Caradoc

ON SAINT CARADOC, PRIEST, HERMIT IN SOUTH WALES.

IN THE YEAR 1124.

Caradoc, Priest, hermit in South Wales (Saint)

G. H.

[1] Transsabrine Britain, which the Romans, because they had occupied it later, called "Britannia secunda," inhabited by the Silures, Demetae, and Ordovices, the Anglo-Saxons called the Seat of the Britons and Cambria; now we commonly call it Wales, still at this time containing twelve Counties or provinces. In the Southern part of this Wales Saint Caradoc the Priest and anchorite passed his life, born in the province of Brecknock, Saint Caradoc which the inhabitants call Breghennock

or Brecknock-Shire. But being cultivated in the studies of letters, he lived in the hall of Rees, Prince of South Wales, where he took up the care of hunting hounds. Silvester Giraldus in book 1 of the Itinerarium Cambriae, chapters 11 and 12, makes mention of Rees, born in Brecknock, and asserts that he was born of his father the Prince Theodore, and killed by the treachery of his own at Brecknock, with his son Gruffino (from whom another Rees is sprung) and his daughter Nesta he serves Prince Rees, left behind, from whom Henry I King of England begot a son named Henry, whom with the King's consent afterward Gerald of Windsor took as his wife. Further, Saint Caradoc, having left the court of Rees, departed to the province of Glamorgan, and to the Episcopal city of Llandaff on the river Taff, he dwells in the church of Saint Teilo situated not far from the sea; and there in the church of Saint Teilo the Bishop, whose Acts we have illustrated on February 9, he served God for some time, in the Eastern part of the said province: whence having set out to the Western part, in the Gower peninsula he lived in the church or chapel of Saint Kined, and of Saint Kined, which Camden still shows on his maps, concerning which we shall treat more fully on the Kalends of August, on which day Saint Kined is venerated.

[2] Then moved by an Angelic inspiration, Saint Caradoc migrated into the province of Pembroke, and by the Bishop of Menevia (which we now call St. Davids, whose Acts we have given on March 1) made Priest at Menevia, was consecrated as a Priest, and lived partly there, partly in some island: but harassed by pirates, he finally lived in the monastery of Saint Ismael: sent by the Bishop to the monastery of Saint Ismael, in the small region of Ros he spent the rest of the time of his life. Some things which then happened there, Giraldus tells thus in chapter 11. "This to me seems noteworthy: that to Richard, Castellan of the aforesaid place, namely son of Tankard, when yet he had very many and upright brothers, and was the youngest of all, with the others dead before him, the whole inheritance devolved. He foretells the succession to Richard the Castellan. It happened to the aforesaid Richard, while still a boy, that a holy man, whose name was Caradoc, lived a hermit's and holy life at Saint Ismael's in the Ros province, to whom the boy was often sent both by his father and by his mother, and because he was accustomed to frequently bring gifts of foods, he obtained such favor in the eyes of the good man that he very often promised him, with his blessing, the happiness and paternal inheritance of all the brothers. It happened moreover at some time that the aforesaid Richard, because of a flooding rain, turned aside to the hermit's house: and when the dogs, he makes the dogs obey him at his nod. which he had brought with him to the hunt, neither by calling, nor by coaxing, nor even by offering food, he could bring to himself; the holy man, smiling and gently nodding to them with his hand, immediately as all came to him received them." Thus there.

[3] Saint Caradoc died in the year of Christ 1124, on the Lord's Day in the Octave of Easter, which in that year fell on April 13; and Easter itself was celebrated on April 6, Moon cycle 4, Sun 13, he dies on Sunday "in Albis" in the year 1124, April 13. Dominical letters F E. Concerning his burial the said Giraldus recalls these things: "In the course of time, when Caradoc had already closed his last day, and had completed the course of his failing life with a happy end; his body, which by the free pen of his last will he had bequeathed to the Church of Menevia, Tankard, father of Richard, detained by violent presumption: but immediately seized by a grave sickness, he quickly revoked the mandate. He who impedes the burial is punished three times. When this had happened to him once and again, the third time, both the disease relaxed and the mandate; when the body was being carried toward Menevia through the sand of Niwgol, and the cloud being loosed into overflowing rain, and the whole retinue drenched with rain, the leaders of the sacred conveyance coming out from hiding, find the silk pall, the silk pall covering the bier is immune from the rain. with which the bier had been covered, unharmed and free from all moisture of the showers. And thus the body being brought to Menevia, with frequent flashing of miracles both present and following, in the church of Saint Andrew and Saint David, in the left aisle, next to the altar of the holy Proto-martyr Stephen, it was buried with due celebration." Thus Giraldus, Archdeacon of Menevia and Brecknock, who still flourished and wrote in the same 12th century and the beginning of the following. Nor do we doubt that he used ancient Acts of the Life then still extant: A compendium of the Life from Capgrave, from which also Jean Capgrave could have excerpted his compendium of the Life, which we subjoin, edited by himself in the Legenda Angliae, printed in London in the year 1516. Nicholas Harpsfield, in the 12th century of the Ecclesiastical History of England, chapter 46, asserts that "Giraldus illustrated his name with posterity by many and elegant writings: whether Giraldus wrote a larger work, among which he wrote the life of Ethelbert the martyr, of David of Menevia, of Remigius and Hugh, Bishops of Lincoln, and of Caradoc the Priest and hermit." John Pitseus mentions these Lives in his book On the Writers of England, and says that one book was written by Giraldus On the Life of Caradoc the Priest. Meanwhile Harpsfield gives a Compendium of the Life from the Itinerarium of Giraldus and the Legenda of Capgrave. Others mention him. Michael Alford, in volume 4 of his Annals of the English Church, for the year 1124, nos. 4, 5 and 6, treated of Saint Caradoc, and drew his material from Capgrave, Giraldus, and Harpsfield. Menard in his Benedictine Martyrology inscribed Saint Caradoc on January 31 in these words: "In the territory of Ros, of Saint Caradoc the Confessor"; and in book 2 of the Observations he gives some things taken from Harpsfield: with both Menard and Harpsfield cited, Gabriel Bucelinus composed a larger encomium in his Benedictine Menology: but by what authority both of them relegated him to January 31 or ascribed him to the Benedictine order, they do not indicate.

COMPENDIUM OF THE LIFE.

From the Legenda of Jean Capgrave.

Caradoc, Priest, hermit in South Wales (Saint)

BHL Number: 1561

FROM JOHN CAPGRAVE.

[1] The friend of God Caradoc, originating from Cambria, and from the province of Brecknock, Saint Caradoc a noble Welshman sprung from parents not lowly, drew his original line: and given to the studies of letters, while he feared the rod and the words of his teachers, made no small progress in learning. At last, having left the disciplines of letters, approaching the court of Rees, Prince of South Wales, he took care to subject himself to his service. And the Prince, loving him with great affection, assigned him the keeping of two hunting hounds which he loved. For he was affable, liberal, and well-mannered: in the lyre and musical instruments also he was very learned. And when for some time he had been devoted and diligent in the service of that Prince, he lives in the court skilled in music, with the Lord disposing it happened that he lost the said hounds by fortuitous chance: so that his chosen one might pass to more profitable and desirable things, leaving such vanity. Whence the Prince and his lord, very offended, threatened him with mutilation of limbs and death. To whom Caradoc answered: "If my long and laborious services are so little regarded, as is evident from those words, having lost the Prince's dogs, he departs: I shall hereafter bestow my labors and service on that Prince, who knows how to give an abundant reward for a little labor: who does not prefer dogs to men; nor with death, but with eternal life rewards his servants." Without delay, making a staff for himself from his spear, he vowed to God, he vows a monastic life: that from that day and thereafter he would lead a celibate and monastic life.

[2] Having taken with him certain companions, he directs his journey toward the Church of Llandaff and its Bishop. And while proceeding through the mountains they lacked victuals, the Lord, who does not desert His servants in need, provided victuals sufficiently and abundantly. For finding a doe pierced by an arrow, they caught it without difficulty, and prepared food from it for themselves. he divinely obtains food: So Caradoc coming to the Bishop, received from him the clerical tonsure: and in the church of Saint Teilo for some time served God. he dwells in the church of Saint Teilo, Seeing at last that place, because of the excessive frequency of men, less suited to his religion and purpose, withdrawing thence, he came to the church of Saint Kined, which was then as it were deserted. afterwards in Saint Kined's, Therefore having built a hut next to the cemetery, clearing the place of thorns and brambles with great labor, scarcely after three days was he able to enter the church. So also once it happened at Menevia. For when the city of Menevia had been laid waste by pirates brought in long ships from the islands of the Orkneys, with the sins of the inhabitants demanding it, with frequent infestation for about seven years; a certain religious priest, by rooting out thorns and brambles, scarcely on the seventh day came to the tomb of the holy Confessor David.

[3] When Caradoc had for some time illuminated that monastery by his praiseworthy manner of life, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him, saying: "Brother Caradoc, you should not long dwell here, nor complete the course of your life according to your purpose, God disposing otherwise, here: for the Church of Menevia shall be honored both by your life and death." Coming therefore to Menevia, he becomes a Priest. within a short time he deserved to be promoted to the Priesthood. And when he was increasing from virtue to virtue, a certain girl swelling with a horrible and dropsical tumor, he heals a woman with dropsy, he touched with his hand, and immediately both the languor and the tumor vanishing, he restored her to full health. He refreshed the masons and workers of a certain church of his, he refreshes many with few fish, on a certain Friday, with a few little fishes. Twelve herrings having been offered to him, when a certain one was asking for alms, since he had nothing else at hand, having ordered them to be given with his servant, and the servant being slow; behold another arriving gave him twelve denarii, which together with the herrings he bestowed on the poor man with cheerful countenance, saying: He finds the herrings given to the poor man back in the pantry: "Receive the gift of God: for not for us, as I estimate, but rather for you God has sent this to us." In the evening the minister coming, found the herrings where they had first been placed.

[4] When after these things he was rendering devout service to God on an island, named Arius, carried off by Norwegians, Norwegian pirates coming in, seize him and his companions, and lead them to their ships: and the south wind blowing according to their wishes, sailing all night, in the morning they saw themselves near the island. Seeing which, the barbarians and unbelievers, the same being divinely hindered, he is restored: struck with fear and horror, let the holy man with his own go to the shore. And when he had sent his companions to the land from the Island, Satan was present to him and visibly appeared in human form; to whom he said: "Why, wretch, do you persecute me in vain? You will find nothing in me through the grace of God." And the demon: "Lest you should remain alone here, he drives away the demon offering himself as a servant: and without a servant, surely I have come intending to serve you, unasked." "Go," said the man of God, "Satan, enemy of the human race, for I do not care for your services." Again, when the holy man wearied with great labor of hands,

was taking off his tunic and throwing off his belt, Satan was there, and stealthily took away the belt with a purse. His labor finished, seeking the belt, and compels him to restore the stolen belt: and being unable at all to find it, he saw the evil one not far off joking and leaping, and said: "Have you, wretch, carried away what was lost? I adjure you by the name of the Lord, that you restore what has been taken, even though unwilling." And so it was done.

[5] And since in that island, because of the incursions of the barbarians, he could no longer remain, the Bishop of Menevia assigned him the monastery of Saint Ismael in the province of Ros, he dwells in the monastery of Saint Ismael commonly called Ysam. Where, while he was serving God, drawing out a little time, Flemish men, strong in arms, came in, sent there by Henry I, King of the English, with their wives and children; who expelling the Welsh began to inhabit the land. And when they had expelled the inhabitants of the region, they strove by every means to cast out Caradoc. Because of stolen sheep and cattle, Whence when a certain cruel man, named Richard Tankard, had retained his sheep and cattle, by whose milk he was wont to refresh the poor, shut up for two days; the man of God, moved by this, poured forth prayers to God, that this cruelty and obstinacy should not long remain unpunished. Without delay: the wife of the same man came, suppliantly asking the holy man he is punished. that he would deign to implore divine aid for the unexpected fall of her young man: for suddenly he had fallen to the ground as it were dead. And when at the prayers of the Saint he had recovered, and was in no way humbled or corrected; while intent on hunting, a certain stag preceding him all the way to the seashore; and he urging his horse with spurs, from a certain rock cast himself into the precipice and immediately expired: neither of the stag, nor of the young man's body, could anything afterwards be found.

[6] From the monastery of Saint Ismael for the space of seven stadia the sea drew itself back at the prayers of Saint Caradoc, gave a dry way to the man of God. He removes the sea by prayer: At a certain Easter time, as he was preparing himself for the ministry of the altar, behold two men, clothed in stoles, carrying a golden table, were seen to enter to him: and there was written on the table: "Follow us: for we have food to eat which you know not." The writing having been read through, he understood that the day of his death was at hand. And wishing to know the day. "When," he said, he knows his impending death, "shall I feast at your banquet with my brothers?" "At the supper," they said, "of the Lamb prepare yourself": and adding nothing further, they departed. But on the following Wednesday, being seized by fever, he said to the brothers: "Know, dearest Brothers, that on the Lord's day my soul, released from the prison of the flesh, will migrate to the Lord whom it has loved and desired." he dies in the year 1124. He died in the year of the Lord 1124; and in the church of Menevia was given to burial with great honor.

[7] His uncorrupted body found, is transferred. But after many years, when his body was being transferred, a great crowd of men having gathered, it was found uncorrupted and uncontaminated. Whose finger when William of Malmesbury, a monk and distinguished historian, tried for the sake of devotion to cut off and perhaps to carry away with him; the Saint, as if feeling the cutting off of his limbs, having drawn his fingers into his fist and folded them at once into his palm, withdrew his hand from the sleeve. At seeing which the terrified monk humbly begged pardon of the Saint.

ON BLESSED JAMES OF CERTALDO

MONK CAMALDOLESE AT VOLTERRA IN ETRURIA

IN THE YEAR 1292

James of Certaldo, of the Camaldolese Institute, at Volterra in Tuscany (Blessed)

D. P.

[1] As often as the Saints of the city of Volterra come to be commemorated by us, so often it is necessary that we must praise the outstanding zeal with which the Governors, having scrutinized all public and private documents and Sanctuaries, taught in an ample commentary composed on the same, The cult of Blessed James proved by various translations, whatever could seem to pertain to our purpose, by an example commended by us on February 3, and hereafter to be often commended and proposed to others. In that Commentary are accurately explained all the things which concerning the Body of Blessed James, Religious and Abbot in the monastery of Saint Justus, variously translated and recognized, could be obtained from authentic writings, and which we shall give here at the end in the same words. Yet first we must give the Life, whence Raphael Volaterranus received it he himself explains in the Prologue: but taken from Raphael, and somewhat augmented from the monuments of the monastery of Saints Justus and Clement, Augustinus Fortunius from Fiesole, The Life is had from the Camaldolese history. monk of the Angels at Florence, edited in the second part of the Historia Camaldulensis, book 2, chapter 7. We indeed, for obtaining Raphael's own original text, wrote once; but when the writings of Fortunius were compared with the Volterran Commentary, containing an epitome of the life and citing Volaterranus, we discovered that Fortunius uses almost the same words with which Raphael used them before him, and only extended those things which pertain to James's brothers, from notices taken from the aforesaid archive, mentioning that Raphael, a learned and holy man, first written by Raphael Volaterranus, did not investigate all the deeds of the man of God. Therefore we give the Life as interpolated by Fortunius himself, being nevertheless grateful to those who can suggest the genuine text; and even more grateful to him who can supply the first and original writing of the whole history, even if rough, with no word added or taken away. That we might not labor much in seeking it at Volterra, we were moved by the great harmony of the aforesaid Commentary and the Camaldolese history, so that Fortunius seemed to have preserved almost all the words of Raphael; and we thought we ought to labor less in the same cause, noting that Silvanus Razzius, who at the same time when Augustine was writing the second part of the Historia Camaldulensis, was composing his own work On the Saints and Blessed of Tuscany, and professes to have rendered the life of Blessed James from Raphael's Latin into Italian, follows almost syllable by syllable the same words which Augustine has, so that it is most easy to discern the few things that he added of his own.

[2] Raphael Volaterranus does not need much recommending, when his own writings make him most known to all posterity. and dedicated to Marius Bishop of Aquino. He wrote the Life of Blessed James, or rather from ancient parchments transcribed it in a slightly more polished style, within the year 1516, in which Marius Maffei, from Archpriest of the Church of Volterra and Canon of Saint Peter's at Rome, was made Bishop of Aquino by Leo X (as Ferdinand Ughelli teaches in volume 1 of Italia sacra in the Bishops of Aquino) and the year 1522 in which Raphael died, as is clear from the epitaph which the said Marius placed for him, returning from the administered Bishopric of Cavaillon to his fatherland: and he placed it not simply as for his fellow-citizen, but as for a brother, famous for sanctity of life and miracles; and that he was his brother the aforesaid Volterran commentary proves, exhibiting a synopsis of his most religious life. Among those outside, yet Benedictines, the first to inscribe the name of James in the Benedictine calendar was Arnold Wion, in these words: "At Camaldoli, the passing of Blessed James of Certaldo, a man of wondrous abstinence," The name of James inscribed in the Benedictine calendar. and he cites in his notes Augustinus Florentinus, Raphael Volaterranus, and Silvanus Razzius; but chiefly the Camaldolese tables: and as if these had only those who died at Camaldoli, he wrote "Camaldulum" for "Volterra," where he could have learned that the Blessed man died from the authors cited by himself. Arnold was transcribed by Benedict Dorganius in the Benedictine calendar, but with the name "Camaldoli" prudently omitted: which Hugo Menard in the Martyrology of the Order of Saint Benedict restored without examination. and Camaldoli ascribed to him. Gabriel Bucelinus also retained this in the Benedictine Menology, although weaving a long encomium from Razzius, he could have noted more clearly from the same that Blessed James is commonly ascribed not to the monastery, but only to the Camaldolese Order.

[3] But was he certainly at least of the Camaldolese Order? The writers of the Congregation mentioned do not doubt it, and before them Raphael Volaterranus in the prologue says: "This man today the Camaldolese hermitage venerates among its Saints." But Fortunius in part 2, book 2, after he had described in chapter 5 the foundation and endowment of the monastery of Saints Justus and Clement, under Bishop Guido, in the year of Christ 1034 (if there is no fault in the number of the year, which we rightly suspect), in chapter 6 following enumerates the Abbots who succeeded Raimbert, first appointed there, up to the year 1191; and places William fourth in order, and that after the year 1106, under whom, he says, "the monastery was joined to the sacred hermitage." Meanwhile Ferdinand Ughelli, treating of Marius Maffei Bishop of Aquino where above, though he was at Volterra at Saint Justus as a monk, from the manuscript Commentary of John Nicolas De familia Masseia, speaks thus: "He held the Abbey of Saint Justus in commendam, and by Papal assent he transferred it to the Camaldolese with the highest praise of magnificence and moderation." Whence therefore will it be certain to us that long before these times the Camaldolese reform was introduced into that monastery, and that Blessed James was not first then counted among the Camaldolese? Certainly from the instruments which in the History, part 1, book 2, chapter 3, Augustine following, he enumerates donations made to the Hermitage about the year 1112: and more clearly from this Life, no. 7, where Ingeramus, James' brother, is said to have been admitted by Gerard himself, General of the Order, both in Razzius and in Fortunius, from whose agreement we gather that Raphael so wrote from the beginning: notwithstanding which, the same Abbey, desolated by injuries of time and wars, fell into commendam, from which by the benefit of Bishop Marius it was loosed, and restored to the Camaldolese, regathered in a new Congregation in the year 1513.

PROLOGUE TO THE LIFE

By Raphael Maphaeus Volaterranus.

James of Certaldo, of the Camaldolese Institute, at Volterra in Tuscany (Blessed)

BY RAPHAEL VOLATERRANUS.

Raphael Maphaeus to the Most Reverend Father, Lord Marius Maphaeus, Bishop of Aquino, and Abbot of Volterra, greeting in the Lord.

[1] Whence this Life was received, When recently I was turning aside among your cenobites, and at leisure unrolling some half-torn books, I fell by chance upon the Life of Blessed James, one of your former college: which, besides that it was written in a rough style, was so obscure with the letters falling through old age, and so difficult to read, that scarcely after a long time could I grasp the meaning. But I, lest the memory of a most excellent man who had well deserved of our region should perish through the negligence of an ungrateful posterity (which you, being one of us, to whom you had delegated the care of your affairs in your absence, would have borne very ill), have tried to renew his deeds and the course of his life in a brief discourse (not so much for his sake, who being once inscribed in the book of life does not need these things; as for ours), and the certain cult of James as a saint. through the ages: that by his imitation as well as his praise we may be able to profit more, and that, by the prayers of this our advocate with God, your congregation especially, and then the whole city of Volterra, may persevere safe. For both the Camaldolese hermitage today venerates him among its Saints, and with us on a certain altar of Saint Justus his ancient image, in the manner of the Saints,

with diadems, is seen. Likewise in the divine Offices we have discovered the memory of him regularly celebrated from the arrangement of the Lessons set forth. Soon it will be the office of your piety to restore everything, and to give operation so that he who has suffered injury may be restored to his former honor.

LIFE

Written by the same Volterran, slightly interpolated by Augustine Fortunius.

[2] Born of noble lineage Blessed James originated from the town of Certaldo, ^a from the ancient family of the Guitii. He had as father Albertinus the Knight, ^b who had three sons: Guidotus, Ingeramius, and the one of whom we treat, James. This James, exhibiting from his tender years all the signs showing the indication of a great future man, began to give unmistakable indications that he was born more for the hermitage than for the world. For the boy was of a charming face, of liberal appearance, of a sense preceding his age, sparing in speech, quiet by nature, and altogether far from the vices which that age is wont to persuade: A most modest youth; and being alone, he took delight in nothing more than reading or meditating, whereby he could make himself better and more acceptable to God. And in order that he might prepare himself so, bearing Christ in his heart, so that he might despise the short and momentary glory of the world, he vowed the virginity of his body to the Lord Jesus; and now inebriated with the love of the beauty of the house of God, he continually repeated in his soul the words of the Prophet: "Blessed are they that dwell in Thy house, O Lord; for ages of ages they shall praise Thee." Ps. 83:5 (84:4)

[3] He becomes a monk at Saint Justus in Volterra, The parents had their dwelling in the city of Volterra in the quarter of Saint Mary; whence when the parents themselves had several times led the boy with them to the church of the holy Confessors Justus ^c and Clement for the sake of prayer, and thence went up to the monastery; it happened that the boy James, having contemplated the life of the monks, obtained his father's consent that he might become a monk; and received the habit of holy conversion from Martin the Abbot, in the year of the Lord 1230. From which time, naked and armed in Christ, shining with the gravity of his morals, he soon began to be an example of virtue, obedience, humility, and patience to the other Brothers. And not only did he diligently perform what was of his Order: but undertaking a far greater purpose, and by austerity of life, he afflicted himself with a stricter kind of life and with much greater exercise of the body. In vigils, fasts, cold, silence, perpetual prayer, persistent labor, ready obedience, he continually strove to please God. Through the Lents he fasted three times, content with bread and water. Before midnight rising, and preceding others, he waited for the Brothers. Hymns, psalms, especially on Monday of Blessed Michael the Archangel, he excels in piety, on Saturdays of Blessed Virgin Mary, he read through [not] perfunctorily: and he was endowed with such modesty that, although he surpassed the other Brothers in virtue and sanctity, yet he always showed himself inferior and more obedient to all.

[4] The most hostile enemy, harassing him with sharp fighting by nights and days, he subdues the flesh, was suggesting to his pubescent body the accustomed fires of pleasures most greatly: whose darts and stings the servant of Christ, supported by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and clothed in a hair shirt, lying on the damp ground, with vigils, prayers, and fasts doubled, although weakened in the strength of his limbs, continually drove off. He was also endeavoring among his long prayers studiously to entreat the divine mercy, that his father and brothers by the same womb might also at some time deserve to taste and see how sweet the Lord is. he draws his father by example to religion. Nor did he pray for them in vain. For Albertinus his father, led by the fame of such sanctity of his son, at the same time driven by a heavenly force, suddenly as though waking from a deep sleep of the world; and touched by a certain sweetness of body and mind, began to think with himself that he would be most happy if he should pass the rest of his life with his son. Wherefore, hastening to him, as an Oblate and Lay-brother, he is received in the monastery by Abbot Martin himself, on the third day before the Nones of July, in the year 1239: on which day he established his last nuncupative testament which is preserved in the monastery ^d through which, his sons Guidotus and Ingeramius being appointed heirs, he substituted the monastery with full right for them, whenever they might depart without sons, by the hand of Ubaldino Tedestius the Notary.

[5] After these things, when his father had happily died, and had been given to burial amid the tears of his son, James was compelled by the order of the Abbot to take up the care of souls ^e of the parish, he bears the care of a Parish, and administered it so that the whole people never either advanced better in spiritual things, nor found such a father on earth, whence they might be more happily ruled, and receive more wholesome counsels for the soul. Wherefore the holy man was also compelled for many years to exercise the office of sacristan of the temple ^f of Saints Justus and Clement below. and having twice rejected the prelacy, The Brothers, more and more each day affected by the holy morals and examples of the venerable man, when first Martin, then Nicolas, the Abbots had met death, having twice chosen him as their Father, he, refusing this honor equally with the burden, stubbornly twice refused. For preferring the sweetest leisure of contemplation to the anxious and perilous business; and thinking that it would be more safely dealt with if, inglorious and ignoble in his cell, with only God as witness, he were to lie hidden, holily exercising himself; than if, with the people watching, the fame of his virtue, with the peril of glory, were to be spread abroad.

[6] At last, with Abbot Michael dying, being unable by any force or reasoning to escape a third election, urged by the ^g Bishop, he indeed received the government of the monastery, and having at last been compelled to undertake it, and administered it for some time, as is clear from various donations ^h: but a little after, having thrown off the dignity, the staff and ring being cast down, so that by no prayers either of the Bishop or of the Congregation would he wish to preside further; a little after he abdicates: doing only this agreeable thing for the people of the parish, that he willingly resumed the cure of souls. Whom while he frequently admonished with paternal affection, that each should strive to abstain from the crimes of offenses, and that individuals should keep the commandments of God in true and holy fear; it happened in a brief interval of time that not only the wicked, declining through the incentives of vices, seemed to exercise themselves faithfully in the way of God's words, and usefully gives himself to caring for souls. by the wonderful force of the most sacred doctrine, of which the holy man was offering cups; but also that many from the world hastened with fervent spirit to the order of holy conversation: nor were there lacking those who on that account wished the monastery to be given their own goods; as the estate which is called Ad Planum, ⁱ and still keeps his memory fresh from day to day.

[7] Meanwhile, when his brother Guidotus had died, with no surviving sons left; Ingeramius, the inheritance having been entered upon, mixed himself in all the paternal goods. His brother first a Knight of Jerusalem Who, when he had likewise begotten no offspring, at last betook himself to the hospital of Saint James of Altopascio, to profess as a Knight there, a testament being made, and the place of all his goods being appointed heir, which by right of trust pertained, on account of the testament of the father, to the monastery of Saints Justus and Clement. Then within six months, repenting of what he had done, he himself also arranged to place his limbs in the paternal tomb: he seeks his brother at Saint Justus, ^k and suppliantly asks Gerard the General of the Order, who then happened to be at Volterra, that through him he might be allowed to be numbered among his sons and professors there. So on the 6th day of November of the year 1281, then as a Camaldolese Lay-brother in imitation of the father, Ingeramius is solemnly received as a Lay-brother by the Congregation. Who therefore, a notary being called, first declared the tables of the paternal testament to be firm and acceptable; then through a new testament conferred all his goods on the monastery, which are situated as well in the [l city of Volterra, as in the plain of the Cassiano river of the Elsa valley, in the parishes of Saint Peter in the market, Saint Lazarus, and Saint Mary of Cillicciavola of the Florentine diocese, he piously dies. by the hand of John formerly of Juncta the Notary: from which day a servant was assigned to him to serve, and the usufruct of the goods was reserved to him as long as he should live.] Ingeramius died in the following year 1282, on the third day of October, buried by his brother's hand.

[8] Further, the man of God James, most joyful at such progresses on account of the conversion of his father and brother, still survived ten years. Who indeed, James himself dying in the tenth year after, while a vigilant and diligent workman he was cultivating the vineyard of the Lord, by building up and helping the neighbor; never oppressed by heat or cold, attained the 60th year of his holy conversion. But hastening to the extreme course of his life, and laboring with fever, the Father with the monks being called, he humbly asked pardon if perhaps they had seen anything not well done in him. Without delay, having received the Sacraments in order, he migrated to the Lord, and shining with miracles in the year 1292, on the Ides of April, and was soon buried by them in the church of the Saints, and there afterwards an altar was established for the sake of honor, [greatly known to the faithful peoples round about up to the times of Raphael Volaterranus, as he himself attests. This Raphael, recounting how signs of sanctity immediately appeared in great quantity, writes these things worthy of mention.]

[9] He heals a man fatally wounded, A certain Peter, as he was making a journey with his brother, fell among robbers: who, when they had first killed his brother, then inflicted on him too a fatal wound. He, having heard the fame of Blessed James, approached the sepulcher as a suppliant, long contending with tears and prayers, that he himself might be the propitiator for his safety before God. At last he deserved to see him clothed in white garments, admonishing him that now made whole he should depart: and when as if from sleep he was swiftly rising, giving thanks to God and His Saint for so great a benefit, he returned joyful to his own. Another likewise from ⁿ San Gimignano, when he had been deaf for four years, a deaf man of four years approaching him likewise, returned whole himself.

[10] Likewise a woman of Volterra, afflicted and useless in her right arm, having placed it upon the tomb, a woman in her arm, immediately made strong, from the novelty of the thing exclaimed, giving thanks to God the author of so great a benefit through His Saint. Another woman again, who was tormented in her breast, the other with a diseased breast: on the day before the day on which Blessed James had died, calling upon the aid of the holy man with pious and faithful mind, while she so pressed on, awaiting aid for her vows, saw him coming in the habit of a surgeon with a little box of ointment; with whose liquor her wound being poured upon, she appeared at once sound. Moreover from the castle ^o of Libianum a certain woman, vexed by an unclean spirit, he frees a demoniac woman. led by her kinsmen to the blessed man's sepulcher, the demon at last being cast out, with all watching and praising God, restored to pristine health, returned most joyful to her homeland.

ANNOTATIONS.

TRANSLATION OF THE BODY

From the manuscript Commentary on the Saints and Relics of Volterra.

James of Certaldo, of the Camaldolese Institute, at Volterra in Tuscany (Blessed)

FROM MANUSCRIPT.

[11] In the year 1579 the Apostolic Visitor, ^a sent by the supreme Pontiff Gregory XIII, considering that the altar under which the body of Blessed James had been deposited was almost consumed along with the rock to which it adhered; The body transferred to another altar in the year 1579, lest that blessed body should suffer loss of place and time, while his happy soul exults among the chosen Saints in heaven; decreed that the altar itself was to be demolished and his body transferred. Whence the pious people and devoted monks continually obeyed; and changed that altar into this same altar, ^b where there appears a painted image of Saint James, adorned with a diadem, and his name marked around the diadem: and they placed the body under the altar itself, as the Reverend Ignatius Razzius the Camaldolese left written. The truth and faith of whose writing by the greater part of those present, in the year 1612 by testimony from sight, was unanimously confirmed; namely in the year 1612, when the Relics of the Volterran Saints being solemnly recognized, the Acts of this recognition were consigned in a public instrument by Ser Raphael Tanaglio the Notary: who continues his writing in these words.

[12] "And from this they judged it not only worthwhile but especially necessary to inquire into that Holy body, before the altar, now almost demolished, should be rebuilt; and to yield to the prayers of the Lord Knight Camillus Guidius, who was earnestly and urgently asking about this the Most Reverend Abbot and others. he is again sought and recognized, They therefore began to strike the stone which covered the sarcophagus and the altar: and a great echo resounding promised that it was empty below. A part of the stone was opened (for the whole could not be drawn out, since it was fixed with the walls sustaining the altar); and it being rolled back, there appeared a great quadrangular monument, of the length of a human body, where they found the holy Relics; though not of the whole entire body, parts of which had been carried off to other monasteries of the Order, according to the devout judgment of Abbots. These therefore they drew forth, and placed in a lead case, wrapped in silk cloths, in the same monument; and soon placed the removed stone back on." Thus far the words of the instrument. The rest the authors of the aforesaid Commentary continue thus.

[13] and again in the year 1642 With the church soon falling, the above-mentioned body, with the other Relics, was transferred into the cave of Saint Clement: afterwards, in the same urn of pumice stone, it was honorably placed under the altar of the Crucifix. Then in the year 1642, when the Most Reverend Father Abbot Camillus of Monte-Varchi restored the Chapel and altar of the Crucifix, and transferred it to the greater altar of Saint Justus, in the month of May, the same Relics were again recognized, by the Most Reverend Lord Alexander Bana the Canon, and at the nod of the Most Illustrious Lord Nicholas de Sacchettis, Episcopal Vicar; and witnesses of the said recognition confirmed by the instrument of Ser Hieronymus de Compagnis were Lord Simon Cecina and Lord Curtius Inghiramius. After which recognition the Relics themselves were again placed in the same altar, which is now called Saint Justus, it is transferred to the altar of Saint Justus. and through a gilded iron grating the chest itself is seen, with the Italian inscription, which we render in Latin thus: "HERE REST THE RELICS OF BLESSED JAMES OF CERTALDO OF VOLTERRA." An image of the Blessed man also, with a diadem radiating with splendors, painted, is seen in the Abbey above the door of the story and of the Abbatial buildings, with this elogium: "Blessed James of the Guidi, Noble of Volterra, professed of this monastery, Abbot, died in the year 1292, on April 13."

ANNOTATIONS.

ON THE VENERABLE IDA OF LOUVAIN,

OF THE CISTERCIAN ORDER IN BRABANT NEAR MECHELEN.

Venerable Virgin Ida of Louvain, Nun of the Cistercian Order, at the Valley of Roses in Brabant (Saint)

BY D. P.

Sprung from the ancient and most noble family of the Bertholds among the Brabantine Lords of Grimbergen, Walter, Giles Bertaut in 1227 gives tithes surnamed Berthold, Lord of the city of Mechelen, begot the illustrious stock of the Bertholds: which through his two sons Walter and Giles was divided into as many branches, so that to the firstborn and his posterity the title of the Lordship of Mechelen, to the other and his successors the appellation from his own allodium Berlaer, remained. The genealogical stemma of both Miraeus traces in the Notitia ecclesiarum Belgii, p. 596 and 592, and from Giles, an instrument of donation of this kind drawn up about the year 1227, he brings forth p. 557: "Giles Bertaut, noble man, to all the faithful of Christ in perpetuity. We wish it to be known…that we…have conferred as alms the tithes of Berlaer and of Gheel to the convent of the nuns of the Cistercian order of the cloister next to Walem, constructed in honor of the Mother of God Mary, in which we have also placed our daughters, with all its appurtenances to be possessed perpetually…"

[2] This convent, called Rose-Valley, on the bank of the river Nethe, is distant only one league from the city of Mechelen; to the monastery of Rose-Valley, not founded by him or his daughters, whose first foundation some refer to the already mentioned Giles on occasion of the aforementioned donation; others to his daughters, namely Oda and Elizabeth, and they cite a sepulchral stone there visible in the preceding century with this inscription: "Here lies the venerable Lady Oda, the first Abbess, and Elizabeth her sister, foundresses of this monastery, daughters of the late noble man Giles Berthold, called the elder, Lord of Beerlaer, Gheel, Duffel, etc. She died in the year 1247, on May 12."

[3] But by the brother of Walter the Lord of Mechelen. If free liberty to conjecture be given to me (for that stone with its bronze plate containing the said inscription seems to have been placed only about the year 1500), I should believe that the Lord Walter of Mechelen, older brother of Giles, from his own lands gave to the Cistercian Order the place in which the monastery is now situated. And when a colony of Virgins had been led there from the monastery of Nazareth near Lier, under the governance of Blessed Christine (for so they call her), I think that the daughters of Giles, granddaughters of Walter, who, piously and modestly educated at Nazareth, had drunk in love of the Cistercian institute, taking this occasion, obtained from their father permission to assume the religious habit there; and so the donation of the said tithes was made. But after the Abbey of Saint Bernard on the Schelde was founded in the year 1245, from goods which the same Walter had conceded under the name of a fief to Giles, the son of his brother Giles, and which this latter had bequeathed to the uses of a monastery to be founded; and with the spiritual care of the twin convents, and probably after the year 1245 erected into an Abbey. namely Nazareth and Rose-Valley, being entrusted to the same; I think that honor was increased for both, so that the houses which under the Villiers Abbot had had only Prioresses, should henceforth enjoy the right of freely choosing Abbesses; and thus Oda was the first elected: whom six others of the same family of Bertholds followed in continuous order. But since the younger Giles either died before his father and uncle, or survived both very little while, we rather believe those who said Oda and Elizabeth were daughters of the elder Giles, than Miraeus, who ascribed them to the younger: for it does not seem probable that both reached such an age as to have had from the younger Giles, twenty or more years before their death, granddaughters of age for the monastery.

[4] However it may be, it is entirely evident, and does not deserve to be proved more laboriously, that this foundation of Rose-Valley is later than that of Nazareth and indeed of Villiers; and that Gramaye in his Mechelen and Wichmannus in Brabantia Mariana have erred very enormously; which others wrongly write to have been done in the year 1138 the latter indeed, when he said it was certain to him that this monastery was much older than the year 1200; the former, when he assigned the year 1138 to its erection. For the Abbey of Villiers, first of the Belgian among the Cistercians, only had its origin in the year 1146, and the house of Nazareth began to be founded in the year 1219, occupying the first place among the convents of girls of the said Order after Park-of-Ladies, founded in the year 1215. But the argument which Wichmannus takes from the Life of Blessed Ida, professed of the Cistercian institute in the Rose-Valley itself, proceeds from the evident blunder of a slovenly copyist: who in transcribing the year of her death only marked 1200 for 1300, or long before 1200, or some other not much earlier. For it is established from the Life that the Blessed woman herself, while still living in her paternal home at Louvain, used the Dominican Fathers for her confessions: who however were only led there in the year 1224, as Lipsius testifies; and when she was now professing as a nun, she enjoyed the familiarity of the Friars Minor, who came out to her from the neighboring town of Mechelen, whose convent there Francis Haraeus in the Annals of Brabant teaches began in the year 1231. But what need to investigate these things more accurately; when it is established that both Orders were instituted some years after the year 1200?

[5] Would that the autograph of the writer still survived, who, as he himself says in the preface, "collected into one what he was able to gather from ancient originals, quite unordered and scattered, concerning the miraculous works of the Venerable Ida, There the Life of Venerable Ida was written from the papers of her confessor …having an undoubted witness of truth him, who collected individual things from the mouth of the holy woman, and committed them in writing to memory; namely Hugh the confessor of the same monastery, a man (as in book 3, no. 30, is held) venerable and blessed in all things, who on account of the eminent reverence of his sanctity…in the number of the elect and the catalog of the Saints ought not undeservedly to be enumerated." I would indeed believe that, even after the Life was written, it perished along with them, the papers of this great man on this subject were preserved

in all; and that either at the Rose-Valley monastery, where they were written, or at the place of Saint Bernard on the Schelde, where perhaps the aforesaid Hugh died. But with both monasteries destroyed by the Calvinist heretics and the things scattered, those also perished, equally with the chief exemplar of the Life, which I do not doubt more to have been in one of the places than I can doubt that there were religious men or women of one of the places, at whose supplication requesting it, the author, desiring to satisfy them, applied his mind to writing, using papers supplied from there. But this writer must be believed to have been of a profession different from the Cistercian, but preserved in manuscripts of the Canons Regular. since nowhere does he speak of the Cistercian Order as his own, as is the custom of those who write the histories of their own Order. So glorious a labor had perished among the Cistercians, had not the damage which the Iconomachs afterwards inflicted been forestalled by the diligence of the Canons Regular, collecting from everywhere the Lives of the Saints and dividing them into immense volumes in the monasteries of Rouge-Cloître near Brussels and Corsendonck near Turnhout: among whom we found this life, and having compared the manuscripts with each other, we found them to agree word for word, so that they seemed to have had an exemplar from one another, and to have transcribed with the blunder we have mentioned.

[6] whence afterwards others received it, Having obtained a copy from the Rouge-Cloître manuscript codex, Fr. Jean d'Assignies, religious of the monastery of Cambron in Hainaut, among the Lives and deeds of holy persons of the Cistercian Order, edited this Life also in the common French language in the year 1603; in Latin, but with the style changed here and there, Chrysostom Henriquez in the year 1630 among the Lives of the Five Prudent Virgins, whose copies our Rosweyd had communicated to him. Who composed the epitome in our Dutch vernacular, for the use of the very virgins of Rose-Valley, which is read there, we do not know. We know one thing: that the same fountain was for all of them: equally with us, who are taught from it about the year 1300 and therefore it must be forgiven equally for all of them, that they could not more certainly define the year in which that Blessed virgin went to heaven. Which however we say, not by vain opinion, to have been 1300 or some earlier: because it is established from book 3, no. 10, that in the time of Venerable Ida it was still the custom in the Cistercian Order, that having received the reverend Sacrament of the Body, the Nuns should also come for the reception of the sacred Blood: which custom does not seem to have been kept long beyond the first century of the Order; but had fallen into disuse when the Life was being written.

[7] "Her death is thought to have been on the 13th day of the month of April," says the author of the Life: which then all the writers who have mentioned Ida followed: Heribert Rosweyd in his Fasti Sanctorum, whose Lives he had found in manuscript in Belgian Libraries; Arnold Raissius, in the Auctarium to the Natales Sanctorum Belgii of Molanus; Chrysostom Henriquez, in the Cistercian Menology; Saussay, in the Gallican Martyrology; to have died on April 13; Arthur du Monstier, in the Gynaeceum sacrum; and Gabriel Bucelinus, in the Benedictine Menology. Of whom Raissius, equally with the above-praised John d'Assignies, used only that title Some call her Blessed, older writers Venerable: which the Life gave, "Venerable Virgin." Saussay, referring her among the Pious, called her "of Holy Memory." The rest, after Miraeus in the Cistercian Chronicle, p. 215, and Chrysostom Henriquez, without hesitation and absolutely call her Blessed, according to the custom still in force in the monastery itself today. That there was not in it a custom of celebrating annually the birthday of Ida with a feast, is not obscurely gathered from that so ambiguous word "is thought" (putatur), by which the author of the life marks the day of death: whose moderation we too have imitated, using only the title "Venerable."

[8] That we however insert this Life into this work is done by the perpetual and constant tradition of the place concerning the sepulcher, the sepulcher, as of a Blessed woman, is reported to have been in the church, held in the greatest veneration up until the Calvinist devastation: and that not in the cemetery, where it was the common custom to bury all religious; not in the cloister or the chapter house, which would have pertained only to a private cult: but in the very church which then stood, where it is said to have been visible to all and exposed to the public honor of the faithful. For such a prerogative of burial (such as in that century none would have obtained, except one whom ecclesiastical authority had decreed should be held and venerated as Blessed) founds a reasonable presumption that she did not obtain this unless because of the frequent miracles by which God manifested the sanctity of the deceased; and by which the Prelates being induced permitted, although the Life says nothing about it, either that from the beginning she should be held by law as exempt from common rule, and established as a most certain monument of a Saint to be openly adored and invoked within the church; or that, lifted from the place of common burial (which seems more probable), her bones should be transferred there with religious pomp: although the pious simplicity of the sacred virgins took no care to consign any of these to writing, nor does the author of the Life indicate any such thing. For his plan was "to write none of those things which he had learned from any verbal account of anyone," as is held in the prologue; but only those which, as is said in the epilogue, "through the ingenious effort of her confessor, he found written on little leaves and committed to writing, to distribute under a fixed distinction of chapters, although without doubt a hundredth part of the things to be written for certain reasons was omitted or given to oblivion, as in his own writing of dictation Hugh, the most holy servant of Christ, attests."

[9] Taken from papers, not carried down to the death of Ida, Further, the said little leaves, we think, were written successively by the already-named Hugh, according as he either discovered things himself, or gathered them from the mouth of the Blessed Virgin, being the hearer of her confessions and equally participant in her secrets and fellow-initiate: and this to the end that they might serve for a Life to be written after Ida's death. Which, since he himself did not accomplish, I would believe him to have died before her; the more so because, as I said, he left nothing about the sickness and death of the venerable Virgin, nor about her burial and the following miracles, by which the history to be composed from such papers might have been continued. And as his diligence was praiseworthy, so deservedly could the negligence of his successors be reprehended; who were both present at her death, and cared for her burial, and were eyewitnesses of the following miracles. So it came about that whoever, long afterward, and perhaps after a whole century or a century and a half, undertook to handle this subject; when now no one was alive who could give certain eyewitness testimony about things not written; had necessarily to touch upon the death of the Blessed woman in a few lines, not even finding an everywhere indubitable indication about the day of death. But after he wrote the Life, and its epitome in the vernacular also began to be read by the nuns, the veneration of the sepulcher was doubtless increased, and the piety of the neighbors invoking Ida kindled.

[10] In the year 1580 the monastery is devastated by the heretics But when the deadly storm of the Iconoclasts, allied against God and their own King, fell upon the city of Mechelen (which happened in the month of April of the year 1580), with the nuns driven away with their Abbess Anna Teurx, the monastery was overthrown in the deadly tempest; nor only overthrown, but entirely taken away from the midst, with all the larger stones, especially those of the altars and sepulchers, being carried off to Flushing in Zeeland, to build the palace of the Prince of Orange there. Five years afterwards Mechelen was restored to the Catholic King: but the religious Virgins, returning from exile, when they could find not even the ruins of their own monastery, nor was there any safety for them in the field, with the war then most raging; they began to inhabit an urban Refuge, where although during the twelve-year truce they applied their mind not sluggishly to the fabric of a new monastery; along with the sepulcher; yet, frustrated by the success of the desired peace, with wars more fiercely rekindling than before, they were forced to remain in the city, and wholly to abandon the begun fabric until the year 1648. And thus with the place being desolate for so many years, the veneration of Ida, if any had persevered among the inhabitants, was wholly abolished; which is still hidden. and her very sepulcher, of which no traces remained, so came into oblivion, that without any account of it being had, the foundations of the new cloister and church were laid. Which were brought to the peak by the outstanding diligence of Jeanne van Laethem the Abbess, in the twelfth year from the promulgation of the concord, of Christ 1660, on June 25, the virgin convent was brought back to its place and former order, with that solemnity which the Confessor of the place, our friend Bernard de Grande, together with the rest of the history of the monastery clearly described, in a book kindly lent to us. From the book already mentioned we have learned that the burial of Venerable Ida is believed to have been within the garden of the great cloister, near that corner which most closely touches the choir of the Lay-sisters: where there is hope that the sacred bones may be found, when the Superiors shall judge it fitting to seek them, and to restore the ancient cult of such a pious and holy Virgin: to which perhaps our labor here in publishing her Life shall not a little contribute.

LIFE, From the manuscript papers of Hugh the Confessor compiled by an anonymous author,

edited from a manuscript of Rouge-Cloître of the Canons Regular.

Venerable Virgin Ida of Louvain, Nun of the Cistercian Order, at Rose-Valley in Brabant (Saint)

BHL Number: 4145

FROM MANUSCRIPTS OF HUGH THE CONFESSOR.

PROLOGUE.

Since among the various rudiments of the Sacred page, the examples of the Saints hold not the smallest place of edification (for indeed what from moral or allegorical sayings is elicited for the benefit of readers, by way of instruction; this in the deeds of the Saints, by living and effective arguments, is as it were demonstrated to the eye), therefore, desiring to satisfy as well the supplication of those asking, as my own devotion, to the rewriting of the life of Venerable Ida (whom in a certain monastery of the Cistercian order, This Life digested in a better order, from ancient originals; which is called by the natives Rose-Valley, the almighty Lord once dedicated to the service of His obedience) I have applied my mind equally and my pen: and what about her miraculous works, from ancient originals, quite unordered and scattered I was able to gather (not derogating from the earlier writings, but correcting and amending them according to the measure of my littleness) I have gathered into one, with supernal piety helping: and the little book composed from the premises, I have delegated to those who in the plainer places of the sacred Page seek for themselves the food of edification, to draw out if they could find anything savory in it and suited to their desire; hoping that I, with the Gospel widow, shall receive some reward: inasmuch as though in the temple of His holy Church I have not been able to offer any great gift of whatever writing (of which no abundance aids me, being altogether poor and needy), yet I have done what I could: and the two mites which I had long ago acquired for sustaining my own poverty, namely of benevolence and eloquence, I have spent with whatever liberality I could in aid of my neighbors. Attend then, Reader, first of all: that I am not the author of this work, but rather the collector: for I have perceived little or nothing of those things I am about to write from anyone's verbal account; but only, as was said, I have distributed things gathered from certain little papers under a fixed distinction of Chapters. Wherefore

I do not think any further proof of the things I say should be sought from me; or if I cannot offer a suitable caution concerning the truth of the matter, I judge that I ought to be accused of rashness by anyone; since I have a sure and undoubted witness of the truth, namely him who gathered from the mouth of the holy woman each of the things I shall say and committed them to writing from memory. For he is known to have been one of her chief spiritual friends, composed from Ida's mouth by her confessor, a holy man, and the hearer of her confessions, equally the sharer of her secrets and her fellow initiate. We have also learned by the attestation of many weighty persons that this was a man of such great sanctity and reverence; so that not only can credence be given to his sayings or writings, with every scruple of suspicion removed, but also, on account of the eminent reverence of his holiness, shining both from the purity of his life and from the abundance of supernal revelations by which he was distinguished, he ought, as we hope, not undeservedly to be reckoned in the number of the elect and the catalogue of Saints. But passing over these things for the moment and reserving them for the description of others, for whom a more abundant supply of words is at hand, let us come to the beginning of our narrative.

BOOK I. The earlier part of her life passed in her father's house.

Chapters of the first book.

1 Of the light which, still an infant, she saw at the altar.

2 How the devil envied her blessed actions, and stirred up her father to hate her.

3 Of the vengeance exacted upon her father, for the injury he had inflicted on her.

4 Of the various temptations by which the devil troubled her.

5 Of the marvelous abstinence which in the days of her youth she imposed upon herself.

6 How the stigmata of the Passion of Christ appeared in her hands, feet, and side.

7 How a certain poor man, received by her into lodging, suddenly disappeared.

8 How sometimes she deserved to be communicated with the sacrament of the Lord's Body by the ministry of an angel.

9 How from excessive desire of communicating, blood flowed copiously from her mouth and nostrils.

10 How while reading, "The Word was made flesh," she felt the Word itself become flesh in her mouth.

11 How a certain matron beheld a brightness sent from heaven shining upon her.

12 How the Lord, at her prayers, changed beer into excellent wine.

13 How the fishes of the pool swam to her, and birds of the gallinaceous kind came running.

14 How she adored the Infant Christ with the Magi.

15 How the Lord rebuked her own sister for the trouble inflicted on her.

16 How her sister beheld a great brightness of light shining upon her.

17 How she raised her own sister from death.

18 How it was revealed to her, that she would be equal to a certain monk of the Premonstratensian Order in heavenly beatitude.

19 How from excessive love, which she felt in her soul, she was burned outwardly in her bodily members.

These chapters having been noted in the margin, we divide the Life after our custom into larger chapters and numbered sections.

CHAPTER I.

Her origin, education, divine illumination: patience under the estranged mind of her father.

CH. I.

[1] There was in the town of Louvain, which is known to be subject to the dominion of the Princes of Brabant, and is exalted among the other towns of the Duchy of Lotharingia by a special height of nobility and honor; She is born at Louvain of honorable parents: there was, I say, in our times a certain virgin, Ida by name, sprung from wealthy and honorable parents, distinguished in no small degree among their own by the privilege of noble birth and veneration. When, therefore, by divine concession her parents had begotten her as their daughter, and, renewed by the sacred laver of baptism, had consigned her through the title of Christianity to the bosom of holy Church; straightway in the very beginning of her infant age, divine mercy was present, foreseeing in her a vessel of election to itself, and showed and taught by an effectual argument that in future times also it would lead her to the eminent height of perfection.

[2] For at a certain time, while still placed within the bounds of infancy, the little girl being led into the church, and having not yet reached the limits of girlhood; it happened that the venerable mother of the Virgin led her with her to the church, that at the beginning of her opening age, under the yoke of the Lord — chiefly while she still had natural flexibility — she might bend down her neck unknowing of recalcitrance; and according to the saying of the proverbial oracle, prepare her as a new pot steeped in the odors of virtues, through such praiseworthy beginnings of conduct, to take in the sweetness of supernal grace. Where when mother and daughter, together with the rest, of whom at that time an immense multitude had flowed thither, stood for the office of Mass; at the time of the Mass and directing eye and mind alike, as is the custom, to the elevation of the sacred Host, they were observing with devoutly worthy minds the wondrous sacrament of the Lord's Body, to be shown under the species of bread; straightway the eyes of the innocent Virgin were opened, and she saw as it were a fiery star, she saw a light descending to the altar, bathed in excessive splendor and redness at once, descending from above upon the altar; and, as it were a burning torch, illumining with the rays of its brightness the very recess of the altar on which it had slipped down; and so at last, like lightning, as in the twinkling of an eye, most swiftly disappearing. By this, as I think, divine clemency was signifying that through the venerable mysteries of this Sacrament the Virgin of Christ, to whom it was granted to see these things with bodily eyes, would take in future times great incentives to virtues, and ready increases of a more perfect life. For what else did this mystical vision seem to portend, except that that divine fire, not consuming but illuminating, which long ago had illumined from heaven the hearts of Christ's disciples, as a presage of her most holy life: should flow also into the soul of this Virgin of Christ, about to work the mystery of its power in her even now; and should already at that time exercise in her breast the office of its accustomed forestalling, for the preparation of the most worthy dwelling-place in which in future times the Most High would deign to dwell? Her venerable mother also gave this interpretation of the vision, and uttered concerning this matter a judgment not unlike: for she learned the premises, the daughter narrating, after the completion of the mysteries when she had returned home: and whoever shall investigate with diligent regard the most holy conduct and life of the venerable Ida, which she practiced in her days, will be able not unsuitably to deliver the same judgment about this vision.

CH. II.

[3] Therefore, as this girl of good conduct and disposition, under a gesture of wondrous simplicity and innocence, had led the praiseworthy continence of her life, the bounds of infancy and girlhood now passed, at eighteen years of age, to the limits of adolescence; and had completed the number of eighteen years in her father's home, under every purity of maidenly chastity, nourished by her parents' care; there began in her mind whatever in this world is wont to be reckoned precious or delightful, to grow cheap in a wondrous way, as a vile refuse of no estimation: since she, now initiated into the commerce of heavenly delights and inflamed with desires, had learned, by the leading grace of the Holy Spirit, to pant after the joys of supernal happiness. she pants after the holy life, For when through the course of the passing years she came to the crossroads of the Pythagorean letter, withdrawing the foot which she had set as it were on the exit of the world, and, the delights of the world being spurned, to which she had seemed a little before to attend with a transient glance, taking hold of the right-hand branch of it; she began straightway to do effective penances for past negligences, to chastise her body by discipline, to guard her heart and conscience with every diligence she could, frequently to wear down the thresholds of the church, to attend assiduously edifying sermons and holy conferences: and also, as far as she could, to abstain from her father's wealth, on account of which her conscience gnawed at her as if obtained by wrong, as from venomous and deadly things.

[4] But while these and similar things were performed each day with the greater anxiety by this new recruit of Christ, the envier of the human race and insatiable enemy of all good things, seeing and envying; seeing, I say, At the devil's instigation that by such exercises of virtues the Virgin devoted to God was crushing his venomous head, and was driving him away, both despised and mocked, from the seat of her heart and conscience, not womanishly or slothfully, but with strong and manly constancy; raging exceedingly and turbid, and as though provoked by some immense injury, he turned himself at once to the trick of his ancient deception: and he who once softened the breast of the first parent from its native strength by womanly persuasion through the cunning of the serpent; now in turn, through manly petulance shrewdly enough and obstinately set in motion, in vain, assailed the invincible virgin breast. For the father of the venerable Virgin (a man, namely, given over to worldly anxiety, she ran into the hatred of her father, and immoderately occupied with the cares of secular business), when he saw his devoted daughter abstain as much as she could from these things, which he had heaped up with an avaricious heart by the exercise of secular businesses and was daily heaping up with incessant zeal, as from sordid things multiply defiled with the mire of avarice; departing from fatherly piety, and not considering with blind eyes the right intention of his daughter, straightway began to vomit forth every commotion of his gall upon the innocent one: whose bitter assaults, and with the view of reason troubled, her whom he ought rather to have exalted with the proclamation of commendation, he did not cease to assail day by day with the sharpest blows of curses, innocent and ignorant of all recalcitrance. But while these things were done through many intervals of time, and on one side the father, wholly forgetful of paternal affection, pressed the daughter with frequent darts of threats; on the other the daughter, fortified with the shield of patience, with wondrous constancy bore up under the insults of paternal cruelty; she patiently endures: the equal mercy of divine rectitude, disposing all things by just judgment, was not wanting to his chosen one, bearing so brave contests on her behalf: which, as the sequel will show, it did not disdain to demonstrate by a certain new and in these days unwonted miracle, as by a most valid proof.

CH. III.

[4] At a certain time the father of Venerable Ida had brought together very many vessels of wine into his cellar, which, as we have said before, being greedy of earthly gain, he was setting out for sale in order. She asks a certain measure of wine to be granted to her, with a price added: To whom when her memorable daughter, on a certain day, had directed a servant whose service she used, that a certain measure of wine should be entrusted to her, to be repaid at a fixed price in future time; straightway between the father's household and the aforesaid messenger, at the devil's instigation, a harsh and bitter contention began to arise, namely over this, that she was striving to acquire with a price paid what without a bargain of sale she could not unlawfully apply to her own uses, and might freely have enjoyed by its undifferentiated dominion as her own. When the rival father, as the household related it, had noticed this, and at once understood the cause why these things were so done, at the indignant father's pouring out suddenly all the commotion of his fury against her, and with all the harshness he could, sharpening the scourge of his tongue as it were for vengeance; he began furiously to assail the innocent one, to assault her with the injurious cutting of blows, and with blasphemous voices to cry out upon the most devout handmaid of God as an imposter and one tainted with the vice of hypocrisy.

[5] But the just and merciful Lord, who through the Prophet forbids his anointed ones to be touched and his prophets to be harmed, not bearing with equal mind the injury of his chosen handmaid; with an evident and unwonted miracle, worthily enough, as has been said before, both corrected the father's obstinacy with just severity, and showed how highly he esteemed the devout daughter's patience. 1 Par. 16, 22 For all the wines which the father had gathered in his storerooms on these days, being utterly infected with an unnatural and perverted corruption at once, all the wine is spoiled began immediately to boil up again; and with their native color and taste alike laid aside (as they are sometimes wont in summer or spring to thicken and become infected, and with their former potability remitted, to grow sickly for some days), they furnished, as much to the father of the household as to all to whom it was allowed to see or hear these things, a spectacle of themselves not so much miraculous as pitiable. For it is known this happened in the winter time, namely on the day of the Holy Innocents: at which time wine, sprinkled with impurity of this sort of corruption, is hardly found under our climate. When the father saw this, he groaned, and as though frenzied or rabid, knew not what to do or whither to turn. Therefore he ran through every vessel sorrowful and wailing, now examining this one, now that, with a discrimination of taste, and watching if perchance anything from them all might be found sound. But in vain did his anxious mind drive the wretch to run about: for even those which are called "raspeciae" in common speech (which indeed remains unheard of and, by a most rare occurrence, untried among our people) divine vengeance had made to boil up as it were together with the others at the same time. Then indeed the paterfamilias, wondering beyond what can be believed, and yet unknowing or not considering that these things had come upon him by a just judgment of God, with the doors of his house more carefully closed upon himself, which by no industry of his could be set right, tried, if perchance he might prevail, to drive off by ingenious and painstaking industry so grave a loss which he had unexpectedly incurred. For of the aforesaid raspecia he commanded a certain part, poured out separately into a vessel, to be beaten long and moved with a broom, to shake out from it the intolerable injury of the aforesaid corruption; namely for this cause, that either so, with its natural strength restored to it by this infusion, the rest also might perhaps be brought back from the hazard of their infection. But there is no wisdom, no prudence, no counsel against God. For he who mortifies and makes alive, who disposes, directs, and changes the order of things according to his will; he, I say, who beyond the natural order had infected with this pestilent contagion the man's wine, to avenge the injury of his chosen one, preserved this very wine in the same course of corruption, utterly frustrating his vain hope and industry alike.

[6] Nevertheless, when these things had come to the notice of venerable Ida, utterly forgetful of the paternal injuries, she began most affectionately to have compassion on his grief; and that the injury committed against her might be remitted to her father, praying, she restores it to its former vigor. and that his wine, for the loss of which he was so anxiously disturbed, might be healed of its deadly pestilence, she proceeded most urgently to entreat the divine clemency. Whom the pious Lord straightway heard, and all the wines of her father, with their diseased corruption at once driven out from the storerooms, on the next day, with their former tenor restored, he reformed. Mark, reader, of how great merit this his handmaid was in the sight of the highest Judge; for the avenging of whose injury, with so severe a miracle and so cruel a chastisement, the austerity of divine correction pursues as avenger the obstinacy of her injurer, even in the present. Let whoever reads these things take note, that the servants of God are not to be provoked with injuries, but rather to be venerated with every homage of honor. Let him learn to pay to God in his Saints the worthy service of honor, who does not disdain to compare them, by the testimony of Scripture, to the pupil of his eye.

NOTES.

* or "of blows"?

CHAPTER II.

Against the temptations of the devil, the Passion of Christ taken up. Penances, and a strict manner of life.

CH. IV.

[7] But when, by these and by other temptations of various kinds, that miserable adversary of the Christian name had learned that he had made no progress at all; nay rather saw himself, as weak and powerless, subjected alike to mockery and contempt; Tempted by the devil and through the various triumphs of her victory, though unwillingly and as a jealous rival of her virtues, was daily exalting the strong Virgin of Christ with immense titles of praise; at length he devised that she should be attacked again by open assaults: so that her whom by hidden promptings he had by no means subjugated to his dominion, he might, by monstrous images of phantom visions and assaults of terrors, by phantom specters, bending her from the state of rectitude, at least hinder her unconquered resolution. For he placed at times before the gaze of the one praying or chanting psalms certain visible forms, surrounded with excessive horror, in the nocturnal hours; by a most foul odor, sometimes he brought to her nostrils a certain delightful and sweet odor, and a little later changed into a most foul stench; at other times indeed he assailed the chamber in which she dwelt with so grave a blow that both he shook the whole structure of the building with impetuous horror, by the shaking of the chamber, so that the crash of the shaking itself flew to the ears of those placed far off.

[8] Also at a certain night-time, she beheld, not without astonishment and wonder, as it were a bier placed before her: in which there appeared, by the cunning of the demon, what had been laid there as the corpse of someone deceased; by a bier brought in; into which also every inventor of malice, the crafty one, leaping up, set his body upon his feet; and so advancing in it together with itself, he approached the handmaid of God to wrestle with her; and having seized her by the arms, he twisted her violently for a long time, but with the Virgin of God imploring supernal aid, he vanished conquered and confounded. And although with excessive fear this fantastic vision had disturbed the heart of the holy woman, she triumphs over the enemy yet she, obtaining the palm of victory, and reducing the savagery of the roaring enemy to nothing, carried off the triumph from the battle. For at that time her heart had great hope and confidence in the Lord, chiefly because on the preceding day she had been refreshed by the victorious and life-giving sacrament of the Lord's Body... But since, as has been said, on account of the Eucharist taken the day before; the adversary of the human race here indeed was hiding insidious snares for her heel, and there was raising up engines of manifest rebellion, by which he might assault the edifice of her virtues; the handmaid of God, seeing the necessity of fighting back pressing hard enough from either side, diligently noting the deceitful snares with the eye of discretion, by declining rather than by resisting their ambushes, strove to deceive them; with discretion she avoids ambushes: and most aptly measuring the affections of her heart by the strength of her body, and lest perhaps she should demand something beyond the sufficiency of her strength, restraining and narrowing herself within the bounds of her possibility, she walked toward the state of perfection by the well-trodden path of equity, with unhindered and ordered steps. For she knew that the remiss and tepid conduct of certain persons, who begin in the spirit but consummate in the flesh, is not acceptable in the sight of the divine Majesty: she knew no less that the marred faces of hypocrites do not please the almighty Lord. Wherefore, exercising herself more urgently in all disciplinary custody, here she restrained the affections of her heart from all vanity of wantonness; there, with the byways of superfluous presumption avoided, choosing the middle path, she did not deviate to either side from the track of discretion.

[9] Moreover, for the repelling of the more open assaults of the stormers, by which through various temptations they did not cease with assiduous effort to shake the edifice of her conscience; she placed the very corner-stone, which is Christ the Lord, in the foundation of her structure; and whatever from the Gospel volumes and from the examples of the sacred Scriptures, she fortifies her heart with holy examples, and from the distinguished deeds of the Saints, she could gather from every side, she united for her defense in the fortifications of her heart and conscience. For when for her to behold, that crafty one thrust upon her eyes something vain or mingled with any noxious delight, she straightway received the dart of assault on the shield of the Lord's Passion, and with the shield of Christ's Passion, and remembering with vigilant memory how the eyes of the Lord had been veiled by the perfidious bands of the Jews, this very dart of temptation, as ineffective and weak, she expelled without any obstacle of difficulty, far from the bounds of her memory. But if anything occurred to be done in which she noted the kindling of any delight whatsoever; on the opposite side she set the fixings of the nails, by which on the cross the Lord's hands were wounded pierced through: and so avoiding the danger of the imposed temptation, and no less easily correcting and amending the very intention of her heart, she did not thereafter relax her hand to any unlawful work. This rule of consideration also concerning the other offices of members she continually retained in mind: so that if perhaps the diabolical suasion should bring the harm of any vain delectation upon some one of them, this, recalled with intention and memory alike to the injury of the Lord's Passion, which in that same member the Lord Jesus once sustained on the cross, through the antidote of contrary meditation, straightway drove this very vice of vanity from itself, which had inordinately crept in. And thus it came about, that while she refused to dilate the bosom of her heart to useless thoughts; while she restrained her tongue from vain speech; her hands, and thereby she drives away useless thoughts. feet, eyes, and the other bodily members, lest they should rush headlong into any harmful work; and while she remained free from the noxious assaults of delights, which the cunning of the raging enemy sent now by open, now by hidden suasions; she also ascended to the summit of true delight, which she sought out, with all the efforts of her affections and the strength of her intention, in the memory of the Lord's Passion.

CH. V.

[10] But now it remains that, pursuing the order of the matter more broadly, those things which we touched upon above, with a summary and compendious account, concerning the conduct of the handmaid of God, we should now express more evidently for the profit of the readers. She tries to cooperate with divine grace. Since therefore the Virgin of the Lord perceived that the flame of the heavenly fire, which long ago as an infant she had seen at the altar, was, with a wondrous sweetness of devotion, pervading the inmost parts of her heart, and that the strength of her virtue was increased daily, not by consuming her but by infusing into her the grace of the sevenfold Spirit; not ungrateful to the supernal grace, but with hands ready, as they say, taking care to receive the gifts of the inner visitation; whatever she deserved to acquire for the gain of her profit through the exercises of good works, she was zealous to enlarge by daily labor, according to the sufficiency of her strength. Therefore from her father's goods, as has been said, by manual labor she provides for herself and the poor: she adapted nothing to her own uses, except the sole chamber in which she was staying;

rather by manual labor in the silence of the night she strove to acquire the necessities of life, by which she daily relieved both her own want and the destitution of the poor who flocked to her, according to the measure of her means. Wearing a hair shirt, She also compelled her flesh, covered with the roughest and harshest hair shirt, to serve the spirit: her bed, moreover, in which she was wont however to rest, she covered everywhere not with exquisite softness of coverings or linens, but with hard shoots and twigs of vines. on a hard bed, To these things also she endured with constant patience poverty, hunger, cold, and other discomforts of the body. For she very often ate moldy bread corrupted by excessive age, on cheap food: since she had no other, with wondrous joy of heart and cheerfulness of spirit: the abundance of which pleasing joy she expressed by the continual neumes of chants, which with sonorous voice she was wont to sing in the praises of God, exercising both her affection and her mind, she refreshes herself with sacred songs, with frequent repetition. For at that time she is known to have shone with so generous a sweetness of vocal harmony, that in the exquisite modulation of songs she was reckoned inferior to none of her province.

[11] Therefore using this sweet-sounding plectrum of her tongue, struck with frequent repetition, for cymbals and timpanum; aptly and conveniently fitting it, and most becomingly tempering it with natural sweetness, she sang the praises of divine glory by the instrument of her voice, in place of psaltery or cithara. Phil. 4:14 She also knew with the Apostle, not only to abound in prosperity, but in the time of adversity also to endure the inconveniences of wants most patiently and most willingly. she knows how to abound and to suffer want. Wherefore, in the time of prosperity, she rendered due praises to the almighty Lord for benefits received; but when adverse things succeeded the prosperous, and the dangers of tribulations threatened to prove the constancy of her virtue, she insisted on thanksgivings with no lesser affection of joy. For who in all her life ever heard the Venerable one, under any assault of incoming temptation, struggling back? Who in all the want she endured ever caught her murmuring? Nay rather, she had so depressed herself in such parsimony, and had so bridled her appetite (to whose desires she deemed it unlawful to yield) under such moderation, that if ever various things chanced to be placed before her in dishes, she would not use them one at a time, foods piled onto one dish she dines on at once, as is customary, but piling each into one heap on a single plate she would grind them together: and so shaking out the special flavor of each, with the loathsome fare of this so confused pottage, refreshing her bodily members only once in the day, she somehow sustained rather than nourished them. Nor do I think that this also ought to be passed over, that for eleven days she lived on lime-tree blossoms alone, taken as food in a certain summer time, for eleven days she lives on lime-tree blossoms alone showing forth not so much her commendable abstinence as our insatiable curiosity, to which the exquisite foods of diverse flavors scarcely suffice, as full of reproach and most worthy of every confusion in this deed. For who, hearing these things, will dare to persist in making excuses in sins, with empty or frivolous pleas? Who will now avail, by useless quibbling, to pretend the weakness of his own infirmity to cover the vice of his curiosity, when he sees a tender girl, weighed down by natural weakness, abstaining from all edible things except only lime-blossoms, for so many days? What, for shame! will the rich of this world here say, walking with bellies inflated like buffaloes; for whom, by the artful industry of cooks, scarcely out of all the resources of the world an exquisite variety of dishes is drawn forth at will, by which the wretched stomach may not be filled to sufficiency, but be rather overwhelmed to its own corruption and to the overthrow of the whole corporeal mass? But also in the use of clothing or any other things whatsoever, which human necessity is wont to apply to its own sufficiency, she always had the virtue of discretion; so that, as long as she noticed no kindling of delight thence creeping into her soul, not caring for the costliness of whatever thing, she would simply use it with thanksgiving. But if ever she noticed the slightest tickling of vainglory growing up from it, in clothing and other things she would straightway remove this from herself along with the odious kindling of its delight. Nor did she ever, in affected squalor or exquisite delicacies, with the hypocritical and those greedy for vainglory, she avoids excess, take occasion in herself of any frivolous delight: but in every use and habit of things, containing herself under a becoming mediocrity, and in no part exceeding the limits of equity, here the stumbling-blocks of curiosity, and hypocrisy: there of vanity, she eagerly strove to avoid.

[12] But what shall I say of the chastisement of her body and the maceration of her flesh, since the unbearable detriment of so great a weight — how womanly infirmity could have endured it through many intervals of time without danger to life — is almost alien to human senses? in one day she genuflects 1,100 times, For in some space of days, on each day she touched the ground with eleven hundred genuflections, and with as many repeated prayers, or as many chanted salutations of the blessed Mother and Virgin Mary, by the immense favor of the Holy Spirit, she and salutes the Mother of God: bravely bore up her wearied knees. With the roughest shoots of thorns also, or with the sharp-pointed leaves of a certain shrub, which the common people call roscum, she ceaselessly scourged her whole little body, almost beyond natural endurance: so that copious streams of gore, flowing down from the cuts of the wounds, ran down from the upper parts of the body downward even to the ankles, and with their quite horrible sprinkling, in a wondrous manner, watered even the very shoes along with the feet. she scourges her body with great effusion of blood. Nor content with these punishments or torments, she also taught the individual members of her body, by which she remembered herself formerly to have offended — that is, face, hands, feet, and the like — by training them with singular chastisement: and thus not from another's breast, but from her own blood, day by day she immolated a most pleasing holocaust to the almighty Lord, as a sweet victim on the altar of her body. and from the fervor of devotion: For so great a fervor of devotion had kindled the heart of the holy woman at that time, and so great a desire of supernal virtues had inflamed her mind, that in all she did, seeking God alone as witness and sharer of her secrets, not by special license from her Confessor did she undertake to pass through so arduous a way of penitential industry; but, of her own motion, she bore, with devotion and earnest strength alike, the unbearable burden imposed upon her shoulders. her Confessor not being fully aware of all. For when to a certain man of venerable life whom she had chosen for her Confessor, she was uncovering the very tenor of her penance, not by an open but by a certain summary account; and he was unable clearly to grasp what was being referred; in order that, according to the custom of his manner, she might bind herself with strong zeal to bear the very labors of her penance, he was zealous to enjoin them upon her for the remission of her sins: and to the endurance of them, not so much incited by her insistence as deceived by his own ignorance, he urged her by his admonitions.

NOTES.

CHAPTER III.

The stigmata of Christ inflicted on her body and removed.

CH. VI.

[13] But since, as we have said before, she had placed the whole sum of her intention and consideration in the memory of the Lord's Passion, Wholly occupied in contemplation of Christ's Passion, to which, as to the chief and singular safeguard, in every article of need, she directed at once the edge of her meditation and affection; the merciful Lord, willing to meet his chosen one with the turn of a most pleasing recompense; and to commend the mysteries of his Passion more closely to her, for sharing his compassion, by a new and quite unheard-of order of things; these days impressed certain imaginary stigmata of his holy wounds on the hands, feet, and also the side of the holy Virgin: and those things which long ago our Savior Christ sustained on the cross from the fixing of nails, for the redemption of the whole world, he commended to his venerable bride as most pleasing memorials, not so much to be kept in memory as to be borne in her body, by a quite joyful and notable miracle. she receives his stigmata in her body, For in the places of the hands or feet — namely those where the hands and feet of the Lord were once pressed by the pricks of nails — as it were certain circles of diverse color, representations of stigmata, grew forth both within and without: like circles of diverse color: which, after the manner of open wounds, occupying the whole surface of those parts, offered at that time a most miraculous spectacle to all to whose notice and sight they came.

[14] For what more miraculous or more joyful can be thought or presented to human affections, than the ancient stigmata of Christ renewed in our times in a virginal body, and offering a revived and undoubted memorial of the Lord's Passion, to be viewed not now with imaginary or mental gazes of contemplations, but to be seen in the open with bodily eyes? The opening of the side also, so gaping and wide for some time, in the place where Christ's side had been pierced through, through the wound of the side she draws breath, this imitator and companion of Christ's Passion is said to have perceived; so that in the same, opened like an oblong wound, extending even to the liver, breath slipped through the very intervals of the body. In which place certainly she endured so anxious and bitter a puncture of grief and suffering, with a bitter puncture that certain of her relatives, sometimes commiserating with her grief, drew off the garments with which she was covered all the way to the naked flesh, and for the easing of the same grief, freed the whole surface of the side from every obstacle of clothing, not bearing the touch of anything: yet not without painful trouble. For she bore the touch of no material thing in that place without grave injury: wherefore she very often interrupted at that same time the office of spinning (by which she was wont to seek out the necessities of her life for herself), because she was unable to hold the distaff at her side, the pain preventing. Her hands and feet also, in the aforesaid places — those, namely, where the circled surface of the stigmata stood out — were pressed with so vehement a straitness of injury, nor to the marked places of hands and feet: that she could not in any way even lightly lay a finger upon these places, or touch any bodily thing, without the gravest pain.

[15] The circumference of her head also, on every side, so vehement a pain gripped, by the pain of her head she seemed to portend Christ's crown of thorns; that it seemed to portend nothing less than the crown of thorns, which at the most holy time of the Passion, pricking and bloodying, encircled the head of the Lord. But as often as the innocent recruit of Christ sustained any injury of contumelious persecution from her father or her relatives, so often in the aforesaid places the straitness of her very pain renewed its strength: for this reason, namely, that by the exterior trouble, which the tongue of the malignant inflicted,

she might learn to render to her very head Jesus Christ himself, who once had suffered not unlike things, the return of worthy compassion: and by the discomfort of her own injury, especially while she suffers inflicted injury. retaining within herself in constant memory the injuries of the Lord's Passion, by the way of patience (which the Lord himself once by going before had shown to his followers) she might walk with unhindered steps after him, leaning upon her beloved. But what or how great was that pain and bitterness of injury which in those same places the Virgin of God endured at the time of her persecution, just as she received it inflicted by no instrument of material things, but by the mere nod of the divine will, so she could explain it by no order of words. For the very magnitude of the miracle, exceeding the capacity of human sense, as it could not be grasped by human understanding, so it also could not be set forth by vocal demonstration.

[16] She tries to hide the stigmata, Therefore the handmaid of God, seeing the aforesaid stigmata so firmly impressed upon the aforesaid places, that she could by no art of medication or surgical curing remove them; at first indeed was zealous to hide these very things by much diligence and much effort — especially those which she bore in her hands — especially of her hands, and to withdraw from human gazes those things which beyond human industry the sole operation of divine virtue had marked on her body. But when she saw that in vain had she labored in this diligence of concealment (for the very novelty of the miracle could not longer be kept from the notice of her relatives, because the straitness of pain which she endured in these places betrayed her by its very disclosure, but she cannot; and her manual work, by which she daily sought the necessities of life, prevented those very things which had appeared in her hands from being longer hid from the sight of her relatives) — fearing, as afterwards happened, lest perchance the novelty of this miracle, for its rarity, should be spread abroad among the people, and so in future times she should be cultivated as it were of some famous name by the popular concourse; she began to implore more earnestly the clemency of almighty God, with prayers poured out, by prayers she obtains from God that the external appearance be removed. that he would both drive from her heart the occasion of the aforesaid fear, and remove from her body those stigmata of which we have spoken. Who, clemently hearing her, indeed removed the very scars from the places where they had once been impressed, making them entirely to vanish; but did not wholly take away from those same places the feeling of the former pain. For in every time of her life, but she retains the sensation of the pain. as often as outwardly she was weighed down with any injurious trouble from the malignant, so often in the aforesaid places the very bitterness of pain, continually renewed, exhorted her, as I may so speak, by such reminders both to bear patiently the injuries of her neighbors, and to recall those straits of passion which Christ had endured for her.

[17] Let everyone therefore attend and marvel, who learns these things by hearing or by reading, of how great merit and dignity with the Lord this his chosen one was; In these things shines Christ's special love toward Ida, to whom he committed, as a spiritual gift, the stigmata of his own Passion to be borne: and those which once in his body the Lord Jesus sustained — tortures and pains for the redemption of the whole world — these, for a special commendation of his love, he assiduously renewed in the virgin members of this his handmaid. Let others marvel that the marks of the Lord's Passion stand renewed in our times in a virginal body: let them marvel that the stigmata of the ancient wounds of Christ, after so great intervals of time, shine forth again in virgin members; which no lance of a persecutor, but only the clemency of divine piety; no cruel harshness of a crucifier, but only the undivided integrity of charity made to appear. I indeed deem these things not so much worthy of admiration, as that extraordinary virtue of humility and piety, which in her mind I perceive to have grown up far more wondrously to the arduous summit of perfection: and by her example, the humility of Christ. who, when she had received from the Lord the privilege of such great dignity, and was deemed worthy of the prerogative and title of honor of so great a miracle, yet greatly preferring Christ's humility to these things, chose rather to raise up the edge of her intention toward that, without which she could not procure the salvation of her soul; than to depress her mind by inclining it to popular applauses, which scarcely any of the perfect has ever avoided without the vicious contagion of vain delight.

CH. VII.

[18] At another time also a certain poor man, of most abject form and covered with a sufficiently cheap fashion of ragged dress, as though about to seek lodging, stood before the doors of the cell of the Virgin beloved of God; Seeming to herself to receive a poor man, and with mournful voices humbly begged that he might be admitted, for the sake of resting and finding hospitality. When the handmaid of God with wondrous affection of compassion, had received him, as a certain needy person, into the receptacle of her cell; and, with devoted compassion commiserating his beggary, had begun to apply the service of her devotion to preparing for him the necessities of life; showing herself in this deed another Martha, and, desiring to pay with such devotion as she could to Christ's members, for love of Christ, what she Martha had once paid to Christ the Head, and keeping diligent watch over the frequent ministration and paying attention; behold, the poor man, and desiring to minister to him, of whom our account began, reverently approaching his hostess, stood before her face; with her own hands, as it seemed to her, he opened her breast: and entering through the opening of that same breast, and wholly receiving himself within herself, and vanishing outwardly, he entirely went inside. A marvelous thing, and from very long past times quite unheard of. Yet lest from the novelty of the thing the mind of the reader remain too long in suspense, she receives within herself, through the opened side, him disappearing outside, if anyone should wish more openly to investigate the mystery of this deed, who this poor man was, and for what cause he turned aside to the Virgin of God about to seek hospitality, he will be able, by evident demonstration, to conjecture from what followed. For suddenly the mind of venerable Ida began inwardly to be so inflamed with a desire of poverty and abjection, that, not content with all that insult of abjection and vileness to which in former days she had bound herself, she at once made manifest the conceived desire of her heart by a quite wondrous example; and what divine virtue, through the infusion of the grace she had received, was working inwardly, by an unwonted order of things, she at once showed forth outwardly. For straightway, stripped of her own clothes, by the marvelous effect of divine grace. she fled without delay to a certain recluse cell neighboring her dwelling; and there, wrapping herself in a certain vile rag, and placing over her a mat in place of a cloak, and with another quite cheap covering hiding and bowing her face, through the streets and squares, covered with vile coverings, girded with such a fashion, through the places which were most crowded with the frequent throngs of men, she began to go forth walking: and wherever once she had been accustomed to walk in cultivated garments, and proudly to turn popular gazes upon herself by the display of her habit; she walks as one foolish: there now, as mad and foolish, offering men a certain monstrous spectacle of herself, she went.

[19] At a certain time also, when in the church during the most holy solemnities of the Mass, covered by these her fashions, she was present; and, known by no one, was dilating her heart in prayers and thanksgivings, in the presence of the saving Host; at the time of the Mass she pours out copious blood from her mouth and nostrils: from the excessive gratitude and overflowing sweetness of devotion, which she was then feeling in her soul, from her mouth and nostrils alike at once so great an abundance of blood began breaking forth and flowing, that the very pavement of the church seemed to be drenched in great copiousness, around the place which this handmaid of God lying there had occupied. Which is known to have happened frequently to her at other times also: namely when, from divine love conceived beyond the capacity of human strength, she was enjoying the abundant sweetness of inward suavity. Therefore, when the venerable little poor woman of Christ, for some days, in the habit which we have described, vile and abject, had walked along, longing to be seen and reckoned as such in the eyes of all as in her own; at length, recognized by her relatives, and not feignedly but truthfully judged by them as mad and frenzied, she is bound by her relatives as frenzied, by the consent of all, she was three times in one day bound with strong straps and chains. But meanwhile the Virgin of God, whose mind the very fervor of poverty and desire of abjection had raised to the arduous summit of patience, setting little by every injury she had received from these things, outwardly indeed fettered with chains, and she rejoices in God. but fortified with the inward and invincible liberty of her heart, exulted in the praises of God for the contumelies received. But when in the progress of time they had found in her no fuel of insanity or madness, and accordingly had loosed her bonds and restored her to her former liberty, she went forth from the sight of the council the more joyfully, the more she had been held worthy to be touched with contumely for the name of Jesus.

CHAPTER VI.

The Eucharist conferred by an angel. Love toward Christ. The effect of pious conversation.

CH. VIII.

[20] At the same time, at which, having despised the vanities of the world, she had begun to aspire to the heights of a more perfect life, she is said to have conceived in her heart a most valid desire of frequently partaking of the life-giving Sacrament of the Lord's Body. But when she had borne the fervor of this desire for a while, with immense tedium and straitness of heart; and yet did not presume to make known the heat of the conceived fervor to her Confessor; Desiring to take the Eucharist, and without his counsel and consent did not dare to satisfy that very desire of hers by the effect of the work; the most high mercy of divine piety was present to his chosen one, who was thus burning for him. nor daring to seek it from her Confessor, For what, with modesty hindering, as has been touched on, she did not dare to seek in public, by the compassionate remedy of his mercy, taking counsel equally for her affection and her blushing, beyond every industry of human virtue, that very thing he marvelously granted his chosen one to obtain in secret. For at that same time it frequently happened, that when the Priest, as is the custom, received the holy Communion at the altar; she, with the desire of her heart immensely dilated, received in her mouth at the same moment of time, and discerned by its taste, and even masticated with the office of her teeth, the most sacred pledge of the saving Host, borne, as we believe, by angelic ministry. From which reception she was filled, no doubt, in body and mind alike, with so great a sweetness of joy and spiritual delights, she receives it brought by an Angel. that it was not to be doubted that the very Author of sanctity was present at that time with the gifts of his graces. Truly wondrous is God in his Saints, who, before he is invoked, meets the prayers of those, grants their desires; and what the need of the indigent had scarcely hoped to attain even by multiplied prayers, this, granting their affections beforehand, he imparts with the hand of gratuitous piety. Truly I would call the desire of the holy Virgin most holy, and to be followed with every tribute of praise, which so often repeatedly, that it might be confirmed in its strength, deserved to receive heavenly nourishment from heaven.

CH. IX.

[21] But since we have made mention of the most valid desire of the holy Virgin, it remains that the other things which follow to be related about her, we should connect in continuous speech with the foregoing. On a certain day, therefore, when, according to custom, along with the rest she was about to offer her oblation

to the Lord through the hand of the Priest who was then celebrating the offices of the Masses, she drew near to the altar; seeing the chalice set upon it, as it was prepared for the completion of the most holy mysteries, she suddenly conceived so strong a desire to drink from it, that, returning to the place from which she had come with the same kindled desire, from excessive desire of taking the Eucharist and not being able to restrain its heat within the receptacles of her heart, she slackened the reins so far that, by her impetuous effort, straightway from her mouth and nostrils at once she sends forth copious blood: she sent forth immense rivers of blood; and until the Priest had arrived at the reception of the saving Host, by the same tenor, through the very openings of mouth and nostrils, she did not cease continually without any interval to pour forth the same flood of blood. Marvellous indeed these things, were it not that things still more to be marveled at followed upon such marvels. For the aforesaid Priest, although at that time joined to the Virgin of God by no tie of propinquity or private familiarity, yet, prevented as is believed by inward inspiration, when the office of holy reception was completed, at once by a messenger sent commanded her to come to him with the obstacle of modesty and fear alike removed, and, fully satisfying her desire, and she is hindered, unable to receive, not to delay to drink from that very chalice. Which indeed, on account of the excessive effusion of blood by which, as has been said, she was still constantly held, she was not able to carry out.

[22] For which cause, freed a little after from its flowing, with the business wholly frustrated, she returned sadly home with her desire: where when she was anxiously burning and raging, and did not know what to do or whither to turn; at length snatching up a particle of some corporal, the emission of blood ceasing, which she had long since received from one of her household through reverence of the Lord's Sacrament, and which she had secretly hidden in her closet and preserved with all reverence: and also an unconsecrated host, at home she takes an unconsecrated host: and half a one, that so she might at least somewhat restrain and mitigate the ardor of her desire, she most avidly swallowed down. But not even so did that most strong fervor entirely quiet itself, though refreshed by such a remedy. When therefore things were so situated, behold, a certain Priest, familiar and intimate with her, forestalled, as appears plainly from what follows, by the inspiration of divine piety, afterwards at another Mass she communicates by a messenger sent at once summoned venerable Ida to himself: in whose presence he at once approached the altar to celebrate Mass, and gave to her the most sacred communion of the Lord's Body and Blood: and so at last dismissed in peace, after the completion of the mysteries, he went back to his own with joy. That, however, this was done not by chance but by divine nod, was manifestly proved from this; the Priest being freed from the impediment of celebrating. that the same Priest, on account of the discomfort of a certain grave temptation, at that time most rarely celebrated the divine mysteries: for on the day before he had been humbly entreated about this by the Virgin of God, and had answered that he would by no means celebrate on the morrow. But on the following night, as the handmaid of Christ was laboring with much insistence of tears and prayers for his deliverance, the same Priest had so well recovered from the discomfort of his temptation, beyond his own hope, that with a free mind, rejoicing and giving thanks to God, on the following day he was zealous to fulfill the holy woman's petition: to the fulfilling of which, before, weighed down by the aforesaid discomfort, he had refused to give assent.

CH. X.

[23] In the progress of the same time, Ida, the venerable Virgin of Christ, had added this also to the homages of her devotion, that she would daily sing certain special Hours with special affection, in honor of the holy During her praying and undivided Trinity. On a certain day therefore, when in her reading she came to that which is known to be inserted in the same Hours, namely, And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (which indeed is inscribed in the aforesaid Hours as taken from the Gospel of John, reciting, "The Word was made flesh," and in these, in its proper place, is fittingly adapted according to the consonance of the matter); behold, that word which her tongue formed and mouth uttered, the operation of divine virtue, at that same moment of time, transformed into the substance of flesh; feeling then the very substance of flesh both with her mouth and discerning it with the taste, first she chewed it, as is the custom, and passed it to her inward parts: she feels the substance of flesh in her mouth. and made in her mouth as sweet as honey, like any other kind of food, not phantasmally but truly she swallowed it down. John 1, 14

[24] But also at another time, when she was approaching holy Communion together with certain other religious; and from desire, About to communicate, she knows not how to express her longing: which she then had conceived in her mind for the reception of the life-giving Sacrament, she was abounding in all spiritual delights; addressing one of them thus, not knowing indeed with what words she might worthily enough express her affection, "Let us go," she said, "and devour God." Which series of words, though published in a sufficiently confused order, whoever has felt himself to have an affection like that of the holy Virgin will not doubt to have sprung forth from the secret chamber of love. For the custom of those truly loving is said to be such, that their intention or affection, because it cannot be explained by words, is not known by an exquisite scheme of words, she feels the Sacrament taken by her like a fish, but rather by an unpolished and half-formed order of expressions. But as, the most holy Communion being received, the Sacrament of the Lord's Body descended to the bottom of her throat; presently changed, as it seemed to her, into the substance of a fish, from the inward part of the throat to the middle of the belly, with head bent downward, it stretched itself out in length; and drawing in its whole spirit through her jaws, and carrying it to the interior of her belly, like a fish gaping for food, she most avidly swallowed it down: which she is said to have felt constantly going on within her not only at the very hour of reception, but throughout the whole space of that day: the divine clemency so disposing the process and order of the thing, that she who had devoured the Lord's Body with a certain holy avidity, should in turn be devoured by it, not to her consumption, but to her happy incorporation, not without a certain pleasing and joyful interchange. But what wonder if the operation of supernal virtue, which long ago drew forth Jonah, swallowed in the belly of the fish and preserved from the waves of the sea, vomited out again when he willed; now also swallowed the spirit of this his handmaid, changed through the mystery of his Sacrament into the species of a fish, drawn into himself: from which, as into the tranquil port of her heart and conscience, he again, when he willed, drew her forth onto dry land, freed from the tempestuous waves of the world, the more swiftly as more freely. What wonder also, if the Word which in the Virgin's womb was made Flesh, and has disposed to dwell in the hearts of the Saints, in the womb also of this Virgin, how and in what way he willed, renewed the mysteries of his Incarnation. For Mary, by giving birth, brought forth into the world the Word divinely incarnate, for the salvation of all; and for the saving nourishment of her soul, this same Word, Venerable Ida in turn, through the eating of reading, consigned to the receptacles of her belly.

CH. XI.

[25] At another time also a certain matron, bound to her by the tie of familiarity, for the sake of devotion disposed to pass the night with her. To whom when, at the appointed time she had turned aside, With a certain matron and with every service of charity and devotion as to a familiar and known friend the handmaid of God had received her; with night coming on, the pilgrim woman begged with devout prayers that her bed should be spread for her in the upper room in which the Virgin of Christ was wont to lie down, so that together with her, in the same night, she might persist in vigils and prayers and holy conferences. Which venerable Ida, on account of this, that she was not wont to admit a mortal man as witness and sharer of her secrets, did not gladly grant; passing the night in pious conversations, yet, lest she should cast an offense into the heart of the woman, although unwillingly, she yielded to the prayers of the one supplicating. But when the twilight of night came on, while both together sat in the same upper room, and were proposing to each other edifying discourses on the joys of heavenly felicity, on the miseries of the world, the torments of hell, or the saving admonitions of the Scriptures; the Virgin of the Lord meanwhile could feel in the secret of her mind no sweetness of inward suavity, as she was wont. without the taste of piety: On which account at that same time she received within herself so great an injury of sorrow and sadness, that she feared lest she should thereupon, without any interval of delay, utterly lose her natural sense.

[26] Therefore, as she was impatient of this sterility, being of great desire, she began more earnestly to appeal to the clemency of almighty God, that he would wipe away the cloud of her sorrow from her heart with the hand of his accustomed piety, after prayers poured forth and illumine the dark prison of her mind with the accustomed abundance of supernal brightness. But what more? Scarcely had she formed the words to the completion of her prayer, scarcely had she excited her mind to pursue the study of interceding; when behold both, looking, saw the heavens opened, she sees the heaven opened, and an exceeding splendor, after the manner of a flash of lightning, gliding down from it, poured abundantly upon the venerable handmaid of God; and all at once most copiously surveyed her within and without, and herself illumined, as by the rays of the sun. By which illumination, certainly, so great an abundance of heavenly joy filled her mind and affection within, she is filled with joy along with the other woman and her spirit began to be inebriated with such immensity of spiritual sweetness, as if wholly, for intoxication, he had been brought into the wine-cellar itself at that time. For she saw with corporeal, as she afterwards related, gaze, the heaven, in that place from which the very brightness had come forth, in length and in breadth, to the measure of a longer strap or little cord, as though split in its upper parts to be opened: which fissure she wished to point out, for greater certainty of the thing, also to her who sat with her in the same place; but at that moment, so great a stupor and dullness oppressed the mind of her companion, and so great a fear had invaded the depths of her heart, that not only was she unable to look upward to see what was happening in the higher parts; but also like one mad and foolish, what she was to do or how she should behave, as witness of this deed. being darkened with the fog of fear, she was wholly ignorant. Yet the witness of this miracle afterwards, throughout all the time of her life, appeared faithful and truthful: and by her truthful disclosure she afterwards committed to the notice of many the wondrous things which, by the assent of supernal clemency, she had deserved to see regarding the handmaid of God.

CHAPTER V.

Beer changed into wine: the running of fishes and birds. Wondrous ecstasy on the feast of Epiphany.

CH. XII.

[27] At intervals of those same times, a certain young woman, who a few days before had betaken herself to the college of the Beghines, with life and dress alike changed, the vanities of the world cast aside; and for some space of time, A certain young Beghine, in the progress of her holy religious life, had bravely served the almighty Lord; at the instigation of the enemy of all good things, had little by little begun

to grow tepid and fall away from her holy resolution: whom also the crafty one had so fraudulently led away from the right path, that, as the dog about to return to its vomit, she was now about to cast off the habit of her assumed religion, determining to return to the vanities of the world, and to immerse herself again in the worldly vanities which she had renounced. When this came to the notice of venerable Ida, and she had observed in what manner or on what occasions the ancient adversary of the human race had begun to ensnare her in his nets, she, not so much indignant at the other's wickedness as compassionate of her misery, steadfastly set herself against the impending danger; and having called to herself the wavering young woman, and brought her into her dining-room, she labors to strengthen her in her calling, now with gentle admonitions, now even with harsh rebukes, as she judged expedient for the business, with the additional help of prayers, she labored to bring her back to the resolution of an amended life.

[28] Therefore, one day as the Virgin of Christ was having her dine with herself, and did not have at that time wine which might be set before those reclining at table, she invites her to dinner, she set before the feasting girl beer poured into a bowl, in place of nectar: and so with cheerful countenance and joyful voice, crying out she said, "It would be fitting and sufficiently agreeable to reason that the heavenly bridegroom should now refresh these his brides, gathered here in his name, at these his nuptials by sending them a cup of wine." A wondrous thing, and not unsuitably, as I think, and offers the beer changed into wine: to be compared to the ancient miracle of Christ. For the girl straightway put the poured-out beer to her mouth; but he who once, sitting at the wedding banquet at Cana, had by heavenly virtue changed water into wine; in this wedding banquet also, satisfying the desire of his beloved bride, changed the said beer into the best wine. Drinking therefore, the girl, both receiving the taste of wine with her mouth and discerning it with her palate, turned to amazement, began to cry out with great vociferation: stunned beyond measure by the novelty of the accomplished miracle, she did not cease with loud praises and immense voices of proclamation to exalt the eminence of supernal piety. From that time, therefore, through the novelty of this miracle, confirmed in her holy resolution; by the narrow path of a penitential life, and she confirms her in her holy resolution. she zealously followed this handmaid of God, following in the outfit of her conduct her footsteps, until, with the aid of divine grace, through her guidance, she came to great increases of a more perfect life.

CH. XIII.

[29] It happened also at these times, that for washing a certain linen garment, the Virgin devoted to God proceeded on a certain day to a pool adjoining her dwelling; and for restoring, washing linens at the pool, as is the custom, the newness of its former whiteness, she was dipping and washing it in the waters, in frequent repetition. When she was diligently doing this standing on the bank of the water, behold, a multitude of fishes of diverse kind, gathered together as though for desired food, swam from the deep pools of the lake to the hands of the Virgin, and in her sight, as though rejoiced by her presence, she is refreshed by a multitude of fishes coming to her, exulting with leaping motions in a dance, they honored the Virgin of God with such salutations of homage as they could. For they flowed together from every part eagerly, and as others receded, in turn others succeeded; and as often as she let down her hand into the water, with her fingers seized, in their gullets, like children hanging on their mother's breasts, they clung; and thus for much space of the day, and she uses them at her pleasure. they showed a pleasing spectacle for her with their applause. She indeed, taking now these now those in her hands, set them before her on the wooden bridge on which she was standing; and when she would put some back at the pleasure of her will and replace others, yet she scared off none of them by handling them, but like their own mother, unceasingly licking or sucking her fingers, this whole multitude surrounded her in strife; until at her nod, with permission granted, they swam back into the depth of the pool, from which they had flowed together.

[30] Another thing also not unlike this is known to have happened to this handmaid of God in these days, in which the goodness of divine power to be magnified, and the venerable holiness of his Virgin, is most openly proved. For on a certain day, when she had gone as usual to the church where the offices of the Mass are celebrated, it came into her mind that she should not enter the church itself at that time, but standing outside in the atrium, hearing Mass in the atrium, she might the more devoutly listen from outside to the most holy mystery which was being completed in it, as being kept remote from the popular crowd: where, when she was standing alone, the rest being gathered in the bosom of the church, and, troubled by the tediousness of solitude, desired the solace of some creature; seeing certain little birds of both sexes, she calls cocks and hens, namely cocks and hens, occupied in seeking their food at distant places, she at once turned herself toward them, and addressing them from afar in such words, she adjured them that they should straightway fly to her and attend with her at the divine offices. "All you," she said, "birds of the gallinaceous kind, dwelling within the neighboring bounds of this atrium, I adjure you through the goodness of divine power, and orders them to be present at the sacrifice of the Mass, that, foods being meanwhile left aside, you fly to the church, and be present now equally with me at the holy solemnities of the Mass in honor of our Creator." A marvelous thing, and in our times the more unusual the more worthy to be recited among the ancient miracles of the Saints. For scarcely had the holy handmaid of God spoken the word with her mouth, when behold, birds of the aforesaid kind, flowing together from divers places of the neighborhood on every side, began to fly to her; and surrounding her as their own mother, and with certain gestures as it were proclaiming themselves ready for her homage, with heads and crests lifted up, they directed the gaze of their eyes unceasingly toward her. which being performed, she gives them leave to go. They stood therefore all in order as if immobile, continually gazing at her, and not moderately delighting her mind with this their spectacle; until, the Gospel lesson having now been read in the church, they received from her leave to return: and so with heads bowed, as though bidding her farewell, they flew back again to the places from which they had come.

CH. XIV.

[31] At the same time also, a great and vehement desire kindled the heart of the holy woman, of beholding with bodily eyes the bodily presence of the Infant Christ; and likewise of adoring him with the Magi, by offering him fit gifts. Which desire, for an entire year's space, remained fixed in her mind, She desires to adore the Infant Christ with the Magi: and through that interval of time had no moderately troubled her with its immense strength. It happened therefore on the Vigil of holy Theophany, at which time, namely, this adoration of the three Magi, celebrated at Bethlehem in the time of Herod, is recited through the whole Church; it happened, I say, that a certain girl, under the Beghine habit given over to the divine service, for the sake of devotion was to pass the night with the holy Virgin of God; that they might proceed together on that night to the matutinal Vigils to be celebrated in the neighboring church of the brothers Preachers; and on the night of Epiphany and there with great solemnity attend the praises to be recited. Therefore as the twilight of the night came on, both occupying the little bed spread for them together; the one indeed composed her limbs to rest; but the accustomed meditation of venerable Ida on the Savior's infancy so strongly assailed her mind at that same moment of time, while she meditates that not only could she not indulge sleep to her eyes and slumber to her eyelids, but also her spirit leapt into so great an abyss of eternal joy, that from the extraordinary abundance of spiritual delight and supernal sweetness, which the straitness of her heart could not wholly contain, the individual members of her body, in a wondrous way exceeding their natural state, began to grow large, and beyond the measure of their accustomed size spread themselves in so monstrous a thickness; that one of her feet, unable to bear the weight of this swelling, with the mass of her body dilated at the same time cracked in the middle, and through many intervals of time afterwards showed by a wound the mark of its injury. You might have seen therefore venerable Ida pressing her companion girl with the immense mass of her body, and, her companion yielding, alone occupying the breadth of the little bed in which they had reclined together. The other indeed marveled vehemently, what this sudden breadth of corpulence portended; she occupies almost the whole bed: and restraining herself at once in the extreme part, she diligently observed within herself to what end the miraculous demonstration of so unusual a thing would close. Without delay, the Virgin of God, who as we have said, a little before had claimed the whole space of the little bed to herself, and had scarcely conceded the least or extreme particle of it to the one reclining with her, on account of the immoderate quantity of her greatness; then suddenly disappears: marvellous to tell, all at once suddenly disappeared, and withdrawing her bodily presence from the other, she left behind entirely empty the place which she had before occupied. Then indeed you might have heard the remaining one greatly stupefied, and, because of the sudden fright, almost dissolved into madness, crying out, and with great shrieks of cries wailing: for she had seen nothing like it in the past times of her life, and utterly did not yet know with what outcome the quite unwonted novelty of so unaccustomed a miracle would close.

[32] But the Virgin of God, whether in the body I know not, whether out of the body I know not, God knows, and being taken away, she sees the Mother of God with the boy Jesus, meanwhile found herself transported into a certain house, as I believe, by angelic hands; where she beheld the glorious Mother of God, bearing in her bosom the sweetest fruit of her womb, the Lord namely, under the obscuring form of infant members: whom also, after the manner of the three Magi, and adoring him with the Magi as she had long desired, she adored with knees bowed to the ground. But he, not disdaining to render a worthy reciprocation to his chosen one, with hands raised, with his accustomed piety, blessed her as she adored him. Further, the handmaid of God with wondrous joy of mind directed the gaze of her eyes at once upon the mother and the son: from which gazing, flowing with all spiritual delights, she is filled with sacred delights: and unable to be satisfied with the inestimable beauty of the precious faces, she could not tear her continual gaze from them without any interruption.

[33] A little while later, the vision which she had seen being withdrawn, she came to herself, having returned to the bed, and found herself lying beside her companion girl in her little bed: and not unmindful of the aforesaid vision, "Oh most beautiful Son of a most beautiful Mother," in the likeness of one drunk or mad, with loud and often-repeated voices she cried out. In this alienation of mind she is said to have continued for no small space of that night: so that not only by shouting with confused vociferations, but also by the gestures of her bodily members showing forth certain signs of excessive drunkenness, lest perchance by useless wanderings she should exceed the bounds of decency, by the most tight bindings of the arms of her companion she needed to be restrained: until after much time, freed from this distemper of madness by God's grace, she was restored again to her former health. But returned to herself, she was able indeed somehow to explain with words the vision which she had seen; and being restored to herself she tells the vision: but the wrought sweetness of the delight, which in the sight of the most holy Mother of God and her sweetest son Jesus Christ

she had deserved to conceive, she could afterwards express by no words: seeing that it, exalted above all human senses, admitted no understanding of words whatsoever for its full declaration. Nor indeed, when the vision was withdrawn, did the immense joy of the aforesaid delight disappear along with it at once and suddenly, but as though continually before the eyes of her heart the very showing of the vision were present, so through all the space of the following day, flooding the inmost parts of her heart, it did not cease with continuous constancy to abound.

[34] But also on the same day, when she was planning to return from the Vesper service, at whose completion together with her Beghine companion she had been present, to her dwelling, and had arrived before her father's house; again with the same tenor in all things, again rapt in the same ecstasy, as before, snatched away in the excess of mind, she began to behold anew the glorious Mother of God carrying the little infant in her bosom, and with knees prostrate on the ground to adore humbly the Mother with the Son, as before she had done. Therefore falling to the ground in the midst of the street, she lay as though dead; and again so great a greatness of corpulence possessed each of the members of her body, that unless she was held by the strongest embraces of the arms of her companion, she feared with grave fear that she would split in two; similarly she is dilated: therefore the girl, exceedingly anxious, was not able especially at that time to notice what was to be done by her. For to leave her companion alone in the middle of the streets in that state, she believed to be not only unlawful but wicked: but to cry out with noise or to implore another's aid with shouts, lest perhaps the mysteries of this thing, which ought to be concealed, should be published among the people, she did not dare.

[35] While things were thus; behold, a certain poor man, about to seek lodging from the father of the holy Virgin, stood on her father's threshold, and sought to be lodged. But with the father refusing to admit his petition, sorrowful and wailing he withdrew from there; and making his way near the holy Virgin of God, he uttered certain mournful voices, in which, she is roused to procure lodging for the poor man: as he was given over to miseries and hardships, he bewailed the empty injuries of his miseries and the discomforts of his hardships alike. His vociferation the handmaid of God, hearing as though in sleep, meanwhile aroused by these, she straightway came to herself: and rising, she went at once to her father's doors, and by her prayers obtained for the poor man the lodging denied him by her father; and so at last, to her own dwelling, from which she had departed, with her companion providing her guidance, she returned. Therefore entering the house, and not being able to sustain, by the help of corporeal strength, the weight of the inward sweetness which from the aforesaid visions she had conceived in mind; having returned home, soon falling into a strong and severe languor, and lying down in her own bed, and wounded by the sweet dart of love, she applied her attention to groans and sighs alone: and so continually for the space of thirteen days, for thirteen days she remains without any food: not only meanwhile not tasting the substance of any material food, but — what is more — disdaining even to apply the hearing of her ear to any exquisite variety of them, nourished during that time by the sole dish of love, she did not lift her head from her little bed. But on a certain one of those days, it happened that the aforesaid girl, who meanwhile was showing earnest service to the languishing one, came to make up the little bed in which she lay, as is the custom, carrying in her hand a certain small portion of bread. When she laid this on a stool, beside the virginal bed-chamber, so that she might more readily perform her office; the same bread, beyond the usual nature of its quality, began to pour forth a certain excellent fragrance and one of marvelous sweetness upon the sick one; and so copiously to refresh the languishing one's spirit with its sweetness, except a small portion of bread tasted in excess of mind. that she, not knowing what she was doing, snatched it up, most avidly chewed it, and swallowing it passed it to her inner parts: and she who, as we have said before, had not been able, with peace of heart preserved, at that time to eat or even to hear named any food of earthly substance, devoured this bread of which we speak, in a certain excess of mind, no less eagerly than avidly. Which is not unsuitably believed to have been so done not by chance but by divine nod; namely that her bodily strength, assailed by thirteen continual days of abstinence, might through the eating of this bread be strengthened again in its vigor. But when, being asked by the astonished girl what this unaccustomed eating portended, she knew that she had eaten; soon with her appetite failing she could not taste of the aforesaid bread: and so, until after the thirteenth day she was restored to her former health, she continued in the fasting of continued abstinence.

NOTES.

CHAPTER VI.

Ida's elder sister is deterred from inflicting injuries by a heavenly light: her younger sister is raised from the dead.

CH. XV.

[36] At the same time, one of her sisters by blood, at the evil one's instigation, on a certain day began to assail the innocent one with the harshest sharpness of words, to provoke her unworthily with injurious words; and what was exceedingly unfitting, She is received by her sister with injurious words: without deferring to her holiness or her honor, to provoke the mind of the devoted Virgin, as much as she could, to impatience and also to anger. But he who never deviates from the track of justice in judgments, who claims vengeance and retribution for himself in the Scriptures, and who never failed his venerable bride in her afflictions or pressures, corrected also the depravity of this one, to be rebuked for her inconsiderate obstinacy, with a punishment worthy enough: and that in the person of his elect, it is not so much against them as against himself that an injury is inflicted by the malignant, he showed by a sufficiently manifest indication. Rom. 12, 19 For in the following night that came on, when this one of whom we speak, to sleep in her little bed according to the custom, had brought in the limbs of her body; and with the tumults of her cares lulled, but by Christ appearing in the form of a little boy had indulged sleep to her eyes and slumber to her eyelids; behold, a certain little boy of inestimable, as she afterwards related, elegance, girded with a robe reaching to the ankles and seamless, appeared to her in a vision: who, ascending by the step of the stool onto the bed, and throwing himself upon her, began vehemently to oppress her with blows of fists and poundings of feet; and with hard insults of words, reproving her folly, and rebuking the wickedness committed against her sister, he no less proceeded to reprimand her: "Why," he said, "did you yesterday, and she is defended, being rebuked. without reasonable cause, without deferring either to me or to her, presume to assail your sister with such contumelious blows of injuries? Why did you so grievously offend my venerable bride, who so liberally daily feeds, serves, and ministers to me in my members, inconsiderately and unworthily? Do you not know that the contumely which you so insolently and so obstinately inflicted upon my chosen one was inflicted upon me?" To whom when she, trembling and fearful, answered that henceforth she would never do anything of the kind; and moreover promised with firm stipulation that her sister should be followed by her from now on with every homage of honor, provided that this offense should be remitted to her; "Do not," he said, "do not say such things, nor make a frivolous promise about the matter which you assert: for I know and am sure, that you now falsely assert these things for your escape; and as hitherto, so in future times, forgetful of this promise, you will inflict upon her very many injuries of maledictions, and how many troubles of offenses — yet not with impunity."

[37] Saying these things, the little boy, as it seemed to her, vanished from her gazing eyes; but that by such narrations he had foretold to her true things, the outcome of the matter afterwards declared: for also in the following time such things did she often repeatedly do, and now with reproachful, now with derisive, again mocked by her, sometimes even with scornful words, consenting in this deed to diabolical desires and serving their pleasures, she assailed the innocent mind of the holy Virgin. Of which we shall bring forth one more into the midst, which will not unsuitably be given as an example to molesters of God's Saints — that they may come to their senses from their obstinacy — and to their venerators — that they may advance the more in their virtue. On a certain time therefore this one, of whom we have related the foregoing, standing by a vessel of wine which was at that time being held for sale at their father's, summoned venerable Ida — who at that moment was occupied in her oratory with holy meditations or prayers — to herself with clamorous voices and displaying signs of scornful laughter, in this manner: "Come," she said, "sister, run, hurry, and put your nostrils to the bung-hole of this cask: and you, who always desire to weep, will be able to pour forth tears abundantly, provoked by the nectar-like odor of this fragrant wine." Hearing which she said, "Wine has often pricked me with its sweetness, and very often has provoked me to weep and pour forth tears by the sweetness of its odor." But she said this not of material wine, which drunk goes into the belly and is cast out, but of spiritual wine, gladdening the heart of man, which by the pure of heart alone is tasted in the storehouse of heavenly grace. Saying these things she began to weep, no doubt most copiously at that same time, by the supernal grace giving her in recompense for the injury inflicted on her, she is illumined by a fiery globe shining upon her. the taste and odor alike of heavenly wine. But scarcely had the Virgin of God finished her words, when behold, a certain luminous and fiery globe, most similar in quality and in brightness to the very sun which is seen to shine on high, sent from above, appeared flashing over the handmaid of Christ: which illumining that whole virginal chamber, offered itself to be seen also by the sight of her rival sister. Seeing which, she was vehemently astonished, and by so miraculous a display of this light somewhat amended from her excesses, what she had seen or how it had happened, by truthful intimation to many afterwards marveling, and abundantly approving the ready holiness of the Virgin of God from this, she made known.

CH. XVI.

[38] Since therefore in the preceding chapter we have made brief and compendious mention of the supernal light illumining the handmaid of Christ, it is worthwhile that we should add also other things which follow concerning her, in the continued order of the narration, to the foregoing. On a certain night therefore, namely on the feast of the blessed and glorious Confessor of the Lord, Nicholas, together with the same sister having entered the church venerable Ida, together with her sister of whom we have spoken above, had gone to the church for the sake of prayer; and there according to custom, betaking herself to a certain secret place of the church to attend to the praises of God, before the image of the glorious Mother of God, placed there on the edge of a certain altar, she was fulfilling the duties of her prayer devoutly and intently, with groans and sighs. Where when for some space of that night, beating the earth with her knees and the heaven with her tears, she had stood before the aforesaid image, and had offered to the almighty Lord a pleasing incense of praise and thanksgiving, on the altar of her heart, as

[39] But also at another time a certain girl, devoted to the cultivation of the religion which they call Beghinal, and made intimate to her by the service of familiarity, similarly in light she is seen by a Beghine standing in a certain church beside the place which she, in her own manner, attending to prayers, was occupying; beheld her whole body, like a lantern illumined within, to radiate with a certain immense light: and what she alone deserved to see, by truthful intimation she delegated afterwards to the notice of many. Also on a certain night of the most holy Nativity of the Lord, when namely during the matutinal Vigils of that day, which is especially wont to be celebrated by the Savior's birth, she was present at the most holy solemnities of the Mass; a certain Friar, a Preacher in order and office alike, and on the night of Christ's Nativity by a certain Dominican. beheld her standing between two great lights, placed as in candlesticks to the right and left of her quite openly: by whose radiating brilliance she was illumined through much of that night, and with equal position surrounding her in their midst, hedged on either side; like a terrible army in array, in the eyes of the beholder, who was also marveling, she appeared; and thus moreover, for the perpetual commendation of her holiness, by this her miracle, his mind she did not moderately stir.

CH. XVII.

[40] It happened also in these times that the chosen one of the Lord, bereft of the service of her bodily strengths, little by little fell into languor; and with the natural vigor of her constitution loosened, for some days was somewhat ill. On a certain day therefore, while languishing she lay in her bed, and bearing the custom of infirmity, lying sick had necessarily withdrawn her mind from cares and her wearied bodily members from labors and pressures; behold, her younger and junior sister (who for some time had also grievously been sick, but, restored by the benefit of convalescence, yet not wholly expedited from the discomfort of her former weakness, she is visited by her younger sister recovering: rising from her bed, had come to her, as to a partaker and companion of her sickness, for the sake of visiting her), refreshed her ailing sister with such solace of exhortation and address as she could. When, beside the languishing one, she herself also languishing, she had stood for no long space of time; and had paid some service to the ailing one, as her sickness seemed to require; behold, little by little her eyes began to grow dim with a certain sudden obscuring: and a little after, destitute of every office of sight, they rendered the aforesaid girl utterly blinded and deprived of all light. Which perceiving, "Ah," said she, "my sister, now my eyes begin to be oppressed by a certain foul darkness." And a little after, "Now," she said, "they are utterly blinded, and destitute of every office of beholding." whom she bewails as suddenly dead Which said, straightway she fell back before the little bed of God's handmaid, and by a just, but hidden, judgment of God, by the ruin of sudden death, falling upon her face, expired.

[41] Which her venerable sister, beholding, and exceedingly frightened at so unexpected a passing of the dying one, soon groaned with mournful voices like one raging; and filling the whole dwelling of that abode with confused ululations, and with mournful shrieks of vociferations and weepings, throwing herself from the little bed upon which long languishing she had lain, onto the ground; and spreading herself over the little body of the deceased, bewailed her pitiful death most earnestly, with the compassionate affection of mercy, frequently repeating her sister's name. At whose voices the disturbed multitude of all the household family came together: and finding that one indeed lifeless, with her household: but this one prostrate over the lifeless body, astonished beyond what can be said, with plaintive voices she too increased the noise begun by the Virgin of God, indulging not so much in cries as in tears. Yet venerable Ida, considering that in the execution of this business there was need not of tears but of prayers, meanwhile abstained from wailings, and turned herself at once to the suffrage of prayers, appealing to the clemency of almighty God with most insistent prayers, that both he would restore life to her deceased sister, and raise herself up from the deadly waste of sorrow and grief, and obtains her resuscitation by her prayers by which she was so anxiously disturbed, by the accustomed clemency of his piety. But what more? Not yet had she lifted her knees from the earth, not yet had she withdrawn her arms from the embraced corpse; and behold, he who through his holy Prophets — Elisha and Elijah, namely — freed the son of the Shunammite through the one, and the son of the Sareptan widow through the other, from the bonds of death and restored them to the benefit of their former life; and who through himself raised three dead persons by the testimony of Gospel Scripture; bending down to the prayers of this his handmaid also, restored the vital spirit to the lifeless little body: and by the marvelous novelty of this deed, with the cloud of former sorrow dispelled, he calmed the minds both of her and of all those beholding, with the light of joyous gladness. For straightway, while all who had come stood openly watching, at the touch of the mouth of so holy a Virgin, the girl yawned seven times, opened her eyes; and at last restored most perfectly to her former health, rising from the earth, and giving thanks to God, in the same tenor of health, through much space of years after these things, by the favor of heavenly clemency, she survived.

CHAPTER VII.

Her sanctity revealed to a certain Premonstratensian of equal merit. Warmth transferred from Ida to another.

CH. XVIII

[42] There was also at these times a certain Canon Regular of the Premonstratensian Order, a religious man and adorned with every title of holiness and devotion. When at a certain time, intent on the study of holy meditation, A Premonstratensian Canon he had lifted his heart with his hands to the Lord, not so much with affectionate as with virtuous effort; and for the pardon of his sins, for obtaining the mercy of divine compassion, he had applied all the effort of his affection and all the homage of his devotion; at length snatched away in the excess of mind, and destitute of the office of bodily senses, he saw all, placed in ecstasy as many as he had hitherto had as friends or intimates in this world, taken from himself, and himself utterly widowed of their solace, left as it were alone. About which thing, being troubled, he groaned vehemently: for many, in the laborious shipwreck of this world, both spiritual and carnal friends and lady-friends had he possessed at that time; and what outcome would follow so astonishing a thing, he observed more attentively. Therefore, when for some time, as it seemed to him, he had remained in this trouble of sorrow and sadness; and had anxiously bewailed the loss which he bore from the loss of his friends — not knowing the cause on account of which he suffered such things — suddenly he saw venerable Ida presented before the eyes of his mind: and recognizing most fully his own state in her, [he understands himself to be of equal merit and will be of equal reward with Ida:] that in the presence of the deifying majesty they would be of equal merit, and that in eternal blessedness they would be marked with the honor of equal reward, the grace of the Holy Spirit revealed to him. Who, a little afterwards returning to himself, found the front part of his garment copiously sprinkled with rosy drops, as if for tears his eyes had distilled his blood: which no doubt that immense fervor of devotion had drawn out, which in him a little before, not consuming but illuminating ray of divine fire, kindled by the holy fires of meditations, had aroused.

[43] Therefore, awakened from the sleep of contemplation, and restored to his own senses, and not moderately marveling at what he had seen, he began to think that he would visit the aforesaid Virgin, who had once been shown to him in the excess of mind: whom alone, in the recompense of all his friends and intimates, he had received; that he might diligently explore of what life and conduct or merit she was. Coming at length to her, as soon as by the gaze of his eyes he apprehended the form of the outer man in the Virgin of God, by the sharpness of inner sight he most perfectly recognized her inward state and character. But also the state of that inner man was not hidden from venerable Ida: for straightway, after she began in turn to impress the edge of her eyes upon him, the whole disposition of her own state she saw shining brighter than light in his soul. Seeing one another therefore, the souls of both coalesce in holiness not otherwise than if they had lived together all the time of their life, they recognized each other with no unlike interchange: and that before the highest Judge both would be of equal merit, and that with equal zeal, both in prayers and affections, they had stood with continued turns in the exercise, and still were standing together in divine worship, through the revelation of the Holy Spirit, in each other's breast, by the sharpness not of bodily but of inward eyes, they perceived. From that time therefore, and thenceforth, they remained one heart in the Lord: whom no wanton carnal affection, but the adhesive connection of the Holy Spirit, bound together with the indissoluble bond of charity: whom also he preserved in the same resolution of holy love, as long as afterwards they both lived together in this world.

[44] The aforesaid servant of God therefore, when after many agonies of penitential industry which in the brief time of his life he had borne bravely and devoutly, reaching the end of his life, about to be rewarded with an eternal prize, he had drawn near; and the work, which the Father gave him to do, he had now worthy of the heavenly reward consummated; being asked by his friends how he might be equal to venerable Ida in reward, after the bound of this life had been run (especially since he had performed every exercise of his virtues as it were a course, the Canon confirms his saying in his last sickness: under the brief compass of a shorter life; which indeed she had drawn out in a long course of years, and would nonetheless continue to draw out as long as with life for companion she persisted in this world) — he is said soon to have given such a response: "Just as," he said, "some prompt and eager soldier, carried by the help of a swifter horse, traverses very quickly long spaces of roads; which any weak one, or one burdened with the weight of slower mounts, after many intervals of times hardly crosses or runs: so I, with divine grace cooperating, under the brevity of the time granted, have been able to complete all the labors of the present life, which she, as weaker, has till now attempted to unfold, and still will no less be completing through the space of time to be in future: and so it will come about that we shall be obtaining an equal reward, whom in this

world the mercy of Jesus Christ has enriched with equal merit." Which things being said, he indeed, absolved from the bonds of the present life, passed to the joys of eternal blessedness: but the handmaid of God, according to the oracle of the response of the aforesaid holy man, passed through the course of her praiseworthy life, in the holy exercise of holy virtues, through many spaces of years afterwards.

CH. XIX.

[45] It happened also at these times, that this Virgin of God, of whom we speak, chanced to stand beside a certain girl who was devoting her effort to the folding of Corporals; Seeing the Corporals folded by the girl, and diligently examining with a certain affectionate gaze the work which was being done, she more curiously observed how it ought to be done. For straightway as she began with bodily sight to behold the very Corporals, the most holy sacrament of the Lord's Body, which was to be laid upon them by the priestly ministry, did not cease unceasingly to occur to her memory at the same time. Whose most grateful recollection was so striving to affect her holy mind, mindful of the Eucharist with a certain ineffable delight and incomprehensible sweetness, at that time, that by the inestimable greatness of the conceived love, it most certainly seemed to her that that fiery and fervent affection of holy charity, no otherwise than if her heart had been penetrated with a material fire, had inflamed the inmost parts of her heart along with the other interior parts. But what wonder, if she could, even by bodily sensibility, perceive within herself the fervor of the heavenly fire, she is inflamed with a heavenly fervor, raging within her like a material inflammation; she who by the inward affection of love leaping into the furnace of eternity, approached the eternal fire, which is God? For our God is a consuming fire, certainly more penetrating than any two-edged sword, and reaching to the division of spirit and soul: whence it necessarily follows, that whomever he calls to himself by the infusion of his grace, he illumines alike with the fire of heavenly flames and kindles. So great, finally, was the force with which that saving pyre is said to have pervaded the inmost parts of the Virgin of God at that time, that it flowed over even into bodily views, through outward appearing signs. For the girl also, who, as we have said before, was meanwhile intently engaged at her side in the folding of Corporals, beheld from her as it were a burning torch, like a great flash of lightning, proceeding forth, and she warms the neighboring girl as with an outward fire. and by its penetrating strength not so much surveying her outwardly as inflaming her within; and the heat infused with the illumination of splendor, as if she had endured the burnings of a material conflagration, at that same moment of time, rather by the inward scrutiny of sensibility than by the outward image of shown splendor, she perceived. Note, reader, that concerning the Saints of ancient times also we have frequently learned, by hearing or by reading, things like these: whence not incongruously, as I judge, the greater faith of credulity, as confirmed by the stronger verisimilitude of like things, we also apply to present things. With these things therefore treated in the compass of brevity concerning the beginning of the holy conduct of venerable Ida, Epilogue of Book I. before we proceed to the rest, that provision may meanwhile be made not so much for our remedy as for the tediousness of the reader, I think we must rest a little in the friendly port of silence; and until the intention of both writer and reader be reformed by the benefit of quiet, let the pen of our narration remain for a little in suspense.

NOTES.

BOOK II.

The second part of her holy life up to her entrance into the Cistercian Order.

Chapters of the second book.

CHAPTER I.

Various states of Ida. A plague driven away.

CH. I.

[1] In the preceding book, what we could recall from the little leaves once examined concerning the beginning of the holy Virgin of God's conduct, we have set forth with a humble and lowly, but truthful narration: Introduction to Book 2. in the present, what has occurred concerning the progress of her virtues, namely how on the way of her holy life she constantly advanced from virtue to virtue, as compendiously as we can we shall join to the foregoing. And first, indeed, concerning the divers states of her life, which the grace of the Holy Spirit ordered in divers ways in her soul at divers times, as it willed, to dispatch briefly, I think worthwhile; so that, with these premised, the order of the narration may come in the future, in a continued series, to those things which desire a more diligent treatment of dispatch.

[2] Such a state of life therefore is she said sometimes to have had, that, when by the benefit of incoming grace she was enjoying the gift of visitation, On account of spiritual joy from the abundant sweetness of inward suavity, in a wondrous way even her very bodily members, as wax which flows before the face of fire, diminished from their own state, scarcely seemed to present in themselves the quantity of the members of infants, of two or three years namely, her members appeared as of a girl of two or three years: spiritually, as I think, melted by that fire of heat. Sometimes also the very fullness of heavenly grace so flooded her mind by inebriating it, that wherever sitting she rested, she supposed the very little place in which she sat, to have been the kingdom of heaven, utterly at that time forgetful of the human condition; she imagines every place the kingdom of heaven, At other times also the very intervals of time seemed to her so brief and the days few, on account of the greatness of love, that after the ninth hour or even vesper-time, all time seems brief, she could scarcely believe that prime or terce had flowed by. Sometimes also she is said to have been so much snatched away in the jubilation of the heart or in the excess of mind, that wherever she sat, stood, walked, or lay, she believed herself to be embraced by Christ, and that she dwelt in the embrace of Christ: and herself in turn to embrace him whom she loved, namely the Lord Jesus Christ. Sometimes also in these times, from every species of earthly things, the very spiritual delight she was enjoying had so called back the mind and intention of the holy woman, that tasting or attending to nothing earthly, with open eyes she always gazed into heaven; and with contempt of earth, she gazes at heaven. and marveled much why the men of this world, by the obstacles of roofs which are set upon houses, willingly withdrew from the sight of their eyes the view of the supercelestial things; and, by rather irrational industry, as it seemed to her, in a certain way repelled them from themselves. These therefore and other states of life of this kind, in her soul the power and wisdom of God disposed by ordering, about the progress of her conduct; and her, whom it pleased him, in future times, by his own spontaneous goodness, to lift up to the arduous summit of perfection, being set in these as in certain steps of ascent, how by further ascending she might come to the consummated state of life, he formed by these gifts of his graces.

CH. II.

[3] When at a certain time, occupied in holy meditations in a corner of her house, the handmaid of God, not so much alone as solitary, was sitting; suddenly a certain spirit of fortitude, leaping into her, and setting her upon her feet, began vehemently to urge her to go outside. Whom the venerable Virgin following, and committing herself to his guidance, Driven by an inner Spirit, through streets and squares (yet utterly not knowing whither she was going), as though for the dispatch of some business she were compelled of necessity to undertake a journey of setting forth, began soon with ready steps to walk. Going therefore, not where she herself would, but where the insistence of the Holy Spirit led her, at length walking she arrived at the house of a certain ailing man, sick near the dwelling of her father; and finding him half-dead lying in bed (for he was already anointed with the oil of extreme Unction), with the affectionate feeling of compassion, she sweetly inquired how he was. she is led to one half-dead from plague, When the sick man, with what strength he could, had indicated to her the place of his infirmity and its character (for he was overcome with that pestilential swelling which they call anthrax, with not so much a marvelous as a most piteous inflation), at the first sight of the holy woman, in the presence of all who were then there, that tumor, bursting through the middle, and she heals him soon gave a way of going out to the deadly plague hidden within: which, little by little flowing out from within, the swelling of the tumor also at once subsided: and with the bitterness of the previous pain at once mitigated, at that same moment of time the man recovered, and over the benefit of recovered health, praised the clemency of almighty God, together with the whole gathered multitude of the people.

[4] From that time therefore and thenceforth, the Virgin of God was held in great veneration, on the ground of her holiness, with all, to whose notice these things came, in those days. For of all to whom it was permitted to see or hear these things, there was one unchangeable opinion: that through the merits of venerable Ida, grieved that the fame of this matter is spread about, the trouble of so bitter a pain had been driven away, and health so suddenly and unexpectedly succeeding had without doubt been restored in the same sick man. When this, by the frequent narration of many, far and wide lay open to notice, and had marvelously exalted the title of virginal holiness in these times in all the surrounding neighborhood; the handmaid of God seeing that by this the thing she had long feared was happening to her, and that the deadly danger to her soul from vainglory, which hitherto she had striven in every way to avoid, was hanging over her; bearing rumors of this kind brought to her most grievously, greatly recoiled; and that what was not to be ascribed to her own merits, but rather to divine benefits, should be attributed to herself by common fame, she bore most troubledly, not without much impatience of heart. This therefore was for her the first occasion of changing her state and leaving the world. For desiring to have the knowledge of God alone as conscious and witness of her works, she determines to enter the monastic life. she judged it better in every way that she should be transferred to monastic hiding-places than, through the popular little rumors which she could not avoid in the world, to expose the treasure of her virtues to the ruin of perdition, for the cheap trade of vainglory.

CHAPTER II.

Varied affection toward the sacred Eucharist. Christ's presence recognized.

CH. III.

[5] Also in these times it happened that, troubled by a certain grave discomfort of infirmity, sick in body but sound in mind, she lay in bed; inwardly however, no less burning with the fire of charity, marvelously was heated with desire of supernal things. Seeing therefore, both from the circumstance of her sickness, Vexed with a grave disease, and from the impotence of her strengths, the danger of long languor impending; she began at once to aspire to the accustomed safeguard: and the only or greatest remedy which in every article of need she was wont to find, to seek in heart and in prayers alike, the medicinal sacrament of the Lord's Body. Which when, at her insistence, the neighboring Presbyter had reverently, as is the custom, brought in a ciborium before the Virgin's sight; she asks the sacred Eucharist be brought to her: and she had beheld from near that glorious pledge of our redemption, drawn out of the pyx, bare in the Priest's hand; straightway raising her head, and with all the strength she could, bending her body toward the saving Host, impatient beyond measure of her desire,

she strove vehemently to pull toward herself the right hand of the Priest, which she had seized with a strong grasp; seizing the Priest's hand, and thus embracing the hand together with the Host in devout embraces, with all the affection of her heart she marvelously exulted over the bodily presence of her Creator and Bridegroom. Therefore the Priest, seeing the unaccustomed manner of exulting, and the unusual appearance of the gestures she presented; persisting for a long time in the ecstasy of contemplation, and reckoning her nothing else but frenzied and insane, at first was exceedingly afraid; but having received admonition from those standing around, when he had truly learned that she was doing such things out of an immense desire of her heart, and had long sought, through such embraces, to render a devout homage of salutation to her Creator; then the Presbyter himself also condescending fully to her desire, and acquiescing according to the good pleasure of her will in the aforesaid embraces, after the homage of long-lasting devotion shown to her Redeemer, at last he offered her the communion of the saving Host: she receives the sacred host: and so at last, dismissed in peace, she blessed the author of peace with an untiring office of thanksgiving. Moreover, because it seemed fitting enough and agreeable to reason that the bridegroom should return the bride her exchange, and that the beloved himself should meet with reciprocal embraces the beloved who embraced him; after the completion of the holy Communion, in a certain private little place, situated close to the inmost parts of her heart, the very bridegroom and lover of virgins called her soul, summoned from all the dwellings of her body, to himself familiarly: and there, honoring her with most holy embraces, and she is cherished in Christ's embrace. what before he had thought worthy to admit graciously from his Virgin, this he restored by a repeated commerce of worthy recompense, not momentarily, but in a lingering enough and often repeated exchange. For just as by a man, with the aid of bodily arms, one is embraced, and just as in the external embraces of arms the interior affection of friendship is tasted with a certain joyful experience; so by the divine embraces she is said to have felt her whole soul, not unlike, gathered up in one part of her body, and with joyful and loving affections to be most firmly joined, through the offices of mutual embrace and congratulation, to her very Spouse, Christ the Lord.

CH. IV.

[6] One day, while the word of preaching was being declaimed in the neighboring convent of the Beghines, as is the custom, in the church; it happened that this handmaid of God of whom we speak, together with others at the same time, reverently came to the aforesaid place, Hastening to a sermon, for the sake of hearing the word of God and at the same time the indulgences; and was present with many whom the fervor of devotion had drawn thither, at the aforesaid sermon. While with hastening step, all inebriated with the sweetness of charity, she hurried thither; it happened that she made her way through a certain church situated in the vicinity, so that she might avoid and dispel the loss of a longer way, about to pass through a certain church, and render her Creator the Lord a devout homage of salutation in her passing. When therefore, through the passage of the same church, she was more insistently carrying forward her begun journey's course; coming as far as the choir, she fixed her step at the doors of the oratory itself; and with knees lowered to the ground, that venerable price of our redemption, namely, the honorable sacrament of the Lord's Body, reverently hidden in a vessel on the surface of the altar, she salutes Christ in the sacred Eucharist, looking upon it from afar with the gaze of devout consideration, she most devoutly saluted this very thing from the innermost recess of her heart, with the voice of thanksgiving uttered; "Hail," she said, "kind, pious, and sweet Jesus: who for our redemption sought the gibbet of the cross, and redeemed us from the bonds of perpetual death by your precious blood." Which said, before she had lifted her knees from the earth, a certain strong blow struck the pyx into which that saving treasure of our redemption had been placed, and she is saluted back by a strong blow of the pyx heard: pressing it vehemently from its inner part; and making a strong and driven sound, this very sound, in place of a return salutation, the Bridegroom of Virgins himself sent to the ears of his Virgin, from that same little vessel of his dwelling.

CH. V.

[7] Among the other gifts of graces, with which the munificent Giver of all graces and Distributor of charisms had marked his chosen one, this also is known to have been granted to her as a special gift: She was accustomed to recognize Christ's presence in the Mass, that without any hesitation of doubt she perceived, by a certain spiritual scrutiny, in the same moment of its descent, the holy presence of the Lord's Body, worthy of honor, descending continually on the altar through the power of consecration; even when she was separated from that place, through the remoteness of bodily presence, by longer intervals of spaces. Whence it came to pass, that on certain days she turned aside for the sake of visiting to a certain Recluse, bound to her by the tie of familiarity, leading a solitary life in a cell beside a neighboring church, while she visits a Recluse; and in her manner offered her familiar conversation and saving admonitions; where when about contempt of the world and worldly things, and the appetite of heavenly things, with both feeding themselves by mutual account, abundant conversation had begun to leap forth into the midst, and with the wondrous sweetness of its sweetness had affected the minds of both faithful of Christ alike; venerable Ida, by the Holy Spirit most certainly revealing it to her, knew that that honorable Sacrament of human salvation was present right there, she knows the sacred Eucharist is there: namely that the very Body of the Lord was most certainly contained in that same cell. For the woman devout to God, from the excessive affection of devotion which she had long borne toward him, had long since obtained from a certain Presbyter familiar to her the sacrament of the Lord's Body, that she might reverently receive it wrapped in a corporal, and on an altar, which she had built for this, adore it honorably placed. Whose presence, as she was wont, Ida the venerable handmaid of Christ perceiving, and recognizing most truly that her Creator was present, turning at once to the Recluse; "Here is," she said, "O Lady, my Father": calling him and naming Father whom she had a little before felt in the same dwelling, most aptly reclining. Hearing and understanding this, the other, wondering vehemently whence or by whom these hidden things had been revealed to her, at first indeed blushed and, wishing to suppress by denial the word addressed to her, and her, trying to deny it in vain though, soon with an evasion found, covered what she had done with a certain ambiguous order of words. Further, the most blessed handmaid of God, "Do not," she said, "sister mine, do not cover the praiseworthy deed which you have done, obstinately denying it under the cloak of excuse; but rather bless him, who has deigned, by the immense clemency of his goodness, to assign you to the custody of his most holy Body." But what more? Convicted at length, the other she compels to confess could not longer conceal by denying what she had done; but made known to the handmaid of God in order the deed done and its progress. Note, reader, that she is known manifestly to have shone also by the spirit of prophecy in this deed, in which by his revelation she disclosed in public what formerly had been done in secret with only two conscious of it. Further, venerable Ida, bidding farewell to the woman, departed from there: and immediately having procured a lamp with oil, and gives her a lamp with oil, by which she might render homage of her splendor constantly to the reverend mystery of the Body of Christ, she procured that it should hang in the same place at her own cost and expense.

[8] But also another thing not unlike this, at another time when both were sitting in the same dwelling, and conversing about divine things, it happened that by the same revealing Spirit, taught no doubt by prophetic foreknowledge, she first perceived in mind, and afterwards revealed to the companion sitting by her. For while both, as has been said, were sitting together, venerable Ida, bursting into words, uttered something unusual and marvelous: [she tells the same that Christ is present in the neighboring church through consecration:] for she exclaimed with lofty voices that the supreme Pontiff was present. Which the other, not understanding who that supreme Pontiff might be, and where he was, began insistently to inquire; knowing certainly that the bride of God had not uttered such a saying in vain. To whom venerable Ida: "At that same hour," she said, "at which I uttered the said word from my mouth, there descended indeed the Lord Jesus Christ, who certainly is the supreme Pontiff, on the altar. For a certain Priest arriving was celebrating Mass in the church, who had come in the celebration to the elevation of the saving Host at the same hour in which the Virgin of the Lord had burst forth with crying into these words." The other marveled because the accustomed hour of celebration had now passed: yet she ran, opened the window, and caught a certain Priest celebrating Mass at the altar; who a little before, namely when the Virgin of God had announced the supreme Pontiff present, had elevated the very saving host of the Lord's Body. But what wonder, if the holy mind could behold with spiritual sight what it did not see with bodily eyes; upon which the Contemplator of all things visible and invisible, for beholding heavenly things and earthly alike, was pressing, with constant appearances of revelations, the light of his deifying brightness. and this more often on various occasions, Nor should anyone think this happened only once or rarely, but it came to pass often, repeatedly, at these and other times. And not only in those churches where it was being celebrated, with her present, do we find such a thing to have happened; but almost at every time, both in these and in other adjacent and neighboring ones, when the saving Host itself was being elevated. For the proving of the certainty of this matter, as her affection was fattened within, so also was her understanding illumined and itself divinely enlightened. For more frequently in those days, especially at the hours aforementioned, with so great an abundance of joy the mind of the holy woman was filled, being present indeed in spirit but then absent in body, that she would sometimes burst out into loud voices, as she was delicious; and what she felt within, most openly she would show forth without, most firmly asserting: saying thus: "If all your Saints should deny you, most holy Lord, now present and holding you with priestly fingers at the altar, yet I alone would resist them all, and would in every way affirm that you are present." And lest any hesitation about this so notable a miracle remain in anyone's heart, I wish, if I can, to make this plainly known by the example which I subjoin.

[9] In the Monastery, in which afterwards she assumed the habit of religion, one of the Priests celebrating in it had this as a certain accustomed practice and committed to memory, that after the substantial words of consecration themselves, [even before the elevation she understands the consecration to have been accomplished,] he would hide the sacred Host for some little space of delay — imprudently indeed, yet devoutly — from those standing by; and not before, having been adored by himself perhaps too long than was proper, did he show it to the rest to be adored, with arms raised on high aloft. But the venerable handmaid of God, as often as this was done, in no way attended to the sound of the bell as the others, nor to the elevation of the Host itself; but with knees laid on the ground, she adored the Lord descending upon the altar more earnestly, feeling him present in spirit at whatever hour. Yet concerning this, when the opportunity once offered itself, she kindly corrected the aforesaid Priest, and she rebukes the priest as hesitating in that matter. and, with devout insistence of prayers, called him back, emended, from such a custom. But not only at the elevation of the most holy Body did she deserve to obtain this grace of wondrous joy,

but even in the life-giving reception of the Sacrament, though absent in body yet present in spirit, she also very often tasted of the same.

CHAPTER III.

Blessed Ida's various ecstasies, especially around the Eucharist. Hoarseness contracted.

CH. VI.

[10] It happened also in these days, that at the hour of the holy sacrifice, at the time in which the divine mysteries were being handled, this most blessed woman, Distracted at the time of the Sacrifice by the devil, the inventor of every iniquity, was for a moment of time distracted from her purpose, and was revolving within herself something frivolous and useless; and, forgetful of the saving mystery, applied heart and mind to vain thoughts outside herself. When behold, the soul of the blessed woman, at once drawn out from the dwelling of her body, is lifted up by angelic hands to the higher places, and is recalled to the memory of herself, whence a little before she had departed, in this order. For she saw herself on that occasion over the altar where the divine mysteries were being handled, hanging in the air like a sun luminous on every side; and looking down with all reverence upon the very mystic Sacraments, through ecstasy she is brought back to the adoration of the Eucharist: which she had forgotten before; and so at length, returned to herself, she blessed the Most High, who by so kind a support of his visitation snatched her own soul from diabolic bonds.

CH. VII.

[11] Also at these times it happened, that on one of the days devoted to prayer, after long intervals of sobs and often-repeated sighs, at length in an excess of mind the Virgin of the Lord was caught up, she is visited by Christ showing his breast, and with the office of the bodily senses put to sleep, her mind was led beyond the corporeal bounds, by the preceding virtue of the Holy Spirit, to contemplate heavenly things. In which rapture she saw, not with the gaze of bodily eyes, but with the understanding of spiritual ones, appearing to her in human form, that one more beautiful than the sons of men, namely the Lord Jesus Christ; she saw, I say, him coming close to her, and showing her his breast bare and uncovered from his garments, and signifying to her by open tokens of signs that she should hastily approach him, and from his honey-flowing breast receive the saving drink. She also beheld another person, of reverend countenance and habit, standing at her side: to whom turning, venerable Ida made known — though she could not explain it to her in words — by evident tokens, nods and gestures and joyful dances, the abundance of divine bounty offered her. Yet on that occasion, as she afterwards related, she did not approach the Lord's breast: seeing that she was being so sweetly affected at that same time by the mere presence of her beloved and lover, that no other inflowing of inward sweetness beyond this could that defined capacity of her mind have included within itself. as often at other times Although on other occasions, and this very thing more often, indeed most often, by similar raptures removed from human senses, and having entered the wine-cellar, she had drunk with Christ's disciple from the sacred fountain of the Lord's breast, she herself being witness — she to whom such things are granted to be foretasted while still wandering in a human body, and known to us through the writings and the living voice of her aforesaid Confessor, truly a man most blessed in all things.

[12] But another memorable thing also, about the life-giving sacrament of the Lord's Body, under almost the same time, we find by reading to have happened to her: which, because we perceive it to have been done toward her through an excess of mind, let us join in order, with similar narration, to those which are digested concerning similar things. On a certain occasion therefore, when in the church adjoining her house the office of Mass was being celebrated, it happened that this handmaid of God of whom we speak, together with others, was present at the same office. Which, when by the service of the ministers celebrating it, it had progressed to the point that the reception of the holy Body and Blood was imminent, to be performed in order; the venerable woman, who through all that time had offered most devout thanksgivings to the almighty God on the altar of her heart, she receives the sacred Eucharist in ecstasy. and had lifted her heart with her hands to contemplate heavenly things; caught up in an excess of mind, sprang forth, and what with a wondrous desire a little before she had sought — in the body, I know not, God knows, or in the spirit — she obtained, namely that she should be communicated on that occasion with the sacrament of the life-giving Body and Blood. For a dove of snow-white brightness, as it seemed to her, flying down from above, a dove bringing it to her mouth, reverently placed the very Body of the Lord in her mouth: and from a golden shell, which she herself had brought with her, likewise reverently dropped the Lord's Blood into her throat. A wondrous thing and to be wondered at by all after ages. You might have seen a person, still placed in a mortal body, receiving food of immortality not from any mortal, but rather as we believe from the Maker of all mortal and immortal things; and — what we can hardly express in words — able to discern with human taste what at the same moment of time she knew herself by no means to have received with human hands. For coming at once to herself, and remembering most excellently what had been done toward her, and she retains the taste of it. she distinguished in her palate the accustomed taste of the Lord's Body and Blood, and retained it in her mouth; and moreover through all that day, as if, being awake and supporting herself by the office of the outer senses, she had received the very host of the sacred Communion from the Priest's hands: and so under the most peaceful silence of mind, having leisure for herself alone, and rejoicing and dancing in the Lord, she rested between the arms of her Bridegroom.

CH. VIII.

[13] And since, concerning the most sweet modulation of her voice, with which day by day she was formerly wont to soothe the ears of the Lord of hosts, we made mention in the preceding book; now how she lost this, and fell into the incurable hazard of perpetual hoarseness, let us briefly subjoin here. There was at that time a certain Brother of the Order of Preachers, A Priest of the Order of Preachers, quite familiar and intimate in Christ to the same handmaid of Christ: who, supported by the authority of the Apostolic See and the Supreme Pontiff, in the office of preaching, for the winning of a faithful and acceptable people to the Lord and a follower of good works, marks those converted by himself with the Cross, assiduously was pressing by the grace given him more attentively: and those whom by the word of preaching he was instructing inwardly, these outwardly by the triumphal mark of the life-giving Cross, with the indulgence of sins previously accorded to them, he marked. For he had obtained so great a grace from the Lord in this work, that scarcely anyone at that time, however hard of heart he might be, could refrain from receiving the saving sign of the Lord's Cross, even if he had not been attracted to it by any desire. Among whom was a certain man of great nobility and power, who, the more smoky he was reckoned among his own by birth, showed himself the viler in the sight of the divine presence: and among these, one of especial nobility for, entangled in many crimes, he thought nothing honorable or useful at that time, except by exercising the cruelest tyranny upon his subjects, and displaying in himself the image of his Creator deformed with every kind of vices, to stand out among the wicked more wicked than all. This man therefore at a certain time was present at the sermon which the man of God was declaiming publicly before the people, together with many gathered for this by divine nod; and the very word of God, which once he was wont to detest by mocking, at the urging of the grace of the Holy Spirit, both devoutly received and humbly listened to; and as it were another Paul made of Saul, as if inquiring of the Lord what he wished to be done about him, he sought, not so much with voice as with prayers obtained, to be fortified with the seal of the reverend Cross. By his example very many others also from the order of knighthood, both Barons and nobles, both squires and retainers, provoked by the divine Spirit, and encouraged by the suasions and admonitions of their predecessor, so famous and illustrious a man, having made confessions of their sins and obtained absolution for them, were fortified with the mark of the same holy Cross.

[14] Over which deed the said Brother was filled with ineffable joy, and with wondrous thanksgivings exulted in the Lord; but most of all and especially over this, that through a humble and little man, so magnificent and exalted a work the piety of almighty God and he consigns the matter to writing to the Virgin Ida: had deigned to work, for the salvation and remedy of many souls, in this deed. Whence he wrote out in a letter in order the deed done and its progress, and sent the written account to Ida, the venerable handmaid of God; so that in the actions of praises and thanksgivings, for the performance of which he judged all the strengths of his soul could not fully suffice, to whom, more intent on thanksgiving, she might faithfully stand with him, and to that Lord, the giver of all good things, over the infinite clemency of his piety, might untiringly bless. Which letter the Virgin of Christ receiving reverently, and understanding from it the deed done for the honor of the eternal Creator of all things, herself also filled with immense and exceeding joy, offered most ready thanksgivings to the Most High; and pursued the received office of thanksgiving with so fervent a service of affection and congratulation, that her outer man, unable to accompany with equal pace the invincible insistence of the inner man, with a vein bursting, brings on hoarseness. failed in the middle of the road, the work she had begun being unfinished. For one of the veins in her body, from the excessive ardor of devotion, burst and broke loose: and through her mouth and nostrils vomited forth such copious rivers of gore, that from that time she sustained the hoarseness we mentioned above from the injury of the arteries; and with the modulation of her sweet-sounding voice utterly blotted out, the gracious sweetness of her singing, oppressed under the burden of that same hoarseness, thereafter rested silent.

CH. IX.

[15] Another Brother also of the same Order, bound to this handmaid of God for the reverence of her holiness by a special bond of friendship, approached her, of whom we speak, one day about to celebrate Mass at the altar, to another Priest and desiring to pay a service of devotion well-pleasing to the almighty Lord; with earnest insistence of prayers, that in the very space of the sacred Mass, which he then had it in mind to celebrate, she might deign to supplicate for him the Lord Creator of all things, humbly asking this, he did not delay to entreat and urge her: and what he humbly asked, he effectively obtained. For while he in that time was performing the office he had begun, the venerable woman was meanwhile raising the whole affection of her heart to the Lord: and that he would make pleasing and acceptable to himself the service of the one for whom she was laboring, and judge it not unworthy of his grace, in the ears of the Lord of hosts she offered most insistent intervention. But how should he turn away his hearing from the prayers of his beloved, she obtains an unaccustomed devotion. and deny his dearest one what she most affectionately prayed with insistence? For in that hour of sacrifice, the pious Lord brought into the heart of his lover such a whisper, and satisfied most fully her desire with a response of this kind: "Lo," he said, "most dear one, I am now set before him; if he shall see and behold me, seeing and beholding he will be able to recognize me, and if he shall recognize me, the one recognized and loving he will no doubt love back: yet for your sake I will do him good, and for the insistence of your prayers it will be ascribed to the more ready grace, to be conferred upon him for your sake." Which promise soon grew strong by the following effect: and before the office was completed, the same Brother deserved to taste a wonderfully unaccustomed devotion in the interior palate of his heart:

whence also to his aforesaid interceder afterwards he rendered great thanksgivings, and with wondrous affections of devotion he blessed the almighty Lord.

CHAPTER IV.

An infamy branded on her from a wicked suspicion, driven away by divine means.

CH. X.

[16] At a certain time also, on the most holy Sunday of Pentecost, this most loving Virgin of God had gone to the Communion of the Lord's Body; as also on other feasts occurring in their time through the year, at the nod of her Confessor and with his obtained permission she was accustomed: At the feast of Pentecost, having received the sacred Eucharist, yet on that day, in which the Holy Spirit was poured into the hearts of the disciples, upon this woman of whom we speak, with the most holy Communion received, the Most High poured forth so copious an abundance of graces and charisms of the Holy Spirit; that for expressing it in words or understanding it in heart, no mind whatsoever could rise, no intellect grasp. Nor could she herself, to whom these things were granted as a spiritual gift, contain herself within the receptacles of her heart by her own strengths: from excessive consolation she faints, nay rather, the very machine of her body, over-burdened with so great a weight, gave way; and, destitute of the office of bodily strengths, and is forced to lie sick for a long time: at length falling into a continued languor, she sought the bed of sickness: in which through some days, namely until the Vigil of the kindly Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord, burning solely with the fire of love, and wounded by the delightful wound of charity, in body indeed languishing, but most sound in mind, she rested happily between the arms of her beloved. Whom a certain Brother of the Order of Preachers, very familiar and beloved to her, understanding her to be sick, and not doubting what the cause of her sickness might be; visited her in these days, having taken to himself a certain younger Brother as companion: whom when a pious Priest often visits, and this visitation not only once or twice, but often repeatedly did he repeat; and with the Scriptures, gathered in the most fertile field of the sacred Page, of which he brought with him an immense abundance, he unceasingly refreshed the soul of the sick woman with pious comfort.

[17] Further, that younger Brother, observing and considering that they were conversing in a closed chamber, darkened by the shutting of the windows on account of the intolerance of light, his companion suspects evil of Ida: through long spaces of times, with no witness or sharer of the secrets admitted; at the urging of the evil one, began soon to suspect that a horrible crime was impending, that the bride of Christ had been impregnated by the aforesaid Brother who visited her so familiarly every day, and was now near to childbirth; and that this alone was the matter of their conversation, how they might hide from human ears the execrable and horrible infamy of this deed, lest they should incur the contumely of perpetual reproach. With this most nefarious suspicion conceived, that Brother, returning home, what he had conceived in mind — as is the custom of others devoted to detraction — and he defames her as having been impregnated by him. to this and that one of the Brothers of the same college, as under the secrecy of Confession, disclosed the mode and cause of the aforesaid crime; and how he had often caught them conversing together in the dark chamber, indicated with the venomous whisperings of his backbitings to all wishing to hear. Therefore while these things were so done, and this one the elder Brother, utterly ignorant of the detraction, continually led the other with him; while the other indeed was applying his feeling and mind only to laying snares for the innocent; there was among them a certain Brother most skilled in the art of medicine, who, recently fleeing from the world, had been given over to divine service among them. To whom when the infamy of the aforesaid betrayal had come, and, giving credence to the things that were said by the companion about the Brother, him from his eyes alone he himself too had begun little by little to subscribe most sinisterly; "Now," he said, "I, a studious investigator, will try whether the things that are said be true or false; and through the mere gaze of the eyes of her who is reputed pregnant and with child, I shall be found a truthful debater of this matter; which sort of investigation of things, taught by the mastery of the medical art, I frequently accomplished formerly placed in the world." What more? That medical Brother, having taken a companion, sets out to explore the matter by the skill of his art; but before walking he reaches the house of the sick woman, he approaches a certain Enclosed woman, hidden in a neighboring cell, to speak about this matter; because she was held at that time familiar and intimate with venerable Ida, to one skilled in medicine about to judge, and witness and sharer of her secrets. To whom when he was setting forth the cause of his going, and indicating what he had heard, or why he proposed to approach her of whom he had heard such things; "Ah Brother," she said, "this one of whom you speak is a most blessed woman indeed, adorned with the title of extraordinary holiness and marvelous virginity: wherefore I urge you, dearest one, that for exploring such a thing in any manner, you do not presume in any way to thrust the presence of your visitation upon the most holy handmaid of God, and therefore visiting her, which you should know and understand, without doubt, as I do, to have flowed forth from the inventor of all malice — since he has no other machinations of ancient fraud by which he might defile the good and venerable name of God's most elect handmaid." Which things heard, the Brother for an hour indeed kept silent, as though he were a consenting hearer of her words; yet not even so did he call back his erroneous intention from the ill-conceived proposal. For bidding farewell to the venerable Recluse, and not ceasing to complete the journey he had begun, he came in haste to the dwelling of the sick woman, and announced himself as such a Brother present to the same handmaid of God. At whose entrance all the bars fixed to the windows, on account of the insufferability of light as has been said, the windows open of their own accord; contracted and at once broken apart by divine nod, sprang open at once; and so great a brightness of light shone, flooding the very virginal dining room, that nothing in it could have lain hidden at that same moment of time.

[18] Further, venerable Ida, utterly unaware of this mystery, on account of the unaccustomed brightness of light, hid her closed little eyes under the veil with which she was veiled; and keeping her eyes constantly closed, and so saluting that Brother sitting close by, for the reverence of his Order, with an official order of words. But he, having proposed at the beginning of his narration certain edifying exordia of speech, as if he had turned aside to her for such a cause, having heard of the sickness of her languor, at length openly — that she should uncover to him, with the veil removed, the eyes which he had come to gaze upon; and that it would please her to show him for his consideration their disposition — in a humble fashion of words indeed, but obscured by the fog of deceitful simplicity, he sought not so much humbly as affected deceitfully. But the innocent handmaid of Christ, conjecturing nothing less than that the devices of this fraud had been contrived against her, and understanding nothing of what this showing of eyes might portend; on account of the brightness of daylight, from whose reverberation they were gravely injured at that time, refused indeed to uncover them: divinely admonished but expressing the cause of this matter, and satisfying him as she could, she humbly begged that he would not bear troublingly this refusal of her petition. But the merciful Lord, wishing to show his chosen one utterly innocent of the crime fastened upon her; and to call back the Brother, lest he incur the damage of a graver offense, from the ill-conceived hazard of his suspicion; addressed her with such words, that she should by no means longer refuse what was sought; and what this inspection of eyes might portend, he showed by a manifest indication of revelation. "Uncover your eyes," he said, "most quickly, with the veil removed: for he who desires to see them uncovered, whether you are impregnated and with child, has come here, sent by his brothers, to try." Which understanding, venerable Ida, "Ah," she said, "most loving one of mine, Ah, you who are the languor and desire of my heart, pious, sweet, and merciful Lord, who have made me languish for you alone; why — alas! — have you permitted such things to be suspected about your lover!" To whom the Lord, "Take this veil," he said, "at once from your eyes, she gives herself to be looked upon by him. and permit yourself to be seen not only in the eyes but in the whole surface of the face, without any obstacle." What more? She obeyed the Lord's command, and with the veil taken away, soon opened her eyes to be seen by him, and did not presume in any way to close those opened eyes, until, with their pupils and eyelids diligently examined, and with their dispositions and all the circumstances, she should be ordered again, the exploration performed, to conceal them under her veil. Further, that novice Brother, finding no trace of pregnancy in her, and she is judged innocent. and recognizing, with every doubt far removed, that she had been falsely accused, returned to his own in haste: and that she was entirely innocent and immune from the crime inflicted upon her, he indicated to the Prior and to the Brothers by whom he had been sent: but also that medical Brother held her from then on and thereafter always in greater reverence, and from then honored her, as truly a holy and chosen handmaid of God, in many ways throughout all the time of his life.

[19] On the following day, however, on which, as we have said, the Vigil of Blessed John the Baptist was being celebrated, with her health again restored to her, she grew strong; and suddenly, cured by no other than a divine medicine, she lifted her body from her little bed. On the next day, restored to health, On which day a certain Abbess came upon her, for the sake of visiting her whom she had known to be sick, and paying her some solace of her refreshment; and finding her recovered beyond what she hoped, straightway made her mount onto her carriage, to go with her, taken away by the Abbess for refreshment, wishing to keep her in her company for some days' time for the sake of more ready refreshment to be paid her. Into which when the Virgin of Christ had mounted, by the command of the venerable woman her parent, and had already begun to proceed for some spaces of places; behold, a certain spirit of fortitude leaped upon her, and not only prohibited her from going further forward, but also urged her to descend, as if she were driven by the forces of two or three strong men standing by, with the impulses of importunate persuasion. Therefore commanding the carriage to halt, and divinely impelled, without bidding farewell to anyone, but rather casting great matter of wonder upon all those sitting in it, with hastened effort she leapt off it; and wholly unknowing whither she was being led by the spirit, as though to some appointed place, she walked with impetuous, so to speak, steps. But it happened at that time that she continued her journey through a certain church, through which walking she had been wont many times formerly, on every occasion, to salute with the office of prayers and genuflections the reverend image of the crucified Lord placed in it: which however on that occasion, by the impelling of the spirit by which she was being led, she could not accomplish; but going forward, and leaving behind her the threshold of the church, at length she came by proceeding to the enclosed woman of whom mention was previously made; and there, restored to herself, beside the little woman known to her, she goes most swiftly to the Enclosed woman: in peace of heart, with all disquiet utterly removed, she rested.

[20] Therefore both sitting down, and conversing mutually between themselves about heavenly and divine things, that solitary woman thus addresses venerable Ida among other things:

and she entreats her, with poured-out insistence of prayers, to bear with equable mind what was about to be said: "A marvelous thing," she said, "dearest one, I bring to you, which I entreat and beseech you with attentive request that you may hear patiently. That Brother, who under the pretext of familiarity came yesterday to visit you; and she understands the infamy branded on her, came not to visit, but to explore whether you were pregnant, sent by his brethren and Prior: but me, asserting your innocence, and affirming you to be wholly immune from the perpetration of any crime, him my words did not persuade; but what he had conceived in mind, he consummated both in intention and in deed." Hearing these things, the handmaid of God, remembering at the same time those things which she had now consigned to oblivion, brought to her the preceding day, about the showing of the eyes, the moments of the Lord's revelation, groaned vehemently: and to the Cross, which she had passed by before unsaluted, returning with bitter mind, with knees bent and tears abundantly poured forth, she pleaded her immunity, in this order of words, in the ear of the supernal Judge. "O my Lord," she said, "why have you permitted of your handmaid, returned to the cross in the nearby church, conscious to herself of no bitter crime, so bitter a crime to be suspected by any man, especially by religious ones and those given over to your service? For you, from whom no hidden thing lies hid, you who know the reins and hearts, the minds and inmost parts of individuals — you, I say, my Lord, know that there was no other discomfort of my heart than the burning fire of your love, the most insatiable desire of drawing near to you and enjoying you, the inner appetite enticing toward spiritual embraces and sweet companionship. You alone, most chosen of my heart; you, I say, and none other, have provided the occasion and cause for this sickness: you have pierced heart and soul alike with the dart of your love. Now then, be present to my vows and prayers, merciful Lord, and have mercy on me your wretched and sinful handmaid: she lays her complaints before God: for I know that on account of my sins I have fallen into this contumely."

[21] When therefore, alternately weeping and mourning, with eyes lifted upwards, the Virgin of the Lord pleaded such things, and with the loud voice of her complaint, repeated in continual effort, pressed it upon the Lord's ears; behold, a little boy, most gracious beyond measure and adorned with every elegance of beauty beyond human esteem, appeared between the arms of the one weeping and praying. she is refreshed by a little boy appearing between her arms, Whom beholding, venerable Ida recovered from all her previous sadness; and binding him firmly with her arms and embracing him, for so great a benefit of piety, with most ready thanksgivings, she blessed the almighty God. But what wonder, if that most sweet boy, and more beautiful in form than the sons of men, was given her by the eternal Father to his lover as a price, for love of whom she had endured the monstrous reproach of the crime cast upon her, and the intolerable loss of honor? Further, that little boy who was carried did not suddenly disappear from the embraces of her holding him or the gaze of her beholding; but through all that day, this and the following day. and the next also (which, as has been said, was then being celebrated by the Nativity of Blessed John the Baptist), did not withdraw himself from her presence for an hour: but wherever she turned, or whatever work she was meanwhile doing, she had him everywhere with her, and enjoyed his applause and gaze and most sweet vision. But how great a joy she deserved to feel from his presence, through all the time that span of two days and the night lying between ran on, and how delightful it was in body and in mind alike, just as there is none not experienced in it who can grasp it by understanding, so no one will be understanding and experienced enough to set it forth by any exquisite order of words. For so much, as she afterwards related, through all the time aforesaid was she flooded with spiritual delights, that she felt she pressed her footsteps on the earth no more with her feet, than if with her whole body she were flying in the air, whithersoever she turned or whatever work she was doing.

CHAPTER V.

A little son offered her in ecstasy by the Mother of God: showers of rain seen falling upon those hearing a sermon: other favors.

CH. XI.

[22] Another miracle also not unlike the former happened at another time; which, because I deem it worthy of relation, I judge not unprofitable to subscribe, under a compass of brevity, to the one briefly tasted above. On a certain time therefore, in the aforesaid festivity, which is celebrated for the Nativity of the Lord's Forerunner, coming around in the annual revolution in order, it happened that this venerable handmaid of Christ was present according to custom at the office of the holy Mass, At other times also in the Mass, after the reading of the Epistle which was then being solemnly performed in the neighboring church, together with the other faithful. And when the prophetic Epistle had now been read, but the reading of the sacred Gospel had not yet begun; the Virgin of the Lord, who had poured out the whole affection of her heart before the sight of the Lord her God, and was at that time offering him most pleasing libations of tears, bursting forth from the broadest fountain of charity; at length is snatched away in the going-out of the mind, and is removed far from human senses for contemplating heavenly things. Gazing therefore from afar, she beheld that most blessed of all the blessed, also Lady of Angels and Queen and Mother of Christ, virgin and fruitful by a special privilege; she seemed to herself to receive the boy Christ from the Mother of God, she beholds, I say, coming close to her, and the boy whom she bore in her arms, that one chosen out from thousands, whom alone she deserved to pour forth for the human race, remaining virgin in childbirth and after childbirth, she most aptly placed in the bosom of her to whom it was granted to see these things, to embrace him, and fitted him to enjoy with full liberty in the receptacle of her own lap. Whom she, receiving, bound to herself most strongly with embraces and kisses at once, the mother of the boy, blessed above all things, standing close by; and what was being done, as though she had entirely transferred into her pleasure every right she had in her son, bearing with equable mind and together to the bath for washing, and watching with most placid countenance. But on the other side, the mother of the blessed Forerunner of the Lord, Elizabeth, was present, and brought forward the bath in which the little boy was to be washed, with vessels ordained for this, and the boy himself, together with venerable Ida, to be bathed, she most officiously laid in warm waters. Where when that most chosen of all boys sat, like playing infants he made a splash in the waters with both hands, and in infant manner troubling them and shaking them, so wet the neighboring places, that with them leaping this way and that, he himself was first wet by their sprinkling through all the surface of his little body. Which seeing, she began to cry out with loud noise, as in the showing or perceiving of similar marvels at that time she had in custom and use; and with the bathing performed, she again lifted the boy from the water, and having wrapped him again in his own cloths, she hid him in her bosom, and playing familiarly with him in motherly manner, beyond what can be said or thought, she marvelously exulted in God her Savior.

[23] to labor to retain him longer But when they had come to the Sanctus, which before the beginning of the Canon is solemnly proclaimed according to custom; the very mother of the boy blessed in all things attentively sought back her son: but on the contrary, holding him, and binding him more tightly than usual, and hiding him away in the receptacle of her bosom, she utterly refused to restore him to his mother. The mother attentively insisted, demanding her son from the other, and in some way applying force to the one holding him for her recovery: but she, wishing to repel force with force by resisting, wholly resisted most attentively, defending herself against the mother with a certain ingenious violence. It was a most beautiful spectacle to see between them both: this one, namely, longing to receive the boy given to her for an hour; but the other, holding him with all the industry she could, not as one lent, but as one given to her as a gift. This most delightful dispute and graceful altercation beyond measure lasted until it came to the priest to say: "Who on the day before": up to the moment of Consecration: which precedes the elevation of the saving Host, when it is to be adored by the people standing around. For then the mother of the infant prevailed over the other by strength, and gathering him again in her arms, disappeared wholly from the eyes of the beholder; and carried him back, by the way she had come, to the exalted heights of heaven. But she, at once returning to herself, beheld the saving host elevated in the priest's hands, and shown to the standing people, and reverently adored it together with the others. But as often as she recounted these things and things like them to the hearers, she was accustomed to relate such things with various excuses: for the avoiding of the harm of vainglory, she excused herself with such strategems and excuses of words: "To the drunk," she said, "and the mad, things sometimes seem to occur otherwise than they occur; especially when with the obstacle of discretion resisting, the intellect or reason do not discern the things themselves with equal judgment."

CH. XII.

[24] Among the other exercises of virtues by which she showed forth in these times an always pleasing and acceptable homage to the almighty God, she gladly hears preachers, I think this also not absurdly to be numbered, that she heard the word of preaching with every insistence of devotion, as often as it could come to pass for her: and for this reason also she loved those very Brothers, who had obtained the grace from the Lord to propose it, though with all in common, yet more than the rest with a tighter bond of charity and more ready homage of veneration. For she understood that the Giver of all graces, for the edification of the hearers, propounded the very words which they uttered; nor were they to be ascribed totally to them, but to him to whom, through their mouths as instruments or organs, and loves them as instruments of God working through them: it pleased to instill edifying irrigations into the minds of the hearers. For what are the edifying words of the dispensers of God's word? What, I say, are they to be called, but drops of rain and droplets of dew, divinely destined to irrigate the dry hearts of the faithful? With the Lord himself testifying, who commemorates that the seed sprung up dried because of the lack of moisture, either dew or rain. Mark 4:6 See therefore, reader, and consider, whether these very things I bring forth are true, she sees showers sent from heaven upon the hearers, when about the venerable woman you shall read or hear the series of example which I subjoin. For it frequently happened, and how often it happened could not be explained, that at the word of preaching which was being scattered among the people, as she sat together with others in the atriums of churches and under the open sky, she saw at the very beginning of the sermon showers of rains descending from the highest summit of heaven upon the town, abundantly irrigating from above all that gathered multitude of people: but she, thinking it nothing else than material showers, and conjecturing from this that the people wet outwardly should leave the place and desert the sermon, sometimes applied her hands to the garments of those sitting around, and whether they were growing wet with the rain, as it most surely seemed to her, she explored more diligently by manual touch. But around the end of the sermon, here with the preacher wearied by cries, and the subsequent clearness, there with the people wearied by longer sitting or tedium, little by little the drops of rain themselves began to diminish; until with the sermons finished, and in the garments of the hearers there appeared utter dryness, and the undisturbed serenity of the air, with the gaze of her eyes restored to its natural use,

it rendered itself visible again to the one gazing.

[25] What wonder, if the mind of the blessed woman, bedewed with heavenly dew and watered with spiritual rains, brought forth most abundant fruits of charity, and by bringing them forth outside, directed them to the varied exercises of virtues? When the very Lord's blessing broke forth outside upon visible creatures, and also in those things which were had about the Virgin of God in the things of daily use, renewed the ancient miracles of his piety. For the bread, which the venerable woman was expending in daily use at table, at a certain time for some days' space, The bread is not diminished while being eaten: so grew in the mouths and hands of those eating, beyond natural use, that it did not seem to be diminished by eating, but to be augmented by daily distributions and poor-relief. Certainly in this deed a miracle of Christ is renewed, when venerable Ida's household, with a numerous company and throng of beggars, through much space of days, is satisfied with very little bread for food.

CH. XIII.

[26] In these days also it happened, that after a long and severe sickness, snatched away in an excess of mind, In ecstasy she stands before the Judge as it were, and presented at the tribunals of the highest Judge, as it seemed to her, not in body but in soul, she was taken wholly out of human affairs, and supposed that she had, by temporal death, undoubtedly paid the debt of all flesh, and receives a sentence of eternal salvation. and had received from the Lord a certain sentence concerning her perpetual salvation. To her so standing in the gaze of the divine majesty, and beholding with ineffable exultation and joyous jubilation the face of the Savior, upon which the Angels desire to look, it was shown by certain revelation that she must, with all speed, return to her body, and again, with the Lord assenting and willing, be clothed with the tunic of her flesh which she had put off. but she is commanded to live But this was the cause of her return divinely intimated to her, and shown by a certain token of revelation: that she may prevent a mortal sin. that unless she returned immediately to her little body shed on earth, a certain one of her familiars and friends would fall into a mortal sin and crime, and into an intolerable damage of his soul. For this cause therefore, restored to her body, she appeared again among men as a human being, and by most insistent pourings-forth of prayers and tears, with heavenly clemency assenting, preserved her slippery friend from a fall: yet through all the rest of the time of her life she bore this return troublingly and with much difficulty, and, as she herself confessed, she would without doubt have borne it more troublingly, had she not been wholly certain about the liberation of her familiar friend and the salvation of other faithful ones, for whom she daily sent libations of prayers to the Lord. But what wonder? That blessed Apostle calls himself a pilgrim and unhappy, when he burst out into these words, as an exile and fugitive: "Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death?" Rom. 7:24

CHAPTER VI.

Most tender affections toward the sacred Eucharist. Permission to take it granted by the Supreme Pontiff.

CH. XIV.

[27] In these times also there was innate in Ida, the venerable bride of Christ, a most fervent and most great desire of embracing her most loving Bridegroom, and the most fervent zealot of the souls of all the faithful, the very Lord Jesus Christ. On a certain day therefore, when alone she sat in the church devoting herself to prayer, and she saw no one present in whose presence or sight she did not dare to carry out what she had long turned over in mind; overcome at last by importunate and impatient desire, rising from prayer, she placed the pyx hanging on the altar, The pyx with the sacred Eucharist and containing the most sacred mysteries of the Body of Christ, she often piously kissed: by a somewhat rash — yet pious and very devout — boldness, upon the altar itself. And embracing it and kissing it a thousand or more times, and tenaciously applying it to her own breast, in this manner, as she could, she satisfied the insatiable desire of her heart. But when she desired and longed to open the pyx in which the very Body, as is the custom, was kept with officious reverence; so that looking upon that, trying to open it which was hidden within, the price of human salvation, at least with some solace she might soothe the intolerable appetite of her desire, if not wholly restrain it; she could in no way do it. she could not fulfill what she wished: and though she repeated this very often with frustrated attempts, yet by no strength or exquisite devices could she bring it to effect; at last judging it more possible (as she afterwards related) to move with one finger that very mass of the church in which such things were being done, from the place of its foundation to another place, than to open the closed pyx to satisfy her insatiable desire. Others perhaps are indignant at a woman so petulantly and obstinately attempting such arduous things not at all befitting her: but I, without prejudice to a better judgment, judge that her presumptuous rashness is not so much to be disapproved, as that the wondrous affection of the most devout handmaid of God is to be approved, if by a sound eye of discretion the thing and the progress of the deed done, the intention and order, shall be investigated by anyone judging of justice.

CH. XV.

[28] A certain Priest for some course of times was celebrating the divine mysteries in the presence of the holy woman; or, to express the truth of the thing done more truly, she herself, Hearing the Mass of a sacrilegious Priest, as far as in her lay, by a too rash boldness profaned them: for he was, on account of his faults demanding it, suspended from office and benefice by the ecclesiastical prelates. Yet that rash and utterly profane man was celebrating, against what was right and canon laws, contemning the keys of the Church. Further, venerable Ida, since she was utterly ignorant of this impediment in the man, and since he rashly repeated the celebrations daily, was indeed daily present at the ecclesiastical offices celebrated, she does not feel her accustomed devotion: but meanwhile tasted no influence of her accustomed joy in her soul at all. Marveling vehemently over this, and ascribing this so distressing and monstrous crime to her own sins and negligences; at length she offered prayers with weeping to the almighty God, and humbly entreated that he would deign to make the cause of this matter known to her. Nor was there delay; there unexpectedly came upon them a certain Dean, having knowledge of this Priest; and finding him celebrating, and she understands his guilt. he marveled vehemently, noting the most shameless audacity of so great a presumer: yet raising no question to this Presbyter about the aforesaid matters, nor imputing calumny; he preferred, as a wise man, to dissemble this insolence for a time, rather than to uncover by publishing a matter to be detested in every age. Approaching his presence, this handmaid of God of whom we speak, began to inquire whence or who he was who was celebrating in the aforesaid church; whether he had obtained the priestly order, or whether it was lawful for him to handle or celebrate those ecclesiastical Sacraments which she daily handled or celebrated? To whom the Dean: "This one of whom you speak," he said, "O venerable Virgin of Christ, is suspended by his prelates from office and benefice: yet lest from this offense scandal arise among the people, until something else is ordained, let the matter remain with you, I beg, in secret." Hearing this, she was vehemently astonished, and not doubting that the hardness she had felt up to that point in her heart had come from this; she affirmed the judgment of the Almighty to be just and true, and magnificently blessed him for the knowledge of this mystery offered to her.

CH. XVI.

[29] But also at another time, while the Priest was celebrating the divine mysteries, the Virgin of the Lord fell in prayer at his feet, At another time, hearing Mass, and with wondrous insistence of virtue sent the whole affection of her devotion to the heavenly things. But when it had come to this, that the Priest, the things to be done being finished, turned himself to the sacred libations of Communion; and himself now fed with the nourishment of the Body, to drink his Blood, applied the chalice to his mouth; the venerable woman, divested of her bodily senses, lifted up into the excess of contemplation, leapt forth. In which the most kind Maker and Redeemer of the human race showed toward his beloved and lover the affection of his inmost love by a sufficiently evident indication: she sees the chalice poured over her soul, and this reddened, for she saw that chalice, which the Priest still held in his hand, wholly poured out upon her own soul, the very soul of the one gazing, and on the spot, in the very moment of beholding, as though this whole soul was made reddened with the precious blood of Christ. From which pouring out, pale with a slight terror, she trembled; and coming at once to herself, she could no longer see with bodily eyes what she had contemplated in spirit. But what this vision portended, or what mystery it contained in itself, with the aspect of her mind illumined, she understood clearer than light. For in this deed the pious Lord had shown, as we can conjecture from the testimony of the Scriptures, that she was now reckoned in the number of those who, whitening their stoles in the blood of the mystic Lamb, stand continually before the throne of God, and day and night most devoutly serve him in his holy temple.

CH. XVII.

[30] In those times also, on one of the days on which the feast of Blessed Thomas the Apostle is celebrated, this Virgin of the Lord began most devoutly to remember her sins and negligences: Anxious over the memory of her sins and fearing lest perhaps she had obtained remission and indulgence for them from the Lord, with a fearful heart she did not cease, with repeated and often-repeated turns from that day, most studiously to confess them under the most exact examination of correction. And when, pale with excessive fear, she did this with daily repetitions, and the strait of the same dread no less continually kept watch in her breast; on one of the days venerable Ida is caught up in ecstasy, and what was to be done by her in this article is taught ministerially by him who is the power and wisdom of God. For the pious and merciful Lord, and the most ready Consoler of the sorrowful, appearing to her, to shut out all the insolence of the imposed terror, and caught up in ecstasy, opened to her the secret of his will; and how she might gain the wished-for benefit of lost consolation, he made known to her in such an order of words: "Why," he said, "my chosen one, is your heart vainly afflicted by the strait of such dread? And for what cause is your spirit within you anxious from this superfluous fear, without reasonable cause? Therefore on this Sunday, which now comes as the next to be celebrated, with the expiation of your sins first made, for receiving the Sacrament of my Body and Blood, approach reverently to the altar; so we shall be reconciled at that same moment of time." she is ordered to communicate Which heard, she returns from the contemplation of heavenly things, and on the next following Sunday, what she had received in command, she faithfully fulfills. For on that day, with wondrous affection of devotion, the blessed woman went forth to that Sacrament more noble than any Sacrament; and she is freed from all anxiety: and at once from the heart of the one receiving all that phantom fear vanished; indeed resolved at once into a most vehement love, by the virtue of the life-giving Sacrament. For at the same hour in which she bloomed again, initiated in the most holy mystery, she began to be burned with so fervent a fire of love, by which she loved the Lord and was equally loved by the Lord; that it would be impossible for any mortal man's wit to express by any scheme of words the force of so great a love.

[31] Therefore renewed by the sacred mysteries, she returns at once to the place from which she had departed, with the greatest affliction: because her love and desire did not enjoy, even at that time, according to the pleasure of her will, the very highest good, which is God. For there is a love of fruition with perfect delight, when namely love itself, with face revealed, enjoys the highest good; and there is a love of desire, sad that she does not fully enjoy God; which although in the appetite of the highest good it is not wholly frustrated of the foretasting of supernal sweetness, yet is afflicted with anxiety from this, that in this prison-house of humanity it does not deserve to comprehend by uninterrupted enjoyment what it loves, what it desires, what it affects. The first love is ascribed to those alone who glory with him in the fatherland: the second is proper to those whose conversation is in heaven, but they are still pilgrims from the Lord, entangled in bodily bonds in this life. When therefore in her place the venerable Virgin of Christ sat, mourning beyond measure and anxious for this cause; and no consolation in this article of impossibility, unless she should again be consoled by the Lord, remained; behold the pious and merciful Lord addresses his lover again, and by addressing her, with the wondrous clemency of his piety, most kindly consoles her. "Why," he said, "are you anxious, O my most beloved bride? Why are you disturbed, or do not admit into the inner parts of your breast some consolation, my most pleasing chosen one? What bridegroom shall be able to show to his most chosen bride a greater affection of love on every side, she is roused to new consolation by the Lord. than that in any deformed part of herself, he may cleanse her, washed in his own blood, and make her wholly beautiful, with every contagion of deformity disappearing from her? Are you not that one, my dearest bride, whom I loved, ugly and deformed, with gratuitous love and no preceding or apparent merits in you; and with my precious blood restored in you beauty of wondrous fairness and eminent elegance, the pristine deformity driven away and every obstacle of filth? Or what bridegroom shall be able to meet his chosen bride with a more ready office of familiarity, than to embrace her delightfully as she meets him, and to press and apply her to his breast with loving affection? And you are that dearest bride of mine, who are not only pressed in my embrace, and sweetly applied to my inmost parts; but also carry within you my very Body and Blood, by whose eating and drinking you are spiritually fed and given drink in your soul." Hearing which, raised up to hope by the word of the Lord's consolation, Ida the most blessed Virgin of Christ bloomed again: and with the cloud of her former sorrow and anxiety utterly driven away, from those things which she had seen and heard, she was at once made more even-minded.

CH. XVIII

[32] That also appeared sufficiently marvelous in the Virgin of God, that at the hour of Communion, with the venerable libation of the Lord's Sacrament renewed, After receiving the Eucharist from the exceeding fervor of devotion and special copious sweetness which she felt in her soul at that time, with her strengths failing in her, she could not by any means return to the place from which she had departed: but in the middle of her path, wherever it happened to occur in places, she cannot return to the former place: it was necessary either that she should fall back prostrate, or sit leaning forward in whatever space of her journey. Not once or rarely is such a thing known to have happened to the blessed woman: but often, repeatedly, both before she transferred herself to the Cistercian Order, and after the assumption of the habit, this happened to her, proved by the infallible testimony of very many. But the ancient adversary of the human race and insatiable enemy of all good things, having taken occasion of his ancient malignity from the foregoing, stirred up the minds of certain men, who saw these things more frequently, to envy; whence some suspecting evil of her, and their hearts, which by experience had not felt these and similar things, nor did they believe that this very thing was done by the work of divine bounty, he animated to vomit forth the execrable poison of hateful detraction against the innocent Virgin of God. For there were those who said this was done out of desire for empty glory; nor were the aforesaid things to be attributed to weakness of bodily strength, but rather to an appetite for vain praise, and should be ascribed. Perceiving this, venerable Ida, from the suggestion of certain persons, grieved most vehemently, and feared in this deed her own guilt through the loss of another: and that at the hour of most holy Communion, at which with the Lord's consenting she was about to receive in future time the reverend libations, bodily strengths should not fail her, she asks the ability to withdraw. but rather that the helps should increase, she entreated with most devout prayers the magnificence of almighty God. Who graciously assenting to her prayers, gave her bodily strengths of life at the hour of Communion, from then on: and so at last amputated the wound of detraction from the hearts of the envious.

[33] The blessed woman therefore, fearing lest from the frequent reception of the Lord's Sacrament something similar should happen in the future, and so she might perhaps be compelled to abstain from it, on account of the envy and scandal of others; sought the counsel and help of spiritual friends on this matter, by whose aid she obtained letters confirmed by the authority of the Apostolic See, The Pontiff grants her to communicate on whatever day: by which, for the proved merits of her devotion and holiness, she had the granted indulgence confirmed, that on every day on which she willed or desired, for the reception of holy Communion, without any obstacle, she could approach; to which, without the displeasure of almighty God, according to the tenor and content of the same, no one could in these times oppose. Note, reader, that this, or one similar to this, indulgence has been or was at our time granted to very few: from which you can manifestly conjecture that venerable Ida in these times was adorned with no middling title of holiness, whom the authority of the Apostolic See by this its privilege has presented to us and all the children of the holy Church to be honored. No place of envy therefore could remain, where divine clemency claimed her wholly to itself, apostolic authority wholly. Was not divine grace daily manifesting itself in the Virgin of God, when in the reception of the saving Eucharist her soul was melted from spiritual sweetness, her beloved speaking to her within as sweetly as friendly? For the soul necessarily melts, when within itself it is touched by divine colloquy, as in the books of the Morals blessed Gregory himself attests: "The mind," he says, "while it is touched by the speech of a hidden aspiration, weakened from the state of its own fortitude, by the very desire by which it is absorbed is melted; and whence it finds itself wearied within itself, it sees beyond itself to be the strength, which it ascends."

CHAPTER VII.

Various effects of divine love. Her approach to the Cistercian Order.

CH. XIX.

[34] At a certain time, caught up in excess of mind, the most blessed Virgin saw in spirit her own soul, after the manner of a very wide temple, In ecstasy she saw her soul extended like a temple: extended inwardly through all its parts; and with its dimensions stretched forth in length and breadth, most aptly dilated to the likeness of some eminent church: in the midst of which placed, when she directed the edge of her eyes to examine each thing with wondrous sagacity and vigilant curiosity, and judged by most true estimate that she had seen nothing more comely or more beautiful in this world; at length she directed her gaze to the altar itself, inasmuch as it was more honorably and decently adorned than all the rest. For there was to be seen ministers of extraordinary beauty, and in it a most ornate altar, surrounding it with its sides on every part, and clothing the surface with linen and white palls, and with gilded tapestries its front and sides; and through its circuit also touching it with lighted candelabra and abundantly adorned lamps. She saw moreover, and behold, the whole choir began to be occupied by singers flowing together from every side: when these were gathered in their stalls above and below in order, and in this the Mass being most decently celebrated, by the precentors the Introit of the Mass was begun at once, and proceeded to the end, by that heavenly college, the chants stretched forth with a high-sounding voice and with ineffable sweetness of melody, sung. But from another side she saw dressed in pontifical vestments, approaching the altar, a Pontiff: she saw also the order of ministers, by the Pontiff preceding him with the highest reverence: and each of them, in the office of Mass that was being performed, most attentively performing his ministry. But what more! With the Mass solemnly begun, with more ready solemnity it is celebrated, and none of those things which in such an office in order are required for the performing, is passed over by the celebrant himself or by any of the ministers. But who that Pontiff was, by her testimony and by a revelation made long afterwards to her Confessor, we have learned. Christ the Lord, For it was the very true and supreme Pontiff and Priest according to the order of Melchizedek, perfect God and man, born of the Virgin Mary, the Lord Jesus Christ: but the choir of ministers and psalm-singers was certainly the heavenly host, for the obedience of its Creator terrible as the army of camps arrayed: but what the office was or what kind, now long sunk in oblivion, she could not explain: for to commit to perpetual memory each of the benefits which in her time she had deserved to receive from the hand of the Lord, she judged utterly impossible.

CH. XX.

[35] For the sake of prayer, when on a certain day she sat before the ciborium in the church, and showed the office of ready devotion to the very honorable sacrament of the Lord's Body, on the one side the execrable miseries of this world, on the other the heavenly, from which she was exiled, delights of eternal life, she began to turn over in mind: then for her liberation, with tears and sobs, with weepings and groans, Yearning in prayer for eternal life, to entreat the mercy of almighty God with these words: "O most loving one," she said, "my Lord! O hope, love, and all the desire of my heart! How long will you suffer me to be detained in this prison of flesh? How long will you endure me to be pressed and afflicted in this vale of misery, exiled in the dwelling of this present and fragile body, to be separated from your presence? Remember, my Lord, what, how great and how many things in the time of present life I have endured for the honor of your name, by whose invocation I ask from your mercy to be freed from all these things." Which said, in excess of mind for contemplating heavenly things, she is caught up at once; and, divested of human garments, to the gaze of supernal vision her spirit is lifted up on high. She saw therefore, and behold, that Lord Jesus more beautiful than the sons of men, all joyous to her, all festive appeared to her; and the most kind countenance, upon which the angelic spirits desire to look with eternal continuity, she beholds the most kind countenance of Christ so bright and adorned with the excellence of such kindness, he offered her; that the discomforts of all tribulations, afflictions, and griefs, which in various ways and at various times she had once endured in this life by God's most hidden but most kind judgment, by the inestimable and worthy commerce of that look alone most fully compensating her, he reinstated; and every strait of grief and sadness at that time far from her memory at once relegated. For she used to say, as she afterwards

learned from the Confessor who revealed it, that and she is filled with the highest joy if the griefs and afflictions of all living in this mortal life, and descending from the origin of the first parent through all secular times to come and past alike, she alone through the momentary course of her age had borne in body; all that she could have endured, by that single look of his compassion the divine clemency had most copiously paid back to her. Mark, reader, to how great a height of graces this most blessed Virgin had grown, who so sweetly from the Father of mercies and God of all consolation, at a single look of the eyes, deserved to be consoled from every discomfort of grief in this life. What wonder therefore, if much more readily than can be said or thought by any one even desiring it, the spirits of the elect and the souls of the Blessed enjoy eternal consolation, in the loveliness of the heavenly dwelling and fatherland; who always and everywhere deserve to have him present, and to behold him who is described as the splendor of eternal light, and a light for the revelation of the nations and for the glory of his people Israel.

CH. XXI.

[36] In a similar manner also, but not at the same time, on the day on which the holy Church is wont to recite the solemnities of Blessed Mary Magdalene, On the feast of St. Mary Magdalene in the midday hours, for giving herself to the leisure of contemplation — the more quietly the more secretly — she had fled to the shade of a tree in a certain solitary place: and there the very great benefits which this Saint had long ago obtained from Christ the Lord, she now recalled to memory by the exercise of meditation; now how well it was for her, when she was permitted to have him whom she loved most present in body, contemplating the benefits conferred on her, and how sweet, how delightful, or of what merit it was to be reckoned for her, to rejoice at his sight and address alike, she was ruminating with the equally studious office of contemplation. These things therefore and others like them, not without the greatest congratulation, the Virgin of God meditating on; straightway she is caught up through excess of mind to contemplate heavenly things, she is visited by Christ. and as before she is beheld visited by Christ the Lord: at whose sight her soul, most copiously rejoiced, is filled again with heavenly delights. For returned to herself, both in gestures and in words, she appeared that day as though all heavenly among men; so that the feet of the one walking, and her knees lifted from the dust of the earth, as it most surely seemed to her, you might have beheld, and would not have thought them to imprint any vestige of earthly substance.

CH. XXII.

[37] At the same time one of her friends, most faithful in affection and most constant in friendship, a man in every way adorned with the title of religion, one day, Conversing with a pious man, as very often he was wont in these times, came to venerable Ida; and with her about the salvation of the soul, about the amendment of morals, about weariness of earthly things and desire of eternal things, he was comparing words of consolation and edification at once. Among which the Virgin of the Lord in the manner of those in grief groaned vehemently: and the will which the Lord had lately inspired in her, she made known in this order. "Shall I," she said, "dearest one, be able to hide from you the desire of my heart and the resolution divinely inspired? Behold, I can no longer endure the shout of the people with a quiet mind. For since I am defiled with many stains of sins, they do not cease to adorn me falsely with the proclamation of religion and holiness: and though I confess myself a sinner in public, yet none of them accuses me of sin. Therefore these things and similar ones being unable longer to endure, she indicates she wishes to assume the Cistercian habit: and leaving you and other friends, with whose comfort I have been hitherto sustained, with all speed, not in mind but in body, I propose soon to desert this wicked world, and those things which are of the world; and assuming at once the Cistercian Order and habit, to seek the deserts of religion; and the more freely in mind and affection, the more secretly I may cleave to the good pleasures of almighty God."

[38] Hearing these things, that most loving zealot of the blessed woman, and tenderest emulator of inseparable friendship, at first indeed grew stiff, and trembling and pale could not answer at the words proposed to him for exceeding amazement; but straightway, with sadness pressing, turned to madness, and him, stunned by this announcement he could no longer hide the anxiety of his heart; but like the raging and demented, the trouble of his alienation of both words and gestures he showed in the sight of God's handmaid in most wretched fashion. Seeing which, venerable Ida began at once to be disturbed and anxious most vehemently, judging herself guilty of that unexpected madness: for she did not doubt that this chief of her friends had incurred it because of her. Therefore with knees bent, she at once prostrates herself on the earth with anxious heart; with prayers poured forth to God and with very great insistence of sighs, tears, and prayers, entreats the clemency of almighty God for the restoring of health to her servant suffering. Therefore with these things going on within the virginal chamber in this way, behold certain other ones from the number of her familiar friends standing outside knock at the door, which for enjoying an ampler abundance of secrecy had a little before been bolted shut. But the Virgin of the Lord did not rise from the place where she lay, nor did she interrupt the zeal of her prayers, nor did she care to satisfy the desire of the others standing outside and wondering what was being done inside: but pouring herself wholly into prayers, beyond her bodily strength, she persevered in the business begun. For she feared, as she afterwards related, lest, if perhaps she had cared to admit those knocking and shouting, the one for whom she was so diligently laboring, would have remained irremediably in the disease of his madness. But what could the pious and merciful Lord deny to his chosen one, laboring so intently in so pious a business, and bewailing fraternal misery with so earnest an office of compassion? Scarcely was the prayer completed, she restores him to himself. when that mad one, with his madness put to flight, is restored to his former health, and the venerable woman's entreaty is at once concluded in ineffable jubilation of praises and thanksgiving. These things so performed, the others also are let in, but what was done or performed there, the Virgin of Christ does not let it come to their notice; lest perhaps what had happened to herself, to her own commendation or her friend's confusion, might come to be spread abroad among the people by anyone hearing this.

CH. XXIII.

[39] But since in the preceding chapter we have already made some mention of the will divinely inspired in her, it is worthwhile that in what manner she afterwards brought the same to effect in a short time, we should subjoin in a compendious order of narration. There is a monastery of the Cistercian Order, In the Cistercian monastery of Rose-Valley called Rose-Valley, in the parts of Brabant, by a certain illustrious man, descending from a noble family of the Lords of Mechelen, Giles by name, founded in honor of Blessed Mary ever Virgin, and most aptly situated near a village called Walem by the inhabitants, on the bank of the river Nethe. In this monastery the bride of Christ in every way venerable sought to be admitted as companion and nun, she is admitted: and obtained her request: in which she afterwards served the almighty Lord most bravely for many times: and the course of the present life, as will appear in what follows, with heavenly clemency assenting, most happily consummated. But how she was preceded by the Lord in the sweetness of his blessings, when she had not yet assumed the habit of religion in this place (before I turn to other things which were afterwards done by her in the same monastery), as briefly as I can I here subjoin. When therefore, leaving her land, her kindred, and her father's house utterly with Abraham the Patriarch, at the Lord's command she had obeyed, and both in mind and body had transferred herself to the thresholds of the said monastery; and there still dwelling in her own habit, she was received in the very habit in which she had come, as is the custom, in the guesthouse; until, with the venerable Abbess of the same place coming — who then was absent — she might, through her, assume the habit of religion, for the assuming of which she had then come.

[40] While this time meanwhile ran on, on a certain Friday sitting in the guesthouse, she was awaiting the sound of the bell soon to be rung, so that summoned by it more certainly, she might be present at the divine offices and the solemnities of Masses. When the Virgin of the Lord, with heart and spirit devoted to heavenly things, giving leisure to herself alone and to the Lord, sat, she was lifted up into excess of mind and leapt forth, and with the office of her outer senses put to sleep, by the sole gaze of contemplation she penetrated the hidden things of heavenly mysteries. For appearing at that very moment of time to his chosen one, the pious and merciful Lord brought a golden crown in his hand, woven of gold and precious stones, among which also stood out flowers of divers species made of the same gold, mingled with crosses: whose preciousness and elegance of beauty no understanding could perceive by human sense. Therefore approaching nearer to his chosen one, the very Lord of mercies placed it most becomingly on her head: and thus addressing her, he encouraged her more attentively to attain the proposal she had conceived in mind. "Be constant," he said, "dearest one, and let not the rude austerity of the Order to be observed frighten you, or the poverty of the place: and she is encouraged to perseverance by Christ I will be with you always, wherever you shall turn yourself, and to the sublime increases of the spiritual life with me as guide you shall come: and this shall be a sign to you: Now the little bell in the church will ring, which presents the sign of the Mass to be celebrated: be ready to enter the very oratory in which it shall be celebrated, and behold I shall descend at the altar, when in it the mystical Sacrament shall be handled: then you will desire me, and I will flow wholly into your heart: but also certain others of the nuns of the same college will desire me, he promising to flow into her soul and those of others. and I will likewise flow wholly into their souls." To whom venerable Ida, as though ignorant of this mystery, gave such a reply, and with blessed Nicodemus confidently inquired how this could be done. "You," she said, "most loving Lord, if wholly, as you assert, you shall flow into their souls, how will you flow wholly into mine, especially at the same moment of time, since this is utterly impossible to bodily creatures?" To whom the Lord, "I have this power," he said, "that I may not be divided into parts, after the manner of visible creatures, but I am wholly poured into the souls of all piously desiring me: for no word is impossible with God." Which said, that vision of the Lord suddenly disappeared, and returned to herself she at once entered the church: and there, having obtained her desire, as she had received in promise, with the Priest immolating the sacrament of the Lord's Body and Blood, soon her soul, flooded with heavenly sweetness, bloomed anew: and with no less — nay, utterly like it or greater than that which she tasted in the reception of the life-giving Sacrament at past and future time alike. But now with these things which she did in the world completed as briefly as we could, in the compass of two little books, I think we must rest briefly: so that to describing those things which she afterwards did in the Order, we may arise more eagerly, with wit and speech alike modestly restored under the friendly silence.

BOOK III.

The religious life of Ida, and her death.

Chapters of the third book.

CHAPTER I.

Wondrous grace of God conferred in the reception of the sacred Eucharist.

CH. I.

[1] Therefore with the venerable Abbess of the same place returned to her own, who then was absent, as we have said, the habit of religion is decently imposed on Ida, the handmaid of Christ; and adorned with white garments and vestments, as is the custom, She is clothed with the monastic garment she is placed among the bands of her companions. Meanwhile there is marvelous exultation and joy on both sides: the nuns rejoice greatly at the arrival of the most blessed handmaid of God, with her joy and that of the nuns, reckoning it for the greatest thing that they, unworthy, should live in her company, and having received as a companion and associate in their college one of such merit. Further, venerable Ida no less exulted in the Lord, reckoning nothing more useful in this world, than to attain such company, to be constantly formed and imbued with such a spiritual example. But though she embraced with most humble affection every observance of the Order, to which she had devoted herself, considering nothing in it which seemed in any way to disagree with her own resolution; and against the custom of Novices yet this alone she bore with very grieved mind, that in the year of her Novitiate, by the observed custom and statute of the same order, only three times and not more often was she permitted to be communicated with that saving remedy of the whole world, namely the sacrament of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ the Lord.

[2] But what happened to this venerable handmaid of God of whom we speak, while the space of this year ran on, note reader: and understand a miraculous thing; and worthy of every admiration marvel along with the writer. On a certain day, when according to the custom a part of the convent was to communicate with the Lord's Sacrament, on a certain occasion approaching communion the fervent and insatiable appetite of this holy novice burned beyond measure, desiring to attain together with the others what the usage of regular observance, established in the monasteries of the same order in these times, denied her, as we said. But when the time of communion was at hand, and those who had proposed to communicate were hastening, each in her own order, to the Priest's hand, Ida the venerable Virgin of Christ also approached together with the others, and while they communicated, she too was made partaker of the most holy sacrament of the Lord's Body and Blood, she remains unobserved, going and returning in her order together with the others, yet nonetheless in going or returning — marvelous to say — offending the eyes of no beholder. But whether in spirit alone or in body what we narrate happened to her, she had unknown throughout all future time. Yet knowing and tasting this undoubtedly, that she both received the true Body of the Lord with her mouth and masticated it with the office of her teeth.

[3] with the highest joy lasting for seven days. But how rejoiced her soul was and her spirit inebriated on that day and for the seven following, it is not for us to explain in words. For no mind would grasp it, no intellect would rise to understand it: for she felt, as she afterwards related, in these days before her breast a burning torch, and shining like a lamp, illumining not only her soul within, but also her body without with the ineffable light of brightness and the splendor of radiating gleam. But in all the remaining time of her life, and by remembrance throughout her life. as often as she recalled to memory that day of her novitiate, and therefore mindful of the spiritual delights which she had irrecoverably lost in that time running out; so often with most tender affection, with tears and sighs, with sobs and groans, she most bitterly bewailed them. But what wonder? For she sometimes felt, from the reception of the Lord's Sacrament, so great a sweetness pouring together with it into her mouth, and not only within in her soul, but without flooding the very organs of her body adapted to natural taste — mouth, palate, tongue, and lips — with so wondrous an abundance of joy; that nothing could be thought more savory than this food, nothing more delightful to taste in this world. For what is sweeter, what is more delicious than that heavenly bread? To which, as Scripture testifies, every accumulation of all delight has been infused from the very fountain of sweetness. Wisdom 16:20 But on the days on which she deserved to be refreshed by this most sacred food, After holy communion every bodily food became wholly cheap to her, of whatever value or taste it might be: yet as often as on account of the necessity of the human condition she was obliged to take it, she takes other foods with loathing. she tasted it with loathing and the greatest anguish of heart. What shall we inactive and wretched ones say here, who scarcely or never are refreshed with any spiritual sweetness in the reception of so sweet and saving a food? But what is more wretched, there are those to whom the reception of any most vile food is of much greater delight than the inestimable sweetness of the life-giving Body and Blood of the sacrament.

CH. II.

[4] Another thing also sufficiently marvelous we have found to have happened to her in that same year of her Novitiate, which also we judge worthy to be committed to memory and worthy of relation. Sick, with a companion reciting the Ecclesiastical Office At that time the Virgin of the Lord was ill, and was lying languishing in the infirmary, according to the custom of the same monastery: to whom a nun companion was assigned by custom, for the sake of refreshment and solace. Who nonetheless showed her service to her feverish companion, in reading the synaxes and hours of both day and night offices: for she was but little formed in the study of letters, having learned nothing of the literal element beyond only the Psalter, which in her youth she had said. Beside whom on a certain night, when the nun companion sat, occupied in saying Compline; and she, by insistence of devotion rather than by vocal consonance, answered in turn to the one reading; a certain inestimable odor, proceeding from the languishing one, at once poured itself most copiously out upon the nostrils of the one sitting by, leaped forth; and with ineffable abundance of sweetness pervaded all the inner parts of her breast, and also the inmost parts of her entrails and vitals: but in her mouth a certain unaccustomed taste of no less excellence appeared, it fills her with most sweet odor and taste which surpassed the sweetness of honey and honeycomb, and of all sweet things which human experience knows, by the ineffable superabundance of its sweetness. This too did not suddenly disappear: but through all the space of that night and the following day, like a dripping honeycomb, continually lasted in her mouth; over which the nun, hesitating and marveling beyond what could be believed, and unable to understand whence the sweetness of such sweetness unexpected could have come, took a little of it in the palm of her right hand and held it, wishing to learn by exploring of what color it was that had so dulcified all the penetrable organs of her body with the influence of such an unaccustomed taste: which finding clear and bright, she did not wish to pour upon the earth, but out of reverence for so great a miracle, receiving it at once in her mouth, as before she most avidly swallowed it.

CH. III.

[5] A certain Monk of the Cistercian order, serving the role of chaplain and exercising the office in the same monastery, at a certain time had so troubled her with injurious words, Having suffered annoyance from the Chaplain, that she felt from it an injury in her heart and mind, which she was unable to escape at the first wish of her will. He, penitent of the deed, ordered her to be called to him by a messenger sent, desiring no doubt to be reconciled with her in peace: whom not by her own demands, summoned by him she does not appear: but by his own fault alone, with rash boldness, he had disturbed. She refusing to come, he sent to her a second and a third time, but even then she did not appear, the very grief of her heart not yet lulled in the bond of peace. But when he celebrated the office of Mass the next day according to custom, and already held in his hands the honorable sacrament of the Lord's Body to be received by himself; venerable Ida, but she is present to him celebrating in ecstasy: standing behind at his feet, is caught up in spirit, and in excess of her mind is clothed with priestly vestments, and is marked with ornaments inestimable beyond what can be said; and so at last most aptly prepared, is renewed by the sacrament of the Lord's Body and Blood: in which vision she had no memory at all of the aforesaid monk, nor with bodily or mental eyes did she notice his presence, nor did she listen to the office of the celebrant, as sometimes she was wont.

[6] and again summoned, approaching, But that same day after the hour of the vision, summoned again, she did not delay to come: for he who through his blood once, as the Apostle testifies, had pacified both what is in heaven and what is on earth; had also called back these his elect ones to the concord of peace, in the reception of his most sacred Blood and saving Host. Col. 1:20 Forgetful therefore of the previous injury, she went to the monk, and among other things began to inquire whether he had received the Sacrament of the Lord's Body on the aforesaid day; and saying this, she intently looked upon the man, and with serene countenance and tranquil and calm face soon subjoined; "Whether today," she said, "you received the Lord's Body I have uncertain; she indicates she has communicated. but that I have been partaker of the holy Communion, I both truly know and affirm." Over which, marveling vehemently, he asked where, when, or how it had been done. But she: "Not by the office of any mortal man, but solely by the help of divine power, the thing has been done," she truly affirmed.

[7] In the same manner, but not at the same time, that monk (to whom long ago she had been accustomed, under the title of confession, to pour forth sweeter than any nectar-taste, the secrets of her conscience from the storehouse of her heart) on a certain day about to depart from her, celebrated a Mass, such as is wont to be celebrated for the souls of the departed according to custom, in her presence. With which performed, the venerable woman, before he should depart, in the same manner she affirms having communicated at other times, sought his colloquy; and about her negligences and omissions occurring to her for the time, she gave him a rather compendious and succinct confession; and this done, with joyful face and sweet-sounding voice, she soon subjoined: "I, venerable Father, with you together today was present at the Sacraments celebrated by you; together with you, by the clemency of Christ assenting, I deserved to be made partaker of them, at that same moment of time; and the bounty of divine clemency, on account of the grace of the Holy Spirit infused into us both, I blessed at the one and the same time with you." Hearing which, he began to marvel at the novelty of the miracle, especially since not by a man or another, but by God alone, this participation of the Sacrament had been ministered to her. For on that day he had celebrated a Mass, in which no one is usually admitted to the reception of the saving Host, except only him by whose priestly ministry the very saving Host is sacramentally immolated for the souls of the faithful.

CH. IV.

[8] At another time, with a day previously fixed spiritually for this, she proposed in mind to receive the host of holy Communion, and consummated her resolution in deed. But what was done in this reception, what she saw, what happened, to the commendation of her extraordinary holiness, the truthful narration of the series of the pen proceeding in this work will unfold. Therefore, when the venerable office of Consecration, accomplished in her manner, the time was now at hand that she should be renewed by the very deifying Sacrament; venerable Ida advanced, that what

she had in proposal, she might now consummate in deed given over to effect. Coming therefore, nearly in the middle of the way, with the journey which she was making completed, About to communicate she soon stopped: and going no further, what she had conceived in mind, by a slight whisper, and not by the oracle of a living voice, she brought to the divine ears. "O," she said, "most almighty Lord of lords, Creator and Ruler of all ages, if I had some bridegroom or a fuller or a rustic, or an architect of any mechanical work, and seeking a retinue from Christ, I would not tend familiarly to a wedding banquet without an escort; how much more is it not fitting for me, though unworthy by merit, yet betrothed to your wedding, to walk without a becoming escort, when I approach your banquets, to receive the sweeter than all sweetness, more savory than all food, the sacrament of your Body? Therefore going no further, here I set the limit, unless there is one to lead me to your holy altar at this moment of time." While the Virgin of God was thinking these things, and the Priest was noticing her delay, but was wholly ignorant of the cause of the delay; she saw, and behold the Queen of Virgins, she who alone deserved to be exalted above all the choirs of Angels — she, I say, appeared at her right; but on the left, that beloved disciple, she is led by the Mother of God and St. John the Evangelist. to whom Christ on the cross commended his Virgin Mother to the Virgin. These reverently surrounding either side of the blessed woman, snatched her up from either side and lead her to the most holy mysteries, with an Angel going before and smoothing the way by which she was to proceed, with a lit censer and likewise a lantern. But with the Communion performed, by the way which she had come, in the same manner she is led back; and in the place of her sitting, with the Saints serving her as before, she is honorably reinstalled.

CH. V.

[9] At a certain time on the Epiphany of the Lord, before she proceeded to the altar, to be renewed by the mystery of the sacrament of the Lord's Body and Blood; it seemed to her sitting in her place, and awaiting the time of Communion in quiet and silence; it seemed to her, I say, most openly, not with bodily sight but with mental gaze only, About to go to holy Communion as the grace performed its ministry in her, that like a sein-net, most broadly spread through much space of places according to the stretching of its length and width increased, her heart and soul were dilated for the reception of the inward grace to be infused into her from above. For the holy and undivided Trinity, she feels her soul dilated, with her soul flooded from above by a certain slight whisper, foretold that it would come, and without any interval of delay, soon fulfilled what it had promised. So therefore dilated and enlarged at once, she proceeded to the Lord's altar, and received the sacrament of his Body and Blood: in which reception she deserved to hear the voice of the Father she perceives the voice of the eternal Father: with her inward, as she afterwards related, ears, thus saying: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased": and straightway in her manner she began to abound and flow with spiritual delights, so that she could neither walk on her feet, nor sustain herself with the help of her whole body.

[10] For having received the sacrament of the reverend Body, when to the reception of the holy Blood, after Communion as was then the custom in the Cistercian order, she had hastened; straightway her body, from the spiritual filling which she felt inwardly in soul, began so to delight outwardly and to stretch; that like a bursting cask (which unless most tightly bound with the strongest bonds of bindings, she is even dilated in body, you would see subject to the hazard of shattering and rupture) the little body of the blessed woman, impatient of its excessive filling, as it seemed to her, at that very moment of time would most quickly have burst, unless fenced around by the binding of divine power and strength, and unharmed and unbroken, she had remained in her strength. For the communion finished with the others communicating the same day, with the very breath of life in her panting breast almost stopped up, with a total failure of strength. and with the help of bodily strengths failing in her; she could in no way approach to receive the libation of Wine from the chalice, as is the custom for communicants: but with great labor transferring herself behind the altar, she lay down there, in body indeed sick, but sound in mind: until at the Hour of the sixth of the day, she entered the infirmary, that she might perform it by hearing or reading together with the others lying in it.

CHAPTER II.

The state of another known by divine revelation. A mandate that others not be troubled.

CH. VI.

[11] On the same day, before she approached the holy Communion, two religious of the Order of Friars Minor, of whom one had long since come into her acquaintance and familiarity in the charity of Christ, Visited by a Minorite known to her and obtained no small place among her other friends, came together from the neighboring town of Mechelen to visit her and enjoy her colloquy. To whose conversation venerable Ida being called, she endured being summoned with difficulty, because with confession already completed concerning negligences, and absolution for things committed obtained, she had applied her heart and soul to heavenly things alone, with earthly things left behind and excluded from memory. Yet she went, and at once obeyed the command of the one calling, and greeted the Brothers themselves with a dutiful office of veneration. Then however near the Brother known to her, she placed herself on a bench for the sake of sitting, and addressing him briefly, she turns to the companion standing outside, at once, with him marveling over this, she fell silent: and indeed turning the edge of her eyes away from him, she most attentively directed her gaze upon the other standing outside, and under the open sky in the snow and cold awaiting the advent of his brother after the concluding of the hour of speaking. Therefore, gazing diligently upon him, whom she had never before either seen or known, unexpectedly and beyond custom she began to hoot with loud voice; and saying nothing, but gazing upon him with unblinking eyes, and she is dissolved in laughter: and exalting laughter with prolonged voices, to strike great cause of wonder in the hearts of those seeing and hearing these things. For who would not have marveled at venerable Ida, very often restraining her mouth from divine words through the maturity of her morals and her self-custody, and imposing silence on herself with the Prophet even from good things; now contrary to custom, like any jesters, flow forth in loud and driven laughter, and offer in the eyes of those looking on this marvelous spectacle of superfluous dissolution, with the wonder of others, especially at that time in which she was to be present at the Lord's sacraments? Ps. 38:3 But also he who a little before had heard her confession, and still sitting in his place, was attending to the hearing of other confessions, listening from afar and considering these things, and of the Confessor, and thinking this nothing else but dissolution, rebuked her over the disorderly burst of her laughter, and, ignorant of the cause, reproached the insolence of such dissolution, uttered especially at such a time, with such persons hearing and seeing. But she, noticing none of these things, neither turned the gaze of her eyes away from the sight of the Brother standing in the atrium and not daring to enter to the Brother through the obstacle of embarrassment, nor did she restrain her laughter.

[12] With these things therefore done slowly enough and through much space of that hour; to the other sitting near her; and more vehemently marveling at her laughter, she again turned; and addressing him more familiarly, with brief words indeed, but sufficient for the time, she satisfied his desire. But with the time approaching in which the office of Mass was to be celebrated, they both departed together; and he indeed to the church, but she returned to the convent. A little afterwards, when the very offices of the Mass were being handled; satisfied from the presence of the whole Trinity coming upon her, at the time of the Mass wondrously refreshed, from the paternal voice concerning the Son recited to her, from the excessive filling which she felt in body and soul, and also from the syncope of her vital parts and strengths (as all these things are expressed in the preceding Chapter), tasting nothing that day, she remained fasting until after sunset, or until Compline was sung in the church. And then indeed, yielding rather to the desire of another than her own, she took very little food; yet she was unable to apply any appetite to those things which the importunity of those standing by compelled her to taste. After None however, together with the Prioress of the monastery, and together with certain others joined to her company, with great labor she proceeded to visit those Brothers and those who were with them, and to pour forth spiritual things to spiritual persons from the full storehouse of her heart.

[13] With the treatment fitting for the time performed, and with the conversation which had been carried on in common finished, her Confessor and absolver of sins, of whom I made mention in the foregoing, approached her near the Brother known to her still sitting, and more secretly attending to his colloquy, and joined himself to those sitting by; and with the Brother hearing, about each of the things which had happened to her in the reception of the most holy Body and Blood, and afterwards, asked by the Confessor about this, he inquired more attentively. "Why," he said, "today, when you were approaching the reception of the Lord's Blood, did you fall as though lifeless or rather in ecstasy under the bend of my arm, and by falling strike into me a horrible and incredible fear? Why, with the holy Communion received, not joined to the college of the others, but sitting alone behind the altar, did you remain in the secretorium like a languishing one? Why finally, after the sacred libations, namely at the sound of the sixth hour, did you enter the infirmary, while the others were singing psalms in the choir?" But venerable Ida, not yet lifted up from the heavenly fullness, or totally roused from the spiritual sleep, wished indeed to answer to each of these, but what she wished to do she could not accomplish. she could not indicate then, For very often having begun an answer to these, what she had begun to speak she could not unfold: whence willing or unwilling, with the aforesaid response set aside, the speech which she had very often begun, she at length consummated in this order: "I," she said, "unless I be somewhat more occupied or given to exterior things, shall not be able to utter what you ask and desire to know." Afterwards however these things, as much already described in the foregoing, but afterwards she accurately expounded: as to be written in what follows, to her aforesaid Confessor, a man in every way to be venerated, she diligently expounded: who, as a truthful man, painted them down in little leaves in most truthful, though simple, language, and those painted committed to the memory of posterity.

[14] A little afterwards however, with that Brother known to her turning to other things, that younger one was called, who in the morning time had been the occasion of her laughter: in whose presence and in that of a certain other nun, her Confessor was inquiring, why at the first look at the Brother in the morning she had thus laughed. But she, "I justly laughed," she said, "seeing this one to be a vessel and dwelling of the Holy Spirit: for to this is he foreordained by the Lord, if indeed he shall not fall from the grace granted to him, [and she indicated the state of the younger Brother, on account of whom she laughed] before secular times. And after a little: "Do you not retain," she said, "O my Father, that I very recently said to you in the secret of confession, that sometimes the innermost parts of my heart are bathed with so great a gleam of brightness, with divine grace illumining me, that I can also recognize the state of others, and what I have recognized, with the Lord assenting, for the profit of others I can reveal?"

Which said, turning to him with open face, "Your state," she said, "has been known by me to be such, that unoccupied from secular cares, you most gladly contain yourself in the tranquil silence of heart, and hide yourself in the solitude of mind; from which if you depart, and too much occupy yourself with the disquiet of external things, you will at once deprive yourself of the gift of divine grace, and be left wholly without spiritual goods." She also opened to the aforesaid Brother other secrets of her heart: all of which indeed he understood to rest on truth, clearer than light, with the manifest experience of things afterwards attesting to this.

CH. VII.

[15] In these days also, the venerable Abbess of the same place had issued a prohibition established in her Chapter, which she had fortified with the bond of the virtue of obedience; namely that no one should presume to wake her, A mandate made by the Abbess, either at the exercise of prayer, or at the leisure of contemplation resting with the Lord, or meanwhile to recall her from heavenly things to secular ones. In which (as we may conjecture from the testimony of Scripture, adjuring that no one should presume to rouse the beloved, lest anyone interrupt the contemplating Ida, until she should voluntarily offer herself to the interrupting of the leisure of her rest) this holy woman also is known to have had indeed a right intention; although she was not supported by the counsel of discretion in this resolution of her own invention. Song 8:4 Therefore, straying ignorantly, the Lord of mercies himself, for his own and others' profit, officiously and kindly corrected her; and the edict of bad prohibition sent forth by her, he revoked in this order. On a certain day then occurring of Epiphany, she herself admonished by a heavenly voice, venerable Ida had received the libations of sacred communion, and with the hour of reception now passed, giving herself leisure for herself and the Lord, sitting alone, she was resting on her bench: to whom a divine voice slipping down from heaven said, "Tell the Abbess that the prohibition promulgated in her Chapter let her at once revoke, without loss of delay, and let her not attempt such things in future by commanding or prohibiting." At which voice the honorable Virgin of Christ, aroused from the sleep of contemplation, sprang up; and what had been commanded her, in the same hour, obeying the divine command, she faithfully fulfilled. For hearing at once the venerable Abbess, she said, "It is expedient, O Lady, that the mandate solemnly issued by you in the Chapter, be revoked by yourself as quickly as possible; although, for the cause of expediency — perhaps with a blot of ignorance standing in the way, she takes care to have it revoked. so that it should be taken from the eyes of your discretion in future — your understanding may not grasp at the present. But that this very thing which I urge shall be profitable to you, I pronounce without hesitation: yet what I think about it, or how it came to my littleness's notice, at this present time I shall not reveal to you." But what more? The venerable Abbess at once, as she was a God-fearing woman, gave faith to these sayings: and what publicly she had established, in the following Chapter before those sitting by, at the prompting of divine admonition, she publicly revoked with equal publicity.

CHAPTER III.

Wondrous grace of contemplation, without the sting of vainglory.

CH. VIII.

[16] Among the other marks of virtues, by which in her time she is known to have flourished, the most holy Virgin Ida of Christ, I think it not vainly nor undeservedly also to be related, that in the school of contemplation she had so advanced, Continually and everywhere she insists on contemplation of divine things, with Christ and his Paraclete being her teacher, that whatever places she turned to, or with whatever businesses she mingled herself, the very insistence of contemplation was always ready at hand for her; and marvelous to say, not rarely nor by turns, as is usual, but in every space of days and nights, and every moment of hours and times, she showed herself equally ready for its services. For which cause she was necessarily compelled, by a certain violent industry, to repress this importunity of her spirit — as very often she did — from this her contemplation, she compelled to interrupt it on account of failure of strength, and to involve herself, occupied with transitory things or with whatever businesses; when with the aid of strengths failing, the bodily protection had of necessity to succumb, nor did she judge it possible to cleave to the study of this kind with equally obstinate turns. Therefore there grew up between flesh and spirit, on this account, no small contest: since the strong and eager spirit wished to enjoy this its desire at all times, but she, feeling herself weighed down by her weakness, could not proceed on the other side with equal pace with it, nor run together with it equally. If however it sometimes happened that she lingered longer in a higher study of contemplation, and because of this, with her strengths exhausted, bodily infirmity necessarily impended for her; then even the spirit itself in transitory and earthly things, for restoring the aids of strength, little by little learned to rest, and to linger more frequently in them, holding it sweet and necessary at once: and now in the little birds seeking food near her on the ground; she seizes certain distractions. now in little beasts, hurrying from everywhere to the touch of her hands; and in other very little and slight things, for an hour applying affection and mind to such things, and in childlike ways loving them for the time most tenderly, she sought the benefit of her refreshment and the antidote of repair. For she used to say that for that reason she had at a certain time so loved a certain little pot of no estimation, that she preferred this alone by loving to all the riches of this world, and for some times asserted that she had devoted the whole affection of her love to it.

CH. IX.

[17] But since we have heard something wondrous and quite inexperienced in our own times about the contemplation of the blessed woman, let us apply hearing and mind to the most sweet commerce of charity also, by which she was loved by the Lord, and in turn loved the Lord, yet by sticking to his footsteps as much as we can. For sometimes, as she herself related, in so great communion of mutual love, the one was as though incorporated with the other, that what distance there was on that occasion between the Lord's body and her soul, she utterly did not know. She feels herself as it were incorporated with Christ, Sometimes with charity, which is God, in so great an abundance of love was that most holy soul of the holy Virgin filled, that each of her bodily members seemed to her turned into individual hearts, and again all these filled with God; or her members as it were hearts full of God, and the more they seemed and the greater the number in which they were counted, the fuller increases of deifying charity they had received in themselves. From the excessive fervor of love also, sometimes inflaming her soul within, she so outwardly grew beyond the usual, and was dilated in body with a certain monstrous thickness; that for that reason she was compelled wholly to lay aside girdle or straps; on account of his love to be dilated, or to such a measure even of the most corpulent of any men, for binding that very full body, enlarged by the rich fatness of charity alone, she was obliged to stretch out such straps and girdles to double their own length. Sometimes also, persisting in prayer, or returning again from it, within she felt her soul growing warm in divine love, and to grow warm with ineffable charity. and in turn her lover to love her soul back from so great an abundance of charity, that all the senses of her body, or the very natural understanding itself, could not enclose within themselves the ineffable richness of this and the unthinkable commerce of charity — as though standing far off, and beholding it from afar, and marveling over it with one another — by any intelligence or reason: since them, as strangers and wholly inexperienced of this mystery, the very inviolate nobility of charity judged unworthy and superfluous to call into that hidden and wholly impenetrable secret to every earthly sense.

[18] But she sometimes became so delightful, from the inestimable greatness of love, that with the sweetness of such delights growing, preserving the sweetness of it for many days and weeks now through the space of one week, now through two or more, sometimes through forty days or nights running on in an integrated continuation, from that most great influence of supernal sweetness nothing diminishing itself to her, it decreased for her; it remained, wherever she turned, and whatever work she was doing meanwhile, everywhere and continually in its strongest vigor. Wherefore, on one of the days, with her flowing with her delights, with her bodily strength also on this account decreasing more in her than usual, the spirit of the blessed woman began in a certain way to be troubled with tedium and affected by it, judging it quite impossible to human strengths to linger so incessantly and wholly without interval of time so constantly, without her own detrimental burden. Wishing therefore for a reason, for a little time and for an hour, to withdraw herself from this her delight, in vain she tries to turn her mind from it. and to refresh her bodily strengths by some devised exercise; having straightway seized a certain linen cloth, she ran to the river; where, dipping it very often in the waves of the river and drawing it out, and wrapping and unwrapping the drawn-out one, by this devised industry she thought to bring her thought back to herself, since too importunate, as we have said before, to human senses. But she was in vain trying with superfluous labor to quench the spirit, since neither did it rest from its fervor on that occasion, nor could she prevail by exquisite effort or any artful industry. She also used to say, that on one of the days the angelic salutation had been begun by her very often, for the praise of the glorious Virgin; and yet, on account of the excessive abundance of delight impeding the edge of her sensibility, it was scarcely ended in the space of two days.

CH. X.

[19] When at some time about the various and infinite wonders which toward his beloved, communicating his goods to her, the Most High had accomplished and was still daily accomplishing, a discourse was set forth in the midst between the Virgin of God herself and her venerable Confessor; with the handmaid of God relating something done toward herself; The Confessor asking whether she was vexed by the elation of a little vainglory, that venerable Confessor and monk, as being in every way a man prudent and discreet, began to inquire of her, asking whether, in the recalling of all the foregoing or in the revelation of those things which the Divine mercy had conferred on her for her profit, she felt or noticed any pestilent poison of elation or arrogance or of any empty glory springing up or growing within herself, or the ancient enemy sometimes infesting the dwelling of her heart with these assaults of his. To which venerable Ida gave such an answer, and satisfied the man of God, an oracle of outstanding discretion, fully: "The ineffable benefits," she said, "which the most high compassion of divine clemency has already conferred on me, and still deigns to confer, she asserts she acknowledges the benefits of God I recall by embracing them, I look upon by narrating them; as though they had not been conferred on me, but on some other stranger, or wholly foreign to my knowledge. For what is it to me, if the most kind Lord, and Lord of all consolation, out of the ineffable piety of his mercy, which she refers as done to another. deigns to prevent in the sweetness of his blessings my soul, or that of any other, redeemed by the ineffable price of his blood, his bride? What does it matter to me or to anyone, to intrude oneself in such things? For he himself her Bridegroom, he himself her Redeemer and Lord, if he deigns to honor her with bridal ornaments, or to enrich her with gifts, by whom can the lofty, omnipotent, and immense be hindered?

Yet to no man could I narrate those benefits and only with the Confessor's permission received, which have been divinely conferred on me, unless first he had received, revealed by me under the title of confession, all the sins I have committed, and the negligences and sins I have done. Therefore, my Father, for this reason especially, I have been able confidently to narrate them to you, because I have revealed to you the iniquities and crimes of all sins committed by me through negligence or industry, set forth under the pretext of confession. Yet I know that if they tasted such to you in hearing, as they taste to me in narrating, you would not so willingly receive them, as being utterly insipid, and sprinkled with no seasoning of supernal grace. In whatever way however you receive them, I adjure you by him who has deigned to confer such things on me, whose silence under oath she requires: for escaping the tedium and hardships of this exile; I adjure you, I say, and admonish you, that you do not presume incautiously to uncover or reveal what has been said to anyone; unless perhaps to persons whom, having heard confessions, from the bonds of sins, by the office enjoined on you, my Father, you shall have received to be absolved: to these alone, not to others, with the expression of the word of my name omitted, I permit these things to be revealed by you, yet for the sake of edification and at any opportune time; and this indeed I desire to be promised me by you with firm stipulation, that the integrity of mutual and divinely confirmed faith be not violated in this deed.

[20] For I can have no spiritual father or friend in this world, except whom by divine providence, she confesses the Confessor sent by God, for the sake of the salvation of my soul, I shall have received as commended to me: and therefore supernal mercy deigns to join us in one firmness of faith; so that here for your labor a copious reward may accrue to you; there there may not lack one to me, to whom confidently I might uncover all the secrets of my heart, with the Lord providing for the salvation of both of us in this. For him indeed I had begged, him I had entreated, before I deserved to have knowledge of your person, with every insistence of heart that I could, that he would deign to yield to my desire, by providing me with a faithful Confessor, to whom I might confidently uncover all my sins, before, with the moment of death intervening through the common debt of nature, I should be snatched from this world. Which the pious Lord mercifully heard in this petition of mine: and by his grace, by granting what I had asked, faithfully fulfilled. For on the night following the day, on which you first came to us, before I beheld you with bodily eyes, he showed me your presence in this order of apparition. For I saw, and behold, most similar in stature and face to you, beforehand beheld in a nocturnal vision: though of lesser appearance, a monk appeared, me indeed inside, but with him sitting outside, at the window where confessions are heard: whom I, having never seen him before, was more diligently gazing upon, and he in turn with no less diligence looked upon me. At whose sight my heart began to burn within with immense yet chaste love: he also, gazing upon me in return, was burning within with no less fervor of love; so that from the fire of charity his face and gaze were inflamed. He was asking more insistently that I should hand over as a loan the girdle with which I was girding myself: and when at first he was girt with it, I should again be girt with the same. Which done, under the reins of silence we modestly compressed our lips, indeed we could no longer speak to one another or confer with each other: and so with him leaving the place where he had sat, with the dream also receiving its end, understanding at once is restored to her own sensibility. We have said this, therefore, that we might show the discretion of this most holy Virgin of God, from this oracle of her response: who thus had learned to hide the benefits granted to her for a time against the pest of vainglory, yet that she revealed them most cautiously, as often as opportunity demanded.

CHAPTER II.

Rays of light and odors emitted from her body.

CH. IX.

[21] Among the other charisms of graces which were granted to her at divers times, Rays of light are diffused from her eyes after she received the Eucharist. I think this also not undeservedly to be recited, that very often, renewed by the life-giving Sacraments, she would pour forth so clear and so bright a gaze from her eyes, that in the things opposite her, to which at that time the edge of her pupils was directed, you might see emitted a beam of immense brightness and copious light, to be compared — if not equally, yet by proportional similitude — to that which is diffused from the solar globe. For so great a splendor from the edge of her eyes divinely illumined, on a certain occasion burst forth in the chalice, even into the chalice of the celebrant, when the Lord's blood was being drunk; that by the Priest celebrating the divine mysteries for the time, it was thought to be a solar ray resplendent in the chalice; until, turning himself to the Virgin of God, and directing his gaze upon her face, he found it flowing forth from the eyes of the one gazing. Not only however at the hour of the most holy Communion is this marvelous thing known to have happened to her; but also at other times this same thing is sometimes found to have happened, proved by the ineffable testimony of those curiously investigating. The same happened sometimes in pious conversation, For at a certain time, while the Virgin of God with others was sitting in the infirmary, and pouring forth spiritual words from the full storehouse of her heart; a certain nun, sitting opposite, and looking attentively at her face, beheld fiery rays, like solar rays, diffusing themselves through the places, being emitted: which she judged transfused from the sun itself, until she more attentively examined the thing and its progress.

[22] At another time also, on the most sacred day of the Lord's Nativity, that same nun, who had long before beheld that brightness we have mentioned flashing from the eyes of the blessed woman, desiring again to see what she had before gazed upon, and judging that she had obtained an opportunity of time for this; or at a prayer made before the Eucharist, was observing the Virgin of God intent on prayer near the ciborium, in which the very Body of the Lord was kept. When, a little afterwards, she returned from the completed office of prayer, that nun, approaching close — not so much by rash as by devout boldness — and desiring with feminine curiosity to explore what she sought, with the veil removed from the face of the returning one, she beheld a light of immense brightness rising above her from the eyes of the woman; and like stars flashing with bright light, the very edge of her pupils left copious traces of their brightness on the garment set before them. Which perceiving, venerable Ida, and recognizing herself caught out from the light cast upon it, grieved anxiously, and grieving beyond measure groaned impatiently; and diligently beseeched that investigator of her mystery, by a sign given her, not to betray her over this deed: which the other promised with firm stipulation, and fulfilled the promise equally faithfully. For to none of men, except the Confessor of the blessed woman, nor even to him without permission given her, did she afterwards reveal this through all future time.

[23] Likewise at the time of Mass during the Octaves of All Saints, At another time also, while the same year's space was running, when during the venerable Octaves which were being celebrated from the extraordinary solemnity of All Saints, she was present at the solemnities of the Mass in the choir; again she began to be illumined with an immense light, and the place in which she stood all around, as though on that occasion she had received the whole of the solar rays flashing upon her. But also so clear a light from her was reflecting upon the surface of the wall on which the handmaid of God stood leaning: so that even its rays seemed most similar to the solar ones, which at her sight were resplendent on that wall. Thinking therefore that someone behind her, on some material thing beneath — namely a candle or something similar — had brought that light which she had seen, she at once looked behind her back: and finding no one, yielding the place, she turned to another no less. Where, when she found nothing differing from the first light or unlike it, at length impressing and fixing the whole edge of her eyes on the image of the Crucified, in the memory of his most blessed passion and the loving reclining-place of his embraces, she rested most joyfully. But about the aforesaid light, these and similar miracles are recorded to have happened to her for each of almost all the years, especially during the aforesaid feasts, vigils, and Octaves of the Assumption of the glorious Virgin or of any other Saints: and on the feast of the assumed Mother of God and others. which, because at that time she lacked a faithful confidant and sharer of her secrets, to whom such things should be secretly and confidently told, no one being fully aware of this, were neither written down nor committed to memory.

CH. XII.

[24] In the monastery in which the Virgin of Christ was given over to divine service, at that time in a crystal vessel there was said to be kept as a relic some little portion of the iron with which the side of the Lord was pierced, A fragrance of marvelous sweetness is emitted by the particle of Christ's lance, as is described — with him truly according to the Gospel asleep on the patibulum of the Cross; from which a fragrance of marvelous sweetness is felt to break out and to be carried to the nostrils of those standing by, when for the venerating of the relics enclosed in it, it is brought out for human sight. Sometimes however, with Ida the venerable bride of God filled with heavenly sweetness, and according to custom sitting with others at conversation about divine things, those ones felt an odor of marvelous sweetness flowing unceasingly over themselves, not indeed from that crystal, but from the vessel of the Holy Spirit; and when the Virgin Ida conversed about divine things. which was held most similar in all things to that which we said to flow from the aforementioned vessel. Of whom some marveling about this, and looking at one another, from astonishment it turned into doubt; whence such an odor was instilled into their nostrils, when through many spaces of places they did not doubt the very vessel to be absent, which had that odor to pour forth as mentioned.

CHAPTER V.

Other divine favors toward Blessed Ida. Her pious death.

CH. XIII.

[25] As the Vigil of Blessed Michael the Archangel solemnly occurred at a certain time, when venerable Ida had completed the vesper service in the infirmary; going out she entered into the atrium from the side of the conventual church, wishing to sing — though not with voice, yet with heart and mind — together with the nuns then singing psalms in the choir, and to render the quiet homage of her devotion to the Creator of Angels and men with praises and thanksgivings at once. while praying, she is caught up in ecstasy. When she sat at the Eastern part of the church, with divine grace flowing into her, all full now of spiritual sweetness; and the fragrant incense, to be offered by angelic hands in the sight of the deifying majesty, she burned most sweetly on the altar of her heart; she sprang forth at once into excess of mind, and into the choir of the highest Hierarchy, as if in the Seraphic choir. namely the supreme and Seraphic, that nearest of all to the undivided Trinity, the very supreme and most exalted and immense Scrutator of Spirits — he himself the Lord and Ruler — lifted up the spirit of his humble handmaid. When, beholding the elegant excellence and excellent elegance of the rational soul, she sees the nobility of the soul, in the light of divine brightness by gazing she was looking upon; and by looking, recognizing; beyond what can be believed to be grasped by human senses, this most holy soul of the holy Virgin began to marvel, how to the consent of sin,

beyond the bounds and limits of her condition or redemption, so elect, so noble, so perfect a creature from the first origin of her creation could be led, drawn out, or impelled.

CH. IV.

[26] But also this we believe is to be reckoned marvelous in the Virgin of God, and to be related among the other marvels divinely conferred on her; that although in all her life she had not at all learned letters or scholastic elements, Ignorant of letters, nor without any understanding of them could she have read, pronounced, or expressed these things; yet most often those things which were sung or read by the nuns, with the grace of the Holy Spirit inspiring her, she understood; especially in Lent, she understands what is sung in Latin, when the holy Gospels were being recited; which although they were being read in a speech unknown to her, yet in the vulgar tongue, as often as she thought it opportune, she reviewed their series, order, and tenor most openly in the ears of those wishing to hear. Whence at a certain time in Lent, when she had listened to an Antiphon sung in the choir of those singing psalms with a loud voice: "I have power to lay down my life"; she hears the Antiphon repeated by the Angels. she deserved to hear this same from angelic choirs, repeated in a higher and much more elegant mode; which also at that time most fully, with the grace of the Holy Spirit revealing it to her, she understood; and related most discreetly to her Confessor afterwards in the idiom of the vulgar tongue.

CH. XV

[27] Yet on another occasion, when the feast of the blessed Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord was imminent, according to the demand of the time; when venerable Ida, together with other sick ones, stood at the Mass which was being solemnly performed as office, in the place called the choir of the sick; caught up in ecstasy and with that office which was being performed now carried as far as the Preface, when the choir of those singing psalms had begun to chant with extraordinary devotion, "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord"; behold the praiseworthy bride of Christ is caught up in excess of mind, she sees golden circles above the heads of the nuns singing: and with the burden of sensuality laid aside, her spirit is lifted up to investigate heavenly things. She saw therefore, and behold, to all the nuns singing psalms in the choir, golden circles of marvelous beauty and inestimable price, fabricated not by human but by angelic artistry alone, were handed over, as though in exchange for the sweet-sounding commerce of their assembly; and fitted to their heads, such as she also received, they most aptly testified that they would be marks of divine recompense to be perpetually borne by them, provided they should persevere in the divine service until the end. Further, to the venerable Virgin of Christ, to whom by heavenly clemency revealing it, the aforesaid little orbs of circles were shown for a special gift of favor and grace, a circle of no less beauty and elegance, conferred by the heavenly distributor, she deserved to receive, not the other sick women, to be placed upon her head more honorably than all the others, although she was not of the number of those singing psalms with loud voice. This also the prerogative of greater excellence made to shine more than the others: for another certain lesser one, yet also of gold, surrounded this one we have spoken of; but to the other sick ones, and therefore not singing psalms, nothing was given on that occasion as a gift: but just as from singing, so from circles, they remained empty and void.

[28] But also at another time, when her soul was caught up in ecstasy, she enjoys the greatest spiritual delights she began at once to abound and flow so copiously with supernal delights, offered in the heavenly storehouse; that if she could have won or acquired the whole world by the mere nod or opening of one eye, she would have judged it unworthy and useless to open the same. Whence she began to address that munificent and bountiful Giver of all good things in such conversation: "O," she said, "my Lord, how excellent it is to remain constantly in your service, who so easily can lift up the poor from the mire of poverty, and make the needy so wealthy?" But although she had deserved to receive innumerable charisms of graces in her time, with the Lord bestowing them on her; and far more than anyone, being wise with most acute wit, even if he possessed Tullian or Virgilian eloquence, could dictate or describe; yet she did not remember ever to have done any good thing for the sake of the commerce of any recompense, nor recollected that she had in any way omitted anything evil on account of any penalty: but only for the sake of him, and for the sake of the love and affection which she had for him, whom she saw, whom she loved, in whom she believed, whom she loved dearly.

CH. XVI

[29] She used sometimes to withdraw, near the said monastery's mentioned church, to a certain portico of the same church, which on account of the reverence of her holiness she had adapted to her use. Where while for contemplating heavenly things she sat solitary in her manner, and with all her effort exercised herself more studiously in the holy office of meditation; behold two little birds of the dove kind flying down, and seeking food near her in the dust of the ground, yet stood at some little distance, and offered a beautiful spectacle of their carefulness to the handmaid of God. Doves grazing Seeing these, the most chosen one of the Lord, straightway with hands extended toward herself, by certain signs and nods, summoned them. But they, leaving aside meanwhile their food, and obeying her commands, came running more swiftly, she orders to come and go at her will. and standing by close at hand offered themselves to her gaze; until this aural obedience — much to be marveled at in the service of an irrational creature — venerable Ida, bride and handmaid of Christ at once, with signs and nods given to them again, released.

[39] Therefore with these things related about the life, morals, and conduct of the most blessed woman, as briefly and compendiously and studiously as we could, [Epilogue, in which the writer asserts that he has up to now composed what has been said from the notes of the Confessor.] not indeed all the things which she did in her time, but only those which we have found written out in the little leaves of her Confessor's ingenious effort, and committed to writing; since by him the hundredth portion of the things to be written was no doubt omitted or given over to oblivion for certain reasons (as Hugh, the most holy servant of Christ — and as we have very often intimated, a man in every way venerable and blessed — attests in the writing of his own dictation), behold we have judged that an end should be set to the work, a limit to writing, and silence to the mouth: beseeching all the readers and hearers of this little work, humbly, earnestly, and with all the effort of our devotion, and adjuring them in the bowels of Christ, that, if they find anything in it to be corrected, or anything unseemly or imperfect offends them in the same, and asks that errors be corrected. this (with indulgence shown to our simplicity or rather rudeness, namely as a man of slender wit, and wholly inexperienced in rhetorical knowledge or more ornate eloquence) they correct and amend with the loving sharpness of discretion, and the dictator of this little book, certainly a sinful man, commend diligently by their prayers to the almighty Lord.

CH. XVII

[31] But when, with the course of the present life completed, the pious Lord disposed to honor his chosen one with the prize of eternal recompense; he visited her, Ida being seized by fever seized by a most acute fever, in the sweetness of his blessing. There, lying sick a little while, and not ceasing to pour forth the words of eternal life to all those flowing to her, at length she came to the last moments; and fortified by the victorious libation of the Lord's Sacrament, with firm faith, strong hope, conspicuous charity, fortified with the Sacraments of the Church rejoicing and exulting in the midst of young women timbrel-players, among the choirs of Angels standing by and singing psalms, resting in the Lord, she dies holy, she exhaled the last breath of this life. And this truly most holy and most blessed Virgin of Christ fell asleep, in the year 1300 in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1300. Her death is thought to have been on the 13th day of the month of April, with our Lord Jesus Christ reigning, April 13, to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be honor and glory, through the immortal ages of ages. Amen.

ON BLESSED MARGARET, VIRGIN OF THE THIRD ORDER OF ST. DOMINIC.

AT TIFERNUM OR CITTÀ DI CASTELLO, IN UMBRIA.

IN THE YEAR 1320

Margaret the Virgin, of the Third Order of St. Dominic, at Tifernum or Città di Castello in Umbria (B.)

D. P.

Among the Umbrians there is a double Tifernum, one the Metaurine, which is now called St. Angelo in Vado; sacred cult: the other, the Tiberine, called by some Castellum Sanctae Felicitatis, but today known only by the name Città di Castello, commonly Citta di Castello: on the borders of Umbria and Tuscany, so that it is also attributed to the latter by St. Antoninus and Platina; but now more rightly to this, since it is a city of the Pontifical dominion, as is the whole neighboring Duchy of Urbino. But take care not to call her Civitas Castellana: for the city of that name is an Episcopal one in the Sabine country, attributed to suburbicarian Tuscany, and distant only 20 Roman miles from Rome, whence Città di Castello is about 80 Roman miles distant. Here, deprived of the use of bodily light, Blessed Margaret lived with eyes blinded; she herself the greatest light of her fatherland, on account of her notable holiness, attested by the integrity of her incorrupt body and by the frequency of miracles by which she deserved to be honored with ecclesiastical Office and Mass throughout that whole County, and also through the whole Order of Preachers, with whom she wished to be buried, inasmuch as she was numbered among the Sisters of the same, called of the Penance of St. Dominic. Concerning their origin, rule, and privileges, Br. Ambrose Taegius treats at length in his Manuscripts preserved at Milan, in volume 3 of De insignis Ordinis Praedicatorum, Distinction 7 §17, and enumerates some especial ones who illustrated the same state with their holiness: and after he has spoken of Blessed Joanna of Orvieto, whose Life, taken from the same volume of his, we shall give on July 23, he says thus: "In the city of Castello was another Sister, Blessed Margaret by name, who both in life and after death shone with wondrous and unusual miracles: a eulogy from Taegius, whose incorrupt body is openly shown to all who wish to see in the same city, at the place of the Friars Preachers: and her memory, although she has not been canonized, is celebrated festively and solemnly in her own manner by her fellow citizens. We shall place her life, full of virtues, below."

Thus he: but either prevented by death or otherwise hindered, he did not do what he promised: and so he greatly whetted our appetite — and quite bitterly — after the fruitless labor of investigating the hope of finding the said Life followed.

[2] For with all that effort little was accomplished, except that we became certain that still at the beginning of this century there was kept and read at Tifernum the original history of her life and miracles, Life and miracles authentically written, written within the nearest three years from her death, together with notarial instruments making credence of the truth of the individual benefits ascribed to her merits; not only in those first years, but also in the year 1348, and the year 1588; when, as it were the piety of the Tifernates toward this blessed Virgin blooming afresh, miracles again began to be multiplied. All these, but especially the aforesaid History — although written in a more uncultivated and half-barbaric style — Seraphinus and Silvanus Raizzi used, but above all R. P. Br. Jerome Pollini: who from the ancient and modern writings of the Convent, rejecting all that he could have had from mere hearsay, wove most faithfully in the Italian tongue a Life, and published it in Venice in the year 1602, and long preserved are now wanted: often appealing to membrane-leaved

codices: which, preserved by so great a care of our forebears in the midst of foreign and civil tumults, we lament to have perished in these most peaceful times of Italy, or to be so neglected, that those who now live in that convent, Fathers, know not where they and the aforementioned notarial instruments are hidden. For having appealed to them for a description of these through our P. Caesar Nicoluccius, the reply was given that nothing else survives but a certain authentic Compendium of the Life and miracles; which, because it was placed within the very ark of the sacred body, was scarcely obtained to be transcribed after the long and frequent solicitation of two years; so difficult is it to persuade certain men that their affair and that of their Saints is being handled more than ours, when such things are asked to be described: but the patient diligence of the said Father, insisting in season and out of season, conquered all obstacles.

[3] for these an authentic compendium from MS. is given Therefore, the only thing that remains in the lack of the original writings, we give: and we collect the acts of the Blessed one in such a way that the first two chapters constitute that authentic Latin Compendium, faithfully drawn in the year 1588 from an old membrane-leaved codex, by the Most Reverend D. Julius Daddeus, Subdeacon, Apostolic Referendary of both Signatures, and Governor of Città di Castello, as the title of the Manuscript bears. The other chapters we took from the Italian of the said Pollinus, who protested that he had clung tightly to the substance of the ancient words. Wherefore, since he adds nothing beyond the miracles to those things read in the Compendium, we persuade ourselves that Daddeus, in those things which pertain to the history of her life, changed the style indeed, but acted as an abbreviator only in the miracles, that from this chapter the damage of the ancient codex may be borne more lightly. Yet if it shall still be found, and miracles from the Italian. or the public writings of which we have made mention above; we exhort and beseech that they not be withdrawn from common light, but submitted to us, to serve as a supplement to this work, and to be substituted in the place of those which we now give. The decree on the Mass and office, with which we close this treatise, was furnished by the Excellent Father Master Gaspar Dinghens, Doctor of sacred Theology; whom, because in the Treatise on the Life of Fr. Bolland number 147 we called Francis, it was a slip of memory, suggesting the name of his brother instead of his, namely the formerly Most Ample Dean in the Antwerp Cathedral Church, Francis Dinghens. The same decree is inserted in the book On the Certainty of the Glory of the Canonized Saints, page 148, composed by Luca Castellinus, and printed at Rome in the year 1628.

[4] The Martyrology, which, according to the rite of the sacred Order of Preachers, was printed at Venice in the year 1582 and at Rome in 1616, Name inscribed in private Fasti in the Index of the Blessed of the same Order appended at the end, among the blessed Sisters names in the fourth place Margaret the Virgin of the Third Order, who flourished renowned for the gravity of her morals at Tifernum or Città di Castello: whose body is still shown intact, and is daily illuminated by many miracles. Philip Ferrari, in his General Catalogue of Saints who are not in the Roman Martyrology, thus mentions her: "At Medula of Blessed Margaret, Tertiary of the Order of Preachers." He could have attributed her to Metula, because she was born there: but since this town is within the diocese of Castello, only 12 Roman miles distant from Tifernum, as the Lives written by those of the place testify, it is wonderful that it happened to Ferrari to say in the Annotations that it was Mutilum of Aemilia, named by Ptolemy, very far distant from Tifernum. Afterwards in his Geographical Lexicon he said that Mutilum was what is now called Mutigliana, Modigliana, or Modiana. But the Blessed Margaret's homeland is constantly written by Italians as Medola.

[5] The Life published in various languages, The same Blessed woman Arthur enrolled in his Gynaeceum sacrum, weaving a long series of authors who treat of her in the Notes: but passing over those who ought to have been the chief ones — Julius Daddeus, Jerome Pollinus, and Fr. Angelus Conti, who in the Flores sanctorum civitatis Castellanae, published in 1627, also wove the Life of Margaret, and added that her feast is celebrated not only on April 13, but also on May 1 by a most frequent people. Perhaps on the occasion of the Translation from the old church to the new, in the year 1424; of which Translation also Pollinus makes mention, asserting the old church to have been in the place which in his time the Society of Charity held: which was the first place granted to the Order of St. Dominic by the Tifernates, up to the walls of the city. But Fr. Angelus adds, speaking on page 153 about the new church, that with him writing the cloister with the porticoes was being renovated: in whose circuit the life of Blessed Margaret can be seen painted in parts. Besides the eulogies, to be found in Michael Pius in Italian, Francis Laherius in the Menologium Virginum in French, and other authors in various other languages, most carefully about Margaret wrote John of St. Mary, among the Lives of the Holy and Blessed Women of the Order of St. Dominic, vol. 2, but in French; and in Belgian or German, Eduard Bilius, Cantor of the Antwerp convent, in his work on the Tertiary Sisters of the same Order. Also the elegant Italian verses of various poets of Tifernum about this their Patroness are displayed in the little book of the aforementioned Pollinus, which those may consult who are delighted by variety of languages and style.

ACTS

From a Latin MS. and from the Italian Life.

Margaret the Virgin, of the Third Order of St. Dominic, at Tifernum or Città di Castello in Umbria (B.)

BY JULIUS DADDEUS FROM THE MS.

CHAPTER I.

Compendium of the Life from the MS. of Julius Daddeus, Governor of Tifernum.

[1] The homeland of Blessed Margaret the Virgin was Metula, a fortress of Massa Trebaria, From her first years given to penitence, twelve thousand paces distant from Tifernum; her parents were honorable, her body small, her eyes blind, but her piety and vigor of mind were so great, that from her first years she began to chastise her little body, which had offended by no fault, with fastings and a rough garment; so that with an inner undershirt frequently hidden, she deceived even her mother who had compassion on the girl's age. Become older, she kept the fast from the feast of the Cross to holy Easter every year, though blind, abstaining from the eating of flesh, content with bread and water alone on the sixth day. There had grown great at that time the fame of miracles and sanctity of Fr. James, of the Order of Minors, in the city of Castello, at whose sepulcher many flocked together from all sides, obtaining benefits of health, and for obtained favors paying their thanks and vows. Thither her parents led Margaret, she is brought to Tifernum, because they had vowed for the recovery of her eyes: but having obtained their wish, God so disposing, by no means made, they leave the virgin in the monastery of St. Margaret.

[2] But when she so gave herself to sanctity of morals, to contemplation, and to prayers, that for the rest of the services, on account of her blindness of her eyes, she seemed more unfit; she is dismissed by the nuns, and received in the house by a certain Lord Venturinus, and Lady Grigia his wife, pious citizens. she receives the habit, In whose house, as she was always intent on works of piety and religion, and continually, as long as it was permitted, frequented the church of St. Dominic, there she also devoutly received the holy habit, which is called of Penance; accustomed daily to purify her soul by sacramental confession, though not sinning. She also learned and retained the Office of the Blessed Virgin and of the Cross, although blind, in such a way that she not only recited them daily, but also interpreted the Psalter in a concise and elegant manner, as if she had professed theology; and examined and corrected the sons of her host Venturinus, returning from grammar school; all marveling at her knowledge of letters, which she had not learned. illumined with infused knowledge, So great was the elevation of her mind, that when she could not see the sacred Host with bodily eyes in the celebration of the Mass, yet she affirmed to the Friars that she openly saw the incarnate Word of God, and in that vision was chiefly refreshed by this contemplation, that she meditated on the nativity of Christ and the services of St. Joseph toward the mother and son: of which things she also spoke with the Friars.

[3] These pursuits of her piety, how acceptable they were to God, was shown also by outward signs: for when a certain fire broke out in the house of the Preachers, and also the lower part of the dwellings was burning, Margaret was called for with loud voices, who then was staying in the upper dining-room intent on prayer. She, moved by the danger of the fire as well as by the voices of her hosts, with her garment she extinguishes the fire, brought forth the stole with which she was clothed to Grigia, to be thrown into the flames; with great confidence bidding her not to fear: which done, the fire was at once extinguished, with the multitude marveling. In the same days a certain religious woman, Venturella by name, labored so in one eye that there was despair of its healing, nor could she, on account of her poverty, pay the sought-for reward of one florin to the son of Master Imbertus, a physician, for an uncertain and doubtful cure: she was therefore complaining familiarly with Margaret, bewailing her poverty as well as the peril of her eye. To whose calamity Margaret, compassionating, touched her eye only with her thumb, sighing: which, with the swelling vanishing, without delay recovered.

[4] with Ss. John the Evangelist and Fortunatus acting more familiarly But when a sick girl lay, the grandchild of Lady Grigia, whom Margaret had raised from the sacred font, and already almost giving up the ghost, when on the feast day of St. Fortunatus many of the kinswomen and neighbors had come, and on that night were watching over the laboring girl, among whom also the Virgin herself stood: with the rest sleeping, two of the kinswomen themselves feigned also to be sleeping, silently watching what Margaret was doing: and they saw, now deep in the night, a certain youth standing by the praying Virgin and saying: "Margaret, what do you wish us to do?" To whom she, "That you may free," she said, she preserves the life of the dying girl, "this my daughter, you and St. Fortunatus, who will be here shortly." And straightway they saw the same youth and another Saint, who represented the well-known effigies of Blessed John the Evangelist and Blessed Fortunatus, signing the girl with the sign of the Cross and departing. Then the girl rising, "I am," she said, "perfectly cured by the prayers of my mother Margaret": and the following morning she rose so sound, as if she had never lain down.

[5] she foretells future things, Also foreseeing certain future things by the purity of her mind, she showed herself partaker of the prophetic spirit by certain signs. For when a certain citizen, Offreducius, and Bice his wife, were eager to join their only daughter, Cecha by name, in marriage, and the negotiations, which they held frequently, did not obtain any effect; "Permit," said Margaret, who was familiar with the parents and the daughter, "that Cecha take the habit of St. Dominic, and live in virginity." To whom they, somewhat angered, "Cease," they said, "to persuade such things: for our daughter shall never bear a religious habit." Then Margaret addressing the mother of the girl said, "Nay, your daughter and you also shall assume the habit of Religion not many days hence, and shall wear it until death." Which was confirmed by the outcome: for they, either by vow or by whatever spirit led, put on the Holy habit, and wore it all their life. Also a day had been appointed by the Judge for the son of the same Offreducius, and the parents therefore feared the penalty of some graver fine of judicial punishment. About which matter, when Margaret saw the mother of the young man very anxious and solicitous; "Do not fear," she said, "Bice, for on account of this you will not pay even a denarius,

nor will your husband or son suffer anything." Afterwards, within a few days, the absolution by the Judge that followed confirmed the event of Blessed Margaret's prediction.

[6] and she dies holy in the year 1320. In her morals especially the virtues of obedience, charity, piety, and devotion were eminent. Bearing the loss of her eyes with cheerful patience, she always showed forth a certain joyousness of countenance joined with extraordinary modesty and honor, foremost in all things in pious humility. While she lives by these on earth, she bore her soul to heaven, in the year of the Lord 1320, on the 13th day of the month of April, in the house of the said Venturinus and Grigia his wife, with the Brothers first called, and the Sacraments of the Church piously received. Her body is carried to the church of the Friars Preachers, as she had commanded: and while there the common burial in the cloister is prepared, the multitude of the people rose up, the body is exposed to public veneration. who had come to the funeral and the church, and the work is hindered, with all saying, that the holy Virgin ought to be buried in the church, not in the cloister or cemetery. Therefore the body, placed in a wooden chest, is set before the altar: at which time a certain girl, mute and with contracted limbs, was by her parents placed near the chest, with the hope of health, ordered to remain there: and it seemed to the girl that she was raised by the Virgin's extended hand: and straightway springing up straight and healed, she began to cry out among the standing people, "Blessed Margaret has cured me"; and at once took the habit of St. Dominic.

[7] she brings her arms around to cover her nakedness, While the concourse of the people increased at the church, and various benefits of health were obtained there, the Friars who had thought of embalming the body, and therefore had received money from the city magistrate for balsam and aromatics, having summoned experts — Master Manno of Gubbio, and Master Vitalis of Castello, and many other religious and seculars — place the holy corpse to be disemboweled before the altar, with hands and arms extended. Without delay, with all looking on, the extended arms of their own force bent back upon the body, and both hands, folded in the manner of a cross, covered the secrets of nature. And while, with the thigh cut, the inner parts are drawn out, by a sudden earthquake the church and convent are shaken, and an abundance of oil like balsam flowed from the body, of which also several ampulae were filled. Some days afterwards, some of the brothers, in her heart three little stones are found. remembering Blessed Margaret, when she was among men, to have been wont very often to repeat with her own household, that she was carrying a precious treasure in her heart; seized with a desire of inspecting the heart, and led by a certain penitence that they had not inspected it before, seek back the buried entrails: and seeking the heart among the buried viscera, they cut the intestine from which the heart itself hangs; and at once three stones, as if carved globes, of the size of medlars, marvelously break forth: in which little images were seen, representing the nativity of Christ with the blessed Virgin and the manger, and also St. Joseph with a white dove.

NOTES.

p Offredutius is a diminutive from the name Gothofredus, truncated in its first part: as also Cecha for Francesca (for so the Italians pronounce it, not Francisca) and Bice for Beatrice.

q Perhaps more closely to the faith of the old MS. Pollinus makes this girl the daughter of Isaacia, married to a certain Maccettus, then perhaps staying with the aforesaid Offreducius and Bice together with her daughter; with whom Margaret also was staying, and had marvelously won to herself the affection of the girl, instructing her in every kind of piety, and teaching her the Marian Office and part of the Psalter namely.

r Fr. Angelus adds that the very arm can even now be seen raised in the air: and he cites his own eyes as witnesses, for the year 1626 in which he was writing.

s Mannus is shortened from Hermannus or another of similar ending.

t Some of which are today shown, preserved in memory of the miracle, says Pollinus.

u The same Pollinus names Fr. Nicholas John of the Saints of Tifernum and Fr. James Cresci or Crescenti of Borgo San Sepolcro, a lay-brother.

x Pollinus describes those stones thus: that the first broken out had the image of the Virgin crowned; the second, a boy in the middle of the manger between two animals; the third, a man venerable with baldness and a white beard, clothed with a golden cloak folded over his shoulder, before whom was the image of a young woman kneeling with hands joined, clothed with the habit of Penitence: on the back part of the same stone could be seen the likeness of a dove: which all refer to her meditations at the time of the Mass, of which above no. 5. Moreover, those little stones, with the heart, having long been simply preserved in the sacristy, John Chrysostom, Prior, soon to be named, in the year 1599 commanded to be made a suitable reliquary of gilded bronze.

CHAPTER II.

Compendium of the miracles from the MS. of the same Julius Daddeus.

[8] With the body put to rest, from all sides people flocked in great numbers to the church of St. Dominic; vows, offerings, pilgrimages, and other religious offices were increased daily, to the honor of the holy relics; and stupendous and marvelous cures were obtained from God the best and greatest by the intercession of the holy Virgin: a paralytic is healed, of which we shall describe some, as they themselves related, who, made masters of their vows, publicly celebrated the merits and praises of the Virgin. Frederick Binoli of the village of St. Cecilia, in the curia of Castro-Durante, paralyzed, and so laboring with joint disease, that he could neither walk nor use the service of his arms; with prayers poured from the heart to Blessed Margaret, he recovered the health of which he scarcely retained memory: which Orlandus Francisci the Notary consigned to public letters, in the year of the Lord 1320, on May 19. From similar and other diseases of various kind, desperate and incurable, by vow and prayers alone were freed: Lady Alda, wife of Angelus Lilius of Perugia; Venturuccius Aldobrandini of Città di Castello; Salvutius Michaelis of Monte-longo of the State of Florence; John Cambi of Varciano of Monte Santa Maria; Nannes of Paterno; Cecolus Mutii of Scalocchio; many other sick are cured, Orlandus Fidantiae of Arezzo; Bina, daughter of James Cotii, of the Abbey of Tedaldi of Massa Trebaria; Cola of Città di Castello; and Petra, wife of Andreuccius, and Lady Druda of Montone, and others: who, paying the vows for their marvellously recovered health, professed them; with the public documents being taken by Ser-John Cambii, Ser-Julius Francisci, Ser-Ranuccius Guidi, Ser-James Benedicti, Goro and Blasius of Città di Castello, and Ser-Mutius Johannis of Montone, Notaries. But the names of those who, vexed by evil spirits, were freed at the sepulcher of Blessed Margaret, are kept silent on account of the multitude.

[9] But the signs which follow surpass the miracles of the other cures; and the more marvelous they are, the dearer they show the Virgin to have been to God; who, piously invoked, herself also invoked the Bridegroom and the Bridegroom's Virgin Mother for the aid of mortals, and restored to many either a spirit already slipped away, or at least held back one slipping away. For a certain rustic, from the borders of Castri-cardae, while cutting wood in the forest, many bears rushed upon him, a dead man is raised, and left him torn with their claws. Whom when neighbors passing by had seen him lying lifeless and torn, and had recognized him, they carry him, placed upon poles, to his house. Which being seen by his wife and children, with cries raised up to heaven, the aid of the Virgin Margaret is invoked: and straightway the rustic, who was being mourned as dead, rose up alive, and coming afterwards to the sepulcher of the Virgin with his wife and children and neighbors, made public to all the benefits of the help invoked, with the scars of the wounds inflicted by the beasts giving credit to his words.

[10] a boy twice almost drowned is saved. Viola also, daughter of Bonavitus of the village of St. Justin, wife of Gilius Joannis, in a certain estate of hers by the river Vertula, was attending to the country business; and having heard the wail of her infant son, whom, playing near the bank of the said river, incautiously she had left, she ran anxiously; and no longer seeing her son, she broke forth into these suppliant words: "Alas! Virgin Margaret, I have lost my son. Give him back to me, I pray, blessed Virgin." And looking around, she saw the feet of the boy, who had fallen into the river, rising above the surface of the waters: which having seized, she drew out the boy alive, whom naturally the waters ought to have drowned. The same

infant, by a similar chance, fifteen days afterward having fallen into the same river, while the mother, having climbed an almond tree, was gathering the fruit, the same Virgin, again invoked by the mother, freed him: when, with the delay of descending and the distance, the mother had lifted the lifeless boy from the waters. Carrying him alive and unharmed to the sepulcher of the Virgin, she published to all the life twice received, with Jacob of St. Benedict the Notary describing the credit of the miracles in public monuments, in the year of the Lord 1320, on May 19.

[11] Likewise at another time fallen from a window. Agnes also, or Nesa, of the Abbey of Marzanus, saw her son Justolus, fallen from a high window, and picked up as dead, not breathing, nor showing any sense of life, unharmed, as soon as she commended him to Blessed Margaret with a vow. The testimony of this matter was received in public letters by the Lord Paul Jacobi the Notary. Many marvelous cures are omitted, not only for men, but also for horses, oxen, and other brute animals, obtained by the prayers and vows of those professing them from Blessed Margaret, by whose intercession the Lord saved men and beasts.

[12] The credit of this compendium I, Brother John Chrysostom of Perugia, faithfully derived this Compendium from its own original. For I received it from the aforesaid Most Reverend Governor, who was greatly devoted to this Virgin, and as a sign of love and gratitude made this Compendium, and also in the Tuscan idiom, and in poetry, and placed those verses at the feet of the same Blessed Woman, where they still remain; he caused a silver lily to be made, and placed it in the hand of the Blessed Margaret: he also adorned the heart of the Blessed Woman herself, causing it to be bound in silver, as is seen in the sacristy; he also gave as alms six silver scudi.

[13] And I, Thomas son of Lord Vincent de Beriolis, of Città di Castello, public Notary by apostolic authority and Scribe of the Episcopal Curia; since I have, in the collation by one Notary and examination of the above Compendium made word for word with the original, and copied respectively by the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord Julius Daddeus of Monte-regali, Referendary of both Signatures of our most holy Lord the Pope and Apostolic Subdeacon, from an old book of parchment paper, the substance of the fact not changed, though with some words changed, under the care and custody of the Rev. Father Prior and the Brothers of St. Dominic, found it to agree with the proper original, and together with Lord Jo. Bapt. Panullius, public Notary of Città di Castello, I was present; therefore I have subscribed thus, and affixed my sign, asked and required, to the praise of God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and Blessed Margaret, on this day, December 1, 1549.

[14] And I, John Baptist, son of the late magnificent Doctor of both laws Lord Octavian de Panulliis, of Città di Castello, and the other approved. public Notary by apostolic authority and active Notary of the Curia of the Most Illustrious Lord Governor and of the rectifying Lord Judge of the same City, since I have collated, examined, and in all things and through all found to agree the above transcript or Compendium with its own original, made and extracted by the Most Illustrious and Reverend Father D. Julius Daddeus of Monte-regali, Doctor of both laws and Referendary of both signatures of Our Lord the Pope, and then Governor of the said city of Castello, from a certain book of old membrane paper, with the substance of the fact not however changed, though with some words changed into a more elegant style, together with the above Lord Thomas Beriolo; therefore for greater faith and testimony I have here subscribed with my usual sign &c., requested by the Reverend Father Fr. John Chrysostom of Perugia, at present Prior of the Brothers and Convent of St. Dominic of the said city &c. to the praise, glory, and honor of almighty God, and of the most blessed and most glorious Virgin Mother Mary, and of all the Saints, and especially of the most blessed Margaret: on this day, December 1, 1589.

NOTES.

"Laden with fever and extreme sorrow,

I had recourse to your favor, to your aid,

Virgin Margaret."

CHAPTER III.

Miracles, indicated above only briefly, more fully explained in the Italian of Jerome Pollinus.

FROM ITAL. HIERON. POLLINI.

[15] A woman with her arm afflicted is healed, Alda, wife of Angelus son of the late Lilius of Perugia, swore before Francis Cambri, public Notary, and witnesses called for this, that for three continuous months she had been so hindered in the use of her left arm, that not only was she prevented from her usual occupations, but she could not even move or extend the arm at all. There was then still recent the memory of Blessed Margaret, whose sanctity recalling to her mind, she decided to visit her sepulcher for the sake of health: which, when she had vowed in the evening, the following morning she found her arm loosed for any uses, and moved without trouble as much as the right arm.

[16] Venturuccius Aldobrandini from the gate of St. Mary, as he asserted under his oath before Ser-Blasius the Notary and witnesses, having one foot enormously contracted, with contracted foot, was so maimed, that he could not walk by himself, but needed another's help as often as there was need to move even for a short space: but through the merits of this venerable handmaid of God, to whom he had commended himself, he recovered his health.

[17] grievously suffering from hernia; Salvutius Michaelis of Monte-longo of the County of Florence testified before Ser-Julius Francisci and the witnesses, that he had suffered a swelling or rupture in his groin, so grave that he not only could not cough, but could scarcely even breathe: when however he had heard told the very many miracles which happened at the sepulcher of the Blessed one, drinking thence a feeling of devotion and confidence toward her, he vowed to come to her body, and straightway felt himself free from every evil, as if he had never suffered any. Wherefore from Borgo San Sepolcro, where the matter had happened, to the city of Castello, as he had promised, he came.

[18] John Cambii of Varciano from the district of Monte Santa Maria swore before Ser-Goro the Notary and witnesses, that from the month of September until the following May, having suffered troubling and continual fevers, continual fever, he also had his neck so stiff, that unless he turned his whole body, he could in no way move it. When one of his friends came to him on business, returned from Tifernum, and was telling many things about the miracles heard there; he began to exhort the sick man that, with human remedies failing, he should have recourse to imploring divine aid through the merits of Blessed Margaret. By which he being not difficultly persuaded, with the friend gone from him, made a vow, and suddenly and sweetly fell asleep: but awakened he found himself perfectly healed.

[19] incurable fistula, A certain woman of Paterno affirmed, being sworn before Ser-Rinerius, son of the late Ser-Guidus, that Nannes her son, for a long time suffering an incurable fistula on his shoulder, and by the fame of the miracles multiplying, brought by her before the sepulcher of the Blessed one, there recovered perfect health, which no remedies of the art had been able to give, with the devoted prayers of the afflicted mother obtaining this — whom solid faith had made capable of obtaining grace.

[20] A certain Mutius of Scalocchio, under the religion of an oath said to Ser-Mutius Johannis of Montone, that his little son of five years, named Cecculus, suffering contraction of the body, contracted in his whole body, had been placed by the physicians out of hope of obtaining health; when the weakness of his age made him unequal to those remedies which are usually applied in such an evil. Therefore the father, full of faith and devotion toward the Blessed one, no less than of love for his son, brought the little one to the sepulcher; where as soon as he made a vow for him, he saw the boy perfectly healed.

[21] Orlandus of Fidantia of the County of Arezzo, setting out for the sake of his business to the castle of St. Angelo, likewise injured in the shin, imprudently struck his foot against some stone, and falling to the ground so seriously bruised his calf, that the wound, soon festering, brought him the greatest pains, and took away his ability to walk: and so, remembering Blessed Margaret, he commended himself ardently to her, vowing to offer at her sepulcher a foot and shin of wax, if he might be allowed to complete his journey on foot, and to return home unharmed. Scarcely had he conceived such a vow, when he felt himself healed, and free to accomplish what remained of his journey: whence returning, he asked for an instrument concerning the benefit received, to be signed by the hand of Ser-Johannes, son of the late Franciscus, the public Notary, before witnesses called and asked.

[22] At the same times there was at Tifernum a public Notary, called Ser-Guilielmus Francisci, foully ruptured, and so monstrously ruptured, that he was grievous to himself and wholly useless to others. He himself indeed was not lacking to himself, sparing neither care nor expense; but he was trying various physicians, and by name a certain Master Vitalis praised above the others: but not only did he find no deliverance from the evil, but not even any alleviation of it. And when he could no longer move without great torment, he was at length ordered to bear a binding with a downy cushion, to hold more softly the bursting hernia. The counsel was of help, at least to this, that he could transfer himself to the church of St. Dominic not wholly inconveniently when he wished. Therefore on a certain occasion, fervently praying in the choir of the said church, he felt himself inspired to make a vow to Blessed Margaret. Therefore from the choir he went to the place where he knew the chest guarding the holy body was kept; and there humbly prostrated in prayers, he vowed that, if he should obtain the desired grace, although most unworthy on account of the faults admitted, he would never mortally offend God by any sin of the flesh: and straightway felt himself relieved, and restored to the desired wholeness. But as often as he told of this benefit, and he told it often, abundant tears flowed to him recalling the torments borne by himself, nor did he find words sufficient to explain the magnitude of his feeling: but asked that he confirm the matter by public instrument, he brought as witnesses

Ser-Johannes Ser-Francisci, the Notary himself also.

[23] Dina, daughter of Jacob Coccii, of the Abbey of Tedaldi of Massa Trebaria, by the judgment of all the physicians was suffering an incurable cancer on her face, her face eaten by cancer, and already the ninth month of the disease had passed, and with her eyes consumed, the sick woman had lost her sight. Therefore, with the remedies making no progress, which through desire of recovering her health she most carefully applied, and having heard the fame of the miracles of Blessed Margaret, she vowed that for eight continuous days she would visit her sepulcher unshod in the church of St. Dominic. Without delay, she began to fulfill the vow; but on the eighth day her face appeared so clean and sound, her eyes so clear, as if she had never suffered any evil: wherefore she asked that a writing witnessing this matter be made by the hand of Ser-Jacobus, son of the late Benedictus, the public Notary, to the praise of God and his devoted handmaid Margaret.

[24] paralysis of a side, Nicholas of Tifernum, from the gate of St. Mary, swore before many, that laboring with paralysis of the whole left side, so that it seemed to be carried deprived of all sense, cold as dead flesh; he came to the sepulcher of God's handmaid Margaret, and having poured forth prayers there, he obtained the desired health.

[25] Lady Petra, wife of a certain Andreuccius of the County of Pecchi, a grave catarrh, in the presence of many honorable witnesses swore that for fifty continuous days she had been so weighed down by a catarrh, flowing into one of her hips, that she could neither stand, nor sit, nor lie, unless she was helped by another's hands; but for eating she had need to stand on the one foot which was sound, with her other side leaned on some support; and this not without great torment. Amid these anxieties, she heard the great things which were going around about the miracles of Blessed Margaret, and she vowed to go barefoot to her sepulcher, if she were given to use those things freely. Scarcely had she uttered the vow, when she felt immense relief from the evil: and on the same day she fulfilled the vow, walking most freely and expeditiously.

[26] vigor of her arm. Lady Druda of Montone was wont to relate, before many Fathers Preachers and other secular persons, that her left arm had been so hindered by a malignant flow, that she could not bring her hand to her mouth. She had already passed the sixth month thus, vainly soliciting human remedies: with which at length despaired of, she sought help from Blessed Margaret, vowing a wax candle before her sepulcher: and suddenly healed, she began to use that arm, equally as the other, nor did she feel any remains of the evil.

NOTES.

CHAPTER IV.

Other miracles from the same Italian of Jerome Pollinus.

[27] The miracles cease during the tumults. When all Italy, divided into parts, was burning with the factions of Guelphs and Ghibellines, the small but ancient city of Castello could not avoid the evil common to all principal cities. In this, from the Guelph party, Lord Branca Guelfuccii had seized the tyranny: but when his yoke was intolerable even to the Guelphs themselves, certain of the more noble among them summoned the forces of the Aretine Ghibellines: to whom, with entrance into the city treacherously obtained, not only was the tyrant expelled with his own, but also those very ones who had summoned the Aretines, namely that nothing of the Guelph name should remain at Tifernum. In the third year after the death of the Blessed one began these civil discords: by which, as with immoderate water poured on, the fervor of devotion toward the Blessed one was extinguished, and her miracles ceased. For after the miracles mentioned above, all of which happened very close to her happy passing, until the year 1348 — that is, throughout all the time of the aforesaid tumults — I find nothing noted in the ancient writings that belongs here; and this, as I indeed think, not so much from defect of writing as of material.

[28] Moreover, in that very year which I named as the last, in the city of Verona there was a noble matron, a woman in labor is helped, who for twenty continuous days, among the harsh torments of a difficult childbirth, seeing nothing of help in the comforts and remedies offered by the physicians and her household, and solicitous about the life and salvation of her offspring, at length recalled the miracles of Blessed Margaret, of which she had heard many from those telling them. Therefore she commended herself to her with tears, and vowed if she might alive bring forth a healthy child, to visit the sepulcher of the Blessed one. Shortly the childbirth was released, with no part of it injured; and she, after the usual days of her seclusion, hurried to Tifernum, before the Fathers and many others called, faithfully setting forth how great a grace the Lord had done her through the merits of Blessed Margaret.

[29] At the same time a certain one of the men of Tifernum, Franciscus by name, was staying in the town of St. Miniato called ad Tudescum, so grievously ruptured a grave hernia is healed, that he could not return to Tifernum either on foot or on horse: the physicians called in accomplished nothing by their art. Meanwhile the wretch was burning no less with longing for his fatherland and house left behind than with the recovery of his health: when there came into his mind his fellow citizen Margaret: turning to imploring her help with tears, suddenly, when he vowed to come to visit her sepulcher, he felt himself healed, and returned safely to his own.

[30] A poor little woman was carrying a breast wounded with an incurable abscess and with great pains, a breast abscess, and the more severe because all the physicians judged that it would become a cancer. Seeing it therefore already almost corroded and consumed, and fearing for her own life as the evil slowly crept toward her vitals, she began to look more attentively to Blessed Margaret, often invoked before, and to implore her aid: vowing that, restored to health, she would every year visit her sepulcher, and there offer a wax breast. But the following night the Blessed one appeared to her, and sensibly touched the eaten place of the breast: but the woman, awakened, recognized herself sound.

[31] To another woman both breasts had withered and rotted, nor could any remedy be found for the evil: withered breasts. therefore the health long vainly hoped for from physicians she decided to seek from Blessed Margaret; vowing to offer at her sepulcher, piously to be visited by her, two breasts of wax: having uttered which vow, she immediately began to sleep, and a little afterwards awakened and healed, she fulfilled the vow, giving thanks at the sepulcher of the Blessed one.

[32] incurable throat affliction, To a certain poor man of Tifernum a graver calamity had come upon his poverty, namely an incurable throat affliction, with which when he saw himself worse affected day by day and being led to death, at the counsel of his wife and other members of his household, he implored the help of Blessed Margaret, and pronounced a vow as best he could, for the grave infirmity had now almost taken from him the ability to breathe: when this was done, the tenacious phlegms began to dissolve, and he, expectorating them, daily advanced by great steps to integral health, which, received from the merits of the Blessed one, he gratefully professed.

[33] The fame of these and similar miracles, spread through the city of Gubbio, long-standing blindness, drew from there a certain poor blind man to the city of Castello, with hope of obtaining sight at the sepulcher of Blessed Margaret: where when he had prayed long and much, and did not obtain the hoped-for grace, he was returning in near despair, and sending forth complaining voices about the Blessed one on the road. For which he was rebuked by his companions, and taught to ascribe the lack of the asked-for light not to any lesser power in the Blessed one, but to his own faith; he again conceived a vow to the same, and returning to the church of St. Dominic, with devout heart and mouth said: "O Blessed Margaret, I commend myself to your holiness and grace." But to him saying this, a vehement itching of the eyes came on: and with certain filth like froth wiped off, they were opened to him: and with great joy he began to cry out, he who had been blind, that he was now fully enlightened. And when he came to the sepulcher, with the greatest exultation he related to all those there present, what had happened to him on the way.

[34] paralysis of the right side, There was also at Gubbio a noble matron, who, weakened by long-standing paralysis, had lost the use and feeling of her right side; nor had she any more hope in physicians, whose counsels she had for many years tried in vain. But hearing the miracles of Blessed Margaret preached, by those who were relating with thanksgiving those done upon themselves; she also made a vow, that if she should recover her health, she would go to Tifernum to visit her holy Relics. No long delay intervened, before she obtained the effect of her vow: and so from Gubbio to Tifernum she came, and offering a great wax candle, she wished the grace paid to her to be reported before many witnesses.

[35] At the same time there was at Tifernum a certain young man, beautiful in body and noble in birth, a monstrous rupture; living in that street to which the gate of St. Mary gives its name. This man during the vintage, when there is no one who thinks it below his condition to handle the must-lees; imprudently lifted before his chest a wine cask heavier than his strengths were; and expiated his rash presumption with so grave a rupture, that with his intestines breaking out outside, he could hardly draw breath. Soon a multitude of men and women flowed together, mourning the fall of the unhappy young man: the physicians also came, when summoned; when they said the evil seemed incurable, a certain noble matron, burning with more ardent devotion toward Blessed Margaret, in the hearing of all, implored her aid, then turning to the young man exhorted him to do the same. He, although he formed his voice into words with difficulty, yet with great spirit said: "O Blessed Margaret, do not look upon my sins, but free me from this grave peril, and I, mindful of the benefit all my life, will remain singularly devoted to you." He had spoken, and with his intestines drawn back to their natural state, suddenly he recognized himself healed, with all marveling and praising God.

[36] various animals are also helped, Many other miracles besides are read written in the membrane-leaved codices of the convent of St. Dominic, performed not only on the bodies of men, of the sick, the possessed, or the dead; but also on animals devoid of reason, of which, for the sake of example, to the glory of the Blessed one, it will suffice here to have adduced only one. A certain man of Tifernum had a noble horse, most beautiful and of very great price: which indiscreetly inciting to an immoderate course, he so injured, that no cure could be found among the skilled in such things for the horse, now useless for any work. Therefore, stimulated by grief and by fear of suffering damage, when he had heard much about the miracles of Blessed Margaret, he also prayed that she would be propitious to his horse, vowing for him a wax horse of a certain weight, to be offered at the sepulcher: namely a horse commended to the Blessed one. but the next morning, hastening to the stable, he found the animal having no harm or injury. I could relate very many of this kind, nor of this alone but also of another,

namely done in inanimate things: but fearing lest a lengthier series of similar narrations should move more disgust than piety, I prefer to send the curious reader of such things back to the ancient manuscripts of the Convent; thinking those few which have been gathered in this epitome sufficient, that it may be understood of how great merit with God this his handmaid is, when he deigned to hear those invoking her, not only for themselves personally, but also for animals, cheap indeed, yet necessary, so that here also that saying of the Prophet may be employed: "Men and beasts you shall save, O Lord." Ps. 35:7

CHAPTER V.

Translation of the Body and the miracles that followed, from the same.

[37] A.D. 1588 After the body of Blessed Margaret had remained in the old chest within which it had first been placed, free from all corruption, for two hundred sixty-eight years, until the year of Christ 1588; the Reverend Father Fr. John Chrysostom of Perugia, at that time Prior of the oft-named convent, seeing that chest already failing through decay, and the garments with which the sacred body was clothed beginning to be eaten by moths, about to flow away into dust; and fearing lest the venerable deposit itself should thence draw some harm; for his zeal toward divine things and the honor of Blessed Margaret, decided to transfer it into a new chest and new garments, having asked and obtained the permission of the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord Ludovic Bentivoglio, Bishop of Tifernum; and of the Most Reverend Father Provincial of Rome, Fr. Antonino Brancati. Wherefore, having collected an appropriate sum of money for this, with new garments the body is clothed, he had an elegant chest made of seasoned walnut, and excellently adorned with gilded lines. Which being prepared, and new garments being prepared, with which the body was to be clothed; before he publicly celebrated the Translation in a solemn assembly of all the Clergy and people, the old chest with the body was drawn from its place, through the hands of priests, in the presence of some noble seculars, and placed upon the altar. Where having been stripped of its former garments, it was found to be white and at the same time sweet-smelling, yet dry; also the thread of the suture, made in the body after the extraction of the entrails, was found intact: then the new garments were put on, and with them the body was placed inside the old chest.

[38] in a most celebrated assembly, On the following day of the month of June, for the solemn act of the Translation there came, invited by the Prior, Lord Abbot Pyrrhus Mazzoni of Anghiari, Vicar of the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord Bishop; Lord Lancillottus Montelucci, Apostolic Protonotary and Provost of the Cathedral church, with the College of Canons and the whole clergy of the city; Lord Julius Daddei, Apostolic Referendary of both signatures, Governor of the city; Lord Confalonerius with the whole magistracy; the Most Illustrious Lady Virginia Savelli of the Vitelli, Marchioness of Cetona with Lord Nicholas her son; Lady Pentesilea Montaguti Borboni, it is transferred to the new chest; Lady Francisca Turini Busaloni, Lady Doralice Vitelli Marchesani, with all the nobility of the city of Tifernum. With all these gathered inside the church, the choir of the Fathers, having sung Vespers, proceeded to the chapel of the Marchesani, where for so many years the venerable body had lain; and after its accustomed censing, the Most Reverend, Lord Vicar, Lord Provost, and Father Prior, clothed in stoles, the one in the middle at the loins, the first at the head, the other at the feet, lifted up the very body, and transferred it from the old into the new chest; and placed this in the former place upon the altar of the Marchesani, where also today it is found and honored. Of all which, by the mandate of the Lord Vicar and the Lord Confalonerius, who was then Master John Lucas Laurentii, public instruments were drawn up by notaries.

[39] the Governor does not approve that incense be used, There was present at this action, as we have said, the Governor of the city, Lord Julius Daddei, born of a noble family at Monte-regale, a man of great erudition and rare prudence; who modestly signified that he did not sufficiently approve that incensing should be done before the body of anyone not yet placed in the catalogue of Saints by the Roman Church. To whom the Prior replied, if by the use of the universal Church incensing is done upon the bodies of any of the piously deceased faithful, as of those who had been vessels of the Holy Spirit, honored with the grace of Christ and the Sacraments; with much more right this ceremony ought to be granted to her whom this whole city, the whole Order of Preachers, and especially the Roman Province, acknowledged and named Blessed, on account of the known sanctity of her life and the frequent miracles, in regard of which it had often been treated at Rome, that an Office might be recited about her. The Governor nevertheless persisted in his opinion: but warned by sudden infirmity he repents. but the next night, having fallen into a grave infirmity, so that he seemed to himself to be in peril of his very life, on account of quite unusual symptoms; and suspecting what it was, that his obstinacy of the previous day was thus being chastised; he commended himself wholeheartedly to Blessed Margaret, and having made a vow (as he himself related the next day to the Father Prior) straightway began to have better; and fully restored, he afterwards lived most devoted to Blessed Margaret, and did those things which have been noted above.

[40] The aforesaid Father Prior had provided that of those garments which had once been applied to the Blessed one, either alive or dead, Inquiry is made into miracles some should be preserved, for increasing the piety of the Tifernates and preserving their affection toward her; with the outcome that soon through the whole city a rumor was spread, that through such cloths God was working not few nor common miracles. This fame had its beginning from a linen head-covering, which placed upon the heads of the sick, they were said soon to recover; which is still today preserved in the sacristy of St. Dominic, whence it is continually requested, and is brought by the Fathers to the sick, with signs now almost daily. performed at the Relics of the Blessed one. Yet above all these things I think it must be considered, that that most simple linen, which the Blessed one used for so many years while she lived; even after her death, with so great time passing, remains most intact and most clean. But when such fame had come to the ears of the Most Reverend Lord Pyrrhus, the Episcopal Vicar, wishing to take care lest popular credulity, greedy of novelties, should impose something false upon the Blessed Margaret's so many true and most-attested miracles; wishing to know more diligently concerning these, he appointed an inquiry, which he set up partly in the chapel of the Rosary, with the already-mentioned Prior and Ser-Bartholomew Vincentii of Gubernalis, public Notary, assisting, partly in other places suitable, according to the demands of what miracles were said to have been done: which he found to subsist in truth: concerning which, because there exist authentic processes, I shall here present a brief compendium of some of the chief ones.

[41] by each of its being brought Lady Romana, a noble woman of Tifernum, daughter of the late Lord Francis Burati, and wife of Lord Horatius Brunaccii, in the same year 1588, on the 21st day of June, examined under the religion of an oath, affirmed that her cousin Lady Beatrix, wife of Lord Vincent Guazzalii, with the nine months of her pregnancy completed, throughout all Easter day and the following night had begun to labor, with great and unusual torment. But Lady Romana herself, seeing both mother and fetus in peril — which, lying across in the womb, was now presenting one arm — recalled the Relics which after the said Translation had been placed in the sacristy; she went to the Father Prior, a desperate childbirth is made easy: and indicating to him the most wretched state of her cousin, asked from him that she be lent that leather girdle, plated on both sides, with which the religious persons of this Order then were accustomed to gird themselves, and which the Blessed one herself had used for many years. The Prior did not delay the request of the one asking, and gave it to her wrapped in a veil; with which returning to her cousin's house, and finding her in a greater danger than she had left her; she first signed her most devoutly as she could, then hung the Relic of the Blessed one around her neck, asking her to obtain a happy childbirth for the laboring one. When this was done, the fetus drew itself back to the natural state, and within an hour a sound and whole girl came forth; whose and her mother's life Lady Romana referred as received from the merits of the Blessed one, Andrea the midwife attesting to the same, and two matrons present at the childbirth — namely Lady Julia Gualterotti and Lady Nicolaa the mother of Lady Romana herself — and other co-witnesses, whose names here for the sake of brevity are silenced.

[42] by the touching of a cap The Magnificent Lady Orintia Grasselli, a noble Roman, wife of Master Jacob Albizzini, a noble of Castello, swore before the Lord Vicar, the Notary, and witnesses, that she had her little son Bartholomew, so reduced, that for two whole days not only had he eaten nothing, but had also lost all use of his senses, more like a dead man than a living one. Therefore, when the sad news of the boy's impending death was brought to the Magnificent Lady Julia Albizzina, her kinswoman, on the day before the feast of the venerable Sacrament; and she then chanced to have in her house the aforementioned head-covering, which she had received from the Dominican Fathers a little before for some similar necessity; she hastened to send it to Lady Orintia, through Lady Juliana, wife of the late Julianus of Mount Alvernia, of the County of Florence, who also testified that at that moment of time, at which she brought that linen into the house of Master Jacob Albizzini, a dying boy is helped, the boy was lying like a dead man. Orintia, however, having received the cap of Blessed Margaret, bent the knee, and having recited seven times the Pater and Ave with the Salve Regina, asked life for her little son through the intercession of the Blessed one, and placed the same cap on his head. Scarcely had she remained there a fourth part of an hour, when the boy began to give forth many signs of life, and at length to speak also, and to ask that it be taken away from his head, with which he complained he was too much weighed down. The mother took it away, and offered it to her son to kiss, saying it was Blessed Margaret's, from whom he should hope for life and health; then she placed the linen itself under the head of the lying one, who soon recovering began to eat whatever was first offered, and to this day remains sound.

[43] The same Lady Orintia, with similar faith testified, that having carried the aforesaid cap to her younger son, a fever is driven away, then feverish; and with the fever ceasing soon, she had experienced its similar virtue also in this necessity. But she also, who had been the bearer of the sacred token to Lady Orintia, the aforementioned Lady Bartholomea, and who had seen with her own eyes the marvels performed on the half-dead boy at the presence of the cap; when she too was tormented by a great pain of the head, did not bring it back to the Fathers Preachers, as she had been ordered; but carried it to her own house. In the evening, and an inveterate pain of the head. brought back to her chamber, and kneeling before the little altar erected there, she wrapped the said cap in a sudarium, so that with greater decency and caution she might thus place it on her head. When this was done, before she rose from her knees, she felt that pain of the head, inveterate for so many years, taken away: and marveling at herself now so much lighter, she went to bed; and after a most peaceful night passed, at first light in the morning she brought back to the Dominican Fathers what they had lent; at length and faithfully recalling and proclaiming, how great a benefit she had received: and afterwards being sworn, she affirmed all things before the Vicar.

[44] Lady Margaret, wife of the Magnificent Master Jacob

Cordoni of Tifernum, examined on the 21st day of September, they are healed of a pestilential disease in the aforementioned year and manner, concerning two miracles which were said to have happened in her house; first deposed that her little two-year-old daughter had been touched by a pestilential fever, showing itself by livid spots, and within two days given up by the physicians, who dared to apply no remedy to so great an evil at such a tender age. When this had been understood by Lady Julia, mother-in-law of Master Jacob Albizzini and mother of the aforementioned Lady Margaret, who herself also was examined concerning this; she, not yet forgetful of the other miracles, the daughter performed through the invocation of Blessed Margaret, urged her daughter, since no other hope remained, at once to send to the convent of the Preachers, and borrow the cap of the Blessed one. When therefore the Fathers, informed of the peril of the child and the desire of the mothers, had brought it through the Magnificent Caesar Cordoni, whom they had used as an intermediary in common trust of parentage, and had made a brief prayer over the sick one; at the touch of the sacred linen the boy began to improve, and the mother. and within two days fully recovered, to the astonishment of all the physicians. Then the same Lady Margaret, as to her own person, affirmed likewise on oath that she herself had also been touched by the same pestilential fever, with very sharp punctures and vehement pain of the head, and had run to the same remedy; and at that same moment had been freed from every evil.

[45] A nun is freed from a suffocating catarrh, In the venerable monastery of the Walled Nuns of the Order of St. Francis of the Observance at Tifernum, there was a holy nun named Hilaria Baptistae de Riccio, who on July 17, having gone to bed cheerful and sound, around the fourth hour of the night was suddenly and most vehemently seized with rheum; which swelling her face, and descending from the head to the shoulders and arms, and soon occupying the whole body, she was cut off from the use of almost all her members, and at the same time lanced with immense torments, so that she believed death was impending over her. Desiring therefore to be found ready for any outcome, since by her own feet she was unable to approach the Confessor, she ordered herself to be carried to him in the hands of the Sisters. Brought back from there, when she was repeatedly complaining of a grave oppression of the heart, no one could doubt that this was a sign of an evil soon to take away her life. Meanwhile Sister Maria Felix Tartarini (from whose deposition, sworn on September 21, all these things are held) remembering certain particles, through particles of veil and garment. taken from the veil and garment of Blessed Margaret; brought them to the sick one, and offered them to her to kiss. But she, as soon as she touched them, perceived from them a heavenly power: for as they were applied successively to her mouth, head, shoulders, and other members; so she felt every pain depart from them: nor did she finish her devout kisses before she cried out that she was entirely sound. But these things happened within one hour, and the next morning she walked through the monastery as before.

NOTES.

DECREE

Concerning the Mass and Office of Blessed Margaret, for the city of Tifernum and for the whole Order of Preachers.

Margaret the Virgin, of the Third Order of St. Dominic, at Tifernum or Città di Castello in Umbria (B.)

[46] Dominicus, Bishop of Ostia, Dean of the sacred College, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, Pinellus, Prefect of the Congregation of Sacred Rites, to all and each who shall inspect, read, and hear these present, everlasting greetings in the Lord. When, at the instance of the Reverend Father General, and of the whole Order of Preachers of St. Dominic, and of the Most Reverend Lord Bishop and Canons of the Cathedral Church, and of the magistrates, citizens, and inhabitants of the city of Tifernum, repeated prayers were made to our most Holy Lord Pope Paul V, that he would deign to grant and indulge, that in honor of Margaret the Virgin, professed Tertiary of the Order of Preachers of St. Dominic, who in the year of the Lord 1287, born of honorable parents in the town of Metula of Massa Trebaria of the Tifernum diocese, for the three and twenty years in which she lived, always remained in virginity, and cultivated purity, and shone forth with many miracles, both in life and after death; and after her happy falling asleep in the Lord, which was on the 13th day of April in the year of the Lord 1320, her body was buried in the church of St. Dominic, in the same city of Tifernum; and still after nearly three hundred years is preserved intact and uncorrupted, with the greatest concourse and devotion of the people of the same city and the neighboring places, the Office and Mass of the Common of one Virgin, both by the Brothers of the said Religion, as in the said city where her body is buried, as in the whole Religion of Preachers, might and could freely and licitly be recited and celebrated. And when, by the same Most Holy Lord Pope, this business was remitted to the sacred Congregation of Rites, to be examined in it; and by the same sacred Congregation committed to the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord Cardinal Bellarmine: who, having once and again diligently seen ancient and modern writings, concerning the integrity of the life and purity of the faith and miracles of the said Blessed Margaret, both in life and after her death, and the continued opinion of holiness and of miracles up to the present day; at length in the same Congregation of Rites, held on the 24th day of August 1609, he reported that from what had been deduced it sufficiently appeared about the holiness and miracles of the Blessed Margaret herself, and thought that the requested favor could be granted to the Brothers of the same Religion, at least in the said city of Castello or Tifernum, where her venerable body is buried. And the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lords Cardinals present in the same Congregation were of the same opinion; namely that it could be granted, if it should please our Most Holy Lord, that in the city of Tifernum only and in the church of St. Dominic, where the body of the said Blessed Margaret is still buried intact and untouched, and with great devotion and concourse of all the people is honored and held in veneration, her feast, on the day of her happy falling asleep in the Lord, with the Office and Mass of the Common of one Virgin, in honor of the same Blessed Margaret, may be celebrated. And our Most Holy Lord, having heard the opinion of the Congregation, by a mature report made to His Holiness on the day written below in secret Consistory, assented and granted, that in the city of Tifernum only and in the church where the body of the said Blessed Margaret is buried, her feast, as of a Blessed woman, with the Office and Mass of the Common of one Virgin, may be celebrated. In faith and testimony of all which things, we have ordered these present letters to be made by the undersigned Secretary of our aforesaid Congregation; we have subscribed with our own hand, and have caused them to be fortified with the impression of our usual seal. Given at Rome in the palace of our usual residence, on the 19th day of the month of October, 1609.

Dominic, Bishop of Ostia, Cardinal Pinellus

J. P. Mucantius, Secretary of the Congregation.

NOTES.

April II: 14. April

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