Raymond

ON BLESSED RAYMOND, ABBOT OF FITERO, OF THE CISTERCIAN ORDER, FOUNDER OF THE ORDER OF CALATRAVA,

Year of Christ 1163.

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Raymond, Abbot of Fitero, Founder of the Order of Calatrava in Spain (Blessed)

By I. B.

CHAPTER I

Blessed Raymond, Abbot of Fitero: in Navarre or Castile?

[1] The memory of Raymond is consecrated on this day in the Cistercian Menologies -- he who first instituted the noble militia of Calatrava. Only this much has been committed to writing; the rest lies in obscurity. Alfonso Villegas, volume 2 of the Flower of the Saints, and Francisco Caro de Torres in his History of the Military Orders, wrote that he was born at Barcelona; Chrysostomus Henriquez, Fasciculus of the Saints of the Cistercian Order, book 1, distinction 17, says at Tarragona, Raymond, from a hermit, and adds that he, somewhat imbued with the knowledge of letters, had gone into solitude, where he might more freely contemplate divine things far from the tumult of the world; then, as the fame of the Cistercians' piety was widely spread, he embraced that institute in the celebrated monastery of Scala Dei among the Basques, of the diocese of Tarbes, which Gaspar Jongelinus reports was founded in the year of Christ 1137, in his Notices of Abbeys, book 1, number 74. Antonio Yepes, volume 7 of the Benedictine Chronicle, at the year 1140, chapter 5, writes that he is said to have been a Canon of Tarragona or a Canon, before he joined the Cistercians. Angel Manrique says he was a Canon of Tarazona. Three years after he had given his name to the Cistercian Order, Henriquez writes that he was sent from Scala Dei with Durando, a monk of proven virtue, to the neighboring kingdom of Navarre and commanded to lead a colony of his Order thither; that they built the most humble huts on the very highest summit of Mount Yerga. From that place, being too rough and inaccessible, they descended to the plains and laid the foundations of a monastery a Cistercian monk, beside the ruins of the city of Nienzaba, formerly destroyed by the Moors. When the Abbot Durando died, Raymond was placed over the monastery; soon, compelled by want, he sought another place, then an Abbot, called Castejon or, by others, Castellon; thence again, summoned around the year 1150 by Pedro Tizon, a nobleman, he established a permanent seat on his land, he builds Fitero which was called Fitero, the same man supplying all the materials and expense for the buildings. There remain, however, on the summit of Yerga traces of the first habitation in that region, and two monks from Fitero live there, guardians of a celebrated statue of the Virgin Mother of God, to which a frequent multitude flocks.

[2] These are the beginnings of Fitero as Henriquez relates. It is situated across the Ebro on the river Alhama, four leagues from the city of Tutela or Tudela, on the river Alhama, three from Alfaro, two from Cervera, and half a league from the modern border of Castile; commonly called Hitero or Fitero. For that Raymond was Abbot of this Fitero, even before Chrysostom, Jeronimo Zurita wrote in his Annals of Aragon, book 2, chapter 21, and after him Francisco Caro and Jongelinus in his Notices of Abbeys, book 6. But our Mariana, book 11 of the History of Spain, chapter 6, writes: "Raymond, not on the Pisuerga, Abbot of Fitero on the Pisuerga. Those err who assign this glory to the monastery of Fitero which is situated among the Basques, not far from Tudela, since it is established that it was built at a subsequent time." Aubert le Mire in his Cistercian Chronicle subscribes to this, as do Ludovico Nunez, Spain chapter 62, Esteban de Garibay, Compendium of History, book 13, chapter 11, and Francisco de Pisa, History of Toledo, book 4, chapter 9. The river beside which this Fiterum or Fiterium is said to have been situated, Le Mire (perhaps through the carelessness of the copyist) calls the Sisorica; commonly it is the Pisuerga, Pisurga to Nunez, and from an ancient inscription which he cites, Pisoraca; it joins the Duero at Simancas. But Henriquez contends that no monastery existed at Fitero in Castile, and says it is established that the other one in Navarre was founded many years before the institution of the Order of Calatrava; yet he produces no testimony of certain trustworthiness, nor does Jongelinus, who asserts that Mariana is very much mistaken. Garibay says that the monks of Fitero in Navarre not only glory in the Blessed Abbot Raymond, but also presented petitions to the Catholic King and the Congregation of the Order of Calatrava, in which they demanded to be restored to the possession of their ancient patrimony; but that he had seen certain documents of the foundation of monasteries of the kingdom of Navarre, in which Fitero is said to have been founded by Sancho the Strong, the eighth of that name, King of Navarre, who did not assume the kingdom until the year 1194. Jongelinus writes that some believe the work to be that of Sancho VII, surnamed the Wise, who reigned from the year 1150 to 1194. But Yepes, at the place already cited, from certain (as it appears) documents of Fitero, asserts that it was once in the dominion of the King of Castile, as were other surrounding places, and that even now Mount Yerga itself is so. That they came from Scala Dei at the invitation of Alfonso VII, who was called Emperor of the Spains, or of his sister Sancha, a most devout Virgin. formerly in Castile, now in Navarre. After a long dispute between the Castilians and the Navarrese concerning boundaries, in the year 1334 Fitero was adjudged to Navarre by a Legate of the Supreme Pontiff. If these things are so, then all that controversy among the writers about Fitero will be settled, especially since no other Cistercian monastery of Fitero appears in their Catalogues. Angel Manrique confirms and illustrates the same things in the Cistercian Annals; but we had long since composed what we give here before we were able to see those Annals.

CHAPTER II

Calatrava Defended. A Military Order Established There.

[3] Calatrava, a not obscure town of Spain among the Oretani on the river Anas, is considered by some to be the same as what Ptolemy, book 2 of his Geography, chapter 6, calls Oretum Germanorum -- "Oretum of the Germans"; Calatrava is not Oretum Germanicum, the ridiculous origin of which name Francisco Tarafa reports in his Valerian: "The Upper Germans," he says, "seized the devastated parts of Spain at these times; from them the Germans, who are the Oretani, and Oretum Germanicum, a town of Estremadura (today they call it Calatrava) was founded." How could a town have been founded under the Emperor Valerian, after the year of Christ 259, when Ptolemy, whom Suidas reports wrote under Marcus Aurelius, nearly a hundred years before the reign of Valerian, mentions it? Moreover, Pliny the Elder himself, under Vespasian, writes thus in book 3, chapter 3, speaking of the peoples of Hither Spain: "The Oretani, who are also surnamed Germani." Otherwise, Juan Vaseo and others interpret Oretum as Calatrava. So he writes in his Chronicle of Spain, chapter 20: "The Oretani are on the border of Tarraconensis, Baetica, and Lusitania, commonly called Calatrava. They now have no Bishop, but a convent of Knights of the military Order of the Cistercian Order, which is surnamed from Calatrava."

[4] Ambrosio de Morales, cited by Nunez in chapter 62 of Spain, denies that Calatrava was Oretum Germanorum; but after its destruction but says there is, not far from the city, a little chapel which the inhabitants call Nuestra Senora de Oreto, and that the ancient Oretum was here. For that church too shows Roman architecture and has a neighboring bridge of the same workmanship. built nearby by the Moors; It is therefore probable that after the destruction of Oretum, Calatrava was built, or at least fortified, by the Moors. Alfonso VII, King of Castile, wrested it from them, as Rodrigo of Toledo, book 7 on the History of Spain, chapter 4, reports: "Calatrava," he says, "which was gravely harassing the kingdom of Toledo, he captured after a long siege with assaults and siege-engines, and granted the church, with many possessions and the tithes of the royal revenues, to D. Raymond, Primate of Toledo; and of the dependencies of that town's jurisdiction which were distinguished by their fortifications, taken from them by Alfonso VII, King, some he retained, others he razed to the ground -- namely Alacuris, Caracuel, Petruchel, Santa Eufemia, Mestanza, Alcudia, and Almodovar." He then gave that city, as Mariana writes in book 10, chapter 14, given to the Templars; to the Knights Templar, whose reputation for singular valor had begun to grow, so that (as he adds in book 11, chapter 6) it might serve as a fortress to repel the incursions of the barbarians.

[5] When Alfonso subsequently died and his sons were reigning -- Sancho in Castile, Ferdinand in Leon and Galicia -- returned by them to Sancho III, King, it was given back to the King of Castile by the Templars, who, because rumor had it that the Moors were about to come there with strong forces, felt that they did not have sufficient strength to defend it. It was then given to two Cistercian monks, Raymond, Abbot of Fitero, and Diego Velazquez, who voluntarily demanded it. And from this arose the origin of the Order of Calatrava. How these things were accomplished, the same Rodrigo Ximenez, very close to those times -- since he testifies that he himself saw one of these two -- narrates in book 7, chapter 14.

[6] King Sancho came to Toledo, and a rumor grew that the Arabs were coming with a great army to Calatrava. The Brothers of the Knights Templar, who held the fortress of Calatrava, fearing that they would be unable to withstand the violence of the Arabs, approached King Sancho in supplication, out of fear of the Saracens; that he might take back both the fortress and the town of Calatrava, since they had no power to resist the Arabs; nor was anyone found among the more powerful men who was willing to face the peril of its defense. Now at that time there was in the royal city Raymond, a man of religion, Abbot of Fitero, and with him a certain monk called Diego Velazquez, a nobleman and formerly vigorous in the military office, born in the region of Burgo, and brought up from his youth with King Sancho. He, seeing the King anxious about the danger of Calatrava, advised the Abbot to petition the King for Calatrava; and although the Abbot at first held back, given to Blessed Raymond, Abbot of Fitero: he at last consented to the monk, once a soldier, who was entreating him; and approaching the King, he petitioned for Calatrava. And although some considered him foolish, yet, as it pleased the Lord, the King consented.

[7] And the Abbot with the monk immediately came to the Primate John, who then presided over the Church of Toledo. He, hearing their holy purpose, gave thanks to God, here with the help of the Archbishop of Toledo and immediately gave assistance from his own resources, and had it publicly preached that all who went to the aid of Calatrava would deserve the pardon of all their sins. And so great was the commotion in the city that there was scarcely anyone who did not either go in his own person, or generously bestow horses, arms, and of the citizens, or money for the cause. And King Sancho immediately gave to the Abbot, and to St. Mary of Fitero, in perpetual possession, the town and fortress of Calatrava. And the Abbot with the monk Diego Velazquez came, with the Lord as guide, to Calatrava. And so it was brought about, by the direction of the Most High, he repels the Saracens: that the army of the Saracens, of which the rumor had grown, did not arrive. And then many whom devotion had stirred, in a modified habit as military agility demanded, received their Order, and immediately they began to carry out slaughter and battles against the Arabs; he institutes the military Order of Calatrava: and with the Lord's aid, the work prospered in the hands of the monks. Then the Abbot, returning to the monastery, brought with him to Calatrava the herds and flocks and other movable goods with which Fitero then abounded, as well as a multitude of warriors, to whom he supplied pay and provisions, he summons forces from elsewhere: leaving behind only the weak and the sick for the service of the monastery; and, as I have heard from those who saw it, he brought with him nearly twenty thousand men. And this man was the first Abbot at Fitero. When he died he was buried in the town called Ciruelos, near Toledo, where God through him (as it is reported) works miracles. after death he is illustrious for miracles. Diego Velazquez, however, lived a long time afterward; I even remember having seen him, and he died in the monastery of St. Peter of Gumiel.

[8] So writes Rodrigo. Mariana writes that to those whom Raymond had brought from the neighboring towns of Fitero, fields were divided and towns near Calatrava, since they were empty of inhabitants, were designated as domiciles. His companion Diego Velazquez. Francisco Caro de Torres and Antonio Yepes write that Diego Velazquez was born at Bureba, near Burgos. He survived for a long time, if what Jongelinus writes is true -- that the monastery of St. Peter of Gumiel was founded about the year 1200. It is situated in the diocese of Osma. Mariana calls it Gumiela; Rodrigo, Gomellus. Arnold Wion, Tree of Life, book 1, chapter 47, considers Blessed Diego Velazquez to be practically the chief author of the military Order of Calatrava.

CHAPTER III

Praises of the Order of Calatrava.

[9] It is not our purpose here to pursue the deeds of this most noble Order, whether bravely accomplished in war or devoutly at home. Many things about them have been committed to writing by Spanish authors. The privileges granted by various Pontiffs to this and other military Congregations that observe the Cistercian institute, and their Rules and Constitutions, have been collected and arranged by Chrysostomus Henriquez. Rules of the Knights of Calatrava, Briefly, Mariana has embraced all its glories in book 11, chapter 6, as follows: "From these beginnings the sacred militia of Calatrava, brought to this splendor which we behold, was confirmed by Alexander III with his diploma, Privileges, Garcia being its first Grand Master, in the year 1164. Garcia was succeeded by Martin Perez, Martin by Nuno Perez, then Quinones, and after them others. The domicile, which was first established at Calatrava, then migrated to Ciruelos, then to Bujeda, then to Corcoles, and then to Salvatierra; possessions; finally to Covos, under Nuno Fernando, the twelfth Grand Master of the militia. There are indeed other smaller houses of this Order established in other places, but that one is the chief. Resources, authority, and the dominion over many towns have accrued through the outstanding generosity of the Kings. to whom should these be given? These towns were formerly entrusted to men of the Order who had completed their military service, so that they might honestly sustain their life from those revenues, yet they did not leave them as hereditary possessions to their descendants." So he writes. Would that -- to use his own phrase -- things having been changed from antiquity, they might never be given over to the luxuries of courtiers, at the caprice of Kings!

[10] I shall add the honorable testimonies of two ancient writers concerning this Order. The first is Rodrigo Ximenez, already cited, Archbishop of Toledo, who in book 7, chapter 27, writes as follows: "Sancho his father gave Fitero to Calatrava; Alfonso was the noble fulfiller of their destiny. Contemplation undertook the militia, and the departure of the Brothers from Fitero. King Alfonso raised them up and enriched them with many possessions: he offered them Zurita and Almochara, Macheda, Aceca, and Cocolludo, and removed the burden of their poverty and added suitable riches. Their multiplication was the crown of the Prince; they praised in psalms, they were girded with the sword; and they who groaned in prayer fought for the defense of the homeland: their sanctity, a slender table was their sustenance, and the roughness of wool their covering; assiduous discipline proved them, and the practice of silence accompanied them; frequent genuflection humbled them, and nocturnal vigil wasted them; devout prayer instructed them, and continuous labor exercised them; each watched over the paths of the other, and brother guided brother to discipline."

[11] The same author in book 8, chapter 3, enumerating the forces which various Princes and Bishops brought to the aid of Alfonso VIII, son of Sancho, in the year 1212, writes among other things as follows: "There were also the Brothers of Calatrava under one Grand Master of their militia, Rodrigo Diaz -- a fraternal society pleasing to God and men." Among the cities then recovered from the Moors was Calatrava itself, military expeditions, which they had occupied after the defeat inflicted on Alfonso at Alarcos in the year 1195; this city, as the same author writes in book 8, chapter 6, was immediately fortified by the Brothers, who had long resided there, and restored to the Christian name. Shortly afterward, in the battle at Las Navas de Tolosa, where a most noble victory was won, the same Brothers of Calatrava held the center of the line with others, as the same author relates in chapter 9.

[12] James of Vitry the Cardinal, not much younger than Rodrigo, in chapter 17 of his Western History writes as follows: "In the regions of Spain, certain devout and humble men, who are called Brothers * of Calatrava, having professed the Rule and observances of the aforesaid Order, have moreover consecrated their hands to the Lord, by the authority of the Supreme Pontiff and with the consent of the entire Order, fighting against the Saracens, and wholesomely bound by a vow to the defense of Christians against impious and infidel men. Moreover, that they may always be ready and prepared for battle, sustenance: they use trousers. But also the Lord Pope Innocent, pitying their labors, granted them the use of meat in time of expedition and war. And when they live in desert places or forests, they are permitted to relieve their want by eating from their hunt." So he writes. Now this Pope Innocent is the third of that name, who held the see from the beginning of the year 1198 until the 13th of July, 1216. The memory of the institution of this Order is consecrated in the Cistercian Calendar on the 15th of January in these words: anniversary of the institution: "Institution of the sacred militia of Calatrava, under St. Raymond, Abbot of Fitero, in the year 1159." But the Order was instituted in the year 1158 or toward the end of 1157, for King Sancho did not live until the year 1159. For, as Lucas of Tuy writes, he succeeded his father in the Era 1195, and reigned for one year and twelve days. He died, moreover, as Rodrigo reports, on the day before the Kalends of September, or, as others read, of November.

* In the printed text it reads "Calatrapiae."

CHAPTER IV

The Death, Translation, and Miracles of Blessed Raymond.

[13] When Raymond had governed the new Order for five or six years and had recovered many towns (if Chrysostomus Henriquez and other more recent writers are to be believed) from the Moors -- had at any rate fortified Calatrava with works, provisions, and soldiers, and some neighboring places as well -- he departed this life in the town Blessed Raymond dies: which Rodrigo calls Ciruelos and others Ciruelos. Chrysostomus says that he, broken by old age, had retired there for the sake of rest. In his Notes on the Menology, February 1, letter M, he writes as follows: "That Blessed Raymond was enrolled in the number of the Saints, many authors assert, among them Juan de Mariana, Aubert le Mire, and others." Le Mire, in his Cistercian Chronicle, treating of the Order of the Knights of Calatrava, recites the very words of Mariana and in the margin calls Blessed Raymond. The words of Mariana are these, in book 11, chapter 6: "After Abbot Raymond had died some years later at the town of Ciruelos, where he was also buried, honors were paid to him by the people for the service he had rendered; he is held as a Saint: to such a degree that he was believed to have shone forth with miracles and is placed in the number of the heavenly." The fame of miracles had already spread in the age of Rodrigo Ximenez. We have nowhere read of a legitimate canonization. Arnold Wion, Tree of Life, book 1, chapter 47, and Jongelinus call him St. Raymond, as also does Manrique in the Annals of the Cistercian Order.

[14] Henriquez recounts some of his miracles; for in his Notes on February 1 in the Menology he has the following: he drives away storms: "To this very day, whenever a storm threatens, upon the ringing of the bells whose ropes reach the sepulchre where the body of the holy man was once honorably entombed, immediately, by a great miracle indeed, the serenity of the sky returns." He says that many more of his miracles are recounted by Barnabas de Montalbo in his Chronicles; and he himself commemorates the following, though in a verbose and diffuse style, as is generally the case elsewhere.

[15] The sacred remains were held in great veneration at Ciruelos, and neither the Knights of Calatrava nor the Cistercian monks were able to obtain them from the townspeople by any means. his Relics translated: At length, Luis Nunez, Canon of Toledo and Archdeacon of Madrid, in the year 1468, by the authority of Pope Paul II, transferred them to Monte Sion, a Cistercian monastery not far from Toledo; and in a chapel of the Mother of God, built by himself, on the left side

of the altar, he placed it. Another small chapel was later erected and dedicated to him, and many miracles were thenceforward wrought through his aid. For when an epidemic was raging at Toledo, illnesses cured through his aid, for very many people water touched with a particle consecrated from Raymond's relics served as a means of health. A certain man in the same monastery had a tumor of superfluous flesh growing on his head, which caused him enormous torment along with deformity. He anointed it with oil taken from the lamp tumor and pain of the head: that hung before the Saint's sepulchre, and immediately felt it subside and the pain driven away. On many occasions, when the relics were displayed to distinguished persons or brought out from the tomb for some other reason, they seemed to exhale a certain divine odor.

[16] Garcia Lopez de Padilla, Grand Master of the Knights of Calatrava, since he was unable by any entreaties to obtain the sacred body from the monks of Monte Sion, to be carried away to Calatrava, a statue erected to him: fitted an arch of distinguished workmanship to his sepulchre, and placed there a statue of him distinguished by mitre and crosier, with SS. Benedict and Bernard on either side. In the middle of the arch was engraved this inscription: "This arch was erected at the care of the most Magnificent and Illustrious Lord Brother Garcia Lopez de Padilla, Grand Master of the Order and Militia of Calatrava, in the year of the Lord 1485."

[17] Marcus Villalva, Abbot of Fitero and General of the Cistercian Congregation in Castile, relics enclosed in a silver casket: a holy man, erected for Blessed Raymond in the presbytery of Monte Sion, on the Epistle side, a new monument, where his body, enclosed in a silver casket, is honorably preserved, with this inscription added: "Here lies Raymond, a monk of this Order, first Abbot of Fitero, through whose merits God has deigned to work many miracles; who, by the authority and power of the King, Lord Sancho, surnamed the Desired, defended Calatrava from the incursion of the Moors and there instituted the military Order of Calatrava. He died in the year of the Lord 1163. He was translated to this sepulchre in the year of the Lord 1590."

[18] These things are related essentially by Chrysostom in the Cistercian Fasciculus, distinction 17, chapter 4, and by Manrique; more briefly by Jongelinus, book 6, where he treats of Fitero. other miracles: Alfonso Villegas writes that he obtains great veneration in the monastery of Monte Sion, to which he says he was translated in the year 1471, and that the monks testify to miracles wrought there by God through his merits. Francisco de Pisa mentions him in his History of Toledo, book 4, chapter 9, and calls him a holy Abbot.

[19] his feast day, His feast day is recorded in the Cistercian Calendar published at Dijon in 1617 on the Kalends of February in these words: "Raymond, Abbot of Fitero, first author of the Militia of Calatrava." With a more ample encomium, Henriquez adorns him on the same day, and on the 5th of March has the following: Translation. "In Spain, the Translation of Blessed Raymond, Abbot of the Cistercian Order, when his body was carried from the town of Ciruelos to the monastery of Monte Sion with great honor, by Pontifical authority." But the Cistercian Calendar places that first Translation on the 15th of March in these words: "Translation of St. Raymond, Abbot, to Monte Sion near Toledo, in the year 1590." But the author of this Calendar errs in the date, as is clear from what has been said. Nor does it appear to have occurred on the 15th of March, since the letters of Paul II, by which he decreed that Translation should take place, are said to have been given on the 15th of March of the year 1468. For it could not have been done before those letters were issued, nor is it likely that it was delayed for an entire year after they were received. Hugo Menard, because he did not know the feast day of Blessed Raymond, placed him on the 15th of March, as he himself confesses, because on that day the decree concerning the Translation had been issued by the Pontiff. He writes as follows: "In the territory of Toledo, of St. Raymond, Abbot, Founder of the Militia of Calatrava, of the Cistercian Order." Blessed Raymond is mentioned by Rodrigo Mendez Silva in his Description of Castile, chapter 72, and by all who have written on the military Orders or on Spanish affairs.