Werenfrid

ON ST. WERENFRID, PRIEST AND CONFESSOR,

AT ELST, A VILLAGE OF THE BETUWE IN GUELDERLAND,

In the year, as is said, DCCLX.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Description of the place: his cult: his relics: his Acts: the time of his preaching and of his death.

Werenfrid, priest and confessor, at Elst, a village of the Betuwe in Guelderland (St.)

BY J. S.

In that part of the duchy of Guelderland which is called the island of the Batavians, Betuwe or Batua, commonly de Betuwe, between Nijmegen and Arnhem, is situated the village of Elst, Description of the places in which the Saint preached and died: which long occupied St. Werenfrid while he lived, and after his death deserved to have him as its patron and to attend him with due veneration. A few leagues thence to the north lies the village of Westervoort, whose people the same Saint enlightened by the preaching of the gospel, where also at last he ended his life in that illustrious work, as we shall see from his Life. Yet this second village is beyond the Rhine near the Ijssel on the border of the county of Zutphen, so that

the Rhine lies midway between the two villages, although neither adjoins the Rhine. Of St. Werenfrid we made mention among the Passed Over at the XIV of August, on which he is marked in the Martyrologies, and on which his feast was formerly celebrated: but his Acts were there referred to the XXVII of the same month, because he is now venerated on that day in the diocese of Utrecht, in which the aforesaid villages were included.

[2] In our Usuard at the XIV of August the Rosweyde codex announces the Saint's memory in these words: his name in various calendars, On the same day, in the island of Batua, in the village of Elst, of St. Werenfrid the priest, who, having been sent as a preacher to that nation by blessed Willibrord, bishop of Utrecht, after the course of his blessed preaching rested in peace in the aforesaid place. The other augmented codices of Usuard agree there, and Greven, weaving a somewhat longer eulogy in this manner: The deposition of St. Werentfrid, priest and confessor: who, coming from England with St. Willibrord, bishop of Utrecht, purged the island of Batua of its old errors and governed it with solicitude, being famous for many miracles both in life and after death. The clod of his sacred body too, when the peoples disputed over it, being placed on a ship without a steersman, made for the further bank under an angel's guidance. Where again, being set upon a wagon to which cows were yoked, it was brought, without human guidance, to the place called Elst, where it now peacefully rests. The manuscript Florarium Sanctorum at the XIV of August has this of the same Saint: At Utrecht in the Netherlands, of blessed Werenfrid, priest and confessor, who from blessed Willibrord received there the care of government, and led a life of much virtue. Who, being seized by a slight fever in the village which is called Westervoort, rested in the Lord, where he had preached Christ to the people and converted them to the faith. As his soul went out from the mass of his flesh, so great a grace of wondrous fragrance filled those who stood around that it became most manifest to all that the spirit of so great a Man was being led to the heavenly court by the hands of the holy angels. Whose body was at once miraculously conveyed to the village which is called Elst, in the Betuwe in the parts of Guelderland, where a church and a college have been founded in his honor. He died in the year of salvation DCCLX. All these things are contained more fully in the Acts, except the epoch of his death, which we shall try to clear up from elsewhere.

[3] There are not wanting other more recent martyrologists who have inserted the memory of St. Werenfrid in their calendars. and his cult: Among these the Benedictines Menard and Wion call him a monk. But I have no monuments at hand by which to confirm that opinion: nor would Mabillon in the Acts of the Saints of his Order have placed St. Werenfrid among the Passed Over of the third century, part 2, if he had thought that he was a monk. These things therefore being dismissed, let us hear Molanus, who in the Indiculus of the Saints of Belgium, folio 73 verso, records some things which are not written in the Acts, in this manner: Saint Werenfrid, or Verenfred, priest and confessor, came to Utrecht with blessed Willibrord. He at first preached excellently, chiefly at Medemblik (in North Holland) and at Dorestad (in the territory of Utrecht). Afterward the blessed bishop entrusted to him the place Elst, in the middle of the island of Batua, which is girt about by the channel of the river Rhine. But he also took upon himself the governing of the church in the village of Westervoort. And when he had converted the people of these two places to the faith, made famous by countless miracles both in life and in death, he rested in peace at the aforenamed village of Westervoort on the nineteenth Kalends of September, but is miraculously buried at Elst, … where it is customary to resort to him for remedies of joint disease in the collegiate church of his name. He has in the Utrecht use a double feast on the vigil of the Assumption of blessed Mary. The author of the History of the Bishoprics of the United Netherlands, volume 1, page 282, adds the following about the cult: St. Werenfrid is venerated throughout the diocese of Utrecht and its suffragans on the day XXVII, formerly on the XIV of August. These things about the cult certainly suffice. Now certain things concerning his sacred pledges come to be recorded.

[4] The author of the History of the Bishoprics of the United Netherlands in the cited place wrote this about the burial and elevation of the body: his body buried at Elst, then elevated, In that church, dedicated by St. Willibrord to the holy Savior, he was buried after his death: … whose sacred bones Balderic of Cleves, the XVth bishop of Utrecht, solemnly raised from the earth. The same Balderic set up in that same church a college of eight canonical prebends, to which Henry Ingelant, esquire, added four more in the year MCDLV. He then subjoins some provosts of that same college of St. Werenfrid: for his name was afterward given to the college as well as to the church. Moreover the author does not mention whence he received that elevation of the body: but John de Beke in the Chronicle of the Bishops of Utrecht, page 34, and William Heda in his History, page 79, write that the body of St. Werenfrid was found by Balderic, which must have been done in the tenth century, since Balderic departed this life in the year CMLVII, according to that writer's chronology. They add that he adorned his own church with those relics, which Raissius in the Gazophylacium Belgicum, page 337, so understands as though they had been deposited in the church of St. Martin at Utrecht. But this will appear false from what is to be said. Of the erected college of the canons of St. Werenfrid Aubert Le Mire is a witness in his little work On the Colleges of Canons, chapter 119, from which the aforesaid things were drawn.

[5] The Saint's body remained there until, when heresy prevailed in many places of the Netherlands, and at last burned at Elst by heretics, the impious fury of the Calvinists raged against it in the year 1588. Then indeed the remains of the body, burned by the heretical rabble, were translated to Emmerich (a town of Cleves upon the Rhine), and are kept to this day in the college of the Society of Jesus, the Saint's cult being on that occasion propagated thither. These things Father Frederick Eimeren, living at Emmerich, taught our elders in a letter written in the year 1669 to Henschen, with a catalogue of the relics of Emmerich appended, from which I shall draw what concerns our Saint. The ashes of the body of St. Werenfrid, priest and confessor, apostle of Lower Guelderland, companion of St. Willibrord, burned at Elst, a town of Upper Batavia, as it is now divided, by the Beggars in the year MDLXXXVIII, with a good many diminished little bones the size of a finger-joint left over from that same burning, gathered by Catholics and delivered to the Reverend Don John Hollant, canon of St. Stephen's at Nijmegen; who gave them, as he had received them, in the year MDCLX to the Reverend Father Theodore Ryswick of Nijmegen, priest of the Society of Jesus, one of the first fathers of the college of Emmerich; and afterward, in the year MDCXXV, destroyed in the squalor of prison at Nijmegen out of hatred of religion. To which this note is subjoined: So Father Ryswick with his own hand, except the last words.* The writer of the letter, Father Frederick Eimeren, adds that his own father, Don Theodore Eimeren, was present at the gathering of those relics while he was a youth, and that he died at Elst in the year 1629.

[6] the ashes and little bones being gathered and translated to Emmerich. But in the catalogue this follows: In the year MDCLXIV, on the XXV of March, the aforesaid ashes were placed, in a red silken bag, with all the little bones enclosed separately in glass, in a silver chest of five pounds, given by the most noble lady Maria Anna de Hutter, widow, of Huissen, with a sealed testimony on parchment containing the above; and thereafter the feast was celebrated in the college with a double rite on the XXVII of August, according to the ordinance of the most reverend lord Philip Rovenius, apostolic vicar throughout the parts of Holland, prescribed for the missionaries there in the Directory, whereas otherwise the feast was celebrated on the XIV of the same month. These things are confirmed from the annual letters of the college of Emmerich for the year 1664, from which the following was transmitted to our elders: The furniture of our church has been increased by a silver chest, through the munificence of the most noble lady Anna Maria de Hutter, lady van Huissen, in which, to promote public devotion, it pleased her to enclose the sacred ashes and little bones of the body of St. Werenfrid, priest and confessor, companion of St. Willibrord and patron of the formerly collegiate church of canons at Elst, burned by the heretical rabble; whom on the XXVII of August the Catholic people of Emmerich honored earnestly, by the public communion of many and by other exercises of devotion, for the averting of the plague. Thus far concerning the Saint's posthumous glory.

[7] The Acts already published, and to be published again from a manuscript: We have the Acts published by Surius at the XIV of August, and the same Father John Gamans sent hither in the year 1641, transcribed from a parchment manuscript Passional of the monastery of Böddeken of the Order of the Regulars of St. Augustine, in the diocese of Paderborn, where they are extant in the month of August, folio 181, as he notes. They also came to us in manuscript from the papers of the most illustrious Lindanus, bishop of Roermond, but mutilated here and there. I have collated both manuscripts with Surius's edition, prepared from a manuscript codex of the church of Utrecht, and found that they agree well among themselves, except for certain little words which do not change the sense. The author of this Life is anonymous, and not altogether contemporary, as he himself hints at number 8, where he says of the power of the miracles: Which the earlier age, still fresh in the faith, gave over to oblivion; but presently the age riper in faith took care to commit to memory a very few out of many, which the reading will recite in what follows. Yet I find nothing in the Life which is repugnant to sound judgment: nor can it be inferred from the words adduced that the biographer lived many centuries after St. Werenfrid. These Acts therefore I shall publish from the aforesaid manuscript of the monastery of Böddeken, noting, where it shall be worth the labor, the differences of Surius's edition.

[8] Yet a few things must first be inquired into concerning the time it is doubted whether the Saint came from England with St. Willibrord, in which the Saint flourished and died, and other things which are not clearly expressed in the Life. First of all it seems doubtful whether St. Werenfrid set out with St. Willibrord from England into Frisia, or whether he followed him afterward: for in the Life, number 1, it is only said that he followed St. Willibrord, which is ambiguous. Mabillon, volume 2 of the Benedictine Annals, page 116, thinks that from the beginning he was St. Willibrord's companion on this journey, whom the words of Greven cited at number 2 favor. But Bolland in the treatise on St. Suitbert, volume 1 of March, page 73, inclines rather to the contrary opinion, because he was sent into the Betuwe by St. Willibrord nearly thirty-six years after this first journey. For St. Willibrord is said to have come into Frisia in the year 690, as Mabillon has it in volume 1 of the Annals, page 591; but St. Werenfrid was sent to Elst a little after it was handed over to St. Willibrord by Charles Martel, as the Life has it at number 2, and therefore, as Bolland rightly infers, not before the year DCCXXVI, if indeed the charter of the grant is genuine which is extant in William Heda, page 30, dated "at the public fortress of Zülpich, in the month of July, on the IX day, in the sixth year of the reign of the glorious king of the Franks Theodoric," whom, he says, we have said elsewhere was set upon the throne of the kingdom by Charles Martel in the year DCCXX, when Chilperic was dead. Hence he rightly suspects that St. Werenfrid came into Frisia later, and was not sent to Elst only in the 36th year of the pilgrimage.

[9] Certainly, if the epoch of his death given at number 2 from the Florarium is not faulty, [and it is more likely that he set out for Frisia after him: of the time of his preaching and of his death.] Bolland's opinion appears certain enough: for it is in no way credible that the Saint went out of England in the year 690 and prolonged his Life until the year 760 there marked, since of so long an age — which would thus have had to be of nearly a hundred years — no mention is anywhere made. And although that epoch of his death does not seem certain enough on the authority of the Florarium, yet it is likely from elsewhere, because the Saint's death happened beyond the Ijssel, where I find the faith promulgated not much earlier. And so it is agreeable meanwhile to embrace that epoch as probable, until someone find something more certain. But hence it will be permissible to conjecture that St. Werenfrid was born in the seventh century as it drew to a close, that he came into Frisia long after St. Willibrord, perhaps about the year 720, that he preached for some years in Frisia, and at last was sent into the Betuwe in the year 726 or the following, and made that island and the neighboring places illustrious by the faith until his death. That he died on the day XIV of August, John Gerbrandus of Leiden writes in the Belgian Chronicle, book 2, chapter 42, where he hands down a summary of the Life drawn from the Acts which we shall subjoin: most others set the same day of death; whether on any other foundation than that he was formerly venerated on that day, I have not ascertained.

* perhaps MDCVI

LIFE

By an anonymous author

From the Böddeken manuscript, collated with Surius's edition and with the papers of Lindanus.

Werenfrid, priest and confessor, at Elst, a village of the Betuwe in Guelderland (St.)

BHL Number: 8858

By an anonymous author.

The Saint born in England, comes into Frisia, When our Lord and Savior, the sun of righteousness, willed to make the rays of his brightness shine everywhere through the world, far and wide he caused innumerable stars of that same brightness to rise * throughout the globe, which by the light of their virtues should put to flight the darkness of eternal night. For when the sun is absent, the stars are wont to illuminate the earth: so holy teachers, who are the stars of the firmament, when the everlasting sun is not everywhere present, light up the human race with the lamp of holy preaching. Of whom Ireland or Scotland brought forth very many to the world, and Britain and the Northumbria ^a adjoining it deserved to beget not a few. Among whom the supreme father Willibrord ^b rises as a most brilliant morning star among the stars, and is begotten brighter than the rest in the world by the light of his merits, by whose rays no small part of the world rejoices that it has been lighted up, because he exalted the nation of the Franks with the gift of holy learning, and by preaching subjected the fierceness of the Frisians to divine worship. But when he purposed, setting all things aside, to set out on pilgrimage, blessed Werenfrid, who was born in those same parts of the English, strove to follow St. Willibrord not only in his examples but also in his very footsteps. And spurning his country and his parents for divine love, being taught by the example of his pious father, he predestined himself to be a pilgrim in this pilgrimage, that he might the sooner afterward deserve to become a partaker of the eternal country.

[2] and is sent by St. Willibrord to Elst, where the faith, But St. Willibrord, by God's predestination governing the chair of the episcopal see at Utrecht ^c, and foreseeing that the sanctity of so great a man would be profitable to many, entrusted to him a certain place of his diocese, called Elst , a little before handed over to him by Charles, to be governed with the care of holy preaching. For there is a certain very populous island, called Batua ^d, which is girt about on every side by the channel of the river Rhine, in the middle of which that same aforesaid place is known to be situated. This therefore the Man of venerable life, as his pastor had decreed, undertook to govern, divine grace accompanying him, yet seeking nothing of earthly honor, but rather obeying his merciful father's commands. What more? What pertains to the Church is there swiftly built up; the worship of the ancient error is wholly cast down; the place is fully dedicated to the patronage of the Saints; the people are sanctified by holy preaching; God becomes appeasable toward the people by so great a Man's merit, and the people deserve to be acceptable to him, according to that which is written: And they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, their God.*

[3] renowned for many virtues, But St. Werenfrid, as a prudent steward whom his Lord set over his household, plentifully administering to the Lord's flock the nourishment of evangelical teaching, fulfilled by works what he taught in words: what he urged by a saving admonition he showed in his manners and examples. For he was endowed beyond the power of speech with the showing of good works, provident in consolation, comparable to none in humility, to be imitated by all in the receiving of the poor, gentle in mind, sweet in speech, sleepless in vigils, effectual in fasts, living by faith alone, since the just man lives by faith; unadorned in habit, calm in countenance, diligent in prayer, studious in sacred reading, given to continual meditation on the law of God, outstanding in chastity, and conspicuous for uprightness in all his manners, a restorer of the despairing, a consoler of the sorrowful: because he grieved with those who grieved, groaned with the sick, according to the voice of the teacher of the Gentiles, who says: Who is weak among you, and I am not weak? Thus therefore he directed the oarage of his profession by a straight course through the circle of this world's shipwreck, so that, adorned with spiritual delights, he might happily bring it to the harbor of eternal rest. Why do I linger among so great matters? But I will yet record a few things out of many, for brevity's sake. For in this Man I think enough is said, that he held the world with its allurements wholly in contempt, thought of nothing but heavenly things, ceased not eagerly to search out what is pleasing to God; naked to the world, enriched with faith, though set bodily just so much upon the earth, he beyond doubt dwelt spiritually in heaven, as the Apostle says: But our conversation is in heaven. Nor did it seem enough to the holy Man if he gained for the Lord only the people of that region there, but he took upon himself, under the care of governing, the church built in the village named Westervoort, which is known to be situated on the very bank of the river Rhine, to be governed at the hands of the aforesaid supreme pontiff.

[4] For the blessed Man, turning over silently with himself day and night he preaches excellently, what the Scripture of truth promises to holy teachers, saying: But they that are learned shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that instruct many unto justice, as stars for all eternity — without delay the Man devoted in all things to God, manfully armed with the heavenly sword, rebuilds what has been destroyed of the Church's goods, strenuously restores what has been ruined, and governs after God's manner what he has restored; he plainly plows the hearts of the people with a spiritual plowshare, and moreover sows not sparingly the seeds of the evangelical light: because he who sows sparingly shall also reap sparingly. He sowed in blessing, that he might reap a harvest of perpetual joy in recompense. He sowed in the spirit, that from the spirit he might gather in the future the traffic of the heavenly kingdom. But he watered the harvest of the Lord's crop unceasingly with the streams of the dew from above, and thence bore his Lord's fruit, now a hundredfold, now sixtyfold, to his granary. Whatever of earthly means he had received either by the bounty of others or by the labor of his own work, he asked for himself nothing beyond natural use, but by the hands of the poor zealously conveyed * it to the treasury of the King on high, where thieves do not dig through nor steal, nor rust nor moth destroy; and there he had fixed his heart inseparably, since thither he had directed himself with the whole intention of his mind.

[5] While the holy Man fully carried out these things and things like them one by one, and dies at Westervoort. and firmly established in Christ the government of both places, the time of his dissolution was at hand, that, the contest of his temporal warfare being finished, he might deserve to enter the camp of Christ the King to be crowned. But he does not tremble to return joyful to his Lord with the talent entrusted to him now doubled, to whom none of us doubts that it was said in particular by the Lord's voice: Well done, good and faithful servant; because you have been faithful over a few things, I will set you over many things; enter into the joy of your Lord. The holy Man therefore, in the aforesaid village of Westervoort, being bodily touched by the force of fevers, and being now advanced to a desirable number of days, began to languish in the flesh, because he then perceived that he was growing strong in soul. And so, having called to him religious men, namely of both orders, he strengthened them in the faith as an excellent father, and presently revealed to them that he was about to pass from the flesh. And after no long interval, the manner of holy funeral rites being performed, free from all defilement, distinguished by the trophy of his merits, he passed out of the prison of this flesh, to rejoice happily without end in the Lord. Who can doubt that the lamentations of them all pressed grievously? Who could endure the groaning or weeping of the bystanders? He was rightly to be lamented by them, who is now to be venerated by us as suppliants. Indeed, as his holy soul went out from the mass of his flesh, so wondrous a fragrance of sweetness invaded the bystanders that it was most manifestly declared to all that the spirit of so great a Man was being led by the hands of angels to the heavenly court.

[6] A dissension having arisen about the body, As soon as a report of this kind thundered through the land, the whole people flowed thither sorrowing, and all the Betuwe, groaning and mourning, rushed across the deep pools of the aforesaid river, and, flowing together thither from every side, stood around the lifeless body in grief. A discussion arises about the burial of the body, which gave the people cause for no small dissension. There burns one grief among the bystanders, but not the same will in all. For the multitude of the islanders declare that the holy body ought to be carried to Elst, and there in its own place earth be commended to earth. He was, they say, our pastor while he lived; he will also be our perpetual intercessor before God. What he began among us while living in the flesh, now reigning in Christ he ought to fulfill. To this the opposite party of the people: Rightly indeed, they say, does he rest here in the body, where he himself willed to give up the spirit. Let it be enough for you to have had him living in the flesh, whom we rejoice to have even now dead in the flesh. What he accomplished among you by teaching while he lived, he will now among us also, resting and reigning in heaven, fulfill.

[7] it is placed in a ship, which of its own accord crosses the river, While the people wrangled among themselves long enough with these words, certain of the priests, better in counsel, broke into this speech: We read, they say, of the ark of the Lord's covenant once led into captivity, that those very men who had taken it captive set it upon a new wagon, and yoked to that wagon two cows, their calves being shut up at home, so that the wagon with the ark might be drawn by them and led to its own place by God's bidding: which also was done. Let there be from this too a testing of the matter of this kind: let the holy body be carried at once to a ship, and if that ship, without any of you rowing, crosses the river of its own accord, it will be manifest to us all what he himself has willed. And no less let a new wagon be prepared with two cows which are suckling calves at home, so that, the holy clod being placed in it, it may be brought wherever it is to be brought. To this all at once assented. And without delay: they make ready a ship as quickly as possible, they carry the bier to the shore with hymns and psalmody, they set down the ship, they permit no one to enter into the midst of it. A thing altogether to be marveled at by all: that same ship, by so straight a course

crossing the river, put in to the other shore, that it became plainly known to all that it had been steered by an angelic oarsman. As soon as the bystanders beheld this, all with one voice praised the Lord, who deigned by such a miracle to show them the merit of his Servant.

[8] then in a wagon, which the cows bring to Elst: Then without doubt the example of the aforesaid matter is followed: a new wagon with two cows, as was said above, is speedily procured, and the holy body is reverently set upon it. What more? The cows indeed, which had never borne a yoke, went under the vehicle as tamely as though they had always been accustomed to that work, wholly forgetful of their calves, in no way straying by byways, but held their course along the straight path, and brought the holy body as far as Elst, with the attendance, as must be believed, of angels, and with a concourse of peoples praising God. There too, as was fitting, the treasure of so great preciousness is commended to burial with all veneration. For there through the intercessions of so great a Father many miraculous powers are declared by the Lord, which the earlier age, still fresh in the faith, gave over to oblivion; but presently the age riper in faith took care to commit to memory a very few out of many, which the reading will recite in what follows.

[9] There was a certain man in the parts of Aquitaine, Ancelmus by name, a paralytic, admonished to visit the tomb, is healed there, who, being altogether destitute of the use of all his limbs, lived panting by his breath alone. And when one evening he was being laid pitiably upon his bed, as a paralytic, it is said to him in a nocturnal vision, by name: Ancelmus, do you wish to be made whole? If you will take care to be healed, I will show you where you are to go. There is a place in a far country which is called Elst, where Werenfrid the confessor of Christ rests in body: if you come thither and humbly invoke his intercession, by his merit you shall be restored to the best of health.* After this, being awakened from sleep, he becomes astonished in mind; he kept the name of the place with him, but he knew not at all the way by which he should go: he gave credit to the vision, because he was made glad by the promise of a remedy. Nor did he long delay to set out, since he repented of tarrying long: he made ready a vehicle for his journey, and, with Christ as leader, delayed not to come the more swiftly where he had to go. And when he arrived there weak, he at once joyfully obtained the health promised him.

[10] Afterward, when he is strengthened with the natural soundness of his limbs, [but returning to his own country he falls sick again, and is again healed at the tomb:] of his own accord he binds himself to the perpetual service of blessed Werenfrid: for he vowed to persevere there at all times in his service. But not long after, a circuit of days being passed, he determined to return to his country with joy. But when, sound, he had come to his own, he presently becomes as paralyzed as he had been before: he is struck in mind, conscious of his own purpose; he repents of returning, he is ashamed of the deed. Mourning and weak he returned again whence he had departed rejoicing and whole. For the divine mercy restored him a second time to that health which he ceaselessly implored through the merit of so great a Man that he might be healed. Nor is there need of delay: three times in returning to his country he is made weak, and three times, repenting, on returning he is restored to health by the holy Man's clemency. At length also, being overcome, he prefers to be an exile rather than to dwell weak at home with his own. And thus, enjoying his soundness, he remained there until the end of his life.

[11] Nor is this to be kept silent, that a certain woman in the village called Leona a boy devoted to the Saint is restored to health: had a child weak, with his sinews altogether drawn together, whom she vowed, if he were healed, to give to the service of St. Werenfrid. And without delay she rose in haste, made to go to the church, carrying with her in her arms her crippled son, that she might offer him to the Lord as she had promised to offer him. But when she had hastened at a quick pace, in the middle of a field the little one fell from his mother's embrace to the ground, and, the frames of his sinews being made firm, he is at once divinely healed, and after his fall is taken up sound who had fallen to the ground before that weak. And the mother joyfully takes up the little one, and him whom she had before, groaning, vowed while sick, now going gladly to the church she offered sound to the holy Father's service.

[12] a leper, forewarned by a vision, is cleansed at Elst during Mass. At another time also, in a district bearing the name Veluwe ^e, a leprosy of such harshness discolored a certain man that his face scarcely appeared to anyone for the excess of scab: the corruption moreover blinded the very sharpness of his eyes, so that he could by sight recognize no one at all, since, tormented with so great a misery, only his breath remained to him. And it happened that on a certain night he saw a vision, by which, being astounded, he fell from his pallet and prostrated himself in the form of a cross, crying out and shouting, and in his crying repeated often Kyrie eleison. His parents, awakened by that cry, began to ask what had happened to him, that he was more impatient than usual. But he, recalling the vision well, related to them all that he had seen in order, saying thus: It seemed to me that I had to go through a certain place, which a miry marsh girt about on every side, so that no way of crossing at all lay open by which I could depart thence. Hence, while I was greatly anxious and beside myself, there met me a priest venerable in appearance and reverently clothed in a priestly habit, as though he were about to go forth to the solemnities of the Masses, and, a bridge being made ready over the marsh, he led me across unharmed, and said: Is it your care to be healed? Know that I am called Werenfrid, and through me you deserve to be cured of leprosy. And when the solemnity of the archangel Michael is celebrated, you must come to Elst, and there, while the divine solemnities of the Masses are celebrated by the bishop ^f, you shall be cleansed of your deadly corruption. When these things were heard, his parents were made gladder than usual, and brought him, as he himself had wished, to Elst. Nor did the vision long defer its promise. For when the bishop who then presided there had, on the same day which he had foretold, offered the libations of the Masses to the Lord, so did the burning plague vanish from him that no spot of that poisonous color appeared on him. And he himself not only perceived that he was cleansed of leprosy, but also deserved to receive back the lost light of his eyes. The declaration of this astounding miracle is affirmed by the testimony not of one or two, but the most manifest declaration of the whole people, who had then flocked to the church, shows it to be true. These and many other miracles, which it would be too long to narrate all one by one, our Lord Jesus Christ deigned to show there, so that by these benefits of miracles it might be openly shown to us all of how great dignity his Servant was held with him. Wherefore it must above all be believed that he can by his merits heal the wounds of sins, who by so many ways deigned by his aid to cure the languors of bodies: our Lord Jesus Christ granting it, to whom be honor and glory through immortal ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

in Surius oriri*

Surius Elste*

perhaps meditationi*

* in the manuscript of Lindanus only

elsewhere transmisit*

in Surius Ancelinus*