CONCERNING THE HOLY MARTYRS BRUNO, ARCHBISHOP, AND EIGHTEEN COMPANIONS IN PRUSSIA,
Year of Christ 1008.
Preliminary Commentary.
Bruno, Archbishop, Martyr in Prussia (St.) Eighteen Companion Martyrs in Prussia (SS.)
By I. B.
[1] Various nations border the Gulf of the Codanus, or Baltic Sea. On the southern shore, in the space that lies between the mouths of the Vistula River and Samogitia, the Prussians dwell -- whether of Germanic or Slavic origin, The Prussians, dwellers by the Baltic Sea it is not the occasion to inquire. Helmold seems to include under the name of Prussians also Livonia and Samogitia, when on this side of that sea, which he calls "barbarous" or the Scythian deep, he places first from the east the Ruthenians, then the Poles, who have the Prussians to the north and the Bohemians to the south. The name is now somewhat more narrowly applied.
[2] That people received the faith of Christ rather late. For in the age of Helmold, who wrote under Emperor Frederick I, around the year of Christ 1170, the Prussians had not yet come to know the light of faith, as he himself testifies in Book 1, chapter 1 of the Chronicle of the Slavs. And shortly: "Much," he says, "could be said in praise of this people concerning their customs, hostile to the faith if only they had the faith of Christ, whose preachers they most cruelly persecute. Among them the illustrious Bishop of Bohemia, Adalbert, was crowned with martyrdom. St. Adalbert, Bishop of Prague, goes to them To this day indeed, among them, while all other things are held in common with our people, access alone is forbidden to groves and springs, which they believe to be polluted by the approach of Christians." So says Helmold. Moreover, the holy and most glorious Martyr of Christ, Adalbert, suffered on the ninth day before the Kalends of May, under the dominion of Otto III, the pious and most illustrious Caesar, on the sixth day of the week, as the author of his Life records, which we shall present on April 23. Otto III reigned from the year 984 to January 23, 1002. Twice during his reign, April 23 fell on the sixth day of the week -- and upon his death in the third and fourteenth years of his reign, that is, in the years of Christ 986 and 997, in which the Dominical letter was C. St. Adalbert cannot have undergone martyrdom in the former year. For having returned to Prague at the command of Pope Gregory V, he went shortly after to the Prussians with the same Pope's consent, as is clear from the Life already cited. But Gregory was not proclaimed Pontiff until the year 996. Therefore, in the year 997, Adalbert was crowned with martyrdom.
[3] By his example, or even at his instigation, Bruno sought the same province and with eighteen companions bore away the same laurel of martyrdom in the year 1008. He was of illustrious birth, a kinsman of Ditmar, Bishop of Merseburg (who is known to have been born of Count Sigfrid). St. Bruno of Querfurt The lineage of Bruno is set forth more clearly by Paul Langius, a Benedictine monk of Bosau, in the Chronicle of Zeitz: "Bruno," he says, "Bishop and Martyr, himself also of our order, was an Apostolic preacher. A Saxon by nationality, born of the illustrious house of the Barons of Querfurt, and educated in the monastery of Magdeburg under the care and teaching of the above-mentioned Archbishop Adalbert, he grew into a man of the most approved religion and outstanding holiness." Peter Cratepolius, in his work on the Saints of Germany, writes that he was born of the illustrious ducal family of Saxony. Querfurt is a territory situated between the rivers Saale, Unstrut, and Rawa, which formerly had its own particular Counts; it is now joined to Mansfeld. But from the Querfurt line descend the most illustrious Counts who hold Mansfeld. not an Italian Trithemius in his book on Ecclesiastical Writers and Wilhelm Eisengrein in his Catalogue of Witnesses to the Truth err when they claim that Bruno was an Italian by nationality; as does Sixtus of Siena, who in Book 4 of his Bibliotheca says he was born and educated in Italy.
[4] The same Trithemius, in Book 2 on the Illustrious Men of the Order of St. Benedict, reports that he was a monk of a certain monastery in Italy, nor a monk in Italy the name of which did not occur to the author, and he repeats this in Book 3, chapter 230 and Book 4, chapter 116. But Sixtus of Siena says he was a Cassinese monk. It is more probable (as Gabriel Bucelinus also noted in his Annals of Germany at the year 1008) that he became a monk at Magdeburg, but at Magdeburg where he had been educated in letters together with Ditmar. Otto the Great had built a monastery there at the urging of his most holy wife Edith; later he arranged for it to be converted into an archiepiscopal See, the monks being transferred to a suburban hill. Adalbert, moreover, under whose teaching and care Langius writes that Bruno was educated, had been a monk at the monastery of St. Maximin in Trier, and was ordained Bishop of Russia. Thence expelled by the Gentiles, he was constituted the first Archbishop of Magdeburg on October 18 in the year 970 by Apostolic authority, as Ditmar writes, while Richarius presided over the monastery after Hanno and Otwinus had been promoted elsewhere to bishoprics -- the same Richarius who also declined the episcopal office that was offered to him. To that most holy prelate Adalbert, then, another Adalbert was sent (who subsequently became Bishop of Prague and Apostle of the Prussians), and he studied at Magdeburg under the most learned monk Othric, until the latter, having been elected successor to Archbishop Adalbert in the thirteenth year of his ordination, where he had learned his letters went to Italy to Otto II, and there died. Here, therefore, Bruno also learned his letters, either while the same Archbishop Adalbert was still alive, or after his death, since he attended the philosopher Geddo, who likely was placed in charge of the school after Othric.
[5] Afterward, summoned to the Court by Otto III, Bruno was received with great tokens of benevolence; leaving the Court, he becomes a monk shortly afterward he abandoned it and the world altogether, embracing the religious life. Elias Reusner in the supplement to his genealogical work, page 45, writes that he had been a Canon of Magdeburg and afterward a Benedictine monk. Trithemius, in Book 3 on the Illustrious Men of the Order of St. Benedict, chapter 230, praises him as most holy in his manners and way of life, and also very distinguished in learning and knowledge of the Scriptures. distinguished in holiness and learning And in Book 4, chapter 116, he says that he shone nobly in knowledge of the Scriptures and integrity of character. But in Book 2, chapter 85: "He wrote," he says, "an illustrious work on Genesis, and certain other things, which have not come into our hands." The same is found in his book on Ecclesiastical Writers, though not in writings and after him in Eisengrein and Sixtus of Siena. However, as Arnold Wion rightly observed, they ascribe to this Bruno what belongs to another St. Bruno, Bishop of Segni in Italy and afterward a monk at Monte Cassino, whose Life we shall present on July 17; for his commentaries not only on Genesis but on the entire Pentateuch survive, as well as other distinguished works, printed at Venice in the year 1651.
[6] Then, in the twelfth year after his conversion, Bruno emerged from his holy retreats, roused, I believe, chiefly by the triumphs of Adalbert the Martyr; and he resolved to go himself to the lands of the Gentiles, either to win them for Christ or to gain for himself the triumph of martyrdom. Yet he did not undertake that expedition on his own initiative. Rather, he first disclosed his plans in person to the Roman Pontiff, who, offering good wishes, decided that he should be adorned with the episcopal dignity, and gave him the Pallium with which, once consecrated, he would be distinguished. Bruno brought this with him into Germany, and with the approval of St. Henry the King for what he was undertaking, he was consecrated at Merseburg by Tagino, the fourth Archbishop of the Church of Magdeburg, he is made Archbishop whom Reineccius and others call Tagmo; Krantzius calls him Dago; Bucelinus calls him Dado, Dageni, or Dudo; Paul Langius calls him Dagenon.
[7] The Roman Martyrology designates Bruno as Bishop of the Ruthenians. For this reason Antonius Demochares, in Book 2 on the Sacrifice of the Mass, chapter 25, erroneously numbered him among the Bishops of Rodez in Gaul. not of the Ruthenians of Gaul Following him, Andreas Saussay in the Supplement to the Gallican Martyrology at February 14 writes thus: "At Rodez, the Passion of St. Bruno, Bishop and Martyr, who, embracing his flock with visceral love, and striving to preserve faith and justice against all impiety and injustice, was fiercely slain by the wicked whom he pursued with the voice of a good Shepherd -- as a sheep, nay rather a generous ram of the sheepfold, by wolves -- and earned the eternal crown of the supreme contest." We acknowledge that there are indeed Ruteni, a people of Gaul, whose city is commonly called Rutena, in French "Rodez en Rouergue"; but the Ruteni who border on the Poles are different, who would more correctly perhaps be called Russi or Rossi, and were brought to Christ in the age of St. Bruno. Baronius, Volume 11, at the year 1008, number 5, believes that when Bruno is said to have brought the faith into Prussia, Prussia is used for Russia. but of the Russians But Ditmar, who was alive at that time and wrote much about the Russians, expressly says that he proceeded to Prussia and was afterwards killed on the border of the said region and Russia. Wlodimir, King of the Russians, had indeed not long before been initiated into the Christian religion with his twelve sons and nearly his entire nation; but because, though orthodox, he followed Greek rites, it may rightly be questioned whether he either sought or would have admitted a Latin Bishop at all -- unless perhaps as an extraordinary Legate of the Supreme Pontiff. It is more likely that Bruno was destined as Apostle and Bishop not for the Russians or rather of the Prussians but for the Prussians. Certainly, at the time when Boleslaw waged war against Yaroslav, son of Wlodimir, there was a proper Archbishop of Kiev, then the metropolis of the Russians, as is clear from the same Ditmar. That other Russians were still pagans at that time, however, we infer from the Life of St. Romuald on February 7, chapter 8, where their King is mentioned as having been converted by St. Boniface, a disciple of the same Romuald.
[8] Bruno seems to have brought companions and helpers in his holy work from his own monastery. Certainly eighteen died with him; but some of them were perhaps Prussian neophytes. with the favor of Boleslaw, King of Poland Boleslaw, King of the Poles, favored the noble efforts of Bruno. He is said to have been surnamed "Chaber" in the Russian tongue -- that is, "Courageous and Powerful" -- on account of his distinguished deeds, as Matthias of Miechow reports in Book 2, chapter 7 of his Polish History. He had arranged for the body of St. Adalbert the Martyr to be brought to Gniezno and magnificently enshrined there. and honoring him with gifts He accompanied Bruno and his companions, who were pressing forward with the endeavors of the holy Martyr, with ample gifts, and other Polish nobles followed his example. And the same Boleslaw, attacking Prussia with military force, is reported to have compelled the Prussians to pay tribute. This, however, if Miechow reckons correctly, occurred after the death of St. Bruno -- perhaps in vengeance for it.
[9] Moreover, the gifts that Bruno had received from the devout and munificent Prince he soon distributed among churches, his associates, and the poor, as Ditmar testifies. This is evidence that he made somewhat more progress than St. Adalbert, inasmuch as he also established churches there -- he preaches in Prussia with profit unless perhaps Ditmar understood that the royal gifts were distributed by him to churches in Poland. However that may be, he could not easily soften the harsh hearts of the Prussians. How long he labored in cultivating that field may be inferred from the fact that he was not ordained Bishop before the year of Christ 1005, not for long by Tagino, who received the insignia of Magdeburg on February 2 of that same year. Bucelinus believes that the Lithuanians were converted by him. For in his annals he writes thus: "The great Apostle of Germany enters heaven in triumph and laureled -- St. Bruno, monk of the monastery of St. John at Magdeburg, he does not convert the Lithuanians the same being the eternal glory of the most illustrious family -- brother of Gebhard, Duke of Saxony; who, after converting the Lithuanians to Christ, while laboring in Prussia also with great profit, was cruelly slain by certain barbarians." The Lithuanians were converted nearly 400 years after his martyrdom, under Jagiello and Vytautas; although some individuals are found to have embraced the truth before that time, the nation as a whole did not. Nor do I see how he could have so imbued so vast a province with religion in a triennium that it was possible for him, with sacred rites there established, to depart to the Prussians.
[10] As for the same author's claim that Gebhard was Duke of Saxony, I do not know on what authority he affirms this. his brother was not Duke of Saxony Elias Reusner, in the supplement to his genealogical work, page 45, where he presents the family tree of the Noble Lords of Querfurt, from whom the Counts of Mansfeld trace their origin, lists Gebhard and Burchard as brothers of Bruno, and Elizabeth, whom he says was Abbess at Prague, as his sister. He says that from Burchard was born another Gebhard, whose son Lothair was created Duke of Saxony by
Emperor Henry V and finally became Emperor in the year 1125. But neither the elder Gebhard nor this Gebhard's uncle, Bruno's brother, are found named as Dukes of Saxony among the writers of Saxon affairs. The same Reusner reports that the elder Gebhard's wife, from old family records as I believe, was Sophia of Mansfeld, who bore him nine children in a single birth, all of whom their uncle Bruno baptized at a most limpid spring below Querfurt, which afterward retained his name. his brother's grandson was St. Bruno, Bishop of Wurzburg Whether from these was Mechtild, who married Conrad, Duke of Carinthia, he does not indicate. She was the mother of St. Bruno, Bishop of Wurzburg, to whom she herself seems to have given the name Bruno from her uncle, the Martyr of whom we treat here. Burchard, Mechtild's brother, was one of the twins.
[11] In the year 1008, on February 14, St. Bruno was killed with his eighteen companions. So says Marianus Scotus at that year: he himself, with 18 companions, crowned with martyrdom in the year 1008 "Bishop Bruno, afflicted with many torments by the Prussians, and having had his hands and feet cut off, was finally beheaded and sought heaven." The Ursberg Chronicle has the same. Paul Langius: "While he most steadfastly endeavored to enrich the Lord's field with new crops, and assiduously and with immense ardor preached Christ to the aforementioned peoples, on the borders of Russia, by certain hardened and furious scoffers of the faith, his hands were cut off and his feet, his tongue moreover was cut out, and the holy man's eyes were gouged out, and he attained the palm of martyrdom." In the Chronicle of Sigebert this is said to have occurred in the year 1009, and in the edition of Miraeus in 1010. Krantzius also mentions the same martyrdom in his Saxonia, Book 4, chapter 28, and Metropolis, Book 4, chapter 3; likewise Trithemius and Sixtus of Siena cited above. Trithemius indeed reports that he endured many labors and was illustrious for many miracles before he was killed.
[12] We shall append Ditmar's more precise narrative of Bruno's contest, which is also printed in the third edition of Surius at the Ides of October, on February 14, the day on which he is venerated since the narrative itself indicates a different day of martyrdom, namely the sixteenth day before the Kalends of March. On which day Ferrarius writes in the General Catalogue of Saints: "In Prussia, the Passion of SS. Bruno the Bishop and his companions." On the same day a manuscript Calendar of the Order of St. Benedict has: "St. Bruno, Archbishop of the Ruthenians, martyred by the Ruthenians, formerly a monk in Italy." That he was neither a monk in Italy nor killed by the Ruthenians, we have already demonstrated above. Saussay reports him on the same day, but his attribution of Bruno to the Ruteni, a people of Gaul, has already been refuted.
[13] He is inscribed in the Roman Martyrology on October 15 in these words: by some, October 15 "In Prussia, St. Bruno, Bishop of the Ruthenians and Martyr, who, preaching the Gospel in that region, was seized by the impious, and having had his hands and feet cut off, was beheaded." Arnold Wion and Hugh Menard have the same on that day. Benedict Dorgani also writes thus: "Of St. Bruno, Bishop and Martyr, Apostle of the Prussians and Lithuanians." Baronius in his Annals at the year 1008 believes that on that day his translation took place, since it is established that he was killed on February 14. on which day he was perhaps translated Wion, in Book 2 of the Lignum Vitae, chapter 29, writes much about the same holy Bishop -- but erroneously states that he died on the Ides of October.
LIFE
by Ditmar, Bishop of Merseburg, from a manuscript codex and the edition of Reineccius.
Bruno, Archbishop, Martyr in Prussia (St.) Eighteen Companion Martyrs in Prussia (SS.)
BHL Number: 1470
[1] There was a certain man named Brun, a contemporary and fellow student of mine, born of a most illustrious family, St. Bruno, of noble birth but, by Divine mercy, beloved among the children of God above all his other relatives. He was uniquely beloved by his venerable mother Yda, and was entrusted to the teaching of the philosopher Geddo, and all that he ought to have was provided to him in abundance. His father was called Brun, an elder distinguished and praiseworthy in all things, who was close to me by kinship and to all by acquaintance. as a boy, he was liberally educated His son and namesake, when he should have gone to school in the morning, before he left his lodging asked for leave, and while we played, he himself was in prayer. He preferred work to leisure, and thus bearing fruit, he arrived at maturity. he becomes a monk Being desired by the third Otto, he was therefore received into his court. Not long after, leaving him, he sought the solitary life and lived by the labor of his own hands.
[2] Under the reign, by the grace of God, of the second Henry, after the death of the most glorious Emperor, he came to Merseburg seeking the episcopal blessing with the permission of the Lord Pope, made Bishop and at his command received consecration from Archbishop Tagino, and the Pallium, which he himself had brought hither, he received there. Thence, for the profit of souls, with the favor of the King of Poland he undertook the labor of a great and varied journey, chastising and crucifying his body with hunger and vigils. He received many goods from Boleslaw and other wealthy men, which he immediately distributed among churches, his associates, and the poor, retaining nothing for himself.
[3] In the twelfth year of his illustrious conversion, proceeding to Prussia, he strove to fecundate its barren fields with divine seed. he preaches to the Prussians But the thorns springing up from the harsh soil could not easily be softened. When therefore on the border of the aforesaid region and of Russia, he was first forbidden by the inhabitants, and as he continued to preach, he was seized, and for the love of Christ, he is killed with 18 companions who is the Head of the Church, on the sixteenth day before the Kalends of March, gentle as a lamb, he was beheaded, with his eighteen companions. Their bodies lay unburied until Boleslaw, learning of it, purchased them the King of Poland redeems the bodies and acquired for his household a future consolation. These things were done in the time of the Most Serene King Henry, whom Almighty God honored with the triumph of so great a Bishop, and -- O, as I hope -- greatly benefited. St. Bruno's father becomes a monk Moreover, the father of the aforesaid Bishop, falling ill long afterward, and, as he himself told me, at the command of his son, took the monastic habit, and on the fourteenth day before the Kalends of November rested in peace.
Notesa Book 6 of the Chronicle.
b The one in our possession formerly belonged to the Jesuit college of Paderborn.
c So the manuscript; but the edition of Reiner Reineccius has "Bruno."
d The same Reineccius edition has "conscholasticus" fellow scholar.
e Reineccius: "Ida."
f Reineccius: "Giddonis."
g The same: "erat Bruno" was Bruno.
h The same: "animae" of the soul.
i Reineccius: "of his conversion and illustrious way of life."
k Philip Cluverius was therefore mistaken in his memory when he wrote in Germania Antiqua, Book 3, chapter 44: "The first to mention the Prussians, among those whose writings survive, is Helmold in his Chronicle of the Slavs." But Ditmar was 150 years older than Helmold. I pass over those between them, including Marianus cited above and the author of the Life of St. Adalbert, etc.
l Reineccius: "potuit" could, perhaps better.
m Reineccius: "Russiae" of Russia. Cluverius is therefore wrong in the cited passage: "The Russians never in any age dwelt near Prussia."
n Reineccius: "The bodies of so many Martyrs."
o The same: "as I greatly hope."
CONCERNING BLESSED CHRISTINA OF THE THIRD ORDER OF ST. AUGUSTINE, AT SPOLETO IN UMBRIA,
Year of Christ 1458.
Preliminary Commentary.
Christina de Visconti, of the Third Order of St. Augustine, at Spoleto in Umbria (Bl.)
BHL Number: 0000
By G. H.
[1] Spoleto, an ancient and fortified city of Umbria, formerly elevated to a Duchy, has to this day communicated its name and title to the surrounding region. Besides other houses of religious men, at Spoleto many monasteries of the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine exist in the Duchy of Spoleto, and their province is called the Valley of Spoleto. A catalogue of those monasteries, among the Augustinians at least those that existed in the year 1670, was published by Alphonsus de Herrera in Part 2 of the Augustinian Alphabet, page 414; among them he places the one at Spoleto second. Its church, sacred to St. Nicholas the Bishop, was given in the year 1265 to the Hermit Friars of St. Augustine by Bartholomew Voratus, Bishop of Spoleto. "This church is enriched," says Herrera, "with the precious remains of Blessed the body of Bl. Christina de Visconti is in the altar Christina de Visconti of Spoleto, which are honorably kept in a chest upon the altar of St. Michael." The same Herrera in Part 1, page 138, repeats the same regarding her Life. "The sacred body of Christina," he says, "incorrupt in its virginal integrity, rests at Spoleto in a casket or chest upon the altar of the holy Archangel Michael, in the church of St. Nicholas of the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine." Jacobilli also writes these things concerning the Saints and Blessed of Umbria at February 14.
[2] Simplicianus a S. Martino in his Augustinian History, page 626, writes that an image of Blessed Christina and St. Clare of Montefalco was placed upon the altar of St. Monica in the Pisan monastery. image at Pisa, on an altar Blessed Clare of Montefalco is venerated on August 17. "The images of Blessed Christina," adds Herrera, "present, with title and diadem, a woman enrolled among the number of the Blessed. believed to have been declared Blessed That this was done with the permission obtained from Superiors," is reported by Ludovico Torelli in his Compendium of the Lives of Men and Women of the Augustinian Order Illustrious for Holiness, Century 3, chapter 86, together with the inscription that is read affixed near her body, in these words: died in the year 1458 "In the year of the Lord 1458, on the 14th day of the month of February, at the fifteenth hour, Blessed Christina the Virgin, adorned with innumerable miracles, departed this world; her body is preserved in the church of St. Nicholas at Spoleto." Herrera has the same, together with this epigram at the tomb:
Here lie the holy bones of the illustrious Virgin Christina, The divine one, of noble blood, beneath this tomb. The pious rule of Augustine exalted her. O how Steadfast and zealous she was, keeping to the appointed path! The glorious light of the ancient house of the Visconti, of the Third Order of St. Augustine See, the signs declare, that she may shine upon Italy.
Herrera writes that Christina received the Third Order of St. Augustine from the twelfth year of her age, and was clothed with a black cowl in the manner of the Hermit Friars of St. Augustine.
[3] Coriolanus formerly wrote a Life of Blessed Christina, as he himself testifies in his Chronicle, as found in Herrera: "Christina," he says, "de Visconti, died at Spoleto in our times the Life was formerly written by Coriolanus with innumerable miracles; her life and holiness, as is evident in the Life which we published about her, was stupendous. She, in memory of the Passion of Christ, pierced her own foot with a nail. On Fridays she ate wormwood, and drank vinegar mixed with gall, in memory of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ." recently by Cornelius Curtius Herrera testifies that he possesses in manuscript the Life of Blessed Christina which Coriolanus wrote. We give here another, but polished in a more elegant style by Cornelius Curtius, the general historiographer of the Augustinian Order, and printed at Cologne in the year 1636. We append the Verses composed for the divine Christina by Adam de Montaldo, or Montalto, of Genoa, who flourished in the same Augustinian Order around the year 1470, verses about her by Adam de Montaldo, around 1470 and who dedicated the Orthography of Giovanni Aretino to Philip de Lévis, Cardinal and Archbishop of Arles. These verses from an ancient parchment of the Spoleto monastery, though mutilated, were published by Herrera in these words:
[4] The noted glory given from the bosom of the Black-robed to the world, . . . . . . . . . . . . Behold, the immaculate Virgin of Father Augustine, An example for human life through the darkness of sin, A daughter who once in her tender years burned epitome of her Life To subject herself to the rigorous labor, with Christ's aid. She stood, the holy Religious, wearing the habit stained with blood, Taming her members within by the scourges of a hairshirt. She seemed wholly content to be nourished by a mere husk. Her fasts of bread and water were almost unto death; Often amid her food she mixed ashes -- so harsh a life -- for so many years; Tears pressed upon her night and day. Often she scourged her body while making her prayers. The astonished crowd ceased to be amazed at the images or glory By which the gaunt maiden grew rigid, while life remained. The beautiful diadem of her Father, a splendid star, The light of Italy, the immortal glory of the mighty one, Among the wood-nymphs in the troubled ... fields, The unconquered fame of Christina shone brightly, nor was there anywhere A lack of triumph against idols with warlike valor. The blessed one adorned her Father, and Monica, who mourned For her offspring; and the Tolentine light of the hermitage gleams. If any woman was famous for Latin titles, If any sacred Virgin reflowered through the years in Italy With the snow of chastity, or if any is most renowned in the world, This offspring shines as a sun and stands forth as a nourishing mother. What more? The hermit is fragrant with shining tiaras. The meadows are green, and heaven exults in the image of so great A Virgin. The Spoletan people hasten through the city To offer lighted torches. So many vows around them The Latin people offered, standing, and hanging tokens. Rejoice, O Rule of Augustine, and scatter lilies with full hands, Give flowers around these things with rosy chariots. You who read these marble words, venerate the tomb, bring offerings. Press pious kisses upon the stone that covers the Virgin's bones. The Almighty will hear the prayers of the peoples, In the merits of praying Christina, and lift them to the skies above. And you, wayfarers, come hither, come hither, to make your vows: As she has given aid to others, she will give it also to you.
[5] Summaries of the same Life have been published by various historians of the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine -- as from Cornelius Curtius, our own Franciscus Lahierius in his Menology of Virgins at this February 14, and Ludovico Jacobilli mentioned above.
LIFE
by Cornelius Curtius.
Christina de Visconti, of the Third Order of St. Augustine, at Spoleto in Umbria (Bl.)
By Cornelius Curtius.
CHAPTER I
Deeds performed by Christina; her death; her burial.
[1] The house of the Visconti of Milan was long illustrious, famous for many Princes most distinguished in both the toga and the sword; Christina, born of an illustrious family but Christina surpassed the entire glory of her family -- she who transmitted the rays of her holiness not only throughout
Lombardy, but also through Picenum and all of Italy.
[2] That a spirit of a higher life stirred within her, the earliest years revealed. She had scarcely completed her first lustrum when the unarmed maiden declared fierce war upon the flesh, from her earliest years, devoted to fasting upon which she wreaked severity with the harshest scourges, and prescribed for herself certain fasting days, which she seasoned with the sweetness of prayers. Her relatives and acquaintances were astonished at this rare example in such tender years, and already then took it as a sure presage of her future life.
[3] Her parents, who ought to have congratulated God and their daughter and themselves, in the manner and affection of the world, desirous more of grandchildren than of virtue, wished to impose a delay upon so holy an exercise and to sound an unwelcome wedding hymn in the ears of the most chaste maiden. destined for marriage by her parents Not yet having passed her second lustrum of life, when other girls are still playing with toys, she is commanded to proceed to marriage. But Christina, admonished even by the very etymology of her own name, had long been thinking of Christ as her Spouse, to whom alone she had determined to consecrate the lily of her purity, and not to allow its fragrance to be enjoyed by any mortal man. The father praised the youth's birth, wealth, and beauty; the Virgin held all these and everything else in contempt compared with heaven. she weds herself to Christ He proved marriages holy by sacred arguments and even celebrated the marriage bed with Gospel texts; but she esteemed more highly the immaculate nuptials of the Lamb, and held the virginal reward at a price beyond estimate. This sharp and prolonged skirmish lasted no fewer than two years, until, animated by a voice from heaven, she resolved to flee the Siren-like enticements of her relatives and to avoid the danger, intending to live more safely in the wilderness among wild beasts than among her parents.
[4] she flees into solitude Therefore, taking courage instead of the wings she did not have, in the dead of night, leaving her father's household, she fled to lonely places -- having first, by divine direction, invited a companion maiden to follow her to the prearranged forest hideaways. There she lived for several days without her companion, without food. But meanwhile, sated and intoxicated with the delights of heaven, her tears flowing thickly as she prayed.
[5] When her companion arrived, she clothed both herself and her companion in the black cowl that belongs to the Augustinian Hermits, she puts on the hermit's garb so that they might mark themselves for heaven by this vestment and live unknown to men. For this reason, fixed in no one place, they frequently changed their hiding spot, penetrating to the most remote and dreadful depths of the forests. Thus ten years were completed, subsisting only on small herbs that the wilderness provided and on spring water.
[6] Fearing, moreover, that even these delicacies might become a provocation to carnal wantonness, she leads a harsh life they treated the body very severely, exercised by constant vigils and a long course of prayers, and subjected to servitude by frequent scourges. Heaven also graciously smiled upon these studies of theirs, so that neither the harshness of cold harmed that delicate little body, nor the fires of the sun scorched it, nor the hardness of the place afflicted it, nor the length of time corrupted it. You would have seen the felicity of the Hebrew fathers returned -- upon whom in the desert food rained continually from heaven, and their garments retained their soundness.
[7] she is commanded from heaven to undertake a Roman pilgrimage A decade of years had passed when Christina was commanded by divine admonition to undertake a sacred pilgrimage and to salute the Roman thresholds of the Apostles with a kiss. She therefore entered the City at about her twentieth year of age. It is scarcely possible to believe with what joy she began to be flooded when she beheld places empurpled by the blood of so many Martyrs and celebrated by the monuments of so many holy bodies. You would have said that her eyes were fountains, so abundantly did they well up with streams of sweet tears. But indeed, when she saw the sacred linen of Veronica, and upon it the face of her Spouse drenched with much blood, she seemed to be deprived of all sense of things and to turn to stone as a statue: so deeply did Christina grieve for her Christ with intimate sorrow.
[8] she proceeds to Assisi The Kalends of August were at hand, and the Virgin was minded to go to Assisi, to venerate with the office of piety the Queen of the Angels (commonly called "of the Portiuncula"), and to gain the grace of the indulgence which heaven grants there at the appointed time. It happened conveniently that on the way, at Spoleto, she found a friendly little lodging with Galitia, a most devout woman. Thence she passed to the holy church of the Great Virgin, where so great a flood of pious people had gathered that it was scarcely possible to make one's way there through the dense multitude.
[9] While the press continued and Christina was driven hither and thither, as in a stormy sea, by the surge of the fervent crowd, her companion was swept away I know not where and was never seen again. The anxious Christina wandered all over Assisi. At Foligno, at Monte Falcone, at Bevagna, at Spoleto, and everywhere else she searched for her -- but in vain. When the quest had lasted so long, she returned to Rome, she goes again to Rome, thence returns to Assisi intending to leave nothing undone there also to find her companion. There too she sought a knot in a bulrush. When, therefore, like a turtledove, alone amid sighs and groans, she had spent a year, as August returned she again thought of going to the Queen of the Angels at Assisi.
[10] in prayer through the nights At Spoleto she had the same hostess, Galitia, whom she also brought with her as a travel companion to Assisi. When the devout observance was completed there, the matron was preparing to return; but the Virgin could not bear to accompany her, because she had resolved to consecrate the following night in a holy vigil.
[11] The next day, therefore, she followed her footsteps and returned indeed to Spoleto, but turned aside to the hospice for the poor, at Spoleto she serves the sick in the hospice where, having been warmly received, she remained for six full months, ministering to the poor and serving the sick so diligently that she might have seemed to have been hired for a great sum.
[12] Meanwhile, while she treated others there with kindness, she was cruel to her own body, with so savage a chastisement that she bore about not only a back painted with welts of bruises, but also both sides scarred with deep marks. On Sundays she took a tiny amount of wine, she devotes herself to works of penance by which she fortified herself for the remaining week's fast on coarse bread and water. The hard ground was her bed, a chamber safe for chastity; instead of an undergarment, the harshest hairshirt, a secure breastplate against the dart of the flesh; instead of an outer garment, a patchwork of rags sewn together, in which, as if it were feminine finery, she took more pride than any other maiden. She spent one half of the night in repose, the other half on her knees. Moreover, lest sleep, under which she had sometimes felt her otherwise feeble body pressed, should creep upon her unwillingly, she snared her neck with a cord fixed to the wall, by which, when tightened by the drooping of her head toward sleep, she would be reminded to stay awake.
[13] seen to radiate while praying Meanwhile, she never desisted from prayers, in which she so burned that she was often taken for lifeless, being beside herself and unconscious of life itself. Indeed, celestial fires were seen, not by one person alone or only once, to honor her praying in the dead of night, surrounding her with the most brilliant rays. By almost daily confession to a Priest she purified her soul and prepared it for the Eucharistic banquet. But she was entirely absorbed in meditating upon the Passion of her Spouse, whose memory she so thoroughly imbibed that on every Friday she drank vinegar mixed with gall. Moreover, she lived in the Cross of the Lord, that she might die with the Lord.
[14] she is wholly absorbed in the meditation of the Lord's Passion That which follows is worthy of eternal memory as a miracle rather than an example. She was running through, with the curious eye of a pious mind, all the mysteries of her suffering Spouse, and in each one she was attentively weighing the magnitude of the Divine love toward men. When she had stood for a long time in astonished amazement at the dreadful nailing of His hands and feet, she is said to have thus exhorted herself with words full of God: "Alas, ungrateful wretch, the shame of earth and heaven! Behold your Spouse -- how profusely He bleeds for you! How He loves having such dire torments inflicted upon Himself for your sake! And finally, so that He may fasten you to Himself, with what horrid nails He suffers Himself to be fastened to the infamous wood! And you -- what do you render in return, or repay with some signal testimony of love?" "O my Spouse," said Christina, kindled with the divine fire, "who will grant me to feel in this little body of mine at least some portion of the pains which You have endured?"
[15] And behold, she wrenched loose a not inconsiderable nail fixed in the nearby wall she drives a nail through her own foot and with a mighty effort drove it through one of her feet. Thus it was not enough for her to have imbibed the memory of the suffering Spouse unless she had also firmly hammered it in. Amid these noble exercises of body and soul, having spent six months at Spoleto, she prepared to journey to Rome for the forty-day fast. For the annual days of public revelry were close at hand, which Christians, still savoring something of the old superstition, call Carnival. But, by God's indication -- Christina had not known how deeply she had clung to that place until that point -- her Galitia happily found her. Running to her with friendly embraces and many prayers, she at length persuaded her to enter the familiar house and spend a little while with her.
[16] she understands that the end of her life is at hand But Christina, who by prophecy had foretold many other things, also understood that the goal of her life was here being fixed by heaven. A slight fever therefore began to try her. That heavenly physicians visited the sick woman, Galitia is a witness, who more than once heard her sweet conversation with the blessed Spirits.
[17] the Virgin Mary appearing Often and repeatedly too the Queen of Heaven manifested herself to her in clear light, and with the sweetest words invited her to the bridal chamber of her Son, which alone, despising all others, she had ambitiously sought. When, therefore, the fevers with greater force were beating upon the doors of the soul to depart, she asked for and received the sacred Viaticum; and for the struggle which is the last and most difficult, she wished to be anointed. And all this she did with so placid a countenance that, as was indeed the case, she seemed to be passing from servitude to freedom, from miseries to joys, from solitude to delights and nuptials.
[18] she dies on February 14 She is said to have died in the twenty-second year of her age, and in the year of the restored world 1453; on the fourteenth day of the month of February. But who would think her dead, who lives the immortal life? Certainly, not her deeds say this, but her miracles proclaim it -- the very many and very great miracles that she wrought immediately after death.
[19] A sick man who puts his shoulders under her bier is suddenly well When a certain man, whose back, affected by a chronic ailment, had resisted all medicine, placed his shoulders under the funeral bier for carrying her to the church, he felt himself becoming more vigorous and stronger under that holy burden, and the entire malady was wiped clean from his entire back at once, as if by an invisible hand and sponge -- what no physician before had been able to cure.
[20] Her body retains vivid colors after death When the body was laid upon the ground, a certain matron, with the pious curiosity natural to the female temperament, lifted with three fingers the veil that covered her and gazed upon her face. Noting that it was still rosy with vivid color and with a smiling expression, she exclaimed: "Behold, a face no longer human but angelic, and not of one dead but as if restored to a new and better life." At this proclamation, as if by a resounding cymbal, the people of Spoleto, roused, rushed in throngs into the sacred church, for the sake of this most delightful spectacle; and even today it is still supple and they marveled then at what all still marvel at today -- that the body remains supple, and is easily bent in any direction by the guidance of another's hand.
Notesa So most writers state. Simplicianus a S. Martino says she was born in Hungary of parents holding the dignity of Visconti.
b Concerning St. Veronica and this sacred veil, we have treated on February 4.
c Nicolaus Crusenius, Part 3 of the Augustinian Monasticon, chapter 28, says that he saw the body at Spoleto, still intact, together with the hairshirt and scourges, dripping with blood as if fresh.
d Herrera: "in the twenty-second, or rather the twenty-third, year of her age."
e Rather in the year 1458 -- perhaps through the carelessness of the typesetters, certain digits being omitted. From this Elssius infers, in his Augustinian Encomiasticon, that she was born in the year 1435 or 1436. But Joseph Pamphilus, Bishop of Segni, in his Chronicle of the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine, writes that she departed this life in the year 1465; Crusenius follows him, but on the basis of what has been said above, they are to be rejected.
CHAPTER II
Miracles of St. Christina after death.
[21] That her tomb was a refuge for the sick, witnesses attest -- especially the citizens of Spoleto, who sought medicine and health there and did not seek in vain. Since it is not possible to enumerate all, it is pleasing to summon a few from the many. Racella certainly gave illustrious testimony: she had borne both her shins, afflicted with a certain internal malady and completely enfeebled, as a most burdensome load, for more than six months -- she heals shins afflicted for a long time with such torment meanwhile that she could have wished for the breaking of her legs rather than endure it. Having found no relief in the hand of a physician, she turned her mind and her ailing feet toward Christina; she bent her knee with pain, as she could, at her tomb, and at the end of her prayer rose with joy upon sound feet.
[22] Matthia, a woman of noble blood, had been obstinately plagued by an incredible pain in her back for three lustra, she cures a woman of a grave ailment giving her no respite. Many ointments and fomentations had been applied, but all to no avail; the malady was stronger than every remedy. Having therefore despaired of the resources of nature and art, it pleased her finally to implore the aid of Blessed Christina. The woman's plan was exceedingly good. For the Virgin, once invoked, was immediately present, and the stubbornness of the disease being broken, she restored to Matthia her complete health.
[23] Illuminata (that was the woman's name) had long endured the cross of a great evil -- a severe headache, she calms dizziness of the head and with it a continual and so savage vertigo that her whole head seemed to her nothing but a millstone. What consolation for the poor woman? She approached Christina's tomb; she dispersed the entire cloud of the malady and immediately commanded the head, which would henceforth remain in perpetual quiet, to be still.
[24] Gratiosa, the Abbess of the convent of St. Paul at Spoleto, she restores a lost eye had lost one of her eyes by some unlucky accident. From the excellence of the remaining eye, the one-eyed woman could easily estimate how much good she had lost. Nothing was therefore more important to her than to admit the daylight and friendly light with both eyes. Having learned well enough that human aids were not to be trusted, she entrusted herself to the protection of Christina and humbly invoked her for the use of the other eye's light. And, wonderful to say! the sight returned to the eye entirely intact, so that it could be believed never to have been impaired before. It was worth so much to have been one-eyed, that Christina might dispel all the darkness of her eyes. Gratiosa certainly rendered immortal thanks to her physician, and professed that she would henceforth love Christina more than both her own eyes.
[25] I have presented women of Spoleto; why should I pass over men? The Virgin heard their prayers too, with ears not deaf. she restores to a man the use of his arm Labatritius (a barbarous word -- the man was not) was one-handed: for one of his hands had ceased to be a hand, rendered useless, together with the arm itself, by a severe loosening of the sinews. To receive this back intact, he had asked the hand of the physicians, but to restore it they too had none, having wasted their time in futile efforts. From men he went to Christina; the arm lightly touched to the sacred relics he drew back sound and vigorous.
[26] A similar evil was removed by a similar cure. Paullus de Massa had begotten from his wife a son defective in both hands -- the use of both hands to a boy namely, hands which, deprived of their sinews, hung limp and fulfilled no part of their function. The defect had grown with age. The parents, pitying the misfortune of one destined to be forever miserable, committed it to God and transferred their hope to Christina, from whom alone they believed the boy could be corrected. They approached her tomb; having reconciled her to their little son by their prayers, the boy immediately stretched forth both hands, which had faithfully returned to their integrity, as though they had never been enfeebled by any previous disease.
[27] Marianus Angelus, prostrated by an acute and horrid fever, lay at the very threshold of death; health to a man suffering from fever the sons of the physicians had already bid farewell to one about to depart to the majority. Nevertheless, the sick man had not yet despaired. He piously saluted Christina and humbly begged her to take him, abandoned by men, under her protection and to snatch him from imminent death. What was the Virgin, so graciously greeted, to do? She bade the man to be well again, and better than the physicians, said "Farewell."
[28] a woman recovers speech and the use of her feet Christina was no less beneficent toward foreigners than toward the citizens of Spoleto. Anna, a Pole by home and nationality,
could use neither her tongue nor her feet -- wholly unfit for speaking and walking. And no hope of recovery remained to her. For where would a lame woman go, or whose aid would a mute invoke? Yet she managed both, and no longer unfittingly. She went to Christina, but on others' feet; she also invoked her, but with her heart speaking within. And indeed she was heard: she received a tongue with which to render thanks to the Saint, and feet by which to carry herself to all her praises.
[29] another woman is freed from the falling sickness It certainly filled the ears of a Hungarian woman, Margaret -- no longer a beautiful pearl; for a foul disease, indeed the monstrosity of all diseases, epilepsy, had disfigured her. How shameful, especially for a woman, suddenly to grow weak, stiffen, grind her teeth, foam and bark at the mouth, dash her head to the ground, roll her body on the floor, and not even preserve the veils of modesty! A sight terrible and pitiable alike for the spectators. The wretched woman had sought a remedy among men in vain: it was a sacred disease, curable only by a sacred hand. She had heard of the miracles wrought through Christina; she conceived a vow and departed for Castello della Croce, to venerate her sacred ashes. But Margaret returned beautiful again, and thenceforward free from all the foulness of the falling sickness.
[30] Matthaeus also, of Longissa, of the family of St. Francis, health is restored to a man suffering from the heart experienced the present favor of the Divinity there by a clear miracle. The fountain of his life was obstructed -- his heart, I mean, beset by continual pain; and when it languishes, the remaining members of the body must necessarily fail. The physicians could find a name for the disease (they called it syncope) but not a remedy. When Christina was invoked by a vow, she purged the entire fountain and commanded life to flow from the heart into the remaining limbs with a free passage.
[31] To bring the many benefits of the Saint to a summary: Clara, a professed religious virgin, to an infirm woman, her former vigor of limbs lay with her limbs loosened by disease, confined to her bed; but when she fixed her eyes on heaven and pledged herself by a vow to Christina, a sudden vigor returned to her sinews, and raised up the sick woman -- no longer sick -- to celebrate the Saint.
[32] a contraction of limbs is relaxed Likewise, Antonilla of Aquila had been so gradually contracted by sinews drying up throughout her entire body that you would have called her a piece of wood rather than a woman. She implored the help of our Virgin and received sinews of full sap and strength.
[33] a man with gout recovers Our Saint removed in an instant from Baptista of Monte Santa Maria the gout and chiragra which medicine knows not how to cure.
[34] the plague is averted from many Theodorus, a painter of Milan, Margarita of Spoleto, and many others, infected by the pestilence of the raging plague, repelled the poison from themselves by the patronage of the same Saint.
[35] a dangerous fever is driven from others Martinus of the town of San Giovanni, and a certain woman named Jordana, fiercely tormented by the heat of fevers, drove the pestilential fire from themselves by the same aid.
[36] Nor was Christina's power effective only against diseases, but also against evil demons. In the body of a Florentine woman, a rebellious spirit had taken lodging and was accustomed to exercise his tyranny there insolently after his usual fashion. a demon is expelled from a woman's body It occurred to her relatives to bring her to Christina's tomb. Heavens, what a struggle was required to drag her there (she was unwilling) by force! The strongest arms sought out could not move her from her place: so powerfully did the evil spirit resist. There is no wild beast in the Hercynian forest or the deserts of Africa whose terrifying face he did not assume. You would have heard him suddenly trumpeting like a Lucan elephant, roaring like a lion, howling like a wolf; you would have seen him foaming like a boar, sweating like a badger -- in short, the Stygian monster struggling in every possible way and with all its might, lest it be brought to Christina's ashes. Certainly it could not be subdued by human force: it had to be chained, as it were, by a sacred stole, and thus the infernal beast was tamed. Then, with the Virgin's scourge -- with which she was accustomed to vent severity upon her own body -- bound about the woman's neck, she was compelled to prostrate herself at the sacred tomb and touch the holy relics. There that Cerberus was heard barking hideously, and fearing the lashes, he turned tail and fled.
[37] another possessed woman is freed Those dark Spirits were frequently afterward driven from the dwellings they had invaded. Divitia of the village of Barsano, the wife of Felicianus -- neither rich nor happy -- had been inhabited by an unjust possessor for thirty continuous years, and the evil jurisconsult seemed to allege the right of prescription; but how worthless this was against justice, Christina showed, who ejected him from his possession by a better right.
[38] Likewise several others She similarly dislodged another from the old domicile which, against the will of its mistress, Matthaea, wife of Paullus of Trent, he had usurped and inhabited for fifteen years -- and, to be brief, from many others as well.
[39] A woman is preserved in a most difficult childbirth I do not complete but break off the catalogue of miracles, and close it with one most worthy of remembrance, which was seen at Rome with great amazement. A certain Catharina, pregnant there, was carrying a womb -- or, to speak more truly, the living tomb of a person who had died before being born. For she had noticed for an entire month that she was heavy with a dead fetus. The physicians labored to expel the unhappy burden by some art or medicated morsel, but all their attempts were in vain. The physicians therefore gave up hope for the mother's life and cast her aside as one who was soon to be carried out into another tomb along with the tomb of her child. In this most desperate condition, the woman with virile courage conceived the greatest hope, and since men had abandoned her, she asked the aid of the Heavenly ones. She bargained for her salvation with Blessed Christina and vowed a sacred pilgrimage to her ashes if she should escape this danger. Immediately bound by her vow, she expelled the putrid fetus, herself safe and unharmed. The physicians, and those who were not ignorant of the woman's disease, confessed it was a miracle and that the force of nature had been overridden. I say the same; and furthermore, that this pen is insufficient to prescribe all the wonders of Christina. Therefore I raise my hand from the tablet.