Geoffrey

ON BLESSED GEOFFREY, BISHOP OF LE MANS

IN GAUL,

In the year 1255.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

The cult of the Blessed; his Acts, and their supplement and illustration.

Geoffrey, Bishop, at Le Mans (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR P. B.

[1] Saussay had omitted this blessed Bishop in his Gallican Martyrology; but imprudently no doubt: for when he came to composing the topographical index of the same work, purging the deed under the word "Cenomanis" Le Mans, he thus writes: Blessed Geoffrey de Loudun, bishop; not so much restorer as founder of the Carthusian monastery of Le Parc; among whom, buried, he showed that he lived after death, by frequent miracles: by which he both betrays the merits of the holy life he led, and heals the sick who flow together to him. He was omitted, WHO OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN MARKED, on the 3rd of August. And so on that same day he was afterward marked also by Castellanus in these words: Likewise at Anagni, of St. Geoffrey, bishop of Le Mans, whose body, carried into Gaul, is honored among the people of Le Mans in the Carthusian house of Le Parc, Today he is worshipped, according to Saussay and Castellanus, at Le Parc; which by another name, in Claude Robert in the Gallia Christiana, page 301, is called the Charterhouse of blessed Mary de Parco. It is situated to the west of the city of Le Mans (commonly "du Mans"), in the district of Charnie, between the rivers Erve and Vègre. In the church of this house, as the same author says, his sepulchre (of Geoffrey) is placed beside the high altar toward the North in the apse of the wall, with the following epitaph, which is thus engraved in golden letters on the periphery of the slab of the same sepulchre (on which the said Pontiff is depicted):

Here lies buried the beloved prelate of Le Mans, Geoffrey, pleasing to the Lord, and approved in life, Adorned with manners, humble, chaste, temperate: Whose state is rightly believed to be blessed.

Corvaser adds in the History of the bishops of Le Mans, chapter 44, page 513, that both below and beside that sepulchre is depicted his family shield, which shows a red field girded with a golden belt.

[2] and indeed from time immemorial, At what time he first began to be worshipped there, no one hands down: yet this [is] certain, that from the fourteenth century so great was his veneration there that that church, the former title being obliterated, was even then commonly called St. Geoffrey's; as is plain from the Testament of Louis, viscount of Beaumont, who died about the year 1364, and was buried there, of which Corvaser

in the cited place reports these words: "Quand je mourray, j'eslis ma sepulture en l'eglise Sainct Geoffroy de Chartrouse ou Maine devant le grand autier": that is, When I shall die, I choose my burial in the church of St. Geoffrey of the Charterhouse in Maine, before the high altar. Although, therefore, his cult was not established by a Pontifical oracle, yet it is rightly and religiously defended and preserved; inasmuch as it was instituted in time immemorial before the decree of Pope Urban VIII, and thence confirmed and augmented by continual miracles. A remarkable testimony of this matter is that of Peter Sutor, once Prior of the Charterhouse of Paris, in his little work (printed at Louvain in the year 1572, afterward reprinted at Cologne in the year 1609) on the Carthusian Life, book 2, chapter 6, where against the calumniators of his Order he contends that frequent miracles are not only not necessary among the Carthusians, but that it is not even expedient that there should be [any]; lest the frequency of the people flowing together to them in throngs, as happens, even those dwelling far from the cities, for that cause disturb the solitude which by their institute they most holily profess: for this they detest, he says, even those very monks who inhabit houses situated in woods or fields, to which a great concourse is frequently wont to be made. Then he at once subjoins this example to our purpose:

[3] Among which (to be silent about the rest) is the most devout house of Le Parc, on account of most frequent miracles. built in the diocese of Le Mans, whose ground a certain renowned virgin, of the most noble family of the Alençons, gave; but the buildings Geoffrey, the most blessed prelate of the church of Le Mans (which has thirteen canonized prelates), made; and conferred many possessions from his own patrimony. Who, buried there, although he has not yet been reckoned in the catalogue of the Saints by the Apostolic See, yet is renowned for such and most frequent miracles in that region, and very many others, and confers present health on the sick so freely that innumerable people flow together to worship him and to seek his aid, who by their frequency and tumult frequently bring grievous trouble to those devout Religious. Concerning which matter it has sometimes, in my presence, been debated whether that most blessed Pontiff should be translated to another place. The same is testified of his own time, that is, of the year of Christ 1648, by Corvaser above cited, page 512; His sepulchre, he says, is visited up to this day by a huge multitude of pilgrims, both to pay their vows and to render thanks to God for the benefits received through this blessed Prelate, flowing thither from all sides … But he is invoked especially by those in fever: and many even now surviving assert that they did not recover their health before they had implored his aid.

[4] The Acts of this Prelate, written by an anonymous author, but a contemporary, and of the clergy, as we shall observe below, of the church of Le Mans, His Acts: his birth, fatherland: have already twice passed through the press among the Vetera Analecta of Mabillon; and in the first edition indeed, volume 3, from page 375: but in the second, from page 331: whence we shall here bring them forth anew; yet the greater part being cut away, which either does not pertain to him at all, or is better referred to another, namely St. Julian, apostle and bishop of Le Mans, whose translation, magnificently instituted by Geoffrey, is here described at length. But since in the remaining part certain things are not sufficiently explained, certain things wholly omitted, it will help in this place to premise things which conduce both to supplying these and to illustrating those somewhat. And first observe that to the proper name of Geoffrey something else is everywhere added, as "De la Houcques," which Corvaser found in only one manuscript, page 501; nor does he say whence it arose, or to what it looks: then "De Loudun," by which he is most well known among all. That this is a family name, the same Corvaser and Bondonnet, both in their works on the bishops of Le Mans, chapter 44, contend, and that it was received from his father; who was himself also called Geoffrey de Loudun, because he was lord of Loudun, Losdunum, or Lausdunum (a city and territory on the border of the Angevins, the Tourangeaux, and the Poitevins), as also baron of Trèves (it is the name of a little town situated on the Loire in the province of Anjou). And indeed to our Geoffrey, after the death of the said his father, and of his mother Beatrice, and of two brothers, Fulco the elder-born, and Aimeric the younger, not only the name of the family, but also the domains fell by inheritance. But although the district of Loudun is generally attributed to the Poitevins, yet the authors whom we just assigned make the origin of its lords in those times Angevin; who on that head wish this Geoffrey to be distinguished from a certain namesake nephew of Herscenda, his aunt, but a native of Le Mans; to whom afterward, by the marriage of Alice, the only heiress of Loudun, the lordship of Loudun passed. The same authors commemorate the sister of this Prelate, Margaret, given in marriage to the neighboring toparch of Montsoreau (de Montsoreau). Concerning the family arms I noted above.

[5] the beginning of his episcopate in the year 1234. The beginning of his episcopate we fixed in volume 3 of June, page 869, at the year of Christ 1234, the day the XVI of September, on which day, according to the Catalogue of that time in the Analecta of Mabillon, page 238, there was elected a man of great faith and learning, innocent in hands, clean in heart and reins, Geoffrey de Loudun, lord of Trèves. In the next month of November, if we believe Corvaser and Bondonnet, by a solemn oath at Fontainebleau (a Fontainebleau) he bound his faith to the then most holy king of the Gauls, Louis. In this same year and month, together with Philip, bishop of Orléans, when it was treated of providing a pastor for the church of St. Brieuc in lesser Brittany, he affixed his seal, as witness, to those letters of Juhel, archbishop of Tours, which Martène exhibits in the New Thesaurus of Anecdotes, volume 3, column 958; this, I say, our Geoffrey; not his predecessor (as is there noted in the margin) Geoffrey I, surnamed de Laval, who had died before the middle of August; since that same business is there expressly written as done at Candé on the morrow of St. Brice (bishop of Tours, who is venerated on the day the XIII of November) in the year of grace 1234. But on the contrary it was not he (as Corvaser wishes) who in the same year divided one too ample parish of Coulture into two; but his predecessor, Geoffrey the first; since it is true (which the same author affirms, page 505) that this deed is proved from an authentic instrument, sealed in the month of June of the year 1234, that is, nearly two months before the death of Geoffrey de Laval; which Bondonnet rightly observed before us.

[6] When he went to the supreme Pontiff; From what has been said it can be gathered that not at the very beginning of his episcopate did our Geoffrey and Juhel, archbishop of Tours, fall out between themselves; much less did the contention boil up so far that it impelled the latter to expedite an ecclesiastical censure against him. What therefore is said in the Acts below, number 3, After a little time (from the episcopal ordination of blessed Geoffrey) between the archbishop of Tours and him a grave quarrel arose concerning a certain jurisdiction, that easily admits the latitude of several months, namely of at least three or four, and need not necessarily be referred to the year of Christ 1234, even at its close. But that statement: And when he had been suspended by the archbishop de facto, seems to be altogether extended further; since it is by no means probable that that archbishop dealt so with his provincial bishop and lately his friend, as not to have tried all things before he fled to that extreme remedy of ecclesiastical severity. Nor indeed was the cause of Geoffrey such that it could not be proved by fair reasonings, and accordingly defended in long lawsuits; since he obtained it at Rome. These things we think must be said, because our Prelate, without doubt as soon as the suspension had been pronounced against him, according to our Acts, number 4, came to Rome; where (at Rome certainly) he was honorably received by Pope Gregory the ninth. And yet in the time of Geoffrey's episcopate Gregory was never at Rome before the year of Christ 1237 now advanced; as Pagi shows in the Breviary of the Roman Pontiffs. Not therefore before that year did Geoffrey come to him, [as] we shall believe Corvaser and Bondonnet; until instruments have been produced to be preferred to these our Acts.

[7] Corvaser adds that the Blessed, to conclude the same matter, twice had recourse from the Gauls to the Pontiff, and how often. and that before Pentecost of the year 1235: and that in the former expedition indeed there were given him by Gregory as commissioners the deans of Bourges and Chartres, with the archdeacon of Arles, who should examine the merits of the cause in the place where it had first been moved, and refer them to the Apostolic See: but after this had been accomplished by them with incredible speed, Geoffrey at once hastened on a second journey into Italy, and so pleaded that he returned not only with the suit won, but moreover increased with immense honor. To us neither the time of this journey is approved, nor the doubling, nor the circumstances, asserted without any testimony of antiquity (for none is cited). Yet we by no means deny that for various causes this Prelate hastened to the Vicar of Christ three times into Italy: for that is manifest from the Acts; namely once on the occasion of the suspension; as has already been said from number 3: but again (perhaps to render to the Pontiff an account of the legation before entrusted to him through the Gauls) in the second year from the former setting-out, of Christ 1239, in whose month of March, on the day the XX, Gregory struck the emperor Frederick II with anathema at Rome, this same our bishop (as the Acts, number 7, have it) being present in the curia. And this journey, both times, with the return, the same Acts again commemorate, number 9. Thirdly, finally, when at the court of Pope Alexander IV at Anagni, the business unaccomplished, he died on the day the III of August in the year 1255; as is narrated in the same number 7.

[8] When Corvaser hands down that in the year 1241, under Juhel archbishop of Tours, he assisted at a provincial synod, To the people of Paderborn he gives relics of St. Julian: held at Laval or Vallis Guidonis. But this synod was either unknown to Maan in his Metropolis of Tours; or it is that whose canons he exhibits in part 2, page 58, and which is written to have been held there in the year of the Lord 1242; but without any enumeration of the prelates who were present. In the year 1243, in the month of April, asked by the bishop and church of Paderborn, he granted a part of the relics of St. Julian, apostle of the people of Le Mans, letters being added full of exceptional piety and charity, which we gave in volume 2 of January, page 762, and in which he himself calls himself Geoffrey, by divine permission the humble minister of the church of Le Mans. What he did in the following year, an inscription indicates, which, by the testimony of Corvaser, among the Carthusians of Le Parc, on the frontispiece of the church, is thus: The reverend father in Christ, lord Geoffrey de Loudun, bishop of Le Mans and baron of Trèves, great benefactor of this house of Le Parc, made this building sacred to the blessed Virgin Mary, adorned and dedicated [it] in the year one thousand two hundred and forty-four; and, buried therein, is renowned for miracles. This dedication the same author fixes to the feast of St. Denis, which is kept on the day the IX of October.

[9] He wonderfully cherishes the Charterhouse: In the year 1245, the same author says that Geoffrey assisted at the first general council of Lyon; and indeed as Pontifical legate. But both these things Bondonnet not undeservedly calls into doubt; nay, the second he openly rejects. Our Acts too, number 7, mention that council in such a way as sufficiently to suggest that our Bishop was not present. In the same year, as it is agreed among the authors just related, he consecrated the cemetery of the Carthusians in the month of September, thereafter heaping benefits upon benefits on that same place, so far that its increases roused the envy and avarice of the neighboring lords: which, that he might restrain them, the blessed Man is said first to have obtained a severe Bull from Pope Innocent IV against those who should dare to provoke the Charterhouse of Le Parc with any injury; then, from the same lords, by no means perhaps acquiescing in the Pontifical authority, to have bought up the fields contiguous to the Carthusian lands, together with the right which through them they arrogated to themselves over the near bounds of the Charterhouse, the rest of his properties, which he possessed in the province of Anjou, being sold off for that purpose, along with the toparchy of Trèves (concerning which, however, consult the Acts, number 2). He added also a perpetual revenue for procuring the garments of those Religious; namely twenty pounds Tournois yearly, and the tithes of two parishes (commonly Meslay and Montabon) hitherto received by himself. To the same he bequeathed by testament his very rich library, of which up to this day some codices, says Corvaser, are preserved there; as the ordinary Gloss of Lyra * on Sacred Scripture, comprised in eighteen volumes on folio parchment. What of the fact that he is believed to have induced others also to contribute their own share to the stability and advantage of that Religious house there? To his interpellations certainly it is ascribed that there was ceded to that monastery the neighboring priory of St. Denis d'Orques, which belonged to the Benedictine monastery of Évron; with all things pertaining to it, except the superiority and patronage, which the monks of Évron reserved to themselves.

[10] as also other churches, to the poorhouse. For the rest, however great was his propensity and munificence toward the Religious family of Le Parc, yet these did not so exhaust his mind or his substance but that he left to other churches too splendid monuments of his liberality: For he gave also, says Corvaser, to the collegiate church of Sillé (in the vernacular, de Sillé le Guillaume, about nine common Gallic leagues from the city of Le Mans toward the West) several and rare books, and moreover not a few reliquaries, and finally ornaments and other utensils of great price, still marked with his family shield and the cross, the insignia of an Apostolic legation. But how lavish he was toward his own church, the Acts sufficiently show from number 8. He surpassed, says the same Corvaser, all his predecessors in the gifts bestowed on the cathedral church. But that his paternal and merciful providence was not lacking to the necessity of wretched men either, he testifies in these words: It was of special concern to him to sustain the poor, and to administer rightly their common hospice, for which he both established fixed laws, both for reforming the manners of the poor dwelling there, and for directing the economic order which he wished to be observed by the ministers, and finally for prescribing the accounts of receipts and expenditures. Learn the rest from the Acts and Annotations.

* He errs here, for Lyra had not yet written.

ACTS

By an anonymous author, but a contemporary, in Mabillon among the Vetera Analecta.

Geoffrey, Bishop, at Le Mans (S.)

BHL Number: 3284

From the edition of Mabillon.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. We read in the Parables of Solomon: Seek not the things that are too high for you, The prologue of the author. and search not into things above you. And therefore it seems presumptuous and rash, when in an arduous subject, which demands splendid discourses, the speech proceeds in a rude style, as horrid as it is uncultivated. Nevertheless the gentle violence of entreating friends sometimes compels [one] to undertake a burden beyond his strength: and, as it is the law of friendship that we neither ask base things, nor do them when asked; so by the same law we are constrained to comply, as far as we are able, with an honest petition.

[2] Therefore the venerable father and pastor of the church of Le Mans, Geoffrey de Loudun, The birth of the Blessed, his studies of letters and virtues; lord of Trèves in the diocese of Anjou, distinguished in blood, was more distinguished in nobility of manners. Who, his father and mother being dead, and his two brothers taken from human affairs, having obtained the barony of Trèves as the true heir, governed [it] wisely and happily as long as he lived ^a. He, in his earliest age initiated into letters, afterward in the fourteenth year of his age, the poetic fictions and other books of the heathen being left, read and chose the most abundant fruits of the sacred Page, preferring the eternal to the transitory. The same, continuing to join honesty to it, against the allurements of the flesh evilly flattering, kept himself in his perpetual state ^b clean in hand, clean in flesh; nor, forgetting that word of David: Who sends forth fountains in the valleys, as he showed himself humble outwardly, so he perpetually kept within the inestimable treasure of humility. The same, from adolescence bearing the yoke of the Lord, as certain preludes of his future priesthood, always having in his study a "capa clausa" ^c, wore outwardly the ornaments which the nobility of his race demands; not that he might indulge his will; but that, as much as he could according to God, he might satisfy the will of worldly [men]. And thus he rendered the things that are Caesar's to Caesar; and the things that are God's to God.

[3] And so, his fame increasing, Maurice of happy memory, by whom he is chosen first cantor, then bishop of the church of Le Mans. then bishop of Le Mans, called him in the church of Le Mans to the cantorship with a prebend; where he bore himself laudably, and through the increases of the times always showed himself, being good, better. He called him, I say, the said Maurice, who had been wont to call to the church of Le Mans theologian and famous men, and other men skilled, provident, and discreet; who knew how to choose the beams of Lebanon, planed and altogether prepared for placing in the building of Solomon; of whom we have seen several promoted to archbishops, several to bishops ^d. O happy we in mind, if we walked by the paths of the fathers; if we tried to follow their manners and virtues with close footstep! But no one attempts to descend into himself, no one: but the pack on the back going before is regarded ^e. Finally the said Cantor, taken up to the government of the church of Le Mans, made himself more humble than the humble, more patient than the patient.

[4] Suspended, he goes to Rome; returns absolved, nay Pontifical Legate. But after a little time, between the archbishop of Tours and himself a grave quarrel arose concerning a certain jurisdiction: and when he had been suspended by the archbishop de facto, such suspension not being observed, trusting in the merits of the appeal, for the sake of protecting the liberty of the church, with two archdeacons and certain of his canons, with great apparatus, and the quantity of expenses, though immoderate, not being considered, he came to Rome: where by Pope Gregory the ninth he was honorably received. And when perhaps he was thought by his adversaries to return confounded, he returned absolved by the Pope ^f. And appointed legate through the whole kingdom of France, with how great humility he exercised his legation, with how great diligence he ruled his church, I insufficient am insufficient to explain: since he reckoned the suffering of his subjects his own, rejoicing together in the Lord with the one rejoicing, and in the bowels of charity suffering with the one suffering.

[5] [His occupations; the foundation of the Charterhouse; the translation of St. Julian, bishop of Le Mans.] The same was never found idle: either he studied in the sacred Page (for he was distinguished by the grace of preaching), or he was free for prayer and contemplation. To the more gentle he showed himself a companion, to all amiable and kind. The same founded the Carthusian monastery ^g from the first stone, making there a vaulted chapel, and cells not less than the better ones of the whole Order. A stone enclosure too, with an aqueduct through the cells, he made at great expense; and, provision being made of revenues, adding gifts to gifts, he happily completed that monastery. And now how honorably he translated the body of blessed Julian into the new building ^h, we shall hear. In the times, therefore, of the venerable father Geoffrey de Loudun, lord of Trèves, then bishop of Le Mans, there is assigned a day to be completed with a happy end, on which the body of blessed Julian was to be translated into the new building (which was done on the Monday after the Octaves of holy Easter, in the year of the Lord one thousand two hundred and fifty-four ⁱ).…

[6] where was seen the notable piety and liberality of Geoffrey. There were present the archbishop of Tours; the bishops of Avranches, Angers, Rennes, Dol, with the Bishop of the city of Le Mans. But because the people had gathered beyond number, both from the diocese and from foreign parts; counsel being taken about translating the holy body by night, a part of the night being watched through, the metropolitan came to the church with the mentioned bishops: among whom the bishop of Le Mans, like another Simeon, receiving in his arms the desired pledge; like another Saul, taller than the rest, amid the pressures of the bystanders, bearing the weight without weight, [and] the troubles of the pressure with grateful labor; like another Issachar, put his shoulder to carry: and thus placed the desirable treasure upon the holy altar. The same, from the holy Paschal day up to the reposing of the holy body, not withdrawing far from the city, the affection of pious devotion requiring it, for the sake of pilgrimage, on each day once visited the church with prayers and offerings. The same, seeing the citizens working, not as hirelings, but with intense affection of mind, and with the whole effort of body, as has been said, rejoicing at so great a devotion of the people, like a pious and gentle pastor, could not temper himself from tears. The same on the vigil of the translation and on the day made a great supper for those called: and, out of affection asking those whom he could call and have, his hall was filled with those reclining, none excluded, as also the other houses and chambers, and all the episcopal workshops: which when it still did not suffice, he had tents set up through his shrubbery, where the barons and nobles and many others reclined. Concerning which supper there was much that we might say; but lest a more prolix discourse offend tender little ears, let us pass to other things.…

[7] But this same Bishop being present in the curia, the aforesaid Pope Gregory bound Frederick, emperor of the Romans and king of Sicily, with the bond of excommunication, He died at Anagni in the year 1255. his faults requiring it; whom, in the times of the same Bishop, Pope Innocent the fourth, a general council being convoked at Lyon, by sentence deprived of all honor of empire and kingdom.… In his times, between the illustrious man Charles ^k, son of the king of France, Count of Le Mans, on the one part; and the church of Le Mans on the other, a suit being moved, the same Bishop, grieving with the necessity of the church, for which he was ready not only to suffer with [it], but also to suffer, undertaking the journey to Rome, came to Anagni: where, finding Pope Alexander the fourth with the Cardinals, and finding favor in their eyes, what he intended, prevented by death, he could not accomplish: for within seven days ^l after his coming, namely on the day of the finding of the holy martyrs Stephen the protomartyr and his Companions, he was buried with honor in the house of the Friars Minor ^m. And he died in the year of the Lord one thousand two hundred and fifty-five, in the twentieth year of his pontificate, about ten months ⁿ.

[8] And now how generous he was toward his church;

how many and how great things, both living and dying, he bestowed on it, The benefits which to his church let us bring forth into the midst as an example for imitation. This man, therefore, living, enlarged the church with revenues, honored [it] with many and pleasing gifts ^o, laudably acquired the right of patronage of the prebends of Sillé, withdrew many tithes from the lay hand. He established from his own means the anniversaries of his father, mother, sister, and two brothers, to be celebrated perpetually in this church. For he gave four albs; one of which was furnished with a becoming apparel: likewise a stole and maniple of red color with gilded images: another stole too with a maniple of silk wonderfully worked: a stole also and a third maniple inwoven with gold with images of beasts and trees subtly inwoven; and three elegant subcinctoria; one adorned with precious pearls: a collar too of red color wonderfully inwoven with gold; five pairs of corporals with a burse reservatory [p]; eight cloths too for the ornament of the altar with many towels; sixteen albs of white and most delicate linen; two silk cloths. He gave also sandals and shoes [q] of red silk, distinguished with a variety of gold and precious stones. He gave also five pairs of pontifical vestments; namely the chasuble capsula *, dalmatic, tunic: of which one pair is of red samite [r]; the second of reinforced inforciato red cendal [s]; the third of green samite; the fourth of a tawny color; the fifth of white "borgueranto" [t].

[9] He gave also on his first return from Rome a samite, of which we made [u] two copes: on another occasion returning, one wheeled pall [x]: living and dying he himself too, in a certain sickness of his, gave two tapestries to place under the feet of those serving at the altar; and two smaller ones, of wonderful work, one of which covers the seat of those governing the choir: four mitres too, white, and a fifth wonderfully distinguished with gold and precious stones; one baldachin [y], to place before the altar; two silk cloths of the arms of the king of France; five pairs of gloves [z], and two silver-gilt apparels for the work of the same gloves; a silver crozier [aa] of great weight, gilded and of comely work, with the pastoral staff; and two basins of eight marks of silver, gilded in places; a silver thurible with an incense-box and a spoon of the same material; two silver cruets with a silver pyx for reposing the hosts.

[10] he conferred very many things. He gave also seventeen gold rings; nine with sapphires, one large, like the eye of an ox; the tenth, the large and broad episcopal ring having a sapphire in the middle, and on the circumference distinguished with other precious stones; two with large topazes; one with a carbuncle, which is commonly called Ruby; two with garnets; one with a cameo [bb], and another with crystal: and the weight of the said rings is one mark and three ounces of gold. And these rings were placed, by command of the Bishop himself, on the front of the shrine of the most blessed Julian. He gave also a most beautiful Antiphonary; three Graduals, of which the greater with large note and letter; a Troper [cc], a Collectary of Epistles, an Evangeliary, a Missal, and two Ordinaries [dd], and two episcopal chairs. He also repaired at great expense the house of Douvres. In the manor of Yvré he built anew a new and ample episcopal house with its appurtenances, and bought the place and the adjacent squares where he built that new building. He made also walls round about on the side of the town with a convenient entrance. The manor of Coulaines he wholly renovated, great and convenient: at Paris on the hill of St. Genevieve a great building surrounded with convenient walls; which he acquired from his own patrimony. He left the bishopric too free and without the burden of debts. He left the houses too not destitute of convenient, nay abundant, furniture.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. By "reservatory" here I understand the case of the corporals, which is now wont to be called a burse.

q. "Sotulares" for shoes has already occurred rather often in our Acts.

r. "Samitum," "exametum," etc., Du Cange interprets as all-silk cloth in the Glossary at the word "Exametum"; where consult also the various inflexions of the name, and the etymology.

s. And this too is a kind of silk cloth, as is clear from Du Cange at the name "Cendalum."

t. "Borguerantum" seems to be a species of fine linen, concerning which consult Du Cange at the word "Boquerannus."

u. Note here again the age of the author and his profession: for he would not speak thus, unless he had then been of the clergy of the cathedral church.

x. "Wheeled pall," in Du Cange simply "Rota," is a species of ecclesiastical pall made in the form of a wheel, or a pall distinguished with figures of wheels.

y. "Baudequinus" or "Baldakinus," by the testimony of Du Cange, is a cloth the richest of all, whose warp is woven of gold thread, the woof of silk, interwoven with embroidery work. Frequently it is also taken for a canopy or umbrella.

z. It seems it should be read "Chirothecarum": for these the bishops use in pontifical rites: and it is certain that here everywhere there is sinning in the orthography.

aa. "Cambuta" or "Cambuca" is often taken for the whole crook or pastoral staff; here, however, since it is distinguished from it, it seems to signify only its upper curved part; in which sense it is found also distinguished from the pastoral staff more than once in the same century in the Visitation of the church of St. Paul of London, Monasticon Anglicanum, volume 3, page 314.

bb. "Camahutus," in French "Camayeu," is a precious stone, representing figures not impressed, but innate. See also Du Cange at the word "Camaeus."

cc. A "Troparius" is an ecclesiastical book which contains tropes; as an Antiphonary contains antiphons, etc. Now a trope is a versicle which is sung on the chief festivals before the introit of the Mass.

dd. "Ordinaries," that is, books in which is ordered the manner in which the divine Office ought to be celebrated.

* perhaps "himself"

* that is, the chasuble

* read "tapetas"

* that is, cruets

* French Thouvoye

* French Yvre

* Coulaines