Maurus of Subiaco

ON ST. MAURUS, ABBOT OF GLANFEUIL, IN GAUL.

Year 584.

Maurus, Abbot of Glanfeuil in Gaul (St.)

[1] The Order which St. Benedict had established and founded upon most holy laws, St. Maurus, his disciple, especially propagated: for through him and his disciples, as Leo of Ostia writes in the Cassinese Chronicle, book 1, chapter 2, the entire order and norm of regular discipline, which had been established through the most holy Father Benedict in the Cassinese monastery, was spread and disseminated throughout all of Gaul. The Benedictines venerate him with a double office on the 15th of January; The feast of St. Maurus, certain churches, such as that of Paris, with a semi-double. His name is inscribed in all Martyrologies. Usuard says of him briefly: In the territory of Angers, St. Maurus, Abbot. Certain manuscripts, even very ancient ones, add: a disciple of Blessed Benedict the Abbot. But the Roman Martyrology, with which many both handwritten and printed editions agree, states: In the territory of Angers, Blessed Maurus, Abbot, disciple of St. Benedict, trained in his disciplines from infancy, how greatly he had advanced in them, among other things which he accomplished while under his care (a novel thing and almost unheard of since Peter), walking upon the waters with his feet, he made manifest. Thence directed by him into Gaul, having built there a celebrated monastery, over which he presided for forty years, renowned for the glory of his miracles, he rested in peace. Bede the Vulgate, Ado, Petrus de Natalibus, Bellinus, Maurolycus, Galesinius, Canisius, Felicius, and the rest also celebrate him.

[2] St. Faustus, an eyewitness, committed his life to writing. Concerning him, Sigebert writes in De illustribus Ecclesiae scriptoribus, chapter 32: Faustus, a disciple of St. Benedict, The Life written by St. Faustus, sent by Benedict himself to Gaul with Maurus, his monk, described the life of that same monk Maurus. With what fidelity this Life was written is evident from Faustus's own testimony: for he writes that he showed it to Pope Boniface, and that it was approved by him, judged worthy of praise, and confirmed by his holy authority. Leo of Ostia also attests to this in book 1, chapter 3: Meanwhile, while Boniface the Third presided over the Apostolic See, the aforementioned Faustus, who had traveled to Gaul with Blessed Maurus, returned to the aforesaid Lateran monastery: and, asked and compelled by Blessed Theodore (who was then governing the same congregation as the third after Valentinian of holy memory), he wrote a history of the life of Blessed Maurus with attested truthfulness: which the same Pope Boniface, approving it, confirmed with his authority. Boniface was created Pontiff on the 15th day before the Kalends of March in the year 606, and died in that same year, on the 12th of November. Whence it is clear that Faustus was altogether advanced in age when he wrote this life. We shall treat of him more fully on the 15th of February, on which day he is inscribed in the calendar of Saints.

[3] This Life was published by Lipomanus and Surius. We have transcribed it from very many manuscript codices, from which we have added a second preface, or the beginning of the narrative, whence it is here published; which Baronius mentions in his Notes on the Martyrology. We have, he says, in our Library the same writing of Faustus, but with another preface prefixed, whose beginning is, Postquam Diuinitas, etc. We have also inserted three chapters of the second book of St. Gregory's Dialogues, which Faustus himself attests were also transcribed by him from the life of St. Benedict, and which were found in the manuscripts of the monasteries of St. Maximin at Trier, Marchiennes, St. Mary of Bonnefontaine, St. Mary of Ripatoire, and the Church of St. Omer. It is unnecessary to enumerate the others who have treated of the deeds of St. Maurus, since they are almost innumerable. The most readily available are Petrus de Natalibus, book 2, chapter 79; Vincent of Beauvais, book 2, chapters 67, 68, 71, 72; St. Antoninus, part 2, title 15, chapter 14, sections 2 and 3; Ribadeneira, Haraeus, Villegas, Lippelous, Gazaeus, Doubletius, Joannes Basilius Sanctorius, Trithemius, Yepez at length in the Benedictine Chronicles, Baronius in volume 7 of the Annals, etc.

[4] Arnoldus Wion relates that Maurus was sprung from the family of the Anicii, lineage, his father being Aequitius, as he contends it should be written; and he cites ancient instruments of donations, which we have not seen: the seal of Aequitius, which he produces, he would not easily prove to us to be genuine.

[5] Concerning the age of St. Maurus there is a great controversy, which depends on the year of the death of St. Benedict, which we shall investigate on the 21st of March. For the date which Faustus seems to have indicated, age. writing that he died on the eve of Easter, is most entangled. He was alive when Totila seized the kingdom of the Goths in the year 541. But after that year, the vigil of Easter does not fall on the 12th day before the Kalends of April until 604. Whence it is necessary either that the most holy Patriarch did not die on the 21st of March, or that some other Cycle was observed by them at that time. For it is not likely that Faustus erred in memory; for although old men have a frail memory, yet they recall ancient things most vividly: and he could have been corrected by those to whom he was narrating these things. Baronius reckons the age of Maurus thus: He was offered by his father Eutychius to St. Benedict in the year of Christ our Lord five hundred and twenty-three, and he remained with him for twenty years: then he was sent by him into Gaul: where, when he had reached his forty-first year, which was the forty-first year from the death of St. Benedict, he departed to the Lord. This is indeed the year of Christ five hundred and eighty-four.

LIFE

By St. Faustus, his contemporary, from many ancient manuscripts.

Maurus, Abbot of Glanfeuil in Gaul (St.) BHL Number: 5773

By St. Faustus, from manuscripts.

PREFACE OF THE AUTHOR.

[1] Faustus, servant of the servants of Christ, to all monks who are in the East and the West, the South and the North, and who hold together with us in the Lord the faith which is according to godliness: grace, mercy, peace, and propitiation from God the Father Almighty, creator of all things; and from Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, Redeemer, and Savior; and from the Holy Spirit, the illuminator and vivifier of our souls.

[2] When I had been handed over by my parents, at the age of seven, to Blessed Benedict in his most holy monastery, Faustus becomes a monk at age seven: which that same man of all holiness had built at the fortress of Cassino, to be nurtured in the service of Almighty God according to the norm of regular observance, by the mercy of a compassionate God, who works in us both the willing and the doing for his good pleasure, anticipating us by his gratuitous and most almighty compassion so that we may will; and following us with most merciful grace, lest we attempt in vain to undertake the good things which he deigns to inspire; rather, so that believing in him with right faith, and thinking of him in goodness and simplicity of heart, we may hope to receive from him the rewards of eternal joys for those things which he himself grants and sends; if, however, we preserve the rigor of our purpose and faith firm and unshaken to the end. But after, as it pleased the heavenly Creator himself, I had passed through the years of childhood and had begun to enjoy the exercise of free will; I devoted myself wholly, with such strength as I was then able and knew, to monastic observance: so much so that I was in no way willing to be separated even for a moment from the sight of the most blessed and most holy Benedict; but I desired with most ardent love always to be instructed by his teaching, pleasing to God and worthy of imitation by men, and to be edified by his radiant examples. An imitator of St. Benedict,

[3] And so the most blessed Father, seeing that I was in all things devoting myself to my own salvation and to regular observance, very frequently undertook to test the purpose of my soul by many trials, even in those things variously tested by him, which he himself knew to be in every way impossible and unbearable for a man. But when, through the grace of Almighty God, who wills all men to be saved, he perceived that I was most ready and most willing to undertake and attempt whatever it might be, or even to endure it; he immediately began to make special use of my services of obedience above the rest, and to instruct me with paternal affection in certain secret matters, which, as he himself asserted, he had previously entrusted to virtually no one before, intimately dear to him; and to fortify me against the temptations of vices. 1 Timothy 2:4. Whence it came about that he directed me, together with his most blessed disciple Maurus, who had been most devoutly nurtured and educated by him, and who by the merit of his life and the perfection of his virtues had become a co-worker of his Master, to the regions of Gaul; so that my companionship might provide him some consolation: (for I was the only survivor from the elder brethren, who had been the first educated by him, among the newcomers) since indeed he was sent by him to such distant and foreign regions for the purpose of founding monastic life.

[4] At length the most almighty majesty of the Divinity, which, encompassing and penetrating all things, understands thoughts from afar, and knows all things both last and first, and foresees all the ways of each one; from him the Cassinese community learned by divine revelation of things to come; when it had revealed to that most holy Father that his monastery, built by him in the place already mentioned above, was to be destroyed and overthrown by his hidden judgment; and the man of the Lord was ceaselessly afflicted with inconsolable grief and unceasing weeping on this account; a heavenly revelation deigned to relieve and comfort him with the following oracle: Do not, it said, O most proven and most beloved of God, Benedict, bear a sorrowful spirit in any way on account of those things which you have learned are to befall this place: for what has once been determined and decreed by the inscrutable counsel of the supreme Deity will without doubt be carried out, being irrevocable and irremediable, the souls alone of all the inhabitants being granted to you by your merit. Psalm 138:3 and 5. But the propitious consolation of the Almighty will be near at hand, which will restore this place to its former, nay to a greater, degree than it now appears, by your merits nonetheless: and to other nations likewise will the light of this religious life shine forth from this same place. Wherefore, as soon as you are asked, or rather entreated, make haste to send those whom you have as the most worthy in the flock of this holy congregation to where you are requested, knowing assuredly that the most abundant fruit of their labor will be increased for you as an addition to the rewards you are to receive, and will lead them to the dwelling of everlasting blessedness. Therefore the most holy and most dear to God Father, made certain by this response, as soon as he was approached and entreated by the embassy of the Bishop of Le Mans, sent with St. Maurus and others into Gaul; immediately summoning Maurus, a man of the highest religious life, with the counsel of the entire congregation, he assigned him to the legates of that Bishop; giving him as companions and co-workers Simplicius, Antonius, and Constantinianus; and appointing me also as a companion of their labor and pilgrimage, not, I say, of their perfect works.

[5] Having returned to Italy, he writes the life of St. Maurus. And so when, long after the passing of the distinguished Confessor of Christ, our Master Benedict, worker of wondrous deeds, with the most blessed Maurus now buried, along with two of our companions, namely Constantinianus and Antonius, I had returned to our monastery, being now nearly in my last years, together with Simplicius, in accordance with the command of Blessed Maurus; compelled by all the Brothers of the Cassinese monastery, from which we had set out, and especially by the most religious man, to be named with honor, Theodore, who as the third after Valentinian of holy memory governed the congregation of the Lateran monastery for a longer period; I undertook to write, beginning from a more remote point and from his very infancy, a history of the life and manner of living, and also of the journey of that most blessed Maurus, as well as of the construction of the monastery which, with God's help, he vigorously and most beautifully built, and also of the miracles which the Lord deigned to work through him to the praise and glory of his name, which we ourselves, being present, beheld with our own eyes, for the edification of all monks. Moreover, I urge no one to doubt the truthfulness of the deeds and the narrative, because I know it is far better to be entirely silent than to relate anything frivolous or fabricated. Finally, I showed this little work to the most blessed Pope Boniface: approved by Pope Boniface III: which that most holy Pontiff, approving it, deemed worthy of praise, and confirmed with his holy authority.

[6] I entreat, moreover, those who take this up to read, not to disdain what has been written in a rustic and uncultivated style, he excuses his unpolished style. but rather to grant me pardon; for although I was unskilled and had been instructed with no prerogative of literary art on which I might rely, nevertheless I have not allowed those things which the Lord willed to work through his servant, and at which I myself was present, to be hidden in silence: especially since I was provoked to write these things down, in whatever way I could, as much by fraternal charity and entreaty as by the command of holy men, which was not to be lightly esteemed.

a Other reading: visus.

b MS. Ripatoire: specialium.

c Other reading: proinde.

d On this, chapter 3, number 26.

e Other reading: exhortatus.

CHAPTER I.

The formation of St. Maurus; his ardor for penance.

[7] After the Divinity of the Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ, which, shining with miracles through the flesh, deigned to procure the salvation of the human race, became known to the whole world through the preaching of the Apostles, and the Catholic Church, redeemed by the most loving blood of its own Lord, was consecrated by the blood of innumerable Martyrs, who, crowned with victorious patience, left to weaker brethren a smoother path of the discipline of faith; and the sublimity and loftiness of that once earthly and proud eminence, even in the Imperial summit itself, was subjected to the yoke of divine belief and faith by the kindness and mercy of the creator and liberator of all, by a most clement and reasonable law of equity; far and wide through God's providence there arose diverse holy men, who, fortified by divine aid, manfully striving against the Prince of this world, and renouncing the enticements of the body and the pleasures of the flesh out of desire for eternal rewards; most powerful in the virtue of signs, most illustrious in the knowledge of spiritual doctrine, and made most ardent executors of all good works, shine both through their own appearance and in our own age, of St. Benedict, the most wise founder of the Religious Order, through both remembrance and the reading of ancient records. Among whom, like a most brilliant star shining more brightly than the other stars, in the time of Justin the Elder and Hilderic, King of the Vandals, the most blessed and distinguished man Benedict, the most eloquent and brilliant writer of the cenobitic rule and the most discerning founder of the entire monastic religious life, shone forth. At which time also the holy Pope John, who then presided over the holy and Apostolic See in the city of Rome, was killed by starvation by the Arian King Theodoric, the most savage persecutor of the orthodox, and Symmachus the Patrician was likewise slain by the sword by that same supporter of the Arian perversion. Whoever, therefore, desires to know the life of this most holy Benedict fully, let him read the second book of St. Gregory's Dialogues; where he will find what kind of education and manner of life he had from boyhood, together with the notable works of his miracles, by which he is held to be more illustrious and more sublime than all whom our memory recalls, described with sufficient clarity and order. We, however, have taken from it only those things which we deemed worthy of inserting into this little work of ours, (from whose life certain things are here transcribed) and so that we might reveal to our readers, into whose hands perhaps that book has not come, that the disciple of this most perfect Master was able, with God's help, to accomplish the works of perfection all the more freely, accompanied and strengthened by the prayers and merits of his same Master, inasmuch as from his very cradle, so to speak, he grew up with the milk of the flesh in his holy teaching and instruction.

[8] The most blessed Maurus, therefore, sprung from the most illustrious senatorial family, his father being Eutychius and his mother Julia, was handed over by his parents at the age of twelve to the most holy Benedict, Maurus is given over for formation at age twelve; to be nurtured under regular observance in the service of Almighty God. While still young, he excelled in good morals, as we ourselves also saw and frequently experienced, and he began to be a helper of his Master and a co-worker in his miracles. The most holy Benedict always loved and instructed him more dearly than all others, most dear to him, and so formed him in the service of Almighty God that he was second to none after him in the sacred cenobitic observance. For who ever more severely subdued his own body with fasts, abstinence, and vigils, and also with squalor and excessive cold? For frequently we saw him during the days of holy Lent using neither tunic nor cowl, a wondrous imitator of his abstinence, but only a sackcloth of haircloth; and only twice a week tasting rather than consuming the most meager food. This indeed was the custom throughout the whole life of the most holy Benedict: and he, provoked by his example, mortified his flesh with most severe affliction, to the extent that the permission of his same Father allowed. For during the remaining time of the entire year, under his monastic tunic, he always wore from the shoulders to the loins a most rough garment, using a haircloth of the same material on his bed over a heap of lime and sand, in a more austere habit and manner of sleeping, always except during the Lenten period. For then, as much as he could, he carefully took care to take sleep not by lying down but rather by standing, or when excessive weariness compelled him, by sitting. No one ever saw him rise from bed with the other Brothers: but he always took more diligent care to anticipate the nocturnal hymns by his vigils; frequently completing fifty, often even a hundred psalms, assiduously devoted to prayer, and to silence and reading: sometimes indeed the entire Psalter in order before the nocturnal office, except only for the intervals of hours in which he poured forth the prayers of his supplications, tears, and most frequent sobs. He devoted himself so assiduously to silence and reading that he was held in admiration even by the most holy Benedict himself on this account.

[9] Therefore, as these and other virtues, which would be long to enumerate, grew in him, he is set forth for others as an example, the most holy Benedict frequently spoke of him in the assembly of the Brothers, suppressing his name, as though speaking of another, holding him up for the younger and more negligent to follow. We have seen, he would say, in our own age a young man of most vigorous nobility, in the years of adolescence, so suddenly seize upon the perfection of all monastic life that he is most worthily judged similar to, indeed equal in all things to, one of the elder brethren. But although the most blessed and most beloved of God Maurus, and some of the Brothers, knew that these things were spoken from the mouth of the most holy Benedict concerning him, yet he never succumbed to the vice of boasting on this account; always seeking arduous and holier things, humble in praise. and striving with all his might to advance from virtue to virtue.

a MS. Bonnefontaine: planius iam iter fidei. MS. Ripatoire: planiorem viam fidei.

b Justin the Elder reigned from the 9th of July 518 until the 1st of August 527.

c Hilderic, son of Huneric, King of the Vandals, born of Eudocia, daughter of Emperor Valentinian III, succeeded the tyrant Thrasamund in the consulship of Maximus, that is, in the year of Christ 523, and reigned for 7 years and 3 months. Then in the year 531, after the consulship of Lampadius and Orestes, he was stripped of his kingdom by the tyrant Gelimer, as is clear from the Chronicle of Victor.

d St. John the Pope, exhausted by hardships in prison in the year 526; he is venerated on the 27th of May.

e Symmachus and his son-in-law Boethius, both of consular rank, were executed in the same year by Theodoric, having been accused on false charges.

f Other reading: Euitio. Wion: Aequitio. Leo of Ostia: Euthitio.

g Below in the first Life of St. Genulphus, January 17, book 1, chapter 3, number 10: he put on again a most rough garment of hair. And book 2, chapter 1, number 2: The trogulus, But they would cover the nakedness of their bodily frailty with the most rough trogulus of haircloth. Papias: Trogulus, a cowl, a monastic garment. It is indeed a monastic garment; but of what kind we have not yet sufficiently ascertained. It does not seem, at least, to have been a cowl.

CHAPTER II.

Miracles performed at Cassino.

[10] In one of the monasteries which Blessed Benedict had built, there was a certain monk who could not stand for prayer: but as soon as the Brothers gave themselves to prayer, he, with a blind mind, immediately left the oratory, and meditated on any earthly and vain things, devoting himself to vanity and frivolity at the instigation of the demon whom he followed: A monk wandering during the time of prayer, and when he had been frequently admonished by his Abbot and would not correct himself from this vanity; he was brought by the same Abbot to Blessed Benedict. And when he had been severely rebuked by him, he returned to the monastery and scarcely held the admonition of the man of God for two days: admonished in vain by St. Benedict, for on the third day he returned to his old ways and began to wander during the time of prayer. When this had been reported again to the man of God, he said: I shall come, and correct him through my own self. And when he had come, and the Brothers had given themselves to prayer, he saw that the monk, who could not stand for prayer, was being dragged outside by a certain dark boy pulling the hem of his garment. Then the venerable Father said to Maurus, the servant of God, he sees (as does Maurus) him dragged outside by a demon; and to Pompeianus, the Father of that monastery: Do you not see who it is that drags this monk outside? They said: No. And he said: Let us pray that you too may see whom this monk follows. When they had prayed for two days, the monk Maurus saw. who is corrected by discipline: But Pompeianus could not see. The man of the Lord, however, going out of the oratory on the following day, found the monk standing outside: and he struck him with a rod for the blindness of his heart. From that day he suffered nothing from the persuasion of the dark boy, as if the ancient enemy himself had been struck by the same blow. Let no one, therefore, doubt that St. Maurus shared in this miracle, whom the blessed Master wished to demonstrate as a witness and partner of such a vision and power.

[11] At that same time also, while one day the most holy Father Benedict was sitting in his cell, Placidus, the holy man's boy and monk, son of the Patrician Tertullus, went out to draw water from the lake. While he carelessly let the vessel which he held fall into the water, St. Placidus, having fallen into the water, he fell in after it. The wave immediately seized him and drew him inward for nearly the distance of an arrow's flight. The man of God, being in his cell, at once perceived this and called his most beloved disciple Maurus, saying: Brother Maurus, run quickly, for the boy who went to draw water at the command of St. Benedict, has fallen into the lake; and the wave has already dragged him far away. A wonderful thing followed, unprecedented since the Apostle Peter. For having asked for and received a blessing, Maurus hastened at his Father's command; and all the way to the place where the boy was being carried by the wave, thinking he was walking on land, he ran upon the water and seized him by the hair, and returned at a swift pace; he draws him out, walking upon the waters; and as soon as he touched land, coming to his senses, he looked behind him; and he realized that he had run upon the waters, and he trembled with amazement at what had happened, which he could not have presumed would come to pass. Returning to his Father, he reported what had occurred.

[12] But the venerable man Benedict began to attribute this not to his own merits but to the obedience of the other. Maurus, on the contrary, said it had been done solely by his command, and ascribes it to the merits of St. Benedict, rightly: and that he was unaware of any power in that miracle which he had unknowingly performed. But in this friendly contest of mutual humility, the boy who had been rescued came as arbiter. For he said: When I was being drawn from the water, I saw the Abbot's sheepskin cloak above my head, and I considered that he himself was leading me out of the waters. O the admirable holiness of the most blessed man, who judged that what he had obtained by holy merits should rather be ascribed to the obedience of his disciple; although he knew him to be in every way fit for performing even greater works on account of his most holy and remarkable religious life, as one educated by himself! But because charity, which holds the principal place in the hearts of the Saints, does not seek its own things but those of others, the most precious and beloved of God, Benedict, wished to attribute even those things which he did not doubt were accomplished by his own merits rather to his most holy disciple, so that his holiness might become known to men even in the power of signs, whom he had already made most dear to God and most perfect in every divine observance.

[13] At another time likewise, the same preeminent Father restored an iron tool, which is called a falcastrum, which had fallen from the handle into the lake while a certain Goth, his monk, was cutting out a thicket of briars; this was first discovered through Blessed Maurus, and he restored it to the handle from which it had fallen. Rejoicing at the death of an enemy priest, he is chastised by St. Benedict: Moreover, he once imposed a penance on that same beloved disciple mentioned above, namely because, when Almighty God had terribly slain a certain priest who was his persecutor, and the one reporting this to him had presumed to rejoice, Benedict gave himself over to grievous lamentations, both because the enemy had perished and because the disciple had exulted at his death.

[14] From these and other instances, therefore, the opportunity is given for concluding that after he was entrusted to the instruction of the blessed man, he was either present at or a co-worker in almost all his miracles. For us indeed who know these things most certainly, he cooperates with St. Benedict in miracles: no doubt can reside in us concerning them, especially since the Lord deigned to perform a great miracle through him, in the absence of our most blessed Father Benedict, in our own monastery; and we are not a little surprised that it was omitted by Blessed Gregory: and he willed to work innumerable wonders of signs both on the journey during which we traveled with him and also in the place where by God's ordinance he rests.

[15] When at a certain time the most holy Benedict had been entreated by a certain man most noble according to worldly dignity to deign to come in person to his house, so that he might free his wife and son, whom she had recently borne, from the demon St. Benedict having gone forth to heal the sick, by which they were most grievously tormented together, through his holy merits and prayers; and the Saint of the Lord, because the man was familiar to him on account of certain works devoutly performed by him, had not delayed to go; the most blessed Maurus, who at that time in our monastery, by the command of our most holy Father, held the office of Provost and Procurator and administrator of the whole monastery after him, went out with the Brothers to gather crops, he himself, the Procurator of the monastery, gathers crops: at some distance from the monastery. When he was returning from that work with the same Brothers at the sixth hour for the meal, before they had reached the gate of the monastery, he found on the road a certain lame and mute boy. And when the father and mother of the boy, throwing themselves at his feet and with loud cries and tears invoking the terrible name of God that he might restore their son to them in health, clasping his knees most firmly with both hands, implored him, he shrank back in excessive fear from attempting such a miracle; crying out that he was a sinner and could in no way be the agent of such a work: Especially, he said, a lame and mute boy, since these are the works of the holy Apostles and other perfect men, who follow their example by believing and imitating them. We, therefore, hearing him say this, and at the same time recognizing that his life, perfect and acceptable to God, was sufficient for performing such things, having poured out prayer, joined with the parents of the boy and began to entreat him for the restoration of the sick child. But he, being most compassionate, bathed in tears and prostrate in prayer, after he had prayed for a very long time, brought forth from his neck the stole with which, in that same year, the stole being laid upon him, at the command of his blessed master, he had been ordained to the ministry of the Levitical office, and which, according to custom, by reason of holiness, he wore continually during the first year, and placed it upon the head of the sick child, making the sign of the Cross; and with the sign of the Cross and raising his eyes to heaven, he said: Lord Jesus Christ, who deigned to promise thy disciples, saying: Amen I say to you, that all things whatsoever you ask when you pray, believe that you shall receive, and they shall come unto you; show even now that we also, thy servants, though small and sinners, have that same faith in thee and in thy holy words, as thou thyself deignest to grant. Mark 11:24. And saying this, he said to the cripple: In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity, aided by the merits of our most holy Master, stand sound and whole upon thy feet upright. And immediately restored to health, he began to walk most uprightly before us, he heals him. and to bless God with a voice of exultation and praise, saying: Blessed be God the creator of all things, who has deigned to restore me through the merits of his most holy servant Benedict, through his most blessed disciple Maurus. He is held in great esteem by St. Benedict. Therefore the most perfect Benedict, when he had returned to the monastery, having healed those for whom he had gone, and when through our narration and our praising of God he had learned what had happened; from that time forward he began to hold the most blessed Maurus in great admiration and veneration: and he no longer thought he should be regarded in the place of a disciple, whom he now saw to be so near to God.

a These things are transcribed from St. Gregory's Dialogues, book 2, chapter 4.

b From the same book, chapter 7.

c We shall give the Life of St. Placidus on the 5th of October.

d MS. Audomarense: missus.

e Other reading: protrahit.

f Therefore he had not yet been tonsured as a monk.

g We shall say more about the sheepskin cloak on January 17, in the Life of St. Antony, in the Prolegomena, section 15, number 67.

h From the same book 2 of the Dialogues, chapter 6.

i Falcastrum. Papias: A falcastrum is so called from its resemblance to a sickle: for it is a curved iron tool with a long handle for cutting dense thickets: these are called runcones; namely from runcando, as he writes by the word runcones. So also Joseph Laurentius in the Amalthea: A falcastrum, curved in the likeness of a sickle.

CHAPTER III.

The mission to Gaul; departure from Cassino.

[16] At that time Legates came to our monastery, sent by the most blessed Bertegrannus, Bishop of the city of Le Mans. At the request of the Bishop of Le Mans, For that most holy Pontiff, having heard the fame of the holiness of our distinguished Father, sent from his own side Flodegarius the Archdeacon and Harderadus his Vicedominus, men of the highest vigor and distinction, with great gifts to our same Father; beseeching him with every entreaty to send him accomplished Brothers, who should build a monastery for him according to the order of regular observance on the lands of the Church which he governed. But our most perfect Father, in accordance with the plan and revelation which has been fully set forth by us in the preface of this work, although he knew that the end of his days was already at hand, according to what he had learned by revelation of the Holy Spirit; assigned to the legates of the aforesaid Bishop both the most blessed Maurus he is sent into Gaul with four others. and us four, whose names we inserted in the preface; commanding us to obey the most blessed Maurus, whom he appointed as our Master, no less than we had obeyed him up to that time, in all things.

[17] And now who could worthily describe how great a grief, how great a mourning suddenly seized our entire most holy congregation? For since the holy Father had already revealed to them the day of his death, the hope and consolation of the whole congregation rested in the most blessed Maurus: they rejoiced that he would be their Father, that after his passing they would have him as their ruler. But our most holy Father, moved by such great weeping and sighing, summoning the entire congregation, addressed them with such a speech: If there were cause to be sorrowful, St. Benedict consoling the rest, dearest Brothers and sons, over such a matter, it should be for me to grieve rather than for you, since at present I seem to be deprived of great consolations. But because, as the Apostle says, charity is kind, we must by all means bestow the kindness of our charity on those whom we recognize to be in some way in need of it; and we must seek not our own things but those of others. 1 Corinthians 13:4. Wherefore we beseech you with paternal love and solicitude to moderate your weeping and mourning: for God is able to send to this holy congregation, after the laying down of this body, men better than ourselves; by whose merits and examples you may be far more greatly edified than by ours. But we must also take the greatest care that, through the cunning of the ancient enemy, where salvation is gained for others, loss through the evil of sadness be not in any way inflicted upon us. For the concord of unity, which once joined us in holy charity, will never separate us, even across the most distant expanses of lands: for always by the gaze of the inner man, which is renewed according to the image of him who created him, we shall behold one another as long as we live in time. encouraging them and promising help from heaven: But you, dearest Brothers, whom we send to those regions for the work of the Lord to be built up, act manfully, and let your heart be strengthened in your holy purpose and religious life; knowing assuredly that the more severe the things you shall have endured for the sake of the salvation of others along the way of this world, the greater the joys of heavenly rewards you shall receive from God. And let not the dissolution of this poor body of ours sadden you in any way; for I shall be more present to you, once the burden of the flesh is laid down, and by the grace of God I shall be your constant co-worker.

[18] And saying this, giving us a kiss, and accompanying us with the whole congregation to the door of the monastery, having kissed us again and bestowed a blessing upon us, he gave his most holy disciple Maurus the book of the Rule, which the Saint himself had written with his own hand; and he ordered that a pound-weight of bread and a bronze vessel he departs from the monastery: holding a hemina of wine be brought, and thus he did not allow them to depart without these; giving a message to the envoys of the aforesaid Bishop for that same Pontiff, that he should receive and treat us with paternal affection in his own stead, and should hand over to us a suitable place for building a monastery, as he had promised.

[19] Therefore, setting out on the fifth day after Epiphany, we had our first lodging on a possession of our monastery, in the village which is called Euchaea. he lodges at a village of the monastery: Arriving there, we were received with great honor by two of our Brothers, namely Probus and Aquinus, whom the holy Father had sent there the day before for this purpose. That night, while we were celebrating the nocturnal office, there likewise arrived two more of our Brothers, Honoratus, a man of blessed memory, and Felicissimus, a youth of excellent character, a cousin of St. Maurus, sent by our most holy Father Benedict. When we saw them, we rejoiced with no small joy, holding it as certain among ourselves that we would hear or receive from them something of great importance from our same Father. Nor were we disappointed in our expectation. For when, after completing the morning hymns, we assembled together, he receives relics sent by St. Benedict, the monk Honoratus brought forth from his breast magnificent gifts for Blessed Maurus: an ivory reliquary casket and a small page of a letter containing indeed brief words, but sufficiently weighty and desirable with love, prophecy, and the affection of holy love; which the same most holy Benedict had commanded to be delivered to him with all haste before we left the place. For he had placed in that casket three small portions of the wood of the life-giving Cross, and relics of the holy Mother of God, and of the holy Archangel Michael, from a small red cloth of his holy memory, and also of St. Stephen the Protomartyr, and of the blessed Confessor of Christ, Martin.

[20] and a letter with predictions of the future. The text of the letter, which Blessed Maurus also ordered to be buried with him out of love for his Father, contained the following: Receive, most beloved one, the last gifts of your teacher, which may both attest to our long love and provide you and your fellow soldiers a perpetual protection against all the hindrances of evils. For after the completion of the full triple course of twenty years, [St. Benedict predicts to St. Maurus the time of his death and other future things.] from the time you entered upon monastic perfection, you are to be brought into the joy of your Lord; as the Lord deigned to show us yesterday, after you departed from us. I also foretell to you that you will experience delay in your journey, and will find a suitable place with difficulty, on account of those things which will be accomplished by God's ordinance and those which the enemy of the human race will stir up against you by the contrivance of his cunning. Yet nowhere will the kindness of the merciful God be lacking to you: but rather, though delaying and testing the desire of your soul at length, he will deign to grant a most suitable dwelling elsewhere than we had hoped. And now farewell, happy in your departure, destined to be happier in your arrival. When Blessed Maurus had read these aloud, and being made abundantly joyful on account of those things which he both deserved and was forewarned of, he sent the same Brothers back to the presence of Father Benedict with an expression of thanks; impressing upon the aforementioned youth Felicissimus five or seven times that he should devote himself to the stricter observance of the religious life.

a Others write Bertichramnus, others Bertichrannus; Claudius Robert writes Bethgrannus and Berthigrannus.

b Concerning the office of Vicedominus, we shall treat on the 4th of February in the Life of St. Theophilus. Below in the Life of St. John the Almsgiver, January 23, chapter 1, number 4: He himself made me a Priest and Vicedominus of the most holy Church. Thus speaks Mennas, concerning whom it is said above in number 3, who was arranging the administration of the most holy Church.

c The Rule of St. Benedict, chapter 40: We believe that one hemina of wine per day suffices for each one. Joannes Caramuel, distinguished man, in disputation 128, shows that a hemina holds 24 ounces, or half a cup.

d Other reading: Euchelia; another: Velelia.

e MSS. Bonnefontaine and Ripatoire: præmuniebatur.

CHAPTER IV.

Miracles performed at Vercelli and at Agaunum.

[21] Furthermore, pursuing the journey we had begun, on the fifty-fifth day we arrived at Vercelli. At which place, while we were detained for two days by the Clergy of that city, who had received us with the fullest charity, One grievously injured from a fall, the prophecy of our most holy Father began to be fulfilled in us. For the aforesaid Harderadus, walking along the steps of a certain very high and remarkable tower, and being impeded by Satan, falling headlong downward, was carried to our lodging so weak in his entire body, indeed almost lifeless, as if in a linen sheet, that we were all compelled to despair of his life. This brought upon us the most grievous sorrow, and especially upon Flodegarius the Archdeacon. For we remained there for fourteen days, during which the same man was afflicted with irremediable and ever worsening pain, to such a degree that his right shoulder with his arm and hand swelled with excessive inflammation, and a physician was already being diligently sought to lance him.

[22] Therefore, at dawn on the thirteenth day since we had arrived there, Flodegarius, affirming that he could by no means endure having him cut open, rushed into the oratory where Blessed Maurus was engaged in prayer; and clasping his feet with both hands, about to undergo the cutting, copiously bathing them with tears and pressing upon them frequent kisses, he began to implore and beseech him to aid the sick man by his prayers, bringing him the help of his assistance, and not to allow him to be tortured by the most bitter agony of the knife's cutting and the fire of cauterization, whom he knew could easily be healed through his intercession. But Blessed Maurus, moved to tears as much by compassion for the sick man as by the profusion of the suppliant's tears and by the delay of the journey, gave himself to prayer before the altar, and for a very long time, striking the ears of the heavenly mercy near him with the prayers of his supplications, sighs, and sobs; when he had risen from the place where he had lain prostrate in the form of a cross, taking from above the altar the reliquary casket which his blessed Master had sent him, and taking us along as well, he proceeded to the bed of the sick man: and there, having first offered prayer, he uncovered the saving wood, and making the sign of the Cross with it from his shoulder to the nails of his hands on every side, he said: God, the creator of all creatures, who ordained that his only Son be incarnate by the operation of the Holy Spirit from Mary ever Virgin for the restoration of the human race, heals him by the touch of the wood of the Cross: who through this most sacred and glorious wood of the life-giving Cross deigned to succor us by redeeming us from the wounds and sicknesses of our souls; may he himself deign to restore you to your former health through the power of this life-giving wood. When Blessed Maurus had finished this prayer, immediately through three places all the heated blood, by which the entire arm had swelled, began to flow out copiously. Moreover, that same Harderadus was noble indeed according to worldly dignity, but nobler, insofar as was possible for a layman, in all religious devotion.

[23] Flodegarius, upon seeing so great a miracle, could in no way restrain himself from tears of joy, magnifying God with constant praise and exalting our most holy Father Benedict with most frequent veneration, who had been worthy to have and nurture such disciples, through whom it had pleased the Lord to work such things. Immediately there was a concourse of the entire suburban populace, he ascribes the miracle to the Cross and to St. Benedict: each one considering himself blessed if it had been his lot even to see Blessed Maurus. But he, always seeking not his own glory but that of the Father who is in heaven, fled from the sight of those who wished to see him, saying: That which the divine majesty willed to accomplish through the wood of our redemption is to be ascribed to the Redeemer of all rather than to a man: although no one can doubt that the merits of our most holy Father Benedict obtained its accomplishment. Our sick man, therefore, now nearly restored to health, besought Blessed Maurus that on the following day also we should not leave that city, until he could fulfill his vows of pious praise and the sacrifice of true confession to the Lord for his restored health through all the houses of prayer which had been built there. This Maurus most willingly granted: for he loved him greatly, especially because he saw that the religious life of our Order was preferred by him above all else.

[24] Finally, on the fifteenth day, leaving that city and hastening to accelerate the journey planned, he heals a servant's broken foot with the sign of the Cross: as we were crossing the ridges of the Alps at about midday, our servant, named Sergius, falling from the horse on which he sat upon a huge rock to the left, and wishing to rise again quickly, so twisted his foot, crushing it, that all the bones, compressed together, no longer presented the appearance of a foot but the likeness of some rounded object. When, afflicted with excessive torment, he frequently seemed almost to lack the breath of life, the most blessed Maurus approached him, and taking hold of his crushed foot with his left hand and making the sign of the Cross over it with his right, said: In the name of Almighty God, who by his power frees those bound in chains, arise healed, and attend to the ministry of service to the servants of God, for the performance of which you were assigned to us by our most blessed Father. He was instantly made most sound and aroused in us no small joy and gladness.

[25] Thence, when we had all together entered the church of the precious Martyrs of Christ, Maurice and his companions, for the purpose of prayer, a certain man blind from his mother's womb, sitting before the doors of that same basilica and begging daily sustenance from those entering and leaving, to a blind man who entreated him learned from the companions of our journey that Maurus, the disciple of the most holy Benedict, whose fame of holiness had already spread everywhere, had arrived there. And when, having completed our prayer, we had gone out through the door of the basilica, that same blind man, prostrating his entire body on the pavement, began to implore and beseech Blessed Maurus, saying: I adjure you, Maurus, servant of God, by these most precious Martyrs of the Theban Legion, and by the venerable name of your Master Benedict, that you obtain from the Lord by your holy prayers that the light of my eyes be restored to me. When the Saint of the Lord heard this, he paused a little, fixing his step, and commanded him to rise from the pavement. And when he stood before him, he asked him, saying: Tell me, man, how much time has now passed since you first came to this holy threshold of the holy Martyrs? And he answered, saying: The eleventh year is now almost elapsed. And the Saint of the Lord said to this: Could not these most holy and most dear to God Martyrs, who exposed their sacred bodies to be slain by executioners for Christ, that they might lay down their souls for him, have obtained from the Lord that the light of your eyes be given to you, if they had so willed? Implore them, therefore, more earnestly with your entreaties, whose works these are rather than ours, and whose intercession we ourselves need no less than others. And saying this, he began to depart. But the blind man did not cease crying out certain terrible and fearful oaths, until the holy man, with us also urging him, pressed the fingers of his right hand, moistened with tears, into the sockets of his eyes, which had never until then beheld the radiance of the shining sun, and gazing heavenward for a time, restores his sight with the sign of the Cross, and making over them the sign of our redemption, said: The Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ, who is the true light that enlightens every man coming into this world, may he himself deign to illuminate you through the invocation of his holy name, and the merits of these blessed Saints and of our Master Benedict, so that, seeing the wonderful works of the Most High, by which he willed to distinguish the form of the worldly creation, you may praise with a voice of exultation and a work of true faith the creator of these things and our restorer.

[26] When the holy man had prayed this, blood immediately began to flow abundantly from his eyes, and at once, looking upon the sphere of the sun with most brilliant eyes, he began to chant the hymn of the three youths in order with a clear voice. That man was called Linus: who, as we learned from him, had learned by hearing both the Psalter and all the diurnal and nocturnal offices. The inhabitants of that place, seeing such a miracle performed through Blessed Maurus, gathering together in a crowd, besought him to give his blessing upon them. To whom he responded with only these words: May the Lord our God, who dwells in Sion, bless you, that you may see his good things which are in Jerusalem, all the days of your life. And he gave a command to the one who had been given sight, and orders him to serve the Church of St. Maurice. that he should never again depart from that church, but should serve the Lord and the holy Martyrs there continually. This he afterward most devoutly fulfilled. For when, after the passing of Blessed Maurus, we were returning to our monastery, we found him exercising the office of a Cleric in that same church, and already in decrepit old age.

a We shall give the Acts of St. Maurice on the 22nd of September; and moreover concerning his monastery at Agaunum, we shall treat on the 1st of May in the life of St. Sigismund the King.

b Other reading: madefactis.

CHAPTER V.

The visit to St. Romanus; the death of St. Benedict.

[27] Setting out thence, we were more earnestly endeavoring to continue the journey we had begun. When one night, near a church of the holy Mother of God and ever-Virgin Mary, we were already lodging in the Jura region, and a certain widow, named Remeia, who was living in a house adjoining ours, was spending a sleepless night weeping and wailing over her son, already an adolescent, whom she had borne to her recently deceased husband, who, drawing his last breath, was awaiting imminent death as he lay in bed, Compassionate toward a widow, the man of God, Maurus, according to his usual custom, while we were resting, entered that church to offer to the Lord his vows of prayers and supplications. When the morning watch was already approaching, and the woman was not ceasing even for a moment from her lamentations and wailings; the man of God, most tenderly moved to compassion, prostrated himself before the Lord with tears, and prayed that he might deign to have mercy on the wretched woman by restoring her son to her in health. And when he had risen from prayer, secretly entering the cell in which we were sleeping, he cautiously touched the monk Simplicius, signaling to him to rise carefully and follow him. And he, having soon followed him into the church, astonished, waited to hear what he would command. The Saint of the Lord, approaching him, said: My soul has excessive tender compassion for the sorrows of this unhappy woman. Wherefore let us approach with full faith together to the bed of the one lying there: perhaps the heavenly grace will restore him.

[28] Coming therefore before the bed of the now nearly lifeless body, Blessed Maurus together with Simplicius said: Christ the Lord and our Savior, her son who lay dying, the only hope and consolation of those suffering and enduring sorrow, who, moved by mercy for the widow, raised her son, being carried out beyond the gate, in the sight of the crowds of people, may he deign now with the same compassion to be present also to this woman, restoring her son to health. And saying this, he withdrew. But he who had already lain for two days without sense or voice began to call out to his mother and to console her, saying: Do not weep, mother, for by the tears of a certain servant of God, which he shed in compassion for your sorrow, I have been restored to life and health from the very jaws of hell. When she said to him: Behold, he is singing the morning hymns in this church of ours with other men of the same habit; he, as if he had suffered nothing ill, immediately rising from his bed, otherwise to be condemned, entered the church and without hesitation approached the most holy Maurus, crying out and saying: Truly you are the very one who by your tears and merits called me back from the tribunal from which I had received a sorrowful sentence, by which I was already consigned to places of burning. The fame of this deed immediately filled the entire region. he restores him to health; People rushed headlong to meet us, men with women, old with young, raising praises to God on every side, who thus glorifies his Saints. That young man was called Eligius, who afterward (as was reported to us) became a monk in the monastery of Lerins. who became a monk:

[29] And so, as the Easter solemnity was approaching and we were hastening each day to accelerate our journey, on the day on which the Lord's Supper is celebrated, he turns aside to St. Romanus: we arrived in the district of Auxerre. Hearing of the reputation of St. Romanus the monk, who had been a helper and co-worker of our most blessed Father Benedict in the beginning, as is found most fully in the history of his life, and who, seeking Gaul through a revelation, was building a monastery in that same district, in a place which is called Fontaine-Rouge, Blessed Maurus asked the guides of our journey that we might turn aside there and celebrate the most sacred Easter in that place. But Blessed Maurus desired this especially because he knew that on the following day the passing of our most holy Master was to be accomplished; and he desired to enjoy the conversation of Blessed Romanus. The guides of our journey, willingly assenting to the requests of the man of God, hastened to proceed there with quickened step.

[30] Arriving there at the sixth hour on Good Friday, we were most devoutly received by Blessed Romanus. And while all of us who were traveling with Blessed Maurus were occupied in preparing or purchasing what was needed for the feast day, those most holy men were sowing between themselves the sweet conversations of eternal life. He predicts to him the death of St. Benedict: And when the evening hour was approaching after the solemn office, which is specially celebrated on that day each year, the man of God, St. Maurus, said to Blessed Romanus: Tomorrow our most blessed Father Benedict, laying down the earthly burden of his body, will joyfully and gladly ascend to his heavenly homeland. When St. Romanus heard this, immediately dissolving into tears, he began to weep inconsolably. Blessed Maurus, wishing to console him, said: We ought rather to rejoice than to weep at his departure, because we are sending ahead a great Patron, and we shall have him more present to us now than if he were living in the flesh. Yet saying this, he himself could not refrain from weeping. That night, which fell on the twelfth day before the Kalends of April, the night of Good Friday spent in silent prayers, and on which the most sacred sabbath of the Easter vigil dawned, both the most blessed Maurus and we who accompanied him, as well as St. Romanus with some of his disciples, kept a sleepless fasting vigil, each of us privately completing psalms and the prayers of our supplications devoutly for the departure of that same Father, most beloved of God, Benedict, as was the custom in the Roman Church in those days.

[31] When about the third hour of that most sacred day had already passed, he sees the radiant way by which he had gone to heaven: while the most blessed Maurus was standing in the church, striving, though far distant, to attend by prayer and psalmody upon his passing, at whatever hour it might occur, and had given himself to prayer upon the pavement, he was caught up in spirit and suddenly saw himself transported to the place from which we had departed; and he beheld a way strewn with hangings and gleaming with innumerable lamps, extending by a straight path toward the East, from his cell all the way to heaven. In this vision he also had two Brothers of our congregation as companions, with whom he simultaneously beheld the same vision. And so when they were gazing more attentively at the way which they beheld, a man of venerable appearance, resplendent from above, standing beside them, inquired whose the way was that they were beholding. They professed that they did not know. And he said to them: This is the way by which Benedict, beloved of the Lord, has ascended to heaven. One of those two Brothers of ours who saw this together with Blessed Maurus was dwelling in our monastery; the other, as Blessed Gregory writes, saw it while stationed at a greater distance. Dialogues, book 2, chapter 37. As soon as Blessed Maurus had come to himself, he quickly summoned St. Romanus and us, he narrates the vision to his companions: and clearly related to us in order all things which he had seen.

[32] We celebrated that day and the following Sunday, on which the triumph of the Lord's Resurrection is especially celebrated, as solemn and festive with all joy and gladness. He departs from St. Romanus, who predicts his own death, But on the Monday of that same festivity, before we had begun to set out, St. Romanus said to Blessed Maurus: If I could leave this place without peril to my soul, I would rather dwell with you, most loving Brother, than end my life anywhere else. But since it is perilous to abandon these men, and my last day is now at hand, go forth happily where you are sent, and prosper in your happy lot: may Almighty God be always with you and with the Brothers who journey with you, and lead you by a straight path to the true promised land, and wishing him well. which he has deigned to promise to all his elect; where he has prepared for them those things which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have they entered into the heart of man, except of those who, trampling underfoot all earthly things for love of him, and renouncing them out of desire for heavenly things, are able to say with the Apostle: But God has revealed them to us through his Spirit. 1 Corinthians 2:10.

a The Jura, or Jurassus, the famous mountain of Gaul, on which is the monastery of St. Eugendus, of which we speak on the 1st of January, and which is now called St. Claude, as we shall say on the 6th of June.

b MS. Ripatoire: Remegia; another reading: Remia.

c Other reading: innuens.

d From many other histories it is established that the particular judgment sometimes takes place before the soul has fully departed from the body.

e Vincent Barralis reckons this man among the Saints of Lerins on this day, and brings forward nothing else except this passage.

f We shall give the life of St. Romanus, written by the monk Gislebertus, on the 22nd of May. St. Gregory treats of him in Dialogues, book 2, chapter 1.

g In this place, as Gislebertus writes, there is a basilica bearing his name, nobly distinguished by the privilege of the miracles which God works through him. The body was translated thence to Auxerre, afterward to the monastery called St. Romanus, near the metropolitan see of Sens.

h MSS. Ripatoire and Bonnefontaine: cælibem.

i Aimoinus narrates the same things, book 2, chapter 22.

CHAPTER VI.

Arrival in Anjou.

[33] Setting out therefore from that place, when we had arrived at Orleans by a direct route, a most grievous sorrow overtook the guides of our journey. For they had heard from reliable messengers that Blessed Bertchramnus the Bishop had already departed to the Lord; and that another Pontiff had already been appointed in his place. Upon the death of the Bishop of Le Mans, When they had communicated this to Blessed Maurus and to us, we began to fail from great weariness, not knowing what we should do. But Blessed Maurus, mindful of the prophecy of our most holy Father, by which he had predicted that we would find a suitable place, though with difficulty, strengthened our dejected spirits with gentle consolations and promises, saying: Do not, dearest Brothers, so subject your spirits to sadness in this present affliction: he comforts his companions. for God is accustomed to come to meet those suffering tribulation by relieving them with the grace of his compassion, and especially we shall be aided by the prayers of our most blessed Father, who promised that he would always be present and a co-worker for us. For Abraham the Patriarch also, having gone out by God's command from his house and from his kindred, afterward received the land of his pilgrimage as an inheritance for his posterity. And so let us also, rejoicing that we have begun our pilgrimage, await as most devoted servants the consolation of the Lord; and let us strive in all things to follow in the footsteps of our most holy Father Benedict, who, leaving his home and ancestral possessions, and finally secretly fleeing from his nurse, and desiring in all things to please God alone, merited such great grace from the Lord that he was never second to anyone after the blessed and first Apostles; but rather, with God's help, he became the founder of so many holy monasteries and gained for the Lord so many thousands of perfect monks.

[34] Somewhat strengthened, therefore, by this exhortation of Blessed Maurus, we began to deliberate together with our guides about what we should best do. Then the most noble man Harderadus, while sitting at the side of Blessed Maurus, When the Legates set out for Le Mans, began to speak as follows: It seems to me, holy Father and devout Brothers, to be fitting and proper that we, who have discharged the embassy of this matter, for which, traversing such vast expanses of land, we undertook this labor at the command of our Bishop, should approach this new and unknown Bishop; and making known to him in order the reason for our journey, we may be able to ascertain his will concerning such a business: at the same time also we must take care of our affairs with him. But you, venerable Father, with the Brothers whom you have with you, must await our return to you here, which will be completed within eight days, I think. For if he should refuse to do what his blessed predecessor desired to fulfill, another way will assuredly be found by which you may be able to accomplish with heavenly aid what you were sent to do, lest you seem to have undertaken the labor of so great a journey in vain. he remains at Orleans with his companions: Having said this, they assigned us a most suitable lodging in that same city near the church of Blessed Peter the Apostle, appointing for our protection those whom they had as the most honored in their retinue, and at the same time commanding them to watch over the needs of both Blessed Maurus and ourselves no less diligently than their own. Having thus arranged these things honorably, they set out with the blessing of St. Maurus.

[35] And when they had come to Le Mans and had been announced to the Bishop, they were received by him with honor, and restored to their own offices, with the honors of their former possessions also being augmented by that same Bishop. But when they had related to him the purpose of their embassy, the Bishop of Le Mans being unwilling to receive them, and inquired what he himself wished concerning this matter; he replied that he wished to attend to his own undertakings rather than those of others, lest he seem to build upon another's foundation; especially, he said, since the ordering and arrangement of both our own affairs and the vigilant care of our Churches now falls upon us. But this was happening according to the disposition of the hidden counsel of God, who in no way wished the place which he had decreed should be elevated by the teaching of Blessed Maurus by divine design, and the instruction of the regular discipline, to be deferred even a little on account of another place. For that place which had been prepared and designated by Blessed Bertegrannus for the building of a monastery was not particularly suitable or fitting for regular religious life, as our guides told us: for by its very name, by which it was called Rupiacus, it was deemed by us to be desolate and rough.

[36] Accordingly, Harderadus, having most certainly ascertained that Bishop Domnolus wished to do nothing concerning this matter, was made most joyful and asked permission from him to return to us. This being granted, he sent his nephew, a young man of vigorous youth named Hademarus, to Blessed Maurus, he is summoned to the territory of Angers: telling him that he should by no means bear a sorrowful spirit, but should hasten as quickly as possible with all those whom he had left with him to the territory of Angers, where he had indicated through a messenger that he would meet us. And so, when both Blessed Maurus and all of us who had remained with him had been made more cheerful by such a message, on the tenth day after we had entered the city of Orleans, we set out and strove with the utmost effort to proceed where we had been commanded.

[37] On the fifth day at last, arriving at the place which is called Restis, we found the honorable man Harderadus and his wife and sons, who had already been awaiting our arrival there for two days. He is received with honor, When they had received us with honor, after the most abundant refreshment which they had prepared for us, the aforesaid Harderadus, with his wife named Caecilia, seeking a more private place and having summoned Blessed Maurus, reported to him in order all that he had found with his Bishop. And when Blessed Maurus said to him: What do you now judge should be done or rather chosen by us, most illustrious man? He answered amiably, as he was a man of most pleasant countenance: I have a cousin named Florus, possessing great estates both in these and in other regions, who, as the first among the first of all the magnates of the kingdom of the Franks, most fittingly arranges all the affairs of the Palace at the King's command. The cause of his coming is made known to Florus, a powerful and devout man. This man, therefore, from his earliest youth, though established in a secular habit, has always been diligent in striving to please Almighty God. From a deceased wife, whom the King and our parents compelled him to take against his will, only one son remains to him: and if he could find anywhere men perfect in this religious life, he desires to build a monastery on his own estate, which came to him from his paternal inheritance, and to offer his son to God therein: and so, finally, having left behind all the affairs of this world, he desires to serve God, free from all things, in that same monastery. To this man, therefore, I have already sent our messenger, who can fully explain to him the reason for your coming, or explore whether he perseveres in the resolve of his soul. We, however, if it please you, until either he himself or the one we sent to him returns, should go to inspect and consider that very place of which we speak.

a Again here the manuscript codices vary: for in some it is Bertigarius, in others Bertigranus, Bertichrannus. However, either Faustus or rather his interpolator Odo has erred in memory, writing Bertchramnus for Innocentius, or there were two Bertchramni, the first of whom occupied the see for a very short time. For St. Innocentius subscribed to the Fourth Council of Orleans held in the year 641. Domnolus, or Domnulus, who did not wish to admit St. Maurus, subscribed in the year 567 to the Second Council of Tours. Another Bertchramnus attended the assembly of bishops at Guntramnus's court in the matter of the nuns of Poitiers in the year 589, although he is not called Bishop of Le Mans. But he cannot, as Claudius Robert thought, have summoned St. Maurus, as is clear from this Life. It is more probable, however, that Odo has erred in memory, since in the Life of St. Domnolus, which we shall give on the 16th of May, he himself is said to have succeeded St. Innocentius, or Innocentius.

CHAPTER VII.

The foundation of the monastery of Glanfeuil.

[38] Hearing this, Blessed Maurus was filled with great joy, and on the very next day he went with the same honorable man to inspect the place. At that time King Theodebert was nobly governing the summit of the Frankish realm. To this king, the aforesaid most distinguished man Florus was so familiar and most dear in all things that whatever he wished to do in all his dominion, he obtained by the King's permission without anyone's opposition. When he had learned from the report of the messenger whom Harderadus had sent to him that both Blessed Maurus and we had arrived, and that the Bishop of Le Mans had not wished to receive us; he immediately went to the King, Florus will build him a monastery, fully related to him the cause of our coming, and opened to him his wish concerning the building of a monastery; and asked of him that he might be allowed by his permission to receive us, so that we might build him a monastery as he desired. King Theodebert answered him, saying: You have not served us in such a way the King approving that we could deny or oppose you in anything: wherefore proceed as quickly as possible, and accompanied by our grace and strengthened by our authority, receive those most holy men with all reverence, carrying out with them the desire which the heavenly grace has inspired in your soul: and at the same time entreat them to deign to pray constantly for the mercy of God himself on behalf of us and our children and the people of the entire kingdom granted us by God: and pledging his favor, for they shall find us most ready and most willing in every service of theirs, if we shall have found the form of this religious life to be observed by them as we have already heard by spreading report that it was rigorously transmitted by their Master. But it shall be your part to bring together and assemble workers for the work from wherever you find them in all our realm, so that the work itself may be completed more quickly. Nor shall our royal bounty be lacking to that place, according to your will and counsel, if we shall see it aptly constructed and suitably ordered.

[39] Strengthened by such great promises of the King, the most noble Florus hastened he comes to him swiftly to the estate of his possession, which was called Glanfeuil. When Harderadus heard of his arrival, he went with Blessed Maurus to meet him before the gates. When Florus saw Blessed Maurus standing clothed in the most humble monastic habit, he nimbly leaped from the horse upon whose back he was seated: and three times before approaching him, prostrating his entire body upon the ground, and receives him and his companions with honor: when he had been humbly received and modestly raised up by him, as he had learned, they stood for a long time embracing each other and clasping one another, also pouring out tears of joy upon each other. Then the aforesaid man, having kissed us all, again taking the right hand of Blessed Maurus and pressing it with kisses, said to him: We rejoice that you have come well, servant of the Most High God and disciple of the holy man Benedict, whose honor and name, which he earned in holy service, has become known to almost the entire world: and blessed be the glorious name of the Lord, who has sent you and your fellow soldiers, these reverend men, to our aid in this province. And saying this, he led him to the house, with Harderadus and his sons going before us.

[40] On the following day, when after the morning office we had assembled together, he revealed to Blessed Maurus the desire which he had concerning the construction of a monastery, and at the same time reported the King's promise and the entreaty by which he earnestly sought that Blessed Maurus should pray to the Lord more fervently for himself and his children and all the people. Then Blessed Maurus said to him: The observance of our Order demands the utmost quiet and security. the place approved by the Saint Wherefore, if it does not seem contrary to the nobility of your generosity, first of all we must inspect the properties which you say you desire to hand over to God and his servants for the remedy of your soul, surveying them all together. Then, having drawn up a deed of gift, with you handing them over to us before witnesses, it is proper that we receive them into our dominion. When Florus had given his assent to this, after the third day, mounting horses and having inspected everything, they returned to the aforesaid place.

[41] Then the most distinguished Florus, having drawn up a deed of gift according to the counsel of the blessed man, handed over everything to him, he gives him everything, and delegated from his own right to his power and dominion. He also offered on that same day to the Lord his son, named Bertulfus, a boy of about eight years, to be nurtured and instructed by the teaching and mastery of the most blessed Maurus, just as he himself had been educated by his most holy Master Benedict in all our observance. and offers his eight-year-old son to God: After whose offering he said to Blessed Maurus: In this, most holy man, it is fitting that both you and those who are with you be assured concerning both this place and the possessions bestowed there by me, since I have offered my son to serve God through your instruction: and I promise that I myself, if life be granted me by God's favor, and the work is completed, shall devote myself to the divine services in this same place, having left behind all the affairs of this world.

[42] Having gathered, therefore, very many craftsmen and workers, and having laid the foundations, they hastened day by day to accelerate the work that had been begun. But because the place below along the bank of the river was small (for it was confined on one side by the obstacle of the mountain, while the monastery is vigorously built, and on the other by the channel of the Loire), the entire fabric of the monastery began to be built on the sloping side of that same mountain. First they built there a house of prayer, not very large, which Blessed Maurus had consecrated in honor of St. Martin, Confessor of Christ: in which, by God's disposition and by his own choice, we buried him. For just as the most holy Benedict had ordered himself to be buried in the oratory of that same most blessed Martin, in which, after destroying the altar of Apollo, he had placed his memorial; so the most perfect disciple, lest he should seem to differ from his Master even in the manner of his burial, commanded himself to be entombed in the house of that same oratory. Moreover, the aforesaid Florus, holding the highest authority in the entire kingdom of King Theodebert and at that time exercising the office of Count in the territory of Angers, caused the most skilled craftsmen to come there from all sides, both carpenters and masons and those skilled in other arts as well.

[43] When one day, while inspecting the workers, he was sitting with Blessed Maurus, and the man of God was applying himself to reading on the other side and from time to time explaining to Florus himself what he read, a certain Cleric, who was in charge of the masonry work and whom Florus himself had brought from the royal palace for this purpose, a certain man killed by a fall falling backward from the very high scaffolding upon which the workers stood as they were raising the already lofty wall, fell upon a heap of stones that had been carried there. And when all believed him dead and were discussing only his burial, especially because blood was flowing forth in waves through all the openings of his body; the man of God came with Florus and immediately had him carried to the door of the church of Blessed Martin. And when all had withdrawn, he gave himself to prayer upon the ground before the altar. When this was completed, going out and making the sign of the Cross over the broken limbs, he heals him by prayers and the sign of the Cross, he said: In the name of him who formed the body of man from the clay of the earth and breathed into him the breath of life, arise healed, Langiscus, and complete the work you had begun. And that man, immediately rising as if from sleep, began to wonder when he had arrived there. The Saint of the Lord said to him: You did not come here on your own feet, but were carried in the hands of others. But proceed as quickly as possible, lest perhaps the work be interrupted by your absence. And when that man had gone out, Florus, who had been standing to one side with the monk Simplicius and had seen all that the man of God had done, came running swiftly and, Florus marveling: throwing himself at his feet, began to cry out: Truly you are a disciple of Blessed Benedict, St. Maurus, of whom we have frequently heard such things reported. From that day, Florus held him in such great admiration that he never dared to approach him too closely.

[44] And so when the Cleric who had been healed had returned to his work, certain workers began to disparage Blessed Maurus, saying that he had left his monastery and come to such distant lands not for the sake of religious life but out of greed, so that he might be more honored in other regions; and that these things which he did, he accomplished not by the power of God but rather by certain incantations. those possessed by the demon because they had slandered him, When they were thus talking among themselves, an evil spirit suddenly invaded three of them and began to torment them with the most grievous vexation, so that from one of them, named Flodegisus, it extorted the soul. When the man of God learned what had happened, he began to weep vehemently: and entering again the oratory of Blessed Martin, he prayed more earnestly to the Lord both for those who were being tortured and for the one who had died. And when he had been intent upon prayer for three continuous hours, he approached those who were being tormented and were tearing each other with their teeth; and making the sign of the Cross three times against them, he frees them by the sign of the Cross; he said: The only-begotten Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave his disciples the power to tread upon serpents and scorpions of the earth and over all the power of the enemy, may he himself release you from this demonic vexation. And while they were still gnashing their teeth and covering themselves with dust, the man of God, drawing nearer, thrust the fingers of both hands into their mouths. The unclean spirits, leaving behind foul traces, were driven out by an evacuation of the bowels.

[45] Then the man of God ordered the body of the deceased to be taken up and carried into the portico of the church: another, who had been suffocated by the demon, he resuscitates. and he spent that entire night in sleepless vigils, imploring the Lord with constant groans that he might deign to restore the soul of the dead man to his body, lest the devil, who had extorted it, should triumph over it any longer. Early in the morning, he summoned the priest Simplicius and commanded him to offer the sacrifice of our redemption to God for that same soul. When he had most devoutly completed this, the man of God, approaching with Simplicius himself the place where the dead man lay, said: Lord Jesus Christ, who raised Lazarus from the tomb after four days and restored the widow's son to life at the prayers of thy servant Elijah, be present now to us thy servants, and restore in this dead body the soul which, by thy permission, the enemy of the human race expelled from it by torment. And when he had said this, the entire body of the dead man was immediately shaken: and rising up at once, he received from him the command that if he wished to live, he should never again enter that place as long as he himself was alive. This the Saint commanded solely out of humility, that is, lest he should seem to seek the applause and favor of men for such a deed, or to take delight in it.

a Others write Glanafolium. This place, according to Masson, situated at the Loire in a lofty position among vineyards, is commonly called St. Maur-sur-Loire.

b Other reading: effundentes.

CHAPTER VIII.

The donations of King Theodebert; the entry of Florus into the Religious Life.

[46] Therefore, in the eighth year after we had arrived there, the entire monastery was quite fittingly completed in all its construction and dedicated by the Bishops of that province. The monastery having been completed, At that time the most holy Eutropius was governing the Church of Angers. Moreover, four churches had been built in that monastery. The larger one, in which the Brothers assembled for both the diurnal and the nocturnal office, and four churches in it, was consecrated in honor of Blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles: the second (as has already been said above) in honor of Blessed Martin: the third, which was also the smallest of all, in veneration of St. Severinus: and the fourth, which was built in the form of a four-sided tower, very high, at the entrance of the monastery, was blessed in honor of the holy Archangel Michael.

[47] When these things had been completed, the aforesaid Florus, not unmindful of the promise which he had vowed to God, went to King Theodebert and asked permission When Florus wished to take the habit there, to assume the regular habit and to redeem his sins, which he had contracted in abundance in his secular life, by fasts, prayers, and other fruits of the spirit. When the King could not deny him this, though sad and sorrowful because he did not wish to be separated from him, he permitted him to fulfill what he asked; and retaining him for some days with him in the palace, he began to ask about the miracles which he heard were being performed through Blessed Maurus, and how he himself lived in the holy religious life with his disciples, and how great a number of Brothers was already assembled there. The King, having first asked permission from Maurus, When Florus had related all these things to him, as he himself knew them most certainly, the King said to him: If I knew that this would please the servant of God himself, I would greatly desire to see both him and that place and to honor him with our royal gift. To which Florus replied: Let the will of the man of God be sought first, if it pleases your Highness, concerning this: and then at last, as he himself shall arrange, you will be able to fulfill what you wish.

[48] Therefore, dismissing him, when the King had lingered a long time in his embraces, he said to him: What you discover from the man of God concerning our journey to that place, take care to send us word quickly. For I would very much wish, if it were possible, to be present there on the day when you lay down the hair of your head. Florus, therefore, coming to the monastery with many noblemen and distinguished men who had followed him from the royal palace, revealed to the man of God the King's will. When he had replied to him he visits it that the visit would not harm the place but would rather contribute to its improvement, as far as he himself could understand, Florus sent the King a fixed day on which he should come to the monastery. When he had arrived and had been magnificently received, as befitted the royal dignity, by Blessed Maurus and the congregation, whose most holy flock now exceeded the number of forty, after prayer, going to the assembly of the Brothers and considering the royal dignity as of little account, he humbly prostrated himself before Blessed Maurus and the congregation, he humbly seeks the prayers of the monks, still clothed in his royal purple, and besought them with flowing tears to deign to pray to the Lord for him. When the man of God had raised him from the pavement, the King said to him: The famous name of your Master Benedict was long since brought to our attention; and we rejoice with no small joy that the notable works of holiness and virtue which we heard about him are being performed daily through you.

[49] and to be admitted to their fellowship, Then the King asked Blessed Maurus that the Brothers might deign to receive him into their fellowship and write his name among their own names: and he most earnestly commended his son Theodebald to the holy man and the Brothers, commanding him to be always devoted to that place and to be a helper and defender of that holy congregation in all things. And he asked the man of God who those Brothers were he kindly embraces each one, who had come with him. When he had pointed us out to him with his finger, ordering us to stand apart, the King gazed at us most attentively, asking from him the name of each. When he had learned these, he kissed us, and then the entire congregation. Seeing the young man Bertulfus standing among the other Brothers, he asked who he was. especially Bertulfus: When Blessed Maurus had indicated that this was the son of Florus, the King called him to himself, and clasping him to his breast in an embrace, began to commend him most earnestly to Blessed Maurus for love of his father, and to ask that he be most lovingly nurtured by him.

[50] he bestows many gifts on the monastery: Then, when he had gone around and inspected all the dwellings of the monks and had praised everything as being suitably constructed, entering again the church of St. Peter, he gave to that place the royal estate which is called Boscus, with all the villages and revenues pertaining to it. And calling to him Ansebaldus, who was in charge of the scribes of royal deeds of gift, he commanded him that before he left that monastery he should write a deed of gift concerning those same properties and confirm it with the royal seal according to custom: and he granted to Blessed Maurus that if from that day he wished to obtain anything from him and it pleased him to come to him, he should have free access to enter wherever he knew him to be. He also placed upon the altar of Blessed Peter a most precious pallium and a golden cross with very valuable gems.

[51] Florus, moreover, approaching the King, entreated him to issue a decree of royal authority over the deed of gift which he himself had ordered to be written concerning his own properties which he had given to that place. This the King most willingly granted. he confirms Florus's donations, Then, in the sight of the King, not inconsiderable gifts were brought in gold and silver, gems, and a profusion of various vestments, which that same man on that day offered to the Lord and his Saints. He also freed twenty of his servants, first enriching them with great gifts. Then, coming before the most sacred altar, and he and Maurus tonsure him: with Blessed Maurus and the entire congregation standing by, and the King also on the other side with the multitude of people who had come with him, laying down the military belt which he had worn until then, he placed it upon the altar. At the command of the man of God, the King was the first after him to cut hair from his head; then whichever of his nobles wished to do so. The King shed tears of joy, rejoicing in the devotion of his spirit: and calling to himself the nephew of Florus himself, named Landramnus, he gave him by the royal scepter which he bore in his hand all the possessions that Florus his uncle had held by royal gift.

[52] After this, the Saint of the Lord entreated the King to deign to enter the house which had been built most fittingly with every convenience and elegance for receiving guests. When the King had entered, before the man of God could prostrate himself fully at his feet, he was raised up by him with great alarm and asked what he wished. He answered, saying: This is the petition which, at Maurus's request he takes a meal there: in the name of all the servants of God who live in this monastery, I present to your Majesty: that the King may come with his servants and receive with thanksgiving the food and drink which have been prepared for him by the devotion and service of the monks. When the King began to refuse and wished to excuse himself humbly from having this done, one of his Counselors, a most wise man named Ebbo, said to him: You should consider, my Lord King, at whose entreaty you are asked to take this meal: for if these men, who serve God as your Highness observes, should be made sad in any way by your refusal, you will not be able to have God's favor. Hearing this, the King immediately consented and fulfilled what was asked.

[53] And when he had taken an abundant meal with all his attendants who had come with him, before he began to leave the monastery, he ordered Florus, his most beloved friend, to be brought to him. When he had been brought, now clothed in the monastic habit, he exhorts Florus to perfection: the King, moved to tears to the point of blushing, said to him: We give thanks to Almighty God for your conversion: but you must take diligent care and be most vigilant, that just as when established in the secular habit you always lived vigorously and nobly without disgrace, so now also in this most holy religious life which you have sought, always striving to please God without reproach, you may advance daily from virtue to virtue, until you may behold the God of Gods in Sion with happy exultation. Having said this, he seeks a blessing from St. Maurus. having lingered long in his embraces, and strengthened by the blessing of Blessed Maurus which he had requested, he returned to Angers that same day.

a It is manifest that either here or above, Odo has erred. Theodoric, as St. Gregory of Tours writes in book 3, chapter 23, died in the twenty-third year of his reign, that is, from the death of his father Clovis, who died in the year 511. Theodebert, as is said in chapter 9, number 57, after he had nobly and vigorously governed the kingdom of the Franks for fourteen years, died. From the departure therefore of Clovis, says the same St. Gregory, book 3, chapter 37, to the death of Theodebert, thirty-seven years are reckoned. When Theodebert died, therefore, in the fourteenth year of his reign, his son Theodebald reigned in his place. Theodebert therefore died, if we reckon correctly, in the year of Christ 548. Therefore if in the eighth year after the arrival of St. Maurus in Gaul he visited Glanfeuil, and he who died in the year 548 did so, it is necessary that Maurus came there in the year 540 or 541: which scarcely agrees with what has been written above concerning the death of St. Benedict, since it is established that he survived to the times of Totila.

b He is established by Claudius Robert as the successor of St. Albinus and predecessor of Domitianus.

c Other reading: Lamdramnum; another: Ladramnum.

d MS. Bonnefontaine: Elbo.

CHAPTER IX.

The death of Florus; the donations of Kings Theodebald and Clothar.

[54] St. Maurus heals a paralytic: On the following day, Blessed Maurus went out to inspect and receive the royal estate which the same King had conferred upon the monastery. And when he had stayed there for two days, a certain paralytic, who for seven years in that same village had lain in bed with his entire body deprived of sensation, was carried to him and presented. When the man of God had given his blessing over him, he was made as sound as if he had never suffered any ill from that affliction.

[55] He instructs his followers in virtue: Returning thence to the monastery, he diligently scrutinized, in the manner of his Master, the character and life of each one living with him, and proclaiming the word of life to them both publicly and privately, and exposing the most cunning and manifold snares of the ancient enemy, he exhorted them daily to advance to better things. For from the second year of our arrival at that place, noble men had begun to come to him from all directions, handing themselves over to the service of Almighty God, and seeking to dwell with him: some indeed offered their sons to be instructed for God through his teaching. Whence it came to pass he establishes that there shall be 140 monks there. that by the twenty-sixth year of the foundation of that monastery, a congregation of one hundred and forty Brothers had been assembled there. This number was then fixed in writing by Blessed Maurus and established by the authority of both himself and the entire congregation: so that no one should thereafter be found who would ever dare either to exceed or diminish this number in the congregation of that monastery: since the resources which had already been assigned there were sufficient for so great a number of Brothers in their necessities: and if the number were larger, it could perhaps have occasioned the suffering of want.

[56] But to return to that from which I digressed: when the aforesaid Florus had lived for twelve years, three months, and the same number of days, Florus dies a holy death. in the most holy manner, as befitted one nobler than the most noble, in every observance of religion, on the twelfth day before the Kalends of September he happily departed to the Lord and ended his last day. How perfect his son Bertulfus was in all sacred observance, the following reading will demonstrate.

[57] King Theodebert, therefore, after he had vigorously and nobly governed the Frankish kingdom for fourteen years, left the seat of the kingdom to his son Theodebald. Who, according to the command of his father, loved both Blessed Maurus and our congregation not a little, Theodebald makes certain gifts to St. Maurus. as long as he lived. This man, therefore, following in the footsteps of his father, who had nobly honored the place of this congregation when he had come there in the order we have inserted above; when he himself also, after the death of his father, had come to visit Blessed Maurus and that same place, he likewise bestowed there, as was worthy of royal magnificence, by testamentary authority, two estates: one of which was called Villa Fabrensis, and the other Vosda.

[58] But when he also had honorably and peacefully held the summit of the kingdom for a short time, prevented by premature death, he left the monarchy of the realm to Clothar. Clothar frequently summons him to himself. This Clothar, having heard the fame of Blessed Maurus, frequently summoned him to his presence and made use of his most wise counsels. At length, when on one occasion Blessed Maurus had sent two of the Brothers to him for certain necessities, and the King had most graciously granted all the things for which they had come; he began to inquire of them carefully what and what kind of gifts his predecessors had conferred upon our place. When he had learned these things from them, he said: And our bounty, with God's favor, shall not be lacking to that place, especially since we hold greater power both of the kingdom and of riches than they, and have received from the Lord the will to do good.

[59] In his times, while Blessed Maurus was going around the villages and estates of the monastery in the course of his administration and management, one day on a property of the monastery named Gaudiacus, he entered a more secluded place for the sake of refreshment. While he sat there and was chanting psalms with two monks who had come with him, word was brought to him that Ansegarius, Archdeacon of the Church of Angers, was standing at the door and wished to speak with him. When the man of God had ordered him to enter and he had set forth the matters for which he had come; the Lord's man, St. Maurus, calling the monk Simplicius, said to him: This man, who has become familiar to us through his reverence and affability, we ought to give a drink of the cup of charity and inebriate with the wine of holy love, as spiritual men should do spiritually. When Simplicius said to him: We have no wine whatsoever except only in one very small vessel which customarily hangs from the saddle; the Saint of the Lord, Maurus, said to him: Bring it here. And when it had been brought, he added: Bring bread here also. And when they had also brought bread before him, making the sign of the Cross over the very small vessel, he said: God is able, St. Maurus multiplies wine with the sign of the Cross: who prepared a table for his people in the desert and produced water in abundance from the rock, to minister to us his servants also a sufficiency of wine from this small vessel. Wondrous to say and almost incredible, the deed followed the word. For although about sixty and more men were there, who drank from that same vessel three times, it was always found as full as if it had remained untouched after its first filling. When Simplicius had related this miracle to us after returning to the monastery with Blessed Maurus himself, we judged him to be deemed similar to Elisha, who fed many craftsmen for a long time with a few provisions.

[60] He heals a man suffering from cancer with the sign of the Cross. From that place, as he was returning to the monastery, he encountered on the road a certain common man, whose upper lip had been consumed by a cancerous ulcer, which had eaten away both the nose and a large part of the cheeks. The man of God, having compassion on his calamity, making the sign of the Cross before him, restored him to his former health.

[61] Clothar bestows various gifts upon him. At that time Clothar, coming to Angers, sent word to the man of God that he wished to go to the monastery. When word had been sent back by the man of God that he should come, taking a few men with him, he proceeded to go there. When he had arrived, he gave to that place the royal estate called Blazon; he also assigned by royal authority the estate called Longus-campus. Blessed Maurus also entreated him to deign to confirm by royal edict that the congregation of that place should be permitted to have its own elections through succeeding times. When the King, in accordance with the petition of the man of God, had willingly granted this by decree of royal authority, he departed, accompanied by his blessing.

a Others: 22 years.

b His name is inscribed on that day in many Martyrologies.

c Theodebald, as St. Gregory of Tours writes in book 4, chapter 9, died in the seventh year of his reign, which was the year of Christ 555.

d Clothar I, the son of Clovis, after the death of his three brothers and their children, held the monarchy of the Frankish kingdom for two years; he died in the fifty-first year from the death of his father, the year of Christ 562.

e MS. Ripatoire: seventy; others: forty.

f Other reading: Blanzon.

CHAPTER X.

The death of St. Maurus; his successors.

[62] From that time, Blessed Maurus was no longer willing to leave the monastery easily for any place: but having appointed Provosts and other administrators, he himself, devoting himself solely to God, to prayer and reading daily, strove to serve much more fervently than he had begun in his holy purpose. And when, seeing the growth of holy religion increasing for the better in his flock day by day, he was most devoutly offering to Almighty God the sacrifice of praise with lips of exultation, St. Maurus withdraws from public life, in the thirty-eighth year of the foundation of that monastery, when he had already reached his perfect age, with death approaching, and knew, in accordance with the prophecy of his most blessed Master, who had predicted that after the completion of the full triple course of twenty years the reward of his labors would be repaid to him by the Lord, that the end of his life was drawing near; having built himself a small dwelling near the church of Blessed Martin, he chose to take up a more solitary life.

[63] But since the flock of the holy congregation could not be without a ruler to watch over them diligently; Bertulfus having been placed over the monks. the most holy man, summoning the entire congregation, was deliberating most carefully about appointing an Abbot in his place. And when the entire congregation of the monastery had placed this matter in his judgment, as he who knew all better than each one knew himself, the most holy Father judged Bertulfus, a most noble man and most perfect in all religious life, whom he himself had most holily instructed, to be fit for undertaking such a burden. When the entire congregation had given its assent to this election, the most holy Father himself, seating him in the place of his own chair, and insinuating to him with paternal love each of the things in which he should exercise the care of so great a flock, withdrew into the house which, as we have said, had been built for him near the church of St. Martin, with only two Brothers elected by the congregation to live with and serve him, namely Primus and Anianus. living in a separate house: For he commanded us, who had come with him, to be diligently present and attentive to Bertulfus, whom he had appointed as Abbot, lest by chance he should deviate in anything from the rectitude of the regular path.

[64] When he had completed two and a half years in this manner, in contrition of spirit and mortification of the body, one night, when according to his custom he wished to enter the church of Blessed Martin and pour out his vows of prayers and tears to the Lord, the devil, accompanied by a great throng of his attendants, prevented him from entering the basilica, saying: Come now, Maurus, you who hoped to drive us from our own seats and came to such very distant regions, unknown to you and yours: now by seeing and experiencing you shall endure the most desolating devastation of our assault. He drives away the devil who insults him, For I, inflicting as I please the carnage of diverse deaths and raging among your people, shall now triumph, so that scarcely any shall seem to remain of so great a congregation assembled here. When the man of the Lord answered him: May the Lord rebuke you, Satan, and your words, by which you are a liar and the father thereof; who departs with a great noise: immediately the enemy, vanishing like smoke, also produced a most fearful and terrifying din, so that even the man of God himself thought the entire monastery had been shaken to its foundations. Awakened by this sound and struck with great terror, the Brothers immediately leaped from their beds, began to ring the bells, and chanted the nocturnal office.

[65] Meanwhile, the man of God, grieving with excessive affliction and weariness on account of what he had heard, having entered the church of Blessed Martin, he learns from an Angel that many of his followers will soon die: prayed the Lord to deign to reveal to him more certainly the things which the evil spirit had said to him; an Angel of the Lord, clad in the most resplendent garment, immediately standing before him, said: Why, O soul most beloved of God, are you so greatly grieved at those things which have been arranged to be done by God? For the devil, although he holds the chief place of all lying, yet by conjecture, especially concerning those things which he has frequently experienced, he foreknows many things. Whence you should know that he revealed what he disclosed to you not by his own will but by God's command: for in some measure what you heard is true. For the greater part of this congregation will be gathered to the Lord within a short time, as has been determined and preordained by him. But he will not triumph on that account, as he asserted, over any one of these even in the slightest degree: for instructed by your admonitions and exhortations, each one, prepared, will await the day of his calling with joy. After you have happily sent ahead all who will die in this present time, you, most blessed, shall follow even more blessed, as you have deserved.

[66] When these things had been said, the vision of the Angel standing and speaking was removed. The Saint of the Lord, when morning came, related in order to the entire congregation all the things he had seen. Then, employing toward them paternal solicitude, he exhorts his followers to prepare for death: he addressed them in this manner: Concerning those things which servants of God have come to know the Lord wills, if they should begin in any way to be sorrowful, their very sadness seems to resist the will of the Lord. And therefore, since he himself has set for mortals the end for finishing this life, which can be passed by none of those born, but from the time he threatened death to the first human beings his wrath remains in this irrevocable sentence; he has revealed to us that for those whom he willed, and in the order he decreed, the days of this life are to be ended shortly: let us wipe away the stains of our committed offenses with tears of penance and mortification of the body: and as the Prophet admonishes, diligently examining our ways and works, let us come before the face of the Lord in confession, that we may be able to enter the courts of the heavenly city with hymns of praise, and be found worthy to contemplate his glory perpetually with all the Saints with face unveiled. And because, dearest brothers, we now recognize that the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of the Lord, his judgments, which are sometimes indeed hidden but never unjust, being recalled, let us receive and endure them, as befits servants of a good Lord, with hearts raised up, taking the greatest care that no imperfect action accuse us, and watching more attentively lest the tempter, lying in wait for our heel, be able to ensnare us with the trap of deception on this road in which we are now entering the eleventh hour.

[67] By this exhortation and admonition of the holy man, the entire congregation began so to prepare itself for freely awaiting the last hour that all who departed from this life from that place at that time 116 having died, without doubt ascended to the heavenly homeland. For it came to pass that within five months one hundred and sixteen Brothers died there, and no more than twenty-four monks remained from so great a flock. Among whom we also buried at that time our companions and comrades Antonius and Constantinianus. Moreover, when so great a number of those who died at that time in that place had been completed, a pain in the side grievously attacked Blessed Maurus. As the illness grew worse, he himself also from pleurisy, dying upon his haircloth, in the forty-first year of his arrival at that place, on the eighteenth day before the Kalends of February, before the altar of Blessed Martin, lying upon the haircloth of his bed, when he had fortified his departure with the reception of the life-giving sacraments, with those disciples who had been left standing around him, he happily departed to the Lord: and he was buried in that same basilica on the right side of the altar. He shines with miracles: In which place, by his merits and prayers, God works many magnificent and wonderful things to the praise and glory of his name.

[68] He instructs Faustus and Simplicius to return to Cassino; After the death, indeed, of that holy man, when I, together with Simplicius, as he himself had commanded us on the very day of his burial, had resolved to return to our monastery, the man of the Lord, Bertulfus, besought and implored us not to abandon him as long as he lived. Not daring to offend him on account of his holiness, which they do after the death of Bertulfus. we dwelt with him for two years, during which time he survived. After his death, when Florianus, a man of the highest religious devotion, the son of our guide Harderadus, who had been nurtured by Blessed Maurus, had succeeded him in the governance of the monastery, and wished to retain us with many entreaties, we returned to you, O most holy Fathers, under God's guidance: and in obedience to your commands, we have written these things concerning the life and manner of living and the virtues of Blessed Maurus, though in unskilled speech. The days of the life of Blessed Maurus are reckoned thus: He was offered to God and entrusted to Blessed Benedict when he was twelve years old: he lived with him for twenty years: The age of St. Maurus. he dwelt in his monastery, which he himself built, for forty years and fourteen days; which together amount to seventy-two years and fourteen days. Blessed be God in all things, who reigns for ever. Amen.

a MS. Ripatoire: educauerat.

b Other reading: Amando.

ON THE RELICS OF ST. MAURUS AND HIS TRANSLATION.

Maurus, Abbot of Glanfeuil in Gaul (St.)

[1] The Fossatense monastery (in the year 1533 converted into a secular church and joined to the Diocese of Paris) was situated at the river Marne, about three leagues above Paris, founded in the time of Clovis II, in a place which bore the name Fossatus Bagaudarum, The body of St. Maurus translated to Fossatum, or Castrum Bagaudarum, as we shall say on the 26th of June in the Life of St. Babolenus. Here the relics of St. Maurus were brought from the Glanfeuil monastery on the Loire, about the year 868. Whence it was afterward called the monastery of St. Maurus. Sigebert mentions this in his Chronicle under the year 869: The body of St. Maurus, who was a disciple of St. Benedict, transported from Glandifolia into Burgundy on account of fear of the Normans, is transferred to the Fossatense monastery, which St. Babolenus, a disciple of Columbanus, built. Hence the augmented Martyrology of Usuard, published at Paris in the year 1536, has the following: In the territory of Angers, St. Maurus, Abbot, disciple of St. Benedict, whose body near the city of Paris is magnificently housed, honored, and venerated. Molanus has the same. Galesinius and Saussaius agree.

[2] Canisius errs, or whoever is the author of the German Martyrology, when he writes thus: not initially buried there: When he had died in the 92nd year of his age, his body was devoutly entombed near Paris, and illustrated with many miracles. He neither reached such an age, nor was he buried near Paris. The Cologne Martyrology is even more erroneous: In the territory of Angers near Paris in Gaul, St. Maurus, Abbot, etc. Trithemius also in the Hirsau Chronicle under the year 869: The body of St. Maurus, disciple of our blessed Father Benedict the Abbot, is transferred on account of fear of the Normans from Glandifolia to the Fossatense monastery in Burgundy.

[3] The anniversary of this Translation was recorded by Hugo Menard in the Benedictine Calendar on the 13th of November in these words: In the territory of Paris, the Translation of the body of St. Maurus, Abbot, disciple of our holy Father Benedict; when it was translated from Glanfeuil on account of the incursions of the Normans to the Fossatense monastery. The annual commemoration of the Translation; In the history of the Translation, of which we shall speak shortly, it is said that the sacred body was venerably placed in the church of Blessed Peter on the Ides of November. On which day Saussaius also inscribed it in the Gallic Martyrology; who again on the 5th of February has the following: On the same day, in the territory of Paris, the Translation of St. Maurus, Abbot and Levite. What this second Translation is, we do not know. In the same history, it is said that Charles the Bald, in the year of Christ 869, the 29th of his reign, Indiction 2, on the day of the Nones of February, came to the Fossatense monastery and venerated the Saint in person. In a certain codex written in a modern hand we have found under the 12th of March: On the same day, the Translation of St. Maurus, Abbot, Confessor. And this is the translation of which mention is made in chapter 4. In another recent manuscript, in which is cited a manuscript Martyrology of the Williamites of Bruges, under the 10th of June is found: The Translation of St. Maurus, Abbot, disciple of St. Benedict.

[4] The history of this Translation was written by one who was present, Odo, Abbot of Glanfeuil, history: by whom written? in the year 869. Papirius Masson cites this author in his Annals of France, book 2. But the Normans, he says, having been expelled from Gaul, made another incursion in the year 863. The river Loire flows into the British Ocean. Having entered its mouth, they most cruelly ravaged the territories of Nantes, Angers, and Tours. Odo, Abbot of the monastery founded by Maurus at the Loire, makes mention of that incursion in the preface to the book of Faustus of Cassino on the life of Maurus, in these words: When all around, almost all the places neighboring to us, the fierce nation of the Normans, ravaging with savage fury and laying waste with conflagration, etc.

[5] This history was published by Jacques Breul, a monk of the monastery of Saint-Germain-des-Pres in Paris, after the books of Aimoinus on the deeds of the Franks and the Cassinese Chronicle. whence is it published here? Our Rosweyde had collated it with a manuscript codex of Rouge-Cloitre, and from the same had transcribed the first preface, previously cited by Papirius. We have made use of two other older codices, from the monasteries of Bonnefontaine and Ripatoire: and we have collated it with the manuscript of Nicolas Belfort, a Canon Regular of Soissons.

[6] The above-cited Breul attests in book 4 of the Antiquities of Paris that in the church of St. Maurus at Fossatum there exists a casket, Relics now there; in which the body of St. Maurus, or its principal part, is kept above the high altar in an elevated place toward the East: there is also another smaller reliquary in which the head is enclosed. At Cologne, But Erhard Winheim writes in the Sacrarium of Cologne that in the collegiate church at Cologne on the steps of the Blessed Virgin Mary there exists the head of St. Maurus the Abbot. Perhaps in both places there is a portion of the skull.

[7] A part of the body of St. Maurus is preserved with due honor at Susa, At Susa, within the Piedmontese Alps, as Carolus Stengelius relates in the Images of Saints of the Order of St. Benedict. Leo of Ostia, in the Cassinese Chronicle, book 2, chapter 54, is the authority that an intact bone of the arm of the most blessed Maurus, decently enclosed in a silver casket, was sent by St. Odilo to the Cassinese monastery, at Cassino, whose narrative we shall recite below. Octavius Caietanus, our colleague, testifies in the Idea of the Work on the Saints of Sicily on this day that the arm of St. Maurus (whether the same one or another, we do not know) was also brought to Sicily: In Butera, he says, in the church of St. John, the Translation of the arm of St. Maurus the Abbot. At Butera in Sicily: Butera, or Buterium, is a town of southern Sicily with a new name, as Fazellus holds in decade 1, book 5, chapter 2, situated on a lofty hill, built upon the ruins, and those immense, of an ancient habitation. Cluverius in Ancient Sicily, book 2, chapter 10, holds that these ruins at the town of Buterium are not at all inconsistent with the site of ancient Mactorium.

[8] also in Spain? Above, when we were reviewing those whom we judged should be either relegated to other days or altogether omitted, we said that Joannes Marietta, in book 18 of the Ecclesiastical History of Spain, chapter 12, relates that the body of St. Maurus the Abbot is preserved in the village of Membrillar, near the city of Badajoz in Spain, and that his feast is celebrated on the 15th of January; but it is not known whether perhaps some relics of this same Abbot Maurus are there, or of another.

[9] In the manuscript Martyrology of the metropolitan church of Prague, after the eulogy of St. Maurus is added: Whose relics, namely a rib, At Prague; the most Christian Prince Charles IV, Emperor of the Romans, ever Augustus, and King of Bohemia, obtained from his sepulcher from the King of France, and gave to the Church of Prague. In this church a special feast of the Bringing of the relics is celebrated on the 2nd of January.

[10] In our own Belgium also there were formerly some relics of St. Maurus, as we discovered at Bavay. Bavay is a most ancient town of Hainaut, and, as certain learned men hold, the principal Roman station among the Nervii; as we conjecture, the Baganon of Ptolemy, book 2, chapter 9, the Bagacum of the Antonine Itinerary: but apart from the ruins of a Circus, underground walls, and foundations of immense buildings, which are dug up everywhere in the suburb, as we ourselves saw in the years 1630 and 1633, as well as traces of magnificent aqueducts which are visible not far from there, and ancient Roman coins which are collected everywhere throughout the countryside; formerly also at Bavay, an ancient city of Belgium, apart from these it retains hardly anything of its ancient magnificence. Here, besides the larger basilica of the town, there is a small chapel of the hospital sacred to St. Maurus. There is a tradition that some of his relics were formerly preserved there: but they have perished either through the ravages of wars and the plundering of the town, or by some other misfortune. Yet the devotion of the people toward the Saint has not diminished. Many, even from France, flock there for the sake of piety and their vows, fashioning legs and arms of wax and hanging them up, as monuments of help obtained from heaven. where miracles also occur. And that this devotion has flourished from the memory of all their ancestors (though nothing transmitted in writing exists) was attested to us by Christopher de le Beke, the parish priest and Dean of the town, a man distinguished by his outstanding zeal for the promotion of divine worship.

[11] After the history of the Translation and miracles of St. Maurus written by Odo, and the narrative of the arm translated to Cassino from Leo of Ostia, we shall append a certain other portent from book 4 of the Cassinese Chronicle, composed by Peter the Deacon after Leo of Ostia.

HISTORY OF THE TRANSLATION

By Odo, Abbot of Glanfeuil, from four ancient manuscripts.

Maurus, Abbot of Glanfeuil in Gaul (St.) BHL Number: 5775

By Odo, Abbot, from manuscripts.

FIRST PREFACE OF THE AUTHOR.

[1] Bound by the bond of holy love from the depths of his heart, to the Reverend Almodus, Archdeacon of the holy Mother Church of Le Mans, Odo, Abbot of the monastery which, situated on the precipice of the bank of the river Loire, is called from antiquity Glanfeuil, offers this small gift. Concerning the discovery of the Life of St. Maurus, and the perfection of his noble manner of life, character, and deeds, about which, as you recall, we have had frequent conversation between us, desiring to satisfy your brotherhood, as I remember you having often requested, lest you seem to be frustrated in the fulfillment of your petition, I have resolved to set down in writing with full fidelity The Author, at Almodus's request, the occasion by which I obtained the search for this matter, previously entirely unknown and unheard of both by us and by our predecessors. Indeed, I greatly congratulate your zeal also in this matter, as I observe you diligently inquiring how and in what way those things which we now have in hand concerning this most blessed man came to be known to us, for which we praise the Father of lights, from whom every good gift and every perfect gift descends from above, whom we rejoice was brought to our provinces, as you know, from the Pontiff of the holy See which you serve under God's authority, namely Blessed Bertichrannus, the outstanding ornament of all holiness. James 1:17.

[2] When the fierce nation of the Normans, ravaging with savage fury and laying waste with conflagration, was devastating almost all the places neighboring to us on every side; and barbarian force and atrocity had driven us from our beloved land and miserably deprived us of our former abodes; and no safe place of refuge remained for us anywhere; by a plan for preserving our lives, we resolved to seek the regions of Burgundy with the body of that same St. Maurus. which, fleeing into Burgundy with the body of St. Maurus. And when we had come to the estate of the illustrious Count Audo, on this side of the river which they call the Saone (which he had granted us for a time to inhabit, out of reverence and love for the holy body, or also for eternal reward), received by the kind favor of those dwelling there and by their generous bounty, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation eight hundred and sixty-three, Indiction 11, we deposited it with due honor in a suitable and fitting place.

[3] Having therefore arranged the Brothers, as the opportunity of the matter allowed, who, clinging to the sacred treasure, would serve it with due attendance, we judged it proper, being free and unencumbered, to return to our native soil. And when we were already following the nearby shores of the aforesaid river, we came upon a company of men of no low rank, who, having long since set out for Rome and traversing the holy places for the sake of prayer, were hastening to return quickly to their native land. And when, relieving their animals of their bundles on account of the labor of so great a journey, they had wearily sat down on the shore with us waiting for a boat, he had received from a Cleric named Peter and other pilgrims coming from Rome inquiring from them with a certain friendly and desirable curiosity about the position and adornment of the holy places and the guardianship of holiness and religion, the constancy of divine worship, the frequentation of ecclesiastical offices, and the zeal for and elucidation of Catholic doctrines, and, as is the custom from such travelers, hearing even more, I found in the basket of a certain Cleric who, as he asserted, was called Peter, and who, as he confessed, had gone there two years before from the district of Avranches, from the place of the holy Angel Michael, which is called At the Two Tombs, small quires almost consumed by extreme age, written in an ancient and blunt hand, containing the life of Blessed Benedict and five of his disciples, an unpolished Life of St. Maurus, which he interpolates, namely Honoratus, Simplicius, Theodore, Valentinian, and Maurus: which I barely managed to purchase for no small sum of money. And because they seemed to be corrupted both by their unpolished language and by the fault of the scribes, striving to correct the life of Blessed Maurus as best I could, having spent the labor of twenty days more or less, preserving the fidelity of the statements and miracles found therein, I rendered it more clear and accessible to readers, as it is now found.

[4] To which also, as your diligence has requested, I wish to append a booklet concerning the restoration of the aforesaid monastery and the repair of regular religious life in it, and also concerning the wonders which have been displayed there, and which still surviving and not slightly reverend persons attest to. Concerning the visions also divinely demonstrated there by angelic ministry, and adds recent miracles. and also concerning those things which, from the day of his Translation until now, both on the journey and in the lodgings of the many resting places, the divine majesty has deigned to work through that same servant of his, to the praise and glory of his name. Dedicating all these things to your name, I have judged them to be useful to readers, and especially to our own people. Whom I beseech through the truth that is in Jesus, that giving credence to what I have set forth truly and without pretense, they should not neglect to devote themselves diligently to the pursuits of a more devout life; so that, receiving the fruit of their labors on the day of retribution from the merciful Lord, they may be deemed worthy to share in the rewards of eternal life with him whose virtues they both hear and read.

a This is the letter cited by Papirius, as we said above; and, as he himself says and is evident from number 3, it was prefixed not only to the history of the Miracles and Translation, but also to the Life formerly written by Faustus, but interpolated by Odo.

b Others: Adelmodo, as below, and Adalmodo; but the MSS. of Ripatoire, Bonnefontaine, and Belfort, and also here in the second preface, call him Almodus.

c Thus the MSS.; but some read præcipitio.

d Other reading: reparatione.

e Above we said it was not Bertichramnus who was Bishop of Le Mans when St. Maurus came to Gaul, but St. Innocens, or Innocentius.

f Thus the MSS.; but Masson reads paterna.

g MSS. read X. This does not agree. It was XI.

h Abrinca. The city of the Abrincates, commonly called Avranches, an episcopal city in Gallia Lugdunensis II under the metropolis of Rouen.

i This town and monastery of St. Michael of the Peril of the Sea, or At the Two Tombs, is three leagues from Avranches, situated on a rock in the midst of the waves; of which we speak elsewhere.

k Antonius Yepez, in the Benedictine Chronicle, century 1, under the year 545, chapter 1, writes that this man was Abbot of Subiaco. We have not yet found his name in the Martyrologies.

l This Simplicius seems to be different from the companion of St. Maurus. Peter the Deacon mentions both in his book on the origin and life of the just men of the Cassinese monastery. The former was Abbot of Cassino. His discovery is recorded in the monastic Martyrologies on the 29th of March.

m This seems to be the Theodore at whose urging Faustus testifies he wrote the life of St. Maurus, whom Peter the Deacon in chapter 16 praises as distinguished in life and holiness.

n And he was Abbot of the Lateran, predecessor of Theodore, noble in flesh but nobler in spirit, as Peter the Deacon writes in chapter 15.

o Others: subiungere.

SECOND PREFACE.

To the most beloved brother and venerable man Adelmodus, Archdeacon, Odo, Abbot of the monastery of St. Maurus, sends the support of his love.

[5] I undertake to gather and arrange in the body of a single booklet the history of the ruin and restoration of the holy monastery, which, once nobly built by Blessed Maurus, is called from antiquity Glanfeuil, which I learned with full fidelity from venerable and most trustworthy persons still living in the flesh, as I recall your brotherhood, venerable Adalmodus, having often requested; and I have judged it worthy to insert the names of those same persons at the very beginning of the narrative, so that I might remove any scruple of doubt from readers, The Author: whence he received what he narrates. and by the probity of those same persons, pleasing to God and admirable to men, I might invite all hearers to embrace with truth and fidelity what I narrate. The first of these, both in the dignity of his rank and in the holiness of a more perfect life, is the venerable Godfrey, Abbot of the Fossatense monastery: who dwelt for a longer period in that same holy monastery under the rule of Theodradus of holy memory. Also Bilechildis the Abbess, in our age a special ornament of holy widowhood, who together with her most illustrious husband, Count Rorigo, in the restoration of that same monastery, according to what was shown and commanded to them from heaven, diligently kept watch for a long time. From her also I learned by frequent conversation most of what I relate. But also Bernegarius the Priest is brought forward as the third among these for giving testimony: concerning whose most truthful assertions none of us is permitted to doubt, who, knowing his worthy life in all things and especially in the pursuit of holy prayer, venerate him as a father more ancient than the most ancient: who for twelve continuous years lived in the aforesaid monastery, first with Gauzlinus of pious memory and afterward with his brother, the above-named Theodradus.

[6] Songs of Angels heard at Glanfeuil. To these are no less joined almost all the Brothers of the congregation of that place, who assert that they were very frequently struck with great terror by miracles, revelations, and visitations divinely arranged in their time at that place, and also by chants of inestimable and ineffable sweetness, celebrated by angelic ministry, and especially at nighttime. At other times, indeed, they maintain that such melody so captivated their souls that, their ears of the heart intent upon the sweet-sounding and resonant modulations of that same canticle, they delighted in nothing else than clinging to the strains of such great harmonies. Some of these I mention by name, when the opportunity of pursuing the account arises.

[7] The series of this narrative, moreover, begins from the time of Pippin of divine memory, running down to our own present year, which is the eight hundred and sixty-eighth from the Incarnation of the Lord. The body of St. Maurus translated in the year 868. In which year also we brought the most sacred body of that most blessed man, by order of the most serene King Charles, to the monastery of the holy Mother of God, the ever-Virgin Mary, and of Blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles (which is called from antiquity the Fossatense monastery), with due honor and a most numerous and celebrated concourse of peoples. Which the holy Bishop Aeneas, receiving it at the very entrance of the monastery and placing it on his own shoulders, with a company of venerable monks and a multitude of noble Canons, and with the adornment and apparatus of ecclesiastical ministries, carried it into the church of Blessed Peter with a sufficiently festive attendance; and deposited it with the solemn office of holy devotion in an iron chest prepared for this very purpose. Where it is now also venerated and honored with the help of heaven by the due and constant services of the monks, to the praise and honor of the Lord's name: who so manifestly glorifies his Saints, whom he has already eternally endowed with the rewards of heavenly joys, making them conformable and co-heirs of his only Son. By whose merits and intercessions may we be deemed worthy to obtain pardon for the offenses we have committed, we who glory in being redeemed by the shedding of Christ's holy blood.

a Other reading: Godefredus.

b MS. Bonnefontaine: Bennegarius.

c The edition of Breul: Gozlino.

d The same adds: surnamed the Bald.

e This Aeneas, Bishop of Paris, attended the Council of Toul at Savonnieres in the year 859, and that of Troyes in 867.

f It is added in the same edition of Breul: on the day of the Ides of November. This is absent from this passage in the MSS.

CHAPTER I.

Glanfeuil destroyed by Gaidulfus.

[8] Therefore, in the time of the most glorious King Pippin, while the observance of monastic religious life was still being most excellently maintained in that same holy monastery, and honor and dignity and an abundance of all things most copiously overflowed, and a full number of devout monks (as had been established by Blessed Maurus) was maintained there, that same most excellent King gave that place, with the integrity of all the possessions pertaining to it, to a certain Gaidulfus, a man of Ravenna. Who, exercising the barbarism of a most savage spirit and the harshness of fierce cruelty, began with execrable hatred to persecute the monks dwelling there. Gaidulfus harasses and expels the monks of Glanfeuil: Who, unable to bear his most inhuman oppression, fleeing in every direction, were scattered: so that there remained of them only fourteen, who, compelled by the affliction of poverty and unable to do otherwise, could scarcely extort daily sustenance by begging from the aforesaid tyrant, always maintaining their watch, as best they could, diligently at the body of the blessed man. And when they too were afflicted by the most severe torment both of the deprivation of hunger and of other miseries, and could not lead the austere life of the holy Rule's observance; having taken counsel, they laid aside their monastic garments, assuming the dress of canons. Whereupon that same most wicked man of tyrannical perversity, seizing the occasion against them, expelled them all, establishing there only five Clerics, persons of the most abject lowliness, by whom some of the offices of divine worship might be performed at the body of the holy man. Then, instigated by the devil who was his master, he razed the entire monastery to the ground; he destroys the monastery: so that he even tore up the foundations of several buildings, which is clearly evident today to those who inspect the site, since the deeply hidden foundations of various workshops are still visible there. At last he did not even spare the houses of the churches in that same holy place, saying: Just as the Lord commanded the slaughter of death to begin from his sanctuary, so let the destruction of our demolition, beginning from the holy places, more boldly pervade the remaining buildings.

[9] After all this, diligently searching for and finding the deeds of gift, by whose authority the assignment of all the properties given to that place was established, always adding worse things to the worst, he partly burned them, partly threw them into the Loire, and deposited some in the monastery of St. Albinus for safekeeping. When I had learned this by report in our own time, going on one occasion to Angers and approaching Anscherius the Provost, I began to entreat him with every prayer that if he knew of any of these in the archives or in the repositories of documents of that place, he scatters the documents: he would deign to return them to us. Then he said: I confess that I found something of this sort when I was examining the decrees of the ancient Kings: but since no one ever appeared to inquire of me about any of these things, and I paid no attention to such matters, amid the abundance of documents, they were put away with the same ease with which they were found. And when our instruments of decrees and deeds of gift had perished through the persecution of the Pagans, yours likewise perished along with them.

[10] Lest therefore we bring tedium upon readers from these matters, let us turn the discussion back to the matters proposed. This man, more wretched than the most wretched, not considering the avenging plague of his damnation, which was to follow him by God's just judgment for such bold presumptions, after he had exercised upon that place all that he had conceived in his mind, by God's just permission, having summoned throngs of friends and relatives to a banquet of an elaborate dinner, he began to recount to all present, desperately plunged into the abyss of vainglory, after the insatiable gorging of sumptuous foods and excessive drinking of unmixed wine, the crimes wickedly committed by him; Struck by St. Maurus, he dies miserably with his bowels spilled out. Lest, he said, the most foul race of monks, encouraged by vain hopes through succeeding times, be able to return to or reclaim this place, together with the destruction of the buildings the deeds of the estates have been removed, by which they could have imagined they would recover the possessions of such great lands. He had not yet completed his words, when behold, he saw standing opposite him above the table, at which he still sat in revelry, a man in the habit of a venerable monk, whose face blazed with a fiery appearance, and whose white hair, gleaming with the dignity of most handsome honor, shone brighter than snow. Who, bearing a rod in his hand and gazing for a time upon the wretch with fierce eyes, struck him with a powerful effort, with the heel in his belly and with the rod upon his head. Who, immediately deprived of his senses, and tossing his head frequently this way and that upon his shoulders, began to cry out wailing: Maurus, you are killing me! Maurus, you are killing me! When, with all present hearing, his eyes now blinded, which he had lost from the blow to his head, he frequently repeated these words; punished with the condemnation of the wretched Arius, with his intestines spilled out, he ended his wretched life (as he deserved), made a companion of demons.

[11] That these things happened thus is testified by Gerramnus, a monk of our congregation, who confirms that he frequently heard these things recounted, as they are here inserted, from his uncle, a monk of that same place. Whence the author learned this. Who, having been expelled from that same monastery together with the other Brothers by that same man of perverse mind, frequently coming to the house of his brother, the father of this Gerramnus, was accustomed to relate everything in order. Most devout and aged persons, who, enduring from that time to our own age, attest to these things with the most evident proofs, also corroborate this assertion. Of whom I also saw two: whom, summoning to myself for this very purpose and diligently inquiring of them about all things, they asserted these to be most true, as they themselves had seen with their own eyes; adding also this, that after the expulsion of the inhabitants of that place, The possessions of the monastery are seized by others. and the desperate punishment of that same wicked man, the estates and villages, by whose revenues and income that place had until then been sustained, were usurped and seized by a quite unjust spoliation, both by the Count of Angers and by other men of presumptuous and greedy disposition, for this sole reason: that there was no one who took care to bring these matters, as they had occurred, to the attention of the most august honor, namely of the great Emperor Charlemagne.

a Above in the Life, chapter 9, number 55, St. Maurus is said to have established that there should perpetually be 140 monks in the monastery of Glanfeuil.

b This is the monastery at Angers. We shall treat of St. Albinus, Bishop of Angers, on the 1st of March.

c The Author seems to take this word for an archive or record-room, although it otherwise signifies an enclosure or rampart.

d Other reading: Gerannus; another: Geranus.

CHAPTER II.

Glanfeuil restored by Rorigo.

[12] Count Rorigo When that same place seemed to be almost entirely desolate and reduced to a wilderness in every way, now in the time of the most pious Emperor Louis, with a very small number of villages (just as that wild ass had left it), it was conferred by that same Emperor upon Rorigo, a Count of devout and noble memory. Who, touched in heart by divine inspiration and anticipated by the grace of the divine gift, began diligently to inquire with his wife, the above-mentioned Bilechildis, how he might renounce the world, free from all worldly occupation, and attain the perfection of regular religious life, and what her own will might be concerning this matter. with his wife he resolves to renounce the world: And when that same venerable woman had given her assent to him in such a matter, and had promised that she would do the same according to the order of her sex; they were now zealously striving to investigate only the suitability of places in which they might accomplish this with heavenly aid. But since Almighty God had both decreed to restore that same place to its former religious observance, and had wished to make known to men that he would reward those same devout spouses with the wages of the perfect works by which they had kept watch in restoring the place; one day he touched the hearts of both, with the hand of holy desire, to visit the body of Blessed Maurus for the sake of prayer. Filled with the fervor of holy devotion, from the place of their habitation, which is called Boscus, mounting horses, they hastened to proceed there with sufficiently devout attendance. And having surveyed all the features by which that place had flourished and could flourish with most worthy honor, they judged it proper to labor in the reconstruction of the monastery by common counsel. Therefore, immediately sending to Tours, he begins to restore Glanfeuil: they summoned Lambert, a man of devout life, from the monastery of the holy Bishop Martin, having also enlisted Ebbo, a very vigorous man, related to them by blood kinship. When the venerable Count Rorigo had revealed to them his will concerning those things which have been written above, made more ardent in their own holy desire by their counsels and exhortations, they soon began with the utmost zeal to labor on the building of the monastery; laying foundations fittingly in the presence of those whom they had summoned.

[13] But when they had been continuously occupied for some time with the construction of so great a work, hindered by the interruption of certain impediments, they set out for Brennouven, a most ample estate of their possession. Where, while they lingered for a longer period, so that the interrupted work might be completed, and the work begun by them did not rise due to the neglect caused by their absence; to a certain Abbot of most reverend life, named Jacob, of the monastery of Cormery, when after the morning office he was striking the ears of the Divinity with the urgency of holy prayers in his accustomed manner, a certain man displaying the most resplendent habit of a monk, whose face gleamed with a rosy appearance and whose white hair shone like milk, the Abbot Jacob is sent to him, standing before him, spoke as follows: Go, he said, and proceeding to the regions of Brittany, seek out Count Rorigo: when you have found him, deliver to him these things divinely announced to you: You are not acting rightly, O man of good desires, in that, pressed by the sluggishness of an improvident mind, entangled in the occupation of earthly things, and neglecting those things which you had planned to accomplish, inspired by heavenly desire, you cling to temporal and perishable things by devoting yourself to them. But if you desire the Divinity to be propitious to you and to be your helper (as you had long wished), apply yourself most zealously to those works which were indeed devoutly begun by you but dangerously abandoned: so that, endowed by God with the merits of the wise man who built his house upon the rock, you may deserve to become an heir of the heavenly kingdom, with Paul the wise architect. 1 Corinthians 3:10. To whom the Abbot replied: I do not know Rorigo: and I do not know you who command such things. But he added: Hasten to seek him out quickly; as for who I am, it will be permitted to know as it pleases the heavenly Creator. Having said these things, he vanished. thrice warned, even with blows; Then he, amazed at what he had heard and seen, did not wish to reveal those things to anyone at all, carefully awaiting the outcome of the matter. When a week had passed, the same man appeared to him again, in the same habit, at the same hour as before, in the same place, rebuking him more sternly for having received his commands more negligently, and asserting that he was advising him to his benefit if he would hasten to obey what he had heard. But not even thus on this occasion did he set his mind to become the executor of what had been shown him, being sluggish with a certain excessive torpor: when behold, on the third day, terribly addressing him, he stood before him in the same place, and thrice struck him most powerfully on the back with a most bitter whip, as he sat reclining, threatening him with death if he should presume to delay any further in carrying out what he had heard. Who, excruciating with the excessive pain of the blows, for the divine scourge, passing through the softness of the skin and flesh, clung, so to speak, to the marrow of his bones, and also terrified by the fear of the threatened death, immediately hastened to proceed swiftly where he had been commanded.

[14] And when, after the long windings of the roads, having completed the laborious journey, he had at last arrived at Brennouven as he had wished, and had been announced to the aforesaid Count, as soon as he entered his presence, requesting a more private place from him, he indicated that he had been specially sent to him. And immediately, saying nothing further, he nimbly began to strip himself. which he shows to Rorigo and urges him to pursue what he had begun: The Count, thinking him turned to madness, was striving to restrain him by resisting. To whom he said: I am not raving, most just of men, as you think, but bringing you the commands of a heavenly oracle, I desire to strengthen you with more evident proofs. And saying this, and uncovering his back, he showed him the bruises still livid, bathed in tears. And after this he revealed the order of the matter. Then when his wife, summoned by him, had entered, he repeated everything to her as well, likewise showing the wounds of the divine scourges. Therefore, astonished by such and so great miracles, they began to deliberate carefully how they might more attentively attend to the work begun. Then they retained that Abbot with them for fifteen days, eagerly bestowing upon him the attention of their devotion, and ordering him to be soothed by the application of frequent ointments. When, with his scars now healed, they summoned him to themselves, they promised to obey the divine commands in all things. Thus at length, having endowed him with not small gifts, they sent him home joyful and with a cheerful heart, and after this they resolved to return to the district of Angers.

[15] And when they had turned aside to the place called Vernentis for the purpose of staying, suddenly the aforesaid matron, being pregnant, began to be so vehemently afflicted with the ailment of adverse health that all who were present were compelled to despair of her life. But her honorable husband the Count, vigorously managing her progress, arranged to complete his journey to the aforesaid place with the speed of horses, now thinking only, with a sufficiently mournful mind, about the burial of his wife. who is again warned by a divine voice But when he had begun to cross the Loire by boat, and the vessel already seemed to be swimming in the middle of the river, a sphere of fire like a broad shield, sent from heaven, appeared above his head, whose fragrance he perceived so strongly that he feared the hair of his head would be consumed. Therefore rendered astonished at what he both saw and felt, he received an oracle of a heavenly voice of this kind: Build here, it said, build here, build here. Unless you now pledge to the Divinity that you will do this, you shall by no means henceforth enjoy the sweet kisses of your departed wife, nor prosperously reach the limits of the life granted to you. he promises to do it: and suddenly his wife recovers: He alone, seeing and hearing these things in the middle of the river's channel, and promising that he would fulfill all things, as soon as he began to tread the sandy ground when the boat touched shore, he swiftly and reverently sought out the body of Blessed Maurus with the fervor of holy devotion: for he had crossed the river not far from that place; but, as can be estimated, at a distance of about two hundred paces. At length, at that same hour, as they afterward discovered when comparing their accounts, his wife was relieved of the most grievous weight of her illness, who had already lain for three days and as many nights without taking food or drink: and when she too had been brought by boat to the same place, without anyone's assistance, she approached the shrine of the holy man with sufficiently devout desire.

[16] At that time a certain Bertingus, born of no ignoble family, was possessing that same place as a benefice by their gift, together with his wife Huninga. Having remained there for two days out of love and consideration for the place, they resolved to return to their usual habitation at Boscus. Where one day the same venerable Count, sitting in a small oratory conveniently built there (as is the custom of noblemen) after the morning hymns, was attending to divine contemplations, persisting in psalms and prayers through meditation, when a man of unknown appearance, visibly standing before him, again he is warned not to delay the work: spoke as follows: Do not, he said, in any way henceforth delay concerning those things which have been divinely announced to you; for after the death of Emperor Louis, the opportunity of time will not smile upon you so favorably, that you will be able to attend to the divine commands as freely as now. Moreover, so that your wife may more fully recover from the ailment of shoulder and arm, let a sufficient number of leeches be applied to her. Having said this, he departed.

[17] Furthermore, he immediately summoned his wife and narrated to her in order all that he had seen: and again summoning Lambert and Ebbo by dispatched messengers, they reported to them what had happened or been shown to them. Who, together with them, praising and blessing God, exhorted them to set aside all else and strive most zealously to complete as quickly as possible what they had indeed salutarily begun but rather negligently omitted, according to the divine response brought to them. And they, obeying their counsels, barely managed to obtain by untiring prayers that Ingelbertus, a man of most holy life, Abbot of the Fossatense monastery, should become their co-worker. At length, therefore, overcome by their vows and familiarity, taking along the most perfect Brothers of his congregation, he proceeded to the place. Of whom two especially shone in our age like two great luminaries in our Order, both in divine contemplations and in all the observances of the holy Rule, he brings distinguished monks there. namely Gaubertus, brother of that same Count Rorigo, and Wilermus: how great their nobility and power were, how they shone in secular honors of dignity, and how perfect a life they led in all things, after renouncing the trappings of the fleeting world and clinging not sluggishly to the Lord's commands, choosing to seek the cenobitic way of life, anyone who desires to know can learn truthfully from all who were able to know them and still survive in the flesh. And because that place, in all the dwellings suitable for monastic observance, was already nearly built through the efforts of the good spouses, as it is now; the venerable Abbot Ingelbertus, leaving behind a more abundant number of Brothers with those we mentioned above, and strengthening them in holy religious life, hastened to return to his own place, certain indeed of their untiring observance of holy perfection.

a MS. Ripatoire: Corimacensis. MS. Bonnefontaine and Belfort: Cormaricensis. Cormery is a monastery and town in Touraine on the river Indre, the birthplace of Joachim Perionius.

b MS. Ripatoire: Gauzbertus.

CHAPTER III.

Glanfeuil entrusted to the Fossatense monks, then seized from them.

[18] But the venerable Count, lest through succeeding times that place, perhaps through the negligence of its inhabitants, should deviate from the rectitude of the regular path, Glanfeuil is subjected to the Fossatense monastery: obtained from the Most Serene Emperor Louis, by a sacred document, an Imperial edict: that the rulers of the Fossatense monastery, always exercising providence over that same place, should apply the diligence of their care to both the place and the congregation with watchful attention in all things; namely, appointing as Masters and Provosts for them such Brothers of their own congregation, by whose direction and governance all things to be accomplished there, both internally and externally, might be diligently arranged. How this was taken away and burned with fire in the time of Ingelbertus, we think it better to pass over in silence than to report. When therefore those men whose names have been inserted above, together with the rest entrusted to them, had begun to establish and order that same place with sufficient honor and religious care; after a very short time had passed, they strove with the utmost zeal to acquire and assemble there some who would serve God through the observance of holy religion. Indeed, from their own monastery, by order of their Father, they brought with them all things necessary for divine worship, and which they had feared they might lack in the newly begun place.

[19] And as the increase of spiritual growth, through their ministry, did not cease daily to bring forth no small fruit of souls to God in the harvest of holy maturity at that place; Louis of most august memory conferred upon his son Pippin, together with the other things which seemed fitting to the greatness of his majesty, also the County of Angers, with its abbeys and royal estates situated in that district. Whence it came to pass it is given to Ebroinus, afterward Bishop of Poitiers; that by the counsel and exhortation of the illustrious Count Rorigo, Ebroinus, then still flourishing in the bloom of youth in the order of the Clergy, but afterward elevated to the Pontifical Chair in the Church of Poitiers, deserved to receive this place, whose restoration is the subject of our discourse, by a solemn donation of the glorious King Pippin: namely, for this reason, lest falling into the hands of strangers, regular religious life should be eliminated from it, as had formerly happened. For that same most noble Count had resolved to choose there the place of burial both for himself and for his wife, children, and other relatives; where he himself also rests, laid to rest by God's disposition and his own choice. For by the kinship of carnal nobility, that same Ebroinus was related to him. When therefore he had obtained this from Pippin (as he had wished), approaching also the most pious Emperor Louis, now established as Bishop, he obtained that same place with the fullness of all the possessions which it was known to possess at that time, as a hereditary and perpetual gift: as is attested by the celebrated deed of his sacred authority, which is even today preserved in the most careful repository of our archive.

[20] He, therefore, following the command of the aforesaid Count and obeying his will, granted the Brothers of the Fossatense monastery the most free authority over that same place, as long as that same most noble and most reverend man remained in the body by God's will. But when the light of the present had been taken from him, this man, after Rorigo's death, sends the Fossatense monks home. when he inquired about the authority by which that same monastery had come into their power and dominion, and they were unable to show it to him; since indeed (as was indicated above) it had already been fraudulently taken away and consigned to fire; he retained some Brothers from the aforesaid monastery and ordered the rest to return to their own place. And this, after the death of Emperor Louis and of Rorigo of just memory, he undertook to do, induced by certain men of unsound heart. Approaching the Most Serene King Charles and showing him the deed of gift of his father, by whose authority he held that same place by right of ownership, he entreated him to deign to confirm the edict of the Lord his father with his own new decrees. To whose prayers he most willingly assented and confirmed with the most celebrated documents what was requested by such a great Bishop. In which it is also contained that as long as anyone from our lineage can be found who is able to rule and govern that place according to the authority of Blessed Benedict, living regularly himself, no other should hold the office of Rector there.

a Pippin was created King of Aquitaine by his father Louis the Pious in the year 817; he died in the year 838.

b He attended the council at the palace of Ver in the year 844. In the Life of Louis under the year 839, he is called the most noble Bishop of Poitiers, and is said to have stood out among the greatest of the magnates.

CHAPTER IV.

The relics of St. Maurus translated. Robbers repressed.

[21] Having therefore accomplished these things with sufficient vigor, he presented to the royal majesty Gauzlinus, a most learned man and one most devoutly trained in monastic perfection, the son of the holy man Gausbertus; and urged him to appoint him as Abbot over that place with the honor of the abbatial office. Which the King graciously accepted (for he loved him greatly for his learning and most learned speech, in which that most noble man excellently excelled), and honorably constituted him Abbot in the presence of the magnates of his entire kingdom: Gauzlinus translates the relics of St. Maurus promising to give him greater things when the opportunity to do so should present itself. Who, having undertaken the pastoral care of that place imposed upon him by the King, began to grow nobly in holy religious life; and in divine worship he shone in his time as second to none.

[22] How he translated the body of Blessed Maurus from the southern side of the altar of Blessed Martin, behind it (as is the custom in our time), namely to the eastern part of that same altar, can be most fully known from his own writings. For he continues thus: In the year of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, eight hundred and forty-five, Indiction eight, on Thursday of the fifth week in Lent, on the fourth day before the Ides of March, the bones of the most blessed Levite Maurus were translated and of others; by the servant of God Gauzlinus and other priests, to the place where they are now venerated, honorably deposited in an iron chest. On this same day also, the relics of the Protomartyr Stephen (which had been deposited by the Abbot Bertulfus, in the time of King Clothar, near the tomb of the aforesaid Father Maurus, in his honor, in a small wooden box) were found so intact and without blemish that they seemed to have been placed there on that very day. In which a small fragment of a very ancient parchment was also found, whose text, almost obliterated by long wear, could scarcely be elucidated by the most penetrating investigation. The text, finally deciphered, was found to contain the following: Here rests the body of Blessed Maurus, monk and Levite: who came to Gaul in the time of King Theodebert, and departed from this world on the eighteenth day before the Kalends of February. The patronage of Blessed Peter the Apostle was likewise found there in a small chest, which had been erected at his head and covered with a mound of sand, fittingly (as one may suppose) for the preservation of the same. Thus far he.

[23] Brothers of our congregation who most devoutly attended the obsequies of the translation of so great a man on that day have testified to us which are illuminated by miracles: that eight well-known persons were healed there of various infirmities: of whom three were blind, two lame, one paralytic, and two mute women. In the same year, on the day before holy Pentecost, the third day before the Kalends of June, the servant of Christ Gauzlinus was ordained as the first Abbot after the restoration of the monastic order, he is ordained Abbot. in the monastery of St. Maurus in the church of the Holy Savior before the altar which he himself had built in honor of the undivided and life-giving Trinity, by the supreme Pontiff of the city of Tours, Ursmarus, and two other Bishops: whom also in that same year, first Ebroinus the Bishop had promoted to the order of the diaconate in the Church of Poitiers, and then Bishop Dodo had promoted to the dignity of the priestly order in the Church of Angers. But now the course of our narrative must be turned to the notable miracles which were demonstrated from heaven through this most blessed man in this same place.

[24] When that same place was being suitably and devoutly governed by the providence and administration of the Fossatense monks, namely of Gausbertus of just memory and the others (whom we mentioned above), at that time when between the most glorious King Charles and his brother Lothar a long struggle arose for the summit of the kingdom; things deposited at Glanfeuil by St. Aldricus which, with God's protection, the most serene King Charles vigorously enough claimed publicly by fighting with arms; the Bishop of the Church of Le Mans, Aldricus, bringing all that he had in the village called Cauania to the aforesaid servant of God Gausbertus, entrusted them to our monastery for safekeeping. When a certain Haimericus and his associate Gerardus had discovered this, sending their envoys there, they ordered that all things which had been deposited there by the aforesaid Bishop should be seized by force, unless they were promptly delivered by the Brothers. When word had been sent back to them from the monastery that a certain law from the Lord had been established concerning deposits, and that they were prepared to endure all things, even the most extreme dangers, for the safeguarding and preservation of these; they themselves, kindled with anger and blinded by greed, galloped to the monastery on their sweating horses, giving orders to their men that while they themselves spoke with the Brothers, those men should strive to force open all the doors of the buildings in which the entrusted goods had been stored, without any fear of terror. the plunderers, Who, obeying their impious commands, as soon as the authors of such evil entered and began to deal more harshly with the servant of God Gausbertus and the other Brothers concerning the same matter, bursting in with drawn swords, they were striving to carry off everything by breaking down the doors.

[25] When this had been reported to the man of God, having summoned the Brothers, he himself, bathed in tears, exhorted them to pray more earnestly for the mercy of Almighty God and to demand with frequent repetition that the intercession of St. Maurus would swiftly come to their aid. Then, with the bells ringing, taking up the relics of the Saints, and having begun a Litany, he proceeded with the entire number of Brothers to the place where wine was already being poured out upon the ground and a most bloody slaughter was arising. they are punished from heaven. And although the serenity of the sky was most pleasant and the brightness of the sun shone most clearly, suddenly, as the Brothers began to invoke the name of Blessed Maurus in the Litany prayer, so great a crash of thunder resounded with menacing terror beyond measure, and so great a flash of hurled lightning blazed forth, that all who had come there, deceived by the evil of plunder, feared that they would immediately face mortal danger; especially since a sudden flood of rain, following upon the unexpected downpour, prevented them from leaving through the doorways. Whence it came to pass that four of them, having lost their senses and turned to madness, compelled the rest to take only the protection of flight. Who, made more wretched than the most wretched, leaving the paths of the roads full of vessels and wineskins, never dared thereafter to cause any trouble to the inhabitants of that place. That these things were accomplished through the merits and intercessions of the most blessed Confessor of Christ, Maurus, the truthful assertion of the monks who testify that they were present affirms; of whom it suffices that only two are designated by name, namely Bernegarius and Raimundus.

a Odo here calls the fifth week the one following Laetare Sunday, which is commonly reckoned as the fourth. In that year Easter fell on the 29th of March, with the Dominical letter D.

b This is Clothar II, father of Dagobert; for Clothar I, his grandfather, died before St. Maurus himself in the year 562.

c Thus the three MSS. Belfort had written buxcula, or buxula. Breul published pyxide; and indeed pyxis seems to be derived from pyxos, which signifies boxwood.

d Thus the MSS.; but Breul reads arcula.

e Indeed in that year Pentecost fell on the 16th day before the Kalends of June, or the 17th of May.

f MS. Ripatoire: Orsmaro. Lupus of Ferrieres also names him thus in letter 16.

g He attended the Fourth Council of Tours in the year 849, the Second of Soissons in the year 853, etc.

h Lothar, after his father's death, sought to draw everything to himself; twice defeated in battle by his brothers Charles the Bald and Louis in the years 841 and 842, he at last came to terms with them.

i We treated of St. Aldricus, Bishop of Le Mans, on the 7th of January.

k Thus the MSS.; but Breul reads Girardus.

CHAPTER V.

Songs of the heavenly host. Benefits bestowed upon the afflicted.

[26] In the same year, a certain servant of God named Annowaredh, of the Breton race, was commanded through a nocturnal vision not to neglect to visit the monastery of St. Maurus for the sake of prayer. Who, having completed the journey of a rather long road, crossed the channel of the Loire not far from the monastery of that blessed man. Two Brothers, sent by the venerable Father Gausbertus, going to Angers, met him on the way. Seeing him frequently from a distance prostrating himself upon the ground in the form of a cross (for this was his custom, Annowaredh, a devout man that whenever, having finished a psalm, he began to say the Gloria Patri and what follows, he immediately prostrated his entire body upon the ground), they thought him insane. And when they had approached him, they learned from his interpreter the reason for his frequent prostration; he comes to Glanfeuil: and after this, continuing their journey, they showed him the road that led to the monastery. Who, entering the church, when the Brothers began to chant the vesper office, humbly stood between two screens with his head bowed, as befits one who stands before God. The voice of the precentor, intoning the Antiphon, Excelsus super omnes gentes Dominus (for that day was a great and most celebrated one, called Sunday), caused him to raise his head a little. And he saw through the window on the southern side of the altar an Angel entering, whom a man of very honorable appearance was following, wearing the habit of a Deacon and clothed in a holy stole in his proper order. Who, coming together with the Angel before the altar, he sees St. Maurus offering the prayers of the monks to an Angel: and extending his arms downward, that is, looking toward the choir, and turning himself again to the altar, was, as it were, offering the prayers of the servants of God to the Angel standing upon the altar. Who, receiving them from him, seemed to elevate them in the sight of God. He, seeing and admiring this for a long time, when the prayer was now being completed by the Priest, observed the Angel departing through the eastern window. The Deacon, however, descending through the middle of the choir and passing alongside him, spoke these same words in his ear, saying: I come here often, and I do this frequently. Saying this, he vanished.

[27] He immediately fell upon the ground, bathed in tears and anxious with fear, and began to repeat in Latin such words as: Holy Maurus, visitor and guardian of your servants, intercede for us who are unworthy and sinners. Continuing this with wailing and weeping and striking the ground with his head, he was at last raised from the pavement by the Brothers who had gathered around him, and asked why he was mourning and weeping inconsolably in sorrow; he answered that he was conscious of his sins, and was weeping in prayer that he might deserve to receive pardon for them from the Lord. Gauzlinus, then still a youth of good character, but afterward (as was said above) Abbot of that same place, made in the order which we related above, understanding that he had either seen or heard something of great importance there, began to entreat two Brothers of that same congregation, Bego and Winchelus, who had knowledge of the Breton language, reluctantly he narrates the vision: to endeavor to inquire of him more familiarly the cause of such great lamentation, or where he was going. Who, approaching him most devoutly, could scarcely obtain from him that he would not refuse to reveal to them the order of what had occurred, as he had seen and heard it. The venerable Father Gausbertus also retained him with himself for fifteen days: during which he could not prevail upon him to taste even a little wine. For whenever he had promised to do this, as soon as he brought the cup of wine to his mouth, he refuses to drink wine. he was prevented by the most copious flood of tears and sobs. Which the servant of God Gausbertus, pondering with a deeper mind and perceiving that he did this solely for the sake of God, in no way presumed to trouble him further with this kind of annoyance; but having endowed him with all things which he perceived he needed, he permitted him to return home with joy; blessing and praising God for all things which he had heard and seen, as they had been divinely shown and demonstrated to him.

[28] In the time of Abbot Gauzlinus, on the feast of the Holy Innocents, when the Brothers were celebrating the nocturnal office in the church of the Savior, and that same Abbot was reciting the twelfth Lesson, as is the custom in monastic congregations; suddenly all the Brothers heard voices of singers resounding with great and inestimable sweetness in the basilica of St. Martin, in which the body of Blessed Maurus lay. And this happened before his most sacred body had been translated from there to the larger church. And when, astonished by so great a miracle, all sat still, Songs of Angels heard at the body of St. Maurus, and that same Abbot, having finished the lesson, began to inquire by whom the harmony of so inestimable sweetness of manifold and diverse voices was being celebrated, two of the Brothers, to whom the custody of this basilica had been entrusted, quickly began to go forth, so that going out through the doors of the church, they might more diligently perceive what they were hearing, or understand something of what was being said. But before they reached the door of that church, which, being situated on a hill, made the ascent slower for those climbing it, the entire melody of that song came to an end, and could no longer be heard by anyone. with an unusual light and fragrance; Yet the splendor of an immense light, which had filled that entire basilica, they were deemed worthy to see, partly through the windows from outside, and partly after entering, with open vision. It was therefore made known to all that these things had been celebrated and performed by the ministry of Angels, keeping vigil at the body of the blessed man. Indeed, as could be discerned, the melody of such sweetness resounded with major sweet-sounding modulations, and more frequently the jubilation of the honeyed voice of the heavenly hosts, like that of children. From that day, therefore, these things were frequently heard and celebrated at his most holy tomb, especially during the nocturnal hours: as the most reverend Abbot Godfrey and many Brothers of that same monastery, who testify that they frequently heard these things, confirm with most truthful assertions.

[29] A certain Cleric named Mainfredus, who was accustomed to sleep in a small house adjoining that basilica for the sake of its custody, when he had composed his limbs upon his bed at the midday hour, was pushed in his side and awakened by a man of unknown appearance, and was ordered to go out quickly. The guardian of the church is preserved from danger of collapse: When, weighed down by sleep, he neglected to do this, and turning to his other side had closed his eyes in slumber; that same one, again assuming the appearance of Othbertus, a monk of that monastery, and summoning him with frequent calls, asserted that he wished to lie down in his bed on account of excessive fatigue. And he said it seemed to him that his very master Othbertus, who at that time was the treasurer of the churches of that place, had laid himself down on the bed from which he himself had risen. But when he had entered the basilica and given himself to prayer, that house from which he had gone out collapsed entirely. But he, thinking Othbertus, whom he had left in bed, as he hoped, was dead, hastened at a swift run to the gates of the church of the Holy Savior, and pushing them with a mighty effort, asserted wailing that his master had been crushed by the collapse of that house. But Othbertus, rising from his own bed, unlocked the doors of the church and proclaimed that he was raving. He, on the contrary, revealing the order of events, showed him the collapsed house; it is given to understand that this was done by God's will, either through an Angel, the visitor of that place, or through that same most holy man, lest the guardian of the basilica should incur mortal danger near his most sacred body.

[30] The helmsman also of a certain raft, of those that, laden with great merchandise for profit, are accustomed to ascend up the Loire, when, climbing the mast of the ship to readjust the rope of the sail, from which it had slipped, from the turning mechanism, was caught by the loop of a thinner cord around the thumb of his left hand and most tightly constricted. When he attempted with the help of his right hand to disentangle the triple insertion of that same loop, suddenly having lost the mast around which he had been clinging, he began to hang desperately. another is saved from danger of death. What the sailors should do, where they should turn, they did not know. For they feared to cut the rope from which he hung, lest he be dashed to pieces by falling suddenly. But also unable to climb upward, being blocked by the suspension of that trapped man, so that they might help him in some way, they began to invoke the name of Blessed Maurus, that he might deign to aid the wretch placed in the crisis of death by his holy merits and intercessions. This happened under his monastery, on the shore where the fishermen serving that place landed. When the cry of the sailors arose, the Brothers gathered together and began, with the bells ringing, to implore the mercy of Christ and the aid of Blessed Maurus with the most urgent prayer: when behold, suddenly, while they were praying, he who had been hanging began to be seen gradually lowered from above. And when he was now standing with his soles upright in the ship, without anyone's help, he was freed from the knot of the most tight constriction; and the rope of the sail (no less marvelous to say than to behold) hastened back to its proper place, while the sailors stood amazed, and with a sufficiently favorable breeze began to direct the ship, with all praising and blessing God for such great benefits of such miracles, celebrated there through the most blessed man.

a Thus the three MSS. Breul: Anouareth. MS. Ripatoire: Annovvareth.

b That is, of the sail, from peripetazein, to extend.

CHAPTER VI.

The wicked punished from heaven.

[31] How the divine clemency was always present as a defender to this place through the merits of this blessed man, and exercised its avenging right hand against his persecutors who had presumed in any way to molest the possessions belonging to it or to persecute his household, A persecutor of the monks, as we have seen with our own eyes and have learned from faithful men of our time, namely from the monastic order of the congregation of that same place, by true testimonies; we judge should be briefly added. A certain man of nobler birth, named Witherius, with the cruelty of a fierce spirit, began to rage violently against the men assigned to the monastery, to such a degree that, in his malice, he took the life of one member of the household. When this had been reported to the monastery, by order of Abbot Gauzlinus, all the Brothers began to implore the mercy of Almighty God before the body of the blessed man: that through the merits of the holy man, both he might cease from the perversity of his most atrocious spirit, and the innocent household might be freed from his most savage devastation: and when he had learned that this was being done unceasingly for several days before the sepulcher of Blessed Maurus, terrified by their prayers, driven by fear lest perhaps he should incur mortal danger for his crimes, he sent his own servant to the Abbot and Brothers at the monastery, that they might deign to receive and possess him in place of the one he had killed. he makes amends for the damage, But he did not escape the vengeance of the avenging punishment for this. For, lest the prayers of the servants of God seem to have been poured out in vain, and the aid of the holy man be doubted as not being at hand for those serving him and invoking God through him, the divine scourge immediately prostrated the wretch. Who, coming to extremity, and now lying desperately in bed, suddenly, while being observed by those attending him, gathering himself archwise with what strength he could, nimbly leaped from the bed, yet by St. Maurus's vengeance he perishes miserably. horribly soiling both himself and those standing around with a discharge of urine, and with a loud cry, repeating: Alas, St. Maurus, even though I took your servant from you by killing him, I substituted a better one in his place from my own right. Why do you persecute me? Why do you kill me? Wailing these words unceasingly for six consecutive days, as the illness grew worse, on the seventh day at last, with these same words, he cut short his wretched life.

[32] A certain Wulfuinus, a distinguished man according to worldly dignity and surpassing some in the equestrian order, when throughout the entire Lenten season he had forcibly taken from the Brothers the tax of fish (which they call Coenadicum according to the custom of the province); and would not yield to the frequent messengers sent to him by the Abbot and Brothers, so that the payments due from the monastic fishermen might be rendered as owed, the monk Gerfredus, a man of great life, One who robs the monks of their property, (who had long led an eremitical life for twenty years, abstaining from everything that could intoxicate) finally approaching him, threatened him with death unless, repenting of his past actions, he would henceforth allow the Brothers to receive without hindrance what belonged to them. To which he in no way assented, but persevered in his former malice. The aforesaid Abbot Gauzlinus therefore decreed by common counsel that, after the morning hymns were completed, the Brothers should daily chant the seven psalms at the tomb of Blessed Maurus and pray that the mercy of Christ would swiftly come to their aid against the tyrant. when they pray thus When this had been performed by them with the most urgent prayer throughout that entire season of fasting; on the very day of the Lord's Resurrection, after every preparation of manifold feasts and the most joyful merriment of all celebrations, which the Christian world celebrates on that day more grandly and more solemnly in honor and reverence of so great a festivity, he is wounded by a friend: while he sat upon the privy seat of his chamber; by a certain man who was the most honored in his household, named Adalgaudus, he was struck with his own very sword, which that man held before him, with a most powerful blow through the middle of his crown, and falling headlong, with his shameful parts exposed, he lay prostrate like a lifeless corpse. acknowledging his guilt, he is healed: Who, after a little while carried to his bed by the hands of his servants, and somewhat recovering his senses, began openly to confess that he had suffered such things on account of the injury inflicted upon the servants of God: and immediately sending to the monastery, he begged pardon for his offenses from the Brothers through the cries and wailings of his wife. And when two of the elders had been sent to him by the Abbot for the sake of absolution, he asserted that he had been fatally struck by Blessed Maurus, because he had presumed to cause trouble to those who served him. For even the one who had wounded him confessed that he had suddenly conceived in his mind that this man should not live who had dared to be troublesome to the worshippers of God: although he himself was entirely ignorant of afterward relapsing, he perishes miserably. those things which had been inflicted upon the monks by him. For on Good Friday he had come from the district of Le Mans, to share in the common joy of the holy days with him. When therefore, already in the third month, with the constant care of physicians expended upon him, he had begun to recover more fully, desperately blinded in heart, he began to deliberate with himself how he might avenge the punishment of his beating upon the monks, inflicting worse things upon them than before, saying that they had wished to kill him with their prayers, or rather, as he declared, their curses. Therefore, raging with such fury of an insane mind, he set out for Le Mans, to divide among himself and his brother named Herveus the portion of the estates belonging to him. But when a dispute arose between them (as is customary in such matters), he was pierced through the vitals by his brother's right hand and perished.

[33] The grooms of the horses of the honorable Gerelmus, who is even today held in higher esteem in the household of Abbot Agelwinus, when they wished to take wine from the monastery by force, and began to inflict blows on the servants who contradicted and resisted them; a tumult having arisen, some of the Brothers ran to the scene: Abbot Theodradus also came himself when a messenger brought him the news. One who is injurious to the monks, When he began to reprove their insolence with a gentle rebuke, one of them, who pressed more vehemently than the others, began irreverently to assail him with insults. The Abbot then struck him on the forehead with the reliquary casket which he carried on his breast, and moreover spoke these words: May Almighty God, through the merits of Blessed Maurus and the other Saints whose relics are venerated in this casket, demand penalties and vengeance from the despisers of himself and his servants; and especially from you, who, serving the evil of plunder, lead such robbers. And after this he ordered them to be driven from the monastery. But that man, entering a fishing boat which served the Brothers' needs, wished to cross the Loire in it. A certain monk named Assuerus, meeting him, said: You are not acting rightly, in that, not content with the other evils you have inflicted upon those who serve Blessed Maurus, you also attempt to take away the boat that serves their necessities; and when he accomplished nothing by pursuing such words; The boat, he said, belongs to Blessed Maurus; you do not have permission to push it further. and blasphemous against St. Maurus To whom that man replied: I care as much for Blessed Maurus as I would for his wife. He had not yet completed his words when, behold, seized by the devil, he threw himself with a leap into the Loire. Who, emerging from the depths, and gnashing his teeth with a voice of this kind, Devil help me, was again swallowed by the waves and nowhere appeared. On the third day at last, he was found by fishermen between two islands, with his belly burst open and his intestines lost. he perishes by a horrible death. Who, driven by great fear into flight on account of the confused murmuring which was still being emitted from his mouth by demons, barely managed to escape by swimming, having left the boat and committing their bodies to the waves. Let it suffice to have briefly touched upon these few things from among many: so that we might show that the presence of the blessed man has never been lacking to those who serve him and hope in him.

[34] Finally, all those whom in our own time we have endured as the most atrocious persecutors of every kind and the most cruel devastators of our possessions -- we speak of Frederick and the rest of the same presumptuous and most greedy men of invasion, namely his brothers and relatives and those adhering to them (who all, with one heart and the same deed, made irremediably worse and, more wicked than the most wicked, and so to speak, worse than pagans, persisted in evils of every kind, and especially in the crime of plunder) -- we both believe and see that they have been suddenly exterminated and destroyed by the just judgment of God. [Through the prayers of the monks, the sacrilegious persecutors are punished from heaven, by the help of St. Maurus.] For the prayers and groans and tears of the servants of God, which, most cruelly oppressed by them, they continually poured forth before the tombs of the Saints, were recited and admitted in the sight of the divine majesty through the merits of those same Saints; and therefore those men were crushed with sudden vengeance. For Frederick (who was the head of all evils and the author of crimes and the instigator of all seditions) was captured by the Normans and perished by the most shameful and unspeakable death, as he deserved, oppressed by them. After him, his followers, one after another, with heavenly vengeance pursuing them, were expelled from the borders of their beloved land, some with their eyes gouged out, others with their hands cut off. Raimbaldus, however, who was held as the first among the first in every crime and was defiled daily by no end of wickedness; and who had long ago, kindled at Satan's instigation, undertaken to persecute the servants of the monastery within the walls of our monastery, and when the Abbot Theodradus said to him why he presumed to do such things, being utterly stripped of Christian spirit, attempted to strike him fatally, piercing his cowl and inner garment with a lance; loathing the sun and air and unworthy of the very common light, was struck by divine punishment in muddy ditches and joined to his companions the demons. Frotmundus, moreover, and Hercanricus, with their wives and children and some of their followers, having lost everything they had, are still held in Norman captivity, constrained by immense weights of iron; the Lord repaying them for what they had committed against himself and his servants. Gwanilo, however, who was a little less cruel than the others, was himself released from captivity, though his wife and children remain detained with the rest. For they did not believe in God nor hope in his salvation, nor strive to fulfill the works of their Christian commitment: therefore they were exterminated by the exterminator, and seized by the most cruel of nations, they perished. Blessed be God in all things, who has delivered up the wicked.

a Breul: Wicherus. MS. Belfort: Wiccherius.

b Thus the MSS.; but Breul reads Cenaticum.

c Breul: Adalgando.

d MS. Ripatoire: Gerelini.

e Other reading: Angeluini.

f Breul: Raimboldus.

g Breul: sed pro talibus ausis.

h Breul: Frotinnadus. MS. Bonnefontaine: Frotimundus.

i Other reading: Guanilo.

CHAPTER VII.

The relics of St. Maurus translated into Burgundy, then to Fossatum.

[35] Therefore, in our own time, when, with the Normans pursuing us, we had carried the body of this blessed man from the monastery, we saw many miracles performed through him, and although placed in sorrowful circumstances, we rejoiced with great joy. For when we had stayed for several days in the village of Scamantum, and a frequent gathering of people was flowing into the church of that same place, in which the mortal remains of the Saint were kept; a certain woman who had been suffering for five years from frequent vomiting of blood, One suffering from vomiting of blood, together with the others coming to that same place, arrived to implore the Saint's help, driven by her affliction. Having compassion on her calamity, we celebrated the divine mysteries on the altar above which the holy body had been placed. Then we fulfilled the prayers of the psalms and litanies with as much devotion as we could, ordering her to remain in the church: when behold, at the middle of the night, while we were all resting, and she also was pressed by sleep, all the lights of that church (of which a more abundant number had been prepared in honor of the holy body) were suddenly kindled. [she sees lights kindled of their own accord, Saints gathering at the body of St. Maurus;] The basilica was also filled with a multitude of white-robed figures: by whose sound the woman was awakened and, struck with great fear, began anxiously to dread that she could by no means, as she believed, escape the danger of death. And when, with her fear gradually relieved, she was attending to those things which she saw being done by them; one of them, who was more distinguished than the rest and shone more brightly in his garment, descending from the altar and approaching her, spoke these same words to her in Latin: Woman, give thanks to Almighty God, who through the merits and prayers of St. Maurus has restored you healed and whole. she is healed: We caused these words to be written down from her own mouth, lest perhaps someone might doubt these things who knew that she herself was ignorant of even the very elements of letters.

[36] And when, now certain of her health, she had risen from the place where she had lain, she began to call frequently upon Girardus, a man of devout life, namely a monk and Priest of our congregation, who was sleeping between two screens for the custody of the holy body. Awakened by her cry and beholding the burning lights and perceiving the sweetest fragrance, he began to inquire of her how the divine clemency was acting toward her. the monks perceive a sweet fragrance and see lights burning: She revealed to him the order of events. Who, entering the chamber in which we were sleeping, did not cease to beckon to us, once awakened, to enter the basilica. Springing nimbly from our beds, we entered the church: and beholding the kindled lights, while at the same time perceiving a marvelous fragrance, we stood amazed and stupefied: and when the silence had first been broken (as is the custom), we learned in order from that same woman all that had been done. For she said: The fragrance, whose sweetness your nostrils still enjoy, as soon as those who entered, having uncovered the bier, began to touch the shrine of the Saint, as if attending and sweetly singing I know not what divine melody, filled this entire church. That same woman was called Ratburgis: who, returning home with joy, did not cease to recount to all the divine miracles performed for her through Blessed Maurus.

[37] On the following night, lest any doubt about those things which we had heard from the woman should remain in our hearts, before we rose to perform the solemn office (for that was the celebrated night called Sunday), again they hear singing; suddenly with the inestimable sweetness of song we began to hear voices resounding together: but as if pressed by a certain weight and weighed down by the heaviness of a certain torpor, we were in no way able to rise from our beds. Especially, however, the guardian of the holy body, Girardus, asserted that a most placid sleep had been poured upon him, of the kind that usually occurs in the morning hours to those who are neither fully sleeping nor perfectly awake. Occupied by whose heaviness, he testified that he was in no way able to rise from his bed (although he had often tried): nor was it a dream, but a manifest vision. They see Saints. For at times he confessed that, with open eyes, he had seen some of the celebrants of such great vigils. Having therefore seen and heard these things, we certainly held and hold that the body of the holy man, wherever it may be brought, is visited and honored by no lesser company of heavenly hosts than in the place of his burial: and this has often been shown by them to be so through the most evident proofs. For it is fitting that he should have as visitors of his body on earth those in whose assemblies, mingled together, he enjoys the happiness of imperishable glory in heaven.

[38] From that place, therefore, with a multitude of people accompanying us who rushed headlong to meet us from villages and fields on every side, we came with the sacred treasure to the district of Seez. And because the holy Bishop Hildebrannus, occupied with a general expedition declared against the Normans to the entire populace, was unable to be present in person to receive and arrange for the body of this holy man; he dispatched the Archdeacon of his holy See with the choicer part of the holy Clergy, The body of St. Maurus is translated to the village of Merula: to the village called Merula, which the Most Serene King Charles had conferred upon Blessed Maurus and his servants by the decree of the greatness of his majesty, at the suggestion of the holy Bishop Ebroinus, with all the honor and apparatus of ecclesiastical ministries: who together with us deposited the mortal remains of the holy man with a sufficiently devout attendance in the church of St. Julian. Where for an entire year and a half we guarded the body of this holy man with as great diligence as we could. Where what and how great things the Lord deigned to work through that same servant of his, many miracles occur: if anyone should wish to commit to writing, we believe that time for speaking would fail him before the material for writing. For many blind, deaf, and lame, and others oppressed by other ailments, merited to receive health before his bier in our sight. We omit to name them individually because both their more abundant number exceeds our memory and we strive especially to avoid the tedium of readers.

[39] Yet we ought not to pass over in silence this one thing: that no fever patient, tormented by whatever type of attack, all fever patients are helped: (if with full faith he implored the aid of this holy man) ever returned from his tomb without the joy of health. But to pass over the rest in silence, we ought not to be silent about what happened to the noble Otgerius at that same place. When for three continuous months he had been irremediably shaken without intermission by the most powerful force of fevers on alternate days, to such a degree that, having completely lost his senses, he was thought to have completely turned to madness; Count Cadilo, who was related to him by kinship, brought him with him to the place of the holy body of Blessed Maurus. And when we urged him to lie with the confidence of a faithful soul before the limbs of the holy man for an entire night, he began to resist; and testified that he was conscious of his sins, on account of which he fearfully dreaded that worse things would befall him. Strengthening his faint-heartedness as best we could with assertions of sacred authority, we compelled him to sleep there unwillingly. But to show the Lord how much faith avails and distrust harms, through the merits of Blessed Maurus he deigned to release him from the affliction of only one day, until after a short time, now animated by fuller faith, he returned with a gift of offerings, and now secure from dangers, kept an all-night vigil before the shrine of the Saint with the greatest devotion: and thus, perfectly freed from all the ill-health of that ailment, giving thanks to the Divinity and to St. Maurus, he has from that time until now flourished without the burden of any infirmity.

[40] When we were also being terrified there by the most frequent and unexpected eruptions of the pagans, according to what is contained in the letter prefixed to this little work, this body of the holy man was carried by us across the river Saone, deposited and placed with due honor (as the opportunity of the time and place allowed) on the estate of Count Audo: where, guarded for three and a half years, it is translated again. the famous name of the Saint, spread far and wide by the healing of sixteen well-known persons, began to be venerated and honored by the constant attendance of the people. 16 miracles occur: For in the first year of its arrival at that same place, it was distinguished by frequent miracles, which would be very long to enumerate. Among which, the healing of sixteen persons, described above, shone more brightly, of whom some were blind, some lame, some indeed deaf, and some mute.

[41] Thence, according to the tenor of the preface of this booklet, we brought it to the Fossatense monastery, it is translated to the Fossatense monastery: and (as has been fully related there) venerably depositing it in the church of Blessed Peter, we placed it on the Ides of November themselves. To which place the most glorious and most merciful King Charles, returning from the regions of Burgundy, deigned to come in person, seeking the protection of Christ before the bier of the holy man with the greatest devotion, on the day of the Nones of February, in this year, which is the eight hundred and sixty-ninth from the Incarnation of the Lord, the twenty-ninth of his reign, Indiction two. Who, on account of the greater devotion of his most Christian spirit, which he has toward God and his Saints, he is visited and honored with gifts by Charles the Bald. after not many days sent from the monastery of the blessed Martyrs Dionysius and his companions honorable gifts to Blessed Maurus through Otulfus, a monk of vigorous probity; namely, two most precious cloths, with which his body is adorned on the days of processions and the festivities of all solemnities, through whose intercession he is to receive from the Lord the eternal recompense of everlasting life: who thus does not cease to adorn the venerable tombs of the Saints in the present; so that he seems to have no predecessor among the men of old who shone with the honor of the royal name in holy religion. But we, at last rejoicing in the desired end of this narrative, implore the mercy of Christ through the intercessions of Blessed Maurus, that we who have pursued the course of this history, though in a somewhat uncultivated style yet with complete fidelity, may deserve to be loosed from the bonds of our sins by the same Redeemer, and may be able to enjoy the joys of eternal rewards, joined in the heavenly assemblies of the Angels. Amen.

a Breul: Scameraco.

b The city of Seez, or Saiorum, in the province of Lugdunensis II under the Archbishop of Rouen, commonly called Seez, on the river Orne.

c Hildebrannus, or Hildebrandus, Bishop of Seez, attended the Second Council of Soissons in the year 853, that of Savonnieres in 859, the Third of Soissons in 866, and that of Ponthion in 876.

d That is, tombs, of which we speak elsewhere.

TRANSLATION OF THE ARM OF ST. MAURUS

from Leo of Ostia, Chronicle, book 2, chapter 54.

Maurus, Abbot of Glanfeuil in Gaul (St.)

From Leo of Ostia.

[1] At that time the Lord Odilo, a man of venerable life and reputation, Abbot of Cluny, came most devoutly to this monastery, and on account of the very great reverence which he bore toward the holy Father Benedict, and through him toward the monastery, he ascended the entire mountain on foot. St. Odilo ascends Mount Cassino on foot: When, according to the custom of the monastery, he had been honorably led into the Chapter house by the Abbot and Brothers, after the solemn words, the most reverend man said: As we have heard, so we have seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God, and in his holy mountain. And presently, turning most humbly to the Abbot, he said: Father, I ask of you a very great gift, and I entreat with all my vows that it be granted to me without any objection. he kisses the feet of the monks: I wish, I say, and desire most devoutly to kiss the feet of all the Brothers. Theobald consented (though unwillingly) and could in no way resist such great devotion. After this, however, on the very day of the feast of that same most blessed Father of ours, having been asked with many prayers by that same Abbot Theobald, especially for the sake of religion, to celebrate the Solemn Mass, he could by no means be induced to conduct public Masses in his presence. And when, with the Brothers already prepared to process solemnly, our same Abbot reverently offered the pastoral staff to his hand, he refuses to celebrate solemnly there: he refused far more humbly, saying that it was by no means fitting that he should carry such a rod in his presence; deeming it excessively improper and against all right that any Abbot should carry the pastoral staff in his hand where it happened that the Vicar of Benedict, namely the Abbot of all Abbots, was present.

[2] When he was therefore preparing to return, the Abbot, accompanying him with many Brothers all the way to the doors of the monastery, at last humbly begged that, if he could, he would at some time send a particle of the relics of Blessed Maurus to this monastery. Which request the man of God joyfully received, and confidently asserted that he could, and freely promised that he would do so, life permitting. And so, having said farewell, he departed. After the passage of seven years, he took care to send here, by six Brothers of his monastery, afterward he sends there a bone of the arm of St. Maurus; an intact bone of the arm of the most blessed Maurus, decently enclosed in a silver casket of beautiful workmanship, erected in the form of towers.

[3] At its arrival, an innumerable multitude of people from the entire province gathered with the greatest devotion. For, already long since stirred by such rumors, they judged that they ought to go to meet with honor and praises Blessed Maurus, who many years before had been sent to Gaul. Now our aforesaid Abbot, avoiding the hatred and persecutions of the Prince of Capua, had withdrawn to the Marches. Having received this most ample gift, the entire monastic community was filled with inestimable delight: which is solemnly received; and all, clothed in solemn and sacred vestments, with many candles and incense, proceeding as far as the old gate, somewhat beyond the circuit of the monastery, went out with the greatest devotion to meet so great a guest, and as if they beheld him living in the flesh, all alike falling to the ground, they adored him: and rising, they most devoutly and reverently kissed that holy casket, mingling tears with joy; and accompanying it with hymns and praises most honorably, they brought it into the monastery and placed it upon the venerable altar of his Master Benedict. How dissimilar indeed and how utterly different this procession was, by which Blessed Maurus was received, from that by which Father Benedict, with the entire congregation accompanying him all the way to the door of the monastery, sent him forth into Gaul; although both were full of pious tears, we leave to the devout reader to consider.

[4] There were some among the Brothers, not indeed entirely doubting, but desiring to be made more certain: who secretly opening the aforesaid casket from its lower part, where it was unlocked by a silver key, and seeing the most sacred relics, became for themselves and for the rest a cause of most certain faith. When this had been reported to the superiors, and firmly locked. they strongly rebuked them for their presumption; and fearing lest, following their example thereafter, the holy relics might someday be mutilated by the very many who desired to see them, they most carefully locked the aforesaid casket and broke the key to pieces: and from that time to this day the sacred casket has remained closed and unlocked.

a Leo flourished about the year 1100. He wove the Cassinese Chronicle in three books up to the year 1086.

b We gave the life of St. Odilo on the 1st of January.

c It rises gently in height for about three thousand paces, as M. Antonius Scipio of Piacenza writes in the Eulogies of the Abbots of Cassino.

d He, made Abbot of Cassino two years before the death of St. Henry, which occurred in the year 1024, presided for 13 years, of which he spent the last 9 in exile, a most praiseworthy man.

e Pandulfus, Prince of Capua, a wicked man, grievously afflicted the Cassinese: Pandulfus, Prince of Capua. he detained Theobald for four years at Capua as if a captive, who afterward secretly fled to Naples, thence to the monastery of the Holy Liberator, which he had previously governed for 15 years; where he survived for 5 years. Two years after Theobald's death, the Emperor Conrad stripped Pandulfus of his principality in the year 1038. Leo of Ostia describes these things at length from chapter 52 of book 2 to 68, and testifies that the monastery of the Holy Liberator is situated in the County of Chieti.

APPARITION OF ST. MAURUS

from Peter the Deacon, Chronicle of Cassino, book 4, chapter 130.

Maurus, Abbot of Glanfeuil in Gaul (St.)

From Peter the Deacon.

[1] In those days there was in the Cassinese monastery a certain Brother named Albert, a Pelignian by birth, advanced in age, leading a devout life, to such a degree that he was often a cause of admiration and compunction to the other Brothers. When, worn out by old age, he was staying in the house of the infirm, Albert, a blind Cassinese monk and had caught in his ears the tumult of the people who wished to report their own affairs, he asked some of those standing by what this tumult of the people meant. And one of them said: Do you not know what this tumult is, since it is unknown to scarcely anyone of this region? And when he said he knew nothing: The King, he said, Roger recently threatened to demolish the Cassinese monastery and the entire region adjacent to it: but, appeased by the grace of Almighty God, he has entered into a covenant with us. This is the reason for this tumult: that all the things which had been brought here in weeping are being carried back by a rejoicing people.

[2] Having heard these things, he groaned and, drawing long sighs from the depths, began to sing this psalm with tears: Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from a nation that is not holy. Psalm 42. And when he had begun to sing that verse, Send forth thy light and thy truth, wondrous to say, an immense radiance suddenly descended upon him, to such a degree that he who had long been deprived of his sight he sees a heavenly light, immediately recovered the light of his eyes and was by no means defrauded of the gift of that immense light. Without delay he beheld the doors of that church in which he was sitting thrown open; and two men venerable in appearance and reverend in habit entering toward him. When he saw them surrounded by divine light, he was terrified, and not daring to raise his eyes further, he sat still. and St. Maurus with St. Placidus commanding him to exhort the monks to penance. Then they, approaching closer, said: Rise up, Brother Albert, and tell the Abbot and Brothers to be zealous in performing penance for the offenses they have committed: and going out with bare feet, chanting the Antiphon of Blessed Mary, let them perform Litanies before the most sacred body of the blessed Father Benedict: if perhaps God, mindful of the lamentations and penance for your offenses, may drive away such great calamities from these places.

[3] Then the Brother inquired who they were and by what names they were called. To which one of them said: I am Maurus, a disciple of the most holy Father Benedict: this one indeed is likewise a disciple of that same Father, Placidus. And he added: The things which have now been heard or seen by you, take care not to omit telling those to whom you have been commanded to tell. Otherwise, as a despiser, you shall pay the penalties of negligence. And know that you were deprived of bodily sight by just divine judgment for this reason: because those things which the divine majesty once deigned to show in the Chapter house for the purpose of performing penance, you concealed in the secret of your heart, revealing to no one what you had seen. For that same Brother, while he was still living under the discipline of cenobitic life in the cloister with the other Brothers, He had previously seen, in a council of Christ and the heavenly ones, and was daily offering himself as a sacrifice before the divine majesty through fasts, prayers, vigils, and flagellations; on a certain night, having entered the Chapter house, he was caught up in spirit and beheld judgment seats in the apse of the Chapter house, with the Lord sitting together with his holy Mother (as they are depicted there to this day): and he began to attend to divine things with as much greater freedom as he had made himself a stranger from human affairs. And while he stood amazed at so great a vision, he suddenly saw the most holy Father Benedict, accompanied on the right and left by Maurus and Placidus, come into the midst of the assembly, addressing the majesty of Almighty God with loud voices thus: O King of Kings, creator and redeemer of mortals, without whose will human frailty cannot subsist, St. Benedict complaining about the Prelates and enemies of the Cassinese; I pray that you hear these words of my complaint: and look upon my monastery, which by your gift I undertook to build and to govern perpetually. For you, Lord, who consider thoughts from afar and call things that are not as though they were, had shown me, while I was still constituted in mortal flesh, that this place was to be destroyed, and you had said that by your hidden judgment you would hand over to barbarian nations what I had prepared for the Brothers, and you had promised that it would be restored to a better state; which is seen to have been done today. For certain most wicked and execrable men have risen against this place, attempting to overthrow it. Its rulers also, following not the footsteps of a good shepherd but of a ravenous wolf, tear with voracious teeth the sheep entrusted to them in the manner of tyrants, and convert the wealth gathered for your service and honor to the most shameful uses: they allow the people committed to them to wander about like lustful cattle: and despising the causes of orphans and widows, they turn only to bribes. What end do you give to these calamities, great King of heaven?

[4] Having said these things, the Saint fell silent, and having made an end there, he rested. then Count Crescentius paying the penalty for his sacrileges, When behold, an innumerable multitude of demons armed with fiery forks and hooks arrived, bringing before them Crescentius, Count of the Marsi, and holding in his hands the large silver thuribles which he had once received as a pledge from the Cassinese monastery, and which he had recollected against the will of Abbot Senioretus, as if they were coming from a furnace. When that same Brother asked him who asked him to admonish his son to restore what had been taken; why he was being afflicted with these torments; he said that he was being tortured because he had retained the greater thuribles: and he began to beg the monk to tell his son Berardus what he had seen of him, and to ask him to return the aforesaid thuribles to the monastery, adding: Let this be a sign to him, that he had separated those same thuribles and a golden chalice from his other possessions while he was alive: and no one knew this except his counselors Fusco and Transmundus. but concealing everything he had been made blind: When he returned to himself, he hesitated to say these things. Thenceforth, by the just judgment of God, he was blinded: and he who had refused to distribute to his fellow servants the eternal light which he had seen and the talent which he had received for distribution, but had hidden it in the earth like a lazy servant, justly lost the talent of his own light.

[5] And to return to the things we had omitted, having heard the warnings of the blessed man Maurus, when they withdrew, the light also which had illuminated his eyes departed with them, even the things commanded by St. Maurus he neglects: so that he remained blind (as he had been before). But lest he should be thought delirious or a liar, not even then did he wish to tell what he had heard or seen. But on the thirtieth day after he had seen these things, when that same Brother was sitting in the same place where he had earlier seen the vision, namely in the church of St. Andrew the Apostle; that same most holy Maurus mentioned above appeared, and rebuking him for having refused to tell what he had seen or heard, poured forth such words: I indeed, Brother, commanded that the secrets of God, which were revealed to you through me, should be disclosed to men; but you, negligent, gave yourself over to idleness. Whence, as one guilty before the Majesty, again he is rebuked by the Saint: you should be handed over to inextinguishable fires. But because the mercy of the Almighty Lord (which is better than lives) pardons this offense committed to you; I command that you delay no longer in telling those things which were revealed to you by me. If you do not do this (God forbid), you shall be handed over to eternal fires. Having spoken thus, He admonishes the Abbot and monks: the Saint suddenly vanished into thin air. The Brother, however, immediately rising, summoned the Abbot to himself and revealed in order all the things he had heard or seen. The Abbot, moreover, summoning the Brothers, narrated what the aforesaid Brother had seen. And all, with bare feet, going out from the Chapter house where they had been sitting, performed the Litanies with weeping and tears before the body of Father Benedict.

[6] Moreover, since some of the Brothers thought these were delusions and wished to give no assent; one day the aforesaid Albert had me summoned, he narrates these things to the Author. and confirmed by oath that he had seen the same matter in the order we have stated above. I therefore admonish that no one should doubt these things for any reason, lest perchance they be punished with the penalty of their own incredulity: and while they accuse me of falsehood, they themselves may be held as false witnesses lying at the strict examination.

a Peter the Deacon composed the fourth book of the Cassinese Chronicle, beginning where Leo had left off, from the year 1086, continuing to the year 1138.

b Roger, Count of Sicily and Duke of Apulia and Calabria, was adorned with the title of King by Peter of Leone, or Anacletus II, the Antipope, Roger, King of Sicily. in the year 1130; three years later he was defeated and put to flight by the Emperor Lothar III; after his departure from Italy he returned and recovered everything, drove the Abbot Guibald from Cassino by the terror of death, having uttered dire threats to Rainald II, his successor, he was soon reconciled with him, as is stated here.

c St. Placidus is venerated on the 5th of October.

d Concerning Senioretus, notable things are told by that same Peter in chapter 96 and following.