Radegund

ON ST. RADEGUND, QUEEN, AFTERWARD A NUN,

AT POITIERS IN GAUL,

In the year 587.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Radegund, queen, afterward a nun, at Poitiers (St.)

BHL Number: 7052

BY THE AUTHOR G. C.

§ I. The ancient cult of the Saint, the writers of her Acts, and the various transcripts of them.

Poitiers, an ancient city of Aquitanian Gaul, and metropolis of the Pictones, whose site and old names our Bolland assigned on occasion of St. Hilary at the thirteenth day of January, This holy patroness of the people of Poitiers to this day follows St. Radegund with the highest veneration, as its own singular helper, as is sufficiently clear from the litanies which the most illustrious bishop of that same city, Henri Louis Chasteigner de la Roche-Pozay, permitted to be published in print in honor of this Saint, and illustrated with historical notes, and in which that Saint, among other praises of her virtues, is called "the safest patroness of the people of Poitiers, and the most powerful defender of the besieged city." Nor without cause did she receive these honorable titles: for when the English in the year of Christ 1202 were striving to seize Poitiers, St. Radegund, appearing together with the Mother of God and St. Hilary, wonderfully delivered her clients from the assault of the enemy, as Jean Bouchet in the Gallic Annals of Aquitaine, part 3, chapter 6, narrates at greater length. For the preserving of the memory of this prodigious deliverance a pious supplication is still yearly appointed by the inhabitants of Poitiers, as the praised Bouchet in the place just cited attests, and Jean Filleau in the Historical Proof of the aforesaid litanies, where in chapter 18 this latter French writer confirms that patronage of the Saint by several examples.

[2] is honored in various regions, Nor did this public veneration of St. Radegund confine itself within the bounds of the city or province of Poitiers, but it was propagated to other regions: for in Germany we find a church anciently dedicated to this Saint, concerning which Thietmar, bishop of Merseburg, in book 2 of his Chronicle, in us at page 24, writes thus: "His own son and namesake also granted him the church situated at Helpethi, which, built by his father in honor of St. Radegund, he himself being present ordered bishop Bernhard to dedicate." Besides, this propagation of the public cult is clear from the Missal of Milan, which is arranged according to the rite of St. Ambrose, where immediately after the feast of St. Lawrence there is read a solemn Mass in honor of St. Radegund the matron, into which, besides four proper prayers or collects, after the old manner a part of the Acts is thus inserted in the Preface: "It is meet and salutary that we should give thanks to thee, O Lord God almighty, and on the day of today's festival immolate the victims of praise for blessed Radegund; whom thou didst deign to kindle with so great a fire of thy love that with all her mind she despised the royal sceptre and all the pomp of the world, and in abhorrence fled the delights of a mortal man: who, though she was covered above with scarlet tunics, yet mortified her flesh with hard and rough haircloth. She, conspicuous in humility, most bountiful in alms, being at length separated from her consenting consort, left the world with its deeds by utterly despising it, and shut herself up, dedicated to Christ, in a monastery which she had built; in which, persevering steadfastly in fastings, vigils and prayers, she strove to serve more fully and more perfectly the eternal King of kings her bridegroom, and to cleave wholly to him: nor did she burn with any desire more earnestly than to seek out Christ with all her heart, and to follow him with all her love; through whom the majesty," etc.

[3] Further, that this cult of the Saint began from immemorial time we gather from the most ancient Hieronymian Martyrologies, among which the one of Lucca, in Francesco Maria Florentinius, has it thus on this day: "In the city of Poitiers, the deposition of Radegund the queen." Among the abridged Hieronymian Martyrologies, which we first submitted to the press in volume VII of June, or part 2 of volume VI of the same month, the one of Rheinau announces the festival of the same Saint on the Ides of August in these two words: "At Poitiers; Radegund." But the one of Reichenau adds the Saint's illustrious rank thus: "At Poitiers, of Radegund the queen." In most of the other Martyrologies, which we there published from manuscript codices, only her name is expressed. But we greatly marvel that in the Fragment of a very ancient Martyrology of the church of Tours, which Edmond Martène published in the New Thesaurus of Anecdota, volume 3, from column [ ], the yearly memory of "Radegund the virgin" is celebrated on the Ides of August. Did that Martyrologist perhaps confound our St. Radegund with St. Radegund the little maiden, daughter of the holy queen Bathildis, of whom our Elders treated at the twenty-sixth day of January together with her holy mother? He might also have indicated another Radegund, who perhaps remained a virgin,

and concerning whom the most illustrious Bernard Gui, in our Labbe, in the New Library of Manuscript Books, volume 1, page 635, writes thus: "St. Radegund, other than the one of Poitiers, rests in the Lord in that same place at Lobertiacum. She is said to have received blessed Martial into her hospitality, and to have given her house, that he might dedicate it as a church." On this occasion we ask the learned French not to think it burdensome to instruct us concerning the lawful cult, the deeds, the day of death, and other matters regarding that Radegund who is said to rest in the diocese of Limoges, and whom Castellan in his universal Martyrology does not appear to have known. Finally, to return to the present matter, did this compiler of the Martyrology of Tours think that today's St. Radegund preserved her virginity in marriage? Certainly Dorganius in his Benedictine Menology indicates that opinion of certain persons, when today in the eulogy of our Saint he writes thus timidly and cautiously: "She is said to have remained a virgin." But at least the Ambrosian Missal cited above, and the ancient Breviary of Milan of the same rite, call our St. Radegund a matron, which name is not wont to be given to virgins. To these add the Breviary of Limoges, which on the feast of St. Radegund at the thirteenth day of August prescribes all things from the common of neither a virgin nor a martyr, except those things which are here proper. But of this matter a more opportune and fuller occasion for discussion will occur below. It is not necessary here to heap up more texts of the Martyrologies, because the immemorial cult of this Saint is abundantly established from the announcements adduced and from the ancient Acts themselves, concerning whose writers and various transcripts we shall now premise some things.

[4] and St. Fortunatus Among the ancient authors of the Acts, in the first place must be reckoned St. Fortunatus, who, coming from Italy into Gaul, fixed his dwelling in Aquitaine, and, obeying the desire of St. Radegund, dedicated himself to her service, as he himself indicates at the beginning of book 8 in these words:

"I, Fortunatus, greet thee from hence with humble prayer and voice: born of Italy, the fields of Gaul hold me. Dwelling at Poitiers, where holy Hilary of old was born in the city, a father known in the world … Desiring Martin, by a vow I clave to Radegund, whom the Thuringian land bore for the holy heaven."

Then in book 11, poem 4, this holy poet calls himself the agent or steward of the same most pious Matron, when he exhorts St. Radegund in his own name and in that of Agnes the abbess to moderate the too great rigor of her abstinence, and to drink some wine for the strengthening of her stomach:

"Fortunatus thy AGENT, and Agnes too, entreat thee in verse, that, being over-wearied, thou wouldst drink kindly wine."

[5] who, being devoted to the service of St. Radegund, Besides, that steward sufficiently hints that he was wholly occupied with the affairs of St. Radegund (whom he calls by the sweet name of mother), when he writes thus to St. Germanus, bishop of Paris, by whom he had been summoned, in book 8, poem 2:

"Behold, the day flashes forth; a journey lies before us to be made, paying our debts; behold, the day flashes forth. Thence the father Germanus, shining in the world, calls me, hence the Mother holds me back, thence the father calls me. Both are sweet to me, and have clung to me in embracing vow, full of the love of God, both are sweet to me. She is dearer to my mind, although he too, in his blessed rank, is dearer — dearer he in rank, dearer she to my mind. One mind holds two who journey with equal step, one mind holds two who strive toward holy things. Whatever the one has done well profits both; all the good of one profits both. Since they are equal in heart, I do not refuse to go when bidden; I will obey both, since they are equal in heart. Nor yet do I go hence, though I shall see new dwellings; in body I depart, and yet I go not hence. Here I shall be wholly, nor am I torn away in heart and mind; thus also, while I return, here I shall be wholly. May the Mother reach forth to me heavenly arms as I go, that she may have more for herself, may she reach forth arms to me."

[6] took care of her affairs, From this poem we gather that St. Fortunatus was then sent elsewhere to transact certain affairs of St. Radegund, for which he rather often undertook journeys, as our Brower notes in the Life of St. Fortunatus prefixed to his writings, where in chapter 3 he writes thus of him to our purpose: "But meanwhile he was often called upon by the affairs of Radegund: for this queen, when, having bidden farewell to mortal things, she had by reason of her favor and of the power of her royal kinsfolk power over every kind of office and condition, not rarely sent Fortunatus away from her in every direction, now to the kings of the Franks, now to the holy bishops; and in his wisdom and counsel the holy Woman greatly acquiesced. This indeed she shows not obscurely in her letter to Gregory of Tours, when after the Moselle, the Meuse, the Aisne, the Seine, she says that she crossed the greatest streams of Aquitaine, approaching the Pyrenees snowy in the month of July. And by these travels undertaken in all directions he came into the friendship of very many pontiffs of Gaul, since already before he had obtained the favor and familiarity of kings also, by no other thing than by the uprightness of his life and the elegance of his wit, by which he had won most of the bishops, being their equal in zeal for virtues, their inferior in dignity." At that time, doubtless, Fortunatus was a cleric or priest of the church of Poitiers, to whose see he was afterward raised; which last dignity of his may easily be proved against certain persons at the fourteenth day of December, on which Castellan in his French Martyrology not rashly reckons him among the Saints: for on that day he is honored with a double rite in the proper Office of the church of Poitiers, of which we have a transcript; and André Saussay, in a certain appendix to his Gallican Martyrology, volume 2, page 1252, affirms that that most pious prelate was from immemorial time publicly invoked in the litanies among the other Saints in the monastery of St. Cyprian outside the walls of Poitiers.

[7] Finally, Fortunatus was most familiar with St. Radegund and with St. Agnes, and was most familiar with her, whom she, being the elder, had appointed abbess of the monastery, as is clear from the eleventh book of the cited Work, where in various poems he expresses his tender affection toward these holy women, of whom he adorns the elder with the sweet title of mother, and addresses the other by the loving name of sister. Nay rather, the innocent man could not, because of this very familiarity, escape the slanderous tongues of detractors: for certain animal men, who perceive not the things that are of the Spirit, maliciously interpreted this friendship of a shameful and carnal love, so that the pious poet in the same eleventh book, poem 6, was compelled to defend his reputation with the following verses:

"A mother to me in honor, but a sister sweet in love, whom I cherish with piety, faith, breast and heart. With heavenly affection, with no fault of the body, not the flesh, but that which the Spirit desires, do I love. Christ is my witness, with Peter and Paul his ministers, and holy Mary with her pious companions sees, That thou wert to me with no other eyes and mind than if thou wert Titiana, my sister from the same womb. As if by one birth mother Radegund had brought forth us both from her chaste bowels, so was I: And as though the dear breasts of the blessed one had nourished us two alike with one flowing milk. Alas, I groan at my losses, lest by some slight whisper hurtful words hinder my meaning. But yet it is my mind to live by a like vow, if ye wish me to be cherished with sweet love."

That thou mayest easily understand this poem, observe in passing that Fortunatus had a full sister named Titiana, to whom he here compares St. Agnes the abbess, whom he followed with a like chaste love. But he calls St. Radegund mother, because she had from her tender years brought up Agnes in the Spirit, and in the same way he acknowledges himself the spiritual son of St. Radegund, and names Agnes his sister.

[8] For the rest, we have adduced all these things that the learned reader may see more clearly wrote her Life, which, other transcripts being omitted, how much credit the Acts of St. Radegund deserve, which her most familiar and intimate friend wrote. Now we have different copies of these Acts, both manuscript and printed, to which the name of Fortunatus is prefixed, and which we shall now enumerate. First, Gamans, that indefatigable workman of the Society of Jesus, praised six hundred times in our Work for his singular services, sent to us an elegant transcript of the Acts, which agrees very much with the edition of Surius, and in which the copyist appears to have changed the style rather freely. But since the busy man forgot to note from what codex or from what library he had had it transcribed, we shall afterward in the Annotations call this manuscript "the anonymous," and we have judged that it should not be submitted to the press. In the year of Christ 1641 we received from the same strenuous helper of our Work another copy of the Life, taken from a manuscript parchment Passional of the monastery of Böddeken in the diocese of Paderborn, whose style differs from the other manuscript and printed copies, as will be plain to the eye below from the Annotations, where by way of a specimen we shall bring forward the prologue of that copy, which the curious reader will be able to compare with our prologue.

[9] we shall publish from a codex of a Cistercian monastery, Besides, our Pierre-François Chifflet, to whom also we owe very much for services rendered, communicated to us the same lucubration of Fortunatus, which he had had transcribed from a manuscript codex of Vauluisant, which monastery belongs to the Cistercian Order, and is situated in the diocese of Sens. Although this transcript, which that same obliging man had diligently collated with other manuscripts, sometimes differs from the Mabillonian edition in the construction of the periods, yet in substance it for the most part agrees with it. This transcript of the Cistercian monastery we shall collate with the other manuscript and printed Acts of the same Saint, and shall publish it in print after this Commentary, noting in the margin the variant readings of any moment. But if anything obscure or difficult occur, we shall explain it, together with other things worthy of observation, according to our custom in the Annotations. First, however, in this preliminary Commentary we shall report some of the virtues and praises of St. Radegund which the same Fortunatus celebrated in verse.

[10] to whom Baudonivia, a contemporary nun, After this biographer, Baudonivia, a contemporary nun and in many things an eye-witness, committed to writing the Life of St. Radegund. Now she had before her eyes the lucubration of Fortunatus, and gathered by way of a gleaning various things omitted by that writer, as she herself indicates in her prologue in these words: "We do not repeat those things which the apostolic man Fortunatus the bishop composed concerning the life of the Blessed one; but those things which he passed over for their prolixity." Hence Surius and Mabillon call that part of the deeds which Baudonivia left to posterity the second book of the Acts of St. Radegund. But it matters little by what name thou callest that writing of the contemporary nun, which is extant in the same transcripts assigned above, and concerning which accordingly the same judgment must be passed which we passed above concerning the various copies of Fortunatus. Wherefore we shall publish this lucubration of Baudonivia also from the manuscript codex of Vauluisant, in which after the prologue there are expressed

the titles of the old chapters, which are wanting in all our other copies. But since both these parts of the Life are written in a rough and difficult style, which nevertheless on account of its venerable antiquity it is not lawful to change or to soften, we shall subjoin to it the Acts of the same Saint which the venerable Hildebert collected from Fortunatus and Baudonivia after the year 1197, arranged in another order, and for the most part expressed in clearer phrase. And these we shall reprint from the Works of the venerable Hildebert, prelate of Le Mans and afterward archbishop of Tours, which Dom Antoine Beaugendre, a Benedictine, published not long since at Paris, and illustrated with notes.

[11] and St. Gregory of Tours added certain deeds. Finally, St. Gregory of Tours, who honored the obsequies of St. Radegund with his presence, can in a certain manner be numbered among the contemporary biographers of this Saint: for although he did not write her Life professedly, yet he often makes mention of certain of her deeds, and preserved for posterity certain authentic instruments regarding her, which we shall use opportunely in this Commentary. We do not commemorate in this place Wulfinus Boethius, who in the Life of St. Junianus the abbot excellently praises our Saint, nor other nearly contemporary authors who make mention in passing of her deeds. Nor do we say anything here of Peter of Equilio and Boninus Mombritius, who inserted the Life of St. Radegund in Latin into their collections. But I know not what came into Mombritius's mind, when he prefixed to the Saint's Acts the title of virgin and martyr: for although some writers have thought that she remained a virgin, as we shall show below, yet no one has adorned her with the title of martyr. Much less are those translators here to be reckoned up one by one who published the Acts of St. Radegund in the vernacular. If, however, these and other more recent biographers have strayed from the truth, we shall bring them back into the way as occasion is given.

* elsewhere "clariot"

§ II. The Saint's native country, royal lineage, the occasion of her captivity, her migration into Gaul, and her marriage with king Clotaire.

In Thuringia, a region of Germany, This Saint had for her country Thuringia, a broad and generally known province of Germany, which still today retains its ancient name; but it was formerly more widely extended, as most geographers note, and as may easily be gathered from Gregory of Tours, who in the History of the Franks, book 3, chapter 4, divides that same region into several kingdoms, and there writes thus to our purpose: "Now at that time among the Thuringians three brothers held the rule of that nation, that is, Baderic, Hermenefrid, and Bertharius. At length Hermenefrid, overwhelming by force his brother Bertharius, killed him: and he in dying left his daughter Radegund an orphan; and he left also other children, of whom we shall write in what follows." But Gregory was unmindful of his promise concerning the other children of king Bertharius, of whom he engages to write below, as Adrien de Valois in book 7 of the Frankish Affairs, or volume 1 of that learned Work, page 365, and lately Johann Georg Eckhart, in volume 1 of the Commentaries on the affairs of Eastern France, book 4, number 9, observed before me: for that holy writer afterward makes mention only of the brother of St. Radegund, or of one son of Bertharius, whom he testifies to have been wickedly slain in Gaul at the command of king Clotaire.

[13] Meanwhile from these things it is established that our Saint was born in Thuringia of royal lineage; the Saint was born of royal lineage which Fortunatus confirms not only in the Acts to be published below, but also in the poem to Artachis, where he thus introduces St. Radegund bewailing the ruin of her country and the death of her kinsfolk:

"After the ashes of my country and the fallen roofs of my parents, which the land of Thuringia bore from the enemy's line of battle. If I should speak of the wars waged in that ill-starred struggle, to what tears shall I, a woman carried off, first be drawn? How should I have leisure to weep for this nation crushed by slaughter? Or that my dear kindred fell by turns various? For my father falling first, and then my uncle following, each parent fixed a sad wound in me. My brother's crown had stood; but by an unspeakable chance the sand of his tomb pressed me down with him alike."

[14] Besides, that poet in a separate book on the ruin of Thuringia, and often elsewhere, expressly stated the same native land of the Saint and her noble kinship with the Thuringian kings. the Saint was born, When therefore certain bishops of Gaul, in a letter to be produced below, ascribe to St. Radegund a native land almost common with St. Martin, either they were ignorant of geography, or they used a very broad manner of speaking, since from the most ancient monuments it is established that St. Martin was born in Pannonia. But when Gundovald, in Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks, book 7, chapter 36, surnames St. Radegund "the Poitevin," he takes that surname not from her native land but from her long dwelling in the city of Poitiers. But hitherto we do not understand why Baronius in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year of Christ 566, in us at number 43, calls her "a virgin sprung from the kings of Burgundy," unless perhaps the most eminent Annalist thought that those warlike inhabitants of Germany once dwelt promiscuously with the Thuringians, before they seized that part of Gaul on which they bestowed the name of Burgundy. Although the Burgundians, on the testimony of Procopius, book 1 of the Gothic Affairs, inhabited Germany not far from the Thuringians, toward the south, yet they seem to have been a nation different from the Thuringians. Whatever be the case about this opinion, which there is no leisure to discuss more laboriously, we must now set forth the occasion by which St. Radegund migrated into Gaul.

[15] whom Clotaire the first, king, Gregory of Tours, in book 3 of the Work just cited, chapter 7, explains the cause of that migration in these words: "Afterward Theuderic, not unmindful of the perjury of Hermenefrid, king of the Thuringians, calls his brother Clotaire to his aid, and prepares to go against him, promising king Clotaire a share of the booty if the gift of victory should be divinely conferred on him." Then, having recited the exhortation of Theuderic by which he stirred up the Franks to avenge the injury, he thus pursues his narrative: "Hearing which, and being indignant at so great a crime, with one mind and the same purpose they made for Thuringia. And Theuderic, taking as his aid his brother Clotaire and his son Theudebert, went with an army. But the Thuringians prepare treacheries for the coming Franks: for in the field in which the battle was to be fought they dig ditches, whose mouths, covered with thick turf, make it look like a level plain. Into these pits, therefore, when they had begun to fight, many of the Frankish horsemen fell, and it was a great hindrance to them; but after this trick was discovered they began to watch out for it. At length, when the Thuringians saw themselves being violently slaughtered, their king Hermenefrid being put to flight, they turn their backs and come as far as the river Onestrudis" (this river of Thuringia is to this day called by the inhabitants in the vernacular Unstrut); "and there so great a slaughter was made of the Thuringians that the channel of the river was filled with the heap of corpses, and the Franks crossed over them to the further bank as though by a bridge.

[16] the Thuringians being overcome in war, "The victory therefore being achieved, they take that region and bring it into their own power. But Clotaire, returning, carried away with him as a captive Radegund, daughter of Bertharius, and joined her to himself in marriage; whose brother he afterward unjustly slew by wicked men. And she, being converted to God, and having changed her garb, built herself a monastery within the city of Poitiers, and, being endowed with prayers, fastings, vigils and alms, so shone forth that she was held great among the peoples." Widukind, a monk of Corvey, who flourished in the tenth century, in Meibom, volume 1 of German Affairs, page 630 and following, records another cause of this Thuringian war, and adorns the deeds done at that time with divers episodes. But the most learned Eckhart, in the Commentaries on Eastern France, volume 1, page 56, or book 4, number 8, rightly advises that Widukind received a great part of his narrative from Saxon songs, and mingled false with true. Wherefore we rather give credit to Gregory of Tours, who wrote his history in the same century in which these things befell in Thuringia about the year of Christ 529 or 530.

[17] Adrien de Valois, book 7 of the Frankish Affairs, or volume 1 of that Work, page 359, carried away into Gaul, briefly narrates the consequences of this Thuringian war, and at the same time thus explains the text of Gregory of Tours reported above: "The Thuringians being cut down at the Unstrut, king Herminafrid with a few sought safety in flight, and betook himself with his wife and children into a fortified city. But the victorious Franks, the fields being laid waste with fire and sword, and the region depopulated, carried off a great number of men into slavery. Gregory, bishop of the church of Tours, says that Thuringia was then taken and reduced into the power of the Franks: and if this is true, it must be so understood that not all Thuringia, but a part of it, was seized by arms by Theuderic, king of the Franks, after the Thuringians were conquered, since it is established that Herminafrid, king of the Thuringians, escaped death by flight, shut himself up within the walls of a fortified city, and did not come into the hands of the Franks. That the royal capital and seat of the kings of the Thuringians (whether it was Erfurt or another city) was then taken by Theuderic and Clotaire, kings of the Franks, may be judged from this, that Clotaire, to whom by agreement a share of the booty was due, carried off as captives the son and the daughter, by name Radegund, of Bertharius, king of the Thuringians, who were being brought up in the court of their uncle Herminafrid; unless we believe that the young lad and the little maiden had gone with their uncle to the war, and were there taken."

[18] But in whatever manner or place (for that concerns us little or nothing) St. Radegund was taken with her little brother, and afterward, when she was of marriageable age, took her to his bed. it is clear from ancient monuments that she was then still a little girl, and therefore that all those things which Gregory joins together without any distinction of times befell in years far apart. Hence Le Cointe in the Annals of the Franks assigns the Saint's deeds to various years, and narrates her captivity at the year of Christ 529, number 3, in these words: "Clotaire, the Thuringian war being not yet finished, returning to Soissons, carried away with him as a captive Radegund, the still very little daughter of Bertharius, once king, whom his brother Hermenfred had slain, and ordered her to be brought up in the territory of Vermandois at the village of Athies, where she was made lettered instead of barbarian, and was kindled with the desire of martyrdom, and, suffering grievous persecutions from the household, practiced a singular patience, as Fortunatus writes in her Life." Then this chronologist thus reports her marriage with king Clotaire in the same Annals at the year of Christ 538, number 78: "In this year king Clotaire, whose wife Chunsena, the mother of Chramnus, had died, married Radegund. Of the nuptials of Radegund Gregory discourses very briefly, Fortunatus more copiously; both without any note of time. But as Radegund did not marry before this year, if what we have reported concerning the two former wives of Clotaire, Ingunde and Chunsena, is true, so neither was she taken to wife by Clotaire later: for in the sixth year after the nuptials she was ordained a deaconess by"

bishop Medard." But concerning the series of wives and concubines whom king Clotaire had, there occur various opinions of the historians, which we shall now cite.

[19] Gregory of Tours, in the History of the Franks, book 4, chapter 3, reckons some of them in this manner: "Now king Clotaire himself had seven sons of divers women, Among the various wives or concubines of Clotaire, that is, of Ingunde, Gunthar, Childeric, Charibert, Guntram, Sigibert, and his daughter Chlotsinda. But of Aregunde, sister of Ingunde, Chilperic. Of Chunsena he had Chramnus." That holy writer repeats similar things in the abridged History of the Franks, number 47, after he had reported another in the same place at number 37 in these words: "Clotaire took to wife the wife of Chlodomer, by name Guntheuca." Then at number 50 of the same abridged History he adds yet another thus: "And in that same year Theudebald died, and Clotaire received his kingdom, joining Waldetrada to himself as wife." Gregory treats of these two women also in the History of the Franks itself, where in book 3, chapter 6, he indicates the former more distinctly thus: "And without delay Clotaire joined to himself in marriage the wife of his own brother, by name Guntheuca." But of the latter he makes mention in book 4 of the same History, chapter 9, when he writes thus there of the death of Theudebald: "Who, gradually declining, died in the seventh year of his reign" (Ruinart in the margin makes this seventh year of Theudebald's reign coincide with the year of Christ 555), "and king Clotaire received his kingdom, joining Waldetrada his wife to his bed: but being rebuked by the priests, he left her, giving her to duke Garivald, and directing his son Chramnus to Auvergne."

[20] this Saint is by some historians made the first, From what has been said we do not yet certainly know which wife of Clotaire St. Radegund was: for the praised Valois, in book 8 of the Frankish Affairs, page 467 and following of volume 1, enumerates most of those women in this order: "Clotaire first joined to himself in marriage Radegund, daughter of Bertharius, king of the Thuringians, taken in war, who afterward exchanged the royal insignia for the sacred veil, and filled with the fame of her virtues and sanctity not Gaul and Europe only, but also the provinces beyond the sea. Then he took Ingunde to wife, and loved her uniquely, a most excellent woman and most averse from pride, who was accustomed to call her husband HER LORD, and herself HIS HANDMAID. Of her Clotaire had as children Gunthar and Childeric, both of whom he outlived, Charibert, Guntram, Sigibert and Chlodoswinda, who married Alboin, king of the Lombards. The same man had Chilperic of Haregunde, his third wife: of Chunsena, whom some call Chunsina, others Gunsindis, he begot Chramnus. The author of the book on the Life of the virgin Consortia writes besides that a certain daughter of king Clotaire passed her life in the court of Sigibert her brother. That Haregunde was the sister of queen Ingunde, Gregory declares; concerning whose bestowal in marriage Ingunde had spoken with her husband; and he, having promised that the matter should be his care, came to the country house to Haregunde, and, the nuptials being made, as he was by nature prone to Venus, having found such a condition of the girl as he could have wished, and she being without doubt superior to all others in wealth and prudence, he announced to his wife that Haregunde had been joined to him in wedlock; from that time two sisters at once were married to Clotaire." Eckhart, in the Commentaries on the affairs of Eastern France, volume 1, page 89, or book 7, chapter 14, has followed the same series of Valois, and to these wives or concubines subjoins Walderada, of whom we made mention in passing above from Gregory.

[21] by others fourth in order, This series of wives certain genealogists arrange otherwise, among whom Antonio Albizzi, in the Pedigrees of Christian Princes, folio 1, has it thus: "Clotaire the first, besides the children of whom mention is made in this Merovingian pedigree, had also a daughter by name Blithildis, whom he gave in marriage to Ansbert, great-grandson of Clodio the Long-haired, born to him of Caussona: for he had many wives, of whom the first was Ingunde, of whom were born Gonther, Childeric, Gontram, Sigibert, Aribert who is also Cherebert, Clodomira. The second Arregunde, of whom Chilperic. The third Caussona, of whom above. The fourth Radegund, daughter of Berther, king of the Thuringians; and the fifth Waldratha, his great-niece, widow of Theobald." What is here said of Blithildis, as though a daughter of Clotaire, Valois in book 8 of the Frankish Affairs, and Eckhart in the Commentaries on Eastern France, book 7, chapter 15, number among fables, and refute with solid arguments. Further, thou seest here that St. Radegund is placed among the wives of Clotaire in the fourth place, whom Valois above had set first in order.

[22] Finally, other French writers place the same Saint after the wives and concubines of Clotaire in the third or fifth place. and is even reckoned the third or fifth wife of that prince. Certainly Bouchet, in the Annals of Aquitaine, part 2, chapter 4, or page 69, reckons her fifth in order, and defers her marriage with Clotaire to the year of Christ 551. But without doubt he is mistaken in this chronology of his: for since St. Radegund in the year of Christ 529, in which she was carried off into Gaul, was about eight or nine years old, and Clotaire only awaited her marriageable age, far more probable is the opinion of Le Cointe, who assigns those nuptials to the year of Christ 538. For the rest, we shall not laboriously dispute about the order and time of these nuptials, if thou admittest with us that the marriage of St. Radegund with king Clotaire was lawful: for on account of the reasons to be cited in the following paragraph we think it more probable that Clotaire's preceding marriages were not valid, or that his lawful wife had already died when he married St. Radegund. But from this opinion of ours there arises a certain most intricate difficulty, which we shall now try somehow to resolve.

§ III. Certain difficulties concerning the Saint's divorce from king Clotaire, and her consecration as deaconess.

The Saint, after six years of marriage, Most writers assert that St. Radegund lived with king Clotaire in conjugal fashion for six years, with whom Le Cointe agrees, when in the Annals of the Franks at the year of Christ 544, number 94, he thus discourses: "In this year queen Radegund, whom many write to have lived with king Clotaire only six years, was made a deaconess. Those who place a short interval of time from Radegund's coming into France, or from the year of Christ five hundred and twenty-nine, to the nuptials of that same Radegund, do not observe that by this reckoning they detract very much from the praise of the pious woman, whom they hint was held by the adulterous king in the place of a harlot, not of a wife, because Ingunde, the lawful wife of Clotaire, was then among the living, and bore to her husband a son Sigibert in the year of Christ five hundred and thirty-five. The more attentively I consider the life of Clotaire, the more I am led to believe that Radegund was taken to wife by that king in the year of Christ five hundred and thirty-eight, and that she withdrew from him after six years in the year of Christ five hundred and forty-four: for Clotaire had three lawful wives, first Ingunde, who in the year of Christ five hundred and thirty-five was still living; then Chunsena; lastly Radegund, who sent word of renunciation to the world before Medard, bishop of Noyon, died."

[24] about the year of Christ 544, Mabillon in the Benedictine Annals follows this chronological scheme of Le Cointe, and there in book 5, chapter 21, or volume 1, page 123, thus narrates that divorce of St. Radegund: "The death of Chrothildis" (this was the widow of Clovis, who died in the year of Christ 544) "was followed at no long interval by the withdrawal of Radegund, likewise a queen, into the city of Poitiers. She, the daughter of Bertharius, king of the Thuringians, fell by lot to Clotaire, king of Soissons, when the Franks conquered, being almost an infant; then she was brought up at Athies, a royal villa of the district of Vermandois on the Somme, until she should be made fit for the royal bed. When she had married the king against her own wish, she played the nun rather than the queen, stealing away by night from the royal chamber to pray, and in Lent using a continual haircloth next her flesh, which a certain religious nun, in fact and in name Pia, supplied to her. Hence she was repeatedly treated rather harshly by her spouse. Which thing easily persuaded her to flee the world, being already estranged from the bonds of wedlock. There was added the death of her own brother, whose author was Clotaire, who had likewise carried him off captive into France.

[25] makes a divorce from Clotaire, "Hence Radegund, yielding to grief and weariness, meditates withdrawal: therefore she goes to Noyon to blessed Medard the bishop, vehemently beseeching him to consecrate her to the Lord. He refused, alleging the Apostle's prohibition, that she who is bound by wedlock should not attempt its dissolution. Besides this, the nobles threatened that the pontiff should not veil her who had married the king in solemn form. But she, presently entering the sacristy, clothed herself with a monastic garment; and thus clothed she went forth to the altar, addressing the bishop thus: 'If thou shalt delay to consecrate me, revering man more than God, there will be one who shall require my soul of thee.' By which words he, shaken as if by thunder, whether it was done in earnest or by arrangement, LAYING ON HIS HAND CONSECRATED HER A DEACONESS, says Fortunatus, who afterward, explaining the matter, says that she was veiled by the consecrating St. Medard. Therefore by the reception of the veil she was made a nun, by the imposition of hands a deaconess." Thus he from the ancient Acts, in which Fortunatus below in us at number 10 expressly asserts that the royal nobles opposed St. Medard, "lest he should veil her who was joined to the king, lest it should appear that the priest presumed to withdraw from the prince a queen, not a publican woman but a public one." This manner of speaking hints that the marriage of St. Radegund with Clotaire was lawful; of which testimony of Fortunatus it may afterward be useful to be mindful.

[26] against which Mabillon various Meanwhile let us hear the difficulties which the praised Mabillon in the Benedictine Annals, chapter 22 of the same fifth book, opposes to this divorce in this manner: "It occurs to one to wonder why Radegund departed from her husband. We have seen the occasion, her brother's murder; but she does not seem to have obtained the king's consent before her withdrawal, although she had lived with Clotaire at least six years in conjugal fashion. But would Medard, knowing the ecclesiastical rules, have veiled her without the king's consent; or even with the king's consent, unless the king himself had professed celibacy, which certainly he did not afterward keep? Or perhaps the bishops, if anything in this matter was done amiss against the laws, dissembled it out of respect for the king? That some did so, I would readily believe; that no one resisted, I should assent with difficulty. Charles Le Cointe thinks that Radegund set out for Noyon with king Clotaire's assent, and that the king's assent was given before she was veiled. He proves the one from the other; namely that, on Fortunatus's testimony, 'being directed by the king, coming to blessed Medard, she urgently supplicates.' But if the king had consented, why do the nobles protest? Why does Radegund not oppose the king's consent to Medard, who shuffles and alleges the Apostle's prohibition?

[27] "Indeed Baudonivia, who wrote the second book on the Life of Radegund, and intricate difficulties opposes, in a certain manner favors this opinion, where she says that, while Radegund was dwelling in the village of Saix, a rumor was spread abroad of the king's repentance, who had PERMITTED so great and so excellent a queen to depart from his side. But it may be answered

that this permission came when the queen was already veiled. The passage is indeed slippery and difficult. Fortunatus justifies Radegund's departure from the king on this ground only, that her brother had been slain by the king INNOCENTLY, that is without any cause, so that he was wholly innocent and free from fault. 'And since,' says Fortunatus, 'frequently by some occasion, the divine power prospering or seconding it, a mishap turns to salvation; that she might live more religiously, her brother is slain innocently.' What the same author adds — 'Being directed therefore by the king, coming to blessed Medard at Noyon' — is just as if he had said SETTING OUT FROM THE KING. That slaying, therefore, was the cause of her departure, not indeed altogether unjust, but not sufficient to dissolve the conjugal bond. This knot the collect, as they call it, which was of old wont to be recited in her Office, seems to loose, in which Radegund is said 'to have preserved on the royal throne the comeliness of virginity.' But it is little likely that this could have been preserved for at least six years with such a husband, who was not of a very continent life. But let the theologians see to these things; let us pursue our own matters." Thus that most learned Benedictine writer draws this knot tight, and leaves it to others to be untied. Wherefore let us try whether this intricate difficulty cannot in some way be resolved.

[28] It would greatly please us that St. Radegund's virginity was preserved in marriage, [which can be resolved if we say that the Saint preserved her virginity in marriage;] as is read in a collect of uncertain age, and as Brother Jacopo Filippo of Bergamo, in his Work on Famous Women, chapter 149, confidently asserts in these words: "Radegund, queen of France, was also a notable virgin, … whose country when Lothair, king of the Franks, had subdued, … he took the virgin to himself in marriage. But the king, when he perceived his new bride's purpose of entire virginity, moved by her prayers, preserved her a virgin untouched." But against this opinion, to which some more recent authors lightly subscribe without accurate examination, there fight so many and so great arguments that we are compelled to confess ourselves unequal to refuting them: for the incontinence of king Clotaire, which is everywhere related by the historians, scarcely allows one to doubt that that woman-loving prince consummated his marriage with the beautiful virgin whom he had for many years already destined for his bed, and had taken to wife as soon as she was of marriageable age. And to the testimony of virginity which is adduced from an old collect of uncertain age, we oppose the authority of the ancient Breviary of Milan, which is arranged according to the rite of St. Ambrose, and in which at the eleventh day of August before the four proper collects or prayers there is set the following rubric: "In St. Radegund, for what is wanting, look under the office of a matron." The Ambrosian Missal, which we cited in § I of this Commentary, gives the same title of matron to this Saint, and prescribes a like rubric.

[29] but this opinion seems repugnant Besides, Fortunatus himself, her contemporary, seems obscurely to contradict this opinion, when in the Acts of St. Radegund in us at number 5 he writes that she rose by night under the pretext of human necessity, when she was lying with the prince, and then afflicted her body with various torments. Certainly the venerable Hildebert, who at the close of the twelfth century or the beginning of the thirteenth collected the Life of St. Radegund from Fortunatus and Baudonivia, understood the text of Fortunatus already assigned as contrary to her virginity, and sets it forth below in the Acts, number 11, in this paraphrase: "For what shall I say of the fellowship of the bed? To which she always came for this end, that she might gain her husband, not that she might satisfy an enticing pleasure: indeed, lest Satan should tempt her husband, she paid her husband his due, but did not exact it. In which, if anything was sinned either for its own sake or by the admixture of pleasure, she hastened to blot it out at once, not only with tears, but with much torment of the body: for feigning a cause for rising, she laid a rough haircloth on the pavement, to which she clung naked so long that, her marrow being smitten with cold, she almost breathed out her spirit. Thus the Queen, at once deferring to wedlock and preserving modesty, neither defrauded her husband of reverence, nor lessened by lust the good of marriage." From these words it is clear that the marriage of St. Radegund with Clotaire was not merely ratified, but also consummated, as the theologians speak.

[30] to various testimonies of ancient authors, Nay rather, this opinion of Hildebert was so common that some writers wrongly affirmed that Clotaire had children by Radegund, as Bernard de Girard testifies in the general History of the kings of the Franks, volume 1, page 48. Hence also the brothers Scévole and Louis de Sainte-Marthe, in the genealogical History of the French royal family, book 3, chapter 8, or volume 1, page 117, reject Paradin, who attributes some offspring to St. Radegund. Probably that Paradin, or others who assert the same singular opinion, rashly took Radegund for Ingunde or Arregunde, since almost all the remaining authors agree that St. Radegund bore no children to Clotaire. But even if the holy Matron brought forth no offspring, yet from this nothing can be concluded for her virginity: for Wulfinus Boethius, who flourished long before the venerable Hildebert under the reign of Louis the Pious, likewise attributes no children to St. Radegund, and nevertheless seems to deny her virginity, when in the Life of St. Junianus the abbot, illustrated at this day, he writes thus of the same Saint's nuptials: "But when she came to the years of maidenhood, and was of age to marry and fit for marriage, she was joined to the embraces of the king, and the nuptial rite being performed, she was made his dearest wife, whom he loved with so great a love that he sometimes confessed that he had nothing besides her. But that most blessed woman … not long afterward, leaving the royal bed, consecrated herself wholly to God both in mind and body." Similar things an ancient writer relates in the Acts of St. Carilefus, which we published at the first day of July, where in us, volume 1 of that month, page 91, he has these words to our purpose: "Clotaire took to himself as queen Radegund, a Thuringian by nation, distinguished by the manners of piety; who afterward, some cycles of years having been passed in his wedlock, made for Poitiers." By these phrases of the ancient biographers, unless we are greatly mistaken, a consummated marriage is indicated.

[31] Finally, it may be useful to hear our Théophile Raynaud discoursing on this matter, who in the Titles of the special cult of the Saints, point 14, number 2, and which our Théophile Raynaud or in the Hagiology of Lyons, page 577 and following, thus disputes against a certain modern asserter of this virginity: "That Joseph de Monteil, in book 1 on her Life, chapter 7, with great zeal reckons among the wives who were at the same time virgins hitherto recounted St. Radegund, once wife of Clotaire the Frank, afterward a nun at Poitiers, is hardly persuasive. Nor indeed would those who were diligent in adorning her seem likely to shroud in silence that ornament of that holy Queen: Fortunatus in one book on her Life, and in books 8 and 11 of the Poems; Gregory of Tours in book 9 of the History, chapters 2 and 39, and in the book on the Glory of the Confessors, chapter 106; Sigebert in the Chronicle at the year 557; Vincent in the Historical Mirror, book 21, chapters 79, 80 and 85; Trithemius in book 3 on the Illustrious Men of the Order of St. Benedict, chapter 30. These and a good many others eminently celebrate the holy woman for her contempt of the world and her carefulness in the service of God; no one for virginity in marriage, of the retaining of which the fact that Clotaire, a woman-loving man, gave her power, is now for the first time published, with no one to support it.

[32] "But she is sometimes found named a VIRGIN, when already a nun. refutes by various answers. I grant it; but in that sense which I set forth in the book On the sober frequenting of the other sex, chapter 7, page 203. Namely, because, having trampled on royal loftiness, she wished to be reckoned among nuns or sacred virgins: for which same reason other women noted in the same place, who had cleaved to husbands and had made shipwreck of virginity in marriage, are read to be named virgins. Baronius, at the year 566, number 29, calls St. Radegund a Burgundian virgin, having regard to the time before her nuptials. And so she is wrongly adduced for this purpose. It is urged besides that a vow of virginity was made by Radegund from her earliest age, which vow the consummation of marriage would have sacrilegiously violated. But this obstacle could have been removed by lawful dispensation or annulment. Lastly there is adduced the integrity of her body, which, the tomb being opened, after eight hundred and eighteen years and nine months and thirteen days, was found utterly incorrupt and wonderfully fragrant, which seems to have been a token of the purest and unstained virginity; no less than the monastic ring, which she refused to yield to John, prince of Bourges, of the royal blood, when he attempted to take it away, though the drawing off of the royal ring, with which she had likewise been buried, was permitted. Yet incorruption of the body is not a certain mark of virginity, although for the most part it so happens; concerning which matter see the Treatise on the incorruption of corpses. The ring likewise was conferred on all nuns, even widows, to mark that they became brides of Christ; to whom she who is joined, even if previously corrupted, is made a virgin, according to St. Chrysostom, in the sense set forth elsewhere concerning St. Olympias. See on this ring of nuns the Monastic Antiquities of Nebridius of Mundelheim, letter 121; who was unaware of this example of St. Radegund. And so that most holy Queen, most brilliant with other ornaments, does not seem to be with sufficient solidity celebrated now for the first time for virginity preserved through her whole life." All things being maturely weighed, we agree with Raynaud, and dare not follow the opinion concerning the virginity of St. Radegund, which appears to us scarcely probable in any way, although its defenders can more easily escape the difficulty proposed. Now let us see whether we cannot resolve that intricate knot of Mabillon in another way.

[33] Our Jacques Longueval, who lately brought to light the History of the Gallican Church in an elegant vernacular style, and illustrated it with learned notes, in volume 2 of that Work, page 454, or book 6 at the year of Christ 540, briefly touches in the notes upon the aforesaid difficulty of the divorce, Although the Saint's marriage was consummated and lawful, and there assigns a certain way of escape: for after he had in a few words set forth Mabillon's tangled knot, he indicates by way of a question that it can not improbably be said that St. Medard, skilled in the ecclesiastical laws, judged that that marriage was unlawful and invalid, because Clotaire still had several wives living when he married St. Radegund. But thence it follows that our Saint lived long in concubinage or adultery: for it could not be hidden from her that the lawful wife of king Clotaire was still living, and that polygamy was unlawful, lest any one in this matter should plead an innocent ignorance of fact or of law. Besides, if St. Medard judged that marriage invalid, why did he not straightway assent to this necessary separation which St. Radegund urgently sought? Why did he resist so just a desire of the Saint, who ought rather to have exhorted her to break off as soon as possible that unlawful union with an adulterous king? Why, finally, did the same prelate, on the testimony of Fortunatus below in us at number 10, "mindful of the Apostle saying: If any

woman be bound to a husband, let her not seek to be loosed," put off the Queen, that he might not clothe her with the garb of a nun? If Clotaire's lawful wife was still living when that king joined St. Radegund to his bed, what has the Apostle's precept to do here, since on that hypothesis it is clear that the Saint was not bound to Clotaire? Wherefore against this first answer of Longueval (be it said saving the most learned man's peace) we think it far more probable that Clotaire's lawful wives had already died, or that that king had only concubines at the time in which he contracted marriage with St. Radegund. And so from these and the other arguments adduced above we conclude further that their marriage was lawful.

[34] nevertheless we strive to show by an example, But how, thou wilt say, could St. Medard dissolve that valid marriage, even with king Clotaire consenting, unless the king himself professed celibacy — which that he did is in no way likely? We do not deny that here we are at a stand. Nevertheless, in extricating this knot, above other escapes which might be devised without a probable appearance of truth, we like the sagacious industry of our praised Longueval, who in his notes to the History of the Gallican Church, in the place cited above, suggests another answer, which we gladly acknowledge as received from him: for there he not improbably asserts that the Franks at that time had not yet clearly understood the question of the indissoluble bond of marriage, and that this matter of divorce was not sufficiently understood by the prelates themselves in Gaul. He proves this assertion of his from certain old councils of Gaul, which wrongly grant to a husband the power of passing to another marriage when his wife has taken the veil of Religion. Indeed in our Sirmond, volume 2 of the Councils of Gaul, page 43, in the synod of Compiègne, which was held in the year of Christ 757, canon 13, we read the following: "If any man shall have dismissed his wife, and given her leave for the sake of Religion to serve within a monastery, or shall have given her license to be veiled outside a monastery, as we have said, for God's sake, let her husband take a lawful wife: and let the woman do likewise. Georgius consented." That Georgius was a legate of the Apostolic See together with John, both of whom were present at this synod. Further, that thirteenth canon of the council of Compiègne, which is repugnant to a dogma of the Church now everywhere known, is expressed in plainly the same words in Labbe's collection of the Councils, volume 6, column [ ], and in Hardouin's most recent edition of the Councils, volume 3, column [ ].

[35] For the rest, these and other decrees of those times manifestly demonstrate how she could innocently be separated from her husband, that at that time in Gaul the knowledge of matrimonial causes was utterly rude. Whence from that later error of very many prelates of Gaul we conjecture that it could easily also have come to pass before that St. Medard by a like simplicity dissolved the lawful marriage of St. Radegund, and through the same want of skill in the ecclesiastical laws erred without blame. But if any one wonders at so great an ignorance of those times, and judges it scarcely credible in the chief pastors of the Christian flock, let him remember the council of Mâcon, which was held in the year of Christ 585, in which a certain Gallic or Frankish bishop, before several metropolitans and many other prelates, set up an outlandish disputation, and seriously contended that women are not to be numbered among "men" (homines), as St. Gregory of Tours, treating of that council of Mâcon, testifies in the History of the Franks, book 8, chapter 20, in these words: "For there arose in this synod a certain one of the bishops who said that a woman could not be called 'homo.' But nevertheless, a reason being given by the bishops, he was quiet; because the sacred book of the Old Testament teaches that in the beginning, when God created man, it says: Male and female created he them, and called their name Adam, that is earthly man; thus certainly calling the woman as the man: for he called both 'homo.' Moreover, the Lord Jesus Christ is called the son of man for this reason, that he is the son of the Virgin, that is, of a woman; to whom, when he was preparing to change water into wine, he said: What is it to me and to thee, woman? and the rest. And this cause being refuted by many other testimonies, he was quiet." On account of these and other examples of wonderful simplicity, which in that rude age were more frequent, we think not altogether rashly that St. Medard and St. Radegund in dissolving that marriage followed the common opinion of their own time, and thus erred innocently. If however any one shall find a better solution of this knot, he will find us by no means peevish followers of his opinion.

[36] This difficulty of the divorce, from which we have somehow extricated ourselves, is followed by another concerning the diaconal consecration of St. Radegund, and before the fortieth year of her age which her contemporary Fortunatus expressly stated, and which nevertheless at first sight seems scarcely able to be reconciled with the canons of preceding councils: for in the year of Christ 451 the Fathers of the council of Chalcedon, canon 15, in Labbe, volume 5 of the councils, column 764, decreed that no woman should be ordained a deaconess before the fortieth year. But since our Saint received the diaconal consecration in the year of Christ 544, as Le Cointe and other authors everywhere assert, it evidently appears from the preceding chronology of the Acts that she had not then yet numbered forty years of age. How therefore did St. Medard consecrate her deaconess against the express decree of the council of Chalcedon? It may be answered that this canon of the council of Chalcedon was then unknown or unused in Gaul, or that St. Medard dispensed in the matter of age on account of the singular dignity of this Matron and the exceptional holiness of her life, as we shall afterward say with Le Cointe.

[37] But more repugnant to this consecration seems the eighteenth canon of the second synod of Orléans, against the canons of the councils which was held in the year of Christ 533, and in which, in the praised Labbe in the same volume 5, column [ ], this canon among others is prescribed by the Gallic bishops: "It has also pleased us that henceforth to no woman shall the diaconal benediction be entrusted, on account of the frailty of this condition." How, thou wilt say, did St. Medard dare to consecrate St. Radegund a deaconess against this canon of the council of Orléans, which could not be unknown to him, and which preceded the diaconal consecration of our Saint by scarcely ten or eleven years? Before we answer this argument directly, we must hear the explanation of Jean Morin, who in the Commentary on the sacred ordinations of the Church, part 3, exercitation 10, chapter 3, number 11, expounds this very canon of the council of Orléans in these words: "But the eighteenth canon of the same council seems to press more strongly: 'It has also pleased us that henceforth to no woman shall the diaconal benediction be entrusted, on account of the frailty of this condition.' For the council seems not to depose all deaconesses and reduce them to penance, as the council of Epaon did, which would be most absurd; but, leaving those who had already been ordained, to take care that henceforth no others be consecrated. That that prohibition is not universal is clear from the reason given, 'on account of the frailty of the human condition.' For otherwise virginity should be entrusted to no virgin, chastity to no widow, which is utterly absurd. That canon therefore is to be understood according to the prescription of the ancient canons, that henceforth to no woman the diaconal benediction be entrusted before the fortieth year."

[38] to be adorned with the diaconal dignity. This canon of the second synod of Orléans, which according to the interpretation given by Morin does not differ from the decree of the council of Chalcedon adduced above, Le Cointe understood in the same way, when in the Annals of the Franks at the year of Christ 544, number 96, he thus answers the difficulty proposed: "Radegund, with king Clotaire's assent, set out from Soissons to Noyon. This the words of Fortunatus already recited attest: 'Being directed therefore by the king, coming to blessed Medard at Noyon she urgently supplicates'; wherefore we easily persuade ourselves that before she was veiled the king's assent was given. But that she should be made a deaconess, the defect of age might be objected from the second council of Orléans: for she had not yet attained the fortieth year of her age. But the enactments of the second council of Orléans, to which none of the prelates of the Belgic provinces subscribed, were not observed among the Belgians; or if they were kept, the prelate of Noyon dispensed in the matter of age on account of the excellence and dignity of the person who was vowing chastity to God." Finally, like arguments which could be opposed to the same consecration from other councils are discussed and refuted in the praised Morin throughout chapter 3 of the cited exercitation 10.

§ IV. The Saint's departure into Aquitaine, her liberality toward sacred places, the building of monasteries, and the various virtues which she practiced in the convent of nuns at Poitiers.

The Saint after the divorce After St. Radegund had been loosed from the bonds of marriage (so at least she in good faith persuaded herself), and together with the monastic veil had received the dignity of deaconess, she departed from Noyon into Aquitaine. On that journey the Saint turned aside to the famous tomb of St. Martin, and without doubt tarried some while in other pious places near the city of Tours, that she might satisfy her tender affection toward sacred things. Certainly Ruinart, in the notes to be added to the Works of Gregory of Tours, column 1404, treating of the monastery of St. Martin among the people of Tours, which is commonly called Marmoutier, assigns a certain posthumous memorial of this sojourn in these words: "Not far from the monastery there survives an ancient church of the present parish village, dedicated to St. Radegund, because she is said to have stayed there, and often to have given herself to prayer in the oratories hollowed in the rock, to which the basilica itself adjoins." Fortunatus and Baudonivia in the Acts to be published below praise here and there her pious liberality toward sacred places, and other later deeds of her monastic life, which Mabillon in the Benedictine Annals, book 5, chapter 21, thus abridged: "Presently Radegund distributed to the church her royal ornaments, and to the poor a girdle of gold broken into pieces. Then without delay she set out on the journey toward Poitiers, conferring various gifts on pious places; namely on the cell of St. Jumer, and on the cell of the venerable Datdo, where 'whatever could be worn in royal fashion she gave wholly into the hand of abbot Datdo' for the monastery, which Fortunatus had before called the cell of Datdo. She did the same in the community or monastery of Gundulf, whom the same author relates to have been afterward bishop of Metz, although no prelate of that name is found to have presided over the church of Metz in those times." Afterward in the Annotations after the Acts we shall observe that the name of this bishop of Metz is expressed in various ways, and that perhaps by this distorted appellation is indicated Agiulph or Aigulf, who at the close of the sixth century held the see of Metz, as Calmet in the History of Lorraine, volume 1, book 8, number 45, or column 361, testifies.

[40] Further, let us pursue our Saint's journey with Mabillon, besides other bountiful works of piety, who there goes on thus: "Hence, having reached Tours by boat, it is wonderful how great gifts she everywhere bestowed on the sacred altars. The same liberality in the village of Candé and in the villa of Saix. This was her journey as far as Poitiers; where she stopped for some little time, until, a monastery being built, she should be enclosed in the same; with such severity of life meanwhile that, besides wheaten or barley bread, she took nothing but pulse and vegetables, not fish, not eggs, not even apples; for drink nothing"

"but honeyed water or perry. For the rest, she was wholly given to the uses of the poor, the needy and the sick, whom she also served at table. In the time of Lent, after the example of St. Germanus, bishop of Paris, whom she greatly venerated, she ground wheat with a hand-mill, from which she made as much bread as was enough for a four days' refection; and besides this, oblations for the use of the Sacrifice, which she dispensed to venerable places." What Mabillon here applies to St. Germanus of Paris concerning the hand-mill we do not read in the Life of that prelate, which we published on the twenty-eighth day of May in our Work. But in us, volume VII of July, page 204, something similar is narrated of St. Germanus of Auxerre, whose Acts were illustrated at the thirty-first day of July. But since Fortunatus below at number 12 only says that St. Radegund did this "after the manner of St. Germanus," we not undeservedly fear that Mabillon in this matter confounded St. Germanus of Paris with St. Germanus of Auxerre.

[41] Whatever be the case about this suspicion of ours, Mabillon in the same book 5 of the Benedictine Annals, after the difficult knot of the divorce, which we above set forth from him and tried to unravel, at chapter 23 records the divers monasteries then built by the Saint's industry thus: "The pious Queen built a double monastery at Poitiers: one of the Holy Cross" (it was afterward called by this surname on account of the relics of the Holy Cross placed in it, as will be said below) "for virgins, over which she set Agnes as abbess, and to her she subjected herself; the other of St. Mary for men, where the virgins were buried. She also founded another of men in the city of Tours, whose name Baudonivia, the author of her Life, does not tell. 'She built a monastery for herself,' says Fortunatus, 'by the ordinance of the most exalted king Clotaire' — namely the monastery of the Holy Cross, whose building Pientius, bishop of Poitiers, and duke Austrapius, at the king's command, took care to hasten. That there was there from the beginning a great congregation of maidens Baudonivia relates, although she calls it below a CELL. The monastery being endowed from royal liberality, Agnes was set over it as abbess by Radegund, whom she had brought up from her tender years. Of her benediction made by St. Germanus we shall speak below. Over the monastery of blessed Mary presided abbot Arnegisilus, as Baudonivia writes, in whose time it was already called the basilica of St. Radegund, as also now, being now a college of secular Canons. The monks who at first dwelt in this monastery served the nuns of the Holy Cross in sacred things; and the same custom obtained in all other monasteries of virgins, that they should be double, which in the course of these Annals we shall everywhere observe." All these things we transcribe from Mabillon, that the more obscure Acts may be more easily understood.

[42] in which she practiced an intrepid constancy For the rest, in this paragraph we shall now join together some virtues of St. Radegund, although the Saint practiced them at different times in the monastery, and from those monastic deeds we shall chiefly select those which are either omitted in the Acts to be published below, or can be confirmed from elsewhere by ancient testimonies. Among her praiseworthy deeds there occurs to us first the Saint's intrepid magnanimity, by which she resisted king Chilperic, who had before placed his daughter, dedicated to Christ, in the monastery of Poitiers, and afterward desired to transfer her to a marriage with the son of the king of Spain: for St. Radegund by her counsel so much effected that the will of king Chilperic was not then carried into execution, as St. Gregory of Tours in the History of the Franks, book 6, chapter 34, testifies in these words: "For he wished then to send thither another daughter, whom he had by Audovera, and had placed her in the monastery of Poitiers. But she put it off, blessed Radegund especially resisting and saying: It is not fitting that a maiden dedicated to Christ should return again to the pleasures of the world." The Saint also gave another specimen of magnanimity and zeal, when she caused a powerful plunderer of sacred things and infamous adulterer to be cast out of the church. Although this pious deed of hers is passed over in our Acts, yet we read it expressed in the Chronicle of Tours, in Edmond Martène, volume 5 of the Most Ample Collection, column 940, in this manner: "Then Leudast, plundering the district of Bourges, came to Poitiers, and shut himself up in the church of blessed Hilary, at times rushing into the houses of individuals and seizing their goods, and often caught in adultery in the porch of the church; whom holy Radegund, who was dwelling there, ordered to be removed quickly, lest the church should be polluted by him."

[43] This greatness of mind was accompanied by the highest humility, by which she performed the utterly mean services of the monastery, and served the other nuns like a handmaid, the highest submission of mind, as will be narrated at length below in our Acts. The Saint also sufficiently showed that submission of her mind when she appointed in her own place as abbess Agnes, whom she had brought up from her tender years, and subjected herself wholly to her authority. Wherefore Fortunatus in book 8, poem 4, praises the burning desire of perfection in St. Radegund, and then that notable token of a submissive mind, when he writes thus, among other things, to that same abbess Agnes:

"Radegund, conceiving faith by the love of Christ, laps up whatever the rule of Caesarius contains. The honey overflowing from that Pontiff's breast she gathers, and drinks the streams unsated. As much as she draws from the fountain, so much does her added thirst grow, and, more wetted with the dew of God, she burns. Living not for herself but singly for all in common, happy, she opens the august way to the stars. But before all others the pious mother presses dearer upon thee, she chooses to join thee to the exalted choir. Yet the thing itself proves it, since she who is a daughter desires by her vows to have thee for her mother; And the dear nursling whom she nourished upon her knees, behold, she sets in her own place, to be established there. And she who always ruled thee by the governance of the staff wishes rather to be ready under thy command. She profits herself, when thou art set before her; she attains her wish, while thou possessest the rank."

What is said in these little verses about the rule of Caesarius, which St. Radegund observed with great ardor, will receive light from what is to be said below.

[44] Besides, Fortunatus in the same book 8, poem 7, tormented her body with torments expresses the piety of this Saint and her austere manner of life in these little verses:

"Radegund, mighty in the world from royal stock, for whom another kingdom remains to be held in heaven. Despising the world, thou hast merited to gain Christ, and while thou liest hid enclosed, from hence thou seest above the stars. Thou tramplest on the hurtful joys of an earthly kingdom, that thou mayest please the King, joyful, with heaven favoring. Now thou holdest narrow things, that thou mayest enter heaven more amply, pouring out tears, thou shalt reap true joys. And thou torturest thy body, fastings feed thy soul. Hail, thou whom the Lord keeps as his own by love."

But since St. Radegund afflicted her body with fastings, vigils and other torments, the same poet in book XI, poem 4, asks her in his own name and that of Agnes to drink some wine for the strengthening of her stomach, and therefore sends her the following little verses:

"If piety and holy love grant the prayers of him who asks, hear thy servants, bountiful in thy gift. Fortunatus thy agent, and Agnes too, entreat thee in verse, that, being over-wearied, thou wouldst drink kindly wine. So may the Lord give thee whatsoever thou shalt ask of him, and may each of us who ask live as thou lovest. Suppliantly we beg, if we two do not offend, that thou, bounteous mother, wouldst relieve thy two children. Let not gluttony, but the cause, draw you now to take wine: for such a drink helps the wearied inward parts. So Paul too, the one trumpet to the nations, bids Timothy take wine, lest his stomach grow weak."

[45] Also the too austere abstinence of our Saint had come to the ears of Caesaria of Arles, and afflicted herself with fastings, as is clear from the letter which this abbess sent to St. Radegund, and which we had determined first to insert entire in this preliminary Commentary from a manuscript transcript of St. Bénigne of Dijon. But because that letter has already not long since been printed in Edmond Martène, volume 1 of the New Thesaurus of Anecdota, column 3 and following, we excerpt from it only these words to our purpose: "It has come to me that thou abstainest too much; do all things reasonably, that thou mayest live for me and mayest always be able: for if by that excess thou beginnest to be ill, afterward — which God forbid — it will be needful for thee to seek out delicacies, and to take food out of hours, and thou wilt not be able to govern those blessed women. Hear what the Lord says in the Gospel: 'Not that which entereth into the mouth defileth a man.' And the Apostle: 'Let your service be reasonable.' Do all things, lady, as thou hast in the rule which thou hast sought," etc. By these last words she indicates the rule of St. Caesarius of Arles, of which we shall treat below.

[46] thereafter she led a solitary life, But our Saint, not yet content with the usual exercises of the monastery, had been accustomed every year in the time of Lent to lead a more solitary life, and to shut herself up in a private cell. Whence the praised poet in book 8, poem XI, sings thus of this yearly enclosure of St. Radegund:

"Radegund, mind fruitful unto God, life of the Sisters, who, that thou mayest cherish the soul, burnest up thy limbs by subduing them. Keeping thy yearly vows, today thou returnest to be enclosed; my spirits will wander in seeking thee again. How swiftly thou hidest thy light from our poor eyes: for without thee I am too heavily oppressed by pressing night. All being shut out, thou wilt be kept in one cave: thou rather shuttest us in, whom thou makest to be without. And although thou liest hid here, a fugitive, for a few days, this month here will be longer than a swift year. Thou withdrawest the times, as though thou wert not seen by one who loves, while, when I do behold you, I count this too little for me. But nevertheless by my vow we shall come together with thee, and I follow hither in mind whither the place forbids me to go. This I pray, that the joys of Easter may bring thee back unharmed, and that a doubled light may return to us alike."

[47] and shone with other virtues, But when St. Radegund had returned at the season of Easter from that solitude to the common life, Fortunatus in poem 12 of the same book sets forth to her his joy with this poetic hyperbole:

"Whence has that countenance returned to me with radiant light? What delays have kept thee too long absent? Thou hadst carried away my joys with thee, thou bringest them back with thee, and makest me celebrate the Easter day twice. Although the seeds are but now beginning to rise in the furrows, here I myself today, by seeing thee again, reap. Already I gather the crops, I arrange the peaceful sheaves; what the month of August is silent about, April performs. And although the bud and the tendril now first come forth, already my autumn has come, and the grape with it. The apple tree and the tall pear tree now pour forth pleasing scents, but with their new blossom they already bear me fruits. Although the bare field is adorned with no ears of corn, yet all things, at thy return, shine full."

Perhaps our Saint by the example of her yearly enclosure led on a pious maiden of that same monastery of Poitiers, who after a heavenly vision, to a solitary

life gave herself, and concerning whom Gregory of Tours in the History of the Franks, book 6, chapter 29, after other matters writes thus: "When the maiden had seen these things, she was pricked in heart, and after a few days asked the abbess to prepare for her a little cell in which she might be enclosed. And she, having quickly finished it, said: Behold the cell; what dost thou now desire? But the maiden asked that she might be permitted to be shut in. And when this had been granted her, the virgins being gathered with great psalm-singing and with lamps lighted, blessed Radegund holding her hand, she is led to the place. And thus bidding farewell to all, and kissing each one, she was shut in: and the entrance by which she had gone in being blocked up, she there now gives herself to prayer and reading."

[48] Finally Fortunatus thus celebrates the various virtues of St. Radegund in book 8, poem 1: which St. Fortunatus celebrated in verse.

"Desiring Martin, by a vow I clave to Radegund, whom the Thuringian land bore for the holy heaven. Of royal seed, the pious niece of Herminefred, to whom, from her father's brother, Hamalafred belongs. Her mind, adorned with good things, spurns fleeting honors, knowing that firm things abide in God alone. Exchanging royal mantles for a milk-white habit, a cheaper garment, that of a handmaid, covers her by her own love. Once carried in splendor on a proud wagon, now her modest foot treads the mud in service. The right hand which before was laden with set emeralds serves her own servants, poor, with assiduity. Once ruling the heights of the court, now she performs commands; she who pleased before by ruling, now pleases by serving. Mighty in poverty, and free by her vow alone, she stands more brightly radiant in an abject place. Once holding golden couches, now cheap in her own eyes as to honor, she flees the piled-up bed, stretched upon the dust. If she be despised, then she confesses herself noble, and thinks herself less, if any honor is given her. Sparing of food, surpassing Eustochium, abstemious beyond Paula, Fabiola as her leader instructs her how to cure wounds. Renewing Melania in zeal, Blesilla in piety, able to match Marcella in her vows. In service she renews Martha, in tears Mary, watchful she is Eugenia, in suffering she would be Thecla. These things she bears in her mind; whatever is praised in those women I recognize the signs, and read what was done before. Despising all things, and still abiding in the body, here the spirit lives, but the flesh lies dead. Dwelling on earth she enters the heavens; rightly free in mind, even among men she now seeks the things above the stars. Whose banquet is whatever the pious rule sets forth, whatever Gregory and Basil teach. What keen Athanasius, what gentle Hilary bring forth, whom, companions in one cause, one light holds, the two of them. What Ambrose thunders, and Jerome flashes, or Augustine waters with flowing fountain. What sweet Sedulius, what acute Orosius publishes, the rule of Caesarius is a line born for her. By these foods, fasting, she is nourished, nor is the flesh ever indulged, unless the spirit be already filled before. Let me now be silent of the rest, which are better kept glorified by the Thunderer's witness and by the judgment of God."

We too pass over in this place the other virtues of this Saint, and especially the adversities which she patiently bore, and concerning which Fortunatus may be read in the book on the Ruin of Thuringia and in the poem to Artachis, where that pious poet pathetically describes these misfortunes, and bitterly bewails them under the name of St. Radegund. Now let us proceed to those things which this prudent Matron skillfully did for the adorning and preservation of her monastery of Poitiers.

§ V. The Saint's zeal to fortify her monastery of Poitiers with the exact observance of discipline, and to adorn it with sacred Relics.

Against certain authors we are of opinion, St. Radegund had now gathered many virgins in her monastery of Poitiers, and was training them by word and example to a more perfect manner of life, when in the year of Christ 566 or 567 the second council of Tours was held: for the Saint wrote a letter to the assembled prelates of this synod, by which she commended her monastery to them, and which Mabillon and other learned men think long since perished, or still somewhere struggling with moths and worms. But on the contrary our Sirmond, volume 1 of the Councils of Gaul, page 345, and Pagi in the historico-chronological Critique of the Annals of Baronius, at the year of Christ 590, number 9, think that this letter of St. Radegund was preserved for us by Gregory of Tours in the History of the Franks, book 9, chapter 42. Nay rather, our Labbe, volume 5 of the Councils, not only adheres to Sirmond, but also there at column 872 in the notes strives to refute the patrons of the opposite opinion thus: "I do not see what time suits this letter better than that of the second council of Tours: for since it was written to those very bishops (which is clear from their reply) who were present at the council of Tours, it is likely that it was then sent to them, when they were gathered together in that council. Those who defer it to later times, and would have it written by St. Radegund after twenty years a little before her death, besides that they are refuted by Gregory of Tours, who teaches in book 9, chapter 39, that it was issued at the beginning of the congregation established by her, do not also observe that bishop Euphronius (to say nothing of the others who reply along with him) did not reach those times, and preceded the death of St. Radegund by more than a whole decade." But in this place Labbe has not touched the matter with the needle: for he gratuitously supposes that that commendatory letter of St. Radegund was one only, and that it still exists. Hence the death of bishop Euphronius has nothing to do with the matter, even if he had died immediately after that council of Tours, as will become manifest to one who attentively weighs the controversy. Nor does the assigned text of Gregory of Tours hinder his opponents, since that writer in book 9, chapter 39, only asserts that the bishops' reply was given at the beginning of this congregation, which no one denies: for Mabillon and others judge that the former letter which St. Radegund sent to the second council of Tours has perished, and, on account of the arguments presently to be produced, contend that another letter of the same Saint, which still exists in Gregory of Tours, must be deferred to later times.

[50] that the letter more probably perished, Our Longueval, in the notes to the History of the Gallican Church, volume 3, page 229, judges it more probable that that letter which Gregory of Tours reports is different from this earlier letter of St. Radegund, and, besides the argument which we shall presently give from Le Cointe, opposes to the opinion of his adversaries the following question: If the Saint sent the letter reported by Gregory of Tours to the synod of Tours in the year of Christ 567, how was it that after twenty years the church of St. Mary, which she had ordered to be built for the burial of the nuns, and which she mentions in that same letter, was in the year 587, or at the death of St. Radegund, not yet finished, as will appear below from the narrative of Gregory of Tours himself? To this question, which presses not a little upon all the asserters of the contrary opinion, we add another thus: How does St. Radegund affirm in that same letter, which on the hypothesis of our adversaries was written in 566 or 567 to the second synod of Tours, that she had adopted for her congregation "the rule under which St. Caesaria lived, and which the care of blessed Caesarius, prelate of Arles, fittingly compiled from the institution of the holy fathers," since the nuns of Poitiers probably first took up that rule in the year of Christ 570, as we shall prove below?

[51] We therefore think it more probable that that former letter of St. Radegund has now perished, which the Saint once wrote to the II council of Tours, or still lies hid somewhere, and that the other, preserved for us by Gregory of Tours, was written later, as Le Cointe also in the Annals of the Franks at the year of Christ 587, number 5, after exhibiting the same, proves by this reasoning: "In what year this letter was given is not clear. Sirmond thought it was sent to the synod of Tours in the reign of Charibert. Certainly it was written later, when Radegund was already advanced in age, after the death of king Sigibert, who perished in the year of Christ five hundred and seventy-five, or even after the death of king Chilperic, who was slain in the year of Christ five hundred and eighty-four: for Radegund testified in that same letter that Sigibert was dead, or even that both Sigibert and Chilperic had ended their lives, when she said that the monastery was built by her BY THE PERMISSION AND HELP OF THE LORDS THE KINGS, THEIR FATHER OR GRANDFATHER: for she could not have used the word GRANDFATHER except with reference to a grandson or even to grandsons, so that by the grandfather she understood Clotaire the elder, once her husband, and by the grandson Childebert the younger, grandson of the same Clotaire the elder through Sigibert, or by grandsons she designated the aforesaid Childebert the younger, grandson of Clotaire the elder through his son Sigibert, and Clotaire the second, grandson of the same Clotaire the elder through his son Chilperic." We shall afterward transcribe this later letter, or rather that testament of St. Radegund, in its own place from Gregory of Tours.

[52] Although we lack that former commendatory letter of St. Radegund and we exhibit the letter of reply, which she sent to the assembled fathers of the synod of Tours, yet we have the reply of some of the prelates to it, which in Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks, book 9, chapter 39, runs thus: "To the lady most blessed and in Christ daughter of the Church, Radegund, the bishops Euphronius, Praetextatus, Germanus, Felix, Domitianus, Victorius and Domnolus. The provisions of the immeasurable Godhead are continually careful of remedies for the human race, nor do they ever seem separated in any place or time from the constancy of their benefits, since the loving Arbiter of things everywhere sows such persons in the inheritance of ecclesiastical husbandry that, while they till his field with the harrow of faith in intent labor, the crop of Christ may by divine tempering attain the happy return of the hundredfold number. So much, therefore, does the profitable dispensation of his kindness pour itself abroad everywhere, that it nowhere denies that which it knows will profit many; that by the most holy example of such persons, when he shall come to judge, he may have in very many what he may crown.

[53] which certain prelates, "And so, when with the very rise of the Catholic religion the beginnings of the venerable faith had begun to breathe again in the borders of Gaul, and the then ineffable mysteries of the Lord's Trinity had come to the knowledge of few, lest this land should acquire less than what it obtained in the circle of the world when the Apostles preached, he deigned in his merciful counsel to direct blessed Martin from a foreign stock for the enlightening of the country; who, although he was not in the time of the Apostles, yet did not escape apostolic grace: for what was lacking in order was supplied in reward; since a later rank takes nothing away from him who excels in merits. And of him, most reverend daughter, we rejoice that the examples of heavenly love rise again renewed in you by the divine propitiation: for while the age of the world declines in eld, by the contest of your mind faith grows green again in flower, and what had grown lukewarm with the sluggish chill of old age grows warm again at last with the ardor of a fervent spirit. But since thou hast come almost from the same region from which we have learned that blessed Martin came hither" (that singular opinion about the common native land of both we briefly discussed in §2 of this preliminary Commentary), "it is no wonder"

"if thou seemest to imitate in work him whom we believe to have been thy guide upon the way; so that, having followed his footsteps, thou mayest by a happy vow fulfil his examples also; and mayest make that most blessed man to be thy companion in so far as thou fleest to have a part in the world: by the shining ray of whose repute thou dost so render the breasts of thy hearers suffused with heavenly brightness, that the minds of maidens, everywhere stirred up and kindled by a spark of the divine fire, hasten swiftly and eagerly in the love of Christ to be watered from the fountain of thy breast, and, leaving their parents, choose thee for themselves rather than their mother. Grace does this, not nature.

[54] gathered in that council, "Therefore, seeing the vows of this zeal, we render thanks to the heavenly clemency, who makes the wills of men to be joined to his own will: since we trust that those whom he bids to be gathered with you he wills to be kept in his own embrace. And because we have learned that certain women, by the divine favor, have from our territories flown together with longing to the institution of your rule, considering also the letter of your petition, which was gladly received by us, we confirm this, by Christ as author and healer; that although all alike who assemble there, being about to abide in the love of the Lord, ought inviolably to keep what they are seen to have most willingly undertaken, since faith promised to Christ, with heaven as witness, ought not to be defiled, where it is no light crime that the temple of God should — which God forbid — be polluted, so that it could be destroyed by his kindling wrath; yet we specially determine that if any woman, as has been said, from the places committed by the Lord's providence to our priestly governance, shall have merited to be associated with your monastery in the city of Poitiers, according to the constitutions of the lord Caesarius of blessed memory, bishop of Arles, let there be henceforth for her no license of departing, who, as the rule contains, is seen to have entered of her own will; lest by the shameful disgrace of one that should be brought into reproach which shines among all in honor.

[55] sent to the same Saint, "And therefore, if — which God avert — any woman, kindled by the unlawful enticement of a mad mind, shall wish to cast down her discipline, her glory and her crown into the stain of so great a reproach, so that by the enemy's counsel, like Eve cast out of paradise, she shall in any manner whatever suffer herself to go forth from the cloisters of that monastery, nay from the kingdom of heaven, let her, to be plunged and trodden down in the vile mud of the streets, being separated from our communion, be smitten with the wound of a dread anathema: so that if perchance, Christ being forsaken, she shall wish, the devil taking her captive, to marry a man, not only she herself who flees, but also he who is joined to her, a base adulterer and rather a sacrilegious man than a husband; or whosoever administered, that this might be done, poison rather than counsel, let him by a like vengeance, as has been said of her, be struck by the heavenly judgment, as we desire; until, a separation being made, by fitting penance for the execrable crime, she may merit to be received back and joined to the place from which she had gone out: adding also that those priests who at any time shall succeed us be held bound by the guilt of a like condemnation; and if — which we do not believe — they themselves shall wish to relax anything otherwise than our deliberation contains, let them know that they shall plead their cause with us before the eternal Judge who shall determine it: because it is the instruction of the common salvation, that what is promised to Christ be inviolably observed. Which decree of our determination we believe should be strengthened, for the sake of firmness, by the subscription of our own hand, to be observed by us perpetually, with Christ as our guide." Our Sirmond, after publishing this letter in volume 1 of the Councils of Gaul, page 349, notes that the subscriptions of the prelates here promised are wanting. Further, some things which occur in this letter and might delay the reader must now be briefly explained.

[56] Ruinart, in the notes on Gregory of Tours, column 464, wonders that in this letter the beginnings of the Christian faith in Gaul are traced back to the times of St. Martin. and in which some more obscure things are explained. But this phrase of the Gallic prelates can somehow be explained, since the public profession of the Christian religion only began under Constantine the Great, in whose reign St. Martin came into Gaul. Wherefore the prelates by that manner of speaking probably mean that "the beginnings of the venerable faith in the borders of Gaul," before suppressed by the frequent persecutions of the heathen, began "to breathe again," which word they there use. Besides, this might be understood of the beginnings of the venerable faith corrupted by the Arian heresy, since the prelates there add that "the then ineffable mysteries of the Lord's Trinity had come to the knowledge of few": for about these times the Arians, impugners of the most holy Trinity, had infected Gaul with their heresy, and Saturninus of Arles greatly favored them. Another expression of the same letter, which might cause delay to a reader, Mabillon in the Benedictine Annals, book 6, chapter 32, or volume 1, page 155, thus sets forth: "This letter was written before those nuns had taken up the rule of Caesarius; which was not done until three years afterward. But nevertheless from this rule the Fathers impose on them the law of perpetual enclosure, in such wise that excommunication should fall only upon those who had departed from the cloister with the intention of returning to the world: for after this decree Radegund set out with Agnes the abbess for Arles, that they might there receive the rule of St. Caesarius, and obtain the patronage of king Sigibert." In the following paragraph we shall record that reception of the rule, and here meanwhile, according to the order of chronology, we shall first treat of the precious relics which the Saint obtained from the East, and with which she enriched the convent of nuns at Poitiers.

[57] Besides what will be narrated below in the Acts concerning the sacred relics The Saint received relics of the Lord's Cross from the emperor Justin, which St. Radegund received from the emperor Justin, Gregory of Tours in the History of the Franks, book 9, chapter 40, relates these things about them: "In the time of king Clotaire, when blessed Radegund had established this monastery, she was always subject and obedient with all her congregation to the former bishops. But in the time of Sigibert, after Maroveus obtained the episcopate of the city" (Mabillon and Le Cointe refer what follows to the years of Christ 568 and 569), "having received letters from king Sigibert on account of the faith and devotion of blessed Radegund, she sends Clerics into the parts of the East for a piece of the wood of the Lord's cross, and for relics of the holy Apostles and of the other martyrs; who, going, brought these pledges: which being brought, the Queen asks the bishop that they might be placed in the monastery with due honor and great psalm-singing. But he, despising her suggestion, mounted his horses and betook himself to a country house. Then the Queen sent again to king Sigibert, beseeching that by his injunction any one of the bishops might place these pledges in the monastery with the honor that was fitting, and as her desire demanded. For this work blessed Euphronius, bishop of the city of Tours, is enjoined; who, coming to Poitiers with his clerics, with great psalm-singing and with an array of gleaming tapers and of incense, carried the holy pledges into the monastery, the bishop of the place being absent." Fortunatus celebrated this festive procession in verses, which are read in book 2 in the edition of our Brower: for then that holy poet composed those two most celebrated hymns, of which one begins: "Pange lingua gloriosi praelium certaminis"; and the other, "Vexilla regis prodeunt"; which to this day are employed in the Church for the celebrating of the praises of the holy Cross. Further, these most sacred relics, translated to the convent of Poitiers, gave it the surname of the Holy Cross, which it still retains to this very day.

[58] (whom Fortunatus therefore praises in verses) After these things St. Radegund sent legates to the emperor Justin, to render him due thanks for his most precious gifts. On this occasion also Fortunatus celebrated the praises of the Augusti Justin and Sophia in a panegyric poem, from which we excerpt the following to our present purpose:

"Highest glory to thee, Sower and Redeemer of things, who, being just, givest Justin as head in the world. To whom, equal in merits, wedded in happy years, lofty Sophia obtains the august rank. Who honors holy places with fixed and pious love, adorns them, and by this vow makes herself draw near to heaven. Whose foremost faith, flashing from the axis of the East, sent to the West shining gifts to God. When the Thuringian queen Radegund asked it for herself, it furnished the sacred gifts of the longed-for Cross, On which Christ, deigning to take flesh, hung, and with his own blood washed our wounds. Highest glory to thee, Sower and Redeemer of things, that lofty Sophia holds the august rank. O loving-kindness, watering thus far from a kindly fountain, whose love pours forth everywhere the faith of Christ. Behold, ye Augusti, with equal vow ye strive on both sides; thou raisest up thine own sex, he his. Thou, a man, dost render back Constantine; thou, a pious woman, Helena; as is the like honor, so is the very love of the Cross. She found the treasure, thou scatterest salvation everywhere, and what was first the East now fills the West also. Highest glory to thee, Sower and Redeemer of things, that lofty Sophia holds the august rank. Through thee the Lord's Cross claims the whole world for itself; where it was unknown, there it shall now be seen to cover. There came to the nations a greater confidence of Christ, when eyed hope beholds the aid of salvation. O faith doubled to the senses, since with your gift souls believe the more what they prove by the Cross as witness. The Augusta honoring this, what the Apostle urges to plough in the wood, here ye gladden the field with the word. Now this report is favorable, whither the North stretches itself; East and West serve thee with their mouth. There the Roman, here the barbarian himself, the German, the Batavian, the Basque, the Briton, utters praises. May thy portion, Augusta, be flourishing with the Cross through the age, thou who makest vows to grow in the farthest places. Prostrate on the ground, suppliant Radegund adores this, and asks long times for your empire. And watering it with tears, joined with her Sisters, she desires that here your faith may reap ample joys. Mayest thou remain happy, a wife with prince Justin, Sophia, girt with the sacred patrician order. Holding the Roman realms, the senate grants its rights; and let the robed people honor thee as their lady. May God add heavenly vows to your happy vows; nor let what Radegund loves perish for you. She who with assiduous chanting, stretched upon the dust, prays that thy crown may stand for ample times. By vow, by mind, by feeling, by zeal, ever doing good, may care of her be thine, may she be mindful of thee."

[59] Since Fortunatus in these verses hints that various peoples ran together with great confidence to honor suppliantly that wood of the holy Cross, before which frequent miracles took place, without doubt many miracles happened before these sacred relics of the Lord's Passion, some of which Gregory of Tours, book 1 On the Glory of the Martyrs, chapter 5, thus confirms by his own eye-witness: "The Lord's Cross, which was found at Jerusalem by Helena Augusta, is thus * adored on the fourth and sixth day of the week. Relics of it, being comparable both in merit and in faith to Helena, queen Radegund sought out, and devoutly placed in the monastery of Poitiers which she established by her own zeal, and she sent servants again to Jerusalem, and through the whole region of the East, who, going round the tombs of the holy martyrs and of all the confessors, gathered relics"

"and brought them: and when these had been placed in a silver chest with the holy Cross itself, she thereafter merited to behold many miracles; of which I shall first set forth that which the Lord deigned to reveal there in the days of his Passion, on the sixth day of the week before holy Easter. When they were passing the night in vigils without a light, about the third hour of the night there appeared before the altar a very small light in the manner of a spark; then, being enlarged, scattering hither and thither the tresses of its brightness, it began gradually to mount on high, and, being made a great beacon, gave light in the dark night to the watching and supplicating little flock: and as the sky grew bright, gradually failing, when light was given to the earth, it vanished from the eyes of those who wondered at it.

[60] "But I used often to hear that even the lamps which were lighted before these pledges, bubbling up by divine power, poured forth so much oil that they often filled the vessel set beneath them; and yet, according to the folly of a hard mind, I was never moved to believe these things, until the very power which was shown should convict my brutish sluggishness in the present: and therefore I shall set forth what I have seen with my own eyes. There was a cause of devotion, that, visiting the tomb of St. Hilary, I should go to converse with this Queen. And entering the monastery, having saluted the Queen, I prostrate myself before the Cross to be adored and the sacred pledges of the Blessed. At length, prayer being made, I rose. For there was on the right hand a lamp burning, which, when I had seen it flowing down with frequent drops, I call God to witness, I thought that the vessel was broken, because a basin was set beneath it, into which the flowing oil fell. Then, turning to the abbess, I say: Does so great a laziness of mind hold thee that thou canst not procure a whole 'cicindile'" (this word is written in various ways, and means a glass lamp, as may be seen in Du Cange's reprinted Glossary) "in which the oil may be burned, unless thou settest a broken one, whence it may flow down? And she: It is not so, my lord, but it is the power of the holy Cross which thou beholdest. Then I, returning to myself and calling to mind what I had heard before, turning to the lamp, see it, after the manner of a boiling pot, overflowing with great waves, and running over its very rim with swelling waves, and, as I believe, increasing more and more to convict my unbelief; so that in the space of one hour the little vessel, which did not hold a quarter-measure, gave forth more than a whole sextarius: and marveling I was silent, and thenceforward proclaimed the power of the adorable Cross.

[61] St. Gregory of Tours, an eye-witness, affirms. "And a certain maiden, Chrodegildis by name, while after her father's death she dwelt in the territory of the city of Le Mans, was punished with the loss of her eyes. But after, by the command of king Chilperic, blessed queen Radegund being still alive, she had been transferred to the rule of the aforesaid monastery, that most Blessed woman showing her the way, she prostrates herself before the holy chest; and there, keeping vigils with the other nuns, when morning came, as they departed, she rested, stretched on the ground in that same place: and there appeared to her in a vision as though some one opened her eyes, and one was restored to health, while he labored at the other, when suddenly, awakened at the sound of the unbarred door, she received the sight of one eye. Which it is not doubted was granted through the power of the Cross. The possessed, the lame, and other sick persons also are very often healed in this place." Now let us proceed to set forth the means which St. Radegund used to provide for the stability of the convent of Poitiers.

* perhaps "ut"

* elsewhere "duraturum"

* that is, horses

* elsewhere "situated at Jerusalem"

* elsewhere "transmissa fuisset"

§ VI. The Saint's care to preserve the same convent of nuns under a fixed rule and under the protection of prelates and kings.

When the Saint cannot obtain the protection of the bishop of Poitiers, Since bishop Maroveus would not take the monastery of Poitiers into his patronage, and St. Radegund well knew that any monasteries whatever cannot long subsist without the watchful care of prelates, or without fixed laws, she brought it about by her industry that the nuns of Poitiers should embrace a fixed and stable rule of life, as Gregory of Tours in the History of the Franks, book 9, chapter 40, indicates in these words: "In the time of king Clotaire, when blessed Radegund had established this monastery, she was always subject and obedient with all her congregation to the former bishops … After these things, when she often sought the favor of her pontiff and could not obtain it, being moved by necessity, together with her abbess whom she had appointed, they make for the city of Arles, whence, the rule of St. Caesarius and of blessed Caesaria being received, they fortified themselves with the protection of the king, namely because in him who ought to have been their shepherd they could find no care for their defense." From these things we easily gather that the congregation of St. Radegund at Poitiers had until this time lived under the private or changeable decrees of her prelates, and had been bound to no public or fixed rule.

[63] meanwhile she fortifies her convent of nuns Le Cointe in the Annals of the Franks at the year of Christ 570, number 3, notes these and other things more distinctly in this manner: "At the beginning of this year Radegund, with Agnes the abbess of Poitiers, set out for Arles: for after she received the wood of the Lord's Cross from Euphronius, prelate of Tours, she often sought in vain the favor of Maroveus, bishop of Poitiers, and at length, being moved by necessity, committed herself to a long journey, that she might obtain that rule prescribed for nuns once by blessed Caesarius, which all the most pious men praised. Hear Gregory of Tours, who not only testifies that up to this time the monastery which Radegund built at Poitiers while Clotaire held the principate was under the government of the pontiffs of Poitiers, but also, by the exposition of various affairs which were done while Sigibert reigned at Poitiers after Charibert, and while Maroveus ruled the bishopric of Poitiers, excellently confirms our chronology, as regards the death of king Charibert, and as regards the affairs of Poitiers hitherto recounted after the death of the same Charibert."

[64] To these he subjoins Gregory's very text, already reported by us here and there, with a fixed and settled rule of life, and in the same place at the following number gives the reason why the rule of St. Caesarius seems to have been chosen before others: "Why in this year," he says, "the nuns of Poitiers took up for observance the rule which St. Caesarius, once prelate of Arles, had prescribed for nuns, this reason chiefly can be adduced, that it is found praised in the letter to Radegund by the bishops Euphronius of Tours, Praetextatus of Rouen, Germanus of Paris, Felix of Nantes, Domitianus of Angers, Victorius of Rennes, and Domnolus of Le Mans, who four years before had held the council of Tours with two other pontiffs, Caletricus of Chartres and Leudebaud of Séez." Further, Caesaria of Arles sent this rule to the nuns of Poitiers, as is established from the above-praised letter of that abbess, in which, in Edmond Martène, volume 1 of the New Thesaurus of Anecdota, columns 4 and 5, she writes thus among other things to St. Radegund: "I have done what ye commanded; I have sent a copy of the rule which the lord pope Caesarius of blessed and holy memory made for us. Do ye see how ye may keep it. Let your ruling charity be assured that if ye live according to it, ye shall receive a place among the wise virgins," etc. If any one desires to know what that rule of St. Caesarius was, let him go to our Work at the twelfth day of January, where Bolland reported it in the Life of St. Caesaria, and distributed it into twelve paragraphs. Afterward Lucas Holstenius, in the Code of Rules, part 2, from page 89, published the same rule of St. Caesarius. Finally Le Cointe in the Annals of the Franks at the year of Christ 536, number 45 and following, compared with one another the various editions of the same rule, and illustrated them with notes.

[65] That however the curious reader may in this place also have some idea of this rule of St. Caesarius, which he had once prescribed for nuns we transcribe an abridgement of it from Mabillon, who in the Benedictine Annals, book 1, chapter 52, treating of the convent of virgins at Arles, thus abridged the same: "The siege being raised, he pressed on to complete the monastery he had begun" (namely St. Caesarius, prelate of Arles, of whom he had treated a little above), "and when it was finished he set over it his sister Caesaria, recalled from the convent of Marseilles, to which he had sent her to be trained in monastic usages, a rule being prescribed to the nuns according to the statutes of the holy fathers. This is, unless I am mistaken, the first monastic rule written for the benefit of nuns; whose first law was this, that it should be lawful for none to go out of the monastery until death. No infants were there admitted before six or seven years of age. All learned letters, and at all times for two hours, that is from morning until the second hour, they gave themselves to reading, being occupied for the rest with the divine offices and with common labor, chiefly with wool-work. To the abbess neither a private refection nor a private dwelling was permitted. The garments were not black, contrary to the custom of men, but grey or milk-white, that is of the natural or of a white color. He forbade alms to be given at the door of the monastery on account of the excessive disquiet, and preferred that they should be dispensed by a provisor at the abbess's nod. There was no outer door of the monastery except that of the basilica, which itself was never open at the evening, night, and midday hours, so that at those very hours in which refreshment is taken the abbess kept the keys with her; which is even today somewhere observed also of the doors of monasteries among monks. Reading was made not only at table but also at the time of common labor. The writing of books also was for some their labor.

[66] St. Caesarius of Arles, "The eating of poultry was granted only to the sick: other meats were forbidden save in desperate sickness. For the rest, the dishes or courses were three on fast days, two at dinner, the third doubtless being reserved for supper. On the greater festivals other dishes were added at dinner and at supper, and at the end sweets. The use of wine was permitted for infirmity or for a more delicate condition of quality. Every day, whether of winter or of summer, two cups or goblets; on fast days three at the refection, to the younger only two were granted. Fasts on the second, fourth and sixth days of the week from the Calends of September; but from the Calends of November until the Lord's Nativity every day, feasts and Saturdays excepted. Before Epiphany, seven fasts. From then to Lent only on the second, fourth and sixth days of the week. No fast from Easter to Pentecost; thereafter until the Calends of September it is left to the abbess's discretion." This is the rule which blessed Radegund followed in the convent of the Holy Cross at Poitiers, so greatly praised by Venantius Fortunatus and others. Afterward the nuns of Poitiers, and several monasteries of the more ancient institute, took up the rule of St. Benedict.

[67] which prelate Lezana We scarcely know on what foundation the Carmelites and certain other Religious enroll St. Radegund and her congregation in their own Order. Giovanni Battista de Lezana in the Annals of the Carmelites proceeds step by step, that he may number this holy Matron among Carmelite nuns: for first of all in volume 3 of the Annals, pages 192 and 193, he reckons St. Caesarius, whose rule the nuns of Poitiers chose, among his own Carmelites by this reasoning: "But in place of those not sufficiently approved monks of the Eastern church, the Western church of the Gauls was nurturing several most approved ones. Among these first, as it were, was Caesarius, bishop of Arles, from the monastery"

"of Lérins a monk and abbot, whose famous deeds his disciple Cyprian wrote, in Surius at the twenty-seventh day of August. He is further to be numbered among ours, because he had nothing in common with the Basilians, and was earlier than the Benedictines… Likewise abbot Porcarius, under whose discipline Caesarius wonderfully advanced in the monastic life, on the testimony of the same Cyprian. Nay, as the same Caesarius said in homily XX, that island of Lérins is known to have sent innumerable mountains (that is, Saints) into heaven… But that these monks of Lérins are to be counted among the Elian ones, since there is not even a trace for thinking that they were of another institute, is established from what we said of Honoratus, the first parent of that monastery."

[68] together with his sister Caesaria and with St. Radegund Then on page 226 of the same volume he thus reckons St. Caesaria and St. Radegund, and their congregations living under the rule of St. Caesarius, likewise in his own Order: "Likewise not to be given over to oblivion is the nun Caesaria, sister of the aforesaid Caesarius, an inmate of the monastery of Marseilles, nay rather for this reason to be commemorated by us: for this college of virgins at Marseilles seems to be that which John Cassian erected in that city according to the norm of the Elian institute of Egypt and Palestine, as we said from him under the year 421. This holy woman was of no unequal holiness with her brother Caesarius, being also set over the monastery of Arles built by him, imbued also with the rule of Caesarius (that from this too we may learn that it was not the Basilian), and famous for admirable sanctity. These things Baronius drew, under the year 508, from Cyprian in the Life of Caesarius and from Venantius in book 8 of the Poems; in whom also concerning the testament of Caesarius, in which he makes mention of the aforesaid monastery and of his sister Caesaria, and bequeaths to her THE LARGER MANTLE WHICH SHE HERSELF MADE OF HEMP. From which the reader may conjecture that both Caesarius and Caesaria used white garments, after the rite of the Essenes. There is commemorated also by the same Venantius another nun of the same rule and institute, Radegund, who, kindled with the love of Christ, 'lapped up' the monastic institutions of Caesarius. By which manner of speaking he points out that this holy woman was a perfect observer of them."

[69] Finally Lezana in the same volume 3 of the Annals, page 279, assigns various competitors for the same glory, enrolls in his own Carmelite Order, and subjoins to all his little arguments at least a useful admonition thus: "Of the monastic propagation, Radegund the queen alone, at this time passing from this life and received by the angels into the heavenly one, and the monastery erected by her, and the letters written by her a little before her death to the bishops for the commendation and care of that same monastery, sufficiently testify. Of these, Gregory of Tours, book IX, and the authors of the Life of the same Radegund in Surius on the 13th of August. Let the monks of that time deservedly contend, namely ours, the Basilians, the Augustinians, and the Benedictines, for so great a Nun and her nurslings: for us enough will suffice of what has been said in the foregoing. And it will be better to contend that they should imitate a queen who was a nun, devoted to mortification, to haircloth, to abstinence, and to other religious virtues." This last clause of Lezana pleases us more than all his arguments, in which Marco Antonio Alegre de Casanate, a Spanish Carmelite, seems not to have much confidence, when in the Paradise of Carmelite Comeliness, page 216, he writes thus: "We know also that Caesarius had a sister, Caesaria by name, a notable virgin and mother of virgins (at whose exhortation his disciple Cyprian wrote the deeds of Caesarius), who shone with excellent sanctity, whom Cyprian and Fortunatus reckon among women notable for sanctity. Likewise Gregory of Tours treats of her, and of her rules, under which holy Radegund the queen and others practiced the monastic life. But because it is not yet clear * to us whether these virgins were of our Order, we leave it to others to add greater things to ours." Thus he pronounces candidly in this place, although elsewhere in his Paradise he rather often strays into ineptitudes.

[70] Although some authors number Radegund among Augustinian nuns, other families of Religious aspiring to the same glory. as Tomás de Herrera writes in volume 2 of the Augustinian Alphabet at the letter R, page 328, yet this opinion does not seem to be generally received in the Augustinian Order, since Herrera himself subjoins to the monastic and regular profession of St. Radegund this judgment of his: "I would believe that queen Radegund made profession of the state of the Religious life in a peculiar Religion, under the proper rule of the divine Caesarius, although taken almost in every part from the Augustinian, and under determined kinds of colors." At length that Augustinian hermit produces some decrees of the Caesarian rule, in which the black color of garments is expressly forbidden, and on the following page thus concludes from them against certain writers of his own Order: "But this exclusion of the black color is not conformable to the institute of Augustinian nuns." After these things we truly marvel that Agostino Maria Arpe, in the Augustinian Pantheon which he published at Genoa in the year 1709, claims St. Radegund for his own Order. We do not here laboriously discuss the several arguments of these and other Orders, lest we move to laughter or to disgust learned men, who have long since exploded frivolous contentions of this kind. Wherefore let these things be said enough and more concerning the stable rule with which St. Radegund fortified her monastery, and which the nuns of Poitiers observed until the Benedictine rule succeeded it.

[71] The Saint, providing for the lasting preservation of the convent, Our Saint, being occupied with these and like pious cares, was gradually hastening toward a happy death, before which, desiring wholly to provide for the stability of her monastery of Poitiers, she committed its protection to the prelates and to the Frankish kings, as we understand from the commendatory letter of the same Saint which Gregory of Tours in the History of the Franks, book 9, chapter 42, recites in this tenor: "To the holy lords and most worthy of the apostolic see, Fathers in Christ, to all the bishops, Radegund a sinner. The beginning of a fitting provision then tends strongly to its effect, when for the sake of the fold committed to one it is delivered to the ears of the universal fathers, physicians and shepherds, to whose understanding it is commended: whose fellowship of charity, whose counsel of power, whose support of prayer will be able to furnish intervention. And since long ago, being loosed from lay bonds, by the providence and inspiration of the divine clemency I was seen to be voluntarily translated, with Christ as guide, to the norm of Religion; considering these things with the zeal of a ready mind, and also concerning the advancement of others, that, by the Lord's declaring, my desires might be made profitable for the rest, at the establishment and with the recompense of the most excellent lord king Clotaire I established a monastery of maidens in the city of Poitiers, and when it was founded, so far as royal munificence bestowed on me, I endowed it by a deed of gift.

[72] which she had founded at Poitiers, "Moreover to the congregation gathered by me, Christ granting it, I adopted the rule under which holy Caesaria lived, which the care of blessed Caesarius, prelate of Arles, fittingly compiled from the institution of the holy fathers: and with the consent of the most blessed pontiffs both of this city and of the rest, and by the election also of our congregation, I appointed as abbess my lady and Sister Agnes, whom from her earliest age I have cherished and brought up in the place of a daughter, and I committed myself to obey her ordinance regularly after God; and to her, observing the apostolic form, both I and the Sisters delivered by written deeds the earthly substance which we were seen to possess, out of fear of Ananias and Sapphira, reserving nothing of our own when placed in a monastery. But since the moments or times of the human condition are uncertain, since indeed the world runs to its end, when some desire to serve their own will rather than the divine, being led by zeal for God I, surviving and devoted, present this page of my suggestion to your apostolate in the name of Christ.

[73] she puts it into the patronage "And because being present I was not able, as though rolled at your feet, I prostrate myself by the vicarious office of a letter, adjuring you by the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and by the day of the dread judgment — so may no tyrant assail you thus represented, but may the lawful King crown you — that if by chance after my death any person whatsoever, or the pontiff of that place, or the power of a prince, or any other, which we do not believe will be done, shall attempt to disturb the congregation either by malevolent persuasion or by judicial force, or to break the rule, or to set another abbess than my Sister Agnes, whom the benediction of the most blessed Germanus, his Brethren being present, consecrated; or if the congregation itself, which cannot be, having conceived a murmuring, shall strive to change her; or if any person whatever or pontiff of the place shall wish by a new privilege to affect any dominion over the monastery or over the goods of the monastery beyond what the preceding bishops, or others in my lifetime, had; or shall attempt to make any go forth thence contrary to the rule; or if any prince, or pontiff, or powerful man, or any person whatever from among the Sisters, shall dare to diminish, or by a sacrilegious wish strive to claim to his own ownership, anything of the goods which the most excellent lord Clotaire, or the most excellent lord kings his sons, conferred on me, and which I by the permission of his precept handed over to the monastery to be possessed, and which I obtained to be confirmed by the authority of the most excellent lord kings Charibert, Guntram, Chilperic, and Sigibert, with the interposition of an oath and the subscriptions of their hands; or of those things which others for the remedy of their souls, or the Sisters there, contributed of their own goods: may he thus incur your holiness and that of your successors after God, on account of my supplication and the will of Christ; that they may be held, as robbers and spoilers of the poor, outside your favor: nor may he ever be able, you resisting, to diminish or change anything of our rule or of the goods of the monastery.

[74] "Praying this also, that when God shall will our aforesaid lady Sister Agnes to depart from the world, of the prelates she should be ordained abbess in her place from our congregation who shall please God and her, keeping the rule, and let her diminish nothing of the purpose of holiness: for let never one's own will or that of any one whatever precipitate it . But if — which God forbid — against God's command and the authority of kings any one shall wish to act against any of the above-written conditions, entreatingly commended before the Lord and his Saints, or to diminish anything of person or of substance, or shall attempt to bring any troubles upon my aforesaid Sister Agnes the abbess, let him incur the judgment of God and of the holy Cross and of blessed Mary, and let him have as opponents and pursuers the blessed confessors Hilary and Martin, to whom after God I have committed my Sisters to be defended. Thee also, blessed pontiff, and your successors, whom I diligently take as patrons in the cause of God, if — which God forbid — there shall arise one who shall attempt to contrive anything against these things, let it not irk you, for the repelling and confuting of God's enemy, to hasten to the king to whom at that time this place shall belong, or to the city of Poitiers, for a matter commended to you before the Lord, and to labor as executors and defenders of justice against the injustice of others, that a Catholic king may in no way suffer such wickedness to be admitted in his times, nor permit that to be torn down which has been established by the will of God, and mine, and of the kings themselves.

[75] "At the same time also I adjure the princes whom God shall command to survive after my decease for the governance of the people, and of the Frankish kings, by the King of whose kingdom there is no"

"end, and at whose nod kingdoms stand, who gave them their very life and reign, that the monastery which by the permission and help of the lord kings, their father or grandfather, I have been seen to build, and to have ordered according to rule and to have endowed, they may command to be governed under their protection and word together with Agnes the abbess; and that they permit neither our oft-named abbess nor anything belonging to our monastery to be troubled or disquieted by any one, or thence diminished, or anything changed; but rather, for the regard of God, together with the lord bishops, may they, at my supplication before the Redeemer of the nations, order them, as I commend them to them, to be defended and fortified; that in whose honor they protect the handmaids of God, with him, the defender of the poor and the bridegroom of virgins, they may be perpetually associated in the eternal kingdom.

[76] having written pathetic letters to this end, "This also I adjure you, holy pontiffs and most excellent lord kings and all the Christian people, by the Catholic faith in which ye were baptized, and by the churches which ye preserve, that in the basilica which we have begun to build in honor of holy Mary the Mother of the Lord, where also many of our Sisters are laid in rest, whether it be finished or unfinished, when God shall command me to depart from this light, my poor body should there be buried. And if any one shall wish otherwise thereupon, or shall attempt to make it so, let him, the Cross of Christ and blessed Mary prevailing, incur the divine vengeance; and by your intervention may I merit to obtain a place of burial in that basilica with the congregation of the Sisters. And that this my supplication, which I have subscribed with my own hand, may be preserved in the archive of the universal Church, I entreat with poured-out tears: so that if against any wicked men necessity shall demand it, the pious consolation of your mercy may with pastoral solicitude furnish help by your defense to my Sister Agnes the abbess or to her congregation, wheresoever they shall ask to be succored; nor let them proclaim themselves destitute of me, for whom God has prepared the protection of your favor. Recalling this before your eyes in all things, by him who from the glorious Cross commended his Virgin Mother to the blessed apostle John, that as by him the Lord's command was fulfilled, so may it be with you concerning what I, unworthy and humble, commend to my lords, the fathers of the church and apostolic men: which deposit when ye shall have worthily kept, may ye, sharers of his merits whose apostolic command ye fulfil, worthily reproduce his example." Thus far St. Radegund, as though foreseeing the disturbances which not long after her death arose in that same monastery, and which Gregory of Tours narrates at length in the History of the Franks, book 9, chapter 39 and following, who also on that occasion preserved these very letters for posterity.

[77] which Mabillon, against others, thinks must be deferred to a later time, Certain authors cited in the preceding paragraph are of opinion that this letter was sent by the Saint to the council of Tours, as we said there at the beginning of that paragraph. But besides the other arguments of various writers which we there cited, Mabillon in the Benedictine Annals, book 7, chapter 42, after a brief synopsis of that same letter, opposes to these adversaries the following: "There will perhaps be those who think that this letter is that which Radegund wrote to the Fathers assembled in the second council of Tours; to which letter would correspond that which the Fathers of the same council wrote back to her, praised by us above, where we treated of the aforesaid synod. But without doubt this letter of Radegund was drawn up later, and indeed when the congregation of virgins was already grown up, as is clear from its context; whereas that reply of the Fathers of the council of Tours was written, on Gregory's testimony, AT THE BEGINNING OF THIS CONGREGATION. Besides this, in the aforesaid letter of Radegund mention is made of the most blessed Germanus as already dead, whereas he is one of the bishops who subscribed the reply of the council."

[78] For the rest, Le Cointe in the Annals of the Franks at the year of Christ 587, number 5, advises and whose subscriptions, as also two diplomas, Le Cointe charges with forgery. that no credit is to be given to the subscriptions of the same letter, which was published under the name of a testament or last will after the Aquitanian history: for various errors occur in that spurious addition, as this annalist evidently demonstrates. Besides, in the same place Le Cointe thus makes mention of two diplomas which were printed after that same Aquitanian history: "In the same author, for the basilica to which the name of St. Radegund was given, two diplomas are read; one of king Clotaire, the other of kings Childebert, Gontran, Sigibert, and Chilperic. Credit is to be given to neither." Then by solid arguments he proves that both these diplomas are fictitious or interpolated. We for brevity's sake here pass over those diplomas and the arguments opposed to them, both because that matter does not immediately concern our Saint, and because all these things may easily be found in the aforesaid editor of the Aquitanian history and in the Annals of Le Cointe in the place assigned.

* perhaps "constat"

* elsewhere "of the king"

* perhaps "the wrath of your holiness"

* elsewhere "sometimes precipitates."

§ VII. The year of her death, the honorable burial of the Saint, the sacred relics, the miracles, and certain traditions of the people of Poitiers concerning her are examined.

Against certain authors we show The most eminent Baronius in the Ecclesiastical Annals refers the death of St. Radegund to the year of Christ 590, and has certain incautious followers of his opinion. But first of all the error of this chronology can be demonstrated from the Chronicle of Tours, which in Edmond Martène, in the Most Ample Collection of ancient writers and monuments, volume 5, column 943, relates the following concerning the death of the same Saint: "In the sixth year of the emperor Maurice, holy Radegund the queen dies, and is honorably buried by the hand of blessed Gregory, bishop of Tours, in the monastery of virgins which she herself had built at Poitiers: in which place, beyond what can be believed, she slew herself for God by a long martyrdom of fastings and various afflictions of the flesh; whose Life Fortunatus the rhetorician depicted in fair speech." What is here wrongly said about the place of burial we shall afterward report more accurately from Gregory of Tours himself. For the rest, Labbe and Pagi, and other more exact chronologists, rightly join the sixth year of the emperor Maurice, which in this Chronicle is assigned to the death of St. Radegund, with the year of Christ 587.

[80] Besides, we dig out the same year of death from Gregory of Tours, that the Saint died in the year of Christ 587, who in the History of the Franks, book 9, chapter 2, writes thus: "In that year" (namely the twelfth of king Childebert, which this author had noted above in book 8, chapter 43) "the most blessed Radegund departed from this world; who left a great lamentation in the monastery which she had established: and I too was present at her burial. And she died in the sixth month" (Gregory begins to reckon the year from the month of March, and so August was to him the sixth month of the year, on Pagi's testimony) "on the thirteenth day of the month, being buried after three days. But what miracles appeared there on that day, and how she was buried, I have taken care to write more fully in the book of Miracles." But the twelfth year of king Childebert answers to the year of Christ 587, as Petau, Valois, Labbe, Le Cointe, and other chronologists and historians by common consent affirm. Finally this true year of her death is invincibly proved from Baudonivia, a contemporary nun, who below in the Acts of St. Radegund at number 35 expresses the same day and month, namely the thirteenth of the month of August, and testifies that it fell on the fourth day of the week. But since the Dominical letter E was then current, it will evidently appear to one who considers it that in the year of Christ 587 the thirteenth day of August fell on the fourth day of the week. Hence it further appears that the death of St. Radegund is rightly joined with the twelfth year of king Childebert and the sixth year of the emperor Maurice. From these things also we have easily and safely judged concerning the death of St. Junianus the abbot, whom St. Radegund greatly esteemed, and who in the same year and on the same day with her passed to the Blessed, as was narrated above in the Acts of that Saint.

[81] and that she was then honorably buried Being freed from these chronological entanglements, we go on to the honorable obsequies of our Saint, which Gregory of Tours, an eye-witness, describes in the book On the Glory of the Confessors, chapter 106, in these words: "But blessed Radegund, of whom we made mention at the beginning of the book of the Martyrs, after the labors of life were served out, departed from this world; of whose passing receiving the news, we came to the monastery of the city of Poitiers which she had established. And we found her lying on a bier, whose holy face so shone that it despised the beauty of lilies and roses. For around the bier there stood an immense multitude of nuns, to the number of about two hundred, who by her preaching, being converted, were leading a holy life; who, according to the dignity of the world, flourished in this form of Religion not only from senatorial families, but some even from the royal stock itself.

[82] with great grief of the nuns of Poitiers, "And they stood lamenting and saying: To whom dost thou leave us orphans, Mother? To whom dost thou commend us desolate? We have left parents and possessions and country, and have followed thee. To whom dost thou leave us, save to perpetual tears and to a never-ending grief? Behold, until now this monastery was greater to us than the spaces of villages or of cities; and whithersoever we went, beholding thy glorious face, there we found gold, there silver; there we looked up at flourishing vineyards and leafy cornfields; there meadows blooming with the variety of divers flowers. From thee we plucked violets; thou wast to us the glowing rose and the white lily: thy words shone upon us as the sun, and as the moon kindled in the darkness of our conscience the bright lamp of truth. But now all the earth is darkened for us, the space of this place is narrowed, since we do not merit to behold thy face. Alas for us, forsaken by our holy Mother! and happy are those who departed from this world while thou wast still living! And we know indeed that thou art joined to the choirs of holy virgins and to the paradise of God; but although we are consoled by this, that is lamentable to us, that we cannot behold thee with the eyes of the body.

[83] which St. Gregory of Tours, an eye-witness, "While they were saying these and other things amid lamentations, when we could not refrain from tears, turning to the abbess I say: Cease a little from these weepings, and consider rather what things are necessary. Behold, our brother Maroveus, bishop of this city, is not present, since the business of visiting the parishes has taken him away. Now therefore take counsel, lest the holy little body suffer injury; and lest the grace which God has granted to the blessed limbs be taken away, while the time of burial is deferred. Hasten the due obsequies, that it may be given to the sepulchre with honor. To this the abbess answered: And what shall we do, if the bishop of the city shall not come? For that place in which she ought to be buried is not consecrated by a priestly benediction. Then the citizens and the other honorable men who had gathered for the obsequies of the blessed Queen command my littleness, saying: Presume upon the charity of our Brother"

"and bless that altar; for we trust in his benevolence that he will not take it ill if thou dost it, but will rather give thanks. Presume, we pray, that the holy flesh may be given to burial. And so, being enjoined by them, I consecrated an altar in that same cell.

[84] "But when, moving the holy body, we began to lead it forth with psalm-singing, describes in detail. straightway the possessed, crying out and confessing the Holy woman of God, confessed that they were tormented by her. And as we passed beneath the wall, again the company of virgins through the windows of the towers, and from the very battlements of the wall, began to utter cries and to lament from above, so that amid the sounds of weeping and the clapping of hands no one could refrain from tears; nay, even the clerics themselves, whose office it was to chant the psalms, could scarcely amid sobs and tears get through an antiphon. Thereupon we come to the sepulchre. For by the abbess's providence she had made a wooden chest, in which she had enclosed the body embalmed with spices, and for this reason the pit of the burial was more spacious, so that, one side-panel of each of two sepulchres being removed, the chest with the holy limbs might be placed joined at the side. Then, prayer being made, we departed, reserving it for the bishop of the place that by him, Mass being celebrated, it should be covered with the lid. But returning to the monastery, the abbess with the virgins led us through the several places in which the Saint had been wont either to read or to pray, mourning and saying: Behold, we enter the cell, and we do not find our lost Mother. Behold the space in which, bending her knees with tears, she prayed the mercy of almighty God, and she is not seen by us. Behold the book in which she read, and her voice seasoned with spiritual salt does not strike our ears. Behold the spindles on which through long fastings and flowing tears she was wont to spin, and the fingers holy with kindly sanctity are not seen. As they said these things, tears are renewed, sighs are uttered, and the very bowels are dissolved into weeping at the emotion of those who wept. And so great a grief had beset my breast that I should not have ceased from tears, had I not known that blessed Radegund was taken from the monastery in body, not in power; and taken from the world, was set in heaven."

[85] In this church the sacred body of St. Radegund was preserved until the year of Christ 1562, The Saint's body rested at Poitiers until the year 1562, in which the raging Calvinists burned it with impious fury, as Mabillon in the Acts of the Saints of the Benedictine Order, century 1, page 334, after the Life of this Saint, briefly noted in these words: "Further, the relics of the holy Queen, which for the dignity of her person ought to have been in honor even among barbarians, were for the greater part, together with the sacred remains of St. Hilary, given over in the year 1562 by the heretics to a more than sacrilegious burning." When we just now said that the body of St. Radegund was preserved from the first burial until the year of Christ 1562 in that church of Poitiers, this assertion is fitly to be understood of the greater space of time: for we are not ignorant that it lay hidden for a while, on account of the frequent and sudden inroads of the Normans, in the Benedictine monastery of Quinçay, which is not far distant from Poitiers, and was afterward brought back to its former burial place, as we learn from André Saussay, who in his Gallican Martyrology thus announces the yearly memory of this matter on the twenty-eighth day of February: "At Poitiers, the bringing back and re-laying of the body of St. Radegund, from queen of the Franks made a nun and abbess, from the monastery of Quinçay, whither, when the Normans were ravaging, it had formerly been carried and hidden for a time, lest it should be profaned." Besides, in our manuscript Florarium at the eleventh day of February and the twenty-fourth of October a twofold translation of the same Saint is commemorated.

[86] and in the year 1412 is said still to have appeared entire, Although we cannot determine the exact time of these translations, and besides do not know in what state the sacred body of St. Radegund then was, yet from Jean Bouchet and certain other more recent French writers we understand that it still in the year of Christ 1412 appeared entire and incorrupt in its tomb at Poitiers, as we reported above on another occasion from our Raynaud, and here repeat from Simon Peyronnet, doctor of theology and parish priest of Toulouse, who in the notes to his Catalogue of holy men and women under the name of Radegund, page 497, narrates the same thing thus: "Her coffin, after eight hundred and eighteen years and nine months and thirteen days from the burial of the sacred body within it, was opened, and the body was found wonderfully fragrant and plainly incorrupt; and when John, Duke of Berry, a prince of the royal blood, had tried to take the two rings set on her fingers, he easily removed the royal one; but the monastic one, with which by custom nuns were marked as brides of Christ, he could not take away, the holy Queen resisting." But whether from this incorruption of the body Joseph de Monteil, in book 1 on the Life of St. Radegund, chapter 7, rightly inferred that she remained a virgin in her marriage with Clotaire, although when she was married she was in the flower of her age and did not sleep apart from her husband, belongs to another inquiry. We above in §3 disputed at sufficient length concerning this question. Further, in this place it is asked what is to be judged of the history just reported, which the most learned Master Jean Filleau in chapter 25 of the Work already praised and often to be praised below tries to prove by the authority of Bouchet and by other arguments. We admit not unwillingly that fragrance of the body, and the wonderful retention of one ring, and the other circumstances of this narrative, on account of the testimony of Jean Bouchet, who was not so far removed from the times of the event, and could hear it from witnesses near to that age.

[87] which entireness must be explained of certain limbs. But that entireness and incorruption of the sacred body will have to be explained only of certain limbs, if some bones of the same Saint were long before the year of Christ 1412 shared with the monks of St. Bénigne of Dijon, as the old Chronicle of that monastery expressly testifies, which in the first edition of d'Achery's Spicilegium, volume 1, page 435, among other things has it thus: "Besides this, not far off there was found St. Radegund, having at her head a label of her name on a leaden plate; whose bones, wrapped in a waxed linen cloth, were found in a wooden chest laid in the earth." But that our St. Radegund is here treated is clear from the Martyrology of that same monastery of Dijon, which on the Nones of July, besides other Saints, celebrates the yearly memory of the holy Radegund the QUEEN and of Paschasia the virgin, whose relics were translated on the same day, the seventh of July, as we noted in our Usuard illustrated at this day. But if the people of Poitiers do not acquiesce in these monuments, let them bring forward more ancient ones, and bring suit against the monks of Dijon, which we for want of more certain information cannot now decide otherwise. Also from the added title of queen we gather that the discourse is of our Saint, when Hugh of Poitiers, book 4 of the History of Vézelay, in the same edition of d'Achery's Spicilegium, volume 3, page 617, reckons among the other sacred relics of that monastery "one mass of the hair of St. Radegund the queen." We do not know of what sort are the relics of St. Radegund which Bartolomeo Piazza in his Hemerology at this day assigns to our church of St. Ignatius at Rome. Rayssius in the Belgian Hierogazophylacium, page 42, makes mention of a veil of St. Radegund the queen, which is preserved at Douai in the church of St. Amatus. We have no leisure to search out other lesser remains of the same Saint, which perhaps before the year 1562 had been carried to other regions, or escaped the sacrilegious fury of the Calvinists. At least no bones of St. Radegund, so far as I know, are shown at Poitiers today.

[88] Nevertheless the nuns of Poitiers, besides the relics of the holy Cross Besides the manifest miracles which happened through the Saint's relics, which St. Radegund received from the East, and the ancient cell of the same Saint, show a precious cup, which alone the holy matron kept out of her royal furniture, and which it befell me to see in that same monastery when in the year 1721 I was journeying through the city of Poitiers into Spain. The most learned Master Jean Filleau, in the Historical Proof of the Litanies of Poitiers, chapter 20, also makes mention of the same cup, and there adds that the sick who draw water from it often wonderfully obtain health. Whatever be the case about this general and vague report of miracles, it is established from ancient instruments that through the intercession of St. Radegund many particular prodigies happened before her tomb. I had determined to subjoin to the Acts these more ancient miracles, which had been examined by the most illustrious prelate of Poitiers, and are preserved in Latin among the Canons of the royal church in an old manuscript: for the French writer just cited, on page 125 of that same lucubration of his, testifies that that Latin manuscript was lent to him by those Canons, and from it he abridged in French certain miracles of the thirteenth century. When I had read these things, two or three years ago I had recourse by letter to Poitiers, that I might obtain a faithful transcript of that Latin manuscript. But since I obtained nothing, the fair reader easily understands that this posthumous glory of the Saint has not been passed over by our negligence.

[89] The praised Master Jean Filleau, in chapter 8 of the Work just cited, reports a famous tradition of the people of Poitiers, The people of Poitiers relate a prodigy about oats, and confirms it from the fifth Lesson of the proper Office, which is every year on the last day of February recited thus in the royal church of St. Radegund and in the monastery of the Holy Cross: "But when it had been announced to blessed Radegund, dwelling in the villa of Saix, which she had received from her husband the king, that Clotaire would shortly be at hand to recall her to the royal city and to their marriage, she fled. And fearing that she might be caught, she commanded a husbandman, upon whom she chanced to come as she journeyed, who was sowing oats, that if he were asked whether he had seen any one making the journey that way, he should truly answer that no one at all had passed by since he sowed his oats; and straightway, by an utterly astounding miracle, it grew up to such a height that the Queen could safely be hidden in it. When the king came thither, and was informed of the course of the matter, he lays aside at once his purpose and his journey." This Office was examined by theologians and approved by the bishop of Poitiers in the year 1617, as the same most learned writer notes in the chapter cited.

[90] But although the approbation of this prodigy is so recent, yet the tradition of it is more ancient: for Antoine Beaugendre published a similar history among the Works of the venerable Hildebert, column 908 and following, from a manuscript codex of Poitiers, which for the sake of St. Radegund in which there is inserted a preface before the Acts of St. Radegund, in which, besides other things which do not concern this matter, the following are read to our present purpose: "Lastly, when she was coming to the villa of Saix, situated in the territory of Poitiers, it was announced to her that the king wished to recall her to his wedlock. And, as has been ascertained from the report of the ancients, that Blessed woman, straightway setting out on her way, met a certain husbandman sowing oats, whom she addressed with these words: If thou shalt be asked by any one whether two days ago thou sawest any one there making his way,"

"answer firmly that no one has passed by on such a journey from that hour when thou wast sowing this oats. And by divine ordinance the oats itself was suddenly increased, so that the aforesaid Queen could be hidden in it. And presently the aforesaid king, when he had come to the said place, questioned the same husbandman, who wisely narrated in order all the things which he had heard from the blessed Queen. Then the king, having received the answer from the husbandman, and beholding the course of the miracle, turned back, preferring to send away his own wife rather than to offend the clemency of God."

[91] suddenly grew up, Lest any one be deceived by the specious name of a manuscript codex, the praised Benedictine editor, after the lucubration of the venerable Hildebert on the Acts of St. Radegund, which we shall reprint below, and before the aforesaid preface, part of which we exhibited in the preceding number, thus advises the reader: "To this little work on the Life of St. Radegund, taken from one of the manuscripts of Poitiers, we have judged it would not be amiss if we should weave on the preface which is read in the other, kindly sent to us by our Dom Léonard Senemaud, monk of the monastery of St. Cyprian of Poitiers of our congregation, from whom we had also the picture of St. Radegund placed at the beginning, and delineated by his care, and who after Stephanotius reviewed the aforesaid manuscripts again most exactly. But this preface seems to favor the tradition famous among the people of Poitiers concerning the miracle of the oats, which, as they relate, and as is here narrated, so suddenly and miraculously grew that St. Radegund was hidden among them, while she fled from king Clotocarius or Clotaire, who desired to recall her from the monastery to the palace and to their former marriage. Since however neither Gregory of Tours makes mention of this circumstance, nor Fortunatus, the most intimate friend of the holy Queen, nor Baudonivia, a nun her contemporary and familiar, who described her Life even to minute details, nor after them our Hildebert, let the reader see what he judges of a tradition of this kind." Although in this place the editor seems altogether to leave the judgment on this matter to the reader, yet in the index of that same edition, at the name of St. Radegund, he also opens his mind more clearly in these words: "The miracle of the oats, in which, growing suddenly, the holy Queen is said to have hidden herself, 908. Very doubtful, ibid., n." Since therefore the venerable Hildebert made no mention of this tradition, and it therefore probably arose after the twelfth century, on account of the silence of the ancient authors we require more certain and more ancient monuments before we give it firm historical credence.

[92] and another about the footprint of Christ impressed on a stone, Among the nuns of the Holy Cross at Poitiers another tradition flourishes, and in a certain chapel there is shown a stone on which Christ, appearing to St. Radegund, is said to have left the print of his foot impressed. Whence this place is by the inhabitants commonly called in the vernacular Pas-Dieu, that is, the Step of God. The aforesaid nuns celebrate the yearly memory of this apparition on the third day of August with a proper Office, and at the end of the sixth Lesson recite the aforesaid tradition in these words: "But from the tradition of our elders handed down even to us we have received that Christ left the print of his foot, which still exists and is commonly called the Step of God, impressed on the stone to which the Queen when praying was wont to cling with bended knees; whence, the memory recurring in each year, on the third of August the solemnity of so great an apparition, handed down from our elders to this time, is wont to be celebrated with especial honor in the monastery of that same holy Queen." These things we have learned from the most learned Master Jean Filleau, who in chapter 10 of the aforesaid Work strives to confirm this tradition from a certain manuscript chronicle of uncertain age, and there cites for it some more recent writers. But certainly it is strange that Baudonivia, a contemporary, who below in us at number 34 reports this very apparition of Christ, makes no mention of the impressed footprint. We also greatly wonder that Gregory of Tours was silent about the impression of this print, which without doubt the nuns would have shown him when after the death of St. Radegund he was led by them through the several places of the monastery in which the Saint had been wont to read or to pray, as we reported above at number 84 more fully from himself.

[93] But to this negative argument may be opposed the revelation of the venerable Marie de Maillé, but neither of these two traditions is sufficiently established, whose Acts our Elders illustrated at the twenty-eighth day of March, where in volume III of that month, page 758, in the Process for the canonization of that pious woman, from the sworn testimony of a priest of Tours the following are juridically reported: "Likewise he deposes that it was revealed to him by the said lady that she herself, in the year ninety-two (namely above one thousand three hundred), about the feast of Corpus Christi, desiring with her said confessor to visit the threshold of blessed Radegund, went to Poitiers; and when she had entered the church in the monastery of the Holy Cross of Poitiers, where is the holy footprint of Christ, out of humility accounting herself unworthy to approach the aforesaid footprint, she prostrated herself in prayer in the lower part of the said church, far from the same footprint. But as she thus prayed she was suddenly carried to the place of the aforesaid footprint, and there she saw the foot of the wounded Christ, and saw his face on fire, which from foot to crown burned in flame; and further she saw a ladder set up, by which St. Radegund was ascending into heaven, and by this she understood that St. Radegund had ascended into heaven by the steps of humility." Although historical questions cannot be determined from the revelations of ecstatic women, as our Papebroch taught in volume VI of May from page 246 and elsewhere, nevertheless we freely confess that no slight weight is added to this tradition from that heavenly vision of a most pious woman, in which nothing absurd or contrary to history is found. Wherefore we cannot utterly reject that tradition of the nuns, which rests on some foundation. Since however contemporary and nearly contemporary authors are deeply silent about this visible footprint of Christ, which could not have been unknown to them, we do not dare safely to admit it as a certain token of this apparition. Finally to these we shall now subjoin a third tradition of slighter or perhaps of no moment.

[94] Louis Moréri in the Historical Dictionary, at the French name Poictiers, notes that not far from Poitiers on the road which leads to the city of Bourges there lies a huge stone, resting on four other stones (some count five smaller stones set under this larger one), which is called by the neighbors in the vernacular la pierre levée, to which some add a third, which seems plainly fabulous. and on which is inscribed the following distich:

"This stone surpasses in weight a huge Colossus, and with a vast mass of heaviness seeks the stars."

On the testimony of the same Moréri, certain natives tell ridiculous little tales about this mass of stone, which do not fall far short of the inventions of François Rabelais, the French satirical writer, who in his fabulous history of Pantagruel makes mention of the same rock, and invents some things which do not deserve to be reported here. Some of the aforesaid natives relate among other things that those stones were brought to this place by our Saint, as Justus Sincerus attests in his Latin Itinerary of Gaul, which we see cited in the same place by Moréri and by the most recent editors of Gallia Christiana, volume 2, column [ ]: for that Justus, in the Strasbourg edition of this little work, in us at page 215, after a brief description of Poitiers and its neighborhood, asserts that "not far from the city of Poitiers there is shown a very large stone, sixty feet in circumference, set upon five others, praised by Rabelais in his Satire." Then he adds there, to our purpose, these words: "They say that blessed Radegund carried it hither on her head, and the other five in her bosom." Similar things are found more fully and distinctly in the Flemish topography of Gaul, which is chiefly taken from Matthäus Merian, volume 3, page 286. But we think that this popular tradition is circulated only among the common folk or the peasants: for while we stayed at Poitiers for some days in the month of October of the year 1721, we heard no mention made of such a matter by learned men. Wherefore that tradition of the vulgar obtains with us scarcely greater credit than the fictitious history of Rabelais, and we judge that it is exploded by the sensible people of Poitiers themselves. These are the chief things which we have judged should be examined concerning the deeds of St. Radegund in this preliminary Commentary, to which we now subjoin the various Acts of the same Saint and certain miracles.

ACTS, OR THE FIRST BOOK OF THE LIFE,

by the author St. Venantius Honorius Clementianus Fortunatus, bishop of Poitiers, and contemporary with the Saint.

From a manuscript codex preserved among the Cistercians of the monastery of Vauluisant, whose transcript we have collated with various manuscripts and with the Mabillonian edition.

Radegund, queen, afterward a nun, at Poitiers (St.)

BHL Number: 7048

FROM THE MANUSCRIPTS.

PROLOGUE.

The author praises strong women, So rich is the bounty of our Redeemer that in the female sex he celebrates strong victories, and makes women, more fragile in body, themselves glorious by the virtue of a living ^a mind; who, having softness by birth, he himself makes strong by faith, so that they who seem weak, while they are crowned for their merits, may heap up the praise of their Creator, by whom they are made strong, having treasures laid up in earthen vessels, in whose inward parts, with his own riches, King Christ himself is the dweller: who, mortifying themselves to the world, despising fellowship with the earth, having cleansed themselves from the contagion of the world, not trusting in what is slippery, standing firm * amid the fall, seeking to live to God, are joined to paradise unto the glory of the Redeemer. In which number is she whose course of the present life, though in humble speech, we attempt to bring before the public, that she whose life is with Christ may have the memory of her glory celebrated in the world ^b.

ANNOTATIONS.

memory, glory and story may with worthy observance be celebrated by all people in the world." Hence judge of the remaining Acts, which in the Böddeken manuscript differ from the other copies, and are changed in almost the same manner.

* elsewhere "Christus"

* elsewhere "deserto"

* elsewhere "non stantes"

CHAPTER I.

The Saint's native land, royal lineage, coming into Gaul, upbringing, piety, and marriage with king Clotaire.

among whom St. Radegund as a girl, The most blessed Radegund, therefore, of barbarian nation, from the region of Thuringia ^a, her grandfather king Bassinus, her uncle Hermenfred, her father king Bertharius ^b; so far as the height of the world reaches, sprung of royal seed, though lofty in origin, was nevertheless much loftier in action. Who, when she had remained but a short time with her most exalted parents, in the barbarian tempest, the region being laid waste by the victory of the Franks, goes forth after the manner of Israel and migrates from her country. Then among the victors themselves there arises a contention over the captive, whose the royal maiden should be in the booty; and had she not been given up when the strife was ended, the kings would have moved arms against each other; and she, coming into the lot of king Clotaire, was led into the region of Vermandois ^c to the royal villa of Athies ^d, and assigned to guardians for her upbringing. Which maiden, among the other works which suited her sex, was instructed in letters; often speaking with the little ones, if the lot of the time should offer it, desiring to become a martyr. Already then the Girl showed the merits of old age, obtaining in part what she asked. Finally, while the Church was flourishing in peace, she herself endured persecution from those of the household. But the Maiden, still of tender age and dedicated to God, made it her care that whatever food remained to her, gathering the little ones and cleansing their heads, she herself brought in; she herself mixed the drink for the little children ^e.

[3] being brought from Thuringia into Gaul, This also the most holy woman did with the little cleric Samuel, a wooden cross being made to go before them, while, following it and singing psalms, the little ones with mature gravity hastened together to the oratory ^f; she herself, however, polishing the pavement with her own garment: and around the altar, gathering the dust that lay there with a face-cloth ^g, she rather laid it aside with reverence outside than swept it away. And when the aforesaid king wished to receive her at Vitry ^h, the expenses being made ready, she slipped away by night from Athies with a few by way of Beralcha ⁱ. Then, when he had brought her to Soissons ^k to raise her up as queen, she shunned the royal pomp, that she might not grow great in the world; but she to whom human glory also is due is not changed. She married therefore an earthly prince, yet not separated from the heavenly one. And when worldly dignity had come upon her, her will bowed down more than her dignity permitted, being ever subject to God, following the admonitions of priests, more partaken of by God than joined in wedlock. But of that time we attempt to make plain a few things out of the many which she did.

[4] she marries king Clotaire, Therefore, being joined to a prince, fearing lest she should be degraded before God while she advanced in worldly rank, she dedicated herself with her substance to almsgiving: for when anything came to her from the tributes, out of all the things which came to her she gave the tithes before she received them. Then what remained she dispensed to monasteries; and where she could not go on foot, she went round by sending a gift: from whose munificence not even the hermit could hide himself; and lest she be weighed down by the burden, she gave away what she had received. With her the voice of the needy never sounded in vain, nor did she pass it by deaf, often giving garments, believing that under the poor man's clothing she covered the members of Christ: reckoning that she lost whatever she had not given to the poor. Still stretching her mind to the work of mercy, she sets up a house at Athies; where, beds being carefully arranged and needy women gathered, she herself washing them in the baths, cured the corruption of their diseases, washing the heads of the men, doing them service, and to those whom she had washed she with her own hand mixed drink ^l, that the draught taken might refresh them, wearied with sweat. Thus the devout Woman, born and married a queen, mistress of the palace, served the poor as a handmaid.

[5] and in marriage But at her own table, secretly, that she might be known by no one, a dish with pulse being set before her, amid the banquets of kings, after the manner of the Three Children, she fed with delight on beans or lentils. But for the chanting of the divine Office ^m, even if she were sitting at dinner, that she might render God his due, she withdrew herself from the feast. And having gone out to sing psalms to the Lord, she carefully inquired with what food the poor had been refreshed outside. Likewise at night-time, when she lay with the prince, asking to rise for human necessity, and rising, going out of the chamber, she lay so long at prayer before the privy chamber, a haircloth being thrown down, that, warm with the spirit alone, she lay pierced through with cold, all her flesh half-dead: her mind, intent on paradise, caring nothing for the torments of the body, reckoned exceedingly light whatever it bore, so only that she should not become of little worth with Christ. Returning thence into the chamber, she could scarcely be warmed either by the fire or by the bed. Of whom it was said to the king that he had for a bedfellow a nun rather than a queen.

[6] Whence he, being provoked, was most harsh for her good deeds; but she, partly soothing him, of penance, partly bore with moderation the quarrels brought upon her by her husband. But of the days of Lent it is enough to know how she covered herself, doing penance alone amid royal garments. Therefore, as the time of the fast drew near, she used to send to a religious nun by name Pia; and she reverently sent to her, for that holy purpose, a haircloth sealed in a linen wrapper: which the Saint, putting on next her body, carried through all Lent beneath her royal garment as a sweet burden. And when the days of Lent were past, she likewise sent back the haircloth sealed; but if the king were away, who would believe how she poured herself out in prayer, how she bound herself as it were to the feet of Christ present, and, as though filled with delights, so was satisfied with tears in a long fast? For whom, the food of the belly being despised, Christ was all her refreshment, and all her hunger was in Christ.

[7] With what piety did she carefully perform this, that she should continually supply candles made with her own hands, which should shine through the whole night in the oratories or venerable places? of charity, Whence at the evening hour, when it was announced to her late that the king was seeking her at table, while she was busy about the things of God, she had quarrels from her husband, so that many times the prince made satisfaction by gifts for what he had sinned by his tongue. If any of the servants of God, whether of himself or being invited, was seen to come at her call, thou wouldst see her have a heavenly gladness; and when the hour of night came round, going with a few to the baths through snow, mud or dust, warm water being made ready, she herself washed and wiped the feet of the venerable man, and, though the servant of God resisted, she offered him the cup. On the following day, committing the care of the house to stewards ⁿ, she occupied herself wholly about the words of the just man, about the ordinances of salvation, and was held for days about the gaining of the traffic of the heavenly life. And if a pontiff came, she was gladdened at the sight of him, and, herself sorrowful, let him go home rewarded.

[8] That also, how prudently she took care to spend all for her own salvation: practicing works of the other virtues, as often as she was clothed after the barbarian manner, as it were with a "maforte" ^o, a linen scarf [p] adorned with gold or gems, if by the boys standing about * it was praised as most beautiful, judging herself unworthy to be arrayed in such a cloth, straightway stripping herself of the garment, she sent it to a holy place, whichever was nearest, and they were set upon the divine altar for a pall. And of what sort was her grief when any one, as often happens, was appointed by the king to be put to death for a capital fault — the most holy Queen died with torment lest the appointed criminal should die by the sword? How did she run about among the household servants, the faithful attendants, and the nobles, by whose blandishments she soothed the prince's mind, until from that very wrath of the king, whence the lot of death had gone forth, from thence there should run forth the word of safety?

[9] Being therefore occupied with these blessed acts, the divine clemency so far advanced her she shines with miracles. that even while still a laywoman in the palace, by the Lord's bounty, miracles were manifested through her. At length in the villa of Péronne [q], after dinner, while the most Holy woman was walking through the garden, men shut up for a crime cried out for help, calling out from the prison. And she asks what it was. The servants lie, saying that a crowd of beggars was seeking alms; and she, believing this, sends what their need required. Meanwhile those who were held in fetters are compelled by the judge to be silent. But when night had come, and she was making her accustomed course [r] of prayer, their chains being broken, they, loosed, meet the Saint from the prison. Which being known, those who lied to the Blessed woman saw themselves guilty, while those who had been guilty were loosed from their chains.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. "Savanum" or "sabanum," among the other significations which Du Cange sets forth in the work just praised, is used for a fine cloth; but since "linen" is here added, it rather seems that in this place a certain precious linen cloth is indicated.

q. By this distorted name "Perunna" is meant Péronne, a fortified city of Gaul in Picardy, concerning which more may be seen in Valois, Notitia of the Gauls, page 442. For the rest, Mabillon in the Work on Diplomatics, book 4, chapter CXI, touches in a word on the same miracle which happened there, and on that occasion indicates the immemorial cult of our Saint in that place in these words: "Hence the famous cult of Radegund at Péronne, to whose name a suburban church was long ago dedicated."

r. At first sight this might be understood of the night, which was performing its accustomed course. But in the Mabillonian edition it must be understood of the Saint herself, whom the captives loosed from their chains are said to have met "while she was saying her course," that is, while she was reciting the divine Office. This meaning is confirmed from our Böddeken transcript, in which the copyist thus more freely interprets that sentence: "But when night had come, and she was pouring forth prayers to the Lord by chanting the course (that is, the Office), those bound men, loosed from their chains by divine power, met the holy Queen from the prison."

* elsewhere "vergebat"

* elsewhere "puellis"

CHAPTER II.

The Saint's divorce from her husband, her monastic profession, her mercy toward the poor and the sick confirmed by miracles.

With the king's consent, she becomes a nun, And since frequently by some occasion, the divine power prospering it, a mishap turns to salvation, that she might live more religiously, her brother is slain innocently ^a. Being directed therefore by the king, coming to blessed Medard at Noyon, she urgently supplicates that, her garb being changed, he would consecrate her to the Lord. But mindful of the Apostle saying: "If any woman be bound to a husband, let her not seek to be loosed," he put off the Queen, that he might not clothe a nun with the garb. To this also the nobles disturbed the blessed man, and heavily dragged him back through the basilica from the altar, that he should not veil her who was joined to the king; lest it should appear that the priest presumed to withdraw from the prince a queen, not a publican woman but a public one ^b. Which the most Holy woman perceiving, entering into the sacristy, she is clothed with a monastic garment, and going forth to the altar, addresses the most blessed Medard with these words, saying: If thou shalt delay to consecrate me, and shalt fear man more than the Lord, the soul of the sheep shall be required from thy hand as shepherd. Shaken by which adjuration, laying on his hand he consecrated her a deaconess ^c.

[11] Presently the noble garment in which on a most famous day she was wont and showing exceptional munificence to go forth as Queen with attendant pomp, being stripped off, she lays on the altar; and, the gems being taken off ^d, the venerable woman loads the table of the divine glory with her ornaments. Her girdle ^e, heavy with gold, broken up, she gives for the work of the poor; likewise, coming to the cell of St. Jumer ^f, on one day, on which the happy Queen used to adorn herself in due order, she handed over to the holy altar — to speak, if I may so say, in barbarian speech — her "stapio" ^g, her shifts, sleeves, coifs, brooches; all of gold, some adorned with gems set round, which would have profited herself. Going forth thence to the cell of the venerable Dado ^h, on the day on which she should have been excellently adorned in the world, whatever the Woman, rich in wealth, could put on, she gave the whole to the monastery, the abbot being recompensed. Thence, having gone forward to the retreat of the holy Gundulf, afterward made bishop of Metz ⁱ, she ennobled the community ^k with no less labor. Hence, borne by a prosperous voyage to Tours ^l, what eloquence could supply how dutiful, how munificent she showed herself? What she did about the courts, the churches, the basilica of St. Martin, weeping with unsated tears, lying at each threshold, where, Mass being celebrated ^m, she adorns the sacred altar with the garments and the ornament with which she was wont to array herself in the palace with more brilliant attire. Hence, when the Handmaid of the Lord had come to the village of Candes ⁿ, where the glorious man Martin, and a senator very intimate with Christ, departed from the world, she gave no lesser gifts, growing in the grace of the Lord.

[12] toward the churches, Hence, when she was fittingly coming, the journey prospering, to the villa of Saix ^o in the territory of Poitiers near the aforesaid village, what manner of woman she showed herself in each thing, who could reckon up things without number? Who even at table used secretly to eat wheaten bread [*] hidden beneath a flat-cake [p], or barley bread, so that no one perceived it. For from that time in which, blessed Medard consecrating her, she was veiled, until her sickness, except pulse and vegetables, she had for eating neither apple, fish, nor egg, nor anything else: and for drink she drank nothing but honeyed water and perry [q]; but pure wine or a decoction of mead [r] or the thick brew of beer [s] she did not touch. Then after the manner of St. Germanus [t] she orders a mill to be brought to her most secretly, at which she labored through all Lent as much as a four days' refection demanded. Making also the oblations with her own hands, she dispensed them unceasingly to venerable places. Therefore with the Saint the practice of mercy was no less than was the concourse of the people, so that neither was there wanting one to ask, nor did that fail which was given. It is to be wondered at, that she satisfied all: whence so many treasures for an exile, whence so many riches for a stranger.

[13] her mercy toward the sick, How much a continual ransoming spent, she alone knew who carried it to those who asked: for besides the daily table with which she refreshed the poor-list [v], always on two days, namely the fifth day of the week and Saturday, a bath being prepared, she herself, girt with a linen apron, washed the heads of the sick, scrubbing away whatever there was of scab, of itch, of ringworm, and not loathing purulent matter, sometimes even drawing out worms, cleansing the corruptions of the skin, and one by one combing the heads which she had washed. But the sores of the scars, which the loosened skin had laid bare or which the nails had made rough, she soothed after the Gospel manner by pouring on oil, salving the infection of the disease. And of the women who went down into the tub [w], she herself with soap washed each limb from head to sole. When they came out thence, if she saw any one's clothing to be worn out, taking away the frayed things [x], she gave new ones: before they were ragged, she made them come well-clad to dinner. And when they were gathered, the service being made ready, she herself offered water and a napkin to each, and to the weak she herself likewise wiped mouth and hands. Then three courses being brought in, stuffed with delicacies, standing fasting before those who ate, being present with the guests she herself cut the bread, the meat, and whatever she set before them. And to the sick and the blind she ceased not to reach food with a spoon, and this not with two attendants present, but with herself alone serving, so that like a new Martha she was busy until the brethren, well filled with drink [y], became glad at the banquets.

[14] the poor Then she, removing herself from the place to wash her hands, showed all favor to the well-provided banquet: but if any rose up for the sake of honoring her, she bade them sit down until they should themselves wish to rise. And every Lord's day, summer or winter, she had this as a rule [z] for the venerable ones, that when the poor were gathered she first with her own hand offered unmixed drink from the sweet cup, afterward committing it to a maiden that she should serve it to all; because she herself hastened to go to prayer, that she might both complete her course [aa] and go to the priests invited to table, whom, still after the royal manner, when they returned home she would not let go without a gift.

[15] With what sweetness did she perform this thing also, which makes one tremble! and the lepers, When lepers, coming, made known their presence by a sign, she bade her attendant inquire with pious care whence and how many they were. And when she reported to her, a table being prepared, spoons, dishes, benches [bb], drink and cups being sent, she alone following was let in secretly, so that no one perceived her. Thereupon she herself, embracing in her arms women covered with the various spots of leprosy, kissed them in God, loving them with her whole soul. Then, the table being set, bringing warm water she washed their faces, hands, nails and sores, and again waited on them, herself feeding each. To those who departed she gave the comfort of gold or of a garment, being bountiful with scarcely one witness. Yet her attendant ventured to address her with soothing words thus: Most holy Lady, who shall kiss thee, who thus embracest lepers? To whom she answered kindly: Truly, if thou kiss me not, I have no care about it.

[16] Who nevertheless, by God's granting, shone with divers miracles. she wonderfully restored health to many. At length, if any one despaired of the wound of an ulcer, the Saint's attendant offered her a vine leaf, pretending * that she had need of it; and thus having with difficulty obtained her sign of the cross upon it, she carried it to the despaired-of patient, and when it was laid upon the wound, straightway the remedy came. Then, if one came who had a fever [cc] or was sick, saying that he had seen in sleep that for his health he should come to the holy Woman, he offered a candle to one of her attendants; and when it was lighted, in the night the sickness received death, the sick man health. And as often as she learned of one lying in bed, bringing exotic fruits, she refreshed the sick man with sweet and warm at once: and one who had not taken food even for ten days, at once when she ministered to him, sick as he was, received food and health together: which nevertheless she herself commanded that no one should spread abroad as a tale [dd].

ANNOTATIONS.

p. "Flado" or "flanto" is a kind of cake, as is more fully explained in the reprinted edition of Du Cange's Glossary.

q. "Piratium" is the juice pressed from pears for a drink.

r. "Medus" or "meda" is a drink which is made from honey.

s. I suspect that the "thickness" of beer is here spoken of, because beer, or water boiled with grain, is generally turbid.

t. This is St. Germanus of Auxerre, of whom similar things are reported in his Acts, illustrated at the 31st day of July, as we advised in §4 of the preliminary Commentary.

v. "Matricula" is taken for a little book in which were inscribed the names of the poor who were fed at the expense of the church. In this place that word seems to be used for a certain number of the needy, who were perhaps inscribed in such a book.

w. "Tina" is a kind of tub, which the French still call "tine" or "tinette."

x. "Rasa," that is, worn out, so far as I conjecture from the sense.

y. Surius for "potulenti" reads "purulenti." Both these readings can be explained: for "potulenti" is to be understood of those refreshed with drink; but the meaning of the other word is clear.

z. "In canone," that is, in the order or custom of her actions.

aa. "Cursus" in this place means the divine or ecclesiastical Office, as we advised above.

bb. For "scamnis" it seems we should read "cannis," as the edition of Surius and of Mabillon has, and in both of these the sense here differs somewhat from our transcript. But "cannae" are baskets, or wicker vessels, as Mabillon explains.

cc. "Frigoreticus" or "frigoriticus" in this place, unless I am mistaken, means one suffering from fever.

dd. Surius and Mabillon read "in fabula." But however thou readest, it is plainly enough forbidden here that any one should publish those miracles.

* elsewhere "Vimeri," and "Nimeris" or "Eumeris"

* elsewhere "Gengulphi"

* elsewhere "segalatium"

* elsewhere "&"

* that is, feigning

CHAPTER III.

The Saint's rigid fasting, the meanest services of the monastery, and the severe chastisement of her body.

The Saint fasts austerely, How great was the concourse of the people on the day on which the Saint determined to shut herself in, so that those whom the streets could not hold went up and filled the roofs. But what the most Holy woman frequently attained of fasting, of service, of humility, of charity, of labor and of torment, if any one should run through all, he would proclaim her both confessor and martyr. Therefore, except on the Lord's day, there was for the venerable and most holy woman a fast on all days: an almost fasting refection of lentils or vegetables; having neither fish nor apple nor egg for food. But her bread of delicacies was wheaten * or barley bread, which she took hidden beneath a flat-cake, that no one might perceive it. This also was her drink, honeyed water and perry, but sipped moderately, and a thirsty drinking.

[18] In her first Lent, in which she shut herself in a cell, especially in Lent, until it was over she took no food except on the Lord's day, but only roots of herbs, or vegetables of mallows, prepared without a drop of oil, without salt; and taking in the whole fast not even two sextarii of water, she labored under so great a thirst that, her throat being dried up, she could scarcely, parched, say a psalm. And having a haircloth * next her body instead of linen, and continually chanting her course, she kept vigils: having before her ashes spread with a haircloth thrown over them, she used this for a bed: her very rest wearied her, to whom it seemed too little for her poor body to endure this. Moreover, while all the nuns were sleeping, wiping and greasing their shoes, she sent them back to each. In other Lents, relaxing something, she took food on the fifth day of the week, and then on the Lord's day: for in the rest of the time too, except the paschal days and those of the highest festival, so long as sickness allowed, she always led an austere life in ashes and haircloth; rising to sing psalms before the congregation had risen. For of the monastic offices nothing pleased her unless she served first; and she chastised herself if she had done a good work after another.

[19] and among mean household services, Therefore in her turns, sweeping the courts or corners of the monastery, cleaning whatever was foul, and the loads which others shuddered to look at, she did not shrink from carrying away. Not delaying either to cleanse the privy, but, sweeping, she bore the stenches of dung. She believed herself less than herself if she did not ennoble herself by the meanness of service, carrying wood in her arms, and stirring up the fire by blowing and with tongs, and, falling * , yet not hurt, she did not draw back, serving the sick beyond her own week. She herself cooking food, washing the faces of the sick, herself offering the warm drink, she visited those whom she cherished, returning fasting to her cell. Who also could set forth with what fervor, being roused, she ran about to the kitchen, taking her week?

[20] which she gladly performed, At length no one of the nuns but she alone carried as a burden from the back door ^a as much wood as was needed. She drew water from the well, and dispensed it in vessels, cleaning vegetables, washing pulse, quickening the fire with her breath; and, that she might cook the food, she busied herself, sweltering, herself lifting the vessels from the fire, washing the dishes and bringing them in. Hence, the meals being ended, she herself washing the vessels, cleaning the kitchen brightly, whatever was filthy she carried outside to the appointed place. Thence, carrying necessaries to the sick, she went with no lukewarmness: and before she received the rule of Arles ^b, her week being over, the most Holy woman showed kindness ^c sufficiently to all; washing and kissing their feet, and still, prostrate before all, she begged pardon for any negligence committed. And so after so many labors, he who tells with his voice what penalties she inflicted on herself, shudders.

[21] she afflicts her body On one occasion, on the days of Lent, she bound about her neck and arms iron rings which had been brought to her, and, inserting three chains around her body, when she had bound them tightly, the tender flesh growing over enclosed the hard iron: and when, the fast being over, she wished to draw out the chains shut up beneath the skin, and could not, the flesh over the iron of the chains was cut round about along her back and breast; so that the blood poured forth at last emptied her poor body. Then on another occasion she ordered a plate to be made of brass in the sign of Christ, which, being heated, she pressed deeply into herself in two places of her body in her cell, all the flesh being burned through. Thus, with a flaming spirit, she made her limbs to burn.

[22] in horrible ways. Devising yet something more grievous against herself as her own torturer, in one of the Lents, above the austere fast and the parching torment of thirst, while yet the file of the haircloth was tearing her tender limbs with its rough bristles, she orders a basin ^d full of burning coals to be brought. Hence, the rest departing, though her limbs trembled, her mind is armed for the punishment, considering that these were not times of persecution, that she might become a martyr. Amid these things, that she might cool so fervent a mind, she resolves to burn her body; she applies the glowing brass; her limbs hiss as they burn, the inmost skin is consumed: where the heat touched, a pit is made; keeping silence, she covers the holes; but the rotting blood revealed what her voice did not betray in the pain. Thus the woman for the sweetness of Christ gladly received so many bitter things. Hence it came to pass that what she hid, the miracles did not keep silent.

ANNOTATIONS.

* elsewhere "sigalatium"

* elsewhere "etiam"

* elsewhere "calens"

CHAPTER IV.

Divers miracles which the Saint wrought in the time of her monastic life, and on the day of her death.

The Saint, besides a blind woman, And so the wife of the noble Gislodus *, by name Bella, but most wretched from long blindness, asked to be devoutly led from France to Poitiers to the presence of the Saint; whom, though late, being blind, she had brought to her through the silence of the dark night; and prostrate at her knees she scarcely obtains that she would deign to touch her eyes. And as soon as she impressed on her the sign of the cross in the name of Christ, the blindness fled, the light returned, and

in the night season the day shone long upon the bereft woman; so that she who had come dragged along departed with no one leading her. Likewise the maiden Fraifledis, when at the enemy's instigation she was wickedly tormented, in the Saint's hands, and with no delay granted, merited to be cured.

[24] Nor let that miracle be passed over, that a certain woman Leubila, energumens and sick women wonderfully healed, while she was grievously vexed by the adversary in the country, on the following day, the Saint praying, by a new cure of Christ, the skin bursting on her shoulder-blade and a worm coming forth, was publicly restored to health, and, treading on that worm with her foot, declared that she was delivered. Let that also which she did in secret be brought before the people. A certain nun through a whole year, frozen with cold by day, burned with fire by night, for six months not moving a step, when she lay lifeless, another Sister announced to the Saint concerning her infirmity; and because she was utterly exhausted, she ordered warm water to be made, and had the sick woman herself carried to her in her cell and set in the warm water. Hence she orders all to withdraw far off, only the sick woman remaining together with her physician for about two hours: as much as there is of the body from head to sole, she handles the sick limbs. Then, wherever her hand touched, the pain fled from the languishing woman, and she whom two had put in came out sound from the warm bath. She who could not even bear the smell of wine received it, drank, and was refreshed. What more? On the following day, when she was already expected * to depart from the world, she went forth in public whole.

[25] Let there be added to her praise what did not perish from her merit. A certain woman, while she labored grievously under the assault of the enemy, and other miracles and they could scarcely bring the rebellious foe to the Saint, she commands the adversary to prostrate himself with fear on the pavement. Presently at the Blessed woman's word, casting himself on the ground, he who was feared was afraid: and when the Saint, full of faith, had trodden on his neck, he went out with a flux of the belly. And in the least things the glory of the Creator is great. Thus by chance, while a ball of thread * which the Saint had spun hung from the wainscot ^b, a mouse coming to touch it, before it could cut the thread, hung dead in its bite.

[26] she snatches a fisherman from the peril of shipwreck, Let there be inserted in the work a thing worthy of a miracle. A certain Floreius, a man of the same Saint's household, while he was busy at sea for fishing, a whirlwind of the winds arising, the mass of the waves rising, and the sailor not so much bailing * ^c as the wave pouring over, when the ship, being filled, was sinking, in the last extremity he cries out: Holy Radegund, while we obey thee, let us not be given over to shipwreck; but obtain from the Lord that we may be delivered from the deep. Which being said, presently the cloud being put to flight, calm being restored, the wave falling, the prow rose up.

[27] and frees a maiden from a fever. Goda, a maiden of the world, afterward serving God as a nun, while for a long time she lay lamentable on her bed, and, though much medicine was spent, grew the more sick, a candle being made to the measure of her stature, by the Lord's mercy in the name of the holy woman, at the hour when she expected * the chill, she lighted and held the light, by whose benefit the chills were put to flight before the candle was consumed. If for brevity's sake we pass over many things, we sin the more.

[28] At the command of her abbess she puts a demon to flight, Therefore, the rest being swiftly purged, the remedy being extended, when the wife of a certain carpenter was for very many days tormented by an evil spirit ^d, her venerable abbess says jestingly to the Saint: "Believe me, mother; I excommunicate thee if within these three days this woman be not restored purged of the enemy." She said it plainly; but the Saint made the woman do penance secretly at the time of refection. But let us not delay to tell what was done: on the next day, the Saint praying, the adversary went out roaring through her ear and forsook the vessel he had invaded, and the woman with her husband returned safe to her lodging.

[29] restores greenness to a withered laurel, Nor let this be passed over, which is most like in kind: the most Blessed woman asks that a strong laurel tree be plucked up from its place and transferred to her cell for pleasantness. When this was done and it was transplanted, its root not taking hold, it became wholly dry in its leaves. The abbess jestingly lays it to her charge that unless she should pray that the tree might take hold of the earth, she would abstain from food. Which was not said in vain: for at the Saint's intercession the dried laurel grew green again in leaves, branches, and root.

[30] and to various sick persons Of the nuns, one more familiar with her, whose eye a humor of blood had covered, having taken a wormwood herb which the Saint had kept about her breast to cool herself, when she laid it upon her eye, the pain and the blood straightway fled; and from the greenness of the herb, the pains being put to flight, the clearness of light shone forth. Let there be recalled to memory what almost passed by in silence. Anderedus, an agent ^e of the same most Blessed woman, when sons were born to him whom he lost as soon as he saw them, and he had to think of burying them; while the sad mother was giving birth, the weeping parents cast the lifeless little one into the Saint's haircloth; and as soon as it touched the most healthful garment of that noble cloth, the infant returned from death to the office of life, and, growing ruddy, he lifts from the pall the pallor that was near the tomb.

[31] she kindly succors, Who could number the wonders which the merciful clemency of Christ works? The nun Animia, when she was so swollen and stretched with the disease of dropsy that her health was at the last, and the Sisters appointed watched at what moment she should breathe out her spirit, it seemed to her in sleep that the venerable abbess blessed Radegund bade her go down naked into a bath without water. Then the hand of the Blessed woman seemed to pour oil upon the head of the sick woman, and to cover her with a new garment. This service being performed *, when she awoke from sleep nothing of the disease appeared in her, so that she had not even sweated, and the water within was consumed. By which new miracle the disease left not even a trace in her womb. For she who was believed to be about to be carried headlong to the tomb rises from her bed to run; so that the smell of oil remained on her head for a testimony, and there was no destruction of her belly.

[32] Let there be brought forth in public that whereat the whole region may rejoice. and cleaving with all her mind to God, On a certain occasion, when the twilight of night was already overshadowing, while amid pipers * and citherns there was singing with much noise by worldly people around the monastery, and the Saint with two witnesses had prayed at length, a certain nun says in jesting speech: Lady, I have recognized one of my own songs being sung by the dancers. To whom she answered: It is a great thing if it delights thee, joined to religion, to hear the odor of the world. Again the Sister declares: Truly, Lady, I have just now heard here two and three of my songs, which I remembered. The Saint answered: I call the Lord to witness that I have just now heard nothing of a worldly song. Whence it is manifest that, though in the flesh she was in the world, in mind she was in heaven.

[33] Let there be proclaimed to the praise of Christ, after the manner of blessed Martin, she raises a dead girl, the pattern of an ancient miracle in the present time. When the most blessed Woman was shut up in her cell, she heard the weeping of a nun; and, a signal being given, she asks of one who came what it was. And she announced that a little Sister child was dead, and that the cold water in which she should be washed was already made warm. Then the Saint, sorrowing with her, commands that her corpse be brought to her cell. Which being brought to her, receiving it with her own hand, and the door being straightway shut behind her, she bids them withdraw far off, that no one might perceive what she did; but what she did in secret she could not long conceal. Meanwhile, while the obsequies of the dead child were being prepared, for nearly seven hours she handles the poor little body of the dead: but Christ seeing the faith which he could not refuse, health being fully restored, this one rises from prayer, that one rises again from death: and then the old woman lifts herself up, when the little child had risen again *; whom, gladdened again by the touch of the sign of the cross, she gave back alive, whom she had received dead with weeping.

[34] Let there be commemorated also that noble deed done through a dream. and on the day of her death The tribune of the fisc, surnamed Demolenus, on the day on which the most Holy woman departed from the world, while he was utterly failing from a grievous sickness of suffocation, it seemed to him that the Saint had graciously come into his village. He runs, salutes her, asks what the Blessed woman was seeking. Then she says that she had come thither to see him, and, because it was the wish of the people that they should build an oratory of blessed Martin, the most Blessed woman took the tribune's hand, saying: In this place are the venerable relics of the confessor; build here the church which he shall judge most worthy for himself. O what a mystery of God! The foundation and the pavement were found, on which the basilica was made. Still in that same sleep, drawing her hand across his throat and long soothing his gullet, and saying moreover this: I have come that a better health may be conferred on thee by the Lord — she seemed thus to ask: By my life, that thou release those whom thou hast in prison.

[35] The tribune, awaking, tells what he had seen to his wife, she works three miracles, saying: Truly I believe that at this hour the Saint went forth from the world. He sends to the city, that by this he might learn the truth; he sends to the prison, that, being admonished, he might release the seven prisoners detained there. When the messenger returned, he reports that at that hour the Just woman had departed from the world; and by a threefold mystery — the prison being emptied, the tribune restored to health, the church built — he proved the Saint's oracle. But of the Blessed one's miracles let a little suffice, lest abundance breed loathing; nor let it be reckoned very brief, where from a few miracles her greatness is known. With what piety, frugality, love, sweetness, humility, honorableness, faith, fervor she lived, so that even wonders should follow her after the death of her glorious passing, the measure of human eloquence, astonished with wonder, is by no means able to set forth by its own strength ^f.

ANNOTATIONS.

* elsewhere "Gislaadi"

* that is, it was believed

* elsewhere "glomus"

* elsewhere "sentinante"

* that is, awaited

* elsewhere "mysterio"

* perhaps "choreas"

* elsewhere "revixisset"

OTHER ACTS, OR THE SECOND BOOK OF THE LIFE,

by the author Baudonivia, a contemporary nun and a familiar disciple of the Saint.

From the same manuscript codex preserved among the Cistercians of Vauluisant, whose transcript has also been collated with various manuscripts and with the Mabillonian edition.

Radegund, queen, afterward a nun, at Poitiers (St.)

BHL Number: 7049

FROM THE MANUSCRIPTS.

PROLOGUE.

A nun, being bidden to describe the Saint's Life, To the holy ladies, adorned with the grace of merits, to Dedimia ^a the Abbess, and to all the congregation of the glorious Lady Radegund, Baudonivia ^b, the humblest of all. Ye enjoin upon me a work to do no less impossible than it is to touch heaven with a finger, namely that we should presume to say something of the life of the holy lady Radegund, which ye know most excellently. But that ought to be enjoined on those who, having within themselves the fountain of eloquence, thence set forth more copiously in flowing song whatever is enjoined on them. But on the contrary, whoever are of narrow understanding, and have not the abundance of speech whereby they may both refresh others and temper the poverty of their own dryness, such men not only do not desire to say anything of themselves, but even are greatly afraid if anything be enjoined on them. Which I recognize in myself, who am fainthearted, having little eloquence of understanding, since as much as it is profitable for the learned to speak out, so much is it profitable for the unlearned to be silent. For the former know not how to discourse greatly of small things, the latter how to bring forth small things of great ones: and therefore what is sought from some is dreaded by others.

[2] Since therefore I am the least of all the least, whom from my very cradle she nurtured familiarly at her own feet as her own little home-born servant, she alleges the slenderness of her wit. that, mindful [c] of the favor bestowed, I should touch on her famous work, if not fully, yet in part gathered together, so that while to the ears of her flock the praises of her glorious life may be laid open, in speech, if not worthy, yet devout, I obey your most kindly will, and I ask to be helped by your prayer, I who am less learned and more devout. We do not repeat those things which the apostolic man Fortunatus the bishop ^d composed concerning the Blessed one's life; but those things which he passed over for their prolixity, as he himself set forth in his book, when he said of the Blessed one's miracles: "Let a little suffice, lest abundance breed loathing, nor let it be reckoned very brief, where from a few things her greatness is known" ^e. Therefore, by the inspiring of the divine power, whom blessed Radegund studied to please in the world, and with whom she reigns after the world, we attempt to set forth in speech not polished but rustic the things which she did, and to gather a few out of her many miracles ^f.

ANNOTATIONS.

TITLES OF THE OLD CHAPTERS.

CHAPTER I.

The Saint's birth, marriage with the king, zeal of faith, divorce, profession of the monastic life, and constancy in her purpose.

Of the life of blessed Radegund, as her royal origin and dignity is contained in the first book, While the Saint was still joined to the king, it is unknown to none, and what her action was while she dwelt with an earthly king and husband, the most exalted king Clotaire. From a royal stock a noble shoot burst forth, and what she took from her lineage she adorned the more from faith. Joined to an earthly prince, the noble Queen was more heavenly than earthly, but in that very short time of their union she so bore herself, married under the appearance of a wife, that she served Christ the more devoutly, so that she did in a worldly purpose that which Religion itself would desire to imitate, her mind already anticipating the coming of her future manner of life, while under a worldly habit an example of Religion was formed. Chained by no fetter of this world, girded in the service of the servants of God, careful in the redeeming of captives, lavish in giving to the needy, she believed to be her own whatever the poor man received from her.

II.

[4] When she was still with the king in worldly garb, her mind intent on Christ (I speak with the Lord as witness, she ordered a superstitious shrine to be burned, to whom, though the mouth be silent, hearts confess; to whom, even if the tongue be silent, conscience hides nothing; because we say what we have heard, and we bear witness to what we have seen), being invited to dinner by the matron Ansifrida; while she was making the journey with a worldly retinue attending her, a distance and space of land being passed over, a shrine which was worshipped by the Franks was on the blessed Queen's route about a mile distant. Hearing this, she ordered her servants to burn the shrine with fire, judging it unjust that the Lord of heaven should be despised and diabolical contrivances venerated. Hearing this, the Franks and all the multitude with swords and cudgels and with every diabolical uproar tried to defend it; but the holy Queen, persevering immovable and bearing Christ in her breast, did not move forward the horse on which she sat before both the shrine was burned up and, at her prayer, the peoples made peace among themselves. Which being done, all, admiring the courage and constancy of the blessed Queen, blessed the Lord.

III.

[5] After, by the working of the divine power, she departed from the earthly king, which her vows demanded, while she was dwelling in the villa of Saix, and after the divorce and a wonderful vision, which the king had given her, in the first year of her conversion she saw in a vision a ship in the likeness of a man, and men sitting on all his limbs; and herself sitting on his knee; who said to her: Now thou sittest on my knee; hereafter thou shalt have thy seat on my breast. Hereby was shown to her the grace which she was to enjoy. This vision she reported rather secretly to her faithful ones with an adjuration, that while she lived no one should know it. How cautious in conversation, how devout in every action! In prosperity and in adversity, in gladness and in sadness always the same; neither did she break down in adversity, nor was she lifted up in prosperity.

IV.

[6] While she was still in that villa, a report arises that the king again wished her back, grieving that he suffered a heavy loss [when a rumor was heard that the king wished again to join her to himself as wife,] who had permitted so great and so excellent a Queen to depart from his side; and that unless he received her back, he had no wish to live at all. Hearing this, the most Blessed woman, terrified with excessive fear, gave herself over to be further tormented by a most rough haircloth, and fitted it to her tender body; and moreover added the torment of fasting; passing the nights in vigils, she poured herself out wholly in prayer, despised the seat of her country, overcame the sweetness of wedlock, shut out worldly love, chose to become an exile lest she should be a pilgrim from Christ. Having still of her royal ornament a spindle ^b made of gold and gems and pearls, containing in it a thousand solidi of gold, she sent it to the venerable man lord John ^c, a recluse in the castle of Chinon ^d, by her cousin ^e by name Fridovigia, whom she had near her, with her faithful ones, that he should pray for her that she might not return again to the world; and that he should also send her a garment of haircloth, wherewith she might file down her body ^f. She sent also a haircloth cloak ^g, out of which she made herself an under and an outer garment, so that if he should perceive anything in the Holy Spirit concerning the matter which she feared, he should make her more certain of it. And that if the king should wish this, she would rather choose to end her life than to be again joined to an earthly king, because she was already joined to the embraces of the heavenly King. The man of the Lord therefore, passing the whole night in vigils and prayers, by the divine power inspiring him, on the morrow sent her word that this was the king's will, but that it was not permitted by God: for the king would sooner be punished by God's judgment than he would receive her in marriage.

[7] After this word, the mind of the aforesaid Lady, intent upon Christ at Poitiers, and to withdraw her from the monastery which she had founded, by the Lord's inspiration and co-operation built her a monastery by the ordinance of the most exalted king Clotaire; which building the apostolic man bishop Pientius ^h and duke Austrapius ⁱ, by God's ordinance, swiftly completed. Into which monastery the holy Queen, spurning the false blandishments of the world, entered rejoicing, that she might there seek the ornaments of perfection, and might gather a great congregation of maidens to Christ, a bridegroom who shall never die. And when an abbess was chosen there and now appointed, she handed over both herself and her ornaments to her power, and reserving nothing to herself of her own right, that she might run unencumbered after the footsteps of Christ, and might increase for herself in heaven so much the more as she had withdrawn from the world. Presently her holy conversation began to glow in the practice of humility, in the abundance of charity, in the light of chastity, in the richness of fastings; and she gave herself with all love to her heavenly Spouse, so that, embracing the Lord with a clean heart, she felt Christ to be a dweller within her.

VI. and VII.

[8] But the envious enemy of the good of the human race, whose will she abhorred to do even while she was in the world, by writing a letter she so far prevailed, ceased not to persecute her. For, as she had already learned through messengers what she feared, the most exalted king Clotaire with his most excellent son Sigibert ^k came to Tours, as if for the sake of devotion, that he might the more easily come to Poitiers to take back his Queen. Which being known, blessed Radegund wrote a letter of adjuration ^l under a divine attestation to the apostolic man lord Germanus, bishop of the city of Paris ^m, who was then with the king, which she sent to him rather secretly by Proculus her agent, with a present and with blessed gifts ⁿ. And when the man full of the Lord read it, weeping he prostrates himself at the king's feet before the tomb of St. Martin, with a divine adjuration, as had been signified to him in the letter, that he should not come to Poitiers.

VIII.

[9] Thus the king, full of bitterness, understanding that this was the petition of the blessed Queen, that the king changed his purpose. being led to repentance, laying this to the charge of evil counsellors, and judging himself unworthy, in that he had not merited to have such a Queen any longer, he too prostrates himself before the threshold of St. Martin at the feet of the apostolic man Germanus, begging that he would thus ask pardon for him from blessed Radegund,

that she would forgive him what he had sinned against her through evil counsellors. Whence the divine vengeance took vengeance on them in the present: for as Arius, striving against the Catholic faith, cast forth all his bowels in a privy, so it also befell those who acted against the blessed Queen. Then the king, fearing the judgment of God, because his Queen, while she had dwelt with him, had done God's will rather than his own, asks the blessed man to go thither quickly. Thus the apostolic man lord Germanus, coming to Poitiers, entering the monastery in the oratory dedicated to the name of the Lady Mary, prostrates himself at the holy Queen's feet, asking pardon for the king: and she, rejoicing that she had been snatched from the jaws of the world, kindly forgives, and fitted herself for the service of God. Being now unencumbered to follow Christ whithersoever he went, whom she always loved, she runs to him with devout mind. Intent on such matters, adding an order of vigils, she made herself by watching the keeper as it were of the prison of her own body; and while she was merciful to others, to herself she became a judge, kindly to the rest, severe to herself in abstaining; bountiful to all, sparing to herself, so that, worn out with fastings, it was not enough for her unless she should triumph also over her own body.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER II.

Her chief virtues in the monastic life.

IX.

Being occupied therefore in every way with these pursuits, as was set forth in the first book, While the Saint in the monastery she merited to have leisure readily for the Lord alone. At which time however, clothed with stronger arms, without ceasing she sweated at prayers, vigils, and eager reading. She herself served food to pilgrims at table, she herself with her own hands washed and wiped the feet of the sick. She did not permit help to be given her by a maid-servant, to fulfil which service she ran devoutly. And she shut herself up in so hard a strictness of abstinence, so far as sickness allowed, that her mind, intent on God, no longer sought earthly food. And she made herself a penal bed after she put on the habit of Religion. Never did soft down support it, nor the whiteness of linen furnish it, who for all clothing tamed her tender limbs with ashes and haircloth.

[11] led an austere life, Of the rigor of her abstinence the former book taught many things. For she made herself so poor for God's sake that she gave an example to the rest. She had not a sleeve to put on her arm, but out of her own boot she made herself two sleeves: but she so managed it that not even the abbess perceived it. For who could set forth her patience, who her charity, who the fervor of her spirit, who her discretion, who her kindness, who her holy zeal, who her continual meditation day and night in the law of the Lord? Who, when she seemed to cease from meditation of the psalms or from preaching, yet one of the nuns as reader ceased not to read before her: so far did the praise of God not depart from her heart and mouth, that once when she had seen the doorkeeper ^a of the monastery passing by, by name Eodegundis, when she wished to call her, in place of her name she cried out ALLELUIA. This she did a thousand times.

[12] and there stirring up the nuns to perfection, Never did a lie, never a curse against any person whatsoever proceed from her mouth: and not only did she detract from no one, but neither did she patiently hear one who detracted. For those who persecuted her she always prayed, and taught others to pray. The congregation which she gathered in the Lord's name she so loved that she did not even remember that she had had parents or a king for husband: which she frequently said when she preached to us, saying: You have I chosen as daughters, you are my lights, you my life, you my rest and all my happiness; you are my new planting. Act with me in this world, that we may rejoice in that to come; with full faith and full affection of heart let us serve the Lord in fear, in simplicity of heart let us seek him, that we may be able to say to him with confidence: Give, O Lord, what thou hast promised, because we have done what thou hast commanded.

[13] and performing various acts of charity Never did she lay on any one what she had not first done herself. Whencesoever a servant of God came, she anxiously inquired how he served the Lord. But if she learned from him anything new which she did not do herself, immediately with all alacrity she laid it first on herself, and afterward showed it to the congregation both by word and by example. When by turns the psalm ceased before her, the reading never departed; neither by day nor by night did she refresh her body even a little. When the reading was read, she, bearing with pious care the charge of our souls, said: If ye do not understand what is read, how is it that ye do not carefully seek the mirror of your souls? And if out of reverence they less presumed to ask, she with pious care and motherly affection ceased not to preach what the reading contained, for the salvation of the soul. For as a bee gathers divers kinds of flowers, whence it may make honey, so she strove to pluck spiritual flowerets from those whom she invited, whence she might exhibit the fruit of good work both for herself and for her followers.

[14] While by night she seemed to take sleep for the space as it were of one hour, and of the other virtues yet always a reading was read. The reader, feeling in herself the drowsiness of sleep, thought that she was now resting a little. When she ceased from reading, her mind intent on Christ (as if she should say: I sleep, and my heart waketh) she said: Why art thou silent? Read, cease not. But when midnight made the hour of rising, although before she had fulfilled the whole course of prayer, she who as yet had not felt sleep rose already prepared from her bed rejoicing to the Lord's service, so that she might say with confidence: At midnight I rose to give praise to thee, O Lord. For often she was both seen to sleep and to chant a psalm in that very slumber; so that she might rightly and truly say: The meditation of my heart is ever in thy sight. But the ardor of her charity, with which she loved all men, who could ever imitate? There shone in her all virtues, modesty with bashfulness, wisdom with simplicity, severity with gentleness, learning with humility, a life in short unspotted, a life irreproachable, a life ever equal to itself.

[15] She made herself so much a stranger to her own goods she practiced, that if she wished to give unmixed wine to any of the Sisters, she did not presume to touch it from her own store. Which being known, the venerable abbess ^b gave her a small cask ^c of eight measures, which she entrusted for the expense to blessed Felicitas the cellaress ^d. From one vintage to another she dispensed it every day wherever the Saint bade her, and it never grew less, but always remained the same: but when new wine came, which filled the cellar, she believed she had made an end of the cask; the puncheons ^e and the tuns failed before this one which fulfilled the Blessed woman's will in all things. The Lord fed five thousand men with five loaves and two fishes, and refreshed his handmaid, wherever he saw her to be in need, from this little vessel through a whole year.

[16] Always careful for peace, always solicitous for the safety of the country, and for the peace of the kingdom since the kingdoms were stirred up against one another, because she loved all the kings, she prayed for the life of all, and taught us without ceasing to pray for their stability: but when she heard that they were moved to bitterness against one another, she trembled all over, and such letters as she sent to the one, such she sent to the other, that they should not deal with wars and arms among themselves, but should establish peace, lest their countries should perish. In like manner she sent also to their nobles, that they should furnish counsels to the most exalted kings, so that under their reign the peoples and the country might be rendered more secure. She laid continual vigils on her congregation, and with tears taught them to pray for them without ceasing. But with what torment she afflicted herself, who could set forth in these words? And at her intercession there was peace of kings, mitigation of war, safety of the country, so that the people, understanding that it was obtained by her, praised together the blessed name of the Lord.

[17] Although she obtained from the King of heaven the victory of the peace of kings, she anxiously labored, the more devoted to God she readily

fitted herself, and bound herself to the service of all, not caring what service she performed, who strove with all her strength to fulfil the service. Washing the feet of all with her own hands, wiping them with a linen cloth, and kissing them: and if it had been permitted, after the likeness of Mary she would not have refused to wipe them with her loosened hair: whence, for such immense benefits as were conferred on her by the divine gift, the Lord, the bestower of miracles, rendered her the more famous in miracles in France; where, while she seemed to reign, she prepared for herself rather a heavenly than an earthly kingdom. She had made herself an oratory, so that by turns, when she withdrew herself from the king, she might there always call upon the Lord of heaven, in which the benefits of God are granted at the invocation of her name, whose constant prayer was there.

XI.

[18] After she shut herself up in the monastery, a matron by name Mammezo, God, for her sake, while she was making a journey, a grievous speck of dirt ^f entered into her eye: whereupon there was for her one voice, one pain, one cry by day and by night; so that the Lord might declare his faithful one: who, although she was there no longer in body, was nevertheless kindly present at the invocation of her name. For the Lord put it into her mind that she should go to her oratory, and should believe that at the invocation of her she would be saved. But when the woman, upheld by the hands of servants, was with difficulty led to the oratory, enduring most violent pain, she cast herself on the pavement and began to cry out: Lady Radegund, I believe thee to be full of the power of God, whose will thou didst rather do than that of men; good Lady, full of loving-kindness, have mercy on me; help the unhappy, pray for me, that my eye may be restored to me; because through grievous torment and pain my soul is afflicted. Thus she who, while she was in the body, transferred to herself the pains of all, kindly heard her at the invocation of her name. For, by the Lord's mercy, through her intervention the pain fled, health came, and the eye which she believed she had already lost, the pain being loosed, she received sound. She who for so many days had neither taken food nor seen the light of day returned home whole on her own feet, with none supporting her, giving thanks to the Lord to this present day ^g.

XII.

[19] Let another miracle also be added to the praise of Christ, who makes his own to be feared by others. wrought certain miracles. Vinoberga was one of her servants, who with rash daring presumed to sit in the chair of the blessed Queen after her departure. Which being done, being smitten by God's judgment, she so burned that all saw smoke going up on high from her, and she, confessing before all the people, proclaimed that she had sinned, and that for this reason she burned, because she had sat in the Blessed one's seat. Therefore, having suffered burning for three days and nights, crying out she called: Lady Radegund, I have sinned, I have done ill; forgive me, cool my limbs burned up with hard torment: bountiful in mercy, glorious in good works, thou who hast mercy on all, have mercy on me. Seeing her in so great pain, all the people prayed for her, as if she were present, saying: For wheresoever she is invoked in faith, she is present. Good Lady, spare her, lest the unhappy woman perish in so great torment. Thus the most Blessed one kindly forgives at the prayers of all, restrained the burning fire, and the woman returned home safe; and thus her punishment made all cautious and devout.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER III.

Her reverence toward the sacred remains of the Saints, and toward the relics of the holy Cross.

XIII.

While she was in the villa of Saix, with devout and faithful mind intent on Christ, desiring to gather together relics of the Saints, The Saint, besides other sacred relics, at her prayer there came the venerable man Magnus the priest, with relics of the Lord Andrew and of very many others: and when these were placed upon the altar, when devoutly by night she watched upon a bench ^a, and prostrated herself in prayer, a little slumber came upon her, and, that the Lord might declare to her that her wish was fulfilled, he said to her: Know, blessed one, that not only these relics which the priest Magnus brought are here, but as many as thou didst gather in the villa of Athies have all come together here. But when she opened her eyes, she saw a most resplendent man who had announced this to her, and rejoicing she blessed the Lord.

XIV.

[21] After she entered the monastery, what a multitude of Saints did she gather by most faithful prayers! This the East attests, the North, the South, and the West declare: because from every side she, devout, obtained for herself, as much by gifts as by prayers, precious gems laid up in heaven, and such as paradise has. With whom she believed herself unceasingly to chant psalms and hymns in continual meditation. At length there came to her word concerning the Lord Mammes the martyr ^b, that his holy limbs rested at Jerusalem. Hearing this, greedy and thirsty she drank, like a dropsical man, who, the more he draws from the fountain, the more his added thirst grows; but she, being more wetted with the dew of God, burns. She sent the venerable man Reoval ^c the priest, who was then a layman and still survives in the body, to the patriarch of Jerusalem, asking for a pledge of blessed Mammes. Which the man of God most kindly receiving, proclaimed rogations ^d to the people, seeking the will of God. On the third day, Mass being celebrated, he went with all the people to the sepulchre of the blessed Martyr, and with loud voice and full faith made this attestation, saying: I beseech thee, confessor and martyr of Christ, if blessed Radegund is a true handmaid of God, let thy power be made known to all, and permit that the faithful mind may receive of thy pledge what it asks.

[22] obtained from Jerusalem, The prayer being finished, when all the people answered Amen, he came to the holy sepulchre; ever proclaiming the Blessed one's faith, he touched the limbs, to see what the most blessed one would bid him give at the petition of the lady Radegund. He touched the several fingers on the right hand: when he came to the little finger, it took itself off by a gentle touch from its own hand, that it might satisfy the desire of the blessed Queen and fulfil her will. Which finger the apostolic man sent to blessed Radegund with due honor: from Jerusalem all the way to Poitiers the praise of God ever resounded in his honor. What thinkest thou, with what ardent mind, with what faithful devotion, awaiting the reward of so great a pledge, did she give herself over to abstinence? But when the blessed Queen rejoiced with all alacrity that she had received this heavenly gift, for a whole week with all the congregation she gave herself to psalmody ^e, vigils and fastings, blessing the Lord that she had merited to receive such a gift. But God does not deny to his faithful what they ask: frequently and sweetly, as it were in a figure, so that no one should understand, she said: He who has the care of souls ought greatly to fear praise from men. But none the less, the more she wished to avoid this, the more and more the Bestower of miracles studied to declare her faithful to himself in all things; so that wheresoever a sick man detained by any sickness whatever invoked her, he fully received health.

XV.

[23] An illustrious man, Leo by name, summoned to the counsel of a synod and a certain prodigy being wrought, by the apostolic men Leontius ^f and Eusebius ^g, bishops, while he was making the journey, his eyes were covered with a grievous mist, overspread with a cloud of blood; and unless he went upheld by his servants, he could not see the way at all. He, entering the monastery of the Blessed one, where he devoutly handed over his daughters to her to serve the Lord, went into the oratory dedicated to the name of the Lady Mary: after prayer was made, full of faith he prostrates himself upon the Saint's haircloth, manfully invoking her, and lay upon it so long until the pain departed: the mist was put to flight, the clotted blood carried itself along by the serving veins, and with clear eyes he who had come upheld by hands returned sound: from the Blessed one's haircloth he received his sight; glad and whole, he walked to the synod whither he had set out, which afterward, on his own report, the whole synod heard, and returning thence he related this to us with his own mouth. This devotion made him strike the foundation of the basilica of the lady Radegund, where also he gave a hundred solidi for the making of that building. How many sick were restored to health at her invocation, who could reckon? Who ever saw her and believed her to be an earthly person? By the God of heaven I say confidently and truly that her countenance with her mind always so shone in the eyes of all, that not undeservedly there appeared outwardly what was borne within.

XVI.

[24] After the relics of the Saints were gathered, if it could have been done, she takes care to have a part of the Holy Cross brought from the East, she would have wished the Lord himself from the seat of his majesty visibly to dwell here. And although she did not behold him with carnal eyes, yet spiritually she contemplated him with diligent prayers. But because the Lord will not deprive of good things those who walk in innocence, and whoever shall have sought him with all his heart and all his mind, as this Blessed woman did, the divine clemency will show itself kindly to him, he put it into the mind of her in whose breast he rested day and night, that, as blessed Helena ^h, imbued with wisdom, full of the fear of God, glorious in good works, sought out the saving wood on which the price of the world had been hung, so that when it was found she clapped with both hands, and, kneeling on the ground, adored the Lord, when she recognized in a dead man raised up that the Lord's cross had been laid beneath him, saying: In truth thou art Christ the Son of God, who camest into this world, and hast redeemed with thy precious blood thy captives whom thou didst create. What she did in the Eastern country, this one did in Gaul. And because, while she lived in the world, she would do nothing without counsel

she sent a letter to the most excellent lord king Sigibert, by whose rule that country was governed, that he would permit her, for the safety of his country and the stability of his kingdom, to ask from the emperor a piece of the wood of the Lord's Cross. And he most kindly gave assent to the petition of the holy Queen.

[25] She therefore, full of devotion, kindled with desire, sends to the emperor not gifts, which first at Tours, she who had made herself poor for the Lord's sake, but, prevailing by prayer with the company of the Saints whom she unceasingly invoked, she sent her messengers ⁱ. But she obtained what her vows demanded, so that she gloried that she had the blessed wood of the Lord's cross, adorned with gold and gems, and many relics of the Saints which the East held, resting in one place. For at the petition of the Saint the emperor sent legates with Gospel-books adorned with gold and gems. But when the wood on which the salvation of the world had hung came to the city of Poitiers with a company of the Saints, and the pontiff of the place ^k with all the people would have devoutly received it, the enemy of the human race brought it about through his satellites that they should repel the price of the world, and would not receive it in the city. How blessed Radegund lay under tribulations, they asserting one thing for another in the manner of the Jews, it is not for us to discuss; let them see to it themselves. The Lord knows who are his. But she with fervent spirit and struggling mind sends again to the most kindly king, because they had refused to receive salvation in the city. Meanwhile, until her messengers should return from the lord king, in her monastery of men at Tours which she had founded she committed the cross of the Lord and the pledges of the Saints, with a choir of psalm-singers, that he too might save it.

[26] The holy cross suffered through envy no less injury afterward was placed at Poitiers, than the Lord, who before governors and judges patiently endured all malice, that what he had created might not perish. In how great torment did she place herself? In fastings, in vigils, in the pouring out of tears with all her congregation, until the Lord looked upon the humility of his handmaid; who gave it into the king's heart to do judgment and justice in the midst of the people. For the devout king, through his faithful and illustrious man Justin ^l the Count, sent to the apostolic man lord Euphronius, bishop of the city of Tours ^m, that he should bring into the monastery of the lady Radegund with due honor the glorious cross of the Lord and the relics of the Saints. Which also was done. The Blessed woman exulted with joy with all her cell ⁿ, and conferred on her congregation this good gift and perfect boon from heaven, feeling in spirit that after her passing they would have small power, although she would glory with the King of heaven, whence she could help them.

[27] This heavenly gift, being a most excellent provider and a good governess, it shone with many miracles. that she might not utterly leave her sheep, she left in her monastery — the price of the world, from the pledge of Christ, which she sought from a far-off region — for the honor of the place and the salvation of the people; where, by the co-operating power of God and the ministering might of heaven, the eyes of the blind receive light, deaf ears are opened, the tongue of the dumb returns to its office, the lame walk, demons are put to flight. What more? Whoever, held by any sickness whatever, shall come in faith, returns whole through the power of the holy cross ^o. Who could tell how great and what a gift the blessed woman conferred on this city? Wherefore whoever lives by faith blesses her name. For to the most excellent lord kings and to the most serene queen Brunhild [p], whom she loved with dear affection, and to the most holy churches and to their pontiffs, with a divine adjuration she commended her monastery [q].

ANNOTATIONS.

p. Le Cointe in the Annals of the Franks at the year 613, number 6 and following, strives to clear Brunhild, who is everywhere very ill spoken of among historians, from various crimes, and praises her munificence toward sacred places.

q. Baudonivia here alludes to the diplomas of kings and the decrees of prelates which St. Radegund procured in favor of her monastery.

CHAPTER IV.

Help given to the shipwrecked, and other miracles, the Saint's wonderful vision, and pious death.

XVII.

After this heavenly gift was received, the Blessed woman sent her messengers, Shipwrecked men invoking the Saint the aforesaid priest with others, to the emperor to give thanks, with a simple garment. Meanwhile * the sea began to be driven with waves; wherein they suffered many perils, namely storms and tempests such as they confessed they had never seen: for forty days and forty nights their ship lay in peril in the midst of the sea. Now despairing of life, having death before their eyes, making peace among themselves (because the sea was already swallowing them), seeing themselves in so great peril, they raised their voices to heaven, crying and saying: Lady Radegund, help thy servants: while we obey thee, let us not perish drowned; free us from the peril of death, for the sea is already prepared to swallow us. Wheresoever thou hast been invoked in faith, thou hast had mercy on the wretched. Now help thine own, that they perish not.

[29] At these voices there came in the midst of the sea a dove, which, going three times about the ship, are snatched from the peril of death, at the third time in the name of the Trinity, which the Blessed woman ever loved in her heart, as it flew, a servant of the blessed Queen, by name Banisaius, stretched out his hand and took three feathers from its tail, which dipping in the sea he calmed the tempest; and at the invocation of the Blessed one's name the dove which appeared restored her servants from the gate of death to life, and there was a great calm in the midst of the sea. And they, crying with a loud voice, said: Thou hast come, good Lady, full of loving-kindness, to snatch away thine own, that they be not drowned in the waves. At her invocation not only her own, but all were delivered by her power. Those very feathers they brought hither ^a, and those who were saved from death devoutly gave gifts through the holy places.

[30] But wheresoever she has been invoked, she kindly hears. the sick are healed, If one having a fever, or an ulcer ^b, or held by any sickness whatever, could not come to her because of the great distance of land between, a candle lighted in her name drove away every fever. How greatly she loved her congregation, who could tell? Not if one should move the quill of the tongue with a hundredfold sound could he accomplish this. She ordained that while they took refreshment a reading should always be read, that not only the throat should receive food, but the ears also hear the word of God. Whatever she either enjoined on others or did herself, she always fulfilled all for God's sake: whatever she forbade to be done, or avoided doing herself, all was in the zeal of God, and she neither did nor savored anything carnally. And she who never wished to be idle from the work of God pressed on unceasingly all her days in prayer, in reading, in almsgiving and in preaching, so that there should be none who might excuse herself by ignorance.

XVIII.

[31] Finally she had so great a gift in herself, by the divine grace bestowing it, demons are put to flight, that, imitating the Master of humility who came down from heaven to earth, she followed the Lord in spirit whithersoever he went. After all the congregation she betook herself to rest, and, passing the night in prayer, with her holy right hand she guarded the monastery by the sign of the cross. On a certain occasion, while the Blessed woman was signing it, one of the Sisters saw upon the wall thousands upon thousands of demons standing in the likeness of goats; but when the Blessed woman lifted her right hand with the sign of the cross, all that multitude, being put to flight, appeared nowhere.

XIX.

[32] In like manner, while by night she stood before her cell, and a troublesome bird is driven away. ever chanting her course with heart and mouth (for within the secret places of her heart the continual praise of God resounded), a bird of the night, which is unwelcome to men, crying out in the midst of the monastery, made itself a nuisance in a tree. One of those standing by says to her: Blessed Lady, if thou biddest, at thy word I will drive out the bird. And she said to her: If it does harm, making the sign of the cross in the name of the Lord, go. She went, and said to the bird: In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, my lady Radegund commands that, if thou hast not come on God's part, thou depart from this place, and by no means presume to sing here. As if it had heard a word uttered from the mouth of God, it took flight, and appeared nowhere. Deservedly do birds and beasts obey her, because she never transgressed the Lord's precept. And if for infirmity she had sometimes wished to rest, with watchful spirit she would say, as though

admonishing the one who was saying the psalm, "Come, say on"; there is no doubt to any one that either she was spiritually singing psalms with the Saints, or assuredly that sleep did not overcome her.

[33] The Saint, intent on God Her mind, intent on Christ, often even when laid in sleep, preaching of the judgment to come and of the eternal reward, when she awoke said to us: Gather, gather the Lord's wheat, because truly I say to you: It will not be long that ye may gather. See what I say; gather, because ye shall seek this time; truly, truly ye shall seek these days, and shall greatly long for them. And although then our sloth received it lukewarmly, yet now we prove that what she said has come. For that word of the prophet has been fulfilled in us: "I will send you famine on the earth; famine," he says, "not famine of bread nor thirst of water, but of hearing the word of God." Although the preachings which she established are recited, yet that unceasing voice has ceased, that longed-for admonition, that sweet affection: for what a countenance, O God, good fashioner, what a face, what a person she had, who can ever set forth? But even to remember this is a torment. But we humble ones long for in her the teaching, the form, the countenance, the person, the knowledge, the piety, the goodness, the sweetness, which she had from the Lord in a special way beyond other men.

XX.

[34] As holy as was her life, so pure and sweet was her aspect. has a wonderful revelation, A year before her passing, she saw in a vision the place prepared for her; there came to her a most rich youth, most beautiful, and having as it were a youthful age, who, when with gentle touch and soft converse he spoke with her, she, jealous for herself, rejected the caress; and he said to her: Why dost thou, kindled with desire, ask me with so many tears, seek me with groaning, beseech me with poured-out prayers, afflict thyself with so great torment for me, who am ever at thy side? Thou precious gem, know that thou art the first gem in the diadem of my head. There is no doubt to any one that he himself visited her to whom she gave herself with all devotion, and showed her the glory which she was to enjoy. But this vision she disclosed rather secretly with an adjuration to the two aforesaid faithful ones, that while she lived they should tell it to no one. And because there are still very many and great things which for prolixity's sake we pass over, lest prolixity should rather beget loathing in the hearers than the discourse show brightness: as much as we remember of her love, of her fostering, of her charity, of her preaching, of all her holy manner of life altogether, we are tormented, and grieving with strained eyes we seek so great a loving-kindness, but we do not find what we have lost. O so hard a lot which has befallen us unhappy ones! O most pious lady, would that thou hadst obtained from the Lord of heaven that thou shouldst have sent before thee the sheep which thou hadst gathered: thou, following the good shepherd, wouldst have handed over the flock to the Lord. Now we come to her glorious passing, which we cannot tell without a flood of tears. The tears flow, groans burst forth from the inmost marrow; but they find no place of consolation while we lament. If we say too little of her faithful devotion, we sin the more.

XXI.

[35] Until the day of her passing she never ceased to fulfil her course; and dies with the greatest grief of the nuns, and what she began she held fast in her heart, because not he who begins, but he who shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved. When her holy little body came to the end of life, drawing out a long martyrdom for the love of the Lord; all the blessed ones nuns being gathered *, mournfully weeping and wailing about her bed, striking their breasts with hard blows, they raised their voices to heaven, crying and saying: Lord, permit us not to suffer so grievous a loss; thou takest back our light; why dost thou forsake us in darkness? And because whatever she especially wished to do she always chose to do on the day of the Lord's birth ^c; for her glorious passing thus befell. On the fourth day of the week in the morning, on the first ^d of the Ides of August, when the same month had made thirteen days, her eyes were closed, and ours were darkened.

XXII.

[36] Woe to us, because we have sinned; our heart is afflicted with grief; and her glory is revealed to certain persons. we weep and lament that we did not merit to have her longer. On that very morning, when so great an evil befell us, when one voice, one lamentation, one cry pierced the heavens, the stonecutters who were working on the mountain heard in the air an angel speaking. One said to the others: What do ye? Let her go still; for these voices have come to the ears of the Lord. The angels who were bearing her, answering, said: It is now done; what shall we do? Paradise has received her, where she glories with the Lord. We believe that she does not separate us from herself, who willed to please him with whom she reigns. Such a one therefore must not be wept for by us, but revered. We have lost indeed in the present world a Lady and a mother; but we have sent her before into Christ's kingdom as our intercessor. Wondrous joy indeed she made in the heavens, but on earth she left us intolerable mourning.

ANNOTATIONS.

* elsewhere "In redeundo"

* Read "beatae," that is, the nuns, gathered

CHAPTER V.

The honorable burial of the Saint, and certain miracles wrought after her death.

XXIII.

When her holy soul departed from this world to Christ, While the Saint amid the greatest wailing of the nuns the pontiff of the place was not there ^a. A messenger went to the apostolic man lord Gregory of the city of Tours, who came at once. But how much, being present, he saw with his eyes before he buried her, he inserted concerning her miracles in the Book of Miracles which he composed. But when he came to the place where the holy body lay (as he himself afterward said with an oath, that he had seen an angelic countenance in the likeness of a human being), her face shone like a rose and a lily; so that he was made to tremble and was struck with awe, as if he stood before the presence of the Mother of God, that devout man, full of God. The pontiff of the place was awaited, that he might bury her worthily. The whole congregation, standing about her bed, sang psalms; and when the psalm-singing rested even a little, there was intolerable lamentation. For three days the pontiff was awaited, because he was going round the villages; but because he did not come, the aforesaid apostolic man, trusting in charity, buried her with due honor in the basilica dedicated to the name of St. Mary ^b, where the sacred bodies of the virgins from her monastery are laid.

XXIV.

[38] When her holy body was carried with psalm-singing beneath the wall, is honorably buried by Gregory of Tours, because she had ordained that no living woman should go out beyond the monastery door, the whole congregation, lamenting upon the wall, so that their lamentation overcame the psalm-singing itself, rendered tears for psalm, moaning for canticle, and groaning for Alleluia ^c. They asked from above that the bier might be rested beneath the tower, grievously enduring her absence. But that the Lord might declare his Faithful one in the midst of the people, there, while the holy body rested, he gave light to a blind man who for many years had not seen the light of day; who, going after the bier with none supporting him, as though he had had no trouble of the eyes, went to the holy sepulchre, and to this day sees clearly.

XXV.

[39] Let another miracle also not be passed over. When the aforesaid bishop buried her, a candle of its own accord flies into her tomb, there was no cover before the pontiff of the place should come. The free women ^d, who had carried tapers before her, stood all round about the sepulchre; each one gave her own name written on her taper, and all delivered those tapers to one ^e of the servants according to arrangement. There arises a dispute among the people; some said that those tapers ought to be put into her holy sepulchre; others said no. While this was going on, from the arm of the boy who held them all, one leaped up on high above all the people, and set itself in the sepulchre at the Blessed one's feet, and declared what was in doubt. Looking at the name to see whose taper it was, the name of Calva was found. Seeing this, the bishop and all the people, admiring the power of blessed Radegund, blessed the Lord. How many miracles were wrought there after her passing, how many possessed persons were delivered, how many fever-stricken healed, who could reckon?

XXVI.

[40] Coming from Burgundy with the apostolic man bishop Leifastus ^e, his abbot by name Abbo ^f, the sick are healed, while he was in the city of Poitiers, fell into a violent pain of the tooth: by day and by night there was one cry, one pain, and he wished death to come to him that he might be rid of so great a pain. He, by the divine mercy inspiring him, asked to be led to the Saint's basilica; where, entering with faith, he cast himself on the ground before the holy sepulchre, having death before his eyes, and seized with his teeth the corporal-cloth over the holy tomb. He who for seven days had neither taken food nor could be refreshed with sleep, in this biting sleep came upon him, the pain departed, and he returned whole to his lodging. Which afterward, on his own report, many learned, when he confessed that he had been called back from the gate of death by the power of the lady Radegund.

XXVII.

[41] And because it is the custom on the feast of blessed Hilary for the other monasteries round about which are near, energumens are delivered, to celebrate vigils until midnight; from midnight each abbot with his Brethren returns to his own monastery to celebrate his course. As long as they kept vigil in the basilica of the blessed Prelate ^g, all night the energumens cried out; among whom the enemy grievously afflicted two women; especially one raved so that at her roaring the whole basilica trembled. After the venerable man Arnegiselus, abbot ^h of the basilica of the blessed Queen ⁱ, went out thence with his monks, going to his own basilica to fulfil his course, which she had greatly loved, they heard those women coming after them crying out, who, entering the basilica, besought the lady Radegund to spare them. One of them, who was more grievously troubled, having now thrice five years since the wicked spirit began to scourge her (then Matins was being said), the raging enemy left the vessel which he had invaded. That other was delivered at Terce before the door of the basilica, and the most wicked enemy could no more harm them. How ample and rich is the mercy of God, who

makes his own to be revered, and himself, the bestower and dispenser of miracles, seeks out places where through his faithful ones he may show his power. At the basilica of the holy man some were delivered; but others were directed to the basilica of the lady Radegund, so that, as they were of equal grace, so also an equal power might be shown.

[42] What sick person, however despaired of in life, if the keeper of that same sacred sepulchre dipped the lower pall ^k in a cup of water, and other miracles are wrought. and gave the draught to him who had a fever, did not at once, as soon as he drank, lying before her holy sepulchre, find sleep come upon him and the disease depart, Christ granting it? Every day, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, many miracles are done there whence she departed. We also with faithful devotion and due diligence venerate her on earth, in whose soul we trust, we rejoice and we glory that she shines forth in the heavens; by the granting of him who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

ANOTHER LIFE, COMPILED IN CLEARER STYLE FROM THE TWO PRECEDING ACTS,

by the author, the venerable Hildebert, prelate of Le Mans and afterward archbishop of Tours.

From the edition of Dom Antoine Beaugendre, a Benedictine monk, who had the Works of Hildebert and Marbod printed at Paris in the year 1708, column 885 and following.

Radegund, queen, afterward a nun, at Poitiers (St.)

BHL Number: 7051

FROM THE PRINTED EDITIONS.

PROLOGUE.

It belongs to a wise man to measure his strength, and to profess nothing beyond it. This foresight thy love, dearest Seimanus ^a, has shaken out of me, who preferred to be found a ridiculous writer rather than disobedient to thee. By thy exhortations indeed I have dared to describe the Life of the most blessed Radegund, The author, having set forth the cause of his writing, although both the slowness of my wit and the occupation of the pontifical administration ^b forbade me to give my labor to such study. Yet presuming upon the grace of him who makes the tongues of infants eloquent, I had recourse to the writings both of Fortunatus and of Baudonivia the nun ^c, each of whom, having pursued the aforesaid Life, made out of precious material dishes of little price ^d, as it seems to thee. Their writings being diligently unrolled, I determined to follow Fortunatus, to whom no less from his life than from the dignity of a Pontiff ^e very great authority accrues. Certain miracles, however, of which Fortunatus indeed touched on none, but which the nun is found to have committed to memory, I have determined to add over and above; and yet not all, but those only which, being more worthy of relation, declare the merit and the reward of the most blessed Woman. He who desires to know the rest will not be wearied to unroll the volumes of Baudonivia. Do thou then take counsel for the little work labored for thee, nor shall it come into the hands of others until, by thy examination, it merit either to be suppressed as to be rejected, or, being approved, to be offered to public view. Thou wilt render me great rewards if thou withdraw from the eyes of men whatever thou shalt perceive to fear their tongues. It will therefore be not only in thy judgment, but also in that of those whom thou shalt decide should be admitted, either to bring it forth corrected, or, if faulty, to hide it utterly.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER I.

The Saint's native land, royal family, captivity, upbringing in Gaul, and the pious works which she practiced until marriageable age.

narrates how St. Radegund, sprung from the kings of Thuringia, As the sacred authority of the Gospel testifies: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the land" — that land, namely, of which the Prophet sighing says: "Let my portion, O Lord, be in the land of the living." By the hope of this, the glorious and venerable queen blessed Radegund, being consoled for the troubles of her exile, while she gave up a temporal inheritance, merited an everlasting one. Of the Thuringian nation, she is proclaimed to have been elegant of countenance, distinguished in birth, more distinguished in manners. No new nobility, but one derived from ancient forefathers, made her illustrious. Her grandfather by name Bessinus ^a, and her father Berectarius ^b, each attained royal dignity. The blessed Virgin, drawing from these her lofty origin, shone far more brightly with the torches of virtues than with the fasces of dignities.

[3] came into Gaul, Further, when she had already left the cradle, and the region of Thuringia was laid waste by the inrushing Franks, and she too with the rest was led away captive, of the captives she fell by lot as booty to king Clotaire, destined not so much to be given to his chamber in wedlock, as to profit him by her manners and example. By this event the Girl, having left her country, is carried by the king's order into Vermandois to a villa whose name is Athies, to be brought up there for some time. There are appointed for her guardians of most honorable life and most illustrious name, under whom she should so learn letters that she might not unlearn honor; nor was it hard for her to be trained in the liberal rudiments, whose years and sex the keenness of her wit no less than the tokens of her chastity surpassed. There already played beforehand in the Virgin a certain grave old age, and to her who was disposing ascensions in her heart only the weakness of her age stood in the way. Yet amid those stings of time and of sex she inexorably abhorred the losses of modesty, sighing only for the loveliness of manners. Whence also among the other advances in virtues with which her tender childhood glowed, she busied herself to succor the poor, to frequent the churches, and to be present at the divine offices.

[4] and was there carefully brought up It was also her custom always to withhold something from her daily food, and to provide more ample leavings for the needy. These, being diligently gathered, the girl, casting aside royal pride, distributed to the poor whom she had assembled. Her diligence was commended by humility, her reward was heaped up by devotion, when the noble Virgin, having first washed the heads of each, poured water on their hands, herself served the food, and, lest anything should be lacking to any one, carried the lights about. Thereupon with the reverence of an aged person she went with her coevals to the church, in which she both should render a hymn and should commend her chastity to God. And lest oblivion should ever steal away * that word of the Gospel, "He that beareth not his cross and followeth me cannot be my disciple," she ordered the sign of the cross to be carried before her, which her cleric was wont to fit together out of pieces of wood for these uses, and himself to carry ^c. And when prayer was made, she cleansed the pavement with her garment, and with a face-cloth reverently shook off the dust lying about the sanctuaries, carrying away whatever of filth or dust the carelessness of the dwellers had left there.

[5] These were the Virgin's sports; these manners her tender childhood put on; until marriageable age; kindly was her affection toward the poor, wonderful her compassion toward the afflicted. Far from her was the inconstancy of a changeable woman, far the borrowed comeliness. Nothing of artifice in her face, nothing of vanity in her speech. Her gait was not of contrivance but of nature. Rarely did anything beyond necessity come to her table, rarely to her attire; and if at any time it happened, it was granted to her condition, not offered to satisfy pleasure. Thus, amid delights knowing no delights, there was nothing suspect to honor, nothing which threatened a failing of her manners.

[6] She indeed, when she had not yet marriageable years

attained, at which time as a tender girl she practiced various virtues. already thought the reward of virginity but small unless the glory of martyrdom should heap it up. And while the most tender Virgin desires to attain this, she is recorded to have endured many things from her household both beyond and on account of righteousness. But when the time drew near in which the aforesaid king Clotaire had determined to join her to himself in marriage, by night with a few she fled from Athies, avoiding by deep counsel that succession of offspring whose conception is an assault upon chastity, whose birth is life. At length the Virgin, being found, is brought to Soissons, there indeed to marry a mortal king, but not to lose the graces of the eternal one.

ANNOTATIONS.

* perhaps "of the captivity"

* perhaps "subreperet"

CHAPTER II.

Her marriage with king Clotaire, and the pious life which in the time of her wedlock she led at court.

The Saint marries king Clotaire, Therefore, being joined in outward appearance to an earthly prince, the noble Queen began to be made heavenly rather than earthly. For the nuptials being celebrated in the Lord, her mind is not lifted up by human glory, is not broken by pleasure, is not bent by enticements. The same contempt of the world, the same humility remained in the Queen. Of her manners the secrets of wedlock claimed nothing, the empire nothing, riches nothing. The use of these things pleased the Queen less than it was permitted. In short, she turned these three into instruments of virtues, when she tempered the impatience of wine [*] by the example of chastity, was present with her power to the accused, and succored the poor with her riches. Thus the woman, passing without offence the stumbling-blocks of manners, lived not for herself but for the kingdom, not for pleasure but for virtue.

[8] Now her first disposition from her virginity was that whatever came to her from tributes, whatever by the law of gift, should all serve the necessity of the needy. But of what remained, part indeed the church claimed for itself, part the care of the body. and she distributed the gifts granted her to the poor and the sick, And this, if thou considerest the Queen's condition, served use rather than comeliness. She anxiously searched out in what place the sick lay, to what monks anything was lacking, or what, and what solitude the hermits inhabited. Those of these whom she could not visit in presence, she visited with manifold blessings ^b. For some she herself sewed garments, to others she sent food for a longer time. To what afflicted persons was the Queen not present? Who shivered with cold and was not warmed by the Queen's fleeces? Who cried after the Queen and departed unheard? What was rather wrung from the Queen by a poor man than freely offered? What day did she not judge lost on which she had not labored for lost morals? When was she detained by the care of her body from being present at the causes of orphans? And since she had read, "The lips of the priest keep knowledge, because he is the angel of the Lord of hosts," she was busy to be present at the teachings of priests, and to commend herself to their prayers. None of them was burdened with exaction, none by the license of royal power, none was destitute, unless one whose destitution the merciful Queen had not known. For doubtless she believed that it would turn to her own judgment if, while the Queen was rich, the angels of the Lord should beg.

[9] to whom the Queen herself diligently ministered, Further, amid such heralded virtues, establishing a house at Athies, she dedicated it as a lodging for poor women; she appointed also ministers, by whose diligence care should be taken that nothing be lacking to the poor. There were countless changes of garments there, and an outfit suited both for the living and for the dead. The Queen believed that something was lacking to the riches * of her mercy unless, whose life she served, she should serve also their burial. Entering the aforesaid house very often, she was wont to serve those who reclined at table, to sit by the bedridden, to wipe with linen cloths the matter welling from the sores of the sick, and herself to wash the sores. She bent down also to wash the heads of the feeble, soothing with healing decoctions and ointments those things which thou wouldst have judged both horrible to see and dreadful to touch. And for those who needed a more careful service, the Queen as their attendant prepared baths, patiently enduring from the sick many discomforts which would have raised nausea in any serving-maid. To those who came out thence she offered cups after her custom, that a drink taken might strengthen those relaxed by the baths.

[10] and she preferred this service to the delights of the court. Pressing upon these offices, the Queen preferred to serve the poor in a mean house rather than to rule in the palace. And if thou desirest to know those things which she performed in her care of her husband ^c, she was so compliant to her husband as not to displease her Creator. Her chamber was a workshop of modesty, and a dwelling ignorant of baseness and shameful deeds. There were no gatherings of young men, no conversations hostile to virtue. The maidservants were taught chastity rather by examples than by scourges. Their life was such as if the Queen had brought forth her own manners from her bosom. The psalter grew moist in the Queen's hand, and until she had chanted it through with tears and groaning, the Queen put off taking food. But coming to table, she was wont to hearken to nature, not to hearken to pleasure. For because she knew that the experience of delicacies is the border of transgressions, she preferred water to wine, pulse to royal banquets. A faithful servant presented her the pulse more secretly; which being taken, she seemed rather to break a fast than to drive away hunger. It cannot be told how often she rose fasting from the table, thinking that an injury was done to Christ if, while Christ's poor had not yet dined, the Queen should presume to dine. Taking occasion also, after a morsel of bread she very often left the table, to render either a hymn to God or the due service to the poor.

[11] For what shall I say of the fellowship of the bed? To which she always came for this end, Although she obeyed her husband in the conjugal debt, that she might gain her husband, not that she might satisfy an enticing pleasure. Indeed, lest Satan should tempt her husband, she paid her husband his due, but did not exact it ^d. In which, if anything was sinned either for its own sake or by the admixture of pleasure, she hastened at once to blot it out not only with tears but with much torment of the body. For feigning a cause for rising, she laid a rough haircloth on the pavement, to which she clung naked so long that, her marrow being smitten with cold, she almost breathed out her spirit. Thus the Queen, at once deferring to wedlock and preserving modesty, neither defrauded her husband of reverence, nor lessened by lust the good of marriage. There were those who said that a nun rather than a laywoman had been taken as wife by the king. The king himself also, bearing her purpose of piety with a sick mind, charged his wife with feigned religion, adding that such severity by no means suits marriage, and that it is lawful for a wife to comply more softly with her husband, and a husband with his wife. By which words Christ's Daughter, being by no means recalled from her sacred purpose, sweetened the king's bitterness with kindly words.

[12] Further, in the Lenten season, persisting longer in sacred vigils, yet with works of penance she heaped torments upon torments, by which her flesh, being schooled, was compelled to serve the spirit. Her face grew pale with fastings, and her limbs, wounded by the rough haircloth, knew no rest amid torments. She had a certain nun familiar to her, in devotion as in name Pia, who was wont secretly to send her the aforesaid garment, which, always clinging next her skin under her royal cloak above, covered Christ's Daughter. It was moreover her custom, at that time especially, to go round the neighboring memorials of the Saints, and to provide diligently that neither the churches should lack ornaments, nor the ministers of the churches their maintenance. She busied herself also to bring lights to each altar, which she was said herself to recover with her own hands. But at the hour in which the priest offered the sacrifice, passing through the memory of the Lord's Passion with a certain passion of mind, she burned the holocaust, acceptable to God, of a contrite spirit. For she beat upon heaven with such sighs, she was watered with such a torrent of tears, as if Christ seemed again to be held in the hands of the Jews, again to be * crucified.

[13] And when the saving Office was ended, she did not return to the palace before, and of mercy with pious carefulness, accompanied by a few, she had visited the sick lying round about. She knew not how to plead the unseasonableness of the time, nor to be held back by rains or snows. By no discomforts at all was she moved, provided that she served the comforts of the poor. To some, a Queen, but humble, she washed their heads; for several she tempered the baths. For those who had either no bed or a harder one, a softer was made ready by putting straw or feathers beneath. With such pursuits she closed the day, intending to return late at night. Further, when she, being occupied with such blessed business, prolonged her delays, and messengers were sent by the king to admonish her to return more promptly, saying that the king was sitting at table and the nobles waiting, she preferred the service of the poor to the royal command, being unwilling to return before she had finished what she had begun. Which the king hearing, is recorded both to have taken it grievously, and to have rebuked the Queen for her late return beyond what was seemly. Yet afterward, repenting, he as a suppliant begged pardon, steadfastly accusing himself that he had grieved the Holy Spirit, and had presumed to grieve his temple. He added also to his prayers more ample gifts, which his faithful wife, devoted to God, should distribute to the poor as it were in redemption of her husband's excess. Which being done, the king's indignation so subsided that he both gave thanks to God for so great a devotion of his consort, and, that she might the more abundantly relieve the necessity of the needy, ordered more ample expenditures to be prepared for her.

[14] she chiefly gave herself, But when priests of Christ came to the palace, and, as the pressing cause required, implored the royal help, she rejoiced with such gladness as if the very presence of Christ were plainly there. These, being received with due honor, she both heard as they spoke more devoutly, and humbly served as they reclined at table. Nor was it easy to discern whether she showed herself Martha rather than Mary. She was present at the causes of all, she complained that she was burdened with the burdens of all; to no one was her blessing, to no one the help asked for, wanting. This alone, which passed into their service, she confessed to be assigned to her own uses. From her diligence toward them neither the management of the house nor the affairs of the kingdom detracted anything. But those departing she followed with weeping and with praying, that they would deign to be mindful of her there where the Son is offered to the Father.

[15] and she often interceded with the king for prisoners, Nor had she less solicitude for the guilty, who by their own crimes were dragged either to prison or to punishment. For their safety she ran about, she supplicated all men one by one, frequently reminding them that one guilty of blood ought to be pitied, since even for the guilty the blood of the Redeemer was shed. And lest her efforts of piety should be brought to nothing, she ceased not to soothe with blandishments the mind of the prince until he who had pronounced the sentence of justice should pronounce that of mercy. And in this loosing of the condemned, Christ conferred on her so great a grace that at her name barred prisons lay open, iron chains were loosed, and those went out unharmed to whom the judgment of the court had decreed death or torments.

[16] some of whom she wonderfully delivered, For when in the villa which is named Péronne she was walking in mature security, the guilty who were held in the neighboring prison, condemned, began to cry out that the Queen would deign to help them. Which being heard, Christ's Daughter diligently inquires what it was and why there was crying. The keepers of the prison lie, saying that a multitude of poor was there, and that they were asking food. The Queen believed her servants, and the alms which they feign is asked for is appointed for those who cry out; which being received, the guilty, that they might not cry out any longer, being restrained by the threats and blows of the keepers, were silent. Yet they merited to be heard, crying more devoutly in mind than in word. For on the following

night, while the Queen was pressing on with her wonted prayers, by the divine nod the prison, being unbarred, lay open, the chains were burst asunder, and those went out unharmed who were kept for punishments and for death. And lest they should seem ungrateful for so great a benefit, falling at the blessed Woman's knees, they give thanks, publicly proclaiming that by her sacred merits they had been snatched from their bonds.

[17] being suffused with blushes because of this manifest miracle. But when the miracle was published abroad, Christ's Daughter is not lifted up by that glory, but at the report of it, her face being suffused with blushes, she testified that she was unworthy of that for whom the Lord had deigned to bestow the aforesaid benefit on his servants. Persisting therefore in humility, she wore away her tender limbs with multiplied chastisements ^e, becoming toward the poor and the churches of Christ the more lavish the more she was now secure of her reward. Whence, when on feast days, as the Queen's condition required, she used gilded garments and was praised by the maidens standing about, sighing deeply, she bewailed herself as unworthy of such a garment, and straightway putting it off, dedicated it to the adornment and honor of some church. Besides, if any gems came to her, any purple, any precious attire, she assigned it all to the sacred altars or to ecclesiastical ornaments.

ANNOTATIONS.

* Or is it rather "of a husband"?

* Or is it not "by works"?

* read "she performed about her husband,"

* perhaps "videret"

CHAPTER III.

The Saint's monastic profession, her liberality toward the churches, the founding of the convent of Poitiers, from which the king vainly strives to draw her back to marriage.

The Saint obtains separation from her husband, But the Queen's purpose rose to this point, that, the insignia of power being cast aside and the glory of the world trodden underfoot, she greatly desired, poor, to follow the poor Christ. Which that she might merit to fulfil, going to blessed Medard, she asked of him both the garment and the blessing of a nun. To whose petition the pontiff by no means acquiescing said: The sacred law of marriage does not suffer that, while both wife and husband survive, the covenants of lawful ^a nuptials should be dissolved. The blessed Woman presses on, and her modest face being suffused with a more copious weeping, she beseeches to be veiled. There arises a tumult in the church, and clergy and people with one accord resist the Queen's vows. The nobles drag her back as she presses forward, steadfastly forbidding the pontiff to presume to lay hands on the Queen. And she, when she saw that both the chief men and the people were opposing her counsels, enters the sacristy, and, her mind being confirmed in her new purpose, she set upon her head the habit of Religion. Thereupon returning to the pontiff, she said: May the Lord God require my soul from thy hand, if thou shalt fear the king of men more than the King of angels. Hearing these words, he laid his hands upon her, not more terrified by her adjuration than overcome by her constancy.

[19] And so blessed Radegund, having entered on the hard way, distributed with bounteous hand to the poor and to the churches the riches and the royal furnishings which remained to her, and departing to Poitiers, she distributed various gifts to sacred places, who had happily gone forth from this great and wide sea. For presently, when she had wholly cast off the Queen, she laid beneath the Lord's table the garments which she used when crowned, namely a holocaust acceptable to God and full of grace. She is recorded also to have broken up her golden girdle and bracelets and earrings, all marked with precious pearls, and to have distributed them to the poor. Going on thence and entering the cell of a certain Saint, she loaded and honored the sacred altars with tapestries, fillets, brooches and sleeves heavy with interwoven gold. Then she distributed no lesser gifts to various monasteries, whose repute under reverend Fathers, namely the venerable Dado and the holy Gundulf, was held consummate and notable. Thence borne by a prosperous voyage to Tours, how dutiful she showed herself about the sepulchre of blessed Martin, how great holocausts of tears she offered, with what sighs she beat upon heaven, the mind can scarcely comprehend, the tongue scarcely suffices to set forth. Her devotion was attested not so much by the ornaments offered to the several altars as by her deep groans and the pavement wet with tears.

[20] and having heard a rumor that the king wished to recall her to the court, But prayer being made, she came to Candes; there too offering rich furnishings for the Lord's table, where the most glorious confessor and pontiff of Christ, Martin, rendered his blessed spirit to heaven. There was not far thence a certain villa, Saix by name, which had come to her by the law of gift, to which when the blessed Nun had turned aside and was staying some days in it, it was brought to her ears that the king wished to recall her to the palace, and complained grievously that the majesty of the kingdom was desolate of the counsel and wisdom of so great a Woman. Hearing these things, the Woman devoted to God trembled, and, being wholly turned to God, night and day with abundant weeping she beseeches that he would not suffer her again to be entangled in worldly enticements. She determined also that her tender limbs should be worn away with heavier punishments, so that if she profited little by prayer, she might at least by torment merit the effect of her prayers.

[21] she learns from a holy hermit that the king's attempt would be vain, There was at that time in the castle of Chinon a just and God-fearing man by name John, whom religion, shut up in a most grievous cell, had made conspicuous and famous. To him blessed Radegund sent by faithful messengers a golden "felte" of no small price, wonderfully adorned with gems and pearls, in which were a thousand gold solidi, which still remained to her of her royal ornaments, praying both that prayer might be made for her, and that it might be at once disclosed to her if he should learn anything of the aforesaid purpose of the king either by a sure messenger or foresee it in spirit. Which things being heard, the man of God spent the next night in vigils and prayers. But when morning came, he speedily announced to her what had become known to him by the divine clemency, namely that it was by no means permitted to the king that he should again assign her to his wedlock, although he should strive by manifold effort to accomplish it. He also sent to Christ's Daughter, as she herself had asked, a haircloth garment by which her rebellious flesh might be broken with heavier discipline.

[22] and therefore joyful she founded the monastery at Poitiers; The gift therefore and the message being received, the blessed Nun, giving thanks to God, departed joyful to Poitiers, and without delay, a letter being sent to the king, she asked that an oratory be made for her beside the walls of the aforesaid city. Her wish was heard, and at the king's command Pientius, at that time bishop of Poitiers, and duke Austrapius, completed the monastery in a short time. The multitude of virgins received into it obtained the reward of the hundredfold fruit by the teachings and examples of the most blessed Nun. For under the abbess of the aforesaid place, who by her election took up the government of souls, she strove so to live that she might be held humbler than all, more abject than all. She strove indeed to be beneath all in service, but to be above them in holiness.

[23] But since those who wish to live piously must needs suffer persecution, but when the king was preparing to bring her back thence to wedlock, it was not permitted to the blessed Woman to reach in quiet the longed-for port of the voyage she had undertaken. For what she had long dreaded, the king by the counsels of certain persons determined to do, namely that he should draw her away from the sacred workshops and untie the bond of marriage. Therefore, that he might impiously accomplish what he had conceived with sacrilegious mind, taking with him his son Sigibert and holy Germanus, bishop of Paris, he determined to set out for Poitiers. But when he had already come to Tours, and a rumor of this kind had gone through the whole province, that Nun sent to the aforesaid Pontiff a letter full of [ ] ^b, praying that he would not suffer the rest of the contemplation she had undertaken to be disturbed by any troubles; that it could not be that she should prefer the king of men to the King of angels.

[24] The letter being read through, the bishop falls at the king's feet, by a letter she so far prevailed that he desisted from this purpose. implores that he desist from his purpose and keep his hands from her who was consecrated to Christ; that he show reverence to the Holy Spirit, who had made his own dwelling in a frail vessel. The pontiff interceding is heard, and because he had prepared violence, he did not blush to confess his offence. Power supplicates for pardon, and he whose wedlock she did not merit begs to be helped by her prayers. But lest any one thereafter should stir up the king to the same attempts by leading counsels, a heavy vengeance laid waste those by whose persuasions the king had determined to recall her to the nuptial debt. For such an end of his own madness as the blasphemous and unhappy Arius found, such divine indignation did they experience, their bowels being cast out.

ANNOTATIONS.

* Perhaps "paraverat"

* Or is it not "pravis" (crooked)?

CHAPTER IV.

The Saint's austere abstinence, dire affliction of the body, and other monastic virtues in which she then chiefly shone at Poitiers.

The Saint, to her accustomed frugality Thereafter the most holy Woman, casting away all fear, happily completed her course, kept the faith, awaiting the crown of justice laid up for her by the Lord God. Now her intent was steadfastly to afflict herself, tirelessly to serve the poor, and blamelessly to keep the law of the community. Divided among so many affections, one woman, she was so wholly in each that she seemed to bestow on every one a singular care. For from that day on which she utterly renounced the glory of the palace, she strove to take away a good portion from the very scanty food by which she was sustained. From that time she knew no skill of cooks, no incitement of the gullet. From that time also, spurning even common delicacies, she took counsel for necessity with pulse and herbs; and to such meals there came no seasoning of oil, no seasoning of salt. She had bread too, but barley bread, and such as she baked. This, taken once in the day, broke her fast, did not remove her hunger. The thirst which the excessive dryness of the bread kindled she mitigated with a draught either of honeyed water or of perry. For of wine or beer she made no mention at all. Her breast, hardened with ashes and with a haircloth thrown over them, promised a cross, not rest.

[26] added in Lent a most rigid fast, Indeed, although her tender woman's limbs scarcely sufficed for so many and so heavy punishments, yet on the days

of Lent the Woman added to her punishment, and the Lord to her crown. For through all that time, except the Lord's day, she abstained utterly from all bread. Through all that time she was sustained with a slender refection of roots and herbs. Their harshness no addition of salt or oil tempered. During that same time she mitigated the burning of thirst with the touch of plain water. For this was taken only on the days of the aforesaid refection, and so sparingly that, her lips being torn with dryness, she lost her former power of chanting the psalms; yet from their modulation, desisting for no discomfort, she ceased not to fulfil her course as she was able. Amid these prejudgments of the flesh and these torturers of torment, in continued prayer she often passed the night sleepless. The companion of her vigils was abundant weeping and meditation on heavenly joys. Ascending to these by a certain flight of the mind, she so shared in the affairs of men that she shared also in the affairs of angels. She tasted and saw how sweet is the Lord, she sighed and said: "Of his mercies there is no number."

[27] and dire afflictions of the body, And since she was taught also by the Spirit that he who labors more shall receive more reward, to the labors of fastings and vigils she added a new torment of the flesh. For becoming ingenious in punishments, she ordered a plate of brass ^a to be made for her. This, heated in the fire, she was wont to press deeply into her tender limbs, so that [*] ^b if she had offended in anything by pleasure, she might be purged by the torment that followed. This torment she often fixed in her flesh, persecuting herself as an enemy, because perhaps, when she was unwilling, she had pleased unto sin. In one of the Lents also, when the aforesaid labors seemed to her too little for the earning of the Lord's grace, she bound her arms and her neck at once with iron rings, girding the rest of her body with a threefold chain. The mere weight of the iron was a heavy punishment, but heavier was the deeper cutting of the flesh. The flesh being drawn over the iron, she bore a secret martyrdom without a witness. The Lenten observance had already passed when the utmost necessity compelled the iron, more deeply enclosed, to be drawn out. When therefore it was with difficulty drawn out, so much blood flowed from her lacerated body that, her inward parts being drained of their vital substance, she almost breathed out her spirit. Thus she, persecuting herself from day to day, lived for herself as a punishment, for the rest as an example.

[28] and horrid burnings, Then in another Lent she renewed another kind of torment against her limbs so often wearied. For ordering a brazen vessel full of burning coals to be set beside her, she bids her attendants go out, bars her cell, is stripped of her haircloth, and, a woman strong above woman, arms herself for punishment. It seemed to her too little to offer to God daily a contrite heart, unless she should also burn her flesh in a voluntary holocaust. Her mind therefore being prepared for the cross, she casts herself upon the fire; a hotter coal is sought, and, her limbs being turned above it, the burning, which she sought, bursts and penetrates skin and flesh. A longer stay in the fire pursues her tender body with a deeper wound. The glowing brass is rolled upon her limbs, her inward parts are consumed with the heat. Care is taken that nothing remain unburned, as if she herself grudged the unburned parts. There is added to the torment as it were another torment, her very neglect of the burned flesh. The Woman believed her glorious victory lay hidden, but the putrefying flesh betrayed her secret martyrdom by its stench; the blood too, flowing down over her whole body, disclosed what her tongue kept silent.

[29] Who would dare to deny Radegund the reward of martyrdom? on account of which Hildebert judges that she should be called a martyr. Who would tell as a tale that the sword or the striker was wanting? Who would deny that there is martyrdom where the torturer is a woman, the instrument a flame, Christ the cause? If thou seekest a striker, no one was more cruel to another than she to herself. If a sword, thou wilt find as many swords as coals. If a cause, she was striving to gain Christ. Let others think what they will; I shall not fear to affirm that Radegund, wounded by the rough haircloth, afflicted with continual fastings, wasted by the weight of iron, scorched with coals and with glowing brass, both merited on earth the reward of a martyr ^c and obtains it in heaven.

[30] Some one will perhaps think that that wonderful Woman, wearied with so many torments, came more slowly to the works of mercy. Wholly given to works of mercy, Whose devotion in this virtue if any one desires to know, let him run through the following page. From the time when she put off the Queen and put on the humble nun, at all times, on the fifth day of the week and on Saturday, gathering the poor, she prepared both baths and a common refection. These being received in the guest-house, she washed their heads with her own hands, scraped away the scab with her nails, wiped away the corruptions, drew worms out of the sores, applied oil; and, humbler than any serving-maids, she blushed at none of their necessities to serve them. Sick women also, whom she perceived to need care of this kind, she was zealous to lower into the baths, to rub their filthy shoulders, and to show to each limb the fitting service.

[31] She diligently searched out what things were necessary for each, she served the poor, administering to all cloths and shoes ^d as they had need. To such persons she thought it no burden to set seats, to bring napkins, and to offer water for washing their hands. She set on the dishes too, providing and dispensing more delicate foods for the sick. If any one was pressed by heavier ailments, for him she herself cut the bread, she herself the meat. Several she fed with her own hands. There hung from her shoulder a linen cloth with which the drippings either from the mouths of the feeble or from their spoons were wiped. Maidens were present as companions, but none of them took the part of the servant. Radegund did the office which the moment required; as necessity presented itself, she ran to it. Radegund bent down before those lying, stood before those sitting, fasted before those who ate. There was no tumult there, Radegund in a manner imposing monastic silence. When at length the banquet was finished, she hastened to her cell to pray, that all her work might both always begin from God, and, being begun, be finished through God. Every Lord's day also, as on the aforesaid days, she provided a feast for the needy. But because on that day the more solemn celebration of the Masses was at hand, after the first dishes were distributed, by a cup once offered to all, she returned more hastily to the monastery, leaving before the poor the maidens who should carefully perform the service begun.

[32] She had also toward lepers a diligence so devout as though she in no way doubted that Christ himself was present: and lepers with wonderful liberality, whom, being kindly received, she herself washed their hands with warm water, not shrinking with hesitant touch to cherish the torn skin. And the women whose faces the aforesaid dreadful malady had wounded she did not fear to embrace, nor to kiss more closely. Then, the table being set, that they might not sit either too hard or with foot hanging, it was managed with softer coverings and footstools. Who would deny that Radegund ministered to the lepers she received? Who would dare to say that a business full of copious reward was committed to another? Did she shrink from offering a cup, who did not in the least disdain to bestow a kiss? Let no one believe that Radegund so lukewarmly loved the crown as to have feared to earn it when offered. Imperfect would be her solicitude for the reward: for the service of this crown envies it to others. But she envies it who, girded up, fulfilled a loathsome office without loathing. But when now, having dined, they rose, she bestowed on them the garments they needed, offering to the hands of those departing both a kiss and silver. And wheresoever she knew that any lay afflicted either with fevers or with any diseases whatever, she carefully inquired what things were healthful for them, what they would eat more gladly, what delicacies they desired. She failed the wishes of none, provided they accorded with the season. It very often happened that those who were known to have long languished received by her blessed gifts ^e the health they had lost. All were astonished at her munificence, and marveled whence came so many riches, not knowing that that promise of the Lord was already being fulfilled: "Give, and it shall be given unto you."

[33] although she herself was poor, Hence she, rich toward the poor, restrained herself under heavy poverty. She pursued soft attire with inexorable hatred, being clad in coarser garments with which her haircloth might be covered. Even of these, though she might have abounded in precious ones, she often had need, knowing that poverty is among the virtues, which necessity does not bring but the will. Whence, when at a certain time she lacked sleeves, the blessed Woman divided one of her boots for a covering of her arms, who was so unwilling to abound that she might feel no want, and did not yet seem to herself a true poor person unless with poverty of spirit she also endured penury of things.

[34] and moreover she performed the meanest services of the monastery. Further, amid these cares for the poor and the daily torments of the flesh, she hastened to rise first to Matins, to be first present at the appointed hours, to be first to fulfil whatever perchance was commanded. And if she had begun or done any good work later than the rest, she straightway accused herself of negligence, as if she had penally transgressed, not delaying to ask pardon. But in performing those things which are laid on each by the laws of the Order, she very often took the place of others; none took hers. She thought the day passed in idleness unless by her own labor she lightened the labors of others. About to do the kitchen work, she pleaded no inconvenience, put forward no excuse. Entering it, she did not blush to cast out the filth which any serving-maid would have loathed to see. Then she herself drew water from the well, she herself carried it, she herself kindled the fire, cleaned the dishes, cut the vegetables, giving care to the pulse both to cook it sufficiently and to distribute it fitly. Thus she, obeying the monastic laws, completed the week she had begun without complaint. Besides, the whole pavement of the monastery, and the offices, and even the inner rooms, she was wont to clean so submissively that she refused neither to carry out baskets full of filth, nor to endure the stench. Provided that she suffered for Christ, poverty seemed to her riches, labor rest, reproach glory.

[35] Further, when she sat at the common table there were set before her the same things as before the rest, but not the same were taken: for the fine wheaten bread laid above the second bread ^f Finally, amid fastings and vigils she raised to her lips as though about to eat it, while she disdained utterly to feel the taste on her palate. Yet lest she should altogether fail, an almost fasting refection was taken of barley bread. At length, rising from table, she rendered a hymn to God, the rest of her time being assigned either to reading or to the psalms. For when she ceased from the modulation of the psalms, one of the nuns was present to recite the oracles of the divine Scriptures, which she, hearing more studiously, persuaded the others to attend diligently to the reader, and from their inner disposition to consult the mirror of souls. As often as she came upon an obscure passage, she expounded it to those who did not know, and rebuked the negligent.

[36] The day therefore being passed in such blessed business, when the rest were now sleeping, in spiritual reading, she herself wiped and greased the shoes of each, looking carefully to see which needed new ones. Thereupon she went to her bed, than which, as nothing was humbler, so nothing was less suited to pleasure. At that time also a reader was present, that the blessed Nun, even waking from sleep, might be fed with spiritual delights. If at any time she was silent, thinking that the wearied woman was resting and asleep, she straightway heard: Why art thou silent? Read, cease not. Besides, lest it be doubted that her heart was awake while her limbs rested in a little slumber, she chanted psalms even in her sleep, being about to say truly with the Prophet: "The meditation of my heart is ever in thy sight."

[37] But she rose at midnight, and until the congregation came to the monastery church, and giving herself to contemplation, she persisted in tears and groaning at the psalms and in contemplation. For contemplation so claimed her mind for itself that, although absent in body, yet in spirit she frequented only that city whose streets sound with praises from day to day. She was wholly held by its delights, nor could her heart utter anything else than the nectar and grace of heavenly joys. Whence, when

on a certain day she wished to call the doorkeeper who was passing near her, and to lay on her some business, in place of her name she uttered Alleluia. The same happy error befell her rather often. Where her treasure was, there was her heart also.

[38] But what shall I say of the sick nuns, whom, being visited every day, she ministered to the sick nuns, Radegund fasting prepared more delicate foods for? She herself, shrinking from no discomfort either of sickness or of sex, lifted and washed the languishing, carried them out and carried them back. She herself procured for them little broths, she herself decoctions, omitting none of those things which the state of the bedridden required. In receiving guests also there was no less diligence, no less devotion. These being received in Christ, she herself washed their feet, she herself offered water to those about to dine. In short she herself supplied all things whereby [] the necessity of guests [] is relieved. And if it happened that a religious person was received, she inquired more privately of the man's manners, his zeal, his life. If she learned that he lived under stricter disciplines, she submitted herself to his institutes, and used his examples for an increase of virtues. She believed that she had advanced short of perfection unless in her own acts the acts of all perfect men shone forth. These her works spoke of, these she herself commended to the Virgins of Christ, these she proclaimed as to be imitated. Yet she suggested nothing to others which she did not teach more by example than by word.

[39] Her whole life spoke sanctity. It was all fragrant of Christ. and afforded to all various examples of virtues Except hatred, she had nothing to do with vices. Zeal for the law and continual meditation in the law introduced an assembly of virtues. Of these neither adverse nor happy event diminished anything. In every state justice was secure with this Woman. She made no mention of the splendor of her birth, none of the glory of her wedlock. The king's embraces, by which not even as a captive was she taken captive, she grieved rather that they were admitted than that they were dismissed. Having experienced these, she supplied the loss of modesty by the prerogative of her merits. Consider her manners, weigh her acts, look upon her continual penance; thou must confess that no virtue was wanting to the Nun: for unless she had had prudence, she would not have preferred healthful things to hurtful, nor things to be sought to things to be fled. But by fortitude and temperance she was made ever consistent with herself and equal.

[40] and especially of humility. But among these things a certain primacy was held by her humility kept to the end. And let no one think that humility was wanting to her when poor, who while holding sceptres knew no pride. If abstinence be asked of, she indulged few things to nature, none to the gullet. No one was gentler than she, who, being a Queen and offended, sought no vengeance. In every action and word she set a measure by discretion, considered the times, observed the limits of things. In her own injuries indeed she gave thanks, but wept at those of others. Being hurt, she was readier to offer pardon than he who had hurt her to ask it. She feared that Christ would be angry if, being angry, she should see the sun set. Before her no one detracted from another with impunity. I must needs fail if I attempt to set forth her virtues one by one. She was shut up in a cell until she should render her spirit to God. She was the pious executioner and sacrificer of her own body; there, even to the injury of nature, persisting in long fastings, wounded by the haircloth, afflicted with secret torments, she interceded with God for all the ranks of the Church. By her most holy prayers and letters sent among discordant princes for concord, rest was gained for the churches, peace restored to the country.

ANNOTATIONS.

* read "ut"

* perhaps "of guests"

CHAPTER V.

Divers miracles which God wrought through the intercession of this Saint.

The Saint shines with many miracles, Besides, she obtained from God so great a grace that at her name the sick were healed, the seas grew calm, life was restored to the dead. For it very often happened that those lying under a long-standing ailment, having received her blessed gifts, recovered their former health. Several also, having tasted the leaves of trees to which she had applied her sacred hands, escaped quartan fevers and other infirmities.

[42] There was at that time a certain matron in France, whose eyes had grown dark with long blindness. and frees a matron from blindness, She, having heard the report of the holy Woman, was led to Poitiers by the hands of her servants. The Nun, being asked to impress the sign of the cross on her eyes, proclaimed herself unworthy that from her touch remedies of diseases should be hoped for. At length those are heard who devoutly supplicated for the wretched woman. But because she preferred that there should be no witness of those things which the divine grace worked through her rather than the people, late at night the woman is ordered to be brought, and being brought she falls at the Nun's knees, the sign of the cross is impressed on her eyes, and, blindness being put to flight, her sight is restored.

[43] A maiden, by name Fraiflidis, was wonderfully tormented by a demon, who between the blessed hands of the Woman devoted to God merited both to be delivered and to be at rest. and delivers three other women from various diseases. Another also a most grievous infirmity vexed, a worm gnawing the inner parts of her shoulder-blades. For whom, while Christ's Daughter more devoutly prayed to Christ, the skin bursting, the worm leaped forth, and within a few days entire health was restored to her.

One of the nuns was held by so great a force of fevers that, now consumed by fire, now by cold, she utterly despaired of life. Her, lying six months in bed, the Bride of Christ ordered to be presented to her, and ordered also water to be heated and, being heated, to be carried into her cell. Without delay those things are performed which the blessed Nun had commanded; then, all being removed, she herself places the fevered woman in the bath, handles her limbs with pious service, beating upon heaven alike with groaning and with weeping. Behold, the despaired-of health follows, and, as if the infirmity dreaded her touch, at that same moment it withdrew beneath her blessed hands. But she, being restored to her former health, while she received the remedy, declared the merit.

[44] The wife of a certain Inderedus, having obtained a barren fruitfulness, was wont to bring forth for the tomb, not for her husband; Besides, she recalls a dead infant to life, the offspring conceived in the womb invited the parents to obsequies rather than to a cradle. From this she was a mother, from this he a manager of a funeral; the ill-fruitful womb, when it promised a human being, exhibited not a human being. What more? The time of bringing forth had come, and behold the mother brought forth into the light without light an infant, dead before it was born. The father, accusing nature, has recourse to grace; full indeed of faith, and placing his hope of an heir in Radegund alone, he wraps the lifeless corpse in her haircloth. The blessed presumption merited a happy outcome; for the garment being touched, the boy opens his eyes, puts off the deathly color, and, restored to life, is carried back to his mother's lap, who from that lap had gone forth to the tomb. The infant, being received, mitigated both the pangs of the birth and the sorrow of death.

[45] A servant of the nuns, by name Floreius, had by blessed Radegund's order gone aboard a ship to fish. she snatches a servant from the peril of drowning, He, when he brought her into the deep, a storm arising, began to be in peril. The wind rising on every side, and the wave, raising its crest higher, seemed to have sworn to shipwreck. Terrified by these things, Floreius has recourse more frequently to the name of Radegund; he invokes Radegund, often repeating: Help us, most Holy one, while we obey thy command. At her name the force of the winds subsided, the seas grew calm, Floreius, having obtained his prayers, came to port.

[46] Great are the things which precede, but by no means less those which follow. Christ's Daughter had ordered a beautiful laurel to be plucked up and planted before her cell; she restores greenness to a withered laurel, which being done, the root, refusing the degenerate soil, being transplanted, at once withered. When the abbess learned this, jesting she said to the blessed Woman: Until thou obtain this from God, that the dry laurel take hold of the earth, I suspend thee from food. And although the abbess uttered this in jest, yet she showed to the abbess full obedience, as to one speaking in earnest. For prayer being made, straightway the laurel is clothed with greenness; it is covered with new leaves, and, its roots being driven deeper, it acquired by grace the fruitfulness which violence had destroyed.

[47] and frees two possessed women from a demon. For the wife also of a certain carpenter, whom an evil spirit had invaded, the abbess said to blessed Radegund in jest rather than in earnest: I excommunicate thee, Mother, unless the poor woman possessed by a demon be delivered and at rest within three days. But this too, not vainly said, was followed without delay by a lawful ^a effect. For on the following day, while the Nun with rather prolonged intercession prayed for the wretched woman, the demon, going out through her ear, left free the vessel which it had long wearied with its wonted presumption.

There is offered to her also another most wretched woman, vexed by a like prejudice, from whom the wicked spirit had wrung the rest of mind and of flesh. Thou wouldst have thought the enemy dreaded the presence of the blessed Woman, to whom she could not be presented save by the greatest force. The poor woman, however, being presented, is ordered to be laid prostrate on the pavement, not to be removed thence before both health should be restored to her and she to her friends. For her sacred prayers had this efficacy, that when the most holy Woman set her foot upon the neck of the possessed woman, the unclean spirit, going out through unclean passages, left the woman unharmed.

[48] Besides other things, she raises a nun from death, Moreover a certain one of the nuns, familiar to the blessed Woman, her eye being covered with a film, bewailed her lost sight. But she too merited health, laying upon her eye wormwood, which, that she might have it more soothing, the holy Woman had applied to her own breast. For the herb being applied, it straightway put to flight the pain and the blood, joy and sight alike being restored to the woman.

But on a certain day, while the Nun was praying in her cell, she heard as it were the voices of a grieving people. As she inquired what it was, it is answered that one of the nuns had died, and that the rest were performing the office of human affection for her funeral. Hearing this, the lifeless body is ordered to be brought and presented to her in her cell. There is no delay at all, and behold, the corpse being presented, those who had brought in the dead are compelled to withdraw further off. All witnesses therefore being removed, the Woman, about to pray, bars her cell. The body is laid on the ground, she beats upon heaven with prayers and groaning, invites life with tears, presuming from grace what she did not hope from nature. A commanding thing is true religion, which changes the laws and statutes of things. It was brought about by religion that Christ's Daughter should ask nothing of Christ in vain. But neither in this was she disappointed of her pious desires; she found so great grace with God that by her merits she who was destined for burial was restored to life. To the astonishment of those who had brought in the corpse, the nun goes out whole, accompanying to the assembly the sisters who had gone before her to the sepulchre.

[49] she drives a deadly dropsy from another, A certain one of the nuns, by name Animia, had swollen with a deadly dropsy ^c, and the physicians, being called in vain, promised nothing else than her near obsequies. And while she was almost breathing out her spirit, it seemed

to her in sleep that blessed Radegund with her abbess visited her as she lay, and, having visited her, set her down in a bath, anointed her limbs with oil, and lastly covered her with white garments. The nun, awakened from sleep, felt her ailment mitigated. Then, when fuller day had shone, the deadly waters being dried up *, her swollen belly subsided, on the same day so returning to its own measure ^d that no traces at all of the disease remained.

[50] Great was Radegund's merit, who obtained this also from the Lord, and works other miracles, that the works of her hands should have a certain dignity above the rest. For a ball of thread which her blessed fingers had spun, when a mouse wished to gnaw it with its bite, was choked and expired. It is doubtful to none that this befell by the Woman's merits, whose labors, while a worm [e] attacked them, grace preserved.

Besides, a maiden by name Goda so great a burning of fever pressed that her long anxiety promised nothing else but death. She, her substance being spent in vain on physicians, as she deserved to be healed by none of them, so to be heard by none of the Saints. Being compelled therefore to have recourse to a proved help, she ordered a candle made to the measure of her body to be lighted in honor and in the name of the blessed Woman. Which being done, as if the fire had consumed the matter of the disease, the infirmity was consumed at the same time as the candle. The woman rose whole, and owing to the most holy Woman that [*] she was restored to health, she did not escape the storms of this world before, having professed as a nun, she changed her manners for the better.

[51] Further, blessed Radegund, among the other proclamations of the graces [among which she prodigiously perceived the wine to be given to the poor multiplied,] by which she made the Church of Christ illustrious, embraced with pure affection true poverty, so that of the things which she herself had assigned to the monastery she reckoned nothing as her own, and gave nothing at all of another's without her abbess's leave. Wherefore the abbess appointed for her use a wine-vessel of about eight measures, whence, a bountiful dispenser, she might minister to whom she would. But into this vessel the Lord poured so great an abundance that, being emptied, it was not diminished; being distributed, it did not fail. The Woman by emptying and grace by refilling seemed to have entered into a contest.

[52] My effort will be a vain effort if I strive to commit to memory each of the things which the Lord deigned to work through her. and she had a wonderful revelation before her death, For very many remain, by which not only living but also sleeping in Christ she is recorded to have shone more widely. Indeed, while at the delay of her reward she drew long sighs, and pined wholly with desire of heavenly joys, a youth appeared to her, eminent in stature and bearing in his face a divine loveliness; whom, as he came nearer, the most holy Woman dreaded, and feared his caress; and he said: Why dost thou importune me with such groanings? Why dost thou thus pine with desire of me? Knowest thou not what rewards are laid up for thee with me? Know that in the diadem of my head thou art the first gem. These things being said, the youth vanished, the blessed Woman being left at once in ecstasy and in joy. Which vision indeed she disclosed only to two who were familiar with her, adjuring them that they should not presume to reveal the secret of the Lord their God so long as she was held subject to the laws of the frail world.

[53] which she piously departs with the greatest grief of the nuns. But when the long-sighed-for and long-awaited moment of her calling drew near, the blessed Woman, passing unharmed through the tempests of this great and wide sea, committed to ashes and haircloth her wearied limbs which confessed their nature. The multitude of virgins, troubled by the sudden event, fills her cell with plaintive groanings, and beats upon it with lamentations. Tears flow, finding no consolation at all. At length the most blessed Woman, her eyes being lifted to heaven, exchanged by a happy passing exile for her country, labor for rest. And she died on the first of the Ides of August, about to profit by her patronage the holy flock she left, whom she had profited both by teachings and by example. Nor is it lawful to believe that Christ's Daughter supplicates Christ in vain for her own, by whose merits it is established that the dead were raised, demons expelled, troubled seas calmed, and those oppressed with various sicknesses recalled to their former health, her Spouse the Lord Jesus Christ working through her, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns God through all ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

* Perhaps "the surface of the eye being covered."

* that is, with bended knees

* Read "lethali hydrope"

* perhaps "exsiccatis"

* Perhaps "quod"