ON ST. GEZZELINUS OR GITZELINUS, CONFESSOR,
at Schlebusch near Cologne.
CommentaryGezzelinus or Gitzelinus, not far from Cologne (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. P.
Cologne, the far and wide most celebrated holy treasury of so many sacred pledges which it preserves most religiously with itself, Public cult has in its territory a parish church, commonly Schlevuschrath or Slebusrode, notable for the cult and remains of our Blessed one. Concerning the cult Greven speaks thus on this VI day of August: Of Gezelinus of blessed memory, confessor, resting at Slebusrode in the Duchy of Berg. The Martyrology usually cited under the name of Canisius agrees. Molanus in the Birthdays of the Saints of Belgium on the same day thus announces our blessed Confessor: At Slebusrode near Cologne, the memory of blessed Gitzelinus, who is invoked against the disease of pustules and measles, and in the chapel commonly called Sint Gisle Capelchin has beneath the altar a great spring, salutary for the sick. He is painted with a shepherd's hat and two pigs. For he was a swineherd. Who, when at a certain time he wished to visit the church of Blessed Mary at Aachen, is reported to have commended his beasts to the Lord Jesus, and, while he was absent, his fellow-villagers beheld someone who in his likeness supplied the place of the absent man. But these things pertain to the church of Cologne: by which you may distinguish this Blessed one from Blessed Schetzelo, who pertains to the people of Luxembourg, and is confounded with him by some, namely by Molanus in the additions to his Usuard on this day, where he says thus: Of Gezelinus of blessed memory, confessor, who rests in the Duchy of Berg, and adds in the notes, Achard, a disciple of St. Bernard, wrote the Life of Gezelinus: by Wion in the Tree of Life, volume 2, page 263, when he thus announces him: In the Duchy of Berg, of blessed Gezelinus, monk and confessor of the Cistercian Order, and in the notes he cites the additions of Molanus, and the same author of the Life as he: finally by Ferrari in the Catalogue of the Saints who are not in the Roman Martyrology, reporting him in these words: At Slesbusrode near Cologne, of Blessed Gezelinus, Cistercian monk, and he alleges the same writer of the Life in his notes. But it is proved from those things which on this same day we shall write concerning Schetzelo of Luxembourg that by the three said hagiologists this Blessed one was confounded with the one of Berg or Slebusrode; where it will also be weighed whether he ever was a Cistercian monk. And so it pleases us to send the reader thither, lest we do what has been done.
[2] Another testimony, by which we are made more certain concerning the public cult of this Blessed one, it is proved from the Calendars. Gelenius supplies in book 4 On the greatness of Cologne, among the sacred and pious Calendars likewise recording thus on this day: At Schlebusrode, of Blessed Gezzelinus the hermit: whose spring and memory are visited by a frequent concourse of pilgrims; but his Acts have perished for men by the injury of the times, which are known to the eternal Rewarder. The rigor of his life seems to have had some likeness with the rigor of Blessed Schetzelo, a Religious of the Cistercian Order: whence also, on account of the affinity of the name, he is confounded by some with the latter: but the difference of the latter is discovered in his Life in Benedict Gonon.
[3] The spring, the chapel. This I do not find among the Lives of the Fathers of the West in Gonon; but he has the Life of St. Gislenus the hermit; which exhibits an altogether different Saint. Castellan in the additions to his Roman Martyrology reckons him at Cologne under the name of St. Gisislenus (St. Gisle) the swineherd. Here also it is useful to make mention of those things which our Theodore Rhay wove in concerning the Blessed one in his book which is entitled Illustrious Souls of Jülich, Cleves, Berg, etc., at the day VI of August: In the Duchy of Berg near the castle of Bensberg in the village of Schlebusch, of Blessed Gezzelinus the anchorite: whose memory is there, and his spring given from the earth by his prayers; which is visited by a frequent concourse of pilgrims in the chapel erected by the most illustrious lord Henry, baron of Reuschenberg, Commander of the Teutonic Order, etc., healing and salutary for many.
[4] In the accounts sent hither from Slebusrode Further, no further labor was omitted by us in investigating the affairs of this Blessed one; but we appealed by letter to Father Anton Hüdigh, S.J., procurator of the province of the Lower Rhine, dwelling at Cologne; who, courteously replying from there on the XXVI day of May, 1732, signifies that the things which he encloses for our purpose, written out in German, were written with his own hand by the Reverend Lord Pastor at Schlebuschrath, by name, as he adds according to a copy of them, Johann Heimbach, who had discharged that office there for forty years. But since that writing was not only in the German tongue, but also in German characters, foreign among us, and therefore not suited to me for a faithful Latin translation, I asked and obtained this from the most experienced Lord Ernst Wipperman, a German of Salzuflen in the County of Lippe, sworn practicing physician in this city of Antwerp, and also chief physician of this our Professed house. And so we shall use the things which, most kindly satisfying my request, he translated, rendered into the sense here given by the Man, in which we shall transcribe them here under the name of the accounts of Slebusrode.
[5] This Blessed one of Slebusrode After, therefore, the praised Heimbach had treated, from the Cistercian writers, and also Molanus, Gelenius, and Rhay, of the cult of Blessed Gizzelinus, celebrated on the VI day of this month, he subjoins, Throughout the whole holy Cistercian Order this feast is celebrated on such a day. We have in our Museum at Antwerp a broadsheet, published at Brussels in the year 1620 with this title: A Calendar of the most illustrious Saints and Blessed of the Cistercian Order, arranged in the series of months and days; in which on the aforesaid day there is marked Blessed Iezelinus the hermit in Germany; but that this man is not the one of Slebusrode or of Berg, but the one of Luxembourg, who in the said accounts is also wrongly confounded with the one of Slebusrode, seems abundantly concluded from the Commentary preliminary to the Acts of Blessed Schetzelo, which we shall exhibit a little afterward. But that confusion of the one with the other, made in the accounts of Slebusrode, is clearly shown from their context, from which I sample the following: The above-mentioned Blessed Gezzelinus was led by God in a special manner to perfection in his youthful age. He chose the caves, woods, and fields of the territory of Berg as a wrestling-ground against the flesh, the world, and the devil. His food was nothing other than herbs and roots: his drink was water: his garments (if indeed such deserve to be named) were nothing but torn rags. In such a manner for fourteen years, half-naked, he traversed mountains and valleys in cold and heat: and led a wonderful indeed, but scarcely imitable life. The fame of his sanctity was spread so far, that the Blessed Father Bernard, abbot at Clairvaux, not only gave him a garment, but even... sent to him his own habit; from the Cistercian Menology of Chrysostom Henriquez, which is cited.
[6] There follows then in the accounts of Slebusrode, that Blessed Gizzelinus burned with the greatest desire of visiting the image of the Mother of God at Aachen; confounded with the other of Luxembourg: and that he did not become master of his wish on account of the flock committed to him by his spiritual superiors; but that, when he had commended it to his good shepherd Christ Jesus, he began the journey toward Aachen, and there honored the Mother of God with the utmost devotion, she without doubt, as follows, or an angel, supplying the place of his shepherd's office, etc. Consult what was said above at number 1. This happened, if we believe the same accounts, near Slebusrode, a village not far distant from Mülheim. Our Blessed Gizzelinus therefore was a lay brother and lay convert of the Cistercians, who once performed various household tasks in the villages and farms: as may be seen from the very ancient reserved manuscripts of the abbey of Altenberg. So he there. But whatever those manuscripts be which are here merely named, and whatever profession of life and office Gizzelinus discharged — concerning which matter I would both learn and teach others more certain things — it is most clear from the text just alleged that Blessed Gezzelinus of Slebusrode and Schetzelo of Luxembourg are confounded, if you compare the Life of the latter, as also our Commentary prefixed to it, with these things which have already been narrated above concerning the former. But by the abbey of Altenburg just named there is without doubt designated Vetus-mons, commonly Aldenberg, in the Duchy of Berg on the river Dhünn, which is noted in Kaspar Jongelinus in the Account of the abbeys of the Order
of Cîteaux, book 2, page 13, in the diocese of Cologne; concerning which more in the same place.
[7] whose cult both was formerly propagated, and even now still endures. The often-mentioned accounts report besides that the last will of the Blessed one, out of the great and customary submission of his mind, was that his body, when he had departed life, should be buried beneath the eaves-drip of a roof; which will of his the same accounts hold, from a probable conjecture, was in some manner fulfilled, and that in the above-mentioned parish church of Slebusrode: where the body not only lies buried under a certain attached annex of that church (or a certain chapel, as I at least understand from what follows, annexed to that church) on the side of the choir, in a certain decorated and suspended lattice, and in a stone and whitewashed sepulcher; but also in the cavity of the aforesaid sepulcher there is to be seen a square opening, from which, for the neighboring peoples and those coming from afar who at every time touch the body, there comes from that very touch a relief of all pains of the head; and not otherwise than by the special grace of God and the supreme merits of that pious Servant, to the utmost admiration of all, they obtain the wished-for effect; just as of old the sick by the touch of the shadow of St. Peter, prince of the Apostles. And this miracle is confirmed by a very ancient original image, to be found in the above-mentioned church, in the true habit of a lay convert of the Cistercian Order, in which the Blessed one is represented carrying in one hand a little sheep, but in the other a shepherd's staff: which the neighbors from Schlebusch and Slebusrode formerly held in the highest veneration, and carried about with the utmost devotion both on the feast of the Blessed one and on other feasts: just as also in the above-named annex there has been built to his glory an altar, at which a daily Mass is celebrated by an appointed priest with the lighting of the sepulcher. To these are subjoined indulgences of all sins, to be gained on the VI day of August, to which the writer of these accounts exhorts the faithful; and on whose credit let these things be said.