Louis

ON ST. LOUIS, BISHOP OF TOULOUSE, OF THE ORDER OF FRIARS MINOR,

AT BRIGNOLES IN PROVENCE IN GAUL,

In the year 1297.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Louis, bishop of Toulouse, of the Order of Friars Minor, at Brignoles in Provence in Gaul (St.)

BHL Number: 5054

BY J. P.

§ I. The Saint's royal family; his brothers and sisters; his primogeniture; his name; the time and place of his birth; his captivity in Spain.

The Life of our St. Louis, written by an Anonymous author and published by Brother Henry Sedulius, The Saint's royal stock on his father's side; touches briefly upon his royal descent in these very few words in chapter 1: Louis was born of his father Charles II, king of Sicily, of the royal stock of the Franks; his mother being Mary, daughter of the king of Hungary. Guillaume Catel, in the Monuments of the History of Occitania, book 5, from page 910, both repeats this subject from further back and sets it forth more fully, writing this, which from the French runs thus: St. Louis, bishop of Toulouse, was sprung of royal stock both on his father's and on his mother's side: for Louis VIII, king of France, had by his wife Blanche, daughter of Alfonso, king of Castile, a numerous offspring, among whom were St. Louis, and Charles, Count of Anjou, and, by reason of his wife, Count of Provence, and afterwards king of Sicily and of Naples: which Charles took to wife Beatrice, Countess of Provence, and she bore him a son named Charles, called at first prince of Salerno, who succeeded his father in the kingdom of Sicily and in his other dominions. That Charles, second of this name king of Sicily and Count of Provence, had as wife Mary, daughter of the king of Hungary, who succeeded in her father's kingdom.

[2] This marriage of Charles II, king of Sicily, and Mary of Hungary God so prospered his brothers and sisters; that from it fourteen children were born; nine males and five daughters. The first of his children was Charles Martel, prince of Salerno, who, while his father and mother yet lived, was crowned king of Hungary. The second was St. Louis of Marseilles, our bishop of Toulouse. The third, Robert, king of Sicily \. The fourth, Philip, prince of Taranto. The fifth, Raymond Berengar; the sixth, John; the seventh, Tristan \; the eighth, John, duke of the Morea, who was afterwards called duke of Durazzo; the ninth, Peter, count of Gravina, were their names. The firstborn of the daughters was called Clementia (nay, Margaret, according to the Sainte-Marthes, whom I shall cite in the Annotations to chapter 1 of the Saint's Life, letter a), who married Charles of Valois; the second Blanche, who fell as wife to James, king of Aragon; the third Eleanor, wife of Frederick, king of Sicily; the fourth Mary, wife of the king of Majorca; the fifth Beatrice, who in her first marriage was joined to the marquis of Ferrara, and in her second to Bertrand, count of Montescaglioso \ (as he calls him); as Antoine de La Sale observed, whom the aforesaid Catel cites; and thus he goes on: From this deduction we learn how St. Louis our bishop was the son of the king of Sicily; and that St. Louis, king of France, was his great-uncle, he being besides joined by affinity with the highest kings of the Christian commonwealth.* One may also consult Sedulius, to be cited presently, page 98.

[3] The Saint, sprung also of royal descent on his mother's side, The series of the maternal stock of our St. Louis is woven together by Sedulius, named above, in his Commentary on the Life of the same Saint published by him, page 99 and following, where he writes this: Here I need a torch amid the well-nigh inextricable darkness which is spread by those (not, however, to be named by me) who have attempted to unfold the series of St. Louis the bishop's maternal descent: which I, following P. Aemilius and Antonio Bonfini, who write of this matter expressly, review in this manner: Andrew II, king of Hungary (says Aemilius, in Philip IV), by his wife Gertrude of Swabia begot Bela, Coloman, Andrew, and besides certain daughters, among whom the holy Elizabeth, etc. When Andrew had departed from among men (on the authority of Bonfini, Hungarian Affairs, Decade II, book VIII), Bela, the elder son, is hailed king by all the Hungarians. On Bela's death, Stephen his son received the kingdom by hereditary right. To Stephen V, son of Bela IV (the same, book IX), was born a daughter Mary, who obtained her grandmother's name, who had once been the daughter of the emperor of the Greeks. Her, her father Stephen joined by a lawful bond to Charles the Lame, son of Charles, who by the authority and beneficence of the Apostolic Senate had claimed for himself the kingdom of Sicily. To him by his wife Mary, daughter of the king of Hungary, there were fourteen children, nine male, five female; concerning whom I was treating a little before from Catel, various readings, which I have noted there in the margin, being taken from the text which is here given.

[4] who was not the firstborn. And, with some matter interposed, Sedulius goes on thus: I have set down almost the same words, though not in the same places, of A. Bonfini. First, that you may understand in what degree of consanguinity St. Louis the bishop touched St. Elizabeth: since she was great-aunt to Mary, St. Louis's mother. Then, that you may see that St. Louis was not the firstborn to his father, but that Charles Martel was the elder. They err, therefore, who write that Louis was the firstborn: as the book of Conformities (of Bartholomew of Pisa), fruit 8, and, following it, Robert de Licio in his sermon on St. Louis, which is the 40th; Pelbart of Temesvár, sermon on St. Louis; Pietro Rodolfi, book 1 of the History of the Seraphic Religion; the Vine of St. Francis, written in the German tongue. Likewise Girolamo Piatti, book 2 On the Good of the Religious State, chapter 26, etc. Robert adduces on his own behalf the bull of canonization, which nevertheless nowhere calls St. Louis firstborn; but says that he "by right of primogeniture renounced both the kingdom which (as history relates," as Sedulius inserts, ") was owed to him by hereditary succession." The kingdom was owed to him, not because he was firstborn, but because his firstborn brother Charles Martel had departed from among the living: whom he could by law and right succeed, being the second born.

[5] It will not be beside the purpose to append some things to these about the Saint's name and surname. His name and surname. And of his name Luke Wadding records this in the Annals of the Minors, volume 2, at the year of Christ 1275, number 4: The name of Louis was given him in baptism, with regard to the sanctity of blessed Louis, king of the French, that he might reproduce the manners of him whose name he bore, the Anonymous biographer going before him in chapter 1. There is one who says that St. Louis, king of France, was godfather to our Saint of the same name; as you may see below, §15. But what of the surname? In Catel, as we have just seen, he is called "of Marseilles": add the Sainte-Marthes, volume 1 of Gallia Christiana, among the bishops of Toulouse, page 689, who name him with the surname de Marseille. A recent French biographer affirms, in the Life of the Saint which he published at the XIX day of August, that he was called by several St. Louis of Marseilles rather than of Toulouse, when they wished to distinguish him from the holy King of the same name; and he says this was done for the reason that his body was carried to the Friars Minor of Marseilles, where he wished to be buried. But that surname must not be extended so far that the birth of the holy Bishop be attributed to the people of Marseilles, as we shall now say.

[6] Pietro Rodolfi of Tossignano, in the History of the Seraphic Religion, book 1, folio 120 verso, says: Not at Nocera, Bl. Louis was born (as they report) in the castle of Nocera de' Pagani, where a chapel has been erected in his honor. Wadding, just cited, determines the Saint's birthplace more positively, saying: At Nocera of the Saracens is born in this year (1275) or the preceding, in the month of February, St. Louis. The same author in volume 4, at the year of Christ 1400, number 37, writes this: In the custody of Marseilles is the monastery of the town of Brignoles, in which Pisanus wrongly says St. Louis was born and given \: the second is truer than the first: for elsewhere we have said that he was born in the kingdom of Naples. By Wadding's judgment, therefore, which nevertheless I do not remember to have seen proved by him elsewhere, it follows that Saussay was mistaken when in his Gallican Martyrology at the XIX day of August he speaks thus of our holy Prelate: In the same place and on the day on which he was born at Brignoles,* etc. Add Catel, whom I designated before, page 912, where he says that the Saint was born in that place.

[7] By Wadding's judgment, I say; which, since it is far more probably convicted of falsehood, but he was born at Brignoles in Provence. its consequences drawn immediately from it must also be false. For in François Pagi, in the Breviary of the Roman Pontiffs, volume 4, in Pope John XXII, number 14, it is rightly shown that St. Louis was born in the province of Provence, and not in the kingdom of Naples, as some will have it, among whom Wadding at the year 1275, number 4; which François de Meyronnes, of the Order of Minors, called the Illuminated Doctor, expressly asserts, in the time

of John XXII, in which he lived, in the sermon which he delivered on this Saint, which was printed in the year 1493 at Venice with several others of Meyronnes on the Saints; in which, speaking of the privileges of his birth, he says: "The fourth was concerning the place of his birth in a land which the Lord sanctified above the other places of the world by those Saints who saw the face of Christ with bodily eyes. For in the region of his birth there are found seven who are mentioned in sacred Scripture as having seen Christ, namely Lazarus with his two sisters; and the two sisters of the Lord's Mother; and Theophilus (one should read Maximinus) and the man born blind." That all these came into Provence and there died was already a tradition at the beginning of the eighth century… As regards the place of his birth in Provence, no other can be assigned than Brignoles: for since it is admitted by all that he died on the XIX day of August in the year 1297 at Brignoles, where on the same day he made his testament, which was published by Antoine Pagi at the end of the sermons of St. Anthony of Padua, and since from that same sermon of François de Meyronnes we have it that he was born in the same house in which he died, it manifestly follows that he was born at Brignoles. "The sixth contemplation," says Meyronnes a little after, "is as to the state of his consummation, because in altogether the same place, and as regards the house where he was born, there he died, after the manner of a circle which ends where it begins." Certain therefore is the tradition of the people of Brignoles, namely that St. Louis was both born and died at Brignoles; and that he was not brought forth at Nocera in Italy. But what Pagi just now asserted about the year of his death, that it is admitted by all that he died in the year 1297, is not true: for Wadding is wholly for the year next following; others mark another year, as will be made plain below in §5 from number 49.

[8] Those things are elucidated What the Anonymous biographer narrates in chapter 1 about the beginnings of our holy Bishop's pure life from his tender age needs no commentary; wherefore, sending the reader thither, I proceed to his captivity. In his boyish years, therefore, being spent in simplicity at home after the example of the holy patriarch Jacob, by the disposition of God, who scourges every son whom he receives, when he had reached the fourteenth year of his age, the son Louis was sent into Catalonia as a hostage for the freeing of his father, with two brothers of his own: where for a whole seven years both the captivity itself and the guards set over him exercised his constancy in a wondrous manner, so that he strengthened many by pious examples and roused them by wholesome admonitions to the virtue of patience, says the Life, chapter 1, number 3. This passage, that it may be rendered clearer, I judge should be set forth with the following elucidations. Henry Sedulius, in his Commentary on chapter 1 of the Anonymous Life, observes this about the cause of this captivity from Paul Aemilius, whom he cites in St. Louis IX and also in Philip III, kings of France: To Charles II, he says, the father was Charles I, brother of St. Louis IX, king of France… Afterwards he was made king of Sicily by Clement IV, Supreme Pontiff, against Manfred, son of the emperor Frederick II by a concubine mother, and usurper of the kingdom of Sicily.

[9] which concern For having been summoned to Rome, "he and his wife (on Aemilius's authority) in the Lateran church were designated by a cardinal legate, at the Pontiff's order, king and queen of Sicily and of Jerusalem." Wherefore this Charles was called the first king of Sicily: whose son, heir of the kingdom and successor to his father, Charles II, was the father of St. Louis, of whom we now treat, bishop of Toulouse. His grandfather Charles I lost the kingdom of Sicily, seized not without blood, in the year of our salvation 1281, all the French being slain throughout Sicily, in the Sicilian Vespers, Peter, king of Tarragona, invading Sicily; because his wife was Constance, daughter of Manfred, by whose right he claimed the kingdom. While Charles I was renewing the war, his son Charles II was captured by the Spaniards, and was carried off captive into Spain. Whereupon (according to Aemilius) "his father, heavy in age, with labors, grief, and weariness of adverse fortune, resolving even so not to yield or to sink in spirit, but thinking that he must make trial and act, while he was going round the cities of the Calabrians, Apulians, Lucanians, Picentines, and Bruttians to strengthen their spirits, was seized with disease and died: a king of the highest natural quality of mind; but wretched through the sin of his own people (as the authors relate); long renowned for the greatest victories; but in old age having experienced the force of fortune's evils."

[10] His son Charles, while he was held in custody at Barcelona, St. Louis's captivity it was agreed that, he being released to settle the affairs of his kingdom, his sons should be substituted as hostages: one of whom was this St. Louis, bishop of Toulouse… These things, diligently collected from Paul Aemilius, from the book of Conformities, and from others, had to be set down at somewhat greater length for the light of history. Thus Sedulius concerning the cause of our Saint's captivity: who then in his Commentaries on these words which I cited above from him, the son Louis a hostage with two brothers, discourses thus about the number of hostages, from Paul Aemilius in Philip IV, from Blondus in Aeneas Silvius, and from Platina in Pope Nicholas IV, designated by him in the margin: That Charles II, Louis's father, was captured in war by the Spaniards was said at the beginning of the preceding chapter: but that he was released a little afterwards to settle the affairs of the kingdom on certain conditions, and with his sons given as hostages, and (as P. Aemilius narrates) "besides forty noblemen from the Phocaean province" (or the Narbonese; now they call that territory Provence, as Sedulius had observed at chapter 1). Then Sedulius notes thus at chapter 2:

[11] That St. Louis was given as a hostage all write: yet in the number of the hostages most vary. concern. Aemilius writes of only two hostages, Robert and Louis. Blondus's Epitome: "Charles the Firstborn, who afterwards had the surname Martel, king of Hungary, and Louis." Similarly Platina. But our author, familiar with St. Louis, testifies that Louis was given as hostage for his father, with two brothers of his own. Which very thing Pope John XXII attests in the bull of canonization, §3, added by us to the history of the life of St. Louis. The first hostage was St. Louis; the second Robert his brother, of whom mention is made at the beginning of chapter 4 of the Life of St. Louis. The third Raymond, whom he mentions toward the end of chapter 5. Peter de Natalibus, book 7, chapter 77, mentions Louis alone as hostage, saying: "For the illustrious lord Charles his father he was a hostage in Catalonia." In the book of Conformities St. Louis is set down with two brothers. That number is confirmed in Wadding at the year 1288, to which the event is attached by him, and is set forth there in this manner at number 26: But that there were three, the variety of opinions being set aside, Zurita, a most exact writer, proves; and certainly he says the agreement was about giving Charles Martel; that nevertheless not he, but Raymond Berengar, the fourth-born, afterwards came into the power of the Aragonese; but that Louis and Robert were handed over from the beginning for the freeing of their father. See Zurita's Annals of Aragon, volume 1, book 4, chapter 104. But upon what conditions those matters were transacted, the said founder of the Annals sets forth at greater length in the same place; where, however, I do not find more children of Charles named than seven sons and five daughters, contrary to what was set forth above from another source. See our Annotations to chapter 1 of the Life, letter a.

\ elsewhere duke of Calabria*

\ elsewhere Christianus*

\ perhaps Montescayoux, elsewhere Montescagioso*

\ read denatum* died

§ II. His captivity illustrated by virtues; his liberation; his first clerical tonsure, and the minor Orders obtained with a singular privilege; the Saint's confessor.

The Saint in captivity practiced unwearied The Anonymous author of the Life in Sedulius records the excellent virtues of the Saint, which he practiced during the long and equally most troublesome time of his captivity, joining namely that most hard yoke of exile diligently and calmly with the sweet yoke and light burden of the Lord, and bearing both with heroic spirit from his youth. But although in his Life this subject is treated at sufficient length, I shall nevertheless detain the reader here for a while, and shall give some things to complete the matters there narrated. But to say nothing of the place of his captivity, which was the city of Barcelona in Catalonia, and there the fortress of Siurana \ (see in our work the Life, chapters 1, 2, and 3), to his unwearied zeal for prayer, of which the Life treats in chapter 1, there may be added this from Bartholomew of Pisa's book of Conformities, cited before: This Saint, while not yet made a Friar Minor, had the pursuit of holy prayer especially for his friend. For as King Robert attested concerning this, and his brother, and his most noble young attendants who lay in his chamber, when he was small and tender, at all times, after his servants had withdrawn, he rose from his bed and persisted in prayer and tears until midnight, and was many times rebuked for this by the Friars who heard him in confession, on account of his delicacy.*

[13] zeal for prayer, and triumphs over the demon. Whence in those days, when once he had risen for prayer and was standing all night in prayer until midnight, and there was a light burning in the chamber, as is the custom of nobles; and the lord King Robert and his brother the lord Raymond were in his bed, when all were sleeping together and yet actually awake, they saw St. Louis rise for prayer. And when they looked, they saw a certain most black cat \, as large as a dog, leaping upon him and fighting with him: whom that holy youth Louis, making the sign of the cross, drove away from himself: and when it had leapt upon him several times, the boys, namely Robert and his brother, cried out; and straightway that cat disappeared. Which St. Louis noticing, rising from prayer he came to them and bound them by an oath that, as long as he should live, they should disclose to no one what they had seen. By these things are confirmed and illustrated what is narrated by Sedulius's Anonymous at number 10. But when he had been made a Friar Minor (let me be permitted to append this too from Pisanus in the place cited), rising for prayer while his companions slept, he prayed devoutly, and now and then lay upon the ground.*

[14] But there remain other notable things to be reported, which so young a man and hero, already as it were a veteran, Among the services rendered to the poor and to lepers, left as examples of virtues in the time of his captivity. The Anonymous published by Sedulius in our text, chapter 3, records St. Louis's humble service toward the poor, a leper deemed worthy of his kiss, and his merits approved by God with miracles: to which belong especially the words of Pisanus in these terms: This Saint had this as a special thing, as much by grace as by the gift of nature, that he willingly stretched out his hands to the poor and especially to lepers, and visited them in person. At Barcelona

while he was a hostage, and was not yet eighteen years old, he used to visit lepers, and with his own ivory and most beautiful hands, in which he surpassed all others, he washed their limbs, touched their sores, drew out the pus, and fell most devoutly to kissing them: and this he did especially in Holy Week, and singularly on the Lord's Supper. For, as King Robert and others who were present bore witness, when once on the day of the Lord's Supper he had caused all the lepers of the city of Barcelona to be summoned to his lodging, that he might wash their feet and serve them food, mindful of the Lord, whose countenance appeared leprous, stricken and humbled in those days:

[15] And when all the lepers had come together to his lodging, there was present one very great in stature and most horrible in that infirmity, so much so that the lord King Robert and the lord Raymond his brother, seeing this, were greatly afraid; he seems to have deserved well of Christ or of an angel. and the man of God Louis, approaching him, washed him more carefully and more devoutly than the others, and served him more zealously at table, furnishing him with what he needed. But when on the morrow, on Good Friday, in memory of the passion of Christ, who appeared as a leper on the cross, he wished to have the aforesaid leper in his lodging, he was not found in the whole city, though most diligently sought. And when the other lepers had been questioned, they answered that no such man had ever been present among them, nor had they ever seen him. Whence it is piously to be believed that it was the Lord Jesus Christ himself, or his angel, who in the guise of a most horrible leper wished to show himself to the blessed Man, that he might prove his humility and virtue.

[16] Divine providence turned that long exile of custody not only into a school of all kinds of virtues for the most pious Youth; In the time of that same captivity but even into a training-ground of rare erudition and of various sciences. For, familiarity being there contracted with men of the most approved character, by whose counsel he was instructed and directed himself and his affairs, as may be seen in the Life of Sedulius's Anonymous, chapter 2, this stands there concerning his learning: God therefore, the lord of the sciences, taught him goodness and discipline and knowledge in a short space of time. For in that seven years alone of his captivity, in which he enjoyed the continual company of the Friars Minor, who had taken him under instruction, he made such progress not only in the humane letters, but also in the sacred, that even in a circle of the most learned men he could answer prudently (as I myself saw at Barcelona) and dispute acutely. Nor this only, but even, like an apostolic Man, prepared and ready for all sermons, he preached to Clergy and people with great grace and fruit, etc.

[17] Let us hear Bartholomew of Pisa, who explains the present subject more distinctly: He gave himself to the study of the sciences with his brothers at such a time, namely of captivity, he procured for himself an excellent treasure of learning. having as masters in the sciences Friars Minor, namely Friar Pontius Carbonell, a competent and holy man, and other Friars Minor, so that within the seven years in which he was there he was sufficiently instructed by God \ in grammar, logic, natural science, metaphysics and moral science, and sacred theology, so that he knew both how to dispute about the aforesaid matters, and how to teach and preach to Clergy and people, and to set forth the word of God; so that his knowledge was thought rather to have been divinely infused into him than humanly acquired. Father Friar Benignus Fremaut, of the Order of Recollect Friars Minor of the province of St. Joseph in the County of Flanders, in his general Legend of the Saints and Blessed, etc., of the Order of St. Francis, published in the Flemish tongue, book 8, which comprises the Lives of the month of August, page 374, makes mention of Father Pontius Carbonell, renowned for holiness and learning, and no less for miracles wrought after his death by his patronage. Of the same the same author had treated in book 3 at the VI day of March, page 189. In Wadding, among the writers of the Order of Minors, this stands concerning him: Pontius Carbonell, a Catalan, master and rector of St. Louis, bishop of Toulouse, of the Order of Minors (not of St. Louis, king of France, as Possevino, Willot, and the author of the Spanish Library write), a most holy and most learned man; he wrote Commentaries on the whole Bible, the sentences of the holy Fathers being abundantly collected for each passage… He lies in the church of the Minors at Barcelona. Rodolfi, folio 121, adds another to the masters of St. Louis just mentioned, in these words: In his seventh year he had as instructor and guide Don Guillermo de Manerio, a vigorous soldier, but an upright man.*

[18] He excels in chastity and integrity of life, The most chaste Youth also proved that his unblemished virginity was so dear to his heart, while he was living detained at Barcelona, that he most zealously shunned even the very shadow of anything that might harm that angelic virtue. Let the account of Bartholomew of Pisa serve as an example. From boyhood, he says, the love of chastity so affected his mind that he not only avoided the sight, conversation, and company of women, but no one ever heard him speaking carnal words or words pertaining to such things. Whence at Barcelona, while he was a hostage, and the noblemen of that kingdom who visited him sometimes spoke loose words in order to incite him to evil, bringing to him maidens, girls, and noblewomen, he, an angelic and most pure Man, cast them from him as though they were ruffians \, and most sharply rebuked his brothers when they gave themselves to the sight of women; nor did they dare, out of reverence and fear of him, to do anything unseemly. Witnesses of his virginity were the brothers who brought him up, who lay in his chamber and stood by him from boyhood, and bore testimony that he was of angelic purity. Whence his manner of life among men in this regard was angelic rather than human. Noblemen also, together with the aforesaid brothers, bore testimony that never, from the time he was born until his twenty-fourth year, in which he died, did there go forth from his mouth a single wanton word, neither in jest nor in earnest, nor one declaring or implying any unseemliness; but his words were always most chaste and honorable; and, what is more, both as a secular and as a Friar and as a bishop he perpetually avoided every sight and every gaze of women. But of this virtue there will also be speech below. Rodolfi, page 121, says: Friar Francisco Scarerius, bishop of Segea, Friar Peter, bishop of Epula, and Friar Fortius, his inseparable companions, who had before known him familiarly, testify that they had never heard or seen in him anything whatsoever that savored of mortal sin.*

[19] At the time when he was held captive among the people of Barcelona, he vows to enter the Order of Friars Minor, and presses his vow. he felt himself inflamed with the desire of a more perfect life. For in the fortress of Siurana, as the Life narrates in chapter 1, being seized with a most grievous disease… he vows to God for his recovery… the life and institute of the Friars Minor, and that he would persevere in it as long as he lived. Nor was he forgetful of the benefit; but at the next Pentecost, inspired by the Holy Spirit, early in the morning in the chapel of the fortress built to the memory of the Blessed Mother of God, openly renewing at the altar of the Lord what he had silently promised within himself, he manifestly offered himself to the Lord. These things are confirmed and clothed with the following circumstances in Bartholomew of Pisa: The man devoted to God, seeing that the world passes away like a shadow, and that the friend of the world is made the enemy of God, while he was still set at Barcelona in hostageship, namely as hostage for his father, purposing to renounce the world, wished to be made a Friar Minor there: but not being able to accomplish this, because the Friars of the province of Aragon would not have received him for fear; then he solemnly made a vow of entering the Order of Friars Minor. Nor indeed did he wish to carry out sluggishly there what he had fervently vowed. For, as it stands in the Anonymous, chapter 3, While he was in custody in Catalonia, he opened the secret of his mind to a Religious father, that he had made vows to God of perpetual chastity, and "I have bound myself to God," he said, "to take up the institute of the divine Francis, nor is it lawful to break faith." But how he pressed the matter you will find there; as also how, being restored to liberty, he again repeated the pledge of his vow. But since mention has fallen upon the Saint's restored liberty, we shall observe certain things about that matter, after we have established the duration of the captivity.

[20] Peter de Natalibus, book 7, chapter 77, seems to extend it to four years. After seven years spent in captivity When he was, he says, twelve years old … he was a hostage in Catalonia: with whom the Friars Minor stood; from whom he received the law of life and discipline, and made a vow to the Lord that, if he should be released from custody, he would enter the Order of Friars Minor: he also perpetually dedicated his virginity to the Lord; but after four years, being released, etc. I said seems to extend; for since the word released may qualify either the vow of virginity or the time of the captivity, a certain ambiguity as to the time at which the release occurred seems to be left in Peter de Natalibus. For if he means that he was released after four years, beginning that from the start of the captivity and not from the making of the vow (in what year of the captivity he uttered it is hidden from us), he has erred in the reckoning of the time in which it lasted, namely a whole seven years, according to our biographer, chapter 1, and the bull of canonization, which says of him: Within the seven years in which … he was a hostage there, … he so profited. Add Bartholomew of Pisa speaking thus: Charles, having given his three sons as hostages, … himself … returned to his kingdom: and since peace was not restored for seven years, St. Louis with his two brothers was a hostage at Barcelona for so long a time, being restored to his father on the occasion of the marriage of his sister with James, king of Aragon, as I shall presently say.

[21] Wadding at the year of Christ 1295, numbers 3 and 4, sets forth the matter: at last he is freed from it, James, … brother of Frederick, while he greatly desires peace and the quiet of his kingdom, diligently fulfils the prescribed terms of the treaty, and betroths to himself Charles's daughter Blanche, the marriage being celebrated at Villebeltran on the first day of November, Guillaume Ferrier, Cardinal of the title of St. Clement, the legate, who together with King Charles was conducting the queen, having died first at Perpignan and been buried among the Minors… King James also restored to Charles on the last day of October, on which he received from him his daughter Blanche as bride, his three sons, Louis, Robert, and Raymond, and all the nobles of Provence, whom we said King Alfonso, brother of this James and his predecessor in the kingdom, had received as hostages. But before we proceed to illustrate the deeds of St. Louis after his liberation from that custody, it pleases us to report a certain singular privilege which he obtained at that time from the Apostolic See.

[22] [a singular privilege having been previously obtained of receiving the first tonsure and the minor Orders from his confessor.] The fact is established from the letters of Pope Celestine V, with this title: To our beloved son Louis, son of our most dear son in Christ Charles, illustrious king of Sicily. "Since you desire in the Clerical habit to

serve the Lord, we have lately, at the urgency of your supplication, granted by other letters of ours to our beloved son Friar Francis of Apt, of the Order of Friars Minor, the faculty of being able to confer upon you, who are detained as a hostage among the enemies of the Church, the first tonsure and all the minor Orders." The letter was given at Sulmona on the VII Ides of October, in the first year of the Pontificate of that same Pope. These letters are extant in Rainaldi, in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the end of volume 15, among the things passed over and to be restored to their places. But who was that Francis of Apt? François Pagi, in the Breviary of the Deeds of the Roman Pontiffs, in Pope Celestine V, number 15, says: It is natural to judge … that he is Francis Brun or Bruni, companion and familiar of that same St. Louis (concerning whom see his testament below, §7, number 61). For no other Francis a Minorite is found at this time who could have conferred the minor Orders upon St. Louis, except that Francis Brun or Bruni, who moreover was of Apt. The aforesaid Pagi in the same place, number 16, reports from Harold's Epitome of Wadding's Annals at the year 1295, number 1, that at that time the Saint's confessor was Friar Francis of Apea \, chaplain of his father Charles, and that the royal archives of Naples so teach. And he adds: Wherefore I have not doubted that this Francis of Apt was his confessor, and that Harold read de Apea wrongly, when he ought to have read de Apta … For no city, no town is found designated by the name of Apea. Then Pagi is pleased with the conjecture that that Francis was called de Apta, not because he was of Apt, but because his surname was de Apta. But how he supports this conjecture may be read in him. For the rest, he says, of the faculty of administering minor Orders granted by any Roman Pontiff to some simple priest, not an abbot, I have found no other example.* Here we might deal with Wadding, who in defining the time of the Orders received by the Saint was mistaken; but since our opinion against him is confirmed from other documents which we shall presently produce, we defer the matter thither. See therefore what is to be said below at number 25.

\ elsewhere Sciurana*

\* that is, a cat

\ perhaps adeo* moreover

\* that is, most vile men or whoremongers

\ Harold writes from Apea*

§ III. The Saint nominated to the see of Lyons; the time of his first tonsure and minor Orders; likewise of the major Orders conferred upon him.

The Saint's promotion to the see of Lyons Pope Celestine, fifth of this name, by his letters confirms to St. Louis the administration of the church of Lyons both in spirituals and in temporals, after he had already before promoted him to the government of that same see. For in the letters cited by me above at number 22 these things are said: Wherefore, although on account of the distance of places by which you are separated from us, and on account of the shortness of the time since we granted the aforesaid, you have not yet been able to receive the aforesaid Orders: nevertheless, because those things which are hoped to be done shortly seem in a manner already to exist, following your honorable and wholesome purpose the more graciously, we have confidently thought fit to commit to you the care of the church of Lyons, then vacant by the promotion of our venerable brother Raymond, bishop of Albano, lately raised to the summit of the cardinalate, formerly archbishop of that church (although you have not yet received the tonsure and those Orders), and its administration in spirituals and in temporals; and we grant by the authority of these presents, of certain knowledge and of special grace, that you may receive and hold it according to the form of our other letters granted to you accordingly. Given at Sulmona on the VII Ides of October, in the first year of our Pontificate, and of the Christian era 1294.

[24] But how many and how weighty causes moved St. Celestine made by Pope Celestine V, to promote St. Louis to the government of the church of Lyons is gathered from other letters of that same holy Pontiff in Rainaldi, in the place cited, in which he says: Considering the brightness of your excellent birth, the eminence of your luminous learning, the comeliness of your manners, and the manifold gifts of virtues by which you are known to shine: considering also the depressed and lacerated state of the greater church of Lyons, which, through the injuries and oppressions of powerful neighbors, groans with bitter tears at the grave diminution of its rights and resources; and that by the help of your favor and that of your family that church (the Lord granting it) will repair the aforesaid inconveniences of diminution and will receive the longed-for increases of restitution, etc. Given in the monastery of the Holy Spirit near Sulmona on the Nones of October, in the first year of our Pontificate. But this assumption of our Saint to the aforesaid see was not carried into execution. For, as Rainaldi subjoins in the same place, Boniface VIII afterwards rescinded this; and St. Louis bore with even mind the loss of the dignity of the archbishopric of Lyons: and although he was being brought up in hope of the kingdoms of Sicily and Jerusalem, he acted as subdeacon and chaplain of Boniface VIII with singular humility, from the 107th letter of Boniface in the same manuscript of the Vatican archive, from which Rainaldi had produced two other letters given to St. Louis, as may be seen in him.

[25] In the new edition of Gallia Christiana, volume 4, column 157, there is treatment from Rainaldi of the administration of the archbishopric of Lyons already mentioned, but rescinded by Boniface VIII: the minor Orders and afterwards rescinded; but first, in the same place it is wrongly said that it was conferred by Celestine upon our St. Louis as though he had already at that time professed the Religious life in the Order of Friars Minor, which is false, as will be demonstrated afterwards, when we shall treat of the year of his Religious profession. Secondly, a scruple might here be raised, as there follows, that on these matters there is deep silence in Wadding, otherwise a learned and diligent writer. But that that scruple is not rightly founded and therefore must be laid aside is proved from this, that the aforesaid letters came to light by Rainaldi's labor only in the year 1652, in which volume 15 of the Ecclesiastical Annals, in whose appendix they are woven, is marked as printed. How therefore could Wadding have seen them while he was weaving the deeds of St. Louis? For the second volume of his Annals was printed in the year 1628. But although the eighth volume of that Work was published by him in the year 1654, and so after those letters had been published by Rainaldi, together with additions to the preceding volumes, I nevertheless find nothing in them to our purpose. François Pagi, in the Breviary of the Deeds of the Roman Pontiffs, in Pope Celestine V, number 18, thus concludes against Wadding: From all these things, moreover (he had treated before of the privilege of conferring the minor Orders on our Saint, and of his nomination to the administration of the see of Lyons, of which we too have just treated), it is clear that Wadding was deceived when he wrote at the year 1295, number 5 (nay, number 4), that St. Louis was initiated into the minor Orders in that year, in the presence of James of Aragon and of King Charles his father, who nevertheless in the year 1295 was at Rome, as will be seen below.

[26] in what year Take Wadding's words: And so, being now to be initiated, when according to the custom of the Church he was receiving the first tonsure in the presence of both the king of Aragon and his own father, and of the Apostolic legates who were then present there, to the great admiration of all and with the weeping of the bystanders, on bended knees, with tears poured forth, the royal Youth uttered from his heart that saying of the royal Prophet: The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup; thou art he that shall restore my inheritance to me … And that he might offer himself an acceptable holocaust to God, he again pronounced a vow to God of perpetual chastity and of taking up the institute of the Friars Minor. These things therefore do not seem capable of being combined with those which we recited above about the singular privilege of the first tonsure and the minor Orders, from Celestine's letters written to St. Louis, then living in captivity at Barcelona; much less with the nomination to the archiepiscopal see of Lyons contained in the same. Hence also we are by no means pleased with what Harold records at the year of Christ 1295, number 1. Louis, he says, persisted in his conceived purpose of taking up the institute of the Minors; and, having received the first tonsure of Clerkship, solemnly renewed, in the presence and hearing of many, the vow by which he had secretly bound himself: although Charles the king, his father, had offered that he would at once yield the kingdom to him, if he were willing to take a wife. For if this were true, it would follow that he was marked with the first tonsure at the time when, after the death of Charles, his firstborn brother, the right of primogeniture had devolved upon him: but Charles died in the year 1295 before the III Kalends of September, and indeed some time before, as you may see below in §5.

[27] he received them. Of his subdiaconate, We judge therefore that the first tonsure and the minor Orders must be attached to the year of Christ 1294, in which the above Apostolic letters were given. And that year coheres with Sedulius's Anonymous, who in our text at number 26 narrates this to the present purpose: When he had completed the twentieth year of his age, he was initiated into the ecclesiastical Orders. For the Saint saw the first light in the year 1274, as we shall prove in §6, and therefore he is rightly understood to have been marked with them at the said time of his age. But with how great humility of mind he exercised them is read handed down to memory in the aforementioned Anonymous in these words: Nor indeed did he wish to discharge the duties only of the major Orders, which are called sacred, but of each of the minor ones as well. At Rome on the Lord's Nativity, placing himself among the boys, he did not disdain to carry a candle, most diligently administering the office of acolyte. But although St. Louis discharged that office at Rome, according to the biographer, it cannot from this be concluded that he was initiated there into the minor Orders, for the reasons alleged above. From what has been said it is also deduced that Fremaut erred in chapter 3, where, having premised that the Saint in the year 1296 set out with his father and brothers from Gaul into Italy, and that his mother and his firstborn brother Charles Martel, then declared king of Hungary, together with a great company of distinguished nobility, met him at Florence outside the gates, he afterwards adds that in that place St. Louis received before the feast of the Lord's Nativity the minor Orders and also the subdiaconate: where and when he received this, it is not ready to my hand to define with certainty. But the virtues which he exercised on that occasion are reported by Peter Calo or Calotius, whom I shall indicate below: Being ordained subdeacon, he refused to use gold and silver vessels, or furs of various kinds and gray; nor did he endure to be carried by any animal but a mule … He always wore a cord next his flesh … Being made a subdeacon, he added a rough shirt, nor, though entreated, did he lay it aside until death.

[28] Sedulius's Anonymous teaches this about his diaconate and priesthood in the place cited: his diaconate and priesthood. Being about to be consecrated deacon and priest at Naples in the church of St. Lawrence, where there is a monastery of the Friars Minor (which was completed by Charles the Second after Charles the First, according to Rodolfi, folio 120 verso), he in no way permitted any honor to be paid to him above the rest, bearing himself as though he were the least of all

and the last. Which he also showed in his garments: for, as I read in our manuscript of Calo, After receiving the sacred Orders too, he went about most humbly, wearing garments of gray camel-hair or of black cloth. But in what place and manner he prepared himself for the priesthood is found in Wadding at the year 1296, number 4, where he writes this: Further, that he might be more perfectly taught the laws of ecclesiastical discipline and the ceremonies of duly undertaking the priesthood, he joined himself outside Naples, in a certain place, to the dwelling of the Friars Minor, and by their discipline excellently formed his indeed most holy soul.

\ perhaps nunc* [now]

\ perhaps in*

§ IV. His wonderful contempt of perishable things; his profession of the institute of the Friars Minor; his twofold bishopric.

All perishable things being despised, In the Anonymous writer of the Life there is depicted in vivid colors the highest contempt of perishable things, with which St. Louis inwardly burned, despising the splendid chains of an earthly kingdom, and a truly painted servitude, and aspiring to the genuine liberty of the sons of God, as may be seen in chapter 3. Released therefore from custody, he came with his father to Rome, as the same Anonymous narrates; there Boniface, eighth Pope of that name, wished to make him bishop of Toulouse. But he resolved with himself not to consent before he had freed himself from the vow by which he was bound. And the supreme Pontiff assenting to his devotion, he professed the institute of blessed Francis at Rome in the convent of Ara Coeli on the vigil of the Lord's Nativity. And lest his father might be offended, the Pontiff grants that, the monastic habit being hidden, he should use the common dress of Clerics, which also he used for some time. But not long after, by the instinct of the Holy Spirit and the love of Christ … he laid aside that more honorable attire, and on the very day sacred to St. Agatha, two Cardinals being present, clad in a mean tunic and girt with a cord, according to the prescription of the rule of St. Francis, he was seen to walk barefoot from the Capitol as far as the palace of St. Peter, through those Roman muds. The bull of canonization says: A wonderful thing, and unusual elsewhere! For a Man of virtues, placed on high, renounced the right of primogeniture and the kingdom, the pomp of the royal throne being spurned, purchasing for a corruptible kingdom an eternal kingdom full of delights.

[30] he professes the institute Bartholomew of Pisa deservedly thus extols his heroic contempt of the world: O what a contempt of the world was that of the most holy Youth; who left for the love of Christ the kingdom of Sicily and of Jerusalem, which was owed him from his father as firstborn (namely after the death of his firstborn brother), and the kingdom of Hungary, which was owed him from his mother, the County of Provence and of Forcalquier \, reserving to himself nothing at all of worldly things. Nor did he wish to enter any Order of those possessing at least in common; but the most poor Order of blessed Francis, which gives its Friars nothing either in private or in common, neither in old age nor in youth — at the age, namely, of nineteen years, or at most twenty.*

[31] of the Friars Minor: But for what reason he preferred this Order to others, the copy of the Life which we have relates, which is noted as taken from Father Calo, part 2, folio 89, from codex 929 (concerning which author and codex consult what I said in volume III of August, at the XIII day, page 14). But since that author was contemporary with St. Louis, having namely flourished toward the end of the thirteenth century, as you will find in the same place, we gladly excerpt from him the following to our purpose: But he wished to enter that Order, as he afterwards related, that he might be wholly unknown; where, along with the contemplative life, he might exercise the services of humility, sweep the houses, wash the dishes, and the like. He frequently said after his liberation that it had been well and quietly with him in the castle of Siurana, and that he was never wearied in that castle, although he had been detained there five (nay, seven) years, taking to himself that saying of the Psalm: I am with him: in tribulation thou hast enlarged me. Nor indeed did he afterwards ever omit or interrupt this notable spirit of most profound humility of soul — as cleric, priest, bishop: for He adorned all his deeds with humility, as is said in the Life, chapter 4, number 27. Thus St. Louis, ever and everywhere like himself, and gathering himself into the slender shadows of a most solid humility, by a public act renounced the earthly kingdom of which I was speaking; and indeed in the same year and on the same day on which he was promoted to the sacred mitre, as will be seen a little later.

[32] he is made bishop by Pope Boniface VIII, The aforesaid Wadding at the year 1296, number 5, has handed down this to memory about the Saint's bishopric: In this same year, on the VI day of December, the church of Toulouse, illustrious in Gaul, then episcopal, fell vacant by the death of Guido Mascarius; but by John XXII in the year 1317, as is recorded in the Canon Law (which he there cites), it was made archiepiscopal. Wherefore Boniface, having long before perceived the piety of Louis, and having likewise known his singular prudence and learning, summoned him to administer that see. Louis constantly refused, and denied that he would undertake any office of ecclesiastical charge unless he had first sworn by solemn profession to the words and rule of St. Francis, and had wholly consecrated himself to that most holy institute (which, the Pontiff assenting, he carried into execution, as we said above by anticipation)… Being received by Friar John de Muro, created Minister General in this year, as we shall presently say: into whose hands on that same day he made solemn profession by Pontifical authority: and soon toward the evening of that day he was declared bishop of Toulouse. To these the same author adds that he used for some time the monastic habit hidden under a clerical dress by the Pontiff's consent, on account of his father; but that not long afterwards he walked openly at Rome clad in the mean tunic of the Franciscans and with bare feet; concerning which matters a little before, by anticipation, on another occasion, we treated from the Biographer.

[33] The eulogies with which the Pontiff adorns the new Prelate and is praised by him. are contained in his letters, by which he raises him to the mitre and dispenses him for the defect of his age (for our royal Prince then numbered only twenty-three years, according to our reckoning to be given afterwards). Those eulogies, I say, and the dispensation contained in these letters are extant in Rainaldi in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year 1296, where these are marked as given at the Lateran on the IV Kalends of January, in the second year of the Pontificate of Boniface VIII. Thus therefore that Pontiff addresses St. Louis in the same place: To your person, brought forth of lofty birth, resplendent from the illustrious royal lineages of both your parents, endowed with eminent learning in letters, fragrant with cleanness of life, conspicuous for gravity of manners and maturity of counsel, and manifoldly adorned by the Most High with the gifts of other virtues, we have turned the keenness of our mind; and with you, concerning the defect of age from which you suffer — especially since you are known to supply that defect by the aforesaid gifts of virtues and by other exceptional and praiseworthy merits which we know to be in your favor — we have dispensed by Apostolic authority, etc. Giovanni Antonio Summonte therefore errs, in volume 2 of his History of Naples, reprinted at Naples in the year 1675, page 336, where he writes that the supreme Pontiff, having summoned him to himself, chose him bishop on the day of St. Agatha in the year 1296. But in what year of his age was he created bishop?

[34] Spondanus, in his Continuation of the Annals of Baronius at the year 1296, number 6, says that he was dispensed with In what year of his age, and on what day likewise, he received the bishopric: because he did not exceed his twenty-first year. Bartholomew of Pisa writes this: He was made a Friar Minor … at the age, namely, of nineteen years, or at most twenty. The habit therefore being put on … he made profession; which, as was said before, happened on the same day on which he was declared bishop of Toulouse, and therefore at the same age of our Saint which Pisanus designates, if he designated the true one. But Wadding refutes him at the aforesaid year, number 6, with this reasoning: Bartholomew of Pisa assigns him only nineteen years when he assumed the habit of the Minors; which by no means coheres with the year and month of his birth established by us above, namely the one thousand two hundred and seventy-fifth, and the month of February: from which, if you count to the very end of this year (1296), that is, to the vigil of the Nativity, you will reckon one year beyond twenty almost completed. And these things agree better with the author of his Life in Sedulius, whom we have elsewhere said was contemporary with and familiar to the holy Man; who writes that he had already begun his fourteenth year when he was sent as hostage into Spain; then that he stayed there about seven years; to which if you add a full year now elapsed since liberty was restored, this will surely be reckoned the twenty-first year of his age; from which, not idly so established, the year of his death will be more clearly inferred, about the explaining of which thick darkness also presents itself, and various opinions of writers. We shall consider afterwards whether we can in any way dispel them; and we shall deal with Wadding himself. But from the points of time which we shall note, the bishopric of St. Louis must be moved to the twenty-third year of his age. Our manuscript copy of Calo of the Life of St. Louis records the day on which he was consecrated bishop. Here are the words for you: But being made a Friar Minor on the Vigil of the Lord's Nativity … on that very day he was proclaimed bishop of Toulouse, and consecrated on the following Sunday. But since the year of Christ 1296 was a leap year under the Dominical letters A G, I gather from this that the vigil of the Nativity fell on a Monday; and the following Sunday on the XXX day of December. But Pope Boniface VIII himself wished to impart to the Saint the dignity of episcopal consecration; as the letters of the same Pontiff, designated by me above at number 33, expressly report, in these terms: And subsequently we have thought fit to bestow upon you with our own hands the office of consecration.

[35] which, though premature, ought nevertheless to be approved. But if anyone (I use the words of Sedulius in his Commentary on chapter 19 of the Life published by him, page 110 in my copy) should not fear to reproach his youth, let him also reproach St. Paul, because he made Timothy a bishop while a youth; and so much a youth that on that account there was danger of his being despised; and, lest it should happen, he writes in 1 Tim. 4:12: "Let no man despise your youth." On which passage St. Chrysostom, Homily 13: "If you shall supply the defect of age by greatness of natural gifts and by gravity of manners, no one will now despise you on account of your youth, but will rather admire you." It happens sometimes that youths are sensible, who, if they be raised to that episcopal office, no derogation is done to the office; because it is not the age that is regarded, but virtue that is desired. Such was St. Remigius, bishop of Rheims, whom Baronius (see the notes on the Roman Martyrology at the 1st day of October) affirms from Fortunatus and other writers to have been created bishop in the twenty-second year of his age. But by how many and how great leagues of merits our Prelate supplied the immature age for the episcopal office is abundantly clear both from the eulogy of Pope Boniface, of which above

at number 33, and from the Life of the Anonymous and other authors. Here now for you, reader, are certain other matters concerning the Saint's mitre.

[36] The Saint also presided For it may be asked whether he presided over the see of Toulouse alone and only. I answer that he also presided over that of Pamiers in Narbonese Gaul; although not conferred upon him in the same year as that of Toulouse, as Spondanus, bishop of Pamiers, will have it at the year 1296, number 8, whose words I report: But as regards again the bishopric of Louis … we read in the Chronicle of Nangis, and in Walsingham the Englishman, that he also held at the same time, "reunited" (as the Englishman says), the bishopric of Pamiers, lately erected by Pope Boniface and separated from that of Toulouse; or, as Nangis says, that he obtained both bishoprics entire from Boniface. From which we also understand that what Bernard Gui in his History of the Pontiffs, Amalric Auger, the Montfort Chronicle, and other chronographers write — that Boniface in this very year 1296, the second of his Pontificate, raised the town of Pamiers of the diocese of Toulouse into a new city — ought rather to be referred to the preceding year. For how could Louis have held the bishopric of Pamiers, distinct from that of Toulouse, together with the latter, if it had not yet been erected when he received that of Toulouse? Lastly, the very bull or constitution of its erection, which we have seen, is expressly set down as given on the XVI Kalends of October, in the first year of his Pontificate: where it is also said that the erection of the bishopric had already been intended by Clement IV, whom likewise in the preceding year we saw undertake the care of the monastery and commit it to King St. Louis.

[37] But since the same bull of the institution of the bishopric made by Boniface was not published until the present year by Giles, archbishop of Narbonne, over the see of Pamiers: under whose metropolis the new bishopric was placed, as was that of Toulouse, from which it was severed (which publication we have also seen to have been made on the Saturday after Laetare Sunday of the present year 1296), hence Bernard and the other chronographers whom we have named assigned the aforesaid erection only to this present year. But Boniface there appointed as first bishop Bernard Saisset, abbot of the monastery of St. Antoninus of the Canons Regular of that city, of whom there was speech in the preceding year; and, erecting that abbatial church into a cathedral, he endowed and bounded it excellently with several revenues. Nevertheless, as others write, such an erection and the choice of the person were displeasing to King Philip; and therefore Louis had to govern both dioceses. Whence also we find among Boniface's letters one written to King Philip on the Ides of August in the third year, by which he asked him not to permit the execution committed by the Pontiff himself to the archbishop of Narbonne on behalf of the same bishop of Pamiers to be unduly hindered by the royal officers. Whereby it came about that, Louis dying two years afterwards, then at last Bernard received the see of Pamiers, namely in the year 1298 … So that the church of Pamiers may glory in having had as its first founder the prince and martyr Antoninus, of whom in the preceding year, and as its first prelate the prince Louis, a great, pious, learned, holy confessor: and in admiring the divine providence toward it, which did not permit Bernard, a man of quarrels and dissensions, to fix his see there first, so that he might have so great an example of life and manners which he ought to look upon and imitate.

[38] So Spondanus: whose reasoning displeases us, the year of the event is inquired into. because he so arranges it as to make the Saint receive the mitre of Pamiers only in the year of Christ 1298, when namely he was no longer living, having certainly died in the year 1297, as we shall try to prove below. Meanwhile the Sainte-Marthes more rightly assign the event to the year 1297, in volume 2 of Gallia Christiana, page 163, because at least St. Louis was then still alive; but he dying not long after, as may be seen in the metropolis of Toulouse, then at last Bernard Saisset in the year 1298 was permitted by the king to hold the bishopric, as is understood from Nangis and others: therefore he is to be called the second bishop by reason of administration, though the first by reason of the erection. But if it were established that the bishopric of Toulouse and that of Pamiers were conferred on the Saint together, then both would have to be attached to the year of Christ 1296, at whose close, on the IV Kalends of January, the bull of Boniface VIII is marked, by which he raises him to the mitre of Toulouse, as is plain from what was set forth before at number 33: on which day and year also his Religious profession happened, from number 32 in the same place, and therefore that solemn heroic act by which he renounced his father's kingdom. But since I said above that I would treat of the time of that matter, I shall now discharge my promise.

\ read Forqualquerii or Forcalquerii*

§ V. The time at which the Saint renounced the earthly kingdom.

There is reported That the Saint renounced the right of primogeniture and the kingdom you have at the beginning of the fourth §, from the bull of canonization. Add our Anonymous biographer, chapter 3. Of the fact, therefore, there is certainty; but concerning the time at which it was done, Spondanus writes at the year 1296, number 7, in these words: Further, before he made the vow of Religion, he is said to have transferred all his claim to the kingdom of Sicily to his younger brother Robert; and there is extant to this day, in the church of St. Lawrence of the Order of Minors at Naples, an image of him painted to the life, placing the diadem of the kingdom on Robert kneeling before him. But we judge that this was rather made after Robert, the younger by birth, obtained the kingdom, which would have been owed to Louis, the elder, if he had not renounced the world, than that Louis in reality now transferred the kingdom to him by such an act, since his father and his firstborn brother Charles Martel, king of Hungary, were still living. Since, besides, because the aforesaid Martel had at this time gone away to Hungary, owed to him by right (where nevertheless, on account of the Andrean party, of which matter Spondanus had treated at the year 1290, number 8, he could not obtain possession peacefully), nor did it seem that he alone could ever suffice to administer two kingdoms so far apart; the succession to the Sicilian kingdom, after Louis's renunciation, would seem to belong to Robert.

[40] by us Which also, that the Pontiff Boniface might establish it to the exclusion of the Aragonese, by a rescript given in the following year on the sixth Kalends of March, removing all doubt about the future successor in the kingdom of Sicily after his father Charles, he declared that it was owed to no one of the Aragonese, but wholly to the aforesaid Robert. Thus far Spondanus. But that most illustrious continuator of Baronius sets down a scheme of the right to the paternal kingdom transferred by St. Louis to his brother Robert, which coheres neither with the nature of the event nor with true chronology. It does not cohere with the nature of the matter. For since the bull of canonization asserts in express terms: He renounced the right of primogeniture; and the Anonymous in Sedulius: A most powerful kingdom, which was owed him by hereditary succession, etc.; how, on Spondanus's view, can that right and debt be understood to have truly and properly belonged to St. Louis?

[41] and rightly How, I say, could the right to the kingdom, either before this year or ever afterwards, have belonged as hereditary by right of primogeniture to St. Louis, who on Spondanus's view departed from life before his father and his firstborn brother, having namely died in the year 1297? For Charles Martel, his firstborn brother, is written in Spondanus at the year 1300, number 7, to have died in the year 1301, in which he came first to Rome to obtain the indulgence of the jubilee, and thence to his father at Naples, that he might succeed him after his death as firstborn, the kingdom of Hungary owed to him by maternal inheritance having already been transferred to his son, as is there narrated.

[42] But Charles the Lame, his father, is reported in the same continuator of Baronius at the year 1309, number 3, to have died; is rejected where also there is treatment of Robert his son, the eldest by birth of those then surviving, and successor to his father in the kingdom and in the County of Provence and in all his other goods, by the will of the same father and of the Pontiff, and likewise of his coronation, made with great solemnity by Pope Clement V at Avignon. Since Spondanus reports these things thus, who can sufficiently conceive how it could have come about that St. Louis ever truly and properly renounced his father's kingdom as owed him by right of inheritance, when he died before his father and his firstborn brother, to whom after his father's death that right belonged, even on Spondanus's view? For at the year 1298, number 5, he says: In this year (as the more recent Annals of the Minors in Wadding, whom he cites, contend; while some authors place it in the preceding, others even in the following year) St. Louis, bishop of Toulouse and first of Pamiers, … met his last day … and died.

[43] We say therefore that Spondanus is mistaken both in what we have just reported from him the opinion of Spondanus, and in the reasoning which we also recited from him a little before, as we shall now prove, showing at the same time how he too, the corrector of others, may be corrected, and how the difficulty of the present controversy may be untangled. It must therefore be known that Charles Martel, the Saint's firstborn brother, ceased to live before the III Kalends of September, and indeed some time before, in the year of Christ 1295, the first of Pope Boniface VIII. For Rainaldi at that same year of Christ, after he had produced at number 18 Boniface's letters to Landulf, Cardinal deacon of St. Angelo, legate of the Apostolic See in the kingdom of Sicily, given at the Lateran on the VIII Ides of April in the first year, records to our purpose in the same place at number 19: But when afterwards Charles Martel, by maternal right king of Hungary, left by his father Charles, who had gone away into Gaul, as vicar of the Sicilian kingdom at Naples, died in the very flower of his age, when he was already growing up to great hopes, Boniface set over the administration of the kingdom Landulf the Cardinal, and Philip, son of King Charles II, prince of Taranto. But a little afterwards, being led by the counsels both of the Cardinal legate and of Prince Philip, since hope shone that the commonwealth would be better provided for if the administration of the kingdom were conferred on Queen Mary, he adorned her with that office, as is clear from the letters given to her at Anagni on the III Kalends of September in the first year, which are subjoined in the aforesaid Rainaldi with this beginning: Having lately learned, not without grave embitterment of our mind, that Charles of famous memory, king of Hungary, firstborn of our most dear son in Christ Charles, illustrious king of Sicily, and yours, and vicar general of that king in the kingdom of Sicily, had undergone temporal death … at Naples, etc.

[44] From these things therefore we deduce, first, that St. Louis already from the year of Christ 1295, and ours is established. in which Charles Martel, king of Hungary and firstborn of Charles II, king of Sicily, and therefore nearest by hereditary right to that kingdom, died, succeeded in his place to that right; which he renounced by a most solemn and public act, when at Rome in the year 1296 in the Convent of Ara Coeli he made solemn profession of the Order of the Friars Minor (see our biographer, chapter 3, number 21); yet for a while so bearing himself secretly as not to offend his father; but on the day of St. Agatha

he publicly declared his profession and thereby the renunciation of his right of primogeniture, from §4. I said by a most solemn and public act. For I have no doubt that already from the year 1295, in which his firstborn brother died, he renounced his right either by some act less solemn than his Religious profession, or privately and within himself, both because of his innate contempt of perishable things and because of the vow by which he had bound himself in his very custody at Barcelona, and which he had afterwards renewed, of entering the Order of St. Francis, being always most tenacious of that most holy resolve. Which being so, it follows that our Saint neither publicly nor privately transferred the right of primogeniture to Robert before the year of Christ 1295, since only then did he begin to have it; nor after the year 1296, in which he made the said profession of the Seraphic Order.

[45] The parachronisms of others. From what has been said before we deduce, secondly, that various years of the death of the aforesaid Charles are indeed reported in the Sainte-Marthes, volume 2 of the Genealogical History of the House of France, book 30, chapter 4, namely the year 1297, 1301, 1302; but that none is true; and therefore that with better right those authors are to be rejected who in the place cited extend the end of the Saint's life further. This reckoning of time therefore having been thus established above by us, let us accompany our Bishop as he sets out on his journey to the bride dear to him.

§ VI. His departure and arrival at the city of Toulouse; examples of his virtues; his pastoral vigilance; the place and year of his death.

Departing from Rome he gives excellent proofs of self-contempt: Wadding at the year of Christ 1297, number 1, presenting the Saint setting out from Rome to his see of Toulouse, writes thus: St. Louis, consecrated bishop as the past year was ebbing away, as we have related in its place (consult the year 1296, numbers 5 and 6), at the beginning of this year resolved to visit the bride bestowed upon him, and to govern the sheep committed to him with anxious zeal and, being present, set before his eyes. And so, with the Pontiff's good leave, departing from Rome he came to Siena, being received in hospitality among the Friars Minor, and wished to be among them one of them, and to undertake all the offices of humility; so that after the meal he washed with them all the utensils of the kitchen. Going hence to Florence, received by the citizens with great honor, he turned aside also to the Friars of the monastery of Holy Cross, lately built; who, when they were leading him into a chamber adorned with noble hangings befitting the dignity of his person, resplendent with a gilded bed, and decked with various arms of the kings of France and of Sicily, drew back his foot, saying: "This is not the cell of a Friar Minor, but the hall of a worldly prince: I have now by public profession renounced the pomps of the world, and have devoted myself to the highest poverty. Wherefore if I be received by you according to my mind and state, I shall remain with you: but if not, I shall go secretly thither where I shall not have to adulterate the life firmly resolved on by me." The Friars did not dare to resist the pious Prince's will, but at once removed everything, leaving only the bed. Nor did he wish to sleep even in this; but, his cloak being spread on the pavement, he lay on the ground all night. Devout and famous thereafter in that place was the memory of this Saint: and as soon as he was numbered among the Saints, an excellent chapel was consecrated to him, and a bronze statue of him set before the doors of the church.

[47] These examples our Prelate gave of his most humble and innate modesty, the despiser of all human pride, Entering Toulouse he turns the minds and eyes of all when he was directing his journey to the church of Toulouse, his most dear bride. But how great an esteem for himself and expectation he stirred up in the minds and eyes of all when he arrived there becomes plain from Wadding, as he goes on at number 2: When he came to Toulouse, the citizens ran in troops through the streets and squares to meet their shepherd, unwearyingly praising him for his piety, his nobility, and his angelic appearance. Nor did it suffice them to have looked upon him once; but they followed him as he passed by, running to other byways, that they might again and more often behold him coming, according to their desire. A certain hidden power went forth from that most calm and pleasing countenance, which bent those who beheld him, however far strayed from virtue, and stirred them to nobler thoughts. Among these, Alvarus Pelagius, On the Lament of the Church, book 2, chapter 22, an author of about this time, reports one man given over to the works of the flesh, who, being vehemently pricked within, proclaimed before all:

[48] "This our Prelate is truly holy": which others also affirmed, upon himself. gladly asserting and boasting that they had the holiest, the noblest, and the most gracious in appearance of all the prelates of the whole world; but that the joy conceived at obtaining so great a Man was mingled with fear, lest at some time, as has been seen in others, he should fall from the degree of piety and wish to turn aside from the way of virtue which he had entered upon with great fervor. When the public functions were finished, and while he was withdrawing from the crowd, one of his household reported this last to him; he immediately added: "I would sooner leave this life than this way, and I earnestly beseech the author both of this life and of this way, that he would rather take me from the former than permit me to be separated from the latter."

[49] The outcome answered his words. Let Bartholomew of Pisa be heard: The austerity of his life, and his mercy toward the poor, Being made therefore bishop of Toulouse, striving from the perfect toward the more perfect, and reaching from good to better, the light of the virtues he had acquired before, set upon a candlestick, began to shine most fully, showing himself a pattern of life and perfection both to subjects and to prelates, both to seculars and to others: for he began to crucify his flesh with its vices, disciplining himself vigorously with iron scourges, sometimes by himself, sometimes by his companions, wearing for a shirt a rough hair garment and a thick cord next his flesh; many times, avoiding his bed, he slept on the ground, and thus compelled the flesh to serve the spirit. And although at his table a double dish was set, he ate of one only, and that little: and because he sought nothing of the world, hence it is, as has been said, that, a fourth part of his revenues being kept back, he bestowed the three other parts on the poor and needy. This liberal mercy toward the poor is confirmed by the bull of his canonization, where it is thus reported: He was borne with wonderful compassion toward the poor, to whom he gave large alms, both private and public. Whence, being now made bishop of Toulouse, he ordered inquiry to be made through one of his private household secretaries about the amount of his revenues, and how much would suffice him for making moderate and reasonable expenses; wishing that the whole remainder should be laid out in supporting the poor, although he was so great a prelate and the son of so great a king. But when he learned that those revenues, according to Wadding at the year 1297, number 3, amounted to forty thousand pounds … he ordered thirty thousand to be distributed to the poor and to all pious uses. But of our Prelate's virtues we shall speak more at length elsewhere, gathering them separately into one bundle as it were.

[50] and likewise a marvellous Meanwhile it is helpful to observe that this most worthy Man so applied himself with his whole heart to the pursuit of virtues that he in no way neglected the things proper to the episcopal office. For, as it stands in the bull of canonization, This faithful and prudent Servant of Christ exercised also the office of the Pontificate with diligence, saying Masses assiduously, most devoutly celebrating Ordinations, diligently examining the Clerics whom he wished to provide with benefices about virtues and vices, and about the articles of the faith, life, and manners. Burning with zeal for God, he zealously led Jews and heathens to baptism, and raised some of them from the sacred font. But his pastoral solicitude is reviewed more distinctly and at greater length in our copy of his Life taken from Peter Calo, of whom I spoke before. Take the text: In a wonderful manner he was solicitous to exercise the episcopal offices. He confirmed children, reconciled and consecrated churches, blessed virgins: but ecclesiastical benefices he would not confer except after mature deliberation. For he himself wished to examine the man to be beneficed, and made him construe, that he might understand what he read.

[51] episcopal vigilance shine forth in him: He wished that those to be beneficed should be suitably instructed in chant: he examined them about the ten commandments, about the articles of the faith, and about the capital vices, and rejected those who did not know how to answer well and in order about such things. It happened three weeks before his death that he rejected a certain Cleric, who had obtained a benefice in the form of the poor in his bishopric, although he said he had been examined in the Roman curia, because he seemed insufficient for obtaining a benefice. On account of this the Clerics in his bishopric prepared themselves with diligent study to learn these things. The holy Prelate would have no dandified priests. Wadding relates the matter at the said year, number 17, after Sedulius's biographer, chapter 5, where he treats also of his pastoral vigilance, the manners of those to be ordained being seriously examined, and of his skilful and circumspect prudence. Brief but pithy is that saying in the same biographer in the same place: Before he was ordained, he lived most uprightly; made a Cleric, most religiously; created bishop, most holily. From the author of the Life in Surius we have this: Nor … would he suffer himself to be clothed in other garments than the mean habit and knotted girdle of the Order he had received. For he had already forgotten that he was a king's son; he did not know that he was a bishop: he thought only that he was a Friar of the institute of the Minors. Hunting dogs, birds of prey, players and all frivolities he kept from his house, that with the ecclesiastical persons attending him he might be able the more freely to bring forth the divine words, and to afford in himself examples of a holy life.

[52] His sacred ministry As St. Louis in his whole life gave most frequent and most illustrious examples of a marvellous contempt of self, so with this virtue, the foundation of all the rest, he excellently illustrated his pontifical office. Among all divine gifts, as may be read in Surius, there shone in him especially an exceptional humility, not otherwise than a carbuncle in a golden ornament. Every year on the day of the Lord's Supper he washed the hands of twelve poor men, set food and drink before them, and then, bending his knees, likewise washed their feet: in which offices, although he seemed to display the person of a servant, he nevertheless, honoring his ministry, preserved his pontifical authority. Observe that the phrase every year could not have applied to St. Louis as bishop, since he was snatched from life by a death all too early. There is another matter in the reckoning of time in the Surius author, but a false one; since it is there said that at the age of thirty-three years … he passed to the Lord; which will be proved erroneous when we treat of the year of his death. But although he was so rich in merits and in the ornaments of heavenly graces that by the virtue given him by God he excellently sustained himself, he was nevertheless at the same time so modest that he desired to be helped by the aids of others. For indeed

he anxiously and devoutly asked, as is read in the manuscript of Calo, the suffrages of prayers; and especially, once consecrated bishop, he wished that prayer to be said for him: "Almighty and everlasting God, have mercy on thy servant," etc.

[53] But with how great authority of his person, though casting himself down, as I have just said, to the lowest offices, and with what fruit to his hearers and with what wondrous concourse, he fed his flock with the food of salvation and of the word of God, is read handed down to memory in the same Surius in these words: Men ran to hear his sermons with such eagerness that, on account of the crowds pressing one another, some were brought into danger of death. What I said about the fruit is confirmed from the Anonymous in Sedulius, chapter 5: All were increased by his example — by so pure a life, by so great modesty and humility … by his fiery sermons. Nor indeed did he omit that holy office elsewhere in the last time of his life, but he discharged this and that almost together. For, as it stands in the Anonymous in the same place, When his passage to the heavenly Father was drawing near, after many journeys for the good of others, returning to his people of Toulouse from Catalonia, where he had visited his sister the queen, he came to Tarascon, where the body of St. Martha, illustrious for her hospitality toward Christ, rests. (Consult volume VII of July, page 6.) There the holy Man, now about to be received into the heavenly hospitality, delivered a notable sermon in praise of Christ's hostess. And setting out thence and seeking the stronghold which is called Brignoles, he is seized with a fever by which he was consumed. And being divinely made certain of the end of his life, he zealously prepares himself for death; as the same Anonymous relates in Sedulius. His preparation for it is described in the same place. But at the last time of his life, before he came from Catalonia to Tarascon, in the presence of Friar Bernard Peregrinus, bishop of Barcelona, a Minorite, he consecrated the church of the Minors dedicated to St. Nicholas at Barcelona, as we said elsewhere at the year 1214, number 30, says Wadding at the year 1298, number 8; although an error crept into the notes, and instead of 1247 one should write, both in Gonzaga and in that place cited, 1297, or rather 1298; nay indeed, according to our reckoning of time, rather 1297, of which a little later. This consecration is also reported by Francisco Diago in the History of the Counts of Barcelona, book 3, chapter 16; and while he attaches it to the XV day of July in the year 1297 from the inscription of a stone by which he proves it, he excellently confirms our reckoning of the time at which this event happened and at which, not long afterwards, the Saint died.

[54] The place and day of his death; The place in which he passed from this toilsome life to a better is Brincola; or Brinolium and Brinonia (commonly Brignoles), a small city of Gaul in Provence, famous for its plums, on the river Caramy; it is six leagues distant from Toulon and two from the shrine of St. Maximin; and it is situated among mountains, and was formerly called the castle of Brincola, as may be seen in Baudrand: although it also formerly bore the name of Brinonia, as will presently appear. Further, that place is expressly said in the biographer to have been the place of the Saint's death, but not of his birth. There are those who will have both to have happened in that same place; and that opinion pleases us in preference to Wadding's. See what I set forth about his birthplace above in §1, numbers 6 and 7. But the place of his death is confirmed by the Saint's testament, which we shall produce afterwards, made at Brinonia. So much for the place of his death; but about the year there is not so much agreement among all; which may seem strange, since both it and the day of the month are most distinctly marked by Sedulius's Anonymous, chapter 5; where these words stand: He fell asleep in the Lord … in the year of our salvation one thousand two hundred and ninety-seven, on the fourteenth Kalends of September, on the second feria in the Octave of the Assumption of the Blessed Mary. The same year is distinctly noted in the aforesaid testament by these chronological reckonings: In the name of the Lord. Amen. In the year of his Nativity one thousand two hundred and ninety-seven, in the tenth Indiction … in the month of August, on the nineteenth day of that same tenth Indiction; from which last notes we learn that the death of St. Louis and his testament fell together on the same day.

[55] but concerning the year of his death If Wadding had seen this, he would without doubt have taken another way — or certainly ought to have taken it — in fixing the genuine year of his death. For at the year 1297, number 18, he says: There are those who write that he departed this life in this year; but we shall prove that this more truly happened in the following year. At the year of Christ 1298, therefore, number 6, he speaks thus: That St. Louis, bishop of Toulouse, died in no other year than this I shall presently prove by one or two effective arguments, if I first set forth the differing opinions of others on this matter. That he died in the year 1295 Peter de Natalibus writes, book 7, chapter 77; that he died in the year 1297 the Anonymous author of his life in Sedulius, chapter 19, Bartholomew of Pisa cited, and Baronius at the XIX of August say; but in the year 1299, the Firmament of the Three Orders, part 1, in the memorial of the Order under the fifteenth general; Marcus of Lisbon, book 6, chapter 12; and the Breviary of the Minors on the octave day, lesson 5. Finally, they must affirm that he died in another year far later, who said that he departed this life in the 33rd year of his age, whom we shall presently report.

[56] But that he died in this very year and no other, two things above all move me. The first, that almost all Wadding, discoursing at length (except Surius at the XIX of August, and Peter de Natalibus cited; to whom Claude Robert seems to accede, On the Bishops of Toulouse, who write that he reached his thirty-third year) say that he was twenty-three years and six months old when he met his last day. But if you count from the year 1275, and from the month of February of that year, in which the better authors write that he was born, you will find that the time of his death fell in this year. The second, that that contemporary and familiar author, whom we said above at the year 1275, number 4, wrote his Life, asserts that he lived only two years and ten months after he was freed from custody. But we showed at the year 1295, number 4, according to authors of better note and of good faith, that he was given liberty in the month of October of the year 1295, from which time to the month of August of this year that period elapses. Wherefore I would say firmly that he died in no other year but this.

[57] But I am firmly persuaded that Wadding is mistaken is here dealt with by us and rejected. and strays from the true year of the death. For first, he follows the streams and leaves the fountain, when from other authors — I know not which — assigning, as he says, the year 1275 to St. Louis's birth, he corrects the contemporary author in the year of his death, 1297, which nevertheless the same author defines so expressly, with the notes of the day of the month and of the feria also added. If therefore that year must be struck out, that feria too must be struck out. Secondly, the same year is invincibly proved from the testament, as we have seen, and from the tenth Indiction there added, with which it agrees. Thirdly, was it on account of other, better authors, as Wadding will have it — but whom he did not even name above — assigning the Saint's birth to the year 1275, that a contemporary author had to be corrected in the year 1297 of his death; or rather, on the contrary, ought these to be corrected from him in the year of his birth which, as Wadding reports, they set down? Fourthly, since therefore we have two irrefragable documents for the year of death 1297, namely the Life by a contemporary, and the testament drawn up on the same day on which the Saint died; I plainly judge that to that year, as to a point most firmly fixed, must be accommodated both the year of St. Louis's birth and the other chronological notes woven into Wadding's reasoning above, and that they must be fitted to it so as to agree with the said point. And they will agree neatly if you assign his birth to the year 1274, as will be plain to one who computes the reckoning of the years, and to the month of February, if you wish, with Wadding. For thus the Saint, when he died, will have twenty-three years with six months. Thus likewise he will have lived only two years and ten months, as Wadding reported from the contemporary biographer, after he was freed from custody, namely from the month of October in the year 1295, as Wadding laid down, until the month of August in the year 1297. Thus his Religious profession will cohere with the year 1296. Thus finally it will appear that Wadding, when at the year 1275, number 4, he wrote, St. Louis is born in this year or the preceding, in the month of February, although I find no author cited by him there for this matter, nevertheless strayed less then from the year of his birth, set down as it was disjunctively, than above, where he sets down the year 1275 simply and absolutely.

[58] And I think these things abundantly sufficient, so that no doubt can remain about the year of the holy Prelate's death; Certain other conclusions are observed. which Bzovius indeed rightly marks in his Ecclesiastical Annals at the year 1297, number 1; but he erred in the year of his age which he sets down as the thirty-third, and therefore in this must be corrected along with the others designated before by Wadding; as also must the copy of the Calonian Life, of which above, where it is said that he expired in the year of the Lord one thousand two hundred and ninety-five … when he was twenty-three years old (which by no means cohere with the year 1295 noted in the same place). Add Bouche in the History of Provence, volume 2, book 9, section 3, chapter 2, §6, where he assigns his death to the year 1299. From the reckoning of time drawn up above at number 57 we also conclude that our royal Prince pronounced his profession of the Order of Friars Minor, and was declared bishop of Toulouse, in the twenty-third year of his age; which we suggested in passing in this our Commentary at number 34 against Wadding; but in the year of Christ 1296, from what was set forth in §4. Nor therefore is Sedulius to be heard, when among other things which he observes in his Commentary on the year 1297 of the Saint's death marked by the Anonymous, he writes thus: For the rest, here too there is thick darkness; perhaps from the numerals, in the writing of which a fault easily creeps in. The Firmament of the Three Orders of St. Francis (so the book is entitled) relates that St. Louis professed the rule of St. Francis in the year one thousand two hundred and ninety-six. Besides this, our author teaches in express words that he, after he was freed from custody, LIVED TWO YEARS AND TEN MONTHS. And if this is true, it follows either that he professed earlier, or that he departed not in the ninety-seventh but in the ninety-ninth year … or at least that somewhere there has been an error in writing the numerals. Which I for my part am persuaded has happened in some other places.

§ VII. His testament, burial, eulogies, bodily form, portrait.

This testament Of the testament which our most holy Bishop made on the same day on which he passed from life, mention is made in the Anonymous biographer, chapter 5, on the occasion of his burial. It was published by Antonio

Pagi after the Work published by him in the year 1684 with this title: Sermons hitherto unpublished of St. Anthony of Padua, of the Order of Minors, on the Saints and on divers subjects, etc. There therefore, on page 485, this title is noted: The testament of St. Louis, of the Order of Minors, bishop of Toulouse. And in these terms the text is subjoined in the same place: In the name of the Lord. Amen. In the year of his Nativity one thousand two hundred and ninety-seven, in the tenth Indiction, in the reign of the renowned prince Charles the Second, by the grace of God illustrious king of Jerusalem and Sicily, Duke of Apulia and prince of Capua, Count of Provence and Forcalquier, in the thirteenth year of his reigns, happily. Amen.

[60] by Pagi In the month of August, on the nineteenth day of that same tenth Indiction, at Brinonia, in the presence of Thomas of St. George, notary public by royal authority everywhere throughout the kingdom of Sicily and throughout the Counties of Provence and Forcalquier, and of the witnesses subscribed, specially called and asked for this purpose; namely of the venerable man Durand Maurice, Conventual Prior of Cérasi, of the Friars Bercerand, Prior of St. Genit, of the Friars William of Cornelian, Francis Brun, Peter Scarrer, Bartholomew Vitalis of the Order of Minors, and of master Hugh Faber, physician, I, Friar Louis, by divine permission bishop of Toulouse, mindful of the human condition, which is ever accompanied by inborn frailty, and over which from the very beginning of life the dominion of death holds sway; being sick in body, yet sound in mind, and with composed speech, right discretion and sound memory being fully strong in me, wishing by a testamentary disposition to anticipate the last day of my pilgrimage, by the authority of the Apostolic See granted me in this part, do ordain and dispose of my goods, or of those pertaining to my administration, in this manner.

[61] before In the first place I choose my burial in the house of the Friars Minor at Marseilles. Then concerning my goods, and first indeed concerning the chapels which I had at the time when I professed the rule of blessed Francis and assumed his habit, I ordain in this manner: namely that those chapels, and the things pertaining to the same chapels, be the property of the Convents of Friars Minor of Toulouse, Marseilles, and Aix, as the Religious men Friar Raymond Geoffroi, master in theology and minister in Provence, and the Guardian of Toulouse shall ordain, and as they shall judge them to be divided among those Convents. Of our books, I bequeath to the Religious man Friar William of Cornelian, my companion and familiar, the Bible in one volume, which the aforesaid lord king, my lord and father, gave me; and also the Summa of Thomas. Item, to Friar Berengar de Bosco, my familiar, the Bible which the Convent of Toulouse gave me. Item, to Friar Peter Cocardi, my familiar, the Bible and the finer Flowers of the Saints, which belonged to my predecessor. But all my other books I bequeath to the Friars Peter Scarrer and Francis Brun, my companions and familiars, to be divided equally between them, on account of the many welcome services which I recall having received from them over a long time.

[62] The chapels indeed which I had before I made profession printed, I bequeath to the church of Toulouse: all my rings also I bequeath and leave to the aforesaid lord king and to the lady queen, my parents, namely in this manner, that, those which he shall wish being retained from them by the said lord king, the rest be the aforesaid lady my mother's. But of all my other goods, such as silver vessels, mounts, and any others whatsoever, and also of those which are owed to me on any ground whatsoever, the debts being paid thereof, for which I may be bound to any persons whatsoever, and the amends \, if any shall appear to be made, I will that my executors named below reward my familiars and servants, as they shall see fit, having regard to their conditions and to the services performed by them for me: and that the residue of all these they distribute among the Convents of Religious of the city of Toulouse, and the Convents of Friars Minor of Marseilles and Aix, and the Convent of Friars Preachers of St. Maximin, and the Convent of St. Clare of Assisi, and toward building a chapel for the service of the episcopal house of Toulouse, in honor of blessed Lawrence the martyr, as shall seem good to them. Item, I will that the Officiary and Responsory which the Convent of Draguignan gave me be restored to it. Item, I bequeath to the Convent of Brinonia one complete priestly vestment from my common ones, which my familiars have been accustomed to use.*

[63] And as executors of this my ordinance I make and appoint the reverend fathers in Christ the lord archbishop of Arles is here by us and the bishop of Carcassonne, the lord bishop and G., abbot, of Marseilles, and the Religious man the aforesaid Friar Raymond Geoffroi, and the venerable man master Peter de Ferrières, dean of Le Puy, chancellor of the kingdom of Sicily, and the noble man lord Hugh de Vicinis, seneschal of Provence and Forcalquier; namely in such wise that whatever all of them together, or any of them together with the aforesaid Friar Raymond, shall judge should be ordained and done in the aforesaid matters and in any of the aforesaid, shall have firm force; giving to all those executors, and to the same Friar Raymond together with any other of them, full power of receiving my goods and credits, wheresoever they be and by whomsoever they be owed to me; and of demanding and exacting them both in court and out of court; and of doing all other things about these matters which I myself could do if I were present. And I will that this my ordinance hold good by right of testament, or by right of codicils, or of a donation by reason of death among the living, or of any other last will, according as it can better hold good in law; humbly asking the aforesaid lord and my father that, concerning the effectual and speedy execution of that same ordinance, he would deign and be willing to assist and favor my aforesaid executors, and the said Friar Raymond, and any other of them whom it may happen to be called with him to that same execution, and to impart fitting counsel, protection, and help.

[64] reprinted, we set forth. In witness and security of all which aforesaid, the present public instrument was made by the hands of me the aforesaid notary, which I, the same notary, who was present at all the aforesaid, have written, and, being asked, have signed with my accustomed sign. Those things which are contained above as ordained and done by the aforesaid lord Bishop — namely concerning the aforesaid bishop of Carcassonne, that he be one of his said executors, and concerning his rings bequeathed and left to the aforesaid lord king and the lady queen, as has been said — were ordained and done on the aforesaid nineteenth day of the said month of August. But the other aforesaid matters, as they are expressed above, were ordained and done by him on the aforesaid nineteenth day of the same month. Thus the testament.

[65] The Saint's burial is adorned. But the Lord splendidly adorned the burial of the dead man: for not only, when the obsequies had been magnificently performed, was he seen a little afterwards by most trustworthy men, who testified that they had seen him in the choir of the church of the Friars Minor of Marseilles above the high altar … with a countenance exceedingly glad and serene, signifying the happiness of eternal beatitude, as Sedulius's Biographer narrates in chapter 5; but even before them, While his body was being carried from Brignoles to Marseilles, there appeared to the nobles who accompanied the holy body as it were radiant lances descending from heaven upon the body. And when they had come to a certain plain near Marseilles, the tapers which had been extinguished were suddenly kindled by a heavenly light, according to Bartholomew of Pisa alleged above, whose words I have recited. Wadding at the year 1298, number 9, from Robert de Licio's sermon on St. Louis and from the Breviary of the Minors, cited before in the same Wadding, adds to that marvellous event which I have just given from Pisanus this other: Then Bl. Louis himself was seen by a certain Religious Friar to be carried into paradise by a great multitude of angels crying with a loud voice: "Thus is it done to him who serves God in cleanness and purity." To the Saint's glorious sepulchre we add the ornaments of praises.

[66] The Saint is praised by Pope John XXII in the bull of canonization, The eulogies with which I find the Saint praised are many and various. Pope John XXII in his letters, by which he enrolls him in the number of the Saints, records this: The sun rising upon the world in the highest places of God, God the Son of God … now, the last hour being at hand … has brought forth a marvellous work, full of the brightness of his glory, magnificently showing his goodness … For he who alone does great wonders has newly brought forth his beloved, an excellent confessor, namely blessed Louis, white in purity, ruddy with fervent charity, chosen out of thousands, as a most brilliant pattern for all the Faithful to imitate; proving the excellence of his singular life by signs, and manifesting it by flashing prodigies and frequent miracles. Thus he is praised at the beginning of the said letters; but toward the end these words stand: Let our God therefore be magnificently praised, whose right hand confers upon this Bishop the star-bearing diadem of the kingdom. Let those citizens of heaven likewise applaud, into whose assemblies this Saint, brighter than the sun, has been inserted. Let the happy kingdoms of France, Sicily, and Hungary also sing most loftily, from whose garden a flower of snowy whiteness has broken forth … Let the city of Toulouse moreover rejoice, enriched with so great a Prelate … Truly happy are you, O Marseilles, made the storehouse of the divine adornments of so holy a body. But let the illustrious Order of Friars Minor also not cease to bring forth a canticle of new praise, festively presenting to the divine gaze in the heavenly hall so illustrious an Alumnus.

[67] Robert de Licio of the Order of Minors, bishop of Aquino, and by others: in his Sermon on St. Louis, chapter 1, cited in Sedulius among the eulogies prefixed to the Life published by him, says: Who would not magnify holy Louis? who, the son of a king and a queen, comely in body, abounding in riches, flourishing in age, keen in intellect, and abounding in all temporal goods whatsoever, spurned vices, trod down earthly things, and sought Christ Jesus by living well and blessedly. Sedulius himself in the same place weaves a sufficiently long eulogy of the Saint; whom — to cull these few words from it — John XXII, flashing with countless miracles, inscribed in the catalogue of the Saints; in proof of his exceptional sanctity, the brain of his head being found entire eighteen years after his death. Among other things which are there adduced in the Saint's praise from our Girolamo Piatti, book 2 On the Good of the Religious State, chapter 26, I transcribe this brief passage: Louis, firstborn son of Charles II, king of the Gauls (nay, of the Sicilians) (he was only the second-born) adorned certainly with all the goods of mind and body. Let this suffice to have culled concerning a man most abundantly heaped with the most illustrious gifts, especially of divine graces of soul, and concerning his notable integrity of life. Let us add to these certain praises of the elegance of his form and the graceful composition of his body, on account of which he is also deservedly praised, since, as the proverb has it, virtue coming from a beautiful body is more pleasing.

[68] And indeed, although the countenance, brow, eyes, and the whole outward conformation of the body, together with the inward

beauty of his mind, seemed as it were to vie with one another, so to speak, for the prize; he is praised also for his form, manners, nevertheless with wondrous agreement both nature and the grace of God breathed singular honors and comeliness upon our Saint. Praising both, Sedulius's biographer in chapter 5 says: All desired to see him, adorned with an angelic countenance, wonderful in his deeds, conspicuous for uprightness. There was in him a marvellous pleasantness and beauty of face. In his brow, in his eyes, in his whole body, kindness seemed to dwell: honey on his tongue, candor and simplicity in his breast. By the grace of his form and of his uprightness he turned the eyes of all upon himself, who judged him rather an angel than a man. He was of most beautiful body and of the most fitting composition of limbs; but far more beautiful in his manners and sanctity, etc. Rodolfi, in his Histories of the Seraphic Religion, book 1, folio 120 verso, expresses the matter thus (a true likeness of Bl. Louis of Toulouse, as he had affirmed at folio 120, being set before it): Now Bl. Louis was of a beautiful face and so comely that all who beheld him were affected with an honorable delight; grave in gait, look, and gesture, with all his limbs well fitted and well joined to his body, of exceptional grace of the whole body, of a most gentle voice full of meekness, with an excellent brightness of eyes, which he so governed that he never turned them upon the face of any woman. But his likeness, of which I was speaking, our engraver has tried thus to imitate from the aforesaid Rodolfi, as I here present it:

[69] and the comeliness of his face. Bartholomew of Pisa, often designated before, confirmed the present subject long before Rodolfi; for he writes thus: This Saint, although he was most beautiful in body, so much so — as I heard from a Friar who saw him when he first entered Toulouse as bishop — that all the women, and men or males alike, said with one accord that they had never seen a more beautiful face. Nor could they be satisfied with seeing his face; and all went from street to street to see him: and, brought up amid the delights of the world, he in no way went after the concupiscences of the flesh. Hence are confirmed the things which Wadding narrated above at number 47. But this virtue and others, by far and uniquely the most excellent ornaments of a man, since in them lies his true, solid, and only comeliness, we shall now illustrate separately.

\* that is, compensations or fines, or something similar

§ VIII. Certain additions concerning the Saint's chief virtues.

His marvellous humility Lowliness of mind, or humility, as it is usually called, the foundation of all virtues, in a wondrous and altogether heroic degree raised our Saint to the highest summit of perfection. To the various examples reported in Sedulius's Anonymous, chapters 3 and 4, and also in our work above in the Preliminary Commentary, as given by him, it has seemed good to add these, by which those may be illustrated and established. The bull of his canonization speaks thus: In this imitator of Christ … true humility also shone. For he considered that God … sets the humble on high. The Calonian Life narrates how far he was from arrogance and pride: When he first came to Toulouse, being asked by great men to mount an ambling horse or palfrey \ or a large mule, he obstinately refused, asserting that this displayed nothing but the pride and arrogance of prelates. Besides this, He wished to be a Friar Minor, says Bartholomew of Pisa, and desired nothing else but to renounce his bishopric, that he might remain a Friar Minor and simple. Once, when he had entered the dormitory of the Friars at Toulouse, "Alas!" he said, "when shall I see myself without a bishopric, that I may be in one cell of the dormitory, like one poor and simple Friar?" Once, when he was in chapter, and a certain Friar said to him that he had greatly honored the Order by his distinguished person, he answered impatiently out of humility, and in a manner taking it ill: "You speak amiss, Brother, you speak amiss: nay, the Order has greatly honored me, when it gave me its habit."*

[71] This singular modesty of mind and love of poverty akin to it, God compensates with a notable miracle. God showed by a wondrous favor of heaven to have been most pleasing to him. The event is narrated by Fremaut in the Life of the Saint alleged above, chapter 4, page 386, to this effect, which from our Flemish tongue thus runs in Latin: While he sometimes had it fixed in his mind to abase himself, as befits a genuine Minorite, by begging bread from door to door, his father the king took it very ill. On a certain occasion, therefore, seeing his holy son going about carrying a wallet on his shoulders, he gave a certain nobleman in charge to announce to him that the kingdoms of France and Naples had not expected such an honor from him, that he should exchange golden ornaments for begged bread. Louis, smiling gently and opening the wallet, said: "Behold, what you reproach me with is not true: for the bread has been turned into gold." The nobleman with the greatest astonishment saw the pieces of bread changed into pieces of gold, glittering like stars: he fell upon his knees, asked pardon of the Saint, and vowed to God that he, with his wife's consent, would enroll himself in the institute of the Friars Minor. But the king, having heard of this wondrous prodigy with great gladness, never afterwards showed that the humble works of so holy a Son displeased him. A most illustrious miracle indeed, and most worthy of the greatest astonishment, by which God is said to have approved the humility of his Servant abasing himself to the lowest things. I for my part as little deny the fact as I desire to see it established from ancient authors. Of it certainly I have found nothing handed down to memory by the Anonymous writer of the Life, nothing by Pisanus, nothing finally by any other in Wadding; which seems to me strange, especially because that Anonymous below in our text of the Life, numbers 21 and 22, reviews one by one other examples of most perfect humility or of evangelical poverty (for this is wont to be its inseparable companion), which our royal Prince did not blush to display according to the custom of the Franciscan institute; and these indeed to the displeasure of his friends and familiars, who felt very differently, and most of all of his father.

[72] But since the Saint was so small in his own eyes, No one was mean to him; it is no wonder that no one was of so mean a condition as to be despised by him. Let this from Pisanus serve as an example: Once, going to Paris, he gave his own cloak to a poor man whom he met. He disdained no poor and despised man, however great his poverty. On a certain occasion it happened that, as he was passing by with all his household, a certain poor old woman lying in a low and despised hovel cried out, humbly asking for confession. And when some of the priests wished to dismount from their horses to hear her, St. Louis said, "By no means; but I will dismount and hear her, since it belongs to me." He dismounted, entered the hovel, heard her confession, comforted her, and bestowed an alms. But coming out thence, he was full of lice and filth: which the holy Man beheld gladly with great consolation, and with laughter carried the lice, and called such things the gems of the poor.

[73] however wretched and despised; A similar deed the Anonymous records in our text at number 37; which, however, differs somewhat in its circumstances from the above: which is the reason why I judge that almost the same specimen of humility happened twice — once indeed in the Pyrenees according to the Anonymous, and again on the way to Paris according to Pisanus, if indeed the place was rightly noted by him. Add that the Anonymous says: Whom, a poor little woman, the Saint earnestly exhorted to confess her sins to his companion Friar, or to himself; "for I too," he said, "am a Friar Minor." But she was unwilling. But in the above example that matter is narrated far otherwise. I should wish another example to be joined to these, by which he excellently showed that no one, however wretched and abject, was mean in his eyes. For, as Friar Marcus of Lisbon reports in the Chronicles of the Friars Minor, volume 2, book 6, chapter 6, on a certain occasion the Saint was present at Mass, and he who was offering the pax omitted to give it to a poor leper: seeing which, he rose without delay, betook himself to the leper, and, kneeling on the ground, most devoutly kissed his face.

[74] but the poor and needy were his loves Nor was St. Louis excellently endowed only with true poverty of spirit and body, as may be seen in his Life; but he showed himself altogether wonderful also in the most tender affection of mercy toward the poor and needy, and in the services bestowed for their use, and indeed in such wise that God willed to reward with miracles his most illustrious offices in this kind, according to what is narrated in the Life in our text at number 25: to which may be added another example, which stands in Wadding at the year of Christ 1297, number 6, and which, as he adds, Marianus transcribes from an old Legend: That while he was still a little boy he was wont piously to steal from the kitchen, or from the dining hall, or from any other office, food to distribute to the poor. The master of the cooks having at some time complained of these things to his father Charles, he caught him in the act of secretly carrying off a capon prepared for the royal table: and, meeting his father, said that Louis was after his custom snatching something for himself under his cloak. The father ordered him to disclose the theft: he, lifting his cloak, showed in his hanging hand an excellent bunch of flowers: by which miraculous metamorphosis being dismissed unpunished, the flowers being turned back into the former substance of the bird, he distributed it among four poor men. When afterwards the father learned all, he praised the Lord in his works, and bestowed most abundant alms to be distributed to the poor by his pious son.

[75] even from his very boyhood. This miracle is confirmed among those which are noted in our copy as taken from the collections of Father Harold, and it is thus set forth, perhaps extracted from the process for canonization: I have heard it related that when he was a small boy he often went to the place of the kitchen, and asked meat of it, which he carried hidden in his bosom. And when the king once saw this, he called him to himself and said, "What is it that you carry?" Which hearing, he bashfully opened his bosom, and it was full of roses: and this was in January, and it became known to all with great wonder.

[76] His angelic chastity The holy Man's abstinence, his stern rigor of life, and also his most entire purity are described by Sedulius's Anonymous in our text from number 29. But with how great and how circumspect care and diligence he gave the utmost effort he could to preserve this most shining flower of virginity from the shadow of even the slightest stain, the same biographer indicates at number 30. His unblemished virginity is confirmed from the bull of canonization, where this is read: But the love of chastity had so affected his mind from boyhood that for its faithful keeping he wholly fled the company of women; so much so that, except perhaps in the case of his mother and sisters, he never at any time spoke alone with a woman alone. Bartholomew of Pisa says: As to this I shall relate what this Saint did concerning his sister the queen

in Aragon. For when she had come to visit him, she could by no means obtain by any prayers whatsoever that he should look upon her face; but he answered that she was foolish in asking this. To the lady queen of France, his cousin — being the children of two brothers — asking that at his coming he would, after the manner of the nobles of France, receive her to an embrace and a kiss, he in no way consented, although she was borne toward him with the greatest devotion… At Toulouse a certain lady, when she had heard him commended for the custody of his eyes, replied: "I shall test it." And when she had gone to him, and had most carefully observed him while he was in the church, returning home she said to her neighbors: "Truly this Lord is holy. For I have never seen anyone who governed his eyes, save this man."

[77] His marvellous caution also in preserving the brightness of angelic virginity is illustrated by this deed he preserved with wondrous caution, and drew others to it: which Wadding reports at the year 1296, number 4: He indeed wished to remain with the Fathers of Montpellier, witnesses of his repeated vow, namely of undertaking the life of the Minors, and to assume their garb; but they did not dare to give it to him at his request, fearing the indignation of the king, the Youth's father, then present in the city. Departing thence with his father, he came into Italy, and at Florence met his mother Mary of Hungary, and Charles Martel, his firstborn brother, already declared king of Hungary by maternal right: who came thither with a great retinue and display, the marquis of Montferrat being joined to them as companion of the journey, to receive the king and his sons. The queen rushed rejoicing into the embraces and kisses of them all; but the modest and chaste youth Louis turned his face from his mother's lips and did not allow himself to be kissed. To whom, when his mother reminded him that she was his mother, and that there was no offense against the Deity in a chaste maternal kiss, with lowered and reverent countenance he answered: "I know, mother, that you are my mother; but I am not ignorant that you are a woman, whom it is not lawful for a servant of God to kiss." The substance of this deed is confirmed from St. Antoninus, Histories, part 3, title 24, chapter 4, §1. From Friar Marcus of Lisbon, part 2 of the Chronicles of the Order of Friars Minor, book 6, chapter 4, we also learn that this special grace was given to St. Louis, that he drew those who beheld him to the love of chastity: in testimony of which it is there indicated that many who were present at his death saw a flower like a beautiful rose coming forth from his most holy mouth.

[78] He also applied altogether singular remedies to chastise his body and to bring it into subjection; he keeps the most rigid fasts. of which Sedulius's Anonymous treats at number 29. But what he there narrates summarily about his fasts our manuscript of Calo records more in detail in these words: All the vigils of the most blessed Virgin he fasted on bread and water: the vigils of the other Saints and the Advent of the Lord he observed with so strict a fast that even when set on a journey and in bodily distress he would by no means relax them. Once, while he was riding through France, though weak and though his companions objected, he insisted on fasting the vigil of Bl. Mark. On the vigil of Bl. John also, being much afflicted with labor because of the toilsome crossing of the Pyrenean mountain, he could be persuaded neither by the physician's order nor by the urgings of the Friars to take an evening meal. In food and drink he was so sparing that his familiars feared the excess of his abstinence.

\* that is, a horse

\ perhaps of food*

§ IX. Dead persons recalled to life through the merits of St. Louis.

That various persons were recalled to life by the Saint God, who is wonderful in his Saints, distinguished this his Servant, who while he lived abased himself to all the meanest and poorest things, with the most illustrious splendor of miracles and with the singular riches of his glory once he had departed this life. What stands in Sedulius will be given in the Life below; but here we shall supplement it from other sources by the addition of very many others. Let us begin with the dead recalled to life. The bull of canonization records six of this kind. Let us recite the words: For a certain girl of two years, who by the force of a fever which she suffered for two months expired; a vow being made by her father to this Saint that he would offer him an image of wax if he obtained life for his daughter from God, being raised up, she sucked her mother's breasts. Perhaps this miracle is the same as that which is found in Sedulius's Anonymous at number 50, or as that which Rodolfi, folio 122 verso, narrates most briefly thus: He raised from the dead Guillelma, daughter of Adam of Paris. Let us go on with the aforesaid Bull:

A certain boy also of five years, having died by the violence of a continued fever, a vow being made by his father, was restored to his former life, nor did any sign of the said fever appear in him.

A certain girl of seven years, who, having suffered a continued fever for three weeks, expired, a vow being made to the said Saint by her family, recovered her spirit and lived again.

[80] the bull of his canonization testifies: Lastly a certain woman, who had conceived two daughters, one of them having died in the womb through a fall of the said mother from an ass, and having putrefied in her womb through long delay, began to labor in childbirth. And when the said now putrid offspring had been drawn forth piecemeal, and the other daughter, already dead, had been drawn forth violently by the ministry of the midwives and cast into the stable upon the dung; a vow being sent up to that Saint that, if that offspring should rise, she would present him an image of wax; the girl began to stir, and, being baptized, survived seven months.

A certain boy also, of the age of seven years, when, being found dead under the bed in which he lay with his parents, he had remained stiff and cold for some time, a vow being made by his parents to this Saint, was divinely raised up.

To a certain woman, who through a violent infirmity had closed her last day, a vow being sent up by her family to that Saint, life was restored by his merits.

[81] to which But altogether marvellous is the prodigy which is reported most briefly in Pisanus in these words: At Marseilles there were two brothers by blood; one of whom, having killed the other, was thereupon seized and beheaded. But when the bodies of both were in the church of St. Louis, the invocation of the same holy Louis being made by their mother, he cured them from death and from all injury. St. Antoninus, designated above, narrates in §2 an event altogether astonishing in this matter: When there was war between nobles and burghers in Apulia in various parts; one side prevailing against the other, several of the adversaries were taken captive. But among them one nobleman, who on account of the many losses inflicted by him was very hateful to the victors, so that they decreed for him not ransom like the rest, but death. And that nobleman, understanding that he was condemned to hanging, with tears and intense affection of heart commended himself to St. Louis, sending up a vow to fulfil certain things in the Saint's honor if he should escape death. And indeed, being led to the gallows, when he is raised upon the gibbet, and a rope being put about his neck he is hanged in the air, the rope breaks and he falls unhurt to the ground. Another stronger cord is added, by which, being tightened, he might be strangled; and that too likewise is broken. A third is applied, which is broken in the same way. All being astounded, that nobleman condemned to hanging said: "You labor in vain, for St. Louis, to whom I have devoted myself, defends me." Which seeing, his adversaries desisted from inflicting the penalty upon him, and let him go free. And he fulfilled his vows entirely, visiting the threshold of his church, and telling all the event to the glory of God and of his Saint.

[82] Wadding at the year 1298, number 16, says, citing Marianus and Marcus: there is added A certain knight, his reins loosed, threw down a boy who chanced to meet him, and trampled him with his horse's hooves, so that he rendered him wholly lifeless. Seeing the pitiable event, the knight leapt to the ground, and, taking the crushed boy with broken neck into his arms, commended him weeping and praying to St. Louis; and straightway the boy revived and escaped free from all harm. Certain noble spouses near Marseilles, long barren, with great earnestness asked St. Louis that offspring be granted them. A child being soon conceived, after nine months had run their course, the woman brought forth a shapeless mass of flesh. The midwife had it buried, hidden from the mother's eyes. Yet the mother wishing to behold her offspring, and at her importunate prayers the whole matter being reported; and she still persisting in her desire, the shapeless fetus was dug up, and when she had taken it in her hand, she piously offered it with tears to St. Louis, and objected that God's works were perfect, and that by his merits that offspring had been granted her, which nevertheless she awaited rather for solace and joy than for horror and grief; and that she therefore did not doubt that he would complete the benefit, putting the form of a man upon that mass conceived by her and infusing a soul. She had not finished speaking to her husband and to eleven matrons who were present, when that flesh was turned into a beautiful little boy, uttering his first cries. Another woman conceived after a like prayer had been made; but after nine months the fetus, lying crosswise in the womb, is drawn out dead in pieces. Her strength and spirit being somewhat recovered, the mother poured out with tears her prayers to St. Louis, the author of the first benefit; and it came to pass that straightway the parts came together among themselves and formed a comely and living infant. These two last miracles are found also in St. Antoninus, of whom before; where he also adds another:

[83] A certain nobleman at Marseilles, by a vow sent up in honor of St. Louis, of very many others together with his wife obtained from the Lord the offspring they desired; and because they did not render what they had vowed, the Lord showed that not only a foolish but also a faithless promise displeases him, when what is promised to God is not paid. For when the boy was now seven years old, he began to be most gravely sick. Then the boy's parents cried out in prayer to the Saint, imploring help, accusing themselves as ungrateful and most faithless, and vowing again that as soon as possible they would render to the Lord what they had promised, and that they would do many other things besides in the Saint's honor, if he would preserve their son's life. But blessed Louis despised their vows, that he might in some measure punish their ingratitude and show his power by a greater miracle. What more? The boy paid the debt of all flesh, and his parents, as it were turned to fury for grief, with tears and wailing did not cease to invoke him continually for their son's resurrection. And when their household were arranging to carry the corpse to the sepulchre, they by no means consent, trusting to obtain by the Saint's merits the grace they desired. But since, though they waited long out of compassion for the parents, there was in the boy neither voice nor any feeling or motion, being overcome with weariness they carry him to the church for burial. The parents follow them with many outcries, invoking the Saint. When

the office was finished, when they wished now to lay him in the sepulchre, the boy rose up whole and unharmed, reproaching his parents for the negligence of the unfulfilled vow. Which being done, the boy is carried to the Saint's sepulchre by his parents, who paid their vows in full and gave thanks for so great a gift.

[84] of those raised Our manuscript copy of Calo supplies us with no scanty material about the dead recalled to life by St. Louis, as becomes plain from the following deeds, which we narrate on its credit. For fifteen, he says, dead persons returned to life through his merits. I excerpt the following from the said copy: A boy of seven years from Marseilles, Peter Duranti by name, died after nine days of continued fever, three throes of true death having occurred. On a certain night, at the hour of first sleep, he was left in his bed, a cross set upon his breast, as is the custom, and the physician and certain others consoled the father for the boy's death and departed. After their withdrawal, the father with all his household remained weeping and groaning, keeping watch over the boy's body until the morning hour. At which hour with great faith he turned his lamentations and mourning to the Lord and to St. Louis, to whom he had made a vow for his son's life; and sighing with sure hope in his merits and sanctity, he spoke thus: "Ill have you heard, Father, the prayers which I offered you the first time." These and similar words being repeated, looking at the boy, he saw him raised up; and the physician and the others who had withdrawn being called, they made great joy over the dead man raised through the merits of this Saint. If this miracle be the same as that which Sedulius's biographer touches upon in the briefest words in chapter 6, number 49, it nevertheless deserves to be reported here, that from the narrative of this copy the brevity of the other may be compensated. Let us go on with the manuscript of Calo:

Rostagnus Albua of Narbonne, and John Bissani, asserted on oath that they had firmly heard from the mother and from very many others who saw it, that G. Columbina of Narbonne had a certain daughter of about twelve years, who had been sick, and at last remained truly dead for nearly a day. A vow therefore being made by the said mother to St. Louis, that she would visit his sepulchre together with her daughter and with a shroud, if he would raise her from the dead; straightway God by the merits of that Saint recalled the girl to life.

[85] Ramnosa of Manosque, a citizen of Marseilles, had a son who was sick unto death, so that he seemed to all to be dead. their number, The boy's father made a vow that, if by the merits of Bl. Louis his son should be restored to him, he would have him presented with a shroud at his sepulchre. Immediately upon the vow being made the boy opened his eyes and called his father to him, as he could, being restored to full health.

James the Butcher of the city of Arles had a son who, laboring in sickness for nearly a year, came even to death; so that for almost a whole hour he had neither consciousness nor motion, nor any sign save of death. A vow being made by his family to St. Louis, the boy revived as though smiling, and sucked eagerly and joyfully the breast offered him by his mother.

[86] Jacoba Rascabona with great labor bore a dead daughter, which as it seemed to herself and to others, because she was without breath, without motion, without warmth, and with a blackness of the body: and she had always in like manner borne dead offspring, so that thereafter they did not live. But a vow being made by her to St. Louis, the little infant began to stir and to utter a cry, and, being baptized, at last survived several days.

Jacoba Ariola the midwife was present when Bertranda Massequa bore a son truly dead: and she made a vow with her husband and the boy's aunt to St. Louis with great outcries and devotion: straightway the boy opened his eyes, perfectly raised by the Saint's merits.

Adalisia Reclandi, having an infant dead of a grave infirmity, a vow being made with outcries and devotion to St. Louis, received him marvellously raised up. The miracle which I shall presently subjoin from the said copy has so much agreement with that which stands in Sedulius's Anonymous biographer, to be reprinted below, chapter 6, number 47, that this seems to be the same as that: yet since the Calonian copy varies the circumstances, we now subjoin it also. And the one, if it be the same, will thus be confirmed by the other. And it is this:

[87] Adalasia Lombarda of Roche … had a little daughter, from various who, having turned black, utterly expired, and remained thus dead a very long time. But a vow being made, she was raised up by the Saint's merits. She herself also, on account of sickness, had fallen into deafness, so that for three months she had heard nothing at all. But a vow being made, on the next day she recovered her hearing. She also, lacking milk in her breasts from a previous sickness, so that one boy perished of hunger because she could not suckle him, a vow being sent up, recovered comely breasts. These three miracles she believes God wrought because she had before been unbelieving about the Saint's miracles.

A boy of one year, falling in his parents' absence from a certain window, where there were twelve stone steps, was truly dead, and altogether shattered and turned black, so that his mouth could not be opened. But a vow being made to St. Louis, he was straightway raised up.

Lord N. of Narbonne, having a son truly dead of a continued fever, a vow being made that he would bring him to the sepulchre of St. Louis, received him raised up by his merits.

[88] A certain man, having a nag sick and at last lying dead, documents put a stick of a palm's length in its nostrils, pierced its ear, dragged it with a rope: there was neither motion nor feeling. But a vow being made to St. Louis, it at once rose up, and he mounted upon it. But lest the word runcinus delay anyone, by it is meant a smaller, common horse, in French roncin, as Du Cange has in his Glossary to the Writers of Middle and Low Latin, in whom there is more about this word.

Of another animal restored to life at the invocation of St. Louis Wadding writes thus at number 18: The falconer of a certain king of Portugal was rearing a falcon which the king held in the highest esteem. At the dawn of a certain day he found it hanging by its leg-jesses and half dead: and he brought it to the Convent of the Friars Minor of Beja or Pax Julia, where, while he was praying before the altar of St. Louis for the bird's life, it expired between his hands. Moved with anger and indignation, he threw the dead bird upon the altar, and related the whole event, not without fear, to the king, who was two Spanish leagues distant thence. But while the king was moved in mind against the man, behold, the falcon flies in through a window and settled on the falconer's arm. This miracle is narrated at greater length from the ancient Chronicles in Marcus of Lisbon, chapter 19.

[89] we have collected. But concerning men raised from death the same Wadding had set forth at number 17 these events: At Arezzo in Tuscany a certain woman who had brought forth a dead son commended and consecrated him to St. Louis, on condition that he should come to life again. Returning to life, he was called by the Saint's name, and embraced the institute of the Minors. This miracle is confirmed from Pisanus, who may be consulted.

A certain nobleman, while he was mounting his horse, the beast being terrified and driven to fury dragged the rider, with one foot caught in the stirrup or foot-support, over broken and rocky ground, and crushed him with its hooves. Being found dead by his parents and servants, while he was being carried on the third day to the sepulchre, he revived, nor did any trace remain in him of the many scars and wounds which he received. Thus Wadding. From what has been said, therefore, it is established that St. Louis was a wonder-worker of great name, and altogether marvellous, especially on account of so many dead whom by his merits he brought back to life.

§ X. The crippled, the fevered, the gouty, the deaf, the dumb, the blind, the insane, the shipwrecked are made whole.

Of very many The Anonymous published by Sedulius, after he had treated of the dead recalled to life by the patronage of St. Louis, presents the lame and those hindered in body, restored to health by the merits of the same Saint; concerning whom in the Life in our text from number 51. Add the following. Our transcript of Calo sets down this: Constantine Mercery, powerless in his left arm, so awkwardly that his hand was behind his back, for 15 years, a vow being made beside the Saint's sepulchre, was cured, all hearing the crack.

A boy of five years, holding the soles of his feet upward, and having below what ought to have been above, from his birth; when his mother had made a vow on the day of the commemoration of St. Louis, was fully satisfied.

Nixidius of Puy-Ricard, powerless for three years in his hand and fingers, was fully cured over the Saint's sepulchre, which he was visiting.

Walter the Englishman, being powerless in his hand for three months, a vow being made, was fully healed.

Alegreta, of the age of two years, was so deformed in all her limbs that, holding her hands and arms behind her feet, and her legs toward her head, so stiff and dried up that her parents utterly despaired of her life, a vow being made to visit the sepulchre with an image, she was straightway cured.

[91] The lady Mary Guillelma of Marseilles, falling, had so great a rupture in the groin hindered in body that her intestines descended below in the thickness of a whetstone with intolerable pain. And finding no human remedy, a vow being made that she would visit the Saint with a waxen image, she recovered. For straightway it seemed that by his hand the intestines were restored to their due place; and so she was fully healed. Of the word alla, Du Cange in the Glossary designated a little before says: Allo, in the Breviloquium, is said to be "an instrument for sharpening knives, and it is a round stone with which or on which the smith cleans instruments, that they may be sharp. It is also called alla." Let us return to what went before.

The lady Aycarda on the feast of St. Agnes fell into a grave pain and powerlessness of her right arm, so that for three days she remained out of her mind, so that it seemed to her that fiery sparks came forth from her arm and hand; a vow being sent up to St. Louis to bring a waxen hand, she was immediately freed.

[92] From the collection of Father Harold I add this besides: A certain woman, and healed by the help of St. Louis named Beatrice, of the castle of Alençon, suffered from the falling sickness for two years, and was most sharply tormented by it twice or thrice a week: which woman indeed had devoted herself to several Saints, and, being helped by none and almost despairing, was resolved to vow herself to no one any more. It happened, God so willing, that Friars Minor passed through the place where the said woman was, who, hearing that she was afflicted with such a disease, begin to encourage her to devotion to St. Louis: which hearing, the husband of the aforesaid woman devoted her to the aforesaid Saint: and, that vow being made, from that time she was freed from the said disease: which she and her aforesaid husband on oath

affirmed, and there are also several witnesses. Hadrian Valois in his Notice of the Gauls says: Alentio, commonly Alençon, is a town situated on the river Sarthe, distinguished with the title of a Duchy, in Normandy. You will find there various formations of that same name; among which the said author observes that Alenconium is corruptly written.

[93] The following miracle is narrated in the bull of canonization — whether the same as, or different from, that which is found in Sedulius's biographer in our text at number 65? examples. Here it is: A certain woman also, when after a violent birth of a dead boy lying crosswise in her womb she had remained crippled in hands and feet and thighs for two years, a vow being made to the aforesaid Saint that, if she were cured, she would sweep all her life the church in which he lies; she began to sleep, and, awakened, was wholly cured of the aforesaid disease. In the same bull is read this: A certain woman, who suddenly became dumb and powerless in one arm, this infirmity lasting for a month, a vow being sent up by her mother, was at once brought back to her former health. To these add those suffering from gout in the feet and hands and healed, of whom Sedulius's biographer treats in our text at number 53; but of those with fever from number 54; to which we add the following supplement.

[94] Our copy from Harold's collection says: A certain man of the Order of Minors of the Convent of Alisbronia suffered a continued fever for thirteen days, so much so Of those with fever that the physician utterly despaired of him, so much so that he said in the morning that he would not see the hour of Compline. The said sick man, feeling himself so heavily oppressed, having a fervent devotion to St. Louis, who was then alive and was in the said convent, on account of the holiness of life which he knew him to have, said: "O if I had something of the remains of Friar Louis's food, I should be cured at once!" Hearing this, the infirmarian of the Convent went at once to Friar William of Corlinione, his companion, and anxiously asked of him something of the food left by him. Straightway the said companion brought him a dish in which there was a little of the bread which St. Louis had broken: which when he had tasted, he was straightway cured of the fever, and on the same day walked half a league. But the physician, coming and thinking that he was at his last gasp, or that he would rather find him dead, hearing that he had gone out, wondering, asked what this was: and hearing the course of the matter, said: "God is able even to raise the dead, and so I truly reckon him."

[95] cured, and the gouty: The manuscript of Calo records these few things also: A Friar of the Order of Bl. Mary, Prior of Marseilles, was once healed by St. Louis of the gout, and once of a fever. Friar N., custos of Marseilles, laboring under a most violent fever, having recourse to St. Louis was straightway cured. So much of those with fever. Take the gouty from the bull of canonization: A certain man, having suffered for six years from gout in his hand and arm, belly and shoulder, a vow being made that he would visit his threshold, straightway obtained the benefit of health.

A certain priest finally, having suffered gout in his side, which grievously afflicted him for seven days, a vow being made to the aforementioned Saint, and visiting his tomb more diligently, immediately received health.

[96] likewise of the deaf, dumb, and blind, etc. Of the deaf cured by the Saint's patronage our Anonymous narrates only two examples in our text below at number 56; we add from elsewhere one more to these. Our copy of Calo says: Lord James Marconius, having suffered for many days deafness and pain in his left ear, so that it seemed to him that all the citizens were singing in his ears, a vow being made to bring an image, was straightway healed. That speech was restored to the dumb the deeds narrated in the said Anonymous prove. See the Life in our text at number 57. But the miracle which there begins, Alazatia of Camps, or that which immediately follows with this beginning, Likewise another woman, even though perhaps one or other be the same in substance as that which stands in the Harold copy, is nevertheless expressed otherwise, and thus, in it: A certain woman, named Alazatia Amiga, of the castle of Rampnis, suddenly lost her speech, and for a whole week remained dumb, nor could she utter any word. But the said woman, considering the many things which she had heard about blessed Louis, although she could not move herself, nevertheless devoted herself to him with heart and affection alike: and suddenly she began to speak, the bond of her tongue being loosed. Which indeed she confirmed by her own oath; and several witnesses are recorded.

To these I subjoin a single example of this kind of evil which occurred in our own region. For the divine goodness did not wish our Belgium to be wholly excluded from the marvellous patronage of his Saint in bringing help to the wretched. Take the matter from Sedulius's Commentary on chapter 20 of the Life of St. Louis published by him, which matter he indicates that he transcribed from a manuscript copy of Louvain, and indeed in almost the same words: It happened, he says, at Louvain in the year of the Lord 1426, after Friar Henry of Zichem had preached the life and miracles of St. Louis in the street called Groefstrate, that a certain woman of that same street related that a certain man called Henry Iseren and Catherine his wife had a boy who had been dumb for six whole years. The parents, having heard of the miracles of St. Louis, vowed two tapers to the Saint for the boy's health and speech, if within an appointed time he should receive voice and speech. The vow being made, soon the boy was heard with voice and speaking perfectly. But of the blind restored to health there is treatment in the Life from number 58; to which I add that brief example from the manuscript of Calo: Procius of Fréjus, blind for four years, could be freed by no remedy of the physicians. A vow being sent up to visit the Saint with two eyes of wax, he was plainly healed. Of the place just named observe that Forum Julii, to the inhabitants Fréjus, is a city of Gaul in Provence on the Mediterranean sea. Our Saint also showed himself marvellous in bringing back the insane and mad to a better mind, as is proved from various events in our text of the Life from number 60. Here for you is the following deed (is it one among those which are read there, or different?) from our manuscript of Harold: A certain man of Marseilles named John had a daughter of eleven years or thereabouts, who had become wholly out of her mind, and, what is more, in her father's judgment seemed possessed by a demon: for she uttered errors and did horrible things, so much so that it was often necessary to bind her. On which account the aforesaid father devoted her to holy Louis: and, that vow being sent up, the girl was freed from all the aforesaid vexations. What is then subjoined in the same Life at number 62 and following about the help given to the shipwrecked by the Saint's favor is proved by only two examples. Here for you is a fuller supplement to those.

[97] Our Harold copy supplies various and equally marvellous cases to our purpose, The shipwrecked which I transcribe thence: When once there were in a certain ship many rich merchants, who were coming from the city of Marseilles; and when they were on the open sea, the sea is so tossed by the storm that the ship began to be in peril. And the sailors and merchants, wishing to lighten the ship, began to throw the wares into the sea, and out of great fear of death, on account of the shakings and tempests of the squalls or of the sea, all began to cry out, "Holy Louis, holy Louis, succor us in this peril of death," vowing and promising always to fast his vigil and to visit his body, or to go to his church and there to make offerings to his honor and praise, if they were freed from such peril. But the aforesaid merchant, seeing peril hanging over himself and his goods, made a vow to St. Louis that, if he would free him from so great a peril, and also would let him have his goods thrown into the sea, and also all his money kept in a chest, which had also been thrown into the sea, he would go to his church to visit his sepulchre, where his glorious body was, and would give to his church built in his honor the half of all his goods, and would bestow the half of the money kept in the chest and lost, which should remain to him; straightway, the vow being sent up, calm was made on the sea and the whole tempest was stilled.

[98] But the tempest growing strong, he was compelled, together with the others, to throw his goods into the sea: only one bag with money he carried on his back, which was untied; from which part of the money fell into the sea. in wondrous ways But when they came to the harbor or to land, they found on the shore all their goods which they had lost in the sea, which had been cast up by the sea: finding therefore all their goods except the money and the purse, which had been swallowed by a certain great fish. And seeing himself delivered, he determined to give to the Friars of Marseilles the half of the money which had remained to him. They go therefore to the church of St. Louis to fulfil the vow. Yet the merchant who had lost the money was ill comforted, because he could not fulfil his vow to the full, namely to hand over the half of the lost money to the church of St. Louis. But when the aforesaid merchant was passing through the market with his companions, seeing fishermen selling fish newly caught, among which he there saw one great fish, which he bought, and sent to the Friars Minor to their house, that he might eat it with them out of devotion.

[99] freed from a most present peril of death: And he had the Guardian of the convent called to him; to whom he related all that had happened to him, and how he had lost his wares and part of his money, and how he had sent up a vow, and therefore that of the money which had remained to him he wished to give the Friars the half: and he also said that he had bought the fish, that he might eat it with the Friars. And the Guardian had the fish carried to the kitchen. But when the Friars had had such a fish prepared, and when the cook was gutting or splitting the said fish, he found in the fish much money: and, calling the Guardian, showed him the money which he had found in the fish; and all the Friars greatly marvelled at this. And the Guardian inquired of the merchant how much money, and of what coinage, he had lost. He answered: "I lost so many florins, so many shillings of groat pennies," and he specified all the coinage which he had lost: which, just as he specified it, so was it found in the fish; and thus they made over to him all the money which he had lost. But the Friars with the aforesaid merchant, seeing the miracle, were filled with the greatest wonder, considering that these things were by the power of St. Louis; and they rejoiced, and straightway rendered thanks and praise and glory to blessed Louis for all the benefits received. And then the merchant, of the money

which had remained to him, and of that which was found in the fish, laid the half upon the altar of Bl. Louis and gave it to the Friars, and did many other things, that he might not be found ungrateful. A little afterwards this deed is subjoined:

[100] he succors other shipwrecked men. A certain vessel \ coming from Marseilles near Corsica, those who were aboard were so stricken by a tempest of the sea that for three days and nights they were between two waters, because continual squalls covered the ship, and the sailors were so wearied by the said tempest that no hope of any temporal help could be theirs in any way: they even let go the steering of the ship altogether, since nothing remained but to implore divine help. But then, seeing themselves so hard pressed, they promised St. Louis that, if he would free them from such and so great a peril, they would as speedily as possible visit his tomb with heads, feet, and bodies bare except for their drawers, with a rope about their necks and a lighted candle. And straightway, the vow being sent up, behold (as often in the perils of the sea the Saints appear in the form of fire to those who invoke them, and at whose appearing they at once hold themselves safe) he appeared to them on the side of the mast near the top in the form of a somewhat dim fire; seeing which, and knowing that it was he who had come to deliver them, being made secure and gladdened with a certain gladness of mind, straightway all that tempest ceased, and, coming safely to the harbor of Marseilles, disembarking at once, first of all, as they had promised, as was expressed above, they paid their vows.*

[101] Certain words above which are not obvious we thus explain. Certain words are explained. Fortuna here signifies a tempest of the sea; and this is confirmed by examples in the latest edition of Du Cange's Glossary, volume 3, column 650. Fungare (I read in our copy fungam, perhaps faultily) is a little cask, a jar, from the said Glossary, columns 743 and 750. But here funga or fungare is taken for a chest, as is plain from the text. Galea is a kind of very swift vessel, etc. See Du Cange. Cocca, a vessel, is noted in the latest edition of Du Cange of which I was speaking, volume 2, column 712. Observe finally that in the phrase Quaedam coca, etc., above, the nominative is set for what they call the ablative absolute. The things which we have given above treat of the help brought by St. Louis to those in peril at sea; to which will presently be subjoined not unfittingly what marvels he wrought on land in favor of those who were in danger of life.

\* they found

\ perhaps exenteraret* was gutting

\ perhaps cocca*

\ perhaps dimiserunt* they let go

§ XI. Perils of death and other calamities driven away; certain observations upon them.

A man about to be beheaded is carried from prison; another is saved in a fall: Since in this kind of miracles we have not the author of the Life which we are about to give going before us, we shall dig out what pertains hither from elsewhere. Let Bartholomew of Pisa be heard: He also did and does special favors to many. For a certain man of Ciboctolo in the County of Perugia, who had been unjustly accused of homicide and had confessed under the torture of the rack, when he was to be beheaded in the morning, and had commended his innocence to St. Louis, St. Louis by night took him sleeping with his fetters and chains out of the prison, the door of the prison remaining shut, and set him thus sleeping twelve miles away in the house of the Friars of Ciboctolo at the foot of the altar. And when he was so found by the Friars, and the vision of St. Louis had been recited, he drew to himself, thus fettered and delivered, the Potestas \ of Perugia and other citizens: who, seeing this, praised God in his St. Louis. To this miracle (which elsewhere, as I shall say at number 111, is attributed to St. Louis, king of the French) the same author presently subjoins another: Friar Francis Forinca of Siena, while he was standing at Montepulciano and wished to pull forcibly from the wall a beam upon which a clock had once stood; suddenly with the said beam, his head bent downward, he fell upon the steps which are before the chapels, and, striking his head with his loins against the said steps, when he ought at once either to have died or to have been crushed, by the invocation of blessed Louis for his help, while he was falling, suffered no harm.*

[103] Let its own place here be given also to another prodigy, which Wadding reports to have happened near Beja or the city of Pax Julia, Denis, king of Portugal, is freed from a bear, and thus records at the year of Christ 1298, number 19: At that very city of Pax Julia a great benefit by the merits of this holy Man was received also by Denis, king of Portugal, to whom, as we said at the year 1282, number 13, was given as wife Elizabeth of Aragon, kinswoman and relative of St. Louis, who always had in her mouth the miracles wrought by him, and often suggested them to the king, who gave them little credence. The king set out to hunt in a wood near Pax Julia; when in the midst of the wilderness, deserted by his attendants, he ran upon a bear, which with inborn ferocity leaps upon the king, grasps him about the middle, hampers him wholly, and throws him from his horse: with one paw the fierce beast assails him as he lies; with the other it twists the horse's reins. The king, perceiving himself exposed to open peril of life, remembering Louis, though late, ardently implores his aid. He, in a monk's habit and distinguished with the pontifical mitre, suddenly shone forth, and said to the troubled king, "What business have you here? Draw your dagger and slay the bear." Denis, his spirit restored, with his right hand, which he soon felt to be free, draws his ready blade and plants it in the bear's left shoulder; and, the monster being overthrown and his horse mounted, he bursts forth briskly to his own men… As a monument of the prodigy there is seen today in the city of Beja, in the monastery of the Minors, a chapel dedicated by the king to St. Louis his savior. This miracle Wadding transcribed into Latin from our Antonio de Vasconcellos, who narrates it in an appendix to the Anacephalaeosis of Denis, king of Portugal; which is also confirmed from Friar Marcus of Lisbon, part 2, book 6, chapter 20.

[104] [a certain soldier unharmed in the hands of the enemy; likewise a certain hero safe from an arrow wound.] A certain soldier of Limoges, as the aforesaid Wadding goes on, while in the calamitous and deadly discord of the Guelphs and Ghibellines he was serving on one side in Italy, and was plundering herds of oxen, fifty soldiers of the opposing side leapt upon him from an ambush, and, surrounded by them in certain peril of life, he asked St. Louis to be willing to help him with his patronage. Straightway the holy Man appeared to him, and led him unharmed through the midst of the enemy safe to the ranks of his own men.

In the same war a certain powerful hero, the baron de Baux, being pierced by a Ghibelline's arrow from beneath the eye right through to the back of the head, and hearing from the physicians that he would certainly die if the arrow were drawn out, poured out effectual prayers to the holy Man; who, being moved with mercy, gently drew out the arrow from behind, or from the back of the head, leaving no trace of a wound.

[105] The besieged delivered, The townsmen of the castle of Serravalle in the diocese of Pistoia in Tuscany, being besieged by the enemy, when no hope of escape remained, the enemy bursting into the castle on the XIX day of August, the priests and Clergy being called together, at their exhortation vowed that they would celebrate the birthday of St. Louis, which falls on that day, if they should be freed from the enemy's oppression. A marvellous thing! Straightway the holy Man appeared upon the walls, and inspired so great courage in the besieged and so great fear in the besiegers that, these being routed, the former came off victors. Bound by which miracle, they happily observe to this very day what they promised.

[106] locusts driven away, In that region of Spain which is called Old Castile, through the fields of Villalpando and Villanueva destructive locusts so ravaged the crops that it truly seemed a plague or scourge sent by God. With one accord the townsmen vowed to St. Louis, whose memory, he having died a little before, was then recent and famous, that, if he would free their fields from these unclean and harmful creatures, they would every year offer at the Convent of the Friars Minor of Villalpando a taper of 25 pounds in his honor. On the following day the holy Man appeared to very many onlookers, clothed in pontificals, blessing the fields, and driving away with his staff the locusts and grubs, until he put them all to flight. Bound by this benefit, for twenty continuous years they offered a taper of the promised weight. Then by the counsel and consent of the Friars they commuted the vow, building a chapel to the holy Man and celebrating his feast day perpetually. Thus the aforesaid Wadding.

[107] Marvellous also is this event, which I find in our manuscript of Harold: an arrow drawn from a woman's body, It happened once at Brescia — which experience shows to be a city situated in the parts of Lombardy — that when several crossbowmen with their crossbows drawn wished to direct their arrows at a determined place or mark, a certain woman most devoted to the kindly confessor Louis, passing between, was so grievously wounded in the body by the arrow of one of them that she at once lost health and speech: which perceiving, commending herself with all the affection of her heart to blessed Louis, as if beside herself and estranged from her senses, without lingering delay or long interval of time, being strengthened in mind, she saw a certain Friar wearing an episcopal mitre on his head coming to her; and while he signed her with the sign of the cross, presently he drew the arrow from her body, and she was restored to her former health, so that neither sign nor trace appeared in her. And straightway after this, because she was near to childbirth, she bore a son exceedingly beautiful: and so the said woman did many things in honor of the said Saint.

[108] Let us follow again as our guide Sedulius's Anonymous, whom we have left for a while, Other misfortunes and let us supplement his subject about those healed of various diseases and misfortunes. The transcript of Calo says: The lord abbot of Lure toward dawn suddenly fell into a pain of the bowels with a cold sweat, being bereft of all his limbs, so that his extremities already seemed dead: and his head wavered with a continual trembling; a vow being made to offer an image to the said Saint, the pain at once ceased, and he was fully delivered. In the said transcript the following had preceded:

[109] The lord Pontius Romanus, canon of Orange, being sent on a certain business by his bishop's command to the archbishop of Arles, cured by the patronage of St. Louis. on the way fell into a pain of the bowels with so very cold a sweat in his kidneys that he could neither stand, nor go, nor lie down; but he was as though set in peril of death, being able to find no human remedy. But a vow being made that, if he could be present on the day of the appointed business, he would visit this Saint's sepulchre with offerings; he obtained health, passing through the member a stone large enough. These are the things from which it has seemed good to us to weave the present supplement to the miracles which are found in Sedulius. But how greatly detractors displeased God who dared to fix a malicious tooth into the prodigies of the holy wonder-worker is clear from the punishments visited upon those slanderers, as may be seen in the Life in our text at number 66 and following. But of the mind of those visiting his

sepulchre being changed for the better, at number 68.

[110] Here now for you, reader, are certain observations upon what has been said in this paragraph. With certain observations At the beginning of it mention was made of Ciboctolo from Pisanus; concerning which I shall speak below at number 111. The Guelphs and Ghibellines, of whom mention was made above at number 104, are a faction very well known to historians, which raged through Italy in the thirteenth century of Christ. Concerning Villalpando, of which mention fell a little before at number 106, one may consult Rodrigo Méndez Silva in his book published in Spanish under the title Población general de España, folio 49, where, describing that place in detail, he affirms that it is five leagues distant from Taurus (commonly Toro). But Toro, as Baudrand observes, is a city of Spain in the kingdom of León, on the river Douro… It is midway between Simancas to the east and Sentica to the west, etc. Above too, at number 107, occurred Brescia, so called now by the inhabitants; Brixia to the Latins. It is a city of Lombardy in the territory of the Venetian Republic, episcopal under the archbishop of Milan: it is the capital of the Brescian territory, and is large and fortified, with a very strong citadel on an adjacent hill, as I have several times seen, says Baudrand; where there is more. There remains Arausio (Orange), which is a well-known episcopal city of Gaul in Provence under the archbishop of Arles.

[111] we elucidate the foregoing. I said at the beginning of this paragraph that a miracle reported from Bartholomew of Pisa concerning our holy Louis is elsewhere ascribed to the Saint of the same name, the king of the French. This is done by Francesco Gonzaga, On the Origin of the Seraphic Franciscan Religion, part 2, in the province of St. Francis, Convent 44, which is there called that of St. Bartholomew near Cibottola. But lest there be any doubt that this miracle coincides with that which we gave from Pisanus, it suffices merely to have briefly excerpted certain things from Gonzaga's narrative: When … a certain youth of Cibottola, convicted by the force of torture of a homicide which he had in no way committed, was on the morrow … to be beheaded, he commended himself from his inmost heart to blessed Louis, king of the French, who had lately departed from among the living and was flashing with miracles. And behold, while about midnight, lying in his little bed … he falls asleep, bound with fetters and chain he is carried to this place near the high altar; whom, when the Friars, about to be present at Matins, unexpectedly saw, etc. But how does the building of that convent about the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1480, as is noted in Gonzaga, cohere with what he says about St. Louis, king of the French, who had LATELY departed from among the living, since he had died as far back as the year 1270? We meanwhile do not as yet refer the above-mentioned miracle, which is told by Pisanus, who lived in the fourteenth century of Christ — the very century in which the holy Bishop Louis was inscribed in the roll of the Heavenly ones — to St. Louis, king of the French, on the authority of Gonzaga; until more certain things shine upon us from the Life or the miracles of that same King Louis; of whom there will be treatment at the XXV of this month. But as regards the building of the said place, one may consult Wadding at the year of Christ 1291, number 58.

\* that is, the supreme magistrate

\ perhaps Arausonensis*

§ XII. Louis inscribed in the catalogue of the Saints; letters to kings and princes, and to the Saint's own mother, given on this matter; the translation of his body.

The cause of canonization, begun earlier, The most fragrant odor of his virtues, and the glory of his miracles, and the most frequent concourse of the Faithful to St. Louis's body being published throughout the world, the people of Toulouse and their neighbors, as is narrated in Sedulius's Life in our text at number 69, sending legates to the lord Pope Boniface VIII, proclaim his wonders … asking that … he would inscribe him in the catalogue of the Saints. What then was done in this cause, and with how great diligence, is set forth in the same Life. This sacred business therefore was not completed under the aforesaid Boniface, nor under Benedict XI and Clement V, his successors, but by John XXII, who had formerly been the companion and master of St. Louis, and was also present at his death. Nor is there any doubt but that by the will of divine providence this office of piety was reserved for him, to whom the whole life, manners, piety, death, and all the deeds of the blessed Man were well known and clearly seen, as may be read there. There may be added that of Martin of Fulda, to be cited at greater length below in §15, at the year of the Lord 1316, where he reports this of Pope John XXII: Likewise in the same year (nay, the following) he canonized holy Louis, namely the son of the king of Sicily … because he had first been his master, and saw his sanctity with his eyes when he was still a boy, and handled or touched it with his hands. Haste likewise was avoided in so grave a matter, and again all and each of his acts being accurately examined and approved by the Cardinals; at last by the counsel and assent of those same … Cardinals and of all the Prelates present (at Avignon…), with great pomp and solemnity, in the year of restored salvation one thousand three hundred and sixteen, on the seventh Ides of April, the same Pontiff enrolled Bl. Louis in the number of the Saints, in the first year of his Pontificate, as it stands in the cited number 69.

[113] Let this be heard from the bull of canonization given then and there by the same Vicar of Christ: by Pope John XXII For the rest, because it is fitting that he whom the Lord magnifies in heaven the world should honor; we have caused diligent inquiry to be made into the sanctity of his life and the truth of his miracles. And because, after a careful inquiry, and a zealous examination, and a solemn discussion, being urgently requested by the devout and humble supplication of all the Prelates then present at the Apostolic See … we have thought fit to inscribe him on the seventh day of April in the catalogue of the holy Confessors. And therefore we admonish you all … enjoining and commanding that on the fourteenth of the Kalends of September you devoutly and solemnly celebrate the feast of that same Bishop and Confessor … And that a multitude of Christian people may flow together the more ardently and abundantly to his wonderful sepulchre, and the festival of that Confessor may be the more solemnly kept, to all who are truly penitent and have confessed, and who with reverence shall come thither on that same feast yearly, to ask his suffrages … two years and two quarantines; but to those coming to the aforesaid sepulchre each year within the Octave of that same feast, one year and forty days, of the penances enjoined upon them we mercifully relax… Given at Avignon on the seventh Ides of April, in the first year of our Pontificate.

[114] There is therefore an error in Sedulius's Anonymous as to the year. Wadding, volume 3, at the year of Christ 1317, number 47, says: was completed in the year 1317. The author of the life in Surius (nay, in Sedulius, for in Surius I do not find that of which the question is here) and the Breviary of the Minors on the feast of the translation, lesson 5, refer this event to the preceding year; but the bull itself, which I here subjoin, proves that it did not happen except in this year. For the seventh Ides of April, which the bull sets forth, of the first year of John, elected on the VII Ides of August in the year 1316, recurs only in this year. One may see concerning his election the Historico-chronologico-critical Breviary of the Roman Pontiffs in François Pagi, in the said Pontiff, number 6. Saussay also erred in the day of the canonization, when in his Gallican Martyrology at the third Ides, or the XI day of April, he thus added it: At Avignon, the canonization of St. Louis, bishop of Toulouse … solemnly performed by John XXII, Supreme Pontiff, in the year 1317. He erred, I say, or at least reported it there on a day not its own, on which it happened, and on which in our work, among those Passed Over, at the VII day of April, in volume one of that month, page 656, from the Supplement of the Carthusians of Brussels, the feast of our St. Louis's canonization is reported. Rodolfi also erred, in whom at folio 122 verso I read: On the XV day of December John XXII canonized him … and enrolled him in the number of the holy Confessors. St. Antoninus, part 3 of the Histories, title 21, chapter 3, thought that this happened in the council of Vienne, held in the year of the Lord 1311 by Pope Clement V. For he writes thus: In that council St. Louis, son of Charles the Second, was inscribed in the catalogue of the Saints, etc. Finally, those authors erred whom the Sainte-Marthes cite in volume 1 of Gallia Christiana, page 690, some of whom wrongly ascribed it to some Pontiffs and others to others, namely to Boniface VIII and to Clement V: for they confound him, they say, with Louis of immortal memory, king of the French, his great-uncle, whom the same Boniface enrolled in the number of the Blessed. For the rest, if anyone should wish to read entire the bull of canonization of our holy Prelate, which we have already so often alleged, it stands in volume 1 of the Bullarium in Laerzio Cherubini, page 153 and following, in Sedulius after the Saint's Life, in Surius at the XIX day of August, and in Wadding at the year 1317 from number 48. The same was not long ago carefully reprinted by the most illustrious Don Giusto Fontanini, archbishop of Ancyra, in his Codex of the constitutions which the supreme Pontiffs have published in the solemn canonization of Saints, published at Rome in the year 1729.

[115] Letters to kings and princes Further, the aforesaid Pope John XXII adorned not a little the solemnity of the sacred Calendars of the Church, into which he wove St. Louis, by his letters written to illustrious persons upon that subject. Let us hear Wadding, at the year 1317, number 49, speaking thus: John XXII added also encyclical letters to all the Faithful of Christ, by which he wished it to be announced that the holy Man had been enrolled in the number of the Heavenly ones, and solemn festivals prescribed for him. He also subjoined very many letters to all the kings, queens, and princes his kinsfolk, whom he wished to be partakers of so great a benefit and joy. He wrote to Mary, queen of Sicily, the holy Man's mother; to King Robert, his own brother; to Sancia, Robert's wife; to Philip, prince of Taranto, son of Charles, king of Sicily, and brother of Louis; to Philip, king of France and Navarre; to Sancho, king of Majorca; to Clementia, queen of France, Philip's wife, and to Mary, queen of Majorca, sisters of the holy Man; to Candida or Blanche, Duchess of Burgundy, his kinswoman; to Joanna, queen of Armenia, his niece by his brother. I give three letters out of all these: the encyclical (given to all the Faithful of Christ, which is found in Wadding at the year 1317, number 50); likewise the one to his mother; and thirdly, the one given to the king of France. The rest are of almost the same tenor, with the necessary changes.

[116] and to the Saint's mother But since the letter given to St. Louis's mother is, so to speak, a rare bird upon the earth and very like a black swan — that letter, namely, by which she, still living among mortals, was made certain by an Apostolic oracle of the immortal glory among the Saints of her most beloved Son, by an example indeed either most rare or perhaps never hitherto seen down to this time — we cannot but transcribe it hither from Wadding

at the year of Christ 1317, number 51, inscribed To our most dear daughter in Christ Mary, illustrious queen of Sicily. It is composed therefore in these terms: Feast, daughter, on the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, and it is fitting that you rejoice in the Lord, because your Son, long since dying to the world, has deserved happily to live to God, and, being made a fellow citizen of the heavenly ones and an inhabitant of the starry mansions, to dwell in the Lord's tabernacle. You ought to exult and to burst forth in pious jubilation, that from your womb there came forth an angelic Man, considering that he is a sharer in the glory of the angels. It befits you to applaud with abundant joys, that you bore on earth such a Son, by whose patronage in heaven, and by whose favor among men, you are fortified, as by his intercessions with God.

[117] This is that Son of yours of venerable memory, Louis, bishop of Toulouse, given by the same Pope John whom God himself, glorious in his Saints and wonderful in majesty, magnifying by his immense goodness in the working of miracles, and by the grace of healings, so illustrated with immense wonders that in the diversity of the degrees of his state he ascended step by step in grace and in glory. This is he whom, as is piously believed, the heavenly King himself has decreed to be so honored in the fatherland that he sits upon a seat of supernal rest, clothed as with royal garments with the light of eternal brightness, and crowned with the diadem of everlasting glory. This is he, finally, whom we too, on account of his glorious merits, desiring that by our ministry he should proceed through the whole compass of Christian worship in the chariot of due veneration, and that he should be honored on earth with joys poured forth throughout the world and with praises everywhere shed abroad, lately, on the Thursday after the feast of the Lord's Resurrection, namely on the seventh Ides of April, by the unanimous counsel and concordant consent of our Brethren and of all the Prelates then present at the Apostolic See, have thought fit to inscribe in the catalogue of the Saints.

[118] Nor without cause did we choose the Paschal season for doing this, that the day itself, made pleasant with a new festival, might, from the joyful Paschal celebration of the season, become festive with a fuller gladness. given. Worthily therefore, daughter, ought your heart to be delighted in the Lord, and your soul to be enlarged in his salvation, and worthily are you bound to give thanks to the Most High, who granted you the fruitfulness of so most holy an offspring, and who in his so great exaltation forewent you in blessings of immense sweetness. Hasten therefore, we beseech you, and make haste to run in the odor of the ointments of your most blessed Son, correcting your ways and giving yourself to good works, that you may deserve to follow to the kingdom him whom, if he were living in the world, you would follow into exile at the urging of a mother's affection. Given at Avignon on the V Ides of April. The letter, inscribed by the same Pontiff, and in the same place and on the same day, To our most dear son in Christ Philip, illustrious king of France and Navarre, is found in Wadding at the above-mentioned year, number 52. This too, as also the two of which I made mention above, the most illustrious Don Fontanini inserted from Wadding into his Codex of constitutions cited before, from page 131.

[119] Of the body of St. Louis, which had hitherto been buried in the middle of the choir among the Friars Minor of Marseilles, [The translation of the body from the choir among the Minors of Marseilles to the high altar:] being translated to the high altar and enclosed in a silver case, in the year of Christ 1317 on the sixth Ides of November, our Anonymous biographer treats in our text at number 71; where also of Robert, king of Sicily, the Saint's own brother, and of other most illustrious persons, and of an innumerable multitude of the people, honoring this sacred action with their presence: concerning which what Wadding has handed down to memory in the volume alleged, at the year of Christ 1319, number 2, the reader will understand without difficulty. He therefore thus describes the event: In this year, on the sixth Ides of November, there was made the translation of the body of St. Louis the bishop in the church of the Friars Minor of Marseilles, from the place in which it had lain in the middle of the choir, to a silver sepulchre skilfully wrought above the high altar, the obsequies being magnificently performed after the royal manner, and such as befitted a Saint begotten of so great a king. The author of the Life of St. Louis in Sedulius, and the Firmament of the Three Orders in the Memorial of the Order under the XVIII General, refer this event to the year one thousand three hundred and seventeen; but the Breviary of the Minors on the feast of the Translation, lesson 5, Peter de Natalibus, book 7, chapter 77, Marianus, book 4, chapter 5, and manuscript codices prescribe this very year. Here we have writers opposed to writers as to the year of the event; but so long as the year 1317, noted by the said author of the Life for this matter, is not convicted of being manifestly false — another document besides, which Wadding just cited, agreeing with it — I judge it lawful for me to incline rather in favor of the said biographer than to correct him with Wadding from the others whom he cites.

[120] and the circumstances of the same matter. But other things deserve to be heard which surround this event and are reported by Wadding: But the whole affair was carried out by night, to avoid the tumult of the people and the promiscuous multitude of the crowd. There were present at this sacred ministry four Cardinals, among whom Vital du Four the Minorite, etc. (See the biographer.) While the sacred relics were being exhumed, they gave forth a most sweet odor, and although they had lain for nearly twenty years beneath the earth, the brain was found in the head so fresh and entire as if the Saint himself were still living, all being astounded and praising God at the singular prodigy. King Robert took up the head, demanded that it be given to him, carried it to Naples, and enclosed it in a beautiful silver statue adorned with gold and gems, which he had fashioned with wondrous workmanship in honor of his holy Brother. That at this translation five dead persons revived, and many were freed from various infirmities, to the magnifying of the merits of St. Louis, Peter de Natalibus cited and Rodolfi, folio 122, write; although the latter confounds this year of the translation with the year 1417, in which Alfonso, king of Aragon, translated his body into nearer Spain. From these things which have been produced about the above translation, the lessons on the same matter may be corrected. Consult what is to be said below in §14; but of the later translation just indicated there must be treatment in the paragraph next following.

§ XIII. The body translated from Marseilles to Valencia; the public veneration of the Saint propagated through various regions of Europe.

Alfonso, king of Portugal, Wadding in his Annals, volume 5, at the year of Christ 1423, number 6, thus committed to writing the carrying off of the body of St. Louis from the city of Marseilles into Spain: In this year, in the middle of the month of October, when Alfonso, king of Aragon, after suffering and inflicting disasters in the kingdom of Naples, which he contended was owed to him, having been conferred on him by right of adoption by Queen Joanna II, had set sail from Naples, leaving his brother Peter as prefect of the city, tempests arising scattered the ships to various places, and at length, the course being corrected, they made Marseilles, a city noble on the coast of the Phocaean province, famous for its harbor, and obedient to the rule of Louis of Anjou (whom Joanna, rejecting Alfonso, had wished to be her kingdom's successor). With great force the fight was carried on day and night, and amid the darkness of the night, on the XIX day of November, Alfonso prevailed. But lest amid the license of plundering and of crimes the women who had taken refuge in the churches of the Saints, or the goods which they had brought thither, should be violated, he provided by a pious edict. Of the spoils of the booty he took nothing for himself; only the body of Bl. Louis, bishop of Toulouse, a Minorite, born of Charles II, king of Naples, hidden in a certain private house and discovered by the fire, he carried with the greatest reverence and due honor to Valencia among the Edetani.

[122] A storm arising while they were sailing, the sailors, superstitious as they are, carried off the body of St. Louis from Marseilles to Valencia. contended that the body should either be given back to the people of Marseilles or delivered to the waves; which they seemed, being agitated, to demand, alleging that such is the nature of the sea, that it will neither keep nor carry off the bodies of the dead. But the king, rich in his noble trophy, and about to celebrate his triumph by this one pledge, said: "The holy Prelate shall either lead me safe, or shall carry me with him into the deep. I will not cast from me one whom I have held dearer than rich spoils, and have brought forth as my protector." The waves being straightway calmed, with great triumph he brought the sacred body into the city of Valencia, and in the chief church in the year 1425, leave being granted by Pierre, Cardinal de Foix, Apostolic Legate, they placed it in a noble mausoleum. The citizens soon acclaimed him their Patron and protector. Peter Rodolfi, folio 122, reckons this translation as made in the year 1417 on the seventh Ides of April, and affirms that another was made on the XIII day of November of the same year by four Cardinals, in the presence of his own brother King Robert, from the middle of the choir to the high altar. But he errs greatly in the time of both translations. The one which he makes the later was far earlier, about the year, as we have reported, 1319, in the city of Marseilles; and the one which he called the earlier was accomplished only in this year. So dear did the kings of Aragon hold this pledge that, when Ferdinand, surnamed the Catholic, was making an agreement with Charles VIII, king of the French (great-grandson of Louis of Anjou, with whom this Alfonso was contending), concerning the restoration of the Counties of Roussillon and Cerdagne, which Louis, Charles's father, on his deathbed ordered to be restored to the Aragonese, Charles refused to give them back unless he first received the sacred remains of Louis. Yet Ferdinand preferred to put those broad dominions in peril rather than to rob his nation of so great a Patron.

[123] But so many and so great miracles, gathered by us in some of the preceding paragraphs, Through various are a sufficiently manifest proof that the veneration of St. Louis was propagated through various provinces of Europe; namely Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, our Belgium too not being excluded in some places. Benignus Fremaut, praised above, writes various things to this purpose in the Life of the Saint, chapter 8, from page 400; whence it has seemed good to draw the following. Philip VI, king of the French, and Louis's nephew by his sister, in the year 1331 sanctioned by his diploma that in the Convent of Le Mans a solemn Mass should be sung every week in honor of his holy Uncle; which the said author adds is still observed there. When the Dauphin of France, that Philip's son, had been brought to the end of his life by burning fevers, the king had recourse to his holy Uncle, vowing to visit his sepulchre and to adorn it with a silver image of the same weight as the sick prince. In that office of piety he beholds the Saint standing before him; who, comforting him, said that his son would be healed that very night on which his death was expected. When at the same time Queen Joanna, together with many other lords and ladies, was with the dying prince, the holy Bishop appeared before his bed, and, laying his hands on his head, said: "Be blessed by God, and give him thanks for your health." The outcome answered the words. But the king, being informed of the miracle, answered that he knew it well: and a short time afterwards with a small retinue he betook himself to Marseilles to the Saint's sepulchre, to give him thanks. But while he was carrying thither the silver image which he had promised, adorned with many precious stones, there accompanied him the court, the queen, the king of Navarre and of Majorca,

and besides the image he offered many other precious gifts, and committed his household to the protection of his holy Uncle. There are those, according to Fremaut, who report that this miracle happened to the son of Philip IV, who was also a kinsman of St. Louis. To these the same author adds that Charles II, king of Hungary, son of Charles Martel, brother of St. Louis, in the year 1327 founded in honor of his uncle a distinguished convent of Friars Minor at Lipova, a city, as Baudrand notes, of Transylvania … on the border of Hungary, etc. Further, concerning the aforesaid healing, one may consult an author earlier than Fremaut, Friar Marcus of Lisbon, chapter 18.

[124] Two rich merchants, committing themselves with many wares to a ship, regions of Europe had beforehand commended themselves at the Saint's sepulchre to his patronage. Exposed by the force of a tempest to a most present peril of death, they vow that, if they should escape death, they would visit barefoot the sepulchre of St. Louis. And soon it was marvellous to see how quickly the boat into which they had leapt, the ship being open to the waters, bursting through the foaming billows, put in to harbor. But the two merchants, who had all their money and some precious things about them, were in no less peril on land than at sea, being stripped of everything by robbers, who wished to take from them their very life also. With many tears they obtained some little time to commend their souls to God, and again implored the holy Bishop's patronage. And behold, the robbers were struck with such horror that they gave everything back to them and swiftly fled, being so terrified, as is likely, by something they had seen. The merchants therefore, betaking themselves to the nearest shore that they might return home by ship, found there that same ship in which they had departed from Marseilles, though much shattered by the tempest. Besides, in that same ship they found all their wares, together with the sailors and a few travellers who had remained in it: with whom at Marseilles they visited barefoot the Saint's sepulchre; as may be seen in the aforesaid Fremaut, from whom I have taken this history: to whose credit no small weight is added from Friar Marcus of Lisbon, chapter 21. The following narrative about the Saint's cult propagated among the Venetians I set forth from the same Fremaut.

[125] The glory of the holy Wonder-worker In the year 1388 there lived at Venice Antonia Vinieri, a very noble widow, who even in her married state had not pursued the pomp of the world, and, serving God very perfectly, was granted many favors of heaven and various apparitions in prayer. On the night before the feast day of St. Jerome, in the great field of the city St. Louis appeared to her, saying that God willed that, as he was honored in various regions and cities, so he should be held in veneration at Venice also. She doubted whether there might not be some diabolical deceit underlying that vision, and feared that she could not complete a monastery, both for want of riches and for other reasons which are recorded in Fremaut. But the Saint returned, charging her to fulfil the will of God, and showing the place in which the monastery and sacred building ought to be built by her. He also threw a stone, saying that it ought to be the first of the church. Meanwhile St. Louis appears to her again: he promises that the faculty of building will be obtained: it is obtained. Without delay the ground is bought: in digging the foundations there is found a stone altogether like that which the Saint had shown beforehand, and which, being consecrated by the bishop, was placed first in the foundations with a great concourse of the people. From their trench there appears a very great light, presenting the form of a man surrounded with shining rays; which, when it had shone there a long while, gradually vanished. At the beginning a wooden chapel is built there in honor of St. Louis, together with a little wooden house, into which Antonia Vinieri withdrew with a few companions. But as she grieved that their number did not increase and that the building was not completed, the holy Bishop again shows himself to be seen by her, and strengthens her, saying that after her death nuns would come from the neighboring mountains, and that they by the good odor of their life would bring it about that the monastery would shortly be completed and filled with holy Religious persons.

[126] And so in the year 1411, war having arisen between the king of Hungary and the Venetian Republic, with marvellous and the nuns of Serravalle being compelled to flee to Venice, the begun monastery of St. Louis is given to them; where they found as many little cells as there were nuns. To one of them, while she was still in the monastery of Serravalle and was praying God to free them from the troubles which they were suffering, there had appeared St. Augustine, whose rule they professed; who, showing her St. Louis the bishop, comforted her, that she would go without peril to Venice with her sisters to that Saint's monastery. The aforesaid author adds that to her, when she had gone to Venice, there fell the same little cell which the Saint had shown her beforehand; that the number of the Religious increased, and that the monastery and church were completed under the title of St. Louis the bishop. This biographer records here many marvels heaped together; but let the credit of them rest with him. Serravalle, of which place mention has been made, is thus explained in Leandro Alberti in his Description of Italy, among the places of the March of Treviso, toward the end: Among the hills is the most noble town of Serravalle, a famous workshop of warlike arms, and renowned for its trade both in cloths and in grain. It is as it were an emporium for the German peoples, excellently built and thronged with a wealthy population. It is traversed by the river Imesulus, gleaming with its waters. Very many workshops surround that stronghold. Indeed this town too, whether you regard its beauty and riches, or the throng of its most wealthy people, vies with many cities of Italy. It has a most pleasant countryside, etc. Here Serravalle is assigned to the March of Treviso; above in §11, number 105, mention is made of the castle of Serravalle in the diocese of Pistoia in Tuscany; and that this may be true, there must be two places of the same name. And indeed in Blaeu's map of the Florentine dominion I find Serravolo in the territory of Pistoia.

[127] events But altogether marvellous, and singularly suited to the public veneration of our most holy Prelate, is that prodigy which Wadding narrates and proves at the year 1298, number 23, in these words: And that seems to me a singular and worthily to be celebrated perpetual prodigy, manifest and evident every year, that on a certain mountain in the principality of Asturias, under the jurisdiction of the town of Cangas in the diocese of Oviedo in Spain, in an oratory or little church built in honor of St. Louis, on the very day on which his feast is celebrated, when a numerous people flock together from the neighboring little towns and from the dwellings set upon that mountain, while Mass is being celebrated, there straightway sprout round about upon the walls, and on the very door, and on the iron bars and nails, certain wonderful flowers, the like of which are seen nowhere, pleasant to behold: which nevertheless wither when the Sacrifice is finished. They are plucked, while they are green, by the devout people, and are piously kept for driving away various diseases. I had frequent conversation in Spain about this matter with eyewitnesses; in relating which they constantly agreed, and from a grave and learned man, who went thither on a four days' journey solely for the sake of beholding this thing, I received a history written by the hand of a public notary, altogether conformable to the account received from others.

[128] spread abroad. Gil González Dávila, in his Ecclesiastical Theatre of Spain, volume 3, which treats of the metropolitan and cathedral churches of both Castiles, namely of Burgos, Oviedo, etc., thus sets forth and confirms that event on page 120, affirming that a marvellous thing happens (in the Spanish text it is caño; by which word, whether rightly or faultily set down, I understand cada año, that is) every year on the XX day of August in the hermitage of St. Louis, bishop of Toulouse; which Don Sancho Dávila, bishop of Jaén, reports in the book which he published On the Veneration of Relics, book 3, chapter 11, saying: "In our Spain, in the bishopric of Oviedo, in the tract bordering on Galicia, on certain high mountains, there stands a certain hermitage of St. Louis, bishop of Toulouse, son of Charles, king of Sicily, a Religious of St. Francis, whose feast is celebrated on the XX day of August with a great concourse of the people, who come to see his sacred relic: and at the Mass which is there celebrated on that day, there begin at once to come forth over the altar and around it many blue lilies, with which that whole place is clothed." Concerning this miracle, says the same Gil Dávila, page 121, testimony was carried to the most holy Pope Clement VIII; and I, says the bishop, have it from Friar Francisco de Sosa, bishop of the Canaries, who, while he was General of the Order of St. Francis, proved its truth. For the XX day of August, which is marked above, I do not say that we should read the XIX of August, on which elsewhere generally, and in Spain itself, the annual memory of St. Louis recurs, and is then marked by Tamayo in the Spanish Martyrology: for it may be that in that particular place of which I spoke before a particular day too was appointed for his cult. Meanwhile we cannot wonder enough that we find nothing either of this cult or of the above prodigy in the same Tamayo on the said XIX day, on which he announces the Saint.

[129] Further, from the various chapels built in memory of St. Louis, of which mention has been made in the Preliminary Commentary at numbers 6, 46, 103, and 106, it is established that his public veneration was extended through diverse tracts of Europe; [A chapel ordered to be founded at Marseilles, and the Office to be extended through Provence] but besides those which have been set forth there, I cannot silently omit another which Robert, king of Sicily, ordered to be founded in honor of his own Brother at Marseilles among the Fathers Preachers, especially because on this matter there is at hand a public instrument, in Bouche, volume 2 of the Chronological History of Provence, book 9, section 3, chapter 3, page 364, expressed in these words: Robert, by the grace of God king of Jerusalem, of Sicily, of the Duchy of Apulia, of the principality of Capua, Count of Provence and Forcalquier and of Piedmont, to the Priors of the place of St. Maximin in Provence, present and to come, and to the Convent of the same place, our beloved and devoted, grace, health, and sincere love. That the reverence of Bl. Louis, the wondrous confessor, our reverend and venerable most dear brother, may be famously kept, and his festival venerated, in our royal monastery of St. Maximin, where the precious body of Bl. Mary Magdalen is laid up, found by our lord father of famous memory by a wondrous revelation, we enjoin and command you that the first chapel which shall be built in that same place be erected under the name of the same Confessor; that his proper Office may there be celebrated on the days of his solemnities:

[130] And behold, upon this we write to the masters and doctors of the Chapter, by King Robert, the Saint's brother. that they assent to the aforesaid, and enjoin that these things be observed through the other Convents of the Province and be carried into execution, as was ordained by our letters upon this matter to the Provincial Prior of the same Order, that he cause the like to be done throughout those same places: and that it be written in the Calendar of the Convent on the first day, for the memory of those to come. Given at Naples

by John Grillo of Salerno, protonotary of civil law of the present kingdom of Sicily, in the year of the Lord one thousand three hundred and thirty-seven, on the VII day of December, in the VI Indiction, in the XXVIII year of our reigns. With the year 1337 there concurs the fifth Pontifical Indiction, or that of the Roman Pontiffs, which begins from the Kalends of January; but if you here take either the Constantinopolitan or Greek indiction of the emperors of the East, which begins from the Kalends of September, or the Constantinian, so called from the principate or consulate of Constantine the Great, or the Imperial indiction of the emperors of Germany, which begins from the VIII Kalends of October, the VI Indiction marked above will rightly agree with the year of Christ 1337. See Mabillon, On Diplomatic, book 2, chapter 24.

Lastly, the memory of St. Louis, most pleasing among men on so many titles, received no small increase in their minds from this, that wherever he is known and invoked, he shows himself to prevail by a singular prerogative in granting sons to great men who devoutly and with a right intention invoke him, according to Marcus of Lisbon, chapter 22 of part 2 of the Chronicles; concerning which below in §14, number 138.

\* nay, VIII

§ XIV. The Saint patron of the city of Málaga; likewise in the province of Provence; his relics; his memory in the sacred calendars.

Our Father Martín de Roa, in his book On the Foundation, the Ecclesiastical and Secular Antiquity, and the Holy Patrons of the City of Málaga, which is noted as published in print there in 1622, in chapters 15 and 16, treats of St. Louis of Toulouse, Patron of that city. What pertains to this title, Why he was chosen patron of the city of Málaga; Tamayo drew from the Spanish text of that author in his notes at the XIX day of this month, and rendered into Latin, namely, that St. Louis, bishop of Toulouse, has been from the capture of the city of Málaga in Baetica in Spain the tutelary Patron of that city, because on the day of his festival that city yielded to the Catholic sovereigns: and although at that time it was doubted whether the title and right of patronage should be given to Agapitus the martyr on the XVIII day of August, or to Louis the bishop on the XIX of the same, because on the former the city was surrendered, on the latter the triumphal entry of the sovereigns took place; at length it was agreed that the guardianship should be conferred on Louis, because the holy Prelate was sprung and descended from the line of the Catholic sovereigns — from Roa, whom he cites, chapter 15, folio 48.

[132] a public decree on this matter The cult of the same Saint in that same city was diligently promoted by public authority: for Don Pedro de Toledo, as Tamayo then subjoins, who was the first bishop of Málaga after the recovery of the city, among other statutes which he made for the government of the ecclesiastical order both in the cathedral church and in the others of the city and diocese, added the following, which, translated into Latin, he thus recites from Roa, folio 49: Item, we ordain and command that henceforth perpetually in this city of Málaga, and in the towns of its diocese, a solemn feast be kept on the day of St. Louis the bishop, son of the king of Sicily, which is repeated by the Church on the XIV Kalends of September within the Octave of the Assumption of the Mother of God: on which day, in the year of the Lord 1487, Ali Dordux surrendered the fortress of this city called the Alcazaba to the Catholic, exalted, and most powerful Ferdinand and Isabella, sovereigns of Spain, our lords, and in their name to Don Gabriel de Cárdenas, grand commander of León and chief accountant of the aforesaid sovereigns.

[133] is set forth: He who wishes to read that decree entire, let him consult Roa from folio 49 verso; where that which is presently added after the words the aforesaid sovereigns (in the Spanish text it is sus Altezas), namely que Dios perdone, that is, whom may God pardon, seems to indicate that they were then dead; whereas nevertheless it is established from the books of the church and from their testament that they survived many years after the death of Bishop Pedro de Toledo, as Roa observes at folio 50. But the same author then removes this scruple by saying that Don Bernardo Manrique, who succeeded fourth after Pedro, recognized the erection of his church made by the Cardinal of Spain, together with the statutes which Bishop Don Pedro gave it, and Don Diego Ramírez de Villaescusa, who immediately succeeded him in the see, and who enlarged them and set them in order, leaving them nevertheless their own antiquity and the title of their first founder: and that at that time when this was done, since Ferdinand and Isabella had died, Bishop Don Bernardo, naming them, added the title of holy memory. But those sovereigns died, she indeed in the year 1504, and he in 1516, as is known. Roa affirms at folio 50 verso that he does not find the year of the statute; but he adds that it seems certain that it was made after the year 1489, since in it there is named the church of St. James, which was not founded until the following year 1490, according to what he there sets forth.

[134] Here belongs the place of the fortress, honored with the public veneration of St. Louis, as may be seen in the same author, who affirms that he found in some ancient tradition that his feast used to be celebrated in his church at Gibralfaro, an annual memory in the fortress. In the province of Provence he is patron. and that it might have happened that two years before the parish of St. James was built, the procession (he had treated a little before of the procession on the feast of Corpus Christi) entered the hermitage of that fortress of Gibralfaro, or that, without it, Mass was sung there and a sermon delivered; and he adds that now (but his book was published in the year 1622, as I said above) free entrance through the gate of the fortress is granted to the Spaniards on that day, and that there is a great concourse and devotion with which the Saint's hermitage is visited; nor is it beheld without pious feelings that God is honored in his Saints in that same place where the devil had been adored for so many centuries in the infernal monster Mohammed; whose memory even now, he says, the Moorish structure of the hermitage and the Arabic letters which are shown in it do not permit to be blotted out.

The name of St. Louis has also remained in benediction in the province of Provence, as its tutelary patron, according to Francesco Gonzaga, On the Origin of the Seraphic Religion, etc., part 3, from page 817: In Narbonese Gaul is situated the province of St. Louis… This province of St. Louis is often called the province of Provence, at least before the times of Clement VII and of Francis I, king of France, who in honor of St. Louis imposed the name, so that thenceforth the province of Provence should be called the province of St. Louis… But now we shall touch briefly upon the men by whom it has been chiefly made illustrious. First therefore there presents himself the divine Louis as titular patron, once archbishop of Toulouse… His … image I wished to be set at the head of this province, because he was buried in the famous Convent of the Minors of Marseilles, and because he is held its special patron and protector.

[135] Not the least part in the propagation of our Prelate's cult is held also by his sacred relics. The Saint's relics, We set forth before in §12 that his body was solemnly translated from the middle of the choir of the Friars Minor of Marseilles, in which it had lain, to the high altar; where also there was treatment of his wonderfully entire brain, and of his head, given to his own brother Robert, carried to Naples, and beautifully adorned. But nothing was handed down to memory by the authors there cited concerning the separation of the other parts of the body, or the relics, which are reported in a great number to have been shared with others in the following document, which is thus entitled: Lessons from the Office of St. Louis printed at Naples in 1526 for the use of the Fathers Minor. It begins: The eternal Architect, of whose wisdom there is no end, etc. What therefore has been narrated above about that translation is reviewed more in detail in these lessons. Our copy therefore, describing the event, says: The eighth day from the feast of All Saints coming on, in the year of the Lord one thousand three hundred and fifteen, in the first Indiction, on the night following, in the presence of the aforenamed Royal persons, and of the Cardinals \, yet only the Cardinal bishop of Albano being specially summoned, in the church of the Minors at Marseilles, only a few of the household being admitted, it being closed on every side, and the appointed doorkeepers scarcely able to guard the doors, a mattock being taken by that Cardinal of Albano, first the earth, as had to be done, is opened, and afterwards, a spade being seized by each of several bystanders, the earth both covering and surrounding it is dug up with devotion and reverence, until they come to the wooden vessel in which the sacred body had been laid. Which being opened, finding the sepulchre, like men who dig up a treasure, they rejoiced unspeakably.*

[136] on the occasion of the translation of his body, The aforenamed Cardinal, approaching with fear mingled with joy, uncovered the Saint's body, still covered with the episcopal insignia, which could be distinguished as much by their thin surface as by their color. And when the Cardinal handled the Saint's body more firmly, and the frame being loosed, according to the nature of the joints, the bones began to be separated one from another at the joints: and so by the aforesaid Cardinal those bones, being first cleansed, the alien and their own dust, the earth, and their sacred ashes being shaken off, are most devoutly washed with excellent wine, most diligently sprinkled with aromatic powders, most carefully wrapped in new linen cloths, and most distinctly arranged with labels attached and inscribed, and then in a most precious chest or vessel, which the said king (Robert) with his consort had had most carefully made at Genoa, as is said above, are most reverently laid up by the said Cardinal, the aforenamed Royal persons standing by and assisting…

[137] are said to have been carried into various tracts of Europe After these things, although it was urged by many that the separated relics of the holy body should be kept together in the aforesaid precious vessel, the aforenamed King Robert, although he reckoned this local possession dearer to him than all others alike, recognizing that the good is self-communicating, ordained that suitable portions of them be distributed among the aforenamed Pope (namely John XXII) on the Church's behalf, the church of Toulouse, in which he presided as prelate, various kings and princes of the world, both of the house of France and of Sicily, and others, so that devotion to the aforementioned Saint might be diffused more widely through the various corners of the world; who is set forth as a pattern of instruction, a mirror, and a spectacle for an example to all rulers and perfect men of the world. At last a new and marvellous thing happened, therefore not to be passed over in silence to the glory of God and of the Saint. For while the relics of the holy body were being handled, as is said above, suddenly from the head the sacred brain fell down with a noise into the vessel set beneath, compact indeed and solid; whereas nevertheless its substance, on account of the great moisture and viscosity attached to it, is reckoned by the physicians liable to corrosion from without or to its own corruption. Which the aforenamed queen urgently asked from the said king her husband to come to her portion as a singular gift. Which being granted, laying it up as was fitting, she had it carefully guarded until, coming with the same king to Naples, she had a vessel made in the form of a mitred head, beautiful and very precious and not a little costly; and there she placed it, and in the royal monastery, her own, of the nuns of the body of Christ in that same city

of St. Clare, a distinguished house, she appointed it to be preserved perpetually among the other things of the world; and it was decreed that it should be carried yearly in procession through that city on the vigil of the feast of the translation.

[138] in a document which is corrected in certain points. Note, first, that the year of the Lord one thousand three hundred and fifteen, and the first Indiction, are wrongly marked above. And the year indeed is at fault, because that translation of the body is expressly marked by Sedulius's biographer in our text at number 71 as in the year one thousand three hundred and seventeen. Besides, the copy of the aforesaid lessons is convicted of error from another source: for in it these words are set before: After therefore the Saint's body had lain in a lowly place from the time of his death until the day of the translation … he having nevertheless already been canonized by the lord Pope John the Twenty-second and inscribed in the catalogue of the other Saints, etc. For this did not happen before the year 1317, as is clear from what was set forth in §12; and therefore the translation of the Saint, as of one already enrolled in the roll of the Heavenly ones, could not have taken place before the year 1317. The Indiction too is at fault: for if the thing had happened in the year 1315, the 13th or 14th Indiction should have been set down, one or other of which in the month of November concurred with that year, according to the different reckoning of time by which the Indictions begin, as you will find above in §13, number 130. Note, secondly, that if such a distribution of the relics of our holy Prelate as this copy of the translation asserts a little before was ever made, it must be so limited that the Saint's body, or at least a great part of the body, was left at Marseilles; since it was afterwards carried thence to Valencia, as was narrated in paragraph 13. If, I say, such a distribution of the Saint's relics ever occurred: for there is nothing of it in our text at number 71 in the Life; nothing in Wadding cited by us in §12, number 120. But whence and on what credit the author of the aforesaid lessons drew it, is not ascertained by me. Note, thirdly, that I have tried to correct the faults of the copy which I have produced.

[139] Martín de Roa at folio 64 asserts that the Saint's head, enclosed in gilded silver, is shown in the greater church of Valencia; Other sacred remains among the people of Marseilles: and in another silver case the body; but he adds that in the Convent of the Friars Minor of Marseilles some poor garments and one arm of the same Saint remained, after the body had been carried off thence by the Aragonese, for the consolation of that city. But as regards what Roa said about the head among the people of Valencia — since King Robert of Sicily, St. Louis's own brother, had long before carried it from Marseilles to Naples and there honorably adorned it, enclosed in a statue, according to what was lately reported at the end of §12 — these two cannot be made to agree, unless either the said head came from Naples to Valencia, or Robert received only a part of it, the rest being left at Marseilles with the body, and afterwards carried to the people of Valencia together with it; which nevertheless seems to me less probable. Whatever the case may be, Marcus of Lisbon, chapter 22, also affirms that that head is shown in the aforesaid church; but that his arm and his poor garments are exhibited in the church of St. Louis at Marseilles among the Friars of the Observance (see the Annotations to the Life of Sedulius's Anonymous, chapter 5, letter g). Rodolfi, in the History of the Seraphic Religion, book 1, folio 121 verso, writes this of the Saint: When, returning from Rome, he was setting out for the church of Toulouse, he left at Siena in the Convent of St. Francis a Bible excellently written with his own hand and elegantly adorned with vermilion, a notable monument of his love. Bartolomeo Piazza, in the Sacred Hemerologium of Christian and Pagan Rome, at the XIX day of August, reports that at Ara Coeli the cord and the Breviary of the said Saint are displayed.

[140] The name of St. Louis has also come down illustrious to the memory of posterity from the sacred calendars, the annual memory of St. Louis in the Martyrologies. in which it is read inscribed on this day. Our manuscript Florarium has this: At Marseilles, the birthday of St. Louis, archbishop of Toulouse and confessor, of the Order of Friars Minor, glorious in life and miracles. He, sprung of royal stock and begotten of the line of the Carolingians, his father namely being Charles of famous memory, king of Sicily, etc. Saussay: In the Phocaean province, at the castle of Brignoles, the deposition of St. Louis, bishop of Toulouse and confessor, who … already from his cradle sent forth shining rays of the exceptional virtue and sanctity by which he was afterwards, in advanced age, being made a light of the earth, to illumine the world, etc. The Saint is also announced by Arthur du Monstier in the Franciscan Martyrology, and by Hueber in his Menology. Long before those three had gone Molanus in the Additions to his edition of Usuard. See also, if you wish, the Supplements to our illustrated Usuard. The Roman Martyrology prescribes this to be read of him every year: In Provence, at the castle of Brignoles, the deposition of St. Louis, bishop of Toulouse, renowned for the sanctity of his life and for miracles: whose body, translated thence to Marseilles, was honorably laid up in the church of the Friars Minor. He is marked also in our Caietano in the Plan of the Work on the Lives of the Saints of Sicily, etc.: In Sicily, his Commemoration, with a short eulogy. The Florarium, as we have just seen, gave him the title of archbishop of Toulouse; but wrongly and too prematurely: for the episcopal see of Toulouse was not raised to an archiepiscopal one until after the death of St. Louis, namely in the year of Christ 1317, as is clear from the bull of the institution of that archbishopric, which is found in the Sainte-Marthes in Gallia Christiana, volume 1, from page 693, and is marked on the VII Kalends of July, in the first year of the Pontificate of Pope John XXII, in which that same holy Bishop was inscribed in the Catalogue of the Heavenly ones. Galesinius stands alone in this, that he announces him at Toulouse.

\ In the Spanish it is a los Cristianissimos, that is, to the most Christian*

\ perhaps six*

§ XV. A hymn, Offices, writers of the Life.

A proper hymn in Sedulius; Sedulius, among the eulogies prefixed to the Life of St. Louis of Toulouse published by him, produces this hymn from the Office of an ancient Breviary, as he asserts, at First Vespers, in these words:

As the world's evening drew on, the sun sent to the world an evening star, Which, gleaming as in the sky, showed the light of works. Louis in all things by the guidance of divine grace Was borne along, following from infancy the sun of justice. Born of royal stock, he despised the birthright: Wholly wanting, by a free mind, an earthly kingdom. Detained in Hesperia, he shines through his patience. For, suffering exceeding grievous things, he ever shows forth gladness: While he endures exile, he gives himself to diligent study. Christ steeped his mind with his own ray, Filled with which after a divine manner, he brings forth saving things to all, Everywhere speaking with authority, a wondrous herald of God, Made a son of Francis, a virgin white as the lily. He becomes an excellent prelate, and now a colleague of the heavenly ones.

[142] Offices among the people of Marseilles and Valencia, etc. In the proper Offices of the Saints of the church of Marseilles, printed in the year 1662, there is this prayer: O God, who by a wondrous disposition dost ever illumine thy Church with new splendors; grant, we beseech thee, that we who celebrate the solemnities of blessed Louis, thy confessor and bishop, may also deserve to be made his companions. Through our Lord, etc. And he is honored with a double rite with three proper lessons, containing a summary of his life. The metropolitan church of Valencia and its diocese honor him with a greater double rite, yet in such wise that all is said from the common of one confessor bishop, as I read in the directory of the said church and diocese, which was printed at Valencia in the year 1720. The Order of St. Francis in Spain assigns to the Saint the veneration of a double rite of the second class with an Octave, as the Order of Reciting the Divine Office, printed at Madrid in the year 1718, testifies. Tamayo in his notes at the XIX day of August says: In several ancient Breviaries of the churches of Spain, especially of Baetica, we have found an Office chanted to St. Louis the bishop. Bouche, in the Chronological History of Provence, volume 2, book 9, section 3, chapter 3, §2, affirms that Robert, the Saint's brother, composed an Office in his honor, approved by Pope Sixtus IV; and that that Office was in use among the Franciscan Religious until the time of the Council of Trent, which abrogated many particular Offices, that it might conform itself to the general rite of the Church. The Proper Offices of the Saints of the Order of Minors, printed at Antwerp in the year 1648, keep his annual memory with a double rite. The prayer agrees with that which I just now produced from the proper Offices of Marseilles, consisting as it does of almost the same words. Three proper lessons are added.

[143] Let us now add to this Commentary a final labor, There are reviewed which will be concerning the writers of the Lives of our holy Bishop. Wadding at the year 1298, number 23, treats of this matter in these words: His life was written by Friar Francisco Scarerius, bishop of Segea, Friar Peter, bishop of Epula, and Friar Fortius, his inseparable companions; Laurence Surius; an Anonymous contemporary of St. Louis, whose little work Henry Sedulius rendered more polished and fuller; Friar William of St. Marcellus, and others. Sermons on him were written by Pelbart of Temesvár and Robert de Licio. In the Chronicle of Martin of Fulda, which Eccard published in his Historical Corpus of the Middle Ages, volume 1, column 1724, it is said that Pope John XXII wrote his Life and directed it in the form of a letter to all the Prelates of the Church. Of Calo, Bartholomew of Pisa, and Rodolfi mention has been made above. Galesinius in the notes to his Martyrology at the XIX day of August says: Concerning him there is extant a sermon of Peter, Cardinal of Ailly. A long catalogue of authors who have treated of St. Louis is woven by Arthur in his notes at this XIX day of August, which I do not transcribe. But he attaches his birth to the year 1266; his captivity, in which he was a hostage for his father, to the year 1288; his liberation to the year 1294; his death to the year 1299, in the 33rd year of his age; which do not cohere with the true reckoning of time, according to what has been set forth in this Preliminary Commentary. Likewise he calls St. Louis, king of France, his godfather, on I know not what authority.

[144] Our Martín de Roa, alleged above, published a Life in Spanish from folio 51 verso; various ones, Giovanni Antonio Summonte, volume 2 of the History of Naples, reprinted at Naples in the Italian tongue in the year 1675, treats of the Saint's deeds at page 336 and page 343. Our Oldoini, in the Athenaeum Ligusticum, page 443, treating of Pasquale Codretto of Cespitello, of the Order of Minors, records among his lucubrations a Life and miracles of St. Louis, archbishop (nay, only bishop, as I noted at number 140) of Toulouse, published at Mondovì in 1651. His Acts were collected from various sources by Tamayo, with this opening: Louis was sprung of the royal stock of the kings of the Franks, of the Spaniards, and of the Hungarians. For his father was Charles II, son of Charles I, king of Sicily, who had been the son of Louis VIII and of his wife Blanche, daughter of Alfonso IX, king of Castile, and brother of St. Louis IX, king of France; so that in this line our Louis was the great-great-grandson of Blanche, and the great-great-great-grandson of Alfonso IX surnamed

the Noble. Then he treats of this Spanish origin also in his notes; where, he says, although John Marieta in the History of the Saints of Spain, book 5, chapter 82, asserts that the holy Prelate was not a Spaniard; as to his birth we grant it; but as to his origin we deny it. We certainly do not grudge that glory to the Spaniards. To these authors add Fremaut praised above, who indicates that he collected the Life and miracles of the Saint from Wadding, Pisanus, Cornejo, Mazzara, Rodolfi, etc.

[145] who committed to writing the deeds of St. Louis But why do I so long defer speaking of Friar Marcus of Lisbon, of the province of Portugal, who deserves a place not the last among the biographers? For, as it stands in Wadding among the Writers of the Minors, when by order of the Minister General Andrew of Insula he had visited the chief cities and principal monasteries of Italy, Spain, and France, he collected many monuments, from which, and from the manuscript Chronicles of Marianus of Florence, he wrote in the Portuguese tongue the Chronicles of the Order of Minors, distinguished into three parts, sufficiently abridged but truthful; and into the second part of those same Chronicles, book 6, the aforesaid author wove the Life and miracles, etc., of St. Louis the bishop. Hence it comes about that what he there either alone narrates, or another biographer elsewhere from him, does not lack the weight of authority. Wadding cited records that he died about the year 1580, and also that he was promoted to the mitre of Porto or of Portugal. Nicolás Antonio in the Bibliotheca Hispana defers his death further. Of the other writers who have been of use to us in illustrating the affairs of St. Louis, mention is made in this our Commentary. To what man the collection of Father Aroldus alleged in the same place is to be referred, I have not ascertained; perhaps it should be written Harold, so that that collector is perhaps the same who published the Epitome of the Annals of the Order of Minors. It remains for us to forewarn the reader in a few words about the Life which we have judged should be put to press.

[146] from among which Wadding, as we have just seen, named three writers of the Life, and indeed inseparable companions of the Saint; why then does he use none of these in his Annals, when he weaves in his deeds and miracles? Why does he use Sedulius's Anonymous? Is it because he either did not have them, or judged this one better than they? Whatever the case, we too shall commit this one to the press, since we have hitherto seen none of those other three. The earlier edition of the Anonymous appeared at Antwerp from the Plantin press in the year 1602, at the house of Jan Moretus. Sedulius the editor dedicates it to the most illustrious Lord, most reverend father, Francesco Gonzaga, bishop of Mantua, Minister General of the Friars Minor, who published the huge work On the Origin of the Seraphic Franciscan Religion and its Progress.

[147] that one is put to press by us, But whence he unearthed the Life; and what he did about its style, arrangement, division of chapters, and the adornment of wholesome admonitions and sentences, following nevertheless, as he testifies, the fidelity of history, you will find in his preface to the reader, which we prefix to the Life of the Anonymous published by him; where also he commends the credit of that author, contemporary namely with the Saint and familiar with him. But although Sedulius gave the Life a fairly polished Latinity, there will nevertheless perhaps be lovers of antiquity who would have preferred to see this Life not changed by him even in its accidents, as they call them — genuine, I mean, and primitive; to whom ancient simplicity is of greater price than ornaments fetched from elsewhere. For the rest, before the Life there are set certain eulogies of our St. Louis, added by Sedulius; of which we have treated in our Commentary; but after the Life there follows the diploma of Pope John XXII, by which our Bishop is inscribed among the Saints, and then a Commentary, in which Sedulius illustrates and supplements the Life and miracles.

[148] But what he did about the miracles he there teaches thus: which was published by Henry Sedulius. The old Louvain manuscript copy, in chapter 7 of the history of the Life of St. Louis, reviews many miracles, moved by which the Pontiff enrolled him in the number of the Saints. After the history of his Life, several others are written down, some of which were done in his lifetime, some after his death; and indeed all these mixed together without any order, as perhaps they had happened, or at least as they had come to the knowledge of the writer or collector: for there does not seem to have been one author. It has seemed good to me to reduce almost all these to order, and, after the example of St. Bonaventure writing the miracles of St. Francis, to comprise those which were of the same kind under their own paragraphs. A notable eulogy of Sedulius, and his writings, Wadding records among the Writers of the Order of Minors. For indeed both that Order and lovers of hagiography owe him the greatest thanks for this, that he brought forth from darkness the Life of so great a Saint and illustrated it with notes. We divide it by a new division, which we also use through the course of the above Commentary; yet in such a way that the chapters of the earlier edition are noted in the margin of ours. Our Annotations too may be of help to the reader. It remains that there be presented the

LIFE

of our royal Prince, by an anonymous contemporary author, who was familiar with the Saint,

Published by Friar Henry Sedulius of the Order of Friars Minor.

Louis, bishop of Toulouse, of the Order of Friars Minor, at Brignoles in Provence in Gaul (St.)

BHL Number: 5055

BY AN ANONYMOUS AUTHOR.

THE EDITOR'S PREFACE.

The editor makes known this Life, Some time ago, kindly reader, when I was spending some labor in publishing and illustrating with my Commentary the history of the Life of St. Francis our father, various copies were sought out by which it might be corrected. Among others there was brought from the library of our Brethren at Louvain a very old manuscript parchment book, in which, besides the Life of St. Francis, were very many other things; and, turning it over, I found written at the end the Life of St. Louis of the Order of Minors, bishop of Toulouse.

[2] My spirit leapt within me at finding beyond hope a public treasure hitherto hidden. unearthed from the library of the Friars Minor of Louvain, For although John XXII, Supreme Pontiff, in his diploma by which he decreed heavenly honors to him, wrote a good many things which testify to his notable sanctity, nevertheless this curious age desires more than are narrated in his brief and abrupt writing. More and fuller things that book afforded. It came upon me therefore to rescue this very history from darkness and from the injury of oblivion into the light: but I was deterred first by the author's silence about himself; then also by his style, indeed very unpolished; lastly by the wholly disordered and confused arrangement. What was I to do?

[3] Though about to run upon times so savage and hostile to virtues, how he published it, he indicates, and upon the foolish or unjust judgments too of this age, I have dared these things. The chapters, which he set down as only seven, for the sake of a more suitable order and of avoiding weariness from excessive length, I have divided into twenty-two. Lastly, following the fidelity of history, I have arranged each item more aptly (in my judgment at least), and, adorning it with wholesome admonitions and sentences, have made it somewhat better and more Latin: and this after the example of good authors, who are wont to set forth deeds and sayings now more concisely, now more spaciously and fully.

[4] and praises the anonymous author, It has indeed helped me, and made me undertake the labor the more gladly, that the history itself was written by a contemporary of St. Louis, and, what is more, by a familiar. He is silent about his own name, such was his modesty; nor have I discovered anything about his name: yet he discloses at one point that he was familiar with St. Louis. For thus among other things he says in his preface: "His deeds — not indeed all, because I neither learned nor could know them all; but some which, partly living in his house and company, I beheld with the sight of my own eyes, and partly received by hearing from certain trustworthy men, I have resolved to set forth to the glory of God and of the Saint."

[5] contemporary with and familiar to the Saint, And at the beginning of the history he writes that he received some things from St. Louis's mother, which he committed to writing. Elsewhere too, that he saw him disputing publicly at Barcelona.

[6] he praises, If history is properly of things at which he who wrote was present, rightly must you, and I, and indeed every well-disposed person, congratulate himself upon a writer who wrote down what he saw and what he knew for certain. From which too certain ambiguous and doubtful matters can be determined. For there are some things about which you will be better informed in my Commentary on his Life, if only you have leisure to look at it. And so, since a former age, careless of its own affairs, had almost lost the history of the Life of that most holy Bishop, my friends too greatly urging it, I shall hand it down to posterity; and in this dark night of vices I shall kindle a most bright torch of the highest virtues, to be for the good, for the bad, for all, a consolation, a medicine, an example.

[7] and gives the reason why he brings this Life to light. In which we so consult our own advantage as to expect not an empty remembrance from men, but an eternal reward from God. For although we ourselves have not so lived that we can be an example to others, we have nevertheless taken pains that he should not lie hidden who ought to be imitated. For whose sake I set some eulogies first. This is the preface of Sedulius the editor.

DIVISION OF THE CHAPTERS IN SEDULIUS'S EDITION.

Chapter one. Of St. Louis's royal stock, and the beginnings of his pure life from a tender age.

II. With two brothers he is given as hostage for his father. Of his constancy in captivity.

III. Of his sickness and of the vow by which he bound himself to the institute of St. Francis.

IV. Being in peril of death and prodigiously preserved from death, he renounces the world.

V. He was assiduous and most attentive in prayers day and night, from which the devil tries to deter him.

VI. He would not be present at the sacred mysteries of the Mass unless he had confessed his sins, often receiving the Lord's body. As a priest he offered sacrifice almost daily. Of his piety toward the wood and the sign of the Holy Cross, and toward the holy relics.

VII. He shuns idleness, being always fruitfully occupied. Fleeing the company of vain men, he delights in solitude.

VIII. Of his intercourse with men of the most approved character, by whose counsel, being established, he governed himself and his affairs.

IX. Of his learning and his untiring labor in preaching.

X. Out of love of evangelical poverty he spurns his father's kingdom. Being made a cleric, he repeats his vow of taking up the Franciscan institute.

XI. Thinking of fulfilling his vow, he becomes a Minorite, most gladly embracing the poverty of that Order.

XII. Louis humbly ministers to the poor, kisses a leper; whose merits God approved with miracles.

XIII. How he bore himself when about to be initiated into the ecclesiastical Orders. The dignity of the priesthood. Even as bishop he would not abstain from the humble exercises of the Friars.

XIV. Of his abstinence and continence.

XV. Of the moderation which he had in rebuke, which he loved. He abhors detraction and discord. He restores peace and reconciles charity between those at variance.

XVI. Laboring to profit all, he strives to win even Jews and heathens for Christ. Bestowing abundant alms on the needy and the sick, he visits the poor and the captives, whom he freed.

XVII. He admits only approved men to the Lord's portion; whom he wishes to be adorned not with garments but with virtues. Of prudence, the directress of the whole life.

XVIII. Louis, graced with all the gifts of body and mind, being in a fever, prepares himself for death.

XIX. Fortified with the sacraments of the Church according to Christian custom, in prayers to God, to the Blessed

Mary, he dies; a youth in age, ripe as an old man; he is buried at Marseilles.

XX. There are reviewed the miracles and prodigious benefits which he conferred upon the pious, both living and dead, distributed into thirteen paragraphs.

XXI. He is enrolled in the number of the Saints.

XXII. Of the translation of his sacred body.

CHAPTER I.

His royal birth, pious upbringing, captivity; his sickness healed after a vow; a peril of death without harm; his contempt of the world; his prayers, and the devil's devices.

Chapter I OF THE EARLIER EDITION.

Louis was born of his father Charles II, king of Sicily, of the royal stock of the Franks; his mother being Mary, daughter of the king of Hungary ^a: whereupon his parents, being increased at the beginning of his flourishing age, from regard for the sanctity of Bl. Louis ^b, king of France, named their son Louis: Louis's parents, his name, his piety, that he might reproduce the manners of him whose name he bore. Nor did their wish deceive them. For the boy in no way indulged in childishness, as boys are wont: but, ripe as an old man in piety and gravity of manners, he surpassed his age by his uprightness, and his parents' hope by his incredible virtue. In no way did he relax his mind to pleasure; but, conforming it to the divine worship, he strove greatly to please God. Like another Solomon he wished, and understanding was given him: he called, and the spirit of wisdom came upon him: endowed with which he sometimes slipped away from his contemporaries with whom he was brought up, occupied with delights, jests, and boyish games after the manner of princes' children, being greater than they in sense, not in years; and, feeling beforehand the goads of divine love, he then already consecrated himself wholly to prayers and to piety.

[2] the hardness of his life, his upright manners. A wonderful thing indeed, which I received from his most serene mother Queen Mary, and from those who had the care of bringing him up ^c; namely that at seven years old, when he was still treated delicately and softly as a king's son, he was often found to have spurned his bed and lain on the ground upon the carpets. And so, like John the Baptist doing penance in boyhood, he began at the outset of his age to abhor soft and delicate pleasures, betimes shaping himself to that rule of life which he would ever hold: as though he already then understood what he had not yet read, A young man according to his way, even when he is old, will not depart from it. With a tender mind he grasped the gravity of all uprightness, which, as long as he lived, he perseveringly kept. He assiduously frequented the schools of the Holy Spirit, the churches and monasteries, thinking in good season of what he afterwards devoutly fulfilled. In meekness, gentleness, patience, elegance of manners, and maturity he was of incredible and, beyond what can be told, tractable disposition. These beginnings of uprightness in the tender boy signified, as in the blade, what and how great would be the crops of his future virtue and sanctity.

II.

[3] But since he was a beloved son of God, it was necessary that he be tried by temptation, as gold in the furnace. His boyish years therefore being spent in simplicity at home, after the example of the holy Patriarch Jacob, Sent as hostage into Catalonia for his father by the disposition of God, who scourges every son whom he receives, when he had reached the fourteenth year of his age, the son Louis was sent into Catalonia as a hostage for the freeing of his father, with two brothers of his own; where for a whole seven years both the captivity itself ^d and the guards set over him exercised his constancy in a wondrous manner, so that he strengthened many by pious examples and roused them by wholesome admonitions to the virtue of patience.

[4] he proves himself a man. Being once asked how he could have so great an evenness in so many adversities, the same countenance, the same brow; then he said: "Adversities profit the friends of God more than prosperity. Then are we subject to God when we are pressed by adversities. Prosperity lifts up the mind, and brings it about that you neither think of God nor fear him. For fortune, like an ignorant physician, generally makes blind those whom she embraces; and whom she cherishes too much, she makes a fool. And therefore unhappy is he upon whom nothing sad falls: he is either unknown to himself, as one who has never made trial of himself; or hateful to God, who passes him by as too cowardly for the contest. Something adverse must happen, to prove the man. But it is the property of a great soul to be calm and tranquil: to look down from above upon all sad things, and to think human mishaps beneath virtue; to put the calamities of mortals under the yoke is the property of a great man." And so, being so healthfully exercised in that arena, he advanced so far that, after he had been freed from custody, he affirmed that he had never asked the Lord God to be freed from prison, except once: and that with this caution, if it were healthful. And, what you may wonder at more, that he would not have had that prison exchanged for the riches of the whole world; rather he would seek it again, in whose training school he had so profited. He used to cite for this end that word of the Prophet: We have rejoiced for the days wherein thou hast humbled us; for the years in which we have seen evils. For scarcely are we wise except by experience.

III.

[5] But although in that very captivity, like another Tobias, he did not forsake the way of truth; He is seized with sickness; but on making a vow is healed. nevertheless divine providence, which was keeping him for greater things, resolved to prove him further and to exercise him with heavier troubles, that, polished by various hammerings, he might be shaped into a precious and chosen vessel. Wherefore in the fortress of Siurana, being seized with a most grievous sickness, he began to cast up purulent phlegm stained with foul blood, so that the physicians suspected his lung was injured. The sickness grew worse day by day more and more; but most of all on the day before the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, so that he was almost choked by the heaviness of the catarrh. Then, coming to himself, he vows to God for his recovery, to the Blessed Virgin Mary his mother, and to the holy Father Francis, the life and institute of the Friars Minor, and that he would persevere in it as long as he lived. By the vow, and by the patronage of the Saints, he recovered. Nor was he forgetful of the benefit; but at the next Pentecost, inspired by the Holy Spirit, early in the morning in the chapel of the fortress built to the memory of the Blessed Mother of God, openly renewing at the altar of the Lord what he had silently promised within himself, he manifestly offered himself to the Lord as a most acceptable oblation and holocaust; judging it more prudent to be given to God than to be left to himself.

IV.

[6] For the sake of relaxing his mind, when leave had been given him and his brother Robert ^e, afterwards king of Sicily, Almost crushed by a horse to exercise themselves with horses, arms, riding, and encounter, he consented, if only for his brother's sake, whom such sport delighted. While all looked on, suddenly Louis's great and strong horse slips, and upon him as he lay on his back the horse, itself on its back, rolls and turns round three times, to the great and as it were present peril of Louis's life. All being terrified and dismayed, and thinking of nothing but his death, Louis rises unhurt beyond the expectation of all, and, brushing off the dust, was freed from the peril. All marvelled at this great miracle, becoming suppliants to God, who knows how to preserve his own in perils when it is expedient.

[7] But he, when he had recovered himself, considered more deeply within himself the frailty of human affairs, and God's supreme mercy in our protection, he learns and despises the frailty of human affairs. ruminating on that saying of the royal Prophet: The horse is a deceitful thing for safety: and in the abundance of his strength he shall not be saved; and, He shall not delight in the strength of the horse, nor take pleasure in the legs of a man. The Lord takes pleasure in them that fear him, and in them that hope in his mercy. Turning therefore with his whole heart to God, thinking to leave warfare, he began to spurn the pomp of the world; and, purposing more firmly to serve the Lord Christ, who alone has and gives immortality, he resolved from that hour never afterwards to ride on a horse or to bear arms: which very thing, as long as he lived, he diligently observed. For even as bishop, ever mindful of the humble bishop and poor king our Lord Jesus Christ, once carried on an ass into the city of Jerusalem, he never wished to ride on a horse, but on a common mule. A splendid and lovable thing is modesty and humility: in a poor man it is pleasing, in a powerful man it is deservedly proclaimed glorious.

[8] It is enough to have tasted these beginnings of his boyish piety: it follows that we pass to his other virtues, but first to his zeal for prayer, The frequency, fervor, which ought to be the everlasting work of a Christian man. Therefore, his mind being illumined with the light of the Holy Spirit, he learned that a pious mind is joined to the heavenly bridegroom by an assiduous zeal for prayer. Wherefore, vehemently desiring to enjoy the saving embrace of Jesus Christ his beloved, he strove greatly to consecrate himself wholly to him by continual prayer, both publicly and privately. For while still a layman he most zealously discharged to the Lord every day the daily and likewise the nightly task of the divine Office according to the custom of the holy Roman Church, taking it ill and severely reproving if he saw any hurrying too much in praying, or in any way disturbing that divine work. He read the psalms with wondrous fervor, with mind so intent as though he beheld God himself present, so that by his example he vehemently roused the torpid and more sluggish to the affection of piety, with serene face and calm countenance ever signifying the inward gladness and cheerfulness of his spirit.

[9] and variety of his prayers; But because, as is commonly said, where the heart is, there is the eye; while he prayed, especially in churches, he fixed his eyes upon the image of the Crucified, that the flame of his deeds might grow in his breast. To the hourly prayers he added daily the psalms which are called Penitential, with the Litanies; and very many others suited to his taste and to the kindling of piety: each of which he was wont to close with that pious prayer to the Blessed Virgin, Hail, queen, mother of mercy. Likewise he recited daily the praises of the Holy Cross to the Lord together with a companion, a friar of the Order of Minors, in a closed chamber apart from others; where, desiring to feel what was also in Christ Jesus, as long as those prayers of the cross lasted he remained motionless, stretching out his arms in the form of a cross. After Compline he was accustomed to pour forth some prayers on the joys of Blessed Mary, whom he piously honored, and some other prayers, thus continually rendering to God the calves of his lips and a sacrifice of praise. The sweet name of Jesus he venerated with warm affection: as often as he heard it, he seemed filled with a certain jubilation, and, reverently bowing his head and kissing the ground, he showed to that admirable name the honor due. Toward nightfall, when he was called to supper, he was wont to be so long in praying that his household took it ill: yet he would never sit down at table unless, prayer being first made, he had striven to foretaste the sweetness of the heavenly food: since also, as is familiar to God's friends, out of fear and distrust of himself, he begged from all the help of their prayers, judging himself unworthy and unfit to be able to entreat God.

[10] [which he seasoned with pious reading; he puts the demon to flight with the sign of the cross.] Lastly, giving his wearied limbs to rest, with king David he washed his bed every night, he watered his couch with his tears, judging it far more prudent to be cleansed by a fountain than by fire. Besides this, being assiduous in the sacred books and most eager for the divine word, he seasoned even his table with sacred reading, before he was bishop, drawing by every reason and manner waters from the fountains of the Savior, which, pouring them out to the Lord at the time of prayer, he watered the earth of his heart more abundantly. For prayer he seemed to have received from God the spirit of prayers; for reading, the will in the law of the Lord. And so

such was his perpetual exercise; prayer succeeded reading, and reading prayer: judging that all time — of which he was a most sparing keeper — was lost to him which he had not spent in divine thoughts or in prayers. This was his manner of praying by day; but neither by night did he ever wish to be free from long prayers. Which the enemy of the human race taking very ill, he sometimes tried to deter him from his zeal for prayer. For when he was a hostage in Catalonia, the evil spirit appeared to him at dead of night as he prayed, in the form of a horrible cat, that by striking fear into him he might frighten him away from prayer. But the fearless youth, relying on the power of the Lord, fortified himself with the sign of the life-giving cross: and so fear departed from his mind, the malignant enemy being at once routed by the power of that trophy. But when he learned that his brother Raymond, who slept with him in the same chamber, had noticed this, he bound him by an oath not to disclose it to anyone before his death. He indeed kept faith for the sake of preserving his oath: but after his brother's death he related the matter to very many.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER II.

His reverence toward the sacrifice of the Mass; his use of the most holy Eucharist; his veneration of the cross and of relics; his flight from idleness and vain conversations; his exercises of mind and body; his intercourse with approved men; his learning; his sermons.

VI.

Of his piety toward the most sacred mysteries of the Christians and toward the holy relics, [Wondrous reverence toward the Sacrifice of the Mass, frequent communion, piety toward the holy cross.] some things must now be brought forth. He prepared himself most diligently for the mysteries of the Mass, at which he never wished to be present, as he was accustomed to be every day, unless he had confessed his sins; but especially as often as he was about to receive the holy Eucharist: that, cleansed by the power of saving penance, he might eat that Lamb without spot with pure heart and body. It was his custom, before he was a priest, to receive the Lord's body on the chief solemnities with such reverence and affection that by his example he most vehemently inflamed the beholders. Being made priest and bishop ^a, although by reason of his office he was held by the greatest occupations, almost daily, confession being first made, he did not fail to perform the divine service; not even when he had made a long journey, and even in very rainy weather. It once happened that, a long journey being accomplished, wishing to offer sacrifice, he could find no priestly vestments except mean and soiled ones: yet, as he was most devoted to that most august Sacrament and most modest, he offered sacrifice, well knowing that the supreme Deity is appeased and delighted rather by the affection of a pure mind than by outward ornaments. And as he was a faithful friend of Christ, he reverently carried a part of the wood of the holy cross, with many other relics of the Saints. But he also wore openly upon his garments, according to custom, the sign of the cross which was wont to be given for the expedition overseas ^b against the enemies of the Christian name, until he had given his name to St. Francis ^c.

VII.

[12] The human mind cannot be so bound to any one thing as to cling to it perpetually: but changes are needed, by which the keenness of mind, the spirit, Flight from idleness, sparingness of time, fruitful conversations: and the intention may be restored and strengthened; but most of all for one zealous for piety and letters, who desires to shun idle sloth, the bilge of all vices. In which Louis excelled remarkably, alternating turns of praying, of reading, and of doing some good work. He occupied most fruitfully every moment of time, lest the field of his breast, the hand ceasing, should be overgrown with the briars of evil thoughts. For, shunning even then, while a hostage, the company of vain men, he joined himself to the friars Minor, following illustrious and wise men; knowing that malignant companions rub off their rust even upon the white and simple. "They," he said, "always wish to chatter with me about frivolous and futile matters: such talk is useless to me; it delights me to hear divine and saving things, whence wisdom is to be drawn by me: not the familiarity of that common crowd and of frivolous men, but of the pious, however much this world may despise them, is pleasing: because from them come learning and piety, as a good odor from spices. With such men God too has intercourse, of whom it is written, And his conversation is with the simple." Further, lest by his own or others' much speaking he should heap up sins for himself, he restrained his speech and confined it within its banks, lest the overflowing river should quickly gather mud.

[13] solitude, occupations, the tending of a garden, Hence, being made a priest, secluded by withdrawal and separation from others, living by himself in a certain fortress which was near Naples, he led on earth a kind of heavenly life. Every day, when he had offered sacrifice, until the midday meal he gave himself wholly to reading: after the meal, not to mingle vain talk, as the common sort do, but to converse, confer, and dispute with learned and religious men about serious and fruitful matters: then to learn ecclesiastical chant: afterwards to take a short sleep in some cell: at last to withdraw wholly from the sight of men; and in retirement to read most zealously the sacred Scripture and the monuments of the Fathers, but most of all the Meditations of St. Bernard, whose book On Consideration he also carried in his bosom when riding, with his Letters and some other of his little works. But wearied with much reading, for the sake of exercising his body, he tended a garden ^d, turning the soil, rooting out tares, and casting good seed, by outward tillage admonishing himself who should till his soul. He was always doing some good, he was always found occupied. And so two things which bring languor to others sharpened him: leisure and solitude. He was never less idle or less alone than when he was alone or idle.

VIII.

[14] Toward attaining learning and piety, intercourse with good and learned men does very much. And so Louis became such a man because he always employed grave, learned, and religious men: He directs himself and his affairs by the counsel of the most approved men. out of whom he chose all the best and most approved, upon whose counsel and authority he might lean. For he was not wont, relying on his own shrewdness, easily to determine anything by himself; but he set and ruled the weakness and ignorance of his age by the prudence of old men. He took into his counsels familiarly Jacques d'Euse, a most renowned professor of civil law: who, after he had been chosen into the number of the bishops, and then into the first order of the purpled Fathers, the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, now ^e holds the most holy and supreme Pontificate, called John XXII. He had also great intercourse with the venerable fathers Friar William of Falgar and Friar Richard of Middleton ^f, of the Order of Minors, doctors of sacred theology and eminent professors; and with very many other men most renowned for approved piety and learning ^g. And indeed by this course not only young men, but in general all, win much praise for themselves, as often as, doubting about difficult matters, they have recourse to the counsels of the skilled. But you would find few indeed who so order themselves and their affairs: more are careless of counsel and headlong in their affairs. Such men fall more often, and, after the manner of those who swim in rivers, are carried along, tossed, and perish. On the contrary, they do not diminish their authority who refer their counsels to upright advisers; but rather safeguard and confirm it, following the judgments of better men.

IX.

[15] Thus far of his labor, zeal, and industry, upon which, as Solomon teaches, wisdom will follow: To his notable learning under the discipline of the Friars Minor which, having attained it by method and reason, he manifested with the greatest fruit in saving sermons. When he had let sink into his mind the wholesome admonition of the Hebrew Sage, Wisdom will not enter into a malevolent soul, nor dwell in a body subject to sins; but, She is easily seen by them that love her, and is found by them that seek her; like another Daniel, a man of desires, he purposed in his heart not to be defiled by the table of the king of Babylon, nor by the wine of his drink; thinking to withdraw his flesh from wine, that he might transfer his soul to wisdom, with a vehement desire of which he burned. God therefore, the Lord of the sciences, taught him goodness and discipline and knowledge in a short space of time. For in that seven years alone of his captivity, in which he enjoyed the continual company of the friars Minor, who had taken him under instruction, he made such progress ^h not only in the humane letters but also in the sacred, that even in a circle of the most learned men he could answer prudently (as I myself saw at Barcelona) and dispute acutely. Nor this only, but even, like an apostolic man, prepared and ready for all sermons, he preached to Clergy and people with great grace and fruit. Nay, even in Convents of Religious, in the presence of bishops, in the consistory too of the whole college of Cardinals, and indeed in the assembly of kings and princes, he several times delivered a brilliant and useful discourse, with such ardor and force of effectiveness that it seemed not so much he himself, but, according to Christ's promise, the Spirit of the heavenly Father speaking in him.

[16] In sermons therefore he was assiduous, though weaker in body, he joins ardent and eloquent sermons, in one place with a miracle. because he knew that the slothful and wicked servant is reproved by the Lord, who digs the talent he has received into the ground, hiding his lord's money: and, as is written elsewhere, He who hides up corn shall be cursed among the people: a blessing upon the head of them that sell. And so, abounding in eloquence of speech, by the very habit of his nature and also by a divine gift joined to the highest learning, being now a bishop, he was not rarely summoned to other dioceses to preach. At Paris, when he spoke in a gathering which consisted of learned men and of the university of students, he was an object of admiration: and the more so because he mounted the pulpit not in the array of a bishop, but (such was his supreme modesty) in the dress of the friars Minor. At Toulouse too, where he presided as bishop, and in very many other places, he often preached even twice a day, with great fruit to his hearers. But how pleasing his sermons ⁱ were to God, let us grasp from one example. A woman at Montpellier ^k, named Rose, wife of Peter de Villars, affirmed on oath that after a sermon of the blessed Man which he delivered in the above-mentioned place on a Friday, her little son of one year, most grievously suffering from scrofula, was healed by him in this manner. Louis had already, the sermon being ended, mounted his mule to depart, when the boy's mother, holding the bridle, begs the Saint to touch him with his consecrated hands: for she had hope that by the touch of his hands the little one would be healed. The holy Man signs

the infant with the sign of the life-giving cross, kindly touches his neck: and forthwith, without any delay interposed, the boy recovered. Dear to God were his sermons: because in him mouth, mind, and hand agreed — his speech with his life.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER III.

His contempt of a kingdom out of love of evangelical poverty; his clerkship; his repeated vow of embracing the institute of the Friars Minor; his profession of it; his wondrous love of poverty; the most humble services rendered to the poor and rewarded with miracles.

From his literary studies and his assiduous sermons I pass to his love of evangelical poverty, His father's kingdom being despised, he becomes a cleric, which had so possessed the blessed Man's mind that, in comparison with Christ, who for our sakes became poor when he was rich, and whom, like a bundle of myrrh, he ever carried as his beloved abiding between his breasts, he utterly spurned all glory, all riches, and a most powerful kingdom which was owed him by hereditary succession ^a, and counted them for nothing. His father urged him to take a wife, and promised that, if he complied, he would soon yield him the kingdom. But he had nothing more in his desires than to be once freed from these temporal things, that, being admitted into the Lord's portion, he might be free for God alone. And so, being now to be initiated, when according to the custom of the Church he was receiving the first tonsure ^b, to the great admiration of all and with the weeping of the bystanders, on bended knees and with tears poured forth, the royal youth uttered from his heart that saying of the royal Prophet: The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup; thou art he that shall restore my inheritance to me: declaring in very deed that he was truly a Cleric, whose portion and inheritance is the Lord.

[18] And that he might offer himself a more acceptable holocaust to God, he again pronounced to God a vow of perpetual chastity [and, the vow of chastity being repeated, he promises to enter the Order of the Friars Minor.] and of taking up the institute of the friars Minor: by the desire of fulfilling which he was held more and more every day; but some friends dissuaded him, and indeed with a candid mind. For even if, said a certain familiar, the life of the leisured is easier and safer and less burdensome or troublesome to others, nevertheless more fruitful to the race of men, and fitter for renown and greatness, is the life of those who have applied themselves to the commonwealth and to the conduct of great affairs. If the kingdom be neglected, what disadvantages do not follow? If rightly administered, merits are increased: so that all cares and thoughts ought to be brought to bear upon defending it; it should on no account be neglected. The holy Man did not assent, being taught by the Apostle that we must not run in uncertainty, nor do evil that good may come. The prudent Man understood that a kingdom is a splendid servitude: that the prince must serve the people no less than the people the prince. There many things must be dissembled, and in many one must often connive: and it is most difficult to manage others' affairs and not to give offense. "Therefore let there perish for me," said Louis, "not, I say, this perishable and temporary kingdom, but the whole world, sooner than that I should once sin against my God, whose honor and friendship I know must be set before all things; and likewise that this very life must be despised, which is not passed without frequent harm and sin. I look upon my father's house and kingdom: small as it is, so does it seem to me who gaze upon the vast spaces which are above: into the possession of which the soul is admitted, if a man raise himself above himself: my riches are Christ: let the rest be wanting, let him give himself to me: he alone suffices me. All abundance which is not my God is want to me." With which greatness of soul you would not know whether he rejected or deserved the kingdom with the greater praise.

XI.

[19] When he was in custody in Catalonia, he opened the secret of his mind to a religious father, he wishes to carry this out in Germany, that he may lie hidden; that he had made vows to God of perpetual chastity and of taking up the institute of St. Francis. "I have bound myself to God," he said, "nor is it lawful to break faith. Some indeed disparage that holy Order: but by this my mind is the more kindled, since I know that what I have vowed must be performed. He is justly required to pay who is not compelled to vow. But delay of a holy and honorable purpose has danger, and often even ruin. And so my resolve is to perform my vow betimes. But here I stick fast and am doubtful in mind, whether I should undertake the matter here among my own people, where I am known, or elsewhere, unknown. If I am initiated in my own country, it will not be permitted me to cultivate that humility according to my vow, for I fear that the friars will honor me far too much. Wherefore I have resolved within myself to withdraw into Germany, or to any other distant province, where, being unknown, I shall be allowed to wash the dishes, to cook, to sweep the houses, and to do other humble things. For I know that nothing is so pleasing to God as that we who are great by the merit of our life should nevertheless seem not great, but lowest in humility: since each one is the more precious to God the more worthless he is to himself for his sake."

[20] but a Religious man dissuading him from this, The pious father praises Louis's candor: "But," he said, "that you should lie hidden from your father cannot be. The Minister General and the Provincials have all the names of their friars: your father will easily be able to learn into whatever corner you may have hidden yourself, if he inquire. But indeed it will be a thing of memorable example if you do openly and manifestly what you have silently resolved within yourself. For what you shall do — you, I say — many will think should be imitated by themselves. He who lives well in secret, but is not zealous for another's advancement, is a coal: but he who shows from himself the light of righteousness to many is a lamp; it burns for itself, it shines for others. Honorable things are sought by good men, not hidden ones. Consider," he said, "how much good examples profit, and that the memory of great men is no less useful than their presence." The good father had spoken, when Louis earnestly begs his prayers, that he might obtain by divine gift what should be healthful. And so, turning over in his mind what is written, Vow ye and pay to the Lord your God; his liberty being restored, at Montpellier he went to the father Minister of the province of the Franciscan institute, earnestly begging that he would receive him into the Order and fellowship of his friars: but he did not dare, nor did the other friars, being deterred by the offense of the king his father. But he, since he could do nothing else, that he might the more gladly and safely be admitted by them, openly, solemnly, and manifestly renewed the pledge of the vow by which already then in that captivity he had bound himself to the institute of the Minorites, with many hearing him round about.

[21] he publicly professes at Rome the rule of St. Francis. He came with his father to Rome: there Boniface, eighth Pope of that name, wished him to take the bishopric of Toulouse ^c. But he resolved with himself not to consent before he had freed himself from the vow by which he was bound. And the supreme Pontiff assenting to his devotion, he professed the institute of blessed Francis at Rome in the convent of Ara Coeli ^d, being received into the Order of Minors by the Reverend father John de Muro ^e, Minister General. And, lest his father might be offended, the Pontiff grants that, the monastic habit being hidden, he should use the common dress of Clerics, which also he used for some time. But not long after, by the instinct of the Holy Spirit and the love of Christ, to whose example and will he strove in every way to conform himself, he laid aside that more honorable attire; and on the very day sacred to St. Agatha, two Cardinals being present, clad in a mean tunic and girt with a cord, according to the prescription of the rule of St. Francis, he was seen to walk barefoot from the Capitol as far as the palace of St. Peter, through those Roman muds. Nor was he ashamed of that voluntary poverty and meanness of his, nor did he blush: because (as the rule of St. Francis lays down) the Lord for our sakes made himself poor in this world.

[22] He so embraced poverty after Christ's example He is a supreme lover of poverty even in his bishopric, that even when he was a bishop he was content with one monastic garment, one tunic, by no means costly, and a cord for a girdle, and with sandals only on his feet: yet not rarely he was seen to walk barefoot. All his furniture testified to poverty: his bed, hangings, chairs, colors suited to the Franciscan Order, and all the rest. He wished to possess nothing elegant or costly, since he once gave even his own somewhat finer garment to a needier bishop. He preferred to be clothed in the worn tunic of some friar rather than in a new one. So great was his self-abasement and his contempt of all those things which are dear only by opinion and cheap at their own worth. And these things indeed displeased

his friends and familiars, who felt very differently, and most of all his father: but he was strengthened by the saying of Bl. Gregory: He is loved as it were through hatred, who, being carnally wise, is not listened to when he thrusts perverse things upon us. And so, out of love of evangelical poverty, there was nothing in the world so lofty that he did not count it for nothing; nor anything so lowly to which he would not gladly submit himself.

[23] As a Cleric he gave back to his father all his gold and silver, being content in use with wooden and earthen vessels alone. of which he wished to be rid. It happened once that a barber, about to take off his beard, brought a silver basin to wet his hair; but he, spurning this pride, used instead of it the vessel with which the fodder was measured out to the horses. As bishop, at last by the persuasion of good men, not for his own esteem but out of regard for others, he allowed a few silver vessels to be used; which nevertheless at his death he ordered to be distributed to the poor. He once went privately to the supreme Pontiff, and, many reasons being adduced, earnestly begged that he might be permitted to lay down his bishopric ^f: but he could not obtain it. And when some interpreted this design of his as imprudence, "I do not trouble," he said, "let them hold me a fool, if only I may once be freed from that burden and labor. Truly in this highest order there are indeed many who are saved, but also many who perish; and therefore it will be far more glorious to lay down the burden of a bishopric because of its perils than to have undertaken it because of a most perilous government."

XII.

[24] The virtue of humility, the inseparable companion of evangelical poverty, His most profound humility in the meanest services to the poor, known not to philosophers but to Christians alone, declared itself in him in a wondrous manner: of which, although some examples have hitherto shone forth, I shall now set forth summarily things not to be despised. Taught therefore that humility builds a sure and safe road to heaven, he was accustomed daily to feed twenty-five poor men, for the washing of whose hands he himself poured out water, and on bended knees cut bread for them; and every Saturday he washed and wiped the feet of three of the most wretched of them. Nothing was of more importance to him than this office. For when he was still a captive at Barcelona, on the day of the Lord's Supper he invited to his meal twenty-five beggars, whom he himself served, pouring water and bringing food and drink: those who could not take food with their hands because of their health, he himself put it into their mouths: at last he washed all their feet, and, after Christ's example, wiped them. On the following day, Good Friday, leave being given to go to the neighboring church of the Templars ^g, he met a wretched man infected with a horrible leprosy: whom he would have kissed publicly, had he not feared the offense of his brother Robert (who afterwards was king of Sicily). But he could not refrain from having the leper summoned on the following day, in memory of Jesus Christ his beloved, who was thought as it were a leper, and struck by God, and humbled; and, with wondrous fervor, laying aside his cloak, embracing him most lovingly and kissing him. Seeing which, his brother Robert was almost stupefied, and was so moved by this example of his that he too, whom before he had greatly shuddered at, took him into his arms and received him most kindly with a kiss.

[25] rewarded by God with prodigies. But with what great prodigies the Lord God rewarded these services of his and his kindness toward those poor wretches it is worth while to show by one or two examples. Peter de Romas once asked of Bl. Louis an alms, not for himself, but for a certain poor man laboring under a most troublesome scab, or rather leprosy. Louis gave a certain garment of his own; which when that wretched man had put on, he at once recovered. Likewise Friar Peter Scarasson of the institute of the friars Minor, being seized for thirteen days with a most acute fever, the physicians had utterly despaired of his being able to recover. At that time Bl. Louis was present in the monastery of Brignoles ^h, where the sick friar lay. He, conceiving hope in the Saint's merits, asked that the remains of his food be brought to him. A dish was brought with a little meat and bread, of which he himself had eaten. That feverish friar, as soon as he tasted the leavings of the holy Man, was healed. Louis therefore came off greater and happier by such ministry than by royal rule.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER IV.

His Orders; priesthood; episcopal dignity joined with the humble duties of the Friars; severity of life; virginity; love of rebuke and of peace; hatred of detraction; the reconciliation of those at variance.

XIII.

To the virtues of his tenderer age I shall add the greater increases of his advancing years. [Having discharged the offices of the sacred Orders, he is consecrated priest with the highest piety;] When he had completed the twentieth year of his age, he was initiated into the ecclesiastical Orders. Nor indeed did he wish to discharge the duties only of the major, which are called sacred, but of each of the minor ones as well. At Rome on the Lord's Nativity, placing himself among the boys, he did not disdain to carry a candle ^a, most diligently administering the office of acolyte. Being about to be consecrated deacon and priest at Naples in the church of St. Lawrence, where there is a monastery of the friars Minor, he in no way permitted any honor to be paid to him above the rest, bearing himself as though he were the least and last of all. The supreme Pontiff promised that he would consecrate him priest, if only he would come: he would not come, and declined this honor out of humility. But who could set forth his exceptional piety? During the Sacrifice at which he was consecrated priest, he poured out from the clear channel of his breast abundant tears, contemplating the lofty dignity of that Order and state. It is enacted on earth; but the office is transacted in heavenly business. For not man, not an angel, not any other creature, but God instituted this office: he himself makes, changes, sanctifies, men only exhibiting his ministry, so that by every right the priestly dignity claims for itself a sober gravity apart from crowds, a strict life, a singular weight.

[27] he undertakes the humble duties of the Friars even as bishop, Wherefore he gladly served his companion friar in the sacred mysteries of the Mass, and that with all alacrity, contemplating both himself and setting over against himself him in whose honor the place near the altar is full of choirs of angels. At Paris once, when he was with the friars, he wished, according to the prescription, that any office whatsoever should be enjoined upon him, even though he was then bishop, just as their several offices are wont to be enjoined upon the other friars. Often too on a journey he turned aside to the friars, with whom he washed the utensils of the kitchen. It once happened at Paris on the day of the Lord's Supper that, having clothed a hundred poor men, he washed the friars' feet, and according to the custom of the institute received the chastisement of his body, and on Easter day itself (as is wont to be done) with the masters of sacred theology he washed together the platters, dishes, bowls, and the rest, from which the friars had taken food. He adorned all his deeds with humility ^b. For indeed in the whole array of a bishop no gem is more splendid: apart from which every gathering of virtues, if there be any, is like sand without lime.

[28] adorning all his works with humility, which is praised. But now do you here observe with me: to what did the royal Offspring abase himself out of love of Christian humility? To the service of the poor, to the sores of lepers, to all the most abject things; so that you may truly say of him: He has laid his mouth in the dust. Who would not be astounded at this — what shall I call it? humility, or meanness and contempt of self? What is loftier in this world than a king? What greater among men? What more abject than a poor beggar, diseased? But he, nobler than his own lineage, despised the pinnacle of a falling kingdom, preferring the service of Christ to royal sceptres, and setting Christian humility before the wealth and pride of kings. He had let that wholesome admonition into his mind and matched it with deeds: The greater you are, humble yourself in all things, and you shall find grace before God: for great is the power of God alone, and he is honored by the humble. Although nothing is loftier than humility itself, it knows not how to be exalted, as being always higher; no one easily aims at that which he despises as set beneath him; nothing is above him who is above all fortune.

XIV.

[29] Patrimonies indeed and the splendor of a kingdom, the mockeries of fortune Of the most severe chastisement of his body and the matter of the greatest troubles, he thus despised. Nor yet did he wish to halt his step here, but ever to strive after greater things. As masons lay stones upon stones to build up walls and houses, so he heaped virtues upon virtues to complete the sum of perfect sanctity. For he increased his continence, restrained his appetite, curbed luxury: his body, already from his tender years worn down with fastings, vigils, and labors, he daily wasted with greater troubles and chastisements. On the day before the solemnities of the Lord and of the blessed Virgin Mother, he took for food only water and bread, scarcely

satisfying the necessity of nature, that he might keep most whole the treasure of virginity in an earthen vessel. Before he was received into the Order he wore a rough undergarment, he girded his loins with a hard cord roughened with knots: he always slept clothed: by night always, and not rarely by day, chastising his frail and rebellious flesh with iron chains by his own hand or by that of his companion friar, he restrained its motions and desire with the utmost rigor.

[30] and his unblemished purity He never had with women any suspect intercourse or familiarity, because he knew that a woman had cast the dweller of paradise out of his possession. He utterly abhorred conversations with women, especially private ones: he turned away from their looks, by which even the strongest may be made effeminate: without an honest witness and observer he never spoke alone with any woman, except perhaps his mother or his sisters. In testimony of his unblemished purity, two Friars Minor slept with him in his chamber, sometimes more. He guarded against all suspicions, avoiding beforehand whatever could probably be invented, that it might not be invented. Out of many wonderful examples that one deed of a mind imbued with wisdom, abstinent, must not be passed over. When he was in prison in Catalonia, his guards suggested to him an utterly wicked and hurtful counsel. "My lord," they said, "you are a man, for your flesh is not of bronze, but you are framed and born like the rest; use your youth; console this misery with the company of most beautiful women: why do you not lighten these cares and this weariness with some pleasure?"

[31] But he, taking it most gravely, received that speech as a monstrous thing. various proofs are adduced. "And is it not enough," he said, "that my body be held captive by you; do you wish my mind also to be bound? This prison is an evil, I confess; but is there any evil greater than baseness? And if this has something offensive in the deformity of the body, how great must that depravity and foulness of a mind made base be reckoned? Far be it, far be it, that I should defile this my body dedicated to God with a pleasure that swiftly passes away. Is my body captive? Let at least my mind be free: God avert that he cast both body and soul into hell." And, the wicked man being removed, he showed a mind utterly averse from all lust. But why do I recall his deeds? — when he wished base speech too to be banished from himself and his people. In that custody of his he enacted a law that whoever should lightly let fall anything dishonorable, base, wanton, or scurrilous, should take his food at a bare table: which he applied not only to his familiars and his guards, but even to his own brothers, from which he decreed that no one should be released, so much so that he himself, though otherwise innocent, nevertheless, because others interpreted him as having offended, paid the penalty he had appointed. He added example to command. What princes do, they seem to enjoin. He wished his people to be chaste; he himself was. He made a law, he obeyed the law. A prince teaches his people to do right by doing it.

XV.

[32] He was indeed a severe chastiser of wickedness — first of his own, and then also of others'. He wished to be reproved, that he might be corrected That he might utterly root out vices from himself, he desired to be despised, not praised: not to be extolled, but to be reproved, which is rare among the great. Hence, since he well knew that saying of the Wise Man, Better is open rebuke than hidden love; and, Rebuke a wise man and he will love you; he bore rebukes, whether just or unjust, with even mind, nay even loved them, wishing his vices to be shown to him when he sinned; to be reproved, that he might be corrected. He bade his most beloved companion friar seriously to watch his sins and to admonish him most freely: nor was he moved at all, even though the other censured the very slightest things. That same friar once admonished Bl. Louis rather freely in the presence of many bystanders: who, taking the deed ill, on that account gravely rebuked that rebuker; whom Louis kindly appeasing, said: "This is for my good, and so I have resolved."

[33] For friends must be both admonished and rebuked; and these things must be taken in a friendly spirit when they are done, by free admonition; which he also used toward others. since true friendship ought not to dissemble what it feels. But he whose ears are closed to truth, so that he cannot hear the truth from a friend, his salvation is desperate. Or do you not know that bitter enemies deserve much better of some men than friends who seem sweet? The former often speak the truth, the latter never. It is the flatterer's part to bring only pleasant things, but a friend's to bring sad things too, that you may see yourself and amend. Assuredly rebukes must be heard with even mind — nay, the abuse of the unskilled — and by one going toward honorable things that contempt must itself be despised. One ought to grieve for a fault and to rejoice at rebuke; but by no means to take it ill to be rebuked and not to be distressed at having sinned. Further, being himself free from every vice, he tried also to free others as far as he could. And so he who had already overcome his own wickedness could by right chastise another's. He in no way bore that anyone should detract from another's good name, desiring men's ears to be filled with the best speech, not polluted with defamation.

[34] He abhors detractors and reconciles those at variance. That bloodthirsty tongue which spreads the poisons of brotherly detraction he utterly abhorred. Solomon writes: If a serpent bite in silence, he that detracts secretly is nothing less than he. Nothing is so harmful and so effective in destroying all friendship as to listen to slanderers and to follow them with a rash judgment of mind. Hence frequent dissensions, hence unjust hatreds arise: the diabolical tongue makes the closest friends the bitterest enemies, and, disuniting those who are in accord, makes them differ in the gravest hatreds. But he, laying aside the bitterness of offenses, and cherishing above all charity and concord, the bond and fountain of every good, urged them upon all. When therefore dissension came from others, reconciliation began from him, he most kindly laying aside enmities among others, and himself pardoning the injuries of those who differed with him. And if he feared that he had offended any, he did not delay to appease them with goodwill and humility, nay even with a kiss. He was zealous for love and charity, forgiving from the heart those who sinned, often even asking pardon of those who had wronged him. Such as he wished God to be toward himself, such he showed himself to those who had offended against him: for he seeks in vain that God be made propitious to himself who neglects to be quickly reconciled to his neighbor.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER V.

His zeal for souls; mercy toward the poor and captives; his episcopal care and prudence; the gifts of his body and mind; his death and burial.

XVI.

We must now give attention to his liberality: whose approved fountains, He provides for the salvation of all and especially of the poor, true judgment and honorable goodwill, with which he was adorned, have in part been spoken of, and will now be spoken of somewhat more fully. Out of love of Christ he loved all the wretched unto salvation. As a mother desires the good of all her children, so did he of all the desolate and needy, as far as he could. For he did not look to himself alone, nor turn everything to his own advantage; but wished to live for others also, while he lived for himself. His first care was to bring all to God, from whom are all things, to whom all men belong. And therefore he offered himself as a pattern of manners, an image of virtues. Various and troublesome were his journeys; frequent and long his prayers; fervent his sermons, by which he won many Jews and heathens, with whom he very often engaged, refuting their errors with the strongest arguments and reasons. These he raised from the font; those he baptized himself with eager mind, and liberally supplied what was necessary for the leading of life. Nature also — or rather God, the author of nature — implanted in him a singular affection toward the poor and the sick, to whom he sometimes bestowed even his own garments. He desired to help all, because all are members of that great body. Whereas the great are wont to give their worn garments to others, he even as a boy was accustomed to give them to the poor alone.

[36] Once, journeying with his father from France, being already bishop, he met a wretched man asking alms. [He takes off his garment to clothe the naked, being content with scantiness for himself.] He, mindful of the Lord's words, What you have done to one of the least of mine, you have done to me, taking off a new monastic garment somewhat finer, gave it to him. The matter being understood, his father ordered the poor man to be sought through all the roads and neighboring places, so that, it being bought back for a price, he might not fall under suspicion of theft; but as he was nowhere found, it was believed that Christ, who for our sakes hung poor and naked from the cross, had appeared in the shape of a naked poor man. As bishop he ordered inquiry to be made into his yearly revenues; of which he took only so much as would suffice for the moderate support of his household, distributing all the rest for the use of the church and its ministers and for the need of the poor and wretched. He preferred himself to be in want rather than the poor, being persuaded that the field of the poor is exceedingly fruitful, and repays more quickly, and indeed with great interest, its fruit to those who give. He kept no mimes or players, no hunting dogs, no birds of prey, the disgraces rather than the ornaments of that first order; but whatever remained over he bestowed cheerfully upon Christ in the poor, from whom he had received all, from whom he expected all. He gave with eager mind what he could not keep, that he might receive what he could not lose.

[37] It was familiar to him to frequent hospices ^a and to visit the lodgings of the poor; He visits the lodgings of the poor, and also captives, whom he frees. to receive the acknowledgment and confession of the sick; whom he strengthened and consoled with sweet speech and with the benefits of alms. His chief care was for the conversion of sinners, for whom he strove by prayer to make God propitious, and provided suitable priests, being himself ready, as far as he could, to hear the confessions of all, after the example of Christ, who takes away the sins of the world, who wills all men to be saved. It happened that in the same summer in which he passed from this life to heaven, when he was setting out for Catalonia, that day's long journey being accomplished, in the Pyrenean mountains he visited in the evening a sick poor woman, whom he earnestly exhorted to confess her sins to his companion friar, or to himself, "For I too," he said, "am a friar Minor"; but she was unwilling. And so, soothing her with sweet words, he asked whether she would like to eat something. Foods were brought for her at her request, which Louis, coming nearer and sitting upon her bed, put into her mouth; and thus from her touch he was covered with many lice. Steadfastly the holy Man bore this, and without emotion ^b. For humility is always gentle and obliging. And since nothing is so kingly and liberal as to bring help to the wretched, it pleased him often to visit captives, sometimes to release them, and to save from death those condemned to death. A hundred and fifty enemies of his father, condemned to capital punishment, he freed by his intercession, winning favor for himself and glory for his father. These things befit a king, not from savage punishment but from clemency. For many executions are no less disgraceful to a prince than many funerals to a physician. Therefore he helped his fellows in nature, than which nothing is more according to nature. For men were begotten for the sake of men, that they might be able among themselves to profit one another.

XVII.

[38] It is time at last to set down briefly the chief deeds of his justice, His care for justice and for the ministers to be initiated at the altar: in which he was always engaged with religious observance: because, bidding desire, with the other affections, yield to reason, he counted nothing useful which could not seem equitable. From one or two examples of his care for the ecclesiastical state you will easily recognize what is to be judged of the rest. And so Louis, being brought by Christ into the wine cellar, had charity ordered within him, instructed with which he knew how to choose the worthy, to remove those to be rejected, to judge rightly, and — what preserves all things — to cherish justice, which renders to each his own. He embraced with the highest love pious men, especially the learned; whom, though the world despised them, he nevertheless exalted. On the contrary, the powerful and rich but wicked he judged unworthy of the Lord's portion. Out of love and reverence for that most august Sacrament, than which nothing is more precious in heaven or on earth, he made a great choice of the ministers of the altar, applying in choosing suitable priests the utmost judgment and diligence. For he accurately investigated and examined the family, person, age, training, life, doctrine, and faith of those to be ordained, strictly carrying out the prescriptions of the canons. Those conspicuous for upright manners with the testimony of an honorable life he judged worthy of the Lord's mystery.

[39] he considered in them merits, not persons. Before he conferred ecclesiastical benefices upon anyone, he weighed the merits of each, not regarding persons: he followed character, not fortune: and, that he might bestow benefices rightly and not scatter them, he gave them by judgment and with a choice made, so that they might come to the worthy. For it is fitting that public esteem be a witness of our acts and works, lest derogation be done to the office; so that he who sees a minister of the altar adorned with fitting virtues may proclaim the author and venerate the Lord who has such servants. There is praise of the Lord where the possession is clean and the discipline of the household innocent. Therefore he strove first that the Clerics be cleansed, then that they cleanse; that they be made light, and afterwards enlighten others; that they be sanctified, and then sanctify; that they draw near to God, and so at last bring others near. He took great care of the ministers of Christ, judging it far better that the Lord's priesthood should have few suitable men than many useless ones, who add a burden, not an honor.

[40] He forbids in Clerics superfluous care of the body; prudence shines in him. Further, he forbade to his Clergy excessive care of the body, and gleaming and costly garments: for he who has too much care of adornment has great neglect of virtue; since for the most part mean garments are tokens of a bright mind and prove contempt of the world. He wished them nevertheless to be adorned with a garment suited to each one's order; but that it is far more beautiful to display a well-ordered mind than an adorned body. The proper adornment of a minister of Christ is good manners. There was in him a skilful and circumspect prudence, without which there is no virtue; and this, increased by God's gift, was to him an art and a rule of living. For he was so composed and fitting in his manners in every state of life that he nowhere strayed from what was right and seemly. Before he was ordained, he lived most uprightly; made a Cleric, most religiously; created bishop, most holily. He ordered his whole life excellently, as though accustomed to each office and worn with every function: because to all things he applied a good guide, the fear of God, and the sound judgment of right reason.

XVIII.

[41] After God, Best and Greatest, for his own honor He was adorned with singular gifts of body and soul: and for the good of Christians, had led about through various regions that lamp set upon a candlestick to give light to all who are in the house of the Church, like a kind of Israelite ark, for the strengthening of the faithful; it seemed good to him at last to translate Louis, still quite a youth, to the best life, in whom the singular grace of God ever shone forth. All desired to see him, adorned with an angelic countenance, wonderful in his deeds, conspicuous for uprightness. There was in him a marvellous pleasantness and beauty of face: in his brow, in his eyes, in his whole body, kindness seemed to dwell; honey on his tongue, candor and simplicity in his breast. By the grace ^c of his form and of his uprightness he turned the eyes of all upon himself, who judged him rather an angel than a man. He was of most beautiful body and of the most fitting composition of limbs; but far more beautiful in his manners and sanctity. All were increased by his examples — by so pure a life, by so great modesty and humility, by the greatest piety in divine things, by his fervent and sweet speech, gracious with all, by his fiery sermons. I might rightly call such a Youth an image of every virtue, so lofty in birth, a king's son, whose age was adorned not by riches, strength, and the pomp of the world, but by piety, patience, contempt of the world, warm prayers, diligent industry, abstinence and continence, eloquent and wholesome sermons, evangelical poverty, Christian humility, gravity, charity toward his neighbors, justice, and all the crowns of all the virtues, so that they showed themselves to men in him in all their numbers.

[42] And so, when he had illumined the world with his light, his passage to the heavenly Father drawing near, he is seized with a fever, and, foreknowing his death, prepares himself for it. after many journeys for the good of others, returning to his people of Toulouse from Catalonia, where he had visited his sister the queen, he came to Tarascon ^d, where the body of St. Martha, illustrious for her hospitality toward Christ, rests ^e. There the holy Man, now about to be received into the heavenly hospitality, delivered a notable sermon in praise of Christ's hostess. Thence, seeking the stronghold which is called Brignoles, he is seized with a fever by which he was consumed. And being divinely made certain of the end of his life, he zealously prepares himself for death. He was therefore wholly given to prayer, assiduous in the contemplation of divine things. He most gladly heard sacred and pious admonitions, and daily had the sacrifice offered beside him. He meditated beforehand upon what we shall one day be, and which, whether we will or not, cannot be far off. Thus he received death cheerfully as it came, because he had rightly composed himself for it. "I am dying," he said to his companion friar, "and I rejoice as one who sees land, and is about to come into port from a long voyage over this vast and billowy sea — which I have long desired, and which is welcome to me who am about to lay down this heavy burden which my shoulders refuse to bear. Those occupations hold me too fast and snatch me away, so that I cannot be with myself, nor at my own choice be free for God and for myself. It is truer than truth that the episcopal dignity is not so much the name of a great honor as of a great burden. When I have come into port, I shall lay down my burden."

XIX.

[43] According to the Christian and Catholic rite, he bade the sacraments of the Church be administered to him on the very feast day of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. And although he was so wasted with a most grievous languor [Having received the sacred viaticum he most piously expires on this day, in the year 1297.] that he had nothing but skin and bones scarcely holding together; nevertheless he wished to show due honor to the Lord's body of Christ, which according to ancient Christian custom was being brought to him, since, rising at once from his bed, he went to meet Christ: then, bending his knees before the altar, he received with the greatest devotion the sure and faithful viaticum of Christian salvation. On the fifteenth day of his sickness, when he departed from this life, after long prayers, sitting up a little in his bed he fixed his eyes on heaven; and prayed continually in these words: We adore thee, Christ, and we bless thee: because by thy holy cross thou hast redeemed the world. Likewise that of the Psalm: The sins of my youth and my ignorances remember not, O Lord. The salutation also to the most blessed Virgin Mother he continually repeated. Being asked why he repeated it so often, "I shall soon die," he said, "and Blessed Mary will help me": and so he fell asleep in the Lord, with unimpaired mind and sure senses, in the year of our salvation one thousand two hundred and ninety-seven ^f, on the fourteenth Kalends of September, on the second feria in the Octave of the Assumption of Blessed Mary, of whom he was ever the most zealous worshipper.

[44] He is buried at Marseilles: he is beheld in glory. His face seemed more beautiful than usual; and he seemed not dead, but sleeping. He was buried at Marseilles among the friars Minor, as he himself had appointed in his testament ^g, in the middle of the choir, the obsequies being magnificently performed. But he was seen a little afterwards by most trustworthy men, who testified that they had seen him in the choir of the church, above the high altar, in the form in which he had been known, in pontifical array, and that most splendid; with a countenance exceedingly glad and serene, signifying the happiness of eternal beatitude ^h: which is the white goal most longed for by all the pious. Bl. Louis died very young in age; but ripe as an old man in the uprightness of his manners, he surpassed the number of his years by the multitude of his works, hoary not in hairs but in understanding: old in merits, not in years. Old age (writes the Hebrew Sage) is a spotless life.

[45] He died in the twenty-fourth year of his age. The course of his whole life was twenty-three years and six months ⁱ. He had already begun his fourteenth year when he was sent as a hostage into Spain for his father; there he stayed about seven years ^k; from his liberation he lived more or less two years and ten months ^l. Being made perfect in a short space, he fulfilled a long time: for his soul was pleasing to God: therefore he hastened to bring him out of the midst of iniquities. And indeed it matters not how long you have lived, if rightly: since a short span of life is long enough for living well and honorably. Before death he took care to live holily, that he might die well; in the very spring of youth he made his sowing, and now the harvest of immortality. Therefore, although snatched away at the beginning of his flourishing age, as regards glory he passed a very long life, whose memory all the years that follow will take up.

ANNOTATIONS.

as most Christian king, it was decreed by the same king, with the assent of the aforesaid Pontiff — both, however, being at Marseilles — that thenceforth there should be in the whole territory of Marseilles no other Convent of St. Francis of the Conventual Fathers: nay, they took care that all the indults, immunities, and privileges granted to the destroyed Convent should be transferred to the Convent of the Observance built within the city at the expense of the most pious man the lord of Romesan, in the time of blessed Bernardine, upon which the name of blessed Francis was imposed, the older name of St. Bernardine being meanwhile abolished. To this Convent the supreme Pontiff, with the king's assent, granted certain movables, in whose sacristy the arm of St. Louis, the pontifical vestments of the same Saint, and his testament are honorably preserved.

CHAPTER VI.

The dead raised; the lame and disabled restored; the gouty in feet and hands healed.

A boy of seven, What place Bl. Louis obtained with God the frequent prodigies and miracles ^a not obscurely declare, with which God willed gloriously to distinguish him soon after his death, both at his sepulchre and elsewhere: and it is worth while, out of very many, to bring forth some and to set them out in parts.

Perottus, a boy of seven years, died of a continued fever on the ninth day. His father, wailing at the mournful funeral of his dear son, whom he had obtained by prayer from St. Louis, to whom he had been most devoted, began to ask him back again with a vow in these words: "St. Louis, my dear pledge, my son is dead; you gave him to me when I asked: but now to what end? Restore him to me, restore him." While he was pitiably pouring forth such words, the boy revived.

[47] one girl, and several others The lady Sancia de Tribula bore a dead baby girl: she, grieving especially at the damnation of the soul, took a vow to the Saint, praying that she might be restored to life at least long enough to be baptized. The girl comes to life again, and, being baptized, for twelve days took no nourishment. Her mother praying again that, if she was to live, she might take a little milk, she at once seized the breasts, and survived a month.

Alazatia Lombarda, while she was carrying her little daughter in her arms, the girl was crushed by a most grievous fall and dies. The mother, relying on the help of St. Louis, prayed for the life of her dear pledge. St. Louis, hearing his devoted client, raised up her dead little daughter: and not only that, but freed the mother herself from a deafness which she had contracted by sickness. Lastly he abundantly supplied her with milk, which she had lacked in two childbeds.

Margaret, wife of Cicardus of Marseilles, found her little daughter Bertrandeta, an infant of one month, dead in her bed: whose mouth and nose being filled with blood, they supposed that she had been killed by smothering or by a blow, as often happens. The mother, calling her friends, lamented mournfully, invoking for her daughter's life the power of St. Louis, all likewise making supplication. The girl began to move her head and to open her eyes, having obtained life and health.

[48] are recalled from death to life; which also happened Rixendis, wife of Lord Comparatus, of the city of Carpentina ^b, testified that her daughter Raymunda, being trampled, with her neck broken, was dead in the judgment of many. The mother having made a vow that she would visit barefoot the sepulchre of St. Louis if her daughter should live again, the dead daughter began to weep and to speak, healed of every bruise.

Bellioda of Aix ^c, wife of Hugh Lambert, swore that her son of eight years, whom she had laid beside her in bed, after the first sleep was taken from the bed and lay dead on the ground. The parents, a promise being made to St. Louis, received their son alive according to their vow: and the boy told his parents that there had seemed to him a man like St. Louis, clad in rough garments, who said: "If this boy too were clothed in such garments, he might come to the sanctity which St. Louis had."

Massilieta of Marseilles bore a dead son: the mother with great devotion implores the power of St. Louis for her son's life. He is carried, at her wish, to the church to be baptized. And although in the judgment of the priest himself he seemed dead, nevertheless he is baptized, many asking it. Being baptized, he opens his eyes, and, carried back to his mother, as though only then brought forth in birth, uttered his first cry like all others, weeping.

[49] to others, Pontius Durandus, dwelling near the church of St. Mary at Aix, had a son consumed by a long fever and dead. The father, having invoked St. Louis, received according to his vow, living, the son whom he was bewailing as dead.

Margaret Viella of Marseilles had nursed a boy who died. She, recalling the miracles of St. Louis, vows to visit his sepulchre and to offer a wax candle with grain for the boy's recovery. The boy, who had met death at midnight, revived at dawn.

Beatrice Portamira of Aix had a daughter named Alazatia, who, being pregnant, fell from the ass on which she was sitting, and, being grievously injured, miscarried, bringing forth a dead male child: and then also a dead baby girl, with livid body and, as it seemed, with broken arms. The girl's aborted body being cast into a corner of the stable, the mother, on bended knees and with great weeping, prayed with such words: "St. Louis, I ask you that, as you freed me from a pain in the head, so now you would hear me, and, as I saw you living, so grant life to this girl." She also promised to visit his sepulchre and to offer a taper. Thus that girl, cast into the stable, revived, and, being baptized, survived about four months.

The daughter of Raymond Vitalis departed this life by the most violent force of a fever. Her aunt Catherine Besteria with great piety commended the girl to the patronage of St. Louis; by whose benefit she returned to life.

[50] Adam of Avignon had a two-year-old daughter, who after a grave sickness died. who are here reviewed. The father, asking with a vow the help of St. Louis for his little daughter's life, prayed thus: "St. Louis, restore to me my little daughter alive and unharmed, whom I obtained from you by prayers: I beseech you that I may receive her again restored to life. And if you shall grant me this, I shall go to your tomb with a little waxen image offered." At the father's vow the little daughter, opening her eyes, is restored to life and to health.

The son of John Imbert of Tarascon ^d, of the diocese of Avignon, Poretus, exchanged life for death by a most grievous fever and an abundance of worms. The father, coming home and being informed of his son's death, commended him with a vow to St. Louis, and soon he returned to life.

Raymunda of Marseilles, while she was carrying her little daughter in her arms on a balcony, it happened that the little one fell first, and then the mother upon her daughter. The little one was grievously injured; she seemed to have broken her neck, being now at the point of death; when her father Peter Raymond, having taken a vow to the Saint, without any delay obtained life and safety for his daughter.

[51] A certain poor woman, having brought forth a dead child lying crosswise in the womb, The lame for two whole years, her thighs being injured and deprived also of the use of her hands, could neither walk nor work. She makes a vow for her recovery to the holy Man, and promises to sweep his church every week. She slept a little: awakening, she was healed.

The hips of Sancia of Marseilles were so wretchedly eaten away by the sacred fire ^e (as they call it) that she could not walk. Her aged mother, moved by her daughter's misery, implores by a vow the help of St. Louis, and she is restored to entire soundness.

In the town of Sisteron ^f, a boy John was found by his mother, wrapped in infant swaddling clothes, so covered with blood that nothing could seem to have remained in his body. When the mother examined him diligently, she found that the bones between her little son's shins and knees were lacking, and that the shins themselves were set the wrong way round, and that there was also a hump on his back from a pitiable bending of the spine, and that in the back of his head between the ears there was nothing bony, but only fleshy. The son, who should have been a joy to his parent, was a sorrow and a grief. The mother, despairing of hope of human remedy, conceived hope, next after God, in St. Louis: she vows with great weeping that, if he shall heal her son, she will present him at his sepulchre with some little tapers. A wonderful thing. The vow being made, the little son began to be better, and a little afterwards recovered entirely.

[52] At Marseilles a certain boy, James by name, was born lame, and those disabled in body are healed; with legs and feet wretchedly twisted; whose mother, having seen the miracles of St. Louis, with tears poured forth implores the help of the holy Man for her little son, vowing that, if he be cured, she will offer at his tomb waxen legs with feet. He was so prodigiously healed at once that even the shoes which had been made shapeless for his feet fitted rightly, his feet being restored to their natural shape.

The wife of William Raymond of Toulouse bore a son with twisted legs, as it were crossed and knotted together. She vows to Bl. Louis: which being done, the infant was made whole.

Anselma of Marseilles had a daughter of eight years, exceedingly lame and weak; nor could she go without props, or crutches placed under her shoulders. She makes a vow to the holy Man that, if he free her daughter, she will offer two crutches of wax at his sepulchre. Without delay after the vow the daughter throws away one crutch: and a little afterwards the mother leads her daughter, using the other crutch, to his sepulchre. She pays her vow to the Saint, who restored to her daughter entire health.

[53] as also gout in the feet and hands, John, a citizen of Marseilles, suffered grievously from gout in one foot, so that he could not walk, and was continually tortured with the greatest pain. But he, imploring the grace of the holy Man, vows him a waxen leg with a foot for his recovery. He was cured sooner than said. But being negligent in paying his vow, he is afflicted with the same torment: but repeating and paying his vow, he was soon freed.

In the town of Carpatacum ^g, a certain man for eight whole years was so weak in his feet and legs from grievous gout that he made holes through which the bones could be seen, and which swarmed with worms. He had spent everything in vain upon medicine. Then his wife bound herself by a vow that, if the health desired were restored to her husband, she would visit with him the sepulchre of St. Louis, and would give waxen legs in his honor. Since her husband could not go, he was carried. Prayer being made and the vow paid, he who could not walk returned home on foot, and after a few days his legs with their wounds are cured.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER VII.

Those suffering from fever; the deaf; the dumb; the blind; the insane, made whole.

and those suffering from fevers Raymond, a soldier, when, suffering from a fever for three continuous weeks, he was also burdened with a dangerous abscess, and so his recovery was despaired of in the physicians' judgment, men began to think of his death and funeral. But Raymond with his whole heart invokes Bl. Louis, and devoted himself wholly to him. The holy Man is present without delay in the guise of a friar Minor: and when he touched the affected place with his sacred hand, the abscess breaks, and, the matter being discharged, he was saved from imminent death and recovered.

At Marseilles a certain woman Mary was so weakened by a continued fever that all the physicians despaired of her recovery. One night, being awake, she saw a Bishop come in to her in pontifical array, shining with a great light, who addressed her as she lay in these words: "Woman, many make supplication to me for you, so that I could not but help you. Know that you shall suffer much in a short time, but on the third day from now you shall be healed." He disappearing, Mary, terrified, calls out to her maidservants and sets forth to them what she had seen.

[55] But they, interpreting that it had been St. Louis, bid her be of good cheer. are healed. But she related that she had seen such a vision as this: that her soul was set before the tribunal of the judge on high, and that all her deeds were weighed in the balance of the divine judgment. Then that a horrible demon wished to devour the wretched soul. She at the terror of the foul and gaping devil cried out so loud that all were astounded. Then the holy Bishop, whom she had seen before, was present, and, defending her in that peril, restored her to her body; and (as he had foretold) she was very well on the third day. She herself, her husband, and her sons took a vow to the Saint, to whom they were most devoted, and paid what they had vowed.

Another matron named Alazatia had a son of two years, who lay abed with fever for a whole year and more, and, having seven great sores on his back, took no food. The little one being set in peril of death, his pious mother makes vows to St. Louis, and straightway the boy is freed from the fever, and in the same week those sores are healed.

[56] A certain noble little girl, falling from her nurse's arms, Hearing is restored to the deaf, was so shaken that, much blood flowing from her mouth and nostrils, she was deprived of the sense of hearing for eight whole years ^a. The father, pitying his little daughter, promises St. Louis that, if he heal her, he will go to his sepulchre and offer a waxen image. When he did so, he received his daughter whole.

Antony, journeying in winter in the mountains, by the sharpness of excessive cold grew deaf for three years. But when by nods and signs he had understood what wonders the Lord was working at the sepulchre of the holy Man, with great confidence in the Saint he vows that, if he restore his hearing, he will visit his sepulchre and offer waxen ears. Wonderful to tell! By his vow he recovered the hearing which he had so long lacked.

[57] A certain man named Peter, by the trouble of a long fever lost his speech and became utterly dumb. He is led by his family to the Saint's sepulchre, and, speech to the dumb, a pledge of a vow being made, is earnestly commended to his care. When High Mass was being begun, the wretched man as a suppliant invoked God and St. Louis from his heart: and soon he brought forth with his voice what he had conceived in his mind, saying, "St. Louis, help me." Mass being completed, he began to speak readily, all marvelling.

Alazatia of Camps, of the diocese of Aix, being made dumb by a certain violent affliction, is also deprived of the use of one arm. A vow being made by her mother for her daughter, speech and health of the arm are restored to her. Likewise another woman, remaining dumb for eight days, vowing in her heart what she could not do in words, suddenly received the benefit of speech.

[58] sight to the blind Hugh Gregory, deprived of his eyes for the space of three months, most devoutly became a suppliant to Bl. Louis. On a certain night he seemed to see the blessed Bishop, having entered the church, shining with so great a light that the keenness of his eyes could not bear it. Awakening, he promises to go to his sepulchre if he receive light. As soon as he vowed, he received his sight and saw clearly: what he had promised, he performed.

Stephen, suffering in both eyes, lost the right, and, the left being in peril, was led about as a blind man. His anxious wife, for her husband's safety, relying on God's power and the Saint's merits, made a vow to the blessed Man, and soon his eyes begin to be cured, and after a few days, the spots with which they were sprinkled being wiped away, are perfectly healed.

Sancia affirmed on oath that she had a son blind for five whole years: that she vowed to St. Louis that she would visit his tomb and a waxen image. On the following day, when she came with her son, he who had been blind was made to see.

[59] are restored. Peter the Physician, blind for four years, hearing of the frequent prodigies of St. Louis, vows that, if he receive his sight, he will fast every Wednesday as long as he lives, and will bring two waxen eyes to his sepulchre. Coming to Marseilles, he stays two days at the Saint's tomb. On the third day, when he was asking alms with the other beggars (for he had spent all upon physicians and pilgrimages to the places of the Saints for the recovery of his health), "Why," said his wife, "do you stand here? Why do you not stay and sleep at the sepulchre of the Blessed one, where all are made whole?" But he said: "Do you not know, woman, that the Saint can help me here too, both awake and in whatever place? Such is my confidence in him, which you do not seem to me to have. For my part I hope that Bl. Louis will hear me." "And how?" said the woman. Presently he says: "I see one column in the church; I see two, I see this house roofed with shingles: I distinguish the colors of the garments in which men are clothed." Thus by the merits of the blessed Bishop he at length recovered the sight he had long desired.

[60] The frenzied Bartholomew in the village of Salome ^b was so out of his mind that, like a mad dog, he attacked anyone whatever with his teeth without distinction. He also gnawed wood and stones, and whatever he could touch, like a frenzied man. His parents, moved by their son's misery, prayers and a vow being made, that wretched man felt the power of the blessed Man; and, giving thanks to God, his frenzy being cured, he is restored to his former health.

At the city of Nice ^c, a certain woman named Beatrice so lost all sense and use of reason that she poured out most blasphemous things not only against men, but against God himself and the Saints. In other respects she was a good woman, but, overcome by this affliction, she could not govern herself. Running hither and thither, seizing stones, sticks, and swords, she attacked all with bitter words, nay even with blows. She had to be bound with chains. Her husband, grieving at his wife's calamity, invokes Bl. Louis with a vow, and on that very same day obtains the health desired.

Guillelma, a girl of Marseilles, being utterly deprived of reason and judgment, was feared to be possessed by a demon. Uttering base words without any shame, she tore her face with her nails and rent her garments. Wherefore she had to be bound with chains. Her parent prays Bl. Louis, son of the heavenly king, to have mercy on him, because his daughter was grievously vexed by a demon. He leads his daughter to the Saint's sepulchre, vowing him a taper, and after prayers brought back his daughter in right health.

[61] Raymond Oliverius, a Cleric of the city of Carpentras ^d, are brought back to sound mind: being afflicted with alienation of mind, lest he should harm anyone, had to be bound to a stock fixed in the ground and with many chains, and that for not a few months. As soon as his parents made a vow to Bl. Louis, he returned to a sound mind.

Marinetus \* of Aix, deprived of the use of reason, sang to himself night and day: uttering foolish things, he did not recognize his own parents, since he had no judgment in anything. He also scattered his food upon the ground, taking no food at all. Cecilia his kinswoman, becoming a suppliant to St. Louis, vows for his recovery. Soon, asking for food, he eats, drinks, and returned to his mind.

Raymond the weaver said on oath that his little son, being seized with raging madness, had spoken base things, had bitten his father, and had done very many other wicked things. That he had vowed and had prayed St. Louis for his son's health: who, at once understanding his father's vow, himself also vows, and thus obtained soundness of mind.

John Olerius had a daughter of eleven years utterly out of her mind, so that she was believed to be possessed by a demon. A vow being made to the holy man by her father for her recovery, she soon recovered a sound mind.

Bertranda Moreta, out of her mind for two years and two months, by a vow taken up by her mother-in-law to St. Louis, recovered sense and understanding.

ANNOTATIONS.

\ elsewhere Martinetus*

CHAPTER VIII.

The shipwrecked helped; epileptics and those held by other diseases; the Saint's detractors punished, etc.; his canonization; the translation of his body.

The shipwrecked helped, William Viellus, a citizen of Marseilles, while

he was sailing, so great a tempest arose that the waves almost sank the ship. He, becoming a suppliant to Bl. Louis, vows that, if he escape the peril, he will at once go to his sepulchre with ropes hung about his neck. At this vow the perils ceased; and, what you may greatly wonder at, though the sea was tossed with storms and by the driving of the waves, and hail fell with great rain, not even a drop touched the ship, nor could the tempest hinder its straight and safe course.

William Maurella, a sailor of Peter, lord of Majorca, affirmed that, a tempest and squall having arisen, three sails were torn from the ship, and that they had fallen among the sandbanks: wherefore it seemed more certain than certain that they must die. All promise that, if they escape shipwreck, they will go to the sepulchre of St. Louis with a rope hanging from their necks: and by this vow they escaped alive the tempest and the peril of shipwreck.

[63] epileptics, and those held by other diseases Beatrice for fifteen years suffered from the falling sickness, being seized by the disease often twice or thrice in a day. A vow being sent up, she obtained the health she desired.

Another woman, vexed for eight whole days by this almost epileptic disease, hearing what great things the Lord God was working at the sepulchre of St. Louis, vowed for her recovery to visit his sepulchre yearly, and without delay received health.

In the diocese of Toulon [a], William, a very young man, for ten whole years suffered most violently from a hernia. It happened once that he lifted a weight heavier than he could bear, whereby the rupture being made greater, he becomes unfit for the labors by which he lived. And, almost despairing, nevertheless lifting his mind upward, he conceived a vow to holy Louis, that he would help him. Wonderful indeed! At that same moment he entirely recovered.

The little daughter of William of Toulon had a swelling on the tip of her nose, which, as she grew, also increased. The father with devotion invokes the blessed man, and obtains for his daughter her natural form, the swelling being removed.

Peter Maletus, dwelling at Marseilles near the monastery of the friars Minor, had a son called Brandotus, whom the sacred fire, which they call St. Antony's ^b, wretchedly tormented in his feet, whose stench not even his nurse could bear. The boy is carried to the church of St. Antony, where he remains ten continuous days and nights, especially because they affirmed the disease to be of that kind: but he received no cure. Then his parents vow to St. Louis waxen feet at his sepulchre for their little son's recovery; and by his help he was healed.

[64] and those afflicted with troubles Geoffrey de Maset, a soldier, swore that he had suffered in his legs for about twenty-five years; which, being full of pustules, daily discharged a vast quantity of matter. He, conceiving a vow to St. Louis, within three days began to be better, and not long after was perfectly cured.

The son of Eminarda Vilia of Turbana ^c, of the diocese of Vaison ^d, had a stone in his bladder, which caused most bitter torment, blocking the passage of the urine. His mother, since her son was thus tormented for a whole year, after many vows and after various counsels of physicians tried in vain, becomes a suppliant to St. Louis for her son's safety: she promises that she will visit his sepulchre and will there give the gift of a waxen image. The son on the following night passed a stone, well bloodied and large, without pain.

John Galeotus of Marseilles, sailing on the sea, was captured by Saracens, with eighteen others ^e. A vow being made to St. Louis, by order of the king of Tunis, on the same day the captured galley with all aboard is set free.

[65] A certain matron affirmed on oath that she had suffered in the womb for seven years: are made whole. and was so sick that, much blood being cast up through her mouth, until midday she seemed dead; and, as is wont to happen at death, she had often commended her soul to God. At last the sick woman, having invoked St. Louis, vows that she will visit his sepulchre if she be healed, and she recovered.

Dulceta, wife of Michael Bermond, carrying a dead fetus in her womb for three days and nights, could not bring it forth, but the miscarried child had to be extracted by the art of medicine. In the very extraction a bone was broken in her body, so that for two whole years the unhappy woman could not even sit, but only lie in bed, the use of all her limbs being taken away. She, preferring to die rather than so to live, calls a surgeon, asking that he heal her by cautery, by incision, in any way whatever. Before the surgeon arrived on the appointed day, she conceived a vow to St. Louis for her health, that she would fast once; that she would also visit his sepulchre; and that she would sweep his church with brooms every Saturday, if the friars permitted: and on the following day she was perfectly cured.

[66] Gunfrida \* of Marseilles, when she once saw that the monument of St. Louis was frequented with great devotion by the faithful, Punishments and honored with many offerings; and not rarely visited by her kinswoman Richarda and her mother Beatrice, because that Richarda had been freed at his sepulchre from a weakness of the legs; she broke out into such blasphemous words: "Quickly have the friars Minor begun to honor this man as a Saint, that they may increase their wealth with offerings of candles and gifts: and you indeed assert that he is a Saint and works these miracles: but I do not believe it; nor do I pay any regard to him or his miracles: far be it that I should give him anything or show him any honor." With such words, raising her hand against his sepulchre, she despised the holy Man. The impious woman is gravely rebuked by her pious kinswomen: nor yet did she cease to vomit forth such curses against the Saint.

[67] But a little afterwards, when she came to herself, she reflects that St. Louis, if he were blessed and holy, could exact a penalty from her. inflicted upon and removed from the Saint's detractors. "If," she said, "within three days I be deprived of eyes and sight, and he send so great a pain into my head that I cannot sleep, I shall believe that Louis is holy." Early on the morning of the third day she begins to suffer horribly in her eyes, which protruded from their sockets, nor could she see anything; and her very face, neck, and whole head were so twisted awry that she seemed a most deformed monster: and indeed for three days she was thus most bitterly tormented. Vexation therefore giving understanding, she confesses her sin, and, a vow being made to St. Louis, is freed from all pain and deformity, except that she remained blind in her right eye.

William de Mosat likewise, once mocking the miracles of the blessed Man, said: "Henceforth the other Saints will be counted for nothing: for this one does everything." Soon vengeance from heaven overtakes the blasphemer. For that impious mouth of his was straightway twisted round to the back, so that he could speak no more. But his right eye too was afflicted with a flowing humor and with pain. Nine days being spent in this punishment, at last the wretched man confesses his fault, and begins as a suppliant to invoke the Saint's power which he had mocked, vowing from his heart that he would give at his sepulchre a head of wax, whither also he would make a pilgrimage. What he had vowed he did; and, before he went out of the church, the former composure of his head is restored, all punishment being removed.

The lady Beatrice de Aureolo, seeing many gifts, candles, and images offered at the relics of the holy Man, and hearing that astounding miracles were daily wrought, nevertheless remaining unbelieving, despised and mocked all. Returning home and sitting at table to cut bread, she severely wounds her thumb through the middle of the nail, whereby she was most grievously afflicted. But since punishment often opens the eyes of the mind which fault has closed, she recognized that this was the punishment of her rashness toward the Saint. And so she prays Bl. Louis as a suppliant, vowing to him a waxen thumb in memory of the matter for her healing. Soon the thumb is cured of wound and pain, by the benefit of St. Louis.

[68] A sounder mind restored to those visiting his sepulchre. Since he is read to have done many such prodigies and miracles, and to have conferred various benefits upon the afflicted, which for brevity's sake we omit: but this must not be passed over, which is confirmed by the testimony of many, namely that to those visiting the sepulchre of that sacred body the mind was often changed for the better, with a wonderful affection, to the admiration of many. Nor is there any doubt that such efficacy was divinely granted to those sacred relics.

XXI.

[69] The glory therefore of his miracles and the fame of his exceptional sanctity running through the world, He is inscribed in the catalogue of the Saints and the faithful flying from every side to his sacred relics for their own healing, the people of Toulouse and their neighbors, sending legates to the lord Pope Boniface VIII, proclaim his wonders, extolling him with great praises: asking that whom Christ had joined to the college of the Saints in heaven, him the Vicar of Christ himself should inscribe in the catalogue of the Saints on earth. But although the life and sanctity of Bl. Louis were well known to the Supreme Pontiff (for he had partly seen them, and had received other things from trustworthy men), the prudent man nevertheless deferred the business, lest anyone might calumniate that the matter had been attempted too hastily, with more regard to birth and fortune than to merits. Meanwhile Boniface ^f departs this life, when he had begun the matter, and left it unfinished to his successor Benedict ^g, who, dying himself the sooner ^h, could not do it. Clement V, appointed in his place, is urged by various messengers of the churches of Narbonese Gaul, which is now called Provence, to undertake the matter.

[70] by Pope John XXII. He, by the counsel of the Cardinals, committed to two bishops to inquire seriously and diligently into the life and miracles of Bl. Louis. They come to Marseilles with their mandate, and, carrying it out zealously, write down all that pertains to his sanctity. Then the matter is given to the Cardinals to be examined with the greatest diligence. Meanwhile this Pontiff also dying ⁱ, when in the place of the dead Clement there succeeds ^k John XXII, formerly the companion and master of St. Louis, who also was present at his death. Nor is there any doubt that by the will of divine providence this office of piety was reserved for him, to whom the whole life, manners, piety, death, and all the deeds of the blessed Man were well known and clearly seen. But lest he might seem to act hastily, all and each of his acts being again accurately examined and approved by the Cardinals, by the counsel and assent of those same Cardinals his brethren, and of all the Prelates present (at Avignon, where the Apostolic See was at that time), with great pomp and solemnity, in the year of restored salvation one thousand three hundred and sixteen ^l, on the seventh Ides of April, he enrolled Bl. Louis in the number of the Saints ^m, in the first year of his Pontificate.

XXII.

[71] But in the year one thousand three hundred and seventeen, The translation of the body in the year 1317. on the sixth Ides of November, Cardinals and some bishops being sent by the Supreme Pontiff, in the presence of St. Louis's own brother Robert, king of Sicily and Jerusalem, and of his wife the queen, with the queen of France, kinswoman of St. Louis, and with many other princes and noblemen; and with an innumerable multitude of the people flooding in, who had flocked together to entreat St. Louis with gifts and to celebrate the translation of the sacred body; that treasure of the sacred body of Bl. Louis, hitherto buried in the middle of the choir, is translated ⁿ to the high altar, enclosed in a silver case, the obsequies being magnificently performed after the royal manner and as befits a Saint. There to this day upon those who devoutly invoke him vast benefits are conferred by his merits, and by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed forever. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

a.

Telo, surnamed Martius … now Toulon to the inhabitants …, an episcopal city of Gaul in Provence, under the archbishop of Arles, well fortified and well kept, with a most capacious and very safe harbor, on the coast of the Mediterranean sea … having a most fully furnished arsenal; and where the royal fleet is prepared; it is ten leagues distant from Marseilles, etc. So Baudrand.

\ elsewhere Gaufrida*