ON ST. WALTHEOF, ABBOT
OF THE CISTERCIAN ORDER IN SCOTLAND
In the year 1159 OR 1160.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Waltheof, Abbot, in Scotland (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR G. C.
§ I. The immemorial cult of the Saint is proved from various monuments.
In the monastery of Melrose in Scotland, whose site our Bollandus described in the Acts of St. Boisil at the day the XXIII of January, and concerning which Gaspar Jongelin in the Notice of the abbeys of the Cistercian Order, book 8, page 14 and following, treats more fully, The Saint, by most Martyrologists in Scotland, beyond the middle of the twelfth century died St. Waltheof, whom others call Wallenus or Waltherus, and by neighboring names of this kind, as will appear through the course of this Preliminary Commentary. In this place that holy Abbot both in life and after death shone with many miracles, and prodigiously conferred the benefit of health on various sick persons imploring his aid, as will appear from the Acts, written by a nearly contemporary author, which after this Commentary we shall publish from two manuscript apographs collated with each other. But since we are ignorant whether in Scotland there still survive any traces of the ancient veneration, or whether, after the public exercise of the Catholic religion was there proscribed, the sacred relics of that Man were translated elsewhere, we shall dig out the immemorial cult of this Saint from the Menologies.
[2] Besides the nearly contemporary writer of the Acts and Capgrave, who testify concerning the ancient cult of St. Waltheof, by some in England Greven inserted the same, under the name of Waltenus, abbot and confessor, after other Saints into the Usuardine supplements, as may be seen in our illustrated Usuard at the day the III of August. To Greven, concerning whom our preface to the cited edition of the illustrated Usuard, page 48, may be consulted, next in age or synchronous among the Martyrologists is Richard Whitford, an English monk, whose Martyrology was printed in English at London in the year of Christ 1526, in which he briefly mentions the monastic profession, virtues, and miracles of St. Waltheof, and suggests that he too was honored with the honors of the Saints at York in England, when at the day the III of August, in his annual festival, he reckons this city alone. Did he perhaps there obtain a singular cult, because he had lived for some time in various monasteries of the territory of York, or was descended from the province of York, which his grandfather once possessed, as we shall see in the Acts to be given below? Or were perhaps some relics of that Saint translated to York?
[3] Whatever was the true cause of this veneration, other hagiologists everywhere announce the same Saint in the monastery of Melrose in Scotland, is announced, where he discharged the office of abbot, and made the end of his life. But John Wilson in the English Martyrology, which he published in the year of Christ 1608, on the day the III of May commemorates our Saint under the name of Walter, and in his English eulogy wrongly places the monastery of Melrose in Northumbria on the borders of Scotland, whereas, according to the geographical maps and various topographers, he ought to have assigned it to Scotland on the borders of Northumbria. That Martyrologist also is deceived, when, too incautiously following Leslie, he asserts that that holy Abbot of Melrose was born of David, king of Scotland. But similar errors of his and of others we shall detect below.
[4] where he had an immemorial cult; Up to this point Wilson had prudently announced only one St. Waltheof or Walter; but in the second edition of his Martyrology, which was printed in English in the year 1640 with certain additions and changes, out of this same Saint he made two: for on the day the III of May he celebrates him under the name of St. Walter, and adorns him with a eulogy as the son of David, king of Scotland; but on the third day of August he announces the same, under the name of St. Waltheosus (in English Waltheof), as a different saint, and there hands down that he was the son of Simon, count of Huntingdon. But that good man was led into error by others, as we shall see in the following paragraph. Meanwhile in his Martyrology he adds, to our purpose, that the memory of this Saint is celebrated in the whole kingdom of Scotland, and that there once existed many chapels and altars erected in his honor, which the enemies of the Catholic faith, to the utmost grief of the Christian world, have now destroyed.
[5] nay, was solemnly reckoned in the catalogue of the Saints Nor did St. Waltheof have only such monuments of public veneration, but he was also solemnly inscribed by the Apostolic See in the catalogue of the Saints, if credit is to be given to Claude Chalemot, who at the day the III of May in the Cistercian Menology celebrates the annual memory of that canonization in these words: In Scotland, the inscription or public canonization of St. Wallenus, once abbot of Mibrasa (without doubt he meant to say Melrose), made on account of the huge miracles wrought at the tomb of this Saint, and the most pure life which he once led there. In the margin he cites Arnold Wion, who in the Tree of Life, book 4, chapter 24, near the end, has this concerning the same Saint: At length, many miracles being wrought, he was received into the society of the Blessed on the fifth of the Nones of May. Would that one or the other had brought forward some authentic instrument of this solemn canonization, or at least an ancient testimony.
[6] it is said by Chalemot, Nevertheless Chalemot at the day the I of August in the mentioned Menology again confidently ascribes the same solemn canonization to the Apostolic See, after he has reduced the chief deeds of St. Waltheof into a compendium, in which he transfers the Saint from Scotland to England, and changes his name, as is clear from the same eulogy, which for the clearer understanding of what follows we here transcribe: In England, St. Wallerius, abbot of Melrose, who, sprung of royal race and blood, and from his very cradle by piety
devoted, at Kirkham first, was bound to the warfare of Christ in the monastery of the Regular Canons of the Order of St. Augustine, and under the regular observance led an angelic life; and being chosen Prior of that monastery on account of his most innocent manners, and set over the rest of the others, with much praise he shone before all by work and example.
[7] But when he advanced day by day, and a more ardent desire of a still stricter observance grew upon him, which a sufficiently accurate straightway, others not being consulted, he went to Rievaulx, a monastery of the Cistercian Order, where, after the usual probation, being received to solemn profession, by his examples he ravished all to admiration of him. Whence a little after, appointed abbot of Melrose in Scotland, he submitted himself to the burden only unwillingly: for, humbled and despised in the cloister, he always most longed to lie hidden, but, compelled by obedience, the dignity being received, he judged himself called not to delights, but to labor, and thus, become severe toward himself, he needed the bridle rather than the spur, lest, breaking his body too much with hard scourgings, hair-shirt, fasting, and the other penances, he should succumb to the work. But being lavish toward the sick and needy, he is said once to have sustained four thousand of the poor, famine pressing, for six months, not without a miracle, with bread which would scarcely suffice for fifteen days.
[8] Intent also very often on the contemplation of the mysteries of our redemption, on the feast of the Nativity of the Lord, during the celebrating of Mass, a compendium of the Acts he deserved to handle the boy Jesus with his own hands, not only under the species of bread, but also under a visible form, miraculously, several standing by beholding and marveling at the prodigy. He once saw the heavens unbarred and opened before him. He was distinguished by miracles; to the dropsical coming to him he restored health; nay, he healed many sick; and thus, known for his virtue and holiness, the most ample dignities offered him by the king, especially the bishopric of St. Andrews, he spurned, and would not accept.
[9] Illustrious to God with many titles of virtues and glory of merits, after several other pious works, he inserted into his Menology, and the Sacraments of the Church being received, and very many saving admonitions given, he rested with a holy end, all weeping, in the year one thousand one hundred and sixty-three from the restoration of salvation, as the history of the same Saint testifies. But being dead he manifested his glory and blessedness to certain religious men: and afterward, on account of the frequent miracles which were done at his tomb, he was inscribed with solemn rite by the Apostolic See in the number of the Saints, and is worshipped as a saint. We easily admit that this Waltheof obtained from time immemorial the customary honors of the Saints in Scotland and England; but we shall not assert that he was solemnly reckoned among the Saints by the Apostolic See, until more trustworthy testimonies of this matter are brought forward. Further, the year of his death, which is expressed in the compendium of the Acts already related, we shall examine afterward on another occasion.
[10] Chalemot also in assigning the day of his death and cult differs from others, when in the same Menology at the day the IX of August he thus writes: although in assigning the day of his veneration he differs from others. In the monastery of Melrose, the deposition of blessed Wallenus the abbot, whose life and illustrious acts we related above at the first of August, on which day his venerable memory is kept, celebrated in Scotland on account of the miracles which are wrought at his sepulchre for the sick. Nevertheless he cautiously in that triple commemoration of the same Saint avoided the rock on which nearly all the others struck, when on various days they announced the same Saint in their Martyrologies as a different one. Now we shall try to detect their error, and its origin: for what has been said hitherto we think suffices to show the legitimate cult of St. Waltheof, which, however, will be confirmed by what is to be said in the course of this, and by the very Acts to be given below.
§ II. The inconsiderate confusion of this same Saint with another, the false multiplication or duplication, and the origin of this last error.
Wion wrongly confused St. Waltheof of Melrose Molanus in the Additions to Usuard announces St. Walter or Gualterius on the third of May (this was the day on which the body of that holy abbot of Pontoise had been translated) in this manner: At Pontoise, of St. Walter the abbot. Hence Arnold Wion by no means seized the occasion of erring offered him, when in book 3 of the Tree of Life, in the monastic Benedictine Martyrology, at the day the III of May he repeats the same announcement of Molanus, and to it notes thus: Of Walter the abbot, or Gualterius, and concerning whom Molanus in the Additions to Usuard on this day. Concerning the same treats John Leslie On Scottish affairs, book 6, in the reign of king David, whose son this Gualterius was, who, a rich canonry and the bishopric of St. Andrews being refused, enclosed himself in a monastery, and could scarcely at length be induced to become abbot of Melrose about the year 1180. Here an anachronism of twenty and more years will readily appear from what is to be said below.
[12] I know not by what reasoning Wion could be moved to confuse St. Waltheof, abbot of Melrose, with St. Walter or Gualterius, abbot of Pontoise: with St. Gualterius, abbot of Pontoise in Gaul, for what has Pontoise of Gaul to do with Scotland? Moreover the Acts of St. Waltheof of Melrose have nothing in common with the Acts of St. Walter of Pontoise, which we illustrated in our work in volume I of April from page 753 at the day the VIII of that month, on which the latter departed from the living. Whence Menard in the Martyrology of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, book 1 of the observations, at the third day of May rightly notes the following: This St. Walter, son of David, king of Scotland, has nothing to do with the town of Pontoise in Gaul between the borders of the Parisians and the Normans. But the cited Molanus on this day looked to another Walter or Gualterius, abbot of the monastery of St. Martin at Pontoise, concerning whom we shall have to treat in a second treatise. But although he avoided that confusion of a double Saint, yet he wrongly duplicated the same St. Waltheof, as we shall say afterward.
[13] which error Ferrarius and Dempster blindly embraced, Philip Ferrarius blindly followed Wion, when in the general Catalogue of the Saints at the day the III of May he announces at Pontoise in Gaul the annual festival of St. Gualterius the abbot, and in the notes to the text of his Martyrology adds this: He was the son of David, king of the Scots, who, the archbishopric of St. Andrews being constantly refused, made a monk, could scarcely be induced to become abbot of Melrose about the year 1180. Concerning him John Leslie, book 6 On the Deeds of the Scots, and Arnold Wion, book 4 of the Tree of Life, where he is also named Walterius. Thomas Dempster, for the sake of his fatherland, avidly swallowed this gross error, and in his Scottish Menology at the day the III of May thus writes: At Pontoise, of Gualterius the holy, son of king David; who, the bishopric of St. Andrews being despised, put on the monk, and shone with the glory of miracles. More cautious in this place, contrary to his custom, was David Camerarius, who in book 3 On the Piety of the Scots, at the day the III of May acknowledges only a single St. Walther or Gualterius, abbot of Melrose, although he there wrongly calls him son of king David.
[14] It is not enough for Dempster to have confused today's St. Waltheof with the already-mentioned St. Walter or Gualterius of Pontoise; who, the latter, also multiplies St. Waltheof, but in addition he multiplies the same St. Waltheof in his Scottish Menology, and foists him on us as different, that he may increase the number of his native Saints. In the first place, on the day the XXII of May he announces him thus: At Melrose, of Waltheof the abbot, who, a king's son sprung from that holy and blessed generation of the holy Malcolm and Margaret, spurned the bishopric of St. Andrews and the archbishopric of York, when he had been canonically elected, and, the place of his sepulchre being indicated, HERE, HERE, he said, IS MY REST. Thus a worker of many miracles fell asleep, so munificent toward the poor that, when he had consumed the food of the monks by distributing it, and had fallen into a scarce harvest, he doubled the produce of the granaries.
[15] Then at the day the XII of July he thus mentions him: At Melrose, the elevation of the most holy abbot Waltheof, and fraudulently exhibits to us the same Saint under various forms. at whose exhortation holy king David his brother had founded monasteries, as also another brother, Simon, count of Aumale, had erected two monasteries at Northampton in England, and his nephew Henry, count of Huntingdon, applied his mind to increasing divine worship. Here note that St. Waltheof, from son of David, as Dempster above at number 13 had asserted, is in this place made brother of the same king. Moreover in the same Scottish Menology at the day the III of August the elevation of Waltheof the abbot at Melrose is again commemorated, and finally at the day the IV of August he is again brought in under another form thus: At Melrose, the death of Waltheof, a most holy old man, and, as I think, an abbot, a king's son. But why does he here doubt whether that St. Waltheof was the abbot whom before he had confidently called abbot, unless to suggest that that most holy old man was different from the former St. Waltheof, and thus, by multiplying the Saints of Scotland, to illustrate his fatherland, or rather to obscure it by his fictions? But that patcher of fables has already so often been convicted of fraudulent trifles of this kind, that I may not undeservedly seem to have spent superfluous labor in relating his words.
[16] Wherefore let us proceed to those writers who imprudently made a double saint out of one St. Waltheof. Hugh Menard, Among these first occurs Menard, who in his above-mentioned Martyrology at the day the III of May has this: In the monastery of Melrose, of the venerable Gualterius, son of David, king of Scotland. Then at the day the IX of August, the name being somewhat changed, he announces the same thus: In England (he had better said in Scotland), of blessed Wallenus the abbot of the Cistercian Order. Then in book 2 of the observations at this latter text of his Martyrology he notes the following: Blessed Wallenus was the son of Machtildis, daughter of St. Wallenus the count and martyr, who was buried at Croyland. His father was Simon, count of Huntingdon. First he was a canon in the monastery of St. Oswald in the diocese of York, then a Cistercian monk in the monastery of Warden, and, transferred to Rievaulx, was made abbot of Melrose, renowned for miracles in life. These things truly agree with our St. Waltheof, who was the son of Simon, count of Huntingdon, and stepson of David, king of Scotland; but that one is the same as the Walter above, who is wrongly called son of David, king of Scotland, as we shall show below. Menard, and others erring, was followed by Gabriel Bucelinus, who in the Benedictine Menology distinguishes St. Wallenus from Walther, and on the day the III of May and the IX of August adorns both with distinct eulogies, although he ascribes to each the abbatial dignity in the monastery of Melrose. I pass over Antony of Heredia, and other Benedictine writers, who did not observe this deception.
[17] and Chrysostom Henriquez Among the Cistercians into the same error fell Chrysostom Henriquez, who in the Menology of his Order at the day the III of May thus writes: In Scotland, St. Gualterus, son of king David,
who was so estranged from the vain, fleeting, and enticement-filled things of the world, that, the various dignities with which he had been endowed being refused, and even the bishopric of St. Andrews being left, he enclosed himself in a monastery, where, when he had lived most holily for a long time, he was created abbot of the monastery of Melrose of the Cistercian Order, and, many miracles being wrought, most piously died, and was inscribed in the number of the Saints. To this text of his Menology he there asserts in the notes that that St. Gualterus was the one whom David, king of Scotland, received from his second wife, and took care to have educated from very infancy in holy manners; and endowed him with the canonry of St. Oswald, and the honorable and most ample priory of Kirkham, and at length promoted him to the bishopric, all which he left, that he might give his name to the Cistercian order. But how did David, king of Scotland, receive him from a second wife, since he had only one wife, Matilda, widow of count Simon, and mother of our St. Waltheof, as we shall say afterward?
[18] out of one and the same St. Waltheof Henriquez in the same notes complains of Arnold Wion, because in the Tree of Life he says that that St. Gualterus was a Benedictine, no mention being made of the Cistercian Order, whereas nevertheless it is established that the monastery of Melrose from the times of St. Bernard belonged to the Cistercians, as the holy man himself testifies in the Life of St. Malachy, chapter 15. Then he there subjoins the testimony of St. Bernard, which in the Cologne edition of his works, which appeared by the zeal and labor of Jacobus Merlo Horst in the year 1641, volume 4, page 131, is read thus: In the very city of York there came to him a man noble according to the world, Wallelvus by name (understand our St. Waltheof or Wallenus, as will be established from his Acts to be given below), then Prior at Kirkham of the regular brothers; but now a monk and father of monks in the monastery of Melrose of our Order, who devoutly and humbly enough commended himself to the prayers of Malachy. To these is subjoined the story of the horse which St. Waltheof gave to St. Malachy, and which was prodigiously changed, as will be narrated below in our Acts, number 27 and following.
[19] a double Saint In the mentioned Menology of the Cistercian Order at the day the IX of August Henriquez announces the same Saint, as a different one, in these words: In Scotland, blessed Wallenus, most noble in splendor of blood, who from a regular canon made a Cistercian monk, was elected abbot of Melrose. He was a most rigid chastiser of his own body. In a time of famine he blessed grain scarcely sufficient for two weeks, and it abundantly sufficed not only for the brethren, but also for four thousand of the poor for three months. He contemplated during the chanting the divine mysteries of our redemption, expressed to the life by a heavenly revelation. Celebrating Mass on the Nativity of the Lord, he saw the boy Jesus in his hands, crowned with a golden crown glowing with star-bearing gems, who with serene countenance and gentle clapping of the hands, touching his head and face, caressed him, and, as it were applying head to head and mouth to mouth, imprinted frequent kisses. He saw the heavens open during prayer. He put to flight a demon which tried to terrify him. He healed the dropsical by a mere touch. He spurned the bishopric of St. Andrews offered to him, and at length, distinguished by signs and virtues, fell asleep in the Lord, admirable for miracles even after death.
[20] I cannot marvel enough that Henriquez in this place did not detect his own error, imprudently made, since here too he alleges the above-mentioned testimony of St. Bernard. How could he persuade himself that the same narration of St. Bernard pertains to different Saints? How does he accommodate the same words of his mellifluous Father to each Saint, as if distinct? Moreover in this place in the notes to the repeated text of the holy Doctor he observes the following: He calls him a man noble according to the world, because he was son of Simon, count of Huntingdon, and uncle of Malcolm and William, kings of Scotland: for his mother Machtildis after the death of Simon married David, king of Scotland, of whom the same king begot Gobertus (he ought to have said Henry, whom alone David received from the widow of Simon, and who died before his father, as the Scottish history testifies), a count, father of the two kings Malcolm and William. Here he rightly says that St. Waltheof or Wallenus was born of count Simon and Matilda; but the same he above wrongly calls son of David, whom he ought to have named the stepson of the latter.
[21] Angelus Manrique in the Cistercian Annals at the year of Christ 1160, chapter 4, number 9, rightly corrects this erroneous duplication of the same Saint, and although Angelus Manrique corrected this error, and points out the deception of Henriquez and others in these words: From this series of the abbots of Melrose, which is plainly established from the Acts of St. Wallenus, without doubt those are convicted of blindness who out of one make two Walleni, abbots of Melrose from Rievaulx; who arrived by exactly the same steps, and from the same parents (which is the greater thing): except that Thomas Dempster and Arnold call the one Wallenus by his true name, the other, by an error creeping in, Walter. Henriquez follows both, where he mentions Walter on the fifth of the Nones of May, Wallenus on the fifth of the Ides of August. The occasion of erring was only the name inverted in different ways. The rest the same: count Simon the father, Matilda the mother, David the Scot the stepfather; the education in the court; then the canonry of St. Oswald, the Priory of Kirkham, the monkhood, and the abbacy of Melrose; nay, and the calling to the see of St. Andrews; so that it is a marvel that those who put these things together could, from the name alone, divide him whom so many other things proved the same.
[22] Augustine Sartorius does not seem to have read Angelus Manrique in this place, whom nevertheless elsewhere he often cites: yet afterward Augustine Sartorius for in the Eulogistic History of his Order, which he chose to call Cistercium bis-tertium, and which he published at Old Prague in the year 1700, he still clings to the same error, when there under title XVI, or page 422, he thus writes: From the same summit of the archiepiscopal see of St. Andrews there descended into the monastery of Melrose the third prince of Scotland, holy Gualterus, son of king David. He had foreseen that in Melrose, on account perhaps of the affinity of the names, honey (mel) and rose (rosa) lay hidden. And so, having entered the happy family and house under the patronage of the mellifluous Bernard, in the honey he found the delights of the soul, in the rose the crown of glory. The Melrose ascetics likewise perceived that in Gualterus a most bright star had glided into their monastery, about to illustrate the Cistercian heaven straightway with great flashes: wherefore, bereaved of their abbot, they by common vows substituted the princely man in the dignity of the deceased. He adorned this his charge with exceptional merits, illustrated the whole Order with most distinguished virtues, and increased the feast days of the Church, after his most holy death being inscribed in the company of the Blessed.
[23] fell into the same. Then Sartorius under title XVIII, or page 474, adorns the same Saint, as different from the preceding, with this eulogy: England is to be regarded in holy Wallenus, a great and glorious man among the Cistercians, son of Simon, count of Huntingdon, uncle of Malcolm and William, kings of Scotland, who from a regular canon made a Cistercian in the monastery of Warden, thereupon translated from that house to Rievaulx under the mastership of St. Ailred, at length by the same most holy prelate set over the Melrose monks as abbot, everywhere spread most widely the fame of his holiness. Besides the care of the brethren, the pitiable want of the poor also solicited the heart of the most kind Man: therefore he both showed himself an abbot to the brethren, and a patron to the needy, in each title of his office fulfilling the account and measure with much solicitude and affection. Then there follows an epitome of his deeds and miracles, which I here omit, both because similar things were briefly related above from Chalemot and Henriquez, and because below in the Acts all these things will again be narrated at length by a nearly contemporary author.
[24] It is inquired and detected But how, you will say, did men by no means unlearned so shamefully err, or by what reasoning could they be induced to make a double Saint out of one St. Waltheof or Wallenus? The praised Angelus Manrique in the place just cited answers thus: The occasion of erring was only the name inverted in different ways. But besides that inversion of the name, I judge that John Leslie furnished the occasion of this error, when in book 6 On the Deeds of the Scots he relates the following: Some write that David received from a certain widow, wife of Gualterus, a gilded knight, another son, whose name was Gualterus; whom they hand down to have been so estranged from the vain, fleeting, and enticement-filled things of the world, that, straightway initiated into sacred orders, he was first endowed, unwilling, with the rich canonry of St. Oswald, and then with the honorable Priory of Kirkham. This man, since he rightly thought that nothing more cuts the sinews of true virtue than leisure and riches, the bishopric of St. Andrews being refused, enclosed himself in a monastery; in which, certain hours being set apart for meditation, he imparted the remaining part of the day to God, free from all torment of heart and body: until, roused by the exhortations and almost continual entreaties of many, he was created abbot of Melrose; being raised to which honor, he was the author to Malcolm (who was surnamed the virgin) of laying the foundations of certain monasteries. He wrote a book entitled ECCLESIASTICAL RULES, and at length, many miracles being wrought, was received into the society of the Blessed. Arnold Wion and others everywhere cite or transcribe this narration of Leslie.
[25] the origin of this error, Since, therefore, the readers of this narration too easily believed, without any examination, that that Gualterus was born of David, king of Scotland, and knew from elsewhere that St. Waltheof was the son of Simon, count of Huntingdon, they distinguished Gualterus and Waltheof as different. But perhaps some writers, cited generally by Leslie, improperly called St. Waltheof son of David, as is sometimes the custom, or called David by the sweeter name of father, whereas properly the latter was stepfather, the former stepson: for the mother of St. Waltheof after the death of her husband married David, king of the Scots, and bore him an only son, named Henry, who died before his father, and in the bearing of which bitter case the writers, English and Scottish, everywhere praise the constancy of David.
[26] This deception of some did not deceive Patrick Ninian Wemyss, which our Wemyss cautiously avoided, a learned priest of our Society, a Scot by nation, who among other monuments of his fatherland, which he illustrated with his own hand, collected for the use of our Museum a Menology of the undoubted Saints of Scotland, in which he thus celebrates St. Waltheof under various names at the day the III of August: St. Valdevus, Valterus, or Gualterus, 1160 (thus without doubt he designates the year of his death, concerning which we shall treat afterward), the second most holy abbot of the monastery of Melrose, lately re-erected from the foundations by St. David, son of the count of Northampton (others call him count of Huntingdon, which is near Northampton). His mother Matilda after the death of her first husband married David, prince of Cumbria, who afterward, his brothers being dead, ascended the Scottish throne. Hence Valdevus was stepson of St. David, king of Scotland, son of the queen, uterine brother of Henry, prince of Scotland, on both parents' side English. Perhaps St. Waltheof, on account of his English origin, is announced by some Martyrologists in England, although he is also rightly ascribed by others to the Saints
of Scotland, because he lived long in that kingdom, and closed his last day there.
[27] But if some write that David had another son, distinct from Henry, they contradict the ancient and chief historians of England and Scotland: because it openly contradicts the ancient authors and the Scottish history. for William of Newburgh, a synchronous writer, or at least one very near this time, in book 1 On English Affairs, chapter 23, describes the pious death of David, and after other praises of him adds the following: After his honorable marriage and unstained bed, from which was born to him an only son (whom above in the same chapter he names Henry, where he treats of his untimely death), who by most similar manners expressed his father, he remained very many years in celibacy, so lavish in pious largesses that, besides the copious dispersion among the poor, they recount as his almsgivings many churches of the Saints founded, dedicated, and adorned by him. With this agree very many English writers, whom for brevity's sake I pass over.
[28] Among the Scottish authors the chief, Hector Boëthius in the History of the Scots, book 12, concerning the marriage of the mentioned David hands down this: He took to wife, by the king's favor, Matilda, daughter and heiress of Voldiosus (by this name too the grandfather of our St. Waltheof is sometimes called), count of Huntingdon and Northumberland, and of Judith, niece of William the Bastard. On which account he was made count of Huntingdon and Northumberland. And there was born of this marriage a son worthy of his parents, Henry by name. Then there, after narrating the death of this Matilda, Boëthius subjoins this to our purpose: But David, grieving much at the death of his most dear wife Matilda, wishing thenceforth to contract no marriage, kept his first faith to his wife even unto death. And so those err who hand down that David passed to a second marriage, or received another son from another wife, as will be confirmed below from our ancient Acts. This error of duplication being shown, and its probable origin detected, we proceed to discuss certain circumstances of the Acts.
§ III. The writer of the Acts, some compendia of them, the year and day on which the Saint died, and the heavenly letter forewarning of his imminent death, are examined.
Besides Everard the synchronous [writer, who is said to have written the Life of St. Waltheof,] In Dempster, in the Ecclesiastical History of the Scottish nation, book 5, number 479, Everard the synchronous writer is said to have written the Life of St. Waltheof, concerning whom the following is read there: St. Everard, confessor and Cistercian abbot, a Scot, confessor of St. Waltheof, and his associate in the canonry of Kirkham, and first abbot of that celebrated monastery in Cumbria, founded by St. David, king of Scotland, or by his brother Simon the count, which is wont to be called "of the Elm," commonly Holmcultram: for when in the cloister of Melrose he had put on the habit together with the most holy old man Waltheof, the latter remaining for the care of that place, this one, sent to the new monastery of the Elm, having begun the government, when Henry, son of St. David, had endowed with lands the monastery erected by his father, as the Scotichronicon speaks, book VI, chapter XXXII. Surviving Waltheof, he wrote, from the index of May, the Life of St. Adamnan, the Life of St. Cumeneus the White, the Life of St. Waltheof. He flourished in the year 1145. Whatever be the case with this testimony of Dempster, in which we place little faith, that lucubration of that Everard, concerning whom mention will occur below in the Acts, has not come to our knowledge or our hands. Wherefore concerning the nearly contemporary author of the Life of Waltheof, whom we found in the monastery of Böddeken, here alone must there be discussion.
[30] the nearly contemporary author collects the same, Angelus Manrique in the Cistercian Annals inserted here and there some fragments of the Life of Waltheof, and at the year of Christ 1160, chapter 4, number 7, notes this concerning its writer: The Life of the Saint Jocelin wrote, a monk of Furness; and that some years after: inasmuch as he by no means attained to the Saint; but who, as he could not write the things he saw, so testifies that he wrote nothing which he did not draw from those who saw. Written, he dedicated it to William, king of Scotland, and to Alexander his son, and to count David, joined by blood to St. Wallenus, devoted in religion. But he wrote by order of Patrick, abbot of Melrose, as he himself testifies, but who, prevented by death, could not enjoy the fruit of his commission. From these and other things we gather that the praised writer of the Cistercian Annals had before his eyes Acts of St. Waltheof or Wallenus plainly similar, which we shall below publish complete from the Böddeken codex, and here and there join with the published fragments of that Annalist.
[31] concerning whose true name We do not sufficiently understand how this nearly-equal writer of the same Acts is constantly called Jocelin by Angelus Manrique, since in the same Annals at the year of Christ 1160, chapter 3, number 3, he indicates that he excerpted those Acts from a very ancient book marked with old characters, brought, he says, from England into Spain by the most illustrious count of Gondomar, by whom he was more than once sent as legate by Philip III, which the son of the same, Sir Antony Sarmiento, most kindly communicated to us, and it is held described on parchment in his library at Valladolid, containing among other things the Life of Wallenus.
[32] If that biographer in the mentioned Valladolid book is called Jocelin, a dispute is set forth, the manuscript copies of the Acts differ among themselves in expressing the name of the writer: for in the parchment codex of the monastery of Böddeken, according to the double transcript of the same codex which we have, the same author expressly names himself Jordan, when, after the custom of that time, before the prologue he thus wishes well to those to whom he dedicates his lucubration: To the most illustrious men William, king of Scotland, and Alexander his son, and count David, brother Jordan, whatever kind of monk of Furness, wishes to obtain the salvation of both the inner and outer man in the Lord, and to attain the felicity of both lives. Very probably, therefore, an error crept into one or the other codex; but we know not which is to be preferred to the other on account of antiquity, which can only be somewhat determined from the ocular inspection of the characters and the mutual collation of both codices.
[33] Nor do the English bibliographers who enumerate the writers of their nation shed certain light on these shadows: and, for lack of more certain information for although among them no Jordan occurs, yet from this it cannot be certainly inferred that none of this name existed; because through the course of our work we have detected several writers of more obscure memory, whom the bibliographers were ignorant of. John Pits in his work On the illustrious writers of England mentions two Jocelins, of whom perhaps neither pertains here: for Jocelin, surnamed Bracland, lived in the year 1214 in the monastery of Bury in England, as Pits in the praised work at the year of Christ 1214, number 304, testifies. Although, therefore, the time of his life agrees, yet the monastery of Bury, in which that Jocelin lived, differs, whereas meanwhile our biographer clearly says that he was a monk in the monastery of Furness.
[34] Concerning the other Jocelin the praised Pits in the Appendix to the illustrious writers of England, third century, number 40, thus writes: it is left undecided. Jocelin of Furness, whether he was English by nation, or, what seems more probable, a Cambro-Briton, was a historian, as John Stow and Nicholas Fitzherbert are authorities. He wrote several books On the bishops of the Britons. His other works, if he wrote any, as also the time in which he lived, are unknown to me. This one indeed is surnamed "of Furness"; but he is not said to have been a monk of Furness, as ours affirms of himself. Wherefore that Jocelin could have had that surname from his family or birthplace, just as in the Monasticon Anglicanum, volume 1, page 401, Asketellus of Furness, and page 707, William of Furness, are read, who nevertheless were not Furness monks. Nor less obscure is the rest, since Pits confesses that the other works of this writer, and his age, are unknown to him. But if our biographer is truly called Jocelin, most probably he is the same as Jocelin, the Furness monk, who collected the Acts of St. Patrick, and concerning whom at the day the XVII of March in the Preliminary Commentary to the Life of St. Patrick, §4, several things are said. Since, however, nothing certain can be concluded from these things, we shall prefix Jordan or Jocelin as author to the title of the Acts, and leave the further investigation of the true name to the English or the Scots.
[35] But even though the name of our biographer is not established, we can approximately gather his age from the persons whom he addresses in his prologue, From various circumstances we gather and to whom he dedicated his lucubration: for from the death of William, king of Scotland, we certainly conclude that that Life was written by our author before the year of Christ 1214, in which, according to the Scottish historians, that king died, and had his son Alexander as successor in the kingdom of Scotland. Nor does this biographer seem to have written long before this year 1214, since he offers that Life to be read also to Alexander, not yet king, concerning whose age Hector Boëthius, book 13 of the History of the Scots, in our copy folio 285, hands down the following: From that time Alexander did not survive very long: for, seized by a grave disease on the island of Kerrera, divided by no wide strait from the mainland of Argyll, he dies a little after, in the fifty-first year of his age, and the thirty-fifth of his reign, but of our salvation one thousand two hundred and forty-nine. With this chronology other writers also agree.
[36] by our biographer between the year of Christ 1207 and 1214, From these things it follows that Alexander was first born about the year of Christ 1198, and ascended the Scottish throne in the sixteenth or seventeenth year of his age after the death of his father, as will appear to one who enters upon a retrograde computation of the years. Moreover the biographer below in the Acts, number 137, thus writes: In the year from the incarnation of the Lord one thousand two hundred and seven, which is the forty-eighth year from the death of St. Waltheof, a man of venerable life, William, the seventh abbot after the blessed man, entered the way of all flesh, etc. Hence we gather that that Life was written after the year of Christ 1207. Finally from all these things we conclude that the Acts of St. Waltheof were first committed to writing by that Furness monk between the year of Christ 1207 and 1214.
[37] that these Acts were faithfully written, But with how great fidelity that nearly-equal writer collected the Life of this Saint, he himself in the prologue sufficiently indicates in these words: I exhort and beseech, not only you, but also all who shall read or hear this little work, that they give credit to the things said, and, there being nothing in them opposed to truth, but rather that they acknowledge that I have faithfully written what I received from truthful men, elders of the house of Melrose, above all exception. But those elders of the abbey of Melrose could without doubt have known St. Waltheof alive, and perhaps for some years had been his disciples in the same monastery. Whence it is plain how great fidelity this Life deserves. Further, Jordan or Jocelin applied his mind to writing it, at the asking and command of lord Patrick, abbot of Melrose, but, alas! carried off by premature death, as he testifies in the same prologue. From the death
of this Patrick we could draw a more exact chronology of the aforesaid writing, if an accurate series of the abbots of Melrose were at hand for us.
[38] The above-praised Henriquez did not know these ancient Acts of St. Waltheof; some of whom knew only a synopsis. but in the Fasciculus of the Saints of the Cistercian Order, book 2, distinction 26, chapter 58, in their place he exhibits a more recent synopsis of the Life, which Anthony Gentius transcribed from someone, as that Cistercian collector of the Fasciculus testifies at the end of the cited chapter in these words: From the library of Roodklooster of the Regular Canons of St. Augustine, where the Life of this holy Man exists in manuscript in the third volume of Anthony Gentius, folio 212. Angelus Manrique carefully observed this, when in the Cistercian Annals at the year of Christ 1160, chapter 4, number 7, he thus writes: I read moreover in Chrysostom Henriquez that Anthony Gentius wrote the Life of the same Saint, which is had in manuscript at Roodklooster, and which he himself transcribed in the Fasciculus; but who rather gave a compendium of what was written by Jocelin, and omits some things worthy of narration. That very compendium of the Life, which had been copied from an ancient codex of the diocese of Cornouaille in Armorican Brittany, was transmitted to us in the year of Christ 1665; but Henriquez and others were ignorant that the same epitome of the Acts exists from folio 293 verso in the Legend of the Saints of England, which was printed at London in the year 1516, and which Capgrave is said to have pillaged from the volume of John of Tynemouth, as Casimir Oudin the apostate in the Commentaries of Ecclesiastical Writers, volume 3, column [—], reports from Henry Wharton. Now we shall discuss somewhat concerning the year and day of his death.
[39] An intricate difficulty occurs concerning the year in which our Saint migrated to the heavens, An involved discrepancy concerning the year, because the Acts, number 95, designate that time by these circumstances: He departed in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord one thousand one hundred and sixty, Henry II reigning in England, Malcolin (now everywhere Malcolm is used) in Scotland; Adrian, English-born, being Pontiff. These chronological characters can be joined with the year of Christ 1160, if you except the Pontificate of Adrian IV, English by nation, who according to Francis Pagi in the Breviary of the Roman Pontiffs, and other chronologers, died on the Kalends of September of the year 1159, and in the same month had Alexander III as successor. How, then, can the year of Christ 1160 cohere with the Pontificate of Adrian IV, who had already departed from the living in the preceding year?
[40] Angelus Manrique in the Cistercian Annals at the year of Christ 1160, chapter 3, number 9, saw this chronological knot, in which St. Waltheof died, and thus strives to loose or cut it: But, he says, what is said, that he died in the year 1160, Pope Adrian the English-born being Pontiff, since it cannot stand (inasmuch as Adrian died on the first day of September of the following year), I judge must be corrected, and for Adrian, Alexander substituted; which I am the more effectively persuaded of, because otherwise the twenty-seven days of August during which Adrian survived would not suffice for those things which we shall say in the following chapter. What of the fact that Anthony Gentius, and others, prolong the man's life beyond three years, and think he did not die before the year 1163? But these too err somewhat in the day, deferring [it] even to the ninth of August, so that the matter must be left in doubt by us, and rather await and ask the determination of others.
[41] Roger Hoveden, synchronous with our biographer, in his Annals, difficulties being proposed on both sides, reprinted at Frankfurt in the year 1601, in the latter part, page 491, thus fixes the death of St. Waltheof in the year of Christ 1159: In the same year (namely the year of grace 1159, which was the [—] year of the reign of king Henry, son of the empress Matilda, as he had written there a little above) died Waldevus, abbot of Melrose, on the IV of the Nones of August, who was uncle of king Malcolm. In the same year Pope Adrian died, whom succeeded Pope Alexander III, canonically elected and consecrated. Since according to the common opinion of the chronologers Pope Adrian departed this life on the Kalends of September of the year 1159, in this chronological system the death of St. Waltheof can be reconciled with the pontificate of Adrian, since he in the same year 1159, according to Hoveden, on the IV of the Nones of August (our biographer and others place his death on the III of the Nones of August, or the third day of the same month), migrated to those above.
[42] But on that hypothesis from elsewhere arises an inextricable difficulty, is examined in vain, and between the death of each only twenty-six or twenty-seven days intervene, within which brief space of time all those things could not have happened which our biographer in the Life, number 99 and following, relates concerning the chancellor of Malcolm, king of Scotland: for there he narrates that Nicholas the chancellor made known to the Roman Pontiff a vision which he had had at Rome concerning St. Waltheof, and which the Roman Pontiff interpreted concerning the imminent death of St. Waltheof. Then the author of the Life adds this: The chancellor, his affairs concluded, having returned to his country, found that the abbot had died on the following day, namely the third of the Nones of August, on which, the preceding night, being placed in the Pope's chamber, he saw the aforesaid vision. And he himself, what was established concerning the abbot, as had been commanded him, announced to the Pope himself by a letter through a certain pilgrim to Rome. The Pope, giving thanks to God, absolved his soul, and solemnly celebrated Mass for him and all the faithful. If the chancellor of Malcolm under Pope Adrian IV had this vision at Rome the day before St. Waltheof died, he could not in so short an interval of time return to Scotland and announce to that same Pontiff the death of that holy Abbot.
[43] and is left undecided, I see no fit remedy for solving this difficulty, unless we say that, the chancellor of Malcolm having returned to his country, the death of Pope Adrian was unknown, and that his letter reached the successor of Adrian, even though our biographer seems to ascribe to the same Roman Pontiff the things which happened at Rome concerning this vision and afterward followed. Moreover on this hypothesis it must be confessed that our biographer erred when he assigns the death of St. Waltheof to the year 1160, and joined this year with the Pontificate of Adrian IV the Englishman, as we showed above. If, therefore, we wish with Hoveden to fix the death of St. Waltheof in the year of Christ 1159, we cannot reconcile the mentioned history of Nicholas the chancellor with this chronology; but if with our Acts we defer the death of the same Saint up to the month of August of the year 1160, the writer of the Life evidently erred in expressing the name of the Roman Pontiff under whose pontificate that holy Abbot is said to have died, and certainly for Adrian the English-born, Alexander III must be substituted, as also Angelus Manrique observed. Since, therefore, Hoveden and our biographer are equal in age, and the computation of each cannot be reconciled unless we acknowledge a historical error in our Acts, we leave that intricate dispute undecided, and at the beginning of the Commentary expressed both years in the margin, until perhaps from elsewhere a certain epoch of Waltheof's death be drawn out.
[44] [although the manifest error of Henriquez concerning the year of death is easily corrected.] Nevertheless from the authority of each of those nearly-contemporary writers it is plain that in assigning the year and day of his death Henriquez was deceived, when in the Fasciculus of the Saints of the Cistercian Order, distinction 26, chapter 58, he thus writes: But the Man of the Lord, Wallenus, died in the year of the Lord one thousand one hundred and sixty-THIRD, on the NINTH of August, and ascended the heavens. Bucelinus in the Benedictine Menology and Chalemot in his Cistercian one followed the erring Henriquez. Angelus Manrique indeed noted this error of Henriquez and others; but did not detect its origin, since he did not consult the other compendia of the Acts, from which the occasion of that error becomes manifest: for in the Legend of Capgrave, and in the manuscript synopsis of the Acts which we received from Armorican Brittany, this is read thus: But the Man of the Lord, Wallenus, died in the year of the Lord one thousand and sixty, on the THIRD of the Nones of August, and ascended the heavens. From these it is clear that that chronological error of Henriquez arose from a faulty punctuation and the mere omission of a single letter. Now let us briefly investigate the more probable day of the same death.
[45] Already through the course of this we have seen on how various days the Menologies announce this same Saint. The day on which the Saint migrated from this life, Also in the preceding number we indicated how his death is wrongly deferred by some to the ninth day of August. There only remains the question, whether he departed from the living on the second or third day of August, because Roger Hoveden assigns his death to the IV of the Nones of August, as was related above. But perhaps an error crept into the number, because our Acts, number 94, expressly express the day of death in these words: The day of the third of the Nones of August had dawned, on which the finding of St. Stephen the protomartyr is celebrated… After Sext, when it had come to the meal, the community, summoned already by the third striking of the board, was present, and thus, the crown of psalm-singing sons standing round, that holy soul, cooked in the flames of happy scourges in the furnace of fevers and of other manifold infirmities, and tried like the purest gold, went out of the most pure dwelling of the flesh. And so we followed our biographer in determining the day of Waltheof's death, with whom the Usuardine supplements and certain other Martyrologies agree.
[46] Further, in the Acts of St. Waltheof stupendous prodigies occur, [and the credit of the biographer concerning the stupendous miracles are discussed.] which nevertheless, on account of the grave testimony of our nearly-contemporary writer, we do not deny. Among them most to be wondered at is the little letter of Christ and the Mother of God, by which St. Waltheof is familiarly forewarned of his impending death, and concerning which therefore Angelus Manrique in the Cistercian Annals at the year of Christ 1160, chapter 3, number 5, thus discourses: I do not doubt that the scrupulous reader will be somewhat moved by the words of the letter; as being such as seem too familiar; but not one who has known Christ loving; not one who has known a friend, and one, moreover, to be made equal to his friends, as far as divinity permits. It may more prudently move [one], that the holy Man wished those same letters to be read first before the elders, then before the whole community; inasmuch as making too much for his glory. But since the Spirit breathes where and whither it wills, and is not held by common laws, whatever goes out of bounds, if only it be not contrary to faith, I believe is rather to be regarded with reverence than condemned. Nay, the holy Man could wish the matter published, not only for the glory of God and of his Mother, who show such favors to men; but that by the prayers of all he might forestall and fortify his end, since he thought nothing was to be presumed of his own merits. Whatever be the case with these reasons, the profession and age of our biographer deserve that we give credit to him narrating marvels. Now it only remains that we print the Acts from the codex of the monastery of Böddeken, and illustrate them with annotations.
LIFE
By the author Jordan or Jocelin, monk of Furness.
From the manuscript parchment Passionary of the month of February, folio 218, which is preserved in the monastery of Böddeken of the Regular Canons of St. Augustine in the diocese of Paderborn.
Waltheof, Abbot, in Scotland (S.)
BHL Number: 8783
FROM THE MANUSCRIPT.
PROLOGUE.
The author shows to the king and princes of Scotland, To the most illustrious men William, King of Scotland a, and
Alexander his son b, and count David c, brother Jordan d, whatever kind of monk of Furness e, wishes to obtain the salvation of both the inner and outer man in the Lord, and to attain the felicity of both lives. Often revolving in mind from the root of what vine you branches were produced and sprouted, I perceive that you drew a most excellent original portion of your flesh from the highest nobility of all Europe: for the mother of St. Margaret f, Agatha by name, was daughter of the German Henry, the most distinguished emperor of the Romans, whose posterity illustrates the Roman empire. A sister of the same Agatha was queen of the Hungarians, the fruit of whose womb, germinating successive kings, not only possesses the principality of that same kingdom, but has also obtained the scepter of several other kingdoms. Nevertheless the father himself of blessed Margaret, called Edward, nephew and legitimate heir of the most holy confessor Edward, king of England, would have made you scepter-bearers by hereditary right of the English kingdom, devolved upon you by the straight and direct lines of successive generation, had not the violent plundering of the Normans, God permitting, hindered [it] up to the predetermined time.
[2] in what degree of consanguinity Nor only in that glorious lineage of the English kings did they shine forth most powerful in riches and glory in the kingdom, but also, greatly pleasing to God in holiness and justice, in life and after death they magnificently shone with manifold miracles. For from the holy king Adwolf, who, tithing all England, consecrated the tenth to God and the Church, nine holy kings are numbered, of whom the latter is recognized to have shone equal or more excellent in the Christian religion: but in the tenth, St. Edward, the holiness of all his predecessors, as it were transfused, flowed together, and thus from him, as from a most bright fount, a rivulet of the religious life flowed into St. Margaret his great-granddaughter, and from her into her son king David your grandfather, and from him into king Malcolm your brother.
[3] they touch upon St. Waltheof, For the rest, your grandmother Matilda g, queen of Scotland, was great-granddaughter of William h, the most valiant duke, who conquered England, and daughter of count Waltheof the holy Martyr i, and mother of the most holy Waltheof, abbot of Melrose, your uncle k. He is the grace and ornament of your lineage, the guardian of the kingdom, the protection of the fatherland, the title of chastity, the gem of the canonical life, the mirror of monastic discipline. This man, I say, living in the world, was the solace of the clergy, the treasury of the poor, the sustenance of the needy, the remedy of the sick, the illustrious dwelling of virtues. His most holy body, still free from all corruption, presents an illustrious sign of the future resurrection, and offers a probable and palpable proof of our faith and hope. And so of this man, beloved of God and men, whose memory is in benediction, inasmuch as the Lord made him like unto him in the glory of the Saints, his life blooming with virtues, glorious with miracles, sublimed with illustrious contemplations, at the asking and command of lord Patrick l, abbot of Melrose, but, alas! carried off by premature death, at length I undertook to write, and, dictated, I have thought it should more fittingly be destined for your excellency than for any other.
[4] When, therefore, you shall have known this little book, read and understood frequently before you, you will have in it a most bright mirror of imitation, and rousing them to his cult and imitation, of admiration, and of exultation. Great admiration shines forth in the miracles displayed; the prerogative of exultation is attributed to you in the communion of race and the germ of native propagation; imitation is set before you and the rest in exercising the studies of virtues and the works of mercy. Since, then, by the transmission of nature and by so bright and superexcellent a genealogy you are derived on both sides, disdain to be degenerate from it, and to become disinherited of the holy stock. Attend, therefore, continually (according to Isaiah's admonition) to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the cavern of the pit from which you were cut; and study to be conformed to them in holy manners and acts; above all attend more attentively to keeping the laws of God, firmly cleave to the footsteps of the holy progeny from which you drew the material of your flesh; frequently commend yourselves to the merits and prayers of your most holy uncle abbot Waltheof: love, visit, venerate the place of his rest; the monastic Order and especially the Cistercian, and most of all the abbey of Melrose, in which he lived, over which also he presided and profited, promote, protect, and against the incursions of adversaries set the arm of defense.
[5] I exhort and beseech, not only you, but also all who shall read or hear this little work, that they give credit to the things said, he sets forth the credit and manner of his writing. and, there being nothing in them opposed to truth, but rather that they acknowledge that I have faithfully written what I received from truthful men, elders of the house of Melrose, above all exception. In dictating I have so tempered my style that it neither creeps on the ground, nor swells on high, choosing, for the sake of the simple, a plain and most clear and circumspect manner, and avoiding, according to Cicero, the pompous, the propped-up, and the involved. May your excellency ever fare well in the Lord, and, after the end of this life, reign with the Lord without end.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER I.
The Saint's grandfather, parents, name, pious boyhood and adolescence.
About to transmit to the notice of posterity by my pen the life of the venerable man Waltheof, second a abbot of Melrose, William, king of England I have thought it fitting to declare at the beginning of the narration his nobility, and especially that the fellowship of God is found in several persons of both sexes. Thus indeed it will be plain, being fitting to all who rightly discern, that from a noble and holy root proceeded a most excellent shoot, conspicuous for holiness. At the time, therefore, when William b, Duke of Normandy, the natives being conquered, had obtained the scepter of England, the illustrious Count Waltheof, son of the most valiant Count Siward c, possessed the County of Northumbria d and the princedom of the province of York e. He was of flourishing age, of admirable fortitude, of lamblike gentleness among his companions and household, of lionlike ferocity toward the rebellious and enemies, manfully resisting the Normans in long conflict, inflicting very much slaughter on them, very often carrying back illustrious triumphs over them.
[7] Perceiving, therefore, the spirit and valor of the man, the grandfather of St. Waltheof the king, first, after various turnings of fortune, by the negotiation of messengers running to and fro, right hands being given
on both sides and received into grace and peace, took the Count as his ally, and, after homage f made to him, joined to him in marriage his niece, Julita g by name, that is, "conquered" h: of whom he begot an only daughter i, named Matilda: and he himself was found faithful in all things, going in and coming out at the command of the king. He was nevertheless munificent to the poor, devout in the church, inclined toward the clergy and especially the Religious, generous and liberal to all, yet formidable to enemies. But the king, seeing that the kingdom was prospered in his hand, and that it had grown quiet in his sight, put to death or imprisoned or proscribed, or reduced to wretched servitude, very many, nay nearly all, of the nobles of English stock; seeing that it pleased the Normans, he set about to apprehend Count Waltheof, and, lest he should seem stained with the reproach of treachery if without cause he condemned an innocent man, in nothing injured by him, he meditated and contrived how he might accomplish it more blamelessly in human sight.
[8] accused of rebellion In such a manner, then, he sought and found an occasion not only of cutting and severing the bond of love and peace from his friend and faithful subject, but even of taking him out of the way. For a flying report in those days had spread through England that the Danes k and Norwegians l had conspired for the extermination and slaughter of the Normans, and that an infinite fleet, gathered into one, was awaiting the blowing of a breeze breathing to their wish. It was instilled into the ears of the king by rivals and malevolent adversaries that Waltheof himself, as a covenant-breaker, perjurer, traitor, conspirator, messengers being sent, oaths being sworn, hostages being given, had invited the Danish fleet; [and] had promised to those coming counsel and aid according to his powers, for the destruction or elimination of the Normans from the island m. But the king, lending thirsty ears to accusations of this kind, an open breast to suspicion, a most ferocious heart to vengeance, was made glad, as having obtained a seemingly just occasion of exercising against Waltheof what he had conceived in his heart. By the king's order, therefore, the Count, summoned, simply, trusting that the king would inflict no evil on him, came to court, bearing with him a clean and innocent conscience. This innocence has as its own property, that as it strives to injure no one, so it trusts to be injured by no one. The Count, presented before the king, was accused in many things, in all which, if justice had place, by denying and rendering account he would be stripped of them all, emptying all the objections. Nevertheless, no response of excuse or purgation offered holding place, the count is apprehended, cast into iron fetters, imprisoned, afflicted with manifold injuries.
[9] he orders him to be beheaded, and of his daughter the Saint is born But the noble man, embracing in mind the divine judgment or permission, turned necessity into virtue; and turning himself wholly to God, by frequent confession of sins, by continual pouring out of tears, by assiduous prayers and genuflections, wrought his own salvation. What more? After the long squalor of prison and manifold affliction, the king's sentence being carried out according to his will, in the city of Winchester n he was beheaded, and his body, carried to Croyland o, is buried in the church of St. Guthlac [p]. And although, according to Solomon, the wrath of the king raged like the roaring of a lion against Waltheof, and from the place of his judgment the preceding iniquity prevailed; yet from the face of the Lord the equity of judgment came forth: for him whom the most ferocious king took from the world, the eternal and clement King brought into heaven. For how pleasing to God was his innocence, how acceptable his patience, his death precious in the sight of the Lord, the notable signs wrought before his tomb proclaim. Wherefore, in process of the time that rolled by, his bones, which sprouted from their place, were translated from the bosom of the earth, and reverently laid up in a little place behind a certain altar. There exists a little book written in the same monastery concerning his miracles, from which it is proved that the name of martyr is deservedly ascribed to him, and the honor attributed [q]. But Matilda, his aforenamed daughter, when she had come to womanhood, at an opportune time married the most illustrious count of Huntingdon [r], namely Simon the elder of Senlis [s]; of which longed-for stock she brought forth two sons and daughters. The firstborn was of his father's name [t] and successor of the inheritance; the second was called Waltheof [u], renewer and possessor of the ancient name and holiness.
[10] Not without reason, but for a sure cause is such a name imposed on him, just as many Fathers of both Testaments are read to have received names from the effect of things. whose name is explained. Now that name in English is dissyllabic, whose second syllable, if it be uttered with a shortened accent, is interpreted "CHOSEN FLAVOR"; if with a lengthened accent, "CHOSEN THIEF" [v]. Which double interpretation indeed rightly befits him, who in his words and manners showed himself a vessel of election, giving forth the flavor of spiritual sweetness to those associating with him; and just as certain holy Fathers define that some violently plunder the kingdom of God, others steal it; he seemed to have stolen it by a pious theft, who always tried to hide his virtues, or the revelations divinely shown him, or the signs wrought by himself: with Jeremiah he did not desire the day of man, but always, avoiding vainglory, and so that his left hand might not know what his right did, striving in every way to please the Creator, he took pains.
[11] Count Simon, the aforenamed father of the boys, loved the firstborn more closely, The boyish exercises of the brother and of himself as Isaac his own Esau; but the mother, a good woman, loved Waltheof with more inclined affection, as Rebecca her Jacob. When those brothers were placed in boyish age, they were wise, acted, played as little ones: the elder-born Simon, twigs or little branches being gathered, according to his measure, was accustomed to build a castle; and, mounting a hobby-horse [w], as his own steed, and taking and brandishing a little rod as a lance, with his coevals, solicitous for the guard and defense of the fictitious and imaginary castle, he mimicked warfare. But the little boy Waltheof, from twigs or little stones made as it were churches, and presented himself as a priest, as if celebrating Mass, with hands outspread: and because he did not know how to utter words, he was accustomed to give forth sounds imitating chant.
[12] And when the little ones rather often indulged in play of this kind, and provoked several to the sight and to laughter, they presage the future life of each; on a certain occasion a certain religious and wise man, standing by and looking on with the rest, said to the onlookers: What seems to you of this play of the little ones? They confessed that it was simple, the play only of those not knowing what is between the right hand and the left. And he: Not so, he said, not so: for this play is a certain prelude, presaging the life and end of each: for the first will begin his life in warfare; the second, living religiously, will consummate his days for good. No word of these fell to the ground, but concerning each, what by conjecturing or prophesying he foretold, came to pass. For Simon, having at length obtained his father's County long after his father's death with much labor, and become a strenuous soldier, in the time of king Stephen [x] built new castles, acquired others built by others, and joined Counties and cities to his County, and in secular warfare, yet in a Christian manner, ended his life; but Waltheof, leading a life renowned for virtues and even for signs, at last fell asleep in the Lord, as our following narration will more fully declare.
[13] But when Waltheof had received a fit time for learning, whence our Saint he is handed over to be imbued with letters by the care of his parents; yet too quickly he was drawn away from their studies, on account of various events of things and states of the times: yet he profited becomingly in literature, according to the space of time in which he frequented the schools, and surpassed many more lettered [men] by subtlety of sense and acuteness of wit and elegance of words, by a masterly unction. And so this most pure boy, whether dwelling at home or studying at school, was humble, chaste, quiet, and silent, in the church devout and assiduous, mature in manners beyond his age, according to his power generous and liberal, and therefore was amiable to all. From such studies, then, the boy Waltheof was known, and it shone forth clearly enough, according to Solomon, that his steps had been clean and right.
[14] educated in the court of the king of Scotland Waltheof being still, to use Cicero's words, placed in the boyish toga, his father, on account of a certain offense, had incurred the implacable wrath of king Henry the first [y], by whom, disinherited, and taking the road toward Jerusalem signed with the Cross, he had died in the parts beyond the sea; but his mother, cousin of the king, is given by the same king in marriage to David, king of Scotland, the County of Huntingdon being given him under the name of dowry. The aforesaid king Henry too had taken in marriage Matilda [z], daughter of king Malcolm and queen St. Margaret, great-granddaughter of St. Edward, king of England, sister of the aforenamed king David, distinguished in family and appearance, whom on account of the holiness of her life and the grace of her manners the English up to the present surname the good queen [aa]. And king David begot of Matilda his queen a son named Henry [bb], a man (as we have received) gentle and mild, and well-mannered, father of two kings, namely of Malcolm [cc] a most holy man, and of William still surviving, in many things to be praised, and of David [dd] a venerable count. Waltheof, a boy of good disposition, following his mother, from a countess now made a queen, who loved him more closely, was reared, educated, grew and was strengthened in the court of the king, and the grace of God was shown in him by evident signs. For in the palace he showed himself a cloister, and in the crowd a monk, among courtiers a solitary.
[15] he preserved his innocence, Among the other insignia of virtues which he possessed, that singular ornament, namely the white robe of virginity, he carried with him from his mother's womb to heaven. But the king, showing himself to him not a stepfather, but a father, loved and cherished him as his own offspring, and, when he went hunting, often calling him and leading him with him, sometimes handed him his bow to carry. But Waltheof, as fittingly as he could, withdrawing himself from the king's sight, and committing the royal bow to another, and breaking into the shady parts of the grove, and seeking and finding some level place within the thickets of the brambles, was accustomed to sit and read in a book of set purpose carried for this and brought out from his bosom, or to apply himself to prayer. And when he had done this rather frequently, on a certain day the king by chance found him doing his customary things, and, having returned home, relating to the queen what he saw, and pronouncing sententiously, said: Your son is not of our lot; nothing to him and to this world: either quickly departing from this life he will die, or, secular things being renounced, he will fly to some Religious order. Which, as it went out from the mouth of the most Christian king, conjecturing, or, the Holy Spirit dictating, pronouncing, not long after was carried into effect. The queen, a wise and most excellent woman, kept all these words, conferring them in her heart, giving thanks and commending her son to her Creator who disposes all things.
[16] and the snares of the flattering world Waltheof, now setting his foot within the threshold
of adolescence, some envied, because his life was unlike their works: some detracted, and many with enticing conversations and stormy examples strove to corrupt his good morals and conform them to their own. The ancient enemy too, attending to the slippery way of adolescence, and seeing a precious treasure of chastity carried in an earthen and fragile vessel, furnished him matter and occasion of losing it, the little vessel being broken, and incited both the mind and the eyes of a certain noble girl to love of him. On a certain occasion, after mutual conversations, she sent a golden ring, having enclosed in it a precious gem, as a sign and pledge and first-fruits of a love begun; which he, receiving, placed on his finger. A certain one of the courtiers, seeing this, and announcing it with joy to his companions, said: Behold, Waltheof has become, as it were, one of us, a suitor and a lover, and, as a token of love, the new wearer of a ring given him by his beloved.
[17] Which being heard, the young man, returned into himself and to himself, he cautiously avoided. groaned, and became as one not hearing and not opening his mouth: he secretly absented himself, and, finding a copious fire kindled, drew off the ring from his finger and cast it into the midst of the flames: and thus acquired the triumphal title of a double laurel. For more truly he avoided and escaped the nets and snares of the beast that hunts, conquers, and binds on every side and everywhere, and scraped from his mind almost entirely the spirit of avarice, admiring the mantle of gold. Blessed is he deservedly, who went not after gold, nay cast it from him as a snare of the devil. Rightly, then, shall we praise him: for he did wonderful things in his life. It is plainly more wonderful to extinguish the accursed hunger of gold than to conquer Venus. Indeed very many are found to be conquerors of anger, treaders-down of pride, despisers of vainglory, of gluttony, lovers of chastity; but very few and most rare seem to be casters-away of gold or gems. From that day, then, he cut off from himself the familiarities of women, little gifts, secret addresses, knowing that it is not safe to sleep often beside serpents, nor, without injury to one's garment, according to Solomon, to hide fire in one's bosom.
ANNOTATIONS.
p. The Acts of St. Guthlac the anchorite Henschenius illustrated at the day the XI of April, in volume 11 of that month from page 37.
q. Although here the name and honor of martyr is said to befit count Waltheof, and this narration indicates some cult of him, yet we do not dare to adorn him with the title of holy, because nowhere is he announced in the Martyrologies. Since, therefore, in our work he is probably never to be treated, unless someone indicate the determined day of his death, and prove his legitimate cult, I shall bring forward in this place what Ingulf the synchronous writer, among the Writers of English affairs, reprinted at Frankfurt in the year 1601, on his occasion, page 902 and following, thus narrates: There is added also at this same time, to the heap of the calamity of Croyland, the cruel beheading of count Walden, who had been most kind to all the religious, and especially a chief and most excellent friend to the monastery of Croyland; and although the venerable archbishop Lanfranc, his confessor, asserted him to be utterly immune from all faction and conspiracy, and that, if he died in the cause, he would be a martyr for his innocence; yet, his most impious wife affecting a new marriage, and therefore most wickedly hastening the death of her husband, some Normans too gaping after his counties, namely of Northampton and Huntingdon, most greedily especially count Yvo Talbois of Anjou thirsting for his own lands and tenements, which were very many in all the borders of England, thirsting for his blood, innocent and harmless he is martyred at Winchester on the day before the Kalends of June?, and at once there the body of the martyr is buried under a lowly sod. But after fifteen days, by the king's permission, through the venerable abbot Wulketul the body of the martyr is taken from the tomb, and so whole and sprinkled with fresh blood, as if he had been killed on the same day, and with due veneration is carried to Croyland, and honorably buried in the chapter-house of the same monastery: where, when the Lord, to show the innocence of his martyr through the power of miracles, had appeared wonderful in his Saints and forever praiseworthy, his wife, her chamber being left, hearing the mighty deeds of Christ, came to the tomb of her husband, and, we seeing it, offered a silken pall over the tomb, which, as if it had been thrown back by someone's hands, leaped back farther from the tomb. Then also the manor of Barnack, which he had given to our monastery, is taken from us, and confiscated by royal command to be given as dowry to the most impious Jezebel, once his wife, with the rest of her lands about the Trent. But after a little time, when the renowned king William
disposed to give the said niece of his in marriage to a certain highborn Norman, named Simon of Senlis, she refused marriage with him, because the said Simon was lame in one of his legs. Whence the king, angry beyond measure, gave the county of Huntingdon with all the lands pertaining to it to the said Simon; and she, greatly fearing the wrath of the king, took to flight with her daughters, and, by the just judgment of God much despaired of, held in hatred by all, wandered through various places and hiding-places. At length, then, this wretched woman, recognizing her crimes, and greatly repenting of the nefarious slaying of her husband, remained herself in celibacy, since thenceforth she was suspect to all and worthily despised: but her elder daughter, named Matilda, after much counsel the aforesaid Simon took to wife, of whom he has already received offspring, namely Simon, Walden, and Matilda, still minors and infants. But Alicia, the sister of his wife, the said count Simon gave to the most illustrious man Ralph of Tournai with the whole lordship of Wilchamstow, once belonging to count Walden his father: of whom the said Ralph now has offspring, although my knowledge does not yet have the name of the offspring. This Simon, count of Huntingdon and Northampton, built the castle of Northampton and the monastery of St. Andrew not far from the said castle. This concerning the wife and offspring of the holy martyr I believe suffices for the present. But the venerable abbot Wulketul, soon after the burial of the holy martyr, openly preached to his neighbors the miracles of God which the Lord daily wrought about his Saint, and publicly made them known to all. Whence the Normans, exceedingly indignant, and unjustly angry against a just man, especially Yvo Talbois persecuting him more atrociously than the rest, [he] being personally admonished to be present at the next council to be held at London, and appearing on the day for the due reverence had toward the holy martyr, a nefarious conspiracy being made, wickedly accuse him of idolatry, and more wickedly deprive him of the care of the monastery, and, deprived, most wickedly condemn him to the cloister of Glastonbury under the then most bloody abbot Thurstan, far from those who knew him and from his own country. The venerable father abbot Wulketul, therefore, being thus deposed from the government of the pastoral office, and the whole treasure of the monastery being thus plundered and confiscated to royal uses, my littleness is substituted: for I, Ingulf the humble, etc. Since Ingulf wrote the history of the monastery of Croyland about the year of Christ 1091, and at that time St. Walden or Waltheof our Saint, and his brother and sister, were still minors and infants, we can make some conjecture concerning the age of our Saint, since he migrated to heaven in the year of Christ 1159 or 1160. For the rest, the genealogy of the same holy Abbot is confirmed from that fragment.
r. This is Huntingdon, a county of England, which has on the North and West Northampton, but is bounded on the East by Cambridge, and on the South by Bedford.
s. Perhaps the father of our Saint had this surname from a family or some lordship. Above by Ingulf he is surnamed "of Senlis" probably on account of his fatherland, or a family sprung from Senlis. Bromton and others call him Simon "de sancto Licio." I suspect that that surname agrees with "Sylvanectensis" of Senlis, because Senlis, a city of Gaul, or the county of Senlis, is there commonly named Senlis, whence probably the surname "de sancto Licio" was formed in barbarous Latin.
t. The brother of St. Waltheof was called Simon by the name of his father.
u. Our Saint, according to the name of his grandfather, is called Walden, Waltheof, Waltheofus, or by a similar name, as we have seen through the course of the Preliminary Commentary.
v. In English he is named Walthef and Waltheof, as is plain from the English Martyrologies of Whitford and Wilson. But from the English language I cannot extract both significations indicated in this place; nor could a certain one of ours, English by nation, whom I consulted. And so, destitute of this aid, I propose a certain conjecture. It is known to the learned how the German or Saxon idiom was introduced into England, and mingled with the vernacular tongue. What if, then, the name of Walthef or Waltheof be compounded from the German or Saxon root "wahl," which signifies election, and the English word "theefe," which signifies thief? Thus is said in German "wahl-reich," which in Latin we interpret "elective kingdom." In this way it can be understood how in our biographer by the name of Walthef "chosen thief" is signified. But in vain I inquired how by the same name pronounced otherwise "chosen flavor" can be signified. I also do not understand the interpretation of the same name which Henriquez in the Fasciculus of the Saints of the Cistercian Order, book 2, distinction 26, chapter 58, page 258, published from the manuscript of Anthony Gentius thus: His name in the idiom of the English is dissyllabic, [and] if the second syllable be uttered with a shortened accent, is interpreted "HEAVENLY FLAVOR," if with a lengthened accent, "HEAVENLY THIEF." But in the Legend of Capgrave, and in our manuscript compendium of Armorican Brittany, agreeably with these longer Acts, is written "chosen"; for which epithet perhaps Henriquez wrongly read "heavenly," just as from a faulty reading and punctuation he erroneously changed the year and day of Waltheof's death, as we noted in the Preliminary Commentary, number 43. Further, if our explanation of the above-mentioned etymology does not please, you may see Edmund Gibson, who after the Saxon Chronicle explains etymologically the names of places and men, where perhaps on pages 47 and 53, in the roots of the Anglo-Saxon language, he will supply other significations.
w. "Canabus," in Greek κάναβος, is according to Calepine and others a certain species of wood. Hence it is plain enough that a play of boys is indicated, who anciently too were wont to ride on a long reed, as Horace, book 2 of the Satires, satire 3, testifies.
x. This Stephen presided over the kingdom of England from the year of Christ 1136 to the year 1154, as may be seen in the ready writers of English history.
y. Concerning the deeds of Henry I, king of England, our Alford in the Annals from the year of Christ 1100 to 1135 may be consulted.
z. In the same Alford, at the year 1100, number 21 and following, treatment is given of this marriage and of the stock of this Matilda, and Eadmer the synchronous writer is cited, who concerning the same marriage there discourses at length.
aa. That Matilda, queen of England, obtained so great a fame of goodness among the English that she is adorned with various eulogies, and certain more recent Martyrologists have inscribed her in the number of the Saints, as in our work at the day the XXX of April among the passed-over it was said.
bb. David, king of Scotland, received this only son from the mother of St. Waltheof, as we said in the Preliminary Commentary.
cc. This is Malcolm IV, who on account of the perpetual integrity of his body is everywhere surnamed the virgin, as may be read in Hector Boëthius, and other Scottish historians.
dd. The biographer dedicated this Life to this king of Scotland, and to his brother David, as we noted above in the Annotations to the prologue. Whence also in the Preliminary Commentary we gathered, as best we could, the time of this lucubration.
CHAPTER II.
His profession of the canonical life, and the wonderful benefits conferred on him from heaven.
The Saint, ecclesiastical dignities being spurned, In process of days Waltheof, reaching the threshold of blooming youth, was hoped by many for the great name of the episcopate, according to the name of the great who are in the earth, namely to obtain the pontifical grade in Scotland or in England: but he himself, in whose a * inmost marrow of his heart he was meditating flight from the world and flight from the world, taking care in every way lest, against the Savior's prohibition, his flight should be in winter or on the sabbath; but he deliberates more attentively upon the quality of the Religious order and the place: for he feared lest perhaps, if within the kingdom of the king of Scotland or within the land of the count his brother he were received into some house of Religion, he should not be permitted to stay there longer, or, thence violently drawn out, should even against his will be promoted to some height of ecclesiastical honor.
[19] he embraces the institute of the Regular Canons, Revolving these things in his mind, the Holy Spirit inspiring, he found a wholesome counsel, and going out of that land and his kindred, and coming to a place called Nostell b, outside the dominion of the king and the count, in the church of St. Oswald, king and martyr, he took the habit of a Canon. Having become a regular Canon, he bore himself so disciplinedly and religiously that it clearly shone forth to the rest, that there was displayed in his manners and life what he had found written in the Rule of clerics, handed down by blessed Augustine. For he himself, a novice and young, was set forth as an exemplar for living well to Canons aged in years and manner of life. He resolved in mind, lying hidden there, to die with blessed Job in his little nest, and, like the palm, to multiply his days, and to be hidden from the disturbance of men in the hiding-place of the face of God, and, as a lost vessel and as one dead from the heart, to be given to oblivion by his kinsmen and acquaintances. But although he thus proposed these things with himself, the Creator of all disposed far otherwise concerning him, because he willed through him to gather into one many sons of God who were dispersed.
[20] and, elected Prior in the monastery of Kirkham, The lamp could not longer, the true Light disposing, lie hidden under the bushel, nor ought the precious pearl any further to be wrapped in a rag. Hence it is that the regular Canons of Kirkham c, deprived of their Prior, seeking round about good pearls, finding him, as the most precious, procured [him] for themselves, and, placing him as a most bright lamp upon the candlestick, they, although unwilling and resisting, yet constrained by the force of obedience, by unanimous consent appointed [him] their Prior and spiritual Father. At that time at St. Oswald's d he bore the office of sacristan: and indeed he rightly guarded the sanctified vessels, who possessed his own vessel in sanctification and honor: and because he more attentively kept watch over the divine praises, he by his insistence roused the rest to do the same. The lamp, then, raised upon the candlestick, gave a saving light to all in the house of the Lord over which he presided, and showed himself an expressed example of holiness. For the man of God, by so much as he was prior to the rest in grade and office, by so much before the rest was he first and foremost in the exercise of the virtues; and by how much he seemed more sublime in the eyes of all, by so much was he more humble in his own eyes. For humility, rooted in his breast from the cradle, never learned to walk in great and wonderful things above himself; but always studied to think humble things of himself; nor, appointed ruler, did he wish to be extolled, as is the custom of some; but to be as one of the subjects; nor to have dominion over the clergy, but to be made a pattern of the flock.
[21] All the good customs and sacred institutes which he knew to be kept in various churches of Canons, he furnishes to all examples of the virtues. as though gathered into a little bundle, he diligently instituted to be observed in the house over which he presided. Wherefore the Lord blessed that house, for the sake of his Servant, and its possession grew in the land, count Henry e, his uterine brother, and other magnates conferring churches and lands, to be possessed in pure
and perpetual almsgiving to be possessed by the church of Kirkham. Nonetheless within, holy religion flourished in regular discipline, in the distribution of alms, in the reception of guests, and in the showing of much kindness with great diligence. In these and in other sacred studies how great grace this man found in the eyes of the Lord, the Lord himself deigned to declare by a revelation, nay, by an apparition sufficiently admirable.
[22] On a certain occasion, celebrating Mass on the most sacred Nativity of the Lord, The sweet revelation, by which he had seen Christ in the Eucharist, in great devotion of heart and the customary pouring out of tears, when within the secret prayers of the Canon, elevating the Host, he had uttered the effective words of the Sacrament, when the bread is transubstantiated into the Body, and the wine into the Blood of the Lord, he found in his hands a little infant, beautiful above the sons of men, wearing as it were a golden crown on his head, radiant with star-bearing gems. That little boy seemed whiter than all snow, who, with sweet-flowing gaze of his eyes, and serene countenance, and gentle clapping of his hands, touching, handling, smoothing his head and face, caressed [him]; and sometimes applying head to head, [and] his mouth, more precious than the whole world, to his mouth, imprinted frequent kisses. But he, inebriated from the torrent of pleasure of the house of God, as one introduced into the wine-cellar, offered innumerable kisses to the feet and hands and to the several limbs of this our little Jesus, felt his beloved wholly desirable to him, sweet to ruminate upon by a happy experience. At length that beloved little infant, his hands being raised, blessed with the impression of the cross, and vanished from his eyes, and he saw nothing in his hands but the customary Host. As often as the man of God remembered from his inmost marrow this deifying vision, filled with an inestimable jubilee of heart, he was bathed in a placid flowing of tears.
[23] These things the man of God long concealing, afterward, speaking of the secret of his soul, he declares to his confessor revealed all to his confessor, and, that he should not, while he survived, disclose it to anyone, in the power of obedience imperatively bound him. But he, obeying the one commanding, while the man of God lived, hid that word, but after his death disclosed it to religious men. These things I learned from the venerable Everard f, first abbot of Holmcultram g, narrating them, and received them from the mouth of his confessor. These things I heard several times related by Suan h, a religious and truthful monk, subcellarer of Melrose, and by other religious men of good testimony. Behold, the desire of the holy old man Simeon is renewed in Waltheof: behold, the presence of the boy Jesus is more wonderfully repeated. For Simeon saw, recognized, embraced Christ in the flesh, long awaited, and prophesied [him] about to die on the cross: Waltheof carried in his hands, in the same form, but a more sublime one, kissed the same, now exalted enough above the heavens, crowned with glory and honor.
[24] with certain circumstances, The same Man of God also confessed that he felt no more weight in the elevation of the boy himself than of the host set upon the altar. Nor is it a wonder, nor undeservedly, if he who holds all things, carries all things, should have little weight in his body now glorified, since he believed that the members of his body after the general resurrection would have from his benefit a certain likeness of subtlety and agility. But from the contemplation of this wonderful vision not only is the holiness of the Man known, but also the Catholic faith concerning the life-giving Sacraments of the Altar is strengthened, the affection of the orthodox Fathers is confirmed, the detestable error of the heretics denying the mysteries of the Lord's Body and Blood is confounded.
[26] and from a certain priest On a certain day a certain Canon of Kirkham, when he had celebrated Mass in the presence and hearing of his Prior Waltheof, a certain spider fell into the holy chalice about the Agnus Dei, and struck great fear and horror into the one sacrificing on account of what might happen, the rite being finished. And so the priest, standing and not knowing what to do, by a cough and by a sound, as he could, got the Prior's attention, and showed what had happened. The Prior, deliberating a little with himself, prayer being poured out and a blessing given, glowing with the flame of faith, commanded that he should confidently take the spider with the sacred offering in the name of the Lord. The priest, then, obeyed the Father's command, and, taking faithfully and trustingly whatever was contained in the chalice, felt no loss of health or provocation of nausea. For the heavenly honeycomb could not pour forth gall, nor the divine nectar be mingled with poison, nor ought the fruit of the singular bee to share or communicate with the spider.
[26] in a wonderful way he expels a venomous spider. Whence, the Canons sitting with him after the meal in the cloister, that Canon, sitting, rubbed his finger; and after a little delay a swelling tumor appeared in the finger: and behold, the spider, the skin being broken, comes forth alive, and, before all sitting by and marveling, by the Prior's order is given to the flames to be burned. Hence arises between the Prior and the Canon a sufficiently friendly altercation about that sign which had happened: the Prior attributed this to the obedience and faith of the Canon, the Canon to the Father's precept, prayers, and blessing: but I judge that this must be ascribed to the faith and devotion of each, but chiefly to the most powerful virtue of the divine Sacrament. For neither ought nor was it fitting for the angelic manna to flow deadly, nor for the peril of death to proceed from the cup of life.
[27] He gave St. Malachy a horse, At a certain time St. Malachy, by nation and by pontificate i Irish, taking his journey toward Rome, made a passage through England, being received into lodging in several places, [and] gladdened his hosts by his presence and by sacred admonitions and miracles. Coming to York, he is saluted by several who met him, honored, and especially because his coming was foretold by Figarus k, a priest of Newbald l. That same priest was of great holiness and repute, and powerful in the spirit of prophecy, who (as I have said) had foretold his coming, and evidently designated his countenance and stature and the number of his companions. But the venerable Waltheof, aforenamed Prior of Kirkham, drawn by the odor of the virtues of the holy pontiff, went to him, and after the salutation and saving conversations of life, having obtained his familiarity and friendship, humbly and devoutly commended himself to his prayers. But that same pontiff had several companions, among whom were five priests, and only three horses; and yet he was ashamed to ask a mount from anyone: for as is said in the true and common proverb, The needy man, while he asks, buys dear. Which the Prior perceiving, full of charity, brought him the horse on which he himself was carried, blackish, strong indeed and sound, but hard-carrying, saying: Let your holiness receive this, I pray, most dear father, and take it not amiss that our want has not at hand a better one at present. But the bishop, receiving the horse with thanksgiving, said, It is good enough, and, as long as I survive, sufficient for me. I hold very dear a thing given me from a charitable heart.
[28] He caused it, therefore, after his manner, to be saddled for him and mounted; which is wonderfully changed, and, hastening his journey, departed from York. Wonderful thing! Within a few days afterward that horse became entirely white, and a most excellent palfrey m, walking very gently, and for the nine years during which that holy man survived, continually carrying him, when the opportunity or necessity of riding pressed. This miracle the Irish attribute to the holiness of the pontiff riding, the Canons of Kirkham nonetheless ascribe [it] to the merits of their Prior, the giver of the horse: for it seems to them that it is more blessed to give than to receive, and that charity, a virtue remaining in the mind, is as it were a gushing fount; a work of charity displayed is as it were a stream flowing from it; and therefore the sign wrought in the horse ought to be ascribed rather to the fount than to the stream. But I, without prejudice to one wiser, judge that it must be ascribed to the merits of each. For because each shone with cleanness of life, and glorified God and carried [him] in his body, rightly, to declare the holiness of both, a gentle gait together with whiteness happened and remained in the horse.
[29] The holy fame of the venerable Prior Waltheof grew and became frequent round about, breathing forth the sweetness of a saving odor. and the archbishopric of York Attracted by the draught of this, the clerics of the church of York, and the diocesan magnates of that province, when the Episcopal see was vacant, would gladly have elected him as archbishop, if they had the prince's assent. For king Stephen, although he loved and venerated him, knowing him a just and holy man, yet feared lest, if he were made archbishop, he should favor king David, and together with him should according to his power foster the party of Henry his adversary, to whom the scepter of England belonged by hereditary right. For this cause he not only did not give assent to his election, but forbade in every way that it should be done: yet certain of the nobles, who were of the king's privy council, often approached him about this, and, the Prior himself not knowing, strove to incline the king's mind to this.
[30] Whence on a certain occasion the Count of Aumale n, his kinsman, meeting the man, offered to him he spurns. said to him among the conversation: How long, by lying hidden in the cave of your cloister, will you dishonor our lineage by the abjection of yourself? Bring yourself frequently into public, strive by gifts and promises to obtain the familiarity and love of the king, the favor of his counselors and aid, and to the honor and exaltation of your race you will acquire the archbishopric, whatever kind you wish: I will give surety that I will obtain for you from the king the episcopal chair of York, if you grant me the vill of Sherburn, to be held of you only during my life. The holy man, first rebuking him in a vehement spirit, subjoined among other reproofs, saying: Not on account of kinship do you seek the sublimity of my promotion, but rather your own transitory advantage, nor my honor, but your gain. Hold it, therefore, fixed, that you will never see me presiding over the pontifical chair, nor you possessing the aforenamed vill. The count, struck by this prophetic word, as by a dart, withdrew with a blush, and the word uttered from the mouth of the Saint stood supported by perpetual truth.
ANNOTATIONS.
* perhaps "in imis" in the depths or "in suis"
* perhaps "let them believe"
CHAPTER III.
His passage to the monastic life, and various virtues in it.
There was increased then from day to day in the heart of the Man contempt of worldly pomp, [and] desire of the heavenly fatherland; Consulting God, and he fixed in his mind, with long desire, with the discreet balance of circumspect deliberation, that he wished to take the way of a stricter Religious order. His will, therefore, was to ascend from lesser things to greater, and with blessed Job to pronounce God through his several steps. He desired to advance from the canonry to the monkhood, especially of the Cistercian Order, which seemed to him more austere and stricter than the rest in habit and act: but he feared, as he was wont to relate, that it was too incompetent for the weakness of his strength for so great a burden. He devoutly consulted often about this the Angel of great counsel, that by the spirit of counsel and fortitude he might illuminate and strengthen his spirit to choose wisely and hold firmly what would be more wholesome for his soul. He feared lest perhaps the angel of Satan, who often transfigures himself into an angel of light, should offer him poison in a golden cup; and under the striving of ascent should cloak a precipice, which he considered and perceived in very many. But when the column of his heart stood immovable in such a purpose, the spiritual Man understood that for this thing conceived in his heart he was visited and invited by the Lord.
[32] and abbot St. Ailred He also consulted a man venerable in life, manners, doctrine, Ailred a the abbot, his fellow-pupil and most dear friend. That man was begotten of the illustrious stock of the ancient English, and, after the schools were too hastily left, from youth was reared and educated in the court of king David with Henry the king's son and this same Waltheof. A certain space of time being passed, he was first made a monk of Rievaulx b, afterward abbot there. He did not obtain much skill in the liberal arts in the schools, but by his own sweat and the exercise of his subtle innborn wit, cleared and polished, he was refined above many imbued with secular letters; he had senses exercised in Sacred Scripture, and left behind him to posterity, as a perpetual monument, distinguished books and treatises, dictated in a most clear style and full of edification, the spirit of wisdom and understanding inspiring and filling him. Moreover that man was of the best manners, endowed with secular wisdom, witty, eloquent, sociable and pleasant, liberal and discreet. He was nonetheless, above all his coevals set over the church, gentle and patient, and greatly compassionate to the infirmities of the bodies and manners of others.
[33] from a regular canon he becomes a Cistercian monk, Relying, therefore, on the counsel and exhortation of such and so great a man, Waltheof transferred himself to Warden c, the entrance into the monkhood being asked and obtained, changed his habit, entered the novitiate. Hearing which, count Simon his brother glowed wholly with anger, and, declaring him lost to himself and to all his friends, threatened the whole monastery of Warden, with a terrifying oath, with a consuming fire, if it should retain him any longer. But the monks of Kirkham, who had cherished him with filial affection, strove with much sweat and by ecclesiastical censure to recall him to their government. But the abbot and convent of Warden, recognizing the aforesaid count as prone to evil and anger, feared his roaring like a lion's, fearing that through him they would incur a pernicious loss to their house. A council of the prudent being therefore called, he himself consenting, in order to mitigate the malice of the time, until the iniquity should pass, they sent him to Rievaulx, namely their mother house, in which place or its vicinity the aforesaid count had no power of harming or effective power of hindering. The complaint of the Canons was moved against him, alleging and asserting that by right he could not and ought not to desert the flock committed to him by the Lord. But he did not turn his mind from his purpose; but, the manifold allegations brought forth on both sides notwithstanding, bidding them farewell, he entered the novitiate there.
[34] When the venerable Waltheof had spent in the novitiate a certain space of time, and the novitiate being completed, the ancient serpent hissing, the observance of the Order he had taken up turned for him into weariness: food and drink seemed to him insipid, the clothing rough and mean, the manual labor hard, the burden of vigils and psalmody heavy, and the whole tenor of the Order too austere. Recalling his former years in his canonry or priory, he had it persuaded in his mind that their institutions, although lighter, were nevertheless nearer to discretion, and by this fitter for saving souls. But when he had felt such poison creeping into his heart, he opposed the antidote of continual and devout prayer. But when even thus the temptation was not diminished, but rather grew, so that he had deliberated to desert the Cistercian Order and return to the canonry; the Lord regarding him, confounded in himself he blushed, and set himself against his own face. For on a certain day, the bell being rung for the canonical hour, the other novices having gone out according to the rite, he alone remained in the cell; and, led by an impulse of spirit, casting himself on the threshold of the door, he placed his head, shoulders, arms, belly within, his buttocks, hips, shins and feet without; and praying with tears he said: God almighty, Creator, knower and disposer of all, whether it please your will that I remain in the monkhood, or return to the canonry, give a showing, and take from me the temptation hitherto afflicting my soul.
[35] And when, by uttering these and such things, he entreated God, in which he had overcome certain temptations, suddenly, seeing no one, feeling no touch, drawn only by divine grace and virtue, he is transferred to the seat in which he was wont to meditate and read. From that hour, as long as he lived, he was free from such temptation, and whatever seemed austere and heavy in the Order was thenceforth light and good to him: because he felt the yoke of the Lord sweet and the burden light. Thus, thus our Elisha sweetened whatever tasted bitter in the pot of the heart of his elect, a little meal of his grace being cast in. By wonderful governance the wonderful God permitted this man, whom he had disposed to advance to the government of souls, to be wearied by this temptation, namely for the increase of his crown, that his own experience might teach him how he ought to have compassion and mercy. The venerable Waltheof, the rubble of temptations being dug out, like the best acre, thenceforth brought forth the best fruit in the Lord's field; and drawn by the Spouse, in the odor of his ointments he ran swiftly and delightfully. After the circle of a year, therefore, completed in the novitiate, he put on, by habit and by act, the Rule of blessed Benedict as a monk, and, to conclude briefly, expressed in himself an evident example of all holiness.
[36] About the same time d Richard, first abbot of Melrose, he is elected abbot of the monastery of Melrose, although in several respects praiseworthy, since on account of his indomitable impulse of anger he showed himself intolerable to the convent, justly made ex-abbot, ceded his office and place; and the venerable Waltheof, elected by the unanimous consent of all, constrained in the power of obedience by the father abbot, succeeded him in the pastoral care. By the merits, therefore, of this great priest, who in his days pleased God and was found just, in the promotion, in the time of king
David, a reconciliation was made of the anger which he had conceived against the Convent of Melrose on account of the deposition of the aforesaid Richard. For the king had the aforenamed abbot as a fellow-initiate, and therefore loved and protected him above the rest, and would suspect nothing evil of the man. Depraved and perverse prelates too have as their own property to turn back their strength upon their subjects, and to excuse themselves toward excellent persons, both ecclesiastical and secular, concerning their own faults. These things I have briefly touched, lest anyone dare to accuse the holy Convent of Melrose concerning the deposition of that abbot or of others deserving some such thing; but let him restrain his biting tongue from the disparagement of them and of other Religious.
[37] The beloved and elect of the Lord, Waltheof, being made abbot, fulfilled the name, the reality and the office by work and truth: in which office gentle for in him appeared not the shadow of a great name, but the truth, [and] he showed to his subjects the most pious effect and affection of a Father in the necessaries of body and spirit, and, according to the admonitions of St. Benedict, studied to be loved rather than feared. And although by the office committed to him he was raised with the zeal of rectitude against delinquents, yet he was a most pious consoler of the sorrowful and of those humbly making satisfaction for their fault. But those whom for a sin publicly committed, of their own accord confessed or convicted, he punished with public penance, after he knew that they had humbly and devoutly fulfilled the enjoined satisfaction, he permitted no one thenceforth to reproach them for that fault with impunity. He affirmed that such reproachers are in a certain respect equal to or worse than demons: because what, after the completed satisfaction of the enjoined penance, God the fount of mercy by indulging washed away and blotted out, [and] the devil gave to oblivion, these do not fear maliciously to repeat, to upbraid, who perhaps have fallen or could fall or will fall into some such or similar or worse thing. He was wont to bring forward several examples about these things concerning the possessed, who disclosed to their faces before those consulting them the sins not detected in confession; after the confession was made, they cried that they had lost the writing of those same sins.
[38] toward his subjects, He was wont rather often to turn on his lips that saying of blessed Hugh, abbot of Cluny e: If it should happen that one of two should befall, I prefer to be punished on account of the greatness of mercy than for the censure of rigid justice. But to those confessing their secret faults to him he showed himself so most gentle and mellifluous a physician that, with the sweet-flowing drops of holy exhortation and consolation, penetrating any stony breast, he softened them to true and fruitful penitence, and with the rod of the Lord's cross brought forth a fount of tears from the hard flint of the heart. And, they weeping, from compassion his eyes led forth an outflowing of waters. In these, however, he so discreetly applied a medicinal plaster and antidote to the wounds of souls, that neither was the wound or disease in any way uncovered, nor were they burdened by the confection, though somewhat bitter, but efficaciously obtained health. Let those prelates hear these things, who for faults secretly committed enjoin manifest satisfaction, and open the way of suspicion to onlookers. But what shall I say of those who lay snares in the future for those revealing to them the secrets of conscience, and, having found some slight occasion, do not fear to expel them from their own house, and to cast them headlong into the pit of perdition? Plainly such physicians of souls, who exercise such power over their sick, are called poisoners, who are proved to offer poison instead of an antidote. Not so, not so Waltheof, who, knowing that a physician is not necessary for the healthy, but for those who are ill, therefore toward all, but especially toward such, overflowed with the bowels of piety.
[39] and severe against himself The man of God, who to the rest, the penitent, was pious and propitious, to himself concerning his own faults, even the very slightest or almost none, was an importunate accuser, a most insistent witness, and a strict judge. As often too as, as is wont, some flying or shadowy thought of worldly vanity had crept into his heart, or some little word void of utility or liable to idleness had flown into the wind uttered from his mouth; he did not suffer, so to speak, a momentary delay to pass, but ran to the healing remedy of confession, and exposed his back to the rods f. But if his confessor, led by piety, struck that most innocent body more gently with rods, he himself in the power of obedience was wont to command more strictly that his confessor's eye or hand should not spare him, until he several times drew blood. Work of this kind he sometimes repeated ten times or more in a day, and afflicted his confessors with great weariness by such repetition, as they testified. The man of God, many times, if by impatience on account of the vexation he killed by striking a fly or gnat sitting on his face and sucking his blood, at once ran to the aforesaid work, that in revenge he might pour out his own blood pressed out by the scourge, and dissolve the scourger, as though forced for nothing to beat him, into a pouring out of tears.
[40] Lord Everard too, first abbot of Holmcultram, related por light offenses he inflicted grave penalties on himself, that on a certain occasion, while he was journeying with the aforesaid Man of God, a gadfly g settled on his neck or hand, which, when he for a long time tried to drive off or at least remove from its infestation by fanning it with the sleeves of his cowl, and did not prevail, by chance he killed it by striking rather hard with his fist. After a little delay, dismounting from his horse, he secretly called the aforesaid abbot to him: and at once prostrated himself before his feet, and cried himself guilty, because he had killed a creature of God, which he could not form or make alive. But the abbot, smiling, enjoined on him a very slight satisfaction for such a fault: but he grieved more for the killing of the gadfly than several are wont to repent for a pouring out of human blood perpetrated by them. Behold, while I relate these things, I greatly grieve for myself and those like me: in many things daily and grave we offend, and slowly we hasten to the scourges of correction: for faults secretly grave or even frequently perpetrated we many times with difficulty endure the enjoined satisfaction, and, exposing our back to the scourges, if the blows are repeated rather hard, we murmur.
[41] Certain elders of the house too, and especially William of Bredeshal, and he took care to be admonished of his own defects. a monk mature in manners and years, he had bound in the power of imperative obedience, that, if ever he should perceive him doing anything reprehensible, he should not omit to correct him more insistently; which when he did, he himself, like a trembling boy under the master's ferule, admitted the correction, and promised amendment. O how many prelates do otherwise! for when they work many perverse things, not only do they disdain to be reproved by their subjects, but even if they utter some little word displeasing to them, they are implacably hostile, and try to eliminate them from their company. I remember that I heard a certain prelate rather often saying his pleasure to his subject speaking to him not according to his will: Do you speak thus to me? Do you not know that I have power to crucify you, etc.? But now let us be silent about these things and return to St. Waltheof.
[42] The venerable Waltheof from the most sweet and most gentle Jesus Christ learned and studied to be meek and humble of heart, The humility of St. Waltheof. and therefore neither desirous of obtaining lordship, nor swollen at the lordship received, was wont to think humble things of himself, and to consent to humble men. He held forth accordingly true humility, namely contempt of his own excellence, in the abjection of things and honors (as we have already partly said and shall still say), in his tongue and in his gait, in the gesture of his whole body, in habit and in riding. His speech was humble, chaste, truthful, free from vainglory, murmuring, backbiting, and boasting. He avoided excellence or boasting concerning the loftiness of his noble blood as much as haughty prelates, sprung from peasants creeping on the ground or even from beggars, are wont to beware of publishing the ignobility of their race.
[43] with the lying pride of certain men, Wonderful, nay detestable, is the presumptuous perversity of certain prelates, who, since they draw their native origin from obscure parents, by means of gifts, traffic to themselves the distinction of consanguinity with soldiers and nobles; whence also the rich many times laugh at the favor shown and the gifts received, and deride the vainglorious giver; and those who reckon or grant the third or fourth degree of kinship to the little giver, know not how to number the hundredth knee h. There are also others, prelates and subjects placed in the habit of Religion, begotten of military stock, whose whole discourse or conversation turns upon those relatives, whose joy too depends on their prosperity, and sorrow on their adversity. Not so Waltheof, of whom is our present discourse; who, drawing an original portion from the stock of kings and princes, studied to obey and please only the King of kings, the parent of all, and never extolled himself concerning his sublime carnal progeny; nay, he corrected his delinquent parents with great authority, and the magnates more harshly; to peasants and farmers he submitted himself.
[44] modesty with the dissoluteness His gait and the gesture of his whole body was religious and most seemly, and therefore bred edification in onlookers; whence I am ashamed to say of certain ones who inflame themselves by rowing with their shoulders or arms, or, in the manner of a turtledove or peacock or crane, pompously paint their steps. Certain others, in speaking, extend their fingers, shake their head, raise their eyebrows, and by the very nods of their eyes seem to cry out that saying of Elihu i: Behold, my belly is as new wine without a vent, which bursts the new little casks. When this Man of God dined or supped, he wished his table to be adorned, on account of those reclining, with dishes and the other necessaries, insofar however as the institution of the Order permitted: but he himself took so sparingly of the things set before [him], that it was a marvel to those sitting by and standing by how a body so feeble, living as it were on nothing, could exercise its office. His clothing was in no way notable, because neither precious, nor too abject or mean, but middling, and, according to the admonitions of blessed Augustine, he strove to please more by manners than by garments.
[45] poverty In riding he was wont to have a monk and a lay-brother traveling with him with only three sumpter-horses k, to which however necessity invited or compelled [him]; but he himself, in the manner of servants l, was wont to carry little bundles tied behind on the carriage, the shoes m or leggings of his lads n, and sometimes upon the horses the hobbles o, which they commonly call "posturae." Whence on a certain occasion, when thus laden he had gone to king Stephen to transact certain necessary matters, count Simon his brother above mentioned being present, that same count said to the king: You see, my lord king, how my brother, your kinsman, honors us. But the king, fixing his eyes on the Abbot, By the nativity, he said, of God (for with such an oath he was wont to confirm his word), if by the inspiring of divine grace we knew and could weigh [it], he greatly honors us, and, as the carbuncle adorns the gold in which it is set, so he adorns our whole lineage. Then, frequently kissing his hands, he asked and received his blessing; and whatever he asked he granted with willing mind; and thus, farewell being made to each other, the Saint departed. The king from the depth of his breast drew deep sighs
drawing them: This noble man, he said, has subjected all worldly things under his feet for God, and we, receiving our souls in vain, follow the fleeing world, and, falling, cling to what is falling: for while we, doting, seek the deceitful haughtiness and the false riches that deride us, we lose our souls with peril of our bodies.
[46] Let abbots, therefore, see and reconsider and understand alike, they are compared with the magnificence of certain ones, who with many wedges of retinue and countless mounts and several sumpter-beasts more curiously approach the courts of kings, thinking that in things of this kind they are the more magnified by princes and magnates: certainly, the more they extol themselves in such things, the more they grow vile in their eyes and minds, and the more they abase and humble themselves for God, the more they are honored by them, judged more precious and better. Meanwhile let me be silent about abbots of the black Order [p], journeying with numerous carriages and pack-horses, meeting whom people think not that Fathers of monasteries are coming, but prelates and princes of provinces. Concerning certain abbots of the Cistercian Order I grieve, who know not on which or what kind of palfrey they wish to sit, nor do they proceed for the sake of passing the night to a little grange [q] except with several sumpter-horses, packs, and mantles of the finest wool, clothed or furred with lambskins [r]. Thus is the gold darkened, the best color changed: but from the beginning of the Order, in the times of the holy Fathers, it was not so. Would that with ears to hear they might hear and attend to our Waltheof, and by his example circumcise themselves from the vice of superfluity of this kind. I, poor little one, lest I seem to set my mouth in heaven, will henceforth set my finger upon my mouth about these things; but although I am forbidden to speak, yet I cannot be silent.
[47] The face of the man of God was a faithful interpreter of the inner man, and by evident signs persuaded that the presence of the Holy Spirit, the inhabitant of his heart, was present. and his other endowments are praised. For his face, lean but bright, and the red color infused in his turtledove-cheeks, and the pleasing hoariness of a reverend and religious person, by presenting grace, expressed the spiritual gladness and exultation which the Lord treasured up upon him, and led all who beheld and addressed him into love and reverence of him by a certain sweet-flowing gracefulness [s]. Finally, the grace diffused on his lips, admonishing or threatening or correcting or instructing or establishing, breathed the sweetness of a divine odor and flavor, and did not allow the word once sent out from his mouth to return to him void, but made it prosperously advance and profit to whatever he willed. For he did not, in the manner of certain ones, preach by frequently ruminating the sentences and sermons of others with heart and mouth, uttering them repeated, nor did he affect to acquire praises for himself from the labors of others. From his fiery and most bright breast he brought forth, by preaching, the fiery and bright word of the Lord, and above many, much more lettered than himself, kindled his hearers by instructing them to the exercise of the virtues. He was nonetheless of fruitful eloquence, and especially skilled and eloquent and fluent in the French and English languages: whence it happened that, when according to custom he elegantly expounded in Latin [t] the Rule of blessed Benedict, he gave great delight to his hearers. For the man of God had a voice not only learned and persuasive, but also sweet and gentle, yet not loud-sounding, on account of the weakness of his body and the continual psalmody which he exercised beyond his strength.
ANNOTATIONS.
p. The Benedictines are everywhere called by writers of the middle age monks of the black Order, as in the Glossary of Du Cange at the word "ordo" is more fully explained.
q. It is a diminutive from the word "grangia," which signifies a farm or country estate, as Du Cange proves by several examples.
r. "Foratus" or "furratus" is the same as "pellitus" clothed in skins or adorned with skins, from the French "fourré," which has the same signification. That barbarous word is also in use among English writers, as Du Cange in the Glossary at the adjective "furratus" shows.
s. "Placor" is a certain manner of pleasing, which in Greek is called ἀρέσκεια, and in Latin can be called courtesy or the winning of goodwill.
t. "Romane" in Roman here is the same, if I am not mistaken, as "in Latin."
CHAPTER IV.
Monasteries built at the exhortation of the Saint, and his mercy toward the poor illustrated by various miracles.
Count Simon, brother of the holy Abbot, so often aforenamed, when he was corrected by him on account of his excessive faults, By the counsel of St. Waltheof suffused with a wholesome blush, took up a more corrected life, repenting of the past sins perpetrated and abstaining from those to be perpetrated, for their expiation founded for the monks of the Cluniac Order the monastery of St. Andrew of Northampton a and the monastery of nuns of St. Mary outside the town, enlarged their revenues, and conferred on them many goods. He founded a monastery of the Cistercian Order, namely Sawtry b, and placed there the abbot and Convent of Warden, directed thither by abbot Simon the holy man. At length, in a Christian manner, a testament being made, fortified with the saving Sacraments, he died, and at Northampton c in the church of St. Andrew was buried, entering into the womb of the mother of all, and because he was a soldier strenuous in arms and wise according to the world and handsome, a certain one elegantly said his epitaph, describing it in verses:
Given likewise to fate, and by repeated chance they fall, Simon being taken away, Mars, Paris, and Cato.
[49] But another brother d of the holy Abbot, count Henry, various monasteries are built, son of king David, obeying his exhortation, founded a distinguished abbey, by name Holmcultram, enriched it with ample possessions, and, a convent of Melrose being taken, sent [it] thither through abbot Waltheof, over which he set as abbot a man of venerable life, Everard e by name, elected by them. That same Everard, from boyhood bound to the divine services in a canonry, loving the man of God more closely than the other Canons, followed [him] in Christ to the monkhood, [and] in the monastery of Melrose, being his chaplain, was made privy to the secrets of the Saint. He, living through many courses of years, raised up the house over which he presided within to the summit of great religion, and, enriched without with estates and possessions, carried [it] on high: and thus, full of days and virtues, in a good old age rests there in the Lord. King David too, a devout founder of Orders of all kinds and of manifold Religious houses in his land, and an excellent planter of many monasteries, the same holy Abbot his stepson persuading, built in Moray the monastery of Kinloss f, and led thither the abbot and convent of Melrose: but before he could raise that place, as he had disposed while living, on high, hasty death took the king out of the way.
[50] and the king of Scotland is led to a pious manner of living. King Malcolm, nephew of the holy Abbot, in boyhood and youth before his reign and in his reign, obeying his admonitions and command, composed his life according to his will and manners, ordered his house and kingdom. For, being an even balance of justice, he held an equal-balanced judgment between man and man, exercising the inflexible censure of the laws against thieves, robbers, and traitors, according to the Apostle he proved by his work that he did not carry the sword without cause. For the rest, what belonged to religion, to holiness, to manners, to virtue, he exercised under a secular habit: persevering in the honor of virginity even to the tomb, he presented [it] to God g. He, at the nod of the Abbot, promised to found an abbey of the Cistercian Order, foresaw the place, and assigned [it] by the name of Coupar h: but yet on account of certain unavoidable emerging affairs he thought it convenient to defer the work somewhat. Wherefore the Saint, meanwhile making the bounds of his life, did not direct thither the abbot and Convent,
but left it to be accomplished by his successor William i. In no way, therefore, is this Saint in this part deprived of a share of the reward, by whose exhortation or incitement the excellent king was effectively led to the accomplishing of a work so distinguished. These four monasteries, as it were four rivers, out of the paradise of the Cistercian Order, for the washing away of sins and the refreshment of souls, the Fount of life brought forth through the ministry of this his Servant.
[51] Among the other virtues of the Saint charity shone forth Although the assembly of the aforesaid and other virtues had built in this honor of God a stable dwelling-place of its abode, yet mercy toward the poor and the sick so claimed him wholly, as though he had been born for its service alone, exercise and use. Deservedly, then, that befits him which blessed Job, pronouncing sententiously of himself, says: Mercy grew with me, and came out of the womb with me: whence the holy Man, not only sound, but even many times laboring under manifold infirmity, sometimes leaning on a staff, sometimes supported by the arms of his sons, was wont daily to visit the infirmaries not only of the monks and lay-brothers, but of the poor and of the guests, and, inquiring of each what they desired, of what they had need, took care that to each what was necessary should be diligently administered to both the inner and outer man. At all times, and especially when famine prevailed over the land, when an innumerable multitude of the poor, to provide for their life, flowed together to Melrose to receive victuals, the man of God, not sparing oxen and sheep or swine, was wont to relieve the want of all, as he could. Whence, when the Abbot's sufficiency failed for the victuals of the needy, the very Fount of mercy rather often miraculously filled up enough by the copious affluence of his bountiful gift, as the following our narration will declare.
[52] At a certain time, the calamity of an extinguishing famine falling upon the land, that is, his mercy toward the poor, there had flowed together to Melrose a copious crowd of the needy, in number, as was thought, four thousand, and had built for themselves huts or tents in the fields and woods around the monastery for the space of two miles. The Abbot, after his usual manner, with certain Brothers and the cellarer, named Thomas, in fact and surname Good Bono, went out to see this great multitude. When he saw it, he said: Truly these are the camps of the Lord; and subjoining, I have compassion, he said, on this crowd, and what I may set before them, I have not at hand. Great care must be taken that they have food until autumn, lest, which God forbid, they perish of hunger. The Spirit clothed the aforesaid cellarer, as a man of mercy, and therefore most dear to the Abbot, and gave to the Saint such a reply: We have, dearest Father, very many cattle, pasture-oxen, sheep, wethers, and fat swine, no small quantity of cheese and butter; we shall slaughter the animals, set them before the people, and gladly and liberally spend all the rest on their food: yet the scarcity of bread touches and vexes my heart, because, our produce being almost all spent, a very small portion in the barns of two granges still remained, namely of the wheat of Heldun pertaining to the use of the Convent, and of the rye of Galtareside reserved for the victuals of the household.
[53] The pious Father, therefore, rejoicing at the words of the cellarer, with bowed head gave him many thanks, which God by the multiplication of food and blessed him in the name of the Lord. Then the Abbot proceeded, the cellarer accompanying, to the grange of Heldun; and, having entered the barn, he fixed the staff which he carried in his hand into the heap of grain, bent his knees, poured out a prayer with tears. After a little while, rising from prayer, he drew out the staff, and, the sign of the Cross being made, blessed that heap and withdrew. Then he went to Galtareside, and in the same manner repeated what he had done before, and said to the cellarer: Disperse now and give securely to us and to the poor, because God will give increases and will augment and multiply sufficiently the necessaries for the uses of ours and of the poor. Wonderful thing, because rare! The produce which was contained in the corners of both barns, which was not reckoned to suffice for the victuals of a fortnight's circle, was prolonged for the space of three months, as if inconsumable; and remaining in the same state of its own, presenting the appearance of the meal of the widow of Sarepta, up to the tasting of the new harvest. From which the taking of the new produce sufficed, [and] the consumption of the aforesaid produce appeared. So once the manna, which fed the sons of Israel forty years in the desert, after their entrance into the land of promise and the taking of the new produce, failed them.
[54] At another time the Lord called a famine over the land, and by like miracles and an inestimable multitude of those nearly expiring from want ran to the monastery of Melrose, their common and customary cellar; and to the protection of Waltheof, the most pious father, their own storehouse. They were not, therefore, defrauded of their desire, nor frustrated of the hoped-for benefit. For the Abbot commanding, and the cellarer obeying, the Convent agreeing, cattle l were slaughtered, the food distributed was spent, the poor were sustained. Not yet had the autumn harvest come, when, the victuals being already consumed, the bread failing, the menacing oppression of deadly famine pressed more sharply: which, when it became known to the Abbot, he went out as usual to visit the needy and to see if he could bestow any remedy or relief on the famished. His spirit was anxious within him, and his eye dwelt in bitterness, because he found nothing of victuals to buy round about for any price that his hands could offer.
[55] Finding at length a wholesome counsel, he convened the Convent, humbly beseeching that on that day they would peaceably suffer their bread to be halved for the poor. he will sometimes prove. All assent with willing mind to the Abbot's will, the bread of each is cut through the middle, a basket is filled, made like a certain little chariot with little wheels, that it might be driven by a rolling of light motion; then to the multitude of the poor, orderly reclining, the basket thus laden is drawn or driven, an equal portion of bread with cheese is distributed to each piece by piece: but the basket is found filled with bread in the same quantity, after the repeated distribution. This miraculous distribution of bread was repeated daily, the poor sufficiently refreshed were fed up to the tasting of the new harvest. Behold, the merciful and pitying God, through his servant Waltheof, repeated in the basket of loaves what once through Elijah the prophet he had done in the jar of meal and the cruse of oil. But when the Convent came to the table to sup, the bread was found by each whole, white and warm, as if recently drawn from the oven. The granaries are found filled with grain, and the storehouses and chests and cupboards filled from heaven with fine flour enduring up to the taking of the new harvest.
[56] His liberality toward guests To wonders wonders succeed, magnificently extolling the wonderful God, working wonders in his Saint. Guests had sometimes come to Melrose, about to dine after the usual manner in the guest-house: a hand-basket from the oven was brought full of loaves to be set before the guests. That vessel could not hold more monastic loaves, which are commonly and usually called "miches" m, than twelve. The table is set, bread taken from the basket is set out, the necessaries are ministered to those sitting by. They ate, therefore, and were filled, and others were substituted in their place for a similar work, and thus it happened that from the second hour of the day up to the time of collation after Vespers, to guests coming or departing or passing the night, all however eating in turn, bread taken from the basket was set out sufficiently, and it was always found full and undiminished.
[57] also by the multiplication of bread, Seeing this notable sign, a brother, Walter by name, a lay-brother, the guest-master, a good and religious man, marveling exulted in the Lord, and before Compline took care that what had happened be made known to abbot Waltheof. Hearing which, the man of God, smiling with a countenance overshadowed by gladness and giving thanks to God, said to him: This I knew before you saw it: and he added, Believe me, if that sign were suppressed by you in silence, it would be continued all day tomorrow. If any such thing further happen, give glory to God, and put your finger to your mouth: for the more quickly does a virtue or miracle vanish, which, exposed in the mouth of the vulgar to the breath of popular praise, lies open to being blown away. After these things those loaves were set out and consumed. The occurrence of a miracle of this kind happened several times in the days of the Saint, the same Brother Walter, a most truthful man, relating [it]: but, the Saint forbidding, it was not made public, as the same Brother after the death of the Saint was wont frequently to relate with weeping.
[58] and by other prodigies Three pilgrim guests appearing at Melrose and asking the favor of passing the night, were received devoutly according to the custom of the Order, and especially of that house; being received, they were led into the oratory for the sake of praying, according to the rule of St. Benedict. But prayer being made, they were edified by a discourse of the divine law, and thus, led to the guest-house, were commended to the aforenamed brother Walter. After a little, their feet being washed according to the rite, they were placed for refreshment. Being placed, only two were found, the third person not appearing. The guest-master, coming, inquired whither their third companion had gone or where he had been: but they assert that they had come only two and had been received: but the Brother undoubtedly asserted that three had been brought in and placed at the table; and they on the contrary, an oath being interposed, asserted that they had by no means seen even a third. The Brother consulted the porter and the monk who received the guests about this matter; and it was answered by him that he had seen and received three. He inquired diligently whether anyone had seen him departing, and found none.
[59] The following night he saw in a dream a distinguished person, is compensated from heaven. with serene countenance and gentle speech, saying to him: Brother Walter, do you recognize me? He answering: No, my lord. He subjoined, saying: I am that third guest of yesterday, who vanished from your eyes, the guardian of this monastery appointed by the Lord: hold it fixed that your alms and prayers ascend in memory before the Lord, and especially the entreaty of Waltheof your abbot, penetrating heaven, ascends in the sight of the Lord like the smoke of aromatics. Saying these things he disappeared, and the Brother, waking at an opportune time, related what he saw to the Abbot. Hearing which, the man of God himself exulted in the Lord and gave thanks to God his savior, nay, and ours.
ANNOTATIONS.
here improperly uses this name, as is plain from what was said above and what is to be said below, where St. Waltheof is rightly called the stepson of David, king of Scotland.
CHAPTER V.
The gift of tears, various visions and ecstasies.
The Saint, flowing with sweet tears The man of God, endowed and enriched with many gifts of virtues from the Father of lights, had received and possessed, for the washing of himself and of others, the grace of tears. There was divinely given him a watering below and a watering above: below, namely, because, very scrupulous in conscience, by repenting he deplored his own faults, though few and small, and mourned the great and grave errors of others committed to him: he had a watering above, by bewailing that he was deferred from the heavenly kingdom, desiring to be dissolved and to be with Christ, that, joined to the citizens of the heavenly court, he might see the King of glory in his beauty. He went therefore and wept, sending his seeds, that at length he might reap and, coming, carry his sheaves to the heavenly barns.
[61] in prayer and Mass Scarcely or rarely did he give himself to prayer without tears: most rarely did he celebrate Mass without weeping: many times insisting on the sacred vigils, while he attended to the Psalmody, he overflowed with tears; or if the sound of a musical instrument sounded in his ears, he bedewed his face with tears. He asserted that in the heavens there is an ineffable melody, since from the touch of stringed instruments or from human throats he had felt so great an approved harmony. Rather often insisting on prayer or the celebration of Masses or keeping vigil in the psalms, he was divinely refreshed by spiritual visitations; he was supported by magnificent revelations: of which we shall take care to subjoin a few of many, whose certainty we may hold fixed by the report of truthful men.
[62] On a certain occasion, on the vigil of the Epiphany of the Lord, at the nocturnal vigils the man of God standing in the choir, the Brothers chanting, fell into an excess of mind, and saw in spirit, sometimes into tender excesses of mind as the Gospel history relates, the whole text of the Lord's apparition. He beheld the radiant star, going before the course of the kings coming from the East with great pomp as their leader, and the little pointer a of the virginal lodging in Bethlehem, privy to the Lord's nativity. He saw also the Boy in the lap of his virgin Mother adored by them and honored with mystical gifts, and at length, divinely admonished in dreams, returned into their own region by another way than they had come. Afterward returned into himself, and inwardly considering with his mind the things seen, he was not perfunctorily suffused with great joy; for every year on the vigil of the Theophany, when that collect was recited, namely "May the splendor of the future festivity illumine our hearts," etc., he was bedewed with a copious but mellifluous flowing of tears from the remembrance of this vision.
[63] After this wonderful vision succeeded another no less wonderful. and sweet ecstasies There had shone forth the most sacred night, which like day is illumined on account of the memory of the resurrection of the Sun of justice, who, glowing red after his setting, rose from the heart of the earth, [and] brought exultation to the heavens, the earths, the depths. This night plainly was to our Waltheof an illumination in spiritual delights, as it became known to us from his confessor relating [it]. For when on a certain occasion he had celebrated the Lord's vigils on that Paschal night, the convent chanting in psalms and hymns, rapt in spirit the holy Man saw the Lord's passion represented in order before his eyes. He seemed to himself to see the Lord, after the scourges and the mockeries inflicted and the crown of thorns placed on his head, crucified on the gibbet, his palms and soles exposed to the nails, commending his soul into the hands of the Father, expire, and from his side, pierced by the lance, flow forth blood and water, into a laver and a cup, the price and the reward of human salvation. He contemplated the soul, the body being put off, despoiling the pit, leading out from it an innumerable multitude, resuming the body, gladdening those above by a renewed return, and the soldiers, ministers of death, contriving to block the way of true Life, lying as though made dead. He beheld at length him, beautiful in his robe, walking in the multitude of his strength, bringing the vessels of captivity into paradise.
[64] The man of the Lord, therefore, the contemplation of the deifying vision being completed, was rapt. returned to himself and into himself, reconsidered in the sweetness of his soul the things revealed to him by a happy sight, and from admiration and jubilation of heart, as is read of the queen of Sheba b, had no longer spirit in himself. For many days afterward he felt in himself the offices of sensuality, customary to human nature, somewhat weakened and lulled to sleep, and estranged from their usual exercise, and absorbed by the spiritual light, loathing earthly food and drink: whence also afterward, as long as he lived, when on the vigil of Easter, about to celebrate Mass by office, he uttered or heard the Collect, namely: "O God, who hast illumined this most holy night by the glory of the Lord's resurrection," and the rest that follows; inebriated by the richness of the house of God, given to drink of the torrent of spiritual pleasure, he was wont to burst forth abundantly into tears, nor could he contain himself on account of the remembrance of the aforesaid vision, and with great difficulty finished the written words of that Collect.
[65] The holy Abbot was wont, Compline being ended, after he had, according to the custom of the monastic institution, besprinkled with the aspersion of holy water each of the monks going out from the oratory into the dormitory, The demon appears to him under various forms. in the church, the more secretly, the more sacredly, to apply himself to prayers and to offer a marrow-rich holocaust in an odor of sweetness to the Lord. But the author of all sin saw this and envied, and was angry, gnashed with his teeth and wasted away, [and] with all effort strove to hinder the insistence of his prayer. For when on a certain occasion the Saint stood praying before the great altar, with eyes and hands intent to heaven, before his sight the evil angel transfigured himself into various forms: he ran about first over the pavement in the likeness of a mouse, agitating manifold windings; afterward he put on the forms of a great and most black cat, then of a grunting swine, then of a barking black dog, then of a howling wolf, then of a bellowing horned bull.
[66] But the Saint made each illusory appearance vanish, the sign of the Cross being made: which being put to flight, at last that thousand-fold artificer, who by a thousand maeanders tries to agitate quiet hearts, showed himself in the likeness of a mailed soldier sitting on a great steed, horrible and with the back of a whale, emitting smoky fire from its nostrils and mouth, and brandishing a lance at the praying man. But the Saint, in an impulse of spirit, going with hurried step, as he could, to the altar, reverently took up the ivory pyx containing the most sacred body of the Lord, and, signing himself with it and running against the hellish Goliath as a new David, the spirit dictating, finding a new name said: Behold, most wicked mouse, deadly soldier, satellite of Satan, your Judge who is to send you into the abyss; await, if you dare, him; wait for our encounter. At this voice, conquered and confounded, the lake-and-hell horseman, not prevailing to bear the presence or blow of that stone which was cut from the mountain without hands, fled: thrust down into the dark dungeon, he who in heaven did not keep his own dwelling, appeared no more. These things the man of God, when he spoke of the virtue of the sacrament of the Lord's Body, narrated as of another to whom this happened: but in secret confession to his fellow-initiate he laid bare the truth of the matter concerning himself.
[67] The holy Abbot visited several times Rievaulx, the mother of the monastery of Melrose, in the summer time, The Saint visits the monastery of Rievaulx, and came into the cloister when the Convent was resting in their beds at midday. Prayer being made as usual before the bolted door of the oratory, he wished to rouse, wake, or disquiet no one in the dormitory, but, withdrawing to one side, his monk retiring elsewhere, sitting beside the wall in the cloister, he tried to doze, and could not. And when he had thus sat, attending to the psalms, he saw a certain man coming, most distinguished, angelic in aspect, clothed round about with gilded vesture, adorned as with gold with a diadem, decked with countless glittering gems, going before a very great multitude of white-robed ones orderly following. Rising up, the Abbot, "Benedicite" being said, saluted the one coming, and humbly asked who he was. But he with gracious countenance, as if smiling, said: Do you not recognize me, your special friend William c, first abbot of this place? But the company of those following is of monks and lay-brothers resting in Christ under my care in our Order. And as many gems as you see glittering in my crown and garment, so many souls did I acquire for God by his grace, by word and example and solicitude: and because in that place, serving the Lord perseveringly in holiness, we merited eternal rest, three times in the year we visit that place.
The vision and address of the one saying these things disappeared. The Abbot, long concealing the things seen, at length disclosed them to his confessor and to certain Religious men who were of his privy council.
[68] At another time, according to the institutes of the Cistercian Order, he visited Rievaulx, where various and by his presence gladdened very many in God. And when, after Compline, the rest having gone out as usual to sleep, he alone lingered in the oratory, he lifted up his hands in the holy place, pouring out his heart like water before the sight of the Lord his God. After he had directed his prayer like incense in the sight of the Lord, and from the censer of a clean heart, full of spiritual incense, had, by breathing aromatics, censed the ark, and again the propitiatory, he went out of the church into the Chapter-house, that before the sepulchre of his most beloved William the aforenamed abbot he might pour out prayers for his soul. But when he prayed more attentively and insistently, such and so great a melody sounded in his ears as he never before heard the like of. And so, standing a little, he stretched out his neck, raised his ears astonished, gave great diligence in listening, as it seemed to him. After some little while all that melody resounded in the church.
[69] Wishing therefore to go to see and more certainly to learn about this matter, and wonderful revelations he went out of the Chapter-house: and behold, a white-robed company, singing together a heavenly chant and proceeding, came to meet [him] step by step and becomingly. In the forefront of this blessed procession abbot William, for whom he had prayed, held the place and office of abbot, and a great crowd of monks and lay-brothers, who had now fallen asleep in the Lord, followed: several of whom lord Waltheof, while they were yet living, knew well. He entered with them into the Chapter-house, a living [man] with the dead, nay, with those living with Christ and in Christ, and, prayer being made before the mentioned tomb, all sitting in their order, abbot William nodding, Waltheof, as though compelled, first said "Benedicite." But what afterward they said or did there, he revealed to no one: because perhaps, as is given to understand, he there heard certain secret things which it is not lawful for man to speak. The faces of each were most bright, their habit white above the whiteness of snow and of the lily: the word of that convent's song was the Antiphon which on the solemnity of All Saints the holy Church is wont to sing, namely: "Give praise to our God, all his Saints, and you that fear him, little and great: for the Lord our God almighty shall reign, let us rejoice and exult and give glory to him."
[70] Among those light-flowing men a certain one seemed much brighter than the rest, he had; who, while he was breathing the vital airs, was held of no moment or fit for the office of any administration; and because his simplicity was simple, he was called foolish by his fellow-brothers, and in many other things was so called and judged. But the despised lamp, in the estimation of those not rightly judging, in the sight of the true and heavenly Judge showed a fuller brightness than those shining in this world, and reproved the darkness of our blindness, and our false or dark judgment. For, as the man of God said, because that Brother had almost none or little consolation in the present life, he received in that life greater glory and honor than the rest who had [it]. Woe therefore to the rich and to sinners exalted, having their consolation in this world, which, unless they worthily repent thereof, they shall be deprived of in the future.
[71] A certain lay-brother of praiseworthy life, Lambert by name, but although he strove to hide those [visions,] sought the holy Abbot, to intimate to him a certain matter; and it was told him that he would find him in the chapel of the holy Trinity. The Saint was wont there to celebrate Mass by custom rather frequently, longer, and more devoutly to prolong his prayers. The aforesaid Brother, coming thither, found the door closed and bolted within: and looking in through a little chink of a certain little window, he sees the whole place filled with light, as with a lightning-flash; and him standing before the altar, clothed with light as with a garment. Seeing this he was troubled, and great fear rushed upon him, because the inestimable brightness beat back his gaze. He turned away his eyes, therefore, drew back his foot, not daring to rouse the beloved soul, the friend of the heavenly Spouse, nor to tear [him] from his embraces, until he himself should wish. Wherefore, although he made delay there, he patiently awaited his going out: and, he having gone out after a little while, the Brother perceived his face brighter than usual, like a new Moses, and when he proceeded into public, he put on his own and former face.
[72] and ordered [them to be covered with silence,] Hence it must be gathered that he burned within with the immense fire of divine brightness, who, surrounded with brightness so ineffable, shone without. That fire was illuminating, not burning; shining, not consuming: which found his heart a clean receptacle, irradiated [it], and illumined on every side his unstained body. Yet he met the lay-brother more secretly, inquiring of him whether he had seen anything: and to him answering and confessing the truth of the matter concerning himself, he commanded in the power of obedience that he should disclose to no one what he had seen, as long as he breathed upon the earth. That Brother closed, under the seal of silence, the things commanded him, while the Abbot lived; after the death of the Saint, he unlocked, with the key of the license now obtained, the things closed up as to the Saint's virtues, to religious ears.
[77] yet sometimes unwittingly he betrayed them. This Saint was sitting among the lay brothers, distributing to them spiritual food which they had not prepared for themselves, speaking of the kingdom of God: and when he made a discourse concerning the blessedness of the Saints, of himself, but yet as of another, taking a third person into his narration, he thus began. A certain monk of our Order, panting toward the heavenly fatherland by thought and eagerness, his soul thirsted for God the living fount, that he might more quickly come and appear before his face, [and] by daily prayers and continual streams of tears he sought to be dissolved and to be with Christ, that he might see the King of kings himself in his beauty; on a certain occasion, while, applying himself longer to prayer with tears, he thought more eagerly and closely by contemplation of the felicity of the heavenly kingdom, I saw, he said, the heavens open and the glory of God, and the mansions of the Saints in the heavenly kingdom. Thus indeed, what he narrated under the name of a third person unwilling, and unknowing, he laid bare of the things divinely revealed to him concerning himself; these things said, the man of God, returning into himself, at once finished his discourse and withdrew; and because he had disclosed his secret to himself, though unwilling, he afflicted himself with many streams of tears; but the brothers held, as true and fixed, the word once sent forth as irrevocable from the mouth of the Saint, and thus, things received, they narrated to the absent and to posterity.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER VI.
Various miracles which the Saint wrought in life, the wonderful forewarning of his imminent death, and his pious death.
A certain woman a, labored several days in giving birth, and there was no strength in her to bring forth; A woman in a difficult childbirth, death was before her eyes, destruction seemed to be present at the doors: for she could await nothing else from the fruit of her womb than a slayer, or that her womb alone survived as a sepulchre to her offspring and the enclosure of both the bosom of the earth. But the Abbot, by chance making a passage through those parts, turned aside there, and in the house of a certain cleric, named Gilbert, a familiar friend, passed the night: which the husband and kinsmen of the aforesaid woman recognizing, they intimated to the lay-brother, Richard by name, who at that time was wont to ride with the Abbot and to serve him, the misfortune and anguish of the pitiable woman. Trusting in the Abbot's holiness, they asked for something of his food or clothing, at least even to touch. They believed faithfully and trustingly that from those things the wretched woman would obtain some remedy or relief; nor did their faith deceive them.
[75] And so, the Abbot being asleep after the labor of the journey and the refreshment of his body, St. Waltheof's girdle being touched, she is at once helped, brother Richard secretly took his leathern girdle placed at his head, and had it carried to the woman, and admonished that she should gird herself with it. Wonderful thing and great miracle! As soon as the girdle, encircling her, touched the belly of the woman in labor, freed from the pressure of childbirth which encompassed her and loosed into the birth, she showed to herself health and to all hers exultation: for now she did not remember the pressure for joy, because a man was born into the world: which done, the Brother, the girdle being carried back, secretly replaced it in the place from which he took it, and ordered all to bury this sign in silence: and when, returning, they approached the abbey of Melrose, the aforesaid Brother indicated the matter to the Abbot, and he, giving thanks to God, and that no one should divulge that sign while he lived, after his manner more strictly enjoined. The Brother, obeying the living Father, kept the sign silent, and after his death made it public.
[76] A certain horse the Saint was wont to ride, which also at a time with the rest he sometimes with gracious jest named brother Ferrand b: and the horse serves the conveniences of the same Saint this alone he judged to suffice him, as long as he lived, although there were several at hand for his conveyance; not like certain abbots today, having very many palfreys c, who hesitate which they deign to sit upon. This Ferrand, therefore, while he had the Saint as rider, bore himself modestly, like a gentle lamb, and if perhaps a doze, as is wont sometimes to those riding, crept upon the Abbot, he so moderately and step by step directed his paces that he did not strike his foot against a stone, avoiding the muddy and slippery way, choosing the level and clean. From the moment the man of God made a sound, the horse flew off more quickly, and with swift and gentle gait was wont to overtake those going and even to precede the foremost; for after the abbot dismounted from him, and the boy mounted to lead him to the stable or to water him, he so agitated himself with a snorting and various winding d of his limbs, that it became plainly clear to onlookers that after the holy limbs of his rider he would not with equal mind carry others. Finally, after the Saint died, that horse, worn out, withered, and languished even to his death, nor was he fit for the use of any work. But although these things be wonderful which I have related of that horse, yet I have thought it worthy to record a certain greater miracle done concerning him.
[77] thus he serves, The Saint of the Lord was several times returning from Roxburgh e, the affairs being concluded for which he had gone thither, the monks and lay-brothers, whom he had brought with him, intent by the rolling turn of a slippery tongue on mutual conversation, being distanced not only from the presence, but by the space of nearly a mile from the sight of the holy Man, and he himself, hooded f, and with himself
abiding, and free for God alone, followed at a moderate gait, as he could: unavoidable necessity urgently pressed that he dismount from the horse; but on account of his exceeding weakness and manifold infirmity, he could not by himself, without another's aid, mount or dismount; he looked around, and there was none to help but a certain little young boy, the porter of Melrose's [boy] and a messenger, who was coming from the aforesaid town, and, following the Abbot's footsteps unceasingly, walked about beside him as a companion. Calling him, the abbot inquired of him whether he was strong enough to hold the stirrup g of him as he dismounted, which is commonly called "strima"; and the little youth answered that he wished to attempt it. The Abbot dismounting, the boy, leaning on it, held the stirrup and the horse by the rein, gave his help and service.
[78] as if it were endowed with reason. The Abbot, having accomplished that for which he had dismounted, when he wished to mount, the boy sought a little hillock on which he might have an easier ascent, and in the whole plain found none. Wonderful thing! Ferrand, seeing the Abbot coming and approaching, bent his knees to him and clung with his belly to the ground and turned his side toward the one coming. The boy, thinking that the horse had contracted some grave infirmity, wished by pushing, by sound, by blow to compel him to rise, but the Father forbade this to be done; then he mounted the horse with great ease, placed himself in the saddle at his pleasure, and after the usual manner arranged his garments; but the irrational animal, as though using reason, soon modestly rose, and, with upright gait swiftly taking the road, struck no small admiration into the boy, and proved, by the miracle openly wrought in him, that his rider glorified and carried God in a clean body and heart. Then the Father, addressing the boy, forbade [him] to relate to anyone, while he lived, what he saw; for the sake of which he promised a new scapular h, and gave [it], and in giving added a tunic. But the boy, while the Saint breathed, covered the matter in silence, and after his death, the door of truth being opened, disclosed this sign to the glory of God and the praise of the Saint.
[79] After the Saint the bishopric of St. Andrews, The episcopal see of St. Andrews i in Scotland was vacant, and the people's petition, the clergy's election, the prince's assent chose the holy Abbot as pastor and bishop of their souls by unanimous vote, by the connivance of common consent. There came, therefore, the clerics, the chief men with the magnates of the land sufficiently instructed, to Melrose, to take and lead away with them their chosen one; and the abbot of Rievaulx, Ailred, who was then present there, enjoined him to obey the election, undergo the burden, take up the office; but he pleaded the weakness of his strength, the inability to sustain the business of so great a weight; and he indicated more secretly to the abbot of Rievaulx that he would not live long upon the earth.
[80] But they persisting in the purpose of accomplishing the election made, and the father abbot urging with his command, which was offered to him he refused, the Saint answered with prophetic spirit and truthful mouth: I have put off, he said, my tunic; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; God forbid that I should again defile them with the dust of secular solicitude: and adding, Believe, he said, me, that you shall choose and have another than me as pontiff, and, extending his finger, designating the place of his burial: This, he said, is my rest; here I shall dwell, as long as it shall please the Lord, for the consolation of my sons. After these things, words being marshaled on both sides, as is the custom, the business is suspended, and, suspended, is deferred under a truce, and, deferred, is not brought to effect: he at length in no way consenting to the election, another is chosen, and he himself, at the time appointed by God, sleeping in the Lord in the place foreshown, is buried.
[81] The heavenly Artificer of all, having all power, foreseeing all things, not only purges iron from rust, he fell into sickness, and silver from dross, but also purifies gold, that it may glow with a fuller brightness, by the fire of tribulation: for whom he loves he rebukes and chastises, and scourges every son whom he receives, and purges every branch in him bearing fruit, that it may bring forth more fruit. Hence it is that he had worn his beloved Waltheof with a multitude of infirmity, with frequent scourges, handled [him] with poundings, weakened [him] in his limbs, [him] whom he disposed to form as a vessel unto the honor of his glory and to lay up in his treasuries. But yet when he was sick, then was he stronger and more powerful, [and] was wont to visit and console the sick, taking pains to relieve the necessities of each.
[82] There were in the infirmary of the seculars, among the rest, nay before the rest, three placed as it were at the point of death, affected by which one laboring with quartan fevers, two dropsical; these three by a certain light-flowing person on one night in a dream were visited by the same vision and admonished that they should ask to be touched and blessed by the sick abbot Waltheof; thus indeed they would be drawn from the jaws of death, and restored to their former health and strength: but what they had received in the vision of the night, the next day each indicated—to the lay-brother infirmarian, the lay-brother to the monk confessor of the sick, the monk to the Abbot, in words veiling the truth of the matter. The monk said to the Saint that three, held on the bed of pain, now near death, with burning desire sought his presence, and wished to lay open to him the secrets of their souls.
[83] Which being heard, the man of God, leaning on a staff, supported by the hands of his servants, four sick men, or rather carried, showed abundance of himself to the aforesaid sick, conferred with them concerning the salvation of their souls, they having before been forewarned and forearmed about this matter by the monk; then, about to depart and asked by them with tears, he blessed them by touching them, the sign of the cross being made, and withdrew, and in a wonderful manner, though diverse, restored them to health: from the body of one dropsical man, through the passage of the male rod, a viscous and foul humor flowing out twice filled a great basin applied to it, and the humor drained off soon made the whole man slender and sound. But the other dropsical man, the whole infirmity being suddenly shaken off, rose rejoicing, having obtained the desired health; the third the fever at once left, and within a few days he departed wholly sound, robust and cheerful.
[84] There was likewise a fourth languishing in the same infirmary, laboring with dangerous diseases, at once restored to health. who not only seemed near death, but in a manner as bait for it; whence he had been laid out in the area of the house upon a hair-cloth k, and a pit prepared in which he ought to have been buried. The Abbot, by chance revisiting as usual the sick who lay there, came, saw the man in his last agony, poured out a prayer for him, blessed [him] with the life-giving sign, and withdrew: the sick man, at once restored to life, opened his eyes, raised his head, gave manifold thanks to God and to the Abbot, and asserted that it was said to him by a certain most distinguished person that the Lord had granted him spaces of longer life by the prayers of the holy Abbot; the man, not many days after this, wholly recovered, and, his former vigor being received, lived several years afterward: which, when it afterward became known to the man of God, he ascribed nothing to himself, as one ignorant of these things or not privy to them; but only gave glory to the name of the Lord in these and all others.
[85] A certain Brother, by a wonderful vision There was at Melrose a certain lay-brother in habit and profession, but perverse in act and intention, Sinuinus by name, robust in strength of body, [who] prevailed over many in manual labor: he many times toiled in murmurings, and did not spare backbiting of the tongue, and, calling the rest unequal to him in strength or unable to labor with him effeminate, judged them not even worthy of food: he did almost all his things that he might be seen and esteemed by men, not that he might please the sight of the Father, who sees in secret. He, at a certain Paschal time asleep at midday, saw a certain one terrible in stature, countenance, and look approaching him, carrying in his right hand a sword, in his left a little basket: who, when he had come to him, rebuking his manners, upbraiding and condemning his vainglory, first cut off his hands and feet, afterward the rest of his limbs piece by piece, placed the cut pieces in the little basket and departed. But that man, withdrawing, met a reverend and distinguished man commanding him to fit the limbs to the limbs, and to make whole the man to his former stature, because Waltheof at that hour had poured out devout prayers to the Lord for all committed to him.
[86] reduced to amendment receives from an angel a little scroll, The wonderful butcher at once did as the aforesaid man commanded, and restored the brother, whole in his limbs, to his former state and health, and withdrew. Then that holy angel of the Lord, as was thought, admonished that brother to change his intention, compose his manners, correct his life for the remainder, and turn himself wholly to God; and the brother promised that he would obey his sacred admonitions, and, the grace of God cooperating, would correct his life for the future: he also gave him a certain little folded document, enjoining that he should hand it to the Abbot as sent from God and holy Mary, and that the Abbot, receiving it, should hold it fixed that what was written in it wavered nothing from the truth; saying these things he disappeared, and the brother, waking, found upon his breast a written scroll, and, found, at a fit hour, the vision being related, presented it to the Abbot: the Abbot, reverently unfolding what was sent him from heaven, read it, and, his knees being bent, tears being poured out, rendered manifold thanks to God.
[87] by which St. Waltheof is familiarly forewarned of his imminent death. Having therefore first called together the elders of the house, he offered the writing to be read; afterward he had it recited in the hearing of the whole convent: and these were the words of this writing, which, by the diligence of the elders, engraved for several days in the wax of the chapter-tablet, lay open to those eager to read the sacred words: Jesus Christ and Mary his mother salute their beloved Waltheof the abbot. Know that your prayer has been heard, and between the two festivals of St. John the Baptist you shall come to us to live forever: prepare yourself. Farewell l. Behold words few, simple, fitting for the simple, as Sacred Scripture testifies, with whom the converse of God walks; but yet, as the outcome of the matter proved, supported by all truth. And indeed the holy Man, up to the nativity of St. John the Baptist, showed himself somewhat, as a man, to men, hearing and treating of the necessaries of the monastery, as far as his sickness permitted: thenceforth now, as though dead to the world, wholly suspended toward God, he awaited the going out of his soul to the heavenly fatherland.
[88] The dog-days were at hand, and a hard and long disease with a sharper and bitterer bite tore his body by weakness, The Saint, after a difficult disease and on nearly every day of the three following weeks threatened death to be present at the doors; every food too nourishing to human nature had no savor to him, but was a loathing, and, the strength of his body being exhausted, he being emptied of vital force, and now as if half-dead, the spirit throbbed in his breast. When sometimes, his breath being resumed, he had breathed a little, he convened his own, admonished them about the keeping of the Order, and the preserving of the concord of mutual peace and charity, and the having of care for the poor and the sick. Yet for nine continuous days before his going out, twice in a day or a night, as though at the point of death, he agonized, striking into his servants and the rest of the onlookers anguish and admiration and great astonishment: nor is it a wonder; the astonishment was deserved, that a vessel so fragile and feeble could endure such dire and continual torments.
Yet this Saint, as when sound he several times protested to his own, had entreated the Lord that he would deign to cook him longer in the fires of a most hard sickness before the end of his life.
[89] As often as the hour of agony had passed, and some alleviation, of whatever kind, had come, and a long agony smiling a little, with eyes and hands intent to heaven, with serene countenance, his head bowed, he gave thanks to God for his scourges inflicted, as for a great benefit bestowed on him. Yet once he spoke, several hearing, saying: O if the faculty of speaking were at hand for me; how many and great marvels could I relate to you which I have seen! From which words of his it is given to understand that he had been rapt in spirit, [and] contemplated very many things concerning the punishments of the guilty or the glory of the saved: there came the Kalends of August, the festival of St. Peter in Chains, which is celebrated in memory of that leading-out, by which the divine clemency snatched him from prison through an angel; there approached, nay pressed, the hour in which the kind Abbot, led forth by the protection of the angelic host, should be led out of the prison of this death from the hand of the typical king Herod, namely placed above all the sons of pride, and from all the expectation of the hellish ones lying in wait for his heel, trying to hinder his journey, lest, snatched away, he should obtain perpetual liberty: and behold, the customary and inbred sickness more than usual, like a most savage torturer, seized the whole man; with most grievous stings it urged his soul to its going out. The Saint, feeling and knowing this, asked and received the relieving unction of the sacred oil, and fortified himself with the participation of the Lord's Body and Blood: then, his hands being raised, he blessed his own, and, as he was able, bade farewell: thereafter for two days and nights his bones were as though roasted in a frying-pan, and his flesh cooked as in a furnace, so that in his soul no rust of sin might appear, or spot or wrinkle, nor might he be confounded when he should speak to his enemies in the gate of death.
[90] The day of the third of the Nones of August had dawned, on which the finding of St. Stephen the protomartyr is celebrated: he dies on the third of the Nones of August, about the third hour of the day he was thought by his servants to breathe out his last breath, he is placed upon a hair-cloth according to custom, the convent is called by frequent striking of the board, psalms with litanies are chanted together; and behold, the man of God, his spirit revived and resumed, illumined his face. Over them * with bowed head, as though rendering thanks, he struck them with no small admiration. This act is twice repeated in a like manner; after Sext, when it had come to the meal, the convent, summoned already by the third striking of the board, was present: and thus, the crown of psalm-singing sons standing round, that holy soul, cooked in the flames of happy scourges in the furnace of fevers and of other manifold infirmities and tried like the purest gold, went out of the most pure dwelling of the flesh: for, the fire and water of worldly tribulation being passed through, he was brought into the refreshment of eternal rest. The holy Father, therefore, passed from the world to the Father, from faith to sight, from hope to reality, from shadow to truth, from darkness to brightness, from the arena of labor to the crown of the prize, from the misery of the present life to the eternal glory of unfailing life.
[91] and is honorably buried. The body of the holy Man, therefore, being washed after the custom and clothed in monastic garments, it seemed to some, as they had read of blessed Bernard, that he ought to be clothed in priestly vestments; but some contradicted: yet, wrapping the body, tunicked and cowled, in a waxed cloth, the rest being duly performed, they carried [it] into the church. The death of the holy Abbot being heard, the diocesan bishop, called Herbert, who was formerly abbot of Kelso m of the Tironensian Order n, afterward made bishop of Glasgow o, most devoutly hastened to perform the obsequies: four abbots too and several persons of various orders had assembled, and treated, nay even contended, about the place of his burial. The aforesaid bishop and several others judged that that dwelling of virtues should by right be buried in the church; but Anfrid, abbot of Newbattle [p], and certain others with him contradicting, prevailed. After the celebration of many Masses, within the chapter-house, in the place before designated by himself, he enters into the womb of the mother of all, and the precious stone is laid up under a stone. He departed in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord one thousand one hundred and sixty, Henry the second reigning in England; Malcolm in Scotland; Pope Adrian the English-born [q] being Pontiff, Jesus Christ governing the monarchy in heaven and on earth through the eternal ages. Amen.
ANNOTATIONS.
p. Jongelin in the work just cited, book 8, page 15, calls that monastery Newbottel; in the Monasticon Anglicanum, volume 2, page 1057, it is called Newbotle, and is placed in the province of Lothian in Scotland.
q. From the death of this Pontiff and other circumstances we proposed in the Preliminary Commentary, number 39 and following, an intricate chronological knot.
* perhaps "those above"
CHAPTER VII.
The eternal glory of the Saint, shown and confirmed by various visions after his death.
In the preceding little book concerning blessed Waltheof, the things which were judged worthy of record we diligently investigated from those The biographer, on account of his various virtues, who knew, and, the things investigated being arranged in whatever style, we hand them over to the notice of the present and of posterity; yet we have omitted several things received by hearing, because, as it seemed to us, the sufficiency of probable testimony was lacking. The man of God, therefore, as long as he lived in the world, lived to the Lord, and when he died to the world, he died to the Lord, because whether living or dead, he was the Lord's, nay, and remains; living in the world he was a vessel of election and grace, translated from the world he remains in the treasuries of the Lord, a vessel of honor and glory. Truly blessed Waltheof, as is written in the book of Wisdom of a perfect man, [is] as a solid vessel of gold adorned with every precious stone.
[93] compares him to precious stones, Nor is it a wonder nor undeserved that the jasper of faith, the sapphire of heavenly faith *, the carbuncle of charity, the pearl of white virginity, the amethyst of true humility, the topaz of discretion, the emerald of contemplation, the beryl of holy exhortation adorn him, the chalcedony also of eloquence, the chrysolite of wisdom, the sardius of abstinence, the chrysoprase of patience, the hyacinth of compassion, and wonderfully adorn [him] the magnet of constancy, the diamond of perseverance, and the gems of the other virtues confirm and beatify [him]: and since gold is not liable to corruption, this Saint is rightly called a solid vessel of gold, because his body still remains incorrupt with the integrity of his limbs and his garments; rightly too is that vessel called adorned with every precious stone and with the reception of holy virtues and the acquisition of souls, with the vision of heavenly revelations and the display of miracles, of which we think it fitting to subjoin some, which we received from truthful men, whose testimonies have been made exceedingly credible, seen and supported by truth. Let us come, therefore, first to the visions of the Lord and to the revelations of Jesus Christ, and afterward to the miracles which the Lord deigned to make public by the merits of Waltheof his servant.
[94] and narrates how a certain chancellor of Scotland, A certain cleric, illustrious in family, Nicholas by name, a chancellor of Malcolm b king of Scotland, sent to Rome to transact certain great affairs of the kingdom, was honorably received by the lord Pope and the Cardinals, out of reverence for himself, and especially for the lord who sent him: he, after the delay of a somewhat long sojourn, when on a certain day he had prolonged the plea of his business, awaiting the term or consoling answer for dispatching [it], when it had grown evening, and the day was now declining, being invited, dined in the court of the Pope; but the supper being finished, when the lamp of day was seen buried in the darkness of twilight, the same Nicholas feared to go through the squares and streets of the city and the alleys among the ruins, and [to] the lodging somewhat distant from the palace, on account of the nightly fears and the various occurrences of misfortune. There were wont
at that time robbers lying in wait to despoil several, or even to kill them under the darkness of night: for which cause, detained there, in the chamber of the lord Pope he passed the night with his Chaplains and clerics.
[95] existing at Rome, foresaw his imminent death, And when, a bed being placed, they had cherished their limbs with sleep, it seemed to him that he had been rapt to paradise, and there had contemplated such a city as the book of the Apocalypse describes, and so great a joy as eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it ascended into the heart of man: and behold, among the rest he sees two distinguished men knocking at the gate for entrance: he heard a certain one within inquiring who they were; [and] one of them answering that Waltheof, abbot of Melrose, was present: then he who as it were bore the office of porter said: He shall not be able to enter today, before he has laid aside his garments; at this voice each, standing before the doors, withdrew, and he, dreaming these things, awoke. On the morrow the aforesaid Nicholas related to the supreme Pontiff and to those sitting round the vision, and adding the nobility, holiness, and long infirmity by which that same Abbot was vexed; but the Pope, most learned and powerful in the spirit of discretion, thus resolved the manner of the vision, saying: I think that that man of the Lord has not yet laid aside the flesh, namely the covering of the soul, clothed with which he could not enter paradise, into which no other so enters; perhaps he will put off the body in a short while, and thus, without the obstacle of that condition, will enter into the joy of the Lord his God. These things said, he absolved him, whether he had breathed or breathed his last, from every bond of sins, imprecating for him the fellowship of the citizens above: he charged Nicholas the royal cleric to note that day, and, after he had returned to his country, to signify by a letter, through a truthful and faithful messenger, what had happened concerning the Abbot.
[96] The chancellor, the affairs being concluded, having returned to his country, found that the abbot had died on the following day, the outcome proving this vision; namely the third of the Nones of August, on which, the preceding night, being placed in the Pope's chamber, he saw the aforesaid vision c; and he himself, what was established concerning the Abbot, as had been commanded him, announced to the Pope himself by a letter through a certain pilgrim to Rome. The Pope, giving thanks to God, absolved his soul, and solemnly celebrated Mass for him and all the faithful. The same chancellor, coming after his return to his country to Melrose, found brother Walter the guest-master above mentioned, beloved of him for many days, vexed by a most grievous and long sickness, lying on his bed. License to speak with him being asked and received, among the other conversations of mutual discourse he related to him the aforesaid vision in order, and a little after, farewell being bidden him, departed.
[97] Brother Walter after the departure of the cleric was affected with so great grief of mind and how St. Waltheof, appearing to a certain one, that he almost knew not what he could or ought to say or do. At length, wearied with weariness and anguish, his strength being gathered, he rose from his bed, and, supporting himself with a staff, having gone out of the infirmary and sitting under the open sky, uttered most bitter groans and weepings over the death of the Abbot: frequently too, beating his breast, with a tearful voice he repeated, saying: What shall I, most wretched, say, or what shall I do, since I bring nothing good before God the judge, if abbot Waltheof is barred from the gate of paradise, in whom and concerning whom I trusted that there was so great perfection, that by his merits and prayers I believed I would obtain the remission of sins and the participation of eternal life? I am forced, therefore, almost to despair of myself, who by the holiness of that beloved Father and my lover presumed to hope that I would obtain pardon and eternal rest.
[98] To him saying and grieving these and similar things in this manner, a light sleep crept upon [him], and to him half-asleep or rather half-waking, holy Waltheof, in a most white habit and with a most bright countenance, appearing sufficiently serene, indicated his eternal felicity, said with a consoling voice: Do not, most dear son Walter, weep, do not mourn me as dead, and shut out from the paradise of God, because, joined to the heavenly citizens with the holy ones Benedict and Bernard, I have received bright seats, about to live and reign with Christ forever; that therefore you may give credit to these words, you shall feel them, supported by that truth, by your own experience. His right hand being raised, he made the sign of the cross, and blessed him in the name of the holy Trinity, and said: Be sound from your infirmity, tomorrow enter the choir, according to the custom take care of the poor and of guests with great diligence. These things said, he withdrew and directed his steps upward toward the heavens. And when he beheld him going into heaven, awakened from sleep, he found himself wholly and fully restored to the health and strength which he had before his disease. On the morrow he entered first the choir, and afterward the guest-house, and thus, according to the command of the Saint, took careful pains about the frequent ministry. These things brother Walter several times related, even with many tears, from whose report I learned what I have written.
[99] There was another lay-brother at Melrose, Henry by name, and manifested the same to another by other signs. who, asleep, saw in a vision of the night three biers most beautiful, most bright, swimming across all earthly things, furrowing a way through the void of the air toward the East. Beholding these, when he marveled what or which they were, or what they portended, or whither they tended, and eagerly longed to know, a voice from the height of the air sounded, saying: In these three biers are carried three Saints of God; namely the most holy Benedict, and blessed Bernard of Clairvaux, and holy Waltheof of Melrose, abbots, taking their journey to Kinloss in Moray d for the snatching away of the soul of a certain brother, Robert by name, about to die on the morrow, from the hands of the demons seeking him and trying to lead him with them to the depths. For that same brother was beloved and a lover of the lover, lord Waltheof, living in the world, and triumphing over the world, and reigning with Christ. These things said, the vision with the voice was taken away, and the brother, waking, noted the day with the vision, and almost after the space of one month, the certainty of the matter being diligently made manifest, learned that the aforesaid brother had died on the noted day; from which we rightly conjecture that the Saints of God are most effective helpers to those in extreme necessity who, living in the body, had been their devoted lovers. Let us therefore love God and devoutly venerate his Saints, that we who have no confidence in our own justice may be helped by the merits and prayers of those who have pleased God, to obtain pardon and win perpetual life.
[100] A certain Brother, fallen by the fraud of the demon into unbelief, There was another lay-brother in the same monastery, named Walter e, whose heart Satan sifted so long, like wheat, until he almost shook out the whole marrow of faith and delivered his soul, like chaff blown away from the face of the wind, to be burned with inextinguishable fire; striving by subtle arguments of his deceit to supplant and subvert him, he cloaked a snare as it were under the zeal of holiness, and, as though offering venom in a golden cup, made the unlettered man toil in learning to the letter the ceremonies of the old Law and the prophets; he began therefore little by little to grow dim in the eyes of his mind concerning the worship of the Christian religion and the keeping of the regular life, until he almost lost the light of reason, and by believing preferred the Jewish sect to the Catholic truth; at last in him unbelief received so great increase that he believed no other life but the present, and what the holy Scriptures say concerning the punishments of the reprobate and the joys of the just, he reckoned nothing and vain. Remaining in this error, hanging in suspense for nearly seven years, living under the habit of Religion, he would not reveal his conscience to the abbot nor to any spiritual father, and on each day before the twilight of night, and likewise on nights before dawn, he purposed to cast off the habit, and return to the world, and consummate, nay consume, his days in evil.
[101] by a wonderful vision But God almighty, who has mercy on whom he wills and when he wills, and makes of vessels of wrath vessels of mercy, and commands light to shine out of darkness, in such a manner converted the man from the error of his way. On a certain midday, when he rested asleep on his bed, two distinguished men, standing by before [him], his right hand being taken, led him into a certain most green garden, blooming, fragrant, flower-bearing, fruit-bearing, sufficiently pleasant, beautiful, and spacious; but they upbraided him with his unbelief and threatened that they would inflict harsh and bitter things upon him. Accused by the condemning testimony of a guilty conscience, he was grievously tormented, and protested that he had justly deserved all the evils to be inflicted on him: and when he looked around on every side, whether perhaps aid or solace might come to him, he saw holy Waltheof the abbot sitting in an eminent and most bright place, and a crowd of white-robed ones standing round and sitting round; being therefore led into his sight, prostrate at his feet he asked pardon, and after a little while inquired what ought to be done with him.
[102] The holy Abbot, deliberating a little, pronounced sentence, saying: and by the apparition of St. Waltheof What you have long hidden in the secret of your heart shall now be revealed in public. Then to his leaders he said: As he has deserved, let him be placed on the turning wheel, on which those like him are to be placed, let him be led to the places of punishment, that he may learn how great is the distance between the guilty and the just. These things said, he was led and placed on a certain wheel, whose height and altitude was very horrible, its top was thought to touch the heavens, its extremity the abyss; and beneath it a fiery river seemed to run, so that if anyone by chance fell from the turning of the wheel, he would be plunged into the whirlpool of fire. The felloes and hubs [and] spokes of this wheel were on every side toothed and thickened as with iron nails, sharp and long. This brother being placed on this wheel and bound fast, certain [men], holding clubs in their hands, struck the wheel, and at once it was turned with a swifter turning than a millstone in a worldly mill * had before endured: thereafter for several days he was sick, and the fragile little vessel of the flesh contracted weakness from the horrible visions appearing to his spirit.
[103] After this, when, lying on his bed, he gave sleep to his eyes and slumber to his eyelids, he is terrified, he saw in a vision of the night those two distinguished men aforesaid coming, and, his right hand being taken, leading him into the aforesaid garden before holy Waltheof; that Brother, recalling his former and past agony, dreaded worse things to come than the former, [and] wished to absent and hide himself from his face. But the holy Abbot, with serene countenance and pleasant mouth, summoning him to himself, admonished [him] not to fear, and then said to his leaders: Lead him to the places of rest and joy, that he may know how to reprobate evil and choose good. At this command, going out of the garden, they carried him up onto a very high mountain into a certain region of light and peace, most broad and most joyful: he saw there many mansions, beautiful and spacious, some as though of the purest gold, some of the most approved silver, some of the whitest ivory, some built of precious stones: all the inhabitants were young men, splendid, full of gladness, frequently among the other songs singing Alleluia, several of whom he recognized as formerly living in the world. He beheld therefore
there a honey-flowing and nectareous river, several kinds of trees and flowers unknown to earth-dwellers. And when he had most ardently desired to stay there, his leaders carried him across a certain golden wall, too high, into another most bright region, in comparison of which the light of the former country was reckoned very small: he heard there such and so great a melody as human ears can neither grasp nor tongues of flesh express.
[104] And when he stood as if stupefied with joy, holy Waltheof was present and said: who, coming to his senses You have seen the punishments of the guilty and the rewards of the just; be henceforth not unbelieving, but faithful; turn aside from evil and do good, diligently and perseveringly observe the holy purpose of the Order in which you have been called: and to these the Saint added: The wheel, he said, and the river and the solitude and the valley which you first saw are places of purgatory: within the circuit of the castle the fiery sulphurous pit is the entrance of hell, assigned to the unbelieving and the criminal impenitent; the first region shown you in this vision is assigned to the just, but imperfect: but that country next to heaven, which none shall be able to enter save the perfect and innocent, wholly purged from every blemish of sin. These things said, his leaders led him back by an unknown way to the gate of Melrose, and at once departed from him, who, immediately waking, feels himself sound and suffused with immense gladness.
[105] is heaped with various heavenly favors Wonderful thing! That brother before this vision was very simple, dull, and of impeded tongue; but afterward he became subtle and eloquent, so that he had it ready to compose rhythmic verses rhetorically and gracefully, as we are wont to speak in daily and plain discourse: whence also afterward several Gospels and their expositions and histories and sermons of the orthodox fathers and these visions and others he dictated in the English language, in a noble style, rhythmically, and moved even the abbots and other excellent persons who heard [him] to admiration and many times to tears. He himself composed his life for the rest in great religion, accustomed to abstinence and tears and to the exercises of the other virtues, [and] consummated his days in good works. But what was revealed to him before death, although it may seem to be outside the matter of the present narration, since it befits edification, we think fitting that it be committed to writing.
[106] and by a certain foregoing sign A few years before his death, his limbs being weakened by infirmity and old age, when by command he kept guard of the dormitory of the Lay-brothers, on a certain midday, the rest being asleep, while he himself, waking, attended to prayer, he saw the holy Mother of God, Mary, as a crowned queen, walking with two virgins walking about and attending her, entering through the cloister into the dormitory of the monks, and a certain one following with the writer's inkhorn and parchment: the queen herself, her right hand raised, blessed the cloister and dormitory and the sleepers; but coming before the pallets of certain ones, she ordered her writer, saying: Write the names of these, because they are now ready; then, going out of the dormitory of the monks, through the church, bowing before the altars, before the crosses, she entered the dormitory of the Lay-brothers, passing through the beds of each, [and] commanded her writer again to write the names of certain ones, pronouncing that they were ready; which done, that writer, looking on that brother who saw these things, inquired, saying: Lady, what do you command to be done with this brother, to whom you have granted [it] to see these things? And the Lady of heaven and earth: Even so, she said, write this one.
[107] Which done, they withdrew, and vanished from his eyes; is warned from heaven of his imminent death. but he himself, greatly marveling, meditated with himself in the secret chamber of his heart what that writing portended; and not long after, according to the order of the writing of the names, followed the death of each of those written. At last that same brother, touched by a grave infirmity and fortified with the sacred unction and the life-giving Sacraments, related the vision described to certain of his most intimate friends: foretelling his death, awaiting it with glad countenance and cheerful mind, the last of those written, he rested in peace. But that this man, seeing these things, penetrated two walls, as though having lynx eyes, proved by an evident miracle that after the general resurrection all things will be pervious and clear to bodily eyes.
ANNOTATIONS.
* perhaps "of hope"
* here something is lacking
CHAPTER VIII.
Certain events foretold by the Saint appearing, and various diseases cured at his sepulchre.
An immense benefit of divine piety is attributed to the holy Church or to the congregation of religious, when someone, having by the merit of holiness obtained the familiarity of God, The holy abbot the eternal salvation of all his subjects, is set over them and appointed or made pastor; happy, I say, the convent whose spiritual father has learned by use and frequent experience that he can obtain from God what he asks for the salvation of himself and of his own: of this special gift of a happy benefit several can justly rejoice, who, received into religion by holy Waltheof and bound to the service of Christ, lived under his rule: for how pleasing to God the solicitude of his rule was, how effective for [*] the salvation of the souls committed to him his intercession was, a distinguished revelation shown to a certain Brother taught by evident signs in this way.
[109] A certain just and God-fearing brother, called William, the death of certain ones the guest-master in the grange of Wekairoc, in the Lenten time saw in a vision of the night lord abbot Waltheof, of graceful countenance and venerable vesture, and, although in dreams, most mindful of his holiness, he fell down at his feet, and suppliantly asked that he might be mindful of him before God; the man of God, raising him up, gladly assented to his petition, and after consoling words, with which he had cheered him, subjoining he said affirmatively: Hold it fixed, brother William, that longer, by the prayers of the blessed Mary, mother of the Lord, mediatrix of God and men, favoring [me], I have obtained for all whom, living in the world, I received under my pastoral care, the blessedness of eternal life from our Savior: if any of them was more negligent than he ought to have been, after the purgation of purgatorial fire he will migrate to heaven; and that no scruple concerning these things may arise in your mind, I foretell to you two signs to come soon, making credit for these words; tomorrow about the third hour there will come hither two monks and one lay-brother: await and observe diligently which of them enters the door of the grange first, which second, which third, because in the same order each of them will depart from the body; know nonetheless that within the space between the festival of blessed Benedict our father now at hand, and the Annunciation of the holy Mother of God Mary, Lady of heaven and earth, so great a tempest will befall these parts; concerning which for many days the inhabitants will have great matter of marveling and conversing.
[110] and foretold other events, These things said, the vision of the man of God was withdrawn, and that brother shaken from sleep; but on the following day about the third hour he sat near the gate; and behold, he saw three men of Religion coming, as he had received in the night, and, awaiting them, diligently noted the entrance of each; the first of those entering was a Lay-brother, Taibald by name, procurator of the cattle of the abbey of Melrose: the second lord Fulco, who formerly by right of abbot presided over the monastery of Coupar: the third Corald the cellarer, the last of those entering, a good and prudent man, and provident; these three, some circles of years having elapsed, entered into the womb of the mother of all in the same order in which they first entered the door of the grange, as has been said, to the brother: on the morrow of the day of holy Benedict a huge and horrid wind mixed with hail rushed upon the land, and persisting three days and nights continuously, laid low several houses, uprooted trees, killed cattle, overturned and sank ships. On the evening preceding the Lord's Annunciation the storm was silent, serenity returned, [and] loosed the mouths of many into a conference of admiration.
[111] which in fact happened. Since, therefore, the things which the Saint foretold to come as a testimony of his promise were fulfilled, it is established beyond doubt, supported by truth, the things which the holy Abbot promised that he had obtained from the Lord for his own good: for the display of the foretold signs is the irrefragable certainty of the following promises. It is established, therefore, that they are happy who under so great a Father warred for the supreme King, by whose merits and prayers they were inscribed in the roll of eternity. To have said these things concerning visions or revelations, although several others not to be despised are at hand to be narrated, let it, I pray, be burdensome to none. Now to the miracles which the Lord deigned to work through him after his death, let us turn our point, at least a few of many to be described.
[112] A certain dropsical man There was a certain lay-brother in the monastery of Coupar, a Scot by nation, Gilesperda by name; he, sent by command of his abbot to Melrose, when he stayed there for some space of time, was struck by that incurable kind of dropsy which is by the physicians called tympanites a. There are indeed, according to the physicians, four species of dropsy; of which two, namely leucophlegmatia b and hyposarca c, are, in the beginning, before they take root and grow strong, curable; the other two, namely tympanites and ascites d, incurable. That brother, therefore, laboring with this irremediable species, when he felt and knew all human medicine to be annulled for him, contrite in heart,
fled to the divine medicine: hearing and knowing the holiness of abbot Waltheof, still breathing in the world, he believed that it had not breathed its last; nay, that it was yet more vigorous, [him] now reigning in heaven with Christ.
[113] laboring with the incurable species of that disease, By night, the convent sleeping, having secretly entered the chapter-house, upon the tomb of the man of God, by confessing his sins he poured out tears abundantly, and that by his merits the divine clemency would deign to confer on him some remedy of health and prolong his span of life, whereby he might bewail, wash away, blot out his past faults, he more attentively asked; after these things, whether fervent with faith, or writhing from exceeding anguish, he spread and stretched himself upon the tomb, imploring aid and earnestly demanding a remedy; and thus lying, amid the insistence of his prayers, he was dissolved into sleep; after a little, awakened, he felt his belly slender and himself wholly restored to entire health, and, devoutly rendering thanks to God and to his holy Waltheof and on the morrow making the miracle public, opened the mouths of many into thanksgivings.
[114] Likewise a certain [man] in habit a secular, in the infirmary of the seculars, labored with the same species of dropsy, St. Waltheof's aid being implored, and awaited nothing but death to be present at the doors: he, hearing that the kind hand of the Lord had, by the merits of holy Waltheof, conferred the desired health on the Lay-brother, sought and obtained access to the tomb of the man of God; by night for a long time he persisted in prayers and weepings, and that the Mother of mercy would from her storehouse offer him a cup of health full of pity, he besought more profusely; then upon the sepulchre, bending himself as he could, he stretched out, [and] stretched out slept, [and], sleeping, felt a certain one as though binding him strongly with a thong, by drawing his swollen and drum-tight belly to the little spine of his back; but feeling [it], he awoke, [and] waking, found himself wholly sound, [and], made sound, showed the thanks due to God and to his holy Waltheof.
[115] Another, swelling with such a disease over his whole body, entrance and access to the monument of the holy Abbot being earnestly asked and at length obtained, at his tomb persisted through the night in prayer and tears; and departing at dawn, bewailing that he had obtained no relief, and accusing himself unworthy to be heard, magnified the Saint. As he sat upon his bed and uttered such things, suddenly through the passage of the male rod venom began to flow away in waves; which that sick man feeling, he placed a basin beneath, and the livid humor flowing out filled the basin placed beneath up to the top once and again; but the useless and harmful humor being drained off, restored his slender body and the man to health, and effectively led [him] to render devout thanksgivings to God and to the Saint.
[116] A certain householder, become dropsical, awaiting nothing else concerning himself for certain but the uncertain hour of certain death, are prodigiously healed. was for three nights admonished in dreams that he should come to Melrose, visit the sepulchre of the holy Abbot, ask his intercession, and thus obtain the desired health. The pilgrim man did, therefore, as he had been divinely taught: for, his wife, kinsmen, and several friends accompanying him, carried in a vehicle to the gate of Melrose, he came; set forth his long-standing ailment; related the revelation made to him concerning the obtaining of health; and at length, at his frequent and devout petition, being brought in by the brothers to the memorial of the holy Abbot, he performed through the night devout vigils in prayers and weepings; and thus, the day dawning, having obtained the health long desired, thanks being shown to God and to his Saint, he returned with his own to his own home praising and rejoicing. Deservedly this Saint, clothed with the flesh and stripped of it, merited a special grace of curing the dropsical; because he studied to root out avarice from his heart and utterly to extinguish the thirst of carnal pleasures; the dropsical man, as is said, the more he drinks, the more he thirsts; so also the miser, when he has obtained what he desired, burns the more for acquiring other greater things. Avarice is recognized to be in a manner an insatiable evil, which is diminished neither by plenty nor by want.
[117] Others too, afflicted with various diseases, A certain monk of Melrose, Benedict by name, advanced in age, labored with a double infirmity; his ears being stopped, he became wholly deaf, and although he was going blind in his eyes, there was still a little light. He, taking counsel for himself by a pious and wholesome theft, by night, the Convent asleep, secretly going out from the dormitory, lay down before the monument of holy Waltheof, sought a remedy with groaning and tears, at length, wearied, reclining his head upon the tomb about the feet of the Saint, took sleep; a little slumber being drawn, he awoke, and felt himself healed of both sicknesses, received his hearing fully, had sufficient sight as long as he lived, and, holding the holy Abbot dear before, thenceforth even to the evening of his life loved and cherished [him] as most dear.
[118] and demanding his aid, Another monk of the same monastery was vexed with many infirmities and especially with the disease of the stone and so intolerable a trouble of the intestines that onlookers were moved to compassion and to despair of his life: for through each passage of the anterior and posterior part clotted blood was emitted, and therefore skilled physicians judged that he labored with dysentery e or even lientery f. He, therefore, brought to the monument of the holy Abbot, poured out devout prayers, offered tears, kept vigil there, and, made free from the source of the sickness which had long oppressed him, the desired health being received, rendered the due praises to God and to his Saint.
[119] recover health. A certain cleric sprung in the remote borders of England, miserably but wonderfully cooked in the furnace of fevers, was tormented: for sometimes on each day, sometimes on the alternate day he was scorched by the fever's access, and nonetheless on each night, all rest being removed, his soul seemed to incline to its going out; he consulted physicians even in the parts beyond the sea and in various borders of England, tried medicines of many kinds; but all care or industry profited him nothing: at length, drawn by the fame of the holiness of holy abbot Waltheof, breathing round about the sweetness of a saving odor, he came to Melrose, making known his ailment, by beseeching, weeping, imploring obtained access to the tomb of the Saint, [and] persisted there through the night in vigils, prayers, and tears; morning being come, all fever being driven off with the rest of his infirmity, magnifying the Lord who makes his Saint wonderful, sound and cheerful he went on his way.
ANNOTATIONS.
* perhaps "toward"
CHAPTER IX.
The incorruption of the sacred body, and health restored to many sick at the sepulchre of the Saint.
When the above-said and many other miracles the wonderful God wrought in his Saint to declare the merits of his Servant, A great concourse of people is made to the tomb of St. Waltheof, William the abbot, who succeeded him in the government, commanded all the sick who came to be kept off from the entrance and access to the monument of the holy Man. I do not dare to assert what some have said, namely that he promulgated such a prohibition out of envy; but rather, as I think *, that the monks of the Cistercian Order might be free from the immoderate frequency of the crowds flowing together on every side: yet it seems to several that a prohibition of this kind is too presumptuous, that a man surrounded by a tabernacle of clay, cleaving to the uncertain and slippery, should dare to block the fount of mercy, and presume to bury under the sod of silence [one] glorified by heavenly glory and made manifest to the world by miracles: for according to the testimony of the angel Raphael, speaking to Tobit, To reveal and confess the works of God is honorable; also to enjoin holiness upon the peoples, and to narrate the wisdom of the Saints, and for the church to pronounce their praises. To what affection the aforesaid abbot William came concerning his interdict, the outcome of the matter clearly taught: for while, against the admonitions of blessed Benedict, he studied to be feared rather than loved, and took pains to turn back his own insolence upon his subjects, the power of his prelacy, being not only burdensome but even hateful to his subjects, made him ex-abbot a.
[121] To him, therefore, ceding the pastoral care, lord Jocelin b succeeded, which being opened, whom he himself had before grieved in many things; who was a lover and beloved of holy Waltheof. But abbot Jocelin, mindful of the holiness and nobility of the man of God, decreeing to change the stone placed under his sepulchre, and to substitute for it another more seemly one of marble procured, fixed a day for accomplishing this. He caused lord Ingram, the diocesan bishop c, and the neighboring abbots and priors to assemble on the appointed day: therefore, the pontiff being assembled into one with four abbots, among whom was Hardred, abbot of Kelso d, a man of great religion and holy repute, and several other prelates of diverse Religious orders, the Convent of Melrose standing by, the stone is removed; and behold, the body, which was thought to have been reduced to dust, inasmuch as it was the thirteenth year of his death and burial, is found incorrupt and whole, much more like one sleeping than dead; the cloths too, in which he was wrapped, are seen unharmed in the same incorruption, integrity, and beauty in which they were on the day of his burial, except that waxed cloth, mentioned in the preceding little book,
which was found wholly turned to ashes.
[122] his body by the bishop and abbots The prelate, approaching nearer, first feeling the cloths, afterward as though trying to stretch them, then the breast and shoulders, afterward the head and the rest of the limbs, handled more strongly, and found all whole, and the joints flexible, and the frame in its state: but the cantor, Peter by name, beholding these things, said: Lord bishop, saving your reverence, you handle the holy body more roughly than is fitting. This and certain others said, muttering under their breath: to whom the bishop said: Do not, dearest little sons, take it ill, what I did to the praise of God and the honor of our holy Father; for by a sufficiently probable argument I have shown you that you have as a companion a partner of St. Cuthbert, once a monk of Melrose e; and nonetheless the miracle increases, while, against the institutes of your Order, the usurped waxed cloth is turned to ashes, the rest being incorrupt. These and other things to this effect the abbot of Elcho f subjoined, repeating them. There sounded therefore thanksgiving and the voice of praise in the mouth of the bystanders, seeing and hearing these things, and from the jubilee of their heart pouring out flowing tears.
[123] is found whole. After these things they consulted and conferred together what should be done concerning so great a treasure; whether, placed in his present sepulchre, he should be so admitted, unmoved; or should be translated into the church to be honored with a loftier and more solemn mausoleum. At length by common counsel they decreed that in the place where he had hitherto lain buried he should rest, until by the authority of the supreme Pontiff, or by the consent and grant of the Cistercian chapter, something else should be sanctioned; several therefore approached, kissing the feet of the holy Father; and thus that precious stone, that desirable treasure above gold and much precious stone, is laid up under the prepared stone. But his holiness, not able to be shut in, is manifested manifoldly to the world by distinguished signs glittering. But abbot Jocelin, after some space of time, was made bishop of Glasgow, a man to be praised in many things, but in this to be blamed, that he did not take pains, as it seems to several, to canonize holy Waltheof, who specially loved, raised, and advanced him.
[124] At his sepulchre one afflicted with a long-standing infirmity A certain townsman of Roxburgh g was rich in goods, poor in health, Bernulf by name, whose son I saw a monk in the monastery of Melrose; he, held by a most grievous and long-standing infirmity, was brought by his own and with his friends to Melrose: license being afterward asked and obtained, he kept vigil before the tomb of the holy Abbot; in the morning, entire health being received, and thanksgiving rendered, having returned home with his companions of the journey, he gladdened his kinsmen and neighbors by the obtaining of his health. This miracle became known to nearly all dwelling in Melrose, because a rich person had stayed in a celebrated place, and it roused the hearts and tongues of many into the praises of God and the veneration of the Saint.
[125] At another time two full brothers, English by nation, and a certain man possessed by a demon but Scottish in dwelling, brought to Melrose their third brother seized by a demon, encircled and bound by the two brothers, afflicting [him] with many blows, and, tearful prayers being multiplied, obtained entrance and access to pass the night and keep vigil before the memorial of the Saint; which done, when the head of the possessed man was applied to the tomb, soon, dissolved into a quiet slumber, he fell asleep: and when the dawn, herald of day, grew white, Lauds being begun, he awoke in the oratory sound; made master of his mind, he offered immense praises to God and to his Saint; that man narrated a certain thing worthy of memory, which here is not judged to be passed over. When I slept, he said, I saw a certain queen, beautiful beyond all human beauty, in gilded vesture and adorned with a golden diadem inwoven with star-bearing gems, walking through the cloister, and two distinguished persons walking about on this side and that showing devout service to her: but she raised her right hand, and, the sign of the cross being made, blessed those placed round. The person walking at her right hand, turning aside a little, came to me, and, imprinting the sign of the cross on my head and breast, blessed me and said: Be sound from your infirmity from now and forever; nor shall the enemy have power any longer to vex your body.
[126] At this voice, feeling myself sound, and taking confidence; are restored to health. Who, I said, are you, Lord, who have had pity on my calamity? And he: I am Waltheof, once abbot of this place, whose aid you sought, and you have found the grace of God: but now go in peace, and take pains to amend your life for the better: for it behooves me, with my colleague and co-abbot Laurence, to serve the service of holy Mary, queen of heaven and earth, whom you behold, who by her grace deigns to visit this place. This Laurence succeeded abbot Jocelin, [now] bishop, in the government of the church of Melrose, a man of great gentleness and humility, and from the very flower of his youth devoted to the studies of Sacred Scripture, and becomingly imbued with them, full of works of mercy and charity: for he is wont to be called by several the son of charity. But the man, cleansed, this vision being narrated, in the morning, having taken food, set out, and is said to have remained in the health received even to the evening of his life.
[127] A certain letter-carrier h, Henry by name, while, carried on a horse, he tried to cross a certain river, Others from the peril of drowning which a rainy flood had made impassable, intercepted by the waters, began to be submerged. From that submersion, while he invoked the aid of the Lord to be present to him through the merit of holy Waltheof, suddenly emerging from the river, not knowing how, he found himself carried over onto the farther bank; but, drawing from his bosom the little box containing the letters, he beholds all dry and unharmed, [and] devoutly rendered thanks to God and to holy Waltheof. This the same Henry, who experienced it in himself, related to me, whose snowy beard, or aged i * head, compels a lie to be an exile from his mouth.
[128] A certain monk of Melrose, called Roger of Appleby, with tertian fevers a priest in grade, and aged, for thirteen continuous weeks labored with tertian fevers: he was so worn and attenuated by this infirmity that all who beheld him believed that the thread of temporal life was rather to be cut off in him than prolonged; and at length, all human care or industry failing, which he had rather often tried, he fled to the sole cure of divine grace: secretly approaching the tomb of holy Waltheof, he poured out prayers, asked a remedy and relief; and thus, the fever being driven off, as he himself related to me, carrying back the desired health, he offered to God and to holy Waltheof marrow-rich holocausts of thanksgiving.
[129] with a dizziness of the head Another monk of the same name at Melrose, burdened with an in a manner intolerable pain and vertigo of the head, feared also that an alienation of mind would come upon him. Nonetheless the excessive overflowing of humors, stopping his ears, utterly took away his hearing, so that he could not at all hear a bell clearly sounding. He, anxious in body and spirit, but trusting in the merits of holy Waltheof, by night secretly, the Convent asleep, approached his monument, prayers with tears being offered, slept, and from weariness reclined his head upon the sepulchre of the Saint. A little slumber then being drawn, he awoke, and found the surface of the tomb wetted from the flowing of a livid and bloody humor running down from his ears. From that hour, as he himself related to me, he was free from the accustomed pain of the head, and received his lost hearing clearly and entirely, and praised his physician, namely holy Waltheof, in the Lord.
[130] with a pain of the intestines, A certain lay-brother of the monastery of Melrose, called Duramius, related to me that he was tormented with such pains of the intestines that many times he could not sit, or stand, or lie; but from anguish was compelled to roll about: he applied fomentations and manifold plasters several times, took decoctions of herbs and potions many times, which he learned from physicians; but in all these he felt no help had come to him. On a certain occasion, standing outside the chapter-house at the eastern part toward the infirmary of the monks, and looking in through an open window, the monument of holy Waltheof being seen, when a vehement pain and more than usual rushed upon him, he applied himself to the wall and rubbed his belly, complaining and beseeching, as though speaking to one alive, [and] said to the Saint: Most holy and most dear father, you see me in the house of God, on account of my infirmity, as a useless vessel, burdensome to all, whereas, being still placed in youthful age, I ought to bear the burdens of the rest; therefore I suppliantly beseech your holiness that you have pity on me, and by your merits and prayers deign to obtain for me from the Lord health or death. These things said, health being at once received, he withdrew, and from that hour and thenceforth was wholly free from his accustomed pain.
[131] and with other diseases Another lay-brother, Henry, related to me a miracle done in himself, and evidently showed the token of the health obtained. A fistula had occupied his shin and right foot, and flowing out through manifold passages, rendered those joints almost useless to him. He i.e., he himself applied manifold cataplasms of fomentations, and infused various kinds of powders, took very many cups of potions; from all which applied he received detriment rather than help. All these things at length being set aside, he approached the tomb of the Saint, poured out prayers, placed his languishing shin and foot upon the stone about the feet of the Saint, and soon feeling a certain concussion first in all his joints, after a little while, having experienced a certain relief, withdrew. But after a few days, the holes being dried up, the sickness being driven off, he received the function of his shin and foot with health; and while he related these things to me, he set forth nine, as I remember, scars of the holes to be counted. In this miracle and in all others may the name of the Lord be blessed, wonderful in his Saints.
[132] A certain cleric of Westmoreland l, vexed with many and great infirmities, by the intercession of St. Waltheof are freed. disposed to go to Canterbury, to bewail his misery, and to implore a remedy before the memorial of St. Thomas the martyr m; but on the preceding night, on which he was on the morrow girded for the proposed journey, a certain one inauled and decked with pontifical vestments appeared in dreams, and inquired whither he disposed to hasten his steps: he answering, Toward Canterbury to visit the memorial of St. Thomas, he answered saying: I am that Thomas whose monument you desire to visit; cut off that journey, and go to Melrose, and visit the sepulchre of holy Waltheof the abbot, beloved of God and of holy Mary his mother, and consequently without doubt you will obtain the effect of your petition. Believe me, that days will come in which his name will be held most celebrated, and he himself, like one of the chief holy Confessors of the Lord, will be honored round about; the vision and conversation of the one uttering these things withdrew, and the cleric, shaking off sleep, and turning the dream over in his mind, on the morrow, the journey being changed, hastened his steps toward Melrose; arriving there, license being received, he entered the chapter-house, [and] immolated the victims of prayers and tears upon the tomb of the Saint; and at once, having obtained the health which he sought, with thanksgiving, and praising with devout proclamations and rejoicing, made [it] known to the notice of many: but what
was revealed to him by St. Thomas in the vision of the night, he clearly unfolded, by a truthful relation, to several and especially to a certain aged master known to him, and returned sound and unharmed to his own home.
[133] In the year from the Incarnation of the Lord one thousand two hundred and seven, The body of the Saint after forty-eight years which is the forty-eighth year n from the death of holy Waltheof, a man of venerable life, William o, the seventh abbot after the blessed man, entered the way of all flesh; and it seemed good that in the chapter-house, beside the holy body on the right, he should enter the womb of the mother of all: nor undeservedly that place was, up to that time, empty of the burial of the abbots who died, which, as is judged by several, the Lord was reserving for so holy a body to be buried beside his Saint. That same William was, as his disciples attest, beloved of God and men, a mirror of religion, the lamp of his generation, the precious and distinguished gem of the abbots his contemporaries.
[134] But when the stonecutters and the mason were building the tomb of so great a man in the aforesaid place, is found incorrupt, certain monks urging [him], brother Robert the mason, as he himself often related to me, unwilling and very fearful, with certain monks lifted a little the marble lid of the tomb of holy Waltheof; and behold, a fragrance of sweet odor, exhaling, poured itself into his nostrils, as if the monument had been filled with aromatics; and because the twilight of night was at hand, a candle being lit [and] let in through the opening, the same brother and the other bystanders look in, and find the holy body most whole, and all its garments incorrupt with their former integrity and beauty. There were six monks, and as many or more, as we have received, Lay-brothers, who by a pious and devout, but presumptuous, search beheld that dwelling of virtues, anointed with the balsam of virginity. These, after the burial of the most reverend abbot William, thought fitting to communicate more secretly the things searched out and found to certain others, and roused their hearts and mouths into the praise of God and a fuller devotion toward the Saint. There went out therefore this report among the brothers, who, rejoicing, were refreshed, glorifying God in all these things.
[135] whence the author of the Life, by the example of others, Let the holy mother Church rejoice over her Son, presenting and setting forth, after the debt of nature paid, a likeness now of the future resurrection, preaching the faith of the future incorruption after death, destroying the mad assertion of the heretics who deny the resurrection of bodies; let England now rejoice, having obtained by divine gift a seventh Saint bodily incorrupt, and the whole kingdom irradiated with a sevenfold candlestick. Let Canterbury, metropolis of England, rejoice over the incorrupt body of holy Elphege [p], martyr and archbishop, and London, head of the kingdom, over the body, found like one living, of the most holy king and confessor Edward [q]: let Bury, which is now called Edmundsbury, exult that there has come to it in its lot the body, like one sleeping, of holy Edmund [r] king and martyr, and likewise the church of Ely [s] near it rich with the most precious gems, namely the most whole bodies of the virgins Etheldreda [s] and Withburga [t]; let the church of Durham glory, as is worthy, with its whole diocese and its neighboring region, over the body free from all corruption of the most holy confessor and pontiff Cuthbert [v]; so also the abbey of Melrose, over the incorrupt clod of the holy abbot Waltheof, companion of that same holy prelate: for holy Cuthbert underwent the monkhood at Melrose; holy Waltheof shone at Melrose in the office of abbot; each was devoted to mercy, perfect in religion, conspicuous for holiness, full of virtues, made wonderful by miracles, uplifted by contemplations, glorified by the incorruption of the body.
[136] rouses the Scots and especially the monks of Melrose to gladness. Let the royal house of Scotland and its whole kingdom exult in having so great a Parent and Patron: let the monastic order rejoice, and especially the Cistercian, in which was found so great a treasure, so precious, so desirable, that it is incomparable to all the riches of the world. O all you dwelling in the monastery of Melrose, rejoice in the Lord, you who, now bathed with heavenly honey and dew, have the mellifluous Father present in a manner before your eyes, more like one asleep than dead; again I say, rejoice, because, brought into the splendors of the Saints, made like them in glory, he has been made more powerful to obtain the things which are wholesome for you; more powerful, I say, is he, to excuse your errors, commend your merits, take away punishments, confer eternal joys, which may Jesus Christ our Lord deign to grant us by his merits and prayers, and those of all his Saints, living and reigning with the Father and the Holy Spirit, blessed God unto the ages of ages. Amen.
ANNOTATIONS.
p. The Acts of this holy prelate and martyr, illustrated, see in our work at the day the 19th of April, in volume 2 of that month from page 630.
q. This is St. Edward, of whom we treated at the day the 5th of January.
r. I think that here is indicated St. Edmund, who is celebrated in the Roman Martyrology at the day the 20th of November.
s. This is St. Etheldreda, whose Acts at the day the 23rd of June, in volume IV of that month, from page 489, were illustrated at length.
t. In this place is indicated Withburga, whose Life and the history of her translation we exhibited at the day the 17th of March.
v. The Acts of this Saint were given at the day the 20th of March, as above in the Annotations we again noted.
* perhaps rather "I think, that"
* perhaps "swan-like"; "with tertian fevers"
* perhaps "he himself"
* perhaps "about to gird himself"
* perhaps "of Ely"
* is it "royal house"?