Richard

ON SAINT RICHARD, KING AMONG THE ANGLO-SAXONS IN BRITAIN.

Year of Christ 722.

Preliminary Commentary.

Richard, Anglo-Saxon King in Britain, at Lucca in Italy (Saint)

By the author G. H.

Section I. The most pious family of Saint Richard. The history of his life and of those of his sons, Saints Willibald and Wunibald.

[1] What we observe in the Acts of many Saints -- that very often several men and women of the same family are found to excel in the holiness of life -- this was a particular glory of the Anglo-Saxons at the very time when they first embraced the faith of Christ. Thus Goscelin, a monk most diligent in describing the Lives of Saints, enumerates very many persons enrolled among the blessed on February 3 as relatives of Saint Werburgh, daughter of Wulfhere and Saint Ermenild, Kings of the Mercians. Saint Richard, father of Saint Wilburga, and of Saints Willibald and Wunibald. We said there that Werburgh is sometimes taken for Walburga, daughter of Saint Richard, about whom we here intend to treat; on Saint Walburga we shall treat on February 25. Richard had two holy sons: Willibald, Bishop of Eichstatt in Germany, and Wunibald, Abbot of Heidenheim in his diocese, where also Saint Walburga, their sister, presided over the virgins. Willibald is venerated on July 7, Wunibald on December 18. On Saint Boniface, their kinsman, we shall speak below.

[2] We regret that the Acts of Saint Richard were written by no contemporary, as were those of his sons, His life is to be illustrated from their Acts or have certainly perished. We shall endeavor to supply them, such as they are, from the Hodoeporicon of Saint Willibald (this is the title of the Acts in which his various pilgrimages are described) and the Life of Saint Wunibald. These were first published in volume 4 of Henry Canisius's Antiquae Lectiones, which, collated with other manuscript codices, we shall publish at the feast day of each. Here we must briefly indicate what their reliability and authority are. That both were written by the same author is indicated both by the style and manner of speech, which are entirely similar; and by the Prologue of the Hodoeporicon, in which the Acts of both are dedicated to priests and abbots; and finally by these words in the Life of Saint Wunibald: "What we recently composed concerning the deeds of the venerable Bishop Willibald, written by the same person let us now hasten to proceed to the other accounts of the glorious life of his brother." And further: "As we narrated in the other texture of the brother's life." The author confesses herself to be a woman in the Hodoeporicon, a woman "hampered by the frail weakness of her sex, and perishable, supported by no prerogative of wisdom, nor raised up by the industry of great powers, but compelled by the spontaneous violence of her own will, not trusting in the audacity of rashness," etc. She adds that she heard while living with them from the dictation of Willibald's own mouth, seeing and narrating, and likewise wrote it down with two deacons as witnesses and fellow hearers, on June 23; and at the end she repeats that she transcribed these things from his mouth at the monastery of Heidenheim. To which a glossographer in the Rebdorf codex in Canisius had noted: perhaps Saint Walburga "Hence it may be conjectured that Saint Walburga wrote this Legend, because she also asserts in the prologue that she is of the kinship of Saint Willibald" -- since she says that she, "though unworthy, was descended from no other source than the stock of their genealogy." Where again in a marginal gloss: "Perhaps this illustrious woman was Saint Walburga." Medibaud, in his Rhymes on Saint Walburga to be published on February 25, is a witness that she briefly but truthfully wrote the most distinguished Life of each brother. Adalbert, of whom we shall presently speak, writes the same. Meanwhile these words in the Life of Saint Wunibald make us doubtful: "The Life of the Blessed Confessor of Christ Wunibald, ascertained, written down, and briefly surveyed -- which I had learned from the account of his sister and of other venerable men who were joined to him by familiarity and friendship, and especially from those who had been subject to him in discipleship and instruction. But those things which we now set forth in chapters and discuss, we saw with our own eyes."

She also writes that at the Translation of the body of Saint Wunibald to a new monument, Saint Willibald his brother, the Bishop, and his sister, who after the death of the blessed man held the monastery, were present. These words, unless we wish them to have been added by someone else, or another kinswoman of theirs indicate that this Life was not written by Saint Walburga. Yet the author reveals herself to be a woman, "impeded by the murky sluggishness of mind." Moreover, what is relevant here, these ancient Acts, written by eyewitnesses, deserve complete trust, whether their author was Saint Walburga, or a nun of Heidenheim under this Abbess and her kinswoman, or finally some other person who continued the same work.

[3] Among the bishops of Eichstatt there flourished Reginold, the eleventh Bishop, who is said to have presided over that See from the year 965 Another Life of Saint Willibald appears to have been written to the year 989 of the same century. Bruschius, in his book on the Bishops of Germany, reports that he wrote the Lives of Saints Nicholas, Blaise, and likewise Willibald and Wunibald, the brothers. Henry Canisius, at the end of volume 4 of the Antiquae Lectiones, published another Life of Saint Willibald, whose author he makes this Bishop Reginold, by Bishop Reginold by conjecture, he says, "nearly certain" -- a conjecture he confirms with various arguments. On the other hand, our Gretser observes in his catalogue of the Bishops of Eichstatt that there are things which persuade one that Reginold was not the author of this Life. Of these matters we shall speak elsewhere.

[4] To this, the same Canisius appends a second Life, or rather Itinerary, from a manuscript codex of the monastery of Ochsenhausen, whose hitherto unknown author another Hodoeporicon by an uncertain author "without doubt," says Canisius, "had the earlier Hodoeporicon composed by the nun of Heidenheim, which, in a somewhat more polished style, cutting out many things and adding some, he not unskillfully interpolated."

[5] Among the Abbots of Heidenheim, Adalbert stood out for his learning, the Deeds of Eichstatt and Heidenheim in the times of Popes Eugene III and Adrian V. His short commentary on the Saints of Eichstatt and the monastery of Heidenheim, published by Gretser in Book 2 of the Observationes Eystettenses, chapter 7, survives; from which we shall draw below an epitome of the Life of Saint Richard, which the author prefaces as having been contracted by him from the writings of Saint Walburga the Virgin; Abbot Adalbert and the remaining work on Saints Willibald and Wunibald as having been composed from the commentaries of Saint Walburga on the affairs of her brothers. Very many things, however, that Adalbert presents are contained in the aforementioned Acts, so that he appears to attribute them to Saint Walburga.

[6] Philip, the thirty-ninth Bishop of the Church of Eichstatt, Philip the Bishop wrote a Life of Saint Willibald who died on February 25 in the year 1322, wrote a very lengthy Life of Saint Willibald, which Gretser made still more extended by adding two books of observations, in which he either rejects, or modestly passes over, or deftly explains many things reported by Philip.

[7] Finally, a monk of Rebdorf of unknown name praised several Saints of Eichstatt in sermons, which George Stengelius, one of ours, published from a manuscript codex of Rebdorf. A monk of Rebdorf wrote sermons on these Saints. The author is not very ancient, inasmuch as he relates that Maximilian, King of the Romans, was captured in Flanders and, having made a vow to visit Saint Willibald, was freed. On the various authors of the Life of Saint Walburga we shall speak accurately on February 25. And from these sources we shall here discuss certain matters concerning the Life of Saint Richard, which are otherwise sufficiently intricate, and then select several epitomes of his life.

[8] For concerning Richard himself, as we have said, little was written expressly in ancient times, A twofold compendium of the Life of Saint Richard and only some centuries after his death. Among these is the compendium of his Life which we give below, published by Surius at February 7, by Baronius at the year of Christ 750, number 4, and in Italian by Cesare Franciotti on the Saints of Lucca, and by Silvano Razzi on the Saints of Tuscany. It is commonly called an Epitaph on account of certain verses appended to it. We shall append another very brief life from a manuscript Passional of the monastery of Bodeken of Canons Regular, near Paderborn in Westphalia, sent to us by our Johannes Gamans. In it is related the occasion of the elevation of the body and of the translation of a portion of the sacred ashes to Germany. And miracles. We shall also add some miracles from Franciotti, rendered into Latin.

Section II. The Age of Saint Richard and His Sons.

[9] This ancient and unpolished epigram was formerly read at Heidenheim, published by Gretser in Book 1 of the Observations, chapter 7:

"Here Wunibald, gracious son of Richard, Who, soon leaving the kingdom of the English, of the monastery of Heidenheim founded in the year 750 this cloister Of monks he founded and watered with the name Of Benedict, in the seven-hundredth and fiftieth year."

Although we do not consider this epigram to have been composed by a contemporary author, it nevertheless possesses a domestic and sufficiently solid authority in its observed chronological marker; because the year of the monastery's original foundation could have been more accurately known from the privileges of princes and the donations of founders. The first Abbot for 10 years was Saint Wunibald. Moreover, in this Heidenheim we read in the Acts composed shortly after his death that Wunibald was Abbot for nearly ten years; whence Gretser in the cited passage, Rader in volume 3 of Bavaria Sancta, and Charles Stengelius in his Life of Wunibald published by him, conclude that he died in the year 760. But since the last day of his life was a Friday, one week before Christmas, he appears to have died in the year 761 that is, December 18, and he was buried the next day, Saturday, December 19; he must necessarily be said to have lived until the following year 761, in which, with the Solar Cycle 14, the Dominical Letter D, Christmas Day and December 18 fell on a Friday, and December 19 on a Saturday -- so that either some smaller number of one or two years was neglected by the poet, or Heidenheim had begun to be built some time before Wunibald is reckoned to have been given as Abbot when the monks were collected there.

[10] With these points established, because in the same Life Saint Wunibald is reported to have been sixty years of age when he died, at sixty years of age, born in the year 701 we rightly infer that he was born around the year of Christ 701, and his brother Saint Willibald, whom we shall establish below to have been three years younger from the time of his assumption of the episcopate, around the year 704. And Saint Willibald in the year 704. And from this the age of Saint Richard is clear. For, as is read in the earlier Hodoeporicon of Saint Willibald, Wunibald, already grown at nineteen years of age, and Willibald himself, Saint Richard departs his homeland with them in the year 721 when he had reached the down of pubescent youth, now sixteen years old, prevailed upon the mind of their father Saint Richard to undertake a long pilgrimage to the thresholds of the Apostles. By the calculation of years already set forth, this pilgrimage seems to us to have begun at the start of summer in the year 721, and to have been delayed by the death of Saint Richard in the following year 722. He dies in the year 722. This year is plainly confirmed by the rest of Saint Willibald's pilgrimage and the course of his life.

[11] The years of Willibald's pilgrimage, according to the Hodoeporicon, were ten from the time he left his homeland; Saint Willibald travels for ten years seven from Rome until, having returned from Jerusalem, he became a monk on Monte Cassino (elsewhere eight); and then a span of ten years was passed in that monastery. From Monte Cassino, therefore, Willibald came to Rome around the feast of Saint Andrew in the year 740, and after Easter of the following year was sent to Germany to Saint Boniface, Archbishop of Mainz, his kinsman, by Pope Gregory III, he is sent to Germany in the year 741 who died in that same year 741 on November 28. From this we conclude that Charles Stengelius errs in reporting that this mission of Saint Willibald was undertaken in the year 744, and that the departure from the homeland should be deferred to the year 724, and that Saint Richard departed this life in the year 725. On his return journey from Italy, Willibald (as is related in his Acts) came from Rome to Lucca, where his father rested. He visits the tomb of his father Saint Richard. Thence, passing through Pavia, Brescia, and other cities according to that Hodoeporicon, he came to Odilo, Duke of Bavaria, Count Suitgar, and finally to Saint Boniface, by whom, together with Suitgar, he was sent to Eichstatt, where he explored and chose a place of habitation. Thence, returning to Freising, he was with Saint Boniface until they all came together again to Eichstatt. All these things took place before he was ordained priest in the year 744 on the feast of Saint Mary Magdalene. He is ordained Priest in the year 744. Stengelius compresses all of this into three months, and for this sole reason reports that things occurred later which we have demonstrated happened three years earlier. Having been ordained priest, he remained at Eichstatt for a full year; then, sent to his brother Wunibald in Thuringia, he was consecrated Bishop three weeks before the feast of Saint Martin, at the age of forty-one. This year is reported by Philip in his Acts as 745, Bishop of Eichstatt in the year 745

which is confirmed, as Gretser attests, by the common belief of men and by ancient monuments; and also by the reasoning already given, drawn from the Willibaldine Acts. The same Philip, whom Bruschius and others follow, conjectures his death to have been in the year of Christ 781, at the age of seventy-seven, he dies in the year 781 and in the thirty-sixth year of his administration of the episcopate -- which we shall follow until more certain documents are brought forward.

[12] From this, first, the writer of the Life of Saint Swithbert, the first Bishop of Werden, published under the name of Marcellinus the Presbyter, his disciple, is shown to be in error. For in enumerating the twelve apostolic men sent from Britain to Frisia, he writes thus: Errors of pseudo-Marcellinus in the Life of Saint Swithbert "These were the ones sent: Willibrord, Swithbert, Acca, Wigbert, Willibald, Wunibald, Lebuin, the two Ewalds, Werenfrid, and I, the least of all, Marcellinus, who wrote this history, as also that of Willibrord. All the aforesaid were Presbyters and Priests, and the most holy Adalbert was a Deacon... Therefore, the aforesaid twelve, with a favorable wind, were brought to Wiltenburg, or Utrecht, in the year six hundred and ninety, in the third year of the pontificate of the Apostolic man Saint Sergius at Rome." Here, namely, Wunibald and Willibald are named as Presbyters before they were born. To which is added: "Saint Willibald, going to Eastern Franconia, was made Bishop of Aureatensis, or Eichstatt. Saint Wunibald, his brother, was ordained Abbot of Heidenheim. Their sister was Walburga." The writer enrolls both of them, while still alive when he was writing in the year (as he prefaces) four years after the death of Saint Boniface, that is, the year of Christ 759, in the catalogue of Saints. Baronius, at the said year 690, reports in number 8 among the apostolic men sent to Frisia Saints Willibald and Wunibald, whom Baronius followed whom he then writes at the year 697, number 9, to have been created prelates -- Willibald as Bishop of Eichstatt, Wunibald as Abbot of Heidenheim.

[13] Secondly, Othlonus must be corrected in the Life of Saint Boniface, some centuries younger than him: errors of Othlonus in the Life of Saint Boniface who reports that Boniface sent into his own province and homeland both women and men, religious and imbued with various learning, caused many more to come, and divided among them the burden of his labor. "Among whom the chief men were Burchard and Lullus, Willibald and his brother Wunibald, Witta and Gregory; and the religious women: the aunt of Saint Lullus, Chunigilt, and her daughter Berathgit, Chunidrut and Tecla, Lioba and Walburga, sister of Willibald and Wunibald." Baronius again, on account of these words of Othlonus, establishes that Saints Willibald and Wunibald first came to Germany at the summons of Saint Boniface in the year of Christ 725 -- which has been refuted from the Hodoeporicon and the Life of Wunibald.

[14] Finally, what is reported in the earlier compendium of the Life of Saint Richard, or his epitaph, is disproved: namely, that Richard the father went with his sons from England to Germany to Saint Boniface, errors of the writer of Saint Richard's epitaph left his sons with him, crossed the Alps alone, and after long voluntary exiles died at Lucca. Baronius again establishes the same at the year 750, having related there in number 4 the said epitaph of Saint Richard; whom Baronius followed and repeats the same in his Notes to the Roman Martyrology at February 7, where he adds that Saint Richard lived in the times of Pope Zacharias, who began to reign in the year of the Lord 741. But the same Baronius, at the end of volume 12 in his Additions and Corrections to the year 725, writes that after these things were published, there came to light and were published in print the threefold Acts of Saint Willibald, he corrects his errors as well as those of Wunibald and Walburga, placed by Canisius in volume 4 of the Antiquae Lectiones, by which indeed those things must be corrected -- because Willibald was called not from England but from the city of Rome in the time of Gregory III by Saint Boniface, and Wunibald was brought from Rome by the same Boniface when he went there. And at the year 750 he corrects: "If the exact time of the death of Saint Richard is investigated, it will be found from more ancient monuments that, after deducting the number of years of his sons' arrival in the city, it occurred under Pope Gregory II" -- that is, as we have established, in the year 722. Ghinius in his Natales of Canonized Saints, Ferrari in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy at February 7, Franciotti in his Life of Saint Richard, and other more recent writers followed the erring Baronius; but not when he retracted what he had said -- so that we have judged these things needed to be drawn out in a longer series for this very reason.

Section III. The Homeland of Saints Boniface, Richard, and His Sons, among the West Saxons in Britain.

[15] Bede, in Book 5 of the Ecclesiastical History of the English People, chapter 7, Saint Richard lives in the time of Saints Ceadwalla and Ine after having related that the holy Kings Ceadwalla and Ine abdicated their kingdoms, made pilgrimages to the thresholds of the Apostles, and ended their lives holily at Rome, adds: "In those times many of the English nation, noble and ignoble, laymen and clerics, men and women, were accustomed to do the same in emulation." Among these nobles we reckon Saint Richard and his sons. He lived under both kings: under Ine, Saints Wunibald, Willibald, and Walburga were born. Saint Ceadwalla died, according to Bede, in the year 689, on April 23; Ine was appointed in his place in the same year, and afterward left the kingdom to his kinsman Athelard and set out for Rome in the year 728. Kings of the West Saxons We said on February 6 that he held these provinces of the West Saxons: Southampton, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Dorset, Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall; and those which Ceadwalla had added -- Sussex and Surrey, and the Isle of Wight -- the kingdom of the South Saxons having been destroyed. These provinces border on the English Channel, facing the shores of Gaul; on the Ocean and here Richard and his sons, disembarking from the ship, pitched their tents on the bank of the river called the Sigona, near the city called Rotum. So says the ancient Hodoeporicon of Saint Willibald, opposite the region of Gaul in whose other Life under the name of Reginold, that city is called Rotomagum, commonly Rouen, a most celebrated emporium on the River Seine, which Fredegar in his Chronicle, chapters 20, 24, and 79, also calls Sigona -- an author who lived at the same time as Saints Willibald and Wunibald.

[16] Among the Clerics whom Bede writes were accustomed in those times to vie with one another in making pilgrimages to the thresholds of the Apostles and to foreign regions, their kinsman Saint Boniface, and he himself and his sons Saint Boniface, Archbishop of Mainz, must be reckoned, who in the ancient Life of Saint Wunibald is reported to have been joined and bound to him by the bond of carnal kinship and blood; so that the same homeland must be established for all, which Wolfhard of Hasenried, who flourished around the year of Christ 900, in his Life of Saint Walburga calls Britain. "A branch of this eminent tree," he says, "was Boniface. Of the same flourishing and leafy British tree, branches extended even to us -- Britons the two blessed Confessors Willibald and Wunibald, together with the most chaste sister, the Virgin of Christ, Walburga." Moreover, they dwelt in that part of Britain which the Saxons then inhabited; thus Saint Wunibald in his ancient Life says he from the Saxon nation and land "wished to visit again the Saxon land of his own birth." And the Life of Saint Willibald attributed to Reginold begins thus: "The Saxon land received the origin of the distinguished Confessor of Christ and Bishop." He, "as is the custom of the Saxon people," was offered before the Cross to God and recovered his health, as the author, his kinswoman, reports in the Hodoeporicon, who in the Prologue calls herself "an unworthy one of the Saxon nation, the last of those coming from there." Saint Boniface himself, in his first letter to Pope Zacharias, in volume 1 of the Councils of Gaul, overseas says he was born and raised in Transmarine Saxony, in which the Church was first established and ordained by the disciples of Saint Gregory -- that is, by the Archbishops Augustine, Lawrence, Justus, and Mellitus. These were Archbishops of Canterbury, and they are venerated: Augustine on May 26, Justus on November 10, Mellitus on April 24, and Lawrence on February 2, where we treated their mission; we shall treat of it again on March 12 in the Life of Saint Gregory. From all of which it is clear that Saxon Britain, or, as Saint Boniface says, Transmarine Saxony, is meant here.

[17] Saint Boniface was born at Crediton, now by contraction Kirton, Saint Boniface was a Devonian a town of Devon on the River Creedy, which flows thence to Exeter, the metropolis of the province, called by the Romans Isca Damnoniorum, by the Anglo-Saxons Exanceaster, or also Monketon, that is, Monastery, from the monks. Hence Saint Boniface, as Saint Willibald attests in his Life, chapter 1, at the age of five was sent to the monastery which is called by the ancient

name Ad Estancastre, whose Abbot was Wolfhard. Thence, in chapter 2, he is reported to have been sent to Abbot Wynbert of Nursling in Southampton; and by him and the Abbots Wintra of the monastery of Disselburg a monk in Southampton, under King Saint Ine or Wisselburg, and Beorwald of the monastery of Glastonbury in Somerset, and other ecclesiastical men, he was summoned -- with Saint Willibald as witness in chapter 4 -- to King Saint Ine, who was present with them in a synodal council; and having been entrusted with a mission by the King to Berectwald, or Bertwald, Archbishop of Canterbury, he was sent on his way. Then, as is related in chapter 5, lest he be appointed in the place of his deceased Abbot, having received letters of recommendation from Saint Daniel, Bishop of the most celebrated city of Winchester in Hampshire and Saint Daniel, Bishop of Winchester (concerning which places and men we treated for the most part in the Life of Saint Ine, section 4), he set out for Rome to Pope Saint Gregory II, who presided over the Church from the year 714 until the year 731, when he departed this life on February 13. Saint Daniel the Bishop is venerated on December 10.

[18] In the same kingdom of the West Saxons Saint Richard and his sons dwelt. In the same kingdom dwelt Saint Richard and his sons. For they were of the Saxon nation and had the Saxon land of their own birth; and the western kingdom of that nation was better known to foreigners and was the chief one of the Saxons. They were moreover kinsmen and blood relatives of Saint Boniface, both born and raised in that kingdom. And indeed Saint Wunibald in the latter's Life shows that he has distinguished knowledge of that kingdom, on account of which he also calls the aforesaid Bishop of Winchester, Daniel, "of blessed memory." And in the same province as Bishop Saint Daniel, Willibald lived, according to the Hodoeporicon, under Abbot Egbald Saint Willibald, a monk in Hampshire or Eguiwald, in the monastery of Waltheim, which we believe is now called Bushwaltham, or the Forest of Waltham, where extensive buildings of the Bishop of Winchester were later constructed. Finally, setting out thence upon the Ocean, they sailed to Gaul. For at the suitable time of summer, as is related in the Hodoeporicon, ready and prepared, having taken with them provisions for their journey, together with the company of their accompanying companions, they came to the appointed places, which were called by the ancient name Hamelea multa, from that province they board ships near that trading place which is called Hambich. Bede indicates this place in Book 4 of the History, chapter 16, where he says that the mouth of the river Hamelea enters the sea of the Solent, interposed between the Isle of Wight and the land of the Gewissae, that is, of the West Saxons. The river is now called Hamble by a contracted name, and Hamble Haven, which was formerly called Hamelea mutta (for thus we believe it should be read), just as the other maritime towns among the same Saxons are still named: Portsmouth, Weymouth, Exmouth, Sidmouth, Dartmouth, Plymouth, Woolmouth, etc. Nor was Hamwic far away, an emporium formerly situated at the inner bay into which the Itchen flows, having first passed by Winchester -- on both banks of which Camden shows in his Britannia that it had stood, and at Bitterne village the ruins, walls, and ditches of an ancient fort are shown, from whose ashes Southampton was built in a more commodious location. In the province of Hampshire, therefore, there they were probably born the birthplace of Saint Richard and his sons was more probably situated. Thence they sailed to Gaul. Willibald, taught piety from the fifth year of his age at the monastery of Waltham, came to the notice of Saint Daniel, Bishop of Winchester. From him Saint Boniface received letters of recommendation and went to Rome, having previously professed the monastic life in his diocese, and perhaps in the city of Winchester itself, having been sent there from Devon; from which province it is also not improbable that the parents of the same Saint Boniface originated. Certainly, the Bishop of Winchester, Daniel, had only the province of Southampton in his diocese from the kingdom of the West Saxons, as we showed in the Life of King Saint Ine, section 4. Pitsaeus, following Bale, in his book on the Writers of England, makes Saint Willibald a Devonian.

Section IV. The Nobility, Wealth, and Royal Dignity of Saint Richard.

[19] This knot is more difficult than the rest, but must be untied by the method already begun, from the ancient writers. Bede, in Book 4 of the History, chapter 12, reports that upon the death of Cenwalh, King of the West Saxons (which occurred in the year of Christ 672), sub-kings received the government of the nation and held it divided among themselves for about ten years; and that then, after those sub-kings had been defeated and removed, From the year 673 there were several sub-kings among the West Saxons Ceadwalla assumed power; and after he had held it for two years, he went to Rome and there ended his life -- and we said above that Saint Ine succeeded him. In his time it is certain that there were still some sub-kings there. How many ruled simultaneously before that, we have never read; indeed other writers commonly interpose between Cenwalh and Ceadwalla only the kings Escwine and Centwine, mentioned by Bede alone, who were descended from the stock of the earlier kings. Among these, Escwine and Centwine were regarded as kings. They assign the beginning of the former to the year of Christ 674, and would have the latter appointed in his place two years later. To these a third king, Baldred, is added by Cuthred, who obtained the kingdom of the same West Saxons in the year 741, Baldred who in a charter issued in the year 747 confirms to the monastery of Glastonbury the donations of the former kings Kentwine, Baldred, Ceadwalla, Ine, and Athelard. Together with the said charter there exists in a Glastonbury manuscript codex a charter of King Baldred, written in the year 681, with this opening: "Whatsoever things are decreed with just moderation according to the ecclesiastical norm, although they obtain their proper force by right, nevertheless, since the uncertain state of human life is clearly recognized, let them at least be strengthened on the pages of books for greater firmness. At length I, Baldred the King, for the love of the heavenly fatherland and the forgiveness of my sins, freely confer a certain small portion of land upon Abbot Hamgisl for the support of the honorable church of the Blessed Mary and Saint Patrick, with the consent of our Bishop Heddi (who also appointed the same venerable Hemgisl as Abbot in that place, with King Kentwine consenting, on account of his faithful manner of life) and of the rest of the kinsmen governing the helms of the kingdom." King together with other kinsmen. The land granted, moreover, is upon the summit of the hill whose name is Pennard, etc. The sign of the hand of King Baldred is appended. Bishop Hedde wrote it. Abbot Aldhelm subscribed -- who was later made the first Bishop of Sherborne and is venerated on May 25, as is Saint Hedda on July 7. Ussher mentions this charter in chapter 6 of British Antiquities. Behold Baldred the King, and several kinsmen ruling together with him, whom Bede would have removed by Ceadwalla. Among them was Athelard, brother of Queen Ethelburga, who was married to King Ine; who gave very many estates to the same monks of Glastonbury and confirmed their privileges, at the urging, as he says, of Baldred and Athelard, the sub-kings; of whom also while Saint Ine was reigning Baldred gave six hides at Pennard, and Athelard sixty hides at Pohelt, with Ine approving and confirming. And after King Ine and the Queen they subscribe with this formula: "I, Baldred the King, have confirmed. I, Adelard, brother of the Queen, have consented." Then Archbishop Berctwald of Canterbury subscribed, and Bishops Daniel of Winchester and Fordred of Sherborne, other sub-kings in the year, as is added, 725 -- but perhaps 721 should be read, on account of Indiction IV attached. We brought forth this privilege in the Life of Saint Ine, section 3, where also in section 1 we treated of Cissa, the founder of the monastery of Abingdon in Berkshire, regarded as King of the West Saxons by Camden and others; and in section 5 of a certain Nun, who, as a kinsman of King Ine, waged war together with him against the King of Wales in the year 710. These Cissa and Nun, however, we recognize only as sub-kings in the kingdom of the West Saxons. Finally, in section 7 we gave the competitor for the kingdom after Ine, departing for Rome, had left it: Oswald the Clito, that is, according to Spelman in the Archaeologus, the son of a king descended from the same great-grandfather Cuthwine as Saint Ine; whose parent Ethelbald, accordingly, regarded as a king, must necessarily be numbered among these sub-kings.

[20] Now it is clear that the illustrious family of Saint Richard was there at that same time, from the Hodoeporicon of Saint Willibald, then Saint Richard in which, when Willibald was three years old and afflicted with a grave bodily illness, his parents offered him before the holy and Lord's Cross of the Savior. "For such is the custom of the Saxon people, noble by birth that on not a few estates of nobles and good men they are accustomed to have, not a church, but the sign of the holy Cross dedicated to the Lord, raised aloft with great honor and devotion,

for the convenience of zealous daily prayer." There also Saint Willibald, already an adolescent, proposed to forsake the temporal riches of earthly things wealthy in possessions and to separate his father Saint Richard from the false prosperities and riches of temporal life. And so at length, together with Saint Wunibald, having taken with them provisions for their journey, with a company of their accompanying companions, with a distinguished retinue they sailed to Gaul, and disembarking from the ship, they pitched camp and fixed their tents on the bank of the River Sigona, etc. The same Willibald, in the other Life attributed to Bishop Reginold, approached his father, named Richard, illustrious in birth and possessions, and began to urge upon him contempt of the world and pilgrimage. Similar things are read in the Life of Saint Wunibald, written together with the earlier Hodoeporicon. There this illustrious man, at nineteen years of age, setting aside the affection for his carnal relatives and especially scorning the homeland of his own inheritance, preferred to taste and penetrate the rewards of unfamiliar pilgrimage rather than to flourish in the false prosperities of the riches of this present life; and thus, joined in the company of his father and brother, he sailed to Gaul, where pitching camp they rested their somewhat weary limbs for a little while.

[21] Behold, they were noble and illustrious in birth, wealthy in estates and other possessions, and distinguished by the retinue of their servants. Why then should Saint Richard not be numbered among those sub-kings he should be reckoned among the sub-kings whom, as Bede attests, Saint Ceadwalla removed? The place and time agree, the nobility and the abundance of temporal goods bear witness; the very name Richard sounds like something royal in the Saxon tongue -- namely a man of powerful, wealthy, and strong character. Thus among the earlier West Saxon kings, Cenric and Ceolric, and later King Brithric, bore the first syllable of the name Richard in their own; while the latter syllable was borne by the above-mentioned sub-king Adelard and Ine's successor in the kingdom, Aethelherd. We wish this to be noted against certain opponents of the saints, who would have not only the kingdom but the very name of Saint Richard expunged, as though entirely alien to the customs and usage of the ancient Saxons. In the same way the names of his sons display a royal splendor, of which Willibald signifies "very much willing or boldly daring," and Wunibald, or Winibald, signifies "a bold or ready victor." King Ine had two sisters, Saint Cuthburga and Saint Quenburga, both of whom left the temporal kingdom to become nuns, and perhaps were abbesses of the monastery of Wimborne in the eastern part of Dorset toward Hampshire; with whom, or with others, Saint Richard's daughter Saint Walburga (in the ancient form nearly Walburga, like Cutburga and Quenburga), either lived for some time having professed the monastic life, or certainly cultivated a great friendship and familiarity, so that she set out for Germany in the company of her kinswoman Saint Lioba, who had been trained there in monastic discipline. Saint Cuthburga is venerated on August 31, Quenburga and Lioba on September 12 and 28.

[22] Among the sub-kings mentioned therefore by Bede, Ine, and others, we believe Saint Richard can be reckoned, descended from the same royal stock of the West Saxons as the rest. Should he be called a King? Moreover, just as the other sub-kings were honored with the royal name by various writers and by the kings who soon succeeded them in that place, and themselves used that title in their subscriptions even after Saint Richard's death -- as we showed above -- why should not the royal name be permitted to him? And although he and his sons, so as better to lie hidden in a foreign land, did not make this dignity of theirs public, Adalbert, Abbot of Heidenheim, in his Commentary on the restoration of Heidenheim to the monks, published by Gretser on the affairs of Eichstatt, testifies that it is proved from the writings of Saint Walburga. As was afterward done by writers. "Whoever," he says, "wishes to know the lineage and life of Saints Willibald and Wunibald can learn it fully from the writings of Saint Walburga the Virgin, who was their own sister. For she writes that Richard, King of the English, was their father, who, having been from boyhood always most Christian, left his kingdom and homeland," etc. But these writings of Saint Walburga, published under her name, have either perished or still lie hidden. From these same writings was formed the epigram about Saint Wunibald cited above, in which he is called the son of Richard who left the kingdom of the English. In the same way, Saint Willibald is celebrated as the son of a king who despised the kingdom of the world, etc., by the anonymous writer of Hasenried, who flourished in the eleventh century under Bishops Gebhard and Gundecar II of Eichstatt -- as related by Gretser under Heribert, the fifteenth Bishop. Similar things are recorded by Medibaud in his Rhymes on the miracles of Saint Walburga, to be given below on February 25, which Wolfhard of Hasenried had previously written in prose, where he has these lines:

"She was a king's daughter, but made herself poor, That rich in Christ she might reign in Him forever."

These are in the Prologue, and are soon repeated in these Rhymes:

"She who was born a king's daughter Utterly despised Royal riches For the love of the supreme King."

That Saint Boniface was descended from the noble lineage of the English is written, according to Serarius, Book 3 of the Affairs of Mainz, note 2 on his Life, by an anonymous author concerning his passion, which we shall give in full on June 5. Ancient verses formerly hung in the church of the citadel of Mainz attribute royal descent to the same Boniface, and were thus transcribed by Serarius:

"Boniface, born of royal stock, Voluntarily leaving Britain, By the authority of the Supreme Pontiff became The Apostle of Germany."

Likewise Saint Richard, kinsman of Saint Boniface and parent of three other Saints, is said in the Epitaph appended to his tomb at Lucca to have been a King, scepter-bearing, who relinquished the kingdom of the English -- the name "English" being substituted because the Saxon kingdoms among the Britons had ceased, and with the Heptarchy destroyed, those who then held power were called Kings of the English. Whether Saint Richard also reigned among the East Saxons we shall presently inquire.

Section V. Fabulous Kingdoms Ascribed to Saint Richard, and Rejected. Whether the Kingdom of the East Saxons Should Be Attributed to Him?

[23] That Saint Richard was a king in the island of Britain, Catholic writers have commonly reported; but since the ordinary lists of kings, in the centuries in which they would have him reign, present no Richard, they have gone in doubt into various opinions -- as they would likewise have done with the other sub-kings cited above, and even with Baldred, whom we have demonstrated from the charters of Kings Ine, Cuthred, and Baldred himself to have been a king. He was not a Scotsman by nation. Thomas Dempster, in Book 29 of the Ecclesiastical History of the Scottish Nation, affirms that Saints Willibald, Wunibald, and Walburga, as also Saint Winfrid (afterward called Boniface), were Scots by nation, and that it is known from the English historians that there was no King of the English named Richard in that century and around those times -- an argument we have already resolved. Wherefore, he first proposes that this Richard was Malduinus, the fifty-fifth King of the Scots, who died in the year 685, the same as Malduinus, King, who died in the year 685 sixteen years before the birth of Saint Wunibald and twenty before that of Saint Willibald, to whom Saint Walburga was much younger still. The authorities cited by Dempster are Trithemius, Bruschius, Cratepolius, Molanus, Possevinus, Mormannus, John Frisius -- all moderns; and, his particular boast, Reginold, the eleventh Bishop of Eichstatt, successor of Sturchand, who was dearest to the three Ottos and wrote the Life of Saints Willibald and Wunibald, the brothers. Canisius published it with this opening cited above: "The Saxon land received the origin of the distinguished Confessor of Christ and Bishop Willibald" -- which Dempster has not yet shown to be the same as Scottish. The occasion of error was given to Trithemius and others by Marianus Scotus, who at the year 743 cites a letter of Pope Zacharias to Boniface "the Scot," Archbishop of Mainz, given on April 1 in the twenty-fourth year of the reign of Constantine, but the second year of his empire, Indiction 11. This is the first letter of Pope Zacharias to Saint Boniface, but nowhere else in any edition is he called "the Scot"; indeed Boniface himself, as we said above, in his letter to Pope Zacharias writes that he was born and raised in Transmarine Saxony.

[24] Philip, Bishop of Eichstatt, in chapter 1 of the Life of Saint Willibald, reports that the Blessed Richard traced his origin from the nobler stock of the Saxons through his earliest forebears, was a Teuton by nationality, nor was he a Teutonic Duke of Swabia Duke of Swabia, son of the sister of Offo, King of England; and that when Offo died without the comfort of posterity, Richard was elected King by the common vote of the magnates of all England, and attained the governance of the English kingdom. So writes Philip, unaware that the Saxons had also inhabited Britain and that the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy had been established there; but supposing, as was the case in his own age, that the entire region was subject to one sole person who was called King of England. Munster in Book 3 of his Cosmography, treating of Offenburg, and from him Spelmann in the British Councils under the beginning of the seventh century, relate descended from Offo, the founder of Offenburg that Offo, of royal blood, came from England in the year 603, and crossing the Rhine, planted the faith of Christ among the Germans and founded the monastery of Schuttern, near the castle of Offenburg, built by him on the River Kinzig -- now an Imperial town. Paul Voltius, Abbot of Hugshofen, as cited by Guillimann on the Bishops of Strasbourg under Saint Amandus (whom Crusius, Part 1 of the Annals of Swabia, Book 10, chapter 2, mentions), reports that Saint Richard, King of England, was a kinsman and great-grandson of this Offo, and that Willibald, Wunibald, and Walburga were the holy offspring of the aforesaid Richard. Munster also says the same when treating of the kingdom and duchy of Swabia. From this Offo arose the occasion for fabricating that Saint Richard was Duke of Swabia.

[25] But another Offo must be sought -- the brother of Saint Richard's mother, a King among the Anglo-Saxons, who died without leaving any offspring. This is Offa, King of the East Saxons, who in the year of Christ 709, at the urging of Saint Kineswitha, daughter of King Penda of the Mercians, [Was he appointed to succeed his uncle Offa, King of the East Saxons, in the year 709?] whose hand in marriage he had desired, left his kingdom and went to Rome, and having been tonsured, completed his life in the monastic habit -- as Bede, who was then living, writes in these words in Book 5, chapter 20, without any mention of a successor, whom even the Anglo-Saxon Chronologist and the Worcester historian do not indicate when relating the pilgrimage of Offa, although they report that Selred, son of a certain Sigebert the Good, King of the East Saxons, was killed in the year 746 -- whom the Malmesbury historian in Book 1 on the Deeds of the Kings of England, chapter 6, the Westminster historian, and other later writers report to have succeeded Offa. What if Saint Richard, who in that year 709 entrusted his younger son Saint Willibald, then five years old, to the Abbot of the monastery of Waltheim, was then summoned from the kingdom of the West Saxons and reigned among the East Saxons until his departure from that island, or at least for some years? This is what Bishop Philip of Eichstatt above wished to say, although he called him a Teuton and Duke of Swabia instead of Transmarine Saxony. Certainly in the Lucca Epitaph he is also called the son of the sister of King Offa. The other Offa, King of the Mercians, younger than Saint Richard, does not pertain here, as he left his son Ecgfrith as heir, who died in the year 794. Among the ancestors of this later Offa, another Offa is found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronologist, but with twelve generations interposed -- whose Life exists with the Acts of the Abbots of Saint Albans, by an author said to be Matthew Paris. A certain Riganus attacked this Offa, but he was some centuries more ancient than Saint Richard -- which it suffices to have noted.

[26] Arnold Wion in Book 4 of the Lignum Vitae, chapter 24, treating of Saints Willibald and Wunibald, establishes the following about their father Saint Richard: first, that he was the nephew of Offa, King of the East Saxons, through his sister, as others have said; second, that he was the son of Lothar, King of Kent, who was killed in the year 685, or at least, as the ancients report, He was not the son of Lothar, King of Kent died in that year from a wound received in battle against the South Saxons; third, that with the kingdom of Kent occupied by his cousin Edric, then by Ceadwalla and his brother Mul, Kings of the West Saxons (or at least, as others say, devastated in the year 686), Saint Richard, left quite young and having abandoned the care of the kingdom, nor having left that kingdom went to Germany to Bishop Saint Boniface, whose sister Wunna, or Bonna, he had taken as wife, and from whom he had begotten three children. Saint Boniface in those years which Wion specifies was being trained as a youth in the monastery of Nursling, and was ordained Priest around the year 700; in the year 718, having received episcopal authority from Pope Saint Gregory II, he came to Germany; and finally, consecrated Bishop by the same Gregory in the year 723, he resumed the labors begun in Germany -- Saint Richard having died at Lucca in Italy one year earlier. Wion adds that Richard, elected King by the Swabians, who lacked a king, made King of the Swabians on account of the nobility of his royal blood, presided most wisely and holily for some years; but when he saw that he could not simultaneously serve God, as he preferred, and please the world, he undertook a voluntary pilgrimage and, taking his two sons with him, left the earthly kingdom to his wife Bonna and his daughter Walburga, to be raised under the care of her uncle Saint Boniface, so that he might receive the eternal one. So says Wion, with a light, if ingenious, conjecture, which he confirms only by the authority of a recent writer. "Francis Irenicus," he says, "in Book 3 of his Exegesis of Germany, chapter 80, alone reveals the name of his father, saying: 'At that time a Duke of the Swabians is mentioned, who was said to be a Burgundian by nation; according to some, English.'" But what Irenicus adds, Wion suppresses. "Richard therefore," says Irenicus, "and Erkinger with his brother-in-law Linfrid departed among the Princes of the Swabians. But these were beheaded by King Conrad, son of the slain Conrad... confused with a Richard 200 years younger Conrad, in order to bring the Duchy into his own family, married his daughter to Burchard, Duke of the Swabians, who was the son of the Duke Richard previously cited by us." Behold that Richard, whoever he was, was some centuries younger than Saint Richard, and was beheaded. Wion urges that in the attached Genealogical Table it is reported that from Richard, son of Lothar, and his wife Utina, were born Willibald, Bishop of Eichstatt, and the Abbot of Ursberg. Did he mean to write Walburga the Abbess and Wunna, or Bonna, the wife? Wion could have seen clearly enough that these things, like most things in Irenicus, are all wretchedly corrupted and confused. Finally, why not -- on account of Saint Walburga being confused with Saint Werburgh, daughter of the King of the Mercians -- have they also believed Saint Richard to be a King of the Mercians?

Section VI. The Sacred Veneration of Saint Richard. His Relics.

[27] After the death of Saint Richard is narrated in the Hodoeporicon of Saint Willibald, his body is said to have been beautifully wrapped by his sons and entombed in the city of Lucca at the church of Saint Frigidian. The body was buried at Lucca And when Willibald set out for Germany in the year 741, he came to Lucca, where his father rested. There, as the manuscript Acts have it, he began to shine with miracles, crowned with the rewards of eternal blessedness by Christ, the Rewarder of all good things. It is famous for miracles. And indeed he was buried by the Bishop with great veneration on the right side of the principal altar. But then, with the authority of the Roman Church having been obtained, the Bishop of Lucca raised the body from the ground and placed it with the utmost veneration upon an altar; it is elevated that this altar was sacred to him is certain from the miracles to be given below. An altar dedicated to him. Franciotti dates this elevation of the relics to the year of Christ 1152; and adds that some of his bones, together with one of his shoes, are preserved in the church of Saint Pontian.

[28] The people of Eichstatt requested some relics for themselves, which Adalbert, Abbot of Heidenheim, also mentions in his commentary. Some relics were brought to Germany. "A certain young man named Eberhard," he says, "who had inflicted innumerable evils upon the monks, and who had stolen the riding horse from the Priest Elsung on the feast of Saint Wunibald, and during the most holy Advent of our Lord Jesus Christ, while he was carrying the relics of King Saint Richard to the church of his son Saint Wunibald, died terribly under excommunication." That some of his relics, together with sacred pledges and the oil of Saint Walburga, were brought to England and to England and solemnly deposited at Canterbury by King Henry VII, we shall say on February 25 in the Life of Saint Walburga. The Church of Volterra in Etruria possesses some relics of Saint Richard, as do three churches of Bologna, as Masini reports at February 7.

[29] His name is inscribed in the Roman Martyrology at February 7 in these words: "At Lucca in Tuscany, Saint Richard, King of the English." Menard adds "and anchorite," He is venerated on February 7 of which however no trace exists. The manuscript Florarium Sanctorum: "Likewise of Saint Richard the King, father of Saints Willibald and Wunibald and of Saint Walburga the Virgin." Who, as is added in the Viola Sanctorum,

left everything he had for Christ's sake, undertook a very long pilgrimage, and at last died happily. Nearly the same things are read in the ancient Cologne Martyrology, in the supplements of Molanus and Hermann Greven to Usuard. In the first place, the German Martyrology of Canisius celebrates him with this eulogy: "Today is the day of Saint Richard, King of England, father of Saint Walburga and of Saints Willibald and Wunibald, who after the death of his wife left the kingdom for Christ's sake and undertook a pilgrimage with his three children to visit the Holy Sepulchre; but when he had arrived at Lucca in Italy, not without errors in the Martyrologies he there rested in a blessed end and was famous for many miracles." That Saint Walburga was left in the homeland while her mother was still living, we shall say in her Life. In the Salisbury Martyrology of Richard Whitford these words are read: "The feast of Saint Richard the Confessor, King of England, who leaving his kingdom out of great piety set out for Rome with his two sons, Saint Willibald and Saint Wunibald; whence returning, he died in the city of Lucca. Of his sons, one became a Bishop, the other an Abbot; whose sister, daughter of the King, Saint Walburga, became an Abbess and was famous for great holiness and many miracles." In the English Martyrology of John Wilson, these things are related from Wion and the Lucca Epitaph, not without errors: "At Lucca in Italy, the deposition of Saint Richard the Confessor, son of Lothar, King of the Kentish, who for the greater service of God, having undertaken a long pilgrimage, came to Rome to venerate the holy places; and when he was returning thence, he died at Lucca around the year of Christ 750, and was buried there on this day with due veneration in the chapel of Saint Frigidian, and adorned with an Epitaph in both prose and verse." Ghinius also in his Natales of Canonized Saints, and Ferrari in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, attribute to him long and difficult pilgrimages, with his sons left with Saint Boniface; and report him to have departed this life under Pope Zacharias -- Ghinius in the year 741, Ferrari in 771, but by a typographical error. Saint Zacharias presided over the Church from December 6 of the year 741, and died on March 15 of the year 752. But these errors collapse of their own accord, given the foundations firmly established above. Gelenius in the sacred Calendar of the Church of Cologne reports the same.

[30] And February 4. The manuscript Acts assign the day of the Elevation of his relics to February 4, on which day in the supplement of Hermann Greven to Usuard and in the Cologne Martyrology, Saint Richard, King and Martyr of the English, is reported -- whom those authors perhaps judged to be different from this one. In the annotations made in the Carthusian house of Brussels to the same Usuard, these words are read at August 4: "At Lucca, the memorial of the Blessed Richard, King of England, Confessor, and August 4 who died there as a pilgrim." On that day the Furnenses and others celebrate Saint Walburga with special solemnity, as will be said on February 25.

I. EPITOME OF THE LIFE OF SAINT RICHARD,

from the Hodoeporicon of Saint Willibald the Bishop, by a nun who was his kinswoman.

Richard, Anglo-Saxon King in Britain, at Lucca in Italy (Saint)

From the Life of Saint Willibald.

[1] When that Willibald, lovable and delightful in the cradle of his earliest infancy, strengthened and nourished by the flattering attentions of those who reared him In the illness of his son Saint Willibald and especially of his parents, with their great devotion of affection toward him and the daily provision of their solicitude in caring for him, had reached the age of three -- when, therefore, the course of three years had passed, and that small and delicate child, in his fragile age and infant years, still bore the limbs of a tender body -- suddenly it happened that a grave bodily illness afflicted him in his third year, and he was seized with such great bodily distress that the slender frame of his limbs was constricted, so that the breath barely remaining in him threatened a near end to his life. Saint Richard was anxious together with his wife. When his father and mother saw their offspring lying sick, already nearly half-dead, held fast by timid ecstasy and a new sadness of mind, they began to be anxious, because they saw their child, born to them, weakened by a fresh plague and ensnared by a deadly peril from an unforeseen death; and they feared with grief that he whom they had nourished, weaned and comforted from the cradle of his earliest infancy, up to his third year -- whom they wished to have as their survivor and heir -- was already lifeless or dead, and would be covered with earth. But Almighty God, the Maker of the world and Fashioner of heaven and earth, did not yet wish to lead his infant servant, still not yet grown, tender in the slender frame of his limbs and uncertain to men, out of the prison of the body; but rather that he might afterward more widely open to the newly converted throughout the world the rewards of life by his standard.

[2] But let us return again to the aforementioned man's early infancy. When his parents, suspended in great ecstasy of mind he offers him before the Cross to Christ and uncertain about the doubtful recovery of their son, took their son and offered him before that holy and Lord's Cross of the Savior -- for such is the custom of the Saxon people, that on not a few estates of nobles and good men they are accustomed to have, not a church, but the sign of the holy Cross, dedicated to the Lord with great honor and devotion, raised on high, for the convenience of zealous daily prayer -- placing him there before the Cross, they earnestly besought the Lord God, the Maker of all, to console them and to preserve their child safe and sound by his powers; and they pledged themselves to make return to the Lord for their most earnest prayers, promising that if the former health of that infant were restored, they would immediately have him receive the tonsure at the beginning of Holy Orders, and vows to make him a monk and subject him to the service of Christ under the discipline of the monastic life, serving under the governance of divine law. And immediately, before they had finished making their vows and completing their words, and commending their son to serve the heavenly King, and receives him back in health they at once obtained grace and the fulfillment of their petitions from the Lord, and the boy's former health was afterward restored.

[3] When that illustrious boy had reached the age of five in his infancy, and already at that time the shoot of wisdom was sprouting in him, at five years old his parents hastened to fulfill the vowed promises of their desires, and with the advice and counsel of friends and carnal relatives, they hastened to prepare and accomplish the illustrious boy as quickly as possible for the instruments of the sacred monastic life. They immediately commended him to a venerable and most faithful man named Theodred, and asked him by his own providence to take the boy to a monastery and to manage and arrange everything prudently concerning his affairs. When they had proceeded and brought him to the monastery called Waltheim, they offered him to the venerable Abbot of that monastery, whose name was Egbalt, he delivers him to Abbot Egbalt at Waltheim and subjected him, as a younger person of his condition, or a disciple in obedience, to the Abbot's authority. Immediately the Abbot of the monastery, according to the discipline of the regular life, declared these things to his Congregation; and thus he requested that it be done with their counsel and permission. To him the entire assembly of the Brothers immediately gave their response and permission, and declared that all of this was proper by the judgment of their own will, and receiving him, they quickly associated him by joining him to the monastic fellowship of their life.

[4] After this, when that modest and accomplished boy, under whom he is imbued with sacred studies imbued and instructed in the sacred studies of letters, traversed the sacred pages of the Psalms of David with diligent mental attention, and also investigated and read other treasuries of the sacred writers of divine law, with a keen and well-governed mind -- and yet he was not yet advanced in the age of many years, but just as divine clemency of heavenly mercy always acts, according to the prophetic utterance of the Prophecies, he deigned to perfect praise for himself from the mouth of infants and nurslings. Psalm 8:3. Then, therefore,

in him the age of years and the sagacity of mind had begun to sprout together by the governance of divine dispensation, and the divine grace of the Holy Spirit had grown in him far more than the size of his body or the strength of his limbs. Now wholly turned to the love of God, in long and great meditation of mind he pondered the instruments of monastic governance, and monastic discipline and carefully revolved day and night in the hidden quiet of his mind the sovereignty of the monastic life -- how he might join himself to the chaste fellowship of those monks, or in what way he might be present at the happy disciplines of their familiar life. When he was diligently revolving these things within the turnings of his mind, he began to consider how this thought might achieve its effect -- that he might despise all the perishable things of this world, or be able to abandon them, and not only the temporal riches of earthly things, but also his homeland, parents, and relatives, and attempt the land of pilgrimage and seek the unknown fields of foreign parts. When some interval of time had passed after those amusements of his childhood delights, the boyish allurements of incentives, and the enticing wantonness of a luxuriant age, and he had reached, through the unwearied and ineffable grace of divine dispensation, the down and adolescence of puberty, he called forth upon himself the greatest affection among the company of the Brothers through the affect of obedience and the munificence of gentleness, so that he was held as distinguished among them all in love and honor. And so, adhering for a long time to the care of daily solicitude and to the divine studies of letters day and night, he pressed forward to such a degree, and tamed his mind with the rigor of rectitude, that from day to day he advanced to the better instruments of heavenly warfare.

[5] After that youth, Christ's servant, as we said above, he is solicited by him wished to test the unknown paths of his pilgrimage and to visit and explore the foreign lands of distant territories, and had also resolved to go into the perils of the vast sea, Saint Richard the father is urged to pilgrimage he immediately revealed these secret plans of his heart, hidden from all, to his carnal father, and earnestly besought him with prayers to give his consent to the counsel of his son's vowed desire to set out, and more insistently demanded that he give him permission to depart and that the father himself go with him. And when he wished, by urging, to separate his father from the pleasures of the world, from the delights of the age, from the false prosperities and riches of temporal life, inviting him to the beginning of so great a work and to the manner of so great a life; and asked him, with the Lord's help, to begin divine service in the form of right establishment and in the apprenticeship of heavenly warfare, to leave his own homeland and to seek the open fields of pilgrimage with him; and thus at last invited him with rewards, addressing him with the gentle studies of oracles, that in the company of his sons he might approach the distinguished threshold of Peter, Prince of the Apostles -- to the thresholds of the Apostles then that father, at first, when the son made his request, refused the desired passage, and replying by way of excuse, said it would be dishonorable and cruel to orphan his wife and the young and fragile children, and to leave them to strangers. Then that warlike soldier of Christ, and long refusing, finally agrees with renewed wonders of exhortation and great persistence of prayers, at times rebuked him with fear and threats through the sterner lessons of a more rigorous life, and at times soothed and spurred him with the gentle promises of eternal life, the pleasantness of Paradise, and the love of Christ, and thus by every means of exhortation and address he strove to draw his father's mind to the assent of his own will. And so at last, by the help of Almighty God, the will of the one asking and urging prevailed, so that his father and his brother Wunibald promised to begin the adopted and urged-upon goal.

[6] He departs from England with his two sons. After this, therefore, with the passage of time and the revolving course of the years, when the time of their age was now pressing, his father and his unmarried brother began the predestined and adopted journey. At the suitable time of summer, ready and prepared, having taken with them provisions for their journey, together with the company of their accompanying companions, they came to the appointed places, which were called by the ancient name Hamelea Multa, near that trading place called Hamwich. And after no great interval of time had passed, with the ship prepared, that sailor with his fleet and his helmsman, the fare having been paid, with the northwest wind blowing and the sea surging, the oars creaking and the crews calling out, they boarded the swift vessel. When they had crossed the dreadful maritime waves and the dangerous pressures of the deep, across the vast sea, with the swift course of the vessel and favorable winds, he comes to Rouen on the Seine the ship under sail, they safely sighted dry land. Immediately disembarking joyfully from the ship, they made camp and pitched their tents on the bank of the river called the Sigona, near the city called Rotum; there also was a trading place. Resting there for some days, they again began to travel, and thus visited many oratories of the Saints that were convenient for them, praying; and thus, gradually traversing the route in part toward Gorthonicum, they advanced. When, continuing their journey, they came to the city called Lucca, he dies at Lucca in Italy Saint Willibald and the Blessed Wunibald were leading their father with them together in the company of the journey. Immediately there he was overtaken by a sudden bodily illness, so that after the passage of previous intervals of time, the day of his departure was now swiftly at hand. As the gravity of the illness increased in him, the weary and cold members of his body wasted away; and thus he breathed out the last breath of his life. He is buried at Saint Frigidian's. Immediately his two sons, his own brothers, receiving the lifeless body of their father with the affection of filial piety, beautifully wrapped it and entombed it in the earth. And in the city of Lucca, at the church of Saint Frigidian, there rests the body of their father.

a Each detail will be explained more fully on their proper days, when the complete Acts are presented.

b Around the year 707, as is evident from the above; where the remaining chronology is discussed.

c In Hampshire, as was said there at number 18.

d By others called Egiwald, Egilward, Egiwald, and Egbald.

e Canisius frequently observes that this word indicates a wise person.

f Canisius considers that the reading should be thus. The manuscript had: "in manissana mari discriminare decreuisset aequora."

g We have illustrated these places above from Bede and others.

h Philip in chapter 9 introduces a great storm; but the Life of Saint Wunibald also presents a prosperous voyage.

i The Seine; also called Sigona by Fredegar.

k Reginold calls it Rotumacum, commonly Rotomagum Rouen. Rader writes that they went directly from Britain to Italy, omitting Gaul.

l Reginold: "They arrived at the Gotthonic city, which is called Lucca." Others write Gotthonium.

m The Eichstatt manuscript and another Hodoeporicon read Priscianus, or Prescianus, of whom there is no mention in Franciotti, for whom Saint Frigidian is the eighth Bishop of Lucca, said to have died in the year 588, on March 18.

II. EPITOME OF THE LIFE OF SAINT RICHARD,

from the Acts of Saint Wunibald the Abbot, by the same nun who was their kinswoman.

Richard, Anglo-Saxon King in Britain, at Lucca in Italy (Saint)

[1] When that illustrious and most celebrated worshipper of Christ, Wunibald, already grown at nineteen years of age, handsome of face, strong in faith, Saint Richard with his sons by the help of gracious God and the exhortation of his brother, setting aside the affection for his carnal kinsmen and friends, and especially scorning the homeland of his own inheritance together with the household of his stepmother, his brothers, and sisters, preferred to taste and penetrate the rewards of unknown pilgrimage rather than to flourish in the fleeting prosperities of the riches of this present life; leaving his homeland and thus he desired daily with great devotion of mind to lead the monastic life in the uttermost borders of barbarian lands -- a desire which he later devoutly fulfilled. After this,

when that sagacious man wished to fulfill the vowed desires of his will, immediately, by the Lord's dispensation, he began the adopted and desired journey. And as we narrated more subtly in the other narrative texture of his brother's life, and now repeat by way of reminder -- he was immediately and gently joined in the company of his father and brother, and thus nimbly, with expenses and provisions, they came to the market places, that is, the trading place; and immediately, with the advice and counsel of the sailors, they obtained he crosses the sea the harboring places; and then, boarding the edge of the Ocean, they made for the ship, invaded the liquid waters of the blue deeps, until they surmounted the swelling seas, the timid and chilling roar of the whirlpools, the foaming of the waves, and the salt of the shoals.

[2] But then, with full and favorable blasts of the winds, they trod the dry grass of the lands; and thus joyful and glad, having obtained their wish, they rendered perfect thanks to Almighty God that they had merited to see port safely over the foaming waters of the waves and the perilous storms of the deep. He implores the patronage of the Saints. And thus pitching camp there, they rested their somewhat weary limbs from the journey, until reinvigorated and strengthened, they again walked the vowed path of the journey they had begun, and on the road they commended themselves to the sacred patronage of many Saints; and they visited many basilicas of the Saints along the way with their companions, piously seeking their assistance, so that they might safely traverse the foreign villages of the barbarians. Then they set out in haste; for they feared lest the autumn season fail them, and the cold winter, with its unhealthy and foggy air, rushing in horribly, might freeze them before they would merit to approach and behold the gracious basilica of the Apostle Peter. And then, traveling through the vast fields of Gaul and through the spacious land of Italy, they came as far as the city he dies at Lucca called Lucca. And as we assert in due order in the other written book, they brought their ailing and even half-dead father there; and as predestined fate caused it to happen, he ended his life there, and entombed in the earth, he rests there at Saint Frigidian's.

a The manuscript of Reichenau reads "eleven." But "nineteen," that is, nondecim, is required by the age proved above, and is the consistent reading in the other manuscripts.

b The Eichstatt manuscript reads nauicularia small boats.

c The Reichenau manuscript: "and before the cold air of harsh winter should freeze." The Eichstatt manuscript: "the air of winter, snowy and foggy, rushing in horribly, should freeze."

d The Reichenau manuscript: "and as the providence of God had predestined, he ended his life there, and is entombed in the earth; and there he rests at Saint Priscian's."

III. EPITOME OF THE LIFE OF SAINT RICHARD,

from the Acts of Saint Willibald the Bishop, by Bishop Reginold as author.

Richard, Anglo-Saxon King in Britain, at Lucca in Italy (Saint)

From the Life of Saint Willibald.

[1] The Saxon land received the origin of the distinguished Confessor of Christ and Bishop Willibald, Saint Richard, an Anglo-Saxon and, blessed with so fruitful an offspring, happily exulted. But afterward the salt-wandering wave of the sea, lapping against it, destined him for the regions of the East -- so that the land which merited him by nature, Bavaria might merit to have him by grace. When, therefore, in the beginning of his delicate tenderness, he was fostered with the charming flatteries of those who raised him, and as a little boy was nourished especially with the gentle affection of his parents, he reached the end of his third year by the prosperous revolving course of days. When the future soldier of God still bore the infantile limbs of a tender body, a certain sudden illness struck him in the green frame of his members, and he was seized with so great a bodily affliction grieving when his son Saint Willibald was sick that, with the distress bearing down upon him, the slender frame of his limbs was constricted, and the vital breath barely remaining in him threatened a near departure at any moment. When the father and mother, anxious, more and more frequently drew forth sighs flowing from the heart, and awaited the departure of their ailing and nearly half-dead child, they began to be afflicted with visceral and unexpected grief, because a tyrannical plague and a deadly peril threatened an unforeseen and mournful departure to the offspring divinely granted to them; and they feared that he whom they had raised, weaned and comforted, from earliest infancy up to his third year, and whom they longed to leave surviving, would now, extinguished, be covered by the greedy earth.

[2] The merciful and compassionate Lord, therefore, who often inflicts infirmity upon his Saints aroused by God so that weakness may receive through him the strong forces of virtue, did not wish yet to commit the little body of the blessed boy Willibald to the earth, nor to receive his spirit into heaven with the Saints; but rather that he might become throughout the world a man firm in faith, a winner of souls, and a shepherd of spiritual sheep -- he who had been to the sick boy the beginning of infirmity, conferred the increase of healing. Before the Cross. For his parents, having taken salutary counsel, offered him before the banner of the life-giving and holy Cross; so that if through the Cross, through which salvation was given to the world, he vows to dedicate him to the monastic life life should be restored to the dying boy, they would give him, tonsured at the beginning of Holy Orders, to a monastic house. And immediately, as the sad lips uttered with trembling voices the treasure of that happy vow they had conceived, the very illness close to death which had been raging in the boy, and receives him back in health as if repulsed by some hostile hand, yielded in flight to his former health.

[3] They were joyful at so great a gift which they had desired; they pour forth praises to Christ in heart and body, and hasten to fulfill the vow they had faithfully made. Therefore, when the wheel of time had brought him to the goal of his fifth year, and the bud of spiritual wisdom was already happily sprouting in him, at five years old he offers him to God his parents, not unmindful of their desirable vow, hasten to prepare him for the rudiments of the sacred monastic life -- so that he whom Christ had restored to saving life through the banner of the life-giving Cross, they might hand over to the contemplative life, to live and no longer to die spiritually forever. To the ready purpose of their soul the result is joined: for they commend him, to whom divine grace had already been a guide, to a certain man named Theodred, to be conveyed to the monastery, asking him to manage and arrange everything concerning himself and all his affairs providently. When they had conveyed him by a prosperous road to the monastery which is called by the inhabitants Waldheim, in the monastery of Waldheim they delivered this boy of so great a character, destined there by a heavenly gift, to the apprenticeship of sacred warfare, to the hands of the venerable Abbot, named Eguiwald, under Abbot Eguiwald who immediately, as if receiving a gift destined from heaven, with the consent of the holy Brothers dwelling there, generously received the future Priest of Christ in the tender limbs of infancy, and, embracing the Lord's treasure with a faithful mind, subjected him to the institutions of the monastic life. When the little boy had traversed the sacred pages of the Psalms of David with diligent mental attention for the purpose of learning, where he is instructed in sacred letters he immediately and zealously applied himself to the instruments of the hagiographers, already weaned from the most holy breasts of the Psalms; so that from the mouth of this infant, and nearly nursing child, Christ perfected a voice of praise for himself. And as the frame of his members grew in him, and the monastic life the observance of heavenly discipline and the form of all justice also grew after the circle of days. For wholly turned to the love of God, he wished to have nothing temporal, nothing carnal, except what the frailty of perishable flesh could not deny. The most valiant soldier of Christ daily took up heavenly arms, and with a crested helm, the helmet of eternal salvation, from him then about to fight fiercely against the ancient enemy in the arena of this present life, he shone bright with the sharp sword of the Holy Spirit.

[4] Then at last in the hidden quiet of his mind there arose the effect of a salutary thought -- how he might reject all things the father is invited to pilgrimage that are perishable, and carefully shun those things which do not follow the dead; and not only the delighting riches of the world and the soothing pomps of the age, but leave his familiar fields and desert his paternal borders,

and use the hardships of pilgrimage in place of pleasures -- which the outcome of events afterward proved. After, therefore, the holy youth Willibald had fixed the anchor of his hope and desire in him to whom he had entrusted himself entirely, he disclosed the purpose he had long conceived and kept hidden; and humbly consulting his father in private about this matter, he urged him to give his willing assent to the counsel of his son's vowed will; and that the son, setting out on pilgrimage, might enjoy the father's companionship in going -- he asks with all the effort of his mind, for the love of the heavenly fatherland; declaring to him that the riches of the world are false, destined to perish forever, and to be released together with the loss of death; that for a man to live wickedly in the world is nothing other than to heap up for himself the fires of hell; but on the contrary, for one who acts well with faith and perseveres therein, there is after the dissolution of the body life forever with the holy Angels, and doing nothing other than praising God eternally. Then the father, still anxious out of love for his children and wife, declared it dishonorable and cruel for all that, leaving his children orphaned as if as prey to strangers, he should cross such great perils of the sea to an unknown land. But the soldier of Christ, now established upon the firmest rock, and after various struggles, he agrees was neither broken by his father's enticements nor called back by worldly joys; but rather, repeating with the praises and unceasing prayers of his exhortations, now setting before him the delights of paradise and the hope of living without end, now casting before him the fire-vomiting torments of the abyss, he finally obtained the effect of his desired wish and rejoiced in his father's assent.

[5] And so, with the turning cycle of the seasons and the revolving course of the years, when the furnace of summer was now demanding its beginning, he sails to Gaul taking with them provisions for the journey, together with the company of their accompanying companions, and also joined by the Blessed Wunibald his brother, they arrived at the appointed places, which are called by the ancient name Hamelea Mittha, near the port called Hamwich; and there, pitching camp, they tarried for a short time, awaiting winds for sailing. When moreover the longed-for hour arrived at which the sea received their fleet upon its calm waves, the fare having been paid, they boarded the feathered vessel, with the northwest wind blowing and the oars creaking, now joyfully furrowing the unfathomable veins of the rough sea. When they had prosperously traversed the blue masses of the vast deep with the swift course of their ships, having Christ dwelling in his Saints with them, they found the port of safety; they rendered immense thanks to him, and there, pitching their tents, they approached the walls of the nearest city, called Rotomagum Rouen, and surveying many oratories of the Saints there, they commended themselves entirely with tears to him whom they voluntarily followed as pilgrims. Then, seizing upon their journey, after they arrived at the Gotthonic city he dies at Lucca called Lucca, the aforesaid two brothers entered with their father, weighed down there by the father's illness, committing his bones to the greedy earth.

a On Bishop Reginold, under whose name we cite this Life, we treated in number 3.

b That is, in the cemetery at Saint Frigidian's, as was said above.

IV. EPITOME OF THE LIFE OF SAINT RICHARD,

from the Itinerary of Saint Willibald the Bishop, by an anonymous author.

Richard, Anglo-Saxon King in Britain, at Lucca in Italy (Saint)

[1] The Bishop Willibald, therefore, like a model of angelic chastity, shone forth as a native of the English nation. When that boy of distinguished character, Saint Richard, an Englishman with the greatest hope of his parents, was now closing his third year, he suddenly wasted away from the afflictions of illness; the notable beauty of his face, thinned by foul emaciation, withered. His parents, ulcerated with grief, as the only thing remaining, by a pious vow, he recovers health for his son Saint Willibald bringing him, barely drawing air with open mouth, into the church, placed him before the adorable holy Cross, and vowed that if he were restored to health, he would be devoted to divine service. Immediately, their pious vows meriting their effect, the boy's former beauty of face returned together with health, and reconciled to complete well-being, he began to be strong with precocious virtues.

[2] Encouraged by this omen, the parents, perceiving that God would accomplish something great in a boy of such character, did not fail themselves; but dedicated their son, barely five years old, to monastic discipline at the monastery called Waltheim, under the venerable Abbot Egilward. He offers him to God in the monastery of Waltheim. Applied therefore to letters, he did not indulge a moment of time in idleness; but in a short time, most skillfully taught, he made his breast a treasury of sacred writing. And, so as to express Christ in all things, whatever of the divine, whatever of Ecclesiastical Law he grasped by reading, this he faithfully pursued and fulfilled by his conduct and manner of life. Therefore, already most excellently eminent in individual virtues, he so shone forth most perfect in Christ that he thought of nothing except being with Christ.

[3] Although therefore, having already denied himself, he had trampled the world both in mind and in habit... he is induced by him to go on pilgrimage nevertheless it was wanting to perfection that on his native soil the dignity of his parentage had somewhat added, although unwillingly, to his fame and honor. He had resolved to leave his homeland and to go on pilgrimage for Christ, as unknown as he was destitute. And lest he alone of his family be enrolled in the service of Christ, he approached his father, named Richard, illustrious in birth and possessions, and began to urge upon him contempt of the world and pilgrimage. When the father objected to his son that it seemed to him most cruel and utterly inhuman to orphan his children, widow his wife, and desolate his entire household, Saint Willibald instilled in him that nothing should be placed before divine love, that this cruelty for Christ's sake was more humane than any filial piety, and that only those who despise the world would be future co-heirs of Christ. At last, overcome by the truthful son's account, he promises to comply with his sons and to follow wherever he might be led by his dear child. The same blessed ardor had also set on fire Saint Willibald's brother Wunibald, the future builder of the monastery of Heidenheim and his daughter Saint Walburga and its future Abbot, as well as the sister of both, the glory of virgins, Walburga, and many others not only of their kinship but also of their homeland, so that, having taken up the banner of the Cross, they might fly forth naked, following the King of glory.

[4] In the year turning toward summer, when the first confidence smiled upon the sea with patient winds, the holy brothers Willibald and Wunibald, with their father Richard and their sister Walburga and not a few others, in whose breasts the same ardor burned, boarded a ship and seized upon the desired journey, and with the winds happily following, they landed on the bank of the River Sigona, near the city called Rotum Rouen. Thence, heading for Rome, he dies at Lucca they arrived at Lucca, a city of Tuscany, and there, their father being released from the flesh and having obtained the rewards which he merited by following his son, they buried him in the cemetery of Saint Prescian.

a On the author and his authority, we treated above in number 4.

b Above it was denied that there was a church there.

c Something is missing.

V. EPITOME OF THE LIFE OF SAINT RICHARD,

from the Deeds of the Saints of Eichstatt, by Abbot Adalbert as author.

Richard, Anglo-Saxon King in Britain, at Lucca in Italy (Saint)

[1] Whoever wishes to know the lineage and life of Saint Willibald and Saint Wunibald can learn it fully from the writings of Saint Walburga the Virgin, who was their own sister. Saint Richard, King of the English. For she writes that Richard, King of the English, was their father; who, since from boyhood he had always been most Christian, also taught his children the discipline of Christian religion

and the way of truth, most diligently both by himself and through faithful tutors; whence he also dedicated Saint Willibald, while still a boy, with the title of monastic profession. When therefore that blessed King was making steps from virtue to virtue, with his children so as to receive a hundredfold and possess eternal life, inflamed with the fire of divine love, taking his children with him, the kingdom having been left he left his kingdom and homeland, and having undertaken a harsh pilgrimage, which is usually burdensome even for the poor, he committed himself to the peril of the ocean; and at last, after many labors and many dangers, he goes on pilgrimage he arrived as far as Lucca, and there, consumed by a mortal illness, he happily rested in the Lord in the monastery of Saint Frigidian.

a On Adalbert and his writings, we treated in number 5.

EPITAPH OF SAINT RICHARD CARVED AT LUCCA,

from Surius and Baronius.

Richard, Anglo-Saxon King in Britain, at Lucca in Italy (Saint)

The sister of King Offo was the mother of the Blessed Richard. The Blessed Richard, King of England, exile of his homeland, despiser of the world, scorner of himself, father of the holy brothers Willibald and Wunibald, Saint Richard, having left his kingdom and of the Blessed Walburga the Virgin, exchanged his earthly kingdom for a heavenly one. He laid down the royal crown for the sake of everlasting life. He put off the purple and put on a vile tunic. He left the tribunal of his domains and sought the thresholds of the Saints. He let go of the scepter and took up the staff; and he left his daughter, the Blessed Walburga, in the kingdom, and together with his sons set out abroad. And leaving them with Saint Boniface, the glorious Martyr, then Archbishop of Mainz, a man of wondrous holiness, he heads for Rome because he was English, born of his kingdom: that same holy King, by a further exile beyond the Alps, visited the thresholds of the Saints, and then sought the more remote places of the wildernesses, intending to devote himself freely to God alone, himself alone. Then after long exiles, after many contests, after manifold hardships of hunger, thirst, and cold, in the province of Italy, in the city of Lucca, the fight is ended, he dies at Lucca the rewards are given, his soul is received into heaven, and in the basilica of the Blessed Frigidian his pious members are placed beside the latter's body, where he also shines with miracles. His feast is celebrated on the seventh day before the Ides of February. The place also in which he rests is adorned with these verses:

"Here rests the gracious scepter-bearing King Richard. He was King of the English, his Epitaph there this one holds the kingdom of the heavens. He gave up his kingdom, he left all things for Christ. Therefore England gave us the holy Richard. Here lies the father of Saint Walburga, the gracious Virgin, And of Saint Willibald and also of Wunibald. May their intercession grant us the kingdoms of heaven. Amen."

a On Offo, the founder of Offenburg in Germany, and on Offa, King of the East Saxons, and whether the mother of Saint Richard was this latter's sister, we inquired in numbers 24 and 25.

b Rather, we showed in number 11 that Saint Willibald was first sent from Rome to Germany to Saint Boniface nineteen years after the death of Saint Richard.

c We said in numbers 17 and 18 that Saints Boniface and Richard lived in the kingdom of the West Saxons, under King Saint Ine.

ANOTHER LIFE OF SAINT RICHARD,

from the Bodeken Manuscript in Westphalia.

Richard, Anglo-Saxon King in Britain, at Lucca in Italy (Saint)

BHL Number: 7207

By an Anonymous Author. From Manuscripts.

[1] The zeal of Saint Boniface. After the English nation, rescued from the darkness of unbelief through the apostolate of the Blessed Pope Gregory, began to embrace the pious name of our Lord, the most blessed Boniface stood forth like the root of a fruitful tree, who, for the imitable merit of the faith, setting aside his ancestral borders and sweet fields, visited the regions of Gaul to preach the Gospel of Christ. There he both acquired very much fruit of faithful souls for God, and sent them onward to the heavenly kingdoms above.

[2] In those days there was in the English nation, descended from the most noble stock of that same most holy Boniface, a certain King, wealthy and very powerful, Saint Richard, his kinsman, about to imitate him distinguished and famous for all the glory of virtues, but even wealthier and more famous according to God -- a man, I say, religious and God-fearing, by the name of Richard. He had a wife of worthy nobility and most pious will, and according to the custom and faith of the Christian profession, he begot from her two sons -- the name of one was Willibald, and the name of the other Wunibald -- and one daughter, whose name was Walburga. After his wife had died, the most noble King, strengthened by the perfection of Christian religion, began to consider within himself how, having left behind earthly riches and despised the earthly kingdom, he might imitate the celibate life, and subject his sons, like branches of a good stock, to the discipline of the spiritual life, and commit his daughter Walburga to virginal custody -- inwardly touched by the warmth of divine fire, especially because he had been inspired by the virtue and holiness of the Blessed Boniface, who at that time had sent envoys from Gaul to England to invite some co-workers and preachers from his own nation to join him.

[3] Therefore, when the distinguished man had advanced his sons Willibald and Wunibald, and his daughter Walburga, to the pursuit of the regular life, and had recognized them to be perfected in the religious purpose, he leaves his homeland so that he perceived the growth of all virtues in them -- admonished by divine inspiration, he left his kingdom and crown for the sake of the kingdom of heaven; and taking his children with him, he set out abroad to a distant region, wishing to visit with them the holy places and the glorious Sepulchre of our Lord Jesus Christ, so that through the labor of so great a journey they might learn the hardships of temptations and sufferings, in order that afterward they might be of service to the Blessed Boniface, who had called them by name, for collaboration and co-preaching.

[4] Having therefore undertaken so desirable a vow out of love for the divine nativity, passion, resurrection, and ascension, they began their journey, leaving behind their entire household, and the crowd of their relatives and of their whole kingdom weeping and mourning after them, lamenting with a miserable voice and wishing them well. When they had crossed the perils of the sea by ship and arrived at the borders of Gaul, through Gaul they learned that the Blessed Boniface was vigorously governing the territories of the Eastern Franks with pontifical rule, and according to Apostolic authority was establishing episcopal Sees and extending the religion of the Catholic Church. Whence, greatly rejoicing, they first wished to present themselves to his sight; but fearing lest the vow of their journey be impeded by some delay, they thought -- indeed firmly resolved -- that if God permitted, they would first visit the holy city of Jerusalem out of love for the holy resurrection, he goes to Italy and the city of Rome out of veneration for the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and thus at last, returning, they would devote themselves to the service of the most blessed Bishop Boniface.

[5] Having therefore crossed the Alps and traversed the first regions of Italy by a prosperous and happy journey, they came to the city of the Lucchese, where the image of the Lord's Cross, which they say the Evangelist Luke expressed in wood after the very traces of the Lord's passion, and at Lucca is frequented by the people with great veneration. In this city of the Lucchese, not long before this time, the Blessed Bishop Fridian had presided over the Church of God, a man of wonderful holiness and virtue, who, while building a basilica in the same city, transported a stone of marvelous size -- which scarcely forty yoke of oxen could move -- with his two small cows, with God's help, to the site of the building. This stone, on account of the enormity of the miracle, is still shown to all who come there

as an indication of the holiness of the Blessed Fridian. When those most noble pilgrims had arrived there and had visited the sacred places with their offerings and sacred prayers, they commended themselves to God and Saint Fridian. The Bishop of the city both kindly received them and retained them with himself for some time to rest. Meanwhile the Blessed Richard began to fall ill there, he dies and, chastened by a long illness, at God's call, he departed to Christ in a good confession. The Bishop buried him in the basilica of the Blessed Fridian, with great veneration, on the right side of the principal altar.

[6] The sons set out for Rome. Saint Willibald and Wunibald, however, together with their sister Walburga, having performed the funeral rites of their father with the utmost devotion, departing thence, completed their journey to the city of Rome. There, when they had adored the sacred footsteps of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, they presented themselves to the Lord Apostolic, making known to him the purpose of their pilgrimage and the death of their father the Blessed Richard. The Apostolic Father, learning of their vows, commended their intentions to God and Saint Peter, and enjoined the journey of pilgrimage upon two of them, to Palestine namely Willibald and his sister Walburga, commanding them to return to Rome when they had completed the journey of their pilgrimage, and he retained Saint Wunibald there as a pledge of their return.

[7] About the same time, the most holy Archbishop Boniface, who was their kinsman, frequently came to Rome, and seeing Wunibald with the Apostolic Father, he persuaded him that with his brother and sister, after completing the pilgrimage, they should return to Gaul and be his assistants in preaching and in the building of holy churches -- which was approved on both sides. When therefore the journey of the long pilgrimage was completed, and the sacred overseas places had been surveyed -- to the holy places namely, the Annunciation of the Lord at Nazareth, the Nativity at Bethlehem, the Baptism at the Jordan, the Fast on the mount called Quarantana, the Passion on Calvary, the Burial and indeed the glorious Resurrection at Jerusalem, and moreover the wonderful Ascension on the Mount of Olives, and the other places where the most holy feet of our Savior Lord Jesus Christ had stood -- Saint Willibald together with his sister the Blessed Walburga returned to Rome, and found there the envoy of the glorious Bishop of the Lord, Boniface, they go to Germany dealing with the Apostolic Father and the holy Roman Church on the things of God. Having saluted the holy Pope and committing themselves to his prayers, they took their brother Wunibald and, with the aforesaid envoy of the most blessed Boniface, returned to Gaul, and found the most blessed Archbishop Boniface, who is to be mentioned often, constantly walking in the law of God and appointing worthy pastors for the churches of Gaul. Greatly rejoicing at their arrival, they are placed over various churches he sent them to preach in the places of the province of the Sualafeld, where indeed he appointed the Blessed Willibald as Bishop of the Church of Eichstatt, Wunibald as Abbot of the monastery of monks at Heidenheim, and set Walburga over all the nuns gathered in the same place as their teacher.

[8] But to return to those things which we omitted above about the Blessed Richard. After he had been crowned with the rewards of eternal blessedness by Christ, the Rewarder of all good things, the miracles of Saint Richard begin to shine forth and began to shine with miracles in the regions of Lucca, where, as we said, he had been buried, the fame of his virtues was spread abroad through all the regions not only of Italy but also of Gaul and Germany, so that innumerable sick and ailing, blind, weak, lame, deaf, mute, and paralyzed persons merited to be healed there, from wherever they had been brought. Yet no one among the citizens of Lucca clearly knew about the nobility of so great a man, except only his name and the fact that a pilgrim had been buried there many years ago.

[9] When, as the miracles grew more frequent, the fame of his virtues had been spread abroad and celebrated everywhere throughout the ages, the citizens of the city of Eichstatt considered how they might transfer the relics of the Blessed Richard to themselves, so that where the bodies of the sons shone with the brightness of signs, relics are requested by the people of Eichstatt the father's body too, joined to them, might be held in no less veneration; and thereby the place might be ennobled by the King and the King's sons -- indeed, what is greater, their whole homeland might be glorified by the holiness of such great relics. Having therefore assembled an immense treasure of gold and silver, they took counsel to send proven and industrious men to the city of the Lucchese, to ask and earnestly beg that the relics of the Blessed Richard be delivered to them bodily. And if their petition should obtain nothing, the gold and silver, which that race of men loves greedily, might succeed. Having therefore sent envoys with an immense treasure to the city of Lucca, they began with letters of petition and by word of mouth to request that they might merit to obtain the pledge of so great a King, whose sons were their patrons. But the citizens of Lucca, having heard of the nobility of so great a King, though a very large sum of money was offered who performed such great signs and miracles among them, in no way consented to give away so precious and noble a treasure. Wherefore the people of Eichstatt, in distress, began to move their hearts with the weight of money, and earnestly begged that, if not entirely, at least half of the King's body might be given to them. But those declared that in no way, even if their walls were filled with money, would they do this, saying: "Let it suffice you that you have the three children of this most holy King; if you give half of each of them individually, we will also give you half of this most holy body."

[10] The envoys of Eichstatt, distressed again, finally asked that at least some particle of the same sacred body be given to them out of charity, sacred ashes are obtained so that his memory might be more celebrated in their regions. When this was at last barely obtained, they received some ashes from the body of Saint Richard and brought them to their own places with joy; and they determined that his memory should be celebrated most solemnly with the utmost devotion in their territories. Then the Bishop of Lucca, The body is elevated. having received the authority of the Roman Church, elevated the body of Saint Richard from the ground and, with the utmost veneration, placed it on the altar of the same church, which is at the head of his tomb, on February 4; and he decreed that the day of his Translation should be celebrated solemnly throughout all the churches, to the praise and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen.

a That embassy was made long after the death of Saint Richard, as will be said in the Life of Saint Walburga the Virgin.

b Rather, he was away in Frisia, a co-worker of Saint Willibrord, after the death of Radbod, King of the Frisians. But the author confuses the chronology.

c He divided Bavaria into four Sees around the year 739, and somewhat later appointed Saint Burchard at Wurzburg and Saint Willibald at Eichstatt.

d Baronius in volume 2, at the year of Christ 1099, number 40, says that a certain Stephen, a native of Lucca, who the previous year had undertaken a pilgrimage to the Holy Land for religious reasons, received from a certain Gregory, a Syrian, a true image of Christ the Savior painted in royal manner, and brought it to Lucca. Franciotti in his book on the Saints of Lucca and Silvano Razzi on the Saints of Tuscany have very many things about this image; the former would have it given to the Lucchese in the year 782, the latter in 740.

e Others affirm from ancient tradition that it was painted by Nicodemus or, at his arrangement, expressed.

f Others write Fridian, or Frigidian; according to Franciotti he was created Bishop in the year 560 and died in 588.

g In honor of Saint Vincent, in which he was also buried.

h Franciotti describes that stone at length.

i The same Franciotti testifies that it is still preserved in the sacristy of the church of Saint Frigidian.

k In the catalogue of Bishops of Lucca in Franciotti, the twelfth, Felix, was in office at this time.

l Pope Saint Gregory II, to whom Saint Boniface had come earlier, commended by letters from Daniel, Bishop of Winchester -- such as these pilgrims perhaps also had.

m These things will be briefly corrected on February 25 in the Life of Saint Walburga, and more fully in the Lives of each brother.

n Rather, in the year 738 he took Saint Wunibald with him to Germany, or Eastern Franconia, which was not called Gaul.

o The mountain is called Quarantana, as we noted on January 20, in chapter 5 of the Life of Saint Euthymius, letter e.

p On these places -- Sualafeld, Eichstatt, and Heidenheim -- we shall treat more fully in the Life of Saint Walburga.

q We noted above that these things occurred around the year 1152.

r This would have been Gregory I, the fifty-fourth Bishop, according to the catalogue of Franciotti.

s Under Pope Eugene III, who held the See from the year 1145 to 1153.

ACCOUNT OF THE ELEVATION OF THE BODY OF SAINT RICHARD,

from the Life of Saint Willibald the Bishop, by Bishop Philip as author.

Richard, Anglo-Saxon King in Britain, at Lucca in Italy (Saint)

By Bishop Philip.

[1] When therefore the bodies of the Saints, namely the Blessed Frigidian, Cassius, and Saint Fausta the Virgin, were translated and consigned to a more honorable place, the body of the Blessed Richard remained in its place through the negligence Saint Richard, appearing to Count Cedeo of those who did not search diligently. But after some days he appeared to a certain sick man called Cedeus, who was a man of good birth, known to the entire region; for he was a Count. And he said to him: "Go to the Church of Saint Frigidian, to the Prior and to the Brothers of the same Church, he recommends the elevation of his body and tell them in my name: Why did you leave me behind? Why did you separate me from my companions? For those whom God has joined together, a man ought not to separate without divine reason." But the other replied: "I am sick and cannot go. For long intervals of time have passed in which I have been able to extend neither my foot for walking nor my hand for working in any way; and heals him, suffering from paralysis for I am a paralytic, deprived of all bodily strength, and lie here in bed from the great dissolution of my limbs. And who you are, I do not know." But he said: "Go with confidence; for Christ, with his customary kindness, has healed you in this very hour through my intercession."

[2] The sick man, not a little gladdened by this word, replied, and reveals his deeds saying: "Who are you, Lord, that I may know how to relate in order the wonderful things done to me and the magnificent things to be done for you?" The holy King answered: "I am Saint Richard, formerly King of the English, previously Duke of Swabia, exile of my homeland, despiser of the world, scorner of himself; who left the tributes of my domains and sought the thresholds of the Saints; and together with my sons I set out abroad to many regions; and after long exiles, after many contests, in this present city called Lucca, my fight was ended; and his burial place and, snatched from this wicked world, the Lord received me to his glory." And he showed him the place of his burial, lying quite hidden through the passage of days and the antiquity of time.

[3] When morning came, therefore, the above-mentioned Count, who the day before had been held by a great infirmity, came perfectly sound to those to whom he had been sent, narrating the vision; and as a portent of its truth he showed himself sound and unharmed to all, The body is discovered clearly indicating the place of burial according to the marks which the Blessed Richard had impressed upon his memory. From then on they began to dig, seeking the holy body; and having sought it, they found it, honorably sealed in a noble enclosure, with an epitaph expressing the person by name, containing the works of his virtues and the deeds of his miracles. It is elevated. Associating the most holy body with the company of the above-mentioned Saints, they humbly rendered to him the honor due to the Saints.

a What Philip writes in the first eleven chapters we omit here, because those things can be seen in Gretser, and the same things, described in a truer style by more ancient writers, we have given here. But the narrative of this chapter is not found in so exact a form elsewhere, and therefore, lest anything be lacking that illustrates the holiness of Saint Richard, it had to be appended.

b This is the second Translation of Saint Frigidian, made in the year 1151, as Franciotti relates in both the Life of the former and the latter.

c This Saint Cassius was Bishop of Narni, whose feast day is noted in the Roman Martyrology on June 29; his translation among the Lucchese on October 13.

d Saint Fausta the Virgin, crowned with the palm of martyrdom together with Saint Evilasius under the Emperor Maximian at Cyzicus in the Propontis, is inscribed in the Roman Martyrology on September 20; among the Lucchese she is venerated on the 25th of the same month. Franciotti narrates the translation of both Cassius and Fausta.

e These things were added by the writer for the sake of explanation; they were rejected above by us.

MIRACLES OF SAINT RICHARD,

from the History of Lucca written in Italian by Cesare Franciotti, and from Philippo Ferrari on the Saints of Italy.

Richard, Anglo-Saxon King in Britain, at Lucca in Italy (Saint)

[1] A certain German, deprived of the use of some members of his body, on account of the wonderful things he had heard in his homeland about Saint Richard, King of the English, The sick are healed: one deprived of the use of his limbs came to Lucca and ordered himself to be led in the best way possible to the altar of the Saint; whence, having commended himself to the Saint with many profuse tears, he departed sound and unharmed.

[2] A certain religious man named George, one of the Canons Regular who inhabit that temple, in the time of a certain Prior of the Lanfranchi family, was wonderfully devoted to this Saint, and did not allow a day to pass in which he did not serve some Priest celebrating at his altar. suffering from pain in the side This man, at one time oppressed by a most grievous pain in his side, when the applied remedies availed nothing and no hope of health remained, mindful of how frequently he had served at the Saint's altar, said with a tearful voice: "Ho, Saint Richard, where are all the services I have offered you? I beseech you, help me in my wretchedness." Having said these things, he fell asleep and seemed to see the Saint with an angelic countenance and a rather long beard, wearing a royal crown on his head and bearing a royal scepter in his hand. The Saint, having declared himself to be Richard, formerly King of England, enjoined him that if he desired health of body, he should betake himself to his altar. When this was done, he was seized by sleep at the altar and soon arose sound and unharmed.

[3] A certain woman named Gaschola, a servant of Ugherius, a noble citizen, in the year one thousand one hundred and fifty, at which time many in the territory of Lucca were possessed by demons, a woman possessed by a demon was so agitated and tormented by a demon, to the terror of all, that she could not be held by many men, even the strongest. At last the demon, compelled, said that he was to be expelled by Ricardino, to whose authority he was now subject, in the church of Saint Frigidian. To this place, therefore, although greatly resisting, she was brought; and soon there began to be heard voices as of diverse animals, producing an unusual and incredible sound not only throughout the whole church but also above the roof, with such shrieking that very many people, roused from the suburbs and neighboring towns, came running. But at last, by the grace of God and the aid of Saint Richard, she was freed.

a Franciotti reports these miracles from the ecclesiastical office which, as he believes, was customarily recited there on his feast -- which he calls the manuscript Life.

b On these Canons Regular, Celsus de Rosisini writes excellently in Book 6 of the Lateran Lyceum on the five Frigidian companions, and Franciotti in his treatise on the Churches of Lucca.

c Franciotti adds that the author was present at these miracles as an eyewitness.