Virgin and Martyr Sura

CONCERNING THE HOLY VIRGIN AND MARTYR SURA, OR SOTERIS, OR ZUWARDA, AT DORDRECHT IN HOLLAND.

A HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Sura, or Soteris, or Zuwarda, Virgin Martyr at Dordrecht in Holland (Saint)

By I. B.

Section I. The origin of the city of Dordrecht; the church built there by Saint Sura; her martyrdom, veneration, and miraculous font.

[1] Dordrecht, or Dordrechtum, is an ancient and wealthy city of Holland, about whose name, origin, and distinction Marcus Zuerius Boxhornius writes carefully and learnedly in his Theatre of Holland. Saint Sura killed at Dordrecht, Among other things he adduces the following from the unpublished papers of Johannes Gerbrand of Leiden: "Moreover, in that same town, in the course of time, a certain Virgin is said to have been slain, having built a church, named Soteris, but Zuwaerdt in the Teutonic tongue. This Virgin is reported to have built the church of Dordrecht, buying the necessary materials with three coins and always finding them again in her purse. When three workmen slew her in hope of the money (where there is her miraculous font) — which they supposed the Virgin to possess in abundance — and found only three coins, behold, a spring leapt forth from the earth, efficacious against infirmities and various diseases. The date of this Virgin is unknown to the people, but the spring is open to view in Dordrecht."

[2] They say that the church she built was the greater basilica of the town, perhaps in the eleventh century commonly known as such, dedicated to the Virgin Mother of God — of which more below. I would more readily believe that some smaller church was built there by her, and that afterward, when the city had increased in the number of its inhabitants and in wealth, that larger one was founded as a splendid structure. Thus we see at Mechelen, at Lier, and elsewhere, magnificent churches constructed that differ from those which Saints Rumold, Gomar, and others had once built. May not the "newly constructed chapel of Dordrecht," mentioned in a diploma of Emperor Henry given in the year 1064, be the one that Saint Sura built? Although in that same year a distinguished building is also attested by the same author, from an ancient record, to have been constructed at Dordrecht.

[3] Although Gerbrand confesses that the time in which Sura lived is unknown, he nevertheless shows that she did not live before the ninth century of the Christian era, or the tenth, since he places Dorotheus — from whom he derives the origin and name of Dordrecht — in the year 805, and then this holy Virgin afterward, "in the course of time," as he says. not before the ninth. Perhaps she lived in the tenth century or even the eleventh, if (as we have reported) in the eighth year of Emperor Henry III, that is, 1064, the Chapel of Dordrecht had been newly constructed. Miraeus, however, in the Belgian Fasti writes that she flourished about the year 1300. Laherius in the Menology of Virgins says she was killed in the year 1320.

[4] Molanus, in the Birthdays of the Saints of Belgium, from information he received at Dordrecht, devoted to the Blessed Virgin, narrates the history of Saint Sura thus: "This city is in the diocese of Utrecht, the chief city of Holland, in which a holy Virgin, born of most honorable parents, merciful, is celebrated as the foundress of the greater church. For she is reported to have venerated with singular affection an image of the Virgin Mother of God hanging from a tree above the stream of Dordrecht, having received the plan of the church from heaven, and to have distributed to the poor whatever she earned. When she wished to build a church, she learned its dimensions from an Angel; and she paid three workmen with as many coins, called kopkens, of small size but great value. Because she was thought to be wealthy, she lost the enjoyment of the present life at the hands of robbers, and the means of building: at the place where today a most pleasant spring, a remedy for those with fever, flows forth." Antonius Balinghem records the same in the words of Molanus in his Marian Calendar.

[5] What Molanus calls the stream of Dordrecht, Boxhornius calls the river Dortha, following Rutgersius's elegant conjecture. For the city itself is called Dort in the vernacular, and the neighboring village Dordsmonde — as if you were to say "the mouth of the Dort," this occurred at the river of Dordrecht, just as elsewhere Dendermonde, Rupelmonde, Roermond, etc., are towns or fortresses situated at or opposite the mouths of the rivers Dender, Rupel, and Roer. He adds Scriverius's conjecture, who holds that this was the very place to which Reginar, Count of Hainault, withdrew after being stripped of his honors by King Zwentibold and ordered to leave the Lotharingian realm or the Dort, in the year 898. For, as the Annals of Metz have it — in agreement with Regino and others — [the fortification of Reginar, Count of Hainault, against Zwentibold at the place commonly called Durfos:] "he entered a certain most secure place called Durfos, and there fortified himself, having joined to himself Count Odacer and certain others, with women and children and all their possessions. When the King learned of this, having assembled his army, he attempted to storm the fortress, but was by no means able to prevail because of the marshes and the multiple backwaters which the river Meuse creates in that place." commonly called Durfos: That this description fits the situation of Dordrecht, no one will easily deny. In addition, after Zwentibold had fruitlessly besieged the place, when meanwhile Charles the Simple, King of France, had entered his realm and come to Aachen and thence to Nijmegen, Zwentibold withdrew to Franco, Bishop of Liege — that is, through present-day Brabant — and, reinforced with new troops, crossed the Meuse and led his forces against Charles, who had come from Nijmegen to Prum. But Scriverius says that instead of Durfos, one should read Durtos, or "the mouth of the Dort." No one indeed has hitherto been able to show me — though I have often inquired about Durfos — any other location. Let those judge who are able to inspect each place firsthand.

[6] I return to Saint Sura. Molanus continues concerning her: "The captured robbers were led to the Judge's court; but the Martyr, appearing with a fresh wound on her neck Saint Sura frees her murderers from death (for her throat had been pierced by a knife), obtained pardon for the penitents. I saw her image in the public way and on two altars of the collegiate church, showing a bloodied throat and holding in her hand a fish-knife, how was she killed? as far as I recall."

[7] If anyone should inquire by what right she is called a Martyr, who did not meet death in defense of the faith or of any other virtue, let him who asks this consult by what title is she a Martyr? (for not everything need be repeated everywhere) what was said on February 8 in the Life of Saint Mengold, section 1. Surely for this pious Virgin, divine favor was the cause of her death, which gave wicked men the occasion to suppose that she abounded in money — the same thing that happened to Saint Rumold while he was building the church at Mechelen.

[8] What is reported concerning the font of Saint Sura, Boxhornius refers to certain hot or tepid waters of some kind, of which he claims there were very many formerly in Holland; heretics, having dismissed her story, argue her font is natural; yet he does not adduce the passages or words of the annals he cites. "When certain people saw," he says, "that those waters were beneficial to the health of very many, and — as the fame increased, as is wont to happen — were celebrated by the throng of people flocking from every quarter, they easily invented this little story, in keeping with the piety of those times, confident of the credulity of the faithful." So writes Boxhornius, a man not of evil nature, yet alien to the rites of the Catholic Church and the veneration of the heavenly Saints, and writing in a place and time when, had he approved of the piety of his ancestors, or even had he not criticized it with a single word, he perceived that the hatred of certain men would remain with him — men he considered he must strive to please. The same author holds concerning the name of this holy woman that she was called Zuwarda or Zura from zuueren, which signifies "to cleanse" or "to purify" for us.

[9] Of greater weight for us is the authority of Wilhelm Lindanus of Dordrecht, Bishop of Roermond, a most holy and most learned man, who writes thus concerning the font of his fellow citizen Saint Sura in part 2 of his Apologeticus ad Germanos, chapter 50: Lindanus the Bishop holds it miraculous, "As we learn from daily experience, certain springs or wells possess a prompt curative power and use against diseases or fevers — such as the ever-living spring of Saint Sura at Dordrecht, continually agitated by its leaping flow; from the drinking of which I remember, as a boy, a certain N. being healed, when a friend who had been received in my father's house happened to send someone to draw water from it." and proves it. "So too the spring of Saint Genevieve in Paris, and of Saint Verona at Leuven." Here he says nothing about tepid waters. This spring, or well, of Saint Sura was moreover in the cemetery of the greater church, covered over; and from it very many daily drew water for the cure of diseases, and especially of fevers. It has now been blocked up by the heretics.

[10] The name of Saint Sura is inscribed in the more recent Belgian Martyrologies. The name of Saint Sura in the Martyrologies, Our Andreas Boeius has thus: "At Dordrecht, the commemoration of Saint Sura, Virgin and Martyr." There is added in the Martyrology published in French at Liege in the year 1624: "most celebrated for miracles." Our Baldwin Willot: "At Dordrecht there was formerly held the commemoration of Saint Sura, or Soteris, Virgin and Martyr," etc. Molanus in the Additions to Usuard: "At Dordrecht, the commemoration of Saint Sura, Virgin and Martyr, under the name Soteris, which translated into Latin means Salvatrix Savioress." Miraeus also mentions her on this day in his Fasti. And Saussay with a notable eulogy in the Martyrologium Gallicanum — but I do not know from where he obtained his statement that she bade farewell to the enticements and vanities of the world from infancy. Simon Martin received the same from him in book 4 of the Flos Solitudinis.

[11] Concerning that commemoration, Molanus writes thus in his Index of the Saints of Belgium and in his Natales: "The aforesaid church (of Dordrecht) calls her Soteris, and veneration under the name Soteris: and by the Collect celebrates her memory on the day of Scholastica the Virgin, February 10. But I still do not know from what time, and by the authority of what See, this commemoration is held, and the application of the Collect of Soteris, Virgin of the East, to the Soteris of Dordrecht" — whom, he supposes, was so renamed on account of the salvation granted through miracles. Guillaume Gazeus, in his Ecclesiastical History of Belgium, where he treats of her at length, thinks she was called Soteris because she saved the very robbers by whom she had been slain.

[12] Philip Ferrari in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, in his Annotation on the eulogy of Saint Soteris of Rome, writes thus: "The body of this Virgin, according to Johannes Molanus, she was wrongly believed to be the same as the Roman Soteris, is held in the highest honor at Dordrecht in Holland, although she is commonly called Sura there." Molanus expressly distinguishes that Soteris from Sura, or Soteris, of Dordrecht. Ferrari repeats the same in his general Catalogue of Saints, where he nevertheless finally adds: "The Acts will remove the ambiguity as to whether she is the same as the Roman one."

[13] Nowhere have I found mention of the relics of Saint Sura among Belgian writers. her relics. Saussay writes that they were translated to Soissons. For he states thus under February 11: "At Soissons, the reception of the relics of Saint Sura, otherwise known as Soteris, Virgin and Martyr, crowned in Holland."

Section II. The churches, monasteries, chapels, and sacred places at Dordrecht when the Orthodox religion was flourishing.

[14] It is fitting here, in honor of the holy Martyr and for the glory of the most noble city, the churches of the city of Dordrecht, and other pious places; to review the churches and monasteries with which it was once adorned while the Catholic religion was flourishing, having obtained a letter which Theodorus Cornelius, a pastor of Utrecht stationed at Dordrecht, wrote in the Teutonic language some years ago to our Heribert Rosweyde.

[15] I. The greater church, sacred to Mary the Mother of God, in the western part of the city, situated near the very walls, was adorned with a college of priests a collegiate church of the Blessed Virgin, which Albert of Bavaria, Count of Holland, founded in the year 1366, and which was confirmed by John of Verneburg, Bishop of Utrecht. It consisted of a Dean, twelve Canons, four choir associates, and several Vicars. The tower, founded in 1339, burned in 1457 (not 1401, as Boxhornius has). Thus it was carved on a stone beneath the tower itself:

"I was founded in the year of Jesus 1339, June 16. Burned along with other buildings 1457, June 28."

And this is the church which Saint Sura is believed to have built, or at least some smaller one in that location. built by Saint Sura, or another in its place: On its northern side there was a most elegant chapel of the Virgin Mother of God, and in it a confraternity, as they called it, composed of the leading citizens and devoted to amplifying the honor of the same Virgin.

[16] In that same church there were smaller and larger altars and chapels numbering forty-seven in all — not merely forty-two, as Boxhornius writes. One of these altars was dedicated to the holy Cross. For a very large piece of the wood of the Cross of Christ was here, a piece of the holy Cross there, set in an elegant Cross adorned with precious gems. This wood was stolen by a certain stratagem from the Sultan of Babylon in the year 1430 by Nicolaus, a magistrate of Dordrecht, while he was repairing the Sultan's scepter in which it had been enclosed, and he brought it back to his homeland and donated it to this basilica. Sweder, Bishop of Utrecht, in the year 1431, in the presence of many witnesses, threw it into the fire, wishing to test whether it was truly wood of the Lord's Cross; proved by miracles: and it remained entirely whole and unharmed. Also in the year 1457, when a great part of the city and the basilica itself had been consumed by fire, that sacred wood was found completely uninjured by John Alberti, the Dean, and two Wardens. On the Sunday after the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, it was carried about in a splendid and devout procession, and that solemnity was called the Lesser Circuit. This sacred relic perished in the first tumults of the Gueux.

[17] II. The church called the New Church, dedicated in honor of Saint Nicholas, had fifteen altars, three choirs — the central one of Saint Nicholas, 2. the New Church of Saint Nicholas: the southern one of the Holy Cross, and the northern one of the Virgin Mother of God. The pastorate was conferred by the Chapter of the greater church. That building burned in 1568, on the feast of Saint Vincent, at midday itself. Rebuilt, though smaller, it was consecrated by Bishop Wilhelm Lindanus.

[18] III. A notable monastery of the Augustinian Hermits, founded about the year 1330 by William the Good, Count of Holland, 3. of the Augustinians: was destroyed by accidental fire in 1512, but afterward rebuilt.

IV. The monastery of the Friars Minor was built before the year 1311, 4. of the Friars Minor: as is evident from a certain census document. It had three altars, fenced off by screens. It was destroyed by the heretics in 1578, a road being laid through the garden and houses built round about.

[19] V. The old convent of nuns, sacred to Saint Agnes, was inhabited by Regular Canonesses of the Augustinian order, 5. of the old nuns, subject to the Chapter of Windesheim. Their confessor and priest was from the Red Valley or the Green Valley, both monasteries situated in the Forest of Soignes not far from Brussels. The church still stands, built in the year 1494. It formerly had three altars, with a choir enclosed below by a stone wall and above by screens. On the southern side of the choir, an external chapel was appended, in which a small stone statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary was kept, found in the foundations of the church while they were being dug. Through it many miracles were divinely wrought; indulgences were also granted to those who devoutly visited the chapel, from March 11 for eight consecutive days. where there was a miraculous image of the Blessed Virgin: This convent had ample revenues, donated especially by Gerard Hemskerck, Knight, who was living in the year 1417.

[20] VI. The convent called Marienborn — that is, the Font of Mary — was inhabited by nuns of the Third Rule of Saint Francis, 6. Marienborn: to whom a secular priest administered the sacraments. It is now a dwelling place for poor orphans, who are supported by the convent's revenues.

VII. A monastery of the Grey Sisters (as they call the women professing the Rule of Saint Francis, from their grey-white garb) stood on the New Way. 7. of the Grey Sisters: Here were three altars and one enclosed choir. A priest from the Order of Friars Minor instructed them. Next to this convent was a chapel dedicated to the Mother of God.

VIII. A community of eight Alexian Brothers, established in the year 1565, had one altar in their church 8. of the Alexians: and a ward for the insane attached to the house.

[21] IX. The Bread Sisters (Broot-Susters), of the Order of Saint Augustine, ministered to the sick and had begged for alms for some time — whence their name seems to have been given. Their order was approved by Bishop Florentius of Utrecht, by the authority of Pope Gregory XI, then residing at Avignon, 9. the Bread Sisters, in a published diploma. They first lived in an ordinary house, which was converted into a convent on June 8, 1466, by Bishop David.

X. The Utrecht Dominicans had a terminarius of their own at Dordrecht, living in a private house belonging to their monastery. 10. Residence of the Dominicans: He preached in the greater church on feasts of the Mother of God and around Easter on the sufferings of Christ. He performed services in the hospice of Saint James and heard confessions in the larger hospital. His companion, himself also a priest, served as chaplain at the church of Saint Adrian outside the Foul Gate, as they call it.

XI. The Beguinage, erected in the year 1303, had three altars in its church, 11. the Beguinage: the second dedicated to the Mother of God, the third to Saint Agatha. Everything has now been utterly destroyed.

[22] XII. Outside the Foul Gate there was a small church of Saint Adrian, with a single altar, 12. of Saint Adrian: and it served as the parish for those dwelling outside the city, who also had burial in its cemetery. Everything has now been razed to the ground.

XIII. Outside the same gate, 13. Chapel of the Dry Tree, at the end of the dike, next to the meadows belonging to the house of the Holy Spirit, there was a chapel called the Dry Tree, sacred to the Mother of God. Many here obtained a divine remedy for fevers, and they left bandages there as testimony of the health they had obtained; renowned for miracles: many of these were still hanging there in the year 1572. It too has been destroyed.

XIV. Outside the same gate, there stood a very large house of Lepers, and next to it a chapel with an altar. 14. of the Lepers: Both have been demolished.

[23] XV. A hospital, called that of the Venerable Sacrament, is still to be seen in the fish market; 15. a hospital, endowed chiefly by the generosity of the Ratingius and Hemskerck families, and the arms of both families — certainly very ancient — are still to be seen in the windows. The choir was enclosed by bronze screens, outside which were two other altars, one sacred to Saint Roch and the other to Saint Michael, and this latter also enclosed by a small choir. There was also another altar near the door in the hall, where the inmates were permitted to speak with outsiders. A daily Mass was celebrated at the high altar at six in the morning, and at six in the evening Lauds were sung in honor of the Most Holy Sacrament. called that of the Holy Sacrament on account of miracles, This hospital was burned in the great fire of 1457, together with the greater part of the city. A certain confectioner, while trying to rescue the reliquary of the Sacrament from the flames, was suffocated by smoke. The reliquary itself was found completely blackened by smoke, but the hosts, together with the sacred cloth, were unharmed. In memory of this prodigy a solemn procession was instituted, called the Greater Circuit, held on the Sunday after the feast of Saint Mary Magdalene, on which the anniversary of the city is also still celebrated. Many miracles afterward occurred there, whence the hospital received its name from the Most Holy Sacrament. where there was also a remarkable cemetery: Next to it was a cemetery for burying those who died in the hospital, called the Holy Place. The bodies of the poor would decompose within three days without stench. Those who had been wealthier, and therefore were not to be received in the public hospital — from their bodies there often emanated so great a stench that they had to be conveyed elsewhere.

[24] XVI. The hospice of Saint James, founded for receiving poor pilgrims, 16. Hospice of Saint James: was administered by the Deans of the confraternity of Saint James — that is, those who had at some time made a pilgrimage to Compostela to venerate the sacred relics of the holy Apostle. A Carmelite terminarius, as they called him, sent from the monastery of Schoonhoven, frequently lodged there. It is now converted into a secular house, and its revenues have been assigned to the orphanage.

XVII. On the Frisian Way there was a home for the blind, 17. House for the Blind: in which destitute blind and lame persons were maintained. In its chapel there were three altars, fenced by screens. There exist letters patent of the Senate of Dordrecht, dated in the year 1494, in which mention is made of the divine offices customarily performed in this chapel.

XVIII. The hospice of Saint John, near the Wine Bridge (de Wynbrug), had one altar in its chapel, 18. Hospice of Saint John: enclosed by screens. Behind it was a large building in which lodging was provided to poor pilgrims. This hospice was governed by the Guild of Cobblers, or confraternity, whose members were called the Lords of Saint John. It has been converted into a secular building, which belongs to the same Guild.

XIX. The hospital of the Sluice, or Spuy, had one altar, enclosed in a choir, consecrated together with the chapel 19. Hospital of the Spuy: by Nicolaus de Noua-terra, Suffragan of Utrecht, on the second of November, 1543. It was governed by the Deans of the Guild of Sack-bearers.

[25] 20. Chapel of the Wine-sellers, XX. The wine-sellers' chapel, on Wine Street, administered by the wine-sellers themselves, had a chapel and within the enclosed choir an altar, at which a priest from the Friars Minor monastery daily performed the sacred rites. There is now an iron weighing-house in its place.

XXI. What is now the Seamen's House was their chapel, with an altar protected by lattice-work. 21. of the Seamen,

XXII. At the Reed Dike (den Rietdyck), 22. another of the same, there was a chapel, administered by the Deans of the lesser Guild of seamen. In it was an altar, enclosed in a choir. An ordinary house now stands there.

XXIII. The butchers' chapel, called that of the Holy Cross, 23. of the Butchers, likewise had an altar enclosed within a choir. Here also a few destitute pilgrims were given lodging for a night or two.

XXIV. Opposite the New Bridge, there was the chapel of the Stonemasons, 24. of the Stonemasons, and in it an altar.

XXV. At the Curved Elbow there stood a chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mother of God, with an altar. 25. at the Curved Elbow,

XXVI. On the Frisian Way there was a chapel named after the Plague (de plagh-capel). Its altar was dedicated to the Virgin Mother of God. 26. called that of the Plague, In this chapel children were treated for the disease they call Saint Machutus's disease. The neighbors managed its care. It has been sold and converted into an ordinary dwelling.

XXVII. At the end of the Frisian Way there was a dwelling called that of the Holy Spirit, in which destitute children were maintained 27. of the Holy Spirit. — they are now in the convent of Marienborn; but the Lepers are here now.

These were once the ornaments of a famous city and its bulwarks for meriting the aid of the heavenly Saints. All of these the Calvinist fury has destroyed. And let these things be said, on the occasion of the church built by Saint Sura at Dordrecht, for the perpetual memory of ancient piety.

CONCERNING SAINT WILLIAM THE GREAT, HERMIT, AT STABILIMENTO DI RODI IN TUSCANY.

In the year of Christ 1157.

Preliminary Commentary.

William, Hermit, at Stabulum Rodis in Tuscany (Saint)

By G. H.

Section I. The earlier Dukes of Aquitaine. Among them, Saint William, appointed under Charlemagne before the year 800, afterward a monk of Gellone, who — and Saint William the Great, the hermit 350 years his junior — have been taken by various authors for one and the same person.

[1] We present Saint William, and since we intend to distinguish him from various Saints of the same name, we call him, as others do, "the Great" — a man extraordinary in miracles and holiness, and the father of the Order of the Williamites; but, as is greatly to be lamented in sacred matters, entangled in many errors and fables. The deeds of Saint William stuffed with errors. As we strive to free him from these, we ask all — especially those who might perhaps suspect him to have been unjustly taken from their homeland or their Order — to receive our effort in the spirit in which we write. We pursue Ecclesiastical truth, and if we are shown to have been less successful in attaining it, we shall at once with willing and grateful mind seize upon a surer path thus pointed out to us. We begin our discussion with Aquitaine, of which most writers — though of later centuries — make Saint William a Duke.

[2] Aquitaine is a distinguished part of Gaul, known equally to ancient and later authors. Having passed from the Roman Empire to the dominion of the Visigothic Kings, and from them to that of the Franks, it subsequently had its own Kings, In Aquitaine there were once Dukes, often Dukes, and was governed by various Counts as well. Among the earlier Dukes under Clovis I and his successors lived Bassolus, Willecarius, Chrannus, Ragnovald, Ennodius, Sadregesilus, Bertrand, and Boggis, brought forth from ancient records by Jean Besly in part 2 of his History of the Counts of Poitou and Dukes of Aquitaine. Concerning Bertrand, father of Saint Hubert, Bishop of Maastricht and Liege, we shall treat in his Life on November 3; concerning Boggis, husband of Saint Oda, on October 24; concerning others, elsewhere. Moreover, under the sons of that same Clovis I, Saint Calminius, Duke of Aquitaine — omitted by Besly — flourished; having built the monastery of Mauzac in the Auvergne, he died in the odor of sanctity and is venerated on the fourteenth day before the Kalends of September. We mentioned King Charibert of Aquitaine on February 1 in the Life of Saint Sigibert, King of Austrasia, whom the former, his uncle, received from the sacred font. To these same Aquitanians, Charlemagne gave his son Louis the Pious as King; Kings, and he in turn appointed his son Pippin, who was succeeded by another Pippin, likewise his son. After the latter's capture, Aquitaine was governed by Kings Charles the Bald and his sons Charles and Louis, and later by Charles the Fat and Carloman. But Charlemagne, because he conferred the kingdom on his young son Louis, established Counts throughout all of Aquitaine from the Frankish nation, whom they commonly called Vassi; and various Counts. and he set over the city of Bourges first Humbert, then shortly afterward Sturbius; over Poitiers, Albo; over Perigueux, Widbod; over the Auvergne, Iterius; over the Velay (Wallagia), Bullus; over Toulouse, Chorso; over Bordeaux, Siguin; over the Albigeois, Aimo; and over Limoges, Rotgar — as is recorded in the Life of Louis the Pious by an anonymous but ancient author, under the year 778. The Acts of the Miracles of Saint Genulphus the Bishop, January 17, chapter 2, number 6, agree, where Charlemagne, returning from Spain, is said to have set Counts over the cities of Aquitaine for the protection of his Gaul, and to have disposed military garrisons in other parts of Spain against the incursions of the Saracens, and to have established as Count of Limoges Rotherius, who is called Rotgar above.

[3] From among these, Saint William was created Duke of Aquitaine by Charlemagne, When Chorso was removed from the Duchy of Toulouse, according to that same Life of Louis the Pious, William was substituted in his place. This is William I, Count of Toulouse, whom Guillaume de Catel in book 1 of his History of the Counts of Toulouse, chapter 6, considers to be the same man whom others report was given by Charlemagne as Duke to the Aquitanians, and who afterward in the monastery of Gellone — among the Narbonnese, in the diocese of Lodeve, which he himself had built — became a monk, died in sanctity, and is venerated on May 28: on which day we shall publish various Acts of his; some of which exist along with the Life of Saint William, Abbot of Hirsau, published by Carolus Stengelius at the Augsburg press. An excellent summary is found in the Life of Saint Benedict, Abbot of Aniane and Inde, February 12, chapter 6, by his disciple Saint Ardo, who says at number 28 that he often saw Saint William. With the deeds of this Saint William — from Duke of Aquitaine to monk of Gellone — the first and most ancient confusion was made, through an error believed to be the Founder of the Order of Williamites, whereby Saint William the Great, whom we treat on this February 10, was believed to have left the Duchy of Aquitaine and led an eremitical life in Tuscany, and to have given origin to the Order of the Williamites. We first gather this from the Cosmodromium of Gobelinus Persona, who in age 6, chapters 39 and 40, writes: "In the year of the Lord 800, the Order of the Williamites began under Duke William. In the year of the Lord 801, on the very day of the Lord's Nativity, Charlemagne was crowned Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III, in the thirty-third year of his reign." So writes Gobelinus, who flourished at the beginning of the fifteenth century of Christ and who began this work under Pope Boniface IX (who reigned from 1389 to 1404) and completed it as a sexagenarian in the year 1418 under Pope Martin V, after prolonged study, as he himself attests at the end of the work. And although this author stumbles from time to time, such is the diligence that appears in the composition of this work that he seems to have expressed the opinion of learned men of his time. He had traversed nearly all of Italy and was familiar with Supreme Pontiffs, Cardinals, Bishops, and other dignitaries of the Church and prelates of monasteries. Returning to his homeland of Westphalia and having discharged various ecclesiastical offices among the people of Paderborn, he obtained the Deanery of Bielefeld in the County of Ravensburg. But at last, in order to devote himself better to a holier life and to literary studies, he withdrew to the monastery of Böddeken. This Gobelinus, then, writes that the Order of the Williamites began in the year 800 under Duke William — the very time when Saint William, Duke of Aquitaine and conqueror of the Saracens, was building the monastery of Gellone, having afterward become a monk in the year 806.

[4] Another German writer, Peter Merssaeus Cratepolius, in his book On the Saints of Germany, under Blessed Godfrey, also lists the same Saint William of Gellone as having become a monk from Duke of Aquitaine, and as if setting him above the other Williams; considered more illustrious than other Williams, for he says that Godfrey, from Count of Cappenberg and a man renowned in military affairs, assumed the monastic habit under Saint Norbert, having become as it were another William, that Duke of Aquitaine under Charlemagne. We treated Blessed Godfrey on January 13. That the Williamite religious once traced the origin of their Order to this same Saint William of Gellone, we gather from the Catalogue of monasteries of the Order, as if the abbey were founded for the Williamites by Charlemagne, which we publish below from an ancient manuscript codex edited by Peter Silvius; in which, among the monasteries of the province of Tuscany, the following may be read: "Likewise the Abbey of Saint Anthony near Castelnuovo, which is called Castrum Abbatis. This Abbey was built and endowed by Charlemagne." Under whom Saint William of Gellone lived, more than three hundred years before Saint William the Great, the father of the said Williamites. But these matters will be made more certain from what follows.

[5] The veneration of Saint William the Great is celebrated in the Order of Hermits of Saint Augustine on this February 10, and is confirmed by the ancient Breviaries, or proper Ecclesiastical Offices, of that Order — though not without several errors, inasmuch as they assign to this William the monastery built in the valley of Gellone, gifts received from Charlemagne, the same person considered to be Saint William the Great and the hermit, the parents and sisters of Saint William of Gellone, as well as his Duchy of Aquitaine, and also the wars gloriously waged by him and the victories won over the Saracens in Gaul. Thomas de Herrera, an Augustinian Hermit, formerly Prior of Salamanca, Provincial Rector of the Province of Castile, and Consultor Qualificator on the sacred tribunal of the supreme Inquisition of Spain — a man who deserved exceedingly well of his Order on account of his singular learning in historical matters — in his Alphabetum Augustinianum, published at Madrid in 1647, under the letter L, among the monasteries of men, places: "Near Lyon, the monastery of the Holy Savior, erected by Lord William about the year 1156 in the valley of Gellone, as they report." He says he read this in the ancient offices of the Order of Hermits of Saint Augustine, printed without indication of printer, city, or year, but published after the year 1493, in the library of the most reverend Fortunatus Scacchi, the Apostolic Sacristan, in Reading VII of the Office of Saint William. The same Offices were afterward reprinted at Venice in the year 1500, together with the Roman Breviary and the proper Offices of the Order of Saint Francis, in which Reading VII of Saint William was customarily recited with this beginning: to whom are ascribed the monastery built by the Gellone monk, "Whose fame was soon made known, and not only in Italy but also in the territory of Lyon he founded a new monastery, namely in the valley of Gellone, which he also more generously endowed and dedicated in the name of the Savior, and there he enclosed hermits and virgins, handmaids of Christ; where he also placed two of his sisters who had professed virginity, a piece of the Cross of Christ received from Charlemagne, and he was also made a soldier of Christ; and this was on the feast of the Apostles. To whom King Charles generously granted as a gift the wood of the Lord's Cross, which he had brought from Jerusalem." So it stands there, but these things were transferred here from the Acts of Saint William of Gellone, which we shall presently cite, with new errors. That monastery was built not in the territory of Lyon but of Lodeve among the Narbonnese; and the wood of the Lord's Cross was not brought by Charlemagne from Jerusalem, but was sent to him by the Patriarch of Jerusalem. How far apart these times are from one another! Herrera, in order to retain that monastery for his Order, conjectures it was perhaps founded by Blessed Albert the Gaul, Saint William's first disciple. But what Charles was then reigning there? It would have been better to reject the whole reading — which he rightly says has been antiquated — in which so many difficulties, or rather open falsehoods, are heaped together at once.

[6] I here repeat some things from Reading One, part of which was afterward retained in the revised offices. It begins thus: "Blessed Confessor William, formerly Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitou, that one's Duchy of Aquitaine, born, as is reported, of a family of counts from the province of Poitou, and a most fierce warrior, drawing his illustrious lineage from his father Theodoric the Consul and his mother Aldacia, parents, fought strenuously under King Charlemagne and held the chief place of his kingdom, distinguished for his holiness. When the Saracens had invaded parts of Aquitaine, military service, he was sent by Charlemagne with an army, valiantly defeated them, and having inflicted great slaughter upon them, powerfully drove them from the invasion of Septimania." So far, these things pertain roughly to Saint William of Gellone, a kinsman of Charlemagne; but what follows, if true, must have occurred three hundred and fifty years later, and is thus connected in the same Reading without even a word of transition: "Who, at the time when Pope Eugenius III, on account of the malice plotted against him by the Romans, withdrew to Lower Gaul, still an impious tyrant, as he himself confessed, received sentence from the aforesaid Apostolic; how the obstinacy of his ferocity delayed his reception of penance even as it followed him to Rome; and also through these times, having been sufficiently instructed from the beginning of his youth by Blessed Abbot Bernard, while he was regarded as more exalted than all others." Behold, in the same Reading, one who is "distinguished for holiness," then an "impious tyrant," and then, through the instruction of Saint Bernard, "regarded as more exalted than all." Not without reason does Herrera therefore warn that the Readings of the sacred Offices are in need of rigorous examination, lest falsehoods mingled with truths corrupt the entire narrative — which we shall here endeavor to demonstrate with modest admonition. These Readings having been rightly antiquated, in the judgment of Herrera, other Offices of the Brothers Hermits of Saint Augustine were published, according to the rules of the Roman Breviary restored by decree of the sacred Council of Trent under Pius V, Supreme Pontiff — which the same our most holy Lord Pius V, in the fifth year of his Pontificate, by a living voice, granted and confirmed: so that, thus arranged in the year of our Lord 1570 by order of the most reverend Father Thaddeus of Perugia, Prior General of the said Order, they might be recited by the Brothers of the same Order. In these Offices, frequently published under the said title, the proper Readings concerning Saint William for February 10 begin thus: "Blessed Confessor William, formerly Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitou, born, as is reported, of a family of counts from the province of Poitou, begotten of his father Theodosius the Consul and his mother Aldatia, fought strenuously under Louis the Younger, King of the Franks, and held the chief place of his kingdom, distinguished for his holiness. When the Saracens had invaded parts of Aquitaine, sent by the same King with an army, he wonderfully defeated them, and having inflicted great slaughter, openly routed them." The Readings now recited at Matins in the same Order, extended through an entire Octave, were published with the authority of Andrew Fivizani, Prior General, in a letter dated in the year 1596. In these the same beginning concerning the lineage of Saint William appears, and the same parents, Theodosius the Consul and Aldatia, are assigned.

[7] It is necessary to set against these what is most certain concerning Saint William of Gellone, from which it will be evident that the two Williams are not sufficiently distinguished from one another, nor indeed from other Williams to be treated below. Ordericus Vitalis, a monk of Saint-Evroul among the Normans — whom we shall say below flourished about the year 1100 and following, conspicuous for learning and virtue — in book 6 of his Ecclesiastical History, published by Du Chesne among the Norman writers, relates the following about Saint William of Gellone, the elder Saint William was born of Count Theodoric and Aldana, condensed from the larger Acts: "In the time of Pippin, King of the Franks, William was born of his father Theodoric the Consul and his mother Aldana. In infancy he was educated in letters, and under Charlemagne he was devoted to military service. He obtained the title and office of Consul, and the command of the first cohort in military affairs. He was then appointed Duke of Aquitaine by Charlemagne, and was charged with a campaign against King Theodebald and the Spaniards and the Hagarenes. Entering Septimania vigorously, he crossed the Rhone, tamed the Saracens, besieged the city of Orange, and having routed the invaders, rescued it. Then he fought many battles with the overseas barbarians and the neighboring Hagarenes, saved the people of God by the sword with divine aid, extended the Christian empire, and thoroughly subdued the Saracens. In the territory of Lodeve, in the valley of Gellone, among innumerable crags, he built a monastery in honor of the Savior and the twelve Apostles, and established there devout monks with an Abbot. Two of his sisters, Albana (others say Aldana) and Bertana, became nuns there and persevered well in the worship of God... He requested and obtained from Charlemagne a certain phylactery containing wood of the holy Cross. That phylactery had been sent by the Patriarch of Jerusalem through the priest Zacharias, a man of great repute, while King Charlemagne was staying at Rome in the first year of his empire... In the year from the Incarnation of the Lord 806, the sixth of Charlemagne's Empire, he becomes a monk of Gellone in the year 806, on the birthday of the Apostles Peter and Paul, Count William became a monk... from a Consul, a cook; from a great Duke, a lodger, carrying firewood on his neck, bearing a jug of water... At last, all things having been duly completed, Blessed William departed on the fifth day before the Kalends of June, with the Angels rejoicing," etc. he died in sanctity on May 28. So writes Ordericus, calling him now Consul, now Count (for those titles are used for the same dignity), now Duke. The remaining Acts, both printed and manuscript, agree with Ordericus; they also report that he was born of his parents, Count Theodoric and Aldana, and waged very many wars against the Saracens. Arnold Raisseus in the Supplement to the Natales of the Saints of Belgium, and some manuscripts, add that he had previously been Count of Hainault in Belgium — whom Rosweyde had recorded as venerated by others on February 10 and described as Count of Poitou. Those who are here called by Ordericus and others Theodoric the Consul and Aldana, parents of Saint William of Gellone, are also written by others — but by the fault of copyists — as Theodosius and Aldatia, and are said to be the parents of Saint William the Hermit, in whose Life published in Italian by William Cavalcanti (which we have seen only in a French version by Roger Girard of Paris, of the Order of Hermits of Saint Augustine), his parents are called by both names, Theodosius or Theodoric, these do not agree with the other Dukes of Aquitaine: and Aldana or Aldatia, with reference also to the Readings recited at Matins among the Augustinian Fathers. That Aldana was the daughter of Charles Martel, Blondel reports from the Martyrology of Gellone under the fifth day before the Kalends of June, in his Genealogica Francica. But neither the later Dukes of Aquitaine, very many of whom bore the name William, had parents of a similar name; and the last Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitou named William — who was brought back from schism to the unity of the Church by Saint Bernard (and whom many take to be one and the same as Saint William the Great) — had as parents another William, also Duke of Aquitaine and Count, or as he is often called, Consul of Poitou, and Matilda-Philippa, daughter of William Count of Toulouse, as will be more fully demonstrated below.

[8] He who has been substituted in place of Charlemagne as Louis the Younger, King of the Franks, under whom Saint William is said to have fought and to have defeated the Saracens invading Aquitaine, is necessarily Louis the Pious, then young or adolescent, who depended in his governance upon his father Charlemagne. wrongly transferred to the times of Saint Louis, King of France, By both of these, Saint William of Gellone, having been created Duke of Aquitaine, accomplished those wars — which, by a remarkable confusion of chronology, Joseph Pamphilus, Bishop of Segni, in his Chronicle of the Order of Hermits of Saint Augustine, published at the Roman press in 1581, transfers to Saint Louis and his brother Charles, in these words: "Which Saint William, having fought strenuously under Saint Louis, King of France, and having defeated the Saracens invading Aquitaine with the army of Charles, brother of the same Louis... visited Jerusalem and the shrine of Blessed James with great ardor of devotion." So it stands there, but things separated by more than four hundred years are wrongly connected. Moreover, Saint Louis was younger than William, the last Duke of Aquitaine — whom Pamphilus identifies as Saint William — by more than a hundred years; he was made King at the age of twelve, in the year of Christ 1226, and died in 1270, famous for having undertaken expeditions to Africa and Palestine against the Saracens. His brother Charles was made King of Sicily from Count of Anjou. and of his brother Charles, afterward King of Sicily. But what Saracens were invading Aquitaine in those times, when Saint Louis was seeking them out far from his own kingdom to destroy them? Once this error was admitted — whereby the deeds of Saint William of Gellone, the first Duke of Aquitaine of this name, are attributed to the last Duke William — many and absurd errors necessarily followed.

[9] Some excuse for these errors may be alleged: that in Jean Bouchet's Annals of Aquitaine, and by the other authors who followed him, whom we shall frequently adduce below, this Saint William of Gellone is not listed; indeed — what is more remarkable — Jean Besly does not mention him either, by whom we have already said Saint Calminius, another Duke of Aquitaine and a Saint, was also neglected. the son of Saint William of Gellone, Jacelinus, Since we ourselves, once deceived by the negligence of these same authors, could not determine which Saint William, or Guillerm, to assign as the father of Jocelin — by whom, as we said on January 17, the relics of Saint Anthony the Great were translated from Constantinople to Gaul — we deferred the final decision to this February 10, where we would be treating of the various Williams. The History of the Translation, published from an ancient manuscript of Utrecht, carries the relics of Saint Anthony from Constantinople to Gaul. at number 4 states: "Count William, who is believed to be one of the warriors, and who, on account of the merit of his good life — which he is reported to have led for a long time in his monastery — is called Saint William, had a certain son named Jacelinus, not unworthy of his father's probity." This is more probably Saint William of Gellone, who in Catel's text of the diploma of the foundation of this monastery — dated in the twenty-fourth year of the reign and fourth of the empire of Charlemagne — numbers among his own children a Gotselinus, whom the manuscript Acts of the same Saint call Gaucelinus and Gausselinus. This appears to be the same person called by others Jacelinus and Jocelinus, believed by Baronius, as we said there, to be sprung from the stock of the Counts of Poitou — to which this Saint William does not belong, that family being much more ancient. His son may then be believed to have brought the relics of Saint Anthony to Gaul in the ninth century of Christ.

Section II. Six Dukes of Aquitaine named William: from the year 860 to the year 1160. The deeds of some of them and of Saint William the Hermit are confused.

[10] Saint Jerome, in book 3 of his Commentaries on Matthew, chapter 16, marvels that interpreters should seek out the causes of errors and weave together a very long disputation whether the causes of all errors must be investigated as to why some believed our Lord Jesus Christ to be John, others Elijah, others Jeremiah or one of the Prophets — since they could have erred about Elijah or Jeremiah in the same way that Herod erred about John, saying: "John, whom I beheaded, has himself risen from the dead, and mighty works are wrought in him." Mark 6:16 Why should we not likewise cut short a longer disputation here, once the primary cause of the remaining errors has been shown — namely, that Saint William the Great and Hermit was believed to be a Duke of Aquitaine because another Saint of the same name, William of Gellone, had been a Duke of Aquitaine? Yet because he was separated from him by three hundred and more years in age, the same confusion was transferred to the later Dukes of Aquitaine named William. We shall endeavor to set this forth clearly, so that trust may be placed in the facts themselves, not in mere words.

[11] The Dukes and Counts who formerly governed under the earlier Kings of the Franks could be removed at the pleasure of those kings. But afterward, the Dukes and Counts claimed for themselves the prefectures entrusted to them hereditary Counts and Dukes and transmitted them to their heirs. Among these were, in Aquitaine, the Counts of Poitou, to whom was afterward added the Duchy of Aquitaine — erected chiefly from the County of Bordeaux, where Aquitaine was thenceforth established and, with a corrupted form of the name, in Aquitaine has been called Guienne down to the present day. There were also Dukes of Aquitaine I, whose capital the Bituriges (people of Bourges) inhabit. Among these, the most ancient after the rest is William, born of his parents Bernard, Count of Auvergne and Bourges, and Ermengard, William the Pious and according to the manuscript Acts of Saint Hugh, Abbot of Saint-Martin of Autun, to be published on April 20, surnamed the Pious, Count of the Auvergne and Duke of the Aquitanians of the first Celtic province; in Aquitaine I by whom the monastery of Cluny in Burgundy was founded in the year 890, as we said on January 13 in the Life of Blessed Berno, the first Abbot, sections 4 and 5; in the ninth century of Christ where in the foundation charter his wife is called Ingelberga, who is believed to have borne him no children. This William the Pious is not distinguished from Saint William of Gellone by Peter Ricordatus Bugianus, as cited by Arnold Wion in his Notes to the Monastic Martyrology under May 28, taken for Saint William of Gellone, and by Ranuccio Pico in annotation 3 to the Life of Saint William the Great, published in Italian along with the Life of Constantine the Great at Parma in 1623 — perhaps led into error by Trithemius, who in book 3 of his work On the Illustrious Men of the Order of Saint Benedict, chapter 278, reports that Saint William of Gellone flourished about the year 900. and Founder of the Williamites: That this same William the Pious is held by others to be the founder of the Order of the Williamites is reported by Sampson Hay of Paris, a Williamite, in the preface of his book On the Truth of the Life and Order of Saint William.

[12] uncle of another Duke of Aquitaine named William The nephews of this same William the Pious by his sister Adaluida — Acfred and William — are also considered Dukes of Aquitaine, born of their father Acfred, from whom the Counts of the Auvergne are listed in a long series by Christophe Justel, and among them very many named William. While William the Pious presided as Duke over this first Aquitaine, a second Aquitaine was governed as Duke by Ranulf, he raises Ebolus, son of Duke Ranulf II, Count of Poitou, his kinsman, who, having drunk poison prepared at the court of King Odo, while dying about the year 890, commended his son Ebolus to the care of Saint Gerald, Count of Aurillac. The boy was secretly taken away from him and entrusted to Duke William the Pious, his kinsman, and raised under his guardianship — a certain Ademar having meanwhile been appointed Count of Poitou by order of King Odo. Because William the Pious promoted Ebolus to his father's County of Poitou and the Duchy of the second Aquitaine, and greatly assisted him in governing them, among these Dukes of Aquitaine in Besly's account — Saint William of Gellone and the other nephew already mentioned having been omitted — he is called William I, Duke. William is considered the first Duke of that name; and we follow this manner of reckoning. Saint Gerald the Count is venerated on October 13.

[13] From this Duke Ebolus, through various Williams, we trace the Dukes of Aquitaine and Counts of Poitou down to the last Duke William, who was induced by Saint Bernard to submit to the Supreme Pontiff; William II, called Caput-Stupae, Ebolus is considered the great-great-great-grandfather of this last Duke. He was succeeded about the year of Christ 935, upon his death, by his son, surnamed William Caput-Stupae Tow-head, the great-great-grandfather of the last Duke William, born of his mother Adela, daughter of Edward the Elder, King of the English. He is properly the first William of that name who was Count of Poitou and Duke of the second Aquitaine — or certainly, if the Williams already mentioned as Dukes of whichever Aquitaine are counted, he would be William IV, Duke of Aquitaine. Philip Labbe, in his Genealogical Tables of the Royal House of France and the six lay Peers, makes this William Caput-Stupae the third Duke of that name; Besly makes him the second, whom we have determined to follow for the reasons given concerning William the Pious. This William II is believed toward the end of his life to have assumed the monastic habit in the monastery of Saint-Cyprien, but since he did not get along well with the Abbot, to have moved to the monastery of Saint-Maixent, died about the year 963. and to have died there about the year 963, leaving as heir, by Adela the Norman, William III, the great-grandfather of the last Duke William. At the head of chapter 15 of Besly's History there exists a charter, or privilege, granted by this William III to the monastery of Angeriac in the diocese of Saintes, in which he testifies the following about his family: "Wherefore I, in the name of God, William, Duke of the Aquitanians... William III for the remedy of my soul and for my ancestors, Ebolus the Count, and my father William, and my mother Adela, and my wife Emma, and my son William, and the sons and daughters begotten of us, should give to the monastery of Saint John the Baptist of Angeriac," etc. This William III, in various charters, writes of himself as Duke of the Aquitanians by divine clemency Abbot of Saint-Hilary, and Abbot of the most precious Confessor of Christ, Hilary; some report that, following his father's example, he became a monk of Saint-Maixent died before the year 1000. and departed this life at the end of the tenth century. But perhaps this monastic profession should be attributed to only one of the two. His wife Emma, or Emelina, daughter of Theobald, Count of Champagne, survived along with their son.

[14] William IV succeeded his father; he was the great-grandfather of the last William (and on account of his combative spirit — with which, as the manuscript History of Ademar of Chabannes has it, William IV "he many times either tamed or overthrew all the Aquitanian magnates who attempted to rebel against him"), he was commonly surnamed the Pugnacious, or of the Iron Arm, or barbarously Fiera-brachia, called the Great, the Pugnacious, and of the Iron Arm, or Fierabras. Labbe attributes this title to his father William and calls the latter "the Great." Bouchet in part 3 of the Annals of Aquitaine — and those who followed him: Jean de la Haye in chapter 19 of the Origins of Poitou (about whose authority we shall treat more fully below), Claude Paradinus in the Genealogy of the Dukes of Aquitaine, Cavalcanti in chapter 1 of the Life of Saint William, and others — not sufficiently distinguished from his grandfather William II wrongly call him Caput-Stupae, and omitting his father William III, they do not sufficiently distinguish him from his grandfather and attribute to him the monastic life lived by the grandfather in the monastery of Saint-Cyprien, as if he had died there amid holy and pious exercises. For this reason Wion in his Notes to May 28 adds that he was illustrious for sanctity and the glory of miracles, nor from Saint William of Gellone, and appears to be taken by others for Saint William of Gellone, who is venerated on that day — so that consequently the deeds of these men could more easily be imputed to Saint William the Great. Certainly William IV, called of the Iron Arm, is more celebrated for the reason, among others, that he had as his son-in-law Emperor Henry II (or Henry III as King of Germany), having given him in marriage his daughter Agnes; this William, Duke of Aquitaine, is said by Albert Krantz at the beginning of book 5 of his Saxonia also considered the Founder of the Order of the Williamites to have left behind the Order of the Williamites. Behold a third Duke of Aquitaine taken for Saint William the Great and the Hermit, and believed along with him to be pugnacious and a man of the iron arm.

[15] This William had three lawful wives. The first was Adalmodis, previously married to the Count of La Marche (whom some call Adalbert, and more call Boso); he married three wives, she was captured when the town of Roche-Méhéde was stormed, and after the death of her husband became his wife, and bore William V, the fifth Duke of that name. After Adalmodis's death, a second wife named Brisca, sister of Sancius, Duke of Gascony, married him and bore him two sons — Odo, afterward Count and Duke of Gascony, and Tetbaudus, who died in childhood — as the author of the Chronicle of the monastery of Maillezais reports, which monastery this Duke William built in the year 1010, that is, before these second nuptials. This second wife having died in the year 1023, a third married him, named Agnes, the mother of the Empress Agnes, of Peter surnamed the Fiery, and of Geoffrey Wido, both of whom, assuming their father's name, were also called William — the sixth and seventh Dukes of Aquitaine of that name, as will presently be said. Bouchet and his followers assign only two wives to this William, wrongly ordered by Bouchet: the first being Agnes (who is in fact the third), and the second Adomaldis, or rather Adalmodis (who was in fact the first). From this inverted order, the first and legitimate wife could be believed to have been repudiated, and the other brought in as the wife of a Count supposedly still alive, in a foul adultery. These crimes, later fastened upon Saint William the Great, we shall report in due course. In the year following the last marriage — that is, the year of Christ 1024 — the holy Emperor Henry departed to heaven. he refuses the kingdom of Lombardy offered to him, Upon hearing of his death, the Lombards, wishing to throw off the Imperial yoke, desired to make William, Duke of Aquitaine, their King. He, together with William Count of Angouleme, penetrated the borders of Lombardy, where, holding a long conference with the Dukes of Italy and finding no good faith in them, he counted their praise and honor as nothing. So the contemporary author concludes the Chronicle published by Besly from the manuscript library of the Senator Petau of Paris, in these words in the proofs to chapter 20. These are the times at which Bouchet and his followers write that this William lived as a monk for two or three years in the monastery of Saint-Cyprien and died there in the year 1025 — whence an occasion seems to have been seized to assert that Saint William, after a solitary life carried on in Palestine for nine years, returned to Italy and, invited by the Dukes to the storming of a certain castle, resumed the military garb, but was prevented by blindness inflicted by God and withdrew. It is established, however, against Bouchet and others, that Duke William remained in his dignity and governance until the year 1029, and then, as the Chronicle of Maillezais has it, died on January 31, in the year 1030. "after many laudable deeds, the Duke himself became a monk at Maillezais and, full of days, died in peace on the second day before the Kalends of February, in the year 1030."

[16] William IV was succeeded by his eldest son, born of Adalmodis his first wife, William V, surnamed the Fat and the Stout. He, in the fourth year of his accession to power, was captured in battle by Geoffrey Martel, Count of Anjou, and bound in iron chains William V, called the Fat and the Stout, until at last, in the third year, having accepted an ignoble agreement, he went out of prison; but he died on the return journey and was joined to his father in the burial place at Maillezais in the year 1036. His wife was Eustachia, buried at Poitiers in the church of Saint Mary. This Duke is unknown to Bouchet, Hay, and others; died in the year 1036: he is recognized by the author of the Chronicle of Maillezais, by Glaber Radulphus in book 4 of his History of France, chapter 9, by William of Malmesbury in book 3 of his work On the Kings of England under William I, and by the author of the Annals of Reims in Vigner's part 2 of the Historical Library at the year 970. Perhaps also this man's fatness and stoutness were imputed to Saint William.

[17] Upon the death of William V, Odo the Count was summoned from Gascony, born of the second wife Brisca; and when he too had died, Peter, surnamed the Fiery, born of the third wife Agnes, was made Duke of Aquitaine. He, assuming his father's name, was called William VI, and after marrying his wife Ermenseld in the year 1051, lived until the year 1058. William VI, surnamed the Fiery. He was then succeeded by his full brother Geoffrey, or Godfrey, surnamed Wido or Guido, who also by his father's name is William, the seventh in the series already begun. Bouchet and others, omitting three brothers, substitute him for his father William IV — either about the year 1021, when they say the father joined the monks of Saint-Cyprien, died in the year 1058 or certainly in the year 1025, when they say he departed this life. But in fact Geoffrey, the second male offspring of the third marriage, had not even been born by the last year assigned, since his mother Agnes married William IV after the death of the second wife in the year 1023.

Section III. Two other Dukes of Aquitaine named William, from the year 1058 to the year 1126, wrongly taken for the same Saint William and not sufficiently distinguished from each other.

[18] When Konrad the Salic, Emperor, died in the year 1037, he was succeeded by his son Henry, the second Emperor of that name and the third King. He married in the year 1043 Agnes, to Emperor Henry, descended from the line of Charlemagne, sister of the said Dukes of Aquitaine William VI and Geoffrey-William VII, born of their father William IV and the same mother Agnes, his third wife. In this Henry, the Imperial dignity, which had long been an exile from the seed of Charlemagne, is said to have been brought back to the noble and ancient stock of Charlemagne, according to the manuscript Chronicle of Alberic, and in agreement with Otto of Freising, Conrad of Ursperg, and Wippo in the Life of Konrad the Salic. Henry had as his maternal great-great-grandfather Louis Transmarinus, King of the Franks, a great-grandson of Charlemagne; and Louis's daughter Matilda, Queen of Burgundy, bore Gerberga, Duchess of Alemannia, from whom was born Gisela, wife of Konrad the Salic and mother of Emperor Henry. Agnes, who married him, [Agnes, daughter of William IV, married him, descended from the same stock of Charlemagne:] descended from the same stock of Charlemagne, was separated from Louis Transmarinus by the same number of degrees as her husband. For Alberada, another daughter of Louis — called Affrada below in the Acts of Saint William — bore Ermentrudis, who, married to Otto-William, Duke and Count of Burgundy, bore Agnes, the third wife of William IV, Duke of Aquitaine, called of the Iron Arm; and their daughter is Agnes, wife of Emperor Henry.

[19] The Life of Saint William the Great by Theobald, which is widely available, is given below in a fuller form from manuscript codices, augmented with miracles and a genealogy of Saint William — the reliability of all of which, and the authority of the writer, we examine below in sections 6 and 7. the brother of this Agnes was William VII, In this genealogy, Theobald, or whoever its author is, makes the Empress Agnes the sister of Saint William. The title prefixed is of this kind: "Here begins the genealogy of Saint William, the wondrous Confessor," and it ends with these words: "Ermentrudis bore Agnes, who gave birth to the most noble Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitou, taken for Saint William the Great, namely Blessed William, and his sister Agnes, Empress of the Romans." Peter Silvius published the same genealogy at the beginning of the Life of Saint William, but, omitting the mother Agnes, he makes a new error in stating that Saint William and the Empress Agnes were born of their mother Ermentrudis; and he considers this genealogy to be true, if credit is to be given to the Chronicles. Behold what confusion of matters, from which it is no wonder that very many errors proliferate. Both Theobald and Silvius establish that Saint William was Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitou, but was recalled from the schism of the Antipope Anacletus to obedience to the true Pontiff through the pious efforts of Saint Bernard — and this is William IX, the last Duke. His grandfather William VII, formerly called Geoffrey Wido, previously called Geoffrey Wido, the brother of the Empress Agnes, is in this genealogy taken for his own grandson William IX and for Saint William, the father of the Williamites. Moreover, the untamed spirit, the fierce love of battle, and the unbridled lust that are attributed to Saint William by these authors a warlike man, could have had some foundation in William VII. He waged very many wars in Gaul and Spain, besieged, stormed, and devastated various cities, frequently fought in battle, and emerged victorious. He also had several wives; he had several wives: and first he married the daughter of Audebert, Count of La Marche; having left her on account of consanguinity in the year 1058, he took another, called Mateoda or Matilda. Having also dismissed her, he married Aldeardis, called by others Hildegard, the daughter of Robert, Duke of Burgundy, about the year 1068, as attested by the Chronicle of Maillezais by a contemporary author. Aldeardis survived her husband, and in her marriage too a difficulty had arisen. For Pope Gregory VII, out of reverence for the Christian religion, wished them to be separated on account of the closeness of consanguinity, and there exists in book 2 of his register the third letter, in which he praises their obedient disposition.

[20] Here Bouchet introduces a new and much tangled confusion of affairs, for by omitting Dukes William V and William VI, he divides this Geoffrey Wido (afterward William VII) into two men, of whom he makes the one, Wido or Guido, he is wrongly made the son of Guido, the father of Geoffrey-William, assigning to him Aldeardis, the last wife of this man, as his spouse. She herself, in a charter of donation made by her to the New Monastery after her husband's death, acknowledges him — Geoffrey — to have been buried there as her husband; this New Monastery, according to the Chronicle of Maillezais, he began to build in the year 1069. But Bouchet assigns two wives to Geoffrey: Gilbonna, sister of William Longsword, Duke of Normandy, and then the daughter of Raymond II, Count of Toulouse, whose name he does not give. But Duke Longsword was killed in the year 943. Nearly the same things are found in Claude Paradinus's Genealogy of the Dukes of Aquitaine and in Jean Hay, chapter 21 of the Origins of Poitou. The latter is silent about the name of Guido's wife and calls Geoffrey's second wife Joanna, but his daughter Gilbonna the wife of William, Duke of Normandy. [and the father of William, the last Duke, whom others believe to be Saint William.] Furthermore, omitting William VIII, about whom we shall presently treat, Bouchet makes Geoffrey-William the father of the last Duke William, whom he considers to be Saint William the Great and Hermit, born of his mother Gilbonna, the first wife. Paradinus and Jean Hay copy Bouchet; the latter makes Joanna, the second wife, the mother of Saint William. These are followed by Aubert Miraeus in book 2 of the Origins of the Order of Saint Benedict, chapter 16; William Naevius in the Augustinian Desert, chapter 2 of the Life of Saint William; and Ranuccio Pico in the same Life. Cavalcanti also considers this opinion the more common one, in chapter 4 of his Life. Others, omitting the mother, call Geoffrey or Godfrey the father of Saint William. Thus Saussay in the Martyrologium Gallicanum at July 3, on which he celebrates his nativity: "On this day," he says, "the burial of Saint William, Hermit and Confessor. He was the fifth Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitou, son of Godfrey, likewise Duke and Count." Simplicianus a S. Martino in the Augustinian History published in French, chapter 1 of the Life of Saint William, writes that his father was William, Duke of Aquitaine, surnamed Geoffrey, founder of the New Monastery. We omit gathering together more authors, for the sake of avoiding tedium, and hasten to the son neglected by them.

[21] In the year 1071, as we read in the Chronicle of Maillezais, William VIII, born in the year 1071, "A son William was born to Duke Geoffrey on the eleventh day before the Kalends of November, who is the first cousin of Emperor Henry and the second of the King of France," from the aforesaid wife, namely Aldeardis the Burgundian. And then: "In the year 1086, Guido, who is also Geoffrey, Count of Poitou, died, and his son William succeeded him, succeeds his father in the year 1086, being fifteen years old." The day of his death and his burial are indicated by the ancient records of the New Monastery in these words: "The most noble William, who is also Geoffrey, founder of our New Monastery, who died on September 24, died on the twenty-fourth day of the month of September and is honorably entombed before the Crucifix of the parish in the middle of the nave of the church." From that time William VIII governed — not sufficiently distinguished from his son, the last William, and from Saint William. Under him lived the author of the Chronicle of Maillezais, who among the soldiers sent to Spain in the year 1087 to King Alfonso saw a certain Norman larger in body than the rest, himself also named William, whom Besly, in chapter 28, supposes to have been surnamed the Carpenter on account of his military exploits against the infidels, and to have departed for the Holy Land in the year 1096 in the company of Duke Godfrey of Bouillon. he married Philippa-Matilda in the year 1096, On account of this William, the great stature of body may afterward have been attributed by someone to Saint William. According, then, to this author of the Chronicle of Maillezais — a witness to be trusted — Duke William, the eighth of that name, married in the year 1094 a wife named Philippa, daughter of William, Count of Toulouse. "To which William, in the year 1099, a son was born, called by the same name William, from the aforesaid wife" — he begets William IX in the year 1099. who is Philippa, but necessarily having two names, and called by her other name (perhaps assumed in marriage) Matilda. For in the charters of donations made in the year 1096 to the monasteries of Sainte-Croix and Vendome of the Most Holy Trinity, the signature reads: "Matilda, wife of Lord William, Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Gascony." Both charters were published by Besly, and the former also by our Sirmond in his Notes to letter 22 of book 5 of Godfrey, Abbot of Vendome, written to this Matilda while the Duke was absent on the expedition to Jerusalem. Gabriel Flamma, in the Life of Saint William, published in Italian with other Lives of the Saints, asserts that the aforesaid birth of the last William corresponds to the Pontificate of Paschal II, who governed the universal Church from August 12 of the year 1099 to January 22 of the year 1108; whence Herrera in his Alphabetum, Cavalcanti in chapter 4 of his Life, Ranuccio Pico, and others defer the birth of the said last William to the jubilee year 1100.

[22] Having established these things, it is certain that Duke William VIII is taken by various authors for Saint William the Great and Hermit. First, Saussay at July 3 says taken for Saint William that Saint William, having assumed the principate after his father's death, although he excelled in military prowess, was nevertheless distinguished for piety and was most zealous for the extension of the worship of God and the advancement of the beauty of churches. Out of which religious sentiment he completed and endowed the New Monastery, begun by his father in honor of the Apostles John and Andrew. These same things Bouchet also attributes to the last Duke William, adding that he saw an authentic charter of the Duke, drawn up in the year 1087 in the presence of his brother Hugh and many others. That charter is published by Besly, but was read very carelessly by Bouchet. In it, William himself, Duke of the Aquitanians, resolves to preserve and to be able to increase the monastery and his son William IX, "which his father William of good memory, who is also Geoffrey, built from the foundations in the suburb of the city of Poitiers, in honor of the blessed Mother Mary and the holy Apostles John and Andrew, where he himself lies entombed." He then grants the things which his mother Aldeardis had given to the same monastery. This Aldeardis Bouchet attributed as wife to his fictional Guido and adorned as the mother of this William a certain Gilbonna. But William continues, and with the consent of his wife and his son William, he grants and confirms all the endowments that his father had given to the same monastery. Behold, the last William is the son of William VIII, the grandson of William-Geoffrey — whom Bouchet and his followers eliminated as though he had never existed among mortals. Finally, the year of the Lord's Incarnation noted by Bouchet, and published with the same error by Besly, must be corrected: the number above one thousand was not eighty-seven but one hundred and seven, or some year close to it, since the last William, who is mentioned, had already been born.

[23] William Cavalcanti, Ranuccio Pico, Jean Naevius, Simplicianus a S. Martino, and similar writers of the Life of Saint William of this period he married a wife named Ermengard, report that he married a wife named Ermengard, daughter of Fulk, Count of Tours, and sister of Fulk, King of Jerusalem — who was in fact his stepmother, the wife of William VIII. William of Tyre, who flourished in that same twelfth century, writes in book 14, chapter 1, that this wife Ermengard was born of "her father Fulk, who is surnamed Rechin, Count of Tours and Anjou, and her mother Bertelea, sister of Lord Amalric de Montfort"; then repudiated, and that she had brothers, Fulk, King of Jerusalem, and Geoffrey Martel. "She was spurned by Count William of Poitou and cast off contrary to the laws of marriage, and betook herself to the Count of Brittany; from them was born Conan, Count of that same Brittany, who was surnamed the Fat." Ordericus Vitalis, who was then living as a monk in Normandy, also testifies that the wife was repudiated, whether she is the same Hildegard, also rejected, in book 12 of his Ecclesiastical History, but calls her Hildegard — who is either the same, or, if another, was also rejected. "In the year 1119," he says, "in the middle of October, Pope Callixtus came with the Roman Senate to Reims, and staying there for fifteen days, held a Council... Meanwhile Hildegard, Countess of Poitou, came forward with her attendants and in a loud, clear voice eloquently set forth her complaint, to which the whole Council listened attentively. She said that she had been abandoned by her husband, and that Malbergeon, the wife of the Viscount of Chateau-Airaud, an adulteress taken in had been put in her bed in her place... The Pope set a fixed term by which the Count should come to the court of the Pope for a hearing, and either take back his lawful wife or undergo the sentence of anathema for his unlawful divorce." So writes Ordericus, with whom his contemporary William of Malmesbury agrees in book 5 of the Deeds of the Kings of England under Henry I, narrating that "William, Count of Poitou, foolish and licentious, having driven out his lawful wife, carried off the wife of a certain Viscount, for whom he so burned that he had the image of the little woman placed on his shield, saying repeatedly that he wished to bear her in battle just as she bore him in the bedchamber." William is excommunicated, Whence he was rebuked and excommunicated by Gerard, Bishop of Angouleme, and ordered to put away his illicit liaison. That Bishop Gerard was a Legate of the Roman Church. Baronius at the year 1130, number 66, at the place indicated from Malmesbury, transfers the same things to the last William — things which are attributed with even fouler error to Saint William below in Theobald's Life, (things which are attributed to his son William and to Saint William), part 1, number 6, in these words: "At length, raging with Herodian fury against his own brother's wife, like Herod, contrary to all right and law, he is reported to have held her violently in most shameless incest for three years and more" — where the wife of a Viscount is turned into the wife of his own brother.

[24] Moreover, Baronius at the same place transfers to William's son, the last William, the expedition to the Holy Land undertaken by William VIII — as also the expedition to the Holy Land in the year 1101, as if he, when he had not yet completed two years of age, had learned to wage wars. That expedition belongs to the year 1101, when, as Ordericus relates at that year in book 10 of his Ecclesiastical History, the banner of Duke William is said to have been followed by three hundred thousand armed men. But they were defeated and contributed nothing to the Christian cause, as the Chronicles of Maillezais and of Geoffrey de Vosias relate. We do not wish here to touch upon his remaining wars, enumerated in the Chronicle of Maillezais and in contemporary authors, from which the eagerness for battle related by Theobald could have been attributed to Saint William. Pope Urban II, in a letter written to this same William VIII in the year 1097, marvels that he degenerates from his father's uprightness, disturbs the rights of churches, and despoils them. The same man is reported in the Chronicle of Maillezais to have been excommunicated in the year 1114 by Peter, Bishop of Poitou, who died the following year on February 23. another excommunication made in the year 1114, This excommunication Baronius at the year 1130, number 66, wrongly attributes to the last William, his son. Finally, about the year 1124, before the death of Pope Callixtus — who in that year on the thirteenth of December

continued from previous chunk ...of December — Emperor Henry V, as Suger testifies in the Life of Louis the Fat, King of France, besieged Reims, but retreated at the approach of the French. At that time, Duke William of Aquitaine and others were extremely eager for battle, because and military excursions in the year 1124. "the length of the journey and the shortness of the time prevented them from assembling their forces and punishing the injury done to the French most severely... At the same stormy time also, the Bishop of Clermont was driven out by the pride of the Auvergnats; and Duke William of Aquitaine, coming to their aid against King Louis, arrived relying on the army of Aquitanians, but terrified by the magnitude of the royal army, he sought and obtained peace." That these things were done by William VIII, the reckoning of the time requires; nor does his advanced or aging years — since he was nearly fifty-four years old — compel us to transfer these expeditions from the parent to the son, as others have done.

Section IV. William, the last Duke of Aquitaine, and Saint William the Great, commonly taken for one and the same person: the death of the former at Compostela in the year 1137, the death of the latter at Stabilimento di Rodi in the year 1157.

[25] This last Duke of Aquitaine, William the Ninth, is regarded by very many as the author of the Order of the Williamites, William IX, born in the year 1099, and is judged to be none other than Saint William the Great and Hermit. He was born in the year of Christ 1099, his father being William VIII, Duke of Aquitaine and Count or Consul of Poitou, and his mother a Toulousaine (as he himself testifies in a charter of donation made to the monastery of Angeriac), called Philippa-Matilda. The same William VIII, his father, also had, according to the Chronicle of Maillezais, five daughters, one of whom he betrothed to the Viscount of Thouars. he had five sisters, Last of all, about the year 1115, he begot at Toulouse a uterine brother, namely Raymond, who afterward reigned in Antioch. His mother seems to have been Ermengard his brother Raymond or Hildegard, the other wife of William VIII; and Raymond is called uterine in relation to his father by a kind of catachresis — that is, begotten by him along with the last William and the five sisters. This Raymond was raised at the court of Henry the Elder, King of the English, from whom he also received his arms as a knight. then Prince of Antioch, He was then summoned to Syria as a young man, his chin barely covered with the first down, by Fulk, King of Jerusalem, his uncle, the brother of Ermengard. About the year 1136 he married Constance, the daughter of Bohemond the Younger, heiress of the Principality of Antioch. He was afterward killed in battle on June 27 of the year 1148, in the thirteenth year of his principate, as William of Tyre relates in book 14 of the Sacred History, chapter 21, and book 17, chapter 9. The same author in book 14, chapter 20, mentions another brother, Henry, and Henry, Prior of Cluny, who afterward became Prior of the monastery of Cluny; no mention of him is made in the Chronicle of Maillezais — perhaps because he was the offspring of the adulteress Malbergeon. From this it is clear that the crime was wrongly transferred from his parent, William VIII, to his son William IX.

[26] At last, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1126, as Ordericus Vitalis testifies in book 12 of the Ecclesiastical History, which he was then writing, [the same person considered as his father, William VIII, who died in the year 1126,] "William, Count of Poitou, Duke of Aquitaine, the eighth of that name, died in the fifty-fifth year of his age, and his son William IX succeeded him." We have read no writer at all who has touched upon the genealogy of the Dukes of Aquitaine, even in passing, who has taken him for Saint William the Great and the Hermit without at the same time considering him the son of William VII, Geoffrey Wido — that is, his grandfather — and conflating him with his father William VIII into one and the same person. When these authors attribute the date of death of the father to the son, occasion was given for further error and for believing the same man to be Saint William the Great and the Hermit. We prove below that Saint William died on the fourth day before the Ides of February, which is the tenth of that month. February 10: On that same day, the fourth before the Ides of February, "William, Duke of the Aquitanians, died and was buried in the city of Poitiers at the New Monastery, and his son William — the ninth, that is, and the last — succeeded him in the principate," as is reported in the Chronicle of Maillezais, which ends with those words. The same day of death is confirmed by the manuscript codex of the said New Monastery in these words: "On the tenth day of February the obsequies are celebrated for the son of the noble Count, Founder of ours, whose body is buried in the Chapter House." And the Calendar of the same monastery: "On the fourth day before the Ides of February, the burial of Lord William, Duke of Aquitaine, who lies in the Chapter House." And the Calendar of Saint-Hilaire de la Celle: "On the fourth day before the Ides of February died William, Count and Duke of the Aquitanians, friend and defender of our Church." So it stands there; very many of these things are attributed to Saint William, and Saint William also died on February 10, in the year 1157, who died on the same February 10, in the year 1157, at Stabilimento di Rodi, by Bouchet, Paradinus, Jean Hay, Miraeus, Saussay, and the other writers of his Life cited above — who believed him to be the son of William-Geoffrey. In their name, these words could be applied to him: "On the fourth day before the Ides of February, the obsequies of Saint William the Great and Hermit are celebrated, the son — as they say — of William-Geoffrey, Duke of Aquitaine and Founder of the New Monastery," for whom, as is read in the same manuscript Codex of this monastery, "all the bells are rung, a sepulchre is prepared with honor with four burning candles and two lamps, which must be lit and burn along with two candles until after Mass, which must be celebrated solemnly, with two Brothers dressed in copes and two boys vested for the responsory," etc. These things could have been transferred from William VIII to his son, and thus to Saint William, as though they were being done for some Saint, when in fact the matter concerned a sacred funeral celebration for the salvation of his soul.

[27] These matters needed to be deduced carefully, so that it might be established that concerning William IX, the last Duke of Aquitaine, only the following things had been ascertained thus far: the year of his birth and succession to the principate, his parents, and other ancestors listed above — whose wicked deeds, greatly amplified and changed to the worst interpretation, have been fastened upon him. He married two lawful wives. First, Alienord, or Aynord, who bore him Alienord, or Alienora, he marries a wife named Alienord, about the year 1123; the latter is said in the manuscript Chronicle of Limoges, belonging to Lord Ribier, to have been thirteen years old at the time of her father's death, and there his wife is called the sister of the Viscount of Chateau-Airaud — perhaps that same Viscount of Chateau-Airaud whose wife Malbergeon, we have said, was carried off in unspeakable lust by his parent William VIII. His first wife having died, he married another, about whom the following is reported in another manuscript Chronicle of Limoges: "William, the last Duke of the Aquitanians, bestowed many goods upon churches and gave many alms. Since he had only one daughter by his deceased wife, he married the daughter of Ademar, Viscount of Limoges, then Emma: who was called Emma." She, as is reported in the manuscript Chronicle of Geoffrey de Vosias, was a widow, previously married to Bardo de Coniac. "This woman was afterward carried off by the counsel of the Limousins by William Taillefer, son of Vulgrin, Count of Angouleme; whence the greatest ruin would have befallen the Limousins, who feared the yoke of Poitou, had not the Duke shortly afterward died at the shrine of Saint James," as will be proved below.

[28] In the year of Christ 1130, upon the death of Pope Honorius II on February 14, a schism arose. For as Baronius reports at number 1 from the Chronicle of Benevento, written at that time, in the year 1130 he recognizes Pope Innocent II: "on the very day on which Honorius died, Lord Innocent was elected; and after him, on the same day at the third hour, Peter, Bishop of Porto, elected Peter, son of Peter Leo, called Anacletus." That the legitimate Pontiff Innocent was soon recognized and received in Aquitaine is indicated by a charter of Duke William, by which donations to the Canons of Sainte-Radegonde are confirmed. To it is appended this subscription: "This was done in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord 1129 (which, according to the Gallic usage then customary, was continued until Easter), Innocent being Pope governing the Roman Church, Louis being King of the French reigning, William Adelelmi being Bishop, and William the Count being supporter of this charter." seduced by others, in the year 1131 he adheres to the Antipope Anacletus: But Duke William was thereafter induced by Gerard, Bishop of Angouleme, and Giles, or Gilo, Cardinal Bishop of Tusculum, and corrupted by gifts, to adhere to the pseudopontiff Anacletus. The testimony of this is the inscription of a charter to the monastery of Angeriac, in which the following is read: "This charter was made in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord 1131, Anacletus PP. II sitting on the Apostolic See, Gerard Bishop of Angouleme and Legate of the holy Roman Church, William Gardradi Bishop of Saintes, Louis King of France reigning with his son Philip" — who died in the month of October of that same year 1131.

[29] It is worthwhile to adduce from that charter some passages from which the disposition and sentiments of Duke William may be known: "This gift," he says, "I made on account of the invasion which I had made upon this very church on the day on which the Nativity of Blessed John the Baptist is celebrated; because I had attacked the monks celebrating the feast day in that same church, on account of molestation and violence done to monks, and I had converted the offerings of that church to my own uses; for which reason I rendered myself guilty and culpable in the presence of all the monks sitting in Chapter, where I made this gift. And going out of the Chapter, in the presence of them and my Barons, barefoot and making satisfaction, holding rods in my hands, he publicly performs penance: I came humbly before the altar on which the head of the Forerunner rested. And there, cast upon the ground before the head of Christ's Forerunner, I acknowledged myself guilty and culpable for these crimes, and I placed this gift upon the altar of Blessed John, by means of this parchment, as stated above; and that the church of Saint John may possess all the aforesaid things firmly and wholly in perpetuity, I have confirmed it below with the sign of the Cross by my own hand," etc. This same charter of donation was confirmed by King Louis VIII in his camp at Dompierre near La Rochelle in the year 1224, the first of his reign; whose charter our Philip Labbe has in his Miscellanea Curiosa, chapter 20, section 8.

[30] Pope Innocent had come to Gaul in the year 1130, received kindly by King Louis and his subjects, and soon also recognized and honored by Henry, King of the English. In the year 1131, having gone to Liege, he crowned Lothar, the elected Emperor, as King of Germany during Lent, and in the Council of Reims — attended by thirteen Archbishops, two hundred and sixty-three Bishops, and a great multitude of other Abbots and Clergy — he consecrated Louis the Younger on the eighth day before the Kalends of November. He then returned to Italy in the year 1132. By Pope Innocent, as is read in book 2 of the Life of Saint Bernard, chapter 6, while he was still lingering in Gaul, the Abbot of Clairvaux, Saint Bernard, and Joslen, the venerable Bishop of Soissons, were sent to meet both Gerard (who, with the Count's assent, had seized the Archbishopric of Bordeaux [he is admonished in vain by Saint Bernard and Bishop Joslen of Soissons in the same year 1131,] and simultaneously held the churches of both Bordeaux and Angouleme) and the aforesaid Prince. This was done, but with fruitless effort. For he called erring and acephalous all who did not obey Anacletus. Manrique reports these things in the Cistercian Annals at the year 1130, which we judge to have occurred in the following year, when "it first began to be heard what that Gerard was plotting against the Church of God," as is added in the same place in the Life of Saint Bernard. The holy Abbot then wrote to the Bishops of Aquitaine a famous letter concerning that schism, which is numbered 126 among his letters; and he afterward sent the following one to William, Duke of Aquitaine, and a letter sent about the year 1133: in the person of Hugh, Duke of Burgundy. In its conclusion, when he asserts that recently through the most Christian Lothar, false accusers had been caught in their own falsehood, he clearly implies that the letter was written after Lothar was crowned Roman Emperor by Innocent — whom he had brought back to the City — in the year 1133. Saint Bernard attended the Council held by Innocent at Pisa in the following year 1134, and reconciled the Milanese with him. Having returned to Gaul and invited by Geoffrey, Bishop of Chartres, Legate of the Apostolic See, in the year 1135 he is brought back to obedience by Saint Bernard: he undertook a meeting with Duke William in the year 1135 with better success, in which the Duke was both brought back to obedience to Pope Innocent and restored William, Bishop of Poitou, whom he had previously expelled, to his own See. Saint Bernard, in letter 128, written to the same Duke, acknowledges the wondrous change wrought by the right hand of the Most High, then he expels the Clerics of Saint-Hilaire: but marvels by what counsel and by whose advice he had so suddenly changed for the worse — returning once more to the injury of the Church by expelling the Clerics of Saint-Hilaire from the city and rousing the wrath of God against himself more gravely than before. So writes Saint Bernard, in neither whose works nor whose Life is there any further record of deeds performed by Duke William afterward.

[31] In the same year 1135, King Henry of England having died on the Kalends of December, his nephew Stephen was crowned King on the eighteenth day before the Kalends of January. Then Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, claiming the dominion of Normandy for himself, after various incursions, at last, says Ordericus, [in the year 1136, together with the Count of Anjou, he devastates the Normans in war,] "in the year 1136, on the eleventh day before the Kalends of October, he crossed the river Sarthe and with a vast multitude of armed men invaded Normandy. For he had with him William, Duke of the Poitevins, and Geoffrey of Vendome, and also the young William, son of William Count of Nevers, and William Count of Ponthieu, surnamed Talvas. These and indeed many other captains and centurions associated their forces with the Angevins and fell upon the Normans with every wickedness, whether for the Prince's favor or out of greed for plunder... The Angevins remained in Normandy for thirteen days and by their savagery earned the perpetual hatred, not the dominion, of the Normans... Because they partook immoderately of foods contaminated after the pollution of sacred things, many punished with diarrhea, by the just judgment of God nearly all of them fell ill with a flux of the bowels, and suffering greatly from the flowing diarrhea they left foul traces along the way, and most of them could scarcely manage to seek their own homes... In the year 1137, in the third week of March, King Stephen came to Normandy... At the same time, William, Duke of the Poitevins, mindful of the evils which he had lately wrought in Normandy, [he himself, having gone on pilgrimage to Saint James in the year 1137, dies on April 9;] moved by repentance, set out on pilgrimage to Saint James. Then on Friday of the Passion, the fifth day before the Ides of April, he was fortified with holy Communion, and died venerably before the altar of the blessed Apostle. He commanded his daughter to be given in marriage to Louis the Younger, King of France, and appointed the King himself heir of all his rights. And so it was afterward done." so writes Ordericus, a contemporary writer; So far Ordericus Vitalis, in book 13 of his Ecclesiastical History, which he completed in the fourth year after William's death, the year of Christ 1141, when he had lived among the Normans in the monastery of Saint-Evroul for fifty-six years, having become a monk in the year 1085 — that is, fourteen years before Duke William was born.

[32] and in charters issued in the same year 1137 Both Kings of France named Louis, in a double charter by which they confirm the ancient privileges granted to the churches of Aquitaine, confirm the death of Duke William in the same year in which it occurred, 1137. Philip Labbe in his Miscellanea Curiosa, chapter 12, section 10, published this charter of Louis VI, or the Elder, which we give here in full. the Kings of France: Louis VI, called the Fat, "In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity. Amen. Louis, by the grace of God King of the French. To you, beloved in the Lord, Geoffrey, Archbishop of Bordeaux, together with your Suffragan Bishops — Raymond of Agen, Robert of Angouleme, William of Saintes, William of Poitiers, William of Perigueux — and also with the Abbots of the province of Bordeaux and your successors in perpetuity. It befits the Royal Majesty to provide for the peace of the churches with pious solicitude, and by the duty of the power received from the Lord, to protect their liberties and defend them against the attacks of enemies or of the malicious. Thus indeed it will be established that we have obtained the summit of Royal dignity from the Lord, from whom all power derives, if, according to the institution of the Gospel and the tradition of Apostolic teaching, girded for the service of the holy Church of God, we devote our effort to preserving the liberty with which Christ has made her free, and to the tranquility of peace. Wherefore, having first taken the counsel of our Bishops, Abbots, and nobles, and with the assent of our son Louis, already raised to the kingship, we grant full canonical liberty in elections of Bishops and Abbots in the See of Bordeaux and in the aforementioned Episcopal Sees and Abbeys of the same province — which, upon the death of the illustrious William, Duke of the Aquitanians and Count of Poitou, asserting that he has died, have come to our said son Louis through his daughter Alienord by the lot of marriage — without any obligation of homage, oath, or fealty given by hand. Furthermore, we wish by Royal authority that all the goods of the deceased Archbishop and of his Suffragan Bishops, or of deceased Abbots, be preserved unharmed for the use of their successors, and we so command by our grant; adding this also: that all the churches established within the aforesaid province may have and possess undiminished their lands, possessions, and all things lawfully pertaining to them, according to their privileges, rights, and good customs. And that this may obtain the security of perpetual stability, we command it to be committed to writing and corroborated by the authority of our seal and the mark of our name. Done at Paris in our Parliament, publicly, in the year of the Incarnate Word 1137, the twenty-ninth of our reign, the princes of the realm subscribing, the fourth year since our Louis was raised to the kingship, in the presence of Geoffrey, the venerable Bishop of Chartres and Legate of the Apostolic See; Stephen, Bishop of Paris; Suger, Abbot of Blessed Denis; Gerard, Abbot of Josaphat; Algrinus our Secretary; in the presence of those in our palace whose names and signs are subscribed below: the sign of Ralph, Count of Vermandois and our Seneschal; of William the Butler; of Hugh the Chamberlain; of Hugh the Constable. Given by the hand of Stephen the Chancellor."

[33] So far the charter of Louis VI, called the Fat. His son Louis VII granted a similar one, which Rene Choppin has, though somewhat abbreviated, in book 1 of the Sacra Politia, title 7, number 3, and Louis VII, called the Younger, with this beginning: "I, Louis the Younger, son of the great Louis, by the grace of God King of the French and Duke of the Aquitanians. To you, Geoffrey, Archbishop of Bordeaux, together with your Suffragans... we have judged it proper to grant, both in the See of Bordeaux and in the aforementioned Episcopal Sees and Abbeys of the same province, which, upon the death of William, Duke of the Aquitanians and Count of Poitou, have come to us through his daughter Alienor by the lot of marriage," etc. But the subscriptions, omitted by Choppin, are reported thus by Labbe: indicating that he too has died, "Done at Bordeaux in our Palace, publicly, in the year of the Incarnate Word 1137, the fourth of our reign, in the presence of Geoffrey, the venerable Bishop of Chartres, Legate of the Apostolic See; Alberic, Archbishop of Bourges; Hugh, Archbishop of Tours; Bishops and nobles of the realm attesting. Geoffrey, Archbishop of Bordeaux; Raymond, Bishop of Agen; Lambert of Angouleme and William of Saintes, Bishops; Suger, Abbot of Saint-Denis; in the presence of those in our palace whose names and signs are subscribed below. The sign of Ralph, Count of Vermandois and our Seneschal. The sign of William the Butler. The sign of Hugh the Chamberlain. The sign of Hugh the Constable. Given by the hand of Algrinus the Chancellor." Jean Bouchet in part 3 of the Annals of Aquitaine, chapter 3, testifies that he saw this letter of Louis the Younger written on ancient parchment and secured with the Royal seal, on one side of which the King was shown seated on his throne, and on the other an armed Prince on horseback, bearing a sword in his hand. The supreme agreement of these Royal privileges, approved by the attestation of their presence — or the subscription — of the most illustrious nobles of the realm and the prelates of the Gallic Churches, amply confirms that the death of Duke William was known to all everywhere. Claude Robert, in his Gallia Christiana, treating of the Archbishopric of Bordeaux and its Suffragan Bishoprics — previously subject along with Aquitaine II to Duke William — also mentions this royal charter directed to those Bishops, with the great assent of ecclesiastical history.

[34] Hugo of Vezelay, whom we shall presently adduce, calls this Aquitaine II — following the custom of that age — "all of Aquitaine," and adds moreover that Gascony, Basclonia, the dominions subject to Duke William were Aquitaine II and III, and Navarre as far as the Pyrenees also belonged to Duke William. This was formerly called Aquitaine III, or Novempopulania; later Vasconia — which we said, on February 2, in the Life of Saint Adalbald the Duke, section 4, was divided about the year of Christ 1100 into Gascony and Basclonia, and that in this Basclonia (otherwise called Vascitania) was included lower or Gallic Navarre. The capital of this Aquitaine III, or Vasconia, is the city of the Ausci, or Auch, under which lies the diocese of Comminges. On account of the immunity from Regalia granted to the churches of Aquitaine, the Senate decreed in the year 1562 — as Choppin testifies at the place indicated above — that this diocese was empty and exempt from Regalia, the said royal charters being extended to all the territories previously subject to Duke William. Bernard, Abbot of Bonneval, in book 2 of the Life of Saint Bernard, chapter 6, writes that the provinces of Bordeaux and Auch (namely in Aquitaine II and III, as we have said), and the province of Tours, were subject to the power of Duke William, and "whatever the Ocean encompasses and encloses from the hills of the Iberians to the Loire obeyed his rule." But the province of Tours, extending widely beyond the right bank of the Loire, contains Brittany Armorica and nine bishoprics in it. not the province of Tours, At that time the Count Conan, son of Alan Fergent and Ermengard — whom we have said was repudiated by William VIII, Duke of Aquitaine — was then governing that Brittany. Ermengard was the daughter of Fulk Rechin, Count of Tours and Anjou, and sister of Fulk, afterward King of Jerusalem, who, having married Sibilla, the only daughter and heiress of Helias, Count of Le Mans, begot Geoffrey Plantagenet, the lawful successor of both his father and his maternal grandfather. At whose request, William IX, in the last year of his life, took up arms and invaded Normandy. The son of this Geoffrey, Henry II King of the English, married Alienor, daughter of William, previously divorced from King Louis of France. The Angevins and the people of Le Mans were indeed in the province of Tours, but, as is clear from this, they were not subject to the Dukes of Aquitaine. The first Aquitaine also lay outside his dominion. nor Aquitaine I. Hence, by the counsel of the Limousins — lest they be subjected to his yoke, which they feared — his second wife Emma, the heiress of that territory, was taken from him. Nor was he Count of the Auvergne, as Cavalcanti and others report in chapter 5 of the Life of Saint William. At that time Robert IV presided as Count over the Auvergne; the concord made in the year 1136 between him and the church of Brioude is reported from the chartulary of Brioude by Christophe Justel in the Genealogical History of the Counts of Auvergne — whom he traces in a long series distinct from the Dukes of Aquitaine.

Supply "Church" for "of God".

Section V. The consensus of historians of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries concerning the same death of Duke William at Compostela.

[35] That William IX, the last Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitou, the following report his death at Compostela: died at Compostela on his journey to Saint James in Spain and was committed to the earth, is sufficiently established from what was said in the preceding section. We add here the historians who lived in the same twelfth century and the two following ones, so that it may afterward be more clearly demonstrated that the other opinions did not creep in until the fifteenth century. I except Theobald, the writer of the Life of Saint William, about whom we shall treat below. The first place is justly occupied by Suger, created Abbot of Saint-Denis in the year 1123, Suger the Abbot, who died in the year 1152, who died in the year 1152. In the Life of Louis VI, King of France, while describing his journey — sick as he was, with Suger as his companion — toward Paris and his own monastery, he reports the following: "When he had come from Melun to the castle of Bethisy, messengers from William, Duke of Aquitaine, quickly overtook him, announcing that the same Duke, having set out on pilgrimage to Saint James, had died on the way. But before he undertook the journey, and also while dying on the road, he had both resolved and decreed that his most noble daughter, a maiden named Alienor, should be betrothed, and his entire territory retained and handed over to the same. He, having taken counsel with his intimates, and with his accustomed magnanimity gladly accepting what was offered, promised that she should be joined in marriage to his most beloved son Louis; and thenceforth he assembled a noble retinue to be sent there — an army of the most noble men, five hundred and more knights, gathered from the best of the realm. He appointed to lead them the Palatine Count Theobald, and the excellent Count Ralph of Vermandois, his kinsman. And he joined to us, his intimate advisors, as many men of sounder counsel as he could find... When we had passed through the territory of the Limousins and arrived at the borders of Bordeaux, we pitched our tents before the city, with the great river Garonne lying between, waiting there and crossing to the city with the help of boats, until on Sunday, having assembled the magnates of Gascony, Saintonge, and Poitou, he joined to himself in marriage the aforesaid maiden, crowned with the diadem of the realm." Meanwhile, in their absence, Louis died on the Kalends of August. The said Suger had been the King's principal counselor, and afterward was entrusted with the weightier affairs of the realm on behalf of Louis VII, his son, when the latter set out for the Holy Land with the Queen, the daughter of Duke William — so that he could have had the best knowledge of all events everywhere.

[36] Another contemporary author is Teulfus, a monk of the monastery of Morigny in the diocese of Sens, who in book 3 of the Chronicle of Morigny — Teulfus, a contemporary monk, brought down to the year 1147, when King Louis VII set out for the Holy Land — writes: "At that time, therefore, when Innocent, newly promoted to exercise the Apostolic office upon the death of Honorius, returned from France after the solemn celebration of the Council, it happened that William, Count of Poitou, having undertaken a pilgrimage to Saint James, was seized by a harsh infirmity and brought to the extremity of death. When, therefore, the fated end of his life, foreseen by God, drew near, and he perceived that the inevitable departure of his spirit was imminent, he summoned the magnates and nobles of his land and bound them by a compulsory oath that they would join his daughter in marriage to Louis, the son of King Louis, and hand over his land according to the custom of marriage. William himself, removed from human affairs, was entombed in that same church of Blessed James... Therefore, as the time drew near for the betrothed maiden to be conducted thither, the father Louis prepared what was necessary for the journey and labored that so great an affair might quickly be carried into effect. And so, when the command was published everywhere by imperial edict, no small companies of soldiers hastily assembled, and cities and towns sent forth multitudes of their inhabitants to swell the royal retinue. Among them, the chief and most famous magnates were Theobald, Count of Blois; Ralph of Vermandois; William of Nevers; Rotrou of Perche... Therefore, in the presence of all the Bishops of Aquitaine with their Archbishop Geoffrey, Louis was joined by legal bond to the maiden named Aenordis, and there both were distinguished by the placing of golden diadems. There also Louis received the oaths of fealty and homage and began to hold them in his own right. But because night presses upon the day, and the changes of human happiness are frequent... while all were still dissolved in the fullness and joy of that delicious banquet, behold, a messenger borne at swift speed came flying and announced that King Louis, who had long suffered from a severe diarrhea, had ended his life at Paris. The life and probity of this King are not set forth by us, because they still appear to be written in the minds of men through memory." At that time also flourished Otto, Otto, Bishop of Freising, who died in the year 1158, Bishop of Freising among the Bavarians, created in the year 1138, who in book 7 of his Chronicle, having reported the death of Lothar in chapter 20, adds in chapter 21: "About that time, many of the illustrious magnates preceded and followed the death of their Prince... King Louis of the French, Henry of the English, Reginald Archbishop of Reims, and Count Geoffrey (read: William) of Poitou died at the same time." The writer Otto survived until the year 1158.

[37] Let there follow the one who composed the Deeds of King Louis VII, following the footsteps of Abbot Suger — of whom, as will shortly be evident, he makes mention — and who was himself, the authors of the Deeds of Louis the Younger, also contemporary, as far as we can gather, an alumnus of the monastery of Saint-Denis, contemporary with those times. His words are as follows, in chapter 2: "In those days, William, Duke of Aquitaine, undertook his journey to Saint James, and by God's will, before he could reach the goal of his pilgrimage, having completed part of the journey, he expired, leaving no male heir in the Duchy of Aquitaine. Nevertheless he had two daughters, of whom the elder was called Alienordis and the other Alaydis. And since the land remained without a male heir, the King took the Duchy into his own hand and betrothed the elder of the sisters, Alienord, to himself by the law of marriage, as was expressed above in the history of his father. From her he begot a daughter named Mary, who became Countess of Champagne; and the second, named Alaydis, he gave in marriage to Ralph, Count of Vermandois, his kinsman." There is also extant another history of Louis VII appended to the Life of Louis VI composed by Suger and published with others by Du Chesne, in which nearly the same things are repeated in these words: "At that time, William, Duke of Aquitaine, having set out on pilgrimage to Saint James, was there seized by bodily illness and entered the way of all flesh. He had only two daughters, of whom one was called Alienoris and the other Aaliz. The land of Aquitaine, bereft of its lord, remained without a male heir. Therefore King Louis took all of Aquitaine into his hand, and one of the two aforesaid sisters — namely Alienoris, the elder by birth — he joined to himself in marriage; and the other, the younger Aaliz, he gave as wife to Ralph, Count of Vermandois."

[38] The same view was held by the historians of the following century, among whom Robert, in the next century, Robert de Monte, Abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel on the Ocean among the Normans in the diocese of Avranches, in his supplement to the Chronicle of Sigebert, treating events of his own time down to the year 1210, writes thus: "In the year 1137, William, Count of Poitou, set out for Saint James in Galicia for the purpose of prayer, and on Good Friday he died in the church of Blessed James and is buried before the altar. Being about to die, he solemnly charged his nobles who were with him that his elder daughter Alienordis should be given as wife, together with the Duchy of Aquitaine, to Louis the Younger, King of France. The aforesaid Louis joined her to himself at Bordeaux, in the presence of the magnates of the realm, in a most solemn marriage ceremony. His father Louis died within almost the same month at Paris and was buried in the church of Saint-Denis before the body of the Saint himself, on the Kalends of August, in the twenty-eighth year of his reign." So writes he. But in another supplement from Gembloux, published by Miraeus, it is reported thus from the Ortelius manuscript: "William, Duke of Aquitaine and of Poitou, dying, left his daughter, whom he had as his heiress, as a bride for Louis, son of the King of France. His son, having set out to marry her, was meanwhile established in the kingdom upon the death of his father the King, and the kingdom of France and the Duchy of Aquitaine were united."

[39] Vincent of Burgundy, of the Order of Preachers, surnamed Bellovacensis of Beauvais, in his Speculum Historiale, brought down to the year 1244 Vincent of Beauvais, — the time at which he flourished — reports the following in book 27, chapter 13: "William, Count of Poitou, set out for Saint James, and on Good Friday he died in the church of Blessed James and is buried before the altar." He repeats the same in chapter 14, citing in both places the Chronographer — namely Robert de Monte. and in the fourteenth century, Bernard Gui: The same words are found in Bernard Gui, of the same Order of Preachers, Bishop of Lodeve in Narbonnese Gaul, in his Chronicle dedicated to Pope John XXII in the year 1320, in which the following is read: "In the year 1137, William, Count of Poitou and Duke of Aquitaine, setting out for Saint James, died on Good Friday, the fifth day before the Ides of April, in the church of Saint James, and was honorably buried before the altar." Easter in that year, with the lunar cycle at 17, the solar at 26, and the Dominical Letter C, was celebrated on the third day before the Ides — that is, April 11 — Indiction 15, which Ordericus Vitalis, cited above, observes along with the year 1137. This author closely copies Ordericus.

[40] Similar things are reported in various ancient Chronicles, whose authors remain anonymous. other ancient authors in manuscript Chronicles. Some of these manuscripts are contained in the Miscellanea Curiosa of our Philip Labbe, where in chapter 12, section 17, the following is read, excerpted from the manuscript Chronicle of a Canon of Tours: "In the year 1136, William, Count of Poitou, setting out on pilgrimage to Saint James, died on Good Friday and is buried before the altar of Blessed James, leaving two daughters: Alienordis the firstborn, and Petronilla, whom Ralph, Count of Vermandois, afterward married." From the manuscript Chronicle of Geoffrey, Prior of Vigeois among the Limousins, the following is added in section 18: "William VIII, Duke, begot from the daughter of William, Duke of Toulouse — brother of Raymond de Saint-Gilles, who is mentioned in the war of Jerusalem — William the Count, who died at Saint James, and Raymond, who was Prince of Antioch." And again: "The daughter of Bohemond, Prince of Antioch, was married by Raymond, who was the brother of William, Duke of the Aquitanians, who died at Saint James." From the same Chronicle we reported above that the same Duke died at Saint James. Several things are reported by Besly from both Limoges Chronicles mentioned above. From the former, the following is read: "In the year 1137, on the fifth day before the Ides of April, which was then Good Friday, William the Palatine, Count of Poitou, the last Duke of Aquitaine, died at Saint James." In the other Limoges Chronicle, "William, the last Duke of the Aquitanians, planning to overthrow the Limousins, died and was buried while going as a pilgrim to Saint James." Finally, from the archives of Angeriac, the following is added: "Louis the Younger King, son of Louis the Great, King of France, upon the death of William, Count of Poitou, at Saint James, joined the Count's daughter to himself in marriage, together with the County of Poitou and the Duchy of Aquitaine, by the counsel and will of his father."

[41] The same opinion about the death of Duke William is confirmed by the silence of contemporary authors, others confirm it by their silence, who make no mention of his eremitical life or of the founding of a new order of religious men — and this even when they mention him, or his daughter, or the Duchy of Aquitaine as transferred to King Louis, or from him to the English. Among these, the first to be reckoned are Saint Bernard and the writers of his Life, then William of Malmesbury, who in book 1 of the Historia Novella reports that Saint Bernard, Louis acquired Aquitaine through the marriage settlement of his wife. Henry of Huntingdon, who flourished under King Stephen of England, reports in book 8 of his History that King Louis of France was separated from his bride, the daughter of the Count of Poitou, Malmesbury, by an oath of consanguinity, and that Henry, the new Duke of Normandy, married her Huntingdon, and through her possessed the County of Poitou, greatly augmented in its highest honors. Among the household of this Henry, who later became King of England, was Roger of Howden, Howden, who at the end of the first part of his Annals narrates the divorce between Louis, King of France, and his wife Alienor, daughter of the Duke of Aquitaine, and that Henry, King of England, married her. In the year 1160 there lived among the Poitevins Hugh, a monk of Vezelay, Hugh of Vezelay, who in a manuscript Chronicle found in Besly reports: "This is King Louis, whose father Louis extended his kingdom on every side, and joined to him in marriage the daughter of William, Duke of the Aquitanians and Count of Poitou, on account of whom he acquired all of Aquitaine, Gascony, Basclonia, and Navarre as far as the Pyrenean mountains and as far as the Cross of Charlemagne." William of Newburgh, born in the year 1135, of Newburgh, two years before the death of Duke William, in book 1, chapter 31, describes "Alienor, the sole royal offspring of the Duke of Aquitaine, married to King Louis, as having joined the most ample Duchy of Aquitaine to the kingdom of France. But having been released by the force of ecclesiastical law, she married the Duke of Normandy. Then the Duchy of Aquitaine, which extends from the borders of the Angevins and the Bretons all the way to the Pyrenean mountains, passed by right of his wife into the power of the Duke of Normandy, while the French wasted away with envy but were unable to impede the same Duke's advancement."

[42] Richard of Hexham, who was writing about the year 1180, of Hexham, reports in his Chronicle that "Henry, Duke of Normandy, about Pentecost of the year 1151, married Alienor, Countess of Poitou, whom King Louis had shortly before put away on account of consanguinity." Andrew Silvius, Archprior of the monastery of Marchiennes in Belgium toward the end of the same century, Andrew of Marchiennes, in book 2 of his work On the Kings of France, chapter 6, has this: "Louis the Younger married Aanordis, daughter of William, Duke of Aquitaine, by whom he begot two daughters, of whom the elder married Henry, Count of Troyes, and the younger Theobald, Count of Chartres... In the sixteenth year of his reign he repudiated his wife, who afterward passed to the bed of Henry, King of England and Duke of Normandy, son of Geoffrey, Count of Anjou. By her, therefore, he begot these sons: Henry King of England, who died while his father lived; Richard, Duke of Aquitaine, who now reigns in England; Geoffrey, Duke of Aquitaine; and John, who is called Lackland; and three daughters, of whom one was married by the King of Toledo in Spain, another by William, King of Sicily, and the third by Henry, Duke of Saxony." So it stands there. Richard was crowned King on September 3 of the year 1189 and died on March 26 of the year 1199; his brother John then succeeded him. But Queen Alienor, daughter of Duke William, lived until the year 1203, in which she died on March 31. Similar things are reported by Gervase, a monk of Canterbury, who flourished about the year 1200: "The divorce between King Louis and his Queen Alienor," he says, "having been solemnly celebrated in the face of the Church with much labor and artful oath-taking, Gervase of Canterbury, she, now finding distasteful the embraces of the French as old and worn out, departed even from the borders of Gaul and withdrew into her own land of Poitou. In those days Duke Henry was dwelling in the marches of Normandy and was gracious in all eyes. Alienor, now divorced and restored to her own liberty, possessed as lady her own territory — namely Aquitaine, Poitou, and her other lands that belonged to her by hereditary right. She secretly sent messengers to the Duke, announcing herself to be free and unattached, and stirring the Duke's mind to contract a marriage... King Louis, hearing that the divorced Queen was joined to Duke Henry by the law of marriage, caused an innumerable army to be assembled, in order to recall the Queen who had once been his — or rather, Aquitaine — if it could be done. But the Duke, having summoned troops of knights and footsoldiers, steadfastly repelled the King," etc. Similar things are found in contemporary writers: and others. John Bromton in his Chronicle, and Ralph de Diceto in his Images of History; Matthew Paris and Matthew of Westminster, of whom the former flourished in the thirteenth century and the latter in the fourteenth; Thomas Walsingham and others.

Section VI. The Life of Saint William, embellished by Theobald. Who this author is; and which Province of France it is inscribed to.

[43] Sampson Hay, in the preface of his book On the Truth of the Life and Order of Saint William, writes that not without indignation he has read the fables about Saint William that certain persons recite so many and so absurd fables, at war with the purest truth, about the most holy Confessor and his Order. In order to avoid these fables, we have deemed it worthwhile to arrange carefully in their proper chronological order the affairs of the Dukes of Aquitaine, mingled with the Acts of Saint William the Hermit, are recognized from the reckoning of the dates. and especially to establish the death of the last Duke William by the consensus of all writers who lived in the same century as he and in the two following centuries. Nor has it happened that, up to this point — with the possible exception of Theobald, whom we now treat — any author whose date is established with any certainty has been found who, within approximately three hundred years of his death, advanced even a weak or doubtful opinion from which it could be gathered that William, the last Duke of Aquitaine converted by Saint Bernard, and Saint William, the father of the Order of the Williamites — who, after an eremitical life holily lived at Stabilimento di Rodi among the people of Maremma in Tuscany, died on this February 10 and is honored with sacred veneration in the Church — are one and the same man.

[44] Notwithstanding these things, the opposite opinion — in which these two are judged to be one and the same — has so prevailed in popular belief that those who think otherwise seem to speak rashly and injuriously about the Saints. This could rather, and not unjustly, be said of those who do the opposite. Therefore it is necessary here to investigate the reasons by which they are led to defend their opinion more boldly than prudently. First, the Acts of Saint William are adduced, published by Laurentius Surius at February 10 from manuscripts, but mutilated, with the miracles performed after his death omitted. The Life of Saint William published by Surius is mutilated, All of these, however, exist in their entirety among the Carthusians of Cologne, and we give them here from the manuscript codices of Saint Saviour's, Utrecht; of Rouge-Cloitre near Brussels; and another in our possession, which we have collated with the Life recently published from manuscripts by Peter Silvius, Prior of the Williamite monastery of Aalst. here it is given complete: Other copies are found scattered among the Williamites themselves, and indeed Sampson Hay of Paris saw three manuscripts, one of which he says belonged to the library of Saint-Victor. Summaries of the same Acts exist in manuscript at the monastery of Rouge-Cloitre, at the Jesuit college of Louvain, and in the Utrecht codex of the house of Saint Jerome; another is cited by Sampson Hay under the name of Albert, at sections [..] and 50. After Surius, the same Acts — either complete or condensed into various summaries — have been widely published by all who have issued Lives of the Saints or translated them into the various languages of other nations. Finally, from the same Acts, Readings are recited in the Ecclesiastical Office at Matins among the Williamites, and at the present time, with some additions, among the Augustinian Hermits.

[45] The author reveals his name in the Preface, where he calls himself "the sinner Theobald," and in a certain way depicts himself. its author is Theobald: what kind of man? "I would weave a narrative only of matters omitted," he says, "did not you command me to resume from the beginning, venerable Provincial Prior of France, and with you the Brothers of your Order, and all your Church of the Saints, domestic to both our communities. There were indeed in many of the assemblies of your monasteries those who could clothe the material with a worthy — nay, a worthier — narrative; but this is among the gifts of your religious order: that you presume lesser things of yourselves and greater things of outsiders." And toward the end of the miracles, part 2, number 58, he says that from the time he first had knowledge of the man of God — through the reports of Brothers of the same Order — he had endured many troubles of illness and pain, and had composed this Life even amid those afflictions, except for one chapter to be inserted, when, as his illness grew worse, he was rescued from the danger of death and restored to health through the merits of Saint William, and then completed it. "And how," he says, "could I be silent in his praise? He himself wondrously called me back to life when I was swollen with disease. And at last, the Provincial Prior of France, together with his Brothers, whose wishes it was not right to resist, humbly besought this of me." These things Theobald himself inserted about himself into the Acts; nor do the titles in any manuscripts of which we have been able to obtain knowledge make mention of him. Molanus in his Additions to Usuard treats him as an unknown man and calls him "a certain Theobald."

[46] In the compendium of the Life from the Louvain manuscript codex, toward the end, where his restored health is mentioned, was he a Bishop? it is said that "Bishop Theobald compiled the Legend of the holy Father at the insistence of the Provincial Prior of France, and by compiling completed it — or rather, as he himself says, clothed the material supplied by others with a worthy narrative." He is also called Bishop in the manuscript Martyrology of the Williamites of Bruges. And Surius wrote on the manuscript codex of the Carthusians of Cologne: "By Theobald the Bishop," and appended to the Life he published: "distinguished for sanctity and learning." Baronius in his Notes to the Roman Martyrology likewise identifies him as a Bishop. Nearly all the other writers followed suit, and assigned to him various bishoprics. Some cited by Sampson Hay — whom Hay himself rejects — wished him to be the Archbishop of Canterbury in England. he was certainly not the Archbishop of Canterbury in England, Among the Augustinian Fathers, from the year 1596, the Readings recited in the feast of Saint William and through the Octave in the Ecclesiastical Office concerning his Life are attributed to "Lord Theobald, Bishop of Canterbury, his contemporary." He was consecrated Archbishop on the eighth day before the Ides of January in the year 1139 (two years after William, the last Duke of Aquitaine, had died on Good Friday in Spain at the shrine of Saint James), and then, upon the death of King Stephen of England, he crowned King Henry II and his wife Alienor — the daughter of the said William, previously repudiated by King Louis of France — on the sixteenth day before the Kalends of January, the Sunday before Christmas, in the year 1154. he died in the year 1161, At last, having occupied the see for twenty-two years, he died on the fourteenth day before the Kalends of May in the year 1161, as English writers teach — and especially Gervase of Canterbury in his Chronicles of the Kings of England and Acts of the Pontiffs of Canterbury, composed in the twelfth century of Christ — among whom there is deep silence about any writings of his. But what is of no small weight: there was then no Order of Saint William that had spread, no monastery or college of that Order in France, and no Provincial Prior established there. Indeed, the Bishop Martin mentioned in part 2, chapter 9, flourished among the people of Grosseto after the death of the said Theobald of Canterbury, about the year 1174 and following, as we observe below at that chapter. Finally, the enormous and self-contradictory errors that we shall presently adduce — overturning the chronology and other ancient history — clearly prove that the Canterbury Theobald was not the author of that Life. He would not have been silent, moreover, about the fact that the daughter of the same William was Queen Alienor, and that King Henry II was his son-in-law.

[47] Sampson Hay, page 34, considers it more likely that Theobald was a Bishop of Grosseto. nor was he some Bishop of Grosseto in Tuscany, Miraeus, book 2 of Monastic Origins, chapter 16, and Ranuccio Pico in his Life write the same based on Hay — but by a fallacious conjecture based on the proximity of the places, Grosseto and Stabilimento di Rodi. Hay adds on page 50: "Certainly Theobald knew Albert, the disciple of Saint William, with whom he lived at the same time." But at that time the aforesaid Martin was the Bishop of Grosseto, whose successor Gualfredus is reported by Ferdinando Ughelli of Florence, in volume 3 of his Italia Sacra, to have subscribed to an instrument of the abbey of Saint Lawrence of Ardinghesca in the year 1187, where he lists the remaining Bishops of Grosseto down to those times: among whom there is no Theobald. Moreover, when the author asserts that he writes this Life at the command of the Provincial Prior of France, from whose Brothers he gained knowledge of the man of God, he implies that he did not live in Italy, where the primary province of the Order, surnamed Tuscany, was flourishing, and where the Prior General of the entire Order presided at Stabilimento di Rodi. The same Life of Saint William exists in French, translated by Claude Marchant, and published repeatedly in this and the preceding century by Rene Benoit and others along with other Lives of the Saints. nor Bishop of Poitiers in Aquitaine. In the title, the author is called "Bishop Theobald of Poitiers." But from the accurate catalogue of the Bishops of that city, published by Jean Besly, Claude Robert, and others, it is established that no Bishop Theobald ever held that see, all periods from Saint William's time to our own having been compared — to say nothing of the fact that no house of this Order existed in Aquitaine.

[48] Rene Choppin in book 1 of the Monasticon, title 1, number 6, says: "In our France there are only two monasteries sacred to Blessed William, one at Paris, the other near Reims, in the Champagne region. But in Belgium several more are to be seen." the Parisian monastery of the Williamites That Parisian one is attributed to Pope Boniface VIII, who, at the request of Renerius, the head of the entire Order, generously bestowed upon the Williamites a monastic house of the Servants of the Blessed Mary, the old occupants having been compelled to adopt the Williamite institute, in the year 1299 — or, as others report, in the year 1297. from the year 1297, For Renerius, the Prior General, while visiting the monasteries of the Order, is reported from an epitaph once displayed there to have died at Montrouge near Paris in the year 1298. That Order of the Servants of the Blessed Mary is among those suppressed at the Synod of Lyon under Pope Gregory X; and because these Servites wore white mantles, the name "White Mantles" has clung to this monastery and to the Williamite monks in France ever since. The said Province of France, which they now call the Province of Belgium and France, or of Belgic Gaul, but they were at Montrouge outside Paris about the year 1255. contains various Houses or monasteries, about which we shall treat below. The first of these began to be built in the year of Christ 1245 and following; to them was added the House of Montrouge outside Paris about the year 1255, when the province seems to have been established, or at least to have obtained the name of France. and the Province of France existed in the year 1257 That mention of France is made in the constitutions of a certain chapter held at Bedernau in Germany in the year 1257, as the Reverend Father Hermann Pruuost, Prior of Bruges and at this time Provincial of the same Order of Saint William for the province of Belgium and France, has informed us. Pope Alexander IV in the year of Christ 1260 gave the Brothers of Montrouge the privilege of receiving certain alms, as we shall say below in the Commentary on the Order of Saint William, section 4. At that same time, the Order of the Williamites was flourishing greatly, divided into three provinces — Tuscany, France, and Germany — as they are named in the Prologue of the Constitutions of the Order, in which it is said that Lambert presided as General over those provinces in the year 1269, as did Marcus in 1276, and at the end of that century the above-mentioned Renerius, buried at Montrouge. Among the first monasteries of the Province of France was the House of Wastina, near Biervliet, a town of Flanders, begun in the year 1249. The first Prior of this House is reported to have been Hugo of Antwerp, from whom an Office of Saint William, copied in his hand, is held at Bruges (to which that House of Wastina migrated in the year 1430), as the above-mentioned Hermann Pruuost asserts; and he adds that the Office agrees word for word with the office currently in use, recently reprinted at Antwerp, in which the Readings recited at Matins are taken from Theobald. How long this Prior Hugo of Antwerp lived is not established. From this, however, we gather that, if these facts about the age of Hugo of Antwerp and the Office written by him are beyond doubt, Theobald lived in the same thirteenth century — he who would have preferred the Life of the founder to be written by the Williamites themselves, and declares in his preface that among them were those "who could clothe the material with a worthy, nay worthier, narrative" — material already supplied to him by others, who had taken care to collect it when it was still scattered, lest it perish, rather than to compose it artfully so as to reach the ears of listeners. These collectors of the material seem to have lived in Belgium, where there were many monasteries of the Province of France, and where the history of the Dukes of Aquitaine was less well known.

Section VII. The Life of Saint William, embellished by Theobald, was unknown almost until the sixteenth century. Various errors in it are noted.

[49] We are exceedingly astonished at one thing: that the Life of Saint William, which they claim was embellished by Theobald in the thirteenth century, was unknown among writers everywhere, the Life written by Theobald was unknown so that even those who in the following centuries recognized Saint William as a Duke of Aquitaine turned to entirely different views. This is made evident, first, by what we said above concerning the various Dukes of Aquitaine named William, several of whom were considered founders or fathers of the Order of the Williamites — and especially Saint William, who in the time of Charlemagne became a monk of Gellone from being Duke of Aquitaine. We showed above that Gobelinus Persona wrote this in the fifteenth century, to Gobelinus, and that it was inserted into the Breviary of the Order of the Hermits of Saint Augustine. to the author of the manuscript Florarium. In the same fifteenth century, or certainly the sixteenth, the author of the manuscript Florarium of the Saints assigns under February 10 one of these Williams in these words: "On the same day, the birthday of Blessed William the Hermit, of the stock of the Carolingians. He was first Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitou, and afterward became a most abstemious solitary; at length he flourished with the spirit of prophecy and shone with miracles in the year of salvation 1150." So it stands there. On account of this genealogy from Charlemagne, we said above that Saint William was also taken by Theobald for Duke William-Geoffrey, the grandfather of the last Duke William.

[50] Toward the end of the same fifteenth century, various writers called Saint William a Duke of Aquitaine, but in ways that greatly differ from the account of Theobald. Philip of Bergamo, Thus, in James Philip of Bergamo's Supplementum Chronicarum, printed at Brescia in the year 1485: "William, formerly Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitou, having been sufficiently instructed from his earliest youth by Blessed Abbot Bernard, withdrew into a vast wilderness." Hartmann Schedel in his Liber Chronicarum, published at Nuremberg in the year 1493, Schedel, Nauclerus, folio 203, and Johannes Nauclerus in his Chronicon, which he wrote at the beginning of the fifteenth century, volume 3, generation 41, copy the Bergamo writer. But the Catalogue of Saints compiled by Peter de Natalibus, Bishop of Equilio, the author of the appendix to Peter de Natalibus, we have in an edition printed at Vicenza in the year 1493, at the end of which certain deeds of Saints are appended, excerpted in condensed form from their histories in imitation of Peter, as the author of the supplement explains in nearly these words in his preface. Among the rest are those of Saint William, who is said in his childhood to have been instructed by the Abbot Saint Bernard, to have been Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitou, and to have become a most fierce warrior. He is said to have approached Rome in the time of Pope Eugenius III, "whence, having laid aside his ferocity and humbly accepted his penance, dressed in a coat of mail instead of a shirt and girded with four chains, he went to Jerusalem; and returning, he visited the shrine of Blessed James... After innumerable works of holiness, he returned to his homeland and there happily breathed forth his soul." So it stands there, to which similar things are reported both in the above-mentioned Readings formerly recited among the Augustinian Fathers at the Matins of the Ecclesiastical Office and in book 21 of the Anthropologia of Raphael Maffei of Volterra, Volterrano, who was busy composing it in the year 1505; according to whom Saint William, Duke of Aquitaine, "instructed by the precepts of Saint Bernard under Eugenius III, left all things and came to Rome. Dressed in a coat of mail bound with a triple chain, he sought Jerusalem, then the shrine of Saint James in Spain, and thence again Jerusalem, where, captured by the Saracens and shortly afterward released, he returned and landed on an island close to Tuscany, near which he stayed for some time in a deserted place, living most harshly in the manner of hermits in the neighboring woodlands. After this he returned to Rome, thence came to Civitavecchia, thence to Rimini, and at last returning to his homeland, having established and built many monasteries of hermits, he died amid the great veneration of the people." So Volterrano, who diverges greatly from Theobald.

[51] The author of the ancient Martyrology printed at Cologne in the year 1490 does not depart so far: in the Cologne Martyrology, "On the same day, Saint William, Confessor. He was formerly Duke of the Aquitanians and flagitious beyond measure; but afterward, touched by divine prompting, he renounced the world and, assuming the monastic habit, became a servant of the servants of God. He bent his knees a hundred times each day and night. Passing from the active to the contemplative life, he attained to such perfection that he shone with the spirit of prophecy; and afterward, strengthened in body and having partaken of the Body and Blood of Christ, he departed to the Lord." So it stands there, but no mention is made in Theobald of the custom of bending the knees so many times. Then in the sixteenth century of Christ, this Life of Saint William written by Theobald became more widely known. From it an Ecclesiastical Office was composed in the Cistercian Breviary, and published at the end of the Cistercian Breviary printed at Paris in 1508, in which Saint William is reported to have been converted by Saint Bernard holding the most holy Body of Christ placed upon the paten — and this at the provident supper of the Lamb. He was sent to a hermit, dressed in a coat of mail woven with ten chains. He was sent to Jerusalem by Pope Eugenius. He was enclosed in a cave by the Patriarch and spent nine years there. He was about to fight near the city of Lucca when he was struck with blindness, and upon repenting he recovered his sight. In the same manner, his eremitical life, death, and miracles are inserted. Hermann Greve the Carthusian, in his Supplement to Usuard, published in 1515 and 1521, mentions the schism of the Antipope Anacletus in these words: "William, Count of Poitou and Confessor, in the Supplement of Hermann Greve. who, having first given himself entirely to shameful deeds and having favored the schism of Peter Leo, was terrifyingly rebuked by Blessed Bernard, at last returned to his senses, and donning an iron coat of mail next to his skin, led an austere life, and founding an order bearing his name, he rested in peace." Very many followed afterward, especially after the Life was published by Surius in 1570, the greater part of which the Augustinian Fathers began to recite for the Ecclesiastical Office through the entire octave from the year 1596.

[52] But setting these aside, let us examine the Life of Saint William itself as published by Theobald — which, if any writers before Surius knew it, they did not judge worthy of being copied from. [In the Life there are very many errors from the confusion of things done by the Dukes of Aquitaine] First, it may be considered an error that in the Genealogy published after the Preface he takes William VII, called Geoffrey, the grandfather of the last Duke William who was converted by Saint Bernard, for Saint William the Hermit, as we said above, and again refute in the notes to the Life. In the first chapter he heaps up very many enormous crimes attributed to Saint William — which we showed above to have been perpetrated by various Dukes of Aquitaine and other Williams, and not chiefly by the last Duke. He then takes William VIII and IX, father and son, for one and the same man, and ascribes the adultery of the former to the latter. In chapters II and III he sets forth the schism of the Church, in which the last Duke of Aquitaine, William, for some time championed the party of the Antipope Anacletus, and was brought back to the concord of the Church by Saint Bernard after a second meeting — all of which, drawn from the Life of Saint Bernard, he amplifies in his own words. But the matter then brought forward in chapters IV and V is extremely doubtful, indeed manifestly false: where the strict penance of Duke William is described as if, after consulting two hermits, the same Duke, reconciled with the Church, had not returned to the government of his provinces — and had not then, as Saint Bernard wrote, expelled the Clerics of Saint-Hilaire — nor had devastated Normandy in war with the Count of Anjou in the following year 1136, as the most devout Ordericus Vitalis, who was then living among the Normans, testifies — nor, finally, in the year 1137 had he set out for Saint James in Spain and died on Good Friday, April 9, whose death all contemporary writers report as if with a single pen, reviewed by us in a long series. What is added about the smith, the rings, and the iron chains is greatly amplified from the Acts of Saint William of Vercelli, Abbot of Monte Vergine — the words copied from them we append in the Notes.

[53] and things that contradict each other, And up to this point, Theobald's dispute was with other most learned men; but in what follows, he contradicts himself, narrating the meeting of Duke William with Pope Eugenius as if the Duke had been converted under Pope Eugenius as though at the same time when the Duke had been converted by Saint Bernard in the year 1135, Eugenius had been holding a council at Reims in France — which actually took place thirteen years later, during Lent of the year 1148, in the fourth year of Eugenius's Pontificate, since he had succeeded Lucius II, who died on February 25 of the year 1145. Here the authors who otherwise support Theobald in other matters are at a loss. Angel Manrique, at the year 1130 of the Cistercian Annals, chapter 3, number 6, had said with Surius that Theobald was a Pontiff distinguished for sanctity and learning; but at the year 1148, chapter 4, number 4, he considers these things apocryphal, neither credible nor worthy of his Annals. Sampson Hay suspects that Theobald's writing was afterward corrupted at this point by the hand of an unlearned man, and considers these things should rather be attributed to Pope Innocent than to Eugenius. But all the manuscripts that either Surius, Silvius, or we ourselves have used oppose this; and Sampson asserts that the manuscript codex of the library of Saint-Victor agrees with them, and indeed that the remaining manuscripts at least in the chapter headings or titles of chapters bear the same error, naming Pope Eugenius. The Ecclesiastical Offices of the Augustinian Fathers and the Williamites also approve this reading by their continued use. Finally, the same Acts, condensed into various summaries, agree — one of which, cited by Sampson Hay under the name of Albert, has: "Who, at the time when Pope Eugenius III, on account of the malice plotted against him by the Romans, withdrew to Upper Gaul, still an impious tyrant, received from the aforesaid Apostolic the sentence of excommunication." Sampson adds on page 53: "He was not present at Reims in the year 1148, since the fame of his pretended death (about which we shall presently speak) had filled, as the report of a most certain fact, not only Gaul but nearly the whole Christian world." What then? He proposes the Council held at Reims by Pope Innocent in the year 1131, at which time Duke William had defected from Innocent to the side of the Antipope Anacletus. Sampson would then prefer rather to substitute the Council of Pisa, held in the year 1134; but at that time the Duke had not yet submitted to the legitimate Pontiff — he was converted by Saint Bernard the following year. Jean Naevius, in chapters 7 and 8 of his Life of Saint William, fearing lest anything give offense, narrates the whole affair in such a way as to suppress the name of the Pontiff in silence. William Cavalcanti in chapter 20 of the Life, Simplicianus a S. Martino in chapter 19 of the Life, Miraeus in book 2 of Monastic Origins, chapter 16, and others — along with the aforesaid Sampson — substitute Innocent, having deleted Eugenius; to whom, however, the summary of the Life soon to be cited also reports Saint William as having gone. From the Acts of Saint William, Bishop of Roskilde in Denmark, who was formerly a monk of Sainte-Genevieve in Paris and was ordered to come to Senlis before Pope Eugenius for the defense of his innocence, some things seem to have been attributed to this William and then exaggerated.

[54] Moreover, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, with whom Duke William and would have lived at Jerusalem under the Patriarch Fulcher, is reported in chapters 7 and 9 to have lived enclosed in a most narrow cave for nine years, then two more, is said to have confessed that he was the son of one of William's servants, and that William had done him many favors as one who served him most faithfully, and had generously bestowed immense gifts upon him. This is necessarily Fulcher, an Aquitanian by birth and a native of Angouleme, Abbot of a house of Regular Canons, who, fleeing the trouble caused by Gerard of Angouleme for championing the cause of Pope Innocent against the Antipope Anacletus, went to the Holy Land. Having first been created Archbishop of Tyre, he was then made Patriarch of Jerusalem in the year 1146, the second year of the Pontificate of Pope Eugenius, and lived in that dignity until the year 1159. until the year 1159, By which time, or the following year — according to the established reckoning of years — Duke William would have to be said to have completed this manner of enclosed life at Jerusalem. Whence, after leading a life in the manner of anchorites for some time in solitude, he is reported to have crossed the sea to Spain and to have visited the shrine of the Blessed Apostle James at Compostela — where we demonstrated above that he had breathed his last twenty-four years earlier. Thus far no year of Christ has been noted by Theobald; and a long survivor afterward, the year 1155 is then indicated in part 2, chapter 3, when Saint William came to Stabilimento di Rodi in the month of September, and on the following feast of Epiphany in the year 1156 he received his disciple Albert, and after spending more than a year of eremitical life with him, died there in sanctity on February 10 of the year 1157 — yet would have died in the year 1157. although the preceding year is reported in chapter 6 by Theobald, who begins his years from Easter. I omit heaping up here further contradictions: these are sufficient to prove that those Acts appear to have been collected by persons ignorant of history, and then clothed by Theobald in a "worthier narrative," as he himself says. What things were written by Albert, the disciple of Saint William, we shall investigate below, after we have rejected other fictions devised concerning Duke William of Aquitaine.

Section VIII. The fabrication of Bouchet and others concerning the feigned death of Duke William is refuted.

[55] Because the Life of Saint William published by Theobald contradicted all of antiquity, in the sixteenth century Jean Bouchet devised a new method of reconciling the authorities. Jean Bouchet, He was known for his many books, published in both prose and verse in the French language, among which are the Annals of Aquitaine, which he brought down from the origin of the people in four books, first to the year of Christ 1519, then to 1545. In book 3, chapter 1, he describes the ancient Dukes of Aquitaine mentioned above by us, he badly arranges the genealogy of the Dukes of Aquitaine, and makes the man we said was the great-great-great-grandfather of the last William merely his great-great-grandfather, having eliminated two generations. We said that William II, called Caput-Stupae, was born of this Ebolus; but in Bouchet, a William surnamed Hugo is substituted for Ebolus. To this man, with William III omitted, succeeds William IV, father of the Empress Agnes, whom Bouchet calls Caput-Stupae and others call of the Iron Arm. Then, with William V (called the Fat and the Stout) and William VI (called the Fiery) rejected, William VII — previously called Wido-Geoffrey — is substituted. And finally, with William VIII eliminated, the last William is assigned — who is the ninth of that name in the view of others, but the fifth in Bouchet's reckoning. In the later edition, Wido-Geoffrey, who is one and the same person, is divided into two, with an additional generation introduced; but Wido is said to have governed for a short time, having died soon after his father and known only for having founded a certain monastery. Cavalcanti in chapter 1 of the Life of Saint William copies Bouchet. But the remaining Dukes are placed in such long-lived positions of governance that from Duke Ebolus, who died in the year 935, only four are reckoned to have ruled Aquitaine through two whole centuries until the year 1137, when the last William is believed to have left, if not his life, at least the Duchy. This same William is said to have succeeded his father in the year 1086 — yet we showed above that he was born in the year 1099.

[56] Here, then, in book 3, chapter 2, Bouchet recounts the deeds of this last Duke William and makes him, after leading an eremitical life, the founder of the Order of the Williamites. [he is the first to devise the idea that Duke William feigned his death at Saint James,] First he admits that all writers of French affairs report that this Duke William died in the year 1137 in Galicia at Saint James. Against all of whom he rises up, and is the first to assert that on that pilgrimage to Saint James, feigning illness and death, the Duke stole away from his followers at midnight in disguise and fled, with only three most faithful attendants knowing the secret. Between them and the Duke himself, he fills out a long conversation with an empty jangle of words, in which they acquiesced to their lord's will, and one of them named Albert permitted himself to be taken as a companion in the flight. This opinion, devised by Bouchet, attracted by its novelty very many approvers of this invention, among whom we are surprised to find even Sampson Hay, who — while he harasses Joseph Pamphilus, Bishop of Segni — shrewdly presses him with these arguments on page 56, asking whence he could have known that the Augustinian Order was restored by Saint William and adorned with the most ample monasteries. But whence the civil lawyer Bouchet could have known this four hundred years later, he should also not unjustly have investigated. Bouchet wrongly appeals to the Life of Saint William, which exists at Paris among the Williamites, he wrongly takes refuge in the Life written by Theobald, claiming that from it we learn that the Duke, after deliberation with a certain hermit, dressed in an iron coat of mail and helmet over his bare body, approached the Supreme Pontiff, was sent by him to Jerusalem, lived there for nine years enclosed in a cave by the Patriarch, then returned to Italy and resumed military service among the Lucchese — but soon, repenting and changing his plan, returned to Jerusalem, spent two more years in his former cell, and thence went on pilgrimage to Saint James in Galicia out of piety; finally, having spent the rest of his life in Tuscany, he met death at Stabilimento di Rodi. So Bouchet at length, but he contradicts himself. For these things are read in the Life of Saint William written by Theobald, in which only the latter pilgrimage to Saint James is found, and Sampson Hay, the Parisian Williamite, did not discover any other Life in his own monastery. Whence, then — a question I rightly repeat here — did Bouchet learn, four hundred years after the death of Saint William, that he feigned illness and death at Saint James, when those Acts make no mention of a pilgrimage to Galicia undertaken at the beginning of his conversion? Whence did he learn that Albert was an inseparable companion at Saint William's side for about twenty years, when those same Acts, from the very words of Albert, report in part 2, number 12, that the youth of good character accompanied him for only thirteen months — from the feast of Epiphany in the year 1156 to February 10 of the following year 1157, when William departed this life? Whence did he learn that Pope Innocent had promised Saint William the silence by which he would not reveal his feigned death? The Acts indicate no meeting of his with Pope Innocent but, as we said above, consistently report Pope Eugenius everywhere — although Sampson Hay implies that Innocent was intruded in some codex in place of Eugenius, by someone forgetful of himself, perhaps after the devising of this correction by Bouchet.

[57] The errors of Bouchet, by which the name of either Saint William or other Dukes of Aquitaine is besmirched, were afterward copied by many historians. various followers of Bouchet, Among them, Claude Paradinus in his Genealogical Tables of the families of Kings and Princes of France lists only the same Dukes of Aquitaine and the same marriages. And Sampson Hay, having also eliminated the father of the last William, says that this man lived to his sixtieth year amid the highest honors, a very large household, and the most ample riches — although we demonstrated above that he only reached the age of thirty-eight. But above all other writers, the fable invented by Bouchet is most elaborately adorned in the Historical Commentaries published under the name of Jean Hay, the author of the book under the name of Jean Hay, Baron of Coutal, published in the year 1571 and recently reprinted along with Bouchet in the same volume. The same catalogue of Dukes of Aquitaine is adduced from Bouchet, and the same image of the last William's feigned death is attached: three companions of the rest of his life and pilgrimage are added, whom Bouchet indeed admits as knowing the secret of this fabrication, but he reports that Albert alone was chosen as companion of his penance and austerity. Moreover, in the same commentaries of Jean Hay many charters of the Dukes and privileges granted on various occasions are added — concerning which the most learned Andre Du Chesne judges severely but incorruptly in his Bibliotheca Historiae Francorum, published in the year 1618, he adduces forged charters, and reprinted with careful revision in 1627, when in chapter 21 of the first edition and chapter 23 of the second, he pronounces: "This book is everywhere full of forged charters and was published with a certain deception under the name of Lord Hay, who is by no means its author." So Du Chesne, with whom Jean Besly agrees in his oft-cited History of the Counts of Poitou and Dukes of Aquitaine, who in part 2 has an entire treatise on the lies, falsehoods, and anachronisms scattered throughout the work of Jean Hay. In part 1, chapter 37, he asserts that the testament of the last Duke William, published in the same Hay's commentaries in chapter 24, is false and fabricated, and the fabricated testament of Duke William, like the rest of that book. He claims, however, that a testament actually made by the Duke at that time was preserved in the New Monastery built by his grandfather near Poitiers. But at the request of William Anginot, Rector of the Jesuit College at Poitiers, whom I had asked by letter to do so, the archives of the New Monastery were carefully searched, and yet the testament of Duke William, which Besly indicates, could not be found.

[58] Meanwhile, later writers extol this fabricated testament, and as if the feigned death of Duke William could thereby be certainly proved, it was inconsiderately approved by others, the following published it: Juan Marquez in chapter 13 of his Origins of the Order of the Brothers Hermits, published in the Spanish language, section 6; Nicolaus Crusenius in part 2 of his Monasticum Augustinianum, chapter 21; Ranuccio Pico in annotation 10 to the Life of Saint William; Simplicianus a S. Martino in chapter 16 of the Life of Saint William; Angel Manrique in the Cistercian Annals at the year 1136, chapter 1, number 4; and others. Baronius also published the same document of Duke William — the last testament of his will, as he believed — in volume 12 of the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year 1136, number 23, in which year he rightly judged the Duke to have died. We give the same here, as it is printed in the third edition of Surius: "In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity, which is one Godhead. and it reads as follows: This is the testament which I, William, by the grace of God, together with Lord William the Bishop, make in honor of the Savior of the world and of the blessed Martyrs and all Confessors and Virgins, and especially of the Virgin Mary, considering my innumerable sins which I rashly committed at the devil's urging, and fearing the dreadful day of judgment, seeing the goods which we seem to hold vanish like smoke in the air between our hands, and that we ourselves in this pilgrimage cannot live even one hour without sin, and remain for a very short time, and that all things we think we possess are perishable and bring a burden to their possessors — I commend myself to God, whom, having left all things, I wish to follow. I leave my daughters to the protection of the King, my lord. Alienor is to be joined to Lord Louis, the King's son, if it shall please my Barons, to whom I leave Aquitaine and Poitou. To Petronilla, my daughter, I leave my possessions and the castles which I hold in Burgundy as the offspring of Gerard, Duke of Burgundy. And lest I seem to degenerate but rather to imitate the holy footsteps of my parents in good works, commending myself to God and His Saints and to the fellowship of the servants of God in good works, wishing to receive a blessing from all the monasteries of my dominion, I direct that a thousand pounds of land be distributed as my Barons shall see fit. And whoever shall attempt to violate this our testament, let him be excommunicate by God and men; but whoever shall be a helper in this, let him be a partaker of all blessings. The sign of William. The sign of Alienor. The sign of the Count of Auvergne. The sign of the Lord of Thouars. The sign of Richeld the Baron. The sign of Brocard the Count. The sign of Pontius."

[59] So far the testament of Duke William. After citing it, Baronius — although he did not know it had been fabricated — was nevertheless moved by the authority of Abbots Suger and Robert de Monte and the silence of the remaining writers, Baronius, reports that William died at Saint James, and judged that Duke William had died on his pilgrimage to Saint James, and that several Williams had been conflated into one by more recent writers through error. There have also been in this and the preceding century illustrious writers who held the same view about Duke William. Robert Gaguin, placed in charge of the royal library by Louis XII, in book 6 of his History of France, chapter 2, writes: Gaguin, "When Louis had been somewhat relieved of his illness, he came to the monastery of Saint-Denis for the purpose of prayer. As he departed thence, messengers from Aquitaine brought word that William, their Prince, on his way to Compostela, had died, and by his testament had appointed as his heir the only daughter he had. Upon learning this, the King approved the testament and immediately sent his son Louis... to Aquitaine. An assembly of the magnates was held at Bordeaux, and there, by the consent of all, Louis married Alienor, the heiress of Aquitaine." Paul Emile, Paul Emile of Verona, a Canon of Notre-Dame at Paris under the same Louis XII and Francis I, in book 5 of his work On the Deeds of the French, under Louis VII, sets forth the same events thus: "William, Duke of Aquitaine, having set out for Spain to the shrine of Saint James for religious reasons, was seized by illness on the journey and solemnly charged the magnates of his retinue that after his death they should strive with all their might to have his daughter Alienor married to King Louis, the son of the Fat King. The magnates performed their duty and kept faith with the dead man. At their summons, the young King, sent by his father to Bordeaux, joined the maiden to himself in marriage, to the very great joy of both peoples." Jean du Tillet, Bishop first of Saint-Brieuc and then of Meaux, du Tillet, has similar things in his history of the Kings of France, arranged for the times of King Henry II and published in the year 1553.

[60] These men indeed flourished before Baronius and Jean Hay. But in this century, Denis Petau, in part 1 of his Rationarium Temporum, book 8, chapter 22, writes: "Louis VII, surnamed the Younger, took up the scepter of the French in the year 1137, Petau, and according to the last will of William, Duke of Aquitaine, took his daughter Alienor in marriage, and with her his dotal territory. This is that William, Count of Poitou and Duke of Aquitaine, who — while he more obstinately defended the party of Anacletus against Innocent — was brought back to a better mind by Saint Bernard in the year 1135. That he died shortly afterward — that is, at the end of Louis the Fat's reign and the beginning of Louis the Younger's — in Spain, where he had gone to venerate Saint James, is attested by Suger, who lived in that age, as well as by Robert de Monte, who confirms that he died in the year 1137 on Good Friday in the church of Saint James, and was buried there before the altar. From this, Theobald, the writer of his life, is refuted, who defers his death to the year 1156." Labbe, Mariana, du Hallain. Similar things are written by Philip Labbe in his Historical Eulogies, number 36; Juan de Mariana in book 9 of his History of Spain; and Bernard Girard du Hallain in book 8 of his History of France under Louis VII; and others — whom the above-cited Crusenius, Manrique, and others place in the category of those who do not see or who are excessively blind, because they do not subscribe, on account of the fabricated testament, to those asserting that Duke William feigned his death. But the above-mentioned contemporary authors would be judged even blinder, they suffered an unjust censure from others, and with them especially the Bishops and nobles of Aquitaine — indeed of France itself — together with their Kings Louis VI and VII, who on account of that testament would have decided no less unjustly concerning the entire inheritance of a Duke who was not dead. But let these remarks about the Dukes of Aquitaine named William suffice; let us now set forth what is to be thought about Saint William the Great, the Hermit, his Life, and his sacred veneration.

Section IX. The ancient veneration of Saint William the Great and Hermit. The Life written by his disciple Albert.

[61] The tables of the Roman Martyrology decree the veneration of Saint William on February 10 in these words: At Stabilimento di Rodi, in the territory of Siena, "At Stabilimento di Rodi, in the territory of Siena, Saint William the Hermit." In this maritime territory of Siena there were formerly the Russellani, numbered among the twelve peoples of Etruria, whose tribal capital was Rusellae, mentioned by Livy, Pliny, Ptolemy, and other ancient authors; a vestige survives in the village of Rosella. When the city was destroyed, after the episcopal dignity had long flourished there, the See was transferred to the neighboring town of Grosseto. and of the diocese of Grosseto, Both of those places lie between the right bank of the river Ombrone and Lake Prile, or Prelium — today called, from the nearby town of Castiglione, Lake Castiglione. Three miles from that Castiglione, surnamed della Pescaia, lies the monastery of Stabilimento di Rodi, now called Malavalle, honored for its eremitical life and then for the burial and miracles of Saint William. Saint William died. This place is accurately described below in the Acts, part 2, number 11, where the castle of Buriano is also indicated, which is more often called Castiglione-Burianense in those same Acts; but Castiglione della Pescaia, already mentioned, is closer to it.

[62] The Life of Saint William was first written by Albert, his disciple, of whom Theobald says thus in the Preface: Albert the disciple wrote the Life, "Before me, men better than I took care to collect the account of his life — scattered as it was, lest it perish — rather than to compose it artfully so that it might reach the ears of listeners. Among them, the chief was Saint Albert, the first disciple and the first fruits of the man of God, who arranged some part of it — well indeed and in a sufficiently brilliant style, as much as was possible for a painter who was indeed most skilled but otherwise occupied." But then in the first part, according to our division, in its first part, suspect in Theobald, Theobald, following other sources, either describes only William Duke of Aquitaine, or confuses the Acts of both in an inextricable mixture, or inserts false opinions. This first part of the Life he himself summarizes at number 31, where he writes thus: "We presume indeed that many other praiseworthy things befell the servant of God, but we do not dare to follow conjectures therefrom, since we have no certainty. For before us, no one ever set this down in order in his Life; the holy Father himself did not disclose it, and none of his disciples inquired about it. Pressing forward, therefore, let us come to more certain matters." That what is found in the second part is indeed more certain is made persuasive by the mention of events occurring at that time in Tuscany, of the places, and of the persons then living there. but in the latter part, more reliable: There the miracle of the Blessed Virgin appearing is said in number 7 to have been made known by his own later account. Then at number 9, a voice sounded to him from heaven, "as he himself was afterward accustomed to relate." But after Saint William had moved to Stabilimento di Rodi in the month of September of the year 1155, Saint Albert came, as is stated at number 12 — "a youth of good character, the servant of the man of God, steeped in his teaching, walking with him, going in and going out, and eating with him as a close companion" — received as a disciple and brother on the holy day of Epiphany in the year 1156, to serve the Lord with him, a man destined for spiritual greatness and virtue, "who depicted in a brief account the things perceived by sight and hearing concerning the Life of the Father." "From his own account — namely, in his little book on the life and miracles of Father William" (Theobald adds), "we have learned many things which we deemed worthy of insertion into the present work. These are to be held by us with undoubted faith all the more certainly, inasmuch as they were more diligently set down in his little book by one who saw and heard them." After describing in chapter 4 the various exercises of Saint William's virtues, number 15 adds: "Albert was accustomed to relate that he had seen him practicing these aforesaid things more by deed than persuading by word."

[63] Albert was then present with him in his illness, and ministered to him as an attendant, as stated at number 21. He was present at Saint William's death in the year 1157. In chapter 6 he was sent to Castiglione to fetch a priest, with whom he offered the last prayers over the dying man, and buried the deceased in a small garden in the year 1157. Soon after the death of Saint William, Reinald came as a companion to Albert — promised to him during his illness by the holy Father. And Albert, who had been the sole disciple of Saint William at his death, was afterward made father of many sons in that Stabilimento di Rodi, as we shall say below, when we treat of the Order of Saint William. He also wrote the miracles wrought after the Father's death. Theobald believed that the miracles had been described by Albert, in these words at number 27: "Of which we recite some, though not all, in this little work, following Albert as a most faithful narrator." And at number 58 he writes thus: "These things concerning the miracles of the holy and venerable Confessor William we have learned from another informant" — who perhaps completed Albert's booklet. Augmented by another. How many years Albert survived after the death of Saint William is uncertain. Cavalcantini in chapter 40 of his Life, Simplicianus in chapter 46, and Herrera in his Augustinian Alphabet allow him only fourteen months, with whom we by no means agree: for neither had this man, then a youth, formerly been secretary of the Duke of Aquitaine, nor did the mother of Saint Albert come to Stabilimento di Rodi after his death, as the first two relate, but rather, as the Acts below state at number 27, Taken for the Camaldolese Saint Albert. after the passing of Blessed William. The same Albert is taken by Silvano Razzi in book 2 of his work On the Saints of Etruria for Saint Albert of the Camaldolese Order, whose Life, rendered into Latin from that source, we published on January 7, where the following is read at number 4: "Not long afterward, moved by divine inspiration, he placed himself under the instruction of Saint William, who, having renounced the County of Poitou and the Duchy of Aquitaine, was flourishing by the examples of the monastic life around the year 1154, and is now celebrated with the highest veneration, especially at Castiglione della Pescaia, where his body is preserved." So much for that passage.

[64] Another disciple of Saint William before Albert, while he dwelt on Monte Pruno, was a man named Peter, to whom alone, at number 7, he wished to reveal the secret of the most sweet vision shown to him by the appearing Virgin Mother of God. This Peter is said to have been made Prior in that very place. Peter, another disciple, assisted. And at number 12, both Peter and Albert, his disciples, "reported what they had seen with their own eyes and heard with their own ears of his deeds." Whether Peter also wrote a Life, however, is uncertain. We suspect that his authority is cited by Albert, inasmuch as he alone had known of the aforementioned vision and had confirmed the varied exercise of William's virtues, from which the institutes of Saint William, as the Apostolic bulls call them, were later formed by his successors. That Theobald was a contemporary of these men, as Juan Marquez in chapter 13, section 10, and others wrongly infer from this passage, has been sufficiently proved above.

[65] From this latter and more certain part of the Life we gather at number 18 that Saint William had come into Etruria from afar, Saint William came into Etruria from afar, and had formerly been wealthy and noble, powerful and severe in prosperity, and liberated by the grace of God from the depths of vice. The same is affirmed by Francesco Petrarca, born in the neighboring Florentine territory, who flourished around 1340 and for the following thirty years. In book 2 of his work On the Solitary Life, treatise 3, chapter 13, he writes thus: "Why should I speak of William, a man of valor and ancient lineage, formerly a soldier of ancient lineage, who, having dedicated the very flower of his youth to earthly military service, preferred to grow old in the desert and to die, the last fruits of his life consecrated to the heavenly militia?" The Ecclesiastical Office of Saint William that was formerly recited among the Augustinians, reprinted at Venice in the year 1500, consists of two parts that are most thoroughly contradictory. Of these, one part comprises the Lessons at Matins, partly excerpted, as we said in section 1, from the Life of another Saint William, who in the time of the Emperor Charlemagne became a monk of Gellone from being Duke of Aquitaine, and partly amplified from other sources: and they contain things similar to those which Philip Bergomensis, the author of the appendix to Peter de Natalibus, Raphael Volaterranus, and Werner Rolewinck the Carthusian — who is cited in Lesson 9 of the same Office as "the Carthaginian Brother in the Fasciculus Temporum" — narrate concerning Saint William. Whence it is clear that after the year 1481, in which that Fasciculus was printed, those Lessons were either composed or at least interpolated. The other part of this Office consists of various Antiphons and Responsories. From these we have fashioned an epitome of the Life of Saint William, with not a single word introduced from elsewhere, and scarcely any omitted, unless perchance it would be repeated too often. We judge this epitome to have been composed long ago at Stabilimento di Rodi from the Life of Saint William written by his disciple Albert, and to have been customarily recited at his solemnity. Hence at number 4 the following is read: "Whom the Holy Spirit bestowed upon our shores, resplendent with virtues and miracles." The remaining points we observe in the Notes to that Epitome.

[66] That the veneration and worship of Saint William was ancient and began in the years immediately following his death illustrious for miracles after his death is indicated by the frequent miracles appended to the Life, which came in great number both through the invocation of his aid and through pilgrimages instituted to his sepulcher and oratory. That the public authority of the Apostolic See was subsequently added is not in doubt: which the Louvain manuscript of the Society of Jesus near the end of the Life, Meier in the Annals of Flanders, Sampson Hay, and other more recent writers assign to the year of Christ 1202, He is believed to have been enrolled among the Saints by Innocent III, to which date Cavalcantini in chapter 39 of his Life adds the day of May 20, on which Innocent III, in the fifth year of his pontificate, is believed to have committed to eternity the memory of Saint William enrolled in the number of the Blessed. The same Sampson reports that Cardinal Hugolino, serving as legate in Etruria on behalf of the Pope (whether Innocent III, his uncle, or more likely Honorius III, who sent him to the Pisans in the year 1217, as the letter of the latter cited by Odoricus Raynaldus at that year, number 86, records), was at that time so seized with love and devotion for the most holy man on account of the most celebrated miracles that God was working at the tomb of Saint William, that he humbly visited the place itself: and a sacred church was built for him by Gregory IX: and that the same cardinal, after he had ascended to the summit of the supreme Apostolate and became Pope Gregory IX in the year 1227, on account of the man's surpassing holiness that he had personally verified, considered nothing more important than to raise from its foundations a sacred church in his name and a most ample monastery in the place where the holy man had breathed forth his blessed soul to heaven, and to endow it with the most generous resources. The successors of Gregory IX in the pontificate during the same century were Innocent IV, Alexander IV, Urban IV, and Clement IV: who in various Bulls, of which we shall treat below, adorn this William with the title of Saint, calling the hermits "Brothers of the Order of Saint William, living according to the institutes of Saint William," and distinguishing among the houses of hermits, of which some belonged to Saint William and some to Saint Augustine. Concerning the sacred cult of Saint William among the Augustinians, Benedictines, He is called Saint by many Popes. and Cistercians, we shall treat below, when we shall have set forth the Order of the Hermits of Saint William. We have given some Martyrologies above. In the manuscript Martyrology of the Williamites of Bruges the following is read on February 10: "At Castiglione Burianense, in the place called Stabilimento di Rodi, the feast of our most holy Father William, whose life, illustrious for its virtues, Theobald the Bishop describes, and whose death frequent miracles declare glorious in the sight of the Lord."

[67] Another, and indeed the principal, solemnity of Saint William is celebrated at Stabilimento di Rodi on the Kalends of May itself, Solemnity on May 1, approved by Pius II, which Cavalcantini in chapter 39 of his Life reports was instituted by Pope Pius II, who presided over the Church from the year 1458 to the year 1464 of the same century. For since the tenth day of February, on which the Saint departed this life, is in those places generally impeded by rains, snows, and other winter inclemencies, the first day of May was granted to the people flocking from every quarter, so that they might more easily approach the church of Saint William, fulfill with greater piety the vows they had previously conceived, and hang up their votive offerings to the praise and glory of God. Andrew Saussay lists Saint William, whom he makes Duke of Aquitaine, on July 3, Memorial on July 3. with a long eulogy added from Buchet and the Life: on which day we find his memorial among no older authorities. The same author commemorates on February 10 the conversion of the Duke of Aquitaine effected through Saint Bernard: and October 13. which is reported to be celebrated among the Tuscans on the third day before the Ides of October in the Breviary of the Cistercian Order printed in the year 1508: but we have sufficiently distinguished that Duke from Saint William.

EPITOME OF THE ANCIENT LIFE

excerpted from the Responsories and Antiphons of the Ecclesiastical Office.

William the Hermit, at Stabilimento di Rodi in Etruria (Saint)

From the ancient Breviary.

[1] Blessed William is reported to have been born of a noble family. For he drew his illustrious origin from the province of Poitou. A nobleman of Poitou, a warrior, He was a most fierce warrior, thoroughly savage in arms, in this age. But chosen by God, duly moved with heartfelt devotion, and with the grace of the Holy Spirit cooperating, he flew most devoutly to true repentance. Converted, he did penance: After his conversion, inspired by the Divine Spirit, he utterly abandoned the world with its pomps, spurning his noble lineage and fatherland together with worldly affection. He most humbly subjected himself to God, devoted to the most austere penance, clinging to virtues after his conversion by the grace of God, warring against the vices of the flesh, he stood forth more powerfully in holiness.

[2] Saint William, to perform true penance, put on an iron coat of mail, with which he afflicted himself in this age most severely: He is clothed in a coat of mail joined with chains: for he placed iron rings upon the coat of mail, so that, having utterly set aside his own spirit, he might rightly live for God. Clad in an iron coat of mail joined with chains, and encircled with iron rings, having utterly driven away the world with its pomps, day and night he unceasingly prayed to God in humble supplication: he poured forth his devotions and prayers devoutly and without ceasing, that God in His mercy would blot out his sins.

[3] By the inspiration of divine grace, Saint William hastened to approach Pope Eugenius with devotion: He is sent to Jerusalem by Pope Eugenius: by whose counsel and command he went to Jerusalem with bare feet, abstaining from food, most devoutly. With extreme abstinence he most humbly and joyfully approached Jerusalem, ceaselessly praying to God. Each day he most devoutly rendered fitting service to Almighty God.

[4] A voice came from heaven to Blessed William, which commanded him to come to the district of Castiglione: Admonished by a heavenly voice, he comes into Tuscany, at whose arrival all the throngs rejoiced and were illuminated by his merits. Like a living coal blazing from the lamp of Christ, he ministers the charity of his ardor to those far and near alike. Whom the Holy Spirit bestowed upon our shores, resplendent with virtues and many miracles. Already for a long time admonished by an Angel, he came to the solitude of Castiglione, leading the most austere life near Castiglione. Day and night persisting unceasingly in vigils and prayers, he in no way ceased from divine colloquies. Having received the Body and Blood of Christ, most devoutly commending himself to the priests, He lives and dies in holiness: he in no way ceased from his prayers, and there he happily passed to the Lord. By living in holiness and righteousness, having become a Confessor of Christ, he merited to possess the heavenly kingdom.

[5] Saint William attained the crown of sanctity, who, having driven away earthly things and seeking heavenly ones, and being powerful in miracles by the grace of God, merited to attain the fellowship of the Saints. He shines with miracles. He, utterly despising the vices of the world, by his merit ascended to the heights of the heavenly kingdom. Throngs of ailing people come devoutly to the shrine of Saint William, and, restored to health by his prayers, they return home safe and sound, by God's mercy.

[6] O Confessor of Christ, Saint William, noble by birth but nobler by sanctity, who left behind the riches of the world and its earthly delights, pray for your servants most lovingly, Various prayers to Saint William. that, freed from all evils by your prayers, we may merit to possess the everlasting kingdom with the Saints. O most holy William, gracious Father, eminent Confessor, shunning the regions of the world and passing through the narrow path, you built a palace in heaven. Now therefore, most loving Father, we beg to be aided by your prayers, that He whom you merited to imitate may loose us from our sins. O soldier and disciple of Christ, most blessed William, venerable for your merits: you who, by conquering the blandishments of the world, merited the heavenly kingdom, in which you now exult gloriously crowned, loose our sins by your loving prayer: that, aided by your patronage, we may merit to arrive at everlasting joys. Pray for your servants, Saint William, that by your prayers, freed from all evils, we may be partakers of the heavenly kingdom.

[7] O God, who have numbered Blessed William among Your Confessors, Prayer. and adorned him with many miracles and strengthened him by the virtue of constancy against the waves of the world: grant, we beseech You, to us Your servants, both to glory in his intercessions before You, and to be defended from every assault of the enemy. Through our Lord, etc.

a These words have been preserved by other writers. In the ancient Lessons: "Sprung, as is reported, of a noble family, he was from the province of Poitou, and a most fierce warrior." Theobald: "Sprung from a noble lineage, from the province of Poitou."

b Hence perhaps Petrarch did not wish to specify the ancient lineage or fatherland from which he had come: which he does in the case of the adjacent William, whom he writes became a monk of Grandselve after being Lord of Montpellier, in the same words quoted from book 3 of the Life of Saint Bernard, chapter 3. Concerning this William, Saussay and Chrysostom Henriquez treat at April 9. We have given the passage of Petrarch concerning Saint William the hermit in section 9.

c Perhaps "on account of which" or "with which" should be read.

d In the Life, part 2, number 16, he is said to have worn haircloth garments over the coat of mail, and at number 35 a piece of the coat of mail hung around the neck of a sick person conferred health.

e Eugenius III presided from the year 1145 to 1153. Hence the time of Saint William's conversion is established.

f The same is read in part 2, number 9, and it is added: "as he himself was afterward accustomed to relate."

g Castiglione is three miles distant from Stabilimento di Rodi.

h Hence we gather that the author lived at Stabilimento di Rodi.

HYMN AT VESPERS.

William the Hermit, at Stabilimento di Rodi in Etruria (Saint)

O bands of hermits, hasten to the praises of Christ, and with the eyes of faith behold William in joy: He rejoices in the company of the Saints without end; he who, remaining in exile, served the Lord in poverty. He put his hand to mighty deeds, a valiant athlete of the Lord: he wore down his flesh with fasting, aspiring to the heights of virtue. After his passing to the joys of heaven, here he shines in miracles: standing in the heavenly court, he prays for his little servants. Grant us, O Holy Trinity, that we may behold You in like manner, that we may pay You due praises with alacrity. Amen.

HYMN AT MATINS.

William the Hermit, at Stabilimento di Rodi in Etruria (Saint)

O Jesus, joy of the heart, who visit sinners, by the prayers of Saint William, be present to us all. When You deprived him of the light of the body, with the Holy Spirit You illumined him, whence he despised all the joys of the world. Soon he embraced the eremitic life, that he might contemplate the heavenly Hierarchy, singing the royal way. The footsteps of so great a Father, spurning transitory things, let us all follow as his children, sharers at last of his joy. Grant, O Father, through the Son, to us eternal joy, together with the Holy Spirit, after this life, in the light. Amen.

a Hence it appears that he was made blind before he was converted: and then the reckoning of years agrees with the pontificate of Eugenius, if he afterward first went to Jerusalem and spent only two years there.

LIFE

Embellished by Theobald, from Surius, Silvius, and various manuscripts.

William the Hermit, at Stabilimento di Rodi in Etruria (Saint)

BHL Number: 8923

By Theobald, from manuscripts.

PROLOGUE OF THE AUTHOR.

[1] Paul, servant of Jesus Christ and Apostle, preacher of truth and teacher of the nations, once writing to the Hebrews, among other things said to them: "We have not here a lasting city, but we seek one that is to come." Heb. 13:14 If we have not here a lasting city, why do we dread to depart hence? Those who seek eternal salvation If we seek one that is to come, why do we care to remain here? If, therefore, we have not here a lasting city, let us ardently seek the future Jerusalem, which is built as a city whose participation is in the selfsame, which the number of its inhabitants does not confine. But for seeking diligently and finding efficaciously, who is so fit? For many seek and do not find, because they seek wrongly. Cant. 3:1 The voice of one seeking wrongly: "In my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loves: I sought him and found him not." Hos. 5:6 The voice of one not found: "With their flocks and with their herds they shall go to seek me and shall not find me: for I am taken away from them." The voice of one sought but not found: "How is it that you sought me?" (He speaks to those seeking Him in the retinue of worldly pomp.) "Did you not know that I must be about my Father's business?" Luke 2:49 On account of these and similar things, Isaiah cries out and exhorts, saying: "Seek the Lord while He may be found." And again: "If you seek, seek." Isa. 55:6 and 21:12 "For everyone who seeks, finds." If, therefore, dearest brothers, we ought to seek the city that is to come, we must be spurred on by words and examples: we who have not here a lasting one, we need, as it were, two goads for seeking most diligently and finding most ardently — namely, words and examples. For the words of the wise are as goads and as nails driven deep. But since many speak much who nevertheless act feebly, today is verified the saying that the fool is not corrected by words: because, as Blessed Gregory attests, examples move more than words. Speech indeed is living and effective when it is the example of works: but where among mortals shall an exemplar of heavenly blessing be found from mortals, since "there is none that does good, no, not even one"? "I said in my ecstasy," says a certain one: "Every man is a liar." "I attended and listened," says Jeremiah: "no one speaks what is good." And Hosea says: "There is no truth, and there is no knowledge of God in the land." Ps. 115:2 Jer. 8:6 "Cursing and lying, murder and theft have overflowed, and blood has touched blood." Hos. 4:1-2 And since iniquity has thus abounded, the charity of many grows cold. And Paul, writing to Timothy — master to disciple, Apostle to Bishop — said in a certain place: "Having food and wherewith to be covered, with these let us be content." 1 Tim. 6:8 Where is this pattern? In the Bible of theologians, not in the conscience of many; in books, not in men; in parchment, not in the soul; in the codex, not in the heart. But of the just man you may read that the law of his God is in his heart, not in a codex. Ps. 36:3 We were seeking a man zealous for God, a caretaker of his neighbor, and not neglectful of himself: a rooting-out of evils, a planter of good things, a consoler of the grieving, an instructor of the erring, a savior of his country, a corrector of the wayward — one who would show himself a Moses to the Egyptians, an Elijah to idolaters, an Elisha to the avaricious, a Phinehas to fornicators, a John to kings, a Peter to liars, a Paul to blasphemers, a Christ to deniers: and behold, in the finding we fail. For scarcely is one found who can save himself, to say nothing of the salvation of others. The best man today is one who is not excessively wicked. Already in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king: because where all are foul, the stench of one is scarcely noticed.

[2] Since, therefore, as has been said, we need the goads of words and examples to seek the city that is to come, let us call, if there be one who will answer, and let us turn to one of the Saints. But since a holy and just man is a rare and precious bird upon the earth, especially since Micah laments, saying: "The holy one has perished from the earth, and there is not a just man among men," it is pleasing, from among those who have been purchased from the earth — namely, the Saints who are now in His land — to recall to memory, for the rousing of our mental sloth, the most illustrious Duke and Count, Saint William, the Life of Saint William is here set forth, a man devoted to God, removed from carnal things, wholly given to spiritual matters: in whom "a better fortune followed a feeble beginning." Mic. 7:2 He was "a lamp burning and shining," and at the same time blazing: burning in his words, shining in his examples, blazing in his miracles. He, having spurned all things for the sake of Christ and leading the eremitic life, was generous to his weaker brethren insofar as he was able, compassionate to the delicate, moderate toward the stronger, severe with the perverse, merciful to the penitent, whose latter part was formerly composed by his disciple Albert: most excellent toward the good. Moreover, "before me, men better than I took care to collect the account of his life — scattered as it was, lest it perish — rather than to compose it artfully so that it might reach the ears of listeners. Among them, the chief was Saint Albert, the first disciple and the first fruits of the man of God, who arranged some part of it — well indeed and in a sufficiently brilliant style, as much as was possible for a painter who was indeed most skilled but otherwise occupied." His words I would not repeat, but would weave my narrative only from what he omitted, unless you commanded me to resume from the beginning, Venerable Prior Provincial of France, and with you the Brothers of your Order, and all your Church and ours, the household of the saints. There were indeed in many of the communities of your monasteries those who could have clothed the material in a narrative worthy enough, or rather worthier still: but it is characteristic of the generosity and humility of your religious order that you presume little of yourselves and greater things of others. And would that what Gregory was to Benedict, what Sulpicius Severus was in praising Martin, this could the sinner Theobald be in extolling his William with praises. You, therefore, Brothers, who have made me undertake so great a work, hold forth the shields of your prayers, that God may always make the voluntary offerings of my mouth well-pleasing: and I for my part in this work shall always strive to speak truthfully rather than sumptuously.

[3] Here begins the genealogy of Saint William the wondrous Confessor.

This is the lineage of the noble birth of Blessed William, Patron of the Williamites. His genealogy. Charlemagne begot Louis the First. Louis the First begot Charles the Bald. Charles the Bald begot Louis the Stammerer. Louis the Stammerer begot Charles the Simple. Charles the Simple begot Louis. Louis begot Albrada. Albrada begot Ermentrude. Ermentrude begot Agnes, who bore the most noble Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitou, namely Blessed William, and his sister Agnes, Empress of the Romans.

Here begin the Chapters of the Life of Saint William the Hermit and Confessor

I. Of the beginnings of his tyranny. Chapters of the Life. II. How Blessed Bernard desired the conversion of Saint William. III. Of the election of Pope Innocent. IV. How Blessed Bernard first summoned Blessed William to himself. V. Of the second meeting of the Count at Parthenay. VI. Of the third meeting. VII. Of the meditation of Saint William. VIII. Of his approach to the first hermit. IX. Of the counsel of another hermit concerning his conversion. X. Of the coat of mail worn upon his flesh. XI. Of his approach to Pope Eugenius. XII. Of the rebuke of Pope Eugenius. XIII. Of his approach to the Patriarch of Jerusalem. XIV. Of his dwelling with the Patriarch. XV. How his men solicited him. XVI. Of the blinding of the one who relapsed. XVII. Of his return to Jerusalem and of his flight into the harsh wilderness. XVIII. Of his journey to Livalia, to Monte Pruno. XIX. Of the temptation of the demon under the appearance of his own father. XX. How he was visited by the Blessed Virgin Mary. XXI. Of the hostess healed of a fever. XXII. Of the hut of the Saint built at Stabilimento di Rodi. XXIII. Of the teaching and discourses of the man of God. XXIV. Of the works of the man of God and his manner of living. XXV. Of the first miracle of the man of God, which was himself. XXVI. Of the girl with a fever. XXVII. Of the lamp that fell and was not broken. XXVIII. How at death he had the spirit of prophecy. XXIX. Of the death of Blessed William. XXX. Of his burial and miracles. XXXI. Of his miracles after death.

a Thus the manuscripts; but Surius has "of Christ." Silvius has "a lover of his neighbor."

b The manuscript in our possession and Silvius have "negotiantibus." Surius has "Peter denying Christ," but the word "Peter" is not repeated a second time, even in the Rougeval manuscript.

c The manuscripts and Silvius have "excitandam."

d We have treated of him in section 9.

e Therefore the beginning was largely lacking, which we give in the first part. Silvius reports these things thus: "Unless you, most Reverend Father Stephen van Loemele, Prior Provincial of France, commanded me to resume from the beginning, and with you the Fathers of our Order."

f Our manuscript: "in praising and extolling with praises his William, the sinner Theobald could be." Silvius: "the author of this Life, Theobald, could be." He who is here Guilelmus or Guilielmus is afterward written Wilhelmus in the German fashion.

g Silvius: "more truly than splendidly." Surius: "opinate."

h Charlemagne died in the year 814, Louis the Pious in 840, Charles the Bald in 877, Louis the Stammerer in 899, Charles the Simple in 929.

i This is Louis the Transmarine, who died in the year 954.

k Albrada is the form used by other writers; here it is corruptly given as Affradas. She was born in the year 948, her father being King Louis and her mother Gerberga, sister of the Emperor Otto I, previously married to Gilbert, Duke of Lorraine: the Sainte-Marthes in book 8 of their Genealogical History of the Kings of France, chapter 6, and Chesne in book 6, on the Coucy and Guines families, chapter 2, hold that Albrada was born of this earlier marriage.

l In the Supplement to Flodoard from the Dijon copy the following is read: "From Albrada came Ermentrude; from Ermentrude, Agnes."

m This Agnes was married to William IV, Duke of Aquitaine, around the year 1023; she was discussed in section 2.

n William Guy-Geoffrey is meant, who was afterward surnamed William — reckoned the seventh of that name — grandfather of the last William, as stated above in section 3.

o This Agnes was married to the Emperor Henry, son of Conrad, in the year 1043.

p The said genealogy, after the Prologue and before the division of chapters, is in the manuscript codex in our possession: as Peter Silvius also inserted it, though not without errors, omitting the mother Agnes, and with other additions concerning the successors of Saint William. But in the manuscripts of the Cologne Charterhouse, the Utrecht manuscript, and the Rougeval manuscript, it is placed at the end of the Life: but it was omitted by Surius together with the last part of the Life.

q It suffices to have indicated these chapters here. We divide the Acts themselves into more convenient chapters in our customary manner: especially because the manuscript codices also differ from Surius. We furthermore distinguish the entire Life into two parts, so that what is suspect and falsely attributed to Saint William may be separated from the more certain material.

PART I

Suspect, doubtful, interpolated, or falsely attributed to Saint William.

CHAPTER I

Fictitious acts of the youth of William, the last Duke of Aquitaine, taken for Saint William the Great and Hermit.

[4] Being about to write the Life of Your servant, as You shall have given and inspired, Lord God, who give to all abundantly and breathe where You will, I wish first of all to admonish all who shall read or even hear this, that they not be scandalized by the beginnings of the young soldier, which indeed, taken by themselves, would suffice to lead one to the abomination of horror, Not the beginning but the end of life is to be praised. if there did not follow the glories of his conversion, which are set before us all for the imitation of a better life. For William is not to be reviled for turning from his own ways, but rather we are to exult in Christ, who converts from Bashan. Ps. 67:23 Although indeed in the sacrifice the tail is commanded to be offered together with the head, it is nevertheless more tolerable in the eyes of the divine majesty to sacrifice a headless animal than a tailless one: that is to say, it is profitable for salvation for a just man to begin innocently and to finish faithfully. Lev. 3:9 But if we cannot accomplish both, it is better that we obtain the grace of finishing well than of beginning well. For nowhere is one read to be saved who has merely begun well, as is he who has persevered to the end. Matt. 10:22 The Lord desires early figs, yet He does not despise a contrite and humbled heart, and the remnants of thought shall keep a feast day for Him who in our nature does not cast away the fragments of youth. For it is written: "At whatever hour the sinner shall have groaned, I will no longer remember all his iniquities." Ezek. 18, according to the LXX These things have been tasted and prescribed beforehand, so that the savagery of the soldier may not be abhorred, but the clemency of the King commended. For the aforesaid soldier was a Poitevin by nation, sprung from a noble family of the province of Poitou. Saint William was believed to be of the lineage of Counts. There he was conceived and born; there also he was reared according to the grandeur of his parents, who, illustrious in birth and wealth, took care to rear their illustrious son most illustriously, in keeping with no lowly dignity of the world. Beguiled tenaciously in heart by the smiling and mocking glory and pomp of the world, he was plotting from boyhood — and, so to speak, from the cradle, malice supplying the deficiency of age — what he would afterward put into effect. Born illustrious from illustrious parents and reared in the manner of the Great Ones of the earth, he was restrained from his intended crimes both by the fear of his parents and guardians and by the weakness of his younger age. And indeed the infancy of William is little known to us, except that from what follows we presume that as his age increased, so did his malice, before God and men. For when the fullness of time came, what was in the young man began to appear, and having become a man, he put away the things of a child.

[5] At length, having professed the sacred rite of knighthood and obtained its — not sacred — belt, he was unanimously received by all the Barons of the land to the County of Poitou and the Duchy of Aquitaine, Regarded as Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitou, both of which were owed to him by the right and title of hereditary succession. Having been made a knight, therefore, and emboldened by the eminence of a Count, he became all the more insolent in proportion as he was more noble, more wealthy, more powerful, more honored, more handsome, and more famous than all others. In short, generous by lineage, wealthy by fortune, vigorous by nature, glorious by reputation, comely by the Creator's hand, he proved himself the most insolent of all, fractious and haughty. An illustrious lineage, an able body, an elegant figure, youthful beauty, estates, palaces, immense furnishings, and the insignia of dignities — all served the flesh in him, not the spirit. Depicted as of gigantic stature and immense voracity, The height of his body was so great that it seemed more gigantic than human. Scarcely were provisions sufficient for him in one meal that would have been food for eight other young men of the greatest strength. He was never absent from battle throughout that whole province, so long as he bore arms; but driven by his passion for combat, bereft of the aid of squires, he went armed many times alone. And when others would not fight, he dragged even the unwilling into the contest. You would say Bel the idol had come to life again in his eating and drinking; you would believe him to be Nimrod himself, that mighty and powerful hunter before the Lord, in his fighting. Dan. 14:2 Gen. 10:9 Wicked to strangers, worse to his own, worst to himself. Matt. 14:3

[6] At length, in a frenzy of Herodian madness, he is reported to have violently seized the wife of his own brother, against all right and law, and to have kept her in most shameless incest for three years and more. And he abused his brother's wife. If anyone from the entire neighborhood had turned to him to show himself a John Baptist to the incestuous man, he was assailed with insults and departed empty and without result. He trusted in his own strength: but it is not for the strong man to glory in the multitude of his might. He trusted in his wondrous and excellent sword: but let the just man sing, "And my sword shall not save me." And again: "For they did not possess the land by their own sword, nor did their own arm save them." Ps. 43:7 and 4 He trusted in his most powerful horse: but "the horse is a deceitful thing for safety." Ps. 32:17 He was, moreover, fiery in his wrath, iron in his refusal to forgive, stone in his failure to console. You would call him a burning fire in his raging; you would call him an axe or hatchet in his destroying. Behold, these are the instruments of the devil's craft, burdened with which the Count ran against God with outstretched neck and armed himself with a fat neck. These things have been enumerated for us all the more carefully, in proportion as the Divine clemency was pleased to work wonders in calling back the sinner. Who amid all this would have discerned that the profane man was to be changed into a saint, Saul into Paul, Saul into a Prophet, a wolf into a lamb? This indeed is the change wrought by the right hand of the Most High. He who brings forth honey from the rock and oil from the hardest stone — He did this. "You have not done so to every nation, and Your judgments You have not manifested to them." "If someone from the dead goes to them," says a certain one, "they will do penance." Luke 16:30 Therefore all ought to do penance in ashes and dust, since the Lord, patient and very merciful, sends to them a tyrant, fettered by a fourfold death and wondrously loosed and permitted to depart at the fragrance of the fire of the Holy Spirit, so that there is none who may hide himself from its heat. Now we see fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, who says: "Babylon, my beloved, has been made a wonder to me." Isa. 21:4 But let us pursue what remains.

[7] At that time the monastery of Clairvaux was founded, and there, together with his venerable Brothers, by the intimate counsel of the Holy Spirit, Bernard was appointed as Abbot for the governance of the house, Saint Bernard desires to convert William, who so shone forth in life, virtues, and learning that none in the world was his equal in genius, morals, eloquence, style, and virtues: indeed he is numbered in the catalogue of the Saints and is honored with immediate presence among the Blessed in heaven. This is he who in his days extirpated heresies, confounded heretics, recalled schismatics, instructed the erring, reconciled the discordant, promoted the good, rebuked the wicked, and admonished princes. He, therefore, in a vehement spirit, hearing the fame of the oft-mentioned Count William, like a keen-sighted eagle desiring to be present wherever the carcass might be, forewarned by the prompting of the heavenly breath, was pondering, like the woman of the Gospel, how to find the lost coin and to recall the straying sheep to the pastures of the desert. Luke 15:5 And placing his soul in his hands, he resolved either to go to the tyrant himself or to summon the Count to himself by a messenger for the purpose of a dialogue. But what should he do? If the beloved of the Lord should summon him to beloved Clairvaux, to bring him into the chamber of his mother, he reasonably presumed that the fractious Duke would not come. If he should go to him, he would then break his own resolution, of which he knew he had written thus to Peter the Deacon, a Cardinal: "With all due reverence to you and to all good men, it is my resolve by no means to leave the monastery except for certain causes." For the time being, therefore, he sat alone, silent and at rest, committing the matter to the disposition of heaven. O the virtue of this man! He seeks an occasion to meet him. O the purity of his soul — neither courting public notice nor fearing the tyrant for the sake of the man's salvation! If he shunned public notice, how far was he from seeking the eminence of a bishop's throne? My God, how many and how great cathedral churches, bereft of their own pastors, elected him as Bishop! But the mitre and the ring delighted him no more than the rake and the hoe. Fleeing public notice, therefore, he committed the matter, as has been said, to the disposition of heaven. But when it pleased Him who had separated William from the world and called him through His grace, so that by his example he might convert many of the wayward sons of God to the Lord their God, that order of Divine wisdom, embracing all things, caused the circumstances to converge so that William would meet Bernard, whom Bernard desired and sought. And the meeting came about on this occasion.

a The parents are not specified on account of the genealogy prefixed above. We have treated of them and other ancestors above. These words about the noble lineage and the province of Poitou are transcribed from the ancient Life.

b We have shown above that this is not rightly presumed.

c In the year 1126, upon the death of his father William VIII on February 10 — which date of death we have said above at number 26 provided the occasion for fables attached to the son.

d We have said above at number 21 that a certain soldier named William in the time of the father was of a height exceeding all others.

e We have shown at number 23 that these things were transferred from the father's adultery.

f In June of the year 1115, as Angel Manrique deduces in the Cistercian Annals.

g His feast is celebrated August 20; from his Life many things are here related.

h He was enrolled by Pope Alexander III in the year 1155, the second year after his death.

i Thus the manuscripts; but Surius has "of mutual conversation."

CHAPTER II

The Schism of the Church. Duke William adheres to the Antipope Anacletus. The first encounter of Saint Bernard with him.

[8] About that same time the Lord Pope Honorius went the way of all flesh. Without delay, the electors assembling and the Cardinals dissenting, a division arose in the Church of God, In the schism, Saint Bernard upholds Pope Innocent, some electing Innocent, others Peter Leonis, whom they called Anacletus. But the party of Innocent was sounder in counsel, more fervent in zeal, more credible in merit, more numerous in members; while the party of Anacletus was weaker, bolder, more violent, and not more virtuous by reason. Innocent himself, too, was judged worthy of the supreme pontificate in fame, learning, and life. But Peter Leonis was striving to ascend to this pinnacle by distant machinations and fraudulent intrigues. The Catholic party, meanwhile, having duly completed all formalities surrounding their chosen candidate, was tarrying, not without danger, near the Lateran palace, and was being most fiercely harassed by the partisans of Peter. And since they could not defend themselves by human force, they wisely chose to withdraw. Messengers were sent ahead into the lands of Gaul, to inform the Gallican Church of the truth of the matter and to exhort the Bishops to gird themselves for the defense, condemning the schismatic party and subscribing to Catholic unity. At Étampes all the Bishops, Barons, and Abbots assembled, the holy Abbot of Clairvaux having been summoned by name by the King and by many Bishops. And it was the unanimous counsel and judgment of all that the business of the Church of God should be entrusted to the holy Abbot, and that the entire case should be weighed upon his pronouncement. Having diligently reviewed the merits of the electors, the life and reputation of each of the two candidates, and the order of the election, he opened his mouth, and the Spirit of his Father filled it. Speaking, therefore, with one voice for all, he named Innocent as the one to be accepted by all, and the entire assembled Church proclaimed it ratified. Duke William supports Anacletus the Pseudo-Pope.

[9] At that time the entire province of Bordeaux was laboring under the oppression of the schismatics, and there was no one in all of Aquitaine who could resist Prince William: to such a degree had God hardened his heart. For, persuaded by Gerard, Bishop of Angoulême, who instilled the seeds of dissension into his heart, he had become the author and defender of the schismatics. For whoever did not subscribe to the acceptance of Peter Leonis was exposed to persecutions, so as to be driven into exile. For the aforesaid Gerard was hissing in the ears of Duke William with constant suggestions, incited by Gerard, Bishop of Angoulême, like the most cunning fox, the ancient and twisted serpent. For he had long been Legate of the Apostolic See in those parts, not only throughout the entire province of Bordeaux and Tours, but whatever the Ocean encloses and bounds from the Iberian hills to the Loire had obeyed his authority. He was grieving not a little at having been deposed from so great a magistracy. He therefore sent to Peter Leonis to have his legateship restored, being unable to bear his deposition: and he himself, having sworn fealty, would obediently serve him, and would incline the Prince of the land and whomever else he could to his authority. The man of perdition gladly and quickly assented. and by Cardinal Gilo: Gilo, the Tusculan Bishop-Cardinal, who alone among the Romans had adhered to him, being sent specially for this purpose, immediately approached Count William with money-laden purses, assailed his mind with venomous suggestions, and seduced and corrupted a man of reed-like fickleness. He expels William, Bishop of Poitiers. First of all, William, Bishop of Poitiers — a Catholic and honorable man — was violently expelled from his See, and because he rejected Peter Leonis, he was condemned; other familiar causes also existing, on account of which the Count, being hostile to him, willingly persecuted him. I beg, therefore, that it be burdensome or grievous to no one if I briefly touch upon something that comes to mind in passing, or if I briefly repeat events already narrated.

[10] In those days, the fame resounding everywhere, it had begun to be heard among many that the aforesaid seducer was plotting against the Church of God. And Blessed Bernard and the venerable Joscelin, Bishop of Soissons, were sent from the side of Pope Innocent, who was then residing in Gaul, to confront boldly both him and Prince William on these matters. Arriving as far as Poitiers, they urged the aforesaid usurper with salutary counsels but did not persuade him. But Saint Bernard, having set out for Aquitaine, For how could they persuade one who, having already won over the Prince, was shamelessly spewing insults against the Catholic Church, vilifying Innocent, extolling his own Anacletus, and declaring those who did not obey him to be wanderers and headless? Whence it happened that the schismatics, animated and armed in their madness, from that day publicly threatened persecution against the Catholics. Meanwhile, while these things were being carried on, the holy Abbot was staying in a certain monastery of his order, newly built in Poitou. Trusting in the Lord's mercy, he had sent a fearless messenger to the Count, begging that he would deign to hasten to him for the purpose of a necessary conference. As soon as the Count heard him, laying aside as it were his leonine ferocity and assuming the meekness of a dove or a sheep, he obeyed at the hearing of the ear. The prodigal son came to the father, though not yet returned to himself. He came when summoned. Saul came to Ananias, though still blind and perverse, and was received by Ananias with all joy: like Saul seeking the asses, received by Samuel the prophet. Acts 9 1 Sam. 9

[11] Immediately the one who had come in the spirit and power of Elijah was kindled like fire, and his word burned like a torch, desiring in a vehement spirit to shatter the ship of Tarshish. Confined for seven days, And having shut up the Count for seven continuous days in a certain more secluded place, he ardently instructed the lukewarm man concerning death and life, the punishments of the wicked and the rewards of the good, the life and examples of the Blessed, in that fiery manner of his. If you had heard the heated one pouring forth his words to the cold one, you would have said it was a fire setting ablaze the thorns of crimes; you would have said it was a sword devouring flesh; you would have believed it was a hammer shattering rocks. But since God had not yet roused him, wisdom did not enter his malevolent soul at that time; rather, his heart was hardened like stone and compressed like the anvil of smiths. He is not amended: The sinner heard and grew angry, gnashed his teeth and was confirmed in his obstinacy; nor was the desire of the just man for the sinner yet fulfilled. He heard one admonishing him to amend his ways, but did not heed. He heard one rousing him from the netherworld and pretended not to notice. He heard one calling him back from the congregation of schismatics and refused to depart. Meanwhile the tyrant was compelled to hunger, because the food of accustomed taste and abundance was denied him, and he found it difficult to relinquish what he was used to. His soul also slumbered from weariness at the salutary and unheard-of instruction, inasmuch as his power of reason was perishing because the cause of the schismatics, passing into the affection of his heart, was gaining possession. What more? The hardened Pharaoh rises up in scandals; Threats being directed at him, he returns hardened. in his frenzy he reviles the servant of God, and threatens to deprive him of his head if he should find him outside the cloister. Whereupon the little lamb, trembling and terrified at the savage ferocity of the lion, let him depart for the time being, immune from his teaching. Tell me, O man, do you understand the salutary instruction of the man of God? He is a physician who exhorts you: you are a madman who threatens him. You carry a sword and brandish a lance with furious hand. Let be for now; let the holy Abbot depart: you meanwhile, despising the cedar and the Lebanon, rest beneath the shade of your bramble — that is, of your most avaricious usurper. But the time will come, and will not delay, when you will long for the one who is absent, whom you despise when present. It is hard for you to kick against the goad. When, therefore, the man of God had returned and been settled in his own little nest at Clairvaux, the depositions and intrusions of Bishops and the seizures of Sees that we mentioned above were carried out through the aforesaid Cardinal Gilo and Gerard the usurper.

a In the year 1130, February 14.

b Étampes, a town of the diocese of Chartres, between Paris and Orléans.

c He is called by Orderic in book 13 "a most learned man, who was of great name and authority in the Roman Senate."

d Saint Bernard in letter 126 to the Bishops of Aquitaine says of this Gerard: "He is the first or among the first to write to Pope Innocent; he requests the legateship; he does not obtain it; he is indignant; he falls away from him; he goes over to the other; he boasts of being his Legate."

e Aegidius, called by others Gilus and Gilo, was made Bishop-Cardinal of Tusculum by Calixtus II in the year 1122, having been a Cluniac monk.

f Bernard, Abbot of Bonneval, has the same in book 2 of the Life of Saint Bernard, chapter 6: but rather "one of the chief" should be read. For he was elected by the votes of twenty-one Cardinals, among whom were the Bishops Peter the Elder of Porto, Transmundus of Segni, and Otto of Sutri. The names of all, as well as of the eight Cardinals soon afterward created by him, are extant in the letter sent by them to the Emperor Lothair, which Baronius reproduces from a Cassinese codex at the year 1130, number 16.

g William II, called Adelelmus, succeeded William I, surnamed Gislebert, who died in the year 1123; he survived until October 6, 1140.

h Thus the manuscripts, in agreement with the Life of Saint Bernard. Surius has "private."

i He held office from the year 1127 to 1151. Suger the Abbot dedicates to him the Life of King Louis the Fat.

k Castellare — this is what Manrique calls it, built in the year 1128 at the sources of the river Clain, thirty miles from the city of Poitiers toward the west.

l The Rougeval manuscript has "most bitter."

CHAPTER III

The second encounter of Saint Bernard with Duke William. The latter's conversion.

[12] When the venerable Geoffrey, Bishop of Chartres, a man of virtue, full of the spirit of counsel and fortitude — to whom the legateship of Aquitaine had been entrusted by the Lord Pope Innocent — heard of these matters, he was deeply grieved and resolved, setting aside all other business, to come without the loss of delay to the aid of the imperiled Church. Earnestly entreating the Abbot of Clairvaux, he begged and besought him He admits the same Bernard again approaching with others: to assist him in the elimination of such great evils. Seeing that excuses were extended in vain, Bernard assented and agreed. They went together, therefore, and as they had arranged, the Abbot and the Legate entered the borders of Aquitaine. Meanwhile it was signified to Count William through illustrious men and official messengers, who were less afraid to approach him, that Bernard of Clairvaux and Geoffrey of Chartres, together with many other Bishops and religious, were awaiting an audience with him: whose aim was that a discussion might be held in common concerning the peace of the Church and the removal of evils. He was persuaded and convinced not to decline the conference of such great men, by whose shared counsel what seemed difficult could easily be accomplished, and what now appeared impossible could be rendered possible by a sudden outcome.

[13] And so at Parthenay they assembled from both sides. First, then, concerning the division of the Church and the obstinacy of the schism and discord — which had settled in the sole region of Aquitaine — the servants of God set before the Count many arguments and fortified themselves with manifold reasoning. "The Church," they said, "is one, and whatever is outside it, as outside the ark of Noah, must by divine judgment be shipwrecked and perish." They bring forward the examples of those most wicked men Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, whom the earth swallowed alive for the crime of schism. They add, moreover, He refuses the restoration of the Bishops: that in no authentic scripture have they ever read that God's vengeance has been absent from the plague of schism. To this William, employing in part sound counsel, replied that he could very easily obey Innocent, but that he could in no way consent to the restoration of the Bishops whom he had expelled — both because they had offended him implacably and because he had sworn that he would at no time accept peace with them. But as the discussion was prolonged through intermediaries, they were occupying each other with words to no avail, and having become as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal, they were making no progress at all: they were consuming the day in talk and uttering their words to the wind. The Lord's servant was distressed within himself, and because the hoped-for result with the Prince was not being achieved, his spirit was troubled and his heart was agitated within him. What was the athlete of Christ to do? When human aid failed, the divine man had recourse to divine aid: fleeing to stronger arms, he was more efficaciously fortified.

[14] The holy man approaching the holy altar judged it fitting to intercede during the solemnities of the Mass for a people not holy. Those entered the church who were permitted to attend the divine mysteries. Count William with his adherents stood outside before the doors. By the same man celebrating the Mass, He was therefore offering sacrifice and praying at the hour of sacrifice with his customary holiness of heart and purity of soul. When the consecration had been duly performed, the peace given and extended to the people, the man of God — no longer conducting himself merely as a man — placed the Lord's Body upon the paten and carried it with him. He went forth outside to the Duke, and holding the Body of Christ in his hand, he is sharply admonished, to speak to him in that very way — with blazing eyes, blazing face, bearing a blazing message — not as a suppliant but as a threatener, and with terrible words he accosted the terrible Prince: "We have asked you," he said, "and asking those things which belong to the peace of Jerusalem, you have scorned us. In the other assembly which we have already held with you, the multitude of the servants of God, gathered and prostrated before you, pleaded with you, and you despised them. Woe to you who despise — shall you not yourself be despised? Behold, after the servants, the Lord of all has come to supplicate you: behold the Son of the Virgin, the Head of the Church, which you persecute. After the prayers of the members, the Head has come forth to you. Your Judge and the Judge of your people is here, in whose name every knee bows, of those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth. Here is your witness and Judge, into whose hands that spirit of yours shall come. Will you also despise Him? Will you treat Him, too, with the contempt you showed His servants?" All who were present wept, and intent on prayers, they awaited the outcome of the matter, and the expectation of all, held in suspense, believed that some divine event would occur from heaven. The Count, seeing the Abbot advancing in a vehement spirit He fell to the ground: and holding in his hands the most sacred Body of the Lord, was struck rigid with terror, and fear dissolved his trembling limbs throughout his whole body. As if placed beside himself, he fell headlong to the ground by divine power. Raised up by his soldiers, he fell again upon his face, speaking to no one and looking at no one. He who catches the wise in their own craftiness and loosens the belt of kings — He did this. Truly there is no wisdom, no knowledge, no counsel against the Lord.

[15] Then the man of God, drawing nearer, said: "Rise and stand upon your feet, and hear the divine sentence. He restores the Bishop of Poitiers. The Bishop of Poitiers is here present, whom you violently expelled from his Church: go now, be reconciled to the Father, and join with him in a covenant of peace with a holy kiss. Submit yourself to Innocent, and obey so great a Pontiff, chosen by God, even as the entire Church of the Saints obeys him." Hearing these words, the tyrant, overcome by the presence of the Sacraments and conquered by the authority of the Holy Spirit, neither dared to answer the wisdom and Spirit that spoke, nor could he give one word for a thousand to the one proclaiming the word with great power: but immediately going forward, he received the Bishop with the kisses of peace, laying his hands in the Abbot's bonds: and what is more, with that same hand with which he had formerly renounced him, he led him back to his own See, to the exultation of the whole city. Now the strong man had dashed against the strong, and the stronger, coming upon him, had overcome the strong. From then on, the Abbot speaking more familiarly and sweetly with the Count, paternally admonished him not to rise up again to impious and rash undertakings, not to provoke God's patience amid such great crimes, and not to violate in any respect the peace that had been restored. When so great an evil had been crushed, therefore, and the schism of Gerard reduced to ashes, He is turned from the schism: Bernard returned to Clairvaux with joy. William, however, having heard him, doing many things meanwhile, was henceforth less cruel. You have done many evil things, O tyrant; now at last restrain yourself: now, changed from a vessel of dishonor into a vessel of election, be converted. It is time for you to return to Him who made you, so that those who see you and consider your good works may glorify God on the day of your sudden visitation. For it is needful that you be presented in humble garb before the Apostolic presence, and that, full of virtues, you be buried in the vast solitude of Stabilimento di Rodi. Let us say, therefore, when and how.

[16] After the departure of the man of God, the Lord — mighty to raise up children of Abraham from stones — his mind is pierced with compunction, began wondrously to stir the mind of the Count to compunction and true repentance, and the Dayspring from on high mercifully visited the one sitting in darkness and the shadow of death. The admonition of the aforesaid Father came more and more frequently into his mind, and the memory of his former deeds and words did not slip from his soul: but like a most clean animal placed at its manger, he ruminated most fully on what he had heard and seen. He was being dissolved in the blaze of warming affection, and in his meditation that fire was kindled which the Lord came to send upon the earth. He formed before the eyes of his mind Bernard's constancy, the boldness of his fortitude, the eminence of his virtue, the keenness of his prudence, the frugality of his temperance, the sanctity of his justice, and marveled at this man whose words had resounded so efficaciously. Nor was it strange if Amalek was being conquered in him — that is, if the flesh was being subdued to the spirit — when a revived Moses, lifting up pure hands in prayer, was continually interceding for William. Exod. 17 My God, how often did Your man spend whole nights wakeful and sleepless in prayer, weeping abundantly and pouring out his heart like water before Your sight, on behalf of him whom and of whom he was speaking good things to You? Surely the son of so many tears could not perish. For he said to himself, gazing in a vision of the night and watering his couch with tears: "Alas for me, what spirit was I of, when I was despising that man? He laments his life ill-spent. He was crying out to me, and I was not listening; he was standing before me, and I was not looking. I was changed toward him into a cruel man, and in the hardness of my hand I was opposing him. Woe to me, for I have sinned against the Holy One of God while he was pleading with me, and I did not hear. Who will give me wings like a dove, that I may fly to him and henceforth rest with him? Yet if You will observe my iniquities, Father, before his face so often provoked to anger, I shall not endure. Was not my heart burning within me while he spoke useful things to me and opened his mouth in teaching me? Blessed are they who have heard him and have been adorned in his friendship. Never has a man spoken as he spoke, and grace was poured out upon his lips." Such things he said within himself, and thoughts of this kind were ascending in his heart. Behold, Benjamin, a ravenous wolf, who in the morning had devoured the prey, was now in the evening dividing the spoils. Already from the eater comes forth food, and from the strong comes forth sweetness. He is not far from spiritual food who is prepared to give all precious things for food to restore his soul.

a These things are also taken from the Life of Saint Bernard.

b Geoffrey, successor of Ivo, from the year 1116 to 1138, in which year he died on January 25: created Apostolic Legate at the Council of Pisa in the year 1134.

c Called by others Partiniacum and Parthenay, a town on the river Thouet, not far from which stands the above-mentioned monastery of Castellare.

d The Life of Saint Bernard: "which below the Alps had settled in Aquitaine alone." Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny, in book 2 of his Miracles, chapter 16, says that all of Gaul (except the region of Aquitaine), Spain, England, and Germany were united under Innocent.

e Thus the manuscripts and Silvius; but Surius has "remaining outside."

f Likewise the same manuscripts and Silvius. The Life of Saint Bernard: "he fell prostrate to the ground alone." Surius: "he was cast down."

g Up to this point the material is taken from the Life of Saint Bernard, in which there is complete silence about what follows.

CHAPTER IV

A double consultation attributed to Duke William with two hermits.

[17] When, therefore, he had determined to take up the strong and illustrious arms of penance under the yoke of Christ, He deliberates about choosing a spiritual director, he began to hesitate about to whom he should go to have penance imposed upon him: knowing that whatever he should voluntarily undertake on his own without a Confessor would serve vainglory and presumption, not merit: and that a man alone, if he should fall, would have no one to raise him up; and that he who makes himself his own master subjects himself to a foolish disciple. It occurred to his mind most frequently to choose the venerable Bernard above all others, but perceiving that the path back to him was closed on account of the injuries he had inflicted, he was afraid to approach him.

[18] At that time there were in various regions of the world men of religion, powerful in virtue and strong in vigor: who, having God before their eyes, aspiring to heaven, fearing hell, trembling at the last judgment, separated themselves from the common life of others: nor content with the public road of precepts, they voluntarily entered upon the most pure, most upright, and most narrow path of the counsels. Nor did it suffice for these men of perfection to languish about common things, but they aspired to the heights of supererogation. Of these, some leading the regular life, others the monastic, others the anchoritic, others the eremitic, served the one Lord and fought for the one King. But even in that same region which produced for us such a fellow citizen of the Saints and member of God's household, there was no lack of spiritual men, having the spirit of prophecy and a spiritual purpose: who, lest they live in the world to the peril of their salvation, lived in the wilderness: and with eyes desiring Christ, deigned to look upon nothing else. These men, though few in number, drew nothing from the wickedness of their country and the fury of Poitou, no more than do the fish of the sea from its salt. Not far from the place where William was meditating upon such things like a dove, there was one of their number leading the eremitic life — a man of truly wondrous simplicity. For thinking only of the things that are of God and not knowing how to distinguish the pure from the impure, he shone with the sanctity of a holy rusticity that profits only himself. To this hermit the now solitary soldier He approaches a hermit of wondrous simplicity: soon began to make his way and sought him out diligently until he found him. He was thinking within himself what manner of devotion this was that he felt toward him, and he did not fully understand what the Almighty was doing with him. He was filled with astonishment and ecstasy at what had befallen him, almost suspecting it to be a dream. What more? The lamb — once a wolf — came to the shepherd, but the timid shepherd was afraid to admit him to the fold of the Lord. The shipwrecked man was insistently seeking a harbor, the wounded man a physician; Saul — now prostrated into Paul — was seeking Ananias. But what should Ananias do? He had heard from many about this man, how many evil things he had done to the churches and ecclesiastical persons, and did not know that he was to become a chosen vessel, to bear the name of Christ before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. The trembling dove hid itself from the hawk and the sparrowhawk; the trembling sheep fled at the coming of the wolf. For he feared that the Lord would reproach him: "If you saw a thief, you ran with him." Ps. 49:18 Yet because the visitor persevered in knocking, on account of his importunity the hermit rose and came out, and gazing at him with a stern eye, he is harshly received by him: said in hesitant wonder: "Impious, cruel, and dire tyrant, why do you try to harass the servants of Christ? Is it not enough that you have hitherto assailed others, that you must also presume to trouble the servants of Christ? Depart, depart: cease now from your folly; cease, young man, from provoking an old man. You who have hitherto held the whole world in dread — what business have you with the wilderness? There is nothing for you in that place: nor is there any fellowship between the one and the other, no more than between light and darkness."

[19] To whom the timid lord replied: "I do not approach you with ill intent, but I bear a penitent heart, and desiring to have my most grievous sin cleansed, I acknowledge my iniquity before you. To correct my past excesses and cast aside my wicked deeds, I have hastened here to do penance. I consider what I have done and wish to govern what I shall do. As many pleasures of vice as I have had in me, so many holocausts of heart and body I am prepared to offer to God at the judgment of your will. He offers satisfaction: Wherefore, do not forbid one who beseeches you through Christ and desires to make satisfaction at your command. Let me taste through your ministry — let me taste, I say — how sweet it is not to serve vices, I who have learned in myself how bitter it is either to have experienced vices or to wish to experience vice." But that man, fearing that he wished to mock him, and knowing him to have been unclean and not yet knowing him to be purified, is reported to have answered: "I do not bind or loose you, nor do I thrust my sickle into another's harvest. I am a man worthy only of hiding places, a judge, arbiter, and accuser appointed for myself alone, inasmuch as my conduct may show what my profession holds, and the name of monk may be interpreted for me as a solitary way of life: which I profess as confidently as I experience with certainty. Nevertheless, if what you set forth is true and you do not compose these things from a deceitful heart, He is sent to another hermit: I counsel you to hasten to another man of singular holiness, who, supported by long experience of years and already practiced in the discernment of spirits, is known to have renounced the world before me." He went and obeyed at the hearing of the ear: but that other man likewise, on account of the reputation of his cruelty, feared the presence of William. There was, however, one who gave counsel to the man avidly seeking it and eagerly receiving it. Why should he not receive it, who so often begged for the fire that was denied him, as though seeking it with his finger?

[20] In the same place and time there was another solitary man, very discreet and conspicuous for holiness. He approaches this one. As he sparkled with the keenness of knowledge, so also he shone with the holiness of his life. Whence it happened that by the convergence of both lights he was rendered illustrious before God in his conscience and celebrated among the people by his reputation. To this second hermit the first hermit promptly directed the now solitary soldier, whom, however, nothing on the journey delayed, since he was weary of any lingering that caused loss. What wonder? He loved ardently, ran swiftly, and therefore arrived quickly. He drank all things with sweetness, according to the ancient proverb: He refuses no toil. meanwhile love made all things easy and virtually nothing. For to one who loves, nothing is difficult, as she attests who sings in the epithalamion of the holy nuptials: "My beloved is to me a bundle of myrrh; he shall abide between my breasts." Cant. 1:12 He came, therefore, to the man of God, borne on the little wings of love. The Lord, moreover, had opened the ears of the hermit before Blessed William came. When in spirit he perceived the man of God drawing near, holding the reason for the visitor's coming well in memory, he began to implore all the more tearfully the mercy of the Almighty, that He might deign, as He had promised, to call back the ungodly man from his iniquity. After the holy man had learned that the Count had arrived, he received him with the joy of the Holy Spirit in peace and began to investigate carefully the cause of his journey. To him the Count, opening the inner chambers of his heart, began to unfold his entire purpose of conversion with confidence, He opens his whole heart to him. nor was there any word in the chamber of his heart that he wished to conceal from him. You would say it was a revived man who had fallen among thieves, wounded and stripped, whom the priest and the Levite had passed by, waiting for the mercy of the Samaritan. But what did the Samaritan do? Luke 10 Seeing him, he did not pass by, but was moved with compassion and took care of him. Ecclus. 38 Luke 15 For drawing near, he bound up his wounds with the bonds of a salutary dressing, pouring in the oil of consolation with the stinging wine of a poultice. He was skilled, like the Solomonic perfumer, in making ointments of sweetness and compounding unguents of healing. Then, in wondrous fashion, when the Count's purpose was diligently understood, just as there is joy among the Angels of God in heaven over one sinner doing penance and being converted, so also was joy heaped upon this man over the penitent Count and so perverse a sinner.

[21] After a little while, therefore, and after some counsels of life and salvation, the elder spoke more confidently, saying: "Return to your own house whence you came, He is ordered to assume military arms and return alone on horseback, and tell no one what you have conceived. For I wish you to be cautious and to shun vainglory, which is the poison of virtues and the noonday devil. Afterward, clad in all the military arms with which you formerly presumed to do evil, and mounted on the best horse on which you have hitherto been accustomed to ride, you shall hasten to me secretly and alone in that attire. And after this I shall bestow upon you salutary counsel, with the Lord's cooperation, to the best of my ability." Such things the physician said who was about to cure the sick man, nor did he express more, because he knew what he himself was about to do. O the prudence of the physician! O the wisdom of the man! O the Spirit that was speaking! For as soon as William entered his presence, he did not say: "O wicked one, O unclean one, O adulterer, O schismatic, O incestuous one." He carried the sword to cut the wound, but he did not show it to the sick man, lest the neophyte should recoil from a sudden remedy. He concealed the iron of division within — not under a covering of garment but under the veil of his discourse. Having heard these things, Blessed William, for whom every delay was far too long, giving thanks to God, returned home. He obeys. And, not having become a deaf or forgetful hearer of the salutary instructions of his master, he wished to disclose the matter of his glorious care to none of his family or kindred. For he had learned that it is written: "Let not your left hand know what your right hand does." Matt. 6:3 His household servants, however, entirely ignorant of the matter, when they saw him returning to his instructor with the prescribed equipment, cursed his blessed deeds in their ignorance, supposing that he was setting out for the customary crime and fury of his wickedness.

a Saint Bernard in letter 128, written to the same Duke William, expresses astonishment that he had changed for the worse and had expelled the Clerics of Saint-Hilaire from the city, as stated above at number 30.

b These things should be compared with the war waged against the Normans in the year 1136, which was the year immediately following his conversion. Naevius defers these events to the year 1137, after the journey to Compostela, in which we have said he died, in sections 4 and 5.

d Surius has "penance."

e Our manuscript: "What counsel was to be given?"

f The Rougeval manuscript: "meditating, he was searching about." The other manuscript: "seeking a remedy."

g Surius has "knowledge."

h The Rougeval manuscript: "health."

i Surius has "soul."

k Epithema: a medicament which, spread upon a small cloth or linen, is applied externally to the affected part.

CHAPTER V

The iron coat of mail and helmet assumed. Possessions renounced.

[22] Returning, he finds a blacksmith with an iron coat of mail: Meanwhile, while these things were being done by the Count, the man of God secretly summoned from a neighboring village a certain blacksmith skilled in working metal, together with his smithing tools. And so it was provided that, when William returned to the man of God in the prescribed manner, he should find the smith with iron rings, chains, and fetters — ready to bind one whom he did not know. William, therefore, entering to the hermit and finding him not alone but with the smith, was so astonished that he could say: "Behold the smith and the fetters: where is the victim to be bound?" But the answer came to him, as with Abraham, that the Lord would provide for Himself the victim of the holocaust. Gen. 22:8 Shall I say "holocaust" or "wholly bound"? If I say both, I shall not regret it. For I shall speak the truth. Was it not a holocaust, in which the ardor of charity was consuming the rust of vices? Was it not wholly bound, which was bound fast with ten bands of iron rings? As soon as he entered, he heard his spiritual father saying to him: "My son William, we are salutarily admonished by the authority of the sacred canons He is instructed: not to permit that we drag the souls of laypeople into hell by deceiving them with false penances. It is an irrefragable truth, and we cannot deny, that no evil remains unpunished, just as no good remains unrewarded. For either God punishes or man does. The measure of punishment, moreover, ought to be extended according to the measure of past pleasure. For the truthful Scripture says: 'According to the measure of the offense, so shall be the measure of the stripes.' Deut. 25:2 And again: 'As much as he has glorified himself and lived in delicacies, so much give him torment and mourning.' As a sign of this, the herald of the Judge was exhorting to bring forth fruits of penance — not any fruits whatever, but worthy fruits of penance. Rev. 18:7 Matt. 3:8 It is better to be tortured temporally for a moment than to be consigned eternally to punishments. If, therefore, you truly repent, and wholly sigh for the remission of past sin, the escape of future judgment, and the attainment of the heavenly summit, I impose upon you the following discipline of penance — nevertheless less than you deserve: First, because fasting subdues the plagues of the flesh, He is ordered to give alms, prayer subdues the plagues of the mind, and almsgiving avails for all things, having the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come — by these three most precious plasters I declare that you can return to the fatherland of eternal glory. To carry the coat of mail, In the manner of a perfect man, therefore, you shall go and sell all that you have and give to the poor: so that, unburdened and naked, you may follow Him who had nowhere to lay His head — He who rejoiced as a giant to run His course. Then, because all those things are external, To approach the Pope, I command you to wear it over your bare body all the days of your life. After this, because in your deeds you have offended many — especially during the time of the schism under Peter Leonis — and because a good conscience before God is not sufficient, but a good reputation before your neighbor is also required, you shall present yourself barefoot before the Apostolic presence, so that according to his judgment you may make satisfaction to the Lord, by whom for your grievous crimes you have been far and wide condemned with the stigma of excommunication. Concerning the weight and measure of prayers, I impose nothing, trusting in the Lord that in the course of time, when you shall have begun to run the way of God's commandments with the widened foot of love, you will not cease from prayer. His anointing will teach you not only about prayers but about all things. And since a brother who is helped by a brother is like a strong city, that we may bear one another's burdens, let us henceforth humbly beseech the Lord for one another, that we may be saved."

[23] When these words had been spoken by the man, the Count received the word of salvation — no longer as from a man, Stripped of his garments, but rather as from an angelic tongue, indeed as from the divine breath or mystical inspiration. Truly it was none other who had pronounced such things than the Spirit of his Father, who had filled his mouth and had dictated what was to be proclaimed. Immediately, in wondrous fashion, he is wholly set afire with love of God, He is clad in the coat of mail, and without the procrastination of delay, between the hands of the smith and the hermit, the old Count is stripped away, so that as a new soldier he may newly put on Christ, who makes all things new. Divested of his own garments without shame or hesitation, he is placed in the midst of two gathered in the name of Jesus, and his own coat of mail, firmly fastened to his flesh, is put upon him, and his whole body is tightly bound with ten chains or fetters by the skill of the craftsman's mastery, lest it be easily loosened with the passage of time. After this he is covered over with the harshest haircloth, with haircloth and helmet, and a helmet of iron, skillfully made so that it cannot be removed, is placed upon the soldier's head: and thus laden with spiritual arms, he is dismissed by his instructor and permitted to depart. Now, having laid aside carnal arms and taken up spiritual weapons, he could say with the apostolic men: "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God." 2 Cor. 10:4

[24] The new man did not linger long with the old man, but returning swiftly to his own home with a thirsting heart, He relinquishes all his possessions, impatient of loss and eager for the speed of the work, he stripped himself of all the earthly goods he had formerly possessed. The things he had in his power he sold and distributed to the poor: those he did not have at hand he cast out of his heart and despised. A lover of poverty, he dispersed and gave to the poor, destined soon to become not only a friend of the poor but also their imitator. He was more eager to cut the rope of the little boat clinging in the sea than to untie it. For he was looking toward the reward, desiring to obtain the prize of poverty, which is the kingdom of heaven. That man, once wealthy, wished to retain nothing at all for himself from all his goods, distributing every single thing, lest any stain cling to his heart or hands. And so it came about that, having spurned all his possessions at once and together for the Lord's sake, he divided the earth to the poor and heaven to himself. The text of the Gospel narrates, and recites with great exultation and delight, that Peter the fisherman said to Christ: "Behold, we have left all things and followed You." Matt. 19:27 Well said, Peter, and not foolishly. For you could not follow, burdened as you were, Him who rejoiced as a giant to run His course. But I would like to know what are the "all things" that you boast of having left. You were a fisherman; you sought your livelihood by hand and craft; you were not rich; you possessed only a boat and torn nets. By the example of the Apostles. Why then do you boast so confidently of having left all things? Or did you leave all things because you laid aside the desire of possessing? Certainly our William — did he not leave all things in the same spirit as you, who abandoned the will to have? He did nothing less in this respect than the great Apostles, who counted not a boat but the world, not nets but palaces, not poverty but glory, as dung, that he might gain Christ.

a Saint William of Vercelli, Abbot of Montevergine, in his first conversion, as his disciple John of Nusco writes in chapter 2 of the Life, being about to set out for Saint James, turned aside to a certain blacksmith, who at his request made for him two iron rings in this fashion: that one should encircle the belly and the other the chest, from the upper one of which two iron arms should extend, one from the right side and the other from the left, which, passing over the shoulders to the other part of the lower ring, would be firmly fastened with nails to the aforesaid rings.

b Surius: "in the meantime."

c The same: "of past offense."

d The same: "to be consigned to everlasting punishment."

CHAPTER VI

The encounter of Duke William with Pope Eugenius.

[25] Having therefore trampled all things underfoot for Christ, with bare feet, He approaches the Roman Pontiff, Eugenius III, encircled in that iron garment of his, most harsh, a pearl gleaming in the mud, he visited the Lord Pope. Why should he not visit the good in the world, when the Dayspring from on high had visited him? In those days there presided over the holy Apostolic See Pope Eugenius III of blessed memory, who, taken from under the rod of Blessed Bernard, held the monarchy of the Roman Papacy — laudably indeed and most sincerely, as befitted a disciple of so great and good a Father. But because the life of the good is ordinarily hateful to the wicked, and because envy assails even almsgiving, a certain bastard planting and viperous brood of Romans rebelled against him. Humanly dreading their malice contriving against him, he wisely withdrew, yielding to safety, into upper Gaul. There, having celebrated a council at Reims and having completed the affairs of the commonwealth, and having settled and arranged the matters of ecclesiastical authority, among other things he took care to renew the sentence of the ancient excommunication formerly issued against Count William. For he did not know that he had already been converted and changed into another man. Meanwhile, William, hearing that the Lord Apostolic had arrived in Gaul, rejoiced greatly. Nor could he contain himself for joy, for he did not yet know that it had been the will of God that the one he was seeking would come to meet him. And so Paul, made from Saul, approached in order to see Peter — not now in his own person but in his Vicar. He kisses his feet, The obedient man entered to Simon Peter, but not, as usually happens, through Simon Magus. The poor man of Christ gave nothing to the doorkeepers, he who possessed nothing at all on earth. Ecclus. 10:2 Nor was there anyone who would demand money from one about to enter, the Scripture attesting that "as is the ruler of the city, so is its people." The Lord raised up over His people a man who would not seek silver and would not desire gold, but would slay the little ones with his arrows. He entered, therefore, freely — he who was called to the freedom of the spirit — and prostrate upon the ground, he reverently kissed the holy footsteps of the Pope. His face was pressed to the earth, his eyes were weeping, his mouth was kissing the feet, his hands were embracing them, and his tongue spoke such words from the deepest heart: "Alas for me, my Father! Alas for me, my Father! Father Abraham, have mercy on me and raise up my soul, for I have sinned manifoldly. Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you: I am no longer worthy to be called your son: He acknowledges himself as the prodigal son: not even a hired servant, but a bastard or a swine, because, having abandoned the bread of the children, I have made myself unworthy of the bread of the servants, loading the wretched belly of my soul with the husks of swine. I, a wretched man, going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, fell among thieves, who, striking me, wounded me in the nature of the image, entirely stripping from me the garment of the Divine likeness. Wherefore, I beseech you, receive one returning from the parts of Egypt, and lead back to the pastures of the desert the straying sheep. Absolve one who flees from the region of dissimilitude to the Father. My Father, my Father, the chariot of Israel and its horseman."

[26] Having heard these things, the Lord Apostolic is reported to have answered: "Who, then, are you?" And he said: "I am Count William, a sinner and a wicked man, whom for my deserts you with your predecessors have justly decreed to strike with the sword of excommunication, Asked, he confesses his crimes: and have cut off as a putrid member from the body of the Church. The murders, adulteries, sacrileges, and all the wicked works that have been told you about me, incestuous and schismatic, are true. If the Lord should observe my iniquities, my iniquity is greater than that I should merit pardon. But since the mercies of Christ are without number, do you, who are the Vicar of Christ, have mercy on this wretched man, and rightly imitate the Father of mercies whom you represent on earth. My sins have surpassed the number of the sands of the sea; my transgressions are multiplied. He seeks pardon, But while I live and the spirit governs these limbs, heal me with the medicine of penance — you to whom it has been committed in the place of Christ to loose and bind upon the earth. I have sinned and truly transgressed, but deliver me, lest I go to destruction and descend into corruption — you who have obtained the dominion of closing and opening heaven to mankind." Matt. 16:19 At this the Lord Apostolic was astounded and amazed beyond what can be believed. There came to his mind the deed of Jacob and Esau: of whom one pretended before Isaac to be the other. Gen. 27 Thinking, therefore, that some Esau wished to deceive him under the appearance of Jacob, and knowing that the angel of Satan is accustomed to transform himself into an angel of light, he is reported to have answered: "I have often heard of Count William the sinner before the Lord, but I have never known him by face, and therefore, if what you say is true, I do not know. But so be it. Either you are William in person, or you are not. One of the two must be the case; it cannot be otherwise. If you are not, and wished to mock me, may you incur the indignation of Almighty God and our own, because you do not care to show due reverence to the Lord's Anointed, but seek to make him an object of scorn. He is rebuked by him. But if it is truly you and no other, how do you pretend to be penitent? Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Thus also can you do good after such great iniquities. You have defiled your brother's bed with incest; you have sown schisms throughout the world; you have disturbed the regions of the earth with your villanies. And after all this, how am I to believe in the full repentance of your heart? I have therefore cursed you, and you shall be cursed. I know, however, that the Lord can do great things for you — indeed greater — because He is almighty: but that a man grown old in evil days should fully repent, I despair. Rise, therefore, from the midst; go to the right hand or to the left."

[27] At this the timid William rose and, in the manner of the publican of the Gospel, stood afar off, He beseeches that he not perish through negligence. not daring to lift his face toward the man, and said: "I am truly Count William, an exceedingly great sinner, sent to your dignity for the assessment of my satisfaction. Luke 18 But since you will not believe, at least bestow upon me the grace of your blessing and the benefit of Apostolic absolution. If I shall not obtain this and shall be neglected through your carelessness, may God, in whose sight I stand, require the blood of my soul at your hands — you who do not shrink from closing the bosom of fatherly compassion to a returning prodigal son. Let my perdition be imputed to you as an accumulation of perdition, and may the all-seeing Lord of vengeance see this concerning you." When the devout Pope had heard these words, he feared all the more, He is ordered to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, being a man of a very scrupulous conscience. And recognizing the man's constancy and the infinite mercy of Christ, he reflected within himself that neither the magnitude of the crime, nor the enormity of the deed, nor the shortness of time, nor the extremity of the hour excludes anyone from pardon. Opening his mouth, therefore, he said to William: "I know the Patriarch of Jerusalem to be a prudent man and of great counsel: to him I send you, and I commit authority over your soul to him in my stead." Having therefore humbly saluted the Supreme Pontiff for the grace of Apostolic benediction bestowed, he set out for Jerusalem.

a Saint William of Vercelli also visited the shrines of the saints barefoot.

b Upon the death of Lucius II on February 25, 1145, Eugenius succeeded and survived until July 8, 1153.

c Of the Cistercian Order, Abbot of the monastery of Saint Anastasius at the Aquae Salviae, given to the Cistercians by Innocent II.

d Concerning this opposition and the flight of Eugenius, Baronius treats at the year 1145, from a Vatican manuscript codex and contemporary authors.

e In the year 1148, in mid-Lent, in the church of the Most Blessed Virgin Mother of God.

f The Acts are silent, and absolutely all historians. Indeed Manrique, who in the Cistercian Annals at the year 1130, chapter 3, number 6, had called Theobald a Pontiff conspicuous for holiness and learning, at the year 1148, chapter 4, number 4, judges these things apocryphal, not even plausible, and unworthy of his Annals.

g That is, 13 years having already elapsed since the conversion, indeed 11 since his death.

h From the French word "garçon," signifying a boy or servant, used by Peter of Blois in letter 102.

i Saint William, later Bishop of Roskilde, in the year 1147 defended with great zeal the statutes of his monastery of Sainte-Geneviève at Paris.

CHAPTER VII

A life of nine years spent in a cave at Jerusalem.

[28] In those days the holy land of Jerusalem was in the hands of Christians, and free access lay open to all pilgrims. William, therefore, entering the holy city, after he had visited the glorious sepulcher of Christ with purity and devotion, began to inquire from the citizens about the venerable Primate of the city. He reveals everything to the Patriarch of Jerusalem: It came about through the Divine will that the Patriarch himself was also at Jerusalem in those days. When William had been introduced to him, he laid before him his own case, the reason for his journey, and the entire matter in due order and sequence. The Patriarch, upon seeing William, rejoiced greatly, for he had been desiring to see him for a long time. For he had heard, with the clamors of report sounding everywhere, many evil things about him: and seeing that the Lord had magnified His mercy with him, congratulating and exulting, he blessed the Lord in him. There was also another familiar reason why the venerable Primate bound William more closely to himself, held him with greater sweetness, and honored him with more ample reverence. For he confessed — and did not deny — that he had been the son of one of those in William's service, to whose most faithful service William had done many good things and upon whom he had generously bestowed immense gifts. For this reason, the son, not unmindful of the benefit received by his father, prepared himself with a willing spirit to repay the debt of reciprocal kindness. Nor could he contain himself for joy at the unexpected conversion of the Duke and the unforeseen prospect of salvation, He is kindly received, and he made known the abundance of his joy with such sighs and groans as he was able. And turning to the Lord, he fell upon his face and worshipped, saying: "Blessed are You, Lord, who look upon the depths and sit above the Cherubim: who give life to the dead and call things that are not as though they were. I know, Lord, and truly I know, and I confess the same to Your goodness, that You can truly raise up children to Yourself from stones — You who know how to make a calm after the tempest. With thanksgiving. O how last yesterday, O how first today! O the depth of the riches of Your wisdom and knowledge! O Your knowledge, made wondrous and strengthened beyond me! O the breath of Your spirit, that the waters may flow! If anyone can penetrate the unsearchable abyss, he will also be able to comprehend Your inscrutable judgments and ways. For Your judgments are a great deep. Now, therefore, Lord, deal kindly in Your good will with him, and what You have deigned to begin, make for him a sign for good. May his heart be made spotless through Your grace, so that what he has begun wonderfully he may strive to complete with happy perseverance, and may fervently hasten from good to better in the observance of his holy and good resolution. May You deign to grant him this through the anointing of Your spirit — to love heavenly things and to dwell above the stars — You who have already inspired him to despise earthly things and to emulate more fervently the marks of poverty. May You deign to bestow this upon him, You who are the God of gods and the Lord of lords, reigning and ruling forever and ever."

[29] Having said these things, he received William with immense joy and bound him with the salutary bonds of a saving satisfaction. And though the Patriarch endeavored to keep him living with himself, the man of God — already fleeing public notice — by no means consented, but rather chose to lead a solitary life. And so it was done. For within a short time, within the precincts of the Patriarch's household, he had a very narrow cave built, covered over from above, of a mean appearance, after the fashion of a shelter in a vineyard or the hut of lepers. In this structure so built, with the Primate present, William most joyfully and gloriously shut himself up as in a prison, He dwells in a cave for nine years in marvelous abstinence: and for nine continuous years enclosed himself with the most extreme frugality of food. Inside, therefore, he sat alone and was silent, because he had lifted himself above himself. Inside, I say — because to all who are outside it shall be said: "Woe, woe." He sat in the corner of his dwelling, not delighting to move his feet. Does William not seem to you to have been one of those to whom it was said, "Sit in the city until you are clothed with power from on high"? Of the reprobate, on the contrary, it is said: "He did not rest, and he did not please the Lord." Luke 24:49 He also sat alone, and sitting was silent, not wishing to sit with the council of vanity. Jer. 14:10 He sat, therefore, alone, and sitting was silent, knowing that silence is the cultivation of justice. For "in silence and in hope shall be his strength," and therefore, having become mute, he was silent even from good things. He had seen very many fall into sin by speaking, scarcely anyone by keeping silent. And because perpetual silence compels one to meditate upon heavenly things, rightly could he be lifted above himself. Perpetual quiet from every tumult of worldly affairs leads to those ecstasies of Paul, of which he says: "Whether we be sober, it is for you: or whether we be beside ourselves, it is for God." 2 Cor. 5:13 O Lord God of his, who are accustomed to show Your people hard things, He sees visions: how many wonders did You show Your servant there, and showing him many and grievous tribulations, did You reveal to him consoling and good visions? The things You hid from the wise and prudent, You revealed to the little one, and passing over the unclean sinners, You frequently visited the pure of heart.

[30] Blessed William, therefore, established in that humble hut, was becoming pleasing and beloved to God and men, and showed himself a welcome guest to the Patriarch, so that the Patriarch said to him: "By experience I have learned that we have been filled with all spiritual goods at your coming, and on account of your grace the Almighty has blessed us, just as He blessed the house of the Egyptian on account of Joseph." Gen. 39 He himself, however, a true Joseph, knew nothing there except his hut in which he was enclosed, the covering with which he was wrapped, and the meager bread and scant water with which he was refreshed. His house was his cell; his drink, water; his food, the blackest bread; his garment, iron and most harsh; his bed, a cavern; his mattress, the bare ground; his pillow, He leads the harshest life: a stone; his coverlet, the roof. In this manner he lived for nine continuous years, for whom to live was Christ and to die was gain. He led this life in patience, but awaited the future with longing. He lived poor in his cell, rich in conscience, laying up treasure in heaven and possessing nothing in the world. The poor man slept more securely on the ground than the rich man upon gold and purple. Often he spent whole sleepless nights in prayer, and when at last some briefest sleep was needed for the necessity of nature, he first watered his bed with tears. He raised pure hands in prayer, He devotes himself to pious exercises. bent his strengthened knees in supplication, wept before the Lord in the most bitter recollection of his sins; every night he washed his heart with tears; he ate ashes like bread; he reconsidered all his days in the bitterness of his soul. He was occupied in divine things — daily meditating on the law of the Lord, eating more sparingly, praying more frequently. When he meditated, he was carried away by the sighing of his heart to his fatherland: when at times he spoke, his mouth was lifted above the stars. His utterances were pure utterances, fiery and tested by fire; you would not have believed it a human tongue but an angelic one, on account of the wisdom and the Spirit that spoke. If anyone devout or learned ever turned aside to him — to dispense counsels of salvation or to speak of the Scriptures — he not only warmed his affections, as is customary, but also illuminated his purified understanding: to such a degree did he commit the divine words he heard to memory. Whence it came about that he heard the Scriptures so ardently and digested them so fervently, as if he were to die on the morrow. With his hands he beat his breast, with his knees he struck the pavement, with vows and devout prayers he heaped up treasures in heaven, with tears he watered his cheeks, with groans and sighs his hut resounded.

[31] Accustomed to these and similar exercises, he began to be gladdened by the visits of Angels, He is nourished by angelic consolations, instructed by revelations, admonished by inspirations, and comforted by their attentive care. With great diligence and immense delight the Angels were present when he chanted psalms, attended when he prayed, were within him when he meditated, watched over him when he rested, guided him when he worked, joyfully congratulated him on his conversion, comforted him when he was sad, instructed him when he was ignorant, protected him when he was tempted, and in all things provided for him. For God commanded His Angels concerning him, to guard him in all his ways. "What is man," says a certain one, "that You are mindful of him, or the son of man, that You visit him?" Ps. 8:5 Truly, Lord, You magnify William: You set Your heart upon him, You bear concern for him, You have care of him. You send him Your Spirit, You promise him Your countenance, You send Angels in his service. Behold, these were the admirable beginnings of conversion in God's beloved: behold the venerable glories of the penitent. Many other things indeed, worthy of praise both in hidden and mystical revelations and in inner and secret consolations, we presume to have befallen the servant of God in that same place, but we do not dare to follow conjectures therefrom, since we have no certainty. For before us, no one ever set this down in order in his Life; the holy Father himself did not disclose it, and none of his disciples inquired about it. Pressing forward, therefore, let us come to more certain matters.

a Jerusalem was captured by the Christians in the year 1099, and Godfrey of Bouillon was made King. At that time, Baldwin III was ruling.

b The Patriarch at that time was Fulcher, promoted from being Archbishop of Tyre, of whom William of Tyre writes in book 16, chapter 17.

d Thus Silvius and the Rougeval manuscript. But our manuscript: "the debt of vicarious retribution." Surius: "of vicarious kindness."

e Therefore at least until the year 1157, so that nine years would have elapsed from the Council of Reims. That Saint William was at Jerusalem is established from the Epitome of the ancient Life, but only for one or two years.

CHAPTER VIII

Departure into Etruria on account of the annoyance of friends. Military service resumed: blindness inflicted and removed.

[32] It came to pass that while the man of God was staying there, his relatives and acquaintances sought him throughout the world. He is sought everywhere by relatives. Of these, while some scoured provinces, cities, peoples, and lands, others crossed the seas, extending their search to the most remote and unknown islands. And when the efforts of those seeking had been frustrated for a very long time, they at last received truthful reports about him through the account of certain pilgrims, and taking up their journey and bidding farewell to Poitou, some of them came to Marseilles, and embarking upon the sea in ships, they arrived swiftly and successfully at the city of Acre with a favorable wind, and thus at length reached their Count at Jerusalem. After these, others also came, He is found, and still others succeeded them, and the multitude of arrivals grew from day to day. All, moreover, both those who came before and those who followed, unanimously rebuked him and spoke such things as these: "What are you doing, Lord? Why are you mad, O William? What deceitful man has fraudulently tricked you and wickedly bewitched you, He is urged to abandon this way of life, that you should have regard for such vanities and false follies? What was lacking to you in your princely eminence, supported on every side by the aid of friends? Cease now from this folly; cease from this melancholy of the mind; cease from this fickleness of spirit. For you could not — even if you greatly wished — persevere in the rigor of your resolve. Behold, foreigners devour your land, and there is none who can resist them. If they saw you present, they would not dare even to murmur. You could not better oppress your friends and exalt your enemies than by damning yourself with such an absence. Consider, we beseech you: on account of your absence the people are oppressed, widows desolated, the innocent crushed, the guilty running rampant, orphans despoiled, virgins violated, the elderly imperiled, churches plundered, monasteries impoverished, murders and robberies perpetually committed, men slaughtered. The weak man is devoured by the stronger; enemies consume your people like the eating of bread. How do you pretend not to see? How do you delay to avenge? How do you keep silent, seeing the wicked trampling those more just than themselves? Already you have consumed your youth in worldly glory; too late and to no profit have you begun your penance. Now take care to spend what remains of your life in the flower of the world. Come, and crown yourself with roses before they wither: enjoy the creatures that exist before you grow old. After such great crimes, after so many enticements, after so great iniquities and sins, what part will God from above have in you?" These and similar things were hissed daily in the ears of the Count by Sirens and screech-owls, and the enemies of the man — his own household — spoke such tales. You would say it was Job come to life again, whom kings insulted: to such a degree did his household and kin daily insult William.

[33] Whence it came about that, unable to bear the onslaught of friends arriving, the frequentation of relatives, and the harassment of acquaintances, he resolved to escape their disturbance by the remedy of flight He flees and to separate himself apart from turbulent incursions, disorderly actions, and ill-composed speeches. And so it was done. 3 Kings 19 For bidding farewell to his host, he departed secretly and went alone, wherever, like Elijah, the Spirit of the Lord led him. Immediately, in wondrous fashion, the enemy shook all his inmost parts to overthrow him, and the ancient foe caused the illicit things which he had previously suggested through the mouths of friends — in order to possess his consent — to return to his memory. He is somewhat shaken and broken by temptations. With the devil, therefore, calling him back to ruminate upon past things, and the concupiscence of the world luring his eyes to present things, he became less fervent, extending himself more tepidly toward future things. He imagined in his chamber the glory he had abandoned; he feared the ignominy he had assumed; he remembered what he had heard from friends, and comparing what he had seen with what he had heard, he had miserably grown lukewarm. Although at the first assaults he was not persuaded to return to his vomit, nevertheless he began from that point to relax somewhat from the rigor of his purpose. The Lord, however, permitted him to sustain this temptation of lukewarmness, so that posterity might be given an example of trampling presumption and of recoiling to their own destruction: because from ourselves we have only fragility and defect, but from our God we have fortitude and progress. While, therefore, he was thus wavering in spirit, there occurred what follows.

[34] It happened in those days that William, having traversed the upper parts of Tuscany, came within the borders of the Lucchese. The citizens of Lucca, a certain animosity having arisen against their neighbors, were vigorously besieging a certain castle that was a colony of those neighbors. He comes into Italy. And since they could by no means prevail through force or stratagem, it so happened that William arrived at the place, and making his way through their midst, he inquired from those he met about the cause of the siege. When he had diligently learned it, at the devil's urging he burst forth into these words: "These warriors are being worn out with futile effort; they are laboring in vain to overthrow the castle. These men seem no more suited to fighting than oxen or asses to playing the lyre. If this battle were entrusted to me, within a few days both the destroyed walls would be demolished and the conquered castle would assuredly be surrendered." Someone heard these words and reported them to others, and they to still others, until the word became known to those who appeared to hold command in the army. And it was the common counsel that William should be called into their midst by the citizens. Summoned, he appeared, about to storm the castle, and just as it is read of Saul, from the shoulder and upward he towered above all. And seeing the length of his great stature and the strength of his mighty extremities, they recognized him as a man of war, most experienced in battle. 1 Sam. 10 He was persuaded by the citizens to such a degree that, forgetful of his penance, he promised them that the triumph of the assault would be achieved on the morrow: He is struck with blindness. and thus, by diabolical suggestion, voluntarily turning back to ruinous military service, in his heart he was returning with the children of Israel to Egypt. And when he had put on military garments, the following night having passed, at dawn he found himself completely deprived of the light of his eyes. All this happened so that the Scripture might be fulfilled: "For whom the Lord loves, He chastens, and He takes pleasure in him as a father in his son." Prov. 3:12 Truly, lest William should be excepted from the number of sons, he was added to the number of those who are scourged. The merciful Lord did not wish His servant to be despoiled of the fruits of such great previous labors, and He brought it about that vexation might give understanding to what was heard. He who places His hand beneath, lest when the just man falls he be shattered — He did this.

[35] Seeing, therefore, that the revived Saul had been struck with the plague of blindness, ashamed and greatly confounded, he perceived more clearly than daylight that he had been deceived by the angel of Satan. And inwardly compunctious of heart, because he had once put his hand to the plow and looked back, he resolved to return immediately to the Lord's service and never in perpetuity to depart from it. He grieves at his temerity. And reconsidering how many blessings the Father of mercies daily bestows upon the unwilling, he devoted himself with his whole heart to imploring the Lord, who makes His sun rise upon the good and the wicked and rains upon the just and the unjust: "Lord my God," he said, "who are the unfailing light, who illumine every man coming into this world, He prays to God for illumination, I beseech You, let the darkness of my heart be illumined through You, and let the eyes of my body be mercifully opened. Open Your eyes, Lord, and see my desolation. Open my eyes, that I may see Your consolation. The eyes that guilt has closed, let penance open: and he who has presumed by his own wretchedness, let him see by the mercy of Your overflowing goodness. For You do not send forth Your hand for the destruction of sinners: but if they fall, You Yourself will save them." Scarcely had Blessed William finished speaking, when behold, immediately he felt the Lord's visitation upon him. For at once, through the grace of the Holy Spirit — which knows no slow endeavors — he unexpectedly received the light he had lost. And so he returned, compelled, to the service of God, from which he had foolishly departed of his own will. It is no wonder that Christ restored the light of body and soul to His servant, He recovers his sight: who afterward obtained the restoration of sight for so great a multitude of blind people. The grace which he was to obtain for others he first experienced in himself. After daylight came and the multitude of the Lucchese assembled before him according to their agreement and arrangement, he passed by with such dissimulation as he could. He informed them that he was a penitent and a servant of God; He returns to Jerusalem. and that, dedicated to serving the living God, it was no longer permitted for him to bear arms henceforth. And bidding farewell to the Lucchese in this manner, and passing through their midst, he went his way. Afterward, examining his lukewarmness and holding suspect the weakness that threatened, he resolved to revisit the holy city of Jerusalem.

a Many errors continue to accumulate. Raymond, brother of Duke William, having been made Prince of Antioch in 1136, was killed in battle on June 27, 1148, when the Council of Reims had been held in the preceding Lent. King Louis of France, his son-in-law, with his wife Alienor, daughter of William, set out for the Holy Land with an army in 1147 and returned in 1149.

b The text seems to allude to the seditions stirred up after his daughter Alienor, having been abandoned by King Louis of France, married Henry, who later became King of England.

c Ptolemy of Lucca, in his Annals extending from the year 1060 to 1301, inserts various wars of the Lucchese and adds that in the year 1152 the castle of Monte Croce Vurnense was restored to the Lucchese by Count Guido.

d The infliction of blindness is mentioned in the Hymn given above, but it seems to have been the cause of his first conversion.

CHAPTER IX

The solitary life lived again at Jerusalem.

[36] The man of God, William, therefore, having resumed his spiritual vigor, left the Lucchese and began to make his way to his former place and to return to the house of the Patriarch, whence he had previously departed. It happened, however, that while he was journeying along the seashore, he was captured by Saracen brigands and pirates. And seeing that he was an unarmed and naked man, they recognized from the circumstances that he was dedicated to the service of Christ. He is captured by Saracens. And when, searching him everywhere, they found him wearing a coat of mail, they hastened to strip him and to let him go despoiled. But when they were utterly unable to tear away the coat of mail — bound with rings, as has been described, and grown into his flesh — they bade him farewell in the barbarian manner and freely let him go unharmed. Coming safely to Jerusalem, He returns to his cave. he took himself back to his former hut, and as before, he shut himself up for two continuous years, except that he afflicted himself more strictly than usual with a more rigorous life. Learning from past events to weigh present ones, he began to fear all the more the ruin of his own fragility. But neither were the dying flies, which destroy the sweetness of the ointment, absent there. To the man who had forgotten what lay behind and was striving to extend himself toward what lay ahead, there appeared, as before, a tumultuous multitude of acquaintances and relatives, He is again enticed by friends, and the rebellious harassment of those opposing the man's spiritual purpose with venomous tongue did not cease. "What are you doing here, madman?" they said. "Why do you count the counsel of friends as worthless and vain?" To this the servant of Christ, having become more diligent than usual, hedged his ears with thorns, He steadfastly resists. and moved neither by blessings nor by curses, he was neither seduced by blandishments nor shaken by threats. He heard serpents hissing and did not heed them; he perceived dogs barking and ignored them; he recognized frogs croaking and closed his heart to the voices of enchanters. Behold, it is clear how cautious William was after his sin against relapse. In this struggle he is found, in my judgment, stronger and more illustrious than one who, having preserved innocence throughout his entire life, never experiences harmful pleasures. I believe, moreover, that God's judgment agrees with mine in this matter. For if we estimate the worth of things according to their rarity, you will more easily find those who have preserved their innocence than those who have performed penance worthy of their sin. Christ indeed has many soldiers who began most bravely, stood firm, and conquered. But few who, having turned from flight, again threw themselves into the danger they had escaped: again put to flight the adversaries whom shortly before they had fled. But the fewer they are, the more (since every rare thing is precious) are those of this kind esteemed the more illustrious. One of the number of such men was that same most valiant and holy man, full of God, who at first, when he did not possess wisdom, was wise; and afterward, when he possessed wisdom, lost it through apostasy; but finally, when he had lost it, he hastened to come to his senses.

[37] The man full of God, therefore, seeing that he lay exposed to the bites and teeth of those whose throat was an open grave, on account of their excessive harassment, resolved to depart secretly and to consecrate himself to the Lord for the leading of the solitary life in a certain nearby wilderness. He lives like the anchorites in the wilderness. And so it was done. For behold, he went far away in flight and remained in the wilderness. In which place, removed far from mankind, he dwelt alone for some time after the manner of anchorites. And just as he had separated himself from men in bodily cohabitation, so also he withdrew in spiritual conversation. He was kindled spiritually in meditation, lifted up intellectually in prayer, subdued inexorably in the affliction of the flesh, and he searched the heavenly Jerusalem sublimely in contemplation: he went about through the heavenly streets, a man of angelic purity, and his sublimity dwelt in the heights. He considered the Angels, greeted the Apostles, implored the Martyrs, visited the Confessors, and in an ecstasy of mind honored the Virgins wearing their garlands. He contemplates heavenly things. Whenever he descended to the affairs of temporal things and the management of his bodily necessities, he would, at interpolated intervals and turns, swiftly and as if in rapid darts, emit a kind of sigh. And when he had rendered to Martha or Leah, as briefly as he could, what he owed, he would then more at length and more securely give himself over to be embraced among the most chaste embraces of Mary and Rachel. If the Beloved spoke to him, at the voice of his Friend his soul melted. If he spoke to the Beloved, he held Him fast and would not let Him go. If he resolved to speak to his beloved companions, through them, with love assisting and prevailing, he sent word to the Beloved that he was languishing with love. These were the pastures of spiritual nourishment for Blessed William in that inner solitude of the desert, after he had begun to turn from his former apostasy to the service of Christ.

a Perhaps he was in the Holy Land for only these two years, around the years 1152 and 1153 — not up to the year 1159, when the Patriarch Fulcher died, or even to the following year: as we infer from Theobald's reckoning.

PART II

More certain and genuine.

CHAPTER I

The pilgrimage to Saint James. Withdrawal into Etruria.

[1] After these things, the man of the Lord — fearful in all things and always holding his own frailty suspect — remembered that it was written, as he had been taught by a certain good man in the place of his former hut: "It is better for two to be together than one alone." And: "Woe to him who is alone, for when he falls, he has no one to raise him up." Eccl. 4:9-10 And indeed in thinking this, the man of God did not err: for an evil that no one sees, no one reproves. For where no critic is feared, He departs for Compostela, the tempter approaches more boldly, and iniquity is committed more freely. Wishing, therefore, to exercise himself in bodily labors, so that the devil might find him occupied, he resolved to visit the shrine of the Blessed Apostle James. And having found passage by the mercy of God — He visits Saint James. who in the eyes of the sailors granted him grace without payment of fare — he crossed the sea and came into Spain, and entering the city of Compostela, with all devotion he visited the church of so great an Apostle and poured out his heart like water before the sight of the Apostle; by whose supporting merits and intercessions he sought to be led and brought to the holy mountain of the eternal tabernacle.

[2] After he had lingered there for some time among certain religious persons who charitably detained him, he returned to Tuscany, entered the territory of Pisa, and found a horrible cave in the forest called Livalia. He dwells in the forest of Livalia in Etruria. Descending into this cave, he was received to serve the Lord, but within a short time a number of devout companions joined themselves to him: living religiously with them in that place for some time, a hospice was built for the veneration of God and the refreshment of Christ's poor. But not long afterward their fervor began gradually to cool, and those who had begun in the spirit He receives companions: were found to be ending in the flesh: and the higher the summit of religious life upon which they were placed, the worse they became by falling away, just as they would have been better by advancing. They were urged by William, the man of God, to renounce illicit things and to bid farewell to their accustomed ways. Their eyes saw nothing but the manna of sweetness in the discourses of the Father, yet their soul grew nauseated at the lightest food of constant exhortation. And having become disdainful of the admonition of salutary precepts, they scorned to be instructed by the teaching of so great a Father. And since he could not refrain from speaking of what he had heard and seen, Spurned by them, he departs: they began unanimously to attack him with insults: and those who should have moderated their far different and dissolute conduct and life according to his rule and example, attempted to detest so imitable a Father with annoyances, insults, and injuries. Among the fractious, the God-fearing man made no progress, to such a degree did their obstinacy despise his uprightness. But what was the norm of life, the exemplar of virtue, the nursling of discipline, the model of profession to do? He entrusted the hospice to a certain religious man named Peter, who had not consented to the deeds of the wicked, and thus most prudently departed from that place to another. Truly the spiritual physician rightly despised those sick men whom he saw becoming worse from his own medicine. Why should he not scorn the madness of persecutors, when he had received the commandment that, when persecution rages in one city, he should flee to another? What remained but to abandon the house that provoked, since on account of it the tongue of preachers is accustomed to cling to the palate?

[3] The most learned man, therefore, prudently withdrew from the council of the malignant, having shaken off the dust of his feet as a testimony against them, and coming to the mountain called Monte Pruno, in a very dense forest, He comes to Monte Pruno, under a certain small hut he served the Lord in solitude. There the most austere life was voluntarily assumed, he devoted himself simultaneously to contemplation and action, and one hand was placed in both. There a little cell was built, a garden was enclosed, a plot was divided, the soil was sown with herbs, and various species of trees were planted in it, and a vineyard was set out for propagation. But also the terror and horror of venomous serpents disturbing his cell were driven far away by the man of God, He builds a cell, and every infestation of unclean spirits was powerfully cast out. Nor was he less vigorous in the repulsion of wicked men than of demons. For as the fame of his reputation spread widely on all sides, a multitude of companions joined themselves to him to serve God, and from false brothers, with the torches of envy kindled, the venom of manifold envy was endured. One assault of demons endured there, however, we set forth distinctly and in order, judging it rather to be expressed in writing than suppressed in silence.

a It is probable that this is to be understood of Saint William the hermit.

b The Rougeval manuscript and the Appendix to Peter de Natalibus have "island."

c Cavalcantini in chapter 27 of his Life reports that it is now called Lupocavio; more on this below.

d Surius has "his perversity detested."

e Cavalcantini in chapter 29 of his Life places Monte Pruno near the town of Burcano, of which more presently.

CHAPTER II

The temptations of demons overcome. Consolations given by the appearing Virgin Mother of God.

[4] On a certain night, therefore, when he was alone in his cell keeping vigil over his meditations in his customary fiery manner He is assailed by demons. and passing the night intent upon prayers, it happened that Satan envied him. He envied and was present, nor was the fraudulent multitude of unclean satellites absent. And he whom he had not been able at other times to soften from the rigor of his holy purpose by himself, either secretly or openly, he schemed — surrounded by an innumerable multitude of demons — to assail by temptation. They assembled, therefore, as one against the servant of the Lord, in order to conquer by multitude him whom they could not conquer by strength. At the first watch of the night, therefore, when he had risen at the beginning of his vigils and had poured out his heart like water before the Lord, he suddenly heard an army of approaching demons who, as if occupying the entire valley, were heard resounding with the trappings of horses and the sounds of bells. Now you would believe you heard animals crying out: now you would hear birds chattering with varied songs: now they hissed like serpents: now they trumpeted like elephants: now they roared like lions: already the whole forest resounded with the howls of combatants: already the entire valley echoed with the clashing of warriors: now the whole wood rang with the cries of fowlers and hunters. Drawing nearer, moreover, they surrounded his cell, and in the form of a crown, Satan and his satellites encircled a revived David. 1 Sam. 23:26 Then in wondrous fashion around his cell, in military fashion, they began to joust and to fight in mock combat, dueling one against the other: of whom one, more illustrious than the rest and stronger in might, Even in the likeness of his father: appeared in the likeness of his own father and began to speak to William with a great outcry:

[5] "Behold your aging parent, my son William; come forth at once, at your father's entreaty. Sprung of no humble stock, look upon me, my son; do not despise my vows and my loving prayers. Come forth, William: for swiftly through me you can regain your lands and dowries, estates and kingdoms. Already you have served enough; the glory of Christ awaits you: you shall not be able to lose your rewards; you shall be safe. Now follow your father; now at last have pity on yourself; return to your own; let your heart be moved. Behold, the offspring of our race stands here, and a throng of brothers, with whom you are accustomed to sport often in the arena. Look upon your sorrowing brothers with their bands of kinsmen: come forth, do not stand apart, but join yourself to them. You shall be united with them; you shall enjoy pomp and throne: the crowd of your race shall surround you; you shall be blessed. A throng of splendid squires shall glorify you: and an abundant company of servants shall provide you with a chorus. The band of your grandchildren waits to see you in your grief: grant at least this remedy, we beseech you. My son, what do you gain by falling through fickleness of mind? It is not the mark of a great soul to wish to perish by hiding. Do thoughts of seeking vile things and spurning joys gnaw at you? Behold, sad things are pleasing to you, and prosperity disgusts you. You bear iron, heat, hunger, cold, and bondage, and neither your flowering youth moves you, nor natural affection. Setting aside, therefore, your madness, obey me in your right mind: do not delay, but return swiftly yourself."

[6] These and similar things the prince of demons was suggesting and urging in the ears of the illustrious Prince, He remains unmoved. but the soldier of Christ made little of the deceptive words. For although he had been somewhat terrified by unheard-of and unprecedented monstrous apparitions, protected by the fortitude of God, he answered absolutely nothing to these things. Neither did terrors shake his mind, firm in the Lord, nor did blandishments seduce it. The devil, therefore, seeing that his ingenuity prevailed in nothing, and unable to bear that his hidden fraud was despised, turned to such open violence as he was permitted. The angels of Satan also were grieved at being mocked by William — they who had come not to be mocked but rather to mock. And breaking open the doors of the little cell, they boldly entered in a copious multitude and, dragging him outside the dwelling, He is savagely beaten. beat him fiercely with blows. When all the members of his body had been crushed and shattered by the wicked band — hammering upon his back — they departed, leaving him half-dead and barely breathing.

[7] When the satellites of malice had withdrawn and the workers of darkness had vanished, the Father of mercies deigned to console His athlete in his tribulation, He is healed by the appearing Virgin Mother of God, and the merciful Lord, who knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and according to the multitude of sorrows in his heart, gladdened his soul with manifold consolation. For suddenly three maidens were sent to tend his wounds — shining with inestimable noble beauty, carrying with them precious ointments. Of these, one shone more illustriously than the others and was more lovely of countenance, and she encouraged the soldier of Christ, soothing him more gently with the sweetest speech. This was — as was afterward learned from his own account — the Mother of God, Lady of the world, Queen of heaven, the Virgin Mary. Rightly is the Queen of Angels sent to him from heaven, who was striving to shine with angelic purity on earth. Justly indeed did the Son of God send His corporeal Mother to heal His spiritual mother on earth. Matt. 12:50 "Whoever," He says, "shall do the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother." The aforesaid Virgins, therefore, kindled a vehement fire around the wounded man with wondrous swiftness, and having sweetly warmed his body, they gently anointed him. O the wondrous sweetness of the ointment! O the wondrous efficacy of those who anointed! O the wondrous swiftness of the anointing and healing! For with all speed they restored him to his former health, and thus, having saluted and exhorted him, they departed. Happy the bruise that the loving hand of a maiden binds up; happy the fracture that a virginal palm makes whole; happy the wound that the finger of the Mother of God anoints and heals. Truly, holy Father, the former distresses should no longer be held in memory, which such great consolations of the Virgin — both outward and inward — have mitigated. What shall we suspect your state of mind to have been, when your sense of smell was nourished by the outpouring of fragrances, your hearing was refreshed by the Virgin's address, your sight was restored by the admiration of so great a beauty, your touch was soothed by the sprinkling of so great a sweetness? Henceforth, in dangers, in distresses, in doubtful matters, you can more confidently invoke Mary, more devoutly think upon her, more joyfully greet her: nor should she ever depart from your heart or slip from your lips. And we indeed, your little servants, if the winds of tribulation rise, if the rivers of temptation, if the rocks of persecution — after the Son, this alone remains to us: to direct our eyes toward the bosom of her mercy. In her other virtues we rejoice with her: but mercy is more sweetly savored by the wretched; we embrace mercy more dearly, we recall it more often, we invoke it more frequently. Who can fathom the length, breadth, height, and depth of her mercy? She has become all things to all people: to the wise and the foolish alike she has made herself a debtor through the most copious charity; she opens to all the token of mercy, that all may draw from her fullness — she whose praise no tongue suffices to proclaim. We see, therefore, that the victory in so great a contest and the consolatory restoration bear no small resemblance to the ancient struggle of Father Anthony. The secret of so sweet a vision, however, he wished to reveal to no one as long as he lived, except to his sole attendant at that time, a man named Peter, who was afterward made Prior of Monte Pruno, and who strove to govern his house worthily enough according to the pattern shown to him on the mountain. To this man alone, the spurner of perishable glory could not refuse — he who had received knowledge and a sign of this matter by diligently observing something done within, as a zealous investigator of his master.

a Surius: "resounded with rattles."

b The same: "to clash with lances and contend in single combat for the victory."

c Our manuscript: "by gentleness."

d This is the first citation of his own testimony, so that from this point there is greater certainty that it concerns Saint William the hermit.

e These words are largely taken from the Homilies of Saint Bernard on the Gospel "Missus est," especially the second homily.

CHAPTER III

Various migrations. His final dwelling at Stabilimento di Rodi.

[8] Meanwhile the devil, seeing that his cunning prevailed in nothing — whether secretly or openly — to seduce the man of God, He suffers much from false brothers, contrived through others what he could not accomplish by himself. For since he strives to be hostile to all who serve God, and is unable — with the Lord rescuing them — to work malice against those of devout strength, he is accustomed to lay snares through the ministries of others. The ancient serpent, therefore, turning to a sharper injury and a less tolerable combat, knew it to be written that no plague is more effective for doing harm than a familiar enemy. And so he put it into the hearts of the companions and false brothers who were dwelling with him, that they should ceaselessly assail him with the envy of the heart, insults of the mouth, and annoyances and injuries of deeds: He returns to the forest of Livalia, and so it was done. After he had long-sufferingly endured the persecutions of the malicious for a long time, he at last yielded to their wickedness, departed, and returned to the forest of Livalia, where he had previously built the hospice. But the Brothers of that same place, at the instigation of the devil, persecuted him no less — indeed even more than before — and they began to mock him with insults and to saturate him with reproaches. The reproaches of those who reproached Elisha fell upon him, because his life was utterly unlike their deeds.

[9] When, therefore, he was thinking of humbly escaping the deadly poison of envy, being weak and frail of body, he began to be in anguish about where to go. Thence to Monte Petritio. And behold, suddenly, as he himself was afterward accustomed to relate, a voice sounded to him from heaven, which commanded him to go to Monte Petritio near Castiglione Burianense. Without delay, to comply with the command of the one who ordered — although weak in his limbs and most feeble in body — and to Castiglione, he girded himself at once and at length gradually arrived at the named place. And when he had sat there quietly and alone for some days, many shepherds came upon him, who from the whole neighborhood assembled there more frequently on appointed days. Unable to bear the frequency and disturbance of these men, the solitary man departed thence, and having surveyed the surrounding area, he at length arrived at Castiglione, where for the love and in the sight of Jesus Christ he was most honorably received by a certain gentle man who was an inhabitant of that place, and he stayed in his house, lodging there for many days. That man was honorable, having a wife and household, and he possessed a moderate sufficiency of temporal goods. Both were just in the sight of the Lord, as is read of the parents of the Precursor, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord. Luke 1:6 With these people William stayed for a long time as their guest, charitably sustained by their goods.

[10] It happened, moreover, at the time of the vintage, that being sick and fasting, around the ninth hour of the day he said to his hostess: He frees his hostess from a fever by his prayers. "Behold," he said, "worn out by long bodily pain, the heat of the season, and the burden of continuous fasting, I am wasting away, and I greatly fear lest I fail through my own neglect. I therefore humbly beseech you to take care to prepare something for me for the evening meal." To this she replied: "As the Lord lives and as your soul lives, I cannot serve you today, being prostrated most grievously by the affliction of a fever. The will indeed lies ready within me, but to carry it out I do not find the means." Immediately he, deeply compassionate for the sufferings of his hostess, invoked the name of Christ over her, and with all speed the fever was driven from the woman and her former health was restored. Without delay she rose at the man of God's command and diligently, faithfully, and devoutly prepared the food she had been ordered to make: not only on that day but as best she could, she served him thereafter all the days of her life. This she herself, glorifying the Lord in His servant, was accustomed to relate to others — not ungrateful, even when asked by no one.

[11] After these things, the truly humble man, wishing to be considered worthless and not to be proclaimed as wonderful, He comes to Stabilimento di Rodi, and being unable to bear the praise of himself among those for whom he had performed such a sign, did not consent to tarry longer. And departing secretly, he proceeded to the church of Saint Nicholas, and there he remained for a short time with the venerable man Guido, a priest. Not long afterward, relying on his kindness and assistance, he was introduced into the valley called Stabilimento di Rodi, to dwell there. Now Stabilimento di Rodi was a certain wilderness, utterly uncultivated and very horrible. There he received himself in a deserted land, in a place of horror and vast solitude, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1155, in the month of September. With the aid of the noblemen, lords of the castle of Buriano, and of the said Lord Guido the priest, there was erected for the man of God, as he himself wished and desired, a small hovel and a mean hut in the place called Stabilimento di Rodi. He builds a hut. There he survived for nearly a year and a half, and living in the utmost poverty, led the most austere life. This was the last abode and station of the man of God. There he committed his body to the earth and his spirit to eternal rest. There he could sing to the Lord — the just man with the Just One, the Count with the King: "You have held my right hand, and by Your will You have led me, and with glory You have received me." There he entered in such innocence, lived in such simplicity, and remained in such purity of soul that he dwelt secure, unharmed, and untouched among wild beasts, serpents, and dragons. He lives with wild beasts and brute animals. The birds of the sky fed with him; the most ferocious beasts, having as it were laid aside their natural rage, were rendered tame, and doing him no harm, they reverenced him as if endowed with reason: the animals, however wild, kissed his sacred footsteps, prostrate upon the ground; and all creeping things, obedient to his command, went and returned. You would say it was Elijah among the ravens, a sheep of Christ among wolves, Lazarus among the dogs, Daniel among the lions, Moses among the serpents, David among the bears, Joseph among the Egyptians, Benedict among the birds. Not undeservedly did he have a certain resemblance to all the Saints, he who was filled with the spirit of all the just. There also he began to shine with the spirit of prophecy, as the following passages will show.

[12] In those same times there was Saint Albert, of whom we made mention in the Prologue — a youth of good character, the servant of the man of God, steeped in his teaching, walking with him, going in and going out, and eating with him as a close companion. He receives Albert as disciple and writer of the Life. Foreseeing him in the spirit to be a man destined for spiritual greatness and virtue, he received him on the holy day of Epiphany as a disciple and brother, to serve the Lord with him. Whence in the booklet which the said Lord Albert composed in summary from what he perceived by sight and hearing concerning the Life of the Father, he says among other things: "After this, at the time of Epiphany, I, the useless and unworthy Albert, weighed down by the stain of many vices, was received by his holiness." Nor was the man of desires defrauded of his desire, since his disciple made such progress that he afterward became the father of many sons. For to such a degree did the disciple become an emulator of the master for the better, that he became a wondrous worker of signs and wonders. "From his own account, concerning the Life and miracles of Father William, we have learned many things which we deemed worthy of insertion into the present work. These are to be held by us with undoubted faith all the more certainly, inasmuch as they were more diligently related by one who saw and heard them." And as we said from the beginning, he was burning in words, shining in examples, and gleaming in miracles. And since examples of deeds are accustomed to move more than the words of speech, let us begin with words, proceed to deeds, and conclude with signs. The words of Blessed William, therefore, were of this kind, as his aforesaid disciples reported — Blessed Albert and the venerable Peter, Prior of Monte Pruno — who saw his deeds with their own eyes and heard his discourses with their own ears.

a Castiglione Burianense is today Buriano, just as Castiglione della Pescaia is likewise in the territory of Siena near the sea, and the lordship of Populonia.

b Thus the manuscripts and Silvius; but Surius has "a sufficient mediocrity."

c This is the second testimony brought forward concerning the events.

d How poorly this year agrees with the preceding ones. In the Rougeval manuscript the year 1150 is noted, with an even greater error.

e Albert is falsely invented by others to have been formerly the secretary of William, Duke of Aquitaine, and thus to have always been present with Saint William; he was also taken for Saint Albert of the Camaldolese, as we said above at number 63.

f Would that this booklet still existed! Hence the events of the last year are held by us to be more certain. From that booklet the Antiphons and Responsories seem to have been composed, from which we gave the epitome of the Life above.

g That is, in his booklet, concerning the last days and the miracles.

h This seems to be Peter, to whom above he entrusted the hospice in Livalia, who also seems to have been produced by Albert in the Life as a witness.

CHAPTER IV

The various exercise of virtues.

[13] He thinks modestly of himself. First of all, therefore, in the manner of religious men, Blessed William constantly professed himself useless and unworthy for all things, because in the sight of the Lord not even the heavens are clean, as we read in Job. Job 15:15 Nor did he only declare by outward speech that he was a wicked servant in need of correction, but he felt it also in the inmost affection of his heart. He was no longer a deaf hearer of the Gospel, in which the Savior commanded His disciples: "When you shall have done all the things that are commanded you, say: 'We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were bound to do.'" Luke 17:10 Nor was it strange that he reproved himself before the Lord, because the higher the mental acuity with which one contemplates God, the more intimately one searches out the awareness of one's own smallness. Whence Abraham, after the summit of divine familiarity, confessed himself to be dust. Gen. 18:27 Moses, after the miracle of the bush, protested himself to be of impeded speech. Exod. 4:10 Isaiah, after the delight of hearing the Seraphic chorus, declared himself to be of polluted lips. Isa. 6:5 Job also, after hearing the divine judgment, reproved himself in dust and ashes. Job 42:6 Finally, the Virgin Mary, after the privilege of election as Mother of God, professed herself a humble handmaid. Luke 1:38 From all of these is established the irrefragable truth that has been stated — namely, that where there is greater familiarity with God and keener perspicacity of divine knowledge, He prescribes a rule for diet, there is a clearer and deeper knowledge of one's own smallness, and humility.

[14] He also asserted that the servant of God ought to drink water by measure and that it was not permitted to fulfill the will of the body even in the least things. He restricted food and drink to necessity alone and condemned excess even in mean things. He brought forward an example and confirmed it with the testimonies of the Scriptures. "Under Adam," he said, "it was through an apple, not a turbot, that universal ruin came about. Esau was rejected for craving the food of lentils, not of meat. Under Moses the people were laid low in the desert on account of their desire for water, not wine." Prayer is to be joined with external labor. Furthermore, concerning both kinds of life and for the seasoning of both the inner and outer man, he drew a teaching at once brief and long — brief in syllables, long in meaning. He said, therefore, in the teaching divinely infused into him, that the servant of God ought always either to pray, or to labor, or to meditate upon heavenly things. If you look at the surface of the words, they are very simple; if you turn inward to the marrow, a manifold spiritual understanding lies hidden. Not without reason did he place prayer first, because "it behooves us always to pray and not to faint," as the Truth says in the Gospel. Fittingly he added labor, because idleness is the enemy of the soul, and because "he who does not labor," according to the Apostle, "shall not eat." And rightly he concluded with the meditation upon heavenly things, because in the meditation of the just man the fire of charity is kindled. Therefore the just man sang to the Lord: "And let the words of my mouth be such as may please, and the meditation of my heart always in Your sight." Luke 18:1 2 Thess. 3:10 Ps. 18:15 I have said but little, and on account of the sublimity of the discourse, every exposition falls short.

[15] After this, he urged that sin should not reign in our mortal body, and he proclaimed woe to those who obey their concupiscences. He rebuked idleness, reproved avarice, despised vainglory, and condemned lasciviousness; he detested envy, banished detraction, abominated murmuring: He exhorts to the flight from vices, that pride must be suffocated and anger restrained, he urged by deeds and words. That the boasting of riches must be shunned and voluntary poverty sought, he taught with his characteristic fervor of spirit. He said moreover that the servant of God ought at every hour to examine his thoughts, words, and deeds, lest in these he happen to offend the eyes of the Creator. He taught also that spiritual men should flee drowsiness, that their bed should be hard, rigid, and short, lest they be able freely to stretch themselves as they wished. He added furthermore that, with all superfluities cut away, the body should be indulged only in necessities, the rule of voluntary poverty being preserved. "How many brothers," he said, "in Egypt, for how many years served the Lord without fish? For how many tyrants now placed in hell would the sack of Jerome, the tunic of Benedict, the little mat of Eulalius, the tears of Arsenius, the nakedness of the Apostle, the pot of Elisha — would these abundantly suffice outside of hell? But woe to us wretches," he said, "who, enervated in the fortitude of the mind and weighed down by the frailty of the body, convert superfluity into necessity. There is no longer any room for charity to enter where vanity has occupied everything." He also warned that one must never complain about any necessity, tribulation, or injury, nor in any way incur the mark of murmuring: but that whatever happens must be borne with equanimity, and in all things thanks must be given to the divine generosity, whose gifts these are. He urged that priests be honored in the place of Christ, and the honor of priests, that their precepts be obeyed in all things, that their commands not be questioned, that their deeds not be judged, that one's own will should in no way be placed before theirs or in any way prejudice them. To priests, however, he urged that the proper Prelate should be set above, and obedience to the spiritual Father should be rendered even unto death — unless, God forbid, he should appear to command something against God. For no one's command can oppose what God has forbidden, and no one's prohibition can prejudice His precepts. Behold, these are the words of his mouth: which, though plain, were nevertheless catholic and most useful, and he dispensed them to his hearers from the most bountiful fountain of his heart. Albert was accustomed to relate that he had seen him practicing these aforesaid things more by deed than persuading by word. And concerning his deeds and works, he himself relates what follows.

[16] First of all, Blessed William prayed constantly for his past crimes, He tames the flesh with fasting, and for their expiation he very frequently wept. And just as by sinning he had made his members serve iniquity unto iniquity, so by doing penance he compelled those same members to serve justice unto sanctification. And just as the wretched daughter of Babylon — that is, the flesh — had dealt with him, so he strove in his penance to repay it with its own retribution. And because he had bitten himself into sins through the delight of the flesh, now that same flesh, afflicted, was returning to seek pardon: to such a degree did he torment his flesh with hunger and his body with deprivation. As much as he had glorified himself and lived in delights, so much torment and grief did he give himself. Every day, even on feast days, he fasted, and after prolonged fasts he refreshed his weakened limbs with a small and simple meal. Three days of the week he refreshed himself with a little pottage and a small amount of wine, according to the teaching of the Apostle — but so diluted with water that, the flavor being entirely blown away, it retained only the color of wine. 1 Tim. 5:23 On the remaining days he lived on water and bread, adding to these raw herbs as seasoning. For the measure of food he had a certain small bowl, and for the quantity of drink a wooden cup: with haircloth, sleeping on the ground: to such a degree did he take food and drink in measured and moderate amounts. He never exceeded the quantity of the appointed moderation, but rather often voluntarily subtracted something from that measure: so much so that by withdrawing bodily comforts, he desired spiritual things more and more. "For blessed are they who hunger and thirst after justice, for they shall be filled." For thus the firstborn of Israel are preserved alive, while the firstborn of Egypt are slain by the destroyer. The man of God employed this discipline of restraint constantly until the end of his life. Scarcely could anyone find a man of such great abstinence, as his attendants reported, even if one were to traverse the regions of the whole world. Over the coat of mail he wore garments of haircloth day and night, in which, besides the harshness and cold, he was afflicted with such laceration that the abomination of horror would strike anyone who beheld it. He lay upon the bare ground, and with a piece of wood placed beneath his head, the true worshipper of Christ took his rest.

[17] Wondrous was his gentleness toward all, wondrous his charity, his patience, and his humility beyond human measure. His anger was in his hand: summoned, it came; going forth, it did not burst out: He restrains anger, it was carried by direction, not by impulse: commanded, not shaken loose, it advanced: he used it; he was not burned by it: he was moved by it; he was not disturbed. He presided over the interior motions of the soul as a master; he was subject to none as a slave. Whence Blessed Albert was accustomed to say of him: "I have never seen anyone of such great patience, such great humility, and such great frugality combined." Indeed, he composed the outer man according to the rule of the inner, doing all things according to the pattern that had been shown to him on the mountain. From the look of his face he was recognized as a man of understanding: He always wears the same countenance: to such a degree did wisdom shine forth in his countenance. His uniform visage was neither darkened by sorrow nor changed by vicissitude into different expressions. If the clothing of the body, the smile of the teeth, and the gait of a man proclaim something about him, truly in all things William could be declared a man of understanding. Of certain others, on the contrary, who live irrationally, it is said in the Psalm: "Let the nations know that they are men." A holy man is one who remains in wisdom like the sun, while the fool changes like the moon. Ps. 9:21 As he had often taught, he had established this rule for himself: always either to labor, to meditate, or to pray. For it is not credible that a holy man should live otherwise than he taught. In his very last illness, of which he also died, he was laboring: placed at the extremity, he lay upon his bed of pain: and yet, standing or sitting, he prayed unceasingly, and with his voice choked, he moved his lips with their motions: to such a degree did he sigh toward the things above with an unwearied spirit. But now, after the words and deeds of the holy man, let us turn our pen to his miracles — both those that preceded his death and those that followed.

a The things that are called below by Gregory IV the "Institutes of Saint William" are perhaps described here.

b Surius: "nor question them; not judge the defects of those men."

CHAPTER V

Miracles during his life. Prophecy.

[18] The first miracle, therefore, which the Lord wrought through His servant was the man himself. For if it is a wondrous thing to restore to health bodies or members of the body that will someday die, how much more wondrous is it to heal souls that will live without end? And if the justification of another ungodly man is miraculous, how much more so is one's own? For it is written: "Have pity on your own soul, pleasing God." Ecclus. 30:24 If it is a greater thing to make a godly man from an ungodly one than to create heaven and earth, does he not work a great miracle who by the grace of God frees himself from the depth of vices and, forgetting what lies behind, stretches forward to what lies ahead? Jas. 5:20 "He who causes a sinner to be converted from the error of his way shall save his soul from death," says the Apostle James, "and shall cover a multitude of sins." He therefore works a great miracle He converts himself from sins. who converts himself or another from sin. And the more wondrously, in my judgment, he works, the further into the region of dissimilitude he had departed. He who is pressed by the burden of poverty and want, who is placed in the lowliness of humility and the adversity of calamity, is not placed far from God: because the evils that oppress us here compel us to go to God. But the rich and noble man, powerful and harsh in prosperity, is placed the farther from salvation in proportion as the return of such men to conversion and lamentation is proved to be rarer. Isa. 46:11 Such was the conversion of William, whose recall was made from afar. For the Lord says through Isaiah: "Calling from the East a bird, and from a far country the man of My will." But since this miracle is sufficiently clear from what precedes, let us hasten now to what follows.

[19] In those days the holy Father, the man of the Lord William, with his disciple Albert, was sitting quietly and alone in his hermitage: He heals three fever-stricken girls with blessed bread. and a certain man named Michius carried provisions to him from Castiglione, out of charity, once or twice a week. This man's daughter was suffering from fevers, and she begged that bread be blessed by the man of God and brought to her out of charity. When the aforesaid Michius had opened this desire to the man of God with an entreaty of supplication, the man of God immediately refused, shunning any presumption, to send what was asked for: to such a degree did he consider himself a sinner and devoid of all virtues. But lest the common bearer be troubled — he who desired to see some sign — Saint Albert strove to interpose his own influence. He said that it was dangerous to refuse what was sought out of charity, and that this was nothing other than to hesitate about the mercy of the Almighty. When the blessed man — who was always fearful — had heard these words, he was terrified with dread, and bursting into groaning with streaming cheeks, he signed the bread that was offered to him and thus sent a piece in the name of the Lord to the fever-stricken girl. When tasted, it wrought the benefit of healing in the name of the Trinity for three girls who were suffering from fevers.

[20] At another time, when on a certain night he had summoned Albert to prayer in his usual manner, a small and very slender lamp, set near the roof, fell by accident upon the floor, dislodged by the gnawing of mice. And behold, the oil was lost and spilled, but by the wondrous will of God the vessel remained whole and unharmed. What nature possessed was shown by the pouring out of the oil; He preserves a falling lamp unharmed. but what the Creator could do was revealed by the preservation of the fragile lamp unbroken. Rising immediately, he fervently rebuked his disciple's drowsiness, and exalted the blessed name of Christ forever with hymns and praises.

[21] Nor should it be passed over that, as he hastened toward the most holy death of his body, he received the spirit of prophecy. Both were living as solitaries in one hut — disciple and master. William was sick unto death, and Albert was ministering to him as an attendant. And the disciple, knowing that the master was about to die, so as to be snatched away to the land of the living, tearfully spoke such words to him: On his deathbed he consoles his sorrowing disciple Albert. "Alas, alas, how do you desert your only son, Father? Will I be able to survive after you? Will I be able to remain alone in this dark solitude? If it happens that I depart, where shall I go? If it happens that I remain, what shall I do? Where shall I turn? I am utterly at a loss as to what I shall do, where I shall go, or what companions I shall have. Take thought, O Father, for your little sheep, which you have kept until now so carefully. If you do not shrink from abandoning it desolate, do you think it will be able to escape the bites of wolves? If the shepherd withdraws and departs, the lurking wolf approaches and attacks: and it is a wonder if the solitary sheep proceeds safely and escapes. Most loving Father, do not leave me alone; do not abandon me desolate. For the sake of your companionship alone I had left my parents and all earthly things, and in my heart your sole gracious presence outweighed all that I had abandoned. What then shall become of me, wretched as I am, if I lose you, for whose sake alone I left everything?" At these words William, bearing loving compassion over his son, gently consoled him, saying among other things: "Endure, my son, for a little while; endure and do not lament, because before my spirit departs from my body, the Lord will provide to send you a companion better than I." He said this, and after this, resting, he survived for some time longer.

[22] After a short while, the disciple, perceiving according to his own judgment that the death of his master was imminent, began once more to cry out, saying: "Behold, Father, you are dying, and you do not fear to make your promise to me void. He foretells that a companion will come. Why do you make what has proceeded from your lips so void, leaving me solitary and surviving in this life? Behold, you are now passing beyond the present age and deserting me, your solitary servant." To whom the master again said with confidence: "Be steadfast: I have told you, 'Endure a little while'; do not take it hard: the one whom you desire will come himself." Scarcely had Blessed William finished speaking, when the disciple went out of the hut, and there arrived Reinald — an illustrious and prudent man, most skilled in medicine and abounding in worldly pleasures — who had formerly been Albert's companion in the schools. Upon seeing him, Albert ran joyfully to embrace him, and they greeted each other in a familiar manner with words of peace. Then Reinald said privately to Albert: "I grieve, my Brother, at the so imminent passing of your master." For he had learned from the mouth of the attendant that death was at the doors. And he added: "I had desired entirely to bid farewell to the world and to abandon all worldly things for the sake of Christ and to lead the solitary life with you." At this word, Albert, falling to the ground with jubilation and exultation of heart, bent his knee, and raising his eyes and hands to heaven, said with tears: "I give You thanks, God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who have come to the aid of my unbelief and have deigned to fulfill the promise of my Father." And turning to Reinald, he said: "Do not fear, Brother. I am ready to obey you in all things, and the Lord will govern us — He who is ready to assist all who trust in Him. Go, therefore, quickly; do not delay; commit yourself into the hands of my master before he passes from us to eternal joys." When this had been accomplished by the Lord's providence, the man of God prophetically spoke to Reinald words that were true but brief: "Go," he said, "do not delay to return, my son, and take courage, and do not lose confidence: for the spirit of mammon will strive with all its might to draw you backward from your holy purpose." Having said these things, Reinald departed, and afterward returned.

a We judge these things more probable, and from them the occasion seems to have been seized for fabricating the earlier material.

b Surius: "the devout prayer of the messenger."

c This Reinald is invented by others to have been the physician of the Duke of Aquitaine and thus to have always been present with Saint William.

CHAPTER VI

The death of Saint William: his burial.

[23] He orders a priest to be brought. After these things, Blessed William, knowing that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father, since he had loved penance as long as he had lived, he loved it to the end. It entered his mind, therefore, to send Albert at daybreak to Castiglione quickly for a priest, who would impose penance upon him at the last. When the command had been given to the disciple, so great a horror and dread of cold seized him that the words of a teacher can scarcely express it. For a most severe cold, with the north wind blowing more harshly than usual, had set in; excessive frost had gripped the rocky path; dense snow had covered everything and whitened the way. But the disciple, strengthened by his master, left his shoes behind and with bare and tender feet began to go: distrusting, however, he trembled to obey, though anxious about the command. But O the wondrous faith of the master, which overcame the doubting hesitation of the disciple! No force of cold or snow harmed him at all, or saddened him, or caused him any distress. He had, moreover, unknowingly left above his master's head, before going to the priest, a tiny bit of burning candle, which upon returning with the priest he found still burning as before and in no way diminished — by the sole miracle of Almighty God. William then duly received all the Sacraments of Christ from the hand of the priest, He is fortified by the Sacraments of the Church. with that reverence and devotion with which he spiritually received them from the Spirit of the Lord.

[24] Afterward, as the hour of his departure approached, suddenly — though it may seem incredible — the pallor that had crept over his body from the haircloth, the iron, the filth, and the deprivation, completely departed; and with his face glorified and his eyes joyful, a color hitherto unseen appeared. From then on there was working in him He whose Father works until now and who Himself works unceasingly — our Lord Jesus Christ, "who will reform the body of our lowliness, made like to the body of His glory." He who was dead seemed to live, and he who was alive seemed dead — he for whom to live had been Christ and death was counted as gain. Afterward, Albert, knowing that all things were now consummated and that what concerned his master was reaching its end, began to intone the antiphon that is said at the departure of the dying: "Come to his aid, O Saints of God," etc. The venerable priest, whom he had summoned from Castiglione for the imposition of penance, also chanted with him; and in order to see the end, he had remained with the two solitaries. He himself, however, passing to the Father, lay in their midst, and with unwavering eyes and hands directed upward, he suspended his invincible spirit in prayer with groans and inexpressible sighs. Meanwhile Albert, preparing the funeral rites, wept while singing and sang while weeping, because he was not ignorant that it is a holy and wholesome thing to pray for the dead and to shed tears over the departed. When they had come to that place — "Come forth, Angels of the Lord" — his spirit went forth, He happily falls asleep in the Lord. and it returned to the Lord who had given it; and when his holy soul was loosed from the flesh, he was gathered to his fathers, walking with God and falling asleep in the Lord. Thus dying in peace he sustained a most quiet death, so that no signs could mark the instant or the moment in which he breathed forth his spirit. In the act of dying he seemed more to be sleeping than dying: after the event, more to be drowsing than lifeless. For there did not occur to him, as is customary, any bristling of the hair, no wrinkling of the brow, no hollowing of the eyes, no contraction of the nostrils, no collapse of the nose, no gaping of the mouth, no loosening of the teeth. His feet were extended and placed together; his arms were lowered and marked with the sign of the cross; all his senses were upright and, as it were, lifted into the air. He had recovered the brightness of color in his face, as in the days of his youth, and all the discoloration of sun and tribulation had departed. By the Sun of justice, Christ the Lord, this was done, and it is wondrous in our eyes.

[25] When Albert, together with the priest, saw that the true Israel had died, he fell upon his face, stricken in spirit, and holding the feet of the true Jacob, embracing his sacred footsteps, he reverently kissed them. Gen. 50:1 Again the grief of his solitary abandonment was reopened; again the Father was entreated concerning the delay of his promise. But he had entered into the powers of the Lord and had now become more powerful to obtain what was asked. He did not, therefore, allow his disciple to be defrauded of his expectation for long. For Reinald, having distributed all his possessions to the poor, Reinald, a distinguished physician, becomes a follower of Saint William, continually turned over in his burning mind what he had heard and seen from the man of God, and soon after his death, returning to Albert, he fulfilled what he had promised to God. Nevertheless, the most grievous persecutions of demons, in accordance with the prophecy of Saint William, were not absent in the first days of his conversion: and when these assailed him, he would immediately flee to the tomb of the man of God. And as long as he was there, as he afterward related, he feared no harassment from the enemy, but remained more secure in that great protection than among crowds of friends.

[26] After this, the body of Blessed William was prepared for burial by the disciple and the priest in the manner of Christians, and in the little garden which he himself, while he lived, had cleared with his own hands, that most holy clod of earth — more precious than gold — was committed to the ground. In which place an oratory was afterward built in humble fashion, where the Lord always bestows manifold benefits upon the sick and those afflicted with various ailments, and the Lord is near to the petitions of all who devoutly invoke Blessed William. There sight is restored to the blind, hearing to the deaf, the power of walking to the lame, cleanliness to lepers, recovery to the ailing, speech to the mute: there madness is taken from the deranged and health is restored. And in general, all who cry out in whatever tribulation, all who hasten to that place in whatever necessity, feel that the patronage of Saint William has been present for them. In the year of the Incarnate Word 1156, therefore, on the fourth day before the Ides of February, When he died. William, man of God, illustrious and magnificent Duke and Count, died and was buried at Stabilimento di Rodi — the Lord crowning his spirit in heaven and adorning on earth the sepulcher of his body with the following signs.

a Thus the manuscripts and Silvius. But Surius has "the shutting of the mouth." Horripilare, moreover, is to raise the hairs on end in a more bristling fashion. So in book 3 of Apuleius: "ears bristle with enormous growths."

b Which year, understood as beginning from Easter in the manner then customary among the French, corresponds to the following year.

c Here end the Acts published by Surius: we supply the remainder from manuscripts.

THE REMAINDER FROM MANUSCRIPTS.

William the Hermit, at Stabilimento di Rodi in Etruria (Saint)

By Theobald, from manuscripts.

CHAPTER VII

The glory of Saint William revealed. The sick and the demon-possessed healed.

[27] Of which miracles we recite some, though not all, in this little work, following Albert as a most faithful narrator, for the accumulation of divine praise, the commendation of His Saint, and the stirring up of the reader's devotion — that from a few we may begin to discern many, from similar things similar, and from the least the greatest. After the passing of Blessed William, the mother of Albert, grieving at having lost the son whom she loved most dearly, sought the absent one more diligently wherever in the world she could, The mother of Albert and led by natural affection — which does not become accustomed to the contrary — she went about the sea and the dry land, searching with the mourning of an only child and bitter lamentation, although she had already fallen into old age: and having traversed long stretches of lands, she at last happened to arrive at the oratory of Saint William. There, having found her son and being weary from the journey, she stayed for some time for the sake of rest, and often spending the night alone, she gave herself to prayer at the tomb of the man of God. And she confessed that she had seen Blessed William, [She saw Saint William among Angels, singing psalms, illuminated by heavenly light,] in human form, surrounded by heavenly choirs, singing psalms there at night with sweet-sounding voices: and he was shining with so great a splendor among those angelic spirits and everlasting fires that the excellence of the light dazzled the woman's senses. The devout woman could scarcely direct the gaze of her eyes toward the psalm-singers: to such a degree did that radiance of the ministers of flame appear to scatter the sight. For it is not fitting that those be placed in darkness who are known to have distanced themselves from the works of darkness, and who through the mouth of the Psalmist are compared to burning fire. Ps. 103:4 And a certain one of them, when he wished to appoint the great patriarch Moses over the people, chose to appear in a bush that was burning and not consumed. What wonder concerning the Angels if, wherever they descend, they set the place alight with surrounding brightness, since it is written of men that wherever Israel was, there was light? Exod. 10:23 Let it therefore be incredible to no one that at the approach of citizens of the heavenly city, the sepulcher of the holy man was irradiated with the splendor of gleaming brightness. And what is more, the aforesaid woman, who was entirely in need of fire, lit her lamp by the rays of that radiance, and as long as she remained there, she made use of the comfort of that fire. This was done by the Lord, and it is wondrous in our eyes.

[28] We have heard in truth that the valley in which the body of Saint William lies The valley of Stabilimento di Rodi, from barren, becomes fertile: was before his arrival so uncultivated, dark, and terrifying that access was prohibited to hunters, shepherds, and indeed anyone. And every year a putrid mist with the most violent storm would cover the entire plain of Castiglione, and devastating the crops and planted vineyards — so that the land was considered barren — would issue forth from that very valley. But after it pleased the Lord to visit the aforesaid valley through His servant, that mist and barrenness in no way appeared, but rather the greatest fertility was thenceforth manifest.

[29] By the aid of Saint William, one suffering from epilepsy is healed. In the neighboring village of Castiglione, a certain girl was suffering wretchedly from a most grievous disease called epilepsy: but having been led to the sepulcher of the man of God, she was freed with all speed through the grace of God.

[30] Another woman from the same village was there released from frenzy — Another from frenzy, or, as is more believed, from a demon — and with great devotion the sacred tomb was covered by her with her own cloak.

[31] In the village called Alma, a most noble woman, born from the castle of Vignale, was dwelling, A demoniac, but she was severely tormented by a demon. For, seized by the demon, she would now throw herself into the sea, now think within herself how she might be killed — whether by fire, or sword, or any kind of death — as she herself afterward related to her household. Having been led, therefore, to the sepulcher of the man of God and presented to his great holiness, she was immediately restored to serenity of mind.

[32] A certain woman, deprived of sight and advanced in years, was traveling from the borders of Tuscany and was returning from prayer at the shrine of Blessed Peter, chief of the Apostles. A blind woman. It happened, moreover, in those days that she received a vision in her sleep: that she should hasten to the hermitage of Saint William — which is situated among the mountains near Castiglione Burianense — in order to receive there the light of her eyes. When she had arrived there, she washed her eyes with the holy water itself, and immediately before the sacred sepulcher the divine power restored her sight, so that she could say with the blind man of the Gospel: "I went, and I washed, and I see." John 9:11, 20 And again: "One thing I know: that whereas I was blind, now I see."

[33] In the castle of Campagnatico, a poor widow had been keeping her only son for many years so contracted that he could neither turn himself on his side nor take food with his own hand. A contracted man. When she, roused by the clamors of report, learned the rumors of the miracles of Blessed William, she immediately devoutly devoted her contracted son — useless in all his members — to God and to His Saint William. What more? Immediately in his own home he recovered completely from his infirmity: there is no doubt that the faith of the mother merited this for her absent and distant son.

[34] A certain herdsman named Dominic, contracted throughout his entire body, had himself carried to the sepulcher of the man of God: Another contracted man, where, having been brought according to the desire of his heart, the Lord in His wondrous power immediately healed him. Inflamed with the zeal of charity who becomes a monk: and stirred by so wondrous a benefit of his own recovery, he received the religious habit with the Brothers in that same dwelling.

[35] Nor should it be passed over that a certain Florentine named Peter was so struck by epilepsy Another healed of epilepsy, that after each attack he was deprived of sense and speech for eight days or more. He hung a piece of the coat of mail of Blessed William most devoutly around his neck and felt himself freed instantly. Immediately, in wondrous fashion, he was so inflamed with the devotion of charity that, having sold all he possessed in the world and distributed it to the needy, then a monk, illustrious for miracles: he followed the Lord along the path of poverty: and he extended himself to such great progress in religious life that he merited to shine forth with manifest signs.

[36] A certain girl of Grosseto was being cruelly scourged by a demon. But she, fleeing through various churches, devoutly sought the aid of salvation. A demoniac. But the Lord, often not hearing according to the will in order that He may hear for salvation, was delaying the remedy she sought. At length, already weary, she consulted the Bishop of that same city, who effectively counseled her to set out for the hermitage of Saint William. She went and devoutly sat by the shrine of Saint William, and having poured forth supplications, she gave herself for a long time to lamentation. And behold, suddenly two demons, terrible in appearance, came forth lamenting through her mouth: and all who were present sang praises of exultation to God and to His servant.

[37] Another unhappy girl, for seven years, on account of the chains of her sins, had been handed over to a most unclean demon: Another sinful woman possessed by a demon, who, hearing the miracles of Blessed William proclaimed, had not so much arrived as run from distant parts: and hoping confidently for salvation, she boldly presented herself before the sacred tomb. But in truth the malign spirit had ensnared her with the fetter of a certain incestuous sin, and having entered that vessel together with the sin, he had resolved by no means to depart without his companion. Moreover, the wretched woman — hostess to both — had not proposed to reveal her sin to her confessor: for perhaps the demon himself was laboring toward this end. But the power of God, who saves those who hope in Him, compelled the demon, so that in the hearing of all he said: "Let her receive penance for her sin, and I shall depart without delay." Hearing this, all who were present After confession of sins recognized that it had been said by the mercy of God: and they at length with difficulty effectively induced the woman to receive penance for her crimes. And O the wondrous power of confession! O the wondrous salvation of one who confesses! She is freed. For suddenly, through a vomiting of blood with an intolerable stench and a horrible cry, she expelled the unclean spirit. Those standing around heard the demon raging terribly and wailing tearfully over the loss of its dwelling. Certain pilgrims also met the same spirit as they approached the hermitage of the Saint, and when they had asked who he was, saying nothing and grieving, he began to flee along a bypath.

[38] It happened, moreover, shortly afterward, as the same girl was going forth beyond the precincts of the place, And again possessed, that a certain one of the Brothers saw the same or another unclean spirit in the form of a most hideous vulture, which, having immediately turned into the darkest smoke, entered through the nostrils of the wretched woman — now suffering worse things than before — the house whence it had departed, and she cried out with a pitiable voice as a sign of pain. Upon hearing her cry, Others praying for her, those who were standing within the church went out to her and quickly led her before the sepulcher of the holy man. Immediately all present — laity and clergy together — assembled as one, and with litanies, suppliant hands, and tearful voices they lifted up their prayers to the Lord for her deliverance. He heard them, inasmuch as it is impossible that the prayers of many go unheard, and He expelled the demon — conquered by His own power and by the presence of the sepulcher of the holy man. The demon went forth from the possessed body and spoke, murmuring the same thing with rancor: She is freed. "Take her," he said, "for I am compelled to depart. Woe to me, for I am thus trampled upon by William." Truly, he was not forsaken in the day of the wicked contest, and he himself trampled upon the head of the ancient serpent. Having seen these things, all who were present gave immense thanks to Almighty God in His Saint.

[39] A blind man. There was also a certain man without sight, who was perhaps blinded not for his own or his parents' sins — as is read of the blind man anointed with Christ's spittle — but so that the power of God might be glorified in him and the virtue of William might be manifested. For a long time he had been deprived of the light of his eyes. John 9:3 Stirred by the new miracles of William, according to the report of fame, he came to the place of burial through the guidance of another, and pouring forth the sighs of his prayers before the sacred altar, he began to pray from the depths of his heart in this manner: Having said his prayers, "Lord Jesus Christ, who descended into this world for the redemption of all, who sent Your servant to this place for the healing of many, through him I beseech You, most merciful one, that You would deign to give light to this sinner, so that having received it, I may glorify Your name continually, and that of Your Saint whom You have blessed." After saying this, immediately there fell from his eyes something like the scales of fish, and before the sepulcher he received his sight, He is given sight, without doubt through the intercession of William.

[40] Another man, though needy, had come devoutly with his small offering from afar to the oratory of the servant of God. He confessed that for eight years he had been so contracted in all his members A contracted and mute man. that he could scarcely bend himself to any side: and he had also lost his speech for five years, so that he was thought to be mute. He had frequently sought the aid of physicians and lavishly poured out his resources in their fees: but he had by no means recovered his health, to such a degree had he made no progress. He is healed. Immediately the merciful Lord, who makes a calm after the tempest and after long illnesses grants recovery, so restored him to perfect health before the sacred body — for the glory of His servant — that he scarcely retained even the memory of his former affliction.

a Leander in his Description of Italy, in maritime Tuscany, places opposite the island of Troia the mouth of the river Alma, flowing down from the hills, which gave its name to the village; then he connects it with Castiglione della Pescaia.

b The Utrecht manuscript has "Iugnali" — perhaps Orgiale, beyond the river Ombrone.

c Commonly known as Campagnatico, on the river Ombrone. Cavalcantini writes "Campagnastito."

d The Utrecht manuscript has "Praetoriarius."

e Grosseto, an episcopal city, under which Stabilimento di Rodi lies, as stated above.

CHAPTER VIII

Miracles wrought in fire, storms, lost articles, for captives, and for the sick.

[41] It happened at another time that the wood by which the oratory of the holy man is surrounded A nearby fire suffered a violent conflagration from a devouring fire, so much so that it enclosed both the church and the Brothers' cells on every side. Then the blessed minister and servant of the man of God, together with the other Brothers, seeing the grave danger and despairing of the deliverance of the place, trembled with fear and had absolutely no idea what counsel to take. In the crisis of that day they did not so much find a plan as receive one sent from heaven: The relics of Saint William being brought forth, namely, that they should take up the relics of Saint William with holy water, and imploring the mercy of Christ with litanies and hymns, should advance to meet the fire: and so it was done. For when his relics were placed against the advancing fire, the conflagration immediately turned backward, it is repelled: and thus the dwelling remained unharmed from the imminent danger, and it was not rain but the presence of Christ's Confessor that extinguished the fires.

[42] Two men from Monte Ambiaci were suffering about the same time from paralysis to such an extent Two paralytics are healed: that their mouths were frequently seen to be twisted back to their necks. They had sought the skill of many physicians and had drunk the most bitter potions of many herbs for the redemption of their bodies: but in such remedies they had not found the life of their spirit. For truly neither herb nor poultice healed them; but when they heard through the clamors of fame the novelty of the miracles and the power of William before God, they most humbly devoted themselves to God and His Saint, and so both received their former health.

[43] A certain man from Monte Pescali had once been captured by his enemies and placed in a most dark prison, moreover chained hand and foot. A captive. He had received full knowledge of the signs of Saint William before he was thrust into this misery of outer darkness. And when he had sat there for a very long time, seeing himself entirely destitute of human assistance, he wisely began to think within himself of divine aid: and tearfully beseeching the patronage of Saint William, A vow made to Saint William, he vowed a vow to him — that if he should deliver him from the captivity of his enemies, he would immediately hasten without delay to his oratory, to give thanks to God and to the Saint for such a benefit. He prayed until midnight: and behold, the fetters falling away on every side, his body and both arms were freed: Divinely liberated, he went out unbound, because, with William opening the way, he found no door closed. But what should the enemy of the human race do? At his suggestion, after so great a benefit, breaking the yoke, the man violated and broke his vow and soon chose to return to his own home. But he did not bear so great a crime with impunity. Not fulfilling the vow, he is captured again: Indeed, after a short time, captured near the court of his own house and imprisoned once more, he suffered worse things than before, because he had delayed in fulfilling the vow that had once gone forth from his lips. Let those hear this and tremble who do not fear to violate their just vows once uttered — who think the Lord does not care. He cares indeed: He does not even love those who do not care — He who cries out through the Prophet: "Vow and pay your vows." Ps. 75:12 For to vow is voluntary, but to fulfill is obligatory.

[44] A certain woman of Scarlino was so withered and contracted in all her members that she could in no way be moved except by the aid of another. A woman withered and contracted in her limbs is healed. After she had fruitlessly spent her resources on physicians, she undertook the journey to the oratory of Saint William for the aid of restoration, and the Lord did not defraud her of her hope for long, but immediately, her former health having been restored, she returned home in good health.

[45] It happened at another time that a certain man wished to cross a river by swimming in a flood of many waters, Another snatched from the danger of drowning: and when he had entered it, overcome by the violence and rush of the waters, he began to be swept further away in the flood: and when, already half-dead, he was about to breathe forth his spirit, he began to recall to mind the aid of his Patron William and to implore his patronage anxiously from the depths of his heart. And behold, as if raised up by arms, he was made strong again, and thus was freed from the imminent danger.

[46] We also relate another remarkable wonder which the Lord deigned to work through His servant Lost keys for the benefit of all readers. A certain very poor woman had one day gone to the forest to collect necessary firewood; but she lost the keys of her house, which she had carried carelessly. And when, returning home, she noticed that the keys were not hanging at her side, she immediately gave herself to the most bitter lamentations and grievous weeping. While weeping, however, the glories of William came to her memory, to whom she turned and anxiously begged that he would restore her keys. And the Lord heard her — He who is the solace of the grieving They are brought back by a dog: and especially of those who cry out to Him in simplicity of heart. A thing wondrous and unheard of in our times! For suddenly, while the woman was weeping and invoking his protection, a barking animal, serving the Creator and His Saint, carrying the keys in its mouth, restored to the woman the keys she had previously lost. At which sight the woman, gladdened, blessed the Lord and gave immense thanks to His Saint.

[47] Another most noble woman was burdened by a certain secret and most grievous illness, for which no remedy could be provided by physicians through frequent baths or ointments. It happened, however, A woman's secret illness is healed: that by the divine will causing circumstances to converge, one of the Brothers of Saint William was passing through or arriving at that place. He was recognized in passing and summoned, and counsel was sought concerning the woman's illness. And he said: "My counsel is to implore the aid of God and of His Saint William, our protector, and to promise that if she recovers, she will soon visit his sepulcher barefoot and in haircloth": and so it was done. For she vowed and recovered, and after a short time she fulfilled what she had promised.

[48] There was in Castiglione a woman faithful and devout to God and His Saint, Another contracted man: whose only son was suffering from contraction throughout all his limbs. When he had been brought to the place of the sepulcher of Saint William through the care of his mother, he wept long before it, and afterward was most perfectly freed from his affliction.

[49] On a certain day some sailors had gone down in ships upon a calm sea, and had already withdrawn no small distance from the land. A storm at sea. And behold, a sudden storm caused a great disturbance in the sea, and to such a degree were the risings of the sea wondrous that all believed themselves to be in peril. As the waves of the sea swelled more violently, all cried out to the Lord, and already despairing of their safety, they were tossing themselves about the ship as if dead. And God, our salvation, the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the far-off sea, heard them: for the anointing of the Paraclete heaped up devotion of faith by inspiring one of them, Saint William being invoked, who roused the hearts of the rest to the invocation of Saint William. Immediately all, raising their hands and voices to heaven, groaned, and with a spirit of devotion hung their purses at the mast of the ship. There was in all a most immense ardor of hearts; there was one voice of the mourners crying out in this manner: "Holy William of God, if the things we have heard about you are true, let us now feel them in our utmost peril, so that, snatched from the raging waves, we may give thanks to God and to you." Immediately, as they were crying out, all the roaring of the sea subsided, and when the tempest was calmed the sea fell silent. It is calmed. Then the jubilation of those who rejoiced; then one cry of all singing praises to God and giving thanks. Plowing, therefore, the calmed waters, they reached the shores of safety as quickly as possible. And disembarking from the ships, they were inquiring how and in what way they might adorn the sepulcher of Saint William with the gifts of their vows. It happened, moreover, while they were pondering these things, that two of the Brothers were passing through that place by the will of God. And they immediately, without any informant, recognized the Brothers whom they had never seen before; prostrate upon the ground, they most devoutly held the feet of the Brothers, gave thanks to God and to His Confessor in all things, and openly related to all how they had been snatched from the border of death by the protection of Saint William. Then the Brothers, having heard these things, raised their hands to heaven and, singing praises to God, gave thanks; and having received the offering of those who had been delivered, they carried it to the tomb of their deliverer with thanksgiving.

[50] The same thing happened to other men from Castiglione, who, sailing upon the sea in safety, saw from afar a violent sea and destruction approaching in turbulence, Again on another occasion, and according to natural causes, both shipwreck and the drowning of the sailors were at the very door. Struck with excessive terror in that whirlwind, they remembered the wondrous glories of their fellow countryman, Saint William — to whom they had already rendered many other services: and turning wholeheartedly to the Father, their nursling, they cried out familiarly for his protection — he who does not cease to assist all who invoke him faithfully. Immediately, calling upon the power of their advocate, they felt it; and they received calm weather and put in at the harbor of salvation. Who, therefore, can keep silent about the glories of so great a Father, whose protection sailors felt in their distress, and joy returned?

[51] And a third time. At that time certain Sienese merchants came with a promised offering to the oratory of the holy man, asserting that by his aid they had been wondrously snatched from a peril at sea. From these and such things, and others like them, it can be clear what manner of man and how great before God this servant of God is, because the sea and the winds obey him so swiftly. Blessed be God in all things, acting freely — the God of vengeance — who has deigned to bestow upon us such a Father and Patron.

a Cavalcantini writes "Monte Abiato." There is also a place called Monte Antico near the river Ombrone.

b "At a small distance from the shore," says Leander, "on a hill, Mons Piscalus appears, whence Castiglione della Pescaia drew its surname."

Section X. The Order of Hermits of Saint William.

[1] We have reported above the twofold complaint of Sampson Hay, in which he is indignant that so many and such absurd fables — conflicting with the purest truth — are recited both about the most holy Confessor William and about his Order: we have hitherto endeavored to eliminate the former, concerning his Life; the latter we here briefly touch upon: for it is not within the scope of our work to discuss every matter pertaining to religious orders. Pope Alexander IV, one hundred years younger than Saint William, created Pontiff on December 21 of the year 1254, Among the five classes of Hermits in the thirteenth century, in three different Bulls to be cited below, commemorates that in his time there were five classes or Congregations of Hermits, each under its own General: of which certain houses were reckoned to belong to the Order of Saint William, certain to that of Saint Augustine, some to that of Brother John Bonus, some to that of Fabali, and others to that of Brictini. These already at that time, on account of a certain resemblance of institute and habit among themselves, were sometimes designated by ambiguous appellations among the populace: The first, that of Saint William, so that it is no wonder that over so great an interval of time the fables conflicting with the truth, of which Sampson complains, have accumulated. We begin with Saint William himself, whose houses constitute the first class: having first warned the reader that what is treated here does not concern the Camaldolese Hermits founded by Saint Romuald.

[2] After William had, therefore, consecrated the last years of his life to the heavenly militia, within a short time — according to those things contained in the latter and more genuine part of the Life — a number of devout companions was joined to him while he was inhabiting the forest of Livalia in the territory of Pisa. But because he saw that he was being afflicted by them with annoyances, insults, and injuries, he thenceforth lived as a solitary, Begun by him, living with a single companion, content with a single attendant: who, while he dwelt on Monte Pruno, was Peter, afterward Prior of the companions gathered there. But in the last year of his life, Albert alone was with him at Stabilimento di Rodi — a youth of excellent character, his inseparable companion until death. With Reinald, a certain man, joining him soon after William's death, Albert afterward became the father of many sons, having built a humble monastery in the same Stabilimento di Rodi, which the History of the Miracles sometimes calls the dwelling of Saint William, often the hermitage, most frequently the oratory, and sometimes also the church and the cells of the Brothers — whose habitation there is mentioned very often. And propagated by his disciple Albert after his death. Hence Werner Rolewinck the Carthusian, in his Fasciculus Temporum, rightly declared concerning this first class of Hermits that the Order of the Williamites derived its name and origin from Saint William the hermit; but that it was raised up by his disciple Albert, who imposed upon them the institute and rule of living that he had observed in Saint William: which Pope Honorius, as will presently be said, in the year 1224 called the Rule of Saint William.

[3] This Congregation of Hermits of Saint William flourished especially in the said thirteenth century, It flourished in the thirteenth century, widely dispersed, first through neighboring Etruria and other parts of Italy, then through Germany and Hungary, and — as was said above — Belgium and France, with new houses or monasteries erected everywhere. The miracles wrought through the intercession of this Saint greatly promoted the congregation: whence also the Annals of the Dominican Fathers of Colmar in Alsace relate at the year 1232 on account of his miracles that Saint William was illustrious for miracles — which was more noted there on account of the Order of Hermits of Saint William having been introduced into those parts of Germany, as will appear below. And canonization. That William had long since been enrolled in the catalogue of the Saints by Innocent III in the year 1202, we have stated above. This was a second cause for spreading the Order more widely, which was then divided into two special Congregations, of which the first had as its head the said monastery at Stabilimento di Rodi, built by Albert; the second, the monastery of Monte Fabali. This latter is treated in the Bull of Innocent IV, given at Milan on the sixth day before the Kalends of September, in the year 1251, [Divided into two Congregations, of which the second, of Fabali, under its own General.] which is addressed to the General of the Hermits of Saint Benedict of Monte Fabali and to the other Priors and Brother Hermits of Saint William. Pope Honorius III confirmed the said Congregation in the year 1224 by a Bull given at Tivoli on the seventh day before the Ides of May, to the Prior and Brother Hermits of Saint Benedict of Monte Fabali, which begins: "Solet annuere." And the Rule of Saint William is prescribed in these words: "Ordaining that the Rule of Blessed William, according to which, as you assert, you desire to serve the Lord, shall be observed there in perpetuity." This Congregation of Monte Fabali is one of the five classes of Hermits enumerated above: of which the cited words of these two Bulls are recited by Thomas de Herrera in his Augustinian Alphabet. We have not yet been permitted to see them in their entirety. The Bull that Honorius issued seems to be among the most ancient of the Apostolic Constitutions by which the Order was established. Ascanius Tamburini in volume 2 of his work On the Rights of Abbots, disputation 24, question 4, number 28, judges this Congregation to be the same as the Congregations of Brictini and of the Brothers of Blessed John Bonus, from which we shall distinguish it below. First, some things must be said about the Hermits of Saint Augustine.

[4] Jordan of Saxony — Provincial of the Order of Hermits of Saint Augustine, distinguished by his embassy to Pope Clement VI around the year 1343 [The Hermits of Saint Augustine, in the time of Innocent III, what they were like:] and by other offices he held — in the treatise which he entitled Lives of the Brothers, book 1, chapter 14, relates that Pope Innocent III was the first Supreme Pontiff from whom the Order received any written privilege, as far as he could ascertain. Laurence of Empoli, in the Bullarium of the Order of Hermits of Saint Augustine, cites a single Constitution of Innocent III from book 4 of the Decretals, the title "On Clerics or Those Who Have Taken Vows," chapter 7, "Insinuante," where a noblewoman is said to have made a vow of chastity in the hands of a certain one of the Brothers of Saint Augustine. But others deny that Hermits are to be understood by "Brothers." Innocent III himself, in book 1, register 13, letter 80, receives under the protection of the Apostolic See the Canons of Saint Catherine of Waterford in Ireland, living according to God and the Rule of Blessed Augustine and the institute of the Brothers of the House of Saint-Victor in Paris: where by "Brothers" are understood the Canons of Saint Augustine, who at that time were mostly priests, in whose hands a vow of chastity could more readily be believed to have been made. But it is clear that various hermits living according to the Rule of Saint Augustine had long existed throughout Europe, as Innocent III himself attests when, in book 2, register 14, letters 87 and 88, he confirms to the Abbot and convent of Marmoutier at Tours the monastery of Fontaine-Gérard, long since given to them by the Bishop of Le Mans, because the Brother Hermits — living according to the Rule of Blessed Augustine from the institution of the place — Privileges given to particular houses. had been of a dissolute and dishonorable life and conduct. We judge by the same reasoning that privileges were granted by the same Innocent to particular houses of the Hermits of Saint Augustine, such as that given to the hermitage of Saint Anthony in Ardigneta, situated in the maritime territory of Siena — the form of which privilege Jordan attests that he had seen at the place indicated above — and he adds that after this Innocent, Pope Honorius III held the See, who confirmed the Orders of Preachers and Friars Minor (and indeed also granted the Rule of Saint William to the Brother Hermits of Monte Fabali, as we said above), and that he received certain houses of the Hermits of Saint Augustine under the protection of the Apostolic See. But Empoli found no Bull of his for this.

[5] Honorius was succeeded by Gregory IX, created on March 20 of the year 1227, who with great ardor of spirit arranged that all who professed the monastic or eremitic life [Gregory IX grants the Rule of Saint Augustine to the Order of Blessed Mary of Mercy,] should assume one of the approved rules. Thus, according to Cherubino Laertius in volume 1 of his Bullarium, he granted to the Order of the Brothers of Blessed Mary of Mercy for the Redemption of Captives this Bull, which is numbered 9 there: "Inclined by the prayers of your devotion, by the authority of these presents we grant you that, since no approved religious rule has yet been adopted by you, you may profess the Order of Blessed Augustine. Given at Perugia, the sixteenth day before the Kalends of February, in the eighth year of our pontificate," i.e. the year of Christ 1235. The Order of the Brother Hermits of Brictini, moreover, To the Brothers of the hermitage of Brictini, which we said above is numbered among the five classes of Hermits, after the same Gregory IX had received it under the protection of the Apostolic See by a Bull given at the Lateran in the first year of his pontificate, on the sixth day before the Kalends of December, beginning: "Sacrosancta Romana Ecclesia," in the following year he granted them the Rule of Saint Augustine. Laurence of Empoli begins his Bullarium Augustinianum with both of these Bulls, from which Herrera published the second in the Augustinian Alphabet in these words: "Gregory, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his beloved sons, the Brothers of the hermitage of Brictini of the diocese of Fano, and to the other Brothers of the hermitage subject to them, greetings and Apostolic benediction. Since once, as we have understood, of your own initiative you devised a certain new Order and bound yourselves to its observance, because you at length abandoned it — it not being among the approved Orders — and received the Rule of Blessed Augustine, and desire to observe it irrefragably in perpetuity; We, inclined by your supplications, absolving you from the observance of the aforesaid Order, grant that the said Rule be observed by you inviolably in perpetuity. Let no one therefore, etc. Given at Perugia on the sixth day before the Ides of December, in the second year of our pontificate," In the year 1228: i.e. the year of Christ 1228. The same Gregory IX granted another Bull to the same Brothers of the hermitage of Brictini, at Perugia, on the third day before the Ides of March, in the eighth year of his pontificate, beginning: "Quae omnium Conditoris honorem." It confirms the Constitutions of those same Brothers, in which the form of vestments, the quality of food, and the manner of holding a Chapter are prescribed.

[6] Innocent IV pursued the same Hermits of Brictini with benevolent favor, Various privileges are granted to them by Innocent IV having granted various Bulls inserted by Laurence of Empoli in the Augustinian Bullarium: in one of these, indulgences are granted to those who assist these Brothers of Brictini with alms. By another Bull they are commended to Archbishops, Bishops, and other prelates of the Church, so that their right to acquire these alms may not be impeded. By another their constitutions are again approved, with the faculty of electing Definitors according to the Rule of Saint Augustine: another forbids them to change their location. Another was given in these words of its opening, "in the case which exists between the Prior and Brothers of the Hermits of Brictini in the March of Ancona on the one part, and our beloved sons the Friars Minor of the same March on the other, etc." Two others were sent to Ottaviano Ubaldini, Cardinal Deacon of Santa Maria in Via Lata, by which the transfer of the monastery of Val Pietra of Saint Mary Magdalene in the diocese of Bologna, of the Order of Saint Benedict, to the Congregation of the Hermits of Brictini is ordered. Whether this matter was carried into effect, Herrera in the Augustinian Alphabet does not dare to affirm with certainty; he cites a third Bull therefore given, and Alexander IV: with the Archbishop of Ravenna and the Bishop of Modena assigned as judges. Finally, Pope Alexander IV, by a Bull given at Naples on the fourth day before the Ides of April, in the first year of his pontificate — which was the year 1255 — either confirms various privileges, immunities, and graces previously received, or grants new ones to the same: They were under their own General, including, among other things, the faculty, upon the death of the Prior General, of electing a new one according to the Rule of Saint Augustine. There is a similar Bull, as will presently be said, given to many Hermits under this opening: "Religiosam vitam eligentibus." It is therefore established that this Congregation of Hermits of Brictini had its own proper Priors General; of whom a certain Andrew is attested to have served in the time of Gregory IX by Alexander IV in his earlier Bull (for he issued two under the same opening, "Recordamur liquido") given at the Lateran on the eighth day before the Kalends of March, in the second year of his pontificate, in which the following is read: Andrew, "Brother Andrew, then General Prior of Brictini, understanding, together with his other Brothers, that they would be compelled to observe the aforesaid — just as the rest — approached the presence of the same predecessor" (Gregory IX), etc. and others. Of other Generals we shall treat below. The aforesaid Bull is extant in Wadding's Franciscan Apologetic, to be cited presently, together with three other Bulls of this Gregory IX, in which the same General Andrew is mentioned.

Section II. The Congregations of Hermits of Blessed John Bonus and of Saint William, confused among writers: to the former was given the Rule of Saint Augustine, to the latter that of Saint Benedict.

[7] Another of the aforesaid Congregations of Hermits was instituted in the year 1209 in the hermitage of Cesena by Blessed John Bonus, who died at Mantua on October 23, 1249, and whom Pope Sixtus IV in the year 1483, the twelfth of his pontificate, The Congregation of Hermits begun by Blessed John Bonus in the year 1209. declared Blessed — as Empoli relates in his Summary of Apostolic Constitutions at the end of the Augustinian Bullarium, from the miscellaneous manuscripts of Francesco Zarzera pertaining to the Beatification, preserved at Rome in the archive of the new church of the Fathers of the Congregation of the Oratory. Concerning Blessed John, Luke Wadding frequently treats in his Apologetic on the alleged Augustinian monasticism of Saint Francis, and in the defense of this Apologetic appended to the third edition, where in section 5 he carefully arranges the chronology of John's years, assigning the year 1233 in which the same Gregory IX granted the Rule of Saint Augustine to him and his companions. That this Congregation of Blessed John Bonus is not distinct from the Order of Hermits of Saint William, many have believed with great error: Not distinguished by some from the Order of Saint William: among them Genebrard in book 4 of his Chronography at the year 1171, when Blessed John was in his fourth year of age, writes: "The Order of the Williamites or Gulelmites, whom they call Hermits, took its beginning from John Bonus of Mantua, but its name from William, Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitou: who founded that family so that they might follow a Rule collected from the works of Saint Augustine." Joseph Pamphilus, to be quoted below, also conjoins both and places John Bonus first, as if he were senior to William. James Gualterius in his Chronological Tables copies Genebrard but at the year 1159, citing Onuphrius, who at the year 1160 treats only of Saint William in these words: "The Order of the Brother Hermits of Saint William under the Rule of Saint Augustine was established by William, Duke of Aquitaine."

[8] To distinguish the families of both, therefore, we trace the beginning of the Congregation of Blessed John Bonus from the Bull of Innocent IV which begins: "Admonet nos cura," reported in the Augustinian Bullarium, number 14, in the Origins of the Hermits of Saint Augustine published by Juan Marquez, chapter 13, section 17, and in the Augustinian Monasticon of Crusenius, part 2, chapter 28: in which Bull the proceedings conducted by Cardinal William of Saint Eustace are narrated thus: Propagated under its own institute, "It came to the hearing of the Lord Pope that Brother John Bonus of blessed memory, the first in your Order, began the first house near Budriolo of the diocese of Cesena, with the permission of the Diocesan of that place: and when the fame of his way of life spread through the neighboring places and very many were converted to him, he there built a church in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary: and as the number and merit of these converts grew, your religious order was propagated by them in various parts in which they built dwellings. Since these same religious had no approved Rule, It received from Gregory IX the Rule of Saint Augustine, with the black habit: certain of them, approaching the Apostolic See, obtained from it that the Rule of Blessed Augustine be given to them, and thus from that time they began to be instructed in regular observances and to conduct themselves in a regular manner." Then, having assumed — as is soon added — the black habit, they were called the Brother Hermits of John Bonus, of the Order of Saint Augustine. Because some of them would not accept the black habit, the same Pope Gregory IX sent another Bull to the Bishops of the March of Ancona, commanding that they be compelled to obey. It was given in the fourteenth year of his pontificate, the year of Christ 1239, reported in the Augustinian Bullarium, number 5, in Wadding's Apologetic, section 4, number 3, and by Juan Marquez, chapter 3, near the beginning, whose opening is this: "There appeared recently in the regions of Lombardy a religious order whose members, called Hermits of Brother John Bonus, of the Order of Saint Augustine, sometimes walked girded with belts over their tunics, carrying staffs in their hands, but now, having laid aside their staffs, they went about asking for money for alms and other subsidies."

[9] But, as the said Bull of Innocent IV continues through Cardinal William, when John Bonus — who had presided over the Brothers for many years, and the Brothers had reverently attended to him as the Founder of their Order — aspired to resign from their governance, Governed by Generals: Blessed John Bonus, Matthew, Brother Matthew, presented as Prior of the said house and thereby as General of the Order, was confirmed by the Bishop of Cesena... At length, because Brother Matthew seemed to certain Brothers insufficiently capable for the same office, he resigned from the general administration at a general Chapter assembled at Ferrara, and thereupon certain members elected Hugh of Mantua as General Prior of the whole Order; the Brothers of Cesena, however, and certain others from Romagna adhering to them, Hugh and Mark simultaneously, assembling at Cesena, elected Brother Mark of Cesena as Prior of the said house and thereby as General Prior of the whole Order... When the Order, divided into two parts, had been tossed about amid multiple contentions and discords that had arisen within it for nearly three years... the aforesaid Hugh and Mark — who had been acting as General Priors — and the other Brothers, by the common will of all, celebrated a general Chapter at Bologna, at which, with Brother Mark and Brother Hugh resigning their administration and office, they unanimously and concordantly elected Brother Lanfranc of Milan, Lanfranc, then Prior of the house of Bologna, as Prior General. His election we have found, by the special mandate and authority of the Lord Pope, to have been canonically celebrated, and we confirm the same Brother Lanfranc as Prior of your Order, etc. Given at Perugia on the sixth day before the Kalends of January, in the year of the Lord 1252, the tenth year of the pontificate of Lord Pope Innocent IV, indiction 11. But the Bull in which this account of Cardinal William is inserted was given by Innocent at Perugia on the seventeenth day before the Kalends of May, in the eleventh year of his pontificate. Of the various Orders united under the same Lanfranc we shall treat presently.

[10] These things concerning the proper Priors General of the Brother Hermits of John Bonus, to whom we have shown that the Rule of Saint Augustine was prescribed by Gregory IX, Gregory IX orders the Hermits to be assigned an approved Rule: who also, by a Bull given at the Lateran on the third day before the Nones of January, in the fourth year of his pontificate — the year of Christ 1231 — commissioned the Bishop of Siena to assign one of the approved Rules to the Brother Hermits of Monte Specchio and Silva Lago. Laurence of Empoli produces this Bull in the Augustinian Bullarium, number 4, as if they had at that time professed the Rule of Saint Augustine. But Herrera more prudently doubts whether they embraced it at least when the union of the Hermits of Etruria was made, which we shall presently say was decreed and established by Innocent IV.

[11] The same Herrera, among the monasteries of men, lists under the letter A the monastery of Saint Anthony of the Forest (de Silva or de Nemore and Bosco), otherwise known as de Petriolo or above the baths of Petriolo, A Bull given to the Hermits of Saint William in the year 1230. formerly of the Hermits of Saint William, attesting that a Bull of Gregory IX is preserved concerning it in the archive of the monastery of Illicetano, which begins thus: "Gregory, Bishop... to his beloved sons, the Prior and Brother Hermits of Saint Anthony of the Forest, of the Order of Saint William, greetings and Apostolic benediction. When what is just is asked of us, etc. Given at Perugia on the fifth day before the Kalends of February, in the third year of his pontificate," i.e. the year of Christ 1230. This same Pope Gregory IX, who prescribed some approved Rule — since they previously had none — for so many Orders of monks and hermits, is not to be deemed to have neglected these Hermits of Saint William, for whom, as we said above from Sampson Hay, He builds a monastery at Stabilimento di Rodi, in the place where the Saint had breathed forth his blessed soul to heaven, he built a church dedicated to his name and a most ample monastery, and adorned it with the most generous endowments. Nor was this sufficient, the same writer adds, for so generous a Pontiff, born to extend the boundaries of our Order. For since up to that time the Fathers, who had received the norm of religious life from Saint William and had transmitted it to their successors as if by hand, went barefoot at home but shod outside, and religiously observed many other examples of austerity drawn from his life as from the perfect archetype of all virtues — which deterred very many from the same institute — he wished by pastoral authority benignly to temper so great a rigor, He mitigates the rigor of the institute, so that access to it might be easier for the weaker, and the Williamite Order might increase more and more in the number of monks and monasteries. He granted, indeed, to the Williamites the use of shoes and stockings, and grants them the Rule of Saint Benedict, both publicly and privately, and thenceforth he granted them the profession of the Benedictine Rule. This Hay also expressed in verse, in which:

"Gregory the Ninth commands the hermit-dwellers to cover their feet with boots, and bestows many estates: he orders them to live by the norm of Saint Benedict."

The same Hay confirms this view with the preface of the ancient Fathers in the book of the Order, which in the Pontifical Bulls is always called the Order of Saint William, never the Order of Saint Benedict — much less that of the Cistercians, to which others subject this Order, moved by the common opinion by which it is believed that the said Saint William was the Duke of Aquitaine who was brought back by Saint Bernard from schism to the due submission of the Church.

[12] Pope Innocent IV, as the same Hay attests, adorned the Order of the Williamites with many privileges and Pontifical diplomas, of which one — on account of its amplitude and because it contains many headings like ships laden with diverse merchandise — Innocent IV grants them various privileges, was called the Mare Magnum. He himself exhibits it, and after him Peter Silvius at the end of the Life of Saint William, and Henriquez in his book of Cistercian Privileges, among the privileges of the Williamites, and in the Fasciculus of Cistercian Saints, chapter 7 of the Life: from which we transfer the opening here: "Innocent, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his beloved sons the Prior General and all other Priors and Brother Hermits of the Order of Saint William, both present and future, who have professed the regular life, in perpetuity. To those who choose the religious life it is fitting that Apostolic protection be afforded, lest perchance the incursion of any rashness should call them back from their purpose or — God forbid — should break the vigor of holy religion. Therefore, beloved sons in the Lord, we graciously accede to your just supplications, and we receive your houses — in which you devote yourselves to divine offices and duties — under the protection of Blessed Peter and our own, and we fortify them with the privilege of the present writing: He confirms the Rule of Saint Benedict, ordaining first of all that the monastic order, which according to God and the Rule of Blessed Benedict and the institute of the Brothers of the Order of Saint William is known to have been established in those houses, shall be inviolably observed there in perpetuity." And after various privileges, immunities, and graces have been granted, he adds the following: and the free election of their own General. "When your Prior General dies, or any of his successors, let no one be placed over them there by any cunning of subornation or violence, except one whom the Brothers by common consent, or the greater part of the Brothers of sounder counsel, shall have provided to elect according to God and the Rule of Blessed Benedict... Given at Lyons on the eighth day before the Nones of September, in the seventh year of his pontificate," i.e. the year of Christ 1250 — when Laurence is said to have been the General presiding over the Williamites.

[13] Marquez, Crusenius, and others endeavor to render this Bull suspect — but without any foundation — on the ground that the same Bull, with a few changes, was given to the Brother Hermits of Saint Augustine, as if from the practice and style of the Roman Curia such Apostolic Bulls were not customarily issued for various Congregations. That Bull is not spurious. But this argument would equally destroy all due faith in the original Bulls preserved at Rome in the Archive of the Order of Saint Augustine with their leaden seals: from which Laurence of Empoli in the Augustinian Bullarium repeatedly issued this same Bull, with a few changes, as granted both by Innocent IV and likewise by Alexander IV — which had previously been given to the Congregation of Montevergine instituted by Saint William of Vercelli by Celestine III in the year 1197, to the Order of Preachers founded by Saint Dominic by Honorius III in the year 1216, and to others by other Popes: and afterward the Brother Hermits of Saint Augustine throughout Tuscany obtained it from Innocent IV and Alexander IV; the Brother Hermits living in the regions beyond the mountains also obtained it from Innocent; and the Hermits of the kingdom of Hungary from Urban IV — which we said above was also given to the Brother Hermits of Brictini. Why should the same not have been given to the Brothers of Blessed John Bonus and to the Brothers of Monte Fabali? Certainly the one which we said was given by Innocent IV to the latter is addressed "to the General of the Hermits of Saint Benedict of Monte Fabali and to the other Priors and Brother Hermits of Saint William" — a phrase commonly used elsewhere for these: but concerning an unknown matter we do not wish to conjecture. This Bull granted to the Williamites is confirmed by subsequent Popes: Similar to the Bulls of other Popes. and first Alexander IV granted them permission to remain under the Rule of Saint Benedict according to the institutes of Saint William in their customary habit. These words, excerpted from his Bull, are repeated in the Bull of Clement IV and in the narrative of Stephen, Bishop-Cardinal of Palestrina, inserted in that same Bull — which will be more fully reported below. Here it need only be observed that these Bulls rightly agree that the Order was instituted according to the institute of Saint William — that is, the norm of his life — by his disciple Albert among posterity, and that the approved Rule of Saint Benedict was added to it under Pope Gregory IX: to whose regular observance Urban IV in the Bull to be given below declares them to be bound.

Section III. The Congregation of Hermits of Saint Augustine under Innocent IV, distinct from the Order of Saint William.

[14] We have thus far produced and distinguished the Hermits divided by Pope Alexander IV into five classes or congregations. Of these, the Hermits of Brictini From the remaining classes of Hermits and the Hermits of Blessed John Bonus, since they did not have any approved Rule, received under Pope Gregory IX the Rule of Saint Augustine, according to which each group, under its own Generals, lived separately for some time. In the same way the Brothers of the Order of Saint William, having assumed the Rule of Saint Benedict under the same Pontiff, were also subject to their own Generals: from whom another Congregation of Saint William — that of the Brothers called of Monte Fabali — was distinct under its own Generals as well. Those others, however, who bore the name of none of the aforesaid congregations, were called Hermits of Saint Augustine and constituted one of the five classes; and — to speak with Crusenius, part 2, chapter 28, page 114 — they perhaps acknowledged no Superior except the Bishops: for it was commanded to them, The Hermits of Saint Augustine constitute a distinct body, he says, by the Supreme Pontiff that they should more distinctly enjoin upon the individual religious orders of Hermits. If they had had a Superior, it would have sufficed to inform him alone. Gregory IX had commanded the Bishops to observe whether the Hermits of Brother John Bonus everywhere assumed the prescribed habit: beyond these — since they had their own General — Crusenius extends his mandate to these Hermits of Saint Augustine, to whom, as professors of the Rule of Saint Augustine, we find no mandate imposed by that Pontiff. "Afterward," says Jordan of Saxony in the cited book 1, chapter 14, "Pope Innocent IV — truly a man of great learning and industry, who held the See in the year 1240" (rather later, created June 24, 1243) — "considering that the Orders of Preachers and Friars Minor were notably growing and bringing forth salutary fruits in the Church of God, but that the Brothers of the Hermits of Saint Augustine were profiting only themselves through their good life, began to wish to bring it about that they too, like the Preachers and Friars Minor, might produce a salutary end and fruit in the Church of God. Especially those living in Etruria. There were, moreover, at that time in various regions of the world, and especially in the parts of Tuscany, various other hermits living in diverse ways under diverse titles: all of whom the same Innocent joined to the Hermits of Saint Augustine, reducing them to one fold under one shepherd — namely, a Prior General: United by Innocent IV under one General: commanding that all should use one rule — namely, that of Saint Augustine — one manner of professing, one habit, one title, one office, and the same constitutions, and fortifying them with many privileges and graces: the copies and certain originals of all of which, under the Bull, I have seen." So says Jordan.

[15] The Williamites are wrongly joined to them. From these originals Laurence of Empoli published some Bulls in the Augustinian Bullarium: in the first of which all are forced into one congregation, except the Brothers of Saint William: whom, nevertheless, Empoli most emphatically includes, against the very words of the Pontiff, prefixing this summary: "The Brother Hermits of Saint William in Tuscany are ordered to assume the Rule and Order of Saint Augustine and to make profession according to it, preserving their own observances, which, however, are not contrary to the same Order." Again in the Alphabetical Index of Empoli, as he calls the book's index: "The Brothers of Saint William in Tuscany are ordered to assume the Order of Saint Augustine, whence it is gathered that the said Order of Saint Augustine preceded." But let us produce the Bull itself, also reported by Juan Marquez, chapter 3, section 3, in these words: Excluded in the Bull of Innocent: "Innocent, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his beloved sons, all the Hermits (except the Brothers of Saint William) established throughout Tuscany, greetings and Apostolic benediction. It is incumbent upon us by the duty of our pastoral office both to plant holy religion and to foster what has been planted, and as far as lies in us, to confirm all and each in their purpose: lest, if they should be deprived of Apostolic favor, they should not advance in what they have begun but rather fail or grow lukewarm. Since, therefore, through his beloved Brothers Stephen and Hugh, Hermits, your purpose has been diligently set forth to us; we, not wishing you to wander like straying sheep without a shepherd, following the tracks of the flocks, by Apostolic writings command your entire body to conform yourselves to one regular purpose, to assume the Rule and Order of Blessed Augustine, and henceforth to profess according to it that you will so live — preserving the observances or constitutions to be made by you, provided they do not conflict with the institutes of the same Order — and to provide yourselves nonetheless with a suitable Prior through canonical election, to whom you shall render obedience and pay due reverence. If, however, any difficulty should arise concerning the foregoing, have recourse to our beloved son Richard, Cardinal Deacon of Sant'Angelo, whom we appoint as your Corrector and Provider. Given at the Lateran, January 17, in the first year of our pontificate," that is, the year of Christ 1245.

[16] So much for Innocent IV, whose Bull is also reported by Gabriel Pennottus in book 1 of his Tripartite History of Canons Regular, chapter 15; Nor had these Hermits of Saint Augustine formerly been Williamites, and he notes that up to the time of Innocent IV there had been no Hermits in Tuscany who lived under the Rule of Blessed Augustine and were called Hermits of Saint Augustine — except perhaps the Hermits of Saint William: whether these had previously professed the Rule of Saint Augustine, he doubts on account of the popular error to be explained below, which Cardinal Bellarmine also inserted into his Chronology in these words: "The Order of Hermits of Saint Augustine received this name from Innocent IV, whereas previously they were called Williamites." These things used to be recited in the now-obsolete Ecclesiastical Office of Saint William in Lesson 8. Herrera in the Augustinian Alphabet under the monastery of Illicetano, Tamburini at number 38, and Wadding in his Franciscan Apologetic, section 5, understood the exception in the said Bull better, adding to the words "except the Brothers of Saint William" the phrase "living under the Rule of Saint Benedict, whom the Pontiff did not wish to reduce to that union," and he adds that in the Register of the same Pontiff, number 333, it is openly asserted that those Hermits of Tuscany had up to that time observed the Rule of Saint Benedict: But they had professed the Rule either of Saint Benedict, as is also demonstrated from these Bulls, given two months after the earlier Bull. The first of these, as reported there, is addressed "to the Prior and Brother Hermits in Tuscany of the Order of Saint Augustine," with this opening: "Cum a nobis petitur quod iustum est": in which the following is read: "Since we have judged that the Rule of Blessed Augustine should be granted to you, to be observed by you and your successors in perpetuity, and since through our beloved son Richard, Cardinal Deacon of Sant'Angelo, you have been completely absolved, by our special mandate, from the promise which you had made to observe the Order of Saint Benedict or of another Order, or any other; We, holding this absolution to be ratified and approved, confirm it by Apostolic authority and fortify it with the protection of the present writing. Let no one, therefore, etc. Given at the Lateran on the fifth day before the Kalends of April, in the first year of our pontificate." Two days before, the following Bull had been given "to the Prior and Brothers of Santa Maria de Murceto, of the Order of Saint Augustine, of the diocese of Pisa," in these words: "Since you and other Hermits established throughout Tuscany have lately, by our command, determined to assume the Order and Rule of Blessed Augustine, to observe them in perpetuity, we declare by the authority of these presents that you are not bound to the observance of the Rule of Saint Benedict, which you assert that you had professed in your hermitage. Given at the Lateran on the seventh day before the Kalends of April, in the first year of our pontificate." Or of another Order. So far these Bulls. Since in the first of them the Hermits are absolved from observing any Order whatsoever, we do not accept that all had previously observed the Rule of Saint Benedict: we also judge that some Hermits of Saint Augustine had lived there under this Rule, Even that of Saint Augustine, remembering that we reported above that they had a hermitage in Ardigneta in the territory of Siena under Innocent III. Finally, we do not assent to Pennottus when he asserts that many Hermits of uncertain habit and abode existed in Tuscany without a rule, title, or habit. For Gregory IX enjoined upon all of them some one of the approved rules.

[17] How seriously the same Pope Innocent and Alexander IV attended to this Congregation they had established, we gather from the various Bulls which Empoli exhibits in the Augustinian Bullarium, granted in favor of the Hermits of Saint Augustine throughout Tuscany. First, Innocent on the day before the Kalends of April confirms the Rule of Saint Augustine that had been assumed, They enjoy various privileges given by Innocent IV, and on the sixth day before the Kalends of May grants various privileges, immunities, and graces, including the right, upon the death of the Prior General, to elect a new one according to the Rule of Saint Augustine — which Bull we have already noted, with a few changes, is common to other bodies: it begins, "Religiosam vitam eligentibus." Then on the fifth day before the Ides of May he commends to the prelates of the Church that the privileges granted to these Hermits be observed. Afterward, in the sixth year of his pontificate, he grants to the Prior General and to the Brother Hermits of Saint Augustine in Tuscany the faculty of reciting the divine office from corrected Breviaries according to the statute of the Rule and the custom of the Roman Church. In the following year — the seventh of his pontificate — he confirmed for the Prior General, the other Priors, and the Brother Hermits of the Order of Saint William the Rule of Saint Benedict, and granted them the free election of their own General and other immunities, graces, and privileges, according to the Bull applied to many Congregations, as we said above; which he also gave, with the usual modification, in the tenth year of his pontificate to the Prior and Brother Hermits living in the regions beyond the mountains — thenceforth subject to the Cismontane Generals, as will be clear from what is said below, whether by their own election or by Pontifical mandate. Finally, in the eleventh year of his pontificate, he confirmed with Apostolic authority the constitutions made by the counsel of Cardinal Richard and the Abbots of Falera and Fossanova of the Cistercian Order, but especially by the authority of his own mandate. Which constitution Alexander IV inserted into the Bull granted by him on the Ides of July, in the first year of his pontificate, and by Alexander IV, the year of Christ 1255, to the same Brother Hermits of Tuscany of the Order of Saint Augustine — having previously given many others to the same, by which they were either freed from the payment of taxes, or obtained faculties both for absolving those entering the Order from ecclesiastical censures and for continuing the use of the Breviary that had been granted, or finally by which Archbishops, Bishops, and other prelates of the Church were commanded to compel fugitives from the Order to return to it, and not to burden the Brothers of this Order with other obligations, nor to alter sentences pronounced by the Prior General against his subjects: and that the General might by new indult exercise his office without yet having been confirmed by the Pope or by Cardinal Richard — to which Cardinal it was also mandated that he compel those who had departed or been expelled to lay aside the habit of the Order, the form of which, determined by the Cardinal, is prescribed. And finally, on the third day before the Kalends of August, he confirms for the same the general privileges through the frequently indicated Bull granted to various Congregations, which begins: "Religiosam vitam eligentibus."

[18] Joseph Pamphilus, Bishop of Segni, in his Augustinian Chronicle, folio 25, enumerates the first Generals of the Order thus: "John Bonus was succeeded in Tuscany and the Picene by John de Spelunca, Their Generals, after whom John de Cella... then Adiutus of Fano, after whom Philip of Parma. In other regions of Italy the same was succeeded by Matthew, surnamed the Saint, then Hugh of Mantua, then Lanfranc of Milan." We have demonstrated above that the last of these were successors of Blessed John Bonus in his own Congregation: the earlier ones we judge to have presided over this Congregation of Hermits of Saint Augustine in Tuscany. Certainly Alexander IV in the Bull beginning: "Ex parte vestra fuit propositum coram nobis," Whether also Visitors of the said body calls the mentioned Adiutus "Visitor General of the Brother Hermits in Tuscany, appointed by Cardinal Richard." But whether under another Prior General (whether he was John de Spelunca or John de Cella) is doubtful: whether rather the General of these Brothers is now called Visitor and now Prior. Thus the Bull (beginning: "Pia desideria devotorum eo debemus benigno favore prosequi," with the letters of Cardinal Richard enclosed) was given in the same form by Innocent IV in Wadding, section 4 of the Franciscan Apologetic, and by Alexander IV in Empoli, number 14 of the Augustinian Bullarium: but the former is addressed to the Visitor General, the latter to the Prior General and all the Priors and Brother Hermits of the Order of Saint Augustine. Some writers, along with Blessed John Bonus, report that these Generals flourished in the preceding century — which was refuted above regarding Blessed John. Perhaps some of these Generals presided, after Andrew, over the Congregation of Brictini.

Section IV. The Williamites joined to the Augustinians under Alexander IV: absolved from that obedience. The Rule of Saint Benedict confirmed for them.

[19] Pope Alexander IV, formerly called Raynald, made Cardinal Deacon of Sant'Eustachio by his uncle Gregory IX, Alexander IV afterward Bishop of Ostia and Velletri, in both Bulls given in the second year of his pontificate, beginning "Recordamur liquido," testifies that he himself, when formerly placed in a lesser office, together with Thomas of blessed memory, Cardinal Priest of the title of Santa Sabina, had formerly reported to Gregory IX the state of the Hermits: while fulfilling a legation in the parts of Lombardy, had brought to the hearing of Pope Gregory of happy memory the state of the Hermits of the Order of Saint Augustine: whose identity of vestments was breeding confusion among the Orders themselves, and thence graver scandals were arising between these and the Friars Minor of Saint Francis, and afterward perhaps among the various Congregations of Hermits that we have described — which in the second year of his pontificate, In the year 1256, the year of Christ 1256, he reduced into one observance of the Order under the same General. In that same year 1256 there had also died both Cardinal William, Protector and reformer of the Hermits of Blessed John Bonus, and Ottaviano Ubaldini, who as Legate through Lombardy had presided over the Hermits of Brictini and had subsequently incurred the indignation of Innocent IV. But Richard, Cardinal Deacon of Sant'Angelo — given as Protector of the Hermits of Saint Augustine throughout Tuscany by Innocent — survived, with Cardinal Richard cooperating, whose diligence Alexander greatly praises in the Bull given in the third year of his pontificate, beginning "Inter alias sollicitudines," where he says: "We therefore, considering that the Brothers have long had you as a benevolent Father, and that you have embraced them with sincere charity in the Lord, and that the aforesaid Brothers and Order can, with God's favor, receive salutary increase under your protection." With this Cardinal, therefore, cooperating — or even urging — the five classes of Hermits, hitherto distinct, were ordered to unite into one religious body, of which three were of the Order of Saint Augustine, and two of Saint William. All of which the Pontiff explains thus in the Bull beginning "Licet Ecclesiae Catholicae integritatem."

[20] "A while ago there emanated from us an Apostolic mandate that from each of your houses — From the five Congregations of which some were reckoned to belong to the Orders of Saint William, some to that of Saint Augustine, some to that of Brother John Bonus, some to that of Fabali, and others to that of Brictini, and which sometimes wavered among men under ambiguous appellations — two Brothers should be sent to our presence with full mandate, to receive what our disposition should salutarily ordain concerning you. And when Brothers of this kind had approached the Apostolic See, before our beloved son Richard, Cardinal Deacon of Sant'Angelo, whom we deputed to accomplish the business of your union Reduced into one Order, in our stead, they exhibited sufficient mandates for this purpose; and in your General Chapter solemnly assembled in the City, in the name of all by whom they had been sent and with the common assent of that Chapter, they unanimously consented that you and your houses should be reduced into one observance of the Order and one uniform manner of living, and that one fold should be made of them, to be governed under the presidency of a Prior General... Moreover, the same Cardinal joined all the houses and Congregations in perpetuity into one profession of the Order of Hermits of Saint Augustine and one regular observance, under the governance of a Prior General to be canonically installed in due course, beyond the other Provincial as well as Conventual Priors of each house, to be regularly governed by their Priors. And so that the unity of a universal head might consummate the new union of the Lord's fold, Under Lanfranc as General, he appointed you, beloved son Lanfranc, as Prior General and Father of that same Order, the grace of the Holy Spirit being invoked, and also confirmed you, as he had received specially in mandate from us... Given at the Lateran, on the fourth day before the Nones of May, in the second year of our pontificate" — as the date is noted in the Pontifical Bullarium of Laertius Cherubini, chapter 6; but the fifth day before the Ides of April is read in the Augustinian Bullarium printed from the original Bull with its leaden seal, preserved at Rome in the archive of the Order. It is addressed, moreover, "to Lanfranc the General, the Provincial and Conventual Priors, and all the Brothers of the Order of Hermits of Saint Augustine." From the Order of Blessed John Bonus: Lanfranc had previously been the fourth General in the Congregation which we said above was established by Blessed John Bonus.

[21] That the Provincial and Conventual Priors and the remaining Brothers should obey the same General, he commanded by another Bull issued on the same day — the fifth before the Ides of April — whose opening is this: He orders all Hermits to obey him, "The recent provision of the Apostolic See has joined in perpetuity all your houses and Congregations into one profession and regular observance of the Order of Hermits of Saint Augustine, under the governance of a Prior General," etc. The same things concerning the union of these Congregations are reported in the other of the Bulls beginning "Recordamur et liquido memoria retinemus," given on the fifteenth — or according to others, the eighth — day before the Kalends of July in the same second year of the pontificate. And again inserted in another Bull, whose opening is "Litteras nostras vobis direxisse meminimus," given on the Ides of October to the Archbishops and Bishops established Throughout Italy and Sicily: throughout Lombardy, Tuscany, and Romagna, the Marches of Treviso and Ancona, the Duchy of Spoleto, the Patrimony of Blessed Peter in Tuscany, the maritime Campania, and the Kingdom of Sicily — in which Cisalpine territories, that is, the domiciles of these Congregations were located. Similar things are repeated in the Bull sent to Cardinal Richard on the fourth day before the Kalends of April, in the third year of his pontificate, the year of Christ 1257, with the opening already indicated: "Inter alias sollicitudines quibus assidue premimur": where the five Congregations are again reported to have been reduced into one reformation of the Order, "of which certain houses were reckoned to belong to the Orders of Saint William, certain to that of Saint Augustine, some to that of Brother John Bonus, some to that of Fabali, and others to that of Brictini." Of these Congregations, then united under the same General, Clement IV also makes mention in the Bull beginning "Ea quae iudicio vel concordia terminantur" — He confirms the privileges. of which more below. The privileges and immunities that Alexander granted to them in the same third year of his pontificate are described in various Bulls then given, which are found in Laurence of Empoli.

[22] This Pontifical Constitution displeased the Brother Hermits of Saint William, by which they were being transferred from the institute of their parent, Saint William, and from the Rule of Saint Benedict granted by Gregory IX He permits the Brother Hermits of Saint William their former institute and confirmed by Innocent IV, to the Rule of Saint Augustine — ordered, having left their own General, to be subject along with the others to the above-mentioned Lanfranc. Wherefore, with the aid of Protectors and Patrons, they pressed hard upon the Pontiff, so that — just as his predecessor Innocent IV had exempted them in the earlier union of the Hermits of Tuscany among whom they lived — so now, his consent having been obtained, they might be permitted to remain free from this universal association, under their own General, according to their own institutes, in their accustomed habit. The Pontiff Alexander acceded to their petition by issuing the following Bull, which after Sampson Hay is reported by Chrysostom Henriquez among the privileges of the Williamites, number 3; Juan Marquez, chapter 13 of the Augustinian Origins, section 14; Gabriel Pennottus, book 1 of his Tripartite History of Canons Regular, chapter 46; Ascanius Tamburini, volume 2 of his work On the Rights of Abbots, disputation 24, question 4, number 37; and Aubert Le Mire, book 2 of his Monastic Origins, chapter 15. It reads as follows: "Alexander, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his beloved sons the General and other Priors and Brothers of the Order of Saint William, greetings and Apostolic benediction. Although you were formerly cited to our presence for the sake of a union to be made between you and other Hermits then of diverse Orders, and the Rule of Saint Benedict, nevertheless, providing for your peace and salvation with paternal affection, by the tenor of these presents we grant you that you may freely remain under the Rule of Saint Benedict according to the institutes of Saint William in your accustomed habit, notwithstanding any letters, graces, or privileges obtained or hereafter to be obtained from the Apostolic See to the contrary. Let no one, therefore, etc. Given at Anagni on the eleventh day before the Kalends of September, in the second year of our pontificate" — perhaps the third or fourth, both on account of the third Bull concerning the general union sent to Cardinal Richard in the third year of the pontificate on the fourth day before the Kalends of April, and on account of the monasteries which by Pontifical mandate had transferred in Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary from the Order of Saint William to the Augustinians, as will be said below from the Bull of Clement IV indicated above: In the words of the Bull repeated by Clement IV, in which part of this Bull is inserted in these words: "Afterward, Alexander IV, wishing to provide for your peace, granted you by Apostolic authority that under the Rule of Blessed Benedict, according to the institute of Blessed William, you might lawfully remain in your accustomed habit, notwithstanding, etc." — which words are then repeated in the same Bull by Cardinal Stephen.

[23] The same Alexander IV, in the fifth year of his pontificate, names the Orders of Saint Augustine and Saint William as different in the Bull given to the General and Provincial Ministers and Friars Minor, in the Augustinian Bullarium, number 29 — the same being repeated at number 33 as granted to the Order of Preachers — beginning "Quanto praeclara Ordinis vestri religio": He acknowledges them as distinct from the Augustinians, in which he writes: "Indeed, inclined by your supplications, we recall that we have by the authority of our letters forbidden all the Priors and Brother Hermits of the Order of Saint Augustine and of Saint William to presume to receive or retain in their Order any professed Brothers of your Order." Then, because some Williamite monasteries had subjected themselves to the Augustinian Order on account of the earlier association, the same Alexander IV prohibited this from being done in the future without the consent of the general Chapter, as is clear from the Bull reported among the Privileges of the Hermits of Saint William by Chrysostom Henriquez, number 5, which reads thus: "Alexander, Bishop... to his beloved sons the General and other Priors and Brother Hermits of the Order of Saint William... He forbids monasteries from being subjected to another Order: Inasmuch as you devote yourselves to divine contemplation, devoutly serving the Lord, we wish henceforth to provide for your peace with paternal solicitude, and by the authority of these presents we strictly forbid any Brothers of your Order to presume to subject any houses of the same to another Order without the consent of your general Chapter. Let no one, therefore, etc. Given at Anagni on the eleventh day before the Kalends of July, in the sixth year of our pontificate," the year of Christ 1260. In the same year, He grants them other privileges. on the third day before the Nones of July, the same Alexander IV gave to his "beloved sons the Prior and Brother Hermits of the hermitage of Rougemont, of the Order of Saint William, of the diocese of Paris," the privilege of receiving alms from goods unjustly and wrongfully acquired — provided those to whom restitution is owed cannot be found — and also from the redemptions of vows, excepting that of Jerusalem: which Bull the same Henriquez published at number 4. That the Williamites afterward moved from the hermitage of Rougemont into the city of Paris, we have stated above.

[24] The other was a congregation of the Order of Saint William, previously established under its own General, called that of Monte Fabali, Did the Brothers of Monte Fabali withdraw from that association? and included in the aforesaid union: but what it did in this change we have nowhere read. Herrera in the Augustinian Alphabet suspects that it withdrew from the union together with other Williamite houses — whom we judge to have thenceforth lived under the same Generals who resided at Stabilimento di Rodi at the shrine of Saint William. The Generals were: William in the year 1260, Lambert in the year 1269, Mark in the year 1276 of the same thirteenth century, near the end of which the General Reyner died. Perhaps following the example of these, the Brothers of the hermitage of Brictini — who constituted the other of the said Congregations — attempted to withdraw from that obedience, The Brothers of Brictini are forbidden to withdraw from it: having long since lived under their own General according to the Rule of Saint Augustine. The same Pope Alexander on the Nones of July, in the sixth year of his pontificate, the year of Christ 1260, and Urban IV on the Nones of May, in the first year of his pontificate, the year of Christ 1262, forbade them to depart to another Order, in the same words of the Bulls beginning "Solet annuere Sedes Apostolica." These and other Bulls given by Alexander in favor of the remaining Congregations persisting under the same General are reported in the Augustinian Bullarium: where also at number 29, the convent of Saint Bartholomew of Gestinga in the diocese of Grosseto The Benedictines of Gestinga are ordered to accept it. is transferred from the Order of Saint Benedict to the Augustinian Hermits, the execution being committed to Cardinal Richard, to whom the Bull is addressed, given on the fourth day before the Ides of April, in the fourth year of the pontificate, the year of Christ 1258, with the opening: "Sic Ordo Fratrum Eremitarum S. Augustini a suis primordiis," etc. Joseph Pamphilus in the Chronicle of the Augustinian Order enumerates more Congregations forced into that association by Alexander IV, Were those enumerated by Pamphilus included in that association? such as the Hermits of Val Hirsuta, of the Penance of Jesus Christ, of Torrepalme of Saint Augustine, of Centocelle of the Holy Trinity in Tuscany, of Santa Maria di Lupocavio of the diocese of Lucca, of Santa Maria de Murceto of the diocese of Pisa, and of San Giacomo di Monilio of the diocese of Lucca. Pamphilus is copied by Maurolycus, Tamburini, and others. Jordan of Saxony adds only the Brothers of the Penance of Jesus Christ, called the Saccati, at the place indicated above. But neither does this agree with the Pontifical Bull. Some places in Tuscany had previously been confirmed under the Rule of Saint Augustine by Innocent IV, as was proved above concerning the monastery of Santa Maria de Murceto from a Bull of the same Pontiff, and will be said below concerning the monastery of Santa Maria di Lupocavio. But that the Brothers of the Sack were different from the Brother Hermits of the Order of Saint Augustine we learn from the testament of Saint Louis, King of France, made in the year 1269.

Section V. Privileges granted to the Williamites by Urban IV and Clement IV. The controversy between them and the Augustinians settled.

[25] Urban IV, created Pontiff on August 19, 1261, after the death of Alexander IV, granted various privileges to both Orders of Hermits — both that of Saint Augustine and that of Saint William. Urban IV confirms the privileges of the Augustinians, Laurence of Empoli produces nine Bulls given to his Order in the Augustinian Bullarium, obtained indeed in the first year of his pontificate, except perhaps the last, to which no date of issue is appended. In this last, general privileges with their immunities and graces are granted to the Brother Hermits living in the kingdom of Hungary, in the words of the frequently indicated Bull whose opening is "Religiosam vitam eligentibus," etc. — as if these, separated from the others, had their own General, upon whose death they might elect a new one according to the Rule of Saint Augustine. But, as will presently be evident, Lanfranc's successor Guido, in the time of Clement IV, presided equally over the Hermits in Hungary and the remaining regions beyond the mountains in Germany, as over the Cisalpine members in Italy and Sicily. Among other privileges, the faculty against deserters and apostates of the Order is confirmed for the Augustinians: Also against apostates: and that necessary assistance against them be given, a Pontifical mandate is imposed upon Archbishops, Bishops, and other ecclesiastical men placed in dignity: while, that is, the Congregations of Hermits of Brictini and of Blessed John Bonus, together with the remaining Hermits of the Order of Saint Augustine, united into one religious body under the same General, were becoming accustomed to one another's society through longer usage.

[26] The same Pope Urban, understanding that after the decree of Alexander IV — by which the former liberty of living according to the institute of Saint William and the Rule of Saint Benedict had been restored to the Hermits of Saint William — certain Williamites had nonetheless transferred to the Augustinian Order, and certain Williamite monasteries had been occupied by the Augustinians themselves, granted in favor of the Order of the Williamites the following Bull, reported by Sampson Hay, by Chrysostom Henriquez among the Privileges of these Hermits, number 6, and in his Apologetic, chapters 9 and 7 of the Life, as well as by Le Mire, book 2 of his Monastic Origins, chapter 15: "Urban, Bishop... to the General and other Priors and Brothers of the Order of Saint William, greetings... The distinguished merits of your Order require He forbids Williamites from transferring to the Augustinians: that in those things which bear fruit for souls and render the same Order secure from the stain of infamy, you should find the Apostolic See favorable and benign toward you. Indeed, the petition presented to us on your behalf stated that, although you are bound to the regular observance of the Order of Saint Benedict, nonetheless certain of you, having assumed a boldness — believing that under a lighter combat they will more easily triumph over the wiles of the ancient enemy — seduced by the counsel of human frailty and aspiring to the observance of a milder Order, have presumed of their own accord to transfer themselves to the Order of the Brother Hermits of the Order of Saint Augustine, to the detriment of you and your Order, the peril of their own souls, and the scandal of many. Wherefore you have humbly implored the providence of the aforesaid See in this matter. We therefore, acceding to your pious supplications, by the authority of these presents forbid anyone, after having made the vow of profession in your Order, to transfer himself to the aforesaid Order of Hermits without the special permission of the said See; decreeing void and null whatever anyone shall attempt to do contrary to the tenor of these presents. Given at Orvieto, on the tenth day before the Kalends of February, in the second year of our pontificate," the year of Christ 1263.

[27] On account of these Pontifical decrees, the consciences of many who had recently transferred with entire monasteries from the institute of Saint William to the Rule of Saint Augustine were tormented with anguish and scruples. In order to bring peace of mind to some of them, Leo, Bishop of Regensburg, issued a diploma — published by Marquez, chapter 13, section 15, by Crusenius, part 3, chapter 2, and by Herrera in the Augustinian Alphabet, page 412 — in these words: "We wish it not to be hidden from your entire body [For two monasteries transferred to the Augustinians, Leo, Bishop of Regensburg, renders judgment:] that when Brothers were established in our presence — namely, Guido the Provincial Prior of Saint Augustine on the one part, and the Brothers of Saint William of Semanshausen and of Schonthal in our diocese on the other — and a question concerning the union formerly celebrated through the venerable Lord Richard, Cardinal Deacon of Sant'Angelo, whom Pope Alexander of happy memory had appointed for this business, was being debated between them regarding their manner of life; we, having examined the documents of both parties with diligent scrutiny, adjudged the authentic documents of the Brothers of Saint Augustine to prevail over the documents of the opposing party, giving counsel and favor to the Brothers of Saint William of our diocese that they should submit to the union, and publicly declaring in the presence of the Brothers of the Preachers and Friars Minor — summoned regarding this question — that they could do this with safe consciences by our judgment. Lest, therefore, the aforesaid Brothers of Saint William be judged by anyone in the future to have undergone such a union out of fickleness of spirit, but rather as in some sense unwilling and compelled, at the petition of both parties we have deemed it right to grant them the present writing, fortified with the protection of our seal, as testimony. Given at Regensburg, in the year of the Lord 1263, Indiction 6, on the seventh day before the Ides of February."

[28] But the General, the Priors, and other Hermits of the Order of Saint William protested, Concerning these and other monasteries torn from the Order of Saint William: and they implored the judgment of the Supreme Pontiff, that he might pronounce what should be done in this dispute. They complained that the General, Priors, and Brother Hermits of Saint Augustine had taken from them the houses of Porta, of Santa Maria de Ibiseborne in the diocese of Mainz, of Corona, of Santa Maria de Fuvisen in the diocese of Constance, of Semninkuse, of Vallis Speciosa (which above in the diploma of Leo, Bishop of Regensburg, are called Semanshausen and Schonthal) in the diocese of Regensburg, of Mindelheim in the diocese of Augsburg, of the valley of Saint John of Pinonia, of the island of Santa Maria in the diocese of Prague, of Lixtin in the diocese of Canin, and certain other houses of the Order of Saint William, together with the Brothers of those houses in the kingdoms of Germany and Hungary — By the order of Clement IV, as is related in the narrative inserted in the Bull of Pope Clement IV, whose opening is "Ea quae iudicio vel concordia terminantur," reported by Ascanius Tamburini, volume 2 of his work On the Rights of Abbots, disputation 24, question 5, number 34; Juan Marquez, chapter 13, section 14; and Chrysostom Henriquez among the Privileges, number 7, and in chapter 18 of his Apologetic, and chapter 7 of the Life. This Clement IV, moreover, governed the Church in the place of the deceased Urban IV, having been created on February 5, 1265. In that same year, it is reported that upon the death of Lanfranc, Guido succeeded as the second General among the Augustinian Hermits: under whom, and under William, General of the Order of the Williamites, that dispute was settled — first discussed long and at length before Giacomo Savelli, Cardinal Deacon of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, and afterward, by the will of Richard, Cardinal Deacon of Sant'Angelo, to whom the protection of the Order of Hermits of Saint Augustine had been committed, definitively resolved by Stephen the Hungarian, Bishop-Cardinal of Palestrina, By Stephen, Bishop of Palestrina, Protector of the Order of Saint William: whose sentence is reported in the aforesaid Bull of Clement IV in these words.

[29] We therefore, having received such a compromise from the parties, and having obtained from the most holy Father, our Lord Pope Clement IV, a living oracle of consent and permission to order, establish, define, and provide over these matters as should seem most expedient to us, and also by the arbitral power granted to us by the parties themselves, do order, declare, establish, provide, and arbitrate that the aforesaid houses of Porta Sanctae Mariae de Ibisiborne the dispute settled and of Corona Sanctae Mariae, as well as any others that may exist in various regions (with the exception of the aforesaid kingdoms of Germany and Hungary), together with their brethren and their possessions and rights, shall wholly return to the said Order of St. William, and shall remain under the Rule of St. Benedict according to the institution of Blessed William, in the habit they customarily wore before they passed to the aforesaid Order of St. Augustine. Which houses, with their rights and appurtenances, we subject to the same Prior General of the Order of St. William, and by our sentence we adjudge and decree that they pertain to the aforesaid Order of St. William for all time... The remaining aforesaid houses, however, and all other houses which passed from the aforesaid Order of St. William to the aforesaid Order of Hermits of St. Augustine in the aforesaid kingdoms of Germany and Hungary, together with their brethren and rights, movable and immovable goods, and all appurtenances, shall remain in the aforesaid Order of St. Augustine peaceably and quietly, and we decree and arbitrate that they pertain to the same Order of St. Augustine for all time, imposing perpetual silence upon the aforesaid General and other Priors and Brethren of the Order of St. William... Pronounced in the year of the Lord's birth 1266, Indiction 8, in the year 1266 on the last day of the month of July, in the second year of the Pontificate of our Lord Pope Clement IV — in which same year the Bull of Pope Clement, in which this sentence is included, was issued on the fourth day before the Kalends of September.

[30] Let these few excerpts suffice from the very lengthy Bull of pacification between the two Orders of Hermits of SS. Augustine and William — which it is remarkable does not appear in the Augustinian Bullarium, since it is no less necessary for the knowledge of the Order than those obtained from the same Clement IV, in which the immunities and privileges conceded by predecessor Pontiffs are repeated in nearly the same terms. But Herrera, together with Juan Marquez, acknowledged that Bull in the Augustinian Alphabet, where he reports the Williamite monasteries transferred to the Augustinians [at that time the Augustinians obtained these monasteries: in Bohemia, the Island of Blessed Mary] and permitted to them in this concord of the Orders. Among these is the Island of Blessed Mary in Bohemia, afterward surnamed from St. Benigna on account of the sacred body of this Saint donated to this monastery in the year of Christ 1327. Although Georgius Bartholomaeus Pontanus in book 1 of his Sacred Bohemia reports that that monastery was built by Ulric of Waldeck in the year 1262 for the Hermits of the Order of St. Augustine, Herrera rightly corrects this: that it came to the Order of St. Augustine from the houses of the Williamites by virtue of the union of Alexander IV — which could have occurred in the indicated year, which Pontanus confused with the year the monastery was built. Another is the monastery of Pinonia, or the Valley of St. John of Pinonia, and the Valley of St. John of Pinonia called by others Binonia and Pivonia — which Pontanus likewise, in book 2, reports was erected for the Hermit Brethren of the Order of St. Augustine by Bretislav, Duke of Bohemia, and consecrated by Bishop Severus, Apostle of the Bohemians, around the year 1040 — matters that are more entangled. Were these perhaps erroneously attributed to those persons and times which, about two hundred years later, when the Williamites were flourishing in those regions, seem rather to have been accomplished? The third is the monastery of Mindelheim in Swabia, seven Swabian miles distant from Augsburg, in Swabia, Mindelheim which by the same error Martinus Crusius, in his Swabian Annals, part 3, book 2, chapter 12, and from manuscript treatises of Bruschius, writes was founded for the Order of Williamites in the year 1260 — in which year it was transferred from them to the Augustinians, who lament that it is now possessed by heretics. The memory of another at Lixtin of Lixtin has ceased at this time, and the diocese of Caninensis, in which it is said to have been situated, is perhaps the diocese of Cammin in Pomerania — a region of Germany on the Baltic Sea long since oppressed under the yoke of heretics — perhaps in Hungary or rather the diocese of Csanad in Transdanubian Hungary, whose Bishop and Martyr St. Gerard is venerated on September 24, where the Turkish domination has swept away, along with the Christian religion, the memory of ancient monasteries. Two other monasteries, transferred from the Williamites to the Augustinians, remained in the power of the latter, by the judgment and will of Leo, Bishop of Regensburg — in whose diocese they are — and of Stephen, Cardinal of Praeneste. among the Bavarians, Semanshausen Of these, one is Semanshausen in Lower Bavaria, whose letters of erection, dated on the twelfth day before the Kalends of May in the year 1255, in which it is donated to the congregation of Hermits of St. William, Milensius, cited by Herrera, testifies he saw in that convent — where Johannes Aventinus, in book 7 of his Annals of the Bavarians, and Valle Speciosa substitutes Augustinians for Williamites, as if it had originally been built for the former. The other is the monastery of Valle Speciosa, commonly called Schonthal, situated in the Bavarian Palatinate toward Bohemia, to which convent and others in Germany, Bohemia, and neighboring territories the above-mentioned ancient Offices of the Order of St. Augustine, in lesson 7, report that the Holy William came — about which Herrera rightly pronounces that, resting on no foundation, they should be omitted. We shall presently treat of the monasteries restored to the Order of the Williamites.

Section VI. The Privileges of the Williamites Confirmed at the Synod of Basel. Houses and Monasteries of the Order.

[31] In the times that followed, there was no lack of Pontiffs and Emperors, and other Kings and Princes, who protected the Order of Hermits of St. William with their favor and patronage, privileges granted to the Williamites and who granted it immunities, graces, and other privileges, and bestowed various possessions — all of which the Fathers of the Synod of Basel in the year 1435, at the petition of these Williamites, confirmed by this Bull, published by Sampson Haius and Chrysostomus Henriquez among the Privileges of the Order, number 8: the Synod of Basel confirms them "The sacrosanct General Synod, legitimately assembled in the Holy Spirit, representing the universal Church, to the beloved sons of the Church — the General, Provincials, Priors, and Brethren and Convents of the monasteries of the Order of St. William established throughout Germany, France, and Italy, and elsewhere in any place — salvation and the blessing of almighty God. When that which is just and honorable is requested of us, both the vigor of equity and the order of reason require that it be brought to its due effect through the diligence of our office. Wherefore, beloved sons of the Church, meeting your just supplications with willing assent, the tithes, revenues, taxes, lands, villages, possessions, meadows, and other goods pertaining to your said monasteries, and all the liberties and immunities granted by Roman Pontiffs and Emperors, or the privileges or indulgences granted to you and your said monasteries, as well as the liberties and exemptions from secular exactions reasonably conceded to you and your monasteries by Kings and Princes or other faithful of Christ — just as you justly and peaceably hold them all — we confirm to you and through you to the same monasteries by our authority and fortify them by the protection of this present writing. in the year 1435 Let no one, therefore, etc. Given at Basel on the fourth day before the Nones of September, in the year from the Lord's Nativity 1435."

[32] The monasteries of the Order of Hermits of St. William that existed in the aforementioned provinces in that century of Christ we here subjoin, from the manuscript codex of the monastery of Aalst, recently published by Peter Silvius, Prior of the Williamites, together with the Life of St. William. houses and monasteries of the Order in the province of Tuscany The first province is that of Tuscany, where this Order arose, in which the following houses or monasteries are enumerated:

Stabulum Rhodis near Castiglione della Pescaia — the first house, commonly then called St. William's, and the seat of the Generals. We treated of its location above, and shall treat below of its various destructions and restorations.

The monastery of St. Quiricus de Pambolonia. The monastery of Phango near Castiglione. The monastery of Athorona near San Cassiano. The monastery of St. Lituardus. The monastery of St. Francis de Campania.

The Abbey of St. Anthony near Castelnuovo, which is surnamed Castrum Abbatis. This Abbey was built and endowed by Charlemagne. The Bull given by Gregory IX in the year 1230 seems to pertain to this, of which we treated above at number 11. But that it is said to have been built and endowed by Charlemagne, we refuted above in section 1, before the Acts.

The monastery of Aquae-ortus. The monastery of Cylo. The monastery of St. Leonard in Acquadente, which is called Mancipalus. The monastery of St. Juvenal of Orvieto. The monastery of St. John of Aigentola. The monastery of St. Savior of St. Balbina at Rome. The monastery of St. Paul of Albano beyond Rome, which is held in commendam. The monastery of St. Amatus. The monastery of St. Peter of Palubrio beyond Rome.

In the same province there were the following Provostries:

The Provostry of Castiglione della Pescaia, with cure of souls. The Provostry of Castel Piano, without cure. The Provostry of Grosseto, without cure. The Provostry of Campania, without cure. The Provostry of Buriano, with cure. The Provostry of Bolsena, without cure. The Provostry of Piombino, with cure. The Provostry of Roccastrada, with cure. The Provostry of Montelatrone, without cure. The Provostry of Monte Venere, without cure. The Provostry of Arcidosso, with cure. The Provostry of St. Angelo near Campagnatico, with cure. The Provostry of Monte Pescali, with cure.

[33] The second province is that of Germany, in which these monasteries and houses are listed: in the province of Germany

The house of Vallis Comitis, called Stella Mariae, near the village of Obereeth beyond Freiburg. The house of Freiburg, called Cella Mariae. The house of Porta Mariae near Cruishoute, on this side of Hagenau — called in the Bull of Clement IV above, "de Ibiseborne," of the diocese of Mainz; together with the following, returned by the Augustinians in the year 1266. The house of Corona Mariae, called in the same Bull "de Fuvisene," of the diocese of Constance. The house of Mylenbach. The house of Clingennobia. The house of Mentenborne. The house of Hagenau. The house of Vallis Mariae outside Hagenau. The house of Meveghem in Swabia. The house of Mainz. The house of Strasbourg. The house of Vallis Principum Wynsbach near Bacharach. The house of Worms, in the Jewish quarter. The house of Witsenborne. The house of Speyer, outside the gate of St. Mark. The convent of nuns of Vallis Virginum near Limburg. The granges of Agla and Fons Mariae, annexed to the house of Strasbourg.

[34] The third province is that of France — called by others that of France and Belgium, of France and Belgium and by Miraeus also that of Gallia Belgica. He published the catalogue of its monasteries from the Beveren codex in book 2 of the Monastic Origins, chapter 17, and from this Chrysostomus Henriquez reprinted it in the Fasciculus of Cistercian Saints at the end of the Life of St. William. The Order flourishes most abundantly in this province, in which these monasteries are numbered:

The house called Porta Caeli outside 's-Hertogenbosch, begun in the year 1205 — or more correctly, according to the Beveren codex, in the year 1245. Its monks, called Baselduncani from their suburban estate, on account of the Guelders War in the time of Charles V, migrated into the city, from which the Dutch Mars expelled them together with the orthodox religion in the year 1629. Porta Caeli is mentioned in lesson 7 of the antiquated Office and is placed in Germany, that is, Saxony, in the forest which St. William is said to have visited. But whether this or another house is meant, we rejected that fabulous narrative above.

The house of Wastina near Biervliet, begun in the year 1249; when those places were submerged in the year 1377, it was transferred to Bruges in the year 1430, and is called Vallis Sancti Antonii. The house of Barnaphay in the Forest of the Ardennes, begun in the year 1249. The house called Pratum Mariae, also begun in the year 1249. The house of Paradise near Duras, begun in the year 1255 — according to others, the year 1252. In its church the sacred head of St. William was long preserved, as will be said below, when we treat of its destruction. The house of Walincuria, begun in the year 1255 in the County of Namur. The house of Nova Terra, begun in the year 1256; afterward destroyed by wars, it was transferred to Oudezeele in the year 1458, then to Peene in the year 1468, and is entitled Nazareth. These are places in the Cassel district among the Western Flemish. The house of Montrouge outside Paris, founded in the year 1266 (or rather around the year 1256), transferred to Paris in 1297 to the place of the White Mantles. We treated of that house above in section 6, before the Life. The house of St. Ursmar outside Aalst, begun in the year 1268; afterward destroyed by wars, it was transferred within the town in the year 1380. The house of St. Catherine outside Nivelles, begun in the year 1270. The house of Huberge, on the road from Antwerp to Bergen op Zoom, begun in the year 1278. The house of La Motte outside Liege, begun in the year 1281. The house of Palus Comitis, commonly Grevenbroich, in the Duchy of Julich, begun in the year 1281. The house of the Holy Trinity in Beveren, begun in the year 1459, two Belgian miles from Antwerp in the territory of Waasland across the Scheldt.

Section VII. The Cult of St. William among the Augustinians.

[35] That an ancient cult and veneration of St. William flourished among the Augustinian Fathers is indicated by hand-written Breviaries, St. William is venerated by the Augustinians of which one was written before the year of Christ 1446, as Herrera reports in his article on St. William. That this cult was thereafter continued down to our times is confirmed by the proper Offices of the same Order of Hermits of St. Augustine, repeatedly printed and revised, in whose proper Lessons for St. William — the father of the Williamites — St. William is taken to be the man who, but instead of St. William of Gellone from being Duke of Aquitaine under Charlemagne, lived as a monk in the Valley of Gellone — as we reported and refuted above, with Herrera the Augustinian himself leading the way and warning that these Lessons of the Sacred Offices are in need of rigorous examination. Some writers must also be subjected to an equal examination, who, seizing the slightest occasion from affairs so confused, deduce whatever suits their case. Thus Herrera himself, from the said Lessons, reports that near Lyons a monastery of the Holy Savior was erected by the Lord William around the year 1156 in the Valley of Gellone, as they say — which St. William the Elder had built at the beginning of the Empire of Charlemagne. he did not build a monastery near Lyons for them But since it is reported that in the said year 1156 St. William died at Stabulum Rhodis, the same Herrera conjectured that it was perhaps founded by Albert the Gaul, the first disciple of St. William; but he will never prove that Albert was French by nationality or was ever in France. Aegidius a Praesentatione, in the Augustinian Primate, book 5, chapter 4, writes together with Hieronymus Romanus that in the year 1000 a monastery of the Order of Hermits was built in France, in the city of Lyons, nor did he restore it at Lyons which, tottering from the long duration of devouring time and threatening ruin, Blessed William restored — as can be established from the authentic writings of that monastery. Herrera asserts that its record survives in the Registers under the year 1343. But by those authors the monastery is ascribed to the city, which the Lessons report was built in the territory of Lyons — for which we have shown that "Lutevense" among the Narbonenses should be read, founded by St. William of Gellone.

[36] Another is the monastery of Penha Firma in the province of Lusitania, on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean, which, as Herrera says, nor that of Penha Firma in Lusitania some judge to have been built by Blessed William around the year 1140, after he had visited with the greatest devotion the threshold of the Church of Compostela and the sacred relics of Blessed James — where the cited Antonius a Purificatione, in the Triumphal Theatre, thinks it was founded by St. Anciradus the Martyr and repaired by Blessed William under Alfonso I, King of Portugal. But Herrera himself judges that this is not sufficiently certain, and his assessment is more pleasing — when from the ancient Ecclesiastical Lessons of the Order he reported that St. William came to the convent of Valle Speciosa among the Bavarians, he did not restore the Order through various regions adding that things resting on no foundation easily vanish and should be omitted. Furthermore, everything about St. Anciradus the Martyr is doubtful and suspect; therefore we listed him on February 4 among the Omitted, and in the Chronicle of Liutprand he is reported to have lived around the year 850, when in the most bitter persecution of the Moors in that region it would not have been possible to found monasteries. Similar are the things that Joseph Pamphilus, Bishop of Segni, writes in the Augustinian Chronicle: that St. William began to restore monasteries weakened by the injury or long duration of time and did not cease until he restored the entire Order throughout Spain, France, England, Germany, and Illyricum, and adorned it with many monasteries — which same things are mentioned in the ancient Ecclesiastical Lessons. Meanwhile, the same Pamphilus writes that from the dispersion of the Hermit Brethren from Africa after the death of St. Augustine up to the times of the aforesaid Pope Innocent III — that is, the year of Christ 1200 — he did not find in any authentic writing how the Brethren of his Order lived or what they did during that interval of so great a time; wherefore he did not trouble to write anything about this. Unmindful of his own words, he unfortunately did write about St. William, even without finding an authentic document — and he will have difficulty proving that William was a hermit in Spain, France, England, Germany, or Illyricum.

[37] Herrera, in his eulogy of St. William, says that he was Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitou, led back from schism to right thinking by St. Bernard — which we rejected above. Then, after devoutly visiting Jerusalem and Compostela, he did not take the Augustinian habit in the forest of Livalla he fled to the sacred deserts of Tuscany, and there at the forest of Livalla, having taken the Augustinian habit, and shortly afterward having founded the monastery of Stabulum Rhodis in the territory of Siena in the year 1154 or 1155, he began a new Williamite Congregation under the Rule of Augustine and certain particular constitutions. But, as he himself judged above, things resting on no foundation easily vanish. According to the Acts, part 2, chapter 1, he found in the forest of Livalla a horrible cave; a number of companions gathered to him; a hospice was built; but when their fervor cooled, being assailed by difficulties, insults, and injuries, he departed, thenceforth content with a single companion. Whence could Herrera have known more? He adds, under the letter L, that the ancient hermitage at the monastery of Lupocavo in which it is believed with great reason that Blessed William around the year 1153 took up the eremitical institute of St. Augustine is at Lupocavo; and that in the year 1256 it was the head of a particular Congregation of Hermits of St. Mary of Lupocavo in the diocese of Lucca, which in that year, in the general union, coalesced into one body with other Congregations, as Pamphilus expressed on folio 30 of his Augustinian Chronicle. But we rejected above as fabrications Pamphilus's many exaggerated Congregations, since the Bull of Alexander IV reports that only five Congregations of Hermits coalesced into one religious body. Of these, the Congregations of the Brethren of the Hermitage of Brictini and the Brethren of Blessed John Bonus — although they had previously lived according to the rule of certain constitutions of their own — did indeed receive the Rule of St. Augustine under Gregory IX, but from a Pontiff created seventy years after the death of St. William. The Hermits of St. William and others of Monte Fabali had not held that Rule up to the mentioned year 1256, and soon sought to avoid being compelled to adopt it. The fifth remaining Congregation, that of St. Augustine, had already coalesced before under Innocent IV in Tuscany from various hermits, most of whom the Bulls of Innocent given above show to have previously embraced the Rule of St. Benedict; and Herrera himself teaches that the monastery of Lupocavo was from this congregation.

[38] Innocent IV was succeeded by Alexander IV, created Pontiff in December of the year 1254. The deeds of both are placed by others a hundred years earlier, in the time of St. William, and attributed to Anastasius IV and Adrian IV [the deeds of Innocent IV and Alexander IV erroneously transferred to Anastasius IV and Adrian IV] — the latter of whom succeeded in December of the year 1154. These are mentioned in the ancient Office, lesson 9. And Lawrence of Empoli, in his Summary of Apostolic Constitutions — which he did not see — says: "Anastasius IV, number 24, gave St. William the faculty for the restoration of the Order, which he pursued wonderfully in France until his death — which however it happened, you will find at Stabulum Rhodis in Tuscany in the historians." And number 25: "Adrian IV took care to bring to completion the restoration not yet finished by St. William, with very many privileges and graces granted to the Order. He gave the Hermits of the Order the faculty to transfer themselves from the deserts to frequented places," etc. Romanus, in century 8, under the year 1154, testifies that the Bulls concerning the transfer are kept in the Parisian Archive of St. Augustine; and Scripandus under the year 1154, and those who followed them — Bergomensis, Schedelius, Nauclerus, and others. These things Jordan of Saxony more correctly transferred to the times of Innocent IV and Alexander IV, asserting in book 1 of the Lives of the Brethren, chapter 14, that Innocent intended to provide paternally for the Hermits of St. Augustine with a more abundant state, but, prevented by death, did not complete what he had proposed. Alexander IV consummated the union begun by his predecessor, as we showed above — where we also said that, according to the same Jordan, the first privilege given to the Order that he could discover in writing is attributed to Innocent III, before whom, after the above-mentioned Anastasius IV and Adrian IV, six other Supreme Pontiffs presided over the Church for forty years.

[39] Another argument taken by the Augustinian Fathers in ascribing St. William to their Order is drawn from a monastery of their Order called the Valley of St. William, which existed in the diocese of Langres among the French in the year 1252, when Pope Innocent IV, in the ninth year of his Pontificate, the monastery of the Valley of St. William, of the Order of St. Augustine gave to the brethren of that monastery a privilege with this opening: "Innocent, Bishop... to our beloved sons the Prior and Brethren of the Hermits of the Valley of St. William of the Order of St. Augustine, of the diocese of Langres, greeting... Extending kindly assent to the prayers of your devotion." We found this Bull published by Juan Marquez, chapter 13, section 16; by Crusenius, part 2, chapter 22; by Henriquez, chapter 8 of the Apologetic and chapter 7 of the Life; by Herrera, and others — who assert that it was published from the archive of the Parisian convent by Jacobus Brulius in the Antiquities of Paris. But the indicated folio 895 treats of the Parisian convent of the Williamites called the White Mantles. Now, just as other monasteries of St. Augustine in Herrera and others are surnamed from various Saints — Valleys or Mountains of SS. Anthony, Nicholas, Martin, Christopher, Sabinus, Donatus, Mary Magdalene, Lucy, Catherine, and others who were neither of that Order nor hold any particular veneration in it — why and from which St. William is it named? so that valley acquired the name of St. William either from this St. William who died at Stabulum Rhodis, or rather from the one who lived in the desert of Gellone. Certainly the veneration of this William of Gellone seems to have been transferred to the other St. William, so that in the Office of the latter among the Augustinian Fathers, his parents and the wars waged against the Saracens in Gaul under Charlemagne have hitherto been ascribed to the younger one. But let this be said for those who believe this monastery was of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine, from whose registers no record of it — as of other monasteries — is produced; nor is the Valley of St. William contained in the catalogues of monasteries of this time. Hence we have some suspicion that this Valley of St. William is the same is it the same as Vallis Scholarium? as what is commonly called the Valley of Scholars, situated in the mentioned diocese of Langres, and instituted according to the Rule of St. Augustine by a certain William — of whom we shall presently say more — and his companions. In the antiquated Lessons of the Office of St. William, the following is narrated toward the end: "When on a certain day he had to bake bread and the hour was later than usual, fearing lest the brethren be scandalized by the delay and wishing to clean the oven, and not having a broom prepared for cleaning, he suddenly entered the burning oven, cleaned it with his scapular, expelled the ashes with his hands, and came out entirely unburned in both body and garments, and without delay brought the baked loaves to the brethren. He used cold water and bread alone even in winter for a long time. Foreknowing his death, he predicted the day of his passing to the Prior and Brethren, and wrote to King Charles by letter." This passage is from the Acts of St. William of Gellone, who wrote these letters about his death to the Emperor Charlemagne, his cousin; and yet it is added in these Lessons that he departed in the year 1156.

Section VIII. Further Investigation of the Cult of St. William. Whether William, the Founder of the Valley of Scholars, Is Taken for St. William.

[40] Joseph Pamphilus, Bishop of Segni, in the preface of his Augustinian Chronicle, asserts that in his Order, after St. Augustine the author, there existed innumerable men adorned with every kind of virtue and comparable to the most distinguished men of any other Orders. "There was no lack," he adds, "of Elishas, Pauls, Anthonys, Hilarions, Macariuses, and Serapions" — [another William lived with Blessed John Bonus (who and St. William have been taken for one and the same)] namely John Bonus, William the Confessor, William Sengham, William Flete, William the Recluse, and Augustine Novellus. This he writes as if William the Confessor had lived after Blessed John Bonus, or at least contemporaneously with him. The same Pamphilus, on folio 25 and again on folio 30, writes that the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine, begun by Augustine himself and declining, was restored by St. William beyond the Alps, the latter beyond the Alps and in Italy by Blessed John Bonus not long afterward. Blessed John began his Congregation in the year 1209 and died in the year 1249, ninety-two years after the death of St. William — whom we said above, after his assumption of the eremitical life, in the thirteenth century does not seem to have left Etruria. Therefore another William must have existed, younger in age, who lived beyond the Alps. Thus, before Pamphilus, Werner Rolewinck the Carthusian distinguished these two in his Fasciculus Temporum, printed in the year 1481, in which around the year 1154 the Order of the Williamites derived its name and origin from St. William the hermit, formerly Duke of Aquileia; but then around the year 1200, William of Paris began the Order of the Augustinians, surnamed "of Paris" who are also called Mendicants — that is, as religious of the Orders of Preachers and Minors, of which he had treated before. With this Fasciculus Temporum of the Carthusian Brother cited as testimony, Jacobus Philippus of Bergamo, in his Supplement to the Chronicles, printed at Brescia in the year 1485, reports that St. William — not the Parisian, but one dwelling near Paris — first built a monastery for the hermits under the title of mendicancy. The Bergomese is transcribed by those contemporary authors: Hartmann Schedel in his Book of Chronicles, sixth age, folio 203; Johannes Nauclerus in volume 3 of the Chronicle, generation 41, under the year of Christ 1215; and others who came later. We shall presently treat of the monastery of the Hermits of St. Augustine built at Paris around the year 1250 — after we have first said who this William of Paris was.

[41] Gabriel Pennottus, in part 1 of his Tripartite History, chapter 46, having cited, besides the Fasciculus Temporum, Bernard Vargaz, Augustine of Ticinum, and certain others, reports from their opinion that by William is understood one who, being a scholar at Paris, inspired by the divine will and spurning the allurements of the world, the founder of the Order of the Valley of Scholars in order to redeem his sins through penance, embraced the eremitical life with great fervor of spirit and, spreading forth illustrious examples of holiness, drew many after him, with whom he laid the foundations of the Order in the regions of France. Rene Choppin treats of this Order frequently, and indeed in book 1 of the Monasticon, title 1, number 13, has the following: "Four professors of Theosophy at Paris — William, Richard, Everard, and Manasses — gave the beginning to this fellowship of the Valley of Scholars, with three companions which is governed by the Augustinian rule, in the year 1201, their divinely inspired departure being into a hidden valley of Belgian Champagne toward Langres." in the year 1201 Frederick, Bishop of Chalons, also joined himself to them as a companion. Not long after, the Order was approved by the diocesan Bishop of Langres in the year 1203, and by the Roman Pontiff Honorius III on the Nones of March in the year 1218. But when the religious community afterward changed their location and moved to a neighboring and more salubrious valley near Chaumont — a town of Champagne — the name of Valley of Scholars was given to it in the year 1234. So writes Choppin, citing there the Bulls of Popes Honorius IV, John XXII, Pius II, Paul II, and Paul III. The same author, in title 2, number 13, lists most of the monasteries and other members dependent on the Abbey and Order of the Valley of Scholars. Martin of Poland, in book 4 of his Chronicle under Honorius III, writes the following: "This Pope in the third year confirmed the Order of the Valleys of Scholars, English by birth which a certain William, an Englishman, began — he who had been a scholar at Paris and afterward had taught in Burgundy, and at last had flown to the desert with his scholars and had chosen for himself and for his own a form of living drawn from various religious institutes." M. Antonius Sabellicus, in the seventh Ennead of the Historical Rhapsody, book 9, ascribes this man to the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine and numbers him among the Saints of that Order; ascribed to the Augustinian Saints for where he listed men distinguished in written works and various learning, he adds: "Enrolled in the catalogue of Saints are the Divine Augustine, Nicholas of Tolentino, Simplicianus, and William the Briton." Others make this William a citizen of Paris — perhaps born again there to heaven — and buried in the church of St. Catherine, which Choppin, in the place indicated above, reports was founded for the Order of the Valley of Scholars by St. Louis in the year 1229, as a monument more lasting than bronze of the victory of his grandfather King Philip II, which he had won at Bouvines, a village in Flanders, over the Emperor Otto and Ferdinand, Count of Flanders, in the year 1214.

[42] To this William agree very many things which Peter Galesinius in his Martyrology — not without confusion of events and times — attributes to St. William the Great and Hermit, under the day of February 10: "On this very day," he says, "of St. William the Confessor. his eulogy and that of St. William being confused He, a citizen of Paris, instructed by St. Bernard in the pursuit and practice of Christian piety, distinguished for his abjection and contempt of human things, came to Rome; whence, having put on a triple mail coat for the endurance of torments, he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Afterward, having gone to Spain to venerate the sacred relics of the Blessed Apostle James, he returned again to Jerusalem — where, captured by the Saracens and treated rather injuriously on account of his religion, he was at last released by divine aid, and landed on an island near Etruria, where he lived harshly for a long time. After returning to Rome, he came thence to Centumcellae, and finally from there to Paris, and having built many monasteries and performed holy deeds, he rested in the Lord." So writes Galesinius. The last part is reported in the Appendix to the Catalogue of Saints of Peter de Natalibus as follows: "Having devoutly visited the shrines throughout all of Etruria, he landed at Centumcellae... He came to Rome, and thence to Rimini, to the shrine of St. Mary of the Plane Tree of the same Order... believed to have died at Paris After innumerable works of holiness, he returned to his homeland and there happily breathed forth his soul, with miracles sprouting on all sides. His day is celebrated on the fourth day before the Ides of February." On which day, in the Lessons for Matins that were recited in the proper Office of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine from the year 1570, the death of St. William is expressed thus: "At last returning to his own, from the Parisian monastery he had built under the title of mendicants, having performed many marvelous deeds and fortified by the divine Sacraments, he happily departed to the Lord."

[43] Behold what great confusion of events and times — which is further increased by Bishop Pamphilus, who, as we noted above, writes that St. William served strenuously under St. Louis, King of France, neither of them served under St. Louis and that the Saracens invading Aquitaine were defeated by the army of Charles, the brother of this same Louis. We have shown that these things were done under Charlemagne and his son Louis by St. William of Gellone, and here they are transferred to St. Louis, under whom William — the principal founder of the Order of the Valley of Scholars — lived. Of the same kind is what Aegidius a Praesentatione, in book 5 of the Augustinian Primate under the year 1140, infers from the aforementioned Appendix (which he wrongly supposes to have been written by Peter of Equilium): that in those same times the monastery of Rimini of St. Mary of the Plane Tree of the Order of Hermits was established — nor did he visit the Augustinians at Rimini which Herrera, in the Augustinian Alphabet, writes was begun in the year 1256 on December 5, the instrument of whose donation he asserts is still preserved in the archive of that monastery. Finally, similar are the things which, on the occasion of William the Parisian scholar, Bergomensis, Schedel, and Nauclerus, mentioned above, write: that St. William erected the first monastery at Paris under the title of mendicancy. nor did he build a monastery at Paris for them These same things have been inserted into the ancient Lessons of the Ecclesiastical Office of St. William, lesson 9. Aegidius a Praesentatione adds, under the year 1156, that after the death of Blessed William, Albert the Gaul — a man distinguished for the holiness of his life and the learning of his letters, and an assistant of the holy William in the restoration of the Order — undertook the care of the Parisian convent. But, to speak with Herrera, what rests on no foundation easily collapses. The earliest beginnings of the Augustinian Order at Paris are referred by Claude Robert in his Christian Gaul to around the year 1250, under Bishop 76, Galterus de Castro-Theoderici. Robert is in agreement with Jacobus Breulius, in book 2 of the Antiquities of Paris, which was founded around 1250 where he reports more about the place of the first domicile. What is most pertinent here is that the illustrious St. Louis, in his testament — which he made in the year 1269 when about to depart a second time for the Holy Land — distinguishes the Williamites from these Augustinians, leaving certain things to them by testament: "To the Hermit Brethren of the Order of St. William near Paris, namely at Montrouge, 20 pounds. distinct from the monastery of the Williamites To the Hermit Brethren of St. Augustine at Paris, 15 pounds." This without any mention of other monasteries of these Hermits, as he did for other Orders — from which we cite a single example: "Likewise," he says, "we bequeath to the house of the Valley of Scholars at Paris 40 pounds, and to the other houses of the same Order 100 pounds, and of the Valley of Scholars to be distributed similarly according to the discretion and direction of our executors." Hence you may judge that the Order of the Valley of Scholars was at that time more celebrated in France than the Williamites and Augustinians, and was placed before them in the testament of St. Louis. On this, Choppin notes in book 2 of the Monasticon, title 1, number 20, that the ancient historians tell little — which is why for William, the founder of this Order, St. William could more easily have been substituted. And because they professed the Rule of St. Augustine, many errors consequently grew up.

[44] [the Augustinians were not called Williamites before the times of Innocent IV; on account of monasteries transferred to the Augustinians, it is believed the name and cult of St. William persisted] Among these errors is also that by which the Hermits of St. Augustine are occasionally said to have been called Williamites — which Bergomensis writes was done in France up to the times of Innocent IV, though he will prove this by no ancient testimony. Others transcribed Bergomensis without further examination. But those very statements in Bergomensis were afterward omitted in the edition diligently purged of many errors and certain superfluous matters by the diligence of certain scholars. Meanwhile, the name of Williamites could have adhered to the Augustinians in some places on account of the monasteries of St. William added to the Augustinian Order, as written above — by the same reasoning that the Williamites in Paris and in France are called monks of the White Mantles on account of their occupation of the Parisian monastery of the Servites, who, being accustomed to wear white cloaks, were formerly known by that name in that place. In those same monasteries, the ancient cult of the first Patron, St. William, could have persisted even after the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine was adopted, and gradually passed to the entire Order, being afterward piously maintained. Bellinus of Padua, an Augustinian hermit, writes thus in his Martyrology under February 10: "The birthday of St. William the Confessor, of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine." Which Molanus also reports in his supplement to Usuard, and Maurolycus with some additions. In the Roman Martyrology, only St. William the hermit is named — those words being omitted: "of the Order of St. Augustine" — which, however, are read in the same Roman Martyrology under September 10 concerning St. Nicholas of Tolentino. Various Pontiffs, however, approved his veneration among the Augustinians. Pope Gregory XIII permitted him to be honored among the Professed of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine, who was afterward held among the Professed of the Order with indulgences granted under this formula: "To all and each of the faithful of both sexes who shall in future times visit the aforesaid houses and churches of the Hermit Brethren of St. Augustine on the days of the said Founder of the Order, and of St. Monica his mother, and of St. Nicholas and St. William, Professed of the said Order" — as, after Marquez, Crusenius, and others, Chrysostomus Henriquez reports in chapter 13 of the Apologetic on St. William, adding that in the expedition of such apostolic letters, briefs are made without defining anything, according to the tenor of the words placed in the suppliant's petition. The more ancient Pontiffs gave various indulgences to the Augustinian Hermits on the principal feasts of the year, including that of St. Augustine, with no mention of St. William; thus Innocent IV by a Bull given on the sixth day before the Kalends of May in the first year of his Pontificate, the year of Christ 1244; Nicholas IV by a Bull given on the eighth day before the Ides of February in the first year of his Pontificate, the year of Christ 1289; and others did so — in whose time this cult does not yet appear to have been assumed by the Order as a whole.

Section IX. The Cult of St. William among the Benedictines and Cistercians. Its Origin Wrongly Attributed to the Conversion of the Duke of Aquitaine by St. Bernard.

[45] St. William is ascribed to the Benedictine Order in the monastic Martyrology of Menard under February 10 in these words: "At Stabulum Rhodis, of St. William the hermit." St. William is venerated among the Benedictines It is added in book 2 of the Observations that he had been Duke of Aquitaine, converted by St. Bernard, and having gathered certain disciples, led an eremitical life under the Rule of St. Benedict. On account of this conversion of Duke William effected by St. Bernard — because he is taken by most to be St. William — the Cistercians ascribe him to their Order. Thus an ancient Breviary of the Cistercian Order, printed at Paris in the year 1508, at the end of the book presents an Office and Mass of St. William and contains various things about his conversion by St. Bernard. This Office was transcribed for us in full by the Reverend John Polck, Pastor of Nitterheim in the Archdiocese of Cologne, from the Breviary of the monastery of Grevenbroich in the Duchy of Julich. Their Calendar, printed at Dijon in the year 1617, likewise attests the same under February 10: and the Cistercians "St. William the hermit, and the principal reformer of the Hermits of St. Augustine, is converted by St. Bernard." By that Calendar, and another from Salamanca which we have not seen and which is cited in the Notes, it is inscribed in the Cistercian Menology of Chrysostomus Henriquez in these words: "The Conversion of St. William, Prince of the Aquitanians and Pictons, whom St. Bernard powerfully converted from a schismatic and most obstinate sinner and instructed in the most holy manner of life." The same Henriquez composed the Life of St. William and published it in book 2 of the Fasciculus of Saints of the Cistercian Order, distinction 12 — to which he prefaces that the Order of the Williamites served under the Rule of the monks of St. Benedict and the customs of the Cistercians, and for this reason he inserted whatever Apostolic Bulls granted to this Order that he could find into the book of the rule, constitutions, and privileges of the Cistercian Order. Finally he composed an apologetic book as if he were the Duke of Aquitaine converted by St. Bernard in which he endeavors to show that St. William was a Benedictine and Cistercian, not an Augustinian, and he calls this book "William of Aquitaine the Cistercian" — as if St. William (whom he believes to be the Duke of Aquitaine, led back from the schism of the Antipope Anacletus to the obedience of the true Pontiff by St. Bernard) had in his conversion been taught the institute and rule of living of the Cistercians by St. Bernard, had lived according to the Rule of St. Benedict, and had prescribed it for the Order he founded. Chrysostomus was followed by Ascanius Tamburinus, in volume 2 of the Law of Abbots, disputation 24, question 4, number 27. All these things collapse from what was said above, where we both demonstrated that St. William was different from that Duke of Aquitaine, and that the Rule of St. Benedict was assumed by the Williamites at the command of Pope Gregory IX.

[46] One thing remains to be investigated here: whether St. William was a young man educated under the direction of St. Bernard, and hence the occasion given for the other confusion mentioned. was he taught piety by him as a young man? Raphael Volaterranus, in book 21 of the Anthropology, writes that St. William in the year 1158, under Pope Eugenius, instructed by the precepts of the Divine Bernard, having left all things, came to Rome. But these three had died before the said year: Pope Eugenius and St. Bernard in the year 1153, and St. William in the year 1157. Furthermore, as Bergomensis has it in the place indicated above, St. William, having been sufficiently instructed from his earliest youth by the Abbot St. Bernard — while he was held to be higher than all — wished to set death before his eyes, and fearing lest he might one day be snatched by sudden death, having spurned the pomps of the world, he withdrew into a vast desert, and there under the Rule of the Divine Father Augustine he began to be a perfect servant of Christ... "He, seeing the Cistercian Order in France greatly increased in a short time and held in the highest esteem, while his own Order of Hermits was in all respects weakened, ruined, and devastated... applied his mind to restoring it and to reforming the conduct of his religious," etc. Bergomensis is followed by Schedel, Nauclerus, and others; and the Augustinian compiler of the ancient Lessons of the Ecclesiastical Office of St. William has the same. But because we do not approve many things reported by these writers about St. William, we can establish nothing about this education of St. William under the Divine Bernard. [did William, the author of the Valley of Scholars, rather emulate the fervor of the Cistercians?] The things that are added, however — on account of the flourishing Cistercians in France, from pious emulation — we judge should be referred to the Order of the Valley of Scholars, whose first founder we said was William. For these, as is clear from the Constitutions of the Roman Pontiffs Honorius III and John XXII, inserted into the Bull of Pope Pius II given in the year 1463, professed the regular life according to God and the Rule of Blessed Augustine, and observed the gesture, habit, and Office in the manner of the Brethren of the house of Blessed Victor outside the walls of Paris, but celebrated their visitations and chapters in the manner of the Cistercians. Which Choppin explains more fully in book 2 of the Sacred Polity, title 8, number 20.

[47] Finally, Henriquez in chapter 12 of the Apologetic ascribes St. William to his Order because the Williamites in their religious habit more closely approach the vestment of the Cistercians — but with a weak argument. "They wear," he says, "besides their inner garments, a white tunic and over the same a black scapular with a hood of the same color; the Williamites approach the Cistercians in habit the scapular is girded with a belt made of black wool. When they go out, they have a black cowl, though not always." The Belgian Williamites themselves, on account of the conversion of the Duke of Aquitaine by St. Bernard attributed to their father St. William, strive in all things to approach the Cistercian institute, indicating — if common Breviaries for the use of both Orders should be printed — and in the Ecclesiastical Office that they wish to recite the Ecclesiastical Office of the Cistercian Order and to venerate St. Bernard as a Father; reciprocally requesting that the Office of St. William be admitted among the feasts of the Cistercians, and also that plenary indulgences be obtained from the Roman Pontiff for all who on the feast days of SS. William and Bernard visit the churches of the Cistercians and Williamites, etc. Thus it was petitioned in a letter dated January 5, 1638, from Brussels, by Angelo Manrique, General Reformer of the Cistercian Order in Spain, as he reports in his Annals under the year 1136, chapter 2, number 7. some have become Cistercians Indeed, the Williamites of Grevenbroich among the people of Julich in the diocese of Cologne have, a few years ago, embraced the institute of the Cistercian Order, with their monastery submitted to the governance of these. Which, however, the Belgian Williamites in general do not approve.

ON THE RELICS OF ST. WILLIAM. A Historical Commentary.

The Order of the Hermits of St. William.

By G. H.

Section I. Stabulum Rhodis Destroyed and Restored. The Head of St. William Carried to Germany, the Remaining Bones to Castiglione della Pescaia.

[1] At the time when, by a life most holily instituted and a death happily undergone, the holy hermit William was illuminating Etruria, the Republic of Siena agitated by various wars the city of Siena — as also others in Italy — had been reduced to the form of a republic and was ruling widely over many peoples. Having carried its victorious arms as far as the Mediterranean Sea, it also added to its domain the city of Grosseto, under which Stabulum Rhodis was situated — which Orlandus Malauoltus, in part 1 of his History of Siena, book 4, reports to have happened in the year 1224. Moreover, this city of Siena in turn inflicted memorable defeats upon the Florentines and sustained them in return. Amid these discords of the peoples and various pirate incursions, the Williamite monastery Stabulum Rhodis nearly destroyed at the said Stabulum Rhodis, situated not far from the sea, underwent utter ruin and destruction. Hence the place itself, having been deserted, was not inaptly called Malavallis — where scarcely any trace of its ancient splendor would have been left, had not the peoples dwelling round about, on account of the heavenly favors obtained through the patronage of St. William, with singular devotion toward him and with voluntarily contributed expenses, repeatedly rebuilt the church formerly erected in his honor, which had been frequently demolished. The tokens of this generosity — the heraldic arms of those who principally bore the expense for this — are seen, once hung in the parts of the restored temple, and the eyewitness William Cavalcantinus testifies in chapter 39 of the Life of St. William published by him in that year that they still existed in the year 1605.

[2] This church, as the same Cavalcantinus adds, was given by Pope Pius IV in the fifth year of his Pontificate, the year of Christ 1564, in commendam (as they call it) under the title of the Abbey of St. William the Abbey of St. William given in commendam to the Conchini to the illustrious Lord Bartholomew Conchino, of the most noble family of the Counts della Penna. This Papal donation, with an ample privilege added, was ratified by Cosimo de' Medici, Duke of Etruria, in the year 1565. And in the year 1605, Giovanni Battista Conchino, son of Bartholomew, enjoyed it — both of whom not only renewed and restored the said place at no small expense, but also fostered and sustained the Augustinian Hermits who had been introduced. Augustinians introduced By the labor and industry of these religious, Malavallis — formerly uncultivated and wild — took on a new pleasantness and fertility, like a well-cultivated garden, abounding with a manifold variety of vines, olive groves, and other fruits. Giovanni Nicolucci of Monte Cassiano died on August 14, 1621 — by John of Monte Cassiano a man, as Herrera testifies in the Augustinian Alphabet, holy while he lived, and celebrated for miracles both during his life and after death, whose canonization process has been begun before the Apostolic See, with a formal process constructed by Pontifical authority. This John was surnamed "of St. William" because he had his domicile at Stabulum Rhodis near St. William from the year of Christ 1597. "In the first three years," says Herrera, "he led a solitary life; afterward he chose fellow hermits and erected the hermitage of St. William." a hermitage constructed around the year 1600 To him, residing at Stabulum Rhodis, the Generals confirmed various faculties — namely in the year 1613, of absolving from censures if any religious existing at St. William's should have incurred them; and in the year 1617, of giving the hood at St. William's to Brother Fulgentius of Viterbo and, after the probationary year, admitting his profession. In the year 1619, a reply was given to him while remaining in the hermitage of St. William at Stabulum Rhodis, by which not only the patent letters of his predecessor are confirmed but, if needed, enlarged, etc. The same Herrera, among the monasteries beginning with the letter C, writes under the year 1683: "Of Castiglione della Pescaia in Etruria — St. William's, possessed by the Order from ancient times, and three miles distant from Castiglione." Crusenius, in part 2 of the Augustinian Monasticism, chapter 22, writes that Malavallis, Monte Pruno, and Stabulum Rhodis — where St. William remained until the end of his life — were always, and still are, places of the Order of St. Augustine, without any interruption of possession. However, the same Crusenius, in his Index of Monasteries in the province of Siena, lists only the convent of St. William, which is at Stabulum Rhodis or Malavallis, with no mention of Monte Pruno — which is also omitted in Herrera's careful Alphabet.

[3] This concerning the various fortunes of Stabulum Rhodis, where the sacred body of St. William, initially buried, became renowned for very many miracles. Whence the head was carried to Germany — the other province of the Williamite Order — as we shall say below. [the relics of St. William, without the head, carried to Castiglione della Pescaia] But the remaining bones of the body (Cavalcantinus excepts the head alone) were transported within the town of Castiglione della Pescaia and are preserved with great reverence in the parish church of St. John the Baptist. A record of this church persists in the registers of the Augustinian Fathers at Herrera, page 180. It is said to have been given on March 29, 1591, to Brother Christophorus Bembo of Scarlino, on account of the distinguished and singular reverence and piety with which he honored St. William, formerly Duke of Aquitaine and hermit; for the people of Castiglione hoped that he would show himself a good, pious man, worthy of imitation by all good people. Wherefore, by the authority of their office, by their letters they gave him the faculty to serve freely and lawfully the church and provostry of St. John of Castiglione della Pescaia, where the sacred bones of the same St. William are deposited, etc.

[4] So writes Herrera. Cavalcantinus adds that these sacred relics are proposed for viewing twice annually with a great celebration and concourse of peoples; furthermore, on the very Kalends of May (to which day we said above that the principal solemnity was transferred by the authority of the Apostolic See), the citizens of Castiglione of every sex and age carry, in public procession, the relics of St. William from their parish church to the now-restored Abbey of Stabulum Rhodis, on May 1 they are carried in procession to Stabulum Rhodis where they are kept for three days with great devotion, offered to the people who flock there, not only to be viewed but also to be touched and honored with pious kisses. During the three days spent on the devotion of those who flock there from all sides (nor could fewer days have sufficed for so great a celebration involving so many people), the same citizens of Castiglione reverently carry them back to their own church, as they had been brought. The writer of the Life, Cavalcantinus himself, moved by pious affection toward St. William, came to Castiglione and, having obtained permission, inspected the sacred relics set forth before him and piously venerated them. At that time there was also present William Delbava of Volterra, a distinguished man of the Order of St. Augustine and a Doctor of Sacred Theology, whom Elsius in the Augustinian Encomium mentions after Cavalcantinus, Crusenius, and Herrera.

[5] This concerning the sacred bones of St. William, transported to Castiglione — the date of which we have nowhere yet read. the head of St. William formerly translated to Germany The head had long before been carried to Germany, where we indicated above that a second province of the Order, called Germany, had existed and that its monasteries were built there in the thirteenth century. We also reported that in the Annals of the Dominicans of Colmar it is noted that St. William was renowned for miracles in the year 1232 — which was observed by the nearby Colmarians on the occasion of the Williamite monasteries built in Alsace. But at what time and on what occasion the sacred head of St. William was brought to Germany and deposited in the church of the Preachers at Frankfurt, we have nowhere read. A monastery was built for them in that city at the beginning of the Order, in which Blessed Jordan, the second General, healed a novice suffering from a fever by the laying on of his hand, as we shall explain on February 13 in his Life. The Preachers themselves, long preserved by the Dominicans of Frankfurt as will be explained below, testified in the year 1479 that they had received this relic, preserved from the most ancient memory, from their predecessors and had always venerated it — so that by this manifest and attested antiquity the people of Castiglione are surpassed, among whom nothing is known of the time when they acquired the remaining body. In the assigned year 1479, that sacred head was donated by the Preachers of Frankfurt to the Williamites of the monastery of Paradise, which they possessed in the suburb of the town of Marcodurus (Duren) in the province of Julich. From their manuscript book, the Reverend Father Jacobus Polius — formerly Guardian of the Order of Friars Minor of St. Francis at Marcodurus, now historiographer of the same at Cologne — transcribed the authentic testimony of this donation. In his Historical Exegesis of St. Anne, published in Cologne in the year 1640, he reports in chapter 38 that "the Preacher Fathers of Frankfurt formerly, at the request of a Patrician and Magistrate of Marcodurus, sent as a gift to the Monastery of Paradise at Marcodurus — of the Hermit Fathers of the Order of St. William — the head of St. William, Patron of the Order, as the surviving diploma attests." And in volume 11 of the manuscript book of Copies of the same Polius, it is contained on page 2 under this title: "Concerning the head of St. William, sent from Frankfurt by the Preachers to Marcodurus."

[6] "To the honorable and devout man Gerard de Thorn, citizen of the town of Duren, situated under the dominion of the illustrious Duke of Julich, I, Brother John Wilvarij, Prior of the convent of Frankfurt of the Order of Preachers, together with the Fathers inscribed below, greeting in the Lord, with the perpetual increase of the divine praise. Since your sincere devotion with the most earnest insistence some months ago in our convent of Frankfurt supplicated me and my Fathers, after your laudable and agreeable intention had been proposed in our presence — namely that the head of St. William be given to you — and moreover after this you did not cease to press us with your continual pious and humble letters: donated by them I, together with my Fathers — Brother Wenceslaus, Professor of Sacred Theology and Lector of the Sacred Page; Father Hermann de Sittert, Subprior; Brother John Loch; to the Williamites of Marcodurus Brother Werner Nepotis of Koblenz; together with Brother John Betburg, Procurator — having well deliberated upon your pious insistence, although reluctant, have resolved to accede to your pious and devout prayers, giving for God's sake the head of St. William, with that certainty of faith and famous and probable opinion with which we ourselves received this same relic from our predecessor Fathers — continually kept with devout celebration and also with an annual feast and the studious writing out of his Legend — and have venerated it hitherto at our house in Frankfurt, and shall nevertheless also in the future, as has been our custom, show veneration to the aforesaid Saint; (retaining, however, a certain particle) for whose perpetual memory, therefore, we have thought it fitting to retain with us a particle of his sacred head now offered to you. Although, moreover, we know that to certain Brothers of the Order of St. William in former times, when they suppliantly requested this sacred head with a notable sum of money offered, it was denied; yet, having weighed your pious and earnest desire, by which you promise to convey the aforesaid Saint's head to some monastery of St. William in which at least a regular and honorable life may be shining — so that it may be venerated with greater and more celebrated honor than with us — I, Brother John Wilvarij, Prior of the aforementioned convent and Order, together with the said Fathers of the same, to the honor of almighty God and also in proclamation of the greater veneration of His Saint William, and that the devotion of the Brethren of the said Order may be more kindled, and that their devout continual prayer may aid us and likewise commend us before this Saint, of our own accord, we offer the sacred head of William, sending it to you. In testimony of the aforesaid words and pious giving, I have thought it fitting to append the seal of my Prioral office to these presents. In the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand four hundred and seventy-nine, in the year 1479 the day after that of St. Anthony the Confessor and Abbot." Thus far the document, at the end of which was written in the hand of Father Polius: "We extracted this at Julich from the old book of copies of the monastery of Paradise, in quarto, found in the possession of the Dean Vehlen, partly on October 2, 1634, and partly on April 10, 1635. Brother Jacobus Polius, Guardian at Marcodurus. Brother Valentinus Nicolai, Cleric." Here the reader should observe that the same St. William is nowhere in the said testimony called Duke of Aquitaine, or descended from those Dukes — an opinion which later prevailed.

Section II. The Head of St. William Long Honored among the Williamites of Marcodurus; after the Destruction of the Monastery, Preserved among Various Persons.

[7] The same Jacobus Polius writes the following from ancient documents concerning the origin of that monastery and the cult of St. William: "In the year of the Lord 1252, Lord Anselm, the monastery of Paradise built for the Williamites in the year 1252 Lord and heir of Drove, and perpetual Advocate of the town of Duren, gave and offered in alms his own habitation — which he possessed by hereditary right — to almighty God and the glorious Virgin Mary his mother, and also to Blessed William the Confessor, for the remedy of his soul and in remission of his sins, and he decreed that a monastery be constructed and built in that place, which he wished to be called Paradise by all, so that after this changeable life he might live eternally in the heavenly Paradise." This place was preeminent above others by this prerogative: that it possessed the head of St. William, the founder of the Order. The Dukes of Julich also, from ancient times, were frequently accustomed to come here annually to refresh and strengthen their souls through the Sacraments and to reside for three days in the neighboring court of Veldenstein. Two seals of the monastery are revealed by letters of reversion, sealed on the eve of St. Andrew in the year 1348 by the Prior and conventual Brothers; of which the greater — that of the local Prelate — displays in its design the three Kings before the Blessed Virgin and Child; the second, lesser one — that of the Conventual Brothers — shows the Nativity of Christ with the inscription: "Seal of the Convent of Paradise, of the Order of St. William." celebrated on account of the head of St. William Great was the reverence and dignity of this sacred place, especially on account of the treasure of the sacred head of the Patron of the Order, Blessed William, which was customarily carried in solemn procession on the feast of St. Anne, after the head of the same Saint. After the head was transferred to the Fathers of the Society at Antwerp, a sculpted effigy of the head and a gilded pectoral — hollow inside — passed to the Observant Fathers at Bethany, who, out of a grateful memory of antiquity, display the same effigy on feast days, supported by other sacred relics.

[8] So writes Polius. Below also, in the testimony of the Magistrate and Aldermen of the Lordship of Francken, the annual procession is confirmed, in which the head of St. William was customarily carried on the feast of St. Anne with great solemnity and popular devotion — up to the year 1542, in which William, Duke of Cleves and Julich, at the time of the war of the Duke of Julich waged with Charles V intending to claim Guelders and Zutphen for himself by force of arms against the Emperor Charles V, sent an army into the latter's Belgian territories under Duke Martin von Rossem; but the Imperialists, intent on repaying in kind, invaded the region of Julich with plunder, and carrying the war far and wide, they conquered Marcodurus, Julich, Sittard, Heinsberg, and many other towns and fortresses, and fortified them with garrisons. But when the army of the Prince of Julich arrived, they were forced to retreat and even surrendered Marcodurus itself at the end of December. destroyed in 1542 On account of this military incursion, the monastery of Paradise was destroyed in the month of October, the Williamites migrating with the head of St. William and other relics within the walls of Duren. But in the following year 1543, when Emperor Charles V again brought an army to the town of Marcodurus, he seized the walls by force, and Marcodurus burned in 1543 not without great slaughter of the townsfolk, plundering of goods, and devastation of buildings. To which on the following day so great a fire was added that, although the pious Emperor sent soldiers to extinguish it, only a few buildings could be saved — together with the Franciscan monastery, to which Emperor Charles arranged to have the head of St. Anne carried by Spaniards with great ceremony. This relic is still preserved in the principal church, formerly dedicated to St. Martin and now to the same St. Anne. These matters are related more fully by Surius in his Commentary on Events in the World under the said years, by Pontus Heuterus in book 2 of Belgian Affairs under Charles V, and by others.

[9] After the peace obtained from Emperor Charles V by Duke William in the same year 1543, in which Marcodurus had burned, the Williamites of Paradise reside at Marcodurus the Williamites of the destroyed monastery of Paradise lived in the town of Marcodurus with the sacred head of St. William up to the year 1570, and their name still adheres to the parish church in which they attended to divine services. Meanwhile, the same Duke William restored Julich — from which the entire territory takes its name — with new buildings and fortifications, and especially with a very well-fortified citadel, and he did not fail to renew the splendor of the ancient temple. their goods given to the Canons of Julich There had formerly been a college of Canons in the village of Stommel, transferred by William the First, Duke of Julich, with the authority of his brother Walram, Archbishop of Cologne, in the year 1342 to Nideggen — the ancient seat of the Princes — and then in the year 1569 brought to Julich, together with the body of St. Christina of Stommel, previously brought to Nideggen and then also to Julich. We shall give her Life on November 6, when she is venerated. Petrus Strethagen, in his Syntagma of the Cities of Julich, and Werner Teschenmacher, in his work on Julich, Mons, and Ravensberg, and others treat of those changes of the college of Canons. But so that the same Duke William might increase that college of Canons at Julich with a new endowment, he arranged for the fixed goods of the monastery of Paradise to be attributed to the same college in the year 1570 in the year 1570, as is clear from the attached diploma, rendered into Latin from the Julich dialect — originally written in testimony concerning the head of St. William, donated to Arnold Cools, a Carmelite of the town of Aalst in Flanders.

[10] "We, the Magistrate and Aldermen of the Lordship of Francken in the Duchy of Julich, one great league distant from Marcodurus, by this letter fortified with our seal, declare and attest to all who shall see or hear it read: that it is known to us how, some years ago, near the town of Marcodurus, there existed a monastery of the Order of St. William called Paradise, in which, among the relics of other Saints both male and female, there was the sacred head of the friend of God, St. William — on account of which many pilgrimages were accustomed to be made there with great devotion to the honor of God, the head of St. William held there in the highest veneration so much so that the same head of St. William was accustomed annually, on the feast of St. Anne, to be carried in procession also within the town of Marcodurus with great solemnity and piety. In the same manner it is also known to us that the same monastery was destroyed in October of the year 1542 on account of military incursions, and that the diplomas pertaining to the foundation of the monastery and to the translation of the head of St. William to it perished in the fire at the same time. Wherefore the Williamite Brothers, forced to migrate to those domiciles they had within the city, performed sacred duties for some years in the churches of the same town, until our most gracious Prince and Lord, the Duke of Julich, in the year 1570 adorned and endowed with all the possessions belonging to the aforesaid monastery of St. William called Paradise the college of Canons transferred from Nideggen to his city of Julich. In the bestowal of these goods, however, the same most gracious Prince of worthy memory granted to each of the said Williamites, as long as they should live, a certain church, and also permitted them to divide among themselves all movable goods, sacred relics, and other monuments that they had in their possession. the former Prior of Paradise holds it In this division of property, to the Reverend and devout Brother, Lord Peter Bardenheuuer, then Prior of Paradise, the sacred head of the friend of God, St. William, fell by lot, and it was preserved in a certain and secure place, while the same Brother Lord Peter was designated Pastor of the church of Lamersdorf near the Lordship of Francken. At that time the Reverend Lord Arnold Cools, a Carmelite of the monastery of Aalst in Flanders, enrolled among the Knights Brethren of the most holy Sepulchre of Christ, had been living among us in the aforesaid lordship for about twenty years, modestly and with praise, with the consent of the Lords of Francken. And after having formed an acquaintance and close friendship with the said Lord Prior — then Pastor of Lamersdorf — he often asked him to donate to him the head of St. William, and he did not cease to press him daily with the utmost diligence and skill, solemnly promising that he would carry the head and relics of St. William to the honor of God and of the Saint to such a place where they would henceforth be held in far greater veneration than they had been hitherto."

[11] Then the aforementioned Pastor of Lamersdorf, having observed the diligent, continual, and truly divine petition of the Reverend Lord Arnold Cools, he gives it to Arnold Cools, a Carmelite perceiving the earnest intention with which the latter was moved toward the cult and veneration of St. William, wishing also to gratify the noble and generous Lords of Francken, and above all desiring that the sacred head be henceforth exposed to greater veneration, carried it himself from the place where it had been preserved since its previous transfer to the castle of the Lordship of Francken on the Kalends of September in the year 1573, in the year 1573 and in our presence freely handed it over to the aforementioned Lord Arnold Cools and gave it to him. The Lord Arnold Cools received and accepted the head and relics of St. William with a grateful spirit, with great reverence, piety, and devotion. We therefore, the Magistrate and Aldermen, in whose presence this religious transfer of the sacred relics occurred, moved by the diligent request and desire of both the aforesaid Lords — before the Aldermen of the Lordship of Francken Lord Arnold and Lord Peter — have caused this diploma to be written on parchment, as a faithful testimony, through the notary of our jurisdiction, for the knowledge of the truth, and have caused it to be lawfully sealed with the seal of our jurisdiction, the aldermanship of the Lordship of Francken. Done in the year, month, and day indicated above. It was subscribed: Hermann van Jutherbergh, juridical Secretary of the Lordship of Francken. And it was sealed with a seal of red wax on a double cord of parchment. Below was written: For greater certainty and testimony of the truth, I have subscribed my name here and have caused my seal to be appended. and Lord Richard of Merode Noted below: Richald van Merode, Lord of Francken. And it was sealed with his seal of red wax, hanging below on a double cord of parchment. Meroda is moreover an ancient castle in the same Duchy of Julich, not far from Marcodurus, long distinguished by the title of Barony, from which the illustrious Merode family, divided into many branches, takes its surname. The said Lord Richald, or Richard, of Merode — son of the other Richard, Lord of Francken, commonly "de Frentz" or "zu Vraenzen" — lived until the year 1577 and begot from Margaret, Lady of Oignies and Middelburg, Philip and Richard, both afterward united by marriage with the Montmorency family; of these, Philip was created Count of the town of Middelburg in Flanders by Albert, Prince of the Belgians, in the year 1617.

Section III. The Head of St. William Carried to Antwerp; Given to the Society of Jesus There.

[12] Thus far we have treated of the head of St. William preserved in the territory of Julich; now we shall tell how it was afterward carried to Antwerp and given to the Society of Jesus. Mention of it is made in the printed Annual Letters of the same Society for the year 1586, in these few words: "Greater adornment and veneration came from the head of St. William and from many relics of Ursula's companions and other Saints." That the public exposition of the same head was made in the year 1593 and confirmed by Pontifical authority, with more details added for the following year 1594, is inserted in the same Annual Letters; and after describing the monastery of Marcodurus in which the sacred head was formerly kept, the following is added: "In the year 1542, when Marcodurus was captured by the army of the Emperor Charles V, Arnold Cools carries the head of St. William to Antwerp the monastery was completely destroyed and the religious dispersed. In their departure, they divided the sacred relics among themselves in such a way that the head of St. William fell to the Prior. He, uncertain for some time as to what place he should choose for himself and for the sacred head, in the year seventy-three of the same century at last granted it by a free and public donation to Arnold Cools, a religious man of the Carmelite family. He migrated to Antwerp with the venerable skull. When Antwerp was afterward occupied by the heretics, the domestic instrument of the Carmelites, together with the sacred head enclosed in wood, fell into the hands of the enemy." So the Letters. The said Arnold Cools was Prior of the Carmelite monastery at Antwerp for two years, from February 14, 1574, to February 14, 1576. made Prior there in the year 1574 In this year Antwerp was sacked by the mutinous soldiery, and the said Prior migrated elsewhere — where, is not known; perhaps to Speyer on the Rhine, where he again became Prior of the Carmelites and lectured in theology to his brethren, and finally died. We have often seen his portrait — carrying a palm in his hand, since he was a Knight of Jerusalem — at Antwerp among the other Priors of the monastery. But it was not safe for him to settle even at Aalst, where in his own convent he had previously, as Prior, built the greater part of the church, or to deposit the sacred relics there — that town having been seized and held by force by the same mutinous soldiers in the same year 1576. in the Belgian tumult, not yet assigned to any church, the heretics plunder it The Carmelites were then expelled from Antwerp by the heretics in the year 1579, on May 28, the feast of the Ascension of Christ. For, summoned to a public procession in the Cathedral church dedicated to the Virgin Mother of God, they were led from there to a ship, the monastery being left to the heretical plunderers. At which time the sacred head of St. William, not yet assigned to any church but enclosed in a chest, fell into the hands of the enemy.

[13] What then happened concerning these sacred relics is thus reported in the same printed Annual Letters: "The enemy put this sacred head up for auction. Two men presided over the auction: one Catholic, the other a heretic. The soldiers were pressing for it to be sold, with the Catholic conniving and permitting. When the bidders, no doubt in jest and wantonness, were offering enormous prices — greater at each bid than could be paid — the heretical auctioneer, whether touched by a new piety, or offended by the soldiers' wantonness, but, one of them keeping it at home is punished by the illnesses of his household as I think more likely, by a hidden interior impulse divinely sent, rescued the venerable head from their mockery and kept it in his own house — though not with the dignity that was fitting. Which cost him dearly: for first his wife, then his daughter, and finally his entire household was afflicted by a persistent illness. Terrified by these evils, he warned his Catholic associate to carry the head of that dead man (for thus he irreverently called it) out of his house — otherwise he would kick it out with his feet; for it had brought disaster upon his entire family. He added that the nocturnal shade of the dead man filled everything with terrors. Thus it passed from the heretics to the Catholics." he gives it to Catholics So far the Annual Letters. But it is worth appending the letter of the heretic himself who had presided at that auction — whose name was Anthony Criecke — which, from Willemstad, a town in Holland on the borders of Brabant (to which he had migrated after Antwerp was restored to its King and to the orthodox faith), he wrote back on May 8, 1594, when requested, to John Kieboom, City Clerk of Antwerp, to this effect:

[14] "The satellites of William, Prince of Orange, among their plunder, had seized a certain chest, asserting that they had taken it from the enemy. The Procurator General, named Brem, [snatched from the mockery of the soldiers with the permission of the Procurator General] on account of the right claimed by various persons to that chest, by the decision of the Chancellor and Senators of the Council of Brabant, laid hands on the same chest and caused the goods found in it to be registered in an inventory, so that they might be sold for the benefit of those holding a right. Then the soldiers wished the skull found in it (afterward given by him, together with the attached letters of documentation, to the sister of Kieboom) to be sold as well, holding it in mockery and contempt. But he had persuaded the Procurator General that the skull — for which a large sum of money was also being offered — should be rescued from the insulting auction and the mockery of the soldiers; and so, his consent having been obtained, it was done. And he had given the skull, together with various relics enclosed in a purse, to the sister of this Kieboom; but he did not know to whom the said chest with the things enclosed in it had belonged." he gives it to Catholics Thus he who is below styled "an Accensus of the Council of Brabant," writing to John Kieboom, a vigorous champion of the orthodox religion — whose son John, a Priest of our Society, lived among us and devoted his life and spirit to those infected with the contagious plague at Antwerp, with wonderful alacrity and great consolation to the sick, dying piously in the year 1635. His aunt, the City Clerk's sister — a widow in 1594 — had been married to Anthony de Jonghe, a Catholic man and likewise an Accensus of the same Council of Brabant. In their house first, and then with Adam vander Soppen — who had married another sister of Kieboom — the sacred head of St. William was preserved, while Antwerp, which groaned under the yoke of the heretics after the exercise of the Catholic faith had been cast out, was restored to the Catholic King and the orthodox religion in the year 1585, and also received back — on agreed terms — the previously expelled Society of Jesus, to whom the head of St. William was carried from the house of Adam vander Soppen in the following year. The other son of this Adam, named David, lived until the year 1652 and frequently confessed his sins to me in the tribunal of Penance — a man of proven virtue, who during his last illness, when I visited him, narrated various things about the sacred head preserved by his parents and given to our Society. His other brother John committed to writing the manner in which that sacred head was given to us and transferred, which document, signed by a public notary, we have thought it worth translating into Latin and reciting here. It runs as follows:

[15] "In the year one thousand five hundred and eighty, when Anthony Criecke, an Accensus of the Council of Brabant, was registering in writing certain furnishings in execution of a judicial sentence — and in particular a certain chest belonging to an ecclesiastical man — he found in it, besides other things, an enclosed casket, pleasantly fragrant, in which were contained precious relics of the head of the friend of God, St. William, with sealed tablets and testimonies pertaining to them, together with various relics of other Saints as well as certain fragments of the jawbone and bones of SS. Margaret, Agnes, and Lawrence, with a particle of the column at which our Savior Christ Jesus was scourged. Although the aforesaid officer did not inscribe these relics in the catalogue of items found — esteeming them as nothing — he nevertheless preserved them all with the aforesaid casket and carried them to his own house. There, since they were held in no honor but rather exposed to disgrace and mockery, it happened, by God's disposing, that the offspring of the aforesaid Anthony Criecke was afflicted by illness. As this grew worse day by day, the man — infected by heresy — concluded in his mind that these things had happened because he was keeping in his house the aforesaid head and relics, in which he believed idolatry to reside. But the divine providence so disposed it that the relics of the Saints should at last be transported to those places where they would be honored with due veneration. Wherefore the aforesaid Criecke, as if to purify himself and his family from that enchantment, handed over those relics with the aforesaid casket to Anthony de Jonghe, likewise an Accensus of the same Council of Brabant, Anthony de Jonghe obtains it a most Catholic man, who received them with the greatest reverence — for he was not ashamed of his religion, even though he was assailed with reproaches by the other on that account. Then, after about two years had elapsed, the aforesaid Anthony de Jonghe — because he was involved in various affairs, and his wife was absent from Antwerp, having gone to Holland to her father — so that the aforesaid casket with the sacred head and relics might be kept safely and not easily fall into the hands of the heretics, piously and reverently handed it over to Adam vander Soppen, then Adam vander Soppen a most Catholic man and his kinsman (whose wife's sister was married to him) and a notary of the orphans' court in that city. Adam and his wife received the casket with the greatest piety of soul and preserved it with the most diligent care, lest the sacred relics found there be subjected to disgrace and mockery by the heretics and other rebels, by whom their house was frequently searched. This precaution was happily maintained with God's help for nearly three full years, until the city came into the hands of the Catholic King.

[16] "When then Lord Jacobus Horstius, otherwise Coomans, Canon and Scholasticus of the cathedral church of St. Bavo at Ghent — afterward, on the counsel of the Canon of Ghent uncle of the aforesaid Adam's wife — came to Antwerp to visit them, Adam, stirred by a certain pious ardor of soul, began to think of depositing these relics in some sacred place where they might be preserved with due veneration. He disclosed the matter to Horstius and asked what should be done. Horstius advised, and even entreated, that he should give them to the Antwerp college of the Society of Jesus, the Society of Jesus at Antwerp well knowing that they would be accepted by the Fathers with the highest observance. At Adam's bidding, therefore, his wife went to the college and asked Vincent de Zeelander, the procurator of temporal affairs, to come to her husband's house — since an old acquaintance existed between them — for the purpose of gaining fuller knowledge of these matters. Vincent complied and learned from Adam everything that we have related, with the latter earnestly attesting above all that the relics should be received and guarded in the future in such a way that it should never be lawful for them to be taken away from there. He willingly assented to this pious request and, having obtained the relics on July 30 of the year 1586, in the year 1586 carried them with great joy and reverence to the college of the Society, where they are preserved with distinguished veneration." Thus far the narrative of the transfer of the head of St. William and the other relics, then written out and afterward confirmed by public authority in this form:

[17] "In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. Today, the twenty-sixth day of the month of October, the donation confirmed by a public instrument in the year 1593 in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1593, before me, Nicolaus Cleys van Loemele, a public notary admitted by the Council of Brabant and residing at Antwerp, and attesting to the following, there appeared the honorable man Adam vander Soppen, also a public notary and Accensus of the orphans' court of this city, who declared that the above-mentioned document was composed and written at his request by his son John vander Soppen, and that whatever was contained in it was true — inasmuch as he had received the said sacred relics mentioned at the place, time, and manner prescribed, from the persons designated, and had transferred them through like persons. For the greater certainty of this declaration and the truth of the matter contained in the said document, we both — Adam himself, appearing voluntarily, and I, the Notary — have signed, in the presence of John Dries and John van Waerbeke, also public notaries and clerks of the secret affairs of the Antwerp court, summoned here and called as witnesses at the request of the aforesaid Vincent of the Society of Jesus. It was subscribed: Nicolaus Cleys, alias van Loemele, admitted Notary, signed. Adam vander Soppen, Notary. John Dries, admitted Notary, signed as a witness. John Waerbeke, Notary, as a witness. In the margin was written: It is so. Vincent de Zeelander."

Section IV. The Solemn Veneration of the Head of St. William among the People of Antwerp, Also Approved by the Apostolic See.

[18] Presiding over the Church of Antwerp at that time was Bishop Livinus Torrentius, Bishop Torrentius of Antwerp approves these relics who died in the year 1595. That these relics of St. William were approved by him is shown by a diploma of his left with us, which Pope Clement VIII mentions in an Apostolic Brief given on this matter. We publish this from the autograph, omitting the former lest we be too lengthy.

CLEMENT, POPE VIII.

For the perpetual record of the matter. It befits the Roman Pontiff to interpose his authority in those matters Pope Clement VIII by which the veneration of sacred holy relics is opportunely provided for. Indeed, as we have learned, when about forty years ago the town of Marcodurus, situated in the Duchy of Julich, was captured and destroyed by the Emperor's army through a siege, at the same time a certain monastery of the Order of the Williamites in the same town, or near it, was devastated by fire — from which fire a certain pious man saved the head of St. William, Duke of Aquitaine. Since this sacred relic lay hidden for many years among secular persons in various places, and especially in the city of Antwerp, and was at last found in the possession of a certain citizen of Antwerp, and with the consent of the Ordinary of Antwerp was given by the same citizen to the church of the Priests of the Society of Jesus of the aforesaid city, and is now religiously guarded in that church: We, wishing to provide that no doubt may arise in time from the foregoing, he confirms the possession and approving and confirming the aforesaid donation, of our own accord and from our certain knowledge, by Apostolic authority and by the tenor of these presents, we perpetually grant and bestow the head of the aforesaid St. William upon the same church of the Society of Jesus at Antwerp, and We will, decree, and command that it be perpetually preserved and guarded in the same church, and that it may not and should not be extracted or carried away from there by anyone under any pretext — except in public processions. Notwithstanding any Apostolic constitutions and ordinances whatsoever, and statutes and customs — even those confirmed by oath, Apostolic confirmation, or any other force — and also privileges, indults, and Apostolic letters granted, confirmed, approved, and renewed to the contrary of the foregoing, and all other things to the contrary whatsoever. Given at Rome at St. Peter's, under the Ring of the Fisherman, on the twelfth day of March, 1594, in the third year of our Pontificate. Subscribed: M. Vestrius Barbianus. And it was sealed with a seal of red wax.

[19] The aforementioned Annual Letters of the Society of Jesus make mention of this Pontifical diploma for this year in the following words: "After the city was recovered by the Catholics and religion restored, that sacred pledge was offered to our college and deposited there for the time being, and grants plenary indulgences until this year it was granted to us in perpetual right by decree of the Supreme Pontiff, with a Pontifical plenary indulgence also added for those who on the Sunday following the feast of St. William himself shall visit our church in prayer." Indeed, according to the words of the Bull given on February 12 of the year 1594 — of which we have the authentic instrument — that plenary indulgence was granted to those who, truly penitent, confessed, and refreshed by Holy Communion, shall devoutly visit the church of the college of the Society of Jesus at Antwerp — in which the head of St. William is guarded with great veneration — on the second Sunday of February each year, etc. Which Sunday necessarily coincides either with February 10, famous for the cult of St. William, or with the two preceding, or the four days following his feast. But afterward all that solemnity was celebrated on the very birthday of St. William, February 10, for which purpose a plenary indulgence was granted by Paul V on January 19, 1612, as other Pontiffs also granted and again on April 28, 1620; likewise by Urban VIII on September 15, 1627, March 21, 1633, and December 5, 1641 — the authentic testimonies of all of which are preserved by us.

[20] Our Society had only one domicile at Antwerp until the year 1607, when another was added — thenceforth to function under the name of College, as a school of polite letters and an arena for moral theology and other sciences. in the marble temple, an altar dedicated to St. William in the year 1621 But the old domicile, with the College separated, was changed in the sixteenth year of the same century into the Professed House, when two years before the foundations had been laid of the temple, which — completed in marble in the twenty-first year — John Malderus, Bishop of Antwerp, consecrated on September 12, the first Sunday after the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Mary, together with the five altars then built in it. Of these, the one visible in the upper gallery on the right side was dedicated to the name and memory of St. William the Confessor and Blessed Aloysius Gonzaga, as the Bishop testifies in his diploma given on October 26 of the same year on this matter. On the occasion of the head of St. William preserved in this church of the Professed House, the feast day inscribed in the Belgian calendars Aubert Miraeus inscribed him in the Belgian and Burgundian calendars, where among other things he writes thus: "The bones of St. William, enclosed in a silver image skillfully wrought, are preserved at Antwerp in the most august basilica of the Society of Jesus, built of white marble, which — procured by the Reverend Father Charles Scribanius — was conveyed from Liguria through the Straits of Hercules to Belgium." Miraeus is transcribed by John Tamayo Salazar in his Spanish Martyrology under this February 10.

[21] The silver statue of St. William, in which his head is enclosed and preserved, was commissioned to be skillfully and elegantly crafted by the same Charles Scribanius when he was Rector of the Antwerp college — thereafter the promoter and overseer the head of St. William enclosed in a silver statue of its establishment in the Professed House, a new domicile having been obtained from the city for the use of the college. The statue is fashioned in the likeness of a herm down to the waist, whose head is encircled by a helmet and whose breast beneath the monastic scapular is covered by a mail coat, as St. William is customarily depicted. It is placed on a rectangular base made of ebony, to which several silver plates are affixed representing in relief the more illustrious deeds of the same Saint. The skull of the sacred head enclosed in this statue is nearly intact — except for the lower jaw — showing a certain cavity around the neck and one ear, a particle having been taken from there, which was perhaps preserved at Frankfurt in the monastery of the Order of Preachers when the head was transferred thence to Marcodurus in the year 1479, for the perpetual cult of the same Saint. The Fathers lament that this particle has either perished or been mixed in with other relics, whose names — occasionally appended — have also perished along with many ancient monuments when the monastery was at one time despoiled by heretics, as the Prior of the same monastery, the Reverend Father William Puylbord, indicated to us in a letter written on October 3, 1652, and informed us that the name and burial of Father Wenceslaus, Professor of Sacred Theology — of whom there is prominent mention above in the diploma of the donation of this head — and the offices he held in the Order are well known.

[22] That another particle of the relics of St. William was placed among flowers in a small box, a tooth given to the Duke of Mantua and that a tooth was given to the Duke of Mantua, we read in the records of our archive, with John Melander signing and asserting that these relics, together with various others, had been received from the above-mentioned John Kieboom and preserved together with the head of St. William. The memory of this Melander, a Priest of the Society of Jesus, still flourishes — numbered among the principal laborers who strenuously toiled in purging the vineyard of the Church of Antwerp from the taint and luxury of heresy.

Section V. Various Relics of St. William. What Is to Be Thought of the New Discovery of the Head.

[23] While this veneration of transferring the head of St. William to Antwerp was being arranged, the devil — the enemy of true piety — strove to overthrow that cult, proclaiming through the body of a demoniac at Stabulum Rhodis at the instruction of a demoniac that the head lay buried there. Cavalcantinus describes the order of events in chapter 40 of the Life to this effect: That two women from a monastery of the town of Acquapendente had once come to the Abbey of St. William to be freed from their affliction and the torments of the malign enemy, the devil. One of them, while both were being exorcised with sacred exorcisms by a religious of the Order of St. Augustine, affirmed repeatedly new relics of St. William found in Italy that the head of St. William lay hidden in the middle of the temple, placed under an altar erected at the spot where the Saint had formerly been committed to the earth. When these words were repeated many times, the monk — moved in his spirit — took care to have that altar demolished and the treasure of so great value diligently sought; and he found a clay cup covered with a black stone, on which these words were inscribed: believed to be his head "This is the head of St. William." And it was found in it, to the great joy both of those present and of the neighboring people of Castiglione, and was received with solemn veneration and the ringing of bells. Permission having been obtained from the Bishop of Grosseto — who had sent his Vicar thither to honor those holy relics — a sacred procession was instituted, and with great reverence it was carried to the town of Castiglione and placed beside the other sacred bones. But because few of the demoniacs who suppliantly sought their salvation at the Abbey of St. William were freed from malign spirits, enclosed in the altar by the decision of the leading men, the head was carried back in a renewed pious procession with a great company of people, and decently enclosed in the same altar in which it had previously been found, where it has been preserved to this day. So writes Cavalcantinus, who adds that he went there himself shown to no one but could not behold the head in person, as if it were absolutely not permitted for anyone to see it. Nevertheless, the things he wrote he received from honorable and trustworthy men; and when he was writing, thirty-five years had elapsed since that redeposition of the head.

[24] Behold the foundation of this story, which the credulous Cavalcantinus readily seized upon — more diligent in heaping together matters of every kind than sagacious in discerning the true from the false. Certainly, of the entire book what authority Cavalcantinus has — which he composed about the Life and Miracles of St. William, divided into forty-one chapters — he devotes twenty-six chapters to the things that we judged above should be eliminated. But neither do these cohere among themselves, nor can they all be attributed to Duke William of Aquitaine converted by St. Bernard. confusing the Acts of William, Duke of Aquitaine The things pertaining to his ancestors are described from Buchet's Annals of Aquitaine, which are sprinkled with the same errors. Doubtful parents are put forward: whether, according to the Lessons for Matins customarily recited in the Ecclesiastical Office by the Augustinian Fathers, they are Theodoric or Theodosius, and Aldatia or Aldana — from whom we have demonstrated that St. William of Gellone was born 350 years earlier — or rather whether the father of this William was Duke William Geoffrey, whom we said was his grandfather and had died thirteen years before he was born. And as for his mother (if anyone accepts that man as his father), he assigns from various candidates Gilbona, Gerlona, Gerlotta, Ignatia, or rather Joanna — when she was Matilda, or perhaps the dual-named Philippa Matilda. To his own William he assigns as wife Harmengard, who was actually the father's second wife; and the enormous debaucheries that Malmesbury and others ascribe to the father, he transfers to the son — and of Albert the secretary the less excusable because he writes that the son was born in the year 1100, so that in the proximate years when those crimes are reported to have been committed, he would have been entirely unfit to perpetrate them. He touches upon the Compostela journey and seizes upon Buchet's fabrication of the feigned death, defending it with a long introduced conversation between Duke William and a certain Albert, whom he then supposes to have been his secretary. Yet the same Albert became William's disciple at Stabulum Rhodis a year before his death — from an old man a "youth of good character," as he is called elsewhere — then perhaps not yet born when that death is reported to have been feigned at Compostela. Let the things said in the Life, part 2, number 12, be compared, with the little book of Albert himself on the life of St. William cited in testimony of the truth.

[25] This is that Albert who afterward, having become the Father of many sons, raised up the Order of the Hermits of St. William, long surviving the latter. With him, as is said at number 27, his own mother, having found her way to the oratory of St. William, dwelt for some time. Cavalcantinus overturns all of this, asserting in chapter 40 that Albert died in the fourteenth month after St. William; [fabricating that his head, famous for miracles, was carried by his mother to Aquitaine] that his mother came from Aquitaine to Stabulum Rhodis after her son's death; that she carried his head back to her homeland; that it was received and preserved by the Aquitanians with the highest veneration; that it was afterward famous for infinite miracles; and that therefore the head of St. William was believed to be what had been absent from the other bones for so many centuries — which were later brought to Castiglione della Pescaia. But what church in Aquitaine venerated Albert? Who reported that translation of the head to the Aquitanians? Who wrote down the infinite miracles, or any one of them? We know of nothing that St. William or Albert had in common with the Aquitanians; the Williamites had no monastery there. Germany was the second Williamite province; the head of St. William was carried there and held in great veneration at Frankfurt for a very long time; thence it was transferred to the Williamites at Marcodurus in the year 1479; now at Antwerp, with the authority of the Supreme Pontiffs, it is preserved with due cult. Jacobus Polius, formerly Guardian of the Franciscans at Marcodurus, as we said above, reports that the sculpted effigy of the head of St. William and a gilded pectoral — in which the sacred skull had formerly been enclosed, but which later became empty — came to his monastery and are displayed there on feast days out of a grateful memory of antiquity, but supported by other sacred relics. Why could not the clay cup, found at Stabulum Rhodis at the instigation of the devil through a demoniac, have been similarly filled with other relics, which some credulous person supposed to be St. William's and appended his name? The things that Cavalcantinus finally narrates in chapter 34 about a dragon killed by St. William, and in chapter 35 about a miraculous stone on which he sat, we do not wish to pursue further, not yet confirmed by ancient testimonies.

[26] Other relics of St. William are preserved in various places — which, as usually happens, are referred rather to this Great William, commonly better known, than to other Saints of the same name. Thus, among the sacred relics of the Escorial palace of the Catholic King at St. Lawrence, there is on view the body of St. William, as Manrique writes in the Cistercian Annals under the year 1136, chapter 1, number 11, other relics of some St. William in the Escorial palace of the Catholic King with a testimony appended from the archive of the same monastery by Gregory of Hanxlede, Provincial Commander of the Teutonic Order in the Bailiwick of Westphalia, who testifies that the body of the Saint was handed over by himself: "Because," he says, "although in our church of Brackel, under the district of Dortmund in the diocese of Cologne, it had been famous of old on account of its miracles and the frequent stations and pilgrimages made there, received from Westphalia with the former fervor of the place having cooled — except that it was held only from the fame of that holy Duke of Aquitaine — at this time it seemed to stand solitary and almost hidden. Lest therefore such precious treasures perish, but may elsewhere, as is fitting, be venerated and come forth for the increase of divine worship, we have given them as a gift, raised from the most ancient tomb by a Priest and Chaplain," etc. Done at the commandery of Mulheim of my bailiwick on the twenty-seventh of October, 1596. John Tamayo Salazar, in his Spanish Martyrology, among other authors who wrote about St. William, cites these Cistercian Annals of Angelo Manrique, and indeed the above-mentioned year and chapter, yet with no mention of these relics — as if he did not dare to rest on fame alone. Nevertheless, he celebrates the deposition of the same St. William among the Saints of Spain on account of some relics of his preserved at Madrid in the monastery of the Discalced Friars of St. Bernardine of the Seraphic Order, others at Madrid which Hieronymus Quintana, in book 1 of the History of Madrid, chapter 113, reports are honored there with sacred cult on this February 10. But by a faculty granted on March 17, 1600, by the Sacred Congregation of Rites, as Barbosa observes after others in the Apostolic Decisions, collection 402, the Office of St. William is said in the royal monastery of St. Lawrence.

[27] The Friars Minor of Bethune in Artois, as Arnold Raissius testifies in his Belgian Sacred Treasury, display by long tradition of the Fathers an arm bone of St. William, Duke of Aquitaine. at Bethune The Canons Regular of Cambrai at St. Aubert's also have, as the same Raissius testifies, a particle from the bones of St. William the Confessor. at Cambrai Among the relics preserved at Plasencia in Spain, Tamayo de Salazar repeatedly notes particles of St. William in the catalogue appended to the Life of St. Epitacius as elucidated by him. at Plasencia in Spain A part of the sacred limbs is reported by Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology under July 3 — at Paris on which day he marks his deposition, while he says that the day of his conversion is observed on this tenth of February — to have been brought to Paris and religiously placed in the monastic church of his name and Order. at Cologne At Cologne, Gelenius in the Sacred Calendars of Cologne reports under this February 10 that the head of a certain St. William is also kept in the monastery of St. Michael. at Bruges At Bruges, among the Williamites, a part of the mail coat of the same Saint is preserved, which the people of Bruges greatly venerate when fevers rage — a confraternity having been instituted in his honor. at Huberge The Williamites of Huberge in Brabant also have an iron ring of the most ancient veneration, which they received from the monastery of Baselduncan, which we said existed at 's-Hertogenbosch. at Aalst There is also a similar ring among the Williamites of Aalst, which is said to afford relief to those suffering from fever. We treated of another iron ring in the Notes to the last chapter of the Life, and said that the mail coat was bound to the body of St. William by those rings.