or punishment remains for each one; I marvel that you, a man most learned in all things to which you devote yourself, do not regard the evils which you do indifferently: for the Lord appointed you Rector and Leader of his people: whence the Apostle says: 'There is no power but from God; and those

which are, are ordained by God; therefore whoever resists the power, resists the ordinance of God.' Rom. 13:1 If therefore according to the Apostle you have received power from God, and have merited to be called and to be King, you ought to rule the people of God, not to scatter them; to do those things which have been commanded you by God; to abstain from those things which the Lord has forbidden. Through you and by you the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which are gratuitous, are sold; by you gifts are received which God reproves: and if you are not permitted to give the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which are gratuitous, how much less to sell them. Do you not recollect, do you not turn over in your mind, what it is that our Savior, having entered the temple, overthrew the seats of those selling doves, and poured out the money of the money-changers, saying, 'Take these things hence, and do not make my Father's house a house of business'? John 2:16 What is it, I say, to overthrow the seats of those selling doves? but to destroy the power of those selling the gifts of the Holy Spirit? lest he continue to sell ecclesiastical benefices: All ecclesiastical offices, all things pertaining to the Church of God, are gifts of the Holy Spirit. Tell me, if you know, whence you received the key of the kingdom of heaven; for you give and sell the power of binding and loosing. But what have you that you have received? By the holy Fathers in the Council of Toledo and in other equally holy Synods it has been forbidden that ecclesiastical offices be obtained for money: also to give altars or tithes for money, no one of the faithful is ignorant is simoniacal heresy. All Laics who hold anything in the Church, and also Clerics who hold from them or serve under them, and also those who strive to confirm that this can be done, are made despisers of the divine law: and therefore unless they repent, they will perish without end; and already in this age, while they live, by the rightly believing they are to be refused as transgressors or apostates. See therefore what evils arise from these sellings and buyings. For while you yourself sell Ecclesiastical honors to certain men, they in turn sell sacred Orders and the imposition of hands to others. Of all these evils, if you look well, you are seen to be the head. So the churches are despoiled, while those worst buyers and simoniacal invaders do not fear to melt down as much gold and silver as they find in the Church of God, and to sell precious ornaments, that they may at least obtain Ecclesiastical offices." With these and other such words the man of God rebuked the King: which therefore I wished to write, that I might show the invincible fortitude of mind in the man of God, through which he rather wished to succumb to death, than to hide the truth. Therefore he had many enemies, endured many abusers and persecutors: but all these he overcame with a brave mind and unconquerable patience, memorably recollecting what Truth itself says to his disciples: John 15:19 "If you had been of this world, the world would love what was its own: but because you are not of the world, therefore the world hates you:" and that Matt. 5:10 "Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven:" and also that, "All who wish to live piously in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." 2 Tim. 3:12

[10] Instructed with these and such weapons, when at Paris the Council having been gathered, almost all, both Bishops and Abbots and Clerics, judged that the command of the Lord Apostolic Hildebrand of holy memory ought not to be obeyed, saying and falsely asserting that his precepts were unbearable, and therefore unreasonable; and the Bishops lest they set themselves against the Pontifical mandate: before all the multitude he said: "It is evident that you wish to define an indecent sentence to be refused by all: for justly, as Blessed Gregory says, or unjustly a pastor binds, nevertheless the sentence of a pastor is to be feared by the flock, lest he who is subject and is perhaps bound by unjust causes, deserves the very penalty of his obligation from another fault. Nor ought anyone rashly to reprehend the judgment of his pastor; lest even if he was perhaps unjustly bound, from the very pride of swollen reprehension, the fault, which was not, may come to be." These things said, those who were present being vehemently inflamed with anger against the servant of God, the King's slaves joining in their crime, and all crying out rose in one conspiracy, seized him from the council, drag, strike, box, spit upon him, and afflicted with many contumelies, they lead him to the King's house. But the man of God manfully enduring these things for the love of God, stood immovable, and to those threatening death with a cheerful voice he answered: "I prefer to undergo death for truth, than shamefully yield to falsehood." O with how many vows, with what prayers, Lord God, did he entreat your magnificence, that he might be joined to the number of your holy Martyrs, to whom he was already joined by merits. It had been good for him, Lord, and therefore he is imprisoned. to lay down the burden of this earthen vessel, that he might be able to attain the perpetual crown. But nevertheless, Lord, you were yet planning to reserve your servant, profitable to your Church; and therefore you deferred the crown desired with such vows. Therefore by the valor of certain Magnates, who had known and loved him before, the man of God is snatched from the place in which he was held, and returned with honor to his Church. It is long to narrate by particulars, what and how many perils he endured for truth, what poisoned darts of words and abuses he tolerated: but let us recount the glorious great deeds of the same blessed man which we saw ^b and heard.

NOTES.

CHAPTER III.

Various exercises of patience, humility, and other virtues.

[11] There was a cell adjoining the monastery to which by God's will the man of God presided, in which it was his custom to pray, and to wear down his body with many fastings and vigils and excessive torments of blows. In this alone, with God alone as witness, he insisted on prayer, He does his works in secret: and gave his work to divine contemplation. But who could worthily explain in words the insistence of his prayers and the number of his genuflections, with which he venerated the Divine majesty; when especially, as has been said, alone, with God alone as witness, in the same cell he prayed, kept vigil, fasted, and was intent on the other exercises of holy virtue. Matt. 5:15 But by no means, as Truth itself testifies, can a city placed on a mountain be hidden, nor is a lamp placed under a bushel; but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all who are in the house of God. The more holy men seek to hide their works, the more they become manifest for the example of holy conversation to those who follow. The man of God was cautious and circumspect about the exercises of holy works: for he feared to lose in vain, what with great bodily labor and contrition of his spirit he was acquiring: for he knew that the praise of the impious is brief, far from vainglory, and the glory of the hypocrite is like a point. For there are very many most vain pretenders, who inflated with the wind of pride, while they macerate their body with a certain abstinence, wish to be seen fasting by men, and thence seek human favors: they desire to appear great in the sight of men, and are not afraid to be foul before the eyes of the supernal Inspector; they engage in preaching, not that the people may profit for the better from their preaching; but that their wisdom may become known to those whom they preach to: they give many and great gifts to the needy, not for this, that thence they may merit the kingdom of God; but that they may attain transitory praise, which is sweet in their affection: who indeed, according to the attestation of Truth, are like sepulchres, whitened outside, but inside full of the bones of the dead: whose heart is at the corners of the streets, to pray, to engage in salutations, to love the first seats at banquets, to wish to be called Rabbi by men. Matt. 23:27 But what, I ask, is this madness, to afflict the body in vain, to sow many seeds, and not to wish to receive any fruit? to lose eternal rewards, and to love transitory ones? All which things the man of God, inflamed with the fire of divine love, fled as the poison of the devil, and continually said that verse of David, familiar to his mouth; "Not to us, Lord, not to us, but to thy name give the glory." Ps. 113:1

[12] We have a noble document of his magnanimous humility, in that when the blessed man had money to be spent on the necessities of the poor, he wished neither to distribute it by himself nor through his domestics; but arranged to do this in such a manner he distributes alms through others, that no suspicion might arise, by which this might be recognized to be his giving. Therefore at one time having a quantity of coins, he made certain very familiar to him, namely Marcellus the Presbyter and Raimund the Deacon, come to him from the castle of Pontoise, and said to them: "A certain friend of mine has handed to me money of coins to be distributed to the poor; but because I am unaccustomed to such actions, I ask your love to distribute it in such a way, that no one, as long as I live, may think it was entrusted to you by me." Who hastily fulfilled his commands, and concealed the blessed man to have been author of this benefit until his death. Who ever would believe him liberal, who compassionate toward the poor? For when in the sight of men a poor man asked something from him, or with no one present: he vehemently contradicted him as if with indignation and anger, so that you would judge him not compassionate, but hard and cruel: but when no one was present, who could be judge of his secret, the poor man was recalled, refreshed, and in him truly Christ was adored, who was also received. Moreover it was his custom, that as often as he wished to wash the feet of poor men and pilgrims, he did not do this, unless either when the monks were about to recite the divine offices in the oratory, or while they were refreshing themselves in the refectory, or resting in the dormitory. Thus the man of God was so munificent toward the poor, that many times he gave them even the shoes from his feet and the other necessary garments, so that he retained neither knife nor anything else or anything worth an as, but spent all on the necessities of the poor.

[13] He uses a hard bed, There was in the aforesaid cell a little bed, not propped up with much softness of feathers, but only a hair-shirt placed upon a mat, so that you could not easily know, by which the head, by which part the feet were placed at the hour of rest; and in our times another Germanus was shown forth, whose, as is read in his Deeds, "head from his shoulders through the border of the neck was raised up by no addition." None of us saw him lying bare, since not even the cord with which he was girded was laid down, and rarely were the shoes drawn from his feet. His flesh was continually worn down with the roughest hair-shirt; to which however precious sleeves adhered, made of linen stuff; so that while the sleeves were seen, with a rough hair-shirt, the hair-shirt within was not detected. O a deed praiseworthy in all, by which the commands of the Savior are fulfilled, with knotted scourges, and protection is given to the example of preserving humility! The blessed man had also made for himself a scourge from the hardest thongs, whose tops were exasperated with firmest knots, with which almost every day

his flesh was cruelly smitten. The sound of this smiting was heard by the sacristans of the church, and by others existing in the church; although, lest it be heard, he withdrew into a more secret chamber. The vilest garment, which he used, he never changed; with worn garments, unless either it was loosed by excessive age, or perhaps given to the needy. We saw him at the hour of refection of the Brothers, in the manner of the weekly Brother lector, reading in the refectory, serving the office of the kitchen, ministering to others, preparing the oven for baking breads. Whence one day, he undertakes the lowlier services: fatigued by the affliction of fasting, while he was heating the oven, before the mouth of the oven he almost lifeless fell, and was carried away thence by the hands of the disciples. With others occupied in the labor of hands, forgetful of his own authority he was similarly occupied; and he who was first in the order of prelation, rejoiced to be made equal to others in the exercise of work.

[14] Whenever in the refectory with others, the Brothers compelling, he took refreshment (which however he did not lightly do, unless either at the promise made to him by the same Brothers of the supplication of Masses or the refection of the poor, content with water and tasteless foods: as if for the recompense of his abstinence), he secretly sent ahead one of our fellow disciples, for a little while aware of his secret, that, the others being ignorant, he should remove the wine from his cup ^a and pour in water. It was a sight to behold the man defending himself with such circumspection, that while we thought him being filled with abundant wine, he drank water; and thus carefully the fish, which perhaps were brought, with his own hand having removed the bones ^b he divided through the dish, so as to deceive the eyes of those watching, judging him to be really eating fish, when indeed he did not so much as taste their flavor. The man of God had provided for himself a Brother, fearing the Lord, who at the hour of his refection in the often-mentioned cell brought to him through a suitable window bread and beans, seasoned with no fat or flavor, and with these foods most strictly sustained his humanity. Moreover, which is wonderful to say and hear, as many loaves as the minister brought to him, he often received from him as many back; whence it is clearer than the day that he was sustained only by the power of God through beans: and water was brought for drinking, which he himself often drew for himself, and carried, which was not changed until another Sabbath. But who could believe by hearing, unless he had learned by seeing, how great was the blessed man's perseverance in standing in the choir? He stands during chanting, Since scarcely anyone saw him sit in the church during the time of psalmody. Fatigued sometimes by labor and by the affliction of fasting, he supported his aged limbs with a staff; and so standing, until the chant of the psalmody in the church was finished, he persevered. The course of Matins having been finished, while the rest of the Brothers, for the sake of relieving labor, indulged themselves a little in quiet; the man of God remained vigilant, and giving his work to prayer and holy meditation he passed the night: and remains in prayer, whence on account of excessive continuation of vigils pressed down by the heaviness of sleep, with his forehead struck on the ground, on his knees and elbows he was found by the sacristan of the church to have fallen asleep.

[15] And although the man of God was amply decorated with the flowers of all virtues, yet most of all an outstanding document of humility shone forth in him: for this Father of ours, imitable by all, admirable by all, while he desired to run through all the paths of humility, with all of us gathered into one place (for he had commanded all to be present for this) he said: "Let it please your assembly, most dear Brothers, let no one of you contradict my just petition, that because I, as an indiscreet and entangled in all crimes, He asks to be flogged by his subjects, irrationally, namely at the dictation of anger and no justice preserved, many times have applied corrections of words and blows to you; let it be permitted, in the manner of a sinner, that is, with bare feet, and with my whole body girt only about the loins, and carrying in my hands the disciplinary rods, to come into the chapter; and before God and his Saints from you my Brothers to ask forgiveness for my offenses; and from all of you to receive the correction of rods, namely worthy recompense for my deeds; that thus I may deserve to escape the everlasting pains of hell which are due to me for the same. Let no honor of my prelacy be preserved by you in this deed, but rather let the vices in me be struck, to which honor is not to be shown, but the blush of confusion is to be applied. Let the first in order and agreement first exercise blows on me in turn, that is, let the first begin and the younger end: the measure of which correction shall rest in the judgment of the Prior, presiding in my place: and let all know that he who scourges me more harshly, this one henceforth will be dearer to me: and at last he obtains it: but he who touches me more gently and resolves to be as it were clement to my iniquity, this one by no means loves me according to the Lord, because he gives honor not to me, but to vices." Hearing which things all of us unanimously began to contradict these words of the blessed man, saying that it was unheard of, that any prelate should seek such things from his disciples, and that disciples should obey their masters in such things: that he ought not to do these things, since especially he had been sufficiently tortured by the wasting of fasts and vigils and by old age, and perhaps on account of his infirmity might be about to die amid the scourges. But because the man of God was skilled with wondrous talent and eloquence, although we for a long time and much resisted unwillingly, he persuaded us. What more? The chapter is entered, the servant of God is stripped in the manner above described, before the majesty of God in our presence he is humbly prostrated on the ground. with many weeping, The amazement of all of us surrounded our hearts at his entrance: for seeing a man worthy of all honor, contemned with such vileness, all counsel had fled from us. Everywhere was grief, everywhere weeping, everywhere sighs, everywhere groans. After we had long wept, the old man rebuking us more harshly, calling us soft and effeminate, we yielded to his will. Therefore by the elders it was begun. We were about thirty Brothers, all of whom succeeding each other in turn, we began to smite the man of God with rods. You would have seen a man, weakened by the number of fasts and vigils and at the same time by old age, constant amidst the scourges, calling each by his own name, and inciting him to his own smiting, and crying with a strong voice: "I do not recognize your hands: I do not feel your blows, softly petting me." But the much-desired smiting of rods having been gone through from the greater even to the lesser, who ignorant under the regular discipline was in the schools; again the servant of God is clothed, he gives thanks to all, and on that same day congratulating he is made our dinner guest. It must be weighed, with how great glory of praises the blessed man in this deed is to be extolled by all. And although the man of God was decorated by name with the flowers of all virtues, now it must be seen what virtue, what triumph out of this virtue follows. Let each say what he thinks, I prefer the humility of the blessed man to the illumination of the blind, to the curing of lepers, and to the healing of all diseases. Whence to certain men boasting of the power of miracles and saying, "Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, cast out demons, and work many wonders?" in the end the Lord will say, "Amen I say to you, I do not know you." For he who gathers virtues without humility, carries as it were dust in the wind. Great indeed is the virtue of humility, which the more it is inclined to the depths, the more it advances to the heights. Without this no one can please God; through this each is able to ascend to the peaks of virtues: this the blessed man always held in his heart: through this he wished to subject himself not only to masters, but also to his subjects.

NOTES.

CHAPTER IV.

Last exercises. Illness. Death.

[16] But in that Lent, which was the last for the blessed man, He spends his last Lent in holiness: he exercised himself with sharper exercises of fasts, vigils, and holy works: so that in comparison with these his former torments were thought lighter. For it was his custom, that at every time, from when he undertook to practice the monastic warfare, he should always add something to his former life, and not grow cold through tepidity from his initial fervor, and doing good not grow weary; but inflamed with divine fire, he should advance from virtue to virtue; and the more his body withered with old age and long fasting, the more his mind, victor over the years, should burn to seek greater things, so that with the Apostle he could truly say, "For when I am weak, then I am stronger and powerful." 2 Cor. 12:10 Whence throughout the whole space of the aforesaid Lent it was known to us that the blessed man did not eat the pound of bread which is daily set before the monk by the precept of Blessed Benedict: but only with beans and water, in tears and measure, he used. But on that Lord's day, On Palm Sunday he kindly speaks to his own: on which our Savior and Redeemer, with the hour of his passion approaching, wished to come to Jerusalem on an ass and to be met by the children of the Hebrews with flowers and palms, and to be called by them King and praised; he refreshed us with such sweetness of his words, that, as if bidding us farewell, up to that time he had not spoken so sweetly and so amicably. On the same day too, at our urging, he celebrated his last banquet with us. The following day, while he was singing Mass, he began to be gravely pressed by the force of fevers, and to be deprived of bodily strength. the next day he suffers from fever: Finally, a certain Brother having been called, who by his command had cut parchments for making a Breviary for him, with a spirit foreboding his imminent dissolution from the body, he said: "Dismiss the work conceived in mind: for this book which you were arranging to write will not be of use to me, he foresees his death: rather let it be left to the will of those who follow, who will assign the cut parchments for other uses after my death." Then the man of God began to be squeezed by greater stings, he receives extreme unction, and from day to day to approach his exit: and having called us together, whom he had loved with paternal affection, and whom, drawn from worldly enticements, he had educated in the fear of God, in the ecclesiastical manner he asked to be anointed with holy Oil. A procession is made to him as he wished: he is anointed: he confesses himself guilty of his sins before God and his Saints in our presence; he absolves all, and is absolved by all; and other Sacraments: then having kissed all of us, and with many intimate sobs and sighs of heart, venerating the glorious memory of the Lord's passion, he is made partaker of the Sacraments of our redemption.

[17] Meanwhile we all began to be irremediably saddened by the imminent passing of the blessed man, fearing lest by his absence the order of our monastery be scattered, or lest with the pastor removed the Lord's flock exposed to wolfish bites should be scattered, he comforts his sad subjects: or lest, whence the greater doubt had grown, with the King corrupted by gifts, someone through simoniacal heresy should enter upon taking up the government of our place. Again having called together all of us, in this manner he addresses those standing by. "Do not," he says, "my sons, be saddened, do not be overly troubled by my bodily dissolution. Trust in the Lord, casting all your solicitude upon him, for he has care for you. Let the charity of God be confirmed in you, that you may be concordant, and lovers of spiritual brotherhood. For if according to God you love one another, know without doubt, that in

all of you the Lord will be cooperator. he gives his final admonitions, Near is, according to the truthful voice of the Psalmist, the Lord to all who call upon him in truth. Ps. 144:19 He will do the will of those who fear him, and will hear their prayer. Do not detract from one another: for all detractors and murmurers are hateful to God. Do not deviate from your holy purpose: for if after I have departed you deviate from your holy purpose, and have schisms among you, and consent to the ordinations of light persons, it will be manifest that not out of love of God, but out of fear of your Master, you have up to this time remained in religion: but if, as up to this day, you remain in humility, in concord, in charity; the Lord will provide a most faithful dispenser for his house, who will cherish you more gently than I, spiritually and bodily, in all things according to the Lord." With these and such exhortations desiring us to come into consolation, he had the stole placed on his holy neck, and holding with his right hand the pastoral staff, absolved all of us, and with the voice that he could commended us to the Lord, the protector and author of all.

[18] he foretells the day of his death; But when the fifth feria came, on which the Lord supped with his disciples, and as a form of humility washing their feet, handed over to them the sacrament of his Body and Blood, and was handed over by a disciple to the Jews, with the Brothers standing by him he said: "I shall not tarry here longer; for tomorrow, God willing, I am about to migrate from this light." Which was indeed done. For on the day of Parasceve, having received the life-giving Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, on Parasceve having received the Eucharist he dies. and all ecclesiastical rites duly ordered, when it was already late, he began to labor with his last breath; and in a brief interval, namely with night falling, leaving behind the bodily clay, his spirit by angelic guidance migrated to the bosom of blessed rest. But when, to be washed, his body had been stripped; we saw his flesh shining with snowy whiteness, and stained in no part of the whole body even with a slight spot, already displaying a certain appearance of the future resurrection; so that it was believed to be no longer human, but angelic, what was seen. For not, as is wont to be seen in a lifeless body, with the skin stretched were his bones, with the flesh failing, laid bare, but filled moderately with a certain appearance; so that you would not easily believe that the blessed man had ever covered his flesh with a hair-shirt, or wearied it with any abstinence, but had always lived in delights. He was buried in the oratory of the most blessed Martin, which had been in great part begun to be built by the same man, in the place where he had ordered himself to be buried. In which place through the glorious merits of the blessed man very many miracles are shown, as the little page of the following book testifies.

HISTORY OF THE MIRACLES

by the same Pontoise monk

from the MS. of the illustrious man André du Chesne.

Galterius, Abbot of Martin, of the Order of Benedict, near Pontoise in Gaul (St.)

BHL Number: 8797

BY A DISCIPLE FROM MS.

PROLOGUE.

[1] Many for various causes have applied their minds to write deeds: some that their talents, rubbed as it were by the very use of writing, might be rendered brighter; others that through this they might become more famous to the ears of men, and thence might attain honors and the greatest profits; others that deeds, effaced by the length of times, might not be taken away from the memory of men. Life and miracles written from obedience. But to me to write the Life of Blessed Gauterius, to be desired by all good men, and his passing from this world, and now to write his Miracles, by which after his blessed end the Lord deigned to glorify his servant, the greatest cause is obedience. Which virtue, namely obedience, joined with humility, by right has been made greater than all virtues; while she not only strives to carry out those things which men know, but also compels to attempt those they do not know. This, to me stammering and not yet able to form words fully, has commanded those things which I cannot do. Whence I ask all who will read this little work, that they grant pardon to my ignorance. For I confess that I have presumed beyond my strength: but yet I prefer to prepare the works of the blessed man with whatever style, than wholly to be silent about them.

CHAPTER I.

The crippled, lame, mute, fever-stricken, and raging cured.

[2] Miracles performed soon after his death: After the glorious deposition of his body, the place of burial of the blessed man began to be frequented by many: among whom were many of promiscuous sex, weak and sick, asking the remedies of health: and through the glorious merits of the man of God God conferred many kinds of healings: for to the blind sight, to the lame gait, and to others of whatever kind of pain and languor entire health was restored.

[3] At the same time, with the fame of his virtues running everywhere, the crippled are healed, from the parts of Normandy a certain boy was brought by his parents to the patronage of the blessed man; who was so contracted with the dryness of his sinews and the inflexible knottiness of his joints, from the loins through the borders of the ribs and hams and shins, that with the ankles clinging to the buttocks and nature vitiated, the half-dead limbs were in no way able to fulfill their own offices. His parents began to implore heavenly aids, that through the merits of the blessed man, the healing medicine might be divinely bestowed on the sick one. Divine clemency was present to these suppliants, and with the merits of the most holy man assisting, to the sick one was returned the long-desired health. He marvels to go on his own feet, who for so long had been carried by the hands of others: but lest this miracle should quickly be taken away from the memory of men, indubitable proofs remained for those desiring to know and see: for as long as he survived in this life, the traces of his ankles were seen impressed on his buttocks.

[4] Around the same time a certain one within the years of puberty had been so condemned in the office of all his limbs, that he could never move his step, the lame, but even lying down could not turn himself to another side: who being laid down by the pious solicitude of his parents before the tomb of the man of God, began both to implore and await the remedy of health. Nor was he longer frustrated of his expectation, but rather looked upon by the mercy and commiseration of God, he began little by little to recover the liveliness of his limbs, and after a short time with no one guiding he began to try new steps. Thence brought into our presence, we confirmed that wholeness had been returned to him divinely; whence we began to praise and magnify the divine power. He was called Ralph.

[5] Finally, a certain Deacon, named Raymund, (concerning whom it was said in the superior book, that he had been the dispenser of the blessed man's alms) was tortured by a most violent chill of fevers. num. 12 This one, trusting in God's mercy and the virtue-bearing power of his servant, suffering from fever: came; and on account of the multitude of the sick, expecting health there, being unable to approach nearer, stood from afar, and cried with what voice he could: "I entreat you, servant of omnipotent God, that because you served the Lord in virtue, you may deign to obtain for me from the Lord as quickly as possible refreshment, me whom in this life you much loved with sincere love." This with tears repeating, and nothing more having said, immediately with all the bile of the pain vomited up, he returned home well, and gave thanks to God and Saint Galterius for the health granted.

[6] In these days also another, called by the same name, was gravely ill with the same disease: and this one was a merchant, in the castle of Pontoise, as that one of whom it was written above, born and brought up. This one long before had been joined to the blessed man by the service of familiarity; another likewise: for also to Rome with the same as inseparable companion he had gone, and had humbly served him with charity. Who despairing of himself (for the pain was most violent) lay before the tomb of the man of God, and with tears recollecting his former friendships, and at the same time humbly begging to be succored, began to doze for a little while. Awakened from sleep, he felt the divine power to have been present, because of the wholeness returned to him: whence made joyful, as if for a gift, with a precious tapestry he covered the tomb of the man of God, and thenceforth he remained unharmed from the very infirmity by which he was held.

[7] Moreover it is not to be passed over in silence, but to be committed to diligent memory, that through the merits of the blessed man to many, turned into madness by the instigation of demons, the sobriety of their evilly seized mind was restored. For a certain raging man, named Durand, from the village Tineosa, a raging man, which is nearest to the castle of Pontoise, is brought in a cart: who bound to the shafts of that cart with the tightest ropes on every side, is thus miserably drawn to the burial of the blessed man. But you would see the wretch, horribly rolling bloody eyes, gnashing with teeth, clamoring irremediably, blaspheming God and men shamefully, speaking strange and unheard-of things, recognizing no one, eating nothing at all, never sleeping even a little, desiring to tear himself and those approaching him with his teeth. This one, certainly using the strength of the demon, was stronger than any man; and therefore, although he was bound on every side with chains, he was nevertheless held on every side by the strongest men. But the Divine goodness did not long permit the man so miserably to lie subject to the frauds of the devil: but with all those present, parents and neighbors, imploring the suffrage of the blessed man, the man received his sober sense. Whence with all astonished at this miracle, he had himself loosed, loosed ate, and thenceforth vowed himself to be the servant of the blessed man, and thus most gently returned to his home.

[8] Let us bring forward into the midst a miracle similar to the former, which God deigned to work to the praise and glory of his name through the merit of the blessed man. A certain woman, from the village which is called Settana, a raging woman, named Stephana, her faults without doubt exacting it, by diabolical fraud had lost her sense: and since she desired to tear all, as many as set themselves against her, with bestial bites; and shamefully with hair loosed, not considering the female sex, rolled about on the ground; suddenly she is rushed to by friends, is seized, chained, and in the manner in which the aforesaid man, is brought to the tomb of the blessed man. I shudder to relate: I saw her the cruel tearer of her own body, tearing her own limbs with her teeth, sometimes sprinkling her face with tears, and suddenly with her face still sprinkled with tears laughing, so that weeping, she made the bystanders weep; and laughing, she forced all nonetheless to laugh. When with these and other such illusions she was fatigued, her parents and friends began to demand the suffrages of the man of God, that to the woman entire sense be returned, and her tumultuous voices be quieted. And behold, sense having been recovered, she began to recognize the name of God, which before she abhorred and blasphemed; and recognizing from those who brought her what she had done and what she had said, was amazed; and vowing herself with a vow to be the Saint's handmaid, with her wholeness persevering, returned to her dwelling.

[9] Likewise from the ^a region of Beauvais a certain one similarly afflicted, to be led bound to the tomb of the man of God, but suddenly his bonds broken, shaking himself from the hands of those holding him, a third raging demoniac: escaped. And when by those pursuing by no effort he could be caught (for he was beyond what could be believed, not by his own but by the virtue of the evil spirit, agile and strong) by chance into the borough called Cambly ^b he entered, and there by the burgesses themselves he was caught, with those following

by friends he was returned. And while he was being placed on an ass, with feet chained beneath the ass's belly; suddenly his manual bonds broken, he struck his godfather, who was standing nearer to him, gravely with his fist in the face: and with the great difficulty of all, until to the church of the blessed Martin, in which the venerable body of the man of God lies, he was brought. It pleased his conductors, that not far from the monastery he should be let down from the ass, and should go on foot up to the monastery. But while he is being let down, again he escapes, and making a run toward the Oise, that he might cast himself into it, by God's will he is anticipated by the servants of the church; and caught, into the monastery, which he feared to approach as to a fire, at length he is brought in: where when he was brought in, he struck heavily with his foot the belly of a certain monk, Sacristan of our church. What more? His parents and friends pray the suffrage of the blessed man, that he would deign to have him as servant, and expel the demon from him. And when they passed the night in prayers sleepless, and the man by no means ceased from his clamor; suddenly looked upon by the divine gift, he began to doze a little; and immediately awakened, with a tranquil voice he called those standing by him; and manifested what the divine Piety had wrought about him; and having confessed his sins, he communicated in the life-giving Body and Blood of our redemption, and unharmed he returned home.

[10] Many miracles could be narrated, which have been done concerning demoniacs: but to avoid the weariness of readers, let us pass to others. A certain young man, born in the village of Asinaria ^c, came to implore the mercy of the blessed man: a mute young man, and when he had passed the night with other sick before the tomb of the man of God, the next day, which was held as Sunday, the Sacristan compelling all to leave after the Masses, this one alone could not be moved from the place. Then the Sacristan offered him bread and cheese, that he might be refreshed: but he with such signs as he could satisfied him, that he would take no food at all, until he should deserve to receive speech. Therefore the Sacristan, after the prandium of the Brothers, opening the door; behold there ran to meet him the young man, speaking well and distinctly, blessing God and his most holy servant. Then on the following Sabbath with a great company of his neighbors and parents he returned, and paid his vows with them for the gift given.

NOTES.

CHAPTER II.

Various limbs of afflicted men are cured.

[11] In the same village a boy, son of a certain knight named Goslenius, Pustules are cured, was held by a grave disease of pustules through his whole body: and because by no art of doctors could he be cured, it was urged to his father that he have the boy taken to the virtue-bearing burial of the blessed man: which was indeed done. Finally, the courses of a few days having rolled by, the boy lacked every pestilence of the disease by which he was held, and whole met two monks of our church in the same village; and his parents joyfully went forth to meet the same monks, and through them destined a gift of charity to our monastery.

[12] In the castle of Gournay ^a, which is situated in the borders of Normandy, there lived a certain man, who had so lost his hand, that I may not say to do any work, but he could not even bring it to his mouth: he was a shoemaker. And when, as he was accustomed, by laboring with his hands he could not relieve his indigence, immobility of the hand, and was in want; one day, moved by grief at once and anger, having taken an axe he placed his weak hand on a wooden block, that he might cut it off. When his wife saw this being done, she restrained him, saying: "Let it not please my Lord to do that thing unadvisedly and with imprudent haste, nor let it seem injurious to hear my counsel. Now with the fame spreading the reputation of the blessed man it is known that in the place of his burial many benefits are divinely bestowed on the sick: therefore it seems salutary to me, to hasten as quickly as possible to that very place, and to beg the suffrage of the Saint himself. There are no great dangers of the way and of labor to be undergone; no great expenses to be carried on the way; this attempting will harm you nothing, but will profit much with God's help." These things said, the man yields to his wife well counselling him, and, so that what is said might be fulfilled, "The unfaithful man will be saved by the faithful woman," he sought the monastery of Pontoise; in which, with the merits of the blessed man assisting, the infirmity put to flight, he recovered the former office of his hand, the solace of his life. 1 Cor. 7:14 Therefore congratulating he began to extend his hand, and as if praising to say: "Thanks do I return to God and Saint Galterius, because I shall yet sew many goat and ox hides with this hand, and with God's help I shall labor, whence I shall relieve my house's need." And saying these things he began to depart: and when he was not far, looking back on the monastery, with joy he returned; and placed his offering upon the Saint's tomb. These things again and a third time from the abundance of his joy in similar manner he performed.

[13] From the village of Avesnes ^b, which is in the Vexin region, a certain smith, named Robert, was brought: who miserably with his belly like a wineskin, marvelous swelling and immobility of the whole body, and with the rest of his limbs stretched with malignant swelling, suspected and awaited neighboring death. This one continually lying supine, could not be turned to the right or left side even a little. This one's (I am about to say wonderful things) sinews were so inflexible, that he could neither sit nor bend his knees; and if ever from necessity compelling he had to be raised from the bed, in the manner of a wooden or stone image, with his whole body remaining inflexible, he would be raised up. But also that I will not hide, although to some it may seem shameful to say, that he emitted frequent sounds from his posterior, so that in whatever place he was, he could in no way control himself. Afflicted with such discomforts, before the venerable tomb of the blessed man he is set down, and earnestly entreats, that either death or wholeness be given him, lest longer he be tortured by these pains. And behold, with the merits of the blessed man protecting, the sick man began to improve, and little by little to be relaxed from that swelling; and not long after, recovering most entirely, he gave thanks to his liberator for the health granted him.

[14] But that is not to be passed over in silence, that a certain citizen of Beauvais was pressed by such anxiety of his limbs, that scarcely able to take food, scarcely able to rest in sleeping, despaired in every way of himself. This one when he heard the reputation of the virtues of the blessed man, weakness of limbs, trusting in God's piety, and presuming beyond his own strength, and supporting his languid limbs with a staff, leading toward Pontoise he began to take the journey, and what a well man could have completed in the space of half a day, scarcely the sick man could finish after seven days passed. Coming, however, before the tomb of the man of God, he faithfully offered his devotion of prayers, and received the long-desired health, and joyful he departed to his own; and the journey, which, as is said, sick he could scarcely complete in seven days, now well he completed in one and not a whole day.

[15] Likewise from the ^c borough of Saint Denis a certain woman came; who was so contracted in the loins, contracted loins, that she could in no place move her step by herself, but supported with staves placed under her armpits on either side, she dragged herself along as best she could. And when for a long time she had been subject to this injury of necessity, having heard the fame of the miracles by which the Lord was glorifying his servant, she arranged to come to his salutary tomb, which indeed she did. But coming, and offering devoted prayers to the Lord with tears before the venerable tomb of the man of God, she began to await the reparation of her body faithfully, nor was she long frustrated in her expectation: for feeling the desired life to be present to her body, she constantly raised herself up, and raised up firmly she began to walk without the support of her staves, and joyfully offered her staves, so to speak, feet: which for a long time, as a sign of so great a miracle, hung before the tomb of the man of God.

[16] In the village of Gonesse, which is in the territory of Paris, a certain boy was vehemently troubled with a headache. headache, With the disease growing, the very pain began to rage to such an extent, that for three days the boy remained without any support of food, with his eyes already as if closed by approaching death, and through individual moments he seemed now to have died. Then his parents, with 9 worms coming out through his ears: moved by their son's pain, at length found a useful counsel, that they should hand over the aforesaid boy to the blessed man in service, if from the infirmity by which he was held he should be released by his merits. And behold on the third day, through the ear of that boy three worms came forth; and he began little by little to improve. But on the sixth day again six worms emerged through the same ear, and all pain was put to flight.

[17] But with no less miracle the blessed man shone forth in the same village. For a certain one by falling had broken his shoulder, fracture of the shoulder: and when from the pain of the fracture itself he could have no rest either by sleeping or taking food, with human medicine profiting nothing at all, at length he sought divine aids: for he began to invoke the name of the blessed man with tears, that by his piety he might mitigate his pain; which if he should endure longer, death would be sweeter than life. And behold when one night he was being pressed down little by little by gentle sleep, Blessed Galterius seemed to stand by him, and to touch his shoulder gently with his hand, and to make the sign of the Cross above it. Awakening he felt no further pain of that fracture, and that Blessed Galterius had stood by him and conferred a remedy, he manifested by evident signs.

[18] A certain man's throat had swollen so, that he could scarcely speak; but could not swallow anything, except liquid. This man was from the village called Serannia, which is in the territory of Troyes ^d. And when he was laboring with this pestilence, having heard of the virtues of the blessed man, he promised that every year to the measure of his stature he would bring or send him a candle, swelling of the throat, if by his merits he should deserve to obtain health. Health having been obtained, he paid the vow in that year; but with prosperous things succeeding, the man forgetful of his former adversity, became also forgetful of his promise: whence it came about that he was vexed by the former discomfort. Seeing this his mother said: "Son, you suffer these things deservedly: because the benefits of God, which were conferred on you through the blessed man, you have handed over to oblivion, and the vow which you vowed you have not paid. growing worse because of the deferred vow: For behold two years have passed, since you neither brought nor sent a candle to the tomb of the blessed man of God. Ask therefore pardon, promise amendment, that God may receive your satisfaction, and securely await your liberation." This done, shortly after, he lacked all that pestilence; and hastening as quickly as possible to the burial of the man of God, what he had unjustly withheld from former years he returned with satisfaction; and narrated to the Brothers of the monastery with attestation the things that had happened to him.

[19] A certain man also had become deaf from an excessive headache; he was from the town which was called Marines, which is also in the Vexin

region. And when in the church, in which the body of the man of God rests, praying faithfully he was awaiting his suffrage; nothing of those things which in the church were sung by the Brothers celebrating the divine mysteries, deafness, could he hear. But one night, while the Brothers were occupied in vigils, that deaf man began to doze a little, and saw Blessed Gauterius standing by him, and gently with a soothing hand touching his head on all sides: then awakened clearly he heard the things which were being said by the Brothers, which, as has already been said, by no means had the faculty of hearing: and as long a time as he lived, he by no means was subject to this deafness.

[20] A certain woman, who was from the castle of Marly, which is in the territory of Paris, had entirely lost the offices of both hands; curving of the fingers. for by no means could she straighten the fingers which the disease had curved. This woman with her spouse, about to obtain the aids of the man of God, came; and emitting many sorrowful voices, which the very grief of mind dictated, at length beneath the stone by which the tomb of the blessed man is covered, fell asleep. But waking, as she sensed the desired vigor to be present to her hands, immediately leaping up, with great alacrity of heart she moved her hands through the air; and curving her fingers, and again often raising them up, from joy she began to cry: "Thanks be to God, I have hands, hands, I say, I have, whose shape I bore, but the utility I lacked." These and other things frequently repeating, she vowed herself to be thenceforth the Blessed one's handmaid, and rejoicing she returned home.

NOTES.

CHAPTER III.

Miraculous cures of various infirmities at the tomb of Saint Galterius.

[21] Two suffering from falling sickness are healed, What also befell a certain inhabitant of the same castle, I will manifest: this one was going for the sake of reaping into the field; and when he had not yet proceeded far from the castle itself, touched by a certain passion, which doctors call falling sickness, he suddenly fell to the ground. But with many standing around him, behold there came a woman, who said: "If he should bring a candle of the measure of his stature to the burial of the man of God, he would never again labor with this disease." Hearing which voice, but not able to see the woman, he said: "O woman, have you learned by any experiment what you have urged me to do?" To this she: "I myself frequently labored with this disease, until it was urged on me to bring a candle of the measure of my stature to the said place: which when I had done, I was perfectly healed." He hearing these things, when what had been urged on him by the woman, he had promised to do, immediately rose up: and from that hour, from that disease by which he was held, he remained immune. These things were made known to us by faithful narration from the same man who was healed.

[22] But I do not wish to pass over, how a certain woman, called Ermetrudis, the blind, deprived of the double light of her eyes, by the merits of the blessed man was enlightened. This one was from the village which is near Marly: and when the virtues of the man of God had sounded in her ears, trusting greatly in the Lord, she gave her hand to a boy, and had herself drawn to the venerable tomb of the same. Three days having been completed in tears and contrition of heart, the woman received her sight: and exulting and no longer seeking a guide for the way, she returned to her dwelling.

[23] It has also pleased to write that a certain man, called Ingo, well known to certain Brothers of our monastery, by the obtaining of the man of God gained sight and hearing alike: and this one was from the region of Meaux ^a, from the village which is called Domnus-Martinus. dim-sighted and hard of hearing. For heavy with an infirmity of the head, he had lost sight and hearing, but not entirely: for he saw the light of day, but not so that he could fully know anything; and heard the sound of one crying loudly. But it was said to him, or, as it can more truly be said, was cried, that if he went to Pontoise to seek the suffrage of the blessed man, he would without doubt receive sight and hearing. Giving credit to these words, without delay he sought the place distinguished by the virtues of the blessed man; where by his intervention the blindness being put to flight, he deserved to receive hearing. Returning in the hour in which he had come, when through the wood which adjoins Francorum-villa he was making his passage; marveling he said, that he had not seen that wood at all, when already at another time he had passed by the same path.

[24] It happened that, when an innumerable multitude was coming to the tomb of the blessed man, some to lay down their vows, others to pray for their various infirmities, many began to detract from the holy man, and coming to him to dissuade others, saying that it was not good that he be called a Saint, whom a little while ago they had seen similar to the other mortals, subject to the passions of this life, Detracting from the sanctity of Blessed Galterius, to be hungry, thirst, eat, drink. Among whom were two, Hilduinus and Erembergis, a husband and his wife, who above others strove to obscure his virtues, and were attempting to assert that he neither was nor should be called a Saint. And when for a long time they had persisted in this obstinacy of mind, it pleased the Divine dispensation to correct them in this way. For when one night both were resting in bed, it seemed to the woman that she was standing beside the tomb of Blessed Galterius; they are corrected by a wonderful vision, and from very small shavings, such as those who polish the shafts of lances or arrows make, she was heating water; and in the same water she was softening wax. And behold there stood beside her a person, most beautiful in habit and in appearance, by whose splendor the whole basilica was shining, who seemed to address her in these words: "Why, O woman, with your husband do you detract from my servant, and strive to assert that he neither is nor should be called a Saint? whose virtues hearing, not only do you not believe, but also try to obscure? Know for certain that I wish him to be called a Saint, who obeying my commands has merited this, that he ought both to be a Saint and to be so called. Unless you correct yourself and your husband from this foolishness, you will suffer the greatest losses of your bodies and of your things." Awakening she announced these things in order to her husband: and not long after going to Pontoise to the venerable burial of the man of God, she found there the shavings shown to her in the vision. But so that no ambiguity might remain in their hearts from this, their son was turned into madness by an infirmity of the head, which is called phrenesis. their son being freed from madness. Whom his mother taking carried to the often-mentioned place: where the pain of the head being put to sleep, he received his sense. A few days having rolled by, she brought a precious Alb to the same place with her husband; and recounted the things which had been done concerning them, with truthful report.

[25] Madmen are healed, another from a headache, There is still what may be said of the virtues of the man of God. For a certain young man from Labivilla (for thus is the village called in which he lived) is brought to the already said place (and this one was also called Galterius) who seized for a long time with a headache, had lost the strength of going or even of doing anything; and was uttering many delirious words, as if taken in mind. And spending there about seven days, he sees in sleep Blessed Galterius standing near, and placing his hand on his head, and signing it on every side with the sign of the Cross. Which having seen, when he awoke, he felt all pain had fled; and having obtained his desire, he merrily revisited his kindred.

[26] At another time a certain woman, from the same village, when one day, another from the insufflation of a demon, with night now falling, she was making her passage through a certain place, in which everything between two houses was narrow; met an evil spirit, who seemed to have the appearance of as it were a most black little man: who blowing into her face said, "In this manner I will cool by blowing your extended hot porreye." Who immediately was made out of her mind, until she should be restored to health; and drawing frequent sighs from the bottom of her breast, she emitted them through her mouth. What more? By her parents and friends she is bound, and carried on an ass is placed beside the tomb of the man of God. Whom when the brothers of the Monastery sprinkled with exorcised and blessed water, she was so tortured, that she seemed to be utterly lifeless. Yet by the merits of the man of God she received her sense; and how these things, which are written above, had befallen her as discomforts, she narrated to all who wished to hear.

[27] From Pontoise also a certain young man is brought, who when one day from the village, a third from a mother's curse: which is called Cergy, with his mother he was returning to Pontoise, by his words vehemently stirred the same mother to anger; whence excessively exasperated, she horribly cursed him. Who immediately leaving his mother, turned to madness, began to go through trackless places. Finally, his parents and relations recognizing him to be raving, bound him tied with thongs, and led him to the virtue-bearing memory of the blessed man of God. This one was reporting from his mouth certain barbaric and unheard-of things, and whatever good things were done by the brothers of the monastery for the restoration of his sense, he held of no value and mocked. Nevertheless the Abbot of holy memory Theobald ^c, and the brothers living under him, insisted in prayers, begging the merits of the man of God, that entire sense be restored to him from his delirium. Their vows God hearing, by the merits of blessed Galterius he recovered his sense most entirely: and gave his innumerable thanks to God his liberator, and promised himself to be his servant, paying a candle yearly. This one was called Hubert. A certain madman of Pontoise, who although he had his hands tied and was given to a certain block through the middle of his body, a fourth tearing himself with his teeth; yet violently was gnawing his own arms with his own teeth; through the merits of Saint Galterius he received his sense entirely, and giving thanks returned to his own.

[28] Let it suffice to narrate these things of the virtues of the holy man. Few indeed are the miracles which we have written, that Divine goodness deigned to work through him, passing over very many. For many, with wooden and iron fetters broken, he freed from prison. various freed from prison, and the sick healed. These things iron chains testify, hanging before his tomb from those who were freed. Many daily held by various infirmities, before the venerable mausoleum of the blessed man, heavenly piety deigns to heal: which we have passed over, lest we engender weariness in readers: but these things we have written to show of how great merit he is with God. ^d

[29] A certain young man from Gosengies, who was staying at Vilers, when one night he was sleeping with his wife, lost the virtue of all his limbs: this one brought to Saint Gauterius, was by his prayers made whole, and giving thanks in the presence of the Bishop of Amiens returned home.

NOTES.

CHARTER OF CANONIZATION.

Galterius, Abbot of Martin, of the Order of Benedict, near Pontoise in Gaul (St.)

BHL Number: 8800

[1] In the year of the incarnate Word 1153, on the 5th day before the Nones of May, ^b with Eugenius the universal Roman Pope, Louis ^c the King of the Franks, I Hugh ^d, called Archbishop of Rouen, came to Pontoise. With three Bishops present, There gathered Theobald ^e of Paris, Theobald ^f of Senlis, venerable Pontiffs; with William ^g presiding as Abbot over the monastery of Saint Martin, and with many religious authentic persons assisting, the Clergy and people gathered in manifold ways, and others: a legation having been sent concerning this and with the assent of the magnificent Archbishop of Reims Samson ^h and of some Gallic Pontiffs. Then was opened the tomb of Abbot Gualterius of the aforesaid monastery of Saint Martin of Pontoise; with the miracles aiding, nay, compelling, the tomb of Galterius was opened: flashing not with vanity but with truth, in the present and in many past times.

[2] But since the holy and celebrated and most necessary devotion of the holy Fathers is most accustomed to have mercy on the penitent, Indulgences are granted: for the ineffable grace of our Redeemer, who forgives sins; and for the manifestation of his faithful servant Father Gualterius, whose relics the present church reverently looked upon, and deserved to be gladdened by the glory of his miracles; to the faithful of Christ, imploring the benefits of the same Father Gualterius, we have decreed that the indulgence of the penitential burden should be granted. Therefore from the penances of mortal sins, which are concluded in seven years, to those piously confessing and truly repenting a whole year and a third part of the remaining years is relaxed. To those who have undertaken a penance of fourteen years, two whole years and a third part of the residual time is pardoned. For twenty years we remit three years, and we indulge the third part of the residual time. But from a penance of forty years and more, we remit the whole half, and we equally pardon the third of the remaining years. Concerning little ones who were baptized or without baptism died within seven years through the negligence of their parents, we remit the penance to their parents, except on the sixth day in the week: in which even if the penitent has gone to church, such charity as his Priest shall give him, let him have; but if he be sick or a pregnant woman or weak, who cannot fast, let him say the Our Father seven times and do the good he can; but the third part from the penances of minor sins we remit: but also forgotten sins we wholly pardon. Today, however, the above-prescribed Indulgence, from the day after the Invention of the Holy Cross for a whole year, and on the individual days of this present year, to all coming in memory of the Saint has been granted by us under confidence of divine grace.

[3] With the agreement of the Reverend Fathers the Bishops, the memory of the Translation is venerated on May 4. and of the others who were present at the translation of Blessed Walter, we have decreed, that the festive memory of the aforesaid Saint be annually celebrated on the next day following the Invention of the Holy Cross. But by the pious and merciful consideration of those Fathers we have decreed, that, because with iniquity abounding in these latest times few bring forth worthy fruits of penance, sinners be succored by the grace of ampler Indulgence. On this account to all those, who on the very day of the Invention of the Holy Cross, on which day the blessed body was taken up; and on the next day, on which is celebrated the annual festival of the Saint, shall come to the Saint himself for the grace of remission, to them, in whatever coming year from any province or bishopric they approach the clemency of the Saint, we plenarily bestow the above-written indulgence. To these things I truly confess myself unworthy, and loaded with grievous sins and ancient faults. Whence I greatly need much and great mercy of God: therefore with the merits and prayers of the pious Father Walter the Abbot assisting, I suppliantly beg the grace of our Lord, and the clemency of the Mother of mercy, and the unceasing compassion of all the Saints, and commend my passing and end to the communion of the Catholic Church.

[4] Since this charter was found in the box of Saint Galterius in the year 1657 on May 4, as he who sent the transcript informed us; Translation into a new box: we can scarcely doubt that the most recent translation of the body into a new box, whose memory still persists with one of ours then staying at Paris, was made in the same year and month. But it was made, as he reports, through the zeal and expense of the most noble Walter Montagu, born of a most illustrious family among the English: who on the occasion of the wonders seen concerning the Ursulines of Laon, some mention of which was made by us on March 19, at the last number concerning Saint Joseph, converted to the orthodox faith, and enrolled in the Clergy, first being Grand Almoner of Henrietta Queen of England, then of her daughter the Duchess of Orléans, obtained the Pontoise Abbey of Saint Martin. This one thinking that grace ought to be used to the increase not so much of revenues as of religion, first restored discipline there, by introducing into the monastery religious of the Congregation of Saint Maurus; then took care to renovate Saint Galterius' chapel and to have it furnished with a marble altar; and finally had the bones of the holy man translated into a new and more elegant chest of ebony and gilded bronze: but now he has ceded the title of Abbot to Cardinal Bullonio, that he may live privately for himself and God, unburdened for the greater part of the burden of ecclesiastical revenues. I do not know whether those things which happened in the very act of the Translation have been committed to writing, nor is it longer permitted to await the instruction sought through letters: if anything is afterwards brought forward, and the adornment of the chapel. it can have place in the making of the Supplement of the work. There is still in veneration the cave or grotto, to which the Saint was accustomed to betake himself for the cause of praying to God more secretly and macerating his body with scourges: and for this reason the picture which previously stood exposed on the altar, showed the Saint raging on his back with pointed cords: in place of which now is seen another substituted, representing that noble act, by which receiving the Abbatial staff from the hand of the King from above, not from below, he wished openly to testify that that power was accepted by him, not as conferred by a terrestrial Prince, who had no right in ecclesiastical matters, but from the decision of a higher authority.

NOTES.

ON BLESSED ALBERT,

FORMERLY A CANON REGULAR, FIRST BISHOP OF VERCELLI,

THEN PATRIARCH OF JERUSALEM, APOSTOLIC LEGATE,

AND LAWGIVER OF THE CARMELITE ORDER.

THE YEAR 1214

Albert,

formerly a Canon Regular, Bishop of Vercelli, Patriarch of Jerusalem, Apostolic Legate and Lawgiver of the Carmelite Order.

(Bl.) BHL Number: 0222

By D. P.

CHAPTER I.

The Life of Blessed Albert before the Patriarchate from the Monuments of the Church of Vercelli.

[1] This man distinguished by so many and so great titles, but by more and greater virtues, neither the Canons Regular, whose institute he professed; nor the people of Vercelli, over whom he presided as Bishop; Whom among the Carmelites Albert the Patriarch is venerated but the Carmelite Order instituted to be honored with the cult of the Ecclesiastical Office, and alone hitherto perseveres in venerating him: and that on this day April 8 under the rite of a Double. For indeed dead and buried abroad, he had nothing in Europe, whose presence would stir up the devotion of the peoples; and to which the faithful turning in their necessities would be induced by the very evidence of miracles to decree public veneration for him, in some church of the Regulars, or in that Cathedral which he had left. But that sacred Order neither ought nor could forget the perpetual benefit of Albert towards itself, with respect to which it obtained that it be numbered among the Orders duly approved by the Roman Church. according to the records of the Church of Vercelli. But those things which pertain to the day, manner, and origin of that cult, will be explained more conveniently below: first I undertake to explain its foundation, namely the exceptional holiness of his life confirmed by a most holy death, in the very words of the most ancient parchments, received from the Archives of Vercelli, and by the testimonies of certain and authentic documents of the age in which he flourished.

[2] On the 18th day before the Kalends of October, 1214, Indiction 2, on the present day, from the prison of the flesh departed the Venerable Father and Lord of blessed memory Albert, Patriarch of Jerusalem, formerly Bishop of this Church, beloved by God and men: the memory of whose sweetness we, although less fit and sufficient, to belch forth, yet lest the brightness of so great a man, through the idleness of silence, should come into oblivion of the coming generation; a few things about his life, morals, acts, and glorious end summarily touched we have thought should be inserted in this page. born in the Parma countryside, For the aforesaid man of the Lord was from Castrum-Gualterii of the diocese of Parma, born of a noble lineage: who from the very beginnings of his early age enslaved to literary warfare, in the liberal disciplines and the science of human laws in a short time surpassed his contemporaries. But lest he should be polluted by pitch if he touched it, having bidden farewell to the world and its pomps, Canon Regular of Mortara, to the church of Mortara, as to the port of salvation, he took refuge with his parents: where when he had now been instructed not a little in the regular disciplines and the understanding of the divine law, and was elected Prior of the Church itself, lest his lamp should any longer be covered under a bushel, but exalted in the house of the Lord upon a candlestick might enlighten others, from that Priorate he was violently taken away to the rule of the Bishopric of Bobbio. Elected at Bobbio, Then, a few years having rolled by, before he received the office of consecration, with great alacrity of Clergy and people, he was requested as Bishop of the Church of Vercelli: Made Bishop at Vercelli. which through the course of nearly twenty years manfully governing, in the advancement both of spiritual and of temporal things, he wonderfully increased.

[3] Thus far the faithful and (as far as can be gathered from the very context) contemporary writer of the Life, which in less elegant words, but yet most worthy of faith, John Stephen Ferrerius Bishop of Vercelli professes to have found commemorated in the records of the Church, The Carmelites also approve those records. in the treatise which concerning the Life and deeds of Saint Eusebius Bishop of Vercelli and his successors he inscribed to Clement VIII Supreme Pontiff, and published at Rome in the year 1602. But the same Ferrerius adds, after he treated of Blessed Albert the 72nd Bishop from page 177 to page 185, that he renders this very Life the more willingly, because it shows an illustrious and Apostolic man from every side. We do the same, and even the more confidently, because Ludovic of Saint Teresa, a Discalced Carmelite, first Definitor of the Province, judged this life alone worthy, which found in the Italia Sacra of Ughelli, he rendered in French in chapter 215 of his work on the Succession

Elijana, printed at Paris in the year 1662, although he saw that it was as different from the narrations received in his own order, as those themselves both among each other and from the most attested truth of indubitable authorities differ.

[4] But before we proceed to the rest of the series of the partially tasted epitome, I will illustrate a few things in the prior part, The monastery of Holy Cross of Mortara was the head of the Order; and confirm at the same time its certainty. Mortara, a not ignoble town between Pavia and Vercelli, has adjacent nearby the monastery of the Holy Cross, built by Adam the Mortarian Cleric, as Pennotus teaches in book 2 chapter 46, about the year 1080, and three years later attributed to the Regulars; with success so prosperous, that before the year 1134 fourteen churches were subject to it, distinguished by the title of Prepositure or Priorate, as is clear from the diploma of Innocent II. But this monastery was head of the whole Order, called the Mortarian from this very fact; and accordingly Albert was not only Prior, but Prior or General Provost, in which way Pennotus says those are called in public documents who bore the same office as he. The same man enumerates several more illustrious, "of all of whom," he says, "mention is made in the ancient documents of the aforesaid monastery": but he is deceived when he distinguishes two Alberts for the reader, one the Patriarch of Jerusalem, the other Bishop of Vercelli; for it is one and the same, who when he began to govern that monastery, we would wish to know more definitely from the cited writings.

[5] Who was made its Prior about the year 1180, It is credible that this happened not long after the year 1180: since to the Bishopric of Bobbio (but Bobbio is distant from Mortara about 60 Roman miles), vacant through the death of Gandulph, in the year 1184 Albert was elected Bishop: who soon after his election, detecting the Abbot of Saint Columbanus and the monks, contrary to the sentence passed in favor of Bishop Oglierius by Eugenius III, withdrawing themselves from Episcopal jurisdiction; obtained a precept against them from Lucius III; as Honorius III at length narrates in the confirmation of the same Precept, issued in the year 1228: which see in Ughelli in the Bobbio Bishops entire, he is consecrated Bishop in the year 1184, but as to the numbers of the Pontificate and Indiction corrupted by transcribers correct, and read year of the Pontificate II, Indiction IV. There "the former Patriarch of Jerusalem, but then, when Lucius' rescript was given, Elect of Bobbio," cannot be understood as any other than Albert, not long after that election, with the consent of the same Lucius, translated to the Cathedra of Vercelli, being perhaps in the 35th year of his age: since in the twentieth year after that, at about the age of 35; with no excuse of greater age pretended, he was requested as Patriarch of Jerusalem, and was given to those requesting him. But more of this below.

[6] I return to the manuscript Life, where the praise of the church wonderfully increased both in spiritual and temporal things, is then heaped up with these encomia. "For while he was humble in habit, sparing in diet, most chaste in body, generous in alms, assiduous in divine offices, most eloquent in preaching; He shines with virtues, he composed in a marvelous manner by word and example the morals of Clerics and laics, and led them to the fruit of a better life. And since he was deep in sense, provident in counsel, most splendid in discourse, constant in act, and skilled in both Laws; from great debt he freed the church itself as soon as possible, augmented possessions, constructed buildings, and defended its rights unimpaired." He consults well for the church in the year 1186, "With respect to his merits," says Ughelli in the Bishops of Vercelli col. of volume 4, "Urban III received the Church of Vercelli into his protection in the year 1186. Under Clement III the Pope, after the Kingdom of Jerusalem was taken from the Christians by Saladin, that is, in the year 1189," he says that a signal miracle shone forth, celebrated for the amendment of a certain Lady of Parma, who had been possessed by five demons, and on the day of the Octave of Saint Eusebius, by the merits of the same Saint, with Bishop Albert exorcising, was freed, is read in the Old Calendar of the Church of Vercelli.

Thus Ughelli, almost in the very words of Bishop Ferrerius, who cites the documents seen by him, he frees a possessed woman in the year 1189, and concerning the miracle adds that it is moreover read in the records of the same Church in a very long narration: which narration would that someone would describe and send to us, to be given on August 1, after the Acts of that holy Bishop and glorious Martyr! Meanwhile we give a Synopsis of the matter as we received it from the Most Illustrious Marcus Aurelius Cusanus, Provicar and Canon of Vercelli. "A certain Princess of Parma, while she was possessed by five infernal spirits, and they were commanded through exorcisms to go forth, and had answered negatively, even if the authority of Eusebius Martyr Bishop of Vercelli should be present; that suggestion being attended to, the Princess herself wished to be presented at the tomb of Saint Eusebius in the Cathedral church of Vercelli; and there through exorcisms, however by the work of Bishop Albert, freed she returned to her country. Where not long afterwards, when she newly consented that her husband should even relapsing live an incestuous life; again vexed by such unclean spirits and returning to Vercelli, she still begs Bishop Albert, that he would deign to lay on his hand, and thus send her free: and so a happy outcome proved it, when through him freed she departed. But this woman heaped with so many graces, lest she be noted for the vice of an ungrateful mind, had erected a precious pulpit or ambo, woven with sacred marble figures … this same Princess, not wishing to return any longer to her country, but perpetually to lead her life near the sacred shrine of Saint Eusebius, commanded that a little cloister be erected there, where with age protracted she returned her soul to Christ the Lord."

[7] He defends his right in the year 1190, In the year next following, namely 1190, Albert by his diploma invalidated what Guala his predecessor had granted to Gualo the Provost and the Canons of Santhia. The same Albert stood forth as a most faithful mediator between the Most Holy Roman Church and the Empire: whence both the Supreme Pontiff and the Emperor (the words are again those of the ancient Life, mediator between the Church and the Empire, and is understood Frederick Barbarossa, scarcely ever willing and always pretending to obey the Church) by a privilege of love loved him above other Bishops: especially the illustrious Emperor Henry, son of the most invincible Caesar: whose grace he merited by services of devotion to such an extent that the most noble castle of Verrucha of this Church, which he was holding for himself, he liberally restored, and to his sincere devotion he gave great and precious gifts with Imperial munificence. Should the instrument of that restoration have perished, otherwise Ferrerius would not have omitted, he is called a Prince of the H. R. in the year 1191, having most studiously scrutinized the whole Archive of Vercelli, to cite it, as he indicated and for the greater part transcribed verbatim that in which the Emperor speaking of himself says, "at the petition of our beloved and faithful Prince Albert Bishop of Vercelli, we have received the church of Saint Eusebius into protection … in the year from the incarnation of the Lord 1191": and Ferrerius observes, that other Bishops after Albert thenceforth used that benefit and title of Imperial Prince.

[8] He convokes a Synod in the year 1192, Then from the aforesaid Records, continuing to narrate the other deeds of Albert in the Episcopate, the same Ferrerius says, "In the year 1192 on the 4th, 5th, and 6th feria after Pentecost he held a Synod, in which he issued salutary decrees for the Church, which are still extant. By Celestine III he is decorated with many benefits, especially concerning tithes in the 4th year of his Pontificate, the year of Christ 1194. he obtains tithes in the year 1194, In the year 1196 Henry confirmed the sentence, passed in favor of the Church of Vercelli by Angelus Imperial Vicar, concerning the cases turning between Henry de Frascarolio, Syndic of Albert Bishop of Vercelli, in the name of the Church of Vercelli, on the one part; he wins a lawsuit in the year 1196, and Guala Guarnerius, Syndic of the Commune of Casale S. Evasius, in the name of that Commune, on the other." "In the year 1199 by Innocent III (this one before the year had succeeded the dying Celestine) Albert was employed concerning the people of Piacenza and of Parma, in the year 1199 he settles disputes, about the dissension over the Burgh of S. Domninus, which was stirring up all Lombardy to arms, to be brought back to peace and concord. The same Pontiff in the same year and the 2nd of his Pontificate commanded, that he should declare void the election of certain Friars made by the Clerics of Casale S. Evasius who had been excommunicated, and voids the defective election, and bestowed on him the power of compelling all, who are obliged to pay tithes." These things Ferrerius from the archive of his Church: Ughelli adds a sentence received from the Archive of the monastery of Saint Ambrose of Milan, a rather long one, by which "Albert, called Bishop of Vercelli, and Peter, called Abbot of Leocedium, terminated the controversies of the monks and Canons of Saint Ambrose of Milan, in the year 1201 he pronounces judgment at Milan, for a long time already agitated under their examination," with the letters of Papal commission exhibited and inserted verbatim in the sentence, which can be read in Ughelli, given at Milan in the year 1201, Indiction V, on the 8th day before the Kalends of December.

CHAPTER II.

Narrations contrary to the aforesaid, devised without any likeness of truth.

[9] Learned men of the Order of Carmelites recognize and lament the misfortune or negligence of their elders, Things fabricated more freely by later generations, by which they either did not care to describe the things memorable at home and abroad in their own times; or having described them, perhaps lost them. I judge no less a calamity of the Order, that their descendants have wished to supply that defect, fabricating histories from petty traditions badly sewn together and founded on the lightest conjectures, filled with anachronisms and contradictions. Those who do not know that these should be held suspect of falsehood, entangle themselves in an inextricable labyrinth, while from natural affection and reverence toward their own they defend them more animatedly, or more solicitously excuse them, with great labor and often blushing success, when it happens (which yet may it happen always!) that contemporary monuments are from somewhere produced, which easily prove that they deserve the highest credit, when compared with other writers of the same or nearly the same age, and with old tables of public and private actions, they are found to have no contradiction concerning persons or concerning times.

[10] Such was the life of Saint Peter Thomas, both that which Philip Mazerius Chancellor of Cyprus wrote, as at other times from the writings of contemporaries they are easily refuted, inseparable companion of his journeys and attentive attendant at his death; and another which John Carmesson, Minister of the Order of Friars Minor in the Holy Land, eulogist of the deceased at his funeral sermon, and Commissary appointed to examine the miracles of the same piously invoked, composed. That both are such is proved partly by Papal diplomas, published at the end, partly by historical observations likewise added, by which it comes about that undoubted faith is given to both writings even in other places, which elsewhere cannot be confirmed except that they oppose no authority worthy of faith. But, if these things were lacking to us as we were elaborating March, concerning Saints Bertholdus and Cyril, of whom we treated rather meagerly, and also rather obscurely out of a desire to avoid controversies; they are not lacking in the case of Albert, as has been demonstrated in the preceding chapter. But that the former barrenness may have a more evident excuse against the complaints of any, so now also those opinions about Albert are refuted from the same sources, I take up opinions contrary to the more certain history of Albert to be weighed, at least for this once; for it is neither pleasing nor expedient on any occasion offered to fill commentaries with refuting the assertions of others. As therefore concerns the Life of Albert before the Patriarchate (for concerning the other parts we shall treat below) it is thus treated

by most Carmelite writers, that the author of the Italia Sacra, Ughelli, a man of most calm and modest intellect, could not contain himself from saying that "they have devised portentous narrations about Albert."

[11] Who confuse Albert the Bethlehemite with the one of Jerusalem, To dissolve these, it will serve first to observe with the aforesaid Ughelli, from William of Tyre book 21 chapter 26, that William himself came to the Third Lateran Council in the year 1188, in the company of seven Bishops whom he names, and that one of them was Albert the Bethlehemite Bishop, namely the one whose name the same Tyrius had omitted to express in book 20 chapter 33, where he says that, Ralph having died about the year 1173, only after two years another was substituted. In tome 4 of the Italia Sacra col. 485 there is a public instrument composed in the year from the Incarnation 1186, the 10th day before the Kalends of January, Indiction IV, at Pisa, in which Ubald, by God's grace Archbishop of the Church of Pisa, out of reverence to the church of Saint Mary of Bethlehem … to his beloved Brother Nicholas, Subdeacon and Canon of that Church, receiving in the name of the same Church of Saint Mary in Bethlehem, and for his beloved Brother Albert the Bishop of the aforesaid Church, gives and grants the church of Saint Martin, situated near the city of Pisa in the place which is called Vetula, with its goods and rights; so that that Bishop and his successors may in the same with their Clerics dwell (as often namely as the cause of business might happen to bring them across the sea) and rule and guard that church and its things and goods, and use them and its goods and things to the utility of the Church of Bethlehem; with the right of patronage in all things preserved and reserved. Whether indeed this Albert was born at Amiens or Antioch, and from Eustachius the Hermit and Agnes of Podium was great-grandnephew of great Peter the Hermit, I do not discuss: this I know, that all those things which are attributed to him whether truly or falsely, are transferred to our Albert, with him confused into one and the same person by various Carmelite writers.

[12] And they feign that in the year 1142 he was initiated into the Priesthood, One of them, Peter Thomas Saracenus, in his Augmented Carmelite Menology, says that this Albert, in the Amiens monastery of Canons Regular laid down the beginnings of his novitiate and the first training of religious life, and when in the monastery of Saint Genevieve at Paris he had profited much in the lucubrations of sacred letters, at length initiated with Priestly dignity about the year 1142, he received from Pope Innocent the faculty of hearing confessions. Meanwhile it is certain that the Collegiate church of Saint Genevieve, as has been demonstrated in the Life of Saint William Abbot of Roskilde on April 6, only in the year 1148, the secular Canons being expelled, passed to the Regulars under Eugenius III, between whom and the aforesaid Innocent, Celestine and Lucius, likewise the Seconds, held the Pontificate. Then Saracenus adds that Albert with King Louis with Louis he crossed to the Holy Land, (the seventh this one was, and set out from Gaul in the year 1147 after Pentecost) sought the Holy Land, and professed the regular life with other Regulars in the cloister of the Lord's sepulchre: thence to Adrian IV, made Pope at the end of the year 1154, for the cause of congratulation came: and returning thence in the year 1154 was made Bishop of Vercelli. from whom substituted Bishop to the church of Mortara (but who has heard the Bishopric of Mortara even named by hearsay?) at length was made Bishop of Vercelli; namely when Hugutio was still holding that Cathedra, created in the year 1150 and still alive until 1170. But Saracenus does not retain Albert even so long in Italy: for as soon as Amalric, Prior of the Holy Sepulchre, was elected Patriarch of Jerusalem (this happened in the year 1157, not under Alexander, who only in the year 1159 was created Pontiff, but under his predecessor Adrian), he judges that Albert was likewise substituted to the Church of Bethlehem with best right: whereas from William of Tyre book 16 chapter 17 it is clear, then in 1157 Bishop of Bethlehem, that Ralph, with Lord Adrian the Pope favoring him, who was his compatriot, assumed to the Bethlehemite church, was ordained Bishop of that place, and did not die until the year 1173, leaving the place to Albert another above-mentioned and substituted after two years.

[13] Finally, when Saracenus had read at Baronius at the year 1187 and 8 something from Nicetas Choniates concerning Leontius and Dositheus monks, named successively first to the Patriarchate of Jerusalem then of Constantinople, and finally drawn from Carmel, by the will of the Greek Emperor (the holy city having now been taken by the Saracens and snatched from the Latins), he feigns that Albert had the surname of Leontius, and cites as witness of his fiction Genebrard at the year 1187, asserting nothing similar either there or in his whole Chronography. Then upon this ruinous foundation the same Saracenus builds the bulk of a prolix fable, and imagines that Albert by Dositheus, a schismatic monk and ambitious of the Patriarchal summit, was first so harassed, that having relinquished the Bethlehemite Cathedra he preferred to live among the Carmelites as a Carmelite, [in the year 1187 Patriarch of Jerusalem having laid down the see of Constantinople] then was called to the infulae of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and released from these in the same year he had been elected, at length was substituted to Athanasius Patriarch of the Greeks at Jerusalem: at the very time namely when the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Heraclius was still living, or (if years a little later following are treated) Heraclius' successors Sulpicius and Monachus.

[14] "If a painter should wish to join a horse's neck to a human head, and to induce various feathers, with limbs collected from every side, so that a fair woman should end foully in a black fish below,"

can he feign a more heterogeneous monster, and that under a schismatic Emperor of Constantinople, than Albert is here feigned? For according to Saracenus, he was first among the orthodox Latins a Canon Regular and Bethlehemite Bishop; then, I know not how, insinuated to the schismatic Emperor of Constantinople, and by the same promoted from the cathedra of the royal City to that of Jerusalem, not certainly for the Latins, of whom none remained at Jerusalem the city having been taken by the Saracens; but for the Greeks or Syrians, who alone of the Christians had remained there; and Saracens: while namely the Latin Patriarchs dwelt at Acre, and by the legitimate election of the Latin Clergy or the Roman Pontiff continued the series nowhere interrupted; into which we shall introduce Albert in the following century. Meanwhile it is clear from the above, that up to that century he did not put his foot outside Europe; and was acting as Bishop of Vercelli, while in Palestine the Bethlehemite Episcopate was being administered by another Albert, of whom above, having nothing in common with the schismatic Emperor or Clergy, and who died before our Albert crossed the sea; for his successor in the Bethlehemite See, Peter, is read to have been present in the year 1204 at the election of Baldwin, Count of Flanders, as Emperor of Constantinople.

[15] The words of Saracenus I have given partly as they are, partly from the tedium of the fabulous prolixity I have reduced to a few: this much was enough, that the reader might know with what good faith, and these things are obtruded as most certain. "from domestic and foreign monuments" (as the title announces) "the Life of Blessed Father Albert the Carmelite, Patriarch of Jerusalem" was excerpted by him. Is this what the Preface to the reader promises, "to recast in his own style the origins of the Saints, from genuine sources, with robust and constant faith, with the apocryphal entirely banished"? At nearly every period he cites the names and places of illustrious authors: but we have seen that they wrote either contrary or different things. You may doubt whether he believed, after that Menology of his was committed to print, that there would be anyone who knew letters, and could test the credit of one narrating such prodigious things and citing witnesses by the judgment of his own eyes.

CHAPTER III.

Blessed Albert's call to the Patriarchate of Jerusalem: and the things done by him in it.

[16] The contemporary author of the Life tasted by us in the first chapter, after he commended the praiseworthy conversation of Albert in the Church of Vercelli, thus continues his narration: With Monachus the Patriarch dead, "But that the Lightning, which goes forth from the West and reaches even to the East, might set the glory of so great a man on high, by the Oriental Clergy and people he was unanimously requested as Patriarch of Jerusalem, and through Lord Pope Innocent III, compelled to go thither." Whom he had as predecessors and successors in that degree of honor, you will read accurately and fully set forth in my preliminary tract on these Patriarchs, before the first volume of May. There from the history of the arm of Saint Philip the Apostle sent from Jerusalem, and brought to Florence in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1204 on the 6th day before the Nones of March, written by some then Cleric of the Florentine church, I demonstrated that to Heraclius succeeded Sulpicius, to Sulpicius the Archbishop of Caesarea, Monachus, not in fact, and with Cardinal Soffredus excusing himself, but in his own name: who after, the Lord calling, he paid the debt of humanity … "the body of so great a Father having been buried, Cardinal Soffredus, who then was fulfilling the office of Legation in the maritime parts, was elected Patriarch: but he afterwards renounced the election. But all to whom the election pertained, with the consent of the King, elected the Bishop of Vercelli, to whom to bring back Rainerius, formerly of the church of the holy Resurrection in Jerusalem, then Prior of Joppa, who had been of the Florentine diocese, was principally appointed legate."

[17] Albert, who perhaps had been there a little before, Thus there, from which anyone might take occasion to suspect, that Blessed Albert previously, perhaps in the second or third year of the century, on account of some business of the Empire or the Church had set out to the East, and dwelling at Acre with the Patriarch Monachus and his Clerics, had left there the odor of his virtue, so that even absent he was requested. But this suspicion, as it cannot be demonstrated false, so needs a more solid foundation to be believed true: since the phrase "to bring back" from common usage can be so taken, that returning Rainerius was commanded to bring him, who had never been there. Thus when someone rising from his place, that from elsewhere he may receive something, returns to the place from which he had gone out; he is said to bring it with him, although it had never been in the place to which it is brought. Elected Patriarch in the year 1204, the Pope admonishes him, Moreover this renunciation of Cardinal Soffredus and the election of Albert are confirmed not only from the Acts of Innocent, published by François Bosquet; but also from a most beautiful letter of the Pontiff himself, given to him excusing himself and refusing, in the year (as Stephen Ferrerius transcribed from the Vatican register) 1204, on the 12th day before the Kalends of March. Whence it appears that Rainerius the Prior, as soon as he obtained the Pontiff's consent at Rome, carried this letter with him, and hastening to Vercelli passed through Florence on the 4th day before the Nones of the same March. The letter, because it offers the most beautiful testimony of Albert's virtue, and is the most solid support of the chronology we follow, I exhibit in its entirety.

[18] That having suffered at Jerusalem for his servants, "That he might repair the fall of the human race, the only-begotten Son of God Jesus Christ, when he was in the form of God, as the Apostle testifies, emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man; and chose Jerusalem for himself for the passion, made obedient to God the Father even to the death of the cross; and bore our sins in his body upon the wood, reckoned with the wicked

and crucified with thieves. Phil. 2:7 Unless therefore the servant should wish to be condemned for the vice of ingratitude as useless, he will refuse neither yoke nor neck to undergo for the Lord; since the Lord handed himself over for the servant, condemned with a most shameful death. Truly that the Lord might remove every occasion from us, and reserve no place of negligence in sin for excusing excuses, whatever the servant could suffer for the Lord, the Lord has already almost suffered before for the servant. Who therefore does not leave all earthly things for him, whom he knows to have descended from the heavens to earth? that the servant himself should refuse to suffer there for the Lord, who does not lay down his soul for him, who for him breathed out his spirit on the cross? For if to render him anything, for all things which he rendered to us, neither tribulation, nor anguish, nor death, nor sword, ought in any way to delay us, that, if necessity demand and utility require, we should not taste for him the cup of passion. For if, as he walked, we arrange to walk, and to follow his footsteps; neither the reproaches of those reproaching, nor the snares of the familiar enemy, nor the power of the raging enemy ought we in any degree to fear; that we may less walk in his ways, and direct our feet in his paths; suffering with him for a time, that we may happily reign together with him reigning eternally.

[19] and to undertake the burden of that Church of his; "For we know and hold for certain, both from Prophetic and Evangelical reading, that his heart waited in perpetuity, when the tongue of those cursing him reproached him, that he was the carpenter's son, a wine-bibber, and friend of publicans. We know that he who ate his breads raised the heel against him. We know how, sprinkled with spittle, struck with blows, crowned with thorns, he patiently bore Pilate's tyranny; crucified at the last, and pierced with a lance. Will you then deny yourself to your Maker, that you may refuse to undergo the burden of the Church of Jerusalem, which he consecrated with his own blood? If he has deigned in a certain way to elect you as his successor; will you not enter upon his inheritance, and raise seed for your dead brother, who through you perhaps laid down in the earth of his pilgrimage and preaching the Evangelical seed to be propagated? Far be it that you should shun labors, fears, and pains; Lest he flee labors, poverties, anxieties, and necessities, lest you undergo that burden, to which you are called by divine disposition. Isa. 1:14 Far be it that for him you should shun labors, who through the Prophet asserts that he labored for you, saying in the Psalm, 'I have labored sustaining,' and concerning whom the Evangelist testifies that about the sixth hour he was sitting on the well, pains, fatigued from the journey. John 4:6 Far be it that you should shun pains for him, for whom you do not doubt to have suffered, according to what he himself asserts in the Prophet, 'O all you who pass through the way, attend and see, if there be sorrow like my sorrow': Thren. 1:12 and who of himself in the Gospel testifies, 'My soul is sorrowful even unto death.' Mark 14:34 fears, Far be it that you should shun fears for him, of whom in the Psalm it is read that he said, 'Fear and trembling have come upon me,' and concerning whom in the Gospel it is read that 'he began to fear and to be heavy.' Ps. 54:6, Mark 14:33 Far be it that you should flee poverty for him, poverty, who for you became poor, according to what he asserts in the Prophet, 'I am poor and in sorrow'; and in the Gospel, 'The foxes have holes and the birds of the air nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.' Ps. 68:30, Luke 9:58 anxieties, Far be it that you should shun anxieties for him, in whose person the Prophet speaking thus says: 'My spirit is anxious within me, and in me my heart is troubled'; necessities. and who asserts concerning himself, 'I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and I am straitened until it is accomplished.' Ps. 142:4, Luke 12:30 Far be it that you should shun necessities for him, who for you, to pass over other things, brought himself into the necessity of hunger and thirst, according to what is read in the Prophet, 'They gave gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink': and as the Evangelist likewise testifies, that when he had fasted forty days and forty nights he then was hungered: and when he cried on the cross, 'I thirst,' vinegar or myrrhed wine or even mixed with gall the right hand of the crucifiers offered. Ps. 68:22, Matt. 4:2

[20] If perchance you be moved He commands by the example of James, the brother of the Lord, because you are called to the prelacy of that Church, whose possession for the present you cannot enter upon; inasmuch as it is now for the most part held for a time by the enemies; bring back before the eyes of your mind, how James the brother of the Lord undertook to govern Jerusalem, not indeed favoring him, but rather opposing; inasmuch as in it at that time those held dominion who had both crucified the Lord outside the city, and around the temple afterwards killed the same James. And although John and Thaddeus according to the flesh were brothers of the Lord, to embrace that Episcopate, James however is specially called his Brother, inasmuch as he took the widow of his dead brother in marriage, that he might raise seed for him according to the Mosaic law: who not inappropriately is called Supplanter, since in a certain way he supplanted the Apostles, inasmuch as although he was not the first among others, nevertheless from the rest as it were he seized the birthright, while he undertook the firstborn Church to be governed: of which namely the Prophet testifies, that 'from Sion went forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.' Isa. 2:3 who is chief in the Church, This is the city of the great King, concerning which many glorious things are said, and that as if chief which is subjoined: 'Mother Sion shall say, Man, and man is born in her, and the Highest himself founded her.' Ps. 86:5 Moreover although part of that Church, which we grievingly report, in the destruction of the Holy Land was taken and slain by the enemies: yet the part which remains is yours; nay, even the Church itself, which has been renewed through new offspring, demands and awaits you as its Shepherd. with the place lost, it still remained in persons: Do not therefore plead the place, since you have persons to govern: because the name of Church refers to persons rather than to place: although for this you are specially requested, that being solicitous about the place, you may labor with all your strength for the recovery of it, for the reintegration of the land of the Lord's nativity.

[21] "For coming into our presence our beloved son the Prior and Canons of the Lord's Sepulchre, both by living voice and by the letters which they carried, humbly informed us, that since our beloved Brother Soffredus, Cardinal Priest of the title of Saint Praxedis, Legate of the Apostolic See, could not be induced to consent to the election made of him to the Church of Jerusalem, gathering into one they unanimously requested you as Patriarch. To whose request our most dear son in Christ, the illustrious King of Jerusalem, gave his assent, and the Archbishops consented; through their letters to us, begging, that we would deign not only to induce but also to compel you, to humbly consent to their request. The same also our beloved sons Soffredus of Saint Praxedis and Peter of the title of Saint Marcellus, Cardinal Priests, Legates of the Apostolic See, through their letters announced to us: that since the suffragans of the Church of Jerusalem asserted that they had a voice in the election, He indicates the order of election, but the Prior and Canons of the Lord's Sepulchre denied this, it happened at length that two persons having been named, they devoutly conferred their votes and voices in these; that from those, the more fit whom they should believe, they should choose: the Patriarch likewise of Antioch and the Prelates of the province, conferred concordantly upon them, if they had any right in the election. They therefore with deliberation previously had concerning the two named persons, choosing you rather, named you to the same Church as Shepherd.

[22] "And although you are very necessary to us in the parts of Lombardy, inasmuch as we securely commit our place to you in arduous business; yet on account of the urgent necessity, by which moved he thought him should be granted to them, not only of the Church of Jerusalem, but of the whole Eastern province, bringing as it were a certain violence upon us, we admonish your discretion and more attentively exhort you, and enjoin it upon you for the remission of sins, beseeching by the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, that consenting to the said nomination, you should both condescend to the desires of all the aforesaid, and receive the election made of you: lest if you act otherwise, you should seem to resist the divine will (which however is always fulfilled even by the unwilling) prudently attending, lest if a person less fit or perhaps unworthy should be placed over your same Church, you might not undeservedly impute to yourself the desire of some because of your condition. and with every excuse cut off, Nor shun this labor, as if you cannot accomplish what you desire: because God rewards not so much the profit as the labor: 1 Cor. 3:8 wherefore the Apostle says, 'Each shall receive his own reward according to his own labor': Wisd. 10:17, 1 Cor. 15:10 and another Scripture testifies, 'God will render the reward of the labors of his Saints': whence cautiously said the Apostle, 'I labored more than all': nor did he say, 'I profited more than all'; although from your labors we hope no small gains will come forth.

[23] even to be compelled, to undertake that Church. "Therefore in such a way for the Lord and on account of the Lord follow out this Apostolic mandate concerning this matter, that we need not show the hand of stricter severity. For although according to the canonical statutes no one unwilling is compelled to grow, yet according to legitimate sanctions some are drawn unwilling to public offices. But it concerns both the Apostolic See and the general Church, nay, and generally all and singularly each of the faithful of the Crucified, that a fit person be placed as Shepherd over the same Church. Nor are you assumed so much to honor, as to burden: since that Church today has more burdens than honors. Be not troubled in anything, nor plead that the aforesaid Cardinal of Saint Praxedis did not admit the canonical request made of him by the Sepulchre of the Lord: because perhaps, as Sara for Tobias, so she too was reserved for another by divine judgment: or perhaps this induced him to this refusal of the burden, lest being present in those parts he should seem to have procured his own promotion; and from this he would incur the mark of ambition especially, that when he had opportunely and importunately, as it pertained to his office, insisted upon the removal of a certain perverse person, who had been wickedly nominated to that same Church; he should afterwards, that person removed, accept the request made of him." With these letters and commands the Bishop of Vercelli humbly acquiescing, says the compiler of the Acts of Innocent, "came to the Apostolic See; and promoted to the Patriarchate, not only received the ornament of the Pallium, but also

also deserved the office of Legation, to be exercised for four years in his province: already already having set out, thence he sailed into Syria."

[24] Yet do not think these things were carried out with such speed, that in arranging the affairs of the Church of Vercelli, which had to be dismissed, the whole year 1204 and a good part of the following was not consumed, in which he could consecrate his successor Lothar with Bishops of the same province. But ordained by the Pontiff, as was said, he received from him letters signed on the 16th day before the Kalends of May, He makes him Apostolic Legate to all Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, Priors, and all the faithful of Christ, both natives and pilgrims, established in the Province of Jerusalem, in which Innocent asserts that he, from the common counsel of his Brothers, is sending the venerable Patriarch of Jerusalem, formerly Bishop of Vercelli, and enjoining on him for four years the office of Legation in the same Province, and commanding that he be received humbly and with lowliness, as himself. and bestows many privileges on him: The Pontiff also grants him that he may bestow the office of absolution on anyone: that those who are with him from Italy may enjoy Prebends: that in any Provinces (without scandal however and without prejudice to others) he may use the Pallium; that for certain times he may be excused from the visitation of the Thresholds: and he adds many other privileges. Thus instructed Albert at an opportune time set sail for the Holy Land with a Genoese fleet, probably in the year inclining to winter: and therefore Theodoricus Pauli calls the following year, namely 1206, the first year of the Patriarchate.

[25] Albert lived at Acre or Ptolemais, where after Jerusalem was taken by the Saracens the Latin Patriarchs had their refuge; In the year 1206 having arrived at Acre, although there was a proper Bishop there, who in the time of Blessed Albert was Galterius; whose seal also, together with the seal of Albert hung beneath the sentence to be mentioned below, Ughelli testifies to have seen. But the matter remained in that state, until the Pontificate of Urban IV: who seeing the hope and attempts of restoring Jerusalem to its full state being drawn out to a long time; where there was a proper Bishop of the place, and judging it unfitting that a consecrated Patriarch should always dwell in another city as it were as a guest; united the Episcopate of Acre to the Patriarchate, as will be more fully set forth elsewhere. Those are therefore wrong who think Albert was also of Acre; much more those who, deceived by the closeness of the names, say he was Bishop of Ascalon.

[26] The same often mentioned Pontiff afterwards gave several letters to the same Albert. One may see them published by Bosquet: it will be enough here for us to have indicated their arguments, in the way Bosquet prefixed them to the Epistles. Therefore there is book 2, Epistle 104, given on the 8th day before the Kalends of October in the 14th year of his Pontificate of Christ 1211, Innocent III writes in the year 1211, by which he commands that he admonish Hugh, King of Cyprus, to receive his Constable into favor. The same man, Epistle 134 given on the 3rd day before the Kalends of January, commands that he take cognizance of the election of the Archbishop of Nicosia in Cyprus, whose Pallium he sends to him. Epistle 147, in the year 1212, written on the Ides of January in the year 1212, admonishes him to exhort the Eastern Princes to the exchange of Christian captives with the pagans. Book 3, Epistle 179, exhorts the Patriarchs of Antioch and of Jerusalem to remedy certain complaints about them: it was given on the 6th day before the Ides of October of the year prenoted. Epistle 208, given on the 5th day before the Ides of January in the year 1213, in the year 1213, is addressed to the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Legate of the Apostolic See, and to his suffragans, that they confirm the peoples in the faith of the King. Book 4, Epistle 7, in which the day and year of issue is lacking, which was this very one, is committed to Albert, that he absolve the King of Armenia, and compel the Count of Tripoli to undergo the judgment of the Church. But in Ferdinand Ughelli volume 4 of Italia Sacra, in the Genoese Bishops col. 1222, there is an Epistle, given on the 3rd day before the Ides of January in the 16th year of his Pontificate, by which, having understood that the Bishop and Chapter of Acre were denying the Chrism, to be given freely to churches according to the decree of the Council of Carthage, without price to the Acre church of Saint Laurence of the Genoese; he commands the Patriarch, that he effectively admonish and induce the same Bishop and Chapter, so that as the Pontiff himself had commanded (concerning which there is another epistle there to them of almost the same tenor) desisting from such a dishonorable and forbidden trade, they should grant the Chrism hereafter freely to the mentioned church: because such mercenary practices the religion of ecclesiastical honesty abominates and they are contrary to sacred institutes. From which two epistles of similar tenor, one addressed to the Patriarch, the other to the Bishop on the same year and day, what we have said is further demonstrated, that at the time when Albert inhabited Acre, it had its own proper Bishop.

[27] and Albert is invited to the 4th Lateran Council. Of all the letters to the aforementioned Albert the last is in book 4 of Innocent's Epistles, number 36, given on the 12th day before the Kalends of March, in which it is enjoined on him, that he endeavor to conduct the Apostolic envoys to the Soldan, and that he himself be present at the ecumenical Council: which being indicted in that year, was celebrated the following year in the months of November and December at Rome in the Lateran church, the fourth: when for more than thirteen months Albert had been dead. But in the aforesaid Epistle these words of the Pontiff deserve special consideration: "But because we believe your presence necessary to us for carrying out this salutary purpose, nay, most fruitful; we have thought your Fraternity should be asked and admonished, commanding you by our Apostolic writing, that, if you see it can be done without grave loss of the Holy Land, you should strive to come before the time fixed for celebrating the universal Council, as quickly as you can: leading some men with you, provident in counsel and faithful in what is committed, who may fully know the circumstances of causes and things, times and places; which, circumspectly examined on all sides, we may be able more usefully to direct toward the liberation of the Lord's inheritance. You finally, Venerable Brother in Christ, impart to us the suffrage of your prayers before the most just Judge and most pious Father, of which we have greatest need." In the same year at Acre Albert gave a sentence on the 2nd day before the Ides of April, about the burgage of Agnes Gastaldi, in dispute between the Genoese and Pisans there, whence the seal received from that is given below; but the sentence itself can be read in Ughelli. His Commentaries on the Holy Land. And all these things are clear each in defined years, not however two other points which Sixtus Senensis notes about the same holy Patriarch in book 4 of the Sacred Library in these words: "Albert, Patriarch of Jerusalem, a man of admirable sanctity and doctrine, who to the Carmelite Friars, still dwelling in the Holy Land, gave a form and rule of living; by command of Pope Innocent of his name the third wrote not contemptible Commentaries on the situation and state of the Holy Land." Concerning the Rule, when it seems to have been given to the Carmelites, we shall inquire below: but when Albert was commanded to write about the Holy Land, it is not of great importance to know: it is rather to be wished, that those Commentaries themselves may be found somewhere, and come forth from darkness into public light.

CHAPTER IV.

The death of Blessed Albert and his Cult in the Order of Carmelites.

[28] "When through eight years, to be counted from his arrival in the Holy Land, he had lived there so holily and praiseworthily, Albert killed at Acre during a procession, Albert, so that not only by the Christians, who loved him as a most holy Father, but also by the Saracens and Pagans he was held in great reverence and veneration; a certain diabolical man, from the place Caluxium, of the diocese of Ivrea, whom the same Father was correcting for his excesses, seized the same venerable man, clothed in Pontificals, and on this glorious day of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, in the church of the Holy Cross of the city of Acre, solemnly performing a procession with the Clergy, with a knife attacked and killed: and thus the glorious Father through the palm of Martyrdom passed from this life. Yet first mindful of this Vercellian church his bride, he honored her with precious gifts; namely with white silken paraments for making Pontifical vestments, that is, Chasuble, Cope, Dalmatic, and Tunicle: likewise with a gilded chair for the Bishop's use, moreover with two crystal pitchers decorated with gold and silver, and basins with a large pitcher, and staves of crystal ornamented for the use of Cantors."

In these things the Vercellian MS. ends, which by the Lydian stone of truth, namely the consent of other monuments of the same time, confirmed for the greater part, ought also for the rest not expressed elsewhere to be held most worthy of faith. On the contrary narrations different from these, although perhaps they contain some things not contrary to so faithful an author, but passed over, which therefore may be true; yet in those very things which perhaps they truly say, they do not give, but detract the likeness of truth, by which a prudent reader might rely.

[29] If Jacques de Vitry, Bishop of Acre, had wished to continue the History which William of Tyre Archbishop left unfinished in book 23, and to keep the same style as he did; we would have a little more about the deeds done by Albert in the East, and about his death; perhaps we would also understand, with what mourning of Clergy and people he was buried, with what veneration and cult he was honored by the common people, and held for Blessed and Saint, as one who had endured a violent death, if not for the faith, certainly for Christian virtue. But James, under the name of "History of Jerusalem," preferred to compose a description of the Holy Land, as regards the inhabitants, places, religion, and the sieges of more famous cities and the successes of battles: therefore not even the name of so great a man is found in this whole history. Marinus Sanutus confirms this; Marinus Sanutus, called Torsellus, born of Venetian territory, in the year 1321 offered to John XXII three books, whose purpose being to urge that the recovery of the Holy Land should be attempted and easily completed, therefore the title is "Secrets of the Faithful of the Cross": but he plays the part of a counselor in such a way, that sometimes, especially in book 3, he seems to profess the part of a Historian. Certainly the 11th part of that book in its title promises "Passages, and the various state and dominions of the Land of Promise, from the death of Saladin until the passing of Saint Louis," and through a lucid but brief chronography touches on the principal things of each year: where ending chapter 5 in the year 1214, "In the same year," he says, "Albert Patriarch of Jerusalem died in a procession." Few words, but much for one who deemed the death of no other Patriarch worthy of his memory: by this very thing indicating that Albert's death is noted by him, as a case to be singularly commemorated: nor does "died" so signify "ended his life" in general, as not also, from a familiar Venetian idiom, frequently to signify "slain."

[30] But what about the Carmelites? Their own misfortune in commemorating ancient matters here also impeded them from telling the truth without the admixture of falsehood, some write it was done at Jerusalem, and then made them entirely deviate from it. Master Baptista Cataneus in his Mirror of the Order of Friars of Blessed Virgin of Mount Carmel, at Stephen Ferrerius, a writer so ancient that he was known neither to Gesner nor to Lucius Belgica in the Carmelitic Library; "Before the Council," he says, "namely the Fourth Lateran, by a year and a half, Albert himself was dying,

killed by the Saracens at Jerusalem, in a solemn procession of the holy Cross." John de Vineta, who by the testimony of Gesner flourished in the year 1348 as Provincial of the Carmelites through France, in the Chronicle of his order at Marco Antonio Alegre de Casanate at the year of Christ 1234, twenty years namely later than was fitting; thus speaks in his own words or those of Alegre (for the author himself is not at hand): "This man, namely Albert, they say, with his whole body torn apart, and they cloud the truth with fables; was most harshly beaten by Barbarian daggers and clubs in the streets of Jerusalem, while he was carrying the Lord's Body of Christ to the sick, or, as others assert, while he was making a Pontifical procession against the enemies of the faith, to implore divine aid, for his pastoral office." But lest anyone think the error in expressing the name of the city was of the pen, not of the writer, it must be noted that Jerusalem was then under the dominion of the Saracens, where unless he had believed Albert killed, he would never have written that so monstrous a crime was perpetrated upon him: for what such thing in the city of Acre, which was wholly Christian Latin, would barbarians dare, about to be pelted with stones even by boys? But confirming the errors, Alegre (whether from Vineta or from another I do not know) subjoins: "He had flourished in the times of Frederick II; and under the supreme prince of the Fathers Gregory the ninth, in the years of Christ 1234, he was buried at Jerusalem." Thus he, erring equally in place as in time.

[31] Saracenus in the Carmelite Menology, Saracenus would have to be pardoned if, following Cataneus and Vineta, he himself had also written something similar: for he could in a way free his credit by producing such ancient authors. But again he should be pardoned because he could not follow those whom he never saw: for neither have we until now seen them. But how can we pardon him, that writing at Bologna and printing his book in the year 1628, after he had understood from Pennottus that it is handed down that Albert was Bishop of Vercelli, from a Canon of the Holy Cross of Mortara, he did not care to write a little letter to the Italian city not very far off, where his order had an ancient and famous convent, and inquire whether they there knew anything of Albert Bishop of Vercelli? through some sluggishness in investigating truth, For he would have been answered by the Brothers that it had not been more than twenty-four years, that Stephen Ferrerius, himself also Bishop of Vercelli, in a most accurate commentary had unearthed the authentic memorials of all his predecessors. Something however he confesses not to have read but to have heard, received from those who had read Ferrerius, when in the notes to the Life he thus pronounces: "There are those who assert that our Lord Albert was wounded by a dagger, on the day on which he was instituting a solemn procession of the most holy Cross, and migrated to the Lord by Martyrdom: but we have found it written on no certain foundation. Indeed Saint Albert's Office of one holy Bishop and Confessor, is openly enjoined to be solemnly concelebrated with a solemn rite in our ritual and calendar."

[32] He feigns him to have died by a bloodless death. What that Ritual and calendar may be, we shall see presently: I ask on what certain foundation he has found these things written? "Our Holy Father Albert, now at length consumed with old age (for certainly the year 1142, in which he had declared him initiated into the priesthood, would make him about a hundred years old, whereas then probably he had not even been born) full of holy works, for the Catholic Church soaked in many sweats, pleasing to heaven and earth, among our groaning and praying Hermits, together with the Clergy of Jerusalem, after receiving the Sacraments according to custom, with prayers poured out to God, for the liberation of the Holy Land from the hands of the infidels, for the preservation of the restored Carmel, and the Catholic faith of Jerusalem, with the Virgin Mary glittering amid splendors and meeting him, with a cohort of Angels attending, happily amid the arms of his own, breathed out his soul to God, with a sweet face, in the year of salvation 1213 on the day April 8." He did not err much in the year. The day, which the whole Order had not long since begun to have festive in memory of Albert, he believed to be designated as that on which he had departed from this Life. In the place where he was wounded, that he died immediately, no one compels to believe: therefore the things which Saracenus adds could truly have happened: nor was it impossible for a few hermits to be present at his dying, perhaps then present in the city for the cause of the procession. We may also congruously suspect, if his death was deferred even for a few hours, that he departed worthy of some heavenly consolation: but, to assert these things as if actually done, or even simply to report them on the credit of an author, as we report many other things, it cannot be done, unless a witness of better credit than Saracenus is produced.

[33] Albert is venerated among the Carmelites, As to the cult in the Order, the Annalist Lezana asserts that in the manuscript calendar of his own Transpontine library, he found for February 7 the feast of Saint Albert the Bishop, and judges that this should be understood of his Order's Lawgiver: but in the Carmelite Missal printed at Venice in the year 1509 and 1551, and at Lyon 1556; likewise in the calendar of the Order published at Rome 1564, thus he says it is read: "April 8, of Albert, Bishop and Confessor of Jerusalem, of the Carmelite Order." The same words we also read before the ancient Breviary of the Order, which we have hitherto used. The year of printing indeed is not now found in it, on account of the leaves torn off at the end; but from other most certain marks it can be demonstrated, that it was printed at Venice by Luca Antonio de Giunta the Florentine, not long after 1500.

[34] In a somewhat more ancient parchment and even older types of Martyrological addition, in their manuscript calendars nowhere named, of which we made mention above, not even the name of Albert appears: much less do I find it in the manuscript Carmelite calendar, which before the Martyrology of the Order Jacobus Kritzradt of the Society of Jesus found at Cologne and described for us, accurately distinguishing the Saints proper to the Order, of whom only three were written by the first and original hand, namely Saint Cyril on March 6, Saint Angelus on May 5, Saint Elisaeus on June 14. A Breviary of the year 1462 in MS. (which Lezana at that year professes to have had in his possession) further adds Saint Andrew on June 4, and Saint Albert on August 7: but this last, either on that or on any other day, he did not dare to ascribe to the Cologne calendar, which was the first to ascribe to it the aforesaid Saint Andrew, together with Saints Peter Thomas, Simon Stock, and King Louis. Nor likewise have others and others who, license once presumed of filling up that calendar in various places, added some Saints by a much more recent hand once and again, been mindful of Blessed Albert. Nor have been mindful of him, whoever successively applied their hand to a certain calendar of Malines to be augmented by various Saints, much less pertaining to the Order than Albert: indeed, what you may marvel at, in his place is noted, "April 8, of Edward, King and Confessor of our Order in England": such as no age has ever seen, at least who could be inscribed in the sacred calendars: since a holy King and Confessor of this name died on January 5 of the year 1066, a century and a half and more before England knew the Carmelites: but of later Kings none had the fame of Sanctity.

[35] from a custom introduced about the year 1500, And from these things we gather, that the most ancient custom of Religion, of which the Sacred Congregation of Rites makes mention in the approval of proper offices under the Pontificate of Paul V in the year 1609; and from which the same sacred Congregation permits the office to be made of Saints, having no Office proper here, that is, in the said little book, protesting that it has ordained nothing about them; we gather, I say, from the aforesaid, that such a custom is not older than the preceding century, at the beginning of which the Carmelite Fathers (to whom it had already been persuaded, both that Albert was a Carmelite, and concerning some veneration had at his tomb through obscure tradition something had become known) decreed that he should be venerated by the whole Order. This permission was sufficient for Saracenus to conclude the Life patched together by himself thus: "The office of this holy man, in our whole Order, under the Minor Double Paul V expressly gave." Which, in his own manner, as he alters many other things in many, Saussay in the Gallic Martyrology, after a long encomium received from Saracenus, finishes, asserting that "Pope Paul V commanded Albert to be venerated with sacred honors in the Carmelite Order." But what need was there of an indult or even of a command of Paul V, if already a hundred years before in the ancient Breviary of the Carmelites, by the command of Pius III, there is a Double Office of this Saint, as Alegre confidently writes, as equally unhappy an author as Saracenus in handing down the truth?

[36] Moreover the proper Offices under Paul, by command of the sacred Congregation examined, how even there were lessons about Saint Peter Thomas; and subscribed by Cardinal Bellarmine, were indeed approved, with Cardinal Dominicus Pinellus subscribing; but in them were not (that I may here touch on this in passing) proper lessons concerning Blessed Peter Thomas, needing no slight correction: which however those presume, who think the authority of Bellarmine should be opposed to us, recognizing no martyrdom of the same except a metaphorical one. For those lessons were composed only under Urban VIII; and without any special approval, through the Indulgence of Cardinal de Torres, in the year 1628, added to the old ones. But in this new edition, because the Congregation did not restrict the general permission of all to proper Offices, the same Congregation can in a certain way be judged to have approved the ancient cult of Blessed Albert, about which the earlier Congregation under Paul V had ordained nothing, permitting it to be done out of custom, until namely and as long as more distinct notice should be had of these things.

[37] This was finally done in the year 1672, when Clement X granted to Matthew Orlando the General, as the sacred Congregation of Rites attested on the 5th day of April, that according to the form of another Brief, under Clement VIII, in the year 1602 dispatched, but now through an express indult, the Breviary of the Order be accurately examined by himself, and if any things depraved or omitted, especially concerning the feasts of Saints of the said Order, he should notice to be, he should see to amend and restore them; especially adding new Offices, approved by the holy Apostolic See; and that so amended and restored it might be able to be promulgated and received in use in the whole Order. Therefore by the force of this indult there came forth from Antwerp presses a new Breviary of the Order; and among the new offices, granted by Clement X, is found for the feast of Saint Albert a Minor Double, with proper Prayer and Lessons. This Prayer is: "May the fullness of your benediction, we ask, Lord, come abundantly down upon us; and always be propitiated by the prayers of Saint Albert your Confessor and Pontiff:" Lessons IV and V have been taken as to sense from the Vercellian MS. alone. Whether and how far VI is to be amended we leave to a higher judgment to be defined. Meanwhile the Reader will easily discern, which are to be judged to have progressed more solidly to investigating the truth; whether those who, occupied with their own prejudices, believed Saracenus whatever had not yet been convicted of manifest falsehood, and inserted it into this Lesson; or we, who the credit of Saracenus abrogated

think that the series of this history should be sought only from the testimonies of more ancient and more faithful writers.

[38] The Canons Regular number Albert among their Saints. John de Nigravalle, Apostolic Librarian, in his little book on the praise of the Sacred Canonical Order printed at Brescia in the year 1536, reckons among the Saints of the said Order Albert Patriarch of Jerusalem. The same does, citing John, Constantine Ghini, in the Appendix to the Nativities of the Holy Canons, reckoning those whose birthday and acts he did not know. Nor hitherto is any cult offered to Albert among the Canons Regular, as even most recently when we were inquiring, the Procurator General of the whole Canonical Order in the Roman Curia took care to reply to us. Nevertheless certain Carmelites twice sent to Antwerp the Prayer and Lessons of the Second Nocturn, for the Office of Saint Albert Patriarch of Jerusalem on the day April 8, drawn from the Offices of the Saints of the Order of Canons Regular of Saint John Lateran, and extended to the Order of Carmelites by the sacred Congregation of Rites on the 18th day of June 1671. The Lessons, because taken from Saracenus, need no other reproof. But it is to be marveled at, that even now the author doubted but without public cult. whether Albert was Bishop of Vercelli, cautiously adding "as is said": or (as in the second transcript it is read) "as is handed down": with greater right he might have used some caution when he finished with these words, "He flourished under Honorius VI the Emperor, or (as again the writer of the second transcript altered) "under Henry VI the Emperor," where Saracenus had written "Frederick II." No Honorius VI Histories know; Frederick II came to the Empire six years after Albert's death; Henry of this name VI, not Emperor but King of Germany, died six years before Albert was elected Patriarch: but he who is named sixth in the Order of Emperors, Henry Count of Luxembourg, elected King in the year 1308, only in the year 1312 not so much obtained as extorted the crown of the Empire. Whoever therefore was the author of those lessons to be offered to the sacred Congregation, he must have written them dreaming: certainly only dreaming could he have seen the proper Offices of the Canons, in which he might have read them. Pius V granted to those Canons in the year 1570, besides those common to all using the Roman Breviary, certain proper festivities, which are named one by one in the Apostolic diploma, with the faculty of accommodating to the same proper Prayers and Lessons: but there is no mention anywhere of Albert. According to this privilege the little book of proper offices was printed soon after, and the same also augmented under a new approval of the sacred Congregation came forth at Rome 1613, at Venice 1643, at Mons 1645, which editions all and individually we have, not to mention the Breviary of the year 1508 or the Ordinary of the year 1521: but from all the name of Albert is absent. But now often questioned the Canons Regular continue to deny that they know anything of the Office of Saint Albert; therefore not only no credit, but the gravest punishment has been merited by him who offered such things to the sacred Congregation, as if habitually recited by the Lateran Canons by Pontifical indult: and rightly the Carmelite Order itself, these Lessons having been repudiated (of which I do not know whether I should believe they were ever received) has substituted new ones in the edition of its Breviary of the year 1672. In the meantime Saint Albert deserves that the Canons Regular also undertake his cult with an Office, which will all better be drawn from the monuments of the Vercellians, than anything added from Saracenus, or from the supposititious Office already indicated.

[39] The Vercellians do not even add the title of Blessed, In a similar way there is no cult of Albert among the Vercellians, and not even his name (unless perhaps quite recently) known as Blessed, outside the Carmelite Convent: For Bishop Ferrerius, on page 241 of his often-praised little book, weaves a Catalogue of Saints or Blessed, who were either citizens or Bishops of Vercelli; and in this he numbers two Martyrs, nineteen Confessors, ten Blessed men and women, among whom several flourished in the preceding century: but he does not mention Albert, or in treating of him in history, gives him the title of Blessed. Meanwhile Philip Ferrarius, finishing the Catalogue of Saints of Italy for printing, noted in the Index what was omitted in the text, with the title of Martyr; and afterwards weaving the General Catalogue of those who are not in the Roman Martyrology, on the same September 14 inserted these words: "At Ptolemais in Palestine, of Saint Albert Bishop and Martyr." but Ferrarius added, calling him Martyr on September 14. In the notes he cites the tables of the Bishops of Vercelli: which is thus to be understood, that from them he drew some notice of the death suffered by him, but quite confused, by which he wrote he had fallen struck, "when he was at Ptolemais clothed in sacred things to celebrate"; but the title and cult of Saint, at Vercelli he had not learned, but, as he did in many others, added according to his own judgment.

[40] We also, foreseeing that things would not be very pleasing, which the ascertained truth was suggesting on this subject; He should have been by us deferred to that day, could either have gone through the whole matter in a few words, making no mention of the Carmelites; or deferred this treatment until the month of September, with not unjust hope, that in minds, sometimes by their own zeal to be taught more certain things, the sincerity of our writing might enter more gently. But it was no longer allowed to be so brief, after some began to interpret that brevity as an affection entirely unworthy of religious men; nor was it lawful to defer to another time him whom the whole Order venerates today with a solemn Office, since perhaps the complaints are not yet put to rest of those who were angry at what we said in those omitted on February 28: if some had not disapproved the delay in the case of Blessed Angela, "Blessed Angela of Bohemia, of the Order of Carmelites, is said to be inscribed in some calendars on this day. In her Life, which we have obtained in MS. as needing no slight examination, she is said to have died on July 6." The same as to the day concerning all copies of the Life was testified by Lezana at the year 1253 number 18, against whose consent we should not have been moved by the authority of one Malines calendar, very rashly patched together: especially since Angela has no cult either in the Order or in Bohemia, and many things in the Life are partly evidently false, partly doubtful; and not even this do men most versed in treating and writing Bohemian matters find to be proved, that she was ever numbered among men. Therefore there were incomparably greater causes which advised that she, than that Albert should be deferred; and yet they did not suffice for the prepossessed minds of those grieving; and therefore we fear lest they be irritated much more gravely, if we should reject Albert from the day which the Order has established, to another day, memorable by no cult of his, but only by his death.

CHAPTER V.

The Rule prescribed by Albert for certain Hermits on Carmel.

[41] Writers of the 13th and 14th centuries are silent on this matter, Among the Latin writers of Eastern affairs no mention is found of Bertholdus and of the Carmelite institute, begun or (as that Order prefers to say) reformed under his leadership: nor any of the Rule, prescribed by Albert to the Professors of the same institute; not even in the Synopsis of the Life preserved among the Vercellians. For historians generally commit to letters only those things which when they were being done, being received with public approval or blame of the peoples, made those be on the lips of men, through whom the same were done. Therefore the gathering of a few hermits, and a certain form of living explained to them in a brief instruction, seemed to no one then to stand out beyond the private and as it were domestic cares of the Patriarch, and therefore not to be commended to writing. In exactly the same way as it happened with the Rule of Saint Augustine, now through the whole world diffused through so many assemblies of religious men and women. For neither Possidius, who wrote the Life of his master, nor the holy Doctor himself, from whose writings the greatest part of the things done by him becomes known to us, anywhere made mention of care bestowed on the Nuns through the writing of a Rule, and the Rule itself is nowhere numbered among the writings of Augustine: although Possidius after the Life wove a Catalogue of all those of which he could obtain notice, even of individual epistles; so that the writing seems plainly to have been temporary, although in itself most worthy; whose, as if having no other use afterwards, copy the holy Doctor neglected to preserve: and yet when once produced in those difficulties, how great approval did it obtain? as if small then and private: Certainly it held good in all eremitic Orders which now flourish, if it held good anywhere, and namely in the Carmelite, what the Savior said: "The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, and which is least of all seeds, but when it grows is greater than all herbs, and becomes a tree."

[42] But when I say "a tiny seed, in the solitude of Carmel and the denseness of the woods, which however is said without prejudice thrown almost with heaven alone conscious; and until the Rule fitted to the tender germ was added, increased with slow progress, but with the malignity of the native soil overcome, at length grew into a branching tree": when I say these things, I do not wish so to be taken, as if I were intending to deny, that that very tiny seed was cut from some vast and aged tree, which (as the tradition of the Carmelite Order, such as it is, holds) was formerly planted by Elias; and inserted by the Apostles into the law of grace, and more happily flourishing again, filled the East with monks; whose successors and descendants propagated the Elian institute, of the Elian succession, until the useless branches being cut from the Church's field together with their trunk through schism, lost the right of so great a name; which however was preserved in the seed, in those, I say, few hermits under Bertholdus, who although in language, rite, faith, and morals different from those into whose place they are presumed to have succeeded, can nevertheless themselves also be said to be the offshoot of the Elian institute. That tradition concerning Elias and the Elianites, first from Elias until Christ, secondly from Christ until Bertholdus, suffers no light contradictions from learned men, requiring for so great a matter and for so many centuries, as is pretended, believed, a more solid proof than is a bare tradition, especially that of those whose assertions in other things, not so far receding from our age as recede the times of Elias and Christ, in the 12th and 13th centuries I say, vary in many ways among themselves, and are found liable to frequent and most evident errors. We however are not moved by those contradictions, so that in that subject, where the dispute seems to be more about the name than about the thing, we should permit our name to be mingled. Nor do we wish to disapprove, much less to oppose, the Carmelite Order holding as its own all those Saints, which we do not wish to oppose, who in Palestine or Syria illustrated the eremitic or monastic profession with the splendor of their virtues. We only ask in return one favor, that they patiently bear with us abstaining from ascribing the title of their Order to those same Saints, until it is more certain to us of the truth of such a title.

[43] Under this protestation, that namely the procession of the Order

of the Carmelites from Elias we do not wish to reprove by our silence; and that those things to be said about the Hermits instructed by the Albertine Rule we do not wish to be drawn to the overthrow of the pretended procession; and we would wish to be able to prove it. nay, that we desire nothing more than to find solid proofs for establishing it: under this protestation I say, I will attempt to explain the history of the Carmelite eremitism, according to the state which it began to have under its three first Priors among the Latins, Bertholdus, Brocardus, and Cyril, as far as this can be known, both from authors of their and nearer times, and from the Rule itself, applied congruously to the tender and new germ by Blessed Albert the Patriarch, according to the measure of its smallness. But that this may be done in an orderly and clear manner, there must first of all be proposed to the Reader the unvaried tenor of the aforesaid Rule: by which, as by the Lydian stone, it can be tested, whether I have in this Commentary followed the greater likeness of truth, or the affection of a mind inclined to the negative side. May God, who is the sincerest truth and most absolute charity, direct the pen, that I may write nothing dissonant from the truth, nothing contrary to charity: may he also grant that those for whose sake I undertake this labor, long and often declined, may so henceforth abound in their own sense, that, having repudiated the old and new fictions (whose just accusation much more injures their cause than any other arguments of opponents), they may proceed on a more solid way, if it can be done, to win verisimilitude for their traditions. The Rule given by Albert is this:

"Albert, by the grace of God called Patriarch of the Church of Jerusalem, to his beloved sons in Christ, In the Rule there are prescribed, Brocardus and the rest of the Hermits, who under his obedience dwell beside the fountain on Mount Carmel, greeting in the Lord and the benediction of the Holy Spirit.

"In many ways and by many manners the holy Fathers have instituted how each, in whatever Order he shall be, or whatever manner of religious life he has chosen, ought to live in the service of Jesus Christ, and faithfully serve him from a pure heart and good conscience. But because you require of us that, according to your purpose, we hand down to you a formula of life, which hereafter you ought to keep,

"I. The election of the Prior: We establish first of all, that you have one of you as Prior, who is elected to this office by the unanimous assent of all or of the greater and sounder part: to whom let each of the others promise obedience, and strive to keep his promise in truth of work.

"II. The location of the cells and their use, Moreover according to the situation of the place which you have decided to inhabit, let each of you have separate individual cells, as by the disposition of the Prior himself, and with the assent of the other Brothers or of the sounder part, the same cells shall have been assigned to each.

"III. Nor may any of the Brothers, except by the license of the Prior for the time being, change the place deputed to him, or exchange it with another.

"IV. Let the Prior's cell be near the entrance of the place, that he may first meet those coming to the same place; and by his judgment and disposition afterwards let all things to be done proceed.

"V. Let each remain in his cells or beside them, day and night meditating in the law of the Lord, and watchful in their prayers, unless they be occupied with just occasions.

"VI. Those who know letters and can read the Psalms, let them say them in each Hour, those which by the institution of the holy Fathers and the approved custom of the Church are deputed to the individual Hours: the daily work of prayer, but those who do not know letters, let them say the Our Father 25 times in the nocturnal vigils, except on Lord's days and solemn days; on whose vigils we ordain the said number to be doubled, that the Our Father be said 50 times. And let the same prayer be said 7 times in the Morning Lauds. In the other Hours also let the same prayer be said 7 times each, except in the evening offices, in which you must say it 15 times.

"VII. Let none of the Brothers say anything to be his own, but let all things be common to you; and from those things which the Lord shall have given to you, let there be distributed to each through the hand of the Prior, that is, through a man deputed by him to that office, as shall be needful to each, the ages and necessities of each being considered. Yet so that, as has been set forth above, let each remain in the cells deputed to them, and from those things which shall have been distributed to them live singly.

"VIII. An Oratory to be constructed: Let an Oratory, as it can be more conveniently done, be built in the middle of the cells: where in the morning on each day, for hearing the solemnities of Masses, you ought to gather, where this can conveniently be done.

"IX. On Lord's days also, or on others where need be, treat of the custody of the Order: where also the excesses and faults of the Brothers, weekly consultation, if any are detected concerning anyone, let them be corrected with charity interposed.

"X. Observe fasting on individual days, except Lord's days, from the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, almost daily fasting, until the day of the Lord's Resurrection, unless sickness or weakness of body or another just cause suggests that the fast be broken: because necessity has no law.

"XI. Abstinence from meats: Abstain always from eating meats, unless they be taken as a remedy for sickness or too great weakness.

"XII. But because the life of man is a warfare, and all who wish to live piously in Christ suffer persecution; spiritual arms, your adversary also the devil, like a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour; with all solicitude strive to be clothed with the armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the snares of the enemy. Your loins are to be girded with the girdle of chastity, the breast is to be fortified with holy thoughts: for it is written, 'A holy thought will preserve you.' The breastplate of justice is to be put on, that you may love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and your neighbor as yourself. In all things is to be taken the shield of faith, in which you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most evil one: 'For without faith it is impossible to please God,' and, 'This is the victory which overcomes the world, your faith.' The helmet also of salvation is to be placed on the head, that you may hope for salvation from the Savior alone, who saves his people from their sins. But the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, let it abundantly dwell in your mouth and in your hearts; and whatever you have to do, let it be done in the word of the Lord.

"XIII. Flight from idleness, and continual occupation, You must do some work, so that the devil may always find you occupied: lest from your idleness he may be able to find some entry of access to your souls. You have for this the teaching and at the same time the example of Blessed Paul the Apostle: in whose mouth Christ spoke, who was placed and given by God as preacher and teacher of the nations in faith and truth: whom if you shall have followed, you cannot err. 'In labor,' he says, 'and fatigue we were, among you, working night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you.' 2 Thess. 3:8 'Not as if we had not the power: but that we might give ourselves as a form for you to imitate us. For when we were with you, we declared this to you: If any will not work, neither let him eat. For we have heard among you some walking disorderly, doing nothing: but to those who are of such sort, we declare and beseech in the Lord Jesus Christ, that working with silence they eat their own bread.' This way is holy and good; walk in it.

"XIV. The Apostle commends silence to you, when he commands that in it one should work: religious silence. and as the Prophet testifies, 'The cultivation of justice is silence': and again, 'In silence and hope will be your strength.' Isa. 32:17 Therefore we establish that from the Vespers hour until the third Hour of the following day you keep silence: unless perhaps necessity or reasonable cause or the license of the Prior should interrupt the silence. But at another time, although there be not so great observance of silence, yet let one more diligently beware of much speaking: since it is written, and experience teaches no less: 'In much speaking sin will not be lacking,' Prov. 10:19 and, 'He who is inconsiderate in speaking will feel evils': likewise, 'He who uses many words wounds his own soul': ib. 13:3, ib. 20:8 and the Lord in the Gospel, 'For every idle word which men shall speak, they shall give account of it in the day of judgment.' Matt. 12:36 Let each therefore make a balance for his words, and right bridles for his mouth, lest he perhaps slip and fall by his tongue, and his fall be incurable to death: guarding with the Prophet his ways, that he may not offend in his tongue; and silence, in which is the cultivation of justice, let him diligently and cautiously strive to observe. Ps. 38:2

"XV. Humility is commended to the Prior, But you Brocardus, and whoever after you shall be instituted Prior, always have in mind and keep in work that which the Lord says in the Gospel, 'Whoever shall wish to be greater among you, brother, shall be your minister; and whoever shall wish to be first among you, shall be your servant.' Matt. 20:26

"XVI. Observance to the Brothers. You also the other Brothers, honor your Prior humbly, considering Christ rather than him, who has placed him over your heads, and also says to the Prelates of Churches, 'Who hears you hears me, and who despises you despises me': that you may not come into judgment from contempt, but may deserve by obedience the reward of eternal life. Luke 10:16

"These things I have briefly written, establishing for you the formula of your conversation, according to which you ought to live: but if anyone shall have added beyond, the Lord himself, when he shall return, shall render to him: yet let him use discretion, which is the moderator of virtues. From Acre, the Ides of January."

CHAPTER VI.

The condition and number of those to whom the Rule was given; but whence this was taken, is explained.

[45] Albert wrote a brief Rule, This is the primitive or primary Rule of the Carmelites, called by some the soul and form of the Order; afterwards approved by the Roman Pontiffs, and variously mitigated. Comparing it with the above-mentioned Rule of Saint Augustine, written for the institution of one single parthenon, in which that holy Doctor's own sister had been Prioress, but afterwards extended by approving use to many, even of men, monasteries; I find it most similar in this, that as the Augustinian, from its author's mind, extended no further than to those few nuns for whom it was being written (inasmuch as they had no communion of government or mutual dependence with other monasteries) so neither has the Albertine the slightest indication from which anyone could prudently infer, but long enough for a few hermits, that the new germ under Brocardus was spread beyond Carmel when Albert was dictating these things, or that they dwelt elsewhere than beside the fountain. Their intention was, to lead an eremitic life

under obedience: this the use of some years, continued perhaps without any binding of a stricter vow, had confirmed. No certain formula of life had yet been written, to which they would bind themselves: this was asked from Albert. He wrote a brief one; for to a humble shrub, promising nothing less than the loftiness which afterwards followed, there was no need of a long pole, that it might stand. The exterior formula of life he first composed in eleven articles, then the interior in five others: nothing about services toward the neighbor, nothing about studies of letters, nothing about the subordination of several Superiors among themselves, nothing about the care or governance of nuns, nothing about chant or choir he prescribes: which is a certain argument that nothing of the sort had yet been either introduced by use or designed in thought among those Hermits.

[46] Whose first we know from an eyewitness in the year 1185, When they began to inhabit the place, whom they first had as a master of life, how many in number they were, I will not seek through the precipices of gratuitous conjectures nor through the slippery ways of uncertain traditions: but I will hear the irrefragable and eyewitness John, Priest of the most pious Phocas, son of Matthew the monk, engaged in the island of Patmos, who saw the holy places in the year 1185, as in the rubric the name, family, condition and age of the author is prenoted in the margin of his manuscript little work, which in autograph Leo Allatius had seen, living in his native Chios, and rendered by him into Latin he sent to his friend Barthold Nihusius into Holland, who had it printed at Amsterdam in the year 1654, with the name of Kalcovius the Cologne printer borrowed. But it is pleasing to give the text of so authentic a writer entire in Greek and Latin, that is the whole penultimate chapter of the little work, which is of this kind: "After these things follows Mount Carmel, of which in old and more recent writings there is much talk. The mountain stretches as a ridge, from the very sea-bay, that there were only ten, which curves around Ptolemais and Caipha, taking its beginning and reaching to the borders of Galilee. At the extreme part of the ridge which looks toward the sea, is the cave of the Prophet Elias, in which that wonderful man, having led an angelic way of life, was taken up into the air. There was in that place anciently a great monastery, as the remains of the buildings still show to these times: but by time, which presses all things into old age, and by the successive incursions of the enemies, it was utterly destroyed. But some years ago a certain monk, by dignity a Priest, white in hair, originating from Calabria, by revelation of the Prophet coming to the place, in those places, namely the relics of the monastery, under a monk, an old Priest, surrounded them with a very small wall, and having built a tower, and raised a small church, and having gathered about ten Brothers, still inhabits that holy enclosure."

[47] Induced to dwell there by an apparition of the Prophet himself; Thus far both John himself in Greek and the most learned interpreter in Latin: by which is first removed that doubt, with which I know some learned men have long tortured themselves, doubtful whether it was sufficiently certain, that before Brocardus there had been some other, whom he succeeded in the government of the Brothers: because those things which were held about Bertholdus, hung together so badly, that his very person might seem freely fabricated. For since it is now established that there was someone, they will easily admit as probable, that his name was Bertholdus. Then is understood, what had hitherto been somewhat obscurer, what cause the first Carmelites under him may have had of referring the beginnings of their institution to Elias the Prophet; although perhaps not in the way in which later generations understood it. The number of those same first Carmelites is also made known: which should not seem too narrow for the beginning of so great a Religion, since not even to Saint Ignatius, instituting the Society so quickly and so widely diffused, were there more than ten companions at the beginning. But that from those ten have flowed those pretended traditions, about Elias and his successors, about the familiarity of the Virgin and the Elianites, and her first chapel among them, about the frequency and succession of monks on Carmel, about the rule observed by them, about the cruelty of the Saracens against them and their multiplied martyrdoms, and about many other such things, of which among ancient writers no vestige is extant: that, I say, from those ten such traditions have flowed, as it would be gratuitously asserted, so it would be easily denied. But grant that those ten, whom I should not doubt to have been all Latins, from the native and neighboring Syro-Saracens and semi-Christians, accustomed to pour out almost infinite trifles about the history of sacred places into the ears of pilgrims, heard some things about Carmel, and narrating transmitted them to their successors; will these at once have the force of indubitable tradition? I have indeed professed that I do not wish to call into controversy the procession of the Order from Elias, and I again profess the same: let tradition of whatever kind avail for it; I have enough if the prudent Reader understands that not without just cause we ask, to be held excused from confirming the same by our assent, until it should be clear to us of its origin on better grounds than the narrations of certain Syrians, which in other arguments often convicted of falsehood and namely in Saint George, could not but also be suspect, if anything had flowed from them to posterity, about the state of Carmel before Bertholdus, which was not elsewhere confirmed.

[48] Moreover since from the time when John Phocas visited the Carmelite eremitism, and there found Bertholdus with companions, until the time of the Rule given, about 24 years had passed, as we shall teach below, it is credible that to the first decade of Carmelites some addition had been made within that space, yet not so great but that still all could easily be contained within the enclosure built by Bertholdus, and a common oratory suffice for them. Nor should anyone here think he should object those three monasteries, of which Gunther, a monk in the Cistercian monastery of the diocese of Basel, called Paris, while he introduces a certain Bernher, a man powerful and noble in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, speaking to Martin Abbot of Paris, having arrived there about the year 1204, whose disciples before the Rule was given did not extend themselves, This one wished to persuade the said Abbot that, having laid aside the counsel of returning to Germany, he should remain there, offering him from the King a Bishopric or other ecclesiastical dignity; or, if he wished to lead a more secret life more fitting to monastic profession, this also he himself would most fully provide. "For there is," he says, "in those parts a territory, which both in modern usage and in ancient writings is called Mount Carmel, a place most rich in all goods, fertile in crops, most well clothed with vineyards, elegantly planted with olives and other kinds of trees, also abounding with copious pastures. On this mountain there are three monasteries of monks, distinct from each other, and having wide possessions, which monasteries he may either use each separately, or having brought them into one he himself as Abbot and Lord may preside over. But indeed, if he would prefer to preside over Brothers of his own Order rather than over others, those cenobites could conveniently enough be transferred to other places: but the Abbot, with men of his own Order taken up, whom he wished and in whatever number he wished, would hold the whole territory of the aforesaid mountain, he himself and his successors, in perpetual dominion." Thus Gunther, in volume 5 of the ancient Readings of Canisius, from the mouth of that then living Abbot of his: whom whoever should think should be understood of the hermits dwelling at the fountain of Elias or of their followers, or also of Syrian or Greek monks, in my judgment would err too much. For first that they were Latins, whose cohabitation and prelacy was being offered to Martin, most ignorant of the Greek and Syriac languages, seems to need to be placed outside controversy: then that they were monks, not hermits, and indeed enriched with wide possessions, which was most foreign to the purpose of the Carmelites, and probably Benedictines, the very words plainly indicate.

[49] But Albert gave it, Moreover to those same Carmelites, whom I have mentioned, holding the place inhabited by Elias, whom alone we understand by the name of Carmelites, although not yet used at that time; Albert so dictated the Rule, that if they were, either moving of their own accord, or expelled by another's violence, to propose to themselves another place to inhabit, it could no less be of use than on Carmel. Nor can we elicit more about the state of the said Order, until the description of the Rule, either from the words of this, or know from testimonies of suitable authority. Whatever things different from these or more illustrious are narrated by Lezana and others, are all taken either from authors following wavering narrations, or from two pseudepigraphic writings: the first falsely bearing the title of John, the 44th Patriarch of Jerusalem, the second the name of Cyril, the third Prior. Moreover some anxiously ask, whence Albert received that Rule: and some indeed wish it taken from the monastic Statutes of Basil, others from the already mentioned book of John, or even from both, as being partly a compendium and partly a supplement of the same. Both contain various precepts, from his own knowledge, not from Saint Basil, suitable for monks or even for hermits and those professing the service of God: but there is no greater cause why Albert is thought to have had these before his eyes, than the lawgiver of any other religious Order. But he wrote with such brevity, and so conformably to that manner of living, which he himself, an Italian in Italy, had seen observed by the Camaldolese Hermits, that his own experience could have been enough for him to propose these few things. Therefore they seem to me to be unjust to their Legislator, who think that so few and so obvious things could not have been prescribed by him without a light received from elsewhere. To this, article 12 and 13 are of such a kind, that if Albert had had some ascetic writer before his eyes, he would have rather transcribed them whole from there, than composed new ones. I say "new": for that the same Scriptures are touched upon by him, which are read also elsewhere, the subject matter itself suggesting them; does not make it unable to be believed that the holy man took them immediately from the sacred books themselves, without any regard to another who had used them.

[50] Yet when Albert is said to have followed Basil, something more tolerable is said, than when he is said to have followed John of Jerusalem. For the Rule of Saint Basil was known to the whole church, not only the Eastern but also the Western, or John of Jerusalem, whose book they reject, from when Rufinus the Priest of Aquileia, equal to Saint Jerome, at the request of Abbot Urseius rendered it Latin, as Luke Holstenius received it transcribed from the most ancient Saint Maximin's codex near Trier and had it printed with other monastic Rules in volume 1 of the Codex of Rules. But that that book attributed to John of Jerusalem was in existence, when Albert dictated his Rule, we have not yet known by any suitable author. The first Carmelites offer him to us, on the sole credit of Philip Ribot, inserting it into his work "On the Institution and Peculiar Deeds of the Order of Carmelites," more than 100 years after the Order was brought into Europe. But it is helpful to hear what the opinion of men most versed in discerning genuine and spurious books is about it: and while I do this, let it be permitted to borrow from Wastel, in two entire books, fighting for maintaining the truth of that work, against Paul Sherlog, these words: "It is a literary contest: let no one be offended: which although we also call a fight, it will not harm charity." They sincerely love both the Virgin and her Order even those who feel otherwise about its origin and her cult on Carmel, than they are taught from that book of doubtful authority. Among these, because last in time, and after much dispute on both sides most informed about the state of the whole question, Philip Labbe will deservedly be named first. This man in his work on ecclesiastical writers of the year 1660 page 584, thus speaks of that which is said to have been written to Caprasius by John the 44th: "That this book by some later writer, and that one a Latin, was falsely attributed to John of Jerusalem, Philip Labbe, most learned and most acute men have judged, Baronius, Bellarmine, Theophilus Raynaudus, and others."

[51] Baronius' words I will not produce, since to have done it even once, when it was asked concerning Blessed Bertholdus to what time he should be attributed, has almost stirred up a capital envy for this our work. Let us hear Bellarmine: "There is attributed," he says, "to John a book to Caprasius on the institution of a monk: Card. Bellarmine and Brasichellensis Magister S. P. but this book seems written by some much later man: since in that book the author says that he is of the Order of Carmelites, and describes the habit of the Carmelites. But at those times the name of Religious Carmelites was plainly unheard of … Add that the style is that of a Latin man and of later times." But because the book to Caprasius is usually inscribed "On the institution, not of a monk, but of monks"; Wastel believed this slip of pen or memory sufficed, "that it was certain, that Bellarmine himself did not see or read the book of John with his own eyes, but imitated in good faith only John of Brasichella." By the same argument it could be proved, that not even this was read by Bellarmine; since Brasichella does not express the title of the book, naming only John of Jerusalem, supposing the book attributed to him to be known from the Paris Library of the Fathers of the year 1589, which who would believe that for twelve whole years did not come to the hands of Bellarmine, who was already a Cardinal, and was working on his book on ecclesiastical Writers? But what of Brasichella? He himself when in the year 1607 he had printed at Rome the Index of books to be expurgated, was Master of the Sacred Palace, and had reviewed individually those noted by himself out of duty, and in the same year soon made Bishop of Polymnianum in Apulia. This man, when he had produced arguments which place the work in doubt whether it is genuine; at length thus concludes: "the book itself is found to waver in credit, when it produces many things about Carmelite monks already flourishing in the first times of the Church. Finally the very style wholly Latin, and many things inserted in this work without the authority of elders and with doubtful credit, sufficiently argue a different author from John, and indeed a more recent one." To this most weighty judgment Wastel vainly objects some suspension of the very Index itself, indicated to Guido Archbishop of Rhodes and Apostolic Nuncio through Belgium in the year 1612; since this is not known even to have had any progress; nor is it proven to have been done for the justification of the books noted there, since for many other causes the book could have been suspended; nor finally does it make it less the case that that was the opinion of Brasichella, although the universal Church did not wish to make it its own.

[52] Theophilus Raynaudus, in his tract on the just and unjust condemnation of books, Part 1 Erotema 10, Theoph. Raynaudus has these things: "To the same John of Jerusalem Bishop XLIV has been attributed the book on the institution of a monk to Caprasius. The author of the Paradise of Carmelites fights most widely for attributing this book to this John, and Michael Muños in book 2 of the Bulwark of Elias, and Peter Wastel in book 1 of the Vindicies: to which someone refers, that what Gennadius wrote and Honorius of Autun transcribed, namely that it was written by this John against the detractors of his study; this he thinks was said about the praise of the religious institute, which he had professed among the Carmelites, in whose praises he pours himself out in this Commentary. To me neither this John contemporary of Saint Jerome, nor any of the ancient Greeks, seems to be the author of that book: for the style cries out that the author is Latin, and not so ancient that he could be said to be a contemporary of Saint Jerome." But the same thing is seen to have happened concerning this book attributed to John among the Carmelite writers, as among the Augustinians concerning the Sermons in the desert, which the Friars Hermits unanimously ascribe to Saint Augustine, as unanimously the Friars Carmelites attribute to the aforesaid John, Francis Bivarius, with none applauding outside the assemblies of both, that is, he who had undertaken to examine them; otherwise there are illustrious writers, and among them Salianus, Sanctius, Salazarius, Bonartius, John Bonifacius, Cornelius a Lapide, and others, all men of our Society, who suspecting no fraud here, in good Carmelite faith used testimonies sought from that book, as truly composed by John; which I believe they would have done with greater caution, if they had had that use of discerning ancient authors, which Father Theophilus Raynaudus had: whom I cite the more willingly for this very reason, that it is known to all, how much he always favored the Carmelite Order, and how magnificently the Order in turn felt about him; from whom therefore it is rightly asked, to believe that he was not going to expose the grace gained long ago to danger, by so feeling and writing in this part, as he felt and wrote, unless the evidence of ascertained most certain truth had compelled him to this.

[53] Francis Bivarius composed six books on the ancient monastic life, after the Wastelian Vindicies had long since come to light, and in book 1 last chapter coming unwillingly to give his opinion about the controverted book, "I have it persuaded," he says, "that it is by no means the work of that John, but of a much more recent author." Then he adduces the most efficacious reasons of his persuasion, and at length judges that it is said with little reverence for the dignity of the Mother of God, and less truly, in chapter 34, that "the Professors of this Carmelite Religion were taught by the high Pontiff of the temple, that the blessed Mary had proposed to keep virginity for God after the example of Elias; and that therefore the Religious Carmelites, already in the time of the Apostles, called the Virgin Mary their sister: and on account of the conformity of spontaneous virginity between the Mother of God and the religious Carmelites, they called themselves Brothers of the Blessed Mary Virgin." Wastel torments himself in every direction (or rather some helper of Wastel, The author of the book was later. promising a greater knowledge of the Greek language than he had, whose words Wastel used) to show that the author of the book was truly a Greek man: but with those arguments, which if someone should wish to turn them back, would perhaps more probably make him out to have been a Frank or Fleming, from the idioms and solecisms, which the Defender obtrudes as Hellenisms. Below num. 136 I will give specimens of the author as equally ignorant of the Greek language as was Saint Thomas Aquinas, from whose Commentary on chapter 11 of the Epistle to the Hebrews he took verbatim the ridiculous indeed, but nevertheless to be indulged the age of the holy Doctor etymology of the "Melote." O how many such plagiarisms, betraying the suppositious character of a man citing no one, could be found in that book, if anyone had leisure and mind to undertake an enormous labor for a nothing!

[54] But why should anyone wish to do this, understanding that he will act in vain against the obstinate? For they will answer with Wastel, to himself objecting several things received verbatim from Jerome and Ambrose, that these are interpolations of Philip Ribot, who broke up the book of John, as was convenient to him, into small particles, and added things he judged suitable. With like confidence the same Wastel denies that there is any argument of a Latin author, that all or most Scripture passages are brought forward not according to the reading of the 70 Translators, but according to the Vulgate version. Those not occupied with their prejudices know how much these things are worth, especially when several other things are added, which if not separately, yet all together joined, complete a full conviction of novelty. But since the aforesaid book is extant in French manuscript in the Carmelite convent at Namur, and since Wastel himself immediately at the beginning of the various readings candidly acknowledges that "it is not unlike the truth that some Greek, perhaps a Walloon called Jean Neuveu du Bois. more skilled in French than in Latin, translated the book into French speech, and another from that into Latin"; it will surely seem not unlike the truth to another that the first author was truly a Frank or Walloon: but such a conjecture would be confirmed by those magnificent cognomens of Nephew of Sylvanus, which the same Wastel, with no one of the ancients preceding so far as I know, appends to John of Jerusalem. For by which he concocts him to have been born of noble Roman Forefathers; the same another, a happier conjecturer perhaps, will draw to his purpose, and will say the true name, cognomen, and agnomen of the author was "Jean Neuveu du Bois," so called from one of the various towns and villages named Bois: all which someone would have turned into Latin; others content with the name alone, would have made him seem to be that John of Jerusalem whom they saw named as Saint in the Acts of the invention of Saint Stephen, namely by the common title of all Bishops; and they were ignorant that he was held suspect in faith and infamous as of the Origenian heresy. There is one thing which we can certainly believe about this author, that he was a Carmelite, as he himself makes out: and a Carmelite. and thence it will be the less to be wondered at, that a writer, accustomed to rumination of the Albertine Rule, speaking of the spiritual fight, of chastity, of silence, of obedience, used the same words of Scripture as are touched upon there: nay, even if he had mixed whole texts of the Rule into his book, which he did not do, we should not be greatly moved. Meanwhile I cannot conceive in mind how anyone could persuade himself that such a book was not only written by John of Jerusalem, but even given to the Carmelites, that is, so

they themselves wish, was for most of the monks of Palestine and Syria and others led by them throughout the whole East as a Rule for seven hundred years and more; and at the same time to believe that it could have been that of such a book (of which there ought to have been as many Greek copies as monasteries or cells) no one of earlier writers mentioned it for so many centuries, at least in the ascetics; and of the same no remaining Greek copy is found anywhere.

[55] The greatest strength of the Vindications of Wastel and any others whatever consists in a certain Epistle, produced under the name of Saint Cyril, the third Prior, so that they do not hesitate to assert, For asserting it the Epistle of Cyril is of no help, being equally spurious that all the aforementioned authors would have thought otherwise of the book to Caprasius, if they had ever seen that Epistle. But so far is that epistle from moving me from their most well-founded judgment, that it confirms it as greatly as possible. For it evidently proves itself to have been written, not by Cyril, who knew best who and of what country Berthold was, in what year the Rule was given, what was the form of the Carmelite habit, by what name it was called, etc., but by someone who, ignorant of all these things, wrote then, when the name and form of the ancient habit had slipped out not only from the use but even from the memory of the Carmelites, as will be most manifestly demonstrated below. The same, ignorant that Aymericus of Antioch had been a man of no literature (as the contemporary author Tyre testifies, book 14, chapter 18), pretends that "understanding that certain men who had come over from the West, despising the warnings of the elders, were not walking rightly toward the truth of the religious eremitic life described in the aforesaid book of John; and weighing that this happened especially because, being ignorant of Greek letters, they could not read that codex, he caused that book to be translated from Greek into Latin." Also all Greek copies to be destroyed? Certainly there is no one who says he has seen one anywhere: nor do I think there ever was one who saw it. But how do these things stand with the older and more received tradition among the Carmelites, by which they used to say their ancestors before Albert had been professors of the Basilian Rule; perhaps not truly, but they used to say it, because they had not yet known that John. How also could a man of no literature, at that time when even the most learned were ignorant of the Greek language, have known that those Western men were not living in conformity with the said book, which no one as yet had made Latin? That is, if Aymericus sufficiently and commodiously understood even Latin.

[56] But he who first compiled the Constitutions of the Order must have been ignorant both of the book attributed to John XLIV, and of the Epistle ascribed to Cyril, adding a Preface to instruct the Brothers, and both writings were for a long time unknown to most Carmelites "how they ought competently to satisfy those asking, by whom or how the Order took its beginning, or why they are called Brothers of the Order of the Most Blessed Mother of God and Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel." For he found no other witness to cite than "the book of a certain Joseph of Antioch on the perfect militia of the primitive Church"; he would doubtless also have added John, if then the Order had known anything about him. We have the Constitutions, printed in the year 1499 at Venice, such as in the Brussels Chapter of 1464 John Soreth is said to have published; but no doubt very different from the first Constitutions of the Order, which Alexander IV cites in his Bull of the year 1256, and which we would wish to obtain genuine: for those which now exist are very much changed and enlarged, and in the first place establish that in the Order there are twenty-two provinces, of which the last is Aragon, as distinct from the Province of Spain which is the tenth; and Lezana refers this distinction to the year 1417. Meanwhile of the same antiquity as the first collection seems to be the Preface itself, as regards its first part (for the other is manifestly Soreth's); and this Preface or rubric, as having been edited from antiquity and as the first of the ancient Constitutions, and the book cited under the name of Joseph of Antioch, before John is alleged by John Bacconus, who flourished in the year 1330, and by Bernard Olerius, Master General of the Order under Urban VI; not naming Joseph of Antioch indeed, but almost using the same words alleged there. Not content with this antiquity, the modern Carmelites (although there they are called "Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, thenceforth by Apostolic Privileges so called," and such privileges have their beginning with Innocent IV, as we shall teach below) prefer to call Brocard himself the author of the ancient Constitutions; which, being gratuitously asserted, does not need refutation; yet would prove, if it were true, that at least in the time of Brocard the book, suppositiously attributed to John of Jerusalem by posterity, was unknown to the Carmelites. Now as to Joseph of Antioch, by whose testimony it is there confirmed that "the coadjutors of the Apostles, followers of Elijah and Elisha, descending from Mount Carmel, spread the faith of Christ; and building an oratory, chose to be called Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel." This book, I say, although perhaps one century older than the book of Pseudo-John, does not deserve to aspire to the age of Brocard, since that name of Brothers was still unknown: and even if this were granted to it, it ought nonetheless, like the book of John, to be judged a spurious offshoot, wrongly attributed to the 11th century of Christ, and unknown to all antiquity, and without doubt of a Latin author and many centuries later, as the appellation "primitive Church," prematurely used in the title, persuades, and the rest of the phrasing, insofar as it is had in the Preface; for the book itself has nowhere yet appeared. It is not easy in this learned age, in which everything is shaken to the foundation, to substitute lead for gold, so that the fraud may long lie hidden. They perhaps at first receive some applause while they shine under the covering of a great name: but when they are more intimately considered and undergo critical examination, wonder is turned to laughter, and to the cause for which they had been fabricated to uphold, such things do wondrous prejudice. and the Dextrine figments So it happened to those writings which came forth at the beginning of this century under the names of Dexter, Maximus, Luitprand, Julian. They were received with gratulation by the Spaniards, rejoicing that so much light was unexpectedly poured upon their histories, that so many ornaments of Saints were claimed for their region, and that certain patriotic traditions were supported by such great witnesses: the imposture first foreigners, to which some now adhere then even the more sagacious of the Spaniards recognized, and the Carmelites would easily recognize it even from the sole reading of our books, were it not that they find their own name also in those figments, which they wish to be believed more ancient than the 13th century. For a certain invention pleases them wonderfully about the first church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, built already in the times of the Apostles on Carmel, from which it came that already then those who were dwelling there as hermits were called Brothers of Saint Mary of Mount Carmel: but by no solid authority will they prove that this name was in use even under Albert, much less so many centuries before.

[57] Carmel itself was not counted among the holy places Since however mention has been made of Carmel, and of the church which is said to have been built there in the honor of the Mother of God, and among which the Elian institute flourished in perpetual succession; that it may appear how without foundation such things are asserted; I say more, and assert that it can be proved by no suitable witness, that the very memory of the Prophet Elijah on Carmel was once numbered by Christians among the places to be visited in sacred pilgrimage. I call as witnesses as many as have set out for the Holy Land and left the account of their pilgrimages to posterity in writing, or have left them to others to be written. Jerome writes many things about the diligence of his Paula in visiting the holy places, and immediately upon her first entry into the Holy Land he narrates how, having left ancient Sidon, in the time of Saint Jerome "on the shore of Sarepta she entered Elijah's little tower": but when she came to Acco, which now is called Ptolemais, do you think she would have scorned to approach nearby Carmel, memorable in the Scriptures with such a multitude of prodigies, if there had then been any celebrity of it? Saint Willibald's Hodoeporicon pertains to about the year 720, nor in 720 and about the same time Bishop Arculph similarly went on pilgrimage. From the mouth of this one Adamnan received the description of the places of the Holy Land, which, printed by Canisius, exists together with an epitome of it written by Bede: from that one's report the nun his kinswoman wrote the Hodoeporicum itself: in both Thabor and the town of Nazareth are distinctly named, and Carmel itself is passed over; and yet it is so near both places, that anyone passing from this to that, by a turn of a few leagues, could approach the mountain.

[58] But if neither in the time of Saint Jerome, nor in the three following centuries was there any celebrity of the place; and it is not credible that afterwards, perhaps not even before was there any monastery there with the Christian things in the Holy Land collapsed, any great monastery should have arisen there, in whose ruins, destroyed before the arrival of the Latins, Berthold began to dwell with his companions; I am forced vehemently to doubt, whether those ruins of τῆς μονῆς, of which John Phocas speaks, were truly of any monastery, and not rather the remains of that dwelling (for the word μονὴ signifies both) which on the occasion of the profane oracle, which in Vespasian's time was consulted there, had formerly been raised. Besides, if in truth a very great monastery was there, where Berthold found traces of a great building; and from it long ago hundreds and hundreds, not only one by one, but also in companies, as the Carmelitic writers claim, obtained the palm of martyrdom, killed by barbarians: how has no memory of them remained among the Greek monks, as of Martyrs in far lesser number and cruelty cut down by robbers in the monasteries of Sabas, Sinai, and Raithu, whose both feasts and Acts are had? Yet the conjecture of those thinking there had once been a monastery there, seems to have given occasion to the ancient Carmelites, that being asked what Rule had been kept on Carmel before their more recent one was founded, they answered, "The Rule of Saint Basil," inasmuch as they knew it had for a long time been common to all the monasteries of the Greek rite. For although Berthold, the reviver of the Carmelitic Order in Carmel, came from Calabria, where there were many Basilian monasteries of the Greek rite, he himself (whom even from his name you may gather to draw his origin from the French or Normans ruling in Calabria) was, as no one has said thus far, and no one will persuade if he should say, a monk and priest of any other rite than the Latin. certainly was not afterwards Long before this one put in there, indeed before the coming of the Latins under Godfrey of Bouillon, perhaps in the 9th or 10th century, Epiphanius the Hagiopolite monk wrote a narration concerning Syria, the holy city, and the holy places there; in which he did not pass over in silence Mount Sinai, nor the sepulchre of Saint Mary of Egypt, eight days' journey from Jerusalem; he passed over Carmel. Nor did an Anonymous author of a similar age on the Jerusalemite places, published with the said little book of Epiphanius among the Symmikta of Allatius by Nihusius, believe the same to be named. Finally, after the Latins had landed in the Holy Land

and were acting successfully, and beyond the year 1130 the place was neglected in the year 1130, to the same place set out Saint Theotonius; in whose Life, illustrated on February 18, the more famous places visited by him are commemorated, nor is Jericho, accustomed to be approached on account of the fountain of Elisha, silenced: but Carmel is silenced, much more conspicuous on account of Elijah's anchoresis, if there had then been any esteem of it.

[59] It began to be visited after Berthold's arrival But after Berthold began to dwell there, although with only ten companions, and with a little oratory rather than a temple, soon John Phocas following, about whom above, thought the mention of it not to be neglected at all. Twenty-three years after John, when according to the Prior Brocard the Carmelites had him as second, to the same place came Willibrand of Oldenborgh, Canon of Hildesheim, afterwards Bishop of Paderborn and then of Utrecht. He in his Itinerary, which likewise is read among the aforesaid Symmikta, wrote these words: "Above the city of Caypha directly lies Mount Carmel, on which today is shown the dwelling of Elijah and is honored: in which place daily the solemnities of Masses are celebrated." [when it was still thought that the first church of the B.V. had been at Antaradus] But how few hermits there must then have been, about whose new institution or reformation that curious pilgrim had nothing to say! how deep a silence then about the first chapel which the Apostles formerly dedicated there! On the contrary, such a prerogative was then by popular opinion attributed to another place, namely Taradensis, that is, to the city of Antaradus, called Tortosa by the Saracens, where, says the aforepraised Willebrord, "there is a small church of the greatest veneration, which the Blessed Peter and Paul, hastening to Antioch, by angelic admonition with their own hands from uncut stones then first composed for Saint Mary. This was the first church, which was built in honor of our Lady and ever-virgin Mary." How truly these things were then handed down I do not examine; this only I infer, that it is not probable that a similar tradition then flourished about the Carmelite oratory, or that such a thing was narrated about it to Willebrord. [Meanwhile others vainly torment themselves to find Generals there before Berthold] But it is not my intention by this argument to deny the Carmelite procession from Elijah. It could, if it is true, have been continued elsewhere than in Carmel: but wherever the Carmelites were, they without doubt had their Superiors called by whatever name you wish: yet never would you believe that they were subordinated to one as an Arch-monastery or subject to its Prefect, as now most of the Religious Orders are subject to one General. More prudent in this part Lewis of Saint Teresa argues as useless the solicitude of those who do not wish Berthold to be called absolutely the first Prior General, but wish that "of the Latins" be added: as if, namely, even the Syrians or Greeks, divided among several monasteries, had been united under one head. I add, that the very appellation Prior General is premature, and can only be given to Berthold by anticipation of the title belonging to his successors, as is often wont to happen.

[60] But see to what insipid conjectures that solicitude has impelled some most recent writers. and they drag in Basilides the haruspex Suetonius had narrated in Vespasian, that to this man, sacrificing at a bare altar on Carmel (for there was no image of a god or temple there), Basilides the priest, having inspected the entrails, pronounced that whatever he was contriving in mind would succeed happily. It was sufficient for them immediately to make Basilides, from a gentile haruspex (as Suetonius describes him), an Elian Cenobiarch; little considering that by the same authority of Suetonius their pretended Apostolic church is overthrown, about which above. To the Councils celebrated at Constantinople in the year 448 and 536, Eusebius, Silas, Babylas, and Abbots of the monastery of Elijah Presbyters and Archimandrites of the monastery of Elijah subscribed. Immediately it is assumed as indubitable that they came from the Holy Land, and indeed from Carmel, and successively were Priors there; and that so confidently, as if the temerity of asserting should extort faith, not the suitable authority of proving the truth. But not only in Palestine outside Carmel, but also in several regions of the Constantinopolitan Empire, Saint Elijah the Prophet had his churches and monasteries, and besides himself there were various Saint Elijahs, and they left monasteries and churches named after themselves, of which I could name eight or ten even from our catalogues. Then in the Constantinopolitan city itself or at least in its vicinity, every year on January 13 was celebrated Τὰ ἐγκαίνια τοῦ ἁγίου Προφήτου Ἠλίου τῆς μονῆς τοῦ Βαθυρρύακος, which must be judged Constantinopolitan "The Dedication of Saint Elijah the Prophet, in the monastery called Βαθυρρίακος," that is, "of the Deep Lake." We have this Dedication from the ancient manuscript Synaxarium of Clermont, which since it contains very many dedications of Constantinopolitan churches, we understand more than any other manuscript Synaxaria to have been written for the use of one of them. But how much more probable is it that those who subscribed to the said Constantinopolitan Councils were from this monastery, than from the Holy Land? For from there not even one Bishop was present, is clear from the Acts of the Councils perhaps not even called to the Council of the year 448, as is clear from the subscriptions: but in the other, Action I, with Theodore Tribune and Referendary, and Marianus, Provost and Primate of the Monastery of Saint Dalmatius, are said to have entered "the venerable Presbyters and Archimandrites of the royal City, more than fifty," and among them "Silas of the monastery of Elijah": then are enumerated those who were present "from the holy places of Christ our true God from Syria," without mention of anyone from Carmel or Elijah's monastery. The same happens in Action III, IV, and V.

CHAPTER VII.

The age of Brocard, to whom the Rule was sent, is determined, and the chronology of the first Priors is ordered.

[61] Because the Cardinals Baronius and Bellarmine, from the more common opinion among the Carmelites themselves (for besides them we have no one of the ancients who mentions Berthold by name), because, I say, those Cardinals referred Berthold's beginnings to the Pontificate of Alexander III, we chose to follow them on March 29, although then there were not yet for us certain arguments for founding a chronology of this kind; From the number of years which the Chronicles assign to each and we indicated the year of the said Pontificate to which they had inserted the memory of those beginnings, not as certain, but as less far erring. From this opinion of each most illustrious writer we do not now think we must withdraw, after the whole Carmelite history has been surveyed with laborious investigation. For the chronology of the Order, entangled among the ancients, more recent writers have made much more entangled by receiving among legitimate and genuine histories the Epistle attributed to Cyril the third Prior; but all so vary in this part (as Lezana in the year 1231 ingenuously confesses) that scarcely one coheres with another. But the same Lezana proposes to adhere to the said epistle, as to chronology, up to Cyril himself: then he thinks in the other successors, up to Blessed Simon, one must proceed by an obscure path.

[62] I will take from Paleonydorus Berthold's 45 years, and Brocard's 33 years, as received from the more certain tradition of the ancestors: for it often happens, and we have seen it in the Catalogues of the Roman Pontiffs, that we have firm documents as to the number of years in which each reigned, but opinions fluctuate in applying the same to the common Era. With this number of years laid down, and from the death of Cyril I seem to myself able to bring out the matter, hitherto most obscure and intricate, into open light, provided it be granted me to assume as certain, what Lezana in the year 1224 takes as such, that Cyril ruled for only three years; and provided that which the author of the Chronicle asserts about the multiplication of the Order through Europe remains also unshaken, namely, that "at the same time, at which through the death of Cyril the office of Priorate was vacant, they proceeded to the election of a new Prior: and because the Religion was to be transplanted in the regions of Europe (for this is said to have been revealed to Cyril, and persuaded by him to the Hermits subject to him)... Berthold, a Lombard by nation, they chose as the fourth Prior; for because he had been begotten from the regions of Europe, he was found more apt than others for transplanting the Order in the regions this side of the sea: and in his time some of the Brothers, Cypriots by nation, crossed over to the island of Cyprus; and others, Sicilian by nation, sailed to the island of Sicily."

[63] If I am permitted to hold these things, as asserted by an older and therefore more trustworthy author, in the year 1234 there will be nothing to prevent us from believing the ancient author of the Carmelite Chronicle in Bale among the Writers of England, page 279, asserting that Cyril the Greek, the third President of the Carmelites, died in the year 1234. For as from this year, through Berthold II's seven years, it follows that Berthold began around the year 1155 and Alan's five years (for Paleonydorus writes that each ruled for so many years), one comes precisely to the year 1245, in which Blessed Simon Stock was elected, as Bale writes from the same his ancient Chronicle, and in this he has agreeing with him now all the Carmelites after Seger of Paulus and Lezana; so it is credible that with the same accuracy Paleonydorus numbers the years of the preceding Priorates, although he may have erred in applying them to the years of the Christian Era. But computing the years assigned by him to the said Priorates from the death of Cyril, one comes to the year 1156, which was the first of Saint Berthold the first Prior: and he dying in the 45th year of his government, that one began to govern the Carmelite desert, for whose sake these things are being treated, Brocard, namely in the year 1200, five before Albert landed in Syria, to give the Rule to the Carmelites.

[64] And this Chronotaxis (besides that it escapes all those rocks upon which the chronology of all the more recent Carmelite writers made a most miserable shipwreck, in these two or three centuries, in which they have attempted to adapt it to the years of the vulgar Era) affords another advantage of primary moment, and paves the way for saving somehow the Carmelite tradition about Aymericus Patriarch of Antioch, as if by his authority and counsel certain Hermits scattered through the holy land were collected into one body, and persuaded to inhabit Carmel under the obedience of Blessed Berthold. For since Carmel belongs to the Jerusalemite Patriarchate, distant scarcely 80 miles from the Holy City, but 240 or more from Antioch; nor could it appear how the Patriarch of Antioch could have exercised jurisdiction in the Jerusalemite Patriarchate not under Adhemar of Le Puy, Apostolic Legate in the year 1088 necessary for such an institution; the Carmelite Chronologists thought they must have recourse to someone who had been Legate of the Apostolic See in the parts of the East, and who could thus have established something in both Patriarchates. Therefore some looked to Aymerus or Adhemar Bishop of Le Puy, namely him who with Godfrey of Bouillon and the other Princes was present as Apostolic Legate at the taking of the city of Antioch, a little after dying. Others, among whom Paleonydorus, attaching Berthold's beginnings to the times of Calixtus II, seem to have had in view Aymericus, who in the year 1120, 22 years after Antioch was taken by the Christians, was created Cardinal of the title of Saint Mary the New, and shortly afterwards Chancellor of the Holy Roman Church; or Aymericus of Saviniac, Apostolic Legate after the year 1120

to whom, as a man of chief authority in the Roman Curia, several letters of Saint Bernard extant; and who, although no one says he went to the East with the title of Legate, yet may probably be believed to have been at some time directed there (for others and others were repeatedly directed there, not always named by writers). And to have looked to this man, the surname "de Samiliaco," used by Paleonydorus and others, may lead us to suspect: which may be seen to have crept in for "Salviniacum" or "Saviniacum," a known town in Burgundy, because I have found no Samiliacum in all of Gaul; but that Aymericus was a Burgundian. But neither he, nor the one I called above Aymerus or Adhemar, was Patriarch of Antioch.

[65] But it was Aymericus of Limoges, Patriarch of Antioch This, however, was Aymericus of Limoges (whom, since I read him said to have been born in a village called Salamiacum, in the author of the epistle attributed to Saint Cyril; and in Limoges I found two villages called Salaniac; I did not dare firmly to assent to the correction conjectured by Paleonydorus of the Burgundian Saviniacum) — it was, I say, Aymericus, surnamed "de Malafaida" by the Carmelitic writers, Patriarch of Antioch from the year 1137 beyond the year 1184. Who although when he was elected, he labored under an election not sufficiently canonical and less seemly, such as William of Tyre describes in book 15, chapter 18, with the infamy of a conversation not sufficiently honest, and was of no literature: yet the former vice the more mature age could have corrected, and the necessity of ecclesiastical obligation by which he was constrained joined to so great a dignity; the latter was supplied by his immense authority among all, based on the highest power of his (for he was most opulent) and the experience of political matters, and the signal fortitude of his mind, which praises of his it is permitted to learn from Tyre on various occasions and especially book 18, chapter 1. Yet that he himself also at some time had from the Roman Pontiff the power of Apostolic Legate, not indeed as Legate I shall not believe, not only because in the whole history of the sacred war absolutely no Legate is found to have been made in the East; but all are said to have been sent immediately from the West: but also because at that very time at which that Aymericus must have established the Carmelites with such power, that there was sent with it by Alexander III to the parts of the East John, Tyre says in book 18 chapter 19, "a man most learned and Cardinal Presbyter of the Roman Church of the title of Saints John and Paul"; about whose reception if there was, as there was, great controversy; because by reason of a schism arisen in the Church his power was not sufficiently certain; it would have been much greater, and altogether inescapable for John, if Aymericus of Antioch had before had the authority of Apostolic Legation conferred on him by an undoubted Pontiff.

[66] but then present at Jerusalem But, you say, if Aymericus was not a Legate, the above difficulty remains to be explained, what he could have conferred on our Hermits in a place of another's jurisdiction outside his own diocese. I will untie the knot from Tyre, and at the same time confirm the Chronology established above. He narrates in the aforementioned book 18 chapter 1, that Aymericus Patriarch of Antioch, in the year 1154, by the intercession of the King of Jerusalem, being freed from the custody into which he had been most unworthily cast by Raynald Prince of Antioch, with his goods being received, which had been snatched away with like violence, "yielded to the insanity of his powerful adversary, easily to be reawakened on any pretext; and leaving the Antiochene diocese, betook himself to the kingdom of Jerusalem; where by Lord King Baldwin III, and his most prudent mother Lady Melisenda, and all the Bishops of the Kingdom being kindly received, he remained for some years; and in 1157, because Amalric, elected Patriarch of Jerusalem after Fulcher, had not yet obtained the duty of consecration... he was called upon by the royal mandate, both to confer the grace of royal unction upon Queen Theodora, niece of Isaac the Constantinopolitan Emperor, and to celebrate the usual solemnities of marriage": and acting in the cause of Berthold the Calabrian nor does he seem to have returned to Antioch until released from fear by the captivity of Prince Raynald, which happened toward the end of the year 1160. Therefore since in the Jerusalemite Patriarchate Aymericus of Antioch, although an exile, was of the greatest grace and authority with the King and Patriarch; most prudently Berthold acted, that, admonished by the Prophet Elijah to dwell on Carmel, he approached him, for the sake of counsel and aid; nay rather of the necessary faculty. For he was (as John Phocas first teaches us) a native of Calabria, and so subject to the Prince of Antioch in temporal things, to the Patriarch in spiritual; and probably one of those Latin monks who had their monasteries in the Black Mountains near Antioch, as Vitriaco attests. Whether he was a Benedictine or Cistercian or Florensis monk (for such almost from the Neapolitan kingdom had accompanied Bohemond, Prince of Norman blood, and his successors to the Holy Land), or truly a simple hermit bound to no Order, I have not found anyone who teaches thus far, nor is it fitting to inquire ungraciously, since the Carmelites affect to be counted among the Aborigines. It is enough to have unlearned them of the error, by which they believed Berthold was of Limoges, and either a brother or kinsman of that Aymericus; but to have explained the cause, how ambitious of a dwelling on Carmel, he sought the faculty for it from the Antiochene Patriarch, and how from him he could have had aid so effective that to him rather than to any other remained the glory of Carmel restored.

[67] Carmel was subject, as we said, to the Bishop of Acco (this one then was a certain Frederic, and was up to the year 1167, when he passed to the Archbishopric of Tyre, as Tyre writes in book 20 chapter 1): from this man Aymericus, gracious and powerful throughout the whole Jerusalemite kingdom, could most easily have obtained that Berthold be allowed to dwell among certain ruins of that mountain, and to gather a few companions, who up to the year 1185 did not increase beyond ten. And the same Aymericus, since he was most opulent, why should he not be believed to have supplied Berthold with the necessary expenses for the work not great, and to have consecrated the first oratory himself, with Amalric the Patriarch of Jerusalem the Bishop of Acco permitting it? Finally, if we wish to believe the new assembly of Hermits, in their very first beginnings, after the manner of the other Religious Orders, to have obtained the right of Profession; and if this could not be granted by the ordinary authority of a simple Bishop, nor sanctioned by Aymericus himself in another's diocese; we shall believe, that that right also was obtained through him from Amalric, Patriarch of Jerusalem: and so to the one Antiochene Patriarch the whole praise of founding or restoring the Carmelite Order will deservedly be ascribed, without gratuitously assigning to him any extraordinary power, which he had used in this business. But all these things, since they were not had among the Carmelites distinctly described, nay were preserved by tradition almost alone, it was also most easy that three persons of the same or similar name should be compounded into one, a vice familiar to histories handed down without writing; and Aymericus of Samiliaco, made Legate of the Apostolic See in the Holy Land in the year 1120, as Paleonydorus writes, to be confused with Aymericus of Limoges, Patriarch of Antioch; and in turn to give to the same the power of instituting the Religious Profession in Carmel, which properly speaking resided not in this Aymericus, but in Amalric the Patriarch of Jerusalem, a man, as Tyre writes in book 18 chapter 20, "commodiously indeed learned, but too simple and nearly useless, yet in no way incurious of small things of this kind pertaining to pious places," as will be shown in the treatise on the Patriarchs of Jerusalem before the next following May. For with this man Aymericus of Antioch's suggestion, as a grateful and powerful guest, must have found ready access to obtaining the grace sought by Berthold and his companions, through which they might be held and be true Religious.

[68] Moreover, that by the same Aymericus of Antioch acting and procuring, all or most of the Latin hermitages of the Holy Land (for this at least the Carmelites pretend) were made subject to Berthold, as to a Prior General, Under his obedience were only the Hermits of Mount Carmel no one will persuade. Both because that matter would have been of the greatest noise and effort, and could in no way be solidly constituted outside a Synod of all the Eastern Bishops, and once so constituted would not have been passed over by writers; and because in the Apostolic Bulls, up to the year 1230, only one place is named as subject to the Carmelite Prior, as we shall see below; and finally because Albert the Patriarch, being asked to write a Rule for the Carmelites, not only wrote it for "the Hermits alone, dwelling near the fountain on Mount Carmel," but wrote such that it was sufficient for those subsisting in Carmel alone; but for the Order scattered through several hermitages of various dioceses it would have been insufficient and disproportionate. Yet this does not prevent that, as Sanwic testifies in his Chronicle, Aymericus having returned to Antioch, summoned some Hermits of the new institution from Carmel, and gave them a place and Prior in the Black Mountain, independent of the Carmelite Prior; as in the first age of the Benedictine Order, monks brought from Monte Cassino founded monasteries in no way subject to the Abbot of Cassino, although professing the same Rule. And so it will also become probable, what the author of the epistle fabricated under the name of Cyril III Prior has supposed as true, and perhaps received from an author worthier of credence, namely that Cyril himself sent a copy of the Rule, handed by Blessed Albert to his predecessor Brocard, to Eusebius Prior of the Hermits of the Black Mountain, that they also might be informed by the same, and having sprung from the same beginning, might hold the same norm of life: which thing gave occasion for inventing his Epistle, which we have rejected above and shall refute at greater length below.

[69] James of Vitry, Bishop of the city of Acco, distant only four miles from Carmel, who lived there after the example of Elijah around the year 1220 writing book 1 chapter 58, after he had treated of the Latin monasteries both of Regular Canons and of Benedictines, thus speaks: "Others, after the example and imitation of the holy man and solitary Elijah the Prophet, and especially in that part which overhangs the city of Porphyria, which today is called Caypha, near the fountain which is called Elijah's fountain, not far from the monastery of the blessed Virgin Margaret, were leading a solitary life in the hives of small cells, like bees of the Lord making honey of spiritual sweetness." These indeed, if anyone had asked for the first authors of the eremitic purpose, could say with Jerome to Paulinus: "Our prince is Elijah, our Elisha, our leaders the sons of the Prophets, who were dwelling in the fields and solitudes, and making for themselves tabernacles near the streams of Jordan": they could also glory in the hereditary succession of so great Fathers, although interrupted by the gap of so long centuries, perhaps twenty. Whether also to his institution? But for these things to be true, there is no need either that Elijah was a monk under the three essential vows of Religion, or to establish some continual series of hermits succeeding one another and proceeding one from another, or that Berthold's first companions received the norm of eremitic life from Greek or Syrian schismatics. For this, as they had seen it practiced everywhere in Europe, so in Palestine very many Latins had begun to practice, of whom these were some part or

offshoot. Yet he who would stubbornly maintain all the aforesaid things, as some do, fighting for that uninterrupted succession on Carmel itself as for their altars and hearths, we will not oppose him, not even if he should wish to drag the whole ancient monasticism into the Carmelite Order. For what do questions about the name matter to us?

[70] As for Cyril, I fear that only the rationale of his Greek name made him appear Greek; but the whole history of his life written by Bostius and Paleonydorus, Saint Cyril the 3rd Prior is not proved to have been Greek is not only such that it would be desirable to be able to confirm from the writings of the ancients the things which are said there, so illustrious that they would necessarily have been touched upon by the historians of those times, if they had truly happened; but since the said history contains absolutely nothing which deserves to be believed on the sole faith of such writers, it would more rightly have been passed over on March 6; just as on the same March 25 we necessarily omitted those things which the same have about Berthold, so insipid that unless we had thought something must be given to tradition, we could with certain learned men have doubted whether that Berthold ever existed in the nature of things. The same Cyril gave his name to the new assembly under Berthold, if our chronotaxis is true, and if Cyril's epistle is truly his, which he is said to have written to Pope Celestine III (who died in the year 1198), concluding with these words: "In the monastery of Carmel I have found earthly Angels, whose conversation is in the heavens."

[71] The chronotaxis deferred this far But whatever has been said about Saints Cyril, Brocard, or Berthold, before this so laborious discussion of the Carmelite history, in March, or even in the preceding months, about any other Saint of the Order, whether professed or added; let the Reader know that all must be recalled to this Commentary and corrected. For we cannot always at every first occasion institute those arduous disquisitions, which drag after themselves a long series of consequences; especially when another more opportune or even necessary place is foreseen, where from the foundations the whole matter can and must be shaken out: while this is awaited, we proceed by the more approved way of others treating the same things, unless a better reason occurs. Thus, in the whole of January and February, we adjusted the chronotaxis of the Saints of Ireland to the Patrician, approved by Ussher: but when in March the Acts of Saint Patrick himself had to be treated, we placed more solid foundations, above which all the things that have gone before must be restored. Thus of the older Apostles of Gaul we have hitherto spoken doubtfully and problematically, indulging ourselves delay up to October 9, as to the most fitting place when it will be necessary to treat of Saint Dionysius of Paris and companions; thus many other things we defer undecided to another time and place. There was therefore no reason for some to complain and believe, on account of this brevity in March, that we had neither read nor wished to read their writings, lest we be forced, with prejudices laid aside (as they interpreted it), to embrace their opinions. For even though we did not yet fully have established what we ought to say about the beginning and progress of the Order; yet we were sufficiently versed in their writings to already know what needed to be silent around the chief point; until Albert should come to hand, whose history could scarcely be separated from a full treatment of Carmelite matters. The Life of Saint Telesphorus Pope, on January 5, and the Commentaries on the same, are not the work of John Bolland, but of Seger of Paulus, as the very title indicates: wherefore they cannot be cited under Bolland's name. Yet seeing this happening, and with the use of discerning certain things from doubtful gradually growing, he already understood with how weak foundations and for the greater part supposititious authors everything asserted there relies; he repented of the excessive facility through which in that apprenticeship of this work of his he had been persuaded to insert an alien offspring into the same: and altogether praised that the companion of studies given him had the purpose of acting more cautiously in such things, and of writing nothing by which either the Elian succession might seem to be approved or disapproved, until there should be leisure to examine it fundamentally: which having now been done, we still think we can abstain from pronouncing sentence, for the sake of the Order dearest to us.

CHAPTER VIII.

On the year of the Rule given and signed by Albert, on the fictitious seals of it and of Saint Dionysius the Pope, and on the more recent sign of the Order.

[72] It was not given in the year 1171 We noted no year of the Rule given in chapter 6, although in the Bullarium of Cherubinus the year 1171 was expressed; to which unable to distrust, Lucius Belga, in his Bibliotheca Carmelitana page 24, continuously subjoined, as a certain consequence, that "the Rule was given about forty years more or less before the approval of the Dominican and Franciscan Religion." Those two Mendicant Orders, namely, most solemnly approved in the Council, since the Church did not yet have established what to decree about the Carmelite Hermits, they will not allow to be preferred to themselves. But this I leave to them to dispute: I say the year noted in the Bullarium is fictitious; because then neither was Brocard Prior, nor Albert Patriarch, nay not even Bishop. The same about Brocard and Albert's Patriarchate I say about the year 1199, which, as Daniel a Virgine Maria witnesses, most copies of the Epistle have, nor in the year 1199 supposed to Saint Cyril, and everywhere impinging on true chronology; so that even this alone might be sufficient to reject it. For how so often and so foully would Cyril have hallucinated, as often as some year of the Christian Era had to be expressed, in matters done in his own age? For even Berthold the same epistle ascribes to the year 1121; and it appears that the error cannot be believed to be that of a careless scribe, but of an author, ignorant of the truer chronology; who since, perhaps from the more common opinion of his contemporaries, he thought Cyril had died in the year 1203 and the third of his governance, it followed that he must say at least before the election of this one that the Rule had been given; and going back from the year 1200 through Brocard's 33 years and Berthold's 45 years (who, as he says, did not immediately, but after a lapse of time succeed one another) he could scarcely have begun Berthold's governance later than the year 1121.

[73] nor in the year 1205 "The error has crept in," says the aforesaid Daniel a Virgine Maria in notes to that Epistle, "is clearly and lucidly declared from the most certain histories in the Annals of the Order, at the year 1199 and 1205, and also by Zegerus Paulus in the Chronology of the Life of Saint Simon Stock": and he establishes that the year 1205 ought to be read, as P. Lezana has, and before him Onuphrius Panvinius. We have shown above, that only in the following year Albert began his governance of the Jerusalemite Church: nor, if he had come to Syria one year earlier, do we believe he would immediately have been about to write, for men unknown to him as yet, a norm of life to be kept by them: there was need of at least a few years' experience. But with these interposed, no year appears subject to lesser variation in ciphers, to which 1199 can be reduced, than 1209, which also Seger of Paulus approves. For the Latins in Syria used Arabic ciphers, not Latin notes, for the most part, and the author of the epistle, finding the year 1209 so noted by some better author, but perceiving this did not agree with the chronology which he thought certain; took another, fitting it, near at hand, by the slightest change; not attending, that in this calculation he nonetheless erred, but perhaps 1209 tacitly ascribing to the last years of Brocard that which was far more fitting to be referred to his first years, lest the Hermits gathered at the fountain be left for almost 80 whole years without a certain mode of living. For the book of John, whose truth this epistle vainly tries to establish, besides that it had not yet been fabricated then, was not fit to serve as a Rule, being in greater part a historical treatise, in others generally ascetic, determining nothing in particular, as even its own defenders confess, and it is evident to anyone wishing to read: the Basilian Rule (if yet it can be called a Rule, a spiritual instruction fitting any monk in general) was Greek, and could not be understood by Berthold's companions.

[74] Albert seems to have noted no year Moreover, as most of those who write an epistle to be delivered within a few days, are content to note the day of the month; not at all noting the year, because the present year is running: so in this Rule, which does not exceed the manner and style of an epistle, I suspect no year was inscribed, and perhaps neither day nor month. Nor do I so suspect by mere conjecture. There are had among the Gesta Dei per Francos from page 1172 to 1185 various Epistles of Kings and Princes, and among them three of Amalric the Patriarch to King Louis, all without date of day and year; only two of Amalric, likewise then King of Jerusalem, signify the place and the day of the month, the year by no means. To a conjecture so well-founded I have as one agreeing, and proving it with an argument not empty, Lezana. For when at the year 1171, he had shown this was not the one in which the Rule was given, but the error of an unskilled writer, and had referred the cause of the error to the forgetfulness of the ancient Carmelites about Albert's beginnings: "of this forgetfulness," he says, "a great sign is that in the diploma of Innocent IV, where the Rule corrected for his moderation and inserted is found, for the year 1247, the fifth year of the pontificate of the same Innocent (as I have examined with my own eyes in the Registers of the Vatican Archive), the date of the Rule is not subjoined: without doubt, because our men of that time were uncertain about it." And yet not yet forty years had elapsed, and a copy of so brief a Rule must have been in everyone's hands.

[75] He should rather have said, it was not forgetfulness, but observance, by which, although the year was well known, nor also in transcribing the Rule by ancient Carmelites because it had not been added in the original, they did not presume to add it from their memory and certain knowledge: but afterwards, after one or another century, other less religious men crept in, who from their own invention (for it seemed shameful that no year should be inscribed to such a fundamental instrument of the whole Order) added it, earlier or later, according as each was suggested by the lesser knowledge of true history, and greater solicitude, that long before the Council in which new Orders and new Rules were prohibited to be introduced, its Rule should be believed to have been given. However that may be, moved by the indignity of the matter Lezana says: "Those who subscribe the date of the Rule to the aforesaid Bull of Innocent, not only must be corrected but expunged, since they are not afraid to put in a copy what does not exist in the Register": which judgment, may others apply to the authors of many similar impostures, some now convicted, others yet to be convicted, it is permitted to me. Would that Lezana, taught by not a few examples, had borne himself more cautiously, in receiving other new narrations! Perhaps he would have thought it superfluous to fill three volumes from Elijah to Berthold, about matters pertaining nothing or very little to his own Order (at least as it is an Order distinct from the other Eremitic Orders).

[76] Moreover both in this and in other epistles to be signed (if yet there was need of a legitimate signature), that Albert used his customary seal of office, The fictitious sign of Albert and that this was in conformity with the use of that time, seems certain; nor should this now have to be explained, when the science called Heraldic is so diligently cultivated. It was not so of old; whence we marvel less at Aubertus Miraeus, in the Belgian fasts on November 21, treating of Albert, and Thomas Saracen in the Menology, for accepting as genuine the stamping of a certain silver coin, brought from the Library of Philip II, on one part of which are seen insignia composed, from the Tessera of the Order of the Hierosolymitan Knights, and from the gentilitial Tessera of the Eremitan family in Belgium, and supported by two crosses (one of Patriarch, the other of Apostolic Legate), with a note of the year 1206, and inscribed around it "Albertus Hierosolymitanus": on the reverse side is expressed the city of Acco, with this motto, "Jerusalem taken, See translated to Acco, coin of pilgrims." Behold the very thing.

[77] The error committed in accepting this stamping must be forgiven, as I said, at least to Miraeus; who being Chaplain and librarian of the Archdukes Albert and Isabella, too easily believed the Discalced Carmelites gracious with the same Princes, the occasion for new figments both many other things and this among the rest; as being persuaded by them that Albert had been the nephew of Peter the Hermit; and he thought that "the See was then translated" referred to when the Patriarchs, driven from their See, began to dwell in an alien city: yet neither of these is consistent with the truth. With the same facility I should judge pardon must be given to the Carmelites, deceived by another's fraud: but what shall happen to Thomas Saracen and Valerius Ximenes? Upon these figments those men built two monasteries, "one erected at Jerusalem for the aid of pilgrims, over which the Carmelites presided under the name of Patriarch; the other at the beginning of Palestine, from the exit of the sea, to quickly meet pilgrims running into Judaea: in testimony of which," says Saracen, "there are extant coins, which were given with special care to pilgrims, lest by the infidels, through pacts already had, they should plot any evil against them."

[78] As long as Albert lived, we find no Carmelites outside of Carmel, except perhaps near Antioch: The true seal, from the use of that time but we find the genuine seal of Albert in volume 4 of Italia sacra column 1099, about which Ughellus, about to treat, after he had first pronounced that one the counterfeit to be commentitious and invented and in no way accommodated to the truth, gives the reason of his opinion, thus proceeding: "For in those times it had not come into use, that in the coins and signs of the sacred Prelates the gentilitial arms should be added. I have with me some leaden signs of Eastern Bishops of that age, expressed in rude and uncultivated style, where only the image of the Bishop, or of the Patron of the church, together with his name, is seen. There is in the archive of the Genoese Church a document of this Patriarch Albert, sealed with his leaden sign and another of Walter of Acco, given at Acco in the year 1212. Of which when Augustine Calcagnini, a learned Canon of Genoa, had sent me a copy to Rome, drawn to it by the antiquity of the thing, I asked a friend that he might transmit to me, from wax, the signs of Albert and Walter, expressed to a nicety: Ughellus shows which he did with the greatest humanity, and filled my curiosity. I saw the sign, and in it the Holy Resurrection, A. ANACTACIC, the ancient symbol of the Jerusalemite Church; and having kissed Albert's name, I had it engraved, and took care to have it added here." Thus far Ughellus, whose diligence imitating, I also again exhibit the same.

[79] Could the Francican author of the Elian succession have seen and read this; and, since he judged only the life described by Ughellus worthy of his interpretation, nevertheless believed that the first stamp was genuine; and not noticed, that since in that way Albert is inserted into the Eremitan family in Belgium by necessary consequence, the truth of the narration cannot subsist, making him an Italian from the territory of Parma? But why do we marvel at him or others? Like the former is another of Saint Dionysius Pope If they believed that these were the gentilitial insignia of Albert, did they believe it for that time, in which the use of such tesserae was at least among the Knights, in tournaments and other similar acts? Rather Saracen should move admiration, who after nine little questions extensively explained, "that the reader may with safe foot run through the Carmelite histories, represents the ancient Pontifical insignia of Saint Dionysius the Pope, such as he had received from Lucius Belga," having omitted only the ornaments of the crossed keys and the triple tiara, perhaps because he knew the use of these to have been more recently introduced. But he who taught him this could also have taught him, that the ancient Pontiffs did not have tesserary shields, but their seals had either a cross or the faces of the Apostles Peter and Paul, with an inscription of the name, such as Ciacconius and Baronius represent in more than one place.

[80] Lucius Belga was not so impudent as to assert that Dionysius used this insignia: but as often Ciacconius, which Lucius invented merely for the sake of ornament even before the custom of those tesserae was introduced, tributed to the Pontiffs by anticipation the tesserae, long afterwards begun to be used by those families which claimed them to themselves; so also he himself, only for the sake of ornamenting the book, from the tesserary shield of the Order common to all, adapted one properly to them, by adding something suitable to his own opinion about them: and as here for Saint Dionysius (whom he believed to have been a monk of Jerusalem) he superimposed on the said shield the insignia of the Jerusalemite militia, which had been born only after the Holy City was recovered by the Latins; so elsewhere Benedict XII, whom he ascribes to his own Order without any plausibility, wishing to exhibit him as a Frenchman, he added three lilies to the same shield, as you see expressed below. He also added other ornaments now customarily used in Papal shields, namely the Regnum, as they call it, or triple crown, and the Pontifical keys, both of no very ancient origin. Better had he sought the true insignia of Pope Benedict himself, which may still be seen carved on stone at Paris, which were a white little shield in a red field, as he had begun to use when he was first created Cardinal, in memory of the Cistercian Order, whence being taken up he was everywhere called the White Cardinal.

[81] You have seen the conceptions of Lucius, now be astonished at the admirable genius of Saracen, Saracen seized on it as the foundation for a new fable who does not know how to use even fictions soberly; but as if dreaming on Parnassus, and meanwhile producing mere oracles from genuine sources with robust and constant faith, since he had read somewhere I know not among what fable-makers that the Order of Knights of the Holy Sepulchre had been instituted by Saint James, brother of the Lord, illustrated by Constantine the Great, and finally restored by the recoverers of the Holy Land; he made the origin of the modern insignia equal to the fictitious antiquity of those Knights; and these, comparing with the likewise imaginary, for that time, antiquity of the Carmelitic insignia, "clearly appears," he says, "that Saint Dionysius publicly carried forth the insignia of that Order in his Pontificate." For since the Carmelitan Order has a Breviary and Missal according to the use of the Dominican Sepulchre, which was proper to the Congregation of Regular Canons so called; he thinks it can be persuaded without difficulty, that the Carmelites and those who served at the Sepulchre of the Lord had common insignia; even from the times of Saint Dionysius Pope, in the third century of Christ.

[82] Do you wish to know the beginning of the Carmelite tessera? I will not delay you long, From the insignia of certain mantled men, invented after the year 1000 nor show that around the year one thousand there began to be celebrated military convocations and provocations, for the delight as well as the exercise of the nobility; in which while each of the Princes desired to distinguish himself and his men from others, gradually arose such great diversity of heroic tesserae. The whole history of this matter will be most clearly illustrated by Francis Claudius Menestrier, a most learned man of our Society, formerly noted by more than one specimen. I will only say, that there is and has been for some time a certain kind of insignia, which divide their shield trichotomously, so that from the highest and middle point of the shield two curved lines flow down to the sides, and carry the form of a cape or mantle tied at the neck and drawn down; the Spanish call them armas en mantel; the French, des armoiries chappées, that is, "Arms under a mantle," or "Cappata insignia." When the use of such tesserae began to please also the Ecclesiastical Order, first in Spain the Dominicans, The Dominicans and Carmelites after the year 1400 or later, took the color of their habit as their tessera, superposing a black pallium over the white tunic. Soon also to the Carmelites the example passed, to whom the similar variety of colors, but disposed in inverse order, offered the faculty of painting a similar shield. And at the beginning the shield was bare of other ornaments, as may be seen before the Constitutions of the Order printed in 1499, and on the front of the Carmelite Chronicle printed at Piacenza in 1595 by the author Joseph Falcone in Italian. Afterwards, they took the occasion for their insignia as the Preachers adorned their shield with certain symbols pertaining to Saint Dominic; so also the Carmelites, first with two, then with three stars (whose signification they themselves will explain) not inelegantly distinguished it. But the Discalced Carmelites adorned the opening of the pallium with a little cross, by which they judged they were aptly distinguished from those whom they call Mitigated. See the matter placed before your eyes in the scheme, and compare the shield itself, both pure and composed, with the breast of the mantled Carmelite.

CHAPTER IX.

Of the Breviary according to the use of the Holy Sepulchre, prescribed by Albert in his Rule for the Hermits; what it was; and the Martyrology.

[83] At the same time at which Albert in Syria wrote this brief Rule for the Hermits dwelling at the fountain, The same things concerning Hours as Saint Francis Francis, founder of the Seraphic Order, also wrote his own, equal to the future amplitude divinely shown and the diversity of duties to be performed, which he also obtained to be confirmed in the year 1211 by Innocent III. In this, chapter 3, he thus prescribes: "Let the Clerics perform the Office according to the custom of the Clerics: but let the laity say the Credo in Deum, and twenty-four Pater nosters with Gloria Patri for Terce, Sext, Nones, for each of these seven Pater nosters with Gloria Patri; for Vespers twelve, for Compline seven: and Credo in Deum with Gloria Patri." To this ordination corresponds article 6 of the Albertine Rule in this way, Blessed Albert also prescribes "Those who know letters and can read the Psalms, let them say through each hour those which, by the institution of the holy Fathers and the approved custom of the Church, are deputed to individual Hours: but those who do not know letters, let them say the Pater noster twenty-five times in the nocturnal vigils... but seven times let the same prayer be said at Morning Lauds: in the other Hours seven times likewise let the same prayer be said individually; except the Evening Offices, in which you ought to say it fifteen times." Now how ridiculous it would be to refer Saint Francis to the Rule of Saint Basil or some other similar, from which he took these things; so it will be absurd to believe that Albert looked to anything other than to delineate a norm of living fitting to Hermits, such as he had known in Europe.

[84] Nevertheless it is incredible that that assembly, which then

was the whole Order, For purely Latin Hermits should have grown together from men not only of Latin, but also of Greek and Syriac rite; although the Carmelites seem to presume this, when to explain their Elian succession, they strive to persuade that their ancestors under Berthold lived not according to the norm of the European Hermits (who have in Elijah nothing else than the example of the solitary life), but according to the discipline of those who they themselves think flowed immediately from the Elians. How they connect these with the older ones In demonstrating this connection turns the hinge of the pretended antiquity; not indeed denied by us, but neither solidly proved by them through this, that many have everywhere, without examination, believed in this connection, the Carmelites themselves asserting it, whose names and testimonies are everywhere produced in a long but little effective order. The example of Elijah and Elisha, according to which James of Vitry says some instituted their life on Carmel, also pertained to the Latins; and thus the Carmelites rightly venerate them as Patrons of the Order. But that they may also be called Founders, it would be necessary that their successors should have been at least instructors and masters to Brocard and his companions. Here, here, I say, not in the Old Testament up to Elijah, not in the New up to Christ (about which, without the authority and testimony of contemporary writers, to those wishing to fight in the manner of gladiators, they will yield freely whoever do not wish to dispute about the name), but here, in the 12th century of Christ, so near to us, illustrated by so many monuments of writers, here is Rhodes, here is the leap, which is required; not to be pushed higher than to the beginning of that century: but O how difficult!

[85] Having been engaged for twelve years and more in this arena of illustrating the history, let others see and that under a master doing the same thing for nearly forty years, from a singular desire of gratifying the Order most dear to me, I have always had my eyes intent on every argument for founding that connection; and in these last four or five years, I have done nothing with greater effort than to scrutinize to this end all the monuments concerning the Eastern history of the Middle Ages, as will appear at the beginning of May from the Catalogue of the Patriarchs of Jerusalem, the sole fruit of that study. But the more profoundly I examined them, the more I began to despair of finding what I so ardently desired. Finding nothing written before their crossing into Europe, by which such a succession could be proved; finding nothing now in any part of the whole institute which savors of the discipline of the Greek monks or hermits (for the arrangement of discrete cells, which was sometimes of the ancient lauras, from the Camaldolensian hermits widely spread through Italy and an entire century before Berthold's beginnings, had long been known to our Europeans); finding nothing, I say, of the kind, I only pronounce: it is not clear. How justly, will be plain, if the Reader understands of which Church's approved custom was prescribed by Albert to the companions of Brocard.

[86] In the anciently printed Carmelite Breviary, before the proper Office of Advent, At the Sepulchre of the Lord Canons are instituted this title is prefixed: "Here begins the Breviary according to the Order of the Brothers of the glorious Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, extracted and excerpted from the approved use of the Dominican Sepulchre of the holy Jerusalemite Church, in whose borders the Religion of the said Brothers took its beginning." Almost the same words are had before the General Rubrics, "Here begins the Ordinal of the Canonical Hours of the Brothers," etc. The same are said to be had in the Ordinal of Masses printed at Venice in 1509 and 1551. But who are those to whom the custody of the Dominican Sepulchre and the care of performing divine Offices there were committed? Let us hear Tyre, nearest to the events. When in book 9 he had described how the kingdom of Jerusalem was conferred on Godfrey of Bouillon, in chapter 9 he thus speaks: "After therefore he obtained the kingdom, a few days being interposed, as he was a religious man, in those things which regarded the decor of the house of God, he began to offer the first-fruits of his solicitude. first secular then regular For straightway in the church of the Dominican Sepulchre and in the Temple of the Lord he instituted Canons... preserving the order and institution which the great and most ample churches, founded by pious Princes, observe beyond the mountains."

[87] The same Tyre, book 11 chapter 15, complains of the Patriarch Arnulph, that he "changed the Order which the first Princes had studiously and with much deliberation instituted, by introducing Regular Canons." Arnulph was created Patriarch in the year 1111. to whom is prescribed the order of the French and Belgian churches About this change, consequently James of Vitry writes book 1 chapter 58: "The Patriarchal church, which is of the Dominican Sepulchre under Mount Calvary, has Regular Canons, living according to the habit and rule of Blessed Augustine: but they have a Prior, to whom with the aforesaid Canons pertains to elect the Patriarch, who is for them in place of an Abbot. But in the churches of the Temple of the Lord and of Mount Sion, and of Mount Olivet, are Abbots and Canons, ministering to the Lord according to the aforesaid Rule of Saint Augustine." Among these, fugitives since the City was taken by the Saracens, Albert was living at Acco, and there he was observing in the divine Offices the use of the Holy Sepulchre: which many received both in Gaul and in Belgium, instructed by the Canons returning from the Holy Land, and so the Congregation of the Canons of the Holy Sepulchre being instituted, restored to Europe what it had received thence, with a very small change; so that in the sole Utrecht diocese (whose Breviary we shall presently allege) there were twenty-four houses of Regulars of this kind, and seven houses of Nuns of the same Congregation.

[88] But we have a sample of the Office used by them in a manuscript made more than three hundred years ago, whose title is: "Here begins the Matutinal of winter season, and this is the use of the Dominican Sepulchre according to the norm of reading in the church of the Dominican Sepulchre." There are contained in this manuscript, as well as in the aforecited Carmelite printed Breviary, the feasts of the holy Bishops of the Jerusalemite Church, namely, Matthew Bishop and Confessor on the 3rd of the Kalends of February, Simeon Bishop and Martyr on the 12th of the Kalends of March, Alexander Bishop and Martyr on the 15th of the Kalends of April, Quiriacus Bishop and Martyr on the 4th of the Nones of May; and on the 4th of the Kalends of November, Narcissus Bishop and Confessor. Each Breviary contains besides some of the principal Saints of the Gallican and Belgian provinces, namely the memory of Saints Hilary and Remigius on the Ides of January, Vedast and Amand on the 8th of the Ides of February, also common to the Carmelites and Knights of Rhodes Albinus Bishop and Confessor on the Kalends of March, the Translation of Saint Martin on the 4th of the Kalends of July, Germanus Bishop on the day before the Kalends of August, Aegidius Abbot on the Kalends of September, Lambert Bishop and Martyr on the 15th of the Kalends of October, Remigius Bishop and others on the Kalends of October, Dionysius Bishop and his companion Martyrs on the 8th of the Ides of October, the Holy Eleven Thousand Virgins on the 12th of the Kalends of November, Leonard the Confessor on the 8th of the Ides of November, and finally Saints Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob on the 3rd of the Nones of October, and Saint Lazarus raised by Christ on the 16th of the Kalends of January. All these Saints are also venerated by the Order of Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, afterwards transferred to Rhodes and finally to Malta, as is known to us from their Missal printed before the year 1505.

[89] In addition, to the feasts common to the Regulars, Knights, and Carmelites, and separately increased for each individually "according to the norm of reading in the church of the Dominican Sepulchre," each added some proper of their own Order: the Regulars, namely, in the diocese of Utrecht, the feast of the liberation of the city of Jerusalem on the day before the Ides of July, Saint Pontianus, Patron of Utrecht, on the 19th of the Kalends of February, Gertrude Virgin on the 16th of the Kalends of April, Odulph Confessor on the day before the Ides of June, Cordula Virgin and Martyr on the 11th of the Kalends of November, Willibrord Bishop on the 7th of the Ides of November, Servatius Bishop on the 3rd of the Ides of May, Lebuinus Confessor on the day before the Ides of November, and Saint Augustine with the Octave, as was celebrated by all Regular Canons throughout the whole world. The peculiar Saints of the Rhodians, inscribed in their calendar, are: on the 5th of the Ides of March, the 40 Martyrs of Jerusalem, whose bodies were at Rhodes when the aforesaid Missal was printed; on the 10th of the Kalends of July, the 10,000 Martyrs who suffered on Mount Ararat, as being Soldiers; on the 5th of the Kalends of August, Saint Pantaleon Martyr, on account of the victory obtained on that day over the Turks; on the 7th of the Kalends of October, Saint Cleophas disciple and Martyr; and on the 11th of the Kalends of November, Saint Mark Bishop of Jerusalem and Martyr. Finally the Carmelites from their own added the feasts of Saint Peter Thomas Bishop and Confessor (whom afterwards with no suitable argument they began to venerate as a Martyr) on the 7th of the Ides of January, Cyril Confessor not Pontiff on the day before the Nones of March, Albert Bishop and Confessor on the 6th of the Ides of April (about whom we are now treating, and have shown that he died a Martyr), Angelus Martyr on the 3rd of the Nones of May, Elisha the Prophet on the 18th of the Kalends of July, Elijah the Prophet on the 13th of the Kalends of August, Albert of Drepanum on the 3rd of the Ides of August.

[90] And here it helps to observe, that although on almost every day the Greek Monks and Clerics, in the very church of the Holy Sepulchre, were venerating with a prolix Office various Saints of the Latins; yet as the Latin Canons inserted none of them, But by the Carmelites, who dismissed all the more illustrious Saints of Syria except a few Jerusalemite Bishops, into the Latin Calendar, to which alone they had been accustomed; so neither did the first Carmelites take care to insert the same into their calendars; not even those chief founders or restorers of monastic life in Syria, Hilarion, Euthymius, Sabas, Chariton, Theodosius, Gerasimus. And shall it not be permitted to doubt whether their ancestors at some time used Greek books and rites? Nay, even the rapture of Elijah (whom that he may be believed and called the Founder, not merely the Patron, of the Order, their descendants so strenuously contend), they did not learn to venerate from them: for the Greeks celebrate this, according to the Jerusalemite Typicon of Saint Sabas, on July 20; but the Carmelites perhaps did not even celebrate it at all in the first centuries after Albert; then when the supplement of the Martyrology was printed, of which we made mention above, under the Octave of the disciple Elisha they assumed the master to be venerated on the 15th of the Kalends of July, and kept that day, until Baronius, the reviser of the Roman Martyrology, taught to restore Elijah's proper day from the Menology of Sirlet.

[91] But whom, besides those named above, either from their own Order they aggregated to the Saints, or from the number of ancient Saints they transferred to themselves; others added less suited to them by what right they did so I do not investigate: yet I think, as to the ancient ones, the first occasion for venerating them was not received by the Carmelites because they believed they had been of their Order; but because they possessed some notable Relics of them, as all the Latins then were most zealous collectors of Relics; or because in Cyprus, the first Province to which the Order was transferred, and as it were the other mother of the rest, they had particular veneration there. For, to say something of each, a Cypriot was Saint Spiridion, who is now inscribed in the Carmelite calendar, as Bishop and Confessor of our Order on November 14; and yet he was not even a monk; but before his Episcopate a married farmer, who had his wife and daughter with him as long as they lived, nor is he afterwards read to have lived otherwise than as Bishop. With the same titles was offered to the calendar

to be inserted into the aforesaid calendar Saint Serapion, on November 30; about whose monasticism before his entering the Antiochene chair however there is not a word anywhere among the ancients, much less about him afterwards having received it. Saint Anastasius the Persian, monk and Martyr, how many Orders snatch him to themselves, by what right none of them relies on, we have seen on January 22. In February the Carmelites have claimed Saint Euphrosyna, in March Euphrasia or Eupraxia, Virgins; monastic indeed, but in Egypt; yet even these to have been of the Carmelitic Order more recent writers maintain, perhaps on the ground that a certain Enoch of Arimathaea is supposed the President of the Elians, converted to Christ on Carmel, and a companion of Saint Mark the Evangelist for imbuing the Egyptians with the Christian Religion and informing them with monastic institutes: for on this account they pretend that all Egyptian monasteries were Elian. But that Enoch, whom some of the Carmelites, others thinking otherwise, say to have been one of the 72 disciples of Christ, is not only not found in any catalogues of them (and we have many and ancient ones), but is not even named by any ancient writer who treats of Saint Mark, as will be seen on April 25.

[92] That this use was truly taken from the French and Belgian churches But that the discourse may return to the Breviary, used according to the custom of the Holy Sepulchre by the Canons and Carmelites without discrepancy, and that Tyre's saying may be confirmed, asserting that in its institution at Jerusalem the order was observed "which the great and most ample churches beyond the mountains observe"; come, let us compare it with the older Gallican and Belgian Breviaries, wherever they differ from the Roman Breviary, agreeing with the use of the Canons and Carmelites. In these in the first place the whole Psalter is placed, disposed through the days of the week, but so that all the Psalms are placed in their own order, even if they ought not to be read in such order. Hence in the Sunday after Psalm 3 is placed this Rubric: "These two following Psalms are not said in that nocturn," and they are Psalm 5 "When I called" and 6 "My words incline your ear." Then after Matins are reported Psalm 21 with the four following, which are recited at Prime in the Ferial office on various days: subsequently is placed the remaining Psalter, up to after vespers of Monday, where are interposed those which are to be said at Prime, Terce, Nones, on account of Psalm 118 "Blessed are the undefiled."

[93] With Antiphons of the Trinity Secondly in the Breviary of the Carmelites and Regulars, other Antiphons than in the Roman are prescribed, to be recited after the Trinity at Matins; and they consist each of two verses, such as this first for the first nocturn:

By the merits of faith he is rightly called blessed, Who meditates on the law of the Lord night and day.

And the same are in the Auxerre, Rheims, and several other Breviaries. Thirdly in the same for Advent the office which the Regulars and Carmelites recite differs from the Roman: for on Saturday the first Chapter is set forth, "He who is to come will come and will not tarry"; but the Invitatory is such: By the Office through Advent "Behold the King comes, let us go to meet our Savior"; the first Lesson at Matins is from the Prologue of Saint Jerome on Isaiah, "Let no one, when he has seen the Prophets described in verse, think them to be bound by meter among the Hebrews"; in the third Nocturn is read the Gospel according to Matthew, "When Jesus drew near to Jerusalem, and had come to Bethphage to the Mount of Olives, then he sent two of his disciples, saying: Go to the village, which is against you": which according to the Roman rite would be read only on Palm Sunday; and the Gospels which by the same rite should be read on the first, second, third Sundays of Advent, are had in the said Breviaries for the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Sundays.

[94] With Gospels of the Sundays after Pentecost Finally in the summer part, for the day of the Holy Trinity, the first six Lessons are prescribed from Saint Augustine, "We believe the holy and individual Trinity, that is, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, one omnipotent God"; and the Gospel at the third Nocturn is according to John, about Nicodemus, who came by night to Christ; in Lauds, however, individual Antiphons have annexed to them a Verse, in this way: "Antiph. O blessed and blessed Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Vers. To Thee praise, to Thee glory, to Thee thanksgiving." Moreover, the first Sunday after the Octave of Pentecost, is prescribed from Luke the parable about the rich glutton; and the following Gospels of the Sundays through a whole week are all transferred, because the Gospel which in the Roman Church is read on the most holy Trinity feast itself, "Be merciful as your Father is merciful," according to the above-named breviaries is read on the fourth Sunday after Pentecost. More it does not please or is there space to gather: let these suffice, that anyone may recognize, that the whole order of the Carmelite Breviary has flowed from the Latin churches: with no trace or shadow of a foreign rite but if anyone still doubts, let him consult the Euchologia, Synaxaria, Liturgica, Triodia, Paracletica, Menaea, Anthologia and Menologia of the Greeks: in which if he shall find anything that the Carmelites seem to have retained from the Greeks, we shall give our hands and testimony to the truth. The change of rite and language (which yet after so many centuries has not yet happened to the Basilian monasteries in Italy, although they now receive almost only Italians) is not a suitable excuse, by which many things (if truly there were any) proper to the whole Order from immemorial time before the Latins came, especially around the cult of the Saints, ought not to have been retained. Whence it seems far more advisable to consider this Order, which we know, the Carmelitan, as different from any Order of the Greeks or Syrians.

[95] The Carmelitic Martyrology also The things said thus far about the Breviary, ought to be understood also of the Martyrology, which is to be recited according to the Latin rite after Prime. For the Martyrology of Saint Mary the Virgin, brought to the Carmelites at Cologne from their convent at Frankfurt, and written when Saint Thomas of Canterbury had already been placed among the Saints — the latest of all those recounted there; how different it is from the text of Usuard, which the Roman Church then used, it so agrees word for word with that which the church of Saint Lupus of Troyes used (such as other Martyrologies of the Regular Canons throughout Gaul also must have been, which could no doubt be proved by more copies, is the same as that of the Regular Canons in Gaul if they exist elsewhere), as that Martyrology is still preserved there, written in an entirely elegant character, and inscribed in the catalogue of the books of that church in the year 1487 by Nicolas Forjot the Abbot.

[96] In that Carmelitic Martyrology and in its supplement printed afterwards, aforementioned, is absent the name and memory of Saint Joseph the foster-father of Christ: and therefore we are compelled to retract and disapprove our conjecture, by which, these matters not yet being fully discussed, we tried to make it probable to ourselves and others at March 19, and in it is found the feast of Saint Joseph more recently added that the Carmelites in festively venerating Saint Joseph had first given the example to the other Mendicants, as those who had been long accustomed to that cult in Syria. For neither does the manuscript Breviary from the use of the Holy Sepulchre agree, lacking that feast, except that the Kalendar interpolated entirely by a more recent hand has the name of Joseph; nor did the Carmelites learn from the Easterners, most solemnly venerating Saint Joseph within the Octave of the Lord's Nativity, to venerate him in March: but the Carmelitic Breviary, in which is inserted a new Office of Saint Joseph composed at the beginning of the 16th century, first appeared after those years in which we said the Franciscans received the cult of Saint Joseph; so that the opinion of the Fathers, by which Mantuanus sang that the solemnities of Saint Joseph were added to the Carmelite Fasts, should be judged of no other Fathers than those who in some Chapter of the Order, gathered in the age of Mantuanus himself, moved by the example of other Orders, so sanctioned it should be done.

CHAPTER X.

The Rule of Blessed Albert approved by the Supreme Pontiffs.

[97] [In the letters of Innocent to Albert there is nothing about the hermits in Carmel] From those letters of Pope Innocent III, which the same Apostolic gave to Albert, Legate of the Apostolic See in the Holy Land, it is sufficiently apparent, that the Legate himself did nothing of any great matter, concerning which, according to the custom of Legates, he did not refer to the holy See itself, awaiting counsel and mandate: for a Legate does not easily use the fullness of the power committed to him, where there is no danger in delay, and a business of greater moment to the commonwealth is being treated. If Lezana, who diligently scrutinized the whole of the Vatican Register, had found several Epistles of the same to the same, and in them even the least mention of any hermits in Syria, he would no doubt have inserted it in his Annals. Which since it has not been done, nor in those which we have said were published is any such thing read; we are altogether forced to believe, that the beginnings of the Order under Brocard were still so thin, and the Rule itself was thus handed over in the manner of a private instruction to those few hermits; that Albert himself, not knowing how great a seed he was laying, did not think any more of informing the Pontiff about it, than any other Bishop would at that time have thought of calling upon the Pontiff, instituting some pious confraternity among his subjects, and privately ordering it with laws, to attain the proposed end of the union of the new assembly. The same thing is much more to be felt of Haymericus of Antioch and Amalric of Jerusalem Patriarchs, under whom those Hermits were first gathered and perhaps also obtained the right of religious profession.

[98] But if there had been to be subjected to the obedience of one, as Prior General, hermitages either all or many even of the Greeks and Syrians; of diverse language, morals, institutes, rites; or if the Latins previously mingled with the same had to be removed from the obedience of their former Superiors, with the Order then still thin and obscure that they might be gathered under one head of their own nation; and again, if to them, already divided among several monasteries, and inhabiting not only forests but also cities, a Rule to be handed down had flown through all of Palestine; how many letters of Patriarchs, how many responses of Pontiffs about this would have been needed? They may serve as examples which are found in the prior commentary to Saint William on February 10, about the union of the Augustinian Hermits and others not very different in Tuscany, and yet they are scarcely the tenth part of the monuments that could have been alleged. With no less effort was the matter accomplished, when in imitation of certain Canons of Lucca, who in the church of Saint Frigidianus had reduced themselves to the norm of the Apostolic life, others in other places and even at Rome at the Lateran Basilica began to live regularly together, whence was born or reborn the order of Regular Canons. Therefore whatever and however much increase came to the Carmelites, which by its magnitude could fall into the eyes and conversations of men, all came after the Rule was given, indeed after Albert's own death.

[99] He himself having been removed from the living, in the year 1215 the ecumenical Lateran Council was celebrated, and their ancestors harassed by the title of novelty and in it a decree was made of this kind: "Lest too great a diversity of religions should introduce grave offense in the Church of God, we firmly forbid, that anyone henceforth should devise a new religion:

but whoever wishes to be converted to religion, let him take one of those approved; similarly whoever wishes to found a new house, let him take the Rule and institution from those approved." This, as also the other decrees of that Council, was indeed immediately brought to Syria and soon communicated to the Bishops; yet only gradually were troubles stirred against the Carmelites, and increased by their daily more notable growth at the fountain, Prelates and others complaining that the constitution of the Council was being transgressed, in that they, without the profession of any Rule known and received in Europe, were allowed thus to live and increase. And thus increased and multiplied complaints drove Brocard and the Brothers they allege nothing else than that the Rule had been given before the Council to hasten to the Apostolic See for a remedy, that they might be permitted to remain in the Rule of Albert which they had received, and it might be considered approved by the Pontiff. But to obtain this, they did not allege the antiquity of their Order, nor other infinite things which could have been alleged, if all those things were true with which the Annals of Lezana are full: they did not say that their ancestors had had as a Rule for so many preceding centuries the book of John on the institution of monks, because when these things were being sought that one had not yet been fabricated; nor finally did they seek excuse for their novelty from the Rule of Saint Basil, most approved in the whole East and West, which would have been most efficacious if it had been true. What then? This alone, which alone the Pontiff indicates in his rescript: for apostils are usually conformed to the supplications. The rescript is as follows:

[100] "Honorius, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to the beloved sons Prior and Brothers Hermits of Mount Carmel, greeting and Apostolic blessing. and they obtain his confirmation in the year 1226 That you and your successors hereafter, as much as you can with God's help, may observe the norm of living regularly, given by the Patriarch of Jerusalem of good memory (the name of Albert perhaps fell out to the transcribers, because according to the custom of that age it was written by only the initial A), which before the general Council you say you humbly received, we enjoin you in remission of your sins. Given at Rieti on the 3rd of the Kalends of February, in the 10th year of our Pontificate," this is the first Bull given to them that is, of Christ 1226.

This is the first Apostolic Bull that is known to have been given to the Brothers Hermits of Mount Carmel: and this name seems to have pleased the increased and more widely known assembly, as more worthy and more famous than the one they still used under Albert, when they were only named "Brothers at the fountain."

[101] To him asserting this to be the first Bull, there will be opposed the Indulgences, granted (as is reported) by Leo IV (Leo began to sit in the year 848), and indeed in this formula: "Pope Leo the Fourth, to all the faithful of Christ, who shall devoutly visit the churches of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel on these feasts: the Nativity of the Lord, for of Pope Leo IV, Easter, the Apostles Peter and Paul, Pentecost, the Assumption, Annunciation, Purification of the same blessed Mother of God and ever Virgin Mary, Saint Michael the Archangel, All Saints, on the two feasts of the Holy Cross, the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist, the holy Martyrs Fabian and Sebastian, and on Good Friday, and through the Octaves of the aforesaid feasts, and of the titles of all the Churches of the said Order, and have bestowed pious alms, or have repaired the broken houses of the same Order, seven years and twelve quadragesimas." Then are named Adrian II created in the year 867; and the Indulgences of other following Popes Stephen V, consecrated in the year 885; Sirgilius III, unknown to all the catalogues of Pontiffs; John X, elected in 913; John XI, installed in 931; Sergius V, whom we must still hope is to come, for the last of this name, promoted in the year 1009, is numbered the Fourth; and Innocent IV; who are said to have relaxed in the Lord "to those visiting, assisting, etc. the aforesaid churches, the third part of all their offenses."

[102] There exists in Lezana at the year 1245 number 7 edited from the mirror of the Order, and written in a more probable style, a Bull of that Innocent, then from the form of more certain Indulgences by which he asks that "aids of charity be bestowed on the Prior and Brothers Hermits of Mount Carmel," as being then from Syria crossed in greater number into Europe, seven years after some Cypriot and Sicilian brothers had begun to migrate; and to make them more ready for that pious work, "to all truly penitent and confessed, who shall have extended the hand of charity to them, ten days of the penance enjoined on them he mercifully relaxes." Let the reader now see whether this parsimony agrees with that liberality which above is attributed to one and the same Pontiff in the same cause. Certainly if this last Bull is true (for in the Mare magnum of privileges no such is found, but another by which it is granted to the Brothers to celebrate divine things in time of Interdict), if, I say, the later bull is true, it effectively overthrows the pretended bull of the same Pontiff and of others preceding and especially of Leo IV. For what need was there for the Carmelites to solicit the Pontiff, for a small Indulgence of ten days with the burden of confession to be premised, if they were certain about indulgences obtained about four hundred years earlier, for the same cause and without such a burden, of seven years and twelve quadragesimas?

[103] both are rejected from the style of the pretended bull Learned men in the Roman Curia know, and now commonly agree, that such formulas for giving Indulgences did not begin to be used in the church until the 11th and 12th century; and without difficulty refute one or another fictitious example of earlier time, which might be objected to the contrary. Yet I do not wish to use this argument; I do not wish to say that in the whole form of that Bull which is attributed to Leo there is nothing that reflects the style of the Pontifical letters of that age. For convicting the imposture the first three words suffice, "Pope Leo the Fourth." For who at that time thus began, as Pontiff? See how many Bulls of Pontiffs Ughellus has in his whole work, given in the 9th century or in adjacent ones; you will find all begin with this form: "N. Bishop, servant of the servants of God": thus the fifth after the said Leo, Marinus, first of his name, wrote in the year 882 to Daniel Abbot of Solenniac in Gaul in volume 1 of Italia sacra, column 132; thus others after him for many centuries, thus before him probably all after Saint Gregory the Great, who, about to repel the pride of John of Constantinople, writing himself Ecumenical Patriarch, first called himself "Servant of the servants of God," by a title most commendable to posterity.

[104] Likewise from consideration of the places for which they would have been given But what are those houses or churches in whose favor these things would be decreed? Situated in Asia or Europe? In the latter that not even one is named, about which by any probable argument it becomes plausible that it existed before the time of the aforementioned migration, I will demonstrate partly in chapter 2 of the Preliminary Tractate before volume 2, partly in the following May when I shall treat of Saints Angelus and Simon. In Asia whatever monasteries there were, were inhabited by natives, not even the Carmelites themselves will dare to deny; indeed they freely concede this, when they say that their ancestors, before the coming of the Latins, had used the Greek writings of Saint Basil or of John of Jerusalem as a Rule. But these, often schismatic and always Greek or Syrian, that is, wholly depending on the Patriarchs and Bishops of their own rite, scarcely allowing the Roman See to be appealed to in the most arduous matters of faith or of the church; shall we say they had hastened to Rome to obtain Indulgences? By what example will that be proved, I do not say for the 9th, 10th, or 11th century; but even for later centuries, when many Greek Bishops professed union with the Roman Church and held it for a long time? At least we have thus far seen no example in the lives and histories of so many Greek Saints.

[105] The Mare magnum of Sixtus IV has nothing similar But why do I say these things at such length? There exists in Emanuel Rodericus's collection of Apostolic Privileges granted to Regulars mendicant and non-mendicant, a very long diploma of Sixtus IV, given on the 4th of the Kalends of December 1476, which, on account of the multitude and amplitude of privileges, the Carmelites call their Mare magnum; "and it is had authentically in the convent of Saint Francis at Salamanca, through Lord John of Castella Bishop of the cathedral of Salamanca"; in which the Pontiff intending to innovate, confirm and approve all things which had been indulged and constituted by very many Roman Pontiffs his predecessors, for the increase of divine worship and of the said Order, and the salvation of souls, took care to have the letters issued thereupon diligently inspected in the Chancery, and the tenor of all of them inserted word for word into his Constitution. But the privileges are about fifty, but they are all of those Pontiffs who presided over the Church of God after the Order was translated into Europe; none of any earlier than Innocent IV.

[106] You will reply: there is also in the same Emanuel another diploma of the same Pontiff, with the same exordium as the first, which is said to be the later Bull given by the same with very few words changed, in which (as if about to supply the defect of the prior Bull, for he had said nothing about Indulgences) he gathers together all graces of this kind granted by his predecessors, beginning with the Bull of Leo IV. But that diploma proceeds in a style very different after the exordium. For he who in the former was most cautious and expressed the whole tenor of individual ones, not at all fearing to extend his diploma to such great amplitude; here most sparing of parchment and words, summarizes the decrees of twenty-two Pontiffs in one little sheet; all, as if they were inserted word for word, wishing to be held sufficiently expressed, and this on the faith, as is pretended, of Christopher Martignon Master General, asserting "that such privileges and indults had been received in the houses of the Order, and their contents were most fittingly found in public writings in the churches of the said Order... yet for this, that on account of the singularity of the privileges, the original letters thereupon had not come into the hands of the General, nor could it be taught about them otherwise than as is stated, about the force and efficacy of them several doubts have arisen and more are feared to arise; to which to provide opportunely the General had petitioned, the Pontiff assented."

[107] Indeed I think the ministers of the Roman Curia will never believe, that in the Pontiff, as appeared from what has gone before, it seems that neither the Pontiff nor the General acted rightly enough most prudent, and requiring everything on the faith of the Chancery, so great a change was made in a space of four months. Nor is it a slight injury, as it seems to me at least, inflicted on the General himself, when he is believed to have had so much presumption, that having experienced the greatest care of the Pontiff, confirming nothing except most thoroughly ascertained things; he should have dared to offer him privileges, as granted to the whole Order, whose, I do not say original letters, but not even copies he exhibited; nor did he say in what places they were preserved: for if they were anywhere, he could certainly have been instructed about them otherwise than as appears to have been done. But that nothing in truth could be taught about them I am convinced by a great argument, when I see in the Annals of Lezana (for the elaboration of which it is known that by the mandate of the General all the chests and archives of the whole Order were shaken out) that of all the Bulls of so many Pontiffs as are cited in that suspect Sixtine diploma, not one

copy is found, which, entirely produced in those same Annals, would gain credence while the others still lay hidden: for it would be of great moment for proving the truth of the presumed antiquity, if anywhere were found a proof or authentic document of privileges given to the Order before Albert. Did then incorrupt Bulls, and copies of them extant everywhere, up to the times of Martignon for six hundred years suddenly fail, and, the comedy acted before the Pontiff having been performed, disappear?

[108] Fearing the sharper eyes of the curial ministers and the weakness of the testimony, Lezana, when at Rome in the year 1648 he was printing the fifth volume of the Summa Quaestionum Regularium, so that Lezana himself scarcely dared on the Mare magnum of the Orders of Preachers, Minors, Hermits of Saint Augustine, Carmelites with their Rule, Servites and Minims (for once the example was made in the Preachers and Minors, the others also zealously took care to obtain a similar renovation of all their Privileges), did not dare to insert that second Sixtine in it; seeing that it was without example, and not wishing to expose it to the judgments of the Canonists, by whom he did not doubt that his own work was to be thoroughly sifted. But a decade later, elaborating the third volume of his Annals, and made more confident by success, he did not indeed insert that Sixtine suspect to us in the Annals, yet made some mention of it at the year 847, to make mention of it confirming the Leonine bull by the authority of Baptista Mantuanus, speaking of it as though visible to all in his Apologia: but in the fourth volume, at the Pontificate of Sixtus, where was the proper place for treating of the said Sixtine, he is again deeply silent about it, and only speaks of the first and for us undoubted. As for those so ancient Indulgences themselves, let him who will read our commentary on Saint Patrick at March 17 §10, and he will judge those Leonine ones to be plainly similar to those which the Glastonian tablets, rather to be called fables, contain; where both many other things less fitting to the Patrician age are said, and Patrick himself is feigned to write: "That beyond the ten years of Indulgences obtained for that place through Saints Phagan and Derwian from Saint Eleutherius Pope, I myself Brother Patrick, acquired from Pope Celestine of pious memory twelve years."

[109] And let these things said in favor of Honorius III suffice, lest there perish to him among the Carmelites the grace of his benefit, Without foundation others are said to have confirmed the Order before Honorius if another before him is said to have opened the door of Pontifical beneficence, whence so many and great privileges afterwards flowed. Some introduce, from mere conjecture, as it appears, earlier approvals of the Order obtained from Alexander III and likewise Innocent III; which if they had ever been given, the Carmelites would not have omitted to mention them, when for the faculty of retaining the Albertine Rule they had recourse to Honorius III. Certainly of this Honorius alone Gregory IX makes mention, when imparting after him Gregory IX did this in the year 1230 "to the beloved sons, Prior and Brothers Hermits of the hermitage of Mount Carmel, greeting and Apostolic blessing," through a Bull given at Perugia, on the 8th of the Ides of April, in the 3rd year of the Pontificate, of Christ 1230, on the 8th of the Ides of April, in which Bull he explains and confirms the Rule in these words: "Out of the due circumspection of our office we are held to apply solicitous caution... wherefore by the authority of the present we more strictly forbid that henceforth you receive into the property of your hermitage, or presume in any way to have places or possessions or houses or other revenues, beyond asses, mules and some animals or fowls for nourishment" (namely milk and eggs)... "Moreover also the Rule, approved by our predecessor Pope Honorius of good memory, and handed by him to you to be observed in remission of sins, by Apostolic authority we confirm, and command it to be observed in the same place for perpetual times."

[110] when the Carmelites still dwelt only on Carmel Hitherto one hermitage, one place, and that on Carmel, had become known to the Pontiff, nor any other name than "Brothers of the Hermitage of Mount Carmel." Meanwhile Saracen and after him the author of the Lections falsely attributed to the Lateran Regulars, feign of Albert, that not only "did he command a monastery to be rebuilt on Carmel" (by no sufficiently certain witness indeed, yet not altogether incredibly insofar as Albert by some liberality of his could have helped the Hermits, to multiply their cells, or to fortify them with a common enclosure), "but also that he, studying with the highest vigilance to extend and enlarge the eremitic life in the manner of cenobites, took care that another monastery be built near Ptolemais, and did the same in the cities of Tyre, Sarepta, Sidon, Tripolis, Lebanon; and this before the year 1207, in which he set that Brocard died." But the form of cenobitic life was first in Europe superinduced on the eremitic: and in the year 1230 Brocard was still alive according to our Chronotaxis, passing the penultimate year of his life. Under whom, although the Order did not leave Carmel, the Lord seems to have given such increase to the newly planted that, with the number vehemently increased and alms flowing in, there could have been designed or even actually built that most ample church, than which he reported he had seen none larger to Paleonydorus, as he himself says in book 3 chapter 10, "Master William, a citizen of Haarlem, who in the year 1489 had been with many on Mount Carmel, with all the cells destroyed and long since the Hermits having moved to Europe." but increased in number For on this occasion the Brothers seem to have been accused before the Pontiff of acquiring houses and goods. Perhaps also some other Latin Hermits in the Holy Land, of the same institution and Rule, aspired to the companionship, that among the daily dangers from barbarians growing stronger and stronger they might protect themselves better, and have a refuge, the very situation of the place and the multitude of the inhabitants being secure from incursions: who when they transcribed not only their own persons, but also their hermitages and small farms added to them, into the property of the Carmelite hermitage, and on the contrary the Bishops claimed those things as devolved to the church; it was decided to have recourse to the Pontiff, who in the precited Bull so forbade any possessions to be held, yet to soften the pain of the refusal, he renewed the approval of the Rule. Nay rather, in the same year, on the third day after the prior Bull was given, namely April 5, the same Pontiff thus beginning, "The honesty of your Religion deserves, that embracing you in the bowels of Christ, we should consent to your supplications, as much as we can with God... we receive," he says, "your persons and the place, in which you are handed over to divine service, under the protection of Blessed Peter and Paul and ours, and fortify it with the patronage of this writing." Twenty years after these things, in 1250, writing to the Order a privilege of altogether similar tenor, Innocent IV, not singularly "place," but "places" in the plural names, on account of the multiplication of the said Order meanwhile made by several convents in various regions.

[111] What if the aforesaid prohibition of Gregory IX impelled Cyril, Brocard's successor, to send out colonies of his Hermits to those places, and shortly after divided into several places the possession of which could not be retained otherwise, and likewise to unburden himself of the more abundant number of his subjects, by setting over individual places one of the elders with the title of Vicar or Subprior? Thus we shall understand why the aforesaid Innocent IV, in the year 1246 commending those about to flee from Syria, excuses them "because on account of the incursions of the pagans, they cannot dwell in the mansions which they have in the transmarine parts"; likely meaning to signify something more than one place on Carmel. Thus also it will be able to be believed without scruple, what the author of the Chronicle wrote about the destruction of the monasteries of the Holy Land and about the multiplication of the order through Europe: [if yet this author is altogether sincere; for this is doubtful given the year of the Rule given, which within a hundred years could not have come into such oblivion that an author living in the year 1291 should write that it had been given in 1199. But that author such as he is enumerates ten or twelve places, 12 are counted and concludes: "Now all the aforesaid monasteries took their institution and Rule from the monastery of Mount Carmel, and were subject to the said monastery and its Prior": which understood of hermitages could have been verified, at least under Cyril, with no authority to the contrary standing against it. Under the same Cyril also, or a little before in Brocard's last years, the usage could have been introduced by which either the hermits themselves called themselves Brothers of Blessed Mary of Mount Carmel, as those who held her as their very special Patroness; when also they began to be called Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary or the common people so began to name them, on account of the church which they had newly erected for her and no doubt dedicated with great celebrity, as in Italy we see some Religious named from the Patron of their church. The Apostolic See, however, which under Honorius III had begun to use the simple name of "Hermits of Mount Carmel," continued to use the same up to after the year 1250, in which the Virgin Mary appearing to Blessed Simon promised him every favor from Innocent IV; who in Briefs given afterwards began to address the Brothers by that name by which they themselves in the Chapter, as we think, of Aylesford of the year 1245, had decreed themselves always and everywhere to be named, which the Pontiffs themselves followed after the year 1250 and by which they were everywhere commonly called in Europe. For that in the mirror of the Order, the first Brief of Gregory IX, after the Rule approved by Honorius at the persuasion of the most blessed Virgin appearing to him in a vision, given in the immediately following year, used the title of "Hermits of Saint Mary of Carmel," did not have following, as appears from several diplomas given afterwards, even by Innocent IV himself before the aforesaid year.

CHAPTER XI.

The Albertine Rule increased and mitigated by the Roman Pontiffs.

[112] To the increased Order in Europe After the death of Saint Cyril, the migration to Europe having been decreed, gradually the Order spread itself, and like a shoot of noble seed, transferred from a squalid and thirsty desert to a well-watered field, in a short time made wonderful progress. The first islands, Cyprus, Sicily, England, received the new men from Asia, where when several hermitages had grown up, rather than dwellings, the administration of the Order was divided into three Provinces, which up to that point had consisted under one Prior: but the title of "Holy Land" remained to those who dwelt in Cyprus, which Peter Raymundi the 15th General, elected in 1342, confirmed by his authority. While the Hermits were thus being increased, honor was also increased to them, and with no one any longer resisting they continued to be counted among the religious Orders. the Rule is increased and mitigated The Rule also seemed in some places to need to be increased, in others to be mitigated, as it now had to serve not one assembly, for which it had been instituted; but a Congregation scattered through many places and to be scattered through more. Innocent IV had this at heart, created Pontiff in the year 1243, and in the 5th year of his Pontificate issued a constitution with this beginning:

[113] by Innocent IV in the year 1247 "Innocent, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to the beloved sons Prior and Brothers Hermits of Mount Carmel, greeting and Apostolic blessing.

Those things which contain the honor of the Creator of all and the profit of souls, are to be supported by the strength of perpetual protection: but especially those things over which the authority of the Apostolic See is known to have had the care of saving providence. Therefore since we, at the urging of your supplication, through the beloved son Hugh Presbyter Cardinal of the title of Saint Sabina, through Commissaries and our Venerable Brother William Bishop of Antaradus, have caused certain doubts of your Rule to be declared and corrected, and also certain grave things of the same mercifully to be mitigated, as is more fully contained in the letters made thereupon; We assenting to your pious supplications, confirm by Apostolic authority the declaration and correction and mitigation of this kind. Now we have caused the tenor of those letters themselves to be noted word for word in the present, which is as follows."

[114] at the supplication of the General and Definitors "Brother Hugh, by divine mercy Presbyter Cardinal of the title of Saint Sabina, and Brother William by the same mercy Bishop of Antaradus, to our dearest sons in Christ, religious men, the Prior General and Definitors of the General Chapter, of the Order of the Brothers of the most glorious Mother of God and ever-Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, greeting in all saving things." Note the titles, heaped up more exaggeratedly than the Pontiff uses: they say "Prior General" and "Definitors of the General Chapter"; so that you cannot doubt, that then already the Order, divided into three Provinces as we said, had begun in many ways to be regulated after the norm of the other Mendicants: for the Franciscans and Augustinian Hermits called Definitors those, to whom being elected by votes the greater matters to be directed and defined were committed. The Commissaries proceed: "The Brother Clerics Raynald and Peter of your Order coming to the Apostolic See, on your behalf, humbly asked Lord Pope, that certain things in your privilege and Rule, formerly handed to you by Albert Patriarch of Jerusalem of happy memory, which are contained as doubts, he would deign to declare, correct, and some grave things mercifully mitigate. Since therefore the Lord Pope, assenting to their devout supplications, has committed to us, that we should make the declaration, correction, and mitigation of this kind in his place, according to what we should see fitting for the good state of the Order and the salvation of the Brothers; we command your Religion by the authority which we exercise, that receiving devotedly the Rule corrected, declared, and mitigated by us, as we have seen expedient, you firmly observe it, and after the example of the same correct your other Rules, which we send to you through the same brothers under our seals in this form."

[115] "Albert by the grace of God called Patriarch of the Jerusalemite Church, etc., as above": in it the Profession of three vows is prescribed here it will be enough to note those things which have been added or changed, and at the same time to recognize how the Carmelite Order came gradually more and more to the form of cenobitic life, which it now observes, leaving behind the first institute of eremitic profession. For first, because in it they had expressly vowed nothing else than obedience to be preserved to the Prior according to chapter 1, and the Brothers were afraid, lest without an explicit profession of three religious vows, some might deny the Carmelites to be held as true Religious (namely from the sense of the ignorant common people, for an explicit profession of three vows was not customary in the old monasticism, and is not even now used among the Benedictines), it was provided that it should be added "obedience to be promised and preserved with chastity and renunciation of property." And hence again let the Reader judge, of what age was he who wrote the book De institutione monachorum, when, treating most distinctly of the three religious vows, he concludes, "that the observance of three vows with charity makes the perfect Religious," which before the times of the mendicants was never so clearly expressed.

[116] Then, since they had begun to dwell not now in one place, as under Albert, but in several and very distant ones, fitting designation of places concerning which matter nothing had been constituted in Albert's rule; a new chapter is composed in these words: "Now you may have places in hermitages or wherever they shall have been given to you, apt and commodious for the observance of your Religion, according as it shall seem expedient to the Prior and Brothers." Note, "Of your religion": this was then the formula of speaking, formerly not so: from this heading also Bivarius rightly accuses Pseudo-John of novelty, who repeatedly and to nausea uses the appellation "Of this our Religion." Concerning the constitution of separate cells (such as even now in the Camaldulensian Order, and to some extent in the Carthusian are had) nothing was innovated, neither now nor afterwards by a written ordination; only the more commodious and more regular use of one greater house, observed in the other European monasteries, tacitly and gradually abrogated or mitigated the Rule: only now it was added, "So that cells be had separately, the use of a common refectory but not, as before, in them individually taking food separately, which the aforesaid Camaldulensians and Carthusians observe; but in common," say the Commissaries, "refectory, those things which shall have been bestowed on you (hearing in common some reading of sacred Scripture) where it may conveniently be done, you may take."

[117] The beginning of the Sixth Chapter is changed thus: "Those who know how to say the Canonical Hours with the Clerics, and the recitation of the Hours with clerics let them say them according to the institutions of the Holy Fathers and the approved custom of the Church." Whence we gather that the Clerics who were in the Order were already then accustomed, and perhaps from the time of Saint Cyril after the construction of the new church, to come together for the common recitation of the Office within the church: to whom also those not Clerics, if they know letters, may or even should join themselves, is here established. Concerning chant, when it was introduced into the Order, I do not find: by the example and emulation of the other Mendicants I should not doubt that it was assumed. The end of the Seventh Chapter, in which the Hermits were commanded "singly, from those things which shall have been distributed, to live in their cells," that is, to eat, with the use of a common refectory now prescribed, is abolished: and in its place are substituted words, from the above related Constitution of Gregory IX, something is relaxed in poverty and abstinence "It shall be lawful for you to have asses or mules, as your necessity shall require, and some animals or fowls for nourishment." Chapter XI, in which the use of meat is forbidden, seemed to need some mitigation, and therefore is added: "And because you must frequently beg when traveling, lest you be burdensome to your hosts, you may outside your houses take stews cooked with meats: but also meats at sea it will be lawful to eat." Finally the time of silence, which was defined in Chapter XIV, is described thus: "We establish that after Compline has been said you keep silence, until Prime has been said of the following day."

[118] Exercises toward the neighbor This mitigation having been obtained, and the Order having been led from the rigor of the eremitic life to the moderation of the cenobitic; except that the hermitages or monasteries were constructed not within cities but in suburban woodlets or gardens; very many, cultivated in the Theological faculty before they had come to the Order, by the express consent of Innocent IV through a Brief dispatched in the year 1254, by the example of the other Mendicants, began to devote themselves to the preaching of the divine word, the hearing of confessions, and similar exercises toward neighbors, and under that pretext to run about through cities two by two; with perhaps not small fruit, yet with a no small offense of those who, zealous for the first form of the Order, foresaw a great dissolution of ancient discipline for future times. Among these was Nicholas the Gaul, after the death of Blessed Simon Stock around the year 1265 Prior General, though introduced with loss of the earlier solitude and in the fifth year after his election composed a book which he named Fiery Arrows. It is preserved thus far in manuscript, and from it Wastelius in section 5, article 3, brings forth some truly fiery and fit emissions, for kindling in however cold a breast a fervent love for keeping solitude: but so nothing was accomplished by these, that the holy man preferred to depart from the Generalate, rather than to endure that, as he believed, blemish growing worse under his rule.

[119] Gregory X permits them to use this in the year 1274 Meanwhile about these and other things complaints grew thick before Gregory X, who in a Constitution issued by him, in the 4th year of his Pontificate, of Christ 1274, judged that the other Mendicants, introduced after the Lateran Council and not yet having merited the approval of the Apostolic See, should be suppressed, commanding them meanwhile to abstain from every exercise toward the neighbor: but concerning the four up to that time approved, he thus decreed: "As for the Orders of Preachers and Minors, whom their evident usefulness to the universal Church pronounces approved, we do not suffer the present constitution to be extended. But the Orders of the Carmelites and of the Hermits of Saint Augustine, whose institution preceded the General Council, we permit to remain in their state. For we intend, both about those, and about the remaining non-mendicant Orders also, until something else is established as we shall see expedient for the salvation of souls and their state, to provide." So there: nor was anything graver afterwards established, but rather greater liberty to act toward the people was granted, and almost all the privileges in this matter were granted, with which the Preachers and Minors were cumulated: which it will be permitted to read more fully in the Mare magnum, and to recognize by what Pontiff each was given, and with how great commendation of the Order.

[120] Now the Rule thus mitigated, this is the one which for a long time all the Carmelites everywhere observed, A new mitigation about the eating of meats even when many migrated into cities; and which Cherubinus Laertius in his Bullarium observes to be now kept by the Discalced Carmelites, adding that the other Carmelites, called Mitigated, observe only the same Rule with a new mitigation, made by Eugene IV, in whose Bull, given in the year 1435 on March 15, these things are had in §1. "On behalf of the beloved sons, John Faci, Master General, and Provincial and Cloistral Priors and all the Brothers of the Order of Blessed Mary of Mount Carmel, it has recently been set forth, that in certain Chapters of the Rule, handed to the Brothers of the said Order through Albert Patriarch of Jerusalem of good memory, among other things it is expressly provided, that the Brothers of the aforesaid Order should abstain from the eating of meats," etc. granted in the year 1435 and 1488 This rigor the Pontiff mitigates, and grants three days of each week, except days prohibited by common law to all, to eat meats. Sixtus IV then permitted the General of the Order to add more days, and by virtue of this indult it was dispensed also in the year 1488 on Monday.

CHAPTER XII.

On the Carpita or barred cape, granted to the Carmelites by Albert.

[121] Philip of Bergamo in the supplement of the Chronicles thus speaks at the year 1200: "The Order of the Carmelites at this very time in Syria on Mount Carmel is raised up by Albert Patriarch of Jerusalem, and is exalted by many privileges: who first offered and confirmed to be preserved the Rule made in his own right; in which for a habit to the Brothers of the same Order he assigned and established to be worn a cape of silk with certain broad stripes, namely white and gray, striped all around (in the manner of the Prophet Elijah, as they hand down)." That garment was an outer one and striped With almost the same description of the cape given by Albert

Saint Antoninus uses the same prescription. Where I do not marvel that the erection of the Carmelite Order is attributed to Albert, on account of the obscurity of the things preceding the beginnings: and because the Order must not yet be judged fully constituted, which does not yet have its own certain Rule or particular habit. But that in the Rule itself is said to be prescribed the habit, in which no mention at all of it is made, certainly needs correction. If it was prescribed by Albert (as indeed is most likely), it was prescribed after the Rule was given; when under it happily making progress, and proving themselves most especially to the Patriarch, they were judged worthy of new favors and privileges: of which because we read nothing in particular, we presume to say nothing: yet I dare to number among them the notable prerogative of a new habit, by which the Carmelites would not only be distinguished from the common hermits, but be extolled above all.

[122] Before I attempt to explain this in words, I place before the very eyes its form to be seen, with which Elijah is expressed in an ancient painting such as even today is seen at Salamanca, on the table of the main altar, within the old Cathedral; which began to be constructed around the year 1100, and was adorned with paintings by Sancho of Castile the Bishop around the year 1430, Father Gabriel de Henao, a most excellent Theologian of our Society, informed us; by whose agency the very distinguished man Anthony de Mora y Varona took care to have copied in colors an example of the image representing the mystery of the Lord's Transfiguration, from which you see taken this figure of Elijah, in that habit which the Carmelites earlier in Europe boasted was worn by himself in his manner, as Bergomensis and Antoninus narrate. There is joined to the image of Elijah the image of Blessed Josaphat, Archbishop of Polotsk of the Order of Saint Basil, and an excellent Martyr in Russia in this century, according to the Roman example, as is seen before the epitome of his life and miracles printed at Rome in the year 1643; and this for the confirmation and explanation of those things which are to be set forth here about the dignity of the sacred barrae, that it may be understood how honorable they were for the Carmelites, and in how great esteem they should be held.

[123] such a rod going around the pallium Observe therefore, besides the garments, different for each grade, of which there is use only in the divine liturgy, there is one garment common and daily to all, both Pontiffs and Monks of the Greeks, which is the upper garment, which the ancients by a Latin name called πάλλιον, but the writers of the middle age call by a proper name μάνδυον, μανδύην or μανδύαν: with this difference, that, as Isaac Habert notes on the Pontifical book of the Greek Church page 17 in the margin, "that garment is plain for Hieromonachi, but wavy for Pontiffs": as you see here in the pallium of Josaphat; and it is lawful to see in the Pallium of the Patriarch of Constantinople in James Goar in notes to the Euchologium page 115. But those twin waves (which the Teutones in their language would call baras, the Greeks call ποταμοὺς, that is, rivers) are of white color, and up to then used only by Bishops when the Pontifical μάνδυον itself is violet, as it usually is, and are led in a triple order, so that all six together are above the violet or purple colored pallium. And they are called rivers, says Symeon of Thessalonica, the most accurate interpreter of Greek rites, "on account of the voice of the Savior in the Gospel saying, 'He who believes in me, from his belly shall flow rivers of living water.'" Moreover the excellence denoted by these rivers was so well known in the middle age even in our Europe, that when Desiderius Abbot of Monte Cassino, created Roman Pontiff in the year 1086 and called Victor III, had contracted for the church of Saint Angelo ad formas in the city of Capua to be adorned with evangelical histories, the painter about to express the Pharisee, at whose table Christ reclining offered his feet to the sinning woman to be bathed with tears, adorned his pallium, as of some chief synagogue official, with a twin band running around the elbows; as of those of higher grade as is still to be seen there, and we have expressed in the most learned treatise of John James Chiflet On the Lord's Supper, which with some other unpublished lucubrations he wished to be given to us before his death, a monument of his benevolence toward us.

[124] Observe secondly, from Balsamon on Canon 7 of the Council of Constantinople under Photius, that it was the right of the Patriarchs to exempt certain monasteries from the ordinary jurisdiction of the Bishop, the Carmelites being exempted from the Ordinary's power and to subject them immediately to themselves, which thereafter were called ἐλέυθεραι μοναὶ, "free monasteries"; just as those which, set under the patronage of the Roman Pontiff among us, acknowledge no other Superior: by what ceremonies this was done, see in Isaac Habert page 644 on the Σταυροπηγίῳ or Cross-fixture. These things being observed, I say, Albert using his Patriarchal right, when he freed the Carmelites instructed with his Rule from the power of the Bishop of Acco (which was the first and chief of all Patriarchal privileges), not only did this in the customary manner of the Greeks or Latins; are communicated by the legislator Albert but wished that the indication of this exemption and privilege be expressed in their very habit, and therefore ordained that when the other monks and hermits subject to Bishops wore black or gray capes of one color, the Carmelites should similarly wear the same, but, as owing nothing to the Bishops, just as they distinguished them with white bands or rings; yet not sewn on but interwoven, and of equal interval running through the whole garment from top to bottom, in that form which at Salamanca is expressed. That this form was the very same which was preserved in the garments of the Bishops throughout Syria, although proved by no positive testimony, yet I will gladly concede: for it is not necessary to believe, that there was no difference between the rites and garments of the Constantinopolitan and Jerusalemite Patriarchates; when that is so notable between the pallium expressed by Goar and that here set forth in Blessed Josaphat, as you can see with your own eyes; though Russia remains subject to the Constantinopolitan Patriarch.

[125] Certainly the Pallium or Mandium among the Constantinopolitans and Ruthenians, with a pallium in the form of the Basilians in Syria is by its very form very different from those which Patriarchs, Bishops, and monks, both Greek and Armenian, still today use in Syria and Palestine, and, except that the color of all is entirely black, altogether such as the Salamancan painting of Elijah describes the upper garment, namely with short sleeves like a penula or capotta, and a broad and pointed paramandya in front and behind and a small hood: as, having seen this our table, by his own signed letter to me testified the very Reverend Don Francis Baldwin Breyell, a most worthy Presbyter, Licentiate in both Laws, Apostolic Protonotary and Knight of Jerusalem, in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord 1668 traveling through all Syria, Palestine, Armenia, Egypt and the adjacent kingdoms; and this often in the company of Bishops and monks of this kind of Greeks and Armenians, so that he could easily and with certainty note the manner and form of the clothing used among them. Wherefore there is no reason for the Carmelites to be offended by the unusualness of this habit so long unknown and now first brought back to light. For if the distinction of the aforesaid rings had great dignity in Palestine, this form of pallium, to a nicety similar to the pallium of the Basilian monks there, will perhaps contribute something to maintaining that antiquity of origin which they claim: although I think Albert wished nothing else to be signified by that form, than that this new Order of hermits, although entirely of Latins, yet had received its origin and institution in Syria. so that the Order may be understood as born there They believe that the distinction of the first cells also contributes something to this, after the manner of the Palestinian lauras; which Berthold and his companions could have learned equally in Europe from the Carthusians and Camaldulensians, as to have found in Syria; therefore much more should they congratulate themselves on this figure of the pallium, proper to the East alone, through which it happens that at length some one vestige of eastern monasticism may be shown in the Order itself to those asking, and they may to some extent be able to answer; granted that the writers who wrote of the change of habit after they had to explain it, speak only of the various color changed to white. If therefore there were any Carmelites before Berthold, they used the same habit as Berthold and his successors; The name of that pallium, Carpita but not similarly variegated: for otherwise they would have continued to call it by the older name used by the Greeks or Syrians; but now they are understood to have given it a new name from the Italian language, as also the variegation itself was new, then first granted to the European hermits, without the example of other monks or hermits.

[126] Namely, they called it Carpita, which name, as I said, is Italian is Italian, most properly signifying that variegation itself in the cloth in which it is woven. As witnesses of this assertion I have the authors of the Academic Vocabulary della Crusca, collected from only the writers of the 14th century, which is judged the golden age of the Tuscan language, and printed at Venice in the year 1623. They cite Francis Berni, in his burlesque or satirical Rhymes, thus jesting: "Mi vien veduta, attraverso a un desco, una carpita di lana di porco," that is, "I see, placed crosswise on a table, a carpita woven of pig's wool"; namely bristle-like. The same Academics indicate that the carpita is what by another name is called celone, that is, as they themselves explain, "a striped cloth with which a table is covered": in which sense also among the Belgians and English it is called Carpet, in the Etymological Teutonic of Kilian and the English of Skinner: and in both it is rendered in Latin gausape, tapetium. The same Skinner meaning striped variegated cloth judges that the Belgians and English borrowed this word from the Italians, which indeed I approve; but I cannot approve his divination, by which he suspects carpetta (for so he writes it) was so called by the Italians, as if "Cairo tapetium," from the city of Cairo or Egyptian Memphis. Perhaps he did not know that the verb Carpire (from which carpita as a participial form is derived, as ferita from ferire) is an Italian verb, and in Lombardy, and namely at Vercelli whence Albert had come, means the same as to the Latins discriminare, "distinguish," as by his most humane letter the very distinguished and most Reverend Marcus Aurelius Cusanus, Canon of Vercelli and Provicar General, taught me. So that no name can you devise more fitting for a garment, cloth, or covering, used as a table or bed covering, colored with stripes, such as the Carmelite Carpita is agreed to have been: wherefore the Order also used that name as long as it used the carpitas themselves. The rods however were by the General Chapter ordered to be only seven

[127] This is plain from the decree of the London General Chapter in England, celebrated in the year 1281, which is such: "A professed Brother should have one carpita (which is the sign of our Religion), not sewn from patches, but woven: and let him have seven rays only, that we may be uniform." I gladly understand this of the white rays alone, of which I count many on the Salamancan painting, besides the gray ones running between. For that a cape of due length to the knees might be had from both kinds, a width of about four fingers or one palm had to be given to each ray, which is indeed

[128] Since the rays themselves were by almost all those beyond the mountains called baras or barrae; hence it came, and as barrae that both those carpitas were called capes barate or barratae, and the Brothers themselves were surnamed Barati or Barrati. The first, the Carmelitic writers themselves acknowledge; the second is proved by one gate of the city of Valenciennes in Belgium, according to Doutremanno, called porta Barratorum, "la porte des Barrez," to this day, through which one went out to the convent or rather hermitage of the Carmelites, of which not far from thence some traces remain, before the Convent was transferred into the city. That they were made of Syrian cloth have those whom I noted at the beginning of the chapter. But here beware lest you understand Syrian to mean silk or bombycine cloth. Syricus, a gentile adjective derived from Syria, began to be said, when Latinity was failing, for what in Cicero's age was Syriacus or Syrus: whence Salvian in book 4 De vero Judicio et providentia Dei were woven of Syrian cloth made from goat's hair says, "Let us consider only the crowds of merchants and of all Syricos," where are understood merchants accustomed to travel to Syria and from Syria, or to handle goods brought thence. Therefore Syrian cloth is cloth brought from Syria; which because it is now subject to the Turks, is now everywhere called Turkish cloth, not woolen (for there is no need to import such thence, since more excellent ones are had in Europe), but woven from the hairs of she-goats, from which the cloth itself has the name that it is called Camellottus, corruptly for capellottus: just as also the thread itself drawn from goat's hair is commonly called by the Belgians kemels-hayr, corruptly for kebers or kepers-hayr; the origin and reason of which name being not known to all, makes the simpler and those ignorant of the textile art think that the hairs of camels, most unfit for every work, are here understood. But Syria nourishes goats most fit for this purpose, whose hair most soft and resplendent with wonderful beauty in some measure emulates the elegance of silkworms, and distributes their hairs through all the regions of the East and West.

[129] But whether the Carmelites used the monastic Mandya or cape of the Basilian monks, yet pure and simple, from the very beginning of their gathering under Berthold; or whether they first received the privilege of using it from Albert together with their circular rays, I shall not easily say. For it is uncertain to me, [whether before Albert the Carmelites used a pallium, but a simple one, is uncertain] whether before Albert they themselves were bound by any vow, or whether they persevered in a free purpose of mind under the obedience of a Prior elected by them; until someone, coming with the fullness of Apostolic power, should approve the Order, and grant the right of religious Profession, which no one is known to have done before Albert; but that he did it, is not so much shown as presumed; because we know the Carmelites had to contend for their Rule, whether it was sufficiently approved; but not for their profession, whether it made them truly Religious. If he were proved to have first granted this, it would seem to me consequent that up to that time also Berthold's companions had abstained from the habit denoting the perfect monk. Now that garment was given without change of the first name Moreover, whenever and from whomever they obtained it, I do not think they were accustomed to receive with it a new religious name, the secular being laid aside, which yet Goar observes and teaches was in the use of Eastern monks in page 496, and is now holily practiced by the reformed: for the contrary is suggested by the names of Berthold and Alan, brought from the world and retained by the first Priors of Carmel after Brocard and Cyril. But I speak of proper names: for it is certain, that among the Carmelites as among the other Mendicants, for some centuries by use it was kept, that each was surnamed from his homeland, the surnames of noble families being omitted, if such they had. Nor also do I think that was known to the Carmelites regulated by Albert or distinction of the great and small habit that most notable difference in eastern monasticism of μικροσχὴμου and μεγαλοσχὴμου, "of the small and great habit"; of which the first was given along with the mandya after the three-year probation, to those professing religion, and had a certain form of veil covering the head, such as you see to be worn under the galerus in the head of the Patriarch in Goar page 115; the second consisted of a hood and analabus, or cowl and scapular, such as are represented in the garment of our Elijah, and belonged to those who professed a greater perfection than the common one in contemplation, fastings, and the rest of the more severe exercise of spirit and body. Perhaps also, as now in Syria, so also then, all cenobites, except novices, were μεγαλόσχημοι: about which the same Goar should be seen in annotation 1 on the office of the great-habit, folio 517.

CHAPTER XIII.

The errors of later writers about the Carpita, and its change into a white cape.

[130] After Syria had been vindicated from the yoke of the Saracens by the victorious arms of the Latin Princes, the wavy palliums of Bishops in Syria having been suppressed it began also to have Latin Patriarchs and Bishops, substituted in all the rights and insignia of the Greek Prelates; the Greeks indeed continued to receive from Constantinople the Pontiffs of their own rite and schism, and to observe them alone in matters of faith; but they seem in public conversation to have abstained from the proper characters of their order, and outside the sacred gatherings to have been content with the common habit of professed monks, simply black. Nor did they afterwards resume the purple and wavy mandyas, when, the Latins being driven out by the Saracens and Turks, being freed from the obedience forced by these and never sincerely rendered, they came into the worst servitude. And so even today, as those who have seen report, there is openly no difference of garments throughout the whole Holy Land and of the Carmelites in Europe between a monk, Bishop, or Patriarch, that they may both live and act more safely from the insolence and avarice of the barbarians. Wherefore no one ought to marvel, that the Carmelites (whose greatest part after the migration of the Order into Europe had been received into the Order) did not know how to give a fitting reason for their variegated garment, nor to esteem its dignity for its merit, and therefore soon weary of it began to aspire to the change of the old habit.

[131] Rather it seems wonderful, how, with that change having been obtained in the year 1287 and brought into use, as will be said below, so quickly the memory of the first habit was obscured and confused, that within the course of almost one century it was unknown to most by what form, by what position of the rays, the old Carpita was expressed; and finally all deflected into an opinion far different from the true. Yet even these things have some plausible excuse. For it was not the custom everywhere to name the circles (which word would have brought no ambiguity) but baras or barras, or more in Latin, rods, rays, lines. But these last words, on account of the doubtful meaning of the words used in this matter since they were indifferent to an upright or lying position; it could easily be doubted by most, how in the variegated or barred cape the colors ought to be led. And although the name bara and barra, properly taken, among the Teutones and French was less obnoxious to this doubt, as is known to those skilled in languages and heraldic matters: yet because among the Italians and Spanish bara and vara had already taken on the indifference of the earlier words; those Franks and Teutones I mentioned themselves were not consistent, in signifying by this word a figure, narrow and long, led from side to side; so that they also sometimes thus called the same, when it was erected perpendicularly. And we find that this also happened to the Greeks themselves, to whom although the rivers running around the Episcopal pallium were so well-known and celebrated: they began to believe the bars were erect in those palliums yet in the Στιχάριον or sacrificial tunic (which corresponds to our Alb, and was everywhere of one color; but of the Patriarch alone was woven with white and red lines, led from the shoulders to the feet) the same lines, led perpendicularly, were similarly called rivers, signifying the doctrine descending from the Patriarchs to the lower orders of the church. But nothing seems to have so contributed to the obliteration of the true knowledge of the Carmelite barrae, as the abomination of the similarity of the circles, accustomed to be arranged in women's stoles, by the use of almost all the European peoples: whence it happened that minds were more ready to conceive erect rods or stripes, by which the Turks distinguish their garments, and those who among them use the Turkish habit. And so when in the year 1522 the guesthouse of the Cologne convent was being adorned with paintings representing the history of the Carmelite order, in that one which represented the variegation of the habit, imputed to the tyrant Homar, and which contained the Brothers about to cross from Syria into Europe, the pallium itself and the hood were expressed in that form which was worn in the previous century, but distinguished by six or seven black fringes flowing perpendicularly. But at Antwerp, when in a similar chamber in two large paintings another painted the tyranny of Homar and the arrival in France, in the year 1609, on the instruction of those who had hired him, leaving aside the hoods he painted only the palliums, and them greatly striated; so that from the conspicuous black rods in the painting, taking also the reckoning of the inconspicuous, you must count sixteen or more in each pallium. From both paintings you see on the following page a specimen described, which may suffice that you may recognize how not only the form of the old Carpita the Carmelites then did not know, but also how differently, each according to the capacity of his own imagination, he represented the variegation, by name alone from the ancient tradition of the Order and

known to the writers.

[132] Truly as we forgive easily the errors committed in this kind, by those having nothing certain to follow; so we cannot and should not bear the almost incredible stupor of him, who under the name of Cyril Prior III fabricated an epistle; and finally the bars no longer recognized and took away from his Carmelites not only the circles, but also the rods, leaving only the diversity of color, with a form far different from what we have demonstrated above: for he thus speaks. "The barred pallium, as you know, consists of seven parts of twofold color distinguished from one another, but sewn together, totally integrating it, descending perpendicularly from the neck to the ankles: of which three are black or gray, but the other four are white: which are thus arranged in the pallium. on account of the epistle attributed to Cyril The pallium being put on, in front descending from the breast to the feet, is totally split or open, and the parts of the split are white; but the second part on the right side is black, and also the second on the left side; but the third part on the right side is white, which color the third on the left side also retains: but the last part, existing behind in the middle of the pallium, is black. This pallium the professors of this Religion anciently called Carpita, afterwards they were accustomed to call it a chlamys or mantle." So far he, entirely poured out afterwards in explaining the mystery of the four white parts, saying nothing about the three black or gray; but so insipidly, that such a farrago cannot be attributed to Cyril, whom they wish to have been most learned, without great injury to him. Meanwhile those mysteries so pleased Trithemius, or rather him who offered to Trithemius, to be published under his name, a little book composed by some Carmelite (as I know and can demonstrate that to Carthagena, Miraeus, Bolland, Henschen, Hazaert, and others various writings of this kind, far different from their style, were offered, with the request that they take them up under their own name, which Carthagena and Miraeus were prevailed upon to do); so, I say, those mysteries pleased the author of the book on the origin and progress of the Carmelites, which bears the title of Trithemius, that he did not hesitate to transcribe them word for word.

[133] as if it ought to have been composed of 7 parts sewn together perpendicularly I do not now ask how cold and beside the point is such an articulated and verbose description of that pallium, which he himself is supposed to wear, to whom the epistle is feigned to be directed. One thing I ask, what is here the form, I do not say of the circles or bars properly so called, but of the rods, rays, lines? All which words (unless the understanding of human speech entirely escapes me) denote a very small width, with respect to a much greater and indefinite length. For take for me, if you please, the measure of a pallium, as you can, most long, of six geometrical feet; that it may not be sinuous in its lower circumference, and may embrace the same measure only three times (which in a more sinuous pallium should be replicated five or six times), yet it will have in circumference at least eighteen feet; divide these then into seven parts, and you will find each part or patch will have a width of more than two and a half feet; and when compared with the presupposed length, will nearly equal half of it. But parts so notably wide, so little long, who ever heard being called rays, lines, rods? And should the London Chapter have forbidden these to be sewn, by ordering them to be going from neck to ankles? which in the sense of this very writer was customary and almost necessary to the elders; would he have ordered them to be woven? which could not be done except by making a cloth enormously wide, so that its width would answer to the whole length of the future pallium. Therefore the very nature of the matter plainly compelled the painters whom I mentioned above at Cologne and Antwerp, to conceive in their imagination many more than three black parts, that they might in some way represent the barred pallium.

[134] From which the author is understood to be much more recent With these things so laid down, and the incongruity of those things shown which are displayed under the name of Cyril; nothing remains but that we say, he who so described the barred pallium, that in it he exhibits nothing less than bars, neither wore such a pallium, nor at least saw it expressed in a true painting. In vain therefore does he assume the person of Cyril: in vain does he feign himself to be writing to Eusebius his contemporary: in vain do the Carmelites hope the truth of the book to Caprasius, as if it were written long before Albert and once served the Order as a Rule, can be sustained by the testimony of so insipid a writer: who could not even guard himself, but openly indicated that he was writing in that time in which the name of Carpita, used by the ancients, had been converted into the name of mantle, that is, long after the London Chapter, under which the Carpita was not only everywhere named, but was the very sign of the Religion. Otherwise Cyril certainly, if he had wished to write any such thing, would have done so in the plainly converse way. For he would have written, that what to the ancients was called Pallium, and then by the Greeks and Syrians Mandyon or Mandya, this by the Latin Brothers in the dialect of their language is called Carpita, and that this not so long ago had been introduced by usage. likewise from several other errors I omit the other abnormalities of this epistle, about Aymericus of Limoges, to whom beyond the custom of that age he adds the surname "Mala fayda de villa" called Salamiacum, and whom in the Holy Land he feigns a Legate of the Apostolic See; about Berthold, whom he makes Aymericus's brother, and says was elected Prior in the year 1121; about Albert, who gave the Rule in the year 1190; all which things fall from what was said above. Two things I add, about the color and measure of the pallium designated through the epistle, and I say, that in the age of Cyril and with the institution still recent, there was no doubt whether gray or black color intersected the white; indeed that only gray could be had, when from white warp, with weft alternating white and black, the carpeted cloth was woven. I also say that in the same age of Cyril the Carmelite Carpita did not descend below the knees, for which the white pallium substituted to the ankles the more lax discipline of later men, equal to the writer, caused to flow: which, as a most grave abuse and contrary to eremitic simplicity, the Teresians judged must be reformed before all; rejecting also the black color, as most alien from the first institution.

[135] And these things about the error concerning the form of the Carpita are more than enough; about its origin no less freely has been indulged to fables, most removed from every semblance of truth. When Bergomensis and Antoninus lived and wrote, and the book fabricated under the name of John of Jerusalem was not commonly known, The aforesaid bars attributed to the pallium of Elijah himself as uncontested tradition it was still said by the Carmelites that "this was the habit of Elijah the Prophet, dwelling on Mount Carmel in Syria, which yet" (as the same Antoninus rightly adds) "is found neither in sacred nor in authentic scripture." But when some said from Pseudo-John that Elijah's pallium had been purely white, John of Hildesheim answered in his Defensorium (a man truly as truthful in this as in the asserted martyrdom of Saint Peter Thomas and I know not what vision of his) that "it, having been cast down from the fiery chariot, being touched by the fire, was somewhat blackened or discolored in the outer parts, but retained its former color in the parts that were wrapped: which mystery the successors of Elijah venerating, and preserving that very pallium up to the final destruction of the Carmelite hermitage, transferred the same variety of colors, for the perpetual memory of the thing, into their chlamydes, and retained it up to the age of Honorius IV." If the rest of the Carmelite History is as certain, as it is treated by them, as it is certain that that miraculous pallium of Elijah was preserved in Carmel up to the year 1291, and indeed thus half-burned; there is nothing indeed to doubt about it further. But Lezana himself casts a scruple at the year of the world 3204, because it seemed ridiculous to later men when he dares to say, that "this assertion about the variegated pallium of Elijah is childish and supported by no foundation." What then if the rest, which are had from no other source than from the similar pretended tradition of older Carmelites, are supported by no better foundation? Let others judge, I forbear.

[136] Pseudo-Cyril prejudged, when substituting one fable for another, and likewise following in the footsteps of his Pseudo-John, another fable was thought out about the beginning of the barred one who prates many things about Elijah's white pallium; he attempted to induce another opinion about the origin of the Barred pallium, making the author of it Humarus the tyrant, Arab by nation, Saracen by superstition; who, having occupied Jerusalem in 639, "and not bearing in the monks hateful to himself that the white color should be dishonored, as he thought, which was granted only to the Saracen Satraps, commanded them to use barred palliums." To this fable occasion could have been given by the fact that (as from Villanius Saint Antoninus writes) "the Sultan of the Saracens, who before had the Carmelites in reverence on account of Elijah the Prophet, with the habit changed given them by the Pope, in contempt of the Pope and the faithful had them expelled from Mount Carmel," which expulsion I know to have happened around the end of the 13th century; whether it was done for such a cause I leave to others to prove. It is certain, "that in the time of Honorius IV the Brothers Carmelites changed the barred mantles, variegated of white and black or gray, which before they had worn and then wore, into white capes," as the manuscript author on the lives of the Pontiffs says, reaching up to Martin V. His contemporary Saint Antoninus, title 20 chapter 5. Honorius IV granted to them to take up the white one in the year 1287 "At the same time," he says, "when the Brothers of the Carmelite Order wore the habit which seemed to agree less with religious men, namely the cape ringed with broad and gray rods... Pope Honorius IV, for the sake of greater honesty, commanded them to lay aside that habit, and above to take up capes entirely white, and tunics below black with scapulars." For which words why Wastelius should think Antoninus must be so greatly blamed in his Vindiciae I do not see: for it is commodiously understood from this passage, that only that was changed which the author had signified was judged less fitting, nor has he inaptly added mention of the tunic and scapular; that he might express the whole habit of the Order, which could all seem to have been prescribed by Honorius, by renewing its other part and that the chief one, by approving the other. But if there is here any obscurity, certainly it must be pardoned to Antoninus, writing of that matter which had only "by the living voice," as Paleonydorus speaks, been granted to the Carmelites.

[137] Granted, I say, rather than commanded. For thus speaks the successor of Honorius, after Nicholas IV and Celestine V, Boniface VIII, "to the General and the other Priors and Brothers of the Order of Blessed Mary of Mount Carmel" in the year 1295, on the 7th of the Kalends of December: "Your petition read before us contained, Boniface VIII in the year 1295 that formerly to Blessed Memory Latino Bishop of Ostia, and Gervase Priest Cardinal of the title of Saint Martin in the Mountains, signifying

of St Martin in the Mountains, Cardinal Priest, signifying through their letters, containing among other things, that Honorius Pope IV of happy memory, our predecessor, by the counsel of his Brothers, by pious and provident deliberation had granted to them, that they might exchange their habit, or the variety of it, which was less decent and displeasing to very many, for another decent one. And the same Prior General and Brothers, afterwards gathered in the Chapter aforesaid, with diligent deliberation upon the change of this kind previously had, unanimously determined, that from thenceforth the other Priors and Brothers of the same Order, the mantles of various colors which they had been accustomed to use being set aside, should altogether wear white capes in future. We therefore, inclined by your supplications, holding as ratified and firm what was providently done in this part concerning the change of this habit, confirm it by Apostolic authority."

That General Chapter, the change made was confirmed, which the Pontiff mentions, had been held, as Paleonydorus writes, at Montpellier in the year 1287, on the day of Blessed Mary Magdalene, three and a half months after the death of Honorius, with the Provincials of the Holy Land and Sicily, as well as of Tuscany, France, Germany, Lombardy, Aquitaine, England, Spain, Ireland, etc., assembling there; which enumeration argues the great multiplication of the Order through Europe within scarcely fifty years. But those who had come from Syria having returned, and changing the habit by the Pontifical indult, could, as has been said, have offended the Saracens, and at length the Saracens are said to have expelled the Religious from the holy mount, as Villanius says, and from him Antoninus. Treating of the same change of habit, Bergomensis says that the color of the capes white was chosen, for the honor of the Virgin Mary; which is certainly most probable, since the Order already had its name from her, and singularly regarded her imitation and reverence in all things and everywhere.

[138] The author of the book on the institution of monks, But those to whom nothing can please which does not have its beginning in Elijah, congratulate themselves on this change, that to their elders was restored the form of the ancient Elian habit, with Pseudo-John going before them, who first in chapter 45 refers the color of the woolen tunic, which he says the ancient Elians wore bound to the body with a girdle, to that color of which had been the hair-shirt, or (as he himself calls it) the Melote of Elijah: "It is said," he says, "Melote properly from the animal 'mele' (which is also called the badger), from whose hairs or skin, which is very bristly, while he trifles concerning Elijah's melote a garment being made, is properly called a melote." Is it truly so? Could these things, as is presumed, have been found in the Greek by a French or Latin interpreter? "From Mele, Melote?" But I thought that "Meles" was not even known by name to the Greeks, unless perhaps under the common appellation of ailouros (cat), for it is of the genus of wild cats, which others call the badger: "melon" on the contrary, whence "melōtēn" all Lexicographers agree to be derived, most properly signifies a sheep. Isidore of Seville in book 19 of the Origins, chapter 24, that he might explain this more distinctly, believed he ought to retain the Greek word for himself, and therefore, after he had said that Melotae are goat-skins, added: "They were, however, formerly made, as some think, from the skins of 'melorum,' that is, of sheep, whence they were called melotae." The printed texts wrongly have "melonum," which error, falling upon men less skilled in the Greek language, made them think of the Latin "melis" for the Greek "melon": nor were there lacking some stuffers of the Calepine Dictionary, so rash as to add to the Latin word to be explained Greek letters "melis," which thing impelled the credulous Wastelius to write thus, he betrays himself as a Latin, ignorant of the Greek language, "For who, who knows something of Greek, would be ignorant that the little word melis is Greek, and that it is derived apo tou melitos, that is, from honey, because forsooth this animal, most greedy for honey, lies in wait at the hives?" Truly Wastelius was a good man; and therefore I do not believe that he himself wrote these and other things, but through another, in whose knowledge he thought he could trust, and that he put forth the assertions as his own; being about to abominate his deceiver a thousand times, if he could have read the ancient Etymologica of Hesychius, Suidas, Harpocration, Andromachus, Pollux, written in Greek, or recognized the commentaries of Budaeus, Stephanus, Gretzer, Portius, Meursius, and others more recently edited in Greek-Latin on the usage and significations of Greek or semi-Greek words. For myself, engaged for fourteen whole years in unrolling, transcribing, interpreting or illustrating Greek authors; I do not remember having read "apo tou melitos" any other animal so called than "melissa," which is the bee: yet I did not dare to take the cause away from Wastelius, who spoke so assertively, unless I had consulted each etymology and lexicon on the word "melis," whether that would anywhere be found: but it was nowhere found, neither in the pretended significance nor in any other; let the reader see what faith I can place in those helpers whom Wastelius used to compile his Vindiciae; as unhappy a vindicator, as the author whom he strove to vindicate was an unhappy etymologist, here indeed in the explanation of Melote already refuted, but elsewhere concerning the name of the torrent Carith, in which Elijah hid himself, wanting by that name to admonish the monks, that they would then be perfect, when they were hidden in Carith, that is, in that charity, concerning which the Wise One says, "charity covers all sins of the work," which to the Greeks is agape, and has nothing in common with the Hebrew word Carith.

[139] and that his pallium was white As to what pertains to Elijah's garments, would it not have been more sufficient to say this alone, which alone Scripture has taught us about them, 4 Kings 1, namely that he was a hairy man, and girt about the loins with a leather belt? That he also used a pallium, we know from those things which are narrated in chapter 2 about his being carried up to heaven. Whether it was white or black, no one has taught us; nor will Pseudo-John be able to teach us that it was white, saying, "that Elijah by this taught the monks professing this Religion, that they ought to be over-clothed with a white pallium, just as he showed them clothed in white beforehand to Sabaca, the father of Elijah," etc. For this whole figment about Sabaca does not have as Authors SS. Epiphanius and Dorotheus, as is pretended, but certain fabulists not very ancient. Hear Theophilus Raynaud, most versed in such matters: "To Dorotheus, of Tyre by country, Priest of Antioch, and Martyr under Julian, a man most learned according to Eusebius book 7 of history, last chapter, there has been attributed a childish book, whose title is 'Synopsis of the Life of the Prophets and Disciples of the Lord,' swarming with fabulous narrations, as Bellarmine observed." This Doctor Pseudo-John followed. For he who was entirely ignorant of the Greek language, could not have read a similar booklet under the name of Epiphanius written in Greek on the life of the Prophets and their death and burial: he received it from an equally supposititious book. which however even the interpreter Petavius was persuaded is pseudepigraphon by six hundred trifles of lies, with which that book is filled, as testifies Sirmond's successor and heir of his writings Philip Labbe, in his dissertation on Ecclesiastical Writers.

[140] But although Pseudo-John the Carmelite, following Pseudo-Dorotheus such as I have described, offers very many indications of his being supposititious, yet he finds a Vindicator, and still even now has as his defenders all those who think hardly anything more certain can be desired for the knowledge of Carmelite History, yet is defended both this one and that one, than this book and the Epistle of Cyril supplied to it. O unhappy you! John Annius of Viterbo, that to your fictitious Berosus, and to the similar Manetho and Megasthenes, you did not mix in something about the disciples of Elijah the Prophet, transferred into Assyria under Shalmaneser, or into Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar, and retaining and propagating the Elian institution among those nations. How many Vindicators would have risen up for you, who now lie under the feet of Goropius Becanus in book 4 of the Antwerp Origins, erecting his no more sane figments upon your ruins. You too unhappy! whoever you are, Humbald, who, claiming for yourself the age of Clovis, first among the Frankish Kings a Christian, furnished to Trithemius, about to write a compendium of Annals, the series and history of forty-two Kings of the Franks before Pharamund, tracing their race back to the Trojans, and in this agreeing with the Pseudo-Manetho of Annius, who brings onto the stage Francus, the son of Hector. For that labor of yours, ungrateful France hisses at you and your abbreviator Trithemius: who if with the same faith you had given the series of the Carmelite Fathers, from Elijah even to the Kingdom of Clovis, and the same Trithemius, about to believe everything from you, could have inserted this into his little book on the praises of the Carmelite Order, how undoubtable an author you would be, with what praises would you not be raised up even to heaven!

[141] how the Carmelites also receive Luitprand's figments. This error of yours those impostors most similar to Annius and Pseudo-Hunibald have seen and avoided, who forged the Chronicon of Dexter, the Fragments of Luitprand, the figments of Julian Peter, the Martyrology of Gregory Baeticus, and many similar things, and believed patrons would not be lacking to them, if to support the ruinous traditions of certain peoples and orders they would lend such great names. Therefore they both invented many other things likely to please more, because conformable to their vacillating opinions, and they studied to conciliate the Carmelites by name to themselves, by feigning, that St Elpidius and his Companion Bishops (whom the Roman Martyrology assigns to Cherson on March 4) were Carmelite monks, and converted by the preaching of the Apostles, and consecrated Bishops by St James, had brought the Christian faith to Spain, and after founding ten dioceses, had died Martyrs there. The attempt at pleasing was not in vain, nor did their hope fail the lying Writers. For they are defended by many of those, whose interest it is that what they wrote be believed true: from the Carmelite Order, however, first Lezana took up the cause of Luitprand in the year of Christ 40; but those who after him laid hand to Carmelite antiquity followed Lezana. And yet some of them, whom I cannot excuse, had read in the first volume of our March, that St Elpidius and others named with him were successively directed to Scythia in the age of Diocletian by Hermon Bishop of Jerusalem, and sealed with their death the faith preached by them at Cherson, in the Tauric, not in the Spanish Chersonese; after whom at length Capito, being sent to the same place under Constantine the Great, collected the fruits watered by the blood of the Martyrs, and as a glorious Confessor is cultivated by the Greeks, together with the others, on March 7, with a distinguished office of the whole day. If that fabulist did not know, that one day his falsity would be laid bare from the original Greek sources; the last assertors of Luitprand could not be ignorant once it was made clear, when they read our March. But if perhaps they did not read those things about Elpidius and his companions, with greater care urging them, that unless in the said month they should find their opinions approved, they should at least find the argument of their complaints against us; they will not be able to deny that they have read the Preface to the Acts of February, where we said enough so that everyone might know, that the Fragments of Luitprand must be numbered among figments.

CONCLUSION.

[142] You have, Reader, the history of an Order, not fallen from the hollow of the moon, or risen like a mushroom in one night (which opinion it seems someone wished to fasten on us), but of the Christian

Era, in the 12th century, conceived from a revelation of Elijah the Prophet, on mount Carmel, with the favor of Aymericus of Antioch inspiring; but in the 13th century, fully formed under Albert of Jerusalem: or (if you prefer to raise the first beginnings of it to the age of Elijah) regenerated and reformed under the already mentioned Patriarchs; and after this, whether first or second origin, successively augmented with fitting but moderate increments; until changing sky and soil, it cast such roots in Europe that briefly a huge and firm tree stood, and propagating itself alone constituted a huge forest. That history, that I have preferred to seek from the monuments of coeval writers, rather than from narrations composed long afterwards of supposititious authors, at variance with each other and with the truth, no one who loves light and truth will reprehend. If I have called them supposititious, the falsity of them, evidently known and no longer to be dissembled, has compelled me, unless I should wish to be called envious of another's glory, who could and would not stabilize the certainty of the Elian succession by my suffrage. I did not come to attack it, but to seek firmer documents, than those upon which others, leaning so often and so disgracefully, as has been shown, have collapsed. That I have found none, let it be imputed rather to my unhappiness and that of those for whom I wished this labor bestowed, than let charity be violated: at least in those things which lie nearer to the knowledge of our own times, I do not seem to have labored in vain. If someone else, happier, anywhere has and preserves suitable testimonies of the sought succession for the ages preceding Berthold, let him succor us and the most holy Order, most desirous of proving its more ancient origin. Meanwhile, while no one comes forward, nor does the hitherto vain labor of searchers and those failing in the search persuade that anyone will come forward; let us begin the Carmelite history in Berthold and Brocard, in whom the indubitable beginning of knowledge of it is found: and let us not give heed, as the Apostle admonishes, "to endless genealogies, which furnish questions rather than the edification of God."

[143] I who, what by human diligence could be attained in this matter, trust I have for the greater part attained, after I have with alternated turns recalled this whole treatise to the anvil eight or ten times (which labor if I should bestow on the individual Acts of the Saints, scarcely in half a century would one month come forth) after I have also submitted the same to many more domestic and external Censors than the other laws of our Society require, for judgment, lest I leave any imprudent word which would deserve just offense; after finally I have sequestered a good part of prepared material, which regarded Blessed Albert and the institution received from him less directly, lest by accumulating more errors of the Carmelites without necessity, and by more laboriously refuting them, I should be judged to have acted less amicably; I seem to myself to be able to live secure not only concerning the judgment of other readers, but also concerning the favor of the Carmelite Order itself; which, as much as it loves its own affairs, so much must it love the clarity brought to them by this work; and the sincerity of soul, looking to one thing, the truth. So certainly one of the Censors, a man of especially keen and exercised judgment, not only in the disputations of the more severe school, but also in profane and sacred Histories, ordered me to hope; who when he had read this Commentary a second and third time, wished the sense of his soul declared by the written testimony I subjoin in these words:

[144] "I have read the life of Albert, and I cannot but congratulate, first indeed the truth, which shines forth from the darkness; then the Carmelite Order, to which nothing can be more pleasing, than that, the trifles of apocryphal writings and of fables handed down rashly by hands being driven out, they may appear to be shining, not with an added and adulterated disguise, but with their own whiteness. Now they will be able to offer themselves to the eyes of the learned with applause, who before were turning away from such great darkness of incredible ineptitudes. Here pertains that saying of Pindar, Ode first.

Ē thauma ta polla. Kai pou ti kai brotōn phrena, Hyper ton alēthē logon, Dedaidalmenoi pseudesi poikilois Exapatōnti mythoi.

Truly, a wonder are many things. And doubtless even the mind of mortals, More than the true speech, Tales variegated with various lies Lead astray.

And after a few words.

Hamerai d' epiloipoi Martyres sophōtatoi.

But the days that come after Are wisest witnesses.

So time and labor elucidate all things. Wherefore again I congratulate such a happy success of so great a work. The whole nation of historians, who are truly historians, will applaud; as they applauded your Dagobert, Wilhelm, Suibert, and six hundred of this kind, which, cleared out from the ruins of barbarism, the world owes to your vigils. Nor indeed should account be had of those who love or even admire Berosuses, Hunibalds, Dexters, Luitprands, and such monsters. You do not write for owls or bats, to whom light is intolerable, at which they shut themselves in caves; but for eagles, which, as if nourished on light from infancy, tested against the noon, rejoice in the sole brilliance of full day. So I judge. I. V. C."

ON BLESSED FATHER JOHN OF ORGAÑA,

ABBOT OF BELLPUIG IN CATALONIA, OF THE PREMONSTRATENSIAN ORDER.

Father John of Orgaña, Abbot of Bellpuig in Catalonia, of the Premonstratensian Order (B.)

[1] John Chrysostom vander Sterre, in the Natalia of the Saints of the Premonstratensian Order, on this day has these words: "April 8. Elogium in the Natalia of the Saints of the Premonstratensian Order. In the cloister of the Blessed Mary of Bellpuig, in the diocese of Urgell in Catalonia, of the Blessed Father John of Orgaña, Abbot of the same Church, of the Premonstratensian Order: whose life as it shone with examples of extraordinary sanctity, so his sacred Relics are often adorned with illustrious miracles."

On which day the same Chrysostom in his Notes, not yet printed, thus writes.

[2] What we here call Bellipodium, below in the public Instrument of Jerome Biosquet, is called Pulchripodium, and is a cloister sacred to the divine Virgin Mother: which although in the Catalog of cloisters, which is appended to the Optics of Servatius de Lairvelz, it is numbered in the Circary of Gascony; yet it is situated in the kingdom of Catalonia, the seventh milestone from Barcelona, Where Bellpuig is situated in Spain, as rightly in the Premonstratensian Chronicle Miraeus, when to the year of Christ 1170 he treats of the Premonstratensian cloisters in Spain. It is however called in Catalan, not, as he thinks, Belpontz, but Belpuche: and exists in the Vicariate of Balaguer in the diocese of Urgell: so that it is strange that the ancient Catalogs of the cloisters of the Order refer it to the diocese of Lérida: so the catalog of Lairvelz and of Averbode, which is appended to the Chronicle of Miraeus: unless however we should wish to say, that what was once comprehended within the limits of the Bishopric of Lérida, is now contained in the diocese of Urgell.

[3] At what time Blessed Father John of Orgaña flourished, I have not yet been able to learn from Spain. The Reverend Father Brother Michael Maldonatus, well-deserving Subprior of the cloister of St Norbert of Madrid, often treated with me concerning the same by letters, His many miracles and also Procurator general of the Spanish Congregation of the Premonstratensian Order, and asked that I publish him among the other men illustrious in sanctity from our Order: who about the same writes thus: "This Saint is called Blessed Brother Orgaña, who is in the cloister of Bellpuig Avellanas: and is a Saint, who there is venerated with great veneration, and works great miracles." Elsewhere however in this way: "This Saint, religious of our Order, called Orgaña: who is well known in the Aragonese land, on account of many miracles." Thus about this Blessed one Maldonatus. Still among mortals perseveres the sweet fragrance of virtues and sanctity, which, while placed among men, this blessed Father, as the odor of a full field which the Lord has blessed, breathed out with the grace of the divine spirit inspiring.

[4] The Relics of this holy Father were long ago elevated,

and enclosed in a wooden chest within a stone cenotaph, customarily preserved above the altar of the cloister of Bellpuig, the people visit there with great devotion and concourse: who experience the present help of God in their needs, by the intervention of this blessed Abbot, many times. They are accustomed however with happy success to implore the divine clemency through the suffrage of this Saint, when, in great dryness and sterility of the earth, they labor with want of rains. Recently in the year 1622 the very Reverend Father Brother Bernard Langor, Abbot of Bellpuig, with very many distinguished and reverend men present, and in the presence of witnesses and of the public notary by royal authority Jerome Biosquet, caused a solemn visitation and inspection of the said sacred Relics to be instituted: and at the instance of the Oeconomus and Syndic of the said Convent was made a public instrument, which through the Reverend Father Michael Maldonatus, a man most zealous for illustrating the Order, was communicated to me, and which we have thought should be subjoined here to the reader from the very autograph and original, as far as was permitted, faithfully described word for word.

[5] public instrument "In the name of God let all know: that for the praise and glory of almighty God, and the most blessed Virgin Mary his Mother, and of the whole triumphant Church, these things which follow, handed down to posterity for the perpetual memory of the matter, are written and fortified with authentic faith and are understood to be so. Whence it is that on the eighth day of the month of April, in the year from the Nativity of the Lord 1622; in the presence and with the summoning, requisition and request of me Jerome Biosquet, by Royal authority public Notary, citizen of Balaguer, subscribed, and also in the presence as witnesses of the very Reverend Lords Michael Aster, of the town of Ovis in the Archpresbyterate of Agerona; John Farros, of the city of Balaguer, and Jacob Guillalmet, Rector of the town of Camarasa, of the diocese of Urgell; all Priests: with the very Reverend Lord Brother Bernard Langor, by grace of God and the Apostolic See Abbot of the Monastery and convent of the Blessed Mary of Pulchripodium Avellanarum, of the diocese of Urgell, and established in the vicariate of the city of Balaguer, personally constituted, at the instance of the Oeconomus and Syndic of the said convent, in the presence of several most distinguished men, and especially the venerable John Carrovet Prior, Michael Claverol, Francis Gordo, Silvester Farrero, conventual Brothers of the said monastery, and the venerable Priest John Calbera Rector of Blancafort; then also in the presence of the illustrious John Alzina, most vigilant Governor and general Procurator of the said monastery and Abbacy; Francis Joli most consulted Doctor of both laws of the said city of Balaguer, and very many other honest persons, in the territory and chapel of the Blessed Mary of old Pulchripodium, in the territory of Villanueva de las Avellanas, in the district called de Camu, at which chapel or little shrine the aforesaid religious Priests and other men, gathering in crowds, had flowed together with this intention,

that by the solemnities of the Masses, which had been most devoutly performed there, and by other pious and humble prayers, which there to God the Best and Greatest they had poured out as suppliants, the suitable rain (for the lack of which the aforesaid peoples were suffering extremely and most miserably) he might deign to bestow and propitiously grant, and so clemently avert the scourges of his wrath, which for their sins they had merited. After therefore the celebration of such sacrifices and prayers poured out, was made a visual and ocular inspection of a certain wooden chest, placed in a stone cenotaph on the altar of the said Shrine: in which chest, oblong four or five palms, were found certain bones, which by most ancient tradition and public fame of those peoples and the surrounding ones, are said to have been and to be of the cadaver or body of Brother and Father Orgaña, monk of the said convent and of the Premonstratensian Order: who in the time of his life shone and beamed forth with such glory of virtues, sanctity and religion,

that he turned the minds of all into admiration of him. Nor did God permit such a shining brilliance of this illustrious Sanctity to lie hidden; nay rather the odor and fame of his religion and sanctity so emanated through all those neighboring places up to these times, and has been spread abroad, that there are no men, who in their tribulations and labors and especially in the time of the sterility of water, do not implore his help, and by his intercession do not obtain from God the Best and Greatest the salutary effect of their petitions. Concerning and upon all and each of which things, there as is premised done, said, carried out, and followed, forthwith the said very Reverend Lord Abbot in the said name petitioned and required that one and several similar public instruments be made, and given to him and to others whom it shall concern, handed over and delivered, by me the said and undersigned Notary. Which were done in the territory of Villanueva de las Avellanas in the district called de Camu, on the day, month, year and place aforesaid, with me the said and undersigned Notary present and the witnesses, of whom above, present, to the premises respectively called, asked, and specially assumed, as is above contained."

[6] There was subjoined the sign of the said Jerome Biosquet Notary: Authority of the Notary. concerning whose authority and honesty what is to be held; it is clear from the testimony of the Vicar of Balaguer written below. "To the magnificent and circumspect men, all and each, Ecclesiastical and Secular Officials, exercising jurisdiction anywhere, we, John Baptista de Pons Domicellus, for his Imperial and Royal Majesty Vicar of the City and Vicariate of Balaguer, make known by the tenor of these, that Jerome Biosquet, who received, closed, and subscribed this Instrument, is a public Notary citizen of Balaguer created by royal authority, and is a man of good fame, honest life and conversation, and to the instruments received by him and his substitutes, closed and subscribed however with his own hand and sign, as is the above-written instrument, full faith is given in judgment and outside. In faith of which we have commanded an instrument to be exhibited by another of the scribes of our court, strengthened with the seal of our said court. Given in the city of Balaguer on the 13th day of the month of January, in the year from the nativity of the Lord 1623. Seen by John Baptista de Pons, the aforesaid Vicar. And below. By command of the said Lord Vicar dispatched, by me Matthew Armengol, by royal authority public Notary, citizen of Balaguer and scribe of its court." There was here impressed the seal of the said court.

[7] Thus far Chrysostom vander Sterre, to whom we add the elogium edited by John le Page in book 2 of the Premonstratensian Bibliotheca, page 506, in these words: Elogium from Le Page. "Appendix of the life of Blessed John of Orgaña, Abbot of the cloister of Blessed Mary of Bellpuig in Catalonia… Blessed John of Orgaña, Spanish, Abbot of the cloister of Blessed Mary of Bellpuig at Villanueva of the Premonstratensian Order, of the diocese of Urgell in Catalonia, as the spirit of knowledge and piety advanced him to great perfection of life, and his life shone with many examples of extraordinary sanctity, so his sacred pledges even now are often adorned with illustrious miracles. About to receive the reward of his labors, on the eighth day of April he happily migrated to heaven." The same also with the title of Blessed is referred to by Ludolph Craywinckel in the Legend of the Saints and Blessed of the Premonstratensian Order.

ON BLESSED CLEMENT,

GENERAL OF THE HERMITS OF ST AUGUSTINE,

AT ORVIETO IN ETRURIA.

IN THE YEAR 1291

Clement, General of the Hermits of Augustine, at Orvieto in Etruria (B.)

By the author D. P.

[1] The Augustinian family of Hermits, as the 13th century was drawing to a close, Blessed Clement notably illustrated, cognominated by Jordan in the Lives of the Brothers "from the March of Ancona"; by several writers of the Order "from Osimo," perhaps on account of a long stay; for the authority of Giles of Viterbo persuades that he was born from St Elpidius, a town of the same March, not far from the shore of the Adriatic sea between the rivers Letum-vivum and Tinga, since Giles in that title grants to the Sant-Elpidians Born in the March of Ancona, some particle from the body of Blessed Clement. So that Ambrose Coriolanus in his Chronicle is undeservedly accused by Herrera in his Alphabet, because he ill designated the holy man as from St Elpidius: as also Alphonse d'Orosco did not deserve to be accused, because he cognominated him "of Orvieto," where both living and dead he shone with miracles and obtained the cult to be granted only to the Blessed; since this form of appellation is observed in several Blessed of that Order. From this dissonance of writers, however, we gather, that he was not wont to use any certain cognomen, nor otherwise than "Clement" did he subscribe himself in public Acts, for otherwise he would have been constantly so called.

[2] elected general in the year 1270, He had been on the 12th of May in the year 1270, a council of the Order being held at Orvieto, constituted Prior general, as writes Joseph Pamphilus Bishop of Segni in the chronicle of the Order: who, when on the 16th of May 1274, at Lyon, where a general Council was being celebrated, in the Convent there gathered to constitute magistrates, he strove to lay down the office; they declared him Prior general a second time: for they had conspired either that the same should preside or no one. he abdicates in the year 1274, Nonetheless the council at Molaria in the territory of Frascati is held on the 18th of November of the same year, at which the most worthy Cardinal Richard Annibaldi was present: and when in this Convent no one could prevail upon Clement to retain the office, since he had already withdrawn himself; at length Francis of Reggio is designated Prior general. Finally in the year 1284, Francis having died, Clement is again announced Prior general, again he is taken up in the year 1284, on the 5th day before the Kalends of June, at Orvieto, where the whole Curia was: and in the year 1287, on the 8th day before the Kalends of June, stabilized in the office at Florence, famous for many miracles and supreme piety, at Orvieto in extreme old age he drew his soul, to whose body many sick were brought, many blind were led, mute and lame received back their former health, by the merits of Blessed Clement, from God. These things in substance Pamphilus, who so exactly describes the space of nine months, in which Paul of Perugia with the title of Vicar ruled the Order, and how at his death in the year 1292 on the very day of the Epiphany Giles of Rome was made General, he dies in 1291 at Orvieto. that he leaves no room for doubting, but that the death of Blessed Clement is rightly attributed to the year 1291; which however, because it preceded Easter of that year, falling on the 22nd day of April, some, beginning years from Easter, imputed the death of Blessed Clement to the year 1290.

[3] Scarcely seventy years after the death of Blessed Clement, Jordan of Saxony wrote the Lives of the Brothers, in the second book of whose work, chapter 4, he makes mention of him, with praise of his wondrous clemency and piety and great sanctity: and he adds that he was "as dear to God, as wholly gracious to men, through whom God showed many miracles in his life: and finally in his death, in the presence of the Curia and all the Lords Cardinals, he shines with miracles, in the time of Lord Pope Nicholas IV, he shone with great miracles: and at Orvieto, where he died, on account of the plurality and greatness of the miracles, for several weeks at the command of the same Pope he remained unburied, asserting that it was not worthy that a body of such sanctity should be covered with earth. For such a great multitude of the people by singular devotion rushed in crowds to see that body, that on account of the excessive pressure of the peoples, it was necessary for the community of Orvieto to break through several houses, and to widen the common street leading to the place of the Brothers, and is visited with great concourse. that thus freer access might be afforded to the people. From whose body in the hottest time no dreadful exhalation, but rather a most sweet odor, was fragrant, as the Venerable Father Lord Benedict Cardinal testified, who had been his son of confession, and from special devotion had visited that blessed body several times: who also afterwards was made Pope Boniface VIII."

[4] From these things we gather, that concerning the virtues and miracles of Blessed Clement somewhat more diffusely were written things, whence Jordan drew these, and which to be lamented by the carelessness of posterity have perished. A worthy man certainly, in Herrera's judgment, body formerly on the altar. that his sanctity should be decreed by the infallible judgment of the Church: meanwhile however he has this honor, that everywhere he is illustrated with the title and diadem of the Blessed. His body was held in supreme veneration among the Orvietans for two and more centuries, the same Herrera attesting, and lay on the altar outside the greater shrine placed on the side of the epistle, and several miracles of the holy man still are seen there depicted. It lay however there beyond the generalate of Giles of Viterbo, extending from the year 1507 to 1519, as, also concerning the cult then flourishing, this epistle to the Elpidians transcribed from the register will testify, and most amicably communicated to us by Ludovico Torelli, Historiographer of the Order, under the attestation of Master Brother Gregory Rocca of Marino, public Notary, and it is such:

[5] "Although mortals on earth have drawn as their lot a seat, where at the same time they may both rise and set, nor anywhere is the way to destruction hidden: yet some are so joined to the immortal God, that, he is praised by Giles of Viterbo, when they had to die on earth, they attained immortality in heaven; which so much excels the life of mortals, as heaven is more sublime, more divine, more lasting than the earth. These, I say, have appeared most happy among men, since not only, having despised human things, they clung to God, but even have merited the divine name and honors. In the number of these was the divine Clement of Elpidium your countryman, who professed my Augustinian Religion; who with such light of sanctity, of life, of holy morals, shone; that both by the supreme Pontiff for managing great affairs, and by God the Best for exercising miracles was he called. He when he had drawn out a most holy institute of life long, when while living he had shone with innumerable miracles throughout all Italy… when he had been compelled twice to undertake the reins of the republic and of his Religion; finally when he had conquered both human allurements and Stygian snares with admirable virtue, fortitude, constancy, that from the human victory he might at some time celebrate a heavenly triumph, in the city of Orvieto he left a mortal and falling life. The body of this most holy man lies in my temple at the city of Orvieto, buried by Pontifical hands; to whom no one has had recourse in vain, no one led by good hope has approached without result, no one who asked, did not obtain the same."

[6] who grants to the Elpidians a part of the Relics, "And when so many peoples, so many nations cultivate the memory of the most blessed man; you, who cultivate his fatherland, could not, by nature reconciling, not be compelled to do the same. Wherefore Nicholas Briottus of Elpidium, of the diocese of Fermo, most consulted also in both laws, who traces his origin from the school of the holy man, since by his good deeds he had both merited and bound the Orvietan Republic to himself, easily obtained from the Princes of the City, that he might bring back to his fatherland some part of the blessed body. When therefore he had come to me in the Cimini, letters

also your most sweet and most pious ones he had brought to me, with little effort he moved me, that I should acquiesce to your desire or rather to your piety, and command the custodians of the monument to satisfy the desire of the fatherland: in which matter indeed I did not seem to give a benefit, but to receive one. Wherefore you, most deserving of your Republic, receive the Relics which you have wished for: and at the same time consider this, that nothing could be provided by you, by which either the piety and charity toward your fatherland could be shown better, or its salvation and happiness could be sought more. Farewell."

[7] Thus far Giles, from the Sutrian Convent, as it appears, whence he had been snatched to the Generalate; and to which he seems gladly to have returned, when he was permitted, to devote himself to the beloved leisure of letters: a man, as Jovius says, destined and fitted for the Pontificate; but of such singular modesty, that although the highest both skill of doing things and knowledge of letters had raised him to the dignity of the Cardinalate, yet he had to be impelled to write by the letters of Pope Clement VII, Neglected cult is revived in the year 1572. which can be read in Herrera: who rightly laments that the love and honor of Blessed Clement so cooled; in the very century in which Giles wrote the aforesaid Epistle, that his body in the year 1572 was found among the lockers of the sacristy, where, enclosed in a chest, it was kept less decently. But Augustine of Jesus, Archbishop of Braga, did not again hide the treasure found, but more decently kept, transferred it to a more honored place. John Baldi in the catalog of the illustrious men of Osimo, after the lives of the Saints of the same city published in Italian in the year 1620, where he mentions Clement of Osimo (for so by many he is named, as we have said), adds, that on his feast day his body is shown to the people, visible within a well-adorned sepulcher.

ON BLESSED MARTIN

SOLITARY AT GENOA IN LIGURIA

IN THE YEAR 1342,

Martin, Solitary, at Genoa in Liguria (B.)

By the author D. P.

A fruit of the survey of Genoa in the month of March 1662 was the lives of a few saints, surviving the almost universal destruction of manuscript codices, to which in past years the fear of pestilence had impelled the trembling Conservators of the public health, In the temple of the monastery of St Benignus when without any discrimination they commanded to be burned whatever furniture of those houses which contagion had touched. Frustrated therefore in the hope of such monuments, as in the most ancient and most noble city of all Liguria, of finding a great abundance, we more zealously went to the very temples in which the Bodies and Relics of saints were said to be kept and honored. Among these was the monastery of St Benignus, inhabited by Religious of the Benedictine Order; to which was added a sufficiently elegant temple which on each side had three altars; those however of these which held the middle place on each side excelled the other two in this, that they exhibited to the gaze and veneration of those approaching two marble chests, precious with the body of some Saint deposited within. One was said to be of St Bede, about whom we shall treat on April 10; the other of Blessed Martin the Hermit, about whom we now speak.

[2] above the altar we saw the chest of Blessed Martin, These chests, elevated above the very altars, so looked at each other mutually, that the one which contained the bones of Blessed Martin, occupied the right side of the church, the other the left: both however were so inserted into the wall, that only a single side of them was given to be viewed. Therefore in the receptacle of Blessed Martin we saw none of those inscriptions, which we shall soon say were engraved on it; but only the leafy engraving of elegant work; and at the corners of the chest painted in the wall on one side St Benignus, in the Levitic habit; on the other side Blessed Martin, in the eremitic habit; both with radiant head, both kneeling, whose feast is kept on a day of holy Easter week, as adoring the image of the Virgin Mother of God, which stands above the chest. Before this altar each year, on the fifth day of Easter week, the commemoration of the Blessed already mentioned is celebrated: and formerly indeed there used to be read a brief life of him, composed in Italian about the end of the 15th century, which we have transcribed and give in Latin; but now for the reading there is a panegyric sermon, concerning the praises and virtues of the Divine one there to be honored: the festivity and all things pertaining to it being procured by the college of Tailors, who chose him as their Patron, as a professor of the same craft: and then they, with their Consuls, used to gather in numbers. The same have taken care, that the head separated from the rest of the body be enclosed in a silver herm, which the Religious custodians so keep in the sacristy, that they may at their times expose it together with the head above the altar, especially on their own feast, as we have said.

[3] Have this Latin synopsis of the life and cult from another more recent MS. of the same monastery: Compendium of the life from a MS. "Martin, from Rimini, a noble and strenuous soldier, was first a courtier: but on a certain day, moved by anger, he killed a comrade very dear to himself and to his Prince. For this cause driven into exile, he came to Genoa; and between Pegli and the Voltri chose a place for himself near the sea, in which he led an eremitic life, not without opinion of sanctity. But that by some honest exercise he might procure for himself sustenance, and lest from long leisure he should become weak and torpid, he learned the tailor's art, which he most often exercised for the use of the poor. He was wont however sometimes to go to Genoa, to buy for himself necessaries: but wearied with age, that he might not give out on the long road, he would turn aside to the monastery of St Benignus. For he was very familiar and pleasing to the Reverend Prior, by whom he was most gladly received as a guest, nor was he ever permitted to depart empty from him. And when according to custom he had turned in here for the last time, burial. seized by a grave fever, he died, and next to the bell-tower or sacred tower he was committed to the ground. After some months in that place lights were seen at night: wherefore those digging up the body, found it intact and sweetly redolent: which removing thence they placed under an altar sacred to St Martin Bishop. But as miracles increased, the Consuls of the tailors' art, with no small sum of money gathered, caused a marble chest to be constructed, in which they placed the body of Blessed Martin, and with a rather rude and inelegant hexastich and title, testified their religion toward the Saint. epitaph placed in the year 1449.

1449 This work was caused to be made by the craft of Cutters of garments and jupons, begun at Genoa in the time of the Consulate of Martin de Ivera and Peter de Castilione, and finished in the time of Baptist Guidi and Peter de Cara.

Martin lies here, Soldier, Hermit, Blessed: A Tailor indeed he was, now he is called the Father of the Craft."

[4] The day is seen to be April 8, This translation therefore happened in the 106th year after the death of the Blessed: since in the Italian life he is said to have died in the year 1342. On April 8? Not at all. For at that time by the Genoese, after the French manner, years were numbered from Easter to Easter: but the year 1343, in which Easter was held April 13, lacked April 8: because in the following year Easter had to be celebrated on April 4. That therefore in the Kalendar of Saints, who are celebrated in the particular churches of Genoa, printed after the proper Offices of the Church of Genoa, recognized and again edited by the command of Stephen Cardinal Duratius Archbishop of Genoa in the year 1640, it is noted in St Benignus "April 8, the body of Martin Hermit"; this since it cannot be drawn to the year of the printed kalendar, when not the fifth day of Easter, but Easter itself fell on April 8; nor also to the time of death as already said or to the year of the translation made into the marble chest, because both times the said day 8 preceded Easter, on which day first under the altar the body was placed. to be celebrated on April 13: since, I say, from these the reason for the eighth day to be marked in the kalendar cannot be sought; there seems to be place for a conjecture not entirely improbable, by which it could be said, that the 8th day of April, and the same the fifth day of Easter week, was that on which in the year 1344 the sacred body was placed under the altar. So however he had died a few days or months before the same Easter; I however prefer to believe a few days, because the writer of the life asserts that the lights seen above the body were a few days after death, not months; nor does it seem to have required months, that for the body disinterred and whole to the astonishment of all, a wooden chest and place under the altar should be fitted.

[5] As to what pertains to the inscription of the chest, this, as we have said, after the recent renovation of the altars, by which the chest itself was immersed in the wall, does not appear; it notes however the Consuls, not of the city, but of the craft, Patronage of the Tailors, whom in Belgium we call Deans: and when it names the Cutters of garments and jupons, that is, thoraxes, it sufficiently clearly hints, what we know from our parents' memory was observed with us, also to have obtained then at Genoa; namely that under the craft of Cutters, that is of Tailors, were not counted the Hosiers, who made both lower and upper hose (the Italians call "calze" and "calzoni") and had their own separate Consuls or Deans, and abstained from sewing every other kind of garment: but now, with these received into the class of tailors and so extinct, there is no longer any trace of that distinction in Belgium, France, or Italy: but one and the same man fabricates the whole vestment of the entire body, whom from cutting the cloth (for this requires the chief industry of the craft, and belongs only to the masters in it) you see called by the Genoese "Taliator," just as also by the neighboring French "Tallieur": for to cut in Italian is "tagliare," in French "tallier": in which way and signification also in Teutonic, from "Snyden," "Snyder" is used for tailor.

[6] The place near which Blessed Martin led his life, called Pegli, place of retirement. is distant from Genoa seven or eight miles, on the western side of the Ligurian coast; whence not by a great interval is distant Voltri, a village designated by the name Vulturnae by the author of the Compendium. There dwell however, where once the Saint, now the Franciscan Fathers of the Observance, in the monastery which is called of St Anthony. Within the bounds of this monastery a spring is enclosed, of which there is mention of its being miraculously made to flow by the Saint in number 5, and flows with perennial waters in the very shore of the sea: and to it as to a present medicine for diseases and all evils whatsoever, with so great faith and devotion everywhere the inhabitants and neighbors run, that not rarely they congratulate themselves on having obtained the desired health by drinking of that water. From the situation moreover of the said spring, you may learn that not far off was that marine rock of the extreme promontory, which at the prayers of the Saint, dividing into parts, offered a cave fit for his pious exercises: although now not even a trace of that rock is recognized, as writes the Reverend Father John Stephen Fliscus. It is thought, however, that in the building of the temple and monastery, that place or cave was filled with rubble, and with earth carted out for the building of the foundations, and so the memory of such a great miracle was buried.

LIFE

From an old Italian MS. of St Benignus.

Martin, Solitary, at Genoa in Liguria (B.)

FROM THE ITALIAN MS.

CHAPTER I.

The killing perpetrated by Martin, the beginning of a more holy life.

[1] Blessed Martin was born in the March a of Ancona of most noble parents: who, educated by the same in the fear of God and grown up, his friend having been slain took up the military

belt, and lived dear and lovable to all. He had a certain companion dearer than the rest, with whom he was accustomed to frequent the palace of the Governor b Anzelinus, into whose intimate familiarity he so insinuated himself little by little, that of those three there seemed to be one mind only, one will. The devil, sower of all discord, did not bear such concord of theirs, and turning himself in every direction, by his accustomed machinations brought so much to pass that, a quarrel arising between Martin and his comrade, from words it came to hands, and the comrade was killed by Martin's sword. repentant, The place in which the murder was committed was void of witnesses: wherefore it was not difficult for Martin to hide the corpse, and to remain outside of suspicion.

[2] Therefore withdrawing at once, and his anger now subsiding, returning to himself, he conceived in mind an immense sorrow: which when he could no longer sustain, and seeing himself distant about two miles from the place of the murder; he entered the nearest church to himself, and there prostrate before the image of the blessed Virgin, and having confessed to the parish priest, with many tears and laments he began to beseech her, that for so enormous a crime as a most pious mother she might obtain pardon for him from her Son. At length the affection of true contrition progressed to this point, with divine grace illuminating and directing him within, that without any delay interposed he summoned the Parson of the place, for the sake of making confession: who hearing him kindly, and bidding him to hope well of the divine mercy, after assigning a fitting penance dismissed him.

[7] Martin having returned to the court, two days had passed, by the brother of the same one violating his seal when Anzelinus, wondering at the longer absence of the third comrade, inquired of Martin about him. This man denied knowing anything about him, and pretended to be himself wondering how he had as it were vanished from his eyes, who was wont to be assiduous with him and in the court. Therefore Anzelinus, suspecting something sad (yet nothing about Martin, whose love toward his comrade he had known, nor had ever noticed any quarrel with him) commanded an inquiry to be made for the absent one, and to be proclaimed how many gold pieces' price he would give, whoever would point out the Soldier, not long since begun to be missed, alive or dead. The fame of the reward offered by Anzelinus for the sought information reached the Parson, to whom Martin had confessed his crime: when therefore he had a brother pressed by straits of fortune, whose want seemed likely to be greatly relieved by the acquisition of the proposed money, forgetful of the Priestly office, and looking only at the aid of his needy brother, he commanded him to go to Anzelinus, and signify that his comrade had been killed by Martin, about to bring back the promised reward. The wretched man went, thinking of nothing except the money: but when Anzelinus had questioned Martin; and he denying the deed, he threatened the accuser with the gallows, unless he should prove the information by evident testimony; this man did not have a witness whom he could allege, except his Brother the Parson, from whom he confessed he had learned the matter.

[4] and ordered to go into exile Then indeed Martin is called aside again, and life is promised him, if he would confess how he had committed the fault. He therefore, understanding himself to be made known by him, who besides God alone knew the matter; having confessed what was, protested against the injury done to him and to God through the Parson, violator of the sacramental secret. Nor could the Parson deny the fault: condemned therefore to receive on his head the red-hot helmet c, by such a punishment he bore the death he had merited. Martin however from all Anzelinus's dominion, under threat of capital punishment, he chooses a dwelling under a sea-rock; being at once commanded to leave, took up the eremitic habit; and setting out for Genoa, he passed to a place not far distant, by the name of Pegli.

[5] There on the extreme point of the promontory was a rock, which the pious exile judged fit for leading a solitary life; but after the experience of some time, feeling himself too much impeded by the roar of the nearby sea, from reciting the divine Office, and from being able to attend attentively to prayer; he asked God, that he would impose silence on the raging waves of the sea. The divine clemency heard him praying; for the rock dividing into parts, he obtains quiet and water by miracle. one side indeed wrapped itself around with the sea, so that it was as a wall for him standing behind; the other however offered itself to its inhabitant, fittingly hollowed out into the form of a cave. Water was still lacking to the place, to be sought farther off: but this too God granted him, with the vein of a most limpid spring opened at his prayers, which still there gushes forth for the public use and convenience.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER II.

Holy life famous for miracles, death. Elevation of the body.

[4] The Blessed one had learned the tailor's craft: when therefore some pilgrims turned aside to him (for that they should do this, the prolix charity of the man of God persuaded), he would repair the garments of those sleeping at night; he exercises the tailor's craft. and by what means he could, with them helped he would dismiss them, not without a viaticum, from those things which had been given to him by way of alms: whereby it came about that his dwelling quickly became a common lodging of poor men and pilgrims. He himself however fasted almost continually, so that except for herbs and a few small fish he admitted nothing for food, he lived abstinently, nor ever ate cheese: on Wednesdays and Fridays however he kept a far stricter abstinence. To boys gathering in summer time and in great number to that promontory for the sake of swimming, he gave suitable instruction, and refreshed them kindly when they asked for bread, and on such occasions caught, he taught them what reverence they owed to God, to the untutored, what obedience to their parents. But one could also see little birds, flying into his lap, eating the crumbs which Martin offered them. When however in the same parts some very noxious serpent was driving away from itself all those dwelling in that neighborhood, Martin, asked by the inhabitants of the place, and armed with the faith of the most holy Trinity, commanded it, to yield its place and be plunged into the sea, he drives a serpent into the sea, and to free the neighbors from fear: what however he had commanded, was suddenly done; and the venomous reptile ceased to be seen and to harm.

[5] Martin would sometimes come to Genoa, especially on Saturdays: and returning thence toward evening, he would turn aside to the monastery a of St Benignus; where, kindly received by the reverend Abbot Oggerius, he would pass that night and the Lord's day, until after the midday meal: which having taken, the Abbot would command the gourd which Martin was carrying to be filled with oil, and for him to be provided with bread and other necessities. It happened, however, that the Procurator of the monastery, commanded to fill Martin's little gourd with oil, reported that the "jarra" b was empty of oil; and begged pardon for himself, he makes a vessel of oil found empty to be full, that he could not do the desire of the Guest and the command of the Abbot. But Martin, full of faith, ordered him to return, and promised that he would find as much as was sufficient. He however, having protested in vain, that he himself had seen the bottom of the empty vessel, and being ordered by the Abbot to return to the storeroom, when he had lifted the cover placed upon the vessel, found the jar full of oil; and having filled the gourd he announced the miracle: which Martin referred as accepted from the divine goodness, and from then on was dearer and more venerable to the Abbot and Brothers.

[6] After these things, perceiving the day of his departure to approach, he returned to St Benignus; having died in the monastery of St Benignus and received with great charity (for now he appeared to be held by burning fever) and placed in bed, he asked for his accustomed Confessor; from whom, absolved of his sins, and fortified with the last Sacraments of the Church, he most religiously migrated to the Lord, he is illustrated by prodigies in the year of the Lord one thousand three hundred forty-third. As soon, however, as he exhaled his soul, the chamber was filled with butterflies of inestimable whiteness; which you might rightly suppose to have been Angels, gathered for the accompaniment of that blessed soul. d Solemn obsequies were performed for the deceased, before a great multitude of monks and laymen flowing together from everywhere to see the holy body, because, even dead, he bore the appearance of one smiling, and nothing of a corpse before him. A few days however after his burial, when in the dark of night the Reverend Abbot was looking through the cemetery gate, incorrupt he is dug up, he saw a great light above the tomb of Martin: which when it had become known to the Consuls of the tailor's art, they lifted the blessed body from the earth; and finding it whole and sweetly-smelling, they placed it in a chest fabricated for this, and with the greatest reverence they laid it under an altar constructed for the same end. From everywhere the sick detained by various infirmities flowed here, he shines with miracles. who all returned healthy: some of the very many we shall not be loath to recount in compendium.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER III.

Miracles after the elevation.

[7] A certain craftsman, called master a Otto de Caset, was grieving for his brother's misfortune, whose three sons had already died of epilepsy, They are healed: a dying boy, and the fourth was believed about to expire within hours. He came therefore to St Benignus, and kneeling before the sacred body he besought life and health for his nephew: then, prayer completed, he applied a received small candle to the holy body, and plucked a little fragment from his sarcophagus b: both of these however he brought into the house, where his brother for the whole three days already was awaiting the last spirit of his little son. Immediately however as Otto approached the dying one, and placed upon him the relics which he carried, the boy began to fall asleep, and a little after so healthy to arise, as if his health had never been tried by any disease. Therefore the father and mother of the little one, hurrying with their whole family to St Benignus, and venerating the tomb of Blessed Martin, attested the benefit received by a solemn offering.

[8] A certain woman, the wife of Benedict Francone, leaving at home her son afflicted with a most grave fever, and another with fever, in order to obtain

life and health for him, came to Blessed Martin: to whom, returning home after making her prayer, the boy, now healthy and sound, said: "Come, mother, clothe me in my garments, because I am healed." The father of the boy heard the miracle, hurried with his son to St Benignus, and gave thanks for the benefit received.

[9] In the square which keeps the name of St Magdalene c, dwelt a painter, struggling for full eighteen months with a most grave fever; who when he had heard the miracles of the holy man, and that his body was to be transferred d to another place; likewise a long-continued fever: he decided to visit these sacred Relics in the best way he could. Therefore rising early from bed, and accompanied by his mother, wife, and brother, not without the greatest difficulty he came where he wished: and there straightway feeling a great relief, he persevered in praying until the morrow: and having heard Mass he found himself entirely healthy, and praising and blessing God he departed.

[10] At the gate e of the goat dwelt a woman, whose throat had swollen enormously; when she had it devoutly touched with a small fragment of the sarcophagus containing the sacred body, suddenly all the swelling vanished. many other healings are obtained. Another mute woman by touch of the same relics received the faculty of speaking, and before all proclaimed the virtue of Blessed Martin. The wife of Casuccius of Gisulfus, laboring with tertian fever and grave pain of the stomach, having piously visited the relics of Blessed Martin, immediately recovered. A certain young man marveled and rejoiced that his hand, moved out of place, was in a moment restored to its position by the touch of the same. A certain man of Pontremoli professed, that he was so badly afflicted in the kidneys, that he could in no way raise up his body; that he had obtained sudden health, as soon as something from the wood of the sacred sarcophagus was hung around his neck. A youth of La Spezia, whose right leg, dissolved by paralysis, was insensible and useless, religiously visiting the Relics of Blessed Martin, and kissing the bone f of the shin, received the use of his leg g.

[11] In the year 1485 h or thereabouts, the Procurator of this monastery was the Reverend Father Lord Gabriel de Garbarino, and he greatly loved a certain lay brother of his, to one asking for death Bartholomew by name, vehemently devoted to Blessed Martin. This Conversus when sick begged Blessed Martin instantly, that he would obtain for him from God a quick release from the miseries of this life, Blessed Martin appearing to him announced that his prayers were heard, and that on Saturday he was to be admitted to Paradise. But when Saturday dawned, Blessed Martin appeared again to Bartholomew, and said that the sentence of his death had been changed, longer life because the aforesaid reverend Father had deprecated it. And so recovering he yet lived for some years. Then being again infirmed Blessed Martin showed himself to be seen again, and said: then death on a certain day is foretold, "Behold a rose brought to you by me: be certain that on Saturday you are to enter paradise." Therefore on the said day he had all the Fathers called together to himself, and signifying what had been revealed to him by Blessed Martin, asked to be fortified with the last Sacraments, and having received them he most holily fell asleep.

[12] Conclusion. Many other and almost infinite miracles the Lord has worked through the merits of this holy man, which we shall here forbear to describe, lest weariness be caused to the hearer. It remains that we place our hope and confidence in the mercy of God; and that it may not be in vain, that we strive with all diligence to observe his holy commandments, not by blaspheming, not by profaning sacred places (which are certainly the house of God, and a house of prayer) through fables and other indecent actions, not by avenging injuries, but by forgiving offenses, and by often and frequently commending ourselves to his most Blessed Mother Mary, and to this Blessed one: by whose merits may be given us in this age grace, and in the other glory. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

April I: 9. April

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