Gerlach of Houthem

ON ST. GERLACH, HERMIT IN BELGIUM.

Circa the year 1170. January 5.

Gerlach, Hermit in Belgium (St.)

Section I. The celebrated name and public veneration of St. Gerlach.

[1] Gerlach, the pillar and ornament of the territory of Valkenburg and of the entire region beyond the Meuse, is celebrated on the Nones of January. That his veneration is not recent The name of St. Gerlach in Martyrologies. is attested both by the life which we shall give and by the Martyrologies. The Carthusians of Cologne in their Additions to Usuard: Gerlach, Hermit and Confessor. The Cologne Martyrology: On this day, St. Gerlach, Hermit and Confessor. The German Martyrology: Of the holy Hermit and Confessor Gerlach, who had formerly been a soldier. The Gallo-Belgian: In the territory of Valkenburg, the passing of St. Gerlach the Hermit, whose body rests in the diocese of Roermond. Indeed the very place where he once dwelt, formerly subject to the Bishop of Liege, is now under the Bishop of Roermond. The manuscript Florarium Sanctorum: Of Gerlach, soldier and Confessor. Molanus in his Additions to Usuard: At Maastricht, Gerlach, Hermit, from a soldier a Confessor. Ferrarius: At Valkenburg in Belgium, St. Gerlach the Hermit. The Venerable Dom Joannes Chrysostomus vander Sterren, Abbot of St. Michael's at Antwerp, in the Birthdays of the Saints of the Premonstratensian Order, at January 5: In the territory of Valkenburg, the Birthday of St. Gerlach, Confessor and Hermit, who through the rigor of austere penance, in the purest white garb of the Premonstratensian Order, attained a blessed end of life there, and rests glorious with many miracles even now.

[2] We shall give a twofold life of him: the earlier was extracted from the ancient records of the monastery of Gerlach and published in print by Erasmus Goyaeus, Provost of the same monastery, written about the year

Page 305 1225 by an Anonymous Priest of the Premonstratensian Order residing in the monastery of St. Gerlach. Goyaeus dedicated the first book to Gaston Spinola, Supreme Governor of Limburg, and the second to Henry Cuyk, Bishop. The other, shorter life was composed by William Cripius the Younger, son of William Cripius, Chancellor of Gelderland, at the command of Henry Cuyk, Bishop of Roermond.

[3] Molanus treats of St. Gerlach in the Birthdays of the Saints of Belgium, Feast. where he includes among other things: His commemoration is made on the vigil of the Epiphany of the Lord; but because he is not canonized, the sacrifice of the Mass is offered for Eternal Wisdom; and while the Litanies are sung, there is inserted in a subdued voice: Holy Gerlach, pray for us. Whence Molanus drew this, or whether in his time or long before these things obtained, I do not know. Now, to be sure, a different veneration of the Saint prevails, concerning which Aubertus Miraeus, a most distinguished man, writes thus in his Belgian Calendar: He rests in the illustrious convent of nuns bearing his name, in the diocese of Roermond, situated two leagues from Maastricht. Another celebration. His feast day is celebrated annually on the Monday before Pentecost both there and by the cathedral church of Roermond in Gelderland (and indeed with a Double Office); and these three Lessons are customarily recited by the clergy. And then, after the Lessons, which contain a summary of his life, have been recited: His feast, on account of the solemnity of the Epiphany, has been transferred to the Monday which precedes the most sacred day of Pentecost. At which time, the miraculous well, which had previously lain hidden because of human wickedness, was found in the year 1599, Bones elevated. Well discovered. at the command of Henry Cuyk, Bishop of Roermond. The bones of the holy man were also elevated, and the well itself began anew to become famous for miracles. So one reads, more or less, in the Proper Offices of the diocese of Roermond, Well discovered. which the same Bishop Cuyk compiled and had printed at Cologne in the year 1604.

[4] The same Miraeus, in his Belgian Charters, volume 2, chapter 49, recites the diploma of St. Engelbert, Bishop and Martyr of Cologne (of whom we treat on November 7), in which he confirms the possessions of the monastery of Heinsberg and makes mention of St. Gerlach. Miraeus testifies there that these verses are found engraved on the marble tomb of St. Gerlach:

Gerlach, once a soldier, then a dweller in the desert, Is enshrined by art in this his mausoleum. He scorned his household gods, his altars, his ancestral hearth; A mat was his stone, a hollow oak his dwelling. Gerlach, you redeem the wanton sins of your life, Yielding your paternal fields to a virgin choir.

[5] Arnold Raisse mentions St. Gerlach in his Belgian Hierogazophylacium. Likewise Joannes le Paige in book 2 of the Premonstratensian Library, where he recites the life published by Cripius and the office from the Roermond Breviary, Prayer for St. Gerlach. in which this prayer for St. Gerlach is read: O God, who exalted Blessed Gerlach your Hermit through the rigor of austere penance, by the fullness of his merits and the glory of his miracles: grant to us your servants that, reconciled to your majesty by his merits and patronage, we may mercifully escape the just punishments of your indignation in this age and the next. Through our Lord, etc.

Section II. Hymns for St. Gerlach. From the Roermond Office.

[6] Gerlach, who chose for your dwelling, Scorning proud towns And scorning the love of the world, A hollowed oak: Wherein, with witnesses removed, You might raise yourself above yourself, Lifted from the weight of things That drag minds down to the depths. Here living on bread and water, Rarely sleeping and but little, You wash away the crimes of your former life By the force of tears. Fear and desire are banished, And every kind of care: And these repelled, joys Pure conscience gives. Here night and day you direct Your heart and prayers to heaven. Thus your cell, though very small, Becomes a rival of the great sky. Gerlach of Valkenburg, Now look hither, we pray; Those who pour out prayers in your name, Aid us with your intercession. You will aid, only let us greatly sing Pious thanks To him who amid so many great things Gave you to us as a gift. Glory to you, O Lord, Who ascend, etc.

[7] This hymn is recited at both Vespers and Lauds; at Matins, however, the following:

Gerlach, whose holiness Once shone forth And still shines with miracles, Must now be borne aloft with praises. The water bears witness to this, Which gave drink to this heavenly one: By the draught thereof, to many Health has been restored. Three times, as the moment approached Of the Saint's passage to the stars, The power of the most high God Changed this water into wine. Let the people of Valkenburg Hold this in the greatest honor, They to whom it fell, through it, To rival the praises of Cana. Since this water is efficacious And can drive away diseases, Because it was once your drink, We believe you can do much. Gerlach, we beseech you, cause God, the Creator of all, At your entreaty To hear the prayers of suppliants. Glory to you, O Lord, Who ascend above the stars, etc.

Section III. The discovery of the fountain of St. Gerlach. From the Preface of Erasmus Goyaeus to Henry Cuyk.

[8] The fountain of St. Gerlach long neglected. Most renowned indeed was the health-giving, pleasant fountain, thrice changed into wine, and therefore called the fountain of St. Gerlach, because from it both he himself used to drink, and God, through the Saint's intercession, was wont to work miracles. This fountain was blocked by a great mass of stones thrown in, at the instigation of the devil, and by certain malicious men who held unfavorable opinions about the patronage of the Saints. And so it happened that for more than fifty years no water flowed from the bowels of the earth to offer itself as drinkable and health-giving for the use of men and beasts. With the mouth of the well thus blocked, as if in punishment for the sin committed against God and the Saint, the fortunes of the monastery began to decline, Damages that followed for the monastery. and most grievous damages and misfortunes followed, both in the monastery building being utterly consumed by flames and in all the livestock perishing. The sacred virgins who still survive were even carried away captive; four times all the goods of the monastery were exposed to plunder; seventy horses perished; in short, all adversities seemed to threaten the monastery's ruin.

[9] The Venerable Lady of the monastery, Maria t'Zevel, set forth all these things in order to you, her Bishop, in a truthful narration, full of anxiety and sorrow. Then without delay, Most Worthy Prelate, as if inspired by the divine will, you replied: With prayers first offered, seek mercy and help from God, The fountain is sought for at the Bishop's counsel: and search for the fountain of your holy Patron; lest, if it lie hidden any longer, it both prevent God's mercy from reaching you and be the occasion for the memory of that blessed man to perish as well. For if the water drawn from that fountain bestowed benefits of healing on men and beasts, if it flows again, it will confer the same benefits; whence the glory of St. Gerlach will happily increase day by day both here and in heaven, and you yourselves will receive the desired benefits of your Patron. A salutary counsel indeed, and worthy of a Bishop.

[10] There was at that time, and still is even now, a most faithful Steward of the monastery, It is found. Winand Balthasar by name, who, having heard this oracle of the Bishop, spent the night of the Lord's Ascension in the year 1599 without sleep, and rising at the third hour before sunrise, roused another very old servant of the monastery, Arnold Nalen, born in Houthem, a man of nearly one hundred years and still surviving in the year 1600. These two, praying, began to search for the fountain by digging in the broad field of a pleasant meadow, and by divine favor they were not disappointed of their desire. What they sought, they found. They returned, bearing glad tidings indeed to all the religious and illustrious virgins.

[11] The report of the fountain's discovery was brought to your pious ears, Most Reverend Prelate (who were then in the a castle of Valkenburg). The Bishop exulted with joy of mind, The Bishop comes to it with many: and on the following Monday, hastening to the newly discovered gifts of God, he took with him priests grave in piety and merits, namely the venerable Pastor of Valkenburg, and the most learned Dom William Amicus, Pastor in Hulsberg, as well as the distinguished Dom Winand of Gelre, most erudite Bachelor of Sacred Theology, Pastor in Gronsveld, and also the most devout Dom William Hesius, Pastor in Venlo, an excellent preacher. To these joined themselves several nobles of the land of Valkenburg, namely the distinguished Walther Hoen, Governor of the entire territory of Valkenburg, Michael Coeken, also Peter van den Hoeff, an illustrious Lord of the same territory; also the generous Jacob Leick, Royal Commissioner. To these were associated twenty-five honest Catholic citizens of Valkenburg.

[12] All these assembled came to praise the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever. A sacred ceremony is performed; a procession is made to the fountain. The solemn office of the Mass for St. Gerlach was celebrated in its entirety by the Bishop himself, all festive. Then indeed whoever saw the countenance of the high priest was wounded in mind, for his face and color declared the interior piety of his soul. The priests cast themselves down before the altar, invoked and praised God, beseeching the Almighty with pious supplication that through the intercession of the holy man, all might be preserved in the integrity of the faith. O how many tears of pious devotion then flowed from virginal eyes during the sacrifice! How many pious sighs were heard! How many beatings of breasts! When the sacrifice was finished, a procession was instituted to the Saint's fountain. The sacred virginal choir led the way, together with the Lady Superior, the priests, and the Provost. The Prelate followed, attended by nobles and honest men. The Bishop blesses it and all drink from it. The Te Deum was sung in the pleasant place beside the fountain; the Bishop blessed the water of the fountain, and all drank from it.

[13] And after some days, the noble and pious Catherine T'zeuel, Subprioress of the monastery, was afflicted with a very grave and troublesome bodily ailment, Many miracles are wrought through its water. and when she drank the water of the fountain which she had desired, she immediately recovered from her illness. From the time the fountain was found, as if from an opened door of divine mercy, these gifts of healing followed. An old man from Hoelant, having drunk a cup of cold water, immediately rose up well. Many pilgrims from Margraten, Oud-Valkenburg, Heer, and Cadier, and various other places, attest that they obtained divine benefits through the merits of St. Gerlach and the health-giving water of the fountain, by the grace and goodness of our Lord Jesus Christ.

a Valkenburg, called Fauquemont by the French, is a town of the region beyond the Meuse, which in ancient itinerary tables is called Coriovallum and Coriovallium, perhaps formerly Corv valg.

LIFE BY AN ANONYMOUS AUTHOR.

Gerlach, Hermit in Belgium (St.) BHL Number: 3449

By an Anonymous Author.

CHAPTER I. The birth and youth of St. Gerlach.

[1] Gerlach was born in the territory of the a town of Maastricht, St. Gerlach's homeland. where the relics of b Blessed Servatius are venerably honored, of parents distinguished according to the dignity of the world. In his youthful years, trained in military disciplines, He follows the military life. he served for some time in brilliant fashion according to the custom of this age and acquired a celebrated name for himself through his military service. For he was great and strong in body, and magnanimous in spirit; but his temper was also exceedingly fierce.

[2] And because, as the word of truth attests, the thoughts and inclinations of the human heart are prone to evil from youth, it came to pass that Gerlach, elated in the first period of his youth by prosperous affairs and favorable successes, He indulges in vices. inflamed by the heat of youthful blood, incited by the habits and friendships of his fellow soldiers, ran headlong along the path of a corrupt life through the broad and spacious way of this world. Genesis 8:21. We believe this assuredly happened not without the great and hidden counsel of divine permission: that a Confessor of so great a name and faithful servant of Christ, who was to be, might be set before all as an example of true penance, so that no one, however entangled in great crimes, should despair of attaining the pardon of divine mercy through the worthy fruits of penance, while he beheld Gerlach, liberated from so great a whirlpool and snatched from the deepest bowels of the ancient serpent by the shield of divine mercy, placed on so great a summit of virtues and glorified with such a prerogative of holiness and renown. Indeed, in the first period of his apprenticeship, he so surpassed the frivolity of all lovers of this world's pursuits that in the pursuit of earthly gain, in the exactions and forced services imposed upon the poor, and in the empty enticements of this vain world, he was found scarcely unlike any of his fellow soldiers, however experienced in these things. For he passed by with a deaf ear the voice of divine admonition which in the Gospel urges his faithful to be watchful in the first and second watches, because in the time of his boyhood or adolescence, as in the first and second watches, he did not watch with sufficiently sober understanding over the eternal salvation of his soul. But the grace and immense mercy of our Redeemer roused his servant Gerlach, when he stood in the strength of perfect age, as in the third watch, with so great a thunder of his fear from his deadly sleep, and strengthened him with so great a vigor of spiritual discipline for watching in the keeping of the divine commandments, that, borne aloft on the fiery wings of virtues, he surpassed in the grace of holiness most of those who from their earliest age seemed devoted to the religious life; and attained both the merit and the reward of the preceding Fathers, whose memory is not undeservedly praiseworthy among all orthodox sons of the Church, by the bounty of the divine gift, as the following will more fully declare.

a Maastricht, a noble city on the river Meuse, four leagues below Liege.

b We shall give the life of St. Servatius, Bishop, on May 13.

c I conjecture this should be read thus. The original had "was not."

CHAPTER II. On the beginnings of his conversion.

[3] When it pleased the heavenly grace to free its servant Gerlach from the bondage of Babylon He leads a troop of horsemen: and to ordain him as a valiant soldier and most faithful citizen of Jerusalem our mother who is above, it happened that at a certain time Gerlach was hastening with his fellow soldiers in the usual manner to military games, which are commonly called tournaments. For he held a certain military office which in our language is called a ridtmeister, that is, he hastens to Juelich for the tournaments. master of soldiers, which was perhaps formerly called Tribune of the soldiers. On the appointed day, beneath a certain castle of Julius Caesar which is called b Juelich after him, when the ranks of soldiers had been drawn up for the military exercise, Gerlach, armed and equipped, hastened with the soldiers under his command to the field of combat.

[4] Hearing of his wife's death, he renounces the world. Now he was already trying to insert himself into that arena, now with his shield covering his breast he was preparing to brandish his lance, when, struck by the grievous news of the death of his wife, he groaned deeply; and soon, sprinkled with the dew of heavenly grace, with the intellectual eyes of his heart opened, he recognized that perishable riches and fleeting honors were nothing other than certain vanities and false follies. Immediately, therefore, before the whole multitude of soldiers that had assembled, he renounced the belt of military service; the trappings and conveyance of horses, the glory and splendor of arms, like the holy King and Prophet David with the water of Bethlehem, he poured out as a libation to the Lord, confirming by the contemplation of a better life that he would never again apply heart or hand to these things. Riding a donkey, he returns home. 2 Kings 23:16. Following the example, therefore, of the Savior hastening to his Passion, he mounted the back of a humble donkey, and so returned to his own home; and by the novelty of so great an event, he left no small amazement in all who beheld it.

a Properly it is Master of Horsemen, from rijden, which in Belgian signifies "to ride."

b More correctly, as I think, Cluverius conjectures that the name was derived from Julia Agrippina, mother of Nero. It is the capital of the very large Duchy of Juelich, between the Rhine and the Meuse.

CHAPTER III. On the beginning of his pilgrimage.

[5] He goes on pilgrimage wearing a hair shirt and coat of mail: After this, then, having arranged his household and ordered his affairs, barefoot, wearing a hair shirt next to his skin and covered over with an iron coat of mail, going about on pilgrimage through various holy places, he at length came to Rome. Having visited the sacred thresholds of the Apostles, he made a confession of his sins to the Lord Pope and the Cardinals, and asked that the way of penance be shown to him and fitting medicines of satisfaction be imposed upon him for the healing of his wounds. He is commanded to serve in a hospital as penance. The Pope enjoined upon him a penance of seven years (others say five) to be performed in the service of the poor in the Hospital of Jerusalem. Devoutly accepting this, he received the Apostolic blessing and set out. Arriving therefore at the holy places, he sought out the hospital where the poor and infirm are received.

[6] The brethren of the hospital, having learned the reason for which he had come and considering him to be a person of honest standing, wished to assign him to less laborious duties. But the man of God replied that he sought labor, not fled it; contempt, not honor, for the sake of Christ, who for us made himself humble; that he wished to endure this in the service of the poor. What more? With difficulty and scarcely at any time did he finally obtain that the care of feeding the animals be imposed upon him. Having therefore undertaken the custody of the beasts entrusted to him, He feeds the flocks. for seven continuous years he faithfully tended the pigs and other livestock, always intent upon fasting and prayers and divine services, and persevering as an inexorable punisher of his own body.

[7] Nor should it be passed over that on a certain day, while he was engaged in feeding the flocks, he accidentally struck his foot, which was bare, against a certain kind of thorn of a most biting nature, and as the force of that thicket increased, he began to be afflicted with great pains. The foot he injures is the one with which as a boy he had kicked his mother. The man of God recalled that in the time of his boyhood he had kicked his own mother in anger with that foot, and he gave thanks to the Creator that he had merited to be paternally chastised in that very member of the body with which he had offended against his mother. When the period of the penance enjoined upon him, namely the course of seven years, had elapsed, he returned again to the city of Rome by the same route by which he had come.

CHAPTER IV. How he was sent back from Rome by Pope Adrian.

[8] At that time a Pope Adrian IV presided over the Apostolic See, and b the Emperor Frederick governed the Roman Empire, who also received from the aforesaid Pope the consecration or anointing of the Empire. This Emperor Frederick was the grandfather of this c Frederick, who, after the death of his father d Emperor Henry, when the empire had been exceedingly disturbed by the contention of e Philip and Otto, at length succeeding legitimately, holds the principality f today. The man of God Gerlach, therefore, g approaching the aforementioned Bishop of the Roman See His penance fulfilled, he returns to Rome. and demonstrating that he had discharged the seven-year penance imposed upon him, with a suppliant prayer asked that the form and way of the religious life which he should henceforth follow be shown to him.

[9] The Lord Pope proposed to him the various rules of the Saints, both of monastic and canonical profession. The marvelous austerity of his life, confirmed by vow. To this the man of God replied that he had bound and constrained himself by certain indissoluble vows; namely, he declared that he had vowed to forgo the conveyance of horses and the consumption of wine and meat, and that he would observe continuous fasting in both summer and winter, and that he would undergo the exercise of the hair shirt and other labors inviolably for the sake of divine reward, as long as the span of life remained to him. And for this reason he affirmed that he could by no means be in harmony with Saints living the common life under a regular profession. To this the Apostolic man, employing the balance of discretion and considering the quality of the circumstances, sent the man of God home, fortified with Apostolic letters, giving him these precepts of living: that he should know himself to be the steward, not the owner, of all that he seemed to possess by paternal inheritance; He returns to his homeland. and, content with food and clothing, he should distribute all the rest to pious causes, to churches, and to the poor. The man of God, having received this rule of life, returned to his native soil, bringing with him the letters of the Pope and the Bull of Adrian IV bearing his name, which is still preserved in our church as a testimony of this matter.

a Adrian IV, created Pontiff on December 3 in the year 1154; he died on September 1 in the year 1159.

b Frederick I Barbarossa was crowned Emperor at Rome by Adrian on June 18, 1155; he died in the year 1190.

c Frederick II, elected Emperor in the year 1211, but crowned at Aachen only in the year 1213, and at Rome in 1219. In the year 1245 he was excommunicated and deposed from the Empire, and in the following year Henry the Landgrave was substituted for him; in 1248 William, Count of Holland.

d Henry VI (others say V), crowned Emperor at Rome by Celestine III on April 15, 1191; he died on September 28, 1197.

e After the death of Henry VI, Philip his brother was elected by some, Otto, Duke of Saxony, by others, in the year 1198. Hence war. Otto yielded. Philip was killed on June 23, 1208. By agreement Otto succeeded, and was crowned at Rome in the year 1209; excommunicated in 1210, he died in the year 1216.

f Hence it is clear when this life was written, namely about the year 1225.

g From this it is gathered that the author lived in the same monastery of St. Gerlach.

CHAPTER V. How he led a religious life under the strictest discipline in a hollow oak.

[10] Having returned to his own lands, knowing that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God, he undertook an exceedingly arduous resolution and a strictness of austere living unheard of in our times. For in the very place of the courtyard where his most holy body now rests and awaits the glory of the resurrection and of the blessed transformation, He dwells in a hollowed-out oak. that is, on his own freehold land, he had a gnarled old oak, spread wide with great thickness around its roots, hollowed out to an ample capacity, and a great heap of stones conveyed into it, and a straw mat placed on top; and on this bed he gave his limbs to sleep, wearing a hair shirt next to his skin and covered over with an iron coat of mail. Elders who survive to this day and dwell in our neighborhood are witnesses to this; they assert that from the dried-out roots of that oak, they carried out such a quantity of stones for the foundations of the church which was built over the remains of the blessed man as a well-loaded cart could scarcely convey in two or three trips; and moreover they profess that they found there the remains of the mat upon which the man of God was accustomed to lie.

[11] His abstinence and austerity of diet. Now what shall I say of the spareness of his abstinence and the untiring perseverance of the labor which he expended in divine service? Certainly anyone could brand me, as with a heavy branding iron, with a certain poetic verse which says:

For poets sing of wonders, but not things to be believed,

were it not that those who were present at the time, contemporaries of Blessed Gerlach, so inspected his angelic life on earth with their eyes and handled it with their hands that these things were not hidden from their children in another generation, but father tells son, son tells grandson, his praises and virtues and the wonders which God wrought through him. For a certain man of advanced age named John (who survives to this day, dwelling near us) affirms that when he was a small boy he had a very aged great-granddaughter, who used to tell him that at the time when Blessed Gerlach led a solitary life in the hollow of the oak, she, being then a young girl, brought all the bread by which the man of God was daily sustained, baked and prepared by her mother, who was a kinswoman of the blessed man, for his sustenance. This bread, as we have learned from the truthful account of the said John and many others, was made from barley mixed with ashes. His drink was water from the fountain which to this day is called the Fountain of St. Gerlach.

[12] On the other hand, from the fruits of the land or of the animals that came to him annually, Charity toward the poor and pilgrims. he had sweet seasonings of food prepared with the most diligent care and great industry, and with these he most humanely refreshed the poor and pilgrims received in hospitality, while he himself persevered patiently in the observance of the aforementioned frugality.

CHAPTER VI. How he visited St. Servatius in Maastricht every day.

[13] Moreover, concerning the unflagging custom of his journey, or rather pilgrimage, by which he was accustomed to visit St. Servatius, there exists among all a reputation of great renown and wonder, but of difficult, and as it seems to me, impossible imitation. For the fame of this laborious journey is constantly affirmed not only by all who dwell in our vicinity, but also by peoples from various parts of the world who daily hasten to his sacred shrine, as having been passed down to them from their ancestors; and the generation that passes tells the generation that comes, so that the memory of this Saint perseveres as if fixed in eternity. For the road which extends from Blessed Gerlach's cell to Blessed Servatius in Maastricht stretches for the distance of a great mile, Every night he hastens to Maastricht for matins. is partly mountainous and difficult to ascend; in rainy weather the nature of that soil is so sticky and marshy that passage upon strong horses is scarcely possible for anyone. Furthermore, in winter time, hardened by glacial cold, it becomes so bristling, like thorns, that the footsteps of those walking barefoot upon it are sometimes made bloody. But the blessed man, always rising from the bed of his rest, which was strewn with a heap of stones, at the first crowing of the cocks, always in the night, preceded the brethren of the Church of Blessed Servatius, who rose at midnight to confess the Lord; dried out by the deprivation of fasting, weighed down by the burden of his coat of mail, He is tormented by demons on the way. scraped raw by the roughness of the hair shirt, sometimes nearly suffocated on the dark and slippery road, sometimes severely pierced in the soles by icy blows; and what is worse, variously tempted by the encounter of demons who visibly appeared to him and traveled with him.

[14] His bloody footprints. It sometimes happened that, pricked by the harshness of winter, as blood dripped from his feet drop by drop, his bloody footprints were marked along the entire road. During the same horror of winter, a certain man who accompanied him, himself also walking barefoot, complained greatly that his feet were freezing. The man of God said: Take care that you tread with your feet One who treads in them feels no cold. in the same footprints that I press into the earth. He obeyed, and immediately he felt the entire inclemency of the air as if it were the dew of springtime, which before he had experienced as a cruel burning.

[15] At another time, a certain man named Hermann, surnamed Blankard from the whiteness of his body, living a religious life in another place, not far removed from the cell of the blessed man, incited by his example, imitated him in visiting the shrine of Blessed Servatius. Hermann, his companion. It was therefore agreed between them that at a certain cross which, placed at a crossroads near Maastricht, shows travelers the way, whichever arrived first would wait there for the other, so that they might hasten together to venerate the memory of the most sacred Confessor Servatius. It often happened therefore, A demon tempts Gerlach in Hermann's form. while Blessed Gerlach was making his journey with his customary devotion, that the evil spirit showed himself to him in the form of the aforesaid Hermann, and traveling the road with him, gradually and step by step administered the poisons of his malice to him. But when the evil one saw the blessed man reject with sober understanding of mind the serpentine venom which he was instilling into his ears and heart, from the bridge over the river Meuse, which flows past Maastricht, he threw himself with a headlong leap into the stream, leaving behind dishonorable traces, and left certain evidence that he had been the devil. At another time, He tries to retard his journey. wishing to retard the devotion of his journey, the adversary of the human race began to roll barrels and casks and other such monstrous things before him; but not even thus, through the contrivances of his fraud, did he accomplish anything.

[16] With the rigor of such observance the blessed man exercised himself ceaselessly; with such frequency of pilgrimage he tirelessly sought the Lord's servant Servatius. On Saturday, however, on which the Church customarily celebrates the solemn memorial of our glorious Lady, he hastened to a Aachen, about three miles distant, Every Saturday to the chapel of the Blessed Virgin at Aachen. with his scrip and staff, the insignia of his pilgrimage, to that most famous chapel in the whole Roman world, founded by b Charlemagne and consecrated to the Lord by c St. Pope Leo, together with a numerous multitude of bishops, in honor of the God-bearer and Virgin Mary: where also the memory of the same revered Theotokos is venerably honored by all the peoples of the earth and is most celebratedly frequented. But who could enumerate the temptations and assaults by evil angels, who set a stumbling block in the way of the blessed man?

Page 309 Yet, founded upon the firm rock of perseverance in true religion, he was in no way overcome by his adversaries.

a Aachen, or Aquae Grani, a city of Belgian Gaul not far from Maastricht, as is evident from this passage, famous for its hot baths, the mausoleum of St. Charlemagne, etc.

b We shall give his life on January 28.

c Leo III, created Pontiff on December 26, 795, came to Gaul in the year 804 and dedicated the basilica of St. Mary at Aachen; he died on June 12, 816. He has not been enrolled in the number of Saints, although he is here called Saint.

CHAPTER VII. How great a persecution he endured for Christ.

[17] He is tested by adversity. Since all who wish to live piously in Christ suffer persecution for righteousness' sake, the Lord tested his chosen one like gold in a furnace; and in order to purify him, refined and cleansed and closely and purely wiped clean of every stain of this world, like silver tested by fire, he led him through the furnace of tribulations in manifold and many ways. For after there preceded, as we have already mentioned, the secret and clandestine temptation of evil spirits, like a dragon sitting in ambush in hiding, there followed no less an open persecution by certain wealthy and powerful men against him, like a roaring lion on the heights.

[18] For the Provost and Monks, together with the Clerics of the a cell of Meerssen, who lived nearby, astonished and disturbed by the novelty of so great a matter, He is harassed by the monks of Meerssen. because the man of God, after the example of the preceding Fathers who hid in caves and hollows of the earth, was leading an angelic life in the hollow of an oak -- yet because these things seemed by no means to accord with the custom of modern religious, they strove by every means to recall him from this resolution. They therefore applied much effort and the greatest exertion to have Blessed Gerlach subjected in obedience to the Provost and Monks of Meerssen. To this the man of God objected, fearing that if he should bind himself by a vow of obedience to persons of a more lax way of life, he might at some time become a violator either of his obedience or of his resolution, should the Provost of Meerssen at some time command him things contrary to his religious life or profession b. Wherefore the Monks and Clerics of the monastery of Meerssen, indignant, since they themselves did not presume to molest him, inasmuch as he was of good birth and of celebrated reputation, began to accuse him in many ways before the Lord c Norbert, Bishop of Liege, of blessed memory. The Lord Bishop, believing the things that were said, hastened to the place where St. Gerlach was hiding in the oak, and because he had been accused before the Lord Bishop of having had much money and of having hidden it beneath the heap of stones stored in the oak, the angry Prelate had the oak cut down His oak is cut down. and the entire place diligently searched. And when he found nothing but clear evidence of the most strict life and austere manner of living, The Abbot of Rolduc is placed over him in spiritual matters. he deeply regretted that he had been deceived about such a man and grieved that he had saddened one so innocent and just. Wherefore the same Lord Norbert, Bishop of Liege, in the manner of a spiritual Father, took him under his care from youth and, in his own stead, appointed the d Abbot of Rolduc and other religious men over him, as far as the care of his soul was concerned.

[19] But some incorrectly think this Norbert, Bishop of Liege, to be the same as St. e Norbert, the founder of the Premonstratensian Order. The Bishop Norbert of Liege is a different person from the one of Magdeburg. They err through equivocation, because Blessed Norbert, Archbishop of Magdeburg, who founded the Premonstratensian Order, migrated to the Lord in the time of f Emperor Lothair; but Blessed Gerlach, as the Bull he brought from Rome testifies, was sent back by Pope Adrian, who, as the histories attest, consecrated Frederick I as Roman Emperor a long time and a great interval after the departure of Lothair.

a Marsna, called Marsana by others, commonly Meerssen, formerly a royal palace, one league distant from Maastricht, given by Queen Gerberga in the year 968 to the monks of the monastery of St. Remigius at Rheims, together with the estate and adjoining lands, which they held down to our own times; they later ceded them to Canons Regular in exchange for other properties in France.

b Something seems to be missing; for the sentence is incomplete.

c No Norbert is found among the Bishops of Liege, unless he held two names; or, what I rather think, he was a Chorepiscopus or Vicar.

d The Cloister of Rolduc, commonly Cloosteraet, is a monastery in the territory of Limburg of Canons Regular wearing a black tunic and a white linen band hanging from the neck, like the Gertrude nuns at Louvain and the Coudenberg nuns at Brussels. Aubertus Miraeus mentions them in book 1 of his Belgian Donations, chapter 67. That abbey is situated near the town of Herzogenrath, commonly called 's-Hertogenrade, in French Rolduc.

e St. Norbert is venerated on June 6.

f Lothair II was elected in the year 1125 after the death of Henry V; crowned at Rome in the year 1133; he died on December 3, 1138.

CHAPTER VIII. How St. Hildegard the Prophetess sent him the crown with which she had been espoused to Christ.

[20] The holy servant of God, whom the infestation of demons, like the assault of many robbers, had so frequently tempted, and the perversity of the human heart had molested with such frequent injuries (lest perhaps the house founded upon a firm rock should totter by the violent force of so great a storm), the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation marvelously declared the merits of his beloved through the oracles of the Prophets. At that time, in the regions of a Mainz, there was a certain most holy virgin named b Hildegard, that most famous Prophetess of the New Testament, with whom God spoke familiarly and showed her heavenly secrets. She, consecrated to the Lord with the sacred veil by the hand of the Lord c Henry, Archbishop of Mainz, of holy memory, though educated in no letters except the Psalms of David, instructed by the Holy Spirit, produced great volumes on the divine oracles and sacraments revealed to her; which were d approved by Pope Eugene through the mediation of St. e Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, f and numbered among sacred writings. The approved writings of St. Hildegard the Prophetess. She illuminated the holy Church with the lamp of saving doctrine through many courses of time, strengthened it with letters sent to various persons, and made it illustrious with brilliant miracles.

[21] She sees a seat in heaven prepared for St. Gerlach. This bride of Christ, therefore, while she saw the King and Lord of lords sitting on his throne in her accustomed manner in a true vision, and surveyed the distinct orders and choirs of Saints attending him, perceived among the most splendid choir of Confessors a most luminous seat, surrounded with inestimable beauty and marvelously adorned. And seeing it, she wondered greatly and learned, taught by a divine oracle, that this glory and honor had been prepared for the holy Gerlach, who visited St. Servatius in Maastricht by daily pilgrimage. The virgin of the Lord, certified by this revelation concerning the merits of Blessed Gerlach, was wholly inflamed with sacred love for him; and as a sign of the perpetual fellowship and happiness which she would one day share with him, She gives him the crown with which she had been consecrated to God. she sent him the crown with which she had been crowned by the Bishop on the day of her consecration; which, as a witness to this matter, is devoutly preserved to this day in our church.

a Mainz is a celebrated city on the Rhine, opposite the mouth of the river Main, from which it seems to have taken its name.

b We shall give her life on September 17, where what is said here about her writings is more fully reported.

c He held the see from the year 1142 to 1153.

d Eugene III (who held the see from 1145 to July 8, 1153, where we treat of him) examined and approved the visions of St. Hildegard at Trier after the Council of Rheims in the year 1148.

e St. Bernard is venerated on August 20.

f That is, approved.

CHAPTER IX. How he cut the hair of a certain man's head, which then never grew back for forty years.

[22] Furthermore, the blessed man not only demonstrated examples of light to all through good works, but also faithfully administered to many the fountain of saving doctrine. Gerlach rebukes vices. For to the many who came to him, as he judged expedient for each, he addressed himself to the habits of individuals. He vehemently reproached clerics and pastors of churches because, with the girdle of chastity loosened, they walked less chastely and soberly in the way of God, and their feet easily slipped along evil paths. He reproved soldiers for violence and rending of garments, for oppression of the poor, for the vanity of dice, hunting, military games, and the exaction of usury. He censured married women for the painting of their faces, the tightness and extravagance of their clothing, saying these things were useful for nothing except suffocating children in the womb and drawing after them the eyes of adulterers.

[23] He rebukes men who wear long hair. But with the greatest invective he reproved young men and youths who wore curled and crimped hair, who at that time insolently indulged in feminine hairstyles; and with persuasive words he bent many to such a degree that they voluntarily offered the hair of their head to the man of God to be shorn. But in this work the divine power deigned to accomplish something wonderful and unusual, contrary to the law of nature. There is a certain priest named Clericus, born in a place not far from the church of St. Gerlach, but living on the bank of the river Rhine from the time he received the priesthood. Hair cut by him did not grow back. He is accustomed to relate that Blessed Gerlach cut the hair from his father's head (while the latter was still in the prime of his youth); but afterward he recalls that his same father lived long in the world, begot sons and daughters, and attended to many affairs, but the hair of his head never grew beyond the boundary to which the man of God had shorn it.

CHAPTER X. How the wisdom of this world, striving to disparage the life of Blessed Gerlach, was confounded.

[24] But it does not seem out of place to set aside the order of the narrative for a short while and to insert into this work, as a necessary addition, how the things we have stated above about the blessed man's life and virtue were investigated with denigratory intent and a zeal for disparagement by the wise men of this world with greater curiosity, yet passed through unharmed by the light of unassailable arguments, confounding the wisdom of this world; and passed through the contradiction of tongues, as through the furnace of burning fire, unscathed, because no iniquity was found in them. In the regions of a Hesbaye there is a castle called b St. Trond, and in the castle a monastery of monks founded by that same holy Confessor and glorified by his merits and bodily repose. The Abbot who presides over this monastery is a most reverend man and of great glory in the Church of Christ, John of Xanten, Abbot of St. Trond. Master c John of Xanten, a faithful dispenser of the word of the Cross and a zealous organizer of the recent expedition to Jerusalem. At a certain time, then, on the anniversary of the deposition of the aforesaid Confessor, Blessed Trudo -- which is solemnly celebrated in the aforementioned castle with the devotion of due veneration by peoples flocking in from the entire vicinity -- when the sacred offices pertaining to the worship of divine service had been completed, several persons both ecclesiastical and secular were invited by the aforementioned venerable Abbot to a banquet. A magistrate of St. Trond disparages St. Gerlach. Among them, one of the leading men of that castle, whom in the vernacular they call d Scabini, Arnold by name, who was reputed to be highly skilled in worldly wisdom and to be most effective in secular affairs, first began to investigate more curiously from e a certain Brother from the cell of St. Gerlach, who happened to be present at the time, concerning the conversion, life, and character of Blessed Gerlach; then to disparage more bitingly the things that were said; and finally, with a kind of playful wit, to mock them. He did this because the wisdom of this world is accustomed to give credence only to those things which it has learned by use, knows by experience, and grasps through the service of the exterior senses, which we share in common with brute beasts. But when the flame of divine love, pouring itself into the hearts of the elect, causes triumphant men to bring back trophies of victory over their own flesh, the ancient enemy, and the world, beyond the possibility of human infirmity -- this the minds of carnal men, intent only upon earthly things and having no intellectual vision upward, weighed down by the burden of a disordered life, do not perceive. Accordingly, that notable man (for he knew his letters) began to hold forth before the many who had been invited for the festivity, asserting that no reason could persuade one to believe the things reported about Blessed Gerlach, because the frail members of the human body could not endure in such labors contrary to the customary course of nature.

[25] He is refuted by the Author. But in reply, that Brother said: These testimonies proclaiming the merits of Blessed Gerlach have been made exceedingly credible, because their sound has gone forth into the entire surrounding region, and the fame of them has spread to the ends of all Germany; and moreover, because fathers tell these things to their sons, and their sons to the next generation; and it would be necessary for anyone of the faithful to give undoubted credence to them, or else to convict the peoples of all Germany, and indeed the kingdoms of many foreign nations, of falsehood and fabrication -- peoples who, devoutly flocking to the sacred shrine of Blessed Gerlach, Confessor of Christ, constantly affirm the renown of his most laborious way of life, in which he toiled in divine service, as passed down to them from their ancestors. Furthermore, these are also certain proofs that the Saints have run contrary to the rights of the flesh and the law of nature in the arena of the present life: because, beyond the blessedness preserved for them in heaven, they have also received from the Lord such glory in this world that at their bodies, contrary to the customary order of nature as well, life is restored to the dead, sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, walking to the lame, and every sick person returns well; clearly and fittingly showing that reward of recompense has followed the Saints and elect of God in proportion to their labor, so that the evangelical saying may be fulfilled: With the same measure with which you have measured, it shall be measured to you again, and more shall be added to you. Mark 4:24.

[26] That notable man, having heard these things, although he was satisfied in all points, nevertheless stuck on one question, saying Whether he could have lived on bread mixed with ashes. it was neither true nor plausible that Blessed Gerlach, in the words of the Psalmist, ate ashes like bread, and that his body, worn out by such labors, could have subsisted on this food; that the substance of human flesh would be more dissipated than nourished by this; that the streams of blood relating to the bodily constitution and of vital humors in the kind receptacles of the veins could by no means be replenished through the eating of ashes. To these points, the venerable Abbot of the Church of Blessed Trudo, whom we mentioned above, interposed his authority while we were disputing, settled our controversy, confirmed our position with his authority, and gave a definitive concluding judgment on the question proposed. For he affirmed that he knew a certain person of the religious life living near a very famous castle called f Cleves, who, among other marks of a pious way of life, observed so strict a rule of abstinence as to use for sustenance daily bread made from one part flour and a double part of ashes.

[27] We have inserted these things by way of a necessary digression, so that it might be made clearer than light to all who read that the deeds of Blessed Gerlach,

Page 311 though frequently winnowed by the diligent inquiry of the wise men of this world, were never swept away like chaff by the wind of falsehood, but always stood on the stable foundation of truth. Let us now return to the order of the narrative.

a Hesbaye, or Hasbanium, is a region of Belgium on this side of the Meuse, from Liege toward Louvain. Mention of it is made in the division of the kingdom of Lothair between Charles the Bald and Louis, made in the year 870.

b We shall give the life of St. Trudo on November 23, where more will be said about this town.

c John of Xanten, postulated from the position of Dean of Aachen to be Abbot of St. Trond, was consecrated near the end of the year 1222; the following year he was simultaneously made Abbot of Deutz by the Apostolic Legate; he died on January 23, 1228; whence it is more clearly evident when this life was written.

d Thus are called throughout all Belgium the senators of cities and villages who administer justice, usually boards of seven or twelve.

e The Author shows below that he himself was that Brother.

f Cleves is a town from which the most noble Duchy of Cleves takes its name; the Gugerni once held its territory on this side of the Rhine.

CHAPTER XI. The benevolence of the Bishop of Liege toward him.

[28] As we have related in the preceding narrative, when Lord Norbert, Bishop of Liege, at the suggestion of the Monks of the Cell of Meerssen, had ejected Blessed Gerlach from his cell which he had made for himself in the hollow oak, and had the oak itself cut down and the entire heap of stones stored in the oak demolished, and when he had found no money there, as the Monks had alleged, but only clear evidence of the blessed man's most strict life and austere manner of living, he was greatly indignant at those who had made false reports to him about such a man, and grieved that he had saddened one so innocent and just. He is exempted from the jurisdiction of the monks of Meerssen. Wherefore the same venerable Lord Norbert, Bishop of Liege, in the manner of a spiritual Father, took the blessed man of God Gerlach under his care from his youth, and exempted him from the obedience of the Monks and Clerics of Meerssen, deeming it unworthy that a man leading a celibate life and living an angelic existence on earth should be subjected in obedience to persons devoted to this world. When the Monks and Clerics of Meerssen resisted, complaining about the dismemberment of their parish, the Prelate replied, affirming that it was within his right, as a Bishop serving the Lord in his diocese, to emancipate religious hermits, solitaries, and recluses from the jurisdiction of less religious Clerics in whose parishes they dwelt, without anyone's contradiction, and to appoint for them monks and other religious persons as teachers, confessors, and administrators of spiritual matters.

[29] Two cells are built for him. For this reason the Lord Bishop himself ordered two small cells to be made from the wood of the oak which, as we related above, had been cut down to the offense of the man of God: one in which the blessed man might pray to God day and night, and the other in which the blessed man might recline his weary limbs after labor. This cell indeed was so low, so sloping to the ground, and so (as we have learned from a trustworthy account) more similar to a tomb than to a dwelling, that the man of God, lying in it on his back, could touch its top with his knees -- a remarkable thing to say.

[30] He commends his care to the Abbot of Rolduc. After this, the Prelate, commending the man of God to the Abbot of Rolduc, whose name was Bruno, and to other religious, appointed them as instructors and teachers of the spiritual life and as overseers concerning things pertaining to the care of the soul. And moreover, in his oratory which he had ordered to be prepared for him from the wood of the cut-down oak, as we have already stated, he commanded that the solemnities of the Mass and similar services of divine worship be solemnly celebrated for him; and fortifying him with a paternal blessing, he bade him farewell, praying that prosperity might befall him. St. Gerlach, however, diligently acquired priestly vestments, sacred vessels, an altar stone consecrated in place of a fixed altar, and other utensils necessary for the divine mystery, and keeping religious priests with him, he had the divine offices solemnly administered to him by them.

a Hence it is clear that Saussay is mistaken when he says in his Gallican Martyrology that the diocese of Roermond was a portion of the diocese of Rheims; for these parts were subject to the Bishop of Liege, the rest to the Archbishop of Cologne.

CHAPTER XII. How he was again tempted by evil spirits and men.

[31] And behold, a renewed temptation by evil spirits and men began, like a battering ram, to strike with repeated blows the man intent upon heavenly things, and to extend snares of deception vehemently against him, and to spread traps and relax nets of temptation to capture him. He is assailed by a demon. For at night, when the man of God was refreshing his limbs with a little sleep after the day's labor and the night's toil, the evil spirit, grieving that he should have even so little rest, sometimes raised voices and tumults as of enemies rushing upon him around the cell in which he rested; sometimes simulated the irruptions of thieves stealthily trying to enter and testing the doors; and harassed the man of God with a thousand other arts of harm. At one time, moreover, while the man of God listened, pretending to be -- as he truly is -- a thief and robber, and prowling around his cell like a robber, he burst out in these words, as if to some other accomplice in thievery: Walk cautiously, and take care to avoid noise with your feet, because in this cell lies one who never sleeps. At this the man of God, going out of the cell in which he lay, and seeing no one present, recognized these to be the machinations of the evil spirit. At another time, as he was making his journey with his customary devotion to Blessed Servatius, the ancient enemy met him, interposing the mass of a great mountain. But the man of God, He repels the devil with the cross. opposing a certain small cross which he always wore on his breast, and which is still customarily kissed by pilgrims, dispelled the adversary's phantom by the power of the triumphant standard. But as the popular proverb says, Love conquers all; in all these things the blessed man overcame, because of him who loved him.

[32] As he walks through the snow, his feet steam. I am about to relate a new and wondrous thing, which the elders who survive to this day profess to have known from their ancestors: that when they saw Blessed Gerlach traveling with bare feet amid the harshness of the most bitter winter through deep snow, a vapor of warm steam rose from his feet, like a cauldron placed over coals; because assuredly his mind and the members of his body were fuel for that fire which the Lord Jesus sent upon the earth and wished to be vehemently kindled. It is also reported by some that on a certain day, The temple of St. Servatius opens of its own accord for him. when he had come in his customary manner of pilgrimage to the church of Blessed Servatius during the night, and the doors were shut because it was not yet time for matins, the doors of the church opened of their own accord before his face, with no mortal unlocking them.

[33] Beyond all this, the Monks and Clerics of the cell of Meerssen, in whose parish the man of God resided, were filled with jealousy and contradicted with indignation the things which the Lord was working through his servant. And so they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him; The monks of Meerssen again oppose him. and so they said the man of God ought to be deprived of communion, because with the Bishop's license and authority he had the divine mysteries celebrated outside the parish church. But that they presumed this with no moderation of reason, but only by the impulse of an unjust agitation, is most certain from this: that if they had been able to allege these things against the man of God by any support of law, suffrage of statutes, and aid of canons, they would have had the divine services in the cell of the blessed man interdicted by ecclesiastical censure through the many legates sent here from the Apostolic See. But just as one reads in the book of Dialogues that a certain priest a persecuted Blessed Benedict, who was building a monastery in his parish, with the most grievous harassment, Some are divinely punished. so likewise these men, attacking St. Gerlach without cause, provoked him to anger. And just as that aforementioned priest experienced divine vengeance for the injury he inflicted upon Blessed Benedict, so no less did certain of those

Page 312 who were more obstinate in disparaging Blessed Gerlach, more insolent in reviling him, and more unbridled in provoking him, receive in themselves the recompense they deserved, as we shall narrate more fully in its proper place.

a This will be related on March 21 in the life of St. Benedict.

CHAPTER XIII. How he was visited by a certain noble matron.

[34] After this, when the fame of the blessed man's virtues was spreading far and wide, and many were hastening from remote regions to see him, it happened that a certain noble matron named Oda, from the Castle of a Heinsberg, Lady of the estate on which the holy man resided, Lady Oda gives him the estate and his heirs. came to visit him. Marveling at the wondrous change wrought by the right hand of the Most High in him and gladdened by the growth of his spiritual progress, she conveyed to him and to all his heirs who would serve the Lord in that same place certain small plots of land and estates surrounding the cell, to be possessed by perpetual right.

a Heinsberg is a notable town of the territory of Juelich, three miles from Roermond.

CHAPTER XIV. Concerning the man who frequently repaired the coat of mail which he wore.

[35] He wears an iron coat of mail. This too should be inserted: that the blessed man constantly wore an iron coat of mail, punishing the members of his body and compelling them to serve the spirit, with which he defied the pleasures and delights of this life; protected by its armor, the most valiant athlete fought a strong fight against the aerial hosts and gloriously triumphed in the name of Jesus... the rings having broken and the links having fallen apart through long use. A certain man frequently repaired it, and joining new rings to old tears, he put it back together.

[36] In old age, riding a donkey, he visits the church of St. Servatius. Furthermore, when, wearied by long old age and exhausted in his bodily strength by the exercise of labor, he could no longer make on foot, as had been his custom, the usual pilgrimage journey to Blessed Servatius, sitting upon the back of a humble donkey, his future companion in heaven, he caressed him with affectionate services on earth; and preserving the sacrament of the Gospel reading, he sought three loaves from a friend by a friend, both devoutly and most importunately; while he asked to obtain from the Lord, through the Saint's merits and intercession, either understanding of the Trinity, or an increase of faith, hope, and charity.

a Something is missing here.

CHAPTER XV. On his manner of prayer.

[37] I think it is not superfluous to include his manner of prayer, for the benefit of those who cannot sing Psalms and long prayers, that they may know that it is the affection rather than many words of those who petition that is admitted within the sanctuary of divine hearing. A certain priest of the Church of Heinsberg, He prays in the crypt of St. Servatius. which is situated in the castle, named Norbert, used to relate that at the time when the man of God was visiting Blessed Servatius, while he was a small boy in a the schools, he often, approaching Blessed Gerlach, who was prostrate in prayer in the b crypt of Blessed Servatius, out of the curiosity of eavesdropping, His prayers. heard him frequently repeating these words of prayer: Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Our Father. Hail Mary.

a Perhaps "schools."

b We too once as boys frequented that venerable crypt of the most ancient basilica.

CHAPTER XVI. Concerning those things which are narrated about Blessed Gerlach by a certain elder who is still alive.

[38] And behold, while still engaged in writing these things, we learned from the report of a certain man that a certain citizen of Maastricht named Theodore, The Author seeks out a man who had seen St. Gerlach. from the quarter commonly called Scharn, well known to all who dwell in these parts, is still alive, and he recalled having seen Blessed Gerlach while he was still in the flesh. Hastening to him with a swift journey, we found the man now heavy with age and, because of the weakness of old age, barely moving his step to walk. He related to us that he had seen the man of God Gerlach when he had not yet completed the years of his boyhood, at a certain time received as a guest by his mother, who was a kinswoman of Gerlach according to the flesh; His appearance and garb. and he recalled him as having been tall in stature, handsome of face, with a long beard spread over his breast, broad and robust of body. Concerning his garb, he asserted that he wore a hair shirt next to his skin, and over it an iron coat of mail, much torn by long use and largely fallen apart around the edges; but over these, woolen garments, that is, a tunic, scapular, cloak, and girdle, entirely adapted in both form and color to the profession of the Premonstratensian Order.

[39] He also said that Gerlach had related to his mother the course of his life and the temptations of evil spirits who, along the route by which he visited Blessed Servatius, had set a stumbling block before him, attempting to retard the devotion of his journey by manifold encounters and phantom illusions. One of his feet was wounded by an ulcer. Then he reported that one foot of the blessed man was wounded by a severe ulcer which, as we related above, had been injured in a certain thorny thicket of a biting nature while he was engaged in feeding the flocks at the Hospital in Jerusalem. Finally, he added this about the man of God, Blessed Gerlach: Refusing a bed, he sleeps on the ground. that although a e bed had been properly made up with the softness of feathers for his rest, he utterly refused such softness of bedding and reclined his weary limbs on a simple and bare pile of straw. On the following day, when a girl of the household rose before dawn to do some work and kindled the fire in the customary way, all who were in the house saw the blessed servant of God lying prostrate on the bare ground in prayer. Here one may pause a little to consider what great fortitude the man of God possessed and how invincible was the mark of virtue that shone in him, who did not consent to relax anything of the rigor of his resolve, not even when hospitality itself urged it.

[40] Lastly, the aforementioned man (who survives to this day) also added this about the blessed servant of Christ, saying that For 14 years he wears the coat of mail and hair shirt; he is buried with them. from the time when he first put on the hair shirt and coat of mail as the weapons of penance for the sake of conversion, he never afterward removed them, but wore them to the end of his life, for about fourteen years, until they fell from his body piece by piece; and with these indeed, after the dissolution of his body, he was committed to the earth. Moreover, the aforesaid man affirmed with great constancy that Blessed Gerlach was neither delayed nor held back from the journey, which we have said he made daily to Blessed Servatius, by any severity of winter, any flooding of rain, or any violence of wind. To these points, when we diligently questioned the aforementioned elder about the time when these things occurred, he replied that they happened at the same time when the Emperor Frederick, When he lived. having gathered the forces of the entire Empire, a besieged and conquered Milan, the metropolis of Liguria; or when Lord Hermann the Elder of Mulniarchim, a most illustrious hero of that time, b powerfully drove off the enemies of the city of Cologne, and with remarkable skill preserved Cologne itself unharmed from its foes.

Page 313 These things, just as we received them from the aforesaid elder, we have inserted into the present work concerning the deeds of the blessed man. Let us now come to describing his most holy passing.

a Godfrey the monk of St. Pantaleon's, Cologne, writes in his Chronicle that this happened in the year 1162.

b This was done in the year 1164, as the same author narrates. The Archbishop of Cologne at that time was Rainald, who in a certain diploma, as the most distinguished Aegidius Gelenius notes at chapter 11, book 2 of the life of St. Engelbert, dated in the year 1161, calls Hermann de Molenarck (this same man, as I suppose) a Count. The castle of Molenarck in the Duchy of Juelich is now held by the noble family of Metternich, as the same author says.

CHAPTER XVII. How the Lord changed water into wine through the merits of Blessed Gerlach.

[41] The Lord, purposing to lead his chosen one out of the laborious struggle of this world, desired to give him a foretaste of the riches of his goodness and declared the prerogative of his merits by evident signs. Water is divinely changed into wine for him. There is in the a town of Maastricht a certain elder, nephew of the blessed man through his sister, also called Gerlach himself, well known to all who dwell in the aforementioned town; a man advanced in years, constant in character, truthful in speech, from whose account we have learned no small part of what we have written in the present work. He is accustomed to assert with great faith and awe-inspiring oaths that it was a great sign of divine mercy that, in the same year in which the man of God was to depart from this world, the Lord deigned to work in his servant according to the ancient miracles of his power. For he affirms that on a certain Passion Sunday the blessed man sent a certain priest named Rutger, who had celebrated the divine service for him in his chapel that day, to draw water from the fountain which is still called the Fountain of St. Gerlach; and when he tasted it, he perceived that the water had been changed into wine. And not knowing the matter, he thought he had been tricked by the priest; and somewhat agitated, he exclaimed: I have not drunk wine or strong drink or anything that can intoxicate for the course of fourteen years, and you have served me the liquor from which I abstained for so long a time, especially on such a day? When the priest was astonished at this and affirmed that he had served pure water, not wine, the man of God poured out the water that had become wine at the base of his altar and asked the priest to draw water again. He obeyed, and behold, the power of the Lord was present, as before.

By whose command the wave poured forth wine, The water changed its origin.

The same happens a third time. At this, the man of the Lord, wishing to test it himself a third time, went to the edge of the fountain and, drawing water, brought it to the place where he was accustomed to take his meal. And again, perceiving it had become like wine in flavor, he praised the Lord with much thanksgiving -- he who is truly wonderful in his saints and rich toward all who call upon him.

a Thus were fortified places customarily called in former times, even if they were sometimes very large cities. That Maastricht was smaller in earlier times is evident from the old walls which are still visible.

CHAPTER XVIII. How he was visited by Blessed Servatius at the end of his life.

[42] Now my mind hesitates, my thought wavers, my hand shrinks from describing the things that are narrated by the mouths of the faithful about his blessed passing; His death was celebrated in popular songs. although many honest persons, whether steadfastly or stubbornly, affirm these things here, and even singers, who strive to please people with the art of singing, frequently sing in their songs the things we are about to relate. For they report that when the Lord was about to reward the triumphal labor of his soldier with unfading glory and had decreed to summon his Saint to the eternal banquet, at the approaching hour of his dissolution, the priest who was accustomed to administer the sacred mysteries to him happened to be absent. The Abbots and other religious, to whom he had been entrusted by the Bishop, had been summoned by messenger, but there was no opportunity for them to come more quickly to the man of God's passing. The Clerics of Meerssen, who lived nearby, said he was not under their authority, that the care and oversight of his soul was not their responsibility, because he had been entrusted to religious men by the Bishop. When these things were reported to the man of God as he lay in his final illness, fearing nothing but holding fast the anchor of hope fixed in Christ, with many who had come on his account standing by, he said: I know in whom I have believed, and I am certain that he whom I served will not forget so great a labor which I endured for love of him. And behold, He is refreshed with the viaticum by St. Servatius. a certain venerable old man, clothed in white garments, preceded by a certain young man, entered in the sight of all where the man of God lay sick, and having greeted all, he approached Blessed Gerlach, now placed at the end of this wretched life, and as a friend about to return to his homeland, consoling him in many ways, he fortified him with the saving viaticum and with all the Sacraments that are customarily administered to the faithful departing this life; and when all was done, he bade him farewell and departed; and, as it is reported, he never afterward appeared to anyone. Whence to this day there persists a doubtful opinion among some, with some saying this was a certain Abbot, and others steadfastly and most truthfully affirming that Blessed Servatius had come and administered the saving sacraments to his pilgrim. And indeed, as we have related above, we hear many to this day not only narrating but also commonly singing that he was bodily visited by Blessed Servatius. For our part, not daring to rush to judgment on this matter, we commit the whole thing to the divine disposition; whoever he was, however, we do not doubt that he was sent by God.

[43] After this, the man of God, concerned about his burial, commanded his friends and faithful who had assembled, ordering that in his wooden chapel where he had dwelt, they should commit his poor body to the earth with the same coat of mail and hair shirt. He dies and is buried with coat of mail and hair shirt. And then, bidding farewell to all, he rendered his spirit to the Lord in peace, on the Nones of January, that is, on the vigil of the Lord's Theophany. The faithful who were present, therefore, and those who had come from the entire province for his obsequies, in the same chapel in which he himself had decreed that he be buried, devoutly committed his body to the earth with the coat of mail and hair shirt, celebrating Catholic funeral rites for him.

BOOK II.

PREFACE.

[1] After the precious treasure of the body of Blessed Gerlach had been committed to the earth, the supreme Craftsman and Creator of every creature, God, marvelously adorned the ring of the Church's faith with the pearls of his merits; when he summoned his most sacred bones from the depths of the earth's bowels and from the hidden recesses of the tomb, The relics of St. Gerlach shine with various miracles. without any aid of human industry, to the surface of the earth; while, through his merits as patron, he raised the dead to life, illuminated the eyes of the blind, strengthened the feet and ankles of the lame for walking, and cured every kind of disease, both in men and in beasts. For certain foundations of our believing faith are laid, increments of hope arise, kindlings of charity grow, incitements of devotion increase, and nourishments of good works are manifoldly supplied through these things; while God, wonderful in his Saints, sometimes by their intercessions destroys in dead bodies the dominion of death, against which human ingenuity avails not;

Page 314 while in sick bodily members he supplies the defects of nature, in which the skill of physicians falls short. And since we sometimes see certain persons resist the merits of Blessed Gerlach and clamor against his miracles -- who blush at what has been done by another because they themselves cannot do it, and therefore strive to deny these things, or to pervert with hostile interpretation what they cannot deny -- let us therefore now first turn our pen to describing how the most holy pledges of his relics were raised from the tomb in an unusual manner by the right hand of divine power alone; of which matter there are as many witnesses as there are people of full age in our entire province.

CHAPTER I. On the divinely accomplished translation of Blessed Gerlach.

[2] The gracious Lord, who is rich in mercy and generous in rewards, planning to attend to the infirmity and provide for the salvation of his faithful through the merits of St. Gerlach, his Confessor, did not suffer the most holy pledges of his relics to be long confined in the enclosures of the tomb or hidden by the mass of earth, but for the washing away of the sins of many and the accumulation of merits, granted them to be revealed to the sight of men in a quite marvelous and astonishing manner. For it is reported by the concordant account of many that, when St. Gerlach had rendered his blessed spirit to God, and the due office of burial was to be performed for him in the manner of the faithful, a receptacle of great depth was prepared for his tomb; and his body, enclosed in a wooden coffin, could not be lowered into the designated resting place in the earth except with the aid of ropes. The bones of St. Gerlach rise above the earth of their own accord. But after a short time had elapsed, the earth on the surface of the tomb began to gape open in a wondrous manner, and seemed, with a sort of joyful eagerness (if one may say so), to prepare a way for the pearls about to emerge. A few faithful who frequented that place at the time, seeing this, strove with all the industry they could to fill in and level the openings and cracks of the tomb. But whether knowingly or unknowingly, human ingenuity attempts in vain anything against the divine counsel. What more? Contrary to the condition of buried corpses, contrary to the custom of the ashes and dry bones of the dead, contrary indeed to the very laws and decrees of nature, the bones of Blessed Gerlach, more precious than gold and silver, with no mortal lifting them, emerged from the tomb in which they had been buried and gradually presented themselves to the sight of men.

[3] A cross of the Lord, most venerable, decently fashioned from bronze, was also found upon them in the place of the breast; and beneath the cross, a certain piece of the hair shirt with which the blessed man had been buried was found intact from corruption, in that quantity which the same cross seemed to cover in circumference. His cross and part of the hair shirt are preserved. This piece of hair shirt was fitted with the same cross in the manner of a small pillow, and both are now kissed by pilgrims with the greatest veneration and bestow much healing aid upon the sick. The blessed man had brought this cross from Jerusalem and always wore it upon his breast, and set it as an unconquerable wall against all the phantom inventions of the ancient enemy; and at his end, he commanded it to be placed upon his breast and to be buried with him. To so great a fame, therefore, the whole province assembled; a crowd of the sick gathered and obtained the grace of blessings. It would take long to relate individually all the things we have heard concerning these matters, or which we ourselves have beheld with our own eyes and handled with our hands; but to avoid tedium, let us briefly set forth a few from many by way of example.

CHAPTER II. On Adam, the sick soldier, cured by Blessed Gerlach.

[4] There is a certain soldier named Adam, from the village called Berg, quite close to the cell of Blessed Gerlach, a man of great renown and widely known in many places for the honesty of his character and his illustrious military deeds. He is accustomed to relate a great miracle of divine power wrought in himself through the patronage and merits of Blessed Gerlach. For he declares that in the time of his youth, when he was first promoted to military service, a certain abscess of ulcerous swelling had grown in his throat and had completely blocked the passage of his gullet, with the ability to eat, drink, and even sleep being entirely taken from him. His parents and friends, seeing such a promising young man perishing, tried anxiously and sadly various kinds of remedies by which they hoped to be able to help him. When all the devices of bodily medicine were spent in vain, his parents, once human counsel began to fail them, devoutly turned to divine help. A youth suffering from an abscess is brought to the relics of the saints. They therefore placed the youth in a vehicle and brought him to Maastricht, presenting him at the shrine of the marvelous Confessor Blessed Servatius. And they not only applied the relics of St. Servatius and of the other Saints, many of whose bodies are buried there, to each place of pain; but they also poured water that had been poured over those same relics into the young man's mouth. But St. Servatius, although the most ready reliever of all the weak who flee to him, on this occasion deferred freeing the sick man who sought his patronage, because he wished to reserve this grace of healing for his companion, Blessed Gerlach.

[5] Therefore, when the young man's parents saw that the gift of health had by no means been conferred upon him, they once again placed him in a vehicle and, with great weeping and lamentation, as if following a funeral, brought him home, expecting not his life but his death. Already seven days had passed, and he, persevering without any vital nourishment, seemed to draw only his last breath in his breast alone. Already all hope for his life was abandoned; already arrangements for his funeral were being discussed. Meanwhile the young man himself, remembering St. Gerlach, By the help of St. Gerlach he is suddenly healed. began to take it badly that he had so long delayed imploring the patronage of a patron who was his neighbor. Therefore, quickly sending a messenger, he ordered a small portion of earth from around the bones of Blessed Gerlach to be brought to him, and when brought, to be mixed with water and poured into his mouth. When this was done, as soon as the saving remedy touched the place of pain, immediately in a marvelous way the deadly ulcer within his throat burst, and a great quantity of lethal fluid flowed from the sick man's mouth. And so the soldier, snatched from the very jaws of death through the merits of St. Gerlach, immediately taking drink and soft foods, went down with his parents, kinsmen, and friends, who had assembled as if for his funeral, and with all the people of both sexes and every condition dwelling in the entire vicinity, to the cell of Blessed Gerlach; and he praised with great thanksgiving the mighty deeds of God, who deigned to work through his servant, and having fulfilled his vows, returned home rejoicing and well.

CHAPTER III. On the marvelous cure of two matrons.

[6] Near the royal castle called a Dueren, which is not far from Cologne, there lives a certain soldier named William, from the village called Binzvelt, well known to all who dwell in those parts. His wife, Hedwig by name, came to the shrine of St. Gerlach, and both from the extent of her devotion and the weight of her offerings I began to perceive that some special grace of healing had been conferred upon her by

Page 315 our patron. I therefore approached the matron, who appeared to be of quite advanced age, as a curious inquirer about this matter. But she, suffused with a matronly blush, maintained silence for some time with her noble modesty; at length she replied to me that the reason was such that she could reveal it only to a priest. But when she understood that I, however unworthy, bore the name of priest, she narrated to me in order the tragedy of her pitiable affliction, from which she had been liberated through Blessed Gerlach. And since the discussion now turns to the hidden sufferings of the maternal organs, let no one, I beg, who reads these things, be troublesome to me who writes them; since the heavenly Father succored that woman in the secret torments of nature through his servant Gerlach with so ineffable a remedy of healing that I can by no means pass this over in silence. A woman is cured of pains of the womb. For the aforesaid matron declared that she had borne many sons and daughters; but the entire time during which she once bore her first children, she recalled having endured contractions of the bowels so enormous, so pitiable, so prolonged, even beyond the time of purification, that she considered life a greater burden than death. But at the time when she brought forth the fifth of her children, worn out by the same ailment to the point of death, while she was awaiting the time of her lawful purification, she saw in a dream a certain person standing by her and earnestly admonishing her that if she wished to be freed from her illness and to enjoy the gift of desired health, she should humbly implore the patronage of Blessed Gerlach the Confessor. Soon, awakened from sleep and gladdened by such a vision, she vowed to Blessed Gerlach that she would make a pilgrimage to his shrine and pay a fixed sum of money every year. Nor did a long delay intervene after this, and the woman's bowels, which had been enormously displaced from their proper seats, soon sought their receptacles again and began to settle into them; and the matron's health was so fully restored that she says nothing of the kind ever happened to her again, though she subsequently gave birth many times.

[7] Moreover, the same matron related that she had a certain niece suffering from the same disease in every respect, who, Likewise another. by her advice, also vowing herself to Blessed Gerlach, merited to be freed by him with a similar remedy.

a Marcodurum, or Marcomagum, a town of Juelich on the river Rur, commonly called Dueren, from the river crossing. Wherever the name "Durus" or "Durum" is appended to place names, you will find those places situated by rivers; likewise when "Magus" or "Magum" is appended, and this seems to signify a ford, which the Germans indicate by the diminutive furt added to names.

CHAPTER IV. On a lame woman raised up.

[8] A certain Brother named Winand served the church of Blessed Gerlach devoutly for many years, for whom the first cause of conversion was his own daughter, lame but restored to the use of her feet through Blessed Gerlach. How this came about, as I learned from his own mouth, I shall narrate. My daughter, he said, most dearly beloved, was entirely deprived of the use of walking, so that she could not move herself from place to place without the help of others' hands. Placing her in a vehicle, I brought her to Blessed Servatius in Maastricht and to many places of the Saints; but the Saints were unwilling to confer the gift of health upon her, because they wished the merits of Blessed Gerlach to be more fully declared to the world through her raising up. Finally, he said, I brought her to this Saint and introduced her with the vehicle through the door of the church that faces north, and placed her beside the body of Blessed Gerlach on the left side. I myself, standing on the right side, with tears streaming copiously from my eyes, Visibly appearing, he raises up the lame girl. humbly implored the holy Confessor to come to the aid of my daughter. And behold, before the eyes of us all, a person of a most reverend man entered the church, clad in white garments, that is, tunic and scapular, adapted in every respect to the profession of the Premonstratensian Order. We, thinking the person who had come was some religious pilgrim, asked him to pour out prayers to the Lord for the sick woman. But he, saying nothing, only humbly bowed himself devoutly toward us; and in the midst of this, approaching the sick woman, he took some dust from the tomb and placed it upon her. Immediately her contracted sinews were released with a great cracking noise, and the girl's freedom to walk was restored. Without delay, Brother Frederick, the custodian of the church, and the others who were present and had seen the event, rang the bells loudly and summoned the people. People of every sex and age came running. God was blessed by all; there was a universal celebration. Meanwhile, while the daughters of Zion exulted in their King, that divine messenger, through whose ministry the Lord had wrought this miracle, vanished; and his absence was immediately noted. When therefore he was diligently sought and no trace whatsoever of any evidence of him was found, it was not unreasonably judged by all that St. Gerlach had without doubt been sent visibly by God to perform this. The vehicle also, in which the aforesaid girl had been brought in her disabled condition, is preserved to this day, affixed to the wall of the church as a testimony of this matter. So great a multitude of witnesses attests to this event, so far and wide does the fame of it extend throughout all these parts, that no one at all in these regions has any doubt about the truth of this deed.

CHAPTER V. How Matthew, a lame man, was raised up.

[9] A lame man is cured. Matthew also (who from almost the very cradle was nourished as an infant in the church of St. Gerlach, was taught sacred letters, was promoted to the order of the priesthood, and served there for many years under the regular profession), having been first brought there as an infant lame by his parents, was raised up through the merits of St. Gerlach, and was then offered by his parents to Blessed Gerlach to serve the Lord in his church forever. Because it is clearer than light to all in what order this was done, we pass over it briefly.

CHAPTER VI. On a certain dead person raised to life.

[10] Near a certain estate of a St. Lambert the Martyr, which is called Neuville, there is a village called Lise, situated roughly midway between Maastricht and Liege. In this village a certain young man lives, Franco by name, of no ignoble birth, a native of those parts. He, in his boyhood years, falling by chance into a certain ditch where there was a collection of water, perished, and lay there for a considerable time, suffocated by the water. Finally, sought for and found in the ditch, he was drawn out lifeless from that marshy collection of water. At which sight his mother turned pale, the household was disturbed, and the whole house dissolved into funeral lamentations. At this, the mother of the infant, A dead person is raised to life. remembering Blessed Gerlach, whose reputation for the grace of miracles was then outstanding, implored his help with tearful groans, promising him an annual payment if through the intercession of his merits the child's soul should be recalled within his body. Nor was there a long delay thereafter, for behold, the flesh of the boy grew warm, and as his eyes relaxed into the function of seeing, he began to flutter them. The mother of the boy, who formerly went forth weeping, casting the seeds of her faith, now, caressing her son who had been dead and was alive again with joyful embraces, carries home with exultation the welcome sheaves of her faith.

a We shall give his life on September 17.

[11] In the a territory of Tongres, in the village called Bloer, Likewise two others. a certain widow named Berta vowed her daughter Imza, who had been suffocated in the river called b the Jeker and dead from the sixth to the eleventh hour of the day, to St. Gerlach together with an annual payment, and immediately received her back alive and well. Likewise, in the village of Blessed Servatius called Mechelen, not far from Maastricht, lodging separately in the house of the parish priest, we heard both the said priest and his household testify that in that same village a girl, already of quite mature age, had long ago been raised from bodily death to life through the merits of St. Gerlach by the Lord.

a Tongres, a town of the territory of Liege, not far from Maastricht, retains the name of a once great and powerful people; it seems formerly to have been Atuatuca.

b The Jeker flows into the Meuse at Maastricht.

CHAPTER VIII. On a certain girl preserved from the double evil of blindness and abandonment.

[12] In the village called a Gulpen, commonly Oudt Gulpene, God began to work a splendid sign of his grace concerning a certain girl through Blessed Gerlach, but accomplished it through his Apostle James. A certain widowed matron of b Meerssen is accustomed to testify to this matter, recalling the aforesaid girl as having been her cousin. A blind woman receives her sight through the intercession of St. Gerlach. Her husband had taken this girl from her birthplace, namely from Gulpen, to Saxony with him, and there, establishing a residence in a certain place, he took another mistress in addition, and rejected that girl whom he had brought there with him as his lawful wife. She, repudiated and sorrowful, returned to her homeland, and from the continual shedding of tears incurred blindness of the eyes, so that for the space of eleven years she did not see the light of heaven. Meanwhile, as the fame of the miracles of Blessed Gerlach grew, she had herself brought there, and with the cooperation of the holy Confessor's patronage, her eyes were clothed with clear light by the Lord.

[13] And just as sometimes sorrow is added upon sorrow and sadness accumulated upon sadness, so contrariwise sometimes vow succeeds vow and joy is joined to joy. Hence it came to pass that the girl, first mercifully freed by God from the darkness of blindness, was afterward more mercifully rescued from the loss of her marriage. The adulterer is barred from entering the church of St. James. For her husband, who, as we have already said, had rejected her and taken another woman to himself, came down from Saxony with certain of his fellow citizens and visited the shrine of Blessed James the Apostle; and while all others were entering the church, he himself sustained a severe repulse at the threshold of the door, for with no one helping and no one even pushing, he could not enter; and moreover, though many poured out devout prayers to God for him, he was still kept back from the venerable places and from the sacred buildings. He returns to his formerly repudiated wife. Finally, having received salutary counsel from a certain priest of the Church of Blessed James, he returned to his homeland; and seeking out and finding his wife, he received her back and was reconciled to her; and after performing penance, he came again with his same wife to the shrine of Blessed James, and with no one hindering, he entered the sacred building with manifold thanksgiving.

a Gulpen is a small river in the territory of Limburg, and also a village; whence the noble family of Gulpen takes its name.

b It seems the reading should be "of Meerssen."

CHAPTER IX. An ulcer healed a second time.

[14] Likewise, in a certain place called Leuvenich, the wife of a certain Gerard surnamed Vrel was suffering from a most savage and enormously swollen ulcer on her breast, which greatly tormented her. A woman is healed of an ulcer. She was admonished in a dream and assured of recovering health if she should invoke the name and merit of St. Gerlach; and immediately, awakened from sleep, she left the house and the bed on which she was resting and entered the greenness of the garden, so that with feminine simplicity, or rather the devotion of faith, without the obstruction of any earthly body, she might as it were send her prayers and vows more freely to God and to his Saint Gerlach. Nor did her intention of faith, though simple, deceive her. For as soon as she distinguished her vows with her lips and promised to visit the shrine of the holy Confessor annually with offerings and gifts, she was immediately and entirely freed from the pain that tormented her. Neglecting her vow, she falls ill again: But after some time had passed, the woman, forgetful of her vow, did not keep the pact; that is, what she had bound herself by vow to do -- to visit annually the patron of her recovered health. And behold, a renewed assault of pain began again to swell her flesh and, as with an envious tooth, to gnaw even to the sinews and bones. Therefore the woman did penance for her broken vow and took up the journey of the interrupted pilgrimage; and immediately, beyond hope, she recovered on the way. She came therefore to the Saint, by the help of St. Gerlach she is healed again. and for the doubled joy of her recovery, she poured forth manifold thanks to him, and related to the Brothers the order of events, and showed the clear scar of the wound, now covered with healthy skin, on the upper part of her breast.

CHAPTER X. How Cassard was cured.

[15] In the expedition which some years ago was launched against the a Albigensian heretics in Provence, a certain man surnamed Cassard, from the village of Berg, A sick man invoking St. Gerlach is healed. which we mentioned above, fell gravely ill and, frequently calling upon St. Gerlach, was freed from his illness.

a Albi, called Albia by others, is a city of Gallia Narbonensis, commonly called Alby; hence the Albigensian heretics were so named, against whom the sacred war was undertaken at the urging of Innocent III.

CHAPTER XI. On a certain sick woman who was cured.

[16] Hair suspended as a votive offering. A certain Cistercian monk from a celebrated monastery called a Eberbach came to the place of St. Gerlach, and examining more closely the evidences of miracles which were hung on the walls of the church, when we inquired, he replied that his mother, named Elarma, a native of the b Castle of Rolduc, had been freed by Blessed Gerlach from a headache by which she had been gravely tormented for six years, and for this reason he recalled that the hair of her head had been hung there, among the other testimonies of miracles, as a sign of her recovered health.

a Beerbach, or rather Erbach, as I think it should be read. Eberbach, or Erbach by contraction, is a famous Cistercian monastery in the Rheingau, almost opposite Ingelheim, two miles from Mainz, in a valley about a quarter of an hour from the Rhine. A small stream flows into the monastery. From the boar and the stream, that is, eber and bach, it obtained its name. The monastery's arms display a boar. Our learned John Crusius taught me these things. Our own Serarius reports nearly the same in book 5 of his Moguntine Affairs, under Adalbert the Elder. Gelenius in his notes to chapter 50, book 3 of the life of St. Engelbert, contends the name was derived from the boar and the spring.

b This is commonly called Herzogenrath, as we noted at chapter 7 of book 1.

CHAPTER XII. On another woman healed of the falling sickness.

[17] In the suburb of the Castle of Rolduc, which we have already mentioned, a certain woman named Mechtild, wife of a certain Nicholas, suffering miserably from the falling sickness, was mercifully restored to perfect health through the succor of Blessed Gerlach.

CHAPTER XIII. Likewise on the same subject.

[18] Likewise, from remote parts a certain pilgrim surnamed Vindemann, from the village called a Essen, where a monastery of nuns of the same name is also found, Two persons healed of the falling sickness. came to the shrine of the holy Confessor Gerlach and confessed that both he and a certain fellow citizen of his had been healed of the falling sickness, to which they had been gravely subject; and for this reason he also recalled that he observed a certain fixed mode of abstinence every week in honor of St. Gerlach.

a Essen is a college of noble canonesses in the Mark between the Ruhr and the Lippe, on the river Asna, whence it is called Asnede, Asnide, or Asindia. Blessed Alfrid, Bishop of Hildesheim, founded it; of whom more on August 15.

CHAPTER XIV. On a man cured of toothache.

[19] In the village called Nuth, situated not far from the place of Blessed Gerlach, a certain man named Jordan was suffering from an acute toothache, A man is freed from toothache and other ailments. so severely that no possibility of taking food or even sleeping remained to him. He therefore came to the holy place of the venerable Confessor, and as soon as he touched the threshold of the church, he recovered from the ailment that held him. He also testified to the Brothers of that place that on three other occasions he had been freed from various illnesses at the memorial of the same Confessor.

CHAPTER XV. On the cross which he brought from Jerusalem.

[20] But through the cross of the Lord also, which was found upon his breast when his sacred relics emerged from the tomb, the Lord wrought many splendid things, of which it is fitting to mention a few. Through the Cross of St. Gerlach, a blind woman is illuminated. Brother Winand, of whom we spoke above, touched a certain blind woman, led there by the hands of others, with the same venerable cross upon her eyes; and immediately a copious sweat of blood burst from the woman's closed eyelids and flowed abundantly down her cheeks, and thus she received the light of her eyes, so that she no longer needed a guide for the way.

CHAPTER XVI. On a woman restored to the use of her feet.

[21] Near a certain very famous castle called a Seyn, there is a small village called Wisse. A foot is healed. From there a certain woman came to the shrine of the holy Confessor, one foot having been acutely painful for nearly three years, and she asked that the same holy cross be applied to it; and she immediately brought it home sound and whole.

a This castle is situated across the Rhine, not far from Koblenz, on the river Seyn, and distinguished with the title of County.

CHAPTER XVII. On a man freed from dysentery.

[22] In the city of Cologne, a certain young man surnamed Vogill, suffering for a long time from dysentery, A man is freed from dysentery. truly affirms that he was freed from the same troublesome illness through the patronage of Blessed Gerlach.

CHAPTER XVIII. How those suffering from fever were healed through the dust of his tomb.

[23] The dust of his tomb is salutary for those with fever. Earth from around the bones of the blessed man in the tomb was given as a drink to many who were suffering from fever, and so great a multitude of the sick recovered the grace of health through the draught of this saving cup, from both the burning of fevers and from various kinds of diseases, that it is not easy for anyone to enumerate, or light to commit to the memory of writings. I heard a certain very devout citizen of Maastricht named Peter truthfully testifying that so great a multitude of fever sufferers had been restored to their former health through this earth given by him in a drink, that I am afraid to note here such a number as he enumerated, for fear of disbelief. For many of the faithful, asking for and receiving the sacred dust with devout faith, obtained manifold fruit of their faith through it. But certain persons, attempting to steal this dust furtively from the tomb of the blessed man, paid the penalty for their presumption, shamefully disgraced.

CHAPTER XIX. How the earth of his tomb was changed to the appearance of blood.

[24] On a certain solemn day, a certain woman from a neighboring castle called Heerle secretly took dust from the tomb of St. Gerlach The earth of his tomb is changed into blood. and tied it in the edge of her veil; and as may be supposed, she intended to put it to improper uses, or perhaps to treat it with less than due reverence. And behold, the power of the Lord changed this earth, in the sight of many, into the appearance of blood, so that gore of blood dripped through the fringes of the veil.

[25] A certain man living nearby, very devoted to the Church of Blessed Gerlach, named Hermann, being greatly tormented by toothache, It drives away toothache. smeared his chin and cheeks with the earth that had been changed into blood, and immediately the anointing of the sacred liquid entirely dispelled the pain.

CHAPTER XX. How a certain man, having bitten out one of Blessed Gerlach's teeth, was chastised.

[26] A man who stole a tooth of St. Gerlach is punished. At another time, one coming from remote parts and, as if out of devotion, kissing the head of Blessed Gerlach, carefully bit out one of his teeth -- impiously indeed, but not with impunity. After a year, however, he returned and brought back the tooth, and showed that for so great a sacrilege all his own teeth had been divinely pulled out.

CHAPTER XXI. On his coffin.

[27] Miracles are wrought through the coffin of St. Gerlach. Furthermore, from a fragment of the wooden coffin in which the blessed man had been committed to the earth, God Almighty bestows marvelous benefits upon his faithful; which, if we attempted to write down each one and annotate in the present work all the things reported by the faithful, we would exceed the bounds of our promised brevity

Page 318 and extend this volume into too lengthy a narrative.

CHAPTER XXI. How Blessed Gerlach heals the diseases of livestock.

[28] And not only to humans, but also to the afflictions of beasts, the Lord deigns to provide relief through his servant in manifold grace, according to the faith of those who seek it; which can better be proved by the eyes or handled by the hands than set down in any writing. But lest anyone suppose that we are failing from want of material rather than being overwhelmed by an abundance of it, let us first append a few things; then direct devout, studious, or even incredulous investigators of the miracles of Blessed Gerlach to the copious multitude of witnesses, whose testimony does not waver.

CHAPTER XXII. On a certain marvelous and unheard-of preservation of livestock.

[29] A certain matron from the regions across the Rhine came to the shrine of St. Gerlach and with great devotion offered upon his venerable monument a weight of six Cologne shillings. For which reason she was immediately noticed and diligently questioned by the Brothers about this, and she declared the power of Blessed Gerlach's miracles and the excellence of his merits before the Lord in the following manner: St. Gerlach preserves livestock from plague. In our regions, she said, by a certain general deadly contagion of pestilence, the sheep and cattle were laid waste and all the livestock and beasts were destroyed to annihilation, on account of our sins. For this reason I vowed to Blessed Gerlach to offer one farthing for each head of my livestock; and while all the beasts throughout the entire region were dying from the aforesaid plague, I, she said, retained all my livestock unharmed through the patronage of Blessed Gerlach. And having counted the number of animals, with a farthing attributed to each head, I calculated that the sum of money had grown to the amount of six Cologne shillings, which I have brought with a willing spirit to this Saint, the preserver of my livestock.

CHAPTER XXIII. How horses were preserved unharmed.

[30] He preserves the horses of pilgrims unharmed. Likewise, certain pilgrims returning from the shrine of St. James the Apostle, fearing that the support of their horses might fail them on the road, each vowed their offerings to Blessed Gerlach for their preservation. But one of them, giving no credence to the merits of the Saint and mocking the devotional vows of his companions, did not imitate them in honoring the holy Confessor; and therefore, while his companions returned to their homeland with the safe conveyance of their horses, he himself was left deprived of the support of his horse.

CHAPTER XXIV. Likewise on the same subject.

[31] A certain Abbot of the Premonstratensian Order, hastening from the a regions of Frisia to the chapter at b Premontre, He heals a horse. left his horse dying and despaired of at the cell of Blessed Gerlach; but he devoutly implored Blessed Gerlach for the restoration of its health and pledged him vows. Nor was the delay long; the same Abbot received the horse back unharmed and sent a certain sum of money to the Saint for its redemption.

a Frisia is a noble region in our lower Germany.

b It is the head of the most noble Order, in the diocese of Laon.

CHAPTER XXV. Likewise as above.

[32] Likewise another horse. A certain canon of the Church of Varlar, named Warner, who held the office of exterior Provost in that same church, when the horse on which he sat, which he had also borrowed, suddenly became lame, was quite dismayed; with the permission of his Abbot, he promised to send an offering to St. Gerlach for the restoration of the horse's strength, and immediately perceived it to be sound and well.

CHAPTER XXVI. Likewise on the same subject.

[33] A certain widow, of advanced age, who has lived until now in the cell of Blessed Gerlach in a religious habit, is accustomed to relate that while she was living in her home in secular garb, she had her own cow, which was enormously swollen and already near death; He frees a cow from plague. but when she promised prayers to St. Gerlach for it, as soon as she encircled it with a cord for making a candle, it subsided from its swelling between her hands and beyond hope recovered from the plague at that very moment.

[34] Indeed, throughout all Germany in many places, this custom remains among many to this day, that for the preservation of their domestic animals and poultry, each person is accustomed to bring to the church of the blessed Confessor silver or some other kind of votive offering, and for those preserved, St. Gerlach is venerated against diseases of animals. as well as for their increased fortunes, to praise the merits of this man beloved of God with much thanksgiving. Concerning these and other marks of the miracles of Blessed Gerlach, in the frequency of pilgrims flocking to the sacred shrine of the same Confessor, the eye is more abundantly satisfied by sight and the ear filled by hearing, and the hand confirms by touch, than could be comprehended or explained by the speech of any tongue or the account of any writing.

CHAPTER XXVI. Concerning those who were cured through the fountain of St. Gerlach.

[35] Miracles are wrought through the water of the fountain of St. Gerlach. Through the water also of the fountain, which is still called the Fountain of St. Gerlach, from which the blessed man was accustomed to drink, the wonderful clemency of God, moved by the affection of pious devotion in his faithful, has sometimes been accustomed to distill the gifts of his grace with generous dew. In the territory of Aachen, a certain man had an infant son who was blind from birth; he dipped in the water of the aforesaid fountain the cap which he was accustomed to wear on his head, A blind man is illuminated. and returning home he placed it over his son's eyes; who immediately received the light which nature had denied. Furthermore, divine power deigned to work much grace of healings, according to the faith of those who sought them, through the taste or touch of the water of the aforesaid fountain; we ourselves, though unworthy, have experienced some of these, which however for the sake of brevity we now pass over in silence.

CHAPTER XXVII. How a certain Brother was roused to do good work.

[36] I think it not superfluous to insert one thing: how a certain Brother, idle and sluggish in good work, was reproved and roused to action. [A man who refuses to clean the fountain of St. Gerlach is divinely compelled to do so.] At a certain time during Lent, it happened that the aforesaid fountain was deprived of the protection of the hedge by which it is usually enclosed, and its water was muddied by domestic animals and fowl, so that only muddy water could be brought for the sacrifice of the Mass. For this reason a certain lay Brother asked a certain Canon of that Church, who also celebrated the divine service there, to help him fortify the fountain against the injury of livestock, asserting that this would benefit both human uses and the divine Sacraments. But the latter, making various excuses, delayed helping the Brother in his good work; and while the other went off to work, he himself, having carefully closed the doors of the house, began to take a little nap. And behold, before he had fully given sleep to his eyes and slumber to his eyelids, there suddenly came in the house a sound as of someone coming and, as it were, making no small noise with his foot with a certain zeal. And indeed the Brother heard the sound with his bodily ears, by which he was also awakened from sleep, but did not see the person; yet he comprehended, or rather recalled as having been gratuitously infused into him, a certain veneration and, together with zeal, a gentleness in the person who had caused the noise, by the quickness of his mind. Not shaken by any horror, however, he immediately followed the brother who had gone ahead to clean and protect the fountain and cooperated with him. And behold, he found certain elderly neighbors working there together, who, relating quite wonderful and astonishing things about the same fountain, also added this: that such great reverence had once been shown to it by all, on account of the frequent grace of healings, that no one unclean or unwashed dared approach it in any way. Hearing these things, that Brother confirmed that the event which had happened to him was not without purpose. In reporting these things, however, we affirm that no substance of holiness is physically present in the fountain according to its original creation or nature. But just as the Lord speaks through the Prophet, "And I will glorify the place of my feet," Isaiah 60:13. and just as through the humble implements of the Saints, God sometimes commends the precious gifts of his grace to us according to the faith of those who ask, so indeed the faithful people venerates the relics of the holy Confessor Gerlach as precious treasures, a dispensers of generous healings; yet it is faith alone, working through love, that effects this grace of healing.

a There is some error here.

CHAPTER XXVIII. How Blessed Gerlach showed himself bodily to be seen.

[37] The veneration of St. Gerlach somewhat interrupted; the church neglected. Nor is it a wonder if the blessed Confessor roused the aforesaid Brother, who was sluggish in idle sleep, to profitable activity by the noise he wished to make, since he sometimes showed himself bodily, visible to corporeal eyes. For at a certain time, the veneration of the tomb and relics of Blessed Gerlach, as well as the care and adornment of his church, had fallen into such neglect, whether through the poverty or carelessness of those inhabiting it, that -- horrible to say -- grain was stored in the church and threshed at the very head of the Saint; mice also, which customarily abound in collected crops, constantly frequented the area around the bones of Blessed Gerlach. Moreover, a stream flowing past, having overflowed its channel, spread freely into the church and even within the tomb of the Saint, with no obstacle preventing it, so that those bones of Blessed Gerlach venerable to the whole world (unspeakable to say) were contaminated, floating in that marshy collection of water. Meanwhile, while the house of prayer thus assumed, as it were, a countenance of desolation; while the place of the relics became a storehouse or threshing floor for chaff; He appears to someone in the Premonstratensian habit. while indeed the sacred relics of the blessed Confessor were tumbled about in the mire of many waters, a certain religious person, about whose testimony neither we nor anyone who knows this person is permitted to doubt, on a certain day around the first hour of the day, doing some work in the house, saw a very venerable man passing through that same house, while many sat within by the hearth. Concerning the garb of that reverend man, this is reported from the mouth of the one who saw him: that he wore the whitest woolen garments, that is, tunic and scapular and girdle adapted a in our manner, and that he seemed to walk with a very mournful countenance -- grieving, assuredly, that the house of God, whose beauty he had always loved, was placed like a shelter in a vineyard and like a hut in a cucumber field, and groaning that all its adornment was dissipated as in the devastation of an enemy.

[38] A new tomb is prepared for the relics. That report went out among the Brothers of Heinsberg, and the word reached the venerable Lord Provost of the Church of Heinsberg, John, who, summoning workmen, ordered a quite elaborate arched tomb to be made for him, and prepared a suitable casket for preserving his holy relics. And having convened a copious multitude of clergy and people, they raised the sacred bones of Blessed Gerlach from the ground, diligently washed them with wine, and placing them in the casket prepared for this purpose, they deposited them beneath the arched structure, as is now seen, with great praises of God.

a Hence it is clear that the Author was of the Premonstratensian Order.

CHAPTER XXIX. On a certain matron freed from illness.

[39] In the a quarter called Wyck, which lies directly across the river Meuse opposite the town of Maastricht, a certain widow named Gertrude, very devoted to Blessed Gerlach and at one time also serviceable to him, lives. Having once entered her lodging, she besought us with great insistence of prayers, and indeed promised to give us payment, Gravely ill, she is healed. that we would commit to writing in our church, for the eternal memory of the holy Confessor, the grace of miraculous healing divinely conferred upon her through Blessed Gerlach for great bodily sufferings. But when we inquired more closely of her about the nature of the disease from which she claimed to have been freed by God through the blessed Confessor, we understood b from the circumlocutions of her answers and the diversions of her words, under a certain honest palliation of her speech, that she had been freed by the holy Confessor from certain hidden discomforts and troubles of feminine frailty, from which that sex has been accustomed to suffer frequently even now, on account of the invocation of that curse by which it was said to her: I will multiply your sorrows. Genesis 3:16.

a It is now a most strongly fortified town.

b It seems "she made us" or something similar is missing.

CHAPTER XXX. On Reyner, a cleric brought back from the gates of death.

[40] Likewise, in the aforementioned quarter, a young cleric of good disposition named Reyner lives, whose father is called Arnold and whose mother is called Ymma; they report concerning their said son that in the years of his boyhood, when he had been brought to extremity by the violence of a certain disease, A dying boy suddenly recovers. and was already declared by some to have expired, his mother with tears vowed an annual offering for him to Blessed Gerlach, and immediately the boy's soul, already about to depart from his body, was as it were recalled from the very gates of death within his bowels and was once again united to his body in perfect health.

CHAPTER XXXI. Likewise on the same subject.

[41] Moreover, the mother of the aforesaid young man also adds this: that she carried her daughter, named Aleid, A girl with fever is healed. already despaired of and near death from the burning of fevers, to the shrine of Blessed Gerlach, and offered prayers and vows for her to the Saint, and immediately after this she recalled that her same daughter was restored to perfect health and she brought her home.

CHAPTER XXXII. On a certain matron who was cured.

[42] In this recently concluded indiction, a certain matron from a place called a Rekem, namely the wife of a certain soldier called Amilius, who holds a quite celebrated name in those parts, came to St. Gerlach A sick woman is healed. and with great devotion offered him large thanksgivings there, because she herself, having been bedridden for twelve weeks and more, had been restored to her former health by the Lord, with his merits aiding her, from the pain by which she was tormented.

a Rekem is a municipality on this side of the Meuse, not far from Maastricht, distinguished with the title of County, about which Christophorus Butkens, Prior of the Cistercian monastery of St. Savior at Antwerp, treats at length in his book on the heraldic insignia of the van der Linden family. There is there a monastery of noble virgins of the Premonstratensian Order, in whose foundation charter the place is called Redinckhem, Radinckhem, Radekem, Rackhem. There is no doubt that the same place is indicated here.

CHAPTER XXXIII. Other cures.

[43] From a certain castle of the a Ardennes called b Uffalis, a certain man came to the holy Confessor Gerlach, An illness is driven away. and for the great and prolonged labor and illness from which he had been granted the desired gift of health, he devoutly discharged vows of praise and offering.

[44] Likewise, from the c territory of Liege, a certain woman of its populace reported that while she was detained one day in feeding the flocks, a most savage ulcer had unexpectedly grown on her foot, An ulcer is suddenly healed. and that the ability to walk or even to stand had been immediately and entirely impeded; but as soon as she invoked the name and merit of St. Gerlach, she was freed from pain and received the ability both to walk freely and to stand firmly on her feet.

a The forest of the Ardennes once extended very widely, from the borders of the Mediomatrici to the Waal, from the Moselle and Rhine to the Scheldt and perhaps beyond. It now partially retains the name, commonly l'Ardenne, on both banks of the Meuse in the territories of Luxembourg and Liege.

b On the river Ourthe, in the territory of Luxembourg.

c Liege is a most celebrated city, called also Leodicum and Leodiacum by others, on the Meuse in Belgium, four miles above Maastricht.

ANOTHER LIFE OF ST. GERLACH

BY WILLIAM CRIPIUS.

Gerlach, Hermit in Belgium (St.)

By William Cripius.

CHAPTER I.

The conversion and penance of St. Gerlach.

[1] The homeland and family of St. Gerlach. Gerlach, born in the province of Valkenburg near Maastricht on the Meuse, of a noble family, applied himself as a young man to the military life; and since he was equally great in spirit and body, with a long beard and an open countenance, and led his life as those who follow the military camp, usually empty of faith and piety, are accustomed to do, A rather free life. he was soon promoted to the command of a troop of horsemen. While he held that office, equestrian games were proclaimed at Juelich; and when he was already armed for the contest, he was informed of the death of his wife. Salutarily shaken by this news, Conversion. he perceived the frailty of human life and human affairs in a brief meditation, through the working of Him on whom life and all human things depend. Wherefore, having cast off his military belt and the other insignia of his rank with the resolution of never resuming them, Contempt for the world. he returned home mounted on a donkey; and there, having arranged his affairs, he set out barefoot for places customarily visited for reasons of devotion, wearing a hair shirt and coat of mail over his bare body. Penance. And among other places he went to Rome, where, having made a sincere confession of his sins to the Supreme Pontiff a Eugene III, Pilgrimage. he asked that a penance for their expiation be imposed upon him. When it was prescribed for him that he should minister to the poor in the Hospital of Jerusalem for seven years, and he had eagerly accepted this burden upon himself, Ministry to the poor. he went there; and with the greatest humility, he earnestly desired that the most menial tasks, such as the custody of pigs and other animals, be assigned to him; and in that ministry he lived austerely and frugally.

[2] When the seven-year period of penance appointed for him had elapsed, he returned to Rome around the year one thousand one hundred and fifty-five, and asked Adrian IV, who then presided over the sacred affairs of the City and the world, to prescribe for him the manner of life he should lead henceforth. And when various forms of living, both monastic and canonical, were set before him, none of them pleased him, because they seemed too lax. Wherefore, A vow of abstinence from wine, etc. when he had disclosed to the Pontiff what he had vowed to God concerning the perpetual abstention from wine and meat, and the use of the hair shirt and other labors and exercises, he received from him a diploma by which he was given the freedom to live at home as he had vowed.

[3] Dwelling in a hollow oak. Having returned, therefore, to his own lands, he ordered a certain gnarled oak of rare thickness to be hollowed out for himself around its roots, and a great quantity of stones to be brought into it, and a straw bed or mat placed upon these; and in it, always covered with his hair shirt and coat of mail beneath the white garment of the Premonstratensian Order, Constant wearing of the hair shirt and coat of mail. he refreshed his body with the necessary sleep; nor did he put off that far from soft garment for the entire fourteen years, except to repair it; but wearing it, he died and was buried. His food was bread made from barley mixed with ashes; his drink, cold water Diet. drawn from a nearby fountain which still bears his name, on account of which, as will be told later, many marvelous things occurred. Hospitality. The poor and pilgrims who came to him, however, St. Gerlach treated liberally and sumptuously from the annual revenues of his land and livestock, while he himself in the meantime satisfied his hunger and thirst with nothing other than his customary food and drink.

[4] Prayers. He likewise devoted much time to prayer, and while engaged in it he repeatedly said these words: Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Our Father. Hail Mary. Moreover, although he lived a great Belgian mile from the city of Maastricht, in which there were then, Daily pilgrimage to St. Servatius; and still are, the relics of the renowned holy man Servatius, nevertheless very early in the morning, for the sake of venerating them, by the most difficult route -- partly mountainous, partly marshy -- with no light taken, every day barefoot (although he limped somewhat on one foot because of an ulcer which had developed while he was tending the livestock at the Hospital of Jerusalem), and when at last too infirm, riding on a donkey, he hastened to that place, taking no account of cold and rain however violent, nor even of specters that met him; except on Saturdays, on which, in order to honor the Virgin Mother of God, Saturdays to Aachen. he would set out in pilgrim's garb to her august chapel at Aachen, which was four miles from his oak.

a Eugene III held the See from February 25, 1145, to July 8, 1152.

CHAPTER II.

His innocence variously attacked.

[5] And since glory necessarily followed his virtue, the Provost and Monks of Meerssen, envious of him, tried to draw him from his own way of life to theirs. When this did not succeed, they accused Gerlach falsely before the Bishop of Liege of several vices, and specifically of singular avarice His innocence was tested: and of a hoard of treasure hidden in his oak, contrary to his profession of poverty; and when on this account the Bishop, too credulous of the calumniators, had ordered the oak torn down, he found no money, but on the contrary

Page 321 some things which bore testimony to our Saint's singular holiness of life. Wherefore the Bishop was sorry, and delegated his role in the spiritual care of Gerlach to Bruno, Abbot, and the monks of Rolduc. Nor did he lack detractors both in life and after death, but their envy and malicious habit of calumny was easily detected. The Bishop, moreover, had two cells made for Saint Gerlach from the felled oak, in one of which he would devote himself to prayers, and in the other refresh his body's strength with sleep; and the latter was so low that while lying on his back in it, he touched the ceiling with his knees; the former, however, was such that by the Bishop's permission the divine service could conveniently be performed in it; and for its adornment he procured what seemed necessary and kept religious priests with him for performing it. Again and repeatedly attacked. Yet the almost stepmother-like hatred of the monks of Meerssen against Gerlach was not allayed; their blindness drove them to the point that they labored in vain on the pretext that outside the parish church the holy man was having the sacrifice of the Mass celebrated for himself, seeking to have him barred from the sacraments.

[6] A seat prepared for him in heaven. Contemporary with this Gerlach was the celebrated Hildegard, famous for her prophecies and the innocence of her life; who, seeing in her accustomed manner God seated on his throne, surrounded by various orders of Saints, saw among the Confessors a most splendid seat empty and learned that it was prepared for our Gerlach. Wherefore she sent him the crown Friendship with St. Hildegard. which she had received with the virginal veil from her Bishop of Mainz, as a symbol of sacred friendship.

[7] Various persons of less than excellent reputation came to him: namely, unchaste priests, violent soldiers, vain women, and certain curled-haired youths, all of whom he sharply rebuked. Admonitions given by him to all. Nor was it without fruit. For not a few of the youths I mentioned voluntarily offered themselves to be shorn; and it happened that one of them, whose hair was cut by him, never had it grow back again. He was so severe with himself that even when away from home he would not use soft beds, but lay on the ground.

[8] Water thrice changed into wine. Not long before his death, when his priest, on the Sunday called Passion Sunday, had drawn water from the familiar fountain to relieve his thirst, and he had tasted what was brought, he perceived that he was drinking wine. Wherefore, having poured it out, when he had ordered water drawn again and found what was drawn to be of the same flavor, somewhat offended at the priest, he himself went to the fountain; and when he drank what he had drawn, he again found the water changed into wine, and having given thanks to God, he drank.

CHAPTER III.

Death, miracles.

[9] When death was now imminent for him after several months, and his priest happened to be absent and no one from the college of Rolduc could be present quickly enough, nor anyone from Meerssen was willing to come, he was not at all distressed by this, but firmly persuaded himself that help would come to him from God. Nor was he wrong. For there came to him a certain venerable old man in a snow-white priestly garment, The viaticum brought to him by St. Servatius. whom the constant report and common opinion held to have been St. Servatius, of whom we spoke above; by whom, fortified with all the Sacraments according to the Catholic rite, His death, he shortly thereafter rendered his chaste spirit to God the Creator on the day before the Theophany; and, as he had wished, enclosed in his aforementioned wooden chapel and placed in a wooden chest, he was lowered by ropes into a very deep pit, burial, with many present who had gathered from all around for the funeral of so great a man.

[10] His body rising out of the ground of its own accord. But God did not long suffer so holy a body to be enclosed in earth. For the tomb opened of its own accord, and contrary to the law of nature, it gradually made itself visible, together with a certain cross, which is still held in esteem, which he had brought from Jerusalem, The cross still survives. and with which -- just as when alive he had always worn it hanging from his neck -- he had also been buried; but also that part of the hair shirt which the cross had covered was left intact. To witness this miracle, very many gathered, and among them not a few sick persons Very many miracles after his death. who recovered their health there; and afterward also, through the intercession of this Saint, life was restored to two dead persons and health to many who were most gravely ill; and among others indeed, to a certain soldier named Adam, to Hedwig the wife of the nobleman William of Binsfeld, and to another matron, likewise to two girls and a woman who were lame; also to a blind woman who was likewise barren, and to another woman severely afflicted with epilepsy, and to a certain man suffering not lightly from his teeth; as well as to others with dysentery and to many sick persons of both sexes; and not only to humans but also to livestock. The earth of his tomb changed into blood. Indeed, when a certain woman furtively took some earth from his tomb, it was suddenly changed into blood; and a certain man who pulled out a tooth from his dead body had all his own teeth fall out.

CHAPTER IV.

The fountain of St. Gerlach, salutary.

[11] Nor did such things occur only at the bones and tomb of the most blessed man, but also at the fountain which supplied him with drink while he lived. This fountain, His fountain neglected: hence damages. having been blocked by a great mass of stones thrown in at the instigation of the devil, and having been neglected for more than sixty years, with the connivance of the sacred virgins who serve God in the Premonstratensian Order in the convent erected around it for St. Gerlach, and covered with earth and undergrowth, the affairs of the monastery not only began to decline, but the monastery itself was burned, the virgins were captured, and they were afflicted with incredible damages. When this became known to that celebrated defender of the Catholic faith in Belgium, Dom Henry Cuyk, Sought at the command of Bishop Henry Cuyk. Bishop of the Church of Roermond, in whose diocese the said convent is situated, he ordered the fountain, to whose neglect he attributed all the said damages, to be sought. And when, at his command, it was sought by Winand Balthasar, the faithful steward of the said virgins, and by Arnold Naelen, a centenarian elder, on the night of the feast of the Lord's Ascension in the year 1599, it was found, while the said most religious Bishop was staying at the castle of Valkenburg. He, having received the welcome news of the fountain's discovery, rejoiced greatly out of his supreme reverence toward the Saints (to whose fellowship he aspires); and on the following Monday, accompanied by several distinguished men of both the sacred and secular orders, he proceeded to the convent, Solemnly visited by the Bishop; namely by the pastors Theodore Molanus of Valkenburg, William Hesius of Venlo, and William Amicus of Hulsberg, Winand of Gelre, Pastor of Gronsveld; and also the nobles Walther Hoen, Advocate or Prefect of the said Valkenburg, Peter Vanderhoef, Lord of the same place, and Jacob Leick, Commissioner of the province; together with twenty-five honest Catholic citizens of Valkenburg. And there, after the sacred service was solemnly performed, the said Prelate, together with the same persons and the sacred virgins and others, proceeded reverently to the fountain with the banner of the victorious Cross going before; and when he had blessed it, having most devoutly sung that celebrated hymn, Te Deum laudamus, all drank from it.

[12] Its water salutary to many, and to the Bishop himself. Shortly thereafter, Catherine Tzeuelia, Subprioress of the said monastery, who was ill to the point of the doctors' despair, suddenly recovered by drinking from it; as did not a few others after her, and among them a certain old man from Hoelant who had a fever, and various persons from the villages of Margraten, Oud-Valkenburg, Heer, Cadier, and others, who reverently visited the said fountain in hope of the awaited help. Moved by all of these, that distinguished Prelate (who himself, suffering from the most stubborn intestinal obstructions at a Venlo in the month of November of the year 1606, after the remedies of physicians had been tried in vain, suddenly recovered his health from a draught of water which he had therefore ordered brought from the said well) ordered this life to be published and contracted into this compendium, so that God may be praised in this his holy Confessor and Hermit, and that he may find imitators, and that benefits may come to more people from the said fountain.

a Venlo, more commonly Venlo, is an opulent and elegant town in the Duchy of Gelderland on the river Meuse, four miles from Roermond.