Peter

ON ST. PETER, BISHOP

OF ANAGNI IN ITALY.

In the year 1105.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Peter, Bishop, at Anagni (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR G. C.

§ I. The cult of the Blessed, his monastic institute, abbatial dignity, canonization, and miracles.

The city of Anagni, of which we treated at the day the XV of January on the occasion of St. Secundina, and again on the day the III of June in the Preliminary Commentary to the Acts of St. Oliva, today celebrates blessed Peter, once its prelate, with a solemn and proper Office, from which Philip Ciammariconi, in the Anagnine Sanctuary, St. Peter the bishop, whom today the city of Anagni worships, which was published in Italian in the year 1704, page 134, brings forward the following: Antiphon. While Peter the pontiff stood praying, he beholds the Virgin, and by the nod of the Great count duly completes this house. ℣. Pray for us, blessed Peter. ℞. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ. Let us pray. Your loving-kindness, O Lord, we suppliantly beseech, that the frequent supplication of blessed Peter your confessor and pontiff may both grant us peace in the present world, and salvation in the future, through Christ our Lord. Amen. I suppose that this Office, which is not at hand for us, was celebrated from time immemorial in the church of Anagni.

[2] Dorganius on this day in the Benedictine Calendar briefly indicates the festival of St. Peter the bishop, renowned for monastic observance. by the monastic hagiographers But Menard, in the Benedictine Martyrology, thus adds the chief place of veneration and his pastoral solicitude: At Anagni, of St. Peter the bishop, who, renowned first for monastic observance, then for pastoral vigilance, rested in the Lord. Afterward, in book 1 of the observations, he thus explains this text of his Martyrology: St. Peter was a monk at Salerno in the monastery of St. Benedict. Thence drawn away by force by Hildebrand, archdeacon of the Holy Roman Church, he was made bishop of Anagni by Pope Alexander the second, over which he presided with the highest praise forty-three years. He died, renowned for miracles, in the year one thousand one hundred and five. St. Bruno, bishop of Segni, wrote his Life. Ferrarius, in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, Bucelinus in his Benedictine Menology, and other more recent writers adorned him with longer eulogies.

[3] Not rashly do the Benedictine authors ascribe this Blessed to their Order, he is rightly ascribed to the Order of St. Benedict, since the ancient Acts expressly testify it. Nay rather, he seems to have been abbot of the monastery of Salerno, although the Acts have not expressed that monastic dignity clearly enough: for St. Peter Damian very probably treats of this Peter, when in book 6, epistle 22, to his nephew Damian, he writes thus among other things: When brother Hubaldus brought me this news of you, not indeed such as I wished, there was present, to be recalled with much sweetness, and conspicuous for the honor of a religious manner of life, Peter, abbot of the monastery which, adorned with the title of blessed Benedict, flourishes built in the city of Salerno: who related to me that a wolf, devourer of men, secretly attacked a little boy of the household of his monastery, snatched him, and departed; after whom the mother, pierced with grief, crying out said: I adjure you, beast, by blessed Benedict, whose servant he is, that you carry my son no further, but let him go quickly. Which the wolf hearing, indeed at once set down with open mouth the one he was carrying; but suddenly leaped upon another boy, and, cutting him quickly, spurned the trunk of the carcass, and, the severed head being seized with a bite, swiftly carried it off into its lairs. From these things I gather that our blessed Peter was not only a monk of the Benedictine Order, but also abbot of the monastery of Salerno, which Bucelinus and certain other Benedictine hagiographers did not notice. Yet Constantine Gaetani observed it, when at the cited text of St. Peter Damian he noted in the margin these words: St. Peter from abbot soon became bishop of Anagni.

[4] and he is reported in the Roman Martyrology. Although our blessed Peter is not read as inscribed in the more ancient Martyrologies, yet Baronius rightly inserted him into the Roman Martyrology thus: At Anagni, of St. Peter the bishop, who, renowned first for monastic observance, then for pastoral vigilance, rested in the Lord. Rightly, I say, did Baronius insert St. Peter of Anagni into the Roman Martyrology, since his legitimate cult is established from the Acts, and other ancient instruments, which the most eminent writer had before his eyes, as he sufficiently indicates, when in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year of Christ 1105, number 13, he thus writes: In this same year St. Peter, bishop of Anagni, whose deeds St. Bruno, bishop of Segni, illustriously wrote, migrated from this life on the third day of the month of August; whom, distinguished in virtues, renowned for miracles, in the tenth year (others have the eleventh, as we shall soon say) of his Pontificate Pope Paschal reckoned among the Saints, as his diploma signifies.

[5] Then there he subjoins that diploma of the Pontiff, which in him sounds thus: The diploma of canonization is exhibited Paschal, servant of the servants of God, to the venerable brethren the bishops established at Anagni * and elsewhere throughout Campania, greeting and Apostolic benediction. Having before our eyes the excellent Lord, who is praised and blessed in his friends; and considering therefore the merits of the strenuous and approved life, by which the holy man Peter, formerly bishop of Anagni, taken up from the rule of monks, served God in the pastoral office purely, simply, with careful vigilance and by example; admiring also the marks of miracles, with which divine grace adorned its Saint before and after his death, as is faithfully noted by Bruno, bishop of Segni, and does not cease to adorn even up to our times, we by the authority of these presents will and command that it be lawful for you, on the third of the Nones of August, to keep the birthday of the same Confessor and Prelate, memorable, in the fitting celebration of the catalogue of the Saints, that in the present we may obtain grace, and in the future, by the help of divine clemency, may by his pious intercessions deserve everlasting glory. Given at Segni, on the second of the Nones of June, in the tenth year of our Pontificate.

[6] Maurus Marchesius published the same diploma or privilege of the canonization of blessed Peter, bishop of Anagni (such a title is there and in our manuscripts prefixed to it) after the works of Bruno of Asti or of Segni, volume 2, page 154. which Paschal II gave in the tenth or eleventh year of his pontificate, Moreover we have a double transcript of the same privilege, which is inserted into the manuscript Acts. But for the tenth year of the Pontificate the eleventh year is in both thus noted: Given at Segni, on the second of the Nones of June, in the eleventh year of our Pontificate. In the praised edition of Maurus Marchesius, and in one of our manuscripts, is added the year of the divine Incarnation, and that diploma is said to have been given at Segni on the second of the Nones of June, in the eleventh year of our Pontificate, in the year of the Lord 1109. But someone at this text of our manuscript carefully observed that that is an interpolation, and that the year of the Incarnation was afterward intruded by someone. That interpolation is confirmed from the Codex of canonizations, which the most illustrious Fontanini published at Rome in the year 1729, where indeed on page 10, in that diploma of Paschal II, the tenth Pontifical year is noted; but no years of the Incarnation are expressed. Add that the year of the Incarnation one thousand one hundred and nine does not cohere with the eleventh year of the Pontificate of Pope Paschal: for in the month of June of the year 1109 the tenth year of Pope Paschal was running, since in the month of August of the year 1099 he was raised to the Pontificate, as may be seen in Baronius, Pagi, and others, who examined the chronology of the Roman Pontiffs.

[7] But it little concerns us, if this diploma of canonization was published one year later or earlier; [and in which he is numbered among the Saints on account of his frequent miracles,] since from that instrument it is at least established that a few years after the death of St. Peter public honors of the Saints were decreed to him on account of the frequent miracles with which in life and after death he shone, and which in the Acts to be subjoined to this Preliminary Commentary will be narrated one by one. But I marvel that among them there is not reported in our Acts a public and most celebrated prodigy, which the above-praised Philip Ciammariconi, in the Anagnine Sanctuary, page 126 and following, commemorates from the continuous tradition of the elders, and whose traces he affirms are seen carved on marble up to now for the perpetual memory of the matter. But that the curious reader may be satisfied, we here reduce that miracle into a compendium from the Italian idiom, and leave its credit, our Acts being silent, with the tradition of the citizens of Anagni.

[8] of which one, passed over in the Acts, is here narrated. Ciammariconi, then, in the Italian Life of St. Peter of Anagni, chapter 17, narrates that prodigy in nearly this manner: While St. Peter was ordering the material for building the church of Anagni to be carried by oxen, it happened that a famished wolf by night devoured one of these oxen as it grazed. But when the drivers on the following day wished to yoke the oxen to the carts,

and found the bones of one ox, they went sadly to St. Peter, and made known to him the misfortune. But the holy Prelate without any perturbation said: Let us go; he who inflicted the loss shall bear the penalty. Then at the same time he commanded that they attach the yoke of that ox to the cart. Then, going about the fields, he found the devouring wolf, and sharply rebuked it. Whence the wolf, as if it had been endowed with reason, gave signs of penitence, and, like a gentle lamb, fell down at the feet of St. Peter. The holy Prelate, seeing this, commanded the wolf, in the name of its Creator, to undergo the yoke in place of the ox it had devoured. Soon the wolf, bowing its head, is led like a puppy to the cart, and, submitting its neck to the yoke, drew the cart with the rest of the oxen, not without the great astonishment of the citizens of Anagni, who from every side ran together to that wondrous spectacle. These things we have recorded for the Anagnine tradition, and proceed to examine the writers of his deeds.

* elsewhere: Anagnine

§ II. The Acts, and their writers.

We have only a single copy of these Acts, That our faulty copy of the Acts may more easily be understood, which is excerpted from the collection of Antonio Gallonio, which is preserved in the Vallicellan library of the Fathers of the congregation of the Oratory. But this transcript teems with so many errors, that our Papebroch noted in the margin that it must be seen whether some more correct copy could be obtained, with which ours might be collated, which is plainly faulty. But we have hitherto waited in vain for a more correct copy; and Gallonio without doubt received his from a manuscript of Anagni: for after our apograph this is noted: From a faulty and very ancient manuscript codex of the church of Anagni. Then the time of transcription is there indicated in these words: On the day the XXVI of May and Monday after Pentecost in the year 1597. I know not whether these errors are to be attributed to an unskilled copyist, who perhaps could not read the ancient characters, or to the codex itself.

[10] Since, therefore, an emended copy of the Acts is not at hand for us, a synopsis of the same Life is prefixed. we have with difficulty supplied our barbarously mangled one, and corrected it as best we could from conjecture. But since, nevertheless, even with this remedy applied, those Acts remain obscure, for the sake of clarity we here prefix a compendium of the same Acts, which Maurus Marchesius published among the works of Bruno of Segni, volume 2, page 153 and following, and which we also have in manuscript, with which it can be compared. And to this compendium is prefixed this title: The Life of St. Peter, bishop of Anagni, from that which St. Bruno, bishop of Segni, composed, briefly described by the reverend * lord Gaspar Vivianus of Urbino, and bishop of Anagni of that same church. Now the most reverend lord Gaspar Vivianus ruled the church of Anagni from the year 1579 to the year 1605, in which, an octogenarian, he died, as may be seen in Ughelli, in the Venetian edition of the Italia Sacra, volume 1, column 322.

[11] Further, that compendium of the Life in the mentioned edition of Marchesius is thus: Peter, born at Salerno of a most illustrious family of princes, which Gaspar Vivianus, bishop of Anagni, is committed by his parents to the guardianship and trust of his uncle and of the same monastery of St. Benedict of Salerno. As a little boy, bereft of both parents, he was educated by a certain religious and upright old man; then, as a youth endowed with the best morals and letters, he handed over his goods to the same monastery, and, embracing the discipline of St. Benedict, dedicated himself too to the Lord. Bearing therefore the sweet yoke of Christ from adolescence, he was both kind toward all, and gentle, and an excellent cultivator of the religious life: as one who accurately kept the monastic laws of blessed Benedict, which he had also committed to memory, and consumed all his time in fastings, prayers, and sacred readings, so that he even joined the science of law to the knowledge of divine things, since the Lord thus, without his expecting it, was instructing him for the office of the episcopal charge.

[12] Wherefore, when once Aldebrand, Cardinal and legate of the Holy Roman Church, had come to Salerno, moved by the fame of the holy man, drew from the longer Acts, he obtains him from his uncle the abbot, and leads him to Rome to Alexander the second, the Pontiff; by whom he was first set over ecclesiastical affairs, then created bishop of the church of Anagni, though unwilling, with great joy of the clergy and people. Having therefore taken up the pastoral charge, he began both to think of restoring the sacred buildings, and of recovering the possessions of his church, and also of seeking out the relics of the Saints, but especially the sacred body of blessed Magnus, by whose presence the church of Anagni was said to be adorned, and yet it did not seem sufficiently established. But God thus took away all doubt: for Peter, ordering a certain paralytic woman brought to him at that time by her husband, whose name was Franco, to pour out prayers at the sepulchre in which the body of St. Magnus was thought to be laid. And when the woman there with her husband Franco had passed the night in prayer with profuse tears, and both had returned home sad, on the following day blessed Magnus appeared to that same woman in pontifical and splendid vesture, who ordered her, restored to health, to announce to the bishop that he should no longer doubt of the presence of his body resting in the church. She obeyed, and, glad, with blessed Peter and a very numerous people, roused by the fame of so great a miracle, gave thanks at the sepulchre of St. Magnus to the most kind God for the benefits received.

[13] Peter meanwhile, some goods of his church having been recovered, while he provided for both his clergy and the needy with paternal charity, and in which certain deeds of St. Peter one night praying in the church as was his custom, beheld bishop Magnus, gleaming with great splendor, coming to him with the Mother of God, who foretold to him that he would be sent into the East to the emperor, and would drive off from him a long-standing disease, and would obtain whatever he wished for the restoration of the church. Not long after, Peter is sent as Apostolic legate to the emperor Michael at Constantinople. And when, having already discharged his office, he also set forth those things which he had seen by night in the church of Anagni; the emperor at first answered that he was utterly ignorant who blessed Magnus was, or what the church of Anagni was. But then, that night, to the emperor laboring most grievously, so that he was thought now nearly dead, blessed Magnus, veiled with pontifical infulae, and the most sacred Mother of God stood by, admonishing that, if he wished to be safe, he should comply with the Apostolic legate. The emperor, as soon as he recovered the faculty of speaking, orders the bishop to be sought; and to him, as he came, the chain (as was usual in those times) put on in the royal hall was so suddenly broken as if some brittle material were split. Therefore the emperor as a suppliant began to beg of the bishop, through the Mother of God and St. Magnus, the benefit of health, and at the same time to relate the vision.

[14] briefly narrates, Then the holy and truly clement Bishop, the aid of the most holy Trinity having been implored, of the most blessed Virgin, of St. Magnus, and of all the Saints whose sacred bones are preserved in the church of Anagni, and the ill-affected limbs having been gently handled, said, Arise, most illustrious prince, and rejoice in perpetual soundness. At once the emperor rises, and, falling at the Bishop's feet, calls him father, whom the day before he had almost repulsed as a foreign man. Finally, workmen, and a great quantity of gold, and gilded vessels being liberally assigned to him, he promises that he will also supply other expenses for finishing the basilica: which he also in fact performed. And blessed Peter, when he had for about forty-three years excellently ruled his church, on the third of the Nones of August migrated to heaven, Paschal being supreme Pontiff, by whom also he was inscribed in the number of the Saints. Here I have corrected from our manuscript some errors of the copyist or typesetter which had crept into the said edition of Marchesius.

[15] For the rest, I marvel that the most reverend Gaspar Vivianus in this compendium did not touch other deeds of St. Peter, although he plainly omits some, which in our Acts and by other authors are everywhere mentioned. For he is silent about the injury inflicted on their holy Prelate by certain men of Anagni, and about his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and some other things, which will be reported below in our Acts. Did the most illustrious author of the compendium omit these, lest he offend his people of Anagni? Or did he perhaps not find them in Bruno of Segni? Whatever the cause of the omission, and although Ferrarius in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy also made no mention of them, yet Philip Ciammariconi in the Italian Life, and other writers, did not keep silence about them. Certainly Ferdinand Ughelli sets forth the journey to Jerusalem, and its cause, in an accurate synopsis of the Acts, which in this place we shall transcribe, that at the same time the reader may know the chronological series of the deeds.

[16] which are supplied from the compendium of the Acts Ughelli, then, in the Roman edition of the Italia Sacra, volume 1, column 348 and following, thus abridged his Acts: St. Peter, bishop of Anagni, was inaugurated in the year 1062. He had as parents princes of Salerno; but as educators from boyhood the monks of St. Benedict of the monastery of Salerno, from whom, when he had most abundantly drunk in Christian piety, his parents having died, and their invidious fortunes assigned to that same monastery, he was made a monk. And when under his uncle, abbot of that monastery, he had pronounced his vows with solemn rite, he advanced so far in the perfection of the monastic life that, the fame of his holiness being spread abroad, Hildebrand the Cardinal (he who, afterward made Pontiff, was called Gregory VII), having once set out for Salerno, led Peter, drawn from the cloister by the abbot's permission, with him to Alexander II the Pontiff: whom, when Alexander, on the recommendation of Hildebrand, had set over the most grave ecclesiastical affairs, and he seemed to have brought shoulders equal to the burden, he was at last assigned bishop to the vacant church of Anagni, who, although unwilling and almost reluctant, ruled that same church with the utmost zeal of piety.

[17] It was ambiguous at that time in what part of the church St. Magnus, the invincible martyr, rested. And so Peter, which Ughelli in his Italia Sacra that he might obtain his relics, as a huge treasure, took care that a paralytic woman be placed where there was suspicion that the Saint rested. Scarcely had she touched the place, when, the disease being overcome, she was a proof that Peter had not erred in that inquiry. Even into the East Peter discharged an embassy, Alexander II sitting, in the year 1072, to Michael the new emperor of the East, whom by the mere imposition of hands he freed from a dangerous sickness of the body. Wherefore he was honored with huge gifts by the emperor, all of which he destined for the ornament of his cathedral.

[18] For the rest, virtue is not always so happy as not sometimes to suffer the calumnies of the envious: for Peter, having returned to his people of Anagni after the embassy excellently discharged, he published among the bishops of Anagni, felt adversaries, to whom he ought to have been in place of a parent. And so, wearied by their persecution, departing from Anagni in pilgrim's dress, he set out for Jerusalem with this counsel, that where Christ had poured out his supreme breath, there he himself, intent on holy works, might close his last day. But holy Magnus the martyr chastised him, as he was thinking these things, with rather sharp words, as though he were repaying a grateful return to the finder of his body, and persuaded him to return to the deserted church. He obeyed, and, clothed with new strength, and the adversities which might assail him being despised, most holily administered the church of Anagni for forty-three years (the new Venetian edition, volume 1, column 309, wrongly here reckons 48 years of governance). Then, renowned

in merits, and gleaming with miracles, he flew to heaven on the third day of the month of August 1105, that is, in the time of Paschal II, by whom he was reckoned in the roll of the Saints, as Baronius relates in volume XII. His Life St. Bruno, bishop of Segni, described, who flourished at that time.

[19] Nor did Mabillon dissemble that vexation of St. Peter, when in the Benedictine Annals at the year of Christ 1105, number 114, after other things he writes thus of him: and from the Benedictine Annals of Mabillon, After ten years of the episcopate, an embassy to Constantinople to Michael Ducas is imposed on him by the same Pontiff (namely Alexander II, whom he had mentioned a little above); who having died, he returns to his church. But when he was wearing out his labor in vain to heal the vices of his people, and was suffering various persecutions from them, he undertakes the journey to Jerusalem with the crusaders, with the intent that there he might finish the remaining days of his life, which turned out otherwise: for, recalled from his purpose by a vision of blessed Magnus, patron of Anagni, the pilgrimage completed, he sought again his church, and in it most holily lived out his life on the third of the Nones of August in this year (namely of Christ 1105), the forty-third of his episcopate: whom, illustrated by miracles, Paschal II reckoned in the number of the Saints. His Life Bruno, bishop of Segni, wrote, which has not yet been published complete in print.

[20] All authors agree that the Life of St. Peter of Anagni was written by Bruno, bishop of Segni; nay, this very thing is affirmed in the above-mentioned privilege or diploma of canonization. and in the Acts to be published below, which seem to us interpolated, But it must be altogether rare, since Maurus Marchesius, among the works of St. Bruno of Segni, which he published at Venice in the year 1651, was forced to omit it, and in its place exhibited the compendium of the most reverend Gaspar Vivianus. Moreover the just-praised Mabillon in the Benedictine Annals testifies that it has not yet been published complete in print. We indeed have, if we are not mistaken, the complete Acts of St. Peter; yet for that reason we do not yet dare to ascribe them for certain to St. Bruno of Segni: for, to pass over the anachronisms and other arguments of interpolation, in them some things are narrated about this very Bruno which St. Bruno probably did not write about himself.

[21] and about whose author we forewarn some things. Although, therefore, Baronius in the Ecclesiastical Annals cites, under the name of Bruno of Segni, some fragments of this Life, which agree almost word for word with our text, nevertheless we judge that our Acts were augmented and interpolated by someone. It would indeed be desirable that the Benedictine writers should find the genuine lucubration of St. Bruno of Segni, and insert it into the Acts of the Saints of their Order. We meanwhile publish the Life of this holy Bishop, as we can, since as we would, it is not permitted. Finally, since the copyist, unskilled in ancient characters and perhaps also in the Latin language, has miserably mangled those Acts, as we noted above, we prefer to publish them without a certain author's name, than rashly to attribute them to the learned Bruno of Segni. Now it only remains that we submit this very Life of St. Peter, supplied here and there in brackets, and emended by our conjecture, to the press and to the judgment of the reader.

* Manuscript: most reverend

LIFE

From a faulty and very ancient codex of the church of Anagni.

Peter, Bishop, at Anagni (S.)

BHL Number: 6699

CHAPTER I.

The Saint's nobility, monastic life, office in the Roman curia, episcopate, embassy to Constantinople, and certain miracles.

St. Peter, sprung from pious and noble parents, Blessed Peter, whom divine providence long ago destined bishop of the church of Anagni, was born a native of the city of Salerno, from the stock of princes, of a distinguished lineage of forefathers. His parents, conspicuous for sincerity of faith, intent on pious acts, served the Redeemer. Possessing a household ^a and opulence of goods according to the corresponding dignity of their family, they disposed to leave surviving to themselves their only offspring, received by a happy lot, as heir of a rich inheritance, of honor and of lineage. But beyond the thoughts of men, the Lord disposing, afterward Peter, an offspring of grace, is subjected by right of guardianship to the brother of his father, a religious man and upright abbot of the monastery of St. Benedict of Salerno, and the little infant is commended by the clause of last will to be protected by his uncle. As a little boy he is deprived of both parents, death following upon death; then, weaned, in his boyhood he is guarded with religious diligence. Conformed in maturity to old age, and growing strong with wholesome increases, he is instructed in the psalms and in fitting rudiments. And, assigned to fit masters, his adolescence being composed with famed honesty of manners, he is imbued with the liberal arts, and thoroughly adorned with the grace of virtues.

[2] He lived with his uncle a nursling of goodness, from whom after his early years, by humble and devout petitions, he obtained the habit, he embraces the monastic life, and, his substance being conferred on the aforesaid monastery, unencumbered he dedicated himself to the Lord, and, having duly professed the rule of blessed Benedict, by which he might be ruled and directed, tracking Christ, he is consecrated a poor monk. A son of truth, a renowned cultivator of the faith, conspicuous in his manner of life, and placid in obedience, and with exceeding modesty of mind and body, constant in patience and with sweet kindness, he bore the yoke of the Lord; and how prudently and carefully he observed the institutes of the rule committed to memory, apart from the perfection of his works and the glory of the worker, the odor of holiness flowing from the innocence and purity of Peter, is declared to the very highest clergy of the Church by those who follow: for in him charity and dutiful humility toward the cloistered and the rest, as well as observance of the virtues, so increased, that, the fragrance of his fame being spread abroad on every side, Peter was held by all a monk of singular grace of holiness.

[3] Moreover he added canonical and divine knowledge to the beauty of religion, so that, divine providence dispensing it, joining knowledge to virtue, nothing might be lacking to the perfection of a monastic man, who was being prepared rather for cathedral than for cenobitic governance. After the brief measure of sleep, by which he had laid to rest his subdued limbs, macerated with hardships for Christ, he moreover exercised continually the studies of readings; then, wearing the pavement of the church, he persisted in continual prayers. Happy, and to be watched over by pious minds, the providence of the supreme Creator, which fortifies with so many gratuitous endowments those to be set over the sacred heights, and to be preserved with blessed merits!

[4] But when divine providence had ordained that the virtue of blessed Peter should come forth into the public, lest the lamp long, in the Roman curia he is set over ecclesiastical affairs, radiant with the brightness of the divine light, be kept hidden in the cloister apart from the candlestick of dignity, but should openly profit and preside over others, Altebrand ^b, Cardinal of the holy Roman church, endowed with the office of legation, when he had visited the aforementioned monastery, the celebrated fame of the holiness of this same Peter reached him, whom he strengthened in his holy purpose, and, having asked for and obtained him from his uncle the abbot, the legate led him with him to the curia, and delivered him over to the Apostolic lord, commended by the titles of holiness and knowledge. United to the papal chaplains, the man dear to God is bidden to take part in the affairs of the Church.

[5] Afterward, approved in manifold ways by proofs of holiness and prudence, the same Apostolic lord, residing at Anagni, and then he is raised to the chair of Anagni. to the clergy and nobles of Anagni, who set forth the long vacancy of their mother church, long collapsed through neglect, yet anciently rich and endowed with very many privileges, for the sake of reformation granted them Peter, commended from his side with sacred addresses, to be taken as their prelate. But Peter, joyfully received by the vote of all, though unwilling and resisting, is honorably enthroned: he is moreover confirmed by wholesome exhortations and the oracle of the Pope; and when the day of consecration is fixed, the Apostolic lord betook himself to the city with honor.

[6] Carefully administering the pastoral office, While meanwhile, careful with provident maturity, he examined by inquiry the affairs of the church committed to him, and had found his bishopric collapsed through the neglect of his predecessors by the wearing away of its temporalities, revolving in himself with doubtful grief ^c of mind, he was inclined to renounce the collapsed church, in which neither material for the work of restoration, nor anything at all for the necessities of life, was at hand. The ancient rights of immunity indeed the privileges found contained, the most ancient documents claimed most ample possessions, which the long prescription of the preceding clergy and prelates had long usurped, or the subreption of powerful laymen detained by emphyteutic devices. But some of the more worthy and learned prelates, recognizing the wavering purpose of his mind, and judging that it must be soothed by indicative arguments, began to strengthen the elect with consolation, so that he might cast off his grief, and pour back the hope of restoration upon the Omnipotent, and upon the pledges resting in the church of Anagni, especially of blessed Magnus ^d the prelate, by whose presence of body and treasure that same church is endowed.

[7] concerning the presence of the body of St. Magnus, The kind Father commends the consolation of his sons in Christ; but he greatly doubted that the presence of so great a body was there: but that the elect might be worthily certified concerning the presence of so great a treasure, which the church of Anagni contained, a certain Franco, a plebeian native of the city, belonging to the bishopric, brought his young wife, worn out by pains and by the disease of paralysis, destitute of the functions of her limbs, to the feet of the Prelate to be inaugurated, despaired of by the remedy of physicians, demanding with humble addresses that, according to the most celebrated fame of the holy Man, he might obtain from the Lord health for his sick wife. But the Father, kindly compassionating them, grieving in body and mind, presuming nothing such of himself, subjoined before very many: Because, brethren and our fellow-citizens, in this church the most excellent body of the blessed prelate Magnus is asserted to be buried, persist at his place with humble devotion, and reverently implore his sacred intercessions. But they, according to the counsel of blessed Peter, persisting with tears and prayers until twilight, the intention of health not yet obtained, returned to their own home very sad.

[8] which was said to be in the church of Anagni, Then, dawn shining again, the said Franco left his wife, now afflicted with pains, in the place, finally despairing of her, and, the doors being bolted from outside, and carrying the key with him, laden with rakes he hastens to the wood of the farm ^e. But his wife, Donicha by name, amid the straits of her pain, recalling the previous day's consolation of the blessed Father, who had interceded, prayers being poured out for her to the Lord, beheld, by the same Lord, herself being led within the house, with an unusual light as companion, and she saw an old man of tall stature, venerable with hoariness, with cape, mitre, and stole, with fringes glittering with gold, pontifically inauled, bearing a golden pastoral staff, and thus addressing the sick Donicha: Yesterday, Donicha, beside my body, by the counsel of your Prelate, you asked a remedy of health, and although you were not heard, yet arise unharmed, and quickly seek again that intercessor and prelate of yours, saying that he should not henceforth doubt of the presence of my body, resting in its own church; but, according to the assertion of the brethren and citizens, let him know that my body was translated, and truly buried in that same church. But the woman, astonished, and in so great a grace of the vision, still held by the grief of her sickness and doubting, said that she could not leap up, to blessed Magnus, who, having clothed her in better garments, and leading her even to the door, the woman being dismissed sound, the man of the magnificent vision disappeared.

[9] The woman feels the vigor of her former health, her kinsfolk and neighbors being called out. through certain miracles The door is broken open, what happened is recounted, the health wondrously conferred is shown; a grateful and common joy of those running together arises from the portent. Then the bishop is sought, and the reverently enjoined embassy of the most blessed Magnus is fulfilled, which while it is devoutly received, thanks of praise are rendered before the tomb of blessed Magnus, that through him bishop Peter might know that his perseverance was pleasing to God and blessed Magnus

well. Hence the citizens rejoice together on every side, that in the beginning of their common new Father the Omnipotent deigns to work such things, that he may strengthen him.

[10] The day being fixed, moreover, as premised, the office of consecration having been reverently received from the aforesaid Pope, he is rendered more certain. and, by his pious largesse, ornaments radiant with gold and silks for the equipment of prelates being obtained, giving thanks, when he had been honorably received, he returns to the appointed church, in which he betook himself to vigils and prayers and pious acts. Thus holiness bore itself, joined to monastic religion and at the same time to the pastoral office. Then, through a certain Italian, greatly worn by a languor of the hand, and cured by the aid of blessed Magnus at the counsel of Peter the prelate, it was revealed to the holy Man that the body of blessed Magnus was resting in the northern part of the church, and that an altar should be dedicated over it to the supreme Trinity, in honor of the most blessed Magnus.

[11] For the man conspicuous for holiness, set as a lamp upon the candlestick of the house of the Lord, While St. Peter recovers the goods of his church, is, as is handed down, rather frequently strengthened by the solace of blessed Magnus, and through his angelic vision the Lord approved Peter to himself as a priest chosen to dedicate to him a host of praise and works of piety. Thus in the tabernacle he draws the curtain, and the two cherubim mutually regard each other, overshadowing the propitiatory. Balancing justice and quiet of mind with a temperament of peace and innocence, the Man conspicuous for circumspection, to repel calumny, by the insistence of truth recalled very many usurped and abandoned possessions of the church to their due use. The territory of the castle of the village of Morracenum, once destroyed by the depopulation of the Romans, occupied by neighbors and citizens, together with the territories of the churches of St. Mary de Lisa, St. Bartholomew, St. Clement de Griciano, with very many other farms and possessions, he vigilantly snatched from the detainers, and recalled to the dominion of the church; the castle being repaired round about, and a lofty tower built there with houses, where he received himself under protection, among which he constructed at the waters two useful mills of that same territory: from these and other recovered goods, the supports of life being obtained, and being distributed by the faithful of pious mind, although he was everywhere afflicted with want, yet abounding in the fervor of charity, he provided, as far as he could, for himself and for the needy servants of the church.

[12] Moreover by night, while he was lying down in prayer beside the altar, as he was wont, St. Magnus appears to him with the Mother of God, within the church in ecstasy and contemplation, marveling at a splendor from the East, he was astonished, and when lights of no daytime were, as it were, held in silence through the outer darkness of midnight, Peter silently attended to something prodigious. Then, after two young men in clerical habit, robed in white, bearing the cause of the light in the likeness of tapers, behold blessed Magnus, declared in signs, went before the rest of a queen, marked with a diadem, whom a retinue of virgins revealed to be the Mother of the Savior, and the holiness of majesty revealed the Mother of God. He addresses the kind Peter, the praises of his companions being loosed, with gracious words, that according to the admonitions of blessed Magnus he might perceive the cause of the apparition, and be strengthened in building his own station. Behold, says most pious Magnus; brother bishop, the Mother of God, for your consolation, that for the church and people committed to you, you may be made partaker of your vow, has appeared, that you may both recognize this place peculiarly destined by God in the veneration of God omnipotent and of himself, and endowed on account of the presence of this our body and of very many Saints by their patronizing merits, to whose worship and governance by the provision of Christ you are appointed not without mystery.

[13] [and forewarns him of the embassy to Constantinople to be undertaken, and of other future things.] But that, according to the heavenly disposition, you may receive the calling asked through you and the form in holiness of manner of life, Alexander ^f, Pontiff of the Apostolic see, and the assembly of Cardinals have decreed that, for the concord of the faith and the affairs of the Church to be transacted, you be at once destined as delegate to Michael ^g, emperor of the Greeks: and when you have happily accomplished the embassy, and have freed the prince himself from a troublesome and chronic disease, by heavenly power, by your merits and those of the Blessed resting here, you will obtain what you will have wished for the support of the building; but you will also carry back grace before kings and all. It behooves you to be diligent, O beloved of God, and to be manfully strengthened for labors, and to resist coming temptations: for you will feel labor in the work, and, in the reformation of life, persecutions of the satellites of wickedness, whom the sower of tares will stir up against you in envy of the station to be dedicated; which parasites of wickedness you will for a time rather cautiously beware: for the protection of the Savior and of his Mother will by no means, through the benefit of our visitation, renounce you. Through you indeed the church and the corresponding city will be raised up with temporal and spiritual benefits, and the successive renewal of divine grace, through the holiness of this place, by the merits of those resting therein, will not suffer the ancient glory of the city of Anagni, propagated in the superstitions of the pagans, to grow old. According to our designation, therefore, complete the venerable basilica in honor of the sublime Virgin and of all the Saints; for, the rubble being removed, stones and marbles will be at hand as material for working. The structure of the basilica being then designated round about with the pastoral staff, with the former procession bidding farewell with a blessing, the venerable vision disappeared.

[14] Then the Saint is sent to the emperor at Constantinople, Thanks having been rather frequently rendered by Peter to Christ for the consoling vision, he receives an approaching messenger, that he should be eager to hasten quickly to the Roman curia. Attended by a modest retinue, he approached the oracles: the letters of the embassy being reverently received, through vast lands, through seas, by fitting conveyances he arrived at Constantinople, the royal city, and there, as Apostolic envoy, he is honored by the Illyrians ^h, whose idiom he was skilled in. Conversations being begun, he explained the cause of the embassy: at length he asked of the emperor the subsidy enjoined through the vision, foretelling the condition, and the sequence of the vision. The emperor to this related that he had spent very much in honor of the blessed Virgin on works of basilicas. Who blessed Magnus was, or what the place of his rest, he knew not, and was utterly ignorant of the church of Anagni. Which things Peter having perceived from the logothete ⁱ, about the declining hour of light, greatly wondering, not distrustful, betook himself to his lodging.

[15] But the following night, while the emperor was lying down within the chamber of sleep, whom, while laboring with a grave disease he was seized by a customary and grave morbid affliction, and it so wore him with troubles that, greatly destitute of the benefit of his senses, he was thought dead by the chamber-persons and the courtiers of the palace. In vain were the remedies of physicians and other customary things prepared. When up to the matutinal vigils the duke was most dreadfully tormented with pains, the Mother of God and most holy Magnus, inauled, stood by, persuading the languishing duke that, for the perennial remedy of his health, he should call the monk-bishop and Apostolic envoy, and not deny to his prayers the subsidy asked by their grace. He recovers his speech at once, and demands the monk-envoy. Quickly the Prelate, being sought, approached. Wondrous to relate! On account of the incursion of those coming upon them, the chain drawn across the hall before the imperial chambers, of itself, the Prelate coming upon [it], is cut most solidly, as if a brittle material, a sword cutting through it, were parted.

[16] The Bishop, having entered, held forth in words the blessing and beauty in the sign of the Trinity. he had prodigiously healed, a huge quantity of money being received, The benefit of health is humbly asked by the prince, the signs of the vision and injunction of the exalted Virgin and of most holy Magnus are related. In the power, says blessed Peter the bishop, of the kind Trinity, of the Virgin Θεοτόκος Mother of God, and in honor of blessed Magnus, and of those whose blessed bodies rest in the church of Anagni, arise, glorious prince, and rejoice in perennial soundness: and the places of his infirmity being gently touched with the sign of the cross, the emperor too, rising up sound, thenceforth felt no more molestation; and, falling before the Bishop, called father him whom before he had reckoned as a stranger; and he began to venerate more attentively both his church and most blessed Magnus. Craftsmen are provided, and, for building the basilica, a most worthy weight of gold pieces with vessels, and choice ornaments woven with gold. It is moreover enjoined on Peter the blessed prelate, that, when the sum delivered fails, he should not postpone to return or to send; for they would bestow all things with most prompt devotion up to the completion.

[17] Having then returned, the Apostolic lord favoring, the aged walls of the greater church being demolished, Returned to Anagni, he builds the church, the foundations of the ruin being more quickly dug out, the Builder attended more studiously to the prosecution of the structure and the opening of the foundations. He had procured a remarkable heap of marbles, stones, and cement, and other things, which through the blessed Man happened not without a portent. Those running together on every side marveled, intent, the relics of the Saints being found and more diligently noted. Meanwhile, the bodies of blessed Magnus and of Secundina ^k the virgin and martyr, of Aurelia and Neomisia ^l the virgins being buried with the venerable relics of very many Saints, and pre-ordained by him as patrons of the church, he founded and erected a church in the catacombs, as had been designated to him, and as the evidence of the work manifests. But when in the northern part below he had found a marble sarcophagus, girded with iron bands, in which was the whole treasure of the body of blessed Magnus, marked with a Greek inscription, with his own hands and those of the priests he placed this sacred body in order, which, when it had been drawn and set under the altar to be built, a voice in those catacombs is said thus to have resounded: Here, it said, is your rest; here forever, with those ashen pledges, you will await the Judge of those who rise again.

[18] The venerable Builder gives thanks to God in praises, and reverently laid up the body of most holy Magnus under the same altar in that sarcophagus, in honor of the Trinity and in his name, a tribunal being built up from the west, and adorns it with various relics of Saints. but the body of blessed Secundina the virgin, and the bones, splendid with milky brightness, of the virgins Aurelia and Neomisia, in a little place beside her, under the altar of that same blessed Secundina and of all the Virgins of Christ, he placed on the right; but the other relics of the blessed Sebastian, Cesareus ^m, and of very many Saints, under their altar and that of all the Martyrs of Christ, built of white stones, and there anciently venerated with pious devotion, he laid up in the father [—] the remainder of the station; but the altar of the upper basilica he built with a marble slab in honor of the blessed Virgin and of all the Saints, heaped with sacred … relics, crypts of marble being built here of John the Baptist, there of the Apostles, with appended chapels, a bell-tower, palaces, and workshops, all which he carried out by heavenly aid and provident skill. Who of pious mind would doubt that Peter, the man of God, in the building of the temple, shared the prudence of Solomon? That he had the exquisite faith of Moses in the portents of the embassy to the Illyrian emperor, and in his pontificate the Aaronic prodigies of the levitical lot, is faithfully asserted. Peter in his acts was led by the Spirit of one and the same Redeemer, whose figure the aforesaid Fathers set forth in their virtues.

ANNOTATIONS.

* perhaps "to be consecrated"

* perhaps "in eloquence"

* perhaps "he strove" or "he attempted"

* that is, he exercised.

CHAPTER II.

The calumny fastened on the Saint, the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the return, the building of the church of Anagni, the repeated departure and return, and his personal description.

But that the man perfect in justice might be proved by a trial of patience, Alexander II the Pope happily dying, [The Saint, on account of certain calumnies of his people, having set out for Syria,] as is said, Gregory VII the Pope succeeded, who bore toward Peter the bishop the familiar heart of charity: and while between this Gregory and Henry, king of Germany, a grave dissension arose over the investiture and confirmation of the empire, blessed Peter, the work not being finished, was forced to desist: for since the bishop had then spent the money on the aid of the needy,… there began against the holy Man an attack of biting detractors, who said that he had pompously scattered the money conferred for the repairing of the church, and had not duly completed the walls and station which he had begun. If he were ruled, they said, by a sound head, he would better have propped up the old churches, and more usefully turned the rest among the servants. Now we have lost our former houses, and cannot rest within the new ones. Thus, insulting against the just Man, they notably accused him of theft of the money: which the Prelate, patiently bearing in the Lord not without fluctuation of mind, while he seemed to be temporally destitute of aid, as he himself disposed, with a naval fleet ^a for the recovery of the holy land of Jerusalem and with prince Bohemond ^b, by Apostolic license crossed over into Syria, to follow the footsteps of the ancient Fathers and of Christ, finally, according to his purpose, about to stay there. The Saint was believed by the leaders, kings, and all of the army to give impulses through the grace which not without great miracles in infirmities God bestowed through him: for he was venerated by all with paternal worship and devotion; each one sought and even attended to his admonitions and counsels.

[20] The army having returned after two years, the land of the Christians being obtained, and Peter remaining in his purpose, he is ordered to return to his church by St. Magnus appearing to him, to the anticipation of his purpose, Christ favoring, blessed Magnus stood by him, meeting him in the habit of a pilgrim, who, being asked again by blessed Peter who and whence he was; A pilgrim, he answered, I am an Italian, fleeing the fellowship of the marriage-bed: hither, for the cause of salvation, while I live, I have come to stay; and when I refuse to render to her, asking for the debt which she herself bestowed on me according to her power, the thing demanded, I ask your counsel with the rest: Shall I be saved? In vain, said Peter, in the obscenity of a criminal purpose do you here seek salvation against the marriage bond; what God has joined, let not man separate, the Lord having originally decreed it. Why, then, blessed Magnus rejoined, have you rashly renounced the church espoused to you as a spouse by the Lord through my interventions, against the counsel of your own salvation and the will of God? Now that you have fulfilled the vows of your pilgrimage, seeking again your church by the will of God, delay not to return.

[21] obeying whose admonitions, he returns to Anagni, But blessed Peter, the wholesome admonitions of the kind and Magnus Great father, as he disappeared, being received, and recognizing that he had done wrong, gave thanks and praises to God. Then, the ship being boarded, favorable eastern breezes driving [it], God favoring, he put in again at the aforementioned royal city Constantinople. With grateful honor the longed-for Father is received by the emperor ^c, to whom, staying rather long, he disclosed the return of the pilgrimage and the condition of the unfinished basilica; the greatest weight of gold, greater than the former, with the remaining silver offerings, and very many ornaments suited to divine worship, are bestowed through most devout leaders.

[22] and, increased with new gifts, he completes the building of the church. The ship being thus laden with grace, the sails being given to the breeze, he came to Palermo; whom Roger ^d, the new king, known to the kind Peter, receiving with honor, and giving over and above many things for the expenses of the ecclesiastical building, sent him back in peace. Thence sailing to Italy, the monastery of blessed Benedict at Salerno in his fatherland, in which he had been reared, being visited, and very many oratories, he arrived at Anagni, where he was received with honor. The building of the aforesaid church is very well completed with all its workshops, it is increased in the amplitude of houses and possessions, all which blessed Peter received through several largesses. Moreover in honor of the Savior and of blessed Benedict he built a chapel behind the palace, and consecrated it with his own hand, appointing for himself a chamber between that chapel and the hall, where after the untiring vigils of prayers, and the exact observance of religion, he rested on a most hard couch, and exercised himself in the study of readings; in the lowest part of which chamber he ordained a receptacle for the reception of pilgrims and guests, whereby he more vigilantly visited guests and the poor through the descent of the entrance. And he completed the church and all things with solemn perfection one by one, as had been designated to him from heaven, in the year of the Lord 1074 ^e, placing an epitaph, made by himself in carved marble, on the wall of the church in this manner:

Whoever you are that direct your step to this venerable temple, Soon acknowledge the Founder, the sower of all things. Peter the prelate founded this with supreme effort, Whom the earth begot, lofty Salerno gave to us. Say: Have mercy on him, only Son of the Father above.

[23] Although St. Peter shone with virtues, The pious Builder, gentle in kindness, prudent in aid, effective in speech, powerful in counsel, kept by grace of steadfastness all his acts with a stable purpose. Without exception he transacted forensic business with placid ministry, by canonical decision, just in himself, he rendered to each the fulfillment of justice. From those things also which divinity had temporally bestowed on him as a support, who will relate how much, more secretly, in the aids of the needy, as a provident dispenser he mercifully distributed? For he was, to the sick, as need required, a wholesome counsel, a medicinal affection, a helping visitor, with pious compassion a most orderly consoler of the sorrowful and afflicted, a defender of widows and orphans, and a most cautious helper of honest virgins intending to marry. Intent supremely on the preservation of peace and continual concord of all, for the aid of the everywhere needy of the city and region, a most welcome administrator ^f, he watched with careful diligence.

[24] For the exercise of mercy, which he most promptly pursued, he had trained a household, though modest, yet not useless, which he maintained. For the grace of a singular father and the refuge of kindness he was venerated by all, and was dear to very many of his subjects, and by the affections of all, among the known, the subject, and the neighboring, he was always loved. He judged that one did not live sufficiently and orderly, did not dispose advisedly, nor die piously at the last, who had escaped the counsel of blessed Peter, so great a prelate. Let one moderated by the balance of discretion attend, and in Peter the prelate, to be proclaimed, not moderately admire the image of careful Martha and of contemplating Mary. It was fitting to these things that the bishop, endowed with patience, should be proved by persecutions, and that his tried holiness should more widely glow red with prodigies of merits.

[25] Certain of his subjects, abusers of the clerical order, yet on account of the envy of certain men he again departs, suspecting that Peter the father of the household, the conserver and provident dispenser, was keeping the money, which he had spent on the building in pious acts and the aids of the needy, hidden perhaps for his own use in the treasuries of avarice, stirred up by the spirit of traitorous envy, longed to break through the wall between the hall and the chamber of the just Man, so that, the prelate being called or, killed, they might lay hands on the things which miserably greed suggested: which, when it became known to the ever-watchful Pastor, the Spirit revealing it, the chamber-priest being roused, he descended with him through the entrance by which he was wont to visit pilgrims and the poor, and, conveyances being carefully prepared, he disposed to make for Rome, for the sake of yielding to the scandal, there finally to stay. He then sets out, one servant on foot going before.

[26] Blessed Magnus, taking ill the departure of his bishop, appeared by a vision of the night to the doorkeeper of the enclosure of the church, Andrew by name, so contracted in his feet, shins, and one of his arms that he could scarcely walk supported by a staff, and by a miracle and admonition of St. Magnus he is recalled, commanding that, going more quickly, he should recall the departing Bishop, and indicated the place toward the city where Andrew should reach the Bishop to be recalled; but while the doorkeeper excused himself by the impediment of his lameness, blessed Magnus said to him as he trembled: Rise up in haste; divine power has healed you by the merits of the Bishop, and from this, hastening, recognize his benefit. Andrew, giving thanks, leaped up nimble with bounds, and at the appointed place, at dawn's lightening, saw the Prelate going before. The companions being called out, the voice of the following traveler is recognized. The Bishop stopped, and at the approach of the doorkeeper recognized him prodigiously made solid; and Andrew, reaching there, fell down, and, the feet of the holy Father being kissed, related and showed what had happened, the commands of blessed Magnus the recaller being disclosed.

[27] But Peter, astonished and believing, thus addresses his companion and servant: who, returning to the city The ship is tossed, brother, by dangerous impulses, thus resisting the Spirit. Returning, let us be exposed to temptations, and, repenting, meeting [it] in that which we did ill, let us take the vigor of the Spirit, and seek martyrdom, the Lord disposing, since with the temptation there will come an outcome. Meanwhile the cause of the Prelate departing by night, being known, universally disturbed the citizens, and greatly confounded those conspiring. But at the following sixth hour the aforesaid doorkeeper, rejoicing, went before the returning Bishop, whom, once contracted, now walking solidly on foot, as many as dwelt in the city of Anagni beheld, and ran together marveling, and doubted not at all that it had happened by the holiness of the most sacred Prelate; whom accompanying and extolling Christ with praise, with resounding fame the city universally met the returning Pontiff: with one devotion the subjects rejoiced together with the returning Father, and in the healed cripple more perfectly extolled the prodigious merit of the Father; whose extolling of opinions and voices Peter kindly restrained, silence being enjoined, saying that the miracle was done not by his merits, but by those of blessed Magnus, and confirmed it by the testimony of the doorkeeper, most certainly desiring to escape the praises of the people.

[28] is received with great applause, The city is entered as he proceeds, and they go … to the cathedral church …, where he found a matron long known, Lisa by name, worn out by a bedridden

and bent chronic disease, destitute of the aid of physicians, although she had spent very much for the recovery of health; who, roused by the fame of the returning bishop, troublesome to her household, is placed with her little bed beside the way by which the wonderful Prelate was about to pass, hoping by his aid to obtain some remedy of her languishing pain. She is said thus to have adjured the Bishop as he passed among the households: In the power of God, at the exhortation of blessed Magnus and Secundina, most pious Father, that it may be done with me as it was done with Andrew the doorkeeper, delay not, I beseech, to implore divine clemency for me, a wretched woman. The holy Peter to this, halting with gentle compassion, the sign of the Trinity being held forth, looking to heaven, began, bending down, thus to address the sick woman: In the power, he said, of the holy and undivided Trinity, of the blessed Mother of God and virgin Mary, of blessed Magnus, and of those whose relics of bodies rest in their basilica, arise, Lisa, and together with us hasten to render thanks and honor to God and to those Saints in their place. And now, suffering nothing, once sick, she fell down before the Bishop, and, leaping up sound, the crowds marveling and proceeding, she enters the place of the public station.

[29] and works various miracles, The fame of the miracle meets [him], and the devout procession of clerics, and the Father is received with joyful devotion; with the reverent kiss of peace of those going before and the embraces of charity, pardon is implored, and mutually on both sides more graciously obtained. The church being at last entered, it resounds with hymns and praises, by the harmony of voices and minds a common gladness is made. With every kind of religion, of sexes and ages, the city rings, and from the diocese men ran together, obtaining sure confidence that by the imposition of the hand of the man of God they would carry back health from various languors; among whom, while a certain man possessed by a demon is offered, and in the oratory, prayer being poured out before the altar and a hand imposed, at the same time when they rise from prayer, the possessed man is restored to his former health, and the departing spirit is put to flight. The prodigious power and piety of our Savior resounds with the jubilee of mind and mouth, which established Peter the venerable prelate upon the firm rock of the purpose of holiness, so that by conformity to the footsteps of the Prince of the Apostles the Prelate might henceforth obtain, for his merits, dignity in miracles.

[30] after which the biographer describes his person. And that the quality of so great a Father, and the disposition of his person, may shine forth in contemplation, and the memory of his devotion; he was of middling stature, striking in look and gesture, cheerful of face; notable neither for leanness nor for fleshiness, except so far as he was made lean by abstinence; comely in a holy pallor, venerable with flowing beard and hoariness, modest and affable in speech. His voice was middling, neither feeble in silence, nor robust in shouting: a persuader of the right, glad in his eyes, of honorable charm, his gait to be marked neither by swiftness nor by slowness, he displeased no one by his acts, just without any respect of persons, having said to none anything to repent of. Truly blessed, whom no violence changed, nor did pride make swollen, nor did anger inflame his spirit, nor did rapacity disquiet him against his subjects or anyone: cruelty did not goad him, lust did not cast him headlong, nor did ambition delight him. He proved a lover of the secret and of solitude, where he might be subjected to no heat of the sinister, nor to a hurtful approach; but where he is made his own persecutor, and a despiser and subduer of his own flesh. Most pure, worldly adornment being laid aside, … made a dwelling-place of virtues, fixed on God, and a despiser of his own glory, a temple of peace, full of the Spirit of God. He is rendered, indeed, like and conformed to the footsteps of the Most High, in whose law continually meditating, he himself most exactly observed His will.

ANNOTATIONS.

* Or "killed"?

CHAPTER III.

The Saint's illness, prophecy, death, burial, successors, and some miracles.

But when it was destined from heaven that the man, worker of virtues, should be called from his sojourn in the world to his fatherland, The Saint, falling sick, calls together his canons, from labors to rest, and, now an angelic citizen, should enjoy the fellowship of those above, worn out by venerable old age, and in the summer time seized by a febrile disease, he lay down on his bed, notable for no murmur or complaint on account of his pains. Then, his canons or associates being called, My end, he said, Christ ruling, I have perceived, which to you, brethren in the Lord, at least for the honor with which I loved the beauty of your mother church, I recommend. And lest, with the other virtues, he should be deprived of the spirit of prophecy, he is said to have subjoined: A bishop, whom you shall have through the sevenfold Leader ^a for the provision of my successor in the episcopal see, the primicerius, archpriest and vicedominus, behold, the divine disposition prepares for you …

[32] and foretells them various things, Strive faithfully to hold with your hand the honor of the holy mother church of Anagni, which, founded first on Apostolic foundations, repaired by the aid of the heavenly disposition, to be enlarged and exalted with spiritual and temporal lodgings by the successive increases of peace and concord (the fruit, indeed, of charity), I meanwhile counsel, and establish my testament. The venerable Bruno, bishop of Segni, by pious instinct, the light restored, coming to commend my death with worthy suffrages, we follow in the Lord, and his honor and fittingly his holiness we commend to you, that you may be, with the Saints, after Christ and the Virgin Mother, devoted venerators of him. Mindful of the holy pledges and bodies resting in the bosom of your basilica, do not omit to implore the Redeemer with continual suffrages for those bestowing aid on the church.

[33] and, the Sacraments of the Church being received, dies piously Then, the viaticum of the Sacraments being received with the utmost veneration, his hands joined upward, he prayed as much as he was able for the church, clergy, and people committed to him, and for the salvation of the faithful with all his vows to the Lord, and thus, amid the hands of religious priests and associates, his spirit being commended to the Redeemer, full indeed of age, and no less of the Spirit of God, he migrated from the world to heaven: at whose death, at the beginnings of the night, in expression of the holiness of the Man, the bells of the church of themselves gave a wondrously harmonious peal. And blessed Peter the bishop died on the third day of the month of August ^b in the year of the Lord one thousand one hundred and five, in the sixth year of the Pontificate of lord Paschal the second, the Pope. He ruled and advanced the church of Anagni in the grace of God and of the Apostolic See for more or less forty-three years.

[34] and is honorably buried. A sweet fragrance indeed flowing from the body of the blessed Man proved his holiness; at whose truly wondrous death the city, down to the boys, came together; and these lamented with tears that they had lost a father, those a foster-father; but others the aid, the counselor, and the protection of the city, of each one: but by the health of the languishing accompanying [it] on every side their grief was loosed, and in the sight of the pious multitude the kind body was thought sweetly asleep rather than dead. But Bruno, the aforesaid bishop of Segni, while in the church of blessed Peter … of his city he kept vigil in prayers in the silences of the night, seeing from a watchtower a kindled light over the city and church of Anagni, and a chant of the heavenly ones in the air, foreboding the death of St. Peter, rouses his household, and, conveyances being prepared, hastened to Anagni: after tears of pious compassion, he commended the death of blessed Peter the prelate to the Savior of all with worthy obsequies, and within the church, with his own hands and those of the priests, honorably gave [him] to burial. But afterward, before the clergy and people gathered together, that he might raise up all, greatly bereaved, from the matter of grief, concerning the uprightness of his life, the fruit of his works, and also his prodigious end, he discoursed with a most eloquent sermon ^c, and commended the merit of the blessed Man. After a time at length, concerning his life and glorious acts, by sanctioned authority, he published a treatise, and delivered it to the church of Anagni. Although wondrous, yet by faith it is held certain, that to Peter the praiseworthy servant of God, and to those reverently imploring his protection, and loving God, all things work together for good; and he himself, who consoles his own, is wonderful in his servants, and is magnified in his Saints, in whose sight the death of his Saints, which begins eternal life, is rendered precious as much by the examples of virtues as by miracles.

[35] After the glorious death of the kind Prelate, while to his tomb from various regions there came together the lame, A certain blasphemous cleric the sick, … the possessed, and many were healed by heavenly piety, and thence a concourse of the faithful was made for praises, and a sound of bells, a certain cleric, not by merits, but by false habit of body, one of the rest of the detractors from the holy Man, together with his right arm raised up an extended forefinger, and, concerning the report of the miracles and the praises, detestably said against holy Peter of God: If this man is holy, and the things which are said of him are true miracles, let him, if he can, cripple this finger of mine: at whose detestable imprecation his forefinger, with the arm stretched out, drawn by a violent pain, so inflexibly stiffened that in no way could he bend the arm and forefinger back into a state of health.

[36] Running about the square before the mother church, like a madman, is mercifully punished, he murmured with groans, seeking to be helped by some remedy from the bystanders; but crying out that he was deplorable and wretched, he is at last led in, by the sound deliberation of the pious mind of the bystanders, who knew his insolence and venerated in the Lord the holiness of the blessed Man, before his mausoleum, and, acknowledging himself guilty of a detestable imprecation, by the prayers and tears of those assembling the cleric recovered the function of his broken limbs; but as long as he lived, he felt some traces of those pains, that perhaps he might be more attentively pricked in conscience, his former grief [c] being by no means removed. Wonderful in those servants whom the Redeemer decreed his friends is the love of piety, that at their footsteps the perversity of detractors may be humbled and brought to the very patronage of salvation and grace.

[37] Although against the life and deeds of blessed Peter certain envious men rose up, and St. Peter is honored by the bishops his successors, from the strenuousness of the miracles

and glorious fame of blessed Peter they remained confounded. And there succeeded blessed Peter, according to his own presage, Oddo ^d the primicerius, which Oddo the successor, holding the church a short time, died; to whom succeeded Peter ^e the archpriest, who by the nobility of his holiness and life adorned his pastoral solicitude. He translated the body of blessed Peter the confessor and bishop, bright with miracles, by devout revelation and the sanction of lord Paschal the second, the Pope, with hymns and praises down into the catacombs, and placed it in a mausoleum beside blessed Magnus. This Peter the successor also, with Alchimus and Alimannus the bishops, cast down from their own sees on account of the desolation of the wars, and received for the sake of hospitality by this same Peter, lord Paschal aforesaid residing at Anagni, brought and left a codex written concerning the translation of blessed Magnus from Veroli, then to Anagni, and concerning the miracles wrought by him at Anagni. He ruled the church for a long time and rested in peace; to whom succeeded Oiolinus ^f the vicedominus, third in the prelacy of the see of Anagni from blessed Peter, who, venerating him, ruled the church for a suitable time, adorning happily his life and acts with it. A happy work and grateful succession of the blessed Father, the most sacred priest, that in the threefold successor now foretold he might be recognized as a most exact worshipper of the Trinity, and that among posterity, by the threefold and worthy testimony of his succession, the reputation of his virtues might be approved.

[38] It is worthily believed that there must be added to the foregoing that, many times having elapsed from the death of blessed Peter the confessor ^g,… by his merits a wondrous thing occurred. From the side of a sleeping noble matron, a little old-woman's darling little boy, and an only one, was being nursed, by whose intercession the little son of a certain matron, the little boy fell, being perhaps guarded incautiously: whom, when, waking, the stupefied woman had gathered up as he wailed, she found him with his bones broken against his throat, only a livid little skin remaining in pieces … the matron cried out herself wretched at the loss of her first and only offspring with tearful wailings. On account of the pain of the deadly wound, which was recognized continually by the evidence of touch from the wailing of the boy, the little infant, despaired of by the physicians for the restoration of health, seemed to the matrons and midwives now about to die. The grieving and groaning matron, the more she is afflicted with grief for the loss of her offspring, is consoled in vain. At length, God favoring, the mournful mother is directed before the mausoleum where the body of blessed Peter the bishop rested. On the day of the vigils of his festival she carried the wounded and wailing infant, and the parent, commending him to the blessed Confessor with addresses of the mind, if he should be restored to health, promised also with firm resolve that he should be devoted to the service of the Saint.

[39] who had implored his aid, The evening praises being completed, the mother carried the infant home, and after the twilight of the coming night placed him, weeping, in his cradle: but the lady herself had been touched by a little sleep; and when, wearied with groanings, she had awakened, trembling, because she did not perceive the boy wailing, suspecting his death, her husband being roused, together with a light they beheld the infant with open eyes, indicating health to his parents with a placid smile. But when his parents by touch recognized the places of the wounds solid, and that the infant accordingly trembled in nothing, they extolled the holy Confessor and Prelate with praises of exultation, the matron firmly asserting that in the likeness of a most gracious old man, that she should not fear for the boy, through a vision of a little sleep the kind Father had truly indicated.

[40] is wonderfully healed. The feast day is kept by the parents and neighbors; and the boy is carried to the sarcophagus with candles and lights, and, in the portent of the little infant's restored health, the divine Majesty is praised in the most saving Confessor. But after the boy recovered, and, disciplined, took the clerical habit, it is indicated to him by his mother that he should acknowledge himself devoted to blessed Peter the confessor and prelate on account of the health restored in him from a mortal wound in tender age: who afterward, according to his power, did not keep silence about the praises of the holy Confessor, following him with the affections of a most devout mind, and also with ample rewards. In blessed Peter the confessor and bishop the divine justice too is to be extolled with praises, which for the health of the faithful magnified its Saint by the goodness of virtues and of faith.

ANNOTATIONS.

* Or "announcing"?

* that is, foreboding

* perhaps "obsequies"

* that is, grief

* elsewhere: holy

* elsewhere: Aldisinus

* that is, of wars