Wolfhold

CONCERNING BLESSED WOLFHOLD, PRIEST, AT HOHENWARTH IN BAVARIA.

AFTER THE YEAR 1100.

Wolfhold, Priest, in Bavaria (Blessed)

BY I. B.

[1] Summontorium, or Alta-specula, says Bruschius in his Chronology of the Monasteries of Germany, in German Hohenwart, once a celebrated castle of the Counts of Tauern (who, dwelling of old between Hall and Innsbruck, from this castle were also called the Counts of Alta-specula, or of Hohenwart, and are said to have also founded the castle of Schrobenhausen), but now an elegant convent of nuns of the Benedictine profession, at Hohenwarth in Bavaria, and of the diocese of Augsburg, on a most pleasant hill by the little river Paar, and converted from a castle into an oratory, from a house of hunting and pleasures into a house of prayers and honorable studies, by Count Rapoto of Tauern and his wife Emma. Our Matthew Rader has nearly the same in volume 2 of Holy Bavaria in the Life of Blessed Richildis: and so do Wiguleus Hund in volume 2 of the Metropolis, under Hohenwart, and Christopher Gewold. Our Andrew Brunner also, in the Annals of Bavaria, volume 3, book 11, section 6, narrates that Rapoto converted the ancestral castle, which gave the family its name, which was formerly Summontorium, and which is without doubt one of the most ancient that Bavaria can display, into a nunnery and consecrated it to holier pursuits. He adds that it stood even when the Romans still held power in Vindelicia, famous under the name of Summontorium. Aventinus calls it Sumuntorium and Hochowartum in book 2 of the Annals of Bavaria, and says it is a village and a convent of women, formerly a most strongly fortified castle.

[2] The same author attests that many bones of Saints are interred here, which, as Bruschius and Hund report, are customarily displayed at certain times with great veneration. Besides others unknown to us, the body of Blessed Richildis the Virgin is preserved there, about whom we shall treat on August 22, and in the same tomb some bones of St. Juliana, a Virgin and Martyr of the company of St. Ursula: also the body of Blessed Wolfhold the Priest, Blessed Wolfhold the Priest is venerated, whose Life Rader transcribes from the charters of Summontorium and Scheyern. He does not specify his period; he writes only that he lived after the year 1100: inasmuch as he dwelt at that church, dedicated (as tradition has it) in the year 1074, whose chief founder, Count Ortholphus, son of Rapoto, led some Bavarian troops to Syria with Godfrey of Bouillon in the year 1096.

LIFE, By Matthew Rader, Society of Jesus.

Wolfhold, Priest, in Bavaria (Blessed)

[1] In the church of Summontorium, Wolfhold, initiated into the major sacred orders, is venerated with great devotion on the Kalends of February. Beside the chapel of Blessed Richildis, a sepulchral stone is attached to the side of the church, within which Blessed Wolfhold is interred, nightly he enters the church, the doors opening of their own accord: who once dwelt at this sacred church, and lived with great virtue, accustomed to rise every night without exception, to seek the threshold of the church, to enter through doors divinely opened, and to depart after his prayers, the doors closing of their own accord after the divine man's departure. For this reason, he had the people as suppliants at his tomb, with the same devotion as for Richildis: although neither he nor she has come into the roll of the Blessed by any solemn rite, the people being content with the private veneration of their own nation. There exists here a very ancient epitaph about him:

Here lies the departed Wolfhold, who served in holy orders. The praise of his example is made manifest by the doors of the church, Giving true harmony to the Priest's vows, Frequently confirmed: by Peter's prayer they were opened.

[2] after death he shines with miracles: Healings of bodies wrought by Blessed Wolfhold in various years after his death have been written to me, of which I shall set forth just one by way of example, for it is not the purpose of my work. In the year 1492, on the sixth day before the Ides of September, in the town of Summontorium, a tailor, a native of the village of Seibolstorf, named Stephen, to whom his trade gave his surname, was suffering immensely from a severe stone in his bladder, so that he could find rest nowhere. to a certain man suffering from a stone, When he was now lying at the point of death and indeed despaired of his life, the surgeons engaged for his treatment refused to lay hands on a man of his age (for he was already burdened with years and quite elderly), unless the patient offered himself as a victim of death, and his death would not be held against them. Stephen, though anxious at this announcement, yet compelled by the force of his pain, promised that he would be in their power, whatever God should decree for him. They then promise to be present the next morning, ready to try the last resort for his recovery and within their skill. The sick man, nearly paralyzed with fear, tossed about in his sleep throughout the night, and continually turned over in his mind the danger of the approaching day. At length, exhausted by pain and trembling with fear, he turned to God with the humblest prayers and took a vow that, if he were freed from such great evils and torments and the ultimate peril to his life, he would crawl on bare knees up the hill to the convent, to give thanks as great as his soul could contain to God and the Saints whose sacred ashes were venerated there. in his sleep he appears with Saints Richildis and Juliana, While he was meditating on these things above all, at the dead of night sleep, sent not so much by nature as from heaven, overcame him, in which this vision was presented to the sick man. He beheld a Priest of venerable countenance, accompanied by two Virgins, entering and coming toward him. He believed the Virgins to be adorned with mitres, as if with royal crowns: one of whom appeared in religious garb. The Priest seemed to address the bedridden man and ask him whether he wished to be cured. The man replied: Indeed, venerable Father: do you see the monstrous torments and suffering of this wretched man? If you are able to do anything, help me, I beg: I shall never fail to remember the kindness. But please do not scruple to reveal who you are. I, he said, am Wolfhold, once the Parish Priest of this place, whom they call the Hebdomadary, and I rest buried in the side of the church; sent from heaven to cure you, so that my mortals too may be mindful of me among the other Saints whose relics are guarded here, and may venerate me among them equally. The elder of the Virgins whom you see before you is St. Richildis, the other Juliana, who are enclosed in one tomb. Thereupon Wolfhold commands them to hold Stephen bound for a short while, and having removed the stone, restores his health. while he himself extracts the stone from the patient's bowels; once extracted, he hands it to Stephen, admonishing him as one bound by a vow to fulfill his promises; and he vanishes with the Virgins. Stephen, shaking off his sleep, found the extracted stone, quite large, in his right hand; he calls his wife, proclaims the Divine benefit with immense gratitude, and he himself, well, to the astonishment of the surgeons the next day, crawled up the hill in the condition in which he had received his cure, fulfilled his vow, and did not a little to illuminate the glory and praise of Wolfhold and the holy Virgins by his constant proclamation. I pass over more things of this kind. This, for the present, is enough to renew the memory of Blessed Wolfhold, so that the sick may not be ignorant of a physician to whom they may have recourse.

LIFE OF ST. JOHN OF THE GRILLE, BISHOP OF SAINT-MALO IN GAUL, COMPILED FROM VARIOUS SOURCES.

IN THE YEAR OF CHRIST 1163.

John of the Grille, Bishop of Saint-Malo, in Armorican Brittany (Saint)

Chapter I. The Feast Day of St. John. His Way of Life.

[1] The last Bishop of the Church of Aleth in Armorican Brittany, and the first of Saint-Malo, was John of the Grille. He, as our Jacques Sirmond writes in his Notes on letter 15 of book 1 of Peter of Celle, Why is St. John called "of the Grille"? is venerated by the people of Saint-Malo as a Saint, and, from the iron grille that surrounds his tomb, they call him by the added surname St. John of the Grille. In Jean Chenu's catalogue of the Bishops of Saint-Malo, he is called Jean du Gril: in Claude Robert's Gallia Christiana, Blessed John of the Grille, de la Grille, or du Gril. Although he has not yet been solemnly inscribed in the rolls of the Saints, that it might be lawful for him to be publicly honored with sacred rites publicly venerated was obtained from Pope Leo X by Denis Briconnet, Bishop of Saint-Malo, a most holy man and ambassador of Francis I, King of France; who also procured from the same Pontiff that Blessed Veronica de Binasco might be publicly venerated in some fashion at Milan in the convent of St. Martha, as is evident from his Bull, which we published on January 13 before the Life of that same Saint.

[2] St. John is venerated by the Church of Saint-Malo with a double office, as they call it, whose Lessons we shall cite below, on February 1, not on the 3rd, as Gaspar Jongelinus wrote in book 1 of his Register of Abbeys of the Cistercian Order, erroneously citing Albert le Grand of Morlaix, February 1. since the latter places it on February 1, as does Andrew Saussay in his Supplement to the Gallic Martyrology, where he praises him with this elegant encomium: "At Saint-Malo in Armorica, St. John, Bishop, surnamed from the Grille: who, a worthy offspring of the Cistercian Order and a most deserving disciple of St. Bernard, when he fled more eagerly from the glory of the world and desired rather to remain hidden, was sought out by the widowed Church of Aleth as her bridegroom and pastor, the lights of the manifold grace with which he was illuminated bursting forth; and when Pope Celestine II commanded, though unwillingly, he was elevated to that See, and illuminated it with such splendors of holiness, apostolic zeal, endowed with episcopal virtues, doctrine, and every virtue of the episcopate, that he bestowed upon it the perpetual glory of his holy name. For the blessed Peter of Celle, that renowned Abbot, who later became Bishop of Chartres, no small ornament of learned and pious men in his age, in letters addressed to him, earnestly declares that he was another Elijah of his time: and he recounts that as a Bishop, which others praise, he was perpetually burning with the urgency of labors, the solicitude of Churches, the compassion for the afflicted, and the reconciliation of the dissentient. Letter 15 of book 1. And that he was earnestly solicitous for the augmentation of religion, the destruction of impiety, the routing of injustice, and indeed the assertion of sacred discipline, as his own letters show; his own letters indicate, breathing a mind full of piety, which he sent to Pope Eugene III for the preservation of the reform happily begun in the Church of St. Genevieve at Paris. By which same zeal, in order that the Church of Aleth itself, over which he presided, situated in an inconvenient location, might be better organized and more securely persist in the sincere service of God; he transfers the See to Saint-Malo: he transferred it from Aleth itself, a small and insufficiently secure city, to the island of Aaron: where the episcopal see now is, and a large city distinguished by the name of St. Malo. It is not easy to recount the merits of this holy Bishop, by which he strove to promote the glory of God and the welfare of the Christian commonwealth. His name is held in eternal memory, for, clarified by Divine splendors, the Church of Saint-Malo itself honors it with the distinctions of proven sanctity. For on this day it celebrates his feast with a solemn office under the title of Bishop Confessor; and it gave him the surname of the Grille, because, as signs of heavenly power burst forth from his tomb, a grille was placed as a mark of veneration around his sepulchre, by whose protection the coffin of such great sanctity might be kept free from the filth of those walking by.

[3] Thus Saussay. But some matters require more careful elucidation. That he was a Cistercian monk is testified also by Sirmond in his notes on the cited letter of Peter of Celle, and by the offices of Saint-Malo, as well as by Albert and Jongelinus. Whether of the Cistercian Order? It is remarkable that neither Hugh Menard, an accurate writer, mentions this Saint in his Benedictine Martyrology, in which he rightly includes the Cistercians as well; nor Chrysostom Henriquez in his splendid Cistercian Menology, nor Arnold Wion in his Lignum Vitae, especially in book 2, chapter 37, where among the Bishops of Aleth he claims only St. Malo, or Machutus, for the Benedictine Order; by what right, we shall see elsewhere. Nor can it be sufficiently proved from letter 16 of book 1 of Peter of Celle that John was a Cistercian, where the following is said: "I marvel that you wrote that you were deprived of the patronage of our most holy Father Bernard." For it does not follow from this that John was a Cistercian any more than Peter himself, who was a Benedictine. Nor does Nicholas of Clairvaux (who appears in volume 12, part 2 of the Library of the Fathers) suggest this by any indication, whether in letter 13 written in the name of the monk Henry on behalf of John to St. Bernard, or in letter 41 under the persona of Prior Rualenus. Moreover, John himself, in letter 21 in the same collection, seems not obscurely to signify the contrary? For he writes to St. Bernard himself: "Hence it is that, stationed among your Clairvaux monks, I await your counsel, as if the counsel of God." Would he not here call them his brothers? Would he not otherwise indicate that same Bethlehem which had given him the cradle of a holier life?

[4] For as to what Albert writes, and from him Jongelinus, that he was appointed Abbot over the monastery of Begard, Was he Abbot of Begard? or Begarium, in the diocese of Treguier, founded in 1130 by the munificence of Count Stephen of Penthievre and his wife Havoise; we are not sufficiently persuaded of this. Begard, or Putrida Silva, as Jongelinus writes, is a daughter of Aumone, of the line of Citeaux, as they say: how then was an Abbot given to it from Clairvaux, where Albert writes that John underwent his novitiate of the religious life under St. Bernard? Hence, the same author relates, he was summoned to govern Buzay, Was he Abbot of Buzay, founded in 1135, which is a daughter of Clairvaux. Duke Conan III founded this cenobium at the request of his mother Ermengard, or perhaps she herself, with her son's consent. She was a most devout woman, and also took the monastic habit in a convent at Rennes. Two letters of St. Bernard to her survive, numbers 116 and 117, inscribed thus: "To his beloved daughter in Christ Ermengard, formerly an illustrious Countess, now a humble handmaid of Christ, Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, the pious affection of holy love." Peter Baudus in chapter 25 of his Breton History writes that monks summoned from Clairvaux came to Nantes on the eve of Saints Peter and Paul, and were honorably received there: that their leader was Nivard (whom he calls Vuardus, perhaps by a copyist's error), the brother of St. Bernard, then Prior of Clairvaux: and that this abbey was conferred upon him by Conan and his mother. Nivard does not seem to have administered it for long, however, since eight years later he was sent to Spain, and is reported to have founded the cenobium of Espina, at the expense of Sancha, sister of Emperor Alfonso, to whom St. Bernard's letter 301 is addressed. administered by a different John? To Buzay, however, a John was appointed, who then, leaving the governance of it, went off into solitude, whence Bernard tries to recall him in letter 232. That that John was our man, summoned from Begard by Ermengard, Albert writes but does not prove; all the less so because in his chronology either he himself or his copyist badly blunders, stating that Buzay was founded on June 16, 1136, and was administered by John for fourteen full years, yet John became Bishop of Aleth in the year 1140.

[5] Augustin Pazius, Claude Robert, and Baudus report that John, when he was called to the See of Aleth, was the Abbot of the monastery of the Holy Cross of the Canons Regular at Guingamp. He was Abbot of Guingamp of the Canons Regular, Whence it seems to follow that he was not a Cistercian: for a serious and holy man does not seem likely to have abandoned their institute, in the very cradle, as it were, of that most holy Congregation, to pass to another religious order. Albert admits that John was Abbot of that monastery of the Holy Cross, but only after he was already Bishop, and that shortly afterward he transferred the care of it to Moses. before his episcopate. But Stephen III, the son of Eudo who died in 1079, is reported by Pazius and Bertrand d'Argentre to have died in 1138, by Baudus in 1137, or perhaps at the beginning of the following year, which according to the chronological reckoning of those times, by which the French began the year from Easter, ought to have been referred to the preceding year. How at least could Stephen have been present at the foundation of that monastery, when John was already a Bishop, having been honored with that dignity in 1140, if Stephen had died two years before? Baudus and Pazius write that Henry, the son of Stephen, was still a boy when the foundations of that cenobium were laid, and that he carried the first stone on his shoulders at his parents' urging. He was certainly not a boy when John took up the episcopate, as is evident from what the same authors recount and we shall briefly touch upon below. What, then? Did John perhaps pass from the Canons to the Cistercians, and after presiding over the cenobium of the Holy Cross for some years, commit it to Moses, and himself build and govern the monastery of Begard? We willingly leave that question to those more skilled.

Chapter II. The Episcopate of St. John. The See Transferred.

[6] The same Albert contradicts himself in explaining the age of St. John. For he writes that he died in the year of Christ 1170, having administered his Church for 30 years and having lived 68 years. Whence one would reckon that he was born in the year 1102. When was he born? But the same Albert had previously stated that he was born in the year 1098: unless, however, he meant to write otherwise, since he adds that he was born under Pope Paschal II, who was not created until August of the year 1099. But he then confirms his own chronology when he asserts that John became a monk at the age of 23, in the year of Christ 1121. Baudus also, in chapter 1 of his Breton History, writes on the authority of ancient Chronicles that around the year 1172 the See was transferred from Aleth by John: chapter 26, not sufficiently mindful of what he had written before, says that John died in the year 1163. Pazius also affirms that John died in the same year 1163. That the See was certainly transferred earlier will be evident from what will be said below, since he wrote a letter to St. Bernard, who died in 1153, about the things he had suffered on that account from the monks of Marmoutier.

[7] Of what birth? The same Albert reports that John's parents had moderate means: that he himself had a quick intellect capable of learning; excellently learned, wherefore in a short time he made outstanding progress in letters. Baudus, chapter 26, writes that he was endowed with admirable knowledge. Peter of Celle says of him, in letter 15 of book 1: "He has great skill in letters." Then Albert relates that at the age of 23 he received the Cistercian habit at Clairvaux and was trained in monastic disciplines by St. Bernard himself: that he was sent by him to Brittany in 1130 to Count Stephen, and founded the monastery of Begard in the diocese of Treguier, three miles from Guingamp: then Buzay in the diocese of Nantes in 1136. These matters we have already briefly discussed; the Cistercians will examine them more fully and either claim him for themselves with more certain testimonies or leave him to the Canons Regular, having no need of borrowed glory, who shine so manifoldly with their own. It is more probable, as we have already shown, that before John assumed the episcopate, the monastery of the Canons Regular at Guingamp, or Minguempi, or Guenkamp, was founded by Stephen, Count of Penthievre, and Hadeuisa, or Havoise, or Havisia, his wife. he becomes Abbot of Guingamp, Henry, their son (not, however, the firstborn, as Albert claims), while still quite a young adolescent, is reported to have carried on his shoulders the first stone to be laid in its foundations, at the urging of his pious parents. John was appointed Abbot over this house: then, when he was elevated to the episcopate, Moses, the Chaplain of Countess Havoise, succeeded him, as Baudus and Pazius write.

[8] When Benedict III, Bishop of Aleth, whom Claude Robert attests from a certain document of St. Nicolas of Angers to have still been alive in the year 1140, had died, then Bishop of Aleth, our most religious Abbot John was substituted, as Robert and Pazius have it. Albert says this happened in the year 1140: Saussay above, under Celestine II, who sat from September 25, 1143 to March 8 of the following year. He then, because Aleth, an ancient city celebrated from the times of the Romans, as is evident from the Notitia of the Empire, having been perhaps weakened by earlier wars, did not seem sufficiently secure against the new disturbances that the sons of Stephen of Penthievre and others were continually raising, and was certainly less populous by now, transferred the seat of his pontificate, he transfers the See to the Island of Aaron; with the approval of Duke Conan, to the neighboring city, which was better fortified by the situation of its site and already then inhabited by a great population. It is on the nearby peninsula, which was formerly called the Island of Aaron, because St. Aaron the Briton inhabited a small monastery there, as we shall say on June 22 in his Life, and on November 15 in that of St. Malo, or Machutus, from whom it is now called Macloviopolis, or the city of St. Malo, commonly Saint-Malo. The vestiges of the old Aleth survive in the village of Guic-Aleth, or corruptly Quidaleth, as we said on January 13 in the Life of St. Enogatus the Bishop. The Breton historians treat generally of this transfer.

[9] There was on that island at the time a church dedicated to St. Vincent, which (as Albert is the authority) Benedict II, Bishop of Aleth, had donated to William, Abbot of Marmoutier near Tours, in the year 1108, and he introduces Canons Regular there: and Pope Paschal II had sanctioned the validity of that donation. When John therefore selected this church as his Cathedral, in order that a holier discipline of morals and piety might prevail there, he introduced Canons Regular into it, of that institute which then flourished in the cenobium of St. Victor at Paris.

Chapter III. The Patience of St. John in Adversity.

[10] By what means John took possession of that church; and by what authority the monks of Marmoutier were ejected from its possession, whether the consent of the Roman Pontiff, a lawsuit therefore brought against him, legitimately informed of the right of both parties, had intervened, is not clear to us. Most serious disputes certainly arose from this, which tested John's patience remarkably, drawn out for many years with varying outcome, as is apparent from the letters of Nicholas of Clairvaux. The matter was committed by the Pontiff to French Bishops. From their sentence John appealed to the Pontiff, on St. Bernard's advice. There is no holier tribunal in the world, nor more certain refuge of innocence. It can happen, however, from time to time that, either through the cunning speeches of adversaries, smoother than oil, or through the cupidity or envy of some ministers, those who seek what is just are either not immediately heard, or are delayed longer than they would wish. Even the most exact procedure of justice and the multitude of affairs to be transacted causes delay, which men sometimes resent as unjust, even those endowed with divine zeal. This is what befell our John, whose charity, though patient, was nevertheless not always free from every weariness and distress.

[11] What was done, and with what spirit he bore it, one may gather from his own letter to St. Bernard, which appears in Nicholas of Clairvaux, letter 21, and reads as follows: "To his Father, and the Father of all good men, Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, Brother John, Bishop of Aleth, may he be both honored here in his labors and honored there with the Angels. as he himself writes in grief, Would that I could see you, I would not write to you: and the sight of your sweetness would soothe and ease my sorrow. For I have been saddened in my exercise, though according to the Wise Man that tribulation itself is my consolation, not for my conscience, but as a scourge. For I know that they are happily wretched whom it is certain have not deserved what they endure. Therefore I write to you briefly about my circumstances and what surrounds me, lest I detain with a longer letter those eyes which you owe to the world.

[12] "After the sentence given against me, I proceeded according to your counsel to my Lord, whom the Lord appointed Lord of His house and Prince of all His possessions. Condemned by the judgment of Bishops, he goes to Rome on St. Bernard's advice: Upon entering his presence, I found more of the judge than the father; less of mercy than of censure. For the men of Marmoutier preceded me and became greater than me, making their voice a voice of power. They said that I had evaded the hearing of the Bishops, in whose hands he himself had placed me to be heard. Not only this, but whatever they could collect from any quarter they laid against me, and were heard with much tranquility. And when I was ready to repel or refute what was being said, the Judge of all refused to hear me. Let it not be imputed to him. not heard, But he also added to the pain of my wounds, sending me back to those to whom he had previously sent me, whom I held in part suspect: and still his hand is stretched out, because I came to him under suspension, and suspended, and suspended I departed from him.

[13] "And although I am conscious of none of those things which they have maliciously contrived against me, I nevertheless bear the judgment patiently, if not gladly. most patient, For I know that I have deserved graver things than I suffer, as a servant who works badly and is worthy of every indignation. Yet I, a man of the least means and even less sense, have obtained a hard province: to assail those and to enter into a suit with those who trust in their own strength and glory in the multitude of their riches. Hence it is that, stationed among your Clairvaux monks, I await your counsel as the counsel of God: he comes to Clairvaux, for no one will be able to rescue the poor Bishop from the hand of those stronger than he, unless your hand wholly confronts those who harass and despoil him. Lord Father, I am prepared and am not troubled, that I may keep Your commandments. And would that your will (if it is the Lord's will) might disagree with my will. prepared to stand by St. Bernard's judgment: If you judge it worthy, communicate the good pleasure of your graciousness to your servant: for there is no counsel and aid except from you and through you, most loving Father."

[14] So he writes; and he does not explain the cause, because he had previously dealt with it in person with St. Bernard. He himself then traveled to St. Bernard with letters of recommendation from the Clairvaux monks -- from Rualenus the Prior, from Henry, brother of King Louis VII of France, and likewise from Nicholas, a monk. All of them praise highly the outstanding virtue of John. Rualenus, in letter 41 to St. Bernard, writes thus: hence he is commended by the Prior as a lover of poverty, "This man, a poor Bishop, a friend of the poor, and -- what is greater -- a lover of poverty, coming from the City, came to us and through us, hoping to find you with us. We detained him by common counsel, both on account of the familiarity by which he is bound to us, and on account of necessity, because he had nowhere to lay his head. All friends had become enemies; all associates had become adversaries; and the hand of the powerful man, the son of the expelled, had weighed heavily upon him. How kindly he entered and went among us, and how great a commerce he has with poverty, our eyes have seen. There is no counsel, there is no help, and not even refuge, except in you and with you. He has come to you, and we with him and for him, if not in body, yet in spirit. Open to him that most ample bosom of your piety, because (unless we are greatly mistaken) it is God's business; and if God's, then also ours and yours. and adorned with other virtues; He has pleased our entire community on account of the truth and meekness and justice which can commend him even to his enemies. But if this time you shall have returned to your monks at Clairvaux, bring him back with you, and then you will see how great a care and tenderness we have for his tribulations," etc.

[15] Henry, the son of King Louis the Fat of France and brother of Louis the Younger, then a monk of Clairvaux, later in the year 1149 made Bishop of Beauvais, as the Sainte-Marthes report, writes among other things to St. Bernard about John in the same Nicholas of Clairvaux, letter 13: and likewise by Henry, brother of the King of France, a monk, "Zeal, I confess, burns my soul for this poor Bishop, who, because he cultivated justice and desired equity, was struck with the blow of an enemy, with cruel chastisement. Because he wished to sit in his See and restore episcopal rights to the Bishop -- this is his greatest and first sin. Behold, this blood is required at his hand. If therefore I have any influence in the eyes of the Father -- nay, because I have great influence -- do his business as you shall know to be expedient for him," etc.

[16] Nicholas himself, in letter 42, thus commends him to Geoffrey, also by Nicholas, to Geoffrey, the secretary of St. Bernard, St. Bernard's secretary: "Let the Lord Bishop of Alet, therefore, experience in his affair that entire secret of familiarity which you keep for me in your breast. For he lives entirely as a Bishop, having nothing in his garments or manners of the haughtiness of the Pharisees mixed in. He is poor and a friend of the poor, and -- what is greater -- a lover of poverty. Men without mercy have risen up against him, my ancient brethren ... The poor Bishop has been delivered into the hands of his enemies, and those whom he held suspect, he received as judges; where he might truly say, 'And our enemies are our judges.' One inexpugnable refuge, however, has remained for him: your father, indeed also mine." (from whom he had previously had letters) He adds more about the sincerity of St. Bernard and the adversaries of John, and indicates that he had received letters of recommendation, written by Geoffrey -- that is, in the name of Bernard -- when he was setting out for Rome; but that they had profited him nothing.

[17] Finally, the Prior of Riwallon also commends John to Hugh II, Archbishop of Tours, who was his Metropolitan and perhaps one of the judges, and to Hugh, Archbishop of Tours. in letter 23, found in the same Nicholas: "I commend the Lord of Alet to your Holiness, because whatever you shall do for him is done for us. This is your glory: to protect and honor a poor Bishop, and one who is yours, and such a one."

Chapter IV. The Zeal of St. John.

[18] It is not likely that St. Bernard, who had previously instructed him with counsel, denied him his patronage. Pope Eugenius III, therefore, with whom Bernard, as his former disciple at Clairvaux, had very great influence, having heard the case and perceived the sanctity of John, adjudicated to him the possession of the Church of St. Malo, by the sentence of the Roman Pontiff he obtains his right: imposing silence, as Albert writes, on the monks of Tours. He says, however, that when Eugenius died in the year 1153, they brought a new lawsuit against John, so that he was again obliged to travel to Rome; but that the sentence of Eugenius was confirmed by Anastasius IV, and shortly afterward -- while John was still at Rome -- by Adrian IV, who had succeeded Anastasius on the 3rd of December, 1154.

[19] Once the virtue of John became known to Pope Eugenius, the saint was immediately joined to the saint in close familiarity. When Eugenius had introduced Regular Canons, summoned from the monastery of St. Victor, into the church of St. Genevieve at Paris in the year 1147 -- as we shall say more fully in the Life of St. William of Roskilde on the 6th of April -- [familiar with Eugenius III, he commends the Regular Canons introduced by him into the church of St. Genevieve,] Abbot Odo and the rest of the Canons were thereafter assailed by various calumnies from some, even from certain Bishops, about which we treat elsewhere, so that many good men feared the King might expel them and restore the secular Canons of depraved life who had previously held the church. John wrote letters to Eugenius on behalf of the Regulars, which the learned Robert cites in his Gallia Christiana, testifying to both his submission and his zeal: "Who am I," he says, "or of what weight, that I should dare to detain the eyes of so great a Majesty even for a moment? Pardon me, Holy Father, pardon me, I beseech you; for this presumption does not emanate from arrogance. I cannot keep silent about the great bile with which my spirit was aroused against lying men, shameless and abandoned men, who have not feared to accuse the holy assembly -- I speak of the Abbot of the aforesaid place and the Brothers -- your holy seedling, growing a hundredfold, the praiseworthy work of your hands, not a little distinguished among the magnificent acts of Your Holiness: attacked by calumnies from rivals, namely the change wrought in the Church of St. Genevieve at Paris by God through You as through His well-pleasing Vicar -- the sons of men whose teeth are weapons and arrows, whose tongue is a sharp sword. But (thanks be to God) the faction of the malicious has been detected; he commends them: and with you pressing the matter, the just censure of the Lord's decree will be manifest against them, since the manner of life of the sons of St. Genevieve, pleasing both to God and to men, does not cease to fill the nostrils of those situated not only near but also far away with the finest and sweetest fragrance." So he writes.

[20] The same man also excellently restored the collapsed discipline in the monastery of St. Meen, by the authority of the Roman Pontiff -- he reforms the monastery of St. Meen: perhaps the same Eugenius, or his predecessor Lucius II -- as the Offices of St. Malo record. That monastery is called in a charter of Duke Alan III, in Argentre, book 3, chapter 28, "the Church of St. Mary and SS. Meen and Judicael of Gael," or, as commonly, Gael. St. Meen founded it (on whom see the 21st of June); St. Judicael the King restored it, and there became a monk -- commonly called St. Gicquel or St. Giguel, who is venerated on the 16th of December. Duke Alan III rebuilt it after it had been destroyed by the Normans, about the year of Christ 1000. Finally St. John the Bishop restored the discipline in it about the year 1150.

[21] Our Bishop had to fight no less with secular men who unjustly usurped the possessions of his Church and of the Church of Alet, than with the monks for the use of his Church. This matter produced great labors and the hatred of many. he recalls Count Henry from luxury and sacrilege, But he overcame everything with incredible constancy. The most grievous struggle was with Henry, son of Stephen III, Count of Penthievre. This man, whose youth had been well spent under his father's discipline, as soon as his father departed this life, gave himself over to every kind of moral depravity, and especially to lechery. That he might give himself to this more freely, he expelled from the monastery of the Holy Cross of Guingamp the Regular Canons and Abbot Moses, the successor of John, a most holy man; and he transferred it into the right and possession of the Abbess of St. George in the city of Rennes, handing it over meanwhile to be inhabited by women, and placed among them his concubine, a woman of noble birth, lest anything should obstruct his lusts. This matter stung the most holy Bishop, having obtained letters from Eugenius III: who, that he might leave nothing untried, appealed to the Roman Pontiff Eugenius. Letters were sent by him to Henry; by which, and by the timely admonitions of our Bishop, Henry was induced to restore Moses and the Canons, the donation having been rescinded and the concubine given in marriage to the Governor of Treguier. So relate essentially Baudus, Argentre, Paz, and Albert.

[22] John then consecrated, as Robert and Paz write, he dedicates an altar at Montfort: the high altar of the abbey of St. James of Montfort, recently built in 1156. Montfort, as Francis Ranchinus reports in volume 2 of his Description of Europe, is a town of Brittany, four leagues from the city of Rennes, in the diocese of St. Malo. Albert writes that he both procured the building of that monastery and established Regular Canons there, as at Guingamp. he adorns his church: He magnificently adorned and enlarged the basilica of St. Malo, adding the Choir, which is still seen, and at his own expense, as Jean Chenu reports.

[23] At length, worn out by age and labors, he departed from this mortal life in the year 1163, and was buried in the Choir of his own church. Pope Leo X decreed that he, who had become illustrious for many miracles, should be honored with the honors of the Blessed, he dies. as has been written above.

Chapter V. The Life of St. John from the Office of the Church of St. Malo.

[24] John, called "de la Grille" from the iron grating which surrounds his tomb, having abandoned the delights of the world, from his early youth embraced the Cistercian Order under the tutelage of St. Bernard. Whence, having run through the disciplines of human and divine learning, he was raised to the Bishopric of Alet; from a Religious, he becomes a Bishop, yet he did not depart from his regular profession, but immediately, for his own comfort, he happily established in the church of St. Malo an Order of Canons Regular from among pious Priests, according to the Rule of Blessed Augustine and the observance of the religious Brothers of St. Victor. he introduces Regular Canons into his church; Moreover, so great was the sanctity in him that even while he was still living, Peter, Abbot of La Celle, was accustomed to call him a holy Bishop, a servant of God, a strong man, a lover of poverty, full of charity, and a light by no means dimmed by obstacles placed against it; and Pope Lucius II, in the year of the Lord one thousand one hundred and forty-four, committed to him the reform of the monastery of St. Meen.

[25] When the monks of Marmoutier had recently invaded the church of St. Malo, Blessed John (whose cause Nicholas of Clairvaux testifies is the cause of God) summoned them to the judgment of the Apostolic See. When both he and they had appeared in the audience-hall of the Apostolic See, the case having been diligently heard and the reasons of both parties ascertained through a full investigation, Eugenius III, who succeeded Lucius, took that Cathedral church of St. Malo the matter approved by Eugenius III, under the protection of Blessed Peter and himself, and invested John himself with it together with all the possessions which it held at that time, imposing perpetual silence on the monks in this cause. When they again renewed the controversy already settled, Anastasius IV again imposed perpetual silence on them and took from them and their successors all power and by other Pontiffs: of wearying the same John or his successors with a renewed lawsuit on this matter. All of which things Adrian IV and Alexander III confirmed and strengthened with privileges, in whose times also they attempted to vex the man of God anew, who was therefore compelled to travel to Rome three and four times, four times he went to Rome: as he himself writes to the holy Bernard, whose style and zeal he imitates.

[26] When the tempest, which had raged for eighteen years, had been calmed, he built the choir of the said church of St. Malo, in which his body is honorably preserved. Then indeed he compelled the invaders of ecclesiastical property to restore what they had seized, he adorns the church: he instructs his flock: adorning the church itself with riches and instructing the souls of his diocesans with salutary institutions and examples. At length, in the year of the Lord one thousand one hundred and seventy, he departed to the tranquil harbor of the eternal kingdom, and afterward manifested by great miracles that he lives with Christ. Finally, Pope Leo X, in the year of the Lord one thousand five hundred and seventeen, after death illustrious for miracles, permission given for his veneration. having been certified of the many miracles by which the Blessed John himself had been illustrious, on account of which a great multitude of the faithful of Christ -- recognizing that their prayers poured forth to God through his intercession were being heard -- was flocking to the church of St. Malo itself, he granted and allowed the faculty of solemnly celebrating the feast and Office of the same, although not yet canonized.