ON BLESSED WALTER CONFESSOR,
DISCIPLE OF ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI,
AT VIMARANUM IN LUSITANIA.
About the middle of the 13th century.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
The Blessed's cult; elogia; relics; miracles; translations.
Walter conf. at Vimaranum in Lusitania (B.)
BY THE AUTHOR P. B.
Vimaranum, commonly Guimarães or Guimaraes and Guimaraens, is a not ignoble town among the Lusitanians, nearer to Galicia, in the province of Entre-Douro, which is enclosed by the rivers Douro and Minho, but of the diocese of Braga, His deposition is celebrated on the 2nd of August; distant about three leagues from Braga to the east. This place Bl. Walter, while he lived, illustrated by preaching and example; but dead, illustrated signally by prodigies. There therefore, as patron of the place, he is venerated on this day, on the testimony of Ferrarius in the general Catalogue, Tamayus in the Spanish Martyrology, Antonius a Purificatione in the Lusitanian monastic Chronology page 80, Arturus and Hueber in the Franciscan Martyrology and Menology, and very many others, who also assert this same day to have been his birthday; one alone, so far as I know, dissenting, Antonio Brandão, Lusitanian Monarchy lib. 13, cap. 13; where he states his death to have happened on the 30th day of June, as, he says, the book of obituaries of the Holy Cross of Coimbra declares, though it does not note the year, in these words: On the 2nd of the Kalends of July died brother Walter of the Order of the Discalced. But by no argument does he prove that this text is to be understood of our Blessed; since nevertheless the name of Walter was common to many; nor did our Walter die at Coimbra at the Holy Cross, but at Vimaranum; where a constant and ancient tradition has consecrated the second day of August to him as his birthday.
[2] There is also another, as at this day Ferrarius, cited, observes, a translation on the 1st Sunday of the same month. his feast, which on the first Sunday of August is celebrated with a great concourse of that people; as, he says, Augustinus Barbosa, doctor of both laws most celebrated (nay, both a Lusitanian and a Vimaranensian), related to us. The same asserts the most illustrious archbishop of Braga Rodericus Dacunha, in the Ecclesiastical History of his predecessor prelates part. 2, cap. 27: the same will teach below from the monuments of the place Franciscus Gonzaga; from which also it is certain that this celebrity is observed to renew yearly the memory of his second translation. It seems therefore by a typographical error that in Wadding in the Annals at the year 1258, num. 9, it is thus read: The day of translation, which falls on the first of August in the year 1577, by decree of the senate is held festive and solemn every year; as I myself once present saw; and it must altogether be read: which falls on the first Sunday of August: which I wonder that Fremaut did not notice. But besides these two feasts of his, we have found no other. Whence then Ferrarius in the same Catalogue besides took up the day 22 August, on which he thus has: At Alenquer in Lusitania, of Bl. Walter of the Order of Minors, disciple of St. Francis? Certainly in his annotations he refers only this: From the Chron. of the Minors part I, lib. 6, cap. 30; where several of his miracles are recounted. And yet that Chronicle, written in Portuguese by Fr. Marcus of Lisbon, in the place assigned treating of our Walter alone, neither affirms that he is venerated at Alenquer, nor has one word about the day 22 August.
[3] Elogium from Franciscus Gonzaga. No one presents any Life of this blessed Man, no one cites one: yet very honorific elogia of him have, besides others, as many writers as I have just now recounted here; among whom by authority and copiousness the most illustrious Franciscus Gonzaga not undeservedly obtains the chief place, in the work which he elaborated, while he acted as Minister general of the same Order, on the Origin of the Seraphic Franciscan Religion, part. 3, in the Province of Portugal, at the monastery of St. Father Francis of Vimaranum, which he makes the third of the same province, page 796 and following: whence I transfer hither the things which most make for the glory of Bl. Walter, dug out, unless I am mistaken, from ancient Annals and public documents, which there the author says are kept in the archives of the same monastery. But if anywhere something is to be inserted into his text; that it may the more easily be discerned, I shall express it in a different type. He writes therefore in this manner:
[4] Honorius III the supreme Pontiff occupying the See of divine Peter, and in the kingdom of Portugal Alfonso, the second of this name, happily reigning, about the year of human salvation 1218 more or less (nay in the year 1216, [He is sent into Lusitania in 1216: he lives holily near Vimaranum until his death.] as Wadding contends at the number 2 of this year; whom see also at the number 25 of the following year 1217) blessed Francis, father of the Order of Minors, after the general congregation at Assisi, as we touched above, destined the fathers Zacharias, Walter, and other disciples to the said kingdom of Portugal. Who, on account of the novelty of their habit and the difference of speech, were not so humanely received by the Lusitanians; because they suspected them to be some of the heretics newly sprung up at that time in those parts. Yet a diligent inquiry being made about their life and morals, queen Urraca, wife of the aforesaid king Alfonso, and a woman of the greatest piety, permitted chapels and little dwellings to be built for them, in which they might receive themselves, as did her husband also. Besides, father Walter, not far from the said town of Vimaranum, between the estate which is called Villa Viridis and another whose name is Cabalinus, accepting an area offered to him by the faithful of Christ, and building an oratory there, was illustrious both by the sanctity of his life and also by miracles, by which he corrected to good fruit the natives of that country. But how long was he a survivor there? I have seen no one who has said, before Wadding, at the year 1258, num. 9, where, Under this time, he says, died Blessed Walter, disciple of St. Francis, in the monastery of Vimaranum, in Lusitania. Otherwise thinks an author somewhat later indeed than Wadding, but nearer to Vimaranum, being of Oporto, Antonius a Purificatione; when in the place mentioned above he asserts that Bl. Walter fell asleep in the Lord in the year of salvation 1236. Which of the two is to be preferred to the other in this matter, I indeed know not.
[5] After this Father's death a certain most sweet liquor is said to have flowed from his sepulcher for many years (namely up to the first translation of the body, where his sepulcher flowed with a prodigious liquor, as Marcus of Lisbon narrates in the Chronicle of the Minors part. 1, lib. 6, cap. 30; that is, about the year of Christ 1280), which conferred greatly upon very many of the infirm. For which cause also the second day of the month of August, which was the anniversary of his death, was for a very great space of time most celebrated and a market-day among the neighboring peoples. But when the aforesaid oratory, now somehow augmented on account of the number of the Friars, and reduced into the form of a convent, was infested with an unhealthy air, and lay too far from the town; the community of Vimaranum, to consult for the safety and necessities of the Friars, in the year 1271 liberally conferred on them a hospice, commonly called Albergaria, and contiguous to the tower of the old gate… But after two years the Friars, on account of a lawsuit stirred up between them and the canons of Vimaranum, being driven from the place, sought again their ancient seat. But this being quieted, and matters composed between the two, having returned to the hospital, they enlarged the little monastery, before somehow constructed by themselves, from the alms bestowed by the faithful of Christ, and from certain houses and possessions adjacent to the same hospice, freely conferred by the sons of a certain noble Roderick Fafes, and reduced it into a much more commodious form, R. Thelius (or Tello, of the Franciscans) archbishop of Braga meanwhile lending his favor, in the year of restored salvation 1280.
[6] But when from the more ancient oratory, abandoned by the Friars, up to the translation of the body, made not without a miracle in 1280. the canons of the mother church of Vimaranum took care to transfer the body of blessed Walter, removed by a laudable theft, into their own church, they were defrauded of their hope and their purpose: for, very many men and oxen being applied, it so resisted, that in no wise could it be moved thence even a little. Marcus of Lisbon in the assigned place says that the canons first attempted to open the sepulcher, that they might thence carry off the sacred body; but when this succeeded by no means; then at last they resolved, by as great a force of men and oxen as they could, to tear up the sepulcher itself with its enclosed pledge, but in vain, and to carry it off by vehicle, closed and entire, as it was. Wherefore, pardon for such a deed being first asked of so great a Father, they desisted from their undertaking, meanwhile making the Friars, not without shame, aware of the whole matter done. As soon therefore as the matter was detected, the Friars, very few men being called to their aid, both removed with easy effort the stone before immovable, and transferred the sacred pledge, namely the body of blessed Walter, into the new monastery. It is plain from the series of this narration that this translation did not happen before the year of Christ 1280; and therefore that it is not rightly referred by Arturus to the year 1271.
[7] A confraternity erected in his honor in 1573; But Dionysius, Ferdinand, and John I reigning in Portugal (John the first reigned, according to Mendez, 48 years, dying in the year 1433: Dacunha however, cited before, will have what Gonzaga here narrates to have happened under Alfonso IV, who, when he had reigned one and thirty years, is said to have died in the year 1357), when the walls of the town of Vimaranum came to be enlarged; and this monastery was an impediment; it was, both from the faculties of the aforesaid king Dionysius, and from those of his successors Ferdinand and John, and also from those of the people of Vimaranum, translated to the place where it now is, namely within the walls of the town, and there magnificently and augustly enough constructed; a certain noble man of the illustrious family of the Cugni meanwhile conferring on the Friars, for the perfecting of such a work, the proper house of his habitation. But the minds and charity of the faithful growing cold, when the anniversary day of Bl. Walter was by no means kept with the wonted rites and veneration, certain noble and most devout men of Vimaranum erected a confraternity in his honor, in this very place, in the year of the Lord 1573.
[8] as also a chapel, to which the body was translated in 1577; But after four years passed the people of Vimaranum took care to build a chapel from the public treasury to the same divine Father, and to transfer to it his bones with the greatest veneration, and a concourse of the people, both ecclesiastical and also lay. For there was present the pious Fulgentius, Prior of the church of Vimaranum and son of the duke of Bragança: there were present also the canons of the mother church of Vimaranum, and the other priests and ministers, and as many as were at Vimaranum both monks and secular priests and also, as we said before, laymen. Who all, a solemn procession being instituted, and the principal streets and squares of the town being traversed, seeking this place, transferred the aforesaid bones of the Father to the new chapel prepared for him with the greatest religion. And this happened on the first Sunday of the month of August, in the year indeed of the Lord 1577. Which day, by decree of the senate of the same town, is to the people of Vimaranum every year, in memory and veneration of so great a Father, solemn and festive. And lest this should at some time slip from the memory of men, on the front part of the aforesaid chapel the following letters were written: DIVO GUALTERO D. F. D. VIMARAN. PATRONO INSTAURATI FESTI VOTO IV ANNO MDLXXVII P. V. F. C. (that is, according to Dacunha's interpretation: To Blessed Walter, disciple of blessed Francis, patron of Vimaranum, by a vow four times renewed, in the year 1577 the people of Vimaranum caused it to be made.) But his sepulcher has this epitaph engraved:
THIS VENERABLE SEPULCHER COVERS THE BONES OF WALTER.
[9] But when to the ears of the Roman Pontiff, namely Gregory XIII, in which year Gregory Pope XIII excellently fostered his cult. the fame of blessed Walter had come, he, for the increase of divine worship, and to commend more and more the veneration of the Saint, granted to all and each of the faithful of Christ, penitent and confessed, who thereafter forever should wish to be aggregated to the aforesaid confraternity, on the day on which they should cause themselves to be inscribed in the catalogue of the other confreres, as also, of the same as well received as to be received, in the article of death (if however they shall have repented of their sins, and made their sacramental confession, or, not being able to confess, shall have devoutly invoked the most holy name of Jesus with the mouth, or at least with the heart, and shown signs of contrition), a plenary indulgence of all sins, and their remission. The same too he granted (yet for only 20 years), both to the aforesaid confreres, and also to the rest of the faithful of Christ, who on the second day of the month of August, on which the festivity of Bl. Walter occurs, shall have devoutly visited his chapel or altar from first Vespers until the setting of the sun of the following day, and shall have devoutly recited five times the Lord's Prayer, and as many times the angelic salutation, for the prosperous and happy conservation of the Roman Pontiff, of the holy Roman Church, of the whole ecclesiastical state, of the king of Portugal for the time being, and of that kingdom. All these things are more largely contained in the Bull given under lead by the same supreme Pontiff on the 17th of December, in the year indeed of the Lord 1577. Thus Franciscus Gonzaga, to which there is nothing for us to add.